The Daily Stoic - How Stoicism, Eastern Philosophy, And Fitness Work Together

Episode Date: August 6, 2023

In the spirit of sharing ideas and learning from cultures outside of one’s own, Ryan was excited when he was given the opportunity to speak to India-based fitness company Curefit Healthcare because it gave him a chance to further explore the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita and relate it to the Stoic teachings. In this virtual talk, Ryan delves into how Stoicism and Eastern philosophy can be applied to physical activity, leading a large company, getting better as people and leaders, and more. ✉️ 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.

You're listening ad-free on Wondery Plus. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wondery's podcast, Business Wars. And in our new season, two of the world's leading hotel brands, Hilton and Marriott, stare down family drama and financial disasters. Listen to business wars on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic podcast. On Sundays, we take a deeper dive into these ancient topics with excerpts from the Stoic texts, audiobooks that we like here recommend here at Daily Stoic and other long form wisdom that you can chew on on this relaxing weekend. We hope this helps shape your understanding of this philosophy and most importantly that you're able to apply it to your actual life. Thank you for listening. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast Back. I've talked about this before, but I'm fascinated by the intersection of stoicism and other schools of philosophy. Obviously, I was introduced to stoicism first. That's what I sort of

fell in love with, and then I've gone on and studied Zen Buddhism. I've read the Baad-Kavad-Gita. I'm fascinated with any ancient text of wisdom of the warrior ethos of the guide to the good life. And so I'm always looking for opportunities both to take in ideas from other schools and also take the ideas from the Stoics and introduce them into different cultures into different regions. I haven't got to travel as much to give talks about Stoicism outside the United States as I used to, but back in May of 2022, I gave a talk to a company called PureFit in India, they have more than 500 fitness centers in gyms all across the country. They had over a thousand employees on this sort of all hands-on virtual talk that we did. Of course, it would have been amazing to be there in person.

It was not logistically feasible at the time, so we did it remote. I gave a nice 30- minute talk on how we apply stoicism to physical activity, how we apply stoicism to leading a big company, how we apply stoicism to getting better as people and as leaders. And that's what I'm going to bring to you today. Get a little glimpse into this interesting health and wellness company, how stoicism connects to these different cultures, how I tried to make it relevant to them, and you can be a fly on the wall and listen to that. Thanks to Curefit for having me out or having me on and enjoy this interview. When we think of sports stories, we tend to think of tales of epic on the field glory. But the new podcast Sports Explains the World brings you some of the wildest and most surprising

sports stories you've never heard, like the teenager who wrote a fake Wikipedia page for a young athlete and then watched as a real team fell for his prank. Diving into his Wikipedia page we turned three career goals into 11, added 20 new assists for good measure. Figures that nobody would, should, have believed. And the mysterious secret of a US Olympic superstar killed at the peak of his career. Was it an accident?

Did the police screw up the investigation? It was also nebulous. Each week, Sports Explains the World goes beyond leagues and stats to share stories that will redefine your understanding of sports and their impact on the world. Listen to Sports Explains the World, on the Wondering App or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen to sports explains the world early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Well, of course, wish I was with all of you in person. I was just explaining I've never had the privilege of coming to India. I wish I was there with you in person, although I will say I was not unhappy to miss the flight. One of the benefits of COVID, of course, is that it's allowed us to reimagine how we do certain things and I always try to look for the positive side of things. So the fact that I just put my kids to bed, came back to the office, and here I am talking to you all the way across the world. That is a miracle of technology and innovation,

just as I imagine you guys have had to find and create certain miracles in your business as COVID has created a number of challenges, but we might say also opportunities at the same time over the last two and a half years. But what I now that I do have you, what I want to talk about today is ancient philosophies, specifically stoicism. And I know ancient philosophy, again specifically a philosophy like stoicism, it probably doesn't seem like it has that much to do with fitness, right? Philosophy, fitness, they're supposed to be

on total opposite ends of the spectrum. But of course, that's not only not true today, but it wasn't true in the ancient world. In fact, there's a great Latin expression that I love, men's sauna and corporate sauna, which basically means a strong mind in a strong body. The philosophers weren't these academic geniuses and then physical weaklings.

In fact, they had to be good at both. And specifically in stoicism, the physical practice was a key part of what made the Stoics great. Clienthe's an early Stoic trained in boxing. He was a boxer. We can imagine that his training in the ring also prepared him for the fights and arguments and battles of philosophy. Crasipus, another early St stoke, was a sprinter.

And we can imagine in moments that he was tired, that he was frustrated, that he didn't know if he had what it took. He could remember what he learned about himself on the track, that you have to push past those reservations. You have to cultivate that will, that inner strength. And then specifically, one of my favorite stokes is a guy named Epictetus. Epictetus is born a slave and he becomes one of the most powerful and important of the

Roman philosophers. He would talk about weightlifting and he talks about weightlifting so specifically that to me there's no denying that he had this practice. But he says, he uses weight lifting as a metaphor quite often in his talks. And he would say, the weight lifter who lifts weights, if you said, oh, you've been lifting weights, show me your muscles. He said, you wouldn't want to see the muscles. He says, you want to see what the person could do, what they could lift, right? To me, he's talking about functional fitness there, right? That we don't pursue health and wellness to impress other people to look beautiful, although that

can be a byproduct. He says, we do it because it makes us better at what's important. And one of my favorite lines from Epictetus, again talking about physical fitness, he says, if you wanna be beautiful, this is make beautiful choices, right? And so to me, that's what you put in your body, that's what you subject your body to, that's what you're chasing after.

It's not, again, impressing people. It's not vanity. It's the things that make a real difference that make you better. So as we talk about Stoke Philosophy tonight, I wanted to give you the three disciplines of Stoke Philosophy. And this fur, and I think this is a discipline particularly well-suited to what we've faced over the last two years, but what we all face as entrepreneurs, as leaders, as people operating in a business, as people trying to help other people in this world is that we run into resistance. We run into obstacles. And the Stokes would say that the first and most critical discipline in life

is the discipline of perception. How we see things, how we perceive things, determines what we're going to be able to do about those things. Epic Titus has this quote and actually sought on the wall of a spring trading facility for a baseball team that I spoke to a few years ago, the Pittsburgh pirates. They like this quote so much they put it on the wall. Epic Titus says, you have to remember it's not things that upset us. It's our opinion about things. So the world is objective. It simply is. And then we have an opinion about those things.

And so understanding that our opinion is this kind of super power that we have, it's deterministic, is the most critical part of stoic philosophy. So, and I'm sure you guys have encountered this, this, people like this in your centers all the time. If someone doesn't believe it's possible for them to make progress, if they don't believe that they are capable of changing, of growing, of improving, of getting better, of getting faster, of getting stronger, it's of course impossible. If a business doesn't think that they can solve problems, if they think they've hit the ceiling of their growth, if they don't understand that they have agency, that they have control over how they respond to things, of the changes that they make. They're obviously not going to make changes.

Now, of course, just because you believe you can do something doesn't mean that you can. I can believe all I want that I can dunk a basketball, but I'm not tall enough to do it and it's probably not gonna happen, right? But if we don't believe we have the capability, the capacity to do something, it's not going to happen.

So this is really the first part of Stoke philosophy. This understanding of what parts of this equation do I control and what parts of it do I not control. And the focus then on what I do control. The Stoke focuses on what's in my control. Epitides says, that's our first job. What part of this is up to me? What part of this is not up to me?

And so we find out that we have to focus there. We have to focus on a part of the dichotomy of control that is up to us. I would say that for me, the discipline of perception, which you might also say is the discipline of perspective. How do you see this? how do you understand it? How do you interpret it? This is this key part.

I happen to find that running, which is the physical activity I do most often, swimming, being the other, biking, being the other, I find that I get the most clarity about the world and about my life when I'm being active, when I'm pushing myself. Senaqa says that we have to treat the body rigorously so it's not disobedient to the mind. I love that idea.

This idea that we're challenging ourselves, that we're deciding who's going to be in charge, our emotions, our reactions, our fears, or that part of ourself that can get better, that wants to get better, that wants to improve. What part of ourself that can get better, that wants to get better, that wants to improve. What part of ourselves is going to be in control? I was at a gym here in the United States a few years ago, and I was just getting in the pool to go swimming, and someone recognized me, and they said, oh, you know, I loved your last book. And I said, well, if you would believe it, I actually wrote that book in this pool. I was about to get in the pool.

And they said, what are you talking about? How could you have written this book in the pool? But it's true. I would write in the mornings. I would try to focus on what I'm doing. I'd get as far as I could. And then when I was stuck, when I was struggling, I would drive down the street, go to the gym,

and I would swim. And they're in the pool being active, putting myself in a flow state away from the screens, away from the noise, away from work. I would often unlock certain ideas or insights that would allow me to do what I did better. So for me, the discipline of perception is this critical first step. How do we see things? What's the story that we tell ourselves about these things?

Are we focusing our energy on our efforts on what we control? And then that leads to the second, and I would say equally critical discipline, which would be the discipline of actions, this is discipline number two. Action of course, is what we do in response to what we perceive. Of course, you don't manifest losing weight. You don't manifest growing the business. You don't manifest breaking through with a client or hitting a new PR in the gym. You do, you get there through work.

One of the great American presidents, theodore Roosevelt, would talk about the strenuous life. The strenuous life, to me, is the life of action. Not talking about it, which a lot of people do, not dreaming about it, which a lot of people do, but doing it, which far few people, far fewer people do. Right?

People want to be stronger, they want to be faster, they want to start a business, they want to write a book. But you can tell how badly they want it by where they put themselves. One of my writing friends and heroes, again, I'm Stephen Pressfield, he says, you have to put your ass where your heart wants to be, right? Sit in the chair and write. Go to the gym, get on the treadmill, get in the pool, sit with the trainer.

And this is not just true for breaking through in terms of our physical fitness, but if we want to be smarter, if we want to be in a position of leadership, if we want to expand our parts of our business, are we actually getting there putting ourselves in a position to do that thing? The Stokes say, don't talk about your philosophy,

embody it, right? Don't dream about it, be about it, as we say. One of my favorite quotes comes from one of the earliest jokes, actually the founder of Stokes is in Xeno. He says, hey, how do we get better? How do we grow? He says, well being is realized by small steps, but it is no small thing. So this idea that we get better, we improve, we grow, we claw ourselves out of a whole

crisis of problem, an issue of trust, a setback. How do we do it? By really small steps. There's a great writing rule, again, that I love, that says, look, the secret to writing a book is just four crappy pages a day, right? So, don't dream about doing this whole big, enormous transformative thing about being perfect, just try to make a positive contribution every day. That's how I think about my books.

I say, did I make a positive contribution today? That could be adding one note card. That could be editing one sentence. That could be reading one book. It could be writing 20 pages in a sprint of inspiration. But the point is, you make a small bit of progress every day and this adds up. Many Nichols makes a muckle is an old English saying, right? Stuff adds up the work adds up. You guys see this every day with people the person who shows up every day and does a little bit

Is the one that gets better than the one who dreams of transformation or goes in and does some amazing, enormous workout, but they only do it one time, right? The person who's obsessed with some PR, they get, but they're not doing the reps. This is the person that doesn't get better. So we can call this the process, right? We tend to focus on outcomes, where we want to end up, how hard it's going to be to get there, how wonderful it's going to be to get there. The Stoics say, you know,

focus on the process. And I think the Stoics and other traditions are aligned here. You focus on the work, not the rewards. As it says in the Bhagavad Gita, you're entitled to the work, not the fruits of the work. You're not entitled to the outcome because you don't control the outcome, the stoics would say. But you are in control of whether you showed up today, whether you put in the work, whether you had fun putting in the work, whether you were present, why you put in the work, whether you had fun putting in the work,

whether you were present, while you put in the work. Again, I think about this when I write. I don't know how my books are gonna sell. I don't know if they're gonna hit the best cello list. I don't know if people are gonna like them or not. But I know I was successful if I did my best, if I put everything that I had into it, if I showed up. And then if I am successful,

if there is the external rewards, that's extra, but I don't expect it, and I don't feel entitled to it. That leads to the third and the final discipline of stoicism that I wanted to talk about that. I think this idea that we're not entitled to the rewards, what that implies is that sometimes we do everything right, but we don't get what we wanted, right? We put in all the work and we didn't close the sale. We had a great year, but we didn't beat the numbers. We stuck to the diet, but we didn't hit that goal in time. We don't always get what we want.

We don't always succeed. We don't always succeed. And the Stokes would say, this is why we have to cultivate willpower, what they call the inner citadel, the strength, the resilience, the fortitude that allows us to bounce back in the face of that adversity. There is this thing called post-traumatic stress, right? When we experience real adversity, real pain, real loss, real difficulty, and it's difficult to bounce back from that. But there was an interesting study of athletes than a few years ago. These are actually elite athletes in Canada. And they found that there isn't just

disorder coming from post-traumatic stress. But there's also such a thing as post-traumatic growth. And they found that often athletes came back from an injury, although maybe they were a little bit slower. Maybe they favored their knee or their arm a little bit as a result of the injury that they suffered. But they also maybe understood why they like the game more. They understood their teammates more. They studied the game more. So they came back better and stronger from what they went through.

And so this idea of post-traumatic growth is what I want you to focus on. Because that is something we control. We decide whether we're going to be made better for what we've gone through or worse. I wrote a note to myself. I was in the middle of opening my own business in the middle of COVID. I just started to open a small bookstore here in Texas where I live.

And everything went sideways. So, you know, we got hit very hard, very early here in America with COVID. And I wrote a note to myself, I said, 2020 is a test. Will this make you a better person or a worse one? Will you grow from what you've gone through? Will you be improved by it?

This is the choice that we have. The ability to bounce back from injury, from setbacks, from rejection, from disappointment. This is a key asset. This may be better than being fast, being strong, being brilliant. Can you be harder to discourage, harder to defeat, harder to turn away?

Are you a person who grows from adversity? That's the kind of person that we want to cultivate being. The stoics say that there isn't just the bad stuff that happens to us. There's just the stuff that happens to us, and they try to cultivate what they call a more faulty or a love of fate. Marcus Aurelius would say that what you throw in or on top of a fire becomes fuel for the fire, that it turns the stuff of life into flame and brightness and heat. And I like to cultivate that image in my life, in my turning the events, the things that are happening to me into fuel, my becoming

better and stronger as a result of my experiences. So those are the three disciplines of stosis and the discipline of perception, discipline of action, the discipline of will. But I want to show you what they look like in practice. Marcus Aurelis, I mentioned as the Emperor of Rome, and he's trained his whole life for this opportunity. And he's there, he's doing a good job. And then if I could take you to the year 160 AD, a plague hits Rome. It's brought back by Roman troops from the frontier. They bring this plague

back to Rome and it overwhelms Rome. It's a horrendous plague. Millions of people die. millions of people die and Marcus are really as Stagger's under this a little bit, right? He says It's unfortunate that this happened But he tries to to catch himself He says is it unfortunate that this happened to me or is it fortunate to happen to me? Right, am I strong enough to deal with this? What parts of this can I control? What can I do about it? And that's what he focused on. He gets medical experts.

He puts them in charge. He continues his physical practice. He continues his study of philosophy. He doesn't run away. He just tries to do the best job that he can. And as it happens, the plague is not the only thing that he deals with. There's flooding. There's wars. there's a coup.

It's one thing after another. And in fact, one ancient historian writing about Marx really says, you know, Marcus Aurelius doesn't meet with the good fortune that he deserved. He said, his whole reign was involved in a series of troubles. But, and that happens, right? Like the last two years, you could be like, it's been one thing after another.

And maybe in your personal life, it's been going on even longer than that. There's been divorces and bankruptcies and health issues and everything you can imagine is being thrown at you, one thing after another. But that ancient historian didn't stop. He said, yes, it's unfortunate that's happened to Marcus that his reign was one thing after another that he didn't meet with the good fortune that he deserved. But he says, but I admired Marcus Arelius all the more for this. He says, because he never lost command of himself or the empire, he survived and he was better for it. That's what we're trying to cultivate as Stoics, as entrepreneurs, as leaders,

as professionals in our field. We're trying to be the kind of person that is made better by what we suffer through, by what life throws at us, by what we have to endure. And how do we do that? We do it exactly as Mark is really right in meditations. He says the impediment to action advances action, what stands in the way becomes the way, says the obstacle is the way. Everything that life throws at you, the resistance, the doubt, the struggles, the distractions,

all of this is an opportunity to become who you were meant to be. Marcus Aurelius is not Marcus Aurelius without the floods, without the plague, without the coup, without the wars. He's great because of what he went through. If things had been ordinary, if things had been easy, if he'd gotten everything he wanted, he wouldn't have had the opportunity to be as great as he was. And so how do we, again, how do we do this? How do we, how do we take these trying times and turn them into opportunities?

It's a three-part process. And Mark really summarizes those disciplines for us. He says, objective judgment now at this very moment. Says, unselfish action now at this very moment. Says, willing acceptance now at this very moment. Says unselfish action now at this very moment. Says willing acceptance now at this very moment. Objective judgment, that's the discipline of perception. Am I seeing this clearly? Am I focused on where I can have influence,

where I control? A unselfish action, that's the positive contribution that we're making today. That's being part of a team. That's focusing on how we can be of service What we can do for others right that's moving the ball for we're not being discouraged and then willing acceptance This is the the resiliency the fortitude required to be like it doesn't go my way sometimes and it's hard But I'm not gonna quit. I'm gonna accept what's not on my control. I'm going to endure this. I'm going to persevere through it.

Objective judgment, unselfish action, willing acceptance, that's all that we need. Now, if I could add one last thing to this, it's a keystroke idea, and it's something I try to meditate on once a day. Marcus really writes in his meditations, he says, but Mo Mori says, you could leave life right now,

let that determine what you do and say and think. And I keep this little point on my desk, I carry it in my pocket. To me, the art of Memento Mori, the practice of this in this insta of philosophy is a key part of all of those disciplines. We think of the fragility, the ephemerality, the shortness of life because it puts everything in perspective.

As Seneca says, don't think of death as a thing in the future. Think of it as something that's happening right now. So don't leave anything unfinished. Don't leave anything undone. Don't waste a minute. That means being distracted or feeling sorry for yourself. Focus on what is in front of you. Focus on the opportunities in front of you. Focus on the people around you. Don't take anyone or anything for granted.

But seize that moment now while you can to be strong, to be creative, to be resilient, to be unstoppable, to do great and important work. This is what the Stokes are talking about. This is what Stoicism is about. It's not this dry, dusty thing. It's not this academic and practical abstract thing. It's something you can use every single day in whatever position of leadership or service you happen to be in. It's what I try to apply in my writing practice, my physical practice, in my personal life, my entrepreneurial

practices. And it's made me better, stronger, more resilient, more creative, and ultimately gotten me in better shape. So that's the connection between philosophy and fitness. It's been an honor to talk with all of you. And what I'm really looking forward to is answering your questions. And I appreciate the opportunity to chat 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 away. You go as the enemy, still in this is the key. The leather bound 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 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.