Recognize These Signs of Weakness | 7 Daily Habits That Will Change Your Life

0:00Ryan Holiday: Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom, into the real world.

0:14Ryan Holiday: There are some things that look like strength but aren't. An aggressive, mean person can seem strong, but oftentimes they aren't. It's an act. All cruelty, Seneca wrote, springs from weakness. The bully almost invariably has been bullied. And so it goes for ego. To the untrained eye can be mistaken for confidence. The person's self-centeredness, their certainty, their entitlement. This seems like the way that only the most important and gifted person in the world could get away with acting. In reality, that person doesn't feel that way inside at all. On the contrary, they feel very small. Nero, for instance, demanded that enormous audiences celebrate his greatness.

0:54Ryan Holiday: This was also the same emperor who banished a poet from Rome for being too talented, and thus, a threat. We have to be wise enough to recognize these signs of weakness in our leaders, in our bosses, in the people that we look up to. Most of all, we have to recognize it in ourselves. Confidence is quiet. It doesn't need to be celebrated or worshipped. True strength and power are restrained. They are not easily threatened. They don't need to make themselves felt, except for in the most extraordinary of circumstances. Ego is not just the enemy. It is the canary in the coal mine. It is a sign that you're going in the wrong direction.

1:29Ryan Holiday: You're not as good or as strong or as secure as you think you are. Ego is the enemy. I mean, I got it tattooed on my arm. And of course, I wrote a book about it, which you can grab signed copies of here at The Painted Porch or at store.dailystoic.com. And we have the Ego is the Enemy coin, which I know plenty of people carry around with them. I've seen coaches hand them out to their teams. You can check all that out at store.dailystoic.com.

1:59Ryan Holiday: You know, most businesses are asking themselves these days, how do we make AI work for us? There's a lot of possibilities. Guessing is risky. There's maybe a steep learning curve. But I think we all understand that sitting on the sidelines is not an option. Because you know your competitors are using it right now. Well, with NetSuite by Oracle, you can put AI to work today. NetSuite is the number one AI cloud ERP trusted by over 43 ,000 businesses. It's a unified suite that brings your financials, inventory, commerce, HR, and CRM into a single source of truth. From software and IT services to healthcare, equipment manufacturing, financial services, and many other great American industries, NetSuite delivers a customized solution for your businesses.

2:46Ryan Holiday: And it's not some bolted-on tool. It's AI built into the system that runs your business, whether you're a big one or a small one. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get their free business guide, Demystifying AI at netsuite.com slash stoic. That guide is free to you at netsuite.com slash stoic. It all comes down to hiring. You got to find the right people for your team and you got to bring them on board and you got to onboard them quickly. You know, just throwing up a job posting and hoping you get lucky. I've just found, well, you don't get lucky enough. If you want to find quality hires, well, you should check out Indeed right now.

3:28Ryan Holiday: People are finding quality hires on Indeed right now. In just the 30 or so seconds we've already been talking, people have made dozens of hires on Indeed, according to Indeed data worldwide. Their sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95 % more likely to report a hire than a non-sponsored job. So join more than 3.3 million employers worldwide that use Indeed to connect with quality talent that fits their needs. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less time, less stress, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed-sponsored jobs.

4:06Ryan Holiday: And listeners of this show get a$75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at Indeed.com slash stoic. That's Indeed.com slash stoic right now. And support the show by saying you heard about it on this podcast. Indeed.com slash stoic. Terms and conditions apply.

4:28Ryan Holiday: Seven things you should do every day according to the ancient Stoics. Number one, you got to wake up early. The most famous passage in meditations is Marcus Aurelius struggling to get out of bed at dawn. He says, I have to go to work as a human being. He says, I'm not meant to huddle under the covers and stay warm. No, I'm put here to do things, to make things, to be of service to people, to make the world a better place. And you were not meant to huddle under the covers and stay warm either. So get up early and get after it. Number two, you got to exercise. You have to be active. And now we're not exercising for vanity purposes.

5:08Ryan Holiday: We're not building muscles so we can look jacked, right? We are trying to cultivate strength, physical and mental. Seneca said, we treat the body rigorously so that it's not disobedient to the mind. We are cultivating discipline, right? And many of the Stoics were active. When you think of a philosopher, you don't think of an athlete, but in the ancient world, many of them were. Chrysippus was a runner. Cleanthes was a boxer. Marcus Aurelius was a wrestler. I run and swim and bike. The point is, get active, get moving. You need a strong mind in a strong body, and that means doing it every day.

5:45Ryan Holiday: Number three, if you're not journaling, you are not practicing Stoicism. Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, all the ancient Stoics praised the benefits of journaling, putting it down on the page, working it out on the page. That is to say, instead of on other people, instead of just having it pinging around inside your head. You gotta be reflecting, you gotta be analyzing, you gotta be exploring. You have to be repeating over and over again the lessons from the ancients and the values you are trying to apply in your life. How does Marcus Aurelius become Marcus Aurelius? Through his journal. We see in meditations Marcus Aurelius fighting to be the person that philosophy tried to make him.

6:28Ryan Holiday: He is journaling as an active philosophical practice, which you must do also. That's what meditations is, by the way, the private thoughts of the most powerful man in the world. Number four, you have to be reading, not a little bit, but all the time. We must linger on the works of the master thinkers, Seneca said. Over and over again, we have to return to them, right? The Stoics aren't something you have read. They are something you need to be reading all of your life. And in fact, there is no good life without study and reflection and wisdom. You have to read and not just read, but read actively, read strenuously.

7:05Ryan Holiday: As Epictetus says, it's not enough to read. You have to read the right things in the right way. Number five, go for a walk. I'm not saying walking will solve all your problems. I'm saying very few of your problems will be made worse for walking. Seneca said we need to take these wandering outdoor walks so that the mind can be nourished and refreshed by open air and deep breathing. It calms you down. It gets you out of your head. It gets you out of your room. It gets you outdoors into the world, into the beauty of the natural world. It gets your mind moving. It will make you better. Number six, make time for some deep work and focus and reflection.

7:45Ryan Holiday: In Marcus Aurelius' meditations, he says you have to concentrate on this task before you like a Roman. It says do it like it's the last thing you're doing in your life. I would say do it like it's the only thing in your life. Put the phone away, close all the tabs in your browser. Don't multitask, lock in and focus for a large uninterrupted block. This is what Mark Spillis is doing in meditations. This is what the Stoics were doing in their philosophical classes, right? Stop drifting about, stop wandering and focus. Seven, finally, you have to think about death. Memento mori. You are mortal. You don't have forever.

8:25Ryan Holiday: It's not that life is short, Seneca says. It's that we waste a lot of it. And we waste a lot of it because we think we have more of it than we actually do. The clock is ticking away. Your time here is evaporating at this very second. Don't fool yourself into thinking you have forever. Don't be good tomorrow, Mark Cirillo says. Be good today. be good now because it's the only thing you have for certain.

9:16Ryan Holiday: Tom, I hope to see you there.

9:28Ever notice how life's best stories don't happen in your living room? They happen on the open road, out on the water, or parked under the stars. At Progressive, they get that you want to focus on the experience, not worry about the what-ifs. That's why they offer quality insurance designed for your ride, Whether that's a boat, RV, or motorcycle. Adventure with confidence. Visit Progressive.com and see how easy it is to protect your favorite way to get away. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Not available in D.C. Prices vary based on how you buy. Every day as a small business owner feels like solving a puzzle.

10:04One moment you're cruising along and the next there's a shipping snag that has you scrambling. But here's a surprise you will like. With Progressive, small business owners save 13 % on their commercial auto insurance when they pay in full. So go ahead, surprise yourself. Get a quote in as little as 8 minutes at ProgressiveCommercial.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Discounts not available in all states or situations.