A big part of doing your work is defending your time and your attention so you can do your work.

I don't like offending people, and it's easy to offend people when you don't know as much as they do. This group knows more about what it takes to lead in this way than I ever will. My goal is to push people, but I need to do it from a place of respect.

Entertainment has seduced us into believing that we have a chance to live the life they live in the movies. Even the people in the movies don't live that life. It doesn't take 135 minutes to make a life, it takes almost a century. Everything doesn't depend on what happens in the next ninety seconds. Ever.

You are far more likely to do your best work if you are willing to delight a few as opposed to soothe the masses.

Canoeing was hard and scary, and the wind could blow you across the lake if you did it wrong. After a year of not doing it right, I could talk to people and get them to sit up straight, take different kinds of chances, to breathe differently, to engage in the moment in the boat. And I changed them, and I changed me in the process.

The fatigue was there, but some people understood that putting it aside was the single most important factor in succeeding.

Here's the thing: The book that will most change your life is the book you write.