🚨 Big Announcement 🚨   It’s a book!   Chasing Greatness: Timeless Stories on the Pursuit of Excellence is out today for pre-order and launches live on August 24th.   The book is not designed to change you, it’s designed to challenge you. Challenge you to be better. Challenge

Whatever touches your heart, whatever you love to do, don’t be afraid to fail at everything else in pursuit of that thing. Eminem was introduced to rap around the age of ten. From the first CD he listened to, the craft consumed him. He read the dictionary at night. He thought

“The human capacity for burden is like bamboo—far more flexible than you'd ever believe at first glance.” - Jodi Picoult There’s nothing you can’t handle. No hardship. No situation. No challenge. You can bend and break, twist and turn, without snapping. Don’t ask if it’s fair.

This is a short story from Greatness #117 - The Great Sports Dynasties. Listen to the full episode below: https://t.co/InFlSExOXC

Any Reid is habitually up by four in the morning and is always the first to the facility, putting in these long 16-19-hour days. When asked about the intense work, he said, “I’m not doing it [the work] to say that I outworked someone or didn’t; I'm doing it so I can live with

Make quality the deadline. Bill Gates said it well: “If you take quality as a given, you are always going to have some uncertainty in the date." Steve Jobs' motto was “don’t compromise.” He made his team redesign the cover of the Macintosh 50 times until it was perfect,

Ten ideas and lessons from Danielle Steel: Find the thing you want to die doing. There’s the interaction Danielle recalls having with writer Agatha Christie, in which she said, “I want to die face-first on my typewriter.” What’s the craft that you want to do forever? The craft

At nineteen years old, Danielle Steel wrote her first novel and gave it to a friend’s father-in-law, who was a publishing agent. After reviewing the book, he told her, “This isn’t your talent. You should enjoy your baby and learn to cook.” Five decades later, she is one of the

You have written over 200 books. Over 170 of them have been bestsellers. You have sold over 900 million copies worldwide. You are in the top five for most copies sold in history. You spent a record breaking 381 straight weeks on the NYT best-seller list—a little over seven

The best education you can get is to talk with the dead. There is a moment in Zeno’s life, the founder of Stoicism, where he is talking to an oracle about how to live the best life. The oracle tells him, “To live the best life, you should have a conversation with the dead.”

If you're lacking focus, you're lacking a mission that melts your heart.

You want regrets in your life—the good kind of regrets. In 1980, after years of battling obstacles and hurdles, Phil Knight and Nike finally had some security and stability. Late one night, thinking over the last fifteen years, a single feeling consumed Knight. It wasn't

The advice that changed Danny Meyer's, the founder of Shake Shack's, life.

Epictetus on the potential danger of having external desires: "Whenever externals are more important to you than your own integrity, then be prepared to serve them the remainder of your life." If you care about money and all the things it will bring you, you will become a slave

New episode of Greatness is live on the teachings of Epictetus. Five short ideas below: 1) What you value will control you. "Whenever externals are more important to you than your own integrity, then be prepared to serve them the remainder of your life." 2) Suffering and

There’s this great advice from filmmaker Stanley Cooper, who would tell aspiring filmmakers, “Get a hold of the camera and some film and make a movie of any kind at all.” If you want to be a writer, just start writing. If you want to be an entrepreneur, just start building. If

Short story from Daily Greatness.

Pat Riley, as a head coach and as a general manager, always followed the same philosophy: keep the main thing the main thing. When he was coaching the Showtime Lakers, when the playoffs came around, Riley wanted all the players to tune out all possible distractions. "Tell your

One of my favorite episodes of Greatness is avalibale on the life and work of Eminem. Listen below https://t.co/jHrnBQ3WOj

Do the boring. Starting in the eighth grade, Eminem began a practice that he would do for the rest of his life: reading the dictionary. Late at night, he would sit by himself going through the dictionary, not looking for the meaning of words, but just the words themselves. With

Franz Kafka said, “The meaning of life is that it stops.” What gives anything meaning is that there is an end. Love is only valuable because there is a day when you will no longer be able to say "I love you." What gives work or a craft meaning is that a moment will come when