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Michael McGill on Applying Stoicism (Episode 62)
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Want to become more Stoic? Join us and other Stoics this October: Stoicism Applied by Caleb Ontiveros and Michael Tremblay on Maven
In this conversation, Caleb speaks with Michael McGill.
They discuss Michael's story, Roman history, and how Michael applies Stoic philosophy to his life. It’s a great look at how anyone can take lessons from Greco-Roman philosophy and use them in work, family life, and hobbies in a positive and energetic way.
https://twitter.com/mcgillmd921
(02:46) Introduction
(04:34) How Stoicism Shows Up In Michael's Life
(10:56) What Lost Stoic Do You Want To Read?
(13:21) Roman History
(19:23) Cicero
(22:12) Time Management
(26:06) Cato the Younger
(31:38) Role Models and Anti-Models
(35:39) Introducing Others To Stoicism
(43:06) Advice for Creators
(47:57) Busts
***
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Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations: https://ancientlyre.com/
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Transcript
Opening and Personal Reflections
00:00:00
Speaker
And to me, it just anchors back to that, that one quote of Marcus, which I really, I think is my, my love so many different quotes from the stories, but you already says objective judgment now at this very moment, unselfish action now at this very moment, willing acceptance now at this very moment of all I see that's, that's all. And to me, that's an anchor point.
Introduction to Stoic Conversations Podcast
00:00:22
Speaker
Welcome to Stoic Conversations. In this podcast, Michael Trombley and I discuss the theory and practice of Stoicism. Each week we'll share two conversations. One between the two of us, and another will be an in-depth conversation with an expert. In this conversation, I speak with Michael McGill.
Michael McGill's Journey and Stoic Insights
00:00:41
Speaker
We talk about his story, Roman history,
00:00:44
Speaker
and how he applies Stoic philosophy. It's a great look at how anyone can apply lessons from Greco-Roman thought to their work, family life, and hobbies in a positive and energetic way. It's also an enjoyable conversation as we flicker between different figures in ancient Stoicism, Roman history, and practical topics like time management and
00:01:09
Speaker
printing 3D busts. If you enjoy this conversation, be sure to follow Michael on Twitter at legillmd921. And if you'd like to get regular emails, two emails a week about becoming more stoic, check out the Stoa Letter. That's www.stolletter.com.
00:01:33
Speaker
And if you'd like access to hundreds of lessons, meditations, and routines from myself, Michael Trombley, and other experts, check out the Stoa app. Just search Stoa on the App Store or Play Store. And here is our conversation.
Michael's Life Roles and Stoicism's Impact
00:01:55
Speaker
Welcome to Stoic Conversations. My name is Caleb Ontiveros, and today I am speaking with Michael Macill. Michael is the Stoic CIO. He's put out quite a lot of excellent content over the past two years or so on Twitter, perhaps even longer than that, three or four years perhaps.
00:02:19
Speaker
But it's been an excellent person to follow, always positive, always tweeting about stoicism and tech. I've enjoyed following that for quite some time. And this is your second stoa conversations appearance. So thanks for coming back. Yeah. Thanks for having me Caleb. I always love an opportunity to talk about stoicism and, you know, getting the chance to come back and chat with you a second time is awesome. So thanks for having me.
00:02:46
Speaker
Excellent. Well, what's your story? What is my story? So, I mean, I'll start with the most important thing, which I'm a husband and a father of two children. So that's kind of the most important role I play in my life. And, you know, I have an awesome wife, a son and a daughter from a vocation standpoint. I'm in tech. I've been in tech for over 20 years now.
00:03:11
Speaker
You know, love being in tech, love kind of helping deliver solutions to the organization I've worked for through technology. And then from an avocation standpoint, I nerd out on all kinds of stuff, always kind of experimenting and doing different things. But one thing that has been a constant in my life for maybe nine to 10 years now has been stoicism.
00:03:33
Speaker
And I love stoicism and I'm sure we'll get into it maybe a little bit about kind of my introduction and how I kind of found stoicism, but it has been a constant in my life. And every day I practice stoicism and what I've learned from stoicism more than kind of any other professional self-improvement, professional development thing.
00:03:55
Speaker
Stoicism has had the biggest bang for the buck in my lifetime. And, you know, something that I continue to practice to this day. So, you know, lots of good things going on in my life. I'm very blessed person. Excellent. Excellent. I just noticed that pillow behind you with Zeno, Seneca. That's awesome.
00:04:13
Speaker
Yeah, that's a negotiation with my wife. My wife loves pillows. Every couch, everything on the house has pillows on it. She kept coming in my office here and putting pillows on it. I'm like, all right, I'll meet you in the middle. If I have to have pillows on this couch back here, they at least got to be pillows about things I like. So I went on to Etsy and grabbed myself a stoicism pillow.
Practical Stoicism: Control and Benefits
00:04:35
Speaker
That's great. So how does stoicism show up in your life? Yeah.
00:04:42
Speaker
I think there are so many mindsets that you can learn from stoicism, just lenses that you can view your life through that just
00:04:54
Speaker
gosh, just make it so much easier than it was before I discovered stoicism. So before stoicism, it's very, I was very stimulus response. Like this would happen. I'd get mad. That would happen. I'd get sad. This would happen. I'd get fearful. No real questioning of these emotions is kind of that first emotional response you go with. I would say that probably.
00:05:18
Speaker
I am far from perfect. I am no stoic sage, but practicing over time, I kind of have learned in a lot of circumstances to stretch and create a space between stimulus and response. That is a space that stoicism has helped me to build, to just be a little more objective about the circumstances in my life as they unfold and did not be so emotionally reactive.
00:05:43
Speaker
And there's so many tools within stoicism that will help with that, from the dichotomy of control, just the mindset whenever I feel myself getting emotionally reactive to a situation.
00:05:55
Speaker
to just stop and ask myself, what in this situation can I control and what can I not control? And just learning, even to me, that's like the first most basic but powerful step into stoicism is that dichotomy of control. And as I look back on my life and a lot of times in my life where I may have been going through periods of anxiety or periods of sadness or something like that, looking back, a lot of that was just stuff I really did not have much control.
00:06:23
Speaker
So just really just asking how stoicism benefits me in my life. I would say just even that first step of looking at my life through the lines of what can I, I can't, I control. It's just, it's huge right there. You can like stop right there with stoicism, not learn anything else about it. And you've just gained an incredibly powerful mindset to bring more kind of tranquility and acceptance into your life.
00:06:50
Speaker
Yeah, that fundamental divide between what is up to you and what is not is one of the most useful ideas from stoicism. And also, as you say, I think one of the things that sticks out to people first is just a clearly practical idea that on the surface
00:07:10
Speaker
is quite simple. Of course, you should just pay attention to things that are up to you, but when you begin to vigilantly apply it and define this idea, what is, in fact, up to me, it becomes a radical and transformative one. It's subtle. It seems simple. And I think that's, to me, what I love about stoicism, it's not some esoteric
00:07:34
Speaker
Naval gazing kind of mental exercises that maybe don't really get you anywhere. I mean, I love philosophy. I love thinking about thinking. You know, I love reading other philosophy, but.
00:07:46
Speaker
Stoicism is practical philosophy,
Roman History's Influence on Stoic Thought
00:07:49
Speaker
you know, the dichotomy of control, learning to see the obstacles in our life as opportunities, learning to accept the things that happen to us, learning to appreciate the things we have instead of constantly desiring more. You know, all like super practical mindsets, like our basic, but
00:08:09
Speaker
Stoicism helps kind of, you know, it seems basic at first, but these are things that we get stuck in these cycles of desire and being dissatisfied with our lives. And it seems simple, but we need that reminder. We need to be told, we need something to help us realize, wow, if I, to stop and look around, I'm like surrounded by blessings that I don't need. I really don't need anything else, but we still, we're humans and we get into these cycles.
00:08:35
Speaker
And that stoicism kind of gives us that kind of slap upside the head and that cold splash of water to the face. It just reminds us that it's maybe simple, but it's transformative to not let yourself get into cycles of thinking.
00:08:49
Speaker
Right, right. Yeah, so much of this ancient wisdom, ancient philosophy is about reminding yourself of particular things, even if you're not, say, learning something new, which eventually, of course, you are. But so much of it is just this idea of coming back to what's important and ensuring that you're able to internalize the relevant principles and then apply them.
00:09:12
Speaker
It's like timely versus timeless learning. You know, there's timely learning, like I work in tech, so I'm going to learn about AI or I'm going to learn maybe about a specific analogy we're using. Whereas something like stoicism, it's like first principle thinking, it's timeless.
00:09:30
Speaker
literally Caleb, not a circumstance that I will go into in my day-to-day carrying some degree of stoicism with me into that circumstance isn't going to help me. I mean, no matter what I am doing in my life, stoicism will help me. It's that time. It's what I love about ancient philosophies. It's like, you know, we're trying to, there's modern self-help books, but you know, and I kind of always have it close by, but I mean, a book like meditation, like the, the answers, like the
00:09:56
Speaker
They're in here, like 2,000 years ago, Marcus Aurelius, and I see you have Seneca behind you there, and Epictetus, like over 2,000 years ago, the answers were kind of found in these ancient philosophies to the problems we're trying to solve today. Because thinking hasn't changed over the last 2,000 years. We haven't evolved that much from 2,000 years ago. We're still following into these same emotional traps. So I just love that kind of
00:10:24
Speaker
the answers kind of lie in these ancient texts and like, thank God that this survived, so much ancient literature and texts and history just didn't survive the centuries and the fires and all these circumstances that the dark ages where they were burning this stuff and somehow the Seneca Epictetus and Marcus survived. And I just get a kick out of the fact that I can read something 2000 years old and be like,
00:10:52
Speaker
This is like exactly what I needed to hear. It's just so cool.
00:10:56
Speaker
Yeah, it's amazing. We're really quite fortunate to have the writings of all three of them. A lot of the ancient Greek Stoics we have through fragments, but we know they wrote so much more that has just been lost. But yeah, it's an interesting question, a fun question, I suppose is, you know, if we had writings of one additional Stoic, who would you choose? You know, I think I would have to go with
00:11:26
Speaker
Now, look, this is, and I'm gonna maybe get a nerd out a little bit here, so I go fairly deep with Stoicism. I believe it's Chrysippus that was said to have been very prolific in his writing, but none of it survived. I think I would go Chrysippus just because there is knowledge that he was a prolific writer about Stoicism.
00:11:53
Speaker
But it didn't survive. I always thought it was really interesting too, like with Musonius Rufus and Epictetus that even though we have their works available to us, they weren't written by them. They were like, they just had really good students that like took copious notes. And you know, I'm like, wow, these guys were like really great note takers. You know, Epictetus is, is it written by Epictetus? It's Arian.
00:12:17
Speaker
who was a kind of a Roman historical figure himself who had his own kind of impressive career in politics in the military and whatnot, who was also just a student of Epictetus and wrote this stuff all down. So I'm kind of diverging a little bit. So to your question, definitely I think Chrysippus having some of his stuff around would be pretty cool.
00:12:37
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, for listeners, there was Zeno, the first head of the school, Zeno, Sidium, and then you had Cleanthes, and then Chrysippus came after. And Chrysippus was known for the figure who systematized the philosophy. You had
00:12:55
Speaker
Zeno preceded some of the original ideas. Clancy's built on those, but Chrysippus was the person who came together and really formalized Stoicism as a system, added Stoic logic. The man was undoubtedly a genius. And it would be, I think he apparently wrote like 700 books or something like this. I might have the number wrong, but it's a very prolific writer, very prolific writer.
00:13:21
Speaker
So I know you also spend time learning about Roman history, always an excellent side project or a hobby,
Admiration for Stoic Leaders and Writings
00:13:31
Speaker
if you will. What do you like to pick out from that activity? You know, there's a very interesting intersection between Stoicism and Roman history, because obviously Marcus Aurelius, who not only, we all love him as the Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius, he was also a very impressive Roman emperor.
00:13:50
Speaker
So I kind of stepped in, you know, I think, you know, you kind of mentioned earlier, you have the Greek Stoics who kind of started Xeno, Cleanthes, Chrysophus, you know, kind of the Greek school and then it kind of found its way over to Rome and it was very much embraced as a philosophy in Rome. And so, you know, kind of the big three that we know of Epictetus, Sonica, Marcus, they're Romans and that's kind of Roman Stoicism.
00:14:12
Speaker
So I read a book, it's funny, a lot of myself is always like, I read this one book, but I read this one book called Dying Every Day. And it's a book about Seneca and the role that he played with Nero. So Seneca was an advisor to the emperor Nero, which
00:14:27
Speaker
You know, I think even people don't know Roman history that well. Nero didn't turn out so good. He was kind of okay while Seneca was still in the picture before Nero had Seneca commit suicide. But I read that book, would just totally just want to read it to learn more about Seneca. And I just became fascinated.
00:14:43
Speaker
by Nero and Roman history. And it just sent me off down a rabbit hole of learning about Rome, kind of the fall of the Republic with Caesar, the rise of the empire with Augustus. And it's just fascinating characters and history in there. And I just think there is just a really interesting intersection of the ancient, you know, kind of I, whatever reason, I like this ancient stuff and I get a kick out of learning about life through the eyes of the ancients.
00:15:11
Speaker
And I just think Roman history just fits so well with Stoicism. There's so much intertwining there. When you read about the early empire, Epictetus was a figure in there. He was put into exile by Domitian, who put a lot of emperor.
00:15:31
Speaker
Like exiled all of the, the, the philosophers and whatnot, you know, Seneca at the court of Nero, he was Nero's advisor. You have obviously Marcus who's a Roman emperor, the things he was doing as a Roman emperor, which to me, why Marcus is my personal favorite stoic.
00:15:48
Speaker
I keep a bust of Marcus by me. I just, to me, and the Hey's Translation of Meditations is just my favorite book and favorite work of stoicism. But I think what impresses me more and you become more impressed with Marcus as you learn about the Roman emperors.
00:16:05
Speaker
Because I mean, these dudes, like half of them are nuts. Caligula, Nero, you know, there's not a lot of good people as you go through the pantheon of Roman emperors. But then you come to Marcus and here's a guy with all the power, all the power in the world and so many other emperors corrupted them and they abused that power. And here's Marcus. I just picture him in his tent on the battlefront, like by candlelight.
00:16:30
Speaker
writing to himself. And we get to peer into the mind of what he's writing about. He's not writing about gaining more power and conquering more people with the things you think an emperor might write about. He's reminding himself again and again to be a good man, to be a good person, to be a good stoic. Calling himself out, just that humility in that, just as you learn about Roman history and you learn about the emperors, Marcus just becomes more and more impressive.
00:16:58
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I agree with that. The book Dying Every Day by James Romm is an excellent one. That book you mentioned on Seneca. It really brings out Seneca's more Machiavellian aspects of his personality. Seneca is always a complex figure. You have that on one side and then you also have the wise stoic striving to be a sage. You have that aspect of the man and James Romm tries to
00:17:26
Speaker
makes sense of both of those aspects of his personality in a way that's compelling. I think it helps make you learn about stoicism and apply how stoicism shows up in your life as well. Yeah, go ahead.
00:17:40
Speaker
Yeah, no, no, sorry to interrupt you. It's a great book, but I'll highly recommend to anybody who's listening. It's just like a really good book. The author did an incredible job. It was literally like a page turner. Like I said, it totally threw me down the Roman history rabbit hole. I like read it like in a day or two, just it was like literally a page turner. I wanted to kind of
00:18:01
Speaker
Just learning about Nero and how we know how the story ends for Seneca, but it was thought it was a fascinating read And yeah, look Seneca is a complex guy
00:18:11
Speaker
You know, it there's the Seneca and the life he lived versus the writings that are left behind. And right, you know, who is again, I like that. It's true. The Machiavellian figure is very rich. He's involved in some controversial stuff in Britain, you know, and, and loans that he was doing. There's, you know, I, I, I wouldn't be good at getting the details of all that. Just, he was a very interesting and obviously the most controversial of the Stoics and a definite
00:18:39
Speaker
kind of dichotomy for sure of kind of what he, how he lived and what he wrote about. But you know what? We're all complex figures and maybe the statute of limitations has passed. I like for Seneca, the man may or may not have been. That's to me, what's fascinating about when you read, sometimes we only have fragments, you know, the ancient historians like Tacitus and, and Dio and, and Libby. And you kind of are kind of piecing together these events from these kinds of fragments of, of
00:19:08
Speaker
of historians from antiquity that's left. And it's just, it's fascinating. But yeah, dying every day, it's like, if you're interested at all, I mean, you can read it just to learn more about Seneca, if you're a Justosan. But be careful, you might trip and fall down a Roman history rabbit hole. Yeah, yeah. What lessons do you take from the life of Cicero?
00:19:28
Speaker
Cool. All right. Cicero. So I love that question, Caleb. Cicero is one of my favorite figures from Roman history. I think another kind of controversial guy, controversial guy a little bit in, he kind of wavered back and forth between Caesar and Augustus and the Republic. And it's just, he kind of, he, he kind of wavered a little bit, but like Seneca,
00:19:54
Speaker
He wrote beautifully, like it's weird. It's like, once I was every once in a while, I felt it just weird coincidence stuff that you asked that question. So I always have what I call a nightstand book, which is philosophy. I always keep a philosophy book on my nightstand and I will read a few pages of it before I go to sleep. I think it just helps to kind of settle my brain and kind of calibrate the first world problems that might be bouncing around in my head that like keep me awake.
00:20:21
Speaker
And the nightstand book I'm reading right now is Cicero, you know, a collection of Cicero's writings, very similar to Seneca. Reading Cicero feels very similar to Seneca. He wrote like Seneca, kind of longer essays, letters to friends and his son, and he will, a lot of his writing, so write like he is another character, like Cato the Elder, he'll write like he is that character. So Cicero was another brilliant, brilliant person.
00:20:51
Speaker
from ancient Rome and enjoying reading his philosophy right now. Again, very sound like an ask to me when I read him. Yeah, they're both rhetorically talented and both interesting because they're both excellent politicians, statesmen, but also they have this philosophical, learned aspect and they spent hours of philosophy.
00:21:16
Speaker
Yeah, it's like these Roman historical figures are like Renaissance men prefer the Renaissance. Like you would have, you know, like you said, like Cicero was a consul. He was like a very high political figure in Roman politics, very high ranking. And yet he was an incredible writer and a philosopher as well. And, you know, Seneca played a role in politics.
00:21:39
Speaker
And he also wrote plays and wrote these incredible books. You'll have, you know, Arian I mentioned earlier was a general in Roman politics and also the student of Epictetus who captured all of that. The reason we know what Epictetus taught is through what Arian captured. So it is these kind of very interesting people who are in politics, in military, in philosophy, in the arts, like these kind of really interesting Renaissance
00:22:06
Speaker
kind of men, you know, a thousand years or however long before the Renaissance even started. Yeah, yeah. How do you think about managing just that brings to mind managing these different projects in life? You have your family demands, you have career demands, and then of course, these other intellectual or philosophical projects as well. How do you think about that sort of issue generally?
Time Management and Personal Growth
00:22:34
Speaker
Yeah, I think about that very practically, Caleb. And it's funny. Again, another weird coincidence. I do some psoasism videos sometimes, and I did one this morning on the shortness of time, and Seneca's famous quote about, you know,
00:22:50
Speaker
I'm not going to be able to say a verbatim, though I probably shouldn't by now. But one of the lines is that we have plenty of time if we use it properly. I believe that there is enough time in the day. Everyone you admire who gets a lot of stuff done has the same 24 hours in their day that you have, that I have. We all have the same amount of time. It's just spending it wisely and on the things that are of a high priority. So to me, it's very much time management. What does my day look like?
00:23:17
Speaker
you know the kids you know it's summertime now so the kids are home but typically i will kind of come up into my workspace around seven o'clock in the morning or so and a good hour of just working on my side projects stuff my writing things i like to do it's really kind of my solitude time i'll come up into my office here and it's about that hour to hour and a half that i might have and i use that time to write and to create content and just kind of uh
00:23:45
Speaker
be introspective a little bit. And it's also kind of my own calibration time, but this kind of, I'll do a five minute, like size and meditation, which is kind of sitting just for five minutes and just getting myself calibrated for the day and then kind of doing working on some stuff that I like to. And then come eight, eight 30, I'm ready and wearing a coat to get into work mode. Cause I have the responsibility to give the best that I can to the company that I work for. And then I have family in the evening as well. So I think it just all comes down to managing your time.
00:24:15
Speaker
And, you know, when I say manage trust, I could pull up my Outlook calendar and I, it is very nerdy of color coding and like this time is for this, this time is for that, this time is for that. It's all, it's all time management and getting it onto the calendar and then really just doing your best to honor your calendar throughout the course of the day.
00:24:35
Speaker
live your life according to eye if it's set up. Now all that sounds very, also, you know, it's important to have presence. I don't want to just be mechanical and go through. I want to be present in my life too, but I do find that kind of having kind of my day mapped out just opens up space for me to be more present because I know that when I'm talking with
00:24:57
Speaker
Caleb right now, I don't need to be worrying about what am I doing this evening or what didn't I do today? I kind of, you know, my time management system kind of. This kind of walks me through that and kind of helps me to be more present. That's how I'm doing everything that I.
00:25:13
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good point. I think many people have issues when their demands start to bleed into one another. And of course, there's always going to be times where flexibility is required. But if you're able to set up those boundaries,
00:25:28
Speaker
form, personal, work, family, and then your proper career work as well. You're able to be more present once you're at that time where you've decided this time is for this. And I'm not gonna let, even if it seems like this other work is important, so I'm not gonna let that infringe on this time right now. And doing that over and over again, I think, does help you build a sense of presence.
00:25:54
Speaker
I agree. I agree. So time management is a, it's a kind of a meta, one of those meta habits that disciplines that you can get into that just will set you up for success in all areas of your life.
00:26:06
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. What do you think about, going back to, jumping back to Roman history, you have, in the late Republic, you've got this figure Cicero.
Cato the Younger's Legacy and Principles
00:26:14
Speaker
We've chatted about him with some other fast guests, but you also have Cato the Younger. I don't know if you've thought much about him at all, but I'm curious, you know, how do you think about these two approaches?
00:26:26
Speaker
Yeah, you know, Cato is an excellent. Yes. The answer is yes. So I actually have a book. I'm looking over a bookshelf. It's called Rome's Last Citizen. It's the name of the book and it's about Cato. And that was on my reading list long before I got dying every day. And Rome's Last Citizen were on my reading list long before I got in Roman history, just because they were about some of the eminent stoics. So Rome's Last Citizen is about Cato. Cato is another complex figure. You know, I think he was kind of the hero of
00:26:56
Speaker
the later stoics, like Seneca Road. I mean, everyone kind of looked to Cato as that closest thing to that stoic sage, like the perfect stoic. I think it is through the light of he ultimately made the ultimate sacrifice for his beliefs. He didn't want to see the fall of the Republic. He was on the side against Caesar. What it became obvious that Caesar was going to win and the Republic was at risk
00:27:26
Speaker
he took his life, the ultimate sacrifice for what he believed in. But on the other hand, and I'm not going to speak to any of this as super educated, but my understanding through what I've read, a lot of Cato's actions kind of led to that. He was very inflexible. He wasn't willing to meet Caesar in a middle ground. It was very little kind of negotiation and I'll meet you in the middle and I'll give a little bit. I think a lot of Cato's inflexibility and the influence that he had on the Senate
00:27:56
Speaker
maybe help to bring things to a head a little bit. So like Seneca, a very admirable figure, a lot to admire about Kato, but an imperfect man as well. And maybe some of his actions kind of led to some of the things that Kato, exactly what he was trying to avoid, his inflexibility maybe helped to bring about. So yeah, Kato is a, um,
00:28:20
Speaker
another very fascinating figure, not only in Stoicism, but in Roman history. And just in that cast of characters of the fall of the Republic, the Pompey and the Crassus and the Julius Caesar and the Cicero and the Cato and the Mark Antony, Cleopatra, you know, there's just like, oh, Augustus. Yeah. There's just so many fascinating St. Here's and just such an interesting period of world history.
00:28:46
Speaker
It is. Yeah. There's a huge concentration of unique and compelling people at that time. And yeah, we've, we've had Jimmy Sony and Rob Goodman on still conversations that authors have run as last citizen. I recommend listeners go back to that.
00:29:02
Speaker
about the man. But you do have this contrast, as you say, between Cicero potentially not principled enough versus Cato the younger who was exceptionally principled but inflexible.
00:29:22
Speaker
And yeah, that's always a fascinating question to think about in the historical case. Now, how does that matter politically, but also in one's own life as you're thinking about how do I set boundaries? How do I think about my principles and apply them throughout my life with others as well? Right. And I think that to me is part of the, not just the entertainment,
00:29:47
Speaker
of learning about romance. It's a very entertaining time. I just read and just be entertained by kind of the fascinating events that unfolded, but looking at yourself through that lens, what are these aspects of Seneca that looking at the full person and then kind of
00:30:07
Speaker
yourself in comparison. There's a lot to be learned about yourself. And just kind of as you look at how did Julius Caesar behave? How did Augustus behave? And then you get into the whole Julio, Claudian, you know, what can I learn? It's almost like reading
00:30:22
Speaker
It's almost like reading The Prince by Machiavelli. It's like, how do I, you know, what do I read in this helps to be the warning side of like, Hey, maybe this is teaching me how I don't want to be, whereas you have a book like Meditations where you're like, Hey, this is like, tell me how I should.
00:30:38
Speaker
And then you read something like Machiavelli, or you learn about the behavior of some of these figures in Roman history. And now it's a good lesson of how I don't want to behave. And am I going to be so honest and do I see some of that in myself? And maybe this helps me to be more aware of aspects of my personality that could go on the not so good side and just help me be aware of that too.
00:31:01
Speaker
Right, right. Yeah. It's a good point. We talk a lot about role models, but perhaps we should also talk more about having anti models and these, at least maybe if not an entire person aspects of a personality that you want to avoid in one's own life. For sure. Yeah. There's a lot to see in the early Roman emperor. I'm going to tell you though, Julio Claudians, I'm really nervous. I'll pull myself. Those dudes are nuts, man. There there's a lot of, you know, unsavory behavior in that career. Yeah, that's right. Certainly.
00:31:31
Speaker
This is a family friendly podcast.
00:31:34
Speaker
I'm not going to dive into that. But I think one useful thing to keep in mind, and maybe it's not Roman history for someone, but being able to know about these different kinds of figures, have people mentally available helps you with role modeling exercises, contemplating a sage and thinking about one of the
00:32:02
Speaker
practices like the contemplation of the sage, thinking about how does the sage in fact act? What are examples of your virtuous behavior in history? And once you have a detailed enough picture of someone you can imagine, how would they think about the situation that I am going to face? Whereas if you don't have that sort of background knowledge, whether it comes from Roman history or someone else, it's going to be more difficult to answer these kinds of questions.
00:32:31
Speaker
Right, right. Seneca, you know, it's like almost anything you talk about, you could go back to a quote from one of the Stoics, but again, you know, and I think that was in on the shortness of life, his essay, but he talks about kind of that measuring stick, like, yo, that measuring ourselves against a without a ruler, how can we make the crooked straight? You know, so yeah, you know, Seneca, this kind of traversal guy, but so much good stuff that he's writing about that whatever the man may or may not have been,
00:33:01
Speaker
I enjoy the writing, and I think that's one of those measuring sticks, like what Seneca's writing about. But he specifically writes about that, kind of having that measuring stick that you kind of measure yourself against.
Stoic Literature Recommendations
00:33:13
Speaker
And I think that's a lot of what stoicism
00:33:16
Speaker
is for me, you know, I'm not a stoic stage. I'll never be a stoic stage. I'm always going to be a work in progress, but I can kind of measure myself against that. You know, sometimes, you know, again, I have that, that keep this around that this Marcus Aurelius in this kind of this.
00:33:34
Speaker
like, what would Marcus Aurelius do? And what did y'all get? Marcus was a complex figure himself too. None of these, none of them, they're all men. They're all people. They all had their good sides and their bad sides. And Marcus certainly wasn't an important man himself, but he serves as a measuring stick for me. And I like to keep
00:33:56
Speaker
these reminders close by because I will throughout the course of my days. Things will get stressful. Something will happen and negative devotion will start coming up. It will. It always will. I'm a human being. Things are going to happen. I'm going to get upset or angry about it.
00:34:10
Speaker
I could look to this and ask myself kind of that point, like a measuring stick, but W-W-M-A-D, what would Marcus Aurelius do? And to me, it just anchors back to that one quote of Marcus, which I really, I think is my, I love so many different quotes from the stories, but he always says, objective judgment now at this very moment, unselfish action now at this very moment, willing acceptance now at this very moment, of all I see that's all.
00:34:38
Speaker
And to me, that's an anchor point. If I feel myself kind of going off into a direction that maybe I need to pull myself back, it's am I being objective? Am I accepting what's happening to me right now? And am I being unselfish right now? A lot of times we get emotional, we're losing our objectivity about this situation.
00:34:57
Speaker
There's something we're resisting, not accepting what's going on here. You know, a lot of times we're just, the, the lens has turned in where we're looking at ourselves and we're, we're being a little selfish. So getting more objective, more accepting it on selfish. Anytime, any type of negative emotion starts following up is good, good. Kind of pull me back in the direction I want to go.
00:35:19
Speaker
This is a powerful quote, and I love how it's a summary of stoicism, really. You have the aspect of judgment, this aspect of what is up to you or not, and taking responsibility for what is accepting, willingly accepting what is not, and then acting with a mind to the social good, not being selfish. Just those three things.
00:35:41
Speaker
How would you recommend people look into to learn more about Marcus Aurelius and who he was? How do you approach that? Yeah, you know, I think a couple thoughts I would have on that. So I'll go back to my introduction to stoicism.
00:35:58
Speaker
There was a day I had absolutely no idea what stoic is. I mean, I heard the word stoic and probably like most people, I thought that they kept Spock on Star Trek and you're just stone faced and you're being stoic as being unemotional. So there was a day I had no idea about stoicism and what stoicism was. Then I read the book, The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday, which I think Ryan has been that kind of gateway drug to stoicism for a lot of people.
00:36:24
Speaker
He launched my stoic ship, but it is very focused on Marcus Aurelius and a couple quotes. I mean, I guess I should say that it's not a book about stoicism. It anchors back to a couple quotes from Marcus Aurelius.
00:36:41
Speaker
And, you know, that the one quote of, you know, the impediment action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way this stoic mindset that our obstacles aren't things we should steer away from. We should, that's exactly like, it's more of a beacon telling us which direction we need to go. Like we need to face this obstacle head on. So that was a, it's a great introduction to Marcus for it. If you know nothing about it, because it's kind of, it's uses using a key couple of key quotes from Marcus really is.
00:37:08
Speaker
You know, and, you know, I think it, you know, if you want to learn more about, you know, just Marcus himself, I am book one of meditations. He's telling you about all the key figures in his life, his father, his mother, his teachers, you know, you kind of, it's all such a weird way to start a book. I remember when I first started reading meditations, it's like, it's weird. And it's so that first book is so different from the rest. It's just this, okay, book one is
00:37:37
Speaker
Tell you about all the people in my life. And again, another really cool look into his mind and who he was as he stole it. Because again, very humble for an emperor to be like saying, I'm going to thank all of these people in my life. Like a really cool, humble way to start the book. But weird, you know, sometimes when I recommend people to read meditation, I might be like, maybe start a book too, because, you know, if you're like just looking for the philosophy, book one might kind of throw you off a little bit.
00:38:05
Speaker
Um, but it is a good, you learn the real could get, this is a true figure from Roman histories talking about Antoninus, his adopted father, who was a Roman emperor before he was, he was a, so, you know, book one of meditations is a good way.
00:38:23
Speaker
to learn more about markets too. I think if you're just looking to start into stoicism, I always recommend people, and obviously your audience is going to be very familiar with stoicism, but I usually will tell people looking to just get started with stoicism. You know, A Guide to the Good Life by William Irvine, I think is just the best.
00:38:42
Speaker
intro to learn about the philosophy. I mean, I started with the obstacles the way, which again, isn't really about stoicism, really going to learn about the philosophy of stoicism by reading the obstacles the way you'll learn about an aspect of it. Maybe it's a good appetizer and like, Oh, I like how this tastes that a guy did the good life by William Irvine is kind of like, all right, cool. It's going to tell you what is stoicism for the preeminent stoics. And it's just going to start showing you how do you start adopting stoic practices in life.
00:39:11
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, got it, got it. Do you like Donald Robertson's book on Marcus Aurelius? I think that's one that I like to refer people to in terms of understanding the man, of course, along with the meditations.
00:39:24
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. No, Donald is awesome. Donald. So his couple books I really liked by Donald was, you know, how to think like a Roman emperor. So it is kind of, I think, cognitive behavior, therapy, stoicism, all mashed up through the lens of what Marcus's life was like and how Marcus's life unfolded. He also did the graphic novel Verisimus.
00:39:45
Speaker
which was another great kind of graphic novel about the life of Marcus, like super cool. Like when I first saw that he was going to like, Oh hell yeah. I'm going to buy a graphic novel about the life of Marcus really like take my money. Like no doubt about it. I'm going to, I'm going to do that. So yeah, Donald's awesome. And definitely, you know, how to think like a Roman emperor is a good, I think almost in the vein of like the obstacles, the way on steroids. I mean, really looking at stoicism through the lens of Marcus Aurelius his life.
00:40:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Are there any other resources or things you like to appoint people to in terms of their practice? Maybe it's not even stoicism related, but other other influences? Yeah, no, no, they're definitely, you know, I think as far as I think of like gifted books, you know, I usually if I'm, you know, gifting somebody an intro to stoicism, usually it's going to be either a guide to the good life or
00:40:39
Speaker
the obstacle is the way I have gifted people meditation. Like if I've had a conversation with you about stoicism and I just want to gift you something and you, I know you haven't read meditations yet and we like read the Hayes translation, like read the Hayes translation. There's so many different translations.
00:40:56
Speaker
For me personally, and I know a lot of other people feel the same way. I really love the great Gregory Hayes translation of meditations which is you know the one with the big red bird on the front of it. I've read a bunch of other why would say I've read about three or four other translations that's really become my nerdy hobby. Looking at my bookshelf I have about seven different translations of meditation.
00:41:17
Speaker
I think I've read four of them so far now. The other ones are kind of in the hopper. But, you know, the Hays translation just to me just brings Marcus Aurelius's words to life. It's just so accessible, so beautifully translated. That's another kind of, I know somebody is interested in stoicism but hasn't read meditations yet. I'm like intervening and saying, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, get the Hays translation. Yeah, yeah, it's lyrical. A joy to read.
00:41:47
Speaker
Yeah, it's beautiful. I mean, it literally, I will use the word beautiful. I mean, they're just, I probably read it five times. I don't know. I can just pick it up and flip the pages and Marcus is such. So this role, so it's such the imagery that Marcus writes with just really jumps off the page and the way Hayes translate just things falling to the ground and.
00:42:13
Speaker
small dogs chasing at their bones. Marcus was just so, really was a very interesting writer for a guy who was an emperor and writing in his diary. Beautiful stuff that he's writing about it. You can read an older translation like George Long, and if you're willing to be patient with it, you'll see that beauty in it.
00:42:31
Speaker
You got to get past that older kind of these and those and you know kind of sometimes it's harder to kind of see Marcus's meaning as you're just trying to untangle the words. That's why I love Hayes because you just read it and you're like okay yeah this is like just a really beautiful fascinating
00:42:50
Speaker
thought, even if maybe it doesn't even resonate, because there's a few I'll read it and he'll be like, I don't know what Marcus was getting here. What was going on in his head that he decided to write this down on paper, but it reads beautifully. So interesting to read, you know? Yeah, yeah.
00:43:07
Speaker
One question I get a lot because I started Stoa as a side project is how you think about being a creator, working on your own content, your own projects, while also maintaining a full-time job. And do you have any advice or considerations for people in the same spot? You know, how do you keep on going? How do you think about strategizing this?
00:43:34
Speaker
Yeah, I think for me, Caleb, the most important thing as somebody who has become a content creator. So I kind of fell into through the pandemic. Like I had this time in life that what used to be commute time to work, what used to be staying late at work, I got more time in my life.
00:43:51
Speaker
And I kind of fell into writing and to content creation somehow through some weird rabbit hole I fell into Twitter. So for me as somebody who's done content creation, I've been wrestled between what's something I could monetize and what's something that I just love.
00:44:09
Speaker
creating content about and what I, that's why I, my content has veered between tech stuff and like taking, you know, my experience and being attacked for 23 years and helping people to develop as tech leaders. And that's where I kind of started off.
00:44:24
Speaker
But stoicism just kind of calls me this passion for stoicism and my love for stoicism. And I don't know that I would ever run out of things just to say about stoicism. So I think what kind of what I'm getting at is that as a content creator, you got to follow your passion, you got to follow your heart, you got to follow the things that just it's always going to be easy for me to write or create content about stoicism.
00:44:50
Speaker
I just go through my day and probably three different things could come up about like, wow, this is something I could tweet about about stoicism or this is an article I could write for EDM or this is something I could put on my blog post. It just happens organically and naturally because stoicism is just such a part of my life and I love it so much. So for me, I think once you do something you love,
00:45:13
Speaker
It's easy, you know, it's easy when I get that hour in the morning, it's, it's easy to write some about stoicism. It's not like me sitting there like, Oh, what am I going to say about leadership skills for people on technology right now that well, it's going to run dry after a certain period of time, you know, and I probably not the person who is going to be able to just develop enough discipline to continue to write about something that.
00:45:37
Speaker
I don't feel like writing about, so I think, you know, kind of following your passion a little bit. So what gets those system as a is something I love and I'm passionate about.
00:45:48
Speaker
And so it becomes easy to create content. Maybe those little blocks of time that I can grab, I can produce more because it flows. Yeah. Yeah. I've noticed one thing that I think you're very good at is you're consistent in terms of always putting out good positive stuff and you're on theme. A lot of people, I think they don't have the either the passion or a discipline to stay on a given topic. Whereas I thought for you, you know.
00:46:21
Speaker
Am I the, am I the tech guy or am I the stoic guy? Or am I in the middle? Am I like stoicism for technology people? So I have, I think over the last six months or so got a little more discipline. So look, I love stoicism. I enjoy doing it. Even if I never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never.
00:46:40
Speaker
I've never turned in any, look, I've been in tech for 20 years. I'm very blessed. I'm a very blessed person. So really for me, it's a hobby. It's something, if I, you know, never made a dollar online from anything, I could still just keep writing about stoicism. Just that thing. I think what's really cool about creating content too, is like you can become a lighthouse for like-minded people. Like I meet someone like you.
00:47:03
Speaker
I've been on other podcasts and there's other people I've met, you know, I have a community on Twitter or people I've got, I'm getting to know. I went to the stoic summit in Tampa this past spring. There's people like, Oh, like, Hey, I know you from Twitter and stuff like that. So it's, it's, you know, kind of becoming a part of the community, which to me just.
00:47:22
Speaker
just even creating content about stoicism is me practicing stoicism. You know, it's kind of teaching it to other people and it's reinforcing it in my own mind and making me think about it in a way that I could write a 750 word article about stoicism and think it through, right? I mean, it's, it's not just spitting out Marcus Aurelius quotes. It's thinking about what Marcus really has taught and how can I
00:47:50
Speaker
teach that or communicate that back out to the world in a unique way.
Creative Stoic Projects
00:47:57
Speaker
Well, the last thing we should touch on is you've been making these 3D printed busts and I got one right behind me. Yes. Pretty cool. So it seems like an excellent project. And I think if people want to learn more about that, they should just see you on Twitter. Yeah. Twitter's kind of the hub right now. I'm thinking through how can I
00:48:20
Speaker
I definitely need to do a better job of having a website to get my content to one central area. The 3D bus, it just, again, it's kind of, I'm in tech. I nerd out on tech stuff. I'm blessed to have a son who loves that stuff too. So we fly drones and we do VR and we do all of our stuff. And then he, when I recently went on a business trip when I came home, he bought a 3D printer.
00:48:43
Speaker
And like, of course, I'm like, first thing I'm doing is like, Oh yeah, I'm like going to print stoic bus. I'm looking at myself over here. I got like all these Roman emperors, I 3d printed. So me and my son, I was like, yeah, we should like try make a little Etsy shop or do a little side business. We can do together of like kind of printing, kind of combining this kind of fun thing we're doing with the printing with kind of me kind of trying to create content, do some stuff with stoicism. And, uh, you know, we'll kind of get into a little side business with him with, you know,
00:49:13
Speaker
It's just, obviously we're going to get rich pretty 3d bar, but it's something that we can do together in this kind of new love. We have a 3d printing and kind of work with him on thinking through like, okay, how do we create an Etsy shop on scale? Do we need to buy a second 3d printer if we really wanted to turn this into something? So it's just kind of another little fun hobby to do with my son and combining my love of ancient stuff with modern technology.
00:49:39
Speaker
Awesome. Yeah, I love it. Is there anything else you want to touch on before you sign off? No, not really. We covered a lot of good stoic ground here, but just thanks again for asking me to join you in this conversation. You know, there's, I don't meet a lot of stoics in real life. So I just love any opportunity to, you know, to get and sit with someone for an hour and talk about stoicism. I'm like, hell yeah. Like let's do it. So thanks for inviting me.
00:50:09
Speaker
Of course, thanks for coming on.
00:50:11
Speaker
Thanks for listening to StoA Conversations. Please give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and share it with a friend. And if you'd like to get two meditations from me on Stoic theory and practice a week, just two short emails on whatever I've been thinking about, as well as some of the best resources we found for practicing stoicism, check out stoaletcher.com. It's completely free. You can sign up for it and then unsubscribe at any time as you wish.
00:50:41
Speaker
If you want to dive deeper still, search Stoa in the App Store or Play Store for a complete app with routines, meditations, and lessons designed to help people become more stoic. And I'd also like to thank Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music. You can find more of his work at ancientlyre.com.
00:51:04
Speaker
And finally, please get in touch with us. Send a message to stoa at stoameditation.com if you ever have any feedback, questions, or recommendations. Until next time.