In the following summary, you'll learn why stillness is the key and how to develop stillness on command.
Video Summary by Productivity Game
Key Takeaways
On the morning of October 16th, 1962, United States President John F. Kennedy woke to learn that the Soviets were assembling ballistic, nuclear missile sites in Cuba, 90 miles off the coast of Florida.
Kennedy’s advisors urged him to strike immediately. Aggression must be met with aggression they said. Every second you waste risks the safety and reputation of the United States. But thankfully JFK remained calm.
Throughout the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy routinely went to the White House garden to think before returning back to the war room to determine his next move.
After a 13-day standoff between the Americans and the Soviets, JFK’s patience and thoughtful response to Soviet aggression, like deciding to set up a blockade around Cuba and not attack it, allowed for cooler heads to prevail. The Soviets realizing their position was untenable backed down.
JFK’s stillness during the Cuban Missile Crisis saved millions if not billions of lives. His sound judgment under intense stress was a result of stillness.
Author Ryan holiday says stillness inspires new ideas, it sharpens perspective and illuminates connections, helps us resist the passions of the mob, and makes a space for gratitude and Wonder. Stillness allows us to persevere, to succeed. It is the key that unlocks the insights of genius.
To reap the full benefits of stillness, we must focus on three domains: mind body and spirit. Empty the mind, move the body, and satisfy the spirit.
The Three Stillness Strategies
1. Empty the Mind
- If you look at the Cuban Missile Crisis archives, you’ll find pieces of paper where Kennedy wrote missile, missile, missile or consensus, consensus, consensus.
- In one tense meeting, Kennedy drew two sailboats at the top of a yellow legal pad to calm himself with thoughts of the ocean he loved.
- On a piece of White House stationery he clarified his primary aim by writing, “we are demanding withdraw of the missiles”.
Kennedy consistently put pen to paper to calm his mind and achieve clarity.
Julia Cameron, author of the Artists Way, does something similar. She has a writing practice that helps empty her mind and create space for creative thought every morning called morning pages.
- Morning pages is a stream of consciousness writing exercise in which you write out your thoughts longhand without stopping to fix mistakes for three pages.
- As you fill the three pages with thoughts, you trap the muddy, maddening, confusing thoughts (nebulous worries, jitters and preoccupations) on paper so that you can face the day with clear eyes.
- What you write doesn’t have to make sense because it won’t be read by anyone.
- Brian Koppelman, screenwriter for the movie Rounders and the TV show Billions, swears by his morning pages practice and credits much of his professional success to his morning pages daily ritual.
To find stillness at the beginning of every day, fill three pages with your thoughts, then throw out the paper and start your day free from internal distraction.
2. Move the Body
In the mid-1920s, Winston Churchill signed a contract to produce a six-volume, three thousand page account of World War I while still trying to manage his responsibilities as Chancellor to the National Treasury.
- Rather than power through the heavy workload and turned into a ball of stress, Churchill took up an odd form of leisure to rejuvenate his mind between work sessions. That odd form of leisure was bricklaying.
- The slow, methodical process of mixing mortar and stacking bricks was perfect to keep his body busy while simultaneously allowing his mind to unwind.
- Churchill’s daily regimen was lay 200 bricks, write 200 words.
A generation before Churchill British prime minister William Gladstone would routinely go to his country cottage, grab an axe from the shed and go into the nearby woods to chop down dying trees.
- According to Gladstone’s diary, he did this more than a thousand times, often bringing his family with him.
- Gladstone said he found the tasks so consuming that he had no time to think of anything but where the next stroke of the axe.
The two men, Churchill and Gladstone, found stillness with a meditative physical activity. As their bodies completed repetitions, their minds were restored.
- A friend of mine likes to throw axes to achieve stillness and restore his mental capacities after a long day of work.
- My two favorite restorative activities are hitting buckets of balls of the driving range and going for long runs. When I’m at the driving range or on the running path, my only objective is to lose myself in the repetitive motion of hitting the balls or moving my feet.
What meditative physical activity can you lose yourself in and return to your work refreshed and ready to produce great work?
Whatever the activity, put it on your weekly calendar first and then schedule your work around it.
3. Satisfy the Spirit
Several years ago two well-known authors attended a party hosted by a New York City billionaire. As they walked through the billionaires mansion, the one author turned to the other and said how does it feel that our host, only yesterday, may have made more money than your novel has earned in its entire history?
The author smiled and replied, “I’ve got something he can never have”. Oh yeah what’s that? “the knowledge that I’ve got enough.”
That author was Joseph Heller. Even though Heller felt he had enough, he was still wildly productive. After his smash hit novel catch-22. He wrote six more books, one of them a best-seller.
Ryan says no one does their best work driven by anxiety and no one should be breeding insecurity in themselves so that they may keep making things. That is not industry, that’s slavery.
The feeling of never having enough might motivate you to achieve more, but it will ultimately be destructive.
- Richard Nixon never felt like he had enough power, look where that got him.
- Tiger Woods had it all top of the sports world, perfect family, but it wasn’t enough. His insatiable appetite led to several affairs, and injuries from Navy SEAL training. The affairs and injuries derailed his career for nearly a decade and will likely prevent him from getting the one record he coveted most, the all-time major championship record.
Ryan Holiday reminds us that we will never feel okay by way of external accomplishments. Enough comes from inside.
"It comes from stepping off the train and seeing what we already have, what we've always had. If we can do that, we will be richer than any billionaire."
We must give ourselves the feeling of enough each day.
- Today when you sit down to have a meal or pull out your phone, pause and realize that the wealthiest person in the world a hundred years ago would envy you today.
- He or she would marvel at your ability to instantly access information, listen to an endless supply of music, watch an endless supply of movies, and pick from a vast array of delicious food.
The goal each day should be to cultivate a feeling of abundance. To hit pause on the desire for more and find a bit of stillness, because in that stillness you’ll find you have more presence, more clarity, and more insight.