Curtis Jackson Quotes Page 2

“If we can't get rid of our fears and so many of them lay inside of us these fears tend to color how we view the world. We shift from feeling fear because of some threat, to a having a fearful attitude towards life itself.

We exaggerate the dangers and our vulnerability. We instantly focus on the adversity that is always possible. We instantly focus on the adversity that is always possible. We are generally unaware of this phenomenon because we accept it as normal.

In times of prosperity, we have the luxury of fretting over things. But in times of trouble, this fearful attitude becomes particularly pernicious. Such moments are when we need to solve problems, deal with reality, and move forward, but fear is a call to retreat and retrench.”

“If you view everything through the lens of fear, then you tend to stay in retreat mode. You can just as easily see a crises or problem as a challenge, an opportunity to prove your mettle, the chance to strengthen and toughen yourself, or a call to collective action.

By seeing it as a challenge, you will have converted this negative into a positive purely by a mental process that will result in positive action as well. ”

“In the evolution of fear, a decisive moment occurred in the nineteenth century when people in advertising and journalism discovered that if they framed their stories and appeals with fear, they could capture our attention.”

“Just imagine for a day that you do not know anything, that what you believe could be completely false. Let go of your preconceptions and even your most cherished beliefs. Experiment.

Force yourself to hold the opposite opinion or see the world through your enemy’s eyes. Listen to the people around you with more attentiveness. See everything as a source for education — even the most banal encounters. Imagine that the world is still full of mystery.”

“Keep in mind the following: what you really value in life is ownership, not money. If ever there is a choice — more money or more responsibility — you must always opt for the latter.

A lower-paying position that offers more room to make decisions and carve out little empires is infinitely preferable to something that pays well but constricts your movements.”

“Mental alchemy you can effect by thinking of any adversity as an opportunity for power.”

“Most people can't handle boredom. That means they can't stay on one thing until they get good at it. And they wonder why they're unhappy.”

“Most people wait too long to go into action, generally out of fear. They want more money or better circumstances. You must go the opposite direction and move before you think you are ready.

It is as if you are making it a little more difficult for yourself, deliberately creating obstacles in your path. But it is a law of power that your energy will always rise to the appropriate level.

When you feel you must work harder to get to your goal because you are not quite prepared, you are more alert and inventive. This venture has to succeed so it will.”

“Never be a minion, always be an owner.”

“Now is the time to stop drifting and wake up — to assess yourself, the people around you, and the direction in which you are headed in as cold and brutal a light as possible. Without fear.”

“People will constantly attack you in life. One of their main weapons will be to instill in you doubts about yourself – your worth, your abilities, your potential. They will often disguise this as their objective opinion, but invariably it has a political purpose – they want to keep you down.”

“Reality has its own power — you can turn your back on it, but it will find you in the end, and your inability to cope with it will be your ruin.”

“Slavery was a system that depended on the creation of deep levels of fear.”

“That is the physics that all fearless types discover at some point — an appropriate ratcheting up of self-belief and energy when facing negative or even impossible circumstances.”

“The dreamers, those who misread the actual state of affairs and act upon their emotions, are often the source of the greatest mistakes in history — the wars that are not thought out, the disasters that are not foreseen.”

“The empire fell well before the invasion of the barbarians. It collapsed from the collective softness of its citizens’ minds and the turning of their back on reality.”

“The greatest danger you face is your mind growing soft and your eye getting dull.”

“The knife’s edge that separates failure from success in life. That edge is your attitude, which has the power to help shape your reality.”

“The people around you are generally mysterious. You are never quite sure about their intentions. They present an appearance that is often deceptive — their manipulative actions don’t match their lofty words or promises.

All of this can prove confusing. Seeing people as they are, instead of what you think they should be, would mean having a greater sense of their motives.”

“The real poetry and beauty in life comes from an intense relationship with reality in all its aspects. Realism is in fact the ideal we must aspire to, the highest point of human rationality.”

“True ownership can come only from within. It comes from a disdain for anything or anybody that impinges upon your mobility, from a confidence in your own decisions, and from the use of your time in constant pursuit of education and improvement.”

“Understand: as an individual you cannot stop the tide of fantasy and escapism sweeping a culture. But you can stand as an individual bulwark to this trend and create power for yourself.

You were born with the greatest weapon in all of nature — the rational, conscious mind. It has the power to expand your vision far and wide, giving you the unique capacity to distinguish patterns in events, learn from the past, glimpse into the future, see through appearances. Circumstances are conspiring to dull that weapon and render it useless by turning you inward and making you afraid of reality.

Consider it war. You must fight this tendency as best you can and move in the opposite direction. You must turn outward and become a keen observer of all that is around you. You are doing battle against all the fantasies that are thrown at you. You are tightening your connection to the environment.

You want clarity, not escape and confusion. Moving in this direction will instantly bring you power among so many dreamers.”

“Understand: people judge you by appearances, the image you project through your actions, words, and style. If you do not take control of this process, then people will see and define you the way they want to, often to your detriment.

You might think that being consistent with this image will make others respect and trust you, but in fact it is the opposite — over time you seem predictable and weak. Consistency is an illusion anyway — each passing day brings changes within you.

You must not be afraid to express these evolutions. The powerful learn early in life that they have the freedom to mold their image, fitting the needs and moods of the moment.

In this way, they keep others off balance and maintain an air of mystery. You must follow this path and find great pleasure in reinventing yourself, as if you were the author writing your own drama”

“Understand: you are one of a kind. Your character traits are a kind of chemical mix that will never be repeated in history.

There are ideas unique to you, a specific rhythm and perspective that are your strengths, not your weaknesses. You must not be afraid of your uniqueness and you must care less and less what people think of you.”

“What excites me about America is its social mobility, people continually rising from the bottom to the top and altering the culture in the process. On another level, however, we remain a nation that lives in social ghettos.

Celebrities generally congregate around other celebrities; academics and intellectuals are cloistered in their worlds; people like to associate with those of their kind. If we leave these narrow worlds, it is usually as an observer of another way of life.”

“What separates those who go under and those who rise above adversity is the strength of their will and their hunger for power.”

“When you do not get to the root of a problem, you cannot solve it in any meaningful manner. People like to look at the surfaces, get all emotional and react, doing things that make them feel better in the short term but do nothing for them in the long term.”

“You came into this life with the only real possessions that ever matter—your body, the time that you have to live, your energy, the thoughts and ideas unique to you, and your autonomy.”

“Your fears are a kind of prison that confines you within a limited range of action. The less you fear, the more power you will have and the more fully you will live.”

“Your goal in life must be to always move higher and higher up the food chain, where you alone control the direction of your enterprise and depend on no one.”