The Stoics - Book Recommendations

Welcome everybody to another episode of Halftime Talks. My name is Rahim Rasul, and you’re listening to the podcast where we recognize that in the middle of our game of life, whether you’re up by 10 or down by 20, we all need halftime talks to uplift us, inspire us and challenge us to bring that level of performance that you and I both know it’s going to take to win the game.

I so here we are. We’re beginning another episode. And if you’ve been here before, you know, in order to set the tone and point us in the right direction, we begin with appreciation. And this week, I want to appreciate the idea, the experience, the reality of continuity. Every time you go get a red can with a wave on it, you know it’s going to taste like the last time you had the coke. When you go places and they are what they’ve been and sometimes even continuity and things that we don’t like are to our benefit, because it forces us to recognize that this is what it is, until it’s not.

And so those who inspire, those who have the ability to remain who they are, hold their integrity, give us the ability to choose with clarity. So I would like to appreciate those areas in my life, those people in my life and the things in my life that remain the same, we’re back again for another episode where we do one of the things that I really enjoy, and that’s book recommendations. Every time that I make my way through a cool book, and it’s on the top of my mind, I’m like, Man, I can’t wait to give a recommendation on that book. I have a library that at one point was bigger, but that’s what happens when you give away a lot of your books, or if you’ve ever travel with books?

You realize you can’t take everything with you, but two of the books that stand have stood out recently, I’m going to share them with you and possibly influence a purchase. Who knows, either way, I love to share them because you know what. What is cooler than sharing a recommendation from from a sincere place. So without further ado, let’s just jump in and get into the book recommendations.

The theme of these book recommendations are philosophy, practical, everyday philosophy that we can integrate and incorporate into how we approach and view the world. I love philosophy. we can integrate and incorporate into how we approach and view the world. I love philosophy. Anybody who knows me. I love it like if you break down the word I’ve probably said it before in a previous podcast, but philosophy is philos Sophia, and that is the love Philos. And Sophia is wisdom, and that is the love of wisdom. It is not the love of facts. It is not the love of knowledge. It is this understanding that is is right on the tip of being incorporated into our lives, wisdom, understanding and these books are rooted in a school of thought called stoicism.

It was a an approach. It wasn’t a spirituality. It was like Confucianism. It was a way of life. The first book that I want to recommend is Ryan holidays, the daily stoic. It is essays and ideas about the principles of stoicism that can like, like a daily read, you can incorporate and come to understand a lot of these principles if you reflect on them and try to live them on a daily basis. And so he’s done a really great job of really advancing the this modern acceptance of stoicism. Him, along with, I know Tim Ferriss has talked a lot about it, but Ryan Holiday has has really cemented himself as an advocate for stoicism.

And so the day. Stoic is a awesome read, something that you could work your way through. You can you could jump around if you want, or you could just dive in and fully meditate on some one of the cool thing about these little essays is that you can spend a lot of time on one and across a week, it’ll open up to you in cool, new ways, not necessarily because there was anything hidden, but the more you sit with the idea, the more you realize that there was a lot more available in there than you initially saw. The next book is a classic in historic literature, is Marcus Aurelius meditations.

Now, Marcus Aurelius, if memory serves me correct, is the character portrayed in Gladiator of the the the Emperor whose son betrayed him, Joaquin Phoenix killed his pops. It was the Pops, and he was a wise dude, and he learned stoicism, I want to say, from one of his servants, and who I think was a slave, and within it, he has essays of historic nature, and some of these essays are shorter than others, others a little longer, but they really incorporate and encapsulate a lot of the essence of stoicism. Now, why I love it is because it gives me something to reflect on, like we’re talking about somebody who was Caesar, you know, so somebody who ruled the whole Roman Empire.

Like, how awesome is that, and you’re getting a glimpse of his writing and his philosophy, and you see his relationship with you see how he approaches his relationship in some of these essays, with the people with power, with Dynamics, With reaction, with emotions. And you get really drawn into his world and into the school of thought as it is, stoicism. And you may ask yourself, why would I be interested in stoicism? And the reason that I’m interested in stoicism is because so many times in our life right now, we living in such a a time where the most polarizing views are clamoring for our attention, and in in these views, they’re so exaggerated and incendiary that we want to react, we want to like, respond in a way that we feel will balance the scale of what we just experienced.

Stoicism is a cool piece because it allows you to remain on your square. You can have an opinion, but for it to cause you to behave in a way that’s not indicative with the person that you are or want to be, is why stoicism is really great. And I remember early on listening to some podcasts with Timothy Ferris and he was talking about how he would just wear bizarre clothes. Because if you’re not affected by what other people think about you, or if you get to that point, it becomes a very empowering place. So how can we beyond the I don’t want to say infantile, but from some of the lesser emotional reactions to the world.

If we can live without them, without them consuming the majority of our processing power, of our thinking, if our emotions didn’t rule us, but we were present to when they rose, and were able to bring them into balance just with our ideas and thoughts. And this year, while I’ve seen a lot of things this year, I’ve had some really pointed, emotional moments, and I attribute a lot of my balance to some of these stoic ideas and that those are our recommendations. So go check them out. Once again, you have Ryan holidays, the daily stoic. And you have Marcus Aurelius meditations, two of the principal, really popular books on stoicism today.

And I hope you benefited. I hope you’re interested. If you want more, just Google both of those. I think Marcus Aurelius, since it’s such an old book, you could probably find it for free on Kindle or iPad, and Ryan holidays, you could just find it anywhere. It’s really, uh, it’s really popular right now, and until next time, this has been another episode of halftime talks, I appreciate the fact that you’ve continued to come and and. Our take in this journey of self transformation, of looking at the world differently, of advancing our train of thought and in just overall, just being a more rounded, more balanced, more awesome version of who you already are. So until next time, live that good life and go forth and seek joy peace you.