That’s What It’s Made For | Ask Daily Stoic

You probably wish you didn’t have to. Of course, you didn’t want it to happen. It would be nicer if things went as planned. As we’ve said before, this is what we trained for! 🎟️ Come seeRyan Holiday LIVE https://www.dailystoiclive.com/: https://www.dailystoiclive.com/ San Diego, CA - February 5, 2026 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/daily-stoic-live-onstage-with-ryan-holiday-tickets-1527497619499?aff=oddtdtcreatorPhoenix, AZ - February 27, 2026 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/daily-stoic-live-onstage-with-ryan-holiday-tickets-1830981698549?aff=oddtdtcreator 👉 Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing toThe Daily Stoic Premium https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content:https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ 🎥 Watch the video episodes onThe Daily Stoic YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos:https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos 🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast onInstagram https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast/?hl=en:https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email athttps://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 https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/,Twitter https://twitter.com/dailystoic,YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic,TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@daily_stoic?lang=en, andFacebook https://www.facebook.com/dailystoic See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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?

  That's what it's made for. You probably wish you didn't have to. And of course, you didn't want it to happen. It would be nicer if things went as planned. But one thing we know about life is that this is just how it goes: accidents, disasters, difficult periods, challenging situations. Well, as we've said before, this is what we trained for. This is the whole point of Stoicism. There's a great line in a Nathaniel Rateliff song about this. Let me play it for you real fast.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  Lean and use your weight. That's what a shoulder's made for.

• 1:32Ryan Holiday?

  Lean and use your weight. That's what a shoulder's made for. Adversity and difficulty is what you are for. It's certainly what Stoicism is for. These lessons were tried and tested in the furnace of history. They were subjected to tyrants in exile, plagues in wars, imprisonment and health crises, temptations and trials. And now, now is your chance to apply them, to use them. You've got the shoulders. You are standing on shoulders of generations of Stoics who came before. Lean and use your weight. Carry the weight.

• 2:21Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another Thursday episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. Back in May, I was in Mexico City doing a talk to this thing called Grupo Salinas. It's their National Advisory Council. I did a couple of different Q and As as part of it. I really worked hard on this talk. I actually built in a whole story about Frida Kahlo in there. So that was really cool. And I thought I'd bring you, as part of our Q and A episode, some questions from that. Here I am, being interviewed by Nina Salinas. She was asking me some questions onstage. And she is a Mexican politician, a former Mexican senator, and she represents the ecologist Green Party of Mexico. She's also the president of the Advisory Council

• 3:06Ryan Holiday?

  and leads the Somos Grandes Initiative, which was created by Grupo Salinas to promote entrepreneurship across Mexico. Let's get into it.

• 3:19Speaker 02

  So I like what you're saying because with respect to the obstacle is the way, which is one of your books. And I've read it. And you talk about, you know, trying to get out of your agenda, the hardest thing possible, the first thing in the morning. So can you talk a little bit about this? And, you know, does it apply to entrepreneurial life? I think it does.

• 3:39Speaker 03

  Well, I do think what an entrepreneur is fundamentally is someone who's having to constantly respond to the things that might, right? Suddenly, a new law comes into effect, or a new change in the market comes into effect, a new technology is invented. One of your employees, you find out is stealing from you. Your most trusted employee quits. You're just, stuff is happening and you've got to respond. What a great company does, what a great business does, what a great leader does is... Respond by how are we going to deal with this? What are we going to do because of this? I mean, I think you saw this through the pandemic. How many businesses didn't have an e-commerce component? Didn't have a takeout component? Didn't have a hybrid or a work from home component? And they had to suddenly figure that out.

• 4:22Speaker 03

  Now, if you'd asked them in February of 2020, was this possible? They would have said no, but necessity made it possible. I mean, how many people become entrepreneurs because they got laid off? Or because there was a downturn in their industry? And so an entrepreneur is by definition, someone who responds well to what happens in their life. And I do think to go to your point about sort of routine and structure, you have to create that your life is going to be crazy enough. There was an artist who said, you want to be organized in your life, in your career, in your workspace, so you can be chaotic in your art? And I think an entrepreneur has got to create structure and discipline so that they can deal with the craziness that is inherent in what you're doing.

• 5:06Speaker 03

  The only thing, if you are adding on top of that just personal chaos and dysfunction, you never know where anything is and office is a mess and your phone is always ringing, you're just adding noise on top of moments.

• 5:19Speaker 02

  I like what you say. I think it's very powerful. Just to wrap it up, I would like to ask you about your new book.

• 5:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:25Speaker 02

  Which is the right thing right now. And here in Mexico, we're living in an environment which is pretty violent. And there are difficulties all around. And I know it's not exclusive to Mexico. But what you say is you urge us to act with integrity, even when nobody is watching. Can you reflect more about, you know, how does this impact businesses?

• 5:50Speaker 03

  One of the great things about being an entrepreneur is that you get to make some decisions, right? Like, look, it'd be wonderful if we all lived under competent governments, if everyone played by the rules, if collectively we all did what was best for each other and the planet. But we don't, right? We do the opposite most of the time. And politics is the art of addressing that. But you and I are not the emperor. We are not the president, unfortunately. So we don't get to make a lot of decisions. We certainly don't get to decide, you know. What they're doing across some far distant ocean or what another country is doing. So, do we give up? Do we despair? No.

• 6:33Speaker 03

  One of the great things about being an entrepreneur is that we get to make really important impactful decisions. They don't necessarily impact everyone, but they certainly matter a great deal to the people inside our organization. So the decision to, I don't know, provide benefits, or the decision to set certain environmental or equality standards, the decision to treat everyone we deal with therewith, these are decisions that we get to make. No one's putting a gun to our head and saying we have to do them. And in fact, that's what makes it most meaningful. It's so easy in politics and business and like, it's been true in America, it's true here, it's been true historically, to go, well, everyone else is doing it. Well, that's just standard practice.

• 7:18Speaker 03

  Or to make this distinction between illegal and wrong. You know, it's not illegal, so technically I can do it. There, Viktor Frankl, the great Jewish writer, comes out in the Holocaust. He said that it's wonderful that America has a Statue of Liberty, but he felt that on the West Coast, there should be a corresponding Statue of Responsibility.

• 7:44Ryan Holiday?

  And not me.

• 7:45Speaker 03

  And I think every business person has the chance to go, hey, look, it's wonderful to live in a society, in a capitalistic society, to have the freedom to make these decisions. But that doesn't mean you just get to do whatever you want. What it means is that you now have the freedom to make the right decision. And you have to do that. And so, like, there's going to be corruption around you, there's going to be disincentives around you, there's going to be opportunities that you could take advantage of that might be good for you financially, but you understand they're bad for the world, or, you know, someone on the other side of that transaction, and then you have to decide, hey, am I going to be that person? And I just found that so empowering as an entrepreneur myself, is that as frustrated

• 8:29Speaker 03

  as I am with the state of the world, I've got plenty that I can focus on for my people, for my team, for my community. And that if everyone took that responsibility seriously, it would make it an enormous impact right away. And that's just something I wish more entrepreneurs would embrace.

• 8:53Ryan 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.