This Isn’t How You’ll Be Measured | Ask DS

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1:03Welcome 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 who are 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. Thank you for listening. And we hope this is of use to you.

1:43This isn't how you'll be measured. Seneca was a very rich man. Marcus Aurelius was too. Cicero's family made a fortune in business and he made a fortune in law. We know this from the historical record, of course, but to the vast majority of people who even know the names of these men, their financial success is but a footnote. Instead, we admire Seneca for the incredible philosophy he wrote. We admire Marcus Aurelius for how he lived and who he was as a person. Cicero's inspiring speeches against tyranny and his defense of the republic, this is his legacy. And what mattered far more to the people who knew and loved them in life was something entirely different and far more personal.

2:21We know that's how it works. We know that ultimately our lives are not measured by superficial or materialistic things, yet we spend so much of our lives focused solely on that. Look, if all you want to have is a pile of money at the end, well, I guess that's your choice, Bill Perkins writes in his fascinating book, Die With Zero. But bear in mind, he adds that I have never seen somebody's total net worth posted on their tombstone. When we launched the Wealthy Stoic a couple of months back, our course on what the Stoics taught and thought about money. People assume we were selling stoicism as a success strategy.

2:55We were, just not like they were thinking. Because stoicism is a philosophy designed to help you become wealthy and successful, just not like that. It's a different kind of success, a different definition of wealth. Yes, it's a matter of fact that many of the stoics were literally wealthy, but much more importantly, they were figuratively wealthy. They understood the value of things, what should be prized and what shouldn't be prized, and they knew how little they actually needed. They lived wealthy lives because they knew what was enough, and they were empowered because they could provide for themselves and their families.

3:25But most of all, they were wealthy because their lives were full of purpose and meaning. Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants, Pictetus says. That's what it means to be a wealthy stoic, and that's what we get into in the wealthy stoic course, how to be truly rich, how to get out from under the thumb of money, and how to be happy with enough, how to thrive and succeed and live a good and happy life. If that's the kind of life you want, head over to dailystoic.com slash wealthy. You can sign up today. And remember, if you're a Daily Stoic Life member, you get this course and all our courses for free.

3:56So you can sign up for that over at dailystoiclife.com. And do read Diet With Zero. It's a great book. We had Bill on the podcast recently. I thought it was a great interview and I'll link to that in today's show notes too.

4:13Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another Thursday episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast, where I answer your questions, as you know, and I've been bringing you some little snippets from the Q &As that I did in Sydney and Melbourne. As you know, I'm on tour. I'm going to be in a bunch of different cities in Europe and two in Canada in November. You can grab tickets for London, Rotterdam, Dublin, Vancouver, and Toronto at ryanholiday.net slash tour. But in today's episode, I wanted to bring you some of the questions that the folks asked me in Sydney. I hope you enjoy. Thanks to everyone that came out and it's always a pleasure.

4:50G'day, mate. Good to have you back. It's lovely to hear you describe your time here in the country with your family, which Lisa asked. You didn't mention Daily Dad, which as a father and a stepfather, I find enormously valuable. You've given us a few examples of people who aren't doing this work in the public eye. Who in your mind is doing this work so well as a father and perhaps even the leader of a company or a country? That's a great question. You know, I got so much out of writing The Daily Stoic that everyday thinking about these things, being forced to think about them from these different angles, to repeat these kind of timeless principles over and over again has been so valuable to me personally.

5:34I believe as I started Daily Dad, I was to force myself through that process as a parent. What's important, what actually matters, what's easy to miss, what are the values that I want to parent by? So we started getting that around that idea. I think it started at the Miami. This was maybe two or three, so I've been at it quite a while. And I think it's going to be better. I know it means perfect. I'm struggling with it every day. I lose my temper every single day. Lose my shit every single day, is what I've learned to say. Wonder if you're any good at this. Wonder, you know, if you're doing this well.

6:10I think these are all important questions to be asking, but I've been doing Daily Dad for that reason, and I've gotten a lot out of it, and you can sign up if anyone wants to forget it, it's just dailydad.com. It's not for dads, it's I'm a dad, it's one piece of parent-driven advice every day, but I wish I could say, hey, these people are great parents. Unfortunately, most people in the public eye are not. We find that out in retrospect. and I'll leave it to their kids to decide whether they're good or not but I do try to learn little things here and there this is an interesting way to think about it or conversing here's a colossal tragic mistake that this person made that you can learn from what do the parents who lost children have to tell us what do parents who lost touch with their children what do they have to tell us what do parents who look further along much may have done differently.

7:06That's why I've tried to build it around and it's just my favorite thing to do. So thank you for the much, Brad. Because if anyone is not, I do want to talk to you.

7:18No thanks. Hi. Hi. I think a lot of people in this room would be in a similar boat where you may have invested time to become more self-aware or conscious of your ego which also catalyzes you to reflect on your own life and things you may have done in your life and I've personally experienced moments of reflection or maybe guilt or shame of previous actions which may have been as a result of your ego and they are no longer within your control so wondering how you navigate those experiences where you feel like you're not in control anymore and moving forward with those feelings of guilt-wishing.

8:04Seneca said, when I think of all the things I have said, I am even used.

8:11As someone who's had a deeply unpleasant experience of editing my new books that have come out, I can relate to that. Nothing gets you cringe more than having to see things that you put out in print for millions of people and now you go, what was I talking about? How did I possibly feel qualified to say that? So yeah, I think if you look back on things you have done and said, ways you treat people and you never think, wow, I was an enormous idiot, you are probably in sway of ego. You're either a saint, which you are almost certainly not, or you're delusional. this sort of cringe and pain that you feel.

8:56I mean, a positive way to think about it is we feel that because we've changed and evolved. And it would be strange if we look back at who we were when we were younger, when we knew less and we experienced less, and we're just like, yeah, I got it totally right. And everything that's happened subsequently is that zero new information or perspective, right? So it's good that we have this, but the ability to make events, to own mistakes, to be responsible for things. This is a key thing. This is certainly key as a parent. I don't remember my parents ever apologizing for much. I try to apologize.

9:34I was apologizing today for something I said when I was frustrated. I try to own what I've done. I try to work honestly in the mirror. Sometimes that's really painful. Sometimes you look at it so... You can't look at it straight on. You've got to see it from an angle and you're working on it. But to me, that's a sign of progress. And I'm trying to get better at making amends. And I see that as part of that self-improvement process. That's why we're doing the work. To learn things, to be better, and not be who we used to be. I'm a big fan of yours. Oh, thank you. I have your books here. I wanted to ask you about the daily stuff of today.

10:15Today's one is about not letting your career, you know, be your life sentence and eventually letting it go? Since your career and wave life is stoicism, what is your succession plan? How do you plan to let it go?

10:33What are you trying to say?

10:39No, look, I have a thing I do. I go into, like, music bookstores, and I'm always struck by the large piles they have of books that were once popular and then people got rid of them. They don't want them anymore. No one cares anymore. And you can see, you know, no one's moment in the spotlight is forever. We'd say that everyone has their 15 minutes of fame. You know, no one's career goes on indefinitely. So I try to remind myself, look, there's at some point you reach the peak and it's all downhill from there. It might be slow. It might be steady. But at some point, you have done your best work and everything else is an echo or a shadow of that.

11:28And I try to be honest about the fact that that will happen to me. Maybe it's already happened to me. But in the meantime, I'm going to keep doing my best. I'm going to keep showing up. And I generally, though, try not to think that much about it. how things are selling or how they're doing. You know, early on in my career, as I said, I was like, how do this do? What do they say about it? I would say I was probably 90 % focused on that and 10 % satisfied with the work that I did. I tried to flip that. The irony has been the less I've cared about the external results and the status or the recognition of it, the better I seem to have done.

12:08Right thing right now, we're going to be the number one in the U.S. in June, which is actually a surprise. It was very cool, but it wasn't what I was thinking about. Now maybe that's the high water mark. And if so, so be it. I'll gladly take that as a high water mark. And in the meantime, I just want to keep doing what I love doing. And I keep doing it if the audience is half as big, or 10 % as big, or 5 % as big. Maybe if I got to a certain level, I'd stop publishing and just do it for me. but I'd still be doing the thing because I get the value of how to do it. Just remind me of what the Stoics had to say about navigating profound loss in terms of losing loved ones.

12:54Sure. Yeah, this is a timeless part of the human experience, unfortunately. Dr. Amartya is a very half of his children. Seneca, Darius' only child he writes a series of very beautiful essays a series called Consolations he writes one to his mother when Seneca's exiled he writes another to the daughter of a friend who died the idea that the stoic's were unfeeling that they were unaffected by loss or pain or grief is to be totally belied by these beautiful moving essays that I reread when I lose someone, that I ask the people when they ask me this question. They're some of the most beautiful, profound writings that the Stokes have ever produced.

13:49My favorite one in one of the essays, Seneca, is writing to this woman who lost her father, and she's talking about how the memory of him, you know, every time she thinks of him, and she just breaks down and crying, she's so upset, she can't function, and he says, look, your father loved you a great deal.

14:08Obviously, he wants to be remembered by you, but if you told him, he says, if he's up there somewhere, you could tell him that after he died, that his memory, whenever you thought of him, it brought you crippling sadness and despair, and you'd be like, what? That's not how I want this to go at all. We don't want people to be glad that they're gone, but our memory should be something positive, right? And I think if you can, I just think about that all the time. How would this person want me to think when I think of them? And so the stoics are not saying you feel sadness and loss, stuff it down, don't be only clean.

14:46Some of the only stories we have about Mark Souris from other historical sources involve him crying over the loss of people that he loved. a tutor, he weeps over the victims of this plague, this devastating pandemic they experience it. So the students were not in feelings, they were not in boots, but they did try to, when they were overcome by those feelings, and when they were crippled by them, try to go, okay, let me think through this, let me question some of these assumptions, and how can that help me move on and process these feelings instead of denying them? Thank you for an amazing call.

15:26Pleasure, thank you for coming. One thing that you talked about was saying no, and this is something I struggle with. So I was wondering if we could roleplay. Okay.

15:37With that in mind, would you like to go to lunch tomorrow? No.

15:43That's the question.

15:51I'm sure you're very nice and sure everything's lovely. I've got other plans. Some thoughts on saying, you know, first off, something I've learned, you don't have to reply at all. You can just ignore it. Sometimes it goes away. Or you can reply after the date and you're going, sorry, I missed this.

16:12I've learned a couple things. One, you don't have to say sorry first. It's your time. It's your life. You should spend it properly. Senekas says, look, we would never let someone build on our property or steal our money, but we let people take our time as if we have an unlimited amount of opportunity. The other thing I have learned on our way is when you explain, right, when you give reasons, what you're often telling that person is, please try to convince me that I shouldn't do it. And so getting clearer and more straightforward, realizing, as they say, that no is a complete sentence is a powerful way to think about it.

16:54So I appreciate the invite. I was a real welcome.

17:05Hey, it's Ryan. thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple of years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please spread the word, tell people about it. And this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say thank you.

17:45We'll see you next time.

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