There is Only One Place to Look for Approval

Ryan talks about why you should hold yourself to your own standards. For a limited time, the ebook edition of Courage Is Calling by Ryan Holiday is only $1.99! We have no idea how long the discount will last, so grab your copy now! Or if you prefer hardcover, you can get those over in the Daily Stoic store, where you can also get signed copies! 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.

• 0:02Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast. Each day, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, illustrated with stories from history, current events, and literature to help you be better at what you do. And at the beginning of the week, we try to do a deeper dive, setting a kind of Stoic intention for the week, something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave you with, to journal about, whatever it is you happen to be doing. So let's get into it.

• 0:32Ryan Holiday?

  And we mentioned this earlier, but Courage is Calling is $1.99 as an ebook right now. It's as cheap as it'll ever be. I hope you check it out. We've got links to it in the show notes, or you can just go anywhere you get your ebooks. It's a debut New York Times seller, but more meaningfully to me, it's the first book in my Four Virtues series. I'm just finishing the second book now and then got to start the third. To me, the most important of the Stoic virtues is courage, to be brave, to fight for the right thing, to stand up, to put yourself out there, to put your ass on the line morally and figuratively, as they say in the book. Anyways, exciting news. The book is $1.99 on Amazon as an ebook right now. I don't know why, but thought I'd share that with you. You can get it anywhere ebooks are sold

• 1:16Ryan Holiday?

  or click the link in today's episode description and check it out. Also, if you want a signed copy, you can pick those up in the Daily Stoic store or at my bookstore here in Bastrop, Texas, The Painted Porch.

• 1:29Ryan Holiday?

  There's only one place to look for approval. We all want to be liked. We want the acceptance of our peers. We want to be chosen. We want the stamp of approval from the critics, from the crowd, from the market. This makes sense, except it doesn't. Is it not true that most people are not very bright, hold regressive or alarming opinions, and generally follow the herd? And yet somehow, we think it's vindication when they love us. It's nonsense. It's pretty strange how much we value the respect of people we don't respect and the lengths we're willing to go to get it. If you are ever tempted to look for outside approval, Epictetus said, realize that you have compromised your integrity. If you need a witness, be your own.

• 2:14Ryan Holiday?

  This was something Marcus Aurelius wrestled with even more than Epictetus because he was a public person. He saw crowds cheering him in the street. People flocked to court to heap praise on him before asking for favors. He also had to put up with their jeers and criticisms. Eventually, he realized that he couldn't pay attention to any of it. He had to hold himself to his own standard, an inner scorecard, and ignore everything else. The clapping was meaningless. The boos were too. What mattered was his own integrity. He had to be his own witness. And today, so do you. It doesn't matter what other people say or think. Approval or disapproval are equally meaningless.

• 2:59Ryan Holiday?

  What matters is what you know is right and whether you do it. Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. If you don't know this, you can get these delivered to you via email every day. Check it out at dailystoic.com/email.