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The Peter Attia Drive

#101 - Ryan Holiday: Finding stillness amidst chaos

The Peter Attia Drive

Peter Attia, MD

Health & Fitness, Medicine, Fitness

4.7 • 7.3K Ratings

🗓️ 27 March 2020

⏱️ 83 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary


Ryan Holiday, bestselling author and author of Daily Stoic, discusses practical ways to find stillness and apply the insights of stoic philosophy in the midst of COVID-19 chaos. Ryan discusses the importance of taking back a feeling of control, the benefits of structure and routine, and the idea of being prepared for anything.

We discuss:

  • Using times of adversity to evaluate and reflect how you’ve set up and prioritized your life [2:30];
  • What insights might the famous stoics provide amidst this COVID-19 pandemic? [8:15];
  • The possible consequences of the socially isolating nature of a pandemic (and why we need good leaders) [13:00];
  • Stoicism—what it means and how to apply it [18:45];
  • Lessons taken from the life of Winston Churchill—stillness, structure, routine, hobbies, empathy, forward thinking, and more [23:30];
  • Alive time vs. dead time—taking control of your time and making it count [38:45];
  • Auditing how the world (and its leaders) are handling the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of stoic philosophy [44:15];
  • Asserting control and using routine to find stillness in an environment not conducive for it [52:15];
  • Why you should find a way to exercise, especially now [58:30];
  • How to find purpose during this time—goal setting, having a project to work on, and the benefits of keeping a journal [1:02:00];
  • What is Ryan most optimistic about and what is he most concerned about over the next few months? [1:08:45];
  • How can you follow Ryan’s work and messages about stoicism and stillness? [1:17:45].
  • And more.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey everyone, welcome to the Drive Podcast.

0:13.0

I'm your host, Peter Atia.

0:14.8

This podcast, my website, and my weekly newsletter, I'll focus on the goal of translating

0:18.7

the science of longevity into something accessible for everyone.

0:22.4

Our goal is to provide the best content in health and wellness, full stop, and we've assembled

0:27.0

a great team of analysts to make this happen.

0:29.4

If you enjoy this podcast, we've created a membership program that brings you far more

0:33.2

in depth content if you want to take your knowledge of this space to the next level.

0:37.3

At the end of this episode, I'll explain what those benefits are, or if you want to learn

0:41.0

more now, head over to peteratiamd.com forward slash subscribe.

0:46.3

Now without further delay, here's today's episode.

0:49.0

Welcome back to another episode of The Drive.

0:53.7

My guest this week is Ryan Holiday, a previous guest and a close friend.

0:58.7

In addition to the conversation we released on Tuesday with Sam Harris, I also wanted

1:02.8

to bring back Ryan to talk about stoicism and how it can help us during these current

1:07.4

times.

1:08.4

We talk in this episode in particular about some of the measures of stoic philosophy and

1:13.4

how moments like this are sort of tailor made for examining those principles and more importantly,

1:19.2

figuring out how to apply them to our lives.

1:21.5

But worry not, this is not an episode that gets deep or philosophical in any way, shape

1:25.9

or form.

1:26.9

But we're not just about us talking about balancing the challenges, trying to think through

...

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