Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a stoic inspired meditation designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2000 year old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women, to help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off, the little dose of courage and discipline and justice in wisdom. For more visit DailyStoic.com. It should be the easiest book in the world to read.
It's only depending on the translation of a couple hundred pages, which are made up of short passages, making it easy to read in small increments. It's written in a straightforward and accessible style without any complex philosophical jargon. Unlike most books, there's no pretense, no performance, no intent to impress an audience. It's filled with topics that are universal and relevant, dealing with tough times, being nice to people waking up and getting to work even when you'd rather stay under the warm blankets.
And yet, so many people struggle with and get frustrated by Marcus Reelius' meditations, and they have ever since it was first discovered after the emperor's death nearly 2000 years ago. As we can imagine the first reader of meditations trying to make sense of the private thoughts of this great man, today people have questions about where to start and what to take from it. What translation should I get? Should I read a cover to cover?
Is it better to approach it in bite-sized pieces? You read it once or multiple times. Where did Marcus write it? Why did he write it?
Did Marcus mean to come off so dark or dour? Is it important to know about Marcus' circumstances? Who he was writing for? What he meant?
Do you need to know the core principles of stoicism to fully appreciate meditations? We've been working hard here at DailyStoic for the last decade to try to make Marcus really successful and practical for people. We even published our own edition of Meditations. But we've also spent hundreds and thousands of hours, not just with his writings, but also with the best experts and translators and students of stoicism, to help make sense of what he meant and what he could do for us.
Getting to the bottom of Meditations is the work of a lifetime, and as Marcus would say of any great work of work, you get something new each time you go to it. That's why we've been putting together what I think is the perfect companion for reading and understanding Marcus really says Meditations. It's this new DailyStoic Meditations guide. Like a book club or an annotated version of your favorite book, it's designed to be your personal roadmap through the nuances, subtleties, and complexities of Marcus really some meditations.
Whether you've yet to journey through the pages or you're intimately familiar with them, this awesome course will enhance your reading experience, deepen your understanding, and show you how to apply the same Stoic principles and exercises that Marcus really is used to improve his life, to improve your own. It's not Spark Notes or a summary, there's no substitute for reading Meditations. It's not a shortcut, but it's a guide that will help enhance your understanding, help you really get everything you should get out of it, and hopefully guide you not just to read it once, but time after time after time. I'm really excited for you to check it out.
Go to DailyStoic.com slash Meditations, click on the show notes. And also, I would say if you haven't read Meditations, do grab our edition, sell it in the DailyStoic store, the Gregory Hayes edition, I added some awesome graphics to it. There's a biography of Marcus in there. It's leather, so it'll hold the test of time and I'll link to that in today's show notes as well.
Maybe you've been hearing the buzz about live shopping lately. I know I have, and it makes sense, people are already on their phones, they're hanging out, they're looking for stuff to do, so why wouldn't business want to meet people where they're at? If you're hoping for people to find your listing or waiting for them to walk into your store, I know a little bit about that, you're setting yourself up for disappointment. On whatnot, you can go live and sell directly to people in real time, they see what you've got, they ask questions and they buy, and they keep coming back.
Whatnot is the largest dedicated live shopping platform, whether it's beauty, collectibles, electronics, luxury fashion, even cookies. Sellers are building real thriving businesses on whatnot. Whatnot buyers spend more than an hour a day on the app and they're not just browsing, they're bidding and buying and coming back, so you can go live, show off your projects, and turn that into real income. People selling on whatnot sell 10 times more than on other major marketplaces, and that's because you're not just listing products, you're building real connections with buyers.
For a limited time, whatnot will match your first $150 sold in the first month? You just go to visit whatnot.com.sell to start selling, W-H-A-T-N-O-T dot com slash sell. Whatnot.com slash sell. If something is making you upset, write it down and look at it.
What happened? Who caused it? Now think about your reaction. What did you say?
What did you feel? Did this make it better or worse? Markets and releases emperor clearly had many people and causes to be upset. He also had real power and authority.
Even so, we find that he would tell himself, you have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this and you will find strength. So too, with what has happened to you, you did not control what happened, but you do control which impulses you will follow in the wake of it. And this is this week's meditation in the daily stoic journal titled Impulse Control.
I do hope you check out the journal. It's a little journal I do every morning. We have three quotes here. Go along with it.
Epictetus says, we must discover the missing art of ascent and pay special attention to the sphere of our impulses. That they are subject to reservations, to the common good, and that they are in proportion to actual worth. It's Marcus Reelius' meditations, 1137. I just love that it marks Reelius quoting Epictetus.
You say good fortune used to meet you at every corner, but the fortunate person is the one who gives themselves a good fortune. And good fortunes are a well-tuned soul, good impulses, and good actions. It's Marcus Reelius' meditations, 536. Frame your thoughts like this.
You're an old person. You won't let yourself be enslaved by this any longer. No longer pulled like a puppet by every impulse, and you'll stop complaining about your present fortune or dreading the future. To me, journaling is just such a great way to do this exercise of impulse control.
I usually do it in the morning, but you could do journaling at any time. But I think, what are you upset about? Why are you angry? What are you holding on to?
What's the thing inside you that you really want to say to that person? Say it on the page first. I think Frank talks about how paper is more patient than people. Sometimes I find that the thing that I was writing down, I hadn't quite worked it out yet.
And if I had said it the way I was thinking on the paper, it would not go well. Or I find that having said it once, I'm done. I don't need to mention this to anyone. It's probably better that I keep it to myself.
So to me, journaling is really a way to work out some of those urges. Just because you think something doesn't mean you need to say it. You need to develop this emotional impulse control, but that doesn't mean you just stuff it down and you don't deal with it. You got to deal with it on the pages in the journal.
That's the idea. You let it out. It's a place to do some spiritual combat, but it's also a place for your ideas. You're competing impulses.
You're competing opinions to battle themselves out, to fight for that limited space. So spend some time with your journalized therapy. That's what it's there for. And if you're not taking advantage of it, chances are you are just taking those feelings out on other people or you're taking them out on yourself.
And that's not a good way to go through life. So use the journal as an instrument of impulse control. It's gotten me out of trouble time and time again. I can think of a moment when my book was coming out and I got sort of royally screwed over by a journalist.
I don't even say screwed over anymore. It's something that was quite unethical and quite petty and annoying. And actually the prompts in the Daily Stoke Journal had caught me. There was like three prompts in a row.
I didn't rush into saying something. I was going to wait a few days. And at the end of the three days, at the end of the journaling kept it to myself. And even now, I don't need to tell you the specifics.
I've moved on. And it saved me some headache, probably saved me creating an enemy for no reason. And I can move on. And I hope you can do the same.
Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoke 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 a couple of years we've been doing it. And I'm honored. Please spread the word. Tell people about it.
And this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say thank you.