Brian Weiner

Category: Lessons From The Mountain

I am not a liberal snowflake. My feelings aren’t fragile. My heart isn’t bleeding. I am a badass believer in human rights. My toughness is in tenderness. My strength is in the service of others. There is nothing more fierce, more formidable, than unconditional love. There is not a thing more courageous than compassion. But if my belief in equity, empathy, goodness, and love indeed makes me or people like me snowflakes, then you should know, Winter is coming.
One of the core organizing principles of my life is that success comes through a delicate balance between making things happen and letting things happen.
At the end of the day, I’d rather be excluded for who I include, than be included for who I exclude.
Belief in oneself is incredibly infectious. It generates momentum, the collective force of which far outweighs any kernel of self-doubt that may creep in.
When you are in the final days of your life, what will you want? Will you hug that college degree in that walnut frame? Will you ask to be carried to your garage so you can sit in your car? Will you find comfort in reading your financial statement? Or course not. What will matter most then will be people. If relationships will matter most then, shouldn’t they matter now?
I was the only Black person on the set. It was unusual for me to be in a circumstance in which every move I made was tantamount to representation of 18 million people.
The truth is that the more intimately you know someone, the more clearly you see their flaws. That’s just the way it is.
Maturity is not when we start speaking big things, it is when we start understanding small things.
Never be a prisoner of your past. It was just a lesson, not a life sentence.
You are so much more than someone’s second choice, an afterthought when things change. You deserve to be the first person they think of, no matter the moment or who is in front of them. If you are truly important to someone, you will always be their first choice. Just as they are yours.