This Is What Comes Next

0:05Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a Stoic inspired meditation designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2 ,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women, to help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit dailystoic.com.

1:09borrowed my wife's car, drove in Austin and bought a truck. What I bought was a Toyota Tacoma. And this truck wasn't just transportation getting me to and from my house. It unlocked a whole different style of living for us, not just on the ranch, but in our little Texas towns. There were places I could go now that I couldn't go before, especially out here in the piney forests, through the fields, and on the unpaved roads like the one that I lived in. We got to go deep into the hill country's wild beauty. We've driven all the way out to East Texas. We've driven across the country. And by we, I mean not just my wife, but both my kids who I drove home from the hospital in that truck.

1:55Toyota trucks are built for those who understand that the best adventures happen when you're willing to veer off course because you never know when you'll end up on a Toyota adventure detour. And of course, this is stoicism too, because every detour, every obstacle is an opportunity, but it's helpful if you can handle the difficulty inherent in that. If you've got the resilience and the right companion to make it wherever the road takes you, discover your uncharted territory. Learn more at toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke Podcast.

2:31This might sound a little different because I am recording from Las Vegas, Nevada, where I took my youngest son, Jones, on our first solo trip together because I'm giving a talk to a group of people here in Las Vegas, which is one of my favorite things about what I get to do. Obviously, writing is introverted and solitary, but community is a huge part of it for me. And that's basically what today's Daily Stoic email is about. This is what comes next. You've read meditations. Maybe you've even read The Obstacle is the Way. You've highlighted passages, filled up notebooks, maybe even memorized a few lines.

3:15But eventually, we all come to the same question. Now, what do I do next? The book ends, the highlighter runs dry, and we feel something stirring, a desire to go deeper, to live the words, not just admire them, to see them in action, to take these ancient ideas and make them a part of who we are. Every day, especially when it's hard. And actually, that's why we made Daily Stoic Life, the community that I'm a part of, that thousands of people all over the world are a part of, and that we'd like you to be a part of. The next step in this stoic journey isn't just more reading. It's community. It's accountability.

4:00It's practice. 2 ,000 years ago, Zeno didn't found stoicism alone in a cave. He taught on a porch, a public space. He gathered students who came to be challenged and sharpened and improved together. And from that porch came a lineage of people who changed the world. Cleanthes, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Cato. These people weren't self-made. They were shaped and sharpened by the people around them. And that process is true today, too. Modern Stoics are parents and athletes and entrepreneurs and soldiers and artists, students. They are busy, curious, principled people who want to do more than just talk about virtue.

4:42They want to live it. And they want to do it with others who share that aim. And that's what Daily Stoic Life is. It's a private global community of people walking the stoic path together, sharing ideas, asking hard questions, holding each other accountable, becoming better human beings together. And if you join right now, you get something like$1 ,000 in value. That's access to all the Daily Stoic courses and challenges. You get this community that's free, I think, of trolls and distractions and hangers on. There's weekly bonus meditations to help you deepen your practice. There's live Q &As with me, special guests throughout the year, priority access to discounts, books, events, new releases, all sorts of great stuff like that.

5:26Plus, you get a hardcover edition of our 2024 meditations, the best emails we wrote last year. and we'll throw in right now 2021, 2022, and 2023 while supplies last. And all this is less than 250 bucks a year, less than the cost of a single college class at a community college. Seneca reminds us that we want to associate with people who improve us because the process is mutual. We learn as we teach. And that's what daily stoic life is, a space to learn and teach and grow, to a place to make friends and be challenged, to become more of what we are and help others do the same. So if you've ever asked yourself, what do I do next?

6:07I'd love to have you join us in Daily Stoic Life. You can sign up right now at dailystoiclife.com. I'll link to that in today's show notes also. And I'm going to go talk to these lovely people down in the convention center in a few minutes.

6:30Look, ads are annoying. They are to be avoided, if at all possible. I understand as a content creator why they need to exist. That's why I don't begrudge them when they appear on the shows that I listen to. But again, as a person who has to pay a podcast producer and has to pay for equipment and for the studio and the building that the studio is in, It's a lot to keep something like the Daily Stoic going. So if you want to support a show but not listen to ads, well, we have partnered with Supercast to bring you an ad-free version of Daily Stoic. We're calling it Daily Stoic Premium. And with Premium, you can listen to every episode of the Daily Stoic podcast completely ad-free.

7:18No interruptions. Just the ideas. Just the messages. Just the conversations. you came here for. And you can also get early access to episodes before they're available to the public. And we're going to have a bunch of exclusive bonus content and extended interviews in there just for Daily Stoic Premium members as well. If you want to remove distractions, go deeper into stoicism and support the work we do here. Well, it takes less than a minute to sign up for Daily Stoic Premium, and we are offering a limited time discount of 20 % off your first year. Just go to dailystoic.com slash premium to sign up right now or click the link in the show descriptions to make those ads go away.