The Daily Stoic - Don’t Be Always Working | A Hard Winter Training

Episode Date: September 5, 2022

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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 Podcast. Each day we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stokes, illustrated with stories from history, current events, and literature to help you be better at what you do. And at the beginning of the week, we try to do a deeper dive, setting a kind of stoke, intention for the week, something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave

you with, to journal about whatever it is you happen to be doing. So let's get into it. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wunderree'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. Don't always be working. Today in the United States, it is a Labor Day. In today's world, Labor Day seems a bit paradoxical.

We honor work by not working. How could that possibly be right? It's an idea that seems particularly out of step with the glorification of long hours and hustle that has come from the startup world. We're supposed to be working 80 to 100 hour weeks coming into the office on weekends, dedicating ourselves exclusively to our careers or our businesses, moving fast and breaking things, were supposed to, as even Marcus really is himself said, find something we love and wear ourselves down, doing it. Just look at the reaction to Simone Biles, who created global controversy by withdrawing

from the Olympics, prioritizing her mental health over athletic performance. She was called selfish and acquitter and ashamed to the country and proof that we are raising a generation of weak people. In fact, the relationship between work and leisure, working hard and taking it easy, hustling and relaxing is ancient and essential. It was Aristotle who believed that virtue

was the result of balance, of finding a middle ground. And it's no coincidence that he also said famously that this is the main question with what activity is one's leisure filled. The word leisure in Greek was scolate, that is, school. An antiquity leisure meant freedom from the work needed to survive. It was the freedom for intellectual and creative pursuits. It was learning and studying and the pursuit of higher things. It was Marcus' own warning to not be all about business. It was Seneca reminding his friend, Lucilius, that the mind must be given over to relaxation,

for it will rise, improved, and sharpen after a good break. Just as rich fields must not be forced, so constant work on the anvil will fracture the force of the mind. This warning is all the more crucial in a time when digital devices and working from home make work so ubiquitous, who has time for leisure, for a book, for a long bike ride, for an afternoon with friends and family, emails and Zoom calls, Beck and responsibilities call.

This client needs you, that coworker, wants you to check Slack. But what kind of shape will we be in if we do this without respite? If we stigmatize and shame people who prioritize their long-term mental and physical health over the short-term gain of tasks completed meetings attended emails returned and Conference calls joined if we don't heed that ancient advice to not be all about business

Your brain is not meant to be constantly connected. You need to relax to recover and restore you need to celebrate Labor day. You need to honor work by not working, you need not be all about business. And actually my favorite chapter in the new book, Discipline is Destiny, which you can preorder now, dailystoke.com slash preorder, is about Greg Popovich in his pioneering tactic of load management, which stored, rested his players for the offseason, which is, ensure the longevity of the dynasty and the players in that dynasty actually talked to RC Buford who I've had on the podcast before, about this, he gave me a bunch of really cool insights

that are in that chapter. I hope you check it out, dailystalk.com, such preorder. Discipline about ourself discipline is important, or discipline about our drive is important. And it's one of the things I talk a lot about in the book. I hope you enjoy, Labor Day. Check out the new book, Discipline is Destiny, the power of self-control at dailystoke.com. Sash, pre-order.

A hard winter training. The art of living has three levels of discipline, study, practice, and hard training. Reading the Stoics are listened to them, that's study. Trying out the lessons and reflecting on them in a journal, that's practice. What's left though is hard training. Epic Titus liked to use the analogy of the Roman army's practice of training hard in the off months of winter, so that they could be prepared to meet any challenge when they return to battle in the spring. Seneca would spend time each month exposing himself to tougher than usual

conditions. He too used a military analogy, pointing to the way that soldiers are tasked with hard jobs so they could be strong when the enemy eventually came. So what are you doing in your life to push yourself beyond mere study and practice? And this is from this week's entry in the Daily Steal of Journal 366 days of writing and reflection on the art of living by yours truly and my co-writer and translator, Stephen Hanselman. I actually do this journal every single day. There's a question in the morning, a question in the afternoon, and there's these sort of weekly

meditations. As Epictetus says, every day and night, we keep thoughts like this at hand, write them, read them aloud, and talk to yourself and others about them. You can check out the Daily Stoke Journal anywhere, books are sold, and also get a signed personalized copy from me in the Daily Stoke store at store.dailystoke.com. But it's this idea of keeping the thoughts at hand really ties into this week's entry. We've got two quotes from Epipetus and one from Seneca. We must undergo a hard winter training and not rush into things for which we haven't

prepared. That's Epipetus in his discourses. Here's Senka in moral letters 18. Here's a lesson to test your mind's metal. Take part of the week in which you have only the most meager and cheap food. Dress scantily and shabby clothes and ask yourself, this is really the worst you feared. It is when times are good that you should gird yourself for tougher times ahead. For when fortune is kind, the soul can build up defenses against her ravages. So it is that the soldiers practice maneuvers

in peacetime, erecting bunkers with no enemies in sight and exhausting themselves under no attack so that when it comes, they won't grow tired. And then finally, Epictetus says, when a challenge confronts you, remember that God is matching you with a younger sparring partner as would a physical trainer. Why? Because becoming an Olympian takes sweat. I think that no one has a better challenge than yours. If only you would use it like an athlete would use a younger sparring partner.

So a couple of things here. One, I sometimes get this question, should I seek out adversity? If adversity is such a good teacher, should I seek out adversity if adversity is such a good teacher, should I seek it out? I say, look, for the most part, life is going to give us most of the training we need. Life's going to throw most of the adversity we need at us. So you don't need to go like getting yourself into trouble so you can know what a prison cell feels like, right? I don't think that's really what it is. As Epictetus is saying, look, instead of bemoaning the adversity

when you do feel it, go like, hey, this is good, this is training I need, and I'm gonna use this. So I think about that way. The pandemic obviously being a great example of this. The other part is, how are you though, actively engaged in training that makes you stronger, more mentally tough, more physically tough.

So to me, this is where like a strong physical practice comes in. It's also where getting up early, maybe intermittent fasting, maybe cold showers, but mostly working out because I love working out, but still every time I have to convince myself to do it, right? I love running. It's almost painful not to run, but there's still lots of days when I don't want to do it, right? I love running, it's almost painful not to run, but there's still lots of days when I don't want to do it and still be easier to go slower. I have to push myself every single time, but every time I do it, I get better at pushing myself, right? I usually

do some sort of weight training about four days a week as well. And so that is much less fun for me. And I really do have to push myself to do it. And that training though, the act of pushing myself to do something that I'm uncomfortable with that's not fun that challenges me, this doesn't just make me stronger and more fit and better at chasing my kids around the house. What it really does is make me better at overriding that impulse that I don't want to do something because it's hard or that I'm afraid, or that's gonna be exhausting. Again, I'm in the middle of a book right now. And you think I don't wake up so many days

and I don't feel it, I don't want to do it, it's hard, what if I phone it in today's is anyone really watching, will anyone know? Well, I've trained for exactly that kind of insidious opponent. I have, as Stephen Pressfield talks about, I know the resistance well. I have built up a lot of muscles

that make me stronger than the resistance and that's where this training comes in. And I think that's a metaphor for all forms of adversity, difficulty, resistance, weakness in life. And so I hope you have some sort of active practice. Use the adversity, train against it when it's there, but also build some active daily practices or weekly practices in your life as well.

Thanks for listening to The Daily Stoke Podcast. Just a reminder, we've got signed copies of all my books in the Daily Stoke Store. You can get them personalized, you can get them sent to a friend. The app goes the way. You go as the enemy, still in this is the key, the leatherbound edition of the Daily Stoke. We have them all in the Daily Stoke Store, which you can check out at store.dailystoke.com. Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke early and add free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts.

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