We Can Be Hurt…Or We Can Do This Instead | Ask Daily Stoic

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.

0:55One evening, Epictetus woke up to hear someone in his house. Walking towards the noise, he found a criminal had stolen the iron lamp he kept burning in a shrine in his front hallway. As always, Epictetus handled the situation with calmness and humor. Tomorrow, he said to himself, you will find an earthenware lamp, for a man can only lose what he has. But what if Epictetus had been awake when the man walked in? What if he'd caught the thief red-handed? Would he have beaten the criminal up? Would he have fought for his prized lamp, pressed charges after, demanded restitution? Actually, if we know anything about Epictetus, we can say confidently that the situation would have gone almost exactly as it did.

1:32To him, the theft was a reminder from fate that we don't truly possess anything. It was also a reminder we can guess that human beings, out of desperation or greed, do unvirtuous things. That is something we don't control, but we do control how we respond. We can imagine that Epictetus had he caught the thief and gotten to talk to the man, as the bishop did so beautifully in Les Mis, when he catches the thief and he says, take this stolen silver and use it to become an honest man. People will betray us in life. They will take from us. We can be hurt and angry and broken about it, or we can use it as Epictetus did, as a reminder of the transient nature of possession.

2:10We can use it as an opportunity, as they did in that famous play, to be merciful, to let them think better of it, to forgive, as Marcus tried to do when he was betrayed by Avidius Cassius. We can get better, and we can try to make them better, too.

2:30Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. A couple of weeks ago, I was recording from a balcony in Athens. Last week, I believe I was recording from a balcony in Ithaca. I am here in Vafi, I guess. I don't know how you would pronounce it, but we spent the last four or five days putzing around Ithaca, swimming every morning, trying to do a a little writing on the new book, enjoying time with family. And as I was saying last time, I was in this region, in this neck of the woods back in February when I was talking to a marketing and a VC company in Abu Dhabi. I was telling them about this guy named Zeno who suffered a shipwreck in the Mediterranean in the fourth century BC.

3:18And it's funny, we were walking along the port here in Vathi, and there is this sunken sailboat. And so I told my kids the same story that I was telling the folks in Abu Dhabi about how Zeno suffers a shipwreck. And instead of it being the worst thing that ever happened to him, he says he makes a great fortune when he suffers a shipwreck because it drives him dust to philosophy. And I was trying to say, hey, when we were in the Athenian Agora last week, we walked by that place, that big pit in the ground, that's the painted porch. That's the Stoa Pukili. That's where it all happened. So I've been circling around this for a while and I've used this little vacation as an excuse to sort of get a little bit closer to it.

3:57Anyways, here are some questions that the folks asked me back when I was in Abu Dhabi. I thought they're really interesting. I always love trying to take what I do and translate it, not from one language to another, but from one sort of culture to another, one line of work to another. I think it landed. I think their questions were really interesting and wanted to share that with you now. So enjoy.

4:22Thanks to Toyota Trucks for sponsoring this episode. When I bought my ranch in 2015 out here in Bastro County, I drove my car about halfway down the dirt road that we live on, thought this isn't going to work, stopped, parked it, walked the rest of the way home, borrowed my wife's car, drove into Austin and bought a truck. What I bought was a Toyota Tacoma. And this truck wasn't just transportation. getting me to and from my house. It unlocked a whole different style of living for us, not just on the ranch, but in our little Texas towns. There were places I could go now that I couldn't go before, especially out here in the piney forests, through the fields, and on the unpaved roads like the one that I lived in.

5:07We got to go deep into the hill country's wild beauty. We've driven all the way out to East Texas. We've driven across the country. And by we, I mean not just my wife, but both my kids who I drove home from the hospital in that truck. Toyota trucks are built for those who understand that the best adventures happen when you're willing to veer off course. Because you never know when you'll end up on a Toyota adventure detour. And of course, this is stoicism too, because every detour, every obstacle is an opportunity. But it's helpful if you can handle the difficulty inherent in that. If you've got the resilience and the right companion to make it wherever the road takes you.

5:47Discover your uncharted territory. Learn more at toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours. We just took our kids to an outdoor performance at 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? That'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.

6:30My 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. 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.

7:07Becky. 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.

7:28How can I differentiate between an holistic decision versus a very, very decision, a courage decision? This is important for you on the leadership. I think that's a great question. Like when you feel strongly about something, when you feel like that energy or whatever, you're attracted to something, you're mad about something, you're worried about something, you're driven to do something, stepping back and going, hey, why do I want this? Is it ego or is it something else? I'll give you an example. I'm finishing my next book right now. It's the fourth book in this series on the final virtues. And I just got back all the edits from my editor.

8:06Now, my immediate reaction is like, how dare you? This thing was perfect when I gave it to you. And now you're, you know, you're giving me all these notes. And that's the ego reaction, right? The like, I'm proud of this thing. I put a lot of myself in it. And now it's coming back, not just with lots of notes that are critical, but also like, I can do all this work. If my ego tells me it's perfect, then I don't have to do all this work, right? Humility says, oh, maybe there's something to it and now I have to do that work. Or confidence says, which I think is a better place to come from, confidence says, some of these notes are right and I'm going to use them and get better.

8:45And then sometimes the notes are wrong and I'm okay defending that and pushing back, right? So what I do is I get the nose back and I'm frustrated by that for a little bit. And then instead of responding, I sit on it and then I go, you know what? I'm just going to, I'm going to start with the obvious notes. Like I'm going to start with the ones that are small, where they're fixing typos or, you know, little things. And I'm going to work myself up to the harder ones that are, you know, more of excellent to deal with. So I just try to go, Hey, why is this important to me? Why am I getting worked up about this?

9:22What matters? Is this my ego or is this actually like a basic boundary issue? I think one of the other ways we can help with this is with something that ego doesn't often do is just ask someone else. Like ask someone who's not as caught up in it. Like I get asked to do something and I usually get off the phone. I have to think about it. And then I call my wife and I ask, hey, should I do this? Here's why I'm thinking about not doing it. Here's what bothers me about. I'm trying to get the perspective of somebody, somebody whose identity is not tied up in it. I think that's another really important one.

9:54So I would say time and then how do we alter our perspective so we can see it from a different angle. Those are two of the best ways. Is the solution is happiness? I would say that, again, the idea of midpoints between two vices, if we have ego on one end and that we have sort of worthlessness or, you know, a lack of sort of spine or, you know, just utter lowliness, right? Kind of in the middle, I would say, is confidence. And to me, confidence is an awareness of our strengths and our assets paired with an understanding of our vulnerabilities and our weaknesses. And if you have both, then you're going to be great.

10:37And if you only have one, you're going to get yourself in trouble, I think. My question is around stillness. So in the world we are living in, right? So the world rewards speed and productivity, right? All the time. And what do you recommend for leaders to make space for stillness? Yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Obviously communication is important. Speed is important. But at the same time, if you're always just reacting and reacting, I think you're going to get yourself in trouble. And then if you're also just, you know, saying everything that pops into your head, you're going to get yourself into trouble.

11:12So, again, I think all these things come down to the bestowed virtue of temperance or balance or moderation somewhere in the middle. What I try to do is I try to create distance between me and, say, social media. Like, I understand this is where I interact with my fans. But I also I try not to carry it around my pocket, you know, where if I have one moment of quiet, I'm immediately seeking out noise, right? So I don't have any of them on my phone. I have someone on my team who handles them. But I, and so I have to be more thoughtful about what I want to do. I'm trying to think more, like thinking about how long this thing is going to last, thinking about the things that are going to go the distance, I think is really important.

11:55One of the dictums of Amazon for many years was this idea of focus on the things that don't change. And I think a lot of the reason we're busy and noisy and you know don't have that stillness as we're focused on like the trends of the moment the scandal of the moment you know the the joke of the moment the meme of the moment and how many of those are still going to be relevant a month from now let alone a year or 10 years from now and so like one of the things I think leaders need I would say leaders should consume less news and read more books. Obviously, I'm a little biased as an author, but I think you want to be consuming information and learning things that were designed to stay relevant for a long period of time.

12:44And I mean, look, these are what we're talking about today are 25 centuries old and they're just as timely as ever. How much is the latest study or the latest news story or the latest business trend, what are the chances that people are going to be talking about it 25 weeks from now, you know, let alone 25 centuries from now. So I would try to, I think the more you're rooting yourself in the timeless things, you can find what's timely in them. Like when I read history, it helps me understand what's happening right now, but I have less opinions about it. I'm less judgmental about it. I'm less threatened by it because it's less up to me.

13:24It already has, you know? And so I think leaders need to sort of cultivate time and space for that kind of stuff. We want to be focused more on the things that are evergreen, that are perennial, to best principles, the bedrock stuff, and less about, you know, the latest thing. And you mentioned you have the institutional that you have an agency. What is one thing that you want to make sure they fall off the block? That's a great question. I mean, obviously, your kids need to know that you love them, that you support them, that they make your life better by being in it, all this sort of basic parenting stuff.

14:01But one of the things my wife and I are thinking about, which I think is kind of the meta-sphere of life, is like, how do you deal with frustration? Right? Like, because life is frustrating, and certainly it is full of frustrating situations. how good are you at responding to that like how when you are dysregulated how can you regulate yourself have the awareness to go hey i'm feeling this way or i don't like this or i wish it was otherwise and then deal with it instead of hitting it personally instead of giving up instead of lashing out to be like okay this happened i don't control what that happened I do control what I do next.

14:46And to me, that at the most basic level is not just a skill you need to succeed, but you see how hard life is for people who do not have that skill. And I think like languages, you know, it's easier to learn when you're young. The more you can figure out how to deal with uncomfortable, difficult situations, better you're going to do with life. In America, we have this expression, we call them snowplow parents. you know maybe less snow here so you guys don't use that as much but a snowplop parent is a parent that goes in front of their kids and just constantly clearing everything out of the way and you know that's nice but you're depriving them of the ability to know what to do when stuff is in their way because they just don't they haven't experienced that and and so how do we deal with emotions struggles adversity difficulty i think at the core that's what stoicism is is a set of principles and strategies for dealing with the fact that whether you're a slave like Epictetus or you're the emperor like Mark Sevilleus, there are more things out of your control than in your control.

15:53And the ability to separate those two things into the proper categories and then to focus all your energy on the parts that are in your control, that's the whole game.

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