Twitter: @dailystoic • @RyanHoliday
Site: dailystoic.com/podcast
1696 episodes
2018 to present
Average episode: 19 minutes
Open in Apple Podcasts • RSS
Categories: Interview-Style • Life Philosophy
Podcaster's summary: For centuries, all sorts of people—generals and politicians, athletes and coaches, writers and leaders—have looked to the teachings of Stoicism to help guide their lives. Each day, author and speaker Ryan Holiday brings you a new lesson about life, inspired by the thoughts and writings of great Stoic thinkers like Marcus Aurelius and Seneca the Younger. Daily Stoic Podcast also features Q+As with listeners and interviews with notable figures from sports, academia, politics, and more. Learn more at DailyStoic.com.New episodes come out every day for free. Listen 1-week early on Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday and to all episodes ad-free, with Wondery+ or Amazon Music with a Prime membership or Amazon Music Unlimited subscription.
| Episodes |
| 2023-Jun-01 • 18 minutes The Fever Has You | Ask DS Look at any millionaire, Seneca tells Lucilius in one of his letters, they are some of the poorest people in Rome. Money has made them obsess over public opinion. Money has control of their schedules and their decisions. Money has put them in the center of a circle of sycophants and grifters. Money has escalated their tastes and expectations beyond quenching.“These individuals,” Seneca writes, “have riches just as we say that we ‘have a fever,’ when really the fever has us.”It’s a sad sight, he says.--And i... |
| 2023-May-31 • 3 minutes Try To Be Less Like Yourself A classic episode of Seinfeld begins with George Costanza having a revelation. "Every decision I've ever made in my entire life has been wrong," George says. "Every instinct I have in every aspect of life...is often wrong." Then just do the opposite, Jerry says. "Yes," Costanza says with excitement, "I will do the opposite!" For the rest of the episode, George has great success doing the opposite of what his instincts tell him to do. This is now known as The Costanza Principle. And it turns out to be scien... |
| 2023-May-31 • 52 minutes Stephen A. Smith On Debating, Working, And Living With Authenticity Ryan speaks with Stephen A. Smith about his new memoir Straight Shooter: A Memoir of Second Chances and First Takes, why it is so important to be okay with admitting when you are wrong, why his greatest attribute is his authenticity, the value of knowing when to have an opinion and when to stay silent, and more. Stephen A. Smith is a sports commentator, journalist, host, personality, and podcast host. His career spans nearly thirty years and includes stints in print media writing for The Philadelphia Inqui... |
| 2023-May-31 • 8 minutes Start The Clock. Just Start The Clock. | Plato's View We don’t like how long they’re taking to get back to us. It’s slowing down the process, keeping us from doing what we want to do. We don’t like the estimate from the vendor who just told us it will be an extra six weeks over the initial projections. We’re frustrated the investment advisor told us we won’t hit our goal until later than expected. And there’s no question, this is annoying. It may well be fixable–if they could get their act together. But we don’t control that or them. --- And in today's Dail... |
| 2023-May-30 • 11 minutes This is The Most Expensive Thing | The Best Stoic Insights On Raising Kids Since Stoicism was founded, most of the Stoics have been wealthy…and yet almost to a letter, most of them have warned of the dangers and perils of wealth. No one embodies this paradox more than Seneca. The Stoics have warned again and again about the downsides of abundant wealth. He accumulated a net worth of three hundred million denarii (for context, Judas received thirty denarii to betray Jesus). He famously owned three hundred ivory tables for entertaining. He made so many enormous loans to colonists in... |
| 2023-May-29 • 9 minutes What Do You Pledge Your Sacred Honor To? | The View From Above As the Founders signed the Declaration of Independence, they knew that this wasn’t some painless petition. This wasn’t some minor political stand. No, they knew, as they wrote, they were mutually pledging their “life, fortune, and sacred honor.” It was a cause they were willing to give everything for—even die for. This idea of sacred honor, of full commitment, is worth considering today on Memorial Day, as we honor and think about all the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forc... |
| 2023-May-28 • 33 minutes Stoicism and Thought Leadership When an old friend from Ryan’s UC Riverside days reached out early on in the pandemic with an opportunity to speak at one of the premiere non-profit, non-partisan global policy think tanks in the country, the RAND Corporation, Ryan jumped at the opportunity. Today we share that talk with you, which features Ryan communicating Stoic principles to scientists, academics, and political thought leaders from around the globe, and how they can apply Stoicism to their work. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: ht... |
| 2023-May-27 • 76 minutes Tim Urban On Procrastination, Changing Habits, And Slow Improvement Ryan speaks with Tim Urban about his new book What's Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies, why everyone who wants to improve at something should aim to do it slowly, what it really means to “trust the process,” why they like writing so much, and more. Tim Urban is a writer, illustrator, blogger, and entrepreneur. He earned his A.B. from Harvard University, graduating cum laude with a major in Government. Since starting his long-form, stick figure-illustrated blog Wait But Why in 2013, he has become... |
| 2023-May-26 • 10 minutes How The Stoics Got Rich | Stop Caring What People Think When you think of Stoicism, you don’t usually think of words like “rich” or “wealthy.” But you should. Before he founded Stoicism, Zeno was a wealthy and successful merchant from a family of wealthy and successful merchants. Seneca was so wealthy that when he called in some of his loans to the Roman colony in Britain, it crashed their economy and sparked a rebellion. Marcus Aurelius was born with ordinary bloodlines but–in part because of his serious study of philosophy–he became the richest and most powe... |
| 2023-May-25 • 12 minutes It’s Never Too Late To Get Back | Ask DS Maybe you said some stuff you regret. Maybe the stress of the business has made you a nightmare of a boss lately. Maybe you’ve not been the parent you want to be. Maybe you’ve not been the spouse you’ve promised to be. Maybe you’ve relapsed on some bad or destructive habits. Maybe, but hopefully not, you’ve been heading in the direction of Elon Musk and gotten yourself in a kind of downward spiral of negative attention and impulsive decisions. And now, staring at the consequences of this–invariably your ow... |
| 2023-May-24 • 3 minutes This Can Drive You Nuts, Or You Can Learn To Love It You clean and then it gets dirty. You do the dishes and then five minutes later, the sink is full again. You made it through your inbox in the morning and by the time late afternoon strikes, you’re already digging yourself out again. Literally before you’ve even finished putting the dog’s toys away, they’re splayed out across the floor. Just as you put the finishing touches on that big project, another is dropped on your plate. You finally organize your kids’ clothes and now they’ve grown out of them. This... |
| 2023-May-24 • 67 minutes David von Drehle On The Pursuit Of A Good And Meaningful LIfe Ryan speaks with David von Drehle about his new book The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man, what he learned from one of the oldest people in the world, how being a Stoic shaped Charlie’s boundless optimism, and more. David von Drehle is an author and deputy opinion editor and columnist at The Washington Post whose work focuses on national affairs and politics. Prior to joining The Post in 2017, David worked at Time magazine, where he wrote more than 60 cover st... |
| 2023-May-23 • 9 minutes This Is Demanded Of You | 5 Stoic Secrets From The Ultimate Man Of Principle (Cato The Younger) Seneca tried to teach it to Nero but Nero couldn’t grasp it. To be fair, most leaders, most powerful people, most governments and civilizations struggle with it. In fact, up until Seneca sat down to write De Clementia there wasn’t even a word for what we have, ever since, called clemency. Clemency, as Seneca explains it, is basically how a powerful person treats a person they have power over–particularly when the less powerful person has done wrong. --- And in today's Daily Stoic video excerpt, Ryan shar... |
| 2023-May-22 • 10 minutes Ask Yourself These Crucial Questions | Practice True Joy There’s a story of Musonius Rufus paying a thousand sesterces to a charlatan posing as a philosopher. When an observer stepped in to say that the man was a liar unworthy of the payment, Musonius replied, “money is exactly what he deserves.” It’s always revealing to look closely at those who seem to prize financial success above all else. The writer Anne Lamott jokes in Bird by Bird, “Ever wonder what God thinks of money? Just look at the people he gives it to.” Marcus Aurelius writes in Meditations, “Robbe... |
| 2023-May-21 • 13 minutes Just Start Journaling In today's audiobook excerpt, Ryan cracks open his best-selling book Stillness Is The Key to read the chapter titled “Just Start Journaling,” which covers why you should start your journaling practice. 📔 Visit the Painted Porch to order a copy of Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more. 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook See... |
| 2023-May-20 • 72 minutes Renée Mauborgne On Blue Oceans, Disruption, And Succeeding By Being Yourself Ryan speaks with Renee Mauborgne about her new book Beyond Disruption: Innovate and Achieve Growth without Displacing Industries, Companies, or Jobs, the strategies that have helped both of be find success in their careers, why we are all blue oceans, the philosophy behind positive disruption, the deep level of dedication that it takes to “make it” in anything, and more. Renee Mauborgne is an economist, business theorist and author. She is a professor of strategy at INSEAD, a business school based in Franc... |
| 2023-May-19 • 9 minutes Money Isn’t Rare | Learn, Practice, Train It’s interesting how infrequently money comes up in Meditations. Here was a guy who had incredible wealth, whose predecessors obsessed over it and found it to be a source of both pleasure and conflict, and yet in his private meditations, it hardly comes up at all. In his actions, we see Marcus was conscious of money, but primarily as a means to an end not as an end to itself. He was more interested in what it could do for other people. He declined gifts and inheritances. He gave liberally to the poor. He s... |
| 2023-May-18 • 10 minutes Find A Way To Use What Life Hands You | Ask DS Change is a constant in life, and embracing it is key to living a fulfilling and meaningful existence. The Stoics recognized this fact and encouraged us to be adaptable and flexible, no matter what life throws our way. It can be tempting to resist or fear the unknown. However, the Stoics taught that change is not something to be feared, but rather, it is an opportunity for growth and self-improvement. Marcus Aurelius wrote, "The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it." By focusing on ou... |
| 2023-May-17 • 77 minutes General Ty Seidule On Our Responsibility To Study, Understand And Grapple With History Ryan speaks with Ty Seidule about his book Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause, Henry Flipper and the less-told story of the aftermath of the Civil War and slavery in America, the importance of choosing carefully who to commemorate, how to grapple with challenging family history, and more. Ty Seidule is a retired United States Army brigadier general, the former head of the history department at the United States Military Academy, the first professor emeritus of hi... |
| 2023-May-17 • 4 minutes Do You Have This Kind of Clarity? Warren Buffett, whose net worth is north of $100 billion, lives in the same house he bought in 1958 for $31,500. The NFL lineman turned mathematician John Urschel is worth millions but manages to live on $25,000 a year. Well past signing a $94 million dollar contract, the NBA star Kawhi Leonard drove the 1997 Chevy Tahoe he had since he was a teenager. Cato, who came from a wealthy and powerful family, walked around bareheaded and barefooted and generally abstained from unnecessary luxuries. He could have ... |
| 2023-May-16 • 11 minutes Handle What You Control First | Robert Greene's 6 Stoic Concepts For A Fulfilling Life Life is frustrating. You’re waiting for people to get back to you. You’re waiting for approval on stuff. You’re waiting for things to ship. You’re dealing with bureaucracy. You’re depending on teammates. You’re dealing with the fallout of decisions that weren’t your call, rules you don’t agree with. It’s interesting though how often we complain or chafe against these constraints…yet when the ball actually is in our court, we’re slow. We’re indecisive. We don’t do our best. More than strange, it’s wasteful... |
| 2023-May-15 • 11 minutes When Are You Going To Get This Together? | Count Your Blessings It doesn’t matter how old you are, it looms before you. Not death–although that’s always there–but the future itself. The future when you’re not going to be so young anymore, when you’re not going to want to be hustling entry level jobs anymore, or doing this or that kind of work anymore. When you’re going to have things you want to do–a house you want to buy, kids to send to college, trips you want to go on, a potential retirement. Look, at some point, you’re going to have to get it together. You know thi... |
| 2023-May-14 • 15 minutes The Life Of Chrysippus In today's audiobook reading, Ryan presents the biography of the great Greco-Phoenician Stoic philosopher Chrysippus. Written by the prolific biographer of the Greek philosophers Diogenes Laertius, this text covers Chrysippus’s early life, how he used his natural talents for dialectics and writing, stories of his teaching career, and more. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more. 📱 Follow... |
| 2023-May-13 • 72 minutes MMA Legend Frank Shamrock On Conquering The Ego and Developing Honor Ryan speaks with Frank Shamrock about his memoir Uncaged: My Life as a Champion MMA Fighter, the convergence between the Stoic virtues and the tenets of the Warrior Code, managing his ego when he was considered the greatest fighter on the planet, how his rough upbringing shaped his unconventional life, the mutual respect that they have for each other’s work, and more. Frank Shamrock is a former professional mixed martial artist and a pioneer of the sport. He was the first to hold the UFC Middleweight Champ... |
| 2023-May-12 • 9 minutes What Gets The Best Part of Your Day? | Kindness Is Always The Right Response In those first moments you’re awake, how do you decide to start this fresh day? By reaching for the phone, for social media? We fill the sunlight hours with meetings, spending them all indoors. We wait until after school, after a long stint at the office, to try to spend quality time at home. We pick up a book for a few minutes before we close our eyes to sleep, already tired, already fried. It’s insane. Both Seneca and Marcus Aurelius lamented at the quickness with which ambitious professionals will promi... |
| 2023-May-11 • 12 minutes Do You Make Time For this? | Ask DS Even when he was president, Jimmy Carter tried to carve out space for reflection and study. Just a few days after being sworn in, he was already asking his aides to push his meetings back. “I need more time alone early each morning,” he wrote to his team. He wanted an hour of reading and thinking and prayer. The Stoics protected this time too. --- And in today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan answers questions from the audience at the conclusion of a Stoicism 101 seminar, covering topics including how we can use ... |
| 2023-May-10 • 2 minutes When Is The Last Time You Challenged Yourself? It’s very easy to get comfortable. To build up your life exactly how you want it to be. Minimize inconveniences and hand off the stuff you don’t like to do. To find what you enjoy, where you enjoy it, and never leave. A velvet rut is what it’s called. It’s nice, but the comfort tricks you into thinking that you’re not stuck. The Stoics knew that this was a kind of death. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products,... |
| 2023-May-10 • 74 minutes Gretchen Rubin On The Power Of Exploring Your Senses Ryan speaks with Gretchen Rubin about her new book Life in Five Senses: How Exploring the Senses Got Me Out of My Head and Into the World, how our reality is composed entirely of our perceptions, her striving to better accept herself while still expecting more from herself, the wisdom that can be found with reading and re-reading great books, her former boss Sandra Day O’Connor, and more. Gretchen Rubin is an author, blogger, podcaster, and speaker whose work focuses on happiness, habits, and human nature.... |
| 2023-May-09 • 20 minutes The Personal Is Universal | Short Stoic Lessons From All Of Ryan Holiday's Books Many artists—songwriters, poets, comedians, and so on—have said some version of the same idea: the personal is universal. Artists often find the more personal they get in their art, the more people tend to resonate with it. It actually helps explain how Meditations has endured for thousands of years. --- And in today's video excerpt, Ryan highlights some of the most important Stoic lessons from all of his books. Check out the full video on the Daily Stoic YouTube channel. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic ... |
| 2023-May-08 • 9 minutes This Is A Great Pleasure | We Are A Product Of Our Habits Of the four Stoic virtues, Marcus Aurelius said justice was the most important. To him, it was “the source of all the other virtues.” After all, how impressive are courage or discipline if they are only used to serve self-interest? What good is wisdom if not put to use for the whole world? --- And in today's Daily Stoic Journal reading, Ryan discusses why it's so important for us to pay close attention to our habits in order use them as a positive force in our lives, and he outlines some strategies for do... |
| 2023-May-07 • 46 minutes Ryan And Guy Raz On Controlling Only What You Can When a recent Q&A session between Ryan and Robert Greene fell apart just hours before the conference due to emergency health concerns, the moment presented Ryan with an opportunity to lean into the Stoic practice of controlling only what one can. Thinking quickly and without panic, Ryan called his friend, NPR host and journalist Guy Raz, who was planning to sit front-row at the event, and asked if he wanted to fill in. Guy’s enthusiastic acceptance and willingness to jump into such an unusual situation ... |
| 2023-May-06 • 83 minutes Kevin Kelly On The Courage It Takes To Live Your Own Life Ryan speaks with Kevin Kelly about his new book Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier, how his remarkable life and career is shaped by his quest to do things his own way, understanding that life is fluid and mistakes are important to development, the best lessons that we can pass onto our children, and more. Kevin Kelly is a writer, photographer, painter, lecturer, conservationist, student of Asian and digital culture, and the founding executive editor of Wired magazine, and editor/p... |
| 2023-May-05 • 9 minutes Tie Your Well-Being To This | You Are The Project Today, we know F. Scott Fitzgerald as one of the greatest novelists of the 20th century. Tragically, in his own time, many regarded Fitzgerald as a failure. Sure, he was one of the highest paid writers of his time, but his novels sold poorly, and the critical reviews were precisely that–critical. This weighed heavily on Fitzgerald, who had a sensitive and vulnerable soul, as many artists do. As Sarah Churchwell, an expert on 20th- and 21st-century American literature and author of Careless People: Murder, ... |
| 2023-May-04 • 13 minutes The Trouble Of Too Many Opinions | Ask DS It goes without saying that the man has changed the world for the better. He’s reinvigorated the American space program. He popularized electric cars. His solar panels cover the roofs of countless homes, his batteries save electricity for emergencies, taking pressure off overwhelmed grids, his satellites supply wireless internet where it’s desperately needed. And this is to say nothing of the payments company which has processed billions of payments. Yet these days the reputation of Elon Musk is not what i... |
| 2023-May-03 • 3 minutes Keep In Mind How Fast Things Pass By In 1859, before he was president, before he suffered through that harrowing train ride to Washington on his way to office where many thought he would be killed before he arrived, before the Union tore itself to pieces and around 750,000 people died in the Civil War (the total number dead is still unknown), Abraham Lincoln gave a speech at the Wisconsin State Fair. The subject of the speech was supposed to be agriculture, but Lincoln decided to go a little deeper. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https... |
| 2023-May-03 • 66 minutes Jason Singer Of Michigander On The Reality Of Being A Rock Star Ryan speaks with Jason Singer of the band Michigander about he and his wife getting back on track after a series of injuries, the humbling experience of asking for help and paying it forward, the realities of being a professional rock musician, the power of art to give the artist a healthy outlet, and more. Jason Singer is the creator, frontman, and songwriter for the indie rock band Michigander. A Michigan native and self-taught multi-instrumentalist, Singer founded Michigander in the early 2010s and gain... |
| 2023-May-02 • 8 minutes This Is The Secret | 6 Stoic Examples Of Living A Great Life It seems obvious. If you want to be better at your job, work more. If you want to be more successful, focus on it entirely. Yet history doesn’t actually bear this out. Overwork. A lack of balance…it ends in ruin. It’s why Marcus Aurelius tried to remind himself to “not be all about business.” It’s why Seneca advocated wandering walks and lots of time reading and thinking. It’s why middle Stoics like Antipater spoke of the importance of cultivating a happy and healthy family–not just worldly accomplishments... |
| 2023-May-01 • 7 minutes This Predicts Everything | Show, Don't Tell Who a person is determines what will happen and what they can do. It’s true in sports. It’s true in politics. It’s true in business. No matter how talented a person is, how great the incentives, how great the system around them—in the end, character is everything. It can’t be hidden. It can’t be compensated for. It comes out. This is an excerpt from Ryan Holiday’s latest book The Daily Dad. --- And in today's Daily Stoic Journal excerpt reading, Ryan examines the importance of letting new ideas like Stoi... |
| 2023-Apr-30 • 9 minutes Control Your Emotions In today's audiobook excerpt, Ryan presents his reading of the section of his own book The Obstacle is the Way entitled “Control Your Emotions,” in which he discusses why real strength lies in recognizing, understanding, and controlling one’s emotions. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more, including The Obstacle is the Way. 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook Se... |
| 2023-Apr-29 • 69 minutes Actor Alexander Ludwig on How Stoicism Helped Him Get Sober Ryan speaks with Alexander Ludwig about how studying Stoicism gave him the discipline to quit drinking, the power of surrendering to the moment, pursuing mastery of the crafts of acting and songwriting, the mindset he has maintained while navigating his career, and more. Alexander Ludwig is a Canadian actor and country musician. He is most known for his starring and supporting roles in the History Channel series Vikings and the films Bad Boys for Life, Lone Survivor, The Hunger Games, and Race to Witch Mo... |
| 2023-Apr-28 • 8 minutes Now That You Know, Do Better | Wants Make You A Servant We look back on things we clearly messed up. We were too preoccupied. We were too harsh. We were wrong. We didn’t know. And because we messed up, we feel guilty. We regret what could have been. We’re mad at ourselves. We wallow in pity or shame. Dr. Edith Eger, the Holocaust survivor, cut through all this with her graceful bluntness on the Daily Stoic podcast recently (she’s been on twice, both episodes are must listens). “I’ll give you a sentence,” she said. “If I knew then, what I know now, I would have... |
| 2023-Apr-27 • 13 minutes Make Them Do Their Own Stuff | Ask DS There is a great story about a young Spartan woman, Gorgo, who would one day become queen. Despite her royal status, like all Spartans she was raised to be self-sufficient, with no frills or needless luxury. So imagine Gorgo’s surprise when she witnessed a distinguished visitor to Sparta have his shoes put on by a servant. “Look, Father,” she said innocently to her father, King Leonidas, “the stranger has no hands!” Sadly, for some of us, it could just as easily be deduced that our kids have no hands. And n... |
| 2023-Apr-26 • 67 minutes Rachel Hollis on Empathy and Emotional Acceptance In the first of a two-part discussion, Ryan speaks with Rachel Hollis about how her success has been defined by perseverance and acceptance, the importance of approaching work without arrogance, improving relationships by working to understand emotional boundaries, dealing with public criticism, and more. The second part of the discussion can be found at Rachel’s podcast, The Rachel Hollis Podcast. Rachel Hollis is an author, podcast host, entrepreneur, motivational speaker, blogger, and mother of four. Tw... |
| 2023-Apr-26 • 3 minutes Don’t Let Them Make You Bitter Or Mean Whatever you decide to do with your life, whatever path you decide to walk, people are going to stand in your way. They’re going to doubt you. They’re going to give you bad advice. They will do you wrong. On purpose and unintentionally. They’ll lie. They’ll undermine you. They may well actively take steps to stop you. Think about what it means to have a “disruptive” idea or business—something that promises to upend entire ways of thinking or doing things. It means you’re not just someone’s competition, you... |
| 2023-Apr-25 • 8 minutes Don’t Waste Your Gifts | The Secret To Better Habits in 2023 There is, as we have talked about many times, a tinge of sadness in the story of Seneca. This immensely talented and wise man spent the best years of his life advising and collaborating with one of the worst emperors in history. As James Romm illustrates in his fascinating book, Dying Every Day (and you can listen to our podcast episode with James here) Seneca’s ambition, his drive, it took him fatally off track from where he should have been. We should all see it as a cautionary tale. --- And in today's... |
| 2023-Apr-24 • 9 minutes You Can Never Do This Twice | The Freedom Of Contempt The first time was revelatory. The first time you watched Mad Men. Or The Godfather. Or cracked open Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. Or heard Tom Petty’s Free Fallin’ or listened to Fantine sing, I Dreamed a Dream from Les Mis. Or stood in front of a Caravaggio painting. It hit you with all the power that new and brilliant art has. It shook you. It opened up something in you. It taught you something. But in some way, the power of these moments is actually overrated or at least overstated. It’s powerful becau... |
| 2023-Apr-23 • 12 minutes The Life of Cleanthes In today's audiobook reading, Ryan presents the biography of the great Stoic philosopher, boxer, and successor to Zeno of Citium as the second head of the Stoic school of Athens, Cleanthes. Written by the prolific biographer of the Greek philosophers Diogenes Laertius, this text covers Cleanthes’s early life, the inspiration he took from Zeno, his strong work ethic, and more. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired produc... |
| 2023-Apr-22 • 63 minutes Sarah Bakewell on Humanism and The Power of Connection Ryan speaks with Sarah Bakewell about her new book Humanly Possible: seven hundred years of humanist freethinking, inquiry, and hope, how growing up surrounded by books shaped her philosophical mindset, the philosophical principles that she applies to her life, and more. Sarah Bakewell is an author and professor whose work focuses on existentialist philosophy and biographies of adventurers and philosophers. After growing up surrounded by books as the daughter of a bookseller father and a librarian mother, ... |
| 2023-Apr-21 • 9 minutes There Is No More Or Less Time | Don't Let Your Attention Slide Three years removed from those eerie and strange days of the early pandemic, one thing that strikes us is how much time we seemed to have then. People were picking up hobbies, slow cooking elaborate meals on the groceries they could get. People found their jobs that used to keep them late at the office could be finished in a couple hours. People were reading philosophy and zipping through books. There was no business travel, no long days on the road. The days blurred into each other, but there seemed to be ... |
| 2023-Apr-20 • 11 minutes Can You Fight To See Their Side? | Ask DS One gets the sense that Seneca, like many smart and active people, was often frustrated by other people. It is inevitable that someone like him—someone creating art, actively participating in government, managing properties, etc—would have regularly found his interest and his will thwarted. Perhaps a neighbor opposed some changes he was making to his land. Or an intriguing enemy at the palace sought to undermine him with the emperor. Maybe his brother jostled for an inheritance. Maybe he bumped into a rude ... |
| 2023-Apr-19 • 2 minutes To Have A More Peaceful Home, Have Fewer Of These This is an excerpt from Ryan Holiday’s latest book The Daily Dad (which you can preorder signed copies of now!). To Have A More Peaceful Home, Have Fewer Of These “These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.” -Marcus Aurelius At the core of most of the conflict between parents and children—and so often spouses—is one thing: judgment. We have opinions and they have opinions, and these opinions are the source of disagreement. If we, as parents, would like to have a better relationsh... |
| 2023-Apr-19 • 70 minutes Comedian Katherine Blanford on Laughing At Life Ryan speaks with Katherine Blanford about her earning things throughout her comedy career, her Catholic upbringing, why the funniest moments come from a dark place, how her mother influences her comedy, and more. Katherine Blanford is a comedian, writer, podcast host, and YouTuber based in Atlanta, Georgia. She has opened for many renowned comedians, including Jeff Foxworthy, David Spade, and Ron White, and she recently made her television debut on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon. Along with fellow ... |
| 2023-Apr-18 • 11 minutes There Are Dreams That Cannot Be | 9 Habits The Stoics Want You To Stop Doing Marcus Aurelius certainly hoped his reign would be peaceful and prosperous–as the fates had blessed his mentor Antoninus for 23 years. Certainly, he dreamed of growing old with all his children around him. Never would Seneca have asked for exile and loss, for Nero’s descent into cruelty. Epictetus, like every child, would have hoped for a life of fun and lightness. Stockdale, as he left his family for a tour in Vietnam, no doubt envisioned returning home unscathed as soon as it was over. But as the song go... |
| 2023-Apr-17 • 8 minutes It Works If You Work It | Impulse Control It's felt like things have been a little off lately. You have been irritable. You have been stressed. You have been easily rattled by external events, you have been focusing on things outside your control. You have been a little caught up in projects at work, in getting ahead, in getting what you want. You haven't been the role model you aspire to be at home. What's the source of all this? Well, why don't we look at our habits? --- And in today's Daily Stoic Journal excerpt reading, Ryan discusses the im... |
| 2023-Apr-16 • 43 minutes We Can Always Be Born Again | The Life of Zeno In the year 33, a philosopher was executed by the Roman authorities. This was not an uncommon thing back then. But this man, referred to as Christus in Tacitus’ writing, l was first beaten and then after being forced to carry the weight of the tools of his annihilation to the site of his ultimate demise, was brutally crucified on full display. But then, after he was entombed–and this is where his story is said to diverge from the Stoics we mentioned above–three days later, Christus, supposedly rose again. ... |
| 2023-Apr-15 • 79 minutes Molly Bloom on Trusting the Process and Making Daily Progress Ryan speaks with Molly Bloom in-person at the new Daily Stoic podcast studio in the second of a two-part conversation, the first of which was conducted virtually. Today, they discuss the power of understanding and utilizing self-interest in order to connect with other people, how to improve at something every day by committing to the beginner’s mindset, what raising children can teach you about finding peace in your own mind, and more. Molly Bloom is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, and former Olympic cla... |
| 2023-Apr-14 • 8 minutes Pain Is A Part Of Life | Become An Expert In What Matters This is an excerpt from Ryan Holiday’s latest book **The Daily Dad.** “Even though you have these powers free and entirely your own, you don’t use them, because you still don’t realize what you have or where it came from. . . . I am prepared to show you that you have resources and a character naturally strong and resilient.” -Epictetus Oh, how you wish you could guarantee they will never suffer. Of course, you know that’s not possible. As the character in Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha says, we cannot spare ... |
| 2023-Apr-13 • 12 minutes This is What Winners Do | Ask DS In April 1960, the writer Richard Whalen was trying to meet with Diane Nash and the sit-in students for a Time Magazine cover story. These young college students had suddenly become the focus of an immense amount of attention, not just from the press but from the police and politicians and the rest of the civil rights leaders (we have a great podcast episode on the Stoicism of the Civil Rights movements here with Thomas Ricks). How were these kids going to upend years of stymied racial progress? --- And ... |
| 2023-Apr-12 • 67 minutes Timothy Egan on Extremism and Fear Ryan speaks with Timothy Egan about his new book A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them, how and why politics and extremism often operate hand-in-hand, dangerous misconceptions about white supremacy in America, better ways to teach American history, the fundamental lessons that he has learned about people over his long and varied career, and more. Timothy Egan is an American author, journalist and former op-ed columnist for The New York Times.... |
| 2023-Apr-12 • 3 minutes Don’t Suffer In Advance There is a balance to Stoicism between awareness and anxiety. The Stoics want you to be prepared for an uncertain—and oftentimes dangerous—future, but somehow not worry about it at the same time. They want you to consider all the possibilities…and not be stressed that many of those possibilities will not be good. How exactly is that supposed to work? The answer lies simply in the idea of presence. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store fo... |
| 2023-Apr-11 • 12 minutes You Must Make This Shift | How Stoicism Helps You Deal With Big Challenges Marcus Aurelius ruled over millions of people, and he didn't care what any of them thought about him. Well at least, he worked hard to not care about what any of them thought of him. We see that throughout Meditations where we see him repeatedly talk about focusing more on his own actions than other people's opinions. The accidental byproduct of this focus was that those millions of people loved Marcus. This is usually how it goes. --- And today, Ryan puts his Stoicism to the test by taking on the chall... |
| 2023-Apr-10 • 8 minutes Have You Read The Books? | Test Your Impressions We say we want to get better. We say we want to learn about this or that. We say we want to make a change. We say we’ve decided to get serious. But is this true? The Stoics had an expression: Acta non verba. Deeds not words. So it’s ironic that most of us say we want to make these improvements, but we can’t or won’t do the bare minimum. --- And in today's Daily Stoic Journal excerpt reading, Ryan discusses the importance of putting everything to the test in the same way that an assayer would test metal... |
| 2023-Apr-09 • 28 minutes Seneca on Being In today’s episode, Ryan presents an excerpt from audiobook The Tao Of Seneca, which is essentially a compilation of the best of Seneca’s Moral Letters, a seminal text of Stoicism. In this letter, Seneca examines the meaning of life itself. 📖 Check out the PDF of The Tao of Seneca for free and the Penguin Edition of Seneca’s Letters at the Painted Porch. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, ... |
| 2023-Apr-08 • 84 minutes Author Philipp Meyer on Channeling History, Philosophy and Failure into Art Ryan speaks with Philipp Meyer about his novels American Rust and The Son, processing the morally questionable history of the American west through literature, how he battled through ten years of failure before his first success, the challenge of balancing ego with ambition, the philosophy that inspires his writing, and more. Philipp Meyer is an American fiction writer and novelist. American Rust and The Son have received considerable acclaim, including being included in the “Great American Novel” category... |
| 2023-Apr-07 • 9 minutes Are You Showing Them How To Be A Student? | Expect To Change Your Opinions This is an excerpt from Ryan Holiday’s latest book The Daily Dad. If you think back to when you were a kid, what appeared to you to be the best part about being an adult? No more school. Our parents didn’t have to carry around heavy books or do homework. We never saw them applying to get into this school or that one. It’s sort of sad that, by and large, we show our kids that education stops. That while adulthood is isn’t always fun, one perk is that you no longer have to go to class. That graduation is a f... |
| 2023-Apr-06 • 13 minutes Beware This Thief Of Time | Ask DS Not long ago we talked about the Stoic view on punctuality. It’s a pretty simple one: Being on time is important. It’s a matter of respect, not just for oneself, but also for others. So what do you think the Stoics would have thought of Oscar Wilde’s intriguing remark that “punctuality is the thief of time?”Perhaps they would have agreed.---And in today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan presents part 4 of an audio series in which he answers student questions at the Q&A portion of his Stoicism 101 seminar. The top... |
| 2023-Apr-05 • 3 minutes You Need To Cultivate People Like This In Your Life Where did Marcus learn to be Marcus? Ernest Renan writes that Marcus was very much a product of his training and his tutors. But more than his teachers and even his own parents, “Marcus had a single master whom he revered above them all, and that was Antoninus.” ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more. 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook See Privacy Policy at http... |
| 2023-Apr-05 • 53 minutes Edith Hall on Aristotelian Ethics, Intention, and Human Decency Ryan speaks with Edith Hall about why she wants to open up Aristotle’s works to the world at large, how Aristotle defined what a human being is and how one can be happy, the importance of doing what you’re good at and enjoying what you’re doing so long as it’s good for the social good, and more. Edith Hall, FBA is a British scholar and professor of classics at Durham University, specializing in ancient Greek literature and cultural history, and professor in the Department of Classics and Centre for Helleni... |
| 2023-Apr-04 • 10 minutes Try To See The World This Way | Why Facing Death Is The Key To Success After serving as an officer in Vietnam, Paul Woodruff decided to dedicate his life to teaching and writing about philosophy. He’s been a professor at the University of Texas at Austin since 1973. He’s written half a dozen books. He’s translated the works of Plato, Thucydides, Sophocles, and Euripides. And as it happens, it all started when he discovered Marcus Aurelius as a teenager, after he was given a copy of Meditations. Professor Woodruff told this story beautifully on the Daily Stoic Podcast recently... |
| 2023-Apr-03 • 10 minutes What Will You Choose? | What Can Go Wrong Might All of our upbringings were different. Some were given two parents, others only one. Maybe it took a village to raise you. Either way, we didn't get to decide who our mom was, who our dad was, if they got divorced, if they were present, if our step-parents were a blessing or a nightmare. It was all outside of our control. Yet every one of us, as Seneca said, gets to choose whose children we will be. --- And in today's Daily Stoic Journal reading, Ryan discusses the importance of musing and meditating on ... |
| 2023-Apr-02 • 47 minutes Ryan Holiday on The Art and Stoicism of Digital Marketing Today, Ryan presents a live talk that he gave in September 2022 to a group of business leaders about the art and business of modern marketing. He covers why competition is for losers, how to create clarity around what you are making and who you are making it for, the importance of doing work that addresses actual problems, and more. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more. 📱 Follow us: In... |
| 2023-Apr-01 • 63 minutes Lori Gottlieb on Changing Your Life by Changing the Story Ryan speaks with Lori Gottlieb about the profound effect that stories have on our lives, why we are all unreliable narrators, how we can make real steps toward positive change by practicing self-compassion, understanding other peoples’ experiences by listening to their stories, and more. Lorr Gottlieb is a physiotherapist, writer, speaker, and podcast host whose work focuses on the role that stories and storytelling take in shaping our mental landscape. She obtained an undergraduate degree at Stanford Univ... |
| 2023-Mar-31 • 8 minutes Your Standards Are For You | You’re a Product of Your Training One of the things that separates us from other people—indeed that has been responsible for our success—is our ability to be strict and self-disciplined. Where other people are fine making excuses or taking shortcuts, we are not. Where other people wing it or do what’s easiest, taking the path of least resistance, we don’t. That’s really the essence of Stoicism and why those of us who have committed to doing the hard work have been able to get so much out of it. --- And in today's Daily Stoic excerpt readi... |
| 2023-Mar-30 • 15 minutes This Helps You Be A Better Person | Ask DS Both Thomas Jefferson and George Washington profited from slavery, but both knew it was wrong. Yet at the end of their lives, it was Washington who freed his slaves, not Jefferson, who had written far more eloquently about human equality as well as the eternal shame of slavery.Why was that?---And in today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan answers questions in a virtual Q&A about how he gets interested in and inspired by new ideas, why the classics endure, and balancing the needs of the team with those of the indi... |
| 2023-Mar-29 • 10 minutes Just Do This Daily | 8 Stoic Strategies For Controlling Your Anger A successful day for a Stoic is simple. It’s not about making more money. Or getting more famous, or dazzling more people with your accomplishments. It’s whether or not you got better. Specifically, it’s whether you get better at life—more prepared for the troubles, for the temptations, for the opportunities that lay ahead. As Seneca wrote to Lucilius, the prescription for this philosophy is simple: “Each day acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other misf... |
| 2023-Mar-29 • 67 minutes Wes Larson on Respecting the Awesome Power of Nature Ryan speaks with Wes Larson about how and why he dedicated his life to working with bears, the feeling of being alive that he gets when working up close with bears in the wild, what our inherent fear and fascination with dangerous forces can teach us about our relationship to nature, how we can better live with animals rather than dominating them, and more. Wes Larson is a wildlife biologist and television presenter who has been studying and working with polar, black and grizzly bears for over a decade. Du... |
| 2023-Mar-29 • 3 minutes Don’t Make Assumptions You don’t get a joke, so you say it’s not funny. You don’t like something, so you believe it sucks. You’re white, so you’ve always taken it for granted that the color ‘nude’ roughly matches your skin. You drive on the right side of the road, so it’s weird when you go somewhere and people drive on the left side. You love your job, so you have no patience for people complaining about theirs. You’ve been successful, so you can’t understand why other people struggle. We assume…and we make asses of ourselves. ... |
| 2023-Mar-27 • 9 minutes How To Better Understand The Past | Say No to the Need to Impress In retrospect, so many of the decisions the Stoics made are baffling. Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus. Seneca and Nero. Their attitude toward women, toward slavery, toward violence, toward what society was supposed to look like. Even more recently, what of Stockdale and the complicated nature of the war in Vietnam. Didn’t they know? Didn’t they know better? Sometimes…but not always. --- And in today's Daily Stoic Journal reading, Ryan discusses the importance of avoiding the need for external valid... |
| 2023-Mar-26 • 11 minutes Cicero on The Paradox of the Fool Ryan presents the first of six readings of Cicero's Stoic Paradoxes. Cicero was considered Rome’s greatest politician, and he has survived as one of history’s most enduring chroniclers of Stoic philosophy and the Stoics themselves. As Ryan explains in Lives of the Stoics, these paradoxes are designed to question commonly held beliefs in order to promote reflection and discussion. In that spirit, the paradox that Cicero examines today, the fourth paradox, explores the idea that “every fool is an exile and th... |
| 2023-Mar-25 • 68 minutes Zach Braff on Healing and Helping with Art and Stoicism Ryan speaks with Zach Braff about his new Stoicism-inspired movie A Good Person, how the idea of Amor fati has helped him translate recent personal trauma into art, what he has learned about supporting people who need help in the wake of a friend’s tragedy, and more. Zach Braff is an actor, voice actor, director, screenwriter, and entrepreneur. He is most known for his starring role on the TV comedy Scrubs (2001-2010), for which he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a ... |
| 2023-Mar-24 • 13 minutes Have You Been Infected Yet? | There is Philosophy in Everything In the year 165 AD, a plague began to break out in Rome. Brought back from the far eastern corners of the empire, the virus spread from person to person, house to house, until nearly all of Rome was overwhelmed. The doctors could not keep up. Neither could the morticians or the grave diggers. Rome’s economy was devastated. Millions died, millions fled. And the plague simply dragged on, year after year, without serious respite for over a decade. As we reflect now on this third anniversary of our own plague... |
| 2023-Mar-23 • 13 minutes Don’t Make This Lesson More Painful | Ask DS We get so used to having our way. We live in a time when the skies have been conquered. When so many diseases have been vanquished. When technology allows us to do and have things that were inconceivable even just a generation ago. Consequently the eternal battle for our attention, between the things we control and the things we don’t, becomes even harder for us to wage. The lessons and warnings the Stoics have issued to us across the centuries about this perpetual internal fight, begin to feel like they b... |
| 2023-Mar-22 • 67 minutes Steve Scott on Winning in Life Ryan speaks with Steve Scott about his book Hey, Tiger―You Need to Move Your Mark Back: 9 Simple Words that Changed the Game of Golf Forever, why having integrity is such a crucial part of being a good athlete and human being, the cautionary tale of Tiger Woods, and more. Steve Scott is an American former professional Golfer and the current PGA Head Golf Professional of The Outpost Club and Founder of the Silver Club Golfing Society. The defining moment of his career came during his competition against Tig... |
| 2023-Mar-22 • 3 minutes Here’s How To Get Out Of A Rut The busier we get, the more we work, even the more that we learn and read, the further we tend to drift from our center. We get in a rhythm. We’re making money, being creative, we’re stimulated and busy. It seems like everything is going well. But if we’re not careful, those other things grow and grow until they take over completely; and what once felt like a rhythm now feels like a rut. It’s true for us now just as it was true for Marcus Aurelius. He had an awful lot to keep him busy, to distract him, to ... |
| 2023-Mar-21 • 8 minutes They’ll Never GIVE It To You | 6 Simple Stoic Lessons To Feel More Peace We like to think that someday, things will be slower, more peaceful. That we’ll get a break. That after the holidays, after this busy season, then we’ll be able to get serious–about that thing we needed to think about, about that exercise we wanted to start doing, about taking that vacation. Once I get away from the city, from the office, then I can relax, we tell ourselves. It’s never going to happen. You are fooling yourself. You are fooling yourself as people have always fooled themselves. --- Today, ... |
| 2023-Mar-20 • 9 minutes There Is No Greatness Without This | The Portable Retreat People probably thought Marcus Aurelius was strange. The time he spent alone in his room. The long walks he took by himself. We know they thought it was strange that he was seen reading and writing in the Colosseum, ignoring the carnage of the games below. “The world today does not understand, in either man or woman,” Anne Morrow Lindbergh writes in Gift from the Sea, “the need to be alone.” Perhaps we ourselves don’t understand it. We don’t quite see the point. Or as much as we enjoy it, we don’t see it a... |
| 2023-Mar-19 • 14 minutes Seneca on Conquering the Conqueror In today’s episode, Ryan presents an excerpt from The Tao Of Seneca produced by Tim Ferriss’ Audio. In this letter, Seneca talks about examining the causes of our fear, the unavoidable threat of death, and more. 📖 Check out the PDF of The Tao of Seneca for free and the Penguin Edition of Seneca’s Letters at the Painted Porch. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more. 📱 Follow us: Instag... |
| 2023-Mar-18 • 65 minutes Rob Dyrdek on the Power of Living With Intention Ryan speaks with Rob Dyrdek about finding happiness and fulfillment by managing his time and energy in more intentional ways, transitioning from self-preservation to generational preservation, how journaling and applying Stoic principles has changed his life for the better, and more.Rob Dyrdek is an American entrepreneur, actor, producer, reality TV personality, and former professional skateboarder. He is best known for creating and hosting the MTV reality and variety shows Rob & Big, Rob Dyrdek's Fanta... |
| 2023-Mar-17 • 9 minutes How Well Do You Know These Backroads? | The Beauty of Choice Meditations, you could say, is Marcus Aurelius exploring himself. That’s literally what the title means–the book isn’t for you and I, it’s “things to one’s self,” to himself. He’s exploring his fears, his desires, his flaws, his virtues. That’s the journey that philosophy took Marcus on. Since he was a young man until right before his death, he was exploring himself, trying to understand himself and his nature better. But what about you? How well do you know ‘the backroads of the self,’ as Marcus calls th... |
| 2023-Mar-16 • 13 minutes You Can Keep It To Yourself | Ask DS One of the criticisms of the Stoics is that they left certain things unaddressed. Nowhere in Seneca’s writings, for instance, does he directly address Nero or criticize him by name. Even after he left Nero’s service, as the man spiraled out of control, Seneca stuck with the code that General Mattis would stick with centuries later–keeping their opinions about the administration they once served to themselves. Marcus Aurelius, most scholars deduce, was not a fan of Seneca’s actions while serving Nero–yet ded... |
| 2023-Mar-15 • 3 minutes Mark Your Exit With Grace Today marks the anniversary of the death of one of humanity’s greatest specimens. On March 17th, 180, in what is now modern day Vienna, Emperor Marcus Aurelius breathed his last breath and died. We don’t know exactly what his last words were. Cassius Dio claims that Marcus spoke his last sentence to his guard, saying to him, “Go to the rising sun, for I am setting.” Given the incredible legacy of the man, these words ring somewhat insufficiently. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com... |
| 2023-Mar-15 • 58 minutes Bozoma Saint John on the Power of Embracing Memento Mori Ryan speaks with Bozoma Saint John about her new book The Urgent Life: My Story of My Story of Love, Loss, and Survival, how intense personal traumas have shifted her perspective on life, why the best legacy to leave behind is to have treated people well, viewing grief as a choice, and more. Bozoma Saint John is an American businessperson and marketing executive who has served as the Chief Marketing Officer at Netflix, CMO at Endeavor, Chief Brand Officer at Uber, a Marketing Executive at Apple Music and B... |
| 2023-Mar-14 • 10 minutes The Only Experience Worth Chasing | These Stoic Quotes Will Improve Your Life There’s a lot of things to try to do in your life. You should feel the ecstasy of falling in love. You should try to catch the sunrise on one coast, and the sunset on another on the same day. You should feel the pride of *mastery* in your chosen line. You should experience the joy of raising children. The thrill of victory. The agony of defeat. Plenty of people who were not Stoics have chased these accomplishments and known them. It’s part of what makes life livable, fun, and wonderful. But meaningful? No,... |
| 2023-Mar-13 • 9 minutes This Is What Discipline Looks Like | Think About It From The Other Person's Perspective Marcus Aurelius was strict with himself. He slept on a hard mattress. He didn’t drink or eat to excess. He didn’t have affairs or lose his temper. Cato was strict with himself too. He didn’t wear fancy clothes or live a life of ease. But what’s remarkable about both these men, given this strictness, is the love and affection they both had for their brothers–who had very different approaches to life. --- And in today's Daily Stoic Journal excerpt, Ryan discusses the importance of questioning our own persp... |
| 2023-Mar-12 • 15 minutes Is Virtue All that is Needed for Happiness? Today, Ryan presents the second and third of six readings of Cicero's Stoic Paradoxes. Cicero was considered Rome’s greatest politician, and he has survived as one of history’s most enduring chroniclers of Stoic philosophy and the Stoics themselves. As Ryan explains in Lives of the Stoics, these paradoxes are designed to question commonly held beliefs in order to promote reflection and discussion. In his second and third paradox, Cicero interrogates the ideas that “virtue is sufficient for happiness” and “a... |
| 2023-Mar-11 • 65 minutes Carli Lloyd on Fueling Greatness with Discipline Ryan speaks with Carli Lloyd about the intense discipline that it takes to be a professional athlete at the highest level, how she was able to bounce back from being cut from the Women’s National Under-21 team, how Stoicism informed her soccer career, and more. Carli Lloyd is a former American professional Soccer player who retired in 2021. She is a two-time Olympic gold medalist, two-time FIFA Women's World Cup champion, two-time FIFA Player of the Year, and a four-time Olympian (2008, 2012, 2016 and 2021... |
| 2023-Mar-10 • 8 minutes Winning Isn’t As Fun As It Seems | Find Yourself a Cato There’s an old joke: When the Gods wish to punish us, they give us everything we’ve ever wanted. Look at most people who win the lottery. Look at most famous people. Look at most world leaders. To borrow an expression from one particularly unhappy world leader, what do they look like? They look like they’re tired of winning. Because winning isn’t actually as fun as it seemed like it would be...and most of what we want to win turns out to not really be worth it. This was Marcus Aurelius’ point. -- And in ... |
| 2023-Mar-09 • 14 minutes Why You Can’t Worry | Ask DS We’ve said before that a Stoic focuses on what they control. That is the essence of Epictetus’s teachings, after all. You put your energy where you can make an impact and you ignore the rest–the rest being fear of what other people will think, fear of the potential results, your chances of success, the long hard road that may come next. To do anything else is a recipe for misery. --- And in today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan answers questions about how to respond to someone who ignores praise and jeers for th... |
| 2023-Mar-08 • 3 minutes To Find Pleasure, Look for Purpose It might seem like the Stoics didn’t have fun, didn’t experience pleasure. They did write, after all, quite a bit about the emptiness of chasing sex or money or fine wines. But just because they scorned excess luxury and comfort doesn’t mean their lives were empty and joyless. Quite the contrary. In his book The Expanding Circle, the philosopher Peter Singer (who was on a great episode of the Daily Stoic podcast recently if you haven’t listened) explains that what they were actually doing was trying to av... |
| 2023-Mar-08 • 65 minutes Dr. Shadi Bartsch on Eastern vs. Western Philosophy Ryan speaks with Dr. Shadi Bartsch about her new book Plato Goes to China: The Greek Classics and Chinese Nationalism, the controversial role that Greek classics are taking in China, the surprising similarities between western and eastern philosophical interpretations, and more. Dr. Shadi Bartsch is an American academic and author and the Helen A. Regenstein Distinguished Service Professor of Classics at the University of Chicago. Shadi is an expert on Roman Stoicism, the reigns of Hadrean, Nero, and Augu... |
| 2023-Mar-07 • 10 minutes Marcus Had A Dream | The Most Life Changing Marcus Aurelius Quotes It was last night 1,862 years ago that Marcus Aurelius had a dream. A few years earlier, when Marcus received the news of Hadrian’s plans to have Antoninus Pius adopt him and place him next in line for the throne, he broke down in tears. There was no one he revered more than Antoninus. How could he possibly live up to the task of following in his footsteps? Today, you would say that Marcus was struggling with what we call “imposter syndrome.” As the story goes, the night before he was to become emperor on... |
| 2023-Mar-06 • 8 minutes How To Find Treasure | What Expensive Things Cost The reason we don’t get what we want is because we want it too much. We reach for it with too much force. We lack the patience, we lack the poise. In Buddhism, they speak of willful will. More often than not, that is our problem. In her beautiful book Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindberg writes on the hunt for sea shells: “The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patie... |
| 2023-Mar-05 • 44 minutes The Escalation of the Rivalry that Destroyed Rome Ryan presents the second of four excerpts from Josiah Osgood’s Uncommon Wrath: How Caesar and Cato’s Deadly Rivalry Destroyed the Roman Republic. Here, in Chapter Two, we witness the parallel paths that the rivals took as they grew and gained power in Rome, as well as how their journeys shaped their personalities. You can listen to Ryan’s recent conversation with Josiah here. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired prod... |
| 2023-Mar-04 • 50 minutes Rick Rubin on The Creative Act Part Two In the second of a two-part interview, Ryan speaks with Rick Rubin about his new book The Creative Act: A Way of Being, respecting everyone’s unique approach to the creative process during collaboration, his new podcast Tetragrammaton, the importance of studying art created long ago, and more. Rick Rubin is a renowned American record producer and the co-founder of Def Jam Recordings, founder of American Recordings, and former co-president of Columbia Records. He has produced albums for a wide range of accl... |
| 2023-Mar-03 • 12 minutes You Deserve Moments Like This | (Dis)integration We are so busy. We think we’re supposed to be. We think that’s how we get better. We think that moving is the only way to move forward. You might think that Marcus Aurelius could relate. Yet when he speaks most beautifully it’s of moments of quiet and calm. "If you can cut free of impressions that cling to the mind," he said, "free of the future and the past—can make yourself, as Empedocles says, 'a sphere rejoicing in its perfect stillness.’" Have you ever had a moment like that? --- And in today's Da... |
| 2023-Mar-02 • 19 minutes This Is A Good Moment | Ask DS It’s hard not to look at the lives of Marcus Aurelius and Seneca and Epictetus and Cato and Zeno and not see what seems like one trauma after another. The loss of young children. Civil wars. Betrayals. Sickness. Criticism. Droughts, deforestation and powerful storms. Then again, it’s hard not to look at our lives and see the same thing. Financial crises. Political unrest. Political violence. A pandemic. Terrorist attacks. Mass shootings. Climate change.But of course, this is not how a Stoic tries to look at... |
| 2023-Mar-01 • 4 minutes The Best New Ideas Come From Old Books We live in modern, cutting edge times. Each day, there are breakthroughs in neuroscience, microcomputing, medicine, and in how we make, save, and spend money. Our ability to beam information around the world, instantaneously, also means that we can get breaking news from all corners of the planet. Big data gives us the power to scrap enormous amounts of inputs and draw new insights from them. All this is wonderful and illuminating. We know things that we never thought we’d be able to know…and the person who... |
| 2023-Mar-01 • 57 minutes Rick Rubin on The Creative Act Part One In the first of a two-part interview, Ryan speaks with Rick Rubin about his new book The Creative Act: A Way of Being, the importance of allowing creativity to happen rather than willing it into existence, working with the unique facets of the artist’s ego, the importance of changing up the way that you do things, the phases of the creative process, and more. Rick Rubin is a renowned American record producer and the co-founder of Def Jam Recordings, founder of American Recordings, and former co-president o... |
| 2023-Feb-28 • 12 minutes We Are All Replaceable | This Stoic Virtue Will Change Your Life The Stoics believed in the concept of "amor fati," or "love of fate." This means accepting and embracing everything that happens, including the fact that we are all replaceable. As Marcus Aurelius wrote, "All things are ephemeral – fame and the famous as well." No matter how great or important we may feel in the moment, time marches on and eventually someone else will fill our place. But this shouldn't be seen as a negative. --- Today, Ryan presents highlights of his discussions with top performers in t... |
| 2023-Feb-27 • 10 minutes You Must Do This Dance | Cultivate Indifference While most of us will never be an emperor or a rock star, we can imagine what it would be like. It would be so abnormal as to be dehumanizing. Indeed, this is what a lot of famous people say—that they often feel like an animal at a zoo. The point isn’t to say that we should pity famous people or even that we should try to avoid fame. The point is to say that, when we come across a famous person who seems to have stayed normal, we should learn how they did it. --- And in todays Daily Stoic Journal readin... |
| 2023-Feb-26 • 47 minutes Life Is Too Short To Read Bad Books To the Stoics, it wasn’t that we read. It’s what we read. We should seek out books that make a difference in our lives…not ones that win prizes. What matters is what we think of the books, not what other people think. What’s impressive is what we get out of them, not how they look on our shelves or that they might impress certain types of company. Read widely. Read aggressively. But don’t be a glutton for punishment. In October of 2022 Ryan Holiday was asked to speak at the Austin Central Library about th... |
| 2023-Feb-25 • 66 minutes William D. Cohan on Power, Ego, and the Imperial CEO Ryan speaks with William D. Cohan about his new book Power Failure: The Rise and Fall of an American Icon, the link between Marcus Aurelius and the “imperial CEO” of General Electric Jack Welch, the legacy of Thomas Edison and GE, the egos of powerful CEOs, and more. William D. Cohan is a business writer and former investigative reporter. He is a graduate of Phillips Academy, Duke University, and Columbia University Journalism and Business schools. Prior to his career as a writer, he worked on Wall street ... |
| 2023-Feb-24 • 10 minutes Take This Seriously…But Not TOO Seriously | The Real Source of Harm Punctuality is a matter of self-discipline, but also respect. We must be aware of and in command of our schedule and the time we’ve allocated to different people and activities. We must also care about how our decisions affect those people. Which is why it’s not hard to imagine Marcus Aurelius or Cato being quite diligent about when they arrived and when things started, even though they were powerful enough to insist that others wait for them. But what about when they screwed up or lost track of time? Did... |
| 2023-Feb-23 • 10 minutes They Are Not Your Rivals | Ask DS What’s the opposite of Stoicism, this austere philosophy based on toughness and resilience, virtue and service? Well, in the ancient world, it was Epicureanism–a philosophy that said that pleasure was the highest good. Could there be anything more different than Stoicism?As it happens, the Epicureans got a bad rap in the ancient world and in today’s.---And in today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan presents part three of his Q&A at the Young President's Organization West Michigan chapter in which he discusses why... |
| 2023-Feb-22 • 3 minutes You Can’t Turn Away From Things That Are Hard One way to go through life is to turn away from the things that are hard. You can close your eyes and ears to what is unpleasant. You can take the easy way, forgoing difficulty whenever possible. The other way is the Stoic way—it entails not only not avoiding hardship, but actively seeking it out. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more. 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, ... |
| 2023-Feb-22 • 64 minutes Anthony Everitt on Nero, Rome’s Most Misunderstood Emperor Ryan speaks with Anthony Everitt about his book Nero: Matricide, Music, and Murder in Imperial Rome, how Rome would have been different if Nero were free to become a musician, why Nero’s overbearing mother contributed to his lack of moral compass, and more. Anthony Everitt is a British professor, author and historian of ancient Rome. His critically acclaimed books about Roman history include Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor, The Rise of Ro... |
| 2023-Feb-21 • 47 minutes Have You Considered This? | 60 Stoic Lessons In 1 Minute Or Less We all have reasons we don’t like something. We think a certain comedian isn’t funny or is a hack. We think a certain author is too basic or overhyped. We think that Oscar-winning movie is total garbage. We know what’s stupid and lame, what’s low brow or trash, what’s fake and what’s real, authentic and commercial. It’s interesting how certain we are with these opinions about particular people or products. Far less often do we stop and think, “Oh maybe I’m just not the audience for that.” --- And today Ry... |
| 2023-Feb-20 • 8 minutes How To Achieve Things | Reduce Wants, Increase Happiness It’s always been difficult to concentrate. In one of his letters, Seneca talks about trying to write while Rome resounds beneath him with cacophony. There are street sellers and protestors and a fight and blacksmiths screaming and yelling and hammering down below. Now add to those typical sounds of the outside world, the chaos of our personal world–a buzzing iPhone, an overflowing inbox and endless Zoom meetings–and you get our daily nightmare. But if we wish to succeed, as Seneca did, we must find a way t... |
| 2023-Feb-19 • 14 minutes How to Create Change in Your Life Today’s audiobook reading features the second excerpt from The Way to Love: The Last Meditations of Anthony de Mello. Anthony was an Indian Jesuit priest, psychotherapist, and spiritual teacher, writer, and public speaker who wrote several books on spirituality, including this collection of his last meditations on love and awareness. In today’s excerpt, Anthony discusses why awareness is a key part of creating real change in your life. This book is published by the Center for Spiritual Exchange, and you ca... |
| 2023-Feb-18 • 69 minutes Sam Harris on Stoicism and Mindfulness Practice Ryan speaks with Sam Harris about the overlap between eastern and western philosophy, how mindfulness practices like meditation help us become better Stoics, why he is so dedicated to providing his content for free, and more. Sam Harris is a philosopher, neuroscientist, author, and host of the Making Sense Podcast. His work touches on a range of topics, including rationality, religion, ethics, free will, neuroscience, meditation, psychedelics, philosophy of mind, politics, terrorism, and artificial intelli... |
| 2023-Feb-17 • 8 minutes Just Put It On My Tab | The Enemy of Happiness Life was just one thing after another for Marcus Aurelius. The plague. The flooding. The wars. He did not meet with, “the good fortune he deserved,” one ancient historian noted, “as his whole reign was a series of troubles.” Anyone who has had a run of bad luck knows the feeling. It’s frustrating and annoying and sometimes deeply unfair, but there is also something freeing about it. Because after a certain point, you stop fighting and start accepting. --- In todays Daily Stoic reading, Ryan explores how ... |
| 2023-Feb-16 • 16 minutes This Isn’t The Way To Practice Detachment | Ask Daily Stoic Seneca wasn’t fond of philosophers you could recognize. Not by their fame, but by their uniform. In his time, just as it is in ours, there was a type of person who, in reading about the Diogenes types or the tough Stoic types, thought that philosophy required that they give up their worldly possessions or start dressing like a bum.Today, these types try to signal their virtue by driving a beat up old car or by showing you how little they own. See, they say, I am practicing detachment. Se... |
| 2023-Feb-15 • 56 minutes Massimo Pigliucci on Why Virtue Matters Ryan speaks with Professor Massimo Pigliucci about his new book The Quest for Character: What the Story of Socrates and Alcibiades Teaches Us about Our Search for Good Leaders, what Alcibiades’s magnetism and lack of moral compass can teach us about what we look for in leaders today, the tension between being virtuous and being pragmatic, and more. Massimo Pigliucci is Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York, the former co-host of the Rationally Speaking Podcast, the originator of Neoskepti... |
| 2023-Feb-15 • 5 minutes How To Be Free Ruby Doris Smith died at age 25 of cancer. It was an unfair death, concluding a short, unfair life. For two and half decades on this earth – from 1942 to 1967 – she experienced the brutal day-to-day realities of Jim Crow segregation. Yet her tombstone laments none of this. Instead, it codifies into stone one of the most basic principles of the SNCC, the civil rights organization she had been so dedicated and active in during her short life. “IF YOU THINK FREE,” it reads, “YOU ARE FREE.” ✉️ Sign up for the... |
| 2023-Feb-14 • 16 minutes The Right Time Is Right Now | The Virtue That Made Marcus Aurelius So Great We know what we want to do–or need to do. We need to quit that job. We need to have that hard conversation. We need to be more active in our community. We need to stop smoking or start eating healthy. We need to tell our crush we like them. But when? That’s the question. Or at least, we tell ourselves that it is a question. --- Today, Ryan recounts one of the greatest stories in human history and talks about how Antoninus Pius taught Marcus Aurelius the most important virtue of all. ✉️ Sign up for the ... |
| 2023-Feb-13 • 9 minutes How To Become Rich | Watch Over Your Perceptions The writers Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse Five) and Joseph Heller (Catch-22) were at a glamorous party outside New York City. Standing in the palatial second home of the billionaire host, Vonnegut began to needle his friend. He described the exchange in a poem published in the New Yorker in 2005: I said, “Joe, how does it make you feel to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel Catch-22 has earned in its entire history?” And Joe said, “I’ve got something he can never hav... |
| 2023-Feb-12 • 20 minutes How to Enjoy Life Fully Today’s reading features an excerpt from The Way to Love: The Last Meditations of Anthony de Mello. Anthony was an Indian Jesuit priest, psychotherapist, and spiritual teacher, writer, and public speaker who wrote several books on spirituality, including this collection of his last meditations on love and awareness. In today’s excerpt, Anthony explores the origins of our wants and desires, and how they translate into our quest for love. This book is published by the Center for Spiritual Exchange, and you c... |
| 2023-Feb-11 • 67 minutes Dr. Samantha Boardman on Turning Stress in Strength Ryan speaks with Dr. Samantha Boardman about her book Everyday Vitality: Turning Stress into Strength, how you can improve your life by changing small daily habits, why feeling stressed is not necessarily a bad thing, how to deal with catastrophizing, and more. Samantha Boardman is a Positive Psychologist based in New York. She received a B.S. from B.A. from Harvard University, an M.D. from Cornell University Medical College, and completed a 4-year residency program in Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical C... |
| 2023-Feb-10 • 10 minutes How To Handle A Bad Call | Anger is Bad Fuel In Super Bowl XLIX in 2015, Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll made a decision that will be remembered in sports history for decades. The headlines called it “the worst play call in NFL history,” the “dumbest call in Super Bowl history,” and a “terrible Super Bowl mistake.” Carroll would of course disagree with this Monday morning quarterbacking, believing it was the right call based on the numbers and his experience. But there is no disputing that the play did not work. So the more interesting quest... |
| 2023-Feb-09 • 9 minutes What Will This Cause? | Ask Daily Stoic When horrible things happen to us, our instinct is always to ask why me? Why this? Why now? It’s understandable, but it’s also irrelevant and unhelpful, because those questions have no answer. At least no answer that you can do anything about or take any comfort from. Besides, life has a better question. One it is constantly asking us, one that Michael Lewis to his credit has fully embraced: what will this cause? Will it put us out of commission or give us a new mission? Will it cause good things or bad thi... |
| 2023-Feb-08 • 3 minutes Turn To This Friend Constantly In her beautiful book about the Los Angeles Public Library fire, Susan Orlean captures the magic of what libraries can offer. She describes walking through the empty library in Downtown L.A., not a soul in sight, and feeling connected to all the different voices represented on the millions of pages that surround her. Books, in this way, are wonderful friends. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed book... |
| 2023-Feb-08 • 67 minutes John Hendrickson on Embracing Disability with Stoicism Ryan speaks with John Hendrickson about his new book Life on Delay: Making Peace with a Stutter, how Stoicism and Ryan’s work influenced him to open up about his stuttering, how stuttering being diagnosed as a neurological disorder changed his perception of himself, how his daily struggles can be found in the lives of many other people who don’t have disabilities, and more. John Hendrickson is an author and Senior Editor at The Atlantic where he writes stories on a wide array of political issues, including... |
| 2023-Feb-07 • 9 minutes Have You Considered This? | What Stoicism Can Teach Us About Mental Health Things go wrong. We get screwed over. We make mistakes. It happens. The idea that it shouldn’t affect a Stoic? Preposterous. No amount of training, Seneca writes, takes away natural feelings. So it’s OK that you don’t like what happened. What matters is what happens next. --- Ryan also talks about how Stoicism has improved his mental health and how it can improve yours too. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired produc... |
| 2023-Feb-06 • 9 minutes You Must Practice This Ritual This Year | Suspend Your Opinions Marcus Aurelius was a busy man. He was a smart and able and talented man. So why did he need to spend so many precious hours in his tent, writing by the lamplight, practicing philosophy in his journals? It wasn’t for our benefit. No, he never expected Meditations would see an audience. He was writing for himself, to himself, trying to get better by himself. He was journaling as a means of self-improvement as much as he was of self-expression. In today's Daily Stoic Journal reading, Ryan discusses how we ca... |
| 2023-Feb-05 • 18 minutes Epicurus’s Key to the Good Life Today, Ryan presents a reading of Epicurus’s Letter to Menoeceus in which the philosopher and father of Epicureanism lays out to his friend why he believes that living a life of pleasure based on virtuous acts is the greatest good. This greatly influential work offers insights into ethics that can still be applied to our lives thousands of years later. To learn more about Epicurus and his work, check out The Art of Living at The Painted Porch. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com... |
| 2023-Feb-04 • 64 minutes MLB All-Star Ian Happ on the Power of Discipline Ryan speaks with Ian Happ about how practicing Stoic principles helps him play better baseball, the mindset of a professional athlete, how he uses discipline to overcome self-doubt, and more. Ian Happ is a professional baseball player who plays for the Chicago Cubs. Ian made his MLB debut with the Cubs in 2017, and since then he has hit 108 home runs, driven in 308 RBIs, and accumulated a batting average of .249. In 2022, he was selected for the All-Star game for the first time, and he won a Gold Glove Awa... |
| 2023-Feb-03 • 10 minutes Why Did Marcus Write His Meditations? | The Source of Your Anxiety Why did Marcus Aurelius write his Meditations? It wasn’t for an audience. It wasn’t simply to practice his Greek or his rhetorical abilities—he was already good at all those things. The book lacks an author’s note and he never seemed to have told anyone about his intentions, so we can’t know for sure. But there are two clues that, when put together, provide an answer as good as any. Have you noticed how much of Meditations is about other people? The opening, “Debts and Lessons,” makes up nearly ten percent... |
| 2023-Feb-02 • 11 minutes Very Little Is Needed | Ask Daily Stoic We think we need a lot to be happy. We think we need piles of money. And power. And fame. And to get that perfect house and to marry that perfect person. There are so many things we tell ourselves we have to have. They are nice to have. But it’s not what we need. --- And in today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan discusses the strategies he uses to identify when declining an offer is the best course of action. He also touches on the best ways to teach your kids about Stoicism, and how you can begin a fruitful jour... |
| 2023-Feb-01 • 2 minutes The Worry Part Is A Choice We think if we just make enough money, someday we won’t have to worry about it anymore. We think if we just get big enough, strong enough, we won’t have to worry about being pushed around. We think if we can just get through this or that rough patch, we can relax and not be so worried anymore. Of course, it never works out that way. Does that mean worry is just a part of life? Well, no – unless you choose for it to be. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out t... |
| 2023-Feb-01 • 64 minutes Dr. Nate Zinsser, Josh Peck, Annie Duke, Amy Morin, Paul Bloom, and Yung Pueblo on Building Better Habits Ryan looks back on some of the best discussions of 2022 that he and his guests had about building better habits. Featuring Dr. Nate Zinsser on looking for the positive aspects of your life while maintaining objective awareness, Josh Peck on his journey getting sober, Annie Duke on the power of walking away from things that don’t align with your beliefs, Amy Morin on overcoming mentally challenging situations by gaining perspective, Paul Bloom on the importance of recognizing our own bias, and Yung Pueblo on... |
| 2023-Jan-31 • 19 minutes The Best Time Is Now | 9 Peak Performance Tips from Top Performers Obviously, the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The earlier you get started on something that takes time, the bigger and better the results will be. As Seneca once said about the days that pass us by, "They are gone never to return." And that's sad. But as the second half of that expression about trees goes, the next best time is now. Today. Now is an opportunity to start. This is what you deserve. Today, Ryan talks to some of the top performing athletes and coaches about the keys that they use... |
| 2023-Jan-30 • 8 minutes History Repeats And It Doesn’t | Focus On The Present Moment History is the same thing happening over and over again, Marcus Aurelius said. There’s nothing new under the sun. And yet, like all things in philosophy, the opposite idea must also be held true at the same time. The Stoics would also agree with what Stanford professor Scott Sagan once said, “Things that have never happened before happen all the time.” --- In today's Daily Stoic reading, Ryan discusses the power of Marcus's assertion that "concentrating on the task before you like a Roman" is the best wa... |
| 2023-Jan-29 • 12 minutes Cicero on The Paradox of Virtue Ryan presents the first of six readings of Cicero's Stoic Paradoxes. Cicero was considered Rome’s greatest politician, and he has survived as one of history’s most enduring chroniclers of Stoic philosophy and the Stoics themselves. As Ryan explains in Lives of the Stoics, these paradoxes are designed to question commonly held beliefs in order to promote reflection and discussion. In that spirit, the first paradox sees Cicero examine the idea that “virtue is the only good.” ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic e... |
| 2023-Jan-28 • 62 minutes Professor Paul Woodruff on Philosophy, War and Justice Ryan speaks with Paul Woodruff about his book The Ajax Dilemma: Justice, Fairness, and Rewards, the ancient purpose of justice, reflections on a lifetime of studying philosophy, what serving in Vietnam taught him about justice, and more. Paul Woodruff is a classicist, professor of philosophy, and dean at The University of Texas at Austin, where he once chaired the department of philosophy. Before starting his career at the university in 1972, Paul served as an officer in Vietnam. His work deals with the tr... |
| 2023-Jan-27 • 11 minutes Are You Great Like This? | Ask Daily Stoic People have different definitions of greatness or success.Maybe you think yourself powerful because you have a lot of people working for you. Or successful because you have a full calendar. Or important because you’ve been on TV. Or happy because you go from one pleasurable activity to the next.But do you know what Seneca considered the sign of greatness?---In today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan presents part 4 of his live Q&A at Alechemy in which he covers the "life books" that influence him every day, the m... |
| 2023-Jan-26 • 9 minutes What To Do When You Have Fallen Short | The Three Areas of Training He had considered not going public with it. He had wanted so badly to be able to keep saying, to get credit for being the guy who says, ‘I’m sixteen years sober.’ But he could not. So in September of 2020, the actor Dax Shepard opened up on his podcast about relapsing. The episode was titled “Day 7”—because after a streak of a decade and half he was effectively back at the beginning. “Today, I have seven days,” he said with as much strength as he could muster. Beautiful. --- In today's Daily Stoic readi... |
| 2023-Jan-25 • 72 minutes Professor Sarah Churchwell on Genius, Big Dreams and F. Scott Fitzgerald Ryan speaks with Sarah Churchwell about her book Careless People: Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of The Great Gatsby, the complicated figure of F. Scott Fitzgerald, how The Great Gatsby’s celebration of mad dreamers who chase the American Dream informs our pursuit of the same ideal today, and more. Sarah Churchwell is professor of American Literature and Public Understanding of the Humanities at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. Her work focuses on 20th- and 21st-century American liter... |
| 2023-Jan-25 • 3 minutes Lean Into Their Strengths Rather Than Disdain Their Weaknesses Marcus Aurelius was clearly torn about his fellow man. He was loving and kind and spoke repeatedly of serving the common good. He was also clearly frustrated and disappointed with the flaws of the people around him. Like many great men, he had trouble understanding that not everyone had his gifts, not all of them were capable of what he was capable of. You can see in Meditations how he wrestled with these feelings. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Da... |
| 2023-Jan-24 • 11 minutes Come Back To The Rhythm | A Stoic Idea Worth Tattooing On Your Body Marcus Aurelius wasn’t perfect. With so many responsibilities competing for his time and attention, he was guilty, as we all have been, of letting his good habits slide. The question is: What do we do when this happens? Today, Ryan discusses how Marcus kept his habits in check and how you can, too, as well as the Stoic idea that influenced his newest tattoo, which he got from Andy Pho. Andy is the owner of Upside Tattoo, and he opened a new shop in Hutto, TX in 2022. Follow Andy on Instagram: https://www.... |
| 2023-Jan-23 • 10 minutes Don’t Abuse This Power | A Little Better Every Day In one of the weirdest passages of Meditations, Marcus Aurelius notes with pride that he never laid a hand on any of his female slaves. Not cheating on your spouse, not sexually assaulting a captive person, these are hardly achievements worthy of being feted for. They are the bare minimum, you could argue, to be considered a good, moral, virtuous person. And yet, they are not nothing, especially back then, it’s worth taking a minute to consider. --- In today's Daily Stoic Journal reading, Ryan explores ... |
| 2023-Jan-22 • 51 minutes How Cato’s Deadly Rivalry With Caesar Destroyed Rome Ryan presents the first of four excerpts from Josiah Osgood’s Uncommon Wrath: How Caesar and Cato’s Deadly Rivalry Destroyed the Roman Republic. Here, in chapter one, Josiah sets the stage for Rome’s great collapse by describing the world that Julius Caesar grew up in, how Cato the Younger’s upbringing put him at odds with Caesar, and the explosive events that escalated the tension between them. You can listen to Ryan’s recent conversation with Josiah here. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://... |
| 2023-Jan-21 • 70 minutes Molly Bloom on Turning Down 5 Million Dollars Ryan speaks with Molly Bloom about her book Molly's Game: The True Story of the 26-Year-Old Woman Behind the Most Exclusive, High-Stakes Underground Poker Game in the World, the crossroads moment that taught her to overcome challenges through mindfulness, the intoxicating and eye-opening effects of running poker games for the ultra-rich and famous, how hitting rock-bottom taught her that good character is something to be trained, and more. Molly Bloom is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, and former Olympic... |
| 2023-Jan-20 • 13 minutes It’s Just Happening | Ask Daily Stoic It feels terrible to hear that someone is breaking up with you. Or that your retirement portfolio has dropped significantly in recent months. To find out that the company you’ve invested your entire career in is laying you off. That your father doesn’t accept the person you love or how you live your life. We want it to be otherwise, so we’re disappointed. It hurts, so we take it personally. In Meg Mason’s novel Sorrow and Bliss (listen to our great podcast episode with Meg), Martha Friel's mother, who had ... |
| 2023-Jan-19 • 7 minutes Are You In Touch With Your Future? | Wherever You Go, There Your Choice Is As Gandhi sat with a reporter one hot afternoon, he began experiencing some stomach pains. An attendant brought him a mudpack to place on his abdomen. “This puts me in touch with my future,” he said with a smile. He was joking about his mortality, just as the Stoics and all wise philosophers have. The reporter was a bit surprised. You are so young, he said. And that’s when Gandhi reminded him, as Marcus Aurelius did in Meditations, that age didn’t matter. Death was the common lot of all people he said, “so... |
| 2023-Jan-18 • 3 minutes You Know You’ve Made This Mistake It is certainly true that people can do some awful things to each other. We hear of a trusted representative who is stealing from their clients. We hear of a man who has been leading a second life, even starting a second family. We hear of a woman who commits an unspeakable crime. These gross violations of morality and law do exist. They are things we would never do, we’d never even consider doing them. However, the truth is that most of the wrongs committed day to day are done by ordinary people in ordina... |
| 2023-Jan-18 • 57 minutes Champion Distance Runner Lauren Fleshman on the Power of Sport Ryan speaks with Lauren Fleshman about her new book Good For a Girl: A Woman Running in a Man’s World, how the Stoics approached many of the gender equality issues that we still debate today, the unique power of sports to shatter perceptions and shift perspectives, and more. Lauren Fleshman is a retired world champion track and field athlete who competed in the 1500, 3000, 5000, and marathon events. Lauren graduated from Stanford as a 15-time All-American and five-time NCAA champion, and went on to become... |
| 2023-Jan-17 • 10 minutes A Person Without Boundaries Is Not a Person | 7 Stoic Keys To Happiness It’s clear when you read about Cato and Marcus Aurelius that these were men of great reserve. Antoninus, too. They were friendly and kind of course, and to people who knew them well, there was frivolity and fun, but they kept something back from strangers. They were self-contained. Today, Ryan examines why having the discipline to create strong boundaries for yourself is how you define who you are, especially in the age of social media, He also presents seven Stoic principles to adhere to on your quest to... |
| 2023-Jan-16 • 8 minutes The Things You Own…Can’t Own You | The Wake Up To the Stoics, there wasn’t anything wrong with having money. Marcus Aurelius came from money. So did Cato. Seneca came from money and also made a lot of it. In fact, pretty much all the Stoics except for Cleanthes and Epictetus were incredibly rich. Money, nice stuff, living the comfortable life…this was not necessarily the problem. 🎧 For a limited time, you can purchase The Daily Stoic ebook for only $1.99 on Kindle ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out th... |
| 2023-Jan-15 • 33 minutes Steven Pressfield on Creating Work That Lasts Ryan speaks with his friend Steven Pressfield during an impromptu walk along Town Lake in downtown Austin, Texas. The two discuss the life experiences behind Steven’s new book Govt Cheese a memoir, the lessons that they've learned from their many mentors, the value of repurposing content, and more. Steven Pressfield wrote for 27 years before he got his first novel published. During that time he worked 21 different jobs in eleven states. Steven taught school, drove tractor-trailers, worked in advertising an... |
| 2023-Jan-14 • 64 minutes Mark Manson and the Catastrophe of Success Ryan speaks with Mark Manson about the new documentary based on his astronomically successful book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, how being highly successful can ruin one’s life, what he is striving to disrupt in the self-help industry, and more. Mark Manson is a self-help blogger and the author of four books, including the New York Times Bestsellers Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope, Will, and The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. His work focuses on providing life advice that is science-based ... |
| 2023-Jan-13 • 20 minutes Don’t Disgrace Yourself | Ask Daily Stoic Francis Bacon was a brilliant philosopher whose breakthroughs reverberate through our world today. He was also a human being and a politician. Less glorious than his intellectual achievements were his travails in the public sphere, which ultimately ended in his conviction for accepting bribes. No one was more disappointed in this than Bacon, who lamented at the end of his life that he had wasted himself, “in things for which I was least fit, so as I may truly say, my soul hath been a stranger in the course... |
| 2023-Jan-12 • 7 minutes If You Are Studying Philosophy, It Is Well | The One Path To Serenity In one of his letters, Seneca tells us of an old Roman pleasantry that friends would exchange when greeting each other: “If you are well,” one would say after inquiring how someone was doing, “it is well and I am also well.” It’s a nice little custom, isn’t it? If you’re good, I’m good, and everything is good. Nothing else matters. Well, Seneca took it one step further. --- In today's Daily Stoic excerpt, Ryan examines Epictetus's assertion that the one path to serenity is in "giving up all else outside ... |
| 2023-Jan-11 • 62 minutes Humble, The Poet on Being Free of Passion but Full of Love Ryan speaks with Humble, the Poet about his new book How to be Love(d), why our passions often get in the way of real love, viewing love as a service to others rather than a reward for ourselves, and more. Kanwer Singh, professionally known as Humble, the Poet, is a Canadian poet, author, YouTuber, rapper, and spoken word artist, as well as the son of immigrant Indian Punjabi Sikh parents. In 2010, he left his job as an elementary school teacher in 2010 to become a poet, and since then, he has authored thr... |
| 2023-Jan-11 • 4 minutes A Stoic Isn’t Born. They’re Made. Marcus Aurelius wasn’t born Marcus Aurelius (literally, his name was Marcus Catilius Severus Annius Verus). Epictetus wasn’t born a sage–to say he was would be to deprive him of the enormous credit due to a man who went from a lowly slave to a wise and powerful philosopher. No, becoming a Stoic takes work. It takes practice. 🎧 For a limited time, you can purchase The Daily Stoic ebook for only $1.99 on Kindle ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily S... |
| 2023-Jan-10 • 11 minutes You Can’t Keep It From Happening | How To Get Through Life's Most Difficult Situations When he was starting out in Hollywood, Judd Apatow began to have panic attacks. The stress of rewriting a script. Getting a film in on time. Managing all the moving pieces on a project. He felt the enormity of the pressure and like a lot of us, he took that to an irrational extreme. The Stoics would say panic, stress, and anxiety are feelings, and you can’t prevent them from happening. And if you try to suppress these emotions, like stuffing junk in your closet, it eventually comes exploding out. The bill ... |
| 2023-Jan-10 • 8 minutes Ten Percent Happier presents: The Dalai Lama’s Guide to Happiness Happiness isn’t just a feeling, it’s a skill that can be cultivated. This is a clip from The Dalai Lama’s Guide to Happiness, a five-part audio documentary series by the Ten Percent Happier podcast. Over the course of the series, Dan Harris talks to His Holiness about practical strategies for thorny dilemmas, including: how to get along with difficult people; whether compassion can cut it in an often brutal world; why there is a self-interested case for not being a jerk; and how to creat... |
| 2023-Jan-09 • 9 minutes You Know What’s Coming | The Sphere Of Choice We worry about the future. About who might win an election we’re closely watching. About what some foreign leader might do. About the markets and your portfolio. About the climate. It’s so uncertain, we think, unpredictable and potentially overwhelming. But is it really? In today's Daily Stoic Journal reading, Ryan explores why the Stoics viewed the soul as a sphere which is strengthened or weakened only through one's choices, and how meditating on this can set us off on the right foot in 2023. 🎧 For a l... |
| 2023-Jan-08 • 18 minutes How Country Living Can Improve Your Life Ryan celebrates country living with this presentation of the first in a four-part reading of MD Usher’s translation of Princeton University Press’s How to Be a Farmer: An Ancient Guide to Life on the Land. This excerpt examines the benefits of living with nature, dealing with good and bad days on the farm, being neighborly in the country and more. Ryan’s conversation with MD Usher can be heard here 🎓 Sign up for the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge to create better habits in 2023: https://dailystoi... |
| 2023-Jan-07 • 62 minutes Steven Pressfield, Robert Greene, Jack Carr, Meg Mason, and Adam Hochschild on Writing Ryan looks back on some of the best interviews of 2022 about writing. Featuring Steven Pressfield on what it takes to build discipline and why it’s so important, Robert Greene on our natural tendency as humans to take the path of least resistance, Jack Carr on how your character impacts your work, Meg Mason on how important it is to develop taste as a writer, and Adam Hochschild on how history can inform the push for change in the present. 🎓 Sign up for the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge to create... |
| 2023-Jan-06 • 20 minutes Don’t Join The Mob | Ask Daily Stoic - Habits In today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan discusses how he cultivates better habits, people with habits that he admires, and books that you can read to help improve your routine. If you want to develop better habits in your own life, check out the Daily Stoic Habits Challenge at dailystoic.com/habits. 📙 For a limited time, you can purchase The Daily Stoic ebook for only $1.99 on Kindle ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired prod... |
| 2023-Jan-05 • 10 minutes Are You Ready For Combat? | Clarify Your Intentions It’s not for posterity that the Stoics sat with their journals. It wasn’t whiney self-indulgence either. They weren’t cataloging their achievements or pouring out their fantasies. They were doing important work. 📙 For a limited time, you can purchase The Daily Stoic ebook for only $1.99 on Kindle ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more. 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, F... |
| 2023-Jan-04 • 3 minutes Don’t Make It Someone Else’s Problem “If it is not right, do not do it,” Marcus Aurelius wrote in Meditations, “if it is not true, do not say it.” But it’s worth pointing out that as a philosophy, Stoicism demands more of us than just this negative. As Marcus would also point out, “Often injustice lies in what you aren’t doing, not only in what you are doing.” 📙 For a limited time, you can purchase The Daily Stoic ebook for only $1.99 on Kindle ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Sto... |
| 2023-Jan-04 • 77 minutes 100 Lessons from Marcus Aurelius Meditations is perhaps the only document of its kind ever made. It is the private thoughts of the world’s most powerful man giving advice to himself on how to make good on the responsibilities and obligations of his positions. Trained in Stoic philosophy, Marcus Aurelius stopped almost every night to practice a series of spiritual exercises—reminders designed to make him humble, patient, empathetic, generous, and strong in the face of whatever he was dealing with. Today, Ryan breaks down 100 applicable lif... |
| 2023-Jan-03 • 13 minutes How To Train Yourself | 4 (Stoic) Secrets To The Good Life You don't lift a weight one time and become strong. You aren’t taught something once and it stays in your mind forever. You don’t do the right thing once and it becomes a lifelong habit. It would be nice if it worked that way, but it doesn’t. Many, many more reps are required. In life and in philosophy. It’s about taking the right actions and holding yourself to the highest standard, day by day by day. Today, Ryan outlines the 4 Stoic virtues that will improve your life, if you live by them. 📙 For a lim... |
| 2023-Jan-02 • 12 minutes What We Want (And Deserve) More Than Anything | What’s Up To Us, What’s Not Up To Us We think we want to be rich. Or famous. Or powerful. We want to succeed, we want to achieve. We want more of this. We want less of that. These desires of ours are explicit, they define our goals and order our priorities. We salivate over them. But deep down, they don’t reflect what we actually want. They’re proxies, indirect ways of getting to what we’re really looking for. --- In this first Daily Stoic Journal entry of the new year, Ryan revisits the most important Stoic task that there is: distinguishi... |
| 2023-Jan-01 • 53 minutes 5 Usable Practices From Stoicism | Ryan Holiday Speaks At Ole Miss In April of 2022 Ryan Holiday traveled to Oxford Mississippi to speak to the Ole Miss Football team about 5 strategies that can improve your performance no matter what you do. 🎓 Sign up for the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge to create better habits in 2023: https://dailystoic.com/challenge ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more. 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok,... |
| 2022-Dec-31 • 83 minutes Tony Gonzalez, Keita Bates-Diop, Courtney Dauwalter, and Steven Rinella on Sports and Building Resilience Ryan looks back on some of the best interviews of 2022 about sports and building resilience. Featuring football legend Tony Gonzalez on the path to becoming your best self, basketball player Keita Bates-Diop on doing what you do for love over money, ultramarathon runner Courtney Dauwalter on her metaphor of the pain cave that she visualizes when pushing her body, and hunter Steven Rinella on the temperance that is required to be a great hunter. 🎓 Sign up for the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge to c... |
| 2022-Dec-30 • 13 minutes It Was Terribly Unfair…Yet | Ask Daily Stoic In 41 AD, Seneca was exiled from Rome. He was at the height of his senatorial career but found himself facing trumped up charges from a petty emperor who was driving him into the wilderness. He was reeling from the loss of a young child, he was leaving behind a grieving mother. But what could he do?Nothing. All he could do was try to survive and endure it, to not be broken by it.---In today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan presents part 2 of his 2020 Q&A at the Young Presidents Organization of Michigan - West Ch... |
| 2022-Dec-29 • 10 minutes This Is The Year! | Give Thanks We all have vices. We all have flaws. We all have things we know we want to change. Make this the year. This is the year you drive the bad habits out. This is the year you follow through. This is the year you demand the best of and for yourself. 🎓 Sign up for the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge to create better habits in 2023: https://dailystoic.com/challenge ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, si... |
| 2022-Dec-28 • 3 minutes Transcend Your First Impression It’s perfectly reasonable to tremble in the face of danger, Donald Robertson writes in his wonderful book, How To Think Like a Roman Emperor, and it was likely that Cato and Marcus Aurelius were scared on the eve of battle or before an important speech. But we don’t hold that against them, because what mattered is what they did next. 🎓 Sign up for the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge to create better habits in 2023: https://dailystoic.com/challenge ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dail... |
| 2022-Dec-28 • 60 minutes James Clear on How to Build Better Habits Ryan talks with author James Clear about practical ways to shift your internal narrative, how to begin and maintain productive habitual action, being flexible with your goals as you set and achieve them, and more. James Clear is the author of the New York Times Bestseller, Atomic Habits, as well as a world-renowned speaker. His weekly 3-2-1 Newsletter has over 1,000,000 subscribers and is sent out every Thursday. 🎓 Sign up for the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge to create better habits in 2023:... |
| 2022-Dec-27 • 10 minutes This Will Not Free You | The Secret To Better Habits in 2023 Seneca had money and privilege. Lots of it. Yet where did it get him? It didn’t save him from illness, or spare him from years of convalescence. Does this mean there is no advantage to having money? No. Nor does it imply that not having money is better than having it (Seneca would deem money a ‘preferred indifferent’—better to have than not have). --- In one of the best passages in Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, Marcus tells himself to stop hoping and “be his own savior while he can.” It’s great advi... |
| 2022-Dec-26 • 11 minutes How Much Longer Are You Going To Wait? | Turn Words Into Works This is that weird time of year where we start to think about how we want the following year to go. We start thinking about what we call “resolutions”—the promises we make to ourselves about what we’re going to do in the next 12 months. The habits we’re going to quit, the skills we’re going to learn, the standards we’re going to hold ourselves to. Here you are today, staring down the barrel of 2023. And while the best time to demand the best for and of yourself was years ago, the second best time is right ... |
| 2022-Dec-25 • 75 minutes Theranos Whistleblower Tyler Shultz on Doing the Right Thing and Overcoming Fear Ryan speaks with Tyler Shultz about his new audiobook Thicker than Water, the harsh realities of being a whistleblower, how he overcame the fear of backlash from his decision to expose Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes’s motivation, and more. Tyler Shultz is an entrepreneur and author whose work focuses on driving innovation in healthcare. He graduated from Stanford with a Biology degree and entered the national scene when he blew the whistle at Theranos by exposing the company’s dubious blood-testing practices a... |
| 2022-Dec-25 • 35 minutes Habits and Addictions — Excerpt 2 from Steven Pressfield’s “Turning Pro” Back in October, Ryan presented the first of four audiobook excerpts from Steven Pressfield’s “Turning Pro.” In this excerpt Steven talks about identifying and battling the habits and addictions that hold us back, the fears of the amateur, the simplicity of life once one turns pro, and his own story of turning pro. Published by Recorded Books on Brilliance Audio. 📕 Grab a copy of “Turning Pro” at the Painted Porch Bookshop and on Audible ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailye... |
| 2022-Dec-23 • 12 minutes Push Through To The Finish Line | Ask Daily Stoic The Cynic philosopher Diogenes was once criticized by a passerby for not taking care of himself in his old age, for being too active when he should have been taking it easy and resting. As per usual, Diogenes had the perfect rejoinder: "What, if I were running in the stadium, ought I to slacken my pace when approaching the goal?" --- Ryan speaks at the EO Alchemy entrepreneurial conference about his early career and his view on interpreting the Stoics. 🎓 Sign up for the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Chal... |
| 2022-Dec-22 • 11 minutes It’s Time To Quit | Stake Your Own Claim Dwight Eisenhower gave himself the order. Quit smoking. It had been a 38-year habit, and he knew it was time. His health was on the line. His ability to be of service was in jeopardy. So he quit. After 38 years of smoking, he quit—cold turkey. “The only way to stop is to stop,” Eisenhower would tell an aide, “and I stopped.” 🎓 Sign up for the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge to create better habits in 2023: https://dailystoic.com/challenge ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoi... |
| 2022-Dec-21 • 2 minutes It’s Hard Work Marcus Aurelius wasn’t magically Marcus Aurelius. Cato wasn’t born that way. All their virtues–their assiduous self-control, their patient wisdom, their commitment to justice, their courage at critical moments–this didn’t just happen. It wasn’t a biological freak event. It was the result of hard work. 🎓 Sign up for the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge to create better habits in 2023: https://dailystoic.com/challenge ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check ... |
| 2022-Dec-21 • 67 minutes Former NBA Star Cuttino Mobley on Pursuing Greatness and Developing Balance in Life Ryan speaks with former pro basketball player Cuttino Mobley about the challenges of adjusting to life after basketball, growing up with Kobe Bryant and Rasheed Wallace, why pursuing greatness is not for everyone, how Cuttino approaches parenting as a single father, and more. Cuttino Mobley, a.k.a. “Cat”, is an entrepreneur, podcast host, and former American professional basketball player who played in the NBA from 1998 to 2008 for the Los Angeles Clippers, Orlando Magic, Houston Rockets, and Sacramento K... |
| 2022-Dec-20 • 14 minutes This Is The Greatest Pleasure | 9 Habits the Stoics Want You to Stop Doing The Stoics were not afraid of joy, but they found joy in a different place than most people. It wasn’t pleasure. It wasn’t accumulating money. “Just as one person delights in improving his farm, and another his horse,” Epictetus liked to say, “so I delight in attending to my own improvement day by day.” --- Excellence isn’t this thing you do one time. It’s a way of living. It’s foundational. It’s like an operating system and the code this system operates on is habit. 🎓 Sign up for the Daily Stoic New Yea... |
| 2022-Dec-19 • 11 minutes You’re Not There Now (That’s A Good Thing) | Stake Your Claim It’s easy to look at history and despair. Humans have been terrible to each other–going back to Marcus Aurelius’s time all the way through today. In fact, sometimes it feels like that’s all we’ve ever been. The writer Mary Karr once asked a religious friend, “How can you believe in God, you know, when there was a Holocaust?” The friend had a reply that stopped her cold: “But you’re not in the Holocaust.” ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic ... |
| 2022-Dec-18 • 18 minutes 18 Things You Didn’t Know About Marcus Aurelius It is amazing that Meditations, year after year and read after read, feels both incredibly timely and incredibly timeless (there’s a reason the book has endured now for almost twenty centuries). It’s amazing that a person so famous—known to millions in his own lifetime and subject to countless books and articles and movies—could still be giving off new secrets, but indeed that’s what he’s doing. Today, we examine 18 things you didn’t know that shaped the life of that person, Marcus Aurelius. 📕 We create... |
| 2022-Dec-17 • 68 minutes Jeremy Jones on Quieting the Mind and Confronting Fear with Snowboarding Ryan speaks with snowboarder Jeremy Jones about his new book The Art of Shralpanism: Lessons from the Mountains, why having discipline on the mountain saves lives, the relationship between courage and fear when approaching the dangers of snowboarding, and more. Jeremy Jones is an American professional snowboarder,businessman, author and filmmaker. He is the founder of Jones Snowboards and the co-founder of Protect Our Winters, a nonprofit that works to reduce the effects of climate change. In 2012, Jeremy ... |
| 2022-Dec-16 • 14 minutes Find a Way To Use It | Ask Daily Stoic It would be nice to be a comedian, wouldn’t it? Not because it might make you rich and famous, though that would be nice. But rather, for the opportunity it would afford to turn all the things that bother you in life into material. Talk about the obstacle being the way! Comedians get to use everything that happens to them in their life, in their work. Heartbreak. Frustration. Fear. Insecurity. Confusion. It all becomes material. --- In today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan answers questions about living on a far... |
| 2022-Dec-15 • 9 minutes Difficult Things Are Good For You | A Simple Way To Measure Our Days When one thinks of a philosopher, they usually picture something like an ancient figure in a toga, or they think of a college professor in a tweed jacket. They don’t think of an athlete. They don’t think muscles, right? They think brains, not brawn. But in the ancient world philosophers were warriors, athletes, hunters, boxers, wrestlers, and distance runners. They did hard things. They pushed their physical limitations. --- In today's Daily Stoic Journal reading, Ryan examines Marcus Aurelius' Meditatio... |
| 2022-Dec-14 • 5 minutes You Can't Give Up A new year is fast approaching, and it's that time of year in which some people will try again and some people won't. Which will it be? Who will you be? For those of you ready for a change, we are back again with our fifth year of the New Year, New you Challenge. You can reserve your spot right now in the 2023 Daily Stoic New Year, New you Challenge, at daily stoic.com/challenge. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired product... |
| 2022-Dec-14 • 68 minutes Gregg Behr and Ryan Rydzewski on the Wonder and Discipline of Mr. Rogers Ryan speaks with authors Gregg Behr and Ryan Rydzewski about their new book When You Wonder, You're Learning: Mister Rogers' Enduring Lessons for Raising Creative, Curious, Caring Kids, how hard Mr. Rogers worked to be who he was, how we can strive to “make goodness attractive”, and more. Gregg Behr is a father, writer, children’s advocate, author, and Executive Director of the Grable Foundation. For more than a decade, he has helped to lead Remake Learning – a network of educators, scientists, artists, an... |
| 2022-Dec-13 • 8 minutes It’s Your Fault, Not Theirs | How To Manage Your Time Like A Stoic (5 Time Management Tips) The causes of things are complicated, and rarely do they go how we’d like them to go. So it’s easy to point the finger— at other people, at unfair conditions, at the weather, at the advice we got. If it hadn’t been for _______, I’d have won. Why did so-and-so have to get involved like that? It’s all _______’s fault. And yet, the causes of things are also quite simple, at least according to the Stoics. Because to them, the fault always lies with us. --- It is the only thing you have. Don’t waste it. Seize... |
| 2022-Dec-12 • 10 minutes Where Are They Now? | Keep The Rhythm Marcus Aurelius loved history and he loved literature. He loved reading about the courts of past emperors. He loved the plays of the great Romans and their poems. He loved the lectures of Epictetus, which had been given to him by his teacher Rusticus. Sometimes, as he pored over these pages, a thought struck him. Where are they now? ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more. 📱 Follow us: ... |
| 2022-Dec-11 • 16 minutes Musonius Rufus Stoic Fragments pt. 2 Which is more effective: theories or practice? Should kings study philosophy? These are the questions that Musonius Rufus examines in the second half of his lesser known Stoic fragments, read today as part two of our Musonius Rufus reading series. You can listen to part one here: https://wondery.com/shows/the-daily-stoic/episode/11074-musonius-rufus-stoic-fra... Check out “That One Should Disdain Hardships” at the Painted Porch. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail ... |
| 2022-Dec-10 • 65 minutes Peter Singer on Practicing Effective Altruism Daily Ryan speaks with professor of moral philosophy, author, and activist Peter Singer about the 10th anniversary edition of his book The Life You Can Save: How to Do Your Part to End World Poverty, how Peter’s views on charitable giving have changed throughout the years, the connections between Effective Altruism and Stoicism, applying ethical philosophy to issues in our daily lives, and more. Peter is an Australian professor of moral philosophy who specializes in applied ethics. He is the Ira W. DeCamp Profes... |
| 2022-Dec-09 • 15 minutes The Evidence Is In The Mirror | Ask Daily Stoic There was a message there in the mirror this morning. Did you see it? It must have been a strange experience for Marcus Arelius the first time he saw it…waking up, looking at his reflection, and noticing his hair turning gray. Feeling his body creak. Looking at the crows feet at the corners of his eyes and the wild hairs jutting this way and that in his eyebrows. Even for someone who had so actively practiced and meditated on the idea of memento mori, it would have been a rather vivid reminder to him that h... |
| 2022-Dec-08 • 9 minutes There is Only One Thing To Do | Don’t Hide From Your Feelings It would be wonderful if the Stoics promised you some sort of breakthrough. One that solved for the messy divorce or the unfortunate bankruptcy. One that helped you rehab from the car accident or magically deal with a pandemic that drags on for years (as Marcus knew well). One that soothes you as you sit up sleep-deprived with an infant. The Stoics do, actually, offer solutions for these kinds of struggles. They just don’t come as the kind of breakthrough or insight that you’re necessarily looking for. ✉️ ... |
| 2022-Dec-07 • 65 minutes Professor Josiah Osgood on Cato, Caesar and the Battle for Rome's Legacy Ryan speaks with historian of Rome Josiah Osgood about his new book Uncommon Wrath: How Caesar and Cato’s Deadly Rivalry Destroyed the Roman Republic, the complicated legacy of Cato, how Caesar and Cato’s relationship can help inform our daily lives, and more. Josiah Osgood is Professor of Classics at Georgetown University. His teaching and research cover many areas of Roman history and Latin literature, with a special focus on the fall of the Roman Republic. Josiah’s interest in the fall of the Roman empi... |
| 2022-Dec-07 • 4 minutes Passing Judgment Is No Way To Live You don’t know that someone acted wrongly or that they totally screwed a situation up, because you don’t know the full story. You don’t know their reasons or their side of things. And what do the Stoics tell us to do when we don’t have all the facts about something? They tell us to suspend judgment. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more. 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTo... |
| 2022-Dec-06 • 23 minutes It’s Not A Bad Experience | Living Like A Stoic For 30 Days A night spent at the airport. A prison sentence. A two week bout with COVID. The crazy rush of the busiest season of the year for your business. We know we’re in for it. We dread it. We curse our fate. Actually, we should take a page from the great performance artist Marina Abramović, which she shares in her incredible book Walk Through Walls: A Memoir. She was known for her artistic feats of strength—whether it was days in a chair staring at strangers or inviting her audience to use 72 objects on her in a... |
| 2022-Dec-05 • 11 minutes The Violence Of The Dog Days | Be Stingy With Time As summer now passes into fall and all too quickly fall turns to winter, it is worth stopping and thinking for a second. Where did that time go? Not long ago you were watching fireworks and enjoying the light late into the evening. Now, suddenly, you’re in sweaters, looking at your lawn covered in leaves, wondering why it’s so dark and the evening news hasn’t even finished. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired product... |
| 2022-Dec-04 • 25 minutes How To Be Content - The Search For The Good Life pt. 2 Nobody wrote about the “good life” more beautifully than Horace (65-8 BCE). In numerous writings, the Roman poet shared his wisdom on how to use virtue as a key to unlocking contentment and, therefore, happiness in our daily lives. Today, Ryan presents a selection of Horace’s ideas in the second half of the “The Search For the Good Life” chapter in the How to Be Content installment of Princeton University Press’s Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series, translated by Stephen Harrison. ✉️ Sign up for the ... |
| 2022-Dec-03 • 56 minutes Adam Hochschild on Our Obligation to the Common Good pt. 2 In the second of a two-part interview, Ryan speaks with one of the great non-fiction writers and historians of our time, Adam Hochschild, about his classic 1986 memoir Half The Way Home: A Memoir of Father and Son, the impetus for his latest book American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy's Forgotten Crisis, and the process that Adam went through to improve his relationship with his father, and more. Adam Hochschild is an American author, journalist, historian, and lecturer. He has w... |
| 2022-Dec-02 • 16 minutes It's Not What Happens. It's How You Bear It. | Ask Daily Stoic It doesn't matter who you are, the facts are the same. Marcus Aurelius was Emperor. Epictetus was a slave. Two different fates, but the same reality. Most of life, most situations are out of our control. All we can do is respond to them well. All we can do is endure them. ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https:... |
| 2022-Dec-01 • 9 minutes The Only Thing New In The World | Pretend Today Is The End We live in unprecedented times, we like to think. Our technology. Our conflicts. The state of the world. It’s all very new, it’s all very different. But is it though? Check out the Read To Lead Challenge 2022 and the Memento Mori Medallion. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more. 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privac... |
| 2022-Nov-30 • 4 minutes The Best Stuff Is An Accidental Byproduct In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius marvels at “nature’s inadvertence.” A baker, he writes, makes the dough, kneads it and then puts it in the oven. Then physics, then Nature takes over. “The way loaves of bread split open,” Marcus writes, “the ridges are just byproducts of the baking, and yet pleasing, somehow: they rouse our appetite without our knowing why.” Today is the last day you can order our premium leather-bound edition of Meditations to ensure holiday delivery! ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email... |
| 2022-Nov-30 • 57 minutes Adam Hochschild on Our Obligation to the Common Good pt. 1 In the first of a two-part interview, Ryan speaks with one of the great non-fiction writers and historians of our time, Adam Hochschild, about how history can inform the push for change in the present, the civil rights trailblazers he examined in his book Bury the Chains (one of Ryan’s favorites), the links between the Stoic virtues and the United States’ anti-slavery movement, and more. Part two will be published on Saturday. Adam Hochschild is an American author, journalist, historian, and lecturer. He h... |
| 2022-Nov-29 • 11 minutes No One Can Take This Away | Why Seeking Out Challenges Will Change Your Life “It is a vast kingdom to be able to cope without a kingdom,” Seneca wrote in his play, Thyestes. This was no mere word play. This was hard-won wisdom. No one can stop you from ruling over yourself. It’s the best and the biggest and the strongest kingdom there is. --- Those who have never been tested should be pitied, Seneca said, because they don’t know what they’re capable of. To Marcus, philosophy was all about challenging yourself. It was about settling on words and reminders (epithets, he called them... |
| 2022-Nov-28 • 11 minutes What We Owe Each Other | Balance The Books Of Life Daily The Roman Empire at that time was enormous. Jobs were scarce. Unemployment was high. Rapid expansion and economic stagnation had led to a sort of economic recession–one not unlike the one that looms globally right now. In response, the upper and ruling classes came together and instituted the Cura Annonae—the “care of grain.” The government distributed free grain to the poor and the suffering, ensuring that everyone had enough to eat, doing their Stoic duty to care for the common good. It’s an inspiring ... |
| 2022-Nov-27 • 18 minutes Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers: How To Be Content - The Problem of Passion Pt. 1 For many people, happiness is associated with contentment: being around family, enjoying work, having enough. But what are the secrets to obtaining a contented life in a world of materialistic excess and personal pressures? One of Rome's greatest and most influential poets, Horace (65-8 BCE) shared his wisdom about this question in his writings. In How to Be Content, Stephen Harrison, a leading authority on the poet, provides fresh, contemporary translations of poems from across Horace's works that continu... |
| 2022-Nov-26 • 61 minutes Holocaust Survivor Dr. Edith Eger on Forgiving Over And Over Again Ryan talks to mother-daughter duo Drs. Edith Enger and Marianne Engle about their work in clinical psychology, the power of spreading kindness in a world that often seems very cruel, letting go of the past through forgiveness, and more. A native of Hungary, Dr. Edith Eva Eger was just a teenager in 1944 when she experienced one of the worst evils the human race has ever known. As a Jew living in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, she and her family were sent to Auschwitz. Her parents were sent to the gas chambe... |
| 2022-Nov-25 • 18 minutes What To Do With What You’ve Been Given | Ask Daily Stoic Yesterday we took a minute to think of all that we have to be grateful for, all the blessings life has bestowed on us–even if those things didn’t always appear to be blessings at the time. Well, today, on so called ‘Black Friday’ in America, instead of rushing out to get a deal on a flat-screen television, we should think about what to do with all that gratitude. It is our duty to help others. To serve others. To help people from going hungry. To alleviate someone’s worry and fear. To put food on their tab... |
| 2022-Nov-24 • 10 minutes Convince Yourself That Everything Is A Gift | Train To Let Go Of What’s Not Yours Today in America is Thanksgiving. It’s the day when we’re supposed to actively practice gratitude, and be thankful for all that we have. Yet this can be hard to do…when the specter of a World War looms, the lingering of a terrible pandemic, the reality of a recession, divided politics and so many other obstacles sit before us. But just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s impossible. 📕 We created a premium leather-bound edition of Meditations - To learn more and to pick up your own copy of this beautiful n... |
| 2022-Nov-23 • 68 minutes Professor Jennifer Baker on Understanding Modern Stoicism Ryan talks to Professor Jennifer Baker about her approach to teaching Stoicism, ethics, and political theory at the College of Charleston, what the Stoics might have said about driving a Mercedes instead of a Hyundai (or a Tesla), the challenges of teaching to today’s student population, and more. Jennifer Baker holds a Ph.D in Philosophy from the University of Arizona and B.A. in Philosophy from Brown. She brings her academic training and passion for understanding ancient wisdom to the courses that she te... |
| 2022-Nov-23 • 3 minutes Pity Is More Appropriate Than Anger At the beginning of Meditations, Marcus Aurelius laments the kind of people he’s going to meet each day—the bitter, the stupid, the jealous, the petty. Throughout the book he mentions other undesirables—the shameless, the evil, the greedy, the ignorant, the manipulative. Today, we could add still others— racists, polluters, rage profiteers, trolls and on and on. These people are frustrating. They make the world less safe, less productive, less collaborative. They poison the common good. They destroy any se... |
| 2022-Nov-22 • 11 minutes This Is The Day | How Stoicism Can Make You Happier This is what we tell ourselves: Someday I will write my book. Someday I will travel abroad. Someday I will learn how to play guitar. But someday soon, you will no longer be able to say, “someday…” --- “A good character is the only guarantee of everlasting, carefree happiness.” – Seneca The Stoics believed in living a virtuous life, one with the potential to bring us personal happiness and fulfillment. And that’s one of the reasons a person may choose to live after their fashion. After all, what good is ... |
| 2022-Nov-21 • 12 minutes The Last Words Of Marcus Aurelius | Practice Letting Go It’s one of the most haunting paintings you’ll ever see. More than 11 feet wide and 8 feet tall, painted in rich but dark oils, Eugene Delacroix (a student of the Stoics) captures Marcus Aurelius at the end of his life. A plague has devastated Rome. His troubled son stands in the wings, unlikely to rule well. Marcus has had a hard life, filled with adversity, not meeting, as one historian noted, “with the good fortune he deserved.” Yet he strived to do right and to be good. He escaped “imperialization” in ... |
| 2022-Nov-20 • 12 minutes This Stoic Virtue Will Change Your Life You’d think that the more powerful you are, the more freedom you’d have. The more money and success you have, the more you can do. You’d think that being a millionaire or being a celebrity or being the CEO would finally unshackle you from all the obnoxious and annoying constraints of being a ‘regular’ person… How wrong this is. How wrong this has always been. It was Eisenhower who said that freedom is really better described as the, “opportunity for self-discipline.” And you, you are lucky enough to live ... |
| 2022-Nov-19 • 66 minutes Ramit Sethi on How to Generate Wealth Ryan talks to personal finance advisor, entrepreneur, author, and host of the I Will Teach You To Be Rich podcast, Ramit Sethi about helping couples grow stronger through finances, the importance of a personal definition of “being rich,” healthy spending habits, and more.Ramit Sethi is the NY Times best-selling author of I Will Teach You To Be Rich, founder of GrowthLab.com, and owner and co-founder of PBworks. He grew up in Fair Oaks, California and graduated from Stanford University with a BA in Science, ... |
| 2022-Nov-18 • 13 minutes The Most Human Thing You Can Do | Ask Daily Stoic Years before he became president, Harry Truman owned a haberdashery that doubled as a local hang-out. A kid named Albert Ridge would often head there after his shift at the neighborhood grocery store. For the rest of his life, Ridge would tell the story of the time Truman gave him a list of ten books to read. It included books like Plutarch's Lives, Caesar's Commentaries, and Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail Check out the Daily Stoi... |
| 2022-Nov-17 • 11 minutes Small Things Are No Small Thing | Judge Not, Lest… George Washington’s favorite saying was “many mickles make a muckle.” It was an old Scottish proverb that illustrates a truth we all know: things add up. Even little ones. Even at the pace of one per day. Our perennial Page-A-Day Calendar is designed to help you grow one day at a time. It’s one page with one Stoic quote for every day—perfect for your desk, your nightstand, your kitchen counter, or your bathroom mirror, just in time for the New Year. Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up... |
| 2022-Nov-16 • 3 minutes Time has a Way of Humbling Us In several of Seneca’s letters he speaks about the power of bloodletting as a medical practice. In one, he actually remarks—with some superiority—how earlier generations had not yet discovered bloodletting and suffered for it. Marcus Aurelius hints at some other medical practices. He speaks of the treatment for ophthalmia—inflammation of the eye—and how doctors treated it with a bit of egg yolk. We also know that his doctor Galen gave Marcus opium for various pains and illnesses in old age. Needless to sa... |
| 2022-Nov-16 • 65 minutes Clinical Psychologist Dr. Sue Johnson on Building Lasting Relationships Ryan talks to clinical psychologist, couples therapist, and author Dr. Sue Johnson about how Stoicism and Emotionally Focused Therapy complement and enrich each other, what psychology can teach us about the nature of human relationships, her best-selling book (and a game-changer for Ryan) Hold Me Tight, and more. With a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Hull and an Ed.D. in Counseling Psychology from the University of British Columbia, Dr. Sue Johnson is a British clinical psychologist, the... |
| 2022-Nov-15 • 25 minutes Where Is Your Command Center? | Casey Neistat's 10 Stoic Practices (For Productivity) We get all sorts of messages. From the world. From social media. From other people. From our bodies. The question–the great difficulty of life–is gathering, deciphering and deciding which of these messages to listen to and act on, and which to ignore. One of the best translators of the Stoics, Robin Waterfield (you must read his annotated edition of Meditations), renders Marcus Aurelius’s use of the word hegemonikon as command center. Using this military metaphor, he says that we use our mental command cen... |
| 2022-Nov-14 • 11 minutes This Is Nothing To Brag About | Judge Yourself Not Others Oh, you’ve read the works of Heidegger? You finished all of Infinite Jest? You made it through all of Jordan Peterson’s Maps of Meaning, all of Faulkner’s lesser works, Finnegan’s Wake and Ulysses? You must be pretty proud of yourself. ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us... |
| 2022-Nov-13 • 18 minutes The Virtue That Made Marcus Aurelius So Great Marcus Aurelius did not come out of the womb a leader. Nor was he an emperor ‘by blood.’ In fact, when first told he was to be king, he wept—thinking of all the bad and failed kings of history. So how did he get from there to philosopher king? Book 1 of Meditations shows us. The first ten percent of the book—Debts and Lessons—thanks people who groomed him into one of history’s greatest leaders. He knew it—without his philosophy teachers and rhetoric teachers and, most importantly, his mentor Antoninus Piu... |
| 2022-Nov-12 • 60 minutes Yung Pueblo on How to Measure What Actually Matters in Life Ryan talks to the poet Yung Pueblo about his new book Lighter: Let Go of the Past, Connect with the Present, and Expand the Future, why servicing the common good is the most valuable metric to measure great work by, the common threads that tie differing philosophies together, and more.Diego Perez is a meditator and New York Times bestselling author who is widely known on Instagram and various social media networks through his pen name Yung Pueblo. Online he has an audience of over 2.7 million people. His wr... |
| 2022-Nov-11 • 17 minutes How To Make Better Use Of Your Time | Ask Daily Stoic Years before he became president, Harry Truman owned a haberdashery that doubled as a local hang-out. A kid named Albert Ridge would often head there after his shift at the neighborhood grocery store. For the rest of his life, Ridge would tell the story of the time Truman gave him a list of ten books to read. It included books like Plutarch's Lives, Caesar's Commentaries, and Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography. ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at htt... |
| 2022-Nov-10 • 11 minutes There’s Nothing Like This | Always The Same The rockstar Warren Zevon had been on the top of the Billboard charts. He’d been on the cover of Rolling Stone. He’d been admired by other great artists and musicians like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and Tom Petty. The heights of fame were enjoyable, but it took a jarring diagnosis of terminal lung cancer to give Zevon the kind of perspective that only a *memento mori* moment can give. And when it came, he passed it along in a very simple, very practical piece of advice: Enjoy every sandwich. ✉️ Want St... |
| 2022-Nov-09 • 4 minutes This Is How You Strengthen Your Soul According to the great Jesuit Monk Anthony DeMello, there are three intellectual feats that we struggle with on a regular basis, that are harder than just about any physical activity on the planet. Just three. They are, he said, in this order:Returning love for hate.Including the excluded.Admitting you are wrong.✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these ... |
| 2022-Nov-09 • 69 minutes Sophia Amoruso on Building Resilience and Defining Success Ryan talks to Sophia Amoruso about how she has navigated the highs and lows of being a successful business woman, how to become great without becoming a monster, the importance of staying grounded while reaching great heights, and more. Sophia Christina Amoruso is an American businesswoman. Amoruso was born in San Diego, California, and moved to Sacramento, California, after High school, soon after relocating to San Francisco. Amoruso founded Nasty Gal, a women's fashion retailer, which went on to be named... |
| 2022-Nov-08 • 12 minutes This Is Your Job As A Citizen | Why You Should Do Something Scary Every Day The single most important practice in Stoic philosophy is differentiating between what we have control over and what we don’t. Epictetus said, “The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own…” ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to ... |
| 2022-Nov-07 • 11 minutes You Become What You Give Your Attention To | The Real Power You Have The Stoics were all about routine and repetition. They talked about fueling the habit bonfire. They would have agreed with Aristotle: we are what we repeatedly do. We become what we repeatedly study and focus on. 📕 We created a premium leather-bound edition of Meditations - To learn more and to pick up your own copy of this beautiful new edition of Meditations, visit dailystoic.com/meditations ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.... |
| 2022-Nov-06 • 10 minutes The Most Life Changing Marcus Aurelius Quotes Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor, born nearly two millennia ago (121 – 180). Marcus became the Emperor of the Roman Empire in 161 and ruled for nearly two decades until his death in 180. It is important to realize the gravity of that position and the magnitude of power that Marcus possessed. He held one of—if not the most—powerful positions in the world at the time. If he chose to, nothing would be off limits. There is a reason the adage that power in absolute absolutely corrupts has been repeated throug... |
| 2022-Nov-05 • 69 minutes Kate Courtney, Karen Duffy, Meg Mason, and Susan Cain on Using Stoicism to Endure Life's Obstacles This episode is a compilation of some of the best Stoic wisdom from the Daily Stoic Podcast. Ryan talks to Kate Courtney about the important distinction between optimization vs. maximization, Karen Duffy about how Stoicism can help guide you through pain, Meg Mason about the vitality of being tolerant and forgiving of others, Susan Cain how to take heartbreak and mold something great out of it. Kate Courtney: https://dailystoic.com/kate-courtney/ Karen Duffy: https://dailystoic.com/karen-duffy/ Meg Mas... |
| 2022-Nov-04 • 16 minutes We Are Not In Decline | Ask Daily Stoic See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Nov-03 • 8 minutes A Sense of Urgency | Following The Doctor’s Orders In the kitchen at Per Se, one of the best restaurants in the world, there is a sign. All it says is: A Sense of Urgency. That’s what a great chef, a great service staff, a great organization has. A great person needs it too. ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 📕 We created a premium leather-bound edition of Meditations- To learn more and to pick up your own copy of this beautiful new edition of Meditations, visit d... |
| 2022-Nov-02 • 75 minutes Thomas Ricks on the Greatest War in American History Ryan talks to Thomas Ricks about his new book Waging a Good War: A Military History of the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968, the philosophical methods that guided the leaders in the civil rights movement, the grit that it took to fight for the promise made in the Declaration of Indepence, and more. Thomas Ricks is an American journalist and author who has won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting multiple times. He is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Fiasco: The American Military Adventur... |
| 2022-Nov-02 • 4 minutes Pursue Excellence, Not Credit Perhaps you remember reading The Odyssey in high school or college (or possibly you picked up Emily Wilson’s fabulous new translation at the Painted Porch). Even if you haven’t, you’re probably familiar with the cyclops scene. Odysseus and his men find themselves trapped in a cave with Polyphemus, the deranged, man-eating, sheep herding, one-eyed beast. Odysseus hatches an ingenious escape plan: they wait for the cyclops to fall asleep and then stab him in the eye with a sharpened log. Enraged and blinded,... |
| 2022-Nov-01 • 19 minutes Why We Admire Marcus Aurelius | Ancient Strategies For Finding Happiness Marcus Aurelius was smart. He was rich and powerful. He won wars and conquered territories. But that doesn’t explain why we are still talking about his Meditations so many thousands of years later. As Brand Blandshard would observe of Marcus’s writings 1984, "Few care now about the marches and countermarches of the Roman commanders. What the centuries have clung to is a notebook of thoughts by a man whose real life was largely unknown who put down in the midnight dimness not the events of the day or the p... |
| 2022-Oct-31 • 11 minutes We Are Not Alone | Accepting What Is Ghosts are, of course, a silly thing to believe in (Athenodorus’ ghost story notwithstanding). Yet the Stoics would not have scoffed at Eleanor Roosevelt’s feeling of not being alone in the Lincoln bedroom. As the New York Times would write many years ago in an editorial about her claim, “The White House is built of memories…It will remain a haunted house as long as it stands, but only in the benign sense that unseen presences may still be watching the destiny of the Republic…What American, passing by that ... |
| 2022-Oct-30 • 32 minutes The Professional — An Excerpt from Steven Pressfield’s “Turning Pro” In this excerpt Steven talks about the difference between an amatuer and a professional, the qualities that a professional expresses, and he explains what it takes to become a professional at whatever you do. Published by Recorded Books on Brilliance Audio. 📕 Grab a copy of “Turning Pro” at the Painted Porch Bookshop ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more. 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitte... |
| 2022-Oct-29 • 65 minutes Atticus the Poet on Modern Media and Remaining Anonymous Ryan talks to the anonymous Instagram poet Atticus about how modern media has distorted old ideas, his experience meeting the Dalai Lama, the decision to remain anonymous in the public eye, and more. Atticus, who grew up in Vancouver, has built a career as a bestselling poet by reading for hundreds, from behind a mask. From being an early investor in SpaceX, to launching a coffee business with Elon's cousins, to releasing 3 NYT Bestselling books, an international wine brand, and clothing partnerships with ... |
| 2022-Oct-28 • 18 minutes More Often Than Not | Ask Daily Stoic The Stoics were not perfect. Nothing illustrates this more than Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. Why would Marcus have to write reminders about not losing your temper or not wasting your time if he was not guilty of those very things? Why would he remind himself that the people he was going to deal with that day would be meddling, ungrateful and dishonest if he didn’t struggle dealing with those types of people? Why did he have to remind himself that doing the right thing was better than trying to be remembere... |
| 2022-Oct-27 • 10 minutes We Don’t See The Full Picture | We Reap What We Sow History is a lie. It is written by the victors, as the saying goes. Which means the picture it produces is inherently biased by a particular point of view. It’s also biased towards the things we know about, by our common knowledge. ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Ins... |
| 2022-Oct-26 • 3 minutes Stoicism Is Not A Form Of Self-Flagellation Seneca was a very rich man. He had nice stuff. Critics at the time, and ever since, have found this to be indisputable proof of his hypocrisy. How can a Stoic have expensive ivory tables? Isn’t it unphilosophical to have multiple houses? Or servants? ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com... |
| 2022-Oct-26 • 61 minutes Kamal Ravikant on Facing Death and Loving Yourself This episode comes out for free on 10/26/22. Ryan talks to author and investor Kamal Ravikant about his recent near death experience, why the inner game is the ultimate game, how loving yourself can change your relationship with suffering, and more. Kamal Ravikant is the author of the bestselling books, Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It and Live Your Truth. He’s been a US Army Infantry soldier, held the hands of dying patients, climbed in the Himalayas, spoken to audiences around the globe, walk... |
| 2022-Oct-25 • 14 minutes It’s Beyond Arrogant | 6 Insanely Useful Stoic Questions Human beings have been putting things off for as long as there have been things to do. We tell ourselves we’ll do it when we’re older, after we finish, when we have more time, when the seasons change. We tell ourselves we’ll do it tomorrow. And yet… ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/... |
| 2022-Oct-24 • 11 minutes This Book Was Not Meant For Us | Build Up, Don’t Tear Down There are very few books like it. Certainly, none written by someone in such an unusual position. You see, Meditations was not meant to be a book for the reader, it was a book for the author. In Greek, it was titled Eis heauton or “To Himself.” A more recent title also captures the essence: The Emperor’s Handbook. 📕 We created a premium leather-bound edition of Meditations - To learn more and to pick up your own copy of this beautiful new edition of Meditations, visit dailystoic.com/meditations 📱 Follow ... |
| 2022-Oct-23 • 17 minutes Musonius Rufus Stoic Fragments: PT 1 This episode comes out for free on 10/23/22. Today’s episode features two sections from the lesser known Musonius Rufus Stoic Fragments: That Man Is Born With An Inclination Toward Virtue and That Women Too Should Study Philosophy. Pick up a copy of That One Should Disdain Hardships: The Teachings of a Roman Stoic by Musonius Rufus at the Painted Porch Bookshop. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed b... |
| 2022-Oct-22 • 68 minutes Maya Smart on Transforming Education and the Power of Reading This episode comes out for free on 10/22/22. Ryan talks to Maya Smart about her new book Reading for Our Lives: A Literacy Action Plan from Birth to Six (which you can pick up at the Painted Porch Bookshop), how she developed the ideas in the book over a span of 10 years, how she fell in love with reading, and more. Maya Smart is an author and journalist. Throughout her career, she’s written hundreds of articles, including breaking news stories, book reviews, features, and op-eds for a wide range of publi... |
| 2022-Oct-21 • 12 minutes The Truly Wise Make Time For Leisure | Ask Daily Stoic Leisure is one of those words that modernity has terribly corrupted and misused. When most people hear it we think of lounging around doing nothing. We think of any activity absent of activity, as an opportunity to completely shut down. And this is a tremendous perversion of a sacred notion. ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily... |
| 2022-Oct-20 • 8 minutes Is The World Going Through Hell? | Marks Of The Good Life “It’s tough to be alive now,” the actor Timothée Chalamet recently said. “I think societal collapse is in the air — it smells like it.” It’s one of those lines that got picked up by dozens of media outlets. Because those outlets know it’s one of those headlines people can’t resist clicking on. As the economist Deirdre McCloskey once put it, “For reasons I have never understood, people like to hear that the world is going to hell.” ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Da... |
| 2022-Oct-19 • 4 minutes Is it Evil or Incompetence? People do a lot of things that feel mean. That frustrate us. That cause problems for us. That make the world a worse place. They vote for bad politicians. They say offensive things. They make messes. They screw stuff up. ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twi... |
| 2022-Oct-19 • 89 minutes Annie Duke on Knowing When to Quit Ryan talks to World Series of Poker champion Annie Duke about her new book Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away, the power of walking away from things that don’t align with your beliefs, the importance of making decisions in service of a larger goal, and more. Annie Duke is a former professional poker player and a bestselling author. She is an expert in cognitive psychology and co-founded the non-profit Ante Up for Africa in 2007 to benefit charities working in African nations. Her recent book, How... |
| 2022-Oct-18 • 13 minutes Can You Play Ball? | How To Read Books Effectively (7 Stoic Tips) Life throws stuff at us. We have to figure out how to catch it and throw it back. That’s what Epictetus meant when he said we don’t control what happens, we control how we respond. ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook Se... |
| 2022-Oct-17 • 11 minutes This Will Sustain You | Make Honesty Your Only Policy Each of us goes to work every day and deals with obstacles, with difficult people. We deal with stress at home. We have responsibilities in our community. Some of us have other problems still: A divorce. A looming bankruptcy. Maybe we’re on deployment. Maybe we’ve just done a stint in jail. ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily ... |
| 2022-Oct-16 • 10 minutes Seneca on the Terrors of Death Today’s episode is an excerpt from The Tao Of Seneca produced by Tim Ferriss’ Audio. Get the free PDF at tim.blog/seneca. In this letter Seneca talks about how to develop mental calm and reject the fear of death. 📕 Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" is out now! We’ve extended the pre-order bonuses for the next week—among them is a signed and numbered page from the original manuscript of the book. You can learn more about those and how to receive them over at Dailystoic.com/preorder. ✉️ Sign... |
| 2022-Oct-15 • 64 minutes Steve Case on the New American Dream This episode comes out for free on 10/15/2022. Ryan talks to Steve Case about his new book The Rise of the Rest: How Entrepreneurs in Surprising Places are Building the New American Dream, how the pandemic has shifted the cultural landscape, the opportunity gap that is being created, and more. One of America’s most successful entrepreneurs and executives, best known as co-founder of America Online and CEO of Revolution LLC, Steve Case has a passion for building startups that can change the world. Steve’s ... |
| 2022-Oct-14 • 15 minutes Is it Resilience, or Are You Just Naive? | Ask Daily Stoic We’ve talked before about the so-called Stockdale Paradox—the blazing determination inside Admiral James Stockdale that allowed him to believe that, despite his imprisonment and torture, he would not only survive but thrive because of his experience. There’s something similar in Meditations where Marcus Aurelius, reflecting on the plague and the wars and the troubles that beset his reign, actually says to himself, “It’s fortunate that this happened to me.” 📕 Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" ... |
| 2022-Oct-13 • 11 minutes Your Job is to Transition | Revenge Is A Dish Best Not Served Think of all the responsibilities on Marcus Aurelius’ plate. He’s emperor. He’s head of the army. He’s serving as consul (yes, in the Roman system, the emperor also stood for elected office). He judged cases. He was a husband. A friend. A philosopher. He also had fourteen children. 📕 Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" is out now! We’ve extended the pre-order bonuses for the next week—among them is a signed and numbered page from the original manuscript of the book. You can learn more about tho... |
| 2022-Oct-12 • 3 minutes Your Possessions Are Not Your Identity It’s very easy to associate our possessions and our positions with our identity. There’s even an expression to that effect: The clothes make the man. When we have a powerful job, we feel powerful. When the market is hot, we feel like we have a knack for investing. When we are number one in our space, in our industry, in sales, we’re very into checking and monitoring the rankings. When people are saying nice things about us, we revel in it, because of course it’s all true and deserved. 📕 Ryan Holiday's new ... |
| 2022-Oct-12 • 66 minutes David Rubenstein on Investing and Designing the Optimal Life This episode comes out for free on 10/12/2022 Ryan talks to David Rubenstein about his new book How to Invest, his experiences working for President Jimmy Carter, how design your life for happiness and productivity, and more. David Mark Rubenstein is an American billionaire businessman. Former government official and lawyer. A Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest and most successful private investment firms. Mr. Rubenstein co-founded the firm in 1987. Also the host o... |
| 2022-Oct-11 • 16 minutes What Are You Getting Better At? | 11 Stoic Principles Every Athlete Needs To Win No one is more invested in getting better than you. You read books. You have a mentor. You even have a business coach. You go to work conferences. You go to the gym. You have hobbies that you watch videos about, that you have goals for. You have a financial advisor. You put in long hours. 📕 Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" is out now! We’ve extended the pre-order bonuses for the next week—among them is a signed and numbered page from the original manuscript of the book. You can learn more ab... |
| 2022-Oct-10 • 9 minutes Can You Stop? | Practice Love You tell yourself you’ll go to bed after one more episode. You’ll put the phone down after one more scroll. You’ll pay your tab and leave after one more drink. That was the last time you’ll ever do that again, you say. 📕 Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" is out now! We’ve extended the pre-order bonuses for the next week—among them is a signed and numbered page from the original manuscript of the book. You can learn more about those and how to receive them over at Dailystoic.com/preorder. ✉️... |
| 2022-Oct-09 • 16 minutes The Vow - From Kamal Ravikant's “Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It" Pt. 2 This episode comes out for free on 10/9/2022 Today’s episode features an excerpt from Kamal Ravikant’s book “Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It" provided by Harper Audio. The book is a collection of Kamal’s writings on overcoming depression and living a happier life. This second part talks about the applicable practices that Kamal used to improve his life during a dark time. 📕 Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" is out now! We’ve extended the pre-order bonuses for the next week—among t... |
| 2022-Oct-08 • 67 minutes Amy Morin on How to be Mentally Strong This episode comes out for free on 10/8/2022 Ryan talks to author Amy Morin about her book 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do, how to find agency in your everyday life, overcoming mentally challenging situations by gaining perspective, and more. Amy Morin is a psychotherapist turned “accidental” author. In her early 20’s Amy experienced grave loss - both her mother and her husband passed only a few years apart. In 2013, during one of my lowest points in her life, Amy wrote a letter to herself about... |
| 2022-Oct-07 • 14 minutes Err On This Side | Ask Daily Stoic One should understand, or at least empathize with, the difficult position a politician quite often finds themselves these days with the proliferation of divisive, hot-button political issues. Take Utah’s governor Spencer Cox and transgender youth in sports. Cox couldn’t easily decide what side to take on the issue–or at least he didn’t immediately act when the subject came before state lawmakers. Instead, Cox sought counsel from trusted mentors. He read books to understand both sides as best he could. He re... |
| 2022-Oct-06 • 11 minutes You Struggle With This Everyday | Looking Out For Each Other Epictetus said that to live a good life, you have to make good choices. You are what your choices make you, nothing more and nothing less. 📕 Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" is out now! We’ve extended the pre-order bonuses for the next week—among them is a signed and numbered page from the original manuscript of the book. You can learn more about those and how to receive them over at Dailystoic.com/preorder. ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Sto... |
| 2022-Oct-05 • 68 minutes Robert Mckee on the Power of Storytelling Ryan talks to Robert Mckee about his new book Action: The Art of Excitement for Screen, Page, and Game, the importance of showing not telling, how to tell a great story, and more.Robert McKee is the most sought after screenwriting lecturer around the globe. He has dedicated the last 30 years to educating and mentoring screenwriters, novelists, playwrights, poets, documentary makers, producers, and directors internationally. Robert’s articles on Story have also appeared in hundreds of newspapers and magazine... |
| 2022-Oct-05 • 3 minutes Little Actions Add Up to Real Transformation 📕 Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" is out now! We’ve extended the pre-order bonuses for the next week—among them is a signed and numbered page from the original manuscript of the book. You can learn more about those and how to receive them over at Dailystoic.com/preorder. ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https:... |
| 2022-Oct-04 • 18 minutes You Can’t Not Think It | 12 Stoic Lessons From Las Vegas 📕 Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" is out now! We’ve extended the pre-order bonuses for the next week—among them is a signed and numbered page from the original manuscript of the book. You can learn more about those and how to receive them over at Dailystoic.com/preorder. ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https:... |
| 2022-Oct-03 • 10 minutes If You Want To Be Powerful | Practice Silence Since the time of the Stoics, people have aspired to command great armies. To accumulate great fortunes. To hold high office. To be famous. To be important. In short, humans have longed to (and continue to) chase power. 📕 Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" is out now! We’ve extended the pre-order bonuses for the next week—among them is a signed and numbered page from the original manuscript of the book. You can learn more about those and how to receive them over at Dailystoic.com/preorder. ✉... |
| 2022-Oct-02 • 23 minutes How To Be Content: The Search For The Good Life Pt. 1 Today’s episode is an excerpt from Stephen Harrison’s How To Be Content: An Ancient Poet's Guide for an Age of Excess published by Princeton University Press. In this chapter Horace talks about being content with what you have, the different philosophical ideas that lead us to living “the good life.” and more. 📕Pre-order Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" and get exclusive bonuses at https://dailystoic.com/preorder ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 📱 F... |
| 2022-Oct-01 • 58 minutes Russ Roberts on Making Better Decisions Ryan talks to economist and author Russ Roberts about his new book Wild Problems: A Guide to the Decisions That Define Us, the tension between being ambitious and being a good person, strategies for reducing the fear and the loss of control that inevitably come when a wild problem requires a leap in the dark, and more. Russ Roberts is the President of Shalem College in Jerusalem and the John and Jean De Nault Research Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. Russ is interested and invested in ma... |
| 2022-Sep-30 • 15 minutes No More Than This Is Required | Ask Daily Stoic We are impressed by people who do incredible things–whether it’s creating some great work of art or pulling off some impossible athletic feat, bringing about social change or building an enormous organization. How did they do it? Where did that come from? Sometimes to excuse our own failures, we tell ourselves it was genius or genetics, inspiration rather than perspiration. 📕 Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" is available for pre-order now! We’ve put together a bunch of cool preorder bonuses—... |
| 2022-Sep-29 • 10 minutes It’s Hard To Be a Person In This World | Your Actual Needs Are Small Even if the changes are positive, we can appreciate that they’ve been difficult for people. There is so much to navigate, to be sensitive to in this modern world of ours. People are expected to be tolerant of things that just a few years ago were considered totally out of the mainstream. Words and descriptors, even the names of countries (or the pronunciations of the names of cities) seem to change by the day (with painful consequences if you screw them up)... 📕 Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Desti... |
| 2022-Sep-28 • 3 minutes Find The Space Think about the last time that someone made you upset. What did they say? What did they do? Now think back: How did you react? What did you say? What did you feel? 📕 Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" is available for pre-order now! We’ve put together a bunch of cool preorder bonuses—among them is a signed and numbered page from the original manuscript of the book. You can learn more about those and how to receive them over at Dailystoic.com/preorder. ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your i... |
| 2022-Sep-28 • 63 minutes David Maraniss on Why We Study the Greats Ryan talks to author and journalist David Maraniss about his approach to his work, and his most recent book: Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe, which is an epic biography on the trials of America’s greatest all-around athlete. David Maraniss is a New York Times best-selling author, fellow of the Society of American Historians, and visiting distinguished professor at Vanderbilt University. He has been affiliated with the Washington Post for more than forty years as an editor and writer, and twi... |
| 2022-Sep-27 • 13 minutes This is the Win | Discipline Is Destiny: The Four Virtues Before he was a big time comedian, Hasan Minhaj was asked if he thought he was going to make it big. “I don’t like that question,” he said. “I fundamentally don’t like that question.” Because the question implies that doing comedy is a means to an end—the Netflix special, selling out the stadium, doing this, getting that. “No, no, no,” he said, “I get to do comedy…I won. It being predicated on doing X or being bigger than Y—no, no, no. To me, it’s always just been about the work. I’m on house money, full t... |
| 2022-Sep-26 • 9 minutes Discipline Now…Freedom Later | Pain Is Self-Inflicted Harm At a critical moment in The Odyssey, Odysseus tied himself to the mast of his ship because he knew he wouldn’t be able to resist steering the ship toward the beautiful sound of the Sirens. In temporarily giving up his freedom, Odysseus became the first person ever to hear the Sirens without fatally crashing into the rocks surrounding the island where they lived. 📕 Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" is available for pre-order now! We’ve put together a bunch of cool preorder bonuses—among them i... |
| 2022-Sep-25 • 54 minutes Memento Mori: The Reminder You Desperately Need Who wants to think about death? In his Meditations—essentially his own private journal—Marcus Aurelius wrote that “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” That was a personal reminder to continue living a life of virtue NOW, and not wait. Epictetus, urged his students: “Keep death and exile before your eyes each day, along with everything that seems terrible— by doing so, you’ll never have a base thought nor will you have excessive desire.” Use those reminders an... |
| 2022-Sep-24 • 67 minutes Ryan Lavarnway on Sports and Philosophy Ryan talks to professional baseball catcher Ryan Lavarnway about his experience being the only professional baseball player with a philosophy degree from Yale, the intersection of sports and philosophy, the ups and downs of being a professional athlete, and more. Ryan Lavarnway is the current Detroit Tigers’ Triple A Toledo Mud Hens catcher and 2013 World Series Champion. He has held many valuable experiences, both in and out of the baseball field. A Yale University graduate, Ryan was drafted by the Boston... |
| 2022-Sep-23 • 15 minutes This Is Why You Should Stick Around | Ask Daily Stoic There are moments where things are so bad it can seem like they’ll never get better. Perhaps we’re young and being bullied. Or we’re in the midst of some massive rush of negative publicity–maybe we’re being canceled, or as the Stoics often were, exiled. Or the political situation seems to deteriorate each day. Or we’re just so sick or in pain that we can’t get out of bed. If you or someone you know is in a mental health crisis and you live in the United States, please call the National Suicide Prevention L... |
| 2022-Sep-22 • 9 minutes All That Matters Is How We Respond | No Pain No Gain It was the great Athenian leader, Pericles, who said that there was nothing wrong with poverty. It could be caused by so many things—a business failure, the sudden loss of a family’s breadwinner, theft, even just plain old back luck. Like the Stoics, he knew that Fortune could swoop in, and, in the blink of an eye, undo years of hard work and careful planning. 📕Pre-order Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" and get exclusive pre-order bonuses at https://dailystoic.com/preorder ✉️ Want Stoic wi... |
| 2022-Sep-21 • 74 minutes Tim Miller on Political Games and Building Integrity Ryan talks to political consultant and writer Tim Miller about his new book Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell, the game of American politics, how to maintain integrity in your work, and more. Tim Miller is a former Republican communications operative who held moderate views and backed moderate candidates for years. But he says in practicing the arts of opposition research and planting negative stories about rival candidates, he worked with increasingly extreme right-wing media ou... |
| 2022-Sep-21 • 5 minutes It's About Finding the Right Amount When we hear the word “temperance,” C.S. Lewis observed, most of us in the modern world think of “abstinence.” Even when you look up the definition of abstinence, temperance is a synonym. But temperance, Lewis wrote, is actually about going to the, “right length but no further.” 📕 Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" is available for pre-order now! We’ve put together a bunch of cool preorder bonuses—among them is a signed and numbered page from the original manuscript of the book. You can learn ... |
| 2022-Sep-20 • 31 minutes Don’t You See How Crazy This Is? | Discipline Is Destiny: Ruling Over Yourself Sometimes things become so ordinary, such a normal part of life in polite society, that we fail to see how utterly insane they are. History is replete with these examples. Who would propose today that one human should be allowed to own another? Or that only one specific race and gender be allowed to vote? Just 100 years ago men wore one-piece bathing suits to the beach while women were forbidden from smoking in public, wearing pants, or owning property. It wasn’t so long ago that doctors thought lots of red... |
| 2022-Sep-19 • 8 minutes Would You Actually Be Able To Change? | On Handling Haters Breaking news: an asteroid is hurtling towards earth and could destroy the planet. The judge rules: you have a year to get your affairs in order and report to prison for the mandatory maximum sentence. The doctor calls: you have a short time to live. The sirens sound: nuclear war has broken out and the end is near. 📕Pre-order Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" and get exclusive pre-order bonuses at https://dailystoic.com/preorder ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up fo... |
| 2022-Sep-18 • 24 minutes Aristotle on How to Tell a Story Pt. 2 Today’s episode features an excerpt from How to Tell a Story: An Ancient Guide to the Art of Storytelling for Writers and Readers translated by Philip Freeman as part of Princeton University Press’s Anient Wisdom For Modern Readers series. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more. 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy a... |
| 2022-Sep-17 • 75 minutes Elliot Ackerman on Storytelling and the Cyclical Nature of History Ryan talks to author and journalist Elliot Ackerman about his new book The Fifth Act: America's End in Afghanistan, the origins of storytelling, his experiences evacuating hundreds of refugees in Afghanistan, and more. Elliot Ackerman is a former White House Fellow and Marine, and served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. Elliot’s books have been nominated for the National Book Award, the Andrew Carnegie Medal in b... |
| 2022-Sep-16 • 12 minutes Face Down in the Moment | Ask Daily Stoic The thing about life is that it’s not a thing. Life is a series of moments. As the great Annie Dillard said, how we spend our days is how we spend our lives—and how we spend our moments is how we spend our days. 📕Pre-order Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" and get exclusive pre-order bonuses at https://dailystoic.com/preorder ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTu... |
| 2022-Sep-15 • 7 minutes You Must Question | A Garden Is Not For Show Marcus Aurelius was a man who did not partake in the base pleasures of his time. While other Romans saw the death and the carnage of the colosseum as entertainment, Marcus did not. While other Romans–particularly rich, male Romans–saw their slaves not just as property but as walking pleasure machines, Marcus Aurelius did not. 📕Pre-order Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" and get exclusive pre-order bonuses at https://dailystoic.com/preorder ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily?... |
| 2022-Sep-14 • 63 minutes Robert Coram on Living Life by a Code Ryan talks to Robert Coram about the life and legacy of the fighter pilot John Boyd, the Stoic heroism of James Stockdale, the value of living your life based on a virtuous code, and more. Robert has had a long career as a reporter, staff and freelance writer, and author. He is a Pulitzer Prize nominated journalist. His writing has appeared in many publications, including the Atlanta Gazette, Atlanta Magazine, the New York Times, Sports Illustrated, and Esquire. As an author, he has published several novel... |
| 2022-Sep-14 • 4 minutes Know it Inside and Out Admiral Hyman Rickover, the father of the nuclear Navy in the United States and an unsung hero in the history of the world, was once asked by a Congressman if he was prepared for the upcoming hearing in which Hyman needed to speak about a number of complex, important issues. "Yes," Rickover replied, "I shaved and put on a clean shirt." 📕Pre-order Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" and get exclusive pre-order bonuses at https://dailystoic.com/preorder ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your in... |
| 2022-Sep-13 • 31 minutes Don’t You See How Crazy This Is | Discipline Is Destiny: Ruling Over Yourself It’s very easy to be jaded. It’s very easy to be cynical. The system is, as it was in Rome, hopelessly broken. Corruption, dishonesty, and stupidity are all widespread. The odds are impossible. The problems enormous. So why care? Why even try? 📕 Ruling Over Yourself is a chapter from Ryan Holiday's newest book Discipline Is Destiny. Pre-order now to get exclusive pre-order bonuses at https://dailystoic.com/preorder ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email... |
| 2022-Sep-12 • 11 minutes Greatness is up to You | A New Way To Pray Every day, you have to do things you’d rather not do. Or maybe you’re early in your career, and you have to do things that you think are beneath you. Maybe you dream of some higher station in life, and you phone it in on the lowly tasks you’re given now. You think, I’m better than this, this is embarrassing, this doesn’t matter. Foolishness. 📕Pre-order Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" and get exclusive pre-order bonuses at https://dailystoic.com/preorder ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to ... |
| 2022-Sep-11 • 43 minutes Epictetus - The Enchiridion Pt. 2 The Enchiridion is one of the essential texts of Stoic philosophy, and one of the most important ancient documents that we have access to. It is a concentrated collection of Epictetus’s wisest teachings and contains all the fundamentals of his philosophy. It is a guiding text and required reading for students of Stoic philosophy. 📕Get a copy of Discourses and Selected Writings by Epictetus at the Painted Porch Bookshop Epictetus was born nearly 2,000 years ago in Hierapolis (present-day Pamukkale in Turke... |
| 2022-Sep-10 • 72 minutes David Wallace-Wells on Empowering the Future Ryan talks to journalist David Wallace-Wells about his new book The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, seeking out information, challenging assumptions, and becoming empowered through better understanding. During his 11 years at New York magazine, David has emerged as one of the nation’s most formidable thinkers about science and society, writing agenda-setting essays on the dangers and complexities of global warming. His 2019 book, “The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming,” was a number one Time... |
| 2022-Sep-09 • 19 minutes This is What It Means To Be Indifferent | Ask Daily Stoic The Stoics spoke about being indifferent, disinterested. Have no interest in what makes no difference, Marcus Aurelius said. That’s the image of the Stoic. Unconcerned with what’s happening around them–no preferences, no emotion, good with whatever. 📕Pre-order Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" and get exclusive pre-order bonuses at https://dailystoic.com/preorder ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail ... |
| 2022-Sep-08 • 10 minutes History is One Damned Thing After Another | Do Not Be Deceived By Fortune By the time Marcus Aurelius took over as emperor, he had not had an easy life. He had lost his father at age three. He had lost a beloved tutor. His lifepath was upended by Hadrian’s selection. He had 14 children during his 30-year marriage to Faustina. And then of course, in order to ascend to the purple, he had to lose his mentor Hadrian and his beloved stepfather Antoninus. 📕Pre-order Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" and get exclusive pre-order bonuses at https://dailystoic.com/preorder ... |
| 2022-Sep-07 • 3 minutes Give Yourself This Gift There is a beautiful passage on the last page of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s, The Little House in the Big Woods. She writes of an evening in the cabin with her family, her father playing the fiddle, her mom knitting in a rocking chair: “She thought to herself, ‘This is now.’ She was glad that the cosy house, and Pa and Ma and the firelight and the music, were now. They could not be forgotten, she thought, because now is now. It can never be a long time ago.” 📕Pre-order Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is De... |
| 2022-Sep-07 • 66 minutes Daniel Lubetzky on Making the World a Better Place Ryan talks to KIND Snacks Founder Daniel Lubetzky about the importance of culture and values in a successful company, empowering people through kindness, living out the values that you build your life on, and more. Best known as the founder of KIND Snacks, Daniel Lubetzky is a business leader, investor, and social entrepreneur working to build bridges between people and increase appreciation for our shared humanity.Through his startup investment and incubation platform Equilibra Ventures, Daniel partners w... |
| 2022-Sep-06 • 15 minutes Are You Disciplined Enough For This? | 7 Essential Stoic Productivity Tips (From Top Performers) 📕Pre-order Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" and get exclusive pre-order bonuses at https://dailystoic.com/preorder ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and ... |
| 2022-Sep-05 • 11 minutes Don’t Be Always Working | A Hard Winter Training 📕Pre-order Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" and get exclusive pre-order bonuses at https://dailystoic.com/preorder ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and ... |
| 2022-Sep-04 • 20 minutes Plutarch on How To Be A Leader Today’s episode features an excerpt from Jeffrey Beneker’s How To Be A Leader: An Ancient Guide to Wise Leadership. How To Be A Leader is a modern translation and collection of essays about successful leadership from the ancient biographer. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more. 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy ... |
| 2022-Sep-03 • 68 minutes Tyler Cowen on Identifying Talent and Self-Improvement Ryan talks to economist and author Tyler Cowen about his new book Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World, the slow journey that is self-improvement, how to identify talent and build a great team, and more. Tyler Cowen is the author of several bestselling books and is widely published in academic journals and the popular media. Tyler’s latest book is Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World. He writes a column for Bloomberg View; has co... |
| 2022-Sep-02 • 28 minutes This Can’t Make You Worse | Ask Daily Stoic There is nothing less Stoic than disorganization, than chaos, than “winging it.” That’s why we develop a routine, why we set standards (and meet them), why we’re on top of our lives, why we take things seriously. 📕Pre-order Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" and get exclusive pre-order bonuses at https://dailystoic.com/preorder ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallion... |
| 2022-Sep-01 • 10 minutes Freedom is An Opportunity For This | A Strong Soul Is Better Than Good Luck You’d think that the more powerful you are, the more freedom you’d have. The more money and success you have, the more you can do. You’d think that being a millionaire or being a celebrity or being the CEO would finally unshackle you from all the obnoxious and annoying constraints of being a ‘regular’ person… How wrong this is. How wrong this has always been. 📕Pre-order Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" and get exclusive pre-order bonuses at https://dailystoic.com/preorder ✉️ Want Stoic wi... |
| 2022-Aug-31 • 4 minutes Having Flaws Does Not Mean You ARE Flawed 📕Pre-order Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" and get exclusive pre-order bonuses at https://dailystoic.com/preorder ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and ... |
| 2022-Aug-31 • 70 minutes DJ Vanas on the Warrior Spirit and Fueling Growth Ryan talks to leadership expert DJ Vanas about his new book The Warrior Within: Own Your Power to Serve, Fight, Protect, and Heal, how to use the warrior mindset to fuel growth in your life, the power of living a life of service rather than selfishness, and more. DJ Eagle Bear Vanas is an enrolled member of the Ottawa Tribe of Michigan. He was born to impoverished teenage parents and went from sleeping in a drawer for the first three months of his life to becoming a proud graduate of the U.S. Air Force Aca... |
| 2022-Aug-30 • 8 minutes Do It Even Harder | What Is Memento Mori (Explained In 5 Minutes) 📕Pre-order Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" and get exclusive pre-order bonuses at https://dailystoic.com/preorder ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and ... |
| 2022-Aug-29 • 10 minutes Why Discipline is Destiny | A Cure For Procrastination 📕Pre-order Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" and get exclusive pre-order bonuses at https://dailystoic.com/preorder ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and ... |
| 2022-Aug-28 • 32 minutes Resistance: Defining the Enemy - An Excerpt from Steven Pressfield’s “The War Of Art” Today’s episode features an excerpt from Steven Pressfield’s book “The War Of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles” (get a signed copy from The Painted Porch). Provided by Black Irish Entertainment LLC. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more. 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and Calif... |
| 2022-Aug-27 • 69 minutes Justin Gregg on Animal Intelligence and Human Stupidity Ryan talks to Justin Gregg about his new book If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal: What Animal Intelligence Reveals About Human Stupidity, what we can learn from the nature of animals, the double edge sword of human intelligence, and more. Justin Gregg is science writer and author. He writes about animal behavior and cognition, with articles and blog posts appearing in The Wall Street Journal, Aeon Magazine, Scientific American, BBC Focus, Slate, Diver Magazine. Justin produced and hosted the dolphin science podca... |
| 2022-Aug-26 • 11 minutes Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants To Be | Ask Daily Stoic 📕Pre-order Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" and get exclusive pre-order bonuses at https://dailystoic.com/preorder ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and ... |
| 2022-Aug-25 • 10 minutes What You Propose, Fate Will Dispose | Respect The Past, But Be Open To The Future 📕Pre-order Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" and get exclusive pre-order bonuses at https://dailystoic.com/preorder ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and ... |
| 2022-Aug-24 • 4 minutes This is the Most Important Virtue 📕Pre-order Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" and get exclusive pre-order bonuses at https://dailystoic.com/preorder ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and ... |
| 2022-Aug-24 • 67 minutes Paul Bloom on Why We Need Heroes Ryan talks to psychology professor and author Paul Bloom about the importance of recognizing our own bias, the role that our character plays in everyday life, why we look to moral exemplars to base our lives on, and more. Paul Bloom is a passionate teacher of undergraduates, and his popular Introduction to Psychology 110 class has been released to the world through the Open Yale Courses program. He has recently completed a second MOOC, “Moralities of Everyday Life”, that introduced moral psychology to tens... |
| 2022-Aug-23 • 15 minutes How Are You Still Not Doing This? | How Stoicism Can Give You Inner-Peace In a Crazy World ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Aug-22 • 8 minutes It Blows You Away | Just Say No to Future Misery ⚔️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic Slay Your Stress Challenge ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-inf... |
| 2022-Aug-21 • 19 minutes Seneca on Philosophy and Friendship Today’s episode is an excerpt from The Tao Of Seneca produced by Tim Ferriss’ Audio. Get the free PDF at tim.blog/seneca. In this letter Seneca examines the common bases upon which friendships are formed and explains the value that friendship adds to existence. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more. 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook See Privacy Policy at https... |
| 2022-Aug-20 • 59 minutes Steven Pressfield on Consistency, Overcoming Resistance and Discipline Ryan talks to author Steven Pressfield about his new book Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants To Be, how to do good work consistently, the importance of discipline, and more. Steven Pressfield wrote for 27 years before he got his first novel published. During that time he worked 21 different jobs in eleven states. Steven taught school, drove tractor-trailers, worked in advertising and as a screenwriter in Hollywood. He worked on offshore oil rigs, and picked fruit as a migrant worker. His books include The... |
| 2022-Aug-19 • 15 minutes You Can Shut Your Ears | Ask Daily Stoic ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Aug-18 • 10 minutes Who Is In Charge | Only Fools Rush In ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Aug-17 • 71 minutes Will MacAskill on Creating Lasting Change Ryan talks to professor and writer Will MacAskill about his book What We Owe The Future, how to create effective change in the world, the importance of gaining a better perspective on the world, and more. Will MacAskill is an Associate Professor in Philosophy and Research Fellow at the Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford. His research focuses on the fundamentals of effective altruism - the use of evidence and reason to help others as much as possible with our time and money - with a particula... |
| 2022-Aug-17 • 3 minutes It’s Good That Things Have Been Hard ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Aug-16 • 15 minutes Why You Must Build A Deep Bookshelf | The Best Advice Ryan Holiday Ever Got ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Aug-15 • 7 minutes Don’t Be So Tough | Always Ask Yourself This Question ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Aug-14 • 46 minutes The Power Of Courage | Ryan Holiday Speaks To The US Naval Academy In April of 2022 Ryan Holiday traveled to Annapolis, Maryland to speak to the US Naval Academy about courage. ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🎓 FREE GUIDE to Stoic philosophy: https://dailystoic.com/freeguide 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Priv... |
| 2022-Aug-13 • 67 minutes Mt. Joy’s Matt Quinn on Creating Work That Lasts Ryan talks to Mt. Joy’s frontman Matt Quinn about the current state of the music industry, how to create work that lasts, our responsibility for each other, and more. Matt Quinn is the frontman and songwriter for hit Philly folk group Mt. Joy. They named themselves Mt. Joy as an ode to a mountain in Valley Forge National Park. Matt was actually only a couple of months into law school when the single “Astrovan” began racking up hundreds of thousands of plays on Spotify. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic em... |
| 2022-Aug-12 • 16 minutes This Is The Meaning of Life | Ask Daily Stoic ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Aug-11 • 10 minutes Will You Dance or Throw A Tantrum? | No Time For Theories, Just Results ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Aug-10 • 3 minutes How To Respond To Crazy People ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Aug-10 • 70 minutes Donald Robertson on Marcus Aurelius and Understanding Stoicism Ryan talks to author Donald Robertson about his new graphic novel Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, the various influences that molded Marcus Aurelius into a philosopher king, how Stoicism is about unity and love, and more. Donald is a writer, cognitive-behavioral psychotherapist and trainer. He is the author of several books and many articles on philosophy, psychotherapy, and psychological skills training, including How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurel... |
| 2022-Aug-09 • 13 minutes This is All It’s Good For | 3 Stoic Mantras To Build Your Life On ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Aug-08 • 9 minutes You Can’t Resent Them | What Little Wins Can You Find ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Aug-07 • 21 minutes Aristotle on How to Tell Story Today’s episode features an excerpt from How to Tell a Story: An Ancient Guide to the Art of Storytelling for Writers and Readers translated by Philip Freeman as part of Princeton University Press’s Anient Wisdom For Modern Readers series. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more. 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy a... |
| 2022-Aug-06 • 70 minutes John Barry on the Great Influenza and the Value of Truth Ryan talks to John M. Barry about the similarities between the public reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic and the 1918 pandemic, the importance of telling the truth, serving the common good, and more. John M. Barry, the prize-winning and New York Times best-selling author whose books have won multiple awards, His books The Great Influenza: the story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History and Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America have involved John in high-level policy-maki... |
| 2022-Aug-05 • 13 minutes Life is a Team Sport | Ask Daily Stoic ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Aug-04 • 9 minutes Trust Your Prep List | No Blame, Just Focus ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Aug-03 • 4 minutes The Earth Is Big And Has Room For Everyone ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Aug-03 • 64 minutes Molly Jong-Fast on Generational Trauma and Cancel Culture Ryan talks to journalist Molly Jong-Fast about the generational trauma that we’re passing down, the me too movement, how cancel culture has impacted our society, and more. Molly Jong-Fast is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and the author of its newsletter Wait, What? She is also the host of The New Abnormal and a columnist for Vogue. She often writes about parenting, whether that be reflections on her relationship with famed mother and feminist, Eric Jong, who is also an American novelist, satirist, ... |
| 2022-Aug-02 • 12 minutes Don’t Just Be Tough, Be Practical | 7 Stoic Stories To Guide You Through Life ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Aug-01 • 8 minutes Your Weakness Can Be Your Strength | A Week Without Complaining ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jul-31 • 17 minutes Epictetus - The Enchiridion Pt. 1 The Enchiridion is one of the essential texts of Stoic philosophy, and one of the most important ancient documents that we have access to. It is a concentrated collection of Epictetus’s wisest teachings and contains all the fundamentals of his philosophy. It is a guiding text and required reading for students of Stoic philosophy. 📕Get a copy of Discourses and Selected Writings by Epictetus at the Painted Porch Bookshop Epictetus was born nearly 2,000 years ago in Hierapolis (present-day Pamukkale in Turke... |
| 2022-Jul-30 • 83 minutes Morgan Housel on Building Wealth and Happiness Ryan talks to Morgan Housel about the real definition of wealth, the intricacies of building an audience as an author, the sacrifice required to gain success, and more. Morgan Housel is a partner at The Collaborative Fund. His book The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness is a deep dive into the psychology of money and investing. Morgan is a two-time winner of the Best in Business Award from the Society of American Business Editors, winner of the New York Times Sidney Award... |
| 2022-Jul-29 • 18 minutes We Are Free…and Not Free | Ask Daily Stoic ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jul-28 • 9 minutes It All Fades Away | Check Your Privilege, right? ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jul-27 • 3 minutes Don’t Take Control, Take Charge ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jul-27 • 63 minutes Chef Kwame Onwuachi on Overcoming Adversity and Pursuing Your Dreams Ryan talks to Kwame Onwuachi about his book Notes from a Young Black Chef: A Memoir, the importance of looking at failures as opportunities for growth, how to effectively lead a team of people, and more. Kwame Onwuachi is an American-Nigerian chef based in Washington, D.C. By the age of 27, Onwuachi had competed on Top Chef, been named a 30 Under 30 honoree by both Zagat and Forbes, and had opened five restaurants. He cooked at the White House twice under the Obama administration, and he was the head chef ... |
| 2022-Jul-26 • 12 minutes You Can’t Only See This | Where To Start With Stoicism (9 Exercises) ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jul-25 • 10 minutes There Needs To Be Outlets | Keeping “The News” In Check 🎓 Inspired by these last few difficult years, we’ve assembled the best Stoic wisdom into an actionable course—Slay Your Stress: A Daily Stoic Challenge. The new 20-day challenge, which includes 6 new days, is designed to equip you with the strategies and mindsets needed to reclaim your life from the negative effects of stress and anxiety. This will be a live course. Beginning on July 26, all participants will move through the course together at the same pace. Registration is open and will be for five more d... |
| 2022-Jul-24 • 27 minutes Epictetus on How to Be Free Today’s episode features an excerpt from Anthony Long’s translation of Epictetus How to Be Free: An Ancient Guide to the Stoic Life as part of Princeton University Press’s Anient Wisdom For Modern Readers series. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛Check... out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more. 📱Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Noti... |
| 2022-Jul-23 • 70 minutes Tony Gonzalez on Becoming Your Best Self Ryan talks to former NFL football player about his transition from sports to broadcasting and acting, the path to becoming your best self, the process of becoming great at any skill, and more. Tony Gonzalez is regarded as one of the greatest tight ends of all time. He spent his first 12 seasons with the Kansas City Chiefs, who selected him in the first round of the 1997 NFL Draft. During his last five seasons, he was a member of the Atlanta Falcons. Since retiring in 2013, Gonzalez has served as an analyst... |
| 2022-Jul-22 • 16 minutes This is the Key To The Stoics | Ask Daily Stoic ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jul-21 • 11 minutes Under Unimaginable Stress, This Has Stood Up | Made For Working Together 🎓 Inspired by these last few difficult years, we’ve assembled the best Stoic wisdom into an actionable course—Slay Your Stress: A Daily Stoic Challenge. The new 20-day challenge, which includes 6 new days, is designed to equip you with the strategies and mindsets needed to reclaim your life from the negative effects of stress and anxiety. This will be a live course. Beginning on July 26, all participants will move through the course together at the same pace. Registration is open and will be for five more d... |
| 2022-Jul-20 • 4 minutes Who The True Stoics Were ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jul-20 • 69 minutes Former Attorney General Eric Holder on the Value of History Ryan talks to former attorney general Eric Holder about his new book Unfinished March: The Violent Past and Imperiled Future of the Vote, the importance of understanding and learning from history, believing in people's ability to create change, and more. Attorney General Eric Holder is the third longest-serving attorney general and the first African American attorney general in American history, holding the role under President Barack Obama from 2009 until 2015. He currently serves as the chairman of the ... |
| 2022-Jul-19 • 16 minutes Wisdom Is Wisdom | 7 Lessons From Famous Stoics (Matthew McConaughey, Camila Cabello, General Jim Mattis) ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jul-18 • 9 minutes How Much Did They Take You For? | Practice Gentleness Instead of Anger ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jul-17 • 30 minutes The Vow - From Kamal Ravikant's “Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It" This episode features an excerpt from Kamal Ravikant’s book “Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It" provided by Harper Audio. The book is a collection of Kamal’s writings on overcoming depression and living a happier life. This first part talks about the vow that he made with himself and the practice that saved his life. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛Check... out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more. 📱Follow us: Instagra... |
| 2022-Jul-16 • 68 minutes Victor Juhasz on Epictetus and Creating “The Girl Who Would Be Free” Ryan talks to illustrator Victor Juhasz about the process of creating his newest book “The Girl Who Would Be Free,” the decision to make Epictetus a girl, how he was impacted by the story of Epictetus, and more. Victor Juhasz is an artist and illustrator whose work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Time Magazine, and Esquire Magazine, and more. He has illustrated many books including The Boy Who Would Be King, G is for Gladiator: An Ancient Rome Alphabet and is for Zeus: A Greek Mythology Alphabet. 📕 The Gir... |
| 2022-Jul-15 • 21 minutes Don’t Waste Your Days With Thinking | Ask Daily Stoic ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jul-14 • 13 minutes Stress Is a Fact. Being Stressed Is A Choice | A Little Knowledge Is Dangerous ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jul-13 • 3 minutes Be A User, Not A Loser ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jul-13 • 63 minutes Chris Bosh, Les Snead, Scott Oberg, Bob Bowman, and Dominique Dawes on Sports and Stoicism Today’s episode features some of the best interviews on Sports and Stoicism from the podcast. Ryan talks to NBA star Chris Bosh about his book Letters to a Young Athlete and the importance of putting everything into what you do even when it’s tough, Los Angeles Rams GM Les Snead about making tough decisions under intense pressure, MLB Pitcher Scott Oberg about how Stoicism has helped Scott overcome physical and mental adversity, Olympic swimming coach Bob Bowman about how athletes can maintain stillness whi... |
| 2022-Jul-12 • 10 minutes You Must Attack The Day | Stillness Is The Key Summarized In 5 Minutes ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jul-11 • 12 minutes This Is The Only Way To See Life | Don’t Look For The Third Thing Framebridge makes it easier and more affordable than ever to frame your favorite things - without ever leaving the house. Get started today - frame your photos or send someone the perfect gift. Go to Framebridge.com and use promo code STOIC to save an additional 15% off your first order. ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Sto... |
| 2022-Jul-09 • 57 minutes Matthew McConaughey On Stoicism & How To Focus On What Matters On today’s episode, Ryan speaks with Academy Award-winning actor and producer Matthew McConaughey about his approach to the craft of acting, the simple keys to living a happy life, his new book, the #1 best seller Greenlights, and more. Matthew McConaughey has been working in Hollywood for over 25 years, appearing in movies like A Time to Kill, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Dallas Buyers Club. His work in the latter film won him the 2013 Academy Award for Best Actor. McConaughey also works as a producer and... |
| 2022-Jul-08 • 12 minutes How To Have a Great Empire? | Ask Daily Stoic 📕 The Girl Who Would Be Free is an all-ages fable written by the bestselling author Ryan Holiday and illustrated by the prolific illustrator Victor Juhasz. The 148-page book, produced entirely by Daily Stoic and printed here in the United States, is OFFICIALLY AVAILABLE online at dailystoic.com/girl or at The Painted Porch Bookshop in Bastrop, Texas. 😡 The Stoics have some of the smartest and most applicable insights about getting your anger contained. For a high level introduction to some of those insight... |
| 2022-Jul-07 • 10 minutes It’s An Extraordinary Thing Indeed | Our Duty To Learn 📚 Get a copy of Marcus Aurelius Meditations at The Painted Porch Bookshop ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-... |
| 2022-Jul-06 • 77 minutes Sam Koppelman on Voting Rights and Serving the Common Good | Accepting The Little Facts of Life Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to Sam Koppelman about his new book Our Unfinished March: The Violent Past and Imperiled Future of the Vote-A History, a Crisis, a Plan, serving the common good, the history of voting rights, and more. Sam Koppelman is a New York Times best-selling author. He is currently a Principal at Fenway Strategies, where he has spent half a decade telling the stories of leaders working to make the world a better place—and he’s written for publications including the New Y... |
| 2022-Jul-05 • 32 minutes You Need to Calm Down | How To Read Epictetus (Enchiridion, Discourses) ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook 📚 Check out the Painted Porch Bookshop See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jul-04 • 9 minutes Are You Really Free? | Protect Your Own Good If you pre-order The Girl Who Would Be Free through the Daily Stoic Store BEFORE July 8, 2022, you receive these exclusive bonuses and deals: Audiobook and e-book versions (emailed directly to the email associated at checkout on July 8, 2022): the audiobook contains over an hour of original content, including an interview between Ryan Holiday and Victor Juhasz, narration by Ryan Holiday, narration by his wife, Samantha Holiday, and more. If you pre-order a signed copy of The Girl Who Would Be Free, you wi... |
| 2022-Jul-03 • 19 minutes Seneca on Groundless Fears Today’s episode is an excerpt from The Tao Of Seneca produced by Tim Ferriss’ Audio. In this letter Seneca explores our irrational relationship with fear, how fear is the thing that is holding us back, and how we suffer more in imagination than reality. The Daily Stoic is now available as a Shortcast on Blinkist. You can revisit past episodes or get through ones you missed—all with a fresh perspective and even a few updates in insight-packed listens of around 15 minutes. Check it out at blinkist.com 80,00... |
| 2022-Jul-02 • 78 minutes David Gelles on Jack Welch’s Legacy and the Future of Corporate America Ryan talks to David Gelles about his new book The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America―and How to Undo His Legacy, the importance of developing a strong will, David Gelles is a reporter for the Climate desk and the Corner Office columnist for the New York Times. Before joining the Times in 2013, he spent five years with the Financial Times. At the FT, he covered tech, media and M&A in San Francisco and New York. In 2011 he conducted... |
| 2022-Jul-01 • 18 minutes The Heart is a Muscle | Ask Daily Stoic ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jun-30 • 14 minutes They Punish Themselves First | The Obstacle Is The Way Ryan talks about revenge, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day. Blinkist is the app that gets you fifteen-minute summaries of the best nonfiction books out there. Blinkist lets you get the topline information and the most important points from the most important nonfiction books out there, whether it’s Ryan’s own The Daily Stoic, Yuval Harari’s Sapiens, and more. Go to blinkist.com/stoic, try it free for 7 days, and save 25% off your new subscription, too. MUD WTR is a coffee alternative with 4 ad... |
| 2022-Jun-29 • 76 minutes Steve Magness on Doing Hard Things and Why We Get Resilience Wrong | All Great Stories Have One Thing In Common Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to Steve Magness about his new book Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness, how to lead people effectively, embracing the long game instead of quitting, and more. Steve Magness is a world-renowned expert on performance, coauthor of Peak Performance and The Passion Paradox. Collectively his books have sold more than a quarter-million copies in print, ebook, and audio formats. His writing has appeared in Forbes, S... |
| 2022-Jun-28 • 3 minutes When You’re Angry, Do This ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jun-27 • 11 minutes Don't Think About It, ACT On It | What's In Your Way Is The Way Ryan talks about the importance of living out philosophy, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal. InsideTracker provides you with a personalized plan to improve your metabolism, reduce stress, improve sleep, and optimize your health for the long haul. For a limited time, get 20% off the entire InsideTracker store. Just go to insidetracker.com/STOIC to claim this deal. ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com... |
| 2022-Jun-26 • 10 minutes 7 Stoic Strategies For Being Creative Ancient philosophy and creative work are rarely thought analogous. Maybe they should. Creative work of any kind—a book, a screenplay, a painting, an album, a business—really comes down to having something to say and a way to say it so people listen. Ryan Holiday breaks down the Stoic strategies for being creative that have helped him write 12 books in 10 years. The process can be lonely, intimidating, and filled with self-doubt. Stoicism is a tool ready to help. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https... |
| 2022-Jun-25 • 71 minutes Ramachandra Guha on Gandhi’s Extraordinary Life and Legacy Ryan talks to author Ramachandra Guha about his books Gandhi Before India and India After Gandhi, the journey that led Gandhi to become one of the worlds most influential leaders, how humanity was impacted by Gandhi’s legacy, and more. Ramachandra Guha—hailed by Time as “Indian democracy's preeminent chronicler” - is a prominent author and columnist based in Bangalore. Ram’s research interests have included environmental, social, political, and cricket history, and his books cover a wide range of themes, m... |
| 2022-Jun-24 • 3 minutes Don't Make Life Tougher ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jun-23 • 12 minutes How To Get Out Of A Slump | The Long Way Around Ryan talks about how you should look at obstacles in life, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day. InsideTracker provides you with a personalized plan to improve your metabolism, reduce stress, improve sleep, and optimize your health for the long haul. For a limited time, get 20% off the entire InsideTracker store. Just go to insidetracker.com/STOIC to claim this deal. ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 G... |
| 2022-Jun-22 • 100 minutes Journalist James Pogue on Political Principles and Cultivating Virtue | We All Must Go Into The Wilderness Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to journalist James Pogue about his recent piece on the new right in Vanity Fair, how the modern political climate is void of solid principles, why cultivating virtue is so important, and more. I came across his recent piece in Vanity Fair on the New Right, where he dives inside the new strain of reactionary, retro-patriarchal conservative politics embodied by those like Tucker Carlson and J.D. Vance. It touched on a lot of things I have been thinking about lat... |
| 2022-Jun-21 • 5 minutes We Are All So Powerless Ryan talks about story of Epictetus and launches pre-orders for his new book The Girl Who Would Be Free. If you pre-order The Girl Who Would Be Free through the Daily Stoic Store BEFORE July 8, 2022, you receive these exclusive bonuses and deals:Audiobook and e-book versions (emailed directly to the email associated at checkout on July 8, 2022): the audiobook contains over an hour of original content, including an interview between Ryan Holiday and Victor Juhasz, narration by Ryan Holiday, narration by his... |
| 2022-Jun-20 • 12 minutes These Are The Luckiest People | Take A Walk Ryan talks about how your actions have a multigenerational impact, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal. InsideTracker provides you with a personalized plan to improve your metabolism, reduce stress, improve sleep, and optimize your health for the long haul. For a limited time, get 20% off the entire InsideTracker store. Just go to insidetracker.com/STOIC to claim this deal. ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://daily... |
| 2022-Jun-19 • 14 minutes Why Stoics Put Greatness On Display When we see greatness, we should memorialize it.We should put it that greatness up on display. On our desk. On the wall. In ink on our skin. On the home screen of our phones. However you decide to honor the people whose example you love, put it somewhere you are guaranteed to see it every day and ask: "am I living by the example they stand for?"→ Put your own greatness on display:Marcus Aurelius Print: https://store.dailystoic.com/products/marcus-aurelius-print... Page-A-Day Desk Calendar: https:/... |
| 2022-Jun-18 • 68 minutes Justin Baldoni on Redefining Success, Small Improvements, and Vulnerability Ryan talks to actor Justin Baldoni about his book Man Enough: Undefining My Masculinity, the importance of structure in the process of improving, how being vulnerable can change the way you view the world, and more. Justin Baldoni is an actor, director and entrepreneur whose efforts are focused on creating impactful media. He can be seen playing Rafael on CW’s award-winning phenomenon Jane the Virgin. In 2012, Baldoni created the most watched digital documentary series in history, My Last Days, a show abou... |
| 2022-Jun-17 • 3 minutes Hold Fast To This Ryan talks about the Stockdale paradox. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email:http://DailyStoic.com/email Follo... us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jun-16 • 10 minutes Where Are You Rushing To? | No Shame In Needing Help Ryan talks about how to read more, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day. Ten Thousand makes the highest quality, best-fitting, and most comfortable training shorts I have ever worn. Ten Thousand is offering our listeners 15% off your purchase. Go to Tenthousand.cc/stoic to receive 15% off your purchase. Stamps.com makes it easy to mail and ship right from your computer. Use our promo code STOIC to get a special offer that includes a 4-week trial PLUS free postage and a digital scale. Go to Stamps.... |
| 2022-Jun-15 • 72 minutes Keita Bates-Diop on Destigmatizing Mental Health and Doing What You Love | These Things Have No Power Over You Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to NBA Spurs basketball player Kieta Bates-Diop about his journey getting into the NBA, what he’s learned playing for coach Gregg Popovich, doing what you do you because you love it not for money, and more. Keita Bates-Diop is a pro basketball player for the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs. He played college basketball for the Ohio State Buckeyes. Despite several setbacks and challenges throughout his career, Keita has been able to excel because of his relentless work ... |
| 2022-Jun-14 • 5 minutes This Is What It Means To Be A Stoic Ryan talks about the core tenants of Stoicism. 🎓 Sign up for Stoicism 101: Ancient Philosophy For Your Actual Life - https://dailystoic.com/101 Sign up for the Daily Stoic email:http://DailyStoic.com/email Follo... us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jun-13 • 11 minutes The Best Leaders Are the Reluctant Ones | Try the Other Handle Ryan talks about the qualities of a great leader, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal. The Daily Stoic Leadership Challenge is a 9-week course that was built to mirror the kind of education that produced historically great leaders like Marcus Aurelius. It is now a recorded course, which means all participants will join the course and move through it at their own pace. Sign up at https://dailystoic.com/leadershipchallenge Sign... up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.co... |
| 2022-Jun-12 • 12 minutes How The Stoics Dealt With Anxiety (10 Strategies) How much more enjoyable would your days be without the constant dread of stress looming over you? Anxiety was one of the main emotions Stoicism was built to handle. In this video best-selling author Ryan Holiday explores 10 of the best time-tested ways that the Stoics dealt with anxiety. ⚔️ Overwhelmed? You’re not alone. Check out the Daily Stoic Slay Your Stress Course: A 13-day challenge designed to reclaim your life from the negative effects of stress and anxiety. Go to https://dailystoic.com/stress t... |
| 2022-Jun-11 • 65 minutes Meg Mason on Writing, Developing Taste, and Tolerance Ryan talks to author Meg Mason about her book Sorrow and Bliss, how to develop taste as a writer, the vitality of being tolerant and forgiving of others, and more. Meg Mason began her career at the Financial Times and The Times of London. Her work has since appeared in The Sunday Times UK, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Sunday Telegraph. She has written humor for Sunday STYLE magazine and The New Yorker's Daily Shouts and been a regular columnist for GQ and contributor to ELLE, marie claire and Vogue. ... |
| 2022-Jun-10 • 3 minutes The Cost Is Just Too High Ryan talks about why you must tame your temper. The Stoics have some of the smartest and most applicable insights about getting your anger contained. For a high level introduction to some of those insights, check out this article: Anger Management: 8 Strategies Backed By Two Thousand Years of Practice. Or if you really want to get serious about conquering your anger, sign up for our course: Taming Your Temper: The 11-Day Stoic Guide to Controlling Anger. 11 days of challenges, exercises, video lessons, and... |
| 2022-Jun-09 • 9 minutes You Don’t Get Time. You Make Time. | Solve Problems Early Ryan talks about how to read more, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day. InsideTracker provides you with a personalized plan to improve your metabolism, reduce stress, improve sleep, and optimize your health for the long haul. For a limited time, get 20% off the entire InsideTracker store. Just go to insidetracker.com/STOIC to claim this deal. ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books,... |
| 2022-Jun-08 • 63 minutes Scott Hershovitz on Making Philosophy Practical | Assume Everyone Is Lying Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to Scott Hershovitz about his new book Nasty, Brutish, and Short: Adventures in Philosophy with Kids, the common misconceptions about philosophy, how to apply philosophy to actual life, and more. Scott writes about law and philosophy. His academic work has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, The Yale Law Journal, and Ethics, among other places. He also writes occasional essays about philosophy for the New York Times. Before joining the Michigan faculty, Hershov... |
| 2022-Jun-07 • 5 minutes Who Is In Charge? Ryan talks about the importance of treating the body rigorously.We’re excited to announce the release of the updated edition of The Daily Stoic Challenge Deck that pushes you to challenge yourself all year round.The new and improved Challenge Deck features 40 challenge cards categorized into three themes—the three critical disciplines of Stoicism: Perception, Action, Will. Each card includes challenge instructions, a quote from Stoic philosophers like Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, and a unique and inspirin... |
| 2022-Jun-06 • 9 minutes This Surprises You? | Role Models Ryan talks about why Stoics anticipate adversity, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal. InsideTracker provides you with a personalized plan to improve your metabolism, reduce stress, improve sleep, and optimize your health for the long haul. For a limited time, get 20% off the entire InsideTracker store. Just go to insidetracker.com/STOIC to claim this deal. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Faceboo... |
| 2022-Jun-05 • 11 minutes 8 Stoic Don'ts For A Better Life “If you seek tranquillity,” Marcus Aurelius said, “do less.” And then he follows the note to himself with some clarification. Not nothing, less. Do only what’s essential. Ryan Holiday's 8 Stoic don'ts will help you determine the things are essential, and those that aren't. Follow these tips today and everyday. This is the simple recipe for improvement and for happiness. So much of what we think we must do, so much of what we end up doing is not essential. We do it out of habit. We do it out of guilt. We... |
| 2022-Jun-04 • 71 minutes Jack Carr on Writing, Becoming World Class, and Building Character On this live edition of the podcast Ryan talks to author Jack Carr about his new book In The Blood (which you can buy at The Painted Porch), how his experiences as a Navy SEAL have impacted his writing career, how your character impacts your life and work, and more. Jack Carr spent 20 years as a Navy SEAL, where he served as a Team Leader, Platoon Commander, Troop Commander, Task Unit Commander and sniper. Now, he’s an author behind the New York Times bestselling Terminal List series. Inspired by the feel... |
| 2022-Jun-03 • 4 minutes This is The Reward For Being A Leader Ryan talks about how to be a great leader. The Daily Stoic Leadership Challenge is a 9-week course that was built to mirror the kind of education that produced historically great leaders like Marcus Aurelius. It is now a recorded course, which means all participants will join the course and move through it at their own pace. Sign up at https://dailystoic.com/leadershipchallenge Sign... up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook ... |
| 2022-Jun-02 • 10 minutes You Will Need This In Every Situation | Plato's View Ryan talks about the importance of the four virtues, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day.The Four Virtues Pendant design, custom to Daily Stoic, was hand-sketched by Lewis Williams, an artist based in Brooklyn, NY. The mixed-metal pendants are handmade by Williams, who uses the ancient processes of carving into the wax and casting into brass and sterling silver and then sawing, engraving, hammering & soldering the metals with precision and care. Each pendant comes with a 24" sterling silve... |
| 2022-Jun-01 • 71 minutes Jack Weatherford on Genghis Khan and Learning From History | The Most Stoic Person In Marcus’ Life Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to author Jack Weatherford about his books Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World and Indian Givers: How Native Americans Transformed the World (which you can get at The Painted Porch), why we should learn from history and implement new solutions based on past failures, and more. Jack Weatherford is the New York Times bestselling author of Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, which sold over 300,000 copies and has been optioned by Wolf Fil... |
| 2022-May-31 • 2 minutes Do Less Ryan talks about cutting out then inessential. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-May-30 • 8 minutes This Never Makes Things Better | The View from Above Ryan talks about the perils of anger, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal. The Stoics have some of the smartest and most applicable insights about getting your anger contained. For a high level introduction to some of those insights, check out this article: Anger Management: 8 Strategies Backed By Two Thousand Years of Practice. Or if you really want to get serious about conquering your anger, sign up for our course: Taming Your Temper: The 11-Day Stoic Guide to Controlling Anger.... |
| 2022-May-29 • 19 minutes 12 Lessons From 12 Months Owning A Bookstore It's going to take longer than you thought, but it will be worth it in the end. By the first week of March 2020 the world was entrenched in a pandemic. What began with such excitement for Ryan Holiday and his wife Samantha ended up taking much longer and costing way more than they had expected. In this video Ryan breaks down the 12 most important lessons that he's taken away from the first year being in business. Sign up for Ryan Holiday's Reading List Newsletter: https://ryanholiday.net/reading-list/ Ge... |
| 2022-May-28 • 87 minutes Comedian Drew Michael on Optimization, Social Media Culture, and Empathy Ryan talks to Drew Michael about his new stand up special Red Blue Green, the line between being artistic and being offensive, how ideology and emotional disposition are linked, and more. Drew Michael is a stand-up comedian who has long been a fixture in the New York stand-up scene. Drew has also released comedy albums (2013’s Lovely and 2016’s Funny to Death) along with a very funny Comedy Central half-hour. He spent the 2016-2017 season writing for SNL, and he appeared on an episode of The Carmichael Sho... |
| 2022-May-27 • 2 minutes It’s About The Paring Down Ryan talks about getting down to what really matters. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-May-26 • 14 minutes Here’s to the Renegades | Stop Caring What People Think Ryan talks about why the Stoics do what is right above all else, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day. The Daily Stoic Leadership Challenge is a 9-week course that was built to mirror the kind of education that produced historically great leaders like Marcus Aurelius. It is now a recorded course, which means all participants will join the course and move through it at their own pace. Sign up at https://dailystoic.com/leadershipchallenge 80,000... Hours is a nonprofit that provides free research an... |
| 2022-May-25 • 52 minutes Admiral James Stavridis on Evaluating Risk and Building Confidence | Remember This Always Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to Admiral James Stavridis about his new book To Risk It All: Nine Conflicts and the Crucible of Decision, doing the right thing in the face of consequence, maintaining confidence in who you are despite others opinion, and more. Admiral James Stavridis is a retired four-star U.S. naval officer. He served for five years as the Dean of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He led the NATO Alliance in global operations from 2009 to 2013 and... |
| 2022-May-24 • 5 minutes Carry These Around Like A Compass Ryan talks about the vitality of remembering the four Stoic virtues, and launches the new 4 Virtues Pendant.The Four Virtues Pendant design, custom to Daily Stoic, was hand-sketched by Lewis Williams, an artist based in Brooklyn, NY. The mixed-metal pendants are handmade by Williams, who uses the ancient processes of carving into the wax and casting into brass and sterling silver and then sawing, engraving, hammering & soldering the metals with precision and care. Each pendant comes with a 24" ster... |
| 2022-May-23 • 9 minutes It Doesn’t Matter What You Do, It Matters How You Do It | Practice True Joy Ryan talks about the why the Stoics stress the importance of taking action, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal. If you want to become a great reader, the Stoics can help. We built out their best insights into ourRead to Lead: A Daily Stoic Reading Challenge. Since it first launched in 2019, Read to Lead has been our most popular challenge, taken on by almost ten thousand participants. Today, we’re excited to announce that, for the first time ever, registration to jointhe 2022 liv... |
| 2022-May-22 • 28 minutes How To Read Seneca (The World’s Most Interesting Stoic) Seneca is one of the most fascinating Stoic figures. A famed writer, dramatist, politician and advisor, Seneca is one of the three key figures in the development of Stoicism. He not only wrote on philosophy but used it in the way it’s meant to be used: to handle and navigate through the upsides and downsides of fortune. And those he knew extremely well—varying from massive wealth to exile to handling with dignity the suicide order from his own pupil Nero. In this episode Ryan Holiday breaks down who Sene... |
| 2022-May-21 • 67 minutes Michael Ian Black on Vulnerability, Becoming an Actor, and Raising Kids Ryan talks to Michael Ian Black about how becoming a father forced him to face his emotionally cauterized state, how the theater became his escape from reality, our obligation as human beings to serve the common good, and more. Michael Ian Black is a multi-media talent who’s starred in numerous films and TV series, written and/or directed two films, is a prolific author and commentator, and regularly tours the country performing his ribald brand of jokes and observations. He most recently starred in TVLand... |
| 2022-May-20 • 3 minutes This Was Marcus Aurelius’s Biggest Weakness Ryan talks about the importance of taming your temper. The Stoics have some of the smartest and most applicable insights about getting your anger contained. For a high level introduction to some of those insights, check out this article: Anger Management: 8 Strategies Backed By Two Thousand Years of Practice. Or if you really want to get serious about conquering your anger, sign up for our course: Taming Your Temper: The 11-Day Stoic Guide to Controlling Anger. 11 days of challenges, exercises, video lesso... |
| 2022-May-19 • 12 minutes A Reason To Stick Around | Learn, Practice, Train Ryan talks about the Stoics view on suicide, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day. If you or someone you know is in a mental health crisis and you live in the USA, please call 1-800-273-8255 to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline today. You can also text 741741 for help in a crisis. KiwiCo is a subscription service that delivers everything your kids will need to make, create and play. Get 50% off your first month plus FREE shipping on ANY crate line with code STOIC at kiwico.com. Sign ... |
| 2022-May-18 • 69 minutes Rich Cohen on the Keys to Negotiation | This Is How To Respond to Everything Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to author RIch Cohen about his new book The Adventures of Herbie Cohen: World's Greatest Negotiator, how to be a great negotiator, his fathers legacy, and more. Rich Cohen is the author of several New York Times bestsellers, including The Chicago Cubs: Story of a Curse and Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football. Rich is also the author of a book we carry here in the store, Pee Wees: Confessions of a Hockey Parent, where he chronicles th... |
| 2022-May-17 • 2 minutes This Is What Progress Looks Like Ryan talks about the importance of being a good friend to yourself. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-May-16 • 10 minutes How To Change The World | Count Your Blessings Ryan talks about the importance of constantly learning that which you do not yet know, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal. If you want to become a great reader, the Stoics can help. We built out their best insights into ourRead to Lead: A Daily Stoic Reading Challenge. Since it first launched in 2019, Read to Lead has been our most popular challenge, taken on by almost ten thousand participants. Today, we’re excited to announce that, for the first time ever, registration to joint... |
| 2022-May-15 • 10 minutes 8 Lessons From Epictetus (To Live A Stoic Life) Born a slave, Epictetus spent the first 30 years of his life in chains. Epictetus never actually wrote anything down. It is through his student Arrian that we have a written account of his lessons. And if everyone from Emperors to war heros have been grateful as they found guidance, solace and strength in Epictetus’ lessons, then there must be something for us. But only if we choose to. Learn more about Epictetus: https://dailystoic.com/Epictetus/ The Jordan Harbinger Show is one of the most interesting... |
| 2022-May-14 • 62 minutes AJ Jacobs on the Enduring Power of Puzzles and Memento Mori Ryan talks to A.J. Jacobs about his new book The Puzzler: One Man's Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life, the enduring power of puzzles, the Stoic concept of Memento Mori, and more.A.J. Jacobs is an American journalist, author, and lecturer best known for writing about his lifestyle experiments. He is a self-proclaimed “human guinea pig” and avid nightly crossworder. He has written four New York Times bestsellers that combine memoir, science, ... |
| 2022-May-13 • 4 minutes Here’s Where They Hide Money Ryan talks about the value in knowing how to read books and apply them to your life. If you want to become a great reader, the Stoics can help. We built out their best insights into ourRead to Lead: A Daily Stoic Reading Challenge. Since it first launched in 2019, Read to Lead has been our most popular challenge, taken on by almost ten thousand participants. Today, we’re excited to announce that, for the first time ever, registration to jointhe 2022 live cohort is officially open. Sign up for the Daily St... |
| 2022-May-12 • 11 minutes You Must Find The Stillness | Kindness Is Always The Right Response Ryan talks about why it’s so important to find stillness, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day. Get a copy of Ryan Holiday’s bestselling book “Stillness Is The Key” at The Painted Porch Bookshop. GiveWell is the best site for figuring out how and where to donate your money to have the greatest impact. Go to Givewell.Org and enter Daily Stoic at checkout so they know we sent you. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Fac... |
| 2022-May-11 • 75 minutes Josiah Osgood on Cicero and the Fall of Rome | Store This Up Inside You Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to Josiah Osgood about his new book “How to Stop a Conspiracy: An Ancient Guide to Saving a Republic,” the complicated life of Cicero, what we can learn from the decline of the Roman Empire, and more. Get a copy of “Frederick” and “The Boy Who Would Be King” at The Painted Porch. Josiah Osgood is Professor of Classics at Georgetown University. His teaching and research cover many areas of Roman history and Latin literature, with a special focus on the fall of ... |
| 2022-May-10 • 2 minutes It's OK To Cry Ryan talks about the importance of embracing emotions. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-May-09 • 9 minutes Why You Should Never Stop Studying | We Are a Product of Our Habits Ryan talks about the importance of constantly learning that which you do not yet know, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal. If you want to become a great reader, the Stoics can help. We built out their best insights into ourRead to Lead: A Daily Stoic Reading Challenge. Since it first launched in 2019, Read to Lead has been our most popular challenge, taken on by almost ten thousand participants. Today, we’re excited to announce that, for the first time ever, registration to joint... |
| 2022-May-08 • 10 minutes Stoicism and the Art of Resilience How does someone who was born into slavery, whose master broke their leg and crippled them for life, somehow escape all that and become one of the fathers of Stoicism and an amazing thinker? Epictetus had every reason to be unable to transcend his own struggles, but instead he is one of the most important Stoic philosophers. He lived the philosophy and it saved him. Watch the video: https://youtu.be/6-UQYo1YabY Ten Thousand makes the highest quality, best-fitting, and most comfortable training shorts I h... |
| 2022-May-07 • 75 minutes Steven Rinella on Hunting, Self-Discipline, and Finding Balance Ryan talks to Steven Rinella about his new book Outdoor Kids in an Inside World: Getting Your Family Out of the House and Radically Engaged with Nature (which you can pick up at the Painted Porch), the temperance that is required to be a great hunter, how to find the right balance between pursuing your purpose and spending time with family, and more. Steve Rinella, from his books to his groundbreaking show MeatEater, has made hunting and nose-to-tail wild game gourmet cooking popular from New York City to ... |
| 2022-May-06 • 2 minutes It Will Be Enough (Whether You Like It Or Not) Ryan talks about the importance of finding enough. Grab a Memento Mori pendant necklace from the Daily Stoic Store. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-May-05 • 10 minutes A Leader Must Be a Reader | You Are The Project Ryan talks about the importance of establishing a great reading practice, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day. If you want to become a great reader, the Stoics can help. We built out their best insights into ourRead to Lead: A Daily Stoic Reading Challenge. Since it first launched in 2019, Read to Lead has been our most popular challenge, taken on by almost ten thousand participants. Today, we’re excited to announce that, for the first time ever, registration to jointhe 2022 live cohort is officia... |
| 2022-May-04 • 81 minutes Jeff Waldman on Craftsmanship, Memento Mori, and Developing Competence | It’s Not That You Read, It’s How You Read Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to Jeff Waldman about his new book “Tools: The Ultimate Guide” (which you can get a signed copy of at the Painted Porch), the Stoic concept of Memento Mori, why it’s so vital to develop competence, and more. Jeff Waldman is a maker, builder and creator with a talent for connecting with interesting people and even more interesting projects. With the help of their friends, he and his partner designed and hand-built their own cabin and communal getaway in the Sant... |
| 2022-May-03 • 2 minutes We Are All Tested In Different Ways Ryan talks about how every situation is a test. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-May-02 • 8 minutes There is Heaven in You Now | Show, Don’t Tell Ryan talks about the power of turning inward, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal. Get a signed copy of Ryan Holiday’s bestselling book “Stillness is The Key” at the Painted Porch. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-May-01 • 14 minutes 25 Essential Rules For Life (From The Stoics) It's pretty straight forward: Define your rules. Live by them. “When the standards have been set,” Epictetus said, “the work of philosophy is just this, to examine and uphold the standards, but the work of a truly good person is in using those standards when they know them.” But of course, the Stoics were not quite so direct in practice. One Stoic, Chrysippus—supposedly wrote 500 lines a day…the vast majority of which are lost. The Stoics spoke, wrote, debated, but nowhere did they put their “commandment... |
| 2022-Apr-30 • 70 minutes Coach John Calipari on Stoicism and Realizing Your Potential Ryan talks to Coach John Calipari about his love of Stoicism, being indifferent to winning and losing, becoming your best self, and more. Coach John Calipari is a Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer, has guided six teams to the Final Four, led one to a national championship and helped 54 players earn selection in the NBA Draft during his 30-year college coaching career. During Calipari's 13 seasons at UK, no coach in the NCAA Tournament has more wins (31), Final Fours (four), Elite Eights (seven) or... |
| 2022-Apr-29 • 2 minutes Are You Ready To Be Challenged? Ryan talks about the importance of perpetuating growth. we’re excited to announce the release of the updated edition of The Daily Stoic Challenge Deck that pushes you to challenge yourself all year round. The new and improved Challenge Deck features 40 challenge cards categorized into three themes—the three critical disciplines of Stoicism: Perception, Action, Will. Each card includes challenge instructions, a quote from Stoic philosophers like Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, and a unique and inspiring ill... |
| 2022-Apr-28 • 9 minutes What Gets The Leftover You? | Wants Make You A Servant Ryan talks about where you should place your attention, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day. InsideTracker provides you with a personalized plan to improve your metabolism, reduce stress, improve sleep, and optimize your health for the long haul. For a limited time, get 20% off the entire InsideTracker store. Just go to insidetracker.com/STOIC to claim this deal. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Priva... |
| 2022-Apr-27 • 67 minutes R.C. Buford on Leadership, Evaluating Character, and Building Championship Cultures | When Something Breaks Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to R.C. Buford about how the Spurs went about trying to build a culture of sustainable success, the hallmarks of building great cultures, the benefit of diversity within an organization, and more.This is an excerpt from the Daily Stoic Leadership Challenge, a 9-week course that was built to mirror the kind of education that produced historically great leaders like Marcus Aurelius. It is now a recorded course, which means all participants will join the course and... |
| 2022-Apr-26 • 3 minutes It’s a Gift (If You Make It One) Ryan talks how to make the best of what you’ve been given. The Boy Who Would Be King is out now, written by Ryan Holiday in the depths of the pandemic (not unlike the one Marcus ruled through), this new beautifully crafted book is available now. Go to dailystoic.com/king to order now and you’ll automatically get the free audiobook. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy an... |
| 2022-Apr-25 • 8 minutes This Is What They’re Going To Say | The Freedom of Contempt Ryan talks about the power of Memento Mori, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal. 🗓 Get your Memento Mori Life Calendar at https://dailystoic.com/mmcalendar Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Apr-24 • 46 minutes Robert Greene on the War in Ukraine Bismark says that “Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others.” The best way to understand the present is to study the past. That’s what makes Robert Greene’s work so great. He crystalizes the best historical lessons about war, strategy, and power that can help us make sense of the problems that we face in the modern world. In today’s episode Robert Greene brings you his take on the war that is taking place in Ukraine, seen through the lens of his book the 33 Strategies of... |
| 2022-Apr-23 • 64 minutes Stacey Abrams on Leveling up and Serving the Common Good Ryan talks to Stacey Abrams about the true meaning of the word Stoic, the notion of scaling and leveling up in business, the importance of serving the common good, and more. The name Stacey Abrams has become synonymous with voting accessibility and turnout, making history by becoming the first woman and first African American woman to hold positions in state and national politics. Stacey is now one of the most prominent African American female politicians in the United States. She rose to national prominen... |
| 2022-Apr-22 • 3 minutes Don’t Borrow Suffering Ryan talks about why you should not let other people’s negative emotions affect you. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Apr-21 • 10 minutes The Old Way Is Not The Only Way | Don't Let Your Attention Slide Ryan talks about why you should be open to change, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Apr-20 • 74 minutes John Mackey on Conscious Capitalism and Doing Good | A Reminder This Spring You Cannot Miss Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to CEO John Mackey about how to be conscious of how your actions affect the world around you, the Stoic’s concept of the “circles of concern,” why you should do as much good as you can in the world, and more. Our new Memento Mori Life Calendar has 4,160 dots, each dot representing a week of your life and each row representing 2 years of your life. By filling in the Memento Mori Life Calendar every week, you will not only see how much life you've already lived (... |
| 2022-Apr-19 • 2 minutes You Make Your Own Good Fortune Ryan talks about the power you have over your circumstances. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Apr-18 • 9 minutes You’ll Be Stressed Either Way | Impulse Control Ryan talks about the inevitability of stress and anxiety, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal. For Stoicism-based guidance on how to tackle your anger problem or manage your anxiety, Daily Stoic offers a series of great courses. Our 11-day Tame Your Temper challenge will give you the tools you need to keep anger from getting in your way. And our 13-day Slay Your Stress course will help you keep stress out of your life and out of your way. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https:... |
| 2022-Apr-17 • 12 minutes 10 Timeless Meditations From Stoic Philosophy We hope this video helps you find the serenity, self-knowledge, and resilience you need to live well. Where can you find joy? What's the true measure of success? How should we manage anger? Find meaning? Conquer grief? These 10 timeless meditations from Stoic philosophy will help you answer questions and more. The Daily Stoic is a wise, calming, page-a-day guide to living a good life, offering inspirational daily doses of classic wisdom. Each page features a powerful quotation from the likes of Emperor M... |
| 2022-Apr-16 • 91 minutes Chuck Klosterman on Writing, Being Wrong, and The Nineties Ryan talks to author Chuck Klosterman about his new book The Nineties, the inevitability of being wrong, the value of simplicity, and more. Chuck Klosterman is a NYT bestselling author and culture critic. His books include Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs; But What If We’re Wrong?; and Chuck Klosterman X, and two novels Downtown Owl and The Visible Man. He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, GQ, Esquire, ESPN, and more. Klosterman served as the Ethicist for The New York Times Magazine for th... |
| 2022-Apr-15 • 4 minutes Do Things That Make You Normal Ryan talks about the importance of cultivating humility. For a one day only, the ebook edition of Ego Is The Enemy by Ryan Holiday is only $1.99! We have no idea how long the discount will last, so grab your copy now! Or if you prefer hardcover, you can get those over in the Daily Stoic store, where you can also get signed copies! Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and... |
| 2022-Apr-14 • 11 minutes Is This The Only Story? | Becoming An Expert In What Matters Ryan talks about the question you should ask yourself before over reacting, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day. The Daily Stoic Leadership Challenge is a 9-week course that was built to mirror the kind of education that produced historically great leaders like Marcus Aurelius. It is now a recorded course, which means all participants will join the course and move through it at their own pace. Sign up at https://dailystoic.com/leadershipchallenge Sign... up for the Daily Stoic email: http://Daily... |
| 2022-Apr-13 • 84 minutes Karen Duffy on Using Stoicism to Find Happiness (Even with Chronic Illness) | Nothing Is As Encouraging As This Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talk to actress Karen Duffy about her new book Wise Up: Irreverent Enlightenment from a Mother Who's Been Through It, how she got introduced to Stoic Philosophy, her ongoing battle with sarcoidosis, and more.Karen Duffy was born on May 23, 1962 in New York City, New York, USA. She is an actress, producer, and writer, known for Dumb and Dumber, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and Blank Check. In 1996, Duffy was diagnosed with neurosarcoidosis. Her brain and spinal cord were af... |
| 2022-Apr-12 • 3 minutes Who To Be Friends With? Ryan talks about the relationships that you should have. For a limited time, the ebook edition of Courage Is Calling by Ryan Holiday is only $1.99! We have no idea how long the discount will last, so grab your copy now! Or if you prefer hardcover, you can get those over in the Daily Stoic store, where you can also get signed copies! Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy a... |
| 2022-Apr-11 • 7 minutes This Was a Reminder | Test Your Impressions Ryan talks about how nothing in this world is truly certain, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal. For a limited time, the ebook edition of Courage Is Calling by Ryan Holiday is only $1.99! We have no idea how long the discount will last, so grab your copy now! Or if you prefer hardcover, you can get those over in the Daily Stoic store, where you can also get signed copies! Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Tik... |
| 2022-Apr-10 • 17 minutes 8 Stoic Habits That Will Improve Your Life You might ask yourself, what am I missing? What is holding me back? The answer is simple: good habits. Excellence isn’t this thing you do one time. It’s a way of living. It’s foundational. It’s like an operating system and the code this system operates on is habit In this episode Ryan Holiday outlines 8 of the most important Stoic habits that will improve your life. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed book... |
| 2022-Apr-09 • 67 minutes Scott Thompson on Epictetus and Approaching Life with Laughter Ryan talks to Scott Thompson about his introduction to Stoicism after hearing Ryan on the Breakfast Club, the humor that he finds in the teaching of Epictetus, the striking similarities between tragedy and triumph, and more.Scott Thompson is a Canadian born comedian and actor. He is best known for being a member of the comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall and for playing Brian on The Larry Sanders Show. At an early age, Scott found comedy as his way of coping with and overcoming the traumatic events he experi... |
| 2022-Apr-08 • 3 minutes There is Only One Place to Look for Approval Ryan talks about why you should hold yourself to your own standards. For a limited time, the ebook edition of Courage Is Calling by Ryan Holiday is only $1.99! We have no idea how long the discount will last, so grab your copy now! Or if you prefer hardcover, you can get those over in the Daily Stoic store, where you can also get signed copies! Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.c... |
| 2022-Apr-07 • 11 minutes Can You Savor it | Expect To Change Your Opinions Ryan talks about why it’s so important to soak in the present moment, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day.For a limited time, the ebook edition of Courage Is Calling by Ryan Holiday is only $1.99! We have no idea how long the discount will last, so grab your copy now! Or if you prefer hardcover, you can get those over in the Daily Stoic store, where you can also get signed copies!Go Macro is a family-owned maker of some of the finest protein bars around. They're vegan, non-GMO, and they come i... |
| 2022-Apr-06 • 78 minutes Susan Cain on Transforming Pain Into Beauty | This Is Our Most Dangerous Opponent Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to author Susan Cain about her new book “Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole,” how melancholy can spark creativity and drive ambition, how to take heartbreak and mold something great out of it, and more.Susan Cain is the author of the bestsellers “Quiet Power: The Secret Strengths of Introverted Kids,” and “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in A World That Can't Stop Talking,” which is in its eighth year on The New York Times bestseller list and ... |
| 2022-Apr-05 • 3 minutes Yes, Even Those People… Ryan talks about how we all need each other. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Apr-04 • 8 minutes What Will It Bring Out Of You? | What Can Go Wrong… Might Ryan talks about how our character is exposed in themes extreme circumstances, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal. Go Macro is a family-owned maker of some of the finest protein bars around. They're vegan, non-GMO, and they come in a bunch of delicious flavors. Visit gomacro.com and use promo code STOIC for 30% off your order plus free shipping on all orders over $50. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok,... |
| 2022-Apr-03 • 11 minutes 7 Life Changing Stoic Ideas That You Can Practice Daily Stoicism is a practical philosophy, which means it is made to be PRACTICED. In this podcast, Ryan discusses 7 key ideas of Stoicism that will help you develop a daily practice and respond to challenging situations in your life. Stoicism provides exercises to help manage stress, excessive thought, anger, depression, worry, and other destructive mindstates. Stoic practices can help develop a sense of inner peace and calmWatch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0lmSRCSGIU&t=12sAs... a member of D... |
| 2022-Apr-02 • 71 minutes Ultramarathoner Courtney Dauwalter on Building Mental Strength Ryan talks to ultramarathon runner Courtney Dauwalter about the balance between listening to your body and pushing through pain, prioritizing happiness and enjoyment rather than optimization, her metaphor of the pain cave that she visualizes when pushing her body, and more.Courtney Dauwalter is the world’s best female ultra runner in the world, and when it comes to races over 200 miles, she is, hands down, the best. She is a two-time ultra runner of the year, and has been named one of the top 50 fittest ath... |
| 2022-Apr-01 • 3 minutes How to Be More Patient With People Ryan talks about the key to dealing with people who you will inevitably come across. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Mar-31 • 10 minutes This Is How To Own Everything | You’re a Product of Your Training Ryan talks about the vital importance of stillness and presence, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day.Try Surfshark risk-free with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Get Surfshark VPN at surfshark.deals/STOIC. Enter promo code STOIC for 83 % off and three extra months free.As a member of Daily Stoic Life, you get all our current and future courses, 100+ additional Daily Stoic email meditations, 4 live Q&As with bestselling author Ryan Holiday (and guests), and 10% off your next purchase from the Dai... |
| 2022-Mar-30 • 72 minutes Thomas Chatterton Williams on Reading, Practical Philosophy, and Embracing Contradiction | Approach Your Troubles Like Doctor Ryan reads today’s meditation and talks to author Thomas Chatterton Williams about how his father helped him cultivate his love for reading, why the point of philosophy should be practical application rather than theorizing, the importance of embracing contradicting ideas, and more.Thomas Chatterton Williams is an American culture critic and is the author of two memoirs: “Self-Portrait in Black and White: Unlearning Race” and “Losing My Cool: How a Father’s Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-Hop Culture.” In 20... |
| 2022-Mar-29 • 4 minutes You’d Be A Fool To Not Do This Ryan talks about the importance reading diverse and challenging books. Check out the Read To Lead Reading Challenge at: https://dailystoic.com/read Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Mar-28 • 8 minutes Can You Be a Glow Worm? | Say No to the Need to Impress Ryan talks about how nothing will last forever, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal. For a limited time, UCAN is offering you 30% off on your first order when you use code STOIC at checkout Just go to UCAN.CO/STOIC Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Mar-27 • 10 minutes 5 Powerful Insights From Stoic Women The Stoics believed this philosophy transcended any individual human being or society with it being based on the universal principles of life. In this episode Ryan Holiday outlines 5 of the most powerful insights that he’s gathered from Stoic women.Musonius Rufus—Epictetus’s teacher—was the most vocal on the matter: “It is not men alone who possess eagerness and a natural inclination towards virtue, but women also. Women are pleased no less than men by noble and just deeds, and reject the opposite of such a... |
| 2022-Mar-26 • 70 minutes Journalist Kati Marton on Angela Merkel’s Remarkable Stoicism Ryan talks to journalist and author Kati Marton about her new book “The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel,” the unshakable calm that she exuded as the chancellor of Germany, the stoic qualities that she embodies, and more. Kati Marton has combined a career as an acclaimed reporter and writer with human rights advocacy. Since 1980, Kati has published nine books and is an award-winning former NPR correspondent and ABC news bureau chief in Germany. She also contributes to The Atlantic, The N... |
| 2022-Mar-25 • 3 minutes It Happens To The Best of Us Ryan talks about how important of a reminder Memento Mori really is. Pick up a Memento Mori medallion or a Dance of Death Print at store.dailystoic.com Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Mar-24 • 12 minutes This is the Critical Difference | There is Philosophy in Everything Ryan talks about how parents can shape the fate of their kids, about how everything we do for others comes back to us, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Mar-23 • 65 minutes Historian Barry Strauss on the Rise and Fall of Nations | It’s Good That You’re Scared Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to author and historian and author Barry S. Strauss about his new book “The War That Made the Roman Empire,” the mistakes and successes of the ancient stoics, the self-inflicted wounds that lead to the end of empires, the value of immigration and assimilation, and more.Barry Strauss has spent years researching and studying the leaders of the ancient world. He is also a widely acclaimed military and naval historian whose analyses of the strategies and campaigns o... |
| 2022-Mar-22 • 2 minutes Let It Go, You’re Plenty Guilty Yourself Ryan talks about how you should reflect on yourself before correcting somebody else. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Mar-21 • 12 minutes Do You Want To Join These Ranks? | The Portable Retreat Ryan talks about the importance of studying philosophy, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal. 🎓 Sign up for Stoicism 101: Ancient Philosophy For Your Actual Life - https://dailystoic.com/101 Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Mar-20 • 14 minutes 7 Ways Marcus Aurelius Will Help You Journal Like A Pro Almost 2000 years ago, Marcus Aurelius stole time away from his incredibly busy life full of obligations to write in his journal. By some incredible stroke of luck, that journal survives to us today. And though it is full of countless pieces of wisdom and important lessons to us, perhaps its greatest teaching is held in its very existence. The fact that this person who thought so deeply and was so highly effective took the time to regularly write out his thoughts is one of the most important things we can t... |
| 2022-Mar-19 • 68 minutes Jennifer Raff on the Genetic History of America Ryan talks to Anthropological geneticist Jennifer Raff about her new book Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas, how drastically our understanding of North American history has changed, the important perspective that understanding of history gives you about the world around you, and more.Dr. Jennifer Raff is an assistant professor at the University of Kansas, in the department of Anthropology. She studies the genomes of contemporary and ancient peoples in order to uncover details of human prehistory. Sh... |
| 2022-Mar-18 • 6 minutes Philosophy Is Not A Thought Experiment Ryan talks about what practicing Stoicism is actually all about. 🎓 Sign up for Stoicism 101: Ancient Philosophy For Your Actual Life - https://dailystoic.com/101 Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Mar-17 • 8 minutes It's All Normal | The Beauty of Choice Ryan talks about how the challenges we face in the modern era are no different than what the ancient Stoics faced, about how everything we do for others comes back to us, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day. 🎓 Sign up for Stoicism 101: Ancient Philosophy For Your Actual Life - https://dailystoic.com/101 For a limited time, UCAN is offering you 30% off on your first order when you use code STOIC at checkout Just go to UCAN.CO/STOIC Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email F... |
| 2022-Mar-16 • 87 minutes Josh Peck on Sobriety and Self-Improvement | You Have Been Misled Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to Josh Peck about his new book “Happy People Are Annoying” (which you can pick up at The Painted Porch), his journey from being a child actor to getting sober at 21, the power of breaking the cycle of generational trauma, and more.🎓 Sign up for Stoicism 101: Ancient Philosophy For Your Actual Life - https://dailystoic.com/101Josh Peck is an American actor, comedian, and YouTuber. Josh began his career as a child actor in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Peck ros... |
| 2022-Mar-15 • 3 minutes Are You Better or Worse? Ryan talks about why you should look inward and examine yourself critically. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Mar-14 • 11 minutes So, How Did You Do? | Think About It from the Other Person’s Perspective Ryan talks about the lasting impact that COVID-19 has had on the world around us, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal. For a limited time, UCAN is offering you 30% off on your first order when you use code STOIC at checkout Just go to UCAN.CO/STOIC Sign up for the 14-day Daily Stoic Alive Time Challenge to take control of your life and get the most out of your time. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, a... |
| 2022-Mar-13 • 12 minutes 9 Stoic Rules For A Better Life (From Marcus Aurelius) Marcus Aurelius knew that he couldn’t control all that happened to him, but he could control how he responded. These 9 rules that Ryan Holiday has taken from the Roman Emperor can help you take control of your happiness and live your best life. Watch the video: https://youtu.be/heh5XLwZVOY Right now, when you purchase a 3-month Babbel subscription, you’ll get an additional 3 months for FREE. That’s 6 months, for the price of 3! Just go to Babbel.com and use promo code DAILYSTOIC. Sign up for the Daily S... |
| 2022-Mar-12 • 69 minutes Roosevelt Montás on Socrates and the Universality of the Classics Ryan talks to Roosevelt Montás about his new book "Rescuing Socrates," how his life changed at 16 when he discovered a copy of Socrates in his neighbors trash, how the universality of the ancient texts blur the lines between our conceptions of race and class, and more. Roosevelt Montás is Director of the Freedom and Citizenship Program. He was born in the Dominican Republic and moved to New York as a teenager. He attended public schools in Queens and was admitted to Columbia College in 1991 through its O... |
| 2022-Mar-11 • 3 minutes Do The Little Thing, It’s All The Matters Ryan talks about why the small things are what matter most. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Mar-10 • 9 minutes You Don’t Get To Learn By Trial and Error | Find Yourself a Cato Ryan talks about why you must learn from the experiences of others, about how everything we do for others comes back to us, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Mar-09 • 86 minutes Elliot Ackerman on Writing, Military Service, and Polarization | People Do Well When They Can Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to Elliot Ackerman about his book Green on Blue, how he became a writer, his tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, the problems of radicalization and polarization, and more. Elliot Ackerman is the author of the novels 2034, Red Dress In Black and White, Waiting for Eden, Dark at the Crossing, and Green on Blue, as well as the memoir Places and Names: On War, Revolution and Returning. His books have been nominated for the National Book Award, the Andrew Carnegi... |
| 2022-Mar-08 • 3 minutes What Would You Do More Of? Ryan talks about why you should think about how you actually want to spend your time. Grab a Memento Mori pendant necklace from the Daily Stoic Store to remember this message. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Mar-07 • 8 minutes What Would You Do Less Of? | What Expensive Things Cost Ryan explains why the practice of Memento Mori is so important, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal. Get a Memento Mori medallionin the Daily Stoic Store. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Mar-06 • 14 minutes 8 Ways To Make Courage A Habit (From The Stoics) The world wants to know what category to put you in, which is why it will occasionally send difficult situations your way. Think of these not as inconveniences or even tragedies but as opportunities, as questions to answers. "Am I brave? Am I going to face this problem or run away from it? Will I stand up or be rolled over?" Have you gotten a copy of Ryan Holiday's new book Courage Is Calling? Pick up a signed edition in the Daily Stoic Store - https://dailystoic.com/courageiscalling - or grab it on Amazon... |
| 2022-Mar-05 • 78 minutes Andrew Sullivan on The Classics, Independence, and the Human Experience Ryan talks to Andrew Sullivan about his new book “Out on a Limb: Selected Writing, 1989-2021,'' the common culture that we find through ancient and classic texts, the fine line between truth and being out of touch with reality, and more.Andrew Sullivan is one of today’s most provocative social and political commentators. A former editor of The New Republic, he was the founding editor of The Daily Dish, and has been a regular writer for The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Time, Newsweek, New... |
| 2022-Mar-04 • 2 minutes How To Make Better Decisions in Life Ryan talks about a simple tip that could improve your life. Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Mar-03 • 10 minutes Beware the Freight Train Coming Your Way | (Dis)integration Ryan talks about why you need to be prepared for what is to come, about how everything we do for others comes back to us, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Mar-02 • 87 minutes Kathryn Schulz on Misinformation and Coping with Grief | The Strong Do What They Can but the Weak Must… Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to Kathryn Schulz about her new book Lost & Found: A Memoir, the perpetual disconnect between reality and rhetoric, the importance of confronting darkness and dealing with grief, and more.Kathryn Schulz is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error. She won a National Magazine Award and a Pulitzer Prize in 2015 for “The Really Big One,” an article about seismic risk in the Pacific Northwest. Her most rec... |
| 2022-Mar-01 • 2 minutes Legacy is Not For You...But This Is Ryan talks about what legacy actually means. Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Feb-28 • 9 minutes Stillness Helps You Win | Cultivate Indifference Ryan talks about the way that Stoics view the tough moments in life, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal. Get a signed copy of Stillness Is The Key from The Painted Porch. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookThis is Another Word for Obstacles See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Feb-27 • 10 minutes Seneca's 8 Tips For Mastering Yourself Seneca was a power broker, a playwright, and a Stoic philosopher. These 8 lessons will teach you to become a better master of yourself, just like Seneca was striving to do. Learn more about Seneca: https://dailystoic.com/seneca/ → Get Seneca's 'Letters from a Stoic' → Get a signed copy of Lives of the Stoics Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more. Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Ti... |
| 2022-Feb-26 • 62 minutes NFL Trainer Tareq Azim on Living Intentionally, Redefining Success, and Memento Mori Ryan talks to NFL trainer and author Tareq Azim about his new book Empower: Conquering the Disease of Fear, why intention is a better indicator of long term growth than specific goals, the distinction between ego and confidence, the power of meditating on death, and more.Tareq Azim is a seven-time World Championship attending coach in combat sports, a former Division I linebacker at Fresno State, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, an author, and a philanthropist. He also created the first Afghan Women’s Boxing ... |
| 2022-Feb-25 • 2 minutes We Have To Care About This Ryan talks about why you should value independence. Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Feb-24 • 11 minutes There Is An Upside to the Downside | The Real Source of Harm Ryan talks about how you can turn obstacles upside down and grow from them, about how everything we do for others comes back to us, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day. We have some exciting news to share with you all — for some reason, The Obstacle is the Way ebook is just $1.99 everywhere you get your ebooks. We’re not sure how long the price drop will last, but if you haven’t already read The Obstacle Is The Way, this is probably the cheapest it will ever be. Or if you’re like us and prefer phy... |
| 2022-Feb-23 • 66 minutes Arthur Brooks on the Keys to Finding Happiness | How To Own Things Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to Author and Professor Arthur Brooks about his new book From Strength to Strength, how to manage your wants to increase your happiness, why good habits and systems are the actual keys to a happy life, and more. Arthur Brooks is the William Henry Bloomberg Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School and Professor of Management Practice at the Harvard Business School. Brooks is the author of 12 books, including the national bests... |
| 2022-Feb-22 • 4 minutes This Is When You Use It Ryan talks what to do when you think you can’t go on any longer. We have some exciting news to share with you all — for some reason, The Obstacle is the Way ebook is just $1.99 everywhere you get your ebooks. We’re not sure how long the price drop will last, but if you haven’t already read The Obstacle Is The Way, this is probably the cheapest it will ever be. Or if you’re like us and prefer physical books, we have hardcopies and our premium leather-bound edition available over in the Daily Stoic store, wh... |
| 2022-Feb-21 • 8 minutes Leave It Better Than You Found It | Reduce Wants, Increase Happiness Ryan talks about how you can improve your life, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Feb-20 • 12 minutes 5 Life Changing Journaling Habits from the Stoics Do you have a copy of the Daily Stoic Journal? Get a special signed edition in the Daily Stoic Store or at The Painted Porch Bookshop. Journaling is Stoicism. It’s almost impossible to have one without the other. Ryan Holiday's journaling ideas come from his 15+ year practice of writing and reflecting on Stoicism. Journaling is one of the most essential exercises in Stoic philosophy. Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius all praised the benefits of journaling. In Stoicism the daily practice is the philoso... |
| 2022-Feb-19 • 71 minutes Psychotherapist Terri Cole on Saying No and Setting Healthy Boundaries Ryan talks to psychotherapist and author Terri Cole about her new book Boundary Boss-The Essential Guide to Talk True, Be Seen and (Finally) Live Free, the Stoic’s concept of controlling what you can control and letting go of what you can’t, how setting boundaries helps you represent your authentic self, and more. Terri Cole is a licensed psychotherapist, global relationship and empowerment expert. For over two decades, Terri has worked with a diverse group of clients that includes everyone from stay-at-h... |
| 2022-Feb-18 • 4 minutes All The Roads We Have To Walk Are Winding Ryan talks about the twists and turns that will make you great if you choose. We have some exciting news to share with you all — for some reason, The Obstacle is the Way ebook is just $1.99 everywhere you get your ebooks. We’re not sure how long the price drop will last, but if you haven’t already read The Obstacle Is The Way, this is probably the cheapest it will ever be. Or if you’re like us and prefer physical books, we have hardcopies and our premium leather-bound edition available over in the Daily St... |
| 2022-Feb-17 • 10 minutes Turn It Into Something | The Enemy of Happiness Ryan talks about how you can turn your trials into triumph, about how everything we do for others comes back to us, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day. We have some exciting news to share with you all — for some reason, The Obstacle is the Way ebook is just $1.99 everywhere you get your ebooks. We’re not sure how long the price drop will last, but if you haven’t already read The Obstacle Is The Way, this is probably the cheapest it will ever be. Or if you’re like us and prefer physical books, we ... |
| 2022-Feb-16 • 70 minutes U.S. Senate Candidate Admiral Mike Franken on Serving the Common Good | How to Travel Through Time Ryan reads today’s meditation and talks to Admiral Mike Franken about his campaign for U.S. Senate in Iowa, what he learned about the art of leadership throughout his service in the U.S. military, the modern political climate and what we can do collectively to improve it, and more.Admiral Mike Franken is a former United States Navy vice admiral. Franken entered the United States Navy in 1981 and was the first commanding officer of USS Winston S.Churchill. Franken was the first director of the Defense POW/MI... |
| 2022-Feb-15 • 3 minutes This Is What Karma Looks Like Ryan talks about how your actions impact your well being. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Feb-14 • 9 minutes You Must Learn From History | Watch Over Your Perceptions Ryan talks about why it’s better to learn from the experience of others, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal. Blinkist takes top nonfiction titles, pulls out the key takeaways and puts them into text and audio explainers called Blinks that give you the most important information in just 15 minutes. Go to Blinkist.com/STOIC to start your free 7 day trial and get 25% off of a Blinkist Premium membership. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: In... |
| 2022-Feb-13 • 21 minutes Seneca on Despising Death Today’s episode is an excerpt from The Tao Of Seneca produced by Tim Ferriss’ Audio. In this letter Seneca writes about why we should not get upset about future problems by making them a problem of the present. Go to tim.blog/seneca to get the PDF for free. Get Letters From a Stoic from the Painted Porch.As a member of Daily Stoic Life, you get all our current and future courses, 100+ additional Daily Stoic email meditations, 4 live Q&As with bestselling author Ryan Holiday (and guests), and 10% off you... |
| 2022-Feb-12 • 64 minutes Jon Ronson on Empathy, Culture Wars, and Finding Community Ryan talks to author and filmmaker Jon Ronson about how to balance empathy and compassion with finding the truth, the importance of policing your side of the street to fight radicalization, the lack of connection in modern culture, and more. Jon Ronson is an award-winning writer and documentary filmmaker. He is the author of many bestselling books, including So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, The Psychopath Test, and The Men Who Stare at Goats. His latest work is a Radio 4 and BBC Sounds podcast series entit... |
| 2022-Feb-11 • 2 minutes Don’t Let Your Virtues Become This Vice Ryan talks about why you have to think make progress for it's own sake. Check out The Daily Stoic and The Daily Stoic Journal at The Painted Porch Bookshop. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Feb-10 • 9 minutes The Most Temporary and Illusory State | Anger is Bad Fuel Ryan explains why you should remember the fragility of life, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day. Try Surfshark risk-free with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Get Surfshark VPN at surfshark.deals/STOIC. Enter promo code STOIC for 83 % off and three extra months free! Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#d... |
| 2022-Feb-09 • 69 minutes Matthew B. Crawford on Practical Philosophy and Shop Class as Soulcraft | This is The Opinion To Care About On today’s episode of the podcast Ryan talks to author Matthew B. Crawford about his New York Times bestselling book Shop Class as Soulcraft (which you can pick up at the Painted Porch), why philosophy must be practiced and experienced in actual life rather than in the classroom, our inherent fear of death and how it impacts our day to day existence, and more. Matthew B. Crawford is an American writer and research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. He is ... |
| 2022-Feb-08 • 3 minutes Here’s A Way To Get Some Timeless Stillness Ryan talks about the vitality of seeking out stillness in your life.For more on tuning out distractions and finding the focus that you need to succeed, check out Ryan Holiday’s best selling Stillness Is the Key. It’s the perfect tool to help you find that critical stillness in your life, even in distracting times like these. Get it here: https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/ryan3?_pos=1&_sid=fa7b33b70&_ss... up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/e... |
| 2022-Feb-07 • 9 minutes Losing Your Temper Is a Luxury | Suspend Your Opinions Ryan talks about why you must keep your anger in check, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal.As a member of Daily Stoic Life, you get all our current and future courses, 100+ additional Daily Stoic email meditations, 4 live Q&As with bestselling author Ryan Holiday (and guests), and 10% off your next purchase from the Daily Stoic Store. Sign up athttps://dailystoic.com/life/Try Surfshark risk-free with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Get Surfshark VPN at surfshark.deals/STOI... |
| 2022-Feb-06 • 15 minutes 7 Stoic Lessons From An Abandoned Ghost Town (Cerro Gordo) What can the Cerro Gordo Ghost Town teach you about the art of living? When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in March of 2020 Brent Underwood moved to the abandoned ghost town of Cerro Gordo. He's now lived there for almost 2 years entirely alone.Ryan Holiday has known Brent since he first hired him as his intern over 10 years ago. He went to visit the ghost town on his road trip last summer and documented the Stoic lessons that he took from his time on the hill.Watch the video: https://youtu.be/fDzb1XBUJyM&nbs... |
| 2022-Feb-05 • 68 minutes X Mayo on Discipline, Christianity, and Practicing Stoicism in Hollywood Ryan talks to actress and comedian X Mayo about the difference between discipline and passion, the common misconception of Stoics as unfeeling and unemotional, how Stoicism relates to Christianity, the importance of being content to be thought clueless about some things, and more.X Mayo is an actor, writer, producer, comedian, and taco expert. Landing in NYC in 2013 with just 80 Dollars and A Suitcase, X has survived over 24 moves to now being an Emmy Nominated writer for The Daily Show With Trevor Noah. X ... |
| 2022-Feb-04 • 4 minutes Have A Near-Death Experience Every Morning Ryan talks about the importance of thinking about what you will do when you get thrown for a loop. Check out the Memento Mori medallion in the Daily Stoic Store. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Feb-03 • 11 minutes Your Heart Shouldn’t Be Getting Harder As You Go | The Source of Your Anxiety Ryan explains why you should hold tight to your values, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Feb-02 • 74 minutes Brian Klaas on the Pursuit of Power and How It Corrupts | It’s About What We’re Willing To Give Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to professor Brian Klaas about his new book Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us, why we should minimize the psychological distance between leaders and the people they lead, the differences between functional and dysfunctional psychopaths, and more.Brian Klaas is an associate professor of global politics at University College London and the host of the award-winning Power Corrupts podcast. Klaas is a contributor to The Washington Post and a regular ... |
| 2022-Feb-01 • 4 minutes What’s Your Emergency Routine? Ryan talks about the importance of thinking about what you will do when you get thrown for a loop. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jan-31 • 9 minutes You Have Time, If You Make It | Focus On The Present Moment Ryan talks about the importance of finding time to improve yourself, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal. Check out the Read To Lead Reading Challenge at: https://dailystoic.com/read Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jan-30 • 24 minutes 21 (Stoic) Quotes That Will Change You Into A Better Person Ryan gives you 21 quotes that will change you into a better person, if you let them. Each one is worth remembering, having queued in your brain for one of life’s crossroads or to drop at the perfect moment in conversation. Watch the video: https://youtu.be/pHtgQDqXqVo Talkspace is an online and mobile therapy company. Make your mental health more than just another New Year’s resolution, with Talkspace. Visit talkspace.com and get $100 off your first month when you use promo code STOIC at sign-up. That’s ... |
| 2022-Jan-29 • 56 minutes Dr. Nate Zinsser on Restraining Ego and Building Confidence On today’s episode of the podcast Ryan talks to performance psychologist Dr. Nate Zinsser about his new book The Confident Mind: A Battle-Tested Guide to Unshakable Performance, the difference between confidence and evidence, how to think about the moments in your life selectively to cultivate confidence, looking for the positive aspects of your life while maintaining objective awareness, and more. Dr. Nate Zinsser is the director of West Point’s Performance Psychology Program. He has been the lead perform... |
| 2022-Jan-28 • 2 minutes Do It Before It’s Too Late Ryan talks about the importance of being prepared for the worst. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jan-27 • 9 minutes Helping Others Helps You | Three Areas of Training Ryan talks about the recent passing of Thich Nhat Hanh, about how everything we do for others comes back to us, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day. Blinkist takes top nonfiction titles, pulls out the key takeaways and puts them into text and audio explainers called Blinks that give you the most important information in just 15 minutes. Go to Blinkist.com/STOIC to start your free 7 day trial and get 25% off of a Blinkist Premium membership. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com... |
| 2022-Jan-26 • 80 minutes Michael Schur on the Virtuous Life and Humor in Philosophy | It’s Pointing Right At You Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to television producer and writer Michael Schur about the importance of making philosophy accessible, the difficulty of living virtuously without becoming cynical, the power of expressing humor and positivity in entertainment, and more. Michael Schur created the critically acclaimed NBC comedy The Good Place and co-created Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and the Peacock series Rutherford Falls. He is also an executive producer on HBO Max’s Hacks and N... |
| 2022-Jan-25 • 2 minutes Here’s Why Worry Is Pointless Ryan discusses the worthlessness of worry, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jan-24 • 10 minutes It's Ok To Stumble | A Little Better Every Day Ryan explains why it’s ok to mess up, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. For ONE WEEK ONLY, you can sign up and immediately begin the 2022 Daily Stoic New Year New You Challenge at your own pace. It’s 3 weeks of actionable challenges, presented in an email per day, built around the best, most timeless wisdom in Stoic philosophy. Just go to https://dailystoic.com/challenge to sign up. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/email... |
| 2022-Jan-23 • 30 minutes Bonus: Walter Isaacson on Bending the Arch of History and Demystifying Science Today’s episode of the podcast is from a February 2021 interview with Ryan Holiday and prolific bestselling author Walter Isaacson. They talk about his newest book The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race, the brilliant execution that it took to create the first Coronavius vaccine, demystifying the scientific narrative through a journey of discovery, and more. For THREE MORE DAYS, you can sign up and immediately begin the 2022 Daily Stoic New Year New You Challenge ... |
| 2022-Jan-22 • 73 minutes Robert Greene on the Wisdom of the Stoics Ryan talks to bestselling author Robert Greene about the importance of understanding, processing, and observing your emotions, our natural tendency as humans to take the path of least resistance, how to deal with anxiety by viewing situations objectively, working on his new book about the laws of the sublime, and more. Robert Greene is an American author known for his books on strategy, power, and seduction. He has written six international bestsellers: The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction, The 33 St... |
| 2022-Jan-21 • 3 minutes Just For A Moment, Let’s Be Still Ryan talks about the importance of stillness, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jan-20 • 10 minutes Be Tough On Yourself and Understanding To Other | Reignite Your Thoughts Ryan talks about why you must continually hold yourself accountable, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. For ONE WEEK ONLY, you can sign up and immediately begin the 2022 Daily Stoic New Year New You Challenge at your own pace. It’s 3 weeks of actionable challenges, presented in an email per day, built around the best, most timeless wisdom in Stoic philosophy. Just go to https://dailystoic.com/challenge to sign up. Blinkist takes top nonfiction titles, pulls out t... |
| 2022-Jan-19 • 79 minutes Bari Weiss on the Power of Choice and Voicing Your Opinion | It’s Too Early To Quit On Yourself Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to author Bari Weiss about the pressure to be agreeable, the importance of calculating opportunity cost, the line between speaking up about social issues and staying silent, and more. From 2017 until 2020, Bari was a staff writer and editor for the Opinion section of The New York Times. Before joining the Times, Bari was an oped editor at the Wall Street Journal and an associate book review editor there. Her first book, "How to Fight Anti-Semitism," was a Na... |
| 2022-Jan-18 • 3 minutes Our Actions Echo Through Eternity Ryan discusses how our actions have a larger impact than what lies on the surface, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jan-17 • 10 minutes Make Good On Your Promise | The Wake Up Ryan discusses what we can learn from Martin Luther King Jr. about living philosophically, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Eight Sleep is the most advanced solution on the market for thermoregulation. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking. Go to eightsleep.com/dailystoic to check out the Pod Pro Cover and save $150 at checkout. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter... |
| 2022-Jan-16 • 18 minutes Seneca on the First Cause Today’s episode is an excerpt from The Tao Of Seneca produced by Tim Ferriss’ Audio. In this letter Seneca writes about matter is being substance ready for any use whereas cause (reason) molds matter and turns it in whatever directions it will, how the wise man is so trained that he neither loves nor hates life, and how wise men regard their body as nothing but a chain since it is the only part of man which can suffer injury. Go to tim.blog/seneca to get the PDF for free. Get Letters From a Stoic from the P... |
| 2022-Jan-15 • 70 minutes Professor M.D. Usher on Living in Accordance with Nature Ryan talks to professor M.D. Usher about his new book How to Be a Farmer: An Ancient Guide to Life on the Land, the philosophical contradiction of the ancients practice of slavery, what the Stoics mean by living in accordance with nature, and more. M.D. Usher is a University of Vermont alumnus and joined the UVM faculty in 2000. Before attending UVM as an undergraduate he apprenticed in Germany as a post-and-beam carpenter and later earned his Ph.D. in Classics at The University of Chicago. Watch the Stoi... |
| 2022-Jan-14 • 4 minutes This is Your Reward Ryan explains what you get for doing the right thing, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jan-13 • 9 minutes “Not Much” Adds Up | Circle of Control Ryan explains how to be productive at a high level, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. GiveWell is the best site for figuring out how and where to donate your money to have the greatest impact. Go to Givewell.org to read more about their research or donate to any of their recommended charities. Enter Daily Stoic at checkout so they know we sent you. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and... |
| 2022-Jan-12 • 72 minutes General Stanley McChrystal on Getting Comfortable with Risk | Set Up Your Hall of Heroes Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to retired United States Army General Stanley Allen McChrystal about how to become comfortable with risk as a leader, the rise and spread of misinformation, the effect that individuals have on humanity, and more. Stanley Allen McChrystal is a retired United States Army general best known for his command of Joint Special Operations Command in the mid-2000s. He established a consultancy firm, McChrystal Group, in 2011 and advises senior executives at multinationa... |
| 2022-Jan-11 • 3 minutes It’s Never Too Late To Learn Ryan discusses the importance of always continuing your education, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Check out the Read To Lead Reading Challenge at: https://dailystoic.com/read Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jan-10 • 12 minutes No Man Ever Reads The Same Book Twice | The Sphere of Choice Ryan talks about the importance of re-reading the greats, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. For a limited time, the Daily Stoic ebook is $1.99 in the US and UK this week only. We have a premium leather bound version available at dailystoic.com/leather. GiveWell is the best site for figuring out how and where to donate your money to have the greatest impact. Go to Givewell.org to read more about their research or donate to any of their recommend... |
| 2022-Jan-09 • 13 minutes 6 Hits of Stoic Motivation (Sports and Philosophy) Today, Stoicism has been embraced by nearly every professional sport. Stoicism as a philosophy is really about the mental game. It’s not a set of ethics or principles. It’s a collection of spiritual exercises designed to help people through the difficulty of life. To focus on managing emotion; specifically, non-helpful emotion. In this episode of the podcast, Ryan breaks down 6 of the most important insights on sports and endurance training from the Stoics. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyS... |
| 2022-Jan-08 • 66 minutes Alex Lieberman on Defining Values, Restraining Opinion, and Curating Wisdom Ryan talks to Morning Brew founder Alex Lieberman about his journey with Stoicism, the false belief that money can change your level of happiness, the higher standard that leaders should hold themselves to, the power of restraining opinion, and more. Alex Lieberman is the co-founder and Executive Chairman of Morning Brew. Alex started Morning Brew as a college student in 2015 and has grown it to over 3 million subscribers. Alex is also the host of the podcast Founder’s Journal, which offers a backstage pa... |
| 2022-Jan-07 • 3 minutes Does It Measure Up? Ryan explains why you must always stop and check yourself, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jan-06 • 12 minutes We Must Beat Back The Mob | Where, Who, What and Why Ryan talks about the high stakes of America’s political climate, the Stoic's responsibility to uphold justice, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. For a limited time, the Daily Stoic ebook is $1.99 in the US and UK this week only. We have a premium leather bound version available at dailystoic.com/leather. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art... |
| 2022-Jan-05 • 74 minutes Thomas Ricks on the Wisdom of the Classics and Balancing Power | This Is What It Means To Be “Well-Read” Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and speaks with author and historian Thomas Ricks about his newest book First Principles, the founding fathers familiarity with the ancient Stoics, the wisdom that was embedded into the constitution, how America’s 3 part system was meant to reflect the wisdom of the Classics, and more. Thomas Ricks is an American journalist and author who has won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting multiple times. He is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Fiasco: The Ame... |
| 2022-Jan-04 • 2 minutes You Are Not Exempt Ryan explains why you must think about the inevitable things coming your way, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2022-Jan-03 • 13 minutes It's About Intensity Not Magnitude | What's Up to Us, and What's Not Up to Us Ryan explains why you should linger on the works of the master thinkers, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. For a limited time, the Daily Stoic ebook is $1.99 in the US and UK this week only. We have a premium leather bound version available at dailystoic.com/leather. The new Pod Pro Cover by Eight Sleep is the most advanced solution on the market for thermoregulation. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking. You can add the... |
| 2022-Jan-02 • 18 minutes Seneca on Pleasure and Joy Today’s episode is an excerpt from The Tao Of Seneca produced by Tim Ferriss’ Audio. In this letter Seneca writes about his wish to know why is it that we keep doing things that are not good for us, even when we ought to know better, he contrasts transitory pleasures with a more mature and lasting joy, and he lists a number of “preferred indifferents,” meaning things that can reasonably be pursued, but that do not make us better human beings. Go to tim.blog/seneca to get the PDF for free. Reframe is a neur... |
| 2022-Jan-01 • 73 minutes James Clear, Robert Greene, Brad Stulberg, Tom Nichols, and Julia Baird on the Writer’s Process Today’s episode features some of the best interviews with authors from 2021. Ryan talks to James Clear about how to begin and maintain productive habitual action, Robert Greene about the process of writing some of his bestselling books and his newest book The Daily Laws, Brad Stulberg about practical steps to alleviate the anxiety that comes with the lifelong pursuit of greatness, Tom Nichols about what it means to take your responsibilities as a responsible citizen seriously, and Julia Baird about how the ... |
| 2021-Dec-31 • 4 minutes There Is No Better Time Than Now Ryan talks about the urgency of self-improvement and how you can make changes now, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. → We hope you join us in the 2022 New Year New You Challenge. It kicks off in a little over a week. It’s 3 weeks of actionable challenges, presented in an email per day, built around the best, most timeless wisdom in Stoic philosophy. Just go to https://dailystoic.com/challenge to sign up before sign ups end on January 1st! Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follo... |
| 2021-Dec-30 • 12 minutes Stop Waiting To Demand The Best For Yourself | Taking The Bite Out Of It Ryan talks about how people tend to put off making changes and improving their lives, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. → We hope you join us in the 2022 New Year New You Challenge. It kicks off in a little over a week. It’s 3 weeks of actionable challenges, presented in an email per day, built around the best, most timeless wisdom in Stoic philosophy. Just go to https://dailystoic.com/challenge to sign up before sign ups end on January 1st! Sign up for the Dail... |
| 2021-Dec-29 • 69 minutes Major General Dan Caine, Randall Stutman, Robert Greene, and Jeni Britton Bauer on Becoming a Great Leader | This is The Truly Inexcusable Thing Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and looks back at some of the best interviews from the Daily Stoic Leadership Challenge. Ryan talks to Major General Dan Caine about the importance of defining success before you set out to try to solve a problem, Randall Stutman about the important distinction in being subtle and being manipulative, how great leaders see themselves as stewards, not owners, Robert Greene about their experiences and lessons learned from watching American Apparel’s unhinged CEO run a public... |
| 2021-Dec-28 • 3 minutes You Can’t Just Stuff It Down Ryan explains why a Stoic should process and deal with their emotions, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. → We hope you join us in the 2022 New Year New You Challenge. It kicks off in a little over a week. It’s 3 weeks of actionable challenges, presented in an email per day, built around the best, most timeless wisdom in Stoic philosophy. Just go to https://dailystoic.com/challenge to sign up before sign ups end on January 1st! Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instag... |
| 2021-Dec-27 • 13 minutes You Have Two Options | Turn Words Into Works Ryan talks about the crossroads that we all face and how to know which way you should go, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. → We hope you join us in the 2022 New Year New You Challenge. It kicks off in a little over a week. It’s 3 weeks of actionable challenges, presented in an email per day, built around the best, most timeless wisdom in Stoic philosophy. Just go to https://dailystoic.com/challenge to sign up before sign ups end on January 1st! ... |
| 2021-Dec-26 • 17 minutes 11 Stoic Secrets To Better Habits in 2022 The Stoics had a word, arete, which was the ultimate expression of human greatness—moral, physical, spiritual. It’s what the Stoics were chasing. It’s what you’re chasing today. But how do we get there? Well, it requires a certain philosophical approach. Because brilliance and inspiration and skill are not enough. Here are some Stoic secrets to better habits that Ryan Holiday is taking in the new year, and we hope you do too. Watch the video: https://youtu.be/0OV4sl7SV-E → We hope you join us in the 2022... |
| 2021-Dec-25 • 74 minutes Chris Bosh, Les Snead, Scott Oberg, Bob Bowman, Dominique Dawes, and Brad Keselowski on Sports and Stoicism Today’s episode features some of the best interviews on Sports and Stoicism from the podcast. Ryan talks to NBA star Chris Bosh about his book Letters to a Young Athlete and the importance of putting everything into what you do even when it’s tough, Los Angeles Rams GM Les Snead about making tough decisions under intense pressure, MLB Pitcher Scott Oberg about how Stoicism has helped Scott overcome physical and mental adversity, Olympic swimming coach Bob Bowman about how athletes can maintain stillness whi... |
| 2021-Dec-24 • 3 minutes Remind Yourself Who is in Charge Ryan discusses how you can turn anything into a good thing, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Get signed copies of Courage Is Calling in the Daily Stoic Store. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Dec-23 • 10 minutes Don’t Be a Power Slave | What Are You So Afraid Of Losing Ryan talks about the nature of power and using it for the common good, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. → We hope you join us in the 2022 New Year New You Challenge. It kicks off in a little over a week. It’s 3 weeks of actionable challenges, presented in an email per day, built around the best, most timeless wisdom in Stoic philosophy. Just go to https://dailystoic.com/challenge to sign up before sign ups end on January 1st! Eight Sleep is the most advanced so... |
| 2021-Dec-22 • 77 minutes Gary Vaynerchuk, David Rubenstein, Ali Abdaal, Emily Oster, Brad Feld, and Randall Stutman on Business and Success | It’s Time To Snap Out Of It Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and looks back at some of the best interviews on business from 2021. Featuring entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk on the best way to maintain long term business success, billionaire David Rubenstein on learning from past historical figures’ successes and from their mistakes, Ali Abdaal on staying productive and getting your life organized, economist Emily Oster on how to communicate positive messaging and weigh out risk vs rationality, venture capitalist Brad Feld on why entrep... |
| 2021-Dec-21 • 3 minutes It’s Good. Ryan discusses how you can turn anything into a good thing, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Check out the Amor Fati Challenge Coin in the Daily Stoic Store. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Dec-20 • 12 minutes How To Be Beautiful | Stake Your Claim Ryan discusses how Epictetus defined being beautiful, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Eight Sleep is the most advanced solution on the market for thermoregulation. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking. This holiday season, give yourself or a loved one a gift that keeps getting better night after night. Right in time for the holidays, give the gift of better sleep and a present that will keep giving back, everyday of the ... |
| 2021-Dec-19 • 57 minutes Live Q&A with Ryan Holiday | The 2021 New Year, New You Challenge Today’s episode of the podcast was taken from one of the live Q&A’s that took place during last year’s New Year, New You Challenge. The participants of the challenge get to engage in weekly group zoom calls with bestselling author Ryan Holiday to chat about how the challenge is going, ask questions, and more. → We hope you join us in the 2022 New Year New You Challenge. It kicks off in a little over a week. It’s 3 weeks of actionable challenges, presented in an email per day, built around the... |
| 2021-Dec-18 • 94 minutes Historian Allen C. Guelzo on Hard Choices and Robert E. Lee On today’s episode of the podcast Ryan talks to Historian Allen C. Guelzo about his new book Robert E. Lee: A Life, the mystery of how Lincoln would have handled reconstruction had he not been assassinated, the importance of cherishing and protecting democratic principles, Lincoln’s complexity of depth and Lee’s complexity of confusion, and more. Allen C. Guelzo is an American historian who serves as Senior Research Scholar in the Council of the Humanities and Director of the Initiative on Politics and Sta... |
| 2021-Dec-17 • 3 minutes What Are You Spending Your Time On? Ryan explains the importance of guarding your time above all else, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Get the Daily Stoic Page a Day Calendar in the Daily Stoic Store! Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Dec-16 • 8 minutes Life is Not a Victory March | Everlasting Good Health Ryan explains why a Stoic never stops moving forward and getting better, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. LMNT is the maker of electrolyte drink mixes that help you stay active at home, work, the gym, or anywhere else. Electrolytes are a key part of a happy, healthy body. As a listener of this show, you can receive a free LMNT Sample Pack for only $5 for shipping. To claim this exclusive deal you must go to drinkLMNT.com/dailystoic. If you don’t love it, they wi... |
| 2021-Dec-15 • 61 minutes Scott Galloway on the Rarity of Restraint and Being Authentic | If You’re Not Seeking Out Challenges, You’re Betraying Yourself Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to professor and bestselling author Scott Galloway about the importance of being authentic and voicing genuine emotions, why living a great life is better than getting revenge, the immense mental and physical value that comes from endurance training, and more. Scott Galloway is a Professor of Marketing at NYU Stern School of Business where he teaches Brand Strategy and Digital Marketing. Professor Galloway has served on the board of directors of Eddie Bauer, Th... |
| 2021-Dec-14 • 3 minutes A Few Sacred Minutes Ryan explains the importance of daily reflection and the role it plays in life, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Get signed copies of Stillness Is The Key in the Daily Stoic Store! Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Dec-13 • 11 minutes No One Is Unbreakable | Keep The Rhythm Ryan explains how you can become incredibly resilient with Stoicism, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. The new Pod Pro Cover by Eight Sleep is the most advanced solution on the market for thermoregulation. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking. You can add the Cover to any mattress, and start sleeping as cool as 55°F or as hot as 110°F. Go to eightsleep.com/dailystoic to check out the Pod Pro Cover and save $150 at checkout... |
| 2021-Dec-12 • 34 minutes 7 Viral Speeches About Stoicism | Ryan Holiday Speaking On today’s episode of the podcast we’ve compiled some of Ryan Holiday’s best and most viral talks about Stoicism. Few writers have done more to bring ancient solutions to help solve our modern problems than Ryan. By age 33, his philosophically driven bestselling books have sold over four million copies and spent more than 200 weeks on bestseller lists. Ryan provides a framework for overcoming obstacles, scaling new challenges and battling both the ups and downs and life. Profiled by the New York Times, Spor... |
| 2021-Dec-11 • 59 minutes Author Catherine Baab-Muguira on Creating Lasting Work and Edgar Allen Poe On today’s episode of the podcast Ryan talks to Catherine Baab-Muguira about the life and work of Edgar Allan Poe, the difference between fleeting fads and sustained appreciation, how to find the balance between accepting feedback and being impervious to criticism, and more. Catherine Baab-Muguira is a writer and journalist who has contributed to, among others, Slate, Quartz, CNBC and NBC News. A frequent podcast and radio guest, with appearances on NPR and Lifehacker’s Upgrade. She has a M.A. in Creative ... |
| 2021-Dec-10 • 2 minutes Hate The Sin, Love The Sinner Ryan discusses how a Stoic should deal with people who they disagree with, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Dec-09 • 10 minutes It's Not About Manifesting, It's About Taking Action | Spendthrifts Of Time Ryan discusses the Stoic’s take on the law of attraction, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Blinkist is the app that gets you fifteen-minute summaries of the best nonfiction books out there. Blinkist lets you get the topline information and the most important points from the most important nonfiction books out there, whether it’s Ryan’s own The Daily Stoic, Yuval Harari’s Sapiens, and more. Go to blinkist.com/stoic, try it free for 7 days, and save 25% off your n... |
| 2021-Dec-08 • 63 minutes CrossFit Athlete Brooke Wells on Training The Mind and Reaching Your Potential | This Is How You Can Talk To The Dead Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to Professional CrossFit Athlete Brooke Wells about getting better not just physically but mentally, how she finds balance in an inherently unbalanced profession, how to be great but not miserable, and more. Brooke Wells is a 7x CrossFit Games Athlete. She made a name for herself at the 2015 Central Regional, which she won at 19 years old. It was her first individual regional appearance. In 2014, she competed with team 540 Beefy of CrossFit 540 at the North Cen... |
| 2021-Dec-07 • 2 minutes Evidence is Better Than Belief Ryan explains why you should strive for knowledge, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Dec-06 • 12 minutes Who Is Calling You To Greatness? | Be Stingy With Time Ryan discusses the importance of reminding yourself of the greats throughout history, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Blinkist is the app that gets you fifteen-minute summaries of the best nonfiction books out there. Blinkist lets you get the topline information and the most important points from the most important nonfiction books out there, whether it’s Ryan’s own The Daily Stoic, Yuval Harari’s Sapiens, and more. Go to blinkist.com/stoic, tr... |
| 2021-Dec-05 • 23 minutes The Obstacle Is The Way | Summarized by Ryan Holiday The Obstacle Is the Way has become a cult classic, beloved by men and women around the world who apply its wisdom to become more successful at whatever they do. In this episode of the podcast, Ryan Holiday gives you a summary of the book. Its many fans include NBA legend Chris Bosh, PGA Champion Rory McIlroy, NBC sportscaster Michele Tafoya, pop star Camila Cabello, former U.S. National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, and the coaches and players of winning teams like the New England Patriots, Seattle Seahaw... |
| 2021-Dec-04 • 66 minutes Ryan Shazier on Struggling in Public and Overcoming Obstacles On today’s episode of the podcast, Ryan talks to former NFL linebacker Ryan Shazier about his new book Walking Miracle, his journey after being diagnosed with Alopecia as a child, how he managed to overcome incredible adversity after a career ending spinal cord injury, and more. Ryan Dean Shazier is a former American football linebacker. He played college football at Ohio State and was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the first round of the 2014 NFL Draft. Shazier had a successful first few seasons in... |
| 2021-Dec-03 • 3 minutes If You Can Get THIS, You Will Be Happy. Guaranteed. Ryan talks about the only thing that you really need to be satisfied, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Dec-02 • 10 minutes What Are Your Panic Rules? | Don’t Mind Me, I’m Only Dying Slow Ryan explains how you should think about panic, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. GiveWell is the best site for figuring out how and where to donate your money to have the greatest impact. If you’ve never donated to GiveWell’s recommended charities before, you can have your donation matched up to $250 before the end of the year or as long as matching funds last. Just go to GiveWell.org and pick podcast and enter DAILY STOIC at checkout. Sign up for the Daily Sto... |
| 2021-Dec-01 • 66 minutes Gary Vaynerchuk on Stoicism, Soft Skills, and Becoming Your Best Self | The End Will Not Be Pretty Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk about his new book Twelve and a Half: Leveraging the Emotional Ingredients Necessary for Business Success, how to get comfortable with vulnerability and emotional development, the best way to maintain long term business success, and more. Gary Vaynerchuk is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, and Internet personality. First known as a wine critic who expanded his family's wine business, Vaynerchuk is now more known for his work in ... |
| 2021-Nov-30 • 3 minutes The Best Don’t Care About Winning Ryan talks about how a Stoic thinks about success, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. We've joined Team Feed Corporate to help end hunger in America. No one should go without a meal, yet more than 38 million people in America still face hunger. We created this fundraiser to help provide these much needed meals to our neighbors through the Feeding America network of food banks and we're asking you to join us in our cause. Go to https://dailystoic.com/feeding to donate and let's end hunger together! Sign up fo... |
| 2021-Nov-29 • 10 minutes Fortune Favors the Brave | Balance The Books Of Life Daily Ryan talks about how crucial the virtue of courage is, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Ryan Holiday’s new book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave is out now! Pick up a copy wherever books are sold or at the Daily Stoic Store: https://dailystoic.com/courageiscalling GiveWell... is the best site for figuring out how and where to donate your money to have the greatest impact. If you’ve never donated to GiveWell’s recommended charities b... |
| 2021-Nov-28 • 14 minutes Seneca on Choosing Our Teachers Today’s episode is an excerpt from The Tao Of Seneca produced by Tim Ferriss’ Audio. In this letter Seneca writes about the importance of having a model to measure yourself against, how to learn from the great men and women of history, learning not only from the strengths but also from the fault and weaknesses of others, and more. Go to tim.blog/seneca to get the PDF for free. Centered is a Mac and Windows app that helps you get into Flow and work faster...and healthier. Join thousands of users who have di... |
| 2021-Nov-27 • 70 minutes Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe on Fighting Fear With Gratitude On today’s episode of the podcast Ryan talks to Lamb of God vocalist Randy Blythe about how Stoicism helped him get through his time in a Czech prison, how to find peace in the midst of uncertain circumstances, the prevalence of substance abuse in the artistic community, and more. Get his book Dark Days: https://geni.us/LbtR Randy Blythe is the lead vocalist of heavy metal band Lamb of God. Blythe joined Lamb of God in 1995, when they were still known as Burn the Priest. Before Lamb of God was successful,... |
| 2021-Nov-26 • 4 minutes We Have An Obligation Ryan talks about the hunger crisis that America faces and explains how you can make a difference, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. We've joined Team Feed Corporate to help end hunger in America. No one should go without a meal, yet more than 38 million people in America still face hunger. We created this fundraiser to help provide these much needed meals to our neighbors through the Feeding America network of food banks and we're asking you to join us in our cause. Go to https://dailystoic.com/feeding to do... |
| 2021-Nov-25 • 9 minutes Every Day is a Day of Thanks | Funny How That Works Out Ryan discusses how a Stoic thinks about gratitude, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. GiveWell is the best site for figuring out how and where to donate your money to have the greatest impact. If you’ve never donated to GiveWell’s recommended charities before, you can have your donation matched up to $250 before the end of the year or as long as matching funds last. Just go to GiveWell.org and pick podcast and enter DAILY STOIC at checkout. Sign up for the Daily ... |
| 2021-Nov-24 • 60 minutes Ross Edgley on Swimming Around Great Britain and the Value of Resilience Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to Ross Edgley about his 1,792 mile swim all the way around Great Britain, overriding the innate function of self-preservation to perform feats of endurance, the importance of protecting yourself against becoming too comfortable in life, and more. Ross Edgley is an extreme adventurer, ultra-marathon sea swimmer and author. He holds multiple world records, but is best known for completing the World's Longest Staged Sea Swim in 2018 when he became the first pers... |
| 2021-Nov-23 • 2 minutes We’re Screwed Either Way, Might As Well Do This Ryan gives you a reason for always doing the right thing, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Nov-22 • 11 minutes What If You Weren’t Such a Know It All? | Practice Letting Go Ryan talks about how to truly cultivate wisdom, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. The Pod Pro Cover by Eight Sleep is the most advanced solution on the market for thermoregulation. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking. You can add the Cover to any mattress, and start sleeping as cool as 55°F or as hot as 110°F. Right in time for the holidays, give the gift of better sleep and a present that will keep giving back, everyday ... |
| 2021-Nov-21 • 39 minutes Rome's Last Citizen: The Life and Legacy of Cato | Ch. 2: The Pillar Today’s episode is an excerpt from Rome's Last Citizen: The Life and Legacy of Cato by Rob Goodman and Jimmy Soni. This chapter deals with the early life of Cato, his promise and willingness to take on those who were clearly more powerful than himself, why he embraced the philosophy of Stoicism, how much he valued the “living tradition” by going barefoot and wearing out-of-date clothing, and more. Centered is a Mac and Windows app that helps you get into Flow and work faster...and healthier. Join thousands... |
| 2021-Nov-20 • 68 minutes Julia Baird on Phosphorescence and Making a Habit Out of Awe Ryan talks to Julia Baird about her newest book Phosphorescence, The awe and wonder that unfolds in the midst of deep suffering, how the journey towards achieving stillness requires incremental progress, and more. Julia Baird is a journalist, broadcaster and author based in Sydney, Australia. She hosts The Drum on ABCTV and writes columns for the Sydney Morning Herald and the International New York Times. Her new book Phosphorescence reflects on her encounters with a luminescent phenomenon found in nature... |
| 2021-Nov-19 • 3 minutes This Is Real Wealth Ryan explains why you should have your own definition of wealth, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Nov-18 • 8 minutes Courage is Contagious | Four Habits Of The Stoic Mind Ryan explains how you can overcome fear with the virtue of courage, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. LMNT is the maker of electrolyte drink mixes that help you stay active at home, work, the gym, or anywhere else. Electrolytes are a key part of a happy, healthy body. As a listener of this show, you can receive a free LMNT Sample Pack for only $5 for shipping. To claim this exclusive deal you must go to drinkLMNT.com/dailystoic. If you don’t love it, they will re... |
| 2021-Nov-17 • 66 minutes Randall Stutman on Becoming a Life-Long Student of Leadership | Don't Let This Pass You By This is an excerpt from week 1 of the Daily Stoic Leadership Challenge, a 9-week course that was built to mirror the kind of education that produced historically great leaders like Marcus Aurelius. It is now a recorded course, which means all participants will join the course and move through it at their own pace. Sign up at https://dailystoic.com/leadershipchallenge Ryan... reads today’s daily meditation and talks to Dr. Randall Stutman about the difference between feedback and advice, the important disti... |
| 2021-Nov-16 • 2 minutes Good Character and Good Deeds Ryan discusses why you should have your own definition of success, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Nov-15 • 9 minutes Nobody Gets Out Alive | Judge Yourself Not Others Ryan talks about the importance of practicing memento mori, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. LMNT is the maker of electrolyte drink mixes that help you stay active at home, work, the gym, or anywhere else. Electrolytes are a key part of a happy, healthy body. As a listener of this show, you can receive a free LMNT Sample Pack for only $5 for shipping. To claim this exclusive deal you must go to drinkLMNT.com/dailystoic. If you don’t love it, the... |
| 2021-Nov-14 • 30 minutes Robert Greene on Being Effective and Courageous Have you ordered your copy of Ryan's new book? Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave is out everywhere and you can still get the preorder bonuses over at https://dailystoic.com/preorder On today’s episode of the podcast, Ryan talks to author Robert Greene about how you can become courageous and effective in everyday life for the Daily Stoic Leadership Challenge. Get a copy of Robert Greene’s The Daily Laws: https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/the-daily-laws-366-meditations-on-power... up for t... |
| 2021-Nov-13 • 65 minutes ESPN’s Seth Wickersham on the Patriots, Tom Brady and Greatness Ryan talks to Seth Wickersham about his book It's Better to Be Feared: The New England Patriots Dynasty and the Pursuit of Greatness, the struggle and tension that exists in the pursuit of greatness, how Tom Brady has cultivated greatness and maintained it throughout his career, and more. Seth Wickersham is an American sports writer for ESPN and ESPN The Magazine. He has written for ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine since graduating from the University of Missouri in 2000. His work primarily covers the Nation... |
| 2021-Nov-12 • 3 minutes Don’t Self Deter Ryan talks about how to follow through with what you know if right on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Ryan Holiday’s new book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave is out now! Pick up a copy in the Daily Stoic Store: https://dailystoic.com/courageiscalling Sign... up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-m... |
| 2021-Nov-11 • 9 minutes Do This Unflinchingly | It’s Not The Thing, It’s What We Make Of It Ryan explains why you must engage with the material that you study, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. List your product on AppSumo between September 15th - November 17th and the first 400 offers to go live will receive $1000, the next 2000 to list a product get $250. And everyone who lists gets entered to be one of 10 lucky winners of $10k! Go to https://appsumo.com/ryanholiday to list your product today and cash in on this amazing deal. Sign up for the Daily St... |
| 2021-Nov-10 • 67 minutes Olympian Kate Courtney on Optimization and Embracing the Process | This is What You Have To Choose Ryan reads today’s meditation and talks to mountain bike champion Kate Courtney about her recent trip to the Tokyo Olympics which she wrote about in the Washington Post, seeing moments of failure as opportunities for growth, the important distinction between optimization vs. maximization, and more. Kate Courtney is a professional mountain bike racer for the Scott-SRAM MTB Racing Team. Kate is the 2019 Elite XCO World Cup Overall Champion, and the 2018 Elite XCO World Champion. In 2017, Kate won four U23 Wo... |
| 2021-Nov-09 • 3 minutes Are You Being a Good Steward? Ryan discusses how to think about your responsibilities, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Nov-08 • 9 minutes Practice Everything. Be Ready for Anything. | The Real Power You Have Ryan talks about the importance of practicing premeditation malorum, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. List your product on AppSumo between September 15th - November 17th and the first 400 offers to go live will receive $1000, the next 2000 to list a product get $250. And everyone who lists gets entered to be one of 10 lucky winners of $10k! Go to https://appsumo.com/ryanholiday to list your product today and cash in on this amazing deal. Sign u... |
| 2021-Nov-07 • 21 minutes Courage Is Calling | Going Beyond The Call On today’s special episode of the podcast, Ryan reads a chapter from his newest book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave. Opening the 3rd and final section of the book “Going Beyond The Call” details the incredible heroism of the 300 Spartans at the battle of Thermopylae. This audiobook is published by Penguin Random House Audio. Grab a signed copy of Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave at the Daily Stoic Store or pick up a copy anywhere books or audiobooks are sold. Sign up for the Dai... |
| 2021-Nov-06 • 63 minutes Michael Dell on Calculating Risk and Playing Nice But Winning Ryan talks to founder and CEO of one of America’s largest technology companies Michael Dell about his new book Play Nice But Win: A CEO's Journey from Founder to Leader, the balance between trusting yourself and trusting the opinions of experts, focusing on what you can control, and more. Michael Dell is chairman and chief executive officer of Dell Technologies, an innovator and technology leader providing the essential infrastructure for organizations to build their digital future, transform IT and prote... |
| 2021-Nov-05 • 3 minutes This is the Struggle Ryan explains what the Stoics can teach us about controlling our emotions when it matters most, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Nov-04 • 9 minutes Why Aren’t You Virtue Signaling? | Not Good, Nor Bad Ryan discusses the paradoxical nature of our cultures negative view of virtue signaling, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. List your product on AppSumo between September 15th - November 17th and the first 400 offers to go live will receive $1000, the next 2000 to list a product get $250. And everyone who lists gets entered to be one of 10 lucky winners of $10k! Go to https://appsumo.com/ryanholiday to list your product today and cash in on this amazing deal.Sign ... |
| 2021-Nov-03 • 61 minutes Dr. Kara Cooney on the Power Strategies of the Ancient World | This Is The Secret To Stoicism Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to author and Egyptologist Dr. Kara Cooney about her new book The Good Kings: Absolute Power in Ancient Egypt and the Modern World, the use of short term thinking and long term thinking as tools to gain power, ancient strategies that were used to gain and maintain power, and more. Dr. Kara Cooney is a professor of Egyptian Art and Architecture at UCLA. Specializing in craft production, coffin studies, and economies in the ancient world, Cooney received her PhD ... |
| 2021-Nov-02 • 3 minutes If You Stay Ready, You Don’t Have To Get Ready Ryan talks about the vitality of always being prepared for what comes your way, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Nov-01 • 11 minutes It Can Happen To You | Accepting What Is Ryan explains why being prepared is so essential, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. List your product on AppSumo between September 15th - November 17th and the first 400 offers to go live will receive $1000, the next 2000 to list a product get $250. And everyone who lists gets entered to be one of 10 lucky winners of $10k! Go to https://appsumo.com/ryanholiday to list your product today and cash in on this amazing deal. Sign up for the Daily Sto... |
| 2021-Oct-31 • 11 minutes Why You Should Re-Read, Not Just Read Books The Stoics were not only avid readers, but also avid re-readers. In this video, Ryan Holiday explains why we should re-read the books we love or those that have had a big impact on us. For more on how to get more out of your reading, check out http://dailystoic.com/read Join Daily Stoic’s Read to Lead Challenge: http://dailystoic.com/read Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/signup Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/pr... |
| 2021-Oct-30 • 65 minutes Powerlifter Stefi Cohen on Self-Mastery and Visualizing Negative Outcomes On today’s episode of the podcast, Ryan talks to powerlifter and boxer Stefi Cohen about how she got involved in weightlifting after immigrating to the U.S. from Venezuela, the incremental difference between just being great and being world class, her decision to transition from powerlifting to boxing, and more. Stefi Cohen is a 25x world-record-holding powerlifter and the first woman in the history of the sport to deadlift 4.4x her body weight. She is a doctor of physical therapy, author, co-host of the H... |
| 2021-Oct-29 • 3 minutes What Have You Done? Ryan asks you to question what kind of an impact you’re having on the world, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Oct-28 • 9 minutes The Best Way To Arm Yourself | We Were Made For Each Other Ryan talks about way to prepare and act in the face of immorality, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. List your product on AppSumo between September 15th - November 17th and the first 400 offers to go live will receive $1000, the next 2000 to list a product get $250. And everyone who lists gets entered to be one of 10 lucky winners of $10k! Go to https://appsumo.com/ryanholiday to list your product today and cash in on this amazing deal. Sign up for the Daily Sto... |
| 2021-Oct-27 • 68 minutes Ali Abdaal on the Keys to Productivity and Re-Defining Success | Take This Motto To Heart Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to YouTuber Ali Abdaal about his journey from going to medical school to become a doctor to becoming a full time YouTuber and entrepreneur, what the Stoic definition of success actually looks like, staying productive and getting your life organized, and more. Ali Abdaal is a YouTuber, Podcaster and co-founder of 6med, best known for his videos on his youtube channel surrounding studying/revision techniques and productivity related content. His YouTube videos ha... |
| 2021-Oct-26 • 3 minutes You Own Nothing Ryan explains the reality of all of the possessions you pile up, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Oct-25 • 8 minutes You Have To Lead Yourself First | Build Up, Don’t Tear Down Ryan discusses why you can’t lead others if you’re not prepared, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. List your product on AppSumo between September 15th - November 17th and the first 400 offers to go live will receive $1000, the next 2000 to list a product get $250. And everyone who lists gets entered to be one of 10 lucky winners of $10k! Go to https://appsumo.com/ryanholiday to list your product today and cash in on this amazing deal. Sign up fo... |
| 2021-Oct-24 • 12 minutes 10 Stoic Choices You Can Make Today (To Get Better) On today’s podcast Ryan gives you 10 Stoic inspired choices that you can make today to live a better life. The single most important practice in Stoic philosophy is differentiating between what we can change and what we can’t. What we have influence over and what we do not. The same is true for us today. If we can focus on making clear what parts of our day are within our control and what parts are not, we will not only be happier, we will have a distinct advantage over other people who fail to realize th... |
| 2021-Oct-23 • 78 minutes Nick Palmisciano on the Crisis in Afghanistan and Serving the Common Good On today’s podcast Ryan talks to Nick Palmisciano about his recent trip to Afghanistan to help rescue American interpreters, the philosophical implications of practicing Brazilian jujitsu, his journey after leaving the military and becoming an entrepreneur, and more. Nick Palmisciano is the CEO of Diesel Jack Media, a full-service marketing agency. Nick is also the Vice President and one of four founding board members of Save Our Allies, an effort that rescued 12,000 refugees in the final 10 days of the Af... |
| 2021-Oct-22 • 2 minutes There Have Always Been Haters (and Always Will Be) Ryan talks about why you can’t let critics paralyze you, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Oct-21 • 9 minutes Ask Yourself This Question About Every Thought | Heroes, Here And Now Ryan explains why you should always think through your impressions before you act on them, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. List your product on AppSumo between September 15th - November 17th and the first 400 offers to go live will receive $1000, the next 2000 to list a product get $250. And everyone who lists gets entered to be one of 10 lucky winners of $10k! Go to https://appsumo.com/ryanholiday to list your product today and cash in on this amazing deal. S... |
| 2021-Oct-20 • 63 minutes Steven Pinker on the Pursuit of Rationality | Never Wish Away A Minute of Your Life Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to author Steven Pinker about his new book Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters, the importance of pursuing effective altruism, the responsibility of institutions to protect the common good, and more. Steven Pinker is an experimental cognitive psychologist and a popular writer on language, mind, and human nature. Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, and his academic specializations are visual cogn... |
| 2021-Oct-19 • 2 minutes Legacy Is Not For You Ryan discusses what actually matters in life, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Oct-18 • 9 minutes This Is How To Become Wise | Make Honesty Your Only Policy Ryan explains how you should think about the process of learning, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. List your product on AppSumo between September 15th - November 17th and the first 400 offers to go live will receive $1000, the next 2000 to list a product get $250. And everyone who lists gets entered to be one of 10 lucky winners of $10k! Go to https://appsumo.com/ryanholiday to list your product today and cash in on this amazing deal. Sign up f... |
| 2021-Oct-17 • 16 minutes 12 (Stoic) Questions That Will Change Your Life On today’s episode of the podcast Ryan gives you 12 Questions that will change your life. Gathered from some of the wisest philosophers, most incisive thinkers, greatest leaders and most awesome badasses that ever lived. Watch the video: https://youtu.be/X5JwF5pwR34 Novo is the #1 Business Banking App - because it’s built from the ground up to be powerfully simple and free business banking that Money Magazine called the Best Business Checking Account of 2021. Novo makes banking easy and secure - you can ... |
| 2021-Oct-16 • 61 minutes David Rubenstein on Patriotic Philanthropy and the Value of History Ryan talks to American billionaire businessman David Rubenstein about his new book The American Experiment: Dialogues on a Dream, learning from past historical figures' successes and from their mistakes, his original concept of patriotic philanthropy and giving back after coming from a middle class family, his thoughts on finding enough and finding peace in success, and more. David Mark Rubenstein is an American billionaire businessman. Former government official and lawyer. A Co-Founder and Co-Chairman o... |
| 2021-Oct-15 • 3 minutes You Can’t Put Things Off Ryan explains why you must create a sense of urgency and clarity in your life, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Oct-14 • 10 minutes If You Can’t Stand The Heat… | Don’t Get Mad, Help Ryan explains why you can’t let the external world define your perspective, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. LinkedIn Jobs is the best platform for finding the right candidate to join your business this fall. It’s the largest marketplace for job seekers in the world, and it has great search features so that you can find candidates with any hard or soft skills that you need. And now, you can post a job for free. Just visit linkedin.com/STOIC to post a job for fre... |
| 2021-Oct-13 • 67 minutes Robert Greene on the Power of Daily Practice | You Have To See Both Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to bestselling author Robert Greene about his new book The Daily Laws: 366 Meditations on Power, Seduction, Mastery, Strategy, and Human Nature, the process of writing some of his bestselling books, how to have courage in the modern world, and more. Robert Greene is an American author known for his books on strategy, power, and seduction. He has written six international bestsellers: The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction, The 33 Strategies of War, The 50t... |
| 2021-Oct-12 • 5 minutes You Must Study These Laws Ryan discusses the importance of modeling your life after those who have come before you, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Get your copy of Robert Greene’s new book The Daily Laws at The Painted Porch Bookshop Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Oct-11 • 7 minutes When the World Caves In… | Practice Love Ryan discusses the reliability of Stoicism during tough times, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Blinkist is the app that gets you fifteen-minute summaries of the best nonfiction books out there. Blinkist lets you get the topline information and the most important points from the most important nonfiction books out there, whether it’s Ryan’s own The Daily Stoic, Yuval Harari’s Sapiens, and more. Go to blinkist.com/stoic, try it free for 7 days, a... |
| 2021-Oct-10 • 11 minutes How Stoicism Can Help You Persevere and Succeed On today’s podcast Ryan speaks to a group of entrepreneurs about one of the biggest threats they will face in pursuing their goals: themselves. Our egos can stunt us, alienate us, tarnish our successes and deepen our failures, which is why it is so maligned by the Stoics. Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOvvZBPcF_I The... Jordan Harbinger Show is one of the most interesting podcasts on the web, with guests like Kobe Bryant, Mark Manson, Eric Schmidt, and more. Listen to one of Ryan's ep... |
| 2021-Oct-09 • 68 minutes Major General Dan Caine on Becoming a Great Leader On today’s podcast, Ryan talks to Major General Dan Caine about the importance of defining success before you set out to try to solve a problem, the responsibility of leaders to be as prepared as possible, the ineffectiveness of holding others to the standards you hold yourself to, becoming a lifelong student of leadership, and more. Maj. Gen. J. Daniel Caine is the Director of Special Programs and the Department of Defense Special Access Program Central Office (DoD SAPCO), the Pentagon, Arlington, Virgini... |
| 2021-Oct-08 • 4 minutes Who Are You Studying Under? Ryan explains the importance of studying great men and women who came before you, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Oct-07 • 7 minutes Make A’s in a few things | A Selfish Reason To Be Good Ryan discusses how you can get better at what you do by doing less, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Cometeer partners with the best locally owned roasters in the world and through their breakthrough brewing technology, provides a delicious, high-quality, balanced cup of coffee for a fraction of the price. For a limited time, you can save 20 Dollars off your first order - that’s 10 free cups on your first order, and shipping is always free - but only when you vi... |
| 2021-Oct-06 • 65 minutes Kate Bowler on Memento Mori and Falling in Love with Fate | This Decision—This Process—Will Change Your Life Ryan reads today’s meditation and talks to author and professor Kate Bowler about her recent book Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved, her battle after being unexpectedly diagnosed with Stage IV cancer, the similarities between hope and fear, the importance of stillness, how the prospect of death concentrates the mind, and more. Kate Bowler, PhD is a New York Times bestselling author, podcast host, and a professor at Duke University. She studies the cultural stories we tell ourselves... |
| 2021-Oct-05 • 3 minutes You Have To Be Firm… But Not Rude Ryan explains how to balance the discipline and poor bahavior, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Oct-04 • 9 minutes This Is the Greatest Thing | Practice Silence Ryan discusses the vitality of stillness and reflection that philosophy demands of us, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Novo is the #1 Business Banking App - because it’s built from the ground up to be powerfully simple and free business banking that Money Magazine called the Best Business Checking Account of 2021. Novo makes banking easy and secure - you can manage your account in Novo’s customizable web, android, and iOS apps with built in pr... |
| 2021-Oct-03 • 11 minutes How Stoicism Can Help You Be Brave (7 Practical Tips) Ryan Holiday’s newest book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave is out today! Check it out at https://dailystoic.com/courageiscalling In... a world in which fear runs rampant—when people would rather stand on the sidelines than speak out against injustice, go along with convention than bet on themselves, and turn a blind eye to the ugly realities of modern life—we need courage more than ever. We need the courage of whistleblowers and risk takers. We need the courage of activists and adventurers. We... |
| 2021-Oct-02 • 97 minutes Rabbi Mordecai Finley on the Value of Rationality On today’s podcast Ryan talks to Rabbi Mordecai Finley about what he learned from his encounter with an active shooter at the LAX airport in 1978, what our obligation to the common good looks like in the modern world, the Stoic’s obligation to remaining rational and responsible within society, and more. Rabbi Mordecai Finley is the rabbi and co-CEO of Ohr HaTorah Synagogue. He co-founded the synagogue with his wife Meirav Finley in 1993. Rabbi Finley integrates into his counseling practice insights from m... |
| 2021-Oct-01 • 4 minutes The Gift Of Having To Start Over Ryan explains the other-side of the disorder and devastation that has come from the pandemic, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Ryan Holiday’s new book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave is out now! You can still get the preorder bonuses at https://dailystoic.com/preorder Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/priv... |
| 2021-Sep-30 • 8 minutes Why Are We Still Talking About This? | You Can’t Touch Me Ryan why we must be continually reminded of our duty to the common good, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Ryan Holiday’s new book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave is out today! You can still get the preorder bonuses at https://dailystoic.com/preorder Ladder makes the process of getting life insurance quick and easy. To apply, you only need a phone or laptop and a few minutes of time. Ladder’s algorithms work quickly and you’ll find out almost immedi... |
| 2021-Sep-29 • 74 minutes Stephen Hanselman on Pursuing Virtue and Redefining Courage | How Are You Going To Be? Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to his agent and writing partner Stephen Hanselman (The Daily Stoic, Lives of The Stoics) about how they both got introduced to Stoic philosophy, how his new book Courage Is Calling and the Stoic Virtues series came about, how true excellence cannot be achieved without the 4 virtues, and more. Stephen Hanselman has worked for over three decades in publishing as a bookseller, publisher and literary agent. He is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, where he rec... |
| 2021-Sep-28 • 22 minutes Prepare Yourself To Answer The Call | Courage Is Calling: Preface & Introduction Ryan explains why you must be prepared when you are called upon, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Ryan Holiday’s new book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave is out today! You can still get the preorder bonuses at https://dailystoic.com/courageiscalling Sign... up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell... |
| 2021-Sep-27 • 9 minutes The World Wants To Know | Pain Is Self-Inflicted Harm Ryan explains how we should think about courage, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Ryan Holiday’s new book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave is out now! - check it out at https://dailystoic.com/courageiscalling AppSumois... the best way to automate all of the busywork that comes with running a business, so you can boost your productivity, scale beyond your skillset, and focus on what matters most to you.AppSumois the leading digital m... |
| 2021-Sep-26 • 8 minutes Exclusive Preview: Courage Is Calling | Don’t Be Deterred by Difficulties On today’s special episode of the podcast, Ryan reads a chapter from his newest book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave which is available for pre-order now. If you pre-order the book before September 28, 2021 you can get exciting pre-order bonuses (you could even have dinner with Ryan at his bookstore in Bastrop, TX). Athletic Greens is a custom formulation of 75 vitamins, minerals, and other whole-food sourced ingredients that make it easier for you to maintain nutrition in just a single scoop.... |
| 2021-Sep-25 • 71 minutes Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman on Having the Courage to Do the Right Thing On today’s episode of the podcast Ryan speaks with Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman about his book Here, Right Matters, the difference between physical and moral courage, the importance of cultivating perspective and confidence, how one individual can change the course of history, and more. Alexander Semyon Vindman is a retired United States Army lieutenant colonel who was the Director for European Affairs for the United States National Security Council (NSC) until he was reassigned on February 7, 2020. Vindman ... |
| 2021-Sep-24 • 3 minutes You Have The Power Ryan discusses the innate power that resides within us all, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Pre-orders are available for Ryan Holiday’s new book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave - check it out at https://dailystoic.com/preorder Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Sep-23 • 8 minutes This is All You Need | The Most Secure Fortress Ryan explains why the desire to persevere and keep going is all that we need, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Pre-orders are available for Ryan Holiday’s new book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave - check it out at https://dailystoic.com/preorder LinkedIn... Jobs is the best platform for finding the right candidate to join your business this fall. It’s the largest marketplace for job seekers in the world, and it has great search features so that you... |
| 2021-Sep-22 • 67 minutes Coach Bob Bowman on Balancing Stillness and Excellence | You Have To Earn That Trust Pre-orders are available for Ryan Holiday’s new book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave - check it out at https://dailystoic.com/preorderR... reads today’s daily meditation and talks to Bob Bowman, who is best known as the coach of 23-time Olympic gold medalist American swimmer Michael Phelps, about how athletes can maintain stillness while still performing at a high level of excellence, the importance of preparation and how to lean on your training, finding the balance between the ... |
| 2021-Sep-21 • 4 minutes What We Accept, and What We Must Never Accept Ryan explains why why we must do everything we can to change injustice when we see it, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Pre-orders are available for Ryan Holiday’s new book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave - check it out at https://dailystoic.com/preorder Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sel... |
| 2021-Sep-20 • 11 minutes You Must Be Willing To Stand Alone | On Handling Haters Ryan explains why no matter the circumstances courage is always required, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Pre-orders are available for Ryan Holiday’s new book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave - check it out at https://dailystoic.com/preorder Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Pri... |
| 2021-Sep-19 • 10 minutes How to Be More Courageous With Stoicism (7 Tips) Pre-orders are available for Ryan Holiday’s new book "Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave" at https://dailystoic.com/preorder Almost every religion, spiritual practice, philosophy and person grapples with fear. The most repeated phrase in the Bible is “Be not afraid.” The ancient Greeks spoke of phobos, panic and terror. It is natural to feel fear, the Stoics believed, but it cannot rule you. Courage, then, is the ability to rise above fear, to do what’s right, to do what’s needed, to do what is t... |
| 2021-Sep-18 • 73 minutes Professor Jo Lukito on the Rise of Misinformation On today’s episode of the podcast, Ryan talks to Jo Lukito about her research on trading up the chain and the spread of misinformation, the difference between disinformation and misinformation and the importance of the distinction, the tragedy of the social media giant’s lack of response to helping resolve this issue, and more.Josephine ("Jo") Lukito is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Journalism and Media (in the Moody College of Communication). Her ongoing work focus... |
| 2021-Sep-17 • 2 minutes You Need To Be That Bright Spot Ryan explains why doing the right thing matters even when it seems like no one else is, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Sep-16 • 7 minutes This is Why You're Upset | Anyone Can Get Lucky, Not Everyone Can Persevere Ryan explains why legacy is for everyone else not for you, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Pre-orders are available for Ryan Holiday’s new book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave - check it out at https://dailystoic.com/preorder DECKED truck bed tool boxes and cargo van storage systems revolutionize organization with a heavy-duty in-vehicle storage system featuring slide out toolboxes. DECKED makes organizing, accessing, protecting, and securing ever... |
| 2021-Sep-15 • 73 minutes Author Adam Rubin on Creativity and Pursuing Your Passion | Did It Make You Better Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to Adam Rubin about his newest book High Five, taking the leap from being a part time artist to being a full time artist, the magic that is being able to express yourself creatively, following your destiny and inspiring others to do the same, and more. Adam Rubin is a #1 New York Times best selling author of children's books. His books have sold over one million copies. Rubin graduated from Washington University in St. Louis where he studied advertising and wor... |
| 2021-Sep-14 • 3 minutes The Whiplash is Your Fault Ryan discusses how much control you have over your response, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Pre-orders are available for Ryan Holiday’s new book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave - check it out at https://dailystoic.com/preorder Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Sep-13 • 11 minutes Just A Few Seconds Of Courage | A New Way To Pray Ryan explains how a few seconds can define so much of your life, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Pre-orders are available for Ryan Holiday’s new book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave - check it out at https://dailystoic.com/preorder Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Noti... |
| 2021-Sep-12 • 10 minutes New Book Preview: Courage Is Calling | You Must Burn The White Flag On today’s special episode of the podcast, Ryan reads a chapter from his newest book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave which is available for pre-order now. If you pre-order the book before September 28, 2021 you can get exciting pre-order bonuses (you could even have dinner with Ryan at his bookstore in Bastrop, TX).BUY 1 COPY: TWO full bonus chapters that Ryan wanted to get into the book but couldn't fit, an extended bibliography of the books that went into the making of this book, and a Spotif... |
| 2021-Sep-11 • 64 minutes Bobby Hall (Logic) on Turning Pain Into Prosperity On today’s podcast, Ryan talks to recording artist Bobby Hall (known professionally as Logic) about his new memoir This Bright Future, defining what enough is for yourself, the stigma of speaking out about mental health, dealing with pain and struggle in an expressive and creative way, and more. Bobby Hall, known professionally as Logic, is an American rapper and record producer. He has released six studio albums and received two Grammy Award nominations. Logic achieved mainstream popularity in 2017 with ... |
| 2021-Sep-10 • 5 minutes You Can’t Go Out Like This Ryan explains why we all need what you have to offer and why you should believe in the value that you bring to the world, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. If you or someone you know is in a mental health crisis and you live in the USA, please call 1-800-273-8255 to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline today. You can also text 741741 for help in a crisis. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy... |
| 2021-Sep-09 • 9 minutes You Are Not Seeing The Whole Picture | Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself Ryan explains why legacy is for everyone else not for you, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Blinkist is the app that gets you fifteen-minute summaries of the best nonfiction books out there. Blinkist lets you get the topline information and the most important points from the most important nonfiction books out there, whether it’s Ryan’s own The Daily Stoic, Yuval Harari’s Sapiens, and more. Go to blinkist.com/stoic, try it free for 7 days, and save 25% off your ... |
| 2021-Sep-08 • 89 minutes Author Tom Nichols on the Assault on Modern Thinking | The Story We Tell Is Powerful Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to Tom Nichols about his new book Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault from within on Modern Democracy, how to bridge the gap between detailed knowledge and the public conversation, what it means to take your responsibilities as a citizen seriously, and more. Tom Nichols is Professor of National Security Affairs, US Naval War College, a columnist for USA Today, and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of The Death of Expertise and is also an inst... |
| 2021-Sep-07 • 3 minutes How Are You Using Your Platform? Ryan challenges you to think about how you are using the voice that you were given, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Pre-orders are available for Ryan Holiday’s new book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave - check it out at https://dailystoic.com/preorder Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-m... |
| 2021-Sep-06 • 9 minutes Nothing Is Possible Without This | A Hard Winter Training Ryan explains why the virtue of courage is essential no matter what you do, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Pre-orders are available for Ryan Holiday’s new book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave - check it out at https://dailystoic.com/preorder Blinkist... is the app that gets you fifteen-minute summaries of the best nonfiction books out there. Blinkist lets you get the topline information and the most important points from the most... |
| 2021-Sep-05 • 31 minutes 50 (Short) Rules For Life From The Stoics Ryan Holiday defines 50 rules for life from the Stoics, gathered from their immense body of work across two thousand years. These rules functioned, then, as now, as guides to what the ancients called “the good life.” Hopefully some of them will illuminate your own path. Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWL3kHOYkWQ Read... the article: https://ryanholiday.net/50-short-rules-for-life-from-the-stoics/ DECKED... truck bed tool boxes and cargo van storage systems revolutionize organization wit... |
| 2021-Sep-04 • 67 minutes Little Rock Nine Member Ernest Green on Creating an Atmosphere of Change On today’s podcast Ryan talks to Ernest Green about his experience as one of the first African-American students to integrate at Little Rock Central High School in 1957, why we should strive to disprove backwards thinking, how we must change as a country, and more. Ernest Green is one of the Little Rock Nine, a group of African-American students who, in 1957, were the first black students ever to attend classes at Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Green was the first African-America... |
| 2021-Sep-03 • 4 minutes These Are The People Watching Out For You Ryan explains why we should thank the people who put their lives on the line for our freedom, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Sep-02 • 7 minutes This Is Worse Than Death | The Philosopher’s School Is A Hospital Ryan explains why the Stoics have always given their lives for what they believe in, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Blinkist is the app that gets you fifteen-minute summaries of the best nonfiction books out there. Blinkist lets you get the topline information and the most important points from the most important nonfiction books out there, whether it’s Ryan’s own The Daily Stoic, Yuval Harari’s Sapiens, and more. Go to blinkist.com/stoic, try it free for 7 da... |
| 2021-Sep-01 • 74 minutes Brad Stulberg on the Practice of Groundedness | They Are Us And We Are Them Ryan reads today’s meditation and talks to author Brad Stulberg about his new book The Practice of Groundedness which you can pre-order at https://www.bradstulberg.com/tpogpreorder,... how the path to peak performance is inevitably tied to compulsive behavior, practical steps to alleviate the anxiety that comes with the lifelong pursuit of greatness, and more. Brad Stulberg researches, writes, and coaches on human performance, sustainable success, and well-being. He is bestselling author of the books “Peak... |
| 2021-Aug-31 • 2 minutes Nothing Is Unusual Ryan explains why nothing should surprise a Stoic, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Aug-30 • 12 minutes This Choice Is Everything | A Cure For Procrastination Ryan explains discusses the choice that will decide your fate, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Pre-orders are available for Ryan Holiday’s new book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave - check it out at https://dailystoic.com/preorder AppSumo is the best way to automate all of the busywork that comes with running a business, so you can boost your productivity, scale beyond your skillset, and focus on what matters most to you. AppSumo i... |
| 2021-Aug-29 • 11 minutes Time Management Strategies From the Stoics On today’s episode of the podcast Ryan talks about the different time management strategies that come to us from the Stoics. LMNT is the maker of electrolyte drink mixes that help you stay active at home, work, the gym, or anywhere else. Electrolytes are a key part of a happy, healthy body. As a listener of this show, you can receive a free LMNT Sample Pack for only $5 for shipping. To claim this exclusive deal you must go to drinkLMNT.com/dailystoic. If you don’t love it, they will refund your $5 no ques... |
| 2021-Aug-28 • 63 minutes Sharon Lebell on Epictetus and Rescuing Philosophy from the Philosophers On today’s episode of the podcast Ryan talks to Sharon Lebell about her translation of Epictetus – The Art Of Living, the im balance in the Stoic writings concerning gender roles, why we should take philosophy back from the philosophers, and more. GiveWell is the best site for figuring out how and where to donate your money to have the greatest impact. If you’ve never donated to GiveWell’s recommended charities before, you can have your donation matched up to $1,000 before the end of June or as long as m... |
| 2021-Aug-27 • 2 minutes You May Have To Do This Ryan explains the resistance that you are likely to face during your life. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Aug-26 • 8 minutes Compete With Yourself And Root For Everybody Else | Seeking Out Shipwrecks Ryan explains how you turn the words and phrases you come across into actions, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Ladder makes the process of getting life insurance quick and easy. To apply, you only need a phone or laptop and a few minutes of time. Ladder’s algorithms work quickly and you’ll find out almost immediately if you’re approved. Go to ladderlife.com/stoic to see if you’re instantly approved today. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: htt... |
| 2021-Aug-25 • 95 minutes MLB Pitcher Scott Oberg on Overcoming Adversity with Stoicism | Will You Answer the Call? Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and launches the pre-order for his new book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave which you can check out at https://dailystoic.com/preorder Today’s interview with MLB relief pitcher Scott Oberg focuses on how an athletes career can be cut short in an instant, how Stoicism has helped Scott overcome physical and mental adversity, and why maintaining a positive outlook is important not only for yourself but for those around you. DECKED truck bed tool boxes and car... |
| 2021-Aug-24 • 3 minutes You Have Not Been Harmed “The last year has been rough. It’s not how any of us would have chosen for things to go. Working from home. Cancelled trips. No unnecessary trips to the store, no concerts, no weddings or parties. Lost time with older loved ones—maybe even lost loved ones.” Ryan explains how your life is rooted in what you learn by experience. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and Ca... |
| 2021-Aug-23 • 9 minutes Make Sure You Write Down Everything Interesting That You Find | Just Say No to Future Misery “When he was young, James Mattis hitchhiked to San Francisco to meet Eric Hoffer, the philosopher most famous for his book, The True Believer, and as Mattis said, “Eric was the one who told me, ‘Make sure you write down everything interesting you find,’ and I have ever since.” Ryan explains how you turn the words and phrases you come across into actions, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. GiveWell is the best site for figuring out how and where t... |
| 2021-Aug-22 • 17 minutes Ryan Holiday on America’s missing Statue of Responsibility “THE STATUE OF LIBERTY was a gift from France to America, commemorating the two nations’ friendship and shared love of freedom. Completed in 1886, it marked one of the world’s first, successful crowdfunding projects. The famous poem “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus, mounted in bronze inside the pedestal (“Give me your tired, your poor / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”), was written for the campaign. Over $100,000 was raised from more than 120,000 donors, including schoolchildren who colle... |
| 2021-Aug-21 • 82 minutes Megan Phelps-Roper on Radicalization and Redemption On today’s episode of the podcast, Ryan talks to former Westboro Baptist Church member Megan Phelps-Roper about her experiences growing up in the church, the problem of radicalization in society and modern institutions, considering the individual perspectives of the people who we disagree with, and more. Megan Phelps-Roper is an American political activist who was formerly a member of, and spokesperson for, the Westboro Baptist Church. Phelps-Roper left the church in 2012 after she was unable to reconcile... |
| 2021-Aug-20 • 3 minutes These Conversations Are How You Learn “In times of clickbait and divisiveness, of the filter bubble and superficiality, one medium of communication has continued to grow exponentially: podcasts. On the one hand, this is a new technology. Recording equipment, bandwidth, the ubiquity of smartphones has made the proliferation of these longform conversations possible.” Ryan explains why you must spend time doing this in order to truly gain knowledge. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, Yo... |
| 2021-Aug-19 • 7 minutes It's Not Unfair, It Just Is | Corralling The Unnecessary “It’s amazing how often we find ourselves using these words. Words like “unfair,” “unlucky,” “frustrating,” “unfortunate,” “annoying,” “inconvenient” Ryan explains the fundamental Stoic practice of recognizing events as indifferent, not just talk about it, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Blinkist is the app that gets you fifteen-minute summaries of the best nonfiction books out there. Blinkist lets you get the topline information and the most important points ... |
| 2021-Aug-18 • 70 minutes Dr. William Stixrud and Ned Johnson on Building Resilience and Communicating Effectively | It's About What You Make of It Ryan reads today’s meditation and has another conversation with Dr. William Stixrud and Ned Johnson about their new book What Do You Say?: How to Talk with Kids to Build Motivation, Stress Tolerance, and a Happy Home, experiencing adversity and developing resilience, why we should look at the last year as a gift that can improve our lives rather than a burden, how to teach kids to find purpose and control in their own lives, and more. Ned Johnson is the president and founder of PrepMatters. A 1993 graduat... |
| 2021-Aug-17 • 3 minutes How To Teach and How to Learn “Tim Duncan is likely the great power forward in the history of the NBA. Five titles. Three NBA Finals MVPs. Fifteen All-star appearances. Fifteen All-NBA Team selections. Fifteen NBA All-Defensive Team selections. And he did it with a selflessness and poise that is almost unmatched.” Ryan explains why living your philosophy is so important. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/email Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/... |
| 2021-Aug-16 • 9 minutes Notice The Reminders | Always Ask Yourself This Question “Everytime you cut your hair. Every time you trim your nails. Every time you have to replace an old shirt or a worn out pair of running shoes, take note. Take note of what they symbolize.” Ryan explains why you should embrace the reality of your mortality, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Blinkist is the app that gets you fifteen-minute summaries of the best nonfiction books out there. Blinkist lets you get the topline information and the most ... |
| 2021-Aug-15 • 67 minutes The Lancer Brigade’s Leadership Experience - Ryan Holiday in Conversation with Col. Jonathan Chung Today’s episode of the podcast is a conversation with Lancer Brigade’s Col. Jonathan Chung and Ryan Holiday which originally aired on The Leadership Experience Podcast. They talk about the Stoic concept of alive time vs. dead time that was originally introduced to Ryan from his mentor Robert Greene, what it means to see obstacles as opportunities, why things shouldn't go “back to normal” when the threat of COVID-19 has dissapted, and more. DECKED truck bed tool boxes and cargo van storage systems revoluti... |
| 2021-Aug-14 • 64 minutes NASCAR Champion Brad Keselowski on Reaching Your Maximum Potential On today’s episode of the podcast, Ryan talks to NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski about the intricacies of stock car racing, how to build endurance and become great at whatever you do, how to lead and build a team that consistently produces results, and more. Bradley Aaron Keselowski is an American professional stock car racing driver. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 2 Ford Mustang GT for Team Penske. Keselowski, who began his NASCAR career in 2004, is the second of only six dr... |
| 2021-Aug-13 • 3 minutes This is Where You’re Supposed To Be “We all feel pulled. To do more. To go more places. To make more progress. We are dogged by the constant worry we’re in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing—or rather, there is some where else, somewhere better that we could, that we should, be.” Ryan explains why you must embrace the present moment. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signup Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice... |
| 2021-Aug-12 • 7 minutes What Are You Doing? | Make The Words Your Own “We find ourselves baffled by our politicians. By our bosses. By our leaders. Why don’t they do something? Why can’t they just do the right thing? Why are they always putting profits over people? Why do they always hedge their bets?” Ryan explains why you must practice this philosophy, not just talk about it, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Athletic Greens is a custom formulation of 75 vitamins, minerals, and other whole-food sourced ingredients that make it e... |
| 2021-Aug-11 • 72 minutes Venture Capitalist Brad Feld on How Nietzsche Empowers the Entrepreneur | This Must Be Done Daily Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to Venture Capitalist and Author Brad Feld about his new book The Entrepreneur’s Weekly Nietzsche: A Book for Disruptors, the common misinterpretation of Nietzsche’s philosophy and life, why entrepreneurs have to focus attention inward toward self-improvement, and more. Brad Feld is an American entrepreneur, author, blogger, and venture capitalist at Foundry Group in Boulder, Colorado, a firm he started with partners Seth Levine, Ryan McIntyre, and Jason Mende... |
| 2021-Aug-10 • 3 minutes Labels Make You Worse “It’s an interesting fact. Not once in any of his writings or speeches, let alone Meditations, does Marcus Aurelius call himself a Stoic. Other people may have applied the label to him, but he never identified with it. Never saw the need. ” Ryan discusses why you must take things as they are. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signup Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https:/... |
| 2021-Aug-09 • 9 minutes Why Are You Surprised? | What Little Wins Can You Find “In June of 2001, Paul Wolfowitz, then U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, addressed the cadets at West Point. While the speech he gave was not itself a historical moment, one remark in it would go down in history. Because it was one of those quotes that history would, in retrospect, make particularly poignant, if not outright ironic.” Ryan explains why you should never be caught unprepared, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily ... |
| 2021-Aug-08 • 28 minutes Seneca on Being Today’s episode is an excerpt from The Tao Of Seneca produced by Tim Ferriss’ Audio. In this letter Seneca writes about the ethereal nature of human existence, how time is constantly moving life forward, why we should take advantage of the time that we have here, and more. Go to tim.blog/seneca to get the PDF for free. The Jordan Harbinger Show is one of the most interesting podcasts on the web, with guests like Kobe Bryant, Mark Manson, Eric Schmidt, and more. Listen to one of Ryan's episodes right now (1... |
| 2021-Aug-07 • 66 minutes Journalist Oliver Burkeman on Making the Most of the Time That We Have On today’s episode of the podcast, Ryan talks to journalist and author Oliver Burkeman about his new book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals which releases August 10th, practicing the Stoic concept of memento mori, facing the harsh state of the reality that surrounds us, and more. Oliver Burkeman is a British journalist (principally for the British newspaper The Guardian) and writer. Between 2006 and 2020 Burkeman wrote a popular weekly column on psychology, This Column Will Change Your Life... |
| 2021-Aug-06 • 3 minutes You Have To Be Able To See Both Ways “There’s no question Marcus Aurelius had a cynical eye. This was deliberate. He looked out over a feast and ignored the culinary temptations to notice “the dead body of a fish, this the dead body of a bird or pig.” He tried to strip things “of the legend that encrusts them” to get to the raw truth, and to conquer his appetites and his urges in the process.” Ryan explains why you must take a hard look at the reality around you. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signup Follow us: In... |
| 2021-Aug-05 • 8 minutes You Need To Police Your Side of the Street | Silence Is Strength “There’s no question that there are extremists on both sides of any meaningful divide. That there are liars and frauds on both sides. That there are abuses on both sides. That both sides are preposterously wrong about things that are glaringly obvious to you, and frustratingly right about things that are not. This is true wherever you live, whatever issues you’re talking about. ” Ryan explains why you should worry about your own problems before you worry about others, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of t... |
| 2021-Aug-04 • 83 minutes Los Angeles Rams GM Les Snead on Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing | Think About This Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to Los Angeles Rams GM Les Snead about the cultural pillars of the Rams organization, making tough decisions under intense pressure, ignoring the short term incentives and the noise that comes along with his profession, and more. Les Snead is an American football executive who is the general manager of the Los Angeles Rams of the National Football League. Snead played tight end for Auburn from 1992-93 and was part of the Tigers’ perfect 11-0 team in 1993. He al... |
| 2021-Aug-03 • 3 minutes If You Can Do This, Every Moment Will Be Wonderful Ryan explains why you should meditate on your mortality. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signup Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Aug-02 • 7 minutes Important Things Are Simple | A Week Without Complaining “It’s hard to be an academic who specializes in Stoicism. Because the philosophy is so complex? On the contrary. Stoicism is a difficult choice for tenure because it’s so simple. The Stoics say what they mean and they say it clearly.” Ryan discusses the beauty of simplicity, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signup Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy ... |
| 2021-Aug-01 • 11 minutes 7 Life Changing Stoic Ideas That You Can Practice Daily Stoicism is a practical philosophy, which means it is made to be PRACTICED. In this podcast, Ryan discusses 7 key ideas of Stoicism that will help you develop a daily practice and respond to challenging situations in your life. Stoicism provides exercises to help manage stress, excessive thought, anger, depression, worry, and other destructive mindstates. Stoic practices can help develop a sense of inner peace and calmWatch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0lmSRCSGIU&t=12sSign... up for... |
| 2021-Jul-31 • 85 minutes Author Clint Smith and the History We Decide to See On today’s episode of the podcast, Ryan talks to author and poet Clint Smith about his new book How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery, the struggle to remove confederate monuments throughout the Southern United States, how to make sense of the absurd lies that have been generationally passed down since slavery was abolished, and more. Clint Smith III is an American writer, poet and scholar. He is the author of Counting Descent, a 2017 poetry collection, and How the Word Is Passed ... |
| 2021-Jul-30 • 4 minutes Not All Leaders Are Stoics, But All Stoics Are Leaders “There was a famous exchange between the Stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus and the King of Syria. The king traveled to ask Musonius, ‘Is it appropriate for a leader to study philosophy?’” Ryan explains why leaders must study philosophy and constantly be striving to get better. The Daily Stoic Leadership Challenge is a masterclass in leadership with the cadence and rigor of a boot camp. It is also a live course, which means all participants will join the course together and move through together at the same... |
| 2021-Jul-29 • 8 minutes Now Is The Time To Be Kind | A Cure For The Self “The thing about stress and stuggle is that it hardens us. It makes us turn inward. With more than expected on our plate we have less time, less patience, less sympathy for others.” Ryan explains that the highest goal is not to be perfect but just to improve, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. The Daily Stoic Leadership Challenge is a masterclass in leadership with the cadence and rigor of a boot camp. It is also a live course, which means all participants will j... |
| 2021-Jul-28 • 60 minutes Chris Bosh on the Pursuit of Greatness | Do You Make Others Better? Ryan reads today’s meditation and talks to Chris Bosh about his new book Letters To A Young Athlete, how you never really “make it” in life, the importance of putting everything into what you do even when it’s tough, and more. This episode was originally recorded for a Barnes and Noble Virtual Event. Chris Bosh fell in love with basketball at an early age and earned the prestigious “Mr. Basketball” title while still at Lincoln High School in Dallas, Texas. A McDonald’s All-American, Bosh was selected fourt... |
| 2021-Jul-27 • 3 minutes Advice Without This is Worthless “Why is stoicism worth listening to? Because it's battle tested. What good are theories about the world that are just that, theories. Philosophy from the ivory tower might be good for blowing minds, but as far as solving problems in the real world, much less. So even in Marcus Aurelius his day, there was a suspicion of pen and ink philosophers.” Ryan explains why you must practice your philosophy not just talk about it. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signup Follow us: Instagram,... |
| 2021-Jul-26 • 12 minutes Leaders Are Made Not Born | Keeping “The News” In Check “Marcus Aurelius did not come out of the womb a leader. Nor was he an emperor ‘by blood.’ In fact, when first told he was to be king, he wept--thinking of all the bad and failed kings of history.” Ryan explains how becoming a great leader is a process, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. If you want to become a better leader, sign up for our new 9-week live course The Daily Stoic Leadership Challenge today! This is a masterclass in leadership with... |
| 2021-Jul-25 • 71 minutes Finding Calm – Chapter 3 from Nancy Sherman’s “Stoic Wisdom” Today’s episode of the podcast features an excerpt from Nancy Sherman’s Stoic Wisdom: Ancient Lessons for Modern Resilience. Stoic Wisdom presents a compelling, modern Stoicism that teaches grit, resilience, and the importance of close relationships in addressing life's biggest and smallest challenges. A renowned expert in ancient and modern ethics, Sherman relates how Stoic methods of examining beliefs and perceptions can help us correct distortions in what we believe, see, and feel. LMNT is the maker of... |
| 2021-Jul-24 • 89 minutes Journalist Edward-Isaac Dovere on the Soul of America On today’s episode of the podcast, Ryan talks to journalist and author Edward-Isaac Dovere about his new book Battle for the Soul: Inside the Democrats' Campaigns to Defeat Trump, being courageous and fighting for what’s right, how to ignore the noise and focus on the things that truly matter, and more. Edward-Isaac Dovere is an American journalist who serves as staff writer for The Atlantic and former Chief Washington Correspondent for Politico. LMNT is the maker of electrolyte drink mixes that help you... |
| 2021-Jul-23 • 3 minutes Don't Stuff Emotions Down “The popular image of the Stoic is of the unfeeling beast. The tough person, gritting, gutting, it out. But this is wrong.” Ryan explains why you must let yourself feel. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signup Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2021-Jul-22 • 6 minutes Perfect Is Not The Goal | No One Has A Gun To Your Head “In martial arts, the black belt is the highest level of the master. In religion, perhaps it’s the priest or even the saint. You can get a doctorate in philosophy, but that’s not really what the Stoics admired.” Ryan explains that the highest goal is not to be perfect but just to improve, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signup Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Pol... |
| 2021-Jul-21 • 79 minutes Author Phillip Barlag on Roman History’s Lessons for Modern Life | This is Where Your Temper Will Take You Ryan reads today’s meditation and talks to author Phillip Barlag about the life and reign of the Roman Emperor Nero, the lessons that we can learn from Roman history, why Marcus Aurelius was selected by the emperor Hadrian, and more. Phillip Barlag is the author of The Leadership Genius of Julius Caesar, a book exploring the modern lessons of the life & career of Julius Caesar. His writing has been published in Fast Company, MIT Sloan Management Review, and a number of influential business blogs. He liv... |
| 2021-Jul-20 • 2 minutes Keep Returning Home “You’ve experienced it. Maybe it was after your first semester away at college. Maybe it was after a long trip or a year-long tour of duty. Maybe it’s every time you return to your childhood home for the holidays.” Ryan explains how nature and life revolve around constant change. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signup Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/pri... |
| 2021-Jul-19 • 10 minutes You Don’t Need To Be So Reachable | Practice Gentleness Instead of Anger “Before telephones, before email, before the constant and instant forms of communication we all take for granted, mail was the lifeline of the world. When a mail ship would pull into port in Seneca’s time, anxious and eager citizens would rush to the shore so that they could tear open the letters that brought news and money and the answers to the questions they had sent.” Ryan explains why Stillness is the key, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. ... |
| 2021-Jul-18 • 17 minutes 10 Pieces of Life Changing Wisdom From the Stoics On today’s episode, Ryan breaks down 10 pieces of life changing wisdom from the Stoics. Stoicism has never been a philosophy for school. It's been a philosophy for life. That’s why the Stoic writings are blunt. Straight to the point. They get in, make their point in as few words as possible, and get out of your way. Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lsv6P3Crup8&t=47sBlinkist... is the app that gets you fifteen-minute summaries of the best nonfiction books out there. Blinkist lets you... |
| 2021-Jul-17 • 82 minutes NFL Cornerback Jeff Okudah on Achieving Greatness On today’s episode of the podcast Ryan talks to NFL cornerback Jeff Okudah about how to manage high expectations and criticism, how to recover from injury and over-training, why reading is so important and how books can change your life, and more. Jeff Okudah is an American football cornerback for the Detroit Lions of the NFL. He played college football at Ohio State, where he was named a unanimous All-American and a finalist for the Jim Thorpe Award in 2019 before being selected by the Lions third overal... |
| 2021-Jul-16 • 2 minutes Can You Handle This? “You did the right thing. You said what you thought. You produced something valuable. Yet here you are, a day, a month, a decade later, somehow having it all flipped against you. You’re being criticized. You’re being attacked. You’re being made to look like something you’re not. It’s painful. It’s unfair.” Ryan asks if you’re ready and willing to face what is to come. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signup Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy ... |
| 2021-Jul-15 • 7 minutes There's Two Ways To Go | Doing The Right Thing Is Enough “As Caesar overwhelmed and destroyed the Roman Republic, the Romans had a choice. Neither choice was good, but it was all they had. They could allow it to happen or they could fight. They could ‘accept the bridle,’ as Plutarch put it, and with some humiliation, keep their estates and their status and their life...or they could fight, desperately, hopelessly, against overwhelming odds.” Ryan explains why standing up for what matters is so important, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s D... |
| 2021-Jul-14 • 75 minutes Dave Asprey on Fasting and Optimizing Your Life | You Just Had A Scare Ryan reads today’s meditation and talks to Dave Asprey about his new book Fast This Way, the benefits of intermittent fasting, how to optimize your life to maximize both physical and mental performance, and more. Dave Asprey is the founder of Bulletproof & known as the ‘Father of Biohacking’. He is a four-time New York Times bestselling science author, host of the Webby award-winning podcast Bulletproof Radio, and has been featured on the Today Show, CNN, The New York Times, Dr. Oz, and more.Blinkist is... |
| 2021-Jul-13 • 3 minutes Criticism is Loud, Respect is Quiet “It can be easy to think you’re going down the wrong path, that you’re making a huge mistake, that nobody gets it, that you’re the only one. The reason for this is simple: We hear a lot more from the people who disagree with us than the people who agree with us.” Ryan explains why and how you should tune everyone else’s opinion out. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signup Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy ... |
| 2021-Jul-12 • 9 minutes Do You Have A Heart for Any Fate? | Don’t Look For The Third Thing “Yesterday is done, so there’s no worry there. But today? What will it bring? No one can say. Certainly no one can honestly promise you that it will be easy. Would you even listen to them if they did?” Ryan explains why you must love everything that happens to you, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Blinkist is the app that gets you fifteen-minute summaries of the best nonfiction books out there. Blinkist lets you get the topline information and ... |
| 2021-Jul-11 • 19 minutes 4 Strategies For Achieving Calm In Troubled Times On today’s episode, Ryan talks about four strategies he has for finding stillness in his life. Now, more than ever, we are being forced to recognize how complicated and stressful life can become. It is in times precisely like these that Stoicism is most powerful. The teachings of Stoic philosophy are a very helpful guide to achieve calm, even in the most troubled of times. The Jordan Harbinger Show is one of the most interesting podcasts on the web, with guests like Kobe Bryant, Mark Manson, Eric Schmidt,... |
| 2021-Jul-10 • 67 minutes Brad Stone on the Rise of Amazon and Leading With Empathy On today’s episode, Ryan talks to journalist and author Brad Stone about his new book Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire, the future implications of technology guided business practices, the moral tension that arises in the midst of large scale business growth, and more. Brad Stone is the author of four books, including 2014’s The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon. He was previously a San Francisco-based correspondent for The New York Times and Newsweek. A gra... |
| 2021-Jul-09 • 2 minutes How To Think About Money “It’s interesting how infrequently money comes up in Meditations. Here was a guy who had incredible wealth, whose predecessors obsessed over it and found it to be a source of both pleasure and conflict, and yet in his private meditations, it hardly comes up at all.” Ryan explains how a Stoic thinks about money. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signup Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy... |
| 2021-Jul-08 • 7 minutes Not Just To Read, But To Read Critically | Stop Monkeying Around “An illiterate world is not a good one, but a world where people unthinkingly believe and accept everything they read is not that much better. So it’s great that you’re reading—but are you reading critically?” Ryan explains the importance of honing your reading practice, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Blinkist is the app that gets you fifteen-minute summaries of the best nonfiction books out there. Blinkist lets you get the topline information and the most im... |
| 2021-Jul-07 • 76 minutes Paul Skallas on the Lindy Effect and Standing the Test of Time | 'Normal' is the Enemy Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to Paul Skallas about the Lindy Effect, why certain works stand the test of time and how to replicate them, how to order your life according to the Lindy Effect, and more.Paul Skallas is a technology lawyer and an author of many books including Life & The Lindy Effect. Skallas is an original thinker who tries to use the most robust ideas from human history to make sense of the challenges and opportunities in daily life.The Jordan Harbinger Show is one of the... |
| 2021-Jul-06 • 3 minutes Here's How To Be Right “It must have been hard to be as smart as someone like Marcus Aurelius or Seneca. They had the best tutors. They had quick minds. And then, as now, they were surrounded by people who were misinformed, often aggressively and arrogantly so. A feeling of condescension must have always been there. Their positions of power must have made it tempting to win arguments by force or authority as well.” Ryan explains why you should do your job without any sense of superiority. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: htt... |
| 2021-Jul-05 • 7 minutes Freedom to Do What? | Protect Your Own Good “Yesterday was July 4th, which as most of you know, is a day that marks the celebration of the declaration of independence for the newly formed United States. That idea of freedom is an important one and there’s no question that the founding of America was a step forward in the march for freedom across the world (though by no means a complete one).” Ryan asks you to reflect on what freedom means, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Blinkist is the... |
| 2021-Jul-04 • 21 minutes This Work Must Continue “Today is the 4th of July. It’s the celebration of the American Declaration of independence, which was signed on this date in 1776. There’s no question that document—inspired as it was by ideas from the Stoics—was an essential one. As we have talked about before, it asserted man’s inalienable rights and began a great experiment in human liberty and equality under the law that was, and continues to be, unparalleled in history. But it is important that today, and on all days, we do not mistake July 4th or t... |
| 2021-Jul-03 • 76 minutes Classics Scholar Dr. Anika Prather on Healing the Present by Studying the Past On today’s episode, Ryan talks to Classics Scholar Dr. Anika Prather about the bridge that books can create between diverse cultures, why it’s so important to continue teaching the Classics in Universities, how to properly educate young people about racial inequality, and more. Dr. Anika T. Prather has earned several graduate degrees in education from New York University and Howard University. Her research focus is on building literacy with African American students through engagement in the books of the ... |
| 2021-Jul-02 • 3 minutes Existence is What You Choose To See “What is the human condition? Marcus Aurelius says that life is just ‘marrying, raising children, getting sick, dying, waging war, throwing parties, doing business, arming, flattering, boating, distrusting, hoping others will die, complaining about their own lives, falling in love, putting away money, seeking high office and power.’” Ryan explains how your perspective shapes the world around you. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signup Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTo... |
| 2021-Jul-01 • 8 minutes The Old Way Is Not Always Better | Do Your Job “People are frustrating. They fall short. They fail us. They do something that surprises or disappoints you. But before you get angry, you have to remember: Everyone is going through something. Sometimes people are going through things and even they don’t know it.” Ryan explains why you have to think about other peoples troubles, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Athletic Greens is a custom formulation of 75 vitamins, minerals, and other whole-food sourced ingre... |
| 2021-Jun-30 • 71 minutes Dr. William Stixrud and Ned Johnson on Developing Confidence and Finding Purpose | You Never Know What Someone is Going Through Ryan reads today’s meditation and speaks with Dr. William Stixrud and Ned Johnson about their book The Self-Driven Child which they wrote to help parents and educators nurture a sense of agency and purpose in children, how to define and give your best effort in all of the things that you do, the difference between a healthy drive for excellence and having enough, and more. Ned Johnson is the president and founder of PrepMatters. A 1993 graduate of Williams College, Mr. Johnson has a BA in Economics and Pol... |
| 2021-Jun-29 • 3 minutes Try To Stay in the Bubble “To fight the pandemic, we engaged in what you might call the largest forced lifestyle experiment in human history. We traveled less. We ate out less. We tightened our social circles. We spent more time at home. We stayed in at night with our family, instead of going out.” Ryan explains why we should come out of the pandemic stronger than we were before. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signup Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at http... |
| 2021-Jun-28 • 9 minutes This Will Be Your Undoing… If You Can’t Stop | What’s In Your Way Is the Way “There is one thing at the root of the downfall of so many powerful people. There was Xerxes, enraged at the imprudence of the Greeks, whose anger drove him to overreach and underestimate his foe. There was Nixon, ranting and raving about his enemies, authorizing retaliation that he would come to regret, saying things on tape that would drive him from office.” Ryan explains why anger is what you must get under control, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Po... |
| 2021-Jun-27 • 14 minutes 7 Stoic Productivity Strategies That Will Change Your Life If you'd like to learn Stoic inspired, proven strategies for forming and breaking habits that will help you be more productive check out: https://dailystoic.com/habits In this video, Ryan Holiday outlines 7 Stoic strategies that have helped him write and publish 10 books in 10 years. The Stoics don't encourage shortcuts but they do offer real advice that can help you overcome resistance every single day. Talkspace is an online and mobile therapy company. Talkspace lets you send and receive unlimited messa... |
| 2021-Jun-26 • 89 minutes Kate Fagan on the Perspective Shifting Reality of Death On today’s podcast, Ryan talks to author Kate Fagan about her new book All the Colors Came Out: A Father, a Daughter, and a Lifetime of Lessons, her reflections on the bond that she shared with her father and his difficult fight with ALS, the controversial issue of transgender athletes, and more. Kate Fagan is an Emmy-award winning journalist and the #1 New York Times bestselling author of What Made Maddy Run. She currently writes for Sports Illustrated and co-hosts the podcast Free Cookies. Kate previousl... |
| 2021-Jun-25 • 3 minutes What's The Alternative? “All around you see things you don’t like. Bad people getting away with stuff. The wrong incentives being offered, sending trends off in an alarming direction. Perhaps you’re worried about cancel culture or the rise of illiberalism. Maybe it’s corruption or systemic injustice. Maybe it’s apathy, indifference or stupidity.” Ryan explains why you can never put off of being a better person. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signup Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Fa... |
| 2021-Jun-24 • 7 minutes The Present Is All There Is | The Truly Educated Aren’t Quarrelsome “There’s a constant internal tension within Meditations—between urgency and patience, contemplation and action, focusing in and zooming out. Marcus tells us to forget the future, on the one hand, then to contemplate infinite time on the other hand. At first glance, it can feel like there’s a dissonance there. A contradiction. But the purpose of these seemingly divergent exercises is the same: presence and the present.” Ryan explains why you have to embrace this moment, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of ... |
| 2021-Jun-23 • 69 minutes Classics Scholar Shadi Bartsch on What Ancient Texts Reveal About Modern Life | This Is Making You Who You Are Ryan read today’s meditation and talks to Classics scholar and professor Shadi Bartsch about Seneca’s contradictory service to the emperor Nero, why the classics are still relevant and important in modern society, how to use ancient texts as a way to reflect and think critically about oneself, culture, and politics, her translation of Virgil's The Aeneid, and more. Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer is the Helen A. Regenstein Professor at the University of Chicago. She works on Roman imperial literature, the history of... |
| 2021-Jun-22 • 3 minutes Don't Complain, Respond! “We live in a time when people who hear opinions they dislike think they can demand those opinions be unsaid or never repeated. How dare you criticize _______! Why did you have to go and get all political? You’ve offended me. You’re wrong! Shut up! Unfollow!” Ryan explains how you should respond when faced with differences of opinion. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the ... |
| 2021-Jun-21 • 7 minutes You Can’t Let People Puff You Up | Take A Walk “As it is today, so it was in Rome. People have always tried to tell other people what they want to hear. Yeah, you’re doing great. Have you lost weight? I love your new haircut, boss. As a species, humans are quite good at obsequious flattering. That’s one of the things social media has harnessed: Our endless capacity for receiving and giving. We can fish for compliments and easily catch them as well. I am doing something special. Look at how many people liked my post!” Ryan reminds you why you must stay ... |
| 2021-Jun-20 • 13 minutes Marcus Aurelius' Most Important Education Came From This Man Want more Stoic inspired parenting wisdom? Subscribe to the Daily Dad Podcast, read each morning by Ryan on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, and all other streaming platforms. On today’s episode of the podcast, Ryan talks about Marcus Aurelius’ step-father Antoninus Pius and the effect he had on his philosophy. Antoninus was held up as an example of all the things Marcus hoped to be in his life. In this video, Ryan Holiday talks about the importance of mentorship and modeling as a parent and a Stoic. Go... |
| 2021-Jun-19 • 74 minutes Malcolm Gladwell on Running, Writing, and Storytelling On today’s episode of the podcast, Ryan talks to Malcolm Gladwell about his new book The Bomber Mafia which is an exploration of how technology and good intentions collided in the heat of the second world war, their mutual love of endurance sports, the critical infrastructure that surrounds art and culture, and more. Malcolm Gladwell is the author of five New York Times bestsellers including The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers. He is also the co-founder of Pushkin Industries, an audio content company t... |
| 2021-Jun-18 • 3 minutes What Did You Learn? “There’s no question that the last year and a half has been tragic. Millions of people have perished in a merciless pandemic, millions more are still dealing with the consequences. Businesses were destroyed. Jobs were lost that will never come back. Relationships were subjected to unimaginable strain. Institutions were stretched to their breaking points.” Ryan explains the importance of learning from experience, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to ... |
| 2021-Jun-17 • 6 minutes Your Perspective Is Everything | Offense or Defense? “Is your house dirty or just well-played in? Are you struggling or growing stronger through resistance training? Are you poor or unburdened? Are you rich or temporarily blessed?” Ryan explains why the way you view things can change how you respond to them, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Go Macro is a family-owned maker of some of the finest protein bars around. They're vegan, non-GMO, and they come in a bunch of delicious flavors. Visit gomacro.com and use pr... |
| 2021-Jun-16 • 72 minutes Ultramarathon Runner Dean Karnazes on the Virtue of Self-Discipline | And Now We Do What Is Necessary Ryan reads today’s meditation and talks to Ultramarathon runner and author Dean Karnazes about his new book A Runner's High: My Life in Motion, his fascination with how far the human body can be pushed, finding the balance between pushing yourself and reaching your limits, the relation between writing and endurance sports, and more. Dean Karnazes is an American ultramarathon runner, and author of Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner, which details ultra endurance running for the general p... |
| 2021-Jun-15 • 3 minutes You Just Have To Accept It “When the pandemic hit—as with all sudden or unexpected life events—people responded in myriad different ways. Some people denied it. Some people hoped to be exempted from it. Other people cowered in fear of it. As you likely saw among your own peer group, none of these responses were particularly effective.” Ryan explains why you must always stare unflinchingly at reality, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It he... |
| 2021-Jun-14 • 9 minutes There’s Only One Path To Greatness | Try the Other Handle “Thirteen years before Marcus Aurelius would be old enough to legally hold any public post, Hadrian decided something extraordinary: he was going to make Marcus Aurelius the emperor of Rome. What was it that Hadrian saw in this young boy?” Ryan discusses the importance of reading, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Blinkist is the app that gets you fifteen-minute summaries of the best nonfiction books out there. Blinkist lets you get the topline ... |
| 2021-Jun-13 • 14 minutes 10 Pieces of Life Changing Wisdom From the Stoics Follow us on TikTok at https://www.tiktok.com/@daily_stoic for more life changing wisdom. Stoicism has never been a philosophy for school. It's been a philosophy for life. That’s why the Stoic writings are blunt. Straight to the point. They get in, make their point in as few words as possible, and get out of your way. In this video Ryan Holiday breaks down 10 pieces of life changing wisdom from the Stoics. Go Macro is a family-owned maker of some of the finest protein bars around. They're vegan, non-GMO, ... |
| 2021-Jun-12 • 60 minutes Holocaust Survivor Dr. Edith Eger on the Gift of Forgiveness On today’s special episode of the podcast, Ryan talks to Dr. Edith Eger about her book The Choice: Embrace the Possible which details her time at the Auschwitz concentration camp, the importance of feeling traumatic experiences in an effort to heal them, how suffering should lead us to strength rather than victimization, why forgiveness is a gift that you must choose to give to yourself, and more. A native of Hungary, Edith Eva Eger was just a teenager in 1944 when she experienced one of the worst evils ... |
| 2021-Jun-11 • 3 minutes Don't Escape It. Create It. “Escapism is tempting...but dangerous. We think, when frenzied or fraught, an exotic getaway will be the cure. But inevitably, the rush of travel wears off and the pretty pictures fade from your phone’s “recent” album.” Ryan explains why you should create the future that you really want, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can inve... |
| 2021-Jun-10 • 7 minutes There Is Always Something Else Going On | You Can Do It “One of the things you figure out quickly with kids, and as we’ve talked about a bunch over on our Daily Dad email and podcast, is that there is always a reason they’re behaving a certain way. Your kid is acting crazy because they’re tired. They’re having a meltdown because actually they’re starting to get sick. Bedtime isn’t happening because naptime got skipped. They’re biting because they’ve been ignored and they know this will get a reaction.” Ryan explains how most people are trying their best, and re... |
| 2021-Jun-09 • 75 minutes A.J. Daulerio on Recovery and Finding Peace With Stoicism | What Can You Get For Free? Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to writer and blogger A.J. Daulerio about his involvement in the famous Hulk Hogan and Gawker lawsuit, his journey to recovery and making peace with his past, how he came to study Stoic philosophy, and more. A.J. Daulerio is an American writer and blogger. He is the former editor of Gawker and Deadspin. Daulerio famously published an excerpt of Hulk Hogan’s sex tape, which led to a lawsuit and the bankruptcy and sale of Gawker Media. In 2020 Daulerio founded Th... |
| 2021-Jun-08 • 6 minutes Avoid This Sickness | Role Models “Nobody wants to get sick. We don’t want food poisoning. We don’t want the flu. We don’t want COVID-19. This is why we protect our immune system, wash our hands, take care of ourselves. Good. Health is important. But what about, as the great Phoebe Bridgers put it, emotional motion sickness?” Ryan explains why you should build up your emotional resilience, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is brought to you by GoMacro. Go Macro is a... |
| 2021-Jun-07 • 7 minutes If You’re Going To Make Something, Make It Beautiful “Fifty years after he helped his father build a fence around their house in Mountain View, Steve Jobs took his biographer Walter Isaacson to see it. Jobs skimmed his hand along one of the fence panels and told Isaacson the lesson his father instilled in him that day all those years ago.” Ryan explains why beauty goes beyond the surface level, and launches the new premium leather edition of The Obstacle Is The Way, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. The first production run has only a limited quantity, so do ... |
| 2021-Jun-06 • 53 minutes Rome's Last Citizen: The Life and Legacy of Cato - Ch. 1 Today’s episode is an excerpt from Rome's Last Citizen: The Life and Legacy of Cato by Rob Goodman and Jimmy Soni. This chapter deals with the early life of Cato, how he survived in a Roman culture that viciously tested the toughness of newborns, how his predilection for justice was formed at a young age and he was destined to clash with the empire, and more. The Jordan Harbinger Show is one of the most interesting podcasts on the web, with guests like Kobe Bryant, Mark Manson, Eric Schmidt, and more. List... |
| 2021-Jun-05 • 66 minutes Luke Burgis on Mimetic Desire and Getting What You Want in Life On today’s episode Ryan talks to author Luke Burgis about his new book Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life, the philosophy of French polymath René Girard, getting to the truth of what you should want in life, and more. Luke Burgis has co-created and led four companies in wellness, consumer products, and technology. He’s currently Entrepreneur-in-Residence and Director of Programs at the Ciocca Center for Principled Entrepreneurship where he also teaches business at The Catholic University... |
| 2021-Jun-04 • 2 minutes These Things Don’t Care “The virus doesn’t care. It doesn’t care that you were just about to open your first retail shop. It doesn’t care that you love visiting your grandmother. It doesn’t care that you recently finished chemotherapy. It doesn’t care about the collateral damage. It doesn’t care about your theories or your political beliefs. It doesn’t care about anything.” Ryan discusses how indifferent external events are to our wants and needs, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love... |
| 2021-Jun-03 • 8 minutes This Is What You Replace Anger With | It Is Well to Be Flexible “The Stoics weren’t robots. It wasn’t that they stuffed things down, or that they didn’t feel anything. How could that have been true? They were husbands and fathers, wives and daughters. They wrote beautiful works of art. They took principled stands. They told jokes. They worked hard and they sacrificed.” Ryan explains what you should replace anger with, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. GiveWell is the best site for figuring out how and where to donate your mo... |
| 2021-Jun-02 • 75 minutes Chris Bosh on Embracing the Process and Staying Present | This Cannot Be Allowed To Happen Ryan reads today’s meditation and talks to Chris Bosh about his new book Letters To A Young Athlete, what he learned winning multiple NBA Championships, the importance of having a diverse range of interests, learning to live in the moment, and more. Chris Bosh fell in love with basketball at an early age and earned the prestigious “Mr. Basketball” title while still at Lincoln High School in Dallas, Texas. A McDonald’s All-American, Bosh was selected fourth overall by the Toronto Raptors after one year att... |
| 2021-Jun-01 • 3 minutes Take The Interior Voyage “Have you ever noticed that we often refer to Marcus Aurelius just as Marcus? You likely read those references without breaking stride. Because you, like us, feel connected to Marcus. So much so that there’s a vivid picture of him painted in your head. So much so that you could describe Marcus more thoroughly than you can most co-workers, or clients, or friends, even. Isn’t it incredible to feel like you’re on a first name basis with a Roman Emperor who lived more than two thousand years ago?” Ryan explain... |
| 2021-May-31 • 9 minutes To What Do You Pledge Your Honor? | The View from Above “As the Founders signed the Declaration of Independence, they knew that this wasn’t some painless petition. This wasn’t some minor political stand. No, they knew, as they wrote, they were mutually pledging their “life, fortune, and sacred honor.” It was a cause they were willing to give everything for—even die for.” Ryan challenges you to question where your honor lies, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is brought to you by GoMacro.... |
| 2021-May-30 • 19 minutes Seneca on Philosophy and Friendship Today’s episode is an excerpt from The Tao Of Seneca produced by Tim Ferriss’ Audio. In this letter Seneca writes about overcoming troubles without being affected by them, what true friendship really is, how we should value friendship, and more. Go to tim.blog/seneca to get the PDF for free. The new Pod Pro Cover by Eight Sleep is the most advanced solution on the market for thermoregulation. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking. You can add the Cover to any mattress, and start slee... |
| 2021-May-29 • 59 minutes Charlie Mackesy on the Creative Process and Finding Enough On today’s episode, Ryan talks to author Charlie Mackesy about his #1 New York Times bestselling book The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, the process of writing and creating the book, how beautiful and rare it is to find contentment, and more. Charlie Mackesy is the author of The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse. The book has sold over 1.4 million copies and spent 55 weeks on the Sunday Times Bestsellers List top ten. He co-runs Mama Buci, which is a honey social enterprise in Zambia. GiveWell i... |
| 2021-May-28 • 3 minutes This Reminder Hurts, But We Need It “At the height of his powers, King Pyrrhus was killed by a roof tile, thrown by an old woman, as he conquered another city. In 1967, Harold Holt, the prime minister of Australia, went out for a swim in the ocean and simply never came back.” Ryan reminds you of the inevitable fact of your mortality, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more ... |
| 2021-May-27 • 7 minutes What You Need To Know About Most People | Sweat the Small Stuff “It’s true. As Marcus Aurelius reminded himself, today you will meet jealous people. Selfish people. Mean people. Shameless people. Even stupid people.” Ryan discusses how we should view the vast majority of people, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Go Macro is a family-owned maker of some of the finest protein bars around. They're vegan, non-GMO, and they come in a bunch of delicious flavors. Visit gomacro.com and use promo code STOIC for 30% off your order plu... |
| 2021-May-26 • 62 minutes Author Candice Millard on the Moments that Define Great Leaders | You Have To Get To The Outside Ryan reads today’s meditation and talks to author and biographer Candice Millard about her books The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey, Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, how we can relate to and learn from the great leaders of history, why you should compete with yourself and root for everyone else, and more. Candice Millard is the author of three books, each of which was a New York Times bestseller and n... |
| 2021-May-25 • 3 minutes Those Who Read Little, Know Little “Was there a Stoic who didn’t love reading? It’d be hard to name one. The last thing Cato did before he died was read.” Ryan explains why reading is so important, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signup Follow Daily Stoic: Twi... |
| 2021-May-24 • 9 minutes This Is Why It's So Hard | Practice True Joy “Everyone has trouble admitting they were wrong, including Marcus Aurelius. Yes, he writes glibly in Meditations about how he’s glad to be corrected, but why do you think he wrote that? Because it wasn’t natural. He was reminding himself...probably right after he caught himself failing to admit an error.” Ryan discusses why it’s dangerous to confuse what we do with who we are, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is also brought to you... |
| 2021-May-23 • 35 minutes Navy SEAL Brandon Webb on Autonomy and Radicalization in America Today’s episode is a partial interview with combat-decorated Navy SEAL sniper Brandon Webb. Ryan and Brandon talk about his new thriller series Steel Fear which follows the US navy’s first serial killer, the idea of autonomy over making a certain amount of money or reaching a certain level of success, and the radicalization of the American nation and how it is viewed from a military perspective. Brandon Webb is a combat–decorated Navy SEAL sniper turned entrepreneur who has built two brands (SOFREP Media a... |
| 2021-May-22 • 64 minutes Sebastian Junger on the Wonder of Existence and the Complexity of Freedom On today’s episode of the podcast Ryan talks to author and filmmaker Sebastian Junger about his new book Freedom which details his 400 mile journey along the railroad lines of the American East Coast, the unforeseen consequences of fighting for freedom, how the fragility of life reveals a wonderment at existence, and more. Sebastian Junger is the #1 New York Times Bestselling author of The Perfect Storm and Tribe. As an award-winning journalist, a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and a special correspo... |
| 2021-May-21 • 3 minutes Why You Should Never Borrow Unhappiness “Some time around the year 64 AD, Seneca’s friend Lucilius sent him a letter. Lucilius was nervous about an ongoing lawsuit. We’re not sure what the suit was over, but we know that it was a serious case and that Lucilius had made himself anxious about the outcome and had written to Seneca for some advice.” Ryan explains why you should always be prepared for what could go wrong, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. I... |
| 2021-May-20 • 8 minutes We’ve Been Tested. Did You Pass? | Quality Over Quantity “The last half-decade has tested us in many ways. A pandemic. Corresponding outbreaks of conspiracy theories and magical thinking. A booming economy...then a collapsing one. Civil unrest. Illiberalism. The passions of the mob. Authoritarian leaders. Natural disasters. Slow-moving crises.” Ryan asks you to think about how you’ve faced modern trials, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Go Macro is a family-owned maker of some of the finest protein bars around. They're vegan, non-GMO, and they come in a bunch of... |
| 2021-May-19 • 79 minutes Cal Newport on Knowledge Work and Effective Communication | Don't Be Satisfied With This Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to Cal Newport about his new book A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload, how knowledge workers can improve their efficiency and gain autonomy, why effective communication is so important, and more. Cal Newport is an associate professor of computer science at Georgetown University and the bestselling author of 6 books including Digital Minimalism, Deep Work, and So Good They Can’t Ignore You. He is also the host of the Deep... |
| 2021-May-18 • 4 minutes Are You High or Low? “Even in the ancient world, the classics scholar (and recent podcast guest) Robin Waterfield says, there was a distinction between high philosophy and low philosophy. Which was better?” Ryan explains the difference in high and low philosophy, and relaunches Stoicism 101: Ancient Philosophy For Your Actual Life, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podca... |
| 2021-May-17 • 7 minutes It Is What It Is | Count Your Blessings “There are a lot of things that oppose us in this life. Starting with gravity, we are held down by so many things: other people, bad luck, unfavorable odds, and god knows what else. We struggle to get ahead. We struggle to realize our potential. We run into so many obstacles.” Ryan discusses you must face reality with boldness, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is brought to you by Blinkist, the app that gets you fifteen-minute summ... |
| 2021-May-16 • 14 minutes 8 Stoic Tips For Spending Less Time On Your Phone On today’s episode, Ryan talks about what Stoicism can teach you about managing your phone use. If Marcus Aurelius was alive today, he would use a phone too. But he would be thinking about how to get the benefits from the technology without all the downsides. Try these strategies out if you're trying to spend less time on your phone. Some of them are easy. Others are tougher, and you’ll probably think some of them are nuts. Maybe they are. But they work. Go Macro is a family-owned maker of some of the fin... |
| 2021-May-15 • 83 minutes Daniel Barkhuff on Restoring the 4 Stoic Virtues to Leadership On today’s episode Ryan talks to Daniel Barkhuff about his path to the Naval academy and becoming a Navy SEAL, our individual obligation to each other and to serving the common good, Admiral Stockdale and restoring the 4 Stoic virtues to leadership, and more. Daniel Barkhuff is the president and treasurer of Veterans for Responsible Leadership. He attended the United States Naval Academy and served 7 years on active duty as a member of Naval Special Warfare and completed multiple combat tours. Upon leaving... |
| 2021-May-14 • 4 minutes You Have To Find The Good In People Pt. II “It’s not telling you anything new to point out that there will be obnoxious, flawed, annoying, awful idiots that you will come across today, and every day. There are selfish drivers and internet trolls. There is the contractor who you will catch trying to rip you off. There is that politician who just cannot seem to understand that this isn’t about them, that they work for us. These people exist, and that’s unfortunate.” Ryan explains how to apply your training to an everyday problem, on today’s Daily Sto... |
| 2021-May-13 • 6 minutes How Will You Measure Your Life? | Fueling the Habit Bonfire “Of people who rise to positions of power, there are two types. Those who think they can do it alone and those who know that that is insane.” Ryan explains where the true value in life lies, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep. The new Pod Pro Cover by Eight Sleep is the most advanced solution on the market for thermoregulation. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking. You can add the Cover to any ... |
| 2021-May-12 • 81 minutes Author Nancy Sherman on Building Resilience and Living Well | What Are You Making Up About This? That’s The Question. Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to author Nancy Sherman about her new book Stoic Wisdom: Ancient Lessons for Modern Resilience, using Stoicism to work through emotional trauma rather than repress it, her experience teaching Stoic philosophy to the armed forces, and more. Nancy Sherman is a New York Times Notable Author. She has written several books on Stoicism including Stoic Warriors: The Ancient Philosophy Behind the Military Mind. She has also written over 60 articles in the area of ethi... |
| 2021-May-11 • 5 minutes Beware The Little Things “It can be easy to make an excuse. Oh, it’s just a bad habit. Oh, it doesn’t matter. It’s also easy to think you’ve got this life thing handled—because you’ve survived some big adversity in your time. In truth, we are all vulnerable. To our habits. To unexpected weaknesses.” Ryan explains why small steps are no small thing, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen... |
| 2021-May-10 • 8 minutes There Are No Banned Books | We Are a Product of Our Habits “One way to get a sense of how powerful something is is how scared people are of it. Why have governments gone to such trouble to ban various books over the years? Why do people try to censor things they disagree with? Because they’re scared of meeting ideas on an open playing field.” Ryan explains the powerful impact that books have on culture, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is brought to you by GoMacro. Go Macro is a family-own... |
| 2021-May-09 • 65 minutes Amazon Kindle Author Fishbowl – Ryan Holiday on The Boy Who Would Be King Today’s episode is an interview with Amazon Author Fishbowl hosted by Jason Yoong for Ryan’s newest book The Boy Who Would Be King. They talk about Ryan’s writing process, how the book came together over the last year, Stoicism as a practical philosophy for day to day life, and more. This episode is also brought to you by the Jordan Harbinger Show. Jordan's podcast is one of the most interesting ones out there, with guests like Kobe Bryant, Mark Manson, Eric Schmidt, and more. Listen to one of Ryan's episo... |
| 2021-May-08 • 68 minutes Greg McKeown on Doing Less and Getting More On today’s podcast Ryan talks to bestselling author Greg McKeown about his new book Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most, how the present moment is the true antidote to uncertainty, how effortlessness actually produces better outcomes, and more. Greg McKeown is a speaker, a bestselling author, and the host of the popular podcast What’s Essential. McKeown’s New York Times bestselling book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less has sold more than a million copies worldwide. Originally f... |
| 2021-May-07 • 3 minutes You Need to Arm Yourself With These Weapons “In Greek mythology, characters go through katabasis—or “a going down.” Something forces them to retreat, to experience a breaking point, or in some cases literally descend into the underworld. When they emerge, it’s with heightened knowledge and understanding. These moments are painful but essential. “Although to be driven back upon oneself,” Joan Didion once wrote, “is an uneasy affair at best...it seems to me now the one condition necessary.” ” Ryan discusses how to defend yourself from what life throws... |
| 2021-May-06 • 7 minutes Before You Go Anywhere, Remember This | Righteousness Is Beautiful “The people on your flight tomorrow will be slow and rude. They will recline their seats into you. They will clog the aisles. They will watch videos on their phone without earbuds in. They will fight you for the armrests, even though they obviously belong to the person in the middle seat. They will take too long in the bathroom. And they will do ungodly things in there while they’re at it. They will take forever to deplane; they will not care that half the plane have connections to make.” Ryan discusses wh... |
| 2021-May-05 • 67 minutes Jessica Lahey on Self-Efficacy and the Virtue of Temperance | Whatever Will Be Will Be Ryan reads today’s meditation and talks to Jessica Lahey about her new book The Addiction Inoculation: Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence, how a Stoic should measure their success, the discovery of our genetic predisposition to addiction, and more. Jessica Lahey is the New York Times bestselling author of The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed. She has written for The New York Times and The Atlantic and has taught middle and high school for over... |
| 2021-May-04 • 3 minutes Life Is Too Short To Rush Through “You look around and you see people rushing everywhere. Rushing through traffic. Rushing to get their kids down to bed. No time to talk. No time to sit. There is too much to do. There is somewhere to go, and the faster the better.” Ryan explains why this moment is so important, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it... |
| 2021-May-03 • 9 minutes This is the Mindset For Life | Show, Don’t Tell “You clean and then it gets dirty. You do the dishes and then five minutes later, the sink is full again. You made it through your inbox in the morning and by the time late afternoon strikes, you’re already digging yourself out again.” Ryan explains the nature of continual change, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is also brought to you by Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is a custom formulation of 75 vitamins, minerals, and other w... |
| 2021-May-02 • 15 minutes Quintilian on How to Tell a Joke Today’s episode features a section from Michael Fontaine’s How to Tell a Joke: An Ancient Guide to the Art of Humor part of Princeton University Press's Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series. How to Tell a Joke is a modern translation and collection of Cicero and Quintilian’s timeless advice about how to use humor to win over any audience. This episode is brought to you by Blinkist, the app that gets you fifteen-minute summaries of the best nonfiction books out there. Blinkist lets you get the topline i... |
| 2021-May-01 • 63 minutes Classics Scholar Robin Waterfield on Translating Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations - Pt.2 On today’s episode, Ryan talks to Robin Waterfield about his new annotated translation of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, the art of translating ancient texts, the key Stoic concepts that Marcus writes about in Meditations, and more. Robin Waterfield is a British classical scholar, translator, and editor, specializing in Ancient Greek philosophy. He studied Classics at Manchester University and went on to research ancient Greek philosophy at King's College, Cambridge. He lives in Greece. This episode is bro... |
| 2021-Apr-30 • 5 minutes The More You Learn, The Less You Know “It’s wonderful that you are so committed to this philosophy that you get these emails, and you have read these books. You probably know more about Stoicism than most people alive, and probably more than most people who have ever lived (being that most people knew nothing). You certainly know more today than you did yesterday or a year ago.” Ryan explains the paradox that you come across as you gain more knowledge, and launches the new Stoicism 101 course, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Stoicism 101: Anc... |
| 2021-Apr-29 • 9 minutes Enjoy It While You Have It, Don’t Miss It When You Don’t | Washing Away the Dust of Life “The thing about most things we label as “bad” is that they aren’t. They just are. A virus isn’t evil. An economic depression isn’t malicious. They are unfeeling, indifferent, inhuman events. Their impact on humans, unfortunately, is not quite so neutral, but the fact remains: They are things that just are.” Ryan explains how a Stoic views external events, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Stoicism 101: Ancient Philosophy For Your Actual Life is a 14 day course ... |
| 2021-Apr-28 • 60 minutes Classics Scholar Robin Waterfield on Translating Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations - Pt.1 | There’s Only One Path To Greatness Ryan reads today’s Daily Stoic meditation and talks to Robin Waterfield about his new annotated translation of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, the historical accuracy of the critical moments that shaped Marcus’s life, the difference between high and low philosophy, and more. Robin Waterfield is a British classical scholar, translator, and editor, specializing in Ancient Greek philosophy. He studied Classics at Manchester University and went on to research ancient Greek philosophy at King's College, Cambridge... |
| 2021-Apr-27 • 7 minutes Life is School. School Is For Life “Late in his reign, a friend stopped Marcus Aurelius as he was leaving the palace, carrying a stack of books. Finding this to be a surprising sight, the man asked where Marcus was going. He was off to attend a lecture on Stoicism, he said, for ‘learning is a good thing, even for one who is growing old. From Sextus the philosopher I shall learn what I do not yet know.’” Ryan explains why you must always be learning, and launches the new Stoicism 101 course, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Stoicism 101: Anc... |
| 2021-Apr-26 • 10 minutes Your Shoulders Are Made of Ivory | The Freedom of Contempt “Marcus was like us. He wasn’t naturally extraordinary. He wasn’t born to greatness. His destiny was not pre-ordained. So how did it happen? How are we here today—what would have been his 1900th birthday—still talking about him?” Ryan remembers Marcus Aurelius on his 1900th birthday, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is a custom formulation of 75 vitamins, minerals, and other wh... |
| 2021-Apr-25 • 29 minutes Sextus Empiricus on How to Keep an Open Mind Today’s episode is an excerpt from Chapter 2 of Richard Bett’s How to Keep an Open Mind: An Ancient Guide to Thinking Like a Skeptic published by Princeton University Press. How to Keep an Open Mind is a part of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series and is a collection of Sextus Empiricus’ writings about how ancient skepticism can help you attain tranquility by learning to suspend judgment. This episode is brought to you by GoMacro. Go Macro is a family-owned maker of some of the finest protein bars... |
| 2021-Apr-24 • 64 minutes YouTubers Sam and Colby on Fame and Practicing Memento Mori On today’s episode, Ryan talks to YouTube duo Sam & Colby about the early days of their career, finding peace in the practice of memento mori, what they’ve learned making haunted and ghost story videos, and more.Sam Golbach and Colby Brock are an American YouTube exploration and comedy duo. They first started making videos on Vine where they had over 1.6 million followers before the app shut down in 2016. After creating their YouTube channel in 2014 they have amassed over 4 million subscribers and conti... |
| 2021-Apr-23 • 5 minutes Have You Ever Had A Motionless Moment? “We are so busy. We think we’re supposed to be. We think that’s how we get better. We think that moving is the only way to move forward.” Ryan discusses why you must strive for moments of stillness, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.... |
| 2021-Apr-22 • 6 minutes This Is How To Treat Your Brain | The Marks of a Rational Person “On the one hand, the Stoics were big believers in the power of reason. They believed we were rational creatures, capable of thinking away through all the distractions and impulses and biases of the mind and body. On the other hand, they knew that people were crazy—that our mind, our thoughts were hardly infallible and didn’t always have our best interests at heart. ” Ryan explains the difference between the brain and the mind, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. ... |
| 2021-Apr-21 • 67 minutes Michael Gervais on the Path to Excellence | You Have To Wrestle With This Ryan reads today's Daily Stoic meditation and talks to sport psychologist and entrepreneur Dr. Michael Gervais about his work in elite performance, the practical path to excellence, how to find purpose and meaning in your life, and more. Dr. Michael Gervais is a high-performance psychologist who has worked with NFL’s Seattle Seahawks, numerous Olympic medalists, and MVPs from every major sport. Dr. Gervais is the host of the popular Finding Mastery podcast that explores the psychology of the world’s most e... |
| 2021-Apr-20 • 3 minutes You Don't Need Everyone, Just More “It’d be wonderful if we could get everyone on board. If evidence and data and civic duty convinced people to do the right thing, the smart thing, the selfless thing. It feels like we’re living through a unique era for this kind of dissonance and denialism, but the reality is that since even before Marcus Aurelius' time, getting everyone on board for the right thing has been impossible.” Ryan explains why you can’t expect everyone to do the right thing, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed ... |
| 2021-Apr-19 • 9 minutes This Is The Only Acceptable Form of Anger | Impulse Control “There is an expression popular amongst basketball coaches. A coach doesn’t “get” a technical foul, they take one. If you’ve ever watched Gregg Popovich coach, you’ve seen it. When his team isn’t playing with enough passion, when the refs are getting complacent, when the crowd needs to be fired up, or when he’s just plain tired of watching his team not do what they’re supposed to be, he’ll pick a call to get angry about and take a technical foul. Sometimes he’ll even say to his assistant coach right beforeh... |
| 2021-Apr-18 • 18 minutes Life Is About What We Can Do For Each Other “Why are we here? It’s an impossible question to answer, I suppose. Of course, on a fundamental evolutionary level, we’re here to pass along our genes. This is why we strive for success. This is why we lust for sex. This is what keeps the species going. But equally encoded in that evolutionary software and in our culture is another purpose, another less selfish drive: The drive for meaning. Merely to subsist, to persist—what kind of existence is that?” Ryan reads his recent article about the responsibility... |
| 2021-Apr-17 • 54 minutes Admiral James Stavridis on James Stockdale and the Voyage of Character On today’s podcast, Ryan talks to Admiral James Stavridis about the voyage of character as detailed in his book Sailing True North, his friendship with the modern day Stoic James Stockdale, the urgency of educating yourself through books and reading, and more. Admiral James Stavridis is a retired four-star U.S. naval officer. He served for five years as the Dean of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He led the NATO Alliance in global operations from 2009 to 2013 and is currently a... |
| 2021-Apr-16 • 2 minutes It All Turns on Concentration “We often think that greatness is a synonym for brilliance. That great leadership is all about magnetism and communication. For which we need vision and boldness, allies and luck. And of course, to be successful in any field, but particularly in leadership, all of those things are true. But we also need something far simpler that is yet even more rare.” Ryan explains why everything hinges on your ability to do this one thing, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d lo... |
| 2021-Apr-15 • 8 minutes You Are Not Alone | Pay Your Taxes “Sometimes it can feel like you’re a solitary warrior. Certainly Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations reads like that at times. He feels like the last honest man. The last good man. The only one keeping the faith.” Ryan explains the struggle that we all share, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is also brought to you by stamps.com, a secure Internet mailing solution to print postage using your computer. Stamps.com allows you to mail and ship anytime, anywhe... |
| 2021-Apr-14 • 68 minutes Author Bonnie Tsui on the Wonders of Water | Pressure, Like Power, Reveals Ryan reads today's Daily Stoic email and talks to author Bonnie Tsui about her new memoir, Why We Swim, their mutual adoration of swimming, how physical exercise can be a catalyst for creative thinking, the philosophical benefits of spending time in the water, and more. Her newest piece, The Uncertain Sea, is available now on Scribd. Bonnie Tsui is the author of many books including American Chinatown: A People’s History of Five Neighborhoods, which won the 2009-2010 Asian/Pacific American Award for Litera... |
| 2021-Apr-13 • 2 minutes Not Who’s Right, What’s Right “You have your views. You have your side of things. You have the team you’re on, the group you belong to. So instinctually, naturally, you default there. You started out making your argument, believing that things should go this way or that way, so what are you gonna do? Just give in? You’re going to let them win? How Stoic is that?” Ryan discusses the important distinction between facts and feelings, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a rev... |
| 2021-Apr-12 • 8 minutes You Can—No, You Should—Forget About This. | Test Your Impressions “You’ve been wronged. Someone let you down. Something didn’t go your way. This person stole from you. That one lied to you. She betrayed you. He insulted you right to your face. The surefire deal fell through. Your most lucrative client decided to go with another vendor. Your dream girl found somebody else.” Ryan explains why the art of letting go is essential to success, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Today’s episode is brought to you by Mun... |
| 2021-Apr-11 • 15 minutes Cicero on How to Tell a Joke Today’s episode features a section from Michael Fontaine’s How to Tell a Joke: An Ancient Guide to the Art of Humor published by Princeton University Press and HighBridge audio, a division of Recorded Books. How to Tell a Joke is a modern translation and collection of Cicero and Quintilian’s timeless advice about how to use humor to win over any audience. This episode is brought to you by Policygenius. Policygenius helps you compare top insurers in one place, and it lets you save 50% or more on life insura... |
| 2021-Apr-10 • 83 minutes Charles & Chase Koch on the Power of Principles On today’s podcast, Ryan talks to Charles and Chase Koch about challenging assumptions and leaning on first principles, the advantages of a bottom-up approach as detailed in Charles’ new book Believe in People: Bottom-Up Solutions for a Top-Down World, how to make a difference by working together locally, their philanthropic organization Stand Together, and more. Charles Koch is an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He has been co-owner, chairman, and CEO of Koch Industries since 1967 an... |
| 2021-Apr-09 • 2 minutes Remember: Little Things Are Not Small “George Washington’s favorite saying was “many mickles make a muckle.” It was an old Scottish proverb that illustrates a truth we all know: things add up. Even little ones.” Ryan discusses why small things make a big impact, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic... |
| 2021-Apr-08 • 6 minutes But What Will We Do IF? | The Cost of Accepting Counterfeits “A few days ago we talked about this paralyzing fear—the “preemptive whataboutism” that holds people back from doing the right thing. It’s why we don’t speak up about somebody on our side. Why we won’t take that career risk. Why we don’t see enough real leadership.” Ryan explains why you can't let the concept of the future disturb you, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is also brought to you by Scribd, the e-book and audiobook subscription service t... |
| 2021-Apr-07 • 72 minutes Arthur Brooks on Stoicism vs. Epicureanism | You Don’t Know What’s Going On With People Ryan reads today's Daily Stoic email and talks to Arthur Brooks about the differences and similarities in Stoicism and Epicureanism, the obligation we have to each other as human beings, the importance of virtue in modern society, and more. Arthur C. Brooks is Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School and Professor of Management Practice at the Harvard Business School. Brooks is the author of 11 books, including the national bestsellers Love Your Enemies (2019) and The Co... |
| 2021-Apr-06 • 4 minutes Who Are You Studying Under? “It’s interesting to think of the Stoics, from Marcus Aurelius to Zeno, reaching back through the centuries like links in a chain (from Z to A no less!).” Ryan explains the importance of choosing who you learn from, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Ryan Holiday's book Lives of the Stoics is on sale as an E-Book for just $1.99! The pages of this book start with Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, and end with Marcus Aurelius, the great philosopher king. In between, you’ll learn the stories of Cicero and Seneca, ... |
| 2021-Apr-05 • 7 minutes Better Days Will Shine Through | What Can Go Wrong… Might “Imagine you are Seneca and tuberculosis has claimed ten years of your life in convalescence. Imagine you are Seneca and after climbing to the top of Roman life, you were cruelly exiled to some rock in the middle of nowhere.” Ryan explains how Fortune behaves as she pleases–what she gives she takes away, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. LinkedIn Jobs is the best platform for finding the right ca... |
| 2021-Apr-04 • 17 minutes Today is a Day of Rebirth | A Day in the Life of a Stoic On today’s special episode of the podcast, Ryan describes the universal message of redemption that can be found in the story of Jesus Christ’s execution. He also takes us through a typical day and what he does to keep balance and clarity as he goes through his day according to Stoic philosophy. This episode is brought to you by LMNT, the maker of electrolyte drink mixes that help you stay active at home, work, the gym, or anywhere else. Electrolytes are a key part of a happy, healthy body. Right now you c... |
| 2021-Apr-03 • 67 minutes Lt. General H.R. McMaster on Strategic Empathy and Seneca’s Contradiction On today’s episode, Ryan talks to Lt. General H.R. McMaster about why leaders must study history and philosophy, his book Dereliction of Duty about the controversial Vietnam war, Seneca’s complicated service for the emperor Nero, and more. H.R. McMaster is a retired United States Army Lieutenant General who served as the 26th United States National Security Advisor. He is known for his roles in the Gulf War, Operation Enduring Freedom, and Operation Iraqi Freedom. His book, Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defe... |
| 2021-Apr-02 • 3 minutes If You’re Not Feeling This, You’re Doing It Wrong “You see them in the comments sections. You see them on social media. You hear it come out of the mouths of friends, family members. Sometimes it’s casual. Other times it’s uncouth. Sometimes it’s couched in intellectualization or an economic analysis.” Ryan explains why we must always consider the whole, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, th... |
| 2021-Apr-01 • 8 minutes Just Keep Hammering Away | The Color of Your Thoughts “There is something delightfully simple about Ulysses S. Grant. Napoleon seems like some sort of larger than life figure, a peerless genius like the freak athletes we see on television. The same for the incredible heroism of Admiral Stockdale. Their accomplishments are impressive, but not exactly relatable.” Ryan explains why you must keep your emotions under control to continue the work, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is also brought to you by L... |
| 2021-Mar-31 • 61 minutes Author Robert Wright on Buddhism vs Stoicism Ryan speaks to the author and journalist Robert Wright about the Stoic obligation to being involved in politics, staying creative while controlling your own destiny, the temptations and distractions of social media, and more. Robert Wright is an author and journalist who has written five books including The Moral Animal and Why Buddhism Is True. He has also written for The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, and The New York Times Magazine. His weekly newsletter Mindful Resistance is sent out every Saturday... |
| 2021-Mar-31 • 3 minutes A Book Isn’t A Mirror. It’s A Door! “A couple weeks ago, we talked about Fran Lebowitz’s secret to be immensely rich. They also happen to be a secret to empathy and understanding. There has been a big push lately for diversity and inclusion in books and television. This is important, obviously, because any system that does exclude voices is an unjust one. But we should also be careful in our pursuit—as readers or consumers—of art about people like me.” Ryan explains why gaining perspective through reading is so important, on today’s Daily St... |
| 2021-Mar-30 • 3 minutes You Can’t Buy Fearlessness “There’s no question that the super rich can afford better medical care than you. They have access to the best doctors, the most cutting-edge treatments. So, naturally, they are living longer—they are buying what scientists are calling “radical life extension.” In fact, some thinkers believe this will be a source of conflict in the future. Today, we have income inequality. Tomorrow, it will be longevity inequality.” Ryan explains why you need to conquer the fear of death, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *... |
| 2021-Mar-29 • 8 minutes What Would Less Look Like? | Say No to the Need to Impress “This has not been fun. It’s been brutal. But it has been, at least, an exercise in that question that the Stoic aficionado Tim Ferriss is a fan of: What would less look like? Less flights. Less dinners out. Less meetings. Less income. Less time with friends.” Ryan explains why you must focus on what is essential, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is also brought to you by Literati Kids, a subscription book club that sends 5 beautif... |
| 2021-Mar-28 • 12 minutes These Simple Words Will Help You Through Life's Most Difficult Situations On today's episode, Ryan introduces 3 core Stoic concepts that are sure to help you through whatever life puts in front of you. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche would describe his formula for human greatness as amor fati—a love of fate. Memento Mori—the ancient practice of reflection on mortality that goes back to Socrates, who said that the proper practice of philosophy is “about nothing else but dying and being dead.” The single most important practice in Stoic philosophy is differentiating betw... |
| 2021-Mar-27 • 75 minutes Agnes Callard on Socrates and Wisdom On today’s episode Ryan speaks to professor and author Agnes Callard about the philosophical model that Socrates passed down, the ancient problem of fundamentally flawed people, how to re envision success and ambition, pulling rather than pushing your children towards philosophy, and more. Agnes Callard is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago (ancient philosophy and ethics). She wrote Aspiration: The Agency of Becoming and wrote the lead essay in On Anger, one of the New Yorker’... |
| 2021-Mar-26 • 4 minutes You Can Do This. You Can Do This. “Marcus Aurelius didn’t believe he was suited to be emperor. In fact, when he received the news of Hadrian’s plans to have Antoninus Pius adopt him and place him next in line for the throne, he broke down in tears. There was no one he revered more than Antoninus. How could he possibly live up to the task of following in his footsteps?” Ryan explains why you have everything you need to live up to the moment that you are in, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. The Boy Who Would Be King is out now, written by Ry... |
| 2021-Mar-25 • 7 minutes There Will Always Be These Kinds of People | Wealth and Freedom are Free “It’s easy to become disappointed with humanity each time you step into your car. Not even because of how angry and aggressive some drivers are. Or from the amount of litter you see on the side of the road. The slow, clueless drivers who needlessly cause traffic are sufficient.”Ryan explains why you have to prepare yourself for what life throws at you, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast.This episode is also brought to you by Public Goods, the one stop shop for susta... |
| 2021-Mar-24 • 3 minutes You Are Blessed “It’s easy not to feel blessed. We look readily for what we don’t have rather than what we do. We see people who are taller, who look better, who have more and feel deprived. Why couldn’t I have been born rich? Why couldn’t my company have gotten that contract? Why can’t I play in the NFL?” Ryan discusses why your perception of your life defines your true wealth, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with ou... |
| 2021-Mar-24 • 65 minutes Volleyball Legend Gabrielle Reece on Relationships and Finding Enough Ryan speaks to Gabrielle Reece about how the Stoics valued hard work, the stillness that is required to accurately observe ourselves, how to properly maintain healthy relationships and find enough for yourself, and more. Gabrielle Reece is a professional volleyball player and author of the New York Times bestseller My Foot Is Too Big for the Glass Slipper. She is also an executive member of Laird Superfood and is also the host of the Gabby Reece Show. This episode is brought to you by Beekeeper’s Natural... |
| 2021-Mar-23 • 3 minutes Power Doesn’t Corrupt, It Reveals “There were not many good emperors in Rome. There have not been many good kings since. In fact, there haven’t been many good leaders ever—there is something about power that seems to bring out the worst in people. It seems to be a light which destroys the moths that are drawn to it.” Ryan discusses why your character is defined by what you do, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. The Boy Who Would Be King is out now, written by Ryan Holiday in the depths of the pandemic (not unlike the one Marcus ruled through... |
| 2021-Mar-22 • 9 minutes We Can’t Let This Go On | The Portable Retreat “No man is an island. We’ve taken the line from the John Donne poem and turned it into a common expression, but we’ve missed the point. It’s not simply that we can’t exist by ourselves. It’s much deeper than that.” Ryan explains why we must recognize that we are all a part of the whole, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is also brought to you by Blinkist, the app that gets you fifteen-minute summaries of the best nonfiction books ou... |
| 2021-Mar-21 • 14 minutes 7 Ways Marcus Aurelius Will Help You Journal Like A Pro On today’s podcast, Ryan discusses 7 strategies that can help you develop a highly effective journaling habit. Almost 2000 years ago, Marcus Aurelius stole time away from his incredibly busy life full of obligations to write in his journal. By some incredible stroke of luck, that journal survives to us today. And though it is full of countless pieces of wisdom and important lessons to us, perhaps its greatest teaching is held in its very existence. The fact that this person who thought so deeply and was so ... |
| 2021-Mar-20 • 64 minutes Dr. Jonathan Fader on Peak Performance Ryan speaks to psychologist Dr. Jonathan Fader about how difficult mental preparation and training can help lead to peak performance, the unseen value of time and developing a method for clear decision making, creating a routine to create and retain gains, and more. Dr. Jonathan Fader is a licensed clinical and performance psychologist best known for working with professional athletes in the MLB and NFL. He is part of The New York City Fire Department (FDNY) Mental Performance Initiative and a frequent co... |
| 2021-Mar-19 • 3 minutes It’s Possible To Tune These Things Out “We have so many strong opinions. Especially about things we don’t like. We don’t like it, and we want you to know that we don’t like it—that musician, that politician, that restaurant, the way that so-and-so talks.” Ryan discusses the importance of having the ability to stick to your own path, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we c... |
| 2021-Mar-18 • 7 minutes This is the Secret to Real Wealth | Impossible Without Your Consent “What is the point of reading? ’To me,’ Fran Lebowitz tells Martin Scorsese in the new ‘Pretend It's A City’ docuseries, ‘[reading] is just a way of being immensely rich. This may be the reason I never cared about money. Because as soon as you can read, you are incredibly rich.’” Ryan explains why reading is the key to a rich life, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is also brought to you by FitTrack, the best way to calculate your body’s compositio... |
| 2021-Mar-17 • 4 minutes Start Strong, Finish Strong. That Is The Way. “It was on this day 1841 years ago that Marcus Aurelius came to the end. It had been an incredible life, as we’ve talked about. From an ordinary kid to the ruler of the world, this boy who would be king, had made the absolute best of the hand he had been dealt. He hadn’t been corrupted by power, but shared it. He hadn’t been made bitter by adversity but great because of it. Even the plague--which had dragged on for years--had brought out the best in Marcus Aurelius.” Ryan explains why you must try to live ... |
| 2021-Mar-17 • 67 minutes Guitarist Nita Strauss on Music and Philosophy On today’s podcast, Ryan talks to musician Nita Strauss about their mutual love of Iron Maiden, how she uses Stoicism to approach life as a female musician, how she has had to pivot due to the pandemic, and more. Nita Strauss is a musician and is the current touring guitarist for Alice Cooper. She was the first female signature artist to sign a deal with Ibanez guitars and was also ranked No. 1 on Guitar World's list of "10 Female Guitar Players You Should Know."This episode is brought to you... |
| 2021-Mar-16 • 4 minutes So, How Did You Do? “It’s been a year, as unbelievable as that is to write. Time has dragged. It has flown by. On March 14, 2020, almost exactly one year ago, we sent out an email about the rising threat of COVID-19 and its relation to the timeless dictum of Stoicism: We weren’t going to be able to control what had happened, but we could control how we responded.” Ryan discusses the past year and asks you to reflect on how you handled it, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for ... |
| 2021-Mar-15 • 9 minutes Always Consider the Unconsidered Consequences | Think About It from the Other Person’s Perspective “A little while back we talked about the bold stroke—inspired by the Stoics—which struck down Julius Caesar and his reign on the Ides of March. This moment has always been judged ambiguously by historians. Yes, Caesar was a tyrant… but did the ends justify the means? And what were the ends? Were they successful? Were things better or worse?”Ryan explains why you must think it all the way through before you act, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast.Thi... |
| 2021-Mar-14 • 12 minutes Plutarch on How To Be A Leader Part 2 Today’s episode features another excerpt from Jeffrey Beneker’s How To Be A Leader: An Ancient Guide to Wise Leadership. How To Be A Leader is a modern translation and collection of essays about successful leadership from the ancient biographer Plutarch.Jeff Beneker is a Professor of Classics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. His primary research interest is in Greco-Roman biography and historiography. In addition to teaching courses in Greek language and literature, he teaches lecture courses on C... |
| 2021-Mar-13 • 70 minutes Steven Pressfield on Battling Resistance and Winning With Love Ryan speaks to his friend and fellow author Steven Pressfield about battling resistance and becoming who you were meant to be, the triumph of good over evil and ultimately love, his new novel A Man At Arms, and more. Steven Pressfield is the author of several critically acclaimed books including Gates of Fire, an epic novel about the battle of Thermopylae, and The War of Art, a guide to unlocking the creative potential inside yourself. This episode is brought to you by LMNT, the maker of electrolyte dri... |
| 2021-Mar-12 • 4 minutes What Can You Give Up To Help Others? “It’s impossible to overstate the terror and uncertainty that swarmed Marcus’ life. Just while writing Meditations, Rome fought a war against the Parthians that lasted five years. The River Tiber had one of the worst floods in history, destroying homes and livestock, and delivering a famine. Eventually victorious against the Parthians, celebrations were short-lived because returning soldiers brought home a deadly contagion, which became known as the Antonine Plague.” Ryan challenges you to find some way to... |
| 2021-Mar-11 • 7 minutes You’ll Never Get Your Pound of Flesh | Living Without Restriction “They screwed you over. Hurt your career. They disrespected you. They blew it. They did...whatever. Now, you want your revenge. You want them to suffer as you suffered. You want them to know, to feel, the same thing that you’re feeling. The Stoics talk about justice, so that’s OK, right? They shouldn’t be able to get away with this!” Ryan explains why you cannot dwell what is done to you, even if you know that it’s not right, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Th... |
| 2021-Mar-10 • 3 minutes Put The Weight Right On Me “So much happens in life. There is so much happening. Forget macro events—there are dogs that get sick in the middle of the night. There are trips that need to be made to the store. There are unpleasant conversations to have. Bills that somebody has to pay. Dishes to be done. Hard decisions to make.” Ryan discusses why a Stoic leans into responsibility and adversity instead of avoiding it, and launches his new book The Boy Who Would Be King, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s ... |
| 2021-Mar-10 • 65 minutes Illustrator Victor Juhasz on Marcus Aurelius and The Boy Who Would Be King On today’s podcast, Ryan speaks to his collaborator and illustrator for his new book The Boy Who Would Be King about the process of creating the art for the book, imposing discipline on yourself, how he was impacted by Marcus Aurelius’ story, and more. Victor Juhasz is an artist and illustrator whose work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Time Magazine, and Esquire Magazine, and more. He has illustrated many books including G is for Gladiator: An Ancient Rome Alphabet and is for Zeus: A Greek Mythology Alpha... |
| 2021-Mar-09 • 4 minutes If You Want To Be Great... “You can’t find a single page in Meditations where you get the sense that Marcus was attuned to his extraordinariness. There’s nothing about a legendary moment of courage on the battlefield. Nothing about a remarkable imparting of wisdom to a young politician at the perfect time. Nothing about a spectacular display of patience in the courtroom.” Ryan discusses the Stoic’s formula for greatness, and launches his new book The Boy Who Would Be King, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. The Boy Who Would Be King i... |
| 2021-Mar-08 • 7 minutes You Will Fight This Battle All Alone | What Expensive Things Cost “It would be wonderful we were aligned on this. It would be nice if the world was your ally, that it was green lights all the way—for your diet, for your sobriety, for the path to virtue. But it isn’t.” Ryan discusses the individual battle that we all face, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is also brought to you by Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is a custom formulation of 75 vitamins, minerals, and other whole-food sourced ingred... |
| 2021-Mar-07 • 12 minutes How to Beat Procrastination With Stoicism Procrastination is something we all have to struggle with. It can be so tempting to put off a daunting task indefinitely. On today’s episode, Ryan talks about how Stoicism has helped him overcome procrastination, be more productive, and have more free time. Watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IdMDhrkxts&t=38s... This episode is brought to you by LMNT, the maker of electrolyte drink mixes that help you stay active at home, work, the gym, or anywhere else. Electrolytes are a key part of... |
| 2021-Mar-06 • 63 minutes Allie Esiri On the Power of Poetry and Daily Reads On today’s podcast, Ryan speaks to writer Allie Esiri about the Stoic’s infatuation with ancient poetry, how to read and find insight in poetry, how the greatest writing communicates to us on a subliminal level, and more. Allie Esiri is a writer and former actress in stage, film, and television. She has released several poetry anthologies including 2020’s, Shakespeare for Every Day of the Year, a collection of passages from Shakespeare's greatest works. This episode is brought to you by Beekeeper’s Nat... |
| 2021-Mar-05 • 3 minutes Success Can Make People Better... Or Worse “Success made Marcus Aurelius better. It seems to have made Seneca worse. Marcus turned to philosophy in his twenties, was first selected for the throne as a teenager, and fully inherited the throne at age 40. Despite the truism that absolute power corrupts absolutely, he somehow managed to not only maintain his philosophical principles from the throne, but seems to have taken the opportunity to become kinder, more reflective, more generous, and more open-minded the longer he was in power. ” Ryan discusses... |
| 2021-Mar-04 • 8 minutes Respect the Man Who Stands Alone | Awareness Is Freedom “It’s hard not to read about Cato’s life and not be struck by how often the man stood alone. He stood alone as Quaestor, as he reformed Rome’s treasury. He was the sole voice willing to say “No” when people wanted to spend money the empire didn’t have.” Ryan talks about the importance of living by principles and respecting others who do the same, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is also brought to you by Literati Kids, a subscription book club that... |
| 2021-Mar-03 • 3 minutes Keep Doing This—You’ll Always Need It “You’ve been reading for years now. You’ve been studying your Stoicism. You’ve been keeping up with your morning journals, doing your evening review. So when does this all culminate and coalesce into wisdom? When are you good? Never. The answer is never. “Until when is a person obligated to study Torah?” Maimonides once asked. “Until the day of one’s death.”” Ryan explains why the pursuit of wisdom is never ending, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you ... |
| 2021-Mar-03 • 55 minutes Author Ron Lieber on Money and Values Ryan speaks to author Ron Lieber about the key Stoic virtue of temperance, how money can be a great tool for teaching, how parents and kids should approach college and gap years, and more. Ron Lieber is a bestselling author of several books and has been a New York Times columnist since 2008. His newest book The Price You Pay for College: An Entirely New Road Map for the Biggest Financial Decision Your Family Will Ever Make released in January 2021. This episode is brought to you by LMNT, the maker of ele... |
| 2021-Mar-02 • 4 minutes Are You Really That Special? “You’ve been reading for years now. You’ve been studying your Stoicism. You’ve been keeping up with your morning journals, doing your evening review. So when does this all culminate and coalesce into wisdom? When are you good? Never. The answer is never. “Until when is a person obligated to study Torah?” Maimonides once asked. “Until the day of one’s death.”” Ryan explains why the pursuit of wisdom is never ending, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Pre-order The Boy Who Would Be King, our newest release at ... |
| 2021-Mar-01 • 7 minutes Don’t Get Even, Get Justice | Cultivate Indifference “These are angry times… with plenty to be angry about. From politicians that have failed us to systemic evils that have gone on for too long. Maybe you’re someone who was conned, pressured into spending money you didn’t have with the hope of promises someone didn’t keep. Maybe you were hurt in an accident. Maybe you were wrongly deprived of your liberties or fair share.” Ryan explains why justice should always prevail over anger, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Dai... |
| 2021-Feb-28 • 20 minutes Plutarch on How To Be A Leader Today’s episode features an excerpt from Jeffrey Beneker’s How To Be A Leader: An Ancient Guide to Wise Leadership. How To Be A Leader is a modern translation and collection of essays about successful leadership from the ancient biographer Plutarch. Jeff Beneker is a Professor of Classics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. His primary research interest is in Greco-Roman biography and historiography. In addition to teaching courses in Greek language and literature, he teaches lecture courses on Clas... |
| 2021-Feb-27 • 87 minutes Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke on Building a Better Future Ryan talks to Shopify CEO and founder Tobias Lütke about his introduction to Stoic philosophy, how Stoicism can be a guide to wealth and power, the importance of builders and entrepreneurs in society, and more. Tobias Lütke is the founder of Shopify, a Canadian e-commerce firm that helps companies set up and run online stores. Lutke grew up in Germany and moved to Canada in 2002. Shopify had 1,000,000 businesses in approximately 175 countries using its platform as of January 2021. This episode is brought ... |
| 2021-Feb-26 • 3 minutes You Must Find Your Rules and Stick To Them “It’d be wonderful if life never tempted you, if you could just go day-to-day, winging it and always do right. But that’s not how the world is. That’s not who you are. If left to our own devices, with enough opportunities, eventually we’ll mess up—we’ll drift, we’ll stray.” Ryan explains the importance of abiding by your own set of rules, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the mor... |
| 2021-Feb-25 • 8 minutes This Is the Great Equalizer | Smoke and Dust of Myth “Imagine what it must have been like to be Alexander the Great, conquering most of the known world by the time you were 30 years old. Born into royalty, you surpass even the incredible accomplishments of your father, to rule an empire of some 3,000 miles.” Ryan discusses where we are all headed and why it levels the playing field, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is also brought to you by Trends. Trends is the ultimate online community for entrepre... |
| 2021-Feb-24 • 2 minutes What It Means To Carry the Fire “We’ve talked about this before—this idea of Carrying the Fire. It’s a concept that comes to us from the beautiful and haunting novel The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Set in an apocalyptic world, one that echoes Rome in the aftermath of the Antonine Plague or even our own days of pandemics and unprecedented unemployment, the novel follows a young boy and his father who are trying to survive in a world of darkness.” Ryan uses a concept from Cormac McCarthy’s The Road to explain the importance of the four Stoic ... |
| 2021-Feb-24 • 59 minutes Adam Grant on Ego and Knowledge On today’s podcast, Ryan talks to author Adam Grant about his new book, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know, why the Stoics believed in the power of intellectual humility, how to keep your ego at bay, and more. Adam Grant is an author, organizational psychologist, and a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Grant is the author of 4 New York Times bestselling books and the host of WorkLife, a highly rated TED original podcast. This episode is brought to you by... |
| 2021-Feb-23 • 3 minutes You Can’t Make People Feel What You Want “It would be so nice if they could just come around. If they could get with the program. Don’t they see what we need? Don’t they see that we love them? Don’t they see that this approach is not working for them, that it’s hurting everyone, including themselves?” Ryan discusses why you must let go of what other people feel, because it’s entirely out of your control, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with o... |
| 2021-Feb-22 • 8 minutes How Stories Teach Us The Truth | Reduce Wants, Increase Happiness “They seem silly. Aesop tells us stories about dogs and mice and foxes and lions. Children love them of course. Isn’t that proof that they’re childish?”Ryan explains why all stories are windows into the truth, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast.Pre-order The Boy Who Would Be King, our newest release at Daily Stoic, written by Ryan Holiday in the depths of the pandemic (not unlike the one Marcus ruled through), this new beautifully crafted book is av... |
| 2021-Feb-21 • 12 minutes Stoicism and the Art of Resilience How does someone who was born into slavery, whose master broke their leg and crippled them for life, somehow escape all that and become one of the fathers of Stoicism and an amazing thinker? Epictetus had every reason to be unable to transcend his own struggles, but instead he is one of the most important Stoic philosophers. He lived the philosophy and it saved him. This episode is brought to you by LMNT, the maker of electrolyte drink mixes that help you stay active at home, work, the gym, or anywhere els... |
| 2021-Feb-20 • 80 minutes Poker World Champion Annie Duke On Choosing the Truth On today’s podcast, Ryan talks to World Series of Poker champion Annie Duke about making ethical choices, the overlap between Stoicism and cognitive psychology, how to objectively assess your own decisions, and more. Annie Duke is a former professional poker player and a bestselling author. She is an expert in cognitive psychology and co-founded the non-profit Ante Up for Africa in 2007 to benefit charities working in African nations. Her recent book, How To Decide, details how to be a more confident decis... |
| 2021-Feb-19 • 3 minutes Face What’s In Front of You First “It’s a tempting cognitive bias but ultimately a paralyzing one. Worse, it is often complicit in very preventable evil.” Ryan discusses why you need to concentrate on the present moment, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signup ... |
| 2021-Feb-18 • 7 minutes You’re Not As Beloved As You Think | Prepare For The Storm “It’s easy to let self-importance set in. Look at the car they sent for you. Look at how big your office is. Look at all the people who report to you. Look at the awards you’ve won. Look at the recognition you’ve gotten. You’re a pillar of your community. You’re the best in your field.” Ryan discusses why we have to protect ourselves from the perils of ego, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is also brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. LinkedIn Jobs is t... |
| 2021-Feb-17 • 3 minutes There Are Going To Be These Kinds Of People In The World “When Barbara Bush died, a college professor in California decided to go on a tweetstorm to insult the newly deceased. For years, the Westboro Baptist Church has outdone themselves with offensive protests, including, in some cases, at the funerals of veterans. Trump mocked a disabled reporter. Give your neighbors a few posts on Nextdoor.com and you’ll quickly find that they’ve been harboring some dark thoughts they’ve been apparently dying to share.” Ryan explains that there will always be selfish, arrogan... |
| 2021-Feb-17 • 58 minutes James Clear On Getting 1% Better Every Day Ryan talks with author James Clear about practical ways to shift your internal narrative, how to begin and maintain productive habitual action, being flexible with your goals as you set and achieve them, and more. James Clear is the author of the New York Times Bestseller, Atomic Habits, as well as a world-renowned speaker. His weekly 3-2-1 Newsletter has over 1,000,000 subscribers and is sent out every Thursday. Building success day by day is just one of the many things you can do with an effective, ef... |
| 2021-Feb-16 • 4 minutes We Are Chosen For Things “It’s one of the most incredible stories in all of history. A young boy, out of nowhere, is chosen to be the emperor of most of the known world.” Ryan details one of history’s greatest fables, and launches the pre-order for his newest book, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Pre-order The Boy Who Would Be King, our newest release at Daily Stoic, written by Ryan Holiday in the depths of the pandemic (not unlike the one Marcus ruled through), this new beautifully crafted book is available for preorder now. A... |
| 2021-Feb-15 • 9 minutes It’s Easy To Forget This… But You Can’t. | Watch Over Your Perceptions “You have so much to do. So much going on. There are only so many rolls of toilet paper left at the store. Only so many jobs available. Only so many kids who get accepted to the Ivy League, only so many spots on the bestseller list. So you fight. You claw. You might even kill to get what you want. What choice do you have?” Ryan explains why life is not a zero-sum game, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is brought to you by Beekeeper... |
| 2021-Feb-14 • 31 minutes Seneca on the Shortness of Life - Part 2 Today’s episode features another section from James Romm’s How to Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life. How To Die is a modern translation and collection of Seneca’s musings on the shortness of life. James Romm is an author and professor of classics at Bard College in Annandale, NY. His specialty is in ancient Greek and Roman culture and civilization. His work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the London Review of Books, the Daily Beast, and more. This episode is also brought to you by Ladder,... |
| 2021-Feb-13 • 71 minutes Tamler Sommers On the Urgency of Honor On today’s podcast, Ryan talks to professor Tamler Sommers about the obligation to spread philosophy in the modern age, the timeless dilemma of monetizing philosophy, the critical distinction between pride and honor, and more. Tamler Sommers is a professor of philosophy at the University of Houston. He has written several books, including 2018’s Why Honor Matters. He is the co-host of the philosophy and science podcast Very Bad Wizards. This episode is brought to you by LMNT, the maker of electrolyte dri... |
| 2021-Feb-12 • 4 minutes Here’s Where You’ll Find True Beauty “As we’ve discussed before, John Adams was one of those people whose racing mind gave them little rest. He was always doing, doing, doing and more dangerously, always thinking, thinking, thinking. His friends saw the pain this caused him and he saw it himself. As he said many times, all he wanted was “tranquility of mind”—stillness—but it was elusive.” Ryan describes the beauty that surrounds us, and why it is the height of brilliance, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcas... |
| 2021-Feb-11 • 6 minutes You Just Keep Going | Hero or Nero “It has been a series of body blows, hasn’t it? The economy. Politics. Our health. Maybe you lost your job. Maybe you’ve lost your hope. All of us are concerned. Each of us is unsure of lays in the future, and what kind of shape we’ll be in when it comes.” Ryan discusses the Stoic’s formula for endurance, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is brought to you by Beekeeper’s Naturals, the company that’s reinventing your medicine with clean, effective pr... |
| 2021-Feb-10 • 4 minutes What Did the Stoics Think About Politics? “Some of you are mad before you’ve even read this email. Relax. The Stoics lived 2,000 years ago. They had little in the way of policy beliefs that are relevant to us today.” Ryan discusses the Stoic’s obligation to being political, and why they must demand virtue from their leaders, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest i... |
| 2021-Feb-10 • 62 minutes Amelia Boone On Excellence and Endurance Ryan speaks to champion obstacle racer and attorney Amelia Boone about the absence of clear communication during the pandemic, creating structure and balance for success in multiple careers, how Stoicism offers tools to deal with our emotions, and more.Amelia Boone is a 4x world champion obstacle racer as well as a full-time practicing attorney. She is one of the most decorated obstacle racers in history and has been written about in the Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, and ESPN. This episode is bro... |
| 2021-Feb-09 • 3 minutes No, The World Is Not Conspiring Against You “Sometimes it can feel like you’re surrounded by small-minded idiots. Especially when you’re trying to do something new, important, or good. All of a sudden, you’re dealing with insane red tape, incompetence, or worse, vehement protest from people who plain don’t know what they’re talking about.” Ryan explains why we should focus our energy on being better, not on other peoples flaws, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podc... |
| 2021-Feb-08 • 8 minutes There Is Nothing Beneath the Philosopher | Suspend Your Opinions “We get it. You’ve worked hard. You’re a good person. You respect yourself. That’s why you’re frustrated to be in this job beneath your talents. It’s why you don’t like that your ideas aren’t getting their due. It’s why you hate wasting your time on all this low-level crap.”Ryan explains why a Stoic excels in everything that they do, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast.This episode is also brought to you by Public Goods, the one stop shop for sustain... |
| 2021-Feb-07 • 11 minutes How To Use Stoicism To Control Your Anger Anger is antithetical to Stoicism, so naturally, the Stoics had methods of dealing with it. In this video, Ryan Holiday walks us through the various tools Marcus Aurelius used to avoid anger. If you'd like to learn more, go to https://dailystoic.com/anger This episode is brought to you by LMNT, the maker of electrolyte drink mixes that help you stay active at home, work, the gym, or anywhere else. Electrolytes are a key part of a happy, healthy body. Right now you can receive a free LMNT Sample Pack for on... |
| 2021-Feb-06 • 63 minutes Jonathan Church On Terminal Cancer and Making Peace with Fate On today’s episode, Ryan speaks to author and economist Jonathan Church about his brain cancer diagnosis, coming to terms with mortality through philosophy, the origin and nature of microaggressions, his new book, Reinventing Racism, and more. Jonathan Church is an economist and writer with degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University, who became a CFA charter holder in 2014. He has also published poems, a short story, and several papers in economics, which can be found at www.jonathan... |
| 2021-Feb-05 • 2 minutes Is This What You Spend Your Life For? “Early on in Address Unknown, a haunting novel about the rise of fascism in Germany in the 1930s, two German entrepreneurs write to each other with much affection about their business success. One line, written from the entrepreneur Max to his friend Martin, stops us cold in the way that truth, rendered in fiction, occasionally can.” Ryan discusses the cost of the things and experiences that we chase after, and why we must spend our time wisely, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this wee... |
| 2021-Feb-04 • 7 minutes You Don’t Have To Do This Anymore | On Being Invincible “In one of the most vulnerable scenes in the Taylor Swift documentary on Netflix, Swift talks about how she feels while looking at a paparazzi photo of herself. Her lifelong habit she says, is to see what’s wrong with her appearance, to instinctively see that she needs to lose weight, to start monitoring what she eats more closely, quite possibly to stop eating all together.” Ryan discusses the process of identifying and rooting out problems in our lives, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on to... |
| 2021-Feb-03 • 2 minutes The Highway Don’t Care “It doesn’t matter that you’re a safe driver. Or that you’ve always paid your taxes. It doesn’t matter how hard you’ve worked for this. Or that you volunteer with poor blind kids after school.” Ryan discusses the odds that we are all up against and how indifferent they are to our lives, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can inves... |
| 2021-Feb-03 • 63 minutes Bryan Doerries On the Power of Greek Tragedy and Seneca’s Plays On today’s episode, Ryan speaks to writer Bryan Doerries about his work in familiarizing service members and veterans with ancient Greek plays, the military history of Greek playwrights, how the performance of theatre can be a useful tool for healing, and more. Bryan Doerries is the founder of Theater of War, a project that presents readings of ancient Greek plays to service members, veterans, and their families. He has written several books including The Theater of War: What Ancient Tragedies Can Teach Us... |
| 2021-Feb-02 • 3 minutes Things Are Not That Different “We live in the glorious future. Yet somehow it is exactly the same as the past. The scourge of the ancient world: Pirates. Pompey fought them in Cato’s time. Bandits and highwaymen. Countless Romans suffered their depretations. Epictetus had his house broken into by one. Plagues. Marcus Aurelius lived through a decade and a half of one, likely dying of it himself.” Ryan explains why there is nothing new under the sun, and why we should be prepared for the same trials that have come before us, on today’s D... |
| 2021-Feb-01 • 9 minutes This Is How a Wise Man Responds to Triggers | Focus On the Present Moment “There’s a story in the Talmud about a man betting his friend four hundred zuzim that he couldn’t provoke the famous rabbi Hillel into anger. The friend accepted the wager and settled on an ingenious and failproof strategy for pissing someone off: Asking really, really dumb questions.” Ryan discusses the practice and humility that it takes to control your temper, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens... |
| 2021-Jan-31 • 29 minutes Seneca On the Shortness of Life Today’s episode features a section from James Romm’s How to Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life. How To Die is a modern translation and collection of Seneca’s musings on the shortness of life. James Romm is an author and professor of classics at Bard College in Annandale, NY. His specialty is in ancient Greek and Roman culture and civilization. His work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the London Review of Books, the Daily Beast, and more. This episode is brought to you by LMNT, the maker of... |
| 2021-Jan-30 • 79 minutes James Frey on Turning Chaos Into Success Ryan Speaks to writer and businessman James Frey about the challenges of being isolated during the pandemic, the philosophy behind his sobriety, the painful discovery of human flaws in your heroes, and more. James Frey is the author of several bestselling books including A Million Little Pieces, My Friend Leonard, and his most recent, Katerina. He is also the founder and CEO of the transmedia production company, Full Fathom Five. This episode is brought to you by Ladder, a painless way to get the life in... |
| 2021-Jan-29 • 3 minutes Practice Makes You Prepared “In 2017, the New England Patriots were down 28-3 to the Atlanta Falcons in the third quarter of the Super Bowl. It had not been a good game. Fans had already begun to write the Patriots off. Announcers had serious doubts as to whether a comeback was possible. But somehow, against all odds, the Patriots would come back to win that game in one of the greatest victories in all of sports.” Ryan discusses the incredible feat accomplished by the Patriots in Super Bowl LI, and why we should be prepared for whate... |
| 2021-Jan-28 • 6 minutes Can You Forgive Them? | Watching the Wise “They hurt you, your parents. Everyone’s did. Some in big ways, some in small ways. It’s just a fact. As the poet Philip Larkin wrote, ‘They f**k you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had and add some extra, just for you.’” Ryan discusses the universal damage that parents do to their kids, why we should do our best to forgive them, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is brought to you by LMNT, ... |
| 2021-Jan-27 • 3 minutes It’s A Series Of High Water Marks “There’s a beautiful scene in Hunter S. Thompson’s dark memoir, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He talks about how just outside Las Vegas, in the shadow of the lights of the strip and the noise of the casinos, it’s possible to just barely discern the high water mark of the idealism of the 60s, which had by then, given way to the indulgences and selfishness of the 70s.” Ryan discusses how we can look at history as a constancy of peaks and valleys, and how we can use this perspective to guide the present, on... |
| 2021-Jan-27 • 67 minutes David Roll on What We Can Learn from General George Marshall On today’s podcast, Ryan and historian David Roll discuss his most recent book George Marshall: Defender of the Republic, the most magnificent moment in American history, the moral obligation to remove confederate statues, and more. David Roll is the author of several books and is the founder of the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation, an organization that provides free legal services to social entrepreneurs around the world. This episode is brought to you by LMNT, the maker of electrolyte drink mixes that hel... |
| 2021-Jan-26 • 3 minutes Not No Emotions, No Useless Emotions “Stoicism, as we have said, is not the elimination of all emotion. It’s the regulation of them. Effectively, as Nassim Taleb has said, it’s the domestication of your urges and impulses and knee-jerk reactions.” Ryan explains that the goal of a Stoic is to react with their ruling reason, not to stuff their emotions down into a dark hole, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more ... |
| 2021-Jan-25 • 8 minutes The Present Moment Is All You’ve Got | A Little Better Every Day “There’s a lot going on in your life. Good for you. It’s a sign of success. It’s also a burden, a source of stress. You’ve got projects wrapping up. You’ve got projects starting soon. You’ve got a long to-do list, a lot to look forward to, a lot to worry about.” Ryan discusses how concentrating on the moment you are in can help you overcome stress and anxiety, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is also brought to you by Literati Kids... |
| 2021-Jan-24 • 13 minutes How the Stoics Can Make You A Better Leader The Stoics have many lessons to share about leadership. From Marcus Aurelius' reflections on his rule as the Emperor of Rome, to Epictetus' experiences as a slave, the Stoics are uniquely positioned to discuss leadership and how to approach it. On today’s podcast, Ryan discusses the Stoic principles that can improve your role as a leader, no matter what you do. This episode is brought to you by GiveWell, the best site for figuring out how and where to donate your money to have the greatest impact. GiveWell... |
| 2021-Jan-23 • 74 minutes Susan Straight on the Power of Story Ryan speaks to professor and author Susan Straight about their first encounter at the University of California, Riverside, finding joy in the private process of writing, how specific books can change your life, and more. Susan Straight is a professor of creative writing and part of the MFA faculty at the University of California, Riverside, as well as an award-winning author. Her newest book, In the Country of Women, is a memoir based on the people of California and stories from the women in her family. ... |
| 2021-Jan-22 • 3 minutes There Are Only Hard Decisions “Wouldn’t it be nice if everything was simple and straightforward? That’s what we’d like to think the job of a leader is. You become president—or emperor—and now that you’re in charge, things can finally be cleaned up. Just bring me the decisions, you think, and I’ll do a much better job than those fools who came before me.” Ryan explains why we have to be prepared to make difficult decisions on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Ap... |
| 2021-Jan-21 • 6 minutes You Get Bad Breaks… and Good Ones | A Morning Ritual “In the year 41 CE, Seneca was banished by the emperor Claudius for supposedly sleeping with Julia Livilla, the sister of Caligula. We don’t know if he was completely innocent of the accusation, but we do know that the incident was hardly an exemplar of justice. The historian Suetonius tells us that Seneca’s ‘charge was vague and the accused was given no opportunity to defend himself.’” Ryan explains how Seneca’s fortune lead him to great depths and great heights, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the d... |
| 2021-Jan-20 • 75 minutes Mike Duncan On Using the Past to Guide the Future On today’s podcast, Ryan speaks to author and historian Mike Duncan (History of Rome podcast) about his incredibly important book, The Storm Before The Storm, and what Roman history can tell us about current events. Mike Duncan is an author, historian and host of the award-winning podcast series, The History of Rome, which has been downloaded more than 100 million times. His ongoing podcast series, Revolutions, explores history’s greatest political revolutions This episode is brought to you by Ladder, a... |
| 2021-Jan-20 • 2 minutes All The Rest Is Commentary “It’s a famous story, one we’ve told before. Hillel was asked to explain the Torah. ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself,’ he said. ‘All the rest is commentary.’” Ryan discusses why the fundamental concepts of philosophy are all that matter, and why you should embody them, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it... |
| 2021-Jan-19 • 2 minutes Wake Up, You’re Fever Dreaming “You want it. You want it badly. The promotion. To win that higher office. To get called up. To buy that house. To sleep with that person. To have just one free punch at you-know-who. You want it more than anything and, by god, you’re going to get it. You’re working. You’re scheming. You’re… obsessed. Honestly, what you’re in is a fever dream—a delusion of drive and lust and want. ” Ryan explains the cost of striving for pleasure, and how it will crumble before your eyes, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *... |
| 2021-Jan-18 • 8 minutes You Are Dying Every Day | The Wake Up “It’s easy to see death as this thing that lies off in the distant future. Even those of us who choose not to live in denial of our mortality can be guilty of this. We think of dying as an event that happens to us. It’s stationary—whatever date it will happen at—and we’re moving towards it, slowly or quickly, depending on our age and health.” Ryan reminds us of the power that can be found in remembering our mortality, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Pod... |
| 2021-Jan-17 • 19 minutes Stoicism's Simple Secret To Being Happier On today’s podcast, Ryan discusses how he has used Stoic principles to find happiness and stillness in the modern world. Stoicism is a practical philosophy and one of the fundamental tenets is that if you want to be happy, you have to flip the script. You can't try to meet your desires, instead, you should limit them. This episode is brought to you by Manly Bands, the best damn wedding rings period. Freedom for your hand to look like you want it to look. Whether you’re looking for men’s wedding rings or e... |
| 2021-Jan-16 • 61 minutes Cal Newport On the Art of Time Blocking On today’s podcast, Ryan talks to “Deep Work” author and computer scientist Cal Newport about his new Time-Block Planner, the logistics of writing a good book, what life after COVID will look like, and more. Cal Newport is an associate professor of computer science at Georgetown University and the author of 6 books including his most recent, Digital Minimalism, which was a New York Times bestseller. He is also the host of the Deep Questions podcast which launched in May 2020. This episode is brought to ... |
| 2021-Jan-15 • 3 minutes You Still Have Time Pt II “We talked a while back about one of the most inspiring lessons of Seneca’s life—that’s it’s not too late for anyone. This was a man who lost his twenties to illness, lost close to a decade of his life to exile, and then in old age was forced into a painful retirement which he turned into one of the most productive writing sprints of his life.” Find hope for healing your past in the story of Seneca and a poem from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s ... |
| 2021-Jan-14 • 7 minutes Don’t Just Settle For a Shortcut, Do The Work | Peace Is In Staying the Course “When things are scary, when we’re overwhelmed, when we’re struggling, it’s tempting to look for a shortcut, for a pill that makes you feel better, for a TV show that helps you turn off your brain. Nothing makes that clearer than the last couple years of alarmingly destabilizing global events. People have turned to all sorts of magical solutions to get through these dark days, from meditation to self-help gurus to sending countless tweets and petitions off into cyberspace.” Ryan discusses how to find freed... |
| 2021-Jan-13 • 3 minutes You Are Not Too Busy To Read “We get it. You’re busy. You have kids. You have a job—maybe two. You have these things you are trying to accomplish. You have to get to the gym. You have a long commute. You have all these projects around the house.” Discover the vitality of reading and how historical leaders carved out time to make it a priority, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the p... |
| 2021-Jan-13 • 54 minutes Economist Emily Oster On Rationality and Risk On today’s episode, Ryan has a wide-ranging conversation with professor and economist Emily Oster. They talk about how to balance your life with children, how to communicate positive messaging, how the American government handled the pandemic, and more. Emily Oster is a professor of economics at Brown University, as well as the bestselling author of several books. Her most recent book, Cribsheet, aims to help improve decision making during the early years of parenting. This episode is brought to you by Gi... |
| 2021-Jan-12 • 4 minutes There Is No Reason Not To Follow Your Heart “Steve Jobs was more interested in Buddhism than he was Stoicism. He may not have been, at least according to biographies, a particularly good person. But he was still a person, one whose perspective on life was shaped in interesting ways and utterly changed after his first brush with cancer in 2003.” Learn how the Stoic concept of memento mori marked a turning point in Steve Job’s life, and why you too should meditate on mortality, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, ... |
| 2021-Jan-11 • 10 minutes What If This Made You Stronger? | The Sphere of Choice “It wouldn’t be wonderful if it weren’t true. But it is: “Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way,” the philosopher and Nobel Prize winner Albert Schweitzer said, “but must accept his lot calmly if they even roll a few more upon it.” Ryan explains the timeless art of turning trials into triumph, and reads this week's meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a revi... |
| 2021-Jan-10 • 13 minutes The Incredible Stoicism of James Stockdale: Prisoner At War “On September 9, 1965, Admiral James Stockdale’s A-4 Skyhawk jet was shot down in Vietnam. He was taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese and spent the next seven years being tortured and subjected to unimaginable loneliness and terror. Fortunately, three years earlier, he was recommended a book. That book, he says, saved his life.” Find out how Stoicism helped James Stockdale face unimaginable adversity, on today’s podcast. Today’s episode is brought to you by Thuma. Thuma has spent thousands of hours mak... |
| 2021-Jan-09 • 59 minutes Historian Thomas Ricks on Stoicism and the Founders Ryan speaks with author and journalist Thomas Ricks about his new book, First Principles, the importance of looking back at the virtues and principles embodied by the founding fathers of America, how our current political atmosphere unraveled, and more. Thomas Ricks is an American journalist and author who has won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting multiple times. He is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq and A Soldier's Duty. This episode ... |
| 2021-Jan-08 • 3 minutes Here’s What You Can Do With Those Long Odds “To face long odds, to face what others call an “impossibility”—some people can handle this and some people can’t. Think of the chances that Epictetus faced, when the life expectancy for a wealthy person in Rome was only a few decades, but for a slave was abysmally lower. Think of Cato, trying to stand alone against Caesar. Think of the odds faced by Marcus to not be corrupted and destroyed by absolute power. Think of Washington as he and a ragtag militia stared down the greatest army and empire in the worl... |
| 2021-Jan-07 • 3 minutes You Can Find Peace “There’s a chapter in Epictetus’ Discourses entirely about forlornness (or solitude, depending on the translation), the state where one feels miserably and helplessly lonely. His aim is to make a careful distinction. Lonely and alone are not synonymous. One can be alone, in their own company, and feel entirely connected and at peace with the world, just as one can be in a crowd and feel miserably lonely. Similarly, Epictetus adds, the world can be at war while one is at peace, just as the world can be at pe... |
| 2021-Jan-06 • 3 minutes What This Philosophy Is Here For “You’ve got problems. We all do. Maybe you’re having a difficult time in your relationship. Or work has worn you down. Or you’re trying to figure out what to do with your life. Maybe the pandemic has shaken you to your foundation and you’re still reeling from the blow. Or things have gone exceedingly well and now you’re overwhelmed by opportunities you never thought possible. Or you’re stuck, or you’re lacking motivation, or you’re terrified by all the uncertainties facing the world as we enter this new dec... |
| 2021-Jan-06 • 87 minutes Jay Shetty On How to Think Like a Monk On today’s podcast Ryan talks to influencer and author Jay Shetty about his former life as a monk, finding stillness in the modern world, and focusing on the process rather than the outcome. Jay Shetty is a British author and influencer with a mission to make wisdom go viral. His videos have reached over 4 billion viewers and he has a combined 20 million followers on social media. He is the host of the On Purpose podcast and released his bestselling book, Think Like a Monk, in September 2020. This episod... |
| 2021-Jan-05 • 3 minutes It’s About Infusing It Into Your DNA “Marcus Aurelius read Epictetus… a lot. We know this because Meditations is proof of it. Almost every page has some direct quote or allusion to Epictetus. We also find, upon deeper inspection, references to the works of Panaetius, Chrysippus, the plays of Euripides, Zeno and countless other philosophers.” Ryan explains the importance of lingering on great work so that it becomes a part of you, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Great news! The Daily Stoic is $1.99 as an ebook right now (UK discounted too)! ... |
| 2021-Jan-04 • 11 minutes What Have You Managed to Get Done? | Whats Up to Us, What's Not Up to Us “It’s been a strange year, hasn’t it? Our days have been disrupted. Our lifestyles changed. Plans have been put on pause. Whole projects made impossible. In one sense, this pandemic has been totally unprecedented. But in another sense, isn’t it all too common? We find ourselves laid up with a broken leg. We have to spend two months away from home, cleaning up a mess in the West Coast office. We get posted overseas with little notice. We get laid off. We get exiled, as Seneca did, or we find ourselves locked... |
| 2021-Jan-03 • 17 minutes Who was Marcus Aurelius? The Life Of The Stoic Emperor Marcus’s "Meditations" is perhaps the only document of its kind ever made. It is the private thoughts of the world’s most powerful man giving advice to himself on how to make good on the responsibilities and obligations of his positions. On today’s podcast, Ryan talks about the man behind "Meditations," who he was, what his life was like, and how he applied Stoicism in it. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. LinkedIn Jobs is the best platform for finding the right candidate to join your busine... |
| 2021-Jan-02 • 65 minutes Shaka Smart, Buzz Williams, Manu Ginóbili, Pau Gasol, Dominique Dawes, and Danica Patrick On Sports and Stoicism Today’s episode features clips from some of the best interviews about sports in 2020. Ryan talks to Shaka Smart, Buzz Williams, Manu Ginóbili, Pau Gasol, Dominique Dawes, and Danica Patrick about finding balance between greatness and happiness, what it takes to become elite, the philosophical principles behind sports, and much more. This episode is brought to you by GiveWell, the best site for figuring out how and where to donate your money to have the greatest impact. GiveWell’s team of researchers works ... |
| 2021-Jan-01 • 3 minutes Things Are Won at the Beginning “Here we are at the beginning of a new year. On the one hand, today is just a day, no different than any other. Yet there is also something special about today because we are starting the year 2021. And as the expression goes, well begun is half done. In fact, the Stoics would express it a little differently, because to them, the beginning was the only thing that was up to us. As the philosopher Democritus said, ‘Boldness is the beginning of action. But fortune controls how it ends.’” Ryan kickstarts the n... |
| 2020-Dec-31 • 3 minutes Now Is the Time “We all have vices. We all have flaws. We all have things we know we want to change. What happens? Nothing happens. This is true for everyone, even Martin Luther King. ‘One day,’ King said that we tell ourselves, ‘I’m going to rise up and drive this evil out. I know it is wrong. It is destroying my character and embarrassing my family.’” Ryan brings the year to a close, and discusses why you must get started now and quit delaying, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. We created the New Year, New You Challenge ... |
| 2020-Dec-30 • 3 minutes This We Must Avoid “When he was young, Seneca experimented with vegetarianism. It was a fad at the time—considered a transgressive but trendy idea from the philosopher Pythagoras. Then, soon enough, he abandoned it, forgetting quite quickly the thing he’d been so passionate about that he was willing to risk his life for (that’s how transgressive Rome perceived Pythagoras’ teachings).” Ryan discusses why timeless wisdom will always conquer fleeting trends, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Just 24 hours left to join us in our ... |
| 2020-Dec-30 • 67 minutes Jessica Lahey, Angel Parham, Brett McKay, and Dr. Harvey Karp On Parenting and Stoicism Today’s episode features clips from some of the best interviews about parenting in 2020. Ryan talks to Jessica Lahey, Angel Parham, Brett McKay, and Dr. Harvey Karp about letting your kids fail, reading the classics to them, teaching them hope and decency, and how to approach parenting from a Stoic perspective. This episode is also brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. LinkedIn Jobs is the best platform for finding the right candidate to join your business this fall. It’s the largest marketplace for job seekers... |
| 2020-Dec-29 • 4 minutes How Much Longer Are You Going To Wait? “We all know professional procrastinators. You know, those people who constantly put stuff off. Who always have some new plan in the works to improve their health, their finances, their work, their friendships, their relationships. I’m ready to start eating better, they say… after the holidays. I’m ready to settle down… soon. I’m ready for my next big project… I just have to do something else first.” Ryan explains why you can’t wait to become better, you have to take action now, on today’s Daily Stoic Podc... |
| 2020-Dec-28 • 11 minutes You Can’t Freeze Up | Turn Words Into Works “Where this goes and what will happen is impossible to ascertain. The only certainty over the next few months and possibly years is uncertainty. But there is one thing you can bet on for sure: There will be a lot of decisions to make. A lot of things to do. It’s going to be essential that you don’t freeze up. You cannot become paralyzed. It is the surest way to defeat and failure.” Ryan discusses the importance of facing what life brings you with courage, and reads this week's meditation from The Daily Sto... |
| 2020-Dec-27 • 15 minutes These 3 Books Changed My Life Completely On today’s episode, Ryan discusses the 3 books that completely changed his life. Listen to find out what books had such a great impact on Ryan’s thinking, and why re-reading important books can give you new insights. This episode is also brought to you by HelloFresh, the meal-kit subscription that gets you healthy and delicious home-cooked meals, right to your doorstep. HelloFresh sends you meal kits in a way that fits in with your schedule and dietary preferences. Meals are seasonal and delicious, and sav... |
| 2020-Dec-26 • 61 minutes Matthew McConaughey, Pete Holmes, Martellus Bennett, and George Raveling on How to Be a Modern Leader Today’s episode features clips from some of the best interviews in 2020. Ryan talks to Matthew McConaughey, Pete Holmes, Martellus Bennett, and George Raveling about focusing on what’s in your control, finding growth in suffering, the Stoic virtue of justice, and why all leaders are readers. This episode is brought to you by GiveWell, the best site for figuring out how and where to donate your money to have the greatest impact. GiveWell’s team of researchers works countless hours to determine which chariti... |
| 2020-Dec-25 • 5 minutes This is the Tradition We Hail From “2,000 years ago today there was a woman who went into labor in a province of the Roman Empire, she couldn't find shelter, she was young, and she was scared. 150 years ago soldiers fighting to preserve the Union and to free their fellow man, found a way to celebrate Christmas in forts and trenches dividing a sundered Nation. Almost a century ago in the worst part of the Great Depression, parents around the world did what they could to cobble together gifts and a dinner for their hungry and exhausted familie... |
| 2020-Dec-24 • 3 minutes What Matters is the Response “It was a dark day exactly 244 years ago. Christmas was here, at one of of the darkest times in the American Revolution. George Washington was planning to cross the Delaware, a desperate move necessitated by a string of setbacks and ebbing support for the revolution across his struggling country.” Learn about how George Washington applied Stoic principles to help guide the Continental Army to victory, and why we should focus on what we are going to do next, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. We created the Ne... |
| 2020-Dec-23 • 67 minutes Cal Newport, Jocko Willink, Tim Ferriss, and Robert Greene on Life During a Pandemic Today’s episode features clips from some of the best interviews in 2020. Ryan talks to Cal Newport, Jocko Willink, Tim Ferriss, and Robert Greene about time management, daily routines, how to deal with fear, and facing the truth. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Music. one of the things that makes this time of year truly wonderful is the music—and my family’s getting its holiday music fix thanks to Amazon Music. Whether it’s the Charlie Brown Christmas album or Mariah Carey, Amazon Music has somet... |
| 2020-Dec-23 • 3 minutes Always Give Credit to Something Greater “It’s almost a cliché at this point. A reporter walks into the locker room of a victorious team and gets some version of the following quotes from the athlete who has pulled it off: ‘It was a team effort.’ ‘We worked hard and got lucky out there.’ ‘I trusted in God and did my best.’” Ryan discusses the importance of cultivating humility, and keeping your ego at bay, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with... |
| 2020-Dec-22 • 4 minutes If You Want to Look Better, Do This “Epictetus said that the root of beauty was beautiful choices. He was talking less of physical beauty, one imagines, than of true beautiful human behavior, but actually, it applies to both. A stunning woman whose looks are the result of her vanity and self-obsession will be rather unattractive when you get to know her. A man with strapping muscles acquired through steroids and a neglect of all other concerns is not really that impressive.” Ryan explains why the intentions behind the choices you make matter... |
| 2020-Dec-21 • 11 minutes You Have To Be Ready | Stake Your Claim “In his 91st Letter, Seneca tells Lucilius about his friend Liberalis who is “in some distress at the present moment following the news of the complete destruction of Lyons by fire.” It was a terrible, savage tragedy that calls to mind the images we see on the news all over the world on a day-to-day basis.” Ryan explains the importance of being prepared and seizing the present moment, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is brought to ... |
| 2020-Dec-20 • 15 minutes 5 More of the Most Stoic Moments in History On today’s episode, Ryan discusses 5 of the most Stoic moments in history with examples from Agrippinus, Steve Scott, Kerri Strugg, Frederick Douglass, and Epictetus. Today’s episode is also brought to you by Thuma. Thuma has spent thousands of hours making the perfect platform bed frame, called The Bed. The Bed by Thuma is super supportive of your mattress, breathes well, and is built to naturally minimize noise. Thuma ships your bed frame right to your door, and it takes five minutes to assemble, no tool... |
| 2020-Dec-19 • 67 minutes The National’s Matt Berninger On Ego, Collaboration, and Slowing Down On today’s podcast, Ryan talks to the lead singer of indie rock band The National about the false glamour of the rock n’ roll lifestyle, staying creative during the pandemic, and how he has sustained a successful career in the music industry. After quitting a career in advertising in his thirties, Berninger went on to form The National in 1999. The band has released several critically acclaimed albums, including Boxer and the Grammy-nominated Trouble Will Find Me. In October he released his debut solo albu... |
| 2020-Dec-18 • 3 minutes The Better You Get, The Less You Care… “Whether it’s a great athlete or a great comedian, the truth is the same. The better they get, the less they care about results. That’s not to say they don’t care about winning, or about success—of course they do—it’s that the longer you do something, the closer you get to mastery, the less external results matter in terms of measuring progress.” Ryan discusses why you should strive to measure progress internally, rather than externally, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podc... |
| 2020-Dec-17 • 4 minutes We Are All In This Together “One of the strangest pejoratives that has come up in this new divisive political era is the idea of calling someone a “globalist.” It’s particularly popular in far right circles. If someone believes in NATO, if someone can see the obvious self-interest that the United States has in basing troops on the Korean Peninsula, or if they like doing trade deals with other countries, then they are clearly a World Bank-loving globalist who is betraying their own country in favor of some traitorous preference for eve... |
| 2020-Dec-16 • 52 minutes UFC Fighter Michelle Waterson On Training the Mind and the Body On today’s podcast, Ryan talks to champion MMA fighter Michelle Waterson about the philosophy of being a mother, a business owner, and a world renowned fighter. Known as “The Karate Hottie”, Waterson made her fighting debut in 2007 and is the former Invicta FC Atomweight Champion. In 2013 she joined the UFC and was later ranked the #1 women’s atom weight fighter in the world. She is currently ranked #7 in the Women’s Strawweight Division. This episode is brought to you by Trends. Trends is the ultimate on... |
| 2020-Dec-16 • 3 minutes This Is What You Have Been Working For “A quarterback can spend thousands of hours in the gym, watching footage, and working on their throwing accuracy. But ultimately, what matters is what they do on Sunday. What matters is what they do in the 4th quarter. Surgeons can study pre-med, go to med school, spend years in residency, and read every scientific journal ever published. But ultimately, what matters is whether they can perform in the operating room. A musician can practice chords, study the greats, work with the best instructor, master eve... |
| 2020-Dec-15 • 4 minutes You Have to Be Willing to Change “We’ve been this way for a while. We are set in our ways. We’ve always had a short fuse. We’ve always been sad about our childhood. We’ve always had trouble with our eating. We’ve never been much good at being faithful. Maybe you’ve had a mean streak. Maybe you’re too timid. Maybe you don’t like to try very hard. Maybe you don’t think you’re good enough. How’s that working out for you? Why keep going down a road that leads nowhere?” Ryan describes why you must always be getting better and launches Daily St... |
| 2020-Dec-14 • 9 minutes Yes, This is Unfair, Yet... | Keep the Rhythm "You didn’t cause the pandemic. You might have even been one of the people who was vocal about the dangers early on. Perhaps you didn’t vote for the leaders—worldwide—who have so failed us in preventing it or protecting us. Yet here you are, stuck dealing with the fallout." Ryan explains the importance of doing what is right, even when faced with unfair circumstances, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN, the #1 worldwide VPN. ExpressVPN has super-fast connection... |
| 2020-Dec-13 • 45 minutes Death and the View From Above — An Excerpt from Don Robertson’s “How to Think Like a Roman Emperor” On today’s episode, Ryan features another clip from the audiobook of Donald Robertson’s 2019 book How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, published by Macmillan Audio, and available wherever book and audios are sold. This chapter focuses on the last days of Marcus Aurelius, and what lessons they hold for all of us. For more from Ryan and Donald, check out their appearance on Daily Stoic’s podcast from August, when they discussed the history behind Stoicism, the Antonine Plague, and more. Donald Robertson is a ... |
| 2020-Dec-12 • 74 minutes Ramit Sethi on How to Live the Rich Life On today’s podcast, Ryan talks to his longtime friend, author and financial expert Ramit Sethi. From backbreaking summer jobs in Sacramento to financial success and acclaim, Ryan and Ramit have walked a similar path—hear them talk about what they’ve learned from those shared experiences. Ramit Sethi is a bestselling author and expert on how to use money to live the richest life. His first book, I Will Teach You to Be Rich, along with his courses and advice, has taught thousands of people how to avoid pitfa... |
| 2020-Dec-11 • 4 minutes A Leader Must Be a Reader "A leader will be forced into countless situations that they have never been in before. Trying, painful, stressful, baffling dilemmas and difficulties unlike any they have known. Nothing could have prepared Kennedy for the Cuban Missile Crisis, but it’s a good thing he had read B. H. Liddell Hart a few years before—it was Hart’s wisdom that helped Kennedy rationally and calmly deal with that unprecedented moment. Nothing could have prepared Churchill for the outbreak of WWII… except of course, the decades h... |
| 2020-Dec-10 • 4 minutes Greatness Should Be Put Up For Display "Go stand in front of the Jefferson Monument in D.C. on an early morning, watch the sun rise through the columns and shining on those words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…” and try not to feel anything. Go stand in front of the Marcus Aurelius statue in Rome (or the replica at Brown University) and not feel as if you are a little bit ... |
| 2020-Dec-09 • 3 minutes This Is the Power You Have "Life is hard. We face insurmountable odds with so many problems. We get bad news. We mess up. We find out that what we wanted—what we deserve, what is fair—is just not in the cards for us. Think about Pete Frates. In his late 20s, he was hit by a pitch in an amateur league baseball game. At the doctor, shortly thereafter, it was discovered that he had ALS. Talk about “crying, stung by bee.” A sports injury uncovered a terminal diagnosis." Find out what Frates did in response to his diagnosis, and how yo... |
| 2020-Dec-09 • 72 minutes Author Connor Towne O’Neill On the Battle to Shape History On today’s episode, Ryan talks to a fellow Southern transplant, writer Conor Towne O’Neill. They nerd out over their mutual fascination with the ghosts of American history that linger in the South, and how their presence looms in the Confederate monuments that even now, unconscionably, still stand on American soil. Connor Towne O’Neill is an author and journalist based in Alabama. His new book, Down Along with That Devil's Bones: A Reckoning with Monuments, Memory, and the Legacy of White Supremacy, follow... |
| 2020-Dec-08 • 4 minutes Each of Us Has a Job to Do "Today, we find ourselves in the teeth of a global pandemic, one with a mortality rate close to the Antonine Plague that killed millions of people during Marcus Aurelius’ reign. Our medical efforts are running behind. Our supply chains are overtaxed. The cowardice and incompetence of many governments (or rather the heads of many governments, since responsibility falls on the leader, whether they accept it or not) has been laid bare. So what do we do?" Ryan explains how we must handle this new, dangerous ... |
| 2020-Dec-07 • 13 minutes How Do You Not See This? | Be Stingy With Time "You consider yourself a programmatic thinker, a political realist, a student of history, a righter of wrongs, a teller of truths. The world is going to hell and you know how to fix it. But maybe you’ve become blind to the way your decisions, your actions, your beliefs are contributing—not to any sort of solution, but rather to the very thing you’re bemoaning. Maybe you’re the problem." Ryan describes why we should be wary of the absolute certainty that we know what is right and wrong, and reads this week'... |
| 2020-Dec-06 • 70 minutes Temporary Madness — An Excerpt from Don Robertson’s “How to Think Like a Roman Emperor” On today’s episode, Ryan features a clip from the audiobook of Donald Robertson’s 2019 book How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, published by Macmillan Audio, and available wherever book and audios are sold. For more from Ryan and Donald, check out their appearance on Daily Stoic’s podcast from August, when they discussed the history behind Stoicism, the Antonine Plague, and more Donald Robertson is a cognitive-behavioral psychotherapist, trainer, and writer. Robertson has been researching Stoicism and apply... |
| 2020-Dec-05 • 74 minutes Pop Star Camila Cabello On Stoicism, Creativity and Success On today’s episode, Ryan talks with Camila Cabello on training your mind to work for you, finding courage and happiness in your career, how she values stillness and the idea of memento mori, and more. Camila Cabello is one of the biggest stars in the music industry today. Cabello’s 2018 debut album, Camila, reached the top of the Billboard 200 chart and was certified platinum. Cabello has billions of streams on digital music platforms and has won multiple awards, including two Latin Grammy Awards, and has ... |
| 2020-Dec-04 • 2 minutes You Think You’re So Powerful "You’re smart. You’re experienced. You’ve made a bunch of money. You have a few prestigious letters before or after your name. You’re a citizen of this country or that one. You’re got an impressive physique. You have a large following. We can start to feel pretty good about ourselves… and then life has a way of reminding us how meaningless these things really are. " Ryan explains how your personal attributes are less important than how you respond to life, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you e... |
| 2020-Dec-03 • 3 minutes Who You Spend Time With Matters "We’d like to think we are above being influenced by others, but of course that’s not true. We are shaped by the people we spend time with, and the examples we observe. Benjamin Hardy has called this the “proximity effect,” and many years ago Jim Rohn famously declared that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with." Ryan discusses why it's so important that you carefully choose who you associate with, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d lo... |
| 2020-Dec-02 • 3 minutes It’s Not If You’re Reading, But WHAT You’re Reading Reading is an indisputable good. How could it not be? It’s hard to criticize anyone who takes the time, in this crazy, busy (and shockingly ignorant) world, to sit and read a book. But if wisdom is our aim, then of course, it’s not that simple. Great readers don’t just think about quantity, they think about quality. Ryan explains how you should measure the quality of your reading on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcast... |
| 2020-Dec-02 • 57 minutes ESPN's Wright Thompson On What Makes Us Great… And Human Ryan speaks with writer Wright Thompson about what drives an author to cover a topic, the similarity between writing and sports, their differing writing processes, and more. Wright Thompson is an author and journalist who covers the intersections of sports and culture. Thompson has written for ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine on topics like auto racing, MMA, bullfighting and more. Thompson wrote The Cost of These Dreams and recently released the New York Times bestselling Pappyland: A Story of Family, Fine B... |
| 2020-Dec-01 • 3 minutes Who Will You Look For? If you look out at the world right now, what you’ll see at first glance is a pretty terrible picture of desperation. Steep market declines. Fear. Panic. Unemployment. People in hospitals. Leaders who have fallen down on the job at every level of government, who actually feel no shame, saying things like, “I don't take responsibility at all.” But if you choose to be a bit more deliberate about how you look, you might see something else—a pretty amazing picture of dedication. Ryan describes why the way you ... |
| 2020-Nov-30 • 8 minutes Look for the Smooth Handle | Balance the Books of Life Daily In 1811, a 68-year-old Thomas Jefferson sat down to try to put down some advice that he could pass along to his 12-year-old granddaughter Cornelia. His advice survives to us as “Canons of Conduct,” 12 rules for living. Ryan discusses the importance of one of Jefferson's rules, and reads over the week's guidance from the Daily Stoic Journal, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. Four Sigmatic is a maker of mushroom coffee, lattes, elixirs, and more. Their drinks ... |
| 2020-Nov-29 • 16 minutes 7 Things the Stoics Can Teach Us in 2020 On today's episode, Ryan discusses 7 lessons we can all learn from the Stoics that are especially pertinent to the trials of 2020. This episode is brought to you by Neuro. Neuro makes mints and gums that help you retain focus and clarity wherever you go. Made with a proprietary blend of caffeine, L-theanine, and other focus-building compounds, Neuro’s products are great for anyone who needs help focusing in these trying times. Try out Neuro’s gums and mints at getneuro.com—and use discount code STOIC at ch... |
| 2020-Nov-28 • 47 minutes Tech Investor Joe Lonsdale On How Philosophy Makes You Better at Business Ryan speaks with entrepreneur and investor Joe Lonsdale about the intersections of business and philosophy, what Cicero means to him, why so many people are relocating to Texas, and more. Joe Lonsdale is a major Silicon Valley tech sector investor. A co-founder of Palantir Technologies, Lonsdale was an early investor in companies including Oculus, Oscar, Illumio, and Orca Bio, and is a partner at 8VC, his venture capital firm. Lonsdale also started the Cicero Institute, a group dedicated to public-private ... |
| 2020-Nov-27 • 5 minutes This Is Our Duty "That nice, warm feeling you have right now? That fullness? From the food you stuffed yourself with, from the wonderful meal you had with your family? It’s important that you realize not everyone is feeling that right now." Ryan explains what we can do to help others who don't have enough to eat this holiday season on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. Donate to the Daily Stoic Feeding America fundraiser: http://dailystoic.com/feed *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on... |
| 2020-Nov-26 • 5 minutes Now, More Than Ever, You Have To Find This "On this day of American Thanksgiving, we’re supposed to make time to give thanks, to actively think about that word which has become almost cliché in wellness circles: gratitude. But what is gratitude? Some people think of it as being thankful for all the good things you have in your life. Others see it as the act of acknowledging what people have done for you or what you appreciate about others. While the Stoics would have agreed that all of what those interpretations encompass is important, they practi... |
| 2020-Nov-25 • 3 minutes The Right Amount Is Key "If you’re not on guard, you’ll find yourself falling victim to the urge for just one more helping, or I’ve earned that treat. But what we are bad at calculating is what kind of person we’re going to feel like after. It’s like with drinking: it might make you friendlier at first, and then a real monster a few hours later. And the next day? Well then you won’t be good for anything." Ryan describes why moderation is so critical on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d lo... |
| 2020-Nov-25 • 63 minutes Filmmaker Daniel Lombroso on How To Stay Sane Amidst Radicalization Ryan talks to director and journalist Daniel Lombroso about social media and the ways that people can be manipulated and radicalized by it, the Internet-fueled rise of extremist movements, and more. Daniel Lombroso is a filmmaker and journalist based in New York City. His most recent work is the feature documentary White Noise, which follows key figures in the American alt-right movement. Before that, Lombroso spent five years directing video shorts for The Atlantic. This episode is brought to you by Opti... |
| 2020-Nov-24 • 3 minutes Anger Is a Kind of Madness "They didn’t have the studies to back it up, but they knew. Anger makes you dumber. It makes you a worse leader, a worse decision-maker." Ryan tells us precisely why anger is so irrational on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signu... |
| 2020-Nov-23 • 8 minutes Love Them as You Love Yourself | Practice Letting Go "Other people. Ugh. They are all the things Marcus Aurelius said, and more: Dishonest. Arrogant. Envious. Frustrating. Shortsighted. Selfish. And yet? Other people are not hell, as the expression goes. They are all we have. They are not even 'other.' They are us. We are all part of one whole, the Stoics would say." Ryan explains why we need to work for the common good, and reads over the week's guidance from the Daily Stoic Journal, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is brought to you by Ne... |
| 2020-Nov-22 • 55 minutes Rich Roll and Ryan Reflect on Stoicism (Live Talks LA) Today’s episode features an interview of Ryan conducted by yesterday’s guest Rich Roll about Ryan’s latest book, Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius at a Live Talks LA event. They talk about the intersection of Stoicism and politics, the best way to live virtuously, and more. Live Talks LA: https://livetalksla.org/ Event page: https://livetalksla.org/events/ryanholiday/ This... episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. Four Sigmatic is a maker of mushroom coffee, lattes, ... |
| 2020-Nov-21 • 66 minutes Rich Roll - Ultra-Endurance Athlete On How to Be Healthy On today’s episode, Ryan talks with athlete and wellness advocate Rich Roll about how our leadership has reacted to the coronavirus pandemic, the modern wellness community, the pros and cons of psychedelic therapy, and more. Rich Roll is an author, wellness advocate, athlete, and podcast host. Roll was previously an entertainment lawyer, but after becoming sober and losing 50 lbs, Roll transformed into an ultra endurance athlete with a vegan diet. He has written a memoir, Finding Ultra, and hosts The Rich ... |
| 2020-Nov-20 • 3 minutes How Will You Account for This Time? "When Ebola was first spreading, the news would run fascinating stories about the habits of the people who were unknowingly infected. These stories are often as revealing as they are cautionary. First, how clueless people are—how flagrantly they violate warnings and guidelines out of selfishness and dismissiveness. But more interestingly, how much time people waste." Ryan exhorts us to use the time given to us during the pandemic wisely, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podc... |
| 2020-Nov-19 • 3 minutes This Is What Echoes in Eternity "It’s ironic that today we celebrate the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, because the entire conceit of Lincoln’s short, 271-word address was that people would little note nor remember what he was saying. What counted to Lincoln was what the soldiers had done. The full measure of their sacrifice, for freedom, to preserve the Union, was beyond anyone’s ability to add or subtract. The Stoics would have agreed with that sentiment. It’s a waste of time to talk about what a good man is like, Marcus Aurel... |
| 2020-Nov-18 • 3 minutes These Are Habits to Avoid "Because of how Stoicism survives to us—mostly in the form of scraps and fragments and letters—we don’t exactly have a list of dos and don’ts. There are no Ten Commandments of Stoicism. No definitive book of what they believed or didn’t. But in those scraps and fragments, we do get plenty." Ryan explains what we know about how the Stoics felt about habits on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visi... |
| 2020-Nov-18 • 51 minutes Mike Herrera, Punk Rock Stalwart (MxPx, Goldfinger), On 30 Years On and Off the Road On today’s episode, Ryan speaks with singer Mike Herrera, founder of the punk band MxPx. They talk about being a touring musician during COVID, the insights he has gained from being in MxPx, and more. Mike Herrera is lead vocalist, bassist, and songwriter for the punk band MxPx. Herrera founded the band in 1992 in Bremerton, WA, and it has since gone on to reach Billboard charts multiple times and sell millions of albums worldwide. Herrera also performs solo and with LA punk band Goldfinger, and he produce... |
| 2020-Nov-17 • 2 minutes How To Have a Great Day. Every Day. "A lot can happen to ruin your day. You could wake up to a freak storm, or roads gnarled with traffic. Your dog could throw up on the carpet. You could find out that the president called you out by name on Twitter. You could have the flu or food poisoning. You could just be tired. You could have a job you hate. You could get dumped… or dumped on. The potential nightmares are endless. It would be wonderful then if there was some way to counteract those looming difficulties, a pair of glasses you could pu... |
| 2020-Nov-16 • 8 minutes You Can’t Predict the Future, But You Can Predict This | Judge Yourself, Not Others "Few saw the pandemic coming. But certainly the woefully inadequate response, at all levels, was predicted by many. The same is true for most events, in politics, in sports, in business, in life. It’s next to impossible to know what adversity or what good luck will fall in someone’s lap. How they’ll be able to handle this—whether they’ll rise to the occasion, be corrupted or destroyed by it—on the other hand? That’s much easier to see coming. A simple Stoic maxim guides us: Character is fate." Ryan show... |
| 2020-Nov-15 • 16 minutes The Leadership Secrets of Marcus Aurelius On today's episode, Ryan talks about the virtues that Marcus Aurelius brought to his position as Emperor of Rome. How did Marcus lead the Roman people through invasions and plagues, war and disaster, and still maintain his mettle? Find out on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for t... |
| 2020-Nov-14 • 67 minutes Matthew McConaughey On Winning the Role of Life On today’s episode, Ryan speaks with Academy Award-winning actor and producer Matthew McConaughey about his approach to the craft of acting, the simple keys to living a happy life, his new book, the #1 best seller Greenlights, and more. Matthew McConaughey has been working in Hollywood for over 25 years, appearing in movies like A Time to Kill, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Dallas Buyers Club. His work in the latter film won him the 2013 Academy Award for Best Actor. McConaughey also works as a producer and... |
| 2020-Nov-13 • 3 minutes What Matters and What Doesn’t "It’s almost surreal to think about the things we were thinking about not long ago. How could we have been so naive? So entitled? How could we have missed the signs? Well, no matter, life has a way of letting you know that you’ve had your head up your own ass. And there is no other expression for what Western society, particularly but by no means limited to the progressive amongst us, has done to itself. Cultural appropriation. Micro-aggressions. The War on Christmas. Does square dancing have racist origin... |
| 2020-Nov-12 • 2 minutes It’s Not Much, But It Adds Up "Don’t think of wisdom as something you get via epiphany or even a couple years of graduate school. No, it’s something you accumulate day by day—action by action, as Marcus Aurelius put it—over the course of a lifetime." Ryan points out the wisdom that can build up from small steps on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. And for another source of daily wisdom, get your 2021 Daily Stoic Page-a-Day Calendar! They're available now at the Daily Stoic web store: https://store.dailystoic.com/products/daily-stoic-calenda... |
| 2020-Nov-11 • 2 minutes You Must Meet It All the Same "We have good days. We have bad days. We will have, as Seneca experiences, moments of heartbreak and bad luck as well as strokes of good fortune and good timing. The question is how we’re going to respond to these swings of fate..." Ryan uses a poem by Rudyard Kipling to explain the poise with which we should all meet fate, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen... |
| 2020-Nov-11 • 60 minutes Converting a Stoicism Skeptic with Novelist Amy Shearn Ryan talks with author Amy Shearn about her own journey with Stoicism, how she and Ryan both wrestle with the concepts of Stoicism in a modern context, the role of women in Stoicism, and more. Amy Shearn is an American author and essayist. During the coronavirus pandemic, Shearn became fascinated by Stoicism; she wrote about her experience learning about, grappling with, and ultimately accepting Stoicism in a popular Medium article. Shearn has written in venues like The New York Times, Slate, Jane Magazine... |
| 2020-Nov-10 • 2 minutes Ignore It. It Doesn’t Matter. "'“A trifle consoles us,' Blaise Pascal wrote, 'because a trifle upsets us.' We get so worked up about things that don’t matter—of course we can be convinced to drop them. Of course we can be easily distracted. This is why Marcus talks about the importance of having no opinion." Ryan discusses the importance of Marcus Aurelius's advice on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more ... |
| 2020-Nov-09 • 7 minutes We Can't Just Do This. (Or Can We?) | The Real Power You Have "Sometimes it can feel—especially lately—that we are, to use the novelist James Salter’s haunting phrase, just burning the days. We get up. We answer emails. We work. We eat. We sleep. One day bleeds into the next. What day is it again? The weekend? Already?" Learn how to break through that feeling in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. Also learn more about today's weekly meditation, which exhorts you to find the true, lasting sources of power that you have. This episode is brought to you by Blinkist, the app... |
| 2020-Nov-08 • 23 minutes The Art of Journaling On today's episode, Ryan goes in-depth into journaling, describing the benefits of journaling, how to get started, and more. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signup Follow Daily Stoic: Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoic Instagram:... https://www.instagr... |
| 2020-Nov-07 • 63 minutes Tank Sinatra - Meme King on how How Comedy Helps You Live Ryan talks with Instagram star Tank Sinatra about his unique approach to comedy, the best way to use or deal with anger, what philosophy tells us about how to handle our emotions, and more. Tank Sinatra, aka George Resch, is a Long Island dad who runs one of the biggest meme accounts on Instagram. Since launching the original account @tank.sinatra in 2015, Resch’s Instagram accounts (which also include @influencersinthewild and @tanksgoodnews) have over 8 million followers, with even more on Twitter and Fa... |
| 2020-Nov-06 • 2 minutes Here’s How to See Life "Most people see life as a kind of a race. They want to win. They want to get somewhere. They want to do it better than other people. Certainly, one can see how this approach can produce impressive results. By creating a competition, by creating a way to keep score, it’s natural that one will do well by those metrics. The problem is that life isn’t a race, and even if it were, there’s no evidence that we’re all in the same race." Ryan explains a better way to perceive life, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast... |
| 2020-Nov-05 • 3 minutes So, It’s Been a Rough Year? "This has probably not been the year you expected. Few of us went into 2020 expecting an impeachment, a pandemic, murder hornets, earthquakes, fires, record-setting unemployment and god knows what else has hit you individually. Blew out your knee? Lost a big client? A falling out? It’s easy to sit here and say this has been a bad year. But is it really so bad? Is it 1865 bad? Winter of 1777 bad?" Ryan puts this crazy year into perspective in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s po... |
| 2020-Nov-04 • 4 minutes The Arc Is Long… But It Bends This Way "When you look at a map of the world from a distance, everything seems smooth. The more you zoom in, the bumpier it gets. Suddenly, mountain ranges leap up at you. Enormous lakes emerge. Vast distances become apparent. In a sense, history is a lot like this, too." Ryan explains what becomes apparent if you take a step back from the day-to-day workings of history, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with o... |
| 2020-Nov-04 • 53 minutes Megha Rajagopalan On Using History to Understand Modern Authoritarianism Ryan talks with Megha Rajagopalan, a world correspondent for BuzzFeed News, about her reporting in China about human rights and how history informs our understanding of geopolitics. Megha Rajagopalan is a world correspondent for BuzzFeed News. She has covered major stories in Asia and the Middle East, and has been based in China, Thailand, Israel and the Palestinian territories. Megha has also written for numerous other outlets and has appeared on NPR, BBC World News, CNN, and other outlets. This episode ... |
| 2020-Nov-03 • 4 minutes Life Will Go On. What’s Your Plan? "Today is a day that Americans, as well as interested observers around the world, have been anticipating for some time. One of the most important elections in American history. November 3rd. For more than a year now, we’ve collectively been referring to this Election Day just by its month and day, not unlike September 11th in the US or 7/7 in the UK, for its consequential nature and the dread it creates in us. It’s a day we’ve been holding our breath for, wondering, worrying, speculating. Now it’s here. No... |
| 2020-Nov-02 • 8 minutes We Can’t Let Anything Rattle Us/Accepting What Is Ryan tells the story of Athenodorus versus the ghost, and reads today's weekly meditation about accepting whatever comes your way, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is brought to you by Warby Parker, the online vision care boutique that delivers glasses right to your front door. Warby Parker has an amazing selection of the most stylish frames for your glasses. And with their free Home Try-On program, you can try out five of your favorite frames for five days before you make a purchase, with no o... |
| 2020-Nov-01 • 11 minutes This Thing Predicts Everything On today’s Sunday edition of the Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan talks about the one thing that predicts everything—character—and why it’s so important, no matter our goals. Read “This Thing Predicts Everything”: https://ryanholiday.net/character/ *** If... you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http... |
| 2020-Oct-31 • 49 minutes Edward Ball, Southern Writer, on the Ghosts of Our Collective Past Ryan talks with writer Edward Ball about what has animated the racism of the past and present, the distinction between responsibility and accountability for horrific deeds, and how to reckon with the darkest parts of American history. Edward Ball is an author who writes about history and race. His most recent book, Life of a Klansman: A Family History in White Supremacy, discusses Ball’s great-grandfather, a white supremacist in New Orleans during Reconstruction. Ball has written for The Village Voice and ... |
| 2020-Oct-30 • 3 minutes Which Kind Will You Be? "There are two types of people in this world: The kind whose success makes them better and the kind whose success makes them worse. Nero and Marcus Aurelius began to be groomed for power at roughly the same age. One lusted for the throne, the other cried the day he found out he was selected for it. One murdered his step-brother, the other elevated his step-brother to an equal, making him the first co-emperor. One chased frivolity and pleasure, the other took to his job with seriousness and a sense of respon... |
| 2020-Oct-29 • 4 minutes An Honest Dollar Is an Impressive Thing "It’s not the quantity that we should care about. Something earnestly made and sold for a fair price, whether it’s millions of units or a few dozen: that’s honorable. Something earned with real effort: that’s honorable, whether it’s earned by sweeping floors or managing a company." Ryan talks about why the effort poured into your work is in certain ways more important than the outcome of your work, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a revie... |
| 2020-Oct-28 • 3 minutes There’s a Time to Make and a Time to Manage "There are lots of things you can pay people to do for you. You can pay them to mow your lawn or do your taxes. You can pay them to drive you from one place to another and you can pay them to sell things for you. But the one thing you cannot pay people to do for you is think." Ryan explains why mental focus is so critical in this current, chaotic moment, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibil... |
| 2020-Oct-28 • 60 minutes Jeni Britton Bauer of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams On Running a Business in Moments of Crisis Ryan speaks with Jeni Britton Bauer, founder of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams, about finding a diet that works for you, the trials of running a growing business during the coronavirus pandemic, and, of course, how the Stoics would have felt about ice cream. Jeni Britton Bauer is the founder and chief creative officer of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams. Bauer dropped out of college to start selling ice cream after mixing her first special flavor, a blend of chocolate and cayenne pepper. Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams a... |
| 2020-Oct-27 • 5 minutes Will You Do Your Duty? "In one sense, it’s hard to argue with the statistics that any individual’s vote makes a difference. One person out of so many? When more than 50% of the population doesn’t even bother? In a country of gerrymandering and voter suppression? In the other, it’s stunning to think that the 2016 US presidential election, which saw some 135 million votes, was decided by roughly 77,000 ballots across three states. Michigan was swung by just 10,000 voters. But to this argument, the Stoic would scoff. Whether your v... |
| 2020-Oct-27 • 68 minutes BONUS: Ryan Talks with Robert Greene On Today's World On this special bonus episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan speaks with Robert Greene about the irrationality that runs through our society, the increasing frequency of scams and cons and how to deal with them, and the best strategy for focusing your political participation. Watch Ryan's talk with Robert Greene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM3MCxCqq5s This... episode is brought to you by Neuro. Neuro makes mints and gums that help you retain focus and clarity wherever you go. Made with a proprietar... |
| 2020-Oct-26 • 7 minutes Don't Lose Your Connection to the Outdoor/Build Up, Don't Tear Down This week we launch a new feature—every Monday, Ryan sets an intention for the week based on his book The Daily Stoic Journal. In addition to the weekly intention, Ryan also reads today's email, which exhorts you to take the time to go outdoors and connect with nature. This episode is brought to you by Warby Parker, the online vision care boutique that delivers glasses right to your front door. Warby Parker has an amazing selection of the most stylish frames for your glasses. And with their free Home Try-O... |
| 2020-Oct-25 • 63 minutes Ryan Discusses Lives of the Stoics at 92nd Street Y On today’s Daily Stoic Sunday podcast, Ryan gives a virtual talk at 92nd Street Y in New York City, discussing three of the most important Stoics, and takes audience questions. Get Lives of the Stoics: https://geni.us/LUN7 This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. Four Sigmatic is a maker of mushroom coffee, lattes, elixirs, and more. Their drinks all taste amazing and they've full of all sorts of all-natural compounds and immunity boosters to help you think clearly and live well. Four Sigmatic has... |
| 2020-Oct-24 • 47 minutes How to Bounce Back - Coach Eric Musselman (University of Arkansas) Ryan speaks with Eric Musselman, head coach of the University of Arkansas men’s basketball team, about building on your mistakes to get better, why you need to use every tool at hand to succeed, how Musselman built his career as a coach, and more. Coach Eric Musselman has coached basketball for over 30 years. His tenure spans multiple leagues and levels, from minor league basketball to college and the NBA. Musselman was head coach for the Golden State Warriors and Sacramento Kings, and since 2019 has been ... |
| 2020-Oct-23 • 2 minutes All That Shimmers in This World "Nothing gold can stay. All that shimmers in this world is sure to fade. We know this. We know that glory is fleeting. That even the best and the brightest eventually burn out, that we are all born to die. So what does this mean? That nothing matters? That we shouldn’t try? Absolutely not." Ryan points out the one thing that does matter and to which we should all strive on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It he... |
| 2020-Oct-22 • 3 minutes You Control What You Hear, Not What People Say "The political strategist and pollster Frank Luntz is fond of the expression, 'It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear.' His point is that politicians often think they come across to the public one way, but in fact are seen and heard quite differently. The same goes with issues, which might seem straightforward but in fact are interpreted with all sorts of baggage and context." Ryan explores this expression and what lessons you can learn from it on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed thi... |
| 2020-Oct-21 • 58 minutes Danica Patrick - Trailblazing Pro Racer On Pushing Limits Everywhere Ryan speaks with groundbreaking pro racer Danica Patrick about performing under pressure, life as an athlete before and after retirement, and how to take risks in the face of mortality Danica Patrick is a former professional race car driver. As a driver, she set a number of milestones for women in professional racing: first to win an IndyCar series, first to earn pole position in a NASCAR Cup Series, and one of only 14 drivers to have led both the Indianapolis 500 and the Daytona 500. She currently hosts ... |
| 2020-Oct-21 • 4 minutes Don’t Listen to the Complicit "In Cato’s time, Caesar’s partisans wanted to cast his usurpation of the Republic as somebody else’s fault. The system is broken, they said. The old ways don’t work anymore. Don’t blame Caesar, it’s really Cato’s fault, they said. He is too uncompromising, too resistant to change. Why couldn’t he be more like Cicero, willing to go along? By being so difficult, they said, he forced Caesar’s hand. " Ryan explains the danger of being like these partisans, and how you can avoid resembling them today, in today'... |
| 2020-Oct-20 • 2 minutes If You Want to Feel Better, Do This "You’re frustrated. You’re scared. You have a million things you have to do. Happiness, hell, even just not feeling bad, seems a million miles away. What do you do? Is there some secret that can give you the peace and pleasure you crave? Yes, there is. And it’s simple: Stop thinking of yourself. Start thinking of others." Learn more about the inner serenity that being kind to others can bring on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on ... |
| 2020-Oct-19 • 3 minutes It’s About Crossing One Thing Off After Another "One thing addicts trying to get sober quickly discover is just how resilient their addiction is. They quit booze and suddenly find themselves smoking a lot more pot. They quit pot, but now issues are popping up with eating or with sex. Or they get rid of all those bad habits, and realize for the first time that they have a temper or a procrastination issue or terrible anxiety." Ryan talks about the mindset you need to deal with your worst habits on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for Daily Stoic's H... |
| 2020-Oct-18 • 68 minutes Ryan Speaks with Kevin Rose at the Commonwealth Club Today's episode features Ryan's conversation with Digg Founder Kevin Rose at the Commonwealth Club as part of the launch tour for his newest book, Lives of the Stoics. Get Lives of the Stoics: https://geni.us/LUN7 *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signup Fo... |
| 2020-Oct-17 • 52 minutes Ferkat Jawdat - Fighting Against Chinese Repression Ryan speaks with Uyghur activist Ferkat Jawdat about the repression carried out by the Chinese government in his home province of Xinjiang, Jawdat’s journey to the United States, and what you can do to help protect human rights in Xinjiang. Ferkat Jawdat is a Uyghur activist who raises awareness of the crackdown on the Uyghur people by the Chinese government in Xinjiang. Jawdat emigrated to the United States from Xinjiang in 2011. For more information on the situation in Xinjiang, visit the Uyghur Human R... |
| 2020-Oct-16 • 3 minutes How Much White Space Do You Have? "Most of us internalize the wrong lesson. We think success = busy. We think that being busy is a sign of a good leader, an important person. Of course this is not true. A full calendar is the sign of someone who agrees to a lot of things, no more, no less." Ryan describes why we must not keep ourselves overly busy, or view a lack of free time as a virtue, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visi... |
| 2020-Oct-15 • 3 minutes Always Be Humble and Kind "We hear in Meditations Marcus Aurelius speak of “epithets for the self,” watchwords for his life. From Zeno to Marcus, the works of nearly every Stoic feature the repetition of four words, four virtues that go to the course of the philosophy: Courage. Justice. Moderation. Wisdom. These are mantras. These are reminders. A kind of living oral and written tradition for how to live and what kind of person to be." Ryan discusses how one songwriter created a mantra of her own on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. ... |
| 2020-Oct-14 • 2 minutes It All Depends on How You Look at It Ryan contrasts the experiences of Seneca and Napoleon on the island of Corsica, and why perspective is so important in how we shape our experiences, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signup Follow Daily Stoic: Twitter: https://t... |
| 2020-Oct-14 • 51 minutes MLB’s Eric Byrnes - How to Keep Going When Your Body Wants to Quit On today’s Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan speaks with Eric Byrnes, a former professional baseball player, analyst, and endurance athlete. They talk about willpower, what it takes to succeed when times get tough, and more. Eric Byrnes played in Major League Baseball for over 10 years, in a career that took him from the Oakland A’s and Arizona Diamondbacks to the Seattle Mariners. In 2019, Eric ran, swam, and biked across the United States in support of his Let Them Play Foundation. Eric also hosts a podcast and ... |
| 2020-Oct-13 • 4 minutes Don’t Let Anger Make You Mean "Successful, talented people are often frustrated for a simple reason: The world is constantly disappointing them. They expect everyone to be like them, to work as hard as them, to care as much as them, to hold themselves to the same standards as they do. And if not that, at the very least, we expect people to show up and do their jobs. It’s the difference between these expectations and reality that makes us angry. Angry at the man behind the counter who can’t even apologize that the flight is delayed bec... |
| 2020-Oct-12 • 2 minutes How to Make Joy "Joy is good. Who doesn’t like joy? The question is where does it come from—is it accidental or is it something you pursue? The Stoics would say that it’s neither. To Marcus Aurelius, joy was something you did. It was a process." Ryan talks about making the pursuit of joy part of your life on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can i... |
| 2020-Oct-11 • 14 minutes Who Is Seneca? Ryan tells the tale of Seneca, one of the three most important Stoic philosophers who advised an emperor and authored countless works of fiction and advice. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Alexa. Amazon Alexa is the perfect system to use to set up your house with Smart Home functionality—and with the new Amazon Smart Lighting Bundle, it’s easy to get started. Just connect your Amazon Echo Dot with your first Sengled color changing light bulb and you’re on your way. Visit Amazon.com/dailystoic to g... |
| 2020-Oct-10 • 48 minutes ESPN's Paul Kix - How Anyone Can Change Everything On today’s podcast, Ryan talks with Paul Kix about the French Resistance (the topic of Kix’s first book), what we can learn from historical events and the people who made them happen, and more. Paul Kix is a writer, editor, and podcaster. Kix is a deputy editor at ESPN who both writes and edits articles. He has written for outlets such as The New Yorker, GQ, and The Wall Street Journal. Kix’s first book, The Saboteur, discusses the wartime exploits of a French aristocrat who fought against the Nazi occupat... |
| 2020-Oct-09 • 3 minutes What Is Your Anxiety Costing You? "You worry. You get stressed. You want to get there early. You want it to go well. You don’t want anything bad to happen—to your loved ones, to you, to anyone. In the tunnel vision of your anxiety, these are all the things you can think about." There's never been a more stressful year in any of our lifetimes. On today's Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan outlines the costs of that stress and anxiety, and tells us how to handle it. Sign up for Daily Stoic's Slay Your Stress challenge: http://dailystoic.com/stress ... |
| 2020-Oct-08 • 2 minutes Here’s Why We Take Care of Our Own "Marcus Aurelius reminded himself, and us, two thousand years ago that we are all made for each other. The Stoics talked repeatedly about the idea of the common good. To leave someone hanging, turning your heart to stone because there is so much pain and suffering in this world? That is to betray this philosophy." Ryan shows why it's so critical that we take care of one another on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. I... |
| 2020-Oct-07 • 42 minutes Scott Barry Kaufman - How to Use Psychology to Solve Real-World Problems On today’s podcast, Ryan talks with Scott Barry Kaufman about passion versus purpose, what psychology can tell us about our political leaders, how to foster empathy in other people, and more. Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph.D., is an author, psychologist, professor, and podcaster. Kaufman hosts The Psychology Podcast, the number-one psychology podcast in the world. His new book, Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization, reimagines the idea of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This episode is brought to you by ... |
| 2020-Oct-07 • 4 minutes Life Endures. That’s What It Does. "Right now, this feels like an unprecedented crisis. Nearly a million people have died worldwide from a virus for which there may or may not be a vaccine depending on who you ask... Nobody really knows what’s going on. Nobody trusts anybody. Nobody knows who to believe. And both lives and livelihoods are hanging in the balance. It’s a nightmare. Will we ever survive this?" Ryan puts the world situation in perspective and tells us what we can do to cope on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed... |
| 2020-Oct-06 • 3 minutes It’s Only After You’ve Lost Everything That You’re Free to Do Anything "One day late in the fourth century BC, the Phoenician merchant Zeno set sail on the Mediterranean Sea with a cargo full of Tyrian purple dye. Prized by the wealthy and by royalty, who dressed themselves in clothes colored with it, the rare dye was painstakingly extracted by slaves from the blood of sea snails and dried in the sun until it was, as one ancient historian said, “worth its weight in silver.” This was Zeno’s family trade. They trafficked in one of the most valuable goods in the ancient world, an... |
| 2020-Oct-05 • 4 minutes Patience Will Be Key to Surviving This "Whether you thought things were about to go back to normal or you’re entering another long month of quarantine or your country is locking down due to a second wave, we are all in the same boat: We’re all getting a little stir-crazy." Ryan describes how to cope with new pandemic restrictions—or any delays that you may face in the pursuit of your goals—on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for Daily Stoic's Alive Time Challenge: dailystoic.com/alive *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for... |
| 2020-Oct-04 • 11 minutes It's the Little Moments That Make the Big Lessons In today's episode, Ryan reads his recent article about the lessons we can learn from the smallest moments in the lives of the philosophers and scholars who inspire us. Read the article here: https://ryanholiday.net/study/ Get Lives of the Stoics: https://dailystoic.com/lives This episode is brought to you by Amazon Alexa. Amazon Alexa is the perfect system to use to set up your house with Smart Home functionality—and with the new Amazon Smart Lighting Bundle, it’s easy to get started. Just connect your ... |
| 2020-Oct-03 • 47 minutes Ryder Carroll - The Power of Journaling On today’s podcast, Ryan talks with Ryder Carroll, the designer and creator of the Bullet Journal system, about how it feels to release a product into the world, the power of keeping a journal, and the best way to get started with your own. Ryder Carroll is a product designer who created the popular Bullet Journal method of journaling. Carroll originally devised the Bullet Journal method to help him cope with his learning disabilities, and began sharing it online in 2013. It has since become a worldwide ph... |
| 2020-Oct-02 • 4 minutes And This Too Shall Pass "In 1859, before he was president, before he suffered through that harrowing train ride to Washington on his way to office where many thought he would be killed before he arrived, before the Union tore itself to pieces and around 750,000 people died in the Civil War (the total number dead is still unknown), Abraham Lincoln gave a speech at the Wisconsin State Fair. The subject of the speech was supposed to be agriculture, but Lincoln decided to go a little deeper." Find out what Lincoln discussed, and why ... |
| 2020-Oct-01 • 3 minutes If Trouble Knocks, Let It Find You Home "Cato did not want a civil war. Julius Caesar probably thought that if he marched on Rome, Cato’s opposition would evaporate. He was mistaken. James Garfield didn’t want a civil war either. As the South ratcheted up their aggression in the 1860s, Southern fire-eaters assumed that the North would compromise, as they had time and time again. They weren’t counting on resistance like the kind they found in men like Garfield and Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant. 'Of course I deprecate war,' Garfield famously said la... |
| 2020-Sep-30 • 4 minutes This Is the Most Impressive Thing "In Meditations, we have Marcus Aurelius writing notes to himself about who he wanted to be, what he expected of himself. In Book X, he writes about how he never wants to be overheard complaining—not even to himself. In Book X, he talks about greeting death cheerfully, bravely, because what choice do we have? But as we’ve said before, to talk about something is one thing, to do it is another. That’s what makes Marcus Aurelius so inspiring." Ryan describes why Marcus stands out amongst the Stoics on today'... |
| 2020-Sep-30 • 42 minutes Ryan and Stephen Hanselman Talk About Their Newest Book, Lives of the Stoics On today’s podcast, Ryan talks with co-author Stephen Hanselman about their latest book, Lives of the Stoics, and what their experience has been writing it for the past year. This is the first part of the interview that Ryan recorded as a bonus gift for pre-ordering Lives of the Stoics; to hear the rest, just visit DailyStoic.com/Lives. Stephen Hanselman is a longtime collaborator of Ryan’s, having worked with him on their previous books, The Daily Stoic and The Daily Stoic Journal. Stephen has worked in t... |
| 2020-Sep-29 • 3 minutes It Doesn’t Matter What You Say. It Matters What You Do. "In Seneca’s writings, he is almost unbelievably Stoic. He speaks truth to power, he never despairs, he tries his best to be ethical and good. But in real life? Seneca was often afraid to challenge Nero, he felt sorry for himself while in exile, he chased wealth and fame. This is not to indict him, but to show the difference between theory and practice." What explains this distinction? Ryan describes it, and how the Stoics tried to put their philosophy into practice, in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. Get yo... |
| 2020-Sep-28 • 3 minutes You Don’t Have to Be a Victim "There’s no questioning that the Stoics were victims of severe injustices. Marcus Aurelius was betrayed by his most trusted general in what amounted to an attempted coup that threatened him and his family. Epictetus had thirty years of his life stolen by slavery. Musonius Rufus was exiled on bogus offenses, not once, but possibly four separate times... As unfair as all these situations were, what was impressive is how these Stoics never chose to see themselves as victims." Learn more about how you can ref... |
| 2020-Sep-27 • 12 minutes Epictetus’s Five Most Significant Quotes In today's Sunday Podcast, Ryan talks about Epictetus, who from birth was enslaved yet still managed to become one of the most significant founders of Stoicism, and gives five of his most important quotes. This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. Four Sigmatic is a maker of mushroom coffee, lattes, elixirs, and more. Their drinks all taste amazing and they've full of all sorts of all-natural compounds and immunity boosters to help you think clearly and live well. Four Sigmatic has a new exclusive d... |
| 2020-Sep-26 • 50 minutes Manu Ginóbili - NBA Spurs Legend on the Philosophy of Peak Performance On today’s podcast, Ryan talks with NBA legend Manu Ginóbili about how he reads books to help his athletic career, using your emotions to perform better, and how to find a mentor in competitive situations. Manu Ginóbili played 16 seasons with the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs, winning four championships as the quintessential sixth man. Ginobili led the 2004 Argentina national basketball team to Olympic gold, the only non-American team to do so since the US Dream Team. This episode is brought to you by Future. F... |
| 2020-Sep-25 • 3 minutes It’s OK to Get Mad, Just Don’t Be Angry "How does a Stoic feel about this global pandemic in which innocent people have been utterly failed by their governments? Leaders who denied that the threat was real and failed to prepare. Whose negligence and incompetence were downright criminal. This should make a Stoic mad. But what a Stoic must do is prevent themselves from getting angry." Ryan explains the distinction between being mad and being angry, and what you can do to respect that difference, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for Daily S... |
| 2020-Sep-24 • 2 minutes You Can’t Carry It With You if You Want to Survive "Things happened. Bad things. Things you never wanted, that hang over you wherever you go. We close our eyes and we see them. We worry that they’re going to happen again; we worry that we were to blame, that it was our fault." How does a Stoic deal with all this baggage? Ryan explains on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest ... |
| 2020-Sep-23 • 56 minutes Nils Parker, Bestselling Writer and Editor Behind Lives of the Stoics, The Obstacle Is the Way and The Daily Stoic On today’s Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan talks to his longtime writing partner and friend Nils Parker. They discuss Stoicism, their ongoing collaboration with Daily Stoic and Ryan’s other written works, and more. Nils Parker is one of the most sought after writers and editors in the business, having worked on books that have grossed more than $100M in earnings in the last fifteen years. He and Ryan have been collaborators, friends and business partners. Preorder Lives of the Stoics now: http://dailystoic.com... |
| 2020-Sep-23 • 3 minutes Magical Thinking Is Not Your Friend "When things are hard, when things are scary, when we’re tired, when we’ve had a run of bad luck, that’s when it happens: Magical thinking kicks in. This will all be over soon, we convince ourselves. This one thing will solve all our problems. Our ex is going to walk through the door any minute now. The pandemic will just disappear because we want it to. This kind of thinking makes us feel better, sure, but… That’s just not how it works." Ryan explains how things actually work, and how you must ready you... |
| 2020-Sep-22 • 3 minutes There Is No “One Last Job” "Just a few more years we tell ourselves. Just until I make enough money. After I make rank. Almost there. These are the lies we tell ourselves, the rationales for why we’re doing the thing we hate or being the kind of person we’d rather not be." Ryan tells us why you must leave the intolerable situation you find yourself in, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people li... |
| 2020-Sep-21 • 4 minutes You Can Use This, You Know. "No one would have chosen this. No one is that crazy. To have your life disrupted. To be out of work. To lose money or people you love. To see institutions taxed beyond their capacities. To see people scared or frustrated. But this pandemic is a classic 'there it is' situation. It’s here. It happened. Now what?" Ryan lays out the perspective you should use in considering the pandemic and its ramifications in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave... |
| 2020-Sep-20 • 16 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: Seven Stoic Ways to Find a Better Life In today's Sunday Podcast, Ryan goes over seven lessons for life that you can learn from the ancient Stoics (learn more about these philosophers in Ryan’s new book, Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius). Learn about the preorder bonuses and virtual book tour events for Lives of the Stoics: https://dailystoic.com/lives This episode is brought to you by GiveWell, the best site for figuring out how and where to donate your money to have the greatest impact. GiveWell’s team of r... |
| 2020-Sep-19 • 41 minutes Guy Raz — “How I Built This” and Solving Our Big Problems On today’s Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan talks with How I Built This creator and host Guy Raz about how we deal with big collective action problems in an era of increased polarization, harnessing entrepreneurial energy to help society, and more. Guy Raz is a podcast creator and host with a combined audience of over 19 million downloads a month. He is the creator and host of How I Built This, a podcast about entrepreneurs, and also co-created NPR’s TED Radio Hour and Wow in the World. Guy joined NPR in 1997 and... |
| 2020-Sep-18 • 4 minutes This Is What Cicero Missed "On the surface, Cicero appears the perfect Stoic. He studied with all the right teachers. He served in office for decades. He was friends with Cato. Diodotus, the old Stoic philosopher, even died in Cicero’s house and left his estate to him. But it’s ironic that Cicero, the author of a book called Stoic Paradoxes, would himself fail to embody a paradox that goes to the core of the philosophy." Ryan explores this irony and shows how the Stoics avoided Cicero's mistakes on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. Preo... |
| 2020-Sep-17 • 2 minutes Some Folks You Just Can’t Reach "It’d be wonderful if everyone could agree on some very basic things. Like, you can’t use racial slurs. And no, you shouldn’t judge a person for their gender or their sexual orientation. It’d be wonderful if nobody littered, if people didn’t blast music at 2 AM, if we observed some standard rules of civility for behavior in public. It’d be wonderful if everyone wore a mask and socially distanced as much as possible until we kicked the ass of this pandemic that is killing hundreds of thousands of people worl... |
| 2020-Sep-16 • 3 minutes You Must Work Your Hardest at This "There are lots of things you should be doing today. Your journaling. Your reading. Taking care of your work, of your children or family. Following the instructions of the authorities (to stay inside, to eliminate unnecessary travel, to make sure you have food and supplies on hand). All this is good. Most of it takes work. But the thing you should be working hardest at? Being calm." Ryan describes some great ways to achieve calm and stillness in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’... |
| 2020-Sep-16 • 75 minutes Martellus Bennett - Super Bowl Champion on Finding Success On today’s Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan talks with author and former NFL player Martellus Bennett about the clarifying effects that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on their day-to-day lives, how readers should engage with the books they acquire, how Marcus persevered to help the New England Patriots come back from the largest Super Bowl score deficit in NFL history, and more. Martellus Bennett is a former NFL tight end who played for 10 seasons with teams such as the Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, New Englan... |
| 2020-Sep-15 • 4 minutes This Is How You Learn "It was Seneca who told us how to learn from history and literature. Ignore the facts and figures, he said, focus on the moral lessons. Focus on what the characters can teach you about life. Plutarch, the great moral biographer of history, would take this lesson to heart. Unlike the biographers of our time, who publish big, thick books filled with footnotes and postmodern digressions, Plutarch was obsessed by what we could learn from the figures he wrote about." Ryan discusses the lessons you should be t... |
| 2020-Sep-14 • 2 minutes You Do Not Need This "You want it, don’t you? That 'I told you so.' That 'Thank You.' That recognition for being first, or being better, or being different. You want credit. You want gratitude. You want the acknowledgement for the good you’ve done, for the weight that you carry." Ryan discusses why the last thing you need is that recognition on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen t... |
| 2020-Sep-13 • 10 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: Five Life-Changing Quotes From Seneca In today's Sunday Podcast, Ryan talks about five quotes from Seneca, one of the three founding fathers of Stoicism and a famous writer and advisor as well, and how they can change your life for the better.. This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. Four Sigmatic is a maker of mushroom coffee, lattes, elixirs, and more. Their drinks all taste amazing and they've full of all sorts of all-natural compounds and immunity boosters to help you think clearly and live well. Four Sigmatic has a new exclusive ... |
| 2020-Sep-12 • 61 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Lacrosse Legend Paul Rabil On What It Takes to Become the Best On today’s Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan talks with lacrosse star Paul Rabil about the mental obstacles that come with being a pro athlete, the experience of starting a professional sports league, and more. Paul Rabil is one of the best lacrosse players in history and the best in the world at the sport right now—some have called him the LeBron James of lacrosse. He has played for championship lacrosse teams from his time at college to the professional leagues. Rabil is one of the co-founders of of the Premier... |
| 2020-Sep-11 • 5 minutes Is This Really What’s Important Right Now? "Never underestimate the ability of human beings to focus on the wrong thing. Think about the number of people this past summer who—as the world’s economy was melting down, as the bodies piled up from the global COVID-19 pandemic, as millions lost their jobs—decided that what we should really be focused on are the ethics of selling tiger cubs and the sexual cultic undertones at play among the zookeepers in the Netflix docuseries, Tiger King. What we should be worried about, judging by reactions on social me... |
| 2020-Sep-10 • 2 minutes It’s a Double Standard, but So What? "The Stoics were hard on themselves. No question about it. They knew what was right and they insisted on holding themselves to that. They were absolutists. Even if it meant death. Even if it meant avoidable suffering. Even if it meant passing on acceptable pleasures." But as Ryan explains, the Stoics judged themselves by a double standard—the results of which he talks about on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It he... |
| 2020-Sep-09 • 70 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Niki Papadopoulos Go Inside Writing About Stoicism On today’s Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan talks with his editor Niki Papadopoulous about their long career together, from the origins of The Obstacle Is the Way and how Ryan became a writer to the development of Ryan’s books on Stoicism, the inner workings of the editing process, and Ryan’s latest book, Lives of the Stoics (now available for preorder). Niki Papadopoulous is the editorial director for the Portfolio imprint at Penguin Random House. She has been Ryan’s editor since The Obstacle Is the Way, and has... |
| 2020-Sep-09 • 3 minutes It’s Good to Be Beaten Up From Time to Time "You’ve been kicked around by life, that’s true. Where other people had it easy, you’ve had to struggle. You didn’t get into the college you wanted, your parents couldn’t buy you a car, you had to wear glasses. You’ve watched as other people hit it out of the park on their first try, getting breaks that you’ve had to work your ass off for. You’ve been insulted. You’ve been fired. You’ve been crapped on and you’ve been brought to tears. It’s unfair, you say. It’d be better if it had been otherwise. Is th... |
| 2020-Sep-08 • 4 minutes You've Been Doing It All Wrong "For most of history, we’ve gotten it precisely wrong. We have given far too much attention to what philosophers have thought or written, when really what counts is what they do. What someone says is not important; what’s important is if they live up to what they say. In the end, what matters—whether a person is ancient or modern—is whether their ideas work in the real world, whether they make our lives better or not." Ryan shows why it's the actions of philosophers that are so important, and talks about... |
| 2020-Sep-07 • 3 minutes You Must Let the Mind Go Lax "People think they are too important, the stakes of their work are too high, that there is not a minute to lose. So they never relax. They never shut off their minds. They never check out, or let go. And far too often they end up losing it." Ryan describes the importance of getting calmness and relaxation in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, th... |
| 2020-Sep-06 • 10 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: The Stoic Art of Not Caring In today's Sunday Podcast, Ryan talks about how to apply Stoicism, and the difference between not caring at all and only caring about what's important. This episode is also brought to you by Raycon, maker of affordable earbuds with incredibly high-quality sound. Raycon earbuds are half the price of more-expensive competitors and sound just as good. With six hours of battery time, seamless Bluetooth pairing, and a great-fitting design, Raycon earbuds are perfect for working out, travel, conference calls, an... |
| 2020-Sep-05 • 41 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Anne Applebaum Ask How Does a Stoic Resist Tyranny? On today’s Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan talks with Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist Anne Applebaum (Gulag: A History, Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine, Twilight of Democracy) about recent global political developments: the rise of authoritarianism in Western nations, the struggle against this movement, and how to fight for and defend democracy. Anne Applebaum is an expert on 20th- and 21st-century authoritarian governments. She has written books describing the authoritarian actions of the Sovie... |
| 2020-Sep-04 • 3 minutes How You Can Change the World "It’s increasingly hard to deny that we’re facing indisputably massive problems with ever growing threats to planetary health. Scientists, conservationists, ecologists, and environmentalists have been ringing the alarm on global warming, mass extinction, deforestation, and pollution for decades. At this point, the argument is no longer about whether there is anything to be alarmed about, but rather how alarmed we should be. We’re a long way from what the Stoics would have wanted—from their vision of sympath... |
| 2020-Sep-03 • 3 minutes Every Single Day Is the Same "As the pandemic has dragged on, you’ve probably found yourself asking one question, over and over again, to anyone who will listen—even to yourself: What day is it? It’s a simple question, but also a very revealing one." Ryan explains why the days seem to be blending together, and the Stoic insights that can help you make sense of this phenomenon, in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, ... |
| 2020-Sep-02 • 37 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Jocko Willink On How to Thrive in Challenging Times On today’s Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan and author (Extreme Ownership, Discipline Equals Freedom) and podcaster Jocko Willink talk about maintaining a solid daily routine, how to react to adverse circumstances, finding the strength to fuel your personal endeavors, and more. Jocko Willink is a retired Navy SEAL, author, and leadership expert. Willink served 20 years in the US Navy, including eight years as a Navy SEAL. Following his retirement from the Navy, Willink has written multiple books about the most ef... |
| 2020-Sep-02 • 2 minutes Think About How Lucky You Are "Marcus Aurelius was wealthy on a scale you cannot even imagine. Seneca too. These were men with enormous fortunes… and control of imperial power. They controlled life and death. They had fame beyond fame. And yet, you are far more blessed and fortunate than they are." Ryan describes how lucky we all are to live in this day and age in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more peo... |
| 2020-Sep-01 • 2 minutes Use It. That’s What It’s There For. "There’s no question that the Stoics accustomed themselves to hard living. For many people, this is the image we have of them: Cato walking bareheaded and barefooted. Marcus sleeping on a hard mattress. Seneca practicing poverty and cold plunges. Yet less well known but equally true is that the Stoics knew the good life: Cato had a family fortune. Marcus lived in an imperial palace. Seneca threw epic parties. Is this a contradiction? No." Ryan explains how the Stoics found fulfillment despite their own ... |
| 2020-Aug-31 • 3 minutes No, It’s Good This Happened to You "The divorce. The bankruptcy. The car accident. The night you’re having to spend at the airport. The business you poured your savings into that you now have to close because of the coronavirus pandemic. It’s not fun. It’s not fair. Why couldn’t it have happened to someone else? When Stuart Scott found out he had cancer, when he knew that he would almost certainly die, you can imagine he thought all those things. How could he not? Yet, it was with profound grace that he refused to let that attitude take hol... |
| 2020-Aug-30 • 24 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: 10 of the Most Stoic Moments in History In today's podcast, Ryan discusses 10 moments in history where the power of Stoicism became apparent, from Adm. James Stockdale's time in a North Vietnamese prison camp to Michael Jordan's Flu Game and beyond. This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. Four Sigmatic is a maker of mushroom coffee, lattes, elixirs, and more. Their drinks all taste amazing and they've full of all sorts of all-natural compounds and immunity boosters to help you think clearly and live well. Four Sigmatic has a new exclusi... |
| 2020-Aug-29 • 47 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Mark Manson Discuss What You Should Actually Give a F*** About On today’s Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan and Mark Manson (author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck) talk about working to figure out your true priorities, the balancing act between independence and conformism, how it feels to be a bestselling author, and more. Mark Manson is a best-selling writer and blogger about living a balance, productive, and ultimately fulfilling life. He has written two New York Times best sellers, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck and Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope. Mar... |
| 2020-Aug-28 • 3 minutes Here’s How To “Not Be All About Business” "Marcus Aurelius had workaholic tendencies. Even if he hadn’t had the most important job in the world, we get the sense that he would have treated his work that way. He was one of those all-in types. When he discovered philosophy, he slept on the floor and practiced poverty to his mother’s frustration. When he found an author he liked, he dove deeply into their work. And when he became emperor, he was available around the clock, he hardly ever took extended time off, and his idea of leisure was attending ph... |
| 2020-Aug-27 • 3 minutes Why You Must Return Again and Again "You were in high school when you read The Great Gatsby for the first time. You were just a kid when you read The Count of Monte Cristo or had someone tell you the story of Odysseus. Maybe it’s been many years now since you first picked up the Stoics, whether it was Marcus Aurelius or Seneca. The point is: You got it right? You read them. You’re done, right?" Ryan discusses a better way to re-engage with books you've read before in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic Read to Lead ch... |
| 2020-Aug-26 • 44 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Dominique Dawes on Olympic Gold and Pursuing Excellence On today’s Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan and Olympic gymnast Dominique Dawes talk about the difficulty of striving for an extraordinary goal during a pandemic, how to maintain creative and athletic momentum while staying safe, the most important moments that an athlete experiences, and more. Dominique Dawes is a retired American gymnast. She is a three-time Olympian and has won medals at the 1992, 1996, and 2000 Olympic Games. She also won several gold medals in the USA Gymnastics National Championships betwee... |
| 2020-Aug-26 • 3 minutes Is This Teaching You To Appreciate Things? "How suddenly life can take from us all the things we took for granted. Whether it’s a global pandemic that locks you in your house or one of the capricious exiles that the Stoics experienced, much can be taken from us. Our ability to see our friends. Our financial security. Even our freedom of movement. That sucks. But it sucks even more if you don’t learn from it, if you don’t take this moment as instructive and eye opening." Ryan teaches one of the lessons that the pandemic has to offer us in today'... |
| 2020-Aug-25 • 3 minutes You Must Challenge Yourself "After returning from particularly notable campaigns, the commanders of Roman legions would distribute small coins to their men as rewards for their service and mementos of their time in those campaigns. These coins were the originators of a now-ancient tradition—the challenge coin—that continues all these centuries later, with generals like Washington, Grant, and Mattis handing out small, specially designed coins to their men the same way generals like Fabius and Scipio did." Ryan discusses the history of... |
| 2020-Aug-24 • 3 minutes You Should Know This Before You Get Angry "People will piss you off in this life. That’s a given. You’ll get cut off on the highway. You’ll be spoken to rudely. You’ll get blown off. Someone will drop the ball. Someone’s screaming baby will keep you up all night on a plane. But before you get upset, you should stop yourself. Because maybe there’s something you don’t quite know about the situation." Ryan gives an example of the wisdom behind this advice in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to ... |
| 2020-Aug-23 • 15 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: 5 Life Changing Quotes from Marcus Aurelius On today's Daily Stoic Sunday episode, Ryan goes over five of Marcus Aurelius' best quotes and describes how you can live up to his words. This episode is also brought to you by Raycon, maker of affordable earbuds with incredibly high-quality sound. Raycon earbuds are half the price of more-expensive competitors and sound just as good. With six hours of battery time, seamless Bluetooth pairing, and a great-fitting design, Raycon earbuds are perfect for working out, travel, conference calls, and more. Get 1... |
| 2020-Aug-22 • 59 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Robert Greene Discuss the Laws of Human Nature Today's episode features a 2018 interview in which Ryan talks with author and strategist Robert Greene. They discuss the core message of Robert’s latest book (The Laws of Human Nature), the research process that he uses to put together his books, and more. Robert Greene is a bestselling author and strategist. Across his six books he has combined intense research with powerful stories from history and myth to uncover the key motivations behind human behavior and strategy. This episode is brought to you by ... |
| 2020-Aug-21 • 3 minutes We Have to Be Smart "Dr. William Osler was a giant of the medical field in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was also a fan of the Stoics. He was a deep reader who advised his students to read Shakespeare before bed to clear and refresh their minds. He was one of the founding members of Johns Hopkins University and impacted millions of lives through his research. It was an incredible career that eventually ended, as Marcus Aurelius said of all doctors, on the same humble deathbed that Osler had spent tirelessly worki... |
| 2020-Aug-20 • 3 minutes You Must Burn the White Flag "The odds are looking bad. They are asking you to compromise. They want you to betray what you believe in. It would be so easy to take your buyout and leave the mess to the people who come after you. Concede. Roll over. Give up. Beg to be spared. Ha! The Stoic says no." Find out what a Stoic does instead on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, t... |
| 2020-Aug-19 • 3 minutes Why We Admire Socrates "Socrates was smart. He was clever and funny. He was, as we can tell from just two of his students, Xenophon and Plato, clearly a great teacher. But is that the only reason we admire him? Because of his contributions to philosophy?" Ryan explains the main reason we admire Socrates, and describes how we can emulate his example, in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people l... |
| 2020-Aug-19 • 47 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Angel Parham On Why Studying the Classics Is So Important On today’s Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan and Angel Parham of Loyola University New Orleans talk about the classics: how she first fell in love with them, the importance of classics in education, and what resources are available to bring them into your and your family’s lives. Angel Parham is a professor at Loyola University New Orleans. She has studied the classics in college and beyond, and is now an advocate of classics-based education. Dr. Parham currently uses a classics-based curriculum to homeschool her... |
| 2020-Aug-18 • 2 minutes No One Can Trigger You "There are things that just set you off. There are things that happened to you that you prefer not to think about. There are the things you asked repeatedly for someone to stop. There are the things that decent people are not supposed to do and say. And yet they happen anyway. So you get upset. You get triggered." Find out how you can avoid being triggered on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our vis... |
| 2020-Aug-17 • 3 minutes This Is the Perfect Time to Ask This Question "Now, unlike any other moment in recent memory, we are being forced to reevaluate things. We’re looking at our jobs, at our finances, at the places we live. We’re looking at so many of the systems that have been set up, whether they’re governmental or cultural or familial. We’re having to ask questions about why they are what they are, how they’ve held up under the immense pressure and stress of this global pandemic." Ryan discusses the key question that you should be asking yourself right now on today's D... |
| 2020-Aug-16 • 15 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: The Daily Stoic, August 16 - How to Turn Your Trials Into Triumphs On today's podcast, Ryan discusses today's reading from The Daily Stoic, about how to overcome your challenges through the Stoic mindset. We also present a discussion from Ryan about how to turn tragedy into triumph. Get your copy of the leather-bound, limited edition of The Daily Stoic: https://dailystoic.com/leather *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can inves... |
| 2020-Aug-15 • 61 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Donald Robertson On the Brilliance and Insights of Marcus Aurelius On today’s Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan and author and therapist Donald Robertson talk about the history behind Stoicism, including how the historical record treats catastrophes like the Antonine Plague and the Spanish influenza pandemic, what Marcus was feeling as he suffered through multiple tragedies while writing his Meditations, and more. Donald Robertson is a cognitive behavioral therapist and writer who is an expert on applying and practicing Stoicism in a therapeutic setting. He has written How to Thi... |
| 2020-Aug-14 • 3 minutes Start Each Day With This Habit "Marcus Aurelius said we should get up early. But what should we do then? Seneca agreed, saying that it was important to start the day at a good hour, but what mattered was what you did next. A good start, according to the Stoics, was something that would 'shake the laziness out of [your] system.'" Find out the habit that's a perfect start to any day, in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility... |
| 2020-Aug-13 • 4 minutes This Will Come and Go "It seems terrible now. It does, of course. How could it not? Each day the number of new reported cases comes in. Each day the reports of overloaded hospitals increase. The markets continue to stumble—no, fall headfirst—into a major recession. You’re not working. You are afraid. But this is partly because you are right in the thick of it—you are looking at it up close. If we can zoom out, just a tad, we get some perspective. We are reminded that this too shall pass, that we will survive." Ryan describes ... |
| 2020-Aug-12 • 3 minutes This Is Not a Drill "Many of us can be forgiven for having thought that this life thing was pretty easy. The last few decades have been pretty good to us. Booming economies. Great technology. Our wars have had limited impact on our populace and our recessions have been short. We were living, as one academic said after the fall of communism, after the end of history. All those tragic, bleak moments of the past…were past us." Ryan describes how to break out of that mindset to see the reality of what's happening in today's Dai... |
| 2020-Aug-12 • 47 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Author Rich Cohen On How to Succeed When Everyone’s Against You On today’s Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan and author Rich Cohen talk about the ever-changing lens through which we judge historical figures, how the subjects of several of Cohen’s books reached success in the face of seemingly-insurmountable opposition, and more. Rich Cohen is a best-selling author and editor. His books range in subject matter from Jewish gangsters, the Rolling Stones, and the formation of the original banana republics to the NFL’s Chicago Bears and the artificial sweetener Sweet’n Low. Cohen’s... |
| 2020-Aug-11 • 3 minutes This Is How It Will Feel "Zeno dreamed of following in his father’s footsteps, into the family business. Panaetius did the same, becoming a famous diplomat, just as he was expected to. Cicero strove, as few have ever striven, to cast aside his family’s humble origins and reach the heights of power. Seneca wanted to become the greatest writer of his age. How do you think it felt for these Stoics to achieve what they had worked so long and hard for? To get everything they ever wanted?" Ryan describes the chase for accolades and i... |
| 2020-Aug-10 • 4 minutes You Must Run War Games "In Rome, as today, things went wrong all the time. Wars broke out. Earthquakes struck. Pandemics infected populations. In Rome, as in our time, people were constantly caught off guard by these things." Learn the exercise that the Stoics performed to prepare for disaster in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and ma... |
| 2020-Aug-09 • 12 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: The Daily Stoic, August 9 In today's episode, Ryan describes the new leather-bound edition of The Daily Stoic and reads today's entry. Get your copy of the limited leather-bound edition of The Daily Stoic: https://dailystoic.com/leather/ *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signup Follow ... |
| 2020-Aug-08 • 40 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Writer S.C. Gwynne Discuss the Great Stories and Leaders of the American Civil War On today’s Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan takes a deep dive into the American Civil War with author and journalist S.C. Gwynne. They discuss the immense bloodshed of the conflict and the strategies utilized, compare the merits of its most notable political and military leaders, and more. S.C. “Sam” Gwynne is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Empire of the Summer Moon (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award) and Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of... |
| 2020-Aug-07 • 3 minutes You Should Understand This by Now "The iron law of history is that people do dumb things. They behave this way for many reasons: Ignorance. Fear. Bad habits. Because they’ve been corrupted. Because they are ordinary people with flaws, just like that. Because they are in pain. There is nothing like a pandemic to put a spotlight on these people and these reasons." Ryan discusses how we should react to people who don't behave their best during times of crisis in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d l... |
| 2020-Aug-06 • 3 minutes There’s Always Been a Darkness on the Edge of Town "It feels a little bit like things suddenly got really bad. Like the political order is not working. Like government agencies are failing. The stock market is falling. The economy turned out to be not nearly as robust as we thought. And it’s true, these things are happening. It’s just important to remind ourselves that this is not new. It’s just that the darkness from the edge of town, the one Springsteen sang about—the bad luck, the poverty, the struggle, the pain—shifted a little bit. Now that it’s your... |
| 2020-Aug-05 • 3 minutes Will You Be Proud of This? "Marcus had no interest in posthumous fame. He was a private man. It’s a historical irony that today he is famous for a work of art he desperately wanted no one to see. What he really cared about was what he did in the moment, who he was as a person, how he responded to crises and difficulty. 'Just that you do the right thing,' he told himself, “the rest doesn’t matter.” That would be his legacy, that would be his source of pride, not the buildings he erected or the conquests he made." Ryan describes how y... |
| 2020-Aug-05 • 47 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Sportswriter Kate Fagan Talk About Stoicism in Sports Ryan speaks with sportswriter Kate Fagan about the issues surrounding physical and mental health in sports, how our society promotes sports to children and young adults, and more. Kate Fagan is a sportswriter, author, and former college basketball player. She has written the #1 New York Times best seller What Made Maddy Run: The Secret Struggles and Tragic Death of an All-American Teen. Previously she spent seven years as a writer and commentator on ESPN, as well as three years as the Philadelphia Inquirer... |
| 2020-Aug-04 • 5 minutes This Is How Reading Is Supposed to Go "We Stoics don’t just get a book and put it up on our shelf. We devour it. We take notes. We fold pages. We throw it in our backpacks and suitcases when we travel, it sits on the front seat of the car in case we have a few minutes. It moves with us from college to our first apartment to our first home and then, if it’s really good, perhaps, one day we’ll give it to our own children." Ryan describes what books mean to a Stoic, and introduces the newest product from Daily Stoic: our collectible, leather-boun... |
| 2020-Aug-03 • 3 minutes We Must Be Antifragile "As Hemingway writes in one of the most beautiful passages in A Farewell to Arms, the world eventually breaks all of us. 'Afterward,' he says, 'many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills.'" Find out about the power of antifragility in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it ... |
| 2020-Aug-02 • 48 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: Ryan Talks Stoicism with the Cleveland Browns Today’s Daily Stoic Sunday episode features Ryan’s talk to the NFL’s Cleveland Browns from 2019. In it, he gives the team a breakdown of Stoicism, and discusses how they can use its ideas for success on- and off-field. This episode is brought to you by Trends. Trends is the ultimate online community for entrepreneurs and business aficionados who want to know the latest news about business trends and analysis. It features articles from the most knowledgeable people, interviews with movers and shakers, and a... |
| 2020-Aug-01 • 36 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and David Epstein Talk Range & Resilience On today’s Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan talks with author and journalist David Epstein about the power of range, how to get the right kind of experience to be successful, and more. David Epstein is the author of #1 New York Times best seller Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. He has previously worked as a reporter at ProPublica and Sports Illustrated and also wrote the best-selling The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance. Get your copy of Range: Why Gener... |
| 2020-Jul-31 • 4 minutes People Are People and Places Are Places "With all the change of history, with all the progress we’ve made, we’re still people. Places are still places, cultures still cultures—with all their unique tendencies, flaws, and patterns. We like to think we’re so different, that we’ve so moved on from the past, but have we?" Ryan discusses how history repeats itself, and the lesson we can draw from this, in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our vis... |
| 2020-Jul-30 • 4 minutes You Have to Dye This With Your Own Color "What has happened here is objective. A virus spread from China to countries all over the world. First to the Philippines, then to Italy and Iran, the rest of Eurasia, and beyond. While many of those countries have succeeded in flattening the curve, there are new epicenters across the globe, in the United States, Brazil, and India. States like Florida and Arizona are dealing with more virulent outbreaks than many countries." What will you do with those objective facts? Ryan offers one potential path on tod... |
| 2020-Jul-29 • 3 minutes How to Be Born Again "One day, some 2000 years ago, Marcus Aurelius put up his stylus and jotted down six epithets for himself, values he said that should not be “traded” for any others. What were they? Upright. Modest. Straightforward. Sane. Cooperative. Disinterested." Ryan describes what you need to do and how you should act in order to be "born again" in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more pe... |
| 2020-Jul-29 • 39 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Wellness Expert Kimberly Snyder Talk Stillness, Yoga, and the Beauty of Daily Life Ryan speaks with wellness and natural beauty expert Kimberly Snyder about the intersection of Stoicism and Eastern practices, the pursuit of simplicity, finding beauty in the natural world, and moreKimberly Snyder is an author, celebrity nutritionist, and wellness expert. Kimberly founded the lifestyle brand Solluna and has written multiple New York Times-best selling books, including one co-written with Deepak Chopra. Kimberly has been featured on shows like Ellen, The Today Show, The Dr. Oz Show, and more... |
| 2020-Jul-28 • 3 minutes Don’t Ignore the Smell "From 165 to 180 AD, Rome was hit by a plague. The “Antonine Plague,” also known as the Plague of Galen, would kill literally millions of people during Marcus Aurelius’s reign. It was horrible and terrifying. No one knew what caused this awful disease, or what had brought it on. Had the gods cursed the empire? Was it punishment for their sins? How could they stop the contagion, which could kill a person in two miserable weeks?" Find out how Marcus dealt with his plague—and how we can do the same—on today's... |
| 2020-Jul-27 • 2 minutes Congratulations, You Get to Start Over "It’s fitting that the story of Stoicism began with a catastrophe. On a merchant voyage between Phoenicia and Piraeus in the 3rd century BC, Zeno’s ship and all its cargo sank. Was it a terrible storm? Did jagged rocks tear their boat to pieces? Was it pirates or human error? No one knows. All we know is that by the end of it, Zeno was stranded somewhere in Athens, while his ship sat at the bottom of the sea." Find out how that story ended, and what lessons you can draw from it, in today's Daily Stoic Podc... |
| 2020-Jul-26 • 12 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: How Seneca Overcame Stress In today's Daily Stoic Sunday episode, Ryan talks about Seneca, author, playwright, and advisor to the emperor Nero, how he faced the multiple stressors that he encountered in his life, and how you can do the same. This episode is brought to you by the Theragun. The new Gen 4 Theragun is perfect for easing muscle aches and tightness, helping you recover from physical exertion, long periods of sitting down, and more—and its new motor makes it as quiet as an electric toothbrush. Try the Theragun risk-free fo... |
| 2020-Jul-25 • 75 minutes Ryan and Comic Pete Holmes Talk Work-Life Balance and Why Joy Matters On today’s Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan talks with comedian and writer Pete Holmes about understanding your own brain, finding personal fulfillment when things are out of your control, and more. Pete Holmes has spent years as a touring comedian as well as a TV writer and actor. He was the creator and star of HBO’s Crashing and has appeared in a number of stand-up specials. Holmes has released four comedy albums as well as a book, Comedy Sex God. Holmes also hosts a podcast, You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes.... |
| 2020-Jul-24 • 3 minutes Now’s the Time to Sharpen Your Sword "It’s when you actually need something that it’s too late to get it ready. It’s in times of peace that nations must sharpen their swords. It’s in times of prosperity that people must save money. It’s in times of leisure that we have to be learning. It’s before the onslaught that we need to be shoring up our defenses." And it is precisely during this time, as bad as it is, that we should be preparing for worse things to come, as Ryan explains in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s ... |
| 2020-Jul-23 • 2 minutes You Decide the End of This Story "I never lost faith in the end of the story, I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade." Ryan discusses Admiral James Stockdale and the meaning of this quote in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the m... |
| 2020-Jul-22 • 3 minutes What Else Can You Do? "When all this began, folks were excitedly using this time at home to tackle projects they’d long been putting off. They were focused on being productive, connecting with family, not letting the moment go to waste... Then as time went on, the mood began to falter and resolve began to weaken. What, they started saying, I’m supposed to make the most of the biggest catastrophe of my lifetime? I’m supposed to turn it into an opportunity for self-development?" Ryan describes why you must nevertheless persevere ... |
| 2020-Jul-22 • 43 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and James Romm Talk Seneca, Nero and Dying Every Day Ryan speaks with James Romm, an author and professor of Classics, about Seneca, one of the three key figures of Stoicism who later in life became an advisor to the emperor Nero. They discuss Seneca’s career as a writer and philosopher and the contemporary lessons we can draw from his life. James Romm is the James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics at Bard College. He has written for The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, the London Review of Books, and in other venues. Professor Romm has written a numb... |
| 2020-Jul-21 • 3 minutes This Is Why You Can’t Care What People Think "It seems silly: Cato, one of Rome’s most courageous and steadfast leaders, had to practice wearing ratty clothes and walking barefooted and bareheaded. He had to gird himself for it. For defying convention and ignoring the people glancing askew. It doesn’t just seem silly, it seems a little dramatic. How much courage should that really take?" Ryan talks about why wearing a mask during the pandemic is more important than how you look wearing one in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this wee... |
| 2020-Jul-20 • 2 minutes The Good News About Wisdom "The bad news is that wisdom doesn’t come easily. The good news is that it is cheap. Or at least, cheaper than it has ever been before." Ryan talks about the world of wisdom that's available for you to peruse if you choose, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic ... |
| 2020-Jul-19 • 13 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: If You’re Not Seeking Out Challenges, How Are You Going to Get Better? In today's Daily Stoic Sunday episode, Ryan talks about the importance of taking on new challenges so that you are pushed to greater and greater heights. He discusses it in the context of writing his book Conspiracy: A True Story of Power, Sex, and a Billionaire’s Secret Plot to Destroy a Media Empire. Get Conspiracy: https://geni.us/bCz57Nt Read the original article: https://ryanholiday.net/seek-challenge/ This... episode is brought to you by Trends. Trends is the ultimate online community for entreprene... |
| 2020-Jul-18 • 36 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Dr. Harvey Karp Talk Preparation, Patience, and How to Be a Great Parent Ryan speaks with Dr. Harvey Karp, a parenting expert and inventor of the SNOO Sleep System, about how people prepare for parenthood, the benefits of seeking out parenting expertise, and more. Dr. Harvey Karp is a pediatrician and the creator of the SNOO Sleep System. Dr. Karp is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and teaches pediatrics at USC’s Keck School of Medicine. He has achieved renown for his methods that help infants quickly and safely go to sleep. Get the SNOO Sleep System: https://ww... |
| 2020-Jul-17 • 3 minutes Are You Ready To Ration? "It might have seemed crazy to read that, all those years ago, Seneca practiced a day of poverty each month. He fasted or he ate sparingly. He wore rags and slept on the ground. He got up close and personal with what it meant to have less, to remind himself of what life was like if many of his creature comforts disappeared." Ryan describes the relevance of this lesson, and what we can all do to instill it within ourselves, in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love ... |
| 2020-Jul-16 • 2 minutes Slow Is Smooth, Smooth Is Fast "When you are talented and smart, you know what you want and you know when you want it done. You want it done now, that is. So you work fast. So you try to build momentum. So you look for ways to make efficiencies. You don’t want to waste time. The problem is that in hurrying we often end up causing delays worse than if we’d taken it slow." Find out why it so important to be deliberate in your actions in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a r... |
| 2020-Jul-15 • 3 minutes Not What, But Who? "We’ve spoken about the commencement address that Arnold Schwarzenegger made to the Class of 2020. In it, he makes an important distinction that the Stoics make themselves. If you want to endure and overcome obstacles, he says, it’s not about what you are in life, but who." Ryan delves into Schwarzenegger's speech further in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen t... |
| 2020-Jul-15 • 36 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Maria Konnikova Talk Poker, Psychology, and Focusing on What You Can Control Ryan speaks with writer, psychologist, and poker champion Maria Konnikova about how she uses Stoicism to win big at Texas hold’em, and how you can use knowledge of human psychology to make better choices, whether it’s in Las Vegas or elsewhere. Maria Konnikova is an award-winning author who has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Wired, and many other outlets. Konnikova has also made a career as a poker player, winning hundreds of thousands of dollars in tournaments around the wor... |
| 2020-Jul-14 • 3 minutes Always Think About What Is Above You "It’s easy for power to go to your head. You see all the people that work for you and think you’re important. You fill out that online survey and find out that, hey, for what you make and where you live, you’re in the 1% or 10% or top 50% of earners. When you look at who is beneath you, who you’re doing better than, ego creeps in. Being someone’s 'superior'—whether that’s a superior officer or just a superior salesman—makes us feel superior." Find out how to defeat that impulse in today's Daily Stoic Podca... |
| 2020-Jul-13 • 4 minutes There’s a Bad Moon Rising "The global economy was strong for over a decade. All sorts of wondrous new technology is cheaper than ever before. You might think this is cause for major celebration, and indeed, for many people, it was." Ryan talks about how we must always be ready for the future, good or bad, in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into ... |
| 2020-Jul-12 • 9 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: Find Contentment Where You Are NOW With Stoicism and Stillness In today's Daily Stoic Sunday episode, Ryan talks about how the pursuit of stillness and inner calm can be found, how he finds it in his own life, and what it allows him—and you—to do. Get Stillness Is the Key: https://geni.us/dr4yG This episode is brought to you by the Theragun. The new Gen 4 Theragun is perfect for easing muscle aches and tightness, helping you recover from physical exertion, long periods of sitting down, and more—and its new motor makes it as quiet as an electric toothbrush. Try the Th... |
| 2020-Jul-11 • 45 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Congressman Dan Crenshaw Talk Fortitude, Outrage, and How to Be Inspired By History In today’s episode, Ryan and Congressman Dan Crewnshaw talk about personal accountability, who if anyone we should commemorate as heroic figures, how to follow the lead of Epictetus and “choose not to be offended,” and more. Congressman Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) has served in the US House of Representatives since 2019. He is a former Navy SEAL who served three tours in Afghanistan, losing his right eye in an IED attack during his final tour. In addition to serving in the House of Representatives, Dan Crenshaw al... |
| 2020-Jul-10 • 3 minutes Don’t Let Them Steal What Can’t Be Replaced "In early January, Kobe Bryant got a note from a reporter at ESPN. She was working on a story about a moment in Lakers’ history and she wanted to feature Kobe in the story... It would not have taken Kobe long to answer that inquiry. Maybe fifteen minutes. Maybe a few emails... Like with so many requests, it would have been so easy to say yes." Find out what Kobe did instead, and what that should mean to you, in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leav... |
| 2020-Jul-09 • 3 minutes This Is What Living Through History Looks Like "Perhaps you’re alarmed about the state of the world. Perhaps you’re horrified at the risks and dangers that lurk about. Pandemics, political chaos, riots, people at each other’s throats, unprecedented events—from cancelled NBA seasons to impeachments to a collapse in order in cities all over the world. What did you think living through history was going to be like?" Ryan talks about how we can best deal with the fits and spasms of history in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s p... |
| 2020-Jul-08 • 3 minutes It’s Time for Class "No one is saying you’re not smart. No one is saying that you aren’t pretty well-versed in philosophy. You might even be the most informed out of all of us. But that doesn’t change the fact that education is a process. It’s not something you do once. It doesn’t stop, no matter who you are or were." Ryan describes the importance of education, and why you can't stop learning, ever, in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for Ryan's Stoicism Masterclass on Calm and get your first seven days free: http://ca... |
| 2020-Jul-08 • 46 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Writer David Frum Discuss Political Courage and Standing Up For Your Beliefs In today’s episode, Ryan and conservative pundit David Frum talk about how it feels to be a conservative who opposes Donald Trump, the limitations that political correctness imposes on our culture, and more. David Frum is a journalist and conservative political commentator who is currently a senior editor at The Atlantic. Frum worked as a speechwriter for the second Bush administration and coined the term “Axis of Evil.” He has written for The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, Canada’s National Pos... |
| 2020-Jul-07 • 3 minutes Keep Your Eye on the Big Picture "It’s so easy to be reactive these days. We are drowning in information from unlimited sources. Much of it is inaccurate, most of it is sensational. We’re told of crises and failures, we see the worst of our fellow humans, and rarely are we given the much needed context of how events fit in with the grand scheme of things… because that would render a great deal of it unworthy of coverage." Ryan explains how to filter through the noise of everyday life to find the signal in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. ***... |
| 2020-Jul-06 • 3 minutes It’s Never A Straight Line "You had plans for how this year was going to go. You had plans for your business, for your relationships, plans for your house or your finances. Maybe you had a cause you had been working on for years. Maybe you thought your moment was approaching. Things were going in the right direction. It was about to happen. And now? Boom. It seems like all progress has stopped. Maybe it feels like things are suddenly going in the opposite direction." Ryan discusses how to deal with the sense that your plans have a... |
| 2020-Jul-05 • 36 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Billy Bush Discuss the Stoic Reaction to Public Shaming and How to Grow Beyond It In today’s episode, Ryan and TV news anchor Billy Bush discuss how to deal with being publicly shamed, the practical use of premeditatio malorum, and what Billy learned from being enmeshed in a significant public controversy. Billy Bush is the current anchor for TV’s Extra, with a career in broadcast journalism spanning over 20 years. He was part of one of the defining moments of the 2016 US presidential campaign, when footage was leaked of a 2005 appearance by Donald Trump on Access Hollywood during which... |
| 2020-Jul-04 • 22 minutes This Work Must Continue “Today is the 4th of July. It’s the celebration of the American Declaration of independence, which was signed on this date in 1776. There’s no question that document—inspired as it was by ideas from the Stoics—was an essential one. As we have talked about before, it asserted man’s inalienable rights and began a great experiment in human liberty and equality under the law that was, and continues to be, unparalleled in history. But it is important that today, and on all days, we do not mistake July 4th or t... |
| 2020-Jul-03 • 3 minutes This Is the Challenge We’re Rising To "There’s almost nothing more difficult than other people. They’re just tough. They fall short. They get in our way. They do hurtful things. They surprise and scare and bewilder us. This was true in the ancient world, just as it’s true today.. And perhaps nowhere in life is that challenge greater than in our own families." Ryan describes how Stoicism can help you deal with the challenges of raising or being part of a family in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for The Stoic Parent here: http://dailyst... |
| 2020-Jul-02 • 5 minutes So What Do We Do? "It’s hard to argue that we are not beset by many problems as a society. Depending on where you sit, those problems might be different, and that’s its own problem in and of itself. But the good news is that the path to solving those problems is the same, regardless of what you sit: we have to turn to the Stoics, or at least their method of problem solving." Ryan discusses a number of Stoicism-grounded methods that you can use to help deal with the issues of today's society in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. ... |
| 2020-Jul-01 • 5 minutes We Are Who We Honor "It was Malraux who said that we judge a society by the monuments it puts up. So imagine a society that puts up statues to tyrants, to someone who nearly succeeded in tearing an empire apart, who did horrible, inexplicably cruel things, even by the standards of their own time." Ryan tells us why monuments dedicated to the Confederacy must come down in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility,... |
| 2020-Jul-01 • 39 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and E.S. Schubert Talk the Purpose of Monuments and Why Statues Matter In today’s episode, Ryan and sculptor E.S. Schubert discuss the purpose of monumental statues and the complex issues surrounding who society venerates and why. E.S. Schubert is a sculptor based in Kansas City. He has designed and sculpted monumental statues for cities, sports teams, and Hall of Famous Missourians. Schubert has also crafted busts for Daily Stoic featuring famous Stoic figures. Get Daily Stoic’s busts of Marcus Aurelius (https://store.dailystoic.com/products/m... and Seneca (https://store.d... |
| 2020-Jun-30 • 2 minutes It’s Not Over Until It’s Over "We have fought very hard, together, in an unprecedented display of global and national courage, justice, discipline and wisdom. How many people have been saved from COVID-19? Too many to count. It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t handled perfectly. We didn’t do everything we could have, but we did a lot. You did a lot. But before you congratulate yourself, you must remember what the Stoics said: that Fortune deceives us." Ryan discusses what we must do instead of letting our guard down on today's Daily Stoic Pod... |
| 2020-Jun-29 • 3 minutes You Need to Have a Vision *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com Follow @DailyDadEmail: Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholiday Instagram:... https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/ Facebook:... http://facebook.com/ryanholiday YouTube:... https://geni.us/DailyDad See Privacy Policy at https://art19... |
| 2020-Jun-28 • 9 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: How to Feel Like You Have Enough In today’s episode, Ryan discusses how to feel satisfied with what life has brought you—whatever that may be—using the wisdom of the Stoics. This episode is brought to you by the Theragun. The new Gen 4 Theragun is perfect for easing muscle aches and tightness, helping you recover from physical exertion, long periods of sitting down, and more—and its new motor makes it as quiet as an electric toothbrush. Try the Theragun risk-free for 30 days, starting at just $199. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcas... |
| 2020-Jun-27 • 41 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Jessica Lahey Talk Parenting, the Process of Writing, and How to Fail Gracefully In today’s episode, Ryan and author and teacher Jessica Lahey talk about how to teach your kids to fail, the process of putting together a book, and more. Sign up for The Stoic Parent, Daily Stoic’s newest course, today: http://dailystoic.com/stoicparent Jessica... Lahey is the New York Times bestselling author of The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed. She has written for The New York Times and The Atlantic and has taught middle and high school for over a ... |
| 2020-Jun-26 • 7 minutes They Still Hide Money In Books "As a young boy, the famed basketball coach George Raveling learned an invaluable lesson about the power of both knowledge and ignorance from his grandmother, who raised him. 'Why did the slave masters hide their money in books, George?' she asked the young boy, standing together in her kitchen. 'I don’t know, grandma,' he said. 'Because they knew the slaves wouldn’t open them,' she said. Learn more about George's story, and the importance of reading, in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoye... |
| 2020-Jun-25 • 3 minutes It Keeps Coming and Won’t Stop Coming "In March, Brent Underwood thought he’d found the perfect place to ride out the pandemic: a small California ghost town he’d been slowly renovating and turning into a resort. It was safe and isolated, beautiful and quiet. Then a freak series of snow storms trapped him there in Cerro Gordo for weeks with dwindling supplies and no running water. His retreat turned suddenly into a prison. Then he had a bout with appendicitis that required him to drive himself 2 hours to the closest clinic. As we’ve said bef... |
| 2020-Jun-24 • 3 minutes Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop, Should Stop "If you’ve ever made it to the end of Homer’s Odyssey, you might have noticed a rather strange part of the ending. It’s a part that’s talked about a lot less than the rest of the poem, possibly because it makes so little sense. You see, despite spending every waking second for ten years fighting to get home, despite overcoming nearly insurmountable obstacles on his way, despite all the carnage of the final battle to reclaim his kingdom, Odysseus does something almost inconceivable the second he possesses wh... |
| 2020-Jun-24 • 29 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Lauryn and Michael Bosstick (The Skinny Confidential) Talk Stoic Morning Routines and How to Manage Your Life in Quarantine In today’s episode, Ryan speaks with Lauryn and Michael Bosstick of The Skinny Confidential, They talk about how they start their days off strong with their morning routines, the value of their time and how they protect it, and how they have changed their lives to not only survive but thrive during the global quarantine.Lauryn and Michael Bosstick are the producers of The Skinny Confidential, the lifestyle brand that delivers blogging, podcasts, workout and meal plans and more to its followers. Lauryn and M... |
| 2020-Jun-23 • 3 minutes This Is Your Fight "It’s tempting to tell yourself that we don’t have a problem. That you don’t have to get involved. This doesn’t affect your community. It’s not actually that big of a deal. Look at these numbers instead, a commenter whispers. But what about this other case or that one, they say. I’m not an activist, you think. I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes, I don’t want to make things political. Someone else can probably do a better job. These are lies. All of them." Ryan describes how the fight for justice in ... |
| 2020-Jun-22 • 3 minutes Life is Overwhelming. Or Is It? "It’s incredible to think of what has occurred in the last twenty years. The tech bubble. 9/11. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Great Recession. The Syrian Civil War. The Arab Spring. And now the COVID-19 Pandemic, and unprecedented protests and clashes between authorities and civilians. Even the last few months, as people have come to joke, feel like years all by themselves. Impeachment. The primaries. Pandemic. Police. It’s too much. Overwhelming, yeah? Or is it just… life?" Ryan talks about the ch... |
| 2020-Jun-21 • 5 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: This Is Your Most Important Job “How do we emulate the great parents of history? How do we work on improving ourselves at this essential job? The one for which we are given next to no training, for which many of us had less than ideal models for in our own childhood?” Ryan talks about the importance of preparation for the role of a parent—and discusses a great way you can make yourself ready for this critical job. Sign up for The Stoic Parent, Daily Stoic’s newest course on how to be the best parent to your kids, today: http://dailystoi... |
| 2020-Jun-20 • 38 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Brett McKay Talk Parenting, Living Through History, and Modern Manliness In today’s episode, Ryan and Brett McKay, founder of The Art of Manliness (https://www.artofmanliness.com/), talk about being a parent in the age of COVID-19, the changing definition of manliness, and more. Sign up for The Stoic Parent, Daily Stoic’s newest course, today: http://dailystoic.com/parenting Brett McKay is founder and editor-in-chief of The Art of Manliness, the massive men’s lifestyle website with over 10 million monthly page views. For over six years, Brett has published articles about how t... |
| 2020-Jun-19 • 2 minutes You Need Less Philosophy "All this reading, all these quotes. This love of learning, our fascination with books. No one is saying it’s a bad thing. Because it isn’t. Still, it’s worth using, from time to time, a quip from Steven Pressfield’s Gates of Fire on yourself." Learn about that quip in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and mak... |
| 2020-Jun-18 • 3 minutes You Must Avoid This Weakness "We’d like to think that our mind is our friend, but of course it isn’t. The Stoics knew this. The mind wants to jump to conclusions. The mind wants us to get worked up. The mind wants not to be challenged, not to have to admit it was wrong. That’s why they worked so hard to question their assumptions, to build strategies for questioning their own thinking and not being at the mercy of it." Ryan describes the weakness that you must not fall prey to, in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this... |
| 2020-Jun-17 • 4 minutes The One Purchase That Pays You Back "Is a Stoic stingy and frugal about everything? Some take it that way, but that’s probably the incorrect view. Instead, a Stoic should think both about eliminating needless expenses as well as spending liberally on the things that matter." Ryan discusses the one thing that a Stoic can always justify spending money on, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to th... |
| 2020-Jun-17 • 39 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Ben Hardy Talk Family, Self-Improvement, and How to Take On a Challenge In today’s episode, Ryan and Ben Hardy, the author and organizational psychologist, talk about the path of self-improvement, being a parent to foster children, and how to make permanent positive change. Ben Hardy is an organizational psychologist who has written multiple books and articles on the power of changing your personality to achieve success. From 2015 to 2018, he was the most popular author on Medium with over a million people reading each one of his posts. Ben also speaks at multiple leadership a... |
| 2020-Jun-16 • 3 minutes We Have To Try Harder To Get There "It’s not that our ancestors didn’t know what was right, it was that they had trouble fully getting there. In the opening pages of Meditations, Marcus Aurelius describes how the early Stoics like Thrasea, Helvidius, and Cato inspired him to believe in a 'society of equal laws, governed by equality of status and of speech, and of rules who respect the liberty of their subjects above all else.' Nothing is more important or just than that, Marcus believed. And yet he ruled a Rome that could not have been f... |
| 2020-Jun-15 • 3 minutes Are You Holding Your Shield? "The world has asked a lot of us over the last few months." Ryan describes the sacrifices we've all had to make and why they were so necessary on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signup Follow @DailyStoic: Twitter: https://twitter... |
| 2020-Jun-14 • 12 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: It’s Always the Time to Act Bravely In today’s episode, Ryan reads an excerpt from Stillness Is the Key, describing the importance of actually taking action and living the way that your philosophy would direct you to act. This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is a custom formulation of 75 vitamins, minerals, and other whole-food sourced ingredients that make it easier for you to maintain nutrition in just a single scoop. It tastes great and gets you the nutrients you need, whether you're working on the go, fuelin... |
| 2020-Jun-13 • 39 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and UT Basketball Coach Shaka Smart Talk Self-Control and Using Your Time Wisely In today’s episode, Ryan and University of Texas basketball coach Shaka Smart talk about focusing on what you can control, how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected college basketball, and more. Coach Shaka Smart has been involved with college basketball since 1995 and has been a head coach since 2009. In 2011, he led the VCU Rams to a historic Final Four finish at the NCAA Tournament. Since then, he has become the head coach at UT Austin. This episode is brought to you by WHOOP. WHOOP is a fitness wearable ... |
| 2020-Jun-12 • 3 minutes This Is the Most Powerful Force on Earth Over and over again, the Stoics remind us how weak we are compared to the force of nature and the whims of nature. Why get angry at the world, Marcus asks—quoting Euripedes—as if the world would notice? Seneca pokes fun at Claudius and his absurd delusion to immortalize himself. His impotent declaration of war against the sea and command to his soldiers to attack the waves with their swords. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our v... |
| 2020-Jun-11 • 3 minutes This Is Why You Have to Slow Down "There’s no question that we are facing a number of pressing issues as a planet: Public health dangers. Homelessness. The rise of authoritarian China. Police brutality. Failures of the regulatory state. It’s an interesting question: Are these crises suddenly coming to a head now? Or is it that we’re just finally noticing them?" Ryan describes the importance of slowing down, so that we don't miss all these trends, in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you ... |
| 2020-Jun-10 • 3 minutes No One Can MAKE You Upset "These are strange times. We all have entrenched political beliefs, for which the stakes seem dreadfully high. There are trolls everywhere. There are stupid people everywhere. Both the trolls and the ignorant seem to revel in saying things designed to piss us off. And if that weren’t enough, most of us are spending extended and unprecedented amounts of time trapped inside with people whom we may love but still have the ability to make us upset." Learn how to control your feelings of upset and unease in tod... |
| 2020-Jun-10 • 46 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Author Tom Mueller Talk Whistleblowers, Courage, and Doing the Right Thing In today’s episode, Ryan and bestselling author Tom Mueller talk about the history of whistleblowers, the crisis of courage in the world right now, how Stoicism helps us cultivate our conscience so we can do the right thing and why societies punish people who do. Get Tom’s latest book, Crisis of Conscience: https://geni.us/AjG8 This episode is brought to you by Leesa, the online mattress company. Each of their mattresses is made to order and shipped for free right to your door. All mattresses come with a ... |
| 2020-Jun-09 • 3 minutes This Is the Hardest Thing "So much is happening. At home. Abroad. On the news. At work. You have the things you need to do. And the emails that keep pouring in. You have the distractions that your own head creates. You have the criticisms and actions of the mob outside. There are a million different options, different opinions, different orders that things can be done." What should you do in moments like these? Find out on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review... |
| 2020-Jun-08 • 3 minutes How Can You Lighten the Load for Others? "When things get hard, a Stoic steps up. We’ve talked about that before. We do this because we know we can carry a heavy load, a load heavier than most people. That’s what Marcus Aurelius was saying when he said it doesn’t matter whether something is fortunate or unfortunate. What’s fortunate, he said, is that it happened to you." Ryan discusses the benefits that abound when you help others in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Ap... |
| 2020-Jun-07 • 10 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: This Is Why You Have to Care In today’s episode, Ryan reads his latest article, discussing the unfair advantage that privilege gives to certain of us because of the color of our skin, and how it is incumbent on us to fight back against it. This episode is also brought to you by Leesa, the online mattress company. Each of their mattresses is made to order and shipped for free right to your door. All mattresses come with a 100-night trial and a 10-year warranty, so you can feel confident in your investment in a good night’s sleep. And L... |
| 2020-Jun-06 • 34 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Sunday Night Football’s Michele Tafoya Talk Stoicism and Making the Most of Each Day In today’s episode, Ryan and Michele Tafoya, NFL sideline reporter and radio host, discuss self-improvement in quarantine, sympatheia, and more. This episode is brought to you by WHOOP. WHOOP is a fitness wearable that provides personalized insights on how well you’re sleeping, how much you’ve recovered from your workouts, and how much you’re stressed out from each day. It’s the ultimate whole-body tracker for someone who needs an all-in-one solution. Visit WHOOP.com and enter STOIC at checkout to save 15%... |
| 2020-Jun-05 • 2 minutes You Have to Fight "Maybe you don’t have to worry about being pulled over for little reason. Maybe you don’t have to worry about not getting the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you’ve never been in trouble. Maybe you know how to de-escalate tense situations, maybe you can afford a good lawyer. Maybe you’ve never been in the wrong place at the wrong time." So why is racial justice still a you problem? Ryan explains in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on App... |
| 2020-Jun-04 • 4 minutes You Should Meditate on Greatness "The Stoics were some of the keenest admirers of human greatness. Marcus Aurelius opens his Meditations with seventeen entries—nearly ten percent of the book—reflecting upon the various influential individuals in his life. Nearly every other page thereafter has at least one quote or one story or one mention of a story about his heroes: Socrates, Plato, Epictetus, Hadrian, Augustus, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Diogenes—'When you need encouragement,' he wrote, explaining this practice, 'think of the qualities the... |
| 2020-Jun-03 • 3 minutes To Wrong One Is To Wrong All "It’s easy to forget. It’s easy to think small. But this life is not just about us. Our loyalty and duty is not just to ourselves, to our family, or to our immediate neighbors. The Stoics believed that we were all one." *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/sign... |
| 2020-Jun-03 • 42 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Charlamagne tha God Talk Opening Your Mind and Political Power In today’s episode, Ryan and Charlamagne tha God, host of The Breakfast Club and author, speak on a number of different topics—from reading and fatherhood to Charlamagne’s always-present interest in politics. This episode is brought to you by WHOOP. WHOOP is a fitness wearable that provides personalized insights on how well you’re sleeping, how much you’ve recovered from your workouts, and how much you’re stressed out from each day. It’s the ultimate whole-body tracker for someone who needs an all-in-one s... |
| 2020-Jun-02 • 3 minutes This Is a War We Are Fighting "It would be easy to say that this is someone else’s fight. It is easy to say, as some pundits have said, that this is not a fight at all. You don’t go to war with a virus. That’s not how it works. But according to Andrew Roberts, the great biographer of Churchill and Napoleon, that is exactly what is happening and exactly how this works." Hear more from Andrew Roberts, and listen to Ryan discuss the importance of a total fight against the pandemic, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed th... |
| 2020-Jun-01 • 4 minutes You Always Have The Power To Resist "When one considers the notion of 'resignation and the principle of 'amor fati,' it might not seem like the Stoics and the idea of political resistance would go together. But this modern misconception would come as a surprise to the many tyrants and oppressors that found themselves in conflict with the Stoics over the centuries." Learn how a Stoic handles the presence of injustice in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts... |
| 2020-May-31 • 10 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: How Marcus Aurelius Conquered Stress (and the Rest of Us Can Too) In today’s episode, Ryan reads his latest article describing how Marcus Aurelius fought against the stresses and anxieties that come with running a continent-spanning empire. He draws actionable insights and tactics from Marcus Aurelius’s practices during his reign. This episode is brought to you by WHOOP. WHOOP is a fitness wearable that provides personalized insights on how well you’re sleeping, how much you’ve recovered from your workouts, and how much you’re stressed out from each day. It’s the ultimat... |
| 2020-May-30 • 47 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Cal Newport Discuss Staying Productive in a Pandemic and How to Maintain Focus On today’s podcast, Ryan talks with author and computer scientist Cal Newport about staying productive during the pandemic, how to maintain your focus on what's most important to you, and more. Get your copy of Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism: https://geni.us/Eh4IX2 . This episode is also brought to you by Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is a custom formulation of 75 vitamins, minerals, and other whole-food sourced ingredients that make it easier for you to maintain nutrition in just a single scoop. I... |
| 2020-May-29 • 4 minutes Remove These Three Words From Your Life "You’ve said them a thousand times. You said them when you were a kid. You said them last year. You’ve caught yourself saying them recently as you watched the world tear apart your carefully made plans. It’s not fair." Find out how to get "it's not fair" out of your system on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and... |
| 2020-May-28 • 2 minutes At Least It’s a Chance to Do This "It would have been much better if this hadn’t happened. If your employee had listened. If your parents could respect your boundaries. If your neighbor wasn’t so rude. If people hadn’t been reckless. If your kids had passed their math test. If nobody had taken offense to your joke... But that’s not how it shook out." So how do you deal with it? Find out on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibili... |
| 2020-May-28 • 40 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Coach George Raveling Talk Meeting Harry Truman, Reading and the Perils of Ego On today’s podcast, Ryan talks with Coach George Raveling, the longtime college basketball coach and member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. They talk about Coach Raveling’s encounters with historical figures like Martin Luther King, Jr. and President Harry Truman, the benefits of reading, and much more. This episode is brought to you by Future. Future pairs you up with a remote personal trainer that you can get in touch with from your home. Your trainer will give you a full exercise regi... |
| 2020-May-27 • 4 minutes Stress Is a Fact Of Life, Being Stressed Is Not "You think the Stoics didn’t experience stress? Of course they did... Seneca had health problems, was exiled, and then had to show up to work for years in Nero’s court—walking on eggshells around an unstable man with a penchant for bloodlust. Epictetus survived thirty years of exile. Marcus Aurelius’s reign included a plague, health problems, wars, flooding, bankruptcy, and family issues... That’s the definition of stress." Learn the Stoic solution to stress in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for D... |
| 2020-May-26 • 3 minutes There’s Nothing Better Than A Simple Pleasure "The Spartans were known for their simple, rustic ways. Unlike the citizens of Athens, who dined on the most gourmet fare, the Spartans ate almost nothing but “gruel,” a kind of broth or blood pudding. Visitors noted just how unappetizing this soup was, but to the Spartans, who were constantly training and working, it was delicious. Why? Because they said that hunger was the best flavoring." Learn more about the simple pleasures in life in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podca... |
| 2020-May-25 • 3 minutes This Will Make You Feel Better "It’s been rough. We’re not meant to be inside this long. We’re not meant to spend this much time with our devices. We’re not meant to hit pause like this on our jobs, on our businesses, on whatever projects we have been working on. How long will this continue? No one can say. But there is something you can do to maintain your mental and physical health..." Find out what that is on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. Get Stillness Is the Key on sale for just $3.99—ends today: https://geni.us/StillnessSale **... |
| 2020-May-24 • 12 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: You Must Stare This Scary Fact in the Face On today’s podcast, Ryan discusses the idea of memento mori as depicted in art throughout the centuries, and why it might be such a common motif. This episode is brought to you by Future. Future pairs you up with a remote personal trainer that you can get in touch with from your home. Your trainer will give you a full exercise regimen that works for your specific fitness goals, using the equipment you have at home. It works with your Apple Watch, and if you don’t already have one, Future will give you one ... |
| 2020-May-23 • 49 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Coach Buzz Williams (Texas A&M) Talk Habits, Time Management and the Lessons You Can Learn from the Pandemic Today Ryan talks with Buzz Williams, head coach of the men’s basketball team at Texas A&M. They discuss the impact of the COVID-19 quarantine on college sports, the personal progress they have made during the pandemic, how they practice reading, and more.Get your copy of Stillness Is the Key for just $3.99 on Amazon: https://geni.us/StillnessSaleThis episode is brought to you by Future. Future pairs you up with a remote personal trainer that you can get in touch with from your home. Your trainer will gi... |
| 2020-May-22 • 3 minutes There Is Nothing Special About Money "For all the poverty he practiced and Stoic philosophy he wrote, clearly there was some part of Seneca that was dazzled by money. Even though he was born into a wealthy family, he wanted more and more of it. That’s what drew him into Nero’s service, where he accumulated a net worth of millions and millions of dollars. So too with Cicero, who was born to a less prestigious family, but still strove for fame and fortune. Although Cicero refused to take bribes as a politician, he had no problem marrying rich or... |
| 2020-May-21 • 3 minutes Do You Know How To Wait? "Shakespeare waited out a plague. So did Isaac Newton. The poet John Keats spent 10 days in a harbor, waiting out a typhus epidemic. Think of the soldiers who spent years being posted overseas. Think about the ones who spent years recovering from their wounds. Life is full of waiting. It’s filled with moments of forced stillness. We’re delusional to think we’ll be exempted from this—that things are going to happen at our pace and on our terms." Ryan talks about dealing with periods of forced stillness in ... |
| 2020-May-20 • 3 minutes The Horror of Words Not Turned Into Deeds "It’s always been tempting to talk a good game. People have been doing it for thousands of years. But today, it’s never been easier to talk and virtue-signal. There are whole social networks designed to enable you to do this. They reward you for what you say, for the image you project. They don’t much care for what you do." Ryan talks about the importance of backing up your words with actions in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. **** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on A... |
| 2020-May-20 • 40 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan Talks Freedom and Personal Responsibility with David French Today Ryan talks with author and reporter David French about the balance between personal and civic responsibility, the ability to take criticism, the polarizing battles between the left and right in today’s politics, and more. This episode is brought to you by Mack Weldon, an amazing online retailer for men’s basics. Mack Weldon believes in smart design, premium fabrics and simple shopping—and they’ve created a great new loyalty program, Weldon Blue. Try out Mack Weldon today. And for 20% off your first o... |
| 2020-May-19 • 2 minutes Bring On Your Wrecking Ball "What does a Stoic say to adversity? To recessions? To pandemics? To setbacks and struggles and months stuck inside? To uncertainty and cramped quarters and a collapse of confidence? What do they say to the looming question that has so many people scared—'What if things get worse?'" Find out on today's Daily Stoic Podcast episode. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more... |
| 2020-May-18 • 3 minutes Don’t Learn This Dangerous Lesson "It’s easy to look at history and learn the wrong lesson. You see Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar and can’t help but connect their enormous ego to their incredible successes. Or you watch Elizabeth Holmes escape consequences for her frauds and Adam Neumann, the founder of WeWork, get rewarded with a golden parachute and think: the upside of ego is enormous and the downside is pretty minimal. You look at a Steve Jobs or a Kanye West and it’s understandable to think that ego is an asset. This is a mist... |
| 2020-May-17 • 25 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: Ryan Talks with South Carolina Football About How to Practice Stoicism Today’s podcast features Ryan talking to the University of South Carolina Gamecocks football team, discussing how you can use Stoicism in a practical way to keep learning, make (and stick to) your own standards, and make the most of your defeats. This episode is brought to you by WHOOP. WHOOP is a fitness wearable that provides personalized insights on how well you’re sleeping, how much you’ve recovered from your workouts, and how much you’re stressed out from each day. It’s the ultimate whole-body tracker... |
| 2020-May-16 • 43 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Historian Andrew Roberts Talk Leadership, Character and How One Person Can Change The World Today Ryan talks with writer and historian Andrew Roberts about the process of writing about historical figures, the ways that character is tested during trying times, Roberts’ take on figures like Napoleon and Lloyd George, and more. Books by Andrew Roberts Churchill: Walking with Destiny: https://geni.us/vi8z Napoleon: A Life: https://geni.us/p3JMb9n Leadership in War: https://geni.us/MCzyPy The Storm of War: https://geni.us/CKRDmyw Get Ego Is the Enemy for just $2.99: https://geni.us/Y6mZ0 This e... |
| 2020-May-15 • 3 minutes Better To Have Than Not To Have "It’s easy to think—given their spurning of so many of the pleasures that other people chase—that the Stoics didn’t want or like anything. When you see the lengths that Seneca and Marcus go to criticize luxury, you might assume they lived like paupers. Or when you hear about how blasé Epictetus was about his crippled leg, that maybe he had gotten so philosophical that like one of those monks, he had somehow transcended his physical form altogether. While this might all be inspiring if it were true, the re... |
| 2020-May-14 • 5 minutes We Are All Tied Up Together "These are rough times. Then again, times are always rough for someone. If not for us, then for someone else. And according to the Stoics, that means they’re rough for everyone. What’s bad for the hive is bad for the bee, Marcus Aurelius wrote. Meaning: we’re all in this together. Our fates are all tied up with one another. "Learn more about what you can do to help in today's Daily Stoic Podcast episode.Donate to Mobile Loaves & Fishes and Community First! Village here: https://geni.us/oz... |
| 2020-May-13 • 27 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and NBA G League Coach Coby Karl Answer Your Questions About Stoicism and Sports Today Ryan talks with Coby Karl, a former member of the Los Angeles Lakers and current head coach of the NBA G League’s South Bay Lakers. They take questions from Daily Stoic readers and listeners about the merits of coaching, and how to stay physically and mentally healthy with the tenets of Stoicism. This episode is brought to you by Future. Future pairs you up with a remote personal trainer that you can get in touch with from your home. Your trainer will give you a full exercise regimen that works for y... |
| 2020-May-13 • 3 minutes Always Keep A Role Model In Mind "It’s key then, if you want to be good and do good, that you have a kind of North Star in your life that keeps you centered. A role model who draws you back on course when the events of life or the drift of inertia subtly misdirect you." Learn more about the importance of role models in today's Daily Stoic Podcast **** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest i... |
| 2020-May-12 • 4 minutes This Is Who To Turn To When You’re Struggling "For thousands of years people have been turning to Stoicism when they had problems, big and small. Obviously you know that on some level or you wouldn’t be reading this email. But do you really practice this? Or, are you treating philosophy like some sort of side gig, as Seneca put it, or treating it, as Marcus termed it, like a stepmother? Whatever you’re going through, the Stoics have written about it." Find out what else Stoicism applies to in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode was brought to y... |
| 2020-May-11 • 3 minutes Just Do One Thing Every Day "Seneca wrote a lot of letters to his friend Lucilius. We don’t know a lot about Lucilius, only that he was from Pompeii, he was a Roman knight, he was the imperial procurator in Sicily then its Governor, he owned a country villa in Ardea. For all his success though, we get the sense that he struggled with many of the things we all struggle with: Anxiety. Distraction. Fear. Temptation. Self-discipline." Find out Seneca's simple solution to Lucilius's problems in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you en... |
| 2020-May-10 • 9 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: Life Comes at You Fast. So You Better Be Ready. In today’s episode, Ryan reads his latest article about the unpredictability of life, and how we should always be prepared for the worst and the best that it has to offer us. Read the original article here: https://geni.us/rLEd0 This episode is brought to you by WHOOP. WHOOP is a fitness wearable that provides personalized insights on how well you’re sleeping, how much you’ve recovered from your workouts, and how much you’re stressed out from each day. It’s the ultimate whole-body tracker for someone who ... |
| 2020-May-09 • 31 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: How Do I Deal With Imposter Syndrome? In today’s episode, Ryan talks about the new box set (https://geni.us/A6gX) of his first three books on Stoicism. He reads from Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic (https://geni.us/GMzk) and tackles your questions, too. This episode is brought to you by WHOOP. WHOOP is a fitness wearable that provides personalized insights on how well you’re sleeping, how much you’ve recovered from your workouts, and how much you’re stressed out from each day. It’s the ultimate whole-body tracker for someone who needs an all-in-... |
| 2020-May-08 • 3 minutes Can You Help Others First? "Here we are in tough times. A global pandemic has struck wide swaths of the population. Governments are struggling under the load. Economies are crashing. These are the kinds of moments that make average people want to shrink, to turn inward, to focus on themselves. A Stoic resists that impulse." Find out what a Stoic does instead, in today's Daily Stoic podcast. **** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more p... |
| 2020-May-07 • 3 minutes There Is Only One Person to Listen To "Like any person in power, any person in the public spotlight, any person striving to be great, Marcus struggled with caring too much about what other people thought of him. Good or bad—as animals, we are designed to think this matters, lest our evolutionary ancestors risk being driven from the tribe. So Marcus worked to remind himself that praise and criticism were really the same thing: a clacking of tongues. Throw away the recognition, throw away the gossip, throw away all grousing from your haters, he s... |
| 2020-May-06 • 3 minutes Now Is The Time For Structure "Maybe right now you’re stuck at home, maybe you’re not working. Your kids might be home with you. Certainly the normal way of doing things has been significantly altered. Well, now is the time to follow the Stoic practices more than ever." Find out what kind of practices you should incorporate into your life in today's Daily Stoic podcast. **** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast... |
| 2020-May-06 • 54 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Robert Greene Talk Plagues, Politics, and Polarization In today’s episode, Ryan talks with his mentor, author and strategist Robert Greene. They discuss historical links to today’s pandemic, the 2020 US presidential election, Robert’s thoughts on making alive time out of the state-imposed quarantines, and more. This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. Four Sigmatic is a maker of mushroom coffee, lattes, elixirs, and more. Their drinks all taste amazing and they've full of all sorts of all-natural compounds and immunity boosters to help you think clearl... |
| 2020-May-05 • 3 minutes It’s Important to Have Reminders "It seems crazy now, but amongst the Stoics in the ancient world there was once intense disagreement over whether philosophers should have “precepts” or sayings to remind them of their teachings. Stoics like Aristo, who lived around the time of Zeno, believed that this was cheating. A wise man, properly trained, should just know what to do in any and every situation. " Ryan discusses how we should use reminders to stay on the right path in today's episode. **** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d lo... |
| 2020-May-04 • 2 minutes Yours Is Not to Reason Why "It just doesn’t make sense, does it? They have every incentive in the world to get it right, and they can’t. They’re putting their own livelihood at risk. All the information is out there. They had the same opportunities as you did, maybe even better ones. And yet… and yet… " Ryan discusses how you can keep from being distracted by the actions of others. This episode was brought to you by Magic Spoon. Magic Spoon makes delicious cereal just like you remember from when you were a kid—only this version ... |
| 2020-May-03 • 8 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: All You Need Are a Few Small Wins Every Day In today’s episode, Ryan describes how success rarely comes in one fell swoop, but rather is built a little more every day, bit by bit. Building success day by day is just one of the many things you can do with an effective, efficient habits regimen. Get your habits in order with Daily Stoic’s Habits for Success, Habits for Happiness (https://geni.us/DShabits) course. It’s six weeks of challenges designed to revitalize your habits and make them start working for you. This episode is brought to you by GoMa... |
| 2020-May-02 • 43 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and NBA Legend Pau Gasol Talk Books, Basketball, and Stoicism In today’s episode, Ryan talks with NBA All-Star, Laker legend and humanitarian Pau Gasol. They discuss everything from Pau's reading habit to his advocacy for female coaches in basketball and more. 1:51 - Intro 6:22 - Being a big reader—and how that was encouraged by Phil Jackson 8:22 - What Pau gets out of fiction 10:32 - Phil Jackson recommendations 11:52 - Stoicism and reading 16:02 - The Meditations and marginalia 18:28 - Why do athletes always like quotes/aphorisms? 21:52 - The importance of r... |
| 2020-May-01 • 5 minutes You Do the Math "At least 200,000 people are marked for death worldwide and they don’t even know it. They are the back half of 'the curve.' They are essentially walking dead. That is the cold, harsh reality of statistics. Of the numbers." Ryan describes why we can't let our guards down against COVID-19—and why we must use it as a reminder that we could leave life at any moment. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more peopl... |
| 2020-Apr-30 • 2 minutes In the End, It’s Nothing "From the outside, it can all seem very impressive. Think of Marcus Aurelius, marching into Rome in triumph. Think of him looking down at the crowds in the coliseum. Think of him looking up, as they erect a 39 meter marble column to his accomplishments. But those who have had these things, they know." Find out what they know in the rest of today's podcast. This episode is also brought to you by Thrive Market, an online marketplace where you can get over 6000 products, whether it's pantry staples, food, ... |
| 2020-Apr-29 • 3 minutes You Will Not Be Made Whole "This was not your fault. You work hard. You pay your taxes and your insurance premiums. You follow the law. So you should be good, right?" Ryan shows why, when it comes to the COVID-19 pandemic or any other misfortune, that's not necessarily the case. **** If you enjoyed today’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email:... |
| 2020-Apr-28 • 3 minutes This Is a Critical Strength to Cultivate "Whatever you decide to do with your life, whatever path you decide to walk, people are going to stand in your way. They’re going to doubt you. They’re going to give you bad advice. They will do you wrong. On purpose and unintentionally. They’ll lie. They’ll undermine you. They may well actively take steps to stop you." Find out how to deal with this in today's meditation. This episode was brought to you by Magic Spoon. Magic Spoon makes delicious cereal just like you remember from when you were a kid—on... |
| 2020-Apr-27 • 4 minutes You Have to Care About the Most Vulnerable "By now, you’ve probably seen the viral CNN clip of the woman heading to church in Ohio. Aren’t you worried about being exposed to COVID-19, the reporter asks? No, she says confidently, I am bathed in Jesus’s blood. But aren’t you worried about exposing other people? No, she says, angrily. I go to Wal-Mart everyday. I go to the grocery store. Those people could infect me." Ryan talks about how a Stoic looks at the idea of flattening the curve, and why the lockdowns are so important. *** If you enjoyed to... |
| 2020-Apr-26 • 46 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: What Marcus Aurelius Can Teach Frontline Responders During COVID-19 This past January, Ryan spoke with the USAF’s 31st Fighter Wing, stationed in Aviano, Italy. Later this area would experience a virulent outbreak of COVID-19. Ryan recently recorded a follow-up call with the Aviano base, which you can hear in today’s episode. This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. Four Sigmatic is a maker of mushroom coffee, lattes, elixirs, and more. Their drinks all taste amazing and they've full of all sorts of all-natural compounds and immunity boosters to help you think clea... |
| 2020-Apr-25 • 60 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan Talks Social Media, Social Distancing, and Stoicism with Congressman Mike Gallagher In this episode, Ryan speaks with US Representative Mike Gallagher from the 8th District of Wisconsin. They talk how not to be distracted by social media and disinformation, how Stoics dealt with plagues both past and present, and how anyone can implement the lessons of Stoicism. This episode is brought to you by Go Macro. Go Macro is a family-owned maker of some of the finest protein bars around. They're vegan, non-GMO, and they come in a bunch of delicious flavors. Visit http://gomacro.com and use promo ... |
| 2020-Apr-24 • 4 minutes This Is a Game of Inches "Zeno lost everything in a shipwreck in the 3rd century BC. A family fortune. His occupation. Everything. He washed up in Athens anonymous and penniless. When he died, an old man, some forty years later, he was not only prosperous, he was one of the wisest men in the world. He’d been offered the keys to Athens and an honorary citizenship too. The school he founded, on the old stoa in Agora, would influence millions of people for the next two thousand years. How did he do it? How did he recover? How did he... |
| 2020-Apr-23 • 2 minutes We All Fall Short By now, you may have seen the video. A devout religious woman grabs the hand of Pope Francis as he greets the crowd of pilgrims and children. He tries to move on. She refuses to let go. In frustration, he slaps her hand and continues on. It’s not a pretty sight for sure. Especially for a man who has spoken so beautifully about kindness and compassion and humility. To call it “violence” would be an overstatement, but it was rudely out of character—a contradiction of what the man teaches and is supposed to... |
| 2020-Apr-22 • 3 minutes Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light "In April 46 BCE, 1,974 years ago, Cato the Younger died. In one sense, you might say he died willingly, as he chose death by his own hand rather than life under the tyranny of Julius Caesar. But no one who ever met Cato, nor anyone who reads of his death, should see anything resigned in the man." Listen to learn more about Cato the Younger's inspiring death, and about how we can follow his example in how he led his life. "Do not go gentle into that good night," by Dylan Thomas The sponsor of today's epi... |
| 2020-Apr-22 • 38 minutes Ryan Interviews Brent Underwood, Ghost Town Proprietor On this special bonus episode of the Daily Stoic podcast, Ryan interviews Brent Underwood, a partner in Ryan's marketing endeavors and the owner of an actual ghost town, Cerro Gordo. They discuss the practice of Stoicism when you're the only person around for hundreds of square miles. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. ... |
| 2020-Apr-21 • 4 minutes We Are What We Repeatedly Do Arete. That’s a powerful word. To the Greeks, it meant excellence. It was the ultimate expression of human greatness—moral, physical, spiritual. It’s what the Stoics were chasing. It’s what you’re chasing today. But how do we get there? Ryan discusses how we can achieve arete through the power of habits, and introduces the Daily Stoics's newest online course: Habits for Success, Habits for Happiness. It's six weeks of emails designed to completely rework your relationship with your habits—and make the... |
| 2020-Apr-20 • 3 minutes Keep Calm and Carry On "Things are rough out there, it’s hard to argue with that. The stock market. Quarantines. Hospitals filled to capacity, and beyond. Travel plans cut short. Families cut off from loved ones. What is happening?! you might find yourself asking. This is terrifying, are things breaking down? Maybe. But it’s helpful to recall in times like these that, as the broadcaster Paul Harvey once explained, there have always been times like these." Every day, Ryan Holiday reads the Daily Stoic meditation for the day. To... |
| 2020-Apr-19 • 9 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: Using Stoicism To Become Unbeatable In today’s episode, Ryan talks to the University of Alabama football team and discusses how to use the concepts of Stoicism to take on any challenge. When you keep one of the Daily Stoic’s medallions by your side, it helps to cement into place the messages espoused by Stoicism. Use the Obstacle is the Way medallion to remember that any obstacle you encounter contains an opportunity as well. And our Ego is the Enemy medallion is a great token of the idea that you need to get your ego out of the way in order... |
| 2020-Apr-18 • 24 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and John Brownstein Discuss the Science Behind the Pandemic In this episode, Ryan speaks with John Brownstein about the COVID-19 pandemic and what we all should do to stay safe and fight back against it. John Brownstein is a professor at the Harvard School of Medicine and Chief Innovation Officer at Boston Children’s Hospital. He’s spent his whole career learning about pandemics: how to track them using cutting-edge technology, and how to fight against them. This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. Four Sigmatic is a maker of mushroom coffee, lattes, elixir... |
| 2020-Apr-17 • 3 minutes How Will You Remember This? Right now, we’re looking at this all up close. It’s in our face. Being stuck at home. Watching business—and money—evaporate. Our plans are cancelled. Opportunities that we so looked forward to are gone, never to return again. How long will this last? Another month? Another year? How long will we be in the hurt? No one can say. A couple weeks ago, we interviewed Chris Guillibeau for Ask Daily Stoic, our Saturday podcast, while he was feeling the fresh sting of having to cancel a 40-city tour for his new ... |
| 2020-Apr-16 • 3 minutes We Cannot Be Servants To Our Stuff There is a story about King Philip, the father of Alexander the Great. He was leading a massive army campaign, and had picked an ideal spot to stop to break camp. As he began to give out orders, an aide rushed up to inform him that the location lacked enough pasture for the army’s pack animals and that they would have to move. “O Hercules,” Philip cursed in frustration, “what a life I lead if I am obliged to live for the benefit of my asses!” Philip may have been powerful, but not more powerful than the r... |
| 2020-Apr-15 • 2 minutes We Always Lose When We Lose Our Tempers Something happened. You got pissed. Now two bad things have happened. That’s just a fact. Because getting angry rarely makes things better—even if it helps you get what you thought you wanted. It taxes your heart. It causes you to be mean to other people. To “win” you had to lose your self-control. This is not to say you should merely accept everything in life. The Stoics were not passive weaklings. It’s that they preferred persuasion, patience, and persistence to yelling. They focused on addressing roo... |
| 2020-Apr-14 • 3 minutes Your Job is to Get The Best Out of People One of the trickiest parts of holding yourself to a high standard in life is that it’s only natural to start to expect others to do the same. You’re not taking the easy road, why should they be able to? You’re putting in the work, why aren’t they? You don’t lie, cheat, or steal, is it so crazy to assume others shouldn’t either? Look at your results—where are theirs? Marcus Aurelius must have struggled with this too. He hadn’t wanted to be emperor, but he was pressed into duty. Still, with all this power, h... |
| 2020-Apr-13 • 4 minutes You Have A Gun To Your Head It’s one of the most surprising scenes in literature and film. In Fight Club, Tyler Durden walks into a 24-hour convenience store and puts a gun to the head of the cashier. It’s an act of disturbing violence and cruelty. “Give me your wallet,” Tyler says as he presses the barrel against the man’s temple. Then he reads off his name and address: Raymond K. Hessel, 1329 SE Benning, Apartment A. “What did you want to be, Raymond K. Hessel?” Tyler asks, seeing the expired student ID card in the wallet. Then he... |
| 2020-Apr-12 • 9 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: The Important Thing is to Not Be Afraid On today’s episode, Ryan talks about the importance of courage in the face of great peril—and the distinction between being scared and being afraid. It's especially relevant in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.Read the original article here: https://ryanholiday.net/the-important-thing-is-to-not-be-afraid/We’ve... made a Four Virtues medallion commemorating courage along with the other Four Stoic Virtues. Get yours at https://geni.us/FourVirtuesThis episode is brought to you by Thrive Market, an online mar... |
| 2020-Apr-11 • 68 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan Holiday & Tim Ferriss Discuss "Alive Time vs Dead Time" Ryan speaks with Tim Ferriss, the author, podcaster, and investor. Tim has written five New York Times best selling books, including The 4-Hour Workweek, The 4-Hour Body, Tools of Titans and Tribe of Mentors. His podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show, has over 400 million downloads on iTunes. He has been an early investor in over 50 companies, including Uber, Facebook, Shopify, and Alibaba. Tim writes a hugely popular blog and has spoken in front of millions of people, whether on TV or to organizations like Google,... |
| 2020-Apr-10 • 3 minutes It’s Okay To Ask For Help It’s the strongest and the most helpful among us that often have the most trouble asking for help. The frontline responders know that their duty is to rush toward the bang, while others run away. A parent knows that they put their own interests and needs behind those of their children. The person who others rely on to be cheerful and fun can feel like they have no one to express their sorrow and pain to. Yes, a Stoic is strong. Yes, a Stoic is brave. Yes, a Stoic does their duty—without complaint, without... |
| 2020-Apr-09 • 3 minutes In Any Event, Do Your Best Look: none of us are truly self-sufficient. The success of a salesman depends on whether they’ve been given a good product and solid leads. The project manager is only as good as the projects her bosses give her to manage and the employees she decides to hire to work on them. The movie needs a marketing budget if it is to have a chance to build an audience. An athlete’s performance is shaped by their coaching, the teammates the GM gives them, and the resources the organization provides for winning. How a ge... |
| 2020-Apr-08 • 3 minutes You Don’t Control When, You Do Control How As we’ve discussed, one could look out at the world right now and see a lot of negative. Or you could grab the other handle, as Epictetus says, and see the positive. It’s an open question: Is this a great time to be alive or a terrible one? Are we blessed to have spent twenty years without any major wars, without any truly global crises, with sustained periods of economic prosperity and incredible technological advances? Or has it been twenty years with three major recessions, with the terror of terrorism, ... |
| 2020-Apr-07 • 4 minutes When You’re Going Through Hell, Do This… When Seneca was exiled, he wanted to give up, but he didn’t. He wrote. He prepared for the opportunity that would eventually come. When Musonius Rufus was exiled, he did the same. He kept himself busy not just with writing, but by discovering a natural spring on the island he was trapped on, one that provided for inhabitants who had long been without fresh water. When Epictetus was born into slavery, he endured it for thirty years until his freedom finally came. When the plague fell upon Rome during Marcus’... |
| 2020-Apr-06 • 3 minutes Now Is The Time For Heroes It was a decade or so ago, in the depth of the global financial crisis, that the musician and writer Henry Rollins offered a prescription that once again feels relevant. Indeed, it feels relevant because his advice was timeless, and applies in ordinary and extraordinary times alike. It’s advice worth following in times of triumph and great trials. “People are getting a little desperate,” he wrote as unemployment spiked and markets crashed. “People might not show their best elements to you. You must never ... |
| 2020-Apr-05 • 6 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: The Four Stoic Virtues On today's episode, Ryan discusses the Four Stoic Virtues: Courage, Justice, Moderation, and Wisdom. Listen to find out why the Four Virtues are so important in today's world. And check out the new Daily Stoic Four Virtues medallion at https://geni.us/FourVirtues This episode is brought to you by Thrive Market, an online marketplace where you can get over 6000 products, whether it's pantry staples, food, wine, and other groceries, or cleaning products, vitamins, or even bath and body products. They have pr... |
| 2020-Apr-04 • 43 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Chris Guillebeau In this super-sized edition of Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan talks about his visit to a mastermind event in Nashville, where he shared ideas and inspiration with other successful authors. Ryan also chats with Chris Guillebeau, author of The Art of Non-Conformity, The $100 Startup, and the upcoming book The Money Tree: A Story About Finding the Fortune in Your Own Backyard. This episode is brought to you by Go Macro. Go Macro is a family-owned maker of some of the finest protein bars around. They're vegan, non-GMO,... |
| 2020-Apr-03 • 3 minutes We’re Part of This Beautiful Tradition Do you remember the first time you heard about the Stoics? Maybe you read about them in another book. Maybe someone you know recommended them to you. Remember that feeling though? When those words first started going through your brain and you felt them in your soul for the first time? It was an incredible experience right? One of the most important and transformative moments in your life. Here’s the crazy thing though. Before the Vietnam war, James Stockdale had almost that exact experience when he was g... |
| 2020-Apr-02 • 3 minutes The Way, The Enemy and The Key We should always be looking for mantras and epigrams. Ideas that are true and applicable in every situation, to every generation, across all time. The Stoics had more than a few they liked: “Character is fate,” which came to them from Heraclitus. “Life is only perception,” which Marcus got from Democritus. “You become what you give your attention to,” which Epictetus wrote. Even memento mori and amor fati are short little reminders of concepts we should never forget. Lincoln was fond of the expressio... |
| 2020-Apr-01 • 4 minutes From The Past, We Are Able To Tell The Future Let’s imagine a scenario in which almost all our modern scholarship was lost. Imagine if some great fire at the Library of Alexandria wiped away the last few hundred years of breakthroughs in psychology and biology. Suddenly, countless research papers and books and discoveries were turned to ash. The cost would be immense, no question. And yet, somehow, we’d be fine. Even if all that remained were just the writings of Marcus Aurelius and Seneca and Epictetus. Because as much as our species craves new-ness,... |
| 2020-Mar-31 • 4 minutes How a Few Can Help The Many Perhaps you know the story of the 300 Spartans. It was first immortalized by Herodotus, and then has been passed down through the ages (there’s a wonderful Steven Pressfield novel about it). If you don’t know the story, here’s what happens: Facing an invading army of some 300,000 Persian soldiers that threatened to annihilate Greece, King Leonidas led just 300 Spartan warriors into battle in a desperate attempt to buy his neighboring countries a chance to coordinate and defend themselves. For three days, th... |
| 2020-Mar-30 • 3 minutes These Are The Three Most Important Words of Wisdom Almost 50 years ago, the Beatles whispered to us some words of wisdom: Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be. One of the most relatable passages in Meditations is actually about just that. Marcus writes about sitting next to someone who smells or has bad breath. You can almost feel his frustration, as if he too has sat on an airplane center seat and had to jostle for the armrests that are clearly his. What is wrong with this person? Can’t they figure out how this works? Do they have to be so rude? And... |
| 2020-Mar-29 • 9 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: Should I Watch The News Ryan discusses the merits of watching the news, and how to tune out distractions, with Steven Pressfield. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2020-Mar-28 • 4 minutes Alive Time or Dead Time. What Will It Be? Here you are, stuck indoors, stuck somewhere you don’t want to be. Maybe also you’re stuck because you’re 17 going on 30. Maybe also you’re stuck because you’ve got another two years left on your enlistment or because you’re waiting for a position to open up at a new company. Or you’re stuck because there is a global pandemic and, like a good Stoic, you’re listening to the authorities, and staying home, and helping to flatten the curve. You can’t help that, the Stoics would say. But you can help what you ... |
| 2020-Mar-28 • 19 minutes Ask Daily Stoic - How Do I Use Stoicism To Fend Off Negativity? Ryan talks about the Edmund Morrison biography of Thomas Edison, reads a passage from The Obstacle is the Way (on sale for a few more days), and fields more questions from his readers and fans. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2020-Mar-27 • 3 minutes When Things Are Tough, Remember This Most languages have some expression to the effect of “When it rains, it pours.” For instance, in Latin malis mala succedunt means troubles are followed by troubles. In Japanese, they say, “when crying, stung by bee.” The point of these expressions is to capture an unfortunate reality of life: that what can go wrong will… and often all at the same time. Obviously to the Stoics, the idea of premeditatio malorum is a kind of hedge against this. If you’re only prepared for a few, isolated and tiny things to g... |
| 2020-Mar-26 • 3 minutes No One Escapes This Law This is not another note about memento mori. It’s about a different immutable, inescapable law of human existence that comes to us from the Stoics through Heraclitus (one of Marcus Aurelius’ favorites): Character is fate. After death and taxes, this is a timeless adage that the Stoics believed will determine our destiny whether we like it or not. And just a quick glimpse around the world and across history confirms it: Liars and cheats eventually destroy themselves. The corrupt overreach. The ignorant ma... |
| 2020-Mar-25 • 5 minutes We All Have Flaws… What Matters is What We Do With Them Jeannie Gaffigan is a control freak. She takes charge. She cares about the little things and getting those things right. She always has. It’s hard to argue that this part of her personality hasn’t served her well. She and her husband, the comedian Jim Gaffigan, have created an enormously successful partnership that birthed not only multiple television shows and comedy specials but five healthy, well-adjusted children. You can imagine, you have to be a stickler for details to pull all that off. The problem... |
| 2020-Mar-24 • 5 minutes You Can Seize This Moment This is an email we weren’t expecting to send, but sometimes sudden events call for sudden responses. Right now you, and much of the world, are locked down, doing your part to fight the spread of COVID-19. Perhaps you’ve already been trapped inside for weeks. Perhaps you just got back the test results and now you are in complete isolation. Perhaps your job has furloughed you and you’ve got a lot of time on your hands. Things seem serious now, but the truth is, it’s only going to get more serious. All ... |
| 2020-Mar-23 • 3 minutes The World Is Trying To Teach You This was all pretty sudden, wasn’t it? The economy was chugging along. Life was going well. We had travel plans. We had work plans. We had things we were doing. We had a sense for what we’d do next. And then… bam. Now, here we are. You know what that is? It’s a reminder. It’s a reminder that Seneca—a man who experienced exile, illness, financial setbacks, and all sorts of other adversity—wrote about more than 2,000 years ago. He told us “never to trust prosperity, and always take full note of fortune’s ... |
| 2020-Mar-22 • 9 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: You Don’t Control What Happens, You Control How You Respond In today's episode, Ryan reads his piece from March 12, "Remember: You Don’t Control What Happens, You Control How You Respond." He discusses how to stay safe amidst the COVID-19 pandemic—and how to think and act Stoically during this crisis. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2020-Mar-21 • 26 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Keeping Calm About Coronavirus In this week's Saturday episode, Ryan discusses the coronavirus pandemic and how to deal with it like a Stoic. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2020-Mar-20 • 3 minutes You Should Always Find Something to Learn We all have our way of doing things. We have what we were directly taught. We have the values that our culture gives us. We have the lessons we picked up by experience. It’s understandable then, when we see someone else doing things totally differently, that we might assume they’re doing it the wrong way. That’s not how that’s supposed to go, we think to ourselves. This, the Stoics would tell us, is a recipe for folly. “It’s impossible to begin to learn that which you think you already know,” Epictetus sai... |
| 2020-Mar-19 • 3 minutes This Is One Thing You Must Not Do It’s possible, Marcus Aurelius said, to not have an opinion. You don’t have to turn this into something, he reminds himself. You don’t have to let this upset you. It’s not that the Stoics lived in a world where people didn’t do bad things or a world free from rudeness and cruelty. On the contrary—those things were far more prevalent in Rome than they are today. But what the Stoics worked on was not letting these things get to them, not letting it provoke them to anger. If someone insulted Cato, he prete... |
| 2020-Mar-18 • 12 minutes When the System Breaks Down, Leaders Stand Up It began in the East. At least, that’s what the experts think. Maybe it came from animals. Maybe it was the Chinese. Maybe it was a curse from the gods. One thing is certain: it radiated out east, west, north, and south, crossing borders, then oceans, as it overwhelmed the world. The only thing that spread faster than the contagion was the fear and the rumors. People panicked. Doctors were baffled. Government officials dawdled and failed. Travel was delayed or rerouted or aborted altogether. Festivals, ga... |
| 2020-Mar-17 • 4 minutes Your Obstacles Are Trying To Teach You Something One way to go through life is to turn away from the things that are hard. You can close your eyes and ears to what is unpleasant. You can take the easy way, forgoing difficulty whenever possible. The other way is the Stoic way—it entails not only not avoiding hardship, but actively seeking it out. In the novel Memoirs of Hadrian, Marguerite Yourcenar has Hadrian write to young Marcus Aurelius about his philosophy for learning and benefiting from all of life’s adversity and unpleasantness. “Whenever an obje... |
| 2020-Mar-16 • 4 minutes We Need You To Be Bold On the Roman calendar, March 15th was known as the Ides of March—once most notable as the year’s deadline for settling debts. That changed in 44 BC when Julius Caesar walked into the Theatre of Pompey for a routine meeting with the Roman Senate. Caesar was then at his apotheosis. He had made himself Dictator Perpetuo. He was about to embark on a three year expedition, which, if successful, would, as Plutarch wrote, “complete this circuit of his empire, which would then be bounded on all sides by the ocean."... |
| 2020-Mar-15 • 9 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: Four Strategies for Reading Better Ryan talks about how you can improve your reading skill and get more from the books you love. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2020-Mar-14 • 27 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Austin Kleon Ryan chats with Austin Kleon, author of great books like Steal Like An Artist. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2020-Mar-13 • 3 minutes You Must Be a Good Example Think of the pressure Marcus Aurelius must have been under. Not just of the temptations and the corruptions of power, but all the eyes that were on him. Forget the judgments of history, there was literally an “emperor cult” in Rome that worshipped the man on the throne as a god to be sacrificed to and prayed for. What we know is that Marcus took this pressure seriously. He strove to live up to the expectations and the dignity of his position, even if many of his predecessors had not. “Let people see someo... |
| 2020-Mar-12 • 4 minutes How Prepared Are You To Start Over? The Austrian writer Stefan Zweig experienced both incredible good fortune and misfortune in his life. He was born into wealth; he met some of the great minds of his time, from Freud to Arthur Schnitzler; he traveled extensively and became Europe’s bestselling novelist. And in that span, he also experienced two terrible world wars and was driven from his home by Hitler’s antisemitism; first fleeing to England, then later going to the U.S, before finally starting his life over again in Brazil, where he spent ... |
| 2020-Mar-11 • 3 minutes You Should Always Find Something To Do There was time to kill in Rome, just as there is today. A dinner started late. A meeting got cancelled. Travel delays meant being stuck in this place or that place for a couple days. Something would break and someone would need to go into town for supplies. The impulse then, as now, when faced with these kinds of situations, was to just wait. Or complain. Or mess around. We all do it, writing stuff off as dead time, as we’ve talked about before. It’s a rather presumptuous thing to do, though, if you think... |
| 2020-Mar-10 • 3 minutes You Might Never Be Famous — And That’s O.K. Marcus Aurelius talked a lot about fame. He called it a worthless clacking of tongues and liked to point out things like how few people remember the emperors who preceded him, or how the generations to come will be the same annoying people he knows now. It’s easy to picture him writing these things in times where he caught himself falling for the allure of fame, of power, of how history might remember him. Don’t we all fall for it? It is alluring. But if we’re honest with ourselves, it isn’t the fame we r... |
| 2020-Mar-09 • 3 minutes Why Anger Might Be The Worst Vice There are many different vices out there. It’s long been a debate amongst priests and philosophers if some are worse than others, or if they are all created equal. Even amongst the Stoics there was some debate—were all sins the same? Was being or doing wrong a matter of degree, or was it black and white? It’s one of those things that vexes philosophers but is obvious to normal people. Of course some vices are worse than others. Of course there is a grey area! Welcome to life, genius. Seneca eventually co... |
| 2020-Mar-08 • 7 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: How a Stoic Deals with Bad News Ryan describes how a Stoic can deal with bad news—and not just move past it, but use it to fuel their success. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2020-Mar-07 • 19 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: How Does a Stoic Deal with Aggressive People? Ryan talks about the new Daily Stoic offices, reads a selection from The Obstacle is the Way, and answers your questions. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2020-Mar-06 • 3 minutes Wisdom is the Most Important Virtue Courage. Temperance. Justice. These are the critical virtues of life. But what situations call for courage? What is the right amount? What is the right thing? This is where the final and essential virtue comes in: Wisdom. The knowing. The learning. The experience required to navigate the world. Wisdom has always been prized by the Stoics. Zeno said that we were given two ears and one mouth for a reason: to listen more than we talk. And since we have two eyes, we are obligated to read and observe more than... |
| 2020-Mar-05 • 4 minutes Justice: The Most Important Virtue Being brave. Finding the right balance. These are core Stoic virtues, but in their seriousness, they pale in comparison to what the Stoics worshipped most highly: Doing the right thing. There is no Stoic virtue more important than justice, because it influences all the others. Marcus Aurelius himself said that justice is “the source of all the other virtues.” Stoics throughout history have pushed and advocated for justice, oftentimes at great personal risk and with great courage, in order to do great thin... |
| 2020-Mar-04 • 3 minutes Temperance is the Most Important Virtue Yesterday we discussed the Four Virtues, and talked about the primacy of courage. Of course, life is not so simple as to say that courage is all the counts. While everyone would admit that courage is essential, we are also all well aware of people whose bravery turns to recklessness and becomes a fault when they begin to endanger themselves and others. This is where Aristotle comes in. Aristotle actually used courage as the main example in his famous metaphor of a “Golden Mean.” On one end of the spectrum... |
| 2020-Mar-03 • 3 minutes Courage is the Most Important Virtue The Stoics believed that a life well lived was one which always countered adversity with virtue. And they believed in four aspects of virtue: courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom. Each and every situation calls for one or more of these four Stoic virtues, and nothing in life exempts us from their power. Today, we begin with one of the most important: Courage. If you’ve read Cormac McCarthy’s dark and beautiful novel All the Pretty Horses, you’ll remember the key question that Emilio Perez asks John ... |
| 2020-Mar-02 • 4 minutes You Can Make This A Game...and Win The Stoics said it over and over: the most important thing to remember about pain and suffering is that it is inevitable. It can’t be avoided, so don’t make it worse by fearing it, worrying about whether it will come, wondering how bad it will be. Seneca’s line was that we suffer more in imagination than in reality. The essential insight from Epictetus was: It’s not things that upset us, it’s our opinion about them. And Marcus Aurelius too: If you choose to feel like you’ve been harmed, you have been. At ... |
| 2020-Mar-01 • 9 minutes Daily Stoic Sundays: How to Have Your Best Week Yet Ryan uses eight Stoic lessons to teach us how to have the best week ever. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2020-Feb-29 • 33 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Guest Starring Steven Pressfield This week's extra-long Saturday episode of Ask Daily Stoic features Ryan talking about, and speaking with, author Steven Pressfield, writer of classic books such as The Legend of Bagger Vance, Gates of Fire, and The War of Art. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2020-Feb-28 • 3 minutes You Must Wash Away This Dust Life is a dirty, dusty affair. It was that way in Rome and it’s that way today. The puddle in the street splashes us. Someone else’s nasty mood sullies our demeanor. The heat makes us sweat. The news of the world makes us worried. We spill some food, we spill out some frustration. We wake up in the morning fresh and ready to go and by the end of the day, we are covered in dust. The dust of emotions, of work, of stress, of everything. The Stoics knew this and they knew also that it was critical to find w... |
| 2020-Feb-27 • 3 minutes You Are A God The Stoic writings alternate between reminding us of our humility and our power. For humility, we have the concept of amor fati, for example—we should learn to love our fate, “good or bad” because we’re powerless to do anything about it. And with equal sincerity, Marcus Aurelius reminds himself that if something is humanly possible, he should believe he is capable of doing it. Humility and power. Power and humility. It’s not a contradiction. It’s a balance. On some days we need a reminder of the former... |
| 2020-Feb-26 • 3 minutes Repeat These Three Words To Yourself Constantly “Facts are stubborn things,” John Adams once said, “and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictums of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” How true it is. It’s an idea that goes to the very essence of what Marcus Aurelius and Seneca and Epictetus spend so much time talking about. Reality is a stubborn thing. As much as we might want events to go or be one way, this has little bearing on the way they are. We wish we had been born tall, to a rich or royal family... |
| 2020-Feb-25 • 3 minutes You Must Read… and Re-Read It’s no secret that John Adams is one of history’s brilliant minds. He was widely respected as a lawyer, a politician, a president, and as a husband, a father, and a friend. But for all this, he was often overwhelmed by anguish, despair, discontent, loneliness, doubt, fear, uncertainty, and the rest. “I can as easily still the fierce tempests or stop the rapid thunderbolt,” he once lamented in his journal, “as command the motions and operations of my own mind.” Like many of us, Adams longed for stillness, f... |
| 2020-Feb-24 • 4 minutes Don’t Be Zero-Sum Steven Pressfield, whose historically-driven novels about ancient Greece have sold millions of copies, wrote a recent post that posits that there are two kinds of people in the world—Zero-Sum and Non-Zero-Sum. Hitler was zero-sum. He believed that the Aryan race could only survive if it took from and eliminated other races. Abraham Lincoln was non-zero-sum. Yes, he believed that slavery was a horrible evil and needed to end, but he did not believe that the North needed to crush and destroy the South. In fac... |
| 2020-Feb-22 • 14 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: How Do You Recognize What's in Your Control? Ryan talks about speaking to service members at Aviano Air Base in Italy. Ryan reads a passage from Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit. You can also find these videos on the Daily Stoic YouTube channel. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2020-Feb-21 • 4 minutes Do What’s Right, Not What’s Easy It was a somber scene as the pallbearers marched down Pine Street carrying the coffin of General William Tecumseh Sherman on this day 129 years ago. It grew more somber still as the rain started to drizzle and then rain steadily. The temperatures dropped as the procession winded through the streets. Repeatedly along the seven mile walk, the former Confederate General Joe Johnston, then old and frail, but who had faced off in battle against Sherman many times, was asked if someone could take his place so tha... |
| 2020-Feb-20 • 3 minutes Who Can You Adopt? One of the most remarkable traditions of ancient Rome—and one for which we have no real modern analog—was the tradition of wealthy, successful families adopting and raising young men (sometimes women) to be their heir. Scipio Aemilianus, one of the early patrons of Stoicism, for instance, was adopted into the famous Scipio family, while his elder brother Quintus was adopted by the Fabii family, an equally grand legacy. Seneca was not adopted (nor did he adopt anyone), but his brother Novatus was adopted b... |
| 2020-Feb-19 • 3 minutes Why Be Angry About Something That’s Already Gone? It’s another mess. It’s not your fault, but you’re dealing with it. It’s another rude person— representing a company you are paying money to—who doesn’t seem to get how this is supposed to work. It’s another example of disrespect, or bias, or plain discrimination. It’s precisely the kind of thing that pisses you off. So you’re angry. It shouldn’t be like this. It doesn’t need to be like this. When will it stop? The Stoics have an answer. It might not be the one you want to hear, but it’s an answer. The a... |
| 2020-Feb-18 • 4 minutes How To Be Proven Wrong Imagine writing a book that sells millions of copies over the course of nearly a decade, and then, out of nowhere, another author comes along and challenges it. What would you do? In Malcolm Gladwell’s massive bestseller Outliers: The Story of Success, he posits that 10,000 hours of deliberate practice is required to master any skill. Implicit in Gladwell’s argument is that success is the manifestation of specialization. If you want to be among the best at something, you have to focus solely on that singu... |
| 2020-Feb-17 • 3 minutes Don’t Take the Money. Don’t Take the Money. Cicero and Cato both refused to take bribes, despite how widespread the practice was for politicians at the time. Cato refused to be enriched by his office in any form, even though that was even more common. Marcus Aurelius refused inheritances that were offered to him, much the same way. Although they never gave us their exact reasons, it’s pretty easy to deduce. Because corruption is a betrayal of the public trust. Even if it weren’t, Marcus and Cato would likely have declined all the same. Why? Because... |
| 2020-Feb-15 • 20 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Who Are Some Famous Figure Influenced By Stoicism? Ryan talks about putting the finishing touches on his upcoming book, Lives of the Stoics. Featuring today's entry from The Daily Stoic. You can also find these videos on the Daily Stoic YouTube channel. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2020-Feb-14 • 4 minutes This Is a Command, Not a Mere Reminder Like most solo pursuits, the artist’s life is one that ceaselessly tests one's mental fortitude. Steven Pressfield likens it to dragon slaying. The dragon being what he’s coined the “Resistance”—that voice that questions your abilities, your worth, your sanity. “Resistance never sleeps,” Pressfield says. “It never slackens and it never goes away. The dragon must be slain anew every morning.” Anyone who sets out to make a career in the arts is confronted with this reality quickly, if not immediately. The t... |
| 2020-Feb-13 • 3 minutes You Must Think For Yourself It’s never been easier to get information than it is today. You have access to Wikipedia, to podcasts, to social media, and a near infinite library of books. You can chat with just about anyone about anything. We live in a wonderful time where facts and opinions are abundant like truly never before in history. But there is danger in all this abundance as well. Because with this access has come instant connection and viral sharing, which means that for all the diverse sources of information out there, it’s... |
| 2020-Feb-12 • 4 minutes Can You Be Still? There is probably no piece of literature that the Stoics were more familiar with than the Odyssey. Seneca quotes it. Marcus Aurelius quotes it. Pretty much everyone in the ancient world was so familiar with Homer’s verses that they could be quoted without attribution and people would know what the speaker was referencing It makes sense. It’s a beautiful, inspiring poem with all sorts of lessons and images. But here’s one that the Stoics never mentioned, that is easy to miss unless you read all the way to t... |
| 2020-Feb-11 • 3 minutes Here’s How To Become an Informed Citizen When people hear Epictetus quoted to justify not watching the news—“If you wish to improve, be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters”—they get upset. It’s understandable. For generations, especially in America, people have been conditioned to think that consuming journalism, be it in newspaper or television or online form, is the duty of every informed citizen. Unfortunately, only the second half of this supposition is correct. Yes, it is the duty of every citizen—especially those wit... |
| 2020-Feb-10 • 3 minutes It Takes What It Takes Watching a master do their work is always impressive. Whether it’s an orator working a crowd or an athlete contorting their body with ease and finesse, it’s incredible to see what people are capable of. We see things and wonder how they’re possible. We hear of the feats of brilliance, of courage, of endurance, and of wisdom pulled off by Cato or by Thrasea and wonder how they managed to do it. The answer, in every instance, is simple. They did the work. “First, tell yourself what you want to be, then act... |
| 2020-Feb-08 • 15 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Can You Be Informed Without Cable News? Ryan talks about his upcoming talk in Italy and about James Stockdale, and answers questions from fans. Featuring today's entry from The Daily Stoic. You can also find these videos on the Daily Stoic YouTube channel. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2020-Feb-07 • 3 minutes You Still Have Time. You Have So Much Time. Seneca’s life is worth looking at for anyone who thinks they missed their shot, who thinks it might be “too late” for them. Because in his early twenties, just as his career as a lawyer was taking off, Seneca was struck with a terrible blow of tuberculosis. He was sent away by his doctors to Egypt, where he spent the next ten years recovering. Eventually, he returned to Rome, and though many would have suspected his window had closed, he quickly made a name for himself as a politician and a philosopher. T... |
| 2020-Feb-06 • 4 minutes You Must Look Beneath The Surface Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus, like all Romans, seemed to have loved the theatre. Seneca, in particular, had a great fascination for what “actors in theatre who imitate the emotions” could teach him about dealing with people in real life. Many actors appear “most dangerous when they redden,” Seneca observed, but “they were letting all their sense of shame escape.” From that, he realized that with Sulla “when the blood mantled his cheeks” it was always “due...to the novelty of a situation.” And “F... |
| 2020-Feb-05 • 4 minutes If Everyone Is Woke, Then No One is Awake It’s unquestionably a good thing that the world is waking up to the idea of social justice. For too long, marginalized groups have been precisely that—marginalized. Oppression, racism, unequal access to opportunity have been too common for too long in America and the world. People have been way too insensitive to the trauma that all sorts of people have experienced in life, and indifferent to how those traumas are exacerbated and triggered by the way we do things. Of course, we should be awake and aware o... |
| 2020-Feb-04 • 3 minutes It’s Better To Share For Julius Caesar’s grip on power to be complete, he had to eliminate his rivals. So too did Octavius, Caesar’s nephew who succeeded him. Claudius eliminated senators who threatened his reign. Nero, even with the moderating influence of Seneca, violently dispatched his mother and stepbrother. That’s basically the entire history of emperors and kings—an endless parade of heirs getting rid of other potential heirs and anyone who might exert influence on the throne. All this makes what Marcus Aurelius did up... |
| 2020-Feb-03 • 2 minutes You Must Win The Morning! One of the most relatable moments in Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations is the argument Marcus Aurelius has with himself in the opening of book 5. It’s clearly an argument he’s had with himself many times, on many mornings—as have many of us: He knows he has to get out of bed, but so desperately wants to remain under the warm covers. It’s relatable...but it’s also impressive. Marcus didn’t actually have to get out of bed. He didn’t really have to do anything. One of his predecessors, Tiberius, basically abando... |
| 2020-Feb-01 • 17 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: How Do I Deal With Long Term Problems? **Now featuring twice as much content per episode**In each of the Ask Daily Stoic Q&A episodes, Ryan will answer questions from fans about Stoicism. You can also find these videos on the Daily Stoic YouTube channel.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2020-Jan-31 • 3 minutes Shine On, You Crazy Diamond There has always been an odd streak in the Stoics. Zeno used to practice begging people for money, even though he had plenty. Cleanthes worked as a manual laborer for so long, some in Athens thought it might be a front for something. Cato used to walk around bareheaded and barefooted, wearing dingy clothing. Seneca was completely unafraid both of regularly practicing poverty (despite his wealth) and unafraid of showing his wealth (despite his reputation as a Stoic). He also experimented with vegetarianism a... |
| 2020-Jan-30 • 4 minutes If You Don’t Read, You’re Functionally Illiterate General James Mattis is part of a long line of tradition of Stoic warriors. Just as Frederick the Great carried the Stoics in his saddlebags as he led his troops, or Cato proved his Stoicism by how he led his own troops in Rome’s Civil War, Mattis has long been known for taking Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations with him on campaign. “Reading is an honor and a gift,” he explains, “from a warrior or a historian who—a decade or a thousand decades ago—set aside time to write.” Yet many people spurn this gift and s... |
| 2020-Jan-29 • 2 minutes How You Look At Things Matters If you’ve ever been stuck in Los Angeles traffic at night, you know it’s miserable. But if you’ve ever seen a helicopter shot of Los Angeles at night, you’ve seen how this same miserable experience can suddenly be made to seem beautiful and serene. We call one a traffic jam, the other a light show. The chaos of international politics can strike us with fear—wars break out, property is destroyed, and people are killed. Yet if you zoom out just slightly, all those terrifying CNN updates seem to blur together... |
| 2020-Jan-28 • 3 minutes You Have To Be Kind To Yourself There’s no question that much of what we talk about in this philosophy is hard. Specifically, it’s hard on the person practicing it. Stoicism asks you to challenge yourself. It doesn’t tolerate sloppy thinking or half measures. It wants you to undergo deprivation, it asks you to look in the mirror and examine your flaws. But it’s important that we don’t mistake all this with self-flagellation and a lack of self-esteem. The early Stoic Cleanthes once overheard a philosopher speaking unkindly to himself whe... |
| 2020-Jan-27 • 2 minutes Stop Freaking Out. None of This Is New. You think this hasn’t happened before? Whatever it is, whatever you’re freaking out about? A crisis at the borders. Agitators riling up the youth. Excess and immorality. Rising demagogues. Distrust in institutions. A backlash against free speech and expression. It’s scary because it seems new—like things are breaking down, right? Except it’s not remotely new. Each one of those things was happening during Marcus Aurelius’s reign. They were happening during Seneca’s time. They were happening a hundred years... |
| 2020-Jan-25 • 9 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: How can I get my partner interested in Stoicism? In each of the Ask Daily Stoic Q&A episodes, Ryan will answer questions from fans about Stoicism. You can also find these videos on the Daily Stoic YouTube channel.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2020-Jan-24 • 3 minutes You Must Think The Thing You Cannot Think It’s fitting that one of the most important things you can do as a parent requires you to think about something that’s very nearly impossible for a parent to consider. It comes to us from Marcus Aurelius by way of Epictetus. As you kiss your son good night, says Epictetus, whisper to yourself, “He may be dead in the morning.” Don’t tempt fate, you say. By talking about a natural event? Is fate tempted when we speak of grain being reaped? No one wants to think about that. You want to think only good thing... |
| 2020-Jan-23 • 4 minutes You Have To Learn Something From Everyone The Stoics were learners. It’s hard to escape that conclusion when you read their writings. Marcus Aurelius begins Meditations by cataloging the lessons he learned from the many people in his life, big and small. Seneca was constantly looking at other people, studying their lives and what they did well and not so well. When Epictetus said that you can’t learn what you think you already know, he was describing his own worldview as well as the worldview of his hero—Socrates—who went around constantly question... |
| 2020-Jan-22 • 4 minutes A Good Morning Creates A Good Life The Stoics believed in the power of ritual, particularly at the beginning and the end of the day. For them, routines and rituals were not productivity hacks, but ways of living. In a world where so much was out of our control, committing to a practice we did control was a way of establishing and reminding ourselves of our own power. It was about preparation. It was about creating peace. We recently talked to Amy Landino—who reads The Daily Stoic each morning—about her book Good Morning, Good Life. A title... |
| 2020-Jan-21 • 3 minutes Do It Because It’s Right. Not So They’ll Like You We’ve talked a lot recently about the importance of not making yourself a slave to outside approval. Because it’s not something you control. Because your own standards should be so high that you already have plenty to worry about. Still, there is so much more to be said about this very human desire for external validation. Indeed, it is a timeless and universal problem. Marcus Aurelius, like us, wanted to be liked—by his imperial staff, by the Senate, by the citizens he met in the street, by history--but ... |
| 2020-Jan-20 • 3 minutes Everything is Figureoutable We all have problems. We have an employee we can’t figure out how to motivate. We have a kid with behavioral issues. We have a job we want to leave, or a couch we want to get up a complicated flight of stairs. We have clients who ask for things that seem impossible and we have trouble fitting an exercise regimen into our busy lives. What do we do with all this? How do we handle it? We must repeat to ourselves a beautiful mantra from the writer and entrepreneur Marie Forleo: Everything is Figureoutable. Ev... |
| 2020-Jan-18 • 10 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: The Stoic Response to Getting Your House Burgled, and more In each of the Ask Daily Stoic Q&A episodes, Ryan will answer questions from fans about Stoicism. You can also find these videos on the Daily Stoic YouTube channel.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2020-Jan-17 • 3 minutes When It Comes To Family, We Have To Be Kind Marcus Aurelius’s step brother Lucius Verus was hardly a great man. Unlike Marcus, he was not as driven or as a smart. He was not always so diligent in his responsibilities. We hear that he liked to party. But still, Marcus loved his step-brother and not only found a role for him leading the troops, he celebrated his accomplishments as well, sometimes at the expense of his own. Would Marcus have treated his other generals so generously? Doubtful. In Rome it was said that “not all men could be Catos” and t... |
| 2020-Jan-16 • 2 minutes All We Can Do Is Propose There is a great expression: Man proposes, God disposes. You don’t have to be religious to understand or agree with it. It just means: All we can do is plan...then life intervenes. Certainly, the Stoics built much of their philosophy around this humble but brilliant insight. Seneca spoke repeatedly of the power of Fortune to dash all our plans and intentions to pieces. All we could do was be ready—was prepare for a whole swath of possibilities. What we get from Marcus Aurelius was the idea that it’s bette... |
| 2020-Jan-15 • 4 minutes You Win Some, You Lose Some Politics, like all contests, involves winners and losers. Cato lost elections, such as his first run for praetorship in 55 BCE and his run for consul in 51 BCE. Cicero lost some as well. James Stockdale lost in a landslide as Ross Perot’s running mate, after one of the worst drubbings in vice presidential debate history. As long as there have been Stoics running for office—from the days of ancient Greece through Rome and up to today—there have been Stoics who lost. The same is true for all Stoics for all ti... |
| 2020-Jan-14 • 3 minutes We Are All Equal At The End "Alexander the Great and his mule driver both died and the same thing happened to both." It is one of Marcus Aurelius’s most withering lines. The most powerful conqueror on earth was, Marcus implied, in the end, no better or no less mortal, than the man who drove his baggage cart. It is a powerful point, particularly when one considers that, for thousands of years, we haven’t been sure what actually killed Alexander. He died mysteriously at age 32, far from home. Was he killed by his men in a mutiny? Did ... |
| 2020-Jan-13 • 3 minutes The Kind of Opportunity You Should Always Say Yes To Marcus Aurelius and Seneca both made no secret of their objection to escapism. They both spoke negatively of people who frittered their existence away, chasing one tourist destination after another. Seneca likened these folks to someone tossing and turning in bed, just trying to get comfortable. Meanwhile, they were sleeping their lives away. The only real retreat could be found by looking inward, Marcus said, by escaping into your own soul. So you might think that the Stoics were homebodies. Nothing coul... |
| 2020-Jan-11 • 10 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: January 11, 2020 In each of the Ask Daily Stoic Q&A episodes, Ryan will answer questions from fans about Stoicism. You can also find these videos on the Daily Stoic YouTube channel.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2020-Jan-10 • 3 minutes You Don’t Get To Not Care There are a lot of tensions in Stoicism, as we have talked about before. How do you balance acquiescing to fate and embracing your own agency? How do you balance being aware of the dangers of the future without worrying about or fearing it? How do you think regularly of your own death without losing your taste for life? But perhaps the most relevant tension today is the one about balancing a philosophical detachment from external events and our obligations to contribute to society and democracy. As the sta... |
| 2020-Jan-09 • 3 minutes Here’s an Important Power You Have The ask is just an ask, you know. Whether they’re asking you to pass the salt or asking you for a hundred thousand dollar loan, whether they’re asking you what you weigh or if you can come in and work on Sunday, the ask is just the ask. We decide that it’s offensive or presumptuous or rude. That’s what Epictetus was saying when he observed that it’s not events that upset us, but our judgement about events. The request is objective—just words coming out of someone’s mouth. The opinion that it’s objection... |
| 2020-Jan-08 • 2 minutes Where Are They Now? It’s a staple of entertainment shows and those clickbait-y links at the bottom of the page on news websites: Where are they now? What happened to those famous TV stars of your youth? You’ll never believe what so-and-so is up to today. Funnily enough, Marcus Aurelius liked to play this game too. He’d say: Think about the emperors who came before you. Think about this famous conqueror or that notorious philosopher. Think of the wealthy or the powerful with their insatiable appetites and ambitions. Where are ... |
| 2020-Jan-07 • 3 minutes Try This Secret Roman Party Trick The Greeks and the Romans were known for their parties. They threw huge ones. Seneca famously owned—not rented—three hundred ivory tables for entertaining. Imagine that. The ancients also knew how to drink. Cato liked to drink. So did Socrates. There’s no evidence that Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus and Seneca didn’t either But the accounts of their drinking don’t square one to one with our modern times. You see, the Greeks and the Romans were famous for watering down their wine. In fact, anyone who didn’t ... |
| 2020-Jan-06 • 2 minutes All You Control is How You Play It would be wonderful if teams didn’t cheat and refs always got the calls right. It’d be wonderful if people in the media knew what they were talking about and didn’t stake out positions just to be controversial or contrarian. It’d be wonderful if other politicians operated in good faith and put country above partisanship. It’d be wonderful if drivers were courteous and followed all the rules of the road. But we know that this is simply not how things go. They never have, and they never will. So where d... |
| 2020-Jan-04 • 8 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: January 4, 2020 In each of the Ask Daily Stoic Q&A episodes, Ryan will answer questions from fans about Stoicism. You can also find these videos on the Daily Stoic YouTube channel.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2020-Jan-03 • 3 minutes Pain Is Self Chosen “My pain is self-chosen,” Layne Staley sings on the melancholy Mad Season hit, River of Deceit. “At least I believe it to be.” That belief, the Stoics would concur, is well-founded. Pain is a choice. Now before you get upset hearing that, wait a second. We’re not talking about physical pain. You don’t choose the stabbing pains from a knife wound or a back injury. It’s not your fault that cancer treatment is brutal, and no one is saying that people ask to be abused, physically or otherwise. What the Stoi... |
| 2020-Jan-02 • 5 minutes You Become What You Practice The Stoics were all about routine and repetition. It wasn’t just about knowing what the right thing was, it was about doing it daily. Fueling the habit bonfire, they said. It was about creating muscle memory. Epictetus said that philosophy was something that should be kept at hand every day and night. Indeed, the title of his book Enchiridion actually means “small thing in hand,” or handbook. Seneca, for his part, talked about repeatedly diving back into the great texts of history—rather than chasing ever... |
| 2020-Jan-01 • 2 minutes All We Control Is The Beginning of Things Clearly the Stoics were doers. They ran for public office. They fought in the army. They started business ventures. They created artistic works. How can this fit, though, with what Marcus called “the art of acquiescence?” Isn’t this resignation a contradiction? If you believe in a kind of predetermination, why bother? Perhaps the way through this puzzle is best captured in a quote from Democritus, a pre-Socratic philosopher admired by the Stoics (Seneca most of all). Democritus said, “Boldness is the begin... |
| 2019-Dec-31 • 3 minutes Do Not Ignore This Warning In Greek mythology, the god Apollo curses the Trojan princess, Cassandra, with the power of accurate prophecy that will always be ignored. In Aeschylus’ play Agamemnon, Cassandra is brought back to Greece after the capture of Troy as one of the great spoils of war. Unlike Agamemnon, who is happy to be home, Cassandra predicts ominous deaths for both herself and her new master. “I know that odor,” she says, “I smell the open grave.” She warns him that death is near, but he won’t listen. Agamemnon ignores t... |
| 2019-Dec-30 • 2 minutes You Have To Do What You Think Is Right There will come a moment in your life when you are faced with an important decision that appears to have two choices: one that feels like the status quo, the path of least resistance, the way things have always been done. And then there is the one that appeals to you most. The exciting one; the new, risky one. The one that, if you make it, people are going to think you’re crazy. They’re going to think you’re stupid. Think of your career, they’ll say. You worked so hard to get here. You can’t listen to... |
| 2019-Dec-28 • 9 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: December 28, 2019 In each of the Ask Daily Stoic Q&A episodes, Ryan will answer questions from fans about Stoicism. You can also find these videos on the Daily Stoic YouTube channel.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2019-Dec-27 • 4 minutes Tell Yourself: This Is All Worth It Even if you’re not a college basketball fan, you may have heard about this incredible upset in 2018, when top-ranked University of Virginia was defeated by University of Maryland-Baltimore County in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament. It was the first time in the tournament’s 80 year history that a number 16 seed beat a number one seed. Virginia had been the favorite to win the entire 68-team tournament, and then the biggest of underdogs came in and surprised everyone, pulling off one of the greatest ... |
| 2019-Dec-26 • 3 minutes Here is a Pleasure You Can Have Anytime The Stoics did not reject worldly pleasures. They rejected the reckless ones. The dangerous, ephemeral ones. The Stoics were not afraid of joy. They just wanted to earn it. Epictetus loved to quote Socrates: “Just as one person delights in improving his farm, and another his horse, so I delight in attending to my own improvement day by day.” Delight! Not a word you’d expect from Epictetus, but there it is. And to be found in such an unexpected way. Not in material things. Not in a hobby. But in oneself—i... |
| 2019-Dec-25 • 3 minutes Always Focus on the Response It was December 25th, 1776. One of the darkest times in the American Revolution. George Washington was planning to cross the Delaware, a desperate move necessitated by a string of setbacks and ebbing support for the revolution across his struggling country. Whose fault was this despair? How had things gone so poorly? Washington wasn’t interested in those questions. As he wrote in a letter to Robert Morris from his headquarters that day, “it is in vain to ruminate upon, or even reflect upon the Authors o... |
| 2019-Dec-24 • 4 minutes This is a Day About Love Here we are on Christmas Eve once again. The last couple of years, we took time during this holiday to look at the beautiful symmetry between two of the greatest philosophers to ever live: Jesus and Seneca. It’s incredible to think that these two men were born in the same year, in similarly distant provinces of the Roman empire. Few would have expected the impact that both would have on the world. Nor would Seneca or Jesus have imagined how their journeys would mirror each others’: Both would be immensely... |
| 2019-Dec-23 • 4 minutes You Must Commit to This Task This Next Year As a new year is about to begin, many of us are thinking about how we’d like to get healthier, wealthier, and wiser over the next twelve months. Of course, to the Stoics, what really mattered was that final bucket—getting wiser. Understanding yourself and the world better was their primary focus. So if your goal is to get smarter this year, where will you start? For most people, the obvious answer is books. A lot of people begin the year committing to read a certain number of books. I am going to read 50 b... |
| 2019-Dec-21 • 10 minutes Ask Daily Stoic: Dec 21, 2019 In each of the Ask Daily Stoic Q&A episodes, Ryan will answer questions from fans about Stoicism. You can also find these videos on the Daily Stoic YouTube channel.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2019-Dec-20 • 4 minutes Remember: You Can Lead A Horse To Water, But You Can’t Make It Drink There is a fascinating statue of Seneca and Nero done by the Spanish sculptor Eduardo Barrón in 1904. Even though it depicts a scene centuries after the fact, it manages to capture the timeless elements of the two men’s characters. Seneca, well into old age, sits with his legs crossed, draped in a beautiful toga but otherwise unadorned. Spread across his lap and onto the simple bench is a document he's written. Maybe it's a speech. Maybe it's a law being debated by the Senate. Maybe it's the text of his ess... |
| 2019-Dec-19 • 2 minutes Just Shrug It Off Pt 2 Epictetus tells us the story of a Stoic philosopher named Agrippinus, who, during Nero’s reign, was delivered some awful news one morning: He was exiled. Effective immediately. Agrippinus’s response? “Very well, we shall take our lunch in Aricia.” Meaning: We might as well get this show on the road. No use bemoaning or weeping about it. Hey, is anyone else hungry? That’s how a Stoic responds—they shrug off the emotional weight of even the worst news. They have humor about it. They focus on what they can... |
| 2019-Dec-18 • 4 minutes You Must Train The Coward Inside You There's a long-standing connection between philosophy and soldiering. Marcus Aurelius, Cato, Socrates, and many other philosophers were all soldiers. James Stockdale, whose A-4E Skyhawk was shot down over Vietnam, was too. As he recounts: “After ejection I had about thirty seconds to make my last statement in freedom before I landed…And so help me, I whispered to myself: ‘Five years down there, at least. I’m leaving the world of technology and entering the world of Epictetus.’” It turned out to be seven yea... |
| 2019-Dec-17 • 3 minutes Blame Yourself—Or No One The causes of things are complicated, and rarely do they go how we’d like them to go. So it’s easy to point the finger—at other people, at unfair conditions, at the weather, at the advice we got. If it hadn’t been for _______, I’d have won. Why did so-and-so have to get involved like that? It’s all _______’s fault. And yet, the causes of things are also quite simple—at least according to the Stoics. Because to them, the fault always lies with us. We’re the one who chose to listen to that advice, they’d say... |
| 2019-Dec-16 • 5 minutes A New Year is a New Opportunity We are what our choices make us. Do we walk the fifteen minutes to work, or do we take an Uber? Hit the snooze button, or get up early? Do we have the difficult conversation, or hide from it? Is good enough really good enough? Will you resolve to be better this year? Or just stay the same? It’s your choice. And what you choose is who you are. The Stoics believed that a beautiful life was the result of beautiful decisions. They also believed that the only way to freedom, to strength, to wisdom, was thro... |
| 2019-Dec-14 • 10 minutes Ask Daily Stoic The first Saturday Q&A episode. In each of these episodes, Ryan will answer questions from fans about Stoicism. You can also find these videos on the Daily Stoic YouTube channel.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.... |
| 2019-Dec-13 • 3 minutes Why You Should Help Others In his fascinating biography, The House of Percy, Bertram Wyatt-Brown describes a beautiful scene involving William Alexander Percy, the son of a senator, a poet, and lifelong student of the Stoics. Percy is sitting on a hill looking down into the ruins of an ancient Greek amphitheatre, thinking of Marcus Aurelius. “Though pagan,” Wyatt-Brown writes, “the Stoics recognized the brotherhood of man. The greatest virtue was helping others for one’s own sake and peace of mind as well as theirs. Justice, goodnes... |
| 2019-Dec-12 • 3 minutes How to Raise Your Kids Like Seneca Did Although we know nearly nothing about Seneca’s family life or how his children turned out, we know at least that he gave good advice. We know that as a wealthy, powerful, and famous man, the deck was stacked against him. These are corrosive, corrupting influences, particularly on children. Yet it was clearly quite important to Seneca to raise a normal kid—and to encourage everyone else to do the same thing. Below is some advice from Seneca on parenting:Spur them to conceive of great things for themselves,... |
| 2019-Dec-11 • 2 minutes Don’t Be a Fool There are lots of ways to spot a foolish person. They say dumb things. They make unforced errors. They make the same unforced error over and over again. You tend to recognize one when you see one. Seneca, quoting Epicurus, had a good test: “The fool, with all his other faults, has this also—he is always getting ready to live.” Indeed, just about the most foolish thing you can hear—coming from someone else or coming out of your own mouth—are the words: “Some day, I’ll…” “When I’m older I hope to…” “I’m n... |
| 2019-Dec-10 • 4 minutes Why You Should Do Your Own Writing There is something strange you find when you study the early Stoics. Not Marcus Aurelius and Seneca and Epictetus, but the Stoics who influenced them. The names you don’t hear much: Cleanthes. Posidonius. Panaetius. Aristo. Antipater. Chrysippus. What you find—beside the fact that these were living, breathing, human beings with all sorts of interesting experiences—is that you start to notice just how big a role they played in the shaping of the classic Stoic texts we know and love. For instance, the intere... |
| 2019-Dec-09 • 3 minutes Remember: You’re Just Passing Through Reputation is a powerful thing. The desire to keep it, maintain it, to not betray it, was a force that made someone like Cato unstoppable. On the other hand, the desire to make it—to have a name that people know—can just as easily be a kind of deceiving, seductive distraction. Marcus Aurelius warned against chasing fame, because of how worthless it was and how easily it could be achieved by ignoble means. Yet that’s precisely what motivates most of us: We want to do great things so people will think we’re g... |
| 2019-Dec-06 • 3 minutes On a Long-Enough Timeline, We Are All Blips Here’s an interesting exercise. Pull up a Spotify playlist for hits from the ‘90s. Or turn on a satellite radio station built around that time. As you listen to the songs, note how many you recognize and how many you’ve never heard of. Now go back an era or two and do the same thing for the ‘80s or for the second wave of classic rock. Then do it again for real oldies. As you keep going backwards, the familiarity will fall further and further away until you’ve heard none of the “hit” songs before—and all the... |
| 2019-Dec-05 • 3 minutes Don’t Blend In. Stand Up and Stand Out. In a famous exchange—which we wrote about a while back—Agrippinus explained why he was spurning an invitation to attend some banquet being put on by Nero. Not only was he spurning it, he said, but he had not even considered associating with such a madman. A fellow philosopher, the one who had felt inclined to attend, asked for an explanation. Agrippinus responded with an interesting analogy. He said that most people see themselves like threads in a garment—they see it as their job to match the other threa... |
| 2019-Dec-04 • 3 minutes You Are Part of a Team (Whether You Know It Or Not) One question you hear the comedian Marc Maron ask a lot of standups and actors at the beginning of his interviews is: Who did you come up with? Who were your guys? By that he means, who were the comedians starting out around the same time as you? Who was there at the beginning with you? It’s interesting how almost every one of Maron’s guests seems to be part of some kind of a cohort of fellow comedians or performers who cut their teeth in the same clubs or the same theaters at the same time. You can look a... |
| 2019-Dec-03 • 2 minutes There is Only One Place to Look for Approval We all want to be liked. We want the acceptance of our peers. We want to be chosen. We want the stamp of approval—from the critics, from the crowd, from the market. This makes sense...except it doesn’t. Is it not true that most people are not very bright, hold regressive or alarming opinions, and generally follow the herd? And yet somehow we think it’s vindication when they love us? It’s nonsense. It’s pretty strange how much we value the respect of people we don’t respect...and the lengths we’re willing... |
| 2019-Dec-02 • 4 minutes We All Need Monuments to Guide Us Nobody cared more about statues than the Greeks and the Romans. In fact, the only reason we know what many of the Stoics looked like is because they were preserved in marble by sculptors many thousands of years ago. It wasn’t just philosophers who knew the value of statues. Leaders put up statues in nearly every important place within the realms that they ruled so that we might look upon and be inspired by the deeds and the principles of the great men and women they honored. In 175 AD, Marcus Aurelius was ... |
| 2019-Nov-29 • 4 minutes You Must Avoid The Orgy of Materialism and Greed The viciousness of the mob is one of the darker themes in Roman history. There was the angry crowd that tore Saturninus to pieces during Marius’s time. There were the grieving, angry citizens who, riled up by Mark Antony’s funeral oration after the death of Caesar, murdered the poet Cinna just because he had the same name as one of the conspirators. It’s scary what a group of people can do when the unwritten rules of civil society break down. There is perhaps no better day to think about this than Black F... |
| 2019-Nov-28 • 5 minutes Be Grateful for Everything—Even the Tough Stuff On this day of American Thanksgiving, we’re supposed to make time for thanks, to actively think about that word that has become almost cliché in wellness circles: gratitude. But what is gratitude? Some people think of it as being thankful for all the good things you have in your life. Others see it as the act of acknowledging what people have done for you or what you appreciate about others. While the Stoics would have agreed that was all important, they practiced a slightly different form of gratitude. I... |
| 2019-Nov-27 • 3 minutes Don’t Let Time Surprise You Queen Elizabeth I was a remarkable woman. She was uncommon and special is so many ways. She was believed to have known nine languages. She was considered one of the best educated women of her time. And she presided over many English battle victories. And yet in one other way, she was incredibly common—not unlike so many of us: She basically refused to think of her own mortality. Maybe she was too afraid. Maybe she thought she’d live forever. Either way, she refused to plan for a successor in any form. She... |
| 2019-Nov-26 • 3 minutes You Have The Power To Straighten Your Back One of the most inspiring themes in the history of Stoicism is how the Stoics responded to tyrants and to adversity. There was Cato, refusing to roll over and just let Caesar destroy the Republic to which Cato had dedicated his life. There was Thrasea defying Nero, “Nero can kill me, but he cannot harm me.” There was Agrippinus shrugging off exile, refusing to kowtow to anyone who wanted him to bow to the regime. There was Marcus Aurelius, who stayed in Rome even as it was ravaged by the plague, who served ... |
| 2019-Nov-25 • 2 minutes You Must Take All This in Stride Some people will love you. Some people will hate you. One day, Marcus Aurelius wrote, the crowd will cheer and worship you. Other days they’ll hit you with brickbats and hate. You get a lucky break sometimes—get more credit and attention than you deserve. Other times you’ll get held to an impossibly unfair standard. They’ll build you up, and then tear you down—and act like it was your fault you got way up there in the first place. They’ll criticize you in public and privately tell you it’s all for show. ... |
| 2019-Nov-22 • 3 minutes Set This Before Your Eyes Every Day We talk about the importance of positive thinking. Of making sure we are surrounded by good vibes and good energy. Of cutting out the negative influences of social media and the news. Of looking for the good in everything we see. And, of course, that is important. But it can also be dangerous. Because it sets us up to be disappointed, even horrified, when our bubble is pierced. When we are forced to come face to face with the fact that the world is not a positive place. There are things that go bump in the... |
| 2019-Nov-21 • 3 minutes How To Concentrate Like a Roman There is so much on our plate. We have emails to respond to. Calls to make. There is that meeting in a couple hours. The folks we met with yesterday are waiting on an answer or a decision we promised we’d make. Twitter beckons. So do our hopes and dreams. And yet as many directions as we find ourselves pulled in, it’s safe to assume that Marcus Aurelius was under even more tension. Make no mistake: The ancient world was not some quiet, peaceful place. It too was filled with crises and distractions, gossip... |
| 2019-Nov-20 • 3 minutes Thoughts and Prayers are not Enough The cycle would be almost humorous by now if it were not so sad. Politicians who have sat idly by, not doing their jobs to address the vexing, pressing problems of our time, rush in when tragedy strikes. Whether it’s a natural disaster that caught a city off guard, or another senseless mass shooting, these folks are there—or rather are there on Twitter—to offer their “thoughts and prayers” to the victims. Then, of course, the crowd shoots back, “That’s not enough!” Let us unravel this according to the Stoi... |
| 2019-Nov-19 • 2 minutes If You Want Tranquility, Here's How to Find It We all want more peace, right? More stillness. The quiet confidence that comes from being on the right path, as Seneca described it, and not being distracted by all those which crisscross ours. Well, how do you get that? It’s simple, Marcus Aurelius wrote. Stop caring what other people think. Stop caring what they do. Stop caring what they say. All that matters, he writes, is what you do. Everything else is beyond your concern. You can let it all go. You can ignore it entirely. We find tranquility wh... |
| 2019-Nov-18 • 3 minutes You'll Have to Beat Me First There is a famous moment in the history of Sparta, when they were threatened with invasion by Phillip, King of Macedon. Phillip, whose son was Alexander the Great, demanded the submission of the Spartans. It would be better to submit to him now, he said, because "If I conquer your city, I will destroy you all. The Spartans’ reply to this was just one word: “If.” They were not the kind of people who gave up easily, even in the face of incredible odds, because they believed in their own capabilities. If the... |
| 2019-Nov-15 • 3 minutes Don’t Run From Pain, Embrace It It makes sense that we avoid pain. We don’t want to cause it and we don’t want to feel it. We’d rather life be easy. This makes sense—at least in the short term. But the Stoics knew that in the long term, such an attitude made you weak, made you soft. The NASCAR driver and student of Stoicism, Brad Keselowski, recently talked about how Stoicism has taught him to take whatever is hardest or most difficult in his life and “double down and appreciate it.” Because it’s teaching you something. Because it’s maki... |
| 2019-Nov-14 • 2 minutes Remember that People Avoid the Truth Time and time again, we hear the Stoics tell us to say what is right, to do what is right, to be comfortable swimming upstream or rejecting the choices of the mob. Marcus Aurelius said this. Seneca said it. Cato said it. Nassim Taleb says it still today. What usually goes unsaid alongside these inspiring calls—whether it’s “If you see fraud, say fraud” or “If it’s not right do not do it, if it’s not true do not say it”—is anything about the consequences. Because while history admires whistleblowers and men... |
| 2019-Nov-13 • 3 minutes There’s Nothing Special About Philosophers If you ask most people to describe a philosopher, they end up painting a picture of somebody who works at Harvard and wears a lot of wool and tweed and corduroy. Maybe they’ll describe somebody from ancient history, dressed in a toga, talking about big ideas, oblivious to the everyday happenings around them. It’s an understandable impulse, because philosophy can seem so distant and the people who practice it somehow above or apart from the rest of us. This is a mistake. It’s not only not what philosophy i... |
| 2019-Nov-12 • 4 minutes This Is How You Get Tranquility Marcus Aurelius said that pain either affects the body or the soul. What’s the difference? “The soul can choose not to be affected, preserving its own serenity, its own tranquillity. All our decisions, urges, desires, aversions lie within. No evil can touch them.” Pierre Hadot’s metaphor for this was the “inner citadel.” Hadot said that Marcus worked to create a soul, a core, an inner fortress that fate, chaos, hysterics, vice, and outside influences could never penetrate or break down. Ada Palmer—a histo... |
| 2019-Nov-11 • 3 minutes You Have To Find The Good In People Marcus Aurelius was clearly torn about his fellow man. He was loving and kind and spoke repeatedly of serving the common good. He was also clearly frustrated and disappointed with the flaws of the people around him. Like many great men, he had trouble understanding that not everyone had his gifts, not all of them were capable of what he was capable of. You can see in Meditations how he wrestled with these feelings. In the opening passage, he talks about just how obnoxious and annoying (and awful) the peop... |
| 2019-Nov-08 • 3 minutes Remember: You Are Not Everything One of the most haunting moments in all of literature is the moment when King Lear hits rock bottom. He has destroyed his kingdom. He has lost his family. He has lost his sanity. He says to Gloucester as they stand on a cliff: “They told me I was everything. 'Tis a lie, I am not ague-proof.” In short, all the illusions of the king have been shattered, his ego destroyed. Everything he had worked for was gone, and all that was left was the inescapable conclusion that it was his fault. He had believed the ... |
| 2019-Nov-07 • 3 minutes These Are The Keys To Success For nearly three decades, Tom Morris, one of the world's top public philosophers and pioneering business thinkers, has been on a mission to bring philosophy back to the center of daily life. Travelling the globe working with world-class business executives, athletes, coaches, administrators, and entrepreneurs, Tom realized that, regardless of the field or industry, everyone wanted the same thing: advice about excellence. So began his search to find the universal conditions for success and the skills or arts... |
| 2019-Nov-06 • 3 minutes Is It Even A Question? The little known Stoic philosopher Agrippinus was apparently the king of one-liners. There was the time he was informed he’d been exiled and responded, “Very well, we shall take our lunch in Aricia.” There was another time, we are told by Epictetus, that Agrippinus was asked by a fellow philosopher whether or not he should attend some banquet put on by the abominable Nero. Agrippinus told the man he should go. But why, the man asked? That’s when Agrippinus got him with another one of his brilliant barbs: ... |
| 2019-Nov-05 • 3 minutes Don't Die Before Your Time We’re busy. We’re tired. We have so much to do. We had dreams once, sure, but they slowly deflated. The mortgage, the kids, the job, watching TV, that’s how we fill our days. It’s a slow downward spiral that Bruce Springsteen sang about in Racing in the Street: Some guys they just give up living And start dying little by little, piece by piece If you’re not that guy, you at least know him or her. They’re a mainstay of the modern world. Overworked, undersexed, overtired, and underappreciated. Facebook ... |
| 2019-Nov-04 • 3 minutes You've Chosen Your Own Hell In Marcus Aurelius’s time, Roman religion was a hodgepodge of different rituals and ideas, which were evident in Marcus’s own behavior. For instance, he deified his wife and his stepfather Antoninius, but at the same time spoke repeatedly about how this life we are living is all there is. It goes without saying that he also rejected the teachings of the Christians, who he thought of—as a product of his time—as threats to the authority of the empire, but it also turns out that the Stoics and the Christians h... |
| 2019-Nov-01 • 3 minutes There is Only One Place to Look There was a Stoic named Diotimus who messed up. Like really messed up. Sometime around the turn of the first century BC, he committed what can only be described as an unjustifiable crime. He forged dozens and dozens of letters that framed the rival philosopher Epicurus as a sinful glutton and depraved maniac. It was an act of despicable philosophical slander, and Diotimus was quickly brought up on charges. Some accounts say he was executed for this crime, but that seems unlikely. Chances are he was exiled ... |
| 2019-Oct-31 • 4 minutes Which Founder Will You Be? It’s easy to whitewash history, to look back at a group of people who did an incredible thing and assume they were all on the same page when it happened. We forget the egos and the personality flaws. We forget their struggles and infighting. The Founding Fathers of America are a great example of this. They can seem like a unified group of wise superhumans—beyond the passions or tempers that rule our lives—but, of course, they were anything but. According to Thomas Jefferson, John Adams was the kind of guy ... |
| 2019-Oct-30 • 4 minutes Don’t Follow The Mob It’s a fitting warning about man’s nature that in the Old Testament, God would command his followers, “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil,” and to resist the pull of the multitude when they persecute someone on false charges, only to find thousands of years later that this would be the fate of the man who claimed to be his son This idea that the judgements of the mob were dangerous and must be avoided is a timeless theme in the ancient world—and one that appears both in the Bible and in the writi... |
| 2019-Oct-29 • 3 minutes You Must Live Below Your Means The Roman elite were constantly living beyond their means. Leaders like Cicero lived lavishly—he owned something like nine different villas at the same time. Other Romans believed the path to political power lay in essentially bribing the public with extravagant games and public spectacles. Julius Caesar was constantly spending money he didn’t have to impress people he didn’t respect. Even the Roman empire itself was constantly overspending, leaving it to more austere emperors like Marcus Aurelius to pay do... |
| 2019-Oct-28 • 4 minutes It All Rests on Pillars of Sand Imagine, one day you’re king and the next day you’re not. Literally. That's the story of Joseph Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon, who was made King of Naples and Spain, only to be forced to flee in exile after the reversal of his family’s destiny. Napoleon was sent to an island prison, but Joseph had to move to New Jersey, where suddenly he was just another regular person—rich, sure, but far from royalty. The same went for Achille Murat, the son of Napoleon’s brother-in-law. Once the heir-in-waiting for the k... |
| 2019-Oct-25 • 3 minutes You Are Mortal. You Don’t Have To Be Stupid. Yes, the Stoics talk a lot about death. How it’s inevitable. How life is fragile. How it can be taken from us at any moment. It’s in our power to live well, Seneca said, but not in our power to live long. It’s easy to take from these commentaries that the Stoics were completely fatalistic about their health, and that’s a mistake—one easily disproved by the evidence. Seneca talked about death, but he also talked about the life-giving powers of taking a cold plunge. He experimented with vegetarianism. He exe... |
| 2019-Oct-24 • 4 minutes It’s True: You’re Exactly Where You’re Supposed To Be Keanon Lowe grew up in a family struggling to make ends meet. His father left when he was nine. When money was tight or when things were hard, his mother would try to encourage him by saying that it was alright. “You’re just where you’re supposed to be,” she said. This would be hard to accept over the years. It was hard to accept his college career at Oregon ended when the team lost in the playoffs to Ohio State in 2015. It was hard to accept when the NFL career he dreamed of ended by getting cut from the... |
| 2019-Oct-23 • 3 minutes Let This Humble You Here’s a humbling thought: Even if your life is amazing and successful, even if you mind your own business and are kind to everyone you meet, somebody, somewhere is going to be happy when you’re dead. Somebody who wants to buy your house, somebody who you pissed off in high school, an up and comer looking to enter the job market, some hater who doesn’t like your work—they’re going to smile when they hear the news that you’ve passed. At the very least, there are some worms who are going to be glad to get to ... |
| 2019-Oct-22 • 3 minutes You Must Read to Lead Many “smart” people aren’t actually smart. They just know a lot of trivia. Sure, they can tell you all sorts of facts, they have a library of big thick books filled with enormous words, or they can give you the up-to-the-minute news about a political race. But can they tell you what any of this means? Do they do anything important with this information? Of course not. And these types have always existed. Seneca spoke critically of literary snobs who could speculate for hours about whether The Iliad or The ... |
| 2019-Oct-21 • 3 minutes Just Shrug It Off In 1961, Walker Percy published his great Stoic-inspired novel The Moviegoer. Like all classics, the book's success was by no means guaranteed. In fact, it became the subject of one of the strangest controversies in publishing history. You see, even though the novel was brilliant, its publisher, Alfred Knopf, was no fan. He even fired the editor who acquired it and had been so instrumental in shaping it into the masterpiece it became. When it came time to nominate one of his titles for the National Book A... |
| 2019-Oct-18 • 3 minutes You Must Learn How To STOP Seneca wrote about our natural, involuntary physiological responses. Someone pours cold water on you, and you shiver. They jump out of nowhere to scare you, and you let out a scream. Someone drives rudely, cuts you off, prevents you from passing, and you get upset. These are natural and understandable reactions to external events. Who we are, Seneca said, is not revealed in how we react in those moments. It’s revealed in what happens next. It’s in that space between stimulus and response, psychologist Vik... |
| 2019-Oct-17 • 4 minutes What’s Bad For The Hive Is Bad For The Bee Although the ancient world was filled with injustices and cruelty, we moderns flatter ourselves when we give ourselves (too much) credit for our enlightened notions of fairness and empathy, because the speeches and the arguments of the ancient Greeks and Romans sound strikingly familiar when quoted back to us now. Take this line: “I am convinced that people are much better off when their whole city is flourishing than when certain citizens prosper but the community has gone off course. When a man is doi... |
| 2019-Oct-16 • 4 minutes Time is a Flat Circle It’s unlikely, given his feelings about the Christians, that Marcus Aurelius ever read any of the books in the Old Testament, but if he had read Ecclesiates he might have liked what he saw. Because like the Stoic observations that fill Meditations, over and over again, this book of the Bible comments on the timeless repetition of history. “The thing that hath been,” we read in one part, “it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.... |
| 2019-Oct-15 • 2 minutes This is How Dumb Anger Is Seneca wrote eloquently about how absurd the need to “get even” is. No one would think to return a bite to a dog or a kick to a mule, he writes, but when someone hurts us or pisses us off, that’s exactly what we do. We smile and laugh at this clever analogy. He’s right, we think, no one would bite a dog. Except anger actually does do stuff that dumb to us all the time—or worse! Who hasn’t thrown a television remote that wasn’t working or smacked a vending machine that took your money? Who hasn’t banged on ... |
| 2019-Oct-14 • 4 minutes Anyone Can Strive for Virtue “Where are all the Stoic women? Surely this is not a philosophy only for and by men.” It is a common and reasonable criticism of this philosophy, one that Daily Stoic seeks to understand and ameliorate whenever possible. Recently, we had the opportunity to interview Lauryn Evarts Bosstick, a wellness influencer who reaches millions of people—mostly adoring young women—through her blog, social media, and podcast. Lauryn is a vocal advocate of Stoicism, so we asked her about why the philosophy can seem so ... |
| 2019-Oct-11 • 3 minutes Never Stop Trying To Get Better The Cynic philosopher Diogenes was once criticized by a passerby for not taking care of himself in his old age, for being too active when he should have been taking it easy and resting. As per usual, Diogenes had the perfect rejoinder: "What, if I were running in the stadium, ought I to slacken my pace when approaching the goal?" His point was that we should never stop getting better, never stop the work that philosophy demands of us. Right up until the end Diogenes was questioning convention, reducing hi... |
| 2019-Oct-10 • 2 minutes Tomorrow Will Have Suffering In It Life is full of suffering, acute and benign. We come down with the flu. We are hit with a costly expense. Someone with power over us abuses their responsibility. Someone we love lies or hurts us. People die. People commit crimes. Natural disasters strike. All of this is commonplace and inevitable. It happens. Everyday. To us and to everyone else. That would be bad enough, yet we choose to make this pain worse. How? By pretending we are immune from it. By assuming we will be exempted. Or that only those w... |
| 2019-Oct-09 • 3 minutes You Must Carve Out Time For Quiet According to the philosopher Blaise Pascal, at the root of most human activity is a desire to escape boredom and self-awareness. We go to elaborate measures, he said, to avoid even a few minutes of quiet. It was true even of the people you think had all the reasons to be happy and content. "A king is surrounded by people,” Pascal wrote, “whose only thought is to divert him and stop him thinking about himself, because, king though he is, he becomes unhappy as soon as he thinks about himself." It’s an obse... |
| 2019-Oct-08 • 3 minutes What a Terminal Diagnosis Changes “What would you do if tomorrow you were diagnosed with terminal cancer?” We’ve all had a hypothetical question like that thrust in front of us at one point or another. It’s supposed to make us consider how different life might be, how drastic a change we might make if we were suddenly told there was a limit to our time here and that limit was no longer over the horizon but within sight. It’s a ridiculous thought exercise, not only because every human being already has a terminal diagnosis, but also becau... |
| 2019-Oct-07 • 3 minutes What Are We Fighting About, Really? There’s a great lyric in the bridge of the new Bruce Springsteen song, Tucson Train: We fought hard over nothin'We fought till nothin' remainedI've carried that nothin' for a long timeDoesn’t that just perfectly capture—in such a sad and telling way—many of our relationships and grudges? We turn nothing into something and then hold onto it like it’s everything until there’s nothing left. Then we wonder why we’re unhappy. We wonder why we’re lonely. We wonder where people we used to love have gone. We wonder... |
| 2019-Oct-04 • 3 minutes Every Day is a Bonus Here’s a way to feel good every single day, no matter what happens. A way to appreciate even a day stuck in the airport or putting out fires. It’s an exercise from Seneca. He said that a person who wraps up each day as if it was the end of their life, who meditates on their mortality in the evening, has a super power when they wake up. “When a man has said, ‘I have lived!’,” Seneca wrote, then “every morning he arises is a bonus.” And you know how it feels when you’re playing with house money or when ... |
| 2019-Oct-03 • 3 minutes What Is Luck and What Is Not The philosopher and writer Nassim Taleb once said that, “Hard work will get you a professorship or a BMW. You need both work and luck for a Booker, a Nobel, or a private jet.” His point was that certain accomplishments are within the reasonable grasp of someone making incremental gains each day. Outsized success and outlier accomplishments require that and extreme luck or timing. This is worth considering for all of us who grew up being told the world was a meritocracy. Of course, it isn’t. Plenty of bril... |
| 2019-Oct-02 • 3 minutes How To Always Be Well In one of his letters, Seneca tells us of an old Roman pleasantry that friends would exchange when greeting each other: “If you are well,” one would say after inquiring how someone was doing, “it is well and I am also well.” It’s a nice little custom, isn’t it? If you’re good, I’m good, and everything is good. Nothing else matters. But of course, because this is Seneca, he couldn’t just leave it there. In fact, telling us about this old expression was just a device to make a point. A better way to say i... |
| 2019-Oct-01 • 4 minutes This Is The Key To The Good Life Why did Marcus Aurelius study philosophy? What were Seneca or Confucius or Buddha trying to achieve as they pored over their books or sat deeply in thought? What have archery masters and Olympic boxing instructors and generals tried to instill in their students and soldiers? Their aim was, and always has been, stillness. These thinkers and doers and leaders and achievers, they all needed peace and clarity. They need their charges to be centered. They needed them to be in control of themselves. Because wh... |
| 2019-Sep-30 • 3 minutes The Kind of Politics You Should Study Following today’s politics is easy. You turn on the news and a bunch of pretty people tell you that your side is good and the other side is irredeemably evil. You pull up social media and you get a bunch of rage profiteers telling you what to be outraged or angry about. Everything is simple and clear cut, compromise is unnecessary, and, in the end, none of it really matters anyway because the world is going to end in 2024 in nuclear holocaust, 2050 from climate change, or any day now in the rapture. Needl... |
| 2019-Sep-27 • 3 minutes Just Don’t Make Things Worse At the beginning of The Odyssey, Zeus utters a famous lament that must, one imagines, be shared by all gods and parents and presidents alike:This is absurdThat mortals blame the gods! They saywe cause suffering but they themselvesIncrease it by folly.At the heart of Stoicism is an admission that life is unfair and largely out of our control. Bad stuff happens to everyone, the vast majority of it not even remotely our fault. Nobody asks to die. Nobody asks to be lied to or smacked by a natural disaster or le... |
| 2019-Sep-26 • 4 minutes Planting Trees In Shade We’ll Never Know Late last year, a man named Ken Watson died at age 87, but before he did, he made sure to gift wrap fourteen presents for his two year old neighbor. He’d always told her that he’d live to be 100, and when that looked like it wasn’t going to happen, he decided he’d need to plan ahead. Which is why, after his death, his own daughter came around with a large bag of presents—enough to provide one per year until the little girl turned sixteen years old. It’s a beautiful little story that warms the soul. But t... |
| 2019-Sep-25 • 4 minutes Put Everything In the Calm and Mild Light You know sometimes you hear a quote or an aphorism and you think, That’s it. That’s me. That’s my philosophy for life. Well it turns out that is a pretty common and timeless thing. At the very least, we know it goes back to the time of George Washington. Washington’s favorite play was the play Cato, about the Roman Senator and Stoic philosopher by Joseph Addison. This play, which was written in 1712, was hugely famous in its time, and, with some irony, it might be called the “Hamilton” of the day. It was ... |
| 2019-Sep-24 • 4 minutes You Must Tame Your Temper You try to turn on your television, only to find that the batteries in the remote are dead and no one bothered to replace them. Your computer freezes in the middle of finishing something important and you lose hours of work. You’re running late for your child’s soccer game because they’ve been fooling around instead of getting ready to play. You’re trying to change lanes on the freeway, but another driver is too close to your car and won’t give you room to maneuver. And the worse, they flip you off. What’... |
| 2019-Sep-23 • 3 minutes What To Learn From History When one looks at the dark moments of history, it’s hard not to be a little afraid. Look at what people have done to each other—look at how bad things have gotten. In Seneca’s time, many horrific acts were not only common but commonly accepted. Like decimation, a common enough practice, where one in ten people were killed just to send a message. And that word lives on in the lexicon two thousand years later. Perhaps the terrifying capriciousness of a practice like this is why Seneca tried to reassure himsel... |
| 2019-Sep-20 • 3 minutes Study The Real Secret of Greatness When we think of greatness, we think of success. We think of strength. We think of influence. We think of the man or woman exerting their will over the universe, or dominating on the athletic field, or dazzling us with their creative brilliance. We think of the trappings of this greatness: ornate mansions, peak physical conditioning, confidently strolling the halls of power. Is this really greatness, though? What if the person who has it is actually miserable? If every minute they’re awake they’re driven b... |
| 2019-Sep-19 • 3 minutes Don’t Worry About Them, Worry About Yourself We spend a lot of time worried about what other people are going to do. Will that colleague muscle you out of the way for the promotion? Will another coffee shop or yoga studio or accountant open up on the block and steal your customers? Is so-and-so out to get you? Is the government plotting to raise your taxes or regulate your industry?From these fears come many actions. We get them before they get us. We spend money lobbying or setting up defenses. We call up friends or mentors, ranting and raving. The i... |
| 2019-Sep-18 • 3 minutes Why Statues Matter Nobody cared more about statues than the Greeks and the Romans. In fact, the only reason we know what many of the Stoics looked like is because they were preserved in marble by sculptors many thousands of years ago. The Stoics knew that statues were important. Aristocreon, a nephew of Chrysippus, put up a statue of his uncle—to honor his memory and his role in the founding of Stoicism. The grandfather of Cato was once asked why there was no statue of him. His answer: I’d rather people ask why there isn’t ... |
| 2019-Sep-17 • 3 minutes Don’t Take Control, Take Charge In her page-a-day book Meditations for Women Who Do Too Much, the writer Anne Willson Schaef makes a distinction that the Stoics would have certainly agreed with—there is a difference, she writes, between trying to control everything in your life and taking charge of your life. “Trying to control our lives puts us in a position of failure before we start,” Anne writes, “and causes endless, unnecessary pain and suffering. Taking charge of our lives means owning our lives and having a respond-ability to our... |
| 2019-Sep-16 • 4 minutes You Must Surrender One way to read The Odyssey is that it’s a story of human perseverance. Odysseus is cunning and determined, he’s willing to do everything and anything to get back to Ithaca...and eventually, because of that, he finally does. That’s certainly the interpretation of Tennyson in his poem “Ulysses”: “We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, a... |
| 2019-Sep-13 • 4 minutes Avoid Special Treatment Like The Plague During the American Revolution—as in any war—the British quite rightly targeted the estates and the landholdings of the leadership on the American side. Because to them, these men weren’t founders—they were instigators. At one point in the war, George Washington’s estate was threatened by advancing troops. Thinking he might be able to save his boss’s property, one of Washington’s overseers rushed out to try to convince the enemy to spare them. When Washington heard about this, he was not pleased. In fact, ... |
| 2019-Sep-12 • 3 minutes The Real Terrible Thing Epictetus could not have summed up Stoicism better than when he said: “It’s not things that upset us, but our judgement about things.” What he meant was that the world is neither positive or negative, it is simply objectively indifferent. A hurricane is a hurricane. Striking gold is simply discovering metal in the ground. It’s our opinions of those events which decide that one is horrible and the other is a blessing. Of course, Epictetus was not saying there is no such thing as “good” or “bad,” at least as... |
| 2019-Sep-11 • 3 minutes It’s Okay To Want, But Not To Need This was a big argument amongst the early Stoics: What was necessary for the good life? What was actually important to the wise man? They came up with a pretty straightforward but almost impossible to obtain answer: All the wise man should care about is virtue. Everything else—money, fame, family, power, sex—was meaningless. Indifferents. But as the Stoics went off and lived their lives, this explanation had trouble holding up. Really? Nothing matters except virtue? We have to cut every little pleasure an... |
| 2019-Sep-10 • 2 minutes A Test of Your Worth Here’s a question to ask yourself about your work and your life: Do you create value for society or do you extract it? Are you a giver or a taker? Do you make the world better with your choices and actions and lifestyle? When the Stoics talk about sympatheia, they are referring to this idea that we all have a role, that we’re all part of a larger whole. And, of course, the Stoics were not so naive that they didn’t understand some people’s roles were to be shameless, to be evil, to be lazy, or whatever. (Ma... |
| 2019-Sep-09 • 3 minutes Treat People As You Would Be Treated It must be said that the Stoics were cowardly when it came to slavery. Marcus Aurelius, who believed that we were all part of a common whole, that we were all equal before life and death, who so admired a former slave like Epictetus, who writes at one point about why it would be wrong to have sex with a slave, doesn’t see a problem with owning a person. He had the power to eliminate slavery in the empire, but he just couldn’t do it. Seneca is an even bigger hypocrite. He writes over and over again about t... |
| 2019-Sep-06 • 3 minutes We Admire The Struggle It was not lost even on the Stoics that some parts of this philosophy come more naturally to some people than others. Some folks just seem chill by default. Some are so-called “old souls” who have wisdom and perspective, almost from birth. Others were not blessed (or cursed) with ambition or opportunities, and so there is very little challenge going on in their life anyway. Good for them. That’s their lot in life. It’s not ours. It certainly wasn’t Seneca’s. The rest of us have to struggle. We struggle ... |
| 2019-Sep-05 • 3 minutes If You Need A Friend… In her beautiful book about the Los Angeles Public Library fire, Susan Orlean captures the magic of what libraries can offer. She describes walking through the empty library in Downtown LA, not a soul in sight, and feeling connected to all the different voices represented on the millions of pages that surround her. “A library is a good place to soften solitude,” she writes, “a place where you feel part of a conversation that has gone on for hundreds and hundreds of years even when you’re all alone. The li... |
| 2019-Sep-04 • 3 minutes Fulfilling Your Destiny Will Not Be Easy It’s pretty incredible to think that Hadrian was able to see the potential in Marcus Aurelius. Hadrian somehow, even though Marcus was just a boy, could tell that this kid had something. That he might be able to withstand the stress and temptation and pressures of the empire. What did he see? How did he know? It’s a mystery. We know that at some point he nicknamed him Verissimus, a pun on his new name M. Aelius Aurelius Verus, meaning truest. But Marcus was a teenager then and there are plenty of “true” te... |
| 2019-Sep-03 • 3 minutes The Most Powerful (and Underrated) Force in The World Marcus Aurelius, on nearly a dozen occasions in Meditations, speaks of reaching or achieving “stillness.” Most beautifully, he writes of trying to be “like the rock that the waves keep crashing over,” the one that “stands unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it.” We shouldn’t be surprised to hear him use this word—which sounds Buddhist as much as it sounds Stoic—because it meant a great deal to him. The last word from Antoninus, Marcus’s beloved stepfather, as he passed power to him was simp... |
| 2019-Sep-02 • 4 minutes What is Required of You Marcus Aurelius was an incredibly lucky man. He was born a Roman and he was born a man in a time where to be anything other than a man or a Roman citizen was a position of extreme powerlessness. He was also born to a wealthy family who provided him the best tutors, tutors who loved him and taught him the philosophy that changed his life. He was then adopted into Antoninus’s family (at the request of Hadrian) to set in motion his ascension to the throne, a gift of enormous power, wealth, and responsibility. ... |
| 2019-Aug-30 • 3 minutes Heaven Beside You…Hell Within It’s late summer now and you might be thinking it’s time to squeeze in a last minute vacation. Or maybe you’ve been looking forward to a long-planned one to some distant location. This is just what I need, you’re thinking. I can’t wait to get out there on the beach…or the mountains…or those beautiful ruins. We think we can escape from our job. From our problems. From our depression. From our low-grade dissatisfaction with our ordinary lives. But what do we find when we arrive to the exotic location? After... |
| 2019-Aug-29 • 3 minutes Where is The Courage? These are times of increasing political extremism. They are also times of corruption and rising inequality. Enormous, alarming trends are sweeping through culture, government, and the economy. In some sense this is new, but in other ways it’s a story as old as civilized society. So the question is not why or what or who or even how—it’s where. Where is the courage? Where are the people standing up to stop all this? Where are the heroes, big and small? The city council member who refuses to rubber stamp th... |
| 2019-Aug-28 • 3 minutes It’s Easy To be Sad In his new book, Comedy Sex God (as well as on his wonderful podcast and on his HBO show) the comedian Pete Holmes talks about the aftermath of the dissolution of his marriage. After his wife cheated on him and their subsequent divorce, he was hit with a long developing crisis of faith in the religion he had grown up with. He describes this period as many nights on the road. Lots of work. Lots of drinking. Lots of crying. Lots of Counting Crows songs on repeat. And while that all seems very tough, the inte... |
| 2019-Aug-27 • 3 minutes Forgiveness Isn’t Easy, But It’s Essential The great C.S Lewis observed that we all find forgiveness to be a lovely idea...right up until we have someone to forgive. It’s true. Forgiveness is one of those virtues that’s easy to talk about, but incredibly hard to practice. Particularly when we are hurt, or when we have been seriously wronged. Yet, isn’t that sort of the point? Forgiveness wouldn’t be that impressive, it wouldn’t be that meaningful, if it came naturally. If it could be so easily tossed off. Think of Laura Tibbetts, whose daughter was... |
| 2019-Aug-26 • 4 minutes Don’t Forget To Go Home The busier we get, the more we work, even the more that we learn and read, the further we tend to drift from our center. We get in a rhythm. We’re making money, being creative, we’re stimulated and busy. It seems like everything is going well. But if we’re not careful, those other things grow and grow until they take over completely; and what once felt like a rhythm now feels like a rut. It’s true for us now just as it was true for Marcus Aurelius. He had an awful lot to keep him busy, to distract him, to... |
| 2019-Aug-23 • 2 minutes It’s About What You Do (And Don’t Do) “If it is not right, do not do it,” Marcus Aurelius wrote, “if it is not true, do not say it.” But it’s worth pointing out that as a philosophy, Stoicism demands more of us than just this negative. As Marcus would also point out, “Often injustice lies in what you aren’t doing, not only in what you are doing.” So, first, do not lie. But, second, sitting by and allowing a lie to stand? These can both be injustices. No Stoic would argue that fraud is permissible. But what if you witness fraud? What if you su... |
| 2019-Aug-22 • 4 minutes Look With Both Eyes One way to look at an iconic or important landmark like the White House is with reverence. This is the seat of a global power. This is where Kennedy stared down the Cuban Missile Crisis. It represents freedom, justice, and the pursuit of happiness. Another way would be with a slightly more cynical eye: This is a house built by slaves. It’s actually not even that old—most of it was torn down and rebuilt during the Truman Administration. Look at all the idiots who have lived there, this house allowed the Civi... |
| 2019-Aug-21 • 3 minutes But What If We’re Wrong? In several of Seneca’s letters he speaks about the power of bloodletting as a medical practice. In one, he actually remarks—with some superiority—how earlier generations had not yet discovered bloodletting and suffered for it. Marcus Aurelius hints at some other medical practices. He speaks of the treatment for ophthalmia—inflammation of the eye—and how doctors treated it with a bit of egg yolk. We also know that his doctor Galen gave Marcus opium for various pains and illnesses in old age. Needless to say... |
| 2019-Aug-20 • 3 minutes What Kind of Ambition To Have There are different kinds of ambition. There was, on one end of the spectrum, the ambition of someone like Abraham Lincoln. This was the ambition that taught him to read, that braved the wild Mississippi River, that learned the law, that worked his way up from poverty into the presidency, and, eventually, kept America from permanently tearing itself apart. Then there is Seneca’s ambition. He too was driven and talented and yearned for a chance to change the world. But it’s also clear that he wasn’t always p... |
| 2019-Aug-19 • 3 minutes Be Aware, But Not Troubled There is a balance to Stoicism between awareness and anxiety. The Stoics want you to be prepared for an uncertain—and oftentimes dangerous—future, but somehow not worry about it at the same time. They want you to consider all the possibilities...and not be stressed that many of those possibilities will not be good. How exactly is that supposed to work? The answer lies simply in the idea of presence. As Seneca writes: “It is likely that some troubles will befall us; but it is not a present fact. How often... |
| 2019-Aug-16 • 4 minutes This Is The Secret To Wealth What is wealth? It’s having plenty, right? The variables in the equation are pretty simple. What you have, what you’ve got coming in, and what’s going out. If those are in proper proportion to each other, you’re covered. Except what we tend to miss in this equation is another set of hidden variables that most often take the shape of our relative needs and wants. Most people accumulate their wealth by earning as much as they can. That’s why they work so hard. Why they take so many risks. Why they invest. Bu... |
| 2019-Aug-15 • 4 minutes Be Obsessed With Living There is a morbid theme running through the music of Johnny Cash. His deep, haunting voice is rarely far from a lyric about death or murder or loss or grief. He has songs about soldiers killed in Vietnam, songs about dying cowboys on the streets of Laredo, about tragic rifle accidents, songs about salvation and damnation, songs about tragedy and war. Famously, he performed almost his entire career dressed in black—like he was on his way to a funeral. So it’s not a stretch to think he might have been a bi... |
| 2019-Aug-14 • 3 minutes If You Were Tried, Would You Be Convicted? One of the undeniable realities of the history of religion is persecution. The Christians have been persecuted. So have the Jews, the Muslims, the Hindus, the Mormons, even the Buddhists and Confucians. In some cases, these religions persecuted each other. In other cases, it was tyrannical governments that tried to stamp out all faiths with equal zeal. Although less common, philosophy and philosophers have been persecuted too (and persecuted others, as Marcus and other emperors did with early Christians).... |
| 2019-Aug-13 • 3 minutes What Will You Do Next? The Stoics believed that stressful and dangerous situations unfold like this: Something happens—we wake up to reports that the stock market has taken a dive, we get screamed at by our boss, the doctor raises an eyebrow and recommends we go in for further testing… And this provokes a reaction—not a good one either. A scared one. Or an angry one. Something emotional. Or we go the opposite way and we just shut down, paralyzed by the events. The Stoics called these involuntary and immediate impressions tha... |
| 2019-Aug-12 • 3 minutes You Don't Need Credit Perhaps you remember reading The Odyssey in high school or college (or possibly you picked up Emily Wilson’s fabulous new translation). Even if you haven’t, you’re probably familiar with the cyclops scene. Odysseus and his men find themselves trapped in a cave with Polyphemus, the deranged, man-eating, sheep herding, one-eyed beast. Odysseus hatches an ingenious escape plan: they wait for the cyclops to fall asleep and then stab him in the eye with a sharpened log. Enraged and blinded, Polyphemus staggers t... |
| 2019-Aug-09 • 3 minutes We All Must Go Into The Wilderness Seneca was exiled once in AD 41 and then again from Nero’s service at the end of his career. Epictetus was exiled in Nicopolis, Greece by the Emperor Domitian. Publius Rutilius Rufus, the Roman tax official who was convicted on false charges, was exiled to Asia. Stoicism and exile seems to go hand in hand. Winston Churchill, who himself spent about 10 years in political exile after WWI, once wrote that: “Every prophet has to come from civilization, but every prophet has to go into the wilderness. He must... |
| 2019-Aug-08 • 4 minutes Be A Generalist If you look at any of the great Stoics, you’ll notice that philosophy was just one of their many diverse interests. Seneca was a philosopher and a playwright and a political advisor. Marcus Aurelius was dabbling in philosophy...as he had the most important job on the planet. Cato was a senator who led the opposition to Julius Caesar. Cleanthes was a boxer and a water-carrier. And Zeno, the founding teacher of the philosophy, began his career as a successful merchant voyager. The stereotype of the philosop... |
| 2019-Aug-07 • 3 minutes How Not To Be Angry One gets the sense that Seneca, like many smart and active people, was often frustrated by other people. It is inevitable that someone like him—someone creating art, actively participating in government, managing properties, etc—would have regularly found his interest and his will thwarted. Perhaps a neighbor opposed some changes he was making to his land. Or an intriguing enemy at the palace sought to undermine him with the emperor. Maybe his brother jostled for an inheritance. Maybe he bumped into a rude ... |
| 2019-Aug-05 • 3 minutes What Do You Gain By Worrying? When did Jesus deliver his famous Sermon on the Mount? We don’t know. But we know that Seneca and Jesus were born at roughly the same time and were part of the same massive empire. As far distant as the Mount of Beatitudes was from Rome, the men were thinking and speaking about very similar things. Certainly Seneca, who wrote so much about the futility of anxiety and fear and the inevitability of death, would have agreed with that famous line from the sermon: “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour... |
| 2019-Aug-02 • 3 minutes Winning The Ultimate Victory There is a tradition in Stoicism that few notice, but is possibly one of the most inspiring and chilling parts of the entire philosophy. There’s no real polite way to describe it other than “badass last words.” Seneca tells the story of Julius Canus, a philosopher who was sentenced to death by Caligula. As he awaited his death sentence, he casually played a game with a fellow prisoner. When the executioner came down to take him from his cell, Canus simply got up and said, “You will testify that I was one p... |
| 2019-Aug-01 • 3 minutes Try The Opposite Remedy In his essay Of Clemency, Seneca tells a story of a time Augustus, the first emperor of the Roman Empire, had his temper severely tested. Augustus receives intelligence that a man named Lucius Cinna was conspiring against him. Augustus summoned a council of close friends to consult on his plan to have Cinna executed. When the group agreed unanimously against Augustus’s retaliation scheme, he blew a fuse, racked equally with anger and fear. His ranting and screaming met only silence from the group he gather... |
| 2019-Jul-31 • 3 minutes Be Careful About Who You Want To Impress When you listen to people talk about choices they regret, whether it was working for the guy who put on Fyre Fest or joining a gang or a cult, it’s remarkable how much it comes down to wanting to impress someone. Not their friends, not other people, but one person—usually the leader. That’s the theme in Michael Cohen’s testimony to Congress, for example. Over and over again, he reveals how badly he wanted the approval of Donald Trump. He wanted to be at the center of it. He wanted to be indispensable. He wa... |
| 2019-Jul-30 • 3 minutes We’re Lucky Not To Get What We Want There’s an old joke: When the Gods wish to punish us, they give us everything we’ve ever wanted. Look at most people who win the lottery. Look at most famous people. Look at most world leaders. To borrow an expression from one particularly unhappy world leader, what do they look like? They look like they’re tired of winning. Because winning isn’t actually as fun as it seemed like it would be...and most of what we want to win turns out to not really be worth it. This was Marcus Aurelius’ point. When we look... |
| 2019-Jul-29 • 4 minutes What To Take From All This Very few people, if they’re being honest, would want their kids to grow up to be like Donald Trump. And that includes the folks who had perfectly good reasons for voting for him and hope he will be a successful Republican president. Donald Trump is rich, sure, but he’s also vain. He’s mean. He’s paranoid and says cruel things for the fun of it. He wears being uninformed like a badge of honor (I brief myself, he once said), and he cheats on his wi(ves) and lies. A lot. And if the reports on his taxes are eve... |
| 2019-Jul-26 • 3 minutes Spare Time Is Not Enough Pt II The great Athenian statesman Pericles once explained to his people that being a great naval power was not some hobby. It was the key to their survival. “Seamanship is an art,” he said, “just like anything else, and you cannot merely practice it ‘on the side’ whenever you feel like it. To the contrary, it leaves you no room for side pursuits.” The Stoics believed philosophy was the same. That self-improvement and the pursuit of wisdom was not this extra thing we did with our spare time when we were finishe... |
| 2019-Jul-25 • 4 minutes Good or Evil...The Choice Is Yours The Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck thought the tug between good and evil was a necessary contradiction of human nature. There is no better demonstration of his world view than East of Eden. As Steinbeck wrote to a friend, “I finished my book a week ago...I have put all the things I have wanted to write all my life. This is ‘the book.’” It is from the character Lee, the Chinese immigrant housekeeper, that Steinbeck delivers the novel’s main theme: timshel—“thou mayest”—the Hebrew belief in our po... |
| 2019-Jul-24 • 3 minutes There’s No Excuse For Being Surprised Fabius was one of Ancient Rome’s great generals, though he was not the bold, reckless type that usually gets all the attention in history books. No, he was the cautious type. He was strategic and reserved. He preferred to let enemies defeat themselves more than anything else. He was far less exciting than his most famous counterparts, but without him, Rome almost certainly would have been defeated by Hannibal in the 200s BCE. In the book Of Anger, Seneca draws on Fabius to teach a lesson from war that eve... |
| 2019-Jul-23 • 3 minutes Haven’t You Done That Before? It is certainly true that people can do some awful things to each other. We hear of a trusted representative who is stealing from their clients. We hear of a man who has been leading a second life, even starting a second family. We hear of a woman who commits an unspeakable crime. These gross violations of morality and law do exist. They are things we would never do, we’d never even consider doing them. However, the truth is that most of the wrongs committed day to day are done by ordinary people in ordinar... |
| 2019-Jul-22 • 2 minutes What Do You Look Like Angry? Getting angry is not a good look. We know this because we see how ugly other people look when they get mad. How childish they seem. How pathetic their gesticulations look, how badly they seem to need our attention. We see how much it undermines their point too—we see their anger and think, “They are acting this way because it’s the only way they hope to win the argument.” We might even worry about someone’s health when we see their anger, fearing that they might have a heart attack. Seneca, referencing a ... |
| 2019-Jul-19 • 3 minutes You’re Not That Important A few weeks ago, a horse at The Preakness threw its jockey right out of the gate and kept running. Like really kept running. It ran the whole race twice! For a few seconds there during its first go-round, it was a real contender in the race. It’s actually not that uncommon for horses to complete a race without their rider, and sometimes even nearly win—a fact that must humble all jockeys. Life is full of examples like this. Monkeys randomly picking stocks will often outperform the market. Index funds beat... |
| 2019-Jul-18 • 3 minutes This Is Universal Traveling—that itch to get away, to hit the road, to see the world—feels like a distinctly modern craze. Yet it was common in Ancient Rome for people to escape the heat and the frenzy of the bustling city to get away for some time in the countryside. It is likely that those excursions influenced Marcus Aurelius’s belief in sympatheia—the belief in mutual interdependence among everything in the universe, that we are all one. Marcus Aurelius liked to say that he wasn’t a citizen of Rome, but of the world. Ma... |
| 2019-Jul-17 • 3 minutes Are You Self-Aware? Evan Thomas, in his incisive and humanizing biography of Richard Nixon, asks a penetrating question: How many great men of history were truly self-aware? Nixon surely wasn’t. Bill Clinton, caught red-handed—or rather, blue-dressed—philandering in the White House, surely wasn’t either. All one has to do is watch the video from his grand jury testimony, where he sought to litigate the definition of the word “is,” for evidence of that fact. Few presidents have been self-aware. In a way, the job selects again... |
| 2019-Jul-16 • 2 minutes Nothing Wrong With Nice Stuff Seneca was a very rich man. He had nice stuff. Critics at the time, and ever since, have found this to be indisputable proof of his hypocrisy. How can a Stoic have expensive ivory tables? Isn’t it unphilosophical to have multiple houses? Or servants? In Seneca’s view, the answer was no. Nobody said that Stoicism meant a vow of poverty, or needless deprivation. As he wrote, “Philosophy calls for plain living, not for penance...our lives should observe a happy medium between the ways of the sage and the ways... |
| 2019-Jul-15 • 3 minutes These Things Have No Power Over You So much has happened in the past. We’ve messed up. We’ve been hurt. We’ve missed opportunities and we’ve embarrassed ourselves. So much can happen in the future, as well. Not only can all those same mistakes happen again, but we also have to contend with the uncertainty of the weather, the economy, family obligations, and politics—all of which loom in front. It’s amazing that anyone can get anything done with all that occupying their mind. Indeed, that’s sort of the point the Stoics were trying to make.... |
| 2019-Jul-12 • 4 minutes Does Greatness Require Ego? While we all hold up humility as an admirable trait, we’re not always sure it can get us to the goals we aspire to. We look at a Kanye West or a Donald Trump or a Steve Jobs and think: sure that person’s an egomaniac, but ego was clearly critical to their success. Success often comes with this temptation—to mythologize, to excuse, to gloss over the consequences and the difficulties. Rivers Cuomo achieved exactly what he always wanted. The frontman for Weezer was the bonafide rockstar he dreamed of being—s... |
| 2019-Jul-11 • 4 minutes We Must Increase What We Have Been Given In the Book of Matthew, we are told of the parable of the talents. Three servants are left sums of money (talents) by their master. The first, who the master believed was most able, doubled his five talents into ten. The second was given two and used it to earn two more. The third was more cautious and less ambitious, and simply buried his in the ground. When the master came back, he was able to return the money, but he had not managed to produce anything from it. As you might expect, the master was quite... |
| 2019-Jul-10 • 3 minutes Assume Everyone Is Lying You’ve probably caught yourself doing it. Life has been rough or depressing, but your social media feed looks awesome. Someone asks how much money you make or how sales on your project were, and you round up quite a bit. Or maybe you’re similarly generous when you talk about your sexual conquests, or commensurately stingy with your weight. Obviously this sort of deceit is not a good thing and we should all try to stop doing it. But what’s interesting is how, when we compare ourselves to other people, we r... |
| 2019-Jul-09 • 3 minutes Pity The Ego The Stoics were not unacquainted with awful people. They saw tyrants. They saw cheats. They saw toxic egomaniacs and insatiable ambitions. And what was their reaction to most of these people? Aside from a general wariness and a desire not to be corrupted by them, mostly the Stoics pitied these types. Certainly this is how Marcus Aurelius wrote about someone like Alexander the Great. He almost seemed sad for him. Like, dude, how did you think this was going to end? Did you think conquering the world was goi... |
| 2019-Jul-08 • 4 minutes Just A Few Seconds Of Courage In 2006, Benjamin Mee bought a zoo. Literally a zoo. It was broken down and in desperate need of a caring owner. Mee and his family were struggling too. Things hadn’t been going well for them either. But in one scene—immortalized by Matt Damon in the movie version of the story—Mee explains to his son that our lives are defined by the moments when we put ourselves out there. When we take a risk that, if we had thought about too much or been too deliberate about, we’d never have been capable of taking. “You ... |
| 2019-Jul-05 • 3 minutes Are You Ready To Be Challenged? It’s very easy to get comfortable. To build up your life exactly how you want it to be. Minimize inconveniences and hand off the stuff you don’t like to do. To find what you enjoy, where you enjoy it, and never leave. A velvet rut, is what it’s called. It’s nice, but the comfort tricks you into thinking that you’re not stuck. The Stoics knew that this was a kind of death. That as soon as we stop growing, we start dying. Or at least, we become more vulnerable to the swings of Fate and Fortune. Seneca tal... |
| 2019-Jul-04 • 4 minutes Freedom Isn't Free The fact that America exists is the ultimate argument that Stoicism is not apathy and that philosophy is not mere theory. Because without Stoicism, it’s possible there would have been no revolution, no Constitution, no Bill of Rights and no Fourth of July. Thomas Jefferson kept a copy of Seneca on his nightstand. George Washington staged a reproduction of a play about Cato at Valley Forge in the winter of ‘77/’78 to inspire the troops (having first read the Stoics as a teenager). Patrick Henry cribbed lin... |
| 2019-Jul-03 • 3 minutes Do Less Unlike so many of the other philosophical schools, the Stoics were doers. The Epicureans might have been content to play in their gardens and the Cynics might have believed that most of the obligations of society were a scam, but the Stoics were responsible and public-minded. Marcus Aurelius lead the empire. Seneca was a writer and a political advisor and he ran the many estates his family owned. These were busy people. But they also understood the importance of work-life balance, and were early practitio... |
| 2019-Jul-02 • 4 minutes Who The True Stoics Were If you were to run down the list of the great Stoics of history, who would come to mind? Seneca. Marcus Aurelius. Epictetus. Maybe if you really knew your stuff, you’d mention Zeno or Cleanthes or Chrysippus. What do all those people have in common? They were all men. In fact, you really have to look—and stretch—to come up with even one or two “accepted” female Stoics. Does this mean that Stoicism is just for men? Or that it’s been entirely composed of men for the last twenty five hundred years? Do you t... |
| 2019-Jul-01 • 3 minutes Real Power Can’t Be Taken Away Twice, Seneca was exiled. Twice, he basically lost everything. Money. Access. Influence. It all went away, like *that.* How did he handle it? The first time, not so well. We can read the thou-dost-protest-too-much letter he wrote to his mother...and we can see what he was willing to do in order to be recalled. By Stoic standards, it wasn’t pretty. The second time, he did a little better—as long as he could be free from Nero, the exile was worth the loss. And when he was approached by Nero’s executioner... |
| 2019-Jun-28 • 4 minutes You Have To Take Care of Yourself King George IV was a notorious glutton. His breakfast supposedly consisted of two pigeons, three steaks, a near full bottle of wine, and a glass of brandy. In time, he grew so fat he could no longer sleep laying down, or the weight of his own chest might asphyxiate him. The gout in his hands made it difficult to sign documents — he eventually had his attendants make a stamp of his signature to use instead. Still, he managed to father several illegitimate children while generally neglecting the business of b... |
| 2019-Jun-27 • 4 minutes Justice Doesn't Have To Be Angry When we hear about an athlete who was doubted and kicked around, or an entrepreneur who ends up buying the previously dominant company that once spurned them, we assume anger must have been the fuel that powered their comeback. When we hear about someone who spent years working in secret to right some long forgotten wrong, we think, “Oh that person must have been really angry.”Think about the case of Peter Thiel, who spent ten years conspiring to take down the powerful gossip outlet, Gawker Media, after the... |
| 2019-Jun-26 • 3 minutes What Do You Live By? William Alexander Percy, the uncle of the great writer Walker Percy, and one of the last Southern Stoics, was a famous host. His mansion in Greenville, Mississippi welcomed many guests, including Robert Wright, Langston Hughes, and William Faulkner. He traveled widely, too, visiting Greece, Samoa, and Paris, and spent time in Belgium fighting in WWI. Will Percy loved to playfully and honestly interrogate the people he met with deep but shapeless questions that forced their recipients to really think. Questi... |
| 2019-Jun-25 • 3 minutes Never Attribute To Malice… People do a lot of things that feel mean. That frustrate us. That cause problems for us. That make the world a worse place. They vote for bad politicians. They say offensive things. They make messes. They screw stuff up. Naturally, our first instinct is to get upset about this. To want to confront the perpetrators about it. To hold them fully accountable for the consequences of their behavior. But it’s worth stepping back and asking yourself first, are they really fully accountable? Consider, for instance... |
| 2019-Jun-24 • 4 minutes Break Out and Break Free We live in the freest time in the freest places in the history of the world. Yet many of us feel far from free. We are slaves to vices and devices, to our schedules and our poor self-talk. We’re reactive. We look at the world through the lens of other people’s vision for success, often in things we have no interest in. We are chained down in a prison of our own making and it’s high time for us to break out, to break free. But how? The answer comes from Marcus Aurelius and the fact that it came from such a ... |
| 2019-Jun-21 • 2 minutes It’s About The Paring Down Really what the Stoics were trying to do is pare down what they had to worry about. That’s why Epictetus said our first job was just to determine what was in our control and what isn’t—because that eliminates an enormous chunk of concern from our concern. Suddenly, we don’t need to think as much about the past or the future. We don’t have to care what people think about us. We don’t need to compare ourselves to anything and anyone. When Rousseau said that man is born free but lives in chains, he knew that ... |
| 2019-Jun-20 • 2 minutes Practice These Virtues Virtue is one of those words that contains multitudes. If you think about it, being virtuous is not doing one thing all the time, or even lots of things all at once. It’s doing all the right things—the important things—in those moments when they matter most. Which is every moment. Day by day, It’s about taking the right actions and holding yourself to the highest standard. Needless to say, that’s really hard. Marcus Aurelius tried to do it all, all the time, but he also knew he was a flawed person. He k... |
| 2019-Jun-19 • 4 minutes You Must Think It In Richard III and in Othello, Shakespeare has two different characters utter the same line. Both Iago and a nameless orphan say, “I cannot think it.” In both cases, the news they are faced with—the conclusion they are being asked to accept—is simply too much. The Shakespearean scholar, Richard Greenblatt, calls this phrase a kind of motto for those who can’t wrap their mind around perfidy. He’s not being condescending, for it’s a very common experience. Our naivete, our willingness to assume the best abou... |
| 2019-Jun-18 • 2 minutes Do You Want To Be Less Angry? The best way to make sure you are always offended and upset is to be on the lookout for things to be offended by and upset about. The sharper your ears and eyes, the larger your dragnet for information, the more likely you are to find something that pisses you off. And yet this is what most of us do: We have Google Alerts for our names or our businesses. We check our @mentions on Twitter. We ask our friends, “Oh really, what does so-and-so say about me when I’m not around?” We’re like water-diviners with ... |
| 2019-Jun-17 • 4 minutes Tell The Truth, Even If They Hate You For It There is a certain archetype that is as old as literature and history themselves. One of the first times we see it in the West is with Cassandra in the Greek tragedies. She has the power to see into the future (she prophesied the fall of Troy and the murder of Agamemnon) but no one listens to her. Then we have Demosthenes, whose warnings against the rise of Phillip (Alexander the Great’s father) are so incessant that everyone hates him for it. Later on in Rome, Cato the Elder—Cato’s grandfather—was such a f... |
| 2019-Jun-14 • 4 minutes It’s OK To Struggle Nietzsche’s classic line was “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” It’s a nice sentiment, but is it true? Don’t people who were born with advantages do better in life? Isn’t it better not to suffer setbacks? Why would someone want to experience disadvantages or difficulties?Those questions were answered in a recent paper published by Cornell University. Researchers looked at RO1 grant application for the National Institutes of Health, focusing on individuals who just missed receiving funding (“near-miss... |
| 2019-Jun-13 • 2 minutes It Doesn’t Matter What You Do, It Matters How You Do It The occupations of the three most well-known Stoics could not be more different. Seneca was a playwright, a wealthy landowner, and a political advisor. Epictetus was a former slave who became a philosophy teacher. Marcus Aurelius would have loved to be a philosopher but instead found himself wearing the purple cloak of the emperor. Zeno was a prosperous merchant. Cleanthes was a water carrier. Cato was a Senator. The modern Stoics include James Stockdale, a fighter pilot, and Tim Ferriss, a writer and a t... |
| 2019-Jun-12 • 3 minutes Never Abandon Your Ideals Anne Frank would have celebrated her 90th birthday today. Although her life was cut tragically short, so much of her preternatural wisdom survives to us thanks to her famous, existentially essential diary. In it, we are reminded of the humanity of every individual (and the horrible cost to societies who lose sight of this), and we are inspired—even shamed—by the cheerful perseverance of a child amidst circumstances far worse than any of us could ever know. Page after page, despite the unimaginable terror ... |
| 2019-Jun-11 • 3 minutes Why It’s Important To Be Healthy It wouldn’t seem like eating well would be an important part of the philosopher’s job, but indeed it is. Antoninus Pius, the adopted stepfather of Marcus Aurelius and one of the quietly great Roman Emperors, kept a simple diet so he could work from dawn to dusk with as few bathroom interruptions as possible—so he could be at the service of the people for longer. In one of his letters, Seneca wrote that the better one eats, the less one needs to exercise, which then frees up valuable time for reading and th... |
| 2019-Jun-10 • 3 minutes How To Think About Obstacles We can think of hardship many ways: As failure. As unfairness. As the end of the conversation. Clearly, this was not meant to be, we can say. They don’t want me to succeed, so what’s the point of trying? Or, we can choose—we can train ourselves—to see it a better way: As grist for the mill. As a chance to learn about endurance, patience, resilience, struggle. As an opportunity to prove our mettle. As a way of learning about people or situations or actions or things. Marcus Aurelius believed in the latter ... |
| 2019-Jun-07 • 4 minutes When You Need Help... Maybe you’re having a difficult time in your relationship. Or work has worn you down. Maybe things have gone exceedingly well in your business and now you’re dealing with opportunities you never thought possible. Or you’re trying to figure out what to do with your life. Or trying to figure out how to help your kid—who has struggled for a long time now—to figure out what to do with their life. These are tough situations. Just a sample of what the days can throw at us...on top of all the things the world li... |
| 2019-Jun-06 • 3 minutes What The Simple Life Is Seneca wasn’t fond of philosophers you could recognize. Not by their fame, but by their uniform. In his time, just as it is in ours, there was a type of person who, in reading about the Diogenes types or the tough Stoic types, thought that philosophy required that they give up their worldly possessions or start dressing like a bum. Today, these types try to signal their virtue by driving a beat up old car or by showing you how little they own. See, they say, I am practicing detachment. See, I don’t want l... |
| 2019-Jun-05 • 3 minutes The Earth Is Big And Has Room For Everyone There is a line in the Odyssey (most recently translated by Seneca’s wonderful biographer, Emily Wilson). Odysseus, still early on in his journey home, is speaking with King Alcinous, and telling him of his deeds in the Trojan war. Alcinous remarks that: “The earth sustains all different kinds of people. Many are cheats and thieves, who fashion lies out of thin air." Clearly, Alcinous has been deceived before and knows how to look out for such people. He had a good read on Odysseus and could tell, despi... |
| 2019-Jun-04 • 3 minutes Good Stuff Comes Out Of Bad Circumstances If Marcus Aurelius had his choice, he probably never would have been emperor. If he could have chosen how his reign would go, he probably wouldn’t have spent it at war, far from home, either. But that was how life went. Those were the cards he was dealt.What’s remarkable, though, is what he did with those cards, particularly in regards to the last part. Ernest Renan observed that Marcus’s Meditations—one of the most valuable and beautiful books ever created—came about because Marcus was “deprived of the ord... |
| 2019-Jun-03 • 3 minutes An Easy Source of Encouragement Why did Marcus Aurelius write his Meditations? It wasn’t for an audience. It wasn’t simply to practice his Greek or his rhetorical abilities—he was already good at all those things. The book lacks an author’s note and he never seemed to have told anyone about his intentions, so we can’t know for sure. But there are two clues that, when put together, provide an answer as good as any. Have you noticed how much of Meditations is about other people? The opening, “Debts and Lessons,” makes up nearly ten percen... |
| 2019-May-31 • 2 minutes Stop Wasting Time on Trivialities In his twenty-third letter to Lucilius, Seneca opens with some meta snark that is relatable to anyone who has ever been trapped in a banal conversation at a boring cocktail party. “You were probably thinking I was going to open this letter with idle chit chat about the weather,” Seneca begins, “but I’m not, because who has the time?” Certainly not Seneca, who spends the rest of the letter talking about the joy that comes from the study of philosophy and the earnest pursuit of the art of living. Important i... |
| 2019-May-30 • 4 minutes The Best Technology Ever Invented There have been all sorts of wonderful technological innovations since Marcus Aurelius’s time, particularly in the domain of writing. We got the printing press. We got typewriters. We got ballpoint pens and erasers and whiteout. We got computers and smartphones. We have emails and tweets and audio memos. Journaling for Marcus wouldn’t have been easy. He needed ink and some sort of pen-like implement, and he had to write on fragile parchment. The supplies weren’t cheap. He needed to do everything by hand. ... |
| 2019-May-29 • 2 minutes It’s OK To Cry We know that Marcus Aurelius cried when he was told that his favorite tutor passed away. We know that he cried that day in court, when he was overseeing a case and the attorney mentioned the countless souls who perished in the plague that had ravaged Rome. We can imagine Marcus cried many other times. This was a man who was betrayed by one of his most trusted generals. This was a man who lost his wife of 35 years. This was a man who lost eightchildren, including all but one of his sons. Marcus didn’t weep ... |
| 2019-May-28 • 4 minutes What Do You Have To Draw On? For most of us, things are pretty good right now. The economy is booming. Our jobs or our personal lives are going well. Most of the doomsday predictions from critics and watchdogs have turned out to be overwrought or even wrong...so far. The world is mostly at peace—technically. The question—and the main thing that Stoicism is designed to help cultivate inside each of us—is: What will you draw upon if any of that suddenly changes? It’s easy to be strong and self-contained when there is very little threat... |
| 2019-May-27 • 3 minutes Things Don’t Make The Man It’s very easy to associate our possessions and our positions with our identity. There’s even an expression to that effect: The clothes make the man. When we have a powerful job, we feel powerful. When the market is hot, we feel like we have a knack for investing. When we are number one in our space, in our industry, in sales, we’re very into checking and monitoring the rankings. When people are saying nice things about us, we revel in it, because of course it’s all true and deserved. If everything stays w... |
| 2019-May-24 • 2 minutes It’s Not As Unfortunate As It Seems Things we didn’t want to happen happen to all of us. A business deal falls through. A grade comes back that we didn’t expect. A person we care about leaves us. Our instinct is to call these events unfortunate. Which makes sense. It’s fortunate when you get what you want, it’s unfortunate when, for whatever reason, you don’t. Right? Marcus Aurelius proposed a different way of looking at things. Instead of telling ourselves that we’re unfortunate because our expectations were disappointed, we should do the ... |
| 2019-May-23 • 2 minutes The Road To Ladies and Gentlemen Again Two years ago, the world lost a great scholar and Stoic philosopher, Peter Lawler. Peter, a longtime writer for National Review and political science professor at Berry College, was the kind of person interested in those seemingly archaic notions of honor and virtue and duty (you can read the interview Peter did with us just a few weeks before his untimely death). He also, according to his friends, was the kind of person who lived those ideals. We live in a time of vulgarity and corruption and oversharing ... |
| 2019-May-22 • 3 minutes You’ll Be Happier If You’re Realistic We tell ourselves that if we just get paid more or get promoted, we’ll stop being so miserable at work. Or we dream for months in advance about some vacation to paradise, only to find, once we arrive, that the hotel was not quite as glamorous as the photographs on the website implied. Maybe we do get that promotion or that raise and it does alleviate some old problems—then suddenly there are new ones like jealous co-workers or additional responsibility. Our rosy expectations set us up to be disappointed. O... |
| 2019-May-21 • 2 minutes Eat And Be Merry A few years ago a study by Brad Bushman at Ohio State University found a link between low blood sugar and arguments between spouses. It pretty much confirms the experiences of anyone who has ever been in a relationship and found themselves fighting right around lunch or dinner time for no good reason. The colloquial term for this? Being hangry. And it can ruin relationships, friendships, and generally make you a jerk. The funny thing is that even the Stoics knew this and warned against it. As Seneca wrote... |
| 2019-May-20 • 3 minutes Make It Happen. Whatever It Takes. On this day in 1932, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. Her solo exploits are well known. Less so is that Earhart had already made the same flight less than five years prior. Unable to make a living as a female pilot, Earhart was working a job as a social worker. Then one day the phone rang. On the other end of the line was a pretty offensive offer: She could be the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, but she wouldn’t actually fly the plane and she wouldn’t get paid a... |
| 2019-May-17 • 3 minutes Don’t Let Yourself Be Rushed Robert Caro is getting old and people are getting worried. He’s now 83 and each day that passes makes it increasingly unlikely that he’ll ever finish his epic (and must-read) series on Lyndon Johnson. He’s only made it up the the beginning of the Vietnam War...and there is so much material left to tackle. It’s understandable that fans and publishers are subtly trying to nudge him to hurry and finish. With so little time left, they want him to get as much onto the page as possible. You might think that rem... |
| 2019-May-16 • 2 minutes Find The Space Think about the last time that someone made you upset. What did they say? What did they do? Now think back: How did you react? What did you say? What did you feel? Now think about the situation another way: If, when that provocation came, you had given yourself space to pause, could you have controlled your reaction? Could you have stayed sober and calm in the face of their hysterics and yelling? Could you have kept your head about you? Marcus Aurelius said, “You have power over your mind—not outside even... |
| 2019-May-15 • 4 minutes How To Overcome Selfishness Bertrand Russell was no fan of the Stoics. He thought they were cold, hated riches and passion. He thought Seneca and Marcus were hypocrites. But then again he himself was a rather big hypocrite—having had his share of affairs and embarrassing scandals.Nevertheless, there is a passage from Russell that captures an important Stoic theme: the reduction of our own ego so that we might see where we fit in the larger whole of humanity:Make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the ... |
| 2019-May-14 • 4 minutes The Only Measure of Success There’s plenty written about people pushing through failure, pulling themselves out of the depths of despair, rising above against all odds. There are countless inspiring stories of the struggling artist, living in debt and obscurity for years—a lifetime even—eventually garnering the recognition and commercial success they long believed they deserved. There’s less written about dealing with the pressures of immediate success. We rarely hear about how the artist—the musician whose debut album goes platinum... |
| 2019-May-13 • 3 minutes Look For Teachable Moments On the eve of the 2008 election, the journalist Joe Klein asked Barack Obama how he’d made his decision to respond to the brewing scandal about Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, having made controversial statements about the government and terrorist attacks. Whether you were upset by that situation or not, whether you think he properly addressed it or not, the mindset that Obama explained to Klein is worth spending a few minutes thinking about: “My gut was telling me that this was a teachable moment and th... |
| 2019-May-10 • 3 minutes If It’s Right, It’s Right For You Sometimes we get asked or tasked with doing stuff in life we’d rather not have to do. Maybe that’s working a less than glamorous job when we’re young. Maybe that’s filling a role in your family that diverges from traditional gender roles. Maybe that’s taking heat for something that wasn’t our fault, or being seen as the bad guy, even though the facts are on our side. There is a tendency to be ashamed of these things, and then to hide them. We’re afraid of people judging us, so we hedge or cover or try to ... |
| 2019-May-09 • 3 minutes You Decide The End of The Story When James Stockdale was shot down in Vietnam, he was taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese. He spent seven years being tortured and subjected to unimaginable loneliness and terror. He had little choice over the fact that he was shot down, or that he was taken prisoner. But what he told himself—and what helped him endure this terrible ordeal—was the sense of agency that Stoicism gave him, the sense that he could ultimately use this experience as fuel. As he said later: “I never lost faith in the end ... |
| 2019-May-08 • 3 minutes The First and Most Important Victory It’s easy to look at people who are calm and self-disciplined and assume that their disposition comes naturally to them, or that it is somehow divinely inspired. These people, they simply don’t have to struggle with the temptations or the frustrations that we mere mortals struggle with—that’s why they are able to stand before us as models of equanimity and poise. Perhaps in some cases this is true, but usually it’s not. Take someone like George Washington for example. To the people who encountered him, he... |
| 2019-May-07 • 2 minutes Who To Be Friends With? Of the Stoics, Seneca seems like the one who had the most fun. He’s the one who it’s easiest to picture spending time with friends or mingling at a dinner party (in fact, he was known for his legendary parties with hundreds of guests). Whereas almost all of Marcus’s writing is private and solitary, and Epictetus’s comes to us in the form of lecture notes from his students, a sizeable chunk of what survives of Seneca are the letters he wrote to his dear friend Lucilius. We don’t know too much about Lucilius... |
| 2019-May-06 • 2 minutes Don’t Sell Out In his Discourses, Epictetus asks a probing question: “Your respect, trustworthiness and steadiness, peace of mind, freedom from pain and fear, in a word your freedom. For what would you sell these things?” The answer, too often, is “for pennies on the dollar.” We trade our word for a small edge in business. We give up peace of mind for a bigger house or a nicer car. We mortgage our self-respect for fancy friends or fame. We sell our freedom for a job that makes us miserable, or a relationship full of ince... |
| 2019-May-03 • 4 minutes Be Sure To Love Them While You Still Can In one of the darkest passages in all of Stoic thought, Epictetus discusses the prospect of putting your child to bed and saying goodbye to them in your mind as you do so because it may be the last time you get the chance. It’s an image that is hard to swallow. It’s morbid. It’s tempting fate. What kind of fatalistic person would do that? In his new translation of Epictetus, A.A Long responds to this criticism and puts Epictetus’s thinking in proper context: “His memento mori warnings concerning wife and... |
| 2019-May-02 • 2 minutes Do Your Duty, Every Day, Everywhere The French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy was recently interviewed by the New York Times about his grueling travel schedule, which will include 22 cities this year. This passage of the interview is worth highlighting: Q: When you travel, do you read, write, sleep, or watch movies? A: I do not live very differently when I travel and when I don’t, which means I do my duty. My duty is to read, to write, and to fight. These are the three things that are my duty. Traveling and not traveling, this is what I ... |
| 2019-May-01 • 2 minutes You’ll Never Get To Perfect Rosanne Cash tells a story in her memoir, Composed about a performance she did with George Harrison. Dress rehearsal had gone wonderfully but the performance didn’t go quite as well. Seeing she was disappointed by that, Harrison walked over and consoled her. “It’s never as good as the rehearsal,” he said. As with music, so with life. Even when we do a premeditatio malorum, even when we get everything set just right, we’re still surprised by how things go. We eliminate all the big things that can go wron... |
| 2019-Apr-30 • 3 minutes You Can Admit You Were Wrong A Stoic is determined, but not obstinate. A Stoic controls what they can, recognizes they cannot change that which is out of their control, but that they can change their mind. Not because it’s convenient, but because they are open to learning they were wrong or misinformed. “If anyone can refute me," Marcus Aurelius wrote, "I'll gladly change." He wanted to be told when he had made a mistake or seen things from the wrong perspective. Because it was truth that mattered to him. Truth, he said, “never hurt a... |
| 2019-Apr-29 • 2 minutes Make Beautiful Choices Epictetus says that “if your choices are beautiful, so too will you be.” It’s simple and it’s true. You are what your choices make you, nothing more and nothing less. Today will present you with plenty of opportunities to choose between—to choose beauty or ugliness; kindness or selfishness; mercy or vengeance; serenity or anger. There will be little choices—what you eat, how you talk to people, whether you pick up the television remote or a book, what you think about—and there will be bigger choices too... |
| 2019-Apr-26 • 4 minutes Do This For Your Future Self The musician, producer, circus performer, entrepreneur, TED speaker, and author, Derek Sivers, recently wrote an article that began, “You know those people whose lives are transformed by meditation or yoga or something like that? For me, it’s writing in my diary and journals. It’s made all the difference in the world for my learning, reflecting, and peace of mind.” He’s kept a journaling habit for over 20 years. Every night, he takes just a couple minutes to jot down a few sentences to recap his day, how h... |
| 2019-Apr-25 • 4 minutes Always Think Of Their Intentions We live in a culture where people sit on the sidelines and pass a lot of strong judgements. We look at people we don’t know and decide whether they’re good or bad people. We look at complicated situations and difficult projects and cleanly label them successes or failures—despite having little understanding of what went on behind the scenes. We take an instance of behavior or a tiny interaction—the way someone talked to us at the grocery store or a decision that they made—and extrapolate out who that person... |
| 2019-Apr-24 • 4 minutes Difficulty Is Forging Us Into Who We Need To Be Look, nobody wants to go through hard times. We’d prefer that things go according to plan, that what could go wrong doesn’t, so that we might enjoy our lives without being challenged or tested beyond our limits. Unfortunately, that’s unlikely to happen. Which leaves us then with the question of what good there is in such difficulty and how we might—either in the moment or after the fact—come to understand what it is that we’re going through...today, tomorrow, and always. This passage from Sonia Purnell’... |
| 2019-Apr-23 • 3 minutes We All Share This Thing Together Yesterday was the 49th year we celebrated Earth Day...in the 4.5 billionth year of the Earth’s existence. In 1970, at the height of counterculture in the United States, the protest movement, and rising dissatisfaction with the environmental abuses of the modern world, U.S. senator and governor of Wisconsin Gaylord Nelson conceived the idea of Earth Day. In a speech during that inaugural day in 1970, Nelson said: Our goal is not just an environment of clean air and water and scenic beauty. The objective is ... |
| 2019-Apr-22 • 3 minutes When You're Having A Bad Day Theodore Roosevelt famously said that comparison is the thief of joy. Using what other people have or what they’ve done to chart your progress, holding your life or your work up to some outside vague standard of greatness, paying attention to your perception of how good someone else has it is rarely the way to happiness. We’re on our own journey with our own unique circumstances. Therefore comparison, as the quote implies, is something mostly to be avoided. But, can comparison ever spur joy or relieve feel... |
| 2019-Apr-19 • 3 minutes The Race To Run Is Against Yourself It can be deceiving to hear the Stoics talk about an indifference to external recognition or rewards. Marcus says that fame is meaningless. Seneca talks about how success or wealth is out of our control and therefore not to be prized. Don’t want what other people want, they say, don’t get sucked into meaningless competition. So does this mean that the Stoic doesn’t try? That the Stoic is resigned to whatever happens to them in life, caring about nothing, uninterested in improving or growing? No, of course ... |
| 2019-Apr-18 • 2 minutes Look For The Good Laura Ingalls Wilder had a hard scrabble existence. From the Kansas prairies to the backwoods of Florida, she and her family eked out a life from some of the most unforgiving environments on the planet. That’s what being a pioneer was really like. It wasn’t glamorous, it was hard. Yet, what comes through in her work is the joy and happiness and beauty she managed to see despite all that hardship. “There is good in everything,” she later wrote, “if only we look for it.” That’s what many of the best Stoic e... |
| 2019-Apr-17 • 3 minutes Don’t Worry About Being Respected In a conversation on “You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes” about Martin Luther King Jr., the screenwriter and director Adam McKay talked about the distinction between two words (and concepts) that we commonly conflate: Have you noticed the difference between dignity and respect is a big one? People that fly off the handle and get angry too much always talk about, ‘I’m not being respected.’ But respect is something you can’t control, right? Dignity is inside you, dignity is yours. This is a brilliantly mad... |
| 2019-Apr-16 • 4 minutes No Room For “Them” “They” hold up very poorly in Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that Marcus holds up very poorly when “they” come up. Who is “they?” They are the people the Romans referred to as barbarians—the people who lived outside the bounds of the empire. It’s when Marcus speaks (and acts) derogatorily about them—the Christians or the slaves or even the opposite sex—that we are reminded just how long ago he lived. In Marcus’s time, the world was a strict hierarchy, almost a system of c... |
| 2019-Apr-15 • 3 minutes How To Bounce Back When you begin to type “Marcus Lattimore” into Google, the first suggestion is “injury”. On October 27th, 2012, on live television, running back at University of South Carolina Marcus Lattimore suffered a horrific on field knee injury that he would never fully recover from. Lattimore was one of those once in a lifetime talents, but in one play, the football career Lattimore had built his entire identity around all but disappeared Seneca often said that the growth of anything great is a long process, but it... |
| 2019-Apr-12 • 3 minutes Here’s A Reason To Be Good The funny thing about egotistical people is that—despite any power or wealth they might have—they are really easy to manipulate. All you have to do is tell them what they want to hear; make everything seem like it was their idea; play to their vanity and their delusions. The same goes for liars—who are usually quite easy to lie to. There’s even an old saying: You can’t con an honest man. Liars and cheats are always looking for shortcuts and tricks, no matter how implausible or unbelievable they are. And the... |
| 2019-Apr-11 • 3 minutes Freedom To or Freedom From? At the core of legal theory is this idea that there are essentially two forms of liberty—positive and negative. Positive liberty is the freedom to do something, such as the freedom of speech or the freedom of worship. Negative liberty is freedom from something, which is a little more complicated. For instance, in the United States, the Third Amendment to the Constitution stipulates that the government cannot quarter troops in the home of any private individual. The Fourth Amendment protects citizens from un... |
| 2019-Apr-09 • 3 minutes All That Matters Is How We Respond It was the great Athenian leader, Pericles, who said that there was nothing wrong with poverty. It could be caused by so many things—a business failure, the sudden loss of a family’s breadwinner, theft, even just plain old back luck. Like the Stoics, he knew that Fortune could swoop in, and, in the blink of an eye, undo years of hard work and careful planning. But Pericles would not have said, as religious leaders and populist demagogues have tried to argue for thousands of years, that there was anything ... |
| 2019-Apr-08 • 3 minutes Do You Want To Be Less Angry? Few people have studied the life and writings of Seneca as deeply as James Romm has. Romm is the author of a great biography of Seneca, Dying Every Day, a translation of Seneca’s various thoughts on death, How to Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life, and his newest work, How To Keep Your Cool: An Ancient Guide to Anger Management, presenting one of Seneca’s most timely essays, On Anger. Each of us should take a minute to think back, even in just the past week, to the times we’ve been angry or short-tem... |
| 2019-Apr-05 • 2 minutes What Goes Up, Must Come Down Each of has been blessed by Fortune. We’re alive right now, instead of 50 or 500 years ago. We were born free, and not into slavery. We’re reading this email on a computer in our office or on our cellphones, because we’re not laying in a hospital in a permanent vegetative state. Some of us are even luckier than all that. You might currently have the career you’ve dreamed of. Or you’re married to a wonderful spouse. Or you’re a world-famous expert or a billionaire. Great. Just remember what Seneca said: ... |
| 2019-Apr-04 • 3 minutes Do Better Where You Can When we look at the lives of a great man like Marcus Aurelius or a great woman like the Catholic activist Dorothy Day, it’s easy to be intimidated. They seemed to always know what to do and seemed to always do it regardless of the stakes. It’s easy to be discouraged when you hold their examples up as inspiration—it seems impossible to live up to their standards (and easy to forget, of course, that they didn’t always live up to their own standards). The same is true for Stoicism as a whole. The philosophy i... |
| 2019-Apr-03 • 3 minutes You Are Here On The Mountaintop The point of memento mori is not to make you sad. It’s not to make you anxious about how few days you may have left. On the contrary, it’s supposed to free you. It’s supposed to inspire you. It’s supposed to give you that empowered, grateful, selfless, bonus-round attitude best captured by Martin Luther King Jr., who said these words on April 3rd, 1968, just hours before he would suddenly and fatally meet an assassin's bullet in Memphis outside his room at the Lorraine Motel: “Well, I don’t know what will ... |
| 2019-Apr-02 • 3 minutes It's Just The Glasses In his wonderful new book How To Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, cognitive-behavioral psychotherapist, historian, and Stoic Donald Robertson charts the fascinating development of Marcus as a person over the course of his life. He artfully weaves in his insight as a working psychotherapist into how we can draw from both the life and writings of Marcus to improve our own lives. In our interview with Robertson, he talked about some of the two-thousand-year-old Stoic concep... |
| 2019-Apr-01 • 3 minutes All Things Can Be Used for a Purpose One of the benefits of being an artist is that everything that happens to you—no matter how traumatic or frustrating—has at least one hidden benefit: It can be used in your art. A painful parting can become a powerful breakup anthem. Melancholy mixes in with your oil paints and transforms an ordinary image into something deeply moving. A mistake creates an insight that leads to an innovation, to a new angle on an old idea, to a brilliant passage in a book. The writer Jorge Luis Borges spoke to that last b... |
| 2019-Mar-29 • 4 minutes Friendship Makes Life Worth Living By now you may have read the viral story about the unexpected friendship between Charles Barkley and the late Lin Wang, a cat litter scientist from Iowa. It’s a pretty moving example of the power of connection, how one of the greatest basketball players of all time met and befriended a stranger in a hotel bar, and how despite their two very different lives, they became sources of great comfort and companionship to each other (and support too—as Wang attended the funeral of Barkley’s mother and Barkley later... |
| 2019-Mar-28 • 2 minutes Do Not Be Afraid Life is pretty great, usually. Until you start thinking about what’s on the other side. That’s when things get less certain; when the fear of death kicks in. Nobody wants to die, after all. That much is understandable. But life is what it is, and with life comes death. To acknowledge death, however, is not to fear it. The latter is much worse, because in fearing death we tend to avoid things that involve a risk of dying, which are often the things most worth living for. We are hesitant to step into a conf... |
| 2019-Mar-27 • 3 minutes Know It Inside And Out Admiral Hyman Rickover, the father of the nuclear navy in the United States and an unsung hero in the history of the world, was once asked by a Congressman if he was prepared for the upcoming hearing in which Hyman needed to speak about a number of complex, important issues. "Yes," Rickover replied, "I shaved and put on a clean shirt." Rickover didn’t need to prepare because he was prepared. He wasn’t some figurehead who had to be briefed before answering questions. He knew his science and his department ... |
| 2019-Mar-26 • 3 minutes Take The Time To Be Grateful AJ Jacobs is known for his unique style of immersion journalism. He’s lived, literally, according to the Bible. He’s went out and met every obscure relative he could find in his family tree. In his new book, Thanks A Thousand, he went on a quest to personally thank every person who had a hand in making his morning cup of coffee—the farmers, the woman who does pest control for the warehouse where the coffee is stored, the man who designed the lid, the baristas, and on and on. This last journey was the least... |
| 2019-Mar-25 • 2 minutes We Are All Tested In Different Ways It was said that Socrates saw his difficult marriage as a sort of challenge that life threw at him—that the fact that his wife’s personality and interests were often at odds with his own was something he could be made better by for being patient with. Certainly, Marcus Aurelius was tested by his difficult son, and likely spent many sleepless nights worrying about what would become of this boy who just couldn’t quite get it together. So, too, are each of us tested by the difficult relationships that life t... |
| 2019-Mar-22 • 3 minutes It Smells Like...Life The German poet Friedrich Schiller supposedly liked to write with a drawer filled with rotting apples tucked into his desk. The smell was overpowering, but he couldn’t write without it. Apparently, it got the words flowing. How could that possibly be the case? Maybe it was just a weird quirk or a fetish. Maybe it was a weird part of his writing routine (more on those here). Or maybe, the proximity to decay was an inspiring metaphor, a sort of aromatic memento mori. Marcus Aurelius once wrote a strange med... |
| 2019-Mar-21 • 2 minutes Are You Tired Trying To Fill That Void? All of us are trying to find something. Trying to find meaning, love, contentment. Because we feel like something is missing. That’s why we keep ourselves so busy, why we kill ourselves with work, why we can’t be still. This drive is what allows us to accomplish things. So it’s not all bad. The problem is that when we do accomplish things, we often don’t feel that much better. We look back at the road we just traveled, we look down at the mountain we just scaled, and we think to ourselves: this is it? We n... |
| 2019-Mar-20 • 3 minutes Do Your Best Gretchen Rubin is one of the most thought-provoking and influential experts on habits and happiness. She has written several New York Times best sellers, which have sold millions of copies, including The Happiness Project and Happier at Home. She also hosts the award-winning podcast Happier with Gretchen Rubin. In short, Gretchen Rubin has thought a lot about what it means to live a happy life. Her new book Outer Order, Inner Calm is a playbook that helps readers discover ways to make more room for happine... |
| 2019-Mar-19 • 3 minutes Beware the Voice in Your Head Seneca tells the story of the philosopher Crates, who was walking in Athens when he saw a young man talking to no one around. “What are you doing?” Crates asked. “I am talking to myself,” the man replied. “Be careful,” Crates told him, “for you are communing with a bad man!” Whether this young man was in fact a bad kid or not, Seneca doesn’t say. One suspects Crates was joking—unless it was his practice to go around insulting complete strangers. Or it may have been that Crates was referring less to the qu... |
| 2019-Mar-18 • 3 minutes What It Really Means To Be A Slave Epictetus was born a slave. Quite literally, his name means, in Greek, acquired. Ultimately, he came to be the property of a man named Epaphroditus, who kept Epictetus chained up long enough that he became disabled by it and walked with a limp for the rest of his life. His body and his time and his labor were controlled by someone else. That’s what slavery is. But what’s remarkable is that even in this state, Epictetus retained freedom in one important sense, and it would be this that his teachings would l... |
| 2019-Mar-15 • 4 minutes The Most Important Thing: Realizing That We Are All One Let’s take a second to meditate on this observation from John Cage, the experimental musician and student of Zen philosophy: “That one sees that the human race is one person (all of its members parts of the same body, brothers—not in competition any more than hand is in competition with eye) enables him to see that originality is necessary, for there is no need for eye to do what hand so well does.” It is a particularly beautiful and necessary insight for two reasons. The first half reminds us of somethin... |
| 2019-Mar-14 • 3 minutes Zoom Out...And Laugh The way to make all your problems, even the really vexing and painful ones, seem less severe? It comes from Seneca. All you have to do, he says, is: “Draw further back and laugh.” When you zoom out far enough, almost everything becomes absurd. Think about it: We are monkeys living on a space rock. We are a split second of the infinity of existence. If humanity survives long enough, people will laugh at us the way we laugh at Neanderthals. People used to have serious arguments about how many angels could f... |
| 2019-Mar-13 • 2 minutes Why You Should Read Biographies “I don’t have time to read a book that long,” you might say when someone recommends one of those epic volumes from the Ron Chernows and Robert Caros and Stacy Schiffs of the world. And Alban Butler’s The Lives of the Saints? Or Plutarch? Who has time to read that dusty old collection about the lives of the ancient Greeks and Romans? The answer is that you do. Or rather, that you should make time to study the greats of history. In Book Four of Meditations, Marcus writes:: “And then you might see what the ... |
| 2019-Mar-12 • 3 minutes What Does It Feel Like To Lose All Your Money? Last year, the writer Chuck Palahniuk received the kind of news that all of us dread. Someone he trusted—the book agent who had represented him for years—had been slowly but steadily robbing him blind. All the millions he’d earned from the royalties of his bestselling books were gone. All the financial security he thought he’d built up was an illusion—undone by the cruel deception and greed of someone close to him. In July, Palahniuk was asked what it felt like to lose all his money. He stared down at the... |
| 2019-Mar-11 • 4 minutes Always, Ever The Same In his wonderful book, The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve, the Pulitzer Prize winning scholar Stephen Greenblatt spends a lot of time analyzing a pivotal moment early in the life of Saint Augustine, when he was at a Roman bath with his father. One of the observations Greenblatt makes is about the steamy, quiet, relaxing atmosphere of the baths, with its alternating hot and cold, the scrubbing and soaking and resting and massaging. The kind of baths that Saint Augustine visited in the 4th century, Greenblatt ... |
| 2019-Mar-08 • 4 minutes Take What’s Good, Ignore The Rest One of Seneca’s most powerful strategies comes from his time as a Senator. Speaking again of a thought from Epicurus, with which he only partly agrees, Seneca explains that he is so readily able to draw from the teachings of a rival school for his writing because of a trick he learned in the Roman senate. Whenever a fellow senator introduced a motion with which he was not in full agreement, he would ask the Senator to break the motion up into two parts, thus allowing other Senators to vote for the part they... |
| 2019-Mar-07 • 3 minutes Now Is Now There is a beautiful passage on the last page of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s, The Little House in the Big Woods. She writes of an evening in the cabin with her family, her father playing the fiddle, her mom knitting in a rocking chair. “She thought to herself, ‘This is now.’ She was glad that the cosy house, and Pa and Ma and the firelight and the music, were now. They could not be forgotten, she thought, because now is now. It can never be a long time ago.” It’s a passage that has resonated with millions o... |
| 2019-Mar-06 • 4 minutes Find A Good Outlet For Your Passions Although today we consider “passion” to be a good thing—as in find your passion—to the Stoics, the passions were something to be wary of. Desire, rivalry, excitement, infatuation, anger. These were powerful forces that, if left unchecked, were likely to hurt the person who had turned themselves over to them (and likely to hurt innocent bystanders too). The warning against manufacturing or feeding these emotional drives is a good one and ought to be heeded. But what is a person to do when they find themsel... |
| 2019-Mar-05 • 3 minutes Is Ego A Virtue? In 2017, Good Morning Britain anchor Susanna Reid presented her co-anchor (actually she calls him her TV husband), Piers Morgan, a gift. It was a copy of the book Ego is the Enemy. She thought he could use the book because Piers was “irritating, annoying, divisive, over-opinionated,” and “ready to start a fight in an empty room.” She meant it both as a compliment and as good natured (and true) feedback because anyone who has ever watched Piers Morgan on TV knows he has a big ego. Piers replied that he had... |
| 2019-Mar-04 • 3 minutes It’s Good That Things Have Been Hard Maybe you’ve had a hard time of it recently. That business project is three months over projections. Your book isn’t really selling. The comments in your performance review were brutal. Life can be like that. It kicks us around. The stuff we expected to be simple turns out to be tough. The people we thought were friends let us down. A couple storms or unexpected weather patterns just add a whole bunch of difficulty on top of whatever we’ve been doing. How could that possibly be seen as a good thing? You... |
| 2019-Mar-01 • 5 minutes It’s Time: The Daily Stoic 10-Day Spring Forward Challenge Spring is here! While most of us unthinkingly set our clocks forward (or have devices that do it for us), how many of us take any steps to spring our lives forward? March is when we start to think of spring cleaning, but how many of us get our whole houses in order? Not just our physical spaces, but our minds, our routines, our assumptions?Think of how you spent the last week. Were those seven days as efficient or productive as they could be? Or did you waste time? Were things more complicated than necessar... |
| 2019-Feb-28 • 3 minutes Read Like A Spy As we’ve written about before, one of the most surprising parts of Seneca’s writing is how that avowed Stoic quotes Epicurus, the founder of Epicureanism. Even Seneca knew this was strange as each time he did so in his famous Letters, he felt obliged to preface or explain why he was so familiar with the teachings of a rival school. His best answer appears in Letter II, On Discursiveness in Reading, and it works as a prompt for all of us in our own reading habits. The reason he was so familiar with Epicurus... |
| 2019-Feb-27 • 3 minutes How To Get Better (and Live a Great Life) Eleanor Roosevelt had a great rule. We must do the thing we cannot do, she said. And if you look at her life, she more or less followed this rule. She conquered her shyness and became a leading public figure. She overcame sexism and preconceptions about the role of a First Lady—a job she never wanted—to turn it into a powerful pulpit for good. She forgave her husband’s betrayals and affairs, even though they absolutely crushed her. Even in childhood she overcame obstacles and proved resilient — both her par... |
| 2019-Feb-26 • 3 minutes The Three Hardest Things To Do In Life According to the great Jesuit Monk, Anthony De Mello, there are three intellectual feats that we struggle with on a regular basis, that are harder than just about any physical activity on the planet. Just three. They are, he said, in this order: -Returning love for hate. -Including the excluded. -Admitting you are wrong. This is not a modern affliction. De Mello, while certainly observing the world he was trying serve, was also tapping into an ancient idea with which the Stoics would have wholly agreed... |
| 2019-Feb-25 • 4 minutes What Not To Do With Your Freedom Last fall, there was a New York Times profile on what’s called the FIRE movement. FIRE stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early. The proponents of this movement have adopted some important Stoic principles. They believe that life is unpredictable and that working for years at a job you hate for decades to retire at 65 is a dangerous risk (what if you don’t make it to 65?). They believe that many people are on a hedonic treadmill, working long hours to pay for things they don’t want at prices they can... |
| 2019-Feb-22 • 3 minutes How A Stoic Thinks About Sex If you’re born into certain religious faiths, you tend to be raised with strong views on sex that come from on high. You’re not supposed to have sex before marriage or do this or that because God wouldn’t like it. (How that entitles you to regulate what other people do is less clear, but we’ll leave that to another discussion). And if God doesn’t like it, well that’s trouble. It is a rigid and restrictive worldview, to be sure, but it also offers a great degree of simplicity and clarity. Do this, don’t do t... |
| 2019-Feb-21 • 2 minutes Do Less, Better Here’s the simple recipe for improvement and for happiness. It comes from Marcus Aurelius and the fact that it came from such a busy man with so many obligations and responsibilities should not be forgotten. “If you seek tranquillity,” he said, “do less.” And then he follows the note to himself with some clarification. Not nothing, less. Do only what’s essential. “Which brings a double satisfaction,” he writes “to do less, better.” Follow this advice today and everyday. So much of what we think we mus... |
| 2019-Feb-20 • 3 minutes Speak The Truth, Let Them Howl No matter what your profession is, there are things you can say that will cost you. Speaking up against somebody’s pet project can get an officer passed over for promotion. Voicing a certain political viewpoint can cost you fans or endorsements. Challenging the status quo can bring a hail of critics and haters. And in those situations, what should we do? The answer to the Stoic is pretty simple: Speak the truth. Yes, howls may follow. Recriminations can as well. And? And what? Nassim Taleb’s rule of thumb... |
| 2019-Feb-19 • 3 minutes The One Thing To Be A Slave To Slavery is one of the most common metaphors in Seneca’s writing. He talks about people who are slaves to sex and slaves to work. He talks about people who are slaves to their anxiety. He even mentions-—without much self-awareness for such a generally compassionate person—about his fellow slave owners who are slaves to their slaves. So it might seem strange that there was something he said we should be a slave to. As always, this counter-intuitive observation came from one of his favorite thinkers to hate, ... |
| 2019-Feb-18 • 2 minutes This Is What Progress Looks Like How do you know you’re making progress in this philosophy? It’s a question that every person has struggled with at some point in their practice, including Seneca. When he was writing his famous letters, he meditated on this theme. What does getting better look like? How do you know any of this is working? Quoting one of his favorite philosophers, Hecato, Seneca comes up with a pretty good metric: “What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself.” What a wonderful way of putting... |
| 2019-Feb-15 • 3 minutes This Is How To Go Out Epicurus’s final letter begins with a rather remarkable sentence: “On this happy day, which is the last day of my life, I write the following words to you.” While the letter briefly touches on the painful symptoms of the disease that would soon kill him, Epicurus doesn’t dwell on that. Instead, he speaks of the joy in his heart—not caused by his impending death, obviously, but by the memories he has accumulated of the friend he is writing to. Then, before concluding the letter and his life, Epicurus gives f... |
| 2019-Feb-14 • 3 minutes It Can Happen To You A few weeks ago, we ran an email about Austin Murphy, the former Sports Illustrated writer whose thirty year career (which included interviewing presidents and champions) somehow ended in a gig delivering packages for Amazon. There is always a variety of reactions to these kinds of stories. Some people feel a wave of pity for the person on the short end of it. Others politicize it—Look how terrible these big tech companies are, this is why we need more [insert policy]. Others react by trying to poke holes ... |
| 2019-Feb-13 • 5 minutes Escape This Indelible Stain In Meditations, Marcus speaks passionately about escaping the “indelible stain” of power, of being changed by the purple cloak that the emperor traditionally wore. It is a timeless warning for anyone in a position of authority or acclaim: Be careful lest you be changed by your newfound bounty. But let’s talk about a different indelible stain that is spoiling and ruining many people today: radicalization rather than imperialization. In the the early 2000s, after the heinous attacks of September 11th, the r... |
| 2019-Feb-12 • 4 minutes An Important Reminder To Do The Right Thing Our newest Daily Stoic coinSummum Bonum is an expression from Cicero, Rome’s greatest orator. In Latin, it means “the highest good.” And what is the highest good? What is it that we are supposed to be aiming for in this life?To the Stoics, the answer is virtue. If we act virtuously, they believed, everything else important could follow: Happiness, success, meaning, reputation, honor, love. The Stoics didn’t claim this path was easy, or that it would always be recognized or appreciated by those closest to us... |
| 2019-Feb-11 • 3 minutes What Will You Do Now? In the winter of 1824, things were not looking good for Simon Bolivar. He was at one of the lowest points of his decade-plus long revolution of South America. Many of the countries he had freed from Spanish rule were in chaos or at risk of being re-conquered. His own health had begun to fail from so many hours in the saddle on campaign. He was haggard and gaunt--skeletal, really. Would he give up? Would he die? Would all this turn out to be for naught? With this in mind, a man asked Bolivar, as it appeare... |
| 2019-Feb-08 • 3 minutes YOU Are Not The Problem Epictetus’s most powerful line is about how it’s not things that upset us, but what we think about things that does all the damage. What he really meant is that our sense of what an obstacle or a disadvantage or a trial is—our subjective understanding—is more powerful than the objective reality. For instance, if you tell yourself that you were failed by your teachers and that’s why you’re not as smart as other people, for the rest of your life you’re going to have trouble learning and understanding things... |
| 2019-Feb-07 • 4 minutes How Do You Fill The Void? Seneca wrote constantly about time. One of his most compelling observations was about how people are protective of their money, their property, their possessions, yet careless with the one thing they can’t get back. “It’s not that we have a short time to live,” he said, “but that we waste a lot of it. Can you imagine what he would say about the fact that today people average more than 5 hours a day on mobile devices? That’s 52 days a year—one-seventh of our lives—murdered! Cal Newport’s excellent new bo... |
| 2019-Feb-06 • 3 minutes Avoid Owing (and Being Owned) Seneca was a very rich man. He accumulated that fortune largely due to his service to Nero’s corrupt and broken regime, and then he put that money to work in Rome’s British colonies. In fact, he made so many enormous loans to colonists in Britain, that when the debt was called in around 60 AD, it set off a rebellion in which tens of thousands of people ultimately died. A few short years later, Seneca would learn just how painful it can be on the other side of an unpayable debt. Realizing, alarmingly late,... |
| 2019-Feb-05 • 4 minutes When You Should Give Up No one would ever call Winston Churchill a quitter. His whole reputation is built on his instinct to fight. He was the lone objector when appeasement toward Hitler reigned as policy in the 1930s. He was the one strong enough to inspire the British people to hold out against the Nazi bombardment and a potential invasion until America entered the war. His personal motto was KBO...Keep Buggering On. You may have even heard the first part of his famous speech which he gave to the boys at the Harrow School, whi... |
| 2019-Feb-04 • 3 minutes All This In A Nutshell Near the end of the Eisenhower Administration, the speechwriter James C. Humes was asked to help the president write a short address. After submitting a draft, Humes was called to Eisenhower’s office to discuss. As soon as he stepped into the room, he could tell that Eisenhower had a problem with what he’d written. “What’s the QED* of this speech?” Eisenhower said to him with only a little patience. Humes was confused. “QED,” he said, “what’s that?” “Quod Erat Demonstrandum,” Eisenhower barked. “Don’t... |
| 2019-Feb-01 • 3 minutes Out of Many, One The motto of the United States—seen imprinted on its currency and its buildings—is e pluribus unum: “Out of many, one.” It happens that this is also more or less the aim of Stoicism too, to take the many parts of a person and turn them into a unified, coherent soul. Each of us is made up of competing desires and impulses and needs, yet all of this is part of who we are. More importantly, with work and study, philosophy is designed to integrate and order all of this into its proper place within us. On a la... |
| 2019-Jan-31 • 4 minutes Success or Failure—Neither Reflect On You Just a few weeks ago, the writer Austin Murphy wrote an insightful, revealing article for The Atlantic that personalized the changing nature of the economic and technological landscape in the 21st century western world. Murphy is one of the most successful sportswriters of his generation. He worked for Sports Illustrated for 33 years. He penned some 140 cover stories. He’d published 6 books. He’d interviewed 5 presidents. And yet—and this is the subject of the piece—now he finds himself delivering packages ... |
| 2019-Jan-30 • 3 minutes When Something Breaks If a close friend had their home broken into, you’d comfort them and tell them that it was only stuff that had been stolen. If your child broke their favorite toy, you’d tell them that these things happen and try to get them to play with something else. If a waiter spilled on your friend, you’d calm them down by saying it was an accident. Basically, when stuff happens to other people, we’re able to see it clearly with some perspective and some detachment. But when our stuff breaks or is lost, it’s always ... |
| 2019-Jan-29 • 3 minutes Closing Your Eyes Is Not An Excuse In Richard III, Shakespeare has a scene where Brackenbury is handed orders from Richard by two men who clearly plan to murder the King’s brother. His response echos down through the ages as an example of willful and cowardly ignorance. As he replies after reading the orders: I am in this commanded to deliver The noble duke of Clarence to your hands. I will not reason what is meant hereby Because I will be guiltless from the meaning. This idea that we can close our eyes to the implications of something ... |
| 2019-Jan-28 • 2 minutes The One (or Two) Words To Live By Confucius was once asked by a student if there was a single word to to live by, a word that would always provide guidance and truth. He thought about it for a minute and replied with the word chu, which translates roughly into “forbearance.” This is interesting because Epictetus was once asked which words would help a person live a life of peace and goodness. The two words, he said, were ἀνέχου (bear) and ἀπέχου (forbear). (Another translation puts it at: Persist and Resist). Again, it’s remarkable how t... |
| 2019-Jan-25 • 2 minutes How To Make Better Decisions in Life Believe it or not, there’s a pretty magical way to start making better decisions. It’s a secret that will also make you feel better, look better, and live better. You’ll live longer, think more clearly, and do less that you regret. What is it? Stop drinking. Or, at least, drink less. Heraclitus’s line was that “a dry soul is wisest and best.” He’s right. Have you ever done anything you’re really proud of while drinking? Is anyone their best selves while drunk? Of course not. The best you can hope to sa... |
| 2019-Jan-24 • 3 minutes Don't Limit Yourself Epicurus’s dictum was that “One sage is no wiser than another.” Clearly, Seneca agreed with this idea because he loved quoting Epicurus, even though he belonged to a rival school. His famous line was that he’d quote even a bad author if the line was good. This is a good example that does not go far enough. We should actively pursue and engage with anyone who can be a source of wisdom to us, regardless of the school of thought from which that wisdom arose. That does not mean you have to become best friends,... |
| 2019-Jan-23 • 3 minutes If You Were Tested, Would You Pass? Perhaps you remember the 90s hit by the band The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, “The Impression That I Get.” You know, the ‘neeeeevvvvvvveeeerrrrrr had to knock on wood’ song? If you haven’t listened to it in a while, you should, because it holds up surprisingly well. Anyway, there are a couple of lines at the beginning of the third verse that go like this: I'm not a coward, I've just never been tested I'd like to think that if I was I would pass It’s as if Dicky Barrett, the Bosstones’ lead singer and songwr... |
| 2019-Jan-22 • 3 minutes We Are What We Think About Ok, so it’s worth saying bluntly to any of the nice people out there who might believe in it: The Law of Attraction is complete horseshit. If you need proof, here’s a funny example: In 2015, the author of The Secret had to reduce the price of her home in Santa Barbara some $4.7M—more than 20%—after it had languished on the market without selling. Of course, if she had been following the advice in her book she would have just thought good thoughts about it selling for list price (or better, written herself a... |
| 2019-Jan-21 • 6 minutes What Other People Get Away With Is Not An Excuse Let us stipulate first that Serena Williams is an extremely talented tennis player and an honest and ethical person. Let us also stipulate that she has been unfairly treated by chair and line umpires, not just when she was an up-and-comer, but also, and inexplicably, now that she is one of the greatest players in the game. And yet, even stipulating all this—as well as recognition of the fact that the passion which drives athletes is a potent force that amateurs and spectators can never fully appreciate—her ... |
| 2019-Jan-18 • 3 minutes We Must Live By This Rule Zigong once asked Confucius: “Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one’s life?” His reply: “Is not RECIPROCITY such a word?” Thus we have, by yet another source, another formulation of the Golden Rule. Matthew 7:12, for instance, has its version: “All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this is the Law and the Prophets.” And Luke 6:31: “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.” The Stoics would obviously... |
| 2019-Jan-17 • 3 minutes When Are You Going To Be Free? Most of us tell ourselves that we’re putting up with ill-treatment or keeping our mouths shut about our beliefs because we’re working on something big. We tell ourselves that we’re slogging away in this industry or that industry not because we’re big supporters of it, but because we need to, to get where we are going. We’re accumulating money or resources or playing politics to build up our base so that one day, some day, we can finally stand up and be who we really are. Marcus Aurelius reminds himself in ... |
| 2019-Jan-16 • 2 minutes How To Respond To Crazy People One suspects Marcus Aurelius was referring to a particularly frustrating person, some opponent who just would not, or could not, get the message, when he wrote: “You can hold your breath until you’re blue in the face and they’ll just go on doing it.” There’s an American expression along those same lines: “Never wrestle with a pig. You just get dirty and the pig enjoys it.” Both these pieces of advice are worth remembering for the inevitable moments that we find ourselves in conflict or at cross purposes... |
| 2019-Jan-15 • 2 minutes Don’t Be Distracted By Darkness There’s no question that depressing things happen in this world. They always have and always will. People lie, cheat, steal. Envy, avarice, selfishness—it’s all out there. And it’s hard to miss. It’s easy to despair about this. What do we do? Must it be this way? What’s the point of being good when everyone else is so bad? This is the wrong way to think about it. It’s not up to us to change this unchangeable part of the human species, but instead to think about how to adapt to it, how to integrate it int... |
| 2019-Jan-14 • 3 minutes The Civil War Inside Each One Of Us Martin Luther King Jr. was fond of using the American Civil War as a metaphor, not just to explain the divisive political landscape, but the divide within each person. Just as there was a North and South in America (Anti-slavery and Pro-Slavery), there was a divide between good and bad within each of us. There was the part pulled towards higher principles and the part that was willing to compromise with baser instincts. Certainly, in his own life, King was pulled this way. He was a man of enormous principl... |
| 2019-Jan-11 • 3 minutes This Is What Karma Looks Like There is a simple proposition at the heart of classical Christianity: if you are a good person and do good works on Earth, when you die you will enter the Kingdom of Heaven and know the full bounty of God’s unending love. But if you are a bad person on Earth, and you sin without repenting, when you die you’ll end up in Hell for all eternity. In many Eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism, that duality is baked into the singular notion of Karma: good intentions and good deeds will be repaid in the ne... |
| 2019-Jan-10 • 2 minutes The Great Equalizer The author Michael Malice has a running gag: whenever a celebrity dies he posts a meme that says RIP but is a photo of a similar looking but a very different (and very alive) celebrity. It’s partly a commentary on how easily fake news spreads but it’s also an ironic dismissal of all that person has accomplished. It says: You’re dead now and we’re already forgetting your legacy. It says: You’re dead and we think it’s pretty funny. Sure, there is a trollishness to that and it’s probably definition of the ex... |
| 2019-Jan-09 • 3 minutes If It’s Not Simple, It’s Bullshit There’s not much in Stoicism that’s particularly groundbreaking: Focus on what you can control. Be a good person. Manage your emotions. A lot of the famous Stoic quotes are pretty basic too: Epictetus: “It’s not things that upset us, it’s our judgement about things.” Marcus Aurelius: “You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” Seneca: “We suffer more often in imagination than in reality” The elementary school-level simplicity isn’t a bug. It’s a ... |
| 2019-Jan-08 • 3 minutes Find A Point! Peter Barton’s beautiful memoir, Not Fade Away: A Short Life Well Lived, takes readers along a man’s search for meaning when he’s forced to confront mortality. Struggling for a reason to persist amid a terminal diagnosis, his wife, Laura, orders Peter to "Find a point!" "So where was I supposed to find something to feel good about, some realm where I could still feel strong and hopeful? The answer now seems obvious, but for me it was the hardest place to accept: that realm was my mind. My frame of mind wa... |
| 2019-Jan-07 • 3 minutes The Habit You Must Start This Year Why does Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations speak to us so? The answer, ironically, is that because the author had zero intention of doing so—in fact, he probably would have been mortified to know how well the book has been received...because it meant the exposure of his private thoughts and fears and struggles As Ernest Renan observed, Marcus was writing for an audience of one. “Never,” Renan said, “has one written more simply for himself, for the sole end of emptying his heart, with no other witness than God.... |
| 2019-Jan-04 • 3 minutes The One Thing You Must Avoid Imagine this. You’ve worked for years on this novel—one that is indisputably the best thing you’ve ever done. You manage to get a publisher to buy it. You start to get rave reviews. You sell out your first printing. Then suddenly, all the momentum evaporates. You talk to the clerk at a bookstore and he tells you the publisher has just stopped resupplying them. Within months, what should have been a beloved bestseller, slips into obscurity. Why? Well, according to your editor it’s because they’ve been sued... |
| 2019-Jan-03 • 3 minutes Do The Little Thing, It’s All The Matters In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Tereza, as the Prague Spring happens and the Soviets begin a military occupation, takes the time to rescue a crow that was hurt on the side of the road. Yet when dissidents come and ask Tomas, her husband, to sign a political petition, he refuses. Which prompts a rather interesting sentence in the book “It is much more important to dig a half-buried crow out of the ground than to send petitions to a president.” A lot of people would reflexively disagree with that. Ce... |
| 2019-Jan-02 • 3 minutes It’s Not How Long You Live, It’s How You Live In late December, Richard Overton passed away at the ripe old age of 112 and 230 days. When he was born, Theodore Roosevelt was President of the United States, and the 13th Amendment, which ended slavery in America, was only a few decades old (for contrast, Richard was nearly 60 when the Civil Rights Act passed). That’s a long time to be alive. That’s a lot of history to live through. But the Stoics would say that simply existing for many years is not all that impressive. What mattered was what you did wit... |
| 2019-Jan-01 • 5 minutes Keep These Thoughts At Hand, Everyday The Stoics were all about routine and concentration. Epictetus said that philosophy was something that should be kept at hand every day and night. Indeed, his book Enchiridion, actually means “small thing in hand,” or handbook. Seneca, for his part, talked about deep diving into the right books—rather than chasing every new or exciting thing published. “You must linger among a limited number of master-thinkers, and digest their works,” he said, “if you would derive ideas which shall win firm hold in your mi... |
| 2018-Dec-31 • 3 minutes What We Do In Life Does Not Echo In Eternity In the movie Gladiator, Maximus, the protege of Marcus Aurelius, says famously, “What we do in life, echoes in eternity.” It’s a powerful, inspiring line, (also tattooed on Lebron James’s arm) one the average viewer might assume that Marcus Aurelius agreed with. Funnily enough, in his actual writings, Marcus Aurelius could not have come out more strongly against this idea. He says at one point, in Meditations, that “People out for posthumous fame forget that the Generations to Come will be the same annoyin... |
| 2018-Dec-28 • 5 minutes Don’t Wait. Get Started. Now. This is that weird time of year where we start to think about how we want the following year to go. We call them “resolutions” and they are the promises we make to ourselves about what we’re going to do in the next twelve months. The habits we’re going to quit, the skills we’re going to learn, the standards we’re going to hold ourselves to. On the one hand, it’s a wonderful and inspiring bit of reflection that the whole world basically comes together to do this at the same time. It’s excellent that everyon... |
| 2018-Dec-27 • 3 minutes Everything Is Breaking Down Nearly two thousand years before Rudolph Clausius and Lord Kelvin first expressed the second law of thermodynamics (although there is debate on whether or not the French physicist Sadi Carnot discovered it earlier), Marcus Aurelius was musing on it. “Bear in mind,” he wrote, “that everything that exists is already fraying at the edges and in transition, subject to fragmentation and to rot. Or that everything was born to die.” That is to say: We are all subject to entropy. Science has since confirmed it i... |
| 2018-Dec-26 • 5 minutes Why You Need To Understand Power The actor Josh Peck recently had Robert Greene on his podcast to discuss the book, The Laws of Human Nature. It’s a fascinating interview, but one of the most revealing parts is when Josh asks Robert about how Robert squares his interest in Stoicism with the rather ruthless and Machiavellian messages of his books. As Robert explains, we need to understand how the world works, especially if we intend to stick to a path of virtue. “Marcus Aurelius had a quote, I can't say it exactly, but he says, when a... |
| 2018-Dec-25 • 5 minutes Today Is A Very Special Day On December 25th, people all over the world celebrate Christmas, a holiday which marks the birth of Jesus Christ, one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived. This was a man who lived two thousand years ago, taught timeless lessons about kindness, mercy, forgiveness, on doing one’s duty, on the dangers of money and the redemptive power of poverty and adversity. It’s pretty remarkable to think that in that same year as Jesus, another philosopher was born, one who taught more or less the same lessons, on... |
| 2018-Dec-24 • 3 minutes You Make Your Own Good Fortune We can all remember times when it felt like everything was going our way. We were getting the breaks we wanted and opportunities came easy. It was the opposite of Murphy’s Law: What could go right, did. Perhaps we remember a time when we were younger, when it felt like more people were willing to help and teach us. But as time passes, this passes with it. Lucky breaks seem less common. We become like the man that Marcus Aurelius mimics by saying, “I was once a fortunate man but at some point fortune abando... |
| 2018-Dec-21 • 4 minutes Life Comes At You Fast Pt II Just two and a half years ago, General Michael Flynn stood on the stage at the Republican National Convention and led some 20,000 people (and a good many more at home) in an impromptu chant of “Lock Her Up! Lock Her Up!” about his enemy Hillary Clinton. A few months later, he was swept into the White House with the Trump Administration, finding himself now the National Security Advisor to the most powerful man in the world. It was an incredible second act for a man who had been unceremoniously fired by the ... |
| 2018-Dec-19 • 3 minutes How To Be The MVP Yet again, Nick Foles has been called up to start at quarterback for the Eagles. After spending another heartbreaking season on the bench behind first round draft pick and star of the future, Carson Wentz—this time despite having won the Superbowl MVP (and the championship) for the Eagles the previous year—Nick Foles is back due to a surprise, late season injury. How did he respond to this opportunity? The same way he responded to losing the starting job when Wentz returned from injury earlier in the season... |
| 2018-Dec-18 • 4 minutes 14 Day Stoic Challenge: New Year, New You We all know someone who constantly puts stuff off. Who loves to plan improvements for their health, their finances, their work, their friendships, their relationships. Plan after plan after plan. There is seemingly no end to them. We know these people because we are these people. Every one of us wants to improve, wants to be better, have better habits, live better, think better. But we can’t seem to actually do it. Time passes, the plans don’t come to pass, and then, as The Talking Heads famously sung, th... |
| 2018-Dec-17 • 3 minutes Here Are Signs You’re Making Progress Ok, you’ve been doing your reading and your journaling. You’re trying to be conscious of your thoughts and your actions. In short, you’re putting in the work. The question is, how do you know if it’s working? The journey to becoming a “sage” is one that takes a lifetime. No one hands you a certificate. Wisdom accumulates and builds on itself until one day, well, there you are. If that feels a little too inexact, we empathize, but such is life. Still, there has to be something we can look for to see wheth... |
| 2018-Dec-14 • 2 minutes You Do You. Whether They Like it Or Not. Think of all the people throughout history who were wrongly condemned and criticized by the mob. From the Civil Rights Activists to Galileo to ordinary people whose lifestyles were hypocritically condemned as perverted or a violation of God’s law. Think of Jesus himself, condemned and nailed to a cross for no good reason. In a sense, this is a rather dark reality to accept. But it is a fact. Society has always stupidly attacked what it doesn’t understand and what it fears. So what should we do about that ... |
| 2018-Dec-13 • 3 minutes You Don’t Get To Be Apolitical There is a common complaint drifting through the culture these days: Why did you have to bring politics into things? Can’t she or he just sing/dance/dribble/write/paint? I was a fan until you said ___________. First off, how fragile are your views that you can’t handle someone articulating different ones? Second, how fragile is your support that you only like people who agree with you? And third, what makes you think you get to tell other people what they can and can’t say or think? None of those stances... |
| 2018-Dec-12 • 3 minutes Don’t Let Your Virtues Become This Vice So we’ve begun to get serious about our training, both physical and philosophical. Before, we never read, and now we do. Before, we were lazy and slothful, and now we’re regularly going to the gym. Before, we would eat everything we felt like eating—too much of it usually—and now we’ve got a diet and we’re sticking to it. This is great. We’ve conquered that vice. Now there is a new danger. That this virtue becomes a new vice—the vice of pride, of superiority, of obnoxious self-satisfaction. You know the... |
| 2018-Dec-11 • 4 minutes Be Good To Each Other “Man’s inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn.” It is a verse from the poet Robert Burns. It was a favorite of Ulysses S. Grant as well as Winston Churchill, two men who witnessed the absolute worst of what people can do to each other. The line itself may have been borrowed from a similar observation by a 17th century German philosopher, who remarked that “more inhumanity has been done by man himself than any other of nature’s causes.” It also echoes some of the darker observations from Marcus ... |
| 2018-Dec-10 • 4 minutes We Aren’t Rational, We Become Rational Most of us don’t think of ourselves as irrational. We don’t think we’re reactive creatures. We presume that we’re in control of our emotions, not the other way around. Other people are irrational of course, but what we feel is what reality is. Robert Greene’s latest book The Laws Of Human Nature begins from the premise that humans, by the way we’re wired, are irrational beings. The part of our brain that processes reason, cognition, and thought is separate from the part that processes emotion. He says ... |
| 2018-Dec-07 • 3 minutes This Is How They Treat You After You’re Gone Da Vinci painted his brilliant fresco, The Last Supper, and how did they respond? They nagged at him for taking too long. Then, after he finished, they cut a giant hole in the bottom for a door. Marcus slaved away on his private Meditations, a work of incredible vulnerability and emotional exposure, that he almost certainly would not have wanted anyone to see. And what did we do? We not only published it, but we had the nerve to move the writing around in an indecipherable order. Seneca and Epictetus? They ... |
| 2018-Dec-06 • 3 minutes What Would You Do? News reports re-surfaced earlier this month that the teenaged son of Jeff Flake, the Republican Senator, had made a number of homophobic and racist comments on his Twitter account. When confronted with the remarks, the senator immediately and directly apologized. As so often is the case these days, to the social media mob—increasingly partisan and tribal—this was not enough. The news cycle kicked in too, with talking heads on both sides of the aisle rushing to either out-minimize or out-condemn each ot... |
| 2018-Dec-05 • 4 minutes The Powerful Are Not Free It’s funny that we spend so much time being jealous of people whose lives we do not even begin to understand. People look at the famous and the powerful and wish they could have what they have. As if those bounties did not come at very high costs! Ernest Renan, writing about Marcus, observed that the “sovereign...is the least free of men.” Look at a telling moment in Obama’s presidency—he showed up for work one day in a brown suit...and everyone freaked out. One cannot imagine the same reaction to Profe... |
| 2018-Dec-03 • 2 minutes It’s All In How You See It Seneca said that the growth of anything is a long process, but its undoing can be rapid, even instant. Jordan Harbinger built his career for 11 years. With over 4 million monthly downloads, he had one of the most successful podcasts in the world. But then an amicable split with his business partners went sideways—and Jordan lost what he spent 11 years of his life building, in an instant. In our interview with Jordan for DailyStoic.com, he shared the many lessons learned from suddenly having to start ove... |
| 2018-Nov-30 • 4 minutes These Are Life Choices You Control If you haven’t heard of George Raveling, you should. This a guy that Michael Jordan addresses as “coach” even though Raveling never coached the Bulls or the Tar Heels. He’s also been retired from coaching for more than two decades. In fact, most people who know him call him Coach Rav, not because he’s got a great sense of the game, but because his wisdom about life. On Coach’s website, there’s a tab titled Life Lessons. It’s full of wonderful lessons. But it’s one post in particular that the aspiring S... |
| 2018-Nov-29 • 4 minutes It’s Always Been This Way, Always Will Be We like to think that we’re so advanced. That things have changed so radically since the ancient days of tyrants and barbarism. But have they? Here’s a photo of Jamal Khashoggi's son, whose father was brutally executed mere days before, being forced to shake the hand of the alleged mastermind of his father’s murder: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. There's a television camera in the background, and each man probably has an iPhone in his pocket, but it's a scene reminiscent of story told by Senec... |
| 2018-Nov-28 • 5 minutes Power and Success Can Make You Better Lord Acton’s line is so famous and so undeniably true that most people don’t even know that it’s a quote from a real person: Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It's been proven time and time again in history. When people get power, it changes them. That’s why the biggest breakthroughs in the evolution of government have been around checks and balances on power--so that no one person can be fully corrupted, and if they are corrupt, can’t simply do what they want. Marcus Aurelius did... |
| 2018-Nov-27 • 6 minutes Making A Difference IS Up To You Look, there’s no way around it: Part of Stoicism is accepting that a lot of what happens in the world is outside our control. Some people have taken this to mean that the Stoics were resigned to their fate—that they were willing to tolerate the status quo and despair of the idea of improving the world or society. Of course this is rather silly when one considers that Marcus Aurelius and Cato and Senecawere all active in political life. Or that a millennium and a half later, the Stoics would directly inspir... |
| 2018-Nov-26 • 4 minutes What Is Sympatheia? (And Why It’s So Damn Important) In Book Six of Meditations, Marcus gives himself (and us) a command to keep an important idea in mind. “Meditate often,” he writes, “on the interconnectedness and mutual interdependence of all things in the universe.” He is speaking of the Stoic concept of Sympatheia, the idea that “all things are mutually woven together and therefore have an affinity for each other.Why should we think about this? What will it do?Well according to Marcus, understanding how we are all connected and dependent on each other wi... |
| 2018-Nov-23 • 4 minutes Do Not Avoid This Thought In his new book, The Laws of Human Nature, Robert Greene concludes his final chapter with this meditation on mortality: “Many of us spend our lives avoiding the thought of death. Instead the inevitability of death should be continually on our minds. Understanding the shortness of life fills us with a sense of purpose and urgency to realize our goals. Training ourselves to confront and accept this reality makes it easier to manage the inevitable setbacks, separations, and crises in life. It gives us a se... |
| 2018-Nov-22 • 4 minutes What Marcus Learned From Antoninus Where did Marcus learn to be Marcus? Ernest Renan writes that Marcus was very much a product of his training and his tutors. But more than his teachers and even his own parents, “Marcus had a single master whom he revered above them all, and that was Antoninus.” All his adult life, Marcus strived to be a disciple of his adopted step-father. While he lived, Marcus saw him, Renan said, as “the most beautiful model of a perfect life.” What were the things that Marcus learned from Antoninus? In Marcus’s... |
| 2018-Nov-21 • 3 minutes Don’t Get Upset By What You Disagree With The response to the Daily Stoic emails can be a fascinating peek into human psychology. One email, because it makes a fairly objective point about Donald Trump’s temperament, produces a record number of unsubscribes. Another, because it mentions Winston Churchill without condemning British imperialism, gets all sorts of angry comments on Facebook. We are alternatively criticized for being too liberal and too conservative, often on successive days and sometimes for the very same email. It’s not just rema... |
| 2018-Nov-20 • 3 minutes Write And Think Clearly In his short new edition of How To Be Free, A.A Long observes the relative ease he had translating Epictetus from ancient Greek into English. This is because, he says, Epictetus’s “conversational manner and short sentences suit our modern idiom.” According to Long, Epictetus avoids complex sentence structure and needless verbosity. Better still, he tended to use simple, direct metaphors and diction for which there are accessible everyday equivalents. This is high praise to both Epictetus and his dutiful sc... |
| 2018-Nov-19 • 3 minutes The Best Way To Fight Evil Tolstoy believed his most essential work was not his novels but his daily read, A Calendar of Wisdom. Like in The Daily Stoic, each day in that book is a meditation on a theme of ancient wisdom which provides insights for self-improvement. In a June entry (published in the early 20th century, but clearly both timeless and very timely), Tolstoy speaks about how to fight evil and improve society. It doesn’t start with ambitious plans to remake the order of things or with the passing of laws to ban this beh... |
| 2018-Nov-16 • 5 minutes The Dance We Each Will Dance It would be hard to find a deeper, darker yet more philosophically interesting short film than the “Silly Symphony” that Walt Disney produced in 1929. And while many Disney franchises were built around classic stories and fables, one might have trouble naming one more directly based on an ancient art form than “The Skeleton Dance.” Animated by Disney’s most trusted animator, Ub Iwerks, this six-minute long absurdist cartoon, is a kind of children’s version of memento mori. It features a series of skeleton... |
| 2018-Nov-15 • 3 minutes The Perils of ‘Comfort Inflation’ It’s so easy to take progress and luxury for granted. Warren Buffet has talked about how somebody today--with the comforts of heating and air conditioning--has what a 15th century king could have only dreamed of: being cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Yet how many of us have sat in the seasonally appropriate climate of our home and felt bad that we didn’t live somewhere bigger or nicer? The coach section of most airplanes now has technology--electrical outlets, headrest televisions with hundr... |
| 2018-Nov-14 • 4 minutes The Most Important Ritual You Can Practice This Year Why did Marcus Aurelius spend those precious hours in his tent, writing by the lamplight, even on the nights and mornings he strained under the burdens of his war-time duties? It wasn’t for our benefit. No, he never expected Meditations would see an audience. He was writing for himself, to himself, as a way to practice the principles of the philosophy we are still following today. He was journaling as a means of self-improvement as much as he was of self-expression. As Tim Ferriss has said of his daily jour... |
| 2018-Nov-13 • 3 minutes Be A User, Not A Loser Dr. D.T. Suzuki, a 20th century Japanese author who was largely responsible for popularizing Buddhism, Zen, and Shin in the West, was once approached at the end of a dinner party. “How is it, Dr. Suzuki,” the woman asked, “we spend the entire evening asking you questions and nothing is decided.” He looked at her and replied, “That’s why I love philosophy: no one wins.” While the Stoics, notably Cato the Elder, had a visceral disdain for sophistry and debate for debate’s sake, they would have agreed with... |
| 2018-Nov-12 • 2 minutes You Become Like Your Friends “Nature gave us friendship,” Cicero wrote, “as an aid to virtue, not as a companion to vice.” What he meant was that friends are supposed to make you better, not make you worse. Friends are supposed to reinforce your good habits, not encourage your bad ones. It was Marcus Aurelius who said that we take the shape of the thoughts we have most often. He would probably agree to an extension of that logic: We are formed into the shape of the role we play in our circle of friends. We become like the people we... |
| 2018-Nov-09 • 2 minutes Get Yourself Under Control It was Heraclitus--a favorite of Marcus Aurelius--who said that “to be self-controlled is the greatest of excellence.” Isn’t that the truth? It’s why we admire athletes and Navy SEALS and the Civil Rights Activists of the 1950s and 1960s. To see someone being provoked with horrific language and threatened with bodily violence--only to ignore it. To see someone under incredible pressure and perform despite it. To see someone override their fears and physical limitations in service of their country. This,... |
| 2018-Nov-08 • 3 minutes We Have So Much In Common In a very short period around 2003, the musician Rosanne Cash lost her sister, her step mother, her father , and her mother. It was a series of blows that rocked her, even as stoic and strong as she was. She would write later in her wonderful memoir, Composed, that rather than harden her--though these losses were quite hard on her--they helped her forge a deeper understanding and connection to other people. As she wrote, “You begin to realize that everyone has a tragedy and that if he doesn’t, he will. You ... |
| 2018-Nov-07 • 3 minutes Your Hunger For Money Is Starving You William MacAskill is a fascinating guy. He is the youngest Associate Professor in Philosophy at the University of Oxford. He’s one of the founders of the Effective Altruism movement. He’s written a great book called Doing Good Better - Effective Altruism and a Radical New Way to Make a Difference and given a popular TED talk. Will also happens to donate every dollar he earns over $30,000 each year to charities of careful choosing. That was a commitment Will made to himself in 2009. He estimates that will be... |
| 2018-Nov-06 • 4 minutes Each Of Us Has A Duty In one sense, it’s hard to argue with the statistics that any individual’s vote makes a difference. One person out of so many? When more than 50% of the population doesn’t even bother? In a country of gerrymandering and voter suppression? In the other, it’s stunning to think that the 2016 US Presidential Election, which saw some 135 million votes, was decided by roughly 77,000 ballots across three states. Michigan was swung by just 10,000 voters. But to this argument, the Stoic would scoff. Whether you... |
| 2018-Nov-05 • 3 minutes Let Us Argue With Reality No More So much of what we do as a society could be described as arguing with reality. Turn on cable news and you’ll find talking heads screaming at their upset viewers about how whatever has happened as part of the story of the day is “Just not normal!” Look inside most businesses, especially legacy businesses, and you’ll see otherwise smart and capable individuals putting everything they have into not reading the writing on the wall, into denying the obvious change and transformation happening in the world around... |
| 2018-Nov-02 • 3 minutes Don’t Borrow Suffering Here’s a line from Seneca: “We suffer more in imagination than in reality.” Meaning, we spend so much time worried about how bad things are going to be, that we actually torture ourselves more than the thing we’re worried about ever could (that is, if it happens at all).This is an interesting tension in Stoicism. After all, isn’t Seneca the guy who also said:We should project our thoughts ahead of us at every turn and have in mind every possible eventuality instead of only the usual course of events... Rehe... |
| 2018-Nov-01 • 2 minutes Let It Go, You’re Plenty Guilty Yourself Like you’ve never cut in line, on purpose or on accident. Like you’ve never done something selfish or spoken with an attitude. Like you’ve never been jealous or petty or mean. Of course you have. You’ve done all these things. We all have. Yet when other people do them, it’s somehow different. It’s a transgression. A violation. That’s why we stew. We plot. We shower them with insults. Because when they do it, it’s intentional, it’s a sign of bad character, it must be stopped. C’mon. The Stoics te... |
| 2018-Oct-31 • 3 minutes Don't Be A Snowflake A few years ago, conservative commentators in America began using a term for young college students--mostly liberal--who insisted on #noplatforming speakers they disagreed with: Snowflakes. It was said with both a sneer and well-meaning wisdom because the world just isn’t going to work if you think you can block out or censure everything you find objectionable. But here’s the problem. It’s totally hypocritical. Because on all sides of the political debate we have this snowflake tendency. Conservatives fre... |
| 2018-Oct-30 • 3 minutes Is Anxiety Playing Tricks On You? You’ll likely know Charlamagne Tha God as the host of the nationally revered radio show The Breakfast Club where provocative celebrity interviews help drive the daily national conversation about issues related to hip-hop, race, society, and politics. Lesser known, the unique and compelling media personality is a Stoic. When Daily Stoic saw Charlamagne sharing pages from The Daily Stoic book across social media, we had to know more. We interviewed Charlamagne to talk about Stoicism and his new book Shook O... |
| 2018-Oct-29 • 3 minutes The Present Is Pleasurable Enough On one of his more arduous hunts, after days of patiently tracking (and weeks of planning before that), crawling through the dirt and enduring difficult conditions, Theodore Roosevelt finally got the bull caribou he had been chasing. It was a big animal, felled by several shots in a chaotic confrontation. “It was one of those moments,” he later wrote, “that repay the hunter for days of toil and hardship; that is if he needs repayment, and does not find life in the wilderness pleasure enough in itself.” W... |
| 2018-Oct-26 • 4 minutes We Are So Soon Forgotten A few miles outside Rome, along the still-smooth stone-paved Appian Way, is a tall brick tomb that is rumored to belong to Seneca. Unfortunately, no one is certain if this rumor has any truth to it. There is no sign that marks the tomb. There is no clear archeological proof that the bones or ashes of the famous Stoic ever laid underneath it. What the tomb looked like in ancient times is uncertain as well, for no one bothered over the intervening two thousand years to paint, sketch, or describe Seneca’s grav... |
| 2018-Oct-25 • 3 minutes Time Doesn’t Make Everything Better...It Just Makes Them What They Are When we get dumped or we fail or we lose someone, we often hear that “Time heals all wounds” or some such remark, all of it in consolation. Obviously this is meant well, but it’s also frustrating--if only because it’s trite...and way too simple. As Rilke wrote, “Time does not ‘console’ as people say superficially; at best it puts things in their place and it creates order.” There is a Zen story about a man whose horse ran away. People said it was bad luck. Then the horse came back, which people thought wa... |
| 2018-Oct-24 • 3 minutes Be Severe Only With Yourself One of the things that separates us from other people--indeed that has been responsible for our success--is our ability to be strict and self-disciplined. Where other people are fine making excuses or taking shortcuts, we are not. Where other people wing it or do what’s easiest, taking the path of least resistance, we don’t. That’s really the essence of Stoicism and why those of us who have committed to doing the hard work have been able to get so much out of it. But it can be a problem when people like u... |
| 2018-Oct-23 • 3 minutes We All Have The Same Nature Robert Greene’s five international bestsellers earned him descriptions like genius and master of human behavior. His newest book was just released. The Laws of Human Nature is the culmination of his life’s work to understand why. Why do humans behave the way we do? As well as penning manifestos on subjects inherent to the human experience, Robert Greene has been a student of Stoic philosophy for over three decades. Daily Stoic sat down with Robert for what we think is our best interview to date. It was hi... |
| 2018-Oct-22 • 3 minutes We Take The Bitter To Get To The Sweets “The hunter worthy of the name always willingly takes the bitter if by so doing he can get the sweet, and gladly balances failure and success, spurning the poorer souls who know neither.” Theodore Roosevelt was talking about the philosophy of hunting when he said this, but he was also describing his philosophy of life. This is how the Stoic looks at things as well. So much of life is outside of our control, and indeed much of that is bitter. We set out to do something and we are quickly beset by challeng... |
| 2018-Oct-19 • 3 minutes How To Be A Winner and a Loser Michael Lombardi is a former NFL coach, GM and front office strategist who is largely responsible for introducing Stoic philosophy to professional sports. In 2014, he read The Obstacle is the Way and spread it around the locker room of the New England Patriots. They went on to win the Super Bowl that year and Stoicism became a favorite of teams not just in football but in the NBA, MLB, the NHL and many other sports. Lombardi spent the last few years writing his own book, and it’s brilliant--a lifetime of wi... |
| 2018-Oct-18 • 3 minutes Accepting The Little Facts of Life In the late 1800s, Theodore Roosevelt was on a hunting trip in Big Hole Basin in Montana. The trip did not get off to a good start. Upon getting off the train, and searching for a wagon to transport them, Roosevelt and his party immediately ran into the first of many issues. The wagon they found was overpriced, the harnesses were rotting and falling apart, and the horses were spoiled and ill-trained. There wasn’t much use in complaining, Roosevelt later wrote in his wonderful hunting memoir, The Wilderness ... |
| 2018-Oct-17 • 4 minutes Don’t Make This Mistake There is a repeated pattern of failure in Marcus Aurelius’s life, and no matter how much we might admire him, it’s hard to deny it. His step brother, Lucius Verus, who he elevated to co-emperor, was a ne'er-do-well who never proved himself worthy of Marcus’s respect. His wife, despite his praise for her, was probably unfaithful. His son, despite Marcus’s love for Commodus, was deranged and completely unfit to succeed him. His most trusted general, Avidius Cassius, considering his betrayal of Marcus and atte... |
| 2018-Oct-16 • 4 minutes Are You A Coward? Or Are You Brave? Varlam Shalamov was a brilliant writer who was sentenced in 1937 to years of hard labor in a Soviet gulag. If that were not painful enough, though he was eventually freed, his writings were more or less lost to history until today—his book, Kolyma Tales, is finally enjoying a well-deserved resurgence. In a piece published by the Paris Review, Shalamov lists things he learned in the Gulag: “I am proud to have decided right at the beginning, in 1937, that I would never be a foreman if my freedom could lead t... |
| 2018-Oct-15 • 3 minutes Why Ego Is Your Enemy One of the early members of Alcoholics Anonymous defined ego as “a conscious separation from.” From what? From everything and everyone, including our own nature. When we are in the sway of ego, we are arrogant, selfish, shortsighted. We are mean, we are superficial, we are insecure, we are fragile. In short, we are everything a Stoic is not supposed to be. “It’s impossible to learn that which we think we already know,” Epictetus said. That’s why we avoid ego. Marcus talked about avoid the stain of “im... |
| 2018-Oct-12 • 2 minutes Don’t Be All About Business Is there anything sadder than a person whose work is their life? They neglect their family, they put in crazy hours, they have no interests, no hobbies outside what they do at the office. It’s bad enough to be stuck next to them at a party, but imagine what it must be like to be inside their heads. The only thing they care about is work...work that few notice or even understand and fewer still will care about in the future. Marcus Aurelius had a pretty important job. He was the Emperor. Millions depended ... |
| 2018-Oct-11 • 3 minutes Why Do You Care What They Think? There’s a moment that almost everyone remembers from their childhood. They have just received something they really liked--a new shirt, a new toy, a haircut they thought was cool--and showed up for school with it...only to be mercilessly teased and mocked for it. Many a trash can has been filled by this experience. The toy, the shirt, the opinion no longer the same now that some jerk has weighed in. If this were simply the naivete of a child, it would be one thing. But the truth is that we carry this atti... |
| 2018-Oct-10 • 3 minutes What You Think You’re Lacking Is The Problem George Ball, the diplomat and advisor to President Kennedy (one of who David Halberstam would call ‘the best and the brightest’), once observed about Lyndon Johnson that LBJ was hardly disadvantaged by his lack of an Ivy League education. Rather, he said, LBJ suffered from his sense of lacking that education. That is, LBJ’s insecurity about his deficiency was far worse than any actual deficit that may have existed. Isn’t that how it usually goes? Seneca’s line that we suffer more in imagination than in rea... |
| 2018-Oct-09 • 5 minutes Love Always 1981 was a tough year for tennis great Billie Jean King. That year, she sat down to write her memoir having endured serious betrayal on multiple fronts. One was emotional and financial: a woman she’d had an affair with attempted to extort her, creating a massive scandal. The other was physical and inevitable: Her body had begun to betray her mastery of the game. She was getting older, the other players were getting younger. She had to confront the fact that most of her winning was behind her. Yet, she would... |
| 2018-Oct-08 • 3 minutes Things Worse Than Dying Death and dying are the worst parts of life, right? After all, they do end the whole thing. So while it does make sense, generally, to try to avoid dying, Seneca marvelled at the terrible things people do to stay alive--things much worse than death. We’ll betray friends, he said, betray our most closely held beliefs, people will even sell out their own children and grandchildren--as the elderly often do in almost every election--just to keep things the way we like them. How pathetic is this? And what a ... |
| 2018-Oct-05 • 3 minutes If Today Was Your Last Day We put a lot of thought into making distinctions about what’s urgent and what’s not. We put a lot of effort into planning. We have our conservative calculations for retirement and our ambitious ones. We have a bucket list that includes the things we want to do now, in the future and in the way way off distant future. All of which presumes we’ve got plenty of time with which to do it all. The thought exercise from Marcus Aurelius: “Suppose that a god announced that you were going to die tomorrow “or the day ... |
| 2018-Oct-04 • 3 minutes We Pay The Iron Price In Game of Thrones, the people of the Iron Islands believe they have been entitled by God to steal and seize whatever they like. Women, land, possessions, even the rightful kingdom of one’s own brother--all of this is capriciously taken by the ironborn if they think they’d like to have it. "I take what is mine. I pay the iron price,” Balon Greyjoy says. It’s a tradition that the Roman empire, even at its most aggressive and belligerent, never fully embraced. Yet there is something or someone who actually do... |
| 2018-Oct-03 • 3 minutes Nothing Exempts You From Hard Work It’s interesting, if you think about Greek and Roman mythology, that the Gods were so active and busy. Athena and Circe and Hermes all worked to help Odysseus. Apollo guided Achilles. Zeus and Jupiter were always getting involved in this squabble or that one. Sort of weird, right? They were Gods, they could do anything...or nothing...and yet they still worked really hard to keep the universe in balance or to see this cause or that one triumph. There is a similar theme in the Bhagavad Gita. Krishna appears t... |
| 2018-Oct-02 • 4 minutes Nothing Can Touch The Soul The anti-war novel Johnny Got His Gun and the song it inspired, One by Metallica, tell the story of Joe Bonham, a soldier who has been grievously injured on the battlefield in World War I. Upon waking in the hospital, the soldier finds that he cannot walk or speak, see or hear. Modern science has saved his body—or at least part of it—and he is left questioning what kind of life this actually is. There is the haunting lyric in Metallica’s epic song: “Landmine has taken my sight Taken my speech Taken my heari... |
| 2018-Oct-01 • 2 minutes It’s Time To Get Up. It’s Time To Get Up One of the best passages in all of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations is the opener to Book V. In it, Marcus has a dialog with himself as he struggles to get out of bed in the morning. It’s just marvelously relatable. Here we have an extraordinary man, some twenty centuries ago, struggling just like every ordinary man and woman has, to get up the willpower to get up from his warm bed and get to work. Who hasn’t had a similar conversation with themselves? Who hasn’t thought, just as Marcus did, that “it’s nicer h... |
| 2018-Sep-28 • 3 minutes Another Reason To Journal In Walter Isaacson’s wonderful new biography of Leonardo Da Vinci, he spends a lot of time dissecting and exploring the ideas in Da Vinci’s notebooks. From his military sketches to his lesser known fables to self-portraits and scientific breakthroughs, Da Vinci poured his best self onto these pages (in fact, he often carried them around on a rope attached to his belt so they were always at hand). As Isaacson observed, Da Vinci’s lifelong habit of journaling should inspire us to do some of our own: “Five hun... |
| 2018-Sep-27 • 4 minutes Don’t Make This Mistake (Or Stop Before It’s Too Late) Why are good people attracted to serving bad people or bad causes? Aristotle taught Alexander the Great. Seneca advised Nero. Da Vinci attached himself to Cesare Borgia. Mattis accepted a cabinet position from Trump. There are, of course, many other examples of academics who were blind to the horrors of the Soviet system or the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge, just as everyday there are good people who go to work for less than ethical companies or leaders. But it is sad that there are two prominent Stoics on ... |
| 2018-Sep-26 • 2 minutes Love Not Hate It’s easy to stir up resentment, harder to create common ground. It’s easy to point out what’s wrong, it’s much more difficult to come up with a solution. Our current political and social dialogue has taken the easy road, no question, which is why we’re divided and despair of solving any of our problems. The Stoic rejects this, resists the urge to point fingers or label other groups “the enemy.” As Booker T. Washington wrote, “Great men cultivate love, only little men cherish a spirit of hatred.” And this w... |
| 2018-Sep-21 • 2 minutes Make Sure You're Coming Home All of us have day jobs. Even professional philosophers are still professors or authors, which means they have other responsibilities than just thinking and reading. That means that like the rest of us, they’ve got meetings to take and phone calls to make and paperwork to do and politics to play. And that’s okay. It’s only an issue when, if we’re not careful, those “other” things grow and grow until they take over our whole life. It’s as true for us now as it was true for Marcus Aurelius. He was responsible... |
| 2018-Sep-20 • 5 minutes Different Folks Need Different Strokes Confucius was once asked for advice by a student, and in replying essentially urged him to wait and be patient. Later he was asked for advice by another student, and advised that student to not be patient and to solve the problem immediately. An observant third student noticed the seemingly contradictory nature of Confucius’ responses and asked him to explain. Confucius replied, “Ran Qiu is over cautious and so I wished to urge him on. Zilu, on the other hand, is too impetuous, and so I sought to hold him ... |
| 2018-Sep-19 • 3 minutes What To Do When You’re Not Naturally Perfect It was on this day in the year 86 AD, that Antoninus Pius, the man who would become best known as the stepfather of Marcus Aurelius, was born. Most people, even followers of Stoicism, don’t know much about Antoninus. This is sad because he was a truly great man. “Antoninus would have had the reputation of being the best of sovereigns,” Joseph Ernest Renan writes, “if he had not designated for his successor a man equal to himself in goodness and in modesty.” It’s worth taking a second today to consider what ... |
| 2018-Sep-18 • 3 minutes Approach Your Troubles Like Doctor It’s famously said that you should learn from the mistakes of others because you can’t live long enough to make them all yourself. In that way, the books we read and the information we digest gives us an advantage to those who choose to learn by painful trial and error. In studying the Stoics, we’re able to adopt a mentality battle tested by some of history’s most successful warriors, artists, businessmen, and politicians. We can use the same operating system that helped centuries of people solve the comple... |
| 2018-Sep-17 • 3 minutes This Will Help You Get Rid Of Crazy Thoughts In Aaron Thier’s novel The World Is A Narrow Bridge (the title is a proverb we have written about before), one of the main characters is a runner. His wife teases him for his dedication to this hobby, which he claims settles his mind and makes him feel less crazy. She jokes that “it’s a craziness problem that makes you run and run.” His reply absolutely nails it, as any runner knows. “It’s the running that alleviates the craziness,” he tells her. “Sanity flows up from the feet, or actually it flows from the... |
| 2018-Sep-14 • 3 minutes Virtue Is Contagious (and Has Obligations) The line from Confucius was that “Virtue is never solitary; it always has neighbors.” What he meant by that was that good behavior and good thinking is contagious. In a way, virtue is like the homeowner who moves into a rundown neighborhood and through that investment and the cheerful improvements they make to their own home and the friends and family that follow, the block begins to turn around. It’s become a point of virtue-signaling these days to criticize this as “gentrification,” but of course that’s s... |
| 2018-Sep-13 • 3 minutes It Comes For All, Young And Old The New York Times Obituary section this past weekend featured a somberly diverse list of losses: William Jordan, the impressionist, was dead at 91. Erich Lessing, a photographer died at 95. Amanda Kyle Williams, the crime writer, at 61. Randy Weston, the Jazz pianist, at 92. Mac Miller, the rapper at 26. Not included, of course, are the thousands of less famous people around the world, who died at ages young and old, of causes expected and unexpected. Some had lived full lives, others were cut tragically s... |
| 2018-Sep-12 • 3 minutes What Should Good People Do? Confucius, like Seneca, was an interesting hybrid of philosopher and politician. For instance, in addition to his teachings and writings, he pushed for “a revival of a unified royal state, whose rulers would succeed to power on the basis of their moral merits instead of lineage.” His justification for participating in the complicated, corrupting world of politics was captured in this metaphor: “If you possessed a piece of beautiful jade, would you hide it away in a locked box or would you try to sell it at ... |
| 2018-Sep-11 • 3 minutes The Ideal Weapon For Spiritual Combat Michel Foucault has a fascinating essay on journaling entitled “Self-Writing.” In it, he describes journaling as a “weapon in spiritual combat,” which is a brilliant phrase. That might seem to be overstating it, after all, is it really such a big deal to write down some of your thoughts in a notebook? Yes. It is a big deal. As he puts it, “writing constitutes a test and a kind of touchstone: by bringing to light impulses of thought, it dispels the darkness where the enemy’s plot are hatched.” He quotes Sene... |
| 2018-Sep-10 • 3 minutes You Are Worth Fighting For Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. Given that a number of prominent Stoics committed suicide, and that suicide was described by Epictetus as the “open door” it might seem like a strange theme to write about here today. But the truth is the Stoics did not take this topic lightly. Nor were they in any way advocates for such a thing, excepting the most extreme circumstances. If we could summarize the Stoic attitude towards it, we’d have trouble doing better than Churchill’s line that one should “Never aban... |
| 2018-Sep-07 • 3 minutes Study The Lives of The Greats It would be this Sunday that in the year 1813, General William Henry Harrison sent three volumes of an ancient book to his 15 year old son, John. The book was Plutarch's Lives, long a favorite of successful men and women throughout history. Indeed, the General would inscribe the first volume of the leatherbound set accordingly, "Willm H. Harrison send this set of Plutarch's to his beloved son J.C. Symmes Harrison in the hope that he will diligently study the lives of great men contained in it & that if he i... |
| 2018-Sep-06 • 3 minutes The Only Kind Of Comparison Worth Doing It is said that comparison is the thief of joy and is, therefore, mostly to be avoided. This is true. You’re on your own journey with your own unique circumstances. Using what other people have or what they’ve done as a guiding light to chart your progress is rarely the way to happiness. The same goes for making yourself feel superior because of what you have or have done. It might feel good for a moment, but ultimately it’s a hollow happiness. Still, wise philosophers in both the East and West have spoken ... |
| 2018-Sep-05 • 4 minutes How Are You Still Not Doing This? Saint Athanasius of Alexandria wrote in Vita Antonii that the reason he did his journaling--his confessing, as the genre was called by the Christians--was that it was a safeguard against sinning. By observing and then writing about his own behavior, he was able to hold himself accountable and make himself better. “Let us each note and write down our actions and impulses of the soul,” he wrote, “as though we were to report them to each other; and you may rest assured that from utter shame of becoming known w... |
| 2018-Sep-04 • 3 minutes This Message Is Waiting For You On April 24th 1924, the pioneer writer Laura Ingalls Wilder got a note that he mother, aged 84, had died. It was a sad day, particularly since it had been so many years since she had been able to see or spend time with the woman who had raised and loved her. Wilder would address this sadness with her typical grit and stoic demeanor in her now popular newspaper column a few days later. “Some of us have received such messages,” she wrote. “Those who have not, one day will.” It seems obvious but it is an obvio... |
| 2018-Sep-03 • 2 minutes In This Way You Are Unstoppable Acceptance? Resignation? That’s not me, we say, when we hear the Stoics preach those concepts. I never give up. I’m a fighter. Ok. If you say so. But there’s a difference between being a fighter and a doer. Remember, one of the outcomes of “fighting” is losing. And that’s what happens most of the time; indeed, every time when you fight something that is outside your control. This is why the Stoic instead practices the “art of acquiesce.” Why they learn amor fati--a desire for things to be exactly as they ar... |
| 2018-Aug-31 • 3 minutes Your Heart Shouldn’t Be Getting Harder As You Go The old joke--which dates back to the 1870s--is that if you’re not a liberal when you’re young you have no heart, but if you’re still a liberal when you’re older, you have no brain. Now we can put any partisan beliefs aside and see how this is at least partly true. When you’re young, it’s easy to believe in the inherent goodness of the world because you haven’t actually experienced any of it yet. You are naive. It’s easy to think that everything should be very simple and always fair in that phase of your li... |
| 2018-Aug-30 • 2 minutes This Is The Only Thing That Matters in Life In 1940, while he was struggling as an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Walker Percy wrote to his uncle and adopted father, William Alexander Percy, to give him the bad news about his grades. William Alexander, who introduced his young ward to the writings of Marcus Aurelius and had himself gone to Harvard, did not care for one second about the grades. As he wrote back to Walker, “My whole theory about life is that glory and accomplishment are of far less importance than the... |
| 2018-Aug-29 • 3 minutes Why You Do This Work There is an element of this philosophy that is a lot of work. You do all this reading. You do your morning and evening journaling. Maybe you attend meetup groups or even have pursued an advanced degree. Maybe you’ve joined Daily Stoic Life and participate in our discussions, or you discourse about Stoicism online wherever you can. As rewarding as this might be, it’s also true that it comes at considerable commitment and expense. Why should one do this? There’s an exchange in Chicago, the new book by David M... |
| 2018-Aug-28 • 3 minutes There Is Always Something To Be Grateful For One of the most stunning things about Anne Frank’s diary is how indefatigably happy it is. One might expect that her journal, which she kept from 1942 to 1944, as her family hid from the Nazis in an Amsterdam attic, would be sullen and scared. Here she was, trapped at 13 years old with her parents, sister, another family and a stange older man. She was mature enough to know that any time soldiers could burst in and send them all to the camps. Yet somehow, page after page, is filled with profound meditations... |
| 2018-Aug-27 • 2 minutes Why You’re The Luckiest Person In The World “It’s unfortunate that this happened,” Marcus says in one of his imaginary dialogs. Then he corrects himself: “No. It’s fortunate that this has happened and I’ve remained unharmed by it--not shattered by the present or frightened of the future. It could have happened to anyone. But not everyone could have remained unharmed by it.” This is the conversation we need to have when “bad” things happen. That car accident. That bad turn of the market. That messy breakup. Sure, we’d have rather none of it happened. ... |
| 2018-Aug-24 • 3 minutes How To Make The World A Better Place The line from George Bernard Shaw was that “all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” He isn’t wrong. The reasonable man bends himself to the world, because he insists to himself that the world is this way for a reason. The unreasonable man does not accept that and tries--sometimes with futility, sometimes with success--to bend the world to his will. So where does that leave the Stoics, given their repeated teachings on living according to nature and their emphasis on submitting to reason? Surprisingly... |
| 2018-Aug-22 • 3 minutes Everything Hangs By A Thread One of the most misleading things about our world today is the increased sense of comfort we feel. Yes, on average planes crash less. Yes, diseases have been cured. Yes, infant mortality rates have made progress. Yes, crime is down. But the slow and steady increase in life expectancy obscures some very critical realities. First off, the fact that the average man in the United States now lives to be 76 and the average woman lives to be 81 does nothing about the fact that the clock of nuclear annihilation cur... |
| 2018-Aug-22 • 2 minutes Here’s Why Worry Is Pointless Humble people worry less than the arrogant. Why is that? Because they aren’t so conceited as to think they have any idea (or control over) what may or may not happen. The poet Rilke put it well: “Life is not even close to being as logically consistent as our worries; it has many more unexpected ideas and many more facts than we do.” Worry is pointless not only because it rarely makes things better, but also because you’re rarely ever worried about the right thing! Seneca’s line was that “nothing happens to ... |
| 2018-Aug-17 • 2 minutes It Helps To Be A Little Deaf Ruth Bader Ginsburg was given a little piece of advice on her wedding day by her mother in law: "In every good marriage, it helps sometimes to be a little deaf." Ginsburg would say she applied it to her job too: "I have employed it as well in every workplace, including the Supreme Court. When a thoughtless or unkind word is spoken, best tune out. Reacting in anger or annoyance will not advance one's ability to persuade." The Stoics were all about this. There is a story of Cato, who was struck by someone in ... |
| 2018-Aug-17 • 2 minutes Be Tough On Yourself and Understanding To Others Remember that Stoicism isn’t about judging other people. It’s not a moral philosophy you’re supposed to project and enforce onto the world. No, it’s a personal philosophy that’s designed to direct your behavior. This is what Marcus Aurelius meant when he said: “Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself.” Be open to the idea that people are going to be fools or jerks or unreliable or anything else. Let them be. That’s their business. That’s not inside your control. But you have to be disciplined with ... |
| 2018-Aug-17 • 2 minutes You Always Have a Move to Make Today you might find yourself dealing with something tough. Stuck in a new situation. Hit with a situation that’s been developing for some time, but only now is bringing you pain. In tight situations like these, you need energy, creativity and above all faith in yourself. Defeatism won’t get you anywhere (except defeat). Focusing your entire effort on the little bit of room, the tiny scrap of an opportunity, is your best shot. As Seneca put it, “Apply yourself to thinking through difficulties—hard times can... |
| 2018-Aug-17 • 2 minutes Exploring the Softer Side There is a harshness and a hardness to the Stoics. But there is also a softness and a grace, the velvet glove over the iron first. Think of Marcus talking about how we must come to our “journey’s end with a good grace, just as an olive falls when it is fully ripe, praising the earth that bore it and grateful to the tree that gave it growth.” First, it’s just beautiful language (and all the more impressive if you consider it was just a thought he jotted down to himself). Yet it is also an important example o... |
| 2018-Aug-17 • 3 minutes Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own There’s no way around the fact that the Stoics talked about suicide. A lot. To the Stoics, suicide was famously the “open door”—the option available to anyone, at any moment. Cato, one of the most vaunted and towering Stoics, went through that door, gruesomely and bravely. So too, did Seneca. But it is worth pointing out, in a summer that saw the world lose two truly great musicians to suicide, and in a world that loses over 2,000 people to suicide every day (on average, a U.S veteran commits suicide nearly... |