Loading summary
Transcript50 lines
- [00:01]
Dan Harris
Wondery subscribers can listen to 10% Happier early and ad free right now. Join Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. It's the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello everybody. You may have heard about stoicism. That word stoicism in the common parlance, as you know, having a stiff upper lip or sucking it up, or grinning and bearing it, suppressing your emotions, et cetera. However, you may have also heard about stoicism with a capital S, the ancient Greco Roman philosophy that has become the de rigueur set of life hacks among millennial optimizers. My guest today is here to argue, quite convincingly, in my opinion, that stoicism is way deeper than any of that. She argue, in fact, that stoicism is kind of the opposite of the above. It's a way to truly know your patterns of thought and emotion. The stoics, she says, were sort of early cognitive behavioral therapists. They even developed a whole set of meditations designed to help people handle worst case scenarios, shave down their egos, and develop a sense of connection to the universe. All of which, said guest is now going to teach us how to do. She, by the way, is Nancy Sherman. She's a professor of philosophy at Georgetown University and expert in ethics, the history of moral philosophy, moral psychology, military ethics, and emotions. Her most recent book is called Stoic Ancient Lessons for Modern Resilience. Just to say we first posted this conversation back in 2021. It is one of our most listened to episodes of all time, but we have never reposted it, so we're doing it today. Not for nothing, many of the practices described in this conversation might be super helpful during the turbulent aftermath of the American election. In this conversation we cover the basics of stoicism, how and why. Capital S. Stoicism is often misinterpreted these days. A meditation practice called Premeditation of Evils, which is far more practical than it may sound, and another practice designed to make you feel, quote, at home in the world. Nancy Sherman right after this before we get started, I want to remind you of all the good stuff we're doing over@danharris.com these days. You probably heard me announce that we've started a new community through Substack, which includes all kinds of perks for subscribers such as the ability to chat with me and sometimes our guests about each of the new podcast episodes, video ask me Anything sessions, even live meditation sessions with me. Plus you'll get a cheat sheet which includes a full transcript and key takeaways from every episode. We're having a lot of fun. We'd love you to join us. It's 8 bucks a month or 80 bucks a year or free for anybody who can't afford it. No questions asked. Just head over to danharris.com we'll see you there. The Happier Meditation App just launched a new course called Unlearn to Meditate. This course takes you deeper into the why behind mindfulness. It's a chance to start fresh and challenge what you think you know about meditation. The teachers involved are Devin Haza, Pascal Eau Claire, and Matthew Hepburn. Download the Happier Meditation App today to explore, Unlearn to Meditate and rediscover your practice. This podcast is brought to you by Huggy's Little Movers Our son is nine. It's been a minute since we've been in the diapers stage of life, but I have many, many fond memories of having a little critter around the house. You know, the poop part of it I could take or leave, but that's a non negotiable fact of life. And given that it's a non negotiable fact of life, Huggies are a darn good option. Huggies know that babies come in all shapes and sizes and so do their tushies. Huggies has more curves and outstanding active fit. No matter the size of your baby. Said baby will feel comfy in Huggies. Little movers curve to fit all of your curves with 12 hour protection against leaks. Get your baby into the best fitting diaper, Hug his little movers wet fit among branded open diapers. The show is sponsored by BetterHelp. I'd like to take a quick moment to say thank you to you, the listeners of this show. We could not and would not do this work without you. I'm incredibly grateful every single day for the fact that you show up and listen to this show. So again, thank you. I say all this because November is all about gratitude and along with the listeners of this show who I just shouted out, there's another person who I think we should all be thanking ourselves. I recently saw a clip on TikTok of Snoop aka Snoop Dogg when he got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and he got up and thanked himself for working so hard and it's hilarious and also quite wise. Obviously we don't want to get into overconfidence or cockiness or self centeredness, but actually I think it's quite healthy to give yourself a pat on the back. So in this month of November. Let's send some thanks to the people in your life, including maybe your therapist, who are there when you need them. But also, don't leave yourself out of the picture. If you're thinking about starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. I know my therapist is excellent at reminding me to be grateful for the things or for the people I may be overlooking in my life. BetterHelp is entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. Let the gratitude flow with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com happier today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H E L p.com happier Nancy Sherman, welcome to the show.
- [05:56]
Nancy Sherman
Thanks so much, Dan. Pleasure to be here.
- [05:58]
Dan Harris
My memory is not the best, or as my wife sometimes describes me, I'm an unreliable historian. But to my memory, we have not done one show on Stoicism. Certainly we have not dedicated an entire episode to it, which is probably a big mistake. But we're making up for it now. I hope, and I will say that I know next to nothing about Stoicism. So let me ask an incredibly embarrassingly basic question, which is what is Stoicism?
- [06:24]
Nancy Sherman
Well, that's a good question to start with. So Stoicism is an ancient Greco Roman philosophy. So we all know Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, or the classical philosophers the Stoics came after sort of they follow after Aristotle, and they are both Greek and Roman. Hellenization spread out. And so Stoicism became a philosophy for how to deal with our vulnerability, the fact that there are accidents, that there's bad stuff that happens. We're talking about one of the guys, Seneca, who was the spin doctor and speech writer for Nero. And if you say the wrong things, you get asked to commit suicide early on in your career. But it was also times of enslavement as well as times of imperial luxury. So people are trying to deal with having a lot too much and, you know, ego's exploding and also having very little. And how do you temper yourself? How do you find calm? So some of it's about finding calm in a world of uncertainty, which really appeals to us. Now I, as ancient philosopher, classical philosopher, have to remind people it's about virtue. It's about being good and being good in a world where we're connected globally. They're the first cosmopolitans. They really believed in that word, cosmopolite, citizen of the cosmos or of the universe. That's where it came from. So what appeals to many is this idea of finding calm in a storm, of being the master of your ship, the captain of your ship. But sometimes people think of it only as an internal story and not about how you are in the world with each other, how you become resilient through social supports. So that's the piece I'm always trying to emphasize.
- [08:20]
Dan Harris
Well, we'll get into that in a big way, but I'm just trying to compute how what you just described, vulnerability and virtue, squares with the common usage of stoicism or stoic as sucking it up or showing no emotion in the face of adversity.
- [08:43]
Nancy Sherman
So however that came to be, maybe through the British and Victorian stuff, or I worked with the military for so many years. Suck it up and truck on is their mantra. That is an element of stoicism, the idea of having really strong will and being tough no matter what. But the Stoics were also these amazing emotion theorists. They knew more about the emotions than most people know today. They were sort of our early cognitive behavioral therapists, in a way. And so they were figuring out all the ways that we feel and all the ways that sometimes our emotions run away from us. They are too strong. So they are about tempering your emotions, but they're not about getting rid of them or sucking it up at all costs. The portrait we often get is a kind of self reliance, go it alone grit, you know, tough it out no matter what. That isn't it. They're about connecting. One of the most moving passages I know is from Marcus Aurelius. So he's the emperor. He's on a battlefield, he's seeing limbs strewn around. You know, when I talk to soldiers, I think of this a lot, their body parts. And he's saying, if you've ever seen an arm or a leg separated from the trunk of the body, that's what we make of ourselves when we cut ourselves off from each other. So there's this social glue, and you can't be tough without being attached somehow. But you have to figure out a certain kind of balance so that if crap happens, you still have some equilibrium and some inner resources, as well as an ability to know where to turn, to turn to others, and have cultivated those friendships and detachments, including family and all the communities we live in. So you're right, it isn't the common story, which is typically tough it out at all costs and don't ask for help. That is really a misreading of stoicism. And I think it's a really dangerous one, if that's the message that's out there.
- [11:05]
Dan Harris
I mean, there are potentially a few misreadings. There's the way stoic is used in the common parlance, if you. I haven't looked it up in the dictionary, but little S. Yeah, little S. Small S, yes. Which is showing no emotion in the face of adversity. Or something to that effect, I think. And then there's what seems. I haven't run the numbers on this, but just by observing, there seems to be a pretty robust embrace of capitalist stoicism, in particular among sort of self optimizing young men. And I haven't looked at this closely and I think you have. Are you seeing that some people are really leaning into the suck it up ethos of it and not looking enough at virtue and vulnerability?
- [11:48]
Nancy Sherman
Absolutely. So leaning in is a good phrase. Yeah, they are leaning into you're a man. A view of manliness. And there's often misogyny in there. Tough it out at all costs. It's almost the stoic military culture gets writ large over a general culture. Some of it, Silicon Valley has something to do with it. You're in tough circumstances. You got to get the angel investment next week. The numbers have to run. Clearly your Jack Dorsey and stuff is happening, you know, that you don't like, whether it's through Twitter or Square. And you need to find quiet and calm. And so you sort of do it on your own. Or you take ice baths. That's one of his things. Or you walk outside without coats. So the idea is you can handle no matter what adversity comes your way. That really isn't the stoic story. The stoic story is that that you can't do it on your own. And you've always got to think of a cooperative endeavor. So you're right. Virtue gets sidelined for inner strength at all costs. And also a kind of connectivity gets sidelined for. There's no challenge that isn't one that you can handle. The idea of kind of mental discipline that matches athletic discipline. Now the stoics have a lot of that. There's a lot of talk about being in the gym and there's no adversity that you can't handle. But they have so many other strands that get sidelined by the idea of handling any circumstance that comes your way. I have to just add, you know, they're coming out of a tradition of tragedy, Greek tragedy, you know, horrible things happen. You lose your kids. You have to sacrifice a kid in order to set Sail for the Trojan War if you're Agamemnon. So the Greeks and Romans know tragedy big time and so they can't be forgetting it. They're just trying to figure out how do I deal with it and how do I deal with it while still being in a community. So like anything, people pick up stuff that they want to hear. And you're right, the manosphere, as it's sometimes called, can get pretty ugly and toxic.
- [14:08]
Dan Harris
Manosphere. I want to be clear that when I talked about self optimizing young men, I didn't mean to denigrate them other than the young part. It pretty much describes me. I'm just so interested. One of the reasons why I wanted to have you on is that you really emphasize the parts of Stoicism that seem to have been shunted aside or given short shrift when put through the filter of Western individualism. We sort of like the do it on your own, don't show any emotions. I guess it's not just Western individualism, it's problematic masculinity in combination with Western individualism.
- [14:49]
Nancy Sherman
Yeah, I think that's probably right. There's the can do aspect and there's a kind of self reliance theme that goes through the uptake of Stoicism. But what's really sort of fascinating is ancient Stoicism came into being around the time of the Judeo Christian birth in a certain way. And so some of it sounds very familiar to us. We're all children of God. They would say children of Zeus, but you know, we're all in the cosmos. We share humanity. We share humanity in virtue of having common reason. I mean, this is also Enlightenment philosophy, right? It's our founding fathers of American Constitution, Jefferson, Washington all read this stuff. It was nighttime reading. So they've got this bigger picture in mind. In addition to self reliance, they've got a picture of how do you build a world of shared humanity? And so that doesn't get picked up. I mean, self optimizing is a good way of putting it in the idea of what's the best flourishing life. For me, the Greeks and Romans never talked about, for me, they talked about for us. They were always thinking, you know, if you're Greek, the small city state, you know, it's Athens. As soon as Athens started getting big and the Romans came along with an empire, it's a bigger world, it's almost the whole world. So they've got to figure out how to connect everyone and they have to figure out how to connect everyone through shared discourse, through reason. Shared emotions and also a sense that we're all vulnerable and we got to use each other as supports for helping ourselves get through it. So the idea of kind of maximizing your potential, I'm not quite sure that's a very ancient idea.
- [16:52]
Dan Harris
I'm going to ask another maybe embarrassingly basic question. We talk a lot on the show about Buddhism. I understand to a certain extent what Buddhism is and how you do it. You've just described a little bit what stoicism is. I'm curious. How do you do stoicism? How do you operationalize this wisdom in your life?
- [17:13]
Nancy Sherman
It's a great question, and no need to be embarrassed. Part of their appeal is that they have practices, and some of the practices are meditations. And the meditations aren't like Eastern meditations of quieting all the babble in your mind, but they're rather discursive, like talking. Talking through it. So, you know, Freud, no surprise, is a kind of Western psychotherapist. And he. In the model of the ancients, almost. So some of it is that at the end of the day, you keep a notebook in the quiet of the night, says Seneca. When my wife's asleep, he says, and I think about things that really got me angry or afraid or got the better of me, you know, and someone's really silly. Like he yelled at a member of his household for dropping a crystal goblet. Or he wasn't seated at the dais where he thought he should be at the head table where all the important people were. He was put in the back of the room. Or another one is that he should have been led into a house. The doorman didn't let him into the house. He's an important person. So, you know, his ego was offended. He got dissed, you might say. And he's trying to temper his expectations so that in the morning he keeps some of this stuff in mind. So that's one thing. Meditations at the end of the day, another one which is really, I think, important. And I ran through this with my mother in a certain way. It's called pre rehearsal of evils. It's a horrible phrase. But pre rehearsal of bads, you dwell in the future. You anticipate things that could happen that could unmoor you. My mother hated to talk about death. Here she was, 97, in a nursing home, and she'd smile when I came in. She read about three novels a week, but death wasn't on her plate. So I said, mom, did we sign up for the immortality plan? When we put you in the. It was a Hebrew home. We put you there. Or remind me, because if we did, it's going to be really expensive. Well, this got a big rise out of her and it became our secret way of talking about the future and a future she clearly dreaded. So rehearsing your mortality is a big theme in stoicism. And you know, that's like the ultimate for many people. How do you deal with leaving this world and your family? So I think it became, in our case, a kind of shared dance. We would have this little joke. Did we sign up for the immortality plan? It was a way of stepping into a dreaded future and we made it less toxic. That's a very stoic tool. Pre rehearse the future and especially future outcomes you don't want to happen. Tim Ferriss talks about fear setting. They have you set your fears a little bit by anticipating them. And another thing they have is hedge your bets. It's called mental reservation. When you start thinking of things you want to have, you always have to be adaptive and resilient through being agile. So when you start to think about your plans like, you know, will my book be a great success? Maybe it won't. You always sort of have this, maybe it won't. You kind of have this clause that you stick in if things work out, but they may not. And so they're always trying to get you to think in advance about how to be flexible. And I think that really is for my life, it's so important. You know, I have grown kids, I have grandkids. I can't control their lives at this point. They're terribly successful, you know, by all metrics, but they don't always do what I want them to do. And I got to kind of always sort of say, well, maybe it won't be exactly like that. Very stoic. Doesn't sound stoic. Right. It doesn't sound like, tough it out, you know, take on any challenge, get on the mat with the hardest opponent. No, it's just like you against yourself trying to figure out what are some of the demons you have to face and are they as bad as they might be otherwise?
- [21:40]
Dan Harris
Much more of my conversation with Nancy Sherman right after this. One of the cool things about fall is we get to do a little shopping, a little retail therapy. I recently went to quince.com got myself a Mongolian cashmere sweater and a new set of socks. Quint's is great. One of the amazing things about having them as a sponsor is that I get lots of great clothes. You've heard me rhapsodize about my Quint sweatpants. I also have T shirts and now this new sweater. I love it. Quintz offers affordable, high quality essentials for any wardrobe that includes seasonal must haves like the aforementioned Mongolian cashmere sweaters from 60 bucks and comfortable pants for any occasion. Quint only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices along with premium fabrics and finishes, and they partner with them directly, cutting out the cost of the middleman and passing the savings on to you. That means Quint's Items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands, so you can update your look without breaking the bank. Upgrade your wardrobe with pieces made to last with quint. Go to quints.com happier for free shipping on your order and three 365 day returns. That's Q U I N C E dot com happier to get free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com happier listening on audible helps your imagination soar. Whether you listen to stories, motivation, expert advice, any genre you love, you can be inspired to imagine new worlds, new possibilities, new ways of thinking. Find the genre you love and discover new ones along the way. Explore bestsellers, new releases, plus thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts and originals that members can listen to all they want with more added all the time. Audible makes it easy to be inspired and entertained as part of your daily routine without needing to set aside extra time. There's more to imagine when you listen. I've been checking out recently are the Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I'm a little embarrassed that I I haven't gotten to this one until now, but I've been checking it out. Amazing. Another hole in my cultural literacy. Lonesome Dove, which won a Pulitzer like many decades ago. As an Audible member, you can choose one title a month to keep from the entire catalog, including the latest bestsellers and new releases. New members can try audible free for 30 days. Visit audible.com 10% or text 10% to 500. 500 that's audible or text 10% to 500500 to try audible free for 30 days audible.com 10% before we get started, as everybody knows, we're in the midst of an anxiety provoking election week here in the us. One of my favorite slogans is Never Worry Alone. So we're going to put that into action this week with live guided meditations every day. I will be going live each day at 11 Eastern. That's 11am Eastern and 8am Pacific. I'll do a 10 minute guided meditation and then I'll take questions. This is open to all subscribers, free or paid, but you do need to download the Substack app, so head over to danharris.com to find out how to do that. And if you can't make it live, you can watch the replay@danharris.com the Happier Meditation app just launched a new course called Unlearn to Meditate. This course takes you deeper into the why behind mindfulness. It's a chance to start fresh and challenge what you think you know about meditation. The teachers involved are Devin Haza, Pascal Eau Claire, and Matthew Hepburn. Download the Happier Meditation app today to explore, Unlearn to Meditate and rediscover your practice. I want to go back to these meditation practices because I think this is going to be of interest to this audience, many of whom are meditators. You kind of touched on three different practices there, but I'd love to go back and dive a little bit more deeply into each one of them. So the first was you described Seneca, one of the preeminent Stoic philosophers, at the end of the day after his wife had gone to sleep running through all of the ego bruises he suffered during the day. Can you just walk us through how we might practice this in our own lives?
- [25:50]
Nancy Sherman
Sure. His list looks just like things we might be up against at the end of the day. Were you slighted by someone who you thought owed you a bit more respect? It could have all sorts of tones in my classroom. It could be graduate students that I want to have respect me more than I think they are. Or it could be my kids who I think said something that was hurtful and that bruised me a bit. And I could start writing a letter to them or an email or a text, but have to hold myself back. And I sort of think, so what was in it for me? Why was I so invested in this? Stoics are very big on sticky attachments, my phrase. But this acquisitiveness, where it's got to work out the way I want it to work out, and I want to think about it that way and that way alone. And I'm invested in this particular outcome or this particular way I want to see things go in the background of this meditation practice, is that the things out there, they use a word that doesn't read well for us, indifference. But it really means they don't really change the balance of your happiness. You got to learn how to approach and avoid without all of that acquisitiveness that we have or outright fear. So, yeah, be cautious, warily cautious. And yeah, invest in things so they matter, but don't invest in it so that it's the be all and end all. That's very healthy. I mean, that's healthy no matter what psychotherapy you believe in, I think. And so they ask you to run through your day a little bit like that. And in my case, it's typically family members who, you know, I am the most invested in my immediate circle. And was there a remark there or a friend who's sort of had an off the cuff remark that just rubbed me the wrong way? Why? Let go a little bit. So we would say in an Eastern meditation, let go, quiet your mind of that. They don't have that language because, remember, this is Greek and Roman philosophy. They're all about discourse and chatter and reason. So they ask you to think about it. I'd say more in an older school, Western psychotherapy way. You know, put words to it and think about why it's a narcissistic bruise. And some of them are so mundane. Like you weren't the guest of honor at the banquet, but, you know, you were put in the rear of a banquet hall. I find that extremely useful. And, you know, if you're a diary writer, at the end of the day you do meditation through writing in a diary, as many of us do, it's meant to carry over to the morning, not keep you awake. That's hard. It could easily keep you awake if you gnaw on it and get anguished over it. But the idea is that it would release you a little bit from a poor way of thinking about it or from the mis evaluations. They think we really falsely evaluate a lot of stuff. You know, we have the wrong estimates of things. We overestimate our reputation, we overestimate our ability to earn money, to be rich. We overestimate that you want to live forever and make a huge impact on the world. And they go on. These are just the opposite of a kind of more ascetic lifestyle. And they're in that world. They are so in that world. They're in the height of almost decadent Rome at times. You know, they're into power, politics, fame and fortune. And so it's all the more appealing to them to figure out how to deal with those demons in a certain way that are so interesting. And I think it's different from Eastern meditation because it's chatty and talkative. But on the other hand, it gets at some of the real, I'd say bad values. In many case, money's great, but just to accumulate it without helping the world become a better place, eh, I wouldn't go for that. Military strength, real courage is great, but just to be daring and just be able to be a parachuter and jump out of things or be a seal, just so that you can endure under any conditions, no matter how tough they are, not great unless it's aimed at something other than your own strength, a cause that you really think is worth it. So that's what they're asking you to think about.
- [30:47]
Dan Harris
I like this a lot. And you have said a couple times that it's not meditation in the Eastern sense. I think that's true to a large extent. And slash. But I would say if you look at the word that the early Buddhists used for meditation, it was I believe. And people can send me a note on Twitter if I'm totally wrong about this, but I believe the word that was used was Bhavana. And that word translates roughly into cultivation. And so what we're doing in meditation is cultivating mental skills. And what I'm hearing here is that at the end of the day, either through journaling or you're just lying in your bed or sitting on a meditation cushion and running through the parts of the day where you got your ego bruised, you got attached, that this has the benefit of surfacing the what you called sticky attachments, the psychic crampons on the rock face of life where we're just holding onto things inappropriately and in a way that just know, blocks our ability to be maximally effective. That this can have the salutary effect over time of getting us to let go of stuff that doesn't matter.
- [32:00]
Nancy Sherman
I think incredibly so. I mean, I've thought a lot more about how do I distance myself, put space between all the things that I know matter in my life. Having healthy children, a healthy grandchildren, a good marriage, a philosophy department that I love and really respect, working in colleagues. And what would happen if some of that kind of fell apart a bit through illness or things not necessarily in my control? How would I adjust a little bit? Some of it is, am I over investing in stuff I can't control? You know, a lot of the narcissistic injuries come from outside. Not all, but many of them come from overestimating the way that those things matter.
- [32:54]
Dan Harris
Right.
- [32:55]
Nancy Sherman
Like length of life may not matter as much as the quality of the everyday. You know, that my kids do the things I want them to do in this order. And hitting these goals, that really doesn't matter as much as that they're good people and flourishing. Right. You know, that sort of thing. So I think the Greeks and Romans are all about thinking of life as a whole. They're not about every single individual action. It's about a flourishing life for us together as a whole. That's a really important thing to do. That's like the bird's eye perspective on the whole thing. And I think coming away without those acquisitive attachments and all the grandpa stuck on the rock face, that's a great phrase. Is a way of looking a little bit more broadly at what matters. It's also, though, value checks. Am I really valuing the right things? That is critical. Am I investing in the right things? Am I going just for more zeros after the dollar sign? Or am I going for that's a good person? I like this community because we do good things, and that's why I'm part of this community. I've thought about this a lot lately because I think of who's very stoic in my world, and a lot of them are military guys. But they're not always stoic for the right reasons. They do all this social outreach, but they always think that what matters is their courage at all costs. Strength. I will never break. I will be bulletproof, and I can do whatever is asked of me. And that's the measure. Well, that's not the measure. And so if they are hard on themselves because they think they have to be bulletproof, that's another place where you would check yourself in journaling. Do I think I'm invincible? You'd be surprised how many people think they're invincible or a popular term these days, antifragile. Who's antifragile? Who's invulnerable? But we like to think of ourselves as never breaking, especially in public.
- [35:01]
Dan Harris
And the stoics would dispute that.
- [35:04]
Nancy Sherman
They would dispute the idea that you're invincible. They're trying to help you deal with vulnerability, but they're not trying to make you invulnerable. We all want to deal with invulnerability. I don't know. Who doesn't? You show up at your doctor's appointment and all of a sudden the blood work comes in and doesn't look so good. And you know that's crushing. You get the news. What's the next step? How am I going to adjust to this? Or I thought I had a classroom that felt safe for everyone, but maybe it doesn't. You know, you're teaching on Zoom. And you get everyone in their bedrooms, closets open, other people with four poster beds and fluffy things all around. You see all the difference. You got to make it comfortable for everyone. And that's a challenge. It's being reflective. Now I will say the downside of being overly reflective is it could keep you awake at night so you can't beat up on yourself. And so that's a fine line we have to find between wanting to be good and being good to yourself. So anyway, I think about that a lot because it's very easy to get a bit neurotic about all these challenges to become a better person.
- [36:22]
Dan Harris
How do you personally walk that line in light of your study of stoicism?
- [36:27]
Nancy Sherman
I think I try to mix it a little bit with the Eastern idea of quieting my head. I meditate in the morning. I don't talk to myself, or if I catch myself talking to myself, I try to stop being so litigious through mantras or the like. And I often think in a journaling way that I definitely try to think what values matter the most to me and which ones are holdovers of stuff that I really can let go of. I think as you get older it's a little easier. You know, you're not on the path of. My career has got to go this way. And if I don't make these next steps in whatever ladder you're on blink, that's that. I don't think I have that same push. So I think if you do, you have to keep asking yourself, which values are you going for? And which ones should you sort of think are a little bit more. I don't know. It's a horrible word, indifferent, because we already say indifference like apathetic. But what they mean is figure out how to select health, deselect bad habits or disease. But don't get so hooked on health that if you get some bad news, it's the end, you're done in. You can't let go. I think of it as the right kind of almost sort of like behavior modification approach and be warily cautious in avoiding, but don't, don't cling, you know, cling so that you can't let go.
- [38:07]
Dan Harris
It reminds me of how the Buddhists use words like dispassion, non attachment disenchantment in a positive way.
- [38:16]
Nancy Sherman
Yes, I think there's a lot of similarity, you know, and in a future book I actually want to join up with a colleague and think about this. I practiced Buddhist meditation for a long time and have read a lot of Sutras and also secondary sources. And there's a lot there. They do have this sense of selflessness that's just not Greek and Roman or Stoic. So the Stoics think of you don't disappear. Your reason is what's going to be your guide in life. They're Western philosophers in that regard and in a tradition of thinking about how to make the world a better place through your reason in conjunction with others. A kind of commonwealth of reason. Cosmopolitanism really is about all of us together in cooperative rational endeavors. I don't think of that as particularly Buddhist. I may be mistaken on that. I think of the idea of kind of disappearing a bit in meditation so that you become less important in the flow of things. As a student of Greek philosophy, there's always the best part of your psyche is reason. Whether it's. It shows up in your emotions through kind of emotional intelligence and smart emotions, or it shows up in being prudential, or it shows up in being planful. Or as we were saying before rehearsing some of these bads things you don't want to happen, but thinking about them, dwelling in the future. So you're always really engaged with your mind. There's a lot of mental effort that goes into being a Stoic. In some ways I think of retreats and silent retreats as ways of really tempering down some of the heavy mental lifting. I might be wrong about this.
- [40:16]
Dan Harris
I don't know enough to say whether you're wrong or right, but I'm intrigued by this thing you said about, you know, in Buddhism there's selflessness, which is an extremely difficult concept to grok it essentially, actually, essentially is the wrong word to use because the argument is that we have no essence, that yes, on some level, Nancy Sherman exists. I can see you on my computer right now and our listeners can hear your voice on some very obvious level. You, Nancy, exist. However, if you close your eyes and look for some core nugget of nanciness, you won't find it. The analogy that sometimes gets made is, you know, you can look at a chair, that chair exists, you can trust that you can sit in it. But if you took a high powered microscope, you'd see that there is no essence of chair there. It's all spinning subatomic particles. And so yes, as I understand it, Western philosophy doesn't go there either intellectually or experientially because that's the key part of Eastern practices is they really takes you to this essencelessness, this selflessness experientially but what's the practical ramifications? Well, one of them, as far as I understand it, one of the practical ramifications of seeing that you don't have a self in the way you thought you did is that then you're a better player in the broader community. And that exists in a prominent way in Stoicism. And so I'm wondering whether on some level, the Stoics are reasoning themselves toward the same, or at least one of the key outcomes that the Buddhists would have us experience ourselves toward.
- [41:57]
Nancy Sherman
I think that's absolutely the case, metaphysics aside, of who we are and whether we exist because of our essence or the essence is there because we exist. They are the first to really talk about a cosmic city, a global city, a way in which. Now, here's a bit of an essence. Because of our reason, we all are players in the same world. Yeah. They have trouble, of course, with their social conventions. They believe in enslavement. They have more servants than Downton Abbey would have. It makes Downton Abbey look shabby. But they think that we all can contribute in some way and that the world works more smoothly if we think of ourselves as in. They use sort of Plato's term, a Republic, by the way, it includes women. Women get educated on the Stoic view because they have reason and have the potential for virtue, just like men. They also think in terms of holes, which sounds a little bit like the Buddhist story that you're part of a hole, you're part of a breathing hole. They talk about breath. Pneuma, our word for pneumonia. P N EU is their word for breath. And it's what your psyche is filled with, breath. And we all share that breath, which sounds a little Eastern almost. We share kind of cosmic breath, and we share it with God. So they have an idea that the universe has some divine element in it as well. But that said, we're all neighbors. Marcus Aurelius uses a wonderful phrase. We're co workers, we're fellow workers. Even when we're asleep, we're contributing to this larger whole. And that's a very important idea of diminishing a bit, the importance of yourself, reducing your ego investment, and thinking about what's shared across all spheres. And they have practices for doing this. They call it becoming at home in the world. And you take circles, and you think of you at the center, but you, at the center, have these concentric circles around you, and you think about the farthest circle, and you bring through vivid imagination that outermost circle closer to your center. And they Say it takes zealous effort. So it's a real practice, a discipline, a habit. And you imagine someone in the farthest reaches who might be brought closer to you in the way that your kith and kin would be your kinsman, your family. And you have to practice that regularly. The connection isn't automatic, it's not magical. It actually requires quite a lot of practice and effort. So this idea of you're nothing if you cut yourself off from the whole, which was at Marcus Aurelius, the stoic emperor's thinking on the battlefield comes with a way of making the connection more vivid for yourself through this practice of bringing outer circles closer to the center. Now, there's a hazard for any of philosophy, and that is you make the outer circles in your image. You know, whatever is me is enlarged for everyone. We get very narcissistic about how we want the big picture to look, but they're essentially saying, make it matter. Bring those outer circles inward. And they're athletes of the psyche is the best way to put it. They really believe in discipline for your mental training. And it's not doing a lot of logical exercises, it's rather doing these rehearsals. What are you anticipating that you think you're over attached to? Let it go a little bit, meditate. At the end of the day, imagine the world of which you're a part, that you're a global citizen. How would that work? Back to the question, is there a big ego in the center of stoicism? Well, yeah, in the sense that they never diminish your reasoning capacity. You need it to get smart emotions. They have all these trainings. You also need it to monitor your bias. I think this is a totally ignored part of stoicism. They have this idea that you're interpreters of the world. That's one of the practices you always have to remember. You interpret the world. And so, you know, maybe the misfortune isn't as bad as you thought. But then they say, make sure you watch the impressions. And this could be also your biases. Watch the biases and press a pause button, you know, phrase of Kahneman, Daniel Kahneman, so that you can think more slowly rather than just fast. Be more reflective and practice putting some space between impulsive impressions and your spin on them. And are your spins, whether it has to do with how you view people in the farthest reaches of the world who have little connection to you versus how you deal with what you want and need and what gets you really pissed off and what gets you angry. Put some space in between those impressions and your estimate of them, much more.
- [47:46]
Dan Harris
Of my conversation with Nancy Sherman right after this. My son, who's 9, loves Pokemon. Loves it. If you want to win that dude over, get him some Pokemon cards. In fact, some friends of mine have done that in the past. And he still remembers it. My son does. He still remembers when people give him that gift. So imagine my surprise and delight when I received in the mail a huge box filled with Pokemon trading cards, which I then, of course, gave to my son. It was one of those rare moments where he thought I was cool. Why did I receive said box? Because they're sponsoring the show. Specifically, the Pokemon Trading Card Game is what I want to tell you about. It's a gift sure to delight gamers, collectors and Pokemon fans. Each Pokemon set has dozens of new cards in different styles by different artists, ranging from cute to stunning. You can learn to play in minutes. Enjoy the TCG and new cards for years to come. Find gift ideas for all ages and at every price point@tcg.pokemon.com holiday this episode is brought to you by Hills Pet Nutrition. Every shelter pet deserves a second chance, and you are making it possible for thousands of them every day. Because when you feed your pet Hills, you help feed a shelter pet, which helps make them healthy, happy and more adoptable. I am a huge, unrelenting, unreconstructed fan of adopting shelter pets. We've got three shelter cats marauding around our home. And actually my friend and former colleague Whit Johnson was here the other day. He's an anchorman at ABC News, but he's got a side hustle. It's not really a hustle. It's a volunteer gig on the side where he fosters puppies. And he brought a puppy here the other day to our house and we almost adopted that puppy, but pudding, that was the dog's name, went to somebody else. Anyway, I think it's really cool that Hills Pet Nutrition supports animal shelters by feeding shelter pets. Hills has provided more than $300 million in pet food to more than 1,000 shelters. Over 14 million shelter pets fed and adopted. Science did that. Visit hillspet.com podcast to learn more. So there are a bunch of practices I want to make sure that we get back to and get more granular on. A while back many, many minutes ago, you listed three practices and then I said at the time, let's go deep on each one. We've only gone deep on one of them. So we'll come back to the remaining two of those in a Minute. But you then went on to list two other practices, the Circles practice, which I also want to talk about, and you referenced this practice that can help us shave down our biases. Can you just say a little bit more about how exactly we would do that in a Stoic fashion?
- [50:39]
Nancy Sherman
So the Stoics have this idea that you have all this stuff coming in and they call them impressions. And many of those impressions are really fast. Impulsive is their word. They call them impulsive impressions. And part of the attraction to stoicism is they put so much attention on your effort, your will, your discipline. And so they think that if you can, it's a technical term, I'll use it. Not assent or say yes to some of those impulsive impressions that I've been dissed, that someone is inferior to me, that someone is the way they are because of their choices. Or you name your favorite bias or prejudice. Unreflected impression, they say, monitor your patterns of attention. It could be through nighttime meditation practices. It could just be in the sense of learn how not to assent to them immediately, give in to them immediately, and reflect on them so that you can change them. Seneca is really interested in anger. That's the one that he's really, really fastened on. And he has this whole conversation about the fact that we get angry really fast and it takes us into tailspins and that we do horrible things because of anger. And he says you should not assent to the idea that you've been immediately insulted. Not assent to the idea that someone is speaking in a tone that you don't like, you know, and that as a result you should give them some lip or dismiss them as ignorant or as not in your camp or whatever. And so it's a kind of a higher order thinking that you lay on top of your lower order arousals. It's very much what Kahneman is talking about, in many ways, about fast thinking versus slow thinking. And the Stoics aren't modern day neuroscientists, but they do have this idea that you have different tracks, whether it's your brain or your emotions or your belief system. They think all emotions really are kind of cognitions. And so they think that you can introduce a higher level layer of reflection on those impulsive things. Some impulsive reactions you would never want to get rid of. Who would want to get rid of being really frightened if you see a bear, right, you want to either freeze or get out of there. Many of them are adaptive, many are maladaptive. Unbridled fear is probably maladaptive. Unbridled fear of people that are not like you is probably highly maladaptive. They're meditators in this sense. They want you to figure out how to practice monitoring your patterns of attention. That's very. Well, you might say it's kind of cognitive behavioral therapy of a certain kind. Right. Because they think that your emotions are by and large, cognitive and they manifest in behavioral ways of behavior. You do this, you do that, and that. You should watch it more carefully now. Some turning green in a storm, blanching when someone shames you, some stuff you can't control. It's your autonomic system talking. And they're all for that. They know that. But other things you might be able to control, like some of the expletives they say that come out of your mouth when they shouldn't. I mean, that's one of the examples Seneca gives. That's language that was impulsive. You should kind of curb it a little bit. So here's how I see it. All those people that think stoicism is just about me and my way of minimizing the impact of the world on me so that I can be in more control and I can just sort of, the world is as it is and I'm the captain of my ship. No, the stoics are actually saying, we interpret the world and we interact with that world, and it's through our interpretations. And we control some of those interpretations and change the world. We don't. It's not just a philosophy of resignation and acceptance, which is often how it's interpreted as the world sucks. I'm here. I have to deal with this deprivation. I'm going to make the best of it. I'm a pow. People I've interviewed, that's my fate. I'll accept it. I don't think so at all. I think they believe in changing the world, not just accepting it. And you change the world through the lenses that you wear. They think sometimes you better change the lens that you're wearing because you may be distorting the world. You may have mis evaluations. They would call it misestimates of the world. The world's not just sort of this color and that color. They think you wear lenses as you see a lot. Long answer to, I think a really important point that I don't think people think about when they think about stoicism. They typically think about resignation as a word I hear a lot, accept things as they are and just deal with it as opposed to, I create the world in some way through how I see things.
- [56:22]
Dan Harris
Which brings me back to one of the other practices you mentioned, which is this idea of thinking about circles of people and bringing the folks who are on the outer part of your circle close into you. I have two questions about that. One is, can you just say exactly how we would practice that? Because it does sound close to some of the compassion or loving kindness practices in Buddhism. And the second question is, how would the Stoics square that with their warm embrace of slavery?
- [56:52]
Nancy Sherman
Okay, so the Stoics have this idea that we are connected in the universe, so they've got to figure out a way of making us connected. And so they think it's a psychological habit. And I think the person who really sort of helped us understand the best the Stoic idea was an Enlightenment philosopher, Adam Smith. So Scottish Enlightenment, they were all reading the Stoics. And he has this idea that you trade places in fancy. Is his phrase imagine in a vivid way. You imagine in a vivid way what's hard to imagine. Or another phrase is you bring them to your breast. You bring them into your breast. And so that does get the compassion idea going. For Smith, it was empathy. He used the word sympathy. It's not our word, but it really is more empathy. You feel what they're feeling. It's a kind of a mindset, and not just a sense of benevolence. Right. Which compassion is. It's. You actually imagine, engage in almost a physiological way what those others are going through. Now, journalism, especially visual journalism, is an amazing way that we do this because we see images, we see pictures, we see suffering. But in the 18th century, or in the. For the Stoics, the turn of the millennium, they're asking you to do it in your mind as a visualization, we would call it visualization. And so it's a very graphic set of images. Now, the institution of slavery is a hard subject. Anytime you are a historian or a philosopher that deals with historical periods, you always got to figure out, what do you do with stuff that's distasteful to you? You whitewash it or not. So here's two things. Seneca, sometimes, you know, he's writing the first century of the millennium, he's in Nero's court because he's the best speech writer there is, man of letters, and he writes about enslavement. And he says, you should treat your slave with humanity because they too have reason. And you could be enslaved. And he means enslaved inside, not free inside. You have your demons. Or changes of fortune could easily put you in a role reversal. That said, some of his enlightenment almost sounding claims, I think are pleased to treat your enslaved kindly because in the Roman system they could be in courts, they could claim that you were beating them. If they're fugitive, you might not get them back. And so you'd have to deal with your vineyards, your household, your accounts all by yourself. I mean, so it's very prudential. They have a vested interest in treating slaves well. And some of the remarks that sound more enlightened might just be self serving for an elitist class. So I can't justify Roman or Greek practices of enslavement. On the other hand, I don't think we should not read them as a result of that. But I think we should understand the social settings. I think when sometimes the Roman Stoics seem a lot more. They don't believe in natural slaves in the way that Aristotle always talked about them. There's some people who are just by nature of inferior status. They don't believe that. They believe it's kind of conventional, that it happens through capture or circumstance. But sometimes what seems as more compassionate treatment is self serving. They don't want to lose all the advantages of having a household retinue. So I mean, look, it's also the Roman Empire and conquest territorial gain expand at all cost. There's a lot of barbarism in all, all that. So I think whenever you're dealing with complicated texts from complicated periods, you can't cancel it out, to use a phrase, simply because it doesn't jibe with our current views of what we know to be a better world and a better social structure. But we still can learn enormous amount about our own, in this case kind of mental psychology or you know, the psychology and mental, mental habits and ethical habits through reading them. I am really of the opinion that in a classroom you put it all out there and you grapple and you don't cancel certain parts because you don't know how to deal with it. I think you have to view it as historical records and try to put it in context.
- [62:10]
Dan Harris
I'm going to go back to both of the practices that I failed to get us back to earlier. And again I'm talking about the three practices you listed early, early on in this discussion. The first we talked about, which is sort of thinking about the ego bruises that come up during the course of the day. The second was something about the premeditation of evil. And I'd love to hear more about that because it does sound like something I naturally do in my own life is think about Worst case scenarios. And it's comforting to play out the worst case scenario and see that even in that scenario, I can survive it.
- [62:47]
Nancy Sherman
So that's a great way of putting it. They go in for a bit of shock and awe. I think Epictetus, especially one of the stoics, and that is you imagine a worst case scenario. So you imagine what would be the worst possible outcome, and you try to live with it for a while, anticipate it so that you're not caught off guard. A lot of this is. So it's not totally unexpected. And some of it is a way of being prepared mentally. Some things I think it's hard to prepare for. I think, for example, with the pandemic, we should have been better prepared than we were. And if you're an infectious disease doc, you might have been better prepared and you got your social message out. We could have done better. But in our personal lives, you're trying to imagine, okay, what would be the worst that would happen? And you live with it for a while and you ask yourself, is it so bad? Or how do you respond to it? So it's a bit like the phrase that Cicero uses. He's not a stoic, but he's a fellow traveler and we get a lot of texts through him, dwell in the future. Now, they don't think you have to dwell in the future when it's the case of good stuff happening. Dwell in the future when it's stuff that could really disarm you. So dwell in the future. And here's a horrible phrase. My students think I'm crazy when I tell them this phrase. It's very stoic, from Epictetus and before him, the Presocratics. Kiss your child goodbye in the morning as if it's the last time I do that.
- [64:31]
Dan Harris
I had never heard this phrase before, but it is on my mind. And I have to imagine I'm not alone on this. It's every time I send my kid off to school, it's on my mind that something horrible could happen. And so I just try to keep that in my mind. I don't know if that's healthy or not, but I do notice myself doing it.
- [64:47]
Nancy Sherman
Well, that's. That is a pre rehearsal of the bads. That is a pre rehearsal of evil. It's a way of anticipating and putting a bit of a cushion around you should that eventuality happen. Now, if you're the kid, as my students often are, they do think that I'm telling them that their parents have this morbid fear and that seeing the reactions in their face, they think, oh my God, my parents are so if they were to say that would be so unfeeling. So you know, it gets uptake in a different way from different sides of a relationship, I think. But I do think it is a way of cushioning a bit, a dreaded possibility and living with it a little better so that you're not blindsided.
- [65:37]
Dan Harris
Well, let me press on that for just a second because I do find myself using this homespun version of this with professional outcomes. I think about my company, what would happen if it was all to go pear shaped and what moves could or would I make, et cetera, et cetera. And I find it comforting to think through the worst case scenario. However, I don't know that I can do that with something horrible happening to my son. When I kiss him goodbye in the morning, I try to be. I don't know if it's coming from a healthy place. There's just a lot of fear every time he leaves my orbit. I don't know that I can generate any sort of cushion against the worst thing that I can imagine happening, which would be something bad happening to him.
- [66:18]
Nancy Sherman
Well, I think that's right. It's a little bit like there's a cognitive and an emotional side to this. So some of it might just be a cognitive habit. And the stoics think that you can let it sink into your emotional framework. Now should something horrible happen. They also have this other. It's not a trick, but another tool in their toolkit and that is that we have this community of support that we have to remember and I think that is part of the mental apparatus. So they have this idea that you go through worst case scenarios and almost live them. So that should. Would. Could they have. And it's a little bit like, well, think of how you train folks on the battlefield. You're always going through virtual reality setups so that the scenario could be one that you would face then and how would you deal with it? So they're not unlike that. Survive, evade, resist, escape. This kind of training for folks that could be paratroopers or the like, you gotta be able to live it a little bit in order to know how to deal with real deprivation. So I think that's a reasonable tact. Don't be blindsided, don't be naive. Think about it. You know, I just will put a tiny little addendum to this idea of dwelling in the future or pre rehearsing the bads. And that is they're non Consequential. They don't want you to dwell on consequences. They want you to dwell on the doing, on the striving, on the living, as opposed to just the outcome. And you know, that's a way of reorienting your head and your thoughts so that outcome optimization isn't all you're thinking about. It's more, did I do my best? Did I strive the best way? Was I good? Not just in the sense of professionally good, but ethically good as well. And that, I think, is a rather important addendum, as I say, to the worst case scenario practice.
- [68:24]
Dan Harris
I've made clear early on that I don't have the best memory. So I think the third practice you talked about was, and this is at the beginning of the interview, was something having to do with mental reservation. How do we do that?
- [68:38]
Nancy Sherman
It's a kind of hedging your bets. So here's a really simple example. Seneca gives you. You want to go out for a boat ride, but you say, I will go out for a boat ride unless it rains. So you have this little clause you stick into your thinking again, where you're anticipating a bad outcome, possibly, or that it might not happen. So you're imagining or getting yourself used to the idea that you might not do it, it might not work out that way. And when you set out with your intentions, your plans, your strategies, your life goals, you always stick this kind of hedging your bet in so that you can be agile or adaptive. You're not fixed on an outcome. You're fixed on rather doing your best striving, putting your best effort out there as opposed to getting the desired outcome. I will have a picnic today. Unless it's inclement weather. We typically don't think about that. You think about, I want to have a picnic, or you're dealing with kids. I want. Or yourself, I want this to work out well. I want it to be a glorious day. I'm planning a wedding. It's got to be outdoors. Right now. We're in a pandemic. I don't want it to rain. And you're so focused on that and fixed on that outcome that if it rains, you'll be really disappointed. Your face will just go crazy, you might burst into tears, and you'll ruin it for everyone. It's a rather simple thing, but it's called mental reservation. And they have it kind of in a way. Stick an if clause in there or an unless clause. This will be my plan. Unless. Da, da, da da. I think of it as agility. Adaptiveness. And when I think about being resilient, I think we know that it's a real key to resilience to be able to switch your life goals, your life plans a little bit if things go a certain way. Be able to imagine a slightly different course of action with regard to a family or, you know, if there's an unforeseen event. So it's a kind of agility. Mental agility is really what they're out for as a mental habit. Practice mental agility.
- [71:11]
Dan Harris
Sometimes Buddhism is called advanced common sense. And I could see how you might apply that description to Stoicism as well. Let me end on a light note, or what I think might be a light note. I noticed in reading my prep doc, one of my colleagues, Gabrielle, put together a little document for me to prepare for this interview. And one of the things that I noticed in the document that caught my attention was teasing. Apparently the Stoics thought a little bit about teasing. In what way?
- [71:39]
Nancy Sherman
The Stoics are often portrayed as heavy, humorless, and all about stiff upper lip, British style kind of stoicism. But they're also about being able to face outcomes well, even though they're not the ones you want. And some of that requires a lightness. So I certainly was thinking of that when I was trying to prep my mom for her last days at age 97. And, you know, we sort of made a joke of her of mortality. It wasn't going to be forever and how are we going to get through it? And that, I think, is an important part of being stoic. Another way of, you know, you can think about this is I think of the Stoics as also creating partners in life. So it's not quite teasing or lightness, but they're really about forming a cadre, if you like, fellow partners. And you can't have fellow partners unless you sort of take yourself a little lightly. You're not the center of attention and you view them as really sort of on your wavelength a bit. So when you think about Stoics as creating partners that have zest and want to live well, that's part of it. Seneca was a letter writer. He was writing to his friend Lucilius. He may never have sent the letters, but. And he's a moral tutor, some of it can be a little chastening, but he also sort of is joking around a little bit. I noticed you didn't eat your lunch today. Maybe you should have eaten your lunch today. I mean, he's sort of. He's creating a social Bond. I'm waiting for that letter to come. I didn't receive it. Did you forget to write to me? It's a sort of a reminder that this is a very human philosophy. It's also a reminder that the Stoics, you know, they have emotional skin in the game. They're not stripping us of that emotional stuff. They know that you build social capital on many levels. And one of the levels is clearly by knowing that humor comes from reason, and reason is how we get connected. And they're the stuff of emotions. And having a light sense of life is kind of a part of it. I also, just on that note, I think of Seneca, you know, and he is dealing with Nero. He's trying to meditate at how he's going to deal with the end of his life. And at the end of his life, in a Rubens portrait, he's surrounded by his friends. You know, he's not alone. He's not smiling, but he's surrounded by his friends. And so friendship, connection, sometimes with humor, you know, is a way to think about being stoic. Not just stiff upper lip, pull your socks up, that kind of thing.
- [74:33]
Dan Harris
Nancy, thank you so much for Stoicism101, just as we close here. For people who want to learn more from you, can you please plug your books and anything else that you put out into the world that people might want to access?
- [74:48]
Nancy Sherman
Sure. So the most recent book is Stoic Ancient Lessons for Modern Resilience. And that will give you, I think, a really easy walk through Stoicism 101. There's an earlier book, Stoic warriors, but I think Stoic wisdom is it. I've got pieces that were in the New York Times, the Washington Post, but you can find much of that on.
- [75:09]
Dan Harris
My website, nancysherman.com really appreciate your time, Nancy. Thank you very much.
- [75:15]
Nancy Sherman
Thank you so much, Dan. It's been a pleasure.
- [75:19]
Dan Harris
Thank you to Nancy. Great to talk to her. We'll put links in the show notes to Nancy's books, as well as my recent conversation with Ryan Holiday, a much younger writer who has also made stoicism center of his work. So if you want to go deeper, you can check out my conversation with Ryan. Thank you to everybody who worked so hard on this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan, and Eleanor Vasily. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great people over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our production manager. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Kashmir is our executive producer, and Nick Thorburn of the Van Islands wrote our theme, if you like 10% happier, and I hope you do. You can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey@wondery.com survey.
- [76:23]
Nancy Sherman
I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondry's show American Scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in US History. Presidential lies, Environmental disasters, Corporate fraud. In our latest series, the Houston Astros shocked Major League Baseball by going from last place to winning the World Series in just four years. This remarkable turnaround seems to vindicate Astros general manager Jeff Luno, whose unconventional use of data and the latest technology stirred controversy around the league. But when two reporters uncover that some players and coaches have been using that technology to cheat, it casts doubt on the Astro's culture of winning at all costs. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery. You can join Wondery plus in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial today.
- [77:18]
Dan Harris
Make this holiday season wow with a brand new way to play from Wondery Kids and the number one kids podcast wow in the World. We are making stem toys fun like never before for the first time ever.
- [77:30]
Nancy Sherman
Be wowed with exclusive engaging companion audio that comes with each stem toy.
- [77:36]
Dan Harris
Each STEM kit includes a bonus science tool and three months of Wondery plus free. Shop the full wow in the World.
- [77:43]
Nancy Sherman
Toy collection today@Amazon.com wonderykids.