You Must Read To Lead | 10 Stoic Strategies To Deal With Anxiety

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.

0:14Ryan Holiday: You must read to lead. Not all the Stoics were leaders, but all of them were readers. And the ones who were leaders? Well, they were the biggest readers of them all. Marcus Aurelius opens meditations by thanking the teacher who taught him to read attentively and who loaned him the copy of Epictetus that shaped the rest of his life. Scipio Aemilianus, one of Rome's great generals and a patron of Stoicism, was said to be constantly engaged in the pursuit of arms or his studies. He was either training his body by exposing it to dangers or his mind by learning. Literally in the final moments of his life, Cato took another pass at reading Plato.

1:01Ryan Holiday: As president, Theodore Roosevelt was always squeezing in time to read in. Later, out of office, he took a copy of Epictetus with him on his perilous journey down the River of Doubt. Stockdale talked about how, deployed in the South China Sea, when he was not flying, he was in his bunk reading Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius and the other ancients. These were men of action and lifelong learners. Reading deeply and thoughtfully gave them all what they needed to succeed, the knowledge to be great leaders, the virtue to be good people, the will to survive. In English and history classes, reading often meant memorizing names and dates and places, who, what, when, and where, much less so how or why or what it meant.

1:52Ryan Holiday: You learn to extract what the teacher needed you to remember, not what the author wanted you to know, not the moral and philosophical lessons the books and the events were meant to teach. If you want to be a better leader, you're going to have to become a better reader. How? Well, that is what we designed Read to Lead all about. We're doing a five-week deep dive here with Daily Stoic into becoming better readers. I'm going to walk you through my system that I've used not just to write my books, but the practice that I've used in my life. How to find books that are worth your time, how to work through ones above your level, how to keep what matters, how to turn what you read into action.

2:39Ryan Holiday: As Seneca said, how to turn the words into works. And since we made this class many, many years ago, people have loved it. One person wrote in to say it was the best online learning investment they have ever made. And they said that on day one. If you want the beginnings of a real library and a foundation for lifelong learning, I'd love to have you join us. I'm going to be doing a Q &A about my reading strategies as well. And if you join by September 30th, you can get 20 % off all the books that we recommend in the course of the class. It's going to be awesome. As we said, not all readers lead, but the ones who do have to be great at it.

3:21Ryan Holiday: And you can join us in Read to Lead at dailystoic.com slash read to lead. I'll see you in there.

3:33Ryan Holiday: Man, it has been insanely hot here in Texas. I got in my truck yesterday. It said it was 115 degrees. I've been having to wait till like 8.30 at night to even walk the dog. It's been crazy. And I notice when I'm not hydrated, it affects like everything. Energy, focus, my speeds when I'm running, my riding ability. Well, Instant Hydration is a premium electrolyte drink mix designed to support hydration, energy, recovery, focus, and overall performance without sugar or unnecessary additives. I've been on planes a lot for this Daily Stoic tour, and one of the things I do is I throw one of those into my water bottle or into the water they keep me on the plane even to not get dehydrated, which, by the way, helps with jet lag.

4:17Ryan Holiday: They also have this great new icy flavor that tastes like you're having a Slurpee or whatever. It's not overly sweet or salty. It's super easy to drink. Instant Hydration is made to be an electrolyte drink you can enjoy every day, not just after intense exercise. For a better way to stay hydrated, go to instanthydration.com slash stoic and use promo code stoic for over 40 % off your first subscription order. It's Instant Hydration's best offer available. That's instanthydration.com slash stoic. Promo code stoic. If you've ever talked to your bank or cell phone company or insurance or whatever, you know, customer service, where you're talking to robots and you get in that endless loop.

4:57Ryan Holiday: It's not fun for you and I, the customers. It's also not great for the company, right? They know they're not serving their customers well. When a person has to intervene, that person is dealing with someone who's mad at them. It's a whole system that I think is due for a rethink. And that's where 11 agents come in. 11 Agents is a platform for AI voice and chat agents that can actually listen, understand, and resolve customer issues. They can look up your account, they can process requests, and then they hand it off to a person when needed. It's made by 11 Labs, the AI research and product company known for their realistic voice and audio models in over 70 languages.

5:35Ryan Holiday: If you've heard AI voices that actually sound natural, it was probably 11 Labs. I actually was shocked. I was listening to this audiobook. I found out it was produced by 11 Labs. If you run a business or handle customer service operations, you can start with a demo at 11labs.io slash stoic and see how 11 agents can fit into your workflows and help build experiences that your customers and employees will actually love. 11labs.io slash stoic. 11labs.io slash stoic.

6:14Ryan Holiday: remember what the stoics say that the whole world is a temple of the gods i mean look at that sunset look at this beach look at this life it hit me at some point during the craziness of the pandemic that that i was an anxious person i mean i knew i used to get anxious about specific things a flight an important meeting getting up on stage in front of people. But when all that went away, like everyone else, you know, you're stuck in your house and you realize you're still anxious. And of course, you're anxious about what's happening in the world, but you're just generally anxious. The anxiety is in you.

6:54You might not think of the Stoics as anxious people, partly because the reputation of the Stoics is that they're invulnerable, that they're invincible, that They have no emotions. But we know that Marcus Aurelius struggled with anxiety because if he didn't, he wouldn't have written so many reminders to himself about how to deal with it. I'm Ryan Holiday. I've written now 12 books about Stoic philosophy, which have sold more than 5 million copies, over 30 languages. I've spoken to everyone from the NBA to the NFL, sitting senators and special forces operators. And I myself deal with anxiety like any normal person.

7:27So in today's episode, I want to talk about a bunch of tried and tested strategies for reducing, addressing, alleviating, hopefully eliminating anxiety in your life. I know they've worked for me. It's definitely an ongoing battle, as it was for Marcus Aurelius, as it was for Seneca, but these strategies work. And so here in today's episode are some stoic strategies for reducing anxiety. I hope you like

7:55them. Little things are not small. George Washington's favorite expression was, many mickles make a muckle. I think Zeno said it better. He said, well-being is realized by small steps, but it's no small thing. Marks really says, we assemble our life action by action, step by step. No one can stop you from that. So today, as you get discouraged, as you look at this goal, it's way, way off in the distance. Don't focus on that. Focus on the immediate task in front of you. Concentrate like a Roman, as Marcus Aurelius says. Do this thing in front of you as if it's the only thing that matters, as if it's the last thing that you're doing in your life, and that adds up.

8:30It's no small thing. Many mickles make a muckle, as Washington said. Stuff adds up. That's how you get there. One step at a time, one day at a time, one action at a time, one insight at a time. Just go now. Mark Cervillus says just remember you're lucky to be alive, to be alive in this moment. Even if things are crazy and insane and awful in the world, they're also wonderful because you're getting to experience them. And to take that for granted, to be bitter or jaded or cynical about that, it's to waste this gift you've been given. And there's a reason they call it the present. It is a gift. And look, even if this is not the most wonderful time to be alive, it's the only time in which you are alive.

9:18So we focus on what we control, which is our perceptions, our opinion about things that we control, not when and where we are. We try to make the most of it. We try to accept it. We try to be grateful for it. And that's how we find happiness now in this present moment, no matter what's happening in the world.

9:39One of my favorite quotes from Marcus Aurelius, he says, you know, you don't have to have an opinion about that. And I just think about that all the time. I don't have to have an opinion about this. I can just let it be. I can ignore it. I can realize it doesn't pertain to me or I can just see it as it is. I don't need to say that it's good or bad, fair or unfair. It just is. I'm going to look at it as an objective piece of information. It doesn't need me projecting my thoughts or beliefs or perceptions on it. It is. You don't have to have an opinion about this.

10:13The key to tranquility and peace, Marcus Aurelius says, is when you stop caring what other people say, what other people think, what other people are doing. He says the tranquility that comes when you care about only what you do and say. The tranquility that comes when you stop caring what they say or think or do only what you do.

10:41A Stoic is not someone who stuffs their emotions down. That's not it at all. The Stoics process their emotions. This is why they journaled. Socrates went around asking these questions. This is why Seneca would write these letters to his friend Lucilius. We even have some of Marcus Aurelius' letters that survive. The Stoics were not stuffing their emotions down, pretending they don't have them. They were exploring them. The Stoics talk about taking an emotion when it hits you and putting it up to the test, observing it, meditating on it, processing it, getting to the bottom of it. You know, if you just ignore your emotions, if you just conquer them, to me, it's like putting it on a credit card.

11:21Sure, you're not having to pay for it now, but eventually it's going to come due and the interest is going to make it even more expensive. So don't shut your emotions down. them, deal with them, process them, explore them, get through them. Don't be ruled by them. In ignoring them, you are guaranteeing that later it's going to be an even bigger deal and you're going to be even more powerless over that emotion. So work on your emotions. Do not fall into this trap that the Stoics suppress their emotions. They domesticate them, as Nassim Talib says, but first that requires facing them and exploring them and coming to terms with them.

11:56Seneca points out that we suffer more in imagination than in reality, meaning that all the things we're anxious about, the things we worry about, the things we spend a lot of time hoping won't happen, most of them never do happen. There's that great Twain quote where he talks about how he's suffered through many things in life and how many of them have never actually happened, because that's what he means. In our mind, we're torturing ourselves. We're worried that this could happen and that could happen. We're worried about this possibility or that possibility. But the reality is now is now. You don't control whether that will happen or not.

12:28What you do control is now. You of course control how prepared you are for the adversity of the future, the uncertainty of the future. But what you mainly control is the present moment. Take advantage of the present moment. Don't give up the present moment because you're really worried and off thinking about what could and almost certainly will not happen in the future.

12:50No one can harm you, at least according to the Stilics. They can hurt you, they can say cruel things, they can attack you, they can cut you, they can make you bleed. But to the Stilics, harm was a choice. You decide to see yourself as harmed by it. You remember Eleanor Roosevelt, no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. We choose to feel harmed. You are hurt the moment you believe yourself to be, Epictetus said. Mark Cerele says, don't want to be harmed. Don't choose to feel harmed. We control our emotions. We control our opinions. We control the story we tell ourselves about what happened.

13:27And that's why the Stoics said, you are complicit when you feel harmed. You choose to see it that way.

13:36I do this one thing every single day and you can see I'm a little sweaty right now. I just went on a long walk with my kids. This is the property there. We just went on this long walk around our property. We talked, we threw sticks, we told stories. We were just outside. There's this great expression from Nietzsche. He says, only ideas had when walking have any worth. And I think that's right. Even Seneca talks about how the mind must be given over to wandering walks. He says, fields that are not allowed to rest will not bear plants. And he even says that, you know, the mind will break like an anvil if not rested.

14:10And so this is really important. For me, walking is physical activities. it is exercise, but it's really about letting my mind rest. I leave my phone at home, I leave my thoughts at home, I leave my work at home, and I just go outside and I walk. And I don't even consider it exercise. It's exercise for my mind. It's time I spend with my family, it's time I spend on my property, it's time I spend outdoors, it's time I spend practicing gratitude and appreciation. This is a thing I do every day without fail, whether it's in a parking lot or on a beautiful beach somewhere. I go outside and take a walk, and so should you.

14:45people ask like what is the best way to start journaling and the best way to start journaling is to start journaling look there's a bunch of different ones you can do i like the one line a day journal this is just like a moschina this is a gratitude journal that i like this is the daily stoic journal but it doesn't really matter journal on your phone journal on a scrap of paper on the back of your to-do list it doesn't matter but the idea is that you journal every single day just do it right just get started the best time to have started journaling is a long time ago the second best time is right now so if you want to start journaling start journaling

15:23epictetus tells us that every situation has two handles he says there's the handle that will bear weight and the handle that won't he says you could look at it as your brother has wronged you he's screwed you over he's hurt you or you could say i only have one brother this is my brother i'm I'm gonna forgive this person. I'm gonna be patient. I'm gonna be better. We're gonna be better for having gone through this. So this idea that every situation, you can choose to see it as the way that disempowers you, that makes you the victim, or you can choose to see it as the opportunity for growth, as the thing that will make you better, as the thing that will make you stronger for having to wrestle with.

15:56So I just love this idea. And it comes from a person who's not speaking about this idly. Like you and I are so privileged compared to Epictetus, who's born a slave in Rome. He spends 30 years in slavery, but he doesn't see this as a huge disadvantage. He sees it as a learning experience, as a fate that he's struggling with that's making him stronger. He says, you've been paired with a tough opponent and this is what's making you Olympic class material. That's Epictetus seeing the right handle in his own situation. So whatever you experience today, think about this. This has two handles. Which one am I gonna pick?

16:29The one that bear weight that will make me better or the one that won't bear weight that will make me worse?