The Daily Stoic

Do your emotions ever get the best of you? Someone says one thing and it ruins your whole day. A small frustration turns into a big deal. Travel anxiety spirals. Jealousy or irritation shows up before you even realize it. In this episode, you will learn the complete Stoic playbook for mastering your emotions so they don’t end up mastering you.SPECIAL OFFER exclusively for podcast listeners 

When does belonging start to matter more than being right? In Part 2 of Ryan’s conversation with Jordan Klepper, they dive into how mob thinking takes over, how cultural permission shifts what feels acceptable, why people double down even when the facts are clear, and how leaders shape the tone of an entire country.Jordan Klepper is a comedian, writer, and correspondent on The Daily Show. You can follow him on Instagram @JordanKlepper and check out his upcoming live show dates on his website https://www.officialjordanklepper.com/

Even though we can’t control time or slow it down, even though we can’t control external forces and external events—we can control ourselves, so we can control how we use our time. SPECIAL OFFER exclusively for podcast listeners 

Get your reps in…because none of us have any idea what life has in store for us in the future.SPECIAL OFFER exclusively for podcast listeners

It’s been a long winter. But now? Now you can feel something is in the air.

What do you do when someone says something you completely disagree with or something that sounds totally detached from reality? Jordan Klepper, correspondent and host at The Daily Show, is known for walking into political rallies and calmly interviewing the most passionate people in the crowd. In this episode, he sits down with Ryan to explain why arguing almost never works, how silence can be more powerful than a comeback, and what most of us misunderstand about why people believe what they believe.Jordan Klepper is a comedian, writer, and correspondent on The Daily Show. You can follow him on Instagram @JordanKlepper and check out his upcoming live show dates on his website https://www.officialjordanklepper.com/

We plan to do it. We mean to do it. We just tell ourselves that we’ll do it tomorrow. The problem, as the Stoics remind us, is that we don’t control tomorrow.

Haven’t you been wrong before? Haven’t you done stuff that in retrospect seems dumb or weird? Of course you have.

Meditating on death isn’t depressing, it’s clarifying. In this episode, Ryan explains how the Stoic practice of Memento Mori will sharpen your priorities, push you to stop wasting time, and remind you to live with character now, not later.

The greatness of Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius was not perfection but progress. They were imperfect men committed to self-discipline and self-correction. Today's episode explores how Antoninus shaped Marcus through steady example and daily discipline, and what their lives reveal about the kind of character a person chooses to build.

Power doesn’t wait for the perfect person to raise their hand. Someone will wield it. Someone always does.

Is this what we’re here for? To be the passions’ slave? To be the plaything of emotions and impulses? It can’t be!

What if it only took five minutes each morning to feel more in control of your life? In this conversation, Dr. Rangan Chatterjee shares the three daily questions he uses to stay grounded in alignment, contentment, and control.

How do you hold a country together when it’s tearing itself apart? In this episode, Ryan sits down with Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin to talk about Abraham Lincoln’s self-education, his emotional discipline, and how he managed anger, ego, and public pressure without losing himself.Doris Kearns Goodwin is a Pulitzer Prize–winning presidential historian and bestselling author. Her latest #1 New York Times bestseller, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s, is being adapted into a feature film, while her earlier works, Team of Rivals, The Bully Pulpit, and No Ordinary Time, have won some of the nation’s highest literary honors and inspired leaders worldwide. She has served as a White House Fellow to President Lyndon Johnson, produced acclaimed docuseries for the HISTORY Channel, and earned countless awards for her contributions to history and leadership.Doris has a new book out called The Leadership Journey: How Four Kids Became Presidents in which she shares the differ

People are the way they are. They will always be this way. We don’t control that. 

The past is gone, and no amount of calculation will bring it back or make it fair. What we do have is agency right now.

We have a duty. Our nature—justice—demands something from us. It demands that we get up, get after it, and wear ourselves down doing it.

Life is a lot. It moves fast. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by what to do, what not to do, and whether you’re even focusing on the right things. In today’s episode, Ryan shares simple Stoic rules to live by that can help you live with more clarity, purpose, and steadiness right now.

If you think history is boring, irrelevant, or just not your "thing", this episode is for you. In today’s episode, Ryan sits down with Kenny Curtis, host of the new podcast History Snacks, to make the case for history. They discuss why history isn’t about memorizing dates or dusty textbooks, but a superpower that gives you perspective, clarity, and calm.

It’s discouraging. It’s distracting. All the stuff that’s happening in the world. But you know what you can’t do? You can’t give up your work, your freedom of thought, your freedom of choice pre-emptively.