The Daily Stoic
For centuries, all sorts of people—generals and politicians, athletes and coaches, writers and leaders—have looked to the teachings of Stoicism to help guide their lives. Each day, author and speaker Ryan Holiday brings you a new lesson about life, inspired by the thoughts and writings of great Stoic thinkers like Marcus Aurelius and Seneca the Younger. Daily Stoic Podcast also features Q+As with listeners and interviews with notable figures from sports, academia, politics, and more. Learn more at DailyStoic.com. Support the podcast and go deeper with Stoicism by subscribing to The Daily Stoic Premium - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content (coming soon): dailystoic.com/premium
Episodes
The end of the year has a way of reminding us that nothing lasts forever. In today’s episode, you will hear a deep dive into the Stoic practice of Memento Mori, the reminder that you could leave life at any moment. Not as something dark or depressing, but as a way to sharpen your focus on what actually matters.
You will hear conversations with psychologists, grief experts, and artists who have all confronted mortality in ve...
Ryan was recently a guest on Shilo Brooks’ podcast, Old School, to talk about a book that’s meant a lot to him over the years, Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer. They discuss why this quiet Southern novel, set in postwar New Orleans, remains so resonant and what it reveals about meaning, distraction, and the universal search for purpose.
Catch the rest of the episode by checking out Old School with Shilo Brooks on&...
It was a bad year. You picked up some bad habits. You let some good habits slip. You wasted time on stuff that didn’t matter. But just because that’s true doesn’t mean things have to continue that way.
👉 Make 2026 the year where you finally bring yourself closer to living your best life. No more waiting. Demand the best for yourself. The Daily Stoic New Year New You challenge begins January 1, 2026. Learn more and sign...
Remarkably, Jesus and Seneca lived nearly parallel lives, with many sources suggesting they were born in the same year. Even more striking are the overlaps in their teachings. This Christmas morning, it’s worth reflecting on the shared wisdom of these extraordinary lives.
Make 2026 the year where you finally bring yourself closer to living your best life. No more waiting. Demand the best for yourself. The Daily Stoic Ne...
Virtue is not a theory. It is something you practice. In the moments where you could overreact. In the moments where quitting would be easier. In the moments where doing the right thing costs you something.
In this episode, Ryan explores the four Stoic virtues through conversations with people who actually live them. You’ll hear from a fighter pilot who shows courage under pressure, a marathon runner disciplined in daily pr...
To the Stoics, virtue was a way of life. Not something we are, but something we do. So what would a year look like if you actually practiced this?
Make 2026 the year where you finally bring yourself closer to living your best life. No more waiting. Demand the best for yourself. The Daily Stoic New Year New You challenge begins January 1, 2026. Learn more and sign up today at dailystoic.com/challenge.
👉 Get The Dail...
In today's bonus episode, Ryan and Dr. Rangan Chatterjee talk about why New Year’s resolutions usually fall apart and what actually works instead. They discuss why changing behavior is so hard, the key to making real change, and how most of us focus on the habit itself without understanding what it’s really doing for us.
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee is a physician, author, TV presenter and podcast host of Feel Bett...
Procrastination isn’t saving you…it’s only adding interest to the bill you’re going to have to pay eventually.
Make 2026 the year where you finally bring yourself closer to living your best life. No more waiting. Demand the best for yourself. The Daily Stoic New Year New You challenge begins January 1, 2026. Learn more and sign up today at dailystoic.com/challenge.
Get The Daily Stoic New Year New You & all othe...
Things falling apart. Traditions crumbling. New technologies. New threats. New trends. Welcome to ancient Rome. Welcome to the past…the present…and the future.
Make 2026 the year where you finally bring yourself closer to living your best life. No more waiting. Demand the best for yourself. The Daily Stoic New Year New You challenge begins January 1, 2026. Learn more and sign up today at dailystoic.com/challenge.
In today's episode, Ryan Holiday sits down with legendary biographer Walter Isaacson for a wide-ranging, deeply thoughtful conversation recorded live at the Texas Tribune Festival. They talk about Walker Percy and The Moviegoer, how Stoicism shows up in fiction, and why the ancient virtues still matter in the modern world. They talk through Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Viktor Fr...
Most people will enter 2026 hoping life just gets better. Jesse Itzler knows that’s not how real change happens. In today’s episode, Jesse breaks down the three simple rules he follows every year to guarantee it doesn’t slip by.
He explains why change has to start before January, how locking in the right priorities forces everything else off your calendar, and why more hustle isn’t the answer in 2026. If you want ...
Fortune doesn’t care about our plans and preferences. No, Seneca reminds us, she behaves as she pleases.
📚 Books mentioned:
- Plutarch’s Lives by Plutarch
- Mastery by Robert Greene
- Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
- River of Doubt by Candice Millard
- The Odyssey by Homer
- Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
- The Tiger by John Vaillant
These are disorienting times. Cruel times. Dysfunctional times. And it’s natural to want someone, anyone, to step in and fix it. But they’re not going to. That’s not how this works.
Make 2026 the year where you finally bring yourself closer to living your best life. No more waiting. Demand the best for yourself. The Daily Stoic New Year New You challenge begins January 1, 2026. Learn more and sign up toda...
The pressure of being great changes when you’re carrying more than your own ambition. In today’s episode, Ryan sits down with Paralympian Ezra Frech to talk about the discipline required to compete at the highest level and the weight that comes with representing more than just yourself. Ezra shares what it actually takes to be a top professional Paralympian, his experience growing up with a disability, the r...
How are you helping? What are you doing? How are you acting like a Stoic as opposed to just ‘being stoic?
📚 Get a signed copy of each of the books in the Stoic Virtues Series: Courage is Calling, Discipline is Destiny, Right Thing Right Now, and Wisdom Takes Work
👉 Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing to The Daily Stoic Premium - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus con...
The world needed Marcus Aurelius to become the person we admire and study today. This required conscious and consistent effort on his part. You’re no different. And you know it.
Make 2026 the year where you finally bring yourself closer to living your best life. No more waiting. Demand the best for yourself. The Daily Stoic New Year New You challenge begins January 1, 2026. Learn more and sign up today at dailystoic.com...
Shallowness and cruelty and stupidity may be rampant, but we must resist it—resist it without bitterness or despair—by being bright lights in a dark time.
📕 Pick up your own Premium Leather Edition of Meditations - Marcus Aurelius (Gregory Hays Translation) at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/
👉 Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing to The Daily Stoic Premium - unlock ad-...
Nearly 2,000 years ago, the Stoics were trying to do what we’re all trying to do now: find some peace. For them, philosophy wasn’t an academic hobby. It was something they leaned on to remember what they could control and to let the rest go. That’s why their words still hold up today and continue to help people stay calmer, clearer, and more level-headed. In today's episode, you'll hear eight Stoic lessons you can use to f...
It’s easy to defend yourself. It’s harder to tell the truth. In today’s episode, Ryan sits down with journalist Olivia Nuzzi for a raw, unfiltered conversation about what it really means to get through dishonor honorably. In the wake of her recent scandal, Olivia opens up about how small compromises compound into big consequences, why accountability still matters in a culture that rewards shamelessness, and the strange gra...
Did you know that Meditations wasn’t the only book that Marcus Aurelius wrote?
📚 Mentioned:
- The Notebook by Rolland Allen
- The Daily Stoic Journal: 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on The Art of Living by: https://store.dailystoic.com/
- The Daily Dad Five Year Reflection Journal: https://dailydad.com/leather
👉 Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing to The Daily Stoic Premium - u...
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