This Is What We Use This For | with Build Up, Don’t Tear Down

0:00You probably heard the headlines about all the different cuts to foreign aid and food benefits. This is having a profound impact on the world's poorest people and the world's poorest communities. But, you know, just hearing about that, that's not what stoicism is about. Stoicism is, to me, what you're going to do about it. And that's where GiveWell comes in. GiveWell is trusted by tens of thousands of donors each year because they provide free and independent research that helps you understand how to have a big impact. GiveWell has spent the last 18 years researching global health and poverty alleviation, and they direct funding to the highest impact opportunities.

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1:13To claim your match, go to GiveWell.org and pick Daily Stoic from the drop-down menu under podcast. That's how they know that you heard about GiveWell from the Daily Stoic and you'll get your donation matched. That's GiveWell.org, code the Daily Stoic to donate or find out more. I got an amazing night's sleep last night. One, because my six-year-old fell asleep in the car at like six o 'clock and he transferred him from the car seat to the bed and it stuck, which is just magic. So he's in bed way earlier than normal. But I sleep really well every night because I have a 8 Sleep Pod 5 Ultra, which is 8 Sleep's best product.

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3:00Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast. Each day we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, illustrated with stories from history, current events, and literature to help you be better at what you do. And at the beginning of the week, we try to do a deeper dive, setting a kind of stoic intention for the week, something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave you with, to journal about, whatever it is you happen to be doing. So let's get into it.

3:37This is what we use this for. On the surface, there are not many phrases designed to be less appealing. Stoic philosophy is like a double whammy of negative for most people, representing emotionless on one hand and abstract or academic thinking on the other. Who wants to be the former and who has time for the latter? And this is all rather tragic considering, you know, not just the actual writings of the Stoics, but their actual lives, which were a direct contradiction of this stereotype. Of the few stories we have of Marcus Aurelius, three involve him crying. In addition to the heartfelt letters he wrote his friend, Seneca's favorite genre to write was known as a consolation, and no one can pick up his essays on grief, one to his mother no less, and think that he was emotionless.

4:24Cato clearly loved his son and daughter and was noted for weeping over the loss of his beloved brother and his passionate objection to tyrants and bullies his whole life. The Stoics were far from emotionless. They were people who loved, who grieved, who cried, who were scared, who sacrificed, who cared about their neighbors, who raised children, who bled and died for change, who strove, who lived. Nor were they pedantic or impractical. Many of the Stoics were too busy doing to even bother writing any philosophy, and the philosophical writings we do have from the Stoics are accessible to readers at every level.

4:59In fact, today's academic philosophers tend not to like Stoicism very much for this very reason. It's not abstract and theoretical enough. For almost a decade now, our mission at The Daily Stoic has been fighting against these centuries-old misperceptions about Stoicism. We're trying to restore this vibrant and action-oriented and paradigm-shifting way of living to its rightful place, which is as a tool in the pursuit of self-mastery and perseverance and wisdom, something one uses to live well and do good. And that's actually why we made this amazing course called Stoicism 101, Ancient Philosophy for your actual life.

5:37It's the absolute best of Stoicism. It's an introduction. It's a survey course, all delivered in 14 days. And since the Launch Stoicism 101 has become our most popular course, and we're doing it again here in 2023 with a live cohort, it's going to be awesome. I'm going to be in there answering your questions, and we're just going to do a deep dive into all things Stoics, all things Stoicism, and distill the absolute best lessons of Stoicism down to their essence and teach you what the philosophy is really about. Whether you're new to stoicism or you've been studying it for years, learning more is always a good thing.

6:11And in these two weeks of emails, almost 20 ,000 words of content, you learn what a stoic does, you learn what a stoic shouldn't do. You learn the stoic secret to success, stoic secrets to resilience, stoic secrets to productivity, what sets stoicism apart from other philosophy, and most importantly, how to live your best life. There's two live video sessions with me, what we're calling office hours, and I'll answer all your stoic questions. And look, the whole course is less than you would pay even to take a full philosophy course at a community college, let alone a university. And it's going to teach you everything you need to know about stoicism, get you started, point you in the right direction.

6:50And this is a live course. It's going to start on Monday, November 6th. And we'll move through the course together. And registration is now open. I'd love to see you in there. Don't delay. Don't put it off. You can click the link in today's show notes or just sign up at dailystoic.com slash 101. That's dailystoic.com slash 101. Registration closes on Tuesday, November 7th. So you got to sign up now.

7:20Now. Build up, don't tear down. Is there a worse environment to work in than one where bullying and one-upsmanship are the norm? Sometimes leaders seem to think that this is part of the job description, that they're there to regulate and keep people in line. In truth, tearing people down is incredibly counterproductive. Pete Carroll, coach of the Seattle Seahawks, poses a question. If self-confidence is so important for players, why would a coach ever risk anything to damage it? Marcus Aurelius, who had the power to take anyone down at will, even kill them, almost never actually did. Instead, he reminded himself that it was better to build up, to be community-minded, modest, prepared, and tolerant of others.

8:04We are made for cooperation, the Stoics said, and to render works held in common. Let's think about that going forward. How can we help build self-confidence of others? How can we find some of our own in doing so? We have two quotes from Marcus today. He says, so someone's good at taking down an opponent. That doesn't make them more community-minded or modest or well-prepared for any circumstances or more tolerant for the faults of others. That's Meditations 7.5.2. And then for Meditations 8.12, he says, whenever you have trouble getting up in the morning, remind yourself that you are made by nature for the purpose of working with others and that our own natural purpose that is more fitting and more satisfying.

8:49When we interviewed Major General Dan Kane in the Leadership Challenge, he was saying that almost never in his career has he ever said, I'm ordering you to do this. I think we have this fantasy that once we really get power, we become head coach, you know, we become a general, then we won't have to ask. We won't have to persuade. We can just demand. But that's not how it works. Eisenhower famously said, the art of leadership is getting people to do things because they want to do them. Right? Randall Stutman, who I talked about last week in the Leadership Challenge, which I urge you all to check out, talks about how the job of a leader is to make people better.

9:25It's not to keep them in line. It's not to break them down. It's not to mold them into who you want them to be. It's to make them the best version of themselves. This is why the stoic virtues of patience and kindness and understanding and empathy are so important. It's not about brute force. A stoic is strict. Yes, strict with yourself, but we try to be tolerant and kind to others. And I struggle with this. I really struggle. I think a lot of people who are good at what they do find it very hard to be patient or tolerant of people who are not good at what they do, especially when those people are getting in the way of what you're trying to do.

9:59And I struggle with that. The moments I've lost my temper, moments I regret as a leader, as a boss, almost invariably come from that sense of frustration. Why? Why? I told you how I wanted this done. I went over it like 15 times. And I have to catch myself and calm myself. And remember, this isn't making anyone better. And it's making me worse. I look like an asshole because I'm being an asshole. And that's not a good way to be. So we have to learn how to keep ourselves in check, how to be strict with what we control, tolerant and understanding and patient with other people and with their actions, because that's not in our control.

10:37And this is one of the things that ancient historians credit Marcus Aurelius with, that he was very tolerant of the flaws with others, that he found a way to work with them, that he found a way to get things out of them, that he found a way to put them to good use. And I think there's not a better endorsement of a leader than that, our ability to not expect perfection of other people. This was something Rick Fox famously said about Kobe Bryant, that Kobe Bryant struggled to realize that not everyone was Kobe Bryant. And in the ancient world, there was an expression, we can't all be Cato's. But no one had to understand this more than Cato, that not everyone was like him, not everyone was as good as him, not everyone naturally understood or was committed to these things the way that he was.

11:20And so you have to understand that your job is still ideally to get people closer to that ideal to make them better. But you're not going to do it through force. You're not going to do it through bullying. You're definitely not going to do it through humiliation. You're definitely not going to do it through yelling. And in fact, when you are yelling, you have almost always screwed up as a boss. Is there tactically, sometimes it needs to be done to send a message? Sure, maybe. But this is almost always a rationalization of an impulse that's gotten out of control or struggle we're having. So today and this week, I want you to think about the idea of being calm, being collected, being kind, being a builder, not a destroyer, being an asker, not an orderer, a demander, right?

12:03Convince, persuade, inspire, don't demand, don't bully, don't force. You will get more this way, I promise. And I hope you journal on this in the Daily Stoic Journal if you're doing it. and just a thought to think about. Build people up, make them better. You don't need sheer force. You don't need anger. You don't need to order them. Persuade. Make them do it because they want to do it. Make them do it because they've seen the results. When you've done it, that's the Stoic way.

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13:58That'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 a 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.

14:42And 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.