The Daily Stoic - How To Train Yourself | 4 (Stoic) Secrets To The Good Life

Episode Date: January 3, 2023

You don't lift a weight one time and become strong. You aren’t taught something once and it stays in your mind forever. You don’t do the right thing once and it becomes a lifelong habit.It would be nice if it worked that way, but it doesn’t.Many, many more reps are required. In life and in philosophy. It’s about taking the right actions and holding yourself to the highest standard, day by day by day.Today, Ryan outlines the 4 Stoic virtues that will improve your life, if you live by them.📙 For a limited time, you can purchase The Daily Stoic ebook for only $1.99 on Kindle✉️ 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.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic Podcast early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. On Tuesdays, we take a closer look at these stoic ideas, how we can apply them in our actual lives. Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy. 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. How to train yourself. You don't lift a weight one time and become strong. You aren't taught to do something once and it stays in your mind forever. You don't do the right thing once and it becomes a lifelong habit. It would be nice if things worked that way, but they don't. Many, many, many more reps are required in life and in philosophy. As Epictetus said, philosophy is a hard, winters training, practice that a soldier does in the safety of camp so that they may draw on it in a heat of battle. You must linger among a limited number of master thinkers and digest their works, if you would

derive ideas which shall win firmhold in your mind. Stoicism then is designed to be a practice and a routine. It's not a philosophy you read once and magically understand at the soul level. No, it's a lifelong pursuit that requires diligence and repetition and concentration. Pierre Hado, the French philosopher, called this spiritual exercise. And this is one of the ideas behind the Daily Stoke. Since we published it seven years ago, the Daily Stoic has sold well over a million copies and spent more weeks on the best seller list

than any book about stoicism ever. And of course, that's a testament to the timeless ideas in stoicism above all, but it's also a testament to the power of combining the right idea with the right medium. Training is difficult, and when there are obstacles or friction in the way of doing it, people will find a way not to do it. And that's why I've put so much time and energy into making the ideas and process as accessible as possible. I put out Stoke lessons every day

on the Daily Stoke podcast and on the Instagram and on TikTok and YouTube and every other medium. It's why Daily Stokes have been translated into 40 languages and why we created the leather edition to stand the test of time. And I've got some exciting news today. So price isn't an excuse. I got my publisher to discount the Daily Stoke eBook to $199 in the US and the UK for just a few days, which you can check out, I'll link to it in today's show notes

or just go to Amazon or wherever you get your e-books. But the idea is that every day all over the world, literally millions of people are practicing stosism together going through the same spiritual exercises that Marcus Arrealis was doing in Rome or Zeno was doing in Athens thousands of years ago. They were training themselves, challenging themselves, lingering on the master thinkers, building muscle memory so that they can draw on that strength when they need it. Will you join them? Will you put in your reps? I Hope so join all the people who've read the Daily Stoke. This is the cheapest it will ever be.

We try to do this once a year. So if you missed it in past years, now's your chance. ever be. We try to do this once a year. So if you missed it in past years, now's your chance. 199 as an ebook, anywhere books are sold. Obviously you can get the hardcover anywhere books are sold. I'll sign it if you buy it at store.dailystoke.com or you can get the leather edition, which I'm super proud of. That's what I have on my desk here. That's what I often give as gifts to people who are interested in finding that about

Stoicism. You can find that in the Daily Stoke Store as well. But jump on this, it's only gonna last for a couple days to kick off the new year. And I hope you like it. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke podcast. When we hear this word virtue, right, we think one thing, but for the stokes, they'd argue that virtue was four things. And then beneath those four virtues, there were sub-virtues. That's obviously what I'm writing about a lot these days. Courage is calling. It's about the first virtue. Courage, discipline and destiny is about the second virtue of self-discipline or temperance. I'm writing now about justice

I won't leak the title to you just yet then the third the fourth book in the series will be about wisdom But in today's episode I want to talk about those four virtues how we live by them how we live up to them how we act with them the four stoic virtues that will improve your life and in improving your life in guiding and inspiring your behavior, I know will make the world a better place. Touched bones of goodness as Mark has really called them, but let's just get into it. Here are four stoic secrets to the good life. I think C.S. Lewis is right when he says the courage is all the virtues at their testing point, right? It takes courage to pursue truth in the world.

It takes courage to fight for the right thing. It takes courage to be disciplined in a time of access. And when I think of the Stoics, I think of them defined as they were in these moments of courage, Thrasia challenging Nero. Marcus Aurelius having empire foisted upon him and stepping up, dreaming that he has shoulders made of ivory getting over his doubts and imposter syndrome and choosing to do it. I think of Seneca bravely facing his death when Nero's goons came to kill him. I think of Cato resisting Julius Caesar and fighting to the death. I think of epictetus living through slavery

and not being broken by it. It takes courage to live in this world. And in fact, Santa Cah says that. He says sometimes it takes courage just to stay alive in this world. And I think it's true. You think of the pandemic, you think of economic uncertainty, you think of what it takes to start a business or to raise a family or to talk to a stranger across the moon. Life demands courage because the world is a

scary unpredictable place. The Stokes knew this. They lived in times that were more unpredictable, that were more capricious. They had tyrants and they had mobs and they had death and disease that make our cushy modern times seem pale and comparison. So one requires courage to live in this world. So if CS Lewis said that courage is all the virtues that they're testing point, you could argue that wisdom is equally critical

and that it's how you understand what the other virtues are. Without the ability to learn, that's what wisdom is, the love of knowledge, the love of truth, without this, how does one know anything, without the ability to read, without the ability to interpret information, without the ability to get to the bottom of something,

to study it, Epictetus would also say that sort of the chief task of the philosophers to be able to think about their own thoughts. So it's not just what you consume, all of that is super important, but without the ability to have self-awareness, to examine oneself, what good is all of that?

So the Stoics approach things from the mindset of humility and self-awareness. Rititi says it's impossible to learn that, which we think we already know. In that sense, Socrates, one of the surfer bears of Stoicism, is an illustrative example. This idea that our wisdom comes from our lack of wisdom. By admitting how little we know we're able to learn more.

Conceit the Stoics thought was the impediment to wisdom, the impediment to virtue. If you think you're perfect, if you think you know everything, you can't get any better and you can't improve. So Stoics are on this lifelong journey of self-improvement, of self-discovery of knowledge. That's what wisdom is. That's what allows us to know what cause is just or unjust. What the right amount of courage in a situation is, what to engage and how to engage, what the right amount of it is a situation is, what to engage and how to engage, what the right amount of it is. So without wisdom, all the other virtues are pointless.

Conversely, wisdom is what helps us understand what and how to wield the other virtues. In a world of distraction and excess, self-discipline is a critical virtue. Stoicism is about an imposed self-discipline. Dwight Eisenhower famously said that freedom is really the opportunity for self-discipline. That's what virtue is. It's you deciding what you're going to do and not do. Epic Tidus famously said that stoicism could be summed up

in two key words, persist and resist. Some things you do, you keep doing, even when it's hard, even when you don't want to. It's getting up early, persevering on a difficult project, and some things you don't do. You don't do hard drugs, or you don't cheat on your spouse. Temperance has this kind of negative connotation, right? We think that temperance is like the temperance move, which banned alcohol in the United States. No temperance for the Stokes is about moderation, it's about self-control.

Seneca talks about like, what's the proper limits for a person? Epictetus talks about not setting your heart on so many things, about constraining your desires, about being in control of yourself. Self-discipline is having the fortitude, the strength, the will to avoid the wrong thing. Mark really specifically learns about temperance from Antoninus, who he said he admired his

ability to enjoy the things that people had trouble enjoying and abstain from the things that most people had trouble abstaining from. To me that's the perfect definition of temperance and self-control, which I think Cicero properly defines as a polish on life. It is the polish on a good person. We admire the people who despite their success, despite their wealth, despite their fame, despite their power are in control of themselves and their herges and their desires. You know, Stoicism is a philosophy of rugged individualism, sure, But the Stoics returned to this idea of the common good over and over and over again.

Mark's realises that the fruit of his good life is good character and acts for the common good. In fact, the key difference between the Stoics and the Epicurians is that one was involved in civic life, tried to contribute to the Paulus, to the city, and the other sort of retreated to their own individual spiritual development. So justice is this key virtue. I think when the Stelks are talking about justice, they mean it in the social contract sense of the word. They mean it

in the sense of the golden rule, how we treat people, the ethical standards that we guide our own behavior by. Mark Spiris is just that you do the right thing, the rest doesn't matter. That's what I think he means by justice. You think of Cato who refuses to take bribes, who fights to preserve the Roman Republic, the old ways of doing things, you think of Mark as a realist in the depths of the Antenine Plague selling off the palace furnishings to pay down rooms. That's how different that is than the corrupt leaders who who spent frivolously on themselves, who indulged the life of luxury. To me, there's a sign

down the street from my house in Austin where I like to run in. It's put there by the football player, Hollywood Henderson, and says, leave this place better than you found it. To me that's the embodiment of the stoic idea of justice. I think it's also important that justice isn't just about ourselves, our own sphere of interest. Marcus really famously says in meditations as he's listing what justice is. He says, and remember that you can commit an injustice by doing nothing, by being indifferent, by being too ruggedly individualistic, by caring only about yourself, by focusing so narrowly on what's up to you right now, it's easy. And this is a criticism against the Stoics as well. I mean,

Marcus really doesn't do anything about slavery. He's a reader of epititus, and he never seems to question whether a human being should be able to own another human being. Doesn't seem to question the brutality of the wars that he fought in. But that's the idea that you're supposed to commit justice with what you do, but remembering that being too selfish, ignoring, uh, not following these Stoic principles can also contribute to injustice in the world, and that's not good. Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Stoke Podcast. If you don't know this, you can get these delivered to you via email every day, check it out at dailystoke.com slash email.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke early and ad-free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just going to end up on page six or Du Moir or in court. I'm Matt Bellesai. And I'm Sydney Battle, and we're the host of Wondery's new podcast, Dish and Tell, where each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud. From the buildup, why it happened, and the repercussions. What does our obsession with these feuds say about us?

The first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama, but none is drawn out in personal as Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears. When Britney's fans form the free Britney movement dedicated to fraying her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lynn's lack of public support. It angered some fans. A lot of them. It's a story of two young women who had their choices taken away from them by their controlling parents, but took their anger out on each other. And it's about a movement to save a superstar, which set its sights upon anyone who failed to fight for Britney. Follow disenthal wherever you get your podcast. You can listen ad free on Amazon Music or

the Wondering app. anyone who failed to fight for Brittany. Follow Dissentel wherever you get your podcast. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or the Wondering app.