8 Stoic Habits That Will Improve Your Life

whenever i feel like quitting whenever i feel like it's not working whenever i feel like it's impossible whenever i feel like i can't possibly go on any longer i go i know this feeling i've dealt with this before the stoics were successful busy people they had day jobs they had families they were of service to their country and their causes so how did they get it all done i mean that's the question we're all asking i get that question all the time people say ryan how have you written the books that you've written how have

you spoken to the groups that you've done how did you manage to open up a bookstore on the side and the answer for me as well as for the ancient stoics was a set of foundational habits a wise philosopher once said that no one should be pitied more than the person whose wing who's treating everything as a new uncertain decision the person who has habits who has best practices who has rules they observe that is the person in a position to be successful and so in today's episode i wanted to give you eight foundational stoic

habits things to do and practice every single day that will make you better at whatever you do whoever you are wherever you live in whatever stage of life you happen to be in what's really interesting about philosophy is that that's what marcus aurelius's meditations was it's one of the few philosophical books that we have that wasn't published as a book the most powerful man in the world wasn't writing what he thought he was writing what he felt he needed to know for himself and it's only a complete accident that this work survives to us he'd

probably be mortified that we're reading his his diary or journal but he's dead so it doesn't matter the point is it's philosophy is not just this thing you read about one time and understand it's an active practice it's something you're doing with yourself it's a dialogue with oneself i talked about the missile crisis a little bit um what i think is so fascinating about the missile crisis is that we have kennedy's doodles and notes from the missile crisis on legal pads he would write these things to himself sort of reminders he would write missile missile

missile he write consensus consensus consensus he was journaling out working out what he was thinking as he was thinking it journaling's not the only way to do this i know people that doodle in the morning or sketch but the point is to have kind of a a creative practice um where there are very low stakes and it's just sort of a getting the juices flowing uh julia cameron calls morning pages as sort of a form of spiritual windshield wipers and i really like that analogy kennedy really liked boating and so he drew these pictures of

sailboats you can imagine the entire world is about to blow himself up if he and if he's not careful he's going to contribute to that the the idea of of just getting out of that zooming out sort of calming his mind you can see what how valuable and important that would be and frank writes that paper is more patient than people and so you think about the stresses of the missile crisis it makes sense why he's riding on he wants to dump out his anger and his frustration and his fears the ideas that he's workshopping

where there are low stakes so he can perform better where there's really high stakes so i think journaling is a really important part of it i do this one thing every single day and you can see i'm a little sweaty right now i just went on a long walk with my kids this is the property there but we just went on this long walk around our property we we talked we threw sticks we told stories we were just outside you know there's this great expression from nietzsche he says only ideas had when walking have any

worth and i think that's right even seneca talks about how how the mind must be given over to wandering walks he says fields that are not allowed to rest will not bear plans he even says that you know the mind will break like an anvil if not rested and so this is really important for me walking is physical activity is it is exercise but it's really about letting my mind rest i leave my phone at home i leave my thoughts at home i leave my work at home and i just go outside and i walk

and i don't even consider it exercise it's exercise for my mind it's time i spend with my family it's time i spend on my property it's time i spend outdoors it's time i spend practicing gratitude and appreciation this is a thing i do every day without fail whether it's in a parking lot or on a beautiful beach somewhere i go outside and take a walk and so should you people ask me what the secret to writing you know 10 11 books in 10 years writing bestsellers and i tell them there is no secret i just

work every single day right i do a little bit every single day i try to make a little bit of progress every single day this is a core precept of stoicism xeno says well-being is realized by small steps but it's no small thing mark cerrelia says assemble your life action by action no one can stop you from that right we focus on what we control which is did you show up today did you make a little bit of progress and seneca says look even wisdom is acquired quote insight story you know experience by experience and

and that's how books are written too there's a great rule in writing just a couple crappy pages a day i just try to produce work and then i refine and edit later but the main thing is showing up doing the work trying to get a little bit better every single day i am not here to make you a better sociopath the point of stoicism isn't to make you care less about other people to focus more on yourself it's not just a productivity system to make you better marcus really says the fruit of this life is

good character and acts for the common good one of the four virtues of stoicism is justice it's about fairness it's about integrity it's about serving something larger than yourself and so if you think stoicism is somehow divorced from politics divorced from being responsible to the rest of the world if you think when marx really says it's okay to have no opinion he means have no opinion about nothing never get involved focus on yourself you are missing the [ __ ] point of this philosophy a stoic is engaged in the world a stoic cares estoy tries

really hard to do the right thing for themselves and for other people they are not an uncaring sociopath they are not some alt-right troll stoicism is about doing good for more people that's what the philosophy is about and if you're missing the point you don't have to follow this stuff [Music] one thing you learn in endurance sports is that you always have further to go than you think is possible your body is telling you to quit or your mind is telling you to quit but actually your body is capable of more and you have to

override this you have to push past it and so for me the endurance sports and philosophy have helped me even as a writer because whenever i feel like quitting whenever i feel like it's not working whenever i feel like it's impossible whenever i feel like you can't possibly go on any longer i go i know this feeling i've dealt with this before epictetus talks about putting every impression up to the test he talks about how a money changer knows what a counterfeit coin feels like it sounds like and when you do endurance sports you get

to that place where you know what weakness sounds like and feels like and what it's telling you to do and how you don't have to listen to that you also know when your body is really hurt when you really do have to stop when you really are at your breaking point when you do hit that limitation but because of your practice you know that most of those limitations most of that desire to quit or stop or slow down is a lie and you push past it you push through it and this gets you to where

you want to go all growth is on the other side of that resistance whether it's writing whether it's in a relationship whether it's a in your work whether it's in a creative pursuit whether it's a business all growth is on the other side of that resistance and so having an endurance sport practice something that you're trying to get good at whether it's crossfit or weightlifting or or running or rock climbing something where you're constantly testing those reservations and and the whole practice is learning when to push through and when not to push through i can't

recommend it highly enough i know that getting outside and doing that stuff it might not seem like uh what the stoics were doing what philosophers were doing but in fact it was what they were doing you know marcus aurelius hunted he rode horses he wrestled triceps and clientes who were boxers and and and distance uh runners the stoics were athletes and this practice is deeply important into getting to that philosophical place of resilience and fortitude my friend emailed me on a friday i saw i told myself i was going to respond on monday and by

sunday he was gone he'd fallen dead of a heart attack this is why the stoics practice momentum life is short you can go at any moment but also they said the people who are precious to you you do not possess them you can't take them for granted you can't assume they're going to be here forever you can't assume you're always going to have them you don't have them now they are here on loan they are here under shaky status at best so you can't take people for granted you can't take time for granted you can't

go to bed angry as they say you can't hold on to grudges be with them now while you can forgive them now while you can appreciate them now while you can enjoy them now while you can that's the only thing we can do memento mori you could leave life right now as marcus but also they could leave life right now let that determine what you do and say and think particularly with the people who matter most to you [Music] a couple rules for reading one do it all the time two speed reading is a trap

it's fake it's not real you just have to spend a lot of time reading three i think older books are almost always better classics are classic for a reason four quit bad books the great rule is a hundred pages minus your age five you have to take notes if you're not taking notes if you're just trying to get through the book as fast as possible you're doing it wrong six i try to find one book in every book that i read to read next seven ask yourself how am i going to use this information in

my actual life the point of books is not to look smarter it's to become better eight if it's good recommend it and pass it along to other people those are my ryan holidays rules for reading [Music] there's two words that come to us from the ancients that i think we should remind ourselves of repeat to ourself in any and every situation we're in you win the lottery you strike it rich you get recognized you get an award you say to yourself memento mori remember you will die you go through [ __ ] you go through

trouble someone cheats on you someone betrays you someone lies to you someone steals from you someone gets what you earned someone gets promoted over you you say to yourself memento mori remember that i will die you could leave life right now marcus aurelius said let that determine what you do and say and think you get in a fight with your girlfriend or your boyfriend your parents say something mean or let you down your neighbor pisses you off you break your leg you blow out your knee you fall out of love with someone you're stressed out

by work your kids are sick you say to yourself memento mori life is short i'm going to die and what that means is you can't take any of this seriously you can't let it weigh on you you can't hold on to it you can't let it puff you up either if you're rich you're famous you have a million instagram followers you just got hired you just got into harvard you just got nominated for a nobel prize you just got a call from the president you just got a promotion you just gotta raise memento mori you

will die you can't take any of this with you it pales in comparison to the idea of eternity how many people have come before you and had these same honors and where are they now they're [ __ ] dead just like you will be what marcus really said is this practice of memento mori of saying to the good things and to the bad things in life that we will die it's a reminder that helps you accept the good things without arrogance and to let the bad things go with indifference your plane is delayed you're stressed

you're tired you're hungry you're frustrated you're cynical you say memento mori i'm going to die what does any of this mean why am i taking any of it so seriously why am i letting it get to me what's three hours here or three hours there remember you are going to die what you do control is whether you waste time getting upset by this whether you waste time taking it personally whether you're the best in the world at what you do or you're an unpaid intern whether your work is being beloved by the critics or savaged

by the critics whether you have more opportunities than you know what to do with whether you can't get the one shot no one will even give you a chance whether you have all the money you need or you can barely get by you say memento mori remember i will die none of this matters in light of that whether you're having sex with a beautiful supermodel whether you're putting your kid down to bed whether you're sitting there in your pajamas eating cereal or you are standing in front of a prestigious audience memento mori you will die

is this how you want to spend your time are you wasting it or are you living it are you embracing it or are you letting it escape from your grasp memento mori remember i will die you could leave life right now let that determine what you do and say and think whatever you're experiencing whatever you're going through however awesome your life is however frustrating it is right now momento mori remember you will die this too shall pass you must not forget that [Music] epictetus said that philosophy wasn't this dry abstract thing it was a thing

he said you should be talking about writing down reading about exploring with other people all the time you said constantly have it at hand that's how i think about philosophy and it's weird for the last five years every single day i've been writing this free email about stoic philosophy it's been not just cool to meet all these fellow practitioners of still philosophy but in writing about it talking about it reading it for our podcast i have got to internalize these ideas in a way that i never would have been able to under any other circumstances

that's the idea philosophy is something you're supposed to engage in not keeping these dusty old books or read once and be done with it's a constant process and i think that's why the email has worked so well for the people reading about it and sharing it and talking about it all of that as well so i'd love to have you join us on this email you can sign up at dailystoke.com daily email it's totally free no spam you can unsubscribe whatever you want i've basically given away a book for free every single year for five

years and i'm going to keep on doing it until i drop dead check it out dailystoke.com daily email