The Daily Stoic - This Stoic Virtue Will Change Your Life

Episode Date: November 20, 2022

You’d think that the more powerful you are, the more freedom you’d have. The more money and success you have, the more you can do. You’d think that being a millionaire or being a celebrity or being the CEO would finally unshackle you from all the obnoxious and annoying constraints of being a ‘regular’ person…How wrong this is. How wrong this has always been.It was Eisenhower who said that freedom is really better described as the, “opportunity for self-discipline.” And you, you are lucky enough to live in a time of plenty that would have been unfathomable to history’s all-powerful kings. A time when nearly everything a person might want to do, they can, because there is no master standing over you. You are not an all-powerful sovereign, surely, but you have also never been more free.So now what? What will you do with this opportunity? What will you do with your freedom? Who will you make yourself become?✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail📕 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 https://dailystoic.com/preorder.🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/Instagram: ​https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicTwitter: https://www.twitter.com/dailystoicFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/dailystoicTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@daily_stoicSee 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 weekend edition of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Sundays, we take a deeper dive into these ancient topics with excerpts from the Stoic texts, from the Stoic texts, audio books that you like here recommend here at Daily Stoic, and other long form wisdom that you can chew on on this relaxing weekend. We hope this helps shape your understanding of this philosophy and most importantly that you're able to apply it to actual life. Thank you for listening. of life. Thank you for listening. 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.

Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another weekend episode of the daily stoic podcast. Today, we are talking about a core stoic virtue of the four virtues, courage, discipline, justice, wisdom. Discipline is the one that I think is the most practical and accessible and I think most immediately life changing. And in today's episode, we are riffing on some thoughts about discipline. From some of the most disciplined people, I know people I interviewed as part of the

Daily Stoic podcast. I'll give them to you now. We're gonna be hearing from Steve Magnus, Courtney Dewalter Steve in Pressfield and Tony Gonzalez and some other fascinating people who are applying Discipline in their life as you must as as I say, in the new book, discipline is destiny. That's the idea that discipline makes us great. And it makes whatever we are doing great. I am disciplined about my practices, whether it's writing or running, how I manage my routine, how I run my

businesses. And it's just, you know, it's a transformative concept that I'm excited to bring for you. You can check out the new book, It debuted on the New York Times, Vasellus. It's been selling like crazy. I so appreciate everyone's support in the new book. I've really, I tried to be as disciplined as I could writing about it. And then the afterward, I talk about some of my struggles with discipline. And I can't wait for you to check out the new book. You can get discipline is destiny at dailystalk.com slash discipline. And I can't wait for you to check out the new book. You can get discipline as destiny

at dailystoke.com slash discipline. You can pick it up at the painted porch or anywhere books are sold. If you like audio books, the audio book is available on Audible and all your favorite audio book platforms. I'd love for you to check out the book. In the meantime, here are some thoughts

on one of the most important stoke virtues, discipline. Here are some thoughts on one of the most important stoke virtues, discipline. Discipline is what takes you to that higher level. You can't wish your way there, you can't chant your way there. The only way you get there is through hard work. That's the question my coach keeps asking me, do you want to be fast? Now or do you want to be fast at the next World Cup? It's an interesting balance between being future thinking and looking at the process and understanding where you're going and trusting that you're going somewhere, but also being okay with where you are right now.

And that doesn't mean this is going to be the moment forever, but you have to honor that break and that rest and what regeneration happens in your body to be able to actually deliver when you need to be fast. The interesting thing about being a professional athlete is we do have these goals and we have cycles and we have training structure for the entire year and the goals to really peak. So we're trying to have kind of like superhuman performance

for a few big events a year. And a lot of people think that means that you're just training as hard as you can all the time. But really, I would say what differentiates amateur and elite athletes primarily is the recovery time. The ability to make that work count and to allow your body to recover between these hard sessions. So a lot of what we do in the fall is long, easy rides and just preparing your body to

be able to take on this load. And it might feel like you're not doing all that you can, but it's critical to performance when the time comes. It really sounds like what you're talking about. Here is Temperance, the idea of moderation, which I imagine is extra difficult when you are super committed, super ambitious. I imagine it sucks to not be peaking right now,

because that means you're having to be okay with not being as good as you'd like to be in the present moment or even for extended periods of time. Yeah, optimizing versus maximizing, understanding what things you're doing that make a big difference and doing those things fully and completely, but not maximizing. I think for me, like, running or the physical training that I do, part of that is creating the muscle that allows me to go like I didn't want to go for a run this morning and I went I also don't want to take notes on this boring ass book that I read but like I'm the kind of person that easily and regularly does the things I don't want to do, not just if they're hard, but because they're hard. I think it's absolutely a muscle that we have. It's a mental muscle.

And I think the research backs us up. If we can train that discipline, that self control, that ability to sit with that hard thing and navigate it, it helps another aspect of our life. So in my life, a lot of it is around physical practice. When I was growing up, I was very competitive runner and I don't push it that much anymore. But what I make sure that I do is that in addition to,

let's say, my easy running, at least once a week, I'm doing something where I'm pushing like the bounds of my physical ability. That could be going to a nearby hill and doing some sprints up and down it. It could be like, you know, I'm gonna go out four miles and then turn around and try and run the last four miles like hard home.

And I do that not because I'm trying to race, I don't race anymore or get in good shape. It's just because I want to be able to sit with that like situation where part of my mind is screaming at me to say, hey, you're not training for anything. Why don't you just slow down, why don't you quit, you don't have to do this.

Whenever I feel that anxiety or that fear or that pull, that acts as a signal to me to sit there and be like, all right, maybe I should move towards this for a little bit. Why I'm in this sport, why I keep signing up for, these really, really long races, is that I wanna see what's possible if we just keep chipping away at it.

Like, I call it my pain cave and I'm trying to make it bigger. So I'm hoping that this ceiling or back of my cave can be made bigger if I just keep on going into it and trying to do something a little bit harder or push a little farther than I've ever gone before. And how do you know when you're in the cave? When you reach that feeling of like it's impossible to go another step like I'm not sure how I'll keep moving forward. That's when I know I'm like really back in the back corners of the cave.

So the vast majority or a big chunk of a race, you haven't gotten to the cave yet. The cave is where you get when you start to butt up against your limits. The first 50 reps don't matter. It's the 51st rep that it's where the muscle is being made. Is that sort of how it is? Kind of, but I would say in these running races,

sometimes you're shocked by a very early cave appearance. Like just whatever happens with the day or the train. For some reason, you might hit the cave much, much sooner. Then I don't think that necessarily means you shy away from going in. I think that's when you dive in and keep working the cave in different spots. Maybe it's not the distance part of your cave

where you're seeing what's possible for a new distance, but maybe it's like the effort or how efficiently you could be pushing up this mountain. And I'm really visual, so when it gets to be that state, when I'm running, I'll actually picture the cave, holding a chisel and a hard hat, and just getting to work on making it bigger. Celebrity feuds are high stakes.

You never know if you're just gonna 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 Wonder E's new podcast, Dis and Tell, where each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud, from the build-up, why it happened, and the repercussions. What does our obsession with these feud 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 formed 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 Brittany. Follow Dissentel wherever you get your podcast. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or The Wondery app. So the season ends, you get a couple months off or whatever, and then you're starting to gear up for the next season. What was your feeling about that? Were you excited for a new season to start?

Or was there sort of a dread for you that you knew it was gonna be very hard, and it would be grueling? You can have both feelings at the same time. It's got like better sweet. You know what's common. You know what you just went through. The strain it put on your body, mentally, physically,

spiritually, your family, it's very, very stressful. Football people always ask me, they're like, man, do you miss it? And I'm mentally, physically, spiritually, your family, it's very, very stressful. Football, people always ask me, they're like, man, do you miss it? And I'm like, hell no. Right. But then, part of me goes, hell, yeah. It's like graduating from high school. I don't miss getting my ass kicked.

The fight, the monotony of going every single day, it becomes so boring. But football is a fight. It's not fun. The games are fun, but it's not fun. When you're going into your office, obviously you try to focus on the good. That's the way I did it.

I remembered the good times, the positive stuff that I did. And then you take some time off where I didn't do anything for that first month. You know what, I wouldn't even touch a football. Really? That was the beauty of basketball for me. Basketball was my saving grace because I would just go play basketball

because I really, really enjoyed it. So you could stay in shape, stay in shape, and I played every single day, and I played competitive. I played, should I even try it for the Miami Heat one off season. But I play in the summer pro leagues out there with Magic Johnson, Bo Outlaw, remember Antoine Jameson, Paul Pierce, like all these pro leagues.

But that would be a way for me to take my mind off of football. And then once the summer came, I started gearing up into it. And you started slowly, but surely getting my mind wrapped around what I want to do, set some new goals, keep building off of what I did before. You're never satisfied. I think that's how you become truly, truly great. I never rested and said, oh my god, I was first team all pro-lossed. It's like, no, I got to get even better.

I had a thousand yards. I need 1200 yards. I need to keep pushing myself. You and I are very disciplined guys. If anybody watched us get up in the morning they would say, wow, which I could do that. But they also might say they're crazy to be, you know, lashing themselves like they are. I believe that life operates on two levels and the higher level is the muse level. The level we were just talking about that the shaman saw. The level of your calling of your work, whatever that is.

And the lower level is our material plane. And on that lower level is the force that I call resistance with a capital R. That's there to stop us from reaching this higher level. And if we don't reach this level, but we don't do our work, we don't follow our calling, then we get sick and we do bad things and shit happens, right? So what is the purpose of discipline?

Discipline is what takes you to that higher level. That's right. That's why you have to have it. You can't wish your way there, you can't chant your way there, you can't whatever was that book of the secret, you can't vibe your way there. Yeah, you can't, the law of attraction is not going to get it's bullshit. The only way you get there is through hard work. The beings that inhabit this higher level, the way you want to associate with, that's the only thing they respect. You know, you've got to punch your ticket

and pay the price. So discipline is not a bad thing. You're not crazy to be self-discipline because that's what gets you to this higher level and also gets you to just live your life so that when the day is over, you're calm. You're not freaking out as some of us have in the past. That's beautiful, I love it.

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