Win Today

#204 | The Art Of Stillness: How To Embrace 'The Quiet'

• Season 5

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In a world addicted to motion and noise, stillness might be the most radical act of clarity. I share my journey of reclaiming presence through running, walking, and moments of quiet that helped me reconnect with my environment—and myself. 

Stillness will allow you to hear more birds chirping, be more connected to those who you love most, and enjoy what is.

Lessons Learned:

  • Stillness creates the mental space needed for clarity, creativity, and emotional processing.
  • Movement (like running or walking) can be powerful gateways to mindfulness and presence.
  • Rewarding your mind for noticing small details builds a lasting habit of gratitude and awareness.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Wednesday podcast, a weekly resource thoughtfully crafted to help people build and refine discipline, accomplish their goals, fortify their mindsets and be of service to somebody in this world. My name is Ryan Cass and I am your host, and it is my mission and commitment to deliver amazing episodes to you every week where you'll learn from myself or renowned expert in their field. We love helping people win in every aspect of their lives, and you can help us win by sharing the show with somebody that you believe will benefit from it, subscribing and leaving a rating and review. We believe that everybody in this world is meant to do something great with their lives and we're here to help play a role in that. Thank you for tuning in and let's win today.

Speaker 2:

The birds are chirping, but you can't hear them. The squirrels are playing, but you can't see them. A house in the neighborhood just had the whole front redone, but you never noticed it. Why is that? Likely because your mind is running so fast and consumed by so much that you can't see and hear the things right in front of you, and perhaps even the things that you wish that you could see and hear. Someone that you love is attempting to connect with you, but you can't feel them. Someone at work is sharing an important message, but you can't connect with it. Why is that?

Speaker 2:

Same reason mentioned before we have so much that we allow to infiltrate our minds and I'm speaking this as somebody that has been guilty of this and perhaps the main culprit, for many years. And bringing this up to share a practice that I've been working on to help myself hear and see and notice and feel more of the things that are in our environment, that surround us every day. That allows me to be more present with the people that mean the most to me, to be more connected to what's going on in the professional world. What's going on in the professional world. It's difficult, in the world that we live in today to often see and hear and feel and notice the things that are right in front of us, but even the most important things, and it's to no fault to anyone. The world that we live in today is filled with distractions Our phones, technology, the, at times, what appears to be praise for being able to do so much at one period of time? This multitasking quote, multitasking praise for that that we often become so consumed in. Are we doing the right thing? Are we doing enough that we then miss the most meaningful things? It's something that has been really present for me as I've been working towards my dream of going out of the corporate world and taking everything else full-time. And it's difficult because my corporate world or corporate position alone continues to intensify. And it's not uncommon that in a normal day there may be discussions and help needed from both coasts East Coast, west Coast team. In Texas, where a normal day may be, there's a staffing discussion for people in Charleston and then a staffing need in Texas, where a normal day may be, there's a staffing discussion for people in Charleston and then a staffing need in Texas, and then we've got a manufacturing issue in Orangeburg, which is about an hour up the road, and a manufacturing issue in Charleston, and then we have somebody's family is not doing well. Therefore, now we have a gap in one area. Meanwhile we have a deliverable in Seattle.

Speaker 2:

There's not much time to reflect on one thing, and then that influences, or can influence, my personal life. What I'm getting at here is that there are often things that we are all doing, especially in our professional lives, where it's not uncommon to be thinking about or working on six different things at one time that are sometimes interconnected which is great but oftentimes completely independent of each other, and then that transcends into our personal lives. What I'm getting at here now is how to focus on stillness and a few things that I've been working on lately over the last two months, but really focusing even more so on it now and starting to see benefits that I haven't experienced before, and I'm going to share what that looks like and what you can do, or perhaps, by sharing what it looks like, inspire someone, at least one person, to adopt or incorporate some of these practices into your life, because I believe it's so beautiful once you can be more cognizant of just the things that are in front of you, even watching the squirrels run around, noticing those little things, hearing the birds chirping. I've found it to be one of the most meaningful gifts lately. One of the most meaningful gifts lately Just having the ability to be more present to what's around me.

Speaker 2:

I love this quote from Brene Brown about stillness, because oftentimes we can think about stillness as okay. Does that mean sit and do absolutely nothing and that's what's supposed to clear my mind? No, I believe that this does require some work, some practice, some intentionality. But this one is really neat. Stillness is not about focusing on nothingness. It's about creating an emotional clearing to allow ourselves to feel An emotional clearing, to allow ourselves to feel, think, dream and question. Key point here it's about creating an emotional clearing, that alone. It's about creating an emotional clearing that can look completely different from me, to you, from you to your best friend, to your spouse, to your parents, to somebody that you love. But I believe that's also an invitation. It's about creating an emotional clearing. So the interpretation of that is what activity or what is something that you believe you can do that will allow you to create this state of emotional clearing, or what is something that perhaps you would be willing to explore to create that state?

Speaker 2:

One thing for me that is so helpful with this is running, and I first discovered this about 17 years ago now when I was in high school on the wrestling team and a lot of things going on in my home life. But it was awesome that to be good at wrestling and to be able to stick with it for a long time, to make it through a grueling match, to make it through the practices and really just to be in the best cardio shape possible and to keep your weight down, you get to run a ton. Every practice started with running. A lot of practices ended with running. Pre season conditioning for two months was nothing but running and hills and intense cardio work and what I found on going on these runs when I would get home, especially when I was cutting weight, is that everything that was going on in my home life that was making me so upset and often having my mind ping pong because there were so many different things between now I'm a student, I'm an athlete, but then I'm also a middleman at home playing the oftentimes protector defender for my little sister and not wanting her to see the things that are going on due to my dad's struggles with alcohol and that then impacting him and my mom's relationship and eventually marriage.

Speaker 2:

There was a lot going on in my mind. I would go lace up my shoes to go on these runs, to cut weight, to sharpen the craft with wrestling, and I found that by doing that repeatedly I could literally turn my mind off and think about absolutely nothing if I wanted to Like literally nothing, and it became this kind of addictive practice, or rather, that became my drug to turn things off. That became my drug to turn things off. And now it's my thing that I can either go out there and turn my mind off, I can think about the future and I can create what I want to achieve later on in life. Typically when I'm running which is one of the things that I do for emotional clearing I can literally see how the future is playing out right in front of me, step by step. That's how this podcast came to life. That's how a lot of my side business work came to life.

Speaker 2:

All of that just popped up on a run because everything else could be shut out. Everything in my professional life, as I mentioned before, where a normal day can deal with calls and action items from both coasts and the Midwest or the Southwest, etc. All of that goes away and it's one of the few opportunities that I have to be able to see and feel and understand what's really around me. Now, for those that know me and have listened to this for a while, you know I talk about running quite a bit. There's something else that's really been helping me when I'm going out on morning walks, and there's a lot to be said about walking and it being really a transformative practice.

Speaker 2:

But I used to go on walks with podcasts, or I need to listen to music or I have to have some sort of stimulant, and I've been experimenting with just this concept of walking, with the intent creating the intention, creating the state that all I want to do is see and feel and hear. I want to see what's going on around me, I want to feel the environment and I want to hear nature. I want to be connected and I want to hear nature. I want to be connected. And when I first developed that intention, I'll tell you that I didn't totally buy into it. I felt a little strange. I thought, okay, yeah, sure You'll see some birds and hear some birds chirping and people running around and whatever. It's not going to be that cool, but man going out more and more and more again, creating that intention and really creating that, declaring that, hey, this is going to be an opportunity to create an emotional clearing. This is going to be an opportunity to create an emotional clearing.

Speaker 2:

Going back to Brene Brown's quote, I feel as if my mind is now slowly becoming more and more programmed and attuned to, when I go out for these walks, to allow that those things to come to life, allow the vision to come to play, allow the environment to really latch on to me and I absolutely love it on to me and I absolutely love it. There's another quote from Ryan Holiday, who is well known for his work on stoicism Stillness is the key to self mastery. So when I'm going on these walks or runs, I'm also thinking about the opportunity that each one of these activities presents to master self and to get better at being more cognizant of just the world and all of this beauty that we're surrounded by that we often can completely forego Because of everything else in our minds. I've been spending more time in the mountains lately. Rather, I've gone up home a few more times than I usually do lately, and one of my favorite places to go is Crowder's Mountain.

Speaker 2:

Crowder's Mountain is about 20 miles outside of Charlotte, really close to my hometown, really close to my hometown, and it's got an awesome, awesome running hiking trails and I love running up to the top of the Rocktop Trail, which it's. Once you get up there, there's a big radio tower and you can look and see the entire Charlotte skyline. On a good day you can see just miles and miles and miles worth of tree lines and I got up there recently and I was looking at the tree lines and was thinking about nothing else. Like no other thoughts really came to mind and I was so happy and grateful because of the fact that I literally had an amazing view for one but literally nothing else was coming into my mind that a year ago or years ago I believe, I could have been up at the top of that summit peak and been thinking about a thousand things until I started running again or hiking, where I know my mind would shut back off, but I could actually sit still on top of a rock and enjoy the environment and the world. That was made possible by practicing Daily practice Getting out no headphones, creating the emotional clearing, whatever that may be for you day in and day out and simply being and it's a tough switch for someone to turn off.

Speaker 2:

If you're ambitious which, if you're listening to this podcast, you're an ambitious person but the more that you go out and do it and I would say that this is really, I'd say, I've been dialing into it more intensely over the last two months, but this is something that has been a practice for years and I still don't believe I'm very I'm not an expert at it. I believe I maybe have gotten decent at it, but knowing that we can always improve. I love to approach any new thing with a quote, white belt mentality that hey, I'm a beginner and I can always learn something. I never want to become complacent in that, oh, I'm the best at, I can always learn something. I never want to become complacent in that, oh, I'm the best at this now and I can hang and coast.

Speaker 2:

Every morning walk or evening walk is an opportunity to attempt to notice one more thing or hear one extra bird chirping, see one extra squirrel running around, and when I am able to notice these things and see and hear and feel, I express gratitude for that and kind of tell my mind, reward my mind, that hey, this is the stuff I'm looking for. I want to see and feel and hear these things, and I believe that that's then creating this program to look for even more, because you're now creating this reward program for your mind, just as you would somebody. Or think about if you've ever had an animal somebody or think about. Think about if you've ever had an animal. When you start rewarding it for sitting down before the door is, before you tell it to go outside or eat its food and giving that pet a treat, what's it going to do now? It's got a reward to look forward to and it's gonna. It's, it's programmed to keep doing that thing because there's a reward system. I love to reward my mind and body and spirit with gratitude for taking these things into account, for taking the environment into account, for being able to hear and see and feel things that I truly believe I would not have been able to notice years ago.

Speaker 2:

The closing quote and my encouragement to y'all is to practice something that will allow you to slow down. The quieter you become, the more you can hear. That's from Ram Dass. The quieter you become, the more you can hear. Test out what it means to be quiet today or this week.

Speaker 2:

Test out what it means to be quiet today or this week, find an activity that's going to allow you to create an emotional clearing whether it's running, walking, yoga and then couple that with some sort of reward system for your mind, whatever that may be, whether it's instant gratitude, something that you believe will prompt you to do that thing more, to look out for that certain thing more. I'm finding that it's helping me become more centered, especially as some things, tougher things, have been taking place in life lately, and really become more calm and understanding of what's going on, more understanding of what the future may hold or should hold, and I believe it's one of the most powerful skills that we could possess Stillness. Stillness is the key to self-mastery, quoting Mr Holiday again, and it's my wish that you can be still today, this week and moving forward so you can win today. Thank you so much. Outro Music.

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