The Enchiridion Reimagined: Finding Yourself without the Fluff. Lessons 1-9
- James Pesch
- Jul 1
- 30 min read
The Enchiridion Reimagined: Finding Yourself without the Fluff
By James Pesch
2025 C.E.
Preface
Why I Rewrote the Enchiridion
This book is a contemporary adaptation of The Enchiridion by Epictetus, based on public domain translations by Elizabeth Carter, George Long, and others. While the voice and interpretations are my own, the structure and philosophical core remain rooted in Epictetus’s original teachings.
There are some books you don’t just read, you return to them like maps. The Enchiridion is one of those. It’s short. It’s stripped down, nd it cuts straight to the truth: you’re not in control of much but what you can control is enough.
This isn’t a translation. It’s a transformation. I’ve reworked Epictetus’s teachings in the same language I use when I’m writing, coaching, or trying to keep my own head straight at 3 a.m. You’ll find Stoic insights here, but you’ll also find stories from my life moments of collapse, clarity, deconstruction, and recovery.
Each lesson is followed by a personal anecdote. Why? Because philosophy without real-world application is just fancy talk. The Stoics didn’t care about sounding profound. They cared about living well.
This project stands on the shoulders of the great early translators who brought Epictetus to the modern world. I owe them, and him, a debt of gratitude
The voice you’ll hear and the words you read are mine. The experiences are mine. The benefits of living these Stoic and ancient wisdom out? That’s for you to decide.
Lesson 1: Control Is the Core
We have to face facts. In reality, some things are up to you; Some things aren’t. That’s the simplest and hardest truth you’ll ever face.
Your thoughts? Yours (when/if you are self-reflecting.)Your emotions? Yours, even when they feel like they aren’t (when/if you are self-reflecting.)Your actions? Always your responsibility. (whether you are self-reflecting or not.)
Your reputation and how people see you? Not yours (no matter how hard you try.)The weather? Definitely not.Your health? Partly yours, but not fully. (e.g. genetics, environment, childhood/trauma.)Whether the elevator breaks today? Not even close (unless you are the engineer, obviously.)
Trying to control the uncontrollable is a straight shot to frustration and powerlessness. Trying to control variables you have no ability to influence is like trying to steer the wind, however, if you focus on what is in your hands: your reactions, your choices, your beliefs, you become steady not because life is easy, but because your footing is on something real, concrete, and sustainable.
Here’s the formula:
1. Know the difference. (Self-Awareness)
2. Care only about what you control. (Outline a positive, well-formed outcome within your control)
3. Let the rest go like smoke. (Actively focus on that which is under your control and allow the rest to vanish like a puff of smoke on a breezy day)
Adopt this Stoic and ancient process and discover where freedom begins.
Laughing Through the Pain
When I was twelve, I broke my arm rollerblading at my little brother’s birthday party. It happened at a rink in Borger, Texas, a small West Texas town that always smelled like rotten eggs thanks to the Conoco-Phillips refinery. I was born there, though I didn’t grow up there. I did, however, return to work summers and college breaks, digging ditches, building foundations, and eventually helping pour the concrete to construct the foundation for one of the largest fractionators in North America.
Borger, like most small towns in West Texas, is the kind of place where the local doctor might be found at the Friday night football game instead of the emergency room. That’s exactly where he was while at 12 years old, I lay in agony, waiting over three hours in the ER.
The nurses confirmed what we already knew: both my ulna and radius were broken. Surgery was a certainty but until the doctor arrived, I was only allowed Tylenol. No stronger meds. Just pain.
I kept pleading silently into the eyes of my father. In our charismatic Christian home, we believed in divine healing. So, I begged him to pray over it in the almighty and powerful name of Jesus. He did. Over and over, and of course… nothing happened.
But then he said something I’ll never forget:
“James, it’s going to hurt for a VERY LONG time… and then, suddenly like magic it won’t anymore.”
That hit me across the face like a soothing ton of existential bricks.
In that moment, I accepted that my physical pain was not optional, but how I managed my feelings about it was under my control. I could stew in fear and frustration, and nobody would have blamed me, or I could shift my mindset to mitigate my suffering in a small way.
So, I turned inward and started finding irony and humor in the ridiculousness of it all. A birthday accident, a doctor at a football game, a refinery town smelling like sulfur and internally, I chuckled to myself at my predicament, reminding myself, “it could always be worse, at least you have acetaminophen, right?!”
Ever since that moment, I’ve leaned on humor when I can’t change the situation. When I’m stuck, hurting, or helpless, I look for what’s absurd or ironic. It doesn’t solve the problem, but it changes my relationship to it.
That was the first time I really understood what Epictetus meant, although it would take me 20+ years to find his writings. Pain is real. Suffering? That’s the part we get to rewrite.
Lesson 2: It’s Not the Event, It’s the Meaning
When something bad happens, it’s not the event itself that hurts you, it’s the meaning you attach to it. In life, we all get insulted. Fired. Ghosted. Sabotaged. Injured. Misinterpreted. Overlooked. Misunderstood. Ignored. Passed over.
These events are real, unavoidable even. What happens next, however, occurs within our own minds.
That instant emotional spiral? That’s our creation. It comes from the belief and meaning we tie to what happened:
· “I’m not good enough.”
· “The universe is out to get me.”
· “It’s my gender.”
· “This always happens to me.”
· “I deserve this.”
· “It’s my appearance.”
· “They did this to me.”
· “The deck is stacked against us.”
The Stoics, like Epictetus, Seneca, or Marcus Aurelius would ask:What if the event just… happened?What if it wasn’t personal?
What if you’re right, is also suffering emotionally going to help?
You don’t control what happens. You can and sometimes do control the story you tell yourself about it. The personal narrative and meaning you curate determines how quickly you bounce back. Change it, then change it again. Rewrite the story until you see yourself as a winner on the other side of this challenge too, and you don’t just change how you feel, reinvent who you are and how you react right now.
The next time an interviewer forgets to eat lunch, a season runs its course, or the chaos of the universe punches you in the gut, don’t just react.
Pause.
Ask yourself, “What am I believing about this, myself, and others… is it helping me?”
That’s the power of reframing.That’s Stoicism without the fluff.
Reframing My Reality
When I was around six years old, my parents divorced. Not long after, my dad remarried a woman named Cathy, she and my new siblings, Matt and Shelbi took over what used to be my life. I was a handful as a kid. I was being raised by my Abuelita, my aunts and uncles, my dad (working full-time construction and being in leadership at the church), who all believed in wild, supernatural claims, and a lot of them, including my own father and mother, embellished quite often.Cathy was trained in behavioral modification through a conservative Christian program called Cal Farley’s Family Program, which taught strict systems, even violently physical discipline on occasion, for dealing with troubled kids, kids from broken homes.
Kids like me: When it wasn’t brute force, we were made to write sentences or stare, for extended periods of time, at ourselves in the mirror and restate sentences written by others “acknowledging” our evil intentions and motives when we made mistakes or errors in judgement.
Many readers with a background in hypnosis will have already known the implications of and adherence to eye fixation when attempting to embed nested loops, social compliance, and hidden commands.
Cathy wasn’t cruel in the cartoon-villain sense. She was clinical. Calculated. Every punishment was about making you accept responsibility for your bad behaviors, and the only way to do that was for you to really feel guilt and shame deeply, and she would make sure of it. This was about “correcting” behavior through your blind acceptance of how horrible your inner thoughts were.
No room for emotion. No real room for love. It was withheld until your behavior matched their model. Also, she was wrong more than 70% of the time when it came to me, what I thought, or how I felt. She didn’t really care, she already knew.
Her world was built on control e.g., groundings, isolation, withholding affection, and the quiet but constant use of guilt and shame to engineer compliance. The goal wasn’t connection. The goal was obedience through the removal of our autonomy, consent, and self-governance by thought policing and brainwashing.
I’m built differently than her influencers anticipated. I figured out early:
I didn’t have to believe everything I was told.
I knew my own thoughts, and she was consistently wrong about mine. Not only did I not have to believe everything I was told, but even if I had wanted to, I could not overwrite my own senses or facts about reality to accept what I was being told.
Sure, I could follow the rules. I could do what they said to avoid punishment. Inside though? Inside was still all mine. I didn’t have to accept the shame. I didn’t have to internalize the guilt. I didn’t have to believe that making mistakes made me a bad person.
That was the first time I started reframing, even if I didn’t have that word for it yet. I learned that they could try to shape my behavior, but I still controlled the story I told myself. I didn’t have to see myself as broken or evil just because I was being treated like a problem to be fixed. I didn’t have to carry guilt just because someone else thought shame was the path to goodness or morality. That was her baggage.
So, I made a quiet decision: I could be human. I could make mistakes, and I could still be good. Even if they didn’t know better. Even if they were doing what they were told to believe was right. I didn’t have to carry their misunderstanding into my identity.
That reframe didn’t just help me survive. It helped me stay intact.
That’s the whole lesson; we don’t always get to choose what happens to us, but we do get to choose what it means, and they can’t take that from us.
Lesson 3: Don’t Get Attached to What You Don’t Own
If you’re going to survive this life with any sense of peace, you need to stop calling things “yours” when they’re not. That relationship? It can end. That job? It can disappear. That house? Tornado, fire, earthquake, sink hole, flood. Your health? Cancer, Covid, or age. Your social status? Temporary.
All of it.
You don’t own any of it, not really. You’re a steward. A caretaker. A temporary holder of things on loan from the universe, luck, circumstance, or biology. Treat those things with care, but don’t grip them with desperation.
The moment you believe something is yours forever, you set yourself up for heartbreak. The Stoics knew this. They would internally practice processing this thought by forcing themselves to consider uncomfortable reframing: to think differently about their possessions; instead of, “my health,” they would say, “Today’s fortune.” Rather than, “my car,” say “Today’s transportation.”
You may think that is silly. Does detaching a pronoun alter the emotional attachment to things we can’t control? Maybe. Will that mean we won’t take care of things?? Not at all. It’s not about being cold or ungrateful, it’s about being prepared. The tighter our grip on things outside our control, the worse it hurts when they’re lost or taken away, and spoiler: All things we hold dear will be taken away eventually.
So, how do you love something without clinging to it? How do you show up fully without losing your mind when the people, pets, and things and you value most are gone, broken, or worn out?
You can allow the Stoics to help you shift your framing:
“This was never mine to keep. It’s been mine to experience.”
When it’s time to let go, you thank whoever or whatever you found precious and release it.
That’s freedom. That’s peace without numbness.
That’s not detachment, it’s stability. That’s ancient wisdom with modern legs because life doesn’t wait for you to feel wise, it demands that you are.
What You Use, Not What You Own
In my early twenties, I moved to New Zealand to live with my best friend’s brother, Bother David. We stayed in the Waikato, on the North Island, Te Awamutu and Hamilton mostly, where the landscape felt like something out of myth, actually the Hobbiton from the Lord of the Rings movie series was filmed near our backyard. There were black sand beaches on one side, golden sand on the other. In a single day, you could catch sunrise over the eastern coast and be surfing the western swells by afternoon. It was freedom in physical form.
At the time, I was a faith healer and a foreigner, with a thick West Texas accent which meant people were curious. Many showed up to hear me speak, including members of the Māori community, the indigenous people of Aotearoa. They were warm, grounded, proud, and open. I connected with them deeply, and quickly.
I also noticed tension especially between the Māori and the local police, who were mostly white, European-descended officers. I speak Spanish, and look Caucasian, with a dash of Cherokee so I blend into many groups. One day, a policeman tried to explain the friction to me. His complaint? The Māori didn’t “understand” property rights.
This was odd to me, but the more I learned, the clearer it became: it wasn’t ignorance. It was just a massive difference in the perception of material possessions. A cultural difference.A philosophical difference.
The Māori didn’t see a bike leaning against a store wall or a shirt drying on a line as sacred personal property. If it wasn’t being used, it was available for use. The key was reciprocity. If you took something, you left something. Maybe some fruit. A tool. A shirt of your own. Not theft, case dependent exchange. The Māori had a relationship to possessions based not on ownership, but on utility and mutual respect.
Upon learning this, I couldn’t help but feel something ancient stir in me. As a Cherokee, as someone whose roots go back to another indigenous worldview, something in that made sense. Something in that felt right.
It stuck with me, and it challenged me to find a better worldview for myself.
What if we all stopped treating everything like it belonged to us forever?What if we loosened our grip just enough to experience things fully but without desperation?
The Māori taught me that what matters isn’t what you own, but what you use, what you share, what you give back, and most importantly what you can let go of without letting it own you.
That’s the lesson. That’s how I stopped seeing things as mine and started seeing them as moments.
Lesson 4: Want Nothing That Requires the Permission of Others
Freedom isn’t found in what you own. It’s found in what you don’t need approval to own.
The moment we allow our happiness to depend on someone else, we're stuck. At that moment we allow our worth to rely on whether someone says yes to our dream, we’ve handed over the keys to our well-being.
Epictetus said it plainly:
“If you want something that isn’t entirely under your control, you’ve already lost.”
That doesn’t mean being apathetic or complacent. Our freedom is found in our ability to desire better things than the permission or approval of others.
· Clarity.
· Integrity.
· Mastery over your reactions.
· Expertise in your practices.
· Peace that doesn’t require someone else’s approval to behave a certain way.
If your joy needs their “yes,” you’re already one “no” away from collapse. If your self-worth is propped up by followers, contracts, praise, or external validation, you don’t have identity, you have dependence. You can at any point, however, shift your desires.
Don’t aim for applause.Aim for alignment.Don’t beg for permission. Choose what you can choose and own it fully.
You’ll find freedom not in having everything, but in needing less from others.
That’s not detachment.That’s emotional sovereignty.That’s the difference between being liked for who you are not, and being free in accepting who you are.
Permission, Reframing, and the Lockbox Mindset
One of the most powerful mindset shifts I teach clients is this: Stop chasing results that require someone else’s permission.
Want peace? Make sure it’s under your control. Want respect? Forget it. You don’t control that. Focus on being someone you respect consistently and deliberately. Sounds easy enough, right?
To help people get there, I use a technique I created called the Have | Want Method, a binary questioning tool rooted in identifying meta-model violations from Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP). My colleague, Mayur Bardolia, uses a similar approach in his PURE model for defining “well-formed outcomes.” One of the key elements we both focus on is positive framing.
If I tell you, “Don’t imagine a black cat,” your brain starts by… imagining the cat. That’s how unconscious processing works. It focuses on the image, not the command. We have learned to state what we DO want instead of what we do NOT.
Instead of “Stop eating junk,” we say, “Develop a healthy relationship with food.”Instead of “Stop being so negative,” we say, “Speak kindly to myself.”Instead of “Don’t drop the ball. . .”
Let’s just time travel instead; I was seventeen, playing ironman football for the same high school where hall of fame linebacker Zack Thomas played and won a state championship. Our 300 person school had more professional football players per capita than any other school in West Texas when I graduated in 2001, I am sure that isn’t the case anymore.
One of my friends, DeeJay, moved in with us our junior year. His adopted home life made mine look relaxed by comparison, and although we weren’t abused in the traditional sense, that’s saying something. He, like most of us, played offense, special teams, and defense. On offense, he was our backup running back. Great attitude. Great heart. One consistent problem: “fumble-itis.” Every time he got the ball, he dropped it, and every time he dropped it, Coach Sam screamed at him:
“Do NOT drop the ball!”“If you drop my ball again, you’ll run sprints until you wish you hadn’t!”
They were trying to force performance through threat, but, of course, it wasn’t working because they were still giving him one story as a recurring narrative, failure… by planting the image of failure, DeeJay was saying to himself, “Don’t screw up, don’t screw up.”
So, I didn’t know if it would work, but it is what I did to improve my throwing speed and accuracy in baseball and added distance to my discus launch. I pulled him aside and asked if he was willing to humor me, “Next time you get the ball,” I whispered, “imagine your arms and hands are an interlocking iron vault.
When the ball hits your chest, hear the lock snap into place. Now, the ball’s not just held it’s sealed. Nobody gets in. Nobody gets it out. That’s your lock.” I added: “If someone yells ‘Don’t drop the ball,’ just smile. They’re not talking to you. Your ball is already locked away.” DeeJay fumbled once more that entire season, I think it was our last two games.
Why?
We reframed the narrative from one of fear to one of certainty. He stopped needing approval from someone else to see himself as competent. He stopped needing permission to hold on to the ball, and here’s the deeper point I teach my clients now:
When you focus on what’s positively stated (P), under your control (U), sensory-real (R), and ecologically balanced (E), you replace goals that depend on someone else’s “yes,” with PURE, well-formed outcomes. Stop “shoulding” all over yourself with someone else’s voice in your head. Instead, build outcomes you actually own.
Lesson 5: Death Isn’t a Problem. Your Opinion Is.
“Men are disturbed not by the things which happen, but by the opinions about the things: for example, death is nothing terrible, for if it were, it would have seemed so to Socrates...”— Epictetus, The Enchiridion
Death isn’t what shakes us. It’s what we believe about it. Our suffering isn’t built from facts it’s built on a foundation of fears, projections, and all the meaning we layer on top of life’s natural end.
We say we fear death, but what we often fear is the unknown, the finality, being forgotten, being judged, leaving things undone. We fear that our life won’t have mattered, or worse, that it really did matter and still ends regardless of how valuable the life was to the world.
The discomfort we feel is not death’s fault. Pain, negative emotion, even existential angst is ours; we suffer it alone until we choose otherwise.
The Stoic doesn’t curse mortality. She sees it, accepts it, and lives accordingly.
If you’re disturbed, it’s not because of death’s inevitability. It’s because you haven’t made peace with what’s already evidently true: life is a loan, not an eternal promise.
Don’t blame the world for ending.Don’t blame yourself for wanting it to last.Above all, don’t confuse fear with fact.
When we are young and just learning, we blame the world for our struggles or misfortune.When we mature a bit, we begin to own more of our lives, take more responsibility, and blame ourselves. When we finally arrive at a healthy acceptance of our plight, we learn to not blame others, the universe, or ourselves.
You simply live.
The Silent Reminder
I’ve never served in the military, but I walked the Pentagon once, guided by my uncle who was head of security during 9/11; he has seen more than I could ever understand.
We walked down quiet maze-like halls, far from the polished glass and public narrative, and there, close to the end of the private tour, in a remote wing, we stopped and stared at it.
A sole water fountain stood, painted purple from floor to spout.Bolted down. Stainless at the mouth. Still present. Still silent.
A relic from the era of segregation. Not honored. Not hidden. Just… untouched.
No, this wasn’t necessarily about death, but it reminded me of the circumstances we find ourselves in that we cannot control during our lives and what lingers long after we’re gone. Our opinions. Our structures. Our silence.
The world will paint over what it doesn’t want to remember, with imaginary solutions or claims that suffering and injustice have a purpose, but those who want truth know that it endures like a shape in shadow, waiting to be acknowledged.
I didn’t take a photo. I didn’t post on Instagram or Tik-tok about it. I just stood there. It reminded me: we don’t control what cruelty societies inflict or history leaves behind. We only control how honestly we stand in front of it like the empty abyss of death; I didn’t look away. I didn’t make excuses for our past. I didn’t curse myself.
I just stood.
This is what Epictetus was getting at. Presence without panic. Clarity without blame. Seeing what is, and not what fear tells you to see or fabricate. “Fear fades when we stop mistaking our opinion for truth.” Accept and embrace this present moment without fear or trembling.
Lesson 6: Your Role Is Temporary, Play It Well
You don’t have free will. Not the kind you were sold, anyway. You didn’t choose to exist. You didn’t pick your parents, your birthplace, your century, your body, or your brain. Life handed you a role. The Stoic doesn’t fuss about that. The Stoic doesn’t confuse circumstance with destiny.
So, who do you want to be? Not what job you want. Not what house or car or lifestyle. You. Strip it all down. What version of yourself would you be proud to inhabit today?
Maybe today, you’re cast as a parent. A teacher. A student. A partner. A leader. Great. But don’t get attached to the title. You weren’t promised that role. You were assigned it by the chaos of the universe for a time, and that role is not you.
One day, your child won’t need your protection. Your partner may walk a different road. Your influence may fade. The curtain will fall. That’s not tragedy. That’s just how our stories unfold.
Epictetus tells us we’re actors in a cosmic play. We don’t write the script, but we do choose how to show up in the scene we’re given. You can sulk about your lines or you can deliver them like they matter. The wise person knows you are not the part you play. You’re the presence inside it.You’re the consistency underneath the costume.
Occasionally, ask yourself:
Are you clinging to a role you no longer hold?
Are you rewriting the scene instead of acting it fully?
Remember: your role isn’t you.You’re not here to control the story.You’re here to show up with integrity measured against your internal model, not the applause.
When the scene ends, it ends.Play clean.Exit proud.
Scene Change, Same Me
Like most American kids, my parents divorced early.I lived with my dad, who remarried quickly. My new stepmother, Cathy, was trained in behavioral modification through a right-wing Christian program called Cal Farley’s Family Program.
She wasn’t a therapist, she was not trained in neuroscience, linguistics, logic, or compassion just compliance. Emotional manipulation framed as parenting. Thought reform disguised as discipline. In her hierarchy, I was placed last.
The new order of the household went: Cathy, her daughter Shelbi, her son Matt, my dad… then me. Overnight, I went from being the second-most important person in my home to the least considered. My voice, my gifts were devalued. I was told that I was broken, too much like my mother. My creativity and intellect were seen as annoying. My brother’s athleticism was the standard.
So I adapted.
I knew the standards of my internal model even back then. I knew how to study patterns. I learned how to win in their system athletically, socially, emotionally, but more importantly, I learned how to dissociate without disappearing. When Cathy tried to control my mind, I let her win the behavior, but I never surrendered the meaning.
I did the tasks.I played the part, but inside? I stayed me.
There is no more powerless role than that of a misunderstood child, and yet, I discovered something empowering: If I could hold on to myself in that role, I could do it in any role. Because the real me was internal. Untouchable. Mine.
That’s the shift.
When your internal model is stronger than the performance you’re giving, you stop mistaking survival for surrender. You stop mistaking the part for the person, and with that clarity, you can flip burgers, clean motel rooms, lead companies, or speak on stage not because the role defines you, but because you know who’s beneath the role.
Have | Want
One of the tools I use with clients to uncover that internal model is something I call the Have | Want Method.
Here’s how it works: Draw a line down the center of a sheet of paper. On the left, label it “Have.” On the right, “Want.”
Start with the “Have” column:What thoughts, beliefs, or images come up when you think about yourself?Write them out especially the ones that hurt. The self-criticism. The doubt. The shame.
Now ask:
How is this affecting me?
What has it cost me?
What happens if this belief never changes?
Then go to the “Want” column. Write who you want to be. What do you want to believe about yourself? What self-talk would you rather hear? What image do you want to come up when you look in the mirror?
Then ask:
How is this version of me better?
What has changed and what does this version enable me to do?
What does it feel like to live as this version?
That’s your internal model. Not the fantasy. Not the illusion. The you that shows up in any role because you’ve stopped confusing the role with your identity.
Play the role. Keep the self. Exit proud.
Take this new idea you have created about yourself and use it to mentally destroy the version of yourself from the left hand column. I mean to intentionally do it over and over again in your mind. Destroy the old image with the new desired image until there is nothing left of the old you. Now, live out your role through this new version of yourself.
Don’t cling to the costume. Set your internal model. Live the character. Then let the curtain fall.
Lesson 7: You’re Shocked? You Aren’t Ready
“If you are a sailor on board a ship that makes port, you may decide to go ashore to bring back water. Along the way you may stop to collect shellfish, or pick greens. But you always have to remember the ship—and listen for the captain’s signal to return. When he calls, you must drop everything, otherwise you could be bound and thrown on board like livestock. So it is in life. If, instead of greens and shellfish, you have taken on a wife and child, so much the better. But when the captain calls, you must be prepared to leave them behind, and not give them another thought. If you are advanced in years, don’t wander too far, or you won’t make it back in time when the summons reaches you.” – Epictetus (translation by Robert Dobbin)
You keep acting surprised like life didn’t warn you. Why?
Someone cuts you off in traffic. Shocked.A politician lies? Shocked.A loved one dies? Shocked.A trusted colleague shows you exactly who they are: Shocked.
The captain (chaos) calls and again: You are shocked.
Stoicism, at its core, is the practice of expecting life to be life. Epictetus didn’t say “hope for the best.” He said: “Practice your expectations.” Prepare your mind for what people are, how fragile things are, how fallible even the best among us can be. Expect that difficulty and disruption are not the exceptions, this is our environment. This is not cynicism. It’s calibration.
If you expect humans to be perfect, consistent, or reliable, you’ll resent every detail that doesn’t fit your narrative. If you expect life to be fair, you’ll feel betrayed by every twist. If you expect your plan to go uninterrupted, you’ll buckle at the first deviation. The wise person doesn’t cling to naïve expectations. They update them.
The Stoic prepares not to be unfeeling but to be unshaken; if you’re still getting shocked by the chaos, you’re not grounded in what’s real. You’re clinging to the fantasy of control. The antidote? Expect less from the world, and demand more from your response to it. Expand your internal voice to ask:
What did you expect?
Going Belly Up
It was 2007. I was in my mid-twenties with a baby on the way. The economy looked solid. Friends barely earning over minimum wage were buying homes with no money down. Angel investors were tossing cash at risky startups like they were playing roulette with someone else’s chips.
At the time, I was driving a bread truck for Wonderbread/Hostess (before they collapsed). One day, an old-timer with 30+ years on the job leaned over and said, “I used to dream of being a concert pianist, but eventually, I realized I’m just a bread man, and you will be happier once you accept that is all you are too.” That conversation lit a fire in me.
So, a friend and I bought into a franchise called Compound Profit Advisors, based out of McKinney, Texas. We had a financial investment of $20k plus our personal assets to launch. CProfit promised access to angel investors, venture capital, PO/credit card factoring, and equipment leasing for small or startup businesses with shaky credit. We hit the ground running. Within six months, we had over $3 million in deals waiting for approval. Then the 2008 housing crash hit.
Credit vanished. Investors pulled their money. Financing dried up overnight, and our business? Gone. Fast. I was staring down eviction, broke, exhausted, and feeling like an idiot. I went from “young entrepreneur” to “just another guy scanning the classifieds.”
I found work at a property management company as an assistant manager. Within three years, I’d worked my way up to Community Director, cleared six figures, and used that foundation to build what I do now consulting, coaching, and speaking for professionals and corporations.
But yeah, I was shocked. I kept replaying every number, every pitch, every handshake. Wondering how I didn’t see the train coming, but here’s the brutal truth: it wasn’t just the crash. It was my expectations. I’d built a fantasy in my head where hard work guaranteed success, where the numbers would protect me, where timing didn’t matter.
I expected certainty from chaos because I was smart, and I had done my homework.
When it all collapsed, I was shocked, frustrated, and angry. It took a long time, but eventually, I reframed it. I stopped seeing the collapse as a personal betrayal and started seeing it as an education. A correction. A mirror. I learned to recalibrate my internal model to want nothing from the world it never promised, and to bet only on what I can control.
If you find yourself shocked, ask better questions:
· What belief just got violated?
· What belief needs to go?
This isn’t about going numb. It’s about staying awake without staying wounded. People will fail you. Systems will fail you. YOU will fail you.
Instead of recoiling in surprise, you can confidently nod and say:
“Because I accept the chaos of the universe, I expected the captain would eventually call.”
Then, respond with grace. That’s not coldness. That’s readiness. That’s what makes a Stoic unshakable.
Expectation Checklist
Use this quick mental checklist anytime you feel shocked or blindsided. If you can answer “yes” to these, you're calibrated. If not, update.
Have I accepted that people are imperfect even the ones I trust?
Do I expect life to be unpredictable, unfair, and fast-changing?
Have I let go of any belief that success should be smooth?
Am I focusing on my response more than my outcomes?
Do I assume setbacks are normal, not personal?
Am I grounded in preparation or dependent on prediction?
Can I hold grace without being shocked by loss or betrayal?
If you find yourself answering “no,” that’s not failure. That’s your next step.
Expect less. Respond better. Stay ready.
Lesson 8: Wish for What Happens
You keep thinking peace is what happens when everything goes your way. It’s not. Peace is what happens when you stop wishing for your way and start aligning your will with what is.
Epictetus said it plainly:
“Don’t wish events to happen the way you want. Wish for them to happen the way they do.”
Most people hear that and think it’s about giving up. Resignation. Compliance. They’re wrong. This is radical acceptance not passivity. This is desiring what is real, not what is imagined. It’s not a trick to feel better. It’s how you stop arguing with reality altogether. The world doesn’t need your permission to unfold.
It moves. It breaks. It builds. It breathes.
You can spend your life saying, “this shouldn’t have happened,” or you can learn to say, “this is what happened” and then wish for it, don’t apply meaning to events just be grateful that you lived through it. Wish for it?
Yes.
Why? If it happened, it is truth and therefore belongs, and if it belongs, your suffering will come not from the event but from your resistance to it.
My Friend Died. I Still Want the Days We Didn’t Get.
His name was Andrew Judd. My best friend. A compass. A constant. Born in New Zealand. Passed in Canada.
For the brief, burning stretch of time in between, he was the kind of person who made everything feel a little less chaotic. Andrew wasn’t loud. He wasn’t flashy, but he was present. When he listened, he listened all the way down. When he laughed, it was never at your expense. When he showed up, he stayed. He was one of the rare ones, those people who don’t just fill a room, they anchor it, and when someone like that dies… the world doesn’t just feel emptier. It feels off-balance.
I wanted more time. More stupid jokes. More conversations that went nowhere but still mattered to us. I wanted to text him something random and hear him laugh through the phone. I want to talk about our futures: he flew choppers and could play any instrument, I traveled, spoke, and wrote about our adventures and lessons, the ideas we hadn’t built yet, and the people we’d grow into.
I wanted a thousand tomorrows we’ll never get. When he got sick of a rare neurological disorder, everything became a blur of logistics, heartbreak, and helplessness. He needed urgent medical transport. Melissa, his wife, his warrior, moved mountains to bring him to Ontario so he could have access to the best available medical care. She cared for him. Fought for him. Watched over their two young sons while the man she married slipped further away, and still, despite everything, the end came.
I was left with a silence I didn’t know how to carry. Grief does that. It doesn’t just break your heart it steals your language. Suddenly, every word feels too small, too stiff, too sanitized to hold what you’re feeling. I tried bargaining with the universe. With memory. With guilt. “If I had called more…” “If we had visited sooner…” “If the doctors had acted faster…”
That kind of thinking is poison. It doesn’t bring him back. It just traps you in a loop where you suffer for things you couldn’t control. That’s when reading the words of Epictetus hit me like a punch to the gut. “Don’t demand that things happen as you wish.”
I had spent months doing exactly that. Wishing it didn’t happen. Wishing I could rewind. I wished the world would rewrite itself in my favor, but it didn’t. And it won’t. All I get now is choice. I can drag Andrew’s death behind me like a weight I refuse to drop, or I can carry it like a stone I polish. A sacred, hard truth that I hold close. A marker of love that existed and mattered and ended too soon.
That’s the real Stoic path. Not denial. Not numbness; the courage to love fully and then let go when life demands it. Now, here’s what I choose today: I will not demand that the world make sense. I will not ask it to feel fair. I will wish that things happen as they do happen and carry Andrew’s memory not as a wound, but as a quiet ember still burning in my chest. Proof that I lived, and loved, and lost something worth grieving.
Stop Wishing for Control
You think if you wish hard enough, things won’t break.They will.
You think if you plan well enough, people won’t fail you.They will.
You think if you’re good enough, you’ll be spared from suffering.You won’t.
Then, what do we do? Stop putting our desires in the fragile hands of a chaotic universe. Place them instead in the quiet clarity of acceptance: “I want what happens. Because it happens whether I want it or not.” “I want the moment. Not the fantasy of another one.” “I want to work with what is, not wrestle with what isn’t.”
That’s Stoicism. Not liking everything. Not agreeing with everything, but wanting what happens, because peace doesn’t come from control. It comes from cooperation with the facts.
Reframe: Wanting What Is
The next time something goes wrong, before you judge it, resist it, or try to reverse it, ask:
What if this was exactly how it needed to unfold?
What if this moment is here for me, not against me?
What happens if I stop wishing it were different?
Write out your answers. Sit in them. Then say: “This is what happened, and I want what is to have happened.” If that sounds impossible, you’re getting close. That’s the work. That’s the freedom. That’s how the Stoic doesn’t just survive, they transcend.
Lesson 9: You’re Only Harmed If You Let It In
“It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you, but your opinion that these things are insulting.” - Epictetus
A physical assault or verbal insult doesn’t hurt your identity. The insult can damage your worth ONLY if you allow it. The rejection doesn’t rewrite your value. What stings is your interpretation of the moment. What lingers are the stories you tell yourself about what it means.
No matter the past indiscretion, you weren’t wounded by their words, you were wounded by the part of you that agreed with them. That’s the quiet truth the Enchiridion hands us. No one can harm your internal model of yourself unless you give them access. Yes, you can be physically attacked, emotionally abandoned, publicly criticized, but the damage to your inner peace, that’s a job only your own mind can do.
The Stoic doesn’t absorb every comment. She audits them. Like a gatekeeper asking: “Is this useful? Is this true? Does this align with my internal model?” If, and most often when, the answer is no, she lets it go. Not because she’s heartless, but because she’s free. The world is loud. The world will throw judgments like darts, but you’re only pierced if you step into the line of fire and accept the target they taped to your chest.
My Stepmother Called Me a Hypocrite and My Wife Beat Me
I was in a very unhappy marriage with an abusive and emotionally stunted partner for over 12 years. Many times, when I wouldn’t allow her to damage my self-worth, she would accuse me of being cold, but I wasn’t closed-off or numb. I had decided to be sovereign concerning my emotions. Her fists and insults smashed against my face.
Rather than strike back, I examined it. I weighed it. I looked for validity. Then I decided: “This doesn’t deserve to enter my self-worth” I could let it drop like junk mail in my mental inbox. Eventually, this practice gave me the strength to leave that relationship and find recovery, safety, and security on my own; 4 years ago, I met my current life partner who has her own joy and solid internal model. My happy circumstances today started with loving myself in spite of the insults and anger hurled at me.
Travel back in time with me. 30 years ago, I was thirteen, a teenager. 12 years before an adult male’s brain is fully developed. Hormones on fire. Identity half-formed. Belief in myself held together by duct tape and survival mechanisms.
I was living in the same house I’d been in since childhood, now sharing space with my stepmother and her kids, following her rules and standards. My stepbrother and I were about the same age, and one day, it started happening; Matt, my little brother, started wanting to take things that brought me happiness, not because he wanted them, but because I did. My favorite sleeping quilt? His. My bedroom? His. I would visit my mom’s family and come back to Matt smiling and letting me know my best friend when I left, is now his best friend. If he could deprive me of the quiet things that brought me joy, he would glow. Shelbi would tell me she didn’t have to give me personal space because she was their little angel. It was true. I had zero control over my life.
Cathy made it a point to use Christianity and my deep desire to be loved against my developing psyche like a magic bullet. She knew she could manipulate my behavior by questioning my character when I would make mistakes. I had my small personal coveted luxuries taken from me physically, but that wasn’t enough for her, she needed to take my self-worth and independence to make me a good boy and acceptable in her world. So, she would point at my Christian t-shirts, my behavior during church, and my knowledge of scripture as evidence that I was a hypocrite for not behaving the way she wanted or how she interpreted the biblical texts.
Now, there are a few ways a child brain can respond to that.
Some kids internalize it. They carry it like a label: I am evil. Others fight it, loudly, trying to drown it out sometimes ending themselves to stop the noise. I paused often, I had no power, and I knew it. I didn’t cry often. I didn’t yell. I didn’t punch the wall or storm off. I got quiet. Somewhere, deep down, even then I had already started building the wall that Stoicism would later finish: the one that says, “You don’t get to tell me who I am.”
I heard her insults, sure, but I didn’t swallow them. I dissected it. I remembered where she came from, what she was going through, what kind of programming she’d been handed by her own broken role models. I reminded myself: her pain isn’t my identity. Her bitterness isn’t my biography. Her mouth doesn’t get to rewrite my worth.
In that moment, I didn’t feel insulted. I felt sorry for her. I still do. That’s not superiority. That’s sovereignty. Stoicism doesn’t make you better than people. It helps you stop mistaking their voices for your own. She didn’t break me, my little brother didn’t break me, my abusive ex-wife did not break me because I didn’t let their version of me become my version of me.
Build a Mental Gate
Here’s a quick tool: The Gatekeeper Method.
Any time someone criticizes you, yells at you, insults you, or even just throws a passive-aggressive comment your way, pause and mentally walk it through this gate regardless of their delivery tact:
Is it factually accurate?
If yes, thank them. Use it. Improve.
If no, trash it.
Does it align with my values?
If yes, consider it.
If no, discard.
Would I say this to someone I love?
If yes, integrate.
If no, release it.
Your mind is not a public park. It’s private property and it is the only thing you will always own. Guard it accordingly.