This Is What You Have Been Working For

“A quarterback can spend thousands of hours in the gym, watching footage, and working on their throwing accuracy. But ultimately, what matters is what they do on Sunday. What matters is what they do in the 4th quarter. Surgeons can study pre-med, go to med school, spend years in residency, and read every scientific journal ever published. But ultimately, what matters is whether they can perform in the operating room. A musician can practice chords, study the greats, work with the best instructor, master every scale. But ultimately, what matters is how they move the audience.”Ryan talks about the importance of not only learning from what is happening, but applying what you’ve learned, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast.***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 The Daily Stoic, where each day we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living a good life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at DailyStoic.com.

• 0:27Ryan Holiday?

  This is what you've been working for. A quarterback can spend thousands of hours in the gym watching film and working on their throwing accuracy, but ultimately, what matters is what they do on Sunday. What matters is what they do in the fourth quarter. Surgeons can study pre-med, go to med school, spend years in residency, and read every scientific journal ever published, but ultimately, what matters is whether they can perform in the operating room. A musician can practice chords, study the greats, work with the best instructor, master every scale, but ultimately, what matters is how they move the audience. Epictetus's teacher, Musonius Rufus, talked about how

• 1:10Ryan Holiday?

  philosophy was like any profession. You can pour hours into mastering the precepts and acquiring the theoretical knowledge, but the mark of a great philosopher is how they perform when hardship comes. Are they courageous in facing the things which seem dreadful to the average person? Are they temperate amid circumstances that trigger most? Are they just when others are greedy and selfish? Are they wise in their actions or just in their speech? You've been reading this email for years. You've memorized most of meditations. You've journaled every morning. You've learned the stories of Xeno's shipwreck and Cato's suicide. You've mastered the precepts. You have the theoretical knowledge. You've studied the

• 1:53Ryan Holiday?

  greats. And now, it's game time. This is not a drill. You're in the operating room. You're onstage. Hardship is here. Will you be up to it? A pandemic is a moment, like all moments, where each and every one of the four Stoic virtues is called for. You can't panic, you can't be afraid, you can't hoard supplies or binge-watch TV. You must care for others, you must support the frontline responders, you must learn from what's happening, apply what you have already learned. "Virtue is not simply theoretical knowledge," Musonius said. "A man who wishes to become good must also be earnest and zealous in applying these principles." Well, you've put the hours in. Now is your chance to make your mark.

• 2:37Ryan Holiday?

  Show us virtue. Show us. A great philosopher.

• 2:42Ryan Holiday?

  Most of you already know this, but this daily podcast is based on the email we send out every day for Daily Stoic. If you aren't already subscribed and want to check it out, go to dailystoic.com/email. Emails can be a longer, more in-depth ways to tackle the things that we talk about in this podcast, along obviously with links, article, ideas, images, stuff like that. So, check it out. You can learn more at dailystoic.com/email.