You Have To Lead Yourself First | Build Up, Don’t Tear Down

Ryan discusses why you can’t lead others if you’re not prepared, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. List your product on AppSumo between September 15th - November 17th and the first 400 offers to go live will receive $1000, the next 2000 to list a product get $250. And everyone who lists gets entered to be one of 10 lucky winners of $10k! Go to https://appsumo.com/ryanholiday to list your product today and cash in on this amazing deal. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://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.

• 0:04Ryan 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.

• 0:34Ryan Holiday?

  You have to lead yourself first. It's hard to argue that our leaders are doing a good job. It doesn't matter what your political persuasion is. You probably feel that your MP, your president, your prime minister, your CEO, your council member is doing a poor job. The UN is proving to be not up to its tasks. The EU regulatory agencies, there are few legislative or leadership bodies who are exceeding our expectations these days. On the contrary. So what do you do? Do you despair? The Stoics would say you focus on what you control. They would urge you to practice what the great George Raveling calls "the art of self-leadership."

• 1:17Ryan Holiday?

  Or, as Mike Irwin titled his great book, "You'd Have to Lead Yourself First." As Seneca would say, "The real power is to be in your own power." He was talking about getting your own act together rather than bemoaning the fact that other people don't have theirs together. Practice better habits. Get informed. Manage your emotions. See where you can contribute to your community. Lead yourself, lead your family. And imagine what the world would start to look like if everyone did this. Imagine what an example you could provide by being the first to start this trend.

• 1:56Ryan Holiday?

  Build up, don't tear down. Is there a worse environment to work in than one where bullying and one upmanship are the norm? Sometimes leaders seem to think that this is part of the job description, that they're there to regulate and keep people in line. In truth, tearing people down is incredibly counterproductive. Pete Carroll, coach of the Seattle Seahawk, poses a question. If self-confidence is so important for players, why would a coach ever risk anything to damage it? Marcus Aurelius, who had the power to take anyone down at will, even kill them, almost never actually did. Instead, he reminded himself that it was better to build up, to be community-minded, modest, prepared, and tolerant of others.

• 2:37Ryan Holiday?

  "We are made for cooperation," the Stoics said, "and to render works held in common." Let's think about that going forward. How can we help build self-confidence of others? How can we find some of our own in doing so? And this is from this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal, "366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living," by yours truly and my co-writer and translator, Stephen Hanselman. I actually do this journal every single day. There's a question in the morning, a question in the afternoon, then there's these sort of weekly meditations. As Epictetus says, "Every day and night, we keep thoughts like this at hand. Write them, read them aloud, and talk to yourself and others about them." You can check out the Daily Stoic Journal anywhere books are sold.

• 3:21Ryan Holiday?

  You can also get a signed, personalized copy from me in the Daily Stoic store at store.dailystoic.com. We have two quotes from Marcus today. He says, "So someone's good at taking down an opponent. That doesn't make them more community-minded, or modest, or well-prepared for any circumstances, or more tolerant for the faults of others." That's Meditations 7:52. And then for Meditations 8:12, he says, "Whenever you have trouble getting up in the morning, remind yourself that you are made by nature for the purpose of working with others, and that our own natural purpose that is more fitting and more satisfying..." When we interviewed Major General Dan Kane in the Leadership Challenge, he was saying that almost never in his career has he ever said, "I'm ordering you to do this."

• 4:05Ryan Holiday?

  I think we have this fantasy that, once we really get power, we become head coach. We become a general. Then we won't have to ask, we won't have to persuade, we can just demand. But that's not how it works. Eisenhower famously said, "The art of leadership is getting people to do things because they want to do them." Randall Stutman, who I talked about last week in the Leadership Challenge, which I urge you all to check out, talks about how the job of a leader is to make people better. It's not to keep them in line, it's not to break them down, it's not to mold them into who you want them to be. It's to make them the best version of themselves. This is why the Stoic virtues of patience and kindness and understanding and empathy are so important. It's not about brute force.

• 4:47Ryan Holiday?

  A Stoic is strict, yes, strict with yourself, but we try to be tolerant and kind to others. And I struggle with this. I really struggle. I think a lot of smart, talented people, again, I was a little egotistical to describe myself that way, but you get my point. A lot of people who are good at what they do find it very hard to be patient or tolerant of people who are not good at what they do, especially when those people are getting in the way of what you're trying to do. And I struggle with that. The moments I've lost my temper, moments I regret as a leader, as a boss, almost invariably come from that sense of frustration. Why? Why? I told you how I wanted this done. I went over it like 15 times. And I have to catch myself and calm myself and remember, this isn't making anyone better and it's making me worse.

• 5:32Ryan Holiday?

  I look like an asshole because I'm being an asshole. And that's not a good way to be. So we have to learn how to keep ourselves in check, how to be strict with what we control, tolerant and understanding and patient. With other people and with their actions because that's not in our control. And this is one of the things that ancient historians credit Marcus Aurelius with, that he was very tolerant of the flaws with others, that he found a way to work with them, that he found a way to get things out of them, that he found a way to put them to good use. And I think there's not a better endorsement of a leader than that. Our ability to not expect perfection of other people. This was something Rick Fox famously said about Kobe Bryant, that Kobe Bryant struggled

• 6:15Ryan Holiday?

  to realize that not everyone was Kobe Bryant. And in the ancient world, there was an expression, "We can't all be Katos." But no one had to understand this more than Kato, that not everyone was like him, not everyone was as good as him, not everyone naturally understood or was committed to these things the way that he was. And so you have to understand that your job is still ideally to get people closer to that ideal, to make them better. But you're not going to do it through force. You're not going to do it through bullying. You're definitely not going to do it through humiliation. You're definitely not going to do it through yelling. And in fact, when you are yelling, you have almost always screwed up as a boss. Is there tactically, sometimes it needs to be done to send a message? Sure, maybe, but this is almost always a rationalization of an impulse that's gotten

• 7:00Ryan Holiday?

  out of control or struggle we're having. So today and this week, I want you to think about the idea of being calm, being collected, being kind, being a builder, not a destroyer, being an asker, not an orderer, a demander, right? Convince, persuade, inspire. Don't demand, don't bully, don't, don't force. You will get more, you will get more this way, I promise. And we have a whole bunch of other thoughts on this in the Leadership Challenge, which I do, which is now back for sale. You can listen to all of the interviews I did with these awesome leadership experts, plus nine weeks of content. Check that out at dailystoic.com/leadershiplchallenge.

• 7:43Ryan Holiday?

  And I hope you journal on this in the, in the Daily Stoic Journal, if you're doing it. And just a thought to think about, build people up, make them better. You don't need sheer force, you don't need anger, don't need to order them. Persuade, make them do it because they want to do it. Make them do it because they've seen the results. When you've done it, that's the Stoic way.

• 8:04Ryan Holiday?

  Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. Again, if you don't know this, you can get these delivered to you via email every day. Just go to dailystoic.com/email. So check it out, dailystoic.com/email.