7 Stoic Mantras That Will Change Your Life

much of what survives to us from the Ancients are little scraps little bits of wisdom but these little bits of wisdom from the emperor of Rome from a slave from one of Rome's power Brokers these mantras these sayings these epigrams as they were often called that survive to us from the Ancients are incredibly powerful they pack a punch that's what I want to talk about in today's episode some stoic ideas some stoic Concepts that can serve as mantras for your life These are tried and tested bits of wisdom that have survived for thousands of years

for a reason cuz they're powerful because they're important because you want to live by them this one's a paradoxical expression it basically means make haste slowly and it was a a favorite of the Emperor Augustus was first known as Octavian and even the transition from Octavian to Augustus is something that takes time because he's an incredibly disciplined person he was going places but he did so slowly methodically so no one could ever accuse him of being a a revolutionary or a disruptor did things calmly he did them carefully he did them deliberately and he gets

this from his stoic teachers athenodorus and Aras dimus one of the things he told him for instance was before he ever lost his temper he needed to count all the letters of the alphabet first they understood that getting angry in the moment often set things back make slowly is about being deliberate conscientious it doesn't mean that you take forever it means you take the amount of time that it needs to take and that by rushing and doing it quickly you often make it take longer than it needs to and in the military they say slow

is smooth and smooth is fast that's what this Latin expression means also one of my heroes the great Civil War General he wasn't the fastest he wasn't the most aggressive of the generals but he got the job done you contrast him to someone like mlen who Lincoln accused of having the slows it's not just that he took a while to get going it's that he never actually got going and got where he was supposed to go George Thomas wins uh some of the most incredible victories for the Union in the Civil War he gets this

nickname The Rock of chiam Maga because he again once he knows where he's going once he has his aim he's not going to be pushed off that he's not going to be knocked off nothing is going to get between him and where he wants to go so this this is an ression about having a sense of urgency but also being disciplined and responsible it's energy plus moderation it's measured exertion it's eagerness but rained in with a a sense of control and suton the Roman historian which is from whom we hear that this is one of

augustus's favorite Expressions he said that Octavian thought nothing less becoming in a well-trained leader than haste and rashness actually a number of octavian's other favorite Expressions Dance around this idea he says you know better a safe Commander than a bold and that is done quickly enough which is done well enough here we go this basically says you have to have a strong mind and a strong body we tend to project backwards today we think of philosophers as academics theorists nerds right University professors but that's not who the stoics were certainly Markus cus is not just

the emperor of Rome he's a General in the Army he's trained in wrestling and boxing and hunting senica pushed himself physically he tried to see how little he could survive on he did an annual cold plunge Socrates was renowned not just for his ability to endure winter temperatures and nothing but a thin cloak he was also again a soldier and an athlete he loved to take long walks he was active out in the world cuz you have to be he actually says no citizen has a right to not take care of themselves physically to not

understand what their bodies are capable of there's a story about Theodore Roosevelt that I tell in the obstacles the way and in discipline his Destiny he's a young boy but he's asthmatic and he's weak he's frail and his father comes to him one day and he says you know you've got the Mind Theodore but you don't have the body and this young kid who's about 12 he looks at his father and he says okay I will make my body and that's when Theodore Roosevelt in embarks on what he comes to call the strenuous life you

can still visit the house he grew up in and see the gym where he made his body and his sister who was watching said this was the first promise that he made to himself and and most importantly he kept it to himself that's something senica talks about he says we treat the body rigorously so that it's not disobedient to the mind that's what this Latin expression means that's what this motto is strong mind and a strong body this is one we understand on some level but run away from it's this idea that from struggle we

emerge stronger n said that what does not kill you makes you stronger and we know that at some level and yet what do we spend most of our time doing trying to avoid struggle trying to avoid adversity trying to avoid difficulty and and this is because it's hard we we know like for instance about PTSD what we don't think enough about what is also true and also observed by psychologists and social scientists is this idea of post-traumatic growth we can be and often are better for what we've gone through senica would talk about how he

pied people who had never gone through adversity or difficulty because they didn't know what they were capable of but you think about the last couple years you think of that difficulty right you think about how tough it was if you had asked yourself at the beginning did you think you were capable of getting through all this maybe you would have said no but you know now that you are one thing we emerge from struggle with is an understanding of how we're going to respond to struggle and difficulty we have a better sense of our own

capacity it is not necessarily the case that we need to seek out adversity or difficulty although we can in the physical Arena certainly but it is true that we must embrace the adversity that finds us we must embrace the challenges and the trauma and the struggle all of it has been chosen for us in some way and we can choose to be made better for it it's not just that we accept these struggles that are there this leads to another great expression this is kind of a bonus one here amorti which which basically means you

don't just resign yourself to it as n said but you embrace it you love it because what other choice do you have so by deciding to see this as an opportunity as your fate as something uniquely suited to you in this moment you have a chance to to Really turn it into something the stoics wanted to be like that fire that you it doesn't matter what you throw on top of it as Mark Reus writes it's turning into flame and brightness and heat that's how we emerge from the struggle better it's like a crucible if

you will that's how we turn what has happened to us into opportunities and fuel if you watch these videos or you've bumped into me at in Austin or come to one of my talks you've almost certainly seen me in stuff from today's sponsor cuz I've been wearing it since long before they were a sponsor I'm wearing stuff from vori all the time I like their joggers I like their running shorts I like their t-shirts my wife likes their stuff I like when my my wife wears their stuff because it looks good it feels good and

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opposite of something that's so popular today a lot of people talk about positive visualization but they don't talk enough about negative visualization imagining what could happen so you can be prepared for it Sonica talks about how the unexpected blow lands heaviest and that the thing that a leader can never say is oh I didn't think that would happen you have to think about it because if the leader's not thinking about it if you are not thinking about it who is and if nobody's thinking about it who's preparing for it who's coming up with Plan B

who's toughening yourself up who's doing the work so that you can handle this sometimes people think that negative visualization or thinking about bad things can manifest them into happening Markus talks about this he says but do you fear that thinking about reaping wheat is going to make that get reaped no of course not right like no one's scared of talking about other potential potentialities we just have this Superstition when those things involve us and you got to put that aside you got to think about the things that could happen senica talks about if you're going

on a shipwreck think about a shipwreck think about Pirates think about weather delays right think about choppy water right what are you going to do if that happens how are you prepared for that to happen how can at the very least you not be surprised if that does happen because it's a very normal thing that happens all the time and by the way things that have never happened before they happen all the time too so you got to be ready for the sto the idea was that nothing happens to a wise person contrary to their

expectation because they're not naive they are aware they are informed they have wisdom and wisdom is a sense of the possibilities in a given exchange interaction event outcome process you got to know what could happen and you got to be ready for that to happen this is a a tough one for people but it's a Timeless bit of wisdom and it's this idea that who we are determines what's going to happen the kind of outcomes we're going to get in life it doesn't mean that horrible people don't succeed it does mean that that success will

be horrible for those people so for the stoics the idea again let's focus on what we control what we control is our character we control the values we hold the habits we practice the principles we choose to live by and when you see someone with bad character when you see someone with bad values they're not going to surprise you they are telling you who they are When someone tells you who they are believe them when someone tells you who they are with their behavior believe them as we talked about senica said that a leader can't

say oh I didn't think that would happen this is partly cuz a leader has to look at the character of the people they're bringing on the people they're bringing into the organization the people they're electing why on Earth would you have thought it would go any different they told you who they were they told you what their character was someone with bad value someone in the sway of ego someone who's fundamentally insecure someone who is dishonest right this is not going to end well for them and it's not going to end well for you either

trying to associate with them there's a story about musonius Rufus that I like there was this obnoxious man who was obsessed with money he gave him some he gave him a bunch of money and people said why would you reward this and he said money is exactly what this guy deserves what musonius understood was that this wasn't going to change this guy it was only going to reveal what he already knew about him and it was probably going to bring about this guy's ruin faster than any kind of difficulty or adversity he could have bestowed

on them let let's look at Marcus realus right absolute power is supposed to corrupt absolutely but why doesn't that happen for Marcus and it's because the character that he strove to develop in himself the character that was inculcated by his mentors and advisers and philosophy teachers he fought not to be Caesar fied as he said he he fought to be the person that philosophy tried to make him he he he wanted that expression character his fate to reveal who he actually was and and what we see is that he was fundamentally a good person not

a perfect one uh and there were flaws in him and those were revealed as well but you know his character led him to a pretty good fate this one uh maybe you've seen before I mean there's a restaurant at Disneyland named after it maybe you've seen it tattooed on some people's bodies or you hear it every Halloween momento Mory remember you are mortal and it's one of the most basic stoic practices there is it might seem morbid it might seem a little dark but it is essential because it gives us urgency it gives us perspective

it gives us Clarity you could leave life right now Mark Rus writes in meditation let that determine what you do and say and think that's what momento Mori allows us to do why do people procrastinate why do they put things off why do they keep practicing bad habits why do they waste time they they do it because they think they have forever but they don't senica says it's the craziest thing in the world that we waste this precious resource and he says it's wrong to think of death as this thing in the future it is

not a thing in the future it's happening right now this is the time that passes belongs to death we are dying every minute we are dying every day the time you wasted this morning you'll never get back the time you spent watching this video the time I spent making this video it has to be spent well because we don't get it again life is short you got to live it well and you got to live it with an awareness of the fact that you do not have forever none of us do so I want to

end there these are some of my favorite mantras Latin and Greek Concepts from the stoics that I think are worth repeating memorizing and applying to your daily life if you want to keep your stoicism inspired Journey going sign up for the daily stoic email at Daily stoic.com it's one stoic inspired email every single day wisdom to help you with the problems of life and stoicism is intended and you can sign up at Daily stoic.com email unsubscribe whenever you want I'd love for you to join us [Music]