How Much Have You Changed? | Proof That Stoicism Can Change Your Life

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1:22Ryan Holiday: How much have you changed? It doesn't seem that long ago. Seems like forever ago. Ten years. How much have you changed in the last decade? Certainly the world has changed. Radical new technologies. Millions of people have been born. Millions have passed away. Enormous buildings have been built. Cities have been remade by natural disasters, developers and changing demographics alike. New species have been discovered and some have been driven out of existence. There were scandals, mergers and acquisitions, surprise collapses. Things were legalized and made illegal. Time is a ceaseless torrent of events, Mark Sprelius writes.

2:09Ryan Holiday: The only constant from his era to ours is change. So what have you learned in this time? How have you grown? What have you gained? What have you lost? What traps are you still stuck in? Which ones have you broken out of? The world changes and we have to try to change with it. Seriously, wouldn't it be crazy if all that change had happened and we were still doing the same things? Still stagnant? We cannot go on being the person we have always been, Marcus writes in meditations. We cannot remain as we are, Socrates said. I've been thinking a lot about this because, well, 10 years ago, the Daily Stoic came out.

2:53The Daily Stoic is 10 years old.

2:55Ryan Holiday: And when Steve and I sat down to write it, our hope was that a little bit of Stoic wisdom each day could help people live better lives. You know, real change doesn't happen because of a dramatic breakthrough. It happens slowly from the things we read about and talk about and practice and return to. Seneca understood this. In his famous letter to Lasilius, he warns against trying to do everything at once. Instead, he says, we ought to acquire something each day that will fortify you against poverty, against death, against all misfortune. One idea turned over, thought through, put into practice, and then repeating the cycle the next day.

3:37Ryan Holiday: And that was the idea of the Daily Stoke, one page per day. one piece of wisdom so that over the weeks and months it adds up. And in the 10 years since the book was published, I've tried to do the same thing. I kept reading the Stoics, writing about them, trying to live what they taught. And as I changed, my understanding of some of those ideas changed as well. Found passages that I'd missed. I found passages I wish I'd explained more clearly. stories I could tell better or examples that illustrated the ideas better, interpretations I wanted to reconsider, stoic voices I wish I'd included the first time.

4:17Ryan Holiday: And so Steve and I spent the last year or so going back through the book page by page. And the result is this new 10-year anniversary edition of The Daily Stoic, which is available in hardcover and leather bound. I even recorded the audio book. We added 60 new translations, new and revised stories, fix some things, tighten things up. It's got illustrations, a bunch of other awesome stuff. Look, the wisdom of the Stoics hasn't changed, but you've changed and I've changed. And now the Daily Stoic itself has changed. Stuff's going to change in the next 10 years too. The question ultimately that I want to leave you with today is whether you will change along with it.

4:57Ryan Holiday: And you can grab signed and numbered first editions of the Daily Stoic at dailystoic.com slash ds10. I will link to that in the show notes.

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7:38My name is Timothy Ryan. I was drawn to stoicism about six years ago after reading How to Think Like a Roman Emperor by Donald Robinson. it. Since then I have many many books on Stoicism and frequent the Daily Stoic podcasts. I also read the Daily Stoic emails which help set up my day in a good frame of mind. My introduction into life was when my brother tragically died when I was 18 years old. I depended on my brother. This event led me on a quest which eventually took me to a Catholic seminary training to be a Catholic priest. My search for meaning was such that I needed answers to the why and the how.

8:22Why did my brother die? How can I make meaning of this? And how can a future worth living be possible? Project on 35 years and I find stoicism. It begins to make sense to me. It gives me tools that I can use daily and practically. The further I delve into stoicism, the more the history is at the core from which many other beliefs seem to come from. Then as life often does, I would be asked to put this way of living and thinking to the test. My son dies the same way that my brother died on a motorcycle. He was 17. Now I need to review all my thoughts, meanings, the why, the how again for a second time in my life.

9:10Grief can have two destinations, one that is not so good and one that is a teacher on how to live a purposeful life. This, to me, is the core of Stoicism. The letters from Seneca on how to die against the throes of life. Cicero on how to grieve gives guidance to Memento Mori. Changing my thoughts the only thing I have control over. The change in how I think shows me a life with meaning in my life sentence with grief. I learnt about amor fate. Embracing my fate is better than fighting it like I did 35 years ago. Life is about constantly learning right to the end of life itself. Training every day is another principle I have from Stoism.

10:04As if I was a boxer entering the ring of life, my sparring partners are the cold water swimming I practice, reading about the lives of the Stoics, and reflecting on the daily passages, regular journaling, carrying the medallions on Stoic virtues that remind me about what's really important with the tactile sensations. having conversations that are about building understanding as humans. Stoicism for me has real understanding. It has supported me to live with grief without regret of the past. Stoicism put things in life into perspective that allow space in my head to analyze and progress forwards in life and not to be held back.

10:49While I have investigated other belief systems, none of them gave me the tools to keep living with purpose in spite of tragedy and adversity. Above all, stoicism builds resilience to life without negative vibes. It gives me tranquility of mind and strategies I can use within myself. My brother and my son both gone, but I can still have a relationship with them that exist today. I am able to keep learning from them both. A tragedy is what it is. Not to live after a tragedy is the biggest tragedy of them all. There will be some in life that will lose more than me. Nothing is of permanence in this world.

11:31Nothing belongs to us, either human or animal. We're all just on loan for a while. So I now keep giving, trying to do the right thing always. These are my competitors in the ring. Myself is the biggest competitor. Thank you. My name is Brennan Grudell-Smith. I'm 42 years old, and I live in a little small town called Terror, Mississippi. I first got interested in Stoicism about a year ago. I have a master's degree in theology, so the concepts of philosophy are not new to me, at least on the basic level. I'm aware of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, you know, the big guys. What I knew of Stoicism was mostly how it contrasted with Christianity, most notably some of Hall debates with the Stoics in Athens.

12:25So ironically, what got me considering Stoicism was not anything related to theology or Christianity, though. What got me interested into Stoicism was the game of poker. I'm a poker player, been a poker player for about half my life now. And so not a very good poker like that. And so one day I saw a guy playing poker with a shirt that just said stoic on it. And he talked about how he tries to have a stoic philosophy at the table, not letting any bad beats or any problems at the table get to him too much. I said, oh, that might be a philosophy I need to shake into to help me. Around that same time, there was a Christian newsletter by a pastor named Benjamin Kramer that I subscribed to.

13:12And one of his resources and recommendations he made in a certain newsletter was the Daily Stoic Podcast. This was around the same time I was thinking about studying stoicism and bringing some stoic practices into my poker game. So I said, well, this just seems fortuitous. So I downloaded the Daily Stoic Podcast, started listening to some of Ryan's meditations. And of course, that, of course, led me to meditations by Marcus Ridley, of course, which then led to Epictetus' discourses and the letters from my stoic of Seneca. And from there on, I just took a deep dive into it. And about every book I could get my hands on, I read, I studied, I bought the Daily Stoic and the Daily Stoic Journal and just really dove in.

13:53And ironically, what I initially picked up to try to help myself get into a better mind space at the poker table, I found actually helped me in my life and in my faith. stoicism has led me to be a better christian and a better husband a better son and the practices that i normally hate it like getting upper i now look forward to because i know i get to hey i get to journal i look forward to journaling and i remember things like hey if this problem happens this is out of my control i can control how do i respond to it and it has just been um common presence in my life that I didn't know I needed away from the poker table, but it turns out I did, which has just been a positive influence to me, especially how it has impacted my faith.

14:43As a Christian, especially an intellectual Christian with a vast degree, we're always looking for ways we can grow stronger in our faith. And usually that comes through more Bible reading, more prayers. But Stoicism is not something we usually think about as something that can help us. But it has. Stoicism has made me a better Christian. I think my Christianity has led me to be a better practitioner of stoicism. That might be ironic for some to hear, but it has been the truth of me. So I can honestly say that I thank God for stoicism. My name is Landon Blackburn. I'm 31 years old, and I live in Cincinnati, Ohio.

15:23And this is my journey through stoicism. I fear death. every day I wake up I can't help but feel that time slips away based on every decision that I make and I catch myself doing the things I know I shouldn't be doing and every time I do it I take a personal inventory like a reminder that being irresponsible with my time does not benefit me I don't fear dying of illness or dying unexpectedly it's not that which makes me sick at night it's not being able to do what the universe has told me to do and that's to play the drums and to make music during my journey through stoicism I have learned what is essential and what is not essential and every day as I prepare myself for death I also meet every day with unyielding gratitude that what I get to do in my life right now is what I love to do more than anything else.

16:34And that's play drums and make music. My name is Arishankar Muthainadi. I am an Indian living and working in Abu Dhabi. For a long time, I found myself in situations that were difficult to understand and even harder to navigate. I felt stuck. There were moments of confusion, pressure and challenges. I found myself reacting to circumstances and to people around me. And then something changed. I discovered Stoicism. I began reading the Daily Stoic every day. I read, The Obstacle is the way. I read Ego is the Enemy. Stillness is the Key. Courage is Calling. And gradually, I realized these books weren't really teaching me how to control life.

17:32They were teaching me how to control myself within life. That distinction was enormous because life is unpredictable. People are unpredictable. Circumstances are unpredictable. But my response, that belongs to me. One book in particular, The Obstacle is the Way, changed the way I looked at my life. I began to understand that perhaps the obstacle itself was not something standing between me and my life. Perhaps the obstacle was the way forward. That idea changed me I slowly moved from being reactive to responsive People started noticing They would sometimes ask me What happened to you? Why are you so calm?

18:20How do you remain so serene? And honestly, I don't have some magical secret I still have difficult days I still get frustrated I still feel anger I still feel disappointment The difference is that I don't believe every emotion deserves an immediate action. I can feel anger without becoming anger. I can feel disappointment without allowing it to define me. I can be provoked without becoming provocative and sometimes the strongest response is no response at all. For me, the journey has been simple From reactive to responsive From chaos to stillness From trying to control everything to focus on what I can control And above all, do the right thing Rest doesn't matter Stay with the situation at hand Focus on this moment Obstacle is the way And ultimately, character is fate Thank you.