How to Apply Stoic Philosophy to Your Life | Tim Ferriss

Tim Ferris here author of the 4our work week for our body forour Chef tools of Titans and so on and so forth I talk a lot about stoic philosophy and I've had a lot of questions about stoic philosophy I've produced audio books about stoic philosophy which have made their way into Super Bowl teams all the way from management to players and everything in between why do I talk about stoic philosophy so much well to a lot of people who are watching this H as was true for me for a very long time you hear stoic

and you think maybe of a cow standing in the rain just accepting whatever tragedy and terrible circumstances befall it that is not what I'm advocating at all or maybe you imagine somebody with no emotion whatsoever also not what I'm advocating so the way we use stoic and Modern English is is somewhat different from the way that it was used when it came from stoa which is actually porch and specifically I think that stoiser system for thriving in high stress environments what does that mean it means that it is a framework for making better decisions and

training yourself to be less reactive it goes very well with different types of meditation whether that's TM or using an app like headspace or column and so on but you don't necessarily need both they're complimentary stoic philosophy and I should say that probably around 2004 I picked up a book that was the collected letters of senica senica the younger who's one of the real figureheads I would say uh in the last few years at least who has become very popular as a stoic thinker and writer has been popular for some thousand plus years uh but

there's been a huge Resurgence others would include Marcus Aurelius who used to be the emperor of Rome the most powerful man in the world at the time and then there are others KO and so on epicus who was formerly a slave so you have a very wide spectrum of well-known stoic thinkers and you should find the one that speaks to you best but I picked up this book of senica's writings didn't really expect much of it and when people ask me now what is your favorite book of all time the book you've read the most

the book you've gifted the most I've gifted hundreds of copies of senica's letters so the moral letters to lilus Lu u c i l i u s the moral letters to lucilius by senica the younger he was a very famous playwright one of the wealthiest people in Rome adviser to the emperor that ultimately didn't work out so well for him but uh he was on the front line so what I appreciate about stoic philosophy is how well it is used in highly challenging circumstances and the some of the basics of stoic philosophy which have been

applied in Super Bowl which have been applied in in training of all different types that have been applied by prisoners of War PS in Wartime like Stockdale for instance James Stockdale uh or I would say a few things number one you it trains you much like the Serenity Prayer in a way but it's more systematic to focus on differentiating between the things that you can control and things you cannot control and really only focusing your energy on the form so for instance if you watch your friends spinning out of control on social media freaking out

about politics and all they do is [ __ ] and whine and winge about politics well if we sat down and thought about it the vast majority of those people are not going to be in a position nor are they going to take steps to change any of that reality therefore it is a lot of wasted energy and calories and brain Cycles all right so really really learning to repe repetitively consistently Focus on things that are within your sphere of control that doesn't mean that you're passive and certainly the reason that people like Thomas Jefferson

uh George Washington the founders of this great country of the United States of America who were certainly Rebels and revolutionaries and extremely aggressive and contrarian in many many ways went to stoicism is because they knew they had a a lot of hard battles ahead and they wanted to make wise decisions right so number one you're learning to focus on and expand the sphere of action that you have the things that you can control next you're going to systematically train yourself to be less prone to overreacting to say criticism so KO who is considered by some

to be the perfect stoic fascinating character CTO would sometimes wear a tunic of an unpopular color so that he would be ridiculed in the Senate and by other people he did specifically and other things like it so that he would train himself to only be ashamed of those things worth being ashamed of so The Superficial things he would experiment with and he would catalyze other people making fun of him or insulting him so that he would develop a tolerance for it uh this is very very practical and there are many cories to this uh as

well as the next piece which is is in effect practicing poverty in the worst case scenarios so that they hold less power over you and that could take the form of say Kevin Kelly who's been on the Tim feris Show podcast fascinating technology futurist as well as founding editor of wir magazine so he knows worst case scenario because he has done so much backpacking and lived off of instant oatmeal that worst case scenario he can always have his backpack instant oatmeal and a cup of coffee and he can be happy and he knows that because

he's practiced it and senica in letter 13 of his letters to lucilius the moral letters to lucilius which was I believe on festivals and fasting talks about setting aside a certain number of days and I'm paraphrasing here but a certain number of days during which you will eat the cheapest Affair we the coarsest of dress Etc asking yourself all the while is this the condition that I so feared so practically speaking I've built this into my own life by fasting by EXP exposing myself to cold I have a practice of cold exposure which is done

very safely I have different types of planned suffering and planned poverty so that any type of unplanned suffering or unplanned Financial hit will have less of an impact on me and this applies in many different fields this is I I suppose a uh compatible ethos with the more you sweat in peace time the less you ble in Wartime all right you want to prepare for the unexpected turns of Fate by simulating what the worst case scenarios would be this is very very practical then if we look back to KO for instance well he would wear

these ridiculous outfits you know I I will spend time walking through say California uh in San Francisco okay hippie liberal Central with say a cowboy hat on just to see what happens because you will get all sorts of sideways glances and so on uh and I might then go to uh Utah I went to a very conservative part of Utah and I wore what I call my party pants for a day or two and party pants are these uh very flamboyant bright blue uh Floral Pattern pants uh from bonobos I don't know if they sell

them anymore which effectively look like the upholstery on your grandma's couch they are hideous and did that very deliberately to force me to interact with people in a way that would condition me to be able to take uh Boulder steps or have more uncomfortable conversations in the future because all serious problems all important matters require uncomfortable conversations I think you can measure your success in many ways by the number of uncomfortable conversations you're willing to have in stoicism helps with that so I go down the list but there are very very practical steps to take

and then you can translate that into your own life so for instance a lot of the advice that you might get from a former Navy SE Commander like ja o willink he wouldn't call stoicism but the mental toughness that he has developed and also trained in other people is very much not going to say identical but a a close cousin to stoicism and uh if if you look at for instance advice that you would get once you're thrust into the public eye and a lot of these letters the moral letters to lukus are along lines

of dear lucilius I hear you're being slandered by your so-called friend so and so in the Senate and he did this but then he said this behind your back here's how I would recommend that you deal with the situation and I would translate that into for instance advice that I give people who are about to get a lot of public exposure and I say you're never as bad as they say you are and you're never as good as they say you are all right and I want to touch on a common misconception or maybe aspect

of stos ism people find unattractive so you're never as bad as they say you are you're also Never As Good as they say you are and this helps you to keep a level ahead some people fear that if they if they adopt stoicism or study stoicism that they will become this very Vulcan likee creature that has neither that certainly has uh has less of a dip in terms of the lows of life but that simultaneously you're going to sacrifice the highs you won't have the peaks of joy that you experience as a normal person if

you focus on uh stoicism to that I would say number one you are a thinking person and much like any book you would read you can pick and choose so you can pick and choose the elements that you find most useful that you think are going to be most applicable to you and then you can test them all right so I happen to think of my own philosophies not as stoicism and not as a as an evangelist necessarily for stoicism to proze other people I pull from elements of say Buddhism or Zen Buddhism I also

pull elements from uh epicureanism which was really seen as almost the opposite of stoicism but uh to be maximally content and to find joy in the small things I find that to be a very helpful uh counterbalance to some of the STM which can get a little dry and somber at times uh but what stoiser it in many respects and Zen Buddhism also very helpful for this is help you to develop a presentate awareness so that you are aware of your thoughts and emotions before they take control of you and lead you to make very

bad decisions whether that's lashing out at someone verbally whether that is making an Impulse buy or sell decision or otherwise it is a fantastic insurance policy that allows you to have more consistent well-being throughout your life in all areas and that to me rather than a cow standing in the rain is STO M and certainly I view it as one of the the keys to any success that I have had in the last decade or more whether that is in the world of publishing podcasting Angel Investing or otherwise I really think that this is a

core underlying Foundation upon which my best decisions have been built so I hope the same for you and PS I feel so strongly about the value of this and I want to thank everyone who has listened to my podcast or read anything I've written that I've put together three volumes of stoic writing primarily senica and I'm giving them away for free so I'm giving them away as ebooks it's called the TOA of Sena Tao the TOA of Sena and there are gorgeous original illustrations that I had commissioned there is incredible calligraphy from both Japanese and

Chinese Masters because I wanted to show some of the parallels between philosophical schools that are dropped into this and it features I want to say at least 120 letters from senica to lucilius so you can find those for free and I really hope that you find Value in them and share them with other people but that's the TOA of Sena and you can go out and find it at your leisure so that for now is everything that I want to share on stoicism but it's taken me very very far and I hope and expect the

same for all of you hope you enjoyed the video if you would like to see my favorite piece of content that I put out every week it is a short newsletter five bullet Friday it's free it's five bullet points with the coolest things that I have been finding using testing in a given week I put it out every Friday you can digest it in about 5 minutes take a look five bullet Friday