What if doing nothing was actually the most powerful thing you could do this holiday season?

As the year winds down and life speeds up, it's easy to stay stuck in checklist mode—rushing, doing, pushing. But in this thoughtful Christmas-week episode, Michael invites you to pause, reflect, and consider the overlooked value of stillness. Using mindfulness, a lens of resilience, and even a metaphor from the human eye, he reminds us that clarity often comes not when we’re grinding—but when we create space to simply be.

1. Discover why rest and reflection aren’t indulgences—they’re strategies for clarity and choice.
2. Learn how slowing down can reconnect you to what matters most in your life and work.
3. Shift your mindset from productivity to presence as you move into the new year with intention.

Take a deep breath and press play to explore how doing less right now can help you align more fully with the life you want to live.

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 Hey there, it's Michael. Welcome to Whole Again, A show about helping us embrace life with mindfulness and resilience through the wisdom of cons. Sugi, it's the morning before Christmas and all through the house. So let me start by saying Merry Christmas. If you just celebrated Hanukkah. Happy Hanukkah. I hope your holiday season, wherever you might be, whatever you happen to be celebrating, is unfolding with grace.

You know, one of the smartest things that we can do, one of the strongest things that we can do is pause. So let's start right here with a pause. So go ahead, take a deep breath in, breathe up fully and deep. Down into your belly and then release the breath out through the mouth. Allow yourself to relax to settle into this moment and let your shoulders drop just a bit.

Maybe dropping those shoulders away from your ears if they've been all scrunched up, and allow the area around your neck and jaw. To relax. I hope that felt good again. I'm glad you're here. Happy holidays today, we'll dive deeper into the value of pausing through the lens of the often overlooked approach of doing nothing, which is actually something, but not doing nothing as a form of escape, but actually a strategy.

Here's the thing. We've been sold a bit of a lie. We've been told that success comes from never letting up, always going, always working, or motivation comes through. Grinding or resilience is really about gritting our teeth and pushing through all the way. Now some of it is true. That's why the lie seems so enticing to believe.

But the real juice, the magic if you will, comes when we allow ourselves some space, especially when our instinct or our past behavior is all about doing the opposite. This time of year, I don't probably have to share this with you, but I will. This time of year things are moving fast. It might be the most wonderful time of the year and it's certainly the busiest.

We're trying to button everything up. We close loops. We're trying to get all of our work done so we can finish the year with a clean slate. We have presents to buy in a few days. We have presents to return. We might have other parties to plan like birthdays for our kids and that nagging question that comes up this time every year, what will we do for New Year's Eve?

Are we gonna go out? Are we gonna stay in to watch Andy and Anderson and just snuggle in for New Year's Eve? All of this points to the truth that we all share. This time of year is crazy, and this year has already been a bit bananas anyway, so if you're feeling it, you are not alone. You are officially human, but still, it's easy to think.

I'll rest. I'll slow it down once I get this one last thing off my to-do list. I'll slow down once I feel like I'm caught up, but the truth is we rarely feel like we're fully caught up. We might feel that way a few times a year. Most of the time we're running after the next thing, and this is why this reframe is so important.

What if your best ideas, your clearest perspective. Your real motivation doesn't come when you're in motion, but it comes when you create space. When you have a moment to breathe. Back in my corporate days, I used to send a voicemail out to my full team, was about a thousand people, and I know I just dated myself by saying I sent the voicemail out.

I don't think anyone does that anymore. In the voicemail, I would always recognize their achievements, thank them for all their efforts, and invite them to create some space to pause, breathe, reflect, if you will, to slow things down. Because I knew when they did, it would give them clarity on where they were in life, where they were with their careers.

That space was so vital for them to think. When you're in it, when you're going a thousand miles an hour, it feels and you feel so overwhelmed and you really don't know how am I gonna get through this moment? When you're in deep doing the work, our focus narrows, it's natural. There's no blame. There's no shame.

You're in task mode. You wanna get things done, you wanna get things off your list. It's check list mode, if you will. Your brain is dialed into execution. Not imagination, not curiosity, not perspective. So when we take a moment to slow down when we hop in the shower, let's say, and some of our best ideas happen when we're in the shower, but we don't have a pen and paper.

'cause that would be weird, but that's what happens when we have downtime. Some of our best thinking comes into view. In fact, I just sent a text to one person on my team that used this moment, this break, to realize that the company was changing at a different rate and in a different direction than how she was changing.

And so when she came back after the holiday, as we began the new year, she resigned. And I'm still friends with her and she shares this story all the time, as do I. When she left, it hurt deeply because she was a top performer, but I was so happy for her, happy that she was pursuing something else that was going to light her up.

It made her a better wife. It made her a better mom and a better professional because our companies change and we change not at the same rate, and for most of us, we're always at choice. I want to empower people to exercise your choice, but the only way to do that is sometimes slowing things down and creating some space so you can be thoughtful about those decisions.

In a way, this is a way to practice mindfulness because mindfulness isn't about zoning out or tapping out. It's about zoning in. It's about creating space to notice, to get curious, to observe, and to think clearly again, as opposed to much of the doing that we happen to do all through the year. And the human eye is actually a really cool metaphor for all of this.

We rely on two systems, one that focuses in on what's right in front of us. But when you look forward, you can see what happens to be right in front of you. You might be looking at your phone. It's right there. And there are also rods that make up our peripheral vision, so we have a sense of what's around us and as active adults.

Adults that like to get things done. We tend to overuse our over index on the cones of the eyes that help us see what's right in front of us. But the real magic is to not only tap in to that field of vision, but to also open up our aperture, if you will, and see things more fully. And this happens when we slow things down.

Breathe. Breathe and create space for reflection. So this holiday season, and I know it's busy, life will always be busy. We'll just learn how to get better at surfing the waves of the ocean, if you will. But see if you can look at this season as a way to change its pace. To slow it down for a few moments and reflect on where you are in life and where you happen to be in your career.

I might not know much, but I do know this as someone who was always getting after it, who was always working nonstop, and this is before all the gadgets we have today. I never took time. To actually think about where I wanted to go. If life is a journey, as the kids will say, wouldn't it be wise to know exactly which direction you wish to go in?

If not, then the journey is completely random. Resilience isn't about being unbreakable, nor is kazuki. We will have moments where. We'll have struggle in life. We'll have moments where we'll have absolute joy. We'll have it all. And it's good to create some space to appreciate those moments. The joyous ones.

Yes. And even the ones of struggle, because they can lead to new knowledge and new growth. So again, this holiday season, before you flip into the new year, take a moment. Slow it down. It might feel like you're doing nothing but my friend, you are doing something and it will help make you wealthy from the inside out.

And I'll set you up.

And if you wish to learn more about creating beautiful ripples and how to prevent a bad moment from turning into a bad day, please visit my website, Michael O'Brien schiff.com. And sign up for my newsletter called The Ripple Effect, and join us each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday here at Whole Again, and discover how you can heal, grow, and become more resilient and celebrate our scars as golden symbols of strength and resilience.

Until then, remember, you can always come back to your breath. You've got this. And. We've got you.