The Daily Stoic - Do You Want To Join These Ranks? | The Portable Retreat

Episode Date: March 21, 2022

Ryan talks about the importance of studying philosophy, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal.🎓 Sign up for Stoicism 101: Ancient Philosophy For Your Actual Life - https://dailystoic.com/101Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/emailFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee 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 podcasts early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast. Each day we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoic's illustrated with stories from history, current events, and literature to help you be better at what you do. And at the beginning of the week, we try to do a deeper dive, setting a kind of stoic intention for the week, something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave you with, to journal about, whatever it is you happen to be doing. So let's get into it. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wundery'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. Do you want to join these ranks? We have this notion that philosophers are academics. And although many of the Stoics were teachers, this was rarely if ever their their full occupation or their their day-to-day profession. Across the first 500 years of Stoic history, the members formed an astonishing spectrum of the stations in life. They were soldiers and emperors and public servants and merchants and writers and athletes and parents and daughters and soldiers and emperors and public servants and merchants and writers and athletes and parents and daughters and diplomats. And these ancients would then influence and inspire many of history's greats and some

of today's greats. Theodore Roosevelt brought Epic Titus and Marcus Aurelius on his deadly river of doubt expedition. Thomas Jefferson had Seneca on his nightstand when he died. To Saant Levantur, the leader of the Haitian Revolution studied epictetus as he rose against the Poliate. Beatrice Webb, who not only helped found the London School of Economics, and first conceptualized the idea of collective bargaining, called Meditations, Her Manual of Devotion. And more recently, Stoicism has found its largest and most diverse audience ever. Stoicism has given me the tools, said the pop star Camila Cabejo, to give her peace

and authenticity when she works and when she writes and when she sits down on her craft. And she says she's best that she didn't get taught those tools in school. As he told ESPN a couple years ago, Alabama football coach Nick Sabin uses the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius to prepare for big games. You can read about how whenever General James Madness is deployed, he packed a copy of meditations with him. Actors, Olympians, best-selling authors, Navy SEALs, entrepreneurs, journalists, distance runners, men, women, moms, dads, sons, daughters, we could go on and on with the list to have read and studied and quoted. Try to live by the ideas in the Stokes. It doesn't matter what you do or where you're from, what your station is in life, you can

join those ranks. There is no role, Marcus Aurelis would write, so well suited to philosophy, as the one you happen to be in right now, the role of parent, the role of spouse, the role of person waiting in line, the role of a person who has just been given bad news, the role of a person who is rich, the role of a person sent into exile or delivered into bankruptcy, the role of a person who finds themselves enslaved, literally or otherwise, all of these are suited to philosophy. There is no role in which deacism cannot be of service. Which is why we can confidently say that whatever you're doing, whoever you are, this course we've made,

stoicism 101, ancient philosophy for your actual life will be of use. Because as we've been saying, this 14 day course was designed, was created around the stoic belief that the only reason to study philosophies to become a better person, to live a better life, to be better at what you do. That's exactly what stoicism, one-on-one, has done for some of the people that we've talked

to that went through the course last year. They said that stoicism has changed your life, but the course took their understanding of that to the next level, that although stoicism had peaked their interest, this course helped bring some real tangible improvements in their study. And people read my books or just heard of my books, this was like their entry point into getting serious about stoicism. And we got real serious making this course. In 14 custom emails delivered daily, that's 20,000 words of content, basically a short book. We talk about who the Stoics were, things a Stoic does, things a Stoic doesn't do, what sets the Stoics apart from other philosophies and philosophers. The key components of living a good Stoic day, the Stoic secrets to success, the Stoic secrets to

resilience, the Stoic secrets to productivity. And there's three live video sessions with me, we're calling them office hours plus, you get access to the ones I did, the last go around. So that's hours and hours of deep dives into the big stoic questions. You know, I have some experience talking about stoicism and people I've done it all over the world. The audience is big and small, elite and ordinary. And I've already done this course before. So I'm really excited to bring all that wisdom to you, but it's a live course and it begins tomorrow, March 22nd. You don't have much time.

All participants are gonna be moving through the course together, so please sign up now. Today is the last day to register. Registration closes tonight at midnight. So I wanna have you sign up. Do that now before it's too late. Sign up at dailystoke.com slash 101

Or check it out in the daily stoke store and remember if you sign up for daily stoke life You get this course in all the other stoicism courses for free plus a lot of other cool stuff So if you've been thinking about doing that now is a good excuse you can sign up there at dailystokelife.com is a good excuse you can sign up there at dailystayaclife.com. The portable retreat. And this is from this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal, 366 days of writing and reflection on the art of living by yours truly and my co-writer and translator, Stephen Hanselman. I actually do this journal every single day.

There's a question in the morning, a question in the afternoon, and there's these sort of weekly meditations. As Epictetus says, every day and night, we keep thoughts like this in hand, write them, read them aloud, and talk to yourself, and others about them. You can check out the Daily Stalk Journal, anywhere books are sold,

and also get a signed personalized copy from me in the Daily Stalk store, it's store.dailystalk.com. It is in the future, on a vacation, on your day off. That's when we plan to get out into nature. We think there we'll find peace and release from the crush of the everyday demands of life. Yet this never seems to really happen

as often as we think does it. And when we do get that peace, it is difficult to keep it once we go back into the fray. So for a stoic, all this is madness. The true retreat is to the freedom of our own mind and our own soul. To consider the gifts we already have that can be a refuge for all time. If we take the time daily to do so, that's from the daily stoic weekly meditation in the Stoic Journal, which I hope you check out.

We've got some quotes from Marcus Realius and Epictetus here to round it out. People seek retreat for themselves in the country, by the sea or in the mountains. You are very much in the habit of yearning for those same things, but this is entirely the trait of a base person, when you can at any moment find such a retreat in yourself. For nowhere can you find a more peaceful and less busy retreat than in your own soul, especially if on close inspection it is filled with ease, which I say is nothing more than being well ordered. Treat yourself often to this retreat and be renewed. Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, 4.3.

Remember that it is not only the desire for wealth and position that debases and subjugates us, but also the desire for peace, leisure, travel, and learning. It doesn't matter what the external thing is, the value we place on it subjugates us to another, where our heart is set, there are impediment lies. That's Epic Titus' discourse is 4.4. Remember that your ruling reason becomes unconquerable when it rallies and relies on itself, so that it won't do anything contrary to its own will, even if its position is irrational.

How much more unconquerable if its judgments are careful and made rationally. Therefore, the mind-free from passions is an impenetrable fortress, and a person has no more secure place of refuge for all time. That's Marcus Realius' meditations 8.48. You know, it must have been really hard to be Marcus. I mean, we think about sometimes the American media teases presidents for how much they play golf or you know, jet off tomorrow, logo or camp David or any of those sort of retreats. But the truth is it must

be extraordinarily hard to be at the head of state. Endless meetings, endless responsibilities, endless responsibilities, endless criticism, endless pressure, you're trapped in this house. You live at the office, literally. And so leaders need escapes. They need hobbies. Talk about this and stillness is the key, Churchill's, you know, hobby of brick laying and painting, you know, eyes and hour place golf. All that's important. But what Mark is really really saying is, and I think this is true for all of us, you're not actually able to get away from it all with a hobby, with a trip, with a vacation. And in fact, in my own experience, often I come back to the office from vacation more

stressed out. When I had Matt Bernerger on the podcast from the national, we talked about how, you know, you think, hey, I'm going to take a couple of week vacation and relax, get down to a lower pace of life, recharge, then when I come back, I'll be better. It probably took me like eight, nine months into the pandemic to really detox from the daily grind of work to adjust to a slower pace of life. So the idea that two weeks or a trip to the beach or a trip to the mountains It's gonna help you get away from it all that a seven day meditation retreat is gonna do it for you It's not it can help, but it's not a mat

There's no magical solution. There's no pill. You can take there's no trip You can take there's no dark room in the back of your house. You can go to there's no beautiful landscape back yard that will do it No, you have to be able to turn inward. You have to be able to cultivate that piece in yourself. And that's better too. Don't you want it on demand? Vacations are expensive. You got to get on planes or they can be blocked from a pandemic or scrutiny from a whatever. You can't flee. Epicurus has every man flees himself. Emerson has a great essay on travel

and he talks about how many of us bring ruins to the ruins we visit. No, you stay put, you do the internal work, you find the refuge inside your own mind, inside your own soul, inside your own principles, inside your own meditation, inside your own journaling, inside the walk that you take, right? You gotta be able to find it and cultivate it on demand.

Much better for you, I promise. Focus on that, focus on cultivating the inward retreat as Marcus had to do. You never know, right? It's a pandemic, or things can block us from the trips, right? A travel delay, bad weather, things can prevent us from having that. But if we have it on the inside, you can feel at peace and serene, even as you are sitting in the airport waiting for your delayed and delayed and delayed flight.

That's what you want. You can have it even at court, as Marcus really said. You can have it even when you're president. Good systems, good internal discipline, good thoughts, a good soul. This is the best place of refuge and relaxation. So I hope you give yourself that gift and I hope you put in the work so you can have it when you need it. Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Stoke Podcast.

If you don't know this, you can get these delivered to you via email every day, check it out at dailystoke.com slash email. Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke early and add free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts. Ah, the Bahamas. What if you could live in a penthouse above the crystal clear ocean working during the day and partying at night with your best friends and have it be 100% paid for? FTX Founder Sam Bankman Freed lived that dream life, but it was all funded, with other

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From Bloomberg and Wondery, comes Spellcaster, a new six-part docu-series about the meteoric rise and spectacular fall of FTX, and its founder, Sam Beckman Fried. Follow Spellcaster wherever you get your podcast. Hey, Prime members, you can listen to episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today.