Brian Johnson explores Ryan Holiday's Stoic principle of being tolerant with others while strict with yourself. Cato the Elder, Ben Franklin, and Marcus Aurelius all practiced forgiving others' mistakes while holding themselves to a higher standard. The shift: search for virtues in people instead of their flaws.
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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Heroic plus one. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Ryan Holiday is one of my favorite writers. We featured a bunch of his books, including the Obstacle Is the Way, the Daily Stoic, Ego Is the Enemy, and Stillness Is the Key. He's currently working on the Stoic Virtue series, in which he's creating a new book for each of the cardinal virtues of courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom. We briefly chatted about the first book in the series called Courage Is Calling. Today we're going to chat about an idea from the second book in the series called Discipline is Destiny. We're going to talk about an idea that didn't make it into the note. Check those out. Of course, it's from a chapter called Tolerant with Others, Strict with Yourself. Ryan tells us, and I quote, I am prepared to forgive everybody's mistakes, cato the Elder said, except my own. Ben Franklin, many generations later, would put forth an even better rule, Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices. Or as Marcus Aurelius put it, tolerant with others, strict for yourself. And that's today's plus one. Let's be tolerant with others looking for their virtues and forgiving their mistakes. Let's be strict with ourselves, looking for our vices and getting to work on them. We have more than enough work to do on ourselves. Let's do it today.
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