Finding stillness as a busy parent and entrepreneur

Executive overview

Stillness has always been hard. With kids, a business, and endless demands, it becomes harder. Ryan and Samantha Holiday each answer the same question: how do you find stillness amid chaos?

Ryan's answer is structural: protect the tasks only you can do, outsource everything else, and build flexibility into your routines rather than rigid schedules. Samantha's answer cuts deeper: stillness isn't time you carve out — it's headspace you create internally.

Stillness is an internal practice, not a slot on your calendar.

Ryan: protect what only you can do

• Shift from fixed routines to flexible practices that adapt to the day's chaos
• Identify the tasks only you can do — for Ryan, that's writing and creative thinking
• Everything else should be delegated, even if you'd do it better
• Outsourcing childcare before outsourcing lower-value work is a common and costly inversion
• The price of success is often doing less of what you're actually best at

Samantha: stillness is internal, not temporal

• The time for stillness does not exist — waiting to carve it out means it never happens
• Revenge bedtime — staying up late just to have quiet — is a signal your brain is too loud during the day
• Other signals: sitting in the car after arriving home, taking an unusually long walk around the car
• The fix is mental, not logistical: create internal quiet during ordinary moments
• Naming the current task out loud ("I'm driving the kids to school") helps crowd out the mental to-do list flood
• This mirrors a meditation technique: notice thoughts, let them pass, don't fight them
• The result is calmer days and better responses when things do come up

On support and self-reliance

• Support networks help, but managing people and expectations is also work
• Stillness that depends entirely on external support is fragile
• Teaching yourself to find internal quiet also models that skill for your kids