You Must Burn the White Flag

"The odds are looking bad. They are asking you to compromise. They want you to betray what you believe in. It would be so easy to take your buyout and leave the mess to the people who come after you. Concede. Roll over. Give up. Beg to be spared. Ha! The Stoic says no."Find out what a Stoic does instead 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 @DailyStoic: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.

• 0:06Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to The Daily Stoic, where each day we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living the good 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.

• 0:29Ryan Holiday?

  You must burn the white flag. The odds are looking bad. They are asking you to compromise. They want you to betray what you believe in. It would be so easy to take your buyout and leave this mess to the people who come after you. Concede, roll over, give up, beg to be spared. Ha! The Stoic says no. Cato not only refused to surrender to Caesar as he fought to preserve the Roman Republic, he demanded that no one ask for mercy or clemency on his behalf, because that would mean he had lost, that he had been conquered, and this was not the case. The Medal of Honor commendation for James Stockdale reveals the same kind of defiance and determination, explaining that he deliberately inflicted

• 1:11Ryan Holiday?

  a near mortal wound to his person in order to convince his captors of his willingness to give up his life rather than capitulate. There is a story about Epictetus, under torture by his master, who expected him to beg to stop, calmly warning him over and over again that his leg was about to break. Finally, it snapped. "What did I tell you?" he said. A Stoic burns the boats behind them. A Stoic burns the white flag. They won't need it, because a Stoic doesn't surrender. A Stoic doesn't care if it hurts. They won't quit. They can't be made to quit, not when duty or honor dictates otherwise. Yes, they may suffer for this, but that's okay. Stoics belittle physical harm, but this is not

• 1:54Ryan Holiday?

  braggadocio, Stockdale would later write. They are speaking of it in comparison to the devastating agony of shame they fancied good men generating when they knew in their hearts that they had failed to do their duty vis-à-vis their fellow men or God. You must not surrender. You must not quit. You must not ask for special treatment. You are strong enough to last. You have too much fight to go meekly in to that good night. Hang on, you can do this. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or your favorite podcast app. And if you don't get the Daily Stoic email, go to dailystoic.com/email.