We Are Better For This | On Being Invincible

0:05Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a Stoic inspired meditation designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2 ,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women, to help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit dailystoic.com.

1:09for Murphy's Law, or indeed most regulations. Yet these things make us better, whether we understand it or not. Montaigne, the 16th century philosopher, was inclined to poetry as a lover of literature, but he also saw poetry as a metaphor for life, as the early Stoics did. As he said, riffing on Cleanthes, the Stoic philosopher, just as the voice of the trumpet rings out clearer and stronger for being forced through a narrow tube. So too, a saying leaps forth much more vigorously when compressed into the rhythms of poetry. What Cleanthes had actually said was that just as a trumpet focuses our breath into a brilliant sound, the fettering rules of poetry allows our words to reach people in a deep and moving way.

1:58But both lines here, I think, are great enough to be worth quoting. And you can read about Cleanthes in Lives of the Stoics if you want to know more about it. We are made better for the constraints of life. They channel us. They direct our energy. They concentrate our forces. They force us to be creative. They bring out the poet in us. That is, if we choose to follow their rules, to respect the medium, to let the muses take over and to take their direction. The obstacle is the way. And by the way, we still do have a few signed numbered first editions of The Obstacle is the Way. This is the 10th anniversary edition.

2:38These are basically collector's pieces they won't be making any more of. So if you want to grab one of those, you still can. I'll link to that in today's show notes. And then we have the leather edition of the book, which I will link to in today's show notes as well. Enjoy. We just took our kids to an outdoor performance of The Nutcracker. They had a snow cone and then 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?

3:13That's stoicism, but it's also what Dr. Becky talks about. Dr. Becky is a clinical psychologist and a best-selling 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. Becky'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.

3:50Becky 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. And Daily Stoic listeners can join for 15 % off with code STOIC15. You just got to head over to goodinside.com to catch the events.

4:30On being invincible. Today's entry in the Daily Stoic, 366 meditations on wisdom, perseverance, and the art of living. Who then is invincible? The one who cannot be upset by anything outside their reasoned choice. That's Epictetus Discourses 1.18. Have you ever watched a seasoned pro handle the media? No question is too tough, no tone too pointed or insulting. They parry every blow with humor, poise, and patience. Even when stung or provoked, they choose not to flinch or react. They're able to do this not only because of training and experience, but because they understand that reacting emotionally will only make the situation worse.

5:12The media is waiting for them to slip up or get upset. So to successfully navigate press events, they've internalized the importance of keeping themselves under calm control. It's unlikely, of course, that you'll face a horde of probing reporters bombarding you with insensitive questions. But it might be helpful, whatever stresses or frustrations or overload that do come your way, to picture that image and to use it as your model for dealing with them. Our reasoned choice, as the Stoics call it, is a kind of invincibility that we can cultivate. We shrug off hostile attacks and we breeze through pressure or problems.

5:46And like our model, when we finish, we can point back into the crowd and say, next. It is a skill. I mean, one of the things you learn, I love this one, you learn this as you give talks, they go, look, if you ever get asked a question that you don't know the answer to, or you don't like your answer to, or you know is a trap, just pose your own question and answer that. I love that, not because it's clever and a little bit manipulative, but I love it because it's like, oh, yeah, you don't control what happened, but you control how you choose to respond. And you can kind of create your own environment.

6:18you watch as reporters hurl questions at the press secretary or at the president or this politician or that athlete. And what are they trying to do? They're trying to provoke a reaction because the reaction is good for the reporters, right? But put aside whether they're actually after the truth or not, in a lot of cases they are, but what they want is to provoke a reaction. They want to make news and you sort of learn as a public figure, like you can make a situation worse by giving a dumb answer. If you don't answer, if you say no comment, right? Even the ability to say no comment is an innovation and goes to what we've talked about before with Marcus Aurelius, where he says, you always have the ability to have no opinion.

6:57You can be silent. But our impulse is always to react, react, react, and then we get ourselves into trouble. And so the person who cannot be upset by things outside their reason's choice, who focuses on what they control, who is disciplined, who has poise, who can roll with the punches and stick with their game plan, no matter what's being thrown at them, that's a great model for life. It's an essential ingredient to being a public figure or a leader, but it's also just a recipe for a good life. So today, think about that, just that you're in control. You decide the rhythm. You decide what you respond to.

7:31Don't just react. Don't swing at every pitch. You got to have some of that discipline. You got to see the intentions behind the things that are being hurled at you. And you got to know that they want you to make a mistake. That's what they're trying to do. And if you can control yourself, you can at least not make stressful or difficult situations worse. That's as good a place as any to start.

7:53Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Stoic podcast. If you don't know this, you can get these delivered to you via email every day. Check it out at dailystoke.com slash email.

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