Ant Middleton Quotes

It was just a case of working out exactly where the fear was in space and time, then visualising it, before making a conscious choice to step into it and – finally – doing what had to be done.

Staying in that corridor doesn’t just mean remaining where you are, being the same person forever. It means you shrink. You get weaker. More pathetic. Fear is a magic shrinking potion. If you don’t learn to harness it, it will make you smaller and smaller and smaller.

You don't look backwards to walk forwards.

I’ll then take a deep look into the three kinds of fear: fear of suffering, fear of failure and fear of conflict.

People who treat change as a positive force are able to adapt to any situation, because the human mind is incredible

Negative people hate other humans being positive and will always try to attack them.

Forget the past. You can’t change it. It has no power over you. And forget the future too. You can’t control that either. You can only change your life in the present. All that matters is right now.

By contrast, if you stay in a negative environment for too long you’ll become a negative person. Fact. It will suck the life out of you. It’s the same with negative people. If you’re surrounded by people who think and act negatively, then it’s for fucking sure that you’ll start doing the same. It’s up to you, really.

This is why I always tell people, don’t try to better your life, don’t try to better your work, don’t try to better your relationships. Don’t try to be rich, happy, successful. Don’t do any of that. You’ll be wasting your time. It doesn’t work. Nothing will change, and you’ll get disillusioned and burned out. Instead, you should work at trying to better who you are as a character. Be the best version of you that you can imagine, and I guarantee that all the rest of it will just fall naturally into place.

Even in this genuinely fearful situation I was able to switch out of that default ‘Be careful’ mindset. It starts with clear thinking.

The blue streams on the map looked like veins on a tea-lady’s leg.

How we think defines how we act, and how we act defines the events of our life.

the fear of giving offence creates more problems than it solves. Ultimately what you’re scared of is that your hosts won’t like you because you’ve, say, thrown a chewing-gum wrapper on the fire. But most people are reasonable.

The people who love you will offer you constructive criticism, because they want you to be the best version of yourself that you can be. They know you’re better than that. They know what you’re worth. They’re not having a pop because they want to bring you down a peg or two.

It’s like I’m two different people. That’s why I think it’s crucial that you don’t define yourself as just one person. That, to me, is the sign of a fake. It’s the sign of someone who has this fantasy model of who they want everyone to think they are and just tries to act up to it all the time. When you’re true to yourself you know that you’re a different person in different situations, and you’re totally relaxed about it.

If a parent behaves in a negative way around their child, then, guess what, their child is going to grow up with a negative mindset. This means that as parents we carry a huge responsibility on our shoulders. And yet how many of us can really say we’re leading by example? I worry that we’re becoming a nation of lazy parents. We’re so concerned with ourselves, we’re so narcissistic, that we forget that if we start acting like kids, our kids will start acting like babies. There’s a knock-on effect. Adults, increasingly, are acting like teenagers. Teenagers, more and more, are acting like children. Children are regressing into babies. There are adults who can barely look after themselves. They play the victim all the time and think only of me, me, me. Their kids don’t stand a fucking chance. No wonder there’s a whole generation of children who stick their heads in their laptops or tablets and never come out. We’re supposed to be taking steps forward in life, not tumbling back!

It goes against the grain of our being to be stuck in that mode of existence. That’s not who we are as a species. Mankind has always thrived on danger and excitement, on pushing itself beyond boundaries. That’s us at our best. We used to spend our energy trying to put people on the moon; now mankind’s main aim seems to be seeing how much of its existence it can conduct without ever having to leave the couch.

known.

De flesta av dagens män är inlindade i bomull. Ingen hålls ansvarig för sina handlingar. Män tillåts inte att vara män längre.

Jag var inte där för att vara deras polare, jag var där för att vara deras ledare.