🔥 Fireside Chat: Ryan Holiday dives into 'Lives of the Stoics'
The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius
“To live the best life, you should have conversation with the dead.”
In October 2020, I sat down with Ryan Holiday for a deeply insightful and reflective Amazon Fishbowl. We discussed Stoicism, staying curious, and his best-selling book Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius. Watch our chat below followed by my takeaways.
Meet Ryan Holiday.
Guest: Ryan Holiday (founder of Daily Stoic and New York Times bestselling author of Stillness Is the Key, Ego Is the Enemy, and The Obstacle Is the Way).
Fun Fact: Ryan starts each morning with a long walk, then handwrites in three journals (1) one line a day (one sentence about the day that just passed); (2) blank freeform writing; and (3) Daily Stoic journal (one question for the day).
(click the image below to watch on Facebook or click this link).
On Stoicism
“The three disciplines of Stoicism: (1) Objective Judgment — do not make a difficult time worse by exaggerating, interpreting incorrectly, by taking it personally, by lacking full context; (2) Discipline of Action — Marcus Aurelius would say unselfish action, navigate difficult times by thinking less about yourself and more about other people; and (3) Discipline of the Will — how do you endure and survive, the Stoics have this concept of “Amor Fati” which is embracing everything that has happened.”
Takeaway: There is a perception that Stoicism is a resignation — however, almost all Stoics were active participants politically, socially, and in their careers and communities. Stoicism is actively trying to make the world better while accepting that many things are outside of our control. A Stoic tries to root their ambition solely in things that are up to them.
“I tend to define living in accordance to nature with sort of a smooth, well-flowing life, one that’s rooted in your natural goodness, your natural obligations, your natural sense of what’s right and wrong, and who you’re supposed to be, so there’s kind of a gut thing to that. It’s not this idea of I need to become so important, I need to achieve all these things, I need to prove all these people wrong, I need to change how everything is…it’s kind of an ability to go with the flow as the expression says.”
Takeaway: Ego prevents us from accomplishing what we are capable of. Actively work to have an open mind, listen, and seek to disconfirm your beliefs. For example, Commodus was surrounded by wise experts but chose to not listen, this led to his downfall.
On Ryan’s Process
“You rediscover things when you reread books. The words were always there, but if your mind isn’t ready to receive them, you’re not going to fully comprehend them or integrate them into your life.”
Takeaway: The teacher appears when the student is ready. Consciously re-read books. Although the words may not change, your interpretation changes based on your experiences and what is occurring in your life now. For example, Ryan first read The Road by Cormac McCarthy in college and then reread it at the beginning of the pandemic, and it hit him differently because he now has young kids.
“I try to read from all over the place, and I’m always trying to open my mind to new stuff, even if it’s disproving what I already know because I think you benefit from that too. The philosopher that Seneca quotes most in his writings is Epicurus and they were ostensibly rivals, he is asked about this, and he says “You should read like a spy in the enemy camp” meaning that you should always be reading the people who disagree with you, if only, to improve your own arguments. But I also believe there is the unintended benefits of learning things that maybe would surprise you.”
Fun Fact: In addition to reading and listening to podcasts, Ryan learns and stays curious by having long (3-4 hour) dinner conversations with smart people in different fields or worldviews than his own.
“It’s not just the reading that I do, but it’s the reading and then the breaking down and organizing of the material that helps me retain information…each one of my books is a collection of thousands of notecards organized around each different section…these boxes are like living, breathing, repositories of information, I’m very protective of them…I’m addicted to the process of it.”
Takeaway: To help you shift towards a Stoic mindset, consider journaling to explore your own answers. Ryan believes Stoicism and journaling go hand in hand. For example, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius was his journal, and Seneca talks about reviewing the day at the close (e.g. how did you do, where could you have improved, what did you learn). It is the act and experience of journaling that matters, not what is on the page. And repetition is good, look for patterns and progress.
Fun Fact: In deciding the book cover art, Ryan hired a designer to mock up what the book would look like on the Amazon product page and the “Customers who viewed this item also viewed” section because the majority of readers would first see the book as a thumbnail, and thus decided on the cover that popped the most in the thumbnail size. A great example of working backward from the customer.
“Marcus Aurelius said “ambition is tying your self-worth to what other people say or do. Sanity is tying it to your own actions”…so I think what you have to do is cultivate a commitment to the process, to the creative act, not to the external results.”
On Life
“Our soul is dyed by the color of our thoughts.”
“The idea of Memento Mori, accepting that life is short and you can’t take it for granted is really important…I’m not going to wait for things to go back to normal, I’m going to try to live as much as I can right now, obviously being safe and everything, I’m not going to kill time because that’s time you never get back.”
Other fireside chats you may like:
*Shoutout Section*
Congrats to my friend Danny Sheridan for releasing his new book Fact of the Day 1: 250 Facts for the curious. Customers are raving:
- "A bite-size morsel of learning or delight (and often both)."
- "These cultural reminders are impactful; they help us keep our 'saws sharp'."
Thanks to Catherine for edits. If you enjoy this content, join our community and sign up to receive future emails directly in your inbox. And, if you have ideas to share, tweet at me!
“Fly High, Burn Bright, Be Curious.”