← The Daily Stoic
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- [00:00]
Ryan Holiday
Foreign.
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Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast where each day we bring you a Stoic inspired meditation designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life.
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Each one of these episodes is Based.
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On the 2000 year old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. Help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more visit Dailystoic.com.
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Every day can be a Thanksgiving. There's something wonderful about being together. Family traveling in from near and far, good people enjoying good food, taking a break from the busyness of the world, reflecting on all the things you're grateful for, remembering and making new memories. That's what Thanksgiving, which we're celebrating here in the US today, is all about. We all have so much to be thankful for, but the Stoics urge us to take this practice even a little bit further. Can you work to be grateful for the less obvious things? For the travel delays and the annoying people at the store? For the kid who wakes up with a cold? For the oven that doesn't work well? For the obstacles at work? For the political dysfunction? For the back pain? For the dirty dishes and the passive aggressive mother in law? The Stoics saw gratitude as a kind of medicine. That saying thank you for every experience was the key to good mental health. Convince yourself that everything is a gift from the gods. Marcus Aurelius said that things are good and always will be. The emphasis there was on everything. And his quote takes on a special meaning when you realize how much pain and heartbreak and struggle that life inflicted on Marcus Aurelius. It wasn't natural to see it all as a gift. You had to work for it. Stoicism is not just enjoying special days like Thanksgiving means finding the good in every day and all things. Why? Because we're only experiencing them because we're alive. Because obstacles are a form of fuel for us, an opportunity inside each one. Because surely someone has it worse. Epictetus said that every situation has two handles. Which are you going to decide to grab? The anger or the appreciation? Resentment or thanks? You're going to let those situations defeat.
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You or help make you stronger.
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As you gather around your family and friends this Thanksgiving or any other celebration you may partake in, appreciate it, and give thanks for all the bountiful gifts that the present moment presents. Just make sure that when that moment passes, as you go back to your regular life, that you make gratitude a regular part of it again, not simply for what is easy and immediately pleasing, but for all of us, and I'm here with my family, we're having a wonderful time. And one of the things we're all excited about and talking about is the fact that we're teaming up with Feeding America to provide feels for hungry families. You can head over to Dailystoic.com feeding right now to learn more. We're trying to make small but meaningful difference in the lives of neighbors who are facing hunger. There's a great line from Marcus Aurelius where he says in meditations that it's not just that he had never known serious one, it's that he was always lucky enough to be able to help other people. Like, what a wonderful thing to be grateful for and a thing to pay forward. As they say, if you've been blessed, be a blessing. So we're trying to raise $300,000 for Feeding America that'll provide basically 3 million meals. I put up the first 30,000. If you want to donate $3 or $30 or 300 DOL, any amount makes a big difference. That's Dailystoic.com feeding and I think we're already at 70,000 or maybe a little bit more. I think we can get to that 300,000 goal. And I'm grateful for all of you who are listening, who participate, and I hope you have a great Thanksgiving. Thanks to Toyota Trucks for sponsoring this episode. When I bought my ranch in 2015 out here in Bastrop County, I drove my car about halfway down the dirt road that we live on, thought, this isn't going to work. Stopped, parked it walked the rest of the way home, borrowed my wife's car, drove into Austin and bought a truck. What I bought was a Toyota Tacoma. And this truck wasn't just transportation getting me to and from my house. It unlocked a whole different style of living for us. Not just on the ranch, but in our little Texas towns. There were places I could go now that I couldn't go before, especially out here in the piney forests, through the fields and on the unpaved roads like the one that I lived in. We got to go deep into the hill country's wild beauty. We've driven all the way out to East Texas. We've driven it across the country. And by we, I mean not just my wife, but both my kids, who I drove home from the hospital in that truck. Toyota trucks are built for those who understand that the best adventures happen when you're willing to veer off course, because you never know when you'll end up on a Toyota Adventure Detour. And of course, this is stoicism too, because every detour, every obstacle is an opportunity. But it's helpful if you can handle the difficulty inherent in that. If you've got the resilience and the right companion to make it wherever the road takes you, discover your uncharted territory. Learn more at toyota.com trucks adventure-detours we.
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Just took our kids to an outdoor performance at the Nutcracker. They had a snow cone and then they went insane in the car ride home. And one of the things I try to remind myself when that's happening is that I don't control my kids behavior, especially when they're too far gone like that. But I do control how I respond, right? That's stoicism. But it's also what Dr. Becky talks about. Dr. Becky is a clinical psychologist and a best selling author and she founded Good Inside, which is there to give parents practical action tools for handling those everyday challenges with confidence. My wife introduced me to Dr. Becky's books. I love them. I've recommended them a million times. I've had her on the podcast and as it happens, Dr. Becky is hosting two live Q& A events for Good Inside members. I am one of them. She signed me up for it about a year and a half ago. I've loved it ever since. On December 1st, you can join Dr. Becky for her how not to Raise Assholes event, which is about avoiding entitlement and raising kind, empathy, empathetic kids. And on December 15, she's hosting her how not to Lose it over the Holidays event, which I'm sure we could all use. As I said, I'm a big fan of Dr. Becky. She's been a great influence for me as a parent and just as a human being. And Daily Stoic listeners can join for 15% off with code STOIC15. You just gotta head over to goodinside.com to catch the events.
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Foreign hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast.
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My son is playing hide and seek here.
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He's not in here.
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My other son is trying to find him.
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But I am recording the intro for today's Thursday episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I get to travel all over the world and give talks and one of the questions I get the most is like how to find motivation when you're burnt out, how to be resilient and tough times. You know, the stuff that the sort of bread and butter of stoicism. So in today's episode I wanted to bring you a compilation of those. That's the theme we're meditating on today. Where you going, bud? Okay, he's just moving hiding spots, but so far he remains undiscovered. In any case, I'm going to be in Seattle on December 3rd. I'm going to be in San Diego on February 5th, in Phoenix on February 27th. You can go to DailyStokeLive.com to grab tickets for that. Ask me questions, like the lovely folks who asked me these questions on this topic, which I always enjoy thinking about. And I'm trying to stay motivated myself. I'm in the middle of this book that I'm working on now, and, you know, you have good days and bad days, but mostly you got to sit your ass in the chair and do the work and then have other things that balance you out in life, which is my kids, in this case, who are having a very spirited game of hide and seek, and I am going to go join them. So I'm going to wrap this up. Hope to see you, as I said, Seattle, San Diego or Phoenix dailystokelive.com and I hope you like this episode and you're enjoying your Thanksgiving break. If you're currently on one.
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Podcast Listener
My question has to do. You've obviously cornered the market on modern stoicism, and you're very prolific, but my question is, as an artist, do you ever one day wake up and go fuck today? Like, you probably have interests that are all over the map, I would expect. Do you ever wake up and go fuck? I really want to write a book on, I don't know, Spain or whatever it might be. And if so, how do you put that aside while you're working and doing everything you do?
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Ryan Holiday
Yeah, when I sort of set out to write about this stuff, there's the topic that I was interested in. But then there's also the way that I write about the topic, which is I take stories and I illustrate the ideas. So although I am writing about this overarching topic, I get to bring in all the other things that I'm interested in. So I read very widely and I bring them back to the thing that I talk about. So there's not a ton that I feel like, hey, I have, like, lots of good material over here that I can't use. But I have done other projects that are very different. I mean, this parenting one, that was a big part of my life. So I do Daily dad every day, which is advice, but you know, about a very specific part of my life. I have the podcast I Get to talk to people about different things. And then I've done a couple books in like sort of different, different genres. But I think when you find something that really lights you up, chances are you don't have like 10 things that light you up to an equal degree. So when I was talking about, you have to be able to say no. There's some things that I'm saying no to, but mostly I'm saying no to things so I can say yes to this one thing that I'm the most excited about.
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Podcast Listener
Where do you find your motivation to keep going? When you have like long work days and you feel like your to do list is never ending or it's just created by other people, what do you find your, you know, your inspiration and your motivation to kind of keep going?
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Ryan Holiday
There's a great writing rule that someone told me. They said just two crappy pages a day, that's all you have to do. And so I talk about sort of boiling it down to its essence is like, what is like the least amount you can do to call it a win. And so I have that and that kind of creates momentum for me. So it's like I just try to make a positive contribution to the work every day. And almost always I do a lot more than that. But it creates like a minimum for me that allows me to sort of never have that fully taken away. Even if travel was crazy, I'm stuck at the airport, I can do one thing right, or my kids are sick, I can figure out how to do one thing. I try to sort of narrow it down, but I do try to. You've got to protect whatever that main thing is. I said, you know, it's kind of interesting. You write books and then people want you to speak or consult or advise or then they invite you to stuff. It's all wonderful. But it's really important that you, if you know why you're doing your thing and what that non negotiable is. For me, I have just had to be very clear, like the reward for succeeding as an author cannot be that I don't get to be. Like, the whole point is writing. That's the thing that I control, that I like, that inspires me and fulfills me. So I just have to protect that thing. And if you don't, it can become very easy to just be flooded with or, you know, overwhelmed with all the potential distractions and opportunities that are, that are out there.
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Podcast Listener
I just want to ask you, like work life, balance is a theme which is like everybody talks about that, yes. And people say that to stay happy, you need to have work life balance. Yes, but there are professions where sometimes it is hard to achieve many days. What are the main principles of stoicism, which those people can apply when they can't achieve work life balance to stay happy.
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Ryan Holiday
Yeah. Without that work life balance, I think we. We burn ourselves out. We spin off the planet. We neglect our other responsibilities and obligations.
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It can be hard.
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I mean, Mark Shrugius in Meditations is talking about how people love what they do, wear themselves down doing it. They forget to wash and eat and sleep. It's true, he says that. But he also says later, maybe correcting for that overcorrection, he says, you know, don't be all about business. You know, he talks about finding stillness and peace. And clearly relationships are really important to him. So I like the idea of balance. Maybe tension is another word, that these things are in tension or in opposition for each other. And you find maybe you go too far in one direction, you got to correct a little bit. You go too far in the other direction, you got to correct a little bit. To me, it's a constant sort of recalibration, especially because it's not like your family is this stagnant thing, Right. What your kids need when they're two is different than what they need when they're 20. You know, their school schedule is different. Their emotional needs are different. So understanding that there's kind of seasons to these things, I keep. Every time I feel like I figure out the perfect schedule, the perfect, you know, list of priorities, what they want from me changes, or, you know, how bedtime goes changes, or they wake up sick, or then they have to change school. So it is, to me, just a constant process of figuring it out as opposed to having figured it out. There is no singular balance. You're just always adjusting and figuring out the scales to get closer to what you and they need in that moment.
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Podcast Listener
My question is this. It was sort of like, when I write, it's frustratingly difficult. And I guess I'm just wondering, as someone who has written 10 books or whatever over the last 10 years, like, does it get easier? In other words, when you are trying to write something that is so deep and so good that it can define a space, I find that I'll write a chapter. It takes me like a month. And then I have to, like, rewrite that same chapter like, seven times. And so now it takes me like four years to write a fucking book. And I'm just like, how do I, like, do this. How do I get deeper, faster?
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Ryan Holiday
Well, one thing I try to tell myself is that if it was easy, everyone would do it. And so it's good that it's hard. Right? Like that's what keeps the riff raff out. Can it get easier for you as you do it? More to a degree. But you're still trying to do an incredibly difficult thing, which is take something in your head that makes sense to you and not only make it make sense to other people, but make it interesting to other people and then ideally make it shareable or a value. Like you're trying to do a really hard thing.
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Right.
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And so like I'm more confident as I go because I, I know what to expect. Like I know where the dips are and I know how long it's supposed to take. And you know, I have recall of certain things. You know, I have that. But it's still fundamentally, you're starting with a blank. Like I am dreading what I'm going to have to start in the next couple months because I know what to expect, which is why it's going to be hard. You know what I mean?
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Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic podcast.
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I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30.
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Million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple years we've been doing it.
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It's an honor. Please spread the word, tell people about it. And this isn't to sell anything.
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I just wanted to say thank you.
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Podcast Listener
Foreign.
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