That’s What It’s Made For | Ask Daily Stoic

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0:55That's what it's made for. You probably wish you didn't have to. And of course, you didn't want it to happen. It would be nicer if things went as planned. But one thing we know about life is that this is just how it goes. Accidents, disasters, difficult periods, challenging situations. Well, as we've said before, this is what we trained for. This is the whole point of stoicism. There's a great line in a Nathaniel Rateliff song about this. Let me play it for you real fast. Now lean and use your weight. That's what a shoulder's made for. Lean and use your weight. That's what a shoulder's made for.

1:36Adversity and difficulty is what you are for. It's certainly what Stoicism is for. These lessons were tried and tested in the furnace of history. They were subjected to tyrants and exile, plagues and wars, imprisonment and health crises, temptations and trials. And now, now is your chance to apply them, to use them. You've got the shoulders. You are standing on shoulders of generations of Stoics who came before. Lean and use your weight. Carry the weight.

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5:26Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another Thursday episode of The Daily Stoic Podcast. Back in May, I was in Mexico City doing a talk to this thing called Grupo Salinas, their National Advisory Council. I did a couple different Q &As as part of it. I really worked hard on this talk. I actually built in a whole story about Frida Kahlo in there. So that was really cool. And I thought I'd bring you as part of our Q &A episode, some questions from that. Here I am being interviewed by Ninfa Salinas. She was asking me some questions on stage. And she is a Mexican politician, a former Mexican senator, and she represents the Ecologist Green Party of Mexico.

6:09She's also the president of the Advisory Council and leads the Somos Grandes initiative, which was created by Grupo Salinas to promote entrepreneurship across Mexico. Let's get into it.

6:24So I like what you're saying, because with respect to The Obstacle is the Way, which is one of your books, and I've read it. You talk about, you know, trying to get out of your agenda the hardest thing possible, the first thing in order. So can you talk a little bit about this? And, you know, does it apply to entrepreneurial lives? I think it does. Well, I do think what an entrepreneur is fundamentally is someone who's having to constantly respond to the things I'm like, right? Suddenly a new law comes into effect or a new change in the market comes into effect. A new technology is invented. One of your employees, you find out is stealing from you.

7:02Your most trusted employee quits. You're just stuff is happening. You've got to respond. What a great company does, what a great business does, what a great leader does is, is respond well. How are we going to deal with this? What are we going to do because of this? I mean, I think you saw this through the pandemic. How many businesses didn't have an e-commerce component, didn't have a takeout component, didn't have a hybrid or a work-through-home component? And they had to suddenly figure that out. Now, if you'd asked them in February of 2020, was this possible? They would have said no. But necessity made it possible.

7:35I mean, how many people become entrepreneurs because they got laid off? or because there was a downturn in their industry. And so an entrepreneur is, by definition, someone who responds well to what happens to them. And I do think, to go to your point about routine and structure, you have to create, your life is going to be crazy enough. There was an artist who said, you want to be organized in your life, in your career, in your workspace, so you can be chaotic in your art. And I think an entrepreneur has got to create structure and discipline so that they can deal with the craziness that is inherent in wanting to hear the thing.

8:13If you are adding on top of that just personal chaos and dysfunction, you never know where anything is and the office is a mess and your phone is always ringing, you're just adding noise on top of noise. I like what you say. I think it's very powerful. Just to wrap it up, I would like to ask you about your new book, which is the right thing right now. And here in Mexico, We're living in an environment which is pretty violent, and there are difficulties all around, and I know it's not exclusive to Mexico. But what you say is you urge us to act with integrity, even when nobody is going to. Can you reflect more about how does this impact businesses?

8:56One of the great things about being an entrepreneur is that you get to make some decisions, right? Like, look, it'd be wonderful if we all lived under competent governments, if everyone played by the rules, if collectively we all did what was best for each other and the planet. But we don't. Right. We do the opposite. And politics is the art of addressing that. But you and I are not the emperor. We are not the president, unfortunately. So we don't get to make a lot of us the same. We certainly don't get to decide, you know, what they're doing across some far distant ocean or what another country is doing.

9:35So do we give up? Do we despair? No. One of the great things about being an entrepreneur is that we get to make really important, impactful decisions. They don't necessarily impact everyone, but they certainly matter a great deal to the people inside our organization. So the decision to, I don't know, provide benefits or the decision to set certain environmental or equality standards, the decision to treat everyone we deal with fairly. These are decisions that we get to make. No one's putting a gun to our head and saying you have to do them. And in fact, that's what makes it most meaningful. It's so easy in politics and business and like, no, it's been true in America, it's true here, it's been true historically, to go, well, everyone else is doing it.

10:21Well, that's just standard practice. Or to make this distinction between illegal and wrong. You know, it's not illegal, so technically I can do it. Victor Frankl, the great Jewish writer comes out in the Holocaust he said that it's wonderful that America has a statue of liberty but he felt that on the West Coast there should be a corresponding statue of responsibility and I think every business person has the chance to go hey look, it's wonderful to live in a society and a capitalistic society to have the freedom to make these decisions but that doesn't mean you just get to do whatever you want.

11:05What it means is that you now have the freedom to become right to succeed. And you have to do that. And so, heck, there's going to be corruption around you. There's going to be disincentives around you. There's going to be opportunities that you could take advantage of that might be good for you financially, but you understand the bad for the world or, you know, someone on the other side of that transaction. And then you have to decide, hey, am I going to be that person? And I've just found that so empowering as an entrepreneur myself, is that as frustrated as I am with the state of the world, I've got plenty that I can focus on for my people, for my team, for my community.

11:43And that if everyone took that responsibility seriously, it would make an enormous impact right away. And that's just something I wish more entrepreneurs would embrace.

11:58Hey, 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.