You’ve Just Got To Keep Going Back | Ask DS

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2:45Some of these come from Zoom sessions that we do with Daily Stoic Life members or as part of the challenges. some of them are from interactions I have on the street when there happened to be someone there recording but thank you for listening and we hope this is of use to you

3:08you've just got to keep going back it would be wonderful if the world was naturally just if people were automatically good always doing the right thing but of course they don't it's one of the most heartbreaking and frustrating things about life. Not only do people often not do the right thing, they will continue in error or evil even after they've been challenged, even after you've made every argument or followed all the procedures. Nothing illustrates this more than the fight to end segregation in America, which was more than just marches. It was a series of endless court cases, cases that took years to get picked up, years to get their day in court, years to get the right verdict, and once passed were then often ignored by Southern politicians and law enforcement officers.

3:50But the reason the cause eventually prevailed was encapsulated by the legal philosophy of John Doerr, who served as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights during the 1960s. You've just got to keep going back, he would explain. The Southern strategy was one of holding out, of being so difficult, being so painful to deal with, the hope being that the North would do what they'd done during Reconstruction. They'd eventually be disheartened, and they would give up and leave. In the case of John Meredith, the Black man who integrated the University of Mississippi, Doerr filed hundreds of motions, sat before multiple judges, appealed and appealed and appealed.

4:27He never lost heart. He never gave up, and neither did Meredith, it should be said, even after he was shot in the head. You've just got to keep going back, he said. Justice, the most essential of the Stoic virtues is not just about being right. It's not just having the moral high ground. You have to fight for it. You have to seize and command that high ground. Cato knew this. He was dogged in his determination to keep Rome a republic, and he wore himself down fighting over every example of corruption, every attempt to bend the rules, every effort by Caesar to take over. Cato didn't succeed, but his example inspired the founding fathers many centuries later, just as the words of those founders were taken up by people like John Doerr and Martin Luther King Jr.

5:10and Diane Nash and made real. Things weren't perfect. There was incredible resistance. It took longer than it should have, but it wouldn't have happened at all had they not kept going back, had they not made it happen.

5:33hey it's ryan welcome to another thursday episode of the podcast back a couple months ago i gave a talk in minneapolis to the minnesota twins well not the players of the team exactly it was put on by the minnesota twins for a bunch of advertisers and brand partners so we sort of some sports stuff and we talked stoicism, how we sort of apply these lessons of the stoics to whatever we happen to be doing. And as usual, I do the Q &A after. It was a short Q &A. They told me afterwards everyone was a little shy and didn't want to ask too many questions, but I kept my mic on after and a bunch of folks came up to me.

6:07So here is my Q &A there on stage and off stage. I hope these questions are valuable to you. and I bleep out all the names where I try to just because I don't know if anyone wants to necessarily be included but I'll take you on that ride with me in today's episode.

6:28I want to pop up with one person. So my assumption is that you've probably read the book. It's a good one. It's a really good book. I got to think though there's still moments and days where all the things you talk about here, you cover the book, where it doesn't go perfectly. Is there a way that you find a center yourself again? Yes. Yeah, I wanted to put that there in the conclusion for a reason. Marcus is saying, look, you fall off the path, you get back on the path, right? You make mistakes, you relapse, you get distracted, you have some bad habits. How do you come back to what you know is important, what you know gets the best out of yourself, right?

7:09How do you center yourself athletes know this, right? It doesn't matter how you did on the last at bat, the bat before that, the last 20 at bats, you've got this fresh opportunity in front of you. And the quicker you can clear your mind and just be in the moment that you're in and try to apply what you know, what served you well, what you have trained for, what you've done more than anyone else on the planet. That's what allows you to do that thing. There's an expression in writing that Your last book won't write your next one. Right. So I try to remind myself, hey, staring at a blank page and starting over.

7:43That's good and scary at the same time. And then I also try to think about that. Yeah. If I've had a couple of bad weeks, I've been eating poorly, I've been sleeping. I'm not doing or being the person that I know that I want to be. Right. that's not ideal but I have the opportunity in this moment right now to make different choices to wipe the slate clean and start start fresh and so you know we watch batters they have their routine that sort of a part of that I think is really about wiping the slate clean starting fresh getting in the right headspace and I I think cultivating that in your personal and professional life is a it's a great thing we can take from sports for sure in the words of Ted Lasso saying, be goldfish any other questions?

8:31right back here hi, thank you so much for being here today it's interesting because I've written your book in the past and I actually did a fortune a few years ago and one career moment and started in another one so thank you for that what was your aha moment that really kicked you into pursuing the path of socialism and the work that you're doing today? Yeah, I fell in love with philosophy and I was maybe 19 or 20 years old. I'm reading this book. It's 2 ,000 years old. And you're like, there's a passage in book five of meditations where Marcus talks about struggling to get out of bed in the morning.

9:16It says, at dawn when you awake, you have trouble getting out of bed. I'm reading that as a college student. I'm like, what? 2 ,000 years ago, this person whose life should be incomprehensible to me is going through the exact same thing. I don't want to go to this 7 a.m. class. But he says something like, is this what you were put here to do, to huddle under the blankets and be warm? He says, go and do what you're put here to do. He says, people who love what they do wear themselves down doing it. So that was just one passage of many of the obstacles of the way being another. that you're just, you're reading this stuff and you go, wait, I thought this was a long time ago.

9:54I thought everything was different. And you find out it wasn't, that it's exactly the same, that more things have stayed the same that have changed about human beings. And, um, you know, it just, it helped me so much that it got me really excited about creating that same sort of aha moment in other people. So that's sort of what, what really keeps me going. But I remember, when I had my marketing business, my employee came to me with this thing, you know, they'd screwed something up. And I was, my first reaction was like, should I get frustrated? Should I yell at this person? Should I let this person go?

10:28And then I thought, you know what, this is actually an opportunity. I'm going to teach this person how they shouldn't do stuff like that before. And then we're going to fix a set of processes. We're going to fix all the things that led up to that being possible here. And then we're going to be better for them having made this mistake, right? And then I was like, wait, that's what's in the book, right? So realizing again that that's the sort of insight or process that leaders have been going through for as long as there has been philosophy and as long as there's been leaders, that's sort of what gets me going and what I try to do.

11:05So great question. Anybody else? yes thank you so much for being here it was a pleasure yeah i read the obstacle is the way shortly after it came out really okay i'm excited to revisit i was taking curious notes that's awesome and then i have your new book for my brother because he's a new dad oh the daily dad that's awesome yes i'm so excited to get him into it very cool yeah it's like uh there's something about like just starting with like just one thing to look at every day that's yeah and i also just appreciate how all the lessons you incorporate your family because it's like it's not just totally well and also it's like you're crushing it at work but you like suck at home are you really crushing it and then conversely i feel like when i'm doing this stuff well at home it carries you know what like you get your house in order you can do better at the other stuff the other way around is not true.

12:04You can be, you see this in sports too, you're great at what you do, but you suck everyone else. Exactly. You know Bob Goff? Have you heard of him? Yes. Yes. Bob does? Yes. So he asked the question, not how is your work for you, but how is it working for the people in your life? Oh, that's, yeah, sure. Because it's very easy. You make it all about you. It's like sort of centered around the wrong things. And then like, is that really success? Yes? Exactly. That's great. I didn't think about that. That's a good test. Yes, it is. Yes. Well, I can tell, like, when I'm not working on a book or I am working on a book, things are different at home.

12:43Oh, yeah, the energy. Yeah. So you realize that what you're carrying around, you're not actually carrying around. You're radiating it out, and people are picking up on it. It's funny because I thought to myself, like, I always want to do this. Oh. a meeting, a mentoring session, because otherwise it's like, I don't know what my energy is. I don't, I don't think about it. What am I putting off? Totally. Yeah. It's weird. Energy is obviously like nonsense, but it's also not right. Like you're in a shitty mood. Your dog's not behaving as a result or you're in a shitty mood. Yes. Yeah. It's nonsense, but it's also somehow true at the same time.

13:24Right. Yeah. I just like to try to set myself on the path. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. And then, yeah, how do you get in the right headspace to then do what you need to do? Thank you for what you do. Well, yeah, thanks. Such a pleasure to meet you. Appreciate it. Yeah, thanks.

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