It’s Not Extraordinary | No Pain, No Gain

The Daily Stoic

Daily Stoic | Backyard Ventures

Education, 694393, Daily Stoic, Society & Culture, Stoic, Stoicism, Self-improvement, Business, Stoic Philosophy, Philosophy, Ryan Holiday

4.6 • 4.7K Ratings

🗓️ 22 September 2025

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How does it happen? How does someone become great?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a stoic-inspired meditation
0:11.7	designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life.
0:18.8	Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of
0:24.2	history's greatest men and women to help you learn from them, to follow in their example,
0:33.0	and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom.
0:40.3	For more, visitdailystoic.com.
1:05.6	It's not extraordinary. How does it happen? How does someone become great? Is it genetics? Is it luck?
1:12.5	Is it superhuman dedication and brilliance? Too often we see impressive results. Books on bestseller list,
1:16.4	people in peak physical condition, company selling for millions and millions of dollars,
1:23.0	and we assume that the process that led to these results must have been equally extraordinary.
1:29.2	And in fact, it often isn't. Success usually happens the same way.
1:32.1	Action by action, as Marks really said.
1:36.1	On an episode of The Daily Stoic podcast, Bob Bowman,
1:40.6	the coach of the 23-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps,
1:43.2	along with many other elite athletes,
1:47.4	talked about the simple three-word mantra that captures the essence of those who succeed at the highest levels. Here's what he said.
1:52.9	Just do your work. Right. Just get in and do your work. And then it became this thing with the
1:56.5	team because I kept putting it on the workouts. And I was like, what do you do when you've never felt
2:00.8	better in your life when you counterpriced? Do So I was like, what do you do when you've never felt better in your life when you
2:02.4	come to practice?
2:03.0	Do your work. Right. What do you do if you feel terrible and you can't, you're not motivated and you just don't know what to do? Do your work. Right. If you're uncertain, do your work. Just come in every day, do a little something, whatever that is. And that's the meaning of it, is that these incremental, just consistently,
2:19.2	mind-numbingly, boring, consistent, everyday, you know, deposits in your bank account are what
	...

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