Good a Champs. I hope you're bloody terrific. So one of the things that we have not spoken about a lot on this podcast is the Stoics and Stoicism. Paul Taylor, Paul Taylor, Paul Taylor. As many of you love Paul, as you should, because he's great, the great irishman, the neuroscientists, the bloody you bloke with seventy two degrees. He's a big, big fan of the Stoics. He's always banging on about Stoicism, and so what I thought I would clumsily do because I am not a guru in this space. Although I've read quite a bit of the Stoics and I love, for the most part what they have to say. And I think despite the fact that a lot of Stoic writings, most Stoic writings in fact, on hundreds and thousands of years old, I think they're still really relevant. I should probably write things down before I just start talking, shouldn't I. I remember when I started my research for my doctorate, I was thinking to myself, when is the first mention of self awareness? Because my PhD is essentially around a kind of self awareness, and I was thinking that, you know, I would do some and I'm thinking it's probably one hundred years ago. Some philosopher or some psychologist or some you know, theologian or wise person came up with one hundred or two or three hundred years ago. And I think it was like two and a half thousand years ago that Markusow really has said to know thyself as the beginning of wisdom. And that's actually somewhere in my PhD, somewhere in my that's going to be in my thesis anyway, which is basically the big book your hand in at the end of your what they call project or program anyway. So it's it's old, but in many ways it's due and it's relevant, and I think we should all learn a little bit at least a little bit about stoicism, and not because it's and the ideas and the thinking behind it, not because it's trendy or not because it's current or academic or instagrammable, but because it's it's timeless, Like it's really timeless, and it's useful, and it's weirdly both confronting and comforting when life goes sideways, and like one of the things that really resonates for me is the fact that you know, two thousand and two and a half thousand years down the track from when a lot of a lot of the really powerful stuff and well known stuff today, when it was written like over to millennia ago, the things that people were worrying about. We're talking about human behavior in relationships and communication and thinking and fear and self regulation and self management and controlling controllables, and all of those things that we talk about today, they were talking about them back then. In many ways. I mean, psychology itself as a profession, as a field, psychology is not old at all. I think it was developed in the eight hundred, so it's a century and a half or don't quote me, but it's not old at all. But stoicism, which was essentially talking about many of the same things, same ideas. You know, how do humans work, how do they think? How do they operate? And more importantly, not only how do they think and work and operate, but what's optimal? What's the best way for us to operate and think and behave so that we might produce great results in our lives. So what is stoicism? Where did it come from? What isn't it? Why is it so relevance, and I guess, I guess, most importantly, how can we do something with it or about it? How can we operationalize it? I always use that term, don't I? And what does that mean? By the way, Let's just quickly, so when we have an idea or a construct or a strategy, or a piece of knowledge or information that's useful, operationalizing it basically means just using it, putting it into action. And that's one of my one of the things I want to constantly come back to an underline in this space of personal development, self help, human behavior is the vast amount of content we have and research and resources that we have, but how little that stuff gets put consistently to use and into practice. And it doesn't matter what we know if we're not using what we know in an effective way, because knowledge knowledge is not power. Knowing what to do is not doing what we know. Having a gym membership is not going to the gym and training. Knowing how to get in shape is not the same as getting in shape. Knowing that that you know doing a certain thing is bad for you doesn't mean you're not going to do it. So so much of this stuff, and this is what I love about Stoicism. It's very much about doing. It's not at all fluffy, and I guess at its core, Stoicism is a really it's a philosophy, but it is. It's a way of being and living and doing, so we could call it a practical philosophy. It's not a religion. It's not a cult. It's not a rigid doctrine. It's not written by one person. That's written by and it's created by and shared by and still developed by. And of course Stoicism exists now and there are still people who are Stoics and who are writing Stoic literature and books. And there are people like Ryan Holidays. That his name he Ryan Holiday. He's very much a big, big fan of the Stoics who he's almost single handedly created a bit of a revival in Stoicism globally, and he's at the forefront very much. But at these ideas, these thoughts, these concepts and constructs, they ain't new, but they're still as relevant forever. So it's not a religion, it's not a cult. It's not a set in stone, rigid doctrine. I guess it's a framework for living well, especially when life is hard when life is uncertain and unfair and messy and in the middle of the troughs. Yeah, and it's like, I think, that's just knowing that sometimes life is going to be shit. Guess what, that's a stoic statement. Life is going to be shit. That's stoicism. I know that. You know that, all right? I accept it. Now what can I do? That's a stoic mindset. In the middle of the shit? What's in my control? In the middle of the shit? What can I do in the middle of the shit? What is the best use of my energy and time? In the middle of the crap, in the middle of the thing that's happening that I don't want to be happening, but I can't stop it from happening. I'm just in the middle of it. What should I do? What should I not do? What should I do? More of what should I do? Less of what's working and what's not And so Stoicism was born in ancient Greece around three hundred ish BC thanks to a bloke named Zeno of Sidium, And legend has it, don't you love that that after a shipwreck he found himself in Athens and he wandered into When I originally read this, it's set a bookstore, and I'm like, surely there weren't fucking bookstores. I know the printing press was invented in the fifteen hundred, so what kind of anyway? I did a deeper dive. I did a deeper dive. And he didn't wander into a bookstore at all. He wandered into a place where there were scrolls, basically ancient versions of books or writings, and in that place he read about Socrates. Of course you've all heard of Socrates. In that moment for the first time, xeno Osidium had this kind of revelation, this aha moment as we all, well we don't all do we? I hope we all do. He had this kind of what am I doing with my life moment? What is the point? What is it all about? What is my reason? What am I doing? Kind of like kind of like an ancient personal development awakening. And so from there around thround a BC, he started to pull together some of these ideas and he started teaching. And the place that he taught was under a painted porch or a stower, which is where the term stower sism. Although it's Stowe isism, but that's where it came from. And so the big ideas, I guess the key I reckon, the main idea, the key idea in Stoicism. So the central Stoic construct or premise is that there are things that you can control and things you can't, and peace and power come from knowing the difference. Like that's it, that's the backbone. Can't control the weather, can't control other people's opinions, as I've said many times, or your past, or genetics or global events. But you can control your attitude, your actions, your mindset, how you respond, how you talk to others, how you talk to yourself, and this idea alone of acknowledging what we can't control. Of course, can't control all those things I just mentioned. But what I can, what I can do also not easily, sometimes it's easy, sometimes difficult, But if I lean into that idea of well, I can I can control me or I can control me more. I definitely can't control the weather or the government. I definitely can't undo or change what happened a week ago, a month ago, a year ago. But what I can try to do is I can try to manage my responses and my thinking and my choices and my outcomes by self regulating and self managing in the middle of all of the variables that are out of my control. And so you if you into stoicism or you've paid any tension, Like, what I love about the guys I'm about to mention is that like none of them came from anything fancy, Like none of them were born into wealth or opulence. So epititis spelled epic titis, epic tites. He was born as slave. He became as a philosopher, and he's he's kind of hardcore. He is primarily about discipline, mindset, detachment. Seneca, who you probably heard of, He, despite what earlier said, he was, didn't start out, but he became a wealthy Roman advisor and he wrote, he wrote extensively and beautifully about how to live and die. Well, I love that kind of stuff. He's he's near the top of my list and maybe the most, if not the most, one of the most famous stoics as Marcus Aurelius, who, as some of you will know, was a Roman emperor. He wrote meditations and he basically was journaling his thoughts about life. And as I may have this wrong. But I'm pretty sure he didn't write it so it'd be read by anyone. He wrote it for himself. It was almost like his personal account, his diary, and so he wrote meditations which are still available now, became a very very famous and it's gone through peaks and troughs of popularity and at the moment it's still quite popular. Where he wrote that journaling his thoughts about life, peaks and troughs, his struggle and all while running his empire and dealing with the fucking mayhem of war and plagues and personal grief. And the last one we've spoken about in anyways, Zeno was the og, the original, is the original gangster of stoicism, because he he kind of drew it all together and started the movement. And I think, you know, it's it's good to acknowledge that while some of these guys had different levels of wealth, but none of them had easy lives, which is kind of the point. So I think when you hear about stoicism and people talking about it, you can think that, oh, this is just brutal. There's no empathy, there's no kindness, there's no emotion. It's it's almost inhumane. Whereas as I understand it and experience, it's not that at all. So let's clear up a few misconceptions. Maybe, So stoicism is not emotionless. So stoicism in courages us to think and feel, but also to aim to respond wisely, not to react impulsively. Not always, but as a rule, the more impulsive we are, the more out of control we often are. Not that we want to be control freaks, but we want to respond positively to those things that I spoke about before that are out of our control so that we create good outcomes. So stoicism is not emotionless. It's not passivity. Like we're still taking action, we still have goals, we still get involved. We just don't waste energy on what we can't control. So it's not about being passive. It's not about being a passenger. It's not about sitting in the stands and just seeing what happens. We're still up to our neck. We're still doing hard stuff. We're making decisions, were take action, we're controlling our controllables. We're very involved, we're supporting others. We're doing all this stuff that we can to do be create the life we want to leave, the success we want to experience, the goals that we want to create, the impact that we want to have. We're doing all of that, but we're just not wasting energy on shit that we can't change. And I guess finally, what stoicism isn't it's not cold detachment. Stoicism actually encourages compassion, justice, humility, and service. In fact, it's incredibly human. It just asks what kind of human do you want to be when things are hard? What kind of human do you want to be in the middle of the mayhem and the madness and the shit. And I think in many ways, stoicism is a philosophy that helps us deal with the hardest parts of the human experience. And it's very practical and it's very realistic. And I mean pain and suffering and discomfort and uncertainty and unfamiliarity and the unknown. All of these things that we don't love are inevitabilities of being you and me. They are going to happen, as is joy, as is fun, as is hopefully love and kindness on planet you. But why stoicism matters, it still really matters in twenty twenty five, is because no matter how positive we are, no matter how evolved we become. No matter how deep and spiritual and philosophical we are, people are still going to fuck us over, not everyone that's someone. People are going to disappoint us and hurt us. People are going to let us down, People are going to lie to us. Now, you might be the one person in the world who doesn't have any of that ever, that's you, well done, But the rest of us we have that shit happen periodically, hopefully not all the time, but it happens. Plans fall apart, things don't work out, health fails, problems arise, things that we never anticipated or expected fall on our head metaphorically. And so what stoicism does is this kind of way of dealing with you know, celebrating the great stuff, writing that wave of you know, awesomeness when it's happening, but being able to be ready to deal with the crappy stuff, and gives us almost like a psychological, emotional and behaviorable behavioral toolkit for handling things without falling apart. You Know, one of the things I ask people is not how motivated can you get and how pumped up and excited can you get? But how productive and proactive and effective can you be when things are shit, or when you're not motivated, or when you're not excited, or when people aren't looking or they're not cheering, or you don't have any support, or it's not fun and it's not quick and it's not painless. In fact, it's fucking horrible. How productive and proactive and effective can you be? Then? How committed can you stay? Then? And stoicism helps us stay grounded and resilient and focused and doing the things that we need to do without pretending that things are perfect. Like we're very practical and realistic. We're grounded. Life's not a Disney movie. Good things happen to bad people, bad things happen to good people. For me, stoicism is almost like emotional strength training or for some of my listeners mental jiu jitsu. You're not stopping bad things from happening, but you're just stopping them from destroying you. So stoicism is going to help us with reducing our overthinking because we're not going to waste so much time obsessing about thinking about overthinking, investing emotional and psycho energy psychological energy in things we can't control. We're going to be less emotionally reactive. We're going to be calmer under pressure. We're going to put more focus on the things that actually matter and give less focus and attention and energy to the things that don't matter or that we can't control. It's going to improve relationships, it's going to improve self discipline. It's not about Stoicism is not about, in fact, I think any optimal human operating system you being better, doing better, thinking better, you know, on the self help journey, the personal growth journey, the whatever it is for you, but being better journey. It's not about avoiding hard things. It's about being better in the middle of the hard things. So there's a couple of things I want to go through with you and then we'll we'll wrap it up. So practical stoicism, the dichotomy of control. Ask yourself is this in my control? Is this in my control? And if the answer is yes, then do something. And if the answer is no, let it go. Easier said than done, of course, as is everything before you point that out to me, of course, everything is literally easier said than done. Losing weight easier said than done, Building a business easier said than done. It's going a PhD, you know, redesigning the house, painting the fucking spare room. All easier said than done, of course, But if it's not in your control, let it go, refocus, move on. If it is, then do something and do something quick. Don't wax and Wayne, don't wait around number two on my list of kind of practical stoicism concepts. Number two is negative visualization. Imagine losing what you take for granted, your job, your health, you loved ones or loved one. I know this sounds fucking grim, but it's not really happening, But imagine, imagine, imagine losing something that you love, that you value, that you rely on, that you need, that is intertwined with who you are and how you are. Imagine that, and then imagine zooming back to right now where that's not the case. You still have that thing. That's a shift in gratitude, isn't it. And this kind of negative visualization builds appreciation and emotional strength and also a level of gratitude and awareness. Number three. We've got five things number three, and Paul Taylor talks about this a lot. Voluntary discomfort, and that could be something as practical as a cold shower, It could be skipping a meal, it could be. It could be how about this, how about leaving your home, leaving your phone at home? How about having a day away from technology, or six hours away from technology, or a weekend away, or how about having a hard conversation with somebody. I think, I really think it's a good idea to practice inconvenience and to be okay with inconvenience. We are very and I think it's something that's evolved more and more over time, but we are very much, especially in twenty twenty five, especially in Australia, I can only talk with any kind of level of I guess confidence. But even then I put an asterisk next to that because I'm just looking through the Craig lens. But I think as a society and a culture, we are very very much enamored by and in love with convenience and familiarity and predictability and certainty and two minute abs and reward without work and instant gratification and all of those things that are at odds with stoicism and being able to go. You know what, I'm going to wait, I'm going to lean into the pain now. I'm not going to lean in recklessly, but I'm going to lean in strategically, I'm going to do the hard thing. I'm going to do the hard thing one because it needs to be done. And also I'm going to do the hard thing because that's where I grow, learn a vole, develop, that's where I become different, that's where I build resilience, I gain understanding. Firstly, I'm going to say that with what I'm about to say, my life has been very easy. I've been very blessed. I've naturally my parents were great, school for the most part, was great, my childhood was great. I was born in a beautiful country with amazing people around me. So there's no self pity at all, and what I'm about say only gratitude. But I've been through quite a few hard things, and a lot of those hard things I created, either intentionally or unintentionally. Some things I just fucked up. I did wrong, I got wrong, and there was there was a lot of pain, There was rejection, There was emotional, psychological, financial, and physiological hardship at times. But I know that for me, where I grew and you know what I'm going to say, but it's just true, where I grew and learned and got better and I evolved and my understanding shifted and my awareness and level of gratitude changed in the middle of the shit, in the middle of the hard things, the uncomfortable things. And I think this practice of choosing discomfort, this practice of choosing the narrow path, and not not to do something hard just for the sake of doing something hard, but doing the right thing that also happens to be the hard thing. And I think quite often when it comes to this idea of you know, growing and learning and evolving and you know, leaning into all of these ideas, I think, deep down, maybe not even deep down, maybe maybe on a surface level, we know that the thing that we need to do is not the thing we actually want to do. Because while we understand where growth and development and awareness and all of those things live and evolve and develop, we also know, well, I can take this left turn. It's going to be much easier, it's going to be much more convenient, it's going to be much more familiar, and nobody's going to call me on it. I think that I think that doing the hard thing is is quite often the thing that is going to give us the most benefit. I'm going to tell you a little story, so just quickly this just came into my head. I don't even know if it's relevant, but I want to share it with you. So it's Saturday night. It is the twenty ninth of March, So Saturday night tomorrow, I have a big day of UNI. I have a lot of things on. I have lots of work to do, lots of boxes to tick, and that's all great, lots of study, lots of research and great. I'm also going to say to you, this is my fifth podcast that I've recorded today, and one of those podcasts was nearly two hours with Perry, and every part of my body and brain before I started, before I started this podcast felt like not doing it now, just from a personal comfort point of view, I'm like, I don't. I've done four falls, great falls, great. But I know I've got a very big week. I've got some travel, I've got some speaking, I've got lots of commitments. Like I said, it's Saturday night, Monday night, I've got my group. I've got to prepare for my online mentor and group tomorrow. I've got research and union all day. I've got lots of things to do. And the stoic part of me was like, do another one? Tonight. Then you've got five in the can, as we say, you've got five recorded, and then that kind of But the challenge is not to do another one. The challenge is to do another one. That's for what I can do. It's great or it's somewhere near great. So it's not like, hey everyone, it's quarter to ten. You're getting the quarter to ten Saturday version of Craig at the end of the day, when his throat's a bit sore, he's a bit tired. No, like, my my intention once I made a decision to do this was like it needs to be like, this is my first one for the day, and hopefully for you can sense my energy and my commitment to doing this thing that my body wanted me to go to bed, and by the way, I'll go to bed after this, but just being able to go, you know what, I'm going to do the thing that's inconvenient, the thing that's hard, because that's going to make tomorrow easier. And so I like the fact that you know, I can integrate what I just told you into this message of practical stoicism. A couple of more things, A couple of things more, I should say. So one was dichotomy of control, what's within my control? Two is negative visualization. Three was voluntary discomfort. Four is daily reflection. And that's just almost where we might journal. We might look back on the day, what did I do well? What could I do better? And were trying to do this without emotion. We're trying to do this through the lens of intellect and strategy and just practical awareness. What did I do great? What could I have done better? What can I learn from today? What did I learn today? Where did I react emotionally? And this kind of reflection is it's kind of like keeping back in the day when I used to get all of my clients to keep a food and exercise diary, And now we've got a new level of awareness and understanding and insight into everything that goes into our mouth and our body. Well this is kind of the same, but it's really everything that's going into our mind and into our brain and to be able to hit the brakes at the end of the day, like I will do after this when I go and make myself a cup of tea. You probably shouldn't have a cup of tea before bed, but fuck it, live on the edge and just deconstruct the day practically and figure out what I did well, what I could have done better, what I learned, and even something like I constantly set challenges for myself that usually I don't talk about here in this format, but even like the challenge of like, can I do a podcast on a Saturday nights now three minutes ten? Can I do a podcast on a Saturday night at ten o'clock when I'm tired and probably not cognitively optimal, but still do as good a job as I will do in the morning when I'm brand new. I don't know what the answer is, but hopefully, hopefully a number four of number four is called I'm more fati, which is I think it's Latin for love of fate. So instead of resenting what happens, the bad stuff, the messy stuff, just use it as fuel, see it as fuel, see it as an experience that you can learn from. Use everything, the good, the bad, the unexpected, use all of the stuff. Find the lesson. Find the lesson. Even in the middle of pain, sometimes there's joy. Sometimes there's development, Sometimes there's a real benefit. Sometimes in the middle of failure there's success. I'm learning what not to do, so many things have happened to me and because of me, and despite me that I didn't want. But many times, in the middle of the thing that I didn't want, the outcome that I didn't choose or plan or desire, in the middle of that, something great has come. So mindset shifts from the stoics. Here's for one, this isn't happening to me, It's happening for me. I'm back to our friend Ryan Holiday. This is a very often quoted statement. The obstacle is the way. I think one of his books is called I should know that. I'm pretty sure it's called The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday. The obstacle is the way. Number three. I can't control the storm, but I can control the ship. These are quite famous expressions. And as I've said to you thirty two times, what happens, what matters is not what happens, but what I do about it, how I respond. So stoicism it ain't about perfection. It's about practice. It's about being committed to a certain way of thinking and doing and being. And by the way, you're not going to develop that stoic mindset by Tuesday or Friday or whenever. I'm not sure what day a you're listening to this, But it's not about perfection. It's about revisiting those ideas. It's about practice, it's about repetition. You're still going to stuff up, you're still going to get triggered, you're still going to slip into ego, You're still going to feel shit that you don't want to feel. But over time, you'll get stronger, you'll get cart, you'll get more intentional. And you know, living in twenty twenty five and a noisy, chaotic, reactive everyone's online, fucking throwing hate at each other. To be able to have this mindset and these stoic skills and this operating system that can help us rise above all of that, that's a fucking superpower. That's what that is, all right, Grubis, Your thanks for sticking around so long. By the way, if you want to check out, if you want to check out some stoic stuff, you might want to start with Meditations by Marcus or Realist and or let Us from a Stoic by Seneca, let Us from a Stoic by Seneca, or if you want something more of a modern entry point, the Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday, that I spoke of a couple of times during the show. And remember you can't control everything, but you can control you, all right, tem love your guts, see you next time. Go and be amazing. No pressure, in fact, all the pressure. Be amazing in the pressure. So yeah,

Good a Champs. I hope you're bloody terrific. So one of the things that we have not spoken about a lot on this podcast is the Stoics and Stoicism. Paul Taylor, Paul Taylor, Paul Taylor. As many of you love Paul, as you should, because he's great, the great irishman, the neuroscientists, the bloody you bloke with seventy two degrees. He's a big, big fan of the Stoics. He's always banging on about Stoicism, and so what I thought I would clumsily do because I am not a guru in this space. Although I've read quite a bit of the Stoics and I love, for the most part what they have to say. And I think despite the fact that a lot of Stoic writings, most Stoic writings in fact, on hundreds and thousands of years old, I think they're still really relevant. I should probably write things down before I just start talking, shouldn't I. I remember when I started my research for my doctorate, I was thinking to myself, when is the first mention of self awareness? Because my PhD is essentially around a kind of self awareness, and I was thinking that, you know, I would do some and I'm thinking it's probably one hundred years ago. Some philosopher or some psychologist or some you know, theologian or wise person came up with one hundred or two or three hundred years ago. And I think it was like two and a half thousand years ago that Markusow really has said to know thyself as the beginning of wisdom. And that's actually somewhere in my PhD, somewhere in my that's going to be in my thesis anyway, which is basically the big book your hand in at the end of your what they call project or program anyway. So it's it's old, but in many ways it's due and it's relevant, and I think we should all learn a little bit at least a little bit about stoicism, and not because it's and the ideas and the thinking behind it, not because it's trendy or not because it's current or academic or instagrammable, but because it's it's timeless, Like it's really timeless, and it's useful, and it's weirdly both confronting and comforting when life goes sideways, and like one of the things that really resonates for me is the fact that you know, two thousand and two and a half thousand years down the track from when a lot of a lot of the really powerful stuff and well known stuff today, when it was written like over to millennia ago, the things that people were worrying about. We're talking about human behavior in relationships and communication and thinking and fear and self regulation and self management and controlling controllables, and all of those things that we talk about today, they were talking about them back then. In many ways. I mean, psychology itself as a profession, as a field, psychology is not old at all. I think it was developed in the eight hundred, so it's a century and a half or don't quote me, but it's not old at all. But stoicism, which was essentially talking about many of the same things, same ideas. You know, how do humans work, how do they think? How do they operate? And more importantly, not only how do they think and work and operate, but what's optimal? What's the best way for us to operate and think and behave so that we might produce great results in our lives. So what is stoicism? Where did it come from? What isn't it? Why is it so relevance, and I guess, I guess, most importantly, how can we do something with it or about it? How can we operationalize it? I always use that term, don't I? And what does that mean? By the way, Let's just quickly, so when we have an idea or a construct or a strategy, or a piece of knowledge or information that's useful, operationalizing it basically means just using it, putting it into action. And that's one of my one of the things I want to constantly come back to an underline in this space of personal development, self help, human behavior is the vast amount of content we have and research and resources that we have, but how little that stuff gets put consistently to use and into practice. And it doesn't matter what we know if we're not using what we know in an effective way, because knowledge knowledge is not power. Knowing what to do is not doing what we know. Having a gym membership is not going to the gym and training. Knowing how to get in shape is not the same as getting in shape. Knowing that that you know doing a certain thing is bad for you doesn't mean you're not going to do it. So so much of this stuff, and this is what I love about Stoicism. It's very much about doing. It's not at all fluffy, and I guess at its core, Stoicism is a really it's a philosophy, but it is. It's a way of being and living and doing, so we could call it a practical philosophy. It's not a religion. It's not a cult. It's not a rigid doctrine. It's not written by one person. That's written by and it's created by and shared by and still developed by. And of course Stoicism exists now and there are still people who are Stoics and who are writing Stoic literature and books. And there are people like Ryan Holidays. That his name he Ryan Holiday. He's very much a big, big fan of the Stoics who he's almost single handedly created a bit of a revival in Stoicism globally, and he's at the forefront very much. But at these ideas, these thoughts, these concepts and constructs, they ain't new, but they're still as relevant forever. So it's not a religion, it's not a cult. It's not a set in stone, rigid doctrine. I guess it's a framework for living well, especially when life is hard when life is uncertain and unfair and messy and in the middle of the troughs. Yeah, and it's like, I think, that's just knowing that sometimes life is going to be shit. Guess what, that's a stoic statement. Life is going to be shit. That's stoicism. I know that. You know that, all right? I accept it. Now what can I do? That's a stoic mindset. In the middle of the shit? What's in my control? In the middle of the shit? What can I do in the middle of the shit? What is the best use of my energy and time? In the middle of the crap, in the middle of the thing that's happening that I don't want to be happening, but I can't stop it from happening. I'm just in the middle of it. What should I do? What should I not do? What should I do? More of what should I do? Less of what's working and what's not And so Stoicism was born in ancient Greece around three hundred ish BC thanks to a bloke named Zeno of Sidium, And legend has it, don't you love that that after a shipwreck he found himself in Athens and he wandered into When I originally read this, it's set a bookstore, and I'm like, surely there weren't fucking bookstores. I know the printing press was invented in the fifteen hundred, so what kind of anyway? I did a deeper dive. I did a deeper dive. And he didn't wander into a bookstore at all. He wandered into a place where there were scrolls, basically ancient versions of books or writings, and in that place he read about Socrates. Of course you've all heard of Socrates. In that moment for the first time, xeno Osidium had this kind of revelation, this aha moment as we all, well we don't all do we? I hope we all do. He had this kind of what am I doing with my life moment? What is the point? What is it all about? What is my reason? What am I doing? Kind of like kind of like an ancient personal development awakening. And so from there around thround a BC, he started to pull together some of these ideas and he started teaching. And the place that he taught was under a painted porch or a stower, which is where the term stower sism. Although it's Stowe isism, but that's where it came from. And so the big ideas, I guess the key I reckon, the main idea, the key idea in Stoicism. So the central Stoic construct or premise is that there are things that you can control and things you can't, and peace and power come from knowing the difference. Like that's it, that's the backbone. Can't control the weather, can't control other people's opinions, as I've said many times, or your past, or genetics or global events. But you can control your attitude, your actions, your mindset, how you respond, how you talk to others, how you talk to yourself, and this idea alone of acknowledging what we can't control. Of course, can't control all those things I just mentioned. But what I can, what I can do also not easily, sometimes it's easy, sometimes difficult, But if I lean into that idea of well, I can I can control me or I can control me more. I definitely can't control the weather or the government. I definitely can't undo or change what happened a week ago, a month ago, a year ago. But what I can try to do is I can try to manage my responses and my thinking and my choices and my outcomes by self regulating and self managing in the middle of all of the variables that are out of my control. And so you if you into stoicism or you've paid any tension, Like, what I love about the guys I'm about to mention is that like none of them came from anything fancy, Like none of them were born into wealth or opulence. So epititis spelled epic titis, epic tites. He was born as slave. He became as a philosopher, and he's he's kind of hardcore. He is primarily about discipline, mindset, detachment. Seneca, who you probably heard of, He, despite what earlier said, he was, didn't start out, but he became a wealthy Roman advisor and he wrote, he wrote extensively and beautifully about how to live and die. Well, I love that kind of stuff. He's he's near the top of my list and maybe the most, if not the most, one of the most famous stoics as Marcus Aurelius, who, as some of you will know, was a Roman emperor. He wrote meditations and he basically was journaling his thoughts about life. And as I may have this wrong. But I'm pretty sure he didn't write it so it'd be read by anyone. He wrote it for himself. It was almost like his personal account, his diary, and so he wrote meditations which are still available now, became a very very famous and it's gone through peaks and troughs of popularity and at the moment it's still quite popular. Where he wrote that journaling his thoughts about life, peaks and troughs, his struggle and all while running his empire and dealing with the fucking mayhem of war and plagues and personal grief. And the last one we've spoken about in anyways, Zeno was the og, the original, is the original gangster of stoicism, because he he kind of drew it all together and started the movement. And I think, you know, it's it's good to acknowledge that while some of these guys had different levels of wealth, but none of them had easy lives, which is kind of the point. So I think when you hear about stoicism and people talking about it, you can think that, oh, this is just brutal. There's no empathy, there's no kindness, there's no emotion. It's it's almost inhumane. Whereas as I understand it and experience, it's not that at all. So let's clear up a few misconceptions. Maybe, So stoicism is not emotionless. So stoicism in courages us to think and feel, but also to aim to respond wisely, not to react impulsively. Not always, but as a rule, the more impulsive we are, the more out of control we often are. Not that we want to be control freaks, but we want to respond positively to those things that I spoke about before that are out of our control so that we create good outcomes. So stoicism is not emotionless. It's not passivity. Like we're still taking action, we still have goals, we still get involved. We just don't waste energy on what we can't control. So it's not about being passive. It's not about being a passenger. It's not about sitting in the stands and just seeing what happens. We're still up to our neck. We're still doing hard stuff. We're making decisions, were take action, we're controlling our controllables. We're very involved, we're supporting others. We're doing all this stuff that we can to do be create the life we want to leave, the success we want to experience, the goals that we want to create, the impact that we want to have. We're doing all of that, but we're just not wasting energy on shit that we can't change. And I guess finally, what stoicism isn't it's not cold detachment. Stoicism actually encourages compassion, justice, humility, and service. In fact, it's incredibly human. It just asks what kind of human do you want to be when things are hard? What kind of human do you want to be in the middle of the mayhem and the madness and the shit. And I think in many ways, stoicism is a philosophy that helps us deal with the hardest parts of the human experience. And it's very practical and it's very realistic. And I mean pain and suffering and discomfort and uncertainty and unfamiliarity and the unknown. All of these things that we don't love are inevitabilities of being you and me. They are going to happen, as is joy, as is fun, as is hopefully love and kindness on planet you. But why stoicism matters, it still really matters in twenty twenty five, is because no matter how positive we are, no matter how evolved we become. No matter how deep and spiritual and philosophical we are, people are still going to fuck us over, not everyone that's someone. People are going to disappoint us and hurt us. People are going to let us down, People are going to lie to us. Now, you might be the one person in the world who doesn't have any of that ever, that's you, well done, But the rest of us we have that shit happen periodically, hopefully not all the time, but it happens. Plans fall apart, things don't work out, health fails, problems arise, things that we never anticipated or expected fall on our head metaphorically. And so what stoicism does is this kind of way of dealing with you know, celebrating the great stuff, writing that wave of you know, awesomeness when it's happening, but being able to be ready to deal with the crappy stuff, and gives us almost like a psychological, emotional and behaviorable behavioral toolkit for handling things without falling apart. You Know, one of the things I ask people is not how motivated can you get and how pumped up and excited can you get? But how productive and proactive and effective can you be when things are shit, or when you're not motivated, or when you're not excited, or when people aren't looking or they're not cheering, or you don't have any support, or it's not fun and it's not quick and it's not painless. In fact, it's fucking horrible. How productive and proactive and effective can you be? Then? How committed can you stay? Then? And stoicism helps us stay grounded and resilient and focused and doing the things that we need to do without pretending that things are perfect. Like we're very practical and realistic. We're grounded. Life's not a Disney movie. Good things happen to bad people, bad things happen to good people. For me, stoicism is almost like emotional strength training or for some of my listeners mental jiu jitsu. You're not stopping bad things from happening, but you're just stopping them from destroying you. So stoicism is going to help us with reducing our overthinking because we're not going to waste so much time obsessing about thinking about overthinking, investing emotional and psycho energy psychological energy in things we can't control. We're going to be less emotionally reactive. We're going to be calmer under pressure. We're going to put more focus on the things that actually matter and give less focus and attention and energy to the things that don't matter or that we can't control. It's going to improve relationships, it's going to improve self discipline. It's not about Stoicism is not about, in fact, I think any optimal human operating system you being better, doing better, thinking better, you know, on the self help journey, the personal growth journey, the whatever it is for you, but being better journey. It's not about avoiding hard things. It's about being better in the middle of the hard things. So there's a couple of things I want to go through with you and then we'll we'll wrap it up. So practical stoicism, the dichotomy of control. Ask yourself is this in my control? Is this in my control? And if the answer is yes, then do something. And if the answer is no, let it go. Easier said than done, of course, as is everything before you point that out to me, of course, everything is literally easier said than done. Losing weight easier said than done, Building a business easier said than done. It's going a PhD, you know, redesigning the house, painting the fucking spare room. All easier said than done, of course, But if it's not in your control, let it go, refocus, move on. If it is, then do something and do something quick. Don't wax and Wayne, don't wait around number two on my list of kind of practical stoicism concepts. Number two is negative visualization. Imagine losing what you take for granted, your job, your health, you loved ones or loved one. I know this sounds fucking grim, but it's not really happening, But imagine, imagine, imagine losing something that you love, that you value, that you rely on, that you need, that is intertwined with who you are and how you are. Imagine that, and then imagine zooming back to right now where that's not the case. You still have that thing. That's a shift in gratitude, isn't it. And this kind of negative visualization builds appreciation and emotional strength and also a level of gratitude and awareness. Number three. We've got five things number three, and Paul Taylor talks about this a lot. Voluntary discomfort, and that could be something as practical as a cold shower, It could be skipping a meal, it could be. It could be how about this, how about leaving your home, leaving your phone at home? How about having a day away from technology, or six hours away from technology, or a weekend away, or how about having a hard conversation with somebody. I think, I really think it's a good idea to practice inconvenience and to be okay with inconvenience. We are very and I think it's something that's evolved more and more over time, but we are very much, especially in twenty twenty five, especially in Australia, I can only talk with any kind of level of I guess confidence. But even then I put an asterisk next to that because I'm just looking through the Craig lens. But I think as a society and a culture, we are very very much enamored by and in love with convenience and familiarity and predictability and certainty and two minute abs and reward without work and instant gratification and all of those things that are at odds with stoicism and being able to go. You know what, I'm going to wait, I'm going to lean into the pain now. I'm not going to lean in recklessly, but I'm going to lean in strategically, I'm going to do the hard thing. I'm going to do the hard thing one because it needs to be done. And also I'm going to do the hard thing because that's where I grow, learn a vole, develop, that's where I become different, that's where I build resilience, I gain understanding. Firstly, I'm going to say that with what I'm about to say, my life has been very easy. I've been very blessed. I've naturally my parents were great, school for the most part, was great, my childhood was great. I was born in a beautiful country with amazing people around me. So there's no self pity at all, and what I'm about say only gratitude. But I've been through quite a few hard things, and a lot of those hard things I created, either intentionally or unintentionally. Some things I just fucked up. I did wrong, I got wrong, and there was there was a lot of pain, There was rejection, There was emotional, psychological, financial, and physiological hardship at times. But I know that for me, where I grew and you know what I'm going to say, but it's just true, where I grew and learned and got better and I evolved and my understanding shifted and my awareness and level of gratitude changed in the middle of the shit, in the middle of the hard things, the uncomfortable things. And I think this practice of choosing discomfort, this practice of choosing the narrow path, and not not to do something hard just for the sake of doing something hard, but doing the right thing that also happens to be the hard thing. And I think quite often when it comes to this idea of you know, growing and learning and evolving and you know, leaning into all of these ideas, I think, deep down, maybe not even deep down, maybe maybe on a surface level, we know that the thing that we need to do is not the thing we actually want to do. Because while we understand where growth and development and awareness and all of those things live and evolve and develop, we also know, well, I can take this left turn. It's going to be much easier, it's going to be much more convenient, it's going to be much more familiar, and nobody's going to call me on it. I think that I think that doing the hard thing is is quite often the thing that is going to give us the most benefit. I'm going to tell you a little story, so just quickly this just came into my head. I don't even know if it's relevant, but I want to share it with you. So it's Saturday night. It is the twenty ninth of March, So Saturday night tomorrow, I have a big day of UNI. I have a lot of things on. I have lots of work to do, lots of boxes to tick, and that's all great, lots of study, lots of research and great. I'm also going to say to you, this is my fifth podcast that I've recorded today, and one of those podcasts was nearly two hours with Perry, and every part of my body and brain before I started, before I started this podcast felt like not doing it now, just from a personal comfort point of view, I'm like, I don't. I've done four falls, great falls, great. But I know I've got a very big week. I've got some travel, I've got some speaking, I've got lots of commitments. Like I said, it's Saturday night, Monday night, I've got my group. I've got to prepare for my online mentor and group tomorrow. I've got research and union all day. I've got lots of things to do. And the stoic part of me was like, do another one? Tonight. Then you've got five in the can, as we say, you've got five recorded, and then that kind of But the challenge is not to do another one. The challenge is to do another one. That's for what I can do. It's great or it's somewhere near great. So it's not like, hey everyone, it's quarter to ten. You're getting the quarter to ten Saturday version of Craig at the end of the day, when his throat's a bit sore, he's a bit tired. No, like, my my intention once I made a decision to do this was like it needs to be like, this is my first one for the day, and hopefully for you can sense my energy and my commitment to doing this thing that my body wanted me to go to bed, and by the way, I'll go to bed after this, but just being able to go, you know what, I'm going to do the thing that's inconvenient, the thing that's hard, because that's going to make tomorrow easier. And so I like the fact that you know, I can integrate what I just told you into this message of practical stoicism. A couple of more things, A couple of things more, I should say. So one was dichotomy of control, what's within my control? Two is negative visualization. Three was voluntary discomfort. Four is daily reflection. And that's just almost where we might journal. We might look back on the day, what did I do well? What could I do better? And were trying to do this without emotion. We're trying to do this through the lens of intellect and strategy and just practical awareness. What did I do great? What could I have done better? What can I learn from today? What did I learn today? Where did I react emotionally? And this kind of reflection is it's kind of like keeping back in the day when I used to get all of my clients to keep a food and exercise diary, And now we've got a new level of awareness and understanding and insight into everything that goes into our mouth and our body. Well this is kind of the same, but it's really everything that's going into our mind and into our brain and to be able to hit the brakes at the end of the day, like I will do after this when I go and make myself a cup of tea. You probably shouldn't have a cup of tea before bed, but fuck it, live on the edge and just deconstruct the day practically and figure out what I did well, what I could have done better, what I learned, and even something like I constantly set challenges for myself that usually I don't talk about here in this format, but even like the challenge of like, can I do a podcast on a Saturday nights now three minutes ten? Can I do a podcast on a Saturday night at ten o'clock when I'm tired and probably not cognitively optimal, but still do as good a job as I will do in the morning when I'm brand new. I don't know what the answer is, but hopefully, hopefully a number four of number four is called I'm more fati, which is I think it's Latin for love of fate. So instead of resenting what happens, the bad stuff, the messy stuff, just use it as fuel, see it as fuel, see it as an experience that you can learn from. Use everything, the good, the bad, the unexpected, use all of the stuff. Find the lesson. Find the lesson. Even in the middle of pain, sometimes there's joy. Sometimes there's development, Sometimes there's a real benefit. Sometimes in the middle of failure there's success. I'm learning what not to do, so many things have happened to me and because of me, and despite me that I didn't want. But many times, in the middle of the thing that I didn't want, the outcome that I didn't choose or plan or desire, in the middle of that, something great has come. So mindset shifts from the stoics. Here's for one, this isn't happening to me, It's happening for me. I'm back to our friend Ryan Holiday. This is a very often quoted statement. The obstacle is the way. I think one of his books is called I should know that. I'm pretty sure it's called The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday. The obstacle is the way. Number three. I can't control the storm, but I can control the ship. These are quite famous expressions. And as I've said to you thirty two times, what happens, what matters is not what happens, but what I do about it, how I respond. So stoicism it ain't about perfection. It's about practice. It's about being committed to a certain way of thinking and doing and being. And by the way, you're not going to develop that stoic mindset by Tuesday or Friday or whenever. I'm not sure what day a you're listening to this, But it's not about perfection. It's about revisiting those ideas. It's about practice, it's about repetition. You're still going to stuff up, you're still going to get triggered, you're still going to slip into ego, You're still going to feel shit that you don't want to feel. But over time, you'll get stronger, you'll get cart, you'll get more intentional. And you know, living in twenty twenty five and a noisy, chaotic, reactive everyone's online, fucking throwing hate at each other. To be able to have this mindset and these stoic skills and this operating system that can help us rise above all of that, that's a fucking superpower. That's what that is, all right, Grubis, Your thanks for sticking around so long. By the way, if you want to check out, if you want to check out some stoic stuff, you might want to start with Meditations by Marcus or Realist and or let Us from a Stoic by Seneca, let Us from a Stoic by Seneca, or if you want something more of a modern entry point, the Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday, that I spoke of a couple of times during the show. And remember you can't control everything, but you can control you, all right, tem love your guts, see you next time. Go and be amazing. No pressure, in fact, all the pressure. Be amazing in the pressure. So yeah,