Endure by Cameron Hanes - Summary & Quotes

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Three Takeaways

Note: The following are excerpts from Endure: How to Work Hard, Outlast, and Keep Hammering by Cameron Hanes.

1. Become Obsessed or be Mediocre

The rare people who do become truly exceptional at something do so not because they believe they’re exceptional. On the contrary, they become amazing because they’re obsessed with improvement. And that obsession with improvement stems from an unerring belief that they are, in fact, not that great at all. It’s anti-entitlement. People who become great at something become great because they understand that they’re not already great—they are mediocre, they are average—and that they could be so much better.

2. What Will You Sacrifice?

In order to achieve anything in this life, you have to make sacrifices. Not just the typical ones we think about, such as money and time. Sometimes you sacrifice your emotional energy, or others’ trust and belief in you. All for the sake of a dream. The dreams of one individual are never identical to another. The British scholar, writer, and soldier T. E. Lawrence, also known as Lawrence of Arabia, once said this about dreams: “All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.” The only way to make dreams possible is to sacrifice.

3. Pound The Stone

There’s an incredible quote that inspires the San Antonio Spurs that is a beautiful summary of the “Keep Hammering” mindset. I love the Spurs and their approach to professional basketball. They are always focused on how they do things, not the reward for what they do. They care about the process, not the result. In 2018, NBA star and former Spur George Hill told me about the words of twentieth-century poet Jacob A. Riis that hangs in the Spurs’ locker room:

"When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it—but all that had gone before."

Quotes by Cameron Hanes

We all have routines. They can be productive or they can be poisonous.

If you’re not obsessed, you’re going to be mediocre.

Nobody cares. Work harder.

If you’re not the hardest-working person you know, you’re not working hard enough. An outlier will never allow someone to outwork them.

Without “firsts” there is no progression.

Quotes by Others Featured in Endure

"Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by a lack of meaning and purpose." — Viktor Frankl

"The adventure is always and everywhere a passage beyond the veil of the known into the unknown; the powers that watch at the boundary are dangerous; to deal with them is risky; yet for anyone with competence and courage the danger fades.” — Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces

“I don’t have talent. I have tenacity.” — Henry Rollins

“The writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man’s proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit—for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion, and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.” — John Steinbeck

“It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.” — Emiliano Zapata

“Outliers are those who have been given opportunities—and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them.” — Malcolm Gladwell

“The human body and our brains are such an amazing combination. I am always intrigued by our ability to complete these big mileages and that keeps me coming back for more. What else can we do? How fast can we go? How much physical pain can we push past by being strong in our minds?” — Courtney Dauwalter

“No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.” — Socrates

“Learn to love the hate. Embrace it. Enjoy it. You earned it. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and everyone should have one about you. Haters are a good problem to have. Nobody hates the good ones. They hate the great ones.” — Kobe Bryant

“All men are the same except for their belief in their own selves, regardless of what others may think of them.” —Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings

“The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.” — Jack London

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Learn more about Endure on Amazon.

Buy Endure: Print | Kindle | Audiobook

If you enjoyed this summary, please consider buying me a coffee to caffeinate my reading sessions.