Getting After It

080: Perseverance – Building Strength through Adversity

• Brett Rossell • Season 3 • Episode 80

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Can embracing the ancient wisdom of Stoic philosophers truly transform your life? On this episode of the Getting After It podcast, we’re diving deep into the practical power of Stoicism, and I guarantee you’ll walk away with strategies that will help you not just survive but thrive through life’s toughest moments. Inspired by the relentless grit of David Goggins and the timeless teachings of Stoics like Epictetus and Seneca, we’ll break down how embracing adversity can unlock a version of you that’s stronger, wiser, and more resilient than ever before.

In this episode, I share actionable steps you can apply immediately to turn challenges into opportunities for growth. Whether you’re chasing personal development, aiming to crush it in your career, or seeking deeper connections in your relationships, this episode has something for you. The Stoics believed that hardship is an inevitable part of life, but instead of resisting it, we can learn to see it as a chance to prove and strengthen our character. It’s a mindset shift that can lead to profound inner strength.

Instead of passively accepting difficulties or letting them overwhelm you, Stoicism teaches us to take rational, decisive action. That means confronting your problems head-on, with courage and clarity, rather than shrinking back. We’ll discuss how this approach can help you overcome procrastination, eliminate distractions, and leverage supportive relationships to propel you forward.

And let’s not forget the importance of physicality. Whether it’s a daily run, hitting the gym, or even just a walk to clear your head, I’ll touch on how taking care of your body fuels your mind. Goggins is a huge proponent of pushing physical limits, and it’s no coincidence that Stoics like Marcus Aurelius believed in the same. Physical resilience is directly tied to mental resilience. It’s about constantly improving, even when it feels like life is throwing everything it’s got at you.

Throughout the episode, you’ll hear stories—both ancient and modern—about how reframing your judgments and tapping into available resources can make a huge difference in how you experience adversity.

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Your dreams are within reach. You just have to decide to Get After It.

Speaker 1:

How's it going everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the Getting After it podcast. My guest today is me myself and I and the Stoics a little bit. We cover the topic of perseverance and why it's important, how to do it, and I, in this episode, have studied a lot of the the stoic philosophies about persevering and provide seven actionable things that might help you with your future trials and perseverance. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you take something from it and let's get after it.

Speaker 1:

We are all faced with adversity and is no respecter of persons. There are going to be times in your life that you will be tested to what you think are your limits. I found that not to be the case During what I think are my hardest times. They always eventually end. The stories I tell myself of I can't do this or this is the hardest thing I've done tend to be false. I can't do this or this is the hardest thing I've done tend to be false.

Speaker 1:

I've learned through studying the Stoics that they had an interesting way to look at adversity and challenges. Instead of shying away from them, every challenge or trial that they faced was an opportunity to prove themselves and to show up when it was most difficult to do. The Stoics not only wrote about how to persevere, they used Stoicism to persevere in the face of plagues, exiles, imprisonment and wars. Perseverance should be viewed as enduring hardships while maintaining moral integrity. So how do we persevere? Well, how do we persevere? Happily, that is something that I wrote as I was preparing for this podcast, because the topic today is perseverance.

Speaker 1:

I have discussed this a lot on the podcast and different examples of perseverance, everything from personal growth. It takes a lot of persevering through that process to see you become the person that you ultimately want to become, right. It also takes time to get promoted at work and to see things start to really take off on certain projects or whatever you're doing with relationships persevering through the hard times to get to the bliss that comes with relationships. And then physical challenge. Physical challenge is probably the most easily relatable one to discuss when we talk about perseverance and it's probably one that I will draw a lot of examples to um, at least in this episode of the podcast, because I think, no matter who you are, you've had a workout where you thought you were going to die right, like your heart's beating out of your chest, you're sweating and you're like I don't know, adrenaline's flowing through you. So you just you're jazzed up, you're pumped up, but it's hard to persevere when your body's feeling like that. Right, and I've had my fair share of experiences, especially as I have trained for multiple races and doing things like that. But perseverance is one thing that tells a lot about who you are as a person. In my opinion, persevering through hardships, through trials, in trying to find the silver lining in everything, is a talent. And today we're going to be discussing seven things that the Stoics talked about, about how to persevere well and what you can be doing to help yourself when you are going through a challenge or a trial. And I love what the Stoics say. They don't look at challenges and trials as that. They look at them as opportunities, opportunities to prove themselves. They look at them as opportunities, opportunities to prove themselves, to show up when it's the hardest.

Speaker 1:

The modern day stoic that I think about a lot, who discusses probably perseverance to the best degree possible, is David Goggins. He gets a lot of crap. He really does. People are like he's too intense. He is way over the top. This guy's going to kill himself. There's no way his joints are going to survive another couple of years. He's going to be on crutches all this. While that might be true, you cannot argue with me that he is not an admiral person to look at in terms of perseverance. He knows what it takes If you listen to any of his stories.

Speaker 1:

He talks about when he ran the Badwater race, which is 135 miles in the desert, on just middle of the summer it's in the desert midday. Badwater is literal hell. It's so hot. So I'm painting that picture for you. And while David Goggins was training for this race, he had broken feet while he's training, okay, and so he's going to show up to race day with these broken feet because he's not giving himself time to heal. So he still has this injury and he shows up and he runs the entire 135 miles for the Badwater race. I can't remember what he placed, but he talks about how. If you look at his feet when he's running across the finish line, you see all this black tape that's kind of flopping around, and that black tape was holding his ankle together and pretty much giving it stability right. That example alone tells me that David Goggins is one that knows how to persevere.

Speaker 1:

And if you listen to all the things that he says about where he got all these ideas from, where he gets his drive from. It's very simple he wants to prove himself, and he looks at all these things that he does as opportunities to do just that, and so that would probably be my first tip it's not one of the seven that we're going to discuss, but look at the challenges that you face. Look at these trials in your life as opportunities to prove who you are as a person. Opportunities to dig down deep. Take all the lessons your parents taught you, all the lessons your mentors passed on. Use them and get stronger through this trial, because you can do it. If you're getting after it, by all means you can do it.

Speaker 1:

And I know I say that and it sounds like, oh yeah, he's just, everyone can do it. Right, it sounds like it's almost a self-help uh mantra. That's not the case. I'm saying you can do it because I have struggled my entire life with self-belief and knowing that I can push and get to the goals that I want to, and I was this kid who pretty much didn't believe in himself. I knew I could work hard, and that inkling alone is what I took and went, graduated college, worked on an agency with my brothers and now am very happy in my sales career, but it's because I made decisions every day to try and improve and get better and love the situation I was in. And the reason I'm saying this is because I came from nothing in terms of self-talk, in terms of goals, I really didn't have anything really planned out for myself, and so it's all come through ideas and trying new things. And with that, let's jump into some of these tips that the Stoics had.

Speaker 1:

The ancient Stoics they all face the same problems that we do today. Stoics they all face the same problems that we do today. Yes, we have TikTok and Instagram and all these other social media things that kind of make life a little bit more connected and easier. They didn't have that, but they dealt with loss and they dealt with plagues and sickness and they dealt with being tired, being fatigued. They were all human beings. Yes, times have changed, but for the most part, they have the same feelings and issues that we do too, and so the first thing that they say is accept your fate, or amor fati, which is what it is in Latin. So amor fati is a Latin phrase that translates to love of fate, or love of one's fate, and it's a way to embrace every moment, even the challenging ones. So love your fate.

Speaker 1:

And Epictetus has this quote where he says do not seek for things to happen, which, by the way, on every tip I have a quote from a Stoic. Anyways, epictetus, do not seek for things to happen the way you want them to. Rather, wish that what happens happens the way it happens, then you will be happy. Interesting way to look at it. But let's go to the latter half of the quote. Wish that what happens happen the way it happens, then you will be happy. So don't wish it to go your way is what he's trying to say. Just deal with the situation and, as mentioned before, hardship allows you to show your true character. So embrace the hardship, love your fate, embrace every single moment, even the moments of hell, the ones that you don't want to be there, when life seems to be looming over you and everything is kind of falling all at once. Try to embrace the moment.

Speaker 1:

And it's easier said than done. I understand, but the chance of us existing is so small If you think about this. But we are here. The chances of that particular sperm cell that fertilized an egg, those chances are so small. So you're here. You've already beaten insurmountable odds, just by that alone. So when you were born, when you were first conceived, be proud of that. So, everyone who listens to this, you get a trophy for conception. Nice work. But your existence in its own is rare, and that thought to me is beautiful. So even our suffering is rare and beautiful. If you think of life as this thing, that is as beautiful as it is, and it is rare and should be treated as a gift. That means, even when the times that you suffer, you should try and find ways to be grateful in the circumstance.

Speaker 1:

And accepting your fate does not mean that you're necessarily okay with the bad things that are happening to you. I want to make that very clear. But it means you're accepting that struggling is part of existing. We can use this to persevere, because this gives us the courage to act. Loving and appreciating every minute shows us that we are not helpless. We are just experiencing what it means to exist, and Ali has been such a good example of this for me because we talked about this in the last podcast episode, but she's really helped me open up with my emotions.

Speaker 1:

Talk about the things that are kind of taboo for guys to talk about how they're feeling, whatever, but she explained it the same way that Epictetus did, and she said every human being feels emotions and it's okay to feel emotions. And when she said it that simply I was like well, that makes complete sense. Like, of course, everyone's going to have the same feelings. We're all human beings. So, just as everyone has emotions and feelings, everyone is going to face hardships, everyone is going to have times of suffering and, as much as that sucks, it's beautiful because it means you're here and you're not dead. I carry this coin around now. It says memento mori, which I made a podcast episode on that, so I won't talk too much about it but on the very back it says you could leave life right now, because life is so fragile, it's so precious that even when we're suffering, we should try to find ways to be happy.

Speaker 1:

Now, the second thing that the Stoics say are don't complain, because complaining weakens resilience and it takes your focus off of enduring. If you're complaining, you've already lost the battle. Marcus Aurelius says this everything that happens is either endurable or not. If it's endurable, then endure it. Stop complaining. If it's unendurable, then stop complaining. Your destruction will mean its end as well. Just remember you can endure anything your mind can make endurable by treating it as in your interest to do so In your interest or in your nature.

Speaker 1:

Mic drop from Marcus Aurelius. I love what he says at the beginning. It's kind of funny Everything that happens is either endurable or not. If it's endurable, then endure it and stop complaining. If it's unendurable, then stop complaining. Your destruction will mean its end as well. So obviously that's a little bit, that's a morbid thought, a little bit, but he makes a good point. If you can see a path to get through this challenge, this trial, this situation, then don't complain and just wait it out and do your best to maintain your positivity and your optimism. We'll talk a little bit about that further down in this episode.

Speaker 1:

But don't complain. Either you persevere or you don't. Regardless, complaining does not necessarily tip the odds in your favor. Yes, like I mentioned earlier, you do feel emotions. Yes, it's important to confide in people. Use them as support systems around you. But do not tell yourself you will fail, because once you do that, you will. Do not tell anyone else that you will fail. Don't tell anyone that this specific struggle will be the end of you. Don't mention that Complaining in fact makes it harder to endure and, like I said, I'll be leaning into fitness a little bit in this episode.

Speaker 1:

And when I'm running and I am 10 miles into a 15-mile run and I start saying, damn, I got five miles to go, man, that sucks. Then it gets harder to stay on on the treadmill or in the run because I've already thought about the end and everyone faces some kind of situation. That's like that where things might be going decent enough but once one little speed bump comes up it might throw you entirely off your course and you might start losing faith in yourself. But do not complain. If you allow yourself to complain, you're defeating yourself. You may be able to get through something by complaining, but that will not leave your good nature intact.

Speaker 1:

To exercise virtue in the face of adversity, we must have control over our own minds, which again shout out to David Goggins, because he is such a good example of having control over someone's mind. That dude is unbreakable. He's not going to be able to stop. I actually think yeah. So his first book is called Can't Hurt Me and his second book is called Never Finished. So he already hasn't learned how to control his mind. But there's power in controlling your mind, and so, instead of complaining, try to find something to be positive about. And tip number three is realize that it's not the end of the world.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to give you some perspective on loss and suffering, bringing back Epictetus. Here's what he says Never say of anything. I have lost it, but I have returned it. Is your child dead? It is returned. Is your estate taken away? Well, and is not that likewise returned? But he who took it away is a bad man. What difference is it to you who the giver assigns to take it back? What he's saying there? It took me a while to understand this quote, but the way that you speak about your situation will determine how you get out of it and the strength you're able to maintain through the situation itself. The difficulty will end and on top of that you will end. The difficulty will end and on top of that you will end, you will die. Memento mori.

Speaker 1:

But the point that Epictetus is trying to make is we can only control our response to what happens to us, and it might feel like it's the end of the world to us, but really is it? Ask yourself am I that important to where, if I don't finish my 15-mile run and I only get 10 miles in, is the world going to end? No, you control your response to that. If your goal is 15 and you only got 10, then you say, hey, where did I go wrong? How can I improve? For next time I got this. Keep it that simple.

Speaker 1:

Think about how you respond to adversity. Think about how you have historically been. When hardships come up, are you one to typically freak out or can you rely on other people during that time? Can you build your support group? Can you read or journal to figure out your thoughts? Like it's not the end of the world, there are things that you can be doing to get through the situation, and that's what epictetus is trying to say, is that the difficulty will end, but the way that it will end faster or sooner is how you frame it in your mind. We suffer more in our minds than in reality. That's from Seneca.

Speaker 1:

Now, along with that, the next point, number four, is don't just sit there and take it. Don't be idle in this situation either, because perseverance requires action and not passivity. Do not be passive during this whole experience. Seneca, who I just quoted, says this Putting things off is the biggest waste of life. It snatches away each day as it comes and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. You are arranging what lies in fortune's control and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty. So live immediately, seneca. Live immediately, act, take action. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. Seneca is telling us that time is limited on earth. We are not going to be here forever and, like I mentioned, memento mori, like you, can leave the world at any moment. So how are you going to live today? And don't just sit there and take it, because working towards ending your suffering allows you to start regaining some control in your life.

Speaker 1:

Persevering is active, it's not passive. We don't persevere by shutting down until it's over. We persevere by responding rationally to our hardships. We persevere by determining the most virtuous course of action. So you need to persevere immediately, just like Seneca is saying live immediately, persevere immediately. Like what can you be doing to make the situation better? And that might take some time. That might mean you sitting and journaling your thoughts, being present with yourself, so you can start thinking through some of these things and then see where that takes you. But if you think that you're going to get through your trial just by sitting there, curling up under the sheets in your bed and being comfortable, that's not the point of trials. It's an opportunity to prove yourself. And if you're proving yourself by curling up under the blankets, then maybe you're not cut out for the goals that you have for yourself. Maybe you need to reevaluate those. And that kind of ties into the second or the next point, which is demand better, always demand better.

Speaker 1:

Actively work towards improvement and self-betterment. Now, sorry, I need to drink my Coke. My throat was getting a little dry. Coke Zero, of course, guys. Come on, don't be crazy. But actively working towards improvement and self-betterment is the entire purpose of this podcast. For me at least, doing this forces me to improve and to better myself, and it's been a blessing. Honestly, I've learned a lot, but the point of me trying to get that across is that it's taken a long time to get there and I've had to actively work towards that improvement.

Speaker 1:

Go back to my early episodes of the podcast and just listen to some of the terrible early recordings that I made. They're so bad. I have this weird voice that I do where I'm like, hey guys, I kind of sound like Mickey Mouse. Well, welcome back to getting after it. It's kind of like that. It's just so high pitched and over the top. But I've had to improve the podcast quite a bit. I've had to slow down when I speak, try to get rid of filler words if I can. That's been one of the hardest challenges. Improve my vocabulary study as much as I can so I can produce good content and allow you all to learn something from it.

Speaker 1:

And Epictetus has a good way to look and think about self-improvement. He says how long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself and in no instance bypass the discriminations of reason? You have been given the principles that you ought to endorse you, and you have endorsed them. What kind of teacher, then, are you still waiting for in order to refer yourself improvement to him? You are no longer a boy, but a full grown man.

Speaker 1:

If you are careless and lazy now and keep putting things off and always deferring the day after which you will attend to yourself, you will not notice that you are making no progress, but you will live and die as someone quite ordinary. That's a fear of mine right there, dying as someone who is quite ordinary. But why is that? Why do some people die ordinary and other people die with a great legacy behind them? Well, it's simple. Because Epictetus says if you are careless and lazy now and keep putting things off and always deferring the day after which you will attend to yourself, you will not notice that you're making no progress. And let me break that down into our language nowadays. Let me break that down into our language nowadays If you're lazy and you are procrastinating and you keep pushing things off until tomorrow and you say I'll do it tomorrow, and then tomorrow comes and you say I'll do it tomorrow, then you're not going to make any progress and you're going to die an ordinary person.

Speaker 1:

So, just as we need to persevere immediately and live immediately, we need to actively work towards improvement and self-betterment immediately. It's that simple, because our life is short and we don't know when we are going to be killed off. I guess you could say we don't know when we're going to die. It's a better way to say it None of us know when we're going to die, and that should be enough fuel to the fire to make procrastination not even an option. You should not even think about procrastinating.

Speaker 1:

I do it sometimes, not going to lie, but I do know how much more I could get done if I didn't and how much more I could improve myself. But when we are struggling, we may want to give up on ourselves too. We might settle, we might get used to things being okay and giving up striving for even more right, trying to push yourself more, but in my opinion that's unacceptable. We have to demand that we get through this hardship, this trial, this challenge, and it starts small, like clean your room a little bit, ask for better treatment from other people if you're needing that, advocate for yourself, take care of yourself, be your own biggest cheerleader. These are all things that I talk about and shout out to the Stoics, because it all aligns with their teachings as well. And we cannot get used to suffering. That's going to happen, but we can accept that existence of suffering will be there and we have to fight against it. Don't become complacent. And the reason why I'm talking about working towards improvement and self-betterment is because when you do that, when you try to become a better person and push yourself and learn and grow. Then, when other challenges and hardships come up, you'll be able to manage them with even more grace than you have today. You will be able to get through them stronger, quicker and with a more steady head.

Speaker 1:

Now the next point stop torturing yourself. Stop torturing yourself. If I could go back in time and talk to 21 year old Brett, I would slap him around a little bit, because I was king of torturing myself, mentally At least. I was so mean to myself and I had to learn how to reframe my own thoughts to reduce this self inflicted suffering that I was giving upon myself. And I got the quote wrong earlier that I talked about from Seneca.

Speaker 1:

But Epictetus says it here we suffer not from the events in our lives, but from our judgment about them. And instead of saying I lost my job because I'm lazy and stupid, you can say I lost my job because I did not meet the requirements for it. The difference between those two sentences is that one is reporting a judgment and the other is reporting a fact. We suffer less when we rationally map why things happen. Calling ourselves stupid for letting something happen does not solve the problem and makes us feel worse, shit happens. That's what I'll say to that. Taking it personally makes it harder to actively solve the problem. Recognizing that it is not 100% our fault can give us the courage to act. And if you're wondering if I'm reading something, I am. I typed out all my thoughts on something I am. I typed out all my thoughts on these quotes because I wanted to give you kind of just a boiled down version of my own thoughts. So that's what this is, but lots of good points there. We suffer not from the events in our lives, but our judgment from them. So how can you reframe your mindset for whatever you're in right now? How can you find the opportunity in your suffering? How can you find the opportunity in your trial? Where is it? It's there. You just have to look for it Now.

Speaker 1:

The last one is use your resources. Resources can. It falls on a wide range of what that means for me. Resources are things like Allie, my other relationships with people like my mentors, my parents, my siblings. I use them a lot in my support system when the time is necessary, like when I need to tap them in and say, hey, allie, I need, I need just some extra support today. It's been a hard one, um, but use your resources. And that could also be going to the gym.

Speaker 1:

For me, going to the gym and just having an hour or two of doing nothing but exercise, moving my body it's. It just strains out all the stress and anxiety, and I hear Joe Rogan say this all the time. But if someone could put it in a pill, like that feeling you get after you go to the gym, that's amazing, like everyone would take that pill. And to that same point, it's interesting to me that something like going to the gym for an hour or two has such a massive benefit on your mental health for the rest of the day, or just helping you in the situation that you're currently in. I don't know why anyone wouldn't want to do that. Like an hour of your day for a changed mindset. Who doesn't have an hour? Stop looking at TikTok, go lift some damn weight. It's that easy.

Speaker 1:

Nick Bear always says if it's important to you, you will make time, and same here If it's important to you, you will make time. And if going to the gym is important, you will find a way to make it happen in your life. So anyways, there's this quote from Epictetus that says this prudent people look beyond the incident itself and seek to form the habit of putting it to good use. On the occasion of an accidental event, don't just react in a haphazard fashion. Remember to turn inward and ask what resources you have for dealing with it. Dig deeply.

Speaker 1:

You possess strengths you might not realize you have. Find the right one and use it. You possess strengths you might not realize you have. Find the right one and use it. Man, I feel like epictetus and I would really get along back in the day. Um, because this one using your resources and what he says about. Remember to turn inward and ask what resources you have for dealing with it. Dig deeply. You possess strengths you might not realize you have. Find the right one and use it. That pretty much sums up the concept from Tim that you can do hard things.

Speaker 1:

Epictetus is telling us that you possess strengths that you might not realize you have. You just have to find the right one and use it. And I'm telling you that you can do hard things. I've seen it firsthand with people who don't think that they can, and it's why I love Team Tim. You go there and all these people are there who don't consider themselves runners, but they all get it done. They all prove themselves right that they can do hard things, and that is an amazing thing to be a part of. I don't know if you've ever seen people who haven't done something, something challenging, but then believe in themselves and stay in the fight and make it to the other side. It's amazing. And just as people who have never ran a half marathon show up on race day for team Tim and get it done, you can get through whatever.

Speaker 1:

Whatever trial is plaguing your mind right now is plaguing your mind right now. So I think it's just an interesting way to look at trials. All these things that the Stokes have said about finding the opportunity in the trial, demanding better for yourself, trying to change the way that you look at what you're going through, realizing it's not the end of the world All these things are so important because my experience with life has been the further I go down and the further I get I guess the older I get the more I realize life is so hard. Some situations are harder than others. Some people have it way worse than me, but no matter who you are, you are not, you're not immune to going through hardships or trials. You are going to be tested and you are going to have to learn how to endure and persevere, because on the days when your negative self-talk is the loudest voice in your head, you need to find a way to control that, to put that voice in a really dark corner and not let it come out until the next day. Like, figure out what you can do to control your thoughts, because once you do, then, just as the Stoics understood, you will be able to handle anything that comes your way and you will be able to fully embrace the concept of amor fati, which is the love of your fate. So try some of these things. Persevering is a art on its own and it's a balancing act and it takes time to learn how to fully grasp that concept. But the more you do it, the better you get. It's like everything in life, consistency compounds and this is no exception, and I appreciate everyone for listening to this episode.

Speaker 1:

This was a fun one to prepare for. I learn a lot with these, so I appreciate you all listening to them and if you have any feedback, always feel free to let me know. Please rate the show if you haven't already. It helps and I don't know, leave a comment if you'd like. If you want to be on the show, let me know too. Now, as we close out, I just want to play something for everybody. Everyone, thanks for listening to Getting After it. We'll catch you next week.