The Secret To Climbing The Mountain

0:00I'm recording this on a Monday, and Monday is our grocery store day in our family. I usually pick my kids up from school and we go over to Whole Foods, get all our groceries for the week. Although here very shortly, we're going to go over there to get our Thanksgiving turkey because they've got a bunch of great options. Turkeys start at$149 a pound if you have Prime with organic birds at$299 a pound. And they only carry no antibiotic ever turkeys that will bring quality to your table at a great price. Whole Foods has great everyday prices on all your Thanksgiving essentials, whether you celebrate with a massive family or just a few close friends.

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1:19Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom in everyday life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2 ,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at dailystoic.com.

1:45The secret to climbing the mountain. The task before us is enormous. The problems we face seem overwhelming. The change we seek will not be easy. What do we do? Bruce Dickinson, the lead singer of the band Iron Maiden, and we have a great video of some stoic lessons from the band over at YouTube. I'll link to that. He once found himself sitting across from Robert Plant at a studio in Hilversum, a city in the Netherlands. I'm having so much trouble with the album, Plant confessed. It's like a mountain and I don't know where to start. Thanks to Toyota Trucks for sponsoring this episode. When I bought my ranch in 2015 out here in Baskerville County.

2:23I 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.

3:01We got to go deep into the hill country's wild beauty. We've driven all the way out to East Texas. We've driven it 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, discover your uncharted territory.

3:43Learn more at toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours. Bruce Dickinson looked at him as he sipped his tea and said, try the steps. The steps, Plant asked? Yes, the steps in the side of the mountain, Dickinson explained. That's what they're there for. It's both mystical and straightforward. You climb a mountain one step at a time. You overcome obstacles little by little, action by action, Mark Spirlius writes in meditations. You can check out our favorite translation. We have a leather edition. He says, no one can stop you from that. Not only can't they stop you, you often find there are stairs right there designed for your use.

4:25So use them.

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