Afford Anything - Stillness is the Key, with Ryan Holiday

Episode Date: October 14, 2019

#220: In a hectic world, stillness is the key to a calm, enjoyable life. That idea comes from Ryan Holiday, author of Stillness is The Key. Stillness is finding flow, staying present, and being impervious to the pressures of the outside world. It doesn’t mean removing yourself from society and sitting in a forest; to the contrary, many CEOs and world leaders have practiced remarkable stillness during times of crisis. Bestselling author Ryan Holiday discusses actionable tips on how to practice the art of stillness, as well as its applications to the pursuit of financial independence or any massive goal. For more information, visit the show notes at https://affordanything.com/episode220 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You can afford anything but not everything. Every decision that you make is a tradeoff against something else, and that doesn't just apply to your money. It applies to your time, your focus, your energy, your attention. It applies to anything in your life that's a scarce or limited resource. And that leads to two questions. Number one, what matters most to you? Number two, how do you align your daily behaviors to reflect that?

Answering these two questions is a lifetime practice, and that is what this podcast is here to explore. My name is Paula Pan. This is the Afford Anything podcast. Today, best-selling author Ryan Holiday joins us on the show to talk about the concept of stillness. Ryan Holiday has had a fascinating career. He dropped out of college at 19, then somehow became the director of marketing for American Apparel. And since then, he's written a series of books, some of which have reached the number one spot on the Wall Street Journal bestseller list. Most of his books explore ancient philosophies and how they apply to modern times, in particular the Stoic philosophy,

and he's been credited by the New York Times with the increasing popularity of stoicism. His most recent book, Stillness is the Key, which we're going to talk about today, is specifically about the concept of stillness. And in this upcoming interview, we're going to define it. And later, we'll relate it to financial independence. So with all of that said, here is Ryan Holiday. Hi, Ryan. Hi, how are you? I'm great. How are you doing? I'm doing excellent.

Nice. You talk in your new book about stillness. And stillness seems to be simultaneously a form of, being in the flow of whatever work you're doing, as well as being impervious to the pressures and the inputs that come from the outside world, would that be an accurate summary of how you would define stillness in the context of what you've written about? Yeah, I think that's very well said. What prompted this deep dive into the notion of stillness? Because you've written a lot about stoicism and other concepts before.

Why stillness? What I find so fascinating about stillness is that you really can't pick up any philosophical text or really even religious text from any of the schools, whether we're talking the Far East or the ancient West, and not find them talking about this idea. So I sort of say in the book, anytime all of the ancient world agrees on something, we should probably listen. And so when you have Buddha and Marcus Aurelius, Seneca and Jesus, all talking about this same thing, this idea of sort of slowing down. It's fascinating.

Both the Buddhist and the Stoics use this metaphor that they say like the mind is like muddy water. You have to let it sit for the dust and the silt to settle down. And only then can you see through it. And so I think any time two very different, you know, brilliant sets of minds come independently to a similar conclusion, that's probably a sign that they're on to something. So to me, still misses this universal and timeless idea. But even when you just hear that word today in 2019, it hits you with a kind of a timeliness. We all feel like it is too busy.

We've got too much going on. And we really need help sort of slowing down and seeing things more clearly. So then, given that we do need help slowing down, in the context of a life in which you may not practically be able to cease your responsibilities within the next three, six, 12 months, what are the ways in which we can incorporate greater degrees of stillness or mindfulness into our lives? Yeah, look, I think very few of us can afford physically, mentally, financially to go on a 30-day silent meditation retreat, right?

So that's not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about how do you leave the world to find stillness. I'm talking about a much more sort of active. This is where the Stoics are much more interesting on the concept. It's like, Marcus Aurelius is talking about stillness as he's the emperor of the biggest empire on earth. Seneca is talking about it as he's simultaneously a playwright, a political advisor, you know, and a businessman and a parent. So I think for the Stoics, stillness was something you use to be better at what you do and how you live your life. And maybe in the Eastern School, it's a little bit more of a retreat from life.

And so I'm interested then in like, okay, what should your information diet look like if you're trying to have more stillness? What should your actual diet look like? What should your exercise regime look like? What do you need to do mentally, spiritually, physically, so you can have stillness, that then you can use, whether you're a professional football player or a professional writer or an entrepreneur. So I'm interested in stillness in the practical sense of the word, not on the sort of religious sense of the word, let's say. Right, absolutely. And you cite in your book many examples of world leaders, Kennedy Churchill, who have practiced stillness as they were in the

middle of some crucial and tough times. Yeah, yeah. So when Kennedy wakes up in October, I think 1962, 63, and the news is that, hey, there are nuclear missiles pointed at your country from Cuba. What are you going to do about it? This is where stillness comes in. Stillness is not, oh, you know, let me go out on the family yacht and go on a picnic and, you know, stillness is like, wow, this is a very serious situation. And if I'm not in control of myself, I'm not in control my emotions, if I'm not thinking about the right things in the right way, millions of people will die. Hopefully, most of us are not anywhere close to a similar situation, but we are in business negotiations where there's all sorts of competing emotions and variables and factors to consider,

or you know, you're going through a divorce or you're in an argument with your neighbor, or you're just trying to get ahead in your, you know, your office job, the stakes might be lower, but it's a very complex situation. You've got to figure out how to navigate it. At the very least, you've got to figure out how just not to make it worse. And oftentimes sort of frenzied reactionary activity is how you make things worse. And so how do we, you cited previously the examples of, all right, what type of information do you take in? What should your actual nutritional diet look like, your exercise diet?

Let's talk about those elements in terms of the practices that allow you to be in a place where you don't make things worse. Sure. I mean, I think the information diet is a big one, right? Like what Kennedy was able to do in the missile crisis is he had really great information, but he also knew which information to ignore. There's all these sort of spurious reports. There's people who are leaping in to give his opinion, as his military leaders who are sort of throwing these doomsday statistics and scenarios at him. And all of this is kind of irrelevant compared to the main thing which he realizes he has to figure out, which is like why. did the Russians do this, right? What are they hoping to accomplish? What is their motivation? And then when he can understand it and understanding something that's not the same as agreeing with it or condoning it, but once he understands what they were hoping to get out of this, he can now figure out a way that he can allow them to back out of it without losing fates, right? And so I think so many people are constantly consuming and consuming information and other people's bad asses. energy even, we allow that to distract us. We allow that to take away from the stillness we need to

make really good decisions. And so how do we filter inconsequential information from essential information? What are the qualities? What's the litmus test that we can use as we're deciding what inputs we should allow into our lives? Yeah, I think that's the trillion dollar question, of course. I mean, a lot of people are walking to their office and they've got CNBC or MSNBC or Fox News running on the television in the background. And I always like to go, have you ever made a decision based on what you consume here? You know, like when was the last time you saw some two-minute story on cable news and then you promptly turned around and made an actual business or life decision based on this information? And the answer is usually never. It's just we feel obligated to do it.

We think that's what an informed person does. We think that's what a CEO should have running in their office. It may well be that pictures of a waterfall from a family vacation you took may actually be putting you in a better headspace to make better decisions. And you may be able to think more long term or more empathetically than, you know, seeing a pan. if people dissect the latest tweet from Donald Trump. What about the inputs that come into us from the people whom we are immediately connected to? So, for example, on your phone, there are so many ways for people to reach you. There's email and text messaging and DMs on Instagram and Twitter, and it kind of can sometimes

feel like message whack-a-mole. You beat them down and then they pop up again. What are the practical ways that a person can deal with that? Yeah, I think you've got to opt out of that game in a big way. I mean, one of the best decisions I made for my own personal productivity and happiness was like, I'm going to decide how reachable I'm going to be. So my sort of rule is like email is for work, text or for friends. So when I get a text message, I know it's not an urgent work crisis.

It's somebody who wants to know if I want to get dinner that evening. And when I get an email, I don't have to worry about something I'm talking to my wife about because that's not where we connect. And then what I also want to make sure is that I also don't have to check my LinkedIn inbox and my Twitter DMs and my Instagram DMs and then WhatsApp and Snapchat and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I just don't check. And I try to sit interviews and stuff because it is one of the interesting parts about being a writer is that there are unsolicited people who want to get in touch with you. And some of these are great opportunities. the more Twitter DMs you respond to, the more Twitter DMs you're going to get.

And the more likely you're going to create a situation where you have some friends who you connect to on this and some friends you connect to on this. For instance, let's say I'm going to meet someone. It's a first time. It's sort of a work thing. I might have to send them a text to say, like, hey, I'm two minutes late or whatever. Well, now this person has your phone number. and now they're like, hey, you know, texting you work stuff all the time. What I just do is I just politely respond via email every time I get one of these text messages. And you kind of build up a

relationship that sort of sets clear boundaries about where you communicate and where you don't. I think really successful people don't have 50 ways you can get in touch with them. Really successful people you get in touch with through their lawyer or their business manager or their chief staff or something like that. They're not available on 30 platforms at the same time. Let's talk about the other inputs in terms of food and exercise. How can a person cultivate that? You mentioned both of those. What habits should a person develop? Well, one of the paradoxical things about stillness is that sometimes movement is the best way to get it. One of the best things I do that's part of my day is I go for a long walk in the morning. I go for a long walk. I don't take my

phone, I'm outside, and I'm just moving. I'm moving, but I'm somehow very still, and I'm active, but I'm somehow meditating at the same time. It's just a wonderful part of the day. And then the other thing I do, this morning I went for a long run, and the day before I went for a long swim. It's the physical exercise that I do that's often deeply centering. And weirdly, where I often get many of my absolute best business ideas. You know, I have breakthroughs in the pool. that I would not have gotten if I was glued to my computer screen. When you're walking or running, do you listen to anything at that time? Or are you in silence?

So this morning I went on a run with a friend. So we just had a nice sort of fully engaged conversation. But when I swim, they now make headphones you can listen to underwater. But what I love about swimming is that there really is none of that. It's totally quiet. When I do run, I like to listen to music. but what I tend to do is sort of a weird habit is I'll listen to one song over and over again. I'll just pick a song and I listen to it on a loop and it kind of gets me in almost into a little bit of a trance.

I do that too, actually. Really? Yeah, I do. Yeah. Do you listen to good music or do you listen to bad music? It's sort of embarrassingly fine that it's all really bad music. I actually, I listen to a lot of pop music. Like, I'll listen to a Taylor Swift song on repeat.

I think it's kind of design, like if you think of it's, like, if you think of it. a lot of pop music these days, it's kind of designed to be more addictive the more times you listen to it. And so I think listening to it on a loop actually, like, heightens the power of whatever that is. Yeah, exactly. I'm amazed at how I can listen to a Taylor Swift song literally hundreds of times and not be sick of it. Yeah. And I do tend to find that I kind of listen to the song so many times that it loses its power, and then I got to move on to the next one. So it's almost like the disposable. Right. When you are, or when a person is on a walk, let's say, or trying to clear their mind, how do you distinguish between the wisdom that could arise from that versus the rumination

that could also stem from that blank or empty mind? So you mean like you could be going on a walk and just be victim of your own racing thoughts? Exactly. Yeah. One of the things you actively kind of want to do, and this is something you learn in meditation, it's like you're not your thoughts. You don't have to agree or consent to your thoughts. The analogy, they're like clouds.

They just, you can just let them pass on by. So one of the things I'll think about when I'm walking is it's like, okay, I'm having this thought. maybe it's some jealousy or maybe it's anxiety or maybe it's, you know, resentment about a conversation or something. You can go, this is what I'm feeling. This is what I'm thinking. I don't have to hold on to this. I can just let it go. And even just this idea of kind of engaging with your own thoughts that way and with a kind of a distance, I just find to be really, really powerful and empowering. And weirdly, this is, I'm a big sort of proponent of journaling. I think journaling provides a

similar exercise. It's like, oh, you can write this down and then look at it and decide whether it's something you want to keep or something you want to discard. When you talk about observing your thoughts and then letting them go, it strikes me that there are two steps in that. One is to observe or note what you're thinking or feeling, but then the other is to let it go. And it seems like the actual release of it is perhaps the part where a lot of people get stuck. Yeah, I think it takes and practice, what happens is, it's weird if you think about it, these thoughts that come from somewhere, right? It's not like you consciously said, like, I am going to feel jealous of X. It just came from somewhere. And so, but you kind of make it real when you decide to engage with it and you decide to

add to it and you decide to agree with it. You know what I mean? Like, we all, we all have thoughts that pass into our mind. Sometimes they're dark thoughts. Sometimes they're embarrassing thoughts. You know, sometimes they're weird, inexplicable thoughts. But we go, that's not who I am. Well, that would be weird. I'm not going to do that. And you can do that with the more mundane thoughts, whether or emotions like anxiety or jealousy or any of them. I'll give you an example. The other day I was somewhere and I saw something and I remember thinking I could choose. to interpret this as a slight. Like someone's star was put up on the wall more brightly than mine.

And I could decide to go, hey, why do they get that? I deserve that. I'm going to resent the people that made this decision. Like, you know what I mean? Whatever that sort of decision, and I just was like, no, I don't think that's a good idea. I'm not going to feel better for this. It's not going to accomplish anything. The Stokes talk about this idea of assent.

that's A-S-S-E-N-T rather than assent, you know, climbing and height. This is like acquiescence. And you have the ability not to assent to a thought. You have the ability to not agree with it, to not give into it. But I think most people sort of decline to realize this power. Are there certain ways that you can practice accepting this power? Are there certain like practices that you can make in order to, develop the skill of not agreeing with everything that you think?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a muscle, right? And if we want to see the brain as a muscle, that's sort of literally what you're doing. But I think you can start with small little things. It's something that grows by accumulation. So it's just the decision to start and to accumulate momentum as you go. So, I mean, I don't know when I sort of started actively practicing this, but the longer I've done it, the better I've gotten at it. We'll come back to this episode after this word from our sponsors.

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to constantly be validated and approved. If we can contrast that to confidence, which to me, it takes confidence to be still. It takes confidence to decide, hey, I'm good. I have enough. I don't need to win this pointless argument with this person to feel good about myself, right? Or a confident person doesn't need the fanciest car in the parking lot to feel like they have value. A confident person is able to stay in their lane and to do the, a confident person is able to say what they think and not care if other people disagree. A confident person is able to stick with what they like and how they want to live, even if that's not what most people want or think, right? So confidence, like when I think of really still, people I really admire when I feel have stillness, what I tend to find is that these are deeply secure individuals.

They have like a profound confidence that allows them to be different, to be weird, to be laughed at, to operate on their own pace. And that's what we want to cultivate in our lives. I mean, it's a great personal strategy. You could also see how it's really valuable as a business person or an entrepreneur and an investor. or an investor. The really great bets in the market are the ones that at the time people didn't think were a good bet. So you've got to have the confidence that it enables you to stand alone on something. How do you distinguish between being confident enough to stand by a decision or an idea despite the fact that other people don't agree with it as compared with being just so stubborn

that you don't listen to advisors? Yeah, right. No, it's like when everyone's telling you that you're wrong. Sometimes they really are trying to prevent you from driving off of a cliff, right? And you sort of ignore them at your own peril. So it's certainly a balance. But I think confidence, when I look about confidence, confidence is based on facts. Ego, that sort of arrogance, that stubbornness, it's often deeply irrational, right? Like it's, you don't know, you're not as good as me. You've always doubted me. You know, you're just a hater. Confidence is like, like look, on my first philosophy book, the publisher didn't think it was a great idea, right? It's not like they were like, this is going to fail, don't do it,

but they were not huge supporters and reasonably so, right? But what I knew is that I had the experience of talking with people who had benefited from the ideas in it. You know, I had much more hands-on connection to the potential audience, and I knew I just, I knew I was sitting on something potentially explosive. So I had the confidence to take a lower offer and to know that eventually I would be vindicated, right? I had that, I knew what I wanted the book to be. I knew why it would work. I knew what it could be. And that's different than say, like, I'm a genius. You guys are idiots. That sort of all shove this in your face kind of a mentality. It was more like, look, I definitely understand your concerns, and I don't think they're without basis,

but here are two or three factors that you're not considering that I think are ultimately the stronger piece of evidence. Standing by a vision, and almost in that regard a vision of something that's bigger than you. Yeah, definitely. You talk also about the notion of enough. How does a person know when they have enough? Here's the thing. You already have enough. Everyone has enough. Enough is not a million dollars and everyone thinks enough is $10 million. It's not a disagreement about a number. Enough is realizing that there is no number, right? Seneca, one of the Stokes, he has this great line. He said, poverty is not having too little. Poverty is wanting more. And I don't, he's, look, he's not being flipped. He's not talking about like actual starvation, subsistence level poverty. What he's saying is that feeling, poor is the sense that you don't have something that you deserve or that you need. When the truth is,

as human beings, we need very, very little. So what happens is successful people say, I will be happy when I get X. For me, as an example, it's like, I really wanted to be an author. So I thought having a book, that's what makes you a writer. Of course, being a writer, there's plenty of great writers who were not published them so after they were dead that doesn't make them not writers but i thought having a book then you'll feel good and then i thought oh well what now actually this book has to be a bestseller and then it was like no now i have to have two books then what if one of them sells a million copies won't that be what success is and on down the line and what you're doing instead of enjoying what you have even though what you have is often beyond whatever you dreamed of just a few years previous

You've convinced yourself that there's some magical point that you arrive to. You know, you wanted to be an expert on physics. And so you studied physics and then you got into grad school and then you became a professor and then you came a tenured professor at Harvard. But instead of feeling wonderful about all this, all you can think about is why you haven't gotten that Nobel Prize. And so not only is that sad enough, but the really sad part is that let's say you are lucky enough to get that Nobel Prize, you'll still not feel like it's enough because that's the trick

that you've bought into. It just doesn't happen. How does a person, if it's the case that we all already have enough, how do we balance contentment with the concept of we currently already have enough with ambition? Yeah, it is attention. The way I think about it is like, look, my desire to always do and think that, you know, if I had this one more thing will be good. It's not like that's been disadvantageous to my career. I mean, that's why I've signed these deals and committed to this and push myself. But one, it should be stipulated that there's a risk to that because eventually you can overreach, right? How many people end up losing everything they had because they weren't satisfied with what they had. But when I actually think about the work itself, the reason

the books have worked and sold is not because I was incapable of being satisfied. It was actually that I found the work itself deeply satisfying that the books were. Like the obstacle is the way isn't a good book because I was always doing, doing, doing, doing, and wanting more, more, more. The obstacles the way worked as a book because I deeply loved the process of sitting down quietly, by myself in front of a screen working and working and working until I got the words just right. That came from a place of stillness

and I almost want to say the word purity not from that place of craving. So really the great work comes, the great results to come from that good place. They don't come from the ambitious place. and so it's a different way of looking at it, I think. Sounds to me almost as though it's a place where you're in love with the process rather than the results.

And look, you have to be because you don't control the results. I mean, think about all the brilliant people who didn't get the results they deserved because they were a woman, because they were a certain minority, because they were born at the wrong time and place in history, or just because of random luck. The world is very unfair. One of my favorite authors is this guy's name is John Kennedy Tool, and he wrote a beautiful book called The Confederacy of Dunces. His editor told him the book was bad.

His agent told him the book was bad. And he killed himself. He was so devastated by being rejected by what you might call the system that he killed himself. And his mother found the book in a drawer in his desk, and she took it to a college professor. at a college in their town. College professor saw it for the work of genius that it was.

He published it and it won the Pulitzer Prize. I mean, it's the exact same book. The book didn't change. The author was no longer living. But you've got to realize that like the results are much more capricious and less meritocratic than we want to think they are, much less in our control. So if you have decided that the results make the effort worthwhile, well, what happens if you get a really bad break? Or what happens if, you know, think about all the brilliant authors

and artists and poets whose lives were disrupted by Hitler or any number of these things that happened in history, it can't be about the results. And that goes hand in hand with what I think is an overarching theme when it comes to this concept of stillness, which is accepting the fact that we're not in control. Yeah, we're in control of ourselves, and even that is somewhat tenuous. There's a reason in 12-step programs they want addicts to sort of accept the higher power, why they teach them this humanity prayer. So much of the world is outside our control. But that's not to say that this is about powerlessness.

What stillness teaches you is that you don't control what happened. You can't change what happened, but you can control how you respond to what happened. And that this is a much better place to come from and a much more relaxing place to come from. an ultimately more sustainable place to come from. Along the same topic of results, you mentioned this idea that imposter syndrome is sort of a form of egotism. It is. I mean, what I'm saying that ego is the antithesis of stillness, I would say, on the other end of the spectrum, that's sort of horrible insecurity and doubt and almost self-loathing that some people have. is equally disruptive and unpleasant and unnerving. And so, yeah, the irony that the supremely egotistical and the crippling doubt that some people have,

it's interesting how similar they are at the core, because at the core, they're both thinking of themselves all of the time and thinking that other people are thinking about them all of the time. And the truth is like, everyone is thinking about themselves and no one is thinking about you. Imposter syndrome is this idea that at the office, everyone knows you don't deserve to be there and you're on the verge of being found out. And it's like nobody's thinking about your job at all. They're thinking about their job and whether they're about to be found out because they don't believe they're qualified either. Right. So what do you do if you recognize that you have that? You know, if for the people who are listening, if somebody's listening to this and they think to

themselves, well, I definitely suffer from imposter syndrome. How do they work themselves out of it? Yeah. I think giving it a name is a big step forward to because a lot of times we're sort of crippled or ruled by these feelings that because they don't have a name, they feel legitimate. So even to be able to go like look this is my imposter syndrome that's why I'm feeling this way allows us to externalize some of that a little bit so I think that's part of it but imposter syndrome and ego and all of these feelings a lot of it is a way of just not being present of like just not focusing on what's actually in front of you so I think one of the best ways to get over imposter syndrome is just to really throw yourself in the work. Imposter syndrome is like thinking about the politics of the

workplace. Someone's going to find me out. They're going to know that I exaggerated my resume or they're going to know that I'm not as smart as I look or that I'm not as put together as I look. Let's say all of that's true. Wouldn't you be better off spending that time and energy actually learning how to do whatever the thing that you're being paid to do is? Wouldn't you be better off just working harder? you know, the ego, like they're not, they don't recognize how great I am. I'm not getting the credit that I deserve. Again, wouldn't you be better off just putting that energy into how you play or the preparation you're doing for the talk you're about to give or, you know, whatever it is? That energy is better spent on pretty much anything but where we choose to spend it,

which is like a racing monologue in our own heads. Right. When it comes to how you, you spend your energy, which closely relates to how you structure your time. What are your tips on how a person can structure their time in such a way that they're giving adequate space to stillness and everything that goes into honing it while also balancing the demands of their day-to-day life? I'm a big proponent of routine. So I want to eliminate the amount of pointless decisions that I'm making out of the day. I want to eliminate uncertainty. I want to schedule in the kind of touchstone activities that allow me to be better at what I do. So I want to be,

I'm not going to, hey, I hope I have time to swim today. I'm going to say, no, swimming makes me better at thinking and writing. So I'm going to do that from two to three o'clock. Or, hey, I feel better when I wake up earlier. So I'm going to go to bed earlier. and I'm going to wake up earlier and I'm going to get as much done as I can in the morning. And then if that means that I can take the whole afternoon off, I'm not going to feel bad about it. And I feel like routine, if practiced often enough, in a way, becomes almost like ritual. What is the distinction between habit, routine, and ritual? I really just think it's repetition.

You do it once and you did it once. You do it every day for a month. It's a routine. You do it every day for 20 years, and it's almost sacred. How do you maintain routines as you travel? One of the things that I've shifted in my life is, I think more in terms of routines, plural, rather than routine. So, you know, when I'm home, I like to exercise in the afternoon. But that's because I'm more in control of my day.

When I'm on the road, I do it first thing in the morning because often I don't know as much what the day has in store. or then I'm on the road for a very specific thing. So I have a little bit less control over the schedule. I just try to have different things that I do. But also, like, when I travel, like, I made a mistake. I'm in San Francisco right now. I didn't stay at the hotel that I normally stay at because I thought it'd be a little easier to get where I needed to get.

But it introduced all these problems. Like, it's not a great hotel. And it was really loud. So I didn't sleep as well. And, you know, I couldn't go to the normal place that I go for breakfast. So I even have, like, because I travel. enough, I have places that I go and things that I do in those cities. So I might not be on my, you know, Ryan's at home in Texas routine, but I am kind of on my Los Angeles routine,

you know, or my San Francisco or my New York routine. But what I mostly think about are like, what are the important things that I do in the course of a day? And then I'm cool shuffling the deck as far as the order of them goes, but I don't have to do them the exact same way. day. You've mentioned swimming and walking and running, but other than those, what are some of the most important things that you do in the span of a day? I feel like if I can get those three things done, it's a successful day. Even if I don't work, you know, even if I'm busy out of my mind, those are three big ones. But waking up early is a big one, getting a certain amount of sleep. Like, I want to get a minimum of seven hours, ideally about eight hours every day. That's an important

part of the routine. I'm a writer. So like, if I don't write, that's a bad. day for me. So I want to carve out time to write. Time for family is obviously a big important one. If I'm crushing it in my career, but I don't have time to, you know, spend with my kids, is that success? It doesn't feel like it. What's your writing process? I start in the mornings. The morning is the important part for me. I want to go for the walk in the morning. I want to sit down with the journal, and then I want to go right into the writing. The earlier you start, the better you're going to do. That's just my experience. If I leave it until 2 p.m. in the afternoon, chances are I can come up with a whole bunch of excuses for not doing it. And so do you outline,

in terms of writing a book, for example, would you outline everything in advance and then take a chunk of it per day? Is reading and then writing down thoughts from that part of the process? How do you structure all of that when you actually start to write? Yeah, I make a very big distinction between researching and writing. I think, again, the order is important, preparation is important. If you're just sitting down and you're going, what do I have to say? What do I think? Now you're, all over the place. But if you're sitting down with a stack of note cards, you know, with sources from all sorts of different experts and you've got quotes that you want to use and stories that you want to tell, when you sit down to write, you're really just organizing and ordering rather than creating from scratch.

I'm really trying to limit how many things I'm doing at one time. Like, I don't want to be researching and writing. When I'm researching, I just want to be researching. And when I'm writing, I just want to be writing. We'll return to the show in just a moment. Do you run a small business or are you an entrepreneur or a solopreneur and you're trying to set up really good systems before the start of? of the next calendar year.

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How do you know when you're getting better at it? To me, it's kind of one of those things you know it when you see it or you know when you feel it. One of the motivators for me in the book was it's like, okay, if so much of the best things that I've done, you know, sort of personally and professionally have come from that place of stillness, why is it so infrequent? You know, why is it just happen randomly? and how could I be more intentional about it? So I think moments, like, okay, one sign of it for me,

and obviously this is a little unique to what I do, when I lose track of what day it is, like when I just lose all sense of time and place, that usually means I've become very present and very enveloped in whatever it is that I'm doing. If I'm constantly measuring myself, am I getting closer, am I doing this? Like how many more days until this?

that's not a place of stillness. That's a place of craving. So losing track of time is one of them. But another big one to me is gratitude. When I'm really working well and I'm really in a place of stillness and my things are set the way that I want them to be, I just am often struck by how wonderful everything is. And it's not because I'm staring out at the Grand Canyon.

It's like, oh man, this is really great. I love this table, you know? That's really great. I'm just sitting here on the porch just talking. It's been so awesome that I get to take this drive every day to and from the office. How nice is that? To me, that's a sign that I'm making progress. The noticing of details in your immediate surroundings?

Yeah, just presence, really. I think at the core of stillness is presence. Presence and flow. Yeah. You talk in your book about the importance of getting adequate sleep, and you've mentioned that in this interview as well. What should a person do? because you gave the example of like, all right, I'm going to go to bed early so I can wake up early. What happens if you go to bed early, but you just can't sleep?

You just lay there awake. Yeah, look, there are obviously moments where the body is not cooperating, and I've had those two. And look, a couple weeks ago, there was this project I'm working on. I had this big breakthrough. I was so excited and so pumped that I just couldn't sleep. And so on the one hand, it just made me feel like a kid again. On the other hand, I was like, this is months away. why are you depriving their self of sleep now in anticipation of something?

That's not a great place to be from. So, you know, I gutted it out, and then I was tired the next day, and then I had to remind myself that, like, I can't get so worked up. I think most people, the problem is not that they lay in bed and they can't sleep. Most people, it's that their life is so chaotic and disorganized, and the substances and the beverages that they drink, you know, so contribute to unhealthy lifestyle that sleep just does not come easily. So, you know, Elon Musk's problem is not that he lies in bed and can't sleep. Elon Musk's problem is that, you know, he's scheduling meetings at 1130 at night and he's

still at the office. Or it's that he's sitting in bed answering emails, getting worked up about what he's getting in the emails. It's not just simple insomnia. This is like self-induced insomnia. Yeah. Based on pre-bedtime habits and caffeine consumption. Yeah, totally, totally. And sort of poor boundaries. At American Apparel, the CEO would get an open-door policy. Any employee could call them at any time. We had employees in 20 countries. So somebody was always calling them and they were always waking them up. Boundary setting is a really interesting concept because so much of protecting your time, your energy, your attention, protecting your ability to have. these moments of flow and presence requires boundary setting. And yet at the same time,

there's that part of, I think a lot of us that are people-pleasing tendencies where we don't want to disappoint. Again, how do we balance these two competing ideas? Sure. I think also it cuts both ways, right? Like I remember because I worked for this person, I got really used to the fact that it was totally normal to call someone at two in the morning or at 11.30 at night. or at 6 a.m. your time, regardless of what time zone they were in. And I remember after I left, when I started my own company, I was like talking to my wife about something. We worked together. And I was like, oh, I'll call so-and-so and talk to him about it. And she's like, you can't call this person. It's midnight. You know? And it just like struck. I just totally internalized bad

boundaries. And I had to go, hey, look, okay, I'm going to set boundaries for myself. but I'm also not going to run roughshod over other people's boundaries because they deserve to have quiet and peace and stillness. And by the way, as my employee, I want them to have that because they'll do better work. The other day I got an email from one of my employees like I was in New York and I sent it at 7 a.m. He was in L.A. and he replied, I remember I was like, do not respond to any more emails for me. Go to bed. This is not, I'm not paying you to end. answering emails at 4 a.m. In fact, I'm upset that you are answering emails at 4 a.m. And what about when you have to say no to somebody? Do you feel guilty when you do that?

I used to. I mean, a trick I heard from someone that I like is like say no, but I can't do that, but hey, sorry, I can't get coffee and let you pick my brain, but here's an article that I think would be helpful for the problem that you're having. Or I can't do that, but, you know, Have you thought about reaching out to so-and-so? Or something like that. The other thing, I mean, having kids was really great for me in the sense that it's like, oh, I'm not stealing this time for myself by saying yes, the things that I don't need to do. I'm taking them from a small defenseless child.

If I agree to have coffee with you, even though I don't want to, even though I can't, even though it's going to hurt my business, that's not going to bother me. But if I now don't get to pick my son up from school or I have to drop him off earlier or do X, Y, and Z, how unfair that is seems much more stark. And does that change the way that you express the no? Or does it change how you feel about it internally or both? I mean, it just allows me to do it with more confidence, to feel less doubt or guilt about it. is another example, like I get a lot of emails from people. And so one of the rules I put in places, like if it's not urgent, I don't respond right away. I'll wait sometimes two months. And then

if I have time, I go through and I respond. The people are always like, oh, I never thought you would respond. This is so great. Thanks. And so I realized that the guilt that I felt about not responding right away, it not only wasn't deserved, but like they never expected a response in the first place. Sometimes you go like, I don't want to say, no, I don't want to hurt this person's feelings. And you don't realize they asked 20 people the exact same question. They made the exact same request of 20 people hoping one of them would say yes. It's not on you. It's not like they said, if you don't give me your kidney, I'm going to die.

Could you please give me your kidney? You know, they said, they went around and they said, hey, I need someone to come speak at my conference for free. Do you want to do it? Just because they ask you that question does not mean you should fly across the country. and leave your work to go do this thing to help out a total stranger, whatever it is. This is a bad example. But you get what I'm saying. No, that's a great example. I've done that many times. Yeah. Right. And it's tricky because I do feel guilty saying no.

Like, no, but it sounds like a lot of fun and I'm flattered that you asked, but it's just going to be a little big imposition. Yeah. And look, this is why setting up great systems, whether it's an assistant. or whether it's an email address that doesn't have your name on it or getting an agent or, you know, whatever it is in a person's particular space that takes some of that pressure off of you. I have a speaking agent, so they don't tell me about opportunities to speak for free because, unless it's like incredible and super rare, because that's not what I pay them to do. or your assistant can answer questions. So I have this website called Daily Stoic,

and we sell physical products based on ancient philosophy. And like, it was really hard for us to make the decision to hire a customer service firm because it felt like it was something you should do yourself. And then it was like, wait, we're not doing the really important stuff because some person in Ohio's order is not arrived, But actually it has arrived and oops, they just lost it.

Just the idea of like, oh, we need a line of defense here. The really serious customer service issues, of course, should be escalated. But how can I get anything done if every time somebody types in their own address wrong or accidentally unsubscribes from an email, that can't be coming to my desk or, you know, I'm never going to have any focus or stillness or quiet? And so it seems as though discipline boundary setting is necessary. for developing stillness? Very much so.

Very much, though, in my opinion. And that's what I mean. Like, it could people think, oh, I'm not good at meditating. That's why I don't have stillness. And it's like, maybe, but also maybe you could just make some tweaks to your schedule or your system for people getting in touch with you. And that could be a major breakthrough in it of itself. Right.

And boundary setting also requires confidence. It seems as though all of the major components that we've talked about, They fall into both. Yes. Yeah. I think these are all overlapping interrelated ideas. And they make each other stronger and better. Just doing one in isolation is probably going to be hard, but you do them all and they make them all better.

We're coming to the end of the hour. Are there any final thoughts or lessons that you want to share about the concept of stillness, presence, flow? Yeah, there's a quote from Seneca said, you know, there is no greatness without stillness. And I think what he meant by that is it's not just that stillness contributes to greatness, but how great could something be if it takes you to a place where you're overworked and tired and overloaded and confused and frantic and unhappy? You know, so that's something I've had to think a lot about in my own life. What does success actually look like?

It's not just a number. It's not just a title. it's got to be at the core, primarily the life that it allows you to lead. So for me, success is better defined as autonomy. Do I have some level of control over my life? And there are definitely things I could do that would be lucrative or exciting or popular, but I'd lose that autonomy and lose that stillness. and what kind of success is that?

Well, thank you so much, Ryan, for spending this hour with us. Thank you. Where can people find you if they'd like to know more about you? Yeah, so the books, the obstacles away, egos, the enemy, and stillness is the key, are available everywhere books are sold. I am at Ryan Holiday on pretty much every platform. And if you're interested in ancient philosophy and this sort of practice of stillness, we send out a daily email for Daily Stoic at Dailystoic.com. That's my favorite thing to write.

and I think people would like it. Thank you so much, Ryan. What are some of the key takeaways that we got from this conversation? Here are six. Number one, take more walks, get more exercise, move around, clear your head. One of the paradoxical things about stillness is that sometimes movement is the best way to get it. The mind and body are connected and sometimes one of the best ways to find that stillness, that perspective, that sense of presence is by moving around, by taking a walk.

I might even go so far as to argue that the time that you spend walking or exercising is not time that you're spending away from your work. That is integral to your work. You are protecting your most important asset, which is you. It's your ability to think clearly and calmly and rationally. And the place where a lot of that starts from is movement. Movement can lead to stillness. So that is key takeaway number one. And I like that one because it's an actionable takeaway as well.

Key takeaway number two. Don't believe everything you think. We all have thoughts that pass into our mind. Sometimes they're dark thoughts. Sometimes they're embarrassing thoughts. Sometimes they're weird, inexplicable thoughts. But we go, that's not who I am. Well, that would be weird.

I'm not going to do that. And you can do that with the more mundane thoughts or emotions like anxiety or jealousy. You know, any of it. You may have a lot of thoughts or emotions that bubble up. You don't have to agree with. all of them. You don't have to agree with everything that you yourself think or feel. Sometimes you can observe these, come up, and think to yourself, well, that's interesting. This has just come up for me. And then go through the practice of letting it go. And I understand

that's easier said than done. As Ryan said, it is a practice. It is a muscle that you develop. And like any muscle, the strength comes through repetition. So if thoughts or feelings come up that are unproductive or counterproductive, notice them. and let them pass. That's key takeaway number two. Key takeaway number three. Don't get caught up in some far away destination. Know that in order to be content, you must realize that what you already have is enough. So there is no destination. It's all process and process is enough. instead of enjoying what you have, even though what you have is often beyond whatever you dreamed of just a few years previous, you've convinced yourself that there's some magical point that you arrive to.

The problem with, as Ryan says, convincing yourself that there's some magical point that you arrive to is that that that goal just keeps getting pushed out further and further and further. Once you reach it, then there's the next thing, and then there's the next thing, and then there's the thing after that. And that's great so long as it's counterbalanced with also being content with knowing that you have enough. So let's apply this to the concept of fire, financial independence, early retirement. Because it can be very easy for some people to think, you know, once I reach fire, I'll be happy. Once I can quit this job that I really don't like, then I'll be happy. Once I have a certain net worth, or once I'm debt free, then I'll be happy. don't defer happiness to some indefinite point in the future.

Be happy now. Be content now. Know that you have enough and practice gratitude for that now. And then when you get to that goal, that's great too, but you are happy the whole way. As I like to say, you can delay gratification, but you can never defer happiness. And so understanding that whatever it is that you've already done, wherever it is that you are in your life right now, that's enough. That's enough and you can still strive for more and also that's enough. That is key takeaway number three.

Key takeaway number four. Speaking of enjoying the process, the goal is to get into a flow state with your work or to enjoy the day-to-day elements of your lifestyle rather than to achieve some type of external objective. Because if you're relying on results or outcome to make you feel as though the effort that you're putting in is worthwhile, well, the thing is you can control your effort. You can't control the results or outcome. And so what that means is that you've got to enjoy the effort. So if you have decided that the results make the effort worthwhile, well, what happens if you get a really bad break?

So again, let's apply this to the concept of fire, right? If you find inherent joy in efficient living, in frugal living, in minimalism, if you find joy in the challenge of building a side hustle and becoming an entrepreneur and learning how to invest. If you enjoy forming the inner confidence that comes from not defining yourself through driving a fancy car or living in a sprawling McMansion, well, then that lifestyle is a reward in and of itself. And if that lifestyle also leads you to fire, that's great too. But what you also enjoy is the lifestyle. There's a healthy living analogy that applies here as well, So when you eat healthier foods and you exercise, you feel better and your mood improves.

And that's an immediate benefit that you get. And if over the long term there is a weight loss benefit or a fat loss benefit that's also associated with healthy eating and exercise, well, then that's cool too. But you're not hung up on the results on a scale because you inherently enjoy a healthy lifestyle and that inherent joy is enough in and of itself. And so that's key takeaway number four is focus on the process, not the result. Key takeaway number five, create routines, plural. One of the things that I've shifted in my life is I think more in terms of routines, plural, rather than routine.

So, you know, when I'm home, I like to exercise in the afternoon. But that's because I'm more in control of my day. When I'm on the road, I do it first thing in the morning because often, I don't know as much what the day has in store. Or then I'm on the road for a very specific thing. So I have a little bit less control over the schedule. So for example, you could create separate different routines for what you do on the weekdays versus on the weekends, or specifically work days versus non-work days.

Or you could create separate routines for when you're at home versus when you're traveling. And even when you're traveling, as a subset of that, you can have different routines for when you're doing work-related travel versus is purely recreational travel versus travel that's a hybrid of both, right? You can have routines for all of these different sets of circumstances. And as you're developing these routines, it can often be helpful to start small. So this is an idea that came from Leo Babuda from the blog Zen Habits. He recommends starting with the smallest thing if you're trying to develop a new habit. So for example, if you want to do push-ups every morning, start by getting on the ground and doing one push-up. It feels silly. It feels silly to get down on the ground,

do a push-up and then get back up again, but because that habit that you're trying to form is so small, that reduces the friction to forming it. And then once you get into the habit of doing that one push-up every day, well, eventually, you can scale it up to two, and then three, and then four, and on from there. And habits, when done often enough or long enough, turn into routines. And so that is key takeaway number five. Think in terms of of routines, plural, and adapt those routines based on the circumstances for which they're formed. Finally, key takeaway number six. I'm going to let Ryan say this because this more or less summarizes the philosophy of financial independence. What does success actually look like?

It's not just a number. It's not just a title. It's got to be at the core, primarily the life that it allows you to lead. Success is better defined as autonomy. You know, do I have some level of control over my life? Wealth is measured in time, not just dollars, and success is autonomy, freedom, and control over your time, your energy, your attention. Those are six key takeaways that came out of this conversation with Ryan Holiday. If you enjoyed today's episode and you know somebody who you think would also like hearing about these conversations, as conversation around the concept of enough or about forming routines, then share this episode with a friend or a family member.

That's the single most important thing that you can do to bring these concepts, these ideas into the lives of more people who could benefit from it. On top of that, please make sure that you've hit subscribe or follow in whatever app you're using to listen to this podcast. And if you haven't done so yet, please leave us a review in that app as well. On Monday, October 21st, 2019, we're going to be rolling out a big, new community platform. So get ready for that announcement because it's going to be this really cool platform where you can connect with one another and chat about all kinds of different topics.

So if there's something that you're particularly interested in, like this conversation with Ryan Holiday, if you're interested in the topics of stillness or stoicism, or the application of philosophy to modern life and to the fire movement, that's a topic that you can chat with other people about. So Monday, October 21st, 2019, we will be rolling that out. So stay tuned. Thanks to our sponsors, Gusto, Nume, Radius Bank, and Candid. For a complete list of our sponsors, plus all of the deals and discounts that they offer, all the promo codes, you can find that at Affordanything.com slash sponsor. Thank you again so much for tuning in.

My name is Paula Pat. This is the Afford Anything podcast. I'll catch you next week.