This Is The Only Place To Look For Approval | Ask Daily Stoic

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1:09most people are not very bright, hold regressive or alarming opinions, and generally follow the herd. And yet somehow we think it's vindication when they love us. It's nonsense. It's pretty strange how much we value the respect of people we don't respect and the lengths we're willing to go to get it. If you are ever tempted to look for outside approval, Epictetus said, realize that you have compromised your integrity. If you need a witness, be your own. This was something Marcus Aurelius wrestled with even more than Epictetus because he was a public person. He saw crowds cheering him in the street.

1:46People flocked to court to heap praise on him before asking for favors. He also had to put up with their jeers and criticisms. Eventually, he realized that he couldn't pay attention to any of it. He had to hold himself to his own standard, an inner scorecard, and ignore everything else. The clapping was meaningless. The boos were too. What mattered was his own integrity. He had to be his own witness. And today, so do you. It doesn't matter what other people say or think. Approval or disapproval are equally meaningless. What matters is what you know is right and whether you do it.

2:31Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. Hope you are having a great Thursday. I just flew back. I was in Chicago yesterday, dropped my kid off at school, flew to Chicago, had enough time to go for a long run, swim in the lake, give the talk. Well, actually, it was just a Q &A. That's why I'm talking about it here on a Thursday, because Thursdays we do Q &A. Did the Q &A with some healthcare executives, raced to the car, got to Midway Airport just in time to fly home to be quite delayed, get home at 1 a.m. And then here I am back at the office talking to you. In today's episode, these are some questions when I did a session with the Naval Information War Command back a few months ago.

3:21Talked about a thousand wonderful officers, civil servants, vets, federal employees. The NAVWR is basically an acquisition command. They focus on the science and the engineering and the research and the development of the Navy. And it was a talk called Applying Stoic Methods in the Workplace. I talked about how some of the Stoic virtues can help them be better leaders and communicators. And then I answered their questions, which is one of my favorite things to do. This was booked before the incident at the Naval Academy before I was, what I suspect is now persona non grata, so I was thankful that they were nice enough to have me on anyway.

4:01I'm sure they took some heat for it, or maybe I flew under the radar and I didn't, although it would be ironic if the Naval Information Warfare Command was off the radar of the leaders there. Anyways, here's the Q &A, and I hope you are all doing well.

4:21we just took our kids to an outdoor performance the nutcracker they had a snow cone and then uh 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 bestselling author, and she founded Good Inside, which is there to give parents practical, actionable tools for handling those everyday challenges with confidence. My wife introduced me to Dr.

4:58Becky'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. Becky. She's been a great influence for me as a parent and just as a human being.

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7:23Next question is, I'm very flexible to change and have the mindset that of a contortionist, I think I said that right, in a carnival. But what do you say about the old saying, don't change what's not broken? Yeah, I think that expression is actually don't fix what isn't broken. So the idea is sometimes we're meddling for the sake of meddling, or we are jumping on a trend or a bandwagon because everyone else is doing it, and we end up breaking something in the name of fixing it. And obviously, that's not good. I mentioned that quote from Churchill earlier, and it's something I think a lot about when I'm thinking about change.

8:07Basically, one of his aides, I believe, said, the genius of Churchill was that he venerated tradition but despised convention. And so convention to me is the status quo, the way we've always done things. Well, that's what my boss told me, or that's how I was taught it when I started. You know, that's something different than a bedrock principle or value. Cato was known as the protector of the mas maorum or the old way of doing things. But that wasn't, you know, I think that was a values proposition, not a, well, this is how my father said it, so it must be right. I think we have to be able to adjust and adapt, but then we have to protect what's truly important.

8:54And, you know, Cato is not the perfect example of this and that sort of Cato's inflexibility, his lack of ability to adjust, which he obviously believed was deeply principled. But part of a politician's job is to adapt and adjust and to find coalitions and to compromise. Part of Cato's intransigence is what facilitates the rise of Julius Caesar. And Plutarch would talk about how Cato in some ways brings about the thing that he fought his whole life to prevent because he was so inflexible and unable to adjust and adapt to the uniquely modern problems of his time. So there's a balance here, a tension, to be sure.

9:42We can't throw everything out, and we also can't preserve everything as it always was. I think that's the balance we have to strike. From Stephen, the obstacle book uses examples of historical figures facing major challenges. How do you see the obstacle is the way applying to smaller, more everyday obstacles like parenting, procrastination, self-doubt, or difficult relationships? Sure. I think stoicism applies there just as much as the little thing. I don't think anyone would have read a book about stories about Socrates adjusting to his shoelaces breaking or getting a toothache or something. So obviously when I'm writing a book, I want to talk about sort of bigger, more inspiring, interesting examples.

10:30Socrates does have a difficult marriage, and he said he always saw it as training ground for philosophy. Marcus Aurelius has difficult children, has health problems, and he has to figure out how to deal with them. You want to talk about mundane problems? Let me read you the opening of Book Five of Meditations, because it's about as mundane and relatable as they get. At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself, I have to go to work as a human being. What do I have to complain of if I'm going to do what I was born for? And he says, or is this what I was created for, to huddle under the blankets and stay warm?

11:09And he says, but it's nicer here. So you were born to feel nice instead of doing things and experiencing them? You know, he goes on and on. But I thought about that passage this morning when I had to get up at 5.30 to take my son to school. We have a very long commute. And I was like, I would like to not do this, but that's my job as a parent. That's my job as a person. And I wanted to come here and talk with all of you. And one had to follow from the other. So I threw off the covers and I got after it. Next question from Travis. Since Marcus Aurelius never intended for meditations to be read by the masses, talk a bit about the unseen work and those echoes of good that we'll never see.

11:53At times, this can be a great motivator. Yeah, that's a fascinating question. So for people who don't know, meditations is not a work of philosophy. as we would typically think it, it's the byproduct of philosophy. Marcus Aurelius was journaling to himself, trying to remind himself of his philosophical principles as he was regularly falling short of them and dealing with difficulties. And the byproduct is this book, which we don't even fully understand how or why it survived. It is a freak of history. So the idea of doing things because they are good processes, because they make us better, because they're the right thing to do, and not thinking so much about recognition, appreciation, how it's going to be received, that is embodied right here in meditations.

12:48And I think the best work and the best deeds follow along similar lines. One of the things that Marcus talks about in meditations is this idea of not asking for the third thing. He says, you've done something good and someone has benefited from it. Why, as like a fool, do you turn around and expect a thank you or a favor in kind? You know, we do the right thing because it's the right thing. We do our job because it's our job. It's what we're called to do. Whether we're always going to be appreciated, acknowledged, rewarded for it. You know, the annals of American military bureaucratic history are actually filled with stories of people doing the right thing, doing the selfless thing, doing the heroic thing, and then being punished for it, being fired for it, being criticized for it.

13:39In the Justice book, I talk a lot about a famous whistleblower who ultimately ends up having to sue the president of the United States because Nixon gets him fired for pointing out cost overruns in the Pentagon. It would be wonderful if we always appreciated whistleblowers, if we always gave stealthless civil servants their recognition and appreciation. The reality is that we don't. We appreciate it often too little too late. That's not what ought to motivate anyone. And if that is what you're motivated, if what was motivating you was recognition and financial compensation, you probably picked the wrong line of work, right?

14:21You picked this because you think it's important, because you think it matters, because it's satisfying to you. And the Stokes would say, we have to let that be our sufficient motivation. What podcasts, if any, do you enjoy? and of course that is besides the daily podcast well i definitely don't listen to my own podcast that would that would be weird but this morning on my drive i was listening to ezra klein uh it's a podcast the new york times it was a really interesting episode this morning about what you ought to teach your kids in a world of ai i like daniel tasha's podcast which i think is funny i like mark maron's podcast uh i like fly on the wall which is about saturday night live most of the podcasts I listen to are usually humorous or have nothing to do with sort of what I do professionally.

15:12How would a Stoic know it's time to rest rather than grind without feeling like they're quitting? Yeah. There's a great Latin expression that's a favorite of the Emperor Augustus, which he gets from his Stoic teacher. It's Fistina Lente, make haste slowly. Sometimes we're all go, go, go, work, work, work, grind, grind, grind. But as I have experienced a handful of times in my life, you know, because I didn't want to take a break, I overtrained and I got injured and then I missed more time than if I had had a rest or recovery day. I don't know if there's a hard and fast rule exactly when you should, but let's start by just recognizing that we can't be doing all the time.

15:55We have to rest. We have to recover. We have to take care of ourselves. We have to do what we're trying to do sustainably if, in fact, we are trying to do it for a long period of time. You write about the ego and overcoming it. How do you personally find the balance between healthy ambition and ego-driven goals given your status as not only a famous writer and personality, but as a father and husband? And a follow-on question, are you happy with the balance in your life? I mean, look, the balance in our lives can always be better, and it's something I feel like I am constantly working on. But I try to make sure that my goals are not motivated by ego.

16:34I try to be focused on process. I try to be focused on the things that I control. Like I control what I put into my books. I control whether I do my best or not. I don't control necessarily how they are received. I control whether I am a good writer. I don't, to use your phrase, and certainly not how I see myself, I don't control whether I am a famous writer, or whether I am a well-liked writer, or anything like that. All those things are for other people to decide and to think. I control whether I show up and I do my job, whether I do my job well, whether I am training and improving and getting better.

17:16So I've said this before, but I'm very ambitious as a writer. I am not that ambitious as an author. As a writer, I am trying to always challenge myself and get better and add things to my game and to improve on what I did before. I am not trying to outsell what I have done before. I am not trying to beat anyone else. I mean, look, there, obviously, I think we're all competitive and there are times I'll find myself drifting or, oh, I wonder how they got that. Or I think I can do that. We all do that. We all want to be well compensated and rewarded for what we do. But I try to make sure that that's not my motivation.

17:55And that's certainly not my primary thought or measurement of how I'm doing.

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