The Daily Stoic - The Heart is a Muscle | Ask Daily Stoic

Episode Date: July 1, 2022

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Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. On Fridays, we not only read this daily meditation, but I try to answer some questions from listeners and fellow stoics who are trying to apply this philosophy, whatever it is they happen to do. Sometimes these are from talks. Sometimes these are written in from listeners and subscribers.

Sometimes these are people who come up to talk to me on the street, but I hope in answering their questions, I can answer your questions, give a little more guidance on this philosophy, we're all trying to follow. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wundery's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts. The Heart is a muscle. Marcus Aurelius was an austere and quiet boy. He was focused on books and

ideas, not people. He slept on a hard mattress and tested himself physically. He wanted no part of being emperor, preferring instead a life of study in the mind. But life, as his teacher, Fronto, would say forced him to lay down the tunic of a philosopher and put on the cloak of the emperor. Suddenly, he was not just in charge, but responsible for millions of people. Justice wasn't some abstract notion, but his daily imperative. No longer could be a luf, he had to be empathetic, understanding, patient, fair. Well, actually no, he didn't have to be those things, certainly many emperors before and after him or not, but greatness demanded it. It wasn't perfect,

but he tried. Marcus, as he got older, had to learn how to be full of love, as you would say, he had to see the good in people. He could not let his heart grow hard, as we've said. Instead, he had to learn to strengthen it like the muscle that it was, so he could use it. And that's what leaders do. They have to care practically, personally, professionally. How about you? Are you strengthening that muscle, particularly in these difficult times, has command or power made you cynical? Are you working on becoming more conscientious and caring? Not because you have to,

but because you know that to be great to reach your potential as a parent, a partner, a creator, a friend, a human being, that this is what? It's demanded of you. All right, so today we've got some questions from folks about time management. The most important resource there is to manage and to optimize because it is the least

renewable. People think about, hey, how do I get a car with better gas mileage? But they don't think about how to get more mileage out of what they do or the decisions they make. And so if we start with this first question, I'm like, how do I manage my time better? What are the sort of big productivity tips that we can think about in terms of time management?

So I have a few. So the first one is what time you wake up, right? Waking up early to me is the ultimate productivity tip. It's the way we start. You know, the Stoics sort of talk about, you know, starting the day off right. You know, Marcus Relius has this debate with himself in book five of meditations.

Hey, I know you don't wanna get out of bed. I know the covers are warm, he's saying, but look, you were put on this plan to do something and it's time to do it. You know, Seneca talks about the importance of the beginnings. And so there is this theme in this, in this dose about waking up early. To me, the morning is where we have stillness, the morning is where there's quiet, the morning is where there's fewer interruptions.

The morning is also when we're freshest. So it's about, for me, owning the morning, the number one thing I want to do when I wake up in the morning is I want to wake up, but I want to be proactive rather than reactive. So what I'm not doing is checking the phone first thing. What I'm not doing is checking email first thing. What I'm not doing is checking the news first thing. I don't want to start the day on my back foot. So it's about owning the morning, starting the day off, right? Starting the day deliberately. Don't just wake up whenever you feel like it. Go to bed at a good time, wake up at a good time.

And then a big thing for me is starting the day with the most important task first. So it's like if you're freshest in the morning, if there's one really important thing to do that thing first, that's where we want to start the day. So, so, you know, tackling, tackling the project from the heavy end, right? Don't, don't, oh, do this little thing and then, oh, I got to run to the store and then, oh, I got to go do this and then, oh, I got to check this the store, and then, oh, I got to go do this, and then, oh, I got to check this out, and then, I was going to respond to this, and then, I've got this phone call. Like, front load, the heavy stuff in the morning, that's the way I think about it. I don't like to schedule things in the morning, I don't do administrative stuff in the morning.

For me, the morning is the creative time. It's the thing I want to focus on. It's when I want to do my best work, and I want to do it earliest The other thing I think about it as far as as As time management It is like I have a a short to-do list every day my to-do list had I think six things on it today and And this you know, I'm recording this here at what time is it?

It is a 10, 56 central time, and I've crossed up four of those items. The other item I have in, I grabbed it, and I have it to do later in the afternoon, and the other one is a phone call I have to make, and I'm going to make it when I'm driving, as I was saying. So, like, the day is, like, it's only only 11 and I've done most of what I have to do for the day. There's lots of other things that I'm going to do of course, but like let's say I suddenly don't feel well. Let's say that you know some big emergency happens or let's say, you know, I just have the opportunity like my kid wants wants to play, or my wife needs something,

and I just say, you know what, stop, it's family time. Like I'm not gonna do anything else. I've already gotten what I would have, what I think a normal person would've hoped to do in the course of a day. I did all the stuff that I need to do already. So a prioritization, front loading, and then limiting the amount of things that you need to do already. So a prioritization, front loading, and then limiting the amount of things that you need to do is to me a really important keystone of time management.

And the next question, this is from Steve, he's saying, what should I stop doing? What are habits to stop? And I actually think this is a great question. I think this is probably where a mind like Tim Ferris would gravitate towards, he's always looking at, why are people doing this? Does it need to be done? What would it look like if we had this good question? What would it look like if I stopped doing blank?

What would it look like if I stopped traveling? What would it look like if I stopped smoking pot? What would I look like? What would it look like if I stopped doing X, Y, or Z? Marcus Aurelius's version of this question is like, ask yourself, is this necessary? Is this with all things, is this necessary? In the truth is, a lot of what we do isn't necessary.

It's an obligation. It's a continuation of something we've done for a while. It's the way that It's a continuation of something we've done for a while. It's the way that other people always do it. It's this necessary that is a huge question that I would push you to think about. Some ones that I think are worth stopping just in the abstract. Obviously, different people are different, different scenarios, but stop social media, limit social media as much as you can.

For me, Instagram is not something I have on my phone. I have to get my phone from my wife to use it, which is severely curtail is my use of it. I don't have Twitter on my phone and I have not used Facebook now for, I guess we're what what year and a half. And so severely, I don't have Snapchat. I don't honestly understand what TikTok is.

Although from what I have read, it's basically a tool of the Chinese government to spy on you. So I do not use TikTok. And I just severely limit my social media use because the purpose of social media, it's not to connect people. The purpose of social media is to get you to use social media. You are what is being sold on social media.

And so the most you can limit, the more you can limit your use there, the more time you will have to spend on the things that don't matter. Cal Newport talks about the importance of deep work, a hard focused concentration on big ideas and thinking. What Mark has really said, concentrating like a Roman,

social media is the enemy of that. The more you can limit your social media use, the more time you'll have, a couple of things I also don't do, I feel like one of the greatest gifts my parents gave me is that they didn't let me play video games until I was older, like let's say like 10 or, now let's say like 12 or 13 or something like that.

Like it was towards the end of like middle school. I think the first system I got was like an Nintendo 64 and it was like so far. It was already late then and I was so bad at it. The point is I'm not good at video games and so I don't enjoy playing them and I don't play them. The amount of time that people fritter away on video games could create countless masterpieces.

I think it says something about where we are as a culture right now that the top YouTube channels are not video games. Video games is playing in a fake reality, which is not great. It's like I rank it's like, okay, there's doing something in real life. Then there's consuming fiction or reading or watching a movie, which is like sort of pretend life.

But you're watching, you're immersing yourself in a beautiful sort of artistic world. Then there's video games, which is you playing in that world. And then there are the YouTube streaming channels where you are watching other people play in those worlds. And to me, if we think about time as a non-renewable resource that we have a finite amount of time on this planet, that seems like a really silly place

to spend your time. Like I totally get the importance of leisure. I like watching movies, you know, not saying you have to be all spend your time. Like I totally get the importance of leisure. I like watching movies, you know, not saying you have to be all business all time, but video games just to me seem like a preposterous use of time. I talk about the importance of relationships and stillness. I also feel like one of the big productivity breakthroughs in my life was totally unintentional and totally accidental,

but it was hugely fortunate. I met my wife when I was 19 years old and we've been together since then. And as a result, I don't have a part-time job meeting people and going out. I'm not investing in relationships and then finding that that didn't pan out. I'm not getting caught up in drama with this or that. I'm not, I don't sort of willingly spend any time in bars. I'm never scrolling Tinder or Hinge or Bumble. I get to be with a person and a relationship takes a lot of time. There's no question, but what I'm not doing is searching for relationships because I have that. And so, you know, like, I don't have a problem

with drinking per se, I don't have a problem with going out, I don't have a problem having a good time. But the point is, I think these things end up sort of the tailwax, the dog there. People end up, you know, as a stoic sort of the tailwags, the dog there. People end up, you know, as the Stoics sort of criticize people who, who, the Stoics is sort of like, let's eat to live, not live to eat. I think, instead of, you know, living for a relationship, people, sorry, and people

end up chasing this thing, and it consumes their life, and it takes them away from from you know sort of what's important it takes them away from themselves and then they wonder like where did all the time go and and I think they know the answer of where it goes. And then the last question this is from Courtney it says how can I get better at saying no? That's a great question. It's a hard one. It's one I struggle with quite a bit myself. I know I've talked about this before,

but it's one of those things at some point, and it's probably worth talking about again. I have, my friend, his name's Dr. Jonathan Fader. He's a sports psychologist. He works with a Met, he's worked with the Patreolec baseball, he's worked with a number of authors. I know he sent me this framed picture of Oliver Sachs

who has a framed, had a framed print in his office that just said, no, capital letters exclamation point. And I look at that and I, like, it's hard to say no. I get it, I struggle with it. I have an email in my inbox that someone sent me two weeks ago if I want to do this podcast. I like, it's hard to say no. I get it. I struggle with it. I have an email in my inbox that someone sent me two weeks ago if I want to do this podcast and then I was like, I really didn't want to do it. So I ignored it and then they followed up and it's still sitting there and I know what

I should do is say no. And so I'm actually glad I'm talking about this because when I finish this, I'm going to get up and I'm just going to say no. There's just not, life is too short to say yes to things that you weren't interested in doing if it had never come across your desk in the first place. One of the benefits of having kids for me has been, I realized that when I was saying yes to other people for things, I was saying no to myself or I was saying no to my wife. But apparently I have a willingness to do that.

But when I realize, oh, if I say no, if I say yes to this, what I'm saying no to is, you know, taking my, going swimming with my son, or I'm saying no to having dinner with my family or being there for bedtime, and realizing what you're saying no to when you say yes is really, really important. And so having, you know, having, being able to externalize it that way is really, really important. A good piece of advice, I got a piece of advice from Steve Cam, who has a great site called Nerd Fitness. I talked about masterminds a couple episodes ago when I was with that and that mastermind with him in in Sedona in January He's like Say that you have a rule or he said come up with a rule. So it's like what is your rule?

So like Casey Neistat for instance has a rule. He's home for bath time every day And so if you say hey, do you want to get coffee or sorry? Do you want to have dinner tonight at six? He says no I have to be home for bath time. I have a rule. He says no I'm home for bath time every night. That's my rule, right? So like during This pandemic I decided early on I'm not gonna do any Instagram lives with people So when people have emailed me I said look, I've just decided I decided. I'm not doing that. And so I have a rule. I'm not doing this anymore.

Or I have a rule against doing book blurbs. So I don't do book blurbs. And then I have a polite, straightforward answer to saying no. And that makes it easier and simpler. And people are very understanding of this when you're a straightforward. And they respect the rule, I guess is what I'm saying. So that's a really good way to think about it, coming up with rules, setting those rules,

really important. And the last thing that I use for perspective of saying no is I just go, okay, when the Stokes talk about momentum, or what they mean is like you could die. And when Marcus says, are you afraid of death because you don't want to do this anymore? He's giving you some really important contrast

about what you say, no, yes and no to. It's like, I didn't become a writer to do an endless amount of podcast episodes on shows that I don't really care about, right? And so it's like, look, I could die tomorrow. Am I going to be glad that I sat down and wrote? Or am I going to be glad that I sat down and wrote? Or am I going to be glad that I recorded three hours of interviews?

What are your priorities? What matters to you? And then in light of the fact that you go any moment, are you giving those things their proper due, or their proper respect? And so just really realizing like, hey, I don't have an unlimited amount of time to give away. And where, if, if, where, let's say I'm lucky enough to live another 30 years, well, I'd be happy that I said yes to this thing. You know, if this was

the last thing I did in my life, would I be glad that I accept it? You know, I said yes to this. And that can give us some really clear and straightforward perspective About these things and make it easier to say no and I guess the other part of that too is like if you realize that life is short You don't care as much about you know Being seen as a bad guy or or slightly hurting someone's feelings for declining and invitation, right? That that's that's another really important part of this. It's like, who are you trying to please and what cost are you willing to cultivate that? And I think

when Mark says you could leave life right now, let that determine what you do and say and think, I think it makes it easier to say no. Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Stoke podcast. Again, if you don't know this, you can get these delivered to you via email every day, so check it out at dailystoke.com slash email. 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. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just going to end up on page six or Du Moir or in court.

I'm Matt Bellissi. And I'm Sydney Battle, and we're the host of Wonder Re's new podcast, Dis and Tell, where each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud from the buildup, why it happened, and the repercussions. What does our obsession with these feuds say about us? The first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama, but none is drawn out in personal as Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears. When Britney's fans form the free Britney movement dedicated to

fraying her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lynn's lack of public support, it angered some fans, a lot of them. It's a story of two young women who had their choices taken away from them by their controlling parents, but took their anger out on each other. And it's about a movement to save a superstar, which set its sights upon anyone who failed to fight for Brittany. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or the Wondering app.