BONUS | An Important Message About Grace & Forgiveness

Summary

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The Daily Stoic – BONUS | An Important Message About Grace & Forgiveness

Host: Ryan Holiday
Guest: Julia Baird
Date: November 27, 2025

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Episode Overview

This bonus Thanksgiving episode explores the profound themes of grace, forgiveness, and moral beauty, drawing from both Stoic philosophy and inspirational real-life examples. Ryan Holiday and Australian journalist/author Julia Baird discuss how acts of grace impact individuals, communities, and cultures—emphasizing the role of generosity, self-sacrifice, and moral courage. They touch upon both personal and societal dimensions of forgiveness, highlight its difficulties, and distinguish it from justice. The episode encourages listeners to practice gratitude and grace, especially during the holiday season.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Power of Giving & Daily Stoic’s Annual Fundraiser

• Ryan reflects on the value of doing good for others, especially around Thanksgiving.
  • “One way I was saying you can always feel good is to do something nice for someone else. You can do something generous.” (Ryan Holiday, 02:08)
• Instead of typical holiday sales, he promotes a fundraising drive for Feeding America—over the years, raising over a million dollars and providing more than 10 million meals.
  • “That's over 10 million meals for people who absolutely need it. And it's one of the things I'm most proud of.” (Ryan Holiday, 03:01)

Awe and Moral Beauty: Science and Lived Experience

• Julia shares insights from Dacher Keltner's cross-cultural study on awe (07:32).
  • Contrary to what most expect, the most common cause of awe is witnessing acts of moral beauty in others—not grand natural phenomena.
  • “He found that the most common experience of [awe] was actually seeing it in another person, in another human being. Acts of moral beauty, of great courage, generosity, decency, people overcoming obstacles and hurdles…” (Julia Baird, 08:00)

Historical Example: Lincoln’s Grace

• Ryan recounts a story from Abraham Lincoln’s legal career:
  • Lincoln is mistreated and humiliated by a fellow lawyer, yet years later, selects that same man as his Secretary of War.
  • “It's the sense of self and the empathy and the forgiveness…this person who humiliated me, who treated me like absolute garbage, is the right man for this thing. And I won't get in their way…I will be their advocate.” (Ryan Holiday, 09:24)

Grace Is Not Sentimentality—It’s Hard

• Julia and Ryan discuss how society often romanticizes grace, but real forgiveness is challenging and costly.
  • “A lot of people see grace as something nice and about being polite...But this is about something that's really hard to do...Forgiving people can be incredibly hard to do. And you don't just do it once. You sometimes have to just do it every single day.” (Julia Baird, 11:22)

The Christian Concept of Grace and Its Demands

• The conversation explores the transformative idea that since we have received unearned grace, we are compelled to extend it—even to those who have hurt us.
  • “That sort of obligation or that indebtedness…you're a shitty person. You've done shitty things. So the idea that you get to hold that above someone else...That's a luxury that you're actually not ent[itled to].” (Guest, attributed to Ryan Holiday, 12:16)

Limits and Dangers of Forgiveness

• Julia warns about forgiveness being weaponized, especially in contexts like domestic violence.
  • “Forgiveness can sometimes be cutting ties and walking away from.” (Julia Baird, 13:04)
• Ryan and Julia stress that forgiveness is not incompatible with justice or self-protection.
  • “You forgiving the person is not mutually exclusive with them being held accountable for that thing…” (Ryan Holiday, 14:08)

Restorative Justice and Liberation from Grievance

• Julia discusses restorative justice: bringing together those harmed and those who caused harm, facilitated by a mediator, to seek both accountability and, possibly, healing.
  • “...Trying to recognize harm caused and each other's humanity...it can allow for the possibility of redemption, but it also can really free the victim.” (Julia Baird, 15:14)
• Julia shares the moving story of Debbie McGrath, who met her brother’s killer face-to-face, told him everything he’d done to her and her family, and found freedom from her consuming rage.
  • “She said that she had put everything that he did to her in a suitcase and left it at his feet. And it was his. And after that, she was free.” (Julia Baird, 16:51)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “He found that the most common experience of [awe] was actually seeing it in another person…acts of moral beauty, of great courage, generosity, decency...”
  — Julia Baird [08:00]

• “It's the sense of self and the empathy and the forgiveness…this person who humiliated me…is the right man for this thing.”
  — Ryan Holiday [09:24]

• “Grace is done...nothing you've done. You've done nothing to deserve it.”
  — Julia Baird [11:55]

• “You forgiving the person is not mutually exclusive with them being held accountable for that thing…”
  — Ryan Holiday [14:08]

• “Forgiveness can sometimes be cutting ties and walking away from.”
  — Julia Baird [13:04]

• “She said that she had put everything that he did to her in a suitcase and left it at his feet. And it was his. And after that, she was free.”
  — Julia Baird [16:51]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 02:08 – On doing good as a path to feeling good
• 07:32 – Dacher Keltner’s study on awe and moral beauty
• 09:24 – Lincoln’s forgiveness and the true test of grace
• 11:22 – The difficulty and daily practice of real forgiveness
• 13:04 – Forgiveness vs. enabling harm in abuse contexts
• 14:08 – The distinction between personal forgiveness and justice
• 15:14 – Restorative justice: healing through recognition
• 16:51 – Debbie McGrath’s powerful story of letting go

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Takeaway

This episode urges listeners to reflect on the transforming power of grace and forgiveness—not as easy virtues, but as deep practices that shape us and our communities. Through historical examples, psychological insights, and real-world stories, Ryan and Julia illustrate how grace can awe, liberate, and inspire, especially when extended where it is least deserved. The message is clear: practice generosity, harness your ability to forgive, and remember that grace is often the hardest—and most powerful—thing you can give.

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Recommended Reading:

• Julia Baird, Bright Shining: How Grace Changes Everything
• Julia Baird, Phosphorescence
• Julia Baird, Victoria: The Queen

Support Feeding America with Daily Stoic:
www.dailystoic.com/feeding

Transcript

[Julia Baird]

Foreign.

[Ryan Holiday]

Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast where each day we bring you a Stoic inspired meditation designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is Based on the 2000 year old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. Help you learn from them to follow in their example and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more visit Dailystoic.com.

[Advertisement Voice]

Foreign.

[Ryan Holiday]

Hey everyone, welcome to a bonus episode of the Daily Stoic podcast. I hope you're having a good Thanksgiving. I know I'm grateful to get to do this podcast to have you listening, so I wanted to throw something together for you. Last year when I was on Australia doing that speaking tour, I was able to squeeze in a couple podcast interviews while I was there and one of them was with one of my favorite people, Julia Baird. By the way, I'm going to be on another speaking tour here very shortly. I'm going to be in Seattle on the 3rd of December and then I'm going to be in Phoenix and San Diego in February and grab all [e-mail] but I was able to speak with Julia Baird and Julia is this Australian journalist, broadcaster and author. I first found her when I read her book Queen Victoria, a biography of Queen Victoria, which I used a lot when I was writing Stillness. Then she wrote this other book called Phosphorescence, which I really liked. And then she had a new book called Bright Shining, which is about the idea, idea of grace. And we talked a lot about grace and gratitude when we were there in Australia, which now is almost 18 months ago. But I wanted to bring you this section on Thanksgiving and actually the reason that I thought to bring this is that I got a lovely note from Julia. I did this email on when everything is feeling shitty and awful in the world. One way I was saying you can always feel good is to do something nice for someone else. You can do something generous. And I was talking about this thing that worked doing with Daily Stoic, which instead of doing a Cyber Monday sale or a Black Friday sale or any of those kinds of things around this time of the year, what we do instead is we host this fundraising drive for Feeding America. I donate a bunch of money and then I try to encourage you guys to donate money too so we can provide meals for people who didn't just stuff themselves over Thanksgiving. And over the last five or six years I think we raised a little bit north of a million dollars which is absolutely incredible. That's over 10 million meals for people who absolutely need it. And it's one of the things I'm most proud of. I've sold a lot of books in that time. I've set some great running times, I've accomplished some things, I've built some things I'm proud of a lot of what I've done. But that's one of the things I'm proudest of. And that's the idea is that's something that's always in your control. Doing something good, doing something generous, doing something kind. So if you want to contribute to that, you can do that. You can just go to dailystoic.com feeding and anyways, I wrote this article about it and Julia sent this very nice note saying how much she liked it and that people don't talk about this enough. And I said, hey, I'd love to chat with you next time I'm there. Probably gonna be next fall when I do another Australia tour announcement about that to come. But in the meantime, I wanted to bring you this chunk. Cause this is what we should be thinking today. Grace and gratitude. Doing things for others. Not fighting for a deal on a TV or a car or you know, checking your email to see what deals have come in. Do something nice for someone else. And if you want to do something for people who are hungry, you can donate to our drive. It's DailyStoke.com feeding I think we're currently I'm recording this before thank Thanksgiving just crossed 70,000. We're hoping to get to 300,000 which will provide, as I said, something like 3 million meals. You can check out Julia's book Bright Shining How Grace Changes Everything. You check out phosphorescence and do read Victoria, which is one of my absolute favorites. And I'll leave you there. Listen to this episode and have a great day. Human, your body has a performance superhighway. 60,000 miles of blood vessels that deliver oxygen and nutrients to every cell. 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[Julia Baird]

Dakar Keltner from the University of California, who's written about awe, and he's done a lot of studies over the years, did a study recently of about 3,000 or was about 2,600 people across 26 countries to find out what was the most Common experience of ore you would imagine. Like, what would you have said if.

[Ryan Holiday]

It was, I don't know, a mountain.

[Guest Speaker / Interviewee]

Or, you know, some. Some natural phenomenon, a Grand Canyon kind of a thing?

[Julia Baird]

Yeah, that's what I would say too. And so across all kind of histories, demographics, cultures, dialects, whatever, he found that the most common experience of it was actually seeing it in another person, in another human being. Acts of moral beauty, of great courage, generosity, decency, people overcoming obstacles and hurdles, people overcoming things in life. And I was really struck by that and I was wanted to explore it. Like, what does that actually look like when you do something that someone else doesn't deserve? Like, what impact does it have on you? What does it have on them? What does it mean for people witnessing it? And yeah, to me, it's the very best of who we are.

[Guest Speaker / Interviewee]

I was just thinking about that when I was reading this Lincoln book because there's this story. Lincoln's sort of an up and coming lawyer gets chosen to be on this case. It's the biggest case of his life. And it ends up changing venues. And so the company, it's a big company, they bring on another lawyer. And that lawyer sees Lincoln as this country bumpkin, basically kicks him off the case. He still gets paid, but he kicks him off the case. He calls him like a gorilla to his face. He just sees him as like just a buffoon. And every night, Lincoln decides to attend the trial anyway. He wants to learn from it. Every night, all the lawyers meet in the hotel lobby to discuss the case. They never include Lincoln. It's like the humiliation of his career.

[Julia Baird]

Right.

[Guest Speaker / Interviewee]

And a decade and a half later, that lawyer is who Lincoln chooses as his secretary of war and the right man at the right time. And like, when I think of things that strike me with, oh yeah, it's not these brilliant works of art. It's not, you know, somebody did this athletic feat that I can't imagine. It's the sense of self and the empathy and the forgiveness to be like this person who humiliated me, who treated me like absolute garbage, is the right man for this thing. And I won't get in their way. And not only will I not get in their way, I will be their advocate. When you think of like, yeah, like when you think of Gandhi or you think of Jesus on the cross. Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do. Like, moments of that sort of almost superhuman grace is one of the most incredible and powerful forces in existence and.

[Julia Baird]

It changes everyone who witnesses it. Yes, it's any of the scientific studies I've seen into that. Just show people are much more likely to do it themselves. And a lot of those studies are on moral elevation in workforces. And if you see and find out, not in a way that trumpets it, hey, guess what, guys, I'm a great philanthropist. Here's my name across some wall. But when you find that someone in a position of leadership has been, you know, quietly sacrificing time or money or caring for someone in a way they didn't necessarily need to, that can really shift a whole culture of a company.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes.

[Guest Speaker / Interviewee]

Yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

When.

[Guest Speaker / Interviewee]

When you are the angel that a person needs in a scenario, and it in many cases was not only difficult, but it wasn't in your interest. There's something absolutely incredible about that.

[Julia Baird]

Yeah. And that's. That's really interesting because a lot of people see grace as something nice and about being polite and not quite a Hallmark card, but something kind of pretty and easy. And it is.

[Guest Speaker / Interviewee]

Everyone appreciates it, celebrates it as it's happening.

[Julia Baird]

Lovely.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes.

[Julia Baird]

It's like puppies and Kleenex tissues. Right. But this is about something that's really hard to do, you know, to. Forgiving people can be incredibly hard to do. And you don't just do it once. You sometimes have to just do it every single day.

[Guest Speaker / Interviewee]

Yeah.

[Julia Baird]

You know, and sometimes it's a cost to yourself.

[Ryan Holiday]

Right.

[Guest Speaker / Interviewee]

How many times should I forgive my brother? Seven times.

[Ryan Holiday]

No.

[Guest Speaker / Interviewee]

70 times. No, 70 times seven. And just the incredibleness of that, it's probably. I think that is the greatest concept of Christianity, that grace and forgiveness and.

[Julia Baird]

Great. And at the heart of that is grace is done. Nothing you've done. You've done nothing to deserve it.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes.

[Guest Speaker / Interviewee]

Well. Well, the idea that. To me, my understanding of Christianity is basically this idea of you were forgiven for everything, and so you were. So you were given a gift.

[Julia Baird]

Yes, that's right.

[Guest Speaker / Interviewee]

Which means that you, in turn, have to give.

[Julia Baird]

Yeah.

[Guest Speaker / Interviewee]

And that. That sort of obligation or that indebtedness.

[Julia Baird]

Yeah.

[Guest Speaker / Interviewee]

Like, you're a shitty person. You've done shitty things. So the idea that you get to. To hold that above someone else, that you get to hold something over someone else for having made a mistake or done right, you wrong or done the world wrong.

[Julia Baird]

You owe me, buddy.

[Guest Speaker / Interviewee]

That's a luxury that you're actually not ent.

[Julia Baird]

Yeah. Which is amazing.

[Guest Speaker / Interviewee]

Yes.

[Julia Baird]

And. Yeah. Doesn't actually make sense. You know, and look, I have grown up, as we talked about with my mother, who talked a lot about forgiveness growing up, like, really being exposed to the idea that you just, you Forgive and forgive and forgive. Then as a reporter, I've done a lot of work on domestic abuse and violence and sexual assault. And I also looked at domestic violence in faith communities and could see how that was weaponized.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes.

[Julia Baird]

By abusers and sometimes by, like, structures to tell women especially, don't leave, just put up with it. You forgive again and again and again. And that's why I think we need to be cautious that forgiveness doesn't mean, okay, I don't need to protect myself now. I don't need to move away from you. Forgiveness can sometimes be cutting ties and walking away from.

[Guest Speaker / Interviewee]

Well, first off, it's the idea that you have competing and sometimes conflicting obligations.

[Ryan Holiday]

To yourself, to your children.

[Julia Baird]

That's right.

[Guest Speaker / Interviewee]

To the person that comes after you. But also, I think what as I just did this book on justice, and I think it's been helpful for me to understand there's. The justice system is something apart from and separate. That is a societal invention that is.

[Ryan Holiday]

Required for us all to live together.

[Guest Speaker / Interviewee]

And function in a large group. And then our personal sense of justice is something very different. So you forgiving the person is not mutually exclusive with them being held accountable for that thing and them being held.

[Ryan Holiday]

Accountable and how they're held accountable and.

[Guest Speaker / Interviewee]

The whole system built around it is based on the statistics and, you know, the experience and what society understands has to happen to protect future generations and to deter other people, et cetera. That's very different than what you as the individual ought to do.

[Julia Baird]

That is really important. It is not separate to justice. It's not separate to the consequences of justice. And it is very much about what you need need as an individual. I got really interested in restorative justice when I was writing this book. And the idea being that you bring together, you'd be familiar. You bring together the person the harm's been caused to, the person that caused the harm. You have a mediator who's very experienced, who spent a year working out whether these people can get together. And basically, it's the victims who are really asking for these kinds of justice system because they often go through a court. They've never even had to give a victim impact statement, or they want to talk directly to the person that caused them harm. But again, there needs to be remorse and you can't have any expectation of forgiveness.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Julia Baird]

So sometimes they want to know just a piece of information. Sometimes they want to know what's the last things, what are the last words my daughter said before she died? What are they? So this kind of complicated, but really quite amazing process, actually, because when it works, you know, these two people staring at each other, trying to recognize harm caused and each other's humanity, it can also. It can allow for the possibility of redemption, but it also can really free the victim. And there was one woman I spoke to called Debbie McGrath. And her brother was killed when she was 24. He was 20. And it was killed by a friend who just shot him one night after they'd been playing at the pub and killed him. No explanation has ever been given. And she found herself, she was then heavily pregnant, consumed with rage about this. She was so furious about it, that. Consumed in a way that it took over her mind, it took over her body. She put on a lot of weight, she got diabetes, she got insomnia. Her father got very ill. It just infected this whole community, as these incidents and attacks and horrible things often do. And she told me that it was at a point where she would look at a sunset and she would be thinking about ways to murder this guy. It was just so she couldn't free herself from it. And one day she sat down opposite him, finally, in a restorative justice moment, and she just was able to say to him, this is what you did to me.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Julia Baird]

This is what happened to my body. This is what happened to my mind. This is what you did to my father. This is what you did to my brother's son who never had a dad growing up. And she said there was a point at which, during this, that she sat up and because she instinctively. Because she felt like something had been lifted from her and she just looked around and realized it just felt that way. And she said that she had put everything that he did to her in a suitcase and left it at his feet. And it was his. And after that, she was free.

[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 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.

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[Ryan Holiday]

Look, ads are annoying. They are to be avoided if at all possible. I understand as a content creator why they need to exist. That's why I don't begrudge them when they appear on the shows that I listen to. But again, as a person who has to pay a podcast producer and has to pay for equipment and for the studio and the building that the studio is in, it's a lot to keep something like the Daily Stoic going. So if you want to support a show but not listen to ads, well, we have partnered with Supercast to bring you a ad free version of Daily Stoic. We're calling it Daily Stoic Premium. And with Premium you can listen to every episode of the Daily Stoic podcast completely ad free. No interruptions, just the ideas, just the messages, just the conversations you came here for. And you can also get early access to episodes before they're available to the public. And we're going to have a bunch of exclusive bonus content and extended interviews in there just for Daily Stoic Premium members as well. If you want to remove distractions, go deeper into Stoicism and support the work we do here. Well, it takes less than a minute to sign up for Daily Stoic Premium and we are offering a limited time discount of 20% off your first year. Just go to Dailystoic.com premium to sign up right now or click the link in the show descriptions to make those ads go away.