I finished reading my first book on the Kindle (love it!) today. The book was The Flinch by Julien Smith. It was published as part of the Domino Project, which represents a fundamental shift in the way books always been published.

The Flinch is a short book with some neat insights. I recommend giving it a read. Here are a few of the passages I highlighted.

The flinch is your real opponent, and information won’t help you fight it. It’s behind every unhappy marriage, every hidden vice, and every unfulfilled life. Behind the flinch is pain avoidance, and dealing with pain demands strength you may not think you have. The flinch is why the lazy actor never gets discovered—because she never really sweats to make it happen. It’s why the monolithic company gets wiped out by a lean startup—because the big company culture avoids the hard questions. It’s the reason you make the wrong decision, even though you may know what the right one is. Behind every act you’re unable to do, fear of the flinch is there, like a puppet master, steering you off course. Facing the flinch is hard. It means seeing the lies you tell yourself, facing the fear behind them, and handling the pain that your journey demands—all without hesitation.

If you don’t test yourself, you don’t actually grow to your own limits.

In mountain biking, they say the best way to get hurt is to brake.

There are enough viewers. There are enough cheerleaders. There are enough coaches and enough commentators. What there isn’t enough of are players.