We Have to Care About the Little Guy | A Stoic Reset for Right Now

Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues courage discipline justice and wisdom into the real world We have to care about the little guy Kato was powerful. Kato was a traditionalist. Kato was conservative in many ways He was an elitist, but the most important thing about him is that from an early age he hated bullies As we talk about in lives of the Stoics at a birthday party for a friend a group of boys were playing a Roman version of the game Cops and robbers One of the younger boys was caught and shut into a dark chamber by one of the older boys Scared the child called for Kato who threw aside the boy blocking the door and took the scared child home to his parents As a teenager Kato was invited with his tutor to the house of Sola who then ruled Rome as a cruel dictator As the tutor explained to Kato Everyone feared Sola and he watched as Kato's entire countenance changed Why then don't you give me a sword Kato said outraged so that I could free my country from slavery and As he got older, maybe that's why Kato hated the corruption in Rome's provinces because it victimized the inhabitants who deserved better Kato and many of the Stoics had a North Star that pointed them into opposition to anyone who tried to intimidate them or take away their rights This is the Stoic virtue of justice. They hated those who abused power and wielded it against the weak In fact the expression the sick Semper Tyranus thus always to tyrants Traces all the way back to Cipio Emelianus one of the great Stoic generals before the turn of the millennium George Washington modeled himself on Kato his entire life But his view on justice on the goal of good government on a just world was captured in a line that he borrowed from the Scriptures Everyone shall sit in safety of his own vine and fig tree And there shall be none to make him afraid His vision of America gave bigotry no sanction, he said and persecution no assistance Here Washington is talking about tolerance He's talking about freedom and love and hope. He was talking about sticking up for the little guy Now Washington and the founders nor the Stoics were perfect at this slavery being the foremost of the examples They fell short, but they set down a powerful ideal for us to aspire to today as Marcus Aurelius writes It was from the Stoic's Thrasia, Helvides, Kato and Brutus that he learned the importance of a society of equal laws governed by a quality of status and speech and of rulers who respect the liberty of their subjects above all else tyrants bullies and jerks are the enemies of justice They cannot be accepted. They cannot be accommodated whether it's an online mob or an economic system that exploits the Impoverished the belittling boss or the masked government thugs tyranny is tyranny and it puts us all at risk Put aside party put aside everything we must speak loudly and with one voice against those who intimidate those who violate Those who abuse and discriminate we must not turn away when the meek and the vulnerable are being mistreated or scapegoated We must stand up to hate and violence aggression and cruelty Because if we are not willing to fight for the little guy for the other and To do what we can for them who will and if we allow them to be hurt or exploited or left to suffer What does that say about us? We should always expect disruption and change and surprise So the question then for us as Stoics as citizens as human beings is is not how do we avoid these challenges? But how do we prepare for them? Right? How do we set ourselves up not to be broken and destroyed and disrupted and Thinking about how to future proof myself what the Stoics can teach us about how to prepare Not with Panic and paranoia or some sort of escape plan, but with some practical Timeless ideas that the Stoics by the way tested in crises and Circumstances both very different and very much the same as ours and how these strategies can help us with our turbulent times just as they have helped people Intervalent times throughout history for starters. You know what I'm doing? I'm focusing on what I can control Epictetus who was a slave in the Roman Empire who experienced exile and Torture and about every other form of difficulty. You can imagine he said that our chief task in life is to separate things into two categories What's up to us and what isn't up to us? He said we have to get clarity on what's up to us and what isn't up to us And so like a way to think about this like what Putin does inflation tariffs my mother's health weather Like none of that is up to me But you know what is up to me like my attitude my emotions my wants my desires my my focus my Response to all those things what those other people do and say the consequences of what they do and say how I respond to that That is up to me who I am is up to me So that's what I'm focusing on and that's what the Stoics want us to focus on one of the things I'm doing is I'm reading old books And I'm reading old books instead of watching the news as I was saying like do you want to understand current events often the best way to do that Is not via breaking news It's to find a book about a similar event in the past like read history read psychology read Biographies go for information that has a long half-life that's not going to be Dicted in the next week by by the next scientific breakthrough by the next bit of investigative reporting That's something I think the Stoics are really good at right the Stoics have endured for two thousand years So the chances that they're going to become irrelevant in 2026 suddenly disproven is very unlikely the chances that the insights that Victetus uncovered about the human condition in torture or that Marcus really has discovered about power and fame and Success it's very unlikely that by 2028 None of that is going to hold up and what this means is there are lots of books lots of ideas lots of history that can help us with what lies ahead because It'll rhyme with what lies behind and There's something Churchill talked about as war is breaking out in Europe. He was working on this big epic history That he was doing and he said it's helpful sometimes to put a couple thousand years between you and the present moment So it gives us perspective it gives us clarity and it also gives us wisdom about this moment So you know whether we're navigating Personal trials or upheavals or or moments of great success and abundance like books are one of the most liable tools that we have to help us prepare for that help us handle that again I remember I interviewed Morgan Howell here when we were doing the daily stoke podcast and he he said something like he thinks back Ten years ago. He can't really remember any articles any News reports he heard from that time, but he can remember a lot of books that he read from that period Those books had ideas that helped him over that ten-year period and I think that's true for the books that you can read now And that's why I'm reading more books that I am consuming the news read Victor Franco Read Taylor branches series on Martin Luther King read the Stoics read fiction read great epic novels Read the Odyssey read the Iliad read Stockdale's thoughts of a philosophical fighter pilot I've been reading that recently one thing. I'm trying to remind myself of is what my job is Because things aren't gonna go the way that I want them to go There's going to be uncertainty and upheaval and unfairness as we were saying But when the dust settles like after a crisis after a septic in the middle of disappointment as you're reacting to What's happening as you're speculating and wondering you're going to be thinking like what happens next or what if it gets worse and and while these are important questions I think for the most part it doesn't change What's expected of you one of the things Marx really says is you know How does this stop you says like how does anything stop you from acting with courage and justice and discipline and wisdom his point was That was your job. He said your job is to be a a good person like no matter what happens good or bad or fair or unfair Whether there's order or disorder Our job is the same. It doesn't matter who's president It doesn't matter if they're being a good president or a bad president It doesn't matter if the economy is good or bad. It doesn't matter if unemployment is high or low It doesn't matter if you are employed or unemployed your most important job is still your job like your obligation is still your obligation And and Marx really said that that job is this what anyone says or does I'm Downed to the good he said I'm like an emerald right my job is to show my true colors to be an emerald And he was saying that that's what our job is but at the most basic level though, right? Like we do have certain obligations in our professions Maybe we sworn oath maybe there's a code of conduct Maybe there's a set of standards like if you're a journalist or a doctor or a lawyer and we have to understand that again What anyone says or does whether this behavior is Delibrated or punished criticized or appreciated our job is to do our job There's a stoke named Helvides and the emperor of espacian sort of warns him to stop speaking out and that if he didn't he said he'd be removed from the Senate and Helvides looks at him and he says look it might be in your power to allow me to be a member of the senator not But he says as long as I am in the Senate I I have to be a senator. I have to do my job. And espacian says I don't think you understand if you do that I will put you to death and Helvides looks at him and he says look you do your part and I'll do mine Our job is to do our job which is to be good and then also to do the thing we were trained to do to do the thing that we Know is important as meaningful that that we promised to do when we took up this responsibility and so like the consequences the Recognition the pay all that can change but the duty remains right the duty remains That's what a stoke would say and obviously we have multiple jobs right and one of the jobs I'm trying to do well is raise my kids well I might be disgusted with how other people are behaving I might be disappointed in the world and I might despair at my ability to Impact shape the future, but I have the opportunity to have multi-generational impact in my own home Like I think about the way that my life is shaped by choices that my father made Things that he taught me and then things that he should have done and didn't do and I think about how his father shaped him I think about how on a daily basis my life is shaped by things that my grandfather did and On and on right this is our chance for multi-generational impact and one of my favorite things to do is I write the daily daddy Well, I do the daily stoke and we also do daily data do videos and I write this sort of bit of parenting wisdom every day Drawing from history and science and literature and ordinary people to sort of pass along a parenting lesson every day It goes out to almost a hundred thousand people all over the world But mostly I'm doing the daily dad for myself because I'm always researching and writing and collecting ideas on how I can be better at What is really my most important job because I want to be more patient? I want to set a good example. I want to help my kids become what they're meant to become and That's something I I don't control it completely But it's somewhere where I have a lot of influence right and and raising our kids is one of the most important things Will ever do and yet how many people just sort of trust their god? They just kind of go along. They're so caught up in the day to dayness of it They're not consciously trying to to do what they can do and so I try to study it the way that I study philosophy or history or business Because I want to do it well and so if you are frustrated with the direction of your country of the world If your neighborhood of of so many things right and and you could feel that for a variety of reasons Well, one place you can direct that is in your own home, right? It starts at home So raise your kids right raise your kids to make a difference. I'm keeping a journal as I always have because in keeping a journal It keeps me you know the stoics they lived in in turbulent Chaotic dysfunctional time. There was Nero and the mission and Claudius and there was Commodus who came after Marcus Relius, right? I think it's an interesting question. How did they stay? Clear headed and principled. How do they not lose their minds and and the answer to that is Hard work and the place they did that work which one writer would save the stoics where they waged their spiritual combat was on the pages of Their journal. That's where they got perspective. That's where they shook off Misinformation and noise. It's where they sort of boiled things down into truth. It's where they fought For control of the greatest empire like themselves Marcus Relius is fighting to be the person that philosophy tried to make him and where is he doing that in? Meditations. Meditations is the byproduct of Marcus Relius writing a journal in a chaotic period a period as chaotic as the one we're in now When it made as little sense to him as this one might make to you But he used the pages of the journal to help it make sense or well said that you know to see what's in front of your nose Needs a constant struggle who was talking about totalitarianism and authoritarianism and state control in the 20th century But he actually said that that a journal was something that helps towards that said to keep a record of what you're thinking of what's happening It's something you can hold fast to that can help you make sense. It can even help you hold yourself accountable to your own opinions I guess what I'm saying is that if you're not examining your mind who is if you're not dumping your frustrations out on the pages Like who are you dumping them on if you're not using a journal to gain self-awareness to cut through all that noise How are you going to see what's in front of you and you have to do this? You can use the day of stoic journal for instance like this is mine I has a little leather cover and it's a reminder make time. I want to make time every day I want to sit down with some questions. I want to sit down and create some distance between me and the present moment Root myself in deeper principles bigger ideas go to clarity and a journal is something you've got to be doing in this day and age And here's something that I think Stands a test of time that I'm working on. I want to treat people well I don't control the cruelty in the world. I don't control how others act I don't care how unfair or thoughtless or selfish Most people are or are being in this moment But I I control how I run my team. I control whether I show up for my family I control how I treat strangers the world is always going to have a share of rude people and dishonest people and indifferent people I mean look Mark's real is he opens book to a meditation by saying to himself that people I will deal with today are going to be meddling and ungrateful and arrogant and dishonest and jealous and Serly this is what people are going to be this is the way they always have been we don't control that But we control whether we're like them. He says we control whether we let them implicate us in their ugliness Right, we don't have to contribute to it. We can be kind and patient and fair This is something that's always in my control That's one of the wonderful things about being an entrepreneur But also about being a consumer you decide what you're going to do with your wallet You decide how you're going to run your business you decide your policies I decide what vendors I use for the things we make for daily still I control what companies I do business with I control the benefits that I offer I control you know my tone of Voice I control my stuff right we should focus on treating people well This is where we can have a positive impact as I said, it's it's a noisy difficult crazy world So I'm prioritizing stillness. We need to be able to think clearly. We need to not be reactive We can't be emotional all the time. We have to have perspective and intention and the only way to cultivate that is With stillness right the time we spend with a journal the hobbies we cultivate the way we set up our lives and our information Diet like what inputs we allow in because it is from stillness that insight and perspective and contentment and happiness And clarity all this stuff comes from a friend of mine Randall Stuttman who's coached some of the biggest CEOs in in the history of Wall Street You talked to me once about how he noticed that all these high performers tended to have a hobby That didn't involve a lot of voices right they would listen to classical music They went fly fishing. They did long distance bike races or they ran or they did archery They these people who are perpetually busy there was endless demands on their time. They were talking to people constantly They had to cultivate stillness in their routine in their life that allowed them to reflect that allowed them to sift through things That allowed them to connect with themselves so then they could go back out in the world and connect with other people and ultimately That's what stillness is the key is about but if we're not cultivating what the stokes call ateraxia And I I opened the book with a scene from Seneca in the midst of his life falling apart in the midst of Nero losing his mind You know Seneca is trying to do some writing and he's having to tune out all the sounds around him the chaos of the city It's trying to lock in and if we can't cultivate that stillness We're not going to be what we need to be and we're not going to be able to do what we need to do And look you don't control the chaos of the world But you do control whether you get sucked into it you do control whether you have a retreat or an escape from it You do control whether you bring stillness to it, but you do control whether you contribute to the craziness Whether you are disturbed amidst all the disturbances Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoke 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 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 [MUSIC]