The Big Idea: Stillness is the ability to slow down, clarify your thinking, center your soul, and direct your efforts to achieve great things.
Part I: Mind
Become Present: You can’t do your best if your mind is elsewhere.
Limit Your Inputs: Put up barriers to keep away unimportant things out of your head.
Empty the Mind: Chop wood, carry water. Do the work. Don’t overthink it.
Slow Down, Think Deeply: To see through the muddy water, we have to let things settle.
Start Journaling: Journal regularly to have some quiet time with your thoughts.
Cultivate Silence: Deep thought requires silence.
Seek Wisdom: Learning must never cease.
Find Confidence, Avoid Ego: Confidence is the freedom to set your own standards and unshackle yourself from the need to prove yourself.
Let Go: If we aim too intensely for the target, we get further away from the process and from mastery.
Part II: Spirit
Choose Virtue: Following virtue as your North Star leads to good decisions, which results in peace and happiness.
Heal the Inner Child: Practice self-love, patience, and empathy to heal inner wounds.
Beware Desire: Desire is the ever-present enemy of the wise.
Enough: The greatest misfortune is to never know contentment.
Bathe in Beauty: Beauty remains, even in misfortune. Look for it and find happiness.
Accept a Higher Power: Survivors of extreme hardship always have a belief in some higher power.
Enter Relationships: There is something deeply misguided and terribly sad about a solitary existence.
Conquer Your Anger: People driven by anger are not happy.
All Is One: The understanding that we are all connected is a transformative experience.
Part III: Body
Say No: When we know what to say no to, we can say yes to the things that matter.
Take a Walk: The key to a good walk is to be aware. Be present and open to the experience.
Build a Routine: Good routines equate to good habits. Automate tasks and decisions.
Get Rid of Your Stuff: Beware of the possibility that the things we own end up owning us.
Seek Solitude: Put yourself, physically, in the position to do deep work.
Be a Human Being: Work will not set you free. It will kill you if you’re not careful.
Go To Sleep: The world’s top performers prioritize good sleep.
Find a Hobby: A good hobby is simultaneously challenging and relaxing.
Beware Escapism: Hobbies or travel, when undertaken with the wrong intentions, are escapism.
Act Bravely: In unselfish acts, one can find delight and stillness.