The Daily Stoic - Turn The Colors On | These 14 Small Mindset Shifts Will Change Your Life

Episode Date: January 2, 2024

Like any normal person, part of Marcus Aurelius did not want to wake up, especially early. No, he wanted to “huddle under the blankets and stay warm,” he would say. It was nicer there. Easier there. But another part of him knew he wasn’t created to feel nice, to have it easy. “I have to go to work — as a human being,” he said, hauling his feet up and onto the floor.This is the internal back and forth so many of us have every morning. Not Arnold Schwarzennegger though. “My rule in the morning is, ‘don’t think,’” he said on a recent episode of the Daily Stoic podcast. To prevent the internal back and forth, the negotiating, the rationalizing, the justifying, Arnold recommended, “Make it a rule where you say, ‘Okay, there are certain things that I would do before I start thinking…I’m going to work out before I start thinking.’ Don’t think. Just go. Get out on a walk. Get on that bicycle. Get to the gym.”--And in today's Daily Stoic video excerpt, Ryan outlines 14 small mindset changes. For the most part, we can’t change the world. We can’t change the fundamental facts of existence–like the fact that we’re going to die. We can’t change other people. So one way to think about Stoicism itself then is as a collection of mindset shifts for the many situations that life seems to thrust us in. Indeed, Seneca’s Letters, Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, and Epictetus’ Discourses are filled with passages, anecdotes, and quotes which force a shift in perspective.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 Tuesdays, we take a closer look at these stoic ideas, how we can apply them in our actual lives. Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy. Turn the colors on. Like any normal person, part of Marcus Reelist did not want to wake up, especially early. No, he wanted a huddle under the blankets and stay warm, he said. It was nicer there, easier there. But another part of him knew that he wasn't created to feel nice, to have it easy. I have to go to work as a human being, he said, hauling his feet up and onto the floor.

This is the internal back and forth that so many of us have every morning, not Arnold Schwarzenegger, though. As he said on a recent episode of The Daily Stood Podcast, the rules don't think. And so because I feel like a lot of people, when they get up, the mind starts wondering. It's a natural thing. We all do that. Over thinking. But if you make it a rule,

you say, okay, there's certain things that I would do before I start thinking, and that is, I'm gonna work out for an hour. Yeah. So now, if the mind tells you, man, you know, the day is okay. I mean, with the house Sunday, and no one is okay, I mean, what the hell is Sunday? No one would know.

I mean, it's just going to have some pancakes instead. It's just the kind of reorganization a little bit. You say, wait a minute, what did that just do? I thought. And I promised myself, I'm not going to think. And you will feel good. And that's the key thing. People should always always know when you physically, if you feel good physically and you can't do wonderful things physically, then you feel mentally much better

upon yourself. The day starts in black and white Arnold continued. You're tired, you're not thinking clearly, you're a groggy, your to-do list gives you anxiety. The Stoics talked similarly about the connection between the mind and the body. We treat the body rigorously, Senka said, so that it will not be disobedient to the mind. We move the body to turn on or up the colors of the mind. When you wake up, don't think just get moving, get active, get the body going, turn the colors on.

I told this story before, but the first Airbnb I stayed in was 15 years ago. I was looking for places to live when I wanted to be a writer and we stayed at this house, I think outside Phoenix. And then when I bought my first house here in Austin, I would rent it out when South by Southwest or F-1 or all these events. My wife and I would go out of town and we'd rent it and it helped pay for the mortgage and it supported me while I was a writer. You've probably had the same experience.

You stayed in an Airbnb and thought, this is doable. Maybe I could rent my place on Airbnb and it's really that simple. You can start with a spare room or you can rent your whole place when you're away. You could be sitting on an Airbnb and not even know it. Maybe you set up a home office during the pandemic and now you don't need it because you're back at work. Maybe you're traveling to see friends and family for the holidays. While your way, your home could be an Airbnb.

Whether you could use extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun, your home could be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca slash host. Hey, it's Guy Ross here. And on my podcast, how I built this, I talked to the founders behind some of the world's biggest companies, and together we discuss all of the skills behind some of the world's biggest companies, and together, we

discuss all of the skills they learned along the way, like confronting big challenges head on and how to lead through uncertainty. So check out how I built this on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. So to me, that's a transformational life changing mind-blowing way to think about life. It's to connect more deeply with them, to remind themselves, which is truly important. And one of the fascinating things about Marx's Realises Meditations is how often he returns to this very theme. For the most part, we can't change the world, but we can change ourselves. And specifically, the stoics would say, can change how we think about the world.

And that's really what stoicism is. It's a philosophy really it's a set of thinking exercises, perspective shifts that allow you to see things differently and thus allows things to go differently. I'm Ryan Holliday, written about stoic philosophy now for almost 15 years, talked about it everywhere from the NBA to the NFL, special forces, sitting senators. That's what we're going to talk about today. Some of the best stoic mind shifts from Marx releases medications to Seneca's letters to the life of Cato, to the example of Zeno. These are going to be important exercises from the stoics. The stoics try to apply, but if you apply, can allow you to change yourself and the world. but if you apply, it can allow you to change yourself and the world.

Poverty isn't just having too little. This is one of the insights from Seneca. He's saying that it's not just having too little, although having too little is a problem, and we wouldn't want to make light of that form of poverty. But he says poverty is also not having enough. And Seneca would have met extremely wealthy and rich people. Mark Srelys would have met extremely wealthy and rich people. Mark Srinley's would have met extremely wealthy and rich people.

I myself have met many, many rich people, but they don't feel rich. Not just because they have extravagant tastes, they're insatiable, but also because they're comparing themselves to people who have more. So it doesn't matter if you have a billion dollars. If you wake up and go, but I'm only 30th on the Forbes list, and these people have more or

not even financially, these people get more attention than me. These people are more respected than me. These people have more fun than me. This comparison makes us poor because we don't have a lot compared to what we wanted. We don't have a lot compared to what we used to have. We have a little compared to what we could have, or we have a little compared to what other people have. And so when you realize that there are impoverished, rich people, it should change your perspective. It should free you to realize that having more and more and more is not likely to solve your problems.

It's not likely to feel good. If you don't feel those things now, when by the way, you have enough. If you don't feel those things now, when by the way, you have enough. [♪ Music playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in you see is darkness and awfulness and evil, that's what your world is gonna look like. And it's funny, right? That Marx says it's reputation. It's book two of meditations.

He's saying, like, the people today you're gonna meet are unawing and obnoxious and jealous and all this, right? And it seems like Marx is doing exactly what he's saying not to do. But then he goes, look, these people just don't know any better. Their souls are cut off from truth, he said. This is your made to work with them. Nothing can implicate you in ugly.

So the Stokes are saying that what we think about, what we look for in this world, the term is what we're gonna be able to see. And that is the discipline of perception. That's the power that we have. Our mind dies, what our life will look like. It's the lenses through which we look at the world. If we look for beauty in the mundane,

as Marcus does repeatedly throughout meditation, we'll see that. If we look for the evidence of goodness in people, if we see our obligation to help and to work with them, we'll see that. If you decide to see agency and power in yourself in every situation, you'll find it, even in the darkest, hardest circumstances.

Anxiety isn't this thing that you eliminate that you avoid. It's something that's inside you. In Meditations and Mark's Realist Rites, today I escaped my anxiety. And he corrects himself because, actually, wait, no, I didn't. I discarded it because it was within me. And when you shift, you go, yeah, the airport is not making me anxious. This other person is not frustrating me,

or stressing me out, because they can't do it that to me. They are outside me. I am doing it to myself. It's my expectations that are the problem. It's my inability to accept things that is the problem. It's not your parents that are frustrating you. They're just doing what they do,

just like the airport is doing what it does. And so understanding that we're the source of the frustration, it's a little frustrating, yeah, but it's also very free because it means we can stop it. It means that we can choose to discard it, as Mark's really said. And that's actually one thing that I realized during the pandemic, right? I was traveling less, I was doing less, and yet I still had this anxiety. And of course, there was some anxiety because what was happening in the outside world was a bit crazy. But it was realizing that I was the common thread amidst all of these so-called causes of anxiety.

It was me. I was probably 19 or 20 years old and I was talking to Robert Green, greatest authors of all time, 40 laws of power. And I was thinking about becoming a writer. And I had some time left on my contract and the company I was working and he said, look, what is this next year gonna be for you? He said, is this gonna be a live time or dead time?

And what he meant by that was, was I gonna just gonna burn out this year of the contract, was I just gonna sit there? Was I gonna spend every minute of that year becoming better, reading better, reaching out to people, building relationships, trying new things, experimenting, and he was totally right that year, after I told myself in my head that I was gonna quit, I have relationships to this day that came out of that experience. And most of all, what I took was that, that sort of difference between a lifetime and dead time and how essential it is. Look, when you're stuck in traffic, is that going to be a lifetime or dead time for you? You're stuck at the airport. Are you going to sit there and order a pizza or you're going to walk around the terminal listening to a podcast?

Are you going to make a phone call that you've been putting off? Are you going to sit down and write that article or that book that you've told yourself? You're going to write. What are you going to do with time? You are not as much in control. That is the critical question. One of the big stoic shifts is realizing the past to miss fame is worthless. Right?

Marcus Aurelis was incredibly famous in his own lifetime. He built statues of him. These statues were in people's houses. He was the head of an empire of millions and millions of people. He would have known that the deeds of other emperors and conquerors had lasted throughout history. But he also stops himself and goes, wait, they're not around to enjoy this. You know, what good is it to Alexander that Alexandria is still

named after him. In fact in Meditations, Marksreel says, Alexander the Great and his Mule driver, they both died, both entered the earth in the same way. His point was that how many people remember just a couple emperors before him, he says, who remembers now the name of Vespassian? And he lists not just the emperor but influential advisors, the celebrities of that time. And he says they're all forgotten. And his point is, is not just that most of us, even the famous people, even people like Marcus,

are inevitably forgotten, right? We might be talking about him here in this video, but most people just know him as the old guy in the movie gladiator, if anything at all. But he says also, he says the people in the future are not magically gonna be smarter or better than the people are now. Right, so this idea that you're going to be vindicated by the future is also an empty and a silly hope.

And again, even if you are vindicated in the future, it won't do you any good because you won't be around to enjoy it. So do what's right now because it's right because you want to do it. Don't do it because you're trying to build this legacy for the future. Don't defer to love of your family. Don't defer being present. Don't defer your health, right? Because you're striving to make this thing that's going to last for eternity.

It won't. And even if it does, what good will that do? You take away power over events by expecting them, Senaika says. It's what catches us off guard what we refuse to prepare for, what we refuse to think about. That's what lands heaviest. So the Stokes practice pre-meditashable warms so they're prepared, so they can take advantage in advance of the opportunity to plan, prepare, to be resilient, to stiffen themselves up, so the blows if they don't land unexpected,

and unnecessarily hard. There's a tax on everything, the Stokes would say. There's that expression about death and taxes. Well, Seneca says it's not just that there's the taxes that the government levies on you, but there's all sorts of taxes in life. Delays are a tax on travel. Haters are a tax on putting things up on

YouTube. There's a tax on money too, right? The more successful you are, the more you end up having to pay. But Santa Claus is we have to learn how to pay the taxes of life gladly. Not just because most of the taxes in life are progressive, in the sense that the more good stuff you have, the more fees and problems that come alongside it, but also because it is a fact of life. And so when we see that these taxes are a fundamental part of our existence, we accept them, sure, do we try to mitigate them

as best we can, of course, but we accept that there are taxes on life and then the more good things we have, the more success we have, the more money we make, the more taxes we're going to have to pay. So, one of my favorite lessons from Epictetus, he says, it's impossible to learn that what you think you already know. Whenever I'm around people that are much better than me at something,

when I'm like embarrassingly bad at something, I have no fear or shame about asking really stupid questions. If I'm remotely unsure about something, I'll ask. I don't care if I look stupid, which is actually another really important lesson from Epitida. She says, look, if you want to improve, you have to be content to look stupid or foolish. You have to be willing to be embarrassed or to be awkward or be uncomfortable with something

or you can't get any better. So I'm not afraid to ask questions. I'm not afraid to look like an idiot. I'd rather look like an idiot than chop off my hand or have something fall on me or screw it up. So that's how I think about it. I'm not afraid to ask dumb questions. [♪ Music playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing're going to meet in the day, frustrating people, jealous people, stupid people, dishonest people, aggressive people. It's just a fact. Even his famous passage about how the obstacle is the way, the impediment to action, advances action. You always talk him out, talking about

difficult people. He's not saying you write them off, that's saying you cut them out. He's not saying you give up on humanity. He's saying that difficult people aren't an opportunity to be kind, to be patient, to be patient, to be good, to get the most out of them. The obstacle is the way even this about this very idea, difficult people exist, and we have to put up with them, figure out a way to work with them, and we have to rise to the occasion

of the people that we interact with. People don't seem to understand this one really important thing. It's that you have a superpower. You have the power, Mark really says, to have no opinion. He says, remember, events, things are not asking to be judged by you. You don't have to have an opinion about this, he says. You can just see it as it is. You can think nothing of it.

You don't have to label it. You don't have to put it in categories. You don't have to say it's fair or unfair, positive or negative, smart or dumb, just accept it as it is. The would still try to see the world as objective. Try not to insert opinions or judgments on top of things because this is the path to peace, it's the path to wisdom.

And of course, being agnostic in this way allows you to get to work doing what you need to do rather than wasting your time labeling, judging, and having opinions about stuff that is not up to you. EpicTid says every situation has two handles. One will bear away the other won't. So what are you gonna grab this by? How are you gonna choose to see it?

How are you going to choose to try to carry it? It's the same thing, a different perspective. Life is like that. We can look at it one way or we can choose to look at it another way. We can choose to look at something as an obstacle or we can choose to look at something as an opportunity. We can see chaos if we look close.

We can see order if we look from afar. We can see disadvantage if we look at it one way. We can see chaos if we look close, we can see order if we look from afar, we can see disadvantage if we look at it one way, we can see advantage if we look the other, we can see obstacle from this perspective opportunity from the other. Marcus talks about how things can get in the way of what we're trying to do. Our actions can be impeded, but we have this superpower, this ability that we can always accommodate and adapt and adjust. He says, the mind adapts and converts to its own purposes,

obstacle we're acting. What the hell does that mean? Well, he says, the impediment to action advances action what stands in the way we come. So this is stoic philosophy, this idea that the obstacle is the way. Basically, what it meant for the stoics was that every situation, big ones, small ones, fortunate, unfortunate ones, good ones, bad ones, positive

negative. Every situation was simply an opportunity for us to step up and be excellent or practice virtue. It's strange that the Stoics have this reputation for being unfeeling, for being emotionless, because actually four of Seneca's best and most moving pieces of writing are actually known as his consolations. He's letters that he's writing to friends, in one case to his mother, people who have lost some,

and he's consoling them in their grief. That's what it's about. And I actually read these essays whenever I've lost someone or I'm trying to comfort someone who's lost someone, they're great. Anyways, the part that hit me the most he's writing this letter to the daughter I've lost someone or I'm trying to comfort someone who's lost someone. They're great. Anyways, the part that hit me the most, he's writing this letter to the daughter of a friend who has died. And he's saying, but your father loved you very much,

loved you more than anything in the world. What do you think he would want from you right now? Of course, he wouldn't want you to be happy that he's dead and he'd be touched that you miss him and care about him. But would he want his memory of you, Senika says, to make you miserable, to make you bereft with sadness and filled with pain? Now it's the exact opposite. He want you to think about him and be happy to remember good times to be filled with joy, right? That's what he would want. And so of course we're always going to feel grief when we lose someone and when we think of someone we'll ask. But to remember what they would want us to remember,

it's such a wonderful little insight about grief. And it's such a good insight to the Stoics too, because if the Stoics were unfeeling and didn't have emotion, Senna go would just say, get over it, don't feel it. But that's not what he's saying at all. And Stetty came up with this great way of thinking about it. I'm looking here at this cemetery in New Orleans,

obviously every single person in it died. Eventually death happened to them, but Seneca wants us to remember that death was happening to them always. All 61 or 80 or 90 or 17 of the years that they were alive, they died every second, every minute, and then eventually that stopped happening. So to me, that's a transformational life-changing mind-blowing way to think about life.

Not the death is something in the future that happens once, but the death is something that's happening always, and every second, every minute that passes, every year that passes now belongs to death. It's as dead as any of the people in the cemetery. You'll never get it back, which is why you should live it, embrace it, and don't waste it while you have it. Every day I send out one stoic inspired email, the hundreds of thousands of people all over

the world. If you want more stoic wisdom in your inbox, you can sign up at dailystoic.com slash email. It's totally free. And don't subscribe at any time we'd love to have you, dailystoke.com slash email. Music 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. Hey, I'm Michelle Beetle.

And I'm Peter Rosenberg. Hey, Peter, tell the people about our new podcast. Right, it's called Over the Top, and we cover the biggest topics in sports and pop culture using royal rumble rules. That means we'll start with two stories. Toss one out on its ass and dive into the other stories with ruthless aggression. Oh, but it never stops because every 90 seconds after that.

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