The Daily Stoic - Who Is In Charge | Only Fools Rush In

Episode Date: August 18, 2022

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Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke Podcast. On Thursdays, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation, but also reading a passage from the book, The Daily Stokeic, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance in the Art of Living, which I wrote with my wonderful co-author

and collaborator, Steve Enhancelman. And so today, we'll give you a quick meditation from one of the Stoics, from Epictetus Marks, Relius, Seneca, then some analysis for me. And then we send you out into the world to do your best to turn these words into works. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wendery'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. Who is in charge? And one of his letters, Sennaka describes himself as a cold water enthusiast, that he would celebrate the new year by taking a plunge into the canal, just as naturally as I would set out to do some reading or writing, he said, or compose a speech, I would inaugurate the first of the year with a plunge into the Virgo aqueduct. But then he gives the real reason for his cold plunges. The body should be treated more rigorously, he says, so that it may not be disobedient to the mind. There's a lot of interesting research

about the health benefits of taking cold showers and going for a run and lifting weights. But the real reason to do these things is far more simple. It's to make a statement about who is in charge, the courageous side of you or the cowardly side. The side that doesn't fl cowardly side, the side that doesn't flinch at discomfort or the side that desires to always be comfortable, the side that does the hard things or the side that takes the easy way.

We challenge ourselves not to improve our immune system, not to increase our metabolism, not to reduce anxiety. Those things might be nice, ancillary benefits, but they are not the point. The purpose is to become the kind of person that can do it. How can you expect to do big things that scare you, that scare others? If you haven't practiced them. Why do you think you can endure the cold reception of a bold idea if you can't even endure a cold water?

How can you trust that you'll step forward when the stakes are high, when you regularly don't do that, when the stakes are low? What gives you any confidence that you'll do the hard thing when stakes are high, when you regularly don't do that, when the stakes are low, what gives you any confidence that you'll do the hard thing when people are watching, when you can't do it, even when no one is watching. The person who does something scary every day is less fearful than someone who can't. The person who does something difficult every day is tougher than someone who doesn't. And that's what a bunch of people have learned taking our challenges over the years, but that's also why we built out the Daily Stoke Challenge deck,

deck of cards that helps challenge you all here, round. We first launched as a couple years ago, now it's new and improved. It's 40 challenge cards developed into three themes, built around those, three key stoke disciplines, perception, action, action will and each card you can pull it out each morning or multiple times a day whatever version you want to play the game with you can play with friends anyways you pull out a challenge card and it's got a challenge

for you instructions a quote from a stoic and then a unique inspiring illustration and every day you're forced to wrestle with that question who Who's in charge, the weak side of me or the side that's gonna do what the card says? It pushes you in little ways, so the big ways stop seeming quite so big, so out of character. And you minimize fear by making the act of overcoming it routine. You test yourself to prepare for the test of life.

You do something difficult, scary, something good every day. And you can check it out with the Daily Stoic Challenge Deck. I'll link to it in today's episode as well. You can find it at dailystoic.com slash Challenge Deck. And of course, you can find this and a bunch of other awesome products at store.dailystoic.com. Only fools rush in. This is today's entry in the Daily Stowach. 366 meditations on wisdom, perseverance, and the art of living by yours truly. My co-author and translator, Stephen Hanselman, you can get signed copies, by the way, in the

Daily Stowach store, over a way, in the Daily Stoke Store, over a million copies of the Daily Stoke in print now. It's been just such a lovely experience to watch it. It's been more than 250 weeks, consecutive weeks on the best cellist. It's just an awesome experience. But I hope you check it out. We have a premium leather edition at store.dailystoke.com as well. But let's get on with today's reading.

A good person is invincible. EpicT says in Discourses 3.6, for they don't rush into contests in which they aren't the strongest. If you want their property, take it. Take also their staff, profession, and body. But you will never compel what they set out for, nor trap them in what they should avoid.

For the only contest, the good person enters, is that of their own reasoned choice. How can such a person not be invincible? And then the entry is one of the most fundamental principles of martial arts is that strength should not go against strength. That is, don't try to beat your opponent where they are strongest. But for some reason that's exactly what we try to do when we undertake some impossible task we haven't bothered to think through or we let someone put us on the spot or we say yes to whatever comes our way.

Some people think that choosing your battles is weak or calculating, but how could reducing the amount of times we fail or minimize the needless injuries inflicted on us be weak? How's that a bad thing? As the saying goes, discretion is the better part of valor. Stokes call it reasoned choice. That means be reasonable. Thin

card before choosing and make yourself unbeatable. A book I've recommended many many times I sell it here at the Painted Porch is Zero to One by Peter Teal. Peter Teal says the whole point of business in life is to find where you have a monopoly. Where you're the only one doing that thing. There's another book that I rave about that we carry here in the store called Blue Ocean Strategy. There's another one called Blue Ocean Shift that I actually did the marketing for. But the idea is red oceans is where there's lots of competition. That means being like everyone else, wanting the things that everyone wants, focusing on what's

out of your control like everyone else. It's a far better thing to focus on what is in your control, on being you and your unique self. And the stokes actually have a lot about this, right? Agrippinus, we talk about in lives of the stokes, he says, I want to be the red thread in the sweater, not like the other threads. I want to stand up. And that's the idea. Epictetus says, walk alone, right? Look around you, be who you are. To me, what he's saying is that when you try to be like

someone else, you lose. When you want the things that other people want, you lose. When you enter something where you are trying to be like someone or something that you're not supposed to be, you lose. But when you are yourself, when you stand for what you stand for, when you do what you know is right, that's when you win. Even if you quote, unquote, lose. There's an interview I was reading with the architect Frank Gary recently and he would say when he was talking to architects who were just starting out, he would get them to all get out of piece of paper and he would say, write your signature on this paper and then he'd spread them out and have this cool class look at them.

And he'd say, they all look different. That's you. That's you, so stay with that forever. And I think that's what Epic Titus is saying here. You are a unique person. You have a totally unique set of DNA and experiences and values, and you are that red thread. So don't make yourself, like the others. Don't sell out, right? When you stick to who you are,

when you're true to that, you win no matter what. You have a monopoly on you. Don't give that monopoly away. Don't forfeit it. Don't lose it. Another rendering of that epictetus quote, he says, you can always win if you only enter a competition where winning is up to you. When your focus as Marks to really says, on what other people say or do, on getting approval, on having certain gatekeepers accept you or open things up to you, well that's when you have set yourself up to be defeated. And even if you win, you've still lost in that some sense that you've given up something that was uniquely you and uniquely yours. I think that's a shame, and so that's what I want to leave you there.

Stick with what's up to you, stick with who you are, and go where you have that monopoly. Competition is for losers, as Peter Teal said. So go where you're a winner. 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, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery

Plus in Apple Podcasts. Hey there listeners, while we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think you'll like. It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks to founders behind some of the world's biggest and most innovative companies, to learn how they built them from the ground up. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace, Manduke Yoga Mats, Soul Cycle, and Kodopaxi, as well as entrepreneurs working to solve some of the biggest problems of our time, like developing technology that pulls energy from the ground to heat in cool

homes, or even figuring out how to make drinking water from air and sunlight. Together they discuss their entire journey from day one, and all the skills they had to learn along the way, like confronting big challenges, and how to lead through uncertainty. So if you want to get inspired and learn how to think like an entrepreneur, check out how I built this, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free

on the Amazon or Wonder yet.