Gain More Control Using Stoicism - Episode: 017
Join us as we explore the core concepts of Stoicism and debunk the misconception that being stoic means lacking emotions. Instead, we'll delve into how Stoics connect with their feelings to respond in a measured way and examine Seneca's quote, "he who has control over himself has control over the world."
Learn how to accept and manage external factors by applying Stoic principles to regain control of your emotions and actions. Stop feeling overwhelmed and find the balance between what is within your control and what is not. This episode will guide you on how to live your best life by understanding the power of focusing on things you can control and how your energy impacts the entire situation you are in. Get ready to transform your mindset and gain control over your emotions, your actions, and ultimately your life.
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This is The Durable Dad podcast. I'm your host, tommy Geary. This show is going to give you the skills and tools you need to be a rock solid man for your work, your community and, most importantly, your family. All right, what's up everybody. Episode number 17.
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Today is the 4th of July, so happy Independence Day to everybody here in the United States of America. If you're not in the United States and you're listening to this, happy July 4th 2023 on whatever you're doing on this Tuesday. What we are going to dive into today is one of the core concepts of stoicism. I'm going to talk a little bit about what stoicism is, and the main concept we're going to talk about is the ability to discern what is in our control and what is out of our control, the ability to really separate those two things out. So, stoicism first off.
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The definition of a stoic is a person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or complaining. Break this down a little bit. I think there's a misconception that without showing their feelings means that if you're stoic or you practice stoicism, you have no emotions. And these guys they really understood their emotions and they actually connected to them intentionally. They were very in tune with their thoughts and their emotions, and the misconception that they're just the straight-faced hardasses isn't really true. They connected with their emotions so they could respond in a measured way. L Complaining right. The definition again a person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings are complaining Is a lot of that discernment between what's in our control and what's out of our control, because complaining is really just blaming blaming other people, blaming the Traffic, blaming the weather for how we feel or the results that we have in our life.
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And you could blame your wife for your feeling of frustration, and the stoics would say that There's a discernment there. Like, your wife isn't gonna cause you frustration. She can behave the way she wants and your emotion is under your control. You get to decide if you want to be frustrated about it or you want to show up a different way. Maybe you want to be frustrated, but you're choosing to be frustrated, right? so these lessons that are in stoic philosophy are a guidance on how to live, and we're never really specifically taught how to live. In school were taught how to read, how to do math, how to run a business, how business works, maybe were taught a specific profession, but we're not taught how to actually live and converse with people and how to have discipline and how to handle our emotions. So today we're gonna just look at one of these stoic concepts about control and what we can control, what we can control And Ryan holiday is a current author that has kind of revitalized and brought back a lot of the ancient stoic philosophies.
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So Ryan holiday has this quote every ounce of energy that is directed at things we can't influence is wasted. So we're focused on something that we can't control. We're just wasting energy. So we cannot control what other people think of us. We can't control what our parents think of us, what coworkers or our employees think of us, and we can't control politics. We can't control world affairs news. If you're constantly checking the stock market and the news and it's taking you away from the work that needs to be done. If you're worrying too much or feeling anxious because you're watching the news too much, then that's wasted energy. I, how other people behave, what other people do, is never in our control. We do not control how people act, what they say, the tone of their voice we don't control that.
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I have a guy that I'm working with and He was pulled into this committee because they wanted his input and there were weekly meetings and the guy running the meetings just was kind of doing a shitty job with it and when these meetings would come up, my client wouldn't look forward to him. He would get annoyed. It would just start to kind of Drain his energy because he was focused on how much the meeting wasn't going to be productive and he has no control over how that guy running the meeting shows up. So We started to look at what's in his control. How do you want to act in the meeting? what's the tone of voice you want to have? what's the body language you want to have? How do you want to feel in the meeting? do you want to choose to feel annoyed and checked out, or do you want to control your emotions and decide to have a little more focus and a little more cooperation? what my client realized is that his energy Is gonna impact the entire meeting. They look to him as a leader. They brought him in because they wanted his input and he has the capability to influence the whole meeting By focusing on what's in his control. So when he started showing up with a tone of voice that was engaging, with body language, that was leaned in instead of checked out. Everyone else around him started to be more productive.
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Seneca has this quote. He's one of the main stoic teachers. His quote is he who has control over himself has control over the world. We're not talking about world domination here, but what we are talking about is the influence we can have when we do control our emotions and when we stop complaining and blaming. So this is exactly what happened with my client. He shifted his attention from the guy in the meeting, from the other people in the meeting, and he looked at how he wanted to behave and how he wanted to act And when he did that, it impacted the world around him.
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Okay, so what is in our control?
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What's in our control is our discipline.
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If we say we're going to do something, we can control whether we do that or not, we get to impact.
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That Self perception is in our control.
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What are we telling ourselves about ourselves?
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Like our I am statements, and a lot of the time we can tell ourselves that I'm easily distracted or I'm not a good planner.
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I've always been quick to lash out. Those perceptions of ourselves are in our control. And when we think they're not in our control and we just label ourselves as a person that's distracted easily, then we lose control over our emotions and our discipline and our productivity. And another thing that's in our control is comparison Other people's homes, other people's money, other people's lifestyle. We can really get focused on what other people have And we cannot control that. We can't control other people's lifestyle And when we focus on it it usually creates frustration inside of us and we don't focus on the things that we do have, which is in our control. We can focus on the gratitude and the abundance that we do have in our life.
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Something else is our productivity. Are we being productive or are we procrastinating? Totally in our control? Our emotions are in our control. I've mentioned this a few times already throughout this episode, but a lot of the times we can think that someone or something is pissing us off and that is never the case. It's our anger, it's our frustration And we want to own it.
Stoicism and Taking Control
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What else is in our control? We get to choose what we eat, what we drink, the fuel that we're putting in our body. That's on us, that's up to us. We get to choose where we direct our energy and our attention. Do we want to give our attention to addictions, porn, gambling, scrolling on Netflix, or do we want to direct our attention and our energy to our families and the changes that we want to make in life, the growth that we want to find? That's something we get to decide.
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So our job is to divide things into two categories What you can influence and impact and control, and what you cannot, what's outside of your influence, and we want to get really good at what is in our control. Now, when you do this, you're going to have less stress, less anxiety. You're going to take control back, because a lot of the times it can feel like we're out of control. We take control back when we focus on what is in our control. We can't control the world, but these are some of the things that we can control Our comparison, our discipline, our self-perception, our self-talk, productivity. We can really work on our emotions. We get to decide what we want to eat and drink and where we want to put our energy.
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So back to the thinking cycle, because stoicism is right. In line with the thinking cycle, we control our thoughts. We can control our emotions and our actions, and when we separate that from the outside world, what I've found is that we don't take things too seriously. When shit happens outside of our control, we can kind of just allow it, embrace it and smile at it. We even enjoy those things that used to piss us off a little bit So stoicism. I'll probably talk about more concepts on the podcast. Start discerning what's in your control and what's out of your control and take control back of your life. Happy 4th of July, have an awesome week and I'll catch you next week.
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