I know people know how good I am playing basketball... All I do is just use it as motivation: keep getting better, keep doing the same stuff and doing it even better.
I think kids who have music in their lives are more focused. They have better attention spans. They excel more in their studies. They have a better sense of self-esteem and self-worth.
The more I focused on my need to get better the worse I actually got - the more neurotic and self-conscious and self-absorbed I became.
Since I'm a highly self-critical person, I try to become better every day. I don't see the point of competing with anyone.
What do you have to do in life to get better? I would bet you would say study harder, or be more focused, be more determined, communicate better or try harder. But I would tell you just this, if you want to get better in this life the first thing you need to do is admit you're doing something wrong. It's the foundation of everything around us.
Self-righteousness is unavoidable. You can either be a self-righteous Pharisee where you think you are better than everyone else or you can be a self-righteous pagan who thinks you are better than the Pharisee. If you are a self-righteous person, I could become very self-righteous thinking that you're self-righteous and you think you're so good but I know you're bad. I know I'm bad so that makes me better than you.
My only challenge is to entertain. And I accomplish my task better when I myself am entertained by what I am doing. I am very critical of myself, I constantly set the bar higher and higher. I try to surpass myself. That`s all. But I also know how to preserve myself, to not let myself get bedazzled by the smoke and mirrors.
I know I'm better than what I've shown out there. I just need to continue to try to get better and go down there and do my job when my name is called.
We need better government, no doubt about it. But we also need better minds, better friendships, better marriages, better communities.
That's the dream scenario: when people approach these stressful situations not focused on that concrete outcome but just focused on being there and being themselves and enjoying connecting with people. You're not going to be present all the time, but if you can figure out how to connect with yourself and bring that self forth in those moments, you will probably be feeling a lot better over time, and it's likely that even though you're not focused on the outcome, the outcomes will be better.
I am jealous of those who think more deeply, who write better, who draw better, who ski better, who look better, who live better, who love better than I.
I still feel there are much smarter self-promoters out there than me. I am very methodical about my messaging, and I know how to gain attention very quickly. David Blaine is an example of someone who's better at self-promoting than me. He is much better than I am.
The basis of self-ownership is the fact that each person has direct control over the scarce resource of his body and therefore has a better claim to it than any third party (and any third party seeking to dispute my self-ownership must presuppose the principle of self-ownership in the first place since he is acting as a self-owner).
I try hard to always question myself and wonder, 'What could I have done better? What did I do wrong?' The culture at our company is to be self-critical, but you have to balance that as a leader with praise for your team.
I don't try to lose weight. I don't try to do nothing. I just try to put in my work, feel better, the things that I can do in the field to be better are better, so that's what I do.
If someone is being absolutely critical of me as a driver, what could they say? I am also critical of myself to try and keep things in perspective. That is very important.