BONUS | Camila Cabello: “Stoicism Changed Everything for Me”

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1:01Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a Stoic-inspired meditation 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 dailystoic.com.

1:52that's something that stoics talk about which is like what good is success if the result is that you don't feel like you're in charge of your own mind or your own life like how how is that success Exactly. And that's like not what we as a society are taught. And actually so much of I feel like healing is being like, what of this is like what I actually want? And what of this is just like what everybody else is doing and I'm doing it because everybody else is doing it. Like that, you know, and stillness is the key. Like that really resonated with me. Like what's your definite and ego is enemy too.

2:30And it's like all of these questions about like, what is success to you? Like is success being famous and having these awards? And I feel like it's especially a necessary teaching nowadays because I have like, you know, my little cousin who's like eight years old and I'm like, what do you want to be when you grow up? And she's like, I want to be TikTok famous. And I'm like, it's like these values of like, no, what's important is, you know, how content you are with your life. like the level of gratitude that you experienced. Most importantly for me right now, like the connections that you have with your family and your friendships and your community and your purpose.

3:10Like I genuinely do feel like my purpose is in art. You know, I don't think I actually, even though it's always been my passion, my favorite thing to do, like I feel like in the past eight months, I really was like, oh no, this is like what I want to do. You know, like this is like what I feel like my purpose is. And it's like not doing it for any outcome of like being famous or success or what people think of you, which it can subconsciously. I know, I mean, I can only speak for myself, but even when you don't say that to yourself, I've never been like, I want to be the most famous. I want to be number one.

3:50I've never said that. But I remember reading Ego is the Enemy and being like, but then at the same time, I go to do a writing session and I care so much about what these people in the room think of me. I'm so insecure and afraid. And that's ego too, because I'm still not doing it for the right reasons. Like the, the, the right reason is to tell my truth. That's it. Period. There's a great Marcus Reelius quote. He says, um, we care about ourselves more than other people. He says, but we care about other people's opinion more than our own. Right. I love that quote. It's, it's so true. Like you, you pour yourself into this thing, doing it the way that only you want to do it, you know, and then, and then all of a sudden it comes out.

4:37And then what you're thinking is like, did other people say it's good or not? And sometimes you need a project. I did a book a few years ago, this book called Conspiracy, which I think is my best book, but it sold the least well out of all of them. It didn't like fail. It just didn't do maybe what it could have done. And what was really freeing about that experience was it totally decoupled like critical success and sales for me from like what I know is good. And that's like, it was such a huge breakthrough. It was such a huge breakthrough for me when I saw like a couple months ago, I was, I was like, you know, I read ego.

5:14I read Obstacles the Way, like, I think like two years ago. And I, for my second album, I read, um, a friend of mine gave me that book. And so I read it and it told, I remember like reading it. And then for the next like two months while I was reading it, like my writing sessions were like amazing because everything, even, even my own insecurity and my own like fear, I was kind of using it to fuel, you know, I was doing that, that, uh, stoic teaching that I love so much, the Amor Fati, the taking everything and, and even the bad stuff and loving that it happened, not just accepting it, but being like, Oh, I'm going to use this now.

5:55Um, and that's the first time I read that book. Then like three, two, two years later, I read Stillness is the Key. And that was actually when I was, that was like a year ago, actually. That's when I was going through the height of my mental health crisis. And that really impacted me. And then during quarantine, I read Ego is the Enemy. And I started really getting into stoicism. And I got like the Daily Stoic Journal. And I was reading the daily stoic videos. And one video that really resonated with me was the one where you're talking about how stoics define success and the internal scoreboard and how it's like there's success.

6:42That's like, okay, how many views did this get? How many likes did this get? How successful is this song or this album going to be? And that's all the things that you can't control. So if you measure success like that or what other people in the room think of me, then you're going to be unhappy your whole life. But if you change your definition of success, which I've really been practicing when I've been writing for this album, if I change my definition of success to how honest was I today? How vulnerable was I today? How did I show up completely as myself? Was I kind to people? Did I see people?

7:20Did I make this a fun experience for everybody in the room? If I just focus on what I can control in this moment, then at the end of every day, I was like, it was a successful day. Even if I did feel anxious or nervous, I was like, my metric of success was, hey guys, I feel a little nervous, you know, and I was truthful. And therefore I met with my like standard of success. And it's like, that's so much more important. Like it's so much more important to be the person that you want to be and lead with that than how other people perceive you or what people perceive you. That's what I love about stoicism and what I feel like is going to be my philosophy of life forever, which it wasn't before.

8:06I feel like I was leading with what I was doing instead of who I was being. It's like, you know, I just like now I'm so conscious of like me being, you know, brave and courageous and kind and, you know, and truthful. And my character comes before any of the things that I do.

8:36Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please spread the word, tell people about it, and this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say thank you.

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