- I think that when we think back
to the best moments of our life,
the moments of happiness, or joy,
or contentment, we were not overwhelmed, and busy,
and doing 50 things at the same time.
(upbeat electronic music)
- Good morning, good life.
Welcome back to Amy TV where we come together
to help you go after the life you want.
This is a very special episode of Amy TV.
I recently, you may have seen during Vlogmas,
so kind of recently, visited Austin, Texas
to interview one of my philosophic mentors,
or I should say digital mentors,
or author mentors, and that is Ryan Holiday.
- All right, so you'll like this,
'cause this is like after your own heart.
All right, so he says, "At dawn
"when you have trouble getting out of bed,
"tell yourself, I have to go to work as a human being.
"What do I have to complain of,
"if I'm going to do what I was born for,
"the things I was brought into the world to do.
"Or is this what I was created for,
"to huddle under the blankets and stay warm?"
And he goes, "But it's nicer here."
And he says, "So were you born to feel nice
"instead of doing things and experiencing them?
"Why aren't you running to do what your nature demands?"
Then he says, "But we have to sleep sometimes."
Then he goes, "Agreed, but nature set a limit on that,
"as it did on eating and drinking,
"and you're over the limit, you've had
"more than enough, but not of working.
"There, you're still below your quota."
And he says, "You don't love yourself enough.
"People who love what they do,
"wear themselves down doing it.
"They even forget to wash and eat."
- Ryan welcomed us into his home,
so that I could talk to him about his book,
"Stillness is the Key," but more specifically,
stillness, as a whole, and how it pertains to productivity,
because they sound very, not the same.
So I wanted to ask Ryan what it means to use stillness,
to propel you into a productive life,
and what that looks like.
Not only that, he actually shares three tips
for how you can get started with being more still,
for a productive life right now.
Before we get into that,
I just want to say thank you so much
for those of you who subscribe to Amy TV.
you are helping us get to our, Amyllion goal,
where we want to help a million people
go after the life that they want.
So, by subscribing you help us figure out
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So, if you haven't already, please Subscribe.
If you know anyone who would benefit
from the conversations we have around here,
let them know to subscribe as well.
All right let's go back to my time with Ryan Holiday
in Austin, Texas, so we can talk about
what it means to leverage stillness, to be more productive.
Ryan Holiday thanks for having me.
- Yeah, of course.
I'm so excited to see your bookshelf.
My audience doesn't always approve of mine,
'cause I actually turn the spines the opposite direction.
So, it's like all white, all you see his pages.
- Why would you do that?
- Well, color balance for one (laughs).
- Okay, but how do you know where the books are?
- I just know, I just know which books are which.
- So, mine is themes, descending by height.
- Oh wow.
- Sometimes people mess with them, unfortunately,
and then I didn't plan super well for like,
for how sections would expand, so they filled up.
So, that's why some are sideways,
and then I had the exact same setup at my other house.
So, this is like half.
- But like, all different books.
- Yes, yes, yes, yes.
- Oh okay, okay, okay.
- This is like half of the collection.
So, it's like if you're searching the Ryan Holiday library,
you have to go to this location for some things.
- Yeah, no, sometimes I'll need something for like,
that I'm writing and I'll be like, I need that,
and I'll be like, it's not here,
so I'll have to drive to go get it.
- Okay, so I just finished reading, "Stillness is the Key,"
which is your, what book?
- I think nine. - Nine?
- Yes, I think nine.
- That's tremendous, and I was actually a little bit,
a little bit nervous to read it.
I have been reading every single day, "The Daily Stoic,"
which is your page a day, which is a great introduction,
I think, to stoicism and philosophy,
but I was worried that "Stillness is the Key"
was going to be a little bit harder to chew,
and so I just want to say you do such a great job
of breaking this down.
It's very actionable.
I found the book to be a really easy way
to start thinking about what does stillness actually mean,
instead of making big assumptions about it,
and how does it play a role in how we think,
and how we are productive?
So, I want to congratulate you on that.
- Well thank you.
- But I also want people to think about reading it.
So, how can you convince people that stillness
is something that plays a role in being more productive?
- Yeah, I think I say somewhere in the copy like,
"Stillness is the key to charging ahead."
So, I think when you share that word stillness,
you think like meditation, you think a silent retreat.
- Which by the way, do you meditate?
- I don't.
- That like blows my mind 'cause I was like,
oh he's got to be a meditator.
He's doing all the things.
- And that's the assumption that we make about stillness,
that it's this sort of absence of activity,
and I think that, that's certainly part of it,
but I'm interested in more in this stillness of like,
Kennedy in the missile crisis,
or the stillness of a baseball player
stepping up to the plate.
How do you slow everything down,
to do that really important thing that you're doing?
So like, my days are all about
getting to a place of stillness,
where I can sit down and write,
which to an ordinary person is me sitting down
doing like, just sitting at a chair,
but I'm fully engaged, and active, and present,
and that's like the thing I have to do.
If it was trading stocks, or editing videos,
or, you know, planning weddings.
Whatever it is that thing, I think, is improved
by bringing clarity, and focus, and concentration,
and sort of a singularity of purpose, and like,
knowing what you're doing, and why you're doing it,
and what you're doing it for.
Then I would just say that's like the professional reason
for doing it, but also I think, when we think back
to the best moments of our life,
moments of happiness, or joy, or contentment,
we were not overwhelmed, and busy,
and doing 50 things at the same time.
- So it's really, I think what I'm hearing is,
you're trying to prepare yourself for a task,
by slowing down in order to really focus on it,
rather than just sort of the rush of do the thing,
which I will admit, I'm very good at busying myself.
It's like calendar blocking is my whole thing,
and I think it helps me be more productive in some ways,
but in other ways, I'm starting a task,
maybe before I've even kind of set myself up
to think about it.
- Yeah, like when you hear athletes talk about,
how did you do that?
They're like, well, the game slowed down for me.
You know, I tuned everything else out,
and so I think we want to bring that to the tasks
that we're doing, and it's fine to have a busy calendar.
I think, Kennedy's very busy, right, but it's how can you be
still in the thing you're doing
in the moment that you're doing it.
If you're giving a talk, you have to be fully locked in,
on giving that talk.
You can't be thinking about what the audience
is thinking about you.
You can't be thinking about the flight
that you have to catch afterwards.
You can't be hanging on to the argument
that you got with someone that morning.
You have to be completely locked in
on that task in front of you, and so,
meditation is a way to get there, but I think there's other.
I think this is a more holistic way of thinking about life,
and what we're doing.
What's so interesting about this idea of stillness is that,
yeah sure, we know Buddha talked about stillness,
but so did the Stoics, so did the Epicureans,
so did the the Christians, so does Hinduism,
and Confucianism, all the schools and religions,
talk about this in some form or another.
- It's really fun to find something in common
with all of those things, especially in a world
where we tend to look for differences.
- Yeah, of course, and I think if these
totally independent schools, came to the same idea,
independently, that maybe there's something there.
- That's interesting.
Okay, so instead of meditation, let's just find three ways
that it sounds like somebody could get started today,
being more productive, but also really just incorporating
stillness, or even maybe mindfulness
a little bit in what they do.
- Yeah, 'cause I know you talk about
so much about like sort of productivity advice,
and that's sort of what I think about too.
So this morning, I got up at 5:30, so it was still dark,
still quiet, and the first thing I did this morning,
sometimes I do 'em in different orders,
but I sat down with a journal,
and I just spend about five or 10 minutes
just writing in a journal, like some stressful things
that I dealt with the day before,
some things I was trying to make sure I did right today,
just some thoughts I was having.
Just sitting down to that blank page is really great,
and it might not feel like getting up early,
is its own way to stillness, but it is.
Like, I woke up before there were no emails, right.
I woke up before I had any phone.
I didn't wake up, and then immediately
have to go do something.
I was up before the day.
Do you know what I mean?
So that was a huge one for me.
The next thing I did, I have two young kids.
We went for a walk.
We went for, I think we walked about three and 1/2 miles,
outside, on a dirt road.
We watched the sun come up.
We just talked.
- I love that you're saying that,
'cause this is a perspective I can't bring to the table,
as a parent, and I think it sounds cool that
instead of talking about maybe how playing different roles,
whether you're a business owner and/or a stay at home mom,
and kids, and not kids, or whatever.
We have all these different obstacles, right,
and instead of considering them an obstacle,
they're a part of your stillness practice, your children.
- Yeah, absolutely, absolutely,
and it's part of a productivity hack too.
My kids do not sleep, so I took them
for an hour and 30 minutes while my wife slept in.
So, it was like, she was up in the middle of the night.
- Good for her (laughs).
- I wasn't, and then she slept in, right.
So it's like, I would have to be watching them anyway,
and so instead of quietly playing upstairs,
we went for a walk, we watched the sun come up,
and then the other sort of thing I have,
'cause for me it's all about winning in the morning.
I feel like if you win the morning, the rest is just extra.
I feel like the further you go in the day,
the more chances of things going wrong are.
So, if you get it right in the morning, you're good.
I don't use my phone for the first hour to two hours
I'm awake, I actually is an app.
Do you know SPAR?
- Oh I know I've heard of it, what is it?
- You do these challenges.
So, I started with a challenge, it was like,
you can't check your phone for the first 30 minutes
you're awake, and it charges you $5,
if you miss you check it.
You have to be honest, but if you woke up
and you checked it, you have to be like,
all right, I failed.
So, I started that way, and now I think today
I did two hours, right.
So I didn't touch the phone for the first two hours,
so that was time to journal, walk,
spend time with kids, have breakfast with the family,
and then do my first bit of writing for the day
before I was sucked into email,
before I was sucked into random text messages,
before alerts about this or that, or calendar.
So, for me it's like, let's see I got up at 5:30,
but like 8:00, 8:30, I'd kinda had a full day already,
and then, that doesn't mean I throw in the towel there,
but it just means I can do whatever I want,
however I want, for the rest of the day.
- Right, if things are gonna come into play, be curve balls,
be like things that are just gonna happen,
like emails or emergencies,
at least you've gotten your time in.
I'm 100% on board with that.
- Yeah, no, and I think when people hear stillness,
again, they think it must be like meditating,
but I think stillness is more something
that by the choices you make, the way you order your day,
of your life, you create room
for stillness to kind of creep in.
So, I'm feeling it on the walk,
when I notice the sun coming up, I feel it,
you know, sitting down for breakfast, I feel it,
as I'm writing at my computer,
I'm feeling pockets of that throughout the day,
rather than just having 10 minutes of quiet stillness,
in one, you know, deliberate block.
- Love that, such good tips about stillness.
I hope you guys check it out, also by the way,
I feel like this is such a good alignment
talking about stillness is the key,
and "Good Morning, Good Life" my book.
So, thank you for contributing to my book, by the way.
That was really great.
I want you guys to go check out "Stillness is the Key."
I'm gonna leave a link to it below.
What else you working on that people can go and check out?
- So Daily Stoic is a page a day in the book,
but it's also a email a day,
and like a video, social media thing every day too,
so you can check those out on YouTube,
Instagram, and DailyStoic.com.
- Awesome. I'll link to that.
Thanks so much for having me.
- Yeah, of course.
- So much wisdom to glean from that.
I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did,
being able to participate in it.
It's not only just an amazing opportunity
for me to meet somebody who I truly admire the work of,
but to be able to connect you to him,
and for you to hear all the amazing things
that he has to share about how you can leverage stillness,
and even though it sounds counterintuitive,
it is so helpful to our lives.
That was really the most special part for me,
so I would love to hear what your favorite part was,
or your biggest aha moment was.
Share that in the comments down below.
If you want to hear more from Ryan,
we actually also sat down
for my podcast, "Detailed Therapy."
His episode comes out tomorrow
if you're watching this in real time.
We will link to that in the description below,
so I highly recommend you check that out,
and don't forget to pick up a copy
of "Stillness is the Key."
I really mean it when I say like,
oh man this books probably gonna be
too meditative, and hard to actually implement in real life.
I was completely wrong, and highly recommend this read,
if you have not picked it up already.
We will also link to that in the description below.
That's all for today, thank you so much for tuning in.
I appreciate it.
As always, make sure you Subscribe for good vibes,
kiss the ones you love,
and go after the life you want, cheers.
(upbeat music)
Hey, are you struggling to find time
for the things you love.
Feel like you're constantly on the go,
but taking care of everyone else first.
You are not alone, and you deserve so much more.
Not only are you capable of taking on this challenge,
you already have all the tools it takes to make it happen.
That resourcefulness is all you need
to get activated by your new daily mantra.
"Good Morning, Good Life," it's my new book,
and it launches on Amazon on December 10th.
More details at GoodmorningGoodlife.com.
"How to be More Productive by Staying Still,"
whoa, what a title.
Oh my God, it's so loud outside, transition.
I don't know what they're doing out there,
but that sounds so annoying.