BONUS | An Important Message About Grace & Forgiveness

Happy Thanksgiving! In today’s bonus episode, you will hear a powerful excerpt from Ryan’s interview with author and journalist Julia Baird about the real-life power of grace, forgiveness, and why letting go can be one of the bravest things you do. Feeding America https://teamfeed.feedingamerica.org/participants/19745 | We donated the first $30,000 and would love your help in getting to our goal of $300,000 https://teamfeed.feedingamerica.org/participants/19745—which would provide over 3 million meals for families across the country! Just head over to dailystoic.com/feeding http://dailystoic.com/feeding—every dollar provides 10 meals, even a small donation makes a big difference. Julia Baird is an author, broadcaster, and journalist based in Sydney, Australia. Be sure to check out her books, Phosphorescence: A Memoir of Finding Joy When Your World Goes Dark https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/phosphorescence-a-memoir-of-finding-joy-when-your-world-goes-dark?_pos=1&_sid=4cd51be1c&_ss=r, Victoria: The Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman Who Ruled an Empire https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/biography22?_pos=2&_sid=4cd51be1c&_ss=r, and Bright Shining: How Grace Changes Everything https://www.amazon.com/Bright-Shining-Grace-Changes-Everything-ebook/dp/B0CSBQJ6W2?ref_=ast_author_dp&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.xb9N1dVXGrnMuSyulY6GbVP-trmeVyAy0sUdBqkRzedzoYdhaqZJ3xxAg6wEkZesOfCx289OL8qOna9SDtcIFvK-DDmRQQgcA9oM05phELl83bPbXs7-ts6s1v5gSzz_2xwBZp3wUgE5uA0bUzd41A.bu8lrua1X8-9OxBDRKgW1wurZ4sX-kuBnRs_t3dTipk&dib_tag=AUTHOR. 🎟️ Come seeRyan Holiday LIVE https://www.dailystoiclive.com/: https://www.dailystoiclive.com/ Seattle, WA - December 3, 2025 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/daily-stoic-live-onstage-with-ryan-holiday-tickets-1830976292379?aff=oddtdtcreatorSan Diego, CA - February 5, 2026 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/daily-stoic-live-onstage-with-ryan-holiday-tickets-1527497619499?aff=oddtdtcreatorPhoenix, AZ - February 27, 2026 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/daily-stoic-live-onstage-with-ryan-holiday-tickets-1830981698549?aff=oddtdtcreator 🎙️ Listen to Julia Baird on the Daily Stoic (recorded in-person with Ryan in Sydney!) | Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/julia-baird-on-building-resilience-and-how-grace-can/id1430315931?i=1000672292750 & Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/7fY99FB3bNyn7nEdXCoBeB 👉 Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing toThe Daily Stoic Premium https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content:https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ 🎥 Watch the video episodes onThe Daily Stoic YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos:https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos 🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast onInstagram https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast/?hl=en:https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email athttps://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store:https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/,Twitter https://twitter.com/dailystoic,YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic,TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@daily_stoic?lang=en, andFacebook https://www.facebook.com/dailystoic 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.

• 0:05Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a Stoic-inspired meditation designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women, help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit DailyStoic.com.

• 0:56Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, everyone. Welcome to a bonus episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I hope you're having a good Thanksgiving. I know I'm grateful to get to do this podcast, to have you listening. So I wanted to throw something together for you. Last year, when I was in Australia doing that speaking tour, I was able to squeeze in a couple podcast interviews while I was there. And one of them was with one of my favorite people, Julia Baird. By the way, I'm going to be on another speaking tour here, like, very shortly. I'm going to be in Seattle on the 3rd of December, and then I'm going to be in Phoenix and San Diego in February. You can grab all that at DailyStoicLive.com. But I was able to speak with Julia Baird.

• 1:37Ryan Holiday?

  And Julia is this Australian journalist, broadcaster, and author. I first found her when I read her book, Queen Victoria, Biography of Queen Victoria, which I used a lot when I was writing Stillness. Then she wrote this other book called Phosphorescence, which I really liked. And then she had a new book called Bright Shining, which is about the idea of grace. And we talked a lot about grace and gratitude when we were there in Australia, which now is almost 18 months ago. But I wanted to bring you this section on Thanksgiving. And actually, the reason that I thought to bring this is that I got a lovely note. From Julia, I did this email on when everything is feeling shitty and awful in the world. One way I was saying you can always feel good is to do something nice

• 2:19Ryan Holiday?

  for someone else. You can do something generous. And I was talking about this thing that we're doing with Daily Stoic, which instead of doing a Cyber Monday sale, or a Black Friday sale, or any of those kinds of things around this time of the year, what we do instead is we host this fundraising drive for Feeding America. I donate a bunch of money, and then I try to encourage you guys to donate money too, so we can provide meals for people who didn't just stuff themselves over Thanksgiving. And over the last five or six years, I think we raised a little bit north of a million dollars, which is absolutely incredible. That's over 10 million meals for people who absolutely need it. And it's one of the things I'm most proud of. I've sold a lot of books in that time. I've set some great running times. I've accomplished

• 3:02Ryan Holiday?

  some things. I've built some things. I'm proud of a lot of what I've done. But that's one of the things I'm proudest of, right? And that's the idea is like, that's something that's always in your control, doing something good, doing something generous, doing something kind. So if you want to contribute to that, you can do that. You just go to dailystoic.com/feeding. And anyways, I wrote this article about it, and Julia sent this very nice note saying how much she liked it, and that people don't talk about this enough. And I said, hey, I'd love to chat with you next time I'm there. Probably going to be next fall when I do another Australia tour announcement about that to come. But in the meantime, I wanted to bring you this chunk, because this is what we should be thinking today. Grace and gratitude, doing things for

• 3:41Ryan Holiday?

  others, not fighting for a deal on a TV, or a car, or, you know, checking your email to see what deals have come in. Do something nice for someone else. And if you want to do something for people who are hungry, you can donate to our drive. It's dailystoic.com/feeding. I think we're currently, and I'm recording this before Thanksgiving, just crossed 70,000. We're hoping to get to 300,000, which will provide, as I said, something like 3 million meals. You can check out Julia's book, Bright Shining, How Grace Changes Everything. You check out Phosphorescence, and do read Victoria, which is one of my absolute favorites. And I'll leave you there. Listen to this episode, and have a great day.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  Dacher Keltner from the University of California, who's written about awe and he's done a lot of studies over the years. Did a study recently of about 3,000, it was about 2,600 people in across 26 countries to find out what was the most common experience of awe. You would imagine, like, what would you have said if it was?

• 4:49Ryan Holiday?

  I don't know, a mountain or, you know, some, some natural phenomenon, a Grand Canyon kind of thing.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I would say too. And so across all kind of histories, demographics, cultures, dialects, whatever, he found that the most common experience of it was actually seeing it in another person, in another human being, acts of moral beauty, of great courage, generosity, decency, people overcoming obstacles and hurdles, people overcoming things in life. And I was really struck by that and I was, wanted to explore it. Like, what does that actually look like? When you do something that someone else doesn't deserve, like, what impact does it have on you? What does it have on them? What, what does it mean for people witnessing it?

• 5:36Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 5:36Speaker 01

  And, yeah, to me, it's the very best of who we are.

• 5:41Ryan Holiday?

  I was just thinking about that when I was reading this Lincoln book, because there's this story, Lincoln's a sort of an up and coming lawyer, gets chosen to be on this case, it's the biggest case of his life.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:50Ryan Holiday?

  And it ends up changing venues. And so the company, it's a big company, they bring on another lawyer. And that lawyer sees Lincoln as this country bumpkin, basically kicks him off the case. He, he still gets paid, but he kicks him off the case. He, he calls him like a gorilla to his face. He just sees him as like a, just a buffoon. And every night, Lincoln, Lincoln decides to attend the trial anyway, he wants to learn from it. Every night, all the lawyers meet in the hotel lobby to discuss the case. They never include Lincoln. It's like the humiliation of his career.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:22Ryan Holiday?

  And, you know, like a decade and a half later. That lawyer is who Lincoln chooses as his Secretary of War. And the right man at the right time. And like, when I think of things that strike me with, oh, yeah, it's not. It's not these brilliant works of art. It's not, you know, somebody did this athletic feat that I can't imagine. It's, it's the, the sense of self and the empathy and the forgiveness to be like this person who humiliated me, who treated me like absolute garbage is the right man for this thing. And I won't get in their way. And not only will I not get in their way, I will be their advocate.

• 7:03Ryan Holiday?

  When you, you think of like, yeah, like when you think of Gandhi, or you think of Jesus on the cross, forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do. Like moments of, of that sort of almost superhuman.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:14Ryan Holiday?

  Grace is one of the most incredible and powerful forces in existence.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  And it changes everyone who witnesses it.

• 7:21Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  It's any of the science, typical studies I've seen into that to show people are much more likely to do it themselves. And a lot of those studies are on moral elevation in, in workforces. And if you see and find out, not in a way that trumpets it, hey, guess what, guys? I'm a grateful hand to earth. Here's my name across some wall or, but when you find out that someone in a position of leadership has been, you know, quietly sacrificing time or money or caring for someone in a way they didn't necessarily need to, that can really shift a whole culture of a company.

• 7:51Ryan Holiday?

  Yes. Yeah. When, when you are the angel that a person needs in a scenario.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:57Ryan Holiday?

  And it, in many cases was not only difficult, but it wasn't in your interest. There's something absolutely incredible about that.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that's, that's really interesting because a lot of people see grace as something nice and about being polite and not quite a hallmark card, but something kind of pretty and easy. And it is.

• 8:17Ryan Holiday?

  Everyone appreciates it, celebrates it as it's happening.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  Lovely.

• 8:20Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 8:20Speaker 01

  It's like puppies and Kleenex tissues, right? But this is about something that's really hard to do. You know, to forgiving people can be incredibly hard to do. And you don't just do it once. You sometimes have to just do it every single day. You know? And sometimes does it cost yourself?

• 8:38Ryan Holiday?

  Right. How many times should I forgive my brother? Seven times? No. Seventy times? No. Seventy times seven. And just the incredibleness of that. It's probably, I think that is the greatest concept of Christianity, that grace and forgiveness.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  And great. And at the heart of that is grace is done nothing. You've done, you've done nothing to deserve it.

• 8:57Ryan Holiday?

  Yes. Well, well, the idea that, to me, my understanding of Christianity is basically this idea, you were forgiven for everything.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 9:05Ryan Holiday?

  And so you were, so you were given a gift.

• 9:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 9:08Ryan Holiday?

  Which means that you in turn have to give.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:10Ryan Holiday?

  And that, that sort of obligation or that indebtedness.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 9:14Ryan Holiday?

  Like, you're a shitty person. You've done shitty things. So the idea that you get to, to hold that above someone else, that you get to hold something over someone else for having made a mistake or done

• 9:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:27Ryan Holiday?

  you wrong or done the world wrong.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  You owe me, buddy.

• 9:29Ryan Holiday?

  That's a luxury that you're actually not entitled to.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. Which is amazing.

• 9:34Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  And yeah, doesn't actually make sense. You know, and look, I have grown up a, as we talked about with my mother, who talked a lot about forgiveness, grown up like really being exposed to the idea that you just, you forgive and forgive and forgive. Then as a reporter, I've done a lot of work on domestic abuse and violence and sexual assault. And I also looked at domestic violence in faith communities.

• 10:00Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  And could see how that was weaponized.

• 10:02Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  By abusers. And sometimes by like structures to, to tell women especially, don't leave, just put up with it. You forgive again and again and again. And, and that's why I think we need to be cautious. That forgiveness doesn't mean, um, okay, I don't need to protect myself now. Well, I don't, I don't need to move away from you. Um, forgiveness can sometimes be cutting ties.

• 10:25Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 10:26Speaker 01

  And walking away from.

• 10:28Ryan Holiday?

  Well, first off, it's the idea that you have competing and sometimes conflicting obligations to yourself, to your children.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 10:35Ryan Holiday?

  To the person that comes after you. But also, I think, as I just did this book on justice, and I think it's been helpful for me to understand, the justice system is something apart from and separate.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:46Ryan Holiday?

  That is a societal invention.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:49Ryan Holiday?

  That is required for us all to live together and function in a large group. And then our personal sense of justice is something very different. So you forgiving the person is not mutually exclusive with them being held accountable for that thing. And them being held accountable and how they're held accountable and the whole system built around it is based on the statistics and the experience and what society understands has to happen to protect future generations and to deter other people, et cetera. That's very different than what you, as the individual, ought to do.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  That is really important. It is not separate to justice.

• 11:28Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  It's not separate to the consequences of justice. And it is very much about what you need as an individual. I got really interested in restorative justice when I was writing this book. And the idea being that you bring together, as you'd be familiar, you bring together the person the harm's been caused to, the person that caused the harm. You have a mediator who's very experienced, who spent a year working out whether these people can get together. And basically, it's the victims who are really asking for these kinds of justice system.

• 11:59Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Because they often go through a court. They've never even had to give a victim impact statement, or they want to talk directly to the person that caused them harm. But again, there needs to be remorse.

• 12:08Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  And you can't have any expectation of forgiveness.

• 12:12Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  So sometimes they want to know just a piece of information. Sometimes they want to know, what are the last words my daughter said?

• 12:19Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  Before she died? What did they? So it's this kind of complicated, but really quite amazing process, actually. Because when it works, you know, these two people staring at each other, trying to recognize harm caused and each other's humanity. It can also, it can allow for the possibility of redemption, but it also can really free the victim. And there was one woman I spoke to called Debbie McGrath, and her brother was killed. When she was 24, he was 20. And it was killed by a friend who just shot him. One night after they'd been playing at the pub and killed him, no explanation has ever been given. And she found herself, she was then heavily pregnant, consumed with rage about this. She was so furious about it, that consumed in a way that it took over her mind,

• 13:04Speaker 01

  it took over her body, she put on a lot of weight, she got diabetes, she got insomnia, her father got very ill. It just infected this whole community. And so as these incidents and attacks and horrible things often do. And she told me that she was at a point where she would like, look at a sunset and she would see, she would be thinking about ways to murder this guy. Like, it was just so, she couldn't free herself from it. And one day she sat down opposite him, finally, in a restorative justice moment. And she just was able to say to him, this is what you did to me.

• 13:38Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  This is what happened to my body, this is what happened to my mind. This is what you did to my father. This is what you did to my brother's son, who never had a dad growing up. And she said there was a point at which, during this, that she sat up and because she, instinctively, because she felt like something had been lifted from her.

• 13:53Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 13:53Speaker 01

  And she just looked around and realised it, it just felt that way. And she said that she had put everything that he did to her in a suitcase and left it at his feet. And it was his. And after that, she was free.

• 14:11Ryan 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 honour. Please, spread the word, tell people about it. And this isn't to sell anything, I just wanted to say, thank you.