The Daily Stoic - We Are Better For This | On Being Invincible

Starting point is 00:00:00 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

Starting point is 00:00:35 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 Airbnb's 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 recommend you check out Airbnb for your next trip. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a stoic-inspired meditation

Starting point is 00:01:16 designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women to help you learn from them, to follow in their example and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit Daily dailystoic.com. We are better for this. We'd prefer everything go our way.

Starting point is 00:02:04 We'd prefer we have space and time. We'd prefer to be less hemmed in, to have more freedom, to have fewer rules. Nobody wishes for obstacles. Nobody's glad for Murphy's law or indeed most regulations. Yet these things make us better whether we understand it or not. Montaigne, the 16th century philosopher, was inclined to poetry as a lover of literature, but he also saw poetry as a metaphor for life, as the early Stoics did. As he said, riffing on Cleanthes, the Stoic philosopher, just as the voice of the trumpet rings out clearer and stronger for being forced through a narrow tube, so too a saying leaps forth much more vigorously

Starting point is 00:02:47 when compressed into the rhythms of poetry. What Cleanthes had actually said was that just as a trumpet focuses our breath into a brilliant sound, the feathering rules of poetry allows our words to reach people in a deep and moving way. But both lines here, I think, are great enough to be worth quoting. And you can read about Cleanthes and Limes of the Stoics

Starting point is 00:03:08 if you want to know more about them. We are made better for the constraints of life. They channel us, they direct our energy, they concentrate our forces, they force us to be creative. They bring out the poet in us. That is, if we choose to follow their rules, to respect the medium, to let the muses take over, and to take their direction, the obstacle is the way.

Starting point is 00:03:34 And by the way, we still do have a few signed numbered first editions of The Obstacle is the Way. This is the 10th anniversary edition. These are basically collector's pieces they won't be making any more of. So if you wanna grab one of those, you still can. I'll link to that in today's show notes. And then we have the leather edition of the book,

Starting point is 00:03:53 which I will link to in today's show notes as well. Enjoy. ["Invincible"] On being invincible. Today's entry in the Daily Stoic, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance and the Art of Living. Who then is invincible? The one who cannot be upset by anything outside their reasoned choice. That's Epictetus, Discourses, 1.18. Have you ever watched a seasoned pro handle the media? No question is too tough, no tone

Starting point is 00:04:30 too pointed or insulting. They parry every blow with humor, poise, and patience. Even when stung or provoked, they choose not to flinch or react. They're able to do this not only because of training and experience, but because they understand that reacting emotionally will only make the situation worse. The media is waiting for them to slip up or get upset, so to successfully navigate press events they've internalized the importance of keeping themselves under calm control. It's unlikely, of course, that you'll face a horde of probing reporters bombarding you with insensitive questions, But it might be helpful, whatever stresses or frustrations or overload that do come your way, to picture that image and to use

Starting point is 00:05:10 it as your model for dealing with them. Our reasoned choice, as the Stoics call it, is a kind of invincibility that we can cultivate. We shrug off hostile attacks and we breeze through pressure or problems. And like our model, when we finish, we can point back into the crowd and say next. It is a skill. I mean, one of the things you learn, I love this one, you learn this as you give talks, they go, look, if you ever get asked a question that you don't know the answer to,

Starting point is 00:05:35 or you don't like your answer to, or you know is a trap, just pose your own question and answer that. I love that not because it's clever and a little bit manipulative, but I love it because it's like, oh yeah, you don't control what happened, but you control how you just choose to respond and you can kind of create your own environment. You watch as reporters hurl questions at the press secretary or at the president or this politician or that athlete, and what are they trying to do? They're trying to provoke a reaction because the reaction is good for the reporters, right? Put aside whether

Starting point is 00:06:09 they're actually after the truth or not. In a lot of cases they are, but what they want is to provoke a reaction. They want to make news and you sort of learn as a public figure like you can make a situation worse by giving a dumb answer. If you don't answer, if you say no comment, right? Even the ability to say no comment is an innovation and goes to what we've talked about before with Marcus Aurelius where he says you always have the ability to have no opinion. You can be silent. But, you know, our impulse is always to react, react, react, and then we get ourselves into trouble. And so the person who cannot be upset by things outside their reason is choice, who focuses on what they control,

Starting point is 00:06:45 who is disciplined, who has poise, who can roll with the punches and stick with their game plan no matter what's being thrown at them. That's a great model for life. It's an essential ingredient to being a public figure or a leader, but it's also just a recipe for a good life. So today, think about that, just that you're in control. You decide the rhythm, you decide what you respond to. Don't just react. Don't swing at every pitch. You got

Starting point is 00:07:09 to have some of that discipline. You got to see the intentions behind the things that are being hurled at you. And you got to know that they want you to make a mistake. That's what they're trying to do. And if you can control yourself, you can at least not make stressful or difficult situations worse. That's as good a place as any to start. Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Stoke podcast. If you don't know this, you can get these delivered to you via email every day. Check it out at dailystoke.com slash email. 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.

Starting point is 00:08:04 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. I'm Raza Jaffrey. And in the latest season of the spy who we open the file on Vitold Pilecki, the spy who infiltrated Auschwitz. Resistance fighter Witold Pilecki has heard dark rumors about an internment camp on his home soil of Poland. Hoping to expose its cruelty to the world, he leaves his family behind and deliberately gets himself imprisoned.

Starting point is 00:08:39 The camp is called Auschwitz, a hellish place where the unimaginable becomes routine. Poletsky is determined. He needs to organise the prisoners, build a resistance and get the truth out. Except when the world hears about the horrors of the camp, nobody comes to the rescue. In the end, it's just him, alone, with only one decision to make. Accept death or escape. Follow the Spy Who on the Wandery app or wherever you listen to podcasts or you can binge the full season of The Spy Who

Starting point is 00:09:11 Infiltrated Auschwitz early and ad-free with Wandery Plus.

The Daily Stoic - We Are Better For This | On Being Invincible

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