Develop a strong mind

develop a strong mind and you will have

a strong body if you have a strong body

but you don't have a strong mind it's

not going to do you any good

life isn't fair life is unpredictable

pace of change is merciless the amount

of adversity and difficulty that can

happen is endless and a stoic has to

cultivate not just the physical strength

to be able to withstand all that but the

mental strength the fortitude to be able

to not just survive it but Thrive inside

of it I'm Ryan Holliday I've been lucky

enough to teach stoicism to the NBA the

NFL sitting Senators Special Forces

leaders people who are doing real things

in the real world where mental toughness

is a critical ingredient success is

impossible without it and in today's

episode that's what we're going to talk

about how to use stoicism to cultivate

one of the most important and

unfortunately one of the rarest things

there is in the world true mental

toughness

in letters from A stoic Seneca talks

about how he pities the person who has

never been through adversity because

they they haven't had a chance to prove

themselves right and so the reason we

push ourselves physically why we get in

the cold plunge why we get up early why

we take on things that other people say

are impossible or difficult is to test

ourselves it's to see what we're capable

of right some of the adversity of life

is going to be outside of our control

but it's only in seeking out adversity

that's in our control that we train

ourselves that we develop the muscles

the skills the confidence to know hey I

can handle this Mark sure says how will

you meet the adversity of tomorrow he

says with the same weapons that you had

today you have to cultivate and sharpen

those weapons you have to build those

muscles and you do it by seeking out

adversity doing hard things not on

accident but on purpose

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one of the great Stokes Xeno said that

reading books is a way to converse with

the dead when Xena was a young man he

went to the Oracle of Delphine and got a

prophecy they said you will become wise

when you begin to have conversations

with the dead and It ultimately realizes

that what the Oracle means is that by

reading we are able to talk to people

who lived very long ago if you think

about Mark surrealist's meditations one

of the books that I lean on you're

getting direct access to the brain of a

man who lived 2 000 years ago tolstoy's

a calendar of wisdom which I read every

morning that's a guy who died over a

hundred years ago but he's preparing

something for you to think about and

read every single day when you become

stronger we become better we become

wiser when we have conversations with

the Dead

laughs

perspective is of course everything

right if you've ever been stuck in

traffic in Los Angeles it was a

miserable annoying experience an ugly

bit of modernity but if you've ever

flown over Los Angeles at night you've

seen that same traffic and all of a

sudden it's beautiful this sort of

interconnected living organism it is

Humanity I'm on this trip right now with

my family we just had all these

different delays all this inclement

weather that on the one hand we could

have said oh this ruins the trip instead

we said this is an adventure this is an

experience mentally tough mentally

resilient people they managed to find

the right perspective they managed to

grab the right handle on the situation

right do you see what's good in it do

you see what it allows you to do and you

see the way inside the obstacle or do

you see where you're stuck where there's

the impediment where you can't do

something there's a lot that happens in

our life that's out of our control but

what is in our control is the

perspective we choose to take the lens

at which we choose to look at things

Epictetus says situation has two handles

right one will bear weight the other

won't so what are you going to grab this

by how are you going to choose to see it

how are you going to choose to try to

carry it it's the same thing a different

perspective life is like that we can

look at it one way or we can choose to

look at it another way we can choose to

look at something as an obstacle or we

can choose to look at something as an

opportunity we can see chaos if we look

close we can see order if we look from

afar we can see disadvantage if we look

at it one way we could see Advantage if

we look the other we can see obstacle

from this perspective opportunity from

the other

it's a little bit counterintuitive but

one of the best ways to increase our

mental capacity our mental toughness is

By Doing Hard physical things Seneca

says we treat the body rigorously so

that it is not disobedient to the mind

we're practicing showing our body who's

in charge we're building the muscle of

the mind so we learned that when we

think we can't do something that's not

always true that we have the power to

out think to Out Create to push past the

limitations or the warning signs and do

things that a lesser version of

ourselves wouldn't think possible that

Stephen pressfield talks about this

Martin Luther King actually talked about

this idea that there's sort of a North

and a South in each of us and that we're

in sort of a war against the lower self

that the higher self is battling to to

surpass to transcend the lower self and

I think when you treat the body

rigorously when you create a strong and

tough mind you're winning that battle

and that makes you so much much better

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there's things that are up to us and

there's things that are not up to us to

us Epictetus one of the great Stokes who

says that the key task in life is

separating matters into two categories

stuff that's up to us

stuff that's not you can't be mentally

tough or mentally resilient if you spend

all of your mental energy

resenting arguing with blaming

regretting the things that have happened

that are outside of your control that

weren't your fault where fault it no

longer matters just as you can't be

physically tough you can't be physically

resilient if you are throwing yourself

over and over again at brick walls that

you do not have the strength or power or

control or ability to change you have to

know what's up to you and what's not up

to you this is the Serenity Prayer you

have to have the wisdom to know what is

up to you and what isn't you have to

have the courage to face what is up to

you you have to have the serenity in the

peace and the Stillness to accept what

is not up to you

[Music]

the Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield

once pointed out he said look astronauts

are not braver than other people they're

just meticulously prepared courage isn't

this thing that you magically have it's

something that you have to cultivate the

athlete that hits the winning shot that

that's not just from Rob bravery that's

from the fact that they have practiced

it over and over and over again they

know what they're capable of I said

before I don't believe in myself I have

evidence courage confidence comes from

that evidence you have to cultivate it

and you cultivate it by doing hard

things by pushing yourself out of your

comfort zone right by not listening to

that voice that says you can't do it

it's hard what if it doesn't work you

cultivate courage as Seneca was saying

by treating the body rigorously by

pushing past those boundaries by

incrementally making yourself a little

bit better and a little bit braver we

can't just hope to be brave when it

counts we have to cultivate that bravery

we have to cultivate that courage slowly

and steadily over time in the work that

we do on ourselves

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