BONUS | How to Reset Your Life (According to the Stoics)

0:00Ryan Holiday: Shopping at Whole Foods is one of the things I do in our family. Like the grocery shopping is my job. So I was glad to be able to do that even on vacation. And then, you know, being here in Hawaii, it was the same Whole Foods experience we're thinking about. But then also a bunch of regional stuff, too, that they only have at this Whole Foods. We love shopping at Whole Foods because there's always new flavors and foods to choose from whichever Whole Foods you are like, whichever Whole Foods you happen to be at. So save on regional flavors at Whole Foods Market, and maybe I'll see you at the Whole Foods in Austin sometime.

0:58Don't sound like everyone else. With Grammarly, you never will. Download Grammarly for free at Grammarly.com. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast,

1:08Ryan Holiday: designed to help bring those four key stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

1:19Ryan Holiday: You're just gonna write this year off already. You're gonna write today off because it got started the wrong way. you're going to write this week off, this month off, this phase of your life off. Why? Because you you think you messed up because you got off to a bad start, because you didn't do it perfectly, because you're tired, because other people got out ahead of you. That's crazy and most of all the Stoics would say it's arrogant because it is presuming that you will get later, that you have more time. The Stoics tell us to get active in our own rescue, to get back to it right now and that's what we're going to talk about in today's episode because right now this moment is the perfect moment to reset to get back to first principles to do the things that you said you were going to do be the person that you know you want to be i just ran and now i have the ocean totally to myself i'm going to do a long swim this is the best when when when you have the pool to yourself when you have the track to yourself when you have the roads to yourself when you have the ocean to yourself because everyone else is sleeping or it's too wet or it's too late or it's too cold or it's too hot when you have it all to yourself that's the best that's when the best are out by the way because you're stealing a march on everyone else i always think of that famous line from longfellow he says the heights of great men weren't reached by sudden flight he says no it was while their companions slept they toiled upwards through the night so you get up you get after it precisely when and everyone else is not doing that.

2:46Ryan Holiday: That's when you make your progress, that's when you pull ahead, and also that's the most peaceful and wonderful and quiet and still time to do whatever it is that you like to do. It's not about now, it's not about what's happening now, it's not about what it's taking out of you now, it's about what it's given you, right? Before it happened, you were scared, before it happened, you were sheltered, before it happened, you were soft, before it happened, you were dependent. You were all these things and more. But after, right, after the breakup, after the bankruptcy, after the pandemic, after those rough couple years, after things didn't go your way, well, now you're something different.

3:27Ryan Holiday: Now you're something new. You are more. You are stronger. You are braver. You are more independent. You have a better sense of your capacities. This is why Seneca said he actually pitied people who hadn't been through things, who hadn't been kicked around, knocked around, knocked down in life. He said they didn't know what they were capable of. When the Stoics talk about how the obstacle is the way, this is what they mean. That we're not just enduring something, we are becoming through it. The next time you're going through something, you have to remember this. That it's changing you. It's improving you.

4:00Ryan Holiday: It's teaching you. It's giving you insights into who you are and what you're capable of. And that's how you're going to become more than you were before. When The Obstacle is the way it came out, it sold a couple thousand copies its first week. And then the next week it sold less copies and then less copies and then less copies and then less copies. But I didn't focus too much on that because I was working on my next book. I wasn't thinking of it as a failure. I was too busy getting my ass kicked by the next book. And then about a year, year and a half later, it really did start to sell. It started to pick up like crazy.

4:32Ryan Holiday: Sports teams were talking about it. It was getting media attention. But again, I didn't care that much because my ass was getting kicked by the next book. I wasn't thinking about the thing behind me. I was thinking about the thing in front of me. I was too busy doing the thing to be thinking about what people were saying about the thing. I've just found that to generally be a great strategy for life and for writing, for work, is be focused on what you're supposed to be doing. Be focused on your next opportunity. Don't be thinking back, looking back, admiring what you just did or despairing about what you just did.

5:04Ryan Holiday: Focus on what you're going to do next. Pour yourself into what you actually control, which is the act, the skill, the activity. Let the chips fall where they may. There's once a promising Greek politician named Epimendondas, who the powers that be wanted to get rid of. So they give him a dead-end job, supposedly a humiliation. They assign him to basically running the city's sewers and streets. He's literally picking up shit. He's literally diverting water from the public thoroughfares. And it should have been the end of his career. And instead, it sets up a magnificent career in politics. Why?

5:41Ryan Holiday: Because he takes that job seriously. He treats it like it's an important job. And the citizens love him for it. Plutarch says that he transforms an otherwise insignificant office into a great and a respected honor. And I think there's a stoic lesson in here. It's the idea that whatever we do, if we do it well, is noble. That how we do anything is how we do everything. That the status, the recognition, what other people think about what we do, that says nothing. How we decide to treat it, the seriousness we bring to it, the excellence that we do it with, that's what reflects on us. That's what matters.

6:20Ryan Holiday: It doesn't matter how high or how lowly our profession is. if we treat it seriously, if we treat it like a craft, if we treat it like a high office, it becomes that. And we ourselves are transformed in that process. So it doesn't matter what it is you're doing. It doesn't matter what the task is in front of you. It doesn't matter what other people think about it. What matters is what you think about it. And what matters is what you do with it. Do you want the secret to getting more done? Well, Marcus Rios tells us that it's not doing more. It's in fact doing less. He says if you want tranquility, you have to ask yourself in every moment, is this thing essential?

6:58Ryan Holiday: He says because most of what we do, most of what we say is not essential. But he says when you eliminate those inessential things, what you get is the double benefit of doing the essential things better. Too often we're thinking about adding new habits. We're thinking about doing more stuff. In fact, we should be doing less. We should be ruthlessly eliminated. And that's what we're going to be doing in the Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge. 10 days of stoic-inspired challenges to help you clean up, to clean out, to get rid of stuff you shouldn't have, stuff you shouldn't be doing, thought patterns you shouldn't be repeating.

7:30Ryan Holiday: And me and thousands of other stoics are going to be doing it together. All you got to do to sign up is go to dailystoic.com slash spring to sign up, to reset, to get back on track after what's been, I think we can all admit, a difficult winter. If you want to get back on track this spring, join me and thousands of other Stoics in the Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge. And then sign up right now at dailystoic.com slash spring. Look, there are things that suck. There are things that hurt. There is evil. There are scenarios that we dread that aren't fair. There are stuff we try like hell to avoid.

8:04Ryan Holiday: But the Stoics want us to remember that none of this is bad, as in bad for you, as in bad for us, as in bad that it happened to you. In fact, they want you to see that it's the opportunity for you. Because we get to decide what things mean to us. Because we get to decide how we respond to things. And so we have the power to turn these bad things into good things. We make our own luck, the Stoics believe. That good fortune is not something that does or doesn't happen to us. That good fortune is something we make, as Marcus really says, with good intentions, with good character, and good action.

8:42Ryan Holiday: We can use this. We can use what's happening in the world as an opportunity. We can learn from it. We can grow from it. We can step up and meet it. And in fact, that is the most powerful way that we turn bad into good for others and those that come after us. By rising to meet this moment, by letting it make us better, by learning from it, we take what is bad and we make it good. Doing hard things is good for you. Cold plunges, long hikes, long runs, and challenging yourself, pushing your limits. Seneca says, we treat the body rigorously so that it's not disobedience to the mind. Doing the things you don't wanna do, but that you're glad you did after.

9:21Ryan Holiday: That's the skill that life demands more than any other skill. The ability to push yourself a little bit further, to hold on a little bit longer, to go a little bit further than you thought, to put up with a little bit more than you thought, that's what it's about. And so we find practices, we find places, we find experiences that allow us to practice that. They're also beautiful and enjoyable, but they allow us to build that muscle, the muscle that says, hey, I'm in charge. Hey, I push myself. Hey, I'm comfortable being uncomfortable. I'm comfortable being challenged. In fact, I like those challenges.

9:55Ryan Holiday: I seek them out. Not just that I can do hard things, but I do hard things on a regular, consistent basis. That's what it's about. If you want to live in good times, you have to do good things. We don't control what's happening in the world around us. We don't control what other people are doing. We don't control the economy. We don't control the government. We don't control the weather. We don't control the zeitgeist, but we control what we do. We control who we are. In Mark Surrealis' meditations, Mark Surrealis is lamenting all the shitty things that are happening around him. And there was a lot.

10:32Ryan Holiday: He's living through a plague. He's living through a famine. He's living through a civil war. He has health problems. His marriage is struggling. He says, you know, I was once a fortunate man, but at some point fortune abandoned me. But then he stops the pity party and he says, you know what? No, good fortune is up to me. He says it's good intentions, good character and good deeds. If you want to live in good times, do good things. That's where we find hope. That's where we find bright lights. That's where we find something to be inspired by in our own choices, in our own actions, because that's the one thing we control.

11:11Ryan Holiday: Stokes say you have to stop being a slave this year. There's a story I tell in Discipline is Destiny about Richard Feynman. One day it's like 10 o 'clock in the morning. He's out for a walk and he feels this pull. He wants to have a drink. He never saw himself as an alcoholic, never had this problem with alcoholism. but he was deeply uncomfortable with this drive, this pull to do something. It's coming from a part of him that he didn't control. And the Stoics say that's something we have to be really suspicious of. Seneca says slavery isn't just this legal status. He says everyone's a slave. He says someone's a slave to their mistress.

11:44Ryan Holiday: Somebody's a slave to money. Someone's a slave to power and attention. And he said those people might be literally free. They might be powerful. They might be important, but they're not in control. In Disciplined in Sesame Street, I also tell the story of Eisenhower, I'm told by his doctor that his smoking app, he'd smoke like four packs a day for 40 years. It was hurting his health. He says, okay, and I love this. He says, I gave myself an order to stop smoking. And he stopped smoking cold turkey like that. It's going to be harder for some people, easier for some people. But the point is, you've got to give yourself that order.

12:14Ryan Holiday: You have to say, who's in charge? This habit, this addiction, this vice that I have, this thing that I want, or am I in charge? Am I the boss or is it the boss? and that's what Feynman was reacting to, that's what Seneca was reacting to, that's what Eisenhower's reacting to, and ultimately that's what Epictetus is reacting to in the same court as Seneca who looks around and he goes, I'm a slave but I'm freer than these people because I'm in control of my habits. I decide what I do and what I don't do and we have to give ourselves that power this year. procrastination is the biggest waste of life there is Seneca the Stoic philosopher said that it snatches away each day and denies us the present by promising us the future so how did the Stoics then beat procrastination let me give you eight quick tips number one you take it action by action you can't be crushed by your imagination as a whole Rapshula says your extrapolations as a whole.

13:15He says to build it action by action, step by step. This is Zeno's famous line that well-being is realized by small steps, but it is no small thing. Number two, you need to have a routine. Life is too erratic without design, Seneca says. You can't just be winging it. You shouldn't have to make so many choices. Simplify and replicate. Routine eliminates uncertainty. It eliminates questions. It boxes procrastination out. It makes it clear what we should be doing. Number three, you have to cut out the inessential. This is actually the essential question, Merckx-Rulis tells us. Do I need to be doing this?

13:50Does this matter? And he says, because most of the things we do and say are not essential. And when we eliminate those things, we can do the essential things better. If you have a bunch of stuff on your plate, you have a bunch to procrastinate about. Limit what you have to be doing and focus on that. Number four, part of the reason we procrastinate is because we think we have unlimited time. You could be good today. Merckx-Rulis says, instead, you choose tomorrow. You choose tomorrow because you think you have till tomorrow. But memento mori, life is short. You could go at any moment. The Stoics meditate on their mortality to remind them that they don't have the luxury of putting things off.

14:22Number five, who are you spending time with? If you spend time with people who procrastinate, if you spend time with people who are putting things off until tomorrow, if you spend time with people who don't have a sense of urgency around their life, you're going to pick that up. Epictetus quotes a proverb that if you live with a lame man, you will learn how to live. We become like the people we're around. You want to procrastinate less? Spend time with people who don't procrastinate. Number six, focus on the small wins. Seneca, writing to Lucilius, says like, each day I just try to find something.

14:52He says something that fortifies me against poverty, against death, against weakness, against misfortune. Just focus on one gain per day. Just make a little bit of progress. This is one of my writing rules. Did I make a small contribution today? If so, I did my job. Number seven, let's not focus on outcomes. Again, that perfectionism can become a kind of paralysis. Let's focus on what we control, which is, of course, the central idea in Doha philosophy. I'm just going to show up. I'm going to do what I can do. I'm going to try to make a contribution. I'm going to do my best. And I know if I do that day in and day out, I'll get where I want to go.

15:27And I think number eight is related, right? You have to demand the best for yourself. If you want to live and die as ordinary, Epictetus says, then keep putting stuff off. Keep deferring. Keep acting as if you have forever. But if you want to be your best, then you've got to do your best, and you've got to do it now. You have to start showing up now, not later, now. You could be good today, Mark Swilea says. Don't choose tomorrow.