It’s Good to Be Beaten Up From Time to Time

"You’ve been kicked around by life, that’s true. Where other people had it easy, you’ve had to struggle. You didn’t get into the college you wanted, your parents couldn’t buy you a car, you had to wear glasses. You’ve watched as other people hit it out of the park on their first try, getting breaks that you’ve had to work your ass off for. You’ve been insulted. You’ve been fired. You’ve been crapped on and you’ve been brought to tears. It’s unfair, you say. It’d be better if it had been otherwise. Is that true? Do you know that for a fact?"Ryan discusses what going through a struggle can teach you in today's Daily Stoic Podcast.***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: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: 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.

• 0:06Ryan 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.

• 0:29Ryan Holiday?

  It's good to be beaten up from time to time. You've been kicked around by life, that's true. Where other people had it easy, you've had to struggle. You didn't get into the college you wanted. Your parents couldn't buy you a car. You had to wear glasses. You watched as other people hit it out of the park on their first try, getting breaks that you've had to work your ass off for. You've been insulted. You've been fired. You've been crapped on, and you've been brought to tears. "It's unfair," you say. "It'd be better if it had happened otherwise." But is that true? Do you know that for a fact? "No prizefighter can go with high spirits into the strife if he has never been beaten black and blue," Seneca wrote to his friend Lucilius. "The only contestant who can confidently

• 1:12Ryan Holiday?

  enter the lists is the man who has seen his own blood, who has felt his teeth rattle beneath his opponent's fist, who has been tripped and felt the full force of his adversary's charge, who has been downed in body but not in spirit, one who as often as he falls, rises again with greater defiance than ever." So yeah, you've been kicked around, but that's a good thing, because it taught you something. At the very least, it taught you something about yourself. You, unlike most people, now know what you are capable of. You know that you're tough. You know that you get up after you've been knocked down. You have tasted your own blood and are not afraid to risk tasting it again. It's good that this happened, and you're still standing. Not everyone was

• 1:57Ryan Holiday?

  so lucky. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. I am so excited to tell you about my next book, Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius. If you're a fan of Stoicism and you want to know about the people behind the ideas that have been so influential in history, that have shaped this philosophy, that's had such a big impact on your life and my life, well, that's what I wrote this book to do. Sort of a follow-up sequel to The Daily Stoic. It's 26 biographies of the most fascinating Stoic figures in history: Marcus Aurelius, Zeno, Seneca, Cato, and so many others. And there's a whole bunch of bonuses if you preorder, and we even have a limited edition run of signed copies, which you can get from Barnes & Noble.

• 2:39Ryan Holiday?

  So for the preorder information, go to dailystoic.com/preorder. The book is out September 29th, but you've got to preorder it now. That helps me in a big way and gets you the bonus. It's dailystoic.com/preorder.