STILLNESS IS THE KEY SUMMARY BY RYAN HOLIDAY

Introduction

Hello Friends Today, we are going to talk about a book, called, "Stillness is the key", written by Ryan Holiday.The aim of this book is to show that slowing down is a great weapon for charging ahead, how to uncover and draw upon the stillness we already possess.The book is, for every kind of person, a path to enlightenment and excellence, greatness and happiness, performance as well as presence.Ryan holiday, author of this book, is an American author, marketer, entrepreneur, and founder of the creative advisory firm brass check.Also, he is a media strategist, former marketing director of American Apparel, and a media columnist.Let's understand in detail the importance of stillness in our lives.Car horns,stereos,cell phone alarms, social media notifications, personal & professional problems.Who has the power to stop them?Who has time to think or to fight that deafening noise?What is stillness?To be steady,while the world spins around you.To act without frenzy.To hear only what needs to be heard.To possess quietude on command, both outside and inside.If you’ve given your best to something, knowing you’ve left nothing in reserve, that’s called stillness.If you’ve poured all of your training into a single, decisive moment, that’s stillness.If you’ve walked out alone on a quiet street at night as the snow fell, content of being alive – that, too, is stillness.If you haven't subscribed to our channel yet, stillness is the key summary and analysis

stillness is the key ryan holiday summary

Stillness has three domains: Mind. Soul. And body.We will explore them in detail.

The domain of the mind.

We all face crisis.A business on the brink of collapse, An acrimonious relationship, a decision about the future of our career, a moment where the whole game depends on us.In these situations we must: Be fully present.Empty our mind's preconceptions.Take our time.Sit quietly and reflect.Reject distraction.Weigh advice against the counsel of our convictions.Deliberate without being paralyzed.Become present.Being in present moment is essential.But it can be the hardest thing in the world.As we struggle with a crisis, our mind repeats on a loop, just how unfair this is, how strange it is that it often happens to us, we can not do anything about it.Don’t reject a difficult or boring moment because it is not exactly what you want.Don’t waste a beautiful moment because you are feeling insecure or shy.This moment, that we are experiencing right now, is a gift.That’s why it is called the present.Limit your inputs.Each of us has access to more information than we could ever reasonably use.We tell ourselves that, it’s part of our job, that we have to be on top of everything, and so we give up precious time to news, reports, meetings, and other feed-backs.To think clearly, it is essential to figure out how to separate inconsequential from the essential.Empty the mind.We’ve all experienced and said to ourselves that: "We should not do this."And what happens?We do exactly what we were trying not to do!Whatever you face, by over-thinking it, by needless doubts, or second-guessing, don’t make it harder.Keep your mind clear.Slow down, think deeply.First impressions often mislead.The world is like muddy water.To see through it, we have to let things settle.So much of the distress we feel comes from reacting instinctively, instead of acting with conscientious deliberation.If we slow down, we will know the truth.

Start journaling.Instead of carrying the baggage around in your head or heart, put it down on a paper.Instead of letting the thoughts run unchecked, or making half-baked assumptions, force yourself to write and examine them.Putting your own thinking down on paper ts you see it from a distance.It gives you objectivity, that is often missing due to frustrations from anxiety and fears.Cultivate silence.If we want to think better, we would need to take time to be quiet.If we want to know more, need more insights, breakthroughs, or ideas, we have to create more room for them.Limit your inputs, and turn down the volume, so that you can access deeper awareness around yourself.By shutting up,we can hear what the world wants to tell us.Or what we’ve been trying to tell ourselves.Seek wisdom.Everyone agrees on this thought: we need to ask questions, study and reflect, be intellectually humble, experience failure and mistakes.Wisdom is about seeing the big picture, accumulation of experience, and the ability to rise above the biases.Find people you admire, and ask how they reached where they are.Seek book recommendations.Put yourself in tough situations.Accept challenges.Find confidence, avoid ego Confidence grants the freedom to set your own standards, and releases you from the need to prove yourself.A confident person doesn’t fear disagreement, and under any pressure, stops from accepting the wrong as the right .Let go.The desire to control schedule and process, holds us back from mastering our subject.Loosening the grip on a method or an outcome gives you more control than gripping tightly.Entrepreneursdon’t walk the streets deliberately looking for opportunities.To noticing every little things around them, they open themselves.

The domain of the soul.

Monk Thich Nhat said on the human condition, “On the surface of the ocean there is stillness, but underneath, there are currents.” Tiger woods was mentally tough, cold-blooded, and talented.But that stillness existed only on the golf course.Those who seek stillness in life, must do this:Develop a strong moral direction.Steer clear of jealousy and harmful desires.Come to terms with the painful wounds of your childhood.Practice gratitude and appreciation for the world around you.Cultivate relationships and love in your lives.Have faith in higher power.Understand that there is nothing “enough”.Desires never end.Heal the inner child.Many of us carry wounds from our childhood.It’s dangerous to create a monster to protect your wounded inner child.To heal the wounds, it takes patience, empathy and self-love.To think about the pain from your early experiences, take the time.Your inner child needs a hug from you.They need you to say: “hey, buddy. It’s okay.I know you’re hurt, but I will take care of you.” Beware desire.Lust is a destroyer of peace in our lives.A person enslaved to his urges, can never be free.Only those of us who take the time to explore, question,and think over the consequences of our desires, have an opportunity to overcome them.Only they know that, real pleasure lies in having a soul that’s true, stable, happy and secure.Enough.

Without a desire to get better, no one can achieve excellence or enlightenment.The mentalitythat takes an athlete to the top, often prevents them from enjoying what he worked so hard for.The desire to have more is like a hydra; which keeps increasing.Satisfy one, and two more grow in its place.Bathe in beauty.Not that all beauty is so immediately beautiful.We can't always on a farm or at the beach.Which is why you must cultivate the poet’s eye, the ability to see beauty everywhere, even in the banal or the terrible.Accept a higher power.The common language for accepting a higher power is about “letting it into your heart.” This is about rejecting the tyranny of our intellect, about our immediate observational experience, and about something bigger, which is beyond ourselves.It's about accepting it.Just know that this step is open to you.It’s waiting for you, and when you’re ready, it will help restore you to sanity.Enter relationships.Anyone can be rich or famous.But for your family, only you can be father, mother, brother, sister,or soul mate.Relationships take time.They expose and distract us, cause pain, and cost money.A good relationship requires us to be faithful,be available,be empathetic,be generous,and be open.No one would say that’s easy.But rising with challenge transforms us.Stillness is best not sought alone.Like success, it is best when shared.Conquer your anger.Leaders, artists, generals, and athletes, who are driven primarily by anger, not only tend to fail over long term, but also become miserable.Our stillness depends on our ability to slow down, and not on ability to be angry.It runs on different fuel.Fuel that doesn’t hurt others people, nor their peace.We truly respect the leaders, who are fueled by love, by country,by compassion,by destiny,by idealism, and by family.All is one.Whether it comes from the perspective of space, a religion,or the silence or meditation, the understanding that we are all connected, that we are all one, is a transforming experience.Everyone is important.Even the people you don’t like.No one is alone, neither in suffering nor in joy.Down the street, across the ocean, in another language, someone else is experiencing the exact same things.Still,often we forget it, and we forget ourselves in the process.

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The domain of the body.

Churchill was asked, “according to you, what can be the attributes of success in life?” He replied,“ To conserve your energy.Never stand up when you can sit down, And never sit down when you can lie down.” To turn our bodies into our allies, we need to: Rise above our physical limitations.Find hobbies that rest and replenish us.Develop a reliable, and a disciplined routine.Spend time getting active outdoors.Seek out solitude and perspective.Learn to sit quite when nothing is called for.Get enough sleep.Each of us needs to get better at saying no.As in:“No, sorry, I’m not available.” “No, I’m going to wait and see.” “No, I don’t like that idea.” “No, I don’t need that, I’m going to make the most of what I have.” You’re often asked to give a piece of your life, in exchange for something that you don’t even want.Remember, it’s your life & time, that you can never get back.When we know what to say no to, we can say yes to the things that matter.Take a walk."When I am okay, I take a walk,and, therefore, walk away from every illness.I walk myself into my best thoughts, and thoughts that feels like a burden, I walk away from them."These are the words of first existentialist philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard.A good walk isan embodiment of the concepts of presence, of emptying the mind, and of noticing and appreciating the beauty around you.Build a routine.Most peoplewake up to face the bewildering and overwhelming choices.

This is exhausting.When we automate and routinize the trivial parts of life, we free up resources to do important and meaningful work.Get rid of your stuff.Mental and spiritual independence matter little, if the things in the physical world do not own us.We don’t need to get rid of all our possessions, but we should keep asking ourselves, what we own, why we own it, and can we live without it?The more we own, the more we oversee, the less room we have to move, the less still we become.Give away to needy people, things you don’t need.Seek solitude.If you have never been in favour of yourself, it’s difficult to understand yourself.Solitude allows you to reflect, while others are reacting.To refocus on prospective decision-making, we need solitude, rather than reacting to problems as they arise.Grab these moments.Schedule them. Cultivate them.Be a human being.In japan they have a word, Karōshi, which translates to death from overwork.Do you want to be a work-horse that draws its load until it dies?Is that what you were sent on this planet for?Our body is a gift.Don’t work till death.Don’t burn it out.Go to sleep.Sleep is the source of all health and energy.We have only limited energy for our work, for our relationships, for ourselves.A smart person understands this, and saves it carefully.Great people protect their sleep, because it’s where the best state of mind comes from.They say no to things.They turn away after hitting their limits.They don’t let lack of sleep undermine their judgment.They are aware that, everyone functions better when well-rested.Find a hobby.Josef Pieper wrote that, “The ability to be ‘at leisure’, is one of the basic powers of the human soul.” You rest for money, you don't rest to impress people, no one is making us do it.You have to do it for yourself, like assembling a puzzle, or struggling with a guitar lesson.Beware escapism.Often people think, escaping is positive.You can’t escape from your body, from problems that exist in your mind and soul.You can’t run away from your choices, you can only fix them with better choices.What you seek will only come, if you do better work, if you probe yourself with real self-awareness and patience.The next time we feel the urge to flee, look inside your heart and your mind, and let the body stay put.Build a life,that you don’t need to escape from.Act bravely.Fred Rogers says, “To see people who notice the need of the world, and do something about it, those are my heroes.” Action is what matters.Start with these:

Pick up the phone and tell someone what they mean to you.Share your wealth.Pick up the trash you see on the ground.Step in when someone is being bullied, even if you might get hurt.Tell the truth.Maintain your vows, keep your word.Stretch out a hand to someone who has fallen.So friends,Stillness means to be steady, while the world spins around you.Stillness has three domains: mind, soul, and the body.To be fully present, to empty your mind, to sit quietly and reflect, and to reject distraction.Stillness of the soul means to develop a strong moral direction, to avoid harmful desires, to practice gratitude, to cultivate relationships.To be still with your body means, to learn to say no, to find hobbies, to develop a disciplined routine, to seek solitude and perspective, to get enough sleep, and to make yourself better.

Thank you so much.

STILLNESS IS THE KEY SUMMARY BY RYAN HOLIDAY