anderson-silver.mp3

Anderson Silver: [00:00:00] Before you live with anyone else, you have to live with yourself. So stick to your own virtues, do your best, be the best person you can be, and nothing else really matters as long as you're happy with yourself. Because if you try to find your meaning in life and externals, we are always going to be disappointed because you'll be a slave to the yoke of all these external.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:00:35] What's up, everybody? Welcome to the artists of Data Science podcast, the only self development podcast for Data scientists. You're going to learn from and be inspired by the people, ideas and conversations that'll encourage creativity and innovation in yourself so that you can do the same for others. I also host open office hours. You can register to attend by going to Bitly dot com forward. Slash a d. S o h. I look forward to seeing you all there. Let's ride this beat out into another awesome episode and don't forget to subscribe to the show and leave a five star review.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:01:37] Our guest today is a CPA who landed his dream job earning a six figure salary, complete high profile notoriety and accolades, you would think that achieving all of this would be the ultimate goal. But he soon realized that all these external things didn't bring him to fulfillment. He thought it would be looking for a guide to life. He turned to philosophy. And for the last five years, he's been practicing the philosophy of stoicism. And it's changed his life completely equipped with a newfound purpose, meaning for life and inner tranquility. He's decided to share this ancient philosophy with others through books, articles and a podcast series to help. So please help me in welcoming our guest today, author of the books, Your User's Manual and Your Duality Within, and host of The Stoicism for a Better Life podcast, Anderson Silver.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:02:40] Anderson, thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to be here today. Man, I really appreciate you coming onto the show.

Anderson Silver: [00:02:46] Wow. What an introduction there on the Zoome call. Trying to keep a straight face without blushing. That was really awesome. Thank you for that.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:02:55] Hey, man, it's my pleasure to talk to us about your story. How did you get to where you are today?

Anderson Silver: [00:03:02] Oh, I'm what you would call the capitalist wet dream, like the good in school. I finished university. I did my CPA. I specialized in audits and cybersecurity, like you said, high profile job. I had the six figure salary, a bunch of people reporting.

Anderson Silver: [00:03:17] And to me, family, kids, pets, you know, check, ding, ding, ding. Check, check, check out everything I was told I should do.

Anderson Silver: [00:03:25] And I had everything except tranquility and lasting happiness about a decade ago when I realized, hold on a minute, I still have this existential hole inside is when I started my own self education, education to be like, OK, this stuff that I was told growing up to do, that's not it.

Anderson Silver: [00:03:43] That's not doing it for me, you know, and very, very randomly. I stumbled into stoicism and I haven't looked back since.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:03:53] Yeah man, it's pretty interesting right. you had everything a young guy fresh out of school would want. Like, was there a particular moment where you felt like this wasn't right, something wasn't fulfilling, or was it just kind of a culmination of things that had been developing and festering inside of you?

Anderson Silver: [00:04:12] You know, it's a culmination of things, I think. But I was fortunate in that because I achieved everything at such a young age, because I had the financial means to do you know, anything within reason, you know, party. Let's do it. Big barbecue. You know, I, I'm go on a trip down south. Let's do it. So because I had that capacity, I believe I think I was able to really face the ugly reality that having money and possessions and title and all this was not enough. Had I not received those, I probably spent the rest of my life chasing it. So I consider myself very, very lucky. You know, whatever path the universe put me on and whatever my ultimate purpose will be or not purpose, what my ultimate impact will be in this life. I'm definitely living a lot more purposefully and the work I've done over the past five years and mentoring people, educating people, having discussions has given me a sense of purpose that I honestly never thought possible. I thought I was a type of stuff you see in Disney movies. So it's been a really awesome journey and I'm just getting started. Let's see what life has in store for me.

[00:05:14] That's awesome man, And I really resonate with that feeling of is this all there is? Right. OK, now what is this all? There it is. Right. So what were some of the different philosophies that you came across while you were searching for meaning?

Anderson Silver: [00:05:30] So I started in the usual places, looked around at what everybody else was doing and what does everybody else do?

Anderson Silver: [00:05:37] How do they find meaning? Religion is an option. It used them as an option and atheism was the religion I subscribe to before, which wasn't working. So then I started looking into philosophy because, you know, hey, these ancient guys know what they're talking about, right? So I read, you know, what do you read when you think philosophy? Everybody goes straight to Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, because those are the names that are thrown around. And then very randomly, I was shopping on Amazon before I went on a trip down to Cuba. And what I like doing on my vacation is just reading stuff. So just as literally just click, click, click, whatever it was recommended. You know, the I on Amazon as a doing your shopping is like, how about this one? And, you know, buy this. And one of those books just so happened to be Senecas letters from a stock. That's the book. And I started reading this and it just blew my mind from that. I got into stoicism but then branched out into cynicism as well. A lot of my philosophy embodies the cynic, the. Which makes sense because the system is built off of the civic doctrine of citizen who founded the school, stoicism was trained by accretes. You know, I identify as a philosopher not because philosophy there's two definitions of it. There's what we usually think about is the academic guy with the elbow patches on the glasses talking about things that don't make sense or are so detailed. But the other definition of philosophy, it used to be a guide for life. That's what it was. And when these guys were writing these things, that's all it was.

Anderson Silver: [00:06:58] This was pre religion. It was a guide for life. So I started reading Plato in a lot more detail. But, you know, it wasn't just like his best quotes or whatever. I went back and I read one of the cards and contin ethics and I got into studying morality. So that opened up a whole branch with Arthur Schopenhauer and Frederick Nietzsche. So I did look at a lot of different philosophies. But if I'm being very honest, most of it came after I discovered stoicism.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:07:26] I completely agree with right philosophy as a way of life, and I feel like that's something I missing from my religion growing up was it was spiritual, mystical, but nothing about it really told me how to live my life. So that's really awesome. And it came across it by chance. He had letters from a think it's a big book, but it's pretty awesome. Before we dig into deeper discussion of stoicism, can you help our audience understand the difference between lowercase? S stoic and capital? S stoic? I think when people come across that word stoic, they think, oh, completely emotionless, stone cold doesn't feel anything. Mark that difference for us.

Anderson Silver: [00:08:12] Sure. So the adverb stoic to be stoic. We use it, you know, someone who goes through a life with a stiff upper lip, being indifferent to emotions, not having emotions. You know, when you have a stoic response, you're kind of like that tough guy. And in fact, this is something I write about a lot in my articles, in my weekly articles. Stoicism has had a really bad reputation but marketing smear campaign in the past 10 years or so. And it's being associated with this toxic masculinity, this tough guy imagery like I take cold showers, therefore I'm a still because I'm a tough guy. You know, I don't feel emotions. I don't I don't shed a tear. I'm a tough guy. I'm a stock. That's not true. That follows more kind of it's a misinterpretation of the adjective to be still to respond in equanimity, if you will, in the face of extenuating circumstances, to be a stoic philosopher. Let's use the proper words to be a prekop time, which is someone who follows stoicism. And that's who I am. I don't identify myself as the stoic. I am a student. I'm a forgotten. Some of your readers pick up my books. They'll see that I touch upon a lot of different things, not just stoicism, although they're heavily predominated by stoicism. So when I'm asked a question, describe stoicism in one sentence, the best way I can summarize it is it's the practice of using our rational mind in the present moment as often as possible, because that's what stoicism is.

Anderson Silver: [00:09:31] At the end of the day, it's an appeal to a reason to be the best version that we can be in our continuous sequence of here and now. 

Harpreet Sahota: [00:09:40] So from a stoic perspective, what does it mean to have wisdom? What does it mean to be virtuous?

Anderson Silver: [00:09:48] So wisdom and virtue, wisdom is the same for all Hellenic philosophies. And the word philosophy itself is the pursuit of knowledge. It comes from the ancient Greek Philadelphia. So wisdom is the pursuit of knowledge. Let me go back and give a quick history lesson here. So, Socrates, for for those of our listeners who might not know this if he existed, because we don't know if he existed for a fact since he never really wrote anything down and ninety nine point nine percent of everything we know about him comes from Plato. In fact, there's only two other pieces of work that mention Socrates other than Plato. So we don't know if Socrates was the wise character in Plato. Twenty six treatises or if he was a person. But either way, let's assume he was, which we do. He was known, you know, he came to be because the oracle of Delphi said Socrates is the wisest man in all of Athens.

Anderson Silver: [00:10:35] And Socrates went, no, no, no, let me prove it. And he went around all he did. He spent his time going around and telling people what he didn't know and asking them to educate him so he would go up to his cosmopolitans.

Anderson Silver: [00:10:48] At that time, you know, Athens was a palace, a city state, and he would go up to the guy and ask, look, I don't know what love means, explain it to me. And so, you know, one person would give their version of what love is and then he will go to another one and et cetera, et cetera, and he would keep asking these questions. Moral of the story is Socrates ends up proving he's the wisest man precisely because he admits what he does not know. Right. And by asking the questions about what he doesn't know, he eliminates what he knows, to be for sure, the wrong answers, therefore, through a logical sequence of Q&A, reduces the possibilities of what the true answer is. And I know this is going to appeal to your DeSanctis audience here, but this is the Socratic method. This is what we mean when we talk about the Socratic method is starting with the question and then slowly eliminating what we know absolutely to be wrong, because the absolute truth is often impossible to get to or even if it exists, it's very difficult to identify.

Anderson Silver: [00:11:40] So based on that Socratic method, all the other Hellenistic, everybody that follow, whether you're an Aristotelian, whether you're a Platonist, whether you're a stoic cynic, whatever, whatever, it's all based on this same premise. If the cynics are older cousins, Socrates is our grandfather. And therefore, long story, long wisdom to us is the same thing as it means to all these other Hellenic philosophies is the pursuit of knowledge. Right. And this pursuit never ends because the more we learn, the more we realize how little we know. A quote I like to use is the more the island of my knowledge grows, the more the shore of my ignorance grows. Right. So that's what wisdom is and virtue. Now, this is where definitions will differ, because one thing I've learned in my study of theism philosophy, all approaches to life is they all want to do the same thing.

Anderson Silver: [00:12:28] And they all essentially at the core of it. If you look at any religion or any philosophy, they pretty much all do the same thing, trying to give the practitioner a way to live a good life by avoiding pain. This is what we're trying to achieve. Right?

Anderson Silver: [00:12:42] And so where they differ in how to do this is in their perspective of what time length they're looking at. What do you define as being important? Is it my lifetime? Is that humanities lifetime? Is it whatever, whatever? So for a cynic, let's say you look at it from the cosmic perspective, nothing matters. We're just stardust going through life. And we just happened to be conscious for a few decades. That's it. So you really don't care about anything, right? Your frame of reference is huge. That doesn't appeal to me. I love cynicism and there's a lot from cynicism that I take. But the reason I chose stoicism is because stoicism takes it one step further and says, OK, yes, we are stardust, we're just floating through life. Everything is meaningless. But I'm here. I feel like I should do something. Why waste this time? And so as a stoic, what a frame of reference is humanity. Why humanity? Because and we'll get into this later on. But the starting premise of the school of thought is we are social animals with a capacity for reason and its capacity for reason.

Anderson Silver: [00:13:41] This higher consciousness we have that is unique to us and not that consciousness isn't unique to us, but the level of consciousness we have as Homo sapiens is surpassed. And that's what unites all one hundred billion human beings that have ever existed together as one. And this is why that is our frame of reference. Therefore, to summarize, virtue is working towards the betterment of humanity. Every act should be virtuous in that it should help better the human community.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:14:08] Thank you very much for that and really appreciated that.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:14:10] So I think it might be worth differentiating, I guess, between cynicism now, lower case C and then the philosophy of cynicism, because I don't think they essentially mean the same thing. So would you mind clarifying that briefly for our audience as well?

Anderson Silver: [00:14:25] Sure. Much like the lowercase Stokes's uppercase stoicism, there is an overlap there. It's just a misinterpretation. So cynicism comes from some of your listeners might have heard of Diogenes, who is the most famous cynic philosopher, one of my favorite philosophers, I quote.

Anderson Silver: [00:14:39] A lot, and especially in my third book here, and it's the starting point of our philosophy, because the crux of cynicism is to protest this fake social construct that we live in.

Anderson Silver: [00:14:50] And Diogenes, which means like the dogs was known to live, lived in a wine barrel and on the street he lived with the dogs. He was a guy that would you jump on tables and piss all over people that were, you know, having a banquet. He would purposefully defecate and masturbate in public. He would do all these things to protest these values that we have in society. We feel like we have to be you know, we have to show our best side. We have to hide our nature.

Anderson Silver: [00:15:18] Right. And he'd be like, no, no, no, no. Everybody poops. You poop. I put chips. Will, what do we have to hide this extreme example? But he was protesting the entirety of the society. He started off by actually defacing the coin that the banks used to make, you know, to say money doesn't matter. Let's go back to our natures. So cynicism is a philosophy entirely built on believing that happiness is attainable by anyone who's willing to attain it because it's internal to us. It has nothing to do with externals. It has nothing to do with money titles, what you're wearing, how you look, none of that we're animals. If we're fed and we have water, we're happy, period. For now. That's what the cynic philosophy. And back in the day, if you want it to be a cynic, you literally would sell everything except the rope. And then you had one pound for your bread or whatever and walking stuff. That's how you did cynicism and lower case cynicism kind of comes from that is when you just poo poo on everything you just questioned. Everything like that doesn't matter. Well, this you know, we live in a cynical world. Again, it's an adjective more than anything else. So, yeah, there's an overlap between the adjective and the philosophy. But the philosophy, it's actually a really, really powerful if there is one philosophy I studied more than stoicism, it was cynicism. And its concepts are simple, yet very, very free.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:16:35] My favourite story of Diogenes is when Alexander the Great comes to them and asks him if there's anything he could do for him and he just says, You're blocking the sun, please get out of the way. Yeah, yeah. So we talked about as humans, we have the capacity for reason. This is what separates us from essentially every other animals. And a lot of Stoate philosophy has this concept of living in agreement with nature. What did the Stoics mean by that?

Anderson Silver: [00:17:06] Great segue over here, because it goes back to exactly what the cynics were talking about. It was let's stop pretending we're so important. Let's stop pretending that this fake structure we have actually means something which is ironic coming from the Stoics because, you know, some of the most famous Stoics were either the richest man in all the lands. Seneca was the richest statement. You know, Marcus Aurelius, obviously emperor of the largest empire at the time. So it sounds ironic coming from these guys saying got no money and titles don't matter. But then you have to consider other greats like Epictetus, who was a slave to begin with.

Anderson Silver: [00:17:39] All these guys. So living according to nature is to ignore all of that. Like none of that matters. This basically, you know, like in my case, when I came to the realization that the money, the house, the job, the title, none of that actually brought me happiness, which means they're not important. As far as having a happy, tranquil life is concerned. Happiness is to be found in our nature, which is what I mean. You look down, we're bipedal, hairless, predominantly hairless monkey. That's it. That's our nature. So but there's more to it than that. We're not just an animal. We're also a social animal. We're pack animals like wolves. We like to work in groups. So as a social animal, we have to recognize that, OK, what's good for me is good for all. What's good for the whole is good for me, because as a group, if our chances for survival increase, mine increases as well. So I'm a selfless animal because it's not just about me, me, me, it's about the collective in a selfish way, because it helps my odds of survival. And then there is the part about reason, capacity for reason. So we're social animals with a capacity for reason because we're talking we already covered, you know, that we had this higher faculty and this consciousness, this awareness that comes coupled with this beautiful capacity for cognitive reasoning and imagination. We have that capacity. So this is how the state defines our nature, a social animal with a capacity for reason. Now, how do we live? According to that, there's the cardinal virtues, their disciplines. We can get into that later. But basically, when the Stoics says we want to live according to our nature, that's what we're saying. We have to recognize. And there's a lot of philosophy in just those few words. We're a social animal with a capacity for reason.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:19:16] So does this change this living in agreement with nature? Does this change at all in the twenty first century?

Anderson Silver: [00:19:23] We would like to think so because, I mean, look at the world around us. You know, we put people on the moon. We have technology, we're interconnected. We have all this knowledge now that they didn't have two thousand years ago. Yet nothing has changed. Nothing has changed. The only thing that has changed. Is in this superficial construct that we live in, and that's why 2000 years later, stoicism is finding a resurgence and it never really disappeared. You know, a lot of the stoic practitioners at the time when Christianity took over after the decline of the power of the Roman Empire, they started writing some of these Christian doctrine. And so you find a lot of the stoic teachings in Christian doctrines. And then during the Enlightenment and the seventh, the 16th and 17th century, stoicism again finds a resurgence because it's so rational, it's so reasonable. There's no blind faith. It just makes sense. And then in the 1970s, you see these two guys that you stoicism to build this therapy technique called cognitive behavioral therapy, which is one of the predominant ways to fix our behavior even today. And so the core teachings of stoicism, which really is not rocket science, it's hard in its implementation in a consistent fashion, but it's not rocket science. It's survived the test of time because nothing has changed in our existential nature.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:20:48] What's up, artists? I would love to hear from you. Feel free to send me an email to the artists of Data Science at Gmail dot com. Let me know what you love about the show. Let me know what you don't love about the show and let me know what you would like to see in the future. I absolutely would love to hear from you. I've also got open office hours that I will be hosting and you can register like going to Bitly dot com forward, slash a d. S o h. I look forward to hearing from you all and I look forward to seeing you in the office hours. Let's get back to the episode.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:21:31] So speaking of the disciplines of stoicism, the three key disciplines, we've got the discipline of desire and aversion, discipline of action and the discipline of ascent. Can you give our audience a rundown of what these disciplines mean and how can we practice them in the modern world?

Anderson Silver: [00:21:51] Right. So let me start with the discipline of ascent, and I'm going to try and tailor it for your audience here as well. Life is short no matter who you are and what walk of life you are. Life is very short.

Anderson Silver: [00:22:03] We only have a few decades where we can actually do stuff before we get old and we're too sick or tired or sleepy or too whatever to do anything.

Anderson Silver: [00:22:11] Accepting that life is short. We have to take control of our lives. We have to. And this is the title of my third book I'm finishing now. I actually sent it to the editor yesterday, so that's a big pressure off my back. But the subtitle is Learn to Control Your World for a Happy and Anxiety Free Life. It's all about control. Another misconception of stoicism is that it's a philosophy based on passivity. Nothing could be further from the truth. We walk around with Memento Mori written. I have it right there on the inside of my right arm. As a reminder, I'm dying and we don't repeat this big out of a sense of morbid humor. It's because we constantly want to be reminded of how short life is. Why? Because if you recognize the value of time, then you start treating it with a lot more attention. So if we're going to treat it with attention and we're going to control the heck out of whatever we can control, let's take a step back and see what we can control. And this is where the discipline comes into, because if we break down what we can and can't control, we very quickly see that in space and time at point zero zero, which would be my thoughts in the present moment, I have 100 percent control with certainty of outcome.

Anderson Silver: [00:23:21] As soon as I start walking away from that point, zero zero in space time, things fall out of my control example. I'm talking to you right now in my head. I say I want to be saying these words to do this podcast. This is not dependent on my vocal cords, which I may lose at any time, even though I have the intention to touch the microphone might fail before it comes onshore and the infrastructure of the network might fail. So many things are now dependent on that word. Getting across to you only because I've moved a few inches in space from my thoughts to my vocal cords and a few milliseconds in time. And the further and further we get away from point zero zero, the less influence we have on the actual outcome. And therefore your effort and the use of your time becomes inefficient, at least in my opinion. So, you know, if I'm going to gamble, I'm going to take a gamble that pays 100 percent every time instead of one that pays 80 percent every time.

Anderson Silver: [00:24:13] And so the discipline of assent essentially boils down to give up trying to influence anything that doesn't give you a 100 percent return and focus all your time and energy, all your resources, which is already very limited to what you know, to have 100 percent control with certainty of outcome.

Anderson Silver: [00:24:33] And the only thing that we have that over is our thoughts in the present moment. And this is what Seneca said. He has that famous quote of it's not that we're short on time, it's that we spend our time doing the things that don't matter. This is what it boils down to.

Anderson Silver: [00:24:46] So that's the discipline of a that makes sense?

Harpreet Sahota: [00:24:49] Yeah. Yeah.

Anderson Silver: [00:24:50] All right. So the discipline then we go to the discipline of judgment. Now, we've identified that it's my thoughts in the present moment that matter. OK, what my thoughts be, I could sit here and judge things. I can sit here and think about how unlucky I am because I don't know, I didn't get what I wanted for dinner tonight or whatever, or I can focus on what I know is important. Was I a good person today?

Anderson Silver: [00:25:17] Do I want to focus on the guy that cut me off on the road or do I want to focus on my response that was more patient? So the discipline of judgment boils down to using our thoughts in the present moment and the most virtuous way possible.

Anderson Silver: [00:25:30] Ok, and then we move on to the discipline of action, which is really interesting. And I'm sure you haven't heard this perspective before. But much like the discipline of that, I'm sure that was a new perspective that I presented there.

Anderson Silver: [00:25:42] But the discipline of action boils down to, OK, so if in our minds, our thoughts in the present moment is what we control, great. But I'm not a deaf mute. I have to communicate with the external world. OK, so the discipline of judgment is how I interpret what's coming in words, what I perceive from the outside world and how I process it in my mind, the discipline of action that is the opposite. It's once I make a decision internally, how do I communicate that back outwards? And so one of the important things in the discipline of A is to be detached from actions, the discipline of actions that, you know, separate yourself from the actual result. Your intention, your decision for the action is in your control. But as soon as you start trying to do it, it's already out of your control. And so that's what the discipline of action boils down to.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:26:28] It's very liberating to know that you can actually choose how you respond. Somebody can be an idiot and cut you off in traffic and your initial impression might be upsetting or you might get angry, but you don't have to follow that thought. You can take the situation for what it is. Yeah, he cut me off. He probably didn't know any better. I'm OK. I'm not dead. Just go on with with driving carefully. I think it's very liberating for people to realize that they don't have to go with their initial impressions. They can recognize it as and then pick a more virtuous line of thought. So Stoics also had this really interesting practice, negative visualization, premeditation. MILGROM Can you describe that practice to us and how can we use that practice in our everyday lives?

Anderson Silver: [00:27:18] Sure. So primitive that similar again, it sounds much like Memento Mori, you know, verbatim. It sounds kind of depressing. It sounds like a bummer. You know, I like I got to think about everything that can go wrong, like, well, that's not the purpose behind it. So the greatest tool we have is Stoics, which is our meditation is journaling. Why? Because it is impossible to pick up a pen and write on a piece of paper without triggering your rational mind. It's impossible you can draw without triggering a rational mind. You can drive on autopilot, you can draw on autopilot, you can whistle on autopilot. You can even type on a keyboard do to muscle memory, you know, on autopilot. But you can't actually write on a piece of paper in the journal without triggering your rational mind. This is why we refer to this as our meditation, you know, against markers of this is book's title. He didn't name it. The meditation's it was his diary that he was writing to himself. That was his meditation. So one of the things you can do in the journal, you know, you can just vent, you can use it for decision making processes, which I use all the time.

Anderson Silver: [00:28:17] Or you can write about something, you know, that's going to happen. It could be something imminent. Like, I know next week I'm going to have to go into this meeting with someone I really don't like and I'm going to have to have this discussion with them. So it could be something that, you know, for a fact is going to happen soon. It could be something like there's a good chance I might have to bury one of my children happens all the time so you can pick anything you want to reflect on. The goal is while you're rational, it's not happening right now. So I have an ordinary mind, meaning I'm emotionless, I'm rational, I'm calm. I'm thinking very clearly in a hypothetical way. And so let's say the meeting that I'm going to go into with this person that I know is very aggressive and they're going to, you know, try and bully me around the table, I can start writing scenarios of how I wish I would respond if I was an emotionless person at that meeting. Now, I know I'm emotionless. I know my heart's going to start beating. I know the monkey voice inside me is going to want to pick up a stick and hit this guy in the face with it.

Anderson Silver: [00:29:17] But right now, at least I can write down how I wish I would react in a rational way, in a virtuous way, should I be faced with that situation. And so when I write this down, it becomes kind of a roadmap that I can follow. So when I'm faced with the situation, whatever situation it may be, I have a much better chance of responding in a virtuous manner because. It's already hard to control your emotions when we're emotional, which we always are. We can never not be emotional, but it's doubly hard to try and figure out what's the right thing to do on top of fighting your emotions. So about doing primitive that similar? I'm on a regular basis. I have in my mind, it's like if this then that it's a series of if then therefore statements that I have pre coded, does that mean I'm going to follow every time? Heck no. You know, I'm a human being. I trip up sometimes too, but it certainly gives me a much better chance of responding more calmly when things happen and through time. I do that more often than being emotional.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:30:12] So we sweat more in practice, so we bleed less in battle. And if life is warfare than our practice, our sweating is this practice of negative visualization. Is that kind of. You got it. So speaking of Marcus Aurelius, he has this quote, people who labor all their lives but have no purpose to direct every thought and impulse towards are wasting their time even when they're hard at work. This really resonates with me because in the modern world, there are so many distractions. Some days I feel like I'm super busy and the next thing I know, it's nighttime and I feel like I haven't done anything. How can we make sure that we're not being busy for the wrong reasons?

Anderson Silver: [00:30:57] I love this question and only because my book is not finalized yet. I'm not going to read it. But there is two pages that speak perfectly to this question that when the book's released year, you'll have to check it out. You're going to love it. This is such a big problem. We all suffer from the siren call of I am too busy, OK? We all are busy doing things we don't want to do. Being busy does not equate to being productive. We all know this because we've spent days toiling away on something only realizing later on we could have done it in half the time and we just stop to think about it. Moreover, being productive does not mean it's a value added because if we don't have a plan and purpose, if we don't have an objective, well, what are you toiling away for? What are you busy with? And so just like any good project, right, you have to have clearly defined objectives. Otherwise you may advance, but you're not advancing where you want to go. You know, you can have the fastest ship in the seas, but if you don't have a destination, you're just going to go around in circles. So this is where necessities come into play. You know, you have to identify clearly, objectively, conscientiously, identify our necessities.

Anderson Silver: [00:32:04] And just quickly or listeners that may not be familiar with this. In my first book, I talk a lot about our necessities. I spend actually the second half of the book helping the reader identify the necessities because we're all different. We come from unique backgrounds. There's no one right answer to what the purpose of life is. We all have our own unique purpose for life. And but the thing is, we never take the time to identify this, right? We spend time catering to our physical necessities. We eat every day. We sleep every day. We drink water every day, go to the gym to try and stay healthy. We spend so much time on our physique and physical necessities, but we almost never and this is really saddening. We almost never spend any time on our college spiritual necessities, mental necessities, whatever. We don't spend any time identifying those necessities. And that's how you find that purpose in life. And once you have a why and how is endurable like me just said, who has a way I can endure anyhow? And so if you have clearly identified necessities that you can accomplish on a daily basis, because that's the other thing.

Anderson Silver: [00:33:03] We don't know if we're going to wake up the next morning.

Anderson Silver: [00:33:05] So if we want to go to bed happy every night, you've got to have a clearly defined daily objectives and make sure that every time you decide on an action, discipline of action, you are working towards one of those necessities.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:33:18] So is very practice or technique from stoicism that we can use to help us maintain focus in the distracted world. Let's say it happens often to me as well. Like I'll be working on something then all of a sudden get the impulse to go check email with the impulse, the selfish desire to go look online and see if I've gotten any new followers or any new likes, things like that. Is it a practice or technique that we can use? We feel that temptation to kind of have it subside.

Anderson Silver: [00:33:50] Yes, there is, and we just touched on it. So it's actually, you know, again, if we go back to the definition, a simple definition of stoicism is using your rational mind in the present moment. If we could do that all the time, then we'd be a stage. We cannot do that all the time because our consciousness, the real US, exists in these very flawed bodies that are very selfish from a needs perspective. Right. So we will continue to get distracted. And it's important, one, not to get upset or frustrated with ourselves for being that way and then to go back to practicing stoicism in general as a prekop, Don, you're trying to spend every literally every moment and every thought possible in the most rational way that are tied into your necessities and your necessities theoretically should have a virtuous and.

Anderson Silver: [00:34:39] A virtual being, by our definition, working towards the betterment of humanity. So you might decide to go check your if you have any new followers, but at a certain point, when you you know, if you're going through the practice of am I spending my time wisely, which necessity does this address, you will automatically correct yourself. So one simpler, more inferentially point to a more direct example I can give you. We were talking about journalling before and I have of course, your listeners are not going to see this. But on camera, I can assure you I have a little laminated bullet point list of things that I keep in my journal. And these are 12 things I want to accomplish on a daily basis. And I write in my journal, I try to do it three times a day, but some days I just write once. And if there's only one time I can write, I make sure it's at lunchtime. Why? Because it's one thing to write at the end of the day to look back on your day and say that I love virtuously. OK, what lessons have I learned? Not a bad thing, but it takes it a step further. If you write during the day while there's still time left and look at what you haven't done yet, and then it gives you an opportunity to actively seek ways to be virtuous. I actively spend time looking around like, you know, one of the bullet points is make somebody laugh out loud. So I'll literally spend the next hour like I might be at work doing whatever. But one of my it's high up on my priority list and I got to find a way to make somebody laugh. So it drives my rational mind to be plugged in in the present moment, living in accordance with my necessities.

Anderson Silver: [00:36:12] And this is the definition of being mindful. 

Harpreet Sahota: [00:36:15] And touching on the practice of journaling. So it is much more than just writing about, oh, today I did this, today I did that. It's more of a contemplation of how did I act today was the way I act. It was the way I thought in line with what's good for myself.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:36:34] What's good for those around me is that right? 

Anderson Silver: [00:36:36] That spot on, I mean, in the journal so you can write about you can vent because let's be honest, our brains are loud and I don't know, maybe there's some more common people out there. But I bet my last book, everyone's brains are loud. We have emotions in flying and their to do list worries, anxieties. So journaling one part of it as just a mental diary. I get it on paper. It's relieving. Something else you can do is write what you're grateful for. I drove home on asphalt roads that people toiled to build for me. I'm thankful for those roads. I'm thankful for my life. You know, I've heard the expression, what do they call a gratitude journal? I think it's something that they do. So you can write what you're grateful for. Another one is that I thought you were talking about. That's a third thing you can do, premeditative as a fourth thing. You can do decision making. Right? It's a huge one. I use my journal for and I mean decision making at the office, at home, investment decisions, you know, because you take the emotion out of it. So five things you can do with your journal. Journaling is such a powerful tool. In fact, my fourth book is going to be entirely on journaling. You can do so much with it. And so, yes, to your point. Exactly. Spot on. That's one of the things that the drone can absolutely help you with.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:37:44] So wanted to get into some ways that we can practice stoic teachings in the modern world through some hypothetical situations. Let's say I'm someone who has been preparing really rigorously for a job interview. I go on several interviews and I make it to the final round and then I end up not getting the job, even though I thought I did extremely well. I it was in the bag for me, you know. What would the stoic response be to this situation?

Anderson Silver: [00:38:16] Indifference. And I know that's going to sound like a real cop out to say, well, that's I just don't care about it. But literally that would be it not to care about it. Why did you prepare as best as you could? Yes. Did you present yourself as best as you could? Yes. In your answers, were you as honest as you could be? Yes. In your interactions, were you as kind and loving as you can be? Yes. Did you do the best you could with what you knew at that time? Yes. So how can you be angry about anything else, any outcome? If you were the best you could be, you can't possibly be more.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:38:51] Yeah, because you optimize everything that is within your control. And there could be a myriad of things on the companies end that you have no control over. It could be that the budget got cut for that role. It could be that they hired somebody internally. It could be that the boss quit. You know, they don't even need the role anymore. There's so many things that you don't control in that process. But if you focus on what it is that is entirely within your control and you let go of the actual result, that's one way to kind of maintain that tranquility through that entire process.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:39:25] Is that right? Right?

Anderson Silver: [00:39:26] That's absolutely right. An example I like to use for this is are athletes OK? Let's say I play basketball against LeBron James, right. Play one on one.

Anderson Silver: [00:39:36] He's going to take me to school. When 100 to zero, right, but that day when we played, just because he schooled me on the scoreboard doesn't necessarily mean he was the better athlete he has, the more natural given talent. He's taller than me. He's had more practice than me. So, yeah, he's going to score more baskets and blocked every single one of my shots. However, if my approach was more virtuous, if my approach if I gave it my all, if I actually gave it more effort for that one on one than he did, who was just phoning it in because he's just got God given talent. Well, who's the better athlete there? Is it just about the scoreboard or is it about the person and their effort? As a stoic, I'm always looking at the intention, at the judgment, the approach. Who was a better sportsman? You know, all these things. It's not the scoreboard. Something else that, you know, unfortunately, stoicism took away from me, had to be a huge fan of competitive sports because that's what I was taught. Compete, compete, compete, be better than the next guy. So I thought, that's how you show that you're a better person.

Anderson Silver: [00:40:37] But as a stoic, you recognize that. Why can't being more altruistic be the thing that makes us better? Why can't being kinder be the thing that makes us better? Why can't being able to absorb more insults and still smile back and say, I love you, my fellow Cosmopolitan, why can't that be what makes us better?

Harpreet Sahota: [00:40:55] Interesting. I think one of the first opening pages of Meditation's Marcus Aurelius talks about his first teacher telling him not to support this fight or that at the Games, not to support this side or that at chariot racing. And now, yeah, I mean, I'm a huge San Francisco 49ers football fan, so I might have to put those passions away during the season.

Anderson Silver: [00:41:17] No, no, no, no, no. Let me tell you, I'm a Packers fan and I love watching them play on Sundays. I'll tell you why, because Aaron Rodgers embodies a lot of what stoicism is like.

Anderson Silver: [00:41:27] Tom Brady, it has more cups. Rings excuse me, hockey. Hockey, right. Canada, we get the Stanley Cup. We don't do so. Tom Brady has more rings than an Aaron Rodgers. But in my opinion, Aaron Rodgers is a far superior athlete. And here's why. I've never seen Rodgers throw his helmet or show emotion. I've never seen him respond to what the refs are doing or complain. All I see him do, every snap is go and do the same routine, the same approach and do his best. I mean, I don't know if he's actually doing his best because from the couch, you know, as a Packers value, like AIs doing his best, of course. But you know, what I want to say is he embodies this approach in that every moment is brand new. What happened in the past doesn't matter what the scoreboard is, doesn't matter what the refs are doing, doesn't matter. He just does his thing great. Metaphorical anyway, I can absolutely still enjoy sports and I do. It's just your perspective changes and the game becomes a lot less frustrating, actually.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:42:29] Thank you for that. So another situation we have in the real world, I suppose I'm on a team at work. I don't want to look stupid or admit that I don't know how to do something. And as a result, I start to cover my tracks. What would be the stoic way of dealing with the situation like this?

Anderson Silver: [00:42:47] So it's one would need a lot more context. It's hard to answer this without having detailed and it depends on relations, how big the team is, you know, consequences, whatever, whatever. So I'll give a more theoretical kind of first of all, I wouldn't cover their tracks. Honestly, why should I try and be someone I'm not something I preach a lot in my in my mentoring groups and my kids is we put on this fake facade because we want someone to like us and they will because we cater to their needs and wants and likes.

Anderson Silver: [00:43:18] But consider this then you're surrounded by people who like this fake persona. Then you're going to keep playing to this fake persona and then it gets even more and more fake. So it's easier in the long run, easier to just be yourself exactly the way you are. And that person might not like you, which is going to hurt at that point in time. But fast forward ten years from now and the honest child is going to be surrounded with friends that like her exactly the way she is. And the other one who had more friends from the young age is going to be surrounded by everyone who's kind of faking it, which is what we're doing in society. Right. And so in the job environment, it doesn't change personally. Like when I when I found my enlightenment, I didn't I didn't quit my job. I'm still a director. I still do my thing. But my approach has changed. And, you know, it's funny by being more honest, a cool side effect is people actually trusted me more. They saw that. Oh, yeah, this you as a human being, just like the rest of us, you know, it no longer became peacocking. And who who looks tougher. You know, we don't want to be a bunch of Harvey Specter's going around bullying everybody else, like the best, you know what I mean?

Anderson Silver: [00:44:26] So I wouldn't end up in such a situation. Or if they did, they would just be honest. And you know what? If the consequence means you're off the team, OK, so be it. But being honest was the right thing to do. And I don't care what other people think. I don't. Care what they say. I don't care if I'm fired, I'll get another job I need to live with myself before I can live with anyone else. That's a I'm plagiarizing Atticus from How To Kill a Mockingbird here. But before you live with anyone else, you have to live with yourself. So stick to your own virtues. Do your best, be the best person you can be. And nothing else really matters as long as you're happy with yourself. Because if you try to find your meaning in life and externals, we are always going to be disappointed because you'll be a slave to the yolk of all these externals.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:45:07] Thank you for that. How would a stoic handle feeling overwhelmed at work? Let's say we're giving a task and there is a lot of complexity in this task. Or maybe we just are overwhelmed with too many tasks. How can we handle the situation without getting that frustrated or flustered, anxiety ridden kind of feeling?

Anderson Silver: [00:45:27] Right. I love that you used handle because we can never get rid of it, just like emotions. We cannot get rid of it. We're always going to have anxieties. I still get anxiety when it happens, because, again, we exist in these very flawed bodies and I don't want to get off topic too much. But getting flustered, pessimism, anxiety is a part of the defense mechanism of this body. There's an anthropological reason for it anyways. So the way you handle it is by, again, appealing to your own reason. What can I do while I have this task list to do? All right. I have this many hours in a day. OK, let me sort these objectives in order of what needs to be tackled first. Then as long as you did your best to prioritize them, that you weren't selfish or lazy, and then you tackle what you can as best as you can. And at the end of the day, whatever anybody else says, they should have been done and that should have been done whatever, whatever, you know, inside. I did my best. And you can justify it externally to say here's my logical reasoning as to why. If I was flawed in my logical reasoning, tell me and I'll go just next time. Just pure honesty and openness and transparency. And then at the end of the day, when you think about it or journal about it, as you go through the sequence of decisions and events, you realize my moral decision making was on point. My judgments were on point. I dropped the ball a few times here and there, but overall I made a really good effort. So thank you, Bobby. I recognize and hear you that you're flustered. But my mind is an equanimity because I feel good and proud of myself.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:46:56] Is that the concept of a more fati just loving everything that happens to you? You should love the fact that you have been given so much work, the fact that you have so much work to do, that you have been given an opportunity for you to flex your capacity for reason at these complex tasks with that kind of baked into your answer that a little bit.

Anderson Silver: [00:47:16] Yeah. So that is part of amphoratte. I'm going to forgive the larger amphoratte, incidentally, is not a stoic thing. Right. It's an interesting Frederick Nietzsche is the one that coined the phrase umur faddy. But we use it because it's a very good description of what we try to describe under the discipline of a sense. Right. And so art of accepting or part of trying to enjoy the difficulties you have at work, even flustered, would be to say, yeah, you know, this universal reason that's making me go through these tough times also gave me this job. And I have a paycheck. And, you know, it also gave me life. It's the same universal reason that made me be here today doing this. So it's a cop out to only love the good stuff. You also got to love the bad stuff. There is no life without that. There's no happiness without sadness, which means it's self-evident that there is also beauty in sadness and in death and in the same way tranquility and anxiety. Yin and yang, yin and yang. We hear this all the time. You have to take the good and the bad and the quote unquote good and quote unquote bad are just our own value judgments. It's a person that has a subjective view of this thing, saying I believe this to be bad. Somebody else might be in the exact situation and be thankful for it because they're, let's say, unemployed.

Anderson Silver: [00:48:33] They don't even have a job. Right. And so when you accept that nothing can truly be good or bad because it's all subjective, then you start loving and enjoying everything that is good and or bad in quotes. And yeah. So that would absolutely fall under the umbrella of amphoratte. 

Harpreet Sahota: [00:48:49] How it is still a candle working for a complete asshole.

Anderson Silver: [00:48:52] So Epictetus as a famous exchange with one of the students about holding the chamber pot. And so if a student asks him should I hold the chamber pot? And Epictetus responds, well, that depends.

Anderson Silver: [00:49:02] Do you prefer what's more important, getting food or getting pissed on youchoose? Right. So working for a complete adult is do you need that job? Do you want that job? You're adding value in that job. If not, then you shouldn't be working for them. If you choose to work for them, that means there is a reason you're doing that, which means you can't forget that reason. You cannot ignore why you wanted to keep that job and only complain about the adults that's treating you badly. It's just like, you know, we're talking about our forty two seconds ago. You got to take the good and the bad. However, if. There's no reason for that if there are other job opportunities. Yeah, you might miss out on a paycheck for two months, but what's what's a paycheck? What is a paycheck? Is it important for. Is my soul not more important? My spiritual happiness? So that's how I would handle it. If it's a job you need, you take the good and the bad. If it's a job you don't need, you walk away. And if you have to keep the job, then how can you remedy that? How can you build that relationship? How can you change them if you can? Or is it just something you're going to tolerate again, without context? It's hard to answer, but I hope this gives some context for your listeners.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:50:10] Yes. Thank you very much for that. This next question is not going to lie. This next question is, is coming out of a situation for me and a little bit of ego infused into it. And I know it's the defense mechanism from the ego, but there seem to be types of people we work with who act like they know everything. Sometimes we could feel our expertize is not being respected or we're feeling that hitori ego about these types of people. How can we stop ourselves from feeling agitation when we encounter people like this?

Anderson Silver: [00:50:42] You're not going to like my answer because you can't. You cannot. Like you said, defense mechanism.

Anderson Silver: [00:50:48] It's emotions are bad. Coding emotions are part of the body. They are not part of us, which is the consciousness, this higher level of rationality that we possess and emotions exist for a reason, although in today's modern world they are no longer necessary, which causes this dichotomy with them, which is there's one side of us that's like, well, I know I shouldn't feel this way. And then there's the other side that's like, man, screw this guy so you can never get rid of it. I refer to the body's mind with all its anxieties and emotions as an annoying roommate. It's like he's there. You hear him whining. You have a choice on how you want to respond. You can pick a fight with him every time, or you can just be like, OK, yeah, I got your buddy. The government's listening to your phone. Yeah, sure. OK, you have some Cheetos and go watch Netflix. Just so emotions. You can not be agitated over a situation like this. So you have to look at what you can control. And that is you again, you is exclusive from your emotions. Your emotions are an external part of your body. You is your thoughts and judgments. So just like bravery is not the lack of fear, but doing the right thing in the face of fear, equanimity, the equanimity we seek this tranquility of mine that I teach is not a lack of emotions. It is doing the right thing in the face of emotions. So that's where the stock would have to focus.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:52:06] Thank you for that. And in those moments where I feel angry at my coworkers or defensive, I just remind myself of a line from a grocery list in the meditations where he says, We were born to work together like feet, hands and AIs like the two rows of teeth upper and lower to obstruct each other is a natural right. That's what we get from here to here to work with each other. That's part of being a social animal.

Anderson Silver: [00:52:32] Yeah, great quote.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:52:33] There's a lot of noise in terms of resources out there for online courses, books, etc. for Data scientist. And I know a lot of my mentees, I've got over 2300 of them as part of this program and they spend so much time jumping from resource to resource. And this reminds me of a quote from Marcus Aurelius in the Meditations Discourage a thirst for books or throw away your books that are distractions. Right. What do you think he meant by that?

Anderson Silver: [00:53:02] Ok, so let's put his quote into into context here. Here. Let's not forget, this was his diary. That was that he's writing to himself. So he's telling himself, why are you still wasting time with books? He was writing his journal. I mean, presumably he was writing his journals on time. But the five surviving books we have for which is part of this book, were written during the last few years of his life. He was dying. And so this particular book is during when he was nearing the very end, he knew he was at the end and he was dying. So wisdom is at the core of any philosophy, including stoicism. And you cannot learn unless you self educate. So you absolutely must read, read, read, learn, learn, learn, listen, listen, listen as much as you can. But let's go back to what stoicism is using your time in the most effective way possible, using a rational mind in the moment. So here's a wise man telling himself, you've got a few months left to live. What's reading something you're going to give you now? How is that going to make your life better? Spend time. And if you read it in the context of the next passage and stuff, he's appealing to himself to spend more time with loved ones and loved ones.

Anderson Silver: [00:54:16] He's referring to his generals, actually, because at that point in life, you know, his wife had betrayed him, tried to raise a coup against them with another general. Almost all of his children died from the Antoninus plague. The only surviving son he had, unfortunately, is the worst one. Commodus, as we know, it's one of the worst emperors ever to rule. So in this specific case, that's what he's saying, he's appealing to himself to say, drop your books, it's a pacifying act. It's like, you know, we'll sit in front of Netflix because we're tired, because it makes us feel good. That's what he was doing back then. He would sit and read. That was his Netflix. And he's telling himself, stop that because you're almost out of time.

Anderson Silver: [00:54:55] With that said, he's not saying there is a lesson to be had here in terms of what we read. And Seneca talks a lot about this. It's not about how much you read, but how you read. It's almost like Warren Buffett and his investment is not what you invest, it's how you invest. You should be very mindful, just like any other decision. Right. We want to be mindful in all of our decisions, what you're reading, how you're reading it, and the how I see these hundred book challenges where people are trying to read, you know, two books per week every week, that really adding value, really, because I like some books I read and reread and reread everywhere in the house. And this is my wife, crazy. Literally in every room there is a pencil and a highlighter because wherever I'm reading, I always highlight things and I write little notes in the margin. And, you know, a few years ago, I just decided to put some in every room because I was always chasing after something. So maybe that's the lesson we can take away from this. Don't just read. You know, this goes back to what we're talking about before, about being busy versus being productive versus being value added. Think about what you're reading. Think about how you're reading and then do it. Don't just read.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:56:03] I absolutely agree with that. My takeaway from that quote, I think is just action, right? At some point you have to take what you've learned and put it into practice. Otherwise you're just reading and reading passively or taking knowledge in passively, which is easy to do. But the hard thing to do is to apply it and to actually see if you know it.

Anderson Silver: [00:56:23] If I can jump in. Very good point, because stoicism, another thing of stoicism that appeals to me a lot. There's three reasons why I'm really into it.

Anderson Silver: [00:56:31] It's because it's a practical philosophy. It's not. You don't do stoicism. If I can say that by remembering quotes, you do it by actually applying it in real life. So a very good point. And in fact, that is what drives my articles and podcasts. They are all small, tiny exercises. People can apply in their own lives to help them feel more in control and better. So great point.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:56:55] Yeah, thank you. You mentioned Commodus and just interesting. Now I myself have a three month old infant son and you mentioned you've got kids yourself.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:57:08] And I'm thinking, how do I want to raise my son? Do I want to be a Marcus Aurelius for Commodus or do I want to be a Antoninus to a Marcus Aurelius is just something I was journaling about a couple of days ago, just kind of grappling with that. How am I going to raise my son the best way that I possibly can within some stoic virtues? And then I'm just curious how you've been doing that for yourself.

Anderson Silver: [00:57:32] I can assure you, my family, my wife and my kids love Version 2.0. Stoicism has strengthened my relationship with everybody and especially with those who are close to me. So for starters, because I became less egocentric and more objective about my world, let's be honest. Before this, I was that guy. I got the power, I got the goods. Me, me, me, me, me.

Anderson Silver: [00:57:55] Only after stoicism that I begin to realize I'm just a small narrative among seven point six billion other narratives. I'm just playing a small part here in other people's lives. I used to be the parent that would dictate and say, you got to do this, you got to do this, you got to do this. Whereas now I recognize the kids are not people to be molded, but personalities to be unfold.

Anderson Silver: [00:58:14] And so I do philosophy with my kids. We have philosophy and that's what we have, like a ball of little papers and we'll pick something out and like decision making and we'll talk about that for an hour through the Socratic method. I get the kids to ask the questions themselves. And now that they're turning into teenagers, I can totally see the payback on this investment. There's such rational, objective thinkers compared to what I was when I was a teenager. So it absolutely I mean, philosophy and philosophy stoicism resonated with me. But philosophy is absolutely a necessary part of anyone's life. It improves all aspects of our lives, including parenting. I think philosophy should be absolutely a part of any curriculum in any school. I wish I was taught these things in school. There are so many classes that are kind of wasted on certain historical facts that's like what does that really make us better, guys? And just quickly to clear up Marcus Aurelius, his name here, I know people judge him harshly for because, you know, he was the last great emperor of Rome. And then comes Commodus, you know, along with Titus and Nero, the three one of the three worst emperors effort to rule.

Anderson Silver: [00:59:19] So Marcus gets a bad rap for that. But I won't go into the history of this. There's a big reason why communists ended up being emperor. It wasn't actually my choice. And in fact, they were supposed to have two. Emperor Marcus Aurelius wasn't supposed to be a sole emperor either. His brother died from the antonymous plague. Communist was not so. We're all alone, but there was nobody left. He tried to put in his general, if your listeners have seen the movie Gladiator, Maximus is kind of a depiction of that general that had a good relationship with Marcus Aurelius, who was supposed to rule with commoners to teach him. But calmness, of course, that is thing. And that never happened. It was like a case of, you know, we see child celebrities now when they get all the fame and fortune at a young age, their minds just get messed up. That's what happened with communists. Unfortunately, it's not that Marcos dropped the ball as a parent just to clear his name.

Harpreet Sahota: [01:00:05] Thank you very much for sharing that and appreciate your insights on that. Something you said reminded me of a quote from Sadhguru, who's a Indian mystic yogi. He's got some interesting stuff out there as well, which I'm a fan of. And he said, I believe it was something along the lines of we don't raise children, we cultivate children. You raise animals, you raise cattle, but you cultivate children. And that what you had said about their personality to be unfolded, that really resonate with me. Thank you for sharing your perspective on that. I come from a culture where my parents and many of my friend's parents have a very common saying and that's looking, which translates into what will people say? What do the Stoics have to say about worrying about what other people think about you?

Anderson Silver: [01:00:52] Simple stuff doesn't care, doesn't care at all about any external, including what my own body and mind thinks about me. OK, emotions, after all, you know, when we feel embarrassed, right? It's our own mind, animal mind, our bodies mind that's being judgmental of us. So I don't care about what other people think. I don't care about what I think my body thinks. Rather, I don't care about any events or consequences out there. That's not true. I say I don't. I strive not to. Of course I care because I am imperfect. Caring about what other people say is part of what the cynics would have protested against, that they lived in protest against rather. And a lot of our anxiety comes from this. I mean, think about how ridiculous this sounds. We get anxious over what other people are going to think of us while we're dying.

Anderson Silver: [01:01:43] And I know nobody will disagree with this. Everyone goes, you know, this makes sense. But then in the heat of the moment, we get embarrassed that we can't really change. What we can do is learn to accept that there's two minds within us, learn to accept that there's my rational mind and then everything else. And so when we have these feelings of I care about what other people think to recognize that that's not me, that's not actually me, which is why when we think what other people are going to say about me, there's a part of us that's like, I know I shouldn't care. Everybody knows they shouldn't care. And that's the voice we have to listen to, which goes back to, you know, at the very beginning, I said stoicism is a philosophy that appeals to the subjects reason.

Anderson Silver: [01:02:25] And that's what we must do.

Harpreet Sahota: [01:02:27] That better make of this quote. It's ignoring what goes on in other people. So no one ever came to grief that way. That's a great, great saying. So last formal question here before we jump into a quick lightning round, and that is what's the one thing you want people to learn from your story?

Anderson Silver: [01:02:46] This is a great question. And this is kind of the message I'm asked usually after an interview. What do you want to leave the listeners with? Here's what I want to leave you with. Recognizing we can all agree that life is short, OK? Whether there's an afterlife or not, it's up for debate. I can't prove that there is one. I can't prove that there isn't one. So to me, it's a moot point. One thing we can all agree on is that we have this temporal existence right now, that's for sure. And we can recognize that it's actually really, really short, really short. I mean, we'd like to think we're still a couple of decades. Think about life in terms of Christmas. You know, we got maybe 30 more Christmases that we can host and then we're too old and we we've got to kind of go into neutral anyways. So knowing how short and precious our existence is, are you living life the way you want to live life or are you living life based on what you were told, based on what you feel like, other people expect you to do it or based on the self-image that was built on being defensive, trying to put on this face outwardly. Are you living your life the way you want to ask yourself that question?

Harpreet Sahota: [01:03:54] Thank you very much for that. Let's jump right into a lightning round which stoic philosophers work resonates most with you.

Anderson Silver: [01:04:02] It's like asking them, what's your favorite dish? I can't. There's so many of them. So I'm going to say Marcus Aurelius. Why? Because as the emperor of Rome, a lot of his philosophical adaptations were in his role in the human society.

Anderson Silver: [01:04:17] And I know I'm a I'm a father. I'm a you know, when I picked up this philosophy, I was already responsible for a lot of people that work, responsible for a lot of people at home, responsible as a coach, responsible as whatever, whatever. So I had a lot of roles as a leader that were already established in the society. So Marcus Aurelius, Adam.

Anderson Silver: [01:04:37] Of stoicism on how to best lead people resonates with me to help me through those challenges.

Harpreet Sahota: [01:04:43] If you could meet any historical figure, who would it be and what would you ask them?

Anderson Silver: [01:04:49] Runaway card. And I would just want to talk with him because his mind the same way Einstein's mind worked in such a weird way that he figured all the stuff that he did out run into Kurt's mind worked in a way that I don't understand. When I read his stuff. But it's just it's a beautiful mind. And I would just I would love to have a conversation with him.

Harpreet Sahota: [01:05:06] What do you believe that other people think is crazy?

Anderson Silver: [01:05:12] That we are important, that we actually that our lives are important.

Harpreet Sahota: [01:05:16] If you could have a billboard put up anywhere, what would you put on it?

Anderson Silver: [01:05:20] And why think for yourself? Because you matter. You're important and life is short.

Harpreet Sahota: [01:05:26] What would be the number one book? Fiction, nonfiction, or even one of each that you would recommend our audience read. And what was your most impactful takeaway from it?

Anderson Silver: [01:05:37] Ok, nonfiction would be the end Carillion because chock full of lessons and freaking hilarious. If there was an award for best stand up comedian, philosopher would be Epictetus and it just made it easier to learn fiction. Absolutely. Everybody should read Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace. He is the most philosophical writer. There's a reason why War and Peace is in almost every top ten book list out there.

Anderson Silver: [01:06:01] So many life lessons and existential questions answered. 

Harpreet Sahota: [01:06:04] The inquiry and the manual handbook. I love it. Epictetus is epic. What can I say? Yeah, it's it's a quick read to say everybody listening. Highly recommend picking that up. You could probably finish it an hour, but you will be going back to it for the rest of your life if we get somehow get a magical telephone that allowed you to contact eighteen year old Anderson, what would you tell him?

Anderson Silver: [01:06:29] That's easy here. Here's these three books. Read these your user's manual, your duality within your dichotomy of control. It's going to change your life because let's be honest, this is the life lessons that I've learned that I'm putting together in a couple of hundred pages. That's definitely what I would tell myself much earlier in life.

Harpreet Sahota: [01:06:45] Where could people find your books?

Anderson Silver: [01:06:47] Books on Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Google Play, Kindle, Kobol Audible We did some audio books as well. Almost anywhere. Book one and two is out. Number three should be out in a few months. Grab the books there. You know, I did. I wrote them in true stoic fashion. One hundred pages about each of them are one hundred pages short to the point, no fluff and written and modern day language and with modern day examples.

Harpreet Sahota: [01:07:14] It's the one thing I really appreciate about stoic philosophy and stoic work is they didn't care much for oratory or flowery, colorful language. I think Seneca had a one of his letters to Achilles was on the proper discourse of a philosopher, and it's straight to the point, plain language so that anybody can understand it. So I appreciate you writing your books like that.

Anderson Silver: [01:07:38] Sorry to interrupt. Another reason why the articles are just like four or five paragraphs, the weekly articles podcast are like five, six, seven minutes. Like you said, don't waste time because it's a waste of my time. It's a waste of my listeners time.

Harpreet Sahota: [01:07:50] What song do you currently have on repeat?

Anderson Silver: [01:07:53] For a long time it's been, let's say, Jim Petty by Eric Satie and The Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven, because they're sad, beautiful songs. And, you know, like we're talking about before, there is no life without death. There's no beauty without ugliness in these songs. Really, really embody that.

Harpreet Sahota: [01:08:11] How can people connect with you and where can they find you? Online?

Anderson Silver: [01:08:15] Online? I'm on multiple platforms, Twitter, Reddit. I'm very active on Reddit. I'm on Instagram, Facebook, what have you. All of my information, all of my contact information, including my email, if you want to write me directly, is on my page. Front page I Patreon Dotcom's Anderson Silver. For those who don't know, Patrón is a crowdsourcing platform for independent content creators like myself. So I've chosen that platform to centralize all my articles and podcasts and contact information. However, everything is free. There's no tiers that you have to join to gain extra access to extra whatever. Everything is free. So go on, check it out. You know, if it resonates with you. Great. I love hearing from people that say, you know, I read this. It makes so much sense. Thank you. And I love conversing with people on any questions from should I do this? Should I do that, too? Hey, can you clarify this concept more than happy to answer any questions.

Harpreet Sahota: [01:09:09] Definitely. Be sure to link to your front page as well as the other outlets as well. Anderson, thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to be here today and come on the show and discuss those closely with the audience. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Anderson Silver: [01:09:25] Thank you very much. This was awesome, Thank you.