Olympian Kate Courtney on Optimization and Embracing the Process | This is What You Have To Choose
The Daily Stoic
Daily Stoic | Backyard Ventures
4.5 • 5.3K Ratings
🗓️ 10 November 2021
⏱️ 70 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ryan reads today’s meditation and talks to mountain bike champion Kate Courtney about her recent trip to the Tokyo Olympics which she wrote about in the Washington Post, seeing moments of failure as opportunities for growth, the important distinction between optimization vs. maximization, and more.
Kate Courtney is a professional mountain bike racer for the Scott-SRAM MTB Racing Team. Kate is the 2019 Elite XCO World Cup Overall Champion, and the 2018 Elite XCO World Champion. In 2017, Kate won four U23 World Cups and earned the U23 Overall World Cup victory as well as her first Elite National Championship Title. In 2018, Kate became the first American in 17 years to win an Elite MTB World Championship and only the fourth American woman to do so. Kate also secured her spot as a member of the US Olympic team for Tokyo 2020.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, prime members. You can listen to the Daily Stoic Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. |
| 0:11.2 | Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast where each weekday we bring you a |
| 0:16.3 | Meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight |
| 0:24.3 | here in everyday life and on Wednesdays we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy |
| 0:31.9 | well-known and obscure |
| 0:33.9 | fascinating and powerful with them |
| 0:36.1 | We discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are and also to find peace and wisdom in their actual lives |
| 0:44.7 | But first we've got a quick message from one of our sponsors |
| 0:48.3 | This is what you have to choose. Needless to say life does not go as planned especially lately. We propose and God disposes goes the sang and rarely then do we get what we want |
| 1:07.3 | But does it always have to be that way? |
| 1:10.3 | Epic teetus suggests that the secret to happiness is to stop wishing for things to happen and to start wishing for what has happened. |
| 1:17.3 | What he is talking about is choosing the things that have been chosen for us. You didn't want to make your entire workforce go remote but you had to. |
| 1:26.3 | What good is resenting or bemoaning a reality that was out of your control? |
| 1:30.3 | You didn't intend to cut out travel for most of the year but here you are. You didn't want to blow out your shoulder or your knee |
| 1:38.3 | but that's how it went. And now you're laid up re-having or learning to swim because you can't play soccer anymore. |
| 1:44.3 | So you might as well switch your attitude from half to to get to. Events have chosen you. So you might as well choose them back. |
| 1:52.3 | Several times in meditations Marcus Arelius uses the word ascent. That's what he's referring to. He's talking about endorsing what has happened because no amount of anger or complaining will make it otherwise. |
| 2:05.3 | He's talking about loving what has happened because hatred isn't getting you nowhere. A more faulty accept, choose, love what the world has chosen for you. |
| 2:20.3 | It's a better way. It's the only way. |
| 2:23.3 | That is my more faulty coin. I was just giving a talk and showing it off to them actually. But a more faulty as Nietzsche says not merely to bear what is necessary but love it. |
| 2:36.3 | I carry this challenge coin with me most of where I go. I'm afraid during the pandemic my clothing choices have changed and I'm not going as many places so I also just have one sitting on my desk and I love to sort of roll it around and spin it and touch it |
| 2:52.3 | and just be reminded of this idea that I didn't choose for it to be this way but now that it has happened I'm going to choose to accept it and to make the most of it and to use it. |
... |
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