E103 - The UC Playbook: The Art of Stoic Living

Ready for a journey back in time to ancient Athens? Today, we're thrilled to continue our enlightening dialogue with Felipe Engineer Manriquez on the philosophy that's shaped his life and many others - Stoicism. We promise you an exploration of this ancient philosophy's roots; its founder Zeno of Sidium, its therapeutic nature, and its profound impact on our lives. We'll delve into its emphasis on ethics and how our thoughts can influence our well-being. Plus, we'll unravel the mystery behind the placebo effect and its connection to Stoic principles.

But we're not stopping there. As we venture deeper, we'll unveil the crucial role Stoicism played in resurrecting a rational approach to psychotherapy in the 20th century. Hear about Swiss psychiatrist Paul Dubois, who masterfully integrated Stoic philosophy into his therapy sessions. We'll share stories of great Stoic thinkers like Epictetus and Seneca, who taught us the importance of living each day like it's our last. And finally, we'll discuss one of Stoicism's most poignant teachings - the acceptance of death. Through the lens of a deeply personal story about the loss of a beloved pet, we're going to ask ourselves a significant question - are we living a life worth repeating? Join us for a transformative exploration of Stoicism.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You want to talk right down to us and a language
that everybody here can easilyunderstand.
Do you understand the wordsthat are coming out of my mouth?
What?
Space one again.
Space one again.
I dare you, I double dare you.
What we got here is a failureto communicate.

(00:24):
Welcome to the Uncommoncommunicator podcast, where we
bring enlightenment to the topicof communication.
In this week's playbook, we arefollowing up on an absolutely
great interview that I had withFelipe engineer Manriquez, and
we covered the topic of stoicism.
Now, talking with Felipe, he isone of those guys that is
deeper than you see in his posts, in his leading in the lean

(00:46):
industry, but we really delveddeep into some philosophies,
some philosophies of life thatreally guided him and that have
recently intrigued myself aswell.
And as we talked about stoicism, we kind of just breezed over
where it started, why ithappened.
I think it's important tounderstand its foundation.
We're going to talk a littlebit about that this morning or

(01:07):
today as we move on, and we'lltalk on a couple of other topics
a little bit deeper, on maybeone that I skipped at the end
and I got called out for, butwe're going to jump right into
this week's playbook Now,stoicism originated as a
Hellenistic philosophy foundedin Athens by Zeno of Sidium.
That is what we could notremember.
We didn't know that on the topof our head, which is modern day

(01:29):
Cyprus today, around 300 BC, itwas influenced by Socrates and
the cynics.
Stoicism was very much aphilosophy meant to be applied
to everyday living.
It focused on ethics,understanding, as you know, a
study of how one lives theirlife, and it focused on
understanding how people liveand how they can turn informed

(01:50):
by this information.
Now, stokes called physicsnowadays a kind of a combination
of natural science andmetaphysics and what they call
logic, a combination of modernlogic, epistemology, philosophy,
language and cognitive science.
Now, socrates consideredphilosophy to be, among other
things, a form of a talkingtherapy, a sort of medicine for

(02:12):
the mind.
Within a few generations of hisdeath, this idea of philosophy
was psychotherapy had becomecommonplace among the various
schools within this Hellenisticphilosophy and we kind of lose
track of that.
We lose the idea that this wasreally a form of psychotherapy.
However, it was the Stokes whoplaced the most emphasis on this

(02:33):
therapeutic dimension ofphilosophy.
For example, the Roman Stoketeacher, epictetus, wrote it is
more necessary for the soul tobe cured than the body, for it
is better to die than to livebadly.
And he really states it bluntlywithin the philosopher school,
as a doctor's clinic, that'swhat they kind of called it.

(02:54):
Now, today most people areunaware of the extent to which
ancient Greeks and Romansconceived of philosophy as a
type of psychological therapy,and it's interesting that now,
2000 years later, we're seeingcognitive behavior therapies
that are right in line withtaking in the thoughts of these
philosophers, where we haveownership, where we can take and

(03:16):
own our thoughts, and that ourown thoughts are going to get us
past those points and even beto a healing point.
You know, one thing we touchedon a little bit is when you look
at placebo, the placebo effecta lot of times plus placebo are
25 to 30% effective, even moreso than the medicine that's
being tested for, whatever thingthat they're testing it on,

(03:37):
which shows that within our mindwe have that power to perceive
the health that is within us.
So how much more of that can wehave in directing our own lives
, in looking at becoming betterthrough philosophy and through
the stoic philosophy and throughpositive thinking?
Stoicism survived for fivecenturies, but its therapeutic

(04:00):
concepts and practices weremostly neglected until about the
20th century where a rationalapproach to psychotherapy began
emerging, which held that manyemotional and psychosomatic
problems were caused by negativeself-talk and auto-suggestions
which be amenable to likerational disputation.
Its leading proponent, theSwiss psychiatrist Paul Dubois,

(04:23):
employed a Socratic questioningwith his parents, with his
patients, and taught them thebasic principles of a Socratic
and Stoic philosophy of life.
Dubois also noticed that,paradoxically, the stoic words
of advice he read in the lettersof the philosopher Seneca seem
to be drawn from a moderntreatise on psychotherapy.
He says this in a moderntreatise, but this was written

(04:46):
in the 1st century AD.
Dubois placed more emphasisthan most of the other
psychotherapists on thefundamental distinction that
Stoics make between what is upto us and what is not.
Then, that is, one of the keyto Stoicism is there are things
that are up to us.
We can't blame others for this.

(05:07):
Epictetus put it.
What, then, is it to be done?
To make the best of what iswithin our power and to take the
rest, as it naturally happens.
Now, one of the things that Iskipped during this episode and
Felipe called me out for it wasStoic Rule number three, and

(05:30):
that was accepting death.
I didn't think it was the placeto call it out, but he
certainly called out the factthat part of the Stoicism,
philosophy and that doctrineisn't to just hide it from it
but to accept it.
And how do we accept it?
But by living a better life.
So there's such a positivemessage that actually comes

(05:52):
within that.
But, backing up a little bit, Ihad recently lost McGee.
Mcgee was a dog that we had hadfor 14 years and that was
probably one of the hardestthings we do as human beings is
to have to put a dog down.
And that brought in way moreemotion than I was prepared to
handle.
And in doing so it allowed meto kind of process through what

(06:15):
is life, what is death.
And McGee had served such agreat purpose on earth, so much
joy, so much happiness that hebrought the family.
I had even given a speech inToastmasters about his life.
I treated it as a memorialwhere I just was going to go up
and talk about all the greatthings that he did.
He greeted me unconditional,with unconditional love.

(06:36):
You know, when we would playfetch and I would throw the ball
, he would run with such laserfocus towards that ball, but
when he turned around, his earswould just be a flop and he'd be
totally relaxed.
He would enjoy that run back asmuch as he enjoyed going for
his goal.
And then the last thing iseverybody says this about their
dogs.

(06:56):
I wish I could duplicate him.
I wish I had another McGee.
I had another friend of minewho had a dog named Gracie Now
Gracie.
They had had for a lot of years, I think over 17 years.
They had Gracie.
It was a beautiful littleBichon and fluffy.
That was their child.
They would get a rotisseriechicken and debone it and feed

(07:16):
this dog with such love, suchcare.
Gracie was such a wonderful dogand I'm messing up because they
got another Bichon and thatBichon was named Gracie.
Now Gracie was never Lacey, butwhen you look at some of our
pets, I've lived lives that wewant to repeat it.
That is became kind of themantra that I learned from McGee

(07:41):
.
And also looking at andaccepting death.
You look at, how are you livingyour life now?
Are you living a life worthrepeating?
Epictetus said I cannot escapedeath, but at least I can escape
the fear of it, and I like thisone.

(08:03):
Let us prepare our minds as ifwe'd come to the very end of our
life.
Let us postpone nothing.
Let us balance life's bookseach day.
What a message in that.
Now let's close out that day.
The one who puts the finishingtouches on their life each day
is never short of time, andthat's a quote from Seneca.

(08:24):
Marcus Aurelius once said youcould leave life right now.
Let that determine what you do,say and think, and that mindset
alone brings us to the point ofwhat is our UC moment.
What did I gather from our chatwith Felipe?
And that's this, and I'm goingto leave it in the form of a
question today we learned a lotabout how a stoic system can

(08:46):
really guide your life.
It can bring you happiness nowit can not let the storms of
life come against you, becauseyou're taking ownership of those
things.
And then, when you look atdeath, death is looking at life
directly.
And are you living a lifethat's worth repeating?
So the UC moment for today thatI have for you today, your

(09:08):
challenges are you living a lifethat's worth repeating?
And that's all I've got.
See you, bye.