We Can’t Let Them Stop Us | 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.

1:09Not only can people do these things, they always have and always will. What do you think it was like to live in Epictetus in Seneca's time, watching Nero and his goons run loose? It can seem reasonable in light of this then and now to despair, but we must not. In Meditations, Mark Sreus writes that if an underground spring is powerful enough, someone could shovel mud into it or dung and the stream will carry it away, wash itself clean and remain unstained. He was saying that the goodness within us, or determination to keep going and keep making a difference, it has to be like that spring. We have to be inexhaustible, eternal, fed by something deep and profound.

1:55We cannot let them sully us, although we have to accept that they are going to do their best. We can't let them break our will. We can't let them make us like them. Our job is to keep flowing with determination and virtue, no matter what mud they throw at us and no matter what challenges we face.

2:18Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another Thursday episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I'm about to go give a talk. I'm here in Sundance, Utah. Then there'll be like a Q &A after. I've said this before, but that's like my favorite part. Something I don't get anything out of giving the talk. Of course I do. I'm mostly giving, right? Like I'm saying what I think. I have to learn and study and practice. I'm challenged in a bunch of ways doing it, but I'm not like being exposed to things I didn't know about. I'm not hearing anyone else's perspective. That's why I love the Q &As or the the discussions that come after because I hear from people and I have to think about things that I never thought about before.

2:57I'll probably bring you a chunk of today's Q &A at some other point. I usually mic myself for them. But back a couple months ago, I was in Phoenix. I don't know if you've been to the Global Ambassador. It's a lovely hotel. And I was talking to a mastermind. Do you know what a mastermind is? We've talked about them a bunch here. It's like a group of people that get together and think and learn and help make each other better. This is actually Dean Graziosi's mastermind at his and Tony Robbins private business club. It's called Zenith Mastermind. And Dean had me out. We just talked for an hour or so.

3:29He gave everyone a copy of Ego is the Enemy, which is very nice. But I thought I'd bring you some of that conversation because I thought it was interesting. And hopefully I'll see you at a talk one of these days as well.

3:46I'm recording this on a Monday, and Monday is our grocery store day in our family. I usually pick my kids up from school, and we go over to Whole Foods, get all our groceries for the week. Although, here very shortly, we're going to go over there to get our Thanksgiving turkey, because they've got a bunch of great options. Turkeys start at$149 a pound if you have prime, with organic birds at$299 a pound. and they only carry no antibiotic ever turkeys that will bring quality to your table at a great price. Whole Foods has great everyday prices on all your Thanksgiving essentials, whether you celebrate with a massive family or just a few close friends.

4:23Everything they sell has high standards to help you shop with confidence. Enjoy so many ways to save on your Thanksgiving spread at Whole Foods Market. Thanks to Toyota Trucks for sponsoring this episode. When I bought my ranch in 2015 out here in Bastrop 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 in 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.

5:03There 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. We 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.

5:41And 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, discover your uncharted territory. Learn more at toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours. So on the opposite side, the ego is the enemy that I just read this week. Even though you wrote that and this is your study, is there ever a time being a dad, being a leader, being a partner, being a husband where the ego gets in your way? Oh, all the time.

6:18Yeah. I think if you think ego is not a problem for you, you are talking about ego. You know, that's one of the more insidious things about ego is that we can spot it clearly other people like your ego almost says there is no ego yes right yeah well it's just we can we can so very clearly see how ego holds other people back but they're like me no no i've transcended this i'm over this and it's like no you just can't see if you could get honest feedback from people around you they'd be like here's all the ways that your ego is holding you back but what ego does is it it sort of blinds us to that thing.

6:51And so I do, I make a big distinction between confidence and ego. Confidence is essential. If you don't think you can do something, you're probably not going to be able to do it. The problem is just because you think you can do something doesn't mean you can. And I think where ego gets in the way is it says you already have all the tools, all the skills, all the signs point to yes, instead of doing the work to earn those things, right? There's a quote from Epictetus, one of the Stoics, he says, remember, it is impossible to learn that which you think you already know. And so where like being a know-it-all is so problematic is that you're kind of right.

7:32You can't know anything more and humility or confidence can continue to learn and grow because it's secure with itself, but also aware of how much more it needs. And so, So, yeah, look, I was just, I just got notes back from my last book. And my first reaction every time, even though I know this is like, how dare you? You know, I sent you a work of art and you - You told me you use a different color. Yeah, you sent me back this thing covered in red marks. What is this? And then I go, okay, that's ego. Ego doesn't like to be criticized. Ego doesn't like to have to do extra work. Ego doesn't like to be challenged.

8:10ego thinks, I'm the expert, you're the assistant to the editor, all the things that you're pushing back on. And then I go, all right, let's sit on that for a day. And then usually what I tell myself is, let's do all the easy notes first. Let's do all the ones we agree with. I'm only going to put in the ones that are obviously right that I agree with. And then by the end, I put in all the notes because I've gotten over that initial resistance. And anytime you get criticized or you screw up, you want to think about how it was somebody else's fault, how you didn't deserve it. They don't understand.

8:47And then once you can let that subside a little bit, or what I try to do is once I let that subside, I go, okay, and now where's the truth in this? Where was I responsible? What do I want to take from this experience? And that's kind of how I think about it. But I generally, ego is not this thing that you don't have. It's not this thing that you kill and it goes away. It is a constant process. And would the opposite of ego be humility or what would be the opposite of, or just the ancients had this idea of the golden mean and the golden mean being that most virtues are actually in the middle between two vices.

9:20And so I'd actually say that confidence is there in between a sort of humility as a positive connotation, but there's certainly people who are too humble, too self-effacing, riddled with imposter syndrome and doubt and feelings of worthlessness. On the one hand, we have this. And then ironically, ego on the other end is actually quite similar. Ego is an obsession with the self. Actually, when you meet really egotistical people, you see how insecure they are deep down. So to me, confidence is there in the middle. It's an understanding and an awareness of our strengths, coupled with an awareness of our weakness, of our need for improvement, where we can get better, what we don't know.

10:00And it's these two things fused together that is what we're aspiring to be, as opposed to stuck on either end. Love that. Love that. You know, in a room of high achievers, one of the principles, stoic principles, is surrendering control. Yeah, that's tough. And there's time, like even this year in 2025, I never really thought through the term leadership bias. Right, so I'm just gonna give you one example in my office. And I realized when I'm really excited about something, I wanna shift the marketing. I wanna write something new. I wanna change the direction of the company just a little bit. And I'll call on the leadership team.

10:37what I just realized at the end of the year, because I was really journaling on how can I be a better leader in this next year? I realized that I go into the room and I speak first and I have so much passion and so much like, like this is where we're going. Then I'm like, what do you guys think? And everybody's like, yeah, hey, that sounds great. And what I realized is I'm selling them so hard that they go, even if I say anything, he's not gonna, I'm gonna ding his ego or he's not gonna feel in control. But I would address it like, hey, hey, now that you have mine, I want to hear yours so we can come up with something.

11:10Everybody's like, nah. And I just made it a point this year when I go in a room, I'm the last one to speak. And I know that might sound, I'm giving up, it's only a tiny bit of control, but it's huge for me because half the time I'm here and I'm going, that's dumb, like mine's better, right? But I'm like, that's because you've been in control and it might be your ego. So I'd love to hear your philosophy on how that works into leadership and personal growth. In the Cuban Missile Crisis, famously Kennedy realizes that everyone in the room is telling him what he wants to hear and that people aren't saying what they really think.

11:43And he realizes that he, the president has to remove himself and let what was called XCOM discuss all the different options and then present to him, hey, we could do this. We could do this. We could do this. And here's what we as a group think, not here's what I as the individual worried about losing my job is saying in the meeting, but then whispering to other people. And so sometimes the leader realizes, hey, I have to step out or I have to let things settle. I can't be, I can't direct this or I'm not gonna, this is why dictators have such a big problem. They don't get - Feedback. They don't get feedback, they don't get truth.

12:18Yeah. So that's one form of control. That's the leader being in control. But I also think, you know, nobody in this room got here by accepting things, right? You got here by changing and your force of personality and your drive, but part of life is also about surrender and accepting the limitations of your control. And so it's talk about the need to sort of understand, hey, here's the things that are up to me and here's the things that are not up to me. And that can be really tough. But I guess what I would just say is that even the things that we have changed, we first had to accept the status quo as a fact before we could change it, right?

12:58You have to accept the facts on the ground before you can set about building something new, changing, whatever. And sometimes I think our lack of acceptance or our fear of surrender makes it hard for us to get started on solving the problem because we would rather spend our time denying the problem or fighting the problem instead of first accepting. So there's two different ways we could talk about this, but I think that's where It's a really good point. And it takes time because especially most people in here is kind of bootstrapped your business or raised money or borrowed money on the way up your brain.

13:34At least I'm going to share. Maybe I'm just being transparent here. It's like, Hey, I built this X million dollar a year company from starting with nothing. I think I know better than you've been here for seven months. Right. Yes. And when I can shut up and actually listen, some of the best ideas come from somebody looking from the outside in. Yeah. And it doesn't mean that I won't go with my idea with a twist or adjustment, but sometimes it's altered a little and it's better. Yes. And it took me a long time to realize that.

14:05Hey, 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.

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