Stoicism is having a resurgence, and Ryan Holiday is one of the most influential voices of its modern form.
He’s a best-selling author, and his books on the subject, including ‘Ego is the Enemy’ and ‘The Obstacle is the Way’, have been read by millions of people.
And now he’s bringing those ideas to a Kiwi audience with a one-off show at Auckland’s Bruce Mason Arena.
‘An Evening with Ryan Holiday’ will explore how the ancient philosophy can help navigate pressure, setbacks and uncertainty in the modern world.
Stoicism is a philosophical movement and practical guide to living that originated in the Hellenistic period of ancient Greece and continued well into the Roman Imperial period.
It’s comprised of logic, physics, and ethics, and the core idea is that in order to live a good life, one must develop a character shaped by wisdom, moderation, courage, and justice.
But what is it about this philosophy that makes it resonate so strongly in the modern world?
“The modern world is not that different than the ancient world,” Holiday told Matt Heath and Tyler Adams.
“It’s uncertain, it’s crazy, institutions feel like they’re falling apart. You've got pandemics and plagues, corruption, dysfunction, tyranny, all the things that we worry about today, they worried about in the ancient world, only more so.”
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from news Talks edb Follow
this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
News Talks ed be best selling author and one of
the most influential voices of modern stoicism, Ryan Holiday is
coming to New Zealand for a one night event at
Auckland's Bruce Mason Arena. It's happening on October the thirteenth
and evening with Ryan Holiday. It will explore how the
ancient philosophy can help navigate pressure, setbacks, and uncertainty in
the modern world. Tickets are on sale now go to
(00:37):
ticketmaster dot co dot Nz and Ryan Holiday joins us.
Now A very good afternoon, Ryan, Yeah you too.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Now we'll start off with an obvious question, what do
you think Stoicism as a philosophy for life works as
well in the modern world as it did in the
ancient world.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
Well, you know, unfortunately, the modern world is not that
different than the ancient world. You know, it's uncertain, it's crazy,
institutions feel like they're falling apart. You know, you've got
pandemics and plagues, corrupt dysfunction, tyranny, you know, all the
things that we worry about today they worried about in
(01:15):
the ancient world, only more so they also worried about
dying from an infected cut on your finger, right, or
your baby not surviving infancy. And so what they were
talking about in the ancient world, how do we deal
with the fact that so much of what happens is
outside of our control? What kind of framework should guide
our behavior, should should help us navigate how to respond
(01:39):
to these things outside of our control. That's what philosophy was,
or at least stoicism as a philosophy was, in the
ancient world. I think today we tend to think of
philosophy as theoretical and abstract, even impractical. But you know,
for Epictetus, who's a slave in the Roman Empire, and
Mark Surelis, who's the head of that empire, both are
(02:01):
trying to wrestle with the ins and outs, the everyday
neness of life and trying to do it well. And
that I think is why stoicism lands all these years later.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Yeah, that's interesting that because there are those are two heavyweight,
influential Stoics with very very different paths. You've got Marcus
Aurelius and Epictetis. As you say, Marcus Ralis, Roman emperor,
who had all the power in the world, could have
indulged in cruelty, but chose as a lot of emperors did,
but chose service and justice over vanity and excess. Or
(02:35):
you've got Epicteesis, who was at the very other end
of Roman society, as to say, a slave crippled by
his master, who became powerful from a position of weakness
using stoicism. So which path is more impressive or admirable
in your your eyes?
Speaker 4 (02:52):
Ryan, Well, I think it's interesting to think about which
path was more admirable and Marcus Aurelius's eyes, Like, Marcus
Aurelis is the most powerful man in the world, but
the person he's looking up to, the philosopher he quotes
more than any others, the person who's trying to be
life on is basically epictetis right. So here you have
(03:12):
the most powerful man in the world looking at this
effectively powerless man and going, yeah, but look how he
controls himself. Look at his dignity, look at his self respect,
look at his resilience, look at his optimism and perseverance.
Speaker 5 (03:30):
Like look at all look.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
And so for Marcus Aurelius, he sees Epictetus as the
more powerful figure. And I think for the Stokes it
was this realization. And I'm sure you've had this too
with some of the people you've interviewed on the show.
You've met in your course of your life. Actually being successful,
being famous, being rich, this is pretty common, right, Like
(03:53):
you realize it's actually there's actually a lot of those
people out there. But those who are not slaves to
their ambitions or their tempers or their emotions, those that
are good people, those that have some semblance of self awareness,
that's actually a much rarer thing. And so you know,
I think Marcus aureli Is looking up to Epictetis gives
(04:17):
us a sense of just how powerful someone under their
own power truly is.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
So linking that into ego, ron and you've written an
extent stiffly about this ego of the Is the Enemy
and many other books. How do you recognize when ego
is getting in the way of good decisions will progress,
particularly in a world that seems to reward self promotion.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Yeah, Look, I'd love to say that that egotistical people
never succeed, but of course they do, right Like, look around, Actually, many, many,
if not most, people who are successful are quite egotistical.
But I think anyone that knows them or sees them
up close understands how that ego often makes what they
do harder, gets in the way of what they're trying
to do, or in many cases, it leads to their downfall.
(05:02):
Like I've never been dealing with a problem or some situation,
or you know, a team that's not coming together and
thought like bigger egos would solve this, Right, It's always
the opposite, Right, ego is the thing that's getting between
us and what we're trying to accomplish. And so so
you know, I sometimes liken it too. How Look, a
lot of musicians might have a drug problem or a
(05:23):
drinking problem that that isn't what's fueling the creativity. It's
actually a drag on the creativity. They're just so talented
and and and inspired or brilliant that they're able to
compensate for it for a time. And so I just
tend to be suspicious when any of that kind of
ego creeps in. I go, this isn't helping me do
(05:44):
what I'm trying to do. If anything, that's going to
make it harder.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Well, well, talking about you know how hard things can be.
It's hard to argue with the logic of stoicism, but
it can be hard to implement it in real life.
For example, to paraphrase, you know a message that I've read,
read that you've written before. If someone insults you and
what they say saying is not true, you can ignore
(06:10):
it because it's nonsense. If it is true, you can
thank them for the knowledge about yourself. But in the
day to day we still get angry with people when
they insult us. So how do you get that clear
stoic logic working in real time for you?
Speaker 4 (06:25):
Actually, what Epictet has said we should say whenever someone
insults us is if they really knew me, they would
say something much worse after we got off easy with
whatever they whatever. If they if they could read our
darkest thoughts or see our darkest secrets, they'd have picked
an even juicier target. So look, obviously, that's that's funny.
(06:47):
It's easy to say, you know, just shrug this soft
tone ticket personally, or you know, no one can make
you feel inferior without your consent.
Speaker 5 (06:55):
This is all well and good.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
It's just hard to put into practice, and that is
the point stoicism is a practice. So you know, I
try to remind myself, For instance, when I see something
nasty about me on the internet, I go, uh, do most.
Speaker 5 (07:11):
People feel this way?
Speaker 1 (07:12):
No?
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Right, is this is this one person out of one hundred.
Oh that's pretty good, you know, that's not actually a
pretty good ratio, Like the idea that I was gonna
reach the audience that I've reached, or that I would
I would put anything out in the world and it
would receive one hundred percent endorsement and approval. It would
be for everyone. I mean, that's just like naive and
(07:34):
and and downright entitled. And so I do try to
remind myself that, like, look, nobody escapes unscathed like that.
A certain amount of people are going to dislike you,
certain amount of people are going to be jerks, certain
amount of people are going to be rude, certain amount
of things are going to be said that you know
could have been said differently but they weren't. And you
just try to say to yourself, you sort of pause
(07:57):
and you say to yourself, hey, this is part for
the course, this was Why is this surprising to me?
And I do think that takes some of the sting
out of it.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Yeah, so you've written books, so many books, and and
you've written books and some books. You know, I've read
the Obstacle is the Way a couple of times, the
Daily Stoic. I've been through two years in a row
reading it. Bought the liver Bound edition. And when I
told my partner I was interviewing you, she said, you know,
(08:28):
I'm reading Courages calling again to get her through the
day the first day of her new job. Is that
is that the trick to is to just keep reading
and reminding yourself of the lessons is an ongoing thing. Stolicism.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
I like to say that the Stoics aren't something you've read.
It should be something that you are reading.
Speaker 5 (08:48):
Yes and so so. So that's my practice.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Like obviously I'm flattered in honor to hear that people
have read my stuff multiple times. But all I know
is that I myself am still reading the Stoics on.
Speaker 5 (09:00):
A daily basis, because yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
It is material that that you're designed to engage with
over and over again, that that maybe some of it
goes over your head the first couple of times, or
you just it just didn't apply to you in that moment,
and really it is the act of being reminded of
the ideal ideas over and over again that I think
helps get you to a place where when it comes
(09:25):
down to applying it, that that thing is right there,
the idea that you're just going to read the thoughts
of some wise person from two thousand years ago, and
it's just you're good. I mean, if that, if that
was how it worked, it wouldn't be that impressive to
get it right, because it's it's easy, and it's not easy.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
It's really, really, really hard speaking.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Of those those wise words from two thousand years ago?
Speaker 5 (09:49):
Do you reckon?
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Mean? Also going back to the sources, reading meditations, you know, Senica,
you know, going right back to the source material because
obviously you.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
I mean, yeah, I mean, look, I feel like my mission,
what I judge my success on is is how many
people I've driven back to these original texts, Like I
feel like I read Marx Schreulis's meditations in my college
apartment and I said, wow, you know, I wish I'd
known about this sooner. Why didn't anyone tell me about this?
And That's kind of what I've been doing now almost
(10:21):
for the last twenty years, is helping people, sort of
paying forward what happened for me.
Speaker 5 (10:28):
So, look, the Stokes are incredibly readable.
Speaker 4 (10:33):
That Gregory Hayes translation, I think is the most readable
of Marx Relius. Uh, you know, Seneca and Epictetis. You
can't go wrong with any of the Penguin Classics editions.
But but yeah, you just find that you pick up
these books, and you know, the centuries just melt away,
(10:53):
and all of a sudden you're you're you're having an
exchange with someone who, on the one hand, lived in
incomprehensibly different existence than yours, and yet speaks as if
they they just went through the same things that that
you went through yesterday. That that's really you know, the
founding story of Stoicism is Zeno visits the oracle at
(11:16):
Delphi and the oracle tells them that the secret to
the good life is to have conversations with the dead.
Speaker 5 (11:22):
And that's what you find when you read that, you know,
the great the.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
Great texts is here you are talking to Marcus. Really
it's or Epictetist or Socrates or Plato or Aristotle or Zeno,
and and what a magical feeling that is.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Yeah, we're talking before about how stoicism is is so
relevant today. But isn't it strange ha met Titian seems
to be created perfectly for Instagram.
Speaker 5 (11:48):
It's most fit perfectly. Yeah, I do think.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
I do think that is remarkable and part part of
how they've spread and and I've obviously tried to use
these different social tools to to.
Speaker 5 (12:07):
To help with that.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
But there's always been something kind of bite sized about
Stoicism that I do think makes it a little different
than some of the other ancient schools of philosophy in
a way, it's kind of like Zen Buddhism, where it's
these little aphorisms or anecdotes or you know, quotes really
that just you know, it distills a really complicated, difficult
(12:30):
idea down to its absolute.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Essence, speaking of it being a lifetime learning and checking in.
Fascinating to listen to the Daily Stoic podcast This Morning Rhyme,
where it was a conversation with you and Robert Green,
another best selling author and a mentor of yours. I understand,
but when you mentioned his copy of Meditations that you
were lucky enough to get a hold of, and all
the little markings and notes that he'd made in his
(12:55):
copy rigs true, you know, even for a man like
Robert Green.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
Yeah, I do think it's important that we understand that
it is a conversation that you should be underlining and replying.
You shouldn't even always you know, uh, feel free to challenge,
feel feel free to push back. And there is something
really special about thinking though that you're not the first
person having this experience, that generations upon generations have picked
(13:23):
up these you know, private thoughts of an empire of
an emperor or the lectures of a slave, and and
just been bold over with with how relevant they are
and how much it feels like they're talking directly to you.
That that that tradition makes me feel I don't know
(13:45):
a little bit less alone. I think it was James
Baldwin who said, you know, you think all your problems
and pain are so unique, and then you read and
you go, oh, people have been dealing with this forever, uh,
And and that that is a really special thing.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Discipline in routine scenes to be common. Innstelicism ran and
I'll find you speak before about some some key things
every one can do in their day to to help
them with their daily life, you know, going for a
walk and you know you've mentioned before that going for
a walk won't solve all your problems, but it soonainly
won't make them worse. So what are some of those
things that people can do daily that will really, you know,
(14:25):
change thereat tree of how they look at life.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
Yeah, I'll give you a three from from Marcus. Surrealis
that we know he practices. Number one is you get
up early. He talks about waking up early, getting after it,
not huddling under the covers and stay and to stay warm.
Even though that feels nice, he says like, look, that's
not what you were put here to do, right. You
were put here to make a difference, to contribute to
the common good. So I think there's something special about
(14:50):
the mornings. I think it's important to get up and
get after it. And I don't like waking up early,
but I'm always glad afterwards that I did so right
and then And obviously we wouldn't know about Marcus reelis
this morning routine if you hadn't journaled about it.
Speaker 5 (15:05):
Right.
Speaker 4 (15:05):
So the practice of putting some thoughts down on a page,
being reflective, being self critical, self analyzing, just working your
thoughts out on the page instead of on the people
around you, I think is a general great idea and
a great philosophical practice. And then the last one is
is this idea of momento moriy, which is, you know,
(15:27):
taking a few seconds, perhaps in that journal or just
generally to go, hey, you know, life is short. I
don't I can't take for tomorrow tomorrow for granted. I
can't take ten years from now for granted. I can't
take these people that I love for granted.
Speaker 5 (15:40):
Either.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
Life is short, life is unpredictable. And when we meditate
on our mortality, it not only gives us a little
bit of that urgency, but I also think it gives
us some humility, and.
Speaker 5 (15:49):
It puts our priorities in order.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
You know, it doesn't do Mark surrealis any good that
we're still talking about him two thousand years later. What
matters is that these ideas were helpful to him at
the time. And I think remembering that you don't get
to enjoy your legacy is a really important thing to
keep in mind.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
And that's interesting though, because Marcus writes a lot about
how he will be forgotten and that that even though
he's an emperor now, you know, to paraphrase him, you
know he's even now have you forgotten? And yet he
is now currently more remembered then maybe anyone other than
Julius Caesar at this this stage. So but he has
(16:32):
also the ages.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
Yeah, but let's look look at one point he was
the most powerful famous person on earth. He was literally
worshiped as a god. He controlled the most powerful army
on the world in the world, had unimaginable wealth, you know,
and now probably your average person, he's that old guy
that dies at the beginning of the movie, right like yeah,
(16:54):
you know, like that famous poem like look on my
mighty works in despair, like it eventually it all kind
of falls to dustin. Yeah, two thousand years is a
long time, but four thousand years, ten thousand years, who
remembers these different Egyptian pharaohs, which obviously Marcus Aurelius was
lived a little bit closer to than us. Like, I
(17:16):
think his point is not that you'll be utterly forgotten,
but you become this unfamiliar name, you become this statue,
you know, Like Mark Surrelis has a large victory column
in Rome. It's just like three hundred foot tall column
detailing his accomplishments in marble and you go, oh, that's
(17:36):
pretty impressive, what a legacy. But sometime five six hundred
years ago, the Christians just put a statue of a
saint on top of it.
Speaker 5 (17:45):
They were like, well, we don't really care.
Speaker 4 (17:47):
About any of this, let's make it a monument to
someone else, right, And that happens to all of us, right.
Cemeteries are filled with you know, neglected, abandoned tombs, libraries
are filled with books people don't check out anymore. The
people who were at the top of the charts ten
years ago, how many remember. There's a funny exercise sometimes
(18:07):
we joke about politically in the US. It's like who
was the vice president for presidents ago? And so here
the second most you know, powerful person in the world.
Nobody even knows their name. And so that does happen
to all of us, some of us sooner than others.
But in the end, you know it, we all we
all even out. As Mark Strelia says.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
So you say, Christians, you know, put something on top
of Marcus' column. I've been thinking about this and you
sort of mentioned Buddhism before, but Christianity, Stoicism and Buddhism Buddhism.
There are similarities there, right, so so you know, love
your enemies, turn the other cheek, all that kind of stuff.
Is this because they finding the deepest of truths? Or
(18:50):
was there also influences between those three thought patterns, you know,
a couple of thousand years ago.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
I think it's a little bit of both. So uh,
interesting sort of historical tidbits here. You know, the Romans
make contact with the Han dynasty in China and at
during Marcus Hureli is his reign. I don't know if
they make it back in time, but at some point, right,
Rome and and the sort of far far East connect
at some level. On the other hand, Seneca and Jesus
(19:20):
are born like the same year, right in provinces of
the Roman Empire, So so there are they are swirling around.
You know, obviously Buddhism is much older than Stoicism, but
they are swirling around around the same time. Christianity absorbs
a lot of the ideas from Stoke philosophy. Saint Paul
when he gives his his not only even from Tarsus,
(19:42):
which is where you know Stoicism or the seat of
Sticism was for many years, but when he gives his
his famous speech in Athens. He begins at the Stoa Pochilia,
the painted porch, and then works his way up towards
the Acropolis to give his talk. So they were all
familiar with the ideas. And I don't think it's a
coincidence that the you know, the four virtues of of
(20:03):
Catholicism are the same as the four virtues of Stoicism, Ridge, temperance, justice,
and wisdom. I think they're they're both independent and interrelated
with each other, I guess.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
But deeply true as well.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Yes, yeah, it's also like, you know, you guys have
some some weird animals over in your part of the
earth that that that evolved independently of animals in North
America or South America. But they but they evolved similar adaptations.
And I think that's kind of it too. It's like, hey,
h being able to get from here to there by
(20:39):
flying is a would be a great skill, It would
be a you know, a great survival mechanism. And so
there is an evolutionary pressure that might eventually, over the
millennia or the millions of years, lead some kind of
development like that. And I think you can also say
(21:00):
the same about philosophy, like we're all wrestling with the
same fundamental forces of existence, mortality being one of them.
Uh and and we come up with some similar ideas
as well.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Interestingly, there might be a stoic lesson from the fauna
in New Zealand because it was isolated without predators. So
all a lot of our birds lost their wings because
they were facing no no predators, no hardship, no predators.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
And the obstacle is the way it's not good to
to only be safe and comfortable.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Because the obstacle of rats turned up eventually caused a
whole lot of whole lot of problems.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
So right, with all your work and your talks and
your research, have you got thoughts about what people are
struggling with the most and the answers that they're actually seeking.
Speaker 4 (21:51):
I mean, look, I think we're suffering with from the
same things we've always suffered from, you know, change, uncertainty,
difficult obnoxious people, you know, struggling with our wants and
our needs.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
I think that that's all. I do think that the.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
Modern world, you know it. There are so many benefits
to how interconnected we are, but one of the downsides is,
like you just know what more people are doing. Right,
There's more things to have opinions about, there's more things
to be outraged about, there's more things to be anxious
and scared about. So again, it's like so many of
the same timeless problems. It's just exacerbated and exaggerated in
(22:35):
a way that you know is extremely difficult to handle.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
You know.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
I imagine if you lived in you know, some distant
province of the Roman Empire, you know, you didn't hear
that much about the outrages of Nero or you know,
Caligula or Claudius or Tiberius, like you just didn't know
as much about what was happening because you not only
(23:04):
weren't getting a newspaper once a day, you weren't getting
that news website blasted to your phone and with real
time alerts, right, and you know, you didn't have to
wake up like US Americans do and find that, you know,
the president vomited like fifty.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
Truth social posts while you were sleeping, and they're.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
All they're all they're all deranged and terrifying, and uh,
you know don't bode well for the future.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
Like you you would have just had.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
Slightly more insulation from you know, things that were more
or less outside your control. And so I do think
that those are some modern problems that we're struggling with.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
Yeah, it would have been interesting if nerohead twitter that
would have been. That would have been quite something. Hey,
so tell us, tell us what people should expeak from
Ron Holladay alive at the Bruce masoncy and or on
October the thirteenth.
Speaker 5 (23:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
Look, Stoicism has obviously survived to us in books, so
we tend to think about it as this written philosophy,
but for thousands of years it was it was a
thing that people talked about on the Stoepo kule, you know,
gathered there and he just talked about these ideas. Epictetius
didn't write anything down. We just have what he's what
he's told to his students, written down by one of
those students. So I think so sism is something that's
(24:19):
designed to be talked about and talked through. So I'm
really excited to come through. I like to sort of
talk about how we apply these ideas to our lives,
how I try to apply them in my lives my life,
and I think stories ultimately are the best way to
learn and remember the stuff, So I try to tell
stories that make these ideas real and practical for people.
(24:41):
And uh and I've never been to zew Zealand, so
any excuse I can have to come to a place,
a beautiful place in the world I haven't been, I'm
going to take. I'm bringing my family with me, So
we're all we're all very excited and I hope people
come out.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Yeah, absolutely, and we're looking forward to Tavin here Ry.
Speaker 5 (24:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
And can I just say, such a great joy to
talk to you. And you know, what you do has
made such a difference in my life and the lives
of so many people I know, free families, my partner,
my my children. I've gifted gifted your books to so
many people. So absolute pleasure to talk to you today. Thanks.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
Well, my my favorite thing to do when I travel
is find really cool places to swim. So where should
I swim when I'm there?
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Well, you are the West Coast beaches in Auckland. You
want to swim with an expert because there's terrible rips,
pretty wild, Okay, a nice pleasure, like a nice easy
swim mission.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
Well, I like like the you know, like the iceprg
Iceberg's Pool and Blinder. I like the you guys have
such amazing pools in that part of the world. Is
do you have any of those in Ikland.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
You're on the north shore. Actually, the Bruce Mason Center
is in so you've got beautiful gold and sandy beaches
pretty much on your doorsteps.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
So you could go to you can go for a
gentle swim. And Takapoona that's that's very close to the
boost made just across the road. You can go for
a beautiful swim pretty much in Takapoona. It's not a
bad place to be in terms of a dip.
Speaker 5 (26:05):
All right, I'm pumped. I'm very excited.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
All right, we'll see you out in the water. Ryan,
thank you, thank you very much. That is Ryan Holiday
and Evening with Ryan Holiday. It's happening on October thirteenth
at the Bruce Mason Center, one night only, so get
your tickets Ticketmaster, dot co, dot NZ. It's going to
be a brilliant eventual listening to News Talk SEDB. We'll
be back very shortly.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
For more from News Talk SEDB. Listen live on air
or online and keep our shows with you wherever you
go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio,
You're listening to a podcast from news Talks edb Follow
this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
News Talks ed be best selling author and one of
the most influential voices of modern stoicism, Ryan Holiday is
coming to New Zealand for a one night event at
Auckland's Bruce Mason Arena. It's happening on October the thirteenth
and evening with Ryan Holiday. It will explore how the
ancient philosophy can help navigate pressure, setbacks, and uncertainty in
the modern world. Tickets are on sale now go to
(00:37):
ticketmaster dot co dot Nz and Ryan Holiday joins us.
Now A very good afternoon, Ryan, Yeah you too.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Now we'll start off with an obvious question, what do
you think Stoicism as a philosophy for life works as
well in the modern world as it did in the
ancient world.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
Well, you know, unfortunately, the modern world is not that
different than the ancient world. You know, it's uncertain, it's crazy,
institutions feel like they're falling apart. You know, you've got
pandemics and plagues, corrupt dysfunction, tyranny, you know, all the
things that we worry about today they worried about in
(01:15):
the ancient world, only more so they also worried about
dying from an infected cut on your finger, right, or
your baby not surviving infancy. And so what they were
talking about in the ancient world, how do we deal
with the fact that so much of what happens is
outside of our control? What kind of framework should guide
our behavior, should should help us navigate how to respond
(01:39):
to these things outside of our control. That's what philosophy was,
or at least stoicism as a philosophy was, in the
ancient world. I think today we tend to think of
philosophy as theoretical and abstract, even impractical. But you know,
for Epictetus, who's a slave in the Roman Empire, and
Mark Surelis, who's the head of that empire, both are
(02:01):
trying to wrestle with the ins and outs, the everyday
neness of life and trying to do it well. And
that I think is why stoicism lands all these years later.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Yeah, that's interesting that because there are those are two heavyweight,
influential Stoics with very very different paths. You've got Marcus
Aurelius and Epictetis. As you say, Marcus Ralis, Roman emperor,
who had all the power in the world, could have
indulged in cruelty, but chose as a lot of emperors did,
but chose service and justice over vanity and excess. Or
(02:35):
you've got Epicteesis, who was at the very other end
of Roman society, as to say, a slave crippled by
his master, who became powerful from a position of weakness
using stoicism. So which path is more impressive or admirable
in your your eyes?
Speaker 4 (02:52):
Ryan, Well, I think it's interesting to think about which
path was more admirable and Marcus Aurelius's eyes, Like, Marcus
Aurelis is the most powerful man in the world, but
the person he's looking up to, the philosopher he quotes
more than any others, the person who's trying to be
life on is basically epictetis right. So here you have
(03:12):
the most powerful man in the world looking at this
effectively powerless man and going, yeah, but look how he
controls himself. Look at his dignity, look at his self respect,
look at his resilience, look at his optimism and perseverance.
Speaker 5 (03:30):
Like look at all look.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
And so for Marcus Aurelius, he sees Epictetus as the
more powerful figure. And I think for the Stokes it
was this realization. And I'm sure you've had this too
with some of the people you've interviewed on the show.
You've met in your course of your life. Actually being successful,
being famous, being rich, this is pretty common, right, Like
(03:53):
you realize it's actually there's actually a lot of those
people out there. But those who are not slaves to
their ambitions or their tempers or their emotions, those that
are good people, those that have some semblance of self awareness,
that's actually a much rarer thing. And so you know,
I think Marcus aureli Is looking up to Epictetis gives
(04:17):
us a sense of just how powerful someone under their
own power truly is.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
So linking that into ego, ron and you've written an
extent stiffly about this ego of the Is the Enemy
and many other books. How do you recognize when ego
is getting in the way of good decisions will progress,
particularly in a world that seems to reward self promotion.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Yeah, Look, I'd love to say that that egotistical people
never succeed, but of course they do, right Like, look around, Actually, many, many,
if not most, people who are successful are quite egotistical.
But I think anyone that knows them or sees them
up close understands how that ego often makes what they
do harder, gets in the way of what they're trying
to do, or in many cases, it leads to their downfall.
(05:02):
Like I've never been dealing with a problem or some situation,
or you know, a team that's not coming together and
thought like bigger egos would solve this, Right, It's always
the opposite, Right, ego is the thing that's getting between
us and what we're trying to accomplish. And so so
you know, I sometimes liken it too. How Look, a
lot of musicians might have a drug problem or a
(05:23):
drinking problem that that isn't what's fueling the creativity. It's
actually a drag on the creativity. They're just so talented
and and and inspired or brilliant that they're able to
compensate for it for a time. And so I just
tend to be suspicious when any of that kind of
ego creeps in. I go, this isn't helping me do
(05:44):
what I'm trying to do. If anything, that's going to
make it harder.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Well, well, talking about you know how hard things can be.
It's hard to argue with the logic of stoicism, but
it can be hard to implement it in real life.
For example, to paraphrase, you know a message that I've read,
read that you've written before. If someone insults you and
what they say saying is not true, you can ignore
(06:10):
it because it's nonsense. If it is true, you can
thank them for the knowledge about yourself. But in the
day to day we still get angry with people when
they insult us. So how do you get that clear
stoic logic working in real time for you?
Speaker 4 (06:25):
Actually, what Epictet has said we should say whenever someone
insults us is if they really knew me, they would
say something much worse after we got off easy with
whatever they whatever. If they if they could read our
darkest thoughts or see our darkest secrets, they'd have picked
an even juicier target. So look, obviously, that's that's funny.
(06:47):
It's easy to say, you know, just shrug this soft
tone ticket personally, or you know, no one can make
you feel inferior without your consent.
Speaker 5 (06:55):
This is all well and good.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
It's just hard to put into practice, and that is
the point stoicism is a practice. So you know, I
try to remind myself, For instance, when I see something
nasty about me on the internet, I go, uh, do most.
Speaker 5 (07:11):
People feel this way?
Speaker 1 (07:12):
No?
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Right, is this is this one person out of one hundred.
Oh that's pretty good, you know, that's not actually a
pretty good ratio, Like the idea that I was gonna
reach the audience that I've reached, or that I would
I would put anything out in the world and it
would receive one hundred percent endorsement and approval. It would
be for everyone. I mean, that's just like naive and
(07:34):
and and downright entitled. And so I do try to
remind myself that, like, look, nobody escapes unscathed like that.
A certain amount of people are going to dislike you,
certain amount of people are going to be jerks, certain
amount of people are going to be rude, certain amount
of things are going to be said that you know
could have been said differently but they weren't. And you
just try to say to yourself, you sort of pause
(07:57):
and you say to yourself, hey, this is part for
the course, this was Why is this surprising to me?
And I do think that takes some of the sting
out of it.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Yeah, so you've written books, so many books, and and
you've written books and some books. You know, I've read
the Obstacle is the Way a couple of times, the
Daily Stoic. I've been through two years in a row
reading it. Bought the liver Bound edition. And when I
told my partner I was interviewing you, she said, you know,
(08:28):
I'm reading Courages calling again to get her through the
day the first day of her new job. Is that
is that the trick to is to just keep reading
and reminding yourself of the lessons is an ongoing thing. Stolicism.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
I like to say that the Stoics aren't something you've read.
It should be something that you are reading.
Speaker 5 (08:48):
Yes and so so. So that's my practice.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Like obviously I'm flattered in honor to hear that people
have read my stuff multiple times. But all I know
is that I myself am still reading the Stoics on.
Speaker 5 (09:00):
A daily basis, because yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
It is material that that you're designed to engage with
over and over again, that that maybe some of it
goes over your head the first couple of times, or
you just it just didn't apply to you in that moment,
and really it is the act of being reminded of
the ideal ideas over and over again that I think
helps get you to a place where when it comes
(09:25):
down to applying it, that that thing is right there,
the idea that you're just going to read the thoughts
of some wise person from two thousand years ago, and
it's just you're good. I mean, if that, if that
was how it worked, it wouldn't be that impressive to
get it right, because it's it's easy, and it's not easy.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
It's really, really, really hard speaking.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Of those those wise words from two thousand years ago?
Speaker 5 (09:49):
Do you reckon?
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Mean? Also going back to the sources, reading meditations, you know, Senica,
you know, going right back to the source material because
obviously you.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
I mean, yeah, I mean, look, I feel like my mission,
what I judge my success on is is how many
people I've driven back to these original texts, Like I
feel like I read Marx Schreulis's meditations in my college
apartment and I said, wow, you know, I wish I'd
known about this sooner. Why didn't anyone tell me about this?
And That's kind of what I've been doing now almost
(10:21):
for the last twenty years, is helping people, sort of
paying forward what happened for me.
Speaker 5 (10:28):
So, look, the Stokes are incredibly readable.
Speaker 4 (10:33):
That Gregory Hayes translation, I think is the most readable
of Marx Relius. Uh, you know, Seneca and Epictetis. You
can't go wrong with any of the Penguin Classics editions.
But but yeah, you just find that you pick up
these books, and you know, the centuries just melt away,
(10:53):
and all of a sudden you're you're you're having an
exchange with someone who, on the one hand, lived in
incomprehensibly different existence than yours, and yet speaks as if
they they just went through the same things that that
you went through yesterday. That that's really you know, the
founding story of Stoicism is Zeno visits the oracle at
(11:16):
Delphi and the oracle tells them that the secret to
the good life is to have conversations with the dead.
Speaker 5 (11:22):
And that's what you find when you read that, you know,
the great the.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
Great texts is here you are talking to Marcus. Really
it's or Epictetist or Socrates or Plato or Aristotle or Zeno,
and and what a magical feeling that is.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Yeah, we're talking before about how stoicism is is so
relevant today. But isn't it strange ha met Titian seems
to be created perfectly for Instagram.
Speaker 5 (11:48):
It's most fit perfectly. Yeah, I do think.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
I do think that is remarkable and part part of
how they've spread and and I've obviously tried to use
these different social tools to to.
Speaker 5 (12:07):
To help with that.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
But there's always been something kind of bite sized about
Stoicism that I do think makes it a little different
than some of the other ancient schools of philosophy in
a way, it's kind of like Zen Buddhism, where it's
these little aphorisms or anecdotes or you know, quotes really
that just you know, it distills a really complicated, difficult
(12:30):
idea down to its absolute.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Essence, speaking of it being a lifetime learning and checking in.
Fascinating to listen to the Daily Stoic podcast This Morning Rhyme,
where it was a conversation with you and Robert Green,
another best selling author and a mentor of yours. I understand,
but when you mentioned his copy of Meditations that you
were lucky enough to get a hold of, and all
the little markings and notes that he'd made in his
(12:55):
copy rigs true, you know, even for a man like
Robert Green.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
Yeah, I do think it's important that we understand that
it is a conversation that you should be underlining and replying.
You shouldn't even always you know, uh, feel free to challenge,
feel feel free to push back. And there is something
really special about thinking though that you're not the first
person having this experience, that generations upon generations have picked
(13:23):
up these you know, private thoughts of an empire of
an emperor or the lectures of a slave, and and
just been bold over with with how relevant they are
and how much it feels like they're talking directly to you.
That that that tradition makes me feel I don't know
(13:45):
a little bit less alone. I think it was James
Baldwin who said, you know, you think all your problems
and pain are so unique, and then you read and
you go, oh, people have been dealing with this forever, uh,
And and that that is a really special thing.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Discipline in routine scenes to be common. Innstelicism ran and
I'll find you speak before about some some key things
every one can do in their day to to help
them with their daily life, you know, going for a
walk and you know you've mentioned before that going for
a walk won't solve all your problems, but it soonainly
won't make them worse. So what are some of those
things that people can do daily that will really, you know,
(14:25):
change thereat tree of how they look at life.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
Yeah, I'll give you a three from from Marcus. Surrealis
that we know he practices. Number one is you get
up early. He talks about waking up early, getting after it,
not huddling under the covers and stay and to stay warm.
Even though that feels nice, he says like, look, that's
not what you were put here to do, right. You
were put here to make a difference, to contribute to
the common good. So I think there's something special about
(14:50):
the mornings. I think it's important to get up and
get after it. And I don't like waking up early,
but I'm always glad afterwards that I did so right
and then And obviously we wouldn't know about Marcus reelis
this morning routine if you hadn't journaled about it.
Speaker 5 (15:05):
Right.
Speaker 4 (15:05):
So the practice of putting some thoughts down on a page,
being reflective, being self critical, self analyzing, just working your
thoughts out on the page instead of on the people
around you, I think is a general great idea and
a great philosophical practice. And then the last one is
is this idea of momento moriy, which is, you know,
(15:27):
taking a few seconds, perhaps in that journal or just
generally to go, hey, you know, life is short. I
don't I can't take for tomorrow tomorrow for granted. I
can't take ten years from now for granted. I can't
take these people that I love for granted.
Speaker 5 (15:40):
Either.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
Life is short, life is unpredictable. And when we meditate
on our mortality, it not only gives us a little
bit of that urgency, but I also think it gives
us some humility, and.
Speaker 5 (15:49):
It puts our priorities in order.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
You know, it doesn't do Mark surrealis any good that
we're still talking about him two thousand years later. What
matters is that these ideas were helpful to him at
the time. And I think remembering that you don't get
to enjoy your legacy is a really important thing to
keep in mind.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
And that's interesting though, because Marcus writes a lot about
how he will be forgotten and that that even though
he's an emperor now, you know, to paraphrase him, you
know he's even now have you forgotten? And yet he
is now currently more remembered then maybe anyone other than
Julius Caesar at this this stage. So but he has
(16:32):
also the ages.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
Yeah, but let's look look at one point he was
the most powerful famous person on earth. He was literally
worshiped as a god. He controlled the most powerful army
on the world in the world, had unimaginable wealth, you know,
and now probably your average person, he's that old guy
that dies at the beginning of the movie, right like yeah,
(16:54):
you know, like that famous poem like look on my
mighty works in despair, like it eventually it all kind
of falls to dustin. Yeah, two thousand years is a
long time, but four thousand years, ten thousand years, who
remembers these different Egyptian pharaohs, which obviously Marcus Aurelius was
lived a little bit closer to than us. Like, I
(17:16):
think his point is not that you'll be utterly forgotten,
but you become this unfamiliar name, you become this statue,
you know, Like Mark Surrelis has a large victory column
in Rome. It's just like three hundred foot tall column
detailing his accomplishments in marble and you go, oh, that's
(17:36):
pretty impressive, what a legacy. But sometime five six hundred
years ago, the Christians just put a statue of a
saint on top of it.
Speaker 5 (17:45):
They were like, well, we don't really care.
Speaker 4 (17:47):
About any of this, let's make it a monument to
someone else, right, And that happens to all of us, right.
Cemeteries are filled with you know, neglected, abandoned tombs, libraries
are filled with books people don't check out anymore. The
people who were at the top of the charts ten
years ago, how many remember. There's a funny exercise sometimes
(18:07):
we joke about politically in the US. It's like who
was the vice president for presidents ago? And so here
the second most you know, powerful person in the world.
Nobody even knows their name. And so that does happen
to all of us, some of us sooner than others.
But in the end, you know it, we all we
all even out. As Mark Strelia says.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
So you say, Christians, you know, put something on top
of Marcus' column. I've been thinking about this and you
sort of mentioned Buddhism before, but Christianity, Stoicism and Buddhism Buddhism.
There are similarities there, right, so so you know, love
your enemies, turn the other cheek, all that kind of stuff.
Is this because they finding the deepest of truths? Or
(18:50):
was there also influences between those three thought patterns, you know,
a couple of thousand years ago.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
I think it's a little bit of both. So uh,
interesting sort of historical tidbits here. You know, the Romans
make contact with the Han dynasty in China and at
during Marcus Hureli is his reign. I don't know if
they make it back in time, but at some point, right,
Rome and and the sort of far far East connect
at some level. On the other hand, Seneca and Jesus
(19:20):
are born like the same year, right in provinces of
the Roman Empire, So so there are they are swirling around.
You know, obviously Buddhism is much older than Stoicism, but
they are swirling around around the same time. Christianity absorbs
a lot of the ideas from Stoke philosophy. Saint Paul
when he gives his his not only even from Tarsus,
(19:42):
which is where you know Stoicism or the seat of
Sticism was for many years, but when he gives his
his famous speech in Athens. He begins at the Stoa Pochilia,
the painted porch, and then works his way up towards
the Acropolis to give his talk. So they were all
familiar with the ideas. And I don't think it's a
coincidence that the you know, the four virtues of of
(20:03):
Catholicism are the same as the four virtues of Stoicism, Ridge, temperance, justice,
and wisdom. I think they're they're both independent and interrelated
with each other, I guess.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
But deeply true as well.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Yes, yeah, it's also like, you know, you guys have
some some weird animals over in your part of the
earth that that that evolved independently of animals in North
America or South America. But they but they evolved similar adaptations.
And I think that's kind of it too. It's like, hey,
h being able to get from here to there by
(20:39):
flying is a would be a great skill, It would
be a you know, a great survival mechanism. And so
there is an evolutionary pressure that might eventually, over the
millennia or the millions of years, lead some kind of
development like that. And I think you can also say
(21:00):
the same about philosophy, like we're all wrestling with the
same fundamental forces of existence, mortality being one of them.
Uh and and we come up with some similar ideas
as well.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Interestingly, there might be a stoic lesson from the fauna
in New Zealand because it was isolated without predators. So
all a lot of our birds lost their wings because
they were facing no no predators, no hardship, no predators.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
And the obstacle is the way it's not good to
to only be safe and comfortable.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Because the obstacle of rats turned up eventually caused a
whole lot of whole lot of problems.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
So right, with all your work and your talks and
your research, have you got thoughts about what people are
struggling with the most and the answers that they're actually seeking.
Speaker 4 (21:51):
I mean, look, I think we're suffering with from the
same things we've always suffered from, you know, change, uncertainty,
difficult obnoxious people, you know, struggling with our wants and
our needs.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
I think that that's all. I do think that the.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
Modern world, you know it. There are so many benefits
to how interconnected we are, but one of the downsides is,
like you just know what more people are doing. Right,
There's more things to have opinions about, there's more things
to be outraged about, there's more things to be anxious
and scared about. So again, it's like so many of
the same timeless problems. It's just exacerbated and exaggerated in
(22:35):
a way that you know is extremely difficult to handle.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
You know.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
I imagine if you lived in you know, some distant
province of the Roman Empire, you know, you didn't hear
that much about the outrages of Nero or you know,
Caligula or Claudius or Tiberius, like you just didn't know
as much about what was happening because you not only
(23:04):
weren't getting a newspaper once a day, you weren't getting
that news website blasted to your phone and with real
time alerts, right, and you know, you didn't have to
wake up like US Americans do and find that, you know,
the president vomited like fifty.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
Truth social posts while you were sleeping, and they're.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
All they're all they're all deranged and terrifying, and uh,
you know don't bode well for the future.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
Like you you would have just had.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
Slightly more insulation from you know, things that were more
or less outside your control. And so I do think
that those are some modern problems that we're struggling with.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
Yeah, it would have been interesting if nerohead twitter that
would have been. That would have been quite something. Hey,
so tell us, tell us what people should expeak from
Ron Holladay alive at the Bruce masoncy and or on
October the thirteenth.
Speaker 5 (23:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
Look, Stoicism has obviously survived to us in books, so
we tend to think about it as this written philosophy,
but for thousands of years it was it was a
thing that people talked about on the Stoepo kule, you know,
gathered there and he just talked about these ideas. Epictetius
didn't write anything down. We just have what he's what
he's told to his students, written down by one of
those students. So I think so sism is something that's
(24:19):
designed to be talked about and talked through. So I'm
really excited to come through. I like to sort of
talk about how we apply these ideas to our lives,
how I try to apply them in my lives my life,
and I think stories ultimately are the best way to
learn and remember the stuff, So I try to tell
stories that make these ideas real and practical for people.
(24:41):
And uh and I've never been to zew Zealand, so
any excuse I can have to come to a place,
a beautiful place in the world I haven't been, I'm
going to take. I'm bringing my family with me, So
we're all we're all very excited and I hope people
come out.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Yeah, absolutely, and we're looking forward to Tavin here Ry.
Speaker 5 (24:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
And can I just say, such a great joy to
talk to you. And you know, what you do has
made such a difference in my life and the lives
of so many people I know, free families, my partner,
my my children. I've gifted gifted your books to so
many people. So absolute pleasure to talk to you today. Thanks.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
Well, my my favorite thing to do when I travel
is find really cool places to swim. So where should
I swim when I'm there?
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Well, you are the West Coast beaches in Auckland. You
want to swim with an expert because there's terrible rips,
pretty wild, Okay, a nice pleasure, like a nice easy
swim mission.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
Well, I like like the you know, like the iceprg
Iceberg's Pool and Blinder. I like the you guys have
such amazing pools in that part of the world. Is
do you have any of those in Ikland.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
You're on the north shore. Actually, the Bruce Mason Center
is in so you've got beautiful gold and sandy beaches
pretty much on your doorsteps.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
So you could go to you can go for a
gentle swim. And Takapoona that's that's very close to the
boost made just across the road. You can go for
a beautiful swim pretty much in Takapoona. It's not a
bad place to be in terms of a dip.
Speaker 5 (26:05):
All right, I'm pumped. I'm very excited.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
All right, we'll see you out in the water. Ryan,
thank you, thank you very much. That is Ryan Holiday
and Evening with Ryan Holiday. It's happening on October thirteenth
at the Bruce Mason Center, one night only, so get
your tickets Ticketmaster, dot co, dot NZ. It's going to
be a brilliant eventual listening to News Talk SEDB. We'll
be back very shortly.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
For more from News Talk SEDB. Listen live on air
or online and keep our shows with you wherever you
go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio,
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