The Thing We Never Want To Do | Ask DS

0:00It's time for Cyber Monday, Dell Technologies biggest sale of the year. That's right, you'll find the lowest prices of the year on select Dell PCs like the Dell 16 Plus with Intel Core Ultra processors. And with built-in advanced AI features, it's the PC that helps you do more faster. From smarter multitasking to extended battery life, these PCs get the busy work done so you can focus on what matters most to you. Plus, you can earn Dell rewards and join many other benefits like free shipping, expert support, price match guarantee, and flexible financing options. They also have the biggest deals on accessories that pair perfectly with your Dell PC, improving the way you work, play, and connect.

0:38Whether you just got started holiday shopping or you're finishing up, these PCs and accessories make perfect gifts for everyone on your list. Shop now at dell.com slash deals and don't miss out on the best prices of the year. That's dell.com slash deals.

0:54Look, if you're listening to this podcast, you've probably heard of HelloFresh, right? They're the number one meal kit in America. They make home cooking easier with chef-crafted recipes and fresh ingredients delivered straight to your door. This fall, they're serving up even more to love. It's not the HelloFresh you remember. It's even better. HelloFresh is bigger. They've doubled their menu. You can choose up to 100 options each week. It's healthier. You can choose from 15-plus high-protein recipes. And they now help you eat greener with veggie-packed recipes that have two or more veggies per week.

1:28And it's tastier. You can get steak and seafood recipes delivered every week for no extra cost. They have three times the seafood options. They also have hearty fall recipes like classic beef chili or honey glazed pork tenderloin. We just got home from a week away. We're trying to think about what we're going to eat this week. It was such a relief to see that HelloFresh box sitting on our doorstep when we got home. They've got everything you need for the recipe that they pick out. There's no last minute trips to the store. Plus, the meals are delicious and easy to make. The best way to cook just got better.

2:00Go to HelloFresh.com slash stoic10fm to get 10 free meals plus free breakfast for life. One box with active subscription. Free meals applied as a discount on the first box. New subscribers only varies by plan. That's HelloFresh.com stoic10fm to get 10 free meals plus free breakfast for life.

2:26welcome to the daily stoic podcast where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life well on thursdays we not only read the daily meditation but we answer some questions from listeners and fellow stoics we're trying to apply this philosophy just as you are. Some of these come from my talks. Some of these come from Zoom sessions that we do with Daily Stoic Life members or as part of the challenges. Some of them are from interactions I have on the street when there happened to be someone there recording. But thank you for listening. And we hope this is of use to you.

3:15We know what Seneca thought of Alexander the Great. We know what he thought of Marius. We know what he thought of entitled and gluttonous Romans. We have his seething satire of Claudius. His prolific writings condemn and judge, rightfully so, hypocritical and often miserable folks. We have his hundreds of letters, which are a must read. We have dozens of essays, multiple books that explore these lives and other topics at incredible depth. But you know what we don't know much about? What Seneca thought about himself and his job at Nero's right hand. It's like that line from Taylor Swift's song, Antihero.

3:53Seneca would apparently rather stare directly at the sun than look in the mirror. He's got volumes for other people. He's got an eagle eye for elsewhere. But his own struggles, his own contradictions, his own flaws, well, He never seems to touch on that. And most of us are just like him in that way. We don't want to look in the mirror. We don't want to put ourselves up for review. We can see what everyone else is doing wrong. They're obvious issues and compulsions. But our own, that's where we turn away. I've said this before, but that's one of the things I get the most from ego is the enemy. People want to deal with other people's egos.

4:29And how often do we focus on our own? And I mean, you could say I'm guilty of that also. obviously I can see very clearly where ego and issues have held Seneca back, but how often do we apply that same lens, that same introspection to ourselves? That's the real struggle and the real journey and the real work.

5:05Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another Thursday episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. If you are interested in my stoicism and stuff, you probably haven't read my book on growth hacking because stoicism and growth hacking don't really seem like they have anything in common. Besides the fact that I did and do try to use some of those ideas that I learned about this book that I wrote before I did any of my stoic books in how I've grown daily stoic over the years. That may be ultimately how you ended up discovering the podcast, knowingly or not. But anyways, I gave a talk back in June to some folks at HP.

5:41The talk was ostensibly about marketing and growth hacking. This was to about 100 or so employees in the go-to-market team. And I did talk about marketing and I may bring you that talk some other time, But afterwards, I did a Q &A. We ended up talking about Stoic stuff. And that's what I'm bringing you in today's Q &A episode. Here are some questions from the folks at HP. I think you'll enjoy. I've been noticing recently that Stoicism philosophy has been gaining popularity, especially after the pandemic versus other philosophies. And I'm seeing it everywhere around. Depeche, talking about bands, Depeche Mode, Momentum Mori, you know, that's the name of their tour.

6:29Also, a lot of our ELT folks have been discussing it about stoicism, even in our all hands employee meetings, as well as occasional friends and family. Why do you think that after the pandemic that this is becoming like so popular versus other philosophies? Yeah, well, it's funny that the guy behind you there, Marcus Aurelius. Exactly. That was a test. Marcus also, you know, lived through a pandemic. They actually named it after him. It's called the Antonine Plague. It wasn't his fault, but it sort of happens on his watch and it sort of gets stuck with him. It lasts not for like one or two years, but 15 years.

7:10I think there is, you know, there is first off just the fact that he, like most of the ancients, were not that different than us. Right. They went through difficult times. There were crises. There was political unrest. There were divorces. There was grief. You know, there was loss. There was mistakes. There were bankruptcies. There were ebbs and flows of different trends and, you know, things happening in the market or the, you know, global affairs. And so when you have what meditations is, this is my copy here, meditations is effectively the most powerful man in the world, just talking to himself about what he's going through.

7:52Right. And so I think stoicism as a philosophy that's there to help us with the problems of life practically, as opposed to theoretically, um, is just timeless. Like we were talking about Mark's really says at dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself, I have to go to work, right? Like, so there are five, you know, there, uh, almost 2000 years ago, you have the most powerful man in the world talking about, you know, having a conversation with himself. That's probably not that dissimilar to the conversations we all had this morning. Actually, here, here's another one. Speaking of mornings is clearly he had, he had to wake up like the rest of us.

8:35This is the opening of book two of meditations. He says, when you wake up in the morning, tell yourself the people I will deal with today will be meddling and ungrateful and arrogant and dishonest and jealous and surly. Right. Like probably maybe some of the people that you shared a commute with this morning, right. Or that you, well, I work from home. So maybe these are people that sent you emails while you were sleeping. There you go. The point is people are people and they sort of always been this way. And I think what Marcus is doing in meditation, what the Stoics are doing is sort of tackling those core elements of the human experience that we've always been struggling with.

9:18There's actually a new book coming out about this by Morgan Housel. He wrote this great book called The Psychology of Money, but the new book is called The Things That Don't Change, right? Basically the idea is, which is a similar, I think it's part of Jeff Bezos's philosophy, which is like Great businesses focus on the things that don't change, right? And so what stoicism does at its best is it focuses on the parts of the human experience that don't change, right? And I think great businesses do the same thing. They don't chase fidget spinners or cryptocurrencies or whatever the thing of the moment is.

9:54They focus on the problems that people have had for a long time and likely to have for a long time. I've said this in talks before, but like the best book to have possibly written is probably what to expect when you're expecting. Right. Like that's a problem that's not going anywhere. There's a reason that book is sold millions and millions of copies. Great. Thank you. Yeah. One question I have is, and it's obviously other than your books, what would be the three books you would have to take to Desert Island and read? Yeah, well, okay. So I'll put this translation of Marcus Aurelius at the top.

10:35This is the Gregory Hayes translation for the modern library. I've read it many hundreds of times over almost 20 years now. And so it seems to continually give me something new each time I pick it up. I really like, let me see what's behind here. This is a great book by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Leadership in Turbulent Times. It's sort of a greatest hits album of all her best biographies of Lincoln, Roosevelt, and FDR. I guess Lyndon Johnson's in here too. It's probably one of the best leadership books I've ever written or sorry, ever read. Um, what else would I do? This is, um, this is, uh, Viktor Frankl's man search for meaning, which is pretty incredible.

11:30Um, they actually published a new book, uh, which I think is destined to be a classic. They found one of his old lectures. Uh, this is a, this is my copy. My aunt gave me this copy, uh, when I graduated from high school and I've come back to it many, many times. So again, And the ideas that you come back to are what's important. But there's a new edition of Viktor Frankl called Yes to Life that I've been thinking a lot about recently and really enjoyed. So that might be three that I'd start with. I was just curious, and I put this, I don't know if you have the chat up or not, but the HP way is kind of a big thing to us here at HP.

12:08And I'm interested, you know, that I was looking at the definition of stoicism. And one thing I saw was the fact that the practice of virtue is both necessary and sufficient to achieve a well-lived, flourishing life. And I feel like our culture at HP, it kind of aligns with that. And I was just wondering if you comment on kind of how stoicism relates to that HP way I put in there. Well, I love the HP way. I've heard it before. Obviously, it's I think it's hard to find much to argue with in these values. The four values of stoicism, as you mentioned, the word virtue, virtue is obviously singular, but then it's it's also plural.

13:01It's made up of multiple sort of sub-virtues. And the four virtues of Stoicism, I have the symbols of them tattooed on my wrist here. The four virtues of Stoicism are courage, self-discipline, justice, and wisdom. And as I look at these 11 ideas in the HP way or in the ad you mentioned, I find that all of them illustrate one or more of those virtues, right? In some form or another, right? Believe you can change the world. That's courage. So his radical ideas are not are not bad ideas sharing right trust your colleagues this would pull up the virtue of justice right know when to work alone and when to work together this is pulling at the idea of wisdom make a contribution every day.

13:46When I think about self-discipline, I don't think about the idea of some radical self-transformation. I think about the accumulation of small gains, right? Of observing the rules as best you can day in and day out. There's a great rule in writing, which I love. It's just two crappy pages a day, right? You're just trying to make a small contribution every single day. So I would say that as far as corporate values go, which are obviously going to be a little bit different than sort of personal values, because corporations ultimately have, you know, the sort of bottom line stakeholder of the shareholder and sort of needing to ultimately turn a profit for people in a way that perhaps the individual does not.

14:41But as far as corporate values go, I think as close as we can get to the idea of these four virtues, you know, the better and more sustainable we're going to be as a business and as an organizational culture. Hey, Brian, I just recommended a book called The Gap and Gain. I don't know if you've got a chance to read it, but. Is this the Ben Hardy book? Yes. Yes, I know, Ben. something right now that kind of resonated i haven't i mean i'm not even half of it through it but it talks about how we're always pursuing this ideal right and we're always thinking about the gap against that ideal which is a moving target at times right so we're the times that we're going to reach it versus focusing on the gains that we have done being a better person or a better whatever than yesterday yes celebrating those small wins which is what you highlighted can you Give us a little bit more.

15:33I mean, I haven't finished reading it, so you probably have a little bit more perspective on what you just said about that. Yeah, yeah. Well, so not not to not to bring up one of your competitors, obviously, but I've gotten to know Michael Dell here a little bit in Austin. And he was telling me this great acronym that I've been thinking about. It's it's it is basically a sort of personal motto is pleased, but never satisfied. Right. And I think it's a, it's a, it captures the, the only way through that tension that we're talking about, which is like, if all you're focused on is how you can get better, right?

16:09You never celebrate the win. You never feel like it's, it means anything. You're sort of always moving the goalposts. Um, and at the same time, if all you're doing is patting yourself on the back, celebrating how far you've come, you're unlikely to go much further forward. Right. And so, you know, sometimes we see great athletes who are incredibly talented. They've accomplished so much, but all they care about is winning one more, right. And this tears apart families, it tears apart franchises that, you know, they, they stay in the boxing ring too long. Right. And then, and then conversely, if, if all you're doing speak to, to further that boxing metaphor, if all you're looking at is, is how dominant you were in the last fight, uh, that's where the, uh, this, the, the hungry young upstart, you know, uh, catches you, uh, you know, catches you unawares.

17:01And so this idea of being both happy and not complacent, being ambitious, but also not insatiable, I think, is the tension that we're talking about. And the Stoics would have rendered that as the virtue of temperance, right, or the right amount, moderation. And I think that's obviously the balance that we're all trying to strike in everything that we do.

17:32Thanks 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. And I'll see you next episode.

17:53My 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.

18:23From 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. Look, ads are annoying. They are to be avoided, if at all possible. I understand as a content creator why they need to exist.

19:00That'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 an 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.

19:43and 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.