They Should Have What They Want

What It Covers

Ryan Holiday explores two Stoic practices: releasing attachment to outcomes others pursue, and using a mental role model — called a "Cato" — to elevate personal decision-making and eventually become a guiding example for others.

Key Questions Answered

• •Non-interference principle: Resist the urge to judge or redirect others' ambitions. Stoic practice calls for stepping back and allowing people to pursue their chosen goals, recognizing that external achievements rarely deliver the satisfaction people anticipate — a pattern consistent throughout recorded history.
• •The Cato Framework: Identify one towering historical or personal figure — Cato the Younger, Marcus Aurelius, a grandparent — and mentally invoke them before decisions. Ask what that person would expect of you, not what you would permit yourself, to access a higher behavioral standard.
• •Impartial Spectator technique: Economist Adam Smith's concept mirrors the Cato framework: place an imagined neutral observer in the room before acting. This external perspective breaks the self-justifying logic that arises when personal impulses, convenience, or short-term thinking dominate decision-making.
• •Aspire to become the model: The Cato framework has a second stage — live and work with enough integrity that you yourself become someone else's mental benchmark. Washington used Cato as his standard for decades; the goal is to eventually occupy that role for colleagues, children, or community.