The Power Of Purpose

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2:34Welcome 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.

3:17Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another Sunday episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. You've heard me rave before about Dr. Edith Eager, Holocaust survivor, student of Viktor Frankel, psychologist and author of two very amazing books that I have right here behind me. The Choice and The Gift, both two books I carry on the painted porch. I love them quite a bit. I've been writing about Dr. Eater in the new book on justice. We've talked about her quite a bit here on the Daily Stoic podcast. She gave me this amazing piece of advice when I interviewed her. I was talking about something I sort of regret with someone I'm close to, and I wish I could go back and do differently.

4:04And she said, I'll give you a magical formula. She said, just say this to yourself. If I knew now, if I knew then what I know now, I would do things differently. And that was very healing and helpful to me. And anyways, her grandson, Jordan, reached out and needed my help with something. She does these awesome webinars and courses on her website, yoursoulsearch.org. Let me pull that up just to make sure I got it right. She did this awesome course. She did this awesome mini course over on yoursoulsearch.com. that her grandson asked if I would participate in, and I was planning on doing it, and then she had a little medical scare, and they needed me to jump in.

4:51So I raced across town. I had a talk in the morning. I raced across town to hop onto this webinar, and I just talked about purpose for a few minutes. You can actually take the whole workshop if you want. It's go to yoursoulsearch.com slash workshop-replay, and I'll link to that in today's show notes. But if you haven't read Dr. Eger's books, You absolutely should. And you can go to her website at dreiditheager.com. And you pick up the books in the painted porch. But anyways, I just wanted to bring you my little riff on purpose. Jordan asked me some questions. But overall, I thought this was cool.

5:30I thought you would appreciate it. And any chance I get to talk about Edie's amazing work, I'm going to take. And that's where today's episode comes in.

5:42You 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.

6:37of DNA and circumstances in a unique moment in time. And what that adds up to with this sort of accumulation of that is that we have a unique sort of thing that we can do. There are lots of things that each of us can do, right? We have many talents. There are many opportunities. We may be extremely well compensated or rewarded for certain things, but is that what we were actually meant to do. I think the question that we have to answer is like, what's the thing that only we could do? What's the thing that if we don't do, it won't get done? I spent a good chunk of my 20s in the marketing world, which I was excited about.

7:23I found it interesting. I found it compelling. I found it rewarding. I found it challenging. But ultimately, Ultimately, I came to understand that I was fairly replaceable there. I found in many ways it was contrary to my values also, but it just wasn't what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing. And just because you're good at something, just because it's financially lucrative, just because it's something you started, I think it's important to realize that that doesn't mean you have to keep on doing that thing. And that if you sense that perhaps you're meant to do something different or better, the courage to make that transition or that choice is really, really important.

8:15Obviously, Edie talks in her work about the idea of the choice, the choice of how we respond to the circumstances we're in. But the choice that we make about how we're going to spend our time is, I think, so important. I have a little card here next to my desk. As I started writing about stoic philosophy and those books started to sell and an audience started to build, I sort of came to another question related to that. I think a question that goes to purpose, which is, you know, not how do you succeed the most at this thing that you feel called to do, not how you become the most famous at it, how you sell the most copies or make the most money.

8:58the question I put there that sort of guides my purpose, having been introduced to this philosophy that sort of lit me up and gets me excited, and then I've been lucky enough now to get to talk and write about for about 10 years, I wrote, am I being a good steward of stoicism? And my point was, as I found myself in this privileged position to get to do things, the question for me, the thing that guides my purpose is how am I dealing with that responsibility? How am I paying forward that privilege that I've got? So when I first read the works of the Stoics in my college apartment more than 15 or so years ago, I was just so struck.

9:41Somebody introduced me to this thing and it changed the course of my life. And so the purpose that I feel now, the thing that gets me excited is not just doing that for other people, but it's this sense of being a good steward of the opportunities and rewards that I have gotten. And so I think, you know, not again, necessarily what I want to do today, but I think how can I talk to people about these ideas? How can I reach additional people? How can I take the rewards of my success and funnel them back into doing more and more of that. I remember when I was in the marketing world, I was talking to a friend of mine and he said, you know, we don't make money.

10:25We don't do work to make money. We make money to do more work. And his point was that you take the clients, you take the opportunities, the success you've had, and you funnel that back into making stuff that you're proud of, that you think matters, that's meaningful to you. And so I think my purpose is sort of from that point on been somewhere around that. I try to think about what gets me excited, but also how do I create value or spread lessons or messages that are similar to the ones that were so impactful to me early on? And how do I sort of be a good steward of that going forward? And again, there's lots of things that each of us could do, right?

11:07There are many different jobs, many different niches, many different ways that you could pursue the thing that gets you excited. But I think the question should be, if you were to not do it, right, would it get done? Is there a long line of other people who could do it in a similar way? I guess what I'm saying is we have to go towards that sort of uniqueness. We have to go towards what only we have the ability to communicate. You know, again, I can imagine Dr. Eager could write about so many different topics. Her psychological expertise and the client work she's done over the years, she could have written many academic volumes or many groundbreaking insights or scientific work.

11:57But ultimately, it was her unique set of experiences, what she went through, that was the lens that was of the most value to the world, was the most uniquely her, was the thing that wouldn't be expressed if she didn't express it because there wasn't anyone else that could tell her story. And so I try to think about that in my life and in my work. I try to do those things that only I could do. I try to pay forward the opportunities and gifts that I've been given. And, you know, I try to be a good steward of the privileges and opportunities that I've been fortunate enough to have. So that kind of motivates me on my journey to my purpose.

12:45Thanks to Toyota Trucks for sponsoring this episode. When I bought my ranch in 2015 out here in Bastro 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.

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14:25Ryan, can I ask you a question? Of course, yeah. So one of the things that we've seen is that when you find that purpose, that thing that drives you, other parts of your life that have maybe been holding you back or emotional anxiety, et cetera, can fall away. Sure. By finding that purpose that drives you, you know, and you, we search for that until we find it. That's, that's a lot of time, what a lot of our lives look like. But then when you, when you get that arrow and you go after it, so how, how did that show up for you? Did you see any psychosomatic or anything change in your life once you had this vision for where you were going to head?

15:06Yeah, you know, I think one of the things about purpose is that it is a sort of a panacea for a lot of problems that we have because, you know, when you don't know why you're here, you don't know what you should be doing, you don't have something that fulfills you, obviously that manifests itself, you know, in the form of frustration, resentments, you know, it can manifest itself in a form of depression or aimlessness. And so when you have that clarity, like, I feel like there's nothing more wonderful than knowing why you're getting out of bed in the morning, what you have to do today, right? Like, when I wake up in the morning, I know that I have to get to the office and get down and start writing.

15:54And this excites me. This fills me with pleasure and joy. I enjoy doing it. I mean, there are moments, certainly when it's painful, there are moments even when it's torturous. But a sense of what to do each day is sort of a shield against all the things that are happening in the external world. I mean, even in those sort of early days of COVID. I mean, I had a book that I was supposed to be working on. I had things I had to write. I had books that I had to read. And so, you know, it can help put up some protections against the uncertainties of the world. It can put protections against the actions of other people.

16:33It can even help you power through difficulty, pain, loss. I was just speaking to a friend of mine. His name is Jake Seliger. And he's a great writer. And he just found out he has terminal cancer. And what's interesting is I actually didn't know that he had this until he told me in an article that he'd written. But I noticed in the previous weeks, suddenly he was writing so much more than he'd written before. And his writing was better. And his writing was clearer. and it was more vulnerable and personal. And obviously what's happened here is tragic. And I interviewed him on the Daily Stoke podcast.

17:17We had a wonderful, sort of very moving for me conversation. But what I was talking to him about was how suddenly both the reality of this terrible diagnosis that he'd gotten, but also juxtaposed with this thing that he'd been doing for a long time, but was obviously his purpose here. those two things collided in a way that suddenly unblocked him and gave him a very clear sense of how to spend that limited time that he had left i mean most of what he's writing is about the conversations that he's having with his wife and the you know sort of the big picture questions that he's thinking about but i guess what i'm saying is that suddenly this diagnosis obviously takes away a future in a tragic in a terrible way but his purpose, this passion, this activity, this task that he's been practicing his whole life, it also gave him a very clear sense of what to do in the present.

18:20And we are all better for the things he's doing here in the present. Like his writing has given me so much to think about and I've been talking about it with people. And I guess that is one of the things that a purpose can give you. It doesn't protect you from the, you know, the sect is the sectitudes of fate and fortune, but it does, does give you a sense of what to do moment to moment inside of that. And sometimes when life throws the biggest challenges at you, it's actually a way for you to see more clearly what you do care about. Yeah, it eliminates all the noise, right? It eliminates all the other things that you could be doing.

19:00I do sometimes think about that, right? When we sort of go, oh, what would I do if I found out that I had, you know, a terminal diagnosis? But the truth is everyone does have that terminal diagnosis. We just don't know the time span, right? Like we know it's for certain that none of us live forever. Some of us might get 90 plus years and some of us might not. But when you're suddenly up close and personal with that, when there is a, when the, when the time span has been made a bit more concrete, I think there's a bunch of things you will stop doing. And there's a bunch of things that you will start doing.

19:34And I do try to, I try to go, Hey, if, if I knew that, um, you know, I had a year left, I'd probably stop accepting certain things. And there's certain things I would say yes, more wholeheartedly to. And, and I think, you know, getting to that helps you get a bit closer to your purpose, certainly. Ryan, thank you, my brother. Watching you and your purpose and getting your morning dose of goodness is something that is a vital part of my life. And it's really been a pleasure to get to know you and have you on here. Really jumping in last minute and being a part of this was a joy. It's an honor. Thank you for your wisdom.

20:18Thanks for sharing your purpose. It has been something that many of us who get to experience Daily Stoic in your books have reaped the rewards of. You got it. My pleasure. All right. We'll talk soon, then. All right. Thanks, Ryan.

20:48thanks for listening to the daily stoic podcast just a reminder we've got signed copies of all my books in the daily stoic store you can get them personalized you can get them sent to a friend the obstacle is the way you go as the enemy stillness is the key the leather bound edition of the daily stoic we have them all in the daily stoic store which you can check out at store.dailystoic.com

21:13my family owns a 2023 toyota forerunner 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 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.

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