It’s Never Too Late To Get Back | Ask DS

Maybe you said some stuff you regret. Maybe the stress of the business has made you a nightmare of a boss lately. Maybe you’ve not been the parent you want to be. Maybe you’ve not been the spouse you’ve promised to be. Maybe you’ve relapsed on some bad or destructive habits. Maybe, but hopefully not, you’ve been heading in the direction of Elon Musk and gotten yourself in a kind of downward spiral of negative attention and impulsive decisions. And now, staring at the consequences of this–invariably your own unhappiness and quite possibly disrepute–you’re wondering if all is lost.---And in today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan answers questions from the audience during a Stoicism 101 seminar. The topics that he covers include focusing on your own work instead of someone else's, whether or not the concepts of Premeditatio Malorum and the Black Swan are in conflict, avoiding feeling a sense of superiority when studying and improving your Stoicism.✉️ 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.

• 0:02Ryan 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. Well, on Thursdays, we not only read the daily meditation, but we answer some questions from listeners and fellow Stoics who are 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.

• 0:45Ryan Holiday?

  It's never too late to get back. Maybe you said some stuff that you regret. Maybe the stress of the business has made you a nightmare of a boss lately. Maybe you've not been the parent you want to be. Maybe you've not been the spouse that you promised to be. Maybe you've relapsed on some bad or destructive habits. Maybe, but hopefully not, you're heading in the direction of Elon Musk and gotten yourself in a kind of downward spiral of negative attention and impulsive decisions. And now staring at the consequences of this, invariably your own unhappiness and quite possibly disrepute, you are wondering if all is lost. Well, it isn't. Don't be too hard on yourself. We all slip. We all

• 1:26Ryan Holiday?

  mess up. We all go down the wrong road from time to time. Some of us, for a really long time. Marcus Aurelius would have you know that not only is all not lost, but that you can redeem yourself. "Within 10 days, you will seem a god to those to whom you are now a beast and an ape," he said to himself, likely after some kind of slip or lapse in leadership in his own life. "All he had to do," he said, "was return to his principles and the worship of reason." And so it goes for you. And so it goes for the person who is struggling with recovery. So it goes for Elon Musk. It is not too late to get back on track. It doesn't matter how far you fall, and how harsh the crowd is looking at you,

• 2:08Ryan Holiday?

  how mad they rightfully are. All you need to focus on is returning to your principles, returning to the worship of reason, returning to the habits and practices and eritae that made you great in the first place. This won't be easy, but it is simple and it can be quick.

• 2:35Speaker 01

  I read through the readings for um last course and um I wanted to talk about um some other examples of when um you should be focused on your own learning rather than someone else's.

• 2:58Ryan Holiday?

  Like, like, what do you mean focused on your own learning rather than someone else's?

• 3:02Speaker 01

  If I if I

• 3:03Speaker 03

  Worrying about your what you control yourself as opposed to other people's behaviors.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think I misread one of the things.

• 3:12Ryan Holiday?

  No, go ahead.

• 3:14Speaker 03

  The thing we talked about was, you know, he has a little brother who's four. I think you've got a son around that age.

• 3:20Ryan Holiday?

  I do, yes.

• 3:21Speaker 03

  That's a challenging age when you're a 10 year old and you've got a four year old little brother. And what we talked about is you can't worry about what the four year old's doing, right? You got to worry about your own reactions and what you control, right?

• 3:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:35Ryan Holiday?

  Yes, so my my I I go through this with my four year old and his two year old brother, just as uh your dad probably goes through this with people at work. It's very easy to focus on what other people are doing. Uh, and uh, I I think in a way we almost focus on that because it exempts us from having to focus on our own stuff. Um, I I remember I I was actually just writing about this, but uh, several years ago, I said something to my wife. We were arguing and I said, you're being very frustrating. And she said, um, I can't frustrate you, which of course is a very frustrating thing to say, but but true, right?

• 4:18Ryan Holiday?

  The Stoics believe that we're responsible for our own emotions, our own reactions, and what other people do and say is sort of up to them. And I think another place where this ties into Stoicism, that's maybe a good rule to think about. Um, perhaps sometimes your brother's getting away with something that you wouldn't be able to get away with. Uh, like I have to I have to talk to to my sons about this where um, you know, one of them is not sharing, but the other is having to share, and that feels very unfair, right? But the truth is, we're all at different places and we're all sort of subject to our own rules. And this would be true for Marcus Aurelius. So imagine Marcus, he's the emperor of Rome. Theoretically, he can do whatever he wants.

• 5:03Ryan Holiday?

  He's all-powerful. And yet, he has these strict rules that he insists that he follow because he thinks this is the right thing to do. You probably imagine that he looked out and he saw other rich, successful people who got to just do whatever they wanted. While he was working late into the night, they were at their country estates or having parties, right? And so, his rule was like, "I'm gonna be strict with myself and tolerant with other people." Which is like, you give everyone else as much leeway as possible, you assume they're struggling with something, that they don't understand, that they're doing the best they can. And then you, which you control, that's who you hold to the highest standard possible. Does that make sense?

• 5:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's sort of like, you'll never go anywhere if you're not trying and you're just focused on how somebody else is doing.

• 5:53Ryan Holiday?

  Yes. So there's a Winston Churchill quote, and he says, "You'll never get anywhere if you stop to throw rocks at every dog that barks." Now, first off, you shouldn't throw rocks at dogs. But, the expression is true, right? It's like, if you're walking home and you stop at every time there's a problem, every time, you know, someone says something, every, you know, every time a dog barks at you, you'll never get there because you're never making any progress. So, it's like, if you're monitoring what other people are doing and you're pointing out that they're getting away with something or that it's not fair, what you're neglecting is your own stuff, which you could be making progress on right now.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. Thank you so much.

• 6:38Ryan Holiday?

  No, this is great. Please keep doing this. I wish that I'd been introduced to this stuff as early as you have, so I'm very impressed.

• 6:44Speaker 03

  Thank you very much.

• 6:46Ryan Holiday?

  All right. Let's do David.

• 6:51Speaker 04

  Hey Ryan, very cool to be able to talk to you. Thank you.

• 6:55Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 6:57Speaker 04

  I had a question. So premeditatio malorum.

• 7:03Speaker 04

  I think I get that and I see the benefit of it. The problem is I also kinda like I'm totally bought into the concept of a black swan too. I see your shoulder there.

• 7:14Ryan Holiday?

  Black swans right here, so yes.

• 7:17Speaker 04

  And they seem kinda like they're in conflict to me. Am I missing a nuance there? Or is one like macro and the other micro?

• 7:25Ryan Holiday?

  No, it's a good question. I think when we're trying to anticipate everything that happens, it would be arrogant to believe that we could in fact do that, right? That you're capable of knowing all the unknowns, right? That's obviously impossible. So I think even in understanding that black swans exist and they could appear at any moment is itself a kind of premeditatio malorum that the vast majority of people are not doing. And in fact, the whole parable about the black swan is everyone assumed that because the only swans they had seen were white, all swans were white.

• 8:07Ryan Holiday?

  There was not the awareness that perhaps in a foreign distant land, there were swans that were a different color. And so it's only when I believe Australia has discovered that the first black swan is known to exist. But in truth, the black swan was always there, right? And so I think part of premeditatio malorum, it's not like, hey, I because I'm a genius and I can predict the future, I'm aware of all the possibilities. It's gonna be one of these three options. I think it's gonna be one of these three options or a fourth completely unpredictable, unknowable option. And you know, here's how I'm prepared to be flexible. You know, I think Taleb talks about this a lot.

• 8:52Ryan Holiday?

  You know, even the barbell strategy is essentially, you know, you don't know what's gonna happen, but you wanna be prepared that if there is some extreme unlikely event, you're not, you have some exposure to the upside of that potential event as well.

• 9:07Speaker 04

  Right. Okay.

• 9:10Ryan Holiday?

  Great question though. Let's do the other, David.

• 9:13Speaker 05

  Cool, thank you. So my question has to do with, I guess, like throughout reading meditations, Marcus talks about how we should be helpful to other people, you know, human nature, like we're all on the same team. However, I find it kind of hard to like not develop some sense of superiority while doing this type of learning and studying, especially when you have a Tito's with how he's talking down to like on these rants to other people. So I wonder what your thoughts are on still, you know, not having that sense of superiority and still wanting to help other people, but still being ruthless about who you surround yourself with.

• 9:51Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, that's a, that's a great question. And I think that's where we get this idea of tolerant with others, strict with yourself, which is I control me, I know what's up to me, and that's who I'm going to hold to a high standard, but other people I'm going to be, I'm going to be chill with. Hang on one second. So I think this idea of like, oh, because I've learned about this stuff, I'm better than other people. To me, that means you're, you're, you're not doing that sort of good heartedness, or tolerance, or compassion for other people and what they're going for. And, and look, I think really

• 10:35Ryan Holiday?

  the sign of progress or wisdom should be some, some intellectual humility, right? Socrates is considered wise, not because he's so much smarter than everyone in Athens and he's aware of it, but his intelligence comes from his humility, his willingness to ask questions, to poke holes in his own beliefs. So as you do study, as you do get better, sure, part of that should be a higher set of standards, confidence in yourself, perhaps a little bit of a distinction between you and other people. At the same time, you should be sort of ruthlessly skeptical, ruthlessly scrutinizing yourself and focusing on all the things you

• 11:17Ryan Holiday?

  know that you need to do better, that you're not as good at as you could be. And this is, I think, where you, you, you check that ego from, from creeping in. Does that make sense? Oh yeah, that makes perfect sense.

• 11:38Ryan Holiday?

  You.