Stillness Helps You Win | Cultivate Indifference

Ryan talks about the way that Stoics view the tough moments in life, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal. Get a signed copy of Stillness Is The Key from The Painted Porch. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/emailFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookThis is Another Word for ObstaclesSee 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.

• 0:05Ryan 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. Stillness helps you win. You'd have been pretty tight, too, appearing in your first Super Bowl at age 33, and facing Bill Belichick, no less. And if you watched the Rams against the Patriots in 2019, it was visible. They were nervous.

• 0:50Ryan Holiday?

  They struggled to get going offensively. The team that had up till that point been fluid and locked in was rattled, and tight, and frantic. As Greg Bishop wrote in Sports Illustrated, "The Rams came to believe that they had overcomplicated the preparation, from locking in for a full two weeks beforehand to the plan that they had painstakingly put together. But because Sean McVay is a great coach, he vowed to learn from that. In the offseason last year, McKay read stillness as the key. He and Les Snead ignored the critics who attacked their roster moves, and aggressively went after new talent. And when they made it to the Super Bowl again this year, they made a conscious effort to relax,

• 1:33Ryan Holiday?

  to let go, and be loose. In the lead up to the Super Bowl, the Sports Illustrated story continues, "The team altered their approach by not altering it at all. The team was relaxed in those days leading up to the kickoff against the Bengals. They didn't deviate from their routine. They made a conscious effort not to tighten, to laugh, to hang out, to enjoy a dinner in town. And it worked. Despite all the obstacles in the game, injuries, a blown face masking, and pass interference call, the Rams were remarkably self-possessed. They stayed fluid. They kept it simple. They didn't panic. They made changes. And they pulled off an incredible performance. And now, they are Super Bowl champs."

• 2:17Ryan Holiday?

  Whatever it is that you're trying to do, stillness must be a part of it. It's what unlocks your true talent. It's what prevents you from locking up. In life, in the arts, in sports, we think better when we aren't thinking so hard. "We must become like the rock," Marcus Aurelius writes, "that lets the waves crash over it." "We must become like the sphere," he says, "embracing our perfect stillness." I was super flattered to hear that McVeigh had read Stillness is the Key. Sent me a nice note about it. And of course, we had Les Snead on the podcast. We talked about some of these things before the Super Bowl. You can check that out on YouTube and the archives of the Daily Stoic Podcast.

• 3:00Ryan Holiday?

  And of course, you can get Stillness is the Key anywhere books are sold. There's a box set with Stillness, Obstacle, Ego. And we have some signed copies in the Daily Stoic store as well. Check it out.

• 3:13Ryan Holiday?

  Cultivate Indifference. 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. Some people spend their lives chasing good things: health, wealth, pleasure, achievement.

• 3:56Ryan Holiday?

  Others try to avoid the bad things with equal energy: sickness, poverty, pain. And these look like two drastically different approaches, but in the end, they are the same. The Stoics continually reminded themselves that so many of the things we desire and avoid are beyond our control. Instead of chasing impossibilities, the Stoics trained to be equally prepared and equally suited to thrive in any condition. They trained to be indifferent. And this is a great power, and a cultivation of this skill is a very powerful exercise. Of all the things that are, some are good, others bad, and yet others indifferent. The good are virtues in all that share in them, the bad are vices in all that indulge them. The indifferent lie in between virtue and vice and include wealth, health, life, death,

• 4:41Ryan Holiday?

  pleasure, and pain, Epictetus's Discourses. My reasoned choice is as indifferent to the reasoned choice of my neighbor and as to his breath and body. However much we've been made for cooperation, the ruling reason in each of us is a master of its own affair. If this weren't the case, the evil in someone else would become my harm, and God didn't mean for someone else to control my misfortune. Marcus Aurelius's Meditations 8:56. There are things in life which are advantageous and disadvantageous. Both are beyond our control. That's Seneca Moral Letters 92. This idea of good, bad, and then a sort of a third category is this interesting debate. I talk a little bit about this in Lives of the Stoics.

• 5:25Ryan Holiday?

  You know, the early Stoics were much more cynical, and I mean, like, much closer to the cynics, the philosophical school, the idea that like, there's good and bad, there's virtue and vice, and everything is one of those categories. And there's a lot of argument about this. I think it's the later Stoics, the more practical, pragmatic Stoics that go, I mean, sure, but there's also stuff in between. There is such a thing as gray area, and it's impractical and unrealistic to assume that there's not. You know, Seneca talks about sort of preferred indifference, like, is it better to be short or tall? I mean, it's not good or bad either way, but he says, if you're short or tall, that's is what it is, but if you had a choice, you'd probably pick tall, right?

• 6:08Ryan Holiday?

  You'd probably pick rich over poor. It doesn't mean that it's virtuous to be rich, but if you had a choice, you'd choose it. So that's just like a sort of an interesting side Stoic debate, but this main thing is like, look, the Stoic is good either way. That, it's not that the Stoics love misfortune, and the Stoics don't want success, or ease, or happiness, or any of these things. It's, no, the Stoics are ready for whatever life throws at them. This sets them up to not be disappointed when life does throw at them. ...adversity, and it also puts them in a position where they're not yearning for or craving something good, or ease, or luck, or success. They're just cool with however it is. That's what Zen means, right? You're just philosophical about it. You're just chill

• 6:52Ryan Holiday?

  about it. You've got an even keel. And so this idea of indifference is not like nihilism. It's actually this kind of resiliency, this ability to be good with whatever happens, with whatever life throws at you. Would I rather we not have been through this pandemic? Yeah, probably. But I managed to find my space inside of it. I focused on what I could do inside of it. Would I have loved for parts of my childhood to be different? Would I have loved to be a little bit taller? Would I have loved to be this or that? Yeah, sure, if I had a choice, but I didn't have a choice. So I adjust and I make do. You know, Seneca talks, and I think he's quoting from Chrysippus, or maybe it's Cleanthes, but he's saying,

• 7:36Ryan Holiday?

  like, "Look, a wise man wants stuff, but he doesn't need it," right? We make do with what it is. We play the hand we're dealt. But if you're asking us what cards we want, if you're, you know, as the cards are flipping over, is there one we would prefer? Probably. So indifference is this complicated, tricky thing in Stoicism, but I think at the end of the day, it's pretty commonsensical, right? You'd rather be tall, but you're cool being short. You'd rather have use of all your limbs, but if something happened, you'd keep going, right? You know, Seneca says, "You'd rather see, but if you lost your eye in battle, that wouldn't be the end of it for you." You'd adjust. You'd make do. That's the power of Stoicism. We'll respond. We'll endure. We'll survive. We'll make the best of everything.

• 8:21Ryan Holiday?

  And in that, we're indifferent, but we're actually quite strong and confident because of that indifference. So think about that this week. If you want to journal about it in your Daily Stoic Journal, great, but try to cultivate the strength of endurance. Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. If you don't know this, you can get these delivered to you via email every day. Check it out at dailystoic.com/email.