Obstacles as Opportunities: Obstacles can be opportunities for growth. Our main task is to relate positively to others, overcoming challenges through patience and purpose. This mindset allows us to turn difficulties into pathways for progress, reflecting Stoic philosophy in our daily lives.
Marcus Aurelius's wisdom teaches us that the obstacles we face are not just hindrances but opportunities for growth and action. He emphasizes that our main focus in life should be on how we relate to others. By doing good for people and being patient with them, we navigate through difficulties. This perspective encourages us to view challenges as pathways to progress, turning setbacks into chances for learning and betterment. When we shift our mindset from seeing obstacles as purely negative to recognizing their potential to foster resilience and creativity, we align with the Stoic philosophy. From entrepreneurs to artists, everyone can harness this approach to transform everyday struggles into moments of strength and innovation, ultimately making meaningful connections and contributions to the world around us.
Turning Trials: Challenges often come from others, but they are opportunities for practicing virtues. By adapting to these obstacles, we can turn trials into triumphs.
Life often presents us with challenges, not just in tasks but in the people we encounter. Instead of letting others' actions derail our happiness, we can view these interactions as opportunities to practice virtues like courage, justice, and wisdom. Every annoying coworker, demanding client, or frustrating family member offers a chance for growth and character development. By adapting to these obstacles, we transform them into paths for action and success. What stops us from moving forward can actually propel us along the way, allowing us to turn trials into triumphs. Remember, it's not the obstacles themselves that matter, but how we respond to them and treat the people involved.
Ryan's Tour: Ryan Holiday is releasing a 10th anniversary edition of his bestselling book and invites fans to join his public speaking tour across major cities. Events will include Q&A sessions, offering opportunities for direct interaction.
Ryan Holiday is enthusiastic about celebrating the release of the 10th anniversary edition of his bestselling book, which will be available just in time for readers to grab. He reflects fondly on his past experiences in Vancouver, where he participated in a private mastermind event for entrepreneurs. As he gears up for an extensive tour across cities like London, Dublin, and Toronto, he emphasizes that these upcoming events are public, giving fans a chance to interact with him directly during Q&A sessions. Fans are encouraged to purchase tickets early, as they may sell out quickly. Ryan's energy and dedication not only highlight his appreciation for the inspirations around him but also show his commitment to connecting with his audience through these live events. He shares his journey while inviting others to join him in discussing relevant ideas and themes from his works.
Ego and Obstacles: Inner obstacles like limiting beliefs and the ego can impede our pursuit of happiness and success. While ambition drives accomplishment, it can also lead to personal costs, emphasizing the importance of overcoming self-sabotage to achieve true contentment.
People often encounter obstacles not only from outside but also from within themselves. Limiting beliefs, bad habits, and a lack of knowledge can hinder progress. The ego can propel individuals to achieve great things, as seen in successful figures like Elon Musk. However, this drive may come at a personal cost, affecting their happiness and relationships. While the ego can fuel ambition and success, it can also lead to dissatisfaction and self-sabotage. Therefore, recognizing the inner barriers we create is just as important as overcoming external challenges. Ultimately, the quest for happiness and contentment often emerges as our most crucial goal, yet it can feel elusive, even amidst achievements. Understanding these dynamics can help us navigate the fine line between ambition and contentment, leading to a more fulfilling life.
Understanding Ego: Ego plays a dual role in our lives, providing motivation and confidence while also risking self-criticism. Understanding its influence helps us manage our decisions and emotions more effectively.
Ego is not inherently good or bad; it plays a crucial role in our lives. While it can drive us to achieve great things, it can also lead to self-criticism and negative feelings when things go wrong. Recognizing ego's presence helps us understand our motivations and manage our responses to challenges. We should appreciate the confidence it can provide, especially during tough times, but also remain aware of its potential to distort our self-worth and decisions. Balancing this awareness allows us to harness our ego positively while mitigating its downsides, leading to greater personal and professional growth.
Ego vs. Value: Ego can initially motivate us, but for lasting success in art or business, we must focus on delivering value to others rather than seeking self-importance. Accepting constructive criticism and fostering humility is vital for growth and collaboration.
Ego can drive ambition in the early stages of life, making us want recognition and success. However, if we rely solely on ego as we succeed, it can lead to a dangerous situation. Great art and business focus on creating value for others, not just meeting our own desires. As we grow and build teams, it becomes increasingly necessary to shift away from an ego-centric approach. Constructive criticism is essential, and it’s important to remain humble and receptive to feedback while understanding that the work we do should ultimately resonate with and benefit others. Replacing ego with a focus on audience impact leads to greater creative achievements and more balanced endeavors.
Vision Clarity: Clearly defining your vision as a writer helps you effectively integrate feedback from editors. This clarity allows you to discern valuable advice from misaligned suggestions, ensuring productive collaboration and successful outcomes in your creative work.
Understanding your vision as a content creator is crucial for navigating feedback from editors. By clearly defining what you want to achieve with your work, you can differentiate valuable feedback from suggestions that veer off your path. This clarity helps ensure that the collaboration between writer and editor remains aligned and productive, ultimately leading to successful outcomes. If there's a conflict in visions, it might be necessary to seek out an editor who shares your understanding and objectives. Having a solid grasp of your goals makes it easier to assess which feedback is helpful and which isn’t, thus allowing for growth, learning, and confidence in your creative process.
Clarity in Advice: Being clear about your goals helps you seek the right advice and interpret feedback effectively. While others can identify problems, they may not always offer the best solutions. Use their input to guide your adjustments strategically.
Clarity in your goals makes it easier to seek and interpret advice. When asking for feedback, clearly define what you aim to achieve, so the advice aligns with your objectives. Also, when receiving feedback, recognize that while critics might accurately point out an issue, their suggestions for fixing it may not always be correct. Listen to their concerns and gauge what is not working, then use your knowledge to find suitable solutions. This method helps you sift through feedback and refine your work without getting lost in conflicting opinions or suggested fixes that may not fit your vision.
Podcast Insights: Ryan thanks Daily Stoic listeners for their support, invites feedback, and introduces 'Even the Royals', a podcast revealing the hidden struggles of royal families throughout history.
Ryan expresses gratitude to listeners of the Daily Stoic podcast, highlighting that over 30 million episodes have been downloaded, showing immense support for the show. He encourages listeners to share their appreciation and also mentions options for ad-free listening through subscriptions. Additionally, Ryan introduces another podcast called 'Even the Royals', which shares fascinating and often dark stories from royal families across history. This podcast promises to uncover the challenges faced by royals, like loss of freedom and privacy, while showcasing gripping stories, such as those of Henry VIII’s wives and other lesser-known figures. Ryan invites listeners to follow 'Even the Royals' for an engaging experience. Both podcasts offer insights into diverse lives and highlight the importance of sharing and exploring unique narratives in the realms of philosophy and royalty.
This Is The Most Common Obstacle | How Can We Balance Confidence and Humility?
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In The Midst of Life We Are In Death | Practice Love
During the month of October in America, images of death are all around us as we celebrate Halloween—and while it’s a playful time of year, it’s also an opportunity to practice memento mori, a reminder to treat our time as a gift.
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🎟 Ryan Holiday is going on tour! Grab tickets for London, Rotterdam, Dublin, Vancouver, and Toronto at ryanholiday.net/tour
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The Obstacle Is the Way, 10 Years Later
A lot can change in 10 years, yet The Obstacle Is the Way remains the timeless formula for turning our toughest trials into our greatest triumphs.
📕 Get a signed, numbered first-edition of the 10th anniversary edition of The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday at dailystoic.com/obstacle
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David Kessler on Finding Meaning in Grief and Practicing the Art of Memento Mori
In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius wrote “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” Death is inevitable for all of us and practicing the art of Memento Mori reminds us to live each day to the fullest and with virtue.
David Kessler, a grief and loss expert, joins Ryan today to talk about why a meaningful life comes from embracing rather than fearing death, how grief can shape our understanding and appreciation of life, the balance between grief and joy, and how losing his son changed everything he thought he knew about grief.
David’s personal experience with grief started very young, as a child witnessing a mass shooting while his mother was dying in a hospital. For most of his life, David has taught physicians, nurses, counselors, police, and first responders about the end of life, trauma, and grief. Even after years of studying grief and counseling those experiencing it, his life was turned upside down by the sudden death of his twenty-one-year-old son.
David co-authored two books with Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, including On Grief and Grieving, and after experiencing the death of his son, he updated her 5 stages of grief with a 6th stage: meaning.
📚 Grab signed copies of Finding Meaning and the Finding Meaning Workbook by David Kessler at The Painted Porch https://www.thepaintedporch.com/
Go to griefbook.com and follow David Kessler on Instagram and X | @IAmDavidKessler
📕 Our favorite translation of Seneca’s essays on grief and loss, Hardship and Happiness (The Complete Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca) is available at The Painted Porch | https://www.thepaintedporch.com/
🪙 Designed with the intention of carrying them in your pocket, our Memento Mori Medallion is a literal and inescapable reminder that “you could leave life right now.”
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It’s Tempting To Tell Yourself This | All For One, One For All
We can flatter ourselves that we’re essential, that we’re one of the good guys, that we’re preventing things from being worse. But are we? Or is that just what we want to believe?
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📚 Check out Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero by James Romm at The Painted Porch | https://www.thepaintedporch.com/
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Will You Meet Your Moment? | Ask DS
Destiny taps each of us on the shoulder, will we be able to answer? Will we have cultivated the skills and virtues necessary to answer well? That’s what philosophy is about—preparing you for whatever fortune has in store, big and small.
Ask DS:
What is the Stoic way to process and receive compliments?
What is Ryan’s advice to stop obsessing over what could go wrong?
How did the Stoics approach parenting and creating a generational impact?
🎙️ Listen to Francis Ford Coppola’s interview on the Daily Stoic | Apple Podcasts & Spotify
🎥 Watch Francis Ford Coppola’s interview on YouTube
🎟 Ryan Holiday is going on tour! Grab tickets for London, Rotterdam, Dublin, Vancouver, and Toronto at ryanholiday.net/tour
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You Can Live Well Anywhere
If you need money and success to live well, then you’re vulnerable to things not going well.
💡 The Wealthy Stoic: A Daily Stoic Guide to Being Rich, Happy, and Free explores how stoic ideas can be applied to personal finance, wealth-building, financial mindset, and how it can help you overcome common financial obstacles and challenges
Get The Wealthy Stoic: A Daily Stoic Guide to Being Rich, Happy, and Free & all other Daily Stoic courses for FREE when you join Daily Stoic Life | dailystoic.com/life
🎟 Ryan Holiday is going on tour! Grab tickets for London, Rotterdam, Dublin, Vancouver, and Toronto at ryanholiday.net/tour
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Brigid Delaney’s Life Changing Year of Living Like a Stoic
Brigid Delaney was at a unique point in her life and found herself looking for answers around life’s deepest questions: What does it mean to be a good person? How do we stop letting the things out of our control rule our emotions? Can our anger be tamed? After learning more about Stoicism, Brigid decided to let the ancient wisdom from Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and Seneca guide her decisions for a year.
While in Australia on tour, Ryan had the chance to meet Brigid in person and talk with her about why Stoicism resonated with her, how to successfully apply Stoicism to modern problems, and the common misconceptions around Stoicism being exclusively for men. To learn more about Brigid’s experience, check out her book Reasons Not to Worry: How to Be Stoic in Chaotic Times.
Brigid Delaney is the author of Reasons Not to Worry: How to Be Stoic in Chaotic Times and Wellmania: Extreme Misadventures in the Search for Wellness. Be sure to check out the Netflix series Brigid co-create, inspired by her book Wellmania!
📚 Books Mentioned:
Reasons Not to Worry: How to Be Stoic in Chaotic Times by Brigid Delaney
The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday
On Anger: De Ira by Seneca
The Therapy of Desire by Martha Nussbaum
Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero by James Romm
Follow Brigid Delaney on X @ BrigidWD
🎟 Ryan Holiday is going on tour! Grab tickets for London, Rotterdam, Dublin, Vancouver, and Toronto at ryanholiday.net/tour
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This Doesn’t Change But You Do | The Daily Routine That Built Marcus Aurelius
So much has changed over the course of a decade…so little as well. The 10th anniversary edition of The Obstacle Is the Way has relevant and insightful lessons (including a new foreword) that Ryan couldn’t have possibly written a decade ago. If you have been listening to the podcast for a while but haven’t read The Obstacle Is the Way yet, this is a fantastic time and place to start—it will advance your understanding of the lessons of the Stoics and how to apply them to your life.
📕 Get a signed, numbered first-edition of the 10th anniversary edition of The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday at dailystoic.com/obstacle
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The Most Disciplined Side Wins | Practice Silence
The Stoics—just like activists—didn’t always win but they showed themselves always as worthy of winning. They showed themselves to be the most disciplined side.
🎙️ Listen to Thomas Rick’s interview on the Daily Stoic
📚 Grab a copy of Waging a Good War by Thomas Ricks at The Painted Porch https://www.thepaintedporch.com/
📕 You can get signed copies of Ryan's books: Discipline is Destiny , Courage is Calling, & Right Thing, Right Now
at https://store.dailystoic.com/
📓 Pick up a signed edition of The Daily Stoic Journal: 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on The Art of Living: https://store.dailystoic.com/
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The Hobby That Changed Ryan Holiday's Life
Some people travel for the food. Others for the nightlife. Some travel for work. Others travel to get away. Ryan travels for the swimming.
🎙️ Listen to Bonnie Tsui’s interview on the Daily Stoic Podcast
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🎟 Ryan Holiday is going on tour! Grab tickets for London, Rotterdam, Dublin, Vancouver, and Toronto at ryanholiday.net/tour
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