The Daily Stoic - It’s Never Too Late To Get Back | Ask DS

Episode Date: May 25, 2023

Maybe you said some stuff you regret. Maybe the stress of the business has made you a nightmare of a boss lately. Maybe you’ve not been the parent you want to be. Maybe you’ve not been the spouse you’ve promised to be. Maybe you’ve relapsed on some bad or destructive habits. Maybe, but hopefully not, you’ve been heading in the direction of Elon Musk and gotten yourself in a kind of downward spiral of negative attention and impulsive decisions.And now, staring at the consequences of this–invariably your own unhappiness and quite possibly disrepute–you’re wondering if all is lost.---And in today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan answers questions from the audience during a Stoicism 101 seminar. The topics that he covers include focusing on your own work instead of someone else's, whether or not the concepts of Premeditatio Malorum and the Black Swan are in conflict, avoiding feeling a sense of superiority when studying and improving your Stoicism.✉️ 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. 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.

What is the most important thing to be able to do? It's never too late to get back. Maybe you said some stuff that you regret. Maybe the stress of the business has made you a nightmare of a boss lately. Maybe you've not been the parent you wanna be. Maybe you've not been the parent you want to be, maybe you've not been the spouse that you promised to be, maybe you've relapsed on some bad or destructive habits,

maybe, but hopefully not, you're heading in the direction of Elon Musk and gotten yourself in a kind of downward spiral of negative attention and impulsive decisions. And now staring at the consequences of this invariably your own unhappiness and quite possibly distribute, you are wondering if all is lost. Well, it isn't. Don't be too hard on yourself. We all slip. We all mess up.

We all go down the wrong road from time to time. Some of us, for a really long time, Marcus Reales would have you know that not only is all not lost, but that you can redeem yourself. Within 10 days, you will see a God to those to whom you are now, a beast and an ape, he said to himself, likely after some kind of slip or laps in leadership in his own life. All he had to do, he said, was return to his principles and the worship of reason. And so it goes for you. And so it goes for the person who is struggling with recovery. So it goes for Elon Musk.

It is not too late to get back on track. It doesn't matter how far you fall and how harsh the crowd is looking at you, how mad they rightfully are. All you need to focus on is returning to your principles, returning to the worship of reason, returning to the habits and practices and arate that made you great in the first place. This won't be easy, but it is simple, and it can be quick. It's funny, I talk to lots of people and a good chunk of those people haven't been

readers for a long time. They've just gotten back into it. And I always love hearing that and they tell me how they fall in love with reading. They're reading more than ever. And I go, let me guess, you listen audio books, don't you? And it's true. And almost invariably, they listen to them on Audible. And that's because Audible offers an incredible selection of audio books across every genre from bestsellers and new releases to celebrity memoirs. And of course, ancient philosophy, all my books are available on audio, read by me for the most part.

Audible lets you enjoy all your audio entertainment in one app. You'll always find the best of what you love, or something new to discover, and as an Audible member, you get to choose one title a month to keep from their entire catalog, including the latest bestsellers and new releases. You'll discover thousands of titles from popular favorites, exclusive new series, exciting new voices in audio. You can check out stillness is the key, the daily dad I just recorded so that's up on Audible now. Coming up on the 10-year anniversary of the obstacle is the way audiobooks so all those are available and new members can try Audible for free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash daily stoke or text daily stoke to 500 500 that's audible.com slash daily stoke or text daily stoke to 500 500. I went through the readings for the last course and I wanted to talk about some other examples of when you should be focused on your own learning rather than someone else's.

Like, what do you mean? Focused on your own learning rather than someone else's? If I were worrying about your personal, your self, that's what was that. Other people's thinking. Yeah, I think I've missed rest one of the things. No, it's a, oh, go ahead. The thing that we talked about was, you know, he has a little brother who's four. And then you've got a son around that age.

I do, and yes, that's a challenging age when you're a 10-year-old, and you've got a four-year-old little brother, and what we talk about is, you can't worry about what the 4-year-old is doing, right? You got to worry about your own reactions and what you control, man. Yes. Yes, so I go through this with my 4-year-old and his 2-year-old brother just as your dad probably goes through this with people at work. It's very easy to focus on what other people are doing. And I think in a way we almost focus on that because it exempts us from having to focus on our own stuff. I remember I was actually just writing about this but several years ago I said something to my wife,

we were arguing and I said, you're being very frustrating. And she said, I can't frustrate you, which of course is a very frustrating thing to say, but true, right? The Stoics believe that we're responsible for our own emotions, our own reactions, and what other people do and say is sort of up to them. And I think another place where this ties into stoicism that's maybe a good rule to think about, perhaps sometimes your brother's getting away with something that you wouldn't be able to get away with.

Like I have to talk to my sons about this where, you know, one of them is not sharing, but the other is having to share in and that feels very unfair, right? But the truth is we're all at different places and we're all sort of subject to our own rules. And this would be true for Marcus really. So imagine Marcus, he's the emperor of Rome, theoretically he can do whatever he wants.

He's all powerful. And yet, he has these strict rules that he insists that he follow, because he thinks that's the right thing to do. You probably imagine that he looked out and he saw other rich, successful people who got to just do whatever they wanted. While he was working late into the night, they were at their country estates or having parties, right?

And so his rule was like, I'm going to be strict with myself and tolerant with other people, which is like, you give everyone else as much leeway as possible, you assume they're struggling with something that they don't understand that they're doing the best they can, and then you, which you control, that's who you hold to the highest standard possible. Does that make sense? Yeah, so it's sort of like, you'll never go anywhere if you're not trying and you're just focused on how somebody else is doing. Yes, so there's a Winston Churchill quote and he says, you'll never get anywhere if you stop to throw rocks at every dog that barks. Now,

first off, you shouldn't throw rocks at dogs, but the expression is true, right? It's like if you're walking home and you stop at every time there's a problem every time, you know, someone says something every, you know, every time a dog barks at you, you'll never get there because you're never making any progress. So it's like if you're monitoring what other people are doing and you're pointing out that they're getting away with something or that it's not fair. What you're neglecting is your own stuff, which you could be making progress on right now. Yeah, thank you so much.

No, this is great. Please keep doing this. I wish that I've been introduced to this stuff as early as you have, so I'm very impressed. Thank you very much. All right, let's do David. Cool. Hey, Ryan, very cool to be able to talk to you. Thank you.

Yeah. I had a question. So pre-metitachio moron. I think I get that. And I see the benefit of it. The problem is I also kind of like I'm totally bought into the concept of a black swan too. I see it in a fragile red over your shoulder there. I like swans right here. Oh yes. And they seem kind of like they're in conflict to me. Am I missing

a nuance there or is one like macro and the other micro or? No, it's a good question. I think when we're trying to anticipate everything that happens, it would be arrogant to believe that we could, in fact, do that, right? That you're capable of knowing all the unknowns, right? That's obviously impossible. So I think even in understanding that black swans exist

and they could appear at any moment is itself a kind of pre-meditashu malorum that the vast majority of people are not doing. And in fact, the whole parable about the black swan is everyone assumed that because the only swans they had seen were white, all swans were white. There was not the awareness that perhaps in a foreign distant land, there were swans they had seen were white, all swans were white. There was not the awareness that perhaps in a foreign distant land, there were swans that were a different color. And so it's only when I believe Australia

has discovered that the first black swan is known to exist, but in truth, the black swan was always there, right? And so I think part of pre-meditashum, Laura, and it's not like, hey, I, because I'm a genius and I can predict the future, I'm aware of all the possibilities, going to be one of these three options. I think it's going to be one of these three options or a fourth completely unpredictable, unknowable option. And, you know, here's how I'm prepared to be flexible. You know, I think,

to lab talks about this a lot, you know, even the barbell strategy is essentially, you know, you don't know what's going to happen, but you want to be prepared that if there is some extreme unlikely event, you're not, you have some exposure to the upside of that potential event as well. Right. Okay. Great question though. Let's do the other David. Cool. Thank you. So my question has to do with, I guess, like throughout reading meditations, Marcus talks about how we should be how we should be helpful to other people, you know, human nature, like we're all on the same team. However, I find it kind of hard to like not develop some sense of superiority

while doing this type of learning and studying, especially when you're at the tedious with how he's talking down to like on these rants to other people. So I wonder what your thoughts are on still, you know, not having that sense of superiority and still wanting to help other people, but still being ruthless about who you surround yourself with. Yeah, that's a great question. And I think that's where we get this idea of tolerant with others, strict with yourself, which is I control me, I know what's up to me. And that's who I'm going to hold to a high standard, but other people I'm gonna be chill with.

Hang on one second. So I think this idea of like, oh, because I've learned about this stuff, I'm better than other people. To me, that means you're not doing that sort of good-heartedness or tolerance or compassion for other people and what they're going for. And look, I think really the sign of progress or wisdom should be some intellectual humility,

right? Socrates is considered wise, not because he's so much smarter than everyone in Athens and he's aware of it, but his intelligence comes from his humility, his willingness to ask questions to poke holes in his own beliefs. So as you do study, as you do get better, sure, part of that should be a higher set of standards, confidence in yourself, perhaps a little bit of a distinction between you and other people. At the same time, you should be sort of ruthlessly skeptical, ruthlessly scrutinizing yourself,

and focusing on all the things you know that you need to do better, that you're not as good as you could be. And this is, I think, where you check that ego from creeping in. Does that make sense? Oh, yeah, that makes perfect sense. 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. Hey there listeners! While we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think you'll like.

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