You Don’t Get To Learn By Trial and Error | Find Yourself a Cato

Ryan talks about why you must learn from the experiences of others, about how everything we do for others comes back to us, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/emailFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and 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 another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Thursdays, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation, but also reading a passage from the book The Daily Stoic, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living, which I wrote with my wonderful co-author and collaborator Stephen Hanselman. And so today, we'll give you a quick meditation from one of the Stoics, from Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, then some analysis from me, and then we send you out into the world to do your best to turn these words into works.

• 0:43Ryan Holiday?

  You don't get to learn by trial and error. Most people learn by experience, touching the stove to learn it's dangerous and hot, overcommitting to learn what their limits are, falling in with the wrong crowd to learn who they should spend time with. And as far as a method of personal discovery goes, that's fine, to each their own. The problem is that your life is not just a personal journey. You're a leader, you're a parent, you're someone people depend on. Which is why, to paraphrase an insight from the soldier philosopher General James Mattis, "It is unconscionable to fill up body bags while you get your education, one mistake at a time." Too much depends on the Stoic for them to learn solely by experience.

• 1:28Ryan Holiday?

  They have to also learn by the experiences of others. Why do you think Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus were such big readers of history, of philosophy, of literature, and plays? Because they wanted to learn as much as they could from the scope of established human knowledge and use that as their starting point. It is arrogant to assume you have time to learn everything on your own. You need to get caught up first, and then you'll not only be better prepared for the difficulties of life, but you'll be in a position, ideally, to add to this store of knowledge with your own discoveries and experiences. Seneca believed that reading was indispensable and needed to be an active practice in the life of the wise. It was the key to the happy life. Well, it's also

• 2:12Ryan Holiday?

  the key to succeeding as a leader and as a citizen. An informed Stoic doesn't go down bad roads because they know where they lead. They are immune to the mob and to demagogues because they know the truth and because they know history. A Stoic reads so that they can also learn by experience. They just want a foundation of knowledge to add it on top of, instead of a dearth that must be filled in.

• 2:37Ryan Holiday?

  Find yourself a Cato. And I'm reading to you today from The Daily Stoic, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living by yours truly and my co-author and translator, Stephen Hanselman. You can get signed copies, by the way, in the Daily Stoic store. Over a million copies of The Daily Stoic in print now. It's been just such a lovely experience to watch it. It's been more than 250 weeks consecutive weeks on the bestseller list. It's just an awesome experience. But I hope you check it out. We have a premium leather edition at store.dailystoic.com as well. But let's get on with today's reading. We can remove most sins if we have a witness standing by as we are about to go

• 3:17Ryan Holiday?

  wrong. The soul should have someone it can respect by whose example it can make its inner sanctum more inviolable. Happy is the person who can improve others, not only when present, but even when in their thoughts. Seneca's Moral Letters, 11:9. Cato the Younger, a Roman politician best known for his self-discipline and his heroic defense of the Republic against Julius Caesar, appears constantly throughout the Stoic literature, which is interesting because he didn't write anything down. He taught no classes. He gave no interviews. It was his bold and brave example that made him such a commonly cited and quoted philosopher. Seneca tells us that we should each have

• 4:01Ryan Holiday?

  our own Cato, a great and noble person we can allow into our minds and use to guide our actions, even when they're not physically present. The economist Adam Smith had a similar concept, which he called the impartial spectator. It doesn't have to be an actual person, just someone who, like Seneca said, can stand by and witness our behavior. Someone who can quietly admonish us if we are considering doing something lazy, dishonest, or selfish. And if we do it right and live our lives in such a way, perhaps we too can later serve as someone else's Cato or a spectator when someone else needs it. The line from Adam Smith is in the wonderful book by my friend Russ Roberts,

• 4:46Ryan Holiday?

  which you should check out. It's called "Adam Smith Can Change Your Life." We carry it at the painted porch. It's a must read. But it's like, you know, in the cartoons, there's the angel on the shoulder and the devil on the shoulder. And who are you going to listen to? Or if you remember those bracelets, what would Jesus do, right? The idea is to have that person in your mind, whether it's Cato or Marcus Aurelius or your grandfather or Abraham Lincoln or Harriet Tubman or whoever it is for you. Who is your hero? And what decisions would they make in those situations? Because when I interviewed Annie Duke for the Leadership Challenge, she was talking about like getting to the outside of a problem. Right? When you're in it, when it's you, you can get tied up in what you want to do

• 5:29Ryan Holiday?

  or what your impulses say or what's easiest. But you want to get to the outside of the problem. And this idea of the spectator or the Cato or the hero, it allows you to think about it from someone else's perspective. So not like, what would you allow yourself to get away with? But what would so and so expect of you in this situation? The other version you can think about this is like, what would you do if your kids were watching? If they understood? John Wooden was fond of a poem and the line said, "A little fellow follows you." This is a similar idea, right? What would you do if your kids were watching? What would you do if anyone was watching? But allowing those standards to hold you to a higher standards

• 6:12Ryan Holiday?

  than you might otherwise let yourself get away with. But then I think this is really the important part. This last sentence about if we do it right, if we live our lives right, perhaps we could be that way. So remember, Stoicism is about putting your own spin on it. It's about being the ideas. I think getting to a place where you yourself have lived your life in such a way, produced work in such a way, made brave or virtuous decisions in such a way that you yourself can serve as a model for other people, right? So, so maybe even using that as your own standard, who do, who do I want to be, right? Who am I aspiring to be? And what would that person do in this situation? Would they take the shortcut?

• 6:56Ryan Holiday?

  They phone it in? Would they do the expedient thing? Would they do the short-term thing? You know, what would they do? And pushing yourself to be that person, that's to me, what Stoicism is about. And I think, again, the example of Cato is so inspiring because for literally hundreds of years, Cato was that example. Cato was that for, for Thrasia and for Seneca. For countless Stoics on down, Cato was the inspiring example. When I had Tom Ricks on the podcast, who's, who's another great book, I highly recommend First Principles, which we also sell in the bookstore. Cato was Washington's Cato. Washington built

• 7:37Ryan Holiday?

  his whole life around living up to the example of Cato. And he didn't always get there, but he pushed himself to get there. And so, again, try to find that towering example. That's the first part. And let them guide your behavior. Let them call you, hold you accountable to what you're capable of being. And then strive to be that in such a way that you yourself, for your children, for your colleagues, for your neighbor, for whomever, you yourself can serve as a kind of example for them.

• 8:08Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. I just wanted to say, we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple of years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please, spread the word. Tell people about it. And this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say, thank you.