Welcome to the Impact Podcast.
Create opportunities where others have failed and push you to build empires where once there was empty space.
Let's embark on this journey together and make a difference in this world. Welcome to the Impact Podcast with Eddie Wilson. Thank you so much for joining us today. I have got a special episode for you on one of my favorite topics and with one of my favorite characters in stoic history. But let me say this to you. Have you ever noticed how two people
“can go through the exact same event in life and come out with two completely different stories?”
That's happened to me so many times whether it's the loss of a loved one or a great success or have you ever played basketball or football or you've been a part of it in experience and it's like you come out and you tell the story and their story is so much different than what your story is. One time I've gone through a situation with somebody else and that person looked at me and said man that really it ruined my life. I looked at it and said wow that that changed my life.
Same event different outcome. Why? Because the experience is not just what happens to you.
It's the meaning you assigned to what happens to you. The experience is always attached to the meaning
and the meaning you attach becomes the experience. Today we're going to talk about one of the
“most powerful ideas in human history. The idea that was taught by stoic philosophers proven by”
psychology and modeled by great leaders and it's available to you right now. The meaning you attach to the experience becomes the experience. Let's jump in. The stoics believe something radical and I love a lot of the stoic philosophy and you've heard me talk about it, you know, through the empire teachings and trainings or through leadership teaching and training. But what they taught was is that events were not themselves good or bad. Events were just events. They're just something
that happens in the history of your lifetime. It's just this timeline of events. And you got this timeline that's just flowing from beginning to end, from A to Z. And along there is just events that happened, right? And what they believed was, is they believe that they're neither good or bad, only our judgments of those events make them good or bad. The person I want to introduce to you today is one of my favorite stoic philosophers. His name is Epictetus. Epictetus, think about
that, what a cool name, right? Like the first part of his name is Epictetus is a former slave
who ultimately turns into a philosopher. If you get the chance, read the story. Go to AI, tell them, tell the AI to tell you the story of Epictetus. Like it's phenomenal story. This slave, who ultimately turns philosopher is the one who's teaching us this lesson. Think about it. A portion of his life, we would look at and say, wow, what a horrible series of events that happened to this person. He was a slave. But in the end, he's the greatest teacher to tell us that it's
not about the events that happened to your life. It's the meaning you attached to the events that happened in your life. In the end, most people go through life and they allow things to dictate their experience. They allow meanings to dictate their experience. They walk through life and they've got this defeatist entitled ideology. And it's because they are trying to attach good or bad to events. If you don't attach good or bad to events and you just say events or events and whatever
meaning I get out of it is the experience of the event, it now allows you to architect the life
“that you want. That's what Epictetus teaches us. He said, men are disturbed not by things,”
but by the views that they take of them. Think of this as a slave. A slave is telling us that I'm not disturbed by the experiences of my life. I'm disturbed by the views that I put on that experience in life. Think about this. In the tactical, practical day-to-day traffic isn't stressful. Your interpretation of traffic is stressful. The other day I was taking my now 12-year-old to school and I decided I would drive my 1967 Camaro, which is a stick shift, right? So it's a five
speed and the clutch is so stiff on this 1967 Camaro that it is a leg workout when you're driving this car. And he has the longest car line in America and I get into this thing and it is stressful, right? I am stressed because it's, you know, it's, I don't want to stall the car and the car all of a sudden is the car is losing battery and like man, something is going off. Maybe it's the
Alternator or whatever, but I'm in line.
entrance of the school. There's a traffic, you know, it's traffic behind me, traffic in front of me. I'm trying not to stall this thing because I'm looking at the voltage and wondering, can I even get this thing started again? Now this is this car is, has been one of my dream cars and I've put so much into this and it's a, what's called a resto mod. I'm driving the 67 Camaro and I love it and it's it's matte black and it's everything I wanted and and I may I'm stressed out and sure enough,
I let the clutch out a little too slow and this thing stalls. And I'm in the line of traffic and
first of all, that's embarrassing, right? Like you're a classic muscle car owner and now you're
“stalling the vehicle and front all these people. And so, you know, I turn the key off and I go to”
start it and it goes, Er, Er, Er, and then nothing. And I can't get this thing to turn over. So now I'm in the line and my car won't start. And I tell Maddox, my son, I said, hey, you're going to have to walk from here to school and I'm going to have to figure this out. And this car has big giant white tires on it. So it's the, it's hard to push. And here I am in the line of traffic. I got it in neutral and I'm trying to push this car and I have to cross traffic because that's the only
parking lot that's even close. I can't go to the right because now I'm blocking traffic. I have to go
across traffic. So now I'm pushing this vehicle in the student line, right? And, um, and it's, it's funny,
you know, I, I, I stressed out and pushing this across. It's hard. I'm in dress shoes. My dress shoes are slipping on the pavement. And a bunch of, you know, dads that were dropping off their, they
“hop out and they're helping me push it. It's just like, it's one of those moments. You're like,”
ah, I really didn't want to do this this morning, you know? And I'm stressed, you know, I'm sweating. I've dressed clothes on. I get it over there. I call my car guy. I'm like, hey, come pick the stupid thing up, you know, whatever I'm mad at it. I'm trying to call an Uber. I'm like, literally, my whole morning is a mess at this point. And, uh, I get home later that day and, uh, it's so funny
because I ascribed this moment of like, man, my car failed, um, you know, in the student line,
it's a disaster. I'm sweaty, you know, like just, what a disaster of a morning. And I'm talking to Maddox and he goes, dad, he goes, uh, I said, yes, sorry, I made you walk this morning. He is like, no, no, no, probably he goes, oh, my friend saw your car. And I go, what did they see it? Not running is like, no, they, they were like, man, that's the coolest car ever. And he was like, my friends loved your car. And I was like, my car was not running. I was pushing my car across traffic.
I was sweating to death. Dads were helping me push this car. It's a disaster of a morning. And it's
“so funny how so much of life is about perception. My 12 year olds like my dad drove his cool car”
to school and all my friend saw it. It was so cool. I looked at his like, okay, I'm a failure of human being. I stalled, uh, this vehicle. I couldn't get us started. I have to ask other dads to help me push this thing out of traffic. But again, it goes back to that traffic maybe is only stressful because we interpret the traffic is stressful. Criticism isn't painful. Our story tied to the criticism is painful. Failure isn't devastating. The meaning about the failure determines whether
or not the failure crushes you or not or whether it builds you. In modern language, psychologists call this cognitive appraisal. The stoics taught this 2000 years ago. What they said was is you don't control events. You're right, cognitive appraisal. How I remember the the the praisele of the story, the situation. You only control the interpretation of it. And the interpretation shapes the emotion and emotion shapes behavior and behavior shapes destiny. Did you catch that
like that lineup right? So you don't control events. You control the interpretation of the event. Interpretation shapes the emotion. How we feel about it. Emotion shapes the behavior right? Behavior shapes destiny. Behavior shapes destiny. So practically speaking, the battlefield is actually internal. Like there's a famous verse in scripture that says that we wrestle not against principalities and powers. We wrestle not against flesh and blood. We
wrestle not against like the the the external. But we wrestle against principalities and power like spiritual, right? Like what it's saying is as you're wrestling is actually internal. The wrestling is a spiritual experience. The wrestling isn't something physical. It's not person against person. And most people try to control the external world in order to feel peace. The stoics did the
Opposite.
man, he went through one of the greatest periods of plague on the Roman citizens. Political chaos, he rode in his private journal. You have power over your mind. You do not have power over
“outside events. In his meditation, he says, you have power over your mind. That's the only thing”
of power over, not outside events. He said, realize this and you will find ultimate strength. Think about the freedom in that, right? Like the freedom of, I can't control the external events. I can't control what's happening to be. I can only control the experience.
I ascribe to it. If your peace depends on your circumstances, you'll always be fragile.
Right? Like you'll always be destined to whatever the experience or the events are happening around you is. Your peace depends on your interpretation. And in that, you become unshakable. Do you want a fragile life or do you want an unshakable life? Two people lose a job. One says, I'm finished. I'm never going to overcome this. The other says, man, that's the push I needed. That was the thing that I needed in order to go after my next thing. Same event, different future,
because the meaning is the creative power behind the destiny or the future that you want.
So this story is amazing, right? You have Ebbectetus, the slave, and one of the most amazing
stories I believe in stoic history is Ebbectetus because he was born a slave in the Roman Empire. At one point, his master twisted his leg. Like this is how bad it was. His master twisted his leg
“slowly, cruelly into the point where it finally snapped. Like you need to just snap it. He literally”
to apply pressure kept twisting and twisting and twisting his Ebbectetus talked about it until it finally just gave way and snapped, right? It broke. And the legend says Ebbectetus, in the moment that this master is twisting his leg into the point where it snaps, he says to the master, if you keep twisting, it will break very calmly. And the story legend goes, when it broke, he didn't show any emotion he said, see, I told you. It was, I can only control the internal. I can't control what you
do. He had no rage, no panic, no collapse. Think about, think about that. I mean, it's it's such a powerful disposition. Why? Because he believes something extraordinary. He believed that you can chain my body, but you cannot chain my mind. You cannot control my mind. After gaining freedom
“finally, he gains freedom later in life. He becomes one of the most influential philosophers in history,”
teaching, emperors, generals, and leaders. His ability to to capture the moment in the mind, versus in the external, gained him such a reputation that he began to teach emperors and generals and leaders the same thing to not look at external experiences or to not judge the experience by the external, but by the internal. He denied suffering's power to define him. His experience of slavery was different from other slaves because his meaning was different. He didn't look
at slavery as oppression. He looked at slavery as something that gave him the power to determine
his destiny in life. I would never condone slavery. I would never condone something as
as just of a poor and as another individual opposing their will on another individual such as slavery. One of the most devious and dark times of our nation's history is that period of slavery. But so much of what you read about the slaves and what they went through and how resilient they were and how they sang those spiritual hymns and how they became such a force to be reckoned with. It's found right here in this story of slavery that happened hundreds of years before this
slavery, you know, stories in America. But he didn't allow it to define him. He didn't allow life's sufferings to determine what his experience was. His meaning was different. So what's the modern application to you, to I, to myself, right? And that is this principle applies to everything in life. So how about business? A failed deal can mean I'm not really cut out for this. You know, a lot of you've heard my story of the first, you know, sale I ever had. I got heavily
taken advantage of, but it propelled me to ultimately learn that game and I'm such a
A better business person because of that experience.
experience and instead of thinking I'm not cut out for this, they say, you know, that was my tuition
“and now my tuition spade and now on the next deal I'm going to get smarter, right? How about how”
about relationships? Conflicting relationships can mean to one person, this is falling apart. Like this isn't going to work. To another person, it can mean this is where growth happens. This is an area of growth and opportunity in my life. How about health challenges? I've been going through some health challenges of my own recently and health challenges can become a prison or they can become a wake-up call, right? Like I'm 46 years old and it gone through some health
issues here recently with malaria coming from India and some different things and it's been a great wake-up call for me, right? To say, okay, what period of a time my life to have the chance, the ability to do something about this, right? To fight and to get a better immune system and to get better in shape, right? Like it can either be a prison, oppression, or it can be a wake-up call. Let's do something about it. The event doesn't determine the trajectory, the meaning determines
the trajectory, high-performance, high-performance resilient leaders and people who change the world all share one trait. They consciously choose empowering interpretations, not delusional interpretations, not fake positivity, but purposeful meaning. What does it mean? What did I gain and what gratitude can I share or show based on what I have experienced? Let me give you one cautious. One kind of like cautious experience that I want to make sure that you do not our conscious trap that you don't fall into.
“You need to be very conscious around the events that are happening in your life, especially”
the ones that could easily be perceived as negativity. Because the unconscious mind is a very
powerful force to be reckoned with and if you do not choose the meaning consciously, your fears will
set subconscious markers and limitters in your own life. Your past will choose the meaning. Your insecurities will choose the meaning all part of your subconscious. Your worst internal narrator will choose what that meaning is. And then life feels hostile, unfair, exhausting, demeaning, demoralizing. And stoicism teaches radical responsibility. It says nothing has meaning until it has been assigned. If you put that wall up of all experiences, is that I am not going to
allow there to be a meaning in life's experiences until I assign it, then you now in your conscious mind have control. Because then you can't blame the world or you can't blame other people based on what you're experiencing. You have you get to choose the meaning, but you also don't have to be controlled
by it. You don't have to be controlled by it. This is a powerful, powerful way to live. So on the
personal side, I want to reframe the exercise. Here's a practical step question to ask in any situation
“if you want to put that wall up of, "Hey, I don't want to scrub. I don't want to let my subconscious”
describe meaning." In every situation, you ask yourself this, what meaning would make this experience useful? What meaning would make this experience useful? As you begin to reframe the usefulness of life's experiences, you frame it in the positive light for the benefit it's going to be for your future. Not what made it comfortable, not what would make this easy, not even what would make this a better outcome, but what would make this useful? Viewing obstacles as training, right? So number
one, practical, stoke question, what would make this experience more useful or useful? Another stoke practice would be viewing obstacles as training. Ryan Holiday has the book called "The obstacle is the way." It's all this whole concept that Marcus really spoke about in his
meditation where he said the obstacle is ultimately your greatest trainer and so the obstacle is the
way that we don't avoid obstacles, we go add obstacles, we choose the path around the obstacle because that is the great trainer. Marcus really said the impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. The obstacle is the path, the obstacle is the path, right? The obstacle that's in your way is the path because it is the greatest teacher. That's a personal reframe that
If you would choose in your life would change everything about your life.
that there's always freedom when you associate meaning. Imagine waking up tomorrow with this mindset,
“that nothing that happens today has inherent power over me, nothing has power over me.”
Only the meaning I assign to it does. That doesn't remove the hardship or the obstacle, but it removes the helplessness, often attached to the hardship or the obstacle. The stoics weren't emotionless robots, like a lot of people, they say they try to pull all emotion out. They're not emotionless robots. They're not just going through life and they're just taking away emotion and just managing it apractically. Know what they're doing is is they're saying that we will control the
emotion where emotionally sovereign in our own lives, right? Like we control it, we choose it. They
chose the emotion. And here's the deepest truth. You are not just experiencing your life. You're
“interpreting your life into existence. I want you to hear that one more time. You are not just”
experiencing your life. You're interpreting your life into existence. Think about this. You said at the end of a bedside, I've done many times, whether it was my grandfather, a few grandfather's that I've had. You know, specifically my mom's father, who was a police officer, I got the chance to talk to him late into his life. And then my grandfather, that was my my dad's dad,
who lives such an amazing fool and an amazing life, a fulfillment. And I got the chance to talk to them
later into their years, right? Like lots of deep conversations with them. And what was interesting is, is when you ask them about their life, all they went back to is the stories and the experiences of their life. My grandfather, my dad's dad, talked a lot about how he married my grandmother, and he married my grandmother, young. And so he had to cross state lines to go into Maryland, because in the state of Pennsylvania, you couldn't get married before 18. And they wanted to get
married. And he was in the military. And I just all you heard was stories, right? And as you got older in life, even to the point where he had dementia, he still could recall a few of the older stories, right? But you think about it, those stories were just his perception of the experiences, right? Like they were just, they were just him in a future state, right? Interpreting his life that he had put into existence by the meaning he associated with the experiences. And later in life,
he sat there in what I experienced with him was really just his interpretation of life's experiences, of which he assigned to it, sometimes 50, 60, 70 years ago, but then now 90 plus years old
“was telling me the experiences of life. Our life is not just the experience.”
Right now, we're interpreting our life into experience. The meaning we assign is the experience. So when something difficult happens and it will, it's going to happen today. It's going to happen tomorrow. It might not be catastrophic. It might be minor. Today, you might go through the worst day of your life. Recently, I've gone through some very, very difficult days. And in that, I get to choose what the experience is. So when something difficult happens and it will
pause and ask yourself, what meaning will I choose? Because that choice doesn't shape the moment. It shapes the person you become. The choice doesn't just shape the moment. It shapes the person you become. Who do you want to become? Who is it that you want to be? When you get to that 90-year-old self and you get to look back on the experiences of life, you chose them. The meaning you attach becomes the experience. Start shaping the experience you want by controlling that inner
voice in your life. Thanks so much for being a part of the podcast for listening today. I'd love to connect with you further and you can connect with me on social media at Eddie Wilson official on any of the social media channels.
