One of the world’s leading experts of stoicism offers advice on how to lead others and how to experience a life of excellence.
Key Details
- Ryan Holiday is a stoic philosopher and the host of the Daily Stoic podcast, which has been downloaded more than 100 million times.
- As Holiday notes, podcasts provide a chance to pick the brains of the world’s smartest leaders and intellectuals, giving us “access to some of the smartest and most interesting people in the world.”
- In a recent blog post, he outlines 20 of the best lessons he’s learned from the hundreds of hours of discussions he has posted online.
- His discussions with leaders touch upon questions such as what it means to be a professional, how we face panic and chaotic situations, why professional boundaries are essential, and putting in the best effort regardless of the outcome.
Why It’s Important
The philosophy of stoicism is largely about building the best version of yourself, and these are lessons that any leader ought to take into account. Many of the people Holiday interviews are leaders themselves, such as Los Angeles Rams general manager Les Snead and Wall Street leadership coach Randall Stutman.
Their experience in the heat of the struggle, stress, and challenges they face daily is invaluable for any leader.
“How do you respond when the play clock is running down and the play call hasn’t come in yet because the headsets aren’t working? ‘When there’s chaos and your brain is panicking,’ Snead said, ‘go to your panic rules. Slow down and go to your panic rules.’ This isn’t just an on-field thing. For the chaos of life, we all need panic rules,” says Holiday.
Tied up in that is the pursuit of excellence. Do you want to be good at many things or great at a few things? Do we want to win the race and do we have the discipline to do so? As actor Matthew McConaughey tells Holiday, he personally shut down his production company and labels to better focus on his family and acting career—the most essential things to him.
“‘I was making Bs in five things. I want to make As in three things,” says McConaughey.
Notable Quote
“Randall Stutman, a leadership coach to some of Wall Street’s biggest CEOs, told me his teenage kids taught him an important lesson about power. You gotta figure out how to get people to think it’s their idea to do what you want them to do. ‘You gotta give up power to keep power,’ he said. ‘You gotta give up power to maintain power.’ One of the interesting things about power is that the harder you try to hold on to power, the less of it you actually have,” says Holiday.