This is What Winners Do | Ask DS

In April 1960, the writer Richard Whalen was trying to meet with Diane Nash and the sit-in students for a Time Magazine cover story. These young college students had suddenly become the focus of an immense amount of attention, not just from the press but from the police and politicians and the rest of the civil rights leaders (we have a great podcast episode on the Stoicism of the Civil Rights movements here with Thomas Ricks). How were these kids going to upend years of stymied racial progress?---And in today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan answers questions covering topics that include the top five Stoic habits that can improve your life, strategies for staying calm in difficult situations, how to find good books to read, and more, ✉️ 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. 📢 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 Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. While on Thursdays, we not only read the daily meditation, but we answer some questions from listeners and fellow Stoics who are 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. Thank you for listening, and we hope this is of use to you.

• 0:45Ryan Holiday?

  This is what winners do. In April 1960, the writer Richard Whalen was trying to meet with Diane Nash and the Sit-In Students for a Time Magazine cover story. These young students had suddenly become the focus of an immense amount of attention, not just from the press, but from the police and politicians and the rest of civil rights leaders. How were these kids going to upend years of stymied racial progress? How could they possibly challenge a system in which the police and the courts and elected leaders and public opinion were all against them? Could they win? It seemed very unlikely. Richard Whalen was stunned to find that he had trouble asking these students questions because they were not particularly interested in meeting with him. They were too busy. They did not have the time,

• 1:30Ryan Holiday?

  even though he represented what was, at the time, one of the most important publications in the world. Finally, Diane and her team agreed they would see him at 6:00 a.m., before the morning strategy that started their day. "Whalen could only marvel, '6:00 a.m.? The only time they can meet with me is 6:00 a.m.?' They're going to win, aren't they?" he said. Winners attack the day like that. It doesn't matter what their cause is. They win that discussion that Marcus Aurelius has with himself in Meditations, the one we all must win when the alarm goes off. Yes, it is warmer under the covers, but we are not meant for that. We have a duty. Our nature, justice, demands something from us. It demands that we get up, that we get after it, that we wear ourselves doing it. It's what you

• 2:15Ryan Holiday?

  must do if you want to win. Actually, my favorite chapter, the opening chapter of Part One of Discipline is Destiny, is Attack the Dawn. Get after it as Marcus Aurelius did, as Diane Nash and the Sittin' Students did. I hope you're listening to this early, and if not, I hope you're listening to it early tomorrow, because you get up a little bit earlier than you want. You get after it. You do what nature and justice demands of you. And check out Discipline is Destiny anywhere books are sold. We've even got signed copies here at the Daily Stoic Store and at the Painted Porch here in Bastrop, Texas.

• 2:55Ryan Holiday?

  All right, welcome to Ask Daily Stoic, where we answer your Stoic-inspired questions. The first question we've got today are, what are five habits that can improve my life? So I've got a couple for you. So number one, I would say, wake up early, right? Marcus Aurelius opens Book Five of Meditations, talking about waking up early, about getting out from under the covers. You don't accomplish great things laying in bed. You've got to get up early. And I like to get up early, because that's where the stillness is. There's fewer interruptions. You know, it's just great. I think the next thing from the Stoics would be journaling, right? Are you sitting down and spending some time putting pen or pencil to paper and preparing, or reviewing, or reflecting on what lies ahead, on what you

• 3:39Ryan Holiday?

  did recently, on, you know, just things you want to improve or get better? Marcus Aurelius's Meditations is the way that he gets to where he gets at the end of his life. That's how he accumulates wisdom. He's writing down these lessons, these observations. He's following Epictetus's advice, which is to keep these ideas and words around you all the time, and to be sort of like... Just engaging with them on a, on a deep and active level. The other I would say is like, go for a walk. Every morning when I get up, I go for a long walk. This morning I went about three and a half miles with my son, didn't take the phone, got up early, was outside, I was active. You know, Seneca, he talks about, he's like, look, a mind overstressed is easily fractured. He says, you have to take long wandering walks.

• 4:24Ryan Holiday?

  And there is a reason almost every philosopher is an active walker. Putting the body in motion is a way to activate the brain at a deeper level. That's really good. I think you would, you would have a better life if, and I know, and this is something I'm actively working on in my life. The more kindnesses you can do for other people, the better your life will be. So pay for somebody's coffee when you're, pay for the person behind you in line, leave a big tip, pick up trash. By the time, you know, that you see laying by the side of the road, do something nice for other people. Seneca's line was, every person you meet is an opportunity for kindness. And then the last thing is, are you making time for yourself in your life?

• 5:08Ryan Holiday?

  Marcus Aurelius says like, ask yourself at every moment, is this necessary? Do I need to do this? Or is this some made up obligation? So separating the essential from the inessential. So if I was like, the fifth thing, if I was trying to improve your life, I just start saying no to things. Like what could you say no to? What doesn't matter? What don't you need to do anymore? And you will, you will carve out more time for yourself, more time for philosophy and more time for happiness, if you can do that.

• 5:36Ryan Holiday?

  The next question is, how can I stay calm in difficult situations? Well, to me, this is like the essence of Stoicism, right? Like the whole, even that's what the, the word stoic means in the sort of common parlance is like, how do you stay calm? How do you not be tripped around by your emotions? So I think. The first part is like, sort of, asking yourself, is freaking out going to make this better, yes or no, right? If freaking out is, and on the rare case, you know, go for it, but the reality is, most of the time, strong emotions are not making situations better. You, there's something that your boyfriend or girlfriend is doing that's bothering you, is yelling at them about it going to make them better?

• 6:19Ryan Holiday?

  Is being angry about it, or sad about it, or depressed about it, or worried about it, is that making it better? No, talking to them kindly and nicely and rationally is what's going to make them better. Realizing that calm is contagious is really important, too. So who do you surround yourself, right? That idea, you become the average of the people you spend time with? Are you spending your time around calm people, or are the people that you're around amping that up? So if you're around people that are convinced politically that the sky is falling all the time, you're going to think that the sky is falling all the time. So realizing that calm is contagious and surrounding yourself with the right people is really important.

• 6:58Ryan Holiday?

  At the core of the Stoic practice about this is like, that idea of objectivity. Epictetus says it's not things that upset us, it's our judgment about things. So realizing that the events are objective, there is no good or bad, there is just what there is. And so, reminding yourself, no, I got in a car accident, that's it. It's, I don't know that it's going to cost a fortune on my insurance company, I don't know that my back is going to sore, be sore, I don't know that it was so-and-so's fault, I don't know that this was terrible luck, I don't know that I got screwed over, you don't know any of that. All you know is that you got in a car accident, all you know is that somebody said something to you. You don't know that it was rude, you can't say for sure that it was ill intention, it just is what it is. So this objectivity is really important.

• 7:42Ryan Holiday?

  And then, when we realize that objectivity is important, this can lead to the last part, the thing that's very calming for me, which is reminding myself that I have the power to tell myself a different story about this event. So that idea of the obstacle being the way, that I can choose for this to be good, I can choose for this to be a positive, is the power that I have. So- I can't control that this thing happened, but I can control the story that I'm going to tell myself about it. So, you know, there's a famous story about an employee who costs like Intel like $10 million. And the guy walks into his boss's office and he says, you know, you're going to fire me for this, right? And boss says, why would I fire you? I just paid $10 million teaching you something. And so that's a person who's decided that

• 8:25Ryan Holiday?

  he's going to see this differently. He's going to see, he's going to, he knows that getting angry is not going to make it better. He knows that the event is objective, but that he could choose to tell himself a story, which is that he is now invested in this person, that this person has learned from it, and that they are both going to get better for it. That's how he was able to calmly and rationally successfully navigate a difficult situation. So what, the third question for today is like, how can I find good books to read? This is a question we get a lot. It's something I think about. So first off, like, there are lots of books on Stoicism, about Stoicism. I suggest you read all those. What I like to do when I'm reading, and this is how I found many of the Stoic texts that I like

• 9:09Ryan Holiday?

  and many of my favorite books of all different stripes. My rule is like, what is a book that is mentioned in the book that I'm reading? So you're reading Marcus Aurelius and he mentions Epictetus. Well, check that person out. You're reading the introduction to Gregory Hayes's translation of Meditations and he mentions an essay by Matthew Arnold about Marcus Aurelius. Well, read that. And now you're introduced to this guy, Matthew Arnold. Well, who's he? Has someone written a book about him? What are some of the books that he's written? So I kind of follow this chain method where each book that I'm reading, I read a different related book to that book. And so this has taken me down all sorts of fascinating rabbit holes. You know, I

• 9:55Ryan Holiday?

  What I'm always looking for, you know, where I'm not looking for books is the New York Times Book Review, or the New York Times Bestseller List, or the New Editions Table at Barnes & Noble. I want to read a really good book, and then I want to read the people that influenced or shaped the thinking in that book that I just read. So for me, this sort of chain method is really great. And so I would suggest that. Obviously, in my books, that's one of the things I do. I have a recommended reading list at the back. But I'm also trying to cite different authors, and then obviously, they're all referencing the bibliography. But like, don't just read randomly. Don't just roll the dice. Try to find connections between one book you're reading and another book that might be related

• 10:38Ryan Holiday?

  to that. And then what you're getting is you're getting sort of overlapping ideas. So people ask, "How am I able to read so fast?" Well, one of the ways I'm able to do that is that I'm never reading about things that I'm utterly and completely unfamiliar with. I'm reading about related overlapping topics. And in doing that, I'm able to skim a little bit. I don't have to, I'm not, I'm never like, "Wait, what was that? I totally don't understand." But I'm sort of inching my way to understanding that way. So thanks. This is another great episode of Ask Daily Stoic. Keep your questions coming. You can email them to us at [email protected].