The Daily Stoic

Latest Episodes:

Why You Can’t Worry | Ask DS Mar 09, 2023

Show notes

We’ve said before that a Stoic focuses on what they control. That is the essence of Epictetus’s teachings, after all. You put your energy where you can make an impact and you ignore the rest–the rest being fear of what other people will think, fear of the potential results, your chances of success, the long hard road that may come next.

To do anything else is a recipe for misery.

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And in today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan answers questions about how to respond to someone who ignores praise and jeers for the wrong reasons, what Ryan has learned in his visits to Stoic sites around the world, strategies for overcoming a personal tragedy, and more.

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To Find Pleasure, Look for Purpose Mar 08, 2023

Show notes

It might seem like the Stoics didn’t have fun, didn’t experience pleasure. They did write, after all, quite a bit about the emptiness of chasing sex or money or fine wines. But just because they scorned excess luxury and comfort doesn’t mean their lives were empty and joyless.

Quite the contrary.

In his book The Expanding Circle, the philosopher Peter Singer (who was on a great episode of the Daily Stoic podcast recently if you haven’t listened) explains that what they were actually doing was trying to avoid the paradox of hedonism.

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Dr. Shadi Bartsch on Eastern vs. Western Philosophy Mar 08, 2023

Show notes

Ryan speaks with Dr. Shadi Bartsch about her new book Plato Goes to China: The Greek Classics and Chinese Nationalism, the controversial role that Greek classics are taking in China, the surprising similarities between western and eastern philosophical interpretations, and more.

Dr. Shadi Bartsch is an American academic and author and the Helen A. Regenstein Distinguished Service Professor of Classics at the University of Chicago. Shadi is an expert on Roman Stoicism, the reigns of Hadrean, Nero, and Augustus, and The Aeneid, which she translated in 2021. She has written and/or edited thirteen books, including the acclaimed Persius: A Study in Food, Philosophy, and the Figural and The Mirror of the Self: Sexuality, Self-Knowledge, and the Gaze in the Early Roman Empire. Shadi can be followed on Twitter @ShadiBartsch.

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Marcus Had A Dream | The Most Life Changing Marcus Aurelius Quotes Mar 07, 2023

Show notes

It was last night 1,862 years ago that Marcus Aurelius had a dream.

A few years earlier, when Marcus received the news of Hadrian’s plans to have Antoninus Pius adopt him and place him next in line for the throne, he broke down in tears. There was no one he revered more than Antoninus. How could he possibly live up to the task of following in his footsteps?

Today, you would say that Marcus was struggling with what we call “imposter syndrome.” As the story goes, the night before he was to become emperor on March 7, 161 AD — Marcus had a dream.

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To commemorate this dream and the man himself, Ryan presents 45 of his favorite life-changing quotes from Marcus Aurelius.

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How To Find Treasure | What Expensive Things Cost Mar 06, 2023

Show notes

The reason we don’t get what we want is because we want it too much. We reach for it with too much force. We lack the patience, we lack the poise. In Buddhism, they speak of willful will. More often than not, that is our problem.

In her beautiful book Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindberg writes on the hunt for sea shells: “The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach–waiting for a gift from the sea.”

It’s our expectations, the Stoics tell us, that get us in trouble.

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And in today's excerpt from The Daily Stoic Journal, Ryan examines the Stoic idea that expensive things cost more to us than their dollar value by reflecting on a recent situation in his life.

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The Escalation of the Rivalry that Destroyed Rome Mar 05, 2023

Show notes

Ryan presents the second of four excerpts from Josiah Osgood’s Uncommon Wrath: How Caesar and Cato’s Deadly Rivalry Destroyed the Roman Republic. Here, in Chapter Two, we witness the parallel paths that the rivals took as they grew and gained power in Rome, as well as how their journeys shaped their personalities.

You can listen to Ryan’s recent conversation with Josiah here.

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Rick Rubin on The Creative Act Part Two Mar 04, 2023

Show notes

In the second of a two-part interview, Ryan speaks with Rick Rubin about his new book The Creative Act: A Way of Being, respecting everyone’s unique approach to the creative process during collaboration, his new podcast Tetragrammaton, the importance of studying art created long ago, and more.

Rick Rubin is a renowned American record producer and the co-founder of Def Jam Recordings, founder of American Recordings, and former co-president of Columbia Records. He has produced albums for a wide range of acclaimed artists, including the Beastie Boys, Run-DMC, Public Enemy, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica, Audioslave, Rage Against the Machine, and Johnny Cash. He has won nine Grammys and has been nominated for 12 more. He has been called "the most important producer of the last 20 years" by MTV and was named on Time's list of the "100 Most Influential People in the World".

You can hear part one of Ryan’s interview with Rick here.

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You Deserve Moments Like This | (Dis)integration Mar 03, 2023

Show notes

We are so busy. We think we’re supposed to be. We think that’s how we get better. We think that moving is the only way to move forward.

You might think that Marcus Aurelius could relate.

Yet when he speaks most beautifully it’s of moments of quiet and calm. "If you can cut free of impressions that cling to the mind," he said, "free of the future and the past—can make yourself, as Empedocles says, 'a sphere rejoicing in its perfect stillness.’" Have you ever had a moment like that?

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And in today's Daily Stoic excerpt reading, Ryan discusses his perspective on focusing on the internal more than the external by examining the quote from Epictetus's Discourses, “These things don’t go together. You must be a unified human being, either good or bad. You must diligently work either on your own reasoning or on things out of your control—take great care with the inside and not what’s outside, which is to say, stand with the philosopher, or else with the mob!”

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This Is A Good Moment | Ask DS Mar 02, 2023

Show notes

It’s hard not to look at the lives of Marcus Aurelius and Seneca and Epictetus and Cato and Zeno and not see what seems like one trauma after another. The loss of young children. Civil wars. Betrayals. Sickness. Criticism. Droughts, deforestation and powerful storms. Then again, it’s hard not to look at our lives and see the same thing. Financial crises. Political unrest. Political violence. A pandemic. Terrorist attacks. Mass shootings. Climate change.

But of course, this is not how a Stoic tries to look at things. Because it’s not a great lens.

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And in today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan presents part one of his Q&A session with a group of doctors in which he covers the Stoic way of motivating a team to achieve a common goal, how we can use routine to come back to ourselves, and more.

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The Best New Ideas Come From Old Books Mar 01, 2023

Show notes

We live in modern, cutting edge times. Each day, there are breakthroughs in neuroscience, microcomputing, medicine, and in how we make, save, and spend money. Our ability to beam information around the world, instantaneously, also means that we can get breaking news from all corners of the planet. Big data gives us the power to scrap enormous amounts of inputs and draw new insights from them. All this is wonderful and illuminating. We know things that we never thought we’d be able to know…and the person who doesn’t avail themselves of this is needlessly ignorant.

And yet…and yet.

As the great General Mattis said recently on Medal of Honor recipient Kyle Carpenter’s podcast:

My best new ideas come from very old books.

📚 If you’re ready to put down your phone and pick up a book to find those best new ideas, check out our Read to Lead: A Daily Stoic Reading Challenge.

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