The Daily Stoic - Do Your Job | Right Thing Right Now Excerpt

Episode Date: May 19, 2024

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Hi, I'm Anna. And I'm Emily. And we're the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. And we are really excited about our latest season because we are talking about someone very, very special. You're so sweet. A fashion icon. Well, actually, just put this on. A beautiful woman. Your words, not mine. Someone who came out of Croydon and took the world by storm. Kate Anna, don't tell them where I live. A muse, a mother, and a supermodel who defined the 90s. I don't remember doing the last one. Wow, Emily, not you.

Obviously, I mean Kate Moss. Oh, I always get us confused. Because you're both so small. How dare you. We are going to dive back into Kate's 90s heyday and her insatiable desire to say yes to absolutely everything life has to offer. The parties, the Hollywood heartthrobs, the rockstar bad boys, have I said parties?

You did mention the parties, but saying yes to excess comes at a price as Kate spirals out of control and risks losing everything she's worked for. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to podcasts, or listen early and ad free on Wandery Plus on Apple podcasts or the Wandery app. Alice and Matt here from British Scandal. Matt, if we had a bingo card, what would be on there? Oh, compelling storytelling, egotistical white men,

and dubious humor. If that sounds like your cup of tea, you will love our podcast, British Scandal, the show where every week we bring you stories from this green and not always so pleasant land. We've looked at spies, politicians, media magnates, a king, no one is safe. And knowing our country, we won't be out of a job anytime soon. Follow British Scandal wherever you listen to your podcasts. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic Podcast.

On Sundays, we take a deeper dive into these ancient topics with excerpts from the Stoic texts, audiobooks that we like here or recommend here at Daily Stoic, and other long-form wisdom that you can chew on on this relaxing weekend. We hope this helps shape your understanding of this philosophy, and most importantly, that you're able to apply it to your actual life. Thank you for listening. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another Sunday episode of the Daily Stoke podcast. A little peek behind the curtain. When I'm writing, sometimes I know exactly where I'm going and sometimes I don't. And one of the things I kind of think about is I try to save chapters. I break all my books up into these smaller pieces. And I try to save chapters that I'm really clear on, that I'm really excited to do, and that I think are really important. Those are the ones I set and then I space them out because I know the momentum is so important, right?

And this chapter, I'm bringing you now the first chapter peak at right thing right now, good values, good character and good deeds is an excerpt from the audio book of the new book, which as you know, we've been doing a bunch of cool pre-order bonuses. You can grab that at dailystoic.com slash justice, whether you buy the audio book, which as you know, we've been doing a bunch of cool pre-order bonuses. You can grab that at dailystoic.com slash justice. Whether you buy the audio book or physical

or signed numbered first editions, get all that stuff at dailystoic.com slash justice. Anyways, this chapter, I have been planning to write for a very long time because I discovered the story that it's based on in Seneca. Seneca talks about this Roman name Regulus. And Regulus was fascinating because he's a Roman diplomat. I won't spoil the story, but he's this Roman soldier who's taken prisoner.

And I'm sorry, I'm not going to spoil this story. I'm too excited. Sorry, I don't want to spoil the story. But anyway, Senica tells us this story, and I was really excited to share with you. So it's probably, I think it's the first story that I wrote other than the intro. So the book starts, there's an introduction, which if you wanna listen to, I'll send you right now as one of the pre-order bonuses. Then the next big chapters about Harry S. Truman,

who I was so excited to write about. Then the first short chapter in the book is this one. It's about the power of keeping your word, how we honor our commitments to other people and how this sort of hero of the Stoics, this guy Regulus, embodies that to like the nth degree. You might've heard me peek at this story when I interviewed the psychologist,

when I interviewed the Yale psychologist, Paul Bloom. We talked a little bit about it, so you can go back and check out that episode also, but I'm going on and on. I'm sorry. I'm just excited to share about this. I probably wrote this note card eight or nine years ago. I've been collecting for it.

I was so excited to write it. And then I've been sitting on it now for like two years, because it was one of the first things that I wrote when I did the book. And I'm just really excited to share it with you. This is the first peak that any of you, or I guess listen, that peak that anyone is getting at right thing right now,

good values, good character, good deeds. That's the new book. If you would pre-order it, it would mean a lot to me. It's hugely helpful to authors. I've talked about this before, but it's like the main currency in the publishing industry. So without further ado, you can grab that at dailiestoak.com slash justice.

You can grab the book in audio. I recorded the audio book here at the studio and you can listen to that now. So thanks everyone and let me know what you think. Do your job. He was a Southern good old boy. He'd never gone to college. He'd been a police chief in a small Alabama town at the height of segregation, and he'd known John Patterson, the state's

racist governor since he was in third grade. So when the governor had ranted about and tried to stop the Freedom Rides, which attempted to integrate buses across the South in 1961, everyone had expected him to tow the party line. That's my public safety commissioner, Patterson told the representative of the justice department. His name's Floyd Mann and he can't protect them. Tell him Floyd, he said. With that Floyd Mann took a deep breath

and made the most momentous statement of his life. Governor, I'm the commissioner of safety, he said. If you tell me to protect these people, then I'll protect them. And then Mann proceeded to lay out the most ambitious protective detail offered to protesters in the history of the nascent civil rights movement. Highway patrol in front and behind integrated buses,

helicopters and airplanes above with the reserve of highway patrol cars ready at the first sign of trouble. The room was stunned and nobody more so than the governor. The only person who didn't find this strange at all was Floyd Mann, who seemed to actually take seriously the duty of his position, which was, after all, to keep people safe. While the Justice Department and those brave freedom writers had notions of equality and societal transformation on their minds, Floyd Mann was thinking of a smaller kind of duty. My purpose was law enforcement, he later reflected, trying to make sure that

nothing tragic happened to those people while they were in Alabama. It's a powerful thing, isn't it? When someone does their duty, when they take their job seriously, even in the face of private pressure or public condemnation. When they put the details aside, when they say, as long as I have this authority, wear this coat, bear this license, or wear this badge, I'm going to do what's right. It says something about the world today that the phrase, I was just doing my job is more likely an excuse for disturbing behavior than to be an explanation of heroic behavior. It's a way of letting yourself off the hook when really what a job, what a duty

is, is all about what it demands of you, from you. The writer Yuval Levin, despairing at the decline in so many of our precious institutions, spoke of the need for each of us to force ourselves in little moments of decision to ask the great unasked question of our time. Given my role here, how should I behave? That's what people who take an institution they're involved with seriously would ask. As a president or a member of Congress, a teacher or a scientist, a lawyer or a doctor, a pastor or a member, a parent or a neighbor, what should I do here? What he's talking about is duty, not what's convenient, not what's easy, not what everyone else is doing, but what we are obligated to do as a result of our potential and talents,

as well as the profession or roles we have selected for ourselves in the world. In business, they talk of the duty of a fiduciary, meaning that once someone has taken on a role of responsibility to accompany to investors to the customer, they can't simply do whatever is best for themselves. In a famous case in New York in 1928, Chief Judge Benjamin Cardozo ruled against a partner who had attempted to enrich themselves at the expense of another partner. A trustee is held to something stricter than the morals of the marketplace, he wrote in

his decision. Not honesty alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive is then the standard of behavior. The level of conduct for fiduciaries has been kept at a level higher than that trodden by the crowd. Some duties like that of a fiduciary are codified in the law. Some are defined and enforced by a strict professional code, like in journalism. Others, like the role of a soldier, are a combination of both. Unfortunately, most jobs and professions are not so clear. Or worse, the professionals have abandoned their duty. Was Pontius Pilate doing his job as a magistrate when he sent Jesus to be crucified?

Yes, it's true his job was to judge cases, and in some of those cases met out the strict punishments of Roman law. But Pilate also knew that Jesus was innocent, remarking several times that he could see no offenses in which Jesus had actually broken the law. Still, he sentenced him to die because that's what the mob wanted, because it was the most expedient choice. He knew this, literally telling the crowd that he washed his hands of the matter, that the blood was on their hands as he turned the job over to them.

The job of the police officers in Alabama was to protect and serve people, not do whatever the governor told them. Certainly the governor had ditched his responsibilities, deciding to serve public opinion rather than enforce his constitutional obligations. Meanwhile, the local police in cities the writers traveled through were collaborating with the KKK to target the activists.

Such was the scene in Montgomery, where a racist mob encouraged by the police attacked the writers with ravenous, deadly anger. As the young John Lewis disembarked, he was besieged and beaten. Watching helplessly on the ground as his friend, Jim's work was almost killed, as he attempted to reconcile himself to his own impending death, two shots rang out. One man marched forward through the surging crowd, undeterred even as his clothes were nearly torn from his body by frenzied fleeing attackers. He knelt beside a white man, murderously slamming a baseball bat into a helpless victim, put his gun against the man's skull and said calmly, one more swing and you're dead. It was Floyd Mann and the riot ended right then.

Have you ever felt like escaping to your own desert island? Well that's exactly what Jane, Phil and their three kids did when they traded their English home for a tropical island they bought online. But paradise has its secrets and family life is about to take a terrifying turn. You don't fire at people in that area without some kind of consequence. And he says, yes ma'am, he's dead. There's pure cold-blooded terror running through me. From Wondery, I'm Alice Levine, and this is The Price of Paradise,

the real-life story of an island dream that ends in kidnap, corruption, and murder. Follow The Price of Paradise wherever you get your podcasts, or binge the entire season right now on Wondry Plus. C.S. the man diligent in his business reads the Bible verse, he shall stand before kings. In that moment, Floyd Mann, a public servant with a rather boring title, was every bit the hero and king. Of course,

he had no sense of that as he did it, no fantasy of riding into the rescue or capturing the limelight. It was something much simpler and earnest, a friend would later reflect. The man thought he was doing his job the way a good lawman ought reflect. The man thought he was doing his job the way a good lawman ought to. The man had sworn an oath. It didn't matter that it was dangerous or that it was unpopular. He was going to keep it.

Sometimes doing your job requires extraordinary measures. Other times it's very ordinary, but it's always heroic. We should learn to recognize equally, not only the journalists willing to go to jail to protect their source, but also the journalists doing their day-to-day job insisting on objectivity and fairness, resisting the temptations of clickbait,

speaking truth to power. It's not just John Adams representing the British soldiers involved in the Boston massacre. It's every lawyer representing any client, even the guilty ones. It's not just Helvidius defying the Emperor Vespasian in the Senate or Harry Burns' vote to ratify the suffrage amendment at the cost of his political prospects. It's your ordinary local official putting party aside and doing the people's business. It's not just Galileo refusing to turn his back on science, but also Dr.

Catalyn Carrico studiously working in her underfunded, underappreciated laboratory for decades as she pioneered the mRNA research that would develop the COVID-19 vaccines. Her job was to keep doing her job, even when her bosses left, she had to reapply for that job time after time, even if recognition and appreciation were hard to come by. We do our job, whether it's recognized or appreciated, because we signed a kind of oath when we took it.

We signed a contract, we put on the uniform, they paid us money, and now we have to hold up our end of the bargain. Sometimes our job will place us in situations of life and death, like Floyd Mann. Sometimes they involve the big news events of their time or huge scientific breakthroughs, but they can also be much more ordinary. Saving lives, battling evil, these things are important, but so is deciding not to be a dishonest or unreliable contractor or an inept bureaucrat. To decide to

actually give your all to the teaching profession, to leave no child behind even as your hours are extended and your salary frozen. To zealously represent a defendant you can't stand, to be an athlete and a role model. Maybe this doesn't seem that hard, but it's rare enough that we know that it must be. Professionalism, duty, commitment, putting the citizens, customers, audience, patients first, and not just in our chosen line when everything is wonderful, but when the chips are down, when the lines are razor's edge. This makes you extraordinary. When we do this, when we do our job, we are not just helping the people in front of us,

but society as a whole. Maybe it won't make a difference. Maybe you won't get the credit. Maybe you'll even piss your boss off. But the alternative should be unthinkable. And it should be said, if they ask or expect you to do something that is wrong, it is not your job. If your profession doesn't have a code of ethics, then make one. To not have one is a recipe for moral dilemmas, for slipsliding, if only unintentionally into gray areas. How could you possibly do right if you don't know what right is?

How could you possibly do your job well if you haven't defined it? Some jobs are lofty, some are quite lowly. Each has his or her place in the procession, Walt Whitman once wrote. But do we play it well? Do we fill it credibly? Do we bring honor or shame to it? That's on us. There is in fact a guideline for each and every profession. What is your vocation? Marcus Aurelius asked himself. Wasn't just ruling the empire, writing philosophy books, just as yours isn't making money

or getting the paperwork in on time. It's something simpler and more basic. To be a good person, he said, that was his job. the paperwork in on time. It's something simpler and more basic. To be a good person, he said, that was his job. And so it goes for you. Your job is to be like Floyd Mann, whatever that happens to be in your chosen line, in your troubled times.

Keep the people safe. Show up. Be honest. Care. Act like a fiduciary. Even if you aren't legally obligated to be one, you must obligate yourself to a standard higher than the one trodden by the crowd. You swore an oath to yourself Daily Stoke podcast.

Just a reminder, we've got signed copies of all my books in the Daily Stoke store. You can get them personalized, you can get them sent to a friend. The obstacles away, you go as the enemy. Still, this is the key, the leather bound edition of the Daily Stoke. We have them all in the Daily stoke store which you can check out at store.dailystoke.com and Once upon a beat remember those stories and fables that would capture your imagination

And you couldn't wait to see how they would unfold and now when you read them as an adult you think Some of these old tales could use a fresh spin We have a perfect podcast to bring you the stories you remember Remix and reimagine for the kids in your life today. Join me, DJ Fu, and my trusty turntable, Baby Scratch, as we spin up new tales in the new Kids & Family Podcast, Once Upon a Beat. Wondry and Tinkercast are bringing you a jam packed, music-filled weekly party where hip hop and fables meet. It's Once Upon a Beat. Follow Once Upon a Beat on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen to Once Upon a Beat early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or Wondry Kids Plus in Apple Podcasts.