How To Become Rich | Watch Over Your Perceptions

The writers Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse Five) and Joseph Heller (Catch-22) were at a glamorous party outside New York City. Standing in the palatial second home of the billionaire host, Vonnegut began to needle his friend. He described the exchange in a poem published in the New Yorker in 2005:I said, “Joe, how does it make you feel to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel Catch-22 has earned in its entire history?”And Joe said, “I’ve got something he can never have.”And I said, “What on earth could that be, Joe?”And Joe said, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”--And today's Daily Stoic Journal reading, Ryan discusses what the Stoics teach us about keeping constant watch over the flood of perceptions that fill our minds.🎧 Listen to Ryan's interview with Molly Bloom✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, 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.

• 0:02Ryan 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.

• 0:38Ryan Holiday?

  How to Become Rich. The writers Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five, and Joseph Heller, Catch-22, they're at this glamorous party outside New York City. And standing in the palatial second home of a billionaire, Vonnegut begins to needle his friend. He describes the exchange in a poem published in The New Yorker in 2005. "I said, Joe, how does it make you feel to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel Catch-22 has earned in its entire history?" And Joe said, "I've got something he can never have." And I said, "What on earth could that be, Joe?" And Joe said, "The knowledge that I have enough."

• 1:23Ryan Holiday?

  On the Daily Stoic Podcast recently, Molly Bloom, the infamous poker host and subject of Aaron Sorkin's movie, Molly's Game, you should definitely listen to the interview. We'll link to it below. She referenced this exact story to give us an idea of what it would be like to be in the room with some of the most wealthy and powerful people in the world. Bloom was right there, tableside with billionaires, Hollywood icons, and legendary athletes, all at the same time. But-

• 1:51Speaker 01

  The truth is, is that I would not have traded places with any of them. I would have wanted their certain things that they had, but they were on that hedonic treadmill, and they couldn't get off. It was just the never enough.

• 2:12Ryan Holiday?

  Seneca, who was himself in a circle of some very rich and powerful people, said that being poor is not having too little, it is wanting more. And Epictetus, perhaps looking at Seneca himself, saw how even ambition was a form of poverty and slavery that powerful people could not seem to escape. True wealth is not simply having a lot, it's having enough. It's accepting yourself. It is focusing on what you control, on what actually matters in life. And if you can embrace this, you'll be richer than any billionaire, movie star, or pro-athlete. You may do less, but you'll have so much more.

• 2:58Ryan Holiday?

  And you're already listening to this podcast, so you know how podcasts work. If you didn't listen to my interview with Molly, do check it out and check out her book, Molly's Game, which we carry in the painted porch. It's a delightful read, and I put it in the reading list email just last month. Enjoy.

• 3:19Ryan Holiday?

  Watch over your perceptions. Every moment brings a flood of impressions of the world around us, and our minds are filled with the perceptions that arise with them. The Stoics teach us that we must keep a constant watch over this flood, as if we are standing guard to protect something of vital importance. What is it that we are protecting? Our peace of mind, clarity, and freedom, all of which are anchored in our perceptions. Epictetus reminds us that we need to pay attention to what matters and learn how to ignore so many of the relentless provocations that come our way. That's from the Daily Stoic Journal, obviously.

• 4:02Ryan Holiday?

  And here we have Epictetus telling us, "Keep constant guard over your perceptions, for it is no small thing you are protecting, but your respect, trustworthiness, and steadiness, peace of mind, freedom from pain and fear. In a word, your freedom. For what would you sell these things?" Epictetus Discourses. An important place to begin philosophy is this: a clear perception of one's own ruling principle. That's Epictetus's discourses as well. "I don't agree with those who plunge headlong into the middle of the flood and who, accepting a turbulent life, struggle daily in great spirit with difficult circumstances. The wise person will endure that, but won't choose it, choosing to be at peace rather than at war."

• 4:47Ryan Holiday?

  Seneca, Moral Letters, 28.

• 4:52Ryan Holiday?

  It's tricky, right? I mean, the Stoics ask us to be active. They ask us to be involved. They ask us to be engaged. And then somehow, they expect us to be at peace, to not be bothered by what's happening in the world. That's the tricky thing, right? Like, you can go off in your cave, right? You can go on your 10-day meditation retreat and get some semblance of peace or stillness. The tricky thing, and this is what I was trying to write in that book as well, the tricky thing is to find peace now, within yourself, while engaged, while fully aware of what's happening in the world. What you don't know about, what you tune out, what you pretend doesn't exist,

• 5:36Ryan Holiday?

  it's easy not to be bothered by. But the key to Stoicism is finding the ability, the strength, to have that peace and stillness despite everything that's happening. I open stillness as the key with the story of Seneca trying to write a letter to Lucilius, and he's in this noisy apartment in Rome. And he's trying to, you know, he's saying, "Look, I didn't choose this. I had to do it." That's the cost of what his philosophy is demanding to him. The Epicurean said, "Hey, go flee to the garden." Seneca has to be engaged. He has to live in the city. He has to be involved. But can he find peace within that? And he says that you can. You can find peace. You can become, as Marcus Aurelius talked about, the rock that the waves are crashing over,

• 6:21Ryan Holiday?

  but eventually become still around. And we do this by keeping guard over our perceptions as Seneca, as Epictetus is saying. It's knowing what to care about and what not to care about. You know, I've had Mark Manson on the podcast before. You know, the subtle art of not giving a fuck is not... Not caring about anything. It's about finding the right things to care about and things not to care about. So that sort of discernment is really essential to managing our emotions and our perceptions, which is the theme in the journal this month. As we say, every moment brings a flood of impressions, a flood of news, a flood of interruptions, a flood of things that we're called to have opinions about, to react to, that are vying

• 7:05Ryan Holiday?

  for our attention. And our ability to stand guard against this, to let the good things in, to keep the bad things out, that's the key. That's the struggle. That's the fight that we're all engaged in. So, you know, even me, obviously, I live out in the country a little bit. I live the life of a writer, which allows me, you know, some shelter from the craziness of, you know, a person who has to commute into a, you know, a major city and work in an office with dozens of other people or hundreds of other people, and TVs blaring and phone calls and meetings. And yet, even there, even amidst my sort of privileged situation, I have to decide what to let in and what not to let in.

• 7:49Ryan Holiday?

  You know, what role does the phone play in your life? What role does your colleagues or your partners play in your life? You know, how disciplined are you about staying on task while you're in it? How long are you able to maintain your focus on what matters? Even if nothing's going on, is your mind the enemy of itself? Are you drawing yourself towards here? Are you drifting or are you daydreaming? How to stay focused, how to concentrate like a Roman, as Marcus said, that's the most important thing. And so, having a clear perception about our own mind, our own limitations, our own temptations, this is really the key. That's what we're working on here. That's what I want you to think about today and this week.

• 8:30Ryan Holiday?

  Remember, keep constant guard over your perceptions, for it's no small thing you are protecting. You're protecting your respect, your trustworthiness, your steadiness, your peace of mind, freedom from pain and fear. In a word, what you're protecting is your freedom.