This Predicts Everything | Show, Don't Tell

Who a person is determines what will happen and what they can do. It’s true in sports. It’s true in politics. It’s true in business. No matter how talented a person is, how great the incentives, how great the system around them—in the end, character is everything. It can’t be hidden. It can’t be compensated for. It comes out. This is an excerpt from Ryan Holiday’s latest book The Daily Dad.---And in today's Daily Stoic Journal excerpt reading, Ryan examines the importance of letting new ideas like Stoic philosophy germinate in your mind for some time before committing to them after first glance.📙 If you enjoyed this passage, please consider preordering a signed and numbered first edition of The Daily Dad: 366 Meditations on Parenting, Love, and Raising Great Kids before the May 2 release.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, 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. 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.

• 0:41Ryan Holiday?

  This predicts everything. Who a person is determines what will happen and what they can do. It's true in sports, it's true in politics, it's true in business. No matter how talented a person is, how great the incentives, how great the system around them, in the end, character is everything. It can't be hidden, it can't be compensated for. It comes out. Your job as a parent, as you seek to create a better world for your kids and raise them to be good in the world, is to value character, to teach it to them, to model it for them, to reward it when you see it in them. Yes, you want them to be smart.

• 1:26Ryan Holiday?

  Yes, you want them to be ambitious. Yes, you want them to be creative and hardworking. But these traits are worthless, if not yoked, behind good character. We are seeing the costs of ignoring that in every facet of life right now. We need to fix it, and the fix starts at home.

• 1:55Ryan Holiday?

  Show, Don't Tell.

• 1:59Ryan Holiday?

  This is this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal, 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living. "The art of living isn't a set of teachings or a formula we can memorize. It's a practice that requires constant work. Epictetus was constantly reminding his students not to parrot back what they learned in the lecture hall or read in books, but to put that work into practice. He knew that progress you could see was better than any proclaimed. Let your journaling and thinking this week exhibit what you have done and what you are doing, not what you plan to do or think you are. Let it be a catalog of your actions, good actions."

• 2:41Ryan Holiday?

  As Epictetus says, "Those who receive the bare theories immediately want to spew them, as an upset stomach does with its food. First, digest your theories and you won't throw up; otherwise, they will be raw, spoiled, and not nourishing. After you've digested them, show us the changes in your reasoned choices, like the shoulders of gymnasts who display their diet and training, and the craft of artisans show what they have learned." That's Epictetus's Discourses 321.

• 3:12Ryan Holiday?

  "First, practice not letting people know who you are. Keep your philosophy to yourself for a bit. In just the manner that fruit is produced, the seed is buried for a season, hidden, growing gradually, so it may come to full maturity. But if the grain sprouts before the stalk is fully developed, it will never ripen. That is the kind of plant you are, displaying fruit too soon, and the winter will kill you." You know, this is a theme the Stoics talk about quite a bit, the idea of conceit being the impediment to improvement, that ego is the enemy. And, you know, when I look back, you know, I first introduced the Stoics now like 15 or so years ago, I look back at some of my early writings, and I'm doing exactly what Epictetus is talking about.

• 3:56Ryan Holiday?

  I'm just regurgitating things that I'd heard. I mean, that exercise itself was educational, but I didn't even begin to comprehend what I was talking about. It took time, it took experience. As Plutarch says, "It's not that words that give us the meaning of experiences, but experiences that give us meaning of the words." And so, I wish I'd taken a bit more time. Now-- This is obviously what some of these social media and blogging platforms do. It's a way of thinking out loud, but I actually wish I'd taken more sort of quiet, reflective time to myself. And I think we do this whenever we discover something. We get some product we like, or join a movement or a cause we like. And suddenly we become this evangelist for it. And I think part of that is out of insecurity, right?

• 4:42Ryan Holiday?

  We want other people to like it. We don't, we're not quite sure what we think of it ourselves. So by bringing other people on, we feel less insecure. We go, see, I'm not crazy. Other people like it too. But let's just slow down a little bit. If you're listening to this podcast for the first time, if you're new to Stoicism, let it stew a little bit, think about it a little bit, look at it critically, find out what's wrong, go read more about it, right? Find people who love Stoicism, people who hate Stoicism, consume it in different mediums, but, but just explore it. You don't have to convert. You don't have to identify yet, you know, just, just keep thinking. Let it, let it remain underground, let it germinate, let it, let it, let it solidify

• 5:27Ryan Holiday?

  there. And then when it comes out, it'll, it'll be in a, in better shape and in better form. And so as you work on your practice, you know, you don't have to put on airs. Epictetus talks about this. Don't put on airs about your self-improvement. He says, be humble about it. You know, I, I definitely wish there was things that I hadn't said, that I thought about longer, that, that I took time to think about privately more. And, and that's probably most of my regrets on any social media platform is I, I jumped, I leapt out with my opinion instead of sitting on it, stewing on it, thinking, letting it germinate. And, and I think that process is just really valuable. So slow down. That's the advice of this week's meditation. Slow down, think, really mull it over, turn it over in your mind.

• 6:11Ryan Holiday?

  And the, the plant will be stronger for it. You will be stronger for it. Your wisdom will be better for it. That's what we're working on. Anyways, stay at it, keep listening. I'll talk to you again next week.