This Also Cannot Be Taken (Only Given Up) | Ask Daily Stoic

Why should a Stoic let the awfulness of the world make them feel awful? Why would we let someone else’s darkness cast a shadow on our own life?📕 Book mentioned: Trust Me I’m Lying by Ryan Holiday 📖 Preorder the final book in Ryan Holiday's The Stoic Virtues Series: "Wisdom Takes Work": https://store.dailystoic.com/pages/wisdom-takes-work🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast🎥 Watch top moments from The Daily Stoic Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dailystoicpodcast✉️ 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.

• 0:05Ryan 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?

  This also cannot be taken, only given up. There was Nero, there was Vespasian, there was Tiberius and Caesar and Sulla and many others. The Stoics lived in the time of tyrants. They lived in a time of chaos and dysfunction and danger. They had real reasons to worry about their property being confiscated, about losing their job to an emperor or events, about being sent into exile. They knew all this was largely out of their control, but as we talked about recently, they understood that they still possessed many things that could not be taken away, only given up. One of those things was their dignity and self-respect. Epictetus kept it even in slavery.

• 1:39Ryan Holiday?

  Thrasse and Agrippinus kept it during the reign of Nero. But there is another thing that we always have the capacity to possess, something not associated with Stoicism often enough, but just as important, and that is happiness and joy.

• 1:56Ryan Holiday?

  Why should the Stoics have let the awfulness of the world make them feel awful? Why should they have let someone else's darkness darken their own life? When Marcus Aurelius spoke of getting revenge by not being like that, this is partly what he was referencing. How do you strike back against a cruel and deranged leader? How do you undermine a morally bankrupt regime or times? By being good and feeling good, by loving your children, by loving literature and art, by smiling to your neighbor, by helping a sick animal you find on the side of the road, by laughing at the absurdities, both of the administrations and at the absurdities of life. Do not let them touch your inner citadel.

• 2:39Ryan Holiday?

  No one can steal your happiness. No one can take your joy. This is ours to keep or give up. Choose wisely.

• 2:54Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Thursday, we do Q and As. We do this long enough and it all starts to blur together. It's crazy to me. So I was in Salt Lake City a couple of months ago. I gave a talk to YPO. It was pretty cool. And then I had to get on a plane early that morning and fly from Salt Lake City to Phoenix, where I was going to talk to Dean Graziosi's mastermind group, which is called Zenith. And here I am now, back in Salt Lake City. Actually, I flew into Salt Lake City. Now I'm in Sundance. I drove about an hour, got a nice run in. I sit down to record this intro, which Claire, my producer, prepped for me. And I go, oof, you really do come full circle.

• 3:36Ryan Holiday?

  I'm going to bring you today a chunk of that Q and A, which we've been doing the last couple of weeks. And the idea that I was like, I knew when I landed in the airport in Salt Lake City, I was like, I was here recently, right? When was that? Was I passing through? Did I leave the airport? And then, you know, I had to go meet the driver or whatever. And it's like, okay, yeah, yeah, I remember I go down here and whatever. And it just all starts to blur together, which is both, I think, a good and a bad sign. It means you're doing a lot, means you're doing cool stuff. It also means you're becoming a little bit jaded. It's kind of just fading into the background. And so I did, as I was driving out here, just try to really soak in the insane scenery. And I make sure I do that on the way back. It can be so easy just to be like,

• 4:21Ryan Holiday?

  House, plane, hotel, restaurant, room, conference room, car, airport, home. And you want to slow down and you want to soak it in. And that's actually something I talked about in the talk with Dean. It's about what we do every day. It's not saying, oh, this doesn't matter. Or this isn't important, or oh, it's all adding up to something. It's about what we do every day. Thanks to Dean for having me come talk to Zenith. He was a very nice host. He gave everyone a copy of Ego is the Enemy. And now I get to bring you a chunk of that Q and A. So enjoy.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  Kids don't do what you do or tell them to do. They become who you are or by example, lead by example. So I'd love to know from you, what are some of the things maybe you would love to teach them, but you're not sure if the teaching or the reading would do it, but you've shifted your life because you know it would be a good example.

• 5:15Ryan Holiday?

  Well, my, my wife likes to joke that one of us writes about Stoicism and then the other is the Stoic. And so.

• 5:22Speaker 01

  I think I got it figured out.

• 5:24Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. So I, I struggle with all of these things, but I, I actually think that's one of the things I want my kids to understand. You talked about going upstairs and apologizing when you've screwed up, or I'm going to try that again. I can remember my parents apologizing like twice in my whole life. Do you know what I mean? Even now.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  I'm glad you got two.

• 5:42Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. Even now, if I would bring up something for my child that they would say, that didn't happen. What are you talking about? You know, even now, if they could be like, hey, when you were six, you know, I would feel better about it.

• 5:53Speaker 01

  Don't move on my part.

• 5:55Ryan Holiday?

  Decades later, it would still make me feel better. Right? And so I, I do try to get better. I'm a big fan. Do you guys know who Dr. Becky is? She's amazing. She talks about like, don't try to be a perfect parent. Try to get better at repair. Right? Like fixing it after. And that's, that's one of the things I'm trying to do by example. And I got this email from my son's teacher yesterday. I was like almost in tears about it. He was running across the playground and he smacked into someone. And she sent us this note about how, how he'd hurt this other kid. And he was checking on them and he went and got the nurse. And it was, and that's. Something he's kind of struggled with. He sometimes, when he gets embarrassed or he screws up, he has shame and it makes him not want to address what happened and think about it.

• 6:41Ryan Holiday?

  We all do that. And so I've tried to model not doing that. Like you can't, you can't yell at someone out of that cycle, right? Because that's where it comes from. And so I've tried to get better at repair. Not that he necessarily has ever showed that he's appreciated it or noticed it, but then you get this thing and you're like, oh, it clearly worked at some level, right? And, and so I think not trying to be perfect, but having some semblance of self-awareness to be able to go, hey, I'm stressed because I'm trying to get everyone to the airport and on the plane at the right time because I planned this special thing for everyone. That's why I was being this way, which is defeating the whole point of us being together. But I'm having the awareness as soon as possible that that's why I'm being the way that I

• 7:26Ryan Holiday?

  was being and then talking about it and acknowledging it. I think it would all be wonderful to have successful, accomplished kids, but to have kids with self-awareness.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  I've said, if it was my last breath and I said, I've created kids that have awareness and they're resourceful and they're happy. I don't care about any of the rest.

• 7:45Ryan Holiday?

  Because they're going to figure, they're set for life. That's the whole toolkit.

• 7:48Speaker 01

  That's the whole toolkit, right? And I do think I had, I had a friend of mine who was a mentor when I was, he was 15 years older than me. He was the first guy I'd ever known that had a hundred million dollar a year business. I'm like, there's businesses that do a hundred million? And I remember talking to him and he said, it was when my daughter was first born, she's 18. So it was 18 years ago. He said, remember at the end of your life, all the things you accomplish, I want you to accomplish a million things, but I think the last thing you're going to think of is, did I do everything in my power to give my kids the tools to live a fulfilled life? And I think about that all the time. Like sometimes you have a true north, that's my true north. Am I doing the things to make them? Resilient to make them have, they'll have resources, but are they resourceful?

• 8:31Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  If I could pick one, you can't give your kids anything, but you can make them resourceful? Pick resourcefulness 100% of the time.

• 8:37Ryan Holiday?

  Well, it's interesting how timeless that is. There's this ancient writer named Plutarch, one of the great biographers, and he lives shortly before Marx's realist, and he noted with some irony that, you know, people will spend a lot of time trying to craft the perfect will and the perfect executor for their estate so their kids don't fight each other, so they don't get too much money or not enough money. And this is, you know, the, all the estate planning you do, and he was just like, what if you just raised kids that got along?

• 9:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:07Ryan Holiday?

  Could manage these things, you know, and not that you don't.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  No, I get it.

• 9:09Ryan Holiday?

  But his point is like, you can try to have this perfect system for these imperfect, flawed people, or you could just not screw them up and, you know, they could, they could manage it, right? And I think, you know, we, we just often end up prioritizing or spending our energy on the thing that's easier and we're more comfortable with and, you know, that, that is.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Such a good point. It's so funny when I, first generation of actually making money, you have to think about those things.

• 9:38Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  Trust and how you're going to hand it off. And I remember going through it and I, I read a letter, and I have to find it, but I read a letter that was written by somebody who studied families, and something hopefully all of you can benefit from, but it was families in Europe, in England, that went many, many generations, I feel like I'm exaggerating to say 20 generations, I'm already telling my four-year-old, is that we're a baton family.

• 10:02Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 10:03Speaker 01

  And I ran the first leg of the race.

• 10:04Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  And I would love to hand the baton off you to continue it, but if you don't want it, it's okay, but you're not just going to get handed, I want to give you opportunity.

• 10:12Ryan Holiday?

  Right, are they inheriting the estate, just the products, the money or whatever? Or are they also inheriting a tradition?

• 10:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:20Ryan Holiday?

  A set of values?

• 10:21Speaker 01

  A culture, a values.

• 10:21Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, and then hopefully a model, Bruce Springsteen has talked about this, says, are you going to be an ancestor to your kids or a ghost? Right? An ancestor is this thing you look to that you're inspired by, that you want to make proud. And a ghost is like, oh yeah, I do that because my dad was like that. Or whatever, right? Like, we're all haunted by these ghosts of five generations ago, right? Someone was an alcoholic, the past of this, past of that. And, and so his point is like, do you want to, to me, that's a really critical choice. And are you going to be someone that sort of builds up and inspires and calls to your kids? Or are you going to be someone that haunts and plagues them and scares them, you know? So good. Ryan's got to run out of here and go jump on a plane. We got time for

• 11:06Ryan Holiday?

  a question or two. Who'd like to ask? Go for it.

• 11:09Speaker 02

  Your book, Trust Me, I'm Lying.

• 11:11Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 11:11Speaker 02

  Changed my life.

• 11:12Ryan Holiday?

  Oh.

• 11:12Speaker 02

  That is a crazy read. And if you haven't read it, highly recommend it. Amazing book. Teach like just all about marketing. Probably give a synopsis real quick to people, but give me a updated 2025 version of how much we are being deceived by media and marketing with the political campaign pandemic. I'm just curious your thoughts. And with that frame on the world right now.

• 11:32Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I wrote, I wrote a book about fake news and media manipulation in 2011, which I wished had been proven wrong subsequently and in. How right you. Yeah. You know, I think we're living in the hellscape that I was predicting in that book, unfortunately. I think what we're coming to understand is that information is a public good, like air pollution or water or the oceans. And as we've allowed these different entities, some governments, some private actors, some foreign actors, some crazy people to sort of poison that. And then as the media's, as their economics have changed, they've gotten worse and worse at protecting that. And we just, so hard to know what's true and real and important these days.

• 12:20Ryan 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.