You Can Skip This Part of the Nightmare | with Stoicism, Across the World

0:00Ryan Holiday: Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. You can skip this part of the nightmare. You screwed up. You got screwed. You were fired. You were cheated on. You were humiliated after years of service. You failed in public. You made an inexcusable mistake. Somebody else's mistake cost you big. The mob is piling on, gleefully so. This happens, as it has happened to people for as long as there has been such a thing as society. And what happens most of the time that this happens? It is a life-changing event, and it often turns that person into a different kind of person.

0:50Ryan Holiday: They get bitter. They get angry. They get radicalized. The first fate is not something we can prevent, at least not at this point. The second one, we can spare ourselves that. Rutilius Rufus was brought up on false charges. So was Seneca. Agrippinus and Epictetus were exiled. Marcus Aurelius' wife, Faustina, may have been completely unfaithful to him. Or perhaps she was a victim of totally unfair rumors about her virtue. None of this was fair. It was not their fault. It was not in their control. But who they became for going through that ordeal, for surviving those whispers, those falls from grace, that injustice, as they understood it, well, that was up to them.

1:34Ryan Holiday: They chose to bear it with dignity. They decided not to shrug it off. They decided not to compromise their principles. They chose, as Marcus Rillus wrote, to not be like their enemies. They did not shoot themselves with the second arrow, as we discussed. They didn't make their fate worse. You may well be in the middle of a nightmare, but you can skip part of it, this last part, if you choose.

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4:33Ryan Holiday: Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke Podcast. I'm sitting here in the studio, not in my desk where I normally record it. It's, what, 6.30 p.m. Didn't get to pick up my kids and take them to La Crosse today. Samantha had to do that because I was doing a live hit on a television show in Australia. Today Extra, hosted by David Campbell and Sylvia Jeffries. They wanted to have me on because I'm going to be in Australia in October. I'm doing Sydney and Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Auckland. Those are middle two weeks in October. I'll link to that. You can also just grab tickets at dailystokelive.com.

5:13Ryan Holiday: But it's funny, you know, they have you get on a couple minutes before you start recording. And you usually get to watch a couple minutes of the show. I'm reading an article by George Wills about the civil rights movement for something I'm researching. So I'm sitting here reading this very serious thing about the civil rights movement. And the story before I'm about to go on is a story about code browns in the Australian pools and the cost it takes to clear out these pools every time they find fecal matter in it, which is hilarious because my son and I, last time we were in Australia, two summers ago when I was doing some talks, we were about to jump into the pool on the Bondi beach.

5:50Ryan Holiday: trail. There's like the icebergs pool. There's Clovelly. There's Bronte. There's a bunch of pools in a row. We were doing all of them like in one day. And we'd done the first one. We've done the second one. And we're about to jump in Clovelly. And he goes, ah, what is that? That's disgusting. And there it was floating on the top. And it's funny. We were just jumping in our pool the other day. And he mentioned this story and he was laughing and cackling about it. It's like honestly one of their favorite memories. So it was hilarious for me to watch this segment right before my segment. And of course, as soon as I got on, I wanted to mention it because, you know, I could get on TV and talk seriously about Stoic philosophy, or I could talk about, you know, the hard-hitting real world issues that are in the news.

6:32Ryan Holiday: So let me bring you that segment where I'm talking about Stoic philosophy on TV in Sydney. But I would love to see you while I'm in Australia. As I said, I'm doing Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, all there in October. You can grab tickets at dailystoiclive.com. Welcome back. It's a question more and more people are asking now that what if the secret to handling this modern life is actually written thousands of years ago. Stoicism is an ancient philosophy built on resilience. It's built on discipline and perspective. And it's now having a major global comeback, especially due to our next guest.

7:07Yeah, leading that movement is bestselling author and Daily Stoic founder Ryan Holiday, who joins us live from Austin, Texas. Ryan, always great to chat. For anyone who hasn't heard of this term before, stoicism, can you explain what it means?

7:20Ryan Holiday: Yeah, it's not just that stiff upper lip, keep calm and carry on. It's not just emotionlessness and invulnerability. Stoicism is an ancient philosophy that goes back almost 2 ,500 years. And it's about this idea that, you know, we don't control what happens, but we control how we respond to what happens. And the Stoics thought that we could see everything as a challenge, something we could rise to meet with excellence and with virtue. And so it's this philosophy that helps us deal with both the big and the small problems of everyday life. So what's going on? Why is this? And you would know you're at the forefront of this.

7:58Why are people resonating to Stoicism?

8:00Ryan Holiday: Well, a lot is happening that's outside of our control, that's scary, that's frustrating, that's confusing. We are in a moment of profound change and disruption, which, by the way, so were the ancients. That is the most timeless thing, the idea of change. Change is perhaps the only constant. And so just as people 2000 years ago were trying to figure out how to make sense of all the things that were happening, all the things that worried them, all the things that frustrated them, all the things that tempted them. I think we're in the very same moment now. It's just supercharged by technology and social media and how interconnected we all are.

8:40Yeah, a lot of the, I suppose, threats to what is normal for a lot of people are very new at the moment and different. And we're navigating all of that. So what are some of the, you know, the key tools that people can use and apply to stay calm and centered and focused in a time like this?

8:57Ryan Holiday: Yeah, one of the most remarkable things about the Stoics writings is that you can look at something like Marcus Aurelius' meditations. This is the private thoughts of the most powerful man in the world. And he's not writing for us. He's writing for him. And so stoicism was for him, this practice of sitting down and journaling, sort of working out his thoughts on the page instead of dumping them on the people around him. He's trying to just sort of go, well, what do I think here? What do I know that's true here? What's important here? What are my values tell me to do? So I want people to see stoicism as this philosophy that helps us work through rationally our problems that perhaps in a more emotional mood, we might make worse, right?

9:38Ryan Holiday: If stoicism just prevents us from making the problems we're dealing with worse, it's already going to help us get better in that regard. So stoicism is a sort of series of thought exercises and practical tools that help us deal with whether it's responsibility and power, like Marcus Aurelius is dealing with, or it's a bad boss, like Seneca is dealing with, or it's powerlessness and discrimination, like something that Epictetus is dealing with. So, you know, at the moment, I think a lot of people, we talk about online culture and we talk about the manosphere a lot. How do you feel about the fact that they've sort of co-opted some of the idealisms and the sort of the thoughts behind stoicism and they've sort of rebranded it?

10:21I mean, is that damaging to what you're trying to do?

10:25Ryan Holiday: Yeah, we call that broicism. And it's certainly not what the Stoics were talking about. You know, the four stoic virtues are courage, self-discipline, wisdom, and justice. And I think, you know, if you're a young man, courage is exciting and interesting. Self-discipline is really important. Wisdom, you know, self-improvement, learning, all that's great. But it's inseparable from this idea of justice, which pertains to, you know, what the right thing is, and also our obligations to each other. We live in this thing called society. We are inseparable from other people. And so if you think stoicism is this recipe for being more selfish, for being disconnected, for being a better sociopath, you're getting it wrong.

11:08Ryan Holiday: And that's not who the stoics were in the ancient world. And it's certainly not what I try to talk about in my writings. I would say very clearly stoicism has made me a better person, a more caring person, a more empathetic person, a better parent, a better spouse, a better citizen. And that's what it was always intended to do. Getting it all wrong. You are coming down in October for a tour. What can people expect from your show? I know a lot of people here who are very excited about it. Well, it's just an excuse for me to come swim in your in your lovely rock pools there on the ocean. That's that's my favorite place in the world.

11:44Ryan Holiday: And we were actually down in Clovelly last time I was there. And my son caught a code brown right before we jumped in. So we're glad we're glad your investigative report is bringing attention to this issue. You're welcome. Well, hopefully no co-browns on this trip. You'll be fine. Yeah. Right. Great. When you come down, make sure you come in and pop into the couch. Say hi. Good to see you, mate. I will. Thank you so much. Like I said, come see me in Australia. Grab tickets at dailystokelive.com. I will also be Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, Portland. Before that, you can grab those tickets at dailystokelive.com as well.

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