Ask Daily Stoic: How can I get my partner interested in Stoicism?

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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, where each day we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living the good life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at dailystoic.com.

• 0:28Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of Ask Daily Stoic. You send in your questions about Stoicism, Marcus Aurelius, about reading, writing, philosophy, ancient history, whatever it is. We kick stuff around. You can send those questions to [email protected]. The more specific your questions, the better. Steve wrote in and he said, "How can I get my wife interested in Stoicism?" Why do you want your wife to be interested in Stoicism? I think the Stoic quip would be like, focus on yourself, leave other people to their own development. Sometimes I think we project our own needs on other people. There's this Zen saying, "When the student is ready, the teacher appears."

• 1:09Ryan Holiday?

  I think Stoicism is not an evangelical religion. You're not supposed to convert people. It doesn't need to be this thing you force on other people. It's there for the people that want it, but it's there primarily for you to be interested in improving yourself. So I could only think about how I got my wife into Stoicism. I remember when we met, I think we met in 2007, I had actually just read Marcus Aurelius. I remember I bought it at Borders. No, I bought it on Amazon. And I was reading it, and I was talking to her about it, and she was so interested from my conversation that she went to Borders and bought a copy. Borders is no longer in business, but we went through the copy a couple of months ago,

• 1:53Ryan Holiday?

  and you can still see this faded-out receipt inside the book. The point was... She went and got it because she was interested in it, not because I forced it on her. I don't think this is something you can force on people. And even if you could, I don't think it would work. And my evidence for this is Seneca, one of the greatest Stoics ever, was supposed, was like, assigned to teach Stoicism to Nero. And it didn't work out well. We wrote this Daily Stoic email about a famous statue of the two of them. You can kind of see the statue is like Seneca trying to teach Stoicism to Nero. And he's just like sort of sitting there like, this is Nero. And he won't pay attention. And he's, to me, the lesson of that statue is like, you can lead a horse to water,

• 2:37Ryan Holiday?

  but you can't make them drink. And, and so when I think about how you might teach it to a wife, or a friend, or a kid, I think it all comes down to the material is there, the wisdom is there. You model it, you can tell them about it, but you can't do anything more than that. And, and ultimately, you want to focus on what you control, which is what is the philosophy doing for you? All right, Karen wrote in. She just graduated from college. She's heading out into the world. What's, what sort of advice would I have for someone getting started? And, and is there anything sort of that the Stoics specifically have to say about that? Well, I don't know.

• 3:19Ryan Holiday?

  I, I think, when I think about my path, obviously, education was important. Obviously, you know, sort of luck and privilege was important. But the big sort of movers in my career were people that I met, that I talked to, that I developed relationships with, that ended up becoming sort of mentors or advisors to me. So I, what I would think about is in this sort of, you're a fresh graduate, you're young, you're just getting started. I'd think about like, who, whose work do you admire? Who has done what you are trying to do? And what advice could you reach out and ask of them?

• 4:00Ryan Holiday?

  So like, the fact that you wrote into this thing is, is exactly the kind of thing that you use to kickstart a thing. So a mentorship isn't This thing that magically happens, but it's also not like an official sort of ordained thing. It's something that evolves. So when I think of like my relationship with Robert Greene, who taught me how to write, who gave me a lot of my big breaks as a writer, it was like that that started from sort of random email exchanges and then they built from there. And I took like a little job working for him and I did well and then a bigger job. So like you don't magically get your dream job. In many cases, you make that job. And so that, you know, the willingness to start small, the willingness to sort of, you know, try things out and reach out without any sort of ulterior motives is, I think,

• 4:45Ryan Holiday?

  really key to developing the network or the relationships that ultimately, you know, set up where you're trying to go and what you're trying to do. So Ben, Ben wrote that he'd he's laid up with a broken leg. How does he sort of make use of this time? What you sort of stuck, upset, sort of any thoughts on on a sort of recovery from something like that? I'm just writing now in this book Lives of the Stoics. There's a there's a philosopher, a Crates of Malus, M A L L U S, not malice, although that would be a cool place to be from. He's in Rome on a diplomatic mission and he falls in a sewer grate and he breaks

• 5:27Ryan Holiday?

  his leg. He's, I think he's from Rhodes or something. He's not from Rome, but he's in Rome, falls, breaks his leg, and he's laid up for several weeks. And it's been several months and being laid up for several months is when he starts giving discourses on Stoic philosophy. The philosophy is sort of so relevatory and new in Rome that it's a sensation, these pamphlets. This is, this may well be the introduction of Stoicism to Rome. It had been popular in Athens and in Greece, but it had not made its way all the way to Rome. And so it may well be that Stoicism's first introduction to the Roman

• 6:07Ryan Holiday?

  Empire, which it, the philosophy that it's sort of incorporated into the DNA of the empire that changes the course of the world and history. Comes from the exact scenario you're in. So I think one of the things the Stoics would think about is like, sure, it sucks. You broke your leg. It probably hurts really bad. I'm sorry that this happened to you. But they'd say like, what good can come of this? How can you use it? And I remember in 2011, I quit my job at American Apparel. I moved across the country. I was all set to start writing this first, my first book. I wanted to write a book on media. And I was riding my bike to the gym in New Orleans. And the tire got stuck in the streetcar track. And I went over the handlebars and I landed

• 6:48Ryan Holiday?

  on my left elbow. And I fractured a bone in my elbow. And so it was in a sling for something like six weeks. I couldn't exercise. I couldn't swim. And I had to type with one hand. And I was going out of my mind. But I used that time. I went on these long walks because that's how I got my exercise. That's how I got outside. I couldn't do as much writing. I had to do more reading and I had to do more research. And I don't think that book would end, would have ended up being the book that it was if it wasn't for that experience. I wanted to rush right into it. I wanted to get it all done. But it forced me to take it slow. It reminded me of, you know, it just, it made me overall a better

• 7:28Ryan Holiday?

  writer and a better person. I am almost certain that you will look back on this injury as being sort of less painful and more meaningful than it feels to you now. But the question would be like, what can you get out of this experience? What can you learn? What can you do? Who can you reconnect with? There's a study that I talk about in, in The Obstacles, the way they did this study on Canadian athletes about how sort of potential career ending injuries often were the fodder for what they call post-traumatic growth. Even if it didn't make them better, the rehabbing process didn't, they didn't emerge stronger from it. They appreciated the game more, or they appreciated their teammates more, or

• 8:12Ryan Holiday?

  they understood the power of leadership more, or made them more patient, or made them more grateful. Like, this injury can do that for you if you choose to let it. But that ultimately is up to you. So that's what I would think. I'm sorry. I hope you feel better soon. Great question, though. Appreciate everyone who wrote in. Talk to you next week. This was awesome. You can send your questions at [email protected]. Follow us at @dailystoic pretty much everywhere. Subscribe below on YouTube. Leave a comment if you want. And of course, as always, I hope you get the Daily Stoic email.

• 8:45Ryan Holiday?

  You can check out DailyStoke.com. Thanks.