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The Stillness Series - Part 1: Why Leaders Must Retreat to Advance
11 Plays13 days ago
In this first episode of The Stillness Series, Manny Teran breaks down the powerful—but often overlooked—principle of stillness and its essential role in high-performance leadership. Drawing from Stoic wisdom and modern neuroscience, Manny explores how stepping back, slowing down, and creating intentional space in your life is not weakness—it's strategy.
He shares personal stories of emotional growth, explains why leaders feel like they “can’t afford” to stop, and dismantles that myth with both science and experience. You’ll hear about:
- The Stoic mindset on stillness as a leadership tool
- How time in nature recharges your clarity and creativity
- Why busyness is often just disguised insecurity
- The neuroscience behind stillness and decision-making
- How to intentionally create space in your calendar for power moves and inner alignment
If you’re a founder, leader, or operator stuck in endless execution—this is your wake-up call. Stillness isn’t a pause. It’s a power-up.
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Transcript
Introduction to The Perfectory Podcast and The Stillness Series
00:00:04
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The Perfectory Podcast, Mastering the Mind and Market. Hosted by Manny Turan, we explore what it takes to succeed both in business and within yourself.
00:00:15
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From a strategy and business growth to mindset and resilience, we provide the tools to lead with clarity, confidence, and wisdom.
00:00:31
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Welcome to the Profectory Podcast, Mastering the Mind and Market. My name is Manny Turan, and I'm your host. On our podcast, we talk about lots of things to help you grow in both life and in business, to create some prosperity, to create some peace.
00:00:49
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And I've created a small podcast series called The Stillness Series, which will break down the importance of slowing down and even stopping. Now, this may sound contrary to what you believe it takes to grow and succeed, but in fact, it's exactly what you need to grow and succeed.
00:01:09
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So this podcast series is for that founder that's out there grinding. It's for that leader who's hustling. It's for that operator who's executing, executing, executing.
00:01:22
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It's for all those hard drivers that are out there trying to make things happen, creating all kinds of momentum, creating energy, creating success, but at the cost of almost losing yourself.
00:01:34
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You feel like you're not the same. You feel a little bit tired in a different way. You feel like you're maybe getting burned out. All these things are signs and really important signs to recognize when it's time to slow down.
The Power of Doing Nothing: A Personal Story
00:01:50
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Now, this idea came from the fact that I spent some time over the weekend camping. I went down. to south of where I live here, an hour away in this beautiful landscape.
00:02:03
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And we did nothing all day except for build a fire, cook our food, drink some beer, play some horseshoes, sat around looking at the stars and and in the end recharging ourselves.
00:02:15
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Now, I did this against my better judgment, quote unquote, in that I've got so much to do. I've got so many deliverables to myself, to my family, to my team, to my employees.
00:02:28
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And I just felt compelled to, no matter what, spend that time doing nothing. i didn't take I took my phone, but it was in the car most of the time I wasn't on my phone. I wasn't on any calls.
00:02:41
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I tried not to talk about business, although I did a little bit. But in the end, i just created that space, and that stillness gave me so much power. It filled my tank. So this week, I'm hitting it hard because I spent the time doing nothing.
Stoic Philosophy, Science, and Stillness
00:02:55
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And so today's podcast series, it'll be the first of several, will be describing things you can do in your life And actually from two sides, from the Stoic philosophy side, which we talk a lot about here on the podcast, but also the science side in research showing, actually corroborating that the Stoic philosophies have a a place, pretty amazing series of podcasts here.
00:03:22
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And so one of my favorite quotes is from Seneca that says, we suffer more in imagination than in reality. And this is true.
00:03:33
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This is a hard battle for me to have conquered. And it's still a battle sometimes. So I grew up in a situation where my father passed away when I was one, and I've had all these family members around me you know always saying, well, he looks just like his
Personal Background: Empathy and Drive
00:03:51
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dad. And I had all these things kind of reminding me that my father wasn't there, had did the playground kids reminding me that he wasn't there, you all you don't have a dad, all that.
00:04:00
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And it gave me a lot of of pain and suffering. But what I learned through the course of time course of time is that where I might have initially pushed it away, i and i then embraced it.
00:04:13
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And I embraced the fact that I didn't have a father, and so I learned things in a different way, a very atypical way. Raised by women, so I have a different perspective on life. um Not to say that male figures weren't around, they were, but I had that sensibility, and i still have it It's a gift.
00:04:29
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This is what makes me a great salesperson, because I'm able to look and empathize in a different way, but I'm still very hard driving. There's no doubt that I've got a lot of masculine energy. And so i've I'm able to harness both.
00:04:41
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And so this idea that we suffer more in imagination than reality was was kind of an eye-opening thing for me, because I always fed into that suffering when I was a kid. And I fed into it, and I realize now it was all for naught. It didn't really serve me at all.
00:04:54
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So ah the first part here is in this mini series is stillness, stillness.
The Case for Stillness in Leadership
00:05:04
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So I mentioned earlier that I felt as though I couldn't stop. And sometimes you might feel that you can't stop.
00:05:12
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That if you stop for an hour, half an hour, whatever, let let alone a day or two, that things are going to fall apart. And I'm telling you right now, they won't. The world will keep on running.
00:05:24
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The sun will keep on coming up and keep on going down. And the fact that you're taking the time you need to recharge is only going to serve you the most. So the Stoics knew about something that we've forgotten.
00:05:39
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ah love this. Nowhere can a man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than his own soul. That's Marcus Aurelius. Now that idea, of course, I use the reference of stillness in the fact that I went out camping, but stillness can be found at any time.
00:05:57
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Stillness can be found taking a walk around the block. Stillness can be found in your daily commute. and Maybe you turn the radio off. Maybe you just sit there and you just you're just in stillness. you know In business, we're taught to scale, to grind, to push, to hustle.
00:06:15
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But what we forget and what is hard to understand is that You really can't scale chaos in a good way. If your life is chaotic, if your business is chaotic and you're just trying to scale and grow and multiply, then all you're gonna do is you're going to perpetuate that chaos.
00:06:35
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I learned this a long time in business, that I surround myself with my team that are details person, detail people. So when the I create that momentum, that vision, I've got people there to actually help me to execute it.
00:06:51
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And so I say this is there's a stillness in that process as well. So I might look at a situation, I might take their input about creating a vision and going in a new direction.
00:07:03
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and I need to create stillness in my life, I take that idea and I sit with it. I'm still with it so that new ideas will emerge, so that I will become grounded and comfortable in the position because ultimately I'll ask my team about that vision and they're going to push back.
00:07:21
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I want them to push back. I want them to challenge me. And so that is really important, that stillness. So the Stoics practiced stillness, not really as a luxury, but as a strategy.
00:07:34
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It was a foundation for decisive action. It was that moment, especially if you think about some of the Stoic leaders like Marcus Aurelius, who was an emperor, Taking time for himself to think and ponder about a situation was vastly important.
00:07:52
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And oftentimes that stillness that we think isn't necessarily focused directly on the problem. It's just focused on being unfocused. It's focused on retreating back to that quiet inside.
00:08:08
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Now, if you've tried meditating, you know that it's not quiet. You know these thoughts pop in and out. But the idea, and we're going to talk about meditation in one of the other mini podcast series here, is letting it come and out.
00:08:21
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You don't have to push these thoughts away. Invite them in, hold their hold that in their space, and then let them go. And so it's just a lot of power behind that that may not be initially aware, you may not be initially aware of, but here is some science that actually has some support for the Stoic principle of stillness.
00:08:47
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So this comes from the University of California, Davis, Center for the Mind and Brain. And the finding is that stillness boosts executive function and decision making.
00:08:59
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So how does this happen? This happens because mindfulness practices, including stillness, increases that activity in the prefrontal core cortex, which is the part of the brain responsible for planning, for decision-making, and for impulse control.
00:09:17
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So practicing stillness actually has a huge benefit and improving that in our in our mind. So the takeaway is that stillness literally strengthens our mind and gives us an edge over a competition.
00:09:33
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Here's something else for science that has ah support of stillness in the stoic framework. So this actually comes from McKinsey, which is a huge consulting and business company.
00:09:49
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And they say, the hidden cost of busy. So the inside is over-scheduled people that are constantly in that momentum and they you know you try to meet with them and they, oh yeah, I'll meet with you in like two months from now, I'm so busy.
00:10:05
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So those have have a 40% drop in productivity and strategic accuracy. I believe this. I have seen this day in and day out.
00:10:18
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People that I interact with, when we're trying to set a meeting, if they can't meet with me within two weeks or even one week, I know that they've got this situation in in their life where they're so busy, they can't afford 15 minutes, 30 minutes to meet with me.
00:10:36
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So using that case, I take that. that situation with a grain of salt, obviously, if they're on vacation or there's something else going on that's maybe they're in the middle of selling a company.
00:10:46
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But even then, people that i that i know that are highly successful, they'll carve out, yeah, let's have lunch. let's I'll give you half an hour. And so that busy for the sake of being busy, I'm always suspect of that.
00:11:01
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So this is a ah ah situation where I've gotten a lot of success from Purposely taking my schedule and stretching it out.
00:11:13
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So there's a power in a going slow and steady. Haste makes waste, right? So if you're always rushing, always busy, if you're the opposite of stillness is energetic motion, so you're moving all the time.
00:11:27
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So if you're able to create stillness, create space in your calendar, in your agenda, Then, and i literally have places in my calendar where I have nothing planned.
00:11:38
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I have a ah hold or I have areas where I have nothing planned
Scheduling Time for Reflection and Strategy
00:11:43
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during the day. I have a few hours where have nothing planned. So in those hours that I have nothing planned, that I hold sacred, by the way,
00:11:50
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I get things done. That's the time I use to work on self-reflection. That's the time I use to work on strategy for my business or the business I'm running. That's the time when I can use to schedule and and pop to a meeting. I've got somebody ah call me up and, hey, I'm in town.
00:12:06
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Can you meet tomorrow? Sure, I've got these hours available. So this stillness is important, not only in the stillness you focus on from the inside, but the stillness you create on the outside.
00:12:19
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And so I invite you to to take these things, do a self-assessment of how busy you really are, and take a self-assessment of when was the last time you spent time in stillness?
00:12:33
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When was last time you took from nature, from even something as basic as a walk in the park in the middle of a busy day, Do that and you will understand on the other side of it how powerful it is for being able to recharge your batteries and create not only ah multiplicative effect on your your momentum, but do so in a manner that won't burn you out.