Just A Few Seconds Of Courage | A New Way To Pray

Ryan explains how a few seconds can define so much of your life, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Pre-orders are available for Ryan Holiday’s new book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave - check it out at https://dailystoic.com/preorderSign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/emailFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and 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.

• 0:04Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast. Each day, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, illustrated with stories from history, current events, and literature to help you be better at what you do. And at the beginning of the week, we try to do a deeper dive, setting a kind of Stoic intention for the week, something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave you with, to journal about, whatever it is you happen to be doing. So let's get into it.

• 0:33Ryan Holiday?

  Just a few seconds of courage. John F. Kennedy won the 1960 US presidential election by less than half a percentage point. But actually, he won it by making two phone calls. As I explain in my new book, Courage is Calling, in October of that year, Martin Luther King was arrested. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested, denied bail, and sentenced to four months hard labor on a chain gang. Coretta Scott King, worried that her husband might be beaten or lynched, called both the Nixon and Kennedy campaigns, who both desperately needed the black vote. Though he was friends with King and sought his advice when he led the Eisenhower administration's civil rights efforts,

• 1:18Ryan Holiday?

  Nixon hesitated, not wanting to wade into the middle of the controversy. When the call came, Nixon betrayed King. Kennedy, meanwhile, made calls first to console Coretta and then secure King's release. King made it known who stepped out for him when he needed it. Kennedy went on to win the election two weeks later by just 35,000 key votes across two states. How much time would it have taken to pick up a phone call and call the wife of a good man wrongly imprisoned? 20 seconds? 20 seconds of cowardice cost Nixon the office. It doesn't matter who you are or what your track record is. What matters is what you do in the critical moment, sometimes even less than a moment.

• 2:02Ryan Holiday?

  Do you pull the trigger, or are you too scared? It takes just a few seconds to hit "send" on that email, to get those first words out of your mouth, to put your arm in motion to volunteer, to take that first step in a run towards a machine gun nest, to switch your vote from yes to no, or no to yes, to pick up the phone, as Kennedy did. Can anyone promise that something good will come of this? No, outcomes are never certain. What is certain is that the failure to act, even just 20 seconds of cowardice, sticks to us like a scarlet letter. "I was afraid" is not an excuse that ages well, particularly for those who wish to be remembered well by the people they love, respect, and admire.

• 2:46Ryan Holiday?

  Think about that today as you consider whether to get up and approach that attractive person across the room as you're mulling over that big decision, as you're questioning whether you should speak up or just go along with something you disagree with. "Don't get intimidated by all of it as a whole," as Marcus Aurelius said. "Just look at what's immediately in front of you. Take that single step." "You can't swallow an elephant in one bite," as the saying goes. "You break courage down," the most important of the Stoic virtues, "into little pieces, because no one is brave generally. You can only be brave specifically for a few seconds. But for a few seconds, we can be great, and that might just be enough."

• 3:29Ryan Holiday?

  This idea of courage is actually the subject of my new book, Courage is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave. It's the next series I've done after Obstacle, Ego, and Stillness. This is a four-book series on the cardinal virtues: courage, temperance, justice, wisdom. And this one is out at the end of September. General James Mattis has called it "a superb handbook for crafting a purposeful life." Matthew McConaughey called it "an urgent call to arms for each and all of us." My dear friend George Raveling says, "It dresses us with the proper garments of courage, something we need now more than ever." We've got a bunch of awesome preorder bonuses, including signed copies of the book available. Just go to dailystoic.com/courage. You can even get signed copies of the manuscript pages if you preorder enough.

• 4:14Ryan Holiday?

  It doesn't matter what format you get it in, just that you preorder it. If you've gotten anything out of my podcast, my interviews, my writings over the years, it would mean so much to me if you could preorder Courage is Calling. I hope you check it out. Go to dailystoic.com/preorder or click the link below.

• 4:34Ryan Holiday?

  A new way to pray. We often pray for things we desire, and in the process, excuse ourselves from the equation. We're hoping that the heavens will magically gift us with the outcome we want, whether it's for a promotion or a speedy recovery of a loved one. The Stoics would urge you to stop doing this. Marcus Aurelius reminded himself not to present the gods with a list of demands for pleasures or comforts, but instead ask for help not needing those things. He was, in a sense, asking himself. So, think about all the things you want, that you're praying or hoping for, and try turning them around like this. See what you come up with instead.

• 5:18Ryan Holiday?

  And this is from this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal, "366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living", by yours truly and my co-writer and translator, Stephen Hanselman. I actually do this journal every single day. There's a question in the morning, a question in the afternoon, then there's these sort of weekly meditations. As Epictetus says, "Every day and night, we keep thoughts like this at hand. Write them, read them aloud, and talk to yourself and others about them." You can check out the Daily Stoic Journal anywhere books are sold. You can also get a signed, personalized copy from me in the Daily Stoic store at store.dailystoic.com. "Try praying differently," Marcus writes in Meditations 940. "See what happens. Instead of asking for a way to sleep with her,

• 6:02Ryan Holiday?

  try asking for a way to stop desiring to sleep with her. Instead of asking for a way to get rid of him, try asking for a way not to crave his demise. Instead of a way not to lose my child, try asking for a way to lose my fear of it." And then Epictetus in Discourses says, "We cry to God Almighty, how can we escape this agony? Don't you have hands? Or could it be that God forgot to give you a pair? Sit and pray your nose doesn't run, or rather just wipe your own nose and stop seeking a scapegoat." And then Epictetus in Discourses 4:1, he says, "But I haven't at any time been hindered in my will nor forced against it. How is that possible? I have bound up my choice to act with the will of God.

• 6:46Ryan Holiday?

  God wills that I be sick, such is my will. He wills that I should choose something, so do I. He wills that I reach for something, or something be given to me. I wish for the same. What God doesn't will, I will not wish for." This idea of blowing your own nose, that's a great expression from Epictetus that I love. I think what the Stoics are talking about here is self-sufficiency. I was just reading a great little biography of Musashi, the samurai swordsman, and I wrote down a line in my commonplace book from him. He says, you know, he says, "Worship the gods and Buddha, but do not rely on them," right? He didn't want to go into a sword fight hoping that

• 7:26Ryan Holiday?

  Buddha would bless him. He trained for it to make that irrelevant, right? He wanted to rely on his sword and his actions. But remember, the Stoics talk about what's in our control, what's not in our control. I think what the Stoics are talking about is, don't pray for things that are not in your control, that are not up to you. Don't make yourself dependent on getting lucky, on being blessed, on your dreams coming true, on everything going right. Focus on having a plan that, as the Stoics say, is indifferent to all that, right? There's another great line from Epictetus where he says, you know, a student's like, "How should I do this?" But he says, "You're asking me to show you

• 8:06Ryan Holiday?

  what to do," and he says, "Wouldn't it be better to ask to be adaptable to all circumstances?" And so this is really where we're trying to get, a place where there isn't anything we pray for. I take some pride, you know, every year my wife will go, "What do you want for your birthday?" And I go, "I don't, nothing. I don't want anything. There's nothing I need. There's nothing I want. It's not because I'm a billionaire. It's that I spent more time, you know, just getting the things that I did need, the tools I need for my life, for my, you know, my happiness, and then for the most part, being indifferent to all the other things and not needing to wait for my birthday, or Christmas, or, you

• 8:48Ryan Holiday?

  know, a check to come in to be able to afford this thing. It's better to not want it in the first place. And I think this is true for all the kinds of luck, or, you know, cool experiences, or things that we think we want or need.

• 9:02Ryan Holiday?

  No, either get it for yourself if it's possible, or write it off, you know? I think that's what the third quote from, that third quote, the final quote from Epictetus, he's saying is like, "Look, I'll just align my likes with what happens. If God wants me to have it, or the gods want me to have it, or the logos, or whatever." Stoics obviously had complicated, somewhat contradictory views on religion, but what will be, will be. What I get is what I get. I won't throw fit, right? That's where we're trying to get as Stoics, trying to get to this place of self-sufficiency, where we blow our own nose, where we're good, whatever happens. And I wish that for you. It's not easy. It doesn't just happen. You gotta work for it.

• 9:47Ryan Holiday?

  But that's what we're doing here, these meditations. And I hope this helps, and I'll talk to you soon. My newest book, Courage is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave, is now available for preorder. We've got a bunch of amazing bonuses. You can get signed copies, of course. I'm so proud of this book. General Jim Mattis has called it "a superb handbook for crafting a purposeful life." Matthew McConaughey called it "an urgent call to arms to each and all of us." I do hope you check it out. It's my first in the Four Virtues series, Courage, Temperance, Justice, Wisdom. Courage is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave. If you want to preorder it, I'd really appreciate your support. Go to dailystoic.com/preorder.