The Daily Stoic - This Is How To Become Wise | Make Honesty Your Only Policy

Episode Date: October 18, 2021

Ryan explains how you should think about the process of learning, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast.List your product on AppSumo between September 15th - November 17th and the first 400 offers to go live will receive $1000, the next 2000 to list a product get $250. And everyone who lists gets entered to be one of 10 lucky winners of $10k! Go to https://appsumo.com/ryanholiday to list your product today and cash in on this amazing deal.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/emailFollow 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.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke podcast early and add free on Amazon music download the app today Welcome to the Daily Stoke podcast each day. We bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stokes Illustrated with stories from history current events and literature to help you be better at what you do. And at the beginning of the week, we try to do a deeper dive, setting a kind of stoic intention for the week, something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave you with, to journal about,

whatever it is you happen to be doing. So let's get into it. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wonderree'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. This is how to become wise.

Sure, we know that a stoic is supposed to read, but as Epic Tito said, it matters what and how you read. And as Seneca said, it matters what you are reading for. Are you studying the Odyssey because it's entertaining because you're trying to impress people? Or are you trying to learn from Odysseus? Seneca asked to prepare yourself for the same kind of storms that he faced. It's fitting that a scene in Stephen Pressfield's novel Gates of Fire would use a young storyteller making the same point in Senica. We were made to recite the tent scene at the close of the Iliad.

Pressfield has the young squire turned warrior explain. When Priem of Troy kneels before Achilles to kiss in supplication, the hand of the man who has slain his sons, including the mightiest endures to him, Hector, Hero and Protector of Ilium, and then he would grill us upon it. What would we have done if we were Achilles, if were we Priam, was each man's action proper and pious in the eyes of the gods? was each man's action, proper and pious in the eyes of the gods. Reading isn't just about pouring inputs into your brain. There has to be a filter. There has to be a back and forth. You have to continually put the information up to the test, examine it, see how it applies to your life, ask yourself how you might use it, and what it is prompting you to think.

We become wise through this process, by asking questions, by debating with the author, even the long deceased authors. You have to remember Zeno said that we become wise through conversations with the dead. We are weeding to prepare for life, to be better at this whole living thing. So we have to see everything through that lens. If you're reading passively, you're doing it wrong, you might as well just be watching television. Make honesty your only policy. As Emperor Marcus Aurelius did not see the best of humanity, leaders never do.

At court, there would have been backbiting people who sold their friends out when they saw an opportunity to advance themselves, average and deceit. He especially didn't like faux attempts at honesty. His point, if you have to say, I'm gonna be honest with you here. What you're casually saying is that honesty is an exception for you and not the rule that you're making a special

effort to tell the truth here, because you usually don't. And how sad is that? It's time to think about what these little statements say about us and how to make sure that our default policy is honesty and straight forwardness. And this is from this week's entry in the Daily Steuert Journal, 366 days of writing and reflection on the art of living by yours truly and my co-writer and translator, Steve Enhancelman. I actually do this journal every single day. There's a question in the morning, a question in the afternoon, and then there's these sort of weekly meditations. As Epictetus says, every day and night, we keep thoughts like this at hand, write them, read them aloud, and talk to yourself and others about them.

You can check out the Daily Stalk Journal, anywhere books are sold. You can also get a signed personalized copy from me in the Daily Stalk store at store.dailystalk.com. The two quotes we have from Marcus Aurelius' Meditations and then from Seneca's Moral Letters Go is follows. How rotten and fraudulent when people say they intend to give it to you straight. What are you up to friend? It shouldn't need to be your announcement, but be seen readily as if written on your forehead had heard in the ring of your voice a flash in your eyes, just as the beloved

sees it all in a lover's glance. In short, the straightforward and good person should be like the smelly goat. You know it when they're in the room with you. I love that quote. That's so great. A calculated give it to you straight as like a dagger, and there's nothing worse than a wolf befriending sheep. We should avoid false friendship at all costs. If you're good, straightforward, and well-meaning, it should show in your eyes and not escape notice. That's from Marcus Aurelius' Meditations 1115. And then Sennaka's moral letters 109, he says, it is in keeping with nature to show our friends' affections and to celebrate

their advancement as if it was our very own. For if we don't do this virtue, which is strengthened only by exercising our perceptions, will no longer endure in us. Look, I think this idea that honesty is your best policy is really important. And obviously, we should cultivate a reputation for candor, for straight forwardness, for not holding back, for not being too faced. If you have an opinion, you put it out there, you don't say one thing in private, another thing in public, right? But I would say, you know, and we had Randall Stuttman on the Daily Stoke podcast and in the

Daily Stoke leadership challenge recently, and he did push back on this trend of radical candor, you know, that often it can be an excuse for being a jerk. You know, the Stokes take their original roots from the cynics, you know, d'Aginis who sort of walks the streets of Athens, just saying whatever he thinks. But I don't particularly admire him. I see him as sort of anti-social. So I think what Marcus is saying,

cultivator reputation for straight forwardness, this is in context of the other stovab virtues. It takes courage to be clear and to voice in popular opinions and to say what people don't wanna hear, but it also takes moderation and understanding of justice to know what opinions to voice, how to voice them, how not to be a jerk about them.

You know, radical candor in Wall Street firms, Randall was saying is, again, often excuse for asshole bosses to be more jerk about them. Radical candor in Wall Street firms, Randall was saying, is, again, often excused for asshole bosses to be more of a jerk. And that's not the excuse they need. We want to be both straight forward, as well as restrained. And I know that seems a little contradictory, but, well, life is complicated, and it's about balance.

So when we say we want to be the smelly goat in the room, I don't think we want and someone who owns goats. Let me tell you, man, goats can stink. I can sometimes smell my neighbor's goats. He's like a half mile away. I'll catch a whiff of it in the wind. A male goat, this sort of musk they have, man, it is repulsive. It's disgusted. I don't think that's what Marcus is saying. I think he's being a bit exaggerated. He's just saying that, you know, these, I'm going to be level with you here or when we say, I don't mean any offense or no offense intended. You really did mean, you're, you can almost expect that the next words out of this person's mouth are going to be

really poorly thought out not so nice things. And so I think we should take some time here to think about this balance. This is what temperance is really about, right? Just in the way that courage is a midpoint between cowardice and recklessness. I'd like to think that honesty is a line somewhere between omission, not saying things, and saying too many things, or something like to that regard. If you get what I'm saying, it's that, yes, we have to tell the truth, but you don't have to tell someone that you find them repulsive today. You don't have to tell them that you really hate the sound of their voice, right? There are things you can keep yourself.

And I guess I just wanted to add a little color to this week's meditation that being a stoic, and there was an interesting lawsuit, recently a workplace lawsuit, where a man claimed that stoicism was his religion. And therefore, the offensive things he said at work, the way he comported himself and behaved even some of his hygiene habits, he could not be fired for them because they were, um, doesn't your calling me right now, so I hang on one sec, um, he could not be fired for them because they were his religious beliefs. But when you really look at the remarks

that he was defending the way that he's behaving, it's true that he's actually just a jerk. And that's not what we're talking about. So all things in moderation, including this kind of honesty that we're talking about from Marcus Relius, have an identifiable scent that you are an honest person that don't be a stinky goat. Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Stoke Podcast. Again, if you don an honest person, but don't be a stinky goat. 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. You just go to dailystoke.com slash email. So check it out at dailystoke.com slash email.

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