What Part Will You Play? | Ask DS

Even the people who obstruct us, who fight against progress are playing a role. Certainly every historical period has had those people, so why should our moment be any different? That’s the role the play of life picked out for them, that’s who their character happens to be. When we understand that everyone is playing a part, that we’re all involved in the same big, messy project that is the world, we can be more understanding. We can be more patient. At the very least, we can be more tolerant and accepting and stop expecting the impossible.-And In today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan talks Obstacle, Ego, & Stillness to 150 Executives at the Cannonball Leadership Growth Conference with Chad Sanschagrin, a well-known executive leadership and sales coach. He founded Cannonball Moments to empower, motivate, and encourage others to reach their full potential. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee 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.

• 0:06Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. While on Thursdays, we not only read the daily meditation, but we answer some questions from listeners and fellow Stoics. We're trying to apply this philosophy, just as you are. Some of these come from my talks, some of these come from Zoom sessions that we do with Daily Stoic Life members, or as part of the challenges. Some of them are from interactions I have on the street when there happened to be someone there recording. But thank you for listening, and we hope this is of use to you.

• 0:50Ryan Holiday?

  What part will you play? Everyone is playing a role in life. Everyone is playing a part. In meditations, Marcus Aurelius reminds himself that everyone is working on the same project, even if they don't realize it. In fact, we ourselves sometimes don't realize it. Sure, we want to believe that a world without selfish, or shameless, or dishonest people is possible, but it isn't. Even the people who obstruct us, who fight against progress are playing a role. Certainly, every historical period has had those people, so why should our moment be any different? That's the role the play of life picked out for them. That's who their character happens to be. And when we understand that everyone is playing a part, that we're all involved in the same big, messy project that is the world, we can be more understanding,

• 1:35Ryan Holiday?

  can be more patient. At the very least, we can be more tolerant and accepting, and stop expecting the impossible. It's also a reminder to be grateful for the role that we seem to have been assigned. The fact that you're listening to this, the fact that you're even thinking about these things, means you've dodged a bullet. You aren't an idiot. You aren't an evil villain. You aren't a fool. And at least right now, just right now. As Marcus Aurelius points out, yes, we all have a job, but we should make sure that it's not the job Chrysippus speaks of, the bad line in the play put there for laughs. We all have a role. Let's just make sure it's a good one.

• 2:27Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. It's not my main criteria, but it is a really important one. So if you're ever thinking about having me come talk, obviously, I think about whether I have the time, I think about what's going on in my life, but I also think about can I bring my kids? It sucks to be gone, and I hate being gone. And anytime I can work, but also bring the family along, I'm very excited. And so when I got asked to do this talk in San Antonio, I was like, it's not at the JW Marriott, is it? And they were like, yeah, it is. And I was like, I'm in, I'm in. Why am I in? Because this hotel has a water park, lazy river, and a bunch of awesome water slides. And I knew my kids would be very excited. And they had an amazing time. The group, the leadership group that I talked to was great. I'm going to bring

• 3:12Ryan Holiday?

  you a selection of some of the questions they asked me. But the memorable thing to me, as my kids still talk about, is we're climbing up the tower to the water slide. And my son starts talking about this raccoon. And I'm sort of like, uh huh, sure, sure. There's a raccoon. And there was a raccoon. There was a raccoon living in the water tower. And it was just hanging out. He was blown away by it. And they talk about it all the time. They go, what do you think that raccoon's doing? I don't know. If anyone listening here knows about the raccoon or what it's up to, I'm sure my kids would appreciate the update. None of this has anything to do with the questions that I was asked by the group, I will say. I gave my normal talk on Stoicism. We talked obstacle ego and stillness. Not bringing you that. Not bringing you anything about the raccoon. I am going to bring you some of the questions that the folks asked me. I thought they were great.

• 3:55Ryan Holiday?

  I thought you might like to listen to them. I wish I could have brought you a recording of the conversation I had before the talk. My friend Manu Janobli came out. We talked Stoicism a little bit before. We just sort of hung out and chatted. We had lunch, actually, by the pool. And then I went and did my thing. It was a fun, awesome experience. Thanks to the Cannonball Leadership Growth Conference for having me out. Thank you to you for listening. Here is the Q and A from that talk. Enjoy. First was the, I had a marketing career, was obviously fascinated by and really interested in, in philosophy. One of the things I took from Robert, actually, Robert was on the board of directors of the company. And that's sort of how I ended up getting introduced to them. But To just talk about the things or just write about the things and not have sort

• 4:40Ryan Holiday?

  of tangible, real-world experience with power and influence and people and logistics and all those things, you know, I think it's not the right fit. So I wanted to have sort of real experience doing stuff. So that was why I went through that. And I obviously learned a lot of great lessons and then a lot of things not to do, which obviously shaped Ego's Enemy, which I wrote during the implosion of that company, actually.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  Thank you, Ryan. This is awesome. If you were Marcus Aurelius and you were the Emperor of the United States in 2022, what change would you make?

• 5:22Ryan Holiday?

  Oof. I mean, I think what's great about America is that we don't have an emperor, right? And this seems to be a thing that a lot of our presidents struggle with, right? The idea that it's three co-equal branches of government and the whole point is the ability to sort of compromise and collaborate between the two, that the president is an executive functionary, not the sort of emperor or sort of dictator of anything. I think a lot of our leaders have struggled to actually fundamentally understand how the system of government that we have even operates. So I don't know if I would sort of look forward

• 6:02Ryan Holiday?

  to the position of being emperor at all. Plus, and you know, just to sort of digress historically a little bit, when Marcus Aurelius is actually thrust in kind of a similar position. So one Roman had been a republic for a long time, but his father is not emperor. Antoninus, his stepfather, who in turn was selected to be emperor. So there's five Roman emperors in a row or four in a row who don't have a male heir. So they have to choose their successor. So Marcus is chosen in his teenage years, maybe a little bit younger. He sort of has this potential. The Emperor Hadrian sees something in him. And I don't

• 6:45Ryan Holiday?

  know what it was exactly, but he decides like this kid deserves to be the most powerful person in the world. What would make someone think that? I don't know. But he's too young. And so he chooses, this is the third part of Discipline is Destiny, actually. I wrote a lot about it because I'm so fascinated by it. He realizes that he needs someone to teach him and prepare him for this role. So he chooses this man named Antoninus Pius, who was the most powerful politician in Rome at this time, who's like in his late 50s. And so they think, you know, Hadrian is thinking, so Hadrian adopts Antoninus, who in turn adopts Marcus Aurelius. And they're probably thinking like Antoninus will live for five more years and then Marcus will become emperor.

• 7:26Ryan Holiday?

  Well, Antoninus lives and rules for two more decades. And, you know, could have gotten rid of Marcus at any time, could have, you know, declared his family the, he could have done anything but what he actually did, which was meticulously and selflessly train this person for the job every day for the next two decades. And it's this sort of remarkable never before seen or to happen again, sort of study of what it takes to be great, which obviously I would not have had. So I don't think I'm ready for the job. But then the other remarkable thing, just again, the idea of what a powerful example can do it.

• 8:09Ryan Holiday?

  So Marcus is part of this weird succession plan. There's kind of this extra character. There was a previous person that Antoninus had thought might be a good emperor. That guy has a son. So basically Marcus has a stepbrother. And he's named emperor and he has a stepbrother. And like, we know what you're supposed to do when you get power. You've seen Game of Thrones or anything, right? You gotta get rid of this guy. And, and Marcus instead, the first thing he does with absolute power is anoint his stepbrother co-emperor. So first thing he does as the emperor of Rome is get rid of half of his power and share it. And we think he was trying to set Rome back

• 8:54Ryan Holiday?

  on the path towards a republic. Previously, they'd have been ruled by what? Two consuls, two sort of co-equal leaders. And so, I don't know. If there's anything to take from Marcus, the first thing you should do with absolute power is give it away. Because it's not good for you or for anyone.

• 9:12Speaker 02

  Mine's somewhat personal.

• 9:13Ryan Holiday?

  Okay.

• 9:14Speaker 02

  I think for many of us in this room, you've given us so many answers to our problems and our struggles. And so my question would be is what answers are you struggling for right now? And then how do you go about finding them?

• 9:26Ryan Holiday?

  That's a really good question. Wow. Well, so right now, in this series I'm doing, so I've done Courage, I've done Discipline. The book I'm writing about now is Justice. And I think justice, one of the problems with some of these virtues is like, what they mean to us is not what they were actually talking about. Like, when we think about temperance, they talk about temperance, what they really mean is discipline. When they talk about justice, when we hear justice, we think like, the law, or like, whether something's legal or illegal. Maybe we think about social justice, which is now a sort of political connotation. But I think the Stoics were talking about, like, the right thing. They were saying, like, you have to do the right thing, which is easy to say, but what is the right thing?

• 10:08Ryan Holiday?

  And so as I have been thinking about and writing this book, I've really been struggling with that idea. Like, how do you know what the right thing is, right? How do you know what the right thing is right now? Which might not be necessarily, like, you know, it might be glib or easy to say, you should do X. But, you know, does that put you in a position to not be able to do Y later, right? Like, it's, when we talk about what the right thing is, this is the million-dollar, billion-dollar question, what is the right thing? So I'm thinking a lot about that, right? If you think about these virtues, how related they are, interrelated they all are. Like, to be courageous in pursuit of the wrong thing, or the selfish thing, or the destructive thing, obviously, isn't right.

• 10:53Ryan Holiday?

  Or how smart can you be if you don't know, if you don't do what's right? Or you put that brain power to work on the wrong topics, right? So that's what I'm thinking a lot about now. I don't, I don't know if anyone has the answer. I don't know if I'll have the answer, but I'm thinking a lot about that idea. What is justice? What is the right thing? What's our obligation as human beings? Knowing how to get ahead in your career is maybe easier than, like, that hard right thing with Marshall, or the decision to, like, give the job to someone else.

• 11:40Ryan Holiday?

  Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it, and I'll see you next episode.