Pod Insights The Daily Stoic Premium (🔓) Don’t You See How Crazy This Is | Discipline Is Destiny: Ruling Over Yourself About this episode It’s very easy to be jaded. It’s very easy to be cynical. The system is, as it was in Rome, hopelessly broken. Corruption, dishonesty, and stupidity are all widespread. The odds are impossible. The problems enormous. So why care? Why even try?📕 Ruling Over Yourself is a chapter from Ryan Holiday's newest book Discipline Is Destiny. Pre-order now to get exclusive pre-order bonuses at https://dailystoic.com/preorder ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:02 Ryan Holiday? Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. On Tuesdays, we take a closer look at these Stoic ideas, how we can apply them in our actual lives. Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy.
0:32 Ryan Holiday? Don't you see how crazy this is? Sometimes things become so ordinary, such a normal part of life in polite society, that we fail to see how utterly insane they are. History is replete with these examples. Who would propose today that one human being should be allowed to own another, or that only one specific race or gender be allowed to vote? Just 100 years ago, men wore one-piece bathing suits to the beach while women were forbidden from smoking in public, wearing pants, or owning property. It wasn't so long ago that doctors thought lots of red meat and cigarettes were good for you. There were magazine ads about it. Crazy, all of it, almost unbelievably so. But of course, the most insane yet common
1:16 Ryan Holiday? practice was not only there in Seneca's time, but continues to this very day. "I am always surprised to see some people demanding the time of others and meeting a most obliging response," Seneca wrote in complete bafflement. "Both sides have in view the reason for which the time is asked, but neither regard the time itself as if nothing is being asked for and nothing given. It's the craziest thing in the world." In fact, Seneca writes, "If you put the wisest mind in the world together to figure it out, they would come up empty. People take their most precious resource for granted. They guard their property, they're stingy with their money, then they just fritter away the only truly nonrenewable resource they have, their time, and they fritter away other people's too. The only
1:58 Ryan Holiday? explanation is just too close to it. We're born into a world where people act like they'll live forever. We enter a workplace culture where people attended stupid, time-consuming meetings multiple times a day and never gave it a second's thought." We've so failed to question it, failed to rebel against it, failed to resist the tyranny and injustice and incomprehensible buffoonery, the age we live in. And maybe someday, people will look back on us and judge this moment like they do all the trends and practices of the past. But more likely, they'll be guilty of the same bad bargain themselves.
2:36 Ryan Holiday? Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. By now, you know, the Queen is dead. Incredible life, almost 100 years. Lives through so many incredible moments in world history. Queen Elizabeth II is someone I have been fascinated with because I've been writing about her for the last year and a half or so. I tried to build each one of my books around like sort of three tent pole characters. Courage is Florence Nightingale, Charles de Gaulle, and King Leonidas of the Spartans. Well, Discipline is Destiny, the new book, which comes out at the end of the month, is about Luke Eric, Marcus
3:20 Ryan Holiday? Aurelius, and Antoninus Pius. And then there in the middle is Queen Elizabeth II, who I think is actually a profoundly Stoic figure. She and Marcus Aurelius could have related to each other on a few things, namely that incredibly surreal feeling that both of them must have had as they suddenly were thrust into positions of power at young ages. And yet, Marcus's power is profoundly different than Queen Elizabeth's, and that Marcus's is real. Marcus has to do things. Queen Elizabeth's greatness is rooted in the fact that she is so constrained, and she must have so much discipline about her thoughts, about her emotions, about her actions, about her opinions. I find her a uniquely stoic figure in this regard.
4:05 Ryan Holiday? You've probably seen wall-to-wall coverage about her. Here is actually an excerpt from the new book, Discipline is Destiny. You're hearing it first before anyone else. You'll notice I record, when I recorded it, she was still alive. So in future editions, I'll have to turn this, some of these sentences into the past tense. But I, I think all in all, I read between 2,000 and 3,000 pages about Queen Elizabeth. I watched The Crown, I read articles, I talked to people. I really, I didn't find one book that I loved about her, so I had to read many, many, many books. But in the end, she kind of emerges to me as someone I was profoundly interested in and someone I am profoundly interested in bringing to you.
4:49 Ryan Holiday? I'm previewing you this section. If you like it, I hope you preorder the new book, Discipline is Destiny: The Power of Self-Control. You can get a bunch of awesome bonuses if you do that right now at dailystoic.com/preorder. You can get signed copies, you can get signed manuscript pages that I used, that came out of the writing process for the book. You can even have a philosophical dinner with me and some friends. dailystoic.com/preorder. Discipline is Destiny: The Power of Self-Control. Discipline isn't just physical, there's an emotional, mental, a temperament side of things. And that's what Queen Elizabeth embodied. And this is my, what was originally written as a celebration,
5:31 Ryan Holiday? now kind of reads as an obituary of a great woman, a unique woman in a uniquely terrible, but also majestic position. I hope you learn from it, I hope you like it. And I do hope that you preorder and support the new book. If you get anything out of this podcast, that would be huge for me. dailystoic.com/preorder. Discipline is Destiny: The Power of Self-Control is going to be available everywhere at the end of the month, including in audio. So if you like this read, and I recorded it at my house here in Texas, well, you can grab the audiobook and enjoy it. Also, physical editions, et cetera. dailystoic.com/preorder.
6:12 Ryan Holiday? Ruling over yourself.
6:17 Ryan Holiday? You could say it was in her from the beginning. Churchill certainly saw it. Upon meeting the baby who would become the great Queen Elizabeth II, Britain's longest-serving monarch and likely the longest-serving in all of history, he noted, "She has an air of authority and reflectiveness that's astonishing in an infant." But of course, the throne then lay some two and a half decades in the future, on the other side of a world war and an abdication crisis. What Churchill sensed that day were the beginnings of the temperament that created an incredible life of self-control, service, and perseverance, a mental and emotional discipline that has rarely been seen before or since
7:01 Ryan Holiday? in the halls of grand palaces, especially in 25-year-olds who have suddenly become empresses or emperors. "We want to think of leaders as bold and brash, charismatic and inspiring. We expect them to be ambitious. We even excuse tragic flaws and disturbing vices, as long as they're winning or entertaining us." No doubt, this makes them compelling, but is it the right recipe for stable, sustainable stewardship of a nation, a business, a sports franchise? More important, is it the only way? Plato had a different ideal in mind, asking for a monarch
7:44 Ryan Holiday? who was young and possessed by nature of a good memory, quick intelligence, courage, and nobility of manner, "and let that quality, temperance, as the necessary accompaniment of all the parts of virtue, attend now also on our monarch's soul, if the rest of his qualities are to be of any value." Born in 1926, Elizabeth had royal blood but no clear path or even expectation to power. Certainly, few pegged her to fulfill that ancient philosopher's ideal. She was the daughter of the second son of King George V. It was only after the rash decision of her uncle Edward VIII
8:26 Ryan Holiday? to walk away from the crown to marry a twice-divorced Nazi sympathizer, and then the early death of her father, that Elizabeth's destiny was set. Whatever Churchill had seen in her as a child, whatever Plato hoped for, she would have to cultivate, making, willing herself into the Queen Elizabeth, one of the most admired and enduring figures on the planet. From the day of her coronation, Elizabeth would reign, but not rule, as the expression goes, "holding with perfect grace a unique and terrible job." What does the modern British sovereign do? It's hard to say. It's easier to list all the things they can't do.
9:11 Ryan Holiday? She can't pass laws, she can't choose who leads the government, she can't start wars, she's not even supposed to speak about matters of policy. And yet, the irony of this powerlessness is all the power required to wield it. The Queen has been duly informed of every action and problem inside the United Kingdom for 69 years, in the form of daily dispatches and weekly conferences with the Prime Minister. At the same time, she is not allowed to overtly act on any of this information. She cannot in any way whatsoever involve herself in the matters of state, all of which is done literally in her name.
9:54 Ryan Holiday? This is precisely what Elizabeth has managed to do with near superhuman dignity through 12 prime ministers, 14 US presidents, and seven popes. On her 21st birthday in 1947, the future Queen would detail her commitment to this idea in a now-famous radio address, telling the people of what was then called the British Empire that, "I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong."
10:31 Ryan Holiday? A few years later, she would express her sense of duty and place more explicitly. "I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice, but I can do something else. I can give you my heart and my devotion to these old islands and to all the peoples of our Brotherhood of Nations." Could she have had any idea how long this service would last, what it would take out of her, what it would demand of her, how much heart and smarts would be required? Lou Gehrig is a hero for his streak of 2,130 games played for the Yankees. Queen Elizabeth has worked every day for nearly seven decades. For her, every day has been game day, some
11:15 Ryan Holiday? 25,000 in a row. She's visited more than 126 nations. In 1953, on a single royal tour, she traveled 40,000 miles, many of which were by boat. She shook 13,000 hands and received tens of thousands of bows and courtesies. She gave and listened to over 400 speeches, and this was just one of more than 100 of these royal tours during her reign. In all, she's traveled more than 1 million nautical miles by sea, and many times that by air. She's met more than 4 million people, personally had more than 2 million over
11:59 Ryan Holiday? for tea, and given more than 100,000 awards. Perhaps most impressive out of hundreds of thousands of engagements, events, appearances, and meals, which were often preceded by long-distance travel and time zone changes, she has fallen asleep in public only a single time at a lecture about the use of magnets in biology and medicine in 2004.
12:25 Ryan Holiday? The year she turned 78. It goes without saying that the Queen's regular duties take immense physical discipline. "Are you tired, General?" she once asked a notably drooping officer accompanying her on an official visit. "No, ma'am," he replied. "Then take your hands out of your pockets and stand up straight," she told him from her perch of five foot four. "Aides have noted that the Queen is as strong as a yak and can endure long periods of standing, even into old age." Harold Macmillan, her third Prime Minister, once exclaimed that the Queen had "the heart and stomach of a man," which is preposterous because not even Lou Gehrig could have put up with her travel schedule.
13:09 Ryan Holiday? But this marveling belies what is beneath those physical feats: the mental and emotional discipline that she quietly draws upon. For instance, it's been said that the Queen has literally never been seen to sweat, but this only makes her marathon appearances more impressive. Her body doesn't cool itself off well, but her poise and equanimity keeps this fact from us. How does she do it? On a visit to the United States during the first Bush administration, an American official would accidentally chance upon the Queen in a moment of quiet preparation for what was to be a very long day. "She was standing stock still," he noticed. "It was as if she was looking inward, getting set.
13:53 Ryan Holiday? This was how she wound up her batteries. There was no chit-chat, but standing absolutely still and waiting, resting in herself." She has also, through the years, innovated in ways that make the long obligations more palatable, because why white-knuckle things if you don't have to? She spends an average of four seconds meeting each person. She's removed needless courses from dinners. She makes sure that speeches come after the meal instead of before, so she can wrap up and sneak out. To palace media officials, she's known as "one-take Windsor," because while she never rushes, she thinks through what she wants to do, and then she gets it right the first time.
14:36 Ryan Holiday? Discipline isn't just endurance and strength. It's also finding the best, most economical way of doing something. It's the commitment to evolving and improving so that the tasks get more efficient as you go. A true master isn't just dominating their profession. They're also doing it with ease while everyone else is still huffing and puffing. After one tricky social encounter, the Queen was commended for being very professional. "I should be," she said, not impressed by the compliment, "given how long I've been doing it." Don't worry about the Queen, an aide once reassured a diplomat about a long event. She's trained for eight hours.
15:21 Ryan Holiday? Actually, she's a tough enough professional to endure it for 80 years. The Briton with the stiff upper lip, the one who can so naturally keep calm and carry on. This has become something of a cliche with the passage of time. And while it's always tricky to apply a stereotype to a diverse population, there's no question that the Queen has personified this ideal, keeping an even keel no matter the circumstances. In 1964, she serenely and calmly endured a violent anti-monarchy riot in Quebec. In 1981, she was riding on horseback when a gunman rushed her and fired six shots,
16:04 Ryan Holiday? eliciting barely a flinch from the Queen in response. In 1966, a heavy block of cement slammed into the roof of the royal car. "It's a strong car," she said as she shrugged it off. In 1982, a deranged intruder entered the Queen's bedroom, bleeding from breaking a window. Woken from a dead sleep, she could have screamed, she could have run. Instead, she politely entertained the man until she could make an attempt to summon security.
16:34 Ryan Holiday? But the greatness of the Queen is more than stoic endurance. The Queen is a lively, savvy woman who has managed to thrive in a position that typically brings out the worst of the people who hold it. While few would refer to her as an intellectual, indeed, many sneeringly referred to her as a countryside woman with limited intelligence. In fact, her quiet brilliance is itself an illustration of her self-discipline. Starting at an early age, her father brought her into the business of state, treating her as an equal. From her teens, she was advised by Churchill and tutored twice per week for six years in law by one of England's greatest constitutional experts.
17:18 Ryan Holiday? The Queen, you can be sure, always knows more than she says. In almost every case, she is more experienced and understands the history of an issue better than the Prime Minister explaining it during their weekly audience. Yet it is they who inevitably do most of the talking and she the listening. Unlike her son, who not only thinks he's smarter than everyone else, but often alienates them by insisting on it, she's fine being underestimated. She's patient enough to know that she will eventually be vindicated. Smart? Discipline is a far rarer commodity at the top than brilliance. Temperance may be less charismatic, but it survives. It stabilizes.
18:03 Ryan Holiday? Still, she famously reads every dispatch in the Queen's red box, in which the most important ministerial documents are delivered to her. Many are boring. Many are mind-numbingly complex. She reads six newspapers each morning. She does this even though no one forces her to. No one would ever quiz her on the contents. She could instead ask for brief summaries. She could skim. But she doesn't. Even though her opportunities to use this knowledge are constitutionally limited, she does it. Why? Because it's the surest way for her to discharge her duty. There is really only one avenue to effect change available to the Queen,
18:47 Ryan Holiday? and in her judicious, restrained way, she uses it by asking questions. If she's concerned about something or objects to it, she requests more information above and beyond what she finds in the red box or the press, sometimes over and over again, until eventually the potential issue becomes clear to the relevant policymakers. She doesn't blurt out what she thinks ought to be done, and yet, in time, it becomes clear enough. Where she has been brilliant is in her quietness, one press secretary would observe. In a very noisy world where people constantly want to express themselves or overreact, what the Queen has done has been the opposite. She's not empowered to have political opinions,
19:31 Ryan Holiday? yet she is strong enough to do something most world leaders, as well as most ordinary people, are powerless to do: refrain from expressing opinions about things we don't control. Elizabeth is, you might say, a lifelong student of human behavior. Instead of being frustrated by the limitations and obligations of her profession, the Queen has found freedom in it, channeling that energy to productive ends. Aides will find some event excruciatingly boring. The Queen, on the other hand, will have found something interesting. "Didn't you realize that chap's father was the son of my father's valet?" She'll be found saying with enthusiasm after a long dinner.
20:15 Ryan Holiday? "Did you see the man's red socks?" she'll ask after a public event. "Why was there an extra director of music in the gallery?" she'll say after a concert, noticing something that even her security team missed. "What happened to the soldier?" she'll ask of a young man who cut his hand on a bayonet and his commanding officer, who thought himself too important to be concerned with such things, will have no answer. A weak mind must be constantly entertained and stimulated. A strong mind can occupy itself and, more important, be still and vigilant in the moments that demand it. Of all that the Queen has endured, one might think that, as a traditionalist in the most traditional of professions, she was at least protected from change.
20:59 Ryan Holiday? In fact, change has been the largest and most continual challenge of her life. For starters, most nations on earth today did not exist when she was born. The world has quite literally remade itself during her reign. Her job has been to both preserve her institution while simultaneously adapting to a rapidly changing future. She is the last bastion of standards, it has been said, and yet almost every one of those standards has been reevaluated, adjusted, and reimagined over the years, in some cases, many times. Change has become a constant, she said.
21:42 Ryan Holiday? Managing it has become an expanding discipline. Perhaps that is why, as part of this discipline, the royal household has adopted a kind of motto. "If things are going to stay the same," they like to say, "then things are going to have to change." We have to understand, self-discipline is not keeping things exactly as they are with an iron grip. It's not resistance to any and everything. Nor would much discipline be required in a world that always stayed the same. Temperance is also the ability to adjust, to make good of any situation, to find the opportunity to grow and improve in any situation, and to be able to do this with equanimity
22:26 Ryan Holiday? and poise, even initiative and joy, because what other choice do we have? Perhaps the most interesting and symbolic changes of Elizabeth's reign was her decision in 1993 to tax herself. Now, we can, of course, stipulate that, given the colonial origins of her vast fortune, this tax and her considerable charitable giving are the least the royal family could do. But if discipline is about holding yourself accountable, then there is perhaps no better example than the decision of a monarch to propose that her own government tax her estate and income over the objection of the prime minister himself.
23:09 Ryan Holiday? But that doesn't mean that everything is up in the air. Better not is a popular phrase inside the palace. As in, let's not overstep, as in, let's not rush into this, as in, let's not fix what isn't broken, let's take all things, including change, slowly. This extends to her considerable wealth and fame. Elizabeth is not an ascetic. She lives in a castle, after all. Fate gave her one, so why not enjoy it? Within bounds, this is perfectly possible for a disciplined person. While easier than grinding poverty, navigating abundance is its own challenge. To manage it, the queen has to live by a code, a sense of duty.
23:53 Ryan Holiday? "I, like Queen Victoria," she has said, "have always been a believer in that old maxim, 'moderation in all things.'" Younger members of her family have struggled with this kind of self-control, rebelled against it, in some disturbing cases, abdicated even their most basic duties as human beings. The idea that you don't get to do everything you want, that some things are non-negotiable, that the flip side of privilege is duty, and that power must be complemented by restraint, not everyone gets that, and their shameful behavior reminds us of the consequences. It's easy to be excited, it's easy to express a preference, it's easy to be a mess, too, to give yourself over to whim, or to emotions, or even to ambition, to keep yourself in
24:38 Ryan Holiday? check, to hold yourself to standards, especially when you could get away with less. As Musonius Rufus would say back in ancient Rome, "Is it not much better to be self-controlled and temperate in all one's actions than to be able to say what one ought to do?" As an advisor to kings and elites, he understood plenty of people are masters of their universe while lacking the most important power there is, power over their minds, power over their actions and choices. Still, it's a hard life. Imagine being so exacting, as the queen must be, that when a speechwriter hands you a draft of an address that begins with, "I am very glad to be back in Birmingham," you take the time to cross out the word "very."
25:24 Ryan Holiday? Because it's not quite true, nor would it be sincere or fair to all the other places she has to or never will visit. An ordinary person can get away with a little rhetorical flourish, but you aren't the queen if you're ordinary. The difficulty of that balance, you are unlike anyone, but you have to be relatable to everyone. You have to be approachable at the same time as being above reproach. Head of state and head of church, modern and timeless, with everyone watching, ready for the slightest mistake. Does that mean she allows herself no emotion? That self-discipline means a robotic suppression of feeling? Absolutely not. Although the queen holds herself to high standards,
26:09 Ryan Holiday? she is remarkably tolerant of breaches of protocol. The fan who reaches out and grabs her, the diplomat who forgets to bow. She is said to be surprisingly easy to talk to, very quick to put others at ease, because this too is part of the job. It's hard to be her, but she doesn't make that hard for you. She has endured her fair share of criticisms too, as all public figures must expect to endure. Did she run from this, complain about it? Quite the opposite. In 1992, a painful and difficult year that included the divorces of three of her children, a tell-all memoir published by one of the divorcees and a fire at Windsor Castle, her so-called Annis Heribulus.
26:53 Ryan Holiday? The queen, still smelling of smoke from the fire, took time to specifically point out that accountability from the press is part of her job. "There can be no doubt," she said, "that criticism is good for people and institutions that are part of public life. No institution, city, monarchy, whatever, should expect to be free from the scrutiny of those who give it their loyalty and support, not to mention those who don't." And yet, she has also reminded the British press that there is a difference between accountability and cruelty. "Scrutiny can be just as effective," she said, "if it is made with a touch of gentleness, good humor, and understanding." She has tried to respond with such courtesy even when it was not extended in her
27:37 Ryan Holiday? direction. In 1957, when the Queen was the subject of a controversial editorial that criticized her for being out of step at The Times for her stilted manner of speaking and dependence on advisers, the Queen did not take offense. In fact, she took no public notice of the criticisms at all, even when the controversy grew so great that its author was assaulted in the streets of London. But she did privately and subtly address the legitimate feedback. Some note that even her accent has slowly shifted, becoming less pronounced and aristocratic over time, a rather impressive, if mostly uncredited, feat. No one lasts very long if they are afraid of change, and few are able to change if
28:22 Ryan Holiday? they are afraid of feedback or making mistakes. And so here she is at the time of this writing, 95 years old and still going. She has effectively, tirelessly served as head of state for roughly one-sixth of the Earth's surface. She has done so without personal corruption scandals, without affairs, without major missteps. If there was anyone who deserves retirement, it's her. But she keeps going, getting better at the most difficult job in the world as she goes. In 2013, the monarchs of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Qatar would abdicate. A pope would follow suit. For the Queen, this was unthinkable. "Oh, that's something I can't
29:07 Ryan Holiday? do," she said. "I'm going to carry on to the end." And so she has. What about you? Where is your discipline, your poise and grace under pressure? You're tired? You're in an impossible situation? Get out of here. There have been plenty of leaders with more power than Queen Elizabeth. Few, however, have had more restraint. There have been plenty of gluttons, but few as quietly glorious. It was this self-command, this self-abnegation that has made her a ruler that people can be proud of. It saved her from herself, from the temptations of power, sure. It also helped her outlast not just many tyrants, but whole
29:52 Ryan Holiday? forms of tyranny itself.
29:55 Ryan Holiday? We have to understand greatness is not just what one does, but also what one refuses to do. It's how one bears the constraints of their world or their profession. It's what we're able to do within limitations creatively, consciously, calmly. "Most people have a job and they go home," the Queen once reflected. "And in this existence, the job and the life go on together because you can't really divide them up." There is no better definition of the path of temperance. It's an all-consuming, full-time thing. It's the journey of a lifetime, one that gets more impressive and rewarding the longer you stay at it.
30:43 Ryan 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.
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