The Daily Stoic - It Doesn’t Matter Who It’s From | Ask Daily Stoic

Episode Date: January 16, 2025

Philosophy isn’t about allegiance to a school—it’s about a commitment to growth, resilience, and truth wherever we find it.🎥 Watch A Life Changing Stoic Lesson From Gladiator on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0srQO_qYi8🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast🎥 Watch top moments from The Daily Stoic Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dailystoicpodcast✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow us:  Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to the daily Stoic early and ad free right now. Just join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. When I travel with my family, I almost always stay in an Airbnb. I want my kids to have their own room. I want my wife and I to have a little privacy. You know, maybe we'll cook or at the very least we'll use a refrigerator. Sometimes I'm bringing my in-laws around with me or I need an extra room just to write in. Airbnbs give you the flavor of actually being in the place you are. I feel like I've lived in all these places that I've stayed for a week or two or even a night or two. There's flexibility in size and location. When you're searching you can

look at guest favorites or even find like historical or really coolest things. It's my choice when we're traveling as a family. Some of my favorite memories are in Airbnb's we've stayed at. I've recorded episodes of a podcast in Airbnb. I've written books. One of the very first Airbnbs I ever stayed in was in Santa Barbara, California, while I was finishing up what was my first book,

Trust Me I'm Lying. If you haven't checked it out, I highly recommend you check out Airbnb for your next trip. 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 who are 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 happened to be someone there recording.

Thank you for listening, and we hope this is of use to you. It doesn't matter who it's from. It's sort of a strange choice if you think about it. In the opening lines of the sequel, The Gladiator, Paul Muskell playing the grandson of Marcus Aurelius as he's rallying the troops for a terrible battle quotes,

them a line from Epicurus, "'Where we are, death is not, he tells them. Where death is, we are not. Why is he quoting the rival school, the Stoicism? It's not like there's a shortage of lines and meditations about death, but just like as we've talked about before, we have a video on this,

the opening scene in the first Gladiator also has a hidden stoic lesson. And so maybe it makes sense here that the grandson of Marcus Aurelius would be liberally quoting from a rival school of philosophy. After all, who does Seneca quote more than just about any other philosopher in his letters? It's Epicurus. And Marcus Aurelius himself, Gregory Hayes points out in the best intro and translation of Meditations, he never explicitly identifies as a Stoic.

No, Marcus Aurelius was a philosopher and like Seneca, he quoted any author if the line was good. Philosophy is not dogma, it's truth. It doesn't matter who said it. What matters is whether it gets the job done. What matters is that it helps us live better, think deeper, and face life's challenges with virtue. The wisdom of Epicurus, of Seneca, of Marcus,

they're tools for the same purpose, to prepare us for what life demands and to remind us what truly matters. Philosophy isn't about an allegiance to a school. It's about a commitment to growth, resilience, and truth wherever it may be found. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast.

I've gotten to do some cool things in my life. I've been invited to talk to sports teams. I spoke at the NFL owners meeting. I've been in cool hotels and cool venues. I've gotten some perks. And you know, sometimes I bring my family along. Usually I ask my wife, hey, I got this cool thing. I'm gonna be going here.

You wanna come? It's in Hawaii or it's in this country. And usually she's like, I'm good. Cause she knows it's not that glamorous. And we try to keep a stable life for our kids. We're not interrupting them and leaving them too much. But I remember I walked downstairs the other day and I said, I just got invited to talk at the White House.

And they said, if I come on this date, I can also come to the White House holiday party. Do you want to come to this one? And she was like, yes. So back in December we flew out to DC. She was just there for the day. She flew in the morning, flew out at night. I stayed and the next day I gave a talk to about 200 White House employees in what's known as the Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. I had been there maybe 15, 16 months earlier. I got offered to do a tour of the White House, which I did.

I saw this room. I think when I was there, there was like some long time government employees having this retirement ceremony there. The idea that I would come back and be answering questions about stoic philosophy was not high on my list of expectations, but it was cool. And what my host said, which I thought was interesting, he works in the digital office of the White House or did,

he said with a change in presidents, every single person in that room was about to go through a major life and or career change. So they just wanted me to talk about that. Not a political talk, not a partisan talk, but how do you transition? How do you deal with change or disappointment or frustration? How do you make sense of a crazy chaotic world?

How do you make sense of a world where you've got to go find what your next thing is gonna be? Anyways, this was an honor for me. It is obviously the inauguration here. It is coming up very shortly. So I'm bringing you a Q&A with this group of White House employees. This is obviously the outgoing administration, not the incoming administration. I suspect I will not be invited sometime in the next four years. So I guess back in 2017 or 18, I spoke to the White House Communications Agency offsite. People don't know that the White House is actually run

by like a sort of a combined military command of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, I guess. I don't know exactly, but it was very cool experience to do that. They're the ones who, you know, the president is the embodiment of the command center. So where he or she goes That's where you know all the things that have to go with them go and so I talked to that group Although again, this is a nonpartisan thing so much of the actual operations of government are non

Partisan or political in any way we sort of screw that up in our country by politicizing everything So I was talking to the nuts and bolts people then and now, and I wanted to bring you a chunk of that in today's episode. I am bleeping out everyone's names here because, you know, unfortunately we are heading in a, again, a partisan sort of, well, some people call it the revenge tour,

which is a dark, sad thing. So I'm gonna bleep everyone's names, but I'll give you a chunk of my Q&A and I'll bring some more of that later on as we go through the year. Anyways, it was an honor for me and just a real treat. I'm glad my wife got to come with me and I wish she'd watched this talk.

I used to watch your videos on the way to school all the time. Wow. Like 10 stories to get your life together. I'm like, I actually gave my life together. If you did, you wouldn't be here. Thank you so much. Thank you to you.

And then you'd be like, oh, I can't trust that. But I'm working it out. And then it'd be really awesome. And then you got me into your book. So I want to thank you for that. Oh, amazing. And you're still me into your book, so I'm gonna thank you for that. And you like, you stole principles and stuff like that. So I think it's a big thing in my pro culture,

talk about that, but you actually get into it in a healthy way. And it's not like talking to a mastermind, but actually teaching people like, how to get into the school principles in a healthy way. So I'm gonna thank you for that. Then my second thing is, I think a lot of people in public service

are like very creative, right? Like, I wanna do a million and one things, I want to work the playhouse one day, or another administration hopefully, I want to have my business one million and one things. And so in terms of like, so principle from your perspective, how do you prioritize what's important in the moment, right? Because a lot of people want to do everything at once, but then some people say like, you should do this first and look at that, but as you talk about, you're a very productive person. So how do you do a Stoke principle,

prioritize what you want to do in the public view? Let me do just the first thing there, because I think it's important. There is, when people are talking, or as they're doing post-mortem on the election, and they sort of have the young vote, the young male vote, especially. I think, I do think young men are struggling.

And we can say that about taking away from other groups who are struggling. And I would say they're struggling. And there's not much in the way of content, ideas, role models to deal with that. And so a lot of these influences have become very popular by filling a vacuum of stuff about how should you set up your life? What are good habits? What are bad habits?

What are things you need to know about the world? And so I think a lot about how do I use the platform. Because I was a young man who, you wake up, and you're like, nobody taught me how to do any of these things that I'm supposed to do. And so when I talk about the founders and philosophy earlier, you would be taught these things in school. There was a moral component to education,

not just how do you do on standardized tests. And that is a role that philosophy and religion are supposed to fill in life. And so when you take those away, there's a vacuum and people step in and fill that vacuum. And I think a lot about it, and I think we need to think more as a culture about how do we fill that vacuum with positive moral instruction about how to be a good person, how to be a good man, how to be a good woman, generally how to be a good person, how to be a good man, how to be a good woman, generally how to be a good person in the world.

And philosophy is, I think, a great answer to that. But the way into those things via social media is really practical stuff about, you know, just foundational habits, things to read, you know, ways to think about things. And so that's, look, I would love to just write books, but I spend a lot of time working on stuff on social media to meet people exactly where you work. And I'm so glad that you found stuff. As far as prioritization, it is tough.

You can't be everywhere. You've gotta know what your main thing is. What's the main thing? So for me, that's writing. So I do all these other things, and my two main things are my family and writing. And so I have to go, OK, I get these cool opportunities. Other things come up, which I get excited about.

But ultimately, if I don't have a good chunk of time every day to do those two things, that's not good. So really kind of crafting, like, hey, what do I want my days to look like? Allows you to make certain career and life decisions. In 2016, I got an offer to be a staffer for one of the cabinet secretaries. And it seemed cool, it seemed exciting.

Ideology aside, I was like, that's the opposite. This is the opposite of where I wanted to live. The main thing would be I wouldn't be able to do writing, which is my main thing. And so I was like, okay, this is a opposite of where I wanted to live. The main thing would be I wouldn't be able to do writing, which is my main thing. And so I was like, okay, this is a cool opportunity, but it's not the right opportunity. And so being able to know what you want your life to look like day to day.

Sometimes maybe you'll go, hey, for six months or a year, I'm gonna do something different, but I'm gonna be able to come back here. But so thinking about like, what do you want your life to look like day to day and then you got to be able to judge these decisions because you're gonna get offered and asked a lot of things to do and some of them getting closer to the main thing and some of them getting further from the main thing and being able to say no to things that are exciting or lucrative or prestigious but are not

where you want to end up. Those are the real challenges in life. Good challenges, but still a challenge. Hi Ryan, nice to be a virgin, or you're not with us. My question has been focused on storytelling. I will write books one day and want to hear more about what are those key drivers for your storytelling approach, and how has that shifted over time across media? So I was very fortunate. I was a research assistant for one of our great living writers, Fanny Robin Pree, with the 40 Laws of Power,

and Mastery, The Laws of Human Nature, The 33 Shadows of War. And so I really learned about building lots of power of book captain's research and then storytelling. And I think a lot to learn the building blocks of how a book happens. Research and then storytelling. And I think a lot of books fail because they are fact based. It sounds like I have a problem with facts. If you're just, hey, these are facts, that's not how people remember, and that's certainly not how they get excited.

A book is a journey. You're sitting down here and you get five or six hours of your life to think over the course of reading a journey. You're sitting down here and you get five or six hours of your life to look at the course of reading a book. And so how do you take them on a journey from point A to point B? It's usually a few stories. Same with talks, same with politicians. You've got to tell a story.

It's got to be a compelling story. And so I decided when I was going to write about ancient philosophy to not say, hey, let me tell you what Seneca said or Marcus Aureliusula said, or Epictetus said, and why it is or is it true. I decided because of my background with Farber P, that what I was going to do is take these ideas from the stoics and illustrate them with stories, in many cases, via people who are more well known than the stoics. So I'll pick, you know, a team on the way to the Super Bowl, or I'll pick a great, you know,

battle in history, or a great leader, I wanna tell stories that illustrate the ideas. So my first book on stoic philosophy obstacles away, the word stoic probably appears three times in the whole book. It is a book demonstrating what stoic philosophy looks like, often through people who had never even heard of stoic philosophy and maybe were the opposite of stoic philosophy in other were the opposite of stoic philosophy

in other aspects of their lives. But in this example that I'm telling you, they're demonstrating a stoic idea. So what I do is I have what I wanna say, or the point I'm trying to make, and then I find examples and stories that demonstrate this. And the research part of it is the hard part. The writing is actually much easier.

Hi. Hello, so nice to meet you. Like the young gentleman that mentioned earlier, so I came across you five years ago. Lovely. Yeah, I've been with that ministry for a few years, but Capitol Hill is my home base. I was there for a few years.

I needed to come across you. I was definitely at a reflection point, to say the least. but so nice to meet you. Thank you for being here. I think what could be very helpful for me, definitely practicing stoic, but perhaps for the room, is you already talked about prioritization, which is everything. But then other layers, can you talk about discipline? Yeah. Right, and what you do beautifully, the various mediums that you talk about, stochasticism, but through the body, right? The meditation, walking. Yeah.

But concrete steps like that, because I don't wanna speak on behalf of everybody, but after January 20th, the market is saturated, job interviews right now are a bit more than a month by. And so how to stay disciplined, and then how to, the ability to concentrate and then concentrate at a longer period of time. I personally think is key for this new transition,

but I think that's going to be helpful. No, I think you're right. We tend to think of philosophy as a theoretical or a mental thing, and of course it is. But there's a physical component to it, too. That's why discipline is one of the stove virtues. I mean, Aristotle's school is named after walking. I think philosophy and walking have always been intertwined.

It wasn't this idea of doing a sit in a classroom and listening to some lecture for a long time. There was an active practice to it, and there were stoics who were athletes, there were stoics who had these beautiful observations about nature. They were clearly outdoor people, and we unfortunately live in an indoor world. And so I think having a strong physical practice, ideally it's an outward physical practice, is really, really important, especially when things are going sideways, because you have a win every day. The world could be falling apart, but I got a good run in.

And it's something that's in your control. That's the other part of having a great physical practice. It's like, you win because you did it. And so building that in, like I have a cold plunge at my house, I've read a whole bunch of things about its health benefits. This could be complete bullshit. I have no idea.

To me, that it's unpleasant and hard, but I do it anyway, that's the benefit of the thing. And having some of those practices are really great. One of the reasons I like swimming is that it's a screen free activity and you're kind of in this sensory deprivation element, you know, but it doesn't happen. Whatever it is for you, you got to have some kind of practice. Hey, it's Ryan.

Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple years We've been doing it. It's an honor. Please spread the word tell people about it and this isn't to sell anything I just wanted to say thank you. If you like The Daily Stoic and thanks for listening, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. And before you go, would you tell us about yourself by filling out a short

survey on Wondery.com slash survey? UFO lands in Suffolk and that's official, said the News of the World. But what really happened across two nights in December 1980, when US servicemen saw mysterious lights in the forest near RAF Woodbridge and claimed to have had a close encounter with an actual craft? Encounters, a new podcast available exclusively on Wondery Plus, takes a deep dive into one of the most famous and still unresolved UFO encounters to ever take place in the UK. Featuring shocking testimony from first-hand witnesses, hosts, journalist, podcaster and UFO researcher Andy McGillin, that's me, and producer Elle Scott take us back to the nights in question and examine all of the evidence and

conflicting theories about what was encountered in the middle of a snowy Suffolk forest 40 years ago. Are we alone? Encounters is a podcast which is going to find out. Listen to Encounters exclusively in ad free on Wondry+. Join Wondry plus in the Wondry app or in Apple podcasts.