Let Them Talk | The Discipline Nobody Talks About

The episode opens with a Stoic provocation: when someone speaks ill of you, Epictetus advises you to tell yourself, "If they really knew me, they'd have said something even worse." The point is not self-flagellation but perspective. We all have flaws. Criticism that has a point should be learned from; criticism that is off base is not worth stewing over. "Let them talk," Ryan Holiday says. "You have work to do."

The Business Falls to Your Level of Activity, Not Your Level of Desire

Cody Sanchez argues that the fundamental discipline of entrepreneurship is accepting that "the business will fall to your level of activity, not your level of desire." You have to be the ultimate standard because your team will watch what you do and do a little less. That is not a failure of the team; it is reasonable, since they do not have the same upside you do. The great employees—the ones she eventually makes partners—are the ones who care as much as she does.

Sanchez describes business as "who can handle doing the most monotonous boring things for the longest period of time far past when is reasonable or when you could at all want to." Success is not built on bursts of enthusiasm or motivation. It is built on consistency: doing the morning things well, staying locked in, hanging in there for the long haul.