The Daily Stoic - These 3 Books Changed My Life Completely

Episode Date: December 27, 2020

On today’s episode, Ryan discusses the 3 books that completely changed his life. Listen to find out what books had such a great impact on Ryan’s thinking, and why re-reading important books can give you new insights.This episode is also brought to you by HelloFresh, the meal-kit subscription that gets you healthy and delicious home-cooked meals, right to your doorstep. HelloFresh sends you meal kits in a way that fits in with your schedule and dietary preferences. Meals are seasonal and delicious, and save you and your family time and money on grocery shopping. Visit HelloFresh.com/stoic80 and use code STOIC80 to get $80 off, including free shipping.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoic, something that can help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, wisdom, and temperance. And here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers. We reflect. We prepare. We think deeply about the challenging issues of our time. And we work through this philosophy in a way that's more possible here when we're not rushing to work or to get the kids to school. When we have the time to sing, to go for a walk, to sit with our journals, and to prepare

for what the future will bring. Hey there listeners! While we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think you'll like. It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks to founders behind some of the world's biggest and most innovative companies, to learn how they built them from the ground up. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace, Manduke Yoga Mats, Soul Cycle, and Cotopaxi, as well as entrepreneurs working to solve some of

the biggest problems of our time, like developing technology that pulls energy from the ground to heat in cool homes, or even figuring out how to make drinking water from air and sunlight. Together they discuss their entire journey from day one, and all the skills they had to learn along the way, like confronting big challenges and how to lead through uncertainty. So if you want to get inspired and learn how to think like an entrepreneur, check out how I built this,

wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon or Wondering. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another weekend episode, the Daily Stoic. Today's episode is me riffing on three books that if you've been paying attention, you've probably heard of. If you've been putting off reading, you should stop that. One is one of my favorite novels.

One is one of my favorite nonfiction books and the other is I think the greatest philosophy book ever written. And so I go into these books. I've just I just thought it'd be fun to talk about why these things have resonated with me, the value you can get out of them, my interactions with them over time. I think one thing I don't talk quite enough about in this little session. So I thought I'd preface it. Is the idea of reading and rereading and rereading. I have a shelf behind my desk that I call sort of my life shelf. And these three books, each one of them sits prominently on that shelf. And by life, I mean, they're books that not just guide you through life, but books you have to read throughout your life, because you get something different from them each time.

When I read the Great Gatsby in high school, Gatsby struck me as heroic. When I read him in my 20s, it struck me slightly different. And when I read it again, some more recently, there was a tragic element that I experienced a bit more. And I also thought a lot more about knit caraway. And I noticed there's a great little line about parenting at the beginning of that book. And it's not just because I've changed, and I've gotten older, but I've read other books about Fitzgerald, they're about the 20s, about bootlegging,

even that I opened my book conspiracy with a chunk, an observation that came from, probably not the first, certainly I didn't notice this little observation, the first time I read Gatsby in, you know, 11th grade. It was, it was the reading and the rereading and, and now I just have a much more complicated, but, but profound connection with the material, with the characters and all that. So it's not just about reading, but it's about rereading. And so even if you've read all three of these books, which I've got to imagine I've raved about them enough times that some of you listening have, but hopefully in hearing me describe why they've resonated with me, you'll see them from a slightly different or new angle, and the experience will even be more powerful. And maybe you'll be able to recommend them better to other people. So here are three books that you must read. Everyone has a book that's changed their life.

Like something that just sort of hits you. Tyler Cowan calls them Quake Books, something that sort of shakes your whole existence. So I was thinking like, three quake books that have changed my life. The first one, 48 laws of power. I read this one I was in high school. I've gone through a bunch of copies.

Someone stole my copy when I was working at American Apparel, which is the perfect place to read a book like this. The CEO of a company used to say, look, he would quote one of the laws. He said, look, we do good stuff for people. We make stuff in the US. But ultimately, people only buy our clothes because they like our clothes. Always appeal to self-interest, never mercy or gratitude. So again, you can be a good person in the world. Not that Doug was by any means that. But he

would do and good because it aligned with the 48 laws of power. And that's an essential thing. So I've read this book dozens of times, it's been great. First law of the law of power, which I love is never outshine the master. Always make those who feel above you comfortably superior in your desire to please and impress. Do not go too far and display your talents or you might accomplish the opposite, inspire fear and insecurity. So there's just a bluntness there, one of the laws is crusher enemy totally or let others do all the work

and take all the credit. So those obviously feel like deeply immoral things, Robert Wok got a note, says they're not immoral, they're amoral. If I said, hey, gravity pulled an old lady down, shattered her hip, and then she died, or gravity pulled an airplane out of the sky and everyone on board was killed.

That feels deeply cool but we know that gravity simply is what it is. We don't have an opinion about gravity, we just accept it and we accommodate it. That's really like what the 40 laws of power is. 40 laws of power is about gravity, the rules of life. So Robert is saying you should still work from other people. He isn't saying, you should be the insensitive master who never lets anyone outshine them. He says, you have to be aware as you're working for someone

that they see themselves as the master. And if you're not careful, you will unintentionally offend them and that may be your ruin. Right after college, I worked at this telemanaging agency and I kept a copy of the 48 Laws of Power on my desk who's working for Robert Green. And in reading it, I raised some eyebrows and one of the bosses started to get very paranoid

and ultimately he and I ended up on a collision course and I got fired. I was, even as I was studying the 48 Laws of Power, I was unfairly a victim of them. So to me, the concept of the 48 Laws of Power is morally justified even just as defense. What you really get from the 40 laws of power is a masterclass in history. You know, how to create compelling spectacles, how to make people realize what your worth is to them,

how to deal with, you know, insecure people, how to counteract you go, how to just do all the things that you need to do in life. And there's so many good laws. Interaction with boldness, plan all the way to the end, make your accomplishments seem effortless, play to people's fantasies, recreate yourself, keep your hands clean, concentrate your forces. Look, these are not morally dubious things at all. They're just things you have to understand if you want to be successful in the world. So I think everyone who's trying to do anything that

depends on other people, anyone who's job depends on the crowd, anyone who's job depends on the approval of a boss or banks or the media. You have to understand this book and if you don't understand it, you are constantly going to be defeated, demoralized, outsmarted by people who intuitively or explicitly are following the principles of this book. So if you haven't read the 40 Eliza Power, you don't understand the gravity that is operating in the world you're on and you're going to be at the mercy of these unseen forces. I wanted to go to my favorite novel, my favorite novel, What Makes Sammy Run by Bud

Shulver? You can see all the notes that I took here. Actually the conclusion of my book, The Opsicles, The Way is all about it. But is it novel I've read three or four times now? I read it when I was 19. My mentor said, hey, you gotta read this book and I did.

And it just hit me in exactly the same place. To me, this is a book that pairs well with the 48 laws of power. The 48 laws of power is about ambition. And the novel, what makes Sammy Run, is a cautionary tale about ambition. A guy gets everything he wants, but who does he have to become in order to do that? And basically sells his soul to do it. There's this great line in the book, he says, what a beautiful bright light ambition can

be when there's something behind it it and what a puny flickering sparkler it is when there isn't. But ultimately the spoil the ending, it's this great sort of Hollywood tale, it's kind of an article-desk character, but by spoil the ending basically at the end, you know we think like hey, somebody who follows a 40-loss of power who's cruel, merciless, who does whatever it takes to win, ultimately they'll get what's coming to them, right? Basically at the end of the novel, the narrator is summoned to Sammy's house, and Sammy's just married like the most beautiful girl

in Hollywood, and the narrator says, like, I thought how unconsciously I had been waiting for justice to rise up and smite him in with all its vengeance, secretly hoping to be around when Sammy got what was coming to him. Only I had expected something conclusive and fatal, and now I realize got what was coming to him. Only I had expected something conclusive and fatal, and now I realize that what was coming to him was not a sudden payoff but a process. A disease he had caught in the epidemic that swept over his birthplace

like a plague, a cancer that was slowly eating in him, the symptoms developing and intensifying success, loneliness and fear, fear of all the bright young men, the newer, the fresher Samu Glicks that would spring up and harass him to threaten him and finally overtake him. It was too late to hate or change him. He just was who he was. What I think is the best book ever written. Marcus, or really, is his meditation, I strongly recommend the Gregory Hayes translation. It's the most lyrical, the most accessible, and it's just an incredible document to think. I mean, so first off, this is a private journal

never intended to be published. And Marcus is writing to himself, and yet he opens it with debts and lessons. He opens it with gratitude that he learned character and self control from his grandfather, that he learned not to waste time on nonsense from someone. He learned kindness from sexists. An example of fatherly authority in the home,

what it means to live as nature requires gravity without errors. This is my favorite line. It says, to not display anger or other emotions, to be free of passion, full of love. So he writes, the beginning, it's just, he's just reiterating to himself the lessons that he's learned about the person that he wants to be. But then he opens meditations with Ivan, one of the great passages in all of his tree. When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself, the people I will deal with today will be meddling on grateful arrogant dishonest jealous and surly, but he's not just listening that people suck

and then he goes and they're like this because they don't know good from evil and you have to understand that and you can't let them implicate you in their ugliness. And to me that's what stoicism demands of us that's who we're supposed to be is people. We're supposed to understand what the world is but not be dragged down or destroyed by it. I think Marcus encapsulates all of Stoicism in this book. He says, objective judgment now at this very moment. Unselfish action now at this very moment.

Willing acceptance now at this very moment of all external events. This is, that's all that you need. In case you think Stoicism is selfish, he says, what injures the hive, injures the B. Case you think that Stoicism is about trying to become kin, trying to become emperor. Now he says, ambition means tying your well-being to what other people say or do. Self-indulgence means tying it to the things that happen to you.

Sanity means tying it to your own actions. It's also about self-control though, he goes, you don't have to turn this into something, you don't have to have an opinion about this. So in, in meditations, what you get is just the wisest man of the world, talking to himself about how to be a better person. And that's, to me, what Stoicism is about. You're studying Stoicism, reading Marcus really is, because it makes you better as a human being. You know, and it's incredible to think Marcus was writing this book

during the Antonin plague, 15 years of a horrible pandemic. He lost some of his own children, he lost friends, and yet Marcus goes, no, it's not unfortunate this happened. It says it's fortunate that it happened to me because I've remained unharmed by it, and then I can use this. Other people would have been shattered by it, but not me. A play can kill you, but it only harms you if it destroys your character. He means that literally, and figuratively.

So, I was lucky enough to read this book. I was 19 years old. This is my copy. I got it at Porter's. It just hit me in so many ways. It says, it stares you in the face. No role is so well suited to the philosophy you're in right now. And that meant me as a college student.

That meant me as a aspiring writer later on. That meant me as a husband. That means me as a college student, that meant me as a aspiring writer, later on, that meant me as a husband, that means me as a father, that means me as a writer and an entrepreneur now. Everything we do is a chance to practice philosophy, and I think meditations is all about that, and no one has perhaps written better or more eloquently about philosophy,

and perhaps no one has been made better by philosophy more than Marcus. It's a perfection of character to live your last day every day without frenzy or sloth or pretence. That's what meditation is about. That's what we're doing. It says straight, not straightened. Let it happen if it wants to whatever it can happen to. It can't hurt me unless it I interpret it's happening as harmful to me and I can choose not to. And then this one is stayed with me in life, says, don't be ashamed to need help. Like the soldier storming the wall, you have a mission to accomplish.

And if you've been wounded and need a comrade to pull yourself up, so what? And to me, this book is the perfect comrade, it's the perfect friend to open yourself up to, you get something new every time you open it. If you haven't read meditations yet, you should. Don't get a free internet translation, read the Gregory Hades translation, although we have some good translations in the Daily Stoic as well. Look, again, greatest book ever written, I think. My favorite novel, What Makes Sammy Run. And I think one of the best nonfiction books of all time, one of the best looks of power at all time, 48 laws of power by the great Robert Green. Read these three books.

Can't do better than that. Hey, it's Ryan. Just a few days left to sign up for the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge. It's our best thing. You get 21 custom challenges. Almost 30,000 words. Almost a full book's worth of content. You get a printable calendar, there's going to be a weekly check-in call for me.

You get access to a Slack channel. Look, Mark's to really says, you could be good today instead you choose tomorrow. EpicTitas says, how much longer you're going to wait to demand the best of yourself. When you do this with us, we'd love to have you. I'll be doing it there alongside everyone. It's one of my favorite things. I have all sorts of habits that I got from last years and the year before. The other challenges we've done. And remember, if you sign up for Daily Stoke Life, you get this challenge and the other ones for free.

So I'll see you sign up at dailystowick.com slash challenge. 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. Is this thing all? Check one, two, one, two. Hey, y'all. I'm Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, a singer, an entrepreneur, and a Virgo. Just the name of you. Now, I've held so many occupations over the years that my fans lovingly nicknamed me Kiki Keep a Bag Palmer.

And trust me, I keep a Bag Love. But if you ask me, I'm just getting started. And there's so much I still want to do. So I decided I want to be a podcast host. I'm proud to introduce you to the Baby Mrs. Kiki Palmer podcast. I'm putting my friends, family, and some of the dopest experts in the hot seat to ask them the questions that have been burning in my mind. What will former child stars be if they weren't actors? What happened to sitcoms? It's only fans, only bad. I want to know. So I asked my mom about it. These are the questions that keep me up at night, but I'm taking these questions

out of my head and I'm bringing them to you. Because on Baby This Is Kiki Palmer, no topping is off limits. Follow Baby This Is Kiki Palmer whatever you get your podcast. Hey, Prime members, you can listen early and app-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today.