Where Would We Be Without Them? | What Little Wins Can You Find

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.

1:09or Antoninus. There would be no Zeno without Crates, and thus there would be no Stoicism without Crates. Do you know what Crates, the cynic philosopher who Zeno studied under, was nicknamed in ancient Athens? He was known as the door opener. That's what great teachers do, don't they? They open doors. They invite you in. They help you see the possibilities you didn't know existed. And bad teachers, they do the opposite. They close doors. They beat the curiosity out you. They make you think you're bad at math or at reading or at thinking. Maybe you've always hated school. Maybe you've been told you're not smart.

1:53Maybe you've believed it. But have you ever considered that maybe you just haven't found the right teacher? There is someone out there who gets you, but it's your job to look for them. They say that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. And that can be true, but we also can't just sit around waiting for a miracle. We have to seek out teachers and schools that are right for us. Zeno went looking for Gratis, after all. Marcus Aurelius sought out the great minds of his time, finding it in Rusticus and Fronto. And still, even as an old man, Marcus was going to attend the lectures of sexist philosopher.

2:30And not all your teachers have to be living, either. Marcus learns as much from Epictetus as he did from any of his teachers. And of course, Epictetus himself, even as a slave, found his way to Masonius Rufus. And when you do find that right teacher, you must understand that the process won't be fast. There's a samurai warrior who once asked his master how long it would take to become a great swordsman. Ten years, he was told. What if I work extra hard? The student said. Then 30 years, the master replied. The point being, the more you rush, the slower you go. Education takes time. It takes work.

3:06It takes patience. It takes the right teacher. But the rewards are worth it. And the sooner you start looking for those door openers, the better. That idea that we are formed by our teachers is one of the most essential ideas that I argue in the new book. Wisdom takes work. As Seneca said, no man was ever wise by chance. Wisdom takes work. It takes a lot of work. It is the work of your life. And that's what the fourth and final virtue of Stoicism is. The fourth and final virtue in the Stoic Virtue series that I've been working on. Courage is calling. Discipline is destiny. Right thing right now.

3:42And now wisdom takes work. And you can pre-order it right now. Comes out on October 21st. But if you want signed manuscript pages, if you want a bunch of awesome pre-order bonuses, if you want to have dinner with me, check out all that at dailystoic.com slash wisdom. We've got all those bonuses in there. We will sell out of the signed and numbered first editions. I just finished signing them all. They're about to go to the printer now. I'm really excited. I'm so proud of this book. I can't wait for you to read it. Thanks to everyone who supported the earlier books in the series. I can't wait for you to read this one.

4:14And it would mean a lot if you could support it. You can get all four books signed in this cool numbered set we have as well. All that dailystoic.com slash wisdom. And check it out. Wisdom takes work.

4:34Thanks 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.

5:19We 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.

5:58Discover 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.

6:42My 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.

7:19Becky. 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.

7:38What little wins can you find? Zeno, the Phoenician merchant who founded the Stoic school on the painted porch, the Stoipokile of the Agora after a shipwreck, said that happiness was a matter of small steps. While the Stoics believed in the perfectibility of human beings, they knew that so much stood in the way of realizing that potential. So they would be skeptical of the so-called epic wins and quantum leaps that our culture obsesses over today. Instead, they would urge you to focus on your daily duties, on making incremental progress. Spend your time this week thinking about small wins, what little gains can be had from this improvement or that one, a decision here or a decision there.

8:19Be satisfied with each small step, keep moving, and don't give up. This is from this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal, 366 days of writing and reflection on the art of living from yours truly. You can find this anywhere books are sold. And of course, we also have signed books in the Daily Stokes store. But we have a quote from Marcus, a quote from Epictetus, and a quote from Zeno today. Do what your nature demands, Marcus Aurelius says in Meditations 9.29. Get right to it if it's in your power. Don't look around to see if people will know about it. Don't await the perfection of Plato's Republic, but be satisfied with even the smallest step forward and regard the outcome itself as a small thing.

9:02Then Epictetus says, we don't abandon our pursuits because we despair of ever perfecting them. That's Discourses 1-2. Well-being is realized by small steps, Zeno says, according to Diogenes Laertes, but it is no small thing. I was actually just thinking about this this morning. There's a great writing rule, you know, just a couple crappy pages a day. Just put in the time, put in the work. That'll get you to a manuscript, like a draft one. Then you can edit draft one, but you can't edit what doesn't exist. So people, as Epictetus says, who despair of progress because it's not perfection, they never get there.

9:44But the person who shows up and does work every day gets there. So I was actually writing this in my journal today. I was saying, okay, just show up, put your ass in the chair, do a little work. And as I was writing this in the journal, I was thinking, put your ass in the chair, be at the desk. And then this story popped in my head. The point is, as I was thinking about this, I remembered this little thing that I'd read about Robert Moses in Robert Caro's book, The Power Broker. I wrote down my note card and boom, the chapter just unlocked itself. So my point is, I was thinking about the process, when the process got to work and solved a problem that I was having trouble solving.

10:22I got to my desk. I got to sit down. I pulled the power broker off the shelf, started going through my folded pages. And there on about page 280 something was it, the exact story that I needed. In about an hour, I busted out the first draft of this chapter. And that was all I have to do for today's contribution to the book. Now, a lot of days like this add up, as George Washington was fond of saying, many nickels make a muckle. You show up enough days, you do this enough times, gets you to phase one, then you improve, then you go on to phase two, phase three, and finally you get your completed product.

10:58So today, it's not about sort of big, huge wins. Like this was a minor, minor win. But the point is I followed the process. I showed up. I did the work. I didn't wait around. I put my ass where I wanted my heart to be, quote Stephen Pressfield. And I made the smallest step forward, as Marcus said. I'm not going to get too high about this. I'm not going to get too excited. I'm going to, as Marcus says, regard it as a small thing. But I'm also confident enough, experienced enough to know that these small things add up. And that's what I'm excited about. And I know that I just have to do this enough times for long enough that I'll eventually get to the other side of where I need to go.

11:39And that is true for your problems, for your projects, wherever you are, whatever you're doing. Show up, put your ass in the chair, do the work, let the process guide you to the eventual inevitable accomplishment.

11:55Hey, 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.

12:33look ads are annoying they are to be avoided if at all possible i understand as a content creator why they need to exist. That'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.

13:21No interruptions, just the ideas, just the messages, just the conversations you came here for. And 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.