The Daily Stoic - It’s Not Romantic. It’s Just Work. |12 Ways Stoics Build Mental Strength And Resilience

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

We have a false picture about how success happens. We often only see the results and almost never the process of things, so we tend to think that the finished product—a book, being in shape, being wise—is impressive, and therefore the process by which that event was created must have been equally brilliant.In fact, it’s not.All success happens the same way: “action by action,” as Marcus said. Just after the release of Metallica’s eleventh album, Metallica’s Lars Ulrich explained the simple secret to their high output:See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I told this story before, but the first Airbnb I stayed in was 15 years ago. I was looking for places to live when I wanted to be a writer and we stayed at this house, I think outside Phoenix. And then when I bought my first house here in Austin, I would rent it out when South by Southwest or F-1 or all these events. My wife and I would go out of town and we'd rent it and it helped pay for the mortgage and it supported me while I was a writer. You've probably had the same experience.

You stayed in an Airbnb and thought, this is doable. Maybe I could rent my place on Airbnb. And it's really that simple. You can start with a spare room or you can rent your whole place when you're away. You could be sitting on an Airbnb and not even know it. Maybe you set up a home office during the pandemic

and now you don't need it because you're back at work. Maybe you're traveling to see friends and family for the holidays. While your way, your home could be an Airbnb. Whether you could use extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun, your home could be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca-host. Hey Canada, ever wish that managing your money could be a whole lot easier and way less stressful? That's why Coho is created. The financial app that's going to revolutionize

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$20 or more using the code DailyStoic20. Again, sign up for your free trial by downloading the Coho app and receive 20 bucks off when you make your first purchase of $20 or more using the code DailyStoic20. Welcome to the DailyStoic podcast where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. On Tuesdays, we take a closer look at these stoic ideas, how we can apply them in our actual lives. Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy. It's not romantic. It's just work. We have a false picture of how success happens. We see only the results

and almost never the process of things. So we tend to think that the finished product, be it a book or being in shape or being wise is impressive. And therefore, the process by which that event was created must have been equally brilliant. In fact, it's not. All success happens the same way. Action by action, as Mark's really said. Just after the release of Metallica's 11th album, Metallica's Lars Ulrich explained the simple secret to their high output. I wish I could romanticize it and tell you

that we're sitting down and there's a destination, but it's basically just work, you said. You write one song, then you write another song, and eventually you have an album. That's what the Stoics believe, too, that the little things add up to make the big things. This is what Zeno meant when he said, well, being is realized by small steps, but truly is no small thing. That's what Seneca meant when he wrote, each day acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed, against all other misfortunes. And he said to pick one thought each day, to thoroughly digest,

one gain a day, that's it. It's not romantic, it's just work. That's basically the idea behind the daily stomach. It's basically the idea behind the daily dad. You know, people ask me how I produce all this stuff, and, you know, I could romanticize it, but I really just sit down and I write a bunch of them. I write one a day, two a day, three, I write a bunch, they go into the folder.

I'm recording this right now off the spreadsheet that I have. It's going to go in the pile and get processed and come out the other side and you'll listen to it. It's not romantic. It's basically just work. And I appreciate everyone supporting. If you haven't read the Daily Stoke and grab that anywhere, books are sold, including signed copies from the Painted Port, you can grab the Daily Dad, which just came out, get

the Daily Stoke calendar, a bunch of other awesome stuff. But I appreciate the support and I do the work, you listen to it, and here we go. There's the whole point of philosophy, the whole point of self-improvement is to get to a place where you're able to say, I guess this is what I prepared for. When the adversity comes, are you ready for it? Life isn't fair. Never has been and it never will be.

But certainly it's more unfair for some than others. Marcus really says it's choose to be emperor. He doesn't choose to lose his father at a young age. He doesn't it's not to be emperor, he doesn't choose to lose his father at a young age. He doesn't choose for there to be a plague, he doesn't choose to be betrayed by his best friend. He doesn't choose any of this. But this is nothing compared to Epictetus. Epictetus, the great Roman Stoke, is born a slave. He's born a slave in one of the worst times you could ever be a slave. Then when he finally gets his freedom, he's exiled. That is the fate of human beings to deal with things that are outside of our control

and not just to deal with them, but to overcome them, to bounce back from them, to be made better and stronger for having gone through them. That's really the definition of resilience. And there's nobody better than epictetus to teach us about that. I'm Ryan Holliday. I've written books about Stuart Flosso. I've been lucky enough to talk about it to the NBA,

the NFL, sitting senators and special forces leaders. And in today's episode, we're gonna talk about cultivating the mental toughness, the physical resilience, the spiritual strength, not just to survive what life throws at us, but to thrive because of and through what life throws at us and to follow the powerful lessons and most of all the example of epictetus. Epictetus said that our first task in life,

the first job of a philosopher is what? He said, it's to separate things into two categories. What's up to us, what's not up to us. And you wanna think about it. Is this thing up to me? Do I need to have an opinion about it? Does caring about it, does getting upset about it, does trying to change it?

Does it actually have any impact? If it doesn't have any impact, you let it go. It doesn't concern you. It doesn't change who you are as a person. And so when he's saying that you focus on what's in your control and what's up to you, to me, this is really a resource allocation issue. If you have a hundred energy points, every energy point you spend on things that are not up to you is giving an advantage to your opponent to the world. It's taking away from the things that are up to you. So I think about

this chief task, this dichotomy of control, as the first resource advantage that we have as productive people, but it's also, as Epictetus says, our first task as a philosopher. Some questions to ask yourself every single day from the Stoics. Number one, is this in my control? Epictetus says the chief task in life is to separate what's in our control from what's outside our control. Two, is this essential? Do I actually have to do it? Does it actually matter? Is this getting me closer to what is important in life?

Three, what is the worst case scenario? That's the exercise of pre-meditatio malorum planning in advance for adversity. And then, Sennaka also says, you should ask yourself at the end of each day, where did I fall short, where did I improve, and where can I do better? The secret to life, Epictida said, was two words. Two things explain everything you should do in all situations. And he said, those two words are simple, persist and resist. Meaning, some things you have to endure, you have to do even though they're really hard. And then other things you have to stop doing, even though it's really hard to do

that persist and resist. He was really talking about the virtue of temperance or self-discipline, self-mastery, right? And his point was that if we could do that, if we could persist and sometimes and resist other things, we could become what we're truly capable of becoming. That's what the new book Discipline and Destiny is actually about. But this virtue of temperance, self-discipline, self-command, it's everything. It's deterministic and predictive. It will make you better at what you do. It will make whatever you do great, if complemented by self-command and self-discipline.

do great if complemented by self-command and self-discipline. I moved to New Orleans more than 10 years ago. I lived in this little apartment building. And one of the things I did when I moved here was I didn't tell a single person that I was writing about. For two, still agrees. Number one, I found out afterwards that a bunch of my friends thought that I just didn't have a job. They thought I was basically just a bump,

which is an important, still, concept. Epic Titus says, if you wish to improve, if you wish to become good at something, you must be content to be seen as stupid or foolish. I didn't care what anyone thought about me. I knew the work that I was doing. I knew that it would pay off eventually.

And when the announcement came out, everyone was surprised. Oh, Ryan was working on something. He wasn't just hanging out in his apartment. And then number two, a stoic doesn't talk about it, a stoic is about it. I've always believed that talking about what you're doing and doing it, fight for the same resources. So I didn't want to get credit for

writing a book. I didn't want people to ask me about the book. I didn't want validation for the book. I wanted to spend every day actually working on the project. That's what paid off. That's what put me on the track that I eventually got on. That's why I never talk about what I'm doing until after I've done it, and you probably shouldn't either. eventually got on. That's why I never talk about what I'm doing until after I've done it, you probably shouldn't either. Question, most frequently I ask about my experiences, how do you do that? And in my mind,

the answer to that question is very simple. We did what we had to do. We did our best. We chose to grow through that experience. We kept our sense of humor. We kept the faith. Keep telling the story and I go through that framework and I keep hooking back into what I know is going on. At some point, I then say, hey, and oh, by the way, those are all matter of choice. The question would be better if I ask it like this. How do you choose to deal with your problems?

How do you choose to get yourself through your situation? How do you choose to deal with depression in your life? Now, what happens to us in our lives maybe we'll be beyond our control and often are, but the ways we choose to deal with these things are always within our control. One of Stockto's favorite, Epictetus quotes, he says, a podium in a prison is each a place. They knew this, he was a slave himself. In that place, we still maintain a certain freedom of choice. You don't control what happens basically, but we control how we respond. We respond.

Commander James Doctail is shot down over Vietnam, and as he's parachuting down into death or capture, he actually says to himself, I'm leaving the world of technology entering the world of epictetus. He saw even then that it was an opportunity to practice the philosophy of stoicism that he'd studied as a graduate student. But I think the most fascinating part of Stockdale in this prison camp, where he spent seven years being tortured near death,

is he says to himself, although the optimist in the camp got crushed. The people who thought it would be over soon, the people who thought it would be easy, the people who thought rescue was right around the corner. He said, I wasn't an optimist in the camp got crushed. The people who thought it would be over soon, the people who thought it would be easy, the people who thought rescue was right around the corner. He said, I wasn't an optimist in that sense. He said, I unflinchingly accepted the reality of my situation.

But he said, I also knew that if I survived, I was going to behave in such a way and respond to the adversity that I faced in a way that meant this was an event that in retrospect I would not trade. He decided to see it as an opportunity. He decided to be transformed by the heroine or deal that he went through. He decided to rise up and be good to do good through the terribleness of his experience.

They call this the stockdale paradox, but it's really the essence of stilicism that we don't control what happens to us, but we control how we respond to what happens to us. We don't control the material we're given, but we control what we make of that material. And Stockdale is an incredible example of how a man in harrowing horrible conditions turned it into a platform and an opportunity for great heroism and kindness and resilience and strength.

for great heroism and kindness and resilience and strength. So my favorite thing about Epic Titus is he's born a slave, and he finds himself a slave in the court of Nero. So here you have this guy, he has no power, no freedom, amidst incredible wealth, power and opulence, but he comes to realize watching how people act in Nero's court. That these supposedly free people aren't nearly as free as he thinks. He watches a man suck up to Nero's cobbler.

Like he's brown nose in the guy who makes a Nero shoes because he wants to get in Nero's favor. One man comes to Nero and says, I'm down to my last million dollars. And then Nero says, oh my God, how can you bear it? Right? Epic to this realizes, although he's been deprived of his physical freedom, down to my last million dollars. And then Miros says, oh my God, how can you bear it? Epic Titus realizes, although he's been deprived of his physical freedom, he's actually less of a slave

than all of these people who are slave to their ambitions, slave to power, slave to impressing other people, a slave to appearances, a slave to urges, or mistresses. And so Epic Titus realizes that freedom comes from the inside. Yes, people can bind this up in chains, he says. They can't remove our power, a choice, they can't change our ability to make our decisions to set our own priorities. That's what stoicism is actually about, and that's why the philosophy is popular, not just with epictetus is slave, but Marcus really is, who's an emperor, later in that same court.

Marcus really is who's an emperor later in that same court. Effektitas says that you must undergo a hard winter's training who's referring to how soldiers would train in the winter when they weren't at battle. So they could be prepared when the battle did come. That's what practice is. That's what training is. That's what all of this is about is preparing for that big day. Have a thesis, the whole point of philosophy,

the whole point of self improvement is to get to a place where you're able to say, ah, yes, this is what I prepared for. When the adversity comes, are you ready for it? Have you put in the hours? Have you put in the training? Have you prepared for this exact circumstances? Because the one who has done that is the one that will win. Bill Bradley says this, when you are not practicing, you have to realize he says

that somewhere someone else is practicing and when you meet that person, they will beat you. You have to be willing to sacrifice, you have to be willing to put in the hours, you have to be prepared. So when that thing happens, when the day comes, you are ready. There's a great story about Epictetus. He's in his house one night, and he shares that someone's breaking in. He rushes there, and he sees that a thief has run off with his prized silver lamp. And you might think he's upset that he feels violated. Instead, Epictetus says, you can only lose what you have.

And the next day, he goes out and he buys a cheaper lamp. He says that having something he was afraid of having stolen that was on him. So when you think about your possession, you have to think about the cost of ownership. And often the cost isn't just the insurance or the upkeep. It's the anxiety. It's the worry. It's the wanting to hold them close so someone doesn't take it. Do you own your possessions or do your possessions own you?

The stoutes wanted to be free. And that's why Seneca says, you know, slavery resides under marble and gold because often being rich, being successful, having everything you think you want is actually an incredible burden, it's incredibly stressful and it's not a reward for hard work at all. People ask me as a runner if I'm like training for a marathon. I think people struggle with the idea of doing something because you enjoy doing the thing and the thing makes you better. They want to have an external goal. They want to have some sort of validation or has to be a race or you're competing and

trying to beat everyone else. To me, the marathon is waking up every day and doing the thing. As the stoics say, that's in my control. I control that. Even in injury, I can push through that. But if my metric is qualifying for something, beating other people, being accepted to something, well then I've handed over the control to something else. And I've also taken this thing that I enjoy doing and turned it into a thing that other people have influenced or a controller. I've

turned it into a job, so to speak. I have no problem with people who race and do those other things. If that's what motivates you, great. But for me, I try to keep my motivation in transit. EpicTitus says, if you want to win, find a competition in which you are the only one in it. And that's how I think about physical fitness. That's how I think about running. That's how I think about exercise.

And that's also how I think about riding and that's how I think about my work. I think at the center of all philosophy, it's really the ability to think about your own thoughts. You have this thing going in your head, you have these reactions, you have these impulses, do you act on them unthinkingly or can you hold up the impression and put it to the test? As Epic Tita says, can you think about your own emotions? Do you have that break that allows you to stop yourself from going into a pattern, into

a cycle, into an overreaction. And so really I think stoicism is the ability to think about what you're thinking. Stokes referred to are sort of the command center of the mind. The ruling reason is that in charge, are you in charge, or are your passions in charge? Are other people in charge? So the core of stoicism is that the ability to think about what you're thinking and to decide what actions you wanna take based on that thinking.

If you can get there, you're wiser than most. You're wiser than me most of the time. You're wiser than some of the wisest people have ever lived. Can you think about what you're thinking when you're thinking it and act accordingly? What do you think of the most? Joy or happiness or delight, that's not an emotion we associate with the Stoics. But the Stoics experience that Epictetus says,

me, I delight in my own improvement day to day. I love that. His delight wasn't coming from money or fame or recognition or pleasure. It was from getting better every day. It was from improving. It was from fulfilling his potential. It wasn't based on externals as the Stokes warn us against. It was based on the inner work he could do on himself.

It was knowing that he was becoming a little bit better, a little bit wiser, a little bit more self-controlled, self-contained, a little more resilient. That's where the Stokes finds joy and happiness and pleasure. When I wrote the Daily Stoke eight years ago, I had this crazy idea that I would just keep it going. The book was 366 meditations, but I write one more every single day and I give it away for free as an email.

I thought maybe a few people would sign up. Couldn't have even comprehended a future in which three-quarters of a million people would get this email every single day and would for almost a decade. If you want to get the email, if you want to be part of a community that is the largest group of stoics ever assembled in human history, I'd love for you to join us. You can sign up and get the email totally for free. No spam, you can unsubscribe whenever you want at dailystoic.com. Sasha 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

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