The Stoic’s Guide Podcast by Brad Young

Let me start with a question, and I want you to sit with it for a moment before you answer. What would you attempt this week if you knew fear could not stop you? Not the reckless, throw-caution-to-the-wind kind of action, but the calm, deliberate kind. The move you keep circling back to. The conversation you keep rehearsing but never having. The pitch you keep polishing but never sending. Hold tha...

In this episode, I’m going to walk you through how Stoic resilience works in real time: how to separate what you control from what you don’t, how to regulate emotional impulses before they hijack your decisions, how to anchor yourself when the world around you is shaking, and how to build a mindset that doesn’t crumble under pressure. This is the Stoic path to strength not someday, not theoretical...

Why Operating Systems Matter I chose the metaphor of an operating system for this episode deliberately, and I want to explain why before we get into the philosophy. An operating system is not a specific app. It's not a productivity tool or a habit tracker or a morning routine. It's the underlying layer that determines how everything else runs. When the OS is functioning well, everything on top of...

In a year defined by volatility, noise, and nonstop demands, I’ve learned that stillness is one of the rarest — and most powerful — skills any of us can develop. In this episode of The Stoic’s Guide Podcast, I explore Stillness as a Superpower as a tactical advantage in 2026, and why calm, deliberate thinking isn’t just helpful… it’s transformative. Modern life is engineered to hijack your attenti...

Chaos isn’t new — but our reaction to it often is. In this episode, The Stoic Blueprint for a Chaotic World, we explore how ancient Stoic principles offer a clear, steady framework for navigating modern uncertainty, stress, and constant change. Drawing from the teachings of Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus, this episode breaks down the core elements of the Stoic blueprint: controlling your i...

I want to start with something I've been sitting with for a while. There is more information hitting my brain in a single morning than a Roman senator would have encountered in a month. I'm not exaggerating that. I'm not being dramatic for the sake of a podcast hook. That's just the actual reality of what we're navigating right now. And the thing is, nobody really warned us that this would happen....

Today, we’re breaking down The Stoic Blueprint for a Chaotic World , not as ancient philosophy, but as a tactical framework for modern life. A blueprint for thinking clearly when everything around you is engineered to pull you off center. A blueprint for staying grounded when the world is shaking. A blueprint for choosing your response instead of being dragged by your reactions. The Stoics didn’t...

Let me start with a question, and I want you to be honest with yourself, because nobody hears your answer but you. If everything you were chasing suddenly vanished, the money, the status, the approval of the people whose opinions you care about most, what would be left of you? Strip all of it away, and what remains? Sit with that for a second. Because whatever remains when everything external is g...

Life feels short, but much of that feeling comes from how easily time slips through our fingers when we live without intention. This episode, The Shortness of Life, explores one of the Stoics’ most powerful teachings: time is both abundant and scarce, depending entirely on how you choose to use it. Drawing from the insights of Seneca and other Stoic thinkers, we examine why people often feel rushe...

Let me start with a question, and I want you to be honest with yourself, because nobody hears your answer but you. Think about how you actually begin your day. Not the day you wish you had, the one you really have. When you first open your eyes, what happens? Do you reach for your phone before your feet even touch the floor, letting a flood of messages, news, and other people's demands pour into y...

Let me start with a question, and I want you to be honest with yourself, because nobody hears your answer but you. Think about the last time you truly lost your temper. Not a small flash of irritation. Real anger. The kind that made your heart pound, your voice rise, your hands shake. Now think about what came out of it. Did that anger fix the thing that made you angry? Did it make your life bette...

Let me start with a question, and I want you to be honest with yourself, because nobody hears your answer but you. Think about the people and the things in your life that you love the most. The person sleeping beside you. The child in the next room. The health of your body. The roof over your head. Now be honest about something. When was the last time you actually felt grateful for any of them? No...

Let me start with a question, and I want you to be honest with yourself, because nobody hears your answer but you. Think about the last time you lay awake at night, your mind spinning, your chest tight, worry running in circles that would not stop. Now be honest about what you were worrying about. Were you worrying about what someone else might think of you? Were you replaying something that alrea...

Let me start with a question, and I want you to be honest with yourself, because nobody hears your answer but you. Think about the last big obstacle that landed in your path. The setback at work. The relationship that fell apart. The plan that collapsed right when you thought everything was finally coming together. Now ask yourself something. When that obstacle showed up, what did you decide it wa...

Today's episode is about something that is affecting every one of us, whether we're paying attention to it or not. We're talking about the information environment we live inside of. The news we consume. The voices we've decided to trust. The emotional weather that a given cable news segment can produce in a matter of minutes. Here's a question I want you to consider honestly: When was the last tim...

Today's episode is about something that touches every part of your life, whether you think about it consciously or not. We're talking about relationships. All of them. The ones that sustain you. The ones that frustrate you. The friendships that have lasted decades and the conversations that went sideways last Tuesday. Here's a question I want you to sit with for a moment: How much of your sufferin...

Today's episode is one I've been wanting to record for a while. We're asking a question that sounds simple on the surface but gets more interesting the longer you sit with it: What does it actually mean to live like a Stoic today? Not in ancient Athens. Not in the Roman court of Marcus Aurelius. Not in the barracks of Epictetus. But right now — with your phone buzzing every four minutes, a news cy...

Today we are going to talk about something that most people spend their entire lives running from. Obstacles. Not how to avoid them. Not how to survive them. But how to use them. How to let them shape you into the version of yourself you were always capable of becoming. Here is the truth that this episode is built on: the obstacle is not in your way. The obstacle is the way. And the person who und...

Epictetus was born a slave in ancient Rome. He spent his early years owned by another man, with very little control over his own body, his own time, even where he could go. At some point, his leg was badly injured, and for the rest of his life he walked with a limp. So this was not a man writing from a comfortable mansion, telling you to just think positive. This was a man who had every reason in...

Marcus Aurelius was the most powerful man in the world. He was the emperor of Rome. He could have done anything he wanted. He could have indulged in every pleasure imaginable, and nobody could have stopped him. And yet, every night, this man sat down and wrote private notes to himself about how to be better. He never meant for anyone to read them. We only have his journal today, the book we call M...

In this episode, we break down the core of Stoic philosophy — not as ancient theory, but as a practical operating system for modern life. Stoicism teaches us how to stay steady in chaos, how to separate what we control from what we don’t, and how to build inner strength that can’t be shaken by circumstance. We explore the foundational ideas of Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus, and translate...

Gratitude is one of the most talked-about ideas in contemporary self-help, and yet most people practice it in a way that is surprisingly shallow — a list of three things each morning, dutifully written and quickly forgotten. There is nothing wrong with such lists, but they tend to function more as positive-thinking exercises than as genuine transformations of perspective. The Stoic understanding o...

There is something quietly powerful about a life built around intentional habits. Most people move through their days on a kind of autopilot — reacting to whatever arrives first, whether that is the noise of a phone, the demands of others, or the scattered pull of their own unexamined impulses. The Stoics understood this danger well. They believed that the shape of a day reveals the shape of a lif...

Fear is one of the most ancient and powerful forces in human experience. It has kept our species alive for hundreds of thousands of years, alerting us to danger, sharpening our senses, and pushing us to move when movement was necessary. This is fear doing its job well, and for most of human history it did that job in a relatively direct way: a predator appears, fear fires, the body responds, the d...

Hard times have a way of narrowing the world. When something goes wrong — when a relationship breaks, a job disappears, a health scare arrives without warning — the mind tends to lock onto the problem and refuse to look anywhere else. The present pain fills the entire frame. Everything outside it blurs. This is a natural response. The mind is doing what it was built to do: pay close attention to t...