Oct 29: Ryan Holiday at BookPeople
The Forrest Four-Cast: October 24, 2019
Outstanding leaders, inventors, athletes, and thinkers share one thing — they know when to slow down in order to zoom ahead. This paradox lies at the heart of Ryan Holiday’s latest book, “Stillness is the Key,” which argues that there’s a profound difference between inactivity (which we all do — usually when we’re feeling overwhelmed) and stillness (a transformational state of being that requires discipline).
Drawing on insights from a wide range of philosophers, including Confucius, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Thich Nhat Hahn, John Stuart Mill, and Nietzsche, the book explores the power and potential of stillness and then looks at historical figures who learned how to harness it to their advantage, such as the Japanese baseball player Sadaharu Oh, the greatest home-run hitter of all time; British prime minister Winston Churchill; TV host Fred Rogers; and diarist Anne Frank.
Over the past few years, Holiday has become one of the world’s prime exponents of stoicism, an ancient philosophy that was popular in ancient Greece and Rome. He has written several books on stoicism, including “The Obstacle Is The Way,” “The Ego Is The Enemy”, and “The Daily Stoic.” He is also a journalist, marketer, and an expert on media manipulation.
Holiday will share insights and stories from “Stillness is the Key” at a free author reading and signing at BookPeople in Austin on Tuesday, October 29.
He will also be part of the Book Reading program that will occur at SXSW 2020. Check out the SXSW website to follow the other authors who will be speaking, and to find out more info about the tracks, panels, and presentations at the world’s greatest festival of ideas. Details on more than 600 sessions across 22 tracks have just been released, including Fantastic Future, a new track Holiday should be (calmly) excited about.
Hugh Forrest serves as Chief Programming Officer at SXSW, the world’s most unique gathering of creative professionals. He also tries to write at least four paragraphs per day on Medium. These posts often cover tech-related trends; other times they focus on books, pop culture, sports and other current events.
