Real Power Can't Be Taken Away | Ask DS

They can hate you, they can send you away, they can mock you or even kill you, but no one can take away those principles. Ask DS:Is Stoicism considered "self-help"? How can Stoicism be incorporated in daily life? + More!✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://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, 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, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. While on Thursdays, we not only read the daily meditation, but we answer some questions from listeners and fellow Stoics who are trying to apply this philosophy just as you are. Some of these come from my talks. Some of these come from Zoom sessions that we do with Daily Stoic Life members or as part of the challenges. Some of them are from interactions I have on the street when there happened to be someone there recording. Thank you for listening, and we hope this is of use to you.

• 0:43Speaker 01

  Real power can't be taken away. Twice Seneca was exiled. Twice, he basically lost everything. Money, access, influence, it all went away. Like that. How did he handle it? The first time, not so well. We can read the "Thou dost protest too much" letter he wrote to his mother, and we can see what he was willing to do in order to be recalled. By Stoic standards, it wasn't pretty. The second time, he did a little better. As long as he could be free from Nero, the exile was worth the loss. And when he was approached by Nero's executioner, he responded finally with courage and strength. Only then were the man and his philosophy aligned.

• 1:27Speaker 01

  "It is a vast kingdom to be able to cope without a kingdom," Seneca wrote in his play, The Estes. This was no mere wordplay. This was hard-won wisdom. Seneca really did know of what he spoke. He really did learn how to break free of the hold that material things and status had over him. And in it, he found both great power and eventually immortality. Another fellow traveler in Stoicism was the slaved-turned-philosopher Publilius Cirrus. "If you are to have a great kingdom," he wrote, "rule over yourself." That's what we should think about today. Real power can't be taken away, not by the economy or by an election.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  Or by anything else. A populist surfs on the moods of the crowd, but a philosopher, a person worthy of our respect rests on principles. They can hate you, they can send you away, they can mock you or even kill you, but no one can take away those principles. No one can stop you from ruling over yourself. It's the best and the biggest and the strongest kingdom there is.

• 2:39Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another Thursday episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. The folks at CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, reached out and wanted to interview me because I'm going to be in Vancouver. Anyways, they wanted to ask me some questions about Stoicism, how it fits in this crazy, modern world, and how I was handling all the crazy things that were happening here. So this was a very fun little interview. I did it at the Daily Stoic studio, just got my hair cut and then rushed over and did the little interview. And anyways, do well.

• 3:20Speaker 02

  Lisa Christensen sat down earlier with the man at the heart of the return of Stoicism. And here she is with more.

• 3:28Speaker 03

  If you're like a lot of people, at some point in your life, these questions will occur to you. What does a good life look like? What am I doing right or wrong? Does any of this even matter? Well, Ryan Holiday has spent a lot of time considering these questions. He is an author, podcaster, and host of the Daily Stoic. He'll be in Vancouver on November 18th to discuss the Stoic life. He joins me now. Good morning.

• 3:53Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, thanks for having me.

• 3:54Speaker 03

  So before we get to what a Stoic life is, for those who probably don't remember Philosophy 101, what is Stoicism?

• 4:03Ryan Holiday?

  Stoicism is a philosophy that comes to us from ancient Greece and then ancient Rome. And I could tell you about a bunch of old dead white guys whose names you may or may not be able to pronounce, but I see it as a philosophy built around this assumption that while we don't control the world around us, we control how we respond to the world around us. And that the Stoics believed that everything was an opportunity to practice virtue. And for the Stoics, those four key virtues are courage, self-discipline, justice, and wisdom.

• 4:35Speaker 03

  So when you came to it, was it kind of one of those, you know, looking for a life preserver? Was it helping you with something?

• 4:42Ryan Holiday?

  You know, I was a 19 year old kid in college. I don't know exactly what I was looking for, but, but I think I was looking for how a person was supposed to be, what a good life was. And those questions you mentioned earlier. And it, these aren't the kinds of things that we teach in school. Yeah, there is something about Stoic philosophy that is undeniably well aged. Here you have these insights, these fragments, in some cases are full books and others, that have endured for between 20 and 24 centuries. That, that says something, I think, about their staying power and their timelessness.

• 5:22Speaker 03

  Now, when you check your Instagram account for the Daily Stoic, there are over 3 million followers. Did, did that, do you think even Marcus Aurelius would be surprised at that?

• 5:35Ryan Holiday?

  I mean, I'm surprised by it every single day. I, I seem to remember when I went to my publisher with the idea to write about an obscure school of ancient philosophy, that, that everyone thought I was committing career suicide. And I, I didn't have any idea that it could become what it's become. There are probably more Stoics following the Daily Stoic on Instagram than ever existed cumulatively in all of history. It's, it's pretty unreal to, to think about.

• 6:02Speaker 03

  You know, for, for some people though, do they, is it seen as a self-help, you know, like maybe for business people or, or, you know, a way to sort of say, hey, you know, accept your lot in life?

• 6:15Ryan Holiday?

  There is, there is a way to look down your nose at Stoic philosophy, at people who are sort of earnestly trying to become what they're capable of becoming. But I think we are, particularly for young men, we do that at our peril. If you don't cultivate positive influences and you don't celebrate something like virtue, what happens is that other people step in and they fill that void. And we're certainly wrestling with that in America as far as, you know, sort of who are the primary influences on, on young men at very formative times in their lives.

• 6:50Speaker 03

  Now, you're talking Vancouver, the Stoic life. Is there a way that you can incorporate it into your life? Or is it like a plan? Is it a daily meditation? How does that work?

• 7:03Ryan Holiday?

  It is important that we see Stoic philosophy as a practice. It's not a thing you have heard about or that you have studied. It has to be something that you are studying and something that you are applying. And I'm going to talk about my sort of journey through Stoic philosophy and how I've come to understand it and apply it now two decades in. But I think what draws someone to come to a philosophy lecture, they're, they're trying to avail themselves of, you know, the wisdom from some of the wisest people that have ever lived.

• 7:38Speaker 03

  We talk a lot about how much change we all see, which is so accelerated all the time, but that there is this, as you said, a way to go to a group of people or, you know, to someone who said, these are just universal truths.

• 7:54Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, the more things change, the more they stay the same. And in meditations or Seneca, you have them complaining about, you know, annoying people. You have them wrestling with their temper, dealing with ambition, dealing with the fact that it's cold outside, dealing with the fact that the political situation is untenable. There, there is nothing new under, under the sun. And what you find in the Stoic texts is that they were struggling with shockingly modern problems, or, or conversely, that our problems are shockingly ancient.

• 8:29Speaker 03

  That's a good way to look at it. Now, you know, we have elections. They're all the time. Is there a way that, you know, Stoicism can help us to, you know, confront when, say, we're disappointed by the outcome of an election?

• 8:43Ryan Holiday?

  Well, waking up yesterday, I was reminded of a quote from Marcus Aurelius in Meditations. He says, basically, you know, "How does this stop you?" He was referring to something we don't know, but his point was, "How does whatever it is that you're experiencing, or you've just been told, or has just happened," he says, "How does it stop you from acting with courage and discipline and justice and wisdom?" So I take that to mean that I think America could have made a devastatingly dangerous choice. Things could get very, very bad, not just here, but around the world, as a result of a leader that the Stoics would have been very familiar with. I mean, Seneca lives in the time of Nero, and he sees what an unstable

• 9:27Ryan Holiday?

  head of state can do. But as far as us as individuals, it doesn't change what we are obligated to do. And I don't mean that in the course of our day-to-day obligations, like I have to take my son to school today. I mean that in what is demanded of me as a human being, what virtue asks of us, that remains unchanged. In fact, the only thing that has changed is the stakes or the consequences of sticking with that.

• 9:54Speaker 03

  Well, thank you, Ryan. I really appreciate your time today and look forward to your talk when you're here later in the month. So I really appreciate it.

• 10:04Ryan Holiday?

  Thanks so much. I'm looking forward to stepping onto Canadian soil. It's going to be a nice feeling of relief for a few days.

• 10:12Speaker 03

  All right. Well, thank you. And Ryan Holiday Live in Vancouver, The Stoic Life, takes place on November 18 at the Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts.

• 10:21Ryan 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.