This Is The One Thing That Keeps | Ask Daily Stoic

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

• 0:05Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a Stoic-inspired meditation, designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women, help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit DailyStoic.com.

• 0:56Ryan Holiday?

  This is the one thing that keeps. You can lose your money, a business can fail, your beauty can fade, your body decays with time. The Stoics knew firsthand that you can be sent into exile, your reputation can be unfairly impugned, a tyrant can throw you in prison, they can even take your life. But while you're alive, barring some traumatic brain injury, wisdom remains your own. No one can take away what you've learned. No one can make you forget philosophy. No one can strip you of your own experience or of the hard-won insights of the Stoics. It is the one thing that's always ours. This is why we study, why we read,

• 1:39Ryan Holiday?

  why we codify these lessons via discussions and on the page, because it's priceless, because it's the one thing that keeps. No matter what happens in the world or what happens to us, it is of value. It is our possession. It's our safety net, our refuge, our inner citadel. And in today's chaotic world so rampant with uncertainty and upheaval, developing this inner fortress of wisdom is more valuable than ever. But wisdom isn't something we're born with or given. It's something we must work towards, something we must earn through continuous effort and real-world application.

• 2:16Ryan Holiday?

  As Epictetus asks, if you didn't learn these things in order to demonstrate them in practice, what did you learn them for? Wisdom is thus not a one-time achievement, but a lifelong pursuit. Only by putting our wisdom into practice do we find our blind spots, do we discover where to refocus our training. Even as an old man, Marcus Aurelius was chiding himself not to be satisfied with just getting the gist of things. Instead, he was seen leaving the palace to study with the Phallus for Sextus, to learn that which I do not yet know. Learn, apply, repeat. This is not only how we cultivate wisdom, but how we keep it. What this looks like in practice and how we can

• 2:59Ryan Holiday?

  systematically build this inner fortress of wisdom is what the new book is about. Wisdom Takes Work, right? And that's the subtitle. Learn, Apply, Repeat. I draw on the lives of Montaigne and Seneca and Lincoln and Marcus Aurelius and Joan Didion and Maya Angelou. Insights from some of history's wisest people and how we can follow in their footsteps. And guess what? The book is out this month, less than three weeks. And we still have a few hundred limited edition, numbered and signed first editions available for preorder. Grab that right now at dailystoic.com/wisdom. Bunch of awesome preorder bonuses, including signed manuscript pages, signed limited edition and numbered first editions. And you can have dinner with me at the Painted

• 3:44Ryan Holiday?

  Porch. I'm really excited about it. Grab all that at dailystoic.com/wisdom or preorder Wisdom Takes Work anywhere you listen or read your books. Thanks so much. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. Back in December, I interviewed Matthew McConaughey for the paperback of Green Lights at the bookstore. We did it in the studio and then we did an event live at literally the Painted Porch. It was funny, actually. Someone asked him this question about his, like, recipe for tuna dip. It did nine million views on TikTok. So that was an unexpected occurrence. And then that morning, I got up very early.

• 4:26Ryan Holiday?

  I had a 7:00 AM flight from Austin to Miami. And I spoke at an event called The Wellness Oasis. And it was just a Q and A. It was beautiful. It's outside, our backs to the ocean, blue sky, December, but people are in T-shirts. Just the reason people live in Florida, the kind of thing you can only do in Florida in December. And it was a lovely conversation. And I am bringing you some of those questions now. So let's get into it.

• 5:09Speaker 02

  This idea of Stoicism, it's wellness. But we have been kind of programmed in the last couple of decades to just default to kind of extreme positivity or this idea of, you know, we want wellness to be all these more actionable things. What are the supplements I can take? And, okay, I need peace, and so I will be peaceful. And really Stoicism, it's like, it's integrity. It is the, it is the line that you carry through your life of your values, the way you show up for yourself and the way that you behave.

• 5:40Ryan Holiday?

  Well, sometimes people say that the Stoics are depressing. I usually say, yes, you're right. Life is fucking depressing.

• 5:46Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 5:46Ryan Holiday?

  Like, life is dark. I mean, there were Stoics who were, who were exiled. There were Stoics who were executed. There were Stoics who buried children. There were Stoics who were robbed. There were Stoics who, you know, dealt with all the things that we're dealing with. To me, optimism or sort of empowerment is not like pretending that that doesn't exist. What I, what I find hopeful and inspiring about the Stoics is that they got out of bed every morning. Marcus Aurelius buried half of his children. So it puts this debate about what are you meant to do, huddle under the covers and be warm, in a different light. When you think about why he would have had every reason to not want to get out of bed

• 6:26Ryan Holiday?

  every morning, to give up, to despair, or to become bitter and resentful and paranoid or suspicious, like, is all the reasons to not be the way that he is. And so that he's still engaged in this pursuit of enlightenment, pursuit of goodness and decency, that he's still trying to do his job, to me, is an act of profound hope. And so sometimes, yeah, I think wellness or... Some of this stuff it does, it's this sort of false positivity or this sort of fakeness. And I think you have to accept the world and reality unflinchingly as it is. And then the decision to keep going and to try to be good anyway, to try to do a good job anyway,

• 7:10Ryan Holiday?

  to try to be a positive influence anyway. That's what, to me, is a statement of hope and agency, not just saying, oh, everything's wonderful.

• 7:20Speaker 02

  Really beautiful. In your book, Stillness is the Key, you highlight the importance of inner peace. How can everyone here cultivate more stillness in their lives, especially amidst today's obvious, nonstop current noise and distractions and all the things that being alive on earth is presenting us with right now?

• 7:40Ryan Holiday?

  Well, the Stoic word for this is ataraxia, which means a freedom from disturbances. And I don't think they meant it in the sense of like you go to a monastery and there's, no one else is talking and you have no responsibilities. They meant, how can you be free from internal and external disturbances in the midst of the world? The divergence in the ancient world was between the Epicureans and the Stoics. And the Epicureans, you know, they retreated to a lovely garden like this. This is, you know, Epicureus says, you know, "You would do well, stranger to Terry here." You know, sort of tuning out the noise, being around friends, enjoying pleasure.

• 8:21Ryan Holiday?

  There's, and this is all wonderful, but there was a kind of withdrawal from the world in not just Epicureanism, but I think a lot of philosophical and spiritual traditions. And, and I do think we need certain people to become totally dedicated to contemplation and self-discovery because they come back with insights that help all of us. But, you know, if everyone did that, the world would cease to function and we'd all starve to death, right? And so, so to me, what Stoicism was about was this sort of philosophical orientation, this way of getting to peace and quiet in the midst of a very busy, very noisy world. You know, in Athlete is very active and yet they have tuned out the crowd.

• 9:05Ryan Holiday?

  They've tuned out the fight they got with their spouse the day before. They've they're tuning out the contract negotiations that are looming ahead. They're tuning out that they they've lost seven games in a row or they're tuning out that they are on a 10 game winning streak. You know, there you have to get present in the moment to do the thing that you're trying to do. There's this fascinating letter that Seneca writes. He's in Rome and he's trying to work on something. His life is falling apart. You know, there's political chaos and dysfunction and he's, you know, he's dealing with background noise. You can talk about there's someone getting arrested on the street below. There's a blacksmith working. He can hear he's above a gym. You can hear all the noises that he can just hear this like sheer amount of noise.

• 9:49Ryan Holiday?

  And he's talking about how do you get to a place where you can't flee it, but you have to be able to cultivate a kind of a willpower to turn down the volume on it. And I think that's going to be, you know, more important than ever. You can't just say, oh, I'm not going to follow the news. I don't care what's going on in the world. As we live in a democracy and we're obligated to be involved. And yet, if you follow everything that's happened, if you're outraged by everything, you're you're not going to have the energy to do the things that you need to do, not just as a citizen, but as a parent, as a, you know, a son or a daughter. So how do you? How do you sort of manage to create stillness inside the noise of the world? I think that's what the philosophical tradition was about. And it's why, you know, Seneca's work survives to us

• 10:34Ryan Holiday?

  in this sort of exchange of letters that he has with a friend. Marx realized his writings survive to us. There are these journals. There's this kind of taking a few minutes to think about things, to get perspective, to slow things down. That's what the Stoic practice is about.

• 10:51Speaker 02

  It's just so powerful hearing it put in this way because the underlying thing that I'm hearing is these men are grappling with all the things that we are grappling with in this very second, which is really the juggle of light and dark. You know, it's the juggling of doing some of that inner shadow work or some of those harder things, or sometimes simply having to bear witness to what's happening and not look away. And it's that searching for that deeper thing of why am I here and how can I make this better for myself or make this experience feel more or less X, Y, and Z.

• 11:24Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, and it's Stoic women too. Obviously, you know, philosophy and history is largely male. That's who wrote the books. That's who could, you know, could afford to do these things. That's who got permission to do these things. But, you know, one of the Stoic teachers, his name was Musonius Rufus. He has this fascinating lecture that survives to us. And he's talking about this question that people were asking at that time. He says, "Should women be taught philosophy?" And his answer is, "Of course." He says, "Virtue doesn't know gender, just like stillness doesn't know gender." We all have different things that rile us up or get us worried. We all have different concerns and, you know, different things we're working on, but these fundamental ideas stay the same.

• 12:08Ryan Holiday?

  And just because the names of so many of the Stoic females or the wise women of history don't survive, just doesn't mean they didn't exist. Of course they did. And you might even argue they were more philosophical because they didn't need to, you know, publish books and put their names on them and get all the credit, right? There's something...

• 12:23Speaker 02

  Or they might have been destroyed. Like, much of women's adding to the world over time, you know, were always left out of history.

• 12:30Ryan Holiday?

  Totally. And so, one of the famous Stoics is Cato. And Cato's daughter, Portia Cato, is held up in antiquity as one of the sort of great Stoic women. She's married to Brutus, who assassinates Julius Caesar. And so, all the Stoics were in the mix, you know? It's not just a male thing. I think sometimes people today think, particularly because it's popular online, I think people think like Stoicism is just for dudes. And it's very much not. It's been lovely to see the day of Stoicism. It's probably 50/50 because we're all just trying to make our way in the world, trying to deal with noise, trying to deal with temptations, trying to deal with our emotions. We're all dealing with the same set of things. I think Stoic philosophy is, as I said, a tool in that toolkit.

• 13:14Speaker 02

  So something that you've mentioned here and really implied, but also mentioned so much in your work is that obstacles can be opportunities in disguise. How can we reframe those personal wellness challenges that we're having, like the burnout or the self doubt that happens? How can we really use those to catalyze into opportunities for growth?

• 13:34Ryan Holiday?

  The idea for the Stoics is that every situation is an opportunity. It's not necessarily an opportunity to make more money, or build your business, or whatever, right? There's stuff that happens in life that is awful, and hard, and constraining, and removes options, right? Like, not everything is a chance to get healthier also, right? Like, you could find out you have cancer, you could find out any number of things, right? And so, the idea for the Stoics is that everything was an opportunity for you to practice virtue. Everything was an opportunity for you to act with courage, or discipline, or justice, or wisdom. So, there might be no benefits to this situation for you, but there could be benefits for other people, right?

• 14:16Ryan Holiday?

  You could learn something that you're able to communicate from this experience. So, what the Stoics are saying is that as you face things in life, big or small, good or bad, you're supposed to go, "Well, what is this an opportunity for me to do? And what am I being asked of in this situation?" That's the idea. There's one reading of Stoicism where it's like, "Hey, this is what makes you more productive, or more resilient, or more successful." And the Stoics were, you know, tough, resilient, successful people, but at a deeper level, the idea is that it's always an opportunity for you to do great things, if not for yourself, for other people in the world.

• 15:05Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. I just wanted to say, we so appreciate it, we love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple of years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please, spread the word, tell people about it. And this isn't to sell anything, I just wanted to say, thank you.