If You Want To Be Great, This Is All You Have To Do | Can Ryan Pass This Stoic Quiz?

We haven't been who we want to be. The routine slipped, the momentum disappeared, and before long, we weren't just off track, we'd given up. How do we fix it? 👉 The Daily StoicHabits for Success, Habits for Happiness https://dailystoic.com/habits course is a six-week challenge designed to change your entire relationship with habits for the better. Sign up https://dailystoic.com/habits to take the first step toward a more effective, happier life | https://challenge.dailystoic.com/habits Check out AJ Jacobs' podcast Hello, Puzzlers https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hello-puzzlers/id1709071922! Listen to AJ Jacobs' FULL interview on The Daily Stoic Podcast | Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/aj-jacobs-on-his-year-of-living-constitutionally/id1430315931?i=1000677538100 & Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/2XtKVeMM5F5TGgfUFmpfj0 🎟️ DAILY STOIC LIVE https://www.dailystoiclive.com/| Ryan Holiday is coming to a city near you https://www.dailystoiclive.com/! Grab tickets here https://www.dailystoiclive.com/ | https://www.dailystoiclive.com/ 🎙️ AD-FREE https://dailystoic.supercast.com/| Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing to The Daily Stoic Premium https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content: https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ ✉️ FREE STOIC WISDOM https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail | Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:00Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

• 0:15Ryan Holiday?

  If you want to be great, do this. At the start of the year, we said we were going to go to the gym more. We're going to eat better. We're going to be more present at home. We're going to read more. We're going to waste less time. We're going to finally get serious about the thing we keep saying matters. Then life got in the way. We missed a day here, another there. We had a bad week, which became two. The routine slipped, the momentum disappeared. And before long, we weren't just off track. We'd given up. And so we haven't been who we want to be. How do we fix it? Epictetus reminds us how. He says, "Every habit and ability is confirmed and strengthened by the relevant actions, the ability to walk by walking, the ability to run by running. If you want to be a good reader, read. If you want to be a good writer, write. If you wish to do something, make it habitual."

• 0:59Ryan Holiday?

  Habits are not built or rebuilt by guilt. They're not restored by grand declarations or perfect plans. They are strengthened by doing the thing. We said this last week. Excellence, good habits, virtue, it's not a state of being, it's a state of action. If you want to be it, you gotta do it. And that's what the Habits for Success, Habits for Happiness Challenge we have for Daily Stoic was built around. It's six weeks of Stoic-inspired challenges to help you build and maintain good habits. Habits that make you better, habits that make you stronger, habits that make you happier. And we built this challenge several years ago. It's been one of the most popular things we've ever done, but we updated it now for this moment.

• 1:42Ryan Holiday?

  We wanted to keep the things that worked, wanted to add some new ones. We added some great new tools to help you reflect and sort of meditate on the changes you're making. There's also a great new community space because I think habits are something best done with others. It's really awesome. We're going to start it on July 21st, so I'd love to see it in there. We're offering a group discount if you enroll with some of your friends. And it's going to be awesome. I don't want you to think about the year as over. I don't want you to think about the person you want to become as being something out of reach. Just get after it. And you can sign up right now for the Daily Stoic Habits for Success, Habits for Happiness Challenge, and get back on track to being that person you want to be. That's what it's all about.

• 2:25Ryan Holiday?

  And you can sign up right now at dailystoic.com/habits.

• 2:38Speaker 01

  Hello, puzzlers, and welcome to the Puzzler Podcast, the marble pediment atop your Roman puzzle temple. I am your host, AJ Jacobs, and I am joined by today's guest, the amazing Ryan Holiday, podcaster, multiple bestselling author of books such as The Ego is the Enemy and Stillness is the Key. Welcome, Ryan.

• 2:58Ryan Holiday?

  Thanks for having me.

• 2:59Speaker 01

  I am so excited. I know you're not a huge puzzler, but I think you're going to like this one. I think you're going to be kind.

• 3:06Ryan Holiday?

  This is more of a quiz, right?

• 3:07Speaker 01

  It's a little more of a quiz.

• 3:08Ryan Holiday?

  I think I would make a difference between puzzles and quizzes, I feel.

• 3:11Speaker 01

  And you prefer the quiz.

• 3:12Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I could do a quiz.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  All right. Well, I did give you a hint of what it is, and it's based on your wonderful podcast, The Daily Stoic, which I am honored to have been a guest on. And on your podcast, you talk about the wisdom of the ancient Greek and Roman Stoic philosophers and how their wisdom can be applied today. So this puzzle is all about Stoic wisdom. And the quiz is Stoic philosopher or cartoon character?

• 3:40Ryan Holiday?

  Okay.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  So I'm going to give you two quotes, one from a Stoic philosopher, one from a cartoon character or comic character. You have to tell me which is which, and they're going to be mixed up in the order. So are you ready?

• 3:51Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 3:51Speaker 01

  All right, now, I think, honestly, I think you're going to do pretty well on this, but hopefully.

• 3:57Ryan Holiday?

  It'll be embarrassing if I don't.

• 4:00Speaker 01

  Well, I'm hoping that maybe some of the listeners might be fooled by some.

• 4:04Ryan Holiday?

  Okay.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  All right, here's the first two quotes. Quote number one, "My life has no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy." Quote number two, "Be content with what you are and wish not change."

• 4:21Ryan Holiday?

  I'm going to say the first is a Stoic and the second maybe sounds like Yoda or something.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  Wow, right out of the gate, I think I got you.

• 4:29Ryan Holiday?

  No.

• 4:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, wait, so let me. "My life has no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy," is from Snoopy.

• 4:38Ryan Holiday?

  Oh, great.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  The Peanuts character.

• 4:40Ryan Holiday?

  All right, I'm off to a bad start already.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  And "be content with what you are and wish not change" is from Marcus Aurelius.

• 4:47Ryan Holiday?

  Wow.

• 4:47Speaker 01

  At least according, now, I did try to fact check this, but you know, the listeners could come in and tell me if I got it wrong.

• 4:55Ryan Holiday?

  Well, it's all about the translations, right? So you could hear that exact quote from a different translation and recognize it immediately.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  Exactly, yes.

• 5:03Ryan Holiday?

  And I think that that's something I've always been struck by when a lot of the things that are free on the internet from the Stoics are like the 19th century translations. And so they tend to be very kind of wonky. It's like, he wasn't saying like, "Thou shalt not," you know? Because that was an 18th century configuration of speech, so interesting.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  Well, that is interesting.

• 5:25Ryan Holiday?

  All right, great.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  All right, how about this one? Quote number one, "Whatever happens to you has been waiting to happen since the beginning of time."

• 5:34Ryan Holiday?

  Okay.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  And quote number two is, "Rivers know there is no hurry. We shall get there someday."

• 5:42Ryan Holiday?

  I would say the first one is a Stoic.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  You are correct. You are correct. It's your man, Marcus Aurelius, great Roman emperor and Stoic. And the second is Winnie the Pooh. Winnie the Pooh, who I feel was, there's a whole book, like the Tao of Pooh.

• 5:54Ryan Holiday?

  There is, and there's a lot of rivers, metaphors in meditation.

• 5:58Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 5:59Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  Do you remember any?

• 6:00Ryan Holiday?

  He wrote a good chunk of it near the Danube River.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  Really?

• 6:04Ryan Holiday?

  And obviously, the Tiber goes through Rome. Yeah, he talks about how, he talks about the river's unending flow. He talks about how time passes by us like a river.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  Is he the one who said, "When you put your foot in the river..."

• 6:17Ryan Holiday?

  That's Herakles, but the Stoics sort of, he talks about Herakles a lot. So he kind of alludes to that quote.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  Got it. And that was, I'm butchering it, but something like, "You put your foot in the river, take it out, put it in again, it's a different river." Is that the idea?

• 6:29Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, it says, "We never step in the same river twice."

• 6:32Speaker 01

  Got it. Yeah, that's a good one. I think Winnie the Pooh would agree. Okay. All right, here's another. "The circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant. It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are." That's quote number one. Quote number two is, "Circumstances don't make the man. They only reveal him to himself." So that's a challenging, like, because they're the same quote. They're the same quote.

• 6:55Ryan Holiday?

  I think the second one is Epictetus.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Yes, you do. You know you're Epictetus. And the first one, you might not know as well, but is Mewtwo from Pokemon,

• 7:06Speaker 01

  who was apparently, in the first movie, said some very profound things. He was a genetic clone.

• 7:11Ryan Holiday?

  Well, my eight-year-old will like to hear that.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, there you go. All right, a few more. "Very little is needed to make a happy life. It is all within yourself and your way of thinking."

• 7:21Ryan Holiday?

  That's Marcus.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  No, you gotta let the people catch up.

• 7:25Ryan Holiday?

  Sorry, yes.

• 7:26Speaker 01

  All right, forget you heard that. "There is no secret ingredient. It's just you." Do you happen to know which philosopher said that?

• 7:33Ryan Holiday?

  No.

• 7:34Speaker 01

  Poe, the panda's father from Kung Fu Panda, about the noodle soup. "No secret ingredient, it's just you." All right, let me see a couple more. All right, this one I thought was, they were both profound. Quote number one, "Accept the things to which fate binds you. Accept what fate tells you, gives you." Quote number two, "You can't keep blaming yourself. Just blame yourself once and move on."

• 8:02Ryan Holiday?

  The first is Marcus Aurelius?

• 8:04Speaker 01

  That's correct. That is correct. And the second, do you know who it's philosopher said that?

• 8:07Ryan Holiday?

  I like it, though.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Homer Simpson.

• 8:09Ryan Holiday?

  There we go.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  I think it's so true, though. It is so true. Blame yourself once.

• 8:15Ryan Holiday?

  The best Homer quote is where he goes like, "This is the worst day ever." Bart says this, and then Homer says, "Worst day ever so far."

• 8:25Speaker 01

  I like that. That's my problem with goats, the greatest of all time.

• 8:29Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  It should be greatest of all time so far.

• 8:32Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  Goatus.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  All right, two more, two more. How about, all right, this one I think you will get, but I just like the, the contrast. A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials. That's quote number one. Quote number two is, dude, sucking is the first step to being sort of good at something.

• 8:59Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, that definitely sounds like Marcus Aurelius there, the second one.

• 9:04Ryan Holiday?

  The first is Seneca, right?

• 9:05Speaker 01

  Exactly, Seneca. And the second, I don't know if your kids watch this yet, but it is Jake from Adventure Time.

• 9:15Ryan Holiday?

  Oh, yes, my son loves the Adventure Time books, but I did not know that he says that. But that makes sense. I like it.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  Well, Ja- yeah, Jake the Dog. That is a great show if your kids get into it.

• 9:26Ryan Holiday?

  We have the books in the bookstore.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  I didn't even know it was based on a book. Well, they are saying very profound things all the time. Here, actually, I'll just read one other quote from Jake the Dog outside of a quiz. Let's go in the garden. You'll find something waiting there for you where you left it. You'll see how it's faded. The underside is lighter. Everything stays right where you left it, but it still changes ever so slightly.

• 9:52Ryan Holiday?

  Ooh, that's like the No River, you can't step in the same river twice.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  I thought it was Stoic. I thought it was Stoic.

• 9:58Ryan Holiday?

  I like it.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  All right, last one. All right, what about this? Because this relates to what we were talking about in our interview about sort of one, the personal responsibility in making change. Quote number one is, if it is not right, do not do it. If it is not true, do not say it. You're shaking your head.

• 10:15Ryan Holiday?

  I know, okay.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  And then number two, one person really can make a difference, but most of the time they probably shouldn't.

• 10:25Ryan Holiday?

  The first is Marcus Aurelius.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:28Ryan Holiday?

  And we actually even have a coin that we sell in Daily Stoic. It says, just that you do the right thing, the rest doesn't matter. That's what it's part of that quote, I believe. But I don't know where the second one is from. What's that from?

• 10:44Speaker 01

  That is from the wife of another philosopher we quoted. That's Marge Simpson.

• 10:48Ryan Holiday?

  Ah, sure.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  So she was saying, I guess one person really can't.

• 10:51Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, the epistemic humility.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  Exactly. We all think we're so sure we're making a difference. Well, I think you did what you had it. Yeah, you had, I got you first one, which is very exciting, but after that, you nailed them all.

• 11:05Ryan Holiday?

  Well, the Stoics, there's a quote from Marcus Aurelius. You could put it in a quiz where he talks about, you know, when you, when you mess up, you gotta come back to the rhythm very quickly. You can't get rattled. So I feel like I've recovered nicely.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, you were living, that's why you did it, so that you could live out Marcus. Before I go, do you feel that there are any particularly Stoic characters in fiction, either comics or movies or?

• 11:29Ryan Holiday?

  Ooh, I mean, there's, I think a Stoic element to Yoda. He's sort of a philosopher type. Who else would I pick?

• 11:38Speaker 01

  Who were sort of the people who are able to control their passions? I'm trying to think of.

• 11:45Ryan Holiday?

  Well, my favorite George Washington one to go to your, your new book is one of the paint, one of the painters or sculptors of Washington. He spends all his time with them and he says, you know, this idea of, because Washington was known for his like self-command.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:00Ryan Holiday?

  And everyone thought he was this kind of superhuman guy. And what he realized, watching him up close and seeing how he interacted with people, is that he was actually a very tense guy and that, that he, he said Washington's first victory was clearly over himself.

• 12:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 12:15Ryan Holiday?

  That, so instead of seeing Washington as this guy who didn't have passions or a temper, it was actually more impressive to see him as a very angry guy who didn't get angry.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 12:26Ryan Holiday?

  And that, that like he had all the passions. He just had actually practiced the philosophy and had a certain amount of self-awareness that allowed him not to be at the mercy of them all the time.

• 12:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 12:37Ryan Holiday?

  I thought that was very impressive.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  That is impressive. And he was at the mercy, I know he, he cursed a lot at his cabinet. But yeah, he was, there is one quick story about how early in his political career, he got in an argument, another guy insulted him and hit him with a hickory stick. He actually hit him. And George Washington sent word that he wanted to meet this guy the next day. The guy is freaking out, you know, the George Washington. And George Washington apologized to him for any offense he might have caused and extended the hand of friendship. So that's pretty good.

• 13:12Ryan Holiday?

  Well, Washington's model in all things, other than Cincinnati, was Cato. There's a story about Cato getting jostled in a bath. They're walking in the, the Roman baths and he gets bumped and it's sort of a fracas breaks out. And the man, the man punches him and later then apologizes to Cato for punching him because he doesn't want a sort of a blood feud or something. And, and Cato's response is, I don't even remember being hit. Like he's, he not only doesn't respond, but he's urging himself of even the incident having happened.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  Nice one.

• 13:44Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  Well, Cato was one of the other ones. I begin to speak only when I'm certain what I'll say is not better left unsaid, was his quote. And then from another philosopher, there's no sense of doing a lot of barking if you don't have anything to say. That's from Snoopy.

• 14:00Speaker 01

  All right, well, thank you, Ian.

• 14:01Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, of course.