If You Want To Be Happy Do This | Ask Ds

0:00My family owns a 2023 Toyota 4Runner and honestly it's my favorite vehicle that I've ever owned. Around town, it's smooth and reliable, but where it really shines is on our trips into the backcountry. We've taken it on backpacking adventures to Colorado and New Mexico, loaded it up with gear, and never had to think twice about whether it could handle the terrain. That's what Toyota Trucks are built for. Off-road confidence, rugged durability, and the freedom to explore. Toyota has a long history with the outdoor community, and they're committed to helping more people get out there and experience what nature has to offer.

0:29From remote trails to scenic byways, Toyota Trucks empowers you to take the detour, roam freely, and discover places that still feel wild and untouched. And they're not just making great trucks, they're working to expand access to adventure so more people can connect with the outdoors and pass that passion on to the next generation. Discover your uncharted territory. Learn more at toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours. That's toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours. I got an amazing night's sleep last night. One, because my six-year-old fell asleep in the car at like six o 'clock and he transferred him from the car seat to the bed and it stuck, which is just magic.

1:07So he's in bed way earlier than normal. But I sleep really well every night because I have a Eight Sleep Pod 5 Ultra, which is Eight Sleep's best product. I've used Eight Sleep for many years now and it's just totally transformed how I sleep, made me sleep better, made my wife sleep better. It's amazing. So basically, Eight Sleep is this topper that goes over your mattress. It can heat and cool both sides separately. It can raise and lower each side separately. So it helps you fall asleep faster, stay asleep, and then wake up better. Eight Sleep buzzes me to wake gently every morning as opposed to some loud blaring alarm.

1:49and then I can check the app and it tells me my sleep score. It even helps me optimize my day based on how I slept. If you want to survive the holidays like a pro and just generally sleep better, head over to 8sleep.com slash Daily Stoic and use code Daily Stoic to get$350 off your very own Pod 5 Ultra. The best part is you still get 30 days to try it at home and return it if you don't like it, but I know you will. Trust me, your body will thank you for this investment in better sleep, shipping to many countries worldwide. See details at 8sleep.com slash Daily Stoic.

2:31Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. Well, on Thursdays, we not only read the daily meditation, but we answer some questions from listeners and fellow Stoics. We're 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.

3:12If you want to be happy, do this. The Stoics talk about a lot of things, but they don't speak that much about happiness. Is that because they were too tough or too resigned to their bleak view of life to care about it? Do they mean to imply that there isn't room for happiness for the Stoic, that it wasn't possible? Not at all. They talked about other things, virtue and resilience, self-command, managing the passions, because they believe when you handled that, happiness would ensue. As Dr. Becky writes in her wonderful book, Good Inside, we've also had her on the podcast recently, If you want to raise happy kids, don't try to make them happy.

3:46You try to make them resilient and self-aware. She writes, speaking of both parents and kids, the wider the range of emotions we can regulate, if we can manage the frustration and disappointment and envy and sadness, the more space we have to cultivate happiness. Regulating our emotions essentially develops a cushion around those feelings, she says, softening them and preventing them from consuming the entire jar. Regulation first, happiness second. This is great advice, a perfect stoic mantra. The ability to deal with frustration, to not be ruled by our temper, to catch ourselves when we're comparing, to stop ourselves when we start to spiral, these don't seem like happy things, but that's the point.

4:26By dealing with them, we make happiness possible. This is what the stoics wrote about. This is what their strategies and exercises are all about. They just took it for granted that you would understand what it was all aimed at. helping you flourish in life, creating the conditions from which happiness could flow smoothly and wonderfully. And we really did do an amazing interview with Dr. Becky, which I'll link to, but it was on the podcast not too long ago. So check that out.

5:22The End You know, like a detour. So why would you ever take a tour when you could take a detour? Toyota Trucks.

5:54I was talking to some folks in the go-to-market team in the marketing department at HP, and they ended up having a bunch of questions about Stoic philosophy, which of course I always love answering. Whatever I'm talking about, wherever I am, of course I want to talk Stoicism. And that's what I do in today's episode. Here are some questions and my answers, and hopefully they might match up with questions you have. Maybe you disagree with my answers, but I'm always excited to get the conversation going.

6:27whether you're learning for your bookstore or whether you thinking is like the next big thing that you could bring in, could just get the bookstore to a whole nother level, or maybe you want to open another bookstore. Have you, have you thought about that? Like what, what as a marketer, what's working, what's not? Yeah. I mean, I think the big paradigm shift that we're seeing across different industries is obviously this is again, sort of a microcosm, But the vast majority of authors do not sell books to customers, right? Not that most books don't sell, which is true. But typically, I sell a book to a publisher.

7:05The publisher sells a book to a distributor. The distributor sells a book to a retailer, be it Amazon or Barnes & Noble or your local indie. And then that gets sold to a customer, right? So not only are the margins pretty bad because there's so many different middlemen in there, but ultimately the most important relationship is between the reader and their audience, right? Or sorry, the writer and the audience. And we have let that be intermediated by so many different people, right? And this is true in most businesses in that you sell to the retailer, sells to the customer. that's just how it works right and i think what's really special is actually a way back to how things used to be is more and more people are operating their own storefronts and having the direct relationship with the customer which goes to my point about platform but it's like you should know who these people are right you should know what does the data say about them what do they like what do they don't like what works for them or does it work for them you know how do you have an ongoing relationship with that person?

8:19I think obviously subscription businesses are a version of this too, but I'm just, I'm very excited about the idea of my bookstore. Yes. I sell lots of other people's books and that's mostly what the bookstore does. But like when I put out the daily dad book or when I put out my discipline book in the fall or last fall, the vast majority of the copies in on the launch week came through me. Right. And so like when I launched the discipline book, the people I did most of my marketing to were, this is crazy for publishing the people who bought my previous books for me, right? Like I know those people, right?

9:02I'm not calling up Amazon and buying co-op from them, buying access to my previous customers from a third-party intermediary, I am directly communicating with those people. And I'm able to sell it more cheaply to them. I'm able to get it to them more quickly. I'm able to create a wow customer service experience, all that stuff. So I am just generally excited about the idea of fewer middlemen and doing things direct with the most important people in the world, which is your customers. And I think that goes to the Iron Maiden thing we're talking about. You're not in the insert device business. You're in the insert your tribe business.

9:49When people go to your store, do you feel... I'm just curious, it's close to us in Houston, and not love to see it is, uh, do you feel like they know your brand? They know who you are, that the majority of people are going there. Yes. Uh, yes. I mean, some people, uh, the, my favorite is when people will come in and the staff will tell me about it. They'll be like, wow, you have a lot of Ryan holiday books here, you know, or whatever. Um, uh, and they, they won't make the connection, which is always fun. Um, no, but, but look, one of the things that I think social media has really been able to do, it's really cool.

10:22And then sometimes it can be a little scary or awkward or whatever, which is like, because of the podcast, because of videos, because of, you know, social media, like I'm talking to people, like if someone, like even the difference between reading a book and listening to an audio book, like if I take the time to record my own audio books, which I do, um, that's hours and hours in like being directly piped into someone's brain. right and and that can be a little weird but it's also just such a profoundly deep connection and i think um originally for instance when i launched daily stoic like i was not involved at all i was always in the third person or you know not in the third person it was just it was just there was just no person involved but then when i would come time to be like okay we have this course or like we are selling this thing they the audience would be like who is we why should i listen to you and So I ultimately having to make it more personal and cultivating that personal connection then allows you to engender or to draw on the trust of like, Hey, you know, me, I'm saying I'm launching this thing and I would like it if you could support me.

11:36And like people can, people can buy my books more cheaply from Amazon, but they'll buy it from me when I'm launching it in the store because they want to support me. And, you know, obviously it's a little different again, when you're a multi, you know, billion dollar corporation, but how do you get your own version of that kind of trust? That's one of the most valuable things in the world. I have one question. All right. So, uh, unfortunately I have the other problem. I have a lot of data and I have a lot of trends. What can I actually do in order to find that one trend that will bring us to the future?

12:18Yeah, that's a good question. What I try to think about is, is this an of the moment thing or is this touching something that, like we were talking about earlier, that's unlikely to change? It's likely to still be true a year from now, five years from now, whatever. Right. So even in my own books right now, it's funny. Stoicism has kind of become a trend, right? People can look at the data. They can see what's going on. So people are like wanting to jump on to these stoicism trend, which is funny to me because I remember how much not a trend it was when I was trying to interest my publisher in it.

12:55But I myself don't think about stoicism as a trend at all. When I'm writing my books, I'm writing them about timeless things that stoicism has good insights about obstacles, ego, busyness, you know, fear, uh, discipline, justice ultimately is the next one. Wisdom will be the final one in that series. So, so what I look for when I'm looking at the data, right, when I'm looking at what's, what's doing well, I try to see where that overlaps with things that have held true over long periods of time, right. Or are unlikely to change, you know? So it's like, people are always going to be graduating from high school or college, right?

13:39So, you know, something that when you see a trend that the college market or the high school market is, is, or the gift giving market or whatever things like I look for the overlap between what's sort of timely and then also what is timeless. And I think that's where you get really explosive stuff. Hey, Ryan, I know we're up, we're up on time, but I just want to say thank you. Oh, this is so fun. It's the second time I've been able to listen to you and the knowledge, experience, the ideas you've shared are priceless, really. I mean, I saw everybody in here, I'm sure people even on the phone taking a ton of notes and I'm sure they'll turn it into their own.

14:20I think why it's so important for us is it, you know, I think I told you in the beginning, I I've gone through, I think most, if not all of your books. Now I'm going to certainly purchase the daily dad as a dad. Okay. So, um, what's hard though, is when you, when you read or listen to books or have the experiences on your own or the ideas you share with people, it's hard to share those with a big group. So you start with common principles or those ideas and why it's so important that we come together and listen to someone like you is we can all share that as we work together going forward and say, hey, remember that time when Ryan said this?

14:58Now we can, that's a jumping point for us. Yep. And so that's priceless for us. I really appreciate your time and your knowledge and ideas and just thank you. Well, I love hearing that and that's what keeps me going. So I'm honored. And we're right on the way from Houston into Austin, right off 71. So all of you are welcome next time you're going to Austin or an A &M game. And I'd love to see you and wow you with the tree and the book. 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.

16:11Again, as a person who has to pay a podcast producer and has to pay for equipment and for the studio and the building that the studio is in, it's a lot to keep something like The Daily Stoic going. So if you want to support a show but not listen to ads, well, we have partnered with Supercast to bring you a ad-free version of Daily Stoic. We're calling it Daily Stoic Premium. And with Premium, you can listen to every episode of the Daily Stoic podcast completely ad-free. No interruptions, just the ideas, just the messages, just the conversations you came here for. And you can also get early access to episodes before they're available to the public.

16:53And we're going to have a bunch of exclusive bonus content and extended interviews in there just for Daily Stoic Premium members as well. If you want to remove distractions, go deeper into Stoicism and support the work we do here. Well, it takes less than a minute to sign up for Daily Stoic Premium, and we are offering a limited time discount of 20 % off your first year. Just go to dailystoic.com slash premium to sign up right now or click the link in the show descriptions to make those ads go away.