If You Had The World Enough and Time… | Ask DS

0:00You probably heard the headlines about all the different cuts to foreign aid and food benefits. This is having a profound impact on the world's poorest people and the world's poorest communities. But, you know, just hearing about that, that's not what stoicism is about. Stoicism is, to me, what you're going to do about it. And that's where GiveWell comes in. GiveWell is trusted by tens of thousands of donors each year because they provide free and independent research that helps you understand how to have a big impact. GiveWell has spent the last 18 years researching global health and poverty alleviation, and they direct funding to the highest impact opportunities.

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3:04Well, 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.

3:39If you had the world enough in time, Look, maybe if things were different, maybe then you could afford to get in pointless arguments with strangers. Maybe then you could afford to think that things would always go your way. Maybe then you could follow every urge and impulse. Maybe you could put off getting better, put off making better choices until tomorrow. But the thing is, things are the way they are. Life is short. Fortune is unpredictable. Consequences are real. If you had the world enough in time, perhaps you could afford to be irresponsible. You could be lazy. You could be entitled. You could give yourself over to your passions.

4:20You do not. Death hangs over you, Mark Spreely said. Fortune behaves exactly as she pleases, Seneca said. Tomorrow is not promised. Nothing is certain. Nothing can be taken for granted. Nothing is worth choosing more than the right thing. Not later. but now.

5:09at you about Stoicism, but I try to, I wish it could be more of a back and forth. We could chat a bit more. I could answer your questions. And I try to do that when I get in front of groups. It's one of my favorite things to do. I was in Arizona a couple months back. I gave this talk to Live Nation and I was talking about music and Stoicism, talking about my favorite band, Iron Maiden, among many other things. I think you will like this little snippet of that conversation. We had a, like, I think a 60 minute Q &A there, something pretty substantial. So I I broke it up into parts and it was really fun.

5:42And I think you're going to enjoy it. And thanks to Live Nation for having me out to talk stoicism in music.

5:53Hi. I'm here in the tour marketing department. I'm also an author of Bring Out the Boss and You. It's a guide for entrepreneurs. And thank you. Question for you. what do you or what do you find your motivation to keep going when you have like long work days and you feel like your to-do list is never ending or it's just created by other people what do you find your you know your inspiration and your motivation to kind of keep going I there's a great writing rule that someone told me they said just two crappy pages a day that's all you have to do. And so I've talked about sort of boiling it down to its essence.

6:35It's like, what is like the least amount you can do to call it a win? And so I have that and that kind of creates momentum for me. So it's like, I just try to make a positive contribution to the work every day. And almost always I do a lot more than that, but it creates like a minimum for me that allows me to sort of never have that fully taken away. Even if travel was crazy, I'm stuck at the airport, I can do one thing, right? Or, you know, my kids are sick, I can figure out how to do one thing. I try to sort of narrow it down. But I do try to, you've got to protect whatever that main thing is.

7:12I said, you know, it's kind of interesting, you write books, and then people want you to speak or consult or advise, or then they invite you to stuff. It's all wonderful, but it's really important that you, if you know why you're doing your thing and what, like, what that non-negotiable is for me, I just had to be very clear, like, the reward for succeeding as an author cannot be that I don't get to write. Like, the whole point is writing. That's the thing that I control that I like, that inspires me and fulfills me. So I just have to protect that thing. And if you don't, it can become very easy to just be flooded with or overwhelmed with all the potential distractions and opportunities that are out there.

8:02I did do a plant. Is Ryan Erickson in the room? Oh, we need a fun one. Or did he drink too much? Yeah, none of your questions are fun. Okay. No, I want to talk about Iron Maiden. Okay. Oh, well, I have many, but probably the Clairvoyant. Um, yeah, probably that. Or, uh, yeah, maybe Ace is high. So there's, like, long Iron Maiden songs and short Iron Maiden songs. But I could talk way too long. I probably shouldn't. Yeah, but I want to know, we have this thing called Big Looks, right? Where we're trying to launch a tour out there. We're trying to get, you know, markets to respond to it. So what would your idea for a big look for Iron Maiden be?

8:43You know, beyond the, I got to do my digital placement. I got to work with these radio partners. Well, not radio partners, because they don't get that mainstream airplay. but what would your big look be for Iron Maiden if you had to put on your marketing brain? Ooh, I don't know. That's hard. Would we fly an airplane and, like, land it in the middle of a main street or something? Yeah, I mean, I think, like, obviously, you know, there's fans and there's super fans. And Iron Maiden's super fan stuff is not, like, I remember I went to one and they had, like, a VIP thing. I went to it and it was kind of like, It was like, here's a bag of, you know, swag that was not great.

9:22And I think comedians do this well with like meet and greets before show. I think their next level stuff hasn't been that much. Maybe they don't have like, it's not like a super corporate band that typically gets that stuff. But I did find that it wasn't, there wasn't like, if you wanted to do more, there wasn't that many opportunities to do more. and the jet is the cool thing. I'd like to fly. I'd like to... Yeah, that or just like unveiling the next Eddie. We know it's going to be new. Like what's it look like? Nobody sees the artwork and then we just like make a statue of it somewhere. Yeah, of course.

10:01There we go, Ryan, next time. Yeah, I don't think that like there should be like one like in the hallway of the thing that you take pictures with and stuff, you know? Yeah, we have like the backstage artwork so we get that. But yeah, people facing their needs for something fun. It's inflatable now, right? Huh? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. It's okay. We nerded out on Iron Maiden. Hello. Hi. Name is Dion. I have a question, which is, you know, we're in a business of supporting, helping build up, amplify artists' personal expression. I'm curious if you have any thoughts or insights or guidance on how to maintain personal, like our own self-expression.

10:47while dealing with ego at the same time because, you know, we are in the business of amplifying other people's... What do you mean by personal expression? Oh, that's a good question. I guess your own... Just your expression of your own individuality. Like your identity. The identity of staying true to you, the identity. Of you? Of you as a... Yeah, you as a human, as an individual human, your personal expression while supporting, amplifying, and building up. Yeah. I mean, this is why I think it's so wonderful to have hobbies that challenge and inspire you, that that's the sort of canvas that you have.

11:26And I think part of the reason sometimes maybe people get a little egotistical and stuff is that it's like work is the only place that they get sort of filled up or validation or get to sort of express those things and to have things that you're learning, that there's fruits of that labor, But, you know, I think, you know, work is always going to be ups and downs, right? Because sometimes it goes well, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes people are assholes, sometimes, you know. And so if you have something apart from that, where you're getting wins, like that are totally based on you and your effort, I think that's just so important and such a good safe harbor that allows you to then, you know, ride out the other stuff.

12:09Yeah, I feel like I've had connections with everybody in this room, not because I tell them what my favorite artist is. It's because it's like, hey, we harvested 63 beets today, you know, in our garden. And then people remember that. And it's the hobby components. Maybe we all ask each other, what are your hobbies in the next year instead of what shows you're excited for? Because we get all that stimulation all the time from our friends and family and strangers when you tell them what you do. When it's easy to be all about business and all about work, but it's not sustainable. Right. And it's easy to be consumed.

12:41in our position because our jobs are really fucking cool. Yeah, and look, if your people are burning out or quitting or, you know, it's not worth it, like, that's expensive too. And so it feels like, oh, hey, like, why am I encouraging all these extracurricular activities? Well, they're not really. They might be extracurricular, but they have benefits back towards the business and that helps with retention and it helps with sustainability and all these other things. Definitely. Thank you so much for being here. Of course. It's awesome. I just want to ask, who markets your books? And how do you feel about what they do?

13:14I mean, I'm sure my publisher would say that they do. But I do. And that's one of the things that I found. So I wrote this book, The Daily Stoic, in 2016. And, you know, if it had been a traditionally published book, that would have been the end of it. I would have written a book, it would come out, and it would do what it does. It's one page a day of Stoic philosophy. but the whole reason I wrote it and the whole plan when I wrote it was that it was going to become like a universe or an ecosystem after I finished and so every single day for the subsequent seven now eight years I've done the an email version of it every day so I've written you know I guess this is seven other books that I've given away for free piece by piece over the you know, on a daily basis since then.

14:06And that is what's, you know, that started with a few thousand people when I announced it. And, you know, it's almost 800 ,000 people every day that get that email. So that's what sells the books, right? Is the fact that I put out so much work and then, you know, there's Instagram content every day and TikTok content every day and YouTube content every day. So yeah, there's a podcast version of it every day. So it's really by just giving away so much stuff and then some of it is then the people were really into that buy the books when they come out um that's really what's created sort of the the flywheel that that drives all the all the stuff and to have the like when it comes time to say hey i have a new book or i'm doing these events do you want to come or we have these products or merch or whatever it's not like i'm like what's an excuse to tell people that I have this.

14:57Like I've said, so basically Daily Stoic creates inventory in that there's an email that goes out every day with a spot in it and that inventory moves inventory, right? And so the ability to have an ongoing conversation with the fans makes a lot of marketing not necessary because it itself is a form of permission marketing. So that's really what drives the books at this point. And then word of mouth, which is what all things are driven by at the end of the day. Yeah. Looks like we have time for one more question. Hi. Hi. So like you said, we all have different forms of practicing stillness and finding ways of acceptance with egos.

15:43How would you recommend, though, as far as any strategies to keep in mind as a team bringing our practices together to strengthen our team, strengthen our work internally with other departments or, you know, working externally with media partners and clients? Yeah, I mean, there's a reason companies do offsites. As you get out, you do stuff together and connections, relationships develop that allow you to do this stuff better. But I think, you know, understanding each person as an individual with strengths and weaknesses. If you think about what great sports teams do, they know this person needs this to be successful, and this person needs this to be successful, and they treat them as that individual.

16:28And look, the idea of taking someone like Kyrie Irving, who's just basically destroyed every team he's ever been on, the impulse there is a good one, which is true in sports, which is an athlete who was not successful on one team or in one organization with the right resources, with the right relationships and connections can be successful. And that's what happens when you create a good culture and, you know, the leaders invest in and cultivate those things. So I think understanding what makes each of these people tick and what they need and then being clear about what you need and what you expect is, I think, what creates an environment that facilitates or, you know, brings out the best in people.

17:12Awesome. All right, guys. Thank you. That's it. Thank you so much, Ryan.

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