It Can Make You Better | with Show, Don’t Tell

0:00I 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. So 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.

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2:14Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast. Each day we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, illustrated with stories from history, current events, and literature to help you be better at what you do. And at the beginning of the week, we try to do a deeper dive, setting a kind of Stoic intention for the week, something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave you with, to journal about, whatever it is you happen to be doing. So let's get into it.

2:54It can make you better. It's too simple to say that power corrupts. Marcus Aurelius is a compelling example. To the contrary, his absolute power seemed to have actually made him better. He was never Caesarified, never stained purple as he and others feared might happen. And so for the same reason, it's too simple to say that money is the root of all evil, that it corrupts or corrodes as a rule. there are some people that money actually makes better. There are some people who use what they earned or inherited to do good. In the middle of the 20th century, residents of southern towns like Plains, Georgia, were pressured to join a white citizens council, a racist group only slightly less insidious than the Klan.

3:34They were pressured to resist integration in their churches. Jimmy Carter, whose entrepreneurial savvy had turned his family farm into a well-run lucrative business, would later reflect why he and his family were able to ignore the social intimidation that many of his neighbors fell prey to. We had too much money to be ostracized, he said of his church. We were the biggest contributors. And to the White Citizens Council, he told them that he'd rather flush$5 down the toilet than give it to them. Carter's wife, June, who kept the books for their business, knew that this remark would be bad for their bottom line.

4:08That was the implicit threat to anyone who didn't join, but they decided together that they could afford it. They decided it was worth it. The idea is what's the point of success if it doesn't free you up to do the right thing? If your money doesn't actually give you the security to tell a jerk or a racist to go to hell, how much is it actually worth? The Stoics said that money, like power, was neither good nor bad, that having it itself was not virtuous, but they also believed that it was better to have than not, especially if it facilitated being able to act on your virtues, as Carter did, as Marcus did.

4:40It was hard to earn what you have. You want to be a good steward of your money. Great. So what better place to spend it on than being good than by taking stands with and through it? If your money doesn't make you better, if it costs you your soul or your conscience, is it really worth it? And so, you know, when we built this course that we put out there recently, The Wealthy Stoic, Daily Stoic Guide to Being Rich and Free and Happy, I think a lot of people thought we were talking about, you know, how just to accumulate money. No, we were talking about how to be wealthy in the way that Carter was in this scenario, like to be independent enough, to be secure enough because of what you've earned and because of what you've done to do what you think you ought to do, not what other people want you to do, not what everyone else does by default, right?

5:27That's what the course is about. It was a live course that ran earlier this year. It was a Huge success. We got lots of feedback. And now you can go through it also. Over the next nine weeks, it'll walk you through the ambitions and motivations that fueled the very wealthy Stoics. How a wealthy Stoic spends and saves money. Discovering your own definition of wealth or success. What the Stoics prize above money. How a wealthy Stoic climbs out of setbacks and obstacles. And a lot more. There's four recorded deep dives and Q &As with me. Bunch of awesome stuff. If you want to tackle your relationship with money, if you want to become a wealthy stoic, well, sign up for the wealthy stoic at dailystoic.com slash wealth.

6:06Or if you're thinking about Daily Stoic Life, our membership program, if you join that, you get this course and all the other courses for free. Basically, the cost of the course and the cost of Daily Stoic Life are like the same thing. So just do that. You can do that at dailystoiclife.com or dailystoic.com slash wealth. I'll see you in there.

6:32Show, don't tell. This is this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal, 366 Days of Writing and Reflection, The Art of Living. The art of living isn't a set of teachings or a formula we can memorize. It's a practice that requires constant work. Epictetus was constantly reminding his students not to parrot back what they learned in the lecture hall or read in books, but to put that work into practice. He knew that progress you could see was better than any proclaimed. Let your journaling and thinking this week exhibit what you have done and what you are doing, not what you plan to do or think you are.

7:11Let it be a catalog of your actions, good actions. As Epictetus says, those who receive the bare theories immediately want to spew them as an upset stomach does with its food. First, digest your theories and you won't throw up. Otherwise, they will be raw, spoiled, and not nourishing. After you've digested them, show us the changes in your reasoned choices, like the shoulders of gymnasts who display their diet and training and the craft of artisans show what they have learned. That's Epictetus' Discourses 321. First, practice not letting people know who you are. Keep your philosophy to yourself for a bit.

7:52In just the manner that fruit is produced, the seed is buried for a season, hidden, growing gradually so it may come to full maturity. But if the grain sprouts before the stock is fully developed, it will never ripen. That is the kind of plant you are displaying fruit too soon and the winter will kill you. You know, this is a theme the Stoics talk about quite a bit. The idea of conceit being the impediment to improvement, that ego is the enemy. And, you know, when I look back, you know, I first introduced the Stoics now like 15 or so years ago, I look back at some of my early writings, and I'm doing exactly what Epictetus is talking about.

8:31I'm just regurgitating things that I'd heard. I mean, that exercise itself was educational, but I didn't even begin to comprehend what I was talking about. It took time. It took experience. As Plutarch says, it's not that words that give us the meaning of experiences, but experiences that give us meaning of the words. And so I wish I'd taken a bit more time. Now, this is obviously what some of these social media and blogging platforms do. It's a way of thinking out loud. But I actually wish I'd taken more sort of quiet, reflective time to myself. And I think we do this whenever we discover something.

9:07We get some product we like or join a movement or a cause we like, and suddenly we become this evangelist for it. And I think part of that is out of insecurity, right? We want other people to like it. We're not quite sure what we think of it ourselves. So by bringing other people on, we feel less insecure. We go, see, I'm not crazy. Other people like it too. But let's just slow down a little bit. If you're listening to this podcast for the first time, if you're new to stoicism, let it stew a little bit. Think about it a little bit. Look at it critically. Find out what's wrong. Go read more about it, right?

9:40Find people who love stoicism, people who hate stoicism, consume it in different mediums, but just explore. You don't have to convert. You don't have to absorb. You don't have to identify yet. You know, just keep thinking. Let it remain underground. Let it germinate. Let it solidify there. And then when it comes out, it'll be in better shape and in better form. And so as you work on your practice, you know, you don't have to put on errors. Epictetus talks about this. don't put on errors about your self-improvement. He says, be humble about it. I definitely wish there was things that I hadn't said that I thought about longer that I took time to think about privately more.

10:23And that's probably most of my regrets on any social media platform is I jumped, I leapt out with my opinion instead of sitting on it, stewing on it, thinking, letting it germinate. And I think that process is just really valuable. So slow down. That's the advice of this week's meditation. Slow down. Think. Really mull it over. Turn it over in your mind. And the plant will be stronger for it. You will be stronger for it. Your wisdom will be better for it. That's what we're working on. Anyways, stay at it. Keep listening. I'll talk to you again next week.

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