None of This Is Unfamiliar | How Do You Stop Caring What Other People Think?

0:00Ryan Holiday: I've been sleeping on a pod from 8sleep for years. I recommend it without hesitation. I have trouble sleeping when I am not on one. It's one of the things I don't like about traveling. And the newest version, the Pod 6, is 8sleep's smallest and most powerful yet. I love it. My wife loves it. We love it because it cools the mattress. It heats the mattress. You can have different sides cooled at different temperatures. It's even how I wake up in the morning. Instead of an annoying alarm clock or that, you know, horrible sound on your phone, It lightly buzzes you awake. And then when you're up, you want to turn it off, you just tap the mattress.

0:35Ryan Holiday: There's all sorts of awesome features in my Eight Sleep. It was worth every penny. I love my Eight Sleep. And the Eight Sleep keeps getting better. They have this new thing called Sleep Agent, which is the latest evolution of the pod's AI. It's a free software update for any pod owner. It pulls in your workouts, your heart rate trends, even local weather to pre-adjust your bed temperature every night. Eight Sleep users report up to 32 % better sleep and up to 34 % better deep sleep. If you've been thinking about it, now is the window. Through November 30th, you can use our code dailystoic at eightsleep.com slash dailystoic for up to$400 off a pod six.

1:13Ryan Holiday: 30 nights to try it at home. If it's not for you, send it back. That's code dailystoic at eightsleep.com slash dailystoic for up to$400 off a pod six. Now through November 30th. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

1:39None of this is unfamiliar. It can all feel very unprecedented, very new. Technological disruption, political radicalization, institutions that are falling apart, powerful rising nations on the horizon. And more locally, there's stunning information revealed by your co-worker, the update from your doctor, the unexpected call from a family member. But of course, this is all very precedented. It is the oldest story in the world. Everything that happens is as simple and familiar as the rose in spring, the fruit in summer, Arx Prelis writes in meditations. disease, death, blasphemy, conspiracy. You think that a creaking empire groaning under its own weight would have struck him as new?

2:30Or a deadly pathogen cutting down otherwise unhealthy people? Or people in power putting their political ambitions above those they are supposed to serve? Rome, America, with many examples in between. This is how the world works. This is what history is and always has been. We shouldn't let it surprise us or make us despair. We shouldn't get too carried away or too full of ourselves. That was a trap for stupid people, Marcus said. We must fight to remain good, fight to remain community-minded, fight to maintain self-command. These might not be ideal conditions, and again, certainly they are not new conditions, but they are, as always, conditions conducive for the practice of virtue.

3:16The world has always been chaotic. Empires rise and fall. Crises come and go. But the virtues that help us navigate these challenges haven't changed in thousands of years. Courage, self-discipline, justice, wisdom. That's what the Stoic Virtue series is about. By the way, it's filled with examples from the past that resonate in the present for this very reason. Courage is calling. Discipline is destiny. right thing right now, and wisdom takes work. So there's a long series for me, seven years of work, and I've just been on this speaking tour talking about them all over the world, recording this from Australia.

3:58Right now I'll be in Nashville and Boston and Philadelphia and D.C. in the coming months. But you can grab the Stoic Virtues box set anywhere books are sold. I'll sign them if you buy them at store.dailystoic.com or come see me talk about it live at dailystoiclive.com.

4:22Ryan Holiday: I've been sleeping on a pod from 8sleep for years. I recommend it without hesitation. I have trouble sleeping when I am not on one. It's one of the things I don't like about traveling. and the newest version the pod 6 is eight sleeps smallest and most powerful yet i love it my wife loves it we love it because it cools the mattress it heats the mattress you can have different sides cool at different temperatures it's even how i wake up in the morning instead of an annoying alarm clock or that you know horrible sound on your phone it lightly buzzes you awake and then and then when you're up you want to turn it off you just tap the mattress there's all sorts of awesome features in my eight sleep it was worth every penny i love my eight sleep and the eight sleep keeps getting better they have this new thing called sleep agent which is the latest evolution of the pods ai it's a free software update for any pod owner it pulls in your workouts your heart rate trends even local weather to pre-adjust your bed temperature every night eight sleep users report up to 32 better sleep and up to 34 better deep sleep if you've been thinking about it, now is the window.

5:28Ryan Holiday: Through November 30th, you can use our code dailystoic at eightsleep.com slash dailystoic for up to$400 off a pod six, 30 nights to try it at home. If it's not for you, send it back. That's code dailystoic at eightsleep.com slash dailystoic for up to$400 off a pod six now through November 30th. I grew up in Sacramento, going to Lake Tahoe. And one of the things I'd always noticed is that there were like brands that the locals knew and used, like people who actually they're not tourists, and then slowly but surely catch on with the rest of the country. And there's a brand that is out of Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

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6:15Ryan Holiday: I just got a new jacket from them. Samantha got one too, like sort of a puffer down jacket. I've been wearing it a lot. I was over in London. Even in Australia, we took the jackets because it was getting spring there, but it was still cold on a couple of days. And it's been great. It goes right in the suitcase. Easy to fold up. And, you know, ski season being here, you can gear up now the way locals do. Go to Stio.com slash Stoic for 20 % off your order. That's S-T-I-O.com slash Stoic. stio.com slash stoic designed and tested in jackson hole

6:58Ryan Holiday: hey it's ryan welcome to another episode of the daily stoic podcast i was just in uh in sydney last two months have been crazy the last two weeks have been crazy maybe Maybe I don't know when you're listening to this, but I'm sure I can safely say the last two days were crazy. But it was lovely to be in Australia, particularly Sydney, one of my absolute favorite places. Every single day I got up, staying in Bondi Beach, I went for a long run along the water, the sort of Bondi to Koji or Koji Trail. Then I could do about eight miles. I'd come back. Then later I went swimming with my son, icebergs.

7:42it was just amazing he wanted to go every day he wanted to swim laps with me which is just

7:46Ryan Holiday: it was amazing so i absolutely love australia thanks to everyone who came out saw me near the side of the world for the daily stoic live tour i've got a couple dates in the u.s before the end of the year you can come see me in nashville got a few tickets left there i'm going to be in boston i think we're sold out you can see me in philly and dc as well dailystoiclive.com but in today's episode, here are some questions that the folks in Sydney asked me. And it was lovely to see all those folks again. A bunch of people came out twice, which is really cool. I try to always do a different talk. So it's lovely.

8:21Anyways, let's get into it. Hi, Ryan. How are you? Oh my gosh. I'm not courageous right now, but I'll try my best. You're doing great. I believe Epictetus said this, but I think Marcus Aurelius also reflected on it in meditations, how we must not worry about what others say, think and do, and only focus on what you do. And you mentioned this in one of your episodes, but are there any daily routines or habits you have that help you with that type of anxiety, the anxiety of, I wonder what that person is thinking of me, or am I doing a good job and et cetera? Well, one of the things that I try to remind myself whenever I'm sort of wondering what people are thinking about me is I try to remind myself that they're probably not thinking about me at all.

9:07They're mostly thinking about themselves like I'm doing right now, right? There's something egotistical about, you know, thinking that people are thinking about you a lot more than they actually are. But one of the other things I walk through is one of my favorite sort of bits of logic that Marcus has in meditations. You know, he says like, okay, you come across someone that doesn't like you, okay? Was it possible that everyone was going to like you? No, right? Certain percentage of people are not. Okay. So then it was statistically inevitable that at some point you would meet one of those people.

9:39This person was guaranteed to exist. Why am I surprised by this? Why am I hurt by this? Right? And in fact, if it's a certain percentage, then the more people that like you, quantitatively, there's going to be more people out there that don't like you. Like, if you think about, you know, I think sometimes about the number of books that I've sold, and I go, what are the chances that everyone liked them? Very low, right? So even if a low percentage of people didn't like them, there might be millions of people out there that don't like me. That's a lot. they could fill, you know, an entire city, people that don't like me.

10:21And then, you know, at a certain point, you just sort of get a nerd to it. You go, oh yeah, that's how this works. Statistically, that's how this works. And the sooner I can accept that and come to terms with it, the sooner I can focus on doing the things that I like doing and doing things for the people who like what I'm doing. And that's kind of how I think about it. What do the Stoics and yourself say when it comes to finding the next steps and who to listen to when it comes to the next steps in life? Or for me, like graduating uni, what's the next steps? Yeah. What to do next? I mean, I guess that's the perpetual human question.

10:57What do I do after this or what should I do now? I mean, to me, I try to sort of turn to the basics. Has anyone gone through this before? How can I get in touch with them and ask them? Is there anyone going through it right now? Like, who are my peers? Can I ask that? And then has anyone been through this historically? What are analogous historical moments or historical transitions? And can I read what they've written down or listen to what they've recorded? so that I just go like, whatever it is that I'm dealing with, whatever I'm going through, whatever choice I'm faced with, this is not a new dilemma.

11:35This is not a new tricky situation. Let me start by versing myself in all the hard-won experience from this exact predicament. That's what I'd do next. Awesome. Good luck. They've been digging up Herculaneum, and it looks like they've found some Stoic texts. What are you anticipating might be added to or clarified if we live long enough to see it translated and published. So for people who missed that, yes. At Herculaneum, a Roman villa that was destroyed by a volcano, there is a philosophical library owned by one of the people who lived there. And all the papyrus scrolls are perfectly preserved, rolled up, but they can't be opened.

12:23but now they can shoot a camera at them and see each successive layer of the role. And then they're having AI slowly decode. One of the few good uses for AI I've seen. And they've already begun to decode one of them. It's clearly a work either about or by Epicurus. And they've got like the first sentence from it, which is, we don't have a lot from Epicurus. And so it could be that we get some of the lost works of Epicurus here. You know, Chrysippus, one of the early Stoics, wrote something like 700 different essays and books. Maybe some of those are in there. Zeno wrote a thing called Zeno's Republic, his version, his response to Plato's Republic.

13:10It could have that. Basically anything written by the Stoics prior to whatever that eruption is could be in this library. And then, you know, there could be other things. They just recently found off of a mummy in Egypt a line from the Odyssey, one of the earliest versions of the Odyssey that we have, because they would reuse scraps of papyrus when they would preserve the dead. So, you know, obviously so much of antiquity is lost and we have just a small fraction of it. We could have, you know, within our lifetime, massive re-understanding of all these different ancient thinkers, which is a pretty incredible thing to think about.

13:51Yeah. G'day, Ryan. Hi. Marcus says that if there's anything better than those four virtues, then follow it. And sort of comes across as a bit of a challenge, but just a reminder that we shouldn't just settle in stone, these four virtues, if there is something better. Yeah, so my question to you is, is there anything better? Or probably, we're going to be closer to home, is there something that's tested those four virtues for you? Yeah, in meditations, he says, if you find anything in this long life better than courage, wisdom, justice, and discipline, it must be an extraordinary thing indeed. So it'd have to be pretty extraordinary.

14:29And obviously, I thought a lot about this. One of the questions I get is like, well, where does this virtue fit? Or what about that one? And the one I think people ask me about the most is love or relationships. Which of the virtues does that fit under? Should that be a fifth virtue? I think there's an argument love could be a fifth virtue. To me, it fits very clearly under justice. So I think we might just be talking semantics here, but there's very little that I don't think you could fit under the four. But I'd certainly be open to a good suggestion if someone gave me one. Hello, Ryan. Hi. This is my first time watching you, so it was really nice.

15:07Thank you. My question is about reading. You said reading is magic, and I agree. But sometimes reading can be quite tough as well. Sure. Especially because I've been trying to get into more nonfiction, and some of your works, and mainly Robert Greene's work, they intimidate the hell out of me. There is a difference I've noticed from when I am lazy to finish a book, and when I genuinely don't connect with the book. So based on all your years of reading, I know you take notes by hand on like flashcards and stuff. I want to take notes and stuff. Is there like a specific process that you go through to read more and at the same time keep moving even though you don't want to?

15:53Yeah, look, as I said, I think reading is a superpower. I think reading is magic, but I didn't say it was easy and I didn't say it would come cheaply or naturally. It is a lot of work. Reading is a shortcut, but it is a lot of work. It's a shortcut compared to the alternative of figuring all this stuff out yourself. So yes, it should be hard. And if the books are always easy, if they're always making you feel good, if they're always fun, you know, you're probably not reading history or literature or truth. You know, you're just being told what you want to hear. and you're certainly not growing and changing if you're not struggling if you're not having to look up words or concepts or pull out a map and try to figure out what the hell is happening I think that is part of it now I think one of my rules is like life's too short to read bad books so just because you know it's hard and complicated doesn't mean it's you it could be a problem on the book itself like Epictetus I heard one of his students bragging about reading everything from Chrysippus.

17:03And he says, you know, if Chrysippus had been a better writer, you'd have less to brag about. So sometimes the book sucks. Sometimes you're just not ready for it. Like there have been books that I quit 100 pages in, in five or six years later, I came back and now I get it. And so, you know, you might be right. It's not working for you right now. Maybe you need to go back to the basics or you need to learn a bunch of other things before this can make sense for you. So yeah. I think we should read, we should challenge ourselves. And yes, I think reading should be a conversation between you and the author.

17:34You should be taking notes, should be underlining, you should be trying to understand and use this information and put it into practice, not just sort of passively consuming.

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