This Is a Very Important Conversation You’re A Part Of | Jaimie Alexander’s Daily Stoic Practice

0:00Ryan Holiday: Today's podcast is sponsored by Rayneo, a brand at the forefront of augmented reality and smart eyewear. And they are thrilled to announce their new IO smart glasses. Designed to be comfortable daily eyewear, Rayneo IO smart glasses integrate powerful smart technology features that enhance your everyday life. With LifeLog, you can effortlessly capture daily moments hands-free as a second brain that remembers what you see and experience. and that allows you to stay fully present. Through automated journaling, AI curates your day by summarizing activities, interactions, and highlights into a beautifully organized personal journal.

0:36Ryan Holiday: And with their AI multi-model subscription service, users can access Rainio AI in Gemini for free or upgrade for$9.99 a month to experience ChatGPT and DeepSake. There's even a voice memo and AI summary feature that can record meetings and sudden inspirations and let the AI instantly transcribe and summarize them for you. The Rayneo I.O. smart glasses are perfect for professionals, parents, or anyone handling high information density. You can check them out at Rayneo.com, R-A-Y-N-E-O.com. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

1:23Ryan Holiday: Around 2300 years ago, a man stood on a porch in Athens and started a conversation. His name was Zeno. The porch was the stoa pochile, the painted porch. The conversation was about how to live, what matters, what do we owe each other, how do we become better people? Cleanthes and Chrysippus carried this conversation forward. Diogenes brought it to Rome. Seneca explored these questions in letters to a friend. Epictetus discussed them with his students. Marcus Aurelius took them up in his private journal, quoting earlier thinkers, wrestling with their ideas, bringing them to bear in his own life.

2:01Ryan Holiday: Between them and after them were generations and generations of Stoics, reading, talking about, translating, publishing those works. Montaigne picked up the conversation in his essays. Elizabeth Carter translated Epictetus into English. Thomas Wentworth Higginson brought out an edition for American readers. Stockdale was introduced to it at Stanford. Years later, Steve Hanselman, my co-writer on The Daily Stoic, encountered Higginson's Epictetus while studying at Harvard Divinity School. That book led him into Stoicism, and eventually we'd collaborate on this book that became The Daily Stoic, and maybe that's how you were introduced to Stoicism.

2:40Ryan Holiday: That's how this conversation goes and is going. Someone reads something, they think about it, they share it, they help another person see something that they missed. And, you know, 10 years ago now, we added our own contribution to that conversation when we published The Daily Stoic, the idea of one page a day of Stoic philosophy. But the conversation didn't stop there, right? I studied and wrote about and thought about and read about the Stoics in the intervening decade. And so I just had this recent chance to go back through the book and make it better. And that's what we're calling the Daily Stoic 10th Anniversary Edition.

3:26Ryan Holiday: It's got new quotes. It's got new stories. It's got new meditations. I think it's a much better book. There are more voices in it now, more ideas, more context, more of the ideas that Steve and I have learned since we first put it together. Now, the words of the Stoics themselves haven't changed. But what matters is what they mean. The world around us has changed. And you have changed, too. You have become a part of this. When you've emailed me, when you've underlined a passage, when you've shared it, when you've highlighted something. And so that conversation that began on a porch in Athens 2 ,300 years later is still going strong.

4:01Ryan Holiday: And that's amazing. And that's lovely. And it's been such an incredible privilege to be a part of it. And I want to keep it going. And I have no plans to stop. You can grab the 10th anniversary edition of the Daily Stoic, signed and numbered first editions at dailystoic.com slash DS10. You can also grab the new leather-bound edition, which is really, really cool. Hopefully that'll last you the next 10 years. All of that at dailystoic.com slash DS10.

4:33Ryan Holiday: I am ready for the weather to turn because I'm tired of t-shirts. I want to go back to my sweaters. I usually wear sweaters when I'm on stage or when I'm recording stuff, but not like around, not during the day, because it's like, I don't know, 100 degrees here still. But I got some great sweaters from Quince that I am excited to wear. I got some last year. I picked some new ones out, and they're just hanging on the shelf ready to go into the rotation. Quince has got great T-shirts. They've got great light sweaters. And everything at Quince is priced 50 % to 80 % less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen, so you're paying for quality, not brand markup.

5:14Ryan Holiday: And Quince goes way beyond clothing. They've got sofas and ceramic cookware, premium bedding. It's the kind of brand you can end up recommending to everyone for everything. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. and when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was The Daily Stoic. It's the best way to support the show. Look, hiring is make or break for a business, especially if you're a small business. You can't just hope that you find the right people.

5:53Ryan Holiday: Hope is never a strategy, but when it comes to recruitment, it's not gonna work. So when the pressure's on and you need the right hire, this is a job for sponsored jobs. Indeed, sponsored jobs gets you the quality candidates when you need them the most. It's how you get your job seen. And with Indeed Sponsored Jobs, you'll get matched with and hire quality candidates who can drive the results you'll need. And plus, with Indeed Sponsored Jobs, you only pay for results. People are finding quality hires on Indeed right now. In the minute or so we've been talking here, companies have made dozens of hires on Indeed according to Indeed data worldwide.

6:29Ryan Holiday: So join the 3.3 million employers worldwide that use Indeed to connect with quality talent that fits their needs. And listeners of this show will get a$75 sponsored job credit to help your job get the premium status it deserves at Indeed.com slash podcast. Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and support the show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. If you're hiring now, then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.

7:02Ryan Holiday: I read somewhere that you read a Stoic passage every day. Okay, I do. I actually brought my daily Stoic book because whether you like it or not, you're going to sign it. So I used to have meditations and I would read that. And I would, you know, sometimes I don't have a ton of time to sit and meditate on it. So what I love that you've done is you've brought this ancient philosophy and you have made it so much more digestible for the modern person. And these teachings, honestly, they were popular at some points in history, right? Like repeatedly. But in all honesty, when I mentioned Stoicism, a lot of people are like, what's that?

7:38Like you're stoic, like you're strong, you stand up tall, and you're like, not quite. And so when I start to talk about it, they're always like, wow, I mean, yeah, I've thought that way or I felt that way. And so I recommend your book because I say, look, not only are you just getting Marcus Aurelius, you're getting Epictetus, you're getting Seneca, you're getting all these different avenues of stoicism, of the philosophy, and you're getting somebody who is alive right now that's putting it out there in real time. so that if you read a text and you're like, hmm, I'm not quite sure what that means, it's like, you know what?

8:09Here's an interpretation at the bottom of the page. Does that give you something to think about? And so what I do is every morning I wake up. This is part of my morning routine to keep my head screwed on straight. I wake up, I write a gratitude list that's half a page. And it can be silly things. It can be something grand. I just say, look, it's, again, the whole spectrum, right? I have a lot to be grateful for. And it puts my mind in a state of focus on what's working, like what's going good, you know, because there's a lot of stuff. I mean, you can have something bad happen in your life and then that's all you see.

8:40And it's like, hold on, two things can be happening at the same time and even more. So I do that. Actually, wrong. Right before I do the gratitude list, I read a passage from The Daily Stoic.

8:50Ryan Holiday: Oh, wow. And then I take that and I think about it and I say, hmm, I'm going to carry that with me today and I'm going to apply the lesson. and and and I catch sometimes I'll take a screen grab on my phone if it's a little longer because I want to read it again yeah and so then I write the gratitude list then I have these little intention cards that I found that I've had for like 15 years or something and I'll just pull a random card and also carry that intention and then I start my day and I I just I feel grounded because I feel very aligned with this philosophy. And look, yes, as a woman saying this, you know, I haven't encountered many female Stoics.

9:30I have encountered a lot of women that I think already sort of have this philosophy within them that don't realize that it matches Stoicism. But I can't say that the Stoics treated women very well. You know, there's a lot of history in there that's a little dodgy, but it's a sign of the times and whatnot. And I'm sure there were female Stoics. They just weren't recorded as often because they couldn't be.

9:51Ryan Holiday: Well, I mean, this is a world where like all the women in your line of the family would just have the same name. So it's like. Yes. Yeah. That's true. Julius Caesar, Julius Caesar, Julius Caesar. You know, it's just like how it would go. So, yeah, we don't have great records. But not to say that that can't, you know, you doing what you're doing. It's like this is part of the legacy. And this is how I see it. just coming from my perspective is like you are taking something that is so profound that I have found that helps me in my daily life that has helped give me a sense of peace that I have trouble reaching on my own.

10:27You've taken it, made it accessible, and that's part of your legacy.

10:32Ryan Holiday: Well, that's very nice. You're talking about being a service. Someone did that for me, and I'm just sort of paying that forward. That's what sort of gets me going. Is it green? Is that who you're talking about? You want to know who introduced me to stoicism? Dr. Drew. Oh, I knew that. I remember hearing about that. It was a very random set of circumstances. But see, perfect, got you to pay attention. Somebody gives you the book and then, I mean, you can give someone the tools and then do, you know, it's ultimately on them to read it or apply it or do what they are going to do with it. But yeah, I found this thing.

11:01Ryan Holiday: It did something for me. And then you're sort of, I feel like life is about paying it forward. I agree. I love that philosophy. So how do you feel now knowing, I mean, again, and this isn't from an egoic perspective, it's like, do you feel like you are very much in line and aligned with why you were put on this planet? Yeah, I mean, I feel like this is what I'm meant to do. In a way, the success of it complicates it because there's just a lot of people involved. And I don't just mean there's like a lot of there's like a big team, which there is. It's not just me. But I mean, there's just like a lot of people involved with me and the thing that I would also quietly be spending time with.

11:40Ryan Holiday: Yeah. Anyway, like as helpful as it's been to me and as much as I try to apply to my life, my personal application of it is a constant struggle like it is for everyone. But there's also just like this is like the thing that's creatively and artistically fulfilling to me. But then it involves lots of people. Does that make sense? It's like, yeah, yeah. That's the weird part. But would you say that that might be how you know that it is your purpose is that you would be doing it without the notoriety as well? I think so. Yeah. So it's naturally in you. It's something that you. And then it's also like what I feel like I think stoicism is a philosophy that I'm lit up by.

12:19Ryan Holiday: But then writing is the profession that I'm lit up by. And they just happen to have merged. And so that's a weird. Do you know what I mean? I mean, if I was like personally into stoic philosophy and then I wrote, you know, like murder mystery, murder mysteries or, you know, historical fiction or whatever, it would be there would be a separate there'd be like a church and state there. But there isn't. So it's it's a little it can be a little weird. I actually find that to be very similar to Marcus Aurelius. Yeah, maybe. In the sense that, like, he did this thing as a way to help himself stay grounded and help him rule in the best way that he saw fit.

12:58So it's kind of one of those things where he was constantly humbled every day by these two things that were intersecting quite often.

13:05Ryan Holiday: Well, I think it's like if you had asked him at 20 what he wanted to do with his life, he would have said, I want to be a philosopher. Right. And then he gets sort of selected or drafted into being the emperor. And I think what I would make up, and if I was doing it in fiction, I would show him as being quite torn by this. And only later in life, after a lot of struggle and resistance, does he realize that they're the same thing. And that actually he was uniquely suited to be a king who was a philosopher as opposed to a philosopher who had opinions about how a king should be. Sure. But I think that's common is like we think our job or our path or what we are chosen for is this.

13:47Ryan Holiday: And it's actually this. And it's only an understanding that they're much more similar, that eventually they converge, that we're sort of really doing what we're supposed to be doing. Yeah. I think that's a big relief in life. Yeah. When you stop trying to fight, you're like, no, no, I don't want that thing. I want this thing. And you realize actually, in some ways, this thing is what's actually going to allow you to do that thing. Yeah, like facilitates it, it preps it. And again, like I see that with Epictetus as well. You know, you're looking at this guy and you're just like, God, he's like the, I mean, talk about like a shitty deck of cards.

14:21Yes. But he didn't let it stop him from writing what he, you know, wrote down in that sense of like going, these are the lessons I'm learning in also weird parallel to Marcus Aurelius.

14:32Ryan Holiday: One is dealt a shittier objectively deck of cards. Yes, objectively. But like neither of them is dealt the hand they would have chosen. And that's what they share in common. And that's where the meditations come from. Yes. That is where this philosophy comes from. I don't think it would have been possible without that two halves of a whole dueling situation that they were both put in. That, of course, then helps me where I'm at in my life and will continue to help me to keep that perspective of like, hmm. Yeah, you don't know. I don't know. That goes to the curiosity. You think your job is X, but the world is telling you, the world's over here trying to hire you for Y.

15:13Yes. And you're like, well, maybe I, instead of fighting it, I'll see if that's actually what I'm supposed to do. What have I got to lose? Like, why not? Like, I think society has given us a template of what we feel because we've seen it. And a lot of people know most of them are miserable. but we go, oh, everybody else has said it's this. So I guess they're right. And it's like, oh no. Well, how do you feel? You know, what do you feel to be true? And I think we all have it in us. We all have that inner knowing and it's just our external world and the people in it, we've allowed them to consciously or unconsciously take us away from our inner knowing.

15:52And things like this, meditations, you know, stoicism in general has helped me get in touch with my inner knowing that I felt or that I feel now has always been there. And I just, it's always been accessible.