Give me 13 minutes and I'll teach you how to deal with anyone (from the Stoics)

If you don't know how to deal with people, life is going to eat you alive. People think of philosophy as being these big, abstract, theoretical ideas. But in the ancient world, philosophy was also there to help you deal with other people. This is what we hear the Stoics talking about over and over and over again. How to deal with annoying people, how to deal with obnoxious people, how to deal with people who are cunning and crafty and plotting against us. You're not going to be able to accomplish anything just by yourself in this world. You need other people, you need relationship, you have to collaborate, to accommodate. You're going to have to put up with people that you don't like, you're going to have to get good things out of bad people. I trained for many years under the great Robert Greene, one of the smartest thinkers and strategists about dealing with other people. And that's what we're going to talk about in today's episode, strategies and tactics for dealing with other people. This is one of the most famous and misunderstood books of all time. This is one of the most famous misunderstood passages in it. Marcus Aurelius, the emperor of Rome, writing to himself 2,000 years ago, says, "When you wake in the morning, tell yourself the people I will deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly." Now, you think this is Stoicism sort of being pessimistic in advance, managing expectations, being a little bit cynical. But that is actually precisely wrong. Although it is true, we will meet annoying and obnoxious and dishonest and shitty people in the course of the day. That's not what Marcus Aurelius want wanted to remember. He says, "They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good and the ugliness of evil, and I have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own." But this is This is actually the most important, he says, "No one can implicate me in ugliness, nor can I feel angry at my relative or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural," he said. "To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him, these are obstructions." So yes, there will be annoying, there will be obnoxious people, there will be frustrations today. But your job is to work with those people, to manage those frustrations, to not let shitty people turn you into a shitty person, to not let obnoxious people make you obnoxious. Be prepared for it, anticipate it, don't let it break you, don't let it ruin you, don't let it make you bitter or angry or ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, or surly. >> [music] >> Do you think any of this is new, these annoying people, these cruel people, these awful people, the things that are driving you nuts about the world? It has always been like this. Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, a book written almost 2,000 years ago, it's the private thoughts of the emperor of Rome, never intended to be published. And what we see in it is how often he is having to deal with annoying people, obnoxious people, dishonest people, demagogues, cheats, frauds, all the things that are happening now, he had to deal with. And that's really what Stoic philosophy is as a philosophy. It's a philosophy for dealing with a world with those kinds of people in it. And what Marcus Aurelius decides, what we have to decide, is that these kinds of people, these times that we are in, they are an opportunity. It's an opportunity for us not to be like those people, to not let those people make us like them. And in fact, it is an opportunity for us to be the exception, to be good, [music] to be good to them, to be good to other people, to see everything that's happening as a chance for us to live and act with virtue and excellence [music] and kindness. It's a chance for us to be great. That's in fact what he meant when he said the obstacle is the way. When people get in our way, when people are jerks, it's a chance for us to practice all sorts of virtues under pressure, under duress, when we don't like it. That's what Stoicism is as a philosophy. It is a philosophy designed to deal with and jerks and difficult moments in history. >> [music] >> The people you don't like, the people who believe things you don't like, the people that believe things that upset you, you have to remember that they're not wrong on purpose. In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius quotes Plato. Plato said, "Against their will, their souls are cut off from truth." It might not feel that way, it might feel like they are willfully wrong, but almost certainly they are not. Think about the dumb things that you have believed in the past. Think about the times when you were wrong. Did you think you were wrong at the time? No, you thought you were right. Marcus Aurelius quotes Plato, he says, "Against their will, they are cut off from truth, they're cut off from justice," he said, "they're cut off from the right path." His famous passage [music] where he laments how obnoxious and annoying people are, he says, "Why are they like this?" He says, "Cuz they don't know the difference between doing things the right way and the wrong way." He says, "When you remember this, it makes you more patient with other people." That was what Stoicism was designed to help him do. You can't change other people, you can't make them not wrong, you can't make them not annoying. You can work to be more patient and understanding and empathetic to those people. >> [music] >> When you find yourself going through something difficult, when you find yourself across from a difficult person, Epictetus says you want to tell yourself, "I've been paired with a strong sparring partner." He says, "How else are you going to become Olympic class material if you don't find someone who challenges you, who doesn't test you, who doesn't force you to get better?" Marcus Aurelius's passage about the obstacle is the way. You know what he's talking about when he says the obstacle is the way? Marcus Aurelius is saying that difficult people are a chance to practice virtue, forgiveness, patience, creativity, empathy, understanding. Marcus Aurelius is saying that difficult people are not obstacles, they are opportunities. Difficult situations, difficult people, the Stoics want to remind us are a chance for us to get better, to do better, to become better. I don't know about you, but the idea of therapy can >> [music] >> bring up some resistance, right? Some hesitation. Not only does it take a lot of time, but it requires you to get vulnerable, it requires you to get outside your comfort zone. And that resistance can get in the [music] way of doing something that's good for you. And so, one way we can reduce [music] that is by virtual therapy, and that's where today's sponsor, BetterHelp, comes in. Knowing that if I have to drive across town, if I have to wait in traffic, if I have to look for parking, [music] these are all excuses I'm going to use to not take the time to do this thing that I know that I should do. BetterHelp makes starting and sticking with therapy easier. You take their quiz, they match you with a licensed therapist. [music] You can communicate with that therapist however you want, phone, video, text. You can join over 6 million people to date who have gotten help with BetterHelp. Just click the link in the description, or you can just go to betterhelp.com/dailystoic to get 10% off your first month of therapy with BetterHelp. >> [music] >> Is there such a thing as a world without annoying people, without frustrating people, without difficult people, without dishonest people, without shameless people? No, there isn't. They're going to be a percentage of the whole. Not a large percentage, but a percentage of the whole. And so, one of the things the Stoics teach us is that when we come across someone who is any one of those things, instead of being surprised, instead of being upset, we should go, "Yeah, this makes sense. A certain percentage of people are going to be those people, and here I am bumping into one of those people. It makes sense. It was unavoidable. It was statistically inevitable." Marcus Aurelius says that when you remind yourself of this, it helps calm you down, gives you perspective, and it should make you grateful that you are not one of those people, that they actually are a minority, that they don't make up the majority of the whole. So, when we deal with difficult people, we go, "Look, is a world without these people possible? No, it's not. It's not surprising that we met them. And by the way, they're doing their job. That's what they were assigned, that's who they are. That's the part of the whole, the complicated whole cloth fabric of humanity. That's what they are doing. They are being them, and you're lucky you get to be you, which is not one of those people. You don't have to be like them, but you do have to [music] accept that they exist. It's not things that upset us, Epictetus says, it's our opinion about things. We decide that something's rude, we decide something's unfair, we decide something sucks. The event is objective, the story we tell ourselves about it is not. We don't control what happens, but we control how we respond to what happens. This is what the Stoics mean when they say the obstacle is the way. We can decide to use this, we can decide to grow from this, we can decide to be made better for this. If you want to feel good, you got to do good. Good fortune is not something that the world bestows on you. There is no such thing as good luck except the good luck that you make for yourself, the good fortune you make for yourself by doing good. That's why we're here, the Stoics say, for each other. They didn't have to make that comment, they didn't have to be a jerk, they didn't have to point that out, they could have done nothing, but but they didn't. And so now we have a choice. How are we going to respond? Right? We don't control other people, that's the idea in Stoicism, but we control how we respond. Epictetus said that when you find yourself offended, when you get upset, realize that you are complicit in taking the offense. Marcus Aurelius said, "Remember, you don't have to turn this into [music] something. Life is hard, people aren't perfect, they don't understand how things are going to be felt or perceived by other people. They're going to keep doing this for as long as they exist. But we have to decide, are we going to go around being offended all the time, being hurt all the time, feeling [music] slighted all the time, getting worked up all the time? We have control over that, and we can decide [music] not to waste our time getting offended, getting upset. We can focus on what we control, which is who we are in response to the things people [music] do and say to us. There's only one rule in life, the novelist Kurt Vonnegut said. He said, "God damn it, you got to be kind." Now, people maybe don't think of Stoicism as a philosophy built around kindness, but it was. "Every person you meet," Seneca said, "is an opportunity for kindness." [music] Marcus Aurelius talked about being strict with yourself, yes, but tolerant with others. And some of the most beautiful stories in Stoicism are Marcus Aurelius's kindness, his understanding, his compassion for his brother, who was very different than him. Cato, the same thing. Yes, Stoicism is this stern philosophy. Yes, it demands a lot from ourselves. One of the things it demands is that we be kind and gracious and forgiving of others. That's That's the one thing the world needs, Seneca reminds us. Because we're all flawed, broken people, we have to have grace and kindness for each other. You can hold your breath until you're blue in the face, but they're going to keep on doing it. That's what people do. People do what they're going to do, and people have done this for as long as there have been people. This is what the Stoics remind us. We don't control other people, we control how we respond to other people. You know, that's what Marcus Aurelius's famous quote about how the obstacle is the way is actually about. It's not about career obstacles, it's not about health obstacles, it's not about global events. It's how do we respond to jerks? How do we respond to frustrating people? How do we respond to people when they don't do what we want? And the first thing is we got to remind ourselves that they do what they want. They're not here to do what we want. We have to focus on the thing that is in our control, which is who we are, which is what we do, which is our attitude, our emotions, our opinions, how we treat other people. Marcus Aurelius is the most powerful man in the world. But you know what that famous quote about the impediment to action advancing action, what stands in the way becomes the way? The quote that has come to mean how obstacles are opportunities. Do you know what kind of obstacles he's talking about? He's talking about annoying people. He's talking about difficult people. He's talking about that person that's frustrating you right now. And the reason they're frustrating you is cuz you think there is a way they're supposed to be acting. You think there's something they're supposed to be doing. People do what they do. Our job is to focus on us, to focus on how we respond, to focus on doing what's right, to focus on what we're supposed to be doing, and to stop trying to control other people. So, the famous passage from Marcus Aurelius where he's talking about how the obstacle is the way. Do you know what kind of obstacles he's talking about? He's not talking about natural disasters. He's not talking about losing your arm. He's not talking about any of that. He's talking about people. He's talking about He's talking about jerks. He's saying that people are our proper occupation. So, they actually can't impede us. They can't get in our way. They can't actually cause us trouble. Because all the things they do are opportunities for us, opportunities for us to practice virtue, courage, and discipline, and justice, and wisdom. We can have intentions, and people can cause problems and disruptions. They can get in the way of what we are trying to do. But they present us new opportunities to try new things. Let's [music] try to see these frustrating, annoying, obnoxious people in our lives not as problems or frustrations, or even obnoxious at all, but actually as opportunities. [music] Opportunities for us to be kind, or opportunities for us to be patient, opportunities for [music] us to be creative, opportunities for us to teach, and opportunities for us to learn. That's what Marcus Aurelius means when he says the [music] obstacle is the way.