Voices in the Dark

How to deal with and handle fear; how to find balance between accepting death and embracing life; and how to make fear your mentor.

This week we take a look at Letter 24 – 'On Despising Death'. But it's not another go-round of telling yourself that death is OK and we should accept it. No – this time our focus is on how to live well now, and recognise how our fears (conscious or otherwise) can destroy our lives well before the Grim Reaper comes a knocking.

Seneca invites us to get practical: What if we imagine the worst – imagine it fully, in detail. Turn and confront it, not just look at the huge shadow it casts on the wall of our minds. When we do that, 90% of the time, it turns out to be far less terrifying.

Then we go a step further and ask how can we turn fear into a source of inspiration. Do we just need new words to understand the difference between rational and irrational fears? Or can we sit in the space of fear and learn from it?

Fear is a tool and, like all tools, it shouldn't be used for every occasion. Don't try to screwdriver your lunch or your girlfriend – use screwdrivers for screws! So this week we discuss when and how to use fear to our best advantage.

Along the way, we debate whether suicide should be illegal; whether we abandon our belief in personal sovereignty when it's someone we love who's thinking of offing themselves; and if giving our problems names only serves to give us an easy way out of taking responsibility for our lives.

We pick a bone with Seneca over this one – the 'good life' and the joys of living it seem conspicuously absent in this letter, and rolling with the punches isn't the same as thinking it's good to be punched in the face

Dre also initiates a monkey-bar challenge from hell, and decides to take his brain out, massively increase its size, and place it at the centre of a planet. Of course.

We'd love to know your thoughts, so if you are keen drop us a line here in our facebook chat, you will also get a free e-copy of our book on 'The 48 laws of Power' if you accept the prompt.

Also Including:

• Why don't we belong to the state?
• The social and personal morality of suicide
• How to make fear your mentor
• Identities vs conditions

Find Out More:

• Hit us up on our brand new Instagram!
• The full text for free on WikiSource
• Jon's interview for HighExistence with Geoff Thompson – How to Make Fear Your Mentor
• Ryan Holiday's superb and accessible book on Stoicism: The Obstacle is the Way

Be Silly. Be Kind. Be Weird.

Jim Sheils is disarmingly friendly for a terrorist.

Well, that's what he's been branded in his community – they say he's an 'education terrorist' for taking his kids out of school and teaching them through 'experiential education'. That means learning by doing and reflecting, not by memorising and regurgitating.

Wait up, though – this isn't an episode blindly extolling the virtues of home schooling; this is a thoughtful but passionate debate about the education system... and why and how it must be reformed.

Jon, Dre and Jim each bring their own different perspectives and experiences to the table, but they all agree on some fundamental points:

School does suck for most kids; schools are designed like prisons; testing does result in cramming data only to forget it 24 hours later; and if parents don't take an active interest in their kids' education, they are effectively sub-contracting that responsibility out to the government.

So the question is why, and what are we going to do about it?

For Jim, the answers all come back to whether the things and the way we learn will actually help us in life. Does our education system really give us the space to know ourselves? Does it truly prepare us for life's toughest moments when they inevitably turn up? Are we learning because we're excited, or because we fear punishment?

We dig into all these questions and more. But what do you think? Hit us up on Facebook or Instagram to join the debate!

We Also Get Into:

• Is testing always bad?
• Should everyone really be aspiring to go to university?
• Using Martial Arts for bringing a family together
• The best way to learn anything
• Life lessons from Richard Branson's mother
• How memory techniques work in the brain

Find Out More About Jim:

Jim is known as the 'Crazy Glue' for entrepreneur families. His popular 'Board Meeting' strategy and other simple frameworks are helping thousands of business leaders worldwide reconnect where it counts the most: at home. Using these tools, they can cultivate and nurture relationships with their families, rather than (as so often happens) sacrificing them on the altar of entrepreneurial achievement. He's the author of the #1 parenting book, The Family Board Meeting, and these days is promoting the importance of alternative education models sharing his own family's journey in the process.

You can find more of Jim:

• By email: [email protected]
• His website

Links:

• Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk on whether schools kill creativity
• Our feature interview with Philip McKernan on finding your gift
• Edgar Dale's Cone of Learning

Be Silly. Be Kind. Be Weird.

When's the right time to make change? Whether it's leaving a job or changing your life, this letter is all about facing some hard truths. When and how can we change for the better? Why do we cling on and refuse to develop? And what are the myriad ways we're unconsciously enslaving ourselves to lives that we hate?

Want to make a change, but it's not quite the right time? Well, it's time to wake up – it's never going to be the Right Time, but you can prepare yourself to embrace the inescapable uncertainty to your best advantage.

'At least I've got health insurance' is just one of many excuses that can lock us in a soulless stasis, willingly enslaved to the whims of others and material possessions.

Seneca grabs us by the scruff of the neck in this letter and demands that we look at our current position and recognise where we're stuck. We outline some powerful tools and tactics to identify when to make change, especially the change you've been hiding from the most.

How can we spot an opportunity? Part of the problem is thinking that we're looking for the opportunity – as though there can ever be a perfectly controllable, predictable outcome. Instead, we need to be able to flow with the needs of the times and steer as best we can.

That requires preparation, but not procrastination. We must always act within the confines and needs of the moment, but not end up caught with our philosophical trousers down. So it's time to master the art of what Dre charmingly calls 'Littlefingering'!

With change there will be loss. There's no getting away from that; we must find a way to accept it. The ancient motif of the snake shedding its skin helps us understand this: it doesn't need that old skin, so leaves it behind, but something is still lost. We humans seem determined to take the dead skin with us, however. But we don't need to.

All the same, society itself has been developing to prevent us from changing our lives – locking us into a paycheck-to-paycheck existence – ossifying not only the system itself, but, more importantly, our own lives and sense of possibility. We dig into these issues and suggest how to overcome them.

Plus Jon discusses his unexpected new sideline as a pornstar and Dre shares some personal stories of taking the wrong opportunity and not pulling the escape cord quickly enough. Hit us up with your own stories and situations and we'll analyse some of them on the show!

Also Including:

• Mastering the art of Littlefingering
• Staying the course without losing your mind
• Narcissists and how to avoid them
• Our broken education systems
• Becoming a phoenix (rather than a true monster: the bureaucrat)

Find Out More:

• Hit us up on our brand new Instagram!
• The disturbing and illuminating article on Narcissism we mentioned
• The full text for free on WikiSource
• Ryan Holiday's superb and accessible book on Stoicism:The Obstacle is the Way

Be Silly. Be Kind. Be Weird.

A special episode where we break down what happened in Channel 4's recent controversial interview with Dr Jordan Peterson, a clinical psychologist whose statements about free speech, gender roles, and the 'crisis of masculinity' have made him an unwilling hero of the alt-right and a hate figure for the left.

We've got a bone to pick with both parties in this debate – Peterson himself and Channel 4's interviewer, Cathy Newman, including:

• Why Peterson's approach is flawed and isn't going to convince the people he's trying to win over
• Free speech and language policing
• Was Newman playing a role, or simply too dim to understand Peterson's arguments?
• Why offending people is crucial to all social progress
• How to have effective, healthy debate, but without expecting too much from it

Find Out More:

• The original Channel 4 interview
• Jordan Peterson's response after the interview
• Jordan Peterson's book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

Be Silly. Be Kind. Be Weird.

From ancient Stoic letters to modern-day S&M clubs, this one's a corker. We explore why actions speak louder than words; the benefits of taking action for mental health; why philosophy is about LIFE, not about libraries; and finding true peace within as you seek to better yourself.

It's one of Robert Greene's 48 Laws of Power to 'Win Through Your Actions, Never Through Argument', and for good reason. Consciously or otherwise, we value what people actually do, not what they merely say.

Seneca exhorts us to live a life of congruence – to practise what we preach and to be wary of all those who do otherwise. This is about finding harmony – or consistency – in all you do. The person who lives out of kilter with their code can easily be spotted and is rarely trusted.

'Authenticity' is the name of the game these days, but it's already being co-opted by hordes of internet marketers, and we explain the psychological manipulations that are being used on us every time we log on.

More than any letter we've discussed so far, this one highlights that Stoicism is a philosophy of action. Don't get stuck in the mind or in the library, thinking about thoughts and never actually doing anything, never bringing that knowledge to life.

Seneca himself admits this is a tough one to practise consistently. But if we can find a compass, even if we wander off-piste, we can still try to head in the right direction.

What it really comes down to is this: Are you lying to yourself? We've got a bunch of strategies you can use to dig into your own psyche and find out precisely that.

This week we also dismantle the foolishness of binary thinking – the belief that you can only be either a gym rat or an intellectual, a warrior or a philosopher.

And we try to understand where intolerance comes from – why people believe that their own experience must be the same for everyone even slightly similar. Then we go and find some beautiful examples of tolerance and acceptance in some S&M dungeons (Seneca would be proud).

Dre also presents an impossible philosophical challenge to Jon; we contemplate who in our lives truly has our back; and there's time to invite some rent boys covered in cocaine into the studio.

Also Including:

• Why investing in yourself is an investment in everyone around you
• Genocide on a bicycle
• Dre's coccyx
• The dissonance of not committing
• Disney Jesus and why we need him

Find Out More:

• Hit us up on our brand new Instagram!
• 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' in a major key (brace yourself)
• The full text for free on WikiSource
• Ryan Holiday's superb and accessible book on Stoicism: The Obstacle is the Way
• The brilliant Daily Stoic Journal which we've both started working with
• Joseph Campbell's incredible The Hero With A Thousand Faces

Be Silly. Be Kind. Be Weird.

Jayson Gaignard is one of the best-connected people on the planet. His MasterMind Talks weekend for thought leaders and entrepreneurs is invite-only, rarely allows repeat speakers, and has a lower acceptance rate than Harvard.

But how did this self-described introvert who had only two guests at his bachelor party (his brother and brother-in-law) end up becoming one of Forbes magazine's 'Top Networkers To Watch', and personal friends with the likes of Tim Ferriss, Robert Greene, Ryan Holiday, and James Altucher?

It started in darkness.

In 2012, Jayson hit rock-bottom: a quarter of a million in debt, he came a hair's breadth from committing suicide. As he pulled over to the kerbside, he took a deep breath and knew something had to change.

In this deeply personal and honest conversation, Jayson tells us how he found his way out of the darkness and the underlying principles he discovered for picking yourself back up and finding what's missing in life.

First, we have to get back to the fundamentals. If everything we own is taken away, we're left with just two things: Our word and our relationships.

In this episode, we explore what this means and how we can build strong, lasting connections founded on integrity.

Entrepreneurship – whether you're a businessman or an artist – is meant to be all about freedom: owning your life and owning the day. But with freedom comes isolation and isolation can eat you up. Entrepreneurs suffer disproportionately from depression and anxiety, but hardly anyone is willing to talk about it... Because who else is there to talk to who understands your situation?

Whether you're at the top or the bottom, when you're forging your own path, there's few fellow travellers to keep you company and share the emotional burden.

After his brush with suicide, Jayson set out to end this world of isolation for himself and others.

We've never been prouder or more excited to share an interview with you.

We talk about the importance of finding some sense of control in your life, however small, by first realising what you can and can't control and then consciously focusing on the former; finding people in your life who are batteries, not black holes; recharging your emotional bank account by taking time purely for yourself (and dealing with the guilt this can cause); and we explore how to be vulnerable without playing the victim.

As Jayson puts it,

'We create a life of complexity when we're striving for a life of simplicity'.

In this conversation, we try to bring us all a step closer to the deep truth of that simplicity.

We Also Get Into:

• Are entrepreneurs mentally ill by definition?
• Why asking for help can be an act of generosity
• How 'vulnerability' is being hijacked and weaponised by social media
• Social isolation in today's hyper-connected world
• Stoicism in the boardroom
• How to spot 'cheap' people who lack integrity

Find Out More About Jayson:

• On Facebook and Twitter
• The CommunityMade Podcast
• MasterMind Talks

Jayson's Book Recommendations:

• Robert Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
• Tony Hsieh, Delivering Happiness: A Path To Profits, Passion, and Purpose
• Keith Ferazzi, Who's Got Your Back? The Breakthrough Program to Build Deep, Trusting Relationships That Create Success – and Won't Let You Fail

Be Silly. Be Kind. Be Weird.

Tim Ferriss's favourite letter, this week's episode has direct, practical applications. It's time to intentionally do tough things to become sturdier mentally and physically. We explore how to temper the mind as well as the body; to understand our anger; why the how is often more important than what you do; and whether going with less really means we appreciate the more when we have it.

Do you live in fear? Fear that you can't make change in your life in case you can't pay the rent? Fear of losing all you've gained if you take a risk for a better life...?

Stoicism has a solution – a practice which can eliminate those fears and liberate us to live the life that's waiting for us.

Seneca challenges us to live a few days each month as simply and frugally as possible, to remind ourselves that we can; to temper our nerve so that we don't live in fear of losing what we have.

This is about training the mind as well as the body, to enter the mental gym and to simultaneously toughen our resolve and expand our horizons. This is about a discipline which creates even greater freedom.

We also ask how far we weaken ourselves by having fun. How important are festivities and indulgences to you? Is it a ritual practice that has real meaning to you and the people around you, or are you indulging in endless distractions which ultimately pull you away from a meaningful life?

How you do something is often more important than what you do. Getting drunk for no reason is very different from getting merrily inebriated with friends; doing something just to be part of the crowd isn't the same as joining the festivities consciously, for your own purposes.

That's not the same as why. Dre dismantles Simon Sinek's influential idea that we have to start with why – outside of marketing, this simply isn't the way to set about our lives.

Jon also reflects on what he learnt during a recent 3-day fast, why he broke his hand on his 21st birthday, and Dre disagrees with Seneca's call to eliminate anger from our lives.

Also Including:

• Is our Western world on the brink of collapse?
• How governments control us by enforcing rules that the rich and powerful don't observe
• Why going teetotal doesn't truly help alcoholics
• The unexpected benefits and psychology of fasting
• Can we be successful and happy, or only choose one?

Find Out More:

• Hit us up on our brand new Instagram!
• The full text for free on WikiSource
• Check out our brand new Instagram!
• Our awesome video interview with Philip McKernan
• Our in-depth interview with ex-soldier and fitness entrepreneur Jamie Alderton
• Simon Sinek's book, Start With Why
• Ryan Holiday's superb and accessible book on Stoicism: The Obstacle is the Way

Be Silly. Be Kind. Be Weird.

A special minisode about the podcast phenomenon S-Town and how it (often accidentally) reveals deep truths about modern life, mental health, and what it means to be a genius.

To read the original article by Jamie Freeman, click here

Find Out More:

• S-Town

Be Silly. Be Kind. Be Weird.

A letter that hammers home the need to put your WHY first – to find your mindset and your outlook before you do anything else; on avoiding becoming the slave to money in all that you do; the swamp of accumulating possessions; how to do what you truly want now, not later; and how to make sense of Stoicism not as a prescription, but as guidelines for what to emphasise in life.

Do you dream of getting rich? Would all your problems magically disappear? Well, they wouldn't. Not unless you consciously know why you want to get rich.

Your mindset determines how you see and interpret your world and your engagement with it; this is true in wealth as much as in poverty, and in this episode we explore how to cultivate a mind that can endure and thrive in all conditions.

First off, are you pursuing your Why? If not, there's huge danger involved in devoting too much time to building someone else's dream. Where's the time for you to grow and develop for your own sake?

Already found your Why – what Joseph Campbell calls 'your Bliss'? Great. But we've got some bad news for you: it's still going to hurt.

We go well beyond the usual feel-good soundbites about following your passion to outline just how difficult and emotionally draining this can be. It might be worth it, but we too easily gloss over the pain involved, so the shock of it when we feel it can send us scurrying back into our life-sapping 9-to-5s before we even get started.

The Stoics advise us not to care about material wealth. But this can come in different forms: Steve Jobs is a prime example of someone who didn't care about money because he thought himself invincible anyway. As Dre explains, that helped him to succeed... but also got him killed.

Seneca advises us to live only with the bare necessities (prompting us to relive our Jungle Book days), but the aim isn't to starve ourselves without cause. Learn what you're capable of and test your limits, but don't pretend that's going to be pleasant or worth pursuing for its own sake. The point is how it can help us live a good and fulfilling life.

Dre also gets personal and shares his story of a recent business deal gone horribly wrong ... and how he nearly became trapped waiting for that fabled but fatal 'perfect moment' to escape. Oh, and he promptly unleashes Quantum Stoicism on us, before Jon puts him safely back in his (Schrödinger's) box.

Also Including:

• Why Seneca thinks you shouldn't be middle class
• How to escape your dead-end job
• Burning your house down to find out who you are
• The real source of generosity: networks
• Why stealing entertainment is perfectly justified
• Reaching godhood – is that the next level for humanity?
• 'Fuck you – pay me!'

Find Out More:

• Like us on Facebook to ask for the Audible download code for Seneca's letters
• The full text for free on WikiSource
• Check out our brand new Instagram!
• Ryan Holiday's superb and accessible book on Stoicism: The Obstacle is the Way
• The brilliant Daily Stoic Journal which we've both started working with
• The Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson
• How to game TripAdvisor to become the #1 restaurant in London for a place that doesn't exist

Be Silly. Be Kind. Be Weird.

It's 2018 and we've got a couple of powerful tools for you to make the best start in the new year, personally, socially, and professionally.

And we do it all through the lens of our incredibly fancy new film-grade camera, so check out the video to see us in our high-def glory!

We've both started using The Daily Stoic Journal which, unlike most blindly optimistic journals, actually helps you to order your thoughts, tune into what's important in your life, and see the huge difference that only a day or just a few hours can make to your mood and perceptions.

Dre shares some of his personal journal entries and we break down the psychology and philosophy of keeping a regular chronicle of your life.

No doubt you've been bombarded with articles about how to make and keep New Year's Resolutions, but we break down this flawed, often self-destructive concept, and propose something different – something which actually creates lasting, psychologically healthy change.

We call it 'New Year's Dissolutions' and it's all about starting from where you are (where else could you start from?) and drilling down to find out why you want to change. Once we have the why, we can begin to dissolve the negative habits and thoughts surrounding change and begin to cultivate new habits and behaviours. If we don't, like a trauma victim refusing to deal with the source of their pain, everything we do next is built on foundations of quicksand.

Here's to 2018, everyone. Thank you for being part of this journey with us.

Find Out More:

• Jon's article on New Year's Dissolutions
• Ryan Holiday's superb The Daily Stoic Journal
• Come see us on Youtube

Be Silly. Be Kind. Be Weird.