“Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action” – Benjamin Disraeli
Below are some lessons in passages I have pulled from great books, all of which are worth reading. Each of the quotes is about taking action, and the results that follow.
From The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday
To conquer his [Demosthenes’] speech impediment, he devised his own strange exercises. He would fill his mouth with pebbles and practice speaking. He rehearsed full speeches into the wind or while running up steep inclines. He learned to give entire speeches with a single breath. And soon, his quiet, weak voice erupted with booming, powerful clarity. Demosthenes locked himself away underground—literally—in a dugout he’d had built in which to study and educate himself. To ensure he wouldn’t indulge in outside distractions, he shaved half his head so he’d be too embarrassed to go outside. And from that point forward, he dutifully descended each day into his study to work with his voice, his facial expressions, and his arguments. When he did venture out, it was to learn even more. Every moment, every conversation, every transaction, was an opportunity for him to improve his art. All of it aimed at one goal: to face his enemies in court and win back what had been taken from him. Which he did.
From The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle
Another example is Ray LaMontagne, a shoe-factory worker from Lewiston, Maine, who at age twenty-two had an epiphany that he should become a singer-songwriter. LaMontagne had little musical experience and less money, so he took a simple approach to learning: he bought dozens of used albums by Stephen Stills, Otis Redding, Al Green, Etta James, and Ray Charles, and holed up in his apartment. For two years. Every day he spent hours training himself by singing along to the records. LaMontagne’s friends assumed he had left town; his neighbors assumed he was either insane or had locked himself inside a musical time capsule—which, in a sense, he had. “I would sing and sing, and hurt and hurt, because I knew I wasn’t doing it right,” LaMontagne said. “It took a long time, but I finally learned to sing from the gut.” Eight years after he started, LaMontagne’s first album sold nearly half a million copies. The main reason was his soulful voice, which Rolling Stone said sounded like church, and which other listeners mistook for that of Otis Redding and Al Green. LaMontagne’s voice was a gift, it was agreed. But the real gift, perhaps, was the practice strategy he used to build that voice.
From The Education of Millionaires by Michael Ellsberg
When my father once asked the legendary Norman Mailer for writing advice, Mailer said the main secret was: “Apply Ass to Chair.”Meaning, in this case, sit down at your desk, in front of your computer, and start putting this stuff into action. Don’t wait for the time to be right. (It never will be.) Don’t wait for everything to be perfect. (It won’t be.) Don’t wait until you “learn just a little more.”(There’s always more to learn!)
Combining These Lessons
Applying ass to chair (or ass to underground or ass to apartment for two years) doesn’t mean reading something and saying “that’s neat” and moving on. Working at your craft, whatever it may be, takes time and practice. To become a better you starts with taking action. To become happier requires taking action. In order to become a master requires taking action. And it all starts with doing, repetitively doing, and then doing some more. You won’t become a world-beater in a day, but you’ll never be a world-beater if you don’t start. Resolve to take action.
A Parting Quote
“Someone once asked Demosthenes what the three most important traits of speechmaking were. His reply says it all: ‘Action, Action, Action!'”