The Daily Stoic - This Is the Great Equalizer | Smoke and Dust of Myth

Episode Date: February 25, 2021

“Imagine what it must have been like to be Alexander the Great, conquering most of the known world by the time you were 30 years old. Born into royalty, you surpass even the incredible accomplishments of your father, to rule an empire of some 3,000 miles.”Ryan discusses where we are all headed and why it levels the playing field, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast.This episode is also brought to you by Trends. Trends is the ultimate online community for entrepreneurs and business aficionados who want to know the latest news about business trends and analysis. It features articles from the most knowledgeable people, interviews with movers and shakers, and a private community of like-minded people with whom you can discuss the latest insights from Trends. Just visit trends.co/stoic to start your $1 seven day trial.***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 Daily Stoic: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 Stoke Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke Podcast. On Thursdays, we do double duty not just reading our daily meditation, but also reading a passage from the book, The Daily Stoke, but also reading a passage from the book, The Daily Stoic, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living, which I wrote my wonderful co-author and collaborator, Stephen Hanselman. And so today, we'll give you a quick meditation from one of the stoics from Epititus Markis Relius, Seneca, and some analysis for me, and then we send you out into the world to do your best to turn these words into works.

Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wendery'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 the great equalizer. Imagine what it must have been like to be Alexander the Great conquering most of the world by the time you were 30 years old. Born into royalty, you surpass even the incredible accomplishments of your father

to rule an empire of some 3,000 miles. Imagine what it must have been like to be Ozzy Mandeus, the King of Kings, surveying his mighty works. Imagine what it must have been like to be Marcus Aurelius, the Emperor of Rome, the head of an army of over a million men with an imperial treasury of unfathomable wealth. Imagine walking into the Colosseum and knowing that everyone within it was your subject, that they worshipped you as a God, that everything you wanted could be yours. With the snap of a finger.

Imagine that. Imagine having that. Now stop and think about where it got these men. Marcus really has thought about it. He thought a lot about Alexander the Great who lived just a couple centuries before him, who ruled over many of the same lands, experienced power and fame, just as early as Marcus did. And then what did Marcus wrote? He said, Alexander the Great and his Mule Driver both died and the same thing happened to both. Death was a great equalizer Marcus found. It was L

Finito. The conclusion that rendered so many of the accolades in accomplishments he had piled up instantly worthless. Marcus Aurelius wasn't alive to read Percy's poem about the statue of Aussie Mandius, but he would have loved it. Nothing beside remains round the decay of that colossal wreck boundless in bear, the lone and level sands stretch far away. Of course, you should strive to realize your potential. You should conquer and do and be great. You should just remember where to quote another poem, all the paths of glory ultimately end up. There's no amount of doing that will allow you to escape death, and that in death we are all equal. Small and powerless.

The smoke and dust myth. Keep a list before your mind of those who burned with anger and resentment about something, of even the most renowned for success, misfortune, evil deeds or any special distinction, then ask yourself, how did that work out? Smoke and dust, the stuff of simple myth, trying to be legend. Marcus Aurelius' meditations, 1227. That's from today's entry in the Daily Stoic. In Marcus Aurelius' writings, he constantly points out how the emperors who came before him

were barely remembered just a few years later. To him, this was a reminder that no matter how much he conquered, no matter how much he inflicted his will on the world, it would be like building a castle in the sand, soon to be erased by the winds of time. The same goes for those driven to the heights of hate or anger or obsession or perfectionism. Marcus liked to point out that Alexander the Great, one of the most passionate and ambitious men who ever lived was buried in the same ground as his mule driver.

Eventually, all of us will pass away and slowly be forgotten. We should enjoy this brief time we have on earth, not be enslaved to emotions that make us miserable or dissatisfied. Does that mean that the Stoic has no ambition? We did a video on this recently for daily Stoic on YouTube. I don't think it means that. I think what it means is that you try to get to a place where you're not tortured by your ambition.

There's a quote, maybe it's Bertrand Russell. I think he says, the belief that your work is terribly important. He's a sign of an impending nervous collapse. That's like a breakthrough I've had to come. I remember, and I think I may have talked about this on the podcast before, I remember I met this really successful athlete. We have like lunch or something before a game. And, you know, he was just so chill.

I mean, this is a person who's made hundreds of millions of dollars that's accomplished all the stuff in their sport and they there there was such a lightness about them and such as humility about what they did they weren't like they weren't acting like it was the most important thing in the world because it's not. I mean they're really great at it and and it's clearly gives them a lot of purpose and they've spent a lot of time on it but they didn't't have this sense that they were like, you know, on a mission from God or whatever. And that was, that was, it was like, oh man, this person is just chill about what they do. And, and why can I not be that way? That's, that's sort of what I came away feeling. And it's a, it's just really easy to take what you do incredibly seriously as if you're building

a monument for all time. And the reality is you're not. And even if you were, as Marcus says, you wouldn't be around to enjoy that monument. So let's take it down and not your two. That's what it is. It's not about getting to a place of not caring. It's just ratcheting it down a little bit into a more moderate place. Fox Connor, who was Eisenhower's mentor,

said, always take the job seriously never yourself. Maybe that's the way to think about it. Like the writing I do is it means a lot to me. It's important. I can tell. I know it has impact. I know I know it. I'm doing it at a high level. But that doesn't mean I'm at a high. That doesn't mean anything about me. It's not associated, it can't be associated with my identity. I can't get self-important about it. I can't let it, you know, stress me out, wind me up, you know, that's just not a place that's fun to live and it's honestly not a place where good work comes from. So today's meditation is like, when I, if I could talk to myself at 25, I'd just say

like, dude, relax, you don could talk to myself at 25, I'd just say, like, dude, relax. You don't need to be so intense about this. And I'm pretty sure 40-year-old me, you could talk to 30-year-old me and say the same thing. And I think that's where you get as you get older. You just get more philosophical about this stuff. Because you see so much more come and go when you realize how silly a lot of our pretensions are and how needless a lot of our intensity

and passion actually was and how little it contributed to the things we were able to accomplish. And if you're not going to enjoy them while you're accomplishing them, if you're doing them because you're trying to leave some legacy and you're missing the point. So let's relax a little bit today. Let's not be so intense. Let's remember the people who came before us, let's be humbled by where they are now. Let's give ourselves the gift of enjoying this present moment while we can instead of torturing ourselves as we strive to be somewhere else. Thanks so much for listening. If you could leave a review for the podcast, we'd really appreciate it that the reviews make a difference and of course every nice review from a nice person helps balance it. The reviews make a difference and of course every nice review

from a nice person helps balance out. The crazy people who get triggered and angry anytime we say something they disagree with. So 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. I'll see you next episode. I'll see you next episode. Hey, Prime Members! You can listen to the Daily Stoic Early and Add Free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts. you