The Daily Stoic - The Time Is Now | Ask Daily Stoic

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

Marcus Aurelius didn’t always make the right choices. Neither will we. The important thing is what we do after we come to this realization, after we realize we’ve put something off for too long.Since we received such great feedback from the launch of 2025's New Year New You Challenge, we decided to RE-OPEN the challenge for February. Head over to dailystoic.com/challenge today to sign up.🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast🎥 Watch top moments from The Daily Stoic Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dailystoicpodcast✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow 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.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to the daily Stoic early and ad free right now. Just join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. When I travel with my family, I almost always stay in an Airbnb. I want my kids to have their own room. I want my wife and I to have a little privacy. You know, maybe we'll cook or at the very least we'll use a refrigerator. Sometimes I'm bringing my in-laws around with me or I need an extra room just to write in. Airbnbs give you the flavor of actually being in the place you are. I feel like I've lived in all these places that I've stayed for a week or two or even a night or two. There's flexibility in size and location. When you're searching you can

look at guest favorites or even find like historical or really coolest things. It's my choice when we're traveling as a family. Some of my favorite memories are in Airbnb's we've stayed at. I've recorded episodes of a podcast in Airbnb. I've written books. One of the very first Airbnbs I ever stayed in was in Santa Barbara, California, while I was finishing up what was my first book,

Trust Me I'm Lying. If you haven't checked it out, I highly recommend you check out Airbnb for your next trip. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. Well, on Thursdays, we not only read the daily meditation, but we answer some questions from listeners

and fellow Stoics who are trying to apply this philosophy just as you are. Some of these come from my talks, some of these come from Zoom sessions that we do with Daily Stoic Life members, or as part of the challenges. Some of them are from interactions I have on the street when there happened to be someone there recording.

Thank you for listening, and we hope this is of use to you. The time is now. Obviously the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago because the earlier you get started on something that takes time, the bigger and better the results will be. It would have been better if you made the changes you needed to make in your life two years ago

or in 2023 or in 2024. Look, it would have been better if you did it at the first of the year, but you know, January 1st, 2025 has come and gone. That would have been a great time to start new habits. A new year at new you, right? Fresh moment, fresh calendar. And these missed opportunities can haunt the best of us.

In meditations though, Marcus Rulius reminds himself not to feel exasperated or defeated or despondent because your days aren't packed with wise and moral actions. He says, you gotta get back up when you fail to celebrate behaving like a human, however imperfectly, and embrace the pursuit you've embarked on. So we're all gonna fall short. We all procrastinate. We all avoid making necessary changes. But so what,

what matters is the choice you make after you come to that realization. So yeah, it would have been better to plant the tree a while ago, but the second best time is now because it's not too late. It's never too late. You can still do that here now in 2025. You can break old habits. You can forge new ones. You can build a framework, a system that allows you to be more resilient, more focused, tougher, braver, more virtuous, whatever it is. If you want some help with that, we are relaunching the Daily Stoic New Year New You Challenge. Thousands of stoics all over the world just spent the last 21 days, the first 21 days of the year

tackling one stoic challenge after another. We all did it as a team. We checked in with each other throughout the three weeks. We shared what we were dealing with. I got a bunch out of doing the challenges with other people. It's too late for that, but it is not too late for you to do the challenges by yourself, because as I said, we've relaunched the challenge.

It's gonna be open from now until February 1st. You can start it right now. You don't have to put it off. You don't have to wait for some start date. You can start it right now. And I would love to see you in there. DailyStoic.com slash challenge. Because today is the day.

Stop waiting, stop putting it off. You could be good today, as Mark Shreve said, but instead you choose tomorrow. Doesn't matter if January didn't go as planned, the whole year is not lost. What matters is that you make the right choice now. And I would love to see you in there. DailyStoik.com slash challenge. It's your last chance to do the Daily Stoic New Year, New You challenge with us. I'll see you in there. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic podcast.

I feel pretty good. I'm actually remarkably well rested, even though my son woke up at like 430 this morning. Part of the reason is because we've been going to bed earlier. That was one of the challenges that we did in the Daily Stoic New Year challenge, which is to set a bedtime, right? The Stokes talk a lot about waking up early, which is important and requires willpower, but I find what time I go to bed,

I have less discipline about. And I was just doing a talk in San Diego, and I was, someone was asking me this beforehand, and I was like, have you heard of this thing called revenge bedtime? Like revenge bedtime is when you stay up late, just to get extra time to yourself. It's something that parents sort of inflict on ourselves.

You're just scrolling on social media or watching TV or whatever, you're just like, I just need this me time. But it's actually punishing you and your kids the next day. Anyways, that's like one of the things that I took out of the challenge. It's been awesome. I haven't been absolutely perfect about it, but I have been more focused on what time I go to bed

so that whatever time I wake up, even though I have a time I have to more focused on what time I go to bed. So that whatever time I wake up, even though I have a time I have to wake up by, I'm not so fried. Although as I said in something else, maybe, I don't know what order these are coming out. I do look like I have bags under my eyes. I went out and I swim this morning and the goggles keep pressing on my face.

So I gotta figure out when I'm gonna be on camera. But anyways, where does that leave us today on Thursday? A little Q&A. So we are relaunching the New Year New You Challenge. We got a bunch of emails from people who are like, hey, I missed it. I wasn't ready the first week of January to start the year off with 21 consecutive Stoke challenges,

but I still wanna do it. Well, it is not too late. You can join us. We're just running the challenge now. And my favorite part of the challenge is the Q&A's that we do together. So I'm going to bring you some of those Q&A's from the challenge we all just did.

And you can get the Q&A and all 21 stoic challenges. It's not too late this year or for the challenge. You can sign up now at dailystoic.com slash challenge. And then remember, of course, if you sign up for daily stoic life, you get the challenge and you can sign up now at dailystoic.com slash challenge. And then remember, of course, if you sign up for daily stoic life, you get the challenge and all the challenges. We got a bunch more planned this year for free. So check that out daily stoic.com slash challenge. And here's a me

doing the stoic office hours as part of that challenge. Listen in. Over the last year, I've gotten really into all your stuff. So just really wonderful. All the learning. So this is your second time? No, first challenge. I've just like read, been reading all your books and read all the just really, really into it.

And particularly in like a work context. So I run a small business or growing business, like 400 people. That's not a small business. Congratulations. We're in startup mode, but yeah, a lot of people. And my question relates sort of the business context. So I know there's a lot about focusing on what you can control, especially not controlling other people.

Yes. And I feel like I've really grasped that concept. But the thing I struggle with or would love your take on is, like, in my job, particularly, I feel like there's a lot of needing to influence people or trying to motivate people, lead people. And obviously, like, Marcus, that's his whole life. But I'm trying to make sense of this, like, balance between I know that I can't control, like, my employees or other people, but am accountable to the business that's performing. I need to influence them. So, like, I don't know if you have any tips control my employees or other people, but am accountable to the business that's performing and I need to influence them.

So I don't know if you have any tips on how to make sense of the pressure I put on myself to have people do certain things, but knowing at the end of the day, control them. This is a great question. And I think it's really important. And sometimes this is why I think taking stoicism out of the academic domain and thinking about it

in the real world with real people is so important. I wrote a book called Lives of the Stoics where obviously I was looking at the biographies of the Stoics. And when you just look at what the Stoics talk about, it can be very easy to render the words very differently than they were obviously meant. So when the Stoics talk about focusing on what you control and reminding yourselves that you don't control other people, it could be mistaken to think that they're just like, yeah, just focus on you, write everything else off.

But obviously Marcus Aurelius at the head of the Roman army was not like, well, I can't tell people what to do. I mean, literally his job was to tell people what to do. And there were Stoics who served in all different assets and facets of leadership. So I think your word influence there is important. One of the things I think is so fascinating about Marcus Aurelius is that he didn't seem

to be intent on changing anyone. He seemed to find a way to get things out of people, even when he disagreed with them or disliked them or found that they had, in some cases, cross purposes to him. So what I think we're talking about there is leadership and leadership is influence, it's persuasion, it's obviously leading by example also.

And then I think it's a lot about selection. If we could take for granted that we can lead a horse to water, but we can't make them drink, we do wanna make sure that we're only, now this metaphor is getting pretty tortured, we're only hiring horses that like to drink. And so that's one of the ways I am thinking about this in my own practice is like, okay,

if I can't change anyone, I can't force anyone to do or be a certain way, what I can do is get much better at who I select and who I deselect, right? And so I'm thinking a lot about that. But you know, it's funny, in the leadership challenge, we interviewed this guy named General Dan Kane is a two a two-star general in the Air Force. And he was saying that in his like 20, 30 year career, he can remember giving two direct orders in his whole, like we think, we go, okay, sure, we can't really control people, but generals can.

Marcus Aurelius as an all-powerful general obviously could. And I thought that was so interesting because sometimes people in business are sort of jealous of people like say in the military or in like the president, like, oh, they can really make someone do stuff. And he was saying, even then, the same limitations on our power are there

and understanding that it really is about persuasion and it's about influence, it's about modeling, it's about setting up incentives. I think about this tension a lot. It's not that the Stoics go, hey, I don't control other people, so I don't even try. It's understanding that we have certain limitations, and then it's understanding how within those limitations,

we do have opportunities to influence and direct, and that's where we gotta put our energy. Cool, appreciate it. Awesome, yeah, great question. So my question for you is through my practice, I've learned my personality traits that have harmed myself and have harmed others. I've also learned my personality traits

that have helped myself and helped others. And through, and because it's an ongoing thing until I die, I have more to learn. So my question is, what personality, are you prepared to be vulnerable and share the personality traits that you've picked up? I'm glad you said traits, plural, because I have many that cause problems

for myself and others. But I would say a big one is, you know, I'm sort of driven and intense, and I like to do things the way I like to do them or the way I think they should be done. And that sort of should or that ought to, although it feels good for me, can be oppressive to other people, right?

Because they didn't sign up necessarily for my assumptions. They don't necessarily agree. I have a tendency to stress people out. That intensity can sort of crash against other people. So I find that I have to sort of keep that in check or I have to be understanding that, you know, sort of not everyone has the same constitution as me, not everyone reaps the same rewards from the stuff as me.

And sort of trying to figure out a balance between me sort of maximizing what I'm trying to do or achieve what I'm trying to do and coexisting and having positive relationships with other people, that is definitely a struggle for me. But great question. I appreciate that. And then the other side of that is what are your strengths? What have you found that have been helpful for you and also with the world around you?

I mean, I'd like to think I'm a good communicator that I'm good at taking these ideas or these sort of ways of thinking about things and making them applicable and accessible to people, not just in my writing, but in my actual life. So, I'd like to think I'm good at that and it has a positive impact on people. My question, I wanted to go back to the word of the year.

Yes. What's yours? My word of the year, it's initiative. Ooh. I was trying to figure out, I was like, oh, you know, I'm trying to deal with procrastination and I also play D&D. So I was like, oh, just roll for initiative every day.

So I have my D20 and I'll roll it as like a symbolic. That's awesome. So I think my question20 and I'll roll it as like a symbolic. That's awesome. So I think my question and what I'm kind of struggling with is, do you have any recommendations to account for like nuance in the word? Because I know I have a tendency to like always go in and like take action. But like maybe, you know, the opposite side of that is like you're chasing. Right. And like you kind of fall into that trap. So I think what kind of recommendation would you have just to like, either temper it or

find the balance rather than go all in? Well, I think temper is a great word, right? When we think of temperance, particularly in America, if people are familiar with that word at all, they think the temperance movement, which was about not drinking alcohol, Right. But temperance in the ancient world was about like the right amount. Right. That's what Aristotle's definition of virtue was. And to him, virtue sat in the midpoint between two vices. Right. So like the, his famous example is about courage, that too much courage is recklessness and not enough courage is cowardice

and courage was right in the middle. And you could probably say the same thing about initiative, right? So too much initiative, if you're always making the first move, if you're always diving in, if you're always chasing, you're probably gonna get yourself in trouble

just as if you never have any initiative, you're gonna get yourself in trouble. And so I think the word as a virtue that you're aspiring towards is is as Aristotle says, the right amount in the right way at the right time to the right thing, you know, it's that dialing in that's essential. I think having the word there as kind of a default is is really helpful. But knowing that, hey, doing it all the time to the nth degree is also not right,

that you've got to find the right amount in the right way. That's that's really important. Yeah, totally. That definitely makes sense. All right. Great word, though. Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple years we've been doing it. It's an honor.

Please spread the word, tell people about it, and this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say thank you. If you like The Daily Stoic and thanks for listening, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. And before you go, would you tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey on wondery.com slash survey. New year, new resolutions. And this year on the best idea yet podcast, we're revealing the untold origin stories

of the products you're obsessed with. And we promise you have never heard these before. Ever wonder how the iconic Reese's peanut butter cup was invented? Because it was by accident. H.B. Reese, a former frog salesman, True story. stumbled upon the idea after accidentally burning a batch of peanuts. Classic.

proving that sometimes our best ideas arise from what seem like our biggest mistakes. And Jack, did you know there's a scientific explanation why humans crave that surprising combo of peanut butter and chocolate? I didn't, but it sounds delicious. It is delicious. So if you're looking to get inspired and creative this year, tune in to the best idea yet. You can find us on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're looking for more podcasts to help you start this year off right, check

out New Year New Mindset on the Wondery app. Who knows? Your next great idea could be an accident that you burned. This is Nick. And this is Jack. And we'll see you on the best idea yet.