The Daily Stoic - Lowercase stoicism Vs. Uppercase Stoicism | Angela Duckworth

Episode Date: June 5, 2024

In today’s episode, Angela Duckworth challenges Ryan on the Stoic dictum that “you cannot change your situation, but you can change your response to the situation”. Together, they talk about self-control, grit, Stoicism throughout history, and lowercase stoicism versus uppercase Stoicism. Angela Duckworth is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, psychologist, and author of the New York Times bestselling book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. Pick up a signed copy of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance at The Painted Porch: https://www.thepaintedporch.com/X: @angeladuckwIG: @angeladuckw📕 Pre-order Right Thing, Right Now and get exclusive bonuses! To learn more and pre-order your own copy, visit dailystoic.com/justice✉️ 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. Hello, I'm Emily. And I'm Anna, and we're the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. And just a warning, our latest season will feature a lot of accents. Can I just check what accents? Because… I can't tell this story without going all in.

Okay, I'm scared to ask, but can you give us a clue? Why I'm Ant. Oh, Ant, and or dek? I'm afraid not and it's not Alan Shearer either. I am talking about a young woman plucked from obscurity who rose to become the nation's sweetheart. A woman who's had a lot of surnames. And has ditched them all to become just Cheryl.

Love it. Girls Aloud fans, strap in. We're gonna follow Cheryl from her Girl Band Glory days, getting together with Ashley Cole, and the many scandals and humiliations that followed. Not to mention a near-death experience. Oh, she's been through a lot. And she has needed every ounce

of her Northern grit to see her through. I promise you it's gonna be an emotional rollercoaster. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to podcasts. Or listen early and ad free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. I'm Afua Hirsch. I'm Peter Frankopan. And in our podcast Legacy, we explore the lives of some of the biggest characters in history. This season, we're going to be exploring the life of Margaret Thatcher.

The first female leader of Britain. Her 11-year premiership completely overhauled British society. The political legacy of Thatcherism is both pervasive but also controversial. So who was the woman behind the policies? Wow, what a titan of modern British history, Peter. It's kind of intimidating, actually. We spent days, days recording this one. And to just to cut it down, there is so much that happens

over the course of Margaret Thatcher's life that we've had to think really hard about what we can include. And this is, of all the characters we've done so far, the one who's had the most personal impact on my conscious, waking, real-time life. I mean, I lived through her, I was born under her, I'm a Thatcher baby.

That's gonna be set to dance music. Follow Legacy Now from wherever you get your podcasts. Or binge entire seasons early and ad free on Wondery Plus. Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast, where each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating and powerful.

With them we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are and also to find peace and wisdom in their actual lives. But first we've got a quick message from one of our sponsors. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. You know, usually when you have a guest on the show, they'll send you a note or one of their people will send you a note. Hey, I'm excited. Is there anything I need to know?

Maybe every once in a while they'll be like, here's a couple of things I'd like to talk about or I hope you have time to read my book. Hey, I'm excited. Is there anything I need to know? Maybe every once in a while they'll be like, here's a couple of things I'd like to talk about, or I hope you have time to read my book. When Jonathan Haidt was on, he sent me like a syllabus from one of her classes. I don't know if I've ever been challenged at the outset by a guest, but I think that gives an insight into Angela Duckworth

and why she's so amazing. She sent me this note. We recorded this back, I think the first week of May. So on April 29th at 1141 AM, she said, hey Ryan, I'm looking forward to seeing you on Saturday. What's on my mind? The stoic dictum that you cannot change your situation, but you can change your response to the situation.

I have a different view. I know you've thought a lot more about this and we've both thought a lot about self-control. So I'm looking forward to learning from and with you. I just liked that she sort of laid it out as a challenge from the beginning. And we had a really great conversation. It was awesome.

I think as I kept trying to point out to her, I think we agreed much more than she thought we did. And I think she was sometimes pointing out to what you might call lowercase stasis versus uppercase stasis. But I think this was an awesome conversation and I'm really looking forward to you hearing it. It's been a bit crazy over here, I will say.

It's been a bit nuts. I put books out in the summer before. Actually, Trust Me I'm Lying came out in June of 2012. That seems insane to say. I think Obstacle came out in May of 2014. Actually for a while, this was the slot that I was in when I would do a book, they would give me the summer slots

because they didn't think my books would sell. This is kind of like the big books tend to get the fall. The reason right thing right now is coming out in June is just because I asked for more time with the book. The first two came out in the fall of 21 and 22, and probably the fourth book in the series will come out in the fall of 25 or 26. But anyways, this is the first time I've put out a book

in the summer and had two kids who were in school who are now not in school. So this is the first time my writing life has intersected with my family life in this way. So there's a lot going on. Plus it's gotten insanely hot here in Texas. We're trying to handle some business,

tighten things up, rearrange in the daily stove offices. So a bunch is going on here. Plus I'm trying to write. I'm trying to get as much done on this new book as possible. And so it's been a bit crazy, trying to get as much done on this new book as possible. And so it's been a bit crazy, but I was very excited to have Angela Duckworth come out in person, because I've been a fan of her work forever.

Our paths have crossed virtually a million times. She was nice enough to blurb stillness is the key. We met through, I guess it would be Les Snead, who's the GM of the Los Angeles Rams. Although of course I was familiar with her work for a really long time. You know your book has crossed over if like the word becomes part of the zeitgeist

or the consciousness. And I think Angela Doutkirth has done that with a word that I think people thought was popular, thought they knew, but they didn't understand, like the power of her work has just been the cultural resonance now of that word grit, right? Her New York Times bestselling book, Grit, The Power of Passion and Perseverance,

which actually started with some work she was doing for West Point, you know, what makes people make it through and what prevents people from making it through, all the training that you would have to go through. Why did some people stick and some people quit? So thanks to Angela for coming out. If you haven't read Grit, The Power of Passion and Perseverance,

it's an amazing book. We carry it in the bookstore. You can follow her on Instagram and Twitter, at Angela Duck W. And without further ado, here is my interview with Angela Duckworth. So you had a talk to go good? Yes, I had a talk for autism therapy, but like it's like a for profit company. But yeah, apparently they're based here.

You probably end up talking to some groups that you wouldn't expect you would end up talking about with your work. Oh, with my work? Yeah, but I do it very rarely. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah, super rarely. I feel like you and I are similar and that neither of us would have possibly imagined

that we would talk to sports teams or it'd be in any way relevant in that world. Or even watch one game, like one single game. But yeah, no, there are a lot of unexpected turns, probably for both of us. Yeah. Have you talked to many sports teams? I bet you have, right?

I do occasionally. Um, I talked to sometimes the players, but it's most often the coaches. They just call me. Yeah. I've the, I got some really good advice. My, my book started to first go in sports. They were like, the players could not be less interested in another person being trotted out.

Because it's like a whole like, oh, this week coach, right? Yeah, you don't think of sports as being like being a professional athlete as like an endless series of meetings, but their life is like all of our lives. You might talk to athletes more. I went to the Seahawks and I have to say,

like the week before I had given a colloquium at Harvard and I thought the questions were at least and possibly more sophisticated from the players. I mean they were really like it's not just smart but just there was like a depth of what they were asking me about and I was like okay whoa all right let's talk about that so yeah no I don't I don't like I'm not you know also I'm not a sports psychologist. I think it's like a- Right, we'll need that in life.

Well, yeah, it's like if you're a theoretical physicist and someone's like, oh, hey, like I have a applied physics problem, right? So I try not to like, you know, like prance around and like try to help athletes like improve their performance specifically. Cause I don't know. But they're kind of just like everyone else,

which is like, you're just trying to get a little bit better at what you're already really good at and you know a lot about. kind of just like everyone else, which is like, you're just trying to get a little bit better at what you're already really good at and you know a lot about. And so- I can tell them about in principle, it's just that like, when somebody asks me to like, work with a particular athlete, I'm like, oh,

like it's another, I think it's a different toolbox. Well, yeah, and also I didn't become a writer to like do one-on-one instruction. That's the whole point is like, no, no, no, I'm just gonna write this down and then you- And then you do it, right? It's like, did I pass the baton to you? Yes.

Do you identify most as a writer? I would say so, yeah. That's interesting, yeah. What were you before you were a writer? I was the director of marketing at a fashion company. Which one? American Apparel. I know American Apparel.

Do they still exist? No. Oh, okay. I did this book on ego, it sort of charts the collapse of that company. Oh, they're part of the roller coaster? Yes, yes. Okay, I had these black leggings from American Apparel

and then I was like, oh no, I can't get these anymore. No, I'm down to my last few things. It's a really sad story. Well, one of the interesting things about the company, he said he wanted to design clothes that you could buy in a vintage clothing store like 20 years from now, which is like a great way to, right? Yeah, yeah.

So, often fashion, especially then was- It's like the opposite of fast fashion in a way. Yeah, it was all about like, how do you make stuff that goes out of style and then you have to keep replacing it. Yeah, it's like having a new edition of your textbook that everybody has to now get like the eighth edition. Yes.

Yeah, planned obsolescence. Ah, okay, yeah. And then what happened? Well, many things. I mean, there's a Me Too part of it. There was- Oh,cence. Ah, okay, yeah. And then what happened? Well, many things. I mean, there's a Me Too part of it. There was- Oh, what? I did not know that. Yeah, I mean, that's probably the thing

it's most well known for. This is sort of slightly before Me Too, but I actually did a talk in Austin like two days ago, and I was saying that one of the lessons, for me and the company is like, okay, the idea is crazy. American Apparel is a crazy idea. Like we're gonna make our own clothes. In the United States.

In the United States, we're gonna pay like $20 an hour. It was gonna have, there was a medical clinic on site. You had free healthcare. Like it was incredible. Whoa, I didn't know about that part, yeah. Yeah, it was like a worker's paradise, right? So that's crazy. We're not gonna use celebrities in the ads.

That's crazy. We're gonna run our own stores. That's crazy. We're not gonna chase fashion trends. We're just gonna make like t-shirts and socks. Like basics, yeah, that's crazy. We're gonna run our own stores, that's crazy. We're not gonna chase fashion trends, we're just gonna make like t-shirts and socks. Like basics, yeah. That's great. So at every step of the way, it's totally insane.

But it worked, right? And so what happens oftentimes to entrepreneurs or brilliant people or artists, you do something that everyone tells you is crazy. Yeah. And then it works. And then you learn not to listen to people. Oh, and then when you stop listening to people.

You really can't have relationships with your employees or you really shouldn't open this many stores in the middle of a financial crisis or like. You're like, I know better. Yeah, exactly. Oh, that's so interesting. Yeah, I mean, think like you're Elon Musk, right? Everything you did, everyone told you it was crazy.

Right, I'm gonna do it my way. Don't buy Twitter. Right. And you're like, well, if I did what you said I should- I wouldn't be here right now. I wouldn't be here, yeah. Oh, this is so deep. Yeah.

Okay. The other lesson I take from him is he had this open door policy. Like he tried to be a really accessible CEO. He's like, any employee, anytime, call me. Like, and this is how we found a lot of employees. Like he'd find someone working at a store in Seattle or working at a store. And he'd be like, text me.

Yeah, text me, call me. That's also where the boundaries issues with relationships have been. Oh, yes. But the point is he had this open door policy as a CEO, which I think a lot of leadership experts talk about as being important, right? Accessible.

But if you had 250 stores in 20 countries, there's always somebody awake with a problem. And I agree that part of it is he just like slowly went insane from lack of sleep. Like you just can't. I talk about this in the book that I just did. Jimmy Carter was the first of the modern presidents, first and last of the modern presidents to not have a chief of staff. He didn't have a chief of staff. Yeah. He thought like the Nixon administration and the Eisenhower administration had been sort of

what they call the imperial presidents, where like it's like, I'm the guy. Yeah, right, hierarchy, right, yeah. He's like, I wanna be the hub. The people's president. Yeah, I wanna be the hub. Everyone's a spoke, yeah. Yeah, every cabinet secretary could walk

into the Oval Office at any time. So anyways, famously you had to ask Jimmy Carter for access to the White House tennis courts. And so he slowly just sort of drowns under just the sheer, he's like, I think we need more handy wipes like in the kitchen. Yeah. Wow, that's so interesting. Okay, this is very rich. I know we're digressing. Okay, I will be disciplined, but my kids are gonna be so excited that I let marketing that's what he led marketing for American Apparel. Anyway. So yeah, well, so you did email me before we started

and you basically said that you disagree with the fundamental premise of stoicism. Did I say that? I mean, I don't really know, I will say this. I don't think I took any philosophy where we covered stoicism, but I will say that like, you know, you read these like epitetus quotes or whatever and it's like, you know, one cannot change one's situation, but one can change one's resolve, you know, you read these like epitetus quotes or whatever and it's like, you know,

one cannot change one's situation, but one can change one's resolve, you know, in the face of it, like, you know, this is what you can't change is what you can, and what you can't change is the outside, and what you can't change is the inside. And I think that is, well, just, you know, if it were a true false question, I would say false.

And obviously there's some truth to it, but I think it's a mistake. It's not unrelated to what we were just talking about, which is that sometimes, as Ben Franklin would say, half a lie, half a truth can be a great lie. I think it can be misleading to think about your situation as that which you cannot change. Well, one of the things that Epictetus says is that there's things that are up to us and there's things that are not up to us. And obviously there's also things that are partially up to us, right?

There's just a gray area in the middle. Like books are a good example, right? You control writing the book, you don't control whether people buy it, but then marketing sits somewhere in the middle, right? So there's obviously, it's not quite as black and white as that. I don't disagree with that by the way.

What? I don't disagree with your last statement, which is there are things that you can control, there are things that you can't control, and that these are partially under control. I don't have any problem with that statement. And I'm not just reacting to Stoicism. So if you look at the whole notion of self-control, and in any actually Western tradition, I will say, the Bible, In any actually Western tradition, I will say, you know, the Bible, the Stoics, and then, you know, Adam Smith, and then more recently, modern psychology, there has always been this emphasis on how are you going to manage a situation?

What are you going to do with your attitude, with your thoughts, with your feelings and your actions in response to the situation? That's almost the definition. That's what, you know, I think Adam Smith may have used the phrase like self-command, right? And I think there is something to being like the master of your fate and the captain of your soul and all of that.

And I don't disagree that there are things you can change, there are things you can't change, there are some things in the middle, but I think the neglect, you know, I do think that the most influential thing a person can do, the most highly leveraged thing they can do, is to take a step back and ask, how do I change the situation I'm in before I have to go and respond to it? That that has actually been a turn in psychological science on self-control

probably in the last 10 years that we have as a discipline started to ask the question, what do highly effective people doing? And it turns out they are not using willpower. They're not relying on executive function. They're not even saying like, okay, in the moment I'm going to frame this as an opportunity and not as a threat. What they're doing mostly is actually strategically changing and choosing their situations. Sure. But that's something that's in your control. Absolutely. And so it's not that I'm saying that it's not in your control.

I'm just saying that we should not assume that situations are that which we cannot control and internal things are that which we can. I think our locus of control actually extends beyond the internal to the external. So in a way, it's an expansion of what you have agency over and what you can control. It's not just here, it's all of this. And at the same time, I think there's some humility because I think once you're in a particular situation, I think sometimes we overestimate how much willpower, how much control we're going to have once we're already there and being tempted or being distracted.

So when you look at the quotes from the Stoics, you don't control what happens, you control how you respond to what happens, right? Or, you know, only focus on what's up to you, the world is out of your control, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Then you look at the lives of the Stoics and they write books, they run for public office, they fight in wars. They run for public office, they fight in wars. I know nothing about the Stoics, like these people who were, so they were not only philosophers then, right? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, so Stoicism descends from the cynic tradition,

the cynic tradition being sort of a spurning of the hypocrisies and contradictions and lack of control we have in the world around us, right? Interesting. And so they're like taking it back. They're like, wait, no, there's an agentic way of living your life. This begins in Greece,

but as Greece is eventually conquered by Rome and the philosophy goes into what is like a functioning country and empire, like the people who are interested in this philosophy find themselves in positions of leadership or find themselves frustrated or refuse to accept the world around them. And then they have to go do something about it, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I think there's an interesting tension slash like another layer of context of what these things mean. When, you know, if you just read it, you think this is like a monk who has left the world and they're just talking about how things should be from a distance. And then you're like, boy, this person is married. This person has children.

This person is the second most powerful person in the most powerful empire in the world. Obviously, they don't believe it as literally as it can be taken 2000 years later, or they wouldn't have woken up every day and done their job because they would. It would have meant that their job was impotent and meaningless and had no impact, which obviously they didn't believe. Right, right, right. Well, okay, well, I have an idea. So you tell me because again, I don't know the tableau. I'm like, oh, I saw this quote on Goodreads from the Stoics. So I'm not like you and I'd love to know more. But recently I was talking to James Gross. So James Gross is like one of my academic BFFs.

He's at Stanford, and he actually is a philosopher by training, so I think you and he could have a really fun conversation. And I asked him, why do you think there are so many of these quotes about like, well, this is what you can't change, but you can change your mind, et cetera, because it's so plain to us as psychologists who study self-control and study emotion and goals

and so forth, that can be misleading. And he said, well, as you know, Angela, right, when we think about anything that somebody is doing, you always ask the question, and we're not condoning everything everyone does, but you're always asking the question, what purpose is this serving? Like, how is this functional?

So then we went back and forth, this is only days ago, right? We're like, what purpose is this serving? Like, how is this functional? So then we went back and forth, this is only days ago, right? We're like, what purpose does it serve to focus somebody on this internal locus of control, but the internal part of the internal locus of control, you know, your mind, your actions, yourself. And you said, it's gotta serve some focus. Maybe it's that if you didn't do that,

that people would like never scrape themselves off the couch and like get out the door and and brush their teeth and try to do anything. So that conversation ended. And then I'll tell you what I thought about in the days afterwards. And I can't wait to talk to James about it next, but I'm talking about you first. One of the last things that Danny Kahneman and I were working on before Danny died, Danny and I were working on something that he called the focusing illusion and that was far preceding me. So Danny is of course well known for like thinking fast and

slow and cognitive biases but I think it was in 1979 a younger Danny Kahneman wrote a book called Attention and Effort and Danny worked on attention for a lot of his life and I think the most important thing to understand about human intention is, it's very function is selection because you cannot, you're not God. You cannot keep in mind everything. You cannot have in mind, in working memory, all memories, like all goals, all priorities,

and all thoughts. So it's selection. It's like, I'm gonna think about this and I'm going to neglect everything else. That's also how the human eye works, right? In the fovea, you can see things with great acuity, but in the periphery, you're like, whatever, it's a blur. So attention is a selection tool

so that your mind can focus on one thing to the exclusion of others. I think if you put that together with what we've just been talking about, you're like, why do we draw people's attention to their attitude and their will? I think it's because human beings can't really pay attention to everything. And one thing we do want to do is make sure that people understand that they do have agency, that in a given situation, they can choose to not tell the other person exactly what

they think in the middle of traffic when that person cut you off. You do have control over that. And if you can only pick one thing, right? If the human mind can only think of one thing, then maybe being like, you are the captain of your fate, you are the master of your soul is not a bad message. But if there could be two things, like if our mind can toggle between two truths,

then I think I would like to say, you are the captain of your fate and the master of your soul, right? You sail your own ship. And you should be careful where you're sailing, right? The seas that you decide to sail are part of agency too. Yeah. I'm not actually seeing where the contradiction is here.

So to me- I don't think it's a logical contradiction, but I think the assumption, I mean, I talk to a lot of performers as you do, and I think the very successful ones see no contradiction. They see no contradiction between like, I gotta work hard and practice today and push my limits. You know, it's my autonomous choice.

And I need the best coach possible. I mean, you're very careful about the people that I hang out with. I'm gonna set up my physical space so that, you know, I talk to people who are like, I need more sunlight, I think I have seasonal affective disorder, I need to live in a sunny place.

So I don't think there is a logical contradiction. I just think that when you don't have that very sophisticated view and you toggle, et cetera, you can make a mistake by thinking that like my job is just to work harder and to you know make things work within this little capsule. Listening on audible helps your imagination soar. Whether you listen to stories, motivation, expert advice, any genre you love, you can be inspired to imagine new worlds, new possibilities, new ways of thinking. And Audible makes it easy to be inspired and entertained as part of your everyday routine,

without needing to set aside extra time. There's more to imagine when you listen. Listening can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits, and ultimately your overall well-being. As an Audible member, you choose one title a month to keep from their ever-growing catalog. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial, and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca to sign up. Remember those stories and fables that would capture your imagination and you couldn't wait to see how they would unfold? And now, when you read them as an adult, you think some of these old tales could use a

fresh spin. We have a perfect podcast to bring you the stories you remember, remix and reimagine for the kids in your life today. Join me, DJ Fu, and my trusty turntable, Baby Scratch, as we spin up new tales in the new kids and family podcast, Once Upon a Beat. Wondry and Tinkercast are bringing you a jam-packed, music-filled weekly party where hip-hop and fables meet. It's Once Upon a Beat.

Follow Once Upon a Beat on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Once Upon a Beat early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or Wondry Kids Plus in Apple Podcast. Once Upon a Beat. I think we ought to think about where people are coming to these ideas, right? So if you think about like the Serenity Prayer, right? Yeah, the basic, which is, yes, which what I love about the Serenity Prayer is like,

it feels like it's like thousands of years old. He invents this like on a train in the 1950s. I think it was in the back of a taxi cab, like in New York, because he was going to his sermon. Somebody needed something and he was like, here, let me give you a little help. Because he was writing a sermon practically every day. Yeah, so it feels like this ancient idea,

and it's certainly not, although it is rooted, ultimately, in what the Stokes are talking about to you a few years ago. As so many traditions we know, we rediscover, right? Yeah, right. But if you think about why that lands in Alcoholics Anonymous, is like, you've blown apart your life, you have this problem,

and you're trying to rebuild. What is a first principle that someone should build their life around? The idea that there's some stuff that's up to us, some stuff that there's not up to us. And we have a finite amount of energy. Are we gonna focus on how crappy our childhood was, the things that we didn't get,

the regret we have about the mistakes we made, blah, blah, blah, or are we gonna focus on what's in front of me right now and what I control, which is ultimately who I am in the present moment. So I think- No, no, no, but here's the thing, right? And I know that prayer well because I looked into it's, I'm not like you, I'm not an expert on the Stoics,

I'm also not an expert on Reinhold Niebuhr. But his daughters actually wrote about what it meant for their father to write that prayer. Interesting. And so, for example, when Alcoholics Anonymous, I don't wanna say paraphrase, but took that prayer into their tradition, the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change,

that's the first line. The second line originally, I believe, was phrased something more like the courage to change the things that need to be changed, because you know Reinhold Niebuhr was an activist. Yeah, he was a pacifist. And this was not a prayer about me and my life. This was like, when there's poverty,

I need to go and change poverty. When there's injustice, I need to fight injustice. And then of course the wisdom to know the difference. And then of course in Alcoholics Anonymous, it's most commonly phrased that second line is like to change the, you know, the courage to change the things I can, right? So the daughters of Reinhold Niebuhr, like, you know,

wanted to emphasize that like the original meaning was really more about changing society rather than changing your own life. But I don't have any problem with either the original or the adapted form. But when you say like, yeah, but what you can change is you and your feelings and your thoughts. All I want to say is that I think we should also say that the things that you can change include your situation itself in some circumstances, right? Like you have a terrible like boss,

right? You can quit. Like literally you can quit, right? That's all I wanna say. No, look, this is a mistake I think people make about the stoics and why I point to the lives of them. So the four virtues of stoicism, I think add a layer here, right? So the four virtues of stoicism are actually

the same cardinal virtues as Christianity. So it's courage, self-discipline or temperance. That would be, I think the sort of self-command. Yeah, yeah, self-command. And then there's wisdom, self-discipline or temperance. That would be, I think, the sort of the self-command. Yeah, yeah, self-command. And then there's wisdom, which you know. But I think the most critical of the virtue, which all of them are ultimately pointing to, is justice. Yeah.

Right? So- Are these the four on your bookstore window? Yes. Like, I was like, oh. And I have them on this tier, too. Oh, there you go. OK, good.

And so I've been doing this series now on the Cardinal Virtues. So the one that comes out in June is on justice. So what is the courage pointed to? What is the self command about? What is the wisdom trying to teach you how to do? It's ultimately how to change the world in whatever- Yes, it's very outward focused. Yeah, whatever limited way that we are capable of doing.

There's this other exercise. It's funny that we say like circles of control because there's this other image or metaphor of circles in Stoicism. And this is about, comes about in that transition, I was telling you about from the sort of ancient Greek Stoics to the more modern Roman Stoics. This is a Stoic named Hierarchles, and he says, we have these circles of concern. So the first circle is yourself. He says, everyone's born inherently self-interested. We have this desire for self-preservation. I am not for myself who will be for me, right? Yeah, and then you have this larger circle

that's like your family. And you have this larger circle like the people that live near you. Then you have the circle of like the people of your country or race. And then it gets bigger and bigger and bigger to eventually include like all living being. Everyone, yeah, and everything.

Yeah, and everything. Yeah. And he says the work of your life and he says it's a beautiful madness is to try to care about the external rings as much as you care about the internal. Yeah, like to expand, right? Well, he's saying to pull them, the outward rings inward. In, oh, that's another word, yeah. And so this idea of caring about and trying to make the world better is I think an essential part of Stoicism. But it's also like, if you just wake up every day

just weeping over what's happening in Africa, that's not doing anything about it. So it's this where can I make a difference? And then also, and I don't think the Stokes talk about it enough, but in practice did follow. How do individuals who only control themselves managed to come together and solve collective action problems?

That is the tricky part. But to me, that's where wisdom comes in. That's where courage comes in. It's this balance of how do we do something about this while also having some awareness of the inalterable parts of human nature. Yeah, inalterable parts of the world. Yeah, the inalterable parts of the world. Yeah, intractable problems.

Also just political pragmatism. Like you're not gonna magically transform everything tomorrow because it's the right thing to do. Right, yeah. And so that tension is, I think, solved in the lives of the stoics. Maybe a little bit more than as easily as, well, certainly like a one-liner from Goodreads

on the stoics does not. Or an Instagram quote, yeah. Yeah, or an Instagram quote, the picture, well, certainly like a one-liner from Goodreads on the Stoics does not. Or an Instagram quote, yeah. Yeah, or an Instagram quote, the picture, like, yeah. But no, that's why I think the nuances are important and why conversation is important, right? Because conversation is not a one-liner. Yeah.

Well, look, so there's this great book called The Pursuit of Happiness that Jeffrey Rosen wrote and it's about what is the major philosophical influence on the founders of America? Oh yeah, the Constitution Center is a friend and I have that book on my nightstand. I have not yet read it. So it's really interesting. Obviously for many, many centuries,

we've focused on, okay, it's John Locke, no, it's Milton. Right, it's utilitarianism. No, it's not, it's deontological, right? Fundamentally though, they're most influenced by like the Stoics, the idea of sort of virtue being a thing that you try to act with, but also bring into the world.

So like Jefferson dies with Seneca on his nightstand. Washington is- That's right. Washington is introduced to the Stoics by a neighbor at like 16, John Adams is, so they're all reading and talking about the Stoics by a neighbor at like 16. John Adams is, so they're all reading and talking about the Stoics. And then they're steeped in also like the writings of Plutarch and like- Was Plutarch a Stoic?

Plutarch's lives, which I read. Incredible. Yeah. Plutarch's nephew is Marcus Aurelius, his philosophy teacher. Oh, so there's like a lineage, right, okay. He writes a number of things that are actually critical about the Stoics, but there's like a lineage, right, okay. He writes a number of things that are actually critical about the Stoics,

but he's taking and borrowing what he likes from the Stoics, but there is fundamentally, and this idea is I think less popular today, but I do believe the Stoics and most of the ancients believe in what we today call the great man of history theory, which is like that an individual can make a difference. It can bend the arc of where it's going. As opposed to not, right?

Cause that's the counterfactual. It's like, it doesn't really matter. Ryan Holiday, whatever. Like somebody else would have been saying it. Yeah, like I talk about this in the justice book I'm just doing. Thomas Clarkson. Who's that?

He's an Oxford student, where I know you went, right? He enters this essay competition. Adam Hoshchild writes this. What year are we talking about? Are we talking about- 1780s, right It's amazing. What year are we talking about? Are we talking about? 1780s, right around the time. What century are we in? He's asked to enter this Latin essay writing contest.

And it's, should a human being be able to own another human being? Should we be able to buy and sell other human beings? So interesting. And the universal answer at this time is yes, right? Like everyone believes that yes, you can. That's so interesting. And so he takes like thinking it'll help him

like get a better grade. He takes the contrarian view. He's like, I'll say no, right? And he wins. And as he's leaving the prize ceremony, he's walking his horse, he's riding his horse back to London or whatever. And it hits him.

He was like, what if I'm right? He's like, what if it is wrong? And then he goes, and if it is wrong, what if I did something about it? And did he have sleep? No, he's just a student. Oh, he was a student, right, right, right. But he's a student in what, at that time was-

It's pretty long to ride a horse from Oxford to London. I'm glad there was a long ride to take this all through. He gets so excited, you know, when you have a really good idea, he gets so excited just to get off the horse and just like, you gotta figure this out. Pull over. Yeah, exactly.

Do a rest stop. So he pulls over and he has this, he's like, I'm gonna do something about it. And then he realizes he really doesn't know anything about the institution at all. Yeah, the institution of slavery. Yeah, he starts this, because slavery is illegal in England,

but the empire is built upon it. Right, I know nothing about history. Like, deeply ignorant, I know nothing about current events. Okay, so there was no slavery in England at the time? Slavery is illegal in the country of England, but the empire is built upon slavery. I mean, they bring it to America, and so he decides to do something about it.

So he starts studying and he convenes this meeting at this print shop in London, the 12 people, and they go like, hey, slavery battle, should we do something about it? And they decide to. I love that it was at a print shop. Yeah. It's like mostly Quakers, but it's like rich people.

It's just 12 sort of random people. And they start a campaign, probably the first modern political campaign. Like abolitionist kind of. This is where abolition, they start first off, their only focus is on ending the slave trade. I just now realized why abolitionism is called

abolishing slavery. Hello, okay, sorry, the neurons had not fired just then. This is fun. So anyways, this campaign, they invent like basically the consumer boycott as a result of this. They invent like the modern political petition as a result of this sort of political imagery. One of the guys in the campaign

is like the queen's pottery maker. And so- It's like her royal majesty's pottery maker. There's an image of a slave and it has a banner over it. It says, am I not a man and a brother? It's like one of the most famous pieces of political propaganda ever, which he invents as this campaign.

They're trying to go like, these are people. You don't see them, but they're people. Right, right. Like, let me show you in an image, like how we are like brothers. Yeah, he designs this model of like what a slave ship is. And then they do an image of it. And that image becomes widely reprinted.

It's like a young man, right? Like, yeah. The campaign takes like 40 years, but eventually the slave trade is abolished in England. And then the slavery itself is abolished in the empire. It takes like a hundred years basically for this all to happen. But, and then the fascinating thing to me

is that almost all the abolitionists in England go on next to become, and obviously it transplants to America where it starts, but they all become, the next big campaign is women's rights. Because they realize like, oh, wait, like women are- Maybe women are also people. Yes, exactly. But so these all start from-

It's a very interesting thing, because the moral circle that you were saying, and I love the idea of like bringing it in, as opposed to just, I was thinking like, oh, right, you wanna expand your moral circle, but no, you wanna bring humanity in to the intimate, right? So it's like, Oh, black people, humans, women, humans, like, yeah, okay, did not do that.

I'm getting goosebumps thinking about it. But then, so Gandhi studies the law in England, right? And he meets the suffragettes. Did he go to Oxford? No, I don't think so. But he meets the British suffragettes. And this is partly where it doesn't give it to him, because he gets it more from Thoreau and Tolstoy. But it confirms the idea of nonviolence as a political strategy. Oh.

And was Tolstoy also influenced by the Stoics? I mean, he was obviously deeply Christian. I have a book in the bookstore which I'll give you called A Calendar of Wisdom. Guess what I have in my home. Do you have a calendar of wisdom? I do, and guess who I mailed it to? Who?

A second copy, obviously James Gross. Really? Yeah, I was like- Oh, it's a lovely book. I am like reading the calendar of days, which by the way, needs a little editing. And I think some of the days are a little more- With a little religious, more religious than I want. Yeah, and some of the things I'm like,

I don't know if I agree with that, but the whole project- Is beautiful. So interesting and some of the things I'm like, I don't know if I agree with that, but the whole project is beautiful, so interesting. And by the way, like in two ways, I think this is all interesting. One is to me having like the calendar days on my, you know, it's on the back of the toilet. Why is that? Right? Because I was, you know, the most trivial application of you can change your situation is you can choose what's on the, you know, what's the book that you want to have around in the bathroom. Do I wanna have Tolstoy's calendar days

so that on April 18th I can flip open and be like, yeah, that's something good to think about. Or do I wanna have People magazine? I mean, it's the most trivial thing. What am I gonna put in my refrigerator? What am I gonna put my cell phone settings on? My husband recently turned his whole cell phone gray scale. It's a real downer.

It's like people send photos. Why is this red? Have you seen like the, there's like a red version that's better for the whole, I don't know. Oh, interesting. Okay, he was doing it just to kind of, you know, take the joy out of it because he's finding it hard to resist a cell phone, right?

So that's a trivial instantiation of, I have agency over my situation, right? Like what's in my refrigerator, what's on, you know, what's on my toilet bowl? Like, you know, I think then, but the story you're telling me about the, you know, the abolition of slavery in the British Empire is, as you rightly point out, it's a collective agency.

But like, that's also like agency isn't just like, I'm gonna deal with this situation and like, you know, change my thoughts and feelings. I think that to deal with this situation and change my thoughts and feelings. I think that to me is just the kind of obvious, but also sometimes not so obvious insight that I think if we focus on what we can do to change the situation, we are in most cases better off than waiting to respond to the situation in the best way that we can. You're not just accommodating and adjusting.

Not just reacting. Profound injustices in the world or accepting yourself as fixed. Right? Right. You have to believe you have a capacity to do things that you don't currently. And not accepting the situation as fixed. I mean, a lot of this is very personal. So my mother grew up in China and she grew up in the 30s.

And again, I told you, and I'm not lying, and this is not hyperbolic, I know nothing about history. I was just like, so my husband is like, Oh, by the way, you know about communism, correct? And I'm like, give me the wiki, you know, so so my mom grows up in the 30s. And obviously, to you, and learned people, you know, there was the communist revolution was happening as a backdrop. And one thing I do know, because it's family history, is that my grandfather was a general in the nationalist. Yeah, so he worked with and for Shanghai Shek. And then my on my father's side also, they didn't know each other when they were growing up in China. But they were also like contra the the communist party. And they end up in Taiwan

or where they ended up. So given that they lost the war, they... My mom ended up in right Formosa with the family. My father's family, who are these... I think my father's family was one of the reasons why they had a revolution. They were just these incredibly wealthy... They were industrialists. My grandfather on my father's side was one of the first industrialists and merchants to automate the production of silk

using machines. So they were hecka wealthy. You know, the children played with gemstones as marbles, right? Like, you know, and you step over the dead body when you're leaving the home to get into your chauffeur car. The first people killed in the revolution. Well, the really, really, really, really wealthy were actually protected. I mean, the irony of all this is that the super privileged were not killed. Right, because they're not accessible.

They were not accessible and deals were made and all that. So both my mother and my father's family did end up ending up in parts in Taiwan, but really my parents immigrated to here, to the United States. And so one of the reasons I'm just very interested in agency over the situation and not just on the internal world is that my mother, I think, was raised. My mother's still alive.

She's 89 going on 90. And she was raised as a woman and as a Chinese woman in the 30s that the only thing you can control is what's inside your mind. And if you have a shit marriage, which she did, and you have a not great situation in A, B, and C ways, your job is to do your best. Like try harder, like be kind, be happy, be loyal, be beautiful, be dutiful,

and make your husband happy. And then you die. And then you die, right? So I feel like, you know, there was this one time her parents came very infrequently because of the cost and the distance. They only came a handful of times, maybe even fewer than five,

to visit her in the United States. And one of those trips was before I was born. It was just after she got married. And they realized on that trip how, I mean, my dad was a great man, but he was extremely immature and extremely self-absorbed and a bit of a tyrant, you know, sort of the stereotypical Asian male,

king of the household, and also a little depressed. I mean, it was not a great combination. So then when my mother's parents came and they saw the marriage that she had made for herself, It was not a great combination. So then when my mother's parents came and they saw the marriage that she had made for herself, they knew that she would be unhappy for the rest of her life. My mother was an artist actually

and really wanted to paint. But when she married my father, it was like put down the paintbrush, pick up the spatula and just make this slightly depressed, slightly tyrannical, extremely self-absorbed person happy. So they're getting on the plane to go back, and my mother's crying, and she said she basically cried every day

when she realized the marriage that she had. She was like, and then, and she asked them, what do I do? And they were like, try your best. Make your bed, and they got on the plane, they went back to China. And so I think a lot of my interest, my obsession with like, when do we need to change the situation itself

and not just change our response to the situation comes from my mother's story. Well, yeah, I think we can make a distinction between lowercase stoicism and uppercase stoicism. Lowercase stoicism is that, is suck it up, life is pain, rise above it. And then the uppercase stoasis, which is I think more this idea of courage and justice and wisdom and discipline.

Each one of those would give you a way to potentially change that situation. And so, yeah, I think they're, well, grit is an example of this, right? It says grit down a dead end is not great or grit in pursuit of something that isn't working or isn't good for you is not is not wisdom. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, like I, you know, don't want to like spend my whole life being

like, Oh, I'm right. Let me just tell you how I'm right. And like any criticism, I will parry it right like a blow. So I do think gritty people have flexibility in what they're doing and actually great agility, right? Like this coach is super not working for me. I'm going to get a different one. I'm going to change my training regimen. I'm going to fix the way that I'm getting to this top level goal. Or reinvent my swing. Exactly. Right? Like I need to move. I need to be in Arizona and not in Florida in order for me to get to this top level goal. So that would be both true, but also I think, you know, sort of

a defensive way to think about like, well, what are criticisms of the work on grit and this message of grit? I think a more humble, honest, and useful way to think about, you know, I had this Olympic coach email me, it was a while ago, maybe it was at least a year or two ago, and she had said to me in that email, you know, so many athletes have taken the gospel of grit as just like mental fortitude, you know, like, you know, you're tired, work harder, like, you know, you feel the pain, great, you know, no pain, no gain. She was like, I don't think that's true. She's like, just as a coach who's worked with elite athletes my whole life, like, I think it's a mistake to equate, you know, mental fortitude with grit.

And I wrote her back and I was like, girl, I could not agree more. And I think I need to do more myself as a scientist and a writer to explore that. And I think if you wanna, you know, put it in its simplest terms, I think it's, you know, grit is not enough. Like it is not enough at least to like hold on white knuckled, you know, to some

goal, especially when the goal itself is perhaps like not the highest level goal, but it's just, you know, it's some mid-level goal is trying to get you somewhere. Remember those stories and fables that would capture your imagination and you couldn't wait to see how they would unfold? And now when you read them as an adult you think some of these old tales could use a fresh spin. We have a perfect podcast to bring you the stories you remember, remix and reimagine

for the kids in your life today. Join me, DJ Fu, and my trusty turntable, Baby Scratch, as we spin up new tales in the new kids and family podcast, Once Upon a Beat. Wondry and Tinkercast are bringing you a jam-packed, music-filled weekly party where hip-hop and fables meet. It's Once Upon a Beat. The White House has been the stage for some of the most dramatic scenes in American history. Inspired by the hit podcast American History Tellers, Wondery and William Morrow present the new book, The Hidden History of the White House.

Each chapter will bring you inside the fierce power struggles, the world-altering decisions, and shocking scandals that have shaped our nation. You'll be there when the very foundations of the White House are laid in 1792, and you'll watch as the British burn it down in 1814. Then you'll hear the intimate conversations between FDR and Winston Churchill as they make plans to defeat Nazi forces in 1941. And you'll be in the Situation Room when President Barack Obama approves the raid to bring down the most infamous terrorist in American history. Order The Hidden History of the White House now in hardcover or digital edition, wherever

you get your books. Different people have different problems, right? So a lot of people have a problem. They don't have enough discipline or they don't have enough grit. They haven't even started trying and you're like, oh, you should probably start trying. Yeah, and then people who are already on their way or are elite performers, it may well be that you have an excess of that quantity. And it's a problem.

Like my friend, Rameet Sethi, is like a financial sort of guru, expert guy. And he talks about this. He's like, look, most people, like they need a budget. They need, you know, they need to get better at saving, get better at saving, get better at earning. A little bit of discipline.

Yeah, but he's like, but I also talked to lots of really rich people who like no one has taught them how to spend money and the things that got them in the place, not always, but a lot of times the traits that they either inherited or developed on the way to accumulating this fortune make it really hard for them to enjoy and update their assumptions about where they are now. And so, yeah, if you're going around going like, buy whatever you want, do whatever you want, that's gonna be really bad advice

for all these people over here. But like, it's actually exactly what these people over here need to hear. It's like going to your doctor, your physical therapist, it's not gonna be like, oh, you should absolutely exercise this muscle. It's like, well, it depends. Like, where's the imbalance? Like, what needs to be?, oh, you should absolutely exercise this muscle. It's like, well, it depends. Like where's the imbalance?

Like what needs to be? Can I ask you a question? So, this of course like triggers for me, like Aristotle's golden mean, is Virtue's apex somewhere in between extremes? Maybe not at the midpoint, but like somewhere between cowardice and complete folly is like the best.

But can you relate to me again, because I'm not only deeply ignorant about things historical, but also philosophical, like how does Aristotle, like where in the timeline and conceptually could you relate the Stoics to Aristotle and Aristotle's notion of the golden mean? We have Socrates and we have Plato, we have Aristotle. Aristotle's famous pupil is Alexander the Great, right?

Oh, who was also a ruler? Yes, Alexander the Great dies. Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, is roughly around then. Oh, okay, so then Aristotle was the grandfather, like one generation before- Socrates is the hero of the Stoics because he's not just this thinker. Socrates brings philosophy down from the heavens

is the idea. Oh. But Socrates is really interesting because unlike Plato and Aristotle to a degree, Socrates is like a guy that they admire, right? Why, because of his life? He's tough, he's a soldier. Socrates was a soldier? Yes. Did not know that. I mean, everyone in this time would be right.

But he fights in the wars against the Persians. And there's this amazing, the famous story actually isn't what he does, like heroically in battle. There's a story of Socrates in retreat, right? The lines break and it's all chaos. And there's the discipline and the courage of Socrates in retreat, not throwing down his arms and running away, but sort of fighting a rear guard action to get out of a dangerous situation. Which is the wisest thing to do in that circumstance.

And probably the bravest thing to do in that circumstance. Yeah, and then obviously he famously drinks the hemlock. How he can- Yeah, why was he, I guess, executed? Would that be the term? Well, there's a- Because he was forced to drink the hemlock, right? Except also chooses.

He could have complied at any time. He could have- Oh. There's a joke. The more you study Socrates, the more you understand why they poisoned him. So Socrates has tried basically for corrupting the youth or for impiety, like that's handful of charges.

And like the interesting thing- Which is with his thoughts. Yeah, I mean, Athens at this time is sort of seesawing between like a tyranny and a democracy, and there's all these recriminations. It's this weird sort of dysfunctional time. Aotic time, yeah. But the interesting thing is,

so they find him guilty, but it's a large jury. It's not like 12 people, it's like 200 people vote in court cases. And let's say like 101 find him guilty and 99 find him unguilty. So it's like a close verdict, right? Yeah. And then he, at sentencing, he gets up and he's to argue,

the sentence could be like a slap on the wrist or it could be death. And he gives, Socrates gives this speech about how, actually not only shouldn't they punish him, they should reward him. And he gives such a, I'm trying to think of the word, his speech so- Like irritates the heck out of him.

Irritates and alienate and confirms everything that everyone thought about Socrates that like 150 people vote for his death and like more people that didn't find him guilty. He swayed in that way to be like more against him. So Socrates is like, if you think about, I remember I was talking to a friend of mine who I won't say, but we were doing this thing where we're supposed to all give each other

like honest feedback at this thing, right? And I was like, look, you always ask these really probing interesting questions, right? And it's great that you're very Socratic in that regard. But I was like, it's worth remembering that they killed Socrates. People find questions to be very annoying. Was he like a smartass?

Was he like arrogant and annoying? He's a little contrarian and a little like, not understanding how these questions would land with people. So Socrates is the same way. He just goes around and asks people questions. The end to all the questions is basically to reveal that they know nothing. Right. So that was the thing about the Socratic method. And I know we're on a digression of a digression, so apologies because it's totally my fault.

But like, is the Socratic method a tool for genuine inquiry and connection and curiosity? Or is it just like a bludgeoning tool to be like, you know, cornering the person to be like, see? You know what I mean? No, there's, I think there, I think you could argue about, I think done well, it's a way to get to the truth. Like, you know, that Toyota thing of like, why, why, why, why, why? Yeah, the seven whys. But like, if it's done because you think you know better, you're trying to show that you're a fool, it doesn't tend to land well.

There's also like in internet speak, like there's a term to refer to, like what conspiracy theorists do, and it's jacking off, like just asking questions. Oh, interesting. You know, like you're asking questions, but you're not really interested in the answer. Like weaponizing questions.

And you'll never accept the answer that settles the matter because you believe you know more than whatever the settled science is. And so, yeah, these things can be weaponized. Another like question for Ryan Holiday. So like what century was Socrates and Plato and Aristotle? I mean, I could do the math and be like, okay, plus 50, plus 50 or whatever, but like, roughly.

This is like 500 to 300 BC. So then like halfway around the world would be Sun Tzu then, right? The military strategist, because I was looking for some philosophical backup on what modern, so every person- There's a little, the Peloponnesian War is like 430s, so it's around then. It's like mid, is that the fifth century

or fourth century BC? I think that's around though. I think that's almost exactly contemporaneous with the military genius Sun Tzu and what's modern day Chana. And I would tell you, Ryan, with very few exceptions, there's a special issue coming out where self-control researchers are like,

what do we think circa now, exactly now? And every article will be, because that's the theme, it's like beyond willpower, right? It's like, right, because of all the research, the correlation between your executive function scores on these tasks that have been very carefully constructed and they light up the parts of the brain that they should, prefrontal cortex,

like the correlation between how well you do on a go, no go task, et cetera, is like very small with like real life, actual, goal attainment and functioning. And so I was looking for philosophical backup on this very modern, the psychology and the neuroscience of self-control. And I couldn't find great quotes from Epictetus or from Plutarch, et cetera. And then I was looking, I couldn't find great ones from Frankel. If you read the whole paragraph from Frankel, yeah, but like not. And then I was looking, I was like Benjamin Franklin.

I'm like, but you know where I found them is in Sun Tzu, right? So Sun Tzu's, and I did read Art of War. I didn't realize it was so short. I was like, hey, I would have read this earlier. I thought it was like a whole- Did you read the book of five rings? No.

What's that? Who's that? He's like one of the great samurai warriors of all time. Japanese then? Yes. Like, yeah. Oh, was he warriors of all time. Japanese then? Yes. Like, yeah, oh, was he a contemporary of Sun Tzu then? No, he would have been later, but yes, I think you're onto something

because in the Eastern tradition, although I think when you really parse the stoics, you get that they're in agreement, but the Eastern tradition- Is more explicitly about kind of like some- Formlessness and flexibility and the jiu-jitsu of like using the energy against it. Sometimes when your enemy is coming at you, you know, instead of just like pushing forward

and look, I'm not a historian, I'm not a philosopher and also no military strategist. But when I read, yeah, in the art of war, people should come to your bookstore and buy the art of war. And to me, you know, these phrases where it's like, the way to win is to not brute force bludgeon your enemy, but to outsmart them, to lay the foundations. And to me, that is what modern psychology is discovering about self-control.

Yeah, the great Western military strategist, his name is B.H. Liddell Hart. He was between World War I and World War II. He's a contemporary of Churchill and T.H. Liddell Hart, he was between World War I and World War II. He's a contemporary of Churchill and T. Lawrence. And he does this study of basically all the great battles of history, like the ones that sort of history pivots around. He looks at, I don't know, like 250 of the great battles, East and West, modern and ancient. And I talk about this in the obstacle's way.

And his name is Hardy? B.H. Liddell Hart. Oh, Hart. I should have a copy of it in there. But he says, ultimately, and you look at all of them, it was something like 2%. 2% of the great pivotal battles of history were a big army, another big army clashing together.

It's never, it's almost always a surprise march catches them off guard. Yes. It's an out positioning. It's almost always strength going against weakness or strength finding strength not prepared. This is of course the story of David and Goliath also, right? David beats Goliath by understanding that Goliath

is very big. Has a certain weakness, right? And strong. And a slingshot. Yes, exactly. Yeah, to the eye, right? He's like, I'm gonna like, this is the weakness, here's my one tool, right?

Because you could misread David and Goliath and just be like, you can go against a 10 and be a two and you can win, but right, Sun Tzu has these great quotes, I will bludgeon them, so I don't wanna try to like paraphrase them, but there's something kind of akin, well, I'm gonna do it, but it's know, if you have 10 and they have 10, don't go into battle, right? If they have 15 and you have 10, definitely go into battle,

right? It's like, you only go into battle when you can get things to be. So you have 10 and they have two, right? And that, to me, is what self-controlled people are doing. And there are these experience sampling studies where you basically ask people to, at know, at periodic intervals, like,

what are you doing right now? Like how are you feeling? You know, what's going on around you kind of studies and you sample, right? That's why they're called experience sampling studies. And you look at that data and all other kinds of data, what you find is that really successful people are not going into battle when it's 10 versus 10, you know, and they're not going to David and Goliath situations where they're David, they're like tactics. So if somebody is trying to like, work out more,

they are making it as easy as possible to work out. And then they're gonna work out hard. But I think that to me is like the, and I think there is at least as much misunderstanding about the Stoics as there is about grit. It's not about being a stupid, incredible Hulk kind of, it's much more being like 007, right? It's like, how

do I elegantly or, you know, Bruce Lee and pick your favorite, you know, character. But I think that to me is the misunderstanding. When I talk to coaches and I talk to teachers and parents, I feel like there is that misunderstanding, at least about grit. I assume also about soicism. Well, I talk a lot about Gandhi in the book that I'm writing now. I talked about him in the Oscillative Way too. So I think when you look at nonviolence, I talk a lot about Gandhi in the book that I'm writing now. I talked about him in the Hospital of the Way too. So I think when you look at nonviolence, when you look at anti-colonialism,

the independence movement, you can very quickly go like, well, of course he's right, right? He's morally correct and violence is wrong. And so to pursue nonviolence is like the right course. What we don't give him credit for is the strategic brilliance. Like, so you're saying like strong doesn't go against weak, except if you understand that say media or public opinion

is a variable in all of this. So like the salt march is, I'm gonna be as defenseless as possible. Wait, what's the salt march? Gandhi marches from the interior of India to the coast of India to collect salt, which the British control. That's what-

So it's a symbolic and also real like- Yeah, and it's simple and it's pure. And it seems like something you couldn't possibly be opposed to. Yeah. And so he does this march and it's being covered by all the newspapers. There's not news cameras at this time,

but so he does this march and he knows that he's forcing the British ultimately into a violent clash, at this time, but so he does this march and he knows that he's forcing the British ultimately into a violent clash, but only they will be violent, right? He wants to be, he wants their fingers to be stomped by their shoulders. Like Martin Luther King takes this from Gandhi also. He's like, these aren't like secret surprise marches, right?

These are like, they're marching because marching is illegal, right? And they are picking pitched battles with the police, knowing that there's video and newspaper cameras right there to photograph the brutality. He's forcing them into a situation where they only have one response. And that response, although wins the day, literally loses the larger war against public opinion. And he knew it. He knew it from like, you know, it's

like well before it happened. There's a huge debate inside the civil rights movement in some of the later marches where Martin Luther King suggests they start having schoolchildren march with them. And the moral qualms about knowing what they're sending these kids to do, but knowing the statement it will make. And so, yeah, of course, it's not just strength has to go against strength, strength has to find weakness.

And sometimes the thing that a weak person does is go up against strength to send a message. But even that, there's a sort of flipping on its head and the savviness of that. The savviness, I love that word by the way, right? Like savviness is, we could sell that, right? And I'm like, how do we make people understand that when you actually study the science of self-control, like I run the Behavior Change for Good Network,

we have multiple Nobel laureates, we have a gajillion MacArthur fellows, like all of the people who actually study human behavior know that it's mostly, it's not that you don't need any strength. Like if you didn't have executive function of any kind, if you didn't have any kind of prefrontal cortex to speak of, like, okay, we have problems. But if you have a modicum of that, then you can use your prefrontal cortex. And instead of using your willpower like in a brute force way, you're like, okay, this is a slingshot. What can I do with it? Right? So I think that to me is the, you know,

I told you I'm writing my second book. I'm not like you. I don't actually first and foremost identify as an author. I find it incredibly hard. I do things that I'm like, wow, how did I do that for a year? That was so stupid. But I'm so motivated to deliver this message. And I'm wondering, because I was just reading my notes for this conversation, have you gone down the Thomas Schelling rabbit hole? That's the game theory nuclear deterrent guy. Game theory Nobel laureate. I didn't know him. I wish I had. But he was a smoker for three decades, right? And he tried and failed and tried and failed and tried, fell off the wagon again to stop smoking.

Though he also knew a lot about human behavior and behavior change, right? He wasn't a psychologist, but yeah, game theorist, I guess. Although he invented game theory, so I think it wasn't called game theory at the time. And then he had this epiphany. He was like, oh, this is a war. He's like, there are two selves at war.

There's the Thomas Schelling who wants to smoke and there's the Thomas Schelling who, as he put it, he was like, wants clean lungs and a long life, right? So he's like, I have the Thomas at one end who's like keeps winning. And that is the Thomas who always prevails to like smoke the cigarette. And then he applied game theory to himself.

And he said, I got to be strategic, right? Nobody wins a war with like just this two, you know, and by the way, there is one Thomas Hutch stronger and it's the one who wants to smoke. So he was like, I learned to play little tricks on myself. I learned to, for example, flush the cigarettes down the toilet. He gave money to a friend and said, if I smoke and you see me doing it, I want you to give my money to this political candidate that I most despise. He was like, God, this applies to everything. You put your alarm clock across the room.

So I think to me, when I think about what self-controlled people do, they do what Thomas Schelling eventually figured out, which is that you outwit yourself. You don't outpower yourself. And it's not about executive function. It's about planning and it's about savvy. And I do think almost always it is something to do with changing your situation in a strategic way. Yes, no, I totally agree.

And to me that is kind of the highest form of grit because it allows you to not just win this one singular battle with brute force, but allows you to maybe win something larger or some bigger, longer journey. Can I ask you a question? Why do you have the virtues tattooed on your wrist? Just a reminder.

So it's funny, like when I wrote this book, The Obstacle is the Way. Yeah, that was what made you famous. Sure. Right? But so people think that means, and maybe that's even what I thought it meant when I wrote it, which is like, there's always some good in a situation.

You just have to be like forceful enough. You just have to fight for it. Yeah, you can put, you know, some of your quotes are on, many of your quotes are on good reads from The Obstacles Away, probably more from that book than any other. What, first off, the irony is what Marcus is talking about in that passage, the larger passage

where he says The Obstacles Away. He's talking about difficult people. He's talking about annoying people. Oh, he's talking about people. And I think what he's saying is that, so someone gets in your way, someone screws you over, someone steals your spouse, the things that people can do, right?

What he's saying is that every person, every situation is an opportunity to practice virtue or so-called erites, excellence. So it's all the obstacles the way, right? So somebody dies, all your money is stolen, you know, your business shuts down, all these things happen. There's not like this magical way

that that is just good for you. But you in choosing to like learn from it, you choosing to help someone else avoid the same thing happening to them down the road, you becoming a better, nicer, kinder person. Don't do that again. Yeah, this is what it means. And so the idea when they say the obstacles away

is that every situation, big, small, good, bad, is an opportunity to practice courage or discipline or justice or wisdom. Yeah, no, I think the nuances are always very difficult to communicate in one-liners. But I mean, that's why there shouldn't be just be quotes on Goodreads. There should be books in bookstores. That's why you write the whole book.

Exactly. Yes. And then hopefully, do you think people read your whole book? I hope so. I think actually it used to be possible to see in Kindle like how much books had been read. I have a friend named Jordan Ellenberg whose books I'm sure you have. He's a mathematician and he analyzed it.

I think he told me that the book that was read the least was like Stephen Hawking's Prehistory of Time. It's just like people buy it, they read the first paragraph, they're like, amazing, I'm going to learn physics, and then they stop. Also chaos, so these like, you know, really cool, but wow, and then it gets hard. He's like physics and math. And then I think the book that was read the most, meaning like when you buy it, you know, really cool, but wow. And then it gets hard. He's like physics and math. And then I think the book that was read the most meaning like when you buy it, you start it

and it was a Harry Potter. Interesting. Well, I did this book, The Daily Stoic. And one of the things I sort of chanced into in that, like it's not one of the best selling, I mean, it sells well, but it's like Amazon has a list of like top 20 bestselling books, like nonfiction and fiction. And sometimes it'll be in top 20, but it's usually not.

It's more like 40 or 50 or something like that. But it's almost always one of the top 20 most read books. Interesting, yeah. Because they have the data on Kindle. Because they know, they just don't publish it anymore. Yeah, and what it means is somebody bought it eight years ago and they're reading it still because you read it once and then start over

like a calendar of wisdom. Yeah, like a calendar of wisdom, which I think was the only thing that Tolstoy, so I went down a little bit of a Tolstoy rabbit hole again, not as literate as you, but I was like, what? He makes this thing with like every day, April 18th, April 19th, his favorite quotes and then I was like, wait, I need to learn more. Yeah. And then also, did you know in the last five years of his life, he didn't read anything else other than the calendar of wisdom? He just kept reading it. And then he also wrote stories to go with them, but not 365 of them.

So there's also like, I can't remember, has a name, but like he wrote short stories. I mean, you know, in a way, he was doing the same thing that you're doing. It's like, what wisdom can there be? You know, if you don't like suck from the ancients, then you are eating a meager gruel, right? Like, and then, and then of course, he was a writer. So then, yeah, anyway, so, so it's very interesting. He has this one translator who I think has translated the copy that you're selling, I'm sure. And then also translate the short stories. Oh, I gotta read that. Yeah, you gotta like look that up. You have the Stokes pop up in there. He's got...

Yes, he does. He does. Yeah, he does. And he has some Asian Eastern, I should say. It's a very diverse book. It's kind of amazing. I agree with like 95% of them. Just sometimes you come across something and you're like, oh, Tolstoy. That's good too. Maybe that was there for a reason.

Maybe he's like, I don't know if I believe, like, you know, I think it's good. Yeah, the obstacle is the way. ["The Obstacle Is The Way"] 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. 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