The Daily Stoic - If You Want To Be Powerful | Practice Silence

Episode Date: October 3, 2022

Since the time of the Stoics, people have aspired to command great armies. To accumulate great fortunes. To hold high office. To be famous. To be important. In short, humans have longed to (and continue to) chase power.📕 Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" is out now! We’ve extended the pre-order bonuses for the next week—among them is a signed and numbered page from the original manuscript of the book. You can learn more about those and how to receive them over at Dailystoic.com/preorder. ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See 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 Stoke Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoke Podcast. Each day we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stokes, 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 stoke, 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 Wunderree'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. If you want to be powerful, since the time of the Stelix people have aspired to command great armies, to accumulate great fortune, to hold high offices to be famous, to be important, in short, humans have long and continue to chase power.

But the irony of this is how readily they pass up the power they already have. As Pubilius, Sirius, a slave turns philosopher like Epictetus would write, would you have a great empire rule over yourself? Think of Epictetus who was willing to make so many compromises with Nero to be in the room where it happened. Yes, he became counsel, but was he actually more powerful than Epictetus who did the work on his desires and ambitions and came to command himself. Who was freer? Who was greater? It's crazy. Our ambition for command over others, as Seneca noted, without self-awareness ends up commanding ourselves. To be powerful, we give up power over our schedule. To be rich, we sell all our time. To be famous and well-liked, we give up the love of our families.

To win awards, we give up our autonomy, trading our preferences for those of the judges or the gatekeepers. You could be powerful right now in your own life, in your own mind, if you decided to seize what was already yours, if you stopped giving your power away. And I always love that quote, would you have a great empire rule over yourself? It's actually the opener, the epigraph, to the introduction of the new book, Discipline and Destiny. We're talking about how that season command of yourself, that's how you really achieve

your destiny, not the destiny of having the most or being the richest, but the destiny of being the best person you are capable of being requires that kind of self-discipline. There's a chapter about Napoleon and Napoleon's warnings that he wrote as a young man, specifically even about Alexander and his excessive ambition and where it got him. And then Napoleon fails to learn that lesson to the ruin, not just of himself, but millions of Europeans. To me, discipline is the most important trait a person can have, right? It's not knowing what you should do.

It's being able to do it, right? To have the force of will and character, to stick to the right path. And even, as Seneca says, when those around you are hopelessly lost. There's no one truly great that we truly admire who hasn't been defined by their self-control and their discipline. So I can't wait for you to check out the new book discipline is destiny, the power of

self-control. The second in my four virtues series on the cardinal virtues of Stoicism courage discipline justice wisdom. The new book is out now. We're still honoring some of the preorder bonuses which you can grab at dailystoke.com slash preorder. But you can pick up discipline is best to need the power of self control anywhere books are sold. Grab it on audible you can grab it on Kindle you can pick it up at your local indie bookstore. If you want me to sign your copy you can also do that at dailystowoc.com slash pre-order. And we even have some signed manuscript pages for people who order five copies, plus you get a bunch of other bonuses, which

I'd love to give you. So sign up at dailystowoc.com slash discipline. Practice silence. Social media teaches us to have an opinion about everything. Silence beckons us to speak. We live in a loud culture and we try to keep up by being louder in return. And how much trouble does this cause us? How much might we learn if we spent more time listening to others than trying to sandwich our opinions in at every turn? How much of what we say do we come to regret? So really, the truly loud thing to say is nothing. So spend some time writing your thoughts down this week,

see how many of them you can keep yourself, be bold in your silence, and how much you hold your tongue this week. And this is from this week's entry in the Daily Steal of 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 then there's these sort of weekly meditations. As Epictetus says, every day and night, we keep thoughts like this at hand, write them, read them aloud, and talk to yourself and others about them. You can check out the Daily Stoke Journal anywhere at Books or Sold. You can also get a signed personalized copy from me in the Daily Stoke store at store.dailystoke.com. One of the hardest parts about putting out a book is all the interviews I have to do. I feel like I talk more than I've ever talked in my life. And it's such a violation of how I try to comport myself, how I want to live,

what's healthy to live. People should not be asking for your opinion as much as they have been asking me in the last couple of weeks. People should not be as interested in me as they've been in the last couple of weeks. I shouldn't be seeking out attention or platforms the way that I have been in the last couple of weeks. I shouldn't be seeking out attention or platforms the way that I have been in the last couple of weeks. It's like a deliberately unhealthy period. It's almost like gaining weight for an acting role or something. It's just part of the job.

I have to do it. It's like pulling all nighters for some project where there's no alternative. It's not good for you. You shouldn't be doing it. And then your diet suffers and all this other stuff. But that's just part of the job and I have to come to understand that.

But I also work really hard not to let it go to my head because I don't want to be a babbling self-absorbed, self-obsessed person who thinks that people should care as much as they've cared the last couple of weeks. That's just the reality of putting out a book. It's been weird. It's been weird. And like I say, one of the benefits of philosophy is that it centers you, you come back to it. And so I'll give you three quotes today from Xeno, two or four quotes today, two from Xeno, actually, that should help you and certainly helping me to think about Xeno

says better to trip with the feet than with the tongue. It's inevitable, right? An actor goes on on a press tour and they say something dumb because they're just forced to talk. They're forced to answer all these questions, but you get in trouble the more you talk. That's just something I found. As Robert Green says, always say less than necessary. Another quote from Xeno, to a youngster talking nonsense. Xeno said, the reason why we have two ears and only one mouth. So we might listen more and talk less. It's beautiful. I love that. And then Plato talking about Kato the Younger says, Kato practice the kind of public speech

capable of moving the masses, believing proper political philosophy takes care like any great city to maintain the war like element. But he was never seen practicing in front of others and no one ever heard him rehearse the speech. When he was told that people blamed him for his silence he replied, better they not blame my life. I begin to speak only when I'm certain

that what I'll say isn't best left unsaid. Beautiful. That's something I do try to carry forward when I do talks and stuff people. But what do you think about this? What do you think about that? And I try to, on a pretty regular basis, maybe even once per taco, I don't know. I don't know about that because you don't want to get the

habit of forcing an answer about things when you don't know. If you don't know, it takes courage to be like, I don't know or I don't care. I have not studied that. I don't have enough information to be okay, being thought dumb or foolish, as Epictetus says. Silence does that. be okay being thought dumb or foolish, as Epictetus says. Silence does that. Practicing silence is a discipline, it takes discipline, it is not easy, and you will sometimes look silly, and you will sometimes hurt people's feelings, but I think you'll hurt people's feelings less by not talking than you will by talking. And that gets us to the final quote, this is from Seneca's play The Estes. He says, silence is a lesson learned from the many sufferings of life. Another great quote I love from Seneca says,

when I think of all the things I said, I envy the mute, meaning he wishes he couldn't talk because he said so much dumb stuff that when he thinks back on it, he's almost overwhelmed the shame or awkwardness. And the hard parts about being right or having the social media presence is you know what's out there and you cringe,

you think about it. There's always a tweet. There's always a dumb article. There's always a time you jumped out to take a hot take. You should have just left it there because you didn't know, you didn't know enough. You didn't put the work in. You didn't actually care.

You forced it. You let your ego get a hold of you. And that never makes good work. So let's practice a little silence this week. If you have something to say write it down in your journal. Don't say it on social media. Always say less than necessary. Try to say less than necessary.

That's the stoke way. Thanks. Talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the Daily Stoke podcast. Just a reminder, we've got signed copies of all my books in the Daily Stoke Store. You can get them personalized, you can get them sent to a friend. The app goes away. You go as the enemy, still in this is the key, the leather bound edition of the Daily Stoke. We have them all in the Daily Stoke Store, which you can check out the Daily Stoic early and ad-free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts.

Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just going to end up on Page Six or Du Moir or in court. I'm Matt Bellesai. And I'm Sydney Battle, and we're the host of Wondery's new podcast, Dis and Tell, where each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud from the buildup, why it happened, and the repercussions. What does our obsession with these feuds say about us? The first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture

drama, but none is drawn out in personal as Brittany and Jamie Lynn Spears. When Brittany's fans form the free Brittany movement, dedicated to fraying her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lynn's lack of public support, it angered some fans, a lot of them. It's a story of two young women who had their choices taken away from them by their controlling parents, but took their anger out on each other. And it's about a movement to save a superstar, which set its sights upon anyone who failed to fight for Britney.

Follow Dissentel wherever you get your podcast. star, which said it sites upon anyone who failed to fight for Brittany.