The Daily Stoic - Either Way, This Is Not The Answer | Ask DS

Episode Date: February 8, 2024

Then there is the stuff that does harm the community—a corrupt politician who tries to overthrow the rule of law, discrimination, violence, pollution. This stuff happens, it’s the definition of injustice. But again, anger is not the right response. Not because these things aren’t upsetting, but because they are bad remedies to the problem.When the community is at risk, with justice at stake, we need our wits about us. It’s here that we need to be most controlled, most in command of all our faculties. We can be angered at what is happening, but we cannot afford to respond in anger. We need to be rational, strategic, patient, courageous, creative (as well as forgiving, empathetic, and nurturing in the way that our many emails have highlighted about the brilliance of the Civil Rights activists). We need to bring our best to fight the worst.YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8hmX7RPyYo]If you’re serious about being your most controlled self when the stakes are high, then check out our 11-day Taming Your Temper Course. It’s full of Stoic practices to defuse your anger in the moment and will help you find constructive outlets for your emotion—freeing you to work on fixing those problems that stoked your anger in the first place. Learn more here and conquer your anger today!✉️ 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.📱 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.

Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. Well, on Thursdays, we not only read the daily meditation, but we answer some questions from listeners and fellow Stoics. We're trying to apply this philosophy just as you are. Some of these come from my talks. Some of these come from Zoom sessions that we do with Daily Stoic Life members

or as part of the challenges. Some of them are from interactions I have on the street when there happen to be someone there recording. But thank you for listening and we hope this is of use to you. Either way, this is not the answer. All the bad things in the world are not created equal. For instance, stuff happens that was a mistake, stuff happens that was an accidental byproduct.

Stuff happens because people are ignorant of who and how it affected others. And then of course there's the stuff that happens that really doesn't do any damage at all, that we sweat or get upset about only because we're valuing the wrong things or focusing on what we don't control. Is there evil in the world? Sadly, yes, there is malevolent, terrible evil. But as Marcus Aurelius wrote, if the community isn't injured by it, neither am I. And if it is, anger is not the answer.

His point was that a lot of the stuff we get mad about isn't worth getting mad about. Somebody cuts you off in traffic, somebody says something insensitive to you, a storm floods the garden you worked hard on. What does anger do about any of this? Who does it punish but you? And then there is the stuff that does harm the community,

a corrupt politician who tries to overthrow the rule of law, discrimination, violence, pollution. This stuff happens and it's the definition of injustice. But again, anger is not the right response, not because these things aren't upsetting, but because they are bad remedies to the problem. When the community is at risk, when justice is at stake, we need our wits about us.

It's here that we need to be most controlled, most in command of all our faculties. We can be angered at what is happening, but we cannot afford to respond in anger. We need to be rational and strategic and patient and courageous and creative, as well as forgiving and empathetic and nurturing in the way that so many of our recent emails

have highlighted the brilliance of the civil rights activists. We need to bring our best to fight the worst. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another Thursday episode of the Daily Stoke Clock. If you listen to my Sunday episode back in the fall, I had this crazy couple of days where I flew down to LA, I interviewed Arnold Schwarzenegger. I drove up to

Ohio, California. I had dinner with a former podcast guest and friend, the comedian Pete Holmes. Then I did a talk for this amazing group called Mastermind Talks. Jason Gainard and his wife, Candace, I have known them since they started Mastermind Talks. Jason Gainard and his wife Candace, I have known them since they started Mastermind Talks. I went before my book Rosehacker Marketing came out for the first time. I went the second time when Obscull is coming out. I've been many times over the years. He's been awesome to me. So I did a long Q&A there, which is what I'm going to bring you a chunk of today. Then I went back down, did an event with Robert Green, flew home for the night, then flew to Seattle to do another event with Robert Green. So I told that whole story about how you sort of stay stoic and calm amidst a crazy, overwhelming travel schedule.

So that was me talking about it. If you want to hear me in the middle of that craziness, that's where I am in today's episode. I did about an hour, hour and a half Q&A with a bunch of these interesting entrepreneurs from all over the world. Some are authors, some are in e-commerce, some are influencers, some are fitness people, some are some run call centers. They're just all sorts of interesting entrepreneurs, really nice folks. And if you haven't been to Mastermind Talks, you should. I think they're taking a break this year, but I'm sure you can get on the waitlist for next year. Everything about coming. Thanks to Jason for sending over the audio this and thanks to everyone in the audience who asked some very interesting questions. I'll be bringing

pieces of that over the next couple months, but I'll give you a chunk of some stoic themed questions right now. I remember very specifically I rented an Airbnb in Santa Barbara. I was driving from San Francisco to Los Angeles. I just sold my first book and I've been working on it and I just needed a break and needed to get away and I needed to have some quiet time to write. And that was one of the first Airbnb's I ever started with. And then when the book came out and did well, I bought my first house, I would rent that house out during South by Southwest and F one and other events in Austin. Maybe you've been in a similar

place. You've stayed in an Airbnb and you thought to yourself, this actually seems pretty doable. Maybe my place could be an Airbnb. You could rent a spare bedroom. You could rent your whole place when you're away. Maybe you're planning a ski getaway this winter or you're planning on going somewhere warmer while you're away. Maybe you're planning a ski getaway this winter or you're planning on going somewhere warmer. While you're away, you could Airbnb your home and make some extra money towards the trip. Whether you use the extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun, your home could be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca slash host. What's the difference between a chapter and a chapter? It depends, right?

Some chapters are short, some chapters are long, some chapters I've written about this thing a thousand times, and then some chapters are I'm breaking new ground. So I don't think there's a hard and fast rule, I would sort of say as I did in the talk, sort of it takes what it takes. There's not a, there's so many words per day you should do. It's like, it takes until it's good enough, you know, it's as good as it can be, right? I mean, one rule is like, how much more could you cut, right? And so I'm always thinking about that. Like, and like when I show it to people, I'm like, tell me what you think I should cut. And I'm trying to always get tighter with it. So a lot of the rewriting is,

okay, I did this in three paragraphs, but if I only had two, what would that look like? And now what would it look like with one? Or if I had to make this whole book 10% shorter, what would that look like? And just that forces you to, there's a Stephen King thing about killing your darlings. You kill the parts that you're the most indulgent about

because that's where the fat tends to be. Thanks, Ryan, I love the talk today. Oh, thank you. It was so good, thank you so much. And Christy just reminded me that our son is obsessed with you, so we may need a bit of a selfie before the day's over if that's all right. My question has to do, you've obviously cornered

the market on modern stoicism and you're very prolific. But my question is, as an artist, do you ever one day wake up and go, fuck today, like you probably have interests that are all over the map, I would expect. Do you ever wake up and go, fuck, I really want to write a book on, I don't know, Spain or whatever it might be. And if so, how do you put that aside while you're working and doing everything you do?

Yeah, when I sort of set out to write about this stuff, there's the topic that I was interested in, but then there's also the way that I write about the topic, which is I take stories and I illustrate the ideas. So although I am writing about this overarching topic, I get to bring in all the other things that I'm interested in. So I read very widely and I bring them back to the thing that I talk about. So there's not a ton that I feel like, hey, I have like lots of good material over here that I can't use, but I have done other projects that are very different. I mean this parenting one, that was a big part of my life. So I do daily dad every day, which is advice, but you know about a very specific part of my life. I have the podcast, I get to talk to people about different things. And then I've done a couple books in different genres.

But I think when you find something that really lights you up, chances are you don't have like 10 things that light you up to an equal degree. So when I was talking about you have to be able to say no. There's some things that I'm saying no to, but mostly I'm saying no to things. So I can say yes to this one thing that I'm the most excited about. Going back to tactics when you were talking about content. I actually really love your

videos because you're so yourself like this and this and I love how passionate they are and real they are. How do you shoot them to use your iPhone, to use your computer? Like what are the tactics for them? How do you do lighting? Like your iPhone to use your computer? Like what are the tactics for that? How do you do lighting? Like who helps you? All those questions. So I have like a video team that does you know that does a bunch of stuff that I don't understand and know about But a lot of what I shoot I have a GoPro 9 over there Which shoots in 4k which is pretty much as good as you can shoot stuff in It has an external mic. there's a case of the mic.

That does like most of it. And it literally has a button on the top and it turns it on and records at the same time. And so as a screen in the front, I try to set up systems where there's gonna be the least, the fewest points of failure and it's going to set up the other people who are good at the parts that I'm not good at to do what they do.

So I tend to shoot more than we can use. So I shoot a lot and then I go, your job is to send these out to get edited. And then like, I, if we're using everything I'm shooting, then you're not being strict enough. And then also one of the things I found in Gary Vaynerchuk told me this also, which is like when something works, just do it a lot of times. So like if he's, I think Gary said this once, he was like, I talk about seven things. I forget what the seven things are, but he's like, I, all my things are about these seven things. And so I tend to find

stuff that works. And then I find different ways of saying that or I'm trying to tighten it. So a lot of what I'm doing is sometimes the same thing, but when you get over the idea that you have this enormous, wrapped audience that's consuming everything you do, you realize the vast majority of people have no idea who you are and have never seen anything you do, even on YouTube. So DailyStook has, I don't know, like a million and a half YouTube subscribers, I'd say. The average DailyStook YouTube video from the last time someone walked me through the stats is seen by like 20 to 30 percent, 20 to 30 percent of the people that watch it are subscribers. So the vast majority of people that are watching it have just been recommended this thing or you know they saw. So realizing like hey most of the people are not hey I've already seen this before but they're saying what is this you know and so I just I I try to

talk about things that get me excited I try to find new ways to say it so it's not boring to me but I'm not I'm not going like I have to make you know 250 totally unique brand new things. Like what are the main themes? And when you find something that works, how do you do it in lots of new ways? Even if it worked as a video, what's like a Twitter thread version that works?

And what's an article version that works? And what's an Instagram carousel version that works? What's it do? It's an email version of it that works. So I'm trying to take the stuff that's worked and then break it down and translate it in the different ways. Just as in publishing, if you have a book that works in English, then they sell it to a Spanish publisher and they sell it to a Chinese publisher. And you know, you're in these different languages,

but you had nothing to do with it. Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it and I'll see you next episode. 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.