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 first few weeks of 2026 will decide far more than you think. In this episode, you’ll hear the best of James Clear’s most important advice from his past conversations with Ryan on how to start the year the right way before bad habits lock in.
James shares what to focus on first, what to ignore, and how to build momentum without burning yourself out. They talk about why systems matter more than goals, how to design habit...
We’ve been blessed with another go, or at least the start of another go. Will we take it? Or will we go on the same as we did before and before and before?
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 other Daily Stoic courses for FREE when yo...
When we develop the discipline to prepare our minds and our bodies for hardship, we have the discipline to see the hard times through to the end.
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.
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This is what we do, isn’t it? We think about doing something…but we put off actually doing it until the last minute.
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 & ...
Here we are at the end of one year and the beginning of another. What do we have to show for it? Did we do what we set out to do? Did we meet those resolutions?
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/c...
Let’s focus on getting better. Let’s get serious about stuff we’ve put off. Let’s lend a helping hand. Let’s “fight to be the person philosophy tried to make us,” as Marcus Aurelius said.
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 dail...
You do not control the year ahead. You do control how you meet it. In this episode, Ryan walks through the Stoic framework for becoming better in the year ahead built around courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom.
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 mo...
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.
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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...
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