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| Photo by Emanuel Rincon Restrepo on Unsplash |
I'm reading two books concurrently Stillness Is The Key (Ryan Holiday) and The McCartney Legacy (Kozinn/ Sinclair).
Ryan's advice when things get really tough:
- Be fully present
- Empty our mind of preoccupations
- Take our time
- Sit quietly and reflect
- Reject distraction
- Weigh advice against the counsel of our convictions
- Deliberate without being paralysed
In 1969 at the height of Beatle business issues, McCartney escaped London, with his wife Linda and their two children, and went to his remote Scottish farm called High Park near Campbeltown.
By all accounts, while there he was at a low ebb ('a dark place' in the current parlance). By his own admission he was close to a mental breakdown. He drank a lot, he licked his wounds, and he slowly recovered by doing something he has always been able to do - make music.
When they returned to their London home he started making some home recordings that became McCartney (his first solo album).
Music appears to be his stillness. There is a pattern - he did this solo thing again in 1980 after his drug bust in Japan (and produced the terrible McCartney II as a result, but that's by the by).
I can tick off all of Ryan's list as I put myself in Macca's shoes, and I can certainly relate it to other times in my own personal and professional life.
Stillness is the key.
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