Pod Insights The Daily Stoic | Wondery+ Be Strict with Yourself, Tolerant with Others | Ask Daily Stoic About this episode It’s important to remember that Stoicism isn’t about judging other people. It’s not a moral philosophy you’re supposed to project and enforce onto the world. No, it’s a personal philosophy that’s designed to direct your behavior.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Ryan Holiday? Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.
0:14 Ryan Holiday? Remember that Stoicism isn't about judging other people. It's not a moral philosophy you're supposed to project and enforce onto the world. No, it's a personal philosophy that's designed to direct your behavior. This is what Marcus Aurelius meant when he said, "Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself. Be open to the idea that people are going to be fools or jerks who are unreliable or anything else. Let them be. That's their business. That's not inside your control. But you have to be disciplined with yourself and your reactions. If someone acts ridiculous, let them. If you're acting ridiculous, catch the problem, stop it, and work on preventing it from happening in the future.
0:58 Ryan Holiday? What you do is in your control. That is your business. Be strict about it. Leave other people to themselves. You have enough to worry about.
1:19 Ryan Holiday? Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I was in New York the first week of December. I got to go do a talk at the 92nd Street Y, or I got to be interviewed at the 92nd Street Y, which was really cool. Stephanie Ruhl of MSNBC, who's been nice enough to have me on her show a couple of times, agreed to be the Q part of the Q and A. She's the host of MSNBC's The 11th Hour, and she was previously the managing editor and news anchor for Bloomberg Television and editor-at-large at Bloomberg News. I thought this was a lovely conversation. She asked me some awesome questions. We've talked Stoicism a bunch over the years. And for today's Q and A segment, I'm going to bring you a little chunk of this Q and A.
2:05 Ryan Holiday? If you want to come see me in person and ask me some questions, I'm going to be in San Diego on the 5th and Phoenix on the 27th of February. You can grab those tickets at DailyStoicLive.com, and I will see you there.
2:22 Speaker 01 What can someone possibly do with philosophy?
2:24 Ryan Holiday? Well, I also think about this, and you know, I'm a 19-year-old dude and I'm trying to figure out what to do with my life. And philosophy was there, I think, to point me in a good direction. So now we're sort of talking about what to do with this sort of crisis for young men. And I do think ancient philosophy and these sort of classical virtues is exactly what we should be pointing young people towards, because it is a tried and true path that has endured for 25 or so centuries for a good reason. But I think what philosophy teaches us, real philosophy, not sort of theoretical or abstract philosophy.
3:00 Speaker 01 What does that mean?
3:01 Ryan Holiday? To me, it is the guide to the good life, like how to be a good person and how to live a good life. And so those were questions that I had that I think most young people have. And yet, it's expressly what education does not want to wade into, right? Like, education is designed to help you get, qualify for more education, right? High school is designed to get you into college, college to get a graduate degree or to get a good job. It's designed to, you know, sort of debunk certain myths or to teach you, you know, about historical things that happened, but not so much what they mean and how you should apply these lessons to your actual life.
3:44 Ryan Holiday? And what I think I was struck by with the Stoics is that they're sort of dispensing with all of that and they're just talking about, you know, how to be a person in the world. One of the things that Marx realist talks about, he thanks his own philosophy teacher for teaching him not, basically, to do rhetorical tricks. He says not to chop logic, but to be a good human being, which is, you know, what I was interested in learning about.
4:09 Speaker 01 So, define for us the Stoic virtues, because lots of people think they know what they are.
4:14 Ryan Holiday? Yeah, the four virtues of Stoicism are courage, temperance, which I think we can render as self-discipline or self-mastery, sometimes also moderation, and then justice and wisdom. And so those four virtues, the Stoics believed, every situation, every circumstance, was a chance to practice some or all of those virtues. Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, who lays these virtues down, says they're distinct, yet inseparable from each other, and I think that's exactly right. Courage is obviously different than justice, and yet, what good is courage if not in pursuit of justice?
4:53 Ryan Holiday? And what does wisdom do but tell us what is just and unjust, and what to be courageous about and what not? So the virtues all inform and shape each other. It's very hard to have any one of them in isolation.
5:07 Speaker 01 Then where does decency fall? Under what umbrella?
5:10 Ryan Holiday? I would say very clearly under the virtue of justice. If we're talking about decency as far as how we treat other people, the Stoics talk about kindness, they talk about compassion, they talk about how we're put here for each other. But then again, I think the line where they begin and end, there's also the decency, I think, of self-restraint, right? And moderation? And so that gets us into temperance and self-discipline.
5:37 Speaker 01 Okay, but then stay there, because if it's about self-restraint and moderation, if you are practicing these virtues, what do you do when you see others behaving in ways that you don't approve of?
5:52 Ryan Holiday? Sure. So the Stoic dictum is tolerant with others, strict with yourself. So as far as the sort of basic standards of like, how to be a person, when we're not talking about right and wrong, or good or bad, we're just talking about basic lifestyle choices. I think the Stoics are going to be sort of libertarian, in the sense of like, you do you, it might not work out for you, but that's not my place to... Like, the emphasis in Stoicism is on self-discipline, not discipline, I'm going to keep everyone in line because this is what I think is important. And then, obviously, we get into the place of justice, where this is, I think, where the Stoic intervenes.
6:33 Ryan Holiday? But the founders were very influenced by the Stoics, and I think this is... America sort of embodies the tension of this.
6:40 Speaker 01 Our founding fathers.
6:41 Ryan Holiday? The founding fathers are all... George Washington is the only founding father that only reads the Stoics in English.
6:49 Ryan Holiday? Right, like instead of French or in Greek or Latin. Jefferson dies with Seneca on his nightstand. That's like the degree to which the Stoics are influencing the founders. In fact, the most famous play in the world in the 18th century is this play called Cato, which is like as popular as Hamilton is now, but it's about this Stoic philosopher named Cato. But anyways, the founders are creating a system based on personal liberty, right? You can do whatever you want. You are allowed to do quite a bit. But the sort of Stoic influence would say, but you obviously shouldn't, right? The First Amendment gives us the opportunity to do all sorts of things that I think most of us would agree are horrible, or indecent, or unkind.
7:33 Ryan Holiday? They're not illegal, but you shouldn't go around doing them, right? And so the idea for the founders was they're creating this system of government layered on top of which would be a strong sense of personal virtue and honor. And that's where I think we're struggling as a society.
7:50 Speaker 01 Are there leaders today, or public people that people in the room would know of, that you would point to, that you believe, not necessarily perfectly, but you believe follow these virtues?
8:02 Ryan Holiday? Well, General Mattis, Secretary, former Secretary of Defense.
8:06 Speaker 01 In Trump's first administration.
8:07 Ryan Holiday? In Trump's first administration. You know, famously carries Marx's meditations with him on like 40 years of deployments. And he is, I think, as close to a modern Stoic as we might come. You know, famously resigns on principle when he disagrees with the president, but...
8:22 Speaker 01 Never publicly fights with him, and never says anything defamatory about him when he's part of the administration.
8:29 Ryan Holiday? Yes, and that was...
8:30 Speaker 01 And never leaks to the press.
8:31 Ryan Holiday? And that was his idea of restraint, right? And he says, "You've got to know your flat-ass rules and stick to them." Like, "What are your rules? This is who I am, this is what I believe, this is what I do and don't do, this is the code in honor of my profession, and I stick with that." And I do think that is increasingly becoming a bit of a relic, but we're going to miss it when it's gone.
8:53 Speaker 01 How hard is it for people to stay true to those values? When we're living in a world where it feels like the people above you, the people below you, but most specifically, traditionally or when you're growing up, you believe the people in leadership positions, right? Right? Leaders in government, in business, in medicine, in media, right? These are these verticals that we would look to and trust for leadership.
9:18 Ryan Holiday? Yes.
9:18 Speaker 01 How do we guide people at a time when it feels like our leaders aren't leading?
9:23 Ryan Holiday? Mm-hmm.
9:24 Speaker 01 Or our trusted verticals are not trustworthy? How does the individual manage him or herself?
9:31 Ryan Holiday? Well, one of the things we can do is look backwards to the past, right? Who are our models? We're talking about Washington. You know, Washington has two heroes. His two heroes are Arcato, the Stoic philosopher, and then Cincinnatus, the Roman general, who by the way, may or may not have actually existed. But like when Washington resigns his commission, when Washington resigns the presidency after two terms, he is modeling what he learned from Cincinnatus, this Roman hero who famously is made dictator, saves Rome, and then with unlimited power lays it down and returns to his farm, which is also the inspiration for the movie Gladiator. The idea is like sort of who are these historical models, these greats from history?
10:16 Ryan Holiday? And we sort of judge ourselves against them. Seneca, one of the Stoic philosophers who loves Cato, he says, you know, "Without a ruler, you can't make crooked straight." And so I think we certainly live in a time where-
10:28 Speaker 01 Say that one more time.
10:29 Ryan Holiday? "Without a ruler, you can't make crooked straight." And he was talking about, he says, "You have to choose someone like Cato, an example or a model who you measure your choices against. What would Jesus do in this situation? What would Cato do in this situation?" And the idea, I think, was you would have leaders in your society, in modern day, who embody and live up to these norms and expectations, who set down an example that calls us all to be better. But in the absence of that, I do think we have to look backwards where we have no shortage of these historical figures who are, in many cases flawed and did other bad things, and we can dissect that for sure, but we need to have these kind of heroes.
11:11 Ryan Holiday? And I think, again, one of the things that I struggle with today is the way that we teach history seems to be primarily about tearing down historical figures or stories, and then we don't replace it with anything. I guess what I'm saying is that we are a world in desperate need of heroes, like models, people who did the right thing when it wasn't in their interest to do so, who reached into the bag and sort of pulled out some level of superhuman strength, or decency, or honor, and then we can go, oh yeah, these are the kind of people we put statues up of, these are the people we tell our kids stories about, these are the people who inspire us in our
11:55 Ryan Holiday? own moments, you know, usually lower stakes. We go, okay, yeah, I'm gonna do this hard right thing here, because that's the tradition I am choosing to be a part of and to continue.
12:08 Speaker 01 Then let's talk about your most recent book in the series, Wisdom Takes Work. First, I want you just to explain that, because I think the common way we think about wisdom is just this thing that inadamantly grows with time, right? With gray hair comes wisdom, and you are saying absolutely not, this is an action word, and you have to actually build towards it.
12:32 Ryan Holiday? Well, Aristotle believed that all the virtues were verbs and not nouns. They were actions, they were habits, they weren't something that you inherently possessed, they weren't something that you earned one time, and they certainly weren't something that you were born with. And so you've got to earn it, just like you earn the idea of being courageous by doing courageous things, doing things that scare you. I think wisdom is a byproduct of making certain choices, certain actions.
13:03 Speaker 01 It's not being smart.
13:04 Ryan Holiday? Certainly not, because there's a lot of very stupid, smart people. And to go to your point about wisdom and age, although most wise people you meet will be advanced in years, not every person advanced in years is wise. I guess what I'm saying is I've met some stupid old people, as I'm sure we all have.
13:24 Speaker 01 But what do those years give us? Explain to us how this works.
13:27 Ryan Holiday? Look, I think one of the reasons that wisdom does tend to be associated with age is that you have more experiences, you have more time to have read and seen things, and then also it gives you something which I think is essential to wisdom, which is perspective. When you're 20, you have only experienced so much, you've only seen so much, and you can only put this in a somewhat limited perspective. You only have 20 years that you can place this in. And when you've been around for 40, or 60, or 80, or 100, you have a different perspective. I met this man, he used to live near me in Austin, his name was Richard Overton. He was 112 when he died.
14:07 Speaker 01 How'd you meet him?
14:08 Ryan Holiday? He lived right down the street from me, and I read an article, they talked about him always sitting on his front porch. So I walked over and sat on his front porch and talked to him a few times. He was the world's oldest living veteran, the oldest man in the world when he died. And I remember one time I was asking him, I said, "So, what's the secret to being 112? Do you take it day by day?" And he said, "At my age, I take it day by night." And his point was he'd just been around long enough that he didn't even get too far ahead of himself, he just sort of took it minute by minute. But I remember I was sitting on his porch, and there's this huge tree, that was, when a tree starts to get big enough, it can mess with the foundation of the house. So the house is all sort of... And he built this house after the Second World War. This is in East Austin, which was the segregated part of town.
14:53 Ryan Holiday? So you had to live in a segregated part of town. He's a black man. But I was like, oh, it looks like this tree's, you know, kind of messing up the foundation of your house. And he goes, yeah, I planted this tree. You know, he planted the tree 50 years earlier and it was now raising up the foundation of his house. My point is, he could see things in a 50-year time span, or a 60-year time span, or a 100. He had retired at 80, I think, and then he lived another 30 years. So my point is, I think one of the things you do get the longer you're on this planet is just a slightly longer time span. That being said, if you are still prey to biases, you know, you give into ego, there
15:34 Ryan Holiday? are many ways that you can work against this natural accumulation of wisdom, just as you can work against having a great education, or you can work against whatever natural gifts you've been given. Just because you're smart, just because you've seen a lot, doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be wise.
15:56 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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