Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #171 How To Change Your Mindset and Transform Your Life with Ryan Holiday

Episode Date: April 6, 2021

CAUTION ADVISED: This podcast contains swearing. Today's conversation takes a deep dive into an ancient philosophy and comes out with some practical strategies that really couldn't be more useful for... these uncertain times. My guest is Ryan Holiday, someone who I've been really keen to speak with, ever since a close friend of mine gifted me his incredible book, The Obstacle Is The Way. Ryan is someone who's making timeless ancient wisdom accessible to millions of people all over the world through his books and blogs. And he's making a strong case that stoicism, the ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, is a viable life hack for our busy 21st century lives. Whether you are familiar with stoic philosophy or not, I think you'll get a lot of value from today's conversation. Ryan explains that it's not what happens to us in life that really matters, it's how we react to it. We can all learn from unwelcome challenges and, more often than not, become better as a result of them. He also explains how these ancient ideas can be applied to our busy modern lives and how we can use them to build resilience and humility, and how we can use simple tools such as journaling, to help us find more stillness. I think you'll find this conversation full of powerful advice and my hope is that you find it engaging, accessible and inspiring. Show notes available at https://drchatterjee.com/171 Follow me on instagram.com/drchatterjee/ Follow me on facebook.com/DrChatterjee/ Follow me on twitter.com/drchatterjeeuk DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Life is very short, and so to spend time kicking and screaming and wishing that things were otherwise than they are is to reject the gift of the moment that is in front of you right now. It's not things that upset us, it's our judgment about things. Bad things happen, but we can wrestle some good from them. we can wrestle some good from them. Hi, my name is Rangan Chatterjee. Welcome to Feel Better, Live More. Hello, how are you doing? I hope you are well. Today's podcast takes a deep dive into an ancient philosophy and comes out with some practical strategies that really couldn't be more useful for these uncertain times in which we find ourselves living. My guest
Starting point is 00:00:53 is Ryan Holiday, someone who I've been really keen to speak with ever since a close friend of mine gifted me his incredible book, The Obstacle is the Way. Now, Ryan is someone who's making timeless ancient wisdom accessible to millions of people all over the world through his books and blogs. And he's making a strong case that Stoicism, the ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, is a viable life hack for our busy 21st century lives. Now, at this point, you may be thinking, what on earth is Stoicism? And if you are, you are not alone. A few years back, that was me.
Starting point is 00:01:35 I'd never even heard of Stoic philosophy. And the truth is, it's only through devouring many of Ryan's books that I've become more closely acquainted with its ideas and principles. Now, of course, you may already be familiar with Stoicism, but no matter what your starting point is, I think you're going to get a lot of value from today's conversation. Ryan explains that it's not what happens to us in life that really matters, it's how we react to it, that we can all learn from unwelcome challenges and more often than not we can become better as a result of them. He also explains how
Starting point is 00:02:14 these ancient ideas can be applied to our busy modern lives and how we can use them to build resilience and humility and how we can use simple tools such as journaling to help us find more stillness. Now, due to a slight scheduling mishap, I only had one hour with Ryan, so I had to be really focused with the ideas I explored with him. But nonetheless, I think you'll find today's conversation full of powerful advice, and my hope is that you find it engaging, accessible, and inspiring. And now, my conversation with Mr. Ryan Holiday. There has been a big surge in demand for books on Stoicism during 2020. And I thought it'd be a good place to start. Why do you think that is?
Starting point is 00:03:13 I think if you think about what Stoicism is, Stoicism is a philosophy designed to help one be more resilient, to help one endure the blows of fate, as the Stoics would say. And so I think, you know, in the ancient world, we would be much more trained, much better trained for the kinds of things we're talking about. I mean, Marcus Aurelius is writing meditations during the Antonine Plague. You know, Seneca endures eight years of exile. That was a common experience. So a lot of what 2020 has challenged us in, you know, things being out of our control, things being overwhelming, things being dangerous, death being ever present. These are things that philosophy, this is the language that philosophy really speaks. And so I think people are looking for that wisdom and guidance because
Starting point is 00:04:14 they're quite frankly, not getting it anywhere else. Yeah. I mean, for me, as I read through your books, it raises a lot of existential questions about who we are, why we're here. And I guess for many people who've never wrestled with those ideas, the stress that has been put on society as a whole in 2020 has meant a lot of these ideas have been brought up in people who otherwise may not have been thinking about them. And I absolutely feel that, to me, Stoicism provides a sort of framework on some guiding principles on how we can live a calmer and more fulfilled life. Now, I say that having someone who has never studied Stoicism. I wish I had studied it. I don't know if it was an option at school than at university, but is my interpretation correct? And I'd love to know, when did you first hear about Stoicism and
Starting point is 00:05:13 why did you get so interested in this? So Cicero's line was that to philosophize was to learn how to die. That basically the entire purpose of philosophy was to come to terms with our mortality and the fragility of life. And so I think, you know, people are being forced to reckon with a virus that has killed hundreds of thousands of people all over the world that you can't see, that we're essentially powerless to stop. And so I think we're being, as you said, forced to not just think about questions that we don't normally think about, but actually finding that we need to answer them in some way. And so I think Stoicism as a philosophy is designed for moments like this. I came to Stoicism basically as a teenager. I was 19 or 20 years old,
Starting point is 00:06:07 and I was at a conference. I was writing for my college newspaper, and the speaker had mentioned something about Stoicism, and it sort of sent me down this rabbit hole. But like you, I was in school in a class called Philosophy 101, and Stoicism never came up. So it's unfortunately not something that people learn in school. I mean, you know, a hundred years ago, you would have been exposed to the Stoics, or we would have been exposed to the Stoics, not just even in philosophy classes, but you would have been forced to reckon with Cicero and Seneca as you took Latin. And so it used to be just much more integrated into a liberal arts education that, you know, as that has declined, you know, people have just fallen out of touch with a lot of these ideas.
Starting point is 00:06:59 Yeah, for sure. Now, there are times in our life where phrases come along or quotes come along that completely reframe how we view the world. And the title of The Obstacle is the Way is certainly one of those moments for me. So about an hour ago, I went for a walk. I was trying to assimilate all the research I'd done on you and your books today and yesterday, I thought, when did I first become familiar with Stoicism and Ryan? And I'd heard Tim Ferriss talk a few times about Stoicism and some ebook that he mentioned Stoics, but it didn't really, for some reason, it didn't land with me. And my friend, Jeremy, actually sent me a copy of The Obstacle Is The Way just before a trip to LA a couple of years back. And I phoned him to say, hey,
Starting point is 00:07:53 mate, do you remember that? He goes, yeah. I said, why did you send it to me? He said, well, you were kind of wrestling with a few things at the time. I just read it. I loved it. And I felt that you were kind of coming to terms with these ideas, that these obstacles in your life, you were starting to become aware that these were actually opportunities. These were actually opportunities to learn and grow. And then your book arrives, The Obstacle is the Way. And then I start reading it. And when you read something that's outside yourself, it. And when you read something that's outside yourself, it's someone else's writing about it. The way you tell stories is so beautiful that I could just see with clarity that all of these so-called obstacles, well, the way I perceive them actually determines the outcome of them. And I want to thank you for writing such a phenomenally brilliant book. But also,
Starting point is 00:08:48 you know, tell me about that title. You know, where did that come from? What has been the feedback been like? Because I think my audience, a lot of my audience, I don't think will be familiar with Stoicism. And I really feel your books are a really great introduction. It's, Stoicism is a philosophy that's packed with lines like that. Epictetus has a great one. He says, it's not things that upset us, it's our judgment about things. And I remember hearing that for the first time, and it just sort of, it blows your mind. The idea of the obstacle being the way, there's a quote from Marcus Aurelius in Meditations, he says, the impediment to action advances action, what stands in the way becomes the way, there's a quote from Marcus Aurelius in Meditations. He says, the impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.
Starting point is 00:09:30 And I shortened that to the obstacle is the way. Ironically, because there's also a Zen saying, the obstacle is the path. And so I kind of like the idea of it sort of fusing together the East and the West. The Stoics just believe that, you know, we don't control what happens to us. This is another great line. It's not what happens, it's how we respond. It's how we react that matters. And so the idea of the obstacle is the way what that means, what Stoicism, what Stoic philosophy is really built around is the idea that stuff is going to happen, you know, stuff that we didn't want, stuff that we didn't expect, something that knocks us on our
Starting point is 00:10:10 ass, you know, 2020 being a good example of sort of all of those. But the opportunity is what we decide to do with that thing. How do we become better for it, if that's possible? What's a thing that we couldn't have done without this happening? That's another way to think about it. What can we learn from it? That's another part of it. Or how is this testing us in some way? How is this creating an opportunity for us to rise above it, to transcend this moment, to do something for other people, for ourselves, for the world, you know, on and on? That's what that idea means. So, you know, I actually have it tattooed on my arm. But what I'm trying to remind myself of, and then ultimately what the book is about,
Starting point is 00:11:04 what I'm trying to remind myself of, and then ultimately what the book is about, is that there's really no situation so bad, so undesirable, that some good can't be wrestled from. I'm not saying you can magically turn the death of your father into a wonderful fairy tale of greatness and joy. I mean, bad things happen, but we can wrestle some good from them. Yeah. I mean, Shakespeare also said, didn't he, that there's no such thing as good or bad, just thinking makes it so, which I guess is another spin on a very similar concept. Yeah. Nothing, neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so. Again, that's not to say there's no such thing as good and evil. I don't think that's what he's saying. I don't think that's what the Stoics are saying. That's not a moral judgment. How we would say that today is nothing neither positive nor negative, right? Events are objective. They're not good or bad for you.
Starting point is 00:12:07 That's where we have the power. We have the ability to decide what story we tell ourselves about what's happened. Yeah. I think, and I can reflect on my own experience with this, that what you just said there, when we really understand that, you open up new possibilities in the way you live, the way you feel, you know, this kind of tension in your body over not being able to control everything. And when you understand that actually it's the story we tell ourselves and that story is up to us, It really is quite profound. It's like many things. It's quite simple once you get it. But before you have got it, you know, you can't see it. You are
Starting point is 00:12:52 in this reactive state. And I think I had one of the most profound conversations I've had on the podcast yet last week. I spoke to this wonderful lady called Edith Eger, who is a 94-year-old lady who went to- I've read her book, The Choice. Yeah. And her new one, The Gift, it's equally as good. And I was blessed to have two hours speaking to her. And she also, it's incredible because I didn't ask her about stoicism, but the last couple of days going back down and diving deep into your books, I thought, well, a lot of what Edith talks about actually would fit a Stoic framework. She goes in when she's 16 in Auschwitz and her parents get murdered the same
Starting point is 00:13:39 day and she has to dance for the angel of death. And her mother, when they were on the train there, her mother said to her, no one can take from you what you put inside your mind. So when she's dancing, so that wasn't dancing in Auschwitz. I was in the Budapest Opera House. I was dancing to a full crowd. And she also said that, and I think because some of these phrases can sometimes appear to be a bit callous to people like some people go what do you mean nothing's good or bad it's just the story well hold on a minute my my husband has just cheated on me right what do you what do you mean there's no such thing as bad but when Edith Eger says that and she goes I've been in Auschwitz I've seen people die I've
Starting point is 00:14:20 seen my parents get murdered and I could tell you the greatest prison is the prison we create inside our mind. You're like, okay, we need to stop and listen to what people like that are saying. Totally right. And I think the title of her first book is The Choice. They're talking about the choice. How are you going to choose to see this? What are you going to choose to do about it? Who are you going to choose to be inside of it? And to me, it's always humbling to hear from people like her because I'm writing about these ideas from this philosophical perspective. But really what matters is how are they tested in the laboratory of human experience? Probably the stoic with the most direct experience, similar to Dr. Anger, would be a guy named James Stockdale, who was a fighter pilot in Vietnam. He's shot down. He spends something like seven years as
Starting point is 00:15:14 a prisoner of war. He's horribly tortured. He actually says to himself as he's parachuting down, I'm leaving the world of technology and I'm entering the world of Epictetus. the world of technology and I'm entering the world of Epictetus. So these ideas really have been tested and they stand up to a concentration camp or a prisoner of war camp or the Antonine Plague in Marcus Aurelius' case or slavery in Epictetus' case. And I think what I try to take from that is like, if they can put up with that, if they can choose to see that that way, I'm not going to allow myself to get upset by this traffic jam that I'm in. I'm not going to allow myself to throw myself a pity party because events have conspired to a degree where I can't travel as much as I used to. You know what I mean? travel as much as I used to. You know what I mean? So I think what we try to take from stoicism is the idea that it's really true in any and all situations. It's been tested in the most extreme
Starting point is 00:16:13 cases that you can imagine. But the reality is every day we wake up and life is putting us in sort of undesirable, unchosen circumstances. And we can get upset about that, we can be resentful about that, we can be bitter about it, or we can be hopeful and choose the right response to that. So controlling the controllables is a theme that we hear about from many people who talk about Stoic philosophy. And it's interesting, I sort of made a video on this a few weeks ago, I put it on YouTube, and I didn't know at the time actually that that phrase comes from Stoic philosophy. We can talk about some of the origins of this stuff later, perhaps, if there's time. But so many people find simple but effective wisdom like that so useful at times like this. But there were a few comments of people saying, I get that, I understand, I can see the
Starting point is 00:17:18 value of that. But surely youngsters have got every right to be upset about the state of the world and the climate and pollution. And I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding there because I don't feel that anyone is saying you can't be upset, you can't want to change something. But controlling the controllables means something different, doesn't it? Yeah, James Baldwin has a great line that I think captures the sort of paradox of it. He says, like, not everything that's faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed before it is faced. And I think that the idea is you have to come to terms with reality, with the situation you're in, with what has happened, with what led up to why it
Starting point is 00:18:06 happened, with how overwhelmingly negative or bad or dangerous or scary it is. You have to start there. So sure, climate change is a very real problem. Systemic racism is a very real thing. Economic inequality, these are very real things. The Stoic isn't saying that you should do nothing about them. On the contrary, the Stoics believe in, you know, Marx really talks about sort of the common good, serving the common good, like 80 times in meditations. But it starts with, one, an unflinching acceptance of what's in front of us, and two, an understanding of where we can make a difference and where we can't. And really doing that so we're not wasting time and energy directed at the parts of it that are not up to us. So often when we face things,
Starting point is 00:19:06 our energy is to go towards litigating why they happened or who's at blame for them. And this is not making it better in any way. The whole idea of blame and wanting to be right and making somebody else wrong is at the heart of so many problems in society. And even as a doctor, right, I've been seeing patients for nearly 20 years now, Ryan, and Stoic philosophy is something I actually feel medical students and doctors would benefit from understanding because I really feel when I see a lot of my patients that the friction between what is going on in our minds and what is going on in real life and that sort of the obstacles and the tension around that, actually that is a stressor on the body.
Starting point is 00:19:58 And we know that stress affects every organ system in the body. So there's so many symptoms, downstream symptoms I see, whether it's anxiety, depression, gut problems, insomnia, all kinds of things that actually I feel Stoic philosophy would really, really help people. Well, a big one there that I think ties into a lot of medical diagnoses and situations is the idea of fairness, right? We go, well, this is not fair. Why did this happen to me? And, you know, nature doesn't give a shit about fair, right? Like cancer doesn't care whether you're a good person or not. COVID-19 doesn't care if you're a good person or not, whether you were just getting started, whether you have a business you have to run. These things just are. And that's such an important part of stoicism.
Starting point is 00:20:51 You know, Mark Sirius goes, don't ask yourself, why do these things exist? They just are. And the energy that you spend bemoaning them, feeling singled out, feeling hopeless because of them, feeling like you've been, you know, sort of uniquely wronged, that's energy that you're not spending, one, on a solution if there is one. Two, as you said, might be adding additional stress or might actually be making you sicker in some way. But three, it's eating up the one resource that is most scarce in life, and that is time, right? The Stoics focus on death for a reason. It's that life is very short. And so to spend time kicking and screaming and wishing that things were otherwise than they are is to reject the gift of the moment that is in front
Starting point is 00:21:48 of you right now. Yeah. The gift. Yeah. I spend a lot of time thinking about that. And to really try and make it super relevant for every single person listening or watching this right now, if we take that example I mentioned about, let's say, a woman whose husband has just cheated on her and she's found out. Okay, so I'm sure there's someone listening right now who is in that situation, I would imagine. So how can we apply Stoic philosophy there? How can we apply control the controllables, don't waste energy on things that, you know, are not going to serve you. Blame. How can that all fit together in this real life scenario?
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Starting point is 00:24:19 If you want to take advantage of this limited time offer, all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. That's drinkag1.com forward slash live more. So one thing we do in a situation like a betrayal is our mind sort of turns against us. We spend a lot of time picturing it. We spend a lot of time thinking about it. We spend a lot of time asking questions. Why did this happen to me?
Starting point is 00:24:56 Why did they do it to me? Is it because I'm not good enough? Did I invite this on myself in some way, right? We sort of, we go through all those stages of grief and pain and loss. And I don't think the Stoics would say that you're not allowed to do that. The Stoics sort of more than accept that we have these sort of involuntary biological, psychological, spiritual reactions to things. They're just saying, like, how long are you going to do this to yourself? Are you going to, are you going to, is the rest of your life going to be
Starting point is 00:25:31 horrible because one person did a horrible thing to you? That's not the way to do it. So I think, so it's sort of first seeing it for what it is, understanding that it did happen, no amount of denial and no amount of self-flagellation is going to change that. And then I think what we look for in a situation like that is, okay, what has this shown me? What has this done for me? So, of course, it's extremely painful to have been cheated on or betrayed in that way. But now you're faced with the choice. Are you going to continue in this relationship? Are you going to be in a relationship with a person that's, you know, treated you in this way? That's obviously one fork that you go. The other fork is, you know, is this something that is going to be,
Starting point is 00:26:26 you know, an experience through which or for which I'm going to emerge a better person and perhaps my relationship is going to emerge better for it. So I'm making no judgment about whether you leave or stay, that's an individual choice. But the Stokes would say that in either course, right, deciding to stand up for yourself and walk away, deciding to rebuild the relationship out of the ashes of this event, both those situations challenge you to become a better version of yourself. They challenge you physically, mentally, spiritually, and how are you going to emerge from that challenge a better version of yourself? That's what the philosophy is about to me. your books that help you become better at being you. So you're better at facing life, which has obstacles and has challenges and has unexpected events happening. It's kind of this, it's almost this relentless quest for self-improvement and calm. Stillness,
Starting point is 00:27:41 a topic of one of your books, but how important is it to be able to access stillness in order to practice the philosophy of Stoicism? Or can the practice of various Stoic techniques and principles help you become more still? 500 years ago, Blaise Pascal said, all of humanity's problems stem from our inability to sit quietly in a room alone. So you asked how important is it? Well, I think it's probably hard to get bigger than all of our problems stem from this one thing. And I think it's true, right? I mean, even to go back to this idea of an affair, you know, it's our inability to be content with what we have, our inability to, you know, sit with our own uncomfortable feelings for two seconds that drives us to do, you know, things that blow up our entire lives, right? And to blow them up for, you know, a few minutes of pleasure, no less. It's it's it's strange what human beings do. I think that's that's been one of the interesting thing about the interesting things about the last several months is is just how much it's forced us to slow down and live a different pace of life to to to focus on what really matters for us.
Starting point is 00:29:04 So I think I think stillness is essential. Seneca says there is no greatness without stillness, um, without calmness is the word he uses, but, uh, we tend to associate stillness, uh, that sort of inner peace stuff with, again, with the Eastern philosophy, but I'm always amazed at, at just how much overlap there is between the East and the West in that regard. And, and, you whether you're reading the Bhagavad Gita, you're reading, you know, the writings of a Zen Buddhist or a samurai warrior, or you're reading Marcus Aurelius, this idea of slowing down, of locking in, of calming those demons that are swirling around inside us. That's really the key to insight, to artistic expression, to happiness, to, you know, just scientific breakthroughs. I think it's just at the core of everything that we do. Yeah, it really is. It's the, it's a thing in my life I've started to prioritize more and more.
Starting point is 00:30:08 It is something I've experimented with various ways to access stillness. And I think it changes throughout life. It changes on your life situation. If you've got kids, what's going on in your work life, all these sort of things. But I know if I don't guard it, other people, other things, other people's demands, and that's not me blaming other people, but they will suck up the stillness that I cherish so much. It's true. It is about guarding it. And I think that's the basic part of it, right? It's like, do you have room in your life for stillness? Are you overcommitted? Are you doing too much? You know, what's your routine look like? These are all really important ways to get to stillness, no question. But I also think there's a part of it about accessing stillness, even inside the craziness, right? I think about a basketball player, you know, on the free throw
Starting point is 00:31:03 line, a crowd is screaming at them and that, you know, this one point will determine the game. I think about, you know, you brought up kids. It's like, there's nothing less still than my house right now, sort of quarantining with two kids under four years old, right? It's madness. On the other hand, how do you find stillness within that? It can't just be, oh, my house is really noisy and loud. I'm going to go away. It can't just be, I'm going to retreat into meditation or I'm going to go for a drive or a walk or whatever. Marcus Aurelius talks about, he's like, you know, people try to get away from it all, you know, by going to the mountains or to the beach or to the countryside. But he says, you know, you can get away from it at any moment by turning inward. And I think
Starting point is 00:31:57 the ability, you know, ironically, presence is the ultimate form of stillness. Just to say, everything is fucking crazy right now. My kid is screaming. My phone is blowing up. You know, I'm trying to cook dinner to just sort of take a second and breathe and just go, I'm alive. I'm doing this stuff. I'm alive. I'm doing this stuff. It's hilarious and weird and ridiculous. But instead of trying to wish it was over or make it otherwise, I'm just going to be here for it. You know, that's to me a really important element of stoicism and of stillness. Yeah. I love that, Ryan. And I guess if I think about it personally, and I feel this has really changed me during 2020 and during lockdowns, I feel I've been on personal growth on steroids during lockdown. I really my daily practice off it because when I do my daily practice, I am more still and present for the other 23 hours of the day. And when I don't do it, I find I can fall into old patterns sometimes. So I think as you said, it's the basic versus the advanced, isn't it? It's like, what are the daily practices you can do to help you access it? But then how can you access it on tap? Actually, this week, what I've been doing, I've been meditating actually next to where my kids
Starting point is 00:33:37 get ready for school. Because I feel, oh, I'm meditating pretty well now. It's taken me a few years to really sort of struggle with it and actually battle with various forms. But as I start to let go and let it happen, I now feel it's like doing a bicep curl with more weights. I feel right. I'm going to meditate next to my kids screaming and get ready for school. And it feels great when you do that. That's right. I talk a lot about routine in the book. You do. And I think there's an element, like you do it for a long time, there's an element of routine that done often enough, done sincerely enough, that routine almost becomes ritual. There's something in routine that becomes almost sort of sacred. And I've certainly, I think as the rest of the world has kind of been turned down a little bit because
Starting point is 00:34:36 we're spending so much more time isolated, those routines have become a lot more important to me. What does your daily routine look like in terms of practical wisdom that people might be able to learn from? So I get up early. I don't touch my phone for the first one hour that I'm awake. That's one of my rules.
Starting point is 00:35:01 I don't sleep with my phone in the room either. I get up and the first thing I do is I take my kids for a walk. So we did a three mile loop, like around where we live this morning. My wife worked out while we did that. So that was our time together. And we saw some deer and birds and talked and told stories. Then I come back, that's when I do a little bit of journaling. And then I go straight into my writing practice for the day. Like, I want to write as early as possible, for as long as possible every day. And I try to do that before I agree to any interruptions, as far as how the schedule goes.
Starting point is 00:35:50 Is that because you are a writer, like you're an author, or is it something more than that? Is that because writing helps you process thoughts and emotions? Is it professional, personal, or a bit of both? Definitely a bit of both. I think it's, I'm a writer, so the first thing that I do is the work, right? What is the essential function of your job? Like arguably doing podcasts, answering emails, posting on social media. These are all parts of the career of a writer. These are professional obligations, but the main thing, there's are professional obligations, but the main thing, there's a great expression, keep the main thing, the main thing. What is the main thing of the job?
Starting point is 00:36:32 If I'm not writing, if I'm not producing written words, the whole, the wheels fall off the train. And so I do that first before the other stuff, because the other stuff, you know, gets tied up in ego and distraction and procrastination. And, you know, there's all sorts of other things that those other elements contain. And so by deciding to focus instead on the main thing first, that way I'm guaranteeing every day is successful. Yeah. Journaling is something that you write about. I only became aware of this recently, that the book Meditations, which is Marcus Aurelius, I've not read it yet, actually. I'm still trying to get through all your back catalog first before I get to the main guy. And these were his journalings, right? That actually he
Starting point is 00:37:27 never meant to be published, but actually provides so much wisdom now. And is journaling a part of Stoic philosophy and why do you think it's so beneficial? It's so a part of Stoic philosophy, you could almost say the two are inseparable. Marcus know, Marcus Aurelius' meditation, he doesn't call it that because it's his personal writings, but the title meditations in Greek, it translates as to himself. That's what he's doing. He's just writing to himself. And, you know, meditations isn't, you know, today I went to the park, you know, today I had lunch, you know, today I lost my temper. Actually, there's a little bit of that. It's him writing to himself about what he's thinking about and what he's struggling with and what he wants to get better.
Starting point is 00:38:20 Right. It's not a diary. Anne Frank's diary is mostly a recounting of her experiences. Meditations is a philosophical discourse between Marcus Aurelius and himself. And that's like one of the very fortunate things about what I do in writing about Stoicism professionally is that also that takes care of my exploration of it personally. But as a philosophy, it's really about a sort of a lifelong dialogue, revisiting of the same ideas over and over again until they kind of just get absorbed into the mind and the body. Yeah. I mean, putting my medical hat on for a minute, I have seen journaling help so many different conditions. You know, anxiety is
Starting point is 00:39:14 a big one. That's, you know, this idea that we have all these thoughts and emotions and they're stuck inside our mind. And if we do nothing to process them, they just stay there. And they, as I write about in one of my books, I talk about the stress threshold we've all got. And actually, if you've got all that in your mind and you've not processed it, you're very near your own personal stress threshold, which means it doesn't take much stress in the day to tip you over. So argument with your wife, with your children, an email from your colleagues that really irritates you and gets you angry. And I find personally, with myself and with patients, that just this practice of journaling, even for five or 10 minutes, can help just kickstart the process of clearing out the
Starting point is 00:39:57 junk that might have accumulated overnight in our minds. Yeah, I've heard someone describe journaling as spiritual windshield wipers. I thought that was a great way to put it. But to go to your point about anxiety, Marcus talks about, you know, he says, today I escaped my anxiety. And he goes, no, I discarded it because it was within me. And I think one of the things you realize is preposterous or illogical or not who you want to be as a person. And so there's a lot of, I don't know, it's just a wonderful device for processing your own emotions and fears and doubts that I've yet really to find anything that's as
Starting point is 00:41:08 similarly effective. So I know you're a father and I'm interested as a father myself in terms of how Stoicism and writing about its philosophy, studying it, absorbing it has impacting the way you parents. And what prompted that question is that probably for about two months now, consistently, my 10-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter do daily journaling. And I'm sort of trying to help them develop a daily practice. As I feel is my role as a father with this knowledge, I feel it's my duty to actually do that with my children. And it's just incredible to see the benefits that they're experiencing from it. So yeah, a few things to touch on there, if you don't mind, Ryan. Yeah, so my kids are still very, very young. So we're sort of not quite at the explicit,
Starting point is 00:42:09 quite at the explicit, you know, teaching phase of the ideas. But I do think a lot about stories with them. And I think one of the things that strikes me about so many children's books is how childish they are. The idea of there even being a moral in most children's books these days seems to have become hopelessly old fashioned. You know, it's got to be a silly book about pizza or monsters or, you know, whatever. The idea of sort of focusing on the sort of epic stories from history, whether they're Aesop's fables or the story of Cincinnatus, my older son loves just stories from history. I don't think he quite, I know he doesn't fully understand what's happening,
Starting point is 00:42:58 but I think there is value in having these things kind of repeated to you so many times that that's something like, for instance, my son loves what we obviously we try to limit screen time, but he's obsessed with screen. So sort of like what could what could we have you watch that we wouldn't feel like is rotting your brain? So we show him, you know, like that a lot of different YouTube channels will do like they'll illustrate poems, right? Like they'll take Kipling's If and they'll, you know, like put images to it
Starting point is 00:43:33 and they'll have someone repeat it. And it's amazing. So he's probably watched, you know, Kipling's If or Longfellow's A Psalm of Life, you know, a couple hundred times at this point. Bellows' A Psalm of Life, you know, a couple hundred times at this point. Sometimes he'll even go to sleep watching them. And every once in a while, he'll say something that is a line from the poem. And you realize, oh, this really has been inserted. He has no idea, but he has slowly internalized this idea. And I think hopefully when he's older, the true wisdom of the idea will really be in there. I really resonate with that. I think hopefully when he's older, the true wisdom of the idea will really be in there. I really resonate with that. I think it's a brilliant way of teaching ideas. And there's a wider point there for me, Ryan, which is storytelling.
Starting point is 00:44:15 So we learn through stories. We don't learn as well through hard, logical facts. I've said this before. I think one of the reasons public health campaigns often fail is because they're quite dry with their messaging. There's no story. There's no connection with my heart as to why I should give a damn about that public health story. There is no story there. But what you do, I think brilliantly, is you bring to life these concepts through story. I mean, there's so many that come to mind. I think when we talk about perception being everything that we can choose our perception, you tell a nice story about George Clooney when he's gone to Hollywood. I don't know if you remember it now, it's a few books ago for you, but perhaps you could elaborate on that and how perception is so important. Before we get back to this week's episode, I just wanted to
Starting point is 00:45:11 let you know that I am doing my very first national UK theatre tour. I am planning a really special evening where I share how you can break free from the habits that are holding you back and make meaningful changes in your life that truly last. It is called the Thrive Tour. Be the architect of your health and happiness. So many people tell me that health feels really complicated, but it really doesn't need to be. In my live event, I'm going to simplify health and together we're going to learn the skill of happiness, the secrets to optimal health, how to break free from the habits that are holding you back in your life. And I'm going to teach you how to make changes that actually last. Sound good? All you have to
Starting point is 00:45:56 do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash tour, and I can't wait to see you there. This episode is also brought to you by the Three Question Journal, the journal that I designed and created in partnership with Intelligent Change. Now, journaling is something that I've been recommending to my patients for years. It can help improve sleep, lead to better decision-making, and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. It's also been shown to decrease emotional stress, make it easier to turn new behaviours into long-term habits and improve
Starting point is 00:46:32 our relationships. There are of course many different ways to journal and as with most things it's important that you find the method that works best for you. One method that you may want to consider is the one that I outline in the three question journal. In it, you will find a really simple and structured way of answering the three most impactful questions I believe that we can all ask ourselves every morning and every evening. Answering these questions will take you less than five minutes, but the practice of answering them regularly will be transformative. Since the journal was published in January,
Starting point is 00:47:10 I have received hundreds of messages from people telling me how much it has helped them and how much more in control of their lives they now feel. Now, if you already have a journal or you don't actually want to buy a journal, that is completely fine. I go through in detail all of the questions within the three-question journal completely free on episode 413 of this podcast. But if you are keen to check it out, all you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash journal or click on the link in your podcast app.
Starting point is 00:47:51 I do remember this story. Before, I'll sort of preface this with, there's a reason Jesus speaks in parables. There's a reason that Aesop's fables resonate with us today. It's the human brain, I think, is wired for narrative. Ideas have to be illustrated to us. Really, really smart people can grasp things, you know, in their most sort of logical data-driven, you know, argumentative form, let's say. And I can get there sometimes, but I think the things that I really remember that have really sunk in with me, I ingested in the form of a story.
Starting point is 00:48:34 And so when I set out to write about Stoicism, I said, look, I'm not, I don't know anything remotely approaching, you know, the wisdom of a Marcus Aurelius or a Seneca or an Epictetus. So the idea that I'm going to write about Stoic philosophy and sort of out-explain these things, that I'm going to be more philosophical than these philosophers struck me as preposterous. And so what I decided to do was illustrate the ideas in the form of stories. And I mean, even in the most recent book, Lives of the Stoics, I wanted to tell the story of Stoicism, and I decided the best way to do that would be in telling the story of the lives of the actual Stoics. Because again, I think, you know, you learn by the ideas being
Starting point is 00:49:28 illustrated. And I do tell the story of George Clooney in The Obstacle is the Way, the idea that we can sort of flip how we think about things and see the good part inside, the opportunity inside the obstacle. George Clooney talks about how his breakthrough as an actor was instead of going into an audition and seeing it as this thing that they had that he wanted, that he had a problem. He flipped it and he realized these people are trying to make a movie or a television show and they need to cast an actor for it. When you go into a job interview, they're not doing that for fun. They need to hire someone. They are looking for talent. And if you can go into an audition or a presidential campaign or a job interview and see that the other side has a problem and start to see yourself as a solution to that problem, well, then instead of coming at it from a place of desperation, you're coming at it from a place not just of confidence, but also the
Starting point is 00:50:41 most persuasive place that you could come from. Ryan, the other story for me that I've always been really fascinated with is the story of Tiger Woods. Now, Tiger is someone who has ticked all off the boxes, certainly when it comes to society's definition of success. He's had critical acclaim. He's regarded as one of the all-time sporting greats. He's won major tournaments all over the globe. He's got money. He's had critical acclaim. He's regarded as one of the all-time sporting greats. He's won major tournaments all over the globe. He's got money. He's got fame. But that's only one side of the Tiger Woods story. And for those who are not familiar with the intricacies of his life, Tiger had a spectacular fall from grace. He admitted to multiple marital infidelities. He got divorced. He had to deal with multiple personal problems
Starting point is 00:51:27 that were played out in the public domain. And he suffered severe injuries resulting in multiple operations, including spinal surgery. Now, if you look at his entire life story, how his parents brought him up, his childhood, his teenage years. With hindsight, it's pretty clear that the circumstances that led to his dramatic fall were almost inevitable. They were always going to happen. So Ryan, I wonder if you could unpick his story a little bit for us. You've written about him at length. And at one point you write that we all have elements of Tiger within us. I think, you know, there's this idea that the stoic has no emotions, that you can just sort of push these things down. You can turn yourself into a machine or a robot, and that this is
Starting point is 00:52:18 the sort of path to success or greatness. I think Tiger Woods is a great example of the real dangers of that strategy. Basically, it was a ticking time bomb. He sort of had mental and physical discipline and spiritual disorder and chaos. And eventually, a house divided against itself can't stand it. It tore itself apart. And so I really see him as a cautionary tale, someone who was sort of undeniably great and incredibly talented, but had ignored at his own peril, very real demons for a very long time, and was motivated profoundly by the wrong things. And eventually that destroyed him and his family. And it took him basically a decade to rebuild himself as a golfer. And I think there's an element of hope, though, in that story also that he'd done because it came from a place of fullness rather than emptiness. Yeah, it's interesting. I would absolutely agree with that. Just everything about that story I find compelling. And there's a wider question there because I agree that the Masters victory in 2019, after 10 years away, which made front page headlines all over the world, which really was this amazing story of redemption.
Starting point is 00:54:14 His interviews were very different. He seemed like a person who had come to terms with his flaws and his failings and his mistakes. And I remember in one interview around that time, he said, yeah, I've explained to my kids, you know, the reason daddy doesn't live with mommy is because daddy makes a big mistakes. And there was a real acceptance. And I kind of wonder what he would think of Stoic philosophy, because something that underpins this conversation and your writings is about acceptance. It's kind of, that's the first step, right? Tiger was raised by a Buddhist mother. So I've got to imagine he has some familiarity with those ideas. You know, the inevitability of suffering, the powerlessness we have over the past, the pain that's caused by our flaws and our mistakes. I mean, yeah, even you just look at pictures of Tiger from 10 years ago and compare them today.
Starting point is 00:55:20 I mean, it's not just age. It's been a brutal knockdown, drag out fight with those demons. But I mean, you don't. That he did it is impressive in and of itself. Like, you know, there were relapses and falls along the way. I'm sure there are elements in him that people close to him still know that he's struggling with or find difficult to deal with. But when I originally wrote that draft, it was well before the master's victory.
Starting point is 00:55:52 So the story ended on a much more disappointing note. And as the book was going into editing and then ultimately going into production, that's when that victory happened. And I was very happy that I got to pivot it around that note. Not just because I think it reads better, but I didn't want it to be solely a story of failure and loss. Yeah. I want to make it clear that I'm sure neither one of us are excusing some of the things that Tiger has done, nor frankly is it my place to judge. I guess the wider point here is about compassion and where this fits into the Stoic philosophy. Because I think if you look at the story of Tiger, the facts, as you so
Starting point is 00:56:39 beautifully write, and I've read in other sort of books about Tiger, about his upbringing and about the fact that his dad didn't really want another child. And as you write in the book about how he's stuck on this high chair, he's not doing all these things as his dad practicing his golf swing, then he slips down at nine months and belts the ball. But even the fact that he didn't really have a childhood, the fact that his dad would shout racist abuse at him to train his mind. He says, son, you're going to get this when you're older. You need to be able to deal with that. You know, to become the assassin on the golf course, to become the greatest golfer of all time, in my view, okay, his parents, his dad achieved that, you know, Tiger achieved that, but at what cost
Starting point is 00:57:25 did that come? And so there's two elements to that, the cost of that, but also, and I want to get this point across because I don't think when people judge Tiger, I don't think they have a real understanding of what his life was really like. What I try to write about is figures who are larger than life, sort of in that Shakespearean sense where their flaws and their virtues are so big that you don't have to be a genius to really see what's going on. I think in most of us, these sort of things are much more subtle, right? You know, it's my parents made me wear glasses. And so now I kind of have this weird issue. You know, it's not, you know, my dad basically put me through boot camp from the time I was two years old, made me a, you know, a single minded individual only did this
Starting point is 00:58:17 thing. And then I became the greatest in the world. You know, most of us are not Tiger Woods. Most of us are not Marcus Aurelius. Most of us are not, you know, Hamlet. Most of us are not Tiger Woods. Most of us are not Marcus Aurelius. Most of us are not, you know, Hamlet. Most of us are not these, you know, figures like that. But what we learn in stories is, you know, I'm hoping that you find one little thing that you relate to in that person. It's not about judging them. It's not about writing them off. It's about seeing the things that they're wrestling with and learning from either their success or failure in that battle about the kind of person that we want to be. Yeah. The points I really wanted to sort of expand upon with you today is it seems like a lot of people who have achieved success or have achieved the things that we crave or that many of us in society crave and think is desirable, it really feels as though it comes at a cost. Is it possible to achieve success
Starting point is 00:59:19 without that inner pain and drive is something that I think about a lot. without that inner pain and drive is something that I think about a lot. Yeah, there's a great Wright Thompson book. He's a sports writer in America and the title of his book, and he profiles Tiger and a bunch of other great athletes, but the title is The Cost of These Dreams. And I think that's a beautiful expression. What does it cost to turn a part of yourself off in pursuit of a goal like that? What does it cost? You know, the stoics, one of the stoic virtues is the virtue of moderation or balance. And I think what you see in a lot of these characters is that they've taken themselves to an extreme, to a point where the virtue becomes a vice. So, you know, mastery is an important, I think, noble goal. But if your
Starting point is 01:00:17 mastery of golf comes at the expense of, you know, giving a shit about other people, it probably becomes a vice. And so, you know, how does, how does our commitment to a thing? How does our goal, how does our, you know, single-minded pursuit of something, you know, if we're not careful, can become a source, not just of, of, of pain and suffering, but, but can ultimately kind of be the source of our downfall. So it's a tricky balance. And I think if you're just a totally regular person who's not trying to do anything in this world, that's probably not something you have to worry about, but it's precisely the really talented, the ambitious, the successful that, that have to wrestle with those, those demons and, and you know, that your success or failure in that,
Starting point is 01:01:07 it's going to determine the quality of your life. But it's also those of us who watch those people and look up to those people. And therefore, how we define whether we're being successful is, are we getting close to those people? It could be the businessman who wants his business to triple profits one year. He can do it, but he can do it by never seeing his kids at bedtime, by never seeing his wife, his marriage maybe disintegrating. Whilst he achieves the goal, yes, he's 3x'd his business, but at what cost? And I kind of feel that actually is also, there's something in Stoic philosophy there for us to learn is how do we actually rationally and not emotively look at that and recognize that everything has a pro,
Starting point is 01:01:51 but it also has a con. I mean, I think this is the core sort of discovery of all the schools, right? In Christianity, what good is it to gain the whole world if you lose your soul? what good is it to gain the whole world if you lose your soul? Why are you doing it? What are you hoping? Is it that you believe that if you just sell enough books, you'll achieve some semblance of immortality? If you just make enough money, your dad will be proud of you. If you, you know, you just get, you know, in good enough shape, women will love you. We internalize these assumptions, and they're really based on nothing. I do think what can happen too is we look at these people, and we can learn the wrong lessons, right? Was Steve Jobs a great inventor and CEO because he was an asshole?
Starting point is 01:02:47 Or was it that he was so talented and brilliant and he worked so hard that it allowed him to get away with being an asshole, right? We want to make sure that we're not studying these people and taking away rationalizations for our worst impulses. Yeah. You mentioned how Eastern, Western philosophies, we often think of them as quite opposites, but you mentioned a couple of places where they start to intersect. And one thing I wrote down as I was sort of preparing for today was this whole idea that obviously Stoke philosophy,
Starting point is 01:03:26 a lot of control the controllable process over outcome. It's journey over destination. And this is something that I think all philosophies tend to intersect and agree on. And it's a key in habit change as well. Don't focus on the body you want, focus on the daily practices, the daily steps you need to take that if you do it consistently, will actually get you there somewhere in the future. Yeah, I liken it to convergent evolution. Sometimes different species have evolved
Starting point is 01:03:59 for totally different reasons, very similar adaptive strategies. So birds and bats can both fly, but they fly for very different reasons with the different adaptations. Pandas and apes both have opposable thumbs, but they don't really share a common ancestor. And so I think what's so beautiful, what the happenstance of history has allowed us to see is that basically the Buddhists and the Stoics came to a lot of very similar conclusions independently. And I think that gives us a greater confidence in their validity that they both came to the same conclusions from different source material. Yeah, that's a beautiful way to look at it. Ryan, just to close off the conversation,
Starting point is 01:04:47 you're someone who I wanted to speak to for a long period of time. So I appreciate you giving up some time today. The podcast is called Feel Better Live More. When we feel better in ourselves, we get more out of our life. And I always like to leave the listener, the viewer with some practical tips that they can think about applying into their own life to improve the quality. So I wonder if you, some sort of closing thoughts on some real practical wisdom that people can think about applying. Well, Seneca has this great line. He says, a lot of old people have no proof of their age, but a lot of years. His point is like, it really doesn't matter how long you live. It matters what you do in your life, like how that life goes. And the idea to me of death, to bring this back to where we began, the idea of death sort of
Starting point is 01:05:42 looming over things and giving you perspective and priority to me has probably been the most singularly valuable exercise in stoicism. So I carry a coin in my pocket that says memento mori on it. I try to think regularly about death. Even, you know, go to your point about parenting. Marcus Aurelius says, as you tuck your children into bed at night, you should think they may not survive till morning. That seems really dark and morbid. But what he's saying is, why are you rushing through this? Why are you taking this person for granted? of slowing down, of being present, of valuing the right things. All of that is enabled by a regular practice of meditating on your mortality. Yeah. Well, I think that's some powerful wisdom there. That struck me right into my heart. You
Starting point is 01:06:42 know, it's evening time in the UK. I will be tucking my own children in in about an hour, an hour and a half. And I certainly will have that at the back of my mind as I do so. Ryan, you are a wonderful author. Your contributions to the world has been phenomenal. Thank you so much. And I hope we get the chance to do this again at some point in the future. Let's do it. point in the future. Let's do it. Really hope you enjoyed that conversation. And as always, please do have a think about one thing that you can take away from today's episode and apply into your everyday life. If you want to support my show, please do share this episode with your friends and family. Consider leaving a review on whichever podcast
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