The Daily Stoic - Always Give Credit to Something Greater

Episode Date: December 23, 2020

“It’s almost a cliché at this point. A reporter walks into the locker room of a victorious team and gets some version of the following quotes from the athlete who has pulled it off: ‘It was a team effort.’ ‘We worked hard and got lucky out there.’ ‘I trusted in God and did my best.’”Ryan discusses the importance of cultivating humility, and keeping your ego at bay, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow Daily Stoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke Podcast early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wondery's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target. The new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. on music or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Daily Stoic. For each day, we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living good life. Each one of these passages

is based on the 2000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at alistair.com. Always give credit to something greater. It's almost a cliche at this point. A reporter walks into the locker room of a victorious team and get some version of the following quotes from the athletes who pulled it off. It was a team effort. We worked hard and got lucky out there. I trusted in God and did my best. It's always a surprise to see someone so clearly talented and so obviously responsible for what happened, giving credit for success to someone else. What's interesting also is how far back this tradition goes. Around the first century AD, Plutarch wrote about how accomplished people give

some credit for their success to the gods and to luck, as when Tim O'Lean dedicated a temple to the goddess of chance after destroying the tyrannies in Sicily, Python, when the Athenians were marveling at him and honoring him for killing Cotus, said, God did it through the agency of my hand. One reason these conquerors did this was to avoid envy, and that's likely true for athletes today. Make yourself to conspicuous and you attract enemies and unnecessary attention, but almost certainly the real reason is to keep ego at bay to stay humble. Marcus Aurelius talked about avoiding imperialization, being stained by the power and success of

what he had been given. The ancient world, not unlike the history of sports, is filled with examples of people who took undue credit, who believed all the hype and shears and became worse for it. The real pros focus on the things other people did right. They focused on where they themselves fell short because this attitude makes them better. They knew that ego was the enemy. Did the stokes really believe that sacrifices made a difference? Maybe it probably also didn't hurt to actively practice crediting omens and rituals for success. It was an easy way of giving credit to something bigger than them to remind themselves that they weren't totally in control

and how big a role chance played in things. That athletes are still considering this tradition thousands of years later is a sign that the practice works and that we should develop our own. Most of you already know this but this daily podcast is based on the email we send out every day for Daily Stoke. If you aren't already subscribed and want to check it out, go to DailyStoke.com slash email. Emails can be a longer, more in-depth ways to tackle the things that we talk about in this podcast along obviously with links, article, ideas, images, stuff like that. So check it out.

You can learn more at Dailystove.com slash email. Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke early and ad-free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Ah, the Bahamas. What if you could live in a penthouse above the crystal clear ocean working during the day and partying at night with your best friends and have it be 100% paid for? FTX Founder's Sam Bankman Freed lived that dream life, but it was all funded with other people's money, but he allegedly stole.

Many thought Sam Bankman Freed was changing the game as he graced the pages of Forbes in Vanity Fair. Some involved in crypto saw him as a breath of fresh air, from the usual Wall Street buffs with his casual dress and ability to play League of Legends during boardroom meetings. But in less than a year, his exchange would collapse. An SPF would find himself in a jail cell, with tens of thousands of investors blaming him for their crypto losses. From Bloomberg and Wondering, comes Spellcaster, a new six-part docu-series about the meteoric

rise and spectacular fall of FTX, and its founder, Sam Beckman-Freed. Follow Spellcaster wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, prime members, you can listen to episodes Add Free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today. episodes add free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today.