The Daily Stoic

By Daily Stoic

What's The Daily Stoic about?

The audio companion to DailyStoic.com's daily email meditations, read by Ryan Holiday.

Each daily reading will help you cultivate strength, insight and wisdom necessary for living the good life. Every word is based on the two-thousand plus year old philosophy that has guided some of history’s greatest men and women.

Learn more at: dailystoic.com

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Susan Straight on the Power...

01.23.2021

Ryan speaks to professor and author Susan Straight about their first encounter at the University of California, Riverside, finding joy in the private process of writing, how specific books can change your life, and more. Susan Straight is a professor ...

The Daily Stoic episodes:

01.23.2021 Susan Straight on the Power of Story Ryan speaks to professor and author Susan Straight about their first encounter at the University of California, Riverside, finding joy in the private process of writing, how specific books can change your life, and more. Susan Straight is a professor ...
01.22.2021 There Are Only Hard Decisions “Wouldn’t it be nice if everything was simple and straightforward? That’s what we’d like to think the job of a leader is. You become president—or emperor—and now that you’re in charge, things can finally be cleaned up. Just bring me ...
01.21.2021 You Get Bad Breaks… and Good Ones \| A Morning Ritual “In the year 41 CE, Seneca was banished by the emperor Claudius for supposedly sleeping with Julia Livilla, the sister of Caligula. We don’t know if he was completely innocent of the accusation, but we do know that the incident ...
01.20.2021 Mike Duncan On Using the Past to Guide the Future On today’s podcast, Ryan speaks to author and historian Mike Duncan (History of Rome podcast) about his incredibly important book, The Storm Before The Storm, and what Roman history can tell us about current events. Mike Duncan is an author, ...
01.20.2021 All The Rest Is Commentary “It’s a famous story, one we’ve told before. Hillel was asked to explain the Torah. ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself,’ he said. ‘All the rest is commentary.’”Ryan discusses why the fundamental concepts of philosophy are all that matter, and why ...
01.19.2021 Wake Up, You’re Fever Dreaming “You want it. You want it badly. The promotion. To win that higher office. To get called up. To buy that house. To sleep with that person. To have just one free punch at you-know-who. You want it more than ...
01.18.2021 You Are Dying Every Day \| The Wake Up “It’s easy to see death as this thing that lies off in the distant future. Even those of us who choose not to live in denial of our mortality can be guilty of this. We think of dying as an ...
01.17.2021 Stoicism's Simple Secret To Being Happier On today’s podcast, Ryan discusses how he has used Stoic principles to find happiness and stillness in the modern world. Stoicism is a practical philosophy and one of the fundamental tenets is that if you want to be happy, you ...
01.16.2021 Cal Newport On the Art of Time Blocking On today’s podcast, Ryan talks to “Deep Work” author and computer scientist Cal Newport about his new Time-Block Planner, the logistics of writing a good book, what life after COVID will look like, and more.Cal Newport is an associate professor ...
01.15.2021 You Still Have Time Pt II “We talked a while back about one of the most inspiring lessons of Seneca’s life—that’s it’s not too late for anyone. This was a man who lost his twenties to illness, lost close to a decade of his life to ...
01.14.2021 Don’t Just Settle For a Shortcut, Do The Work \| Peace Is In Staying the Course “When things are scary, when we’re overwhelmed, when we’re struggling, it’s tempting to look for a shortcut, for a pill that makes you feel better, for a TV show that helps you turn off your brain. Nothing makes that clearer ...
01.13.2021 Economist Emily Oster On Rationality and Risk On today’s episode, Ryan has a wide-ranging conversation with professor and economist Emily Oster. They talk about how to balance your life with children, how to communicate positive messaging, how the American government handled the pandemic, and...
01.13.2021 You Are Not Too Busy To Read “We get it. You’re busy. You have kids. You have a job—maybe two. You have these things you are trying to accomplish. You have to get to the gym. You have a long commute. You have all these projects around ...
01.12.2021 There Is No Reason Not To Follow Your Heart “Steve Jobs was more interested in Buddhism than he was Stoicism. He may not have been, at least according to biographies, a particularly good person. But he was still a person, one whose perspective on life was shaped in interesting ...
01.11.2021 What If This Made You Stronger? \| The Sphere of Choice “It wouldn’t be wonderful if it weren’t true. But it is: “Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way,” the philosopher and Nobel Prize winner Albert Schweitzer said, “but must accept ...
01.10.2021 The Incredible Stoicism of James Stockdale: Prisoner At War “On September 9, 1965, Admiral James Stockdale’s A-4 Skyhawk jet was shot down in Vietnam. He was taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese and spent the next seven years being tortured and subjected to unimaginable loneliness and terror. Fortunately,...
01.09.2021 Historian Thomas Ricks on Stoicism and the Founders Ryan speaks with author and journalist Thomas Ricks about his new book, First Principles, the importance of looking back at the virtues and principles embodied by the founding fathers of America, how our current political atmosphere unraveled, and...
01.08.2021 Here’s What You Can Do With Those Long Odds “To face long odds, to face what others call an “impossibility”—some people can handle this and some people can’t. Think of the chances that Epictetus faced, when the life expectancy for a wealthy person in Rome was only a few ...
01.07.2021 You Can Find Peace “There’s a chapter in Epictetus’ Discourses entirely about forlornness (or solitude, depending on the translation), the state where one feels miserably and helplessly lonely. His aim is to make a careful distinction. Lonely and alone are not synonymous....
01.06.2021 Jay Shetty On How to Think Like a Monk On today’s podcast Ryan talks to influencer and author Jay Shetty about his former life as a monk, finding stillness in the modern world, and focusing on the process rather than the outcome. Jay Shetty is a British author and ...
01.06.2021 What This Philosophy Is Here For “You’ve got problems. We all do. Maybe you’re having a difficult time in your relationship. Or work has worn you down. Or you’re trying to figure out what to do with your life. Maybe the pandemic has shaken you to ...
01.05.2021 It’s About Infusing It Into Your DNA “Marcus Aurelius read Epictetus… a lot. We know this because Meditations is proof of it. Almost every page has some direct quote or allusion to Epictetus. We also find, upon deeper inspection, references to the works of Panaetius, Chrysippus, the ...
01.04.2021 What Have You Managed to Get Done? \| Whats Up to Us, What's Not Up to Us “It’s been a strange year, hasn’t it? Our days have been disrupted. Our lifestyles changed. Plans have been put on pause. Whole projects made impossible. In one sense, this pandemic has been totally unprecedented. But in another sense, isn’t it ...
01.03.2021 Who was Marcus Aurelius? The Life Of The Stoic Emperor Marcus’s "Meditations" is perhaps the only document of its kind ever made. It is the private thoughts of the world’s most powerful man giving advice to himself on how to make good on the responsibilities and obligations of his positions. ...
01.02.2021 Shaka Smart, Buzz Williams, Manu Ginóbili, Pau Gasol, Dominique Dawes, and Danica Patrick On Sports and Stoicism Today’s episode features clips from some of the best interviews about sports in 2020. Ryan talks to Shaka Smart, Buzz Williams, Manu Ginóbili, Pau Gasol, Dominique Dawes, and Danica Patrick about finding balance between greatness and happiness, what it...
01.01.2021 Things Are Won at the Beginning “Here we are at the beginning of a new year. On the one hand, today is just a day, no different than any other. Yet there is also something special about today because we are starting the year 2021. And ...
12.31.2020 Now Is the Time “We all have vices. We all have flaws. We all have things we know we want to change. What happens? Nothing happens. This is true for everyone, even Martin Luther King. ‘One day,’ King said that we tell ourselves, ‘I’m ...
12.30.2020 Jessica Lahey, Angel Parham, Brett McKay, and Dr. Harvey Karp On Parenting and Stoicism Today’s episode features clips from some of the best interviews about parenting in 2020. Ryan talks to Jessica Lahey, Angel Parham, Brett McKay, and Dr. Harvey Karp about letting your kids fail, reading the classics to them, teaching them hope ...
12.30.2020 This We Must Avoid “When he was young, Seneca experimented with vegetarianism. It was a fad at the time—considered a transgressive but trendy idea from the philosopher Pythagoras. Then, soon enough, he abandoned it, forgetting quite quickly the thing he’d been so...
12.29.2020 How Much Longer Are You Going To Wait? “We all know professional procrastinators. You know, those people who constantly put stuff off. Who always have some new plan in the works to improve their health, their finances, their work, their friendships, their relationships. I’m ready to start...
12.28.2020 You Can’t Freeze Up \| Turn Words Into Works “Where this goes and what will happen is impossible to ascertain. The only certainty over the next few months and possibly years is uncertainty. But there is one thing you can bet on for sure: There will be a lot ...
12.27.2020 These 3 Books Changed My Life Completely On today’s episode, Ryan discusses the 3 books that completely changed his life. Listen to find out what books had such a great impact on Ryan’s thinking, and why re-reading important books can give you new insights.This episode is also ...
12.26.2020 Matthew McConaughey, Pete Holmes, Martellus Bennett, and George Raveling on How to Be a Modern Leader Today’s episode features clips from some of the best interviews in 2020. Ryan talks to Matthew McConaughey, Pete Holmes, Martellus Bennett, and George Raveling about focusing on what’s in your control, finding growth in suffering, the Stoic virtue of...
12.25.2020 This is the Tradition We Hail From “2,000 years ago today there was a woman who went into labor in a province of the Roman Empire, she couldn't find shelter, she was young, and she was scared. 150 years ago soldiers fighting to preserve the Union and ...
12.24.2020 What Matters is the Response “It was a dark day exactly 244 years ago. Christmas was here, at one of of the darkest times in the American Revolution. George Washington was planning to cross the Delaware, a desperate move necessitated by a string of setbacks ...
12.23.2020 Cal Newport, Jocko Willink, Tim Ferriss, and Robert Greene on Life During a Pandemic Today’s episode features clips from some of the best interviews in 2020. Ryan talks to Cal Newport, Jocko Willink, Tim Ferriss, and Robert Greene about time management, daily routines, how to deal with fear, and facing the truth. This episode ...
12.23.2020 Always Give Credit to Something Greater “It’s almost a cliché at this point. A reporter walks into the locker room of a victorious team and gets some version of the following quotes from the athlete who has pulled it off: ‘It was a team effort.’ ‘We ...
12.22.2020 If You Want to Look Better, Do This “Epictetus said that the root of beauty was beautiful choices. He was talking less of physical beauty, one imagines, than of true beautiful human behavior, but actually, it applies to both. A stunning woman whose looks are the result of ...
12.21.2020 You Have To Be Ready \| Stake Your Claim “In his 91st Letter, Seneca tells Lucilius about his friend Liberalis who is “in some distress at the present moment following the news of the complete destruction of Lyons by fire.” It was a terrible, savage tragedy that calls to ...
12.20.2020 5 More of the Most Stoic Moments in History On today’s episode, Ryan discusses 5 of the most Stoic moments in history with examples from Agrippinus, Steve Scott, Kerri Strugg, Frederick Douglass, and Epictetus.Today’s episode is also brought to you by Thuma. Thuma has spent thousands of hours...
12.19.2020 The National’s Matt Berninger On Ego, Collaboration, and Slowing Down On today’s podcast, Ryan talks to the lead singer of indie rock band The National about the false glamour of the rock n’ roll lifestyle, staying creative during the pandemic, and how he has sustained a successful career in the ...
12.18.2020 The Better You Get, The Less You Care… “Whether it’s a great athlete or a great comedian, the truth is the same. The better they get, the less they care about results. That’s not to say they don’t care about winning, or about success—of course they do—it’s that ...
12.17.2020 We Are All In This Together “One of the strangest pejoratives that has come up in this new divisive political era is the idea of calling someone a “globalist.” It’s particularly popular in far right circles. If someone believes in NATO, if someone can see the ...
12.16.2020 UFC Fighter Michelle Waterson On Training the Mind and the Body On today’s podcast, Ryan talks to champion MMA fighter Michelle Waterson about the philosophy of being a mother, a business owner, and a world renowned fighter.Known as “The Karate Hottie”, Waterson made her fighting debut in 2007 and is the ...
12.16.2020 This Is What You Have Been Working For “A quarterback can spend thousands of hours in the gym, watching footage, and working on their throwing accuracy. But ultimately, what matters is what they do on Sunday. What matters is what they do in the 4th quarter. Surgeons can ...
12.15.2020 You Have to Be Willing to Change “We’ve been this way for a while. We are set in our ways. We’ve always had a short fuse. We’ve always been sad about our childhood. We’ve always had trouble with our eating. We’ve never been much good at being ...
12.14.2020 Yes, This is Unfair, Yet... \| Keep the Rhythm "You didn’t cause the pandemic. You might have even been one of the people who was vocal about the dangers early on. Perhaps you didn’t vote for the leaders—worldwide—who have so failed us in preventing it or protecting us. Yet ...
12.13.2020 Death and the View From Above — An Excerpt from Don Robertson’s “How to Think Like a Roman Emperor” On today’s episode, Ryan features another clip from the audiobook of Donald Robertson’s 2019 book How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, published by Macmillan Audio, and available wherever book and audios are sold. This chapter focuses on the last ...
12.12.2020 Ramit Sethi on How to Live the Rich Life On today’s podcast, Ryan talks to his longtime friend, author and financial expert Ramit Sethi. From backbreaking summer jobs in Sacramento to financial success and acclaim, Ryan and Ramit have walked a similar path—hear them talk about what they’ve...
12.11.2020 A Leader Must Be a Reader "A leader will be forced into countless situations that they have never been in before. Trying, painful, stressful, baffling dilemmas and difficulties unlike any they have known. Nothing could have prepared Kennedy for the Cuban Missile Crisis, but it’s...

Older episodes

The Daily Stoic

What's The Daily Stoic about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

The Daily Stoic episodes:

Susan Straight on the Power of Story

There Are Only Hard Decisions

You Get Bad Breaks… and Good Ones | A Morning Ritual

Mike Duncan On Using the Past to Guide the Future

All The Rest Is Commentary

Wake Up, You’re Fever Dreaming

You Are Dying Every Day | The Wake Up

Stoicism's Simple Secret To Being Happier

Cal Newport On the Art of Time Blocking

You Still Have Time Pt II

Don’t Just Settle For a Shortcut, Do The Work | Peace Is In Staying the Course

Economist Emily Oster On Rationality and Risk

You Are Not Too Busy To Read

There Is No Reason Not To Follow Your Heart

What If This Made You Stronger? | The Sphere of Choice

The Incredible Stoicism of James Stockdale: Prisoner At War

Historian Thomas Ricks on Stoicism and the Founders

Here’s What You Can Do With Those Long Odds

You Can Find Peace

Jay Shetty On How to Think Like a Monk

What This Philosophy Is Here For

It’s About Infusing It Into Your DNA

What Have You Managed to Get Done? | Whats Up to Us, What's Not Up to Us

Who was Marcus Aurelius? The Life Of The Stoic Emperor

Shaka Smart, Buzz Williams, Manu Ginóbili, Pau Gasol, Dominique Dawes, and Danica Patrick On Sports and Stoicism

Things Are Won at the Beginning

Now Is the Time

Jessica Lahey, Angel Parham, Brett McKay, and Dr. Harvey Karp On Parenting and Stoicism

This We Must Avoid

How Much Longer Are You Going To Wait?

You Can’t Freeze Up | Turn Words Into Works

These 3 Books Changed My Life Completely

Matthew McConaughey, Pete Holmes, Martellus Bennett, and George Raveling on How to Be a Modern Leader

This is the Tradition We Hail From

What Matters is the Response

Cal Newport, Jocko Willink, Tim Ferriss, and Robert Greene on Life During a Pandemic

Always Give Credit to Something Greater

If You Want to Look Better, Do This

You Have To Be Ready | Stake Your Claim

5 More of the Most Stoic Moments in History

The National’s Matt Berninger On Ego, Collaboration, and Slowing Down

The Better You Get, The Less You Care…

We Are All In This Together

UFC Fighter Michelle Waterson On Training the Mind and the Body

This Is What You Have Been Working For

You Have to Be Willing to Change

Yes, This is Unfair, Yet... | Keep the Rhythm

Death and the View From Above — An Excerpt from Don Robertson’s “How to Think Like a Roman Emperor”

Ramit Sethi on How to Live the Rich Life

A Leader Must Be a Reader

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