How to Change Your Life in 24 Hours

This is the day to change your life. We have a new day in front of us. A new sun has risen. We can be anyone. We can be anything. We can do it a new way. We don't have to [music] do it the way we've always done it. It's a tragedy, Marcus Aurelius says, [music] to cling to being the person you've always been. He says we're like those gladiators [music] at the games, torn to pieces, begging to be held over till tomorrow to do it the [music] same way. It hasn't been working. So, let's do it differently. And that's what we're going to talk about in today's episode. How to have a great day. How to be a great person. How to be a new person. And what the Stoics can tell us about doing precisely that. Nobody likes getting up early, not even Marcus Aurelius. In Meditations, he talks about trying to get up early, and he has this fantastic conversation with himself. He goes, "But it's warmer under the covers." And he says, "Is that what you were put here to do? To huddle under the blankets and be warm?" He says, "But it's nicer here." He says, "Is that what you were meant for? To feel nice?" He says, "No, you have a nature. You have a job. You have obligations." He says, "We're all put here for a purpose. We have a nature. We have a duty. And we have to go, and we have to do that. And the morning is the best time to do stuff, to get stuff done." So, that's why the Stoics tried to get up early. I say tried cuz they didn't always do it, and it wasn't always easy, and they didn't always like it. They tried to do it anyway. Doing hard things is good for you. Cold plunges, long hikes, long runs, challenging yourself, pushing your limits. Seneca says we treat the body rigorously so that it's not disobedient to the mind. Doing the things you don't want to do, but that you're glad you did after. That's the skill that life demands more than any other skill. The ability to push yourself a little bit further, to hold on a little bit longer, to go a little bit further than you thought, to put up with a little bit more than you thought. That's what it's about. And so we find practices, we find places, we find experiences that allow us to practice that. They're also beautiful and enjoyable, but they allow us to build that muscle, the muscle that says, "Hey, I'm in charge. Hey, I push myself. Hey, I'm comfortable being uncomfortable. I'm comfortable being challenged. In fact, I like those challenges. I seek them out. I do hard things." just that I can do hard things, but I do hard things on a regular consistent basis. That's what it's about. The purpose of philosophy is not about getting to some magical place of enlightenment. It's not about these epiphanies, these life-changing, transformative moments. That's not how it works. Seneca writing to his friend Lucilius talks about how, "Look, if you can just acquire one thing a day." He says, "Something that makes you a little stronger, makes you a little wiser, less focused on things that are outside your control." As long as you can inch your way towards truth, he says, "That's what it's about." So today, let's think about what have we acquired? What's something we've learned? What's something we've added to our quiver or our toolkit? That's what the path to wisdom is. It's step-by-step. In fact, Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, says exactly that. He says, "Well-being is realized [music] by small steps, but it is no small thing." The Stoics say you have to stop being a slave today. There's a story I tell in Discipline is Destiny about Richard Feynman. One day, it's like 10:00 in the morning, he's out for a walk, and he feels this pull. He wants to have a drink. He never saw himself as an alcoholic, he never had this problem with alcoholism, but he was deeply uncomfortable with this drive, this pull to do something that was coming from a part of him that he didn't control. And the Stoics say, "That's something you have to be really suspicious of." Seneca says slavery isn't just this legal status. He says everyone's a slave. He says someone's a slave to their mistress, somebody's a slave to money, someone's a slave to power and attention. And he said those people might be literally free, they might be powerful, they might be important, but they're not in control. In this book I say I also tell the story of of Eisenhower. He was told by his doctor that his smoking habit, he'd smoked like four packs a day for 40 years, it was substantially hurting his health. He says, "Okay." And he and he I love this. He says, "I gave myself an order to stop smoking." And he stopped smoking cold turkey like that. It's going to be harder for some people, easier for some people, but the point is you got to give yourself that order. You have to say, "Who's in charge? This habit, this addiction, this vice that I have, this this thing that I want, or am I in charge? Am I the boss or is it the boss?" And that's what Feynman was reacting to, that's what Seneca was reacting to, that's what Eisenhower's reacting to, and ultimately that's what Epictetus is reacting to in the same court as Seneca. He looks around and he goes, "I'm a slave, but I'm freer than these people cuz I'm in control of my habits. I decide what I do and what I don't do, and we have to give ourselves that power." The best piece of advice that Lou Gehrig ever got came when he was a a young minor league player. He was struggling, he was in the middle of a slump. He was losing his confidence, he was losing his passion in the game. The Yankees dispatched a an old seasoned manager or coach up up to see him in Connecticut and they said, "Look, the most important thing a baseball player can understand, Lou, is that you can't be good every day." Right? What matters is that you show up. What matters is that you try your best, but you're not always going to be at your best. And when you think about his streak, there's obviously a lot of terrible games in there, a lot of games where he was physically present, but the level of performance wasn't there. You learn this as a writer. It What matters is you show up. If you're sitting around waiting for inspiration, if you're expecting every day to be productive and perfect, you're going to be be disappointed. That's why there's this writing rule, just a couple crappy pages a day. It's that there's a minimum [music] and that there's a day that you do it every day, that you meet this minimum. You're not expecting the maximum of yourself, you're expecting the very least that you meet the minimum. Now, sometimes you totally exceed the maximum. Sometimes [music] you really are feeling it. Sometimes it's amazing. But, what matters is that you show up. What matters is you do it. What matters is you keep the commitment. This is my dog Oreo. My wife [music] and I found her on the side of the road a little over a year ago near a ranch in Texas. Somebody had dumped this dog and her sister. They [music] were puppies. They were covered in fleas. They were horribly malnourished. And now she is about the spoiledest dog in the entire world. [music] If you have a dog, you know you'll give your dog basically anything. And that's where today's [music] sponsor comes in. This is Sunday for Dogs, human-grade food for your dog. She does not realize how spoiled she is, that she was on the side of the road not that long ago and now she eats human-grade dog food. All the food's air-dried to lock in the flavor, USDA-grade beef in there, then it puts in other awesome ingredients. Pumpkin, ginger, chicory root, blueberries, kale, spinach, fish liver oil, sunflower oil in here, which is stuff for their skin, their coat, joint health. Start [music] serving your dog the 100% superfood and real meat food they deserve. You can get 50% off on your first order. [music] Sundaysfordogs.com/stoked50 or you can use the code stoked50 at checkout. >> [music] >> I'm not saying it'll solve all your problems, just most of them. I'm not saying it's the most philosophical thing you can do today. I'm just saying it's something that all the philosophers tried to do every day. Look, what I am saying is that you should go for a walk. It'll make everything better. It always does. Relaxes you, it calms you down, it gets you outside, it gets you moving. It both slows the mind down and gets it moving. Seneca, the Stoic philosopher, said [music] that we should take wandering walks. He said so the mind might be nourished and refreshed by the open air and deep breathing. Nietzsche actually said that only ideas [music] had by walking have any worth. So, why aren't you doing it? Why are you sitting there? Why are you watching this on the couch or at your desk? You need to get moving. You need to get outside. >> [music] >> So, in my office I have two pictures of my kids. [music] And in between those pictures, I have this other picture that a sports psychologist once sent me. It depicts [music] Oliver Sacks in his office, the the great doctor and writer. Sacks just had in his office right behind him a giant sign that said [music] no. So, it's capturing this great writer, this great thinker, in his element and a reminder that he needed while he was in there that he has to say no. It's so easy to say yes, but we have to remember that everything we say yes to is a no. It's saying no to someone or something else. And I try to remind myself that when I get random emails, when I get cool invitations, when I find myself getting distracted or or whatever it is, when I'm saying yes to that cuz I don't want to be rude, cuz I don't have enough willpower, cuz [music] I think I can squeeze it in, I'm saying no to the two most important people in my life. So, saying no is hard, but it's also essential. And that's why I have that reminder. And it's a very Stoic idea. In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius says, "Ask yourself in every instance, is this essential?" He says, "Cuz most of what we do and say isn't essential. But when we eliminate the inessential," he says, "we get the double benefit of doing the essential things better." >> [music] >> Bill Belichick, greatest football coach in history, tells his players, "Do your job." >> Look, fellas, it's just about doing our job. >> Marcus Aurelius asked himself that same question in Meditations. He says, "What is my vocation?" He says, "To be a good person." That's the job at the end of the day, to be a good person, to do good things, to make a positive difference in the world for yourself and the people around you. >> [music] >> Around the 4th century BC, there's a Athenian merchant and he suffers a shipwreck. He loses everything in the shipwreck. No one would say that that's good. No one would say that that's positive. But Zeno would say that he made a great fortune when he suffered a shipwreck cuz it drove him to philosophy. He chose for it to mark a new chapter in his life. He went through the the door that life opened for him. He would create Stoicism out of this disaster. It was good because he made it good. He turned it into something. This is what the Stoics mean when they say that the obstacle is the way. They're not saying it's wonderful that you were robbed. They're not saying it's wonderful that your spouse cheated on you. It's not wonderful that there was a hurricane or a fire or a natural disaster. None of this is is good in that sense, but it can be good if you choose to make good out of it. That's what Stoicism is. We don't control what happens. We control how we respond to what happens. We have the ability to make this thing good with the response that we take, with the action that we take. >> [music] >> "Concentrate like a Roman," Marcus Aurelius says. "Concentrate on doing the thing in front of you as if it was the last thing you were doing in your life." I think about that pretty often. It's not that you're going to die tomorrow for sure, but that it could be the last time you send this email. It could be the last time you have this conversation. It could be the last time that I sit down to write or that I sit down to make a video. So, am I going to be fully present? Am I going to concentrate? Am I going to do my job? Am I going to meet the standards of my people, of my profession, of my family, whatever it is? I'm going to concentrate like a Roman. I'm going to do it like this thing matters, like I might not get another opportunity to do it. To me, that's the test. That's the standard to try to meet every day that you are lucky enough to be alive. It's not that life is short, Seneca says. It's that we make it short by acting as if we have forever, by putting things off until tomorrow, by doing things that we shouldn't do. He says, "It's insane. We We protect our money. We protect our property. And then we are foolish with the one thing that can't be replaced, [music] the one thing they're not making any more of." He says, "Don't spend your time on anything that's [music] not giving you a return." And of course, he doesn't mean that financially. He means, "How are you going to spend this limited amount of time that you [music] have here on Earth? How are you going to protect that valuable resource? [music] How are you going to make good choices, courageous choices, disciplined choices?" Memento mori, death [music] isn't this thing that's at the end, Seneca says. It's happening now. The time that passes belongs to death. So, how will you spend your life?