Lessons - The Power Of "Boring" (Scott)

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Their platform automates up to 90% of the tedious compliance work and it helps you respond to those endless security questionnaires up to five times faster and they also connect you with experts to get your security program running immediately and the results they speak for themselves. A recent IDC report found that Van to customers achieve over 535 thousand dollars per year in benefits and the platform pays for itself in just three months so join over 10 thousand global companies like Atlassian, Korra and Factory who use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time and don't miss this. For a limited time only my listeners can get a thousand dollars off Vanta that's real money back in your pocket. Visit Vanta.com slash Scott now before this offer expires that's V-A-N-T-A.com slash Scott for a thousand dollars off. In this lessons episode we're going to talk about why solitude might be your most powerful productivity tool. You're going to see how the top performers that we look up to they're not superhuman they have just mastered the art of strategic boredom and deep focus. You'll understand why your brain needs periods of quiet to process information and how to reclaim your creative entrepreneurial business potential in a world that is filled with distraction. The ability to be alone with your thoughts isn't just a productivity hack it's the path to breakthrough thinking that sets you apart from a culture that is addicted to constant stimulation. Today I want to talk about the power of boring and why your greatest productivity it hides in solitude. Most people, myself included, they're afraid of being alone with their own thoughts and we fill every single moment with noise or distraction or cheap dopamine I mean social media Netflix hanging out with friends mindless scrolling and nothing wrong with any of these things but we do them to avoid the discomfort of our own company but everybody who's listening to this is focused on productivity at least I think you are you're trying to build you're trying to sort of push your own boundaries and the truth is that the most productive time that you're ever going to have is the time that looks the most quote unquote boring to others hours of solitude long walks where you work out and work through these complex problems in your head um the mornings that you spend in deep focus while the rest of the world is sleeping or even nights when the rest of the world is sleeping at 2 3 a.m. if you're a night out these moments are your hidden advantage in a world that really can't tolerate silence or stillness it is always seeking cheap dopamine and input and noise we are all addicted to stimulation if you look around you every single person checks their phone 96 times a day that's once every 10 minutes they bounce between meetings and calls and work and they mistake busyness for productivity and motion for progress and at the end of the day what do we have to show for it we have a bunch of half finished tasks we have a mind that is scattered in a thousand directions and we have this nagging feeling that despite all of our activity we haven't really moved the needle on anything that truly matters so the brutal truth that you have to come the terms with is that constant stimulation is making you stupid it's making you less effective and if you do want to achieve anything great you have to find space for boredom your brain needs periods of quiet and boredom to process information make some unexpected connections solve deep problems generate original ideas this is what your brain needs but most people they can't even tolerate five minutes without reaching for their phone I'm I'm guilty of this too but I've purposefully crafted times of boredom into my day for information processing these unexpected connections between all these different ideas I have to try and solve the deepest problems in my life and my work to generate original ideas this concept has radically improved my productivity and my quality of life and I found it most people in 2025 they have conditioned their minds to crave this next hit of novelty and in the best case scenario they're paying for it with their creative potential in the worst case scenario they are paying for it by giving up a life that they could be living or goals or objectives that they could be achieving so the question that I have everyone asks themselves is are you willing to be different are you willing to create space to reinforce how important it is to create space for yourself let's go back in history some of history's greatest thinkers they understood the power of solitude so Einstein he took long walks alone to solve physics problems Newton discovered gravity during a period of isolated study when universities were closed due to a plague Maya Angelou rented hotel rooms where she would write and solitude for hours this isn't coincidence it's causation deep work requires deep focus and deep focus requires isolation from distraction when you create space for yourself to think deeply you're not being anti social and you're not being unproductive you're giving yourself the most valuable gift possible uninterrupted thought and this is where breakthroughs happen this is where you form these connections that other people miss and where you develop the clarity to see opportunities that are truly invisible to chronically distracted people and in a world that's optimized for shallow work and instant gratification I'm telling you your ability to go deep is your superpower so why does boredom make you better if you remember as a kid boredom sucked and not the pleasant boredom of like a lazy summer day the excruciating I have nothing to do boredom that drove your parents crazy that boredom actually wasn't useless it was a catalyst for creativity because when there's nothing to entertain you your mind is forced to entertain itself so it starts making connections generating ideas solving problems it craves stimulation so it creates it and boredom is a space where creativity is born and today's world has engineered boredom out of existence there's always something to watch read listen to always someone to talk to but I really have to ask yourself at what cost studies show the children who experience boredom develop better problem solving skills and greater creativity adults who experience and embrace boredom report higher levels of creativity and productivity and the most successful people that I know like entrepreneurs that I know in my life they deliberately create boredom blocks they don't call that but you get it in their schedules it's time when they do nothing but think reflect and they just let their minds wander they understand that truly deep life changing ideas and insights they don't come from consuming more information they come from giving your mind space to process what you already know let me tell you another story let's talk about the walk the changed apple this is a story of Steve Jobs so in 2011 Steve Jobs working on what at the time would become one of Apple's most revolutionary products Siri but he wasn't working on it in a lab or he wasn't in a meeting he wasn't even working on it at his desk he was walking and jobs was famous for his walking meetings he believed that walking sparked creativity and allowed for deeper conversations than sitting in a conference room and one particular walk with his biographer Walter Isaacson reveals his thinking so to quote jobs if you just sit and act then you're going to die taking a walk gives you time to think about a problem differently now during the seemingly quote unquote boring walks jobs made some of his most important decisions and had his most creative insights and this was not unique to jobs Mark Zuckerberg Jack Dorsey and Charles Darwin all incorporated long walks into their daily routines they understood that movement combined with solitude creates the perfect conditions for breakthrough thinking so if next time you're stuck on a problem don't call for another meeting take a walk alone a huge shout out to bank on yourself for supporting today's episode entrepreneurs here's the retirement secret that Wall Street doesn't want you to know while you are pouring everything into growing your business they want you gambling your future in their 401k casino with no guarantees as a business owner you already take enough risks why gamble with your retirement to it is time to discover the financial strategies smart entrepreneurs are using to protect their wealth bank on yourself is the proven 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Scott instead another story Bill Gates he had a strange habit twice a year he disappeared for a think week seven days of complete solitude in a secluded cabin no phone no internet no family no friends just books no books in time to think now during these periods have intense solitude Gates read reflected he mapped out the future of Microsoft in his foundation and many of Microsoft's pivotal strategic shifts they originated during these boring quote-unquote boring weeks in the woods Gates isn't alone in doing this so Jack Dorsey founder of twitter does 10-day silent meditation retreats radalio attributes a lot of his success to his meditation practices aval ravicont starts each day with an hour of solitude these aren't coincidences these are strategic choices by some of the world's most successful powerful brilliant people and they know what most don't innovation happens in isolation not in collaboration see teams are great for execution but breakthrough ideas and insights they almost always come from individual thought if you want to think thoughts no one has thought before you need to create conditions that no one else is creating and that usually means embracing solitude in a world that is addicted to connection so how do you create your own boring advantage you don't need a cabin in the woods or a week away from civilization to harness the power of boring productivity so here's how you start step one schedule deep work blocks now deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task block out two to three hours in your calendar for uninterrupted focus means turn off notifications close your door you have to tell people you're unavailable and then you want to work on your most important project with complete focus now the first few times it's going to be uncomfortable your mind's going to crave distraction you're going to want to pick up your phone I want you to push through it like any muscle your focus gets stronger with use two hours of true deep work will produce more value than eight hours of distracted shallow work step two take daily thinking walks this is a simplest productivity hack it's also one of the most powerful a daily walk with no phone no podcasts no music just you and your thoughts and you can start with 20 minutes just let your mind wander notice what emerges in your brain when you're not filling your brain with input and you can ask yourself some open-ended questions as you walk what am I missing in my current strategy what would make the biggest difference in my business right now what would this look like if it were easy walking physically changes your brain chemistry in ways that enhance creative thinking and the combination of some light physical activity and distraction free thinking creates the perfect conditions for insight step three I want you to implement strategic boredom so once a week schedule an hour of pure boredom sit in a chair no phone no book no music no journaling just you and your thoughts and the first 20 minutes will be excruciating your mind's going to beg for stimulation but give it nothing and after about 30 minutes something magical happens your brain starved for input starts generating its own ideas emerge connections form problems that seemed unsolvable suddenly have obvious solutions this is your mind doing what it was built to do before we started bombarding it with constant stimulation because boredom isn't the absence of thought it's the beginning of deeper thought that's a powerful reframe I'm gonna say that one more time boredom isn't the absence of thought it's the beginning of deeper thought and then step four create information boundaries so most people are drowning in information while starving for wisdom they consume endless content without giving themselves time to process it so I want you to try this instead once a week so one day per week I want you to operate with no new information input so that means that no social media no news no podcast no videos maybe the weekends a little bit easier because you're not in front of your computer and I want you to sit down just for an hour and process what you've learned over the past week so just journal write it down review some notes about what you've already learned and then ask yourself what does this information that I've learned over the past week mean for me and my work because I know that you already know enough to be wildly successful the problem is not lack of information it's lack of implementation and when you create boundaries around information consumption you force yourself to metabolize we've already learned rather than constantly seeking the next idea and the next insight now let's be honest these four ideas are not going to be easy there's nothing sexy about sitting alone with your thoughts I mean when someone asked who you did yesterday what are you gonna say I took a two hour walk and thought about my business strategy it doesn't sound as impressive as I had meetings with three potential clients and launched in the marketing campaign but the results speak louder than activity the most successful people have the courage to be boring they're willing to do the unsexy work of thinking deep planning carefully and executing with focus and they're comfortable saying no to distractions that other people have a really hard time resisting and while everyone else is trying to look busy and important the most successful people are creating space for the thought and focus that actually moves the needle so don't mistake quietness for an action the still waters truly run deep and the hard truth about your productivity is that you will never reach your true potential your full potential if you cannot tolerate being alone with your thoughts the ability to think deeply for extended periods is becoming increasingly rare and increasingly valuable and as the world gets noisier the advantages of silence grow stronger in the most valuable work that you're ever going to do won't happen in meetings or in these collaborative documents or in these crowded co-working spaces it will happen in the moments of isolation that would bore most people to tears because your competitive advantage lives in the space between stimuli in the quiet moments when other people reach for their phones you're going to reach for deeper thoughts in the morning hours when others are still sleeping you're going to be solving problems and in the walks that other people fill with podcasts you're generating ideas this is how you win not by working more hours not by being perpetually busy not by constant collaboration but by embracing the boring silent spaces where true productivity lies so the only question you have to ask yourself is it are you comfortable enough with yourself to find out what's waiting for you in the silence