What Are You Getting Better At? | 11 Stoic Principles Every Athlete Needs To Win

No one is more invested in getting better than you. You read books. You have a mentor. You even have a business coach. You go to work conferences. You go to the gym. You have hobbies that you watch videos about, that you have goals for. You have a financial advisor. You put in long hours.📕 Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" is out now! We’ve extended the pre-order bonuses for the next week—among them is a signed and numbered page from the original manuscript of the book. You can learn more about those and how to receive them over at 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.

• 0:02Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. On Tuesdays, we take a closer look at these Stoic ideas and how we can apply them in our actual lives. Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy.

• 0:27Ryan Holiday?

  What are you getting better at? No one is more invested in getting better than you. You read books, you have a mentor, you even have a business coach, go to work conferences, you go to the gym, you have hobbies that you watch videos about, that you have goals for, you have a financial advisor, you put in long hours. It's all very impressive. But is it really? Marcus Aurelius was all for optimization and improvement. He too had the best experts in his corner. He too worked long hours. He just wanted to be sure that all his effort was pointed at the right goal. Because it's so easy to get distracted or consumed by superficial improvements. "It was easy," he said, "to become a better wrestler, a better speaker of rhetoric, a better lawyer, a better hunter, a better tactician." But

• 1:11Ryan Holiday?

  did that really matter? No, it didn't. What mattered, he said, was becoming a better citizen, a better person, a better resource in tight places, a better forgiver of faults. All the time and money you've put into yourself is great, but if you're honest, isn't the vast majority of that directed at your career, at your appearance, or your pleasure? Imagine what you could become, how much better the world would be if you put that energy into true self-improvement, if you put it towards improving as a parent, as a neighbor, as a citizen.

• 1:47Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. When I first sat down to write my books on Stoic philosophy, I could not have conceived that they would make their way through sports, let alone professional sports. I thought maybe there was this sort of connection to business. That was the world that I was in. I did not think that just a few months after Obstacle came out, I'd be watching the New England Patriots win the Super Bowl. Having gotten to give them the book throughout the season, and then in that offseason, the book makes its way to the Seahawks, and then sort of the rest is history. And I've been lucky enough to speak to a bunch of different sports teams. We've brought you some of those episodes, got to meet a number of athletes, have brought those athletes

• 2:31Ryan Holiday?

  on the podcast, and you can see how actually it does make sense that ancient philosophy could connect to modern athletics. And it does make sense that Stoicism would resonate with the athletic community. First off, the Stoics' works are filled with sports metaphors, not unlike the ones we use today. Epictetus talks about life as being like a ball thrower. You have to catch it. You don't complain about how it was thrown. You have to catch it and throw it right back. And he says, Socrates famously is the greatest ball player of all time for his way of doing this. Marcus really says that we must assume the boxer's stance, or assume the wrestler's stance. And he sort of sees life as this sort of

• 3:13Ryan Holiday?

  being in the ring and sparring, so to speak. But I don't think these were just metaphors. I think they trained in sports. Chrysippus is a sprinter. Clanthus is a boxer. Marcus Aurelius clearly fights, wrestles, hunts, rides horses. And when I talked to Admiral James Stockdale's son a few years ago, he was telling me that his father's experience as a walk-on player on the practice squad for his high school football team trained him more than anything for the combat and the adversity he would later face. So in today's episode, we're going to talk about the connection between sports and Stoicism,

• 3:54Ryan Holiday?

  and how Stoicism can help you conquer the mental game, whatever game you happen to be playing, whether that's the game of Wall Street, whether that's the game of social work, whether that's the game of being a stay-at-home parent. There's so much we can learn from the Stoics about sports, and by extension, about life. And that's what we're going to talk about in today's episode.

• 4:17Ryan Holiday?

  Epictetus says that you must undergo a hard winter's training. He was referring to how soldiers would train in the winter when they weren't at battle, so they could be prepared when the battle did come. That's what practice is, that's what training is, that's what all of this is about, is preparing for that big day. Have you put in the hours? Have you put in the training? Have you prepared for this exact circumstance? Because the one who has done that is the one that will win. Bill Bradley says this, "When you are not practicing, you have to realize," he says, "that somewhere, someone else is practicing, and when you meet that person, they will beat you."

• 4:59Ryan Holiday?

  You have to run your own race. Seneca defines tranquility, or peace, or happiness, this word euphemia, as a sense of being on the path that you're on, and not being distracted or misled by the paths that crisscross yours. Like, everyone's gonna be on their own journey, right? Everyone has their own potentials, their own limits. And so I think of athletics not being in competition with someone else, but being in competition with myself. I got out there, I'm running. I don't care if other people are passing me. I don't care if other people are in better shape than me. I don't care about anything that anyone else is doing. I care about what I'm doing.

• 5:41Ryan Holiday?

  And I don't get distracted by the people, or the paths, or the footsteps, or the runners, or the swimmers, or whatever it is that crisscross mine.

• 5:53Ryan Holiday?

  Seneca says that life without design is erratic. The idea of having a routine, having structure, reducing the amount of variables and randomness in your life is, I think, a key part of performance. This is why athletes have routines, this is why practice is at a set time, this is why Lombardi would keep things on Lombardi time, like punctuality. You wanna keep things contained. You wanna keep chaos and disorder away. You wanna get away from erraticness, and you wanna get towards purposefulness.

• 6:26Ryan Holiday?

  You want to get towards clarity. This is why athletes have rituals that they do. This is why they have even superstitions. I think this is just a way of reinforcing structure, of getting to a kind of routine, getting to the right headspace. So think about all the ways in which your life is erratic and without design, and focus on creating structure and design there, and you will see improvements in your performance as a result.

• 6:58Ryan Holiday?

  In one of his letters, Seneca says that we treat the body rigorously so that it would not be disobedient to the mind. And I think about that when I'm jumping in the shower, jumping in a cold pool, whether I'm pushing myself, or I'm running or lifting weights, it's like I'm reminding the body who's in charge. This idea that we treat the body rigorously, that that's what the physical practice is. It's a reminder of who's in charge. It's the mind asserting itself over the body. We tend to think of philosophers as these sort of soft people, but actually, the mental practice, the mental resilience, being in charge of yourself is the ultimate muscle that you want to cultivate, and it's the thing that every great athlete has to have.

• 7:44Ryan Holiday?

  It was an ordinary, regular season game against a team that he'd played dozens, dozens of times over the course of his career. Chris Bosh didn't know in the locker room, as he was lacing up his shoes, that it would not just be the last time he played the Spurs, but be the last time he played professionally as an athlete. An embolism in his leg would end his playing career, suddenly, anticlimactically, tragically. When the Stoics talk about memento mori, that life is short, it's not just the idea that we could go at any moment, which we can. It's that the things we care about, the things we love, the things we're doing, we are not in control of them. We don't control when they begin or end. And so the reason the Stoics talk about being present, about not taking things for granted, about not deferring things into the future,

• 8:29Ryan Holiday?

  it's for that reason. Because you don't know when your career is going to end. You don't know when your knee is going to blow out. You don't know how long. You get to do things. And so to take them for granted, to assume they'll always be there, to not give your best, is arrogant, it's reckless, it's selfish, it's short sighted, and you can't do it. Memento mori, life is short, you could leave life right now. Marx really says, let that determine what you do, say, and think.

• 9:00Ryan Holiday?

  So the most important exercise in all of Stoic philosophy is called the dichotomy of control. The idea that there's some stuff that's up to us and some stuff is not. Now, Epictetus actually says the chief task in life for the philosopher, I think also for the athlete, for the professional, whatever it is, is to determine what that is, if it's up to us, if it's not up to us. As an athlete, really, all you control is how you play. You control what you put in. You don't control the response, you don't control what the competitors do, you don't control the weather, the refs, you don't control anything but your own effort. So if you focus then on process, if you focus on you do, you have to trust, as Bill Walsh famously said, that the score takes care of itself.

• 9:42Ryan Holiday?

  Whatever the thing you're focused on, you don't get there by focusing on that, you focus on the part of it that you control, which is what you put in. The score takes care of itself, but only if you first take care of what only you can take care of.

• 9:58Ryan Holiday?

  When adversity happens in life, when things are difficult, when you run into obstacles, which is going to happen, there is no escape from it. You have to be able to see it, the Stoics say, as a good thing, that life is pairing you with a strong sparring partner. And the purpose of a sparring partner is to help you level up, to get better, to practice and cultivate the various skills that you'll need in the match, in the ring, when shit gets real. So the idea is not to run away from adversity or difficulty or obstacles, but to embrace them. Marx really says that the impediment to action advances action. It stands in the way becomes the way. He says, you know, what you throw on top of a fire becomes fuel for the fire. So don't think about the fact that it's hard, that it's difficult, that it's not going your way, that this thing happened and you wish it hadn't happened.

• 10:43Ryan Holiday?

  No, it's good that it happened, because you're going to use it, it's going to make you better, it's teaching you something. And if you have this attitude, you are unstoppable, because all the things that are happening are making you better, making you stronger, preparing you, teaching you, warning you, and that's what you want.

• 11:03Ryan Holiday?

  Jimmy Carter, who was a cross-country runner at the US Naval Academy. After he graduated in the early 1950s, he was interviewed by Admiral Rickover, who was the father of the American Nuclear Navy. It was a long interview that Carter had prepared for meticulously. And they go over topics, they talk about strategy, they talk about physics, they talk about history. And finally, Rickover looks at Carter and he says, "How did you stand in your class at the Naval Academy?" Carter puffs up his chest, he gets excited and proud, and he says, "I stood 60th in the class of 800." And then Rickover looks at him and he says, "But did you always do your best?" Carter goes to instinctively answer, "Yeah."

• 11:45Ryan Holiday?

  And then he catches himself and he thinks about whether that's actually true, were there classes that he coasted, were there practices that he didn't fully push himself? Were there races where he had something left in the tank and he didn't give all of it? He decides to be honest, and he looks at Rickover and he says, "No, I didn't always do my best." And then Rickover says, "Why not?" And then he gets up and he leaves the room. And that question haunts Jimmy Carter for the rest of his life. Why didn't he give his best? Why wouldn't he always give his best? So I think as athletes, as professional amateur, you know, weekend warrior, whatever it is, the question is, are you giving your best? Are you actually putting everything you have into this? Or are you holding back in some way?

• 12:30Ryan Holiday?

  And if you are, the question ultimately that should haunt you is why? A big part of success is positive visualization. If you can't see it happening, it's unlikely that it's going to happen. If you don't see yourself on the medal stand, if you don't see the shot going in, if you don't see yourself connecting with the ball, it's not going to happen. But the Stoics would pair this positive visualization with a kind of negative visualization. The term for this is premeditatio malorum, a premeditation of evils. Basically, understanding that things are unpredictable, that because things can go wrong, they invariably will go wrong. How are you going to respond to that? Are you prepared to respond to it? Are you going to be rattled by the

• 13:12Ryan Holiday?

  Stuff that happens, Seneca says that the unexpected blow lands heaviest. Again, we were talking about Bill Walsh earlier. One of the Bill Walsh things I love is he would script the first several plays in a game. So that whatever happened, however, the game went right at the beginning, however, the unexpected unpredictable parts of a game, he knew what he was going to do. He had his plan locked that couldn't be affected by circumstances. So the idea is stuff is going to go wrong. Life is unpredictable, right? But you have to imagine for that. You have to prepare for that. Seneca says that the only inexcusable thing for a leader, but I think also for an athlete to say is, oh, I didn't think that would happen. You have to think it would happen.

• 13:54Ryan Holiday?

  You have to think it could happen and you have to have a plan for what you're going to do if that happens.

• 14:03Ryan Holiday?

  Epictetus would ask, how much longer are you going to wait to demand the best for yourself? Marcus Aurelius says like, you could be good today, but instead you choose tomorrow. We put stuff off. Stephen Pressfield, the great writer says, it's not that we say, I'm never going to write my symphony. I'm never going to go out for that. I'm never going to put myself out there. We say, I'm going to do it tomorrow. We wait, we put it off. And the Stoics say, you can't do it. You gotta do it now. Seneca says all fools have this one thing in common. They're always beginning to live. They're getting ready to live. They're not doing it now. They put it off. You can't put it off. Procrastination is the enemy. It's the enemy of progress. It's the enemy of the present moment. It's the enemy of doing your best. Don't put stuff off. Don't do it later. Don't say, I'm going to work out tomorrow. Don't put it off. Do it now.

• 14:51Ryan Holiday?

  We want like transformation. We want to see immediate results. We want to get wherever it is that we're trying to get like now. But the Stoics say, no, it's about gradual progress. Marcus Aurelius says that, you know, we assemble our life action by action. That doesn't sound like much, but no one can stop you from that. This is like what I like 10,000 talks about, better than yesterday. Again, that's not much, but it adds up. Zeno, one of the founders of Stoicism, he says, "Well-being is realized by small steps, but it's no small thing." So being a little bit better than you were yesterday, focusing on the immediate step in front of you. Again, incrementally, that's not much, but cumulatively, it's enormous.

• 15:35Ryan Holiday?

  And it's how you get from where you are now, to who you want to be, to what you're capable of being. Step by step, action by action, better than yesterday. I hope you like this video. I hope to subscribe. But what I really want you to subscribe to is our Daily Stoic email. One bit of Stoic wisdom, totally for free, to the largest community of Stoics ever in existence. You can sign up at dailystoic.com/email. There's no spam. You can unsubscribe at any time. I love sending it. I've sent it every day for the last six years. And I hope to see you there at dailystoic.com/email.