These Simple Words Will Help You Through Life's Most Difficult Situations

On today's episode, Ryan introduces 3 core Stoic concepts that are sure to help you through whatever life puts in front of you. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche would describe his formula for human greatness as amor fati—a love of fate. Memento Mori—the ancient practice of reflection on mortality that goes back to Socrates, who said that the proper practice of philosophy is “about nothing else but dying and being dead.” The single most important practice in Stoic philosophy is differentiating between what we can change and what we can’t. This episode is also brought to you by stamps.com, a secure Internet mailing solution to print postage using your computer. Stamps.com allows you to mail and ship anytime, anywhere right from your computer. Send letters, ship packages, and pay a lot less with discounted rates from USPS, UPS, and more. There’s NO risk. Use the promo code, STOIC, to get a special offer that includes a 4-week trial PLUS free postage and a digital scale. No long-term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click on the Microphone at the TOP of the homepage and type in STOIC. This episode is brought to you by Beekeeper’s Naturals, the company that’s reinventing your medicine with clean, effective products that actually work. Beekeepers Naturals has great products like Propolis Spray and B. LXR. Beekeeper’s Naturals created a whole hive of products packed with immune-loving essentials so you can feel your best all day, every day. As a listener of the Daily Stoic Podcast you can receive 15% off your first order. Just go to beekeepersnaturals.com/STOIC or use code STOIC at checkout to claim this deal. This episode is also brought to you by FitTrack, the best way to calculate your body’s composition accurately, reliably, and consistently. Every FitTrack smart scale uses advanced algorithms to offer insights into 17 different metrics indicative of bodily health. The Dara Smart Scale syncs with the free FitTrack App so all of your health insights are saved in one place. Go to fittrack.com/stoic to take 50% off your order, plus get an additional 30% with code BUILD30 at checkout. ***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 @DailyStoic: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.

• 0:02Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Weekend Edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something that can help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, wisdom, and temperance. And here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers. We reflect. We prepare. We think deeply about the challenging issues of our time. And we work through this philosophy in a way that's more possible here when we're not rushing to work or to get the kids to school, when we have the time to think, to go for a walk,

• 0:44Ryan Holiday?

  to sit with our journals, and to prepare for what the future will bring.

• 0:51Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another Weekend episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. Today, I wanted to present to you three Stoic phrases, three Stoic concepts that I think will resonate with you. I know you're familiar with all of them. Well, I hope you're familiar with all of them, so I won't spoil them. But in this form, this is adapted from a video we've done. The video has been seen almost a million times. It's got almost 50,000 thumbs up on YouTube. It's one of our most popular videos. So I thought I would share it with you. We'll get right into it. But I think these words will help you in the difficult situations of life.

• 1:35Ryan Holiday?

  These are sort of mantras I try to repeat to myself on a daily basis. You don't have to, you know, maybe not all of them are going to resonate with you, but I think at least one out of the three should hit you. And hopefully, you can find a situation in the upcoming days and weeks ahead that you can apply this to your actual life. This will help you at a turning point, a decision, a challenge, a temptation. And let's see what you can do with it.

• 2:06Ryan Holiday?

  What the Stoics talk about is the idea of loving what happens. Marcus really says that what you throw on top of a fire is fuel for the fire. So what you want to cultivate, what you have to practice, you have to almost repeat it like a mantra to yourself, is the practice of loving everything that happens. Not just accepting it, not just tolerating it, but leaning into it, going, "This is for me, I chose this, I want it this way, and it's the best fucking thing that ever happened to me." When the computer eats the manuscript you've been working on, you say, "Amor fati, I love it." When you're stuck in traffic, you say, "Amor fati, I love it." When you're criticized on Twitter, when your boss calls you out, you say, "Amor fati, I love it, I'm gonna be better for this having happened to me."

• 2:51Ryan Holiday?

  When you're hungry, you say, "I love it, I'm alive, I feel this, I'm gonna make the most of it." You say, "Amor fati." When you lose someone you love, it might seem crazy to say, "Amor fati," but no amount of anger, no amount of resentment, no amount of sadness brings them back. So you, you take what you can from this. That's what amor fati is. You use it as fuel, you become better from it, you become improved by it. You have cancer, you're disabled, you're white or black, you're short or tall, you're rich or poor. Amor fati, "I'm gonna make the most of it, I'm not gonna let this stop me, I'm gonna be better for this having happened." When Thomas Edison's factory burned down, he finds his son, his son is stunned, shell shocked.

• 3:36Ryan Holiday?

  That's how most people are when they face obstacles. But Edison grabbed him and he said, "Go get your mother and all her friends, they'll never see a fire like this again." That's what amor fati is. "I'm gonna use this." And he rebuilds that factory, he tells a reporter the next day, "This is gonna prevent me from getting bored, this is gonna be the next act of my life." And that's what he did, he rebuilt. He didn't whine, he didn't complain, he didn't point the finger, he just moved on and he just kept going. And that's what we have to do with every obstacle that we face. Whatever it is, big or small, fair or unfair, chosen or tragic, we say, "Amor fati." Love it all, use it as fuel, become better for this having happened. And that's a formula for human greatness.

• 4:20Ryan Holiday?

  It's the only way that we should go through the world, because it's the only way that turns the bad things in life into good things.

• 4:32Ryan Holiday?

  Got a quick message from one of our sponsors and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned.

• 4:40Ryan Holiday?

  If there's one thing that philosophy can teach any athlete, whether you're an amateur, whether you're a collegiate, prospect, whether you're a top-ranked recruiter, whether you're making millions of dollars in the pros, is something that I talked about to the Cleveland Browns this year when they had me talk about Stoicism. I started my talk and I said, "Look, everyone in this room controls one thing. They control how they play. You don't control what your teammates do, you control how you play. You don't control what they say about you on Twitter, you control how you play. You don't control the size of your contract, you control how you play. You don't control what they say about you from the stands, you control how you play.

• 5:25Ryan Holiday?

  You don't control what the ref says, you control how you play. You don't control whether it's snowing, you don't control whether it's raining, you don't control whether it's 100 degrees, you control how you play. You don't control whether your teammates get hurt, you don't control if your teammates are fair, you don't control if the guy in the position ahead of you wants to groom you and mentor you or not, you control how you play. You don't control whether your opponents cheat, you control how you play. You don't control if your coach is a bully and he screams at you, you control how you play. You don't control if people are doubting you, if they don't believe in you, you control how you play.

• 6:09Ryan Holiday?

  You don't control yesterday's game, you control how you play today. You don't control if you've lost to this team 1,000 times, you control how you play. You don't control if your team wins, you control how you play. You don't control if you lose, you control how you play. All you control, if it's not clear enough, is how you play right now, right this second. Whether there's doubters, whether you're being adored, all you control is how you play, the effort that you bring, the decisions you make, the principles by which you operate. And that's ultimately all you can judge yourself on. You don't control the outcome. You don't control the facts. You don't control anything but how you play.

• 6:52Ryan Holiday?

  But if we can focus on this, the Stoics said, if we can focus exclusively on what we control, not only be happier, we'll have way more energy and way more to focus on what is in front of us while everyone else wastes time whining about, complaining about, worrying about, thinking about, bragging about what they don't control.

• 7:16Ryan Holiday?

  Got a quick message from one of our sponsors and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned.

• 7:22Ryan Holiday?

  There's two words that come to us from the ancients that I think we should remind ourselves of, repeat to ourself in any and every situation we're in. You win the lottery, you strike it rich, you get recognized, you get an award, you say to yourself, memento mori, remember you will die. You go through shit, you go through trouble. Someone cheats on you, someone betrays you, someone lies to you, someone steals from you, someone gets what you earned, someone gets promoted over you, you say to yourself, memento mori, remember that I will die. You could leave life right now, Marcus Aurelius said, let that determine what you do and say and think.

• 8:07Ryan Holiday?

  You get in a fight with your girlfriend or your boyfriend, your parents say something mean or let you down, your neighbor pisses you off, you break your leg, you blow out your knee, you fall out of love with someone, you're stressed out by work, your kids are sick, you say to yourself, memento mori, life is short, I'm going to die. And what that means is you can't take any of this seriously. You can't let it weigh on you, you can't hold on to it, you can't let it puff you up either.

• 8:40Ryan Holiday?

  If you're rich, you're famous, you have a million Instagram followers, you just got hired, you just got into Harvard, you just got nominated for a Nobel Prize, you just got a call from the president, you just got a promotion, you just got a raise. Memento mori, you will die. You can't take any of this with you. It pales in comparison to the idea of eternity. How many people have come before you and had these same honors? And where are they now? They're fucking dead, just like you will be. What Marcus really said is this practice of memento mori, of saying to the good things and to the bad things in life, that we will die. It's a reminder that helps you

• 9:25Ryan Holiday?

  accept the good things without arrogance and to let the bad things go with indifference. Your plane is delayed, you're stressed, you're tired, you're hungry, you're frustrated, you're cynical. You say, "Memento mori, I'm going to die." What does any of this mean? Why am I taking any of it so seriously? Why am I letting it get to me? What's three hours here, or three hours there? Remember, you are going to die. What you do control is whether you waste time getting upset by this, whether you waste time taking it personally, whether you're the best in the world at what you do, or you're an unpaid intern, whether your work is being beloved by the critics or savaged by the critics,

• 10:09Ryan Holiday?

  whether you have more opportunities than you know what to do with, whether you can't get the one shot, no one will even give you a chance, whether you have all the money you need or you can barely get by, you say, "Memento mori, remember, I will die." None of this matters in light of that. Whether you're having sex with a beautiful supermodel, whether you're putting your kid down to bed. Whether you're sitting there in your pajamas eating cereal, or you are standing in front of a prestigious audience, memento mori, you will die. Is this how you want to spend your time? Are you wasting it? Or are you living it? Are you embracing it? Or are you letting it escape from your grasp? Memento mori. Remember, I will die.

• 10:54Ryan Holiday?

  You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think. Whatever you're experiencing, whatever you're going through, however awesome your life is, however frustrating it is right now, memento mori. Remember, you will die. This too shall pass. You must not forget that.

• 11:19Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Thanks so much for listening. If you could leave a review for the podcast, we'd really appreciate 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. And I'll see you next episode.