The Daily Stoic - The Evidence Is In The Mirror | Ask Daily Stoic

Episode Date: December 9, 2022

There was a message there in the mirror this morning. Did you see it? It must have been a strange experience for Marcus Arelius the first time he saw it…waking up, looking at his reflection, and noticing his hair turning gray. Feeling his body creak. Looking at the crows feet at the corners of his eyes and the wild hairs jutting this way and that in his eyebrows. Even for someone who had so actively practiced and meditated on the idea of memento mori, it would have been a rather vivid reminder to him that he was getting older, that each day a little more life left him, never to return.✉️  Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, 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 Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. But on Fridays, we not only read this daily meditation, but I try to answer some questions from listeners and fellow stoics who are trying to apply this philosophy, whatever it is they happen to do.

Sometimes these are from talks. Sometimes these are people who come up to talk to me on the street. Sometimes these are written in or emailed from listeners. But I hope in answering their questions, I can answer your questions, give a little more guidance on this philosophy. We're all trying to follow. [♪ Music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background,

music playing in background, music playing in background, 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. The evidence is in the mirror. There was a message there in the mirror this morning. Did you see it? It must have been a strange experience for Marcus the first time

he saw it, waking up, looking at his reflection and noticing his hair turned in gray, feeling his body creaking, looking at the crow's feet at the corner of his eyes, the wild hairs jutting this way, and that from his eyebrows. Even for someone who had so actively practiced and meditated on the idea of Momentumori, it would have been a rather vivid reminder to him that he was getting older, that each day a little more life left him, never to return. The only way to get through this life without losing your mind is to make peace with the fact that you will lose everything else at some point. Maybe your mind too.

There's nothing you can do about it, right? It's Mary Lora Philpont in your book, Bombshelter. You can't hold on to anything, even your own face, which makes it awfully insulting that you have to look at it all the time, but maybe that's the job of our faces to help us get used to letting go. In fact, a lot of things in life can do this job.

Sennaka tells us of the rude awakening he had one day visiting a family estate and noticing the trees he had planted as a young man were dying of old age. We can talk philosophically about time and age all we want, but they'll mean very little if we ignore the incontrovertible proof that life gives us out these very ideas. It matters little if we wrestle with our mortality on the page while we deny the reality of what is shining back at us in the mirror. We're on a one-way train and we're not in control of where it stops. We cannot fool ourselves with expensive creams or surgeries and no amount

of dyes or hair pieces will change the urgency of what we need to learn how to accept and then let go of. It's funny, Austin Monthly did this little piece about the painted porch and they set me back to the picture. And it was like one of the first photos I've seen in a while where I looked old, like I looked aggr. Now I don't think the lighting was spectacular on this piece, there's some shadows, but like my first thought was and I posted this on Instagram, you can follow me at Outrun Holiday. I said, man, so this is what running and you can follow me at Outrun all day. I said, man, so this is what running a book store does to a person. But the truth is, this is what 35 years on this planet does to a person. That'd be the halfway point for a good chunk of human history.

Actually for a good chunk of human history, that would be the end point. But the fact of the matter is, I am no longer the young kid that I once was. I still feel young. I'm still young in many ways, of course But I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad. I'm just saying I'm I am starting to Feel exactly what Mary is talking about here, but the momentum worry coin Helps with that. I've got the momentum worry ring that I've been wearing lately when I travel Momentum worry is an active practice,

but it's also there staring you in the face, in the mirror every day. It's the gray hair you catch in the bathroom, sink, or on the comb. It's all of that. If you need a reminder, we've got some amazing beautiful ones that thousands of people all over the world

carry with them everywhere, including myself. And you can check that out at store.dailystod.com. You mentioned your former leader at American Parallel. And is that what started to inform your work about the ego and is that where it began? A little bit. So I've written actually the last day of my book tour my book the obstacle is the way I was I was still sort of a consultant that American apparel. And I got a call from the CFO that had just been you know part of the decision to fire down.

And I was asked to come back to sort of consult on the the attempted turnaround. And I thought it'd be interesting. I thought it might take a couple of weeks sort of make some quick decisions, ended up getting there and sort of watch this, like almost Greek drama of a person sort of destroying everything that they'd ever worked for. At the end of it, like 12,000 people lost their jobs. It's really horrible.

But it had happened that I'd recently sold a book about humility. I was trying to work on this book about humility and watching just, I was going to write about humility and then when I watched ego on such a grand scale play out, what I realized is that it's as important as humility is. It's really about the absence of ego. It's really about the destructive effects of ego. So it was kind of just a real glimpse into this thing that I tend to write about historical figures, but you watch how the same things happen over and over and over again.

The story of, Charlie is the story of John DeLorean is the story of the founder of we work. You know, this is what happens, right? And it was watching, it was watching that play out, that definitely informed the book, for sure. Yeah, awesome. I remember first hearing your podcast with Tim Ferris,

and just you trapped me at that point. So I think we sent out the link to that podcast for the Y.O. members. I highly recommend listening to that. I have another question when when you are pursuing something others don't see or see as possible is confidence enough to sustain you. Don't you need some ego? So I guess if we're defining ego as what I'm defining it as sort of arrogance and self-centeredness and selfishness and you know, you know, sort of an exemption from the rules so on and so forth, I the story of ego on the one hand in Goliath, but it's confidence in David. It's not ego that makes him think that he can take on Goliath. It's a real understanding of his strengths, but it's also a real understanding of Goliath's weakness. And so what David matched with the story of David and Goliath is not a little guy beating

a big guy. It's the strengths of a little guy being directed very clearly at at a specific weakness of the big guy. And so that takes self-awareness, right? If David had tried to engage Goliath in hand-to-hand one-on-one combat, which is what an egotistical person might have done. There would be a very different story. David realizes that he's little, that he's not a skilled fighter, but he understands that his sling is an advantage

and that the elements of surprise is an advantage. And so to me, it's, I think confidence is important. Believe that you can do it, right? There were other soldiers in that army, people who are much more trained, who were experts at the stuff, who didn't believe they could do anything about it. Famously in the story, Goliath's challenge goes unanswered for 90 straight days. So I think confidence is important. When I wrote my first book, it wasn't, this is something I'd never done before. So it wasn't ego that said, oh, of course, you can do this. Of course, it will be a huge success. Of course, of course, of course, to me,

that would be egotistical and would have set me up for failure. What I did was, okay, have I tackled hard projects before? Yes. Have I done the work? You know, I, I, okay, have I tackled hard projects before? Yes. Have I done the work? I'm a preentist under a great writer. Okay. Have I put myself in a position where I'm willing to ask question, is all the traits that made it possible for me to succeed? But the idea that I would be certain that this would work

would have not only not been honest I think would have been quite dangerous. So one can have confidence in themselves based on what they've done before that can that can make it a worthwhile risk to go do something that you haven't done before and that can sustain you through that gap across that chasm and that can sustain you through that gap across that chasm. But I think ego is what, you run out under over a cliff and you just think your momentum's gonna carry you, but eventually gravity pulls you down. Excellent. You had mentioned GameStop earlier

and we have a question, a statement about a group of amateur reddit traders put Wall Street into a tailspot, spend with a surge of GameStop and other underperforming stocks. This individual would love to hear your perspective on this and the likelihood of it to see more of these things happen. Well, I think we're definitely going to see more of these things happen. I think you can look at it from a financial standpoint and I think there's a bunch of stuff to talk about there that's probably above my pay grade. As someone who's written a lot about media, media manipulation and what I see

happening there is that same sort of mob internet energy that was behind Gamergate, that was behind some of these conspiracy theories that we see. I don't see it as the little guys taking on Wall Street and winning. Although I think there's probably a little bit of truth to that. To me, I see that sort of hyperactive sort of male internet energy being focused at a specific target that caught a lot of people off guard. And I think we'll see more of that. Will it be this effective in the future? I would say probably not.

Are most of the people involved in it probably going to get caught holding the bag, yes. But are some people sort of expertly wielding it, sure? So I think you could probably argue there's ego all around there. And that's what's creating kind of a perfect storm of craziness. You know, I like the I like the Warren Buffett line about, you know, being greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy. And I I see a lot of greed there and think I'm probably going to steer clear. Yeah, excellent.

Someone would just like to know how long your morning walk is. Yeah, so I live on a dirt road out here in Texas. So from my house to the to the start of the street, where all the all the mailboxes of all my neighbors is is about one and a half miles. So I we do that that one and a half miles there and back every morning. So it's about three miles. It takes a little less than an hour. I push my kids in a stroller and it's sort of the quiet time that I start the day with.

Fantastic. Thanks for sharing the personal side. We have a question. How do you see those who have achieved Robert Green's concept of mastery, demonstrate gratitude and pushing back ego, demonstrating a practice of gratitude. Well, I think Robert's mastery, which I think is here. It's a great book. Definitely recommended to anyone who hasn't read it.

I think coming up with a life's task, a thing you commit to yourself to, even as you get great, humility is the byproduct of that. I think mastery becoming a dedicated lifelong student of something is inherently humbling. And even Robert, the second chapter in that book is about apprenticeships. And Robert was my mentor and continues to be, I was just talking to him on the phone the other day, that apprenticeship has gone on longer than I think most. But one of the reasons I continue to do it, and one of the reasons it's been so helpful to me,

is Robert's getting better every single day. And so even as I've gotten better and grown, it's inherently humbling to have this person above you who you're always learning from. And so I think the pursuit of mastery can be inherently humbling if you choose for it to be so. Robert's next book is about the concept of the sublime. These sort of sublime experiences. He talks a little bit about this in the laws of human nature, also very good. But I think practicing gratitude, really looking at all the good in your life,

all the lucky breaks that you've gotten, how wondrous and amazing everything is. This is also very humbling, and that's sort of what I get on those walks outside in nature as well. It's just some sense of something larger than myself, something that I feel lucky to be a part of and appreciate. And so yeah, I think gratitude and mastery are two sides of the same coin. You know, the Stoics in real life met at what was called the Stoa. The Stoa, Poquila, the Painted Porch, and Ancient Athens. Obviously we can't all get together in one place because this community is like hundreds of thousands of people and we couldn't fit in one space.

But we have made a special digital version of the Stoa. We're calling it Daily Stoic Life. It's an awesome community. You can talk about like today's episode, you can talk about the emails, ask questions. That's one of my favorite parts is interacting with all these people who are using stosism to be better in their actual real lives.

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