Where Would We Be Without Them? | What Little Wins Can You Find

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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 Podcast, where each day we bring you a Stoic-inspired meditation, designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women, help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit DailyStoic.com.

• 0:55Ryan Holiday?

  Where would we be without them? There would be no Plato without Socrates. There would be no Aristotle without Plato. There would be no Alexander without Aristotle. There would be no Marcus Aurelius without Rusticus or Epictetus or Antoninus. There would be no Zeno without Crates, and thus, there would be no Stoicism without Crates. Do you know what Crates, the cynic philosopher who Zeno studied under, was nicknamed in ancient Athens? He was known as the "door opener." That's what great teachers do, don't they? They open doors. They invite you in. They help you see the possibilities you didn't know existed.

• 1:38Ryan Holiday?

  And bad teachers, they do the opposite. They close doors. They beat the curiosity out you. They make you think you're bad at math, or at reading, or at thinking. Maybe you've always hated school. Maybe you've been told you're not smart. Maybe you've believed it. But have you ever considered that maybe you just haven't found the right teacher? There is someone out there who gets you, but it's your job to look for them. They say that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. And that can be true, but we also can't just sit around waiting for a miracle. We have to seek out teachers and schools that are right for us. Zeno went looking for Grates, after all.

• 2:19Ryan Holiday?

  Marcus Aurelius sought out the great minds of his time, finding it in Rusticus and Fronto. And still, even as an old man, Marcus was going to attend the lectures of Sextus the philosopher. And not all your teachers have to be living either. Marcus learns as much from Epictetus as he did from any of his teachers. And of course, Epictetus himself, even as a slave, found his way to Masonus Rufus. And when you do find that right teacher, you must understand that the process won't be fast. There's a samurai warrior who once asked his master how long it would take to become a great swordsman. 10 years, he was told. "What if I work extra hard?" the student said. "Then 30 years," the master replied. The point being, the more you rush, the slower you go.

• 3:03Ryan Holiday?

  Education takes time. It takes work, takes patience. It takes the right teacher. But the rewards are worth it. And the sooner you start looking for those door openers, the better. That idea, that we are formed by our teachers, is one of the most essential ideas that I argue in the new book. Wisdom takes work. As Seneca said, "No man was ever wise by chance." Wisdom takes work. It takes a lot of work. It is the work of your life. And that's what the fourth and final virtue of Stoicism is. The fourth and final virtue in the Stoic Virtue series that I've been working on. Courage is calling. Discipline is destiny. Right thing right now. And now, wisdom takes work. And you can preorder it right now. Comes out on October 21st.

• 3:47Ryan Holiday?

  But if you want signed manuscript pages, if you want a bunch of awesome preorder bonuses, if you want to have dinner with me, check out all that at dailystoic.com/wisdom. We've got all those bonuses in there. We will sell out of the signed and numbered first editions. I just finished signing them all. They're about to go to the printer now. I'm really excited. I'm so proud of this book. I can't wait for you to read it. Thanks to everyone who's supported the earlier books in the series. I can't wait for you to read this one and it would mean a lot if you could support it. You can get all four books signed in this cool numbered set we have as well. All that, dailystoic.com/wisdom and check it out. Wisdom takes work.

• 4:37Ryan Holiday?

  What little wins can you find? Zeno, the Phoenician merchant who founded the Stoic school on the painted porch, the Stoic pochile of the agora after a shipwreck, said that happiness was a matter of small steps. While the Stoics believed in the perfectibility of human beings, they knew that so much stood in the way of realizing that potential. So they would be skeptical of the so-called epic wins and quantum leaps that our culture obsesses over today. Instead, they would urge you to focus on your daily duties, on making incremental progress. Spend your time this week thinking about small wins. What little gains can be had from this improvement or that one? A decision here or a decision there? Be satisfied with each small step.

• 5:21Ryan Holiday?

  Keep moving and don't give up. This is from this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal. 366 days of writing in reflection on the art of living. From yours truly. You can find this anywhere books are sold. And of course, we also have signed books in the Daily Stoic store. But we have a quote from Marcus, a quote from Epictetus and a quote from Zeno today. Do what your nature demands, Marcus Aurelius says in Meditations 9:29. Get right to it if it's in your power. Don't look around to see if people will know about it. Don't await the perfection of Plato's Republic, but be satisfied with even the smallest step forward and regard the outcome itself as a small thing.

• 6:01Ryan Holiday?

  Then Epictetus says, we don't abandon our pursuits because we despair of ever perfecting them. That's Discourses 1:2. Well-being is realized by small steps, Zeno says, according to Diogenes Laertes, but it is no small thing.

• 6:20Ryan Holiday?

  I was actually just thinking about this this morning. There's a great writing rule, you know, just a couple crappy pages a day. Just put in the time, put in the work. That'll get you to a manuscript, like a draft one. Then you can edit draft one, but you can't edit what doesn't exist. So people, as Epictetus says, who despair of progress because it's not perfection, they never get there. But the person who shows up and does work every day gets there. So I was actually writing this in the, in my journal today. I was saying, okay, just show up, put your ass in the chair, do a little work. And as I was writing this in the journal, I was thinking like, put your ass in the chair, be at the desk. And then this story popped in my head.

• 7:02Ryan Holiday?

  The point is, as I was thinking about this, I remembered this little thing that I'd read about Robert Moses in Robert Caro's book, The Power Broker. I wrote down my note card and boom, the chapter just unlocked itself. So my point is, I was thinking about the process. When the process got to work and solved a problem that I was having trouble solving, I got to my desk, I got to sit down, I pulled the power broker off the shelf, started going through my folded pages. And there on about page 280, something was it? The exact story that I needed. In about an hour, I busted out the first draft of this chapter. And that was all I have to do for today's contribution to the book. Now, a lot of days like this add up. As George Washington was fond of saying, many mickles make a muckle.

• 7:47Ryan Holiday?

  You show up enough days, you do this enough times, gets you to phase one, then you improve, then you go on to phase two, phase three, and finally you get your completed product. So today, it's not about sort of big, huge wins. Like this was a minor, minor win. But the point is, I followed the process, I showed up, I did the work. I didn't wait around. I put my ass where I wanted my heart to be, to quote Steven Pressfield. And I made the smallest step forward, as Marcus said. I'm not going to get too high about this. I'm not going to get too excited. I'm going to, as Marcus says, regard it as a small thing. But I'm also confident enough, experienced enough to know that these small things add up.

• 8:30Ryan Holiday?

  And that's what I'm excited about. And I know that I just have to do this enough times for long enough that I'll eventually get to the other side of where I need to go. And that is true for your problems, for your projects, wherever you are, whatever you're doing. Show up, put your ass in the chair, do the work, let the process guide you to the eventual inevitable accomplishment.

• 8:54Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple of years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please spread the word, tell people about it. And this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say thank you.