You Can’t Change What Happened, But… | 13 Ways A Stoic Challenges Themselves Every Day

With a business partner, some investors, and his life savings, Brent Underwood bought the abandoned mining turned ghost town, Cerro Gordo, in 2018. The plan was to bring the town back to life, to turn the 336 acres and 22 buildings into a historical destination. That plan largely revolved around the American Hotel, the literal and metaphorical center of town. But then on June 15, 2020, 149 years to the day it opened, the American Hotel caught fire and burned to the ground.“It was probably the most devastating day of my life,” Brent would recall. “You are literally watching your life savings and hopes and dreams burn in front of you.” As he stood atop the ashes, the town’s previous owner put his hand on Brent’s shoulder. “You can’t change what happened,” he told Brent, “but what happens from here is up to you.” More than just providing comfort, Brent wrote, those words were “a call to action.”It’s a reminder that for everything outside of our control, we retain—at the core of our being—an incredible power: The power to choose what we do with what happens to us. The power to decide what role an event will play in our lives. The power to write the end of our own story. No one can take that away from us. People can hurt us. Money can be lost. Jobs can disappear. Cars can crash into each other. Stoicism can’t change what happened. No philosophy is a time machine. But what we can do, what the Stoic practice is meant to help us do, is to prevail over what happened, and decide what comes next. You can read about what Brent did after the American Hotel burned down in his new book Ghost Town Living: Mining for Purpose and Chasing Dreams at the Edge of Death Valley. It’s just one of the many lesson-packed stories in the book about Brent’s time at Cerro Gordo. From facing isolation and the challenges of preserving historical integrity to confronting physical dangers like mine shafts and the elements, Ghost Town Living is story of adventure and tenacity, as well as a call to chase after audacious dreams, defy the conventional, and devote yourself to your own the pursuit of an extraordinary life.✉️ 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. On Tuesdays, we take a closer look at these Stoic ideas and how we can apply them in our actual lives. Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy.

• 0:24Ryan Holiday?

  "You can't change what happened," but with a business partner, some investors, and his life savings, Brent Underwood bought an abandoned mining town called Cerro Gordo in 2018. The plan was to bring the town back to life to turn 336 acres and 22 buildings into a historical destination. That plan largely revolved around the American Hotel, the literal and metaphorical center of Cerro Gordo. But then on June 15, 2020, 149 years to the day it opened, the American Hotel caught fire and burned to the ground. "It was probably the most devastating day of my life," Brent recalls in his fascinating book, Ghost Town Living, which I highly recommend. "You are literally watching your

• 1:08Ryan Holiday?

  life savings and hopes and dreams burn down in front of you." As he stood atop the ashes, devastated, the town's previous owner put his hand on Brent's shoulder. "You can't change what happened," he told Brent, "but what happens from here is up to you."

• 1:25Ryan Holiday?

  This is actually a really important Stoic reminder that for everything outside of our control, we do retain at the core of our being, an incredible power, the power to choose what we do with what happens to us, the power to decide what role an event plays in our lives, the power to write the end of our own story. No one can take that away from us. The Stoics would say, people can hurt us, money can be lost, jobs can disappear, cars can crash into each other, hotels can burn down. Stoicism can't change what happened. No philosophy is a time machine. But what we can do, what the Stoic practice is meant to help us do is prevail over what happened to decide what comes next. And I've known Brent for a very long time.

• 2:08Ryan Holiday?

  I am actually one of the original investors in Cerro Gordo because I love the place and I believe in it. And Brent, as it happened, started as my assistant and then helped me start Daily Stoic many years ago. And I remember talking to him on the phone like two days after it happened. I just called to check in on him during the pandemic and he said, you'll never guess what happened. And he told me this horrifying story, but it's been amazing to see what happened since, which is this awesome YouTube channel you can follow at Ghost Town Living. And now an awesome book by the same name, Ghost Town Living: Mining for Purpose and Chasing Dreams at the Edge of Death Valley. Brent and I are doing a book signing slash live conversation at the Painted Porch tonight here in Bastrop, Texas.

• 2:50Ryan Holiday?

  And Brent's got some signed limited edition copies of the book that you can grab. I'll link to that in today's show notes, but if you haven't grabbed the book, you absolutely should. And if you like podcasts, he recorded the audiobook of it, 900 Feet Underground. Just an awesome story. So cool to see Brent not just survive up there, but thrive despite all kinds of adversity and to watch the Stoic practice be a part of that. And I'm really excited. Congrats to Brent for the book coming out today. Grab it anywhere books are sold. And if you want signed numbered editions, click the link in today's show notes.

• 3:47Ryan Holiday?

  Epictetus's great line was, run races where winning is up to you. The race against yourself, the race against the desire to not do it, the race against the impulse to stay on the couch. That's where we're challenging ourselves. That's where we're pushing ourselves. That's the race that you're doing every single day.

• 4:09Ryan Holiday?

  Look, it's really easy to get comfortable, to kind of get in a groove. In fact, Austin, where I'm talking to you from right now, the longtime nickname of Austin, Texas was the Velvet Ruth. And I think that describes where a lot of us get. We like things the way we like them. We make them so they're deliberately not hard. We have our conveniences. We have the things that get delivered. We get comfortable. But the thing is, life doesn't really care about your comfort. And in fact, on a long enough timeline, it's going to make all of us really uncomfortable at some point or another. So what the Stoics do is cultivate kind of resilience or toughness so that they're not surprised when this happens. And in fact, what the Stoics have been doing for thousands of years is deliberately seeking out challenges, big and small, on a daily, on a yearly, on a lifetime basis, so they can be ready for whatever fate has in store for them.

• 4:54Ryan Holiday?

  I'm Ryan Holiday. I've written a number of books about Stoic philosophy. I've spoken about it to everyone from the NBA to the NFL, sitting senators and special forces leaders. The Stoics knew that comfort was a kind of death. It might feel nice, but ultimately you were decaying, you were getting worse, and you were incredibly vulnerable. Seneca, for instance, talks over and over again about the importance of adversity, about the importance of training yourself for that adversity, for preparing yourself for what lies ahead. And that's what we're going to do in today's episode. I'm going to give you some Stoic exercises for seeking out challenges, for building challenges in your life so you can get comfortable being uncomfortable.

• 5:32Ryan Holiday?

  Nobody likes getting up early, not even Marx. Really, in Meditations, he talks about trying to get up early. And he has this fantastic conversation with himself. He goes, but it's warmer under the covers. And he says, is that what you were put here to do? To huddle under the blankets and be warm? He says, but it's nicer here. He says, is that what you were meant for, to feel nice? He says, we're all put here for a purpose. We have a nature. We have a duty, and we have to go, and we have to do that. And the morning is the best time to do stuff, to get stuff done. So that's why the Stoics tried to get up early. I say tried because they didn't always do it, and it wasn't always easy, and they didn't always like it. They tried to do it anyway.

• 6:12Ryan Holiday?

  The rule for successful people, for great writers, artists, creators, it comes from the poet William Stafford. He says, "Do the hard thing first." And he's saying, "Don't procrastinate, don't put it off, don't try to do piddly stuff. Work your way up to it." He says, "No, you tackle the hard thing first." That's what I do in the morning. I tackle the writing first, before I check email, before I get sucked into social media, before I have meetings, before I can come up with, or life can make up excuses to not do that thing. Edison said that we pick up the heavy end first. That's the idea. You do the hard thing first, and then, once you've done that, once you've crossed it off, once you've made progress on that, not only will you have momentum for the rest of the day, but even if you don't, you've already won. You've already made a dent in things.

• 6:57Ryan Holiday?

  So that's the rule for this morning. Do the hard thing first.

• 7:05Ryan Holiday?

  Don't be overheard complaining. Marcus really writes in meditations. This is not even to yourself. I love that distinction. It's not only not like whining publicly, but not whining to yourself, not pitying yourself. Because the point is, it never makes a difference. It's funny, when I've talked about this before, people go, "What about protests? What about lawsuits?" Taking an action is not a complaint. Complaining is when you think that emoting about, simply speaking about, simply letting your displeasure be known, when you confuse that with actually doing something about your problems.

• 7:41Ryan Holiday?

  I take some time to reflect, to get centered, to think about who I want to be during the day, think about what's important during the day. What I'm not doing is getting sucked into my phone. This is my donkey, his name is Buddy. I bought him on Craigslist for $100, one of the best purchases I've ever made. But seeing animals, seeing the sunrise, seeing things that center you, get you in the right headspace, so then you can take that to your work. I find that really important. And one of my rules is I don't touch my phone for the first one hour that I'm awake. The email is like a to-do list put together by other people. Never starts the day off good. It's always filled with problems. I want to do the thoughtful things, the consideration, the planning, the intention. I want to do that before I get sucked into this.

• 8:26Ryan Holiday?

  When people find out that you're a runner, they always ask, "Are you training for a marathon?" And the answer is no, I'm training for this. Running every day, that's the marathon. Running when you don't want to, running when you're tired, running when it's cold, running when it's hot. Doing it, pushing yourself, that's the marathon. Seneca says, "We treat the body rigorously so that it's not disobedient to the mind." We're training ourselves, we're training our muscles, literally. We're also building the muscle that makes us do stuff day to day that runs the marathon of life. We're developing the ability to push ourselves, to demand stuff from ourselves. And that's the ultimate race, that's the competition, right? You're competing with yourself, you're competing with the desire to not do it.

• 9:09Ryan Holiday?

  If you're competing with anyone, you're competing against all the people that are doing nothing, that are staying on the couch. Epictetus's great line was, "Run races where winning is up to you." The race against yourself, the race against the desire to not do it, the race against the impulse to stay on the couch. That's where we're challenging ourselves, that's where we're pushing ourselves. That's the race that you're doing every single day.

• 9:36Ryan Holiday?

  It's hard to say no. You have to realize that when you're saying no to things, you're also saying yes. When you eliminate the inessential, Marx really says, you're really doing the same yes to the essential. You get the double benefit, he says, when you say no. Getting rid of the extraneous, the extra, the unnecessary. And the double benefit is being able to do the essential, the urgent, the important, to do it even better. So I try to remind myself that every no is a yes, and every yes is also a no.

• 10:07Ryan Holiday?

  People you're gonna meet today are gonna be obnoxious, and stupid, and silly, and jealous. All these things. This is actually how Marx really starts his famous meditations. He lists, prepares himself for all that he's gonna face today. Now, you might think, hearing this, that he's a negative person, that he doesn't like other people, that he hates them. But actually, no, it's really interesting, because the next part of that quote is actually the important part. He says, "This isn't their fault. They don't know good from evil, they don't know right from wrong, they don't know a better way." And he says, "And no one can imply..." Me in ugliness. He says, we're made to work together. I'm not going to abandon these people. So yes, Marcus Sereless is preparing himself somewhat cynically for how annoying and obnoxious people are. And this is an important exercise. If you go around expecting everything to be wonderful, you're going to be surprised when it's not. But that doesn't absolve you of the obligation

• 10:51Ryan Holiday?

  to work with other people, to find the good in other people, to still do good. And in fact, that's what the first part of that exercise is designed to help you do. Don't let anyone say that stoicism is negative and depressing and cynical because it's not. It's much more beautiful than that.

• 11:08Ryan Holiday?

  A friend of mine, Mark Echo, the creator of Echo Industries, he has a story like this, where he flips a problem on its head that I really like, who's telling me that the company runs out of money early on in its history. They'd been known for throwing these awesome events each year at a conference called MAGIC, which is where like 80% of all wholesale orders are placed for fashion brands. They threw these big parties, these big booths every year. That was what they were known for. And they run out of money just a few months before MAGIC, and so all is lost. The accountant says, you'll probably go out of business. And they go, okay, what are we going to do? We can't get our deposit back. Don't have enough money to actually put on anything close to what we've done in the past. And as they think, they realize that that maybe inside this obstacle is in fact the solution to that problem. And so what they do is they pass out these flyers all

• 11:53Ryan Holiday?

  over the event that just say, where's Echo? Where's Echo? And their booth was empty. It was just a chair with a sign on it that said, where's Echo? So instead of being the big event, they were the event that everyone was talking about not happening. Where were they? What was happening? What was going on? What did they have planned? And it ended up being the sort of viral marketing event that launches the brand to the next level. They're the most talked about brand at the conference, even though they're not technically at the conference. And it becomes this springboard event. So I always think, you know, what can I do in this situation? What actual advantages are in my position? What? How do I turn this around? How do I flip it on its head? What are the things that other people aren't willing to do that I am willing to do? How

• 12:34Ryan Holiday?

  do I turn this into something good? Again, not focusing on what went wrong, not focusing on whose fault it was, not focusing on how unfortunate or frustrating it is, what I'm going to do with it, what I'm going to make about it.

• 12:49Ryan Holiday?

  It isn't just that ego is obnoxious. It isn't just that it's arrogant, that it's rude, that it's self-centered, that it's entitled, that it's all these unpleasant, ugly things. It's that ego makes you worse. Epictetus says, "Remember, it is impossible to learn that which you think you already know." That's the problem with ego. If you think you're perfect, if you think you know everything, in a sense, you're right, because you cannot be improved and you cannot learn anything else. So a humble person, Socrates focuses on what he doesn't know, a person who focuses on where they can get better, a person who focuses on all the areas they have for improvement, that too becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And you do get better, because there are opportunities, because you can take advantage of those opportunities. And then on top of that, you're much more pleasant to be around.

• 13:36Ryan Holiday?

  Marcus really has tried to do good. He tried to help as many people, but he also understood that doing the right thing, doing good things, it wasn't always going to be recognized and it wasn't always going to be appreciated. He says in Meditations that you can't expect the third thing, being recognized, being appreciated, being thanked for what happened. You already got the thanks by doing the right thing, by feeling, by knowing that it was the right thing. Everything else the Stoics would say is extra. Nice to have, but it can't be why you do it. And I think often of this idea of wanting the third thing. The third thing is wanting to hit the bestseller list. The third thing is wanting the thank you card. The third thing is the person coming to you and saying, "I just want to let you know what that meant to me, how much it helped me. I want to pay you back." No, you do it because it was the right thing.

• 14:20Ryan Holiday?

  If you get the third thing, if you get the extra, that's great. For the Stoics, that shouldn't be something you want, but most of all, it can't be something you expect, because you will be disappointed.

• 14:33Ryan Holiday?

  "You take away power over events by expecting them," Seneca says. "It's what catches us off-guard, what we refuse to prepare for, what we refuse to think about. That's what lands heaviest." So the Stoics practice premeditatio mortem, so they're prepared, so they can take advantage in advance of the opportunity to plan, prepare, to be resilient, to stiffen themselves up so the blows of fate don't land, unexpected and unnecessarily hard.

• 15:00Ryan Holiday?

  Perspective is of course, everything. If you've ever been stuck in traffic in Los Angeles, it was a miserable, annoying experience, an ugly bit of modernity. But if you've ever flown over Los Angeles at night, you've seen that same traffic and all of a sudden it's beautiful, this sort of interconnected living organism that is humanity. I'm on this trip right now with my family. We just had all these different delays, all this inclement weather, that on the one hand, we could have said, oh, this ruins the trip. Instead, we said, this is an adventure. This is an experience. Mentally tough, mentally resilient people, they managed to find the right perspective. Epictetus says, every situation has two handles. One will bear weight, the other won't. So what are you going to grab this by? How are you going to choose to see it?

• 15:43Ryan Holiday?

  How are you going to choose to try to carry it? It's the same thing, a different perspective. Life is like that. We can look at it one way, or we can choose to look at it another way. We can choose to look at something as an obstacle, or we can choose to look at something as an opportunity. We can see chaos if we look close. We can see order if we look from afar. We can see disadvantage if we look at it one way. We could see advantage if we look the other. We can see obstacle from this perspective, opportunity from the other.

• 16:15Ryan Holiday?

  When I wrote The Daily Stoic eight years ago, I had this crazy idea that I would just keep it going. The book was 366 meditations, but I'd write one more every single day and I'd give it away for free as an email. I thought maybe a few people would sign up. Couldn't have even comprehended a future in which three quarters of a million people would get this email every single day and would for almost a decade. If you want to get the email, if you want to be part of a community that is the largest group of Stoics ever assembled in human history, I'd love for you to join us. You can sign up and get the email totally for free. No spam. You can unsubscribe whenever you want at dailystoic.com/email.