Worth Following – Podcast by Adrian Stanek

We live with more demands, decisions, expectations and future problems competing for our attention than we usually realize.
And somewhere in that noise, we slowly lose the ability to say no.
In this episode, I talk about the Stoic practice I use to stay in charge of my own mind: morning intention, deliberate boundaries, metacognitive intervention during the day, and reflection in the evening.
Not to eliminate stress. Not to become emotionless.
But to recognize the difference between an emotional reaction and a conscious decision.
Because if you cannot say no, your yes is not entirely yours either.


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You Are Not Your Thoughts – I really mean that.
When I say you are not your thoughts, nor your emotions, people directly respond with something like, “If you think like that, you don’t act responsibly.”
I think that it’s actually the opposite:
You need to differentiate between your self (conscious) and Subconsciousness. If you don’t, you will simply accept emotions and projections like it’s your intention, and that should not be the case. This is not how we take control over our own mind.
So, we aren’t our thoughts; but we can see them as a signal, and then we can act upon that deliberately.
—Adrian

There is a reason why the worst thoughts often arrive at two in the morning. Your world becomes quiet, your conscious mind grows tired, and suddenly one thought appears. A mistake you made. A conversation you regret. A fear about tomorrow. Within minutes, that single thought has taken over your entire attention. Nothing outside has changed, yet your body reacts as if the danger were real.
The mistake most people make is believing that the thought itself is the problem. It isn’t. Thoughts arise on their own. Emotions arise on their own. What determines whether they become anxiety is the relationship you build with them. As soon as you believe, “This is me. This is what I truly think,” you stop questioning it. Your mind begins defending the story because it now feels like part of your identity.
The Stoics understood this long before psychology gave it modern language. Epictetus reminds us that we are disturbed not by events themselves but by our judgments about them. The same principle applies inside your own mind. The first thought may arrive without permission, but the second thought—your judgment about the first—is where your freedom begins.

“It’s not things themselves that disturb us, but our judgments about them.”— Epictetus, Enchiridion 5

Reality vs. Story Journaling technique
One practice I recommend to almost everyone is surprisingly simple. Take a piece of paper and divide it into two columns. On the left, write Reality. On the right, write Story. Under Reality, write only what can be objectively verified. Under Story, write everything your mind has added. “I haven’t received a reply yet” belongs in Reality. “They must be angry with me, I’ve ruined everything, tomorrow will be a disaster” belongs in Story. The moment you write both down, you begin separating observation from interpretation. You stop living inside the thought and start observing it.
That is the real purpose of journaling. It is not about recording your feelings. It is about creating enough distance to see that a thought is something happening within you, not something that defines you. Once you can name it, you can recognize it. Once you recognize it, you can decide whether it deserves your attention. Without that separation, every intrusive thought feels like truth.
This is not a skill you master overnight. Even after years of practice, there are evenings when I still catch myself following a story much further than I should. The difference is that I usually notice it sooner. The spiral becomes shorter because the observer becomes stronger. Every time you catch yourself before the story takes over, you strengthen the part of your mind that chooses rather than reacts.
You are not trying to eliminate difficult thoughts. You are training yourself to stop mistaking them for reality. That may be one of the most valuable disciplines Stoicism has to offer.



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Voluntary Discomfort Is a Daily Decision
Yep, most people wait for life to challenge them – Externally driven, like a deadline, the boss, the spouse etc.
Stoicism suggests the opposite: challenge yourself first.
Voluntary discomfort isn’t about suffering for its own sake. It’s about deliberately choosing a small discomfort every day so your mind learns to respond based on your choices, not your emotions.
For me, that often means running mountain trails with a weighted backpack. For someone else, it might be taking the difficult conversation, skipping a comfort, or doing the task they’ve been avoiding. The specific challenge matters less than the fact that you chose it.
Over time, these small choices change your baseline. Difficult situations stop feeling like emergencies because your nervous system has already practiced staying calm under controlled stress.
One practice that reinforces this is the Mirror Book. Every morning, define your intention, your key signals for the day, and one voluntary discomfort. Every evening, review what happened, collect evidence of your actions, and identify the next step. It turns discipline into something observable instead of something you merely hope to have.
As Epictetus wrote:
“Difficulties show what men are.”
You don’t become resilient when life is easy. You become resilient by repeatedly choosing the harder path while you still have the freedom to choose it. That choice compounds over months and years until it becomes your character.



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Being right is useful when correctness changes the outcome. It matters when we are designing a system, diagnosing a failure, calculating a risk, or making a decision with real consequences. Yet many of the situations in which we fight hardest to be right are not really about truth. They are about identity.
A discussion begins with a disagreement, but somewhere along the way the subject changes. We are no longer examining an idea. We are defending our competence, status, judgment, or self-image. The argument becomes personal even when neither person openly admits it. At that point, the desire to understand is gradually replaced by the desire to win.
This is where being right becomes wasteful. You may win the argument while losing trust. You may prove the technical point while making future cooperation more difficult. You may force another person to concede without helping them understand anything. Correctness alone does not guarantee progress.
For leaders, mentors, founders, and engineers, that distinction matters. Your responsibility is not merely to possess the better answer. Your responsibility is to create the conditions under which better thinking, better decisions, and better behavior become possible.
The argument beneath the argument
When a person resists an idea, we often assume that the idea has not been explained clearly enough. We repeat it, sharpen it, add evidence, or increase the pressure. Sometimes this is appropriate. More often, however, the resistance is not caused by missing information.
The resistance may protect something.
Perhaps accepting the idea would mean admitting a mistake. Perhaps it would undermine the person’s sense of competence. Perhaps the proposed change threatens a role, routine, belief, or identity that has been stable for years. The visible argument concerns the facts, but the underlying conflict concerns what those facts would require the person to change.
This also applies to ourselves. We rarely experience our own resistance as ego. It usually appears to us as logic. We construct reasonable explanations for why the other person is wrong, why the timing is bad, why the proposal cannot work, or why our behavior was justified.
The reasoning may even be partially correct. That is what makes the pattern difficult to recognize. Ego does not need to invent a complete lie. It only needs to select the facts that allow us to remain unchanged.
From statement to question
One of the most effective ways to interrupt this pattern is to replace the next statement with a genuine question.
Statements tend to establish positions. Questions can create movement. A statement gives the other person something to defend themselves against. A good question invites them to examine the structure of their own thinking.
This does not mean turning questions into concealed accusations. “Do you not understand the problem?” is not a question in any meaningful mentoring sense. It is a judgment with a question mark attached.
A useful question must contain real openness. It should be asked with the willingness to hear an answer you did not expect. Questions such as these can change the direction of a conversation:
* What makes this point especially important to you?
* What would accepting the alternative mean?
* Which part of the proposal are you actually resisting?
* What evidence would cause you to reconsider your position?
* Are we trying to establish who is right, or decide what should happen next?
The final question is particularly important in leadership. Many discussions continue long after the decision-relevant information has been discovered. The remaining conversation serves only the emotional need for one side to receive recognition.

Applying SOS-TL to conflict
SOS-TL stands for Stoic Operating System for Tech Leads. I use it in coaching as a practical decision and behavior system that helps leaders create clarity, reduce drama, strengthen ownership, and act effectively under pressure.

The SOS-TL framework can be used not only to communicate an insight, but also to diagnose a conflict while it is happening.

Intentional focus takes discipline, but focus isn't the default state. The real practice is being intentional across every mode: work, recreation, and deep rest. Most developers and founders grind through mental exhaustion without treating rest as a skill. That gap between knowing you need rest and actually taking it is where burnout takes root.Avoid the procrastination trap. Avoid the burnout cycle. When work, play, and rest become distinct intentional states, not a single blur — you stop mistaking exhaustion for progress.00:00 Defocus Director's Cut YouTube00:28 Part 1: Defocus04:52 End-of-Day Defocus07:26 The Practise---Stoic leadership for developers & founders. No hype.→ How to stay calm when everything's on fire→ How to think clearly when the noise gets loud → How to lead yourself — so you can lead others→ Practical Stoicism for tech, startups, and real life→ The Mirror Book — audit your own mind nightlyNew episode every Sunday. 15:00 CEST.Deeper thinking:https://blog.adrianstanek.devLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianstanek#Clarity #Discipline #Ownership #Reflection #Stoicism


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blog.adrianstanek.dev/subscribe