It Asks This Of You

0:05Welcome 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.

1:09but I do control how I respond, right? That's stoicism, but it's also what Dr. Becky talks about. Dr. Becky is a clinical psychologist and a best-selling author, and she founded Good Inside, which is there to give parents practical, actionable tools for handling those everyday challenges with confidence. My wife introduced me to Dr. Becky's books. I love them. I've recommended them a million times. I've had her on the podcast. And as it happens, Dr. Becky is hosting two live Q &A events for Good Inside members. I am one of them. She signed me up for it about a year and a half ago. I've loved it ever since.

1:48On December 1st, you can join Dr. Becky for her How Not to Raise Assholes event, which is about avoiding entitlement and raising kind, empathetic kids. And on December 15th, she's hosting her How Not to Lose It over the holidays event, which I'm sure we could all use. As I said, I'm a big fan of Dr. Becky. She's been a great influence for me as a parent and just as a human being. And Daily Stoic listeners can join for 15 % off with code STOIC15. You just got to head over to goodinside.com to catch the events. It asks this of you. The benefits are clear. Resilience and toughness and clarity and productivity.

2:31freedom from disturbances, from following the crowd, from impulses and urges. Stoicism, it offers a lot. And that's why it's popular today, to be sure. And that's why it's been the secret weapon of impressive people for centuries. And of course, we talk about all those things here at Daily Stoic. These are the things that make for viral videos and cool quotes. And they may be what attracted you to stoicism in the first place. But you need to know that Stoicism is more than just Marcus Aurelius' morning routine. There's more to Stoicism than Seneca's cold plunges or all the practical advice he wrote to his friend Lucilius.

3:11Because while Stoicism offers a lot, it also asks a lot of us. In fact, it demands a lot. Thrasia and Cato and Helvidius gave their lives in commitment to the ethical ideals of this philosophy. Musonius and Agrippinus and Rutilius were all exiled for their commitment. Marcus Aurelius writes more about justice than he does about mental toughness. That's obviously the idea in Right Thing Right Now. But the whole Stoic Virtue series, courage and discipline and justice and wisdom, they're all interrelated. They demand a lot from us as well as ask a lot from us. And when Right Thing Right Now came out a year ago, I wasn't sure how it was going to do.

3:54I wasn't sure how people were going to receive it. But the point of the book was to demonstrate that Stoicism isn't some philosophy about how to become great at work, although it can help you that way. It's also a philosophy about being a great human being. And yes, Stoicism offers many benefits, and we talk about them here. Those benefits don't come without obligations. An obligation to other people, to truth, to decency, to selflessness in many cases. And you can't have one without the other. Just that you do the right thing, Mark Sreelius says in meditations, the rest doesn't matter. But how do you know what the right thing is?

4:30As I said, all these virtues are interrelated. You know what the right thing is because of the next virtue. That's the one I've been working on the last two years. It's the virtue of wisdom. And wisdom isn't something you just have. It's something you have to earn. It's something you have to get, right? Wisdom is the result of work. No one became wise by chance, Seneca said. And one year anniversary of Right Thing Right Now, I am really excited to tell you that you can pre-order Wisdom Takes Work with a bunch of awesome pre-order bonuses. We've got signed, numbered, first editions, and you can even get a full set of all four books.

5:10That's all very exciting. It's a limited collector's edition of all four books. Courage is calling, discipline is destiny, right thing right now. And now Wisdom Takes Work. I actually was signing them today on my flight to Salt Lake City. You can grab all that at dailysteic.com slash steic virtues. I'll link to that on the landing page, which you can also find at dailysteic.com slash preorder. I'll link to all this. Anyways, it's all very exciting. I can't wait for you to read the book. It's going to come out this fall. I've been working on this series now for six years, and I'm super proud of it.

5:44And I've been so honored to hear from all of you who've read the books, and I've gotten so much better for writing it. And that's why I'm excited to bring Wisdom Takes Work out into the world and this four-box set, which completes the whole series. Grab all that at dailystoic.com slash pre-order.

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7:04And you can also get early access to episodes before they're available to the public. And 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.