The Stoic Disciplines of Perception, Action, and Will

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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 Holiday. Welcome to another Sunday episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. Okay, so way back in the fall of 2021, I had driven, and there's still a pandemic, I'd driven out to Los Angeles with my family. I wanted to see my grandmother, which it turned out to be the last time that we got to see her. That's why we're bringing the kids. and I was having to do the book launch of Courage is Calling. That was the first book in the Virtue series. So we drove out. It was this long, crazy drive. I think we stopped in Marfa, somewhere in New Mexico, somewhere on the Arizona-California border.

2:38I'm trying to remember all the places we stopped. It was pretty nuts. Anyways, went there, did a bunch of stuff, drove up to Sacramento, drove back. And then on the way back, we stopped in Cerro Gordo, which is this place that I love, my kids love. We've been talking about a couple of excerpts from Brent Underwood's book, Ghost Town Living on the podcast. It's this amazing ghost town up in the mountains of California. Anyways, we stopped there on the way back because my kids wanted to see it in person. And as we were driving, you basically can drive through Las Vegas and then get down onto the 10 freeway.

3:11So we were driving from Cerro Gordo through Death Valley with a camper, two kids in the car. We should have got gas before we left. So we're coming down to the wire and we end up at this gas station. And I see that we're across the street from an Air Force base I've never heard of. This is Creech Air Force Base in the absolute middle of nowhere. And I'm filling up the car. I'm throwing all the trash away. And this guy comes up to me and he recognizes me and he says, hey, are you Ryan Holiday? And he had a copy of my books with him in the car. It was an incredible, insane experience. And then I don't know if word about that got out or if it was a total coincidence on top of a coincidence.

3:48But a few months later, some folks at Creech Air Force Base reached out and asked if I would do a virtual talk. They said, you probably have zero idea where we are. And I said, I know exactly where you are. And of course, I would love to. So I gave this talk to the general officers meeting there. They had just like had a problem with an inspection, added a lot of stress. Things weren't going well. And they wanted to talk about obstacles and stillness. And so I did this little talk there. I thought it was awesome. I didn't get to do it in person. I would love an excuse to get back out there. I know I need to get to Cerro Gordo.

4:22The last time I was there, I went about a year and a half later for the launch of Discipline. And I ran from the bottom to the top of Cerro Gordo. It was a cool thing. There's a YouTube video about that. Anyways, this is the audio of that talk that I gave to the officers at Crete. So maybe you're going through an adversity. Maybe your company went through some mistakes or some problems or trying to clean things up. So maybe you'll relate to this. And I just want to say, it seems crazy to me that this all was kicked off, I think, by the launch of Courage. And then here I am now, three years later, having just put out the Justice book.

4:56So the third book, and I am chugging away on the fourth. Thanks to the folks at Creech. And I hope you enjoy today's episode and I hope you're having a great weekend.

5:07It's an honor to be with all of you in person. I wish I was there. I do have a somewhat strange story involving Creech. I was on book tour for Courage is Calling last year and I took my family. I went up to Cerro Gordo, that ghost town up in the Inyo Mountains. And I was driving back. We were driving back towards Texas and we almost ran out of gas driving through Death Valley and then ended up at a gas station right across the street from the base. And as I was filling up, I could see someone sort of making, like sort of looking at me, trying to see if they recognize me or something. And finally, they ended up coming over.

5:52And it was Master Sergeant Derail Pearsall, who happened to be reading a copy of The Obstacle is the Way in the car while he was filling up gas. And so when you guys reached out, I thought this was perfect. And as I was talking to him before I chatted with you guys, as we become friends since we bumped into each other, that chance encounter was the result of a bunch of things going wrong for both of us. He was running late. I was behind schedule. I was running out of gas. He was running out of gas. If it wasn't for the pandemic, I wouldn't have even been driving. And then here we are, this sort of chance encounter happens, which is sort of how life goes, right?

6:42We think we want things to be a certain way. We work very hard for them to operate a certain way, for things to go according to plan. And yet when we actually look at our life, when we look at where we are and where we've ended up, it's almost always the result of things not going our way, things not going to plan. I'll take you way, way back to the year 165 AD. Marcus Aurelius is the emperor of Rome, and a plague breaks out. It's actually brought back by soldiers from the Far East. It's essentially a global pandemic that overwhelms not just Rome, but most of the known world. Millions of people die.

7:27It is a horrendous pandemic. We call it the Antonine Plague after Marcus Aurelius, although it's not his fault. It is the sort of seminal moment of his reign, and in fact is not the only moment. COVID lasts for a couple years. The Antonine Plague lasts for more than a decade and a half. Marcus Aurelius also faces historic flooding. Marcus Aurelius deals with a coup attempt. There is effectively a civil war. There is an invasion at the borders. And then there's just the normal problems that come from being the head of an empire of 50 million people. And one ancient historian, Cassius Dio, says about Marcus that Marcus doesn't meet with the good fortune that he deserves.

8:13He says his whole reign is met by a series of troubles. And Marcus himself notices this. You can tell he trained his whole life for this job. And yet he doesn't get any of the things, any of the breaks that he hoped to get. Marcus Aurelius writes in meditations, he says, it's unfortunate that this happened. Then he tries to catch himself. He goes, no, wait, it's not unfortunate that this happened. it's fortunate that it happened to me, right? That I've trained for it, that I've prepared for it, that I'm ready for it, that I have what it takes to deal with it, that I am in fact a leader who's going to step up and deal with it rather than someone who's going to run away from it.

8:58And that's what he tries to do. He tries to step up. The idea of the obstacle is the way, when Mark Surrealist in meditation says, the impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. This is what he's talking about. He's talking about the idea that we don't control what happens, but we control how we respond to what happens. And this is my favorite part of that quote from that historian, Cassius Dio, that I was telling you. He says, you know, Marcus doesn't meet with the good fortune that he deserves. His whole reign is met by a series of troubles. But he says, I, for my part, admired him all the more because of this, because he never lost command of himself or the empire, right?

9:41His point was Marcus Aurelius is Marcus Aurelius, is considered a great man because of what he went through, because of what happened. And this is what Marcus is trying to remind himself in the moment in meditations, that this thing can be an opportunity, that this thing can be fuel, that this thing that went exactly the way he didn't want it to go can, as Admiral Stockdale famously said, what we now call the Stockdale paradox, this can be the thing that in retrospect, we would not trade away. So how does Marcus do this? How does he decide to see this immense obstacle, difficulty, one bad break after another as an opportunity?

10:28Stoicism is really this three-part process that I write about in the book. begins with the discipline of perception, how we see things, how we choose to look at things, of course, is a huge part of it. And even just the idea that knowing, okay, when I look back at the obstacles or the difficulty or the adversity that I went through in my life, that it did positively shape me, that I wouldn't trade it in respects, gives us some perspective here in the present moment. But I think understanding that while we don't control what's happening around us. We do control our emotions. We control our opinions.

11:01We control our views. We control how we choose to see things. And that this lens, the lens in which we look at things, is not just the first step, but the primary step in responding to adversity or difficulty. The Stoics said, look, positive visualization is well and good, seeing things going well, imagining success. But we also have to practice a kind of negative visualization, a preparation for adversity so that when things do go sideways, which they inevitably will, we'll be prepared for them. This is what the training that all of you undergo is for, whether it's in a simulator, whether it's a drill, whether it's basic training.

11:44The Stoics would talk about how we have to undergo a hard winter training so that when we face difficulties, were able to say, ah, yes, this is what I trained for. So Mark Smith doesn't meet with the good fortune that he deserved, but in another sense, he meets for exactly what he trained for, which is adversity and difficulty.

12:10We just took our kids to an outdoor performance at The Nutcracker. They had a snow cone, and then they went insane in the car ride home. And one of the things I try to remind myself when that's happening is that I don't control my kids' behavior, especially when they're too far gone like that, but I do control how I respond, right? That's stoicism, but it's also what Dr. Becky talks about. Dr. Becky is a clinical psychologist and a best-selling author, and she founded Good Inside, which is there to give parents practical, actionable tools for handling those everyday challenges with confidence.

12:45My wife introduced me to Dr. Becky's books. I love them. I've recommended them a million times. I've had her on the podcast. And as it happens, Dr. Becky is hosting two live Q &A events for good inside members. I am one of them. She signed me up for it about a year and a half ago. I've loved it ever since. On December 1st, you can join Dr. Becky for her How Not to Raise Assholes event, which is about avoiding entitlement and raising kind, empathetic kids. And on December 15th, she's hosting her How Not to Lose It Over the Holidays event, which I'm sure we could all use. As I said, I'm a big fan of Dr.

13:22Becky. She's been a great influence for me as a parent and just as a human being. And Daily Stoic listeners can join for 15 % off with code STOIC15. You just got to head over to goodinside.com to catch the events.

13:42so this idea of the discipline of perception how we see things that events are outside us and objective but our opinions about them our view on them is something we control that are that is subjective that we have to uh we have to try to see these things as clearly uh and with as much agency as possible is the sort of first part of this discipline of stoicism the next discipline would be the discipline of action. What do you do about it? Right. It's not. There's a famous story about Eisenhower after the invasion in Normandy. They're facing this massive Nazi counteroffensive and he calls everyone in in a conference room.

14:19Not like not unlike the one that some of you are sitting in right now. And he says the present situation is to be regarded as opportunity for us and not disaster. He says, I only want to see cheerful faces around this conference table. But it doesn't end there, of course, right? It's then what are the actions that they're going to take? What is the plan we're putting into action? What is the action that we are taking that's going to allow this disaster to actually be an opportunity? In the case of Eisenhower there, he's realizing that if they can absorb this counteroffensive, if they can sort of bend and not break, it's actually going to turn into a massive overreach for the Nazis, the Battle of the Bulge.

15:05That bulge looks like it's in the favor of the Germans for some time, but inevitably, inexorably, it becomes very clear that this is a massive trap. Patton describes it as having stuck their head in a meat grinder. He realizes that when they can eventually get to the point where they sew the bulge up or the pocket up, it's basically the beginning of the end for the Nazis. And that's what Eisenhower realizes in this moment, right? That's the discipline of perception. But the action is then doing the work methodically, disciplinely, you know, chipping away at this thing, putting the plan into action.

15:48That, of course, is the most critical discipline, how you see things matters, but then what you do about them. And I particularly like how the Stoics render the discipline of action. Marx Aurelius refers to it as unselfish action, right? He talks about the common good, something like 40 or 50 times in meditations. He says, what's bad for the hive is bad for the bee. He also talks about, and I think this is important, talks about asking for help. One of his only explicit mentions of military service, he says, we are like soldiers storming a wall. If one has to reach up and ask a comrade for help, so what?

16:30Right. His point is that it's actually selfish not to ask for help, right? That it's weak not to ask for help. There's a book I like to read my kids called The Boy, the Fox, the horse and the mole. And there's a line in it and it says, asking for help isn't giving up, asking for help is refusing to give up. And the idea that this is a, particularly in your line of work, that you are on a team, that you are part of an organization, you are part of a group, the actions that one takes has to be for the good of the group, but also selfishly sitting on something they're struggling with, refusing to ask for help, refusing to speak up, refusing to ask questions, refusing to admit certain things, right?

17:16This is not only selfish, this is not only self-destructive as an individual, but it undermines the integrity or the strength of the whole. Then the final discipline for the Stoics would be the discipline of the will. What is the fortitude or strength or determination one brings to what is going to be a long, hard slog? That is what life is, a long, hard slog. Marcus Aurelius refers to, he says, life is warfare and a journey far from home. And I think he means that figuratively, but he also means it literally. At one point, Marcus spends seven years away from Rome. This is a man who loved books, who loved philosophy, who loved civilization and culture.

18:05And he spends seven years in the muddy camps of of the Roman frontier. You can actually visit one of them at a quincum right outside Budapest. It's beautiful now. It would not have been so beautiful 2 ,000 years ago. But Marcus Aurelius cultivates a kind of inner citadel. He would spend each night journaling. He would spend his time with his books when he could carve out little moments. But most of his time was spent working, was spent enduring unpleasantness, was spent having to withstand cold or heat or fatigue like any good soldier would have to do. But without the cultivation of that kind of inner strength or fortitude, one isn't going to make it not just through one problem, as we're talking about, but one problem after another.

19:00There's a Haitian proverb, behind mountains, there are more mountains. Right. When you think you've done it, you are informed of the next thing. This is probably not that dissimilar to the way that some of you in your career have risen up through the ranks. You you you think promotion, getting a promotion is going to be awesome. It's going to be wonderful. In fact, it's just introducing you to a whole new set of problems and responsibilities to say nothing of a whole new set of skills and traits that you're going to have to cultivate. So we like to think there's some point that we arrive, that some point we solve things, at some point we graduate.

19:39But that's, of course, not how it is. It's one thing after another. And one has to cultivate the fortitude to be able to handle that, the strength to be able to handle that. And the Stoics would say, master the art of acquiescence, right? The Stoics use this word ascent. They don't mean like ascent up a mountain. They mean ascent, A-S-S-E-N-T, which means acceptance, right? Which means saying it is what it is, right? It will always be thus. This is the situation, fighting it, denying it, resenting it, dreading it. none of this is putting you any closer towards actually solving it. So the art of acquiescence for the Stoics is a huge part of this third discipline of the will, because once you have accepted it, once you have come to terms with it, then you can get to work solving it.

20:36So Mark Zarela sums these up pretty nicely in meditations. He says, objective judgment now at this very moment. Then he says unselfish action now at this very moment. Then he says willing acceptance now at this very moment. So objective judgment, this would be the discipline of perception. That's how we decide to see things. Do we see it as fortunate or unfortunate, fair or unfair, good or bad, something we're going to solve or something that's putting us out of commission? Then unselfish action? Are we working for the good of the team? Are we working for the good of the service? Are we working for the good of humanity or the cause that we have committed to?

21:19Are we putting other people first? Are we focusing on what we can do about this, not what caused it, not who's to blame, et cetera. And then the discipline of the will, this would be the willing acceptance of the art of acquiescence. But I think Marcus really quite beautifully illustrates how this comes together. there is a, I don't want you to think that stoicism is this kind of resignation. There's a word that comes to us from Nietzsche. I wasn't exactly a fan of the stoics, but I think he's encapsulating what the stoics mean when he says amor fati or a love of fate. And in meditations, Mark Cirilli says a strong stomach digests what it eats.

22:00And he says a fire turns whatever is thrown into it, into flame and brightness. Amor fati means a love of fate. It means embracing what has happened, not just resenting it or coming to terms with it, but deciding to use it to be made better for it. And I referenced Stockdale earlier. Stockdale shot down over Vietnam. He'd been introduced to the Stoics as a graduate student at Stanford, which the Navy had sent him to before the war. And as he's parachuting into what he knows is going to be imprisonment at best, a summary execution at worst, he says, I'm leaving the world of technology and I'm entering the world of Epictetus, Epictetus being a great Stoic philosopher who influenced Mark Savelius.

22:51And in that prison camp where, as I'm sure you all know, Stockdale responds with heroism and service and selflessness and sacrifice and great courage. But he would say that he decided there that if he was going to survive, he would turn this into the best thing that had ever happened to him, something that in retrospect, he would not change, that it would be the defining moment of his life. And that is what I think Marcus Aurelius was talking about when he said, is this fortunate or unfortunate? I think that's what Nietzsche meant when he said amor fati, that you love your fate, even if you wouldn't have chosen it, it was chosen for you.

23:34And so you have the opportunity to turn it into something. And then finally, what Marcus Aurelius was saying when he said that a fire turns what you throw into it into flame and brightness. Had that fire in Stockdale been lesser, had it been a puny little sparkler, then perhaps the enormity of the stress and adversity of the Hanoi Hilton would have snuffed it out. But it was strong enough that even imprisonment, even torture, even the death of people that he loved and cared about, even seven years away from his family, was actually a transformative experience that made him better, that made the Navy better, that ultimately, I think, made our country better, and then moved the philosophy of Stoicism, not just better, but to millions of people all over the world.

24:20So what the Stoics are effectively saying is, look, we don't control what happened. We don't control that it happened. It did happen. Whatever it is, it's over and it's done. It's there. What we control is what we do next. What we control is what we turn it into. What we control is who we become as a result of what we've experienced, witnessed, gone through, you know, We're done. And so that's the thought I wanted to leave you all with is where do you go from here? What does this mean to you? And how can the actions you take in response to the circumstances you're in become something that in a few years from now, or in many years from now, all of you individually and collectively look back at this moment and see how you have been positively transformed and changed and improved as a result of what you experience as individuals, as professionals, as team members, as citizens here in this great nation?

25:28How is this experience one that in retrospect, you would not trade away? We have that power, no plague, no unfairness, no outbreak of conflict or hostility or diagnosis from a doctor. Nothing changes our ability. We have the power always to transform the events, minor or major, in our lives into a positive experience by learning from them, by growing from them, by making changes from them. And that's the note I wanted to leave all of you with.

26:06Thanks 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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