[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER 1: Please join me
in introducing Ryan Holiday.
[APPLAUSE]
RYAN HOLIDAY: Thank you.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
Appreciate it.
OK.
Thank you guys for having me.
I did not know I'd
done five Google Talks.
That's pretty nuts.
I'll keep writing books if you
guys keep having me to talk.
It's always fun.
So we're going to talk
today about stillness.
And I think when you
hear this word stillness,
it might bring up
some different images.
Maybe you're thinking of this,
or you're thinking of this,
or, if you ask my dad, maybe
you're thinking more of this.
But I'm not that interested
in that kind of stillness,
although those certainly
are forms of stillness.
I'm interested in what you
might call active stillness.
So I'm interested in the
stillness of John F. Kennedy
in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
I'm interested in
the stillness of Mr.
Rogers, the stillness of someone
who has that kind of energy.
I talked to my wife about this.
The energy of-- my son goes to
daycare on South [INAUDIBLE],,
the energy that it takes to
put 15 toddlers down for a nap
at the exact same time,
the energy of Mr Rogers
when you watch an episode
of it, or if you watch it
on the phenomenon that Google
helped unleash in my home which
would be like a
Blippy, let's say,
the energy of Mr. Rogers
compared to Blippy.
I'm interested in the
Mr. Rogers energy.
I'm interested in the energy
of Anne Frank sitting down
in her journal.
Despite all of the
craziness and the horrors
of the outside
world, how is someone
able to find a center
to find stillness,
to slow down, to
clarify their thinking,
to calm their emotions
and get to a good place
even if the outside
place is not so great?
So I'm interested in
stillness for the real world.
Right.
And it happens at all the
different major philosophical
schools.
And religions have their
own word for this stillness.
I won't embarrass
myself by trying
to pronounce any of these.
Mostly, I write about stoicism.
The two stoic concepts
are apathea and ataraxia.
It means to not be jerked
around by internal forces
and not be jerked around
by external forces.
So my definition of stillness
is like how is someone steady
even when the world is spinning
very quickly around you, how
to act without frenzy,
how to hear only
what needs to be
heard, how to have
equanimity and poise, interior
and exterior, on command.
In the Tao Te Ching
their definition--
I think this is beautiful.
"Careful as someone crossing
an iced over stream,
alert as a warrior
in enemy territory,
courteous as a guest,
fluid as melting ice,
shapable as a block of
wood, receptive as a valley,
clear as a glass of water."
I think that's Kennedy
in the Missile Crisis.
That's Mr. Rogers personified.
That's Anne Frank.
That's what I aspire to
be like in my own life.
The Stoics were a little
bit more laconic and less
beautifully written than
the Buddhists and Confucius
but, I think, capture stillness
in its own unique way.
Marcus Aurelius writes,
"To be like the rock
that the waves
keep crashing over.
It stands unmoved and the raging
of the sea stills around it."
So what I thought
I would do today--
I'm not going to walk
you through the book.
I thought I'd just walk you
guys through 10 or 11 very
real strategies to access
this kind of stillness
in the real world in the midst
of a busy day, a busy life,
a chaotic time in the world.
And my promise to you, I will
not tell you to meditate,
because chances are
you're not going to do it.
And so what are other
active, easier ways
to get to that stillness?
So the keys to stillness that
I practice in my own life
and I think you guys can
practice in your life
are as follows.
So the first is get up early.
The earlier you wake
up, the stiller it is.
I love the sound, and the feel,
and the quiet of the house
before anyone else has
awoken, before the phone
has started ringing, before the
emails have started coming in.
This morning I got
up around 6:00.
I do have a three-year-old
and a five-month-old
so it does handle the getting
up early for me most mornings.
But the point is you
want to get up early.
And you want to
start whatever you're
doing as early as possible
in this stillness.
So the idea of waking up
early before the distractions,
before the impositions,
is really important.
Slight tip for instance.
I'm very anti-breakfast
meetings.
I don't want to start the day
doing something like that.
I want to start the
day with whatever
my creative practice or my
most important work task is.
So I get up early.
Then my corollary
to this rule is let
us start the day phone-free.
So my rule is that I don't
touch the phone for the first 30
minutes to 1 hour
that I'm awake.
I use an app called Spar.
I started it was 10 minutes.
And then I worked my way
up to 20 minutes, and then
30 minutes, and then an hour.
This morning I didn't touch my
phone for the first 2 and 1/2
hours that I was awake.
The first thing I had
to use was Google Maps
to figure out where I was going.
I feel like that
doesn't totally count.
But the point is I want to
start the day from a not--
the amount of people I know
whose the quality of their day
is determined by whether Donald
Trump went on a tweet storm
while they were sleeping, or
whether somebody from work
sent them a bunch of
emails, or they got
a bunch of unsolicited texts--
we start the day too
often from our back foot,
because instead of going
into the day intentionally,
we are reactive.
So I use Spar.
What Spar did for me
is it gamified the idea
of not using the phone.
So basically, when you wake
up, you don't touch the phone.
And then you have to
check in on the app
when you use your phone
for the first time.
And if you check in more than--
you've not been up for 30 or
40 minutes, or whatever it is,
it charges you money.
And then so the idea
was all the winners
of the challenge who made
it all the way through split
the pot at the end.
So I found I'm using technology
to help beat my technology
addiction.
But that's fine as long as it
gets me where I want to go.
But the point is, I don't
want to be reactive.
I don't want to be responding.
If I'm waking up early so
I can be in the right place
so things can be still and
quiet, the worst thing I can do
would be to pull up technology
that's telling me that that's
not a good way to be.
Right.
So I want to start phone-free.
What do I do if I'm
not using my phone?
Right.
This is crazy.
The first thing I do in the
morning is I go outside.
So we waited for it to
be light this morning.
And then I took my son
for a long bike ride.
We were out for about an hour.
We go outside.
We live on a dirt road
not far from Austin.
And being outside-- this is a
photo from a different trip.
I don't even take
the phone, which
means sometimes I
experience things
that I can't take pictures of.
And I just have to
be present for it
like every other human being
for all of human history
up until a few years ago.
But the point is I want
to just actually be.
And we talk.
Sometimes we don't talk.
We see things.
We watch the sun go up.
It's just quiet, and
still, and wonderful
even though, paradoxically, we
are in some form of movement.
So I go for this bike ride
or I go for this walk.
And it's wonderful.
And then I return home.
And the first thing I do with
this energy, again, is not
go straight to the phone.
I don't want to waste this
on email or social media.
I want to use this.
I want to start putting
this energy into something
productive.
So the first thing I do is
sit down with a journal.
I have two or three
journals that I use.
I use one called the
one line a day journal.
And you write one sentence
each day for five years
so you can see on
the page what you've
been doing on this exact
date for the last five years.
I've been doing it for
like 3 and 1/2 years.
So I can see where I was
on this day in history
the year before that.
It's really wonderful.
Then I go and I just write in
a random Moleskine, and just
things that I'm thinking about,
things that I'm working on,
things that I'm
struggling with, things
that I want to get better at.
And then I do the
"Daily Stoic" journal,
which it is my journal
so it's somewhat weird.
But it's just
giving you a prompt.
It gives you a sort of a
philosophically inspired
prompt for the day that
you set your intention for.
And then the idea
is that you revisit
that in the evening
or the following day
just to see how you did.
So I want to start my day
sort of intentionally.
And it might seem
weird as a writer
that I would start
the day by writing,
but it's actually kind
of just a warm-up.
What's really interesting
about philosophy
is that that's what Marcus
Aurelius' "Meditations" was.
It's one of the few
philosophical books
that we have that wasn't
published as a book.
The most powerful
man in the world
wasn't writing what he thought.
He was writing what he felt
he needed to know for himself.
And it's only a
complete accident
that this work survives to us.
He'd probably be
mortified that we're
reading his diary or journal.
But he's dead so
it doesn't matter.
The point is philosophy is
not just this thing you read
about one time and understand.
It's an active practice.
It's something you're
doing with yourself.
It's a dialogue with oneself.
I talked about the Missile
Crisis a little bit.
What I think is so fascinating
about the Missile Crisis
is that we have
Kennedy's doodles
and notes from the Missile
Crisis on legal pads.
He would write these things
to himself, sort of reminders.
He would write missile,
missile, missile,
or he'd write consensus,
consensus, consensus.
He was journaling
out, working out
what he was thinking
as he was thinking it.
Journaling is not the
only way to do this.
I know people that doodle
in the morning or sketch.
But the point is to have
a creative practice where
there are very low stakes.
And it's just sort of
getting the juices flowing.
Julia Cameron
calls morning pages
a sort of a form of
spiritual windshield wipers.
And I really like that analogy.
Kennedy really liked boating.
And so he drew these
pictures of sailboats.
You can imagine the entire world
is about to blow itself up.
And if he's not careful, he's
going to contribute to that.
The idea of just getting
out of that, zooming out,
calming his mind.
You can see how valuable
and important that would be.
Anne Frank writes that paper
is more patient than people.
And so when you think about the
stresses of the Missile Crisis,
it makes sense why he's writing.
He wants to dump out his
anger, and his frustration,
and his fears.
And the idea's that
he's workshopping
where there are low stakes so
he can perform better where
there's really high stakes.
So I think journaling is a
really important part of it.
Then my rule is you do
the main thing right away.
So the point of not
using the phone,
going outside, journaling,
this is all about
warming up for the most
important part of the day,
whatever that is.
So again, probably
a breakfast meeting
not the most important
thing of the day.
Right.
Responding to emails, not
the most important thing
to the day.
You know, calling
the airline to move
your ticket, the painful,
frustrating things--
going to the bank,
these are not the things
you want to start the day with.
You want to get the most
important thing out of the way
as soon as possible.
So my to do list, I write them
on four by six note cards.
It's really just a
handful of things.
So I've six things
on my to do list.
I think when you find really
successful people who do a lot,
you find that they're
not actually doing a lot.
They're just doing a
handful of important things.
So if I do these
six things today,
that will be a
successful day for me.
Some of these are
really important.
Some of them are
like administrative.
So the first thing
I did this morning
when I got up and did
all my stuff was then I
had an article to write.
I had an email for
"Daily Stoic" to write.
And I crossed those off early.
If I showed you
my to do list now,
you would see that all the
important things of this list
are finished.
And the reason for
doing that is that I
feel like you control the
early part of the day.
But as the day goes through,
your grip on the day
is loosening, because
things happen.
You don't feel good.
Somebody comes into your
office with a problem.
You get stuck in traffic.
Whatever, right?
The complexity of the day--
entropy enters the
longer you're at it.
And so if I can win
the morning, if I
can do the most
successful things early
when I'm coming at
it from a good place,
then the rest of
the day is extra.
Right.
I could write at 2:00
PM in the afternoon.
But the chances of me being
in the right headspace or me
having that unprotected time
at 2:00 PM in the afternoon
is much lower.
So I want to do it at 9:00
AM or 8:00 AM, get it done,
get as much of it
as possible done,
and then if I have a
great window at 2:00 PM,
maybe I'm going to keep going.
But I want to get the important
thing done as soon as possible.
And I like to not have
a list of 100 things,
but like a couple
of core things.
Consider that a win.
You keep going.
You want to run up the
score as much as possible.
But you have to win first.
Routine extremely important
as far as stillness goes.
Right.
You might think that people who
get to do whatever they want,
who--
a lot of you guys I'm sure have
the freedom to work from home,
or you get to determine
largely your schedule,
or, if you're a
creative like me, that's
one of the perks of the job.
But I find so many
people struggle at this
because this sort of freedom
becomes chaos for them.
I love the Eisenhower quote.
He said, "Freedom
is best defined
as the opportunity
for self-discipline."
So how do you create order
amidst the abundance or freedom
that you have as far as the 24
hours that we get in each day?
So order is really important.
I look at someone like
Winston Churchill.
How did he do so much?
How did he accomplish so much?
He gave thousands of speeches.
He served in government
for like 60 or 70 years.
He wrote something
like 10 million words.
He painted 500 paintings.
How did he do all this?
He was a creature of routine.
He woke up at the
same time every day.
He did the same thing.
He took a bath at the exact
same temperature every day.
He liked to do
somersaults in the bath
so they had to reinforce
the floor under the bathtub
because he splashed
too much water.
He wrote in the morning.
Then he wrote a little
in the afternoon.
Then he did a sprint before bed.
He read newspapers
at the same time.
He responded to correspondence
at the same time.
He was just a complete habit
and creature of routine.
And I think most
great people are.
It's about having a practice.
And so you do something
a couple times.
It becomes a habit.
Do it a lot of times,
it becomes a routine.
You do it over your life,
or you do it over decades,
I think it turns into ritual.
It becomes almost a
sacred experience.
And so writing is that for me.
Some of the other stuff we'll
talk about is that for me.
But you do it enough times.
You do it in the right order,
it becomes almost sacred
and you don't want
to break from it.
I'll talk about relationships.
But my favorite part
of Churchill's routine
is he said spouses should not
see each other before noon.
He's like, this is the key to
a happy marriage, which I love.
But the point is do it
whatever way works for you.
There are people
who are night owls.
Great.
Ignore the wake up early thing.
But the point is what order
are you doing these things?
And doing them in the same
order, doing them the same way
allows you to reduce
the complexity,
and chaos, and indecision.
People like Steve Jobs wearing
the same thing every day.
Obama famously chose
between two suits every day.
Right.
And then that one day he wore
a brown suit and everyone
lost their mind.
That's not why we're
having routines.
It's not for other
people, but for us.
It's to reduce that sort of
reaction inside ourselves.
Something I don't do
on purpose every day
is I don't watch the news.
I don't watch the news
for a lot of reasons.
I was traveling recently.
You walk through the airport.
It's hard not to watch the news.
Why?
Because CNN pays the
major airports to run CNN.
It's a special version of
CNN that never shows anything
about airplane crashes.
But the point is the news
is not there to inform you.
The news is there to
make you watch more news.
I think it's important to
be an informed citizen.
But I think the news is
often the worst possible way
to get informed, at least
consuming news in real time
moment.
The importance of hobbies is
a big part of my day is this.
It was a big part of
Winston Churchill's day.
After the First World War,
he suffered a little bit
of a nervous breakdown.
And his sister-in-law
came to him
and gave him her
children's paint set.
She said my kids have a
lot of fun with these,
maybe it would be
helpful for you.
And he picks up painting.
And he paints for
the rest of his life,
particularly in stressful times.
After the Casablanca conference
where all the Allied powers get
together, Churchill
drives five hours
to paint a picture of
a sunset in Marrakesh.
Think of everything that is
resting on his shoulders.
Think about all the stress.
But he's taking
time to disconnect.
He's taking time to
do something that
seemingly has nothing to do
with being prime minister.
But in fact, it has everything
to do with being prime minister
because it calms him down.
It allows him to think clearly.
The idea of disconnecting and
finding restoration in hobbies
is really, really important.
Me, I like fishing.
This is our farm.
It's got enormous fish in it.
And they can't go anywhere
so it's really easy.
But like working
on the farm you'd
think would be the
opposite of writing.
And that's why I love it.
It is the opposite of writing.
People go, oh, isn't having
a farm a lot of work?
And it's like, yes, but it's so
different than my normal work
that I often have all
sorts of breakthroughs
professionally,
personally, when I'm
in the middle of doing something
that seems very unrelated.
So whether it's feeding
the cows, or fixing fences,
the act of doing
something so different
than my creative profession
helps replenish and restore me.
Churchill actually wrote a book
called "Painting as a Pastime."
And he says the highest
priority for a public person
is to have two or three hobbies.
And he said they
should all be real.
And I think what he
means is your hobby you
can't be following the news.
Your hobby has to be like
painting, or sculpting,
or metal work.
One of Churchill's other
hobbies was brick laying.
He learned how to lay bricks.
And he built a series of
cottages on his estate
in the English countryside
that stands to this day.
And it was not just the hobby.
It was getting outside.
It was getting in the dirt.
It was being lost in
something very small,
again where the
stakes were very low.
His daughters would help him
so it was a family affair,
but the point is the hobby
it is a way to rest the mind.
In the ancient world, leisure
was not doing nothing.
Leisure meant sort of
school, right, scholae.
School.
It means learning, so it should
be a thing that challenges you
that that makes you better.
And I think this is
really important.
Actually, Aristotle said
the main question of life
is what is our leisure
time filled with.
And so it can't be more work.
It has to be
something different.
And the studies they've done
of like CEOs and high level
executives, their hobbies
tend to be something--
and a friend of mine made
this observation-- of they
tend to be something defined
by the absence of voices.
So something quiet that
where you lose your mind
and yourself in it.
So that's fly fishing, or
riding bikes, or hiking.
It's probably not partying,
or going to nightclubs,
or something like that.
Right.
It's something
restorative and creative.
But the power of hobbies
is really important.
I think exercise and
hobbies are related.
But the idea of being
active, again, paradoxically,
movement is a great way
to get to stillness.
My favorite form of exercise
for stillness would be swimming.
And Austin, I have to say, is
the most underrated swimming
town in America, which is
interesting because we're
totally landlocked.
But Barton Springs to me
is a wonder of the Earth.
Where else can you swim
in an eighth of a mile
long pool that's the same
temperature all year round?
Barton Springs is
the same temperature,
whether it's 105 out or
whether it's snowing out.
And I've been there
when it was snowing.
It's just amazing.
And so I love swimming.
There's no screens underwater.
Right.
I think it's great.
I don't know why people are
trying to make these waterproof
iPods happen.
The whole point
is that you can't
listen to music underwater.
I think that's what's
so great about it.
But I love swimming.
It's repetitive enough
but it's also low impact.
There's like a sensory
deprivation element to it.
Right.
I think there's something
sort of womb-like to it
which is why it's
so therapeutic.
But the point is I
try to swim every day.
I'm going to go
swimming after this.
I'll go to Deep Eddy
or Barton Springs.
But if you don't like
swimming or if you've never
been into swimming
and you want to try,
Austin's like the best city
in America you could do this.
Number two, to me,
would be Sydney.
If you've ever been to
the rock pools in Sydney,
they're just amazing.
People don't know this but
Mr. Rogers swam every day
at the Pittsburgh Athletic Club.
He had this whole
ritual and this routine.
He would sing a song
to himself before-- he
would weigh himself,
sing a song,
jump into the water,
swim, and then go to work.
The power of routine,
the power of ritual.
But I think exercise is
such a great part of this.
What I love about
exercise and having
this as kind of your hobby
or thing you do every day,
it's a guaranteed win.
I've never gone swimming
and then drowned.
I've never gone through a
run and not made it home.
I might go faster or slower,
but it's like an item on the
to do list that if
I start, I finish.
And it gives me a lot of
power, and control, and a way
to get a win.
So it doesn't matter
how stressful work was.
It doesn't matter the
bad news that I got.
It doesn't matter that I
messed this up or that up,
or that I just
wasn't feeling it.
I didn't have a
good productive day.
But I did manage to do this
thing that I wanted to do.
CrossFit's a great
way to do this.
I am more of an introvert,
so I hate CrossFit.
But the point is go do
some form of exercise.
Get the endorphins flowing.
But the movement is a beautiful
way to get to that stillness.
The power of relationships.
I think one of the
weirdest parts when
you study Buddhism is this idea
that, to seek enlightenment,
Buddha walks away
from his family.
He had a young son
and he was married.
To me, that doesn't really
seem like enlightenment.
Seems like the opposite
of enlightenment.
It's like, oh,
Buddha's a deadbeat.
That's interesting.
But the power of
relationships-- people
I hear that say, oh, I don't
have time for relationships.
I don't have room
for relationships.
I'm focused on my
career right now.
Actually, I think most of the
successful people that you
admire, that you look up to, had
some sort of relationship that
was foundational in their life.
You think of Angela
Merkel and her husband.
You think of great
writers who had
an endlessly supportive wife.
The power of relationships, to
me, is a source of stillness,
because it's someone who
knows you very intimately
but has the ability to
give you perspective
about your own life, your own
habits, your own tendencies,
someone you can bounce stuff
off to in a very safe way.
Churchill said that his
greatest accomplishment
was convincing his wife
Clementine to marry him.
And he's probably right
because she prevented him
from committing career
suicide many times.
And so having
someone who's totally
in your corner, again
who understands you,
who can calm you down.
In Churchill's wilderness
years where he's basically
exiled from political life, as
a sort of a go-getter, a person
who hated to be
on the sidelines,
there were many
times where he wanted
to rush back in where he was
going to force his way back
into politics.
And it was his wife who was able
to talk him down off this ledge
every time.
And it turned out to not
just be the right decision
for his career but like all
of humanity is in his debt.
If he had been in
politics or in power
while Hitler was ascendant,
he would have been tossed out
of office like everyone else.
The power of waiting, the power
of having a home to rest in
was deeply important.
My wife's here today.
She's been a huge
part of my success.
But the idea of having a
relationship I think cannot be
more-- it cannot be
over overstated enough.
And again, whatever form it
wants to come in for you,
just the point is
being an island
is a really bad way to do it.
And then, ultimately,
even if wasn't,
if it helped you get
everything you wanted,
I mean what's the point, right?
If you're doing this
all for yourself,
you have no one to share
it with in the end.
Is that really what
success looks like for you?
The power of saying no,
again, is a big part of it,
whether it's saying
no to the news
or saying no to
all the things that
are coming your way
so you can focus on
the things that matter.
A friend of mine gave
me this framed picture
of Oliver Sacks, which
has Oliver Sacks'
framed picture in it.
But he had in his office just
the word no exclamation point,
meaning you have to say no
to almost everything that
comes your way.
Early on in your career, you
had to say yes to everything.
That's how you
got where you are.
That's how you got here.
But to now do what you
do and to do it well,
you have to say no to all the
things that are not that thing.
I've talked to lots
of sports teams.
And the performance coaches
I talked to, particularly
in baseball, stress
this so much.
Like look, to become great at
sports, particularly baseball,
you get great by
swinging at pitches.
That's how you make a name
for yourself as a hitter.
But once you make it
to the major leagues,
now it's all about
plate discipline.
Can you not swing
at a pitch that's
almost good enough so you're
waiting for the perfect pitch?
Can you not fall for deceiving
pitches, the pitches that
are designed to get you to
swing that you actually have
no chance of connecting with?
This is really important.
So for me, it's all
about saying no.
I don't say no enough.
But I feel like if
I'd said yes any more,
it would be a problem.
But this is my
calendar for today.
Google Calendar, of
course, the best calendar.
I have two things
on my calendar.
That's it.
I actually tell my
assistant if there's
more than three things
on the calendar,
something got messed up.
Like my goal is to
have as few things
in the calendar as possible.
When I look at my day and it's
scheduled from 9:00 AM to 9:00
PM or whatever, that's
not only not my idea
of success, that's not winning
because I have to go do
a bunch of things that
other people want me to do,
but I'm not going to do
well at any of those things
because I'm just going from
appointment to appointment.
And so what my thinking is
if it's in the calendar,
it means I'm not
doing the main thing.
I'm not writing.
So it's awesome
to be here today,
but this took one hour
from writing from me.
And so having to actually
think about it in terms of cost
is really important.
Having kids was really great
for me in this sense too,
because it used to
be you would say yes
because you didn't want
to say no to someone.
You didn't want to
hurt their feelings.
But having a kid
crystallizes who
you're taking that time from.
It's like, oh, I don't
to say no to this person
because I don't want
to hurt their feelings,
but in doing that, I'm hurting
the feelings of a two-year-old.
Right.
And who do I care about
more, ultimately, right?
We can often not take
care of ourselves.
But if we can personify
who's saying no to
or saying yes to is
hurting, because you can't
do everything, you can't
be everywhere at once,
is really important.
We're not good at
calculating opportunity cost.
So we say yes.
We always think we can
squeeze more stuff in.
But what's harder
to calculate is, OK,
now in this meeting you had,
or this presentation you were
giving, or this code you
were sitting down to write,
now you're coming to
it at 90% capacity
instead of 100% capacity.
And it's really
hard to calculate
what the costs of that are.
So it's about saying no.
So the question I like
to leave people with
is like, what are you saying
no to so you can say yes
to what matters, whether that's
your work, or your family,
or your health.
You have to say no because
if you say yes, you
will have no stillness.
Another important part is
just the idea of letting go.
One of the most beautiful
exercises in Stoicism
is this exercise they call
the dichotomy of control.
And so they say, look,
here is everything
that's happening in the
world in the course of a day,
in the course of a moment,
and then here's all the things
that you control.
Right.
It's like a minuscule amount.
You don't control what happens.
They say you control
how you respond.
And so accepting that a
large amount of reality
is just not up to us at
all, we have no say over it,
is hugely important.
And this goes back to my thing
of not watching the news.
Is me watching this affecting
the outcome in any way?
No.
If you're watching the
debates because you
actually want to know who
you're going to vote for, great.
Now you're using this
information in some way.
If you're watching the
debates for entertainment,
guys, let me tell you, there's
a lot better entertainment
out there.
There are professional people
who entertain for a living.
And you might enjoy that
more than these other people.
But so is this
something you control?
Is it up to you or not?
This is a critical question.
And if it's not up to
you, you let go of it.
You just don't care about it.
It doesn't matter.
It becomes irrelevant to you.
And so this winnows
the amount of things
that you're focusing
on that you care about
that you have to be
monitoring in your head
and then allows you to
not only have stillness
but to be really locked in
and 100% there for the things
that you do control.
So the dichotomy of
control, it might
seem like a powerlessness
or a resignation,
but what it's doing
is it's embracing
the power you do have where
you do control things.
And I think it's a resource
allocation hack in the sense
that most people are spending
a good portion of their time
caring about working on
being anxious about things
they don't control.
And this comes at the cost of
the things they do control.
And so if we have a
finite amount of energy,
I want to focus that
finite amount of energy
exclusively on the area where
it's likely to change it
in one way or another.
So if I have a 1% chance
of influencing something,
I want to bring 100%
of myself to it.
Being present.
This is a really
important part and again
the dichotomy of control
allows you to be present.
You cannot change the past you
have no control over that you
have almost no
impact on the future.
But what you do control is
like what's in front of you
right now.
And so the idea
of being present--
I think Marina Abramovic's
"The Artist is Present"
performance is maybe
one of the greatest
athletic feats of all time.
She sat for, like, 80
consecutive days from morning
until night in a
chair just looking.
And people would cycle
through and look at her
for a few minutes.
And just being present
is so rare and so unusual
that this was almost a
religious experience for people.
We have so little
familiarity with presence
that people would break
down in tears just
making eye contact with a
person who is actually present.
And if you think about
how hard it is, like,
she can't be thinking about
how long she's been at this.
She can't be thinking about
how long she has to go.
She can't be thinking
about how bored she is.
She says, "One of
the hardest things
to do is next to nothing."
I would say one of
the hardest things
to do is just to be present
in the moment, whatever you're
doing, whether you're
sitting in traffic,
whether you're at
the doctor's office,
whether you're on a phone call.
Why do we multitask?
It's because we're
often drifting
from the task we should be on.
We're sitting on
a conference call
and we're going to check
some emails at the same time.
You're sitting across
from someone at dinner
and you're going to
check your phone.
You're going to try to do
these things at the same time,
because what you're really
afraid of is being present.
And I think that's so
interesting, because our power
is in the present.
You can't be great in the
past or in the future.
You can really only
have control over who
you are in this present moment.
And in a way, it's
kind of arrogant.
It's arrogant to
think that you could
be anything other than
100% at what you're doing
and perform at a high level.
Are you so talented that you can
only partway show up for this?
Or is there someone who
wants this more than you,
who is going to show
up 100%, and are they
going to eat your lunch?
The good news about
the present, and we'll
conclude with this a little
bit, but the good news
about the present is
that it keeps showing up
and you can start fresh.
I said I wasn't going to
talk about meditation,
but I'm going to
cheat a little bit.
If you ever have meditated
or tried to count your breath
or be fully present, you
find yourself drifting,
but you can always
just start over.
You can always just
come back to it.
And so presence is
something that you practice.
You try to be present,
and then you drift,
and you come back to it.
And so I try to remind
myself constantly
of the power of presence, of
the importance of presence,
to come back to it.
And it's a muscle that
you build up over time.
And the final way that
you get presence, I think,
is through contentment,
through enough.
There's a story
with Joseph Heller.
He's at a party
with Kurt Vonnegut.
They're at the house
of this billionaire.
Joseph Heller wrote "Catch-22."
Kurt Vonnegut wrote
"Slaughterhouse Five."
And Kurt Vonnegut's
teasing Joseph Heller.
He says, how does it feel to
know that this billionaire made
more money this week
than your novel will
make in your entire life?
And Heller looks
at him and he says,
well, it doesn't feel great.
But he's like, I have something
that this guy will never have.
And Kurt Vonnegut says,
what could that possibly be?
This guy has everything.
And Heller says, I have
enough, the idea of enough.
It's not that contentment
was complacency for Heller.
He wrote many other books.
They sold very well.
His books were
turned into movies.
He taught classes.
He was an active
participant at the highest
level of his profession,
but he was doing it
from a place of fullness,
from a place of enough,
not from a place of
craving or insecurity.
And I think, ultimately,
our best work comes
from that place of enough.
If you're doing it
because, oh, if I do this,
then I will feel rich, or if I
make this or accomplish this,
then my dad will be proud of
me, these are really bad reasons
to do things, because those
aren't things for you to earn.
You're never going to
fix internal insecurity
with external accomplishments.
You have to slow down and find
contentment in the present.
With my books, I have
to remind myself,
what I control is the writing,
so I might as well enjoy
this present experience, I
might as well enjoy the writing.
I don't control
whether I'm going
to be alive when it comes out.
I don't control how many
copies it's going to sell.
I don't control whether
it gets recognized
by this bestseller list or
this awards body or committee.
What I control is whether
I'm enjoying it and bringing
a full sense of myself
to that present moment.
Tiger Woods, he's
here with his father.
They look like
they're having fun.
His father was
probably a psychopath.
But--
[LAUGHTER]
--his father would refer
to enough as the E word,
like it was a swear word.
And so it shouldn't surprise
us that for Tiger Woods,
there was never enough.
There wasn't enough affairs.
There wasn't enough winning.
There was never enough for him.
And you can see where this made
him great in the short-term,
but eventually it imploded
and destroyed all the things
that he'd worked so hard for.
And then it's been
a long process
of rebuilding of
which we are just
now seeing the returns for.
And it looks-- and
I don't know him.
I'm looking at this
like an outsider.
It does look like the winning
is different this time.
The winning is coming
not from a place of need,
not from a place of
domination or humiliation
or sort of endless
greed, but coming
from a place of actually
enjoying the game
and enjoying the process.
And if he didn't actually enjoy
golf for the experience of it,
there's no way he
could have gotten
through that 10-year drought.
So coming to it from
a place of fullness
is way better than
the place of craving.
So those are some
tips for being still,
of slowing down,
actively using this
as a practice in real life.
I don't think it's just closing
your eyes and meditating,
and you magically
have stillness.
I think it's something that
you actively participate in,
that you cultivate
on a daily basis.
So I have one last story along
these lines that sort of ties
my routine together,
which is that on my walks
in the morning, we often
go and we find Buddy.
This is my donkey.
His name's Buddy.
We bought him on
Craigslist for $100.
[LAUGHTER]
If you've ever seen someone
liquidating a petting
zoo on Craigslist, let me tell
you, it was not a pretty sight.
But we got him.
He's awesome.
And so we'll go out and see him.
And he just stands
there a lot of times.
Like, this is what he does.
And sometimes he
comes and visits us.
He can open the back
door of the house.
But we go and we visit him
and he's just standing there.
And when I first
witnessed this, I
thought, man,
there's just nothing
going on in this guy's head.
Like, how is he standing
there for so long?
And then what I realized
is that he's doing his job.
Like, this is his job.
First off, donkeys are
livestock-guarding animals.
So they keep coyotes--
and there's mountain lions
in Texas if any of you guys
are new here.
He's fought off a
mountain lion before.
But they keep away mountain
lions and coyotes and bobcats
and stray dogs and
all sorts of things
that you don't want around cows
or goats or anything like that.
So he's just doing his
job by being around.
But as my pet, his main job,
like, a successful day for him,
if he doesn't die,
that's a successful day.
That's all that it takes.
He's not comparing himself
to the other donkeys.
He's not wondering if
he's living up to all
his potential or anything.
He's just present.
He just is.
He's just alive.
As long as he's alive, that's
a really successful day.
And so I try to actively sort of
practice that kind of gratitude
and that kind of simplicity.
There's a national park
between Austin and Dallas,
which I encourage
everyone to visit.
It's called Dinosaur
National Monument.
And you can walk
out into this river
and stand in a footprint
left by a dinosaur
110 million years ago.
There's a few of these in Texas.
This isn't actually a park.
There's also a
creationist museum
across the street that
denies that the footprint is
110 million years old.
Again, this is Texas.
But the point is, I
like standing in it
and just sort of
imagining that this has
been going on for however long.
It allows me to sort of
not care about the future,
not care about
the past, but just
feel sort of deeply
connected to something that's
been here a very long time.
And there's also
a humility in it.
Like, no one in this room
will leave a greater legacy
on this planet that will last
as long as this dinosaur has.
I feel like it helps
you connect it.
It helps you see a
bigger picture, sort
of how ephemeral and short-lived
our time on this planet is,
which is actually
the last practice I
want to leave you guys with.
I have a coin in my pocket and
it says Memento Mori on it.
And Memento Mori means
"remember death."
And there's a quote on the
back from Marcus Aurelius.
He says, "You could
leave life right now.
Let that determine what
you do and say and think."
And so the idea that
life is very short,
that it's very unpredictable,
and it's ultimately
very fragile, to me, is a
source not of anxiety or worry,
but of stillness.
Seneca talks about
how, if we can
balance the books of life each
day, we're never short of time.
And what he means
is that you want
to live each day as if it
might be your last day,
not as if it is your
last day for sure,
because you don't know, but
that it might be your last day.
So you leave nothing unfinished.
You don't waste time with
worry or holding onto grudges.
You don't waste your
time being overactive,
but you also don't waste this
moment not being active enough.
And so this is a source
of great stillness for me.
Unfortunately, he just passed.
But there's a man
named Richard Overton
who lived in Austin not far
from my office in East Austin.
And I would go and sit
on his porch sometimes.
He was 112 years old.
And I said, Richard, how
do you live to be 112?
Do you just take it day by day?
And he was like,
no, that's too long.
You take it day by night.
He's like, if I live through
the night, that's great,
and then I wake
up in the morning.
To me, this is the
right attitude.
This is the way
to think about it.
The final part from the Stoics
as far as Memento Mori goes
and what I try to think
about with this coin, Seneca
talks about how you don't want
to think of death as something
that's off in the
future, that, hey,
we're going to live
to be 75, so you
subtract your
current age, that's
how many years you have left.
He says, no, death is something
that is happening always.
So he says, the time that
has passed belongs to death.
Like, the 45 minutes that we
just spent together is dead.
It's dead time.
We lost it.
We all just died 45 minutes.
So I hope it was worth it.
[LAUGHTER]
But his point is the time
that passes belongs to death.
He says, we are dying every day.
We're dying every minute.
So I don't think about,
oh, I have 40 years left
if I live to be 70.
I think, oh, I've
already died 30 years.
And this brings me
back to the present,
this brings me to a
place of stillness,
and then it allows me to focus
on whatever is in front of me
at this moment.
And I hope that's
helpful for you guys.
So thank you very much.
It's been awesome.
[APPLAUSE]
And we can do some questions.
And I have a couple of these
coins for the first people that
ask questions if you were on
the fence with a question.
AUDIENCE: So actually on
the topic of Memento Mori--
RYAN HOLIDAY: Yes.
AUDIENCE: --my five-year-old hit
me with the question of death--
RYAN HOLIDAY: Yes.
AUDIENCE: --the other day.
And so if you were to
think of a parents' guide,
especially with younger
kids, how would you
approach the topic of
mortality and death?
RYAN HOLIDAY: Yeah.
I don't know.
Thankfully, I haven't had
to answer the question yet.
But in a way, one of the reasons
that question is so difficult
is we're flashing forward
to, like, what's this
going to mean for them, right?
We make it much bigger than
it actually is, instead of,
like, probably a short,
easily forgotten,
spur of the moment thing.
I don't stress out when they
ask me about other random stuff,
right?
So I'd probably just answer
honestly and straightforwardly,
and then they'd probably want to
watch "Paw Patrol" after that,
you know what I mean?
I think one of the
reasons that things
stress us out is instead of
thinking about what it is--
like, hey, this person has
a question about reality,
am I going to answer it or
not-- we're thinking about,
well, I don't want to
mess them up, you know,
or like if I answer
this question,
then I'm going to have to
answer another question and then
another, you know what I mean?
We extrapolate out.
We go, if I let them do
this to me right now, what
is my life going to look
like, when really we
should just think about what's
immediately in front of us.
Yeah.
Here.
That's closer.
AUDIENCE: Other than
working on your farm, what
other hobbies do you have?
RYAN HOLIDAY: Yeah.
So for me, I run
and swim every day.
Those are sort of my hobbies.
Working on the
farm is a big one.
And then, like, outdoorsy
stuff, like hunting and fishing
and that sort of thing.
But I like hobbies that get you
outside, that get you active.
For me, having
sort of a creative,
but sort of like profession
that requires me to sit a lot,
I want to do things that are
the opposite of that, you know?
So scrapbooking or
something is not
going to be a fun hobby for me.
But if you work in a
restaurant, maybe it is.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
RYAN HOLIDAY: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: One of
the-- oh, sorry.
RYAN HOLIDAY: Oh, sorry.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
RYAN HOLIDAY: Yeah,
we'll do you first.
Yeah.
AUDIENCE: One of the things
you talked about was managing
your time-- you showed
your pristine calendar--
we work at Google where there's
a lot of demands in bounds--
RYAN HOLIDAY: Sure.
AUDIENCE: --the calendar
looks super full,
we're like, oh, that's
a productive day.
RYAN HOLIDAY: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: This is kind of
taking that opposite view.
So how do we message this
maybe to peers, teams
without being really--
RYAN HOLIDAY: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: --now I'm a
maker, clearing my schedule?
RYAN HOLIDAY: Yeah.
I do really like Paul
Graham's essay on makers
versus managers, and
sort of deciding, like,
hey, my job is knowing
really clearly,
is your job to be in
meetings all day--
maybe it is, as it is
for a lot of managers--
or are you actually expected to
make something, in which case
you have to be actively not
being in meetings, right?
And so having some
awareness about where you
fit in that thing is important.
Marcus Aurelius
says, what if you
went through life asking
yourself at every moment,
is this necessary?
And so the question
for me is, like, oh,
does this meeting
actually need to happen
or could it be a phone call?
And then does this phone
call actually need to happen
or could it be an email?
Does this email even
need to happen or could
we just pretend this doesn't
matter, you know what I mean?
And so just really
being ruthless.
I saw a T-shirt that was
like, don't say maybe when
you want to say no, you know?
So not being afraid to
be the bad guy on stuff
and going like,
guys, this doesn't
need to happen, or like,
sorry, I can't make it,
send me a recap after.
Then if that's
difficult politically,
just pretend to be
sick a lot, so you
can get your actual work done.
Do you know what I mean?
One of the great things
about being a writer
is I can go, I'm sorry,
I'm on book deadline.
But I'm always on book deadline.
I just say this for the things
that I don't want to do.
[LAUGHTER]
AUDIENCE: I don't want to
hit someone in the head.
RYAN HOLIDAY: Yeah, yeah, sorry.
AUDIENCE: Thanks.
AUDIENCE: So was there
an inflection point
where you realized you wanted
to write your first book?
And what was the
actual experience like?
RYAN HOLIDAY: So
the rule I usually
give people who are thinking
about writing books is,
like, can you not do it?
Like, if you cannot do it,
definitely don't do it.
It's like, do you have to do it?
So I had ideas for
books, and the fact
that those books
didn't become books
was a sign that they
weren't the right book.
And that book, I felt
like it would be painful
if I didn't do it, because
a book is a painful process.
So if you can skip that, you
should definitely skip it.
So it's really thinking
about, like, is this the thing
I feel like I was put
on this planet to do,
not like, will this help
me get speaking gigs,
is this a good
way to make money.
There's many better ways to
make money and spend your time
than writing books.
So if you're going to
do it, you should do it
because it's deeply
important to you.
I mean, it's rewarding
in many ways,
and enjoyable, but
it's also like--
it's fun, but there's things
that are a lot more fun.
And so I'm not doing it for fun.
AUDIENCE: OK.
RYAN HOLIDAY: Yeah.
Yeah.
Here.
AUDIENCE: Appreciate it.
RYAN HOLIDAY: Sorry.
Bad throw.
AUDIENCE: That was on me.
RYAN HOLIDAY: It's right there.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] The
first one in terms of routine,
[INAUDIBLE].
So--
RYAN HOLIDAY: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: --with three little
kids who try and run that off--
RYAN HOLIDAY: Yes, of course.
AUDIENCE: --wondering, question
I have on how you keep that
routine while also not
necessarily neglecting--
RYAN HOLIDAY: Sure.
AUDIENCE: --the
things that you're
supposed to take care of?
RYAN HOLIDAY: So for
me, the transition
became going from having routine
to having routines, plural.
So it being like, my routine
is a collection of things
that I do every day, and then
having the flexibility to allow
the deck to be shuffled.
If somebody wakes up early,
or somebody wakes up late,
or something goes
long, these are still
the things I'm trying
to do every day,
and if I have my choice, I want
to do them in a certain order,
but being able to be flexible
about having routines
is really great.
Because that also
allows you to absorb
travel or being sick
or big interruptions.
It's like, OK, here's what
I do when I'm on the road,
here's what I do when
I wake up at 7:00,
but here's how I do it
if I wake up at 9:00.
Or if I had to work late,
here's what I do instead.
Having backup plans and backup
plans for the backup plans
is the way to do it, I think.
AUDIENCE: Cool.
RYAN HOLIDAY: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: What's
your favorite book?
RYAN HOLIDAY: Of all time?
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
RYAN HOLIDAY: I
think "Meditations"
is one of the sort of most
unique historical documents
in that it's the most powerful
person in the world writing
really honestly and
vulnerable to themselves, not
for an audience.
So I'd probably start there.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
RYAN HOLIDAY: Hey!
AUDIENCE: I was wondering
how you determine things
that you want to view at the
present versus things that are
worth learning from the past?
So for example, you
mentioned like [INAUDIBLE]
that you should
ingest and feel about
after it has already occurred.
But some things--
I mean, part of life is
reacting to the current moment.
So where do you make
that distinction.
RYAN HOLIDAY: No,
that's a great question.
I think I'm a huge reader
and student of history.
That's like the core
of all my books.
So I'm not saying you only
focus on what's in front of you.
I'm saying that when you're
consuming information,
you want to consume information
that has a long half life,
not information that's likely
to be rendered irrelevant
by the next piece
of information.
So I would rather--
it's like, if I only
have this present moment
and I'm going to
read a book or I'm
going to consume
information, I want
to read a book about something
that definitely did happen
and what people learned from
it, not is this going to happen
or not going to happen?
Is this based on good
information or bad information?
You know, I don't want
to read speculation.
Or I don't want to read
off-the-cuff opinions
about things.
I want to really
go towards where
we have some established
wisdom or insight.
Because that's likely to
help me, both in the present
and in the future.
SPEAKER 1: We're going
to do one more question.
RYAN HOLIDAY: All right,
I only got one more coin,
so that's perfect.
AUDIENCE: So building off
of that question, as well
as the [INAUDIBLE]
question, in your books,
there's so many great stories
and so much research that
has gone into all of it. how
do you formulate your process
from deciding what
you're going to read
to what is important to
include-- that kind of thing?
RYAN HOLIDAY: So there's an
element of randomness to it,
but it's also--
I try to be
intentional about it.
So it's like I want to learn
about all the different things
that I don't know.
So I'm always sort of going
into deep dives of topics
that I don't have familiarity
into that I want to study.
And then when I'm reading,
I'm very intentional about--
I tend to only read
physical books.
I read them, I'm taking
notes in them as I'm reading,
I'm folding pages.
Then afterwards, I sort of
let it sit for a little bit.
And then I synthesize that
information onto note cards.
I use 4" by 6" note cards.
Then I organize those note
cards in, basically, boxes.
And those stacks
of note cards, when
they tend to uncover
patterns, become the books.
And then so it's
like, oh, I've found
a lot of interesting
stuff about obstacles.
Maybe I'll write
a book about that.
Or ego, maybe I'll
write a book about this.
Stillness came from one quote
that I found in one book.
And then it was like,
it sort of retroactively
made me realize I'd been
collecting stuff about this,
not knowing that's what I was
doing or why I was doing it.
But the process of interacting
with the information
in multiple mediums and it
being somewhat labor intensive
is really important.
I'm not a big fan of Kindle
highlights or an Evernote file,
where these things are really
just going in a black hole.
You think you're remembering
them, but you're not.
It's the process of writing
them down, and moving them,
and being able to physically
touch them, and then
have to go, OK, here I've
mentioned some story.
And it's on page
62 in this book.
And then I've got
to go to my shelf,
and get it down,
and read it again.
By the time something
appears in the books
or in one of my
talks, I've interacted
with this story so many times,
in so many different ways
that I have a recall for
it and a familiarity.
And I feel like
it gets integrated
into my consciousness in a
way that just highlighting
it or writing a memo to myself
on my phone wouldn't do it.
Awesome.
Yeah, thank you guys.
[APPLAUSE]
