It’s Not Extraordinary | with No Pain, No Gain

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.

0:55It's not extraordinary. How does it happen? How does someone become great? Is it genetics? Is it luck? Is it superhuman dedication and brilliance? Too often we see impressive results. Books on bestseller lists, people in peak physical condition, companies selling for millions and millions of dollars. And we assume that the process that led to these results must have been equally extraordinary. And in fact, it often isn't. Success usually happens the same way, action by action, as Mark Svelius said. On an episode of the Daily Stoic podcast, Bob Bowman, the coach of the 23-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps, along with many other elite athletes, talked about the simple three-word mantra that captures the essence of those who succeed at the highest levels.

1:51Here's what he said. Just do your work. Right. Just get in and do your work. And then it became the same with the team because I kept putting on the workouts. I was like, what do you do when you've never felt better in your life? When you come to practice, do your work. Right. What do you do if you feel terrible and you can't you're not motivated and you just don't know what to do? Do your work. Right. If you're uncertain, do your work. Just come in every day. Do a little something, whatever that is. And that's the meaning of it, is that these incremental, just consistently, mind-numbingly boring, consistent, everyday, you know, deposits in your bank account are what makes the big changes later.

2:28I think this is what the Stoics believed, too, that the little things add up to make the big things. This is what Zeno meant when he said that well-being is realized by small steps, but it is truly no small thing. It's what Epictetus meant when he said each day acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, against all other misfortunes. He said select one thing to thoroughly digest each day. One gain per day. One step forward per day. It's not romantic. It's not exciting or extraordinary. But over time, it is transformative. And that's what the new book from me, the final in the four virtue series.

3:14I have it right here. I've been working on it now for six plus years. I'm super proud of it. And it's now available for pre-order. If you like Courage is Calling, Discipline is Destiny, or Right Thing Right Now, this is the fourth and final book. We have not just signed and numbered first editions of Wisdom Takes Work, but we also have a special limited edition run of all four books, signed and numbered, just 1 ,500 of them. I'm just finishing up the signing of those now. We've got a bunch of awesome pre-order bonuses for people who pre-order any of the books, bonus chapters, signed pages from the manuscript.

3:49We're going to do a special Q &A. Plus, you can have dinner with me. If you want to learn about these, grab your numbered, signed first editions. just go to dailystoic.com slash wisdom. I'll link to it all in today's show notes. Grab that four book series before it runs out. If you're gonna wanna give some to some friends, grab some more, you can get those manuscript pages, bunch of awesome stuff. I hope to see you at the philosopher's dinner that we're gonna do. And I'm really excited for you to grab this book when it comes out in October, but it supports authors in a big way if you pre-order them.

4:17So if you could do that, I would really appreciate it. Dailystoic.com slash pre-order and grab Wisdom Takes Work. and round out the Four Virtues series. Thanks, everyone.

4:35Thanks to Toyota Trucks for sponsoring this episode. When I bought my ranch in 2015 out here in Bastro County, I drove my car about halfway down the dirt road that we live on, thought, this isn't going to work, stopped, parked it, walked the rest of the way home, borrowed my wife's car, drove into Austin, and bought a truck. What I bought was a Toyota Tacoma. And this truck wasn't just transportation getting me to and from my house. It unlocked a whole different style of living for us, not just on the ranch, but in our little Texas towns. There were places I could go now that I couldn't go before, especially out here in the piney forests, through the fields, and on the unpaved roads like the one that I lived in.

5:20We got to go deep into the hill country's wild beauty. We've driven all the way out to East Texas. We've driven across the country. And by we, I mean not just my wife, but both my kids who I drove home from the hospital in that truck. Toyota trucks are built for those who understand that the best adventures happen when you're willing to veer off course. Because you never know when you'll end up on a Toyota adventure detour. And of course, this is stoicism, too, because every detour, every obstacle is an opportunity. But it's helpful if you can handle the difficulty inherent in that. If you've got the resilience and the right companion to make it wherever the road takes you, discover your uncharted territory.

6:02Learn more at toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours. We just took our kids to an outdoor performance at the Nutcracker. They had a snow cone and then they went insane in the car ride home. And one of the things I try to remind myself when that's happening is that I don't control my kids' behavior, especially when they're too far gone like that, but 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 bestselling author, and she founded Good Inside, which is there to give parents practical, actionable tools for handling those everyday challenges with confidence.

6:43My 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. On 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.

7:20Becky. 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.

7:39No pain, no gain. This is today's entry in the Daily Stoic. Difficulties show a person's character, Epictetus tells us in Discourses 124. So when a challenge confronts you, remember that God is matching you with a younger sparring partner, as would a physical trainer. Becoming an Olympian, it takes sweat. I think no one has a better challenge than yours. If only you would use it like an athlete, would a younger sparring partner? The Stoics loved metaphors from the Olympics, especially wrestling. Like us, they saw sports as both a fun pastime as well as a training ground to practice for the challenges one will inevitably face in the course of living.

8:21As General Douglas MacArthur once said in words engraved at the gymnasium at West Point, upon the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that upon other fields on other days will bear the fruits of victory. Everyone has found themselves outmatched by an opponent, frustrated by some skill or attribute that they have that we don't, height, speed, vision, whatever. How we choose to respond to that struggle tells us about who we are as athletes and who we'll be as people. Do we see it as a chance to learn and get stronger? Do we get frustrated and complain? Or worse, do we call it off and find an easier game to play, one that makes us feel good instead of challenged.

9:02The greats don't avoid these tests of their abilities. They seek them out because they are not just a measure of greatness. They are the pathways to it. Marcus Rillus loved to box and to wrestle, hunt. These physical activities, his love of competition and the outdoors, it was cultivating, as MacArthur said, the seeds that upon other fields and on other days will bear the fruits of victory or bear stoicism or bear the fruits of virtue, Mark Sebelius might have said. Sports are a way to practice, to cultivate, to get after it in a safe space that hopefully you build some virtues that are transferable, right?

9:49Even the metaphor here of Epictetus is that, you know, you're matched with a strong sparring partner. If you've ever wrestled, if you've ever played against someone who's better than you, you realize, hey, this is making me better. I'm getting my ass kicked, but it's making me better. You seek that out. But how rarely we do that in life. We want things to be easy. We want them to be comfortable. We hate that challenging boss. We hate that rival or that peer, right? We hate the adversity that life is dealing us. We want it to go away. We complain that it happened to us. No, it's good. It was chosen for you.

10:24It was chosen for you by a trainer or a coach that wants to get the best out of you. And if you can come to think about it that way, if you can come to relish it almost for that reason, you'll be able to use it. You'll be able to grow. Becoming an Olympian takes sweat, Epitius says. No one has a better challenge than yours, he says. But only if you choose to treat it the way an athlete would treat their sparring partner, someone to learn from, someone to get stronger from. Someone to work out their issues on and with, right? Teammate, collaborator, even though they're also an opponent, even though they're also punching you in the head or dunking on you, literally or figuratively, right?

11:11That's why we do this work. Competition makes you better. Resistance makes you stronger. You have to understand this metaphor. And there's no better way to understand that metaphor than by literally doing those things on the field. It's cultivating strong body and a strong mind. And that's the message. No pain, no gain. It's good that it's hard. It's good that they're challenging you. It's good that you're getting your ass kicked because you're going to use it and be better so that when the real fight happens, when you're on the other field, as MacArthur said, you can bring your best, you can do your best, you can win.

11:49Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple of years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please spread the word, tell people about it. And this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say thank you.

12:38We'll see you next time.

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