Welcome to the Daily stoic podcast. Each day, we bring you a meditation inspired by the
ancient stoics. Illustrated with stories from history. Current
events in literature to help you. Be better at what you do. And at the beginning of the week, we try to do a deeper dive setting. A kind of stoic intention for the week, something to meditate on, something to think on something to leave you, with
two Journal about whatever it is, you happen to be doing.
So let's get
into it.
There's nothing that's changed my life in this world more than books. I think you understand that about me, I for for
books, you wouldn't be listening to this podcast. I wouldn't have a job, we'd be in different places. And so, if you're thinking about reading something, you're not sure what it's about. You want to get more than just the gist out of it. Well, then I think it should check out the linkous. Blink us offers the best selection of nonfiction books. They pull out key takeaways and put them into 15-minute text and audio explainers called blinks for an immediate moment of meaningful inspiration, blinking,
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Glenn Guist.com.
Why discipline is Destiny? It's next to
impossible to know what adversity or what? Good luck will fall in. Someone's lap, will they be able to handle whatever it is? Will they rise to the occasion would be corrupted or destroyed by it as it happens? This is easy to predict. Look at Marcus Aurelius. He was gifted with all sorts of incredible things, power money, great teachers. How did he manage to remain good though, when so many others from Nero to Tiberius?
I'd been broken by those same exact gifts the same way that he managed to not be broken by the incredible adversity of the antonine plague. It was his discipline. His Temperance is moderation. His self awareness, his balance and his self Mastery. When we say that discipline is Destiny, this is what we mean that discipline is both predictive and deterministic at predetermined. That Marcus would not only be a great emperor, but a great man to just as it assured that the final chapters for the cautionary tales of History.
King
Alexander Napoleon, Alexander the Great Julius, Caesar King George the fourth, sadly even Marcus's own undisciplined, son Commodus, would be self-inflicted destruction and so it goes for all of us if you want to know why things are the way they are in your life right now. Your discipline got you there, if you want to know how things are going to go for you in the future, your discipline will take you there. It's not simply that discipline people do well and undisciplined people fail. We know life is more complicated than that. The maxim means that the
rates have disciplined predict the kinds of actions. We will see the undisciplined person may succeed, but it will be an unstable chaotic success. The unrestrained will end up. Unraveling the institutions around them that lazy will end up missing some critical piece of information that cost them. The overly passionate will take it too far and pay for it. The Arrogant will ignore the people in the warnings that could have saved them. Who we are the standards, we hold ourselves to the things we do regularly. Our personality traits in the end, these are all better.
Years of the trajectory in our lives, then Talent, then resources, or anything else. And these tell us how will respond to the Future swings of Fortune, which is ultimately all we need to know. Most powerful is he Seneca said, who has himself in his own power? Most powerful is he who is disciplined because discipline is Destiny and that's the aim of the new book discipline is Destiny. The power of self-control and it's about trying to help you harness the powers of self-discipline. I've got my
my first copies of it here on my desk. I've been signing these books like crazy as part of the pre-order bonus, we've got signed copies at Daily stoic.com pre-order. You can even get signed a manuscript pages that helps produce the book. You can get the Spotify playlist. I made, when I was writing the book, you can even get bulk copies for your team or your group. I would love for you to help me by supporting this book. And you can do that at Daily, stoic.com pre-order would mean a lot to me, check it out. Daily stoic.com.
Sash pre-order for discipline is Destiny.
A cure for procrastination to this. Do it
procrastination almost. Looks like a form of delusion and entitlement, who is to say, you'll even be around next month or next week to deal with it. If it's important, they say don't wait do it now. As marks really says, if it needs to be done, do it with courage and promptness procrastination seems to make things easier, but it dams us to a low-grade gnawing state of anxiety. Is that how you want to spend this?
Week? Any week your last week? Ask yourself. What am I avoiding? What can I handle today? Instead of tomorrow? What can I do? Promptly and bravely right now and then we have one quote, from more letters from Seneca and to, for Marcus Aurelius from Seneca, we have anything that must yet. Be done virtue can do with courage and promptness, for anyone would call it a sign of foolishness for one to undertake a task, with a lazy and begrudging spirit, or to push the body in One Direction in the minus.
And and another to be torn apart by wildly Divergent, impulses, it can be done. Well, it can be done. Well, now that's the idea. And then marks really says, this is the mark of perfection of character to spend each day, as if it were your last without frenzy laziness or any pretending, and then marks realest, again, meditations 822, you get what you deserve instead of being a good person today, you choose instead to be one tomorrow.
I really like this frame of reference thinking about procrastination as a form of arrogance who says you'll be around to get to it tomorrow who says you can afford to put it off. And so as I'm writing, I tell myself look, I don't know what's going to happen. All I know is that I got a close it up today. I got to do everything. I'm capable of doing today. Got to wrap it up. Give my best, do my best do as much as I can. So that if I do die tomorrow and someone I love poles.
A laptop and goes. Where was Ryan on that book? It won't be finished but they'll they'll see that my stuff was in order that I got as far as I could, that wasn't a scattered mess that I hadn't been put in stuff off that I hadn't been waiting until later. I think I'm proud to say that as a writer, I've never missed one of my publisher deadlines. In fact, I almost always deliver early. That's I think one key to procrastination. Set good deadlines generous deadlines that you're capable of beating and then work every day and
And so you beat them, people are impressed but really you budgeted some extra time there. I think that's something that strikes me when I deal with people who procrastinate writes like you assign something with someone you know they've got to do this this or that and then you know it's like it's due on Monday and then Friday they're like oh I couldn't get the file open your like what have you been doing the last week, right? You should have known that. The file didn't work. The second, you started this project and so you often
And the people, this is where that idea, the resistance comes in people delay. Getting started, Steven pressfield says, it's not that, we say, I'm never going to write the novel. We say I'm going to write the novel tomorrow, right? So we put off the start date over and over. As as as the procrastination, we tell ourselves. We're going to do it or is lying to ourselves about when we're going to do it. And I think this this is why the practice of Memento Mori is so important. If you go, I don't know if I have tomorrow but I do have right now. I do have
Minutes that I can dedicate to this, I do have an hour that I can dedicate to this. I can have that conversation that I needed to have with the person I can close. This this thing off, I can get caught up on this or that don't do it later. Do it now cross it off, anything that could be done tomorrow, must be done today. That was MacArthur's rule as well. The stoics and successful people forever have been battling against procrastination and the resistance. It's a fact of life. That's why pressfield calls it. A war of Art.
And I hope whatever it is. You have to do
today. You take this message seriously and you go do it. 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 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 just wanted to say. Thank you.
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