MBA1513 Must Read: Stillness Is The Key by Ryan Holiday

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Hey O. Welcome to the $1 NBA show. Because a better business begins with you. That's why we deliver daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the $100 MBA, a complete business training and community online and today's episode is a must read episode. On our Must Read Episodes. I share with you a book that I've read that has influenced me as an entrepreneur. I share with you its takeaways, its insights and why you should read it too. Today's must read is Stillness is Key by Ryan Holiday. If you're a fan of this podcast, you know that I'm a f of Ryan Holiday's books. I've read every single one. And this is his latest book which upon release was a instant number one New York Times bestseller. Who is this book for? Well, if you're an entrepreneur that often feels overwhelmed with everything you gotta do, you might even have a sense of anxiety, a sense of, you know, always living in your head and maybe even reacting impulsively and making decisions out of pressure, well then you're gonna absolutely love this book. One of the gifts that Ryan Holiday has when he writes a book is but it's well researched. He gives plenty of examples from modern day history as well as ancient history. And he always brings it back to practical application in your day to day life. I'm going to go through just some of the great insights I learned from this book. How you can best utilize these insights or utilize this book in general and how you can apply it immediately to your business. We got a lot to cover, so let's get into it. Let's get down to business. What I love about this book, today's must read Stillness is Key, is that it debunks a lot of ideas that people might have about having a calm demeanor. A lot of people hear this title, Stillness is Key and you think that you're some sort of Buddhist monk that has no emotion, that's not really producing modern things in the world. Maybe a little bit old fashioned. No. Stillness is a sense of calm, inner calm that we often experience when we're in the zone. I remember when I was playing basketball competitively when I was younger, there's a sense of stillness when things are just going right. The game almost slows down for you. It's like everything becomes just a little bit easier and I'm running up and down the court, so it's not like I'm not moving my body or I'm not being active. It's an inner stillness. It's a sense of calm, a sense of confidence that you have. You can be an extreme action taker and still possess this stillness that Ryan talks about. Now, if you're listening to this podcast, you're like, you know what, Omar, I've tried to meditate. I tried to really have that stillness. It's just not for me. This book is not about meditation. It goes way beyond that. It's more about how to make an informed decision whenever you're in a high stakes game, a high stakes situation. He gives countless examples. The one I remember off the top of my head is President Kennedy making really tough decisions during the Cuban Missile Crisis and how he exercised inner stillness to make sure he made the right decision and saved a lot of lives. He also gives examples from Steve Jobs and other modern day entrepreneurs. Normally at the end of this kind of episode, a must read episode, I tell you, read this book because xyz, I'm going to get in front of it right now and say the reason why you need to read this book is because as an entrepreneur, you're constantly making decisions on a daily basis. That's your job as the leader of your company and you want to make sure that you're making more right decisions than wrong decisions. And we often make wrong decisions when we're flustered, when we don't have that peace of mind, when we have that anxiety, when we have that sense of imbalance. We want to make sure that we're constantly making clear headed decisions, whether big or small, because they all have some sort of domino effect in our business. This is the main reason why this book is worth reading, is because of that fact alone. You make decisions on the daily right. Always. If your state of mind is not in the right place place, it's going to affect those decisions. The second reason is business is stressful and you need to learn how to manage that stress. You can't get rid of the stress. As long as you're in business, you're going to have stress. But how do we manage it? How do we make sure it doesn't affect our personal health? You know, if we don't take care of our personal health and manage stress, no one will. Okay? And if you're in bad shape, your business is in shape, you are the captain of the ship and the ship goes down when you do. So understanding how to manage that stress, especially in that moment when you're in that stressful moment is important and this book gives you incredible insights. But thirdly, this book is more about wisdom than actual, you know, having some sort of Zen attitude. How do you become a wise person? Somebody who really has a ritual, a routine of really gathering the facts and making the right decisions and making the right judgments about what's going to happen in the future. And I feel like this book really covers all three. Now I want to tell you that this book is not like a how to guide. It's not like, you know, calm and stillness and wisdom for dummies. You know, it's not A, B, C, D. Now you're wise. No. And if it was that way, everybody would be wise. It'd be so simple. It asks you to ask some difficult questions of yourself, to reflect, to absorb the information. This is not like a book you can zoom through, you read, you think, you ponder. It takes some time to get through a chapter because it forces you think about how does this apply in my own life? Am I doing these things? When am I caught in these traps, that type of stuff. I found it very helpful to read this book before bed. It puts me in a great state of mind. I kind of go to bed with a little bit more wisdom, a little bit more calmness, and I wake up the next morning ready to take on and implement the stuff I Just read last night. One of the big takeaways early on in this book is this idea of having an empty mind and living in the moment. The best parallel, the best example he gives in this book is like when you were a child, when you were a kid and used to play outside, you didn't think about tomorrow, you didn't think about yesterday. You just thought about that moment. You just enjoyed the moment. You lived that moment, whether you're playing tag or playing baseball with your friends or whatever it was. When I was a kid, I used to love to draw and I used to love to color. And I remember clearly when I was doing those activities, I was just really interested in seeing that drawing come together or coloring in that coloring book or that page in the coloring book. And I was just enjoying it in the moment and just seeing it all happen. I didn't think about what did I draw yesterday. I didn't think about what am I going to do tomorrow? And that whole worry mind was just never there. And he's encouraging us and giving us some techniques to get back to that, because that's when you're really living, when you're enjoying the present moment. A lot of us as entrepreneurs, we always are looking to the future. We're always looking to what's going to happen next week, next month, this quarter. Are we going to hit our goals? Are we going to hit our targets, all that kind of stuff, Right? We can't help but do that. We're goal driven. And I'm not saying to stop it completely, but I'm going to say that don't always do that. Give yourself time to enjoy the moment, the moment that you're in right now, building your business. For me, the moment right now is recording this podcast episode. You know, I have the privilege of having the ability to get up and do a podcast, and I've been doing it for six years and I've grown an audience and it's great, you know, I get to, you know, share what I've learned and hopefully help other people. And most of us, we don't really take the time to think about that and really enjoy every day and every moment that we're doing our thing in our business, building our business, making calls, writing emails, getting on webinars, creating sales pages, whatever it is, really just appreciating that. Most of us are thinking, when is this going to be done? What's next? What's the next thing on my to do? In my opinion, it has to be a balance. You have to think of the things you have to do in the future, otherwise you're not going to get anything done. You have a to do list, but when you're doing the to do's, be present in that to do, realize in that moment that, hey, I'm privileged to be able to start a business. This is not feasible for some people in the world to even be able to do this. To have the finances, to have the time, to have the ability, to have the opportunities to. One of the things we don't realize is if you know the English language, and I'm assuming you do, because you're listening to this podcast, you are privy and you are made available to so much knowledge on the Internet. Books that are published in English. There are so many books that are not translated in other languages, especially things that just get published, brand new books on a subject and you get that edge. That's a blessing. That's incredible. So by doing that, by living in the moment, you tend to have more gratitude. And that's why generally children are more happy. Okay? Now, of course that's not the case for all children, but if you look back when you were a kid, you were generally happier because you weren't worrying about the future or dwelling about the past. You're like, hey, things are all right. You know, I'm eating my Peter Marticelli sandwich and watching some cartoons and, you know, and you just were happy in the moment. And this is a really important point. I know I'm harping on it a lot, but because a lot of us as entrepreneurs, we're building, we're building, we're growing, we're trying to make more money, we're trying to build our, you know, revenue and all that kind of stuff is great, but we don't enjoy the journey. What happens is that 10, 20, 30 years go by and we say, hey, the best years of my life I spent doing what? Did I enjoy it? Did I actually appreciate it? Did I recognize that those are the prime years of my life? Time flies by, okay? So let's make sure that we live in that moment. One of the things he talks about in this book also is allowing time to think deeply. I mentioned this in other books that I've read, but thinking time is incredibly important, especially as a leader, as a founder, as somebody who's steering the ship. We've talked about in the past Bill Gates, Bill Gates having a lot of influence in this area, saying that he spends a lot of time in thinking, thinking times. He has thinking days where he spends hours where he just Thinks about some things, write down some questions for himself to answer. This book actually gives him tips about sitting alone and let your thoughts wander. And a lot of people have a hard time with this. But just sitting and thinking, he says, if you can get up to 10 minutes, that'd be a great accomplishment. Now, this book is kind of broken up into three parts. Part one is mind, Part two is soul, and part three is body. And this comes from the idea that if you have a healthy mind, if you're conscious of trying to have a good soul, feeling good about yourself and the people around you, and three, a healthy body. These are three things that will help you have a happier life. Why? Because there's a lot of things you can buy. You have to work on them, you have to earn them, and they solve a lot of problems when you have these three in place. And you can make a lot of money. But if you're unhealthy, if your body is not in good shape, you can't enjoy it for much longer because, hey, your body's going to give up on you or the time that you have on this earth won't be pleasant because you're dealing with ailments. The same thing goes with your soul. If you are not at peace, you're going to really unleash a lot of the stuff that's inside of you in your relationships, and it's going to affect your relationships. Same thing with your mind. If you don't have a healthy mind, you're not going to be able to put it to good use. You're not going to be able to implement and create great things in this world. And in the book, he shares how they all work hand in hand. The book has so much I can get into, but I'm going to let you explore when you read it yourself. But I want to say that it actually ends on a really important note. The book is mostly about how to live, how to live properly, how to live happily. But it also finds its way at the end of the book, talking about how to die properly. He says that many of our problems come from the denial of death. Not being reminded that, hey, life's short and we're all going to die at one point. I know this sounds a little bit depressing, but it's the truth. And the more you are in touch with that, the more you will value your family, your life, your priorities are going to reshape. How many of you experienced a death recently or at some point in your life? It could be a grandparent, it could be a loved one. In those first few days it has happened. You have a sobering feeling over you. You start to feel like, hey, I need to change some things in my life. I need to really value every minute of the day. I need not to argue so much or hold grudges. I need to call the people that I've forgotten about. I need to get into shape, all that kind of stuff. And that's a healthy thing. You're reminding yourself what's important and that happens when you're reminded of death. And I know that may not rub off the right way for some people, but this is an ancient wisdom from the ancient Greeks that has been passed down generation after generation. That's in a lot of our traditions. Whether you are religious or not, it's been a principle in a lot of philosophy. So the reason why it keeps repeating itself, it's because it is true. It really works, is to remind yourself that, hey, this dance is going to end one day. So make sure you choose the right music and you enjoy the partner that you're with when you're dancing and you're choosing the right, you know, dance floor and all that kind of stuff. Don't sweat the little things. It's okay. Stillness Is Key is one of the most thought provoking books I've read this year. Highly recommend you pick it up.

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To wrap up today's lesson. Stillness Is Key is, I believe, required reading for all entrepreneurs. It allows you to have a more balanced life, allows you to deal with the pressures of business in a more elegant way. It reminds you why you're doing all this, and it puts things in perspective. So I think it's a healthy read. I highly recommend you pick it up and read it as soon as you can. Ryan Holiday is a brilliant writer. He's very eloquent in his writing, but he's also very good at making sure whatever he presents to you is applicable. It's practical. It's something that you can use immediately. Thank you so much for listening to the 100 OMBA Show. If you love what you hear, make sure you hit subscribe right now so you can access over 1500 business lessons. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. I mentioned earlier that when you experience death with a loved one, with a family member, it reminds you all of the priorities that you really need to focus on. Reminds you that life is short. Reminds you that you need to really reevaluate a few things, that maybe you're not doing so good in your life. I'm not speaking out of theory, I'm actually speaking out of recent experience. A few days ago, from the day I recorded this episode, I learned that my uncle, my mother's brother, passed away. He was struggling with his health and unfortunately caught the coronavirus and he passed away a few days later. My Uncle Mahmoud, who's one of the most beautiful people I've met in my life, I will always remember him for his generosity. He's a happy person, always smiled, always smiled at us and loved to get a smile out of us as kids, as me and my sisters and my cousins. Super generous person. Always remember his beautiful dark black hair and his really cool leather jackets he has to have. And he was always a big part of my life as a child and growing up. And he was a wonderful uncle to us. And I wanted to dedicate today's episode to my Uncle Mahmoud, who was a fantastic human being. It's really hard for me even to mention this is on the podcast, but this is real, guys. This happens and these are reminders to you and I and everybody that life is short and we need to kind of take stock of what's going on around us. What we value, who we spend our time with, how we're spending our days. Are we appreciating every moment, that breath that we take, that meal that we eat. Do we have gratitude? Or we just rush to the next thing we have to do in life? Stillness is key. Today's book reminded me a lot of my Uncle Mahmoud and I wanted to kind of mention him in today's episode in his honor. I wish you guys a great week and I hope that by me sharing this, it hits home and you decide to Hey, I need to really take stock of things. I need to react to things better. I need to have a little bit more stillness in my life. Maybe I'll pick up this book and see what it does for me. Thank you so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. Take care. Gas, snacks, tolls. This trip is draining my wallet.

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