The Daily Stoic (Daily Stoic | Wondery)

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 quality of that stranger’s soul and was instead making a more general point about the dialogues we are all prone to having with ourselves—conversations that are hardly productive or healthy. 

The writer Anne Lamott spoke of a radio station, KFKD (K-Fucked) which plays in far too many our heads:

Out of the right speaker in your inner ear will come the endless stream of self-aggrandizement, the recitation of one’s specialness, of how much more open and gifted and brilliant and knowing and misunderstood and humble one is. Out of the left speaker will be the rap songs of self-loathing, the lists of all the things one doesn’t do well, of all the mistakes one has made today and over an entire lifetime, the doubt, the assertion that everything that one touches turns to shit, that one doesn’t do relationships well, that one is in every way a fraud, incapable of selfless love, that one had no talent or insight, and on and on and on. 

Maybe that’s what Crates was warning the young man about. Yes, part of Stoicism is getting in touch with our inner nature and listening to the truth inside of us. But another part of it is learning what to ignore—the voice of anxiety and worry, the voice of ego and hubris, the voice of fear, the voices of self-loathing and unending ambition. We have to beware of the many tones to that voice in our head, we have to beware of communing with that bad influence. 

It’s just as dangerous as talking to a bad person...even if that person is us. 

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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 happiness in their lives. This is something the Stoics were often writing about—finding stillness and tranquility, ridding of nonessentials that clutter our lives, learning to stay calm and sane amid life’s chaos and craziness.

In our interview with Gretchen, we asked how she maintains that inner calm with something so hectic and uncertain like a book launch,

I think about actions, not outcomes. That way, I stay focused on the things I can control (more or less). So I don’t think about “making the book a success,” but “writing the best book I possibly can.”

That’s a good rule for all of us—doing the right things, right now. Putting our best efforts into the tasks in front of us today. Taking care of the inputs and detaching from the outcomes. Not worrying about what might happen later, or the results, or the whole picture, or the opinions of others.

“The tranquility that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do,” Marcus said. “Only what you do.” Today and always, find clarity and tranquility in the simplicity of focusing on doing the best you possibly can in everything you do.

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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 never seem to fill the void.

As Marcus Aurelius wrote: 

“You've wandered all over and finally realized that you never found what you were after: how to live. Not in syllogisms, not in money, or fame, or self-indulgence. Nowhere.” 

Isn’t that exactly right?

What we have to realize is that more is not the answer to our problems: more sex, more money, more power and renown. These will never satisfy the place inside us that never feels full. Nor will magical thinking, or plant medicines in the jungles of Peru. 

No, you don’t fill the void by fleeing from it or by compensating with externals. According to the Stoics, we satisfy it simply by living our life as nature demands. By being good, by being true to ourselves, by focusing, by not wasting a second wishing anything was otherwise or caring what other people think of us. 

We just live, as well as we can. 

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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 meditation along those lines:

The stench of decay. Rotting meat in a bag.

Look at it clearly. If you can.

Life is that stench, he was saying. We are the rotten meat in a skin bag. From the second we’re born, time starts ticking towards our expiration date. A lot of people want to turn away from that. They want to pretend it’s not real. We’ve gotten very good over the millennia at coming up with ways to help us pretend and to turn away. It’s why so many people are unproductive—they think they can afford to be, because they’re in denial of their mortality and the fact that life is rot, rot, rotting away as they sit there dicking around.

Maybe that’s what the awful smell of fermenting apples did for Schiller. We’ll never really know, but it’s a powerful reminder for us this morning, nonetheless.

Memento mori. Tempus fugit.

Grab it while it’s here.

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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 throws our way. For some of us, that’s an absent father, for others, it’s a sister with a drug problem. We have co-workers who are drama queens, bosses who are assholes, and neighbors who are meddlesome. Each of these situations is a trial, one that challenges us and forces us to apply the lessons that we’ve learned in our reading and through our studies. 

Can you learn how to love someone who has trouble loving back? Can you learn how to forgive someone for their flaws? Can you develop the self-control necessary to not lose your temper when they provoke you? Can you put up appropriate boundaries? Can you say “No” when it’s appropriate and say, “Yes” when someone really needs you, even when it would be easier to focus on your own needs?

Relationships test us, but they also teach us. They bring with them both obstacles and opportunities. What matters, then, is how we respond and who we become in the process. No one ever said that family or friendships would be easy—they just said the trouble would be worth it in the end. 

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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 Stoic store, where you can get them signed and personalized.

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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-home moms to celebrities and Fortune 500 CEOs. She inspires over 300,000 people weekly through her blog, social media platform, signature courses, and her popular podcast, The Terri Cole Show.

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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 philosophy.

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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 physically trying but the most transformative. In our interview with AJ for DailyStoic.com, he explained just how wonderful this forced exercise in gratitude has been:

One big change was related to the Stoic idea of the self-interested case for virtue. The idea that acting badly makes you feel badly. That whoever does wrong, wrongs himself. But when you act virtuously, you get a little burst of happiness.

So during this project, I’d wake up in a grumpy mood, but I’d force myself to call or visit or email folks to thank them for their role in my coffee. Admittedly, some were baffled. They’d say, “Is this a pyramid scheme?” But the majority were really pleased to hear from me.

I remember I called the woman who does pest control for the warehouse where my coffee is stored. And I said, “I know this sounds strange, but I want to thank you for keeping the bugs out of my coffee.” And she said, “That does sound strange. But thank YOU. You made my day.”

And that, in turn, made my day. By forcing myself to act in a grateful way, I became less grouchy. Ideally, gratitude should be a two-way street. It should give both parties a little dopamine boost.

The word Epictetus uses for gratitude—eucharistos—means “seeing” what is actually occurring in each moment. He said, “It is easy to praise providence for anything that may happen if you have two qualities: a complete view of what has actually happened in each instance, and a sense of gratitude.” Part of what made AJ’s journey so meaningful to him and to everyone else involved is that they were really seeing each other for the first time. He was really looking—and when he saw, he said thanks.

It’s a good model for us to try in our lives. Take some time today to stop, take a step back, and get a complete view—like that there are over a thousand people involved in making your morning cup of coffee possible. There’s a lot we take for granted. In every moment, there are limitless opportunities to say thanks. Take them!

P.S. Check out our full interview with A.J. Jacobs and check out his new book Thanks A Thousand—it's a great reminder of the amazing interconnectedness of our world and teaches us how gratitude can make our lives happier, kinder, and more impactful.

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Ryan talks about how you can improve your life, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal.

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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, where you can get them signed and personalized.

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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 inside out. Because he lived and breathed his work—famously interviewing something like 14,000 college grads himself for various positions over the years. He also personally tested every nuclear submarine during its initial sea trial after construction. 

His joke about preparing by getting dressed calls to mind an analogy by Marcus Aurelius, who said that a true philosopher is a fighter not a fencer. A fencer has to put on armor and pick up a weapon. A fighter just has to close their fist. 

That should be our model too. We shouldn’t be cramming the night before a test, or frantically looking for advice once a crisis has arrived. We need to be prepared. We need to be so on top of our work—and the knowledge required—that everything we need is right there, already in our hands and in our heads. If you’re rushing, you’re already too late. If you’re looking for your weapons, you’re already beaten. 

You gotta know your stuff inside and out. You have to live it and breathe it. You gotta be ready. 

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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 bestsellers “Love Your Enemies” (2019) and “The Conservative Heart” (2015). He is also a columnist for The Atlantic, host of the podcast “How to Build a Happy Life with Arthur Brooks,” and subject of the 2019 documentary film “The Pursuit,” which Variety named as one of the “Best Documentaries on Netflix” in August 2019. He gives more than 100 speeches per year around the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

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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 physical books, we have hardcopies and our premium leather-bound edition available over in the Daily Stoic store, where you can get them signed and personalized.

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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 Federation in 2004. Tareq’s mission is to normalize conversations about mental health, and this has driven his career and success throughout his life.

Read Paul Kix’s article: The inside story of NFL trainer Tareq Azim

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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 conflict to aid someone in need (I wouldn’t want to get hurt!). We are reluctant to go places that are dangerous yet beautiful. We even avoid gambling with our careers in favor of staying in dead end jobs (I wouldn’t want to fail and then starve to death!). We skew towards safety, not toward satisfaction.

Theodore Roosevelt’s observation was that “only those are fit to live who do not fear to die; and none are fit to die who have shrunk from the joy of life and the duty of life.” He would have agreed with the Stoics that courage deserved a place at the top of the list of virtues. To Roosevelt, life was an adventure and death was simply a part of the ride. “Never yet,” he said “was worthy adventure worthily carried through by the man who put his personal safety first.” 

It is impossible to be a good Stoic without courage. It is impossible to seize opportunity or the present moment if you are ruled by fear. It is impossible to live a good life if you are ruled by a fear of death. 

Obviously no one is telling you to be reckless today or to deliberately seek out potential harm. But it’s important to remember that if you always put your personal safety first, you leave so much living on the table. To say nothing of the good you can do for the world and for other people if you are willing to be brave and to stand up when the situation calls for it. 

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Ryan talks about why you should value independence.

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Ryan talks about the way that Stoics view the tough moments in life, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal.

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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.

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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 gave the eulogy at Wang’s funeral). 

The Stoics don’t talk enough about friendship, and that’s a shame, because friendship makes life worth living. 

Marcus speaks a lot about being kind to your fellow man—including all the jerks out there—but we don’t hear much about the pleasures of spending time in the company of people we love. He talks about avoiding false friendship but says less about the benefits of true friendship. From Seneca, we have many letters he wrote to a friend and we can see clearly how therapeutic and deep their relationship was. He writes occasionally on friendship in those letters and in essays, saying at one point that, “no one can live happily who has regard to himself alone and transforms everything into a question of his own utility; you must live for your neighbour, if you would live for yourself.”

It was Cicero, though, who wrote most eloquently on friendship, producing in 44 BC a fictional dialog between Gaius Laelius and his sons-in-law, where Laelius speaks movingly of his multi-decade friendship with the late Scipio Africanus (recently re-published by Princeton University Press as How To Be A Friend). Cicero, a lifelong student of the Stoics, knew the power of friendship, and we are lucky that his many letters to Atticus survive to us. Both are worth reading. 

Although Stoicism is a philosophy that stresses independence and strength, moral rectitude and inner-life, it’s essential that we don’t mistake this as a justification for isolation or loneliness. We are not islands, we are social animals. We need community, we need friends. We get something out of giving, and we are made better for caring and being cared for. That’s what this idea of sympatheia is really about—the warm, snug feeling of knowing you’re a part of a larger whole. 

Indeed, that’s been one of the most rewarding parts of creating Daily Stoic Life (which you can join here)—we’ve gotten to see Stoics meet and befriend people they didn’t even know lived near them. We’ve also gotten to see people reach out when they were in need or had problems and found support and acceptance. 

Friendship makes life worth living. It is key to a good life. Neglect it at your peril. 

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Ryan talks about what legacy actually means.

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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 recent book is Lost & Found, a memoir that grew out of “Losing Streak,” which was originally published in The New Yorker and later anthologized in The Best American Essays. Her other essays and reporting have appeared in The Best American Science and Nature Writing, The Best American Travel Writing, and The Best American Food Writing. A native of Ohio, she lives with her family on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

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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.

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Ryan talks about a simple tip that could improve your life.

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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 - https://geni.us/rW8veQ

Let your actions etch a response into the record—and let them remind you of why courage is the most important thing.

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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 York magazine, The Sunday Times (London), and now The Weekly Dish. Andrew is the author of several books, including “The Conservative Soul,” and '”Virtually Normal: An Argument about Homosexuality.” He lives in Washington, DC, and Provincetown, Massachusetts. 

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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 benefit well:

A writer — and, I believe, generally all persons — must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.

Everything is material. We can use it all. And again, not just artists. Issues we had with our parents become lessons that we teach our children. An injury that lays us up in bed becomes a reason to reflect on where our life is going. A problem at work inspires us to invent a new product and strike out on our own. These obstacles become opportunities. 

The line from Marcus Aurelius about this was that a blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it. That’s how we want to be. We want to be the artist that turns pain and frustration and even humiliation into beauty. We want to be the entrepreneur that turns a sticking point into a money maker. We want to be the person who takes their own experiences and turns them into wisdom that can be learned from and passed on to others. 

Use it all. Find purpose in all of it. Find opportunity in everything. Be the painter of your own picture, the sculptor of your own life.

That’s your task for today and always. 

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Ryan explains why the practice of Memento Mori is so important, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal.

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Ryan talks about why you should think about how you actually want to spend your time.

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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 Carnegie Medal in both fiction and non-fiction, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize among others. His writing often appears in Esquire, The New Yorker, and The New York Times where he is a contributing opinion writer, and his stories have been included in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Travel Writing. He is both 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. He divides his time between New York City and Washington, D.C.

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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 concepts that inspired many psychological strategies practiced in the modern world. The central psychological strategy the Stoics employed, Robertson said, was what is now called cognitive distancing—summed up by what Epictetus famously said, “It’s not things that upset us but rather our opinions about things.”

In practice, therapists ask clients to imagine that they’re wearing colored spectacles,

If you believe the world is actually rose-tinted or dark and gloomy because of the lenses before your eyes that’s like fusing your beliefs with reality. Realizing that the world isn’t really that color – it’s just the glasses ‒ is like cognitive distancing. It’s the difference between telling yourself “Life sucks!” and “I’m just assuming that ‘life sucks.’”

The Stoics knew this over two thousand years ago, though...It took therapists decades to really wrap their heads around this idea....Marcus likes to refer to cognitive distancing as the “separation” of our judgements from external events. The goal of Stoicism is to suspend certain value judgments responsible for unhealthy passions in this way.

Give this a try today. When you inevitably get frustrated with someone or something today, remember that you have the power to change the lens in which you are looking through. Anytime someone hurts our feelings or something makes us upset, we are complicit in the offense. We choose our reaction. We choose what glasses we see things through. We don’t have to let it frustrate or upset us. It’s just the glasses.

P.S. Check out our full interview with Donald Robertson and check out his new book How To Think Like a Roman Emperor—it's a wonderful introduction to one of history’s greatest figures and a clear guide for those facing adversity, seeking tranquility and pursuing excellence.

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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 Opportunity Programs. In 2003, he completed a Ph.D. in English, also at Columbia. From 2008 to 2018, he served as Director of the Center for the Core Curriculum and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at Columbia College. Roosevelt is the author of “Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation.”

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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.

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Ryan talks about why the small things are what matter most.

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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 happen now; we’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life — longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land.”

Obviously a strong faith in a higher power was part of what allowed King to feel so secure in his purpose and confident about an afterlife. But that’s not the only way to get there. A person who is simply grateful for every day they have experienced, who is measured and disciplined in their actions—never cutting corners or wasting time—and who has done their best with what they’ve been given, has been to their own kind of mountaintop. Dr. King’s selfless, tireless servant leadership was also what allowed him to be confident and content, deservedly so, even if there was no reward in heaven for it. 

“When a man has said, ‘I have lived!’,” Seneca wrote, then “every morning he arises is a bonus.” The same goes for the one who has striven to make the world a better place, who has worked to win the Civil War raging within themselves (the war, as Dr. King said, between good and evil), and the person who has helped their fellow human beings. 

It is an unmistakable tragedy that Martin Luther King was taken from us early (he’d be 90 years old this year, as would Anne Frank coincidentally). But it would have been even more of tragedy had he not lived every minute of the four decades he was given. Just as it would be a tragedy if you were to waste any more of your years. 

Get working. Make your way to the mountaintop while you still have the time and the energy. 

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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. 

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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.

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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 is so aspirational, so idealistic that, given the flaws we each carry, the idea of even coming close to approaching the life of a sage feels ridiculous. But what if that was the wrong way to think about it?

What if instead of trying to be some unassailable force of moral good in the world, each of us just tried to be a little bit better whenever we saw an opportunity? What kind of cumulative difference would that end up making?

An example: Anyone who has bought one of the coins in our Daily Stoic Store over the last couple years might remember that they came wrapped in a thin plastic sleeve. A few months ago it occurred to us that this was producing a lot of unnecessary plastic in the world for not a lot of benefit—so we asked the mint to stop shipping them that way. Was this some transformational improvement to the world? Was it some shockingly selfless sacrifice? Of course not. But it was an improvement in our operations that reduced our ecological impact a tiny bit. We got better where we could.

Everyone has opportunities to do this. Opportunities to put their phone down and really listen to someone who needs to be heard. Opportunities to contribute some spare change to a worthy cause. Opportunities to let their employees go home early from work. Opportunities to pass on an unnecessary cross country flight or to pick up some trash or to hold the door open for someone.

These are little actions. They won’t make you a sage or a saint. But they will make a littleimprovement to the world and to yourself. And if we all did them—and if we all did them more often—they would add up to real transformation.

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Ryan talks about why you should look inward and examine yourself critically.

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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.

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Josh Peck is an American actor, comedian, and YouTuber. Josh began his career as a child actor in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Peck rose to prominence for his role as Josh Nichols alongside Drake Bell's character in the Nickelodeon sitcom Drake & Josh. His new book, which was released just yesterday, “Happy People Are Annoying,” is a humorous and candid memoir reflecting on the stumbles and silver linings of his life—including early struggles with food, drugs, self-esteem, and self-sabotage—and traces a zigzagging path to redemption.

Links: Daxflame interviews Josh Peck | Curious with Josh Peck: Ep. 32 | Ryan Holiday  

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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. She is a celebrated anthropological geneticist, and recently released her book, “Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas,” is the story of who the first peoples in the Americas were, how and why they made the crossing, how they dispersed south, and how they lived based on a new and powerful kind of evidence: their complete genomes.

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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.

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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:

“No man has ever been so far advanced by Fortune that she did not threaten him as greatly as she had previously indulged him.” 

The opposite of good luck is bad luck. What has been given randomly, can be taken away randomly. Indeed, it happens all the time. Look at Seneca: Born healthy. Born rich. Born talented. He achieved so much...and then his pupil turned out to be deranged and he lost all of it, including his life. 

What goes up, must come down. If not today, then tomorrow or the day after. 

The point of telling you that is not to prompt anxiety or worry. It’s just a reminder. Take nothing for granted. Don’t waste a moment feeling like you don’t have enough or comparing yourself to other people. Avoid the temptation to conflate your self-worth with your net-worth or your identity with your place in society. Because all of this is temporary. All of this is dependent on Fortune. 

And Fortune is as fickle and as cruel as she is generous.  

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Ryan talks about what practicing Stoicism is actually all about.

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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 take away from "Meditations." In this episode, Ryan Holiday discusses 7 strategies that can help you develop a highly effective journaling habit.

To learn more about journaling, check out our article "How To Start Journaling, Benefits of Journaling, and More": https://dailystoic.com/journaling/

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Ryan talks about the importance of studying philosophy, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal.

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Ryan talks about how you should reflect on yourself before correcting somebody else.

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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 of some of history’s great commanders reveal the successful rules of engagement that were true on the battlefield and resonate in today’s boardrooms and executive suites. Barry is professor at Cornell University, and the author of nine books, including the bestselling “Ten Caesars: Roman Emperors from Augustine to Constantine.”

Check out Ryan Holiday’s book “Courage Is Calling” at The Painted Porch Bookshop.

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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-tempered and think, "Has this ever served me well?" The answer very very rarely yes. Anger, as Seneca says, always makes things worse: “No plague has cost the human race more dear.” But it’s a hard emotion to combat. It’s natural, often almost instinctual. 

In our interview with Romm, we wanted some real practical tips about managing our anger, so we asked what he thought was Seneca’s best piece of advice:

My own favorite is summed up in the quote: "Do you want to be less angry? Be less aware." Anger often starts from noticing too many subtleties of the way others interact with us. In many cases, we'd do better not to notice the slights and microaggressions that can drive us nuts if we let them. One can will oneself to ignore such things—a practice many long-married couples will instantly recognize!

Today, when you feel that anger start to boil up—someone cuts you off in traffic, your computer glitches when you just can’t afford it to, the waitress messes up your order despite very careful instructions—stop, step back, and ask yourself, what if I didn’t pay any attention to that? What if I hadn’t noticed? Would I still be bothered? Would I need to be this angry? It brings to mind what Marcus said, “You don’t have to turn this into something. It doesn’t have to upset you.”

Because you don’t have to be aware of it.

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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.

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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 New Yorker, and Vanity Fair, to name a few. Her latest book, “The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel” is not only a political biography, but also an intimate human portrait and revelatory look at successful leadership in action, unveiling the unique political genius and moral chacter of one of the world’s most successful female leaders.  

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.

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, 2), and subscribe to the Jordan Harbinger Show today.

Shopify has the tools and resources that make it easy for any business to succeed from down the street to around the globe. Go to shopify.com/stoic for a FREE fourteen-day trial and get full access to Shopify’s entire suite of features.

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Ryan talks about how important of a reminder Memento Mori really is.

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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 actions. Since that is so, why is it appropriate for men to seek out and examine how they might live well, that is, to practise philosophy, but not women?“

Watch the video: https://youtu.be/puJa6Ls1PGA

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Ryan talks about how nothing will last forever, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal.

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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 special or holy about poverty. While it wasn’t necessarily someone’s fault they were poor, and so they shouldn’t be judged for it, Pericles said, there was “real shame...in not taking steps to escape it.” 

This too matches with the Stoic attitude, both about poverty and any fate Fortune might throw at us. Stuff is going to happen. We are going to experience setbacks. Some of us are going to experience major setbacks--in terms of where we are born, what our parents were like, how other people see members of our race or gender--and none of that is fair or says anything about who we are as people. How could it? We didn’t have anything to do with it happening.

But how we respond to those situations--be it poverty or disability or a bad upbringing--hell, that we respond at all, well, that says everything about who we are. Are there big systemic problems too? That will require coordination and political action? Absolutely. But in the meantime, we can start taking our individual steps right now, right this morning, big or small. 

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Ryan talks about the importance reading diverse and challenging books.

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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 2020, Thomas helped write and organize “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate.” This open letter, published in Harper’s Magazine and reprinted in newspapers around the world, defended free speech at a time of growing censorship and was signed by 153 leading public figures. Thomas is also a dedicated father, and much of his work is inspired by the relationship he shares with his father, and the relationship he has with his own children.

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Ryan talks about the vital importance of stillness and presence, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day.

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Ryan talks about the key to dealing with people who you will inevitably come across.

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Ryan talks about how our character is exposed in themes extreme circumstances, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal.

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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 unreasonable searches and seizures. As FDR famously pointed out, freedom from want and fear are just as important as speech and worship.

The complicated part of all this, of course, is where somebody else’s freedom to do something intersects with somebody else’s desire to be free from it.

You get to speak your mind...but that may offend or hurt someone else. You should be able to do whatever you want on your own property...but walking around naked blaring music makes it hard for your neighbors to do the same. You should be able to make your own medical decisions for your family...but the decision not to vaccinate affects everyone they meet.

The specifics of these issues are the proper realm of politicians and lawyers and not really what we talk about here. Where it does intersect with Stoicism is in that tricky and timeless question from Epictetus: What is up to us and what is not up to us?

In a world of snowflakes and outrage porn, it’s easy to get pulled off track and to focus on stopping other people from saying hurtful or offensive things rather than to measure what we say and manage how we respond. We want to get up in other people’s business, when really, at the end of the day, all we control is our own.

Which is ridiculous because there is so much to focus on in our own lives. What kind of person are we going to be? What are we going to do with our freedoms? Are our decisions negatively impacting other people? Are we really as free as we like to think we are?

And here’s the counterintuitive thing about all of this: Marcus Aurelius talked over and over again about the best way to influence and inspire other people. It was not with force, but by example. If you want to be free from the tyranny of other people’s opinions and bad behavior, feel free to set a better example.

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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 calm

Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0lmSRCSGIU&t=12s

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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 athletes by Sports Illustrated. She’s won multiple races, most impressively the Mohab 240, where she beat all men and women by 10 hours. Courtney credits this success to her mindset. From her unorthodoxically long shorts, running without a training plan, to her ability to go deep into what she calls “ The Pain Cave,” Courtney is a humble master of mental grit.

Amelia Boone on Excellence and Endurance: https://dailystoic.com/amelia-boone/ 

Dean Karnazes on the Virtue of Self-Discipline: https://dailystoic.com/dean-karnazes/ 

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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 paranoid? As Seneca wrote, empty fears create real things to be afraid of. The paranoid leader often, unintentionally, encourages the enemies that end up taking them down. 

All of which is to say that ego and deceit and paranoia are objectively bad strategies. They make you miserable...and they actually imperil the success that people think they help enable. We must steer clear of them like a ship must avoid a rocky shore. If we don’t, we will be dragged in by the current and torn to pieces on the rocks. 

Look at Seneca’s experiences with Nero. Here was a man driven insane by his own ego and dishonesty and paranoia. He was emperor...but not for long. Centuries later, his name stands as a permanent indictment of how power corrupts (certainly he was an example, for someone like Marcus, of how not to be). Look at Donald Trump today. It doesn’t matter whether you agree with his policies or not—it’s hard to argue that these personality traits have served him well. He’s surrounded by a “team of vipers” who are constantly undermining him and stabbing each other in the back. His fears (and cries) of a “witch hunt” have only caused more investigations. His ego allowed him to be manipulated by partisans with extreme agendas that have little appeal to the vast majority of voters. How long it will go on, we cannot say, but it’s clear every second it continues is less and less fun for him.

And so it will be for you, too, if you indulge in these dangerous traits. We must sweep ego away. We must cultivate a habit of honesty and fairness in our speech and our habits. We must cooperate with others rather than protect our interests with paranoid possessiveness. 

In short, we must be good people. It’s the best strategy. It’s the only way to live and lead.

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Ryan talks about how we all need each other.

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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 was named the best book of 2012 by Fast Company. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal and many other publications. Her viral TED Talk, "The power of introverts," has been viewed more than 30 million times, making it one of the most popular of all time.

Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness: https://geni.us/dsviPAI

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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!

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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 its undoing can be rapid, even instant. For Lattimore, it was instant. Such a devastating injury could have sent him down a spiral of rage, anger, sadness, and grief. It could have been the last we heard of Marcus Lattimore. But it wasn’t. Instead, he went back to school to earn the degree he promised his mom he'd get. He started a foundation to help athletes who have trouble paying for treatment and rehabilitation for major injuries. And most recently, he returned to his alma mater as the director of player development, mentoring student-athletes for life after football. Lattimore hasn’t spiraled. He’s thrived. And his impact now quieter but far more powerful than it would have been in the NFL. 

In our interview with Marcus for DailyStoic.com, Marcus said he wouldn’t change what he went through:

The more I detached from the situation and gained a higher perspective, the more I realized how much I had grown up and started looking at the positives. Without my knee exploding on television I would've never fully grasped the positive impact I had on people which influenced starting a non-profit. I would have never known who was really there for me. If you want to know your true friends go through adversity. I would have never started reading and I wouldn't have the self-awareness I have today which I consider my most prized possession.

In every situation, that which seems to be the end of our path can actually be showing us the start of it. Think back today in your own life, we all have those tough setbacks that turned out to be a great breakthrough. The worst things can become some of the best things. Like Lattimore, it may just take some detachment and perspective to see this, it may be painful and it may come slowly, but it can be worth it. 

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Ryan talks about why you should hold yourself to your own standards.

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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 experienced throughout his life. In high school, Scott was a witness to the 1975 Centennial Secondary School shooting and subsequently developed PTSD at a time when therapy and mental illness was considered taboo. He came out as gay during the AIDS epidemic. In 2009, Scott was diagnosed with cancer and underwent several rounds of chemotherapy. He is no stranger to enduring and embracing hardships and truly embodies “amor fati.”

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, 2), and subscribe to the Jordan Harbinger Show today.

Ten Thousand makes the highest quality, best-fitting, and most comfortable training shorts I have ever worn. They are a direct-to-consumer company, no middleman so you get premium fabrics, trims, and techniques that other brands simply cannot afford. Ten Thousand is offering our listeners 15% off your purchase. go to Tenthousand.cc and enter code STOIC to receive 15% off your purchase.

Kion Aminos is backed by over 20 years of clinical research, has the highest quality ingredients, no fillers or junk, undergoes rigorous quality testing, and tastes amazing with all-natural flavors. Go to getkion.com/dailystoic to save 20% on subscriptions and 10% on one-time purchases.

Talkspace is an online and mobile therapy company. Visit talkspace.com and get $100 off your first month when you use promo code STOIC at sign-up. That’s $100 off at talkspace.com, promo code STOIC.

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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.

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Ryan talks about how nothing in this world is truly certain, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal.

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“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 castes, and Marcus never really questioned this. In fact, his own identity was strongly tied up in the notion that he was above these lesser beings, these savages, these slaves, these women.

Thankfully, society has made incredible progress since then. We’ve granted religious freedom, equal rights, and civil rights...for the most part. But still, tribalism tempts us. Especially lately. We are suspicious of and think less of people who are not like us, who live differently than us, who come from somewhere different than us.

In Senator Ben Sasse’s new book, Them: Why We Hate Each Other—And How to Heal, he talks about how the massive technological and sociological changes we are going through on this planet encourage those toxic impulses. We feel threatened, we feel insecure, so we retreat into (or descend into) tribalism. We want to blame other people for our problems, we want to create enemies, we want to focus on what they are doing wrong, and not the urgent (and resolvable) issues in our own lives. And of course, what this blame-shifting tribalism keeps us blind to is how much we all have in common, how 99% of us are just doing the best we can, and how in the end, most everyone wants the same things.

To the Stoics, the idea of sympatheia was a bulwark against this temptation to make someone an other. We all come from the same place, Marcus writes (even if he didn’t always live up to it), we are all part of the same larger project. Forget tribes, he says, we are one big hive—we are citizens of the world as much as we are citizens of Rome or America. Do good for your fellow man, he said, or put up with him. There’s no room, or time, for hating or scapegoating.

The idea of “they” or “them”—that’s driven by fear. Not reason. It’s not rational, it’s emotional and it’s destructive. Each of us needs to work on rising above it. For the sake of ourselves, our countries, and our world.

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Ryan talks about the relationships that you should have.

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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 affected, leaving her partially paralyzed. She wrote about her affliction in the humorous 2000 autobiography Model Patient: My Life as an Incurable Wise-Ass. In November 2017 she celebrated the publication of her second book, Backbone: Living with Chronic Pain without Turning into One where she wrote about battling with sarcoidosis for two decades. For Duffy, who can usually only get up three days a week, writing and reading have served as a form of therapy. Her gateway to stoicism was Marcus’s “Meditations,” and her most recent book Wise Up, that was just released this month, uses stoicism as a compass to navigate the world.

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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

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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 made point, and it aligns perfectly with Stoicism. Remember, to the Stoics the two big categories that everything had to be sorted into were the things that were up to us and the things that are not up to us. 

Although it is nice to be respected, that really isn’t something that is up to us. But acting with dignity? Maintaining our own standards—our self-respect? That’s ours. Always. Even when we are under duress, facing adversity, or someone is attempting to humiliate us—dignity remains firmly in our control, provided we don’t give it up. 

This is what made Cato such a towering figure to Seneca and Marcus Aurelius and generations of Stoics. He didn’t care what other people thought about him, what they said to him, what they did to him. Sometimes public opinion lined up with his moral compass, sometimes it didn’t, but he never let that sway him from following what really mattered. Even when they showered him with curses or tried to kill him, he stuck fast. As McKay would go on to say in the interview, while we “can’t really control what they’re doing...we can control how we react.” It’s hard to describe Stoicism better than that phrase. 

Because that’s what dignity is about. That’s why it’s much more important than “respect.”

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Ryan talks about the importance of cultivating humility.

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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 Marcus Aurelius, the playwright Seneca, or philosopher Epictetus, as well as historical anecdotes and thought-provoking commentary to help you tackle any problem, approach any goal and live a better life.

Watch the video: https://youtu.be/46rTnZg_99g 

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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.

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Ryan talks about the power you have over your circumstances.

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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 three years, appeared as himself in the LCD Soundsystem documentary Shut Up and Play the Hits, and was an original founder of the website Grantland with Bill Simmons. In his most recent book, The Nineties, Chuck examines the film, the music, the sports, the TV, the politics, the changes regarding race and class and sexuality of one of the most defining decades of modern American consciousness.

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, 2), and subscribe to the Jordan Harbinger Show today.

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.

Go to shopify.com/stoic, all lowercase, for a FREE fourteen-day trial and get full access to Shopify’s entire suite of features. Grow your business with Shopify today - go to shopify.com/stoic right now.

Sunday can help you grow a beautiful lawn without the guesswork OR nasty chemicals. F​​ull-season plans start at just $129, and you can get 20% off at checkout when you visit GETSUNDAY.COM/STOIC.

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 at https://dailystoic.com/life/ 

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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 exercises are about—looking for the good. Or at least realizing that we have some choice in seeing things one way or the other. As Epictetus said, ultimately it’s not things that upset us, it’s our judgment and opinions about things that do. So, conversely, we choose not only to not be upset, but to be happy, to be grateful, to see life as an adventure that we can make the most of. 

The task before you today is to look for that good, in anything and everything that you do. Because it’s there. If Laura Ingalls Wilder could find it in a one room cabin, amidst tragedy and terror and pain and pestilence, then you can find it at the office, in traffic and in the confines of modern life. 

We all can. 

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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 not. The Stoic is still incredibly ambitious—only they focus on an internal scorecard versus an external one.

A similar sentiment was well-expressed by the entrepreneur Sam Altman, who has helped thousands of startups over the years with his work at Y Combinator, when he was interviewed by Tyler Cowen for the Conversations with Tyler podcast:

“I think one thing that is a really important thing to strive for is being internally driven, being driven to compete with yourself, not with other people. If you compete with other people, you end up in this mimetic trap, and you sort of play this tournament, and if you win, you lose. But if you’re competing with yourself, and all you’re trying to do is — for the own self-satisfaction and for also the impact you have on the world and the duty you feel to do that — be the best possible version you can, there is no limit to how far that can drive someone to perform. And I think that is something you see — even though it looks like athletes are competing with each other — when you talk to a really great, absolute top-of-the-field athlete, it’s their own time they’re going against.”

Competition, Altman’s friend and mentor Peter Thiel has said, is for losers. When you try to beat other people, you set yourself up to fail. But going against yourself—trying to improve yourself—that’s a competition you have control over. It’s one you can win.

A Stoic triumphs over themselves, over their own limitations, and in this—even if the margin is small—is the most important victory of all.

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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 (or as Seneca says, how much you’ve already died), but also how much life you've (hopefully) got left. To get yours now just go to dailystoic.com/mmcalendar

John Mackey is the original, current, and sole CEO of Whole Foods Markets, which he founded in 1980 and has parented to Fortune 500 status, employing over 90,000 people across 450+ stores in the US, Canada, and the UK. Mackey is the co-founder of the Conscious Capitalism Movement and co-authored the NYT and WSJ best-sellers Conscious Capitalism and Conscious Leadership, which encourage businesses and leaders to be grounded in principles of ethical consciousness. John embraces a humble lifestyle, despite having the means to live otherwise. In 2006, John cut his annual salary to $1, donates all his stock options to charity, walks to work, cooks his own food, and meditates daily. 

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.

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, 2), and subscribe to the Jordan Harbinger Show today.

Kion Aminos is backed by over 20 years of clinical research, has the highest quality ingredients, no fillers or junk, undergoes rigorous quality testing, and tastes amazing with all-natural flavors. Go to getkion.com/dailystoic to save 20% on subscriptions and 10% on one-time purchases.

Bambee is an HR platform built for businesses like yours –– so you can automate the most important HR practices AND get your own dedicated HR Manager. Go to Bambee.com/stoic right now for your FREE HR audit.

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Ryan talks about why you should be open to change, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day.

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Ryan talks about why you should not let other people’s negative emotions affect you.

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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 prominence when she ran for governor of Georgia in 2018. While she lost that race by about 55,000 votes, her candidacy was historic in and of itself. When she won the Democratic primary in that race, she became the first African American woman to receive a major party’s nomination for governor. Stacey continues to advocate for and help with voter registration and founded Fair Fight Action in 2018, an organization created to address the issues of voter suppression. 

Among her many accolades, Stacey is also an author. She has written three books: Minority Leader: How to Lead from the Outside and Make Real Change, and Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America, and her most recent: Level Up: Rise Above the Hidden Forces Holding Your Business Back.

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.

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, 2), and subscribe to the Jordan Harbinger Show today.

Kion Aminos is backed by over 20 years of clinical research, has the highest quality ingredients, no fillers or junk, undergoes rigorous quality testing, and tastes amazing with all-natural flavors. Go to getkion.com/dailystoic to save 20% on subscriptions and 10% on one-time purchases.

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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 War.

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 50th Law, Mastery, and The Laws of Human Nature. His new book The Daily Laws: 366 Meditations on Power, Seduction, Mastery, Strategy, and Human Nature is a daily devotional designed to help you seize your destiny.

Get signed copies of Robert Greene’s books at the Painted Porch Bookshop.

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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 feelings of despair? In our interview with the famous DJ, entrepreneur, and practicing Stoic Mick Batyske, we asked if he could share with the Daily Stoic community one message or piece of advice to journal on, to try in practice, or just to think about today,

Always remember that there are people who would love to have your bad days. It’s kind of cliché and sort of an Instagram meme, but it’s so true. Acknowledging this puts you in a position of gratitude and astonishment, rather than greed and disappointment.  

I have more going on in my life than ever, and with that, more problems than ever.  New opportunities create lots of challenges. But I would never want to go backwards. I choose to welcome it and embrace it. I suppose that’s why The Obstacle Is The Way and Stoic philosophy has been so valuable to me.

The Stoics would not have been opposed to this kind of comparison—nor would Theodore Roosevelt have been—not if it made us better or more grateful. “Convince yourself that everything is the gift of the gods,” Marcus Aurelius said, “that things are good and always will be.” On those bad days, sometimes that gift, that thing to be grateful for, is seeing how it could be worse—how it is in fact worse and has been worse for so many other people. Always remember, as Mick says, that someone out there would love to have your “bad” day.  

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Ryan talks about the power of Memento Mori, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal.

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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.

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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 move through it at their own pace. Sign up at https://dailystoic.com/leadershipchallenge

R.C. started his professional career as an assistant coach at the University of Kansas in 1983. R.C. was named CEO for Spurs Sports and Entertainment in July of 2019. In his current role he leads the business operations for all sports franchises owned and operated by Spurs Sports & Entertainment which includes the San Antonio Spurs (NBA), the Austin Spurs (NBA G-League) and San Antonio FC (USL Soccer) as well as the operations of the AT&T Center and Toyota Field.

LinkedIn Jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to, faster. Every week, nearly 40 million job seekers visit LinkedIn? Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com/STOIC. Terms and conditions apply.

Go to shopify.com/stoic, all lowercase, for a FREE fourteen-day trial and get full access to Shopify’s entire suite of features. Grow your business with Shopify today - go to shopify.com/stoic right now.

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Sunday can help you grow a beautiful lawn without the guesswork OR nasty chemicals. F​​ull-season plans start at just $129, and you can get 20% off at checkout when you visit GETSUNDAY.COM/STOIC.

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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 an environment of decency, quality and mutual respect for all other human beings and all other living creatures.

Some people talk about protecting the environment as if it only involves clean air and clean water. The environment, Nelson urged, “involves the whole broad spectrum of man's relationship to all other living creatures, including other human beings.”

Basically: We live on earth. We come from the earth. We will become earth when we die. So we should probably treat it with some respect.

The Stoics spoke of this at length. In fact, they had a word for it: sympatheia—“a connectedness with the cosmos.” It is one of the lesser known Stoic concepts, in part because it’s so incredibly easy to focus on the self and lose sight of the whole. As Marcus Aurelius wrote:

Meditate often on the interconnectedness and mutual interdependence of all things in the universe. For in a sense, all things are mutually woven together and therefore have an affinity for each other—for one thing follows after another according to their tension of movement, their sympathetic stirrings, and the unity of all substance.

No one is saying you have to stop driving a car or go off the grid. But it is your duty to care and to care for this place you call home. You can find the little places where you can make small differences. You can try to limit yourself and your appetites. You can be good to your fellow human beings.

We are all connected and unified and made for one another and this should never be far from our minds. We should be humane to the Earth we inhabit and to each other—yesterday, today, and every day. Let’s take care of each other.

Happy Earth Day.

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Ryan talks about where you should place your attention, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day.

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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 illustration. Get yours at https://store.dailystoic.com/products/daily-stoic-challenge-deck 

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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’s wonderful biography of Clementine Churchill, wife of Winston Churchill, is worth thinking about this morning:

“Clementine was not cut out from birth for the part history handed her. Adversity, combined with sheer willpower, burnished a timorous, self-doubting bundle of nerves and emotion into a wartime consort of unparalleled composure, wisdom, and courage. The flames of many hardships in early life forged the inner core of steel she needed for her biggest test of all. By the Second World War the young child terrified of her father...had transmogrified into a woman cowed by no one.” 

The Stoics believed that adversity was inevitable. They knew that Fortune was capricious and that it often subjected us to things we were not remotely prepared to handle. And this is not necessarily a bad thing. Because it teaches us. It strengthens us. It gives us a chance to prove ourselves. “Disaster,” Seneca wrote, “is Virtue’s opportunity.”

As he writes in On Providence:

“Familiarity with exposure to danger will give contempt for danger. So the bodies of sailors are hardy from buffeting the sea, the hands of farmers are callous, the soldier’s muscles have the strength to hurl weapons, and the legs of a runner are nimble. In each, his staunchest member is the one that he has exercised. By enduring ills the mind attains contempt for the endurance of them; you will know what this can accomplish in our own case, if you will observe how much the peoples that are destitute and, by reason of their want, more sturdy, secure by toil.”

Basically, he was describing the same phenomenon that transformed Clementine Churchill from a timid young girl into the brave woman who inspired millions of Britons and Europeans through one of the darkest ordeals in the history of the modern world. The difficulty she went through early in life forged for her a backbone upon which she and countless others came to depend.

And so the same can be true for you and whatever it is that you’re going through right now. Yes, it would probably be preferable if everything went your way and if you could count on smooth sailing for the rest of your life. But you can’t. You’re stuck with this present moment instead. 

So use it. Be hardened and improved by it. Be transformed by it. The world needs more Clementines. And you can be one of them. 

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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 Sweet 16s (eight). In advancing to the 2015 Final Four, Coach Cal became one of just three coaches all-time to make four Final Fours in a five-year span, joining Mike Krzyzewski and John Wooden as the other coaches to achieve that feat. Twice at UK (in 2012 and in 2015) his teams have won 38 games, tying his 2008 Memphis team for the most wins in college basketball history.

LinkedIn Jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to, faster. Every week, nearly 40 million job seekers visit LinkedIn? Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com/STOIC. Terms and conditions apply.

Go to shopify.com/stoic, all lowercase, for a FREE fourteen-day trial and get full access to Shopify’s entire suite of features. Grow your business with Shopify today - go to shopify.com/stoic right now.

Sunday can help you grow a beautiful lawn without the guesswork OR nasty chemicals. F​​ull-season plans start at just $129, and you can get 20% off at checkout when you visit GETSUNDAY.COM/STOIC.

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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 “commandments” down in one place. Not at least in any form that survived. 

Here are 25 rules 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.

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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.

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