Daily Stoic Sundays: How to Have Your Best Week Yet

Ryan uses eight Stoic lessons to teach us how to have the best week ever. See 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 Sunday edition of the Daily Stoic Podcast. My name is Ryan Holiday. For over a decade, I've been writing and thinking and talking about Stoicism. And so each Sunday now, we're going to be rolling out a special episode that will be either me riffing on a number of topics, maybe me riffing or expanding on an article that I've written, or deep diving into an idea that I think's important, that I think you'll benefit from. So I hope you like it. Support our sponsors who make this episode possible. And of course, keep studying, keep reading, and thank you. It's easy to think that philosophy is this sort of abstract thing, that it's just exercises

• 0:48Ryan Holiday?

  or thought exercises, or just big words. But the truth is, in ancient philosophy, philosophers were just regular people. They had day jobs. Marcus Aurelius is the emperor of Rome. Zeno was a merchant. One of the Stoics was a manual laborer. They had normal lives, lots of responsibilities. And so philosophy was a way for them to get through life, and to get through life effectively, happily, productively. And so what we see in Stoicism is all sorts of really awesome exercises that help us live the best life that we can. The first lesson from the Stoics is that you have to guard your time. Seneca talks about how, even though time is the only non-renewable resource on the planet,

• 1:31Ryan Holiday?

  it's the one we are the most frivolous with. If someone stole some of your property, he said, you'd fight to get it back. But we let people steal our time, or worse, we waste our own time. And you have to be able to guard your time carefully. You have to know, hey, this is my most valuable resource. I cannot waste it. I cannot afford to fritter it away because I'm not getting any of it back. And so I think the Stoics would be avid protectors of their inbox. They wouldn't frivolously agree to things. They would say no to things. They would guard their time. The next lesson we get from the Stoics is... Is to just wake up earlier.

• 2:12Ryan Holiday?

  Marcus Aurelius has this fascinating dialogue with himself in Book Five of Meditations, where he talks about how he can't stay under the covers and be warm all day. He goes, "Ah, but it's so nice here." And he says, "But you weren't put on this planet to feel nice. You were put on this planet to do what you were put on this planet to do." He said, "People who love their work have no trouble getting out of bed. They throw themselves into it." He's like, "You should be that kind of person." When you wake up earlier, there's less distractions. You've got to jump on the day. You can win the day early by getting up, and that's what I try to do in my life. I want to know that by 10 or 11, I've done most of what I need for the day. And then the rest of the day, I have some freedom. I can take my time. I can make decisions on the fly.

• 2:57Ryan Holiday?

  But you wake up early and you start the day with a win. The next lesson is you've got to focus on the task at hand. So many people are trying to do a million things at once, and of course, they don't do any of it well. Marcus Aurelius talks about focusing like a Roman, doing this thing in front of you like it's the last thing that you're doing in your life. He says, "Let all your efforts be directed at one thing. Do that well, then move on to the next thing." We think we're good at multitasking. We are not good at multitasking. Do one thing, do it well, move on to the next thing. Repeat ad nauseam. That's how people are successful. That's how you'll have the best week ever. One of the more interesting lessons from the Stoics is this idea of premeditatio malorum.

• 3:42Ryan Holiday?

  That's negative visualization. Instead of imagining everything going exactly how you want it to go, what can go wrong? How can you be prepared for it? Marcus Aurelius talks about starting the day and thinking about all the frustrating, annoying, selfish, rude, stupid people he's gonna meet. And then he knows when he meets them that that's who he's meeting. He's not upset by this. He's not surprised by it. He's prepared for it. So you prepare yourself in advance for what's gonna happen today, this week, this month. And then you're able to prepare for the worst-case scenarios. You're able to prepare for success as well. But you want to... To know what can happen, you want to visualize it all and be ready for it.

• 4:23Ryan Holiday?

  The next lesson from the Stoics is actually what Epictetus says is probably the most important thing in the whole philosophy. He says, separate things into two categories, what's in your control, what's outside your control. So the person who starts their week off by thinking, here's all the things that I need to do. Here's the part of that I control. Here's the part of it I don't control. I'm flying from New York to Phoenix. Okay, I control that I've bought the ticket. I control that I got myself to the airport. I don't control when the plane takes off. I don't control the weather. I don't control whether there's a malfunction with the plane. I don't control who I sit next to on the plane. So by focusing on what we control, on not wasting time and energy on what we don't control,

• 5:08Ryan Holiday?

  we have an advantage over the people who, they hear that the flight is 30 minutes delayed and they throw a temper tantrum and then they go stuff themselves with a Cinnabon. The Stoic sits down and starts answering emails, or sits down and writes an article, or makes a sales call. The Stoic tries to use the time that they have. The Stoic tries to focus on what they control, which is how they respond to things, and not on what they don't control. The next lesson from the Stoics might not seem like an important one, but I think it's a really important part of having a great week. And that is taking a walk, a one-hour walk, a 10-minute walk, a walk every day, multiple times a day. Seneca talks about the importance of taking long wandering walks out in nature, where you can think, where you're present, where you're relaxed,

• 5:53Ryan Holiday?

  where you're giving your mind and your body a chance to recuperate. If you're just doing, doing, doing all the time, if you're crunching yourself into a chair or into a car all the time, you're not going to be in your best shape. You're not going to feel good. You're going to be stressed. You're going to be fraught and overwhelmed. And eventually, you're going to break. So take a walk. It's a philosophical thing to do. Consider that the human species have been walking far longer than we've been engaged in any other form of transportation, and that by doing this, we're going back to our roots and we're experiencing something pure and important. The next lesson from the Stoics is journaling, and I would say that there's almost No distinction between Stoicism and journaling. The philosophy is the philosophy of journaling.

• 6:36Ryan Holiday?

  Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, that's not a book he intended for you and me. That's his journal. He was writing these things to himself as the most powerful man in the world about how to be better, how to think more clearly, how to let things go, what was important, what his principles were, who he wanted to be as a person. So if you're one of those people that says, "Oh yeah, I'd like to journal, but who has the time? I don't have 20 minutes in the morning. I don't have time before bed." The most powerful man in the world spent time with a journal every single day. He had to do it with far inferior technology to you and I. So you absolutely have the time, you have to make it. And then the final lesson, the final, most important part of having a great week,

• 7:20Ryan Holiday?

  at least according to the Stoics, is this idea of memento mori, of meditating on your mortality. I actually have a ring on my finger right here, a signet ring, which is an ancient form of jewelry. The Romans all wore these. And on it, it says, "Memento mori." And on the inside, it has inscribed from Marcus Aurelius, a quote, "You could leave life right now," he says. "Let that determine what you do and say and think." The idea that this could be the last week that we have on this planet. This could be the last day we have on this planet. This could be the last video that you watch. What are you going to do? Are you going to be present? Are you going to show up? Are you going to be distracted and inefficient? Are you going to seize this moment? As Marcus Aurelius talks about, he says,

• 8:02Ryan Holiday?

  "Do this as if it was the last thing you will do on this earth. Do it well, do it right. Don't take it too seriously. On the other hand, don't be too upset about anything. Life is too short. You can have a great week by focusing on the fact that it may be your last week on this planet." Ultimately, that's what Stoicism is. It's a set of practical exercises and ways of thinking that make you better, that give you tools for being productive, principled, honest, accurate, hardworking, dedicated, clear-headed. That's what we try to do at Daily Stoic. I hope you'll check out more of our videos. I hope you'll check out the email that we send out every day. Go to dailystoic.com/email. And most of all, I hope you have an amazing Stoic week.