Know it Inside and Out

Admiral Hyman Rickover, the father of the nuclear Navy in the United States and an unsung hero in the history of the world, was once asked by a Congressman if he was prepared for the upcoming hearing in which Hyman needed to speak about a number of complex, important issues. "Yes," Rickover replied, "I shaved and put on a clean shirt."📕Pre-order Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" and get exclusive pre-order bonuses at https://dailystoic.com/preorder ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See 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.

• 0:03Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom in everyday 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, dailystoic.com.

• 0:27Speaker 01

  Know it inside and out. Admiral Hyman Rickover, the father of the nuclear navy in the United States and an unsung hero in the history of the world, was once asked by a congressman if he was prepared for the upcoming hearing in which Hyman needed to speak about a number of complex, important issues. "Yes," Rickover replied, "I shaved and put on a clean shirt." Rickover didn't need to prepare because he was prepared. He wasn't some figurehead who had to be briefed before answering questions. He knew his science and his department inside out because he lived and breathed his work,

• 1:08Speaker 01

  famously interviewing something like 14,000 college grads himself for various positions over the years. He also personally tested every nuclear submarine during its initial sea trial after construction. His joke about preparing by getting dressed calls to mind an analogy from Marcus Aurelius, who said that "a true philosopher is a fighter, not a fencer. A fencer has to put on armor and pick up a weapon. A fighter just has to close their fists." That should be our model, too. We shouldn't be cramming the night before a test or frantically looking for advice once a crisis has arrived. We need to be prepared.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  We need to be so on top of our work and the knowledge required that everything we need is right there, everything already in our hands and in our heads. If you are rushing, you are already too late. If you are looking for your weapons, you are already beaten. You've got to know your stuff inside and out. You have to live it and breathe it. You've got to be ready.

• 2:18Ryan Holiday?

  You know, the Stoics in real life met at what was called the stoia, the stoia po kilé, the painted porch in ancient Athens. Obviously, we can't all get together in one place because this community is like hundreds of thousands of people and we couldn't fit in one space. But we have made a special digital version of the stoia. We're calling it Daily Stoic Life. It's an awesome community. You could talk about like today's episode, you could talk about the emails, ask questions. That's one of my favorite parts is interacting with all these people who are using Stoicism to be better in their actual, real lives. You get more Daily Stoic meditations over the weekend just for the Daily Stoic Life members, quarterly Q and As with me, cloth-bound edition of our Best of meditations, plus a whole bunch of other stuff, including discounts.

• 3:02Ryan Holiday?

  And this is the best part, all our Daily Stoic courses and challenges, totally for free, hundreds of dollars of value every single year, including our New Year, New You challenge. We'd love to have you join us. There's a two-week trial, totally for free. Check it out at DailyStoicLife.com.