BONUS | Ryan Holiday's Response to Ivanka Trump

0:00Ryan Holiday: My dad had his real estate license when I was a kid, and I remember somebody called the house one time, and I answered it, and I screwed it up anyways. The point is, my dad missed an important call, and he didn't sell a house because of it. But if he had had today's sponsor, Quo, well, maybe that wouldn't have happened. Missed calls and slow follow-ups are silent killers. That's how businesses leave money on the table without ever reading it. And that's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo, Q-U-O, a business communication system built so you never miss or mess up a call. Quo is the number one rated business phone system on G2 with over 3 ,000 reviews built for how modern teams work.

0:35Ryan Holiday: More than 90 ,000 businesses, solo operators, growing teams all use it. It's not just a phone system. It's a smart one. AI automatically logs the calls, summarizes them, flags next steps so nothing falls through the cracks. You can even qualify leads or respond after hours so the business stays on even when you're off. Money is on the line. Always say hello with Quo. Try Quo for free, plus 20 % off your first six months when you go to Quo.com slash Daily Stoic, Q-U-O dot com slash Daily Stoic. Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

1:20Stoicism, I think like Marcus Aurelius' meditations is so informative on so many levels. I mean, here you have somebody who was literally an emperor, and he's writing this journal in a tent in a battlefield. So his perspective is amazing. And he once wrote that the soul becomes dyed the color of its thoughts. And I think about that all the time. The cost to me of living in a way that's inconsistent and not aligned with what feels right, what models the right thing for my children, what feels inherently true to me, it's too expensive.

1:55Ryan Holiday: I mean, look, here's the thing. She's totally right. That's exactly what Marcus really said. That's exactly what stoicism is about. She's just not living or acting in accordance with it in any way. If you did, you'd have an intervention with your dad, whose life would be died with his horrible, negative, mean, bullying thoughts all the time. Are you stupid? Are you a stupid person? You are a rude, terrible person. You shouldn't be working for CNN. Don't talk to me that way. You're just a lightweight. Gavin Newsom has admitted that he is learning disabilities. Ilhan Omar is garbage. She's garbage.

2:31Ryan Holiday: Her friends are garbage. So he's totally incoherent. And he goes, oh, thank you. Thank you. I'll give you another great Mark Srelius quote, Ivanka. He says, waste no more time talking about what a good person is like, just fucking be one. Look, this is just obviously incredibly cringe, the sort of performative philosophy, the popularity of stoicism with people who have no idea that this is a philosophy built around an ethical core, which justice is the true north of the philosophy. I'll tell you what stoicism is not. Stoicism is not a way for you not to have to care about the consequences of the things that are happening around you.

3:15Ryan Holiday: It's not a way to turn inward and turn away from other people, from what's happening in the world, from not having to care. It's not, oh, I'm just going to think nice thoughts so I can have a nice life. I'm not going to let critics or criticism penetrate because then I'd have to actually make some changes or take some accountability or stare in the face. the reality of what I have been complicit in, what I am responsible for. Ivanka Trump quoting Mark Aurelius. I mean, that's as eye-rolly as you can get. The only similarity you have with the Aurelius family is that you're a commodus and so are your shitty brothers.

3:59Ryan Holiday: Look, nobody loves seeing people talk about Mark Aurelius and stoicism more than me. This is what gets me out of bed in the morning. My life's work is getting people to pick up meditation. So that's awesome. I love to see it. Also, this is as cringe as it possibly gets because it's not real and it's totally missing the point. You know, Marcus Aurelius wasn't just saying these things for his health. He wasn't just quoting random bits of stoic wisdom. He was trying to live it, right? Trying to live it, trying to put it into practice. That's the whole point of meditations. As I said, he's fighting to be the person that philosophy tried to make him, not performatively, but in his private journal.

4:38Ryan Holiday: These were reminders to himself to do better. And yes, sometimes they're about, you know, directing their thoughts properly, but most of the reminders in meditations are ethical reminders, reminders to be a better person, to follow the Stoic principles, to put them into practice, to be a better person than his job and his wealth would let him get away with being. You know, Mark Sreelis is the most powerful person in the world, And he wrote obsessively about what that responsibility meant, about justice, about not letting power corrupt you. Stoicism is not a brand, it's a practice. And it demands honesty, it demands self-awareness, it demands accountability, it demands doing the right thing even when it costs you something, even when it's painful, even when it would mean, I don't know, confronting your horrible family members.

5:30Ryan Holiday: So no, quoting Mark Surreale doesn't make you stoic, doesn't make you wise. You have to live and act with integrity. You have to be involved in public life in a way that is beyond reproach, in a way that contributes rather than extracts value from the government.