In their works, the Stoic philosophers repeat over and over again the same timeless message: It doesn’t matter what other people do. It doesn’t matter what other people say. It doesn’t matter what you think. It only matters what you do. That’s what this philosophy of Stoicism is about at the end of the day. Putting aside the endless debates on internet messageboards, turning off the voice in your head and getting to work—on yourself, on your duties, on the world.
We wanted to reach out to interview author Kyle Eschenroeder because in addition to being a student of Stoicism, he’s also the recent author of The Pocket Guide to Action. What follows is our chat with him about what right action means and how it differs from what most of us do, how he first discovered the Stoics, his favorite books with direct connections to Stoicism, and much more. If you are not yet familiar with his work, Kyle is a talented writer who offers practical ideas on his blog and newsletter. Enjoy our interview with him below!
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You’ve said that Nassim Taleb is one of your favorite living thinkers. Nassim is a modern-day Stoic and has devoted entire chapters in his books to the Stoics, especially Seneca. What are the most important lessons and principles you’ve learned from Nassim? What do you return to the most in your day-to-day thinking and decision making?
This is a perfect first question, as I think he has the best two-sentence summary of Stoicism around:
“… Stoicism is about the domestication, not necessarily the elimination, of emotions. It is not about turning humans into vegetables. My idea of the modern Stoic sage is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into information, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking.”
This definition corrects what I see to be some of the more common mistakes people make when they begin to study Stoicism. It’s not about being emotionless, it’s about using emotions. It’s not about eliminating all desires, it’s about transmuting them into action.
It’s hard to overstate how much Taleb has changed my view of the world, so I’m sure he’s changed my defaults in ways I don’t realize. The following are some of his ideas I use daily or weekly (I’ve used his quotes to help expand on some of them):
- More reasons to do something is actually an argument against doing it.
“[I]f you have more than one reason to do something (choose a doctor or veterinarian, hire a gardener or an employee, marry a person, go on a trip), just don’t do it. It does not mean that one reason is better than two, just that by invoking more than one reason you are trying to convince yourself to do something. Obvious decisions (robust to error) require no more than a single reason.”
- Observe what people do and weigh that much heavier than what they say.
- Emphasize the potential impact of something rather than its probability when making decisions.
- Remember what you’re trying to do.
“Suckers try to win arguments, nonsuckers try to win.”
How did you first discover the Stoics? Who is your favorite one and why? And do you happen to have a favorite Stoic quote?
It’s hard to remember, I think I’d come across them in random books, but my first memory of wanting to learn more was after reading Ryan Holiday’s 2009 article on on Tim Ferriss’ blog, Stoicism 101: A Practical Guide for Entrepreneurs.
I don’t know if I have a favorite Stoic, I find different Stoics to be useful for different things. I tend to pick up Epictetus when I need a pick-me-up, Seneca when I need to get centered, and Aurelius when I need to toughen up.
I do feel most “connected” to Seneca. Maybe because he was a writer? Maybe because he was the first Stoic whom I really dug into? Maybe I just like his style (or translator’s style). I don’t know.
There’s no favorite quote for me (I’ve always been bad at favorites, by the way, I remember being paralyzed in grade school when filling out those sheets with favorite colors, animals, etc), but the one that comes to me the most regularly and sums up a huge part of Stoicism for me comes from Marcus Aurelius:
“The cucumber is bitter? Then throw it out. There are brambles in the path? Then go around. That’s all you need to know.”
That’s all you need to know. I use it when I’m trying to do something, but that something is drowning in ten different narratives I’m telling myself about it. When I’ve got to get something done but I’m worried about how it’ll be received, if I’ll have enough energy to finish it, if I’ll change my mind about it later, blah blah blah — just do the thing in front of you. Don’t think about it, forget the thoughts, engage fully.
I think you can consider almost everything else the Stoics wrote as a kind of footnote to this.
(Bonus: one of my favorite Stoic ideas is euthymia. Ryan Holiday’s post on it is great. I also pulled some longish quotes about it from Seneca’s On the Tranquility of Mind in this post.)
What lessons from the Stoics did you apply during the release of your book, The Pocket Guide to Action: 116 Meditations on the Art of Doing? These moments tend to be very nerve-wracking for authors and we are curious to hear how you handled the release?
The overarching Stoic principle here was focusing on what was in my control. The Stoics have this idea called ‘the dichotomy of control’. Basically, we can control some things and can’t control others–and we should focus on what we can control.
William Irvine, a Stoic scholar, updated this idea in A Guide to the Good Life to add a third segment, making it ‘the trichotomy of control’. The idea here is that there are things we can control, there are things we can’t control, and there are things we can kind of control. Still, we should focus on the things we can control, or at least have a chance of influencing.
I could control how much I put into the book and marketing. This would influence how many people were exposed to the book, and how well it was received.
There’s also a couple other factors that made the launch less nerve-wracking than it might be otherwise:
- Plenty of people had read the thing beforehand and the response was great, so we knew it wouldn’t be hated. (Ryan Holiday had also tweeted a quote from it, which is about as much proof as I needed that it didn’t totally suck.)
- Art of Manliness, who has maybe my favorite audience to write for, was publishing the book. They have a massive, highly engaged audience, which guaranteed that the book didn’t totally flop.
- I wasn’t aiming for the top of any best sellers list. Instead, my fantasy was to have a slow build, like what I imagine the build for The War of Art was. You know, something