You Don’t Have To Do This Anymore | On Being Invincible

“In one of the most vulnerable scenes in the Taylor Swift documentary on Netflix, Swift talks about how she feels while looking at a paparazzi photo of herself. Her lifelong habit she says, is to see what’s wrong with her appearance, to instinctively see that she needs to lose weight, to start monitoring what she eats more closely, quite possibly to stop eating all together.”Ryan discusses the process of identifying and rooting out problems in our lives, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is brought to you by Talkspace, the online and mobile therapy company. Talkspace lets you send and receive unlimited messages with your dedicated therapist on their platform 24/7. To match with a licensed therapist today, go to Talkspace.com or download the app. Use the code STOIC to get $100 off of your first month and show your support for the show.***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. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Thursdays, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation, but also reading a passage from the book The Daily Stoic, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living, which I wrote with my wonderful co-author and collaborator, Stephen Hanselman. And so today, we'll give you a quick meditation from one of the Stoics, from Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and some analysis from me. And then we send you out into the world to do your best to turn these words into works.

• 0:43Speaker 01

  You don't have to do this anymore. In one of the most vulnerable scenes in the Taylor Swift documentary on Netflix, Swift talks about how she feels while looking at a paparazzi photo of herself. Her lifelong habit, she says, is to see what's wrong with her appearance, to instinctively see that she needs to lose weight, to start monitoring what she eats more closely, and quite possibly stop eating altogether. But then she stops herself as she lingers on the photo, drawn as she is toward that well-worn habit, and says, "No, we don't do that anymore. I know where this leads," she says, "and I'm not interested in going there." It's a remarkable moment because you're getting to see the power of self-talk

• 1:27Speaker 01

  and look into the process of someone who has put real work at breaking a destructive pattern. In meditations, Marcus Aurelius talks about discarding his anxiety because he knows that it's within him. It's not something that's done to him. Anxiety is something that he does to himself, which means he can stop it too. "I don't have to do this anymore," he's saying, "I'm stopping right now." In fact, what's so unique about his book Meditations is those scenes of self dialogue where Marcus is convincing himself to get out of bed in the morning, to not be frustrated by frustrating people, to not feel sorry for himself because something bad happened, to not be afraid of death even as his health fades.

• 2:12Speaker 01

  You should know that whatever destructive patterns you're in, reaching for a bottle when you're feeling worthless, losing your temper, procrastinating, overusing your phone, struggling with food issues, you have the power to have the conversation that Swift is having, that Marcus had, you can say, "No, I don't do that anymore," because you know where it leads and you're not going to go there. It's not an easy conversation to have, but it may well save your life. So identify what needs to be said and insist on saying it.

• 2:46Ryan Holiday?

  On being invincible. Who then is invincible? The one who cannot be upset by anything outside their reasoned choice. That's Epictetus, Discourses 1.18. Have you ever watched a seasoned pro handle the media? No question is too tough, no tone too pointed or insulting. They parry every blow with humor, poise, and patience. Even when stung or provoked, they choose not to flinch or react. They're able to do this not only because of training and experience, but because they understand that reacting emotionally will only make the situation worse. The media is waiting for them to slip up or get upset. So to successfully navigate press events, they've internalized the importance of keeping themselves under calm control.

• 3:31Ryan Holiday?

  It's unlikely, of course, that you'll face a horde of probing reporters bombarding you with insensitive questions, but it might be helpful, whatever stresses or frustrations or overload that do come your way, to picture that image and to use it as your model for dealing with them. Our reasoned choice, as the Stoics call it, is a kind of invincibility that we can cultivate. We shrug off hostile attacks and we breeze through pressure or problems. And like our model, when we finish, we can point back into the crowd and say, "Next." It is a skill. I mean, one of the things you learn, I love this one, you learn this as you give talks, that go, "Look, if you ever get asked a question that you don't know the answer to, or you don't like your answer to, or you know is a trap..." Just pose your own question and answer that.

• 4:15Ryan Holiday?

  And I love, I love that, not because it's clever and a little bit manipulative, but I love it because it's like, oh, yeah. You don't control what happened, but you control how you just choose to respond. And you can kind of create your own environment. You know, the Trump years have given us a weird sense of media because things are so polarized. But, you know, you, you watch as reporters hurl questions at, at the press secretary or at the president, or this politician, or that athlete. And what are they trying to do? They're trying to provoke a reaction because the reaction is good for the reporters, right? But put aside whether they're, you know, actually after the truth or not. In a lot of cases, they are. But what they want is to provoke a reaction. They want to make news.

• 4:58Ryan Holiday?

  And you sort of learn as a public figure, like, you can make a situation worse by giving a dumb answer. If you don't answer, if you say no comment, right? Even the ability to say no comment is an innovation. It goes to what we've talked about before with Marcus Aurelius, where he says, you always have the ability to have no opinion. You can be silent. But, you know, our impulse is always to react, react, react. And then we get ourselves into trouble. And so the person who cannot be upset by things outside their reasoned choice, who focuses on what they control, who is disciplined, who has poise, who can roll with the punches and stick with their game plan, no matter what's being thrown at them, that's a great model for life. It's a, it's, it's an essential ingredient to being a public figure or a leader.

• 5:42Ryan Holiday?

  But it's also just a recipe for a good life. So today, think about that, just that you're in control. You decide the rhythm. You decide what you respond to. Don't just react. Don't swing at every pitch. You gotta have some of that discipline. You gotta see the intentions behind the things that are being hurled at you. And you gotta know that they want you to make a mistake. That's what they're trying to do. And if you can control yourself, you can at least not make stressful or difficult situations worse. And that's a, that's as good a place as any to start. Thanks so much for listening. If you could leave a review for the podcast, we'd really appreciate it. The, the reviews make a difference. And of course, every nice review from a nice person helps balance out the crazy people

• 6:25Ryan Holiday?

  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 really help the show. We appreciate it. I'll see you next episode.