The Daily Stoic - You Can’t Be Fragile Like This | Ask DS

Episode Date: August 31, 2023

Cato, one of the most vaunted and towering Stoics, built a reputation and a career out of his refusal to give an inch in the face of pressure. He fought to keep Rome as it was, as it always had been. He refused political compromise in every form. Cato was Cato. He could never be anything but rigid, upright, and strong.But Cato’s inflexibility did not always best serve the public good.---And in today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan answers questions during the Q&A session of the Daily Stoic Stoicism 101 Course. Topics covered include the similarities between Stoicism and tenants of the 12-Step program, how to do the deep work that you enjoy without getting bogged down by the less enjoyable tasks that come along with it, and how to deal with information overload.✉️ 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.

You're listening ad-free on Wondery Plus. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wondery's podcast, Business Wars. And in our new season, two of the world's leading hotel brands, Hilton and Marriott, stare down family drama and financial disasters. Listen to Business Wars on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. Well on Thursdays, we not only read the daily meditation, but we answer some questions

from listeners and fellow stoics. We're trying to apply this philosophy just as you are. Some of these come from my talks. Some of these come from Zoom sessions that we do with daily stoic life members or as part of the challenges. Some of them are from interactions I have on the street when there happened to be someone there recording. But thank you for listening

and we hope this is of use to you. You can't be fragile like this. Cato, one of the most vaunted and towering stoics, built a reputation in a career out of his refusal to give an inch in the face of pressure. He fought to keep Rome as it was that it always had been, and he refused political compromise in every form. Cato was Cato and he could never be anything but rigid and upright and strong. But Cato's inflexibility did not always best serve the public good.

Indeed, no one did more than Cato to rage against the republic's fall, but few did more to bring that fall to pass. When Pompey, one of Rome's greatest generals in political forces sought an alliance by proposing marriage to one of Cato's relatives, Cato's relatives. Kato's dismissive refusal led Pompey to ally with Caesar instead, and their combined

strength led to a radical shift in Rome's politics, overturning the longstanding traditions that Kato wanted to uphold. His refusal to compromise, his inflexibility, while driven by moral principles ultimately ended in crushing defeat. We recently talked about Robert Green's answer to the question, what is the most stoic law of power? Robert's answer that the main law is to have power over yourself, and that idea seeps into each of the 40 laws of power,

is actually captured in law 48, assume formlessness. Except the fact that nothing is certain and no law is fixed, Robert writes, the best way to protect yourself is to be as fluid and formless as water. While we can admire the high integrity and uprightness of the Cato's of the world, the truth is that the unflexible, the uncompromising, pure person who cannot adjust, who cannot conceive of doing things anyway, but their own is extremely fragile. We have to be able to be flexible

to change, to adapt. In a world filled with chaos and uncertainty in change, the Stoic said, we must cultivate the ability to be adaptable, resilient, and in harmony with the ever-changing currents of life. In a great exchange between Epictetus and one of his students, the student says, tell me what to do. And Epictetus says, it would be better to say, make my mind adaptable to any circumstances. Regidity is fragile. Formlessness is unbreakable. If you want some lessons from the master on formlessness,

you can come see Robert Green and I in conversation sharing a stage talking for a couple hours. Very soon, we're gonna be talking live in Los Angeles on the 19th of September and live in Seattle on September 21st. He's one of my favorite people in the world. You've heard him on this podcast many, many times. If you want to ask him questions, if you want to come to the VIP meet and greet, if you

want to see Robert and I do what we do, it's going to be a unique special show in each spot, never to be seen before or again. And I'm really excited to do that. You can grab those tickets at RyanHoliday.net-2 or I'll link to it in today's show notes. But I hope to see you all in person in September, Seattle and Los Angeles. RyanHoliday.net-2 or Come See Robert Green and I do what we do, and learn some formlessness. [♪ Music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to a Thursday episode of the Daily Stoke Podcast. We're doing a Q&A today that's actually drawn from the Stoicism 101 course. I think it's one of the best courses we've done over at Daily Stoke.

If you're looking to get introduced to Stoicism, you want to take your study of it to the next level. You want to go back to basics or you want to build a really good foundation of what Stoicism is and how you can use it. That's what the course is about. I'll link to that in today's show notes. But this is drawing from one of the many Q&A's we've done as part of the session. People got to come in and ask me a bunch of questions.

That's where today's Q&A is coming from. It's just a selection. And I hope you join us in stoicism 101. You can ask some of your own questions. I'll link to that in today's show notes or just type in Stoicism 101 in the Daily Stoke Store. Hey, thanks for calling on me, Ryan. Of course.

Really happy I got to join this one. I'm at work and I've been kind of going back and forth. But, oh, awesome. Thanks for having me. I heard about you. So many, I think it was on ESPN was talking about Nick Sabin and Bill Bellicuk being fans of obstacle the way. So I went on and talked to him. I love it was on ESPN was talking about Nick Sabin and Bill Belichick being fans of obstacle the way. So I went out and talked to him. I love it. So my question, somebody had mentioned

the similarities between Buddhism and Stoicism. I'm seeing a lot of similarities between Stoicism and 12-step literature recovery. One major difference that I see is the idea of the will. Right? So in stoicism seems like you need a strong will. Yes. You need to be diligent, you need to do you know on top of your every action where in 12 step it's the idea of the will is what gets us in the problems, right? And we have to turn our will over. So it's turning the will over in stoicism, just a dedication to the four virtues. I think, you know, that's an interesting question. And I think it's complicated, right?

I definitely get the idea in both in Buddhism and in 12-step, the sort of the willful will, your sort of sense that you're the center of the universe, that this is all about you, that that is what gets us into trouble. At the same time, I would argue the Stokes probably agree with that, and I say this in obstacle, when we think about will, we often think will power,

but I think for the Stokes, a big part of will was that idea of acceptance, of, you know, sort of accepting one's powerlessness over a situation and bringing your will power to the endurance side of things, rather than the assertion side of things. So I would, I think they're probably more aligned than it might seem. Yeah, I mean, there's some phrases that just jump out of me, progress, not perfection. You know, yeah, this serenity prayer is straight out of the four virtues it sounds like. Which is amazing. Definitely is. Well, thank you. Of course. No, thank you. Well, I think this was coming a little bit earlier. You're talking about the easiest way to kind of get into those deep work states,

those flow kind of states is doing what you like. Yes. Obviously in like pursuit of doing the things you love, you're going to run into things that you don't like doing. So, I'm sure you love running the daily stoic and doing your writing, but I'm sure you deal with suppliers or whatever, and maybe like the business side of things is in your favorite part or something. I'm just fitballing. For me, student, I love learning about some of these things

I do, but then I may have to take a course that I don't really like. Sure. And so, how do you like still do that deep work when it's not something you want to do? Obviously, there's going to be times like that. Yeah, I did a video about this. I think over the weekend that was helpful to me. I first heard the phrase from Tim Ferris, I don't know

if you invented it or not, but the idea is like sort of make before you mention or sorry, make before you manage. And so to me, the idea is like, I do the creative sort of flow oriented tasks first, and then I do the other stuff later. So I try to think about it as the first half of the day is for the creative stuff, the second half of the day is for the administrative stuff. So I don't wanna burn myself out and then have to go do the important thing.

I wanna have already done the important stuff because if the administrative task takes an extra day, so be it, but if I'm putting off the important stuff, maybe I'll never get that moment again. All right, yeah, that's helpful. I appreciate. Great. Thanks, Ryan. Yeah. I was introduced to you a while ago with stillness, a bunch of us at work, we're reading it, and then I took me into a bunch of your other books. Oh, awesome. It took me into a bunch of your other books. Oh, awesome. I've read some of the novels you recommended,

like Hurricane and the Banana King, and I'm reading a man in full right now. You've got the sessions here now. We've got a couple of emails that come out every morning. And literally, for the past few days, I've had a headache. And I'm wondering, like, I think it's information overload.

I'm sure eating up a lot of, I'm loving it, but I'm also finding it's too much right now. And so any advice on how to pair back, I don't want to get burnt out, but I think I need to pair back, but you provide so much content at the same time. You know, it's like how do we pick and choose and what do you do? A lot of your chapters are short chapters, but you provide so much content at the same time. You know, it's like how do we pick and choose and then what do you do?

A lot of your chapters are short chapters, so I think you know, that's intentional. So, do you want to buy a deal, please? So it's a great question. All the stuff I put out is not really supposed to be consumed by one person, right? So the idea is that different people consume in different

mediums, some people like videos, some people like audio, some people like email, some people like books. The idea is I put a lot of stuff out there and I hope that people, a small percentage of it reaches each person, right? So definitely pick and choose what you like, what fits into your life, what is the medium that's most conducive to your learning. But I would say I get to that place to where there's just too much, you're too busy, you're fried, you're realizing the retention is not there. I think the best thing you do there is you step back. You just you take a minute and you you you allow yourself to recive this goes to the point

we're talking about as far as recovery goes, right? If you're not resting and recovering, you're probably at some point of diminishing return. So I definitely think about that. Although I heard a good piece of advice the other day where someone was saying like, if you ever get to a place where you're too tired to do anything,

but scroll on your phone or watch TV, you should go to sleep. Like, the point is to go to sleep, not to just stay up and do more mindless activities, but to go to sleep. So usually when I find myself at that place, I try to remind myself like, this is probably even deeper than just like not reading. This is like, I'm not taking care of myself and I need to literally go to bed and start over the next day or the next week or whatever. I wonder how many people are actually struggling with that now because I do, the number of times my kids wake me up on the couch

or my legs still on in my room, all that sort of stuff. Yeah, totally. 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 add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts. When we think of sports stories, we tend to think of tales of epic on the field glory. But the new podcast, Sports Explains the World, brings you some of the wildest

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