The Daily Stoic - When You Wake Up Every Morning, Tell Yourself… | Ask Daily Stoic

Episode Date: April 11, 2024

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Search and follow The Price of Paradise now to listen to the full trailer. 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. But thank you for listening, and we hope this is of use to you. When you wake up every morning, tell yourself this. The actor Troy Baker has a strange little tattoo on his wrist. The Roman symbol for two, and the Roman symbol for one. It's basically three lines separated by a period. What does that mean?

Why is that the first thing that he looks at each morning? What does it have to do with Stoicism? Well, a dedicated reader of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations would recognize the significance immediately because it's an allusion to one of the most powerful passages in the entire book. When you wake up in the morning, per the Gregory Hayes translation, tell yourself the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good

and the ugliness of evil, Mark Ceruleus wrote, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own, not of the same blood or birth, but of the same mind and possessing a share of the divine. So none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness, nor can I feel angry at my relative or hate him. We were born to work together like feet and hands and eyes like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural.

To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him, these are obstructions. Baker decided to get this tattoo after he got into a screaming argument with another actor. They both stormed off the set and went back to their hotels. Here's the thing Troy explained in an awesome interview with me on the Daily Stoke podcast. I could walk you through chapter and verse,

how I was justified in my anger, he said, justified in my argument. I could point out chapter and verse, how I was justified in my anger, he said, justified in my argument. I could point out chapter and verse, the fallacy of their argument. And Troy said he spent the next two days boiling with anger. But then as a long time student of the Stoics, he remembered that passage. Why was he surprised?

Why was he letting them implicate him in ugliness? Why was he working against them instead of with them? Why was he turning his back instead of with them, why was he turning his back on them? So we got the tattoo as a reminder and it's been with him ever since, calming him down in frustrating situations with frustrating people. And while we don't all have to get that passage permanently inked on our bodies, it wouldn't hurt to keep it always top of mind and to start each morning with it.

Anyways, when he said that you can listen to the episode, it's one of our I think our best you can watch it on YouTube, you can listen to it. Obviously, you're listening to a podcast right now. So you should be able to find it. But it was a couple months ago on the podcast, I'll link to it in today's notes. But you can also just grab a copy of meditations and read that passage to yourself every morning. We've got the Gregory Hayes translation

at the Painted Ports, which I'll link to. And then of course, got the Leatherbound Meditations, which you could check out as well. I'll link to that, or just go to store.dailystoke.com. ["The Painted Ports"] Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Thursday Daily Stoic Podcast. I've been bringing you some chunks of the Q&A I did when I spoke to Live Nation in Phoenix a couple of months back.

I thought it was a really good conversation, so I'm going to bring you a bit more of that. We're talking about routines in this episode, managing ego, because certainly there's no egos in the music business. Talking about a meditation practice and how to work with teams to include other people. This is the kind of application of Stoicism that I'm really into, you know, how people can apply these philosophical principles in their actual life. And you know, as much as I love to just nerd out about, you know, Stoic Theory, I like to find ways to apply it to different professions, different industries. And thanks to the folks at Live Nation for having me out. They invited me to an Iron Maiden concert this fall, so I'm very excited to do that.

I'll report back when I see Iron Maiden concert this fall. So I'm very excited to do that. I'll report back when I see Iron Maiden in San Antonio. I think one of the things that you kind of alluded to in our industry is the amount of egos to go all around. I think one of the things, you know, myself and I think a lot of others struggle with is not only managing our own ego, but those that we are working with. So what are some ways to help us accept others' ego and not let it affect yourself? I think that's probably where we start also, is in acceptance. You're not going to change this person. It's not your job to change this person. I think that's probably where we start also, is in acceptance, right?

You're not gonna change this person, it's not your job to change this person, it's not your job to save this person. These are all kind of egotistical things in and of themselves. It's understanding sort of who they are, what motivates them, you know, what's going on with them, and then how can you be as successful as possible

given that, right? So the thing about ego is you sort of is you never go head to head with it. How do you convince an egotistical person to do something that you convinced them it was their idea? And so it's just kind of thinking about what are their motivations, what's going on with them, and then how do you adapt and adjust to that as opposed to brute force is not going to be an effective tool, right? Not to get into politics, but I did hear a funny anecdote about the Trump administration, which is they would give the president every day like a list of news and he doesn't really

read things so he wouldn't read it, but they found like if they put his name in it a lot, he would read it, you know? And so I just love the idea of like, again, nothing about the administration is something I'm endorsing, but I just love the idea of like, this is the ego, this is how we get news to him, and then accepting it and adjusting around it, you know, that's kind of the world that we're,

unfortunately, if you wanna get stuff out of egotistical or difficult people, you figure out how to work with it. Great question. I'm Mellie, thank you. Hi, Mellie. I'm a big fan of the Daily Stokes. Oh, amazing. So cool.

My question is, because we kind of talked about it, and I personally have found a great meditation practice, and it really has helped me just remember that our mind can be our own enemy, which I feel like we've really touched on. And I know Live Nation actually gives us really great resources for meditation. And I personally have been able to like, I feel like get my team kind of on it. But I think it is sometimes really hard to get them to understand like meditation looks

very different for every person. And that it really is a practice. And you know, I would think it would be a you sitting here would be a great time to like kind of tell people what advice to start that practice could look like for you. I think what you said is important that there's different meditation practices and it's not all sitting in a chair with your eyes closed, right?

And there's walking meditations and for me, like running is one of them. Swimming is one of them. I'm more like I tend to need to be moving. But I think, you know, at the core of what meditation is for me, or what I think works in it is the quieting of the mind, and then also somewhat paradoxical or contradictory, but realizing that what's happening in the mind, you don't have to accept or agree with or ascend. I think one of the things you learn meditating is you're like, whoa, where are these things

coming from? And you realize, oh, they're just coming and I don't have to act on them or agree to them. For the Stoics, it's funny, Mark Surielos' book is called Meditations, but he's not meditating in that sense. It just means to himself. He's just having some version of that dialogue with himself. Instead of doing it quietly, we're lucky that he preserved it in, you know, text. But find the practice that works for you. If one doesn't work, try a different one. If it didn't work for you five years ago, maybe you're different, try it again, and just keep experimenting until you find something that works.

Hey, Ryan. Hi. Thanks again. I also do pottery with a bunch of old ladies. It's great. Amazing. So, as far as ego goes, you obviously talk about that a lot. With teams, how do we work with, especially when we have some younger people on our teams,

making sure that it's so normalized nowadays, especially in this industry. With teamwork, how do we make sure that everyone's feeling, you know, included and that egos aren't getting in the way with, you know, in terms of our team? Yeah, look, I think that's one of the jobs of a leader is to first model that eaglessness, to be, you know, accessible, to admit when you've made errors, to not make everything about you, to not give yourself special treatment, etc. And then also to sort of regulate and enforce a kind of eagleness in the organization. I think that's one of the tricky things is when we start making exceptions for people

because they are delivering results. Right? That's the mistake that each team seems to make with Kyrie Irving. Right? It's like, oh, we're going to fix this for us. It's going to be different. This is what happened at Uber.

Right? They just sort of, they got all what they called the rock star programmers in Silicon Valley. But there's a reason most of them were like looking for jobs is that they were not good fits, culture fits at all these other companies. So it created this sort of toxic destructive culture that eventually got the company in a bunch of trouble. And so I think, you know, not tolerating that and not making excuses for it and holding everyone to the same standards is like a really important thing.

And then, of course course most of all just just modeling it You mean after all that talk about Taylor Swift, I'd probably just like to talk about folklore But yes, I don't know. That's probably the best thing for this time But maybe like another talk But you know you did talk a little bit about routine But you did talk a little bit about routine. And I think in our world, routine is a very challenging thing because of just how chaotic and sporadic our business is.

And so I'd just like to talk a little bit, get your thoughts a little more on routine. It's sporadic, it's chaotic, no two days are the same, right? Everything's constantly changing. So, you know, when that's our reality, how do we carve out time for stillness and work to build effective routines? Can we talk about folklore?

Absolutely. All right, if we're talking about ego, I think one of the things that is unique and sort of unprecedented and to me very impressive is that as she has become more and more famous and more and more sort of untouchable, she's actually become a better collaborator, like she's worked with more people,

which is usually the exact opposite of how it goes, right? You become more and more isolated, more and more sort of the soul genius who just does what you do, but like the collaborations, and maybe that comes from like the country music roots because country musicians seem to call country music and hip-hop seem to collaborate more than other musicians but I think that's an under explored part that she's become a really great collaborator. I think and also a personal life right she's had these relationships

that would last you know very and they just wouldn't last and now this is something maybe it's sustainable maybe it's not however you know, they just wouldn't last. And now this is something, maybe it's sustainable, maybe it's not however you feel, but it just feels like she's actually putting forth the effort too in her personal life. Yeah, but anyways, I think most of the best songs now are usually her and someone else, or with someone else, and it's outside of her typical genre. Most of the- Yeah, it's like you booking too.

She's probably saying no to a lot of people, and so she's getting her pick up quality as well. Yes. And then also other bands that you wouldn't have thought would collaborate with a pop star, the National or Bon Iver. Those collaborations are awesome and sort of typical, like maybe there was probably some reticence from like the sort of indie side of them. I think the album also opened it up to, you know, not the mainstream, like because of Bonnie Bear, it's like I'm listening to folklore. Yeah, of course. And anyways, as for routine, one of the things that I have come to understand, especially having kids and then traveling a lot, is I don't have a routine, but I have routines, plural, and I pick which one is most adaptable or adjustable to where I happen to be in

the moment. Or another way to think about it are sort of what are the core practices that you need to do that center you, that allow you to be creative or do your best work, and then the ability to shuffle them around if necessary. What are negotiable, what's non-negotiable? I think is a really important way to do it. I think one of the things that can happen, I think you see this with artists or athletes, is they get so used to doing it their way

that that almost becomes like a fragility or a rigidity because it has to, and the reality is life on the road, there's travel delays, there's problems, there's technical difficulties. If you need, this is what I need in the green room and this is what has to happen five minutes before show, like how do you also simplify the sort of devices or structures or exercise that you do down to the most adaptable,

adjustable sort of core things so it doesn't matter what's happening or where you are, you have some of those things that you can practice. 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 on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts. Welcome to Pura, the most pristine, safe, climate stable city on earth, a haven amidst the wreckage. Here, you're safe from heat domes, super storms, water bandits in the Outer Lands. There's no crime in Pura.

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