The Daily Stoic - An Honest Dollar Is an Impressive Thing

Episode Date: October 29, 2020

"It’s not the quantity that we should care about. Something earnestly made and sold for a fair price, whether it’s millions of units or a few dozen: that’s honorable. Something earned with real effort: that’s honorable, whether it’s earned by sweeping floors or managing a company."Ryan talks about why the effort poured into your work is in certain ways more important than the outcome of your work, 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 Stood Podcast early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wundery'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 dailystowoc.com. An honest dollar is an impressive thing. There's no dispute about the fact that many, if not most, of the ancient stoics were rich. Zeno came from a merchant family. Kato's great-grandfather had been a successful farmer. Senaiko is wealthy, and of course, so was Marcus Aurelius. The problem with their fortunes was not

the size, was how it was acquired. Both Zeno and Cato's wealth would have been impossible without the grueling and thankless labor of slaves. Senaiko grew rich in neurosurface. Marcus Aurelius never wanted to be emperor, but as he once told the Senate, he did not regard himself as possessing a single dollar or even a house to Marcus, all of his wealth truly belonged to Rome. But still, we know now that no man should be king, that no one should sit on a palace built from the sweat and tears of millions of faceless citizens. Clienthys, one of the earliest docks, had no great fortune. Instead, he worked nearly all his life a series of humble jobs.

He carried water for people's gardens. He crushed grain. He was a laborer by choice. When a wealthy king offered him enough money to cease these laborers, he refused. So it was not to be corrupted. Every dollar client he's earned, even if it wasn't many of them, was honestly made. Not one of them was stained by blood or tainted by injustice. And isn't this a much more impressive fortune? It's not the quantity that we should care about. Something earnestly made and sold for a fair price, whether it's millions of units or a few

dozen, that's honorable. Something earned with real effort, that's honorable, whether it's earned by sweeping the floors or managing a company. The philosopher Naseem Teleb has joked that a person possesses true wealth when the money they turn down is sweeter than the money they accept. An honest dollar is the only kind of dollar worth chasing or collecting. If only more stilloks had lived by this or had been strong enough to, if only more of us could find the strength to do this today,

how much more impressive we would all be. Obviously, we try to earn an honest dollar here at Daily Stoic, at Daily Stoic Store. We thank you for the support. We try to source mostly, almost exclusively from US manufacturers. We try to make and sell only things that we ourselves use. We constantly try to improve every facet

of the business from packing to production, customer service. It's an honor to serve you. And of course, it's an honor to have the new book out where we explore some of the lives we're just talking about. Lives of the Stokes, the art of living from Xeno to Marcus really supporting your local bookstore, support Amazon if you want. We appreciate it.

We feel a book is honest labor, certainly a lot of labor, and we love hearing that you guys read them. So check out store.dailystoke.com. You can actually get a sign copy of the new book there and appreciate it. Hey, Prime Members. You can listen to the Daily Stoic early and ad-free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts. Hey there listeners! While we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think you'll like. It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks to founders behind

some of the world's biggest and most innovative companies, to learn how they built them from the ground up. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace, Manduke Yoga Mats, Soul Cycle, and Codopaxi, as well as entrepreneurs working to solve some of the biggest problems of our time, like developing technology that pulls energy from the ground to heat in cool homes, or even figuring out how to make drinking water from air and sunlight. Together, they discussed their entire journey from day one, and all the skills they had to learn along the way, like confronting big challenges, and how to lead through uncertainty.

So, if you want to get inspired and learn how to think like an entrepreneur, check out how I built this, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon or Wonder yet. I built this, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon or Wondery app.