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You Are What You Won't Do For Money - RyanHoliday.net

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—Today’s newsletter is sponsored by Shortform. It was a sales pitch, so I take it with a grain of salt, but according to an email I got a few weeks ago, I have a seven-figure opportunity sitting in front of me. And I’m apparently too stupid or closed-minded to see it. All I would have to do is partner with a supplement maker and produce a line of supplements connected to the Daily Stoic brand—marketing their ability to help with “calm, clarity, and resilience”—and I could very easily make several million dollars. They’d handle everything: procurement, production, design, fulfillment. I’d just have to lend my brand and my platform to do it. The only problem? I don’t want to. I’m not exactly opposed to supplements or vitamins. I actually take a few each morning. I even advertise some on the Daily Dad and Daily Stoic podcasts. Nor am I opposed to making money. I don’t think there is anything wrong with it, and neither did the Stoics (“No one has condemned wisdom to poverty,” Seneca writes in On The Happy Life. “The philosopher shall have considerable wealth, but it will not have been pried from any man’s hands, and it will not be stained with another man’s blood.”) But I have always declined to do things like Daily Stoic T-shirts and hats and cheap merch: It doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t get me excited. It doesn’t seem like a responsible use of my platform. So as long as I’m in charge, it won’t be. I remain a proud capitalist. I have built companies and invested in many others over the years. I make and sell a lot of things for Daily Stoic. But I like the things we make. I believe in them. They were things I wanted to create for my own personal use or that I thought addressed a real need—that they worked commercially was extra. (Nor do I pressure anyone about them. If you don’t like it…don’t buy it! That’s the other part of capitalism when it works well: It is a voluntary exchange.) I understand that there is a certain privilege in my attitude, which is why I do my best not to judge people in different financial circumstances. At the same time, I have come to believe that we are defined by the things we don’t do for money. Do you know who Audie Murphy is? He’s the most decorated soldier in American history. Before he turned 21, he fought in nine campaigns, was wounded three times, and received 33 medals for valor—including the Medal of Honor, three Purple Hearts, and every combat decoration the Army offers. Once, against an onslaught of 250 German soldiers and six tanks, Murphy ordered his men to fall back to safety—alone, he climbed into a burning tank destroyer and used its single machine gun to hold off the Nazis for over an hour, single-handedly killing 50 of them, refusing to give an inch of ground, holding the woods until reinforcements came. (Read his memoir, To Hell and Back…it’s incredible.) After the war, he became an actor and a musician. In 1968, he did another courageous deed: he turned down enormous sums of money to appear in a series of cigarette and alcohol commercials. “How would it look: ‘War Hero Drinks Booze’?” he said. “I couldn’t do that to the kids.” I was also struck by Harry Truman’s ability to rise up through the corrupt Kansas City political machine without being corrupted. “In all this long career, I had certain rules I followed, win, lose or draw,” Truman explained. “I refused to handle any political money in any way whatever. I engaged in no private interest whatever that could be helped by local, state or national governments. I refused presents, hotel accommodations or trips which were paid for by private parties…I made no speeches for money or expenses while I was in the Senate. I lived on the salary I was legally entitled to and considered that I was employed by the taxpayers, and the people of my country, state and nation.” I was even more struck by his post-presidency years because they stand in such contrast to the practice today: Truman was nearly broke after leaving office. In fact, the reason there is a presidential pension is because people were concerned about a destitute former president! Yet for Truman, this outcome was vastly preferred to compromising his principles. In Right Thing, Right Now, I tell the story of Martha Graham, who was approached in 1935 with the opportunity of a lifetime: an invitation to present her work at the upcoming Olympics. It was a chance to dance on the world stage, the kind of opportunity that no talented or ambitious person could afford to turn down. ​​Yet there she was, turning it down. “Three-quarters of my group are Jewish,” she told the emissaries from Berlin. “Do you think that I would go to a country where they treat hundreds of thousands of their coreligionists with the brutality and cruelty that you have shown Jews?” Shocked that self-interest hadn’t worked—that she wouldn’t look the other way like so many others—the Nazis tried a different tactic. “If you don’t come,” they warned, “everyone will know about it and that will be bad for you.” But Graham knew precisely the opposite was true. “If I don’t come,” she said, “everyone will know why I didn’t and that will be bad for you.” She may have been a starving artist well into her forties and could have used the money and exposure, but it wasn’t worth her integrity. It wasn’t worth her soul. By acting on her principles, she struck a public blow against an evil not enough people had yet condemned. Back in April, I told this story on stage at the global gathering of the Entrepreneur’s Organization. Everyone broke out in applause at Graham’s line, but as they say–and as Graham would have experienced–you can’t live on gratitude or respect. [...]

You Are What You Won't Do For Money - RyanHoliday.net Home About Newsletter Reading List Blog Best Articles Archive Speaking Books and Courses Contact Blog You Are What You Won’t Do For Money —Today’s newsletter is sponsored by Shortform. It was a sales pitch, so I take it with a grain of salt, but according to an email I got a few weeks ago, I have a seven-figure opportunity sitting in front of me. And I’m apparently too stupid or closed-minded to see it. All I would have to do is partner with a supplement maker and produce a line of supplements connected to the Daily Stoic brand—m

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