My parents, teachers, and mentors didn’t teach me how to do nothing. They only taught me how to do something.
But the more I did, the more life I wasted…
Filling my hours and days and weeks and months with action instead of inaction because I was told movement was the key to a good life.
And they were all right!
Without movement, nothing happens (inaction only led to psychological distress for me). You remain stuck in place as time passes you by. But without right action, nothing happens either. You remain overworked, anxious, and full of concern as you stare deep into your eyes and feel the pains of doing without knowing.
Again, tough place to be. A place I’ve been. A place I’ve called home for many moons. But not anymore.
For now I know better. Or at least, I think.
What I’ve discovered from years of working 10+ hour days, racing from one activity to the next, and burying myself in projects from sun up to sun down is…
99% of the shit I did/do didn’t/doesn’t matter. At all.
What matters is only two things which I now deem to be the highest ROI actions anybody can take if they want to strike it BIG:
The first (obvious) thing? Pulling the right levers in all the areas of your life that matter the most to you (Business: sales/marketing/product. Health: sleep, nutrition, training. Relationships: spending time with loved ones, going on epic adventures, creating great memories, etc.)
But you already knew that.
The second (less obvious) thing? Doing nothing. Not meditating. Not reading. Not listening to music. Not texting. Not journaling. Not laying on the couch and closing your eyes. Not fantasizing. Not box breathing.
But doing nothing.
Going outside alone, sitting on a park bench, and just being. Turning off the mind, putting the world to bed, and just existing as you are.
Or staying indoors. Shutting down the world, sitting on your couch, and doing nothing.
Sounds bizarre and weird, doesn’t it?
I thought so too. But this was a common pattern I’ve picked up in a lot of autobiographies/biographies of billionaire entrepreneurs, geniuses, and out of this world type of creative artists.
Take Phil Knight, the founder of Nike, for example…
Each and every day he would do three things:
1. Work
2. Run
3. Do nothing (what he called recliner time)
Interestingly enough, the legendary copywriter Eugene Schwartz operated on a similar wavelength…
He would work intensely for 33 minutes and 33 seconds and then stop to do nothing. Then repeat. Over and over again. But again, these are just a few people that come to mind...
There’s many more examples ranging across all different fields, industries, and domains. All these guys and gals operated at the top of their fields and made nothing, but magic happen.
And I believe it’s largely due to this combination of working intensely/pulling the right levers + taking time to do nothing.
Why do I think that?
Because I believe we’re all guided and blessed with infinite creativity, insight, and direction each and every moment of the day. But the majority of us don’t tap into it. We’re unaware it even exists. Instead, we’ve become so programmed and conditioned that we cut ourself off from it, lock into what we think is best, and live our entire life like this.
Are we on the right track? Are we doing the right things? Are we living up to our potential? We don’t know.
As a result:
Most of us live and die having lived a mediocre and dull life. But then there’s another breed of human… These humans don’t cut themselves off from this guidance, but tap into it fully.
How? you ask...
By ping ponging w/ God (or Life or whatever you want to call it).
Instead of just working, grinding, putting their nose to the grindstone hour after hour after hour…
They understand the bigger picture. They understand the game of life is actually a two-player game. There's you, the mere mortal full of all your goals, ideas, intentions, and beliefs. And then there’s a deeper you. A realer you. One free from life and death and immune to the daily BS. Majority of humanity only knows themselves as the former (blocking out the communication from the second), but a few knowingly or unknowingly make contact with the latter and get blessed with the gifts of creativity, insight, guidance, and direction.
And the more they act on these spontaneous gifts, the more this communication channel opens up!
Before long, the mere mortal quickly realizes that all his good ideas to date never actually came from his conditioned sense of self, but from this deeper part. And the more he can tap into it, the more epic his life becomes!
So taps into it, he does.
Rising early with the sun, filling the day with the most important levers, and then spending his evenings doing nothing, but ping ponging with God/Life/Universe.
By doing so, he finds himself constantly blessed with:
New business ideas
Compelling BIG IDEAS/ANGLES
What direction he should take in life
The right choices/decisions
What he should add/remove from life
Minor adjustments for the path that he’s on
And it’s this daily guidance, this insight, this creativity, this adjustment that once actualized by pulling the right levers (the following day) that creates nothing, but pure magic.
So I said all that to say this…
Don’t get lost in all the productivity sauce, my friend. Knock out the most important levers, enjoy your day, and then spend time doing nothing (I personally find the evenings to be the best time for this). Do this on repeat and you’ll soon start living out the greatest ping pong match of all time! It’s something you won’t believe until you experience it. So give it a shot and allow yourself the gift of guidance.
Your friend,
/tej