The Daily Stoic

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Lt. David Carey Uncovering Our Own Capacity To Get Through Anything Jul 29, 2023

Show notes

Ryan speaks with Lieutenant David Carey in this second of a two-part interview about the bonds that he and his fellow POWs formed in captivity, why he feels no hatred to the guards who imprisoned and tortured him, his relationship with former cellmate Senator John McCain, how his experiences put daily life in perspective for him, and more.

David Carey is a retired Navy Lieutenant Commander who served in the Vietnam War, as well as an author, motivational speaker, consultant, and trainer. After being deployed aboard the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany in 1966, he was forced to eject over North Vietnam and taken as a Prisoner of War. After serving 2,022 days in the camp, David was released during Operation Homecoming in 1973 and was awarded the Legion of Merit with Valor. Since his retirement from the Navy in 1986, David has dedicated his work to sharing his experiences in the hopes of helping others through his speaking and training engagements and his book The Ways We Choose, Lessons for Life from a POW's Experience. David’s work can be found at davecarey.com.

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What Matters Is What You Can Do In The Moment | Check Your Privilege Jul 28, 2023

Show notes

Epictetus didn’t care what you had read. He didn’t care if you had made it through the densest writings of Chryssipus. Marcus Aurelius didn’t care what your job was, what your education was, what your authority was.

What mattered was who you were–in your actual life.

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And in today's reading from The Daily Stoic, Ryan discusses the value of taking a step back to asses how privileged you really are in the grand scheme of life, and how that will put you one step closer toward helping other people.

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This Is Always There | Ask DS Jul 27, 2023

Show notes

Every retail business knows about shrinkage–the percentage of goods shoplifted or stolen off the floor. Every manufacturer knows how to calculate their defect rate–because no production run is perfect. Every shipping company knows there will be an error rate, a delivery failure rate, even a disappeared-into-thin-air rate. Every credit card processor knows about fraudulent purchase rates and disputed charges. And the bigger the businesses, the larger these numbers are, certainly in terms of cost.

It’s frustrating. It’s expensive. It’s also a fact of life.

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And in today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan answers questions about why he chose to study Stoicism, tricks that the Stoics had for being still, his strategies for helping athletes understand that an inflated ego is the enemy, and more as part of a Q&A session after a speech he gave to execs at a Tennessee Athletics retreat.

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Lt. David Carey On Surviving As A POW W/ Admiral James Stockdale (with Stoicism) Jul 26, 2023

Show notes

Ryan speaks with Lieutenant David Carey in the first of a two-part interview about his incredible experiences serving in Vietnam as a fighter pilot and being shot down and captured by North Vietnamese forces, how 2,022 days in captivity led to him embracing the teachings of Epictetus, why the community that he and his fellow POWs formed in prison saved them from depression, how he has been using his experiences to help others ever since, and more.

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They’re Not All Going To Like You Jul 26, 2023

Show notes

There are so many things you don’t like. Bands you think are overrated. Shows that just didn’t do it for you. Actors who, for some reason, just bother you. People who you’d rather not see.

Sometimes these dislikes are personal, but oftentimes it isn’t. The feeling isn’t even particularly strong, it’s just there. Some things are not for everyone, and this one is not for you.

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Let It Pound Your Head | Stoicism's Secrets To Being More Present (With Your Family) Jul 25, 2023

Show notes

For years, you’ve worked. For years, you’ve sacrificed. You’ve risked. You’ve hustled. You’ve made tough calls, maybe even left a few knives buried in a few backs. But all of it was aimed at getting somewhere–somewhere you felt you needed to go, to do something you thought was important.

And then you got there. And? And? It was a little disappointing, wasn’t it? Thus, it has always been this way.

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And in today's Daily Stoic video excerpt, Ryan shares what the Stoics have to say about being present in your daily life, and how you can use them to enrich your family life.

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No One Can Hold Anything Over You | Keeping “The News” In Check Jul 24, 2023

Show notes

Many of the Stoics were powerful and privileged. Marcus Aurelius was born to a wealthy family and then was given the throne and the empire. Cato came from an old and prestigious family. But not all the Stoics were so lucky–Epictetus was born a slave. His teacher Musonius was exiled multiple times. Admiral James Stockdale, whose heroics we’ve spoken of often, was from an ordinary American family in Illinois.

Yet advantaged or disadvantaged, all the Stoics possessed a certain power, a certain freedom by way of their philosophy.

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And today's entry of The Daily Stoic Journal, Ryan discusses why even the Stoics struggled with maintaining a balanced information diet, and therefore preached the benefits of favoring the everlasting wisdom found in books over daily news.

If you want to become a better reader, the Stoics can help. We built out their best insights into our Read to Lead: A Daily Stoic Reading Challenge. Since it first launched in 2019, Read to Lead has been our most popular challenge, taken on by almost ten thousand participants. Sign up today!

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Ryan Speaks To The YMCA About Courage, Perseverance, And Showing Up Every Day Jul 23, 2023

Show notes

As a fan of the YMCA and avid user of its services, Ryan jumped at the chance when the Pennsylvania YMCA asked if he would like to come to their headquarters in 2022 and speak to a group of the organization’s Executives in order to help them navigate the shifting gym usage landscape in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Ryan’s speech touches on a selection of the key Stoic ideas that he himself used to push himself through that time, including the importance of recognizing and embracing the positives of difficult moments.

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Austin Kleon On Maintaining Healthy Habits, Growing As Parents, And Interrogating The Stoic Virtues Jul 22, 2023

Show notes

Ryan speaks with his longtime friend fellow father Austin Kleon during a stop along his book tour for The Daily Dad: 366 Meditations on Parenting, Love, and Raising Great Kids. They discuss the life habits that they maintain in order to help fuel their creative success, why the most effective form of parenting is indirect, what parenting skills they are working on right now, how adopting a daily journaling habit vastly improved their lives, and more.

Austin Kleon is a writer, author, artist, speaker, and blogger whose work focuses on creativity in the modern world. Although he is most known for his five New York Times bestselling books Steal Like An Artist:10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative, Show Your Work!, Keep Going, Steal Like An Artist Journal, and Newspaper Blackout, Austin has spoken for organizations such as Pixar, Google, SXSW, TEDx, and The Economist. He lives in Austin, Texas with his wife and sons. You can follow his work at austinkleon.com, Instagram @austinkleon, and Twitter @austinkleon.

You can listen to a few of Austin’s other appearances on The Daily Stoic YouTube channel:

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How To Create Change | Made For Working Together Jul 21, 2023

Show notes

Rosa Parks wasn’t just some lady who happened to make a stand on a bus one day. She was trained. She had attended NAACP meetings for years. She had gone to the Highlander Folk School, which cultivated a generation of activists. In his fascinating book Waging a Good War, Tom Ricks (who has a must-listen-to interview on the Daily Stoic podcast) explains, “Each Highlander training session of one or two weeks began with a strategic question: ‘What do you want to do?’ It ended with a tactical discussion of how to reach that outcome: ‘What are you going to do?’”

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And in today's riff on The Daily Stoic entry, Ryan examines what Marcus has to say about providing socially useful life by embracing the need to work with people who may sometimes be difficult.

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