The Daily Stoic - Daily Stoic Sundays: The Stoic Art of Not Caring

Episode Date: September 6, 2020

In today's Sunday Podcast, Ryan talks about how to apply Stoicism, and the difference between not caring at all and only caring about what's important.This episode is also brought to you by Raycon, maker of affordable earbuds with incredibly high-quality sound. Raycon earbuds are half the price of more-expensive competitors and sound just as good. With six hours of battery time, seamless Bluetooth pairing, and a great-fitting design, Raycon earbuds are perfect for working out, travel, conference calls, and more. Get 15% off your order when you purchase Raycon earbuds now, just visit buyraycon.com/stoic.  ***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoic, something that can help you live up to those four stoic virtues of courage, justice, wisdom, and temperance. And here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers, we reflect, we prepare. We think deeply about the challenging issues of our time. And we work through this philosophy in a way that's more

possible here when we're not rushing to worker to get the kids to school. When we have the time to think to go for a walk, to sit with our journals and to prepare for what the future will bring. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wonderree's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another weekend episode of The Daily Stoke.

You might have heard the interview I did not long go with Mark Manson and sort of Mark's interesting concept of the subtle art of not giving a fuck. And then one of the first things I talked to Mark about was this sort of... We're not talking about giving no fucks, we're talking about giving no fucks about the things that don't matter. And so there's a super viral video you can see out there about sort of the stoic art of not caring. And I wanted to kind of respond to that in today's episode because I don't really think that's what stoicism is about. Soicism is not about not caring.

It's about not caring about the things that don't matter. As Marks really says, it's about being indifferent to the things that make no difference. And so how we apply Stoicism in the world that it's beyond simply not caring, it's actually caring quite intensely about the things that matter, but getting to a place where you sort of have this inner citadel, this even keel that protects you from being brought too high or too low by external events. And there's some controversial examples in it. We talk about Rockefeller, not because Rockefeller was this great human being, although ultimately in the end,

his philanthropic endeavors have had an enormous positive impact on humanity, especially right now in the pandemic. The Rockefeller Foundation is stepped up to fill the void of leadership that particularly agreed just one here in the United States. But because Rockefeller was famous for his sort of poise and self-control and self-discipline,

particularly in business matters. So like, again, I'm not endorsing Rockefeller any more than Senaiko was endorsing Alexander the Great when he uses him as an example. So I hope you enjoy this video. Again, the purpose of this dough philosophy is not to make you emotionless, not to make you indifferent to the world, but only to be indifferent to the things that make no difference,

to stop caring about the things that don't matter. And as Mark Manson says, it is a subtle art, so it's not a, it requires some finesse. And I think he'll take this from today's episode. And really like it. I was only 19 years old when a single book altered the course of my life. I was then in the habit of asking people, I admired a question.

What is a book that changed your life? It's a simple question, but I wouldn't be watching this video if I hadn't asked it. What's a book that changed you one that you'd recommend to your younger self? And so soon enough, I found Marcus Areleius' Meditations in my hands. It was for me what the economist Tyler Cowan calls a Quake book. It shook my entire worldview. And a single passage in it changed everything.

In fact, the passage has changed the lives of many people in the 2000 years since it was written. I've turned to it again and again when I dropped out of school, when I had problems at work, problems in my relationships, problems with employees and just normal everyday life stuff. The passage goes like this, our actions may be impeded, but there can be no impeding our intentions or dispositions because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes, the obstacle to our acting. And then Marcus Aurelius concludes with some of the most powerful words ever written, the impediment

to action advances action, he says, what stands in the way becomes the way. Marcus Aurelius wrote that to himself, likely on the battlefront, as he led the Roman army against barbarian tribes, or possibly in the palace under almost unimaginable pressure. What Marcus was reminding himself is the core tenet of Stoicism. It doesn't really matter what happens, because in every situation good or bad, we have incredible power, the power to choose how we respond. Stoicism as a philosophy is ultimately about action,

an art that is designed to be practiced. And how does what stands in the way become the way? The story of John D. Rockefeller is illustrated. Before John D. Rockefeller became the richest person in modern history, he was just a kid making 50 cents a day as a bookkeeper and aspiring investor. Two years into his first job, the panic of 1857 struck. And it hit just as Rockefeller was starting to make some headway in his career.

The top investors who supposedly knew what they were doing lost everything. His peers either complained about this violent, economic disaster or left the business altogether. People were ruined, people were disillusioned. But Rockefeller didn't care. He didn't care that it was the greatest market depression in history.

He didn't care about what everyone else was doing. He didn't care that people with more experience were telling him to find a new career. All he cared about was what was in his control. He could carefully observe the events that were unfolding. He could look for some any opportunity to learn from this panic. He could consider it a baptism in the market. 20 years later Rockefeller alone controlled 90% of the oil market. And he would say with gratitude

how much he had benefited from the difficulties and the apprenticeship he had in those difficulties in those years when he decided to study and learn rather than turn tail and run. So how can we cultivate this fortitude? How can we be like Rockefeller? The economy and historic decline, not bemoaning our fate, but embracing the historic opportunity. The answer the Stoics would say as Marcus has written is to stop caring about everything outside your control. It's not easy, but it's simple. It's a two-part mental shift. First, you have to see every situation rationally.

You must not panic or make rash decisions. You must not take it personally. You must not panic or make rash decisions, you must not take it personally, you must not exaggerate, you must not focus on what it means, what everyone else says it means. And then like Rockefeller, you have to ask yourself, what do I have control over here? What can I change your influence? Where is the opportunity to learn? Take a business decision that turned out

to be a mistake. You could choose whether it was a complete failure or a hypothesis that turned out to be wrong. You could choose to be crushed by it. You could look at how enormous the cost of the failure has been or like a good scientist, you could decide to learn from it, to use it for your next experiment. You could see it as data. You could see it like a writer and use it as material. What about that computer glitch that erased all your work? You choose whether it ruins your day, your week, your year, or whether it makes you twice as good

since you will now have to do it again this time more prepared. Perhaps you were injured recently and are stuck in bed recovering. You choose whether that's an excuse for killing time or an excuse to start the blog or the screenplay or the project you've been putting off. Maybe you've recently lost your job. You choose whether you spiral into sadness

or into teaching yourself the skills to get the job you've always wanted. Someone insulted you. You choose whether you are going to be offended, whether you're going to respond the skills to get the job you've always wanted. Someone insulted you, you choose whether you are going to be offended, whether you're going to respond or whether you're going to let it go. Some call it a thick skin or grit or resilience or perseverance or resolve. Marcus Aurelius called it tranquility. It's what comes when you stop caring, he said, about what others say or think or do. When you stop

caring about what you can't control, what or think or do. When you stop caring about what you can't control, what you can't change. When you stop caring, Marcus Aurelia said about everything, but what you do. This is the chief task in life. Marcus's favorite philosopher, Epictetus, says, it's to identify and separate matters. So you can say clearly to yourself, what are externals not in your control? And where do you have choices you actually do control? Where then do I look for good and evil? Epochetus said, not in uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own.

Or as the stoic say, it's about what's up to us and what's not up to us. Once we have organized our understanding of the world into this black and white bucket, what remains, what was so central to Epic Titus' survival as a slave is to focus on what is up to us, our attitudes, our emotions, our wants, our desires, our opinion about what happened to us, what we will learn from this, what we will do in response to this, how we will be made better because of this. Everything else who cares. If you like the podcast that we do here and you want to get it via email every morning,

you can sign up at dailystoic.com slash email. Hey, prime members, you can listen to the daily Stoic early and ad free on Amazon music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts. Hey there listeners, while we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think you'll like. It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks to founders behind some of the world's biggest and most innovative companies, to learn how they built them from the ground

up. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace, Manduka Yoga Mats, Soul Cycle, and Codopaxi, as well as entrepreneurs working to solve some of the biggest problems of our time, like developing technology that pulls energy from the ground to heat in cool homes, or even figuring out how to make drinking water from air and sunlight. Together, they discussed their entire journey from day one, and all the skills they had to learn along the way, like confronting big challenges, and how to lead through uncertainty.

So, if you want to get inspired and learn how to think like an entrepreneur, check out how I built this, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon or Wonder yet. out how I built this, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon or Wondery app.