Wisdom Is Wisdom | 7 Lessons From Famous Stoics (Matthew McConaughey, Camila Cabello, General Jim Mattis)

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

• 0:02Ryan Holiday?

  Bienvenidos al Daily Stoic Podcast, donde cada día leemos un pasaje de sabiduría antigua diseñado para ayudarte en tu vida cotidiana. El martes, miramos más de cerca estas ideas estoicas y cómo podemos aplicarlas en nuestras vidas reales. Gracias por escuchar y espero que disfrutes.

• 0:28Ryan Holiday?

  La sabiduría es sabiduría.

• 0:32Ryan Holiday?

  Comencemos al oeste, sentados en los pies de Confucio, recientemente retirado de la política y ahora dedicado al estudio de la sabiduría. Vayamos al oeste ahora, parados en Atenas, en el jardín de Epicurus, donde hombres y mujeres hacen guerras, discutiendo filosofía sobre una comida simple. Quizás después de que viajemos justo por la carretera para escuchar a Zeno en el Stoic Pokile, hablando del poder de la razón. Podríamos volver al oeste, a India esta vez, en el siglo II B.C., escuchando una lectura de la Bhagavad Gita, un poema épico en paro con la Odisea o Gilgamesh. Si nos quedamos allí lo suficiente, podríamos captar la palabra de la Buda, el príncipe convertido en líder espiritual.

• 1:17Ryan Holiday?

  O si nos perdemos y nos dirigimos a China de nuevo, podríamos encontrar que sus enseñanzas, el budismo, nos han derrotado allí. O podríamos parar en la turna de la milenio en el Imperio Romano y observar el nacimiento de Jesús de Nazaret, así como Lucius Aeneas Seneca. En Nacopolis, una generación más tarde, podríamos visitar la sala de conferencia de Epictetus y escuchar a este antiguo esclavo explicar la arte de la autodisciplina y la claridad mental a los estudiantes hasta que se interrumpen por Hadrian, el emperador mismo, preguntando una pregunta. En 397, podríamos visitar Augustín en Norteamérica y verlo escribir sus famosos confesiones, tratando de deshacerse de las disturbancias y impulsos que le causan tanto dolor.

• 2:02Ryan Holiday?

  O podríamos viajar al oeste de nuevo y ver las perspectivas de Zen, la manera de Buda, cruzando desde China a Japón e influenciando la arte de los samurái, los soldados y el arquero y el pintor.

• 2:15Ryan Holiday?

  And what do all these scenes have in common? In each, we have human beings pursuing wisdom. Was there differences between the schools? Absolutely. Was there overlap too? Yes, of course. But in their own way, according to their own principles, each was chasing the same virtue of enlightenment, trying to cut through the noise, trying to get to the truth, trying to figure out the art of living. And what's so beautiful about it is that there is one more scene to add to it. In this one, the character is you. You are listening to this email before it, sitting down with your journal in the morning, experiencing a little stillness before the rush of the day. Or you're listening to it on the train to work,

• 3:00Ryan Holiday?

  or you're discussing it with a spouse, or a friend, or your team. Whatever the form or the location, you too are pursuing wisdom, trying to get better, trying to learn about yourself and the world. And it is a beautiful tradition and honorable, an ancient one that we're lucky to be part of. Please, keep it going. You might not have recognized it, but this is actually adapted from an early draft of what was supposed to be the preface to Stillness is the Key. The book ended up going in a very different direction, and I opened with the story of Seneca trying to tune out the noise in Rome. But I just liked this little passage, and I didn't have the heart to throw it away. So I turned it into today's message. If you haven't checked out Stillness is the Key, you can.

• 3:44Ryan Holiday?

  It was debuted at number one on the New York Times Bestseller List. You can get it in audiobook, or ebook, or physical. We have signed copies here in the Daily Stoic online store. Or you can come by the Painted Porch here in Bastrop, Texas, and pick up a copy. And I hope you check it out. I'm very proud of the book. And I do wish you all the stillness in the world, or what the Epicureans and the Stoics would call "ataraxia," freedom from disturbances. I wish you that and as much wisdom as you can possibly pursue in this life.

• 4:26Ryan Holiday?

  Usually in these episodes, we dive into stories from me. But I think one of my favorite parts of my journey, writing and talking about Stoicism, is all the interesting people that either I have found, our fellow travelers on this path, or I feel privileged, honored to have introduced to Stoic philosophy and then have gotten the opportunity to talk to, discuss, and in some cases, debate these ideas of Stoic philosophy, which is itself a Stoic practice. If you haven't seen the Daily Stoic Journal, we have this quote on the back of it from Epictetus, one of my favorite quotes. He says, "Every day and night, keep thoughts like these at hand.

• 5:08Ryan Holiday?

  Write them, read them aloud, talk to yourself and others about them." And I feel like that's kind of what we do on the Daily Stoic Podcast and have over the last several years. It's what I do in my talks, it's what I do when people come and visit me when I have lunches and such, which is what queues up what we're going to talk about today. Stoicism has this incredibly wide-ranging, diverse audience. The NBA, college football, pop stars, actors, CEOs, head fund managers, artists, executives, entrepreneurs, holders of public office, just as this was true of Stoicism 2,000 years ago. In today's episode, we're going to look at seven lessons from, let's call them famous

• 5:52Ryan Holiday?

  or public Stoics, and what they can teach us. We're going to hear from Matthew McConaughey, Camila Cabello, General James Mattis, Tim Ferriss, Jaco Willink, and a couple of others. And I hope that they can give you some additional perspective on these Stoic concepts. So, enjoy.

• 6:13Ryan Holiday?

  There's this quote from Seneca, which I love. He says, "If you don't know which port you're sailing to, no wind is favorable." So this idea of hitting the green lights, obviously you want to hit the green lights, but if you're going in the wrong direction, actually hitting the green lights is the worst possible gift you could get. So having a clear sense of what you want is essential.

• 6:31Matthew McConaughey?

  Intentional and deliberate choice to go that way. And then, I know for me, if I have, if we have that, then it's easy to dance and blow in the wind, you know? Create your weather, then blow in the wind. But I'm not for just saying, "Yeah, whatever, we're heading out." Well, wait a minute, I want to check the forecast. Where I am right now, maybe 82 degrees, but where we're going is going to be negative 12. Yeah, if I head out without checking, I'm going to be cold where I'm going. So let's just check out some general things and say, "What can we, should we be prepared for? What are the general rules of engagement that I'm heading into?" And then be free to dance and go, "Yeah, I'm ready to do backflips with my eyes closed."

• 7:15Ryan Holiday?

  To me, the definition of Stoicism is that you don't control what happens, you control how you respond. And that's what you have to do as an athlete, that's what you have to do as a parent, that's what we had to do last year in the pandemic, which is like, how do I figure out how to make the best of it? Because you can't quit.

• 7:34Speaker 02

  Nah, quitting is not an option. That's one of the sayings I like to say is that, you know, failure is not trying.

• 7:44Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 7:45Speaker 02

  You know, not even trying, just saying, ah, you know, whatever excuse you give yourself not to, not to try. Every, anything you go after, you're going to take some lumps, you're going to take some punches, you're going to get knocked down, you know? And understanding that, I understood after pretty much just coming up short and kind of having that pie in the face moment and, and, you know, knowing that I have to rebuild from that and, and, you know, hopefully, hopefully get back to that level the next year, but accept, you know, whatever consequence comes.

• 8:22Speaker 03

  It's scary. It can feel scary to be with your thoughts and feelings. Honestly, Stoicism and meditation have helped me the most in the past year. Like, both of those, I feel like Stoicism is kind of like the cognitive reframing of stuff, which is so important because the tools that I get from mindfulness is the awareness of what my thought processes are. And I'm like, no wonder I have fucking anxiety, because look how I'm thinking about this situation. And then Stoicism gives me the tools to be like, well, there's no use in thinking and obsessing about that because I can't control what's going to happen in the future. I can't control what's giving me more and more peace and more like authenticity when

• 9:02Speaker 03

  I do my work and when I, when I, and when I write and when I do go to, to work on my, my craft is like that mental training.

• 9:14Ryan Holiday?

  There is a tension between life is short, memento mori, you could go at any moment, and the best piece of advice you give people, which is, you've got so much time.

• 9:24Speaker 04

  So much.

• 9:25Ryan Holiday?

  So what's the tension? How do you, how do you balance out?

• 9:28Speaker 04

  Easy.

• 9:28Ryan Holiday?

  Life is short, you've got time.

• 9:30Speaker 04

  If you think life is long, it helps you in so many ways. If you happened to die suddenly, you wouldn't have known anyway.

• 9:39Ryan Holiday?

  Okay. Sure. It's the end of your problems.

• 9:42Speaker 04

  Right. People are like, no, Gary, life is short. I'm like, good news. It's over anyway.

• 9:47Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 9:47Speaker 04

  Like, if a tree falls on my head when I walk out of here, I'm not going to know.

• 9:51Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 9:51Speaker 04

  You know, maybe I'll be up in heaven and be like, mother, I should have never went to Ryan's store. That was so stupid. We could have done it on Zoom on last Tuesday. We'd have 40 more years. Will the Jets ever win a Super Bowl without me? You know, that would be what was going on in heaven, right? My concept is practical. Life is long and you believe it, you get more patient, more thoughtful, happier, and life is good. If you're right, that life is short, well, when you die out of nowhere, you're not going to know anyway. So what the fuck are we talking about?

• 10:22Speaker 05

  I think if there was one book that I would read, it would be Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. You know, especially in Washington DC with all the political heave and ho that I try to keep Department of Defense out of. There can be a sense at times, my fine young cadets, that it's the first time anyone's dealt with something like X, Y, or Z. And certainly in combat, the reason I kept a cattered copy in my rucksack to pull out at times was it allowed me to look at things with a little distance. And so Marcus Aurelius had a very tough life. You know, he's the emperor of Rome. He's got everything going wrong in his home life. His wife and his son were not people

• 11:07Speaker 05

  that you'd want to spend much time with. He spends almost all of his time up on the fringes of the empire trying to protect the thing. And the one time he leaves the German forest seems to be to go kill one of his friends who revolted against him in another place. I mean, it was a tough life. And yet, the humility and the dignity with which he conducted his life, the commitment to his country, to his troops, really comes through as you read those pages. And while the name of the book is Meditations, if you were to get the real translation, it would be "to himself." He's writing these chapters to himself because he knows he faces nothing new under the sun.

• 11:53Ryan Holiday?

  One of my favorite Marcus Aurelius quotes, and I think it ties into your message. And it's weird to think he was writing during the Antonine Plague, a plague that lasts for 15 years. And ultimately, he ends up succumbing to it at the end of his reign. But, you know, he writes, he's like, "No, it's unfortunate that this happened." And then he says, "No, no, no, wait. It's fortunate that it happens to me because not everyone would have basically what I have." And he talks about sort of that strength is the ability to look at whatever happens and say, "Sort of this is exactly what I was looking for." So like, how do you tell companies to go like, "Look, yeah, I know you just had to close 50% of your locations or you've had to lay this amount of staff off

• 12:38Ryan Holiday?

  or, you know, you're not going to be doing live events for the next year and a half." How do they find? In that, what they're looking for.

• 12:47Speaker 06

  I've had this very conversation with a bunch of different clients. And that is, well, you know, folks, here's what we can do. We can curl up in a ball and get under the covers on the couch and hide. Or we can go on the attack. So what do you want to do? Do you want to go on the attack? Or do you want to curl up in a ball and let the world fall apart around you? I say we go on the attack. And that's pretty much, pretty much what everyone realizes they have to do. You have to say, okay, this is the new reality. This is what I'm dealing with. And this is how we're going to go forward.

• 13:20Ryan Holiday?

  Seneca has this thing that it's really popular when we posted on Daily Stoic. But I still struggle with what it means. He says, we suffer more in imagination than reality.

• 13:31Speaker 07

  It makes me think of my meditation. When I'm meditating, I become extremely aware that thinking is almost a form of a disease. Thoughts pop up about, I've got to do this phone call. Or, oh, I forgot to email that person. Or damn it, this, this interview is coming up, but I don't want to do it. Or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So much of the thoughts are anxieties that you're anticipating.

• 13:54Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 13:54Speaker 07

  What's going to happen, right? If you can just control that, if you could just see that that is the source of your problem. And that the world is indifferent to you. And that the circumstances are totally neutral. And that newspaper article that comes out, you can't control it. And maybe the bad stuff will actually in the end rebound to your favor. Or it'll make you tougher. It'll make you realize certain things. If you can just see them as facts, as opposed to like these horrible things inside your head, these phantasmals, whatever the Latin word is, you know, then you've got the power.

• 14:37Ryan Holiday?

  You know, the Stoics in real life met at what was called the stoia, the stoia poekele, the painted porch in ancient Athens. Obviously, we can't all get together in one place because this community is like hundreds of thousands of people and we couldn't fit in one space. But we have made a special digital version of. The Stoic, we're calling it Daily Stoic Life. It's an awesome community. You could talk about like today's episode. You've talked about the emails, ask questions. That's one of my favorite parts is interacting with all these people who are using Stoicism to be better in their actual, real lives. You get more Daily Stoic Meditations over the weekend, just for the Daily Stoic Life members, quarterly Q and As with me, cloth-bound edition of our Best of Meditations, plus

• 15:19Ryan Holiday?

  a whole bunch of other stuff, including discounts, and this is the best part, all our Daily Stoic courses and challenges totally for free, hundreds of dollars of value every single year, including our New Year, New You Challenge. We'd love to have you join us. There's a two-week trial totally for free. Check it out at DailyStoicLife.com.