January 22, 2018

The Keys to a Good Life, with Ryan Holiday and Tom Bilyeu

Ideas, Thoughts and Quotes pulled from…

Ryan Holiday, Tim Bilyeu Impact Theory Ryan Holiday on The Keys to a Good Life – Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu, #54

3 Lessons from Fatherhood

1. Protect your Time

We protect our physical space more than we protect our time. Even though physical space can be regained and time can never be regained.

Ryan Holiday [00:05:59]

2. Sometimes, just Be; to receive Insight and Happiness

If you think that action is the end all be all, you end up doing action for the sake of doing action. […] But sometimes you’re just supposed to be and often times just sort of being there and sitting there and being still, this is where great insights come from. And this is also where happiness comes from.

Ryan Holiday [00:07:07]

Accessing the state of being instead of doing, can, according to J. Dispenza, be achieved by calming and freeing us of the self. Our self is 95% of the time unconsciously thinking and feeling equal to the “Big Three” – our environment, body and time. Being freed from these self-limiting thoughts and feelings that got us caught up in doing for doing’s sake in the first place, we access what Dispenza calls the “quantum field of intelligence”. We are then receptive to thoughts outside of those of our habitual, on auto-pilot running, reactive self.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” – Albert Einstein

When being faced with a seemingly intractable question or problem, Tim O’Reilly referred to this process with “sitting with the question with an open-mind and listening to the unknown, letting ideas form”. Relating to the practice of Structural Differential and Kozicky’s general semantics, letting go of the self and its assumptions, opinions, beliefs, and generalizations of what we experience based off our past experiences in the evaluation of the initially sensed and described data information (see Dispenza’s Big Three) allows for less distortion in the process of creation, i.e. abstraction, of our reality. Thereby thoughts, ideas – great new insights – are able to bypass the otherwise filtering and interfering self and get through to our conscious self, creating a different “picture” of reality.

In this context, Ryan also shares a great saying from his therapist:

You got to remember, it’s human-being, not human-doing.

Ryan Holiday [00:07:35]

3. Presentness & Appreciating the Moment

Even though all that intensity is responsible for a lot of my success, it’s also responsible for my unpleasant moments. It’s responsible for anguish that I feel or insecurity that I feel and the need to be busy all the time. […] Feel more gratitude and appreciation. Let’s focus on what’s really essential.

Ryan Holiday [00:08:05]

The Comparative Advantage and Pitfalls of an Entrepreneur’s Mindset

The mindset of an entrepreneur or creative person is that you basically say yes to everything, until you can get to a position where you can say no.

Ryan quoting Austin Kleon

For one opportunity or combination of after the other will eventually bring you closer to accomplishing your goals, seize every opportunity possible. In this realm, “when it all comes down to it, nothing trumps execution.” (Gary Vaynerchuk).

But it’s very hard to know that you’ve gotten to that position.

Ryan Holiday [00:10:00]

Once you’ve arrived, that thing that has got you there is now in some ways your worst enemy.

Ryan Holiday [00:11:03]

The accomplishment and progress hungry mindset is, for one thing, the driving force to the pinnacle of success, but, as Ryan already preluded in his last lesson from fatherhood (“Even though all that intensity is responsible for a lot of my success, it’s also responsible for my unpleasant moments.”), it may also be the same force that drives you right over the cliff, if not controlled and made use of consciously.

From P to PC

As I’ve achieved a certain level of success and what I’ve done is gotten harder and harder, now it’s all about protecting the space that I need to do that work. […] Needing to make those hard choices, knowing what’s important, what’s not important, knowing what I’m trying to accomplish.

Ryan Holiday [00:11:41]

Once arrived at the point where and faced with the problem that simply doing more work is no longer beneficial, even being a problem that is inversely correlated with and detrimental to our ability, i.e. capacity, to achieve success, “we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”(Albert Einstein). Now it’s about shifting our mindset from a solely quantity, and as Stephen Covey would phrase it Production (P) focused, to a more quality, i.e. Production Capacity (PC), focused mindset – improving the efficiency of our PC, to increase our P.

Nothing has destroyed more great artists than the thought that they can do two mutually exclusive things at the same time.

Tom quoting Ryan Holiday, from Perennial Seller [00:12:16]

When evaluating available work opportunities, do it in a holistically, value-based way, and pick the one(s) with the highest P-ROI, that will not cut into your PC. How to do that, in a situation of mutually exclusive goals?

Mutually exclusive goals

Picking your lane, knowing that some goals are mutually exclusive. The question I asked clients the most: what does success look like for you on this project. [If] there is more than one thing in it: if you could just pick one of those things and the other ones did not happen, which one would you pick? […] Things that impress other people vs. the real meaningful impact that we are trying to have. […] We’ve got to make sure that [having the status things] do not come at the expense of those other things.

Ryan Holiday [00:13:14]

Daily re-evaluation

[If] I’m on a path that has taken me further away from what I want my ideal day to look like. That’s not success.

Ryan Holiday [00:15:55]

Do you have to have a life that you don’t like, so that at the end of it, potentially, you’re lucky enough to go there, or could you find a way to get that now. Think about it on a regular basis: Is my life resembling what those days are supposed to look like. And if I have to many days in a row that don’t resemble [that], I’m having the opposite of success.

Ryan Holiday [00:15:53]

Memento mori.

Prepare for the day ahead and reflect on the day that just passed. Preparing in the morning and reviewing in the evening.

Ryan Holiday [00:17:05]

Think about your ideal day, then work backwards from there, design a path that will take you to that ideal day. That’s than (personal) success.

Freedom

What do people do with their money? They buy freedom. But often times, they give up freedom to get money. But [you] can just skip those steps and stay where [you are] and be very happy.

Ryan Holiday [00:19:09]

People give up their freedom in order to buy some sort of future freedom, which may or may not ever come.

Tom Bilyeu [00:19:45]

Ryan speaks of the time Tim Ferriss asked him, when he was starting his company:

What do you do with your money? What do you spend your money on? […] Why are you going out trying to get more and more, when you don’t need it? […] Now, when thinking about clients: is that work we’re gonna be proud of, or is it giving us money that we need to do something that we will be proud of?

Ryan Holiday [00:20:30]

Maintaining Objectivity

What would a person more humble than me learn from this moment?

Tom quoting Ryan [00:21:41]

Subject all your actions to the Indifferent Spectator Test. What would a totally impartial person that you don’t know, standing there watching you, think of this? […] That’s sort of a way to step out of from your own logic, you own impulses, you own natural feelings. […] If it doesn’t pass this test, it’s probably not a good thing to do. […] A person, who isn’t so caught up in this, who’s identity isn’t on the line, how would they react. […] Borrowing a part of their objectivity and incorporate into your reaction.

Ryan quoting from Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments [00:22:11]

In a way that therapy is about questioning our thoughts. philosophy is giving us the tools to, in the heat of the moment – Viktor Frankl talked about that in between stimulus and response, there is a moment, and that’s where we get to choose who we want to be – philosophy is about that moment.

Ryan Holiday [00:23:15]

Daily Reflections

Cultivating an awareness in a process of continual reflection on the data that your life is creating all the time.

Ryan Holiday [00:25:14]

Your self, your subconscious mind, is acting and leading most of your day and life. It does this based on the map of the world, i.e. reality, that you created in your mind up to this point. The map – not being the territory itself, though – needs constant, conscious updates, based on the self-less evaluation of new experiences (see my comments on 3 Lessons from Fatherhood, 2.).

(As far as techniques go, borrowing from Ray Dalio’s Principles)

Ryan Holiday [00:28:27]

Filtering Feedback

I can’t change what happened. So, I’m looking for in that feedback for tips and information that will help me to improve […] so that I can not let that happen again.

Ryan Holiday [00:30:40]

Look at the feedback you’re getting and then remember what you were trying to do.

Ryan Holiday [00:31:00]

Filter this information and go: is this person’s advice getting me closer to where I want to get, or further away from where I wanna get.

Ryan Holiday [00:32:02]

Paramount Importance to Maintain Objectivity as an Entrepreneur

As an Entrepreneur, if the company does well, fortune can be yours. And if it does poorly, you can lose everything.

Tom Bilyeu [00:33:10]

The reality of how low the margin for error is, is like the ultimate recipe or short-cut to humility.

Ryan Holiday [00:34:35]

If I’m wrong, I don’t feel so secure in what I do, that I feel like I can afford let ego make any decision. I have to let truth make those decisions.

Ryan Holiday [00:33:57]

Getting to the Truth

When someone says there’s something wrong, they are almost always right. When they explain why it’s wrong or how to fix it, they’re almost always wrong.

Ryan Holiday quoting a writing addeage [00:34:12]

Figure out why [something’s wrong], improve it and make sure it’s aligned with your vision.

Ryan Holiday [00:34:48]

Dangers of Succeeding Entrepreneurship

One of the dangers of [succeeding] entrepreneurship is […] that you kind of just learned a very dangerous lesson: just disregard what other people say.

Ryan Holiday [00:34:25]

Ryan goes on and elaborates on Uber as an example for companies on their way up, blowing past conventional wisdom, business best-practices, doing it their way over and over again, and succeeding in this conduct. This is then creating a feedback-loop: the rules don’t matter, we do it our way; and they’re being rewarded for it, over and over again. But, at some point, they cross a line, and start doing things that are illegal, unethical, that their customers dissent. Due to a delay between crossing the line and being held responsible, this sort of catastrophic explosion and consequences, as seen with Uber, come in.

Protective Measures

Ryan questioning, based on his own experience with difficult decision, the saying that sort of has become an cliche in entrepreneurial circles: It’s either hell yes or hell no.

All the difficult decision I’ve ever made in my life where like: 51/ 49.

Ryan Holiday [00:37:41]

It should be tough, and if it feels easy then I want to question that.

Ryan Holiday [00:37:56]

Just like with Complex Adaptive Systems, ingenuity, innovation and the fastest progress is right at The Edge of Chaos. Taking one step forward too early and you’re falling off the edge.

Emotional Responses

Keeping them In Check

In times of “emotionally I want to do this” I check it against “does it actually help me to get where I want to go?”

Tom Bilyeu [00:37:35]

Time!

Ryan Holiday [00:37:45]

Ryan goes on and elaborates on it at hand of Abraham Lincoln who, when mad at a subordinate, wrote a letter where he said everything that he wanted to say, then putting it away for a day or a week, and most of the time, eventually, he wouldn’t send it.

The emotions are typically immediate […] and will probably not get the best solution out of things.

Ryan Holiday [00:39:25]

Ryan applies Lincoln’s method himself, when feeling the impulse having to react in the moment by pretending to have never received the email, deleting and not even reading it.

Using them as a Communication Tool

Sometimes you should get upset, to send a message!

Ryan Holiday [00:40:56]

If I’m going to use my emotions, I want to be calm internally, but projecting the emotional response that is going to be effective in that situation. But I don’t want to be jerked around by that emotions unconsciously.

Ryan Holiday [00:41:07]

Directing and using the untamed emotional response from your ego-attached self in a controlled and conscious directed and purposeful way to sustain/ abet your self-less higher goals.

You can leverage outrage, intensity, anger, whatever the case may be, as a tool to move somebody down the road. Then you can really start to become effective.

Tom Bilyeu [00:42:52]

You have to be calculated and controlled, and choose what you’re going to get upset about. Otherwise, the people you’re going to project that to, aren’t going be able to discern a minor mistake from a catastrophic mistake.

Ryan Holiday [00:43:20]

Beware of desensitization.

Those emotions, how you articulate your feelings, how you are going to act in a meeting or present a plan, that’s a communication tool.

Ryan Holiday [00:43:57]

4 Keys to Achieve Greatness

Goal/P-Clarity – What are you actually trying to do?
Customer-Centeredness/ Higher-Goals – Who is this for? It can’t be only for you! You are not the customer of your product by definition. How is this going to provide value for the audience?
Accountability – Who are the people that are helping you; check, if you are doing that? External objective feedback – board of directors, trusted friends, focus group.
Creatively Making and Selling – As a creative/ entrepreneur, you’re running 2 consecutive creative marathons. Firstly, making your product, the process of creation, and secondly, selling it, the marketing process.

Ryan Holiday [00:43:45]

How success looks like for Ryan

Am I moving up in my abilities?

Ryan Holiday [00:48:04]

Or, as Rob Dyrdek took it: “Progression is the key to happiness“.

Links to follow up on

Websites and Social Media Accounts

Books