Don’t Let It Make You A Liar | Practice Silence

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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?

  Don't let it make you a liar. You said you were gonna take care of it. You said you'd be done by the deadline. You told them not to worry about it. Maybe you even made plans in your head. You set aside the time you had every intention of doing it. But what happened? You got distracted. You fell prey to perfectionism. You weren't feeling it. Whatever it was, you procrastinated. You didn't do it. You let it make you a liar. Really, two Stoic virtues are at play here, both discipline and justice. We give our word to someone or ourselves. Do we have the willpower to keep it? Do we have the honor to keep it?

• 1:40Ryan Holiday?

  Or do we let stuff get in the way? Do we make excuses? Do we not take our promises, the fact that others are counting on us, seriously? Do we betray them or our potential? You get the sense that Cato and Marcus Aurelius took this commitment the most seriously of all the Stoics. They did what they said. They kept their end of the bargain, even when it was hard, even when they were tired, as Marcus writes, even when they were cold, whether it was appreciated or not. And here is where the Stoic virtues of courage and wisdom also come into play. Do we push through the discomfort of difficult tasks and hard conversations? Do we manage our time effectively?

• 2:24Ryan Holiday?

  Do we understand our limitations and ask for help when we need it? Do we follow through when the path becomes challenging? Or do we retreat into easier activities or distractions? That's what virtue is, showing up, being consistent, doing the thing, even in the face of temptation, even when life intervenes, even if there was resistance. It's not about meaning well, it is doing well. Because you said you would, because you are not a liar. As I've been saying in the Stoic Virtue series, virtue is not a noun, it's a verb. It's something you do. It's a day-to-day thing. There's a day-to-day-ness to it.

• 3:08Ryan Holiday?

  And I've been working almost every day for the last six years on this Stoic Virtue series, four books dedicated to these virtues. Courage is calling, discipline is destiny, right thing right now, and now wisdom takes work. All these virtues are inseparable and yet distinct. As you see, they all inform each other. They all add another critical element. And so with the fourth book, Wisdom Takes Work, which is out in less than one month, you can preorder that at dailystoic.com/wisdom. We also have a special collector's edition of all four books, signed and numbered. There's just a few dozen of those left. If you want to grab those, go to dailystoic.com/stoicvirtues. I'm just really proud of this series.

• 3:53Ryan Holiday?

  As I said, it took a lot of discipline. I don't want to say it took courage, but it certainly felt like a big swing, like it was biting off more than I could chew when I started it. And I think I've done some important work here, and I think you're really going to like it. Certainly, I would not profess to have any wisdom, but I have gotten wiser for working on this series. And I think you'll get wiser for reading it. You can check out Wisdom Takes Work at dailystoic.com/wisdom, preorder an audiobook, ebook, or sign a numbered first edition. And then, as I said, we've got a set of all four, which you can grab at dailystoic.com/stoicvirtues. It would mean a lot to me if you could support the launch. If you've gotten anything out of this podcast over the years, it would be a big help and I would appreciate it. So I can't wait for you to read this thing. Talk soon.

• 4:48Ryan Holiday?

  Practice silence. This is from today's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal. "Social media teaches us to have an opinion about everything. Silence beckons us to speak. We live in a loud culture and we try to keep up by being louder in return. And how much trouble does this cause us? How much might we learn if we spent more time listening to others than trying to sandwich our opinions in at every turn? How much of what we say do we come to regret? So really, the truly loud thing to say is nothing. So spend some time writing your thoughts down this weekend. See how many of them you can keep to yourself. Be bold in your silence and how much you hold your tongue this week." One of the benefits of philosophy is that it centers you. You come back to it. And so

• 5:32Ryan Holiday?

  I'll give you four quotes today, two from Zeno, actually, that should help you and certainly helping me to think about. Zeno says, "Better to trip with the feet than with the tongue." It's inevitable, right? An actor goes on a, on a press tour and they say something dumb because they're just forced to talk. They're forced to answer all these questions. But you get in trouble the more you talk. That's just something I've found. As Robert Greene says, "Always say less than necessary." Another quote from Zeno, "To a youngster talking nonsense, Zeno said, 'The reason why we have two ears and only one mouth, so we might listen more and talk less.'" It's beautiful. I love that. And then Plato, talking about Cato the Younger, says, "Cato practiced the kind of public speech capable of moving the masses. Believing proper political

• 6:17Ryan Holiday?

  philosophy takes care, like any great city, to maintain the warlike element. But he was never seen practicing in front of others and no one ever heard him rehearse his speech. When he was told that people blamed him for his silence, he replied, 'Better they not blame my life. I begin to speak only when I'm certain that what I'll say isn't best left unsaid.'" Beautiful. That's something I do try to carry forward when I do talks and stuff. People go, what do you think about this? What do you think about that? And I try to, on a pretty regular basis, maybe even once per talk, go, I don't know. I don't know about that. Because you don't want to get the habit of forcing an answer about things when you don't know. If you don't know, it takes courage to be like, I don't know, or I don't care. I have not studied that. I don't have enough information.

• 7:01Ryan Holiday?

  To be okay being thought dumb or foolish, as Epictetus says, silence does that. Practicing silence is a discipline. It takes discipline. It is not easy. And you will sometimes look silly and you will sometimes hurt people's feelings. But I think you'll hurt people's feelings less by not talking than you will by talking. And that gets us to the final quote. This is from Seneca's play Theestes. He says, silence is a lesson learned from the many sufferings of life. Another great quote I love from Seneca, he says, when I think of all the things I said, I envy the mute. Meaning, he wishes he couldn't talk. Because he said so much dumb stuff that when he thinks back on it, he's almost overwhelmed with shame or awkwardness.

• 7:44Ryan Holiday?

  And the hard part's about being a writer, having a social media presence is you know what's out there and you cringe. You think about it. There's always a tweet. There's always a dumb article. There's always a time you jumped out to take a hot take. You should have just left it there because you didn't know enough. Didn't put the work in. You didn't actually care. You forced it. You let your ego get a hold of you. And that never makes good work. So let's practice a little silence this week. If you have something to say, write it down in your journal. Don't say it on social media. Always say less than necessary. Try to say less than necessary. That's the Stoic way. Talk to you soon.

• 8:23Ryan 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 honor. Please, spread the word. Tell people about it. And this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say, thank you.