The Daily Stoic - You Must Make This Shift | How Stoicism Helps You Deal With Big Challenges

Episode Date: April 11, 2023

Marcus Aurelius ruled over millions of people, and he didn't care what any of them thought about him. Well at least, he worked hard to not care about what any of them thought of him. We see that throughout Meditations where we see him repeatedly talk about focusing more on his own actions than other people's opinions.The accidental byproduct of this focus was that those millions of people loved Marcus.This is usually how it goes.---And today, Ryan puts his Stoicism to the test by taking on the challenge of running up the treacherous 8 mile road to the Cerro Gordo Ghost Town (@GhostTownLiving) in California. Watch the full video here.🎧 Listen to the full Ian Happ interview here.✉️ 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.

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 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. You must make this shift. Marcus really has ruled over millions of people and he didn't care what any of them thought about him. Well, at least he worked hard not to care about what any of them thought about him. Well, at least he worked hard not to care about what any of them thought about him.

We see that throughout meditations, where we see him repeatedly talk about focusing more on his own actions than other people's opinions. The accident, I'll buy product of this focus, was that millions of people loved Marcus. And that is usually how it goes. After a great rookie season with the Chicago Cubs in 2017, Ian Hap had a rough second year. And then he started the 2019 season by

being sent back down to the minor leagues. On the Daily Stoke podcast recently, Hap talked about the mindset shift that helped him get back to the majors. You know, instead of wondering why, or trying really hard to impress a coach, or somebody that makes the decisions, to say, you know what, I'm gonna believe in myself and put in the same work. And, you know, at some point, they're not gonna be able to keep me out of the lineup.

And I found myself caring more about what the guy that made the decisions thought and kind of getting away from my process. And what made me a really good player and trying to do kind of the things that wouldn't get me put on the bench. You know, and the end result of that is always like, you do the things that get you put on the bench. Shifting his focus from the externals to the internals, hap worked himself back into the Cubs lineup and this past season, he made his first All-Star team and picked up his first golden glove, award in the process. That's what happens when you care more about what you

are doing and less about what others are thinking. As Mark Sirilius writes, ambition means time, your well-being, to what other people say or do. Self-indulgence means tying it to the things that happen to you. But real success, real mastery, real sanity, that, he says, comes only by tying it to your own actions. So that's why we as Stoic shift our focus

to the internal stats and the scoreboards. We focus on the things we control, the choices we make, the work we put in, the standards we hold ourselves to. We trust in that and know that the rest will take care of itself. It's funny, I talked to lots of people and a good chunk of those people haven't been readers for a long time. They've just gotten back into it. And I always love hearing that and they tell me how they fall in love with reading,

they're reading more than ever, and I go, let me guess, you listen audiobooks, don't you? And it's true, and almost invariably, they listen to them on Audible. That's because Audible offers an incredible selection of audiobooks across every genre from bestsellers and new releases to celebrity memoirs, and of course, ancient philosophy, all my books are available on audio, read by me for the most part. Audible lets you enjoy all your audio entertainment in one app, you'll always find the best of what you love, or something new to discover, and as an Audible member you get to choose one title a month to keep from their entire catalog, including the latest bestsellers and new releases. You'll discover thousands of titles

from popular favorites, exclusive new series, and exciting new voices in audio. You can check out Stillness is the Key, the Daily Dad. I just recorded so that's up on Audible now. Coming up on the 10-year anniversary of the obstacle is the way audio books, so all those are available. And new members can try Audible for free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash daily stoke or text daily stoke to 500 500.

That's audible.com slash daily stoke or text daily stoke to 500 500. There's an epic to you this line. He says, if you only enter competitions, we're winning this up to you. You'll never be defeated. I think he means racing against yourself, setting your own standards, then success is in your hands. So what I like about challenge is the way I think about it in my life is who am I racing against,

who am I trying to beat? If I'm trying to beat myself, if I'm trying to push myself, if I'm trying to win just by trying, by doing it, then I'm in the right headspace and I'm thinking about it the right way. Seven ish. Seven ish, okay.

Plus or minus it, but the problem really isn't the miles. It's right now we're at 3500 feet in elevation. It sounds at 8500 feet in elevation. Okay. So that's 5,000 feet elevation gain. And 5,000 feet is about a mile. So you're gaining about a mile.

So I'm basically going uphill one mile. Seven distance, but then seven miles. Well, one mile of that is basically straight up. Yes. Okay. Do you think anyone's ever done this before? Ran up it? Yeah. Not like willingly, you know, maybe back in 1800s.

I had a message like the back there's a- The rollers wash on, they had to get a message up right in the middle of the night. But I don't think willingly anybody has run up this, oh wow. Okay. I think the real question with it all is how long is it going to take? Do you have an estimate of up this uh, it's really a lot of oil. Okay. I think the real question with it all is how long is it gonna take? Do you have an estimate of how long you think it's gonna take? So, I did seven miles earlier this week, let me see. It took me under an hour to do seven miles,

probably like 50 minutes to do seven miles in a row. I would like to think less than double that, so less than two hours. The other caveat is, under three days ago, the entire road got washed out, so you're gonna have a rivet rivets. That's so bad. I live on a jerk road like this. This is where I practice. Gus, do you guess higher or lower? I mean higher. You think how long do you think it's okay? 245? 245? I don't want the stakes sitting in there for two hours under it. We're

taking guesses on how long it's gonna take me to do seven miles on the road with about 5,000 feet of elevation climb. What's your guess? Powering 40. Well, I appreciate you believing in me. I don't have any expectation of doing that, but we'll see. My guess is three hours and 35 minutes. All right, I can definitely do that. Comment below how long you think I see a dig trying to run seven miles.

We need an official clock here. I'm going to start a run on mine. Where's the starting line? The sign is the starting line. The sign touched the sign and then touched the porch. The porch of the museum is the end. Which time are we going to go and wrap it on? Yep.

There's no turns I can take. so I can't get lost, right? No, just trade the road. All right, let's touch the sign. Yep. All right. It's on. The first few miles, everything was going great, felt easy, and it started creeping up. The climb is just relentless. I tried to catch myself at about what felt like halfway,

which had been about three and a half miles. I tried to go, don't think of this as halfway. The problem is when you start to get optimistic, when you start to think you're on the downside of it. As a writer, this happens all the time. You go, I'm at the halfway point, and I'm about to submit it, there's all these false finishes, right, or false check marks.

You think you're further than you actually are. And then when you realize how much further there is left to go, this is when it crushes you, this is when it kills you. You have to have the discipline to reign in that sort of preemptive celebration, that sense that you've got it. The halfway point, you have to remind yourself,

isn't even close to halfway done. And in fact, the last 10 percent, that might be as hard as a full 50 percent. And so it gets harder as you go, especially on a trail like this where the climb was just... I said to myself when I was starting, like, it levels off. There's moment, I thought I remember ups and downs. Now this is just up and up and up and up the whole time. There's one point where I'm running and it's real steep. And I'm like struggling with it. And then I remember when I drove my truck up here last time, our truck overheated at that point.

So you think about how steep and relentless a climb has to be to knock out an F-150 4x4 without being injured in it. Of course I was struggling and so I had to remind myself, you know, I'm just a human being. So, you're just about halfway. I want to have miles, I better be further than halfway. I'd say you're about halfway. I'd say you're about halfway. You're about halfway. You're only saying half way is 90% last. Right so you're doing good time though you're

under an hour. That's pretty damn good. That's pretty damn good I should probably tell myself it's too So last time is always the hardest you wouldn't think it could just keep going up. Enough. The important thing about confidence is like when you know you can do something, like I know I can write a book because I've written a book. I know I can run real far because I've run real far. I know I can push my body further than my body things I can go. When you know that, you have a kind of confidence that lets you go, okay, this is physically

possible. I'm probably not going to die doing it. So then it becomes a matter of sheer willpower. The key is an hour behind you. You're not going to think too far ahead. There's one foot in front of the other, but it's hard when you get a flash forward of how much I have to go. That time I was just really saying, you can't be crushed by your imagination as a whole.

All the shit that has to come. I think they got the distance wrong. It's already 675. There's got to be quite a way to go. The shorts have held up well. The shirt too. There's a John Wooden thing where he first day of practice he has the best recruits in the world. They think it's gonna give him all

the sage advice. You guys gentlemen, this is how you put on your socks and he says gentlemen, this is how you lace up your shoes. You're like, what? This point is, you don't do that right. You don't sweat the small stuff. Don't get the big things right. The devil's in the details, as they say. I like these socks. The 10,000 socks are decent. All right.

More seamless finish of shit. Hey, Brad. Yeah. Do you have any of the meat? I've got it. Two hours, one hour, 59 minutes, and 26 seconds. That's right, I got it. Because I'm on this tour for discipline, I think what I wanted to test myself and test my

discipline, which is why I had the idea that I would run from the bottom of Saragordo to the top of Saragordo. It was a physical challenge unlike really any I'd done before. I knew that it wasn't about speed, it was really about like, could I push myself, could I last longer, even when I was uncomfortable, and tired, and exhausted, and totally out of gas. I talk about Shackleton, and this was destiny, and you think about, he had this motto, I endurance we conquer, and you think about what he's subjected to, you think about

what, how badly he would have quit, and you think about what a skill that is, it's a muscle to develop, the sense of fortitude and strength and an unwillingness to quit and you have to seek out things in your life that allow you to test that and by testing it make it a little bit stronger. The key thing that humans have to cultivate in life is the ability to endure, to survive, to hold on, to hold fast to the things that are important to them. That to me is the ability to bear, to endure, to survive, to hold on, to hold fast to the things that are important to them. That, to me, is the ability to bear, to endure. This is how we conquer, this is how we get through difficult times, this is how we show the world who we are 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. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just going to end up on Page Six or Du Moir or in court. I'm Matt Bellesai. And I'm Sydney Battle, and we're the host of Wonder E's new podcast, Dis and Tell, where each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud from the build up, why it happened, and the repercussions. What does our obsession with these feuds say about us? The first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama, but none is drawn out in personal as Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears.

When Britney's fans formed the free Britney movement dedicated to fraying her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lynn's lack of public support, it angered some fans, a lot of them. It's a story of two young women who had their choices taken away from them by their controlling parents, but took their anger out on each other. And it's about a movement to save a superstar, which set its sights upon anyone who failed to fight for Brittany. Follow Disenthal wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or The Wondery App.

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 Codopaxi, as well as entrepreneurs working to solve some of the biggest problems of our time, like developing technology that pulls energy from the ground

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