Ryan Holiday's MasterClass | Using Ancient Wisdom to Solve Modern Problems

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1:20Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Sundays, we take a deeper dive into these ancient topics with excerpts from the Stoic texts, audiobooks that we like here or recommend here at Daily Stoic, and other long-form wisdom that you can chew on on this relaxing weekend. We hope this helps shape your understanding of this philosophy, and most importantly, that you're able to apply it to your actual life. Thank you for listening.

1:59Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another Sunday episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I was telling you about showing up at that place in Taylor, Texas to shoot the masterclass that I did and finding out it was like John Fonte themed and how crazy that was. Well, there's actually like a crazy coincidence before that, I guess a small world thing. So I had agreed to do the masterclass while I was in Australia. I had to do a Zoom call where we're sort of sketching out what we're going to talk about. And this guy pops on. He's going to be the director of the course because Master Class uses like legit directors from like Hollywood movies and TV shows and stuff.

2:30And I go, Brian, is that you? And it was. They hired Brian, who I had met several years ago because he was trying to option the rights to conspiracy. My book about Peter Thiel and the sort of vendetta to destroy Gawker. And I was like, oh man, this is awesome. So Master Class hired this awesome director and we sat down and we did a two-day deep dive into not just Stoic philosophy, which you've heard me talk a lot about here, but four different schools of philosophy. We looked at the Epicureans, we looked at the Cynics, we looked at Socrates, and we looked at the Stoics. And so we did this big deep dive, not just what these schools taught, because you can get that from Wikipedia, but I wanted to do deep dives into specific things that they could teach us that pertain to modern life?

3:20Like what can the ancients teach us about love and relationships? What can they teach us about communication? And so we do these deep dives. Like I interview a Navy SEAL. I interview a psychotherapist. I interview an expert on Stoic philosophy. So we just talked to some really cool experts and man, it was crazy to see the production quality of this thing. I mean, I had a trailer, which my kids were very excited about because I got to steal all the snacks. Like I said, they rented out this whole building in Taylor and we did this thing over the course of a couple of days. I think it's awesome. The first part of that course is officially out now.

3:56It's called Using Ancient Wisdom to Solve Modern Problems. You can check it out right now at dailystoic.com slash masterclass. I'll link to it in the show notes. If you want to get a taste of that conversation, you can also listen to my interview with Dr. Jennifer Baker, which I did afterwards. She's part of the course also. But this was an awesome experience. I think I really like it. I'm sure a bunch of you are already subscribers to Masterclass. You can head over and check that out. If you want to check out Masterclass because you haven't seen it before, just go to dailystoic.com slash Masterclass.

4:28There's something wonderful about reading philosophy that when it hits you, because suddenly all these centuries collapse and you travel back in time. This is why they call the Western text the great conversation. It's this conversation that's just continued on down through the centuries. And as you're reading, as I was in that moment, Marx really is having a discussion with himself about why he wants to stay under the covers and be warm. You go, I've had that exact feeling this morning. And you realize, oh, OK, there isn't that much difference between us and every human being that's ever lived.

5:05All the problems we have today, they had some version of in the ancient world. They had kids to raise. They had work to do. People were annoying then, just as they are now. And so philosophy is there not to confuse you or to turn everything into riddles, but to say, here's a good reason to get out of bed and get moving this morning. And so I get really excited about being able to take these tried and true lessons, these insights and explain them in ways that allow people to see how it can be something that they use today in a modern context.

5:52One of the Stoic virtues is courage. And courage isn't always rushing into a burning building or onto the battlefield. It's also saying what needs to be said or stepping up and having the conversation that everyone else is putting off. In meditations, Marcus Aurelius says that a truthful person should be like the smelly goat in the room. You know when they're there. And he's talking about cultivating this practice of speaking up and being honest, not dancing around things, not couching things, not telling people what they want to hear, but what you think needs to be said. It's not just good for you.

6:32You have to understand that you're not serving other people by avoiding these tough conversations or giving them only half the truth because you're afraid of hurting their feelings. Sometime in the 130s AD, young Marcus Aurelius gets two letters from his beloved teacher, Fronto. One of them is full of praise and love, and the other is very critical, probably, of a speech that Marcus had given. And Marcus writes back how much he loves the criticism more than he loved the praise. And he loved that his teacher had taken the time to think about what he could do better, where he fell short, and was giving him feedback and criticism about it.

7:17And if you think about it, if you really didn't like someone, if you really hated them and wanted them to fail, would you tell them what they should do better and point out their flaws? Because no, you're coming at it at some level from a place of affection and encouragement and wanting them to succeed. And so if you can see the criticism that you get that way, it allows you to integrate it. But also remember why you're giving it to other people. It's not to humiliate them. It's not to hurt them. It's not to prove that you're better than them. It's to allow them to get better.

7:58Agrippinus made the metaphor of a tunic. He said, you know, it's made up of threads. He said, I prefer to be the red thread, the one that stands out and makes the garment beautiful. And we should remember that all of us are born completely unique. We have totally unique DNA. We come from unique circumstances. We have our own experiences. We're something that's never existed ever before in history. So part of the philosophical tradition was to be happy to stand out, to be yourself, to understand that this isn't going to be for everyone. Not everyone's going to appreciate it or understand it. But to understand that being authentic and standing out is what makes the world beautiful.

8:48Thanks to Toyota Trucks for sponsoring this episode. When I bought my ranch in 2015 out here in Baskerville 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.

9:33We 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.

10:13Discover your uncharted territory. Learn more at toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours.

10:25The first task of the philosopher Epictetus said is to ask yourself, is this something I have control over or is it not? Now, I think we can say it's a little more complicated than that in reality. There's some things that are up to us and some things that are not up to us. You know, we don't control the weather. We control what we wear, right? In the middle, there's like we control where we live. You know, you control whether you make a great product. You don't control how many copies or units it sells. But you do control whether you come up with a marketing plan, right? So we have the ability to influence.

10:56But fundamentally, making this distinction between what parts of this are up to me and what parts of this are not up to me pertains to resilience. Because when you're sitting around hoping that the parts that are not up to you go the way you want them to go, now it's a crapshoot. But when you're focused on the parts of it that are up to you, how you think about it, what you put into it, now, whether you succeed or fail is really up to you.

11:27So I think when people think Navy SEALs, they think physical discipline. But so much of it, it's also emotional discipline, right? Not being riled up, managing your nerves. How do you think about, like, keeping it all under control? I think about it more so as a choice, right? And a consequence. What are the consequences if I don't keep it under control? What are the benefits if I do keep it under control? And a good example of that is one night we were ambushed. And a lot of people would assume that when you're faced with death, especially operator, that natural inclination is fear. But for the most part, the natural inclination is anger.

12:09Why are they doing this to me? What is happening? Well, they're trying to kill me. I mean, when somebody's trying to kill you, like, you get upset. When you're trained, you can get upset. And so how do you dial back that anger? And why is it important to dial back that anger? It's important because if you don't, you're not going to be able to make a tactically sound decision. Right. Or the decision that you do make may be impeded in some way that will be detrimental to you or to the troops. It's not as rational as it could be. Exactly. Exactly. And so it's important to take what we call the tactical pause.

12:43And it's really, really quick. Take a tactical pause, assess the situation, and then address it in a smooth, we have a saying in our community, slow is smooth, smooth is fast, right? In a smooth, but at the same time, fast way. And the drawback to making the choice to allow your anger to affect your decision is you're going to make a bad decision and somebody's going to get killed, right? The Stoics would say delay was the best remedy for anger. And there was a Stoic advisor to the emperor Octavian who said that this was especially important for someone as powerful as the emperor, that he should repeat all the letters of the alphabet to himself before he responded.

13:22Some of these conversations, they may get hot. They may get upset. You don't control that. What the Stoic controls is yourself. And Seneca would write this whole essay called De 'ira, which just means on anger. He was talking specifically to leaders. They can't afford to get angry because it colors their communication. It makes them act irrationally. It makes them say things that they'll regret. The stoic practices of restraint, self-control, again, not getting too emotional. These are really important things that we have to bring to these tough conversations.

14:02There's a story about Crates, the cynic teacher of Zeno, the founder of the school of stoicism. He is in a courtship with Hipparchia, a young woman who's deeply in love with him. She's pursuing him, and he's afraid that she's putting him on a pedestal, that she has some idealized version of him. And we're told that he strips off his clothes and stands before her naked and says, this is all that I am and all that I have. He's presenting his authentic, unvarnished, unpretentious self. And we're told that in response, she's not only not intimidated or scared by this, she strips down and does the same thing.

14:45And they end up having this remarkably equal and loving relationship. So what does this story teach us? The best relationships begin from a place of honesty and truth. We're so afraid we're not enough or that if people see or understand the real us, they won't like what they see. And so we create relationships on a foundation of lies or half-truths or pretenses that time eventually will reveal. And this idea of getting it out of the way at the beginning, laying it all out on the table, so to speak, It's a wonderful reminder of the importance of speaking the truth, showing your real self, and also saying what's important to you.

15:36Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it. I'll see you next episode.

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