The Best Ideas Are The Ones We Steal

28 Secrets of Exceptionally Productive People | Inc.com. Whatever your profession, you want to be the best, the most productive. This applies to life as well. How do you do that? Why, you steal ideas from the best minds you meet. I like to steal from people like Ryan Holiday, the Stoic writer, who steals from a lot of people. For instance, I have found that I am most productive between 2 A.M. and 7 A.M. As I get older, I sleep earlier, so I wake up earlier. No distractions. No noise, except the hum of the air conditioner in my garage/den. Ryan stole this idea from Bryan "Birdman" Williams. While I didn't steal it, I would have. Read on, and see whether there are some ideas here that speak to you. If there is an overarching theme here, it is the Stoic idea that the opinions of other people about how to live your life are worse than useless. They are dangerous, if you allow them to affect how you live your life. Be who you are. The hell with the rest of them.