A comment from this post on "How to deal with Crappy People".

A number of years ago I had a two part epiphany.
 
1. Since I already knew the world had plenty of assholes, there was no reason for me to be surprised, angry or upset when my path crossed one.

2. When someone appears to be an asshole one of two things is going on:

• First, this may simply be a good person having a bad day. If so, they don’t need me in their face.
• Or, this could be a genuine asshole who needs a can ‘o whoop-ass opened up on ‘em. But I don’t have to do it. They will come across another asshole and serve each other. Not my job.  

Simply understanding these two things has greatly enhanced my peace.

Some of the best advice I have read in along time...

There is only ONE way to deal with these people in a way that will make you happier instead of sadder. ONE WAY. And it always works. This is the most important part of the Emotional leg of the Daily Practice. COMPLETELY IGNORE THE EVIL PEOPLE:

• Completely ignore them.

• Don’t think about them.

• Don’t talk to them.

• Don’t write them.

• Most important: Don’t give them advice.

They will NEVER listen to your advice. It’s arrogant and stupid to think they will. It will only lead to  more cycles of pain for you. The goal for me is to stop all cycles that cause me any pain at all. Giving advice to crappy people will only result in more pain for you. That’s the only possible result. Much better to be happy than to flush knotted up brown advice down a toilet that caused you agony to push out. This is hard.

• Most important: Never gossip about them

behind their backs. Just completely disregard. We don’t care about their happiness or how evil they are. We only care about you. Its hard to do. Never ever talk about them behind their backs. Repeat this 500 times. This is hard also. Because it’s an addiction.

"Man…. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived."

Image by Peter Engels

Just as buying things on a credit card is using borrowed money, procrastination is really borrowed time. For both, the fun ends when you have to pay up.

via LifeHacker

I just read a great article by Ben Horowitz called When Smart People Are Bad Employees.

In it he cites the the following story:

Phil Jackson, the basketball coach who has won the most NBA championships, was once asked about his famously flakey superstar Dennis Rodman: “Since Dennis Rodman is allowed to miss practice, does this mean other star players like Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen can miss practice too?” Jackson replied:

“Of course not. There is only room for one Dennis Rodman on this team. In fact, you really can only have a very few Dennis Rodmans in society as a whole; otherwise, we would degenerate into anarchy.”

So, my question to you: Is tolerance of a rogue employee bad for business? Or, might such rebellious behavior be an asset to the team so long as it taken in small doses as suggested by Phil Jackson (who is, mind you, one of the greatest coaches of all time). Thoughts?

Image via the very talented: Siggi Eggertsson

The very first company I started failed with a great bang. The second one failed a little bit less, but still failed. The third one, you know, proper failed, but it was kind of okay. I recovered quickly. Number four almost didn’t fail. It still didn’t really feel great, but it did okay. Number five was PayPal.

Max Levchin