You’ve Got Another Think Coming | How To Get and Stay Motivated (With Stoicism)

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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, how we can apply them in our actual lives. Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy.

• 0:29Ryan Holiday?

  You've got another think coming. The problem with our thoughts is that they're often wrong, sometimes preposterously so. Epictetus said we had to put our impressions to the test to really look at them so they don't lead us astray or into embarrassment. Well, nothing illustrates the necessity of this quite like what they call an "egg corn", words or expressions that we confidently miss here and then contort to confirm our misperception. "All for naught," "all for naught," or "all intensive purposes," "all intents and purposes", are two classic "egg corns", but perhaps the greatest one is doubly ironic. People who say you've got another thing coming are, in fact, demonstrating the need to follow Epictetus's advice and the advice of the expression,

• 1:13Ryan Holiday?

  because the proper expression is actually, "you've got another think coming." For instance, a version of it appears in Jane Austen's writing, and it becomes popular in the 1890s. And of course, the "you've got another thing coming" version appears in the amazing Judas Priest song. All of us could use a second think from time to time. When we think we know something, when we think we've understood, that's when we get into trouble. What we need to do is listen better, ask questions, do a little research, be willing to be corrected. Our mind is not always our friend, as we said recently. We can trust it, but we must always verify, because without another think coming, we may well have another thing coming.

• 2:06Ryan Holiday?

  You can't take time for granted. You have to seize it. You cannot waste it. You do have time. You're just choosing not to make time.

• 2:18Ryan Holiday?

  What's incredible about Marcus Rilis is that he didn't have to do anything. He's the most powerful man in the world. His predecessors, like Tiberius, retreat to some island. Nero seemed to only be interested in playing musical instruments and writing poetry, not the actual hard work of the job. No one can make Marcus Rilis do anything. He has this motivation that's driving him. I mean, you open the Book Five passage of Meditations, which is just my absolute favorite passage maybe ever written. It makes philosophy so accessible. He says, "At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself, 'I have to go to work as a human being. What do I have to complain of if I'm going to do what I was born to do, the things I was brought into the world to do?'"

• 3:02Ryan Holiday?

  And he says, "Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?" My copy of Meditations, I wrote like huge letters right in this spot when I read it when I was 19 years old. He says, "But it's nicer here." He says, "So you were born to feel nice instead of doing things and experiencing them? Says, 'Don't you see the plants and the birds and the ants and the spiders and the bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order as best they can? And you're not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren't you running to do what your nature demands?'" Basically, Marcus Rilis is pumping himself up in the morning. He's giving himself motivation to go do his job, not clock in at some boring nine-to-five job, but do what he was meant to do on this planet.

• 3:46Ryan Holiday?

  He's seizing up that motivation. And you can see it's a debate between his higher self and his lower self. And that's the essence of what motivation is. Getting yourself from the thing that's comfortable, hiding under the covers and staying warm. Higher self, what you're meant to do, what your nature demands, what the world needs of you. I'm Ryan Holiday. I've written about Stoic philosophy now for almost 15 years. Talked about it everywhere from the NBA to the NFL, special forces, sitting senators. I've been struggling with motivation my whole life, but Stoicism has been a tool in the toolkit of getting motivated, staying motivated, making sure I don't get too motivated and burn out and go past what is healthy and good for me. And so that's what we're going to talk about in today's episode.

• 4:30Ryan Holiday?

  A guide from the ancients about how to get and stay motivated, strategies from the Stoics, stories from the Stoics, and some great recommendations, books, ideas from the Stoics that will help you be motivated to do whatever it is that you were meant to do.

• 4:51Ryan Holiday?

  To me, one of Mark's greatest points, he says, "If it's humanly possible, know that you can do it also." Like, when you realize that everyone starts at zero, sure, there's some natural advantages, but most of the things we find truly impressive in life are a result of the work that person did. It wasn't some instantaneous transformation. It was putting one foot in front of the other over a long period of time. They wanted it, they went after it, they followed the process to get it. One of Zeno's great lines was, "Well-being is realized by small steps, but it's no small thing." When you see where people began and then you see where you ended, where they ended up, it sort of reminds you like, okay, that's where I am now. And if I follow the process, I can get to the other side of that. I found that even with my own books, right?

• 5:35Ryan Holiday?

  On my first book, Can I Get to the Other Side? Can I do this? How hard is it? Right? But when I started to realize it was a job, it was a process, it was a framework that you followed, it became a little less intimidating. And then now that I've been through the process a bunch of times, I know what it's like to start on a blank page. So I just went all the way through this on the last book that I did, and that's going to come out in a couple of months. And then... Like, I just started about a month, a month and a half ago, with the blank first page, nothing written about my next book. And I'm already like eighteen, nineteen thousand words in, so probably almost a third of the way through that book. I know it's a long hard slog from where I need to go, from where I am now, but I also know it was a long hard slog

• 6:19Ryan Holiday?

  from where I started to where I am now. And then if I just put one foot in front of the other, if I stay motivated, if I show up, right? Good published work comes out of the other side. Results come from following the process, doing the work, not quitting, not giving in to despair. Right? This is a really important Stoic idea. You don't know whether you can succeed or not, but you do know that you have the power not to quit. And if you don't quit, if you stay at it, more often than not, you get where you want to go. And that's like, one of the things I use to get motivated about whatever I'm gonna do.

• 7:01Ryan Holiday?

  There's this line in Twyla Tharp's book, that I was thinking about when I was thinking about motivation. She's saying that all she basically has to do in the morning is get downstairs into the cab, where she talks about this in The Creative Habit. If she gets downstairs into the cab, the rest takes care of itself. Because then she has, she gets the studio, she gets inside. The rhythm or the routine of it takes over, which I think anyone who has a routine, who has built a habit or a practice, can sort of understand. Seneca's line was that "life without design is erratic." And the point is, when you build structures or systems, it just takes over for you. There's a great line about writing. It says, "Inspiration is for amateurs. Professionals just get down to work." Like, you just sit down,

• 7:46Ryan Holiday?

  and you know that you're supposed to sit there for a certain amount of time each day. So obviously motivation is important, but routine is something that kind of sits above and below motivation, and it just takes care of it. Like, I know what I'm supposed to do every day, and so I just do that. I don't wake up and decide to be motivated that day necessarily. I don't decide to like, really get after it. I just do what I do every day. The rhythm of that getting lost in it, the Stoics talk about how you sort of build these habits. When you do the action over and over and over again, it takes a certain power and momentum unto itself. The opposite is true also. If you give in to the resistance too much, if you don't have a routine, if you're winging it, then there's room for that to sort of intervene and to not do the thing. Routine is this thing that allows

• 8:29Ryan Holiday?

  you not to have to get by on inspiration or motivation alone. That's what Twyla's saying. She's this great choreographer. She's saying, "Look, if I just get in the car, it'll take me where I'm supposed to go, and that sort of takes over." That's a really important part about this. Sorry for the quick interruption, but today's video is sponsored by BetterHelp. Taking care of yourself is hard, right? It requires a certain amount of vulnerability to ask for help, takes a certain amount of courage to put yourself out there, to share things that you're struggling with, you're concerned about, maybe you're ashamed of. And so going to therapy isn't the easiest thing in the world, but there are a bunch of parts of it that could be easier, right? Driving across town doesn't need to be a part of it. Spending a ton of time trying to find the right therapist for you, that doesn't have to be a part of

• 9:13Ryan Holiday?

  it. And BetterHelp helps solve all of these problems. Virtual is the way that I do therapy for this reason, because time is of the essence. BetterHelp will match you with a professional who has years of experience helping people with problems just like yours. You can do it all from your phone or your computer. You'll be matched with a therapist usually in less than 48 hours. Let BetterHelp connect you with a therapist who can support you all from the comfort of your own home. Just go to betterhelp.com/dailystoic or choose Daily Stoic from the dropdown menu at signup and enjoy a special discount on your first month with BetterHelp. I think one of the reasons we have trouble with motivation is that we know, deep down, that this thing we're doing, it doesn't really matter. It's not important. That's why Marcus

• 9:54Ryan Holiday?

  Rilis' question is so imperative. He says, "Ask yourself, is this essential?" He says, "Because most of what we do and say and think is not essential. It's getting us further from where we want to go. It's something that society made up for us. It's just what everyone else is doing. It's piddly busy work." You know, he says, "Are you really afraid of death because you won't be able to do this thing anymore?" Right? He's saying that we waste our time with frivolous- Unimportant, meaningless thing. So he says, when you ask yourself, is this essential? You end up eliminating the inessential. And then he says, you get this double benefit of doing the essential things better. But I would say that the real benefit is that if we only have a finite amount of motivation, if getting up the motivation, if maintaining motivation is this difficult task,

• 10:38Ryan Holiday?

  well, then we want to save it for the precious few things that really matter. Right? What's the main thing for you? You eliminate the things that are not the main thing. And then that marshals more resources, more energy, more motivation for the things that are the main thing. If everything is this battle between the higher self and the lower self, right? If you're exhausting that resource battling for things that don't matter, that you don't actually care about, that you could say no to, you're going to have to have so much more motivation than someone who has winnowed down their frame of reference, their to do list, only to the things that truly matter, that truly are essential.

• 11:24Ryan Holiday?

  Nobody likes getting up early, not even Mark Schrilles. In meditations, he talks about trying to get up early. And he has this fantastic conversation with himself. He goes, but it's warmer under the covers. And he says, is that what you were put here to do? To huddle under the blankets and be warm? He says, we're all put here for a purpose. We have a nature, we have a duty, and we have to go and we have to do that. And the morning is the best time to do stuff, to get stuff done. So that's why the Stoics tried to get up early. I say try because they didn't always do it, and it wasn't always easy. And they didn't always like it. They tried to do it anyway.

• 11:58Ryan Holiday?

  I'm sure many of you read Anne Frank's diary when you were in school. You've heard of it. She has this great line in her diary that I think about. She says, "Paper is more patient than people." Instead of vomiting your thoughts on your employees, on your friends, on your coworkers, on the driver in front of you who's taking forever, put it on the page. The page is forgiving and patient. It keeps secrets, doesn't care, doesn't care if you're contradicting yourself. It doesn't care if you're being a baby. It doesn't care if you're whining. Just put it down. Down on the page, the page will help. And I love the idea of having distance between you and your thoughts. Part of the reasons we're worked up and anxious and stressed is that we're trapped in our heads with all this stuff.

• 12:40Ryan Holiday?

  And you get it out and you see it from a distance and you go, I don't even agree with my own thoughts here. I don't even like this. I'm not going to choose to carry this around. So putting it down on the page is just really important. These are some of Kennedy's doodles during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was writing notes to himself, thoughts, but you can see his sort of brainstorming, working out of the stressful situation he's in. And this is what journaling can help us do. I was in Milan a few years ago and I got to see some of Da Vinci's journals. And I think it's also important, just as a creativity exercise, right? The journaling, the working, the sketching out, this is what creates the work, right? You can't have The Last Supper without the journals, right? So the idea of exploring, keeping a commonplace book, a place you collect ideas,

• 13:24Ryan Holiday?

  you work out your thoughts, this is a really important exercise.

• 13:32Ryan Holiday?

  You say you don't have time to read, but you're watching this video. You do have time, you're just choosing not to make time. There are people way busier than you. Marcus Aurelius made time to read. Epictetus was a slave, he managed to read. You have time to read, you just have to make time to read. I read a lot, I promise, I am almost certainly busier than you. I make time for it. If you want to read, you have to make time for it. It's not that we have a little bit of time, Seneca says, it's that we waste a lot of it. And you're wasting it right now. Put the phone down and go read. If you want to read, then do it, make the time.

• 14:12Ryan Holiday?

  We treat the body rigorously, Seneca says, so that it's not disobedient to the mind. We're deciding who's in charge. We're deciding who's in control. We're deciding what kind of person we be. And that's why we push ourselves physically, that's why we go for a run, that's why we get up early, that's why we go to the gym, that's why we put in a couple more hours on that project when everyone else is willing to quit. We treat the body rigorously so that it's not disobedient to the mind, so that in those important moments and those high stakes moments, in the make or break moments, we have the muscle, we have the control, we have the confidence to do what we need to do.

• 14:48Ryan Holiday?

  Una de las cosas más revolucionarias que he oído proviene de Seneca. Él dijo: "No pienses en la muerte como algo en el futuro, como algo hacia lo que te estás moviendo. Él dice: Piensa en la muerte como algo que está sucediendo ahora mismo, porque estamos muriendo cada minuto. Él dice: El tiempo que pasa pertenece a la muerte. Nunca puedes recuperarlo. Y así es el propósito de "Momento Mori", y yo llevo esta moneda en mi bolsillo, es recordar que estamos muriendo todos los días, estamos muriendo cada minuto. Teníamos una sentencia de muerte desde el nacimiento y esa sentencia de muerte está sucediendo en pequeños slivers cada momento y tú no puedes tomar el tiempo como algo de hecho. Tienes que captarlo, no puedes perderlo. Así que eso es lo que se trata de "Momento Mori", podrías dejar de la vida ahora mismo, dejar que eso determine lo que haces, dices y piensas.

• 15:35Ryan Holiday?

  Creo que uno de los libros más motivantes que he leído es Robert Greene's Mastery, esta idea de que cuando ves a alguien que ha dedicado su vida a algo y no solo han mejorado en ello, sino que han alcanzado ese plazo de dominación, es simplemente una cosa increíble. Marcus Lewis habla de que no hay nada tan inspirador como ver las virtudes que aspiras en las personas que te rodean. Así que obviamente leer sobre los grandes hombres y mujeres de la historia es una forma de hacer eso. Por eso Plutón's Lives, que es otro libro increíble, ha sido tan popular con personas ambiciosas y motivadas a lo largo de los años. Son las personas más grandes de todos los tiempos y es lo que las hace grandes. Y también donde se fallaron, donde no hicieron todo lo que podían.

• 16:19Ryan Holiday?

  Así que simplemente darte cuenta de que al estirarte en estas virtudes o valores, viendo el ejemplo en las personas es una parte realmente poderosa de obtener motivación, mantener la motivación. ¿Quiénes son las fuentes de inspiración? ¿Quiénes son los ejemplos que sigues? Las personas que miras, eso es algo que tienes que practicar.

• 16:40Ryan Holiday?

  When I wrote The Daily Stoic eight years ago, I had this crazy idea that I would just keep it going. The book was 366 meditations, but I'd write one more every single day and I'd give it away for free as an email. I thought maybe a few people would sign up. Couldn't have even comprehended a future in which three quarters of a million people would get this email every single day and would for almost a decade. If you want to get the email, if you want to be part of a community that is the largest group of Stoics ever assembled in human history, I'd love for you to join us. You can sign up and get the email totally for free. No spam. You can unsubscribe whenever you want at dailystoic.com/email.