What Modern “Bro Stoicism” Gets Wrong About Failure

I saw a post on Substack from an account called “Stoic Philosophy” that said the following:

You’re not afraid of failure. You’re afraid of being seen failing. It’s a vanity problem. You want to look cool. You want to look effortless, refined. Meanwhile, the master is willing to look like an idiot in the pursuit of excellence. Drop the ego. Be willing to embarrass yourself more often.

I immediately found parts of this resonant, but as I reflected on it more, I began to take issue with how it frames the “problem” and with the “solution” it offers.

Although presented as “Stoic philosophy,” this is really a psychologically reductive mash-up of Stoic elements tinged with modern hustle-culture personal development tropes.

It’s like an AI translation of Stoic ideas that abstracts and distills the original idea until its meaning is lost.

Let’s unpack this in four parts.

Part 1: The Fear of Being Seen Failing

You’re not afraid of failure. You’re afraid of being seen failing.

This part tracks to elements of classical Stoicism, which teaches that we should not be ruled by concern for others’ opinions.

But it misses the mark on identifying the real fear.

Fear is never about the present; it’s always about the future consequences.

You’re not afraid to be seen failing. You’re afraid of the consequences of being seen failing — especially by people you know. You fear being judged, ostracized, outcast, rendered undesirable or unfit for a job or being hired.

Fear is never about the present; it’s always about the future consequences.

We evolved to survive in tribes. So this fear is fundamentally about your survival.

For many people, it’s not even a fear of being seen failing by random people; rather the fear is of being seen by people who know you — as it’s their judgments you fear most.

Part 2: The “Vanity Problem”

It’s a vanity problem. You want to look cool. You want to look effortless, refined.

Stoicism treats fear as a correctable error of judgment, not a moral failure or character flaw.

Although this piece isn’t stoicism, it does reflect a core aspect of human psychology:

It’s human nature to want to be seen in our best light, to put our mastery on display.

Although this phenomenon far pre-dates social media, it is exacerbated by social media culture.

My YouTube algorithm regularly serves up shorts of someone wowing a crowd as they play a song perfectly on the piano.

We all know that this type of fluency takes time and practice, yet I don’t see videos of people practicing a complicated piece — their fingers stumbling on the keys, the starts and stops as they fumble with the notes.

Pick any context and you’ll find the same pattern.

Social media encourages us to share our triumphs and glory moments. Most people post their highlight reels, which leads us to believe that only our wins are worth sharing.

Even when people do share their failures or struggles, it’s usually in the context of a montage that shows their transformation — as a way to establish credibility rather than be seen in the vulnerability of the struggle.

But as much as we love a good transformation story, showing the before-and-after can actually alienate the people you’re trying to connect with.

Part 3: On Willingness to Look Like an Idiot

Meanwhile, the master is willing to look like an idiot in the pursuit of excellence.

Stoicism is not performative; it doesn’t encourage embracing embarrassment as a virtue. The goal is inner alignment, rather than exposing yourself as a process of growth.

The idea that “a master is willing to look like an idiot in the pursuit of excellence” reads like a bro-culture AI reduction of Epictetus, who said

If you want to improve, be content to appear foolish and stupid with regard to external things. Don’t wish to be thought to know anything.[1]

Those who practice and fail in public don’t necessarily set out to look like an idiot. They simply are focused on their practice.

In the language of Carl Jung, they embody their Fool archetype: they stay focused on the horizon, unburdened by their past failures or a concern about what others think.

Also, many of these people who “fail” in public aren’t subscribing to the cultural norms and standards for “failure” or “success.”

If you follow your own definitions, what might look to others like foolishness is not a source of embarrassment to you.

Part 4: The Lesson: Willingness to Embarrass Yourself

This brings us to the “lesson” that this message tees up:

Drop the ego. Be willing to embarrass yourself more often.

The admonition to “drop the ego” is more modern shame-based motivation than Stoicism.

Moreover, when we understand that the root fear is of the consequences of being seen as a failure, the lesson to “be willing to embarrass yourself more often” falls flat.

Studies conclude that shame-based motivation is counterproductive; it shuts down motivation and leads to self-isolation, which is the opposite of what most of us are seeking.

Stoicism would tell us to “let go of concern about what other people think,” but this, too, falls flat.

It’s natural to be concerned about what other people think.

And, if you’re in a customer-service oriented business or putting out work in public for other people to buy and consume, then what they think is relevant.

Rather, the real lesson here is to let go of the fear of the consequences of what other people think.

Embody the archetypal energy of the Fool to focus on your outcomes and where you’re headed.

Trust that letting yourself be seen in failure, or even in your process, can serve the right people. And those are the only people who matter.

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1. Epictetus, The Enchiridion (Handbook), par. 13 – Translated by Elizabeth Carter  ↩