The Daily Stoic - This Can’t Make You Worse | Ask Daily Stoic

Episode Date: September 2, 2022

There is nothing less Stoic than disorganization, than chaos, than “winging it.” That’s why we develop a routine, why we set standards (and meet them), why we’re on top of our lives, why we take things seriously.📕Pre-order Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" and get exclusive pre-order bonuses at https://dailystoic.com/preorder ✉️ 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 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 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. 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. This can't make you worse. There's nothing less stoic than disorganization than chaos.

This can't make you worse. There's nothing less stoic than disorganization than chaos. This can't make you worse. There is nothing less stoic than disorganization than chaos than winging it. That's why we develop a routine why we set standards and meet them why we're on top of our lives why we take things seriously. Epic Titus would remind his students that few things in life are improved by inattention. Marcus Aurelius would remind himself in meditation, not just to concentrate like a Roland, but to do each task in front of him with seriousness and diligence, as if it was the last thing

he was doing in his life. The problem with this focus and these high standards is not whether they work, they do. Practice consistently enough, they will help you achieve goals, they will make you a person that people can count on and respect. The problem with this is how it works in the real world where so much of life is outside your control and also interdependent and connected with other human beings who are flawed and endowed with their own point of view. As Judd Apatow wisely observes in his wonderful book, Sicker in the Head, the idea that if I'm organized and I keep my

shit together and I'm successful, life won't collapse around me. But that makes you argue with someone if they're going to make you late for the airport because you've raised the stakes. We can't forget first that our self-discipline must stop at the end of our nose. We don't get to use our strictness and our commitment as a weapon against other people. More importantly, we cannot mistake the power we have over ourselves for power over the world. Things are going to happen. Entropy is constantly at work on our fragile plans and routines. We need to figure out how to be flexible and accepting strict with ourselves as Marcus writes, but tolerant with others and things outside

our control. It's the only way, unless we want to make every trip to the airport, every interaction with the world a miserable and frustrating one. Stoicism is here to make us better people, not better tyrants, more resilient, not more restrictive. Got it? All right, so our next question comes from Kharissa. How would Marcus really, as for the Stoets approach, Composter Syndrome? Certainly Marcus was in 100% qualified to be the Emperor.

And she says, in my own job, I go through the motions and have been promoted, but I feel I'm into deep that maybe she'll say something someday that reveals how little she knows. And I know you talk about this in your books, this idea of like, am I a writer or not? Can I call myself a worker? So there's that imposter syndrome that people feel I'm just curious, what do you think about it? That's another great question. I don't think there really is such a thing as being an imposter.

Okay. You know, I think if you're just on the spectrum of getting better and getting better, but I do think that we're sort of led to a calling or to something that we do. And I think the trick to me is just self-belief, is just believing that you're not an impostor. I mean, who says you're an impostor? That's the voice of resistance in your head, who trying to sabotage you. And I think a lot of times, once you get into the moment of it, you'll be amazed at what comes out of your mouth.

Yeah, I think that part, there's almost some ego in imposter syndrome because you think people are thinking about it. Yeah, right. When really nobody cares. Like, nobody is trying to catch you as an imposter. So what I like to say, they're not thinking about you at all. They're thinking about themselves. But the question about Marcus really is interesting because so Marcus really says not, it's not

like he's born knowing he's gonna be emperor His father there's five Roman emperors and a rogue don't have the male air So he's he's selected to be emperor as like the little kid basically on the teenager So you can imagine like a teenager is gonna have two reaction either you're gonna be like of course I'm meant to be king or you you're going to be like, what? This is not like, and so Marcus has the second reaction, and he doesn't think that he's suited for it at all. It supposedly, he breaks down in tears.

And as he thinks about it, he sort of thinks about the emperors that come before him, how bad a job many of them have done. He ends up having this dream and that night he has this dream that his shoulders are made of ivory. This is a symbol that he could bear the weight of the responsibility. So I think the truth is we all struggle with that doubt, but then it's the question of are you going to identify with that doubt,

or are you going to sort of push past it? So like, in a way, imposter syndrome is sort of identifying with the wrong thing. It's identifying with the doubts to me, rather than identifying with the confidence. And I think if you, like when I set out to write my first book, I don't know about you, but it's not like, by definition, your first book has never done this before.

Right. So how do you know that you can do it? If you're like, of course I can write a book because I'm me and I'm a genius, I don't think that's the right way to think about it. I think that's Kigo. To me, it's, OK, well, what do I know about myself that creates, that gives me the impression or is evidence that I can write this book?

Right? And so for me, it was, oh, like, I'm a hard worker. I don't quit. I ask questions. You know, I've written other things. So I think you focus, like, just choosing a way you're going to focus on. I think you focus on the traits that you know that should qualify you to do whatever you're doing. The other thing I think is that if you have the idea to write a book, where does that

idea come from? You're being called in some sort of way, like a dream is calling, you're unconscious or the muse or whatever, and it wouldn't be given that idea, you wouldn't have the idea unless you were capable of somehow muse or whatever. Yeah, and it wouldn't be given that idea. You would have the idea unless you were capable of somehow enacting it. No, that's very beautiful. I love that. All right, next one.

Annabelle. Annabelle says, how does a stoic go about dealing with people who are different than them in terms of lifestyle or work ethic? There are people in my life that are constantly complaining, have little work ethic, and sometimes, you simply the opposite of how I choose to live my life. I know I can't control them, so I roll it off and remind myself that their actions don't determine what I do and feel,

but sometimes I struggle with this. I don't want to be arrogant, but I feel that. So she's asking for a basic, how do you deal with people who are not as talented as skilled as driven, any advice? Actually, I just had kind of an instance of this. And where I got into this real negative spiral in my head of thinking about someone and thinking, you know, they're lazy, they're bummed, they're letting me down, that, that, that, I just talked to myself, you know, this is my stuff, in my head. And I decided to instead to reach out to them

in a really positive, trusting way. Yeah. And it really worked. So I think that probably doesn't work all the time. Sure. But most people I think are trying their best. And I think I sort of thought, you know, this person that I'm having a problem with, I bet if I heard his side of it, he'd probably say, you know, things I'm doing, there's

brewing Emma. Sure. So, I just tried to make it a positive. And I think that's probably a pretty good way. Obviously, some people can't work with, like to go back to another Israeli story, Moshe Diane, the famous Israeli general, he broke people down into two categories.

Those who were possible, and those who were impossible. And the possible one, as soon as there was people that he worked with, he would give them all the leeway they could possibly have. Yes. And the impossible, once you just said, I'm not working with them at all, they're impossible. I remember in Gates of Fire, because I wrote the quote down,

I think you were quoting him, he was talking about, too though, he would rather have a horse you have to rain in than one you have to prod. And so, yes, if you're choosing who you're gonna work with, you want someone to come. Don't give you a chance. But the reality is we don't get to choose what the sun. And that's one of the things the ancient historians

sort of credit Marcus really is with is like, a lot of times like, you know, the really smart, brilliant, talented, dedicated leaders have trouble, like this was a problem Obama had, where it is that trouble it's like people were not as good as him. Right, our Kobe Bryant. Yes.

I was able to say that. Right, yeah Kobe Bryant could not wrap his head around the fact that not everyone says Kobe Bryant. And so one of the things that credit Marcus Realis with is he had this philosophy is like he's like you don't choose who is in the empire you choose like, he's like, you don't choose who is in the empire, you choose like, like, he's like, everyone can be of service to the empire in some way, how do I get that out of those people?

I, he's like, the empire is not gonna be staffed with philosophers, basically, you know? And so realizing that like, these are your standards that you've owed yourself to, to and that's what matters, but that you are not only going to be miserable, but you are probably not going to get the best out of other people expecting others to live up to standards. They never agreed to live up to in the first place. So I think the really great leader is like, Lincoln is a great example too, where he's

like, how can I get the best out of all different kinds of people, especially flawed people, even people that don't like me. To me, this is a for for for Annabelle. This is a great, this is an opportunity to grow as a leader, right, which is like the leader's job is to get the most out of the people around them, not to bully or intimidate or judge people for not being something other than they are. What I'm about to say is not going to answer any of those questions, but I think maybe this applies to you a little too.

One of the reasons I'm glad I'm a writer is the only person I really have to worry about is myself. Totally. Totally. And crack the whip over myself. And that's actually a great point too though. I think it does answer your question. Maybe you're someone who can't work with other people.

And you, like, you should just, like, there are a number of writers that we probably both know that it's like, because they've had success as a writer, you can assume, oh, I would be great writing a company. And actually, you're right. Yeah. For that at all. And so really knowing your strengths are you an introvert or an extrovert? Can you work with other people? Do you like working

with other people? Yeah. Do you have a lot of patience? Do you not have a lot of patience? Yeah. There's a great quiet. Yes. That might be a mental street. Yes. Yes. About introverts and the strengths of being an introvert. Yes, right, yes. But I think your point is a good one is that some of us are more self-driven, solitary figures, and the great news about how the world has worked out is that now you can, that's a viable career path that maybe it wasn't before, and so maybe that's for you.

Great, all right, Aidan's question, and this is almost perfectly suited for you, Steven, says, how do I stop procrastinating? She says he wants to write a book, he's been thinking about it for almost four years, but he's not started. He's even bought a no-card box and index cards. He spends hours researching how to improve his writing, but in the end, it doesn't write anything. What do the stoics say or what do you say about overcoming procrastination? I mean, there are some problems, I'm sure you'll agree with me, Ryan, that can only be solved by the wills by just making up your mind to do it and do it. I mean, there's many sort of hacks I hate that word and tricks. I mean you could certainly set a schedule and just say that every morning at seven I'm going to

write for an hour. I'm going to do something. But then if you're a procrastinator you'll go back to bed. There's no, it's like the Nike slogan just to do it. There's no substitute for strengthening the willpower. However, you have to do that. Habit is a great thing. You know, Twilight Arps book the Creative Habits. I wouldn't know what to do if it wasn't for habits. In fact, a lot of what I do in the day is a writer, it's just to try to strengthen the habits that I have. Remember, there are professional habits and there are amateur habits. And procrastination is an amateur habit par excellence, you know? So, like for me, when I first started, the real bugaboo for me was finishing something. I could go for two and a half years, you know, get this far from the end of it,, I just said to myself,

I'm either gonna kill myself or I'm gonna solve this. Yeah. And just will power. The one thing I will say for that thing, and maybe this will apply to Aidan's question of procrastinating is once you beat it, you'll always beat it from then on. Yes.

I think one of the things that I see people because they read books, they love books. The books are books and writing are synonymous to them. And they're not the same thing. And so, you know, like, if you wanted to start running, you wouldn't commit to doing a marathon tomorrow. If you did, you'd just be put, if you're like, I'm gonna run a marathon,

you'd just be putting it off over and over and over again, because it's so hard. Like, I wrote almost every day for six years before my first book was done, you know? And, and thanks. I'm just journaling, or were you doing? No, no, I mean, I wrote online. Like, I wrote articles and wrote on a block.

Like, there's no way my first book would have been my first book if I started there. So you don't set out to run a marathon, you run a mile, and then you run two miles. And you run 20 miles in a week. And you have to build up muscles. So I think this goes for a point about habit. The idea of starting with the largest end of the obstacle is not the way to do it.

I didn't want to start smaller. So, you know, he's saying, in the end, I don't write anything. Well, commit to writing a tweet or, you know, an Instagram caption or an article or answer questions on Quora, you know, like, or write emails to your friends, you know, like just start writing. Senika has this point, he's like, the path of wisdom is like just pick one thing every day. Like find one thing every day that is like fortifies you against poverty or gives you what, like, you know, he, or helps you fear death less. Like, he's like, just looked for like one quote, one insight, one story a day, and that this pads up. And so I think to be a writer, obviously,

it's an accumulation of days. And to do a book, it's the accumulation of days with your ass in the chair. But to be a writer, you just have to start publishing. So you start writing, you know, I don't, four years, you could, if you'd written a page a day for four years, you'd have four or five books, you know, at this point. So I think I'd start, start smaller and another book recommendation, James Clears book, Atomic Habits, he talks about like what's the smallest, the smallest habit you can start with. And Twyla talks about that in her book. You know, she's like, for me,

it's like getting up, getting downstairs, getting in the cab. That's putting me in the path to the habit. You know, James clears like, if you wanna go running, lay out your running clothes in front of your bedroom door the night before, and then you have to step over them

to not, you know what I mean? Like you're putting an obstacle in you in the procrastination. So, you know, if you decide to, you know, write one article a week, that's gonna be easier to do than writing a book. Which you've never done before, and so of course it's intimidating.

The other thing I would say, is a couple other things. I have a saying it says, put your ass where your heart wants to be. Oh that's beautiful. And which would mean in ages case sit in the chair. Yeah. Don't do anything else other than don't assign yourself any more than that. Sure. Just have the tight bite or whatever it is. Sit in the chair. Yeah. And then just you know that's where you want to be. Yeah. Pain or getting in front of an East. The other thing I would say is, if it's been going on for four years,

don't feel too bad about it. For me, it was like seven years before I could finally kind of break through that thing. And also, the monumental scale of Aiden's resistance tells me that there's something really great in there. Because there wouldn't be that big resistance if there wasn't something, you know, a dream of a vision, or a book, a number of books. So I would say it would be discouraged. Okay, so John has a question here about saying no.

For the stills, you know, the idea of like, you know, Marx-Rose is like, say, only say yes to what is essential, ask yourself, is it necessary? So the art of saying no and separating what you should be doing and what you shouldn't be doing, given your, which I, the no one wants to read your shit, is so great.

You must have millions of requests coming your way, but you seem even more than me, very disciplined in what you say, yes or no to. I wonder, do you have good strategies for saying no to things? Wow, I wish it's been a real problem for me, my whole life, because I have this idea that I want to be thought of as a nice guy. So. And so, you know, when requests come in that are from obviously well-meaning, good-hearted people, are they real sure? You know, but you absolutely can't do that. I have, I once got a chance to visit a security company, like the kind that protects celebrities

from harassment and stuff like that. And one of the things that they do is they will, every piece of mail, or email, it comes to the celebrity, goes to them first. And they absolutely screen it. And so we are not celebrities, we sort of have to do that ourselves. Right. You don't just say if I were the security firm, would I throw this in it? And remember there was a display they had at the place and it was a plexiglass

case that went up about 10 feet high, had four compartments and it was all full of letters that one person had written to a celebrity. Thousands of them. Sometimes they were 18 a day. Yeah. And the security firm, the celebrity never saw any of them. Does this day? They wouldn't tell me the name. Yeah. He doesn't know you or she doesn't even know. They intercepted them. Yeah. Put them off. Put them away. So there's a great quote by Dickens about, it's a note from those days you would write a note to your friend, about a friend that asked him to lunch, and he said, you know, it may seem like nothing to you. It's only an hour. But my thinking about it through the day, it's going to screw me up in the morning before

I go. Then when I come back, I'm going to have to try to get back. So I hope you understand, Dickens said. Dickens said, I just can't do it. That's it for me. So it might seem like it's like an hour. But now my whole day is pivoted around that thing. Because for me, the sign of success is an empty calendar,

not a full calendar. That means I'm living my life how I live. The stokes are talking about how we're just a slave to these responsibilities and obligations. And then there's no time left for ourselves. And then we're exchanging this time for money. But we can't get the time back. And so yeah, it causes me a lot of stress and anxiety.

I heard Steve Cam who runs Nerd Fitness, which is a great website. I know he's a fan of yours. He was telling me recently, he's like, if you phrase it as you have a rule, people are much more understanding because they understand that it's not personally a rejection of them. So like for book blurbs, he's like, you don't say, no, I won't blur your book. You say, I have a rule against blurring books. Someone just two days ago asked me to write a forward to one of their books. And this is true. I don't write forwards for books because I only want to write books. I only want my name on Amazon to be on my own

books. I feel like a forward is a very big endorse. And so I said, look, the question is very nice. As well done as the request could possibly be. And I said, look, this is a great request. Thank you so much. I'm flattered. But I have a rule. I don't write book forwards. You know, welcome to send me the book. I'm happy to look at it, you know, and I'll maybe tell people about it when it comes out, but I have a rule against him in this and he was like, dot, you know, but if I, if I was like, I don't know if I like your book, you know,

that full thing, so, so the idea of rules, that's something I'm open to now. And it's a good one. And the black and whiteness of it is really good. I guess I want to ask you to write it the forwards. So, the other thing that I heard once it's also a really good way to think about this is when you say yes to some request that comes in, your simultaneously saying no.

Yes, to something else like your kid has a soccer game? Yes. Okay, I'm not going to be able to see Janie soccer game. Yeah. And which is more important. Or I think sometimes for me, this is a tough one, I'm sure you do the same thing, right? Sometimes for me, it's just, what I want to do is just daydream.

Or I want to sleep. Or I want to watch some dumb thing on TV. And that's invaluable. Yeah, you know, that counts, you know. I also don't like forwards because it's just incredible request of being a lesser brother. Yeah, you mean, let's sort of, brother, brother. Yeah, you know, sure. Yeah, about it.

Right. Yeah, there was a whole, sorry, dude. No, no, no, no. But this was, you know, that show the shop that LeBron James does with the barbershop. Yeah. And they were talking about, since you got famous, has your family started more than due to buy the houses? Everybody was just laughing one after another about how everybody comes out of the woodwork

and how they just kind of learned to laugh it off and say no. Yeah, actually, and I know there's different schools of thought, well writers about like is having kids, maybe harder to be a writer, easier. I've actually found that having kids is very clarifying for me as far as saying no goes, because apparently I have an unlimited tendency to steal time from myself. And my wife is pretty patient,

so she'll let me steal time from her. She's not like, hey, you're doing this, we were supposed to have dinner. She doesn't care. But realizing that saying yes to writing this forward or saying yes to some dinner or things like that, that I'm stealing that time from a three-year-old, it embodies it in a visceral, heart-breaking way. It forces you to be much stricter, which is ironic, Sennaka would say, because like, yeah, sure, you obviously don't want to make a child's head, but like, it should be enough that you're giving away life that you can

never get back. But it's not enough for us. And so we end up just, you know, say, yes, yes, yes, it's only a bad guy. And then we sit on our deathbed and wonder where all the time. Yeah. It's actually, we have a daily stoke, you know, coming out about this, but I was reading, touching the obituary of Kobe Bryant who recently just died of this tragic car accident. And helicopter accident. And the reporter was talking about her whole career covering Kobe, and that about a month before he died,

she emailed him, she was doing the story on Phil Jackson and the Triangle offense, and she wanted to interview Kobe for the story. And so, especially if you become a public person, like, this is like, that's so flattering. That's like you wanna be interviewed, like you wanna talk about your things, you wanna manage your legacy,

it's all, you're financially motivated to do it. All these things. And so she texts him and he texts back and he says, hey, sorry, my girls are keeping me busy, hit me up some other time. And when he said that, he had no idea that he had one love left the list. But maybe in that moment as he's like, it touches me very deep in the think like maybe he recognized as his life is flashing before his eyes,

that that hour or 10 minutes or five minutes on the phone. He gave that to the people that had it, rather than to some other thing that no one, no, we wouldn't be sitting here and going, I'm really glad Koby was quoted in that. Right, yeah, you know what I mean? But that five minutes that he spent with his daughter instead, she's going to remember forever.

And so you don't have the stokes. They do not have an unlimited amount of time to do your work, to your family. And so you're saying no, feels selfish. But also if what you do is important in the relationships that you have are important. It's actually It's actually more selfish to say yes. Yeah. Yeah But it's a hard one. It's hard to do. It's so hard. It's so yeah. Yeah

And you wrote a whole book about that All right, so that's it for the Astero Stoe questions. we'll talk to you soon. Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it, and I'll see you next episode. Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic early and ad-free on Amazon Music,

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