BONUS | 6 Stoic Rules of Arete (Excellence)

Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. These are six Stoic strategies for a life of error. That is to say excellence. Number one, you have to seek out discomfort. You're not gonna grow, you're not gonna learn, doing things the way that you're comfortable with, keeping them the way that they are.

In meditations, Marx Rulis talks about practicing holding the reins in his non-dominant hand. He wanted to make himself uncomfortable, get out of his element on purpose. because that's how you get better. Number two, focus on process, not on outcomes. This sounds contradictory.

Don't you want to win? Don't you want to make great stuff? Yes, of course you do, but you don't get there by focusing on that. It's insane, the Stoics would say, to tie your well-being, your sense of success to things that are outside of your control. Instead, what a Stoic does is put your ass in the chair, do the work, you assemble a life, you assemble a project.

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