The Daily Stoic

"You had plans for how this year was going to go. You had plans for your business, for your relationships, plans for your house or your finances. Maybe you had a cause you had been working on for years. Maybe you thought your moment was approaching. Things were going in the right direction. It was about to happen.  And now? Boom. It seems like all progress has stopped. Maybe it feels like thi...

In today’s episode, Ryan and TV news anchor Billy Bush discuss how to deal with being publicly shamed, the practical use of premeditatio malorum, and what Billy learned from being enmeshed in a significant public controversy. Billy Bush is the current anchor for TV’s Extra, with a career in broadcast journalism spanning over 20 years. He was part of one of the defining moments of the 2016 US presi...

“Today is the 4th of July. It’s the celebration of the American Declaration of independence, which was signed on this date in 1776. There’s no question that document—inspired as it was by ideas from the Stoics—was an essential one. As we have talked about before, it asserted man’s inalienable rights and began a great experiment in human liberty and equality under the law that was, and continues to...

"There’s almost nothing more difficult than other people. They’re just tough. They fall short. They get in our way. They do hurtful things. They surprise and scare and bewilder us. This was true in the ancient world, just as it’s true today.. And perhaps nowhere in life is that challenge greater than in our own families." Ryan describes how Stoicism can help you deal with the challenges...

"It’s hard to argue that we are not beset by many problems as a society . Depending on where you sit, those problems might be different, and that’s its own problem in and of itself. But the good news is that the path to solving those problems is the same, regardless of what you sit: we have to turn to the Stoics, or at least their method of problem solving." Ryan discusses a number of St...

"It was Malraux who said that we judge a society by the monuments it puts up .  So imagine a society that puts up statues to tyrants, to someone who nearly succeeded in tearing an empire apart, who did horrible, inexplicably cruel things, even by the standards of their own time." Ryan tells us why monuments dedicated to the Confederacy must come down in today's Daily Stoic Podcast....

In today’s episode, Ryan and sculptor E.S. Schubert discuss the purpose of monumental statues and the complex issues surrounding who society venerates and why. E.S. Schubert is a sculptor based in Kansas City. He has designed and sculpted monumental statues for cities, sports teams, and Hall of Famous Missourians. Schubert has also crafted busts for Daily Stoic featuring famous Stoic figures. Get...

"We have fought very hard, together, in an unprecedented display of global and national courage, justice, discipline and wisdom. How many people have been saved from COVID-19? Too many to count. It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t handled perfectly. We didn’t do everything we could have, but we did a lot. You did a lot.  But before you congratulate yourself, you must remember what the Stoics said: that...

*** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com Follow @DailyDadEmail: Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholiday Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/ Facebook: http:/...

In today’s episode, Ryan discusses how to feel satisfied with what life has brought you—whatever that may be—using the wisdom of the Stoics. This episode is brought to you by the Theragun . The new Gen 4 Theragun is perfect for easing muscle aches and tightness, helping you recover from physical exertion, long periods of sitting down, and more—and its new motor makes it as quiet as an electric too...

In today’s episode, Ryan and author and teacher Jessica Lahey talk about how to teach your kids to fail, the process of putting together a book, and more. Sign up for The Stoic Parent, Daily Stoic’s newest course, today: http://dailystoic.com/stoicparent Jessica Lahey is the New York Times bestselling author of The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed...

"As a young boy, the famed basketball coach George Raveling learned an invaluable lesson about the power of both knowledge and ignorance from his grandmother, who raised him.  'Why did the slave masters hide their money in books, George?' she asked the young boy, standing together in her kitchen. 'I don’t know, grandma,' he said. 'Because they knew the slaves wouldn’t...

"In March, Brent Underwood thought he’d found the perfect place to ride out the pandemic: a small California ghost town he’d been slowly renovating and turning into a resort.  It was safe and isolated, beautiful and quiet. Then a freak series of snow storms trapped him there in Cerro Gordo for weeks with dwindling supplies and no running water. His retreat turned suddenly into a prison. Then...

"If you’ve ever made it to the end of Homer’s Odyssey , you might have noticed a rather strange part of the ending. It’s a part that’s talked about a lot less than the rest of the poem, possibly because it makes so little sense. You see, despite spending every waking second for ten years fighting to get home, despite overcoming nearly insurmountable obstacles on his way, despite all the carna...

In today’s episode, Ryan speaks with Lauryn and Michael Bosstick of The Skinny Confidential , They talk about how they start their days off strong with their morning routines, the value of their time and how they protect it, and how they have changed their lives to not only survive but thrive during the global quarantine. Lauryn and Michael Bosstick are the producers of The Skinny Confidential , t...

"It’s tempting to tell yourself that we don’t have a problem. That you don’t have to get involved. This doesn’t affect your community. It’s not actually that big of a deal.  Look at these numbers instead, a commenter whispers. But what about this other case or that one, they say. I’m not an activist, you think. I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes, I don’t want to make things political. Some...

"It’s incredible to think of what has occurred in the last twenty years. The tech bubble. 9/11. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Great Recession. The Syrian Civil War. The Arab Spring. And now the COVID-19 Pandemic, and unprecedented protests and clashes between authorities and civilians. Even the last few months, as people have come to joke, feel like years all by themselves. Impeachmen...

“How do we emulate the great parents of history? How do we work on improving ourselves at this essential job? The one for which we are given next to no training, for which many of us had less than ideal models for in our own childhood?” Ryan talks about the importance of preparation for the role of a parent—and discusses a great way you can make yourself ready for this critical job. Sign up for Th...

In today’s episode, Ryan and Brett McKay, founder of The Art of Manliness ( https://www.artofmanliness.com/ ), talk about being a parent in the age of COVID-19, the changing definition of manliness, and more. Sign up for The Stoic Parent, Daily Stoic’s newest course, today: http://dailystoic.com/parenting Brett McKay is founder and editor-in-chief of The Art of Manliness , the massive men’s lifest...

"All this reading, all these quotes. This love of learning, our fascination with books .  No one is saying it’s a bad thing. Because it isn’t.  Still, it’s worth using, from time to time, a quip from Steven Pressfield’s Gates of Fire on yourself." Learn about that quip in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Appl...

"We’d like to think that our mind is our friend, but of course it isn’t. The Stoics knew this. The mind wants to jump to conclusions. The mind wants us to get worked up. The mind wants not to be challenged, not to have to admit it was wrong. That’s why they worked so hard to question their assumptions, to build strategies for questioning their own thinking and not being at the mercy of it.&qu...

"Is a Stoic stingy and frugal about everything? Some take it that way, but that’s probably the incorrect view. Instead, a Stoic should think both about eliminating needless expenses as well as spending liberally on the things that matter." Ryan discusses the one thing that a Stoic can always justify spending money on, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s po...

In today’s episode, Ryan and Ben Hardy, the author and organizational psychologist, talk about the path of self-improvement, being a parent to foster children, and how to make permanent positive change. Ben Hardy is an organizational psychologist who has written multiple books and articles on the power of changing your personality to achieve success. From 2015 to 2018, he was the most popular auth...

"It’s not that our ancestors didn’t know what was right, it was that they had trouble fully getting there.  In the opening pages of Meditations , Marcus Aurelius describes how the early Stoics like Thrasea, Helvidius, and Cato inspired him to believe in a 'society of equal laws, governed by equality of status and of speech, and of rules who respect the liberty of their subjects above all...

" The world has asked a lot of us over the last few months ." Ryan describes the sacrifices we've all had to make and why they were so necessary on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and...