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Respond not React: The Alex Pretti Tragedy
11 Plays1 month ago
The modern world is loud, reactive, and deeply polarized. In this powerful monologue, Manny Teran breaks down how Stoic philosophy offers a stabilizing framework for navigating tragedy, division, and emotional overload.
Using the killing of a protester as a catalyst—not a verdict—this episode avoids tribal blame and instead asks a deeper question: How should we respond as human beings, leaders, and citizens when emotions run high and truth is unclear?
Key themes include:
- The Stoic distinction between reaction and response
- Why Stoicism is often misunderstood as cold or detached—and why that’s wrong
- The Triple Filter Test: Is it true? Is it kind? Is it useful?
- Truth-seeking versus tribal truth-building
Social media outrage cycles and their real-world consequences Leadership, stillness, and moral clarity in moments of chaos
This is an episode about restraint, responsibility, and reclaiming dialogue—not withdrawing from the world, but engaging it with wisdom.
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Host
00:00:04
Speaker
The Voice of Growth, Mastering the Mind and Market. Welcome back to the Voice of Growth podcast, Mastering the Mind and Market. My name is Manny Turan, and I'm your host.
00:00:17
Speaker
Be sure to subscribe to our channel if you like the content.
Deep Topics Exploration
00:00:22
Speaker
At the Voice of Growth podcast, we talk a lot about very deep subjects. We talk about death. We talk about grit. We talk about failure.
00:00:32
Speaker
We talk about success and peace and joy, world events, war, you name it. We want to challenge your thinking and help to ground you in your actions, in your mental state.
00:00:48
Speaker
Because as you know, this world is crazy and there's things blowing around. And if you let yourself, you can succumb to that same lifestyle and And it's without peace.
00:01:01
Speaker
It creates lots of tension. It creates stress. It's not good on your body.
Stoic Principles in Chaos
00:01:07
Speaker
But if you adhere to stoic principles, they will help ground you and provide a stable platform for which you can then express joy, peace, success, grit, and so forth.
00:01:23
Speaker
This is a podcast about business, but we live in a very blended world where personal business, everything kind of blends together, especially if you're an entrepreneur or business leader, you're not immune to what happens around the world.
Case of Alex Preddy
00:01:44
Speaker
Good example, we're talking today about the killing of Alex Preddy on January 24th by federal law enforcement agents.
00:01:57
Speaker
He was a US citizen, he was a protester, he was also a VA nurse, and from all accounts, he was a good man. I will not go deep into too much on the sides of what happened. I won't break it down line by line or screenshot by screenshot.
00:02:18
Speaker
I instead will talk about what we can do as human beings, as business people, as Stoics. for things that happen like this.
00:02:29
Speaker
Because what's happening today is the sides are getting further and further away from one another and even more entrenched.
Polarization and Stoicism Misconceptions
00:02:38
Speaker
The left is digging their heels in, the right is digging their heels in, and the dialogue that we once enjoyed as a nation, as a community, as a world, has begun its descent.
00:02:54
Speaker
further and further away from our everyday vernacular.
00:03:00
Speaker
There's also and and another subject that I'll talk about is The way that the outside world sometimes looks at Stoicism, they believe that Stoics do not have feeling, that there's a numbness, that there's a distance between Stoics and the rest of the world and the activities or community were were labeled as cold. And I want to talk about why that's completely wrong, and in particular, give some examples as to what the stoic principles teach us about being involved with our fellow man.
00:03:37
Speaker
First, let's talk about what happened.
Controversy and Opinions on Preddy's Actions
00:03:40
Speaker
You see it on social media, on the news, on TV, everywhere of what happened to this 37-year-old nurse who worked at the VA, who was in, by all accounts, defending a woman from getting pepper sprayed,
00:03:57
Speaker
people on the right would say, on the very right would say, what the hell was he doing there? He should have been home. He should have let ICE do their work. um Why was he there? Why was he protesting? Why wasn't he complying with officers' demands, X, Y, z And you have people on the extreme left saying he was murdered. He was executed.
00:04:20
Speaker
And what's interesting is also he was a lawful lawyer. a concealed permit carrying man. And um the left is actually bringing that up because of the right would say, well, why did he bring a gun to a protest?
00:04:36
Speaker
And the left saying, well, he was a lawful carrier, which is kind of a weird thing because usually it's the other way around.
00:04:42
Speaker
There's new evidence now that's being put forth about maybe the gun he had was fired accidentally by the other officer that took it away from his his belt.
00:04:55
Speaker
Who knows? There's already AI deepfakes rolling around ah that proclaim that that's the case. They show some um shot being fired.
00:05:07
Speaker
But in all actuality, it's it's AI. I mean, you could see the slide did not move back. I'm a gun guy. So I know that it was not a truthful situation. We're not going to get into whether it was wrong or right.
Compassion vs. Reaction
00:05:20
Speaker
ah man has been killed. His family, unfortunately, has to see this over and over play out on the news and on social media. His friends are having to deal with this. It's just madness. And of course, the officers on the other side, as much as it's hard to show them compassion, there is a lot of loss there as well. they're i mean, obviously, they're still alive. So, you know, I'm likely going to get some flack for saying these things.
00:05:49
Speaker
It doesn't matter. We need to have compassion for what happened. i look at the footage and i look at family members of mine that are in law enforcement.
00:06:05
Speaker
And I look at family of members of mine that are that came to this country illegally. And i look at i look at the whole landscape. And part of part of being a stoic is being able to bring all that stuff into your mind, sit with it, without letting the emotion carry you away.
00:06:26
Speaker
Which is, I think, a big problem today is we see that situation. We immediately react to it. the guttural, visceral reaction.
00:06:37
Speaker
And then what happens is that then we act, react outwards on something. We get on our our phones, we put something down social media and all it's doing is inciting more, more violence, more fire, rather than what I believe is the better case is to let it get you. Cause when I saw that video, it got me.
00:06:59
Speaker
Then I pause. I pause and I let it sink in. And before I make any judgments, I want to get as much information as I can. We're biased, man. We're human beings. We're going to be sort of led one direction or another based on what we see.
00:07:16
Speaker
But I intentfully go back to center, trying to figure out what is the truth.
Truth in Stoicism
00:07:22
Speaker
The truth is one of the core Stoic pillars in that it really feeds from wisdom, it feeds from justice, it feeds from temperance, and it feeds from courage.
00:07:39
Speaker
Those are the four Stoic principles. So truth sort of underpins those. Unfortunately, the truth isn't always going to be available to us. We see things, we see our version of the truth, and then we start to build our our armies to defend that said truth.
00:07:58
Speaker
You see it playing this day on social media, play out like a risk game. What I'm asking here to for you to do is to pause, reflect, reflect,
00:08:09
Speaker
and think about the reaction. there's ah There's a Stoic principle or a phrase, it's been attributed to Socrates, it's but it's not necessarily proven to be him that said this.
00:08:22
Speaker
There's the triple filter. for anything that you bring into your head, process, and then spew out the other side here, your mouth or your actions with your texts or emails or whatever, put it on a social media post.
Triple Filter Test
00:08:42
Speaker
Is it true? Is it kind? Is it useful? The triple filter. Is it true? Is it kind? Is it useful?
00:08:53
Speaker
So ask yourself before you say something, before you spew out anything, is it true? If it's not true, then figure out as close to the truth as you can before you say anything. If you can't find the truth, then you say, this is my opinion. This is what I see, dot, dot, dot.
00:09:13
Speaker
Is it kind? Are you doing this to try to bridge a divide are you doing this to try to get people on fire?
00:09:25
Speaker
And the last thing is, is it useful? Are there things that will come from your spewing forth, whatever you're going to say that will be useful or is all it's going to do is create a further divide between the sides?
Libertarian Beliefs and Stoicism
00:09:41
Speaker
I've been very very transparent with my politics for a long time. Libertarian. I believe that that the government has or should have a smaller role in certain aspects. I believe in personal liberty.
00:09:57
Speaker
I believe in a and military that limits interventions internationally. I want to bring these things in. So I can go on and on about my my libertarian roots.
00:10:10
Speaker
roots There are also very similar things in the Stoic principles. and And we're actually working on a complete podcast, maybe the next monologue, that'll bring and give you an idea of the differences between and the similarities between Stoicism and Libertarianism.
00:10:30
Speaker
But back to this. With respect to the If you want to call it a um criticism from a lot of people that don't understand Stoicism, they believe that we're cold, that we're numb, that we're removed, that we don't act, that we don't care, when in fact it's the exact opposite.
00:10:56
Speaker
What we actually do as Stoics is that we don't react. We respond. I try really hard to not react when something happens.
00:11:09
Speaker
It's a daily battle. Sometimes hour by hour, minute by minute, trench warfare, hand to hand. But that's what I fight for every day is to not react, but instead respond.
00:11:22
Speaker
I've been very truthful and vulnerable with with my audience here. is As a younger man, I was very quick to react. And there's still times when I do react. but I go back and I recenter myself like a buoy in the ocean that gets pulled down or knocked over.
00:11:38
Speaker
I come back up and that's the stoic practice, daily practice. I start with gratitude in the morning, a minute or two while I'm still in bed. And then throughout the day, I try to schedule pauses. So I just sit in stillness and we can go on and on about how to really strengthen that stoic principle.
00:11:55
Speaker
But when these things happen, When you see something on the news that blows you away, that's when it matters the most to pause in stillness.
00:12:06
Speaker
Let it sink in. Don't push it out. Let it sink in unfiltered and then process it and then really look at that triple, the triple filter, whether or not you say anything.
00:12:18
Speaker
And people think, well, Stoics don't shouldn't be in politics. They don't care about politics. They don't care about government, all this. Not at all. or that they're, you know, we're impersonable, we don't like people, we don't we don't believe in charity, we didn't believe in helping people.
00:12:38
Speaker
No, bogus. Matter of fact, Marcus Aurelius, one of the most well-known Stoics out there, was an emperor of the Roman Empire.
00:12:50
Speaker
So he was not only a soldier general, he was a politician. He was a government official. He was ah a part of a dynasty. I mean, you name it. He was in the mix and he practiced stoicism.
00:13:04
Speaker
Epictetus was a slave, came from nothing, had nothing, left with nothing. He was a nobody except Epictetus. he was a stoic that wrote.
00:13:16
Speaker
And those two are opposite ends of the spectrum, but they both practiced stoicism. So you can be at any level, at any place in your career, in government, and whatever, the military, and you can practice stoicism.
00:13:32
Speaker
It just means you respond, you don't react. Other things that are ah of note that When something happens like what happened the other day, it hurts our society on many levels.
00:13:52
Speaker
Obviously, his
Societal Division Impact
00:13:53
Speaker
he passed away, he died, he was killed. Then you go to his family and his friends and the circle goes grows and grows. But as a nation, as a society, events like that, that divide further and further and further the the different sides, they cause division. They cause future flames to to roar up when things like this happen.
00:14:16
Speaker
There's something that Marcus Aurelius wrote that says, what injures the hive injures the bee. So something in society that that hurts will flow down to the individuals, and it's it's up to us to find a way to heal ourselves.
00:14:35
Speaker
It is something that doesn't come easy, and it comes with practice. So a few more things to talk about here regarding the stoic response.
00:14:46
Speaker
When something like that happens, and in that moment, I mentioned before re in the visceral reaction and we you will react. It'll hit you. Boom.
00:14:57
Speaker
Then the pause in that pause, I'm going to give you some things to think about. You want to try to to seek the truth to the best of your ability.
00:15:09
Speaker
You want to support some peaceful, rational conversations to explore that said truth. And then you want to advocate for a healing process or how can you mend that situation?
00:15:28
Speaker
This should all play out, by the way, in social media. If you're on social media,
Seeking Truth and Dialogue
00:15:33
Speaker
this is something that I've actually seen a few people play it out just like this. And what you're trying to do is you're trying to build a bridge for understanding.
00:15:43
Speaker
I have family members that are law enforcement. that are making those split second decisions for their health, for their safety, for that for those around them, public safety, so forth. And I have friends or family on the other side that are very...
00:16:04
Speaker
Politically ah active on um the protest side and so forth. And this is not a simple situation. What happened in a split second?
00:16:18
Speaker
Did they act um too aggressively? Probably so. Did they act in a defensive manner? Maybe so. And the truth will come out.
00:16:29
Speaker
Now, the thing is justice. the There's a whole group of people that want blood. They want to see blood. And blood for blood, it's it's a slippery slope.
00:16:44
Speaker
I get it. I'm a human human being. If somebody did that to somebody I loved, I would be out for blood too. But I would really fight like hell to bring myself back to center of what I can control and what I cannot control.
00:16:57
Speaker
So a couple words to to close this out is that public servants like those officers are not above the law.
Rule of Law and Personal Stability
00:17:10
Speaker
The rule of law has been bruised and beat up of recent times. I've seen things, I'm sure you have as well, that make me wonder what the hell's going on right now with our government.
00:17:24
Speaker
I just don't get it. The rule of law is becoming more and more blurry. And there are so many people speaking out about this. And I'm hoping and I'm really giving my energy towards ways to maintain that with my voice without letting it derail me.
00:17:44
Speaker
I have a few friends on social media. I have one on the super left, one on the super right that I can think of right now. Obviously, you won't say their names. And I actually had a pause their activity on both sides because it got to be full of vitriol, spitting hate, spitting acid.
00:18:04
Speaker
And the one on the left said, quote, all Republicans are racist and should be K underscore D. I thought to myself, what the hell is he saying that?
00:18:25
Speaker
You're saying that an entire population are all racist and should be offed.
00:18:34
Speaker
I think they took down the post because I went back later or maybe he took it down because it was gone. that was That's inciting violence. That's so untrue. You're talking about a little old lady, maybe a black little old lady that is conservative, that has voted Republican her whole life.
00:18:51
Speaker
she's should be off She should She's a racist. Those sort of blanket comments, all they do is incite more and more hate.
00:19:02
Speaker
And as much as they're trying to be righteous and defend their position, they are actually creating more of what they don't want. Same thing goes on the right side. My buddy on the right who calls everybody on the left libtards and goes through the process of why they're they're mentally ill.
00:19:22
Speaker
And in a matter of speaking, not the same way as the other guy, but in the matter speaking, he said that all people on the left, all Democrats are mentally ill. Again, whole population, broad brush stroke, completely false.
00:19:38
Speaker
All he's doing is adding more fuel to an ever growing fire.
Teaching Peace and Response
00:19:46
Speaker
In my last minute or two here, I just want to invite you center yourself, spend time learning about what's happening in the world.
00:20:01
Speaker
And I actually did a whole podcast about how we should react to news that comes out. This, I felt, was very important to everyone.
00:20:12
Speaker
to really use a scalpel to to carve out and discuss because it's such tragic situation. And invite you to also find ways to give yourself peace.
00:20:28
Speaker
Find ways to provide peace for your family. And if you have children or loved ones, or or you if you are guardian to somebody, teach them about this too.
00:20:40
Speaker
And you teach primarily with your actions. Something happens, you react, they see you react, and it's ah it's a continuum. But if you pause, you and then you respond, they'll learn from that as well.
00:20:58
Speaker
but also spend time talking about what happened with them. This is what happened. It's super sad that he died and look what's happening on this side. And it's unfortunate. I wish things were different. And this is how we're going to talk about things being different.
00:21:14
Speaker
If you feel like you want to go protest, you want to get a sign, knock yourself out. If you feel like you want to get people together and create violence, absolutely not.
00:21:26
Speaker
There's no place for this anymore. We are drifting further away from where we should be going.
Closing Remarks and Support Call
00:21:34
Speaker
And am not. I'm saying this at the same time, I am extremely hopeful and i have lots of um feelings that we are going to get in a better spot, but it might get worse before it gets better.
00:21:51
Speaker
So thanks for listening. If you found value in this, please subscribe. We're getting some momentum on the channel and i need your momentum as well. I need your help. Thanks, Levan.
00:22:02
Speaker
Cheers.