Be Yourself. Inspire Others

Today's political minefields are so explosive that a step in any direction can seem perilous. But nobody ever inspired a following by standing in place.

- By Ryan Holiday

Earlier this year, my wife and I decided we would take a stand against the recent banning of certain books in Texas, where we live and run an independent bookstore. We set up a trailer on Main Street in front of our shop in the small town of Bastrop and gave away hundreds of copies of books such as Fahrenheit 451, Lawn Boy, and Out of Darkness.

Obviously, giving away books is not a great revenue driver, nor is potentially alienating members of your community whose politics differ from yours. (One of the books we gave away was protested by parents at a high school just a few blocks from our store.) But neither of those considerations was enough to overcome the feeling that we were doing the right thing—at least by our moral standards, if not our bottom line.

And as it turns out, in the bigger picture, following our conscience was good for business. Local media came out and covered our event extensively. National media followed suit. And the e-book service Scribd ended up picking up the tab for the books.

Let's back up for a moment. I opened a bookstore in the depths of the pandemic for the same reason I write-because I love it. Because I felt called to do it. I feel that books are important and that a world where people don't have access to them is not a world I want to imagine.