In this episode, we discuss how it’s of no use trying to convince people to be a good person. It’s better to act like a good person to show people what excellence looks like.
Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons that you can reflect on in your journal so you can grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and have a better career, better relationships, and better personal finances while you enjoy your morning cup of coffee.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
In today’s episode, we are going to talk about how we shouldn’t argue how to be a good person, be one. Now, this quote comes from my philosophy, stoicism and this was said by Marcus Aurelius. I’ve been following the stoic philosophy for about 5 years now and I feel like I’m a much better person today than I ever was because I’m becoming the person that philosophy wishes to make me in to.
The stoic philosophy has nine principles for being a good person and they are:
- Live in agreement with nature. The stoic goal of life.
- Live by virtue. It is the highest of all goods.
- Focus on what you can control, accept what you can’t
- Take Action – A true philosopher is a warrior of the mind
- Practice misfortune – Ask “What could go wrong?”
- Add a reverse clause to your planned actions
- Amor Fati – Love everything that happens
- Turn obstacles into opportunities – Perception is key
- Be mindful – Stoic mindfulness is where it all begins
If you live by these principles, you will be a good person and you can live a very fulfilling life. Every day I read a passage from the Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and his lessons keep me grounded on how I should act throughout my day. It gives me the confidence to do important stuff and the discipline to remove the unimportant stuff from my day, and how to be a good person every day.
I’m not going to get into an argument on how to be a good person. I’m just going to show people how to be a good person by being one. Now this doesn’t mean you give everything away and people can walk all over you, you still have your virtues and you believe these virtues are the best way to live in harmony with nature and to make nature a better place to live in.
We are not born with all the answers and this why obtaining wisdom is so important. The stoics were huge into reading books because they were trying to figure out what are truths that they think are lies, and what are lies that they think are truths. And this can come from biases that we have that could cause us not to act like a good person.
I recently posted something on Facebook the other day, and this libertarian started going off about how all fireworks should legal and said that they were a victimless crime. Now one of the principles of Stoicism is to be mindful and I just started asking questions and made no accusations on why all fireworks should be legal. I tried to ask questions like how did the current laws get set? Are there any negative externalities that exceed the positive ones. I feel that a lot of people miss is thinking about the other side and want to be heard first before understanding the other side.
Since I know this is human nature, I’m not going to be angry at the person for expressing his interest, but when I asked questions, it was obvious that he didn’t do any homework on the other side and it made his argument less effective. Since you have to show people what a good person looks like, then I have to do my research before I give any opinion and that is what I said, “I’m not familiar with firework laws and I have more important things to focus on, so this is why I’m asking so many questions about your stance.”
I don’t want to make a judgment that rooted in the truth and the truth is a moving target on things like firework laws. So I learned a lot about this person and not I have to figure out to ask better questions in the future or maybe I just have to continue to be a good person. If I was to argue what a good person was, I might have lost a Facebook friend and he would deep digger into his beliefs without ever considering the other side. It’s tough doing this at times because my emotions want to take over but the stoic philosophy has given me the strength to do the right thing in most situations. I’m not perfect but I learn how to get better every day.
That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, don’t argue how to be a good person, be one. To help me act like a good person, I follow the stoic philosophy and a great place to start is with the daily stoic and that book is the inspiration for doing this podcast. We are not born with all the answers and we need to learn how to be the best person possible and now that is more important than ever in this ever-growing complex world that we live in. The easiest thing to do as a human being is to be distracted and there are way more distractions now than there was back in the day, so keep learning and reflecting and you’ll be able to be a good person in most situations. And if you fail, then learn from it and do better the next time around.
If you would like to get the journal questions for today’s episode, you can sign-up for my monthly journaling subscription newsletter, where you get daily journal questions Monday through Friday, and as a bonus, you will also get my time management course and my personal development cheat sheet. You can get all this for $13/mo, which is less than the cost of an audible subscription and it’s less work to gain more wisdom. You can get this offer at growwithjoe.me/journal
If you want some guiding principles, there will be an article in the show notes at growwithjoe.me/episode309 to a really good article on stoicism.
Thanks for listening today! To get a free copy of my Audiobook “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and you can download it right there.
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Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
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https://www.njlifehacks.com/what-is-stoicism-overview-definition-10-stoic-principles/
