The Daily Stoic - Do It Because It’s Right. Not So They’ll Like You

Episode Date: January 21, 2020

We’ve talked a lot recently about the importance of not making yourself a slave to outside approval. Because it’s not something you control. Because your own standards should be so high that you already have plenty to worry about. Still, there is so much more to be said about this very human desire for external validation. Indeed, it is a timeless and universal problem. Marcus Aurelius, like us, wanted to be liked—by his imperial staff, by the Senate, by the citizens he met in the street, by history--but he also always tried to really think about why he wanted to be liked. He wanted to get his mind wrapped around it, so he knew what was driving him and he could neutralize its power. “You want praise from people who kick themselves every fifteen minutes,” he asks rhetorically in Meditations, “the approval of people who despise themselves?”It’s such a great point. Being liked seems important...for some it can seem like the most important thing in the world. Until you start to consider the people we seem to be so desperate to impress. Until you think about the silly things they are impressed by, and the amazing things they don’t “get.” Until you realize that they don’t even respect themselves. Then all of the sudden being liked feels almost...juvenile.To be clear, the point of freeing yourself from this external burden isn’t to make it easier for you to be a selfish jerk. On the contrary, it’s to free you up to do the right things for the right reasons. Not to pursue virtue for praise, but for its own sake with no regard for whether we take heat for it later. Many great decisions are not popular, many brilliant innovations (and creative people) are poorly understood. Should they change for the sake of people who kick themselves? Or don’t understand themselves?No. And neither should you. Do right—do your best—because it’s who you are. The rest doesn’t matter.See 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. Welcome to the Daily Stoke. For each day, we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living good life. 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 dailystoic.com. Do it because it's right, not so they like you. We've talked a lot recently about the importance of not making yourself a slave to outside approval, because it's not something you control, because your own standards should be so high that it gives you plenty to worry about. There is so much more to be said about this because it is a timeless and universal problem.

Marcus Aurelius, like us, wanted to be liked by his imperial staff, by the Senate, by the citizens he met in the street, by history. But at the same time, he tried to always follow the exercise of really thinking about this object of desire. He wanted to get his mind wrapped around it, so he knew what it was. And like we will find when we really think about the outside approval we crave, Marcus Aurelius was able to see through it. You want praise from people who kick themselves every 15 minutes, he asked rhetorically in meditations, the approval of people who despise themselves,

it's such a great point. Being like seems important until we consider the people who we seem to be so desperate to impress. Until we think about the silly things they are impressed by and the amazing things they don't get, until we realize that they don't even respect themselves. None of this is done as an excuse to justify bad deeds or being a jerk. On the contrary, it's done to free us up to do the right things for the right reasons. We're not going to do it for praise and we're not going to mind if we take heat for it either. Many great decisions are not popular. Many brilliant innovations and creative people are poorly understood. Should they be changed for the sake of people? Should they change for the sake of people who kick themselves?

Who don't understand themselves? No, and neither should you. Do right, do your best because it's who you are. The rest doesn't matter. 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 Wondery app. 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 Banity 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. And SBF would find himself in a jail cell with tens of thousands of investors blaming him

for their crypto losses. From Bloomberg and Wondery 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. you