A Few Sacred Minutes

Ryan explains the importance of daily reflection and the role it plays in life, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Get signed copies of Stillness Is The Key in the Daily Stoic Store! Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/emailFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:05Speaker 00

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom in everyday life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at dailystoic.com. A few sacred minutes. It was in the morning, or it was at night. Marcus Aurelius took time for himself, whatever was happening, wherever he was, to sit and think and write. Bran Blanchard marvels at what Marcus was able to accomplish there in the midnight dimness, alone with his pages and his thoughts. Seneca, we know, took the time in the evenings.

• 0:49Speaker 00

  After his wife had gone to sleep, he reflected on the day past. He wrote his letters. He examined himself. What about you? Do you take this time? James Clear, author of the wonderful bestseller, Atomic Habits, told me on the Daily Stoic Podcast recently that since becoming a father, he has carved out two sacred hours in the morning to do his writing. Sometimes he gets more time, but never less. And those two hours determine whether he has had a good day or a wasted day, whether he was productive and making progress, or whether he was slacking. A few minutes, or a few hours, in the morning, at night, or in the middle of the day, this idea of sacred time is important. You have to carve it out. You have to stick to it like clockwork.

• 1:33Speaker 00

  You need to use the stillness to be active. You need to focus, lock in to your philosophy, to your work, to your self-examination. Of course, this isn't the only time you'll need. It's just the minimum. So make sure you give it, or take it, for yourself. This is obviously what I try to do in my own life. I've talked about my daily routine all the time. But it's also what I was writing about in my book, Stillness is the Key, which is all about Slowing down in those critical sacred moments to do what you really need to do, really locking in on the task in front of you. All my best work has come from that. Even writing something like this email came from a few minutes of that sort of stillness, that locked in time, that focus.

• 2:15Speaker 00

  If that's something you feel like you need more time of in your life, maybe the book would be helpful to you. Check out Stillness is the Key anywhere books are sold. There's an audiobook version, ebook version, physical version. You can even get signed copies in the Daily Stoke store. If you want one for yourself, you want to give it as a gift, you can find those at store.dailystoic.com. And you can find Stillness is the Key anywhere books are sold.