The Daily Stoic - Tie Your Well-Being To This | You Are The Project

Episode Date: May 5, 2023

Today, we know F. Scott Fitzgerald as one of the greatest novelists of the 20th century. Tragically, in his own time, many regarded Fitzgerald as a failure. Sure, he was one of the highest paid writers of his time, but his novels sold poorly, and the critical reviews were precisely that–critical.This weighed heavily on Fitzgerald, who had a sensitive and vulnerable soul, as many artists do. As Sarah Churchwell, an expert on 20th- and 21st-century American literature and author of Careless People: Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of The Great Gatsby, explained on the Daily Stoic podcast:“He pinned so much personal hope and ambition and desire and sense of his self-worth as an artist on Gatsby. And its comparative failure devastated him. And, in my view, it really precipitated his spiral…With Gatsby, he made this choice that he was going to write a masterpiece, and then it was met with bafflement. And he lost a lot of his self-confidence and a lot of his momentum at that point.”---And in today's Daily Stoic excerpt reading, Ryan discusses why it is so important to the maintenance of a healthy life for you to see yourself as the business. Do away with separating yourself from your work. Do work that improves you.📚 Check out The Painted Porch to pick up a copy of Steven Pressfield's The War of Art and Turning Pro.✉️ 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. On Friday, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation, but also reading a passage from the Daily Stoic. My book, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance in the Heart of Living, which I wrote with my wonderful collaborator, translator, and a literary agent, Stephen Hanselman. So today, I will give you a quick meditation from the Stokes with some analysis from me, and then we'll send you out into the world to turn

these words into works. Ty you're well-being to this. Today we know F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of the great novelists of the 20th century. Tragically though, in his own time many regarded Fitzgerald as a failure. Sure he was one of the highest paid writers of his time, but his novels sold poorly and the critical reviews were precisely that. They were critical. And this weighed heavily on Fitzgerald who had a sensitive and vulnerable soul as many great artists do. As Sarah Churchill, an expert on 20th and 21st century American lit and the author of one of my favorite books, Careless People, Murder, Mayhem, and the invention

of the Great Gatsby, explained here on a recent episode of the Daily Stoke podcast. He pinned so much personal hope and ambition and desire and sense of his self-worth as an artist on Gatsby and its comparative failure devastated him. And in my view, it really precipitated his spiral. With Gadsby, he made this choice that he was going to write a masterpiece

and then it was met with Baffelman. And that I think he lost a lot of his self-confidence and a lot of his momentum at that point. Fitzgerald was really dogged by his inability to practice what Epoch Titus called the chief task in life, differentiating between what is in your control and what isn't. And when things didn't go Fitzgerald's way, he had trouble coping. And after the reception or lack thereof of the great Gatsby, he began drinking more.

He had trouble focusing. He constantly battled thoughts of what will the critics think of this? What will the public say about that? And this headspace made it hard to write and consequently fits Gerald will only finish one more complete novel following Gatsby Like an athlete who suffers an injury and has to retire in their prime Fitzgerald left a lot of potential on the table If only he could have defined success the way Marcus really has talked about it. Real success, real mastery, real sanity, Marcus writes is that is in tying your well-being to your own actions, to your effort, not to the results, to your judgment,

not what the critics say, to what is in your control, not what isn't, and to be tough enough, and brave enough to endure, what isn't in your control. It's funny, I talk to lots of people and a good chunk of those people haven't been readers for a long time, they've just gotten back into it. And I always love hearing that and they tell me how they fall in love with reading, they're reading more than ever, and I go, let me guess, you listen audiobooks, don't you? And it's true, and almost invariably, they listen to them on Audible. And that's because Audible offers an incredible selection

of audio books across every genre from best sellers and new releases to celebrity memoirs. And of course, ancient philosophy, all my books are available on audio, read by me for the most part. Audible lets you enjoy all your audio entertainment in one app, you'll always find the best of what you love or something new to discover.

And as an Audible member, you get to choose one title a month to keep from their entire catalog, including the latest best sellers and new releases. You'll discover thousands of titles from popular favorites, exclusive new series, exciting new voices in audio. You can check out stillness is the key. The daily dad I just recorded. So that's up on audible now. Coming up on the 10 year anniversary of the obstacle is the way audio books, so all those are available and new members can try audible for free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash daily

stoke or text daily stoke to 500 500. That's audible.com slash daily stoke or text daily stoke to 500 500. You are the project. This is today's entry May 5th for the Daily Stoic. The raw material for the work of a good and excellent person is their own guiding reason. The body is that of the doctor and the physical trainer and the farm, the farmer. This is EpicTitus's discourses, three three. Professionals don't have to justify spending time training or practicing their work. It's what they do. And practice is how they get good at it.

The raw materials vary from career to career, just as the locations and duration vary depending on the person and the profession. But the one constant is working on those materials, the gradual improvements and proficiency. According to the Stoics, your mind is the asset that must be worked on most and understood best. Something that hit me when I read one of my favorite books

ever for the first time, this is Stephen Pressfield, The War of Art, he talks about how in Hollywood, writers create what are called loan out corporations. So you don't work for the movie studio or on the project. They hire your company, your LLC, and you loan out your labor to that company. Sort of a complicated industry thing that we don't need to get into. But the idea that you have to start a company and then you work for that company, or that you are that company, is really important as you turn pro, which is Stephen Preswell's other book

And you should read the War of Art in turning pro I carry them both in the pain of fortune In fact, I think Stephen just sent us a big box of signed ones if you're looking for one but the point is A pro sees themselves as a business. So if you need a pair of headphones to function better at your job Like it's not oh do I deserve a hundred dollar pair of headphones? It's my job requires a hundred dollar pair of headphones, right? Me, running, if I don't run or walk, if I don't take my walk in the morning, the running the afternoon, if I'm not actively engaged in some sort of physical practice, my writing suffers.

So I'm not a professional athlete, but if I am not investing in and actively spending time on running and working out, my professional life suffers. So it's part of my job, right? Reading is part of my job. I've always thought this way, my wife hasn't. Until we started this bookstore together, she thought reading was this fun thing she did on the side. But realizing, no, like me following what I love about books,

me spending time reading, this makes the bookstore better. It also makes me as a person better. And so I'm not going to feel guilty or self-conscious. I'm not going to shortchange that. I'm going to do it. It's part of my job. Right? And it, it, look, it does say something that we make more allowances for our job, for our profession. We understand investing in spending on, etc. in a ways that we don't for just like pure personal development or acquiring knowledge or whatever. But if that metaphor is helpful for you to see the silliness of that distinction, so be it.

Seeing this stuff as your job, right? Like, I think about this again, like if I'm sitting on my computer, that feels like work. But if I lean back in the chair, kick up my feet, and I'm reading, I'm like, if someone's gonna walk in and be like, well, you're having a fun day, but that book, I might learn 10 times from that book,

what I would learn browsing ESPN articles when I should be writing or whatever, right? Think about what's making you better and are you seeing yourself as a project? Epic Teed says this, he says, look, some people delight in improving their farm, some people delight in improving their body. He says, me, I delight in improving myself day to day. So are you seeing yourself as a project? Are you willing to invest in the way that, yeah, like you'd say, hey, to start to open this store, to make, to buy this stock, I have to put up some money,

I have to put up some time, I have to do some research, I have to do some development, to put to do some development to put up a plan. We'll do that for yourself also because you're worth it. And by the way, once you pick the low-hanging fruit of life, it gets harder. The professional level is harder and you're going to have to invest and spend some serious time. So you are a project. And the Stokes marvel at how, you know, the things we're willing to do to have some, you know, physical pleasure or what are appetites or, you know, make some more money, but how little we're willing to invest in ourselves and

in our own personal development, even though that contributes also to our personal development, but also to our happiness and fits in with our obligations as human beings and all that contributes also to our personal development, but also to our happiness and fits in with our obligations as human beings and all that. So that's the prompt for you today. You are a project. You as the startup. You as the LLC. You as the corporation.

Invest, operate, accordingly, take your obligations seriously operate accordingly. Take your obligations seriously accordingly. And I think you'll be very impressed and pleased by the results. 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 ad free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just going to 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 Wundery's new podcast, Dis and Tell, where each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud.

From the buildup, why it happened, and and the repercussions what does our obsession with these feuds 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 Britney's fans form the free Britney 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 Disenthal wherever you get your podcasts.

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