Daily Stoic Sundays: Using Stoicism To Become Unbeatable

In today’s episode, Ryan talks to the University of Alabama football team and discusses how to use the concepts of Stoicism to take on any challenge. When you keep one of the Daily Stoic’s medallions by your side, it helps to cement into place the messages espoused by Stoicism. Use the Obstacle is the Way medallion to remember that any obstacle you encounter contains an opportunity as well. And our Ego is the Enemy medallion is a great token of the idea that you need to get your ego out of the way in order to succeed against whatever challenges you face.https://prints.dailystoic.com/products/the-obstacle-is-the-way-medallionhttps://prints.dailystoic.com/products/ego-is-the-enemy-medallion***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: DailyStoic.com/signupFollow Ryan:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidayYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee 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?

  Bienvenidos a la edición de fin de semana del Día Stoic. Cada viernes te traemos una meditación inspirada por los antiguos estoicos, algo que puede ayudarte a vivir los cuatro virtudes estoicas de coraje, justicia, sabiduría y temperance. Y aquí, en el fin de semana, nos sumamos a un profundismo en esos mismos temas. entrevistamos filósofos estoicos, nos reflejamos, nos preparamos, pensamos profundamente sobre los problemas desafiantes de nuestro tiempo y trabajamos en esta filosofía de una manera que es más posible aquí cuando no estamos ruidos de trabajar o de llevar a los niños a la escuela, cuando tenemos el tiempo para pensar, para ir por un caminato, para sentarnos con nuestros diarios

• 0:48Ryan Holiday?

  y para prepararnos para lo que traerá el futuro.

• 0:55Ryan Holiday?

  El atleta de la MMA, ahora es un entrenador, su nombre es Frank Shamrock, es un campeón UFC. Tiene un sistema que enseña a sus atletas, lo llama "plus, minus y igual". Y básicamente, lo que dice es que cada gran atleta necesita tener a alguien que es mejor que ellos, a quien entrenan, alguien que es igual a ellos en habilidad, a quien se desafían a sí mismos diariamente, y alguien que no es tan bueno como ellos, a quien enseñan lo que han aprendido de los otros dos. Y es este sistema, el ser estudiante en todo lo que haces, lo que te hace bueno, es lo que te hace mejor, y lo que más importa es lo que golpea el ego que abruma nuestra capacidad de estar en un equipo o de relacionarse y trabajar con otras personas. Emerson tiene una frase, y así es como trato de vivir mi vida también.

• 1:37Ryan Holiday?

  Dice: "Cada hombre que conozco es mi maestro en algún punto, y en eso aprendo de él". Él está diciendo que incluso cuando puedes ser mejor que alguien en el 99% de lo que haces, todavía hay un 1% en el que están un poco mejores. Y eso es lo que te enfocas, es cómo puedes absorber... Si puedes absorber una cosa de cada persona que conoces, te vuelves mejor y mejor y mejor, y eventualmente te vuelves imposible de derrocar. Even when you are doing great, what you want to be looking at is what you could do better, not what you did well. Elizabeth Noell Newman, she's a sculptor, and she's saying, "This is something I try to live my life by as a writer." She's saying, "I never look back except to find out about mistakes. I only see danger in looking back and seeing things you're proud of, because this is what puffs up the ego. This is what makes you think you're invincible,

• 2:22Ryan Holiday?

  that you are fated to win, that everything is yours by right." And of course, that's not the case. So you look backwards to find mistakes, and you look forward to find opportunities to apply those new lessons and be better than you were the first time. Marcus Aurelius is saying, "You know, ambition is tying your well-being to what other people say or do. That's tying yourself to outcomes. Self-indulgence means tying it to the things that happen to you, but sanity means tying it to your own actions. That's tying it to what you do, what you think, what you can improve, not looking at what the scoreboard says, because that's irrelevant." Ultimately, the scoreboard should not be as high as the standard that you personally hold yourself to. Do your job, do it right, right?

• 3:06Ryan Holiday?

  Andrew Johnson, before he became president, before he was the governor, he's giving a talk, and a heckler cries out from the crowd. What the heckler is joking about and making fun of is the fact that Johnson comes from humble beginnings, right? He wasn't a born politician. He wasn't born wealthy. In fact, he was a tailor. His job was making clothes for other people who were rich and successful. And what Johnson's response, and I think this is an excellent response, he's saying, "That does not disconcert me in the least. For when I used to be a tailor, I had the reputation of being a good one and making close fits, always punctual with my customers, and I always did good work." Essentially, what he's saying is, "I don't give a shit what you think about whether being a tailor is a good job or a bad job. I was good at it.

• 3:50Ryan Holiday?

  I did what I was supposed to do well, and that's what I take pride in, right?" And this is something the Stoics talk about over and over again. We're all assigned roles in life. These roles change, but what matters is what we do in that role while we have the opportunity. Epictetus is saying, "First, you tell yourself what kind of person you want to be, then you do what you have to do." For nearly every pursuit, we find this to be the case. Those in athletic pursuits, they choose the sport they want and then they do that work, no matter whether that's the sexy part of the work, that's the work that gets attention, that's the work that's fun. They do that and they do the work that's necessary. They do every single thing that they're assigned to do. This is carved on the mantelpiece of Sir Henry Royce's house, right? Sir Henry Royce is the guy that founds Rolls Royce.

• 4:36Ryan Holiday?

  Whatever is rightly done, however humble, is noble. So you do your job and you do it right because that's your job and you take pride in that fact. You take pride in excellence. That's what the Stoics are saying. Doesn't matter what happened to you, doesn't matter why you're doing it. What matters is that you do that task well and you see it as an opportunity to be excellent in what you do. Marcus Aurelius, again, he's saying, pay attention to what's in front of you, the principle, the task, or what's being portrayed. That's it. The thing in front of you, that's the opportunity, not the thing far off in the future. The lesson I learned from this, this is something I think about when I might be wanting to cut a corner, I might not want to do something well. How you do anything is how you do everything.

• 5:19Ryan Holiday?

  How you do this task in front of you right now is a reflection of who you are as a person and it's a reflection of your general attitude towards the rest of your responsibilities. And then that leads us into our final lesson, which would be follow the process. Marcus Aurelius is saying, you must build your life, action by action, and be content if each one achieves its goal as far as possible and no one can keep you from this. So this is 2,000 years ago, the most powerful man in the world, he's reminding himself that you take things step by step. You don't focus the distant future, you focus on what's in front of you, you focus on doing it well and right. This might sound familiar to you guys, right? This is the process, right?

• 6:02Ryan Holiday?

  This is the Stoics talking about the process, the thing that you guys hear and see everywhere. I was in your stadium earlier, I saw the process starts here. This is that same idea, 2,000 years later, tested in battle, tested in the highest military and political offices in the world, tested by creatives, by authors, by entrepreneurs, by some of the smartest people. Whoever live, they're living their life by the process. What we ultimately control, the Stoics are again making the distinction between what we control and what we don't control. And what we control is what's in front of us. Gertrude is saying, what matters to an active man is to do the right thing. Whether the right thing comes to pass should not bother him. We tend to be A to Z thinkers, right?

• 6:45Ryan Holiday?

  And we forget that all the letters in between, we forget the little things, we forget the process, right? If you're pinned on the ground, what you do is you don't focus on being free completely. The first thing you do is you don't do something stupid that gets you choked out. You take your time, you get your bearings, and then you break it down step by step, right? You give yourself a little bit of space, you try to get to your side, then you pull maybe a leg out, you trap an arm, you buck your hips. This is a process. Being trapped, being pinned down is not fate, it's not over. It's a methodical thing. Breaking it down step by step is how you get out of here. It's not one big swoop, it's not one major move. That's not how you do it. You break it down and you see the best fighters in the world do this.

• 7:28Ryan Holiday?

  I'll leave you with one quote, this is a Stoic quote that I try to remember more than any other. I think it applies in every single situation. Marcus Aurelius is saying, "Objective judgment now at this very moment," right? That's our perceptions, that's how we look at what we're seeing. We're seeing it clearly and objectively, we're not bringing anything to it, we're looking at it for what it is. Objective judgment now at this very moment. Unselfish action, so that's what we're gonna do about this problem. That's not acting with selfishness, that's not acting with ego, that's acting as a team, that's doing your job, it's doing it well, now at this very moment, right? And then, willing acceptance. That's accepting the things you can't change, that's focusing exclusively on the things you can change, that's focusing on your response, not on why you're here, not on what caused

• 8:13Ryan Holiday?

  this, not on what mistake you made or someone else made. So, objective judgment now at this very moment. Unselfish action now at this very moment. Willing acceptance now at this very moment. Of all external events, that's all you need. Marcus Aurelius. Those are the books, and of course, anyone, whoever wants to, can email me, and that's me on social media too. I know you guys don't like email anymore. But anyways, thank you for having me, it's been a pleasure. It's awesome to see some of the best people in the world at what they do, and I hope this was helpful. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or your favorite podcast app. And if you don't get the Daily Stoic email, go to dailystoic.com/email.