The Daily Stoic

"In Seneca’s writings, he is almost unbelievably Stoic. He speaks truth to power, he never despairs, he tries his best to be ethical and good. But in real life? Seneca was often afraid to challenge Nero, he felt sorry for himself while in exile, he chased wealth and fame. This is not to indict him, but to show the difference between theory and practice."What explains this distinction? Ryan describes it, and how the Stoics tried to put their philosophy into practice, in today's Daily Stoic Podcast.Get your copy of Ryan's new book, Lives of the Stoics (https://geni.us/LUN7). To get the special bonuses for ordering the book, visit dailystoic.com/lives.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInst

"There’s no questioning that the Stoics were victims of severe injustices.Marcus Aurelius was betrayed by his most trusted general in what amounted to an attempted coup that threatened him and his family. Epictetus had thirty years of his life stolen by slavery. Musonius Rufus was exiled on bogus offenses, not once, but possibly four separate times... As unfair as all these situations were, what was impressive is how these Stoics never chose to see themselves as victims."Learn more about how you can reflect this quintessential Stoic attitude on today's episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://faceboo

In today's Sunday Podcast, Ryan talks about Epictetus, who from birth was enslaved yet still managed to become one of the most significant founders of Stoicism, and gives five of his most important quotes.This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. Four Sigmatic is a maker of mushroom coffee, lattes, elixirs, and more. Their drinks all taste amazing and they've full of all sorts of all-natural compounds and immunity boosters to help you think clearly and live well. Four Sigmatic has a new exclusive deal for Daily Stoic listeners: get up to 39% off their bestselling Lion’s Mane bundle by visiting foursigmatic.com/stoic.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dai

On today’s podcast, Ryan talks with NBA legend Manu Ginóbili about how he reads books to help his athletic career, using your emotions to perform better, and how to find a mentor in competitive situations.Manu Ginóbili played 16 seasons with the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs, winning four championships as the quintessential sixth man. Ginobili led the 2004 Argentina national basketball team to Olympic gold, the only non-American team to do so since the US Dream Team.This episode is brought to you by Future. Future pairs you up with a remote personal trainer that you can get in touch with from your home. Your trainer will give you a full exercise regimen that works for your specific fitness goals, using the equipment you have at home. It works with your Apple Watch, and if you don’t already have one, Future will give you one for free. Sign up at tryfuture.com/stoic and get your first two weeks with your personal trainer for just $1.This episode is also brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. LinkedIn Jobs is the best platf

"How does a Stoic feel about this global pandemic in which innocent people have been utterly failed by their governments? Leaders who denied that the threat was real and failed to prepare. Whose negligence and incompetence were downright criminal. This should make a Stoic mad. But what a Stoic must do is prevent themselves from getting angry."Ryan explains the distinction between being mad and being angry, and what you can do to respect that difference, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast.Sign up for Daily Stoic's 11-day Taming Your Temper online challenge: http://dailystoic.com/anger***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.c

"Things happened. Bad things. Things you never wanted, that hang over you wherever you go. We close our eyes and we see them. We worry that they’re going to happen again; we worry that we were to blame, that it was our fault."How does a Stoic deal with all this baggage? Ryan explains on today's Daily Stoic Podcast.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On today’s Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan talks to his longtime writing partner and friend Nils Parker. They discuss Stoicism, their ongoing collaboration with Daily Stoic and Ryan’s other written works, and more. Nils Parker is one of the most sought after writers and editors in the business, having worked on books that have grossed more than $100M in earnings in the last fifteen years. He and Ryan have been collaborators, friends and business partners.Preorder Lives of the Stoics now: http://dailystoic.com/livesThis episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. Four Sigmatic is a maker of mushroom coffee, lattes, elixirs, and more. Their drinks all taste amazing and they've full of all sorts of all-natural compounds and immunity boosters to help you think clearly and live well. Four Sigmatic has a new exclusive deal for Daily Stoic listeners: get up to 39% off their bestselling Lion’s Mane bundle by visiting foursigmatic.com/stoic.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on A

"When things are hard, when things are scary, when we’re tired, when we’ve had a run of bad luck, that’s when it happens: Magical thinking kicks in.This will all be over soon, we convince ourselves. This one thing will solve all our problems. Our ex is going to walk through the door any minute now. The pandemic will just disappear because we want it to. This kind of thinking makes us feel better, sure, but…That’s just not how it works."Ryan explains how things actually work, and how you must ready yourself for challenges, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://ww

"Just a few more years we tell ourselves. Just until I make enough money. After I make rank. Almost there. These are the lies we tell ourselves, the rationales for why we’re doing the thing we hate or being the kind of person we’d rather not be."Ryan tells us why you must leave the intolerable situation you find yourself in, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"No one would have chosen this. No one is that crazy. To have your life disrupted. To be out of work. To lose money or people you love. To see institutions taxed beyond their capacities. To see people scared or frustrated. But this pandemic is a classic 'there it is' situation. It’s here. It happened. Now what?"Ryan lays out the perspective you should use in considering the pandemic and its ramifications in today's Daily Stoic Podcast.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https

In today's Sunday Podcast, Ryan goes over seven lessons for life that you can learn from the ancient Stoics (learn more about these philosophers in Ryan’s new book, Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius).Learn about the preorder bonuses and virtual book tour events for Lives of the Stoics: https://dailystoic.com/livesThis episode is brought to you by GiveWell, the best site for figuring out how and where to donate your money to have the greatest impact. GiveWell’s team of researchers works countless hours to determine which charities make the most effective dollar-for-dollar contributions to the causes they support. Since 2010, GiveWell has helped over 50,000 donors donate over 500 million dollars to the most effective charities, leading to over 75,000 lives saved and millions more improved. Visit GiveWell.org/stoic and your first donation will be matched up to 100 dollars.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps

On today’s Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan talks with How I Built This creator and host Guy Raz about how we deal with big collective action problems in an era of increased polarization, harnessing entrepreneurial energy to help society, and more.Guy Raz is a podcast creator and host with a combined audience of over 19 million downloads a month. He is the creator and host of How I Built This, a podcast about entrepreneurs, and also co-created NPR’s TED Radio Hour and Wow in the World. Guy joined NPR in 1997 and has worked every single newsroom job from production assistant to news anchor.This episode is brought to you by GoMacro. GoMacro is a family-owned maker of some of the finest protein bars around. They're vegan, non-GMO, and they come in a bunch of delicious flavors. Visit http://gomacro.com and use promo code STOIC for 30% off your order plus free shipping.This episode is also brought to you by Amazon Alexa. Amazon Alexa is the perfect system to use to set up your house with Smart Home functionality—and

"On the surface, Cicero appears the perfect Stoic. He studied with all the right teachers. He served in office for decades. He was friends with Cato. Diodotus, the old Stoic philosopher, even died in Cicero’s house and left his estate to him. But it’s ironic that Cicero, the author of a book called Stoic Paradoxes, would himself fail to embody a paradox that goes to the core of the philosophy."Ryan explores this irony and shows how the Stoics avoided Cicero's mistakes on today's Daily Stoic Podcast.Preorder Ryan's new book Lives of the Stoics and receive special bonus material from Ryan! Visit dailystoic.com/lives to preorder, as well as to get information on the virtual book tour.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitt

"It’d be wonderful if everyone could agree on some very basic things. Like, you can’t use racial slurs. And no, you shouldn’t judge a person for their gender or their sexual orientation. It’d be wonderful if nobody littered, if people didn’t blast music at 2 AM, if we observed some standard rules of civility for behavior in public. It’d be wonderful if everyone wore a mask and socially distanced as much as possible until we kicked the ass of this pandemic that is killing hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. Obviously we’re not there. Not everyone can agree on these things, apparently. The line from Cool Hand Luke stands eternal: Some men you just can’t reach."Ryan describes how to deal with frustrating people on today's Daily Stoic Podcast.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic ema

On today’s Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan talks with author and former NFL player Martellus Bennett about the clarifying effects that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on their day-to-day lives, how readers should engage with the books they acquire, how Marcus persevered to help the New England Patriots come back from the largest Super Bowl score deficit in NFL history, and more. Martellus Bennett is a former NFL tight end who played for 10 seasons with teams such as the Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, New England Patriots, and more. Bennett was part of the Patriots team that defeated the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI, coming back from a 28-3 deficit to win in overtime. In 2014, Bennett created The Imagination Agency, a production company focused on children’s literature and entertainment; they have released multiple children’s books and movies, all written and designed by Bennett.This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. Four Sigmatic is a maker of mushroom coffee, lattes, elixirs, and more. Their drinks a

"There are lots of things you should be doing today. Your journaling. Your reading. Taking care of your work, of your children or family. Following the instructions of the authorities (to stay inside, to eliminate unnecessary travel, to make sure you have food and supplies on hand). All this is good. Most of it takes work.But the thing you should be working hardest at? Being calm."Ryan describes some great ways to achieve calm and stillness in today's Daily Stoic Podcast.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and Califor

"It was Seneca who told us how to learn from history and literature. Ignore the facts and figures, he said, focus on the moral lessons. Focus on what the characters can teach you about life. Plutarch, the great moral biographer of history, would take this lesson to heart. Unlike the biographers of our time, who publish big, thick books filled with footnotes and postmodern digressions, Plutarch was obsessed by what we could learn from the figures he wrote about."Ryan discusses the lessons you should be taking from the biographies you read in today's Daily Stoic Podcast.Preorder Lives of the Stoics, Ryan's new book, and receive one of the wonderful preorder bonuses that's available: http://dailystoic.com/preorder***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/

"You want it, don’t you?That 'I told you so.' That 'Thank You.' That recognition for being first, or being better, or being different. You want credit. You want gratitude. You want the acknowledgement for the good you’ve done, for the weight that you carry."Ryan discusses why the last thing you need is that recognition on today's Daily Stoic Podcast.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In today's Sunday Podcast, Ryan talks about five quotes from Seneca, one of the three founding fathers of Stoicism and a famous writer and advisor as well, and how they can change your life for the better..This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. Four Sigmatic is a maker of mushroom coffee, lattes, elixirs, and more. Their drinks all taste amazing and they've full of all sorts of all-natural compounds and immunity boosters to help you think clearly and live well. Four Sigmatic has a new exclusive deal for Daily Stoic listeners: get up to 39% off their bestselling Lion’s Mane bundle by visiting foursigmatic.com/stoic.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/da

On today’s Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan talks with lacrosse star Paul Rabil about the mental obstacles that come with being a pro athlete, the experience of starting a professional sports league, and more. Paul Rabil is one of the best lacrosse players in history and the best in the world at the sport right now—some have called him the LeBron James of lacrosse. He has played for championship lacrosse teams from his time at college to the professional leagues. Rabil is one of the co-founders of of the Premier Lacrosse League, an American professional lacrosse league whose second season ended this past August.This episode is brought to you by GiveWell, the best site for figuring out how and where to donate your money to have the greatest impact. GiveWell’s team of researchers works countless hours to determine which charities make the most effective dollar-for-dollar contributions to the causes they support. Since 2010, GiveWell has helped over 50,000 donors donate over 500 million dollars to the most effective ch