PNTV - The Rhythm of Life by Matthew Kelly

You're listening to Optimize with Brian Johnson. More wisdom in Less time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to Philosopher's Notes tv. Today we've got another great book, the Rhythm of Life by Matthew Kelly. I was turned on to this book by Hal Elrod, who wrote the Miracle Morning. He referenced him a bunch of times, picked up a couple of his books. Glad I did. He's fantastic. We have a philosopher's note with a bunch of big ideas. I've got my five favorite ones here. Let's jump in. Big idea number one is choices. But before we get there, I want to describe something that is at the heart of all Matthew Kelly's work. So he says that what we want to do is live as the best version of ourselves. The best version of ourselves always got those dashes whenever he describes it. That's the purpose of his work, is to help you and us discover the best version of ourselves. That's obviously, therefore the purpose of this book. How do we live consistently as the best version of ourselves? Well, what we do is we realize that every single thing is a choice. Every single moment gives us an opportunity to either express the best version of ourselves or not. Every single moment. Think about that. Every single moment, we have a choice. Are we going to express the best version of ourselves or not? That's the question. So when you come to a place during your day and you realize, well, I don't know what to do, the question is, well, what would the best version of me do right now? Make a choice to live from that place. The word that we use all the time in these episodes is arete. The Greeks said, if you want happiness, if you want to flourish, you need to live with arete. You need to close the gap between what you're capable of doing and what you're actually doing. Because if there's a gap between what you're capable of being, which is the best version of yourself, and what you're actually doing, that's where regret, anxiety, disillusionment, depression, everything you don't want to have in your life shows up. Close the gap. Make it such that what you're capable of doing and what you're actually doing match be the best version of yourself now, moment to moment to moment to moment, and recognize that it's all a choice. You have the power to choose wisely, he says. Also, imagine yourself 10 years from now, 10 years from now, what's your life look like? Think about that for a moment. Ten years from now. Fast forward. Look at your life from a vantage point of 10 years from now. What does it look like? Well, I'll tell you what it's going to look like, the sum total of all the choices you make, moment to moment to moment to moment. So get a really clear sense of your ideal vision of. Of you and your life in 10 years, and then realize that that vision and this moment are tied together. It's like a rubber band. You're stretching it apart. They're connected. Choose wisely. Moment to moment to moment to moment to moment. That's the first big idea. We went into some detail there. Second big idea is a good story. He's a great storyteller as well, Matthew is. He tells us a story about Itzhak Perlman, one of the best violinists in the world. Short version of the story is, Itzhak's playing at a concert, maybe in Vienna or wherever he was, and he puts on this extraordinary performance, and he volunteers his time for a charity to hang out with some people afterwards where they can shake his hand and say thanks and all that stuff. So he does that, and people are waiting behind the security lines, and he's got his little security guards, and people are coming up saying hi to him, shaking hands, and a guy comes up to him and says, you were amazing tonight, Mr. Perlman. Appreciate you and your genius, and you're just extraordinary. And Itzhak politely thanks him for his praise, and the guy keeps on going. He says, no, really, you're just amazing, just absolutely extraordinary. He says, I've seen all the best violinists, and you're by far the best. What you did tonight was just extraordinary. I would give my whole life just to be able to play the way you played tonight. Yitzhak Perlman said, I have. I have given my entire life to be able to play like this. And his whole purpose for playing is to inspire us to see what's possible, to be lit up by his music, to see what we're capable of doing, as Matthew says. And guess what? He literally spends his entire life, nine hours a day. He practices for four and a half hours in the morning, takes a little break, eats lunch, gets back at it, practices for another four and a half hours in the afternoon, then spends time with his family every single day. His entire life has been given to his craft. Now we look at it and go, wow, I'd do anything to be able to perform like you. But really, would we do anything? Because we have that choice. We can do whatever we want. We can give our whole lives to something to be truly great and this is what Matthew's challenging us to do. Be the best version of ourselves. The best version of ourselves is extraordinary. Think about that. The best version of you, that's amazing. And the best version of you today, vis a vis a month, a year from now, as you continue to stack up those moments, is even more amazing. In 2 years, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, 25 years, God willing, 50 years, God willing, who are you? The best version of yourself when you stack up those moment to moment choices, you're truly great, is the answer. You're extraordinary. That's what we want to do, give our whole lives to being that next question is tied to that. A question for heroes. What's the question that heroes ask themselves? Is it, how can I do the least? Is that what heroes ask, how can I do the least to get what I want? Matthew Kelly says that's absurd. Heroes don't ask that. Heroes ask, how can I do the most? How can I do the most? How can I do the best I've ever done? That's what I'm committed to doing. Think of an Olympian training for a gold medal. They want to win the gold. Do you think they're asking themselves, how can I do the least possible effort to win a gold medal? That's absurd. Champions don't think like that. They think about how they can give the most of themselves to the world. The best version of themselves, moment to moment to moment. We want to think like that. That is a question for heroes. We want to ask the next big idea. The fourth one is feeling like it. We talk about this all the time. Essentially, what you feel like doing in any given moment should not be the determining factor of what you actually do. He says, do you think that great people you admire, that we admire, if they only did things that they felt like doing in the moment, they wouldn't do a whole lot. Matthew has an extraordinary sentence in there. He says, look, if you're only going to do what you feel like doing, I can guarantee you that you will be miserable and a failure, period. We need to be able to move through this not feeling like it. Ness ask ourselves, what would the best version of ourselves do? And then do it. David Reynolds in Constructive Living, who we reference all the time, has that great question, now what needs to be done? Whether you feel great or you feel less than great, there's really only one question to ask now, what needs to be done? Now what needs to be done? Ask that question and then go do what needs to get done. And you will do a ton that's the fourth big idea, the fifth big idea. Silence is magic. Silence is magic. So if we want to align with the rhythms of life, part of the rhythms of life includes silence. He talks about the fact that even the best music was created in silence. Look at a Beethoven or a Mozart. Those guys used to go pack themselves away for days in silence. Nobody distracted them and they came out with this extraordinary music. Now we need to do that in our lives. And he says an hour a day at the very least. Turn off your talk radio on the way to work, Turn off the TV for one night a week. Do you really need that on in the background all the time? Do you need to have constant never ending stimulation throughout your day? The news here or music here, and something always stimulating your brain. Stephen King talked about it in a different context when he was teaching after graduating from college. He said at the end of the week he felt like he had jumper cables on his brain all week. It's really hard to create anything great when you have jumper cables attached to your brain all the time. So if we want to connect to something bigger than ourselves, one of the ways to do that is via silence. We want to create more silence in our lives. We talked about this in the miracle morning in his Life Savers, Hal Elrod had s for silence. He was deeply inspired by Matthew Kelly to create that silence. Whatever you do, whether it's prayer or contemplation or meditation or whatever, create more silence in your life by time blocking in your morning or evening or both. And then in the little things, see if you can find ways to be quiet by turning off the radio, the TV, etc. So there you go, the rhythm of life that helps us be the best version of ourselves. We start by recognizing every single moment in is a choice to either express the highest version of ourselves, what we're capable of doing, or not. When we have a gap is when we feel the regret, anxiety, depression, etc. You close that by living with Arete. Choosing wisely, then remember our 10 year version of you is going to be the byproduct of your moments, moment choices. Choose wisely. Everything is a choice. My whole life. That's what Yitzhak Perlman gave to that one performance. In that one night. What are you going to give your whole life to? Aspire to greatness, Aspire to do something profound. Your question you're going to ask yourself as you do that if you're feeling so inspired, is not how can I do the least today? If you're in a job you don't like. How can you do the most? Quit mailing it in. That's not good for anybody. Starting with you. How can you do the most? Your entire life will change when that becomes the question. How can I do the most? How can I be the best possible version of myself right now? Superhero question. Whether you feel like it or not is irrelevant now. What needs to be done? And then Silence is magic. Create silence in your days. There you go. Hope you enjoyed and I look forward to sharing more with you soon. Have another awesome day. See you. Hi, this is Brian. I hope you enjoyed that Philosopher's Notes TV episode. If so, I think you'll enjoy everything else we offer at BrianJohnson me. Two basic things one our free newsletter. It's called the Optimizer. Over 50,000 people start their day with it and they tell us it's pretty awesome. And 2 our optimal living membership program. This is where I put all my best stuff. 10 bucks a month for a ton of wisdom. Two primary things in there philosopher's notes plus optimal living 101 classes when you sign up, you'll get instant access to 250 philosopher's notes, which are basically six page PDFs and 20 minute MP3s where I capture my favorite big ideas from great books. The PNTV episodes are kind of a mini version of all that goodness. You'll also get instant access to all my Optimal Living classes. 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