You Prove Stoicism WORKS | Listener Stories (BONUS)

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.

1:09I am daily stoic. I'm talking about the stoics, but it's my voice most of the time, with the rare exception of on the Sunday episodes. We might have a narrator read something or we're bringing you one of my favorite chapters in a book that I read and we asked the publisher for the audio book rights. But it's mostly me. And I've been talking about my journey through and with stoicism over the years. I'm mostly not talking about me. I'm talking about Marcus Aurelius and Seneca and Epictetus, or I'm talking about great figures from history or riffing on something that happened, or I'm interviewing someone.

1:39But again, it's a lot of me and it's a lot of my voice. We decided we'd try something interesting. I wanted to hear from you, from the millions of Daily Stoic listeners all over the world who've come to Stoicism either before the podcast or through the podcast. In any case, listen to Daily Stoic and are trying to apply Stoicism in their actual life, right? Ancient wisdom in modern life. And what have they learned? How are they applying the ideas? What strategies have they come up with? What is their journey been like? I thought these were fascinating. I'm really excited to bring you one. So thanks to everyone who sent in their audio recordings.

2:20If you want to be featured on an episode like this, if you have something you want to say, If you want to share your journey, you can send us an email at podcast at dailystoic.com. This was great. So thanks to everyone who volunteered, who did this first, and I hope you like the new format. Let's get after it.

2:46First, we're going to hear from Emily. Hey there. This is Emily Jaskowitz, and this is how stoicism has changed my life. I'll never forget where I was nine years ago when I first read the July 30th entry of the Daily Stoic about stoic joy. Ryan wrote, Who cares if someone is bubbly when times are good? What kind of accomplishment is that? I would have fallen off my chair if I hadn't instead jumped up and cornered the first person I saw. Holy shit, read this, I said to my coworker Chase. He read it and agreed. It was really good. I sat back down in a daze. Who cares if someone is bubbly when times are good?

3:31What kind of accomplishment is that? Though I couldn't have articulated it at the time, I knew exactly what it meant. I don't have to be at the mercy of external things. I can choose where I get my satisfaction. action. I don't have to wonder how the day will go. This was one of many holy shit moments I've had while reading the works of Ryan Holiday and the Stoics, which I was introduced to in Ryan's book, The Obstacle is the Way, in 2016. In that year, I was in more debt than I could manage. I constantly had to phone my parents, ashamed and guilt-ridden, asking yet again for help covering rent.

4:10I smoked, I drank, I got angry over minor slights. I spent all my time working but never got ahead. I desperately needed direction. One day, on my way home from work, drained from another day of trying to decipher the meaning of life between an onslaught of phone calls at a job I couldn't stand, I was listening to the interview Tim Ferriss has with Ryan at the end of The Obstacle is the way in the audio version. What he said shook me. Ryan was talking about Marcus Aurelius and how, as emperor of Rome 2 ,000 years ago, he had been the most powerful man in the world. He could have anything and do anything he wanted.

4:52And yet, unlike almost every example I've seen of someone with wealth and power, he wasn't concerned with what he could buy or how many women he could sleep with or how popular he was or any of the other multitude of pleasure traps those with too much time and money ruined themselves in. He was concerned with one thing, how to be a better person, how to control his anxiety and desires, how to do more for people, how to do the right thing. It's one thing to strive to be a better person. It's another to strive to be a better person while also in a position of absolute power. Marcus Aurelius, Ryan said, sought something higher than greatness.

5:35He sought goodness. It was his goodness that made him great. Of course, I couldn't fully grasp the implications at the time. Still, the contours for a different model of success were forming in my mind. Maybe there was nothing inherently good in what I was pursuing. Money, recognition, a nicer car. Maybe that was the problem, the source of my frustration. A meaningful life has a purpose beyond itself. It has a north star, I was learning. A destination will never quite reach, but should always be reaching for. Something higher so we don't walk in circles. Or worse, spiral down. I immediately devoured literally everything on stoicism, though I'm not sure it would have impacted my life as significantly had it not been for Ryan Holiday.

6:25He contextualized it. He made it accessible. And the Stoics advice was so refreshingly pragmatic. It wasn't the salesy motivational speeches I've heard my whole life. Marcus Aurelius didn't say stuff like, stay positive and you can do anything you put your mine too. Instead, he said, yeah, things might impede your path, but nothing can impede your will. Or how Epictetus put it, they can take your freedom, they can take your life, but they can't rob you of anything that matters. When I read Ryan's Ego is the Enemy, things began to click even more. Marcus Aurelius called praise the clacking of tongues.

7:06Epictetus said we must be content to look foolish if we wish to improve. And maybe this all sounds like common sense stuff, but for me, it wasn't. It was anything but. I always believed that ego was a good thing. I was taught to stay in the know so you could talk to someone about anything. My whole life, I looked up to people solely because they were rich. When I finally accepted that ego was leading me astray, everything changed. My idea of what was worth pursuing changed. Material things, awards, praise. Without ego, what good were they? When I removed ego from the equation, what I wanted from life became clear.

7:46As much time as possible with my wife and my family and a stable job that paid well but left me with enough energy to think and write. I went from trying to decide on a specific career I'd like to have to thinking about the day-to-day life I wanted to live. I went from thinking about who I wanted to be as a professional to who I wanted to be as a person. After much introspection, I decided my first step was to go back to school. It would take years, a fact that had always deterred me. But now I gladly embraced it because it was my way forward. I was in control. All I had to do was pass one class, then the next, write one line of code, then the next.

8:28Maybe nothing would change once I had my degree, but that wasn't my concern. That stuff wasn't my concern anymore. I knew I was doing the right thing for the right reasons. Everything else was background noise. Yeah, of course, here and there will be setbacks and obstacles, but I could adjust. I could be patient and I could be happy all the while. I learned that the Stoics called this euthemia, the tranquility that comes from knowing you're on the right path. Stoic joy. Joy you control by doing the right things each day. As Ryan put it, here's how to guarantee you have a good day. Do good things.

9:05So has stoicism changed my life? Yes, of course. But in what way exactly? How does the interest compound when you apply stoic wisdom each day for more than nine years? Well, in that time, I've married the love of my life, quit smoking, quit drinking, bought a house, earned my degree, mended relationships, paid off more than$50 ,000 worth of debt, started a newsletter to share the wisdom I learned with others, worked with people I look up to, worked in a career that gives me autonomy and freedom, read hundreds and hundreds of books from which the notes I've taken are the seeds for a book of my own I hope to write, and became a distance runner.

9:50This is to say nothing of the spiritual and mental growth I've had. Growth that makes all the external stuff look, rightfully, puny in comparison. The loving outlook I developed for life, for people, has created a joy inside of me that I didn't know was possible. I'm calmer. I'm more confident in who I am and what I stand for. And this has created a ripple effect beyond my life. I'm able to do good for others now because I got my own stuff handled. And if this sounds like a flex, well, it kind of is. But not for myself. No, no, no, not for myself. If anything, this is a flex for my mentor, Ryan Holiday and the ancient Stoics.

10:32It was their examples and their teachings that helped me become who I am. I had the easy job. All I did was follow. They led the way. It's to them who I will forever be grateful for introducing me to Stoicism, the philosophy that changed my life. Something that stuck out at me about Emily's message was when she said, I went from thinking about who I wanted to be as a professional to who I wanted to be as a person. And this is something that Rutger Bregman and I talked about in our episode on moral ambition. And something I would describe that as my own transition with stoicism over time. And something I'm still trying to get better at.

11:11It's so easy to measure growth professionally, much harder, but much more important to measure it personally. So thanks for sharing your story, Emily.

11:27Thanks to Toyota Trucks for sponsoring this episode. When I bought my ranch in 2015 out here in Bastro County, I drove my car about halfway down the dirt road that we live on, thought this isn't going to work, stopped, parked it, walked the rest of the way home, borrowed my wife's car, drove into 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.

12:12We 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. Toyota 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.

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14:32And next we have Jeff. I remember the first time I read On the Shortness of Life by Seneca. It was a short, quick read. near the end, there's a section titled On the Tranquility of Mind. I closed the book at the end of it and thought, that's the most beautiful thing I've ever read. And I still believe it to this day. That's about five or six years ago and maybe years since I've had to rebuild my life, my mindset, my work, family leadership on a foundation of tranquility through structure, through discipline. In early 2025, I chose the word discipline in my one word challenge. I didn't choose it to optimize productivity.

15:07I chose it because I was tired of chasing balance, being stretched between too many priorities. Stoicism has taught me that balance is not the goal clarity is. It's not how many things we get done. It's what we do that is more important. I'm not a technology guy who works to support financial institutions. I live in a world of systems, deadlines, compliance, risk. But more than that, I live in a world of people. And stoicism gives me a lens to see my role not as a manager of systems, but as a builder of clarity for others and accordingly for myself. but that clarity came structure i stopped scheduling unnecessary meetings i started showing up with prepared questions instead of reactive judgments i asked myself what part of me is entering this room because of that i was able to leave ego at the door it wasn't always that way years ago somebody told me that i might be the next ceo and my ego inflated like a bullet i didn't handle it well that version of me looked for recognition not responsibility but he chased ambition, not excellence.

16:05When things broke personally and professionally, I found myself really not sure who I was. That breakdown turned out to be the transition from knowing Stoicism to living Stoicism. I started rebuilding, not in public, but in silence. I began to lead my family the same way philosophy, the same philosophy that I brought to work. It's about service over self. As a father, I wanted to model for my children the behaviors I wanted them to emulate. I want to be able to show them that setbacks are lessons. Failure is a teacher. And the peace is found in preparation, not in panic. I say things like premeditation to my sons.

16:42We talk about how to respond to life's surprises with virtue instead of emotion. We have that conversation when they're young so they can know no matter how much you prepare, how hard you work. Unexpected things, sometimes bad things are going to happen. And we can prepare now for how to respond. my kids know that if dad's up before the sun he's reading he's journaling he's exercising it's not because i have some meetings i have to get too early it's because i'm training for life at work i get to build systems real platforms powered by classic scripting automation and now even with ai these systems help others find clarity and get a little bit time back in their day and i don't build them for credit i do it because it's what needs to be done because the pursuit of excellence when done quietly is its own reward.

17:30I stopped chasing titles. I stopped expecting applause. I stopped believing the loudest person in the room is the one with all the answers. The loudest voice in my life now is the one I listen to in stillness when all those distractions fade. Seneca wrote that life is long if you know how to use it, and I've learned that discipline is how I use it. Each day, in small, often invisible ways, discipline gives me freedom. when that freedom I found peace, not in the outcomes but in my actions. So when anyone is feeling overwhelmed, unsure, burned out, disaligned, you don't need to change your life overnight.

18:06You just need to start building systems that align with your values. You need to live the words before you speak them. And you need to remember that tranquility is not found in the world. It's forged within. That's where Stoicism has guided me. Jeff, thanks for the message. I love what he said about Stoicism helping you model for your kids. Just the fact that you're talking with your kids about how to respond to life's surprises and obstacles with virtues, not emotion. That's like the whole job. Although my kids did throw that in my face the other day. One of them was picking on the other and then the other hit him.

18:45And then he said, see, you can't control what happens, only how you respond, as if that excuses the provocation that he was doing. If you guys are looking at how to apply stoicism to parenting, you might like the Daily Dad Society. It's a great group I've gotten a lot out of. It's a community for fathers who are looking and thinking about a lot of these same things. So I would love to see you in there. Jeff, thanks for submitting. You can join that at dailydad.com slash society. And then one last one for today's episode. This is from Stephen. Hello, my name is Stephen Logan. I saw the Instagram post regarding the Daily Stoic podcast request.

19:21So I thought I'd put a submission in just to talk about the impact that The Daily Stoic has had on me. First thing that I wanted to say is thanks to Ryan and the team for an incredible job that you do at The Daily Stoic. It's had a massive impact on me and my life. I think the first thing I would say is how The Daily Stoic is impacting on me is around, I'm currently on holiday in Cyprus. I think just around a 5K, 29 degrees at half seven in the morning. I think of what Seneca states around, we treat the body rigorously so it will not be disobedient to the mind really resonates. So that idea of how we treat our body and look after our bodies helps us to be mentally sharp.

20:00I think as well for me, I would not be in the position that I'm in if it weren't for the Daily Stoic in helping me to not just listen, read, but to live those teachings learnings the people that walked this earth nearly 2 000 years ago helped us to understand ourselves better i think it's an ever introspective work that we do on ourselves that never stops it's daily habits routines i also think of that we have but one obligation that marcus areelius talks about what is your vocation really daily story helps us to understand that we need to be a good person, understanding it's about doing the right thing, that the rest doesn't really matter, how we help and support others, how we be kind, how we live our values.

20:53I think of some of the entries as well from the Daily Stoic that really resonated with me. No one said it was going to be easy. Good people will do what they find honourable, do even what requires hard work. They'll do it even causes, that they'll do it even when they bring danger. any won't do that they find that base even if it's wealth pleasure or power nothing will deter them from what is honorable nothing will lure them into what is base and that's from seneca it's also for me about the calmness that the daily stoic helps with that kind of calm and sometimes the chaos and calm is contagious i think of what martha raitas or meditation says if then it is not the things you pursue or avoid coming at you, but rather you are the sense of seeking out, at least try to keep your judgment of them steady, that two will remain calm and that you won't be seen chasing or fleeing from them.

21:48And as I'm out on holiday spending a lot of time with the children, Daily Stoic's helped me to get that balance right. And I'm not perfect by any stretch of imagination. Sometimes I do struggle to switch off. I think the Daily Stoic really grinds me into love those little moments and enjoy the little things for one day we may look back and realize that they were big things. So thanks for all that you do with the Daily Stoic. I think the work you do is incredible. All the very best. Take care. I hope you had a great time in Cyprus. I've never been, but I've very much liked to go. I think you're right.

22:26You know, Stoicism is work that we never complete. Can't achieve perfection, Of course, no one ever actually becomes a Stoic sage, Epictetus would say, but we shouldn't continue to try to approach. We shouldn't try to get better always, nor should we despair just because we're unlikely to ever be perfect. Stoicism is this muscle we're working on. We can always get a little bit stronger. And I love to hear that The Daily Stoic has been that for you. Making The Daily Stoic has been that for me in some way. So thank you all for listening. And thanks to everyone for sharing their stories. and we'll keep doing this.

23:00Talk soon.

23:05Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple of years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please spread the word, tell people about it. And this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say thank you.

23:42We'll see you next time.

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