You Must Find Your Rules and Stick To Them

“It’d be wonderful if life never tempted you, if you could just go day-to-day, winging it and always do right. But that’s not how the world is. That’s not who you are. If left to our own devices, with enough opportunities, eventually we’ll mess up—we’ll drift, we’ll stray.”Ryan explains the importance of abiding by your own set of rules, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow Daily Stoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom, designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom in everyday life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at DailyStoic.com.

• 0:27Speaker 01

  You must find your rules and stick with them. It'd be wonderful if life never tempted you, if you could just go day to day, winging it and always doing right. But that's not how the world is. That's not who you are. If left to our own devices with enough opportunities, eventually we'll mess up, we'll drift, we'll stray. That's why the best leaders have what General James Mattis has called "flat-ass rules." "Know what you stand for and stick to it," he said. "Draw the line and hold it." Harry Truman famously explained some of his. He wrote, "In all this long career, I had certain rules I followed, win, lose, or draw. I refused to handle any political money in any way, whatever.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  I engaged in no private interests, whatever, that could be helped by local, state, or national governments. I refused presents, hotel accommodations, or trips which were paid for by private parties. I made no speeches for money or expenses while I was in the Senate. I lived on the salary I was legally entitled to and considered that I was employed by the taxpayers and the people of my country, state, and nation." One of the earliest and most ferocious debates amongst the early Stoics was about the necessity of precepts. This doesn't seem controversial to us now, but to Stoics like Aristo, the idea of needing these rules for living was a cop-out. "A wise person, a trained philosopher, should just do right instinctively and automatically," he said.

• 1:57Speaker 01

  Others, like Zeno and later Seneca, believed that life was more complicating. More importantly, it was exhausting. So to create shortcuts and guidelines was to help ensure that we stay on the right path, that we don't let the complexity and the nuance of each individual scenario allow us to compromise on the big, high standards we know we hold. So state your rules and stick to them. That itself is a great rule, whether it pertains to diet or ethical behavior.

• 2:27Ryan Holiday?

  Thanks for listening to another episode of The Daily Stoic. It's mind blowing to me now that we are well over 30 million downloads of this show. It means so much to me to have all of you listen. If you want to help spread the word about the show, please leave a review on iTunes or whatever your favorite podcasting platform is. It helps a lot. And then, of course, click Subscribe. That's how we know how many people are listening and that makes sure you get the episodes as they come in. So thanks again for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast.