Somebody Lit From Within | 10 Stoic Habits To Practice In 2024

0:01You hear that? That's not just a Toyota truck That's the sound of no crowds, no alerts, no distractions, and no telling what you'll find next. You know, like a detour. So why would you ever take a tour when you could take a detour? Toyota Trucks. I 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 8 Sleep Pod 5 Ultra, which is 8 Sleep's best product. I've used 8 Sleep for many years now.

0:56And 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. It can raise and lower each side separately. So it helps you fall asleep faster, stay asleep, and then wake up better. Eight Sleep buzzes me to wake gently every morning as opposed to some loud blaring alarm. And then I can check the app and it tells me my sleep score. It even helps me optimize my day based on how I slept. If you want to survive the holidays like a pro and just generally sleep better, head over to 8sleep.com slash Daily Stoic and use code Daily Stoic to get$350 off your very own Pod 5 Ultra.

1:45The best part is you still get 30 days to try it at home and return it if you don't like it. But I know you will. Trust me, your body will thank you for this investment in better sleep, shipping to many countries worldwide. See details at 8sleep.com slash Daily Stoic. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. On Tuesdays, we take a closer look at these Stoic ideas and how we can apply them in our actual lives. Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy.

2:24Somebody lit from within. From the time of Caesar through the end of the reign of Nero, there was a remarkable run of heroic Stoics. There was Cato, there was Portia, there was Thracia, Agrippinus, Helvidius, Epictetus. Nearly everyone else was willing to go along to get along. Everyone else was corrupted by their ambition, by their self-interest, by their love of money or attention or validation. But not these Stoics. They were lit from within, you might say, motivated by their own values, their love of virtue, rather than trying to get ahead. Agrippinus once told a philosopher that while everyone else wanted to blend in, he was content to stand out, to be the red thread in the sweater, the one that makes the garment beautiful.

3:08It wasn't attention and fame he was after, nor was he rewarded for standing out in this way. In the end, Agrippinus was exiled. His father was executed for similar crimes. Cato could have made a fortune in politics if he was after the same things his peers were after. Could have wielded enormous power. But he wasn't willing to do what everyone else was willing to do. Fame and money were not what motivated him. It's not what lit him up. It was this loose cohort of Stoics, and I tell their stories in the book Lives of the Stoics, that was heroic and incredible, as virtue always is. They stood out, backlit against the sameness, the cowardice, the complicity of their times.

3:45and still they suffered for this courage, these principles, this desire to be themselves. We should take their example, but to be sure not to take it lightly. It's the right road, this road to greatness, yet it is a rough and dangerous road all the same. And it's funny, you know, Lives of the Stoics is a book I'm super proud of, but I probably learned the most about the Stoics writing. I learned about Thrasia and Cato and Portia Cato, his daughter. I learned about Agrippinus Helvidius. I learned about Epictetus's teacher, Musonius Rufus, who was exiled on four different occasions. So we have to understand that the Stoics weren't just the famous Stoics, but there's all these other Stoics.

4:24And in fact, they might be the most inspiring and impressive of all the Stoics. So check it out. You can grab Lives of the Stoics anywhere books are sold, but you can also grab a signed copy at store.dailystoic.com.

4:44My family owns a 2023 Toyota 4Runner, and honestly, it's my favorite vehicle that I've ever owned. Around town, it's smooth and reliable, but where it really shines is on our trips into the backcountry. We've taken it on backpacking adventures to Colorado and New Mexico, loaded it up with gear, and never had to think twice about whether it could handle the terrain. That's what Toyota trucks are built for. Off-road confidence, rugged durability, and the freedom to explore. Toyota has a long history with the outdoor community, and they're committed to helping more people get out there and experience what nature has to offer.

5:14From remote trails to scenic byways, Toyota Trucks empowers you to take the detour, roam freely, and discover places that still feel wild and untouched. And they're not just making great trucks, they're working to expand access to adventure so more people can connect with the outdoors and pass that passion on to the next generation. Discover your uncharted territory. Learn more at toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours. That's toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours. How much longer are you going to wait to demand the best of yourself? We all know we have potential. We all know we have things we need to stop doing.

5:48We all know we have things that we should start doing, but we tell ourselves we'll do it later. But will you?

5:56At the end of the year, everyone thinks about how the year went and how they want the new year to go better. They're really talking about is habits. Epictetus once encapsulated all of Stoic philosophy in just two words, resist and resist. Meaning there were some things we had to keep doing. And as we look out here at the beginning of a new year, it's the perfect time to start quitting some destructive habits. What are you day to day in your actions, big and small? That's how we become better. I'm Ryan Holiday. I've written books about Stoic philosophy. I've been lucky enough to speak about it to the NBA and the NFL, sitting senators and special forces leader.

6:32but I'm also just a regular person who's trying to get a little bit better every single year. And in today's episode, I want to talk about some stoic-inspired habits that you can look at as we go into a new year. Habits to stop doing, habits to start doing, who the stoics want you to be to create, hopefully, a new you.

6:56I think the first place to start is the idea of thinking really, really small. George Washington's favorite saying was, many mickles make a muckle. This is an old Scottish proverb. It basically just means like things add up. Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, says, well-being is realized by small steps, but it's no small thing. You don't promise yourself that you're going to read more. You decide you're going to read a page a day. You don't decide that you're going to transform your diet or your exercise. Like you start going for a walk. Make a small decision and then you build on it. About this, I love James Clear's book, Atomic Habits.

7:33I got to see him put this book together. We go way back. We sell this book at my bookstore, The Painted Porch. But I think the idea of atomic habits is like, as the subtitle says, tiny changes, remarkable results. But even think about what an atomic, what it means to say an atomic habit. It's not just explosive, like an atom is the smallest possible building block you can think of. So when we think about habits, let's start really, really small. Don't lie to yourself. Don't get ahead of yourself. Just think of the smallest thing you can start with.

8:04Don't give in to your anxiety this year. You have to stop letting anxiety rule you. In one of the passages in meditations, Marcus Cirillo says, today I escaped anxiety and said, wait, no, that's not right. This is actually, I discarded it. It was within me. The plane, the airport, that's not responsible for your anxiety. You're responsible for anxiety. You're responsible for your feelings. You're responsible for the worry that you're projecting at this thing. And it's not helping you. It's not making you better. It's not doing anything about the problem. You're just torturing yourself in anticipation of what might happen or might not happen.

8:37I've never been in the thrall of anxiety, right? Traveling somewhere or some big project. And then afterwards, I'm like, I'm so glad I was so anxious about that. No, it made people around me upset. It made me upset. It made me miserable. It didn't do anything for me. And it's not going to do anything for you this here.

8:57I think it's impossible to have good habits without a routine. So you have to develop and build a routine. Habits and routines, they work together. So for me, I wake up early. I take my kids outside. We run or we go on a walk. One of my rules, I don't touch my phone for the first one hour that I'm awake. I journal in the morning. Then one of my big habits is I tackle my big creative project first. I don't get sucked into email first. I don't have a meeting first. I don't watch TV first. I tackle the big creative project first. Again, that's one of the things I identify with that I own the morning.

9:34I'm a morning person. I tackle the morning. I kick the shit out of the morning. I am successful in the morning. That wasn't just naturally who I was. This is something I had to develop and build. So you need a routine. You cannot wing it. Seneca says that life without design is erratic. He says principles are necessary. There's nothing more shameful than uncertain chaos and disorder. So build a routine and stick to it. Stick to the routine. And again, these are little things. What time do you wake up? What time do you go to bed? What time do you have lunch? What do you do? What do you not do? Build a routine and stick to it.

10:14one of the stories i was most moved by that i was most excited about when i was writing discipline is destiny is the story of dwight d eisenhower he had a four pack a day 40 year smoking habit and his doctor said you're gonna die if you don't stop it's screwing with your heart it's screwing with your lungs if you want to continue to be of service to the country you got to stop and so eisenhower famously said i gave myself an order and i stopped he quit cold turkey after 40 years. It's actually a very stoic idea. Epictetus says, no man is free who is not master of himself. Seneca said, we're all slaves to something.

10:47Some people are slaves to sex or they're mistresses, he says. Other people are slaves to power or ambition. Maybe some of us are slaves to that cup of coffee in the morning. We all have things that we do that we know we need to stop doing to be the person that we want to be.

11:05One foundational habit for next year, free up precious resources. People say, oh, I don't have time. But pull up the screen time app on your phone. You have time. You just choose to spend it on things that don't matter. You watch too much news. You spend too much time doom scrolling. You say you don't have time, but here you are watching this video. We spend too much time on things that don't matter. So one of the best habits changes I've made is sort of winnowing my worldview. Of course, you have to know what's going on in the world, but you don't have to obsess about it in real time. You don't have to consume things that make you feel crappy or awful or suck you into this catastrophizing mindset.

11:43If you wish to improve, Epictetus says, you have to be willing to not know about some things, so focus on what matters, lock in time to focus on making better habits by eliminating things that are sucking up too much of your time now.

12:00Every new year, Seneca started the year off the same thing. He would throw himself into the Tiber river, the freezing river in Rome on the 1st of January. She's saying, I'm in charge. I'm so in charge. I'm hurling myself into this freezing river, even though I really don't want to.

12:19Who do you associate with? Studies show like if you have unhealthy friends, you're going to be unhealthy. If you have ambitious friends, you're going to be ambitious. My father said this to me as a kid. He said, Ryan, you become like your friends. So associate with people that make you better. If you dwell with a lame man, was the old expression, you will learn how to limp. Now, so who do you surround yourself with? Who's your peer group? Who are the people you spend the most time with? And how do you become the average of them? We have the Daily Stoke Life community, by the way, which I'd love to have you join.

12:48It's a private Facebook group. You get extra emails. You get Q &As with me. I think it's one of the best things we do. But the idea is who's your community? In the ancient world, the Stokes had the Scipionic Circle, a group of Stokes who would get together and have dinner parties and events and debate philosophy and read books and share with each other. Even the relationship between Seneca and Lunsilius, which we get in Seneca's letters of a stoic, it's them talking to each other. He says, we learn as we teach by having this peer group, they both get better. So who are you spending time with this year?

13:20That's a foundational basic habit that will make you better.

13:26This year, you can't fear change. In one of the beautiful passages in Meditations, Marcus Reyes reminds himself that everything in life comes from change, good and bad. And by trying to keep things the same, not only are you, of course, focused on something that you don't control, but you're preventing yourself from all the wonderful opportunities that exist that could come your way. Look, we live in a time of disruption. We live in a time of institutions that are falling apart. We live in a time of innovation, new institutions that are being created. So you can't fear what's going to come of that.

13:58The Stokes would say, all you can focus on this year is embracing those things, adapting yourself to change, acquiescing to that change, rather than fighting it, rather than fearing it, rather than resenting it. Because it's going to happen regardless of how you feel about it. So what you should focus on, Stokes would say, is what you're going to do about it.

14:19You have to say no to the inessential. Marcus Riela says most of what we do is not essential. But when we say no to those inessential things, when we eliminate them, it gives us a double benefit, he says, because then we can do the essential things better. So you have to realize that everything you say yes to means you're saying no to something else. But conversely and most importantly, when you say no to the things that don't matter, it gives you the opportunity to say yes to the things that really do matter. And not a little yes, not a soft yes, but an emphatic both feet yes. And that's what you need to be successful and happy and good.

14:57And it is inevitable that we will fall short. Marcus did. I do. Everyone does. Antoninus Pius probably did too, which is why in meditations, Marcus really says to pick yourself back up when you fall. But he also says to celebrate the fact that you're a human being. What matters, he says, is that you come back to the rhythm of it. We're going to be jarred by circumstances. We're going to be messed up. We're going to slip on our diet, on our New Year's resolution, on the progress we were making. That's OK. What matters is that you get back up. What matters is that more often than not, you stick to it, that you always come back home to it.

15:38Look, ads are annoying. They are to be avoided, if at all possible. I understand as a content creator why they need to exist. That's why I don't begrudge them when they appear on the shows that I listen to. But again, as a person who has to pay a podcast producer and has to pay for equipment and for the studio and the building that the studio is in, it's a lot to keep something like the Daily Stoic going. So if you want to support a show but not listen to ads, well, we have partnered with Supercast to bring you a ad free version of Daily Stoic. We're calling it Daily Stoic Premium. And with Premium, you can listen to every episode of the Daily Stoic podcast completely ad free, no interruptions, just the ideas, just the messages, just the conversations you came here for.

16:32And you can also get early access to episodes before they're available to the public. And we're going to have a bunch of exclusive bonus content and extended interviews in there just for Daily Stoic Premium members as well. If you want to remove distractions, go deeper into stoicism and support the work we do here. Well, it takes less than a minute to sign up for Daily Stoic Premium, and we are offering a limited time discount of 20 % off your first year. Just go to dailystoic.com slash premium to sign up right now or click the link in the show descriptions to make those ads go away.