This Is How You Change | What Is Our Duty To Society?

Summary

The Daily Stoic Podcast Summary: "This Is How You Change | What Is Our Duty To Society?" (July 21, 2026)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Ryan Holiday explores two intertwined themes: the process of personal change (particularly through discipline) and the Stoic perspective on our duty to society. Drawing from ancient Stoic wisdom as well as contemporary experiences, Ryan addresses audience questions around habit formation, compassion toward oneself, civic responsibility, and parenting with Stoic values. The conversation blends practical advice with philosophical grounding, offering both inspiration and actionable insights for listeners.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Nature of Change and Discipline (00:00–02:28)

• Personal Change Is Difficult
  • Ryan notes that changing habits requires discipline, which is "not exactly an easy virtue" and rarely fun.
  • He cautions against seeing change as a battle to be won by force alone, instead emphasizing a gentler, more compassionate approach.
• Kindness Toward Habits
  • Referencing Dr. Claire Carlile Tresh, Ryan underscores that bad habits should be treated “with kindness and gentleness rather than as an enemy or a monster.”
  • Quote (00:48): “The habit is, for the moment, part of you... otherwise, you turn your own soul or psyche or mind into a battleground.”
• Stoic Parallels
  • Marcus Aurelius in Meditations—ideas like “celebrate behaving like a human” and “getting back to the rhythm after being jarred by circumstance”—echo this gentle approach to self-improvement.
  • Philosophy is both instruction and comfort: “Philosophy wasn't just a stern taskmaster to the Stoics. It was also a solace. It was counsel.”
• Daily Stoic Habits Challenge
  • Ryan mentions a six-week challenge focusing on Habits for Success, Habits for Happiness, stressing growth through supportive nudges rather than self-criticism.
  • Quote (01:57): “The challenges are nudging you to be what you're capable of being, pushing yourself to be better while also not beating on you. It’s fun, it’s enjoyable. You like who you are on the other side of it.”

2. Reflections on Identity (06:25–06:38)

• Defining Oneself
  • When asked for one word to define himself, Ryan humbly responds: "trying."
  • Quote (06:41): “How about that? I’m trying.”

3. The Stoic Duty to Society (06:39–09:11)

• Serving the Common Good
  • The Stoic view, per Marcus Aurelius, is that “we are put here for other people to serve the common good.”
• Concrete Civic Actions
  • Ryan shares an anecdote about wanting to donate a kidney after reading about it but deciding to start with donating blood, emphasizing small, consistent contributions.
  • Quote (07:19): “There's something about literally watching it flowing out of your arm and going to a blood bank for gunshot victims or people who are rushed to the hospital.”
• Sebastian Junger’s Perspective
  • He cites Sebastian Junger's advice: “Everyone should vote and give blood. Those are our two basic responsibilities as humans.”
• Communitarian vs Individualist Stoicism
  • Ryan challenges the interpretation of Stoicism as merely individualistic; he sees Stoics as uniquely equipped for practical service because they are “not all over the place... they know where they can make a difference.”
• Choosing Impactful Work
  • He reflects on his own transition to a more purposeful career, urging others to use their talents and choices to make a positive difference.

4. Teaching Stoic Virtues to Children (09:11–10:46)

• Modeling Values
  • Ryan strives for his children to observe Stoic virtues through his example rather than direct instruction.
  • Quote (09:55): “Could you be convicted of it in a court? Could people see it from the outside, even without hearing me talk about it?”
• Moral Instruction Through Story
  • He believes in the power of stories and myths for teaching values, rather than only factual history.
  • Quote (10:26): “The purpose of history, to me, is ultimately moral instruction—like how to be a person.”
• The Goal of Parenting
  • He closes with the idea that repetition—both in stories and actions—is key: “I do try to think a lot about the stories and myths and ideas that we talk about over and over and over again. And then, of course, that we try to live by as well.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Gentleness to Oneself:
  “...the habit is, for the moment, part of you, and it's essential that you treat it with kindness and gentleness rather than as an enemy...” — Ryan Holiday (00:48, echoing Dr. Claire Carlile Tresh)
• On Identity:
  “How about that? I'm trying.” — Ryan Holiday (06:41)
• On Serving Others:
  “We are put here for other people to serve the common good. As Marcus really said, that's what life is all about.” — Ryan Holiday (07:04)
• On Basic Responsibilities:
  “Everyone should...vote and give blood. Those are our two basic responsibilities as humans.” — Ryan Holiday quoting Sebastian Junger (08:13)
• On Parenting by Example:
  “Could you be convicted of it in a court? Could people see it from the outside, even without hearing me talk about it?” — Ryan Holiday (09:55)
• On Stories as Moral Guidance:
  "The purpose of history, to me, is ultimately moral instruction—like how to be a person. What kind of society do we want to have? Where are we trying to go?" — Ryan Holiday (10:26)

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• 00:00–02:28: The challenge of change, compassion in habit breaking, Stoic approaches
• 06:25–06:38: Defining oneself with a single word: “trying”
• 06:39–09:11: The Stoic civic duty—service, blood donation, career choices, breaking out of individualism
• 09:11–10:46: Teaching Stoic virtues to children—parenting by modeling, moral storytelling

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Tone & Style

The episode maintains Ryan Holiday’s characteristic mix of humility, warmth, and practical wisdom. He draws on personal stories, ancient philosophy, and contemporary writing to invite listeners toward both personal growth and social responsibility—underscoring that Stoicism, at its best, serves both self and others.

Transcript

[Ryan Holiday]

Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom, into the real world. This is how you change. Changing habits is hard. It takes willpower. It means discomfort. It means doing some stuff you don't want to do. It means not doing stuff you want to do. Discipline is not exactly an easy virtue. It's not always a fun virtue. But it's wrong to think that change and discipline is about force, that it's about strictness, that it's all about struggle. When we interviewed Dr. Claire Carlile Tresh about her award winning book on habit, one of the things we asked were for tactics. She recommends to people who want to quit a bad habit, and she said, there's actually a really important mindset. She said, the habit is, for the moment, part of you, and it's essential that you treat it with kindness and gentleness rather than as an enemy or a monster. Otherwise, you turn your own soul or psyche or mind into a battleground. The habit needs to be accepted without being indulged. She said, okay, it's here. It is the present reality, and I would like to change. This is actually shockingly similar to some themes we see in Marcus Aurelius and in Meditations, he says, celebrate behaving like a human. In another passage, he talks about how to get back to the rhythm after he's been jarred by circumstances. Philosophy wasn't just a stern taskmaster to the Stoics. It was also a solace. It was counsel. It was supposed to, as Seneca said, make you a better friend to yourself. Change is hard, but it doesn't mean that you have to be relentlessly hard on yourself, that you have to beat yourself up, that you have to fight yourself. And this is actually something we talk about in the Daily Stoic, Habits for Success, Habits for Happiness challenge. It's six weeks of challenges. Yeah, but the challenges are nudging you to be what you're capable of being, pushing yourself to be better while also not beating on you. It's fun, it's enjoyable. You like who you are on the other side of it, and I think you're really gonna like it. I'd love to have you join us. You could sign up right [e-mail] habits we're, we're gonna start it on July 21, so I'd love to see it in there. We're offering a group discount if you enroll with some of your friends, and

it's gonna be awesome.

I don't want you to think about the year as over. I don't want you to think about the person you wanna become as being something out of reach. Just get after it. And you can sign up right now for the daily stoic Habits for success, Habits for happiness challenge and get back on track to being that person you want to be. That's what it's all about. You can sign up right [e-mail] habits.

I get it.

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Thanks so much. That was amazing. I think I speak for all of us here. If you had one word to define you as a human being, what would that word be and why? That's a good question.

I don't know.

I mean, I guess I would be less interested in my own sort of biased. Take my wife's around here somewhere. Maybe you can ask her. You know, trying. How about that? I'm trying. Can you speak to what the stoic view is on our duty to society in terms of, say, volunteering, donating blood? Yeah.

Putting our efforts out besides just our

own internal moral compass. Yes. I think we are put here for other people to serve the common good. As Marcus really said, that's what life is all about. A couple of years ago I read this article about someone who had who'd done an unprovoked kidney donation. They just gave their kidney to a stranger and I thought that was unreal. I was like, I've always wanted to do, I want to do something like that. And I was telling my wife that I was going to donate my kidney and she was like, what are you talking about? She was like, you've never even donated blood before. And I was like, oh, maybe I should start there. So I do that every, what is it, three months that you can. And there's something about literally watching it flowing out of your arm and going to a blood bank for gunshot victims or people who are rushed to the hospital. Sebastian Junger wrote this incredible book recently about, called In My Time of Dying, where he didn't know, just one day he's hanging out with his family and he's bleeding to death internally and he's rushed to the hospital. He's like this close to dying and he talks about just what a powerful statement that he says, you know, everyone should, should vote and give blood. Those are our two basic responsibilities as humans. I think that's a pretty good one. But, but the idea that the stoic is community minded, I think is, is worth emphasizing again and again and again because it's seen so much as an individualistic philosophy, a resigned philosophy, a self contained philosophy. And it is, which I think is what makes the, the stoics uniquely suited to contribute to society. Because they're not all over the place, they're not messes, they're not trying to be all things to all people. They know where they can make a difference. And that is one area that we can make a difference. Obviously the other big one is what do you decide to spend your career on? You could take a career that is highly paid but makes the world a worse place, or you could choose a career that you think makes a positive difference. And that was transition I made even in my own life, just thinking like, is this what I want to do with my limited amount of time here? And then I found the thing that I did right. And so I think these are all the ways that we contribute to society.

[Audience Member]

I would like to know what do you do as a father to instill stoic virtues to your children? I have a 12 year old and as an adult I struggle with cultivating my own, I guess, search for the virtues, stoic virtues. But I think they're very valuable and especially in these challenging times, I think I would like to know what do you do? And maybe I get inspiration from that.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. This question of how do we teach our children these stoic values and virtues is the main question that I think every parent is thinking about. Obviously, my kids love hearing about stoic philosophy. For me, who's all about it, because every kid wants to hear about what their parents do. I try, as I said earlier, I try to model the ideas I would like them to, even if I never spoke about it ever. For them to be able to deduce that this is the philosophy I live by and take seriously. That would obviously be, I think, a main sort of metric. Could you be convicted of it in a court? Could people see it from the outside, even without hearing me talk about it? And I would say, on a good day, yes. On most days, probably not. But it's about the trying. I do think that the best way to talk about these ideas is through stories. Through the stories we lift up and then the examples that we talk about as cautionary tales, like I'm doing tonight. What I try to do in my books and then what I try to do as a parent, when I'm trying to teach and show them the world is go to these kind of foundational myths. Like in the ancient world. Biography was not about this person was at this place at this time. And actually look at all these. Let me disprove. Did Washington actually cut down a cherry tree or not? The obsession, I think, with the factual nuts and bolts of history, I think is something that we've sort of gotten wrong. The purpose of history, to me, is ultimately moral instruction, like how to be a person. What kind of society do we want to have? Where are we trying to go? And so I do try to think a lot about the stories and myths and ideas that we talk about over and over and over again. And then, of course, that we try to live by as well.