The Daily Stoic - Are You Great Like This? | Ask Daily Stoic

Episode Date: January 27, 2023

People have different definitions of greatness or success.Maybe you think yourself powerful because you have a lot of people working for you. Or successful because you have a full calendar. Or important because you’ve been on TV. Or happy because you go from one pleasurable activity to the next.But do you know what Seneca considered the sign of greatness?---In today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan presents part 4 of his live Q&A at Alechemy in which he covers the "life books" that influence him every day, the mentors who he is looking up to right now, his own struggles with defining happiness in his life, and more.We’re launching Session 2 of the New Year New You Challenge on February 1st! Enroll now to secure your spot or gift it to a friend.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more, including the Premium Leather Edition of the Daily Stoic.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee 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 Wonderree'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. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. But on Fridays we not only read this daily meditation but I try to answer some questions from listeners and fellow stoics

who are trying to apply this philosophy, whatever it is they happen to do. Sometimes these are from talks. Sometimes these are people who come up to talk to me on the street. Sometimes these are written in or emailed from listeners. But I hope in answering their questions, I can answer your questions, give a little more guidance on this philosophy. We're all trying to follow.

Are you great like this? People have different definitions of greatness or success. Some people look at money as a measuring stick. Some look at celebrity and recognition. Others look at awards and rankings in fortunes 40 under 40. Maybe you think you're powerful because you have a lot of people working for you, or successful because you have a full calendar, or important because you've been on TV, or happy because you go from one pleasurable activity to the next.

But do you know what Sennaka considered? The sign of greatness? In on the shortness of life, he writes, believe me, it is the sign of a great man and one who is above human error, not to allow his time to be frittered away. What a wonderful way of putting it. It's not how rich you are.

It's not about how famous you are. It's not about how many trophies you've won. No, to the Stoics, the point of this work was something simple or something within everyone's reach, to not waste time, to be in control of one's life rather than in this way of ambition or distraction or temptation, to get clear on what we want to do when we want to do it and who we want to do it with.

To never, as we've said, wish away a minute of life to make good use every minute. That is greatness. All right, so I'm going to give away from your books. Your books can't be part of the something answers to the question about that. Okay. I've got a stack of posts behind you. If I want to be a better leader in 2021, which side of the reading or studying in your opinion? Let's see. Forty-a-loss of power, definitely. Mastery by Robert Green, definitely.

It doesn't have to be behind you either, right? I think I can do. So the section I have behind me for the most part, I got a little mixed up, but these are like the books that I read and reread. I call them my life books, and books that you base your life around. So here's one.

This is Doris Kern's Goodwin's leadership and turbulent times. A very timely book and timeless one. Is that the thing? I think like a Roman Emperor book in the middle there. Is that the... Here? Yeah.

What is that one? No, that's a book called Roman Honor, which is also good. But how to think like a Roman Emperor is very good. I love Don Robertson. I have Marx realizes meditations, which I like. If you haven't read anti-fragile, that's a great one. Man search for meaning,

taming the tiger within by Tick-Not-Hon, who is telling you about, or I like a lot. Yeah, I think that's a good start. Yeah. I would say that's a good start. It's about 2,000 pages, so give me back when everyone in the room has finished all those. Fans first for meeting isn't that long a book,

but it might make you think the entire 12 months. That is a short one, and yeah, if you only read that book, it would give you a the entire 12 months. That is a short one. And yeah, if you only read that book, it would give you a lifetime to chew on. Mentors, coaches, who are you turning to right now? To be a better author, a better leader, better father? Who are you looking at right now as you go into 2020?

Well, I love the concept of masterminds. I'm in a group of writers. We get together once a year. We rent a house somewhere and we spend like three days everyone sharing different parts of their business, trying to learn from each other. So I'm a big fan of that model. You know, Robert Green is someone I'm lucky enough,

you know, he's continues to take my phone calls. So that's been a great one. Someone like Stephen is a big part. I have my editor, I have my agent, I have sort of collaborators that I work on on my projects. And then when I think in my life, like every failure I've had,

like every big mistake I've made, they all have in common that my wife told me they were a very bad idea, and I did them anyway. So I think, you're not like a mentor in that sense, but certainly a sounding board slash partner, I don't think, I met my wife when I was 19, so she's been on this journey, we've been on this journey together. That's a big part of it for me as well. All right. Last question for me that will get water to burn in question. All right. Brian, do you struggle with contentment for happiness?

I do think it's important to me and the studies have shown this. Young people tend to associate happiness with accomplishment. And as you get older, people tend to associate happiness with accomplishment, and as you get older, you tend to associate happiness with contentment. And that's an important, it's like knowing that we should try to not speed that process up, but we should try to go, oh, we're probably chasing the wrong thing. We think that winning a gold medal, you know, getting a Super Bowl ring, making a billion dollars, being a best, we think that that thing is going to get us that happiness we want. When really, it's appreciation and gratitude and content

that that will get us what we want. And so that's something I try to practice. I try to every day take a minute and go like, this is enough. This is totally enough. You have enough. Be happy with it. This is it. And then everything else is extra. Well, I guess that's a good sit-by question. I was trying to figure out how they have

it since the sink came. Filters, like how do you, as in any opportunities that probably land like your desk today and project you want to pursue,, I kind of want you to just say it. How do you filter through it? How do you decide this is something I'm going to go in on? I have a big sign on this side of my computer. You can't quite see it, but it just says no. Exclamation point, just a reminder to say no. And I think the pandemic's been a great reminder of a lot of people, myself included,

it's sort of had some really clear, some really bedrock assumptions about what we have to do, to survive financially, to be happy, to be creatively fulfilled, whatever. Like, I have to do this, this, this, this. Like, if you told me at the beginning of 2020, okay, you're not gonna travel, you know, you're not gonna be able to sell books and books to ours. You're gonna have to do a book launch remotely, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I've been like, well, that's gonna be the worst year ever and you're not gonna, you're gonna go broke and you're not gonna succeed, right? Oh, lo and behold, it's one of the most productive content years of my life. And so, you know, the pandemic, I think, has been a nice in the sense that it's a radical forced lifestyle experiment, you know? And so one of the challenges for me is going to actually be trying to maintain this bubble, you know, this sense of focus and purpose as, you know, the temptations and distractions come back online. Awesome. So a few minutes left, is anybody have a burning question, something that they want to ask,

be right holiday about around those books or anything else? Anybody has a B question. So else. Anybody does it be questions. So, pressure is on. I have one more. What's that two dollar arms are around? I have obstacles away. You go as the enemy and then I have stillness is the key. This is a marketing guy. I would say it's 1% marketing 99% need to be reminded on a regular basis that you go as the enemy. Along with you open that book up, I think say hey, I don't need to be here. Yeah. So I use my drive with Jeff. Um, I think the question is more here is when you are thinking about that next book,

are you thinking about what's going to be good for yourself or you think about what's going to be good for the audience? Good question. So that next book, what's going to be good for you, maybe financially or beyond, and what's going to be good for the audience anyway then? So I think about it's like here's all the things that I'm interested in, that I could write about, and then here's all the things that the market is interested in, and you got to find where those two things overlap, right? Like, ego is the enemy, as I was saying. I really wanted to write a book about humility. That's the, the, the, the, the germ of the idea. But it was in talking to be, oh, actually attacking

this same idea from the opposite angle that, that ego is that, the thing we're struggling with more allowed me to, to find, you know, Epic Tetis has every situation as two handles. One will hold weight one won't. So it's about finding the right handle on the idea that's both creatively interesting, fulfilling, challenging fun, whatever it is,

and, you know, commercially viable. Didn't Robert Q. talk you right about that? How do you have to have titles that are sexy? Yes. Yes. You got to have, like, look, people go, don't judge a book by its cover. It's like, why do you think books have covers then?

You know, like, that's what's, that's what's there for. 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 ad-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 Wondering out.