How To Gamify Stoic Philosophy To Overcome Fear

When I first started Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu two years ago, I realized the deep value of embodied wisdom. You cannot watch technique videos and expect to beat opponents at grappling. So much of the learning comes when you are faced with challenges you must overcome. With Stoicism, many people spend time filling their heads with ideas and not putting any of them into practice. This means the time spent reading about the Stoic principles acts more like a distraction from problems than an antidote.

Transcript

Back in 2019,

I recorded an interview with a fellow teammate at High Existence,

Mike Slavin.

I was asked by Mike to explore my own views and history with Stoicism,

And I go over things like how I used Stoic Philosophy to overcome social anxiety,

I discussed the exercises I developed for reducing intense fear,

The right and wrong ways to learn Stoicism in my opinion,

As well as anything else,

My favourite technique to live with more gratitude,

The key components missing from modern Stoicism,

My thinking behind my Stoic courses that I'm producing,

And a lot more.

Even though the interview is a few years old and some of my thinking has become more refined since,

It still does contain a lot of the essence of my thinking around Stoicism,

Wisdom,

And living the good life.

I regularly get people telling me that they found a lot of value in this one hour and forty minute interview,

And I thought it would be amazing to share with the Stoic Handbook listeners.

This is the longest Stoic Handbook podcast that I've uploaded so far.

Moving forward with the Stoic Handbook podcast,

I'm going to be continuing my short lessons and guided meditations,

But I'm also going to start adding in more long form interviews with myself and other prominent Stoic thinkers and authors.

Wherever you are right now,

Whatever you're doing,

I sincerely wish you well and I hope that you enjoy this episode.

All right,

This is the High Existence podcast.

I'm Mike Slavin.

I'm a contributing creator here at High Existence and today we have a bit of a.

.

.

The tables have turned.

I'm going to be interviewing John Brooks,

Who is the typical host of the High Existence podcast,

And today we're going to talk all about Stoicism and why this sort of ancient blueprint for emotional mastery is still so sorely needed in this day and age.

And I'm very excited to dive in on the subject with John.

John,

Welcome.

Good to have you here.

It's great to be the one in the seat where I'm getting asked questions for a change.

Yeah,

How does it feel now that you're on the hot seat?

I get to drill you with questions.

I typically really enjoy asking people questions,

But over the last few years I've actually started to enjoy answering them too and just sort of seeing what words come out and seeing what kind of ideas the channel threw me.

I think questions are an amazing tool.

Absolutely.

Yeah,

I mean we could spend a whole podcast talking about the value of questions and asking the right ones and ensuring that you're not limiting yourself by spending time on the wrong kinds of questions,

All that kind of stuff.

But yeah,

I think the reason,

Just to give listeners a little bit of context as to why we're digging in here,

Stoicism has been a part of John's life for quite some time,

And we're preparing,

The High Existence team is sort of getting ready to unfold a new transformational experience called the Stoic Quest that focuses specifically on Stoicism and making it applicable to the modern world,

Getting people to use it and apply it for the problems and difficulties that they're faced with.

So I want to start here,

John,

Just to create a little bit of context because we've seen a bit of a modern resurgence.

Maybe you could,

Over the last five to ten years,

I'm not quite sure when it started,

But we're seeing more and more about Stoicism and its sort of gaining more traction and popular consciousness.

I wouldn't call it mainstream,

But it certainly has a real contingent of followers.

I want to ask you why you think that is.

Why are we seeing this sort of resurgence of such an ancient philosophy and why is Stoicism valuable for the times that we live in today?

So I think that the resurgence of Buddhism came a little bit before the resurgence of Stoicism with people like Alan Watts and other Americans that went to the East,

Went on meditation retreats,

Took psychedelics and brought back the gems of wisdom of these contemplative practices.

And I think if you've ever meditated or read a really good spirituality book,

You can immediately find that there's truth there.

And it just naturally would not take long for anyone who's searching for wisdom to stumble across Stoicism.

And thanks to the Internet,

I think the Internet has played a huge role.

If you're interested in improving your life,

Gaining wisdom,

Handling the chaos of modern times,

I think Stoicism is the perfect philosophy.

And it has some sort of qualities that Buddhism does not.

So Buddhism can be a little bit off-putting to many people,

Like Buddhist monks,

They shave their head,

They wear robes,

They sit still for hours on end meditating.

Whereas that might not appeal to everyone.

Whereas Stoicism,

I think part of the appeal of Stoicism is that you could be a high-functioning entrepreneur.

You could be a public speaker,

You could be a teacher,

You could be an athlete.

And Stoicism,

You can directly apply to your craft and improve it.

So if you look at the ancient Stoics,

You've got Marcus Aurelius,

Who was arguably the most famous.

He was the emperor of Rome.

He was the most powerful man on the planet,

One of the most powerful men to have ever lived.

And he was very much a Stoic.

Whereas he might not have been able to be a Buddhist,

Because part of strict Buddhism means renouncing material possessions,

For example.

But being a Stoic,

You can enjoy life,

You can have possessions,

You can drink wine,

You can have relationships,

You can have money.

But it's more about where that is coming from,

How attached you are,

What are you using it for,

And how is that impacting your character.

So if we look at the modern,

If we come back to the modern resurgence of Stoicism,

The internet played a key role.

And as I see it,

There are two main Stoicism camps.

So the first one would be popularizers of ancient philosophy.

So these would be Alain de Botton.

He wrote a book called Consolations of Philosophy.

That's the first book I ever read on Stoicism,

Where each chapter uses a different philosopher and shows why philosophy can actually help you live more wisely.

And Jules Evans,

Who I interviewed on the High Existence podcast,

Wrote a book called Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations,

Similar to Alain de Botton's book,

Bringing back Socratic thought and the Stoics and showing how these ideas can help us in modern times.

So those books were like repopularizing ancient philosophy.

And then on the other side,

You have people like Tim Ferriss and Ryan Holiday,

Who are entrepreneurs very in touch with the modern flow of life,

Interested in productivity,

Efficiency,

And bettering themselves.

And they approach Stoicism more as a how to handle adversity,

How to grow in resilience,

And what kind of techniques can you apply to not be so affected by the vicissitudes of life.

And I think that style of Stoicism is actually taken to be the most mainstream area of Stoicism now,

Where Stoicism is seen as psychological resilience training.

And I think that's a really good entry point to Stoicism.

But there's so much more beauty and depth to the philosophy that I want to help to spread and show people.

I'm curious if you had to sort of localize that sentiment and draw out a piece of the beauty or a piece of what isn't getting the sort of deserved recognition,

What aspect specifically around Stoicism do you feel like deserves a little bit more airtime than it's currently getting in the existing conversation?

So there are two things mainly that I think that are missing.

The first one is an emphasis on joy.

Stoicism is definitely about building in resilience and,

You know,

Reducing anxiety.

That's very important.

That is a component of joy.

But the Stoics,

Especially Seneca,

They talked a lot about this boundless joy that they experienced from Stoicism,

Where they just felt incredibly engaged with life and sort of like an overflowing happiness,

A presence.

When I read Seneca's writing,

When he talks about this type of joy,

I think of like a happy Buddha,

You know,

That kind of like serenity,

That tranquility,

That's not pleasure.

It's like a deep peace,

Like a childlike curiosity,

Kind of like a feeling of being above it all and looking down on the play of life with a sense of ease.

And we've all felt this at different times in our life.

Sometimes you're just walking down the street and everything just flows.

You're not doing anything special.

You don't have tons of money in your bank account.

Maybe the sun is just shining on you and you just feel at peace.

You feel like life is good and you just want to smile for no reason.

Well,

We can tap into that with Stoicism and that doesn't get talked about a lot.

That kind of like the kind of Stoic enlightenment.

And then the other side is the Stoic worldview.

So there's a lot of talk about the spiritual exercises of Stoicism,

You know,

Like the different journaling techniques,

The different meditations.

But all of that is secondary to the Stoic worldview,

The Stoic perspective.

In fact,

I think these techniques are actually just the keys that unlock the Stoic perspective,

The Stoic worldview.

And when I started reading actually Donald Robertson,

Who's another person that we've interviewed on the podcast,

He's an amazing Stoicism writer.

I started to really see the Stoic worldview from his work.

And I'll give you an example.

So the Stoics,

When the Stoics became Stoics,

It wasn't just like,

Oh,

I'm going to read some Stoicism and I'm going to try and reduce my anxiety.

It wasn't like that.

When you became a Stoic,

You actually started dressing differently.

You were identified as a Stoic.

You went through a kind of conversion,

If you will.

And when you went through such a conversion,

The whole relationship you have with life,

With everything,

With your relationships,

With desire,

With setbacks,

With adversity,

It fundamentally changed.

Sort of like an awakening experience.

So,

For example,

The Stoics did not view the external world in terms of good and bad.

They only viewed their character,

How they acted,

How they thought,

How they conducted themselves as being good or bad.

The external world to a Stoic was indifferent.

Now,

This is not to be confused with like,

If someone gets treated badly,

Of course that person treated someone badly.

So they were acting from a bad place because they were acting from where their character was not good.

Right?

So that was a bad act.

It was not virtuous.

However,

If something has already happened,

Say that I tipped a glass of water over your head,

That's done.

Okay?

That's already done.

You're already wet.

So how do you act now?

What's the most wise way you can act?

And that is what Stoicism is all about.

Those tiny actions.

So it's about much more than just,

You know,

You do this technique,

You journal this way.

Stoicism should be about how you orient yourself to the world.

And you,

By practicing Stoicism,

You should basically get a new pair of glasses from which to view everything.

Hmm.

Yeah,

I'm glad that you bring up this piece around the experience of joy because I think when people hear the word Stoicism,

If they haven't been exposed to any pieces of the philosophy and they're just hearing the word,

I feel like our modern use of the word Stoic implies this lack of feeling.

And it might get someone to then believe that,

Oh,

This philosophy is about sort of calcifying yourself and becoming numb to the world.

And what I'm hearing you communicate is that that's not the case at all.

If anything,

It might support in sensitizing us to experiences of emotion that we can't access right now because of the certain emotional tendencies that we've developed that keep us from going to those places.

Because I see some kind of connection between both of those things that you shared,

The access to joy and also that sort of indifference to the external.

Because if I think about what it would be like for people to live in a world where they aren't constantly being haunted by the anxieties of what might happen in the future.

Because we have this imagination,

This incredibly powerful capacity that can be used for the worst of purposes,

Imagining all the potential calamity that might descend upon us at some future day.

I mean,

It's limitless the amount of bad things we can envision.

And so to begin to build the confidence and the assurance and the mental models and emotional wherewithal to be able to navigate and deal with whatever it is that arises,

Not even from this place of,

Oh,

Here's another bad thing I need to deal with.

But from this,

Not necessarily ambivalence,

But almost maybe the word is,

It's not quite ambivalence.

I'm trying to find the word,

But you're not greeting it from this place of not caring,

But you're almost feel in touch with the privilege of being able to engage with life at all.

So whatever it is that's happening,

Whatever it is that's unfolding is like,

Okay,

Well,

This is what is here for me to deal with.

How do I use this to sculpt my character?

How do I use this to proceed forth and endeavor to continue to become more of a sort of complete version of myself?

So those are some of the things that I'm hearing as you're describing these to sort of reconfigure how people might tend to relate to that word or what they might think at sort of first impression.

Yeah,

I want to share,

I was listening to Jordan Peterson's Maps of Meaning lectures and he shared a dream that he had.

He had a dream and in this dream,

God put him in a battle with a demon,

A very scary demon.

And he was terrified and he set out to fight him and he beat the demon and he said to God,

Why did you put me in this battle with this demon?

And God said,

Because I knew you would win.

And that is a very stoic perspective.

The stoics see themselves as characters in God's play.

Not that they were religious in a sort of Christian sense,

But you can think of God as just the cosmos if you like,

But just the unfolding of nature,

The mysterious.

They saw themselves as sort of like heroes or kind of mythological beings in this big drama.

And everything that happens to you is a chance to show what you're made of.

So any kind of setback or adversity,

If you practice stoicism well,

You will change your relationship to that where it's actually not only is it indifferent,

But you might actually get excited by it a little bit because you get to practice virtue now.

And the stoics are so wise,

They realize that you can't practice virtue,

You can't practice having good character unless you're put under pressure.

And I think that's something that anyone who is interested in self-development will know that it feels really good to get out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself.

And one of the reasons why it feels so good is because you get to see what qualities you have.

You don't get to see those qualities if you're not under pressure.

If life is extremely comfortable and easy,

You don't really get to see the best side of yourself.

So stoics realized that and they welcomed any kind of adversity.

And the stoics are also very.

.

.

They weren't so much rational in the kind of new atheist sense.

I would say that they were very reasonable and they were reasonable in sort of like the wise sage-like sense.

And if you read Epictetus' writings or Seneca,

You'll often find that you're hit by a sort of calm feeling.

Just a few paragraphs can really just calm you down.

And because.

.

.

I believe because they just.

.

.

They understood emotions.

They were masters of psychology and they know that we feel anxiety and we feel fear and we feel stress.

They weren't saying that,

You know,

If you practice those isn't well,

You won't feel those.

They just had like a no-nonsense approach like,

Okay,

You're anxious.

What now?

Okay,

Yeah,

You're afraid.

Like,

What now?

What are you going to do about it?

They were masters at finding opportunity in adversity.

And that's why if you read the work of Epictetus,

He talks about how you might get exiled,

For example.

I love this example.

And what he would do if he was exiled,

For example,

If he was punished by the court and told to go and live on a remote desolate island,

He would go around that island and try and find someone who was there by choice.

Not there because they were exiled.

And then he would go,

Well,

If this person's there by choice,

They want to be here.

Then why would I resist it?

Maybe resisting it is actually like an unwise perspective.

Maybe I can want to be here through choice too.

Maybe that would be the wise thing to do,

Seen as I'm here anyway.

And I love that about the Stoics.

They're extreme optimists,

But also very realistic.

Yeah,

That's an important distinction,

Maintaining the optimism while still having your feet on the ground,

Because I think there's definitely a breed of self-help or positive thinking that sort of disconnects people from reality.

It might be spiritual bypassing and that kind of stuff where it's,

Oh,

The good thing is going to happen.

I'm just trusting that the good thing will happen and this will all make sense then.

And what I'm hearing from you is the more Stoic orientation would be something like,

Well,

How do I know this isn't the good thing?

This could be the good thing right here.

It's already here waiting for me.

I'm not just biding my time waiting for the good thing to show up.

I'm questioning my assessment of this thing being bad to begin with.

And I think having those kinds of orientations,

I mean,

We all face hardship in our life and you're speaking so eloquently about the value of pressure and to be inside of a pressurized situation,

To be in the face of hardship and not be subsumed by the fact that that is where we are and that's what we're involved in.

And that frees us to actually attend to the circumstances and sort of use them in a way or become rather than being blinded by our own victim narratives around,

Oh,

It's poor me.

I'm stuck here in this place.

We can really confront those places,

Those hard places and in doing so and acting with that virtue,

I think that's where the key to tranquility starts to form because you can look into your history and say,

Well,

I've been through some shit and it's been hard,

But I've also maintained myself.

I've had my composure and I've made my way through those difficult situations.

So whatever shows up,

Like I'm ready,

Willing and able to deal with it.

And that is,

I think,

A skill that we definitely need for this sort of age of tremendous uncertainty.

But I kind of want to shift gears a little bit because we're diving into the history and talking about its sort of relevance today,

But I really want to make this personal and drive it into your experience of life and how stoicism has impacted you directly.

So I'm curious what it is about stoicism that has directly transformed your life,

What kinds of sort of capabilities has it given you access to and if you have a story in there that really sort of encapsulates this so that the listener can better understand how this has shaped you and affected you.

I think that would be wonderful.

Well,

For as long as I can remember,

I've always loved comic books and superhero movies and magic as well.

And just that kind of,

I love encountering human beings that have done miraculous things.

I was,

As a child,

I would always buy like the Guinness World Records book and find these incredible humans who had done these incredible feats.

And a part of me just always wanted to believe that human beings can be so much more than the ordinary stereotype that we think of when we think of just the average person.

And I carried this belief around with me and I kind of was hoping that I could turn myself into someone like that one day.

And when I stumbled across the Stoics,

I was like,

This is it.

These are people who,

Through the power of their mind,

Through the power of systems,

Have turned themselves into emotional superheroes.

If you read any of the life stories of the famous Stoics like Seneca,

Marcus Aurelius,

Epictetus.

Are there really any better superpowers than to remain calm and composed under extreme stress,

To remain content in the worst of conditions,

To have unshakable confidence when everything is crumbling around you,

To have complete mastery of your desires?

To me,

That is more impressive than flying.

Because being human is difficult and reading about these people was super impressive.

And I mean,

If you look at someone like Wim Hof,

The Iceman,

You know,

Why are people impressed by Wim Hof?

It's not that people are really impressed by the fact that his body can withstand the ice.

It's more about people are impressed by the fact that he can emotionally handle the ice for two hours,

The fact that he can actually have the courage to go under the water and swim with his breath held in freezing conditions.

That's the impressive part because we can't do that.

But the reason why we can't do it is because we're too afraid.

That's one of the reasons,

Because I've never tried it,

You know,

I don't think I would.

But yet he did it when he didn't have a method.

So there's something amazing about that.

And I first stumbled upon Stoicism properly.

In Alain de Bataan's Consolations of Philosophy,

I might have been about 20,

21 years old.

And at this point,

I had a university degree,

I studied filmmaking.

And I was in quite a miserable place,

I would say.

I was in university for a few years,

Always good at what I did,

Always good at being creative and making films.

But I'd had a relationship that lasted about two years that went from being really,

Really good to me feeling very miserable and unhappy.

And my self-esteem and everything went down.

I had braces,

I was living with a group of friends in my university house that I just felt.

.

.

They were quite strong personalities and I felt like I couldn't speak up,

I felt a little bit oppressed.

And then I withdrew a bit.

And I was just kind of in this miserable place and my confidence was low.

I didn't want to go out into the world and make friends.

I wanted to shy away from everything.

I didn't want to get a job.

I became a bit of a recluse,

Quite neurotic.

But there was a little voice inside me that was like,

Don't give up.

Don't give up.

Keep learning.

You have something special to offer to other people.

You have some sort of gift.

Keep learning,

Keep studying,

Keep pushing forward no matter what.

And so I just kept reading and I thought,

I'm going to try and do things that no one in my position would do.

And one of those things was I'm going to really study psychology and philosophy to the best of my ability,

Remembering that I'm from a small town in Wales.

Where it's very uncommon for people to just have hundreds of books on psychology and philosophy on their bookshelves.

It's quite a small town.

And that kind of behaviour,

Not so much now as people are becoming more open minded,

But about 10 years ago this would have been mocked.

And there were people in my life that were like,

What do you think that reading is going to give you?

Why don't you become an electrician?

Why don't you actually get a degree?

You're not an expert.

You don't have any qualifications.

And this actually gave me more fuel to keep going.

And as I said,

I stumbled upon constellations of philosophy and I found that the ideas in there made me feel so good.

You know,

And a lot of them I was already practicing.

And that's one of the points I want to bring up about stoicism in general.

Many people listening to this might already be practicing stoicism without even knowing it.

Some people are just naturally more aligned to the stoic way.

And the reason why is because some people are just more wise than others.

And stoicism is a philosophy about wisdom.

So,

For example,

If you're not super hung up on making tons of money or becoming famous,

Then you're practicing stoicism.

That's a stoic perspective.

And so you might read the Stoics as I did and kind of go,

Wow,

I really resonate with these ideas,

These people.

They feel like people I could be friends with.

I would love these individuals to mentor me.

So I started reading more about stoicism.

I found out Tim Ferriss was a big fan of Seneca.

I bought letters from a stoic or letters to a stoic by Seneca and I started devouring this information.

And around this time I was waiting for jaw surgery because I had a slight underbite and they told me the braces and the jaw surgery would take two years.

And it ended up taking almost five years.

So I was for five years had to practice endurance and patience.

And every month I would go into the dentist and they'd tighten up the braces and I'd really hurt and I'd have to go into the pain to try and kind of cope with it.

And every time I'd go in,

They'd say,

Oh,

It's coming now.

Won't be long,

Won't be long,

Won't be long.

And this process dragged out for almost five years,

As I said.

And this only made my self-esteem worse because I was in my early 20s.

I'd go out to a bar and maybe I would talk to a girl and things would go fine.

And I'd laugh and then she might comment on my braces and then I'd I'd feel insecure instead of laughing about it or like being OK with it.

I kind of would kind of tense up and I'd be uncomfortable.

And it just was so painful for me at that time because I didn't have the emotional coping skills that I have now.

And stoicism and my study of philosophy and psychology has been integral to me building the confidence that I have now.

But more than that,

It's going out into the world and practicing what I've learned.

And that is very much aligned with stoicism.

So stoicism is practical wisdom.

It's not just about reading.

You have to you have to do what they prescribe.

And this is something that we do in the Stoic Quest as well.

I set it up so that every day you have a challenge,

Every week you have a specific one off weekly challenge to do,

Because reading is not enough.

You have to act.

So through my study of stoicism,

I started going out,

Even though I had braces,

Even though I was insecure and interacting with strangers.

Learning how to cope with that and building my confidence one brick at a time.

And many times I would go out and interact with people and I and I would go home miserable and unhappy.

And feeling worse,

But I never gave up.

I kept following that North Star and I felt this power grow within me.

Eventually,

The time came for me to have my surgery.

I went in to meet my surgeon and he said,

Just so you know,

Bear in mind,

I was waiting for almost five years,

But he said,

Just so you know,

You don't have to have the surgery.

And I'm like,

Well,

OK.

And he said,

The other thing you should know is that the effect of this surgery on your body will be equivalent to you being thrown through the front windscreen of a car in an accident.

You should know that because he was a he did all kinds of jaw operations.

Right.

So if you did go through the front windscreen of a car,

You'd go to this guy.

He would reconfigure you.

And they know that terrified me,

If I'm honest.

But it's pretty scary.

It is.

Yeah.

He didn't sugarcoat that one at all.

No,

No.

He wanted me to know what I was getting myself in for.

And I think that was actually quite clever of him in a way,

Because if he had said to me that,

You know,

I would be fine,

You can handle it.

And then I went through it and it was really difficult.

Then maybe I would have broke.

And in stoicism,

There is actually a practice called premeditation of adversity,

Which we can go into more in depth in a little bit.

But the idea is that you practice contemplating the difficulties that lie ahead.

So in a way,

My surgeon gave me the opportunity to practice the difficulties that lie ahead.

And I prepared for it and I psychologically geared myself up for it.

And I started studying more about stoicism,

Studying more about mindfulness and got ready for the surgery.

And I had it.

I was out of the hospital very quickly,

Swollen,

Unable to eat solid foods,

Unable to walk up the stairs on my own.

But ready for the next chapter.

And I was actually I remember the night before the surgery,

I was all on my own in the hospital.

And the book that I was reading was Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.

And Viktor Frankl,

He's created a type of psychotherapy called logotherapy.

And that was greatly inspired by stoicism.

He survived concentration camp in Auschwitz by trying to find the meaning in the suffering.

So,

So,

Yeah,

That was that was it really helped me with my surgery and recovery from it.

I had a very,

Very fast recovery.

And I remember actually going in a week later and the dentist said,

Have you had a low point yet?

Because everyone has a low point after the surgery.

And I said,

No,

I feel great.

And then I went back two weeks later and they said,

Have you had that low point yet?

Because everyone has this really depressed low point after this kind of surgery.

I said,

No,

I feel really,

Really good,

Actually.

I feel great.

And they're like,

Huh,

OK.

What's what's going on with this guy?

And it's because I was able to find the meaning in the suffering,

The opportunity that it brought me.

And if and correct me if I'm wrong,

But you used the specific principle of negative visualization before you went into this experience such that you felt adequately prepared.

I mean,

This is something that you dive into in the Stoic quest,

How people can use negative visualization,

Sort of like a counterpoint to all this positive thinking talk to help them when they encounter hardship.

So so what was that like?

So one of the things about Stoicism is like a lot of the ideas in Stoicism are actually have actually become kind of cliches,

Because remember,

Stoicism is like thousands of years old and it's been diluted.

And a lot of the ideas and principles have been turned into maxims that have them being spread and become diluted.

And now and now we kind of like say them to each other in times of crisis,

But they don't have much meaning.

So,

For example,

If I say to you,

If something's going on with you,

Mike,

It's difficult.

I'll just I could say to you,

Hey,

Don't worry about that.

Just focus on what you can control.

OK,

And that's a very stoic idea,

But but it's not really going to have that much impact for you.

You're just going to go,

Yeah,

You're right.

And then go back to the issue that you have.

And another stoic idea is,

You know,

It goes back to if you were exiled,

You know,

Could you find people that actually would like to be on that island?

You were exiled to in the case of my surgery.

What I was thinking is,

You know,

When something bad happens to you and someone goes,

Well,

It could be so much worse.

And you kind of go,

Yeah,

But,

You know,

Pain is relative.

I don't want to be thinking about that.

Well,

When you actually practice stoicism,

You take these what are now cliche ideas,

But you actually take them to heart and you really try to embody them.

So I was afraid of my surgery.

And I was wondering,

How can I get rid of this fear?

How can I almost be thankful for it?

How can I feel gratitude for it?

And I was thinking about it.

And it came to me that one of the reason one of the ways I could become thankful for this is by imagining how worse things could be.

How worse things could be.

And they could always be worse.

And we know this,

But we don't actually go into that.

You know,

We do.

We always know whatever happens to us in life.

We always know things could be worse,

But we don't actually spend the time examining that idea or contemplating it.

And if you think about it,

You know,

This idea of practicing gratitude is very popular now.

Positive psychologists have shown that practicing gratitude is really good for us.

Well,

If you look at the basis of gratitude,

You'll actually find the inverse of gratitude,

Which is to appreciate something.

You need to also be aware of not having it.

Okay,

So there's actually like a little bit of negativity inside the gratitude.

It's like,

I have clean water.

Why am I grateful for that?

Because I might live in a country where I don't have clean water.

Okay,

So I found an individual,

An amazing woman who had been in a car accident.

18 years old,

I think she was,

Or in her early 20s.

Full of potential,

About to embark on an incredible life.

And one night she was hit by a drunk driver and her car set on fire and she was burned,

Stuck to the car seat,

Screaming and burned,

Terribly burned.

She lost her nose,

Lips,

Ears,

All of her eyelids burned off,

Her hair burned off.

And I think at the time of this podcast,

She's had about 120 different surgeries.

Her father takes full time care of her.

And she's so happy and full of love and forgiveness and still finds joy in life.

And I just watched her and I used her as sort of my kind of role model as sort of like someone that I could look up to for inspiration.

And I really imagined myself going through that difficulty and meditated on it.

And when I did that,

Suddenly my jaw surgery seemed so much smaller in comparison.

And that actually gave me a lot of strength.

And it actually,

This technique is kind of like a mix of stoic practices.

There's a bit of negative visualization where you're imagining something really difficult happening to you.

But another stoic exercise is called a view from above.

When you kind of zoom out of your own little neurotic world and you look at things from above with perspective.

And that's also what I did with my surgery.

I zoomed out and was like,

OK,

You know,

I know this is really significant to you,

But are you aware of the suffering that actually exists?

I would actually see my surgery as a gift.

Something that I would look forward to like Christmas Day.

If the alternative was getting burned in a car.

And that is actually kind of like a perspective that any of us can tap into at any time with whatever is going on in our lives if we actually spend the time doing it.

I love what you're inviting around this conversation of gratitude and the sort of counterintuitive perspective of there being the seed of negativity inside of appreciation.

And I think about most of the things that we ought to appreciate,

We don't because it's a sort of like signal blindness.

We see the anomalies,

We see the changes,

We see the novelty in our environment.

But a lot of the things that many of us,

Many of the people listening to this,

The things we've always had,

Whether it was running water or a roof over our heads or people around us who are treating us kindly more or less and not seeking to damage us in any intense way.

Many of the people listening to this have a few of those and a lot more going for them in their experience,

In their environment right now.

Wherever you're sitting,

You're either listening to this on a phone or you're listening to this on your laptop.

And life is probably pretty good.

But have you taken the time to account for that in the inventory of how much worse it could be?

And using that not to sort of catastrophize and cast a spell of fear on yourself,

But to engage the deserved sense of appreciation that wow,

Yeah,

There is a lot of good going on.

I find it so easy for people to get caught up in the sort of minutia of their grievances,

Whatever little things are happening that are taking them off.

And all of those things seem to just get swallowed up by a massive amount of gratitude if we can just sit with and really attune to and pay attention to all of the blessings that we have in our life.

Count your blessings.

It's another one of those sort of cliches that feels apt within this discussion.

So,

Yeah,

I invite that.

Anyone who's listening,

Please just take some time to provoke some of that gratitude.

It's easy to sort of be in this steady state of being jaded about our experience and what it is that we have.

So I invite that.

And I want to shift gears a little bit because you touched on something that I think is important.

We've had this resurgence of stoicism and we're seeing more people wanting to learn about it.

And clearly this goes far beyond just understanding the history of stoicism.

This goes beyond buying books.

So I want to ask you specifically about the Stoic Quest.

Why should someone do the Stoic Quest versus just go and buy some books or begin to learn and read about stoicism?

What is it within the Stoic Quest that supports someone in actually becoming a stoic?

That's a great question.

I'm going to answer that in a second.

I just want to quickly follow up with something about your point on gratitude.

A little exercise that I do.

You can,

Of course,

Contemplate all of the things that you have that you appreciate that you might not have.

And that's a really good way to practice gratitude.

But personally,

I actually like to make a little bit of a fun game out of gratitude.

And I try to find little almost insignificant things in my environment that make my life so much better.

And then I just I just get excited about it and I might even talk to people about it.

And and one of those might be,

You know,

Like on a car,

You have these like fobs that you can unlock your car from a distance.

Like,

How cool is that?

That's so cool.

Like you can open your car from a distance,

Unlock it from a distance.

Like that didn't exist before.

You know,

That's something to get excited about.

Someone actually invented that.

And I have a baby,

An eight month old baby.

And there are so many things like that,

You know,

The different way that the bottles are created and dummies are created.

And the way that there's little buttons on the outfits that make it easy to pop them into place.

Like someone made these buttons on these outfits.

That's so cool.

It makes makes these outfits so much easier to use for baby.

And it's really fun just to get excited about these little things.

So I'd encourage anyone listening to this to try and notice the things that make your life better,

That no one ever talks about.

And then bring it up with a friend.

Like,

Go,

Go talk to someone.

Be like,

Hey,

Isn't it cool how like tins last for years?

Like,

Imagine if they didn't.

Imagine if they just lasted for a few days.

They don't.

They last for years.

Tinned food.

That's so cool.

I love that.

I love how that trains someone's attention to begin to look for those those hidden gems in a given moment.

I often find myself encountering that that sort of gratitude and things that fade into the background,

Like the tree that's in front of my house.

You know,

Just it's it's for its aesthetic value.

It's like,

Wow,

That tree is beautiful.

I mean,

It's just like any other tree.

I mean,

When you're sitting at and looking at it from this jaded place.

But when you really open yourself to it,

Like,

Wow,

That tree is great.

It has I get shade from from the tree.

I can sit out there when it's nice out.

You know,

It's there's all of these all these little sort of pieces to pick up on.

I love that.

That's a great exercise.

I see a question about what makes the story quest different from,

You know,

If someone was like,

I want to practice stoicism,

I'm going to go to a bookstore and buy a book on stoicism.

Well,

I actually tried that myself.

So I was like,

I want to really when I get into something,

I tried to go really deep into it.

And I tried to go.

I really tried to push things and try to,

You know,

Like,

Become good at stuff.

So when I started studying stoicism,

I was like,

OK,

This is it.

I'm going to become a stoic.

I'm going to really practice those.

And I'm going to read a lot of stoic books.

And what I found is that there actually aren't many,

If any actual blueprints that take you on a step by step process for actually becoming a stoic.

You know,

Like you can read introductory books on stoicism that are really good.

And at the end of the book,

You might practice some things,

Forget other things,

Know some good perspectives.

But you are nothing like Seneca.

You are nothing like Marcus Aurelius.

You don't know how to get to that level.

And it's kind of like,

You know,

It's like reading a book on martial arts.

It's like.

Yeah,

OK.

You might be able to defend yourself a little bit more.

You know,

If someone comes and attacks you,

Maybe you remember this image of like,

OK,

Take their legs and take them to the floor.

But really,

You do need an instructor.

You do need a mentor.

You do need peers.

You need a plan,

A training plan.

Stoicism should be practiced.

It's a skill.

So I always found myself asking,

Like,

Why aren't there actual any courses that can teach me how to become a stoic?

It's such a beautiful philosophy and there are so many components to it.

And and the idea of stoicism,

We call it a psychological operating system.

So stoicism is a psycho technology in the same way that being literate.

Literacy is a psycho technology.

It's like you take literacy right now for granted,

But that doesn't come naturally to you being literate.

You have to learn that.

It took you a while.

Took you a long time to learn to be literate.

And now everything that you perceive in the world is influenced by the fact that you're literate,

The fact that you can now add to your vocabulary quite easily by noting down words.

You can read signs,

You can read stuff in the environment.

You can think like a literate person.

Well,

You did that.

You had to train to do that.

And so stoicism is a psycho technology just like that that we need to train in to become proficient at.

And the ancient stoics did this.

They were like universities,

Essentially,

Where you'd go and you would train to become a stoic.

Marcus Aurelius was going to stoic training lectures late in life.

He always considered himself a kind of a student of stoicism,

A kind of a beginner's mind.

And he saw the value as well.

Even Marcus,

The great Roman emperor,

The great author of The Meditations,

One of the most famous books on stoicism ever written.

Even after he wrote this book,

He would still go and learn more about stoicism.

So I wanted to kind of bring that back with the Stoic quest,

This idea of a kind of an obstacle course for the mind.

Where we combine modern technology.

So we have an online community.

We can connect to anyone in the world if we have an Internet connection.

I wanted to bring this kind of like university-like feeling,

Except instead of studying accounting,

We're studying wisdom.

And we're all in this together.

We're going out into the world.

We're practicing overcoming our fears,

Anxieties.

We have social challenges,

Discomfort challenges,

Journaling challenges.

There's so much packed into it.

And the Stoic quest,

The idea of it is that each week we learn a new skill that builds on the week that came previous.

And I don't think that any book could compare to that kind of experience.

It's equivalent to,

If you want to use the analogy of martial arts,

Is equivalent to taking someone on a three month intense martial arts training camp.

Where you live,

Breathe and eat martial arts with other people versus reading two books on karate.

You know,

It's like you can't compare those two things.

They're different.

One is an experience.

And the other is,

The other is listening to a very wise person talking about life.

And there's definite value in that.

And books have changed my life.

But what I'm finding as I'm getting older is that now actually so much of the ways I learn are not actually from books.

I'm much more interested in embodied knowledge.

So practicing Brazilian jiu-jitsu,

You know,

You don't,

I don't read books on jiu-jitsu.

I move my body and try to get that idea into my system.

And any kind of skill based study,

You need to do that.

So that's what we've tried to do with the Stoic Quest.

We've tried to give people a step by step training program that actually changes the way they perceive the world and changes the way they interact with other people and how they deal with all kinds of emotions.

Hmm.

And as I'm listening to you talk,

I'm realizing there's this risk of someone could pick up a few books and read,

You know,

Meditations or,

You know,

Let's say meditations.

They read it and they find a few kernels of wisdom and insight that are valuable to some degree or another,

But it doesn't really rock their world.

And so,

You know,

For the solution that they're looking for,

You know,

Someone could be exposed to stoicism and think,

Well,

It's nice,

But it's really not going to do all that it promises.

Like,

What is the hype really about here,

You know?

And so there's that risk of people being exposed to it,

But not really getting the depth of the impact because the way they're absorbing the information,

Like it's just all remaining.

It's all remaining within concept.

It's not driving down into I am out in the world practicing this and doing it with other people who are on this ride with me.

And it could turn people off from from diving deeper into stoicism.

Now,

With that said,

I think that,

You know,

These are sort of two different categories.

And certainly if you go through the stoic quest,

But also want to read and want to dive deeper and hear the words of wisdom from these classics,

Of course,

That that helps supplement it.

But I think the notion or the idea that someone can become a practicing stoic purely from reading alone is about as big as sort of farce's come.

It's like reading can only take you so far.

And then it's about integrating that wisdom,

Integrating the lessons and beginning to embody and display that out in the world,

Getting the feedback from your environment to see how it's working and refine the ideas.

And through that process,

You actually begin to understand what the words meant.

When we first read them,

We're reading them from a certain frame of reference.

But as we apply them,

I think we gain better access to that worldview that you were describing before.

We get to actually see it for what it is and not what we think it is.

And so that's super,

Super important point.

And for those of you who haven't heard much about the stoic quest,

Basically,

Depending on when you're listening to this,

You could go on highexistence.

Com right now and you'll see a little banner on the side where you can click and get yourself on the early access list.

It's not available just yet.

But if you put your name down,

You'll get an email when sort of things are opening up.

But one of the things that I love that you did,

John,

Was you created these sort of stoic sound journeys,

Sort of flipping the idea of meditation and giving people these audio tracks that they can listen to that inspire and invigorate.

And it's almost like a coach cheering in your ear before you're about to go out and run the big play for the game.

You have this sort of burst of wisdom that can arise through this sound journey that you take people on,

Calling back forth this wisdom that you might have really excavated and explored more deeply inside of a masterclass session.

And now you have this access point where you get that wisdom sort of,

You know,

At your fingertips,

You can call it back and evoke that sort of same sensation.

So I think that's a really important piece that I love that you put the time and attention in creating those experiences for people.

Thank you.

Yeah,

I'm really happy with the sound journeys.

One of the.

.

.

So Buddhism and Stoicism have a lot of overlap.

But as I see it,

Like you have with consciousness,

You have consciousness and you have the contents of consciousness.

The Buddhists focus a lot on consciousness itself,

Like the actual experience of right now.

And they're very good at systematically understanding consciousness,

The mind.

The Stoics were more interested in the contents of consciousness.

So I don't know if people listening to this realize,

But cognitive behavioral therapy was inspired by Stoicism.

And that's one of the most useful therapies that we have now for anxiety and depression.

And it deals a lot with challenging your thought patterns,

Changing your perspectives.

How can you harness the power of thought to feel better and to act better?

And with Buddhist meditation,

You could just simply have a prompt that asks you to watch your mind,

Follow the breath,

Where you just examine consciousness.

With a Stoic meditation,

You want to actually leverage the contents of consciousness.

That means using visualization and emotion.

So that's what I tried to do with the sound journeys is to take you on a kind of an emotional journey so that you don't just sort of.

.

.

You don't just think about the ideas that I give you,

You feel them.

And we all know that if you go look in the mirror and just say like,

Every day I'm going to be better in every way,

Or you give yourself some sort of limp affirmation,

It's not going to do much.

Real change comes from emotion.

You need to feel something.

Like my father smoked for like 20 years.

One day he felt a heart palpitation and he quit and he hasn't smoked since.

He felt that fear and that's what made him quit.

So that's the kind of thing that I want to have people experience in the Stoic quest.

I want people to feel something.

This is not just about knowledge.

Change can't come without feeling.

And also that's one of the reasons why psychedelics and mystical experiences can be so transformational because it's so entwined with deep feeling.

It's not just an idea that you might get from a book.

Absolutely.

I'm curious,

Someone who's sitting at home listening to this,

They're your average high existence reader.

Probably not run of the mill,

Just mainstream Joe from down the street.

But they're interested in exploring esoteric concepts and things that are counterintuitive and all that stuff.

But if you had to get really specific,

Applying Stoicism to their life,

What would it do for them?

What would change after having really began to embody this philosophy where they are living,

Breathing Stoic?

What now opens up?

What's different?

What experiences will they have more of?

What experiences will they have less of?

Let's really laser in on how the experience transforms.

Okay,

So that's a really great question.

I want to zoom out a little bit,

Just to give some perspective on me,

Because earlier we said that reading Stoicism alone might not be enough to have the transformation and the kind of benefits of becoming a Stoic.

Well,

I've been working at high existence for about five years,

And during that time my best friends have been spiritual warriors,

Jedi-like people,

Incredible human beings.

I feel like I've been constantly coached,

And in return coached back my friends.

For example,

I lived in Amsterdam for six months with Martijn Schurp,

The co-founder of High Existence.

And every day we would meet up,

And every day I would challenge myself.

Every day Martijn would give me some feedback,

Give me a new perspective,

And it was like I was on the Stoic quest myself for the last five years.

Every single day,

As being someone on the High Existence team,

I'm always trying to walk the talk.

I'm always trying to improve different areas of my life.

So going back seven years or so,

I had no relationship,

Was quite lonely,

Didn't have any kind of female friends,

Very small friend group,

Felt isolated,

Low confidence,

So shy,

Never wanted to open up.

The way that I'm speaking now,

If anyone's listening to this,

This is not me five years ago at all.

This is not me in the slightest,

The way that I can express myself like this so freely.

No opportunities,

No travel,

Just sort of,

You know,

I felt like I had this potential in me,

But just it was being stifled.

Sounds stagnant.

Yeah,

I was sort of in a rut,

I was stagnant.

I felt like,

As many people listening to this too,

Like you have this potential,

You have this like gem,

This jewel,

This fire inside you that you know can take you places,

But because of your patterns,

Your upbringing,

Trauma,

Insecurities,

You feel stuck.

And as someone who's used to have really bad anxiety,

Terrified of confrontation,

I know what it's like to feel stuck and afraid.

And yeah,

For the last five years I've been going out into the world and slowly,

Bit by bit,

Trying to figure out how I can get better,

How I can sort of leverage stoicism to try and improve all aspects of my life.

And that's what I've been doing.

And on the Stoic Quest,

I'm going to share that with you.

So there's so much of what I share is about my own experiences and my own sort of practical tips.

As for how can stoicism benefit you specifically,

I think many people,

Especially introverted,

Creative types,

If you want to generalize,

Like I'm very creative,

I'm an introvert,

We can sometimes struggle in the social realm.

If we're around people that we're comfortable with,

We come alive.

We're funny,

We can crack jokes,

People see us for who we are,

We love it.

But if we're a bit unsure of someone or we meet someone for the first time,

We can quite often feel like we're not being ourselves,

We can be quiet,

We can be withdrawn.

That's how I used to feel.

Well,

Stoicism,

Like so if you want to look at the how stoicism is formulated,

There are four main areas of stoicism.

Self-discipline,

Courage,

Justice and wisdom.

And in the area of justice,

That includes everything related to one's social life.

The Stoics realized that we are social animals,

We are hardwired to socialize.

If we are to follow our own nature,

We will interact with other people,

That's part of life.

So the Stoics had so many useful ideas on how to handle rejection,

Insults,

Slights,

Controlling people,

Tyrannical people,

Oppressive people,

And social anxiety,

Any kind of social issues.

The Stoics were very wise,

They understood that we struggle with this area of our life.

And so stoicism can give you this feeling of invincibility where you can go out into the world and you have this perspective that I'm going to just practice stoicism in this situation.

And whatever happens is great.

It feels good.

It's how it's meant to be.

And I know that sounds almost hard to believe.

But with the exercises and the sound journey and the sort of the Stoic principles and the way of thinking about the different things that happen,

You can totally get there because I got there.

Like I can go now to any city in the world on my own and make friends and have a great time.

Like I can do that.

That was unthinkable for me five years ago.

So that's been one of the biggest blessings that stoicism has given me,

That kind of confidence to express myself and to meet people and to show up and be present.

And then on the flip side,

Another thing that I've struggled with is a little bit,

I think,

As do we all,

Sort of,

You know,

Like these little vices that we have,

Like procrastinating and eating the wrong food and being a bit lazy.

And,

You know,

We have this idea in our mind of the perfect self.

And every day we're reminded that we're so far from that because of the little decisions that we make.

Well,

Learning about Stoicism,

The Stoics are not going to come along and be like,

OK,

You read some Stoicism,

You learn this Stoic thinking exercise and suddenly you're going to have like iron self-discipline.

What the Stoics give you is something much better than that,

Actually.

It gives you an entire blueprint for working with all kinds of desires and all kinds of aversions.

So you actually,

For the rest of your life,

Will feel like you have a plan because for me,

At least,

The worst feeling about slipping up is this kind of like beating myself up thing or like feeling like I don't know where to go from here or feeling like I'm never going to improve.

What you'll actually find is the most disciplined people on earth have cake now and then,

You know,

Or like swear or get angry.

And,

You know,

We're all human.

So it's like it's actually the unwise person who thinks like,

I need to get to a place where I'm perfect all the time.

Epictetus,

He said that someone who practices Stoicism properly is not altogether faultless,

But they are trying every day to have a few less faults.

Trying.

And if you are doing that,

If you have commitment to the quest,

To bettering yourself,

And that commitment never dies,

You will be astounded of what you can achieve in just a few weeks,

Just a few months.

Yeah,

That disposition in sort of hoisting up this perfect ideal and really attempting to align with that,

Match up to that at all times,

In all ways,

In all places,

Really makes us fragile because it sort of lacks a certain recognition of our own humanity.

And even when we are improving in various ways,

Those strides forward can very quickly be sort of brushed under the rug because our attention's swept up in examining all the ways in which we're not measuring up.

And that depletes our enthusiasm,

Our motivation,

Makes us feel like,

Well,

I'm never going to get there,

Rather than being boosted in sort of examining the ways in which we are growing,

The ways in which we are progressing.

And so I love that piece.

And another piece that I'll share that is arising in me is I'm hearing you share about the social landscape and becoming more sort of composed in your expression and more capable of going out and meeting people and sort of having these relationships.

This other dimension of the social landscape that I see stoicism really sort of being a support for is sort of imagine becoming a beacon for the other people in your life.

It's not just for meeting new people or reducing your anxiety so you can meet new people.

It's the way that you begin to hold yourself,

The sort of resilience that you form and the kind of comfort that that can extend to the others in your world.

Or the ability to maintain your composure and tranquility under pressure allows you to navigate through really hard emotional scenarios that might be with some of the people that you really care about,

Helping them get through some really challenging and difficult times or occupying that boundless joy and that infectious gratitude that gets other people to awaken to how their life is,

You know,

All that they have to appreciate.

All of these things invites this sort of recognition and acknowledgement of a ripple effect.

It goes far beyond just you becoming,

You know,

The improvements that we all make as individuals and how those improvements ripple out to improve the world around us.

We might be a flower in a plot of land,

But somehow our striving towards the sunlight supports others in knowing that they're capable of doing that as well.

So I think that's just an interesting piece to reflect on and be aware of.

I love that and it reminds me a couple of years ago,

I think maybe 2016,

I was doing a deep dive into Marcus Aurelius' meditations and like not just reading it,

But actually like reading it and trying to embody it.

And around this time,

I was trying to figure out what my life purpose was.

I was really doing a lot of deep contemplation on that.

And I remember I did some deep contemplation one day and the words of Marcus Aurelius came to me.

And he basically just told me like,

You know,

Your purpose is to be a good friend and to be a good son and to be a good worker and to be a good father.

To be good in those areas.

That's your purpose.

And,

You know,

That was just what I needed.

And like Marcus Aurelius would say,

Like,

Bees do what bees do.

You know,

Dogs act like dogs,

You know,

Like dogs don't try and be like fish.

So you are this type of person,

You know.

Do that well,

You know,

Don't think like to like it's good to have dreams.

Now,

I love having a vision of the future.

Like we're going to in the Stowaway quest,

We talk a lot about the kind of how deep work can be used as a spiritual exercise.

But fundamentally,

As you were saying,

Like becoming this.

You don't want to become someone who's a complete jerk basically to all of your friends and is like a bad example of how to be a bad example of a character.

But then also like not have anxiety.

You know,

That's if you do that,

Then you're not practicing.

So fundamentally,

You want to be a rock for other people.

You want to be that that person that people can come to and be like,

Hey,

I'm struggling with this.

Can you can you give me some feedback?

And I honestly believe that,

You know,

I have full belief that I am that kind of person.

And I do believe that my friends can come to me and I can have great conversations with them and help them through difficult times.

I've got an eight month old son and no matter how tired I've been,

I've not had one single thought of ill will or anything but love toward him.

And,

You know,

This is I'm actually proud of myself for these things.

And but it didn't come naturally.

You know that this comes from doing the work and studying stoicism.

And and now I'm actually trying to be what you say,

Mike.

I'm trying to become a beacon for other people.

And we can all pass this beautiful philosophy and idea on.

I love it.

Well,

We've been jamming for for,

You know,

Just over an hour now.

How's it been sitting on that that side of the table?

It's been great.

I think that you might replace me.

I'm a bit worried about that.

Yeah.

I have a competition for the podcast host throne.

Yeah.

I really like the flow of the conversation.

And yeah,

It's been really good to think out loud like this.

I think that's one of the the the most fun parts of the conversation is that you don't really know what you're going to say until you say it.

Sure.

And we've I mean,

Had a lot of space to collaborate and chat and talk.

But I've learned about things,

You know,

That I didn't know before in terms of what inspired your interest in stoicism and how it's affected you.

So,

You know,

It's amazing to me,

Even if you spend a lot of time with someone,

How there's always these these sides and angles that have yet to be revealed.

So appreciated your willingness to.

Yeah.

Just let us in and tell us about,

You know,

Very,

Very vividly some of the experiences that you had and how stoicism has directly impacted your world.

Yeah,

It's been great to share.

And I think that this is actually a really good exercise.

See,

My mind is always thinking this is the thing that you've got to realize about me.

My mind is always thinking in terms of of like helping other people coming up with exercises like it's always in course creation mode.

That's why creating a stoic class was like.

I just feel like it's completely in my nature to do that felt natural to me.

And just hearing you say that I'm already thinking about,

Wow,

That could be a really useful exercise to conduct a podcast with some of your closest friends where you just sit down for an hour and ask them questions and record it.

And I guarantee you're going to find out stuff that you never knew about them.

Yeah,

It creates a context shift where it may be the same.

I mean,

You're sitting in the same living room that you normally sit in,

But the way that you're changing the context by recording this conversation and potentially sharing it.

It invites a different kind of energy around it says,

Oh,

This is different somehow than our normal sort of hanging out.

And it provokes what kinds of questions do I really want to ask this person?

And I think that's we have this joke around here calling John the minister of inquiry just because he is so adept at arriving at these really wonderful questions to provoke insight.

And I think that is that's connected to that gratitude piece that you shared earlier.

Where is it that we can come up with these really interesting questions to provoke these wonderful experiences?

Give us the opportunity to hear and listen to the people in our life or even strangers in ways that they don't normally get a chance to be listened to.

And those questions sort of serve as revealing sides of the diamond that we haven't been able to examine and see through.

So.

Yeah.

Questions,

Man.

On the topic of questions like just Socrates was actually.

You could argue the first stoic and one of the first stoic heroes and was cited often by the stoics that came later.

And there's a for any kind of people interested in philosophy,

There's a philosopher called Pierre Haddow.

He's a French philosopher.

He wrote a lot about stoicism.

He actually formalized the technique view from above.

And he said about Socrates that when Socrates asked people a question,

There were two intentions going on.

One intention in Socrates knew where he wanted the answer to go.

The question to lead.

He had an ending goal in mind.

He was kind of like a composer conducting a symphony.

He had something that he was aiming for.

But the other side of Socrates.

He reveled in the unfolding of the of the person's answer and went on that journey with them as if he was completely unaware of where it would lead.

And that is the art of asking questions is that we ask questions because we want to try and take the conversation to a particular destination.

But at the same time,

It's it's really nice to just relax into the unfolding of whatever comes up.

And I love to do that.

It's one of my favorite things.

I feel like that similar that that orientation can be transposed and applied so similar similarly more generally to the experience of life itself.

There's this poet by the name of David White who speaks about the conversational nature of reality.

And it's this perspective on life as an exchange in this sort of dynamic fluid sort of back and forth.

This dance that is occurring.

And when we allow ourselves to really be engaged in not just forcing our linear conceptions and plans upon the world and being so stern in seeing their realization.

But to be attentive and attuned to and responsive to the sort of dance with life that's occurring around us at all times.

And that allows for the emergence of surprising new pathways and doorways opening that we couldn't even imagine.

And so that keeps a real sort of fresh and vital orientation towards life.

It's being you know,

You still have a direction that you're moving towards.

You're not necessarily completely absent a telos.

You have a North Star,

But you may be less attached to the particulars around how that North Star unfolds.

And then from that place you can be engaged in the joyous process of watching what emerges as you continue forward and continue to grow and learn and be shaped by life as you're shaping life in turn.

I love that.

It just reminds me of the Stoic idea of that dichotomy of control.

That's often seen as like there are things that you can control,

Things you can't control.

But I think it's actually goes,

It's actually much closer to what you just described.

The dichotomy of control.

It's like one of the fundamental principles in Stoicism where Cicero said that a practicing Stoic chooses but does not desire.

And I think that's a beautiful phrase.

So you have that North Star that you choose,

But you don't crave to get there in any particular way.

I love that.

That's such an important distinction.

Because we want,

I think as human beings we want this sense of narrative arc.

And that's a big way in which we get to experience meaning in life.

That we're going somewhere.

But our attachment to the way that we have conceived the story at any given time can really inhibit the positive plot twist that life as a co-author is wanting to inscribe on the screenplay of our existence.

And so if we're able to allow ourselves to have a narrative arc and a trajectory,

But also not be so tight fisted that we try and pull it back whenever somebody or life itself is trying to write in some new sort of accents and nuance to that kind of story.

It just creates a lot of friction and sort of gums up the wheels of what otherwise could be a fluid and sort of experience filled with grace.

And there's something in what we're talking about here that is connected to the idea of faith.

I'm wondering if faith has been a huge part of my life and developing and cultivating this well inside me that is sort of attuned to and in touch with a sense that I'm almost being guided and held by something transcendent that's supporting me.

And my life is moving in this direction and there is this feel of benevolence around it.

And I say none of this to invite a particular allegiance to any god that has been articulated inside of any doctrine.

It's not really doctrinal.

It's more of an evidentiary relationship that I've experienced as I've gone about my life and been able to cultivate this faith.

I've seen my way through difficult times and I feel like that's a big part of cultivating this sort of anchor or stability.

I wonder if there's anything within stoicism that speaks to this sense of faith that I'm trying to describe.

Is there anything that you've come across that connects to that idea?

Well,

I love the way that you're approaching faith.

I've also recently changed my view on faith.

Because faith can mean to some people a blind faith.

Believing something with insufficient evidence.

But is that really faith?

Faith,

As you say,

Can be just this intuitive feeling of rightness with the way that your life is unfolding.

Or this little belief that you have that does not come from necessarily lack of evidence.

There's definitely evidence there because you have access to your inner world in a way that nobody else does.

But you can't necessarily articulate that or demonstrate it in a gold standard controlled study.

This feeling that there's something going on,

There's something that I'm aspiring to right now.

And yes,

I can't prove it,

But trust me,

I know what's going on in here.

I know what's in my heart.

I have enough evidence.

My life is my evidence.

And that's a really beautiful way to think about faith.

So with stoicism,

The Stoics talked a lot about living in accordance with nature.

And there are two different types of nature if you think about it.

So the first one is human nature.

So live in accordance with human nature.

Now,

The Stoics,

If you ask the Stoic,

Like,

Well,

How do you determine the nature of something?

Well,

They might turn around and say,

Well,

You look at how useful it is in relation to the task that it was created to perform.

So if you look at a hammer,

The nature of a hammer is the bang nails.

Does it do a good job?

Is it useful for the task that it was designed to perform?

Yes.

Okay,

Well,

If you look at human nature,

You have to look at,

Well,

What can we do that other animals or species can't?

And it doesn't take you long to figure out that we have the ability to reason and to think in abstract ways and to use language in this way that it's not clear that other animals can do even close to what we can in that way,

In the way that we can envision things and then make them come to life.

So the Stoics saw reason as something divine,

As something mystical.

The fact that we can have this conversation and like,

What are we actually doing right now?

We are making sounds.

But my head is not there.

My head is often in space.

Like,

I'm just like,

The images that are coming to me.

I'm like in this other world.

I'm talking to you right now,

But we're just exchanging sounds.

But to me,

There's something really mystical that's going on.

That's all we're doing.

Something beautiful is happening.

So that's the first part of Stoicism.

So that,

Just to clarify,

The Stoics saw the mystical nature of reason.

And they didn't just see reason as just a tool,

Like a scientific tool.

They saw that it's divine.

And what sets us apart from other animals in this huge way.

And then the other component is your own nature.

So,

Okay,

We figured out that you're a human being,

And you should do the things that human beings are designed to do for,

And to do,

And that would be using reason.

But then Mike also has his own nature,

Your own life,

Your own personality,

Your own desires and aversions.

And so the Stoics would encourage you to really get in touch with that,

And live according to that nature.

And if you do that,

Then I believe you will be living a life that is based on faith.

Because the Stoics are not going to come along and be like,

You should do this and do this and do this.

The Stoics will come along and be like,

What do you feel Mike that you were put on this earth to do?

Here are 100 jobs that you could do.

Pick five that you would like to do,

And then ask yourself,

What do those five jobs have in common?

Well,

That will show you what is going on within your nature.

And of course,

Socrates was a big advocate of know thyself.

Get to know your nature,

And then live in accordance with that.

That's something that I've been doing.

I realized that I am a creative person.

I need to create.

If I don't create,

I'm going to feel like I'm stagnating,

I'm miserable.

I'm not living in accordance with my nature.

And being creative,

No matter what,

No matter if I lost everything good in my life tomorrow that I cherish.

If I could just remember to live in accordance with my nature,

I would have a deep faith that things would once again work out for the best.

So that's sort of like a roundabout way to answer but the Stoics were definitely big proponents of getting to know who you are,

Your soul,

And living a life of integrity.

And using that,

Your values and your unique identity as a kind of a guiding force in life.

Hmm.

Yeah,

Beautiful.

Very well said.

There's so much that I could say.

On one hand,

It's how weird things are.

We're these earth apes,

As Jordan Bates loves to say,

These funny monkeys,

And we're here flapping our mouths.

And it's very likely that the whole linguistic capacity was exacted.

Our mouths are here not for talking and speaking and exchanging words.

It's for eating.

It's for the ingestion of fuel.

It became this crazy instrument.

But how strange that we're able to have this portal into this connected understanding,

This sort of way of sharing each other's interiors through these sounds.

It baffles me that somehow,

Somewhere along the way,

We develop this capacity and it works so seamlessly.

This is one of those things.

I feel like what we're doing right now in action is the gratitude exercise.

People talk to people every day,

All day.

And how often are we like,

Wow,

Man,

We're talking right now.

How crazy is that?

We're exchanging words.

It's so caught up in the content of what's being exchanged.

But just the fact that it's happening is so perplexing and mesmerizing at once when you really consider how this is happening.

And to move further from that,

The other piece that I felt you poking at is this concept,

Not even a concept,

But a disposition of spontaneity.

And somehow that being associated with one's nature and a sort of feeling,

Like connecting to within yourself,

Not just the idea that you have of yourself,

But the fountain of what comes through you.

In this conversation,

I thought a little bit about the conversation I would ask you in advance,

But there's a lot of territory that we've covered that has just been emergent and it's just thrust forth.

And part of faith is extending trust to that process,

Extending trust to the process of what arises in my consciousness,

Because there's so much that arises that I didn't choose to make arise.

It just occurs.

It happens.

And the more I think we're able to engage that and trust that,

The more we're capable of finding ourselves in situations and sort of letting this unfettered wisdom flow through us rather than it being distorted by this interference pattern of self-consciousness and judgments and all of those kinds of things.

So,

Yeah,

There's a lot of gems in what was just shared.

I'm wondering,

I'm feeling like we're kind of getting to a place of wrapping up this conversation,

But is there anything left over that you find would be a really valuable thing for the listener to hear?

You know,

Within the Stoic worldview,

Within Stoic school of thought,

Anything that you'd love to leave people with?

Two thoughts.

So earlier on,

We were talking about finding opportunity and adversity,

And that is a skill that a practicing Stoic has.

And that can sometimes be confused with people who are overly positive.

You know,

They were like Pollyanna,

Rose-tinted glasses.

And I think that the way that you differentiate a Stoic from people who have extreme optimism,

To the point of kind of it being a bit grating,

You know,

I think we've all encountered individuals who they don't even allow space for difficult emotions to come up.

And the key difference is that a Stoic spends a lot of time in the kind of imagined world of suffering.

So I've met individuals who are big proponents of the law of attraction,

And they refuse to have any kind of negative thoughts come up,

You know,

Because that's going to attract negative in their life.

They don't want to even go there,

You know,

They only want to hear positive things,

Surround themselves with positive people.

Positive,

Positive,

Positive.

I don't want to hear any feedback.

I just want positive stuff.

In fact,

Negative feedback doesn't even exist to me.

Don't even bring that to my door.

Whereas a Stoic would wake up each morning,

For example,

And imagine all the stuff that could go wrong.

You know,

And that's where their sense of optimism came from,

Is the sense of no matter what happens,

I can find opportunity.

Not that nothing bad will happen.

It's like,

Yes,

Bad stuff probably will happen.

You know,

That's life,

You know,

And I'm going to prepare for it in advance so that things don't knock me with the same kind of force.

So that's something to remember about Stoics,

Is that they were very aware of the relationship between suffering and joy,

And they realized that you need to go into suffering and master it,

Contemplate it before you can experience joy.

You don't push it away.

And then the other thing,

When it comes to handling difficult emotions,

Is,

You know,

A lot of us,

We think that resilience is,

You know,

Not getting this spike of adrenaline when our boss shouts at us,

Or not having our heart beat really fast when we walk up to the girl that we find really attractive,

Or,

You know,

Getting 20 rejections from our new novel without being fazed by it.

You know,

Everyone has their own definition of what it would mean to them to be resilient.

However,

To a true Stoic,

Resilience is actually freedom.

That's what it means.

Resilience means freedom.

And freedom comes from the deep belief that no matter what happens to you,

You will never lose your freedom.

No matter what,

No matter if you're put in chains,

No matter if you lose everything,

No matter if you have breakup after breakup,

No matter if everything crumbles around you,

You can still be free in that situation.

Because you can practice having virtue,

You can practice having a good character,

You can practice using the divine,

God-like power of reason.

So that's what I want to really touch upon,

That the levels that you can get to with Stoicism,

Eventually it's possible to get to a place where it's not even about a little bit of anxiety here,

Or a little bit of fear there,

But it's actually about this deep,

Deep knowing that nothing that the world brings to me can actually harm me.

And I just want to stress that because to go full circle,

That is a real-life superhero when you can do that.

And that's what the Stoic Quest is all about.

Awful words.

Thanks,

Jon.

I really enjoyed this conversation.

Thanks for making the time,

And I'm looking forward to future chats to jam on Stoicism and so much more of this crazy experience called life.

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