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Welcome to the Daily Stoke Podcast. Each day we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stokes illustrated with stories from history,

current events and literature to help you be better at what you do.

And at the beginning of the week we try to do a deeper dive, setting a kind of stoke, intention for the week,

something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave you with, to journal about whatever it is you're happened to be doing.

So let's get into it.

This is what discipline looks like.

Marcus Aurelius was strict with himself. He slept on a hard mattress. He didn't drink or eat to excess. He didn't have affairs or lose his temper.

Cato was strict with himself too. He didn't wear fancy clothes or live a life of ease.

But what's remarkable about both these men given this strictness is the love and affection they both had for their brothers,

who had very different approaches to life. Cato's brother wore nice clothes and fine perfumes.

Marcus Aurelius's step brother liked a party. Yet Marcus wrote in meditations how much Lucius Varys enriched his life and helped Marcus improve his own character.

Cato was overcome with grief when he lost his brother.

This strictness it was said was limited only to themselves as it should be. That's why it's called self discipline after all.

Gandhi was notoriously strict with himself. He subsisted on next to nothing. He did not drink alcohol or basically anything but water.

He thought others should follow his example. But he also thought it perfectly fine that his wife disagreed.

My wife takes tea in spite of the fact that she lives with me. She also takes coffee.

Gandhi once told the biographer. But the most beautiful part was what he added after that. I would even lovingly prepare it for her.

A stoke is not a scold and nor are they a tyrant. We are strict with ourselves tolerant with others.

Our discipline is our discipline as it should be. Our own struggle should keep us busy enough that we shouldn't even consider getting up and other people's business to fix theirs.

Instead let's meet others where they are except in love them as they are because anything else is outside our control.

It's actually funny the original title of discipline is destiny because I wanted to make this distinction so clear it was going to be self discipline is salvation.

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