The Daily Stoic

How should a Stoic deal with bullies? What do you do when someone you love drives you crazy? And how do you stick to your principles when it costs you money? Ryan answers some big questions in this episode.Ryan Holiday is coming to a city near you! Grab tickets here | https://www.dailystoiclive.com/

Ready to write off 2026 already because it didn't start perfectly? In this episode, Ryan talks about why the Stoics would say that impulse is not just unhelpful, it's arrogant. Writing off today, this week, or this year assumes you'll always have another chance later. The Stoics remind us the move is to get back to the work right now.

In the span of three days, Ryan found himself in a series of situations that were exciting, surreal, and a little terrifying. The kind of moments where the Stoic ideas suddenly get put to the test.SPECIAL OFFER exclusively for podcast listeners

Think of how you spent the last week. Were those seven days as efficient or productive as they could be?

Without change, we stagnate. Our minds grow complacent, ignorant to new ideas. Our bodies grow weak from disuse. We remain stuck.

There is beauty and peace in noticing. The world is filled with things to see and hear.

Most people remember exactly where they were the week of March 11, 2020. Life suddenly stopped. The world went quiet. And for a brief moment, everything about our routines, priorities, and pace of life was thrown into question. Six years later, the world is loud and fast again. But the real question is: what were we supposed to learn from the moment when everything slowed down?In this episode, Ryan talks with award-winning author Chloe Dalton about the strange stillness of those early pandemic months and how one unexpected encounter with a wild hare during lockdown completely changed the way she thought about time, work, and the life she was building. Later in the episode, novelist Susan Straight joins the conversation to reflect on why it's important that we don't rush to forget that time and what remembering the pandemic can still teach us.

You will get knocked off course. You will fall off the wagon. You will get out of sorts. That's unavoidable. What matters is how quickly you return.SPECIAL OFFER | Go to dailystoic.com/spring and enter code DSPOD20 at checkout to get 20% off the Spring Forward Challenge! Challenge yourself to spring forward and become the person you aspire to be. The Spring Forward Challenge starts March 20, 2026.

We should think about where we have made our happiness conditional on this or that achievement, on this or that identity which lies outside our control.SPECIAL OFFER exclusively for podcast listeners

After their conversation for The Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan gave Jordan Klepper, comedian, writer, and correspondent on The Daily Show, a few book recommendations at The Painted Porch.Follow Jordan on Instagram @JordanKlepper and check out his upcoming live show dates on his website https://www.officialjordanklepper.com/

Do your emotions ever get the best of you? Someone says one thing and it ruins your whole day. A small frustration turns into a big deal. Travel anxiety spirals. Jealousy or irritation shows up before you even realize it. In this episode, you will learn the complete Stoic playbook for mastering your emotions so they don't end up mastering you.SPECIAL OFFER exclusively for podcast listeners

Even though we can't control time or slow it down, even though we can't control external forces and external events—we can control ourselves, so we can control how we use our time. SPECIAL OFFER exclusively for podcast listeners

When does belonging start to matter more than being right? In Part 2 of Ryan's conversation with Jordan Klepper, they dive into how mob thinking takes over, how cultural permission shifts what feels acceptable, why people double down even when the facts are clear, and how leaders shape the tone of an entire country.Jordan Klepper is a comedian, writer, and correspondent on The Daily Show. You can follow him on Instagram @JordanKlepper and check out his upcoming live show dates on his website https://www.officialjordanklepper.com/

Get your reps in…because none of us have any idea what life has in store for us in the future.SPECIAL OFFER exclusively for podcast listeners

What do you do when someone says something you completely disagree with or something that sounds totally detached from reality? Jordan Klepper, correspondent and host at The Daily Show, is known for walking into political rallies and calmly interviewing the most passionate people in the crowd. In this episode, he sits down with Ryan to explain why arguing almost never works, how silence can be more powerful than a comeback, and what most of us misunderstand about why people believe what they believe.Jordan Klepper is a comedian, writer, and correspondent on The Daily Show. You can follow him on Instagram @JordanKlepper and check out his upcoming live show dates on his website https://www.officialjordanklepper.com/

It's been a long winter. But now? Now you can feel something is in the air.

We plan to do it. We mean to do it. We just tell ourselves that we'll do it tomorrow. The problem, as the Stoics remind us, is that we don't control tomorrow.

Haven't you been wrong before? Haven't you done stuff that in retrospect seems dumb or weird? Of course you have.

Meditating on death isn't depressing, it's clarifying. In this episode, Ryan explains how the Stoic practice of Memento Mori will sharpen your priorities, push you to stop wasting time, and remind you to live with character now, not later.

The greatness of Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius was not perfection but progress. They were imperfect men committed to self-discipline and self-correction. Today's episode explores how Antoninus shaped Marcus through steady example and daily discipline, and what their lives reveal about the kind of character a person chooses to build.

Power doesn't wait for the perfect person to raise their hand. Someone will wield it. Someone always does.

What if it only took five minutes each morning to feel more in control of your life? In this conversation, Dr. Rangan Chatterjee shares the three daily questions he uses to stay grounded in alignment, contentment, and control.

Is this what we're here for? To be the passions' slave? To be the plaything of emotions and impulses? It can't be!

People are the way they are. They will always be this way. We don't control that.

How do you hold a country together when it's tearing itself apart? In this episode, Ryan sits down with Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin to talk about Abraham Lincoln's self-education, his emotional discipline, and how he managed anger, ego, and public pressure without losing himself.Doris Kearns Goodwin is a Pulitzer Prize–winning presidential historian and bestselling author. Her latest #1 New York Times bestseller, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s, is being adapted into a feature film, while her earlier works, Team of Rivals, The Bully Pulpit, and No Ordinary Time, have won some of the nation's highest literary honors and inspired leaders worldwide. She has served as a White House Fellow to President Lyndon Johnson, produced acclaimed docuseries for the HISTORY Channel, and earned countless awards for her contributions to history and leadership.Doris has a new book out called The Leadership Journey: How Four Kids Became Presidents in which she shares the different childhood experiences of Abraham Lincoln. Theodore Roosevelt. Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Lyndon B. Johnson, and how they each found their way to the presidency.

The past is gone, and no amount of calculation will bring it back or make it fair. What we do have is agency right now.

We have a duty. Our nature—justice—demands something from us. It demands that we get up, get after it, and wear ourselves down doing it.

Life is a lot. It moves fast. It's easy to feel overwhelmed by what to do, what not to do, and whether you're even focusing on the right things. In today's episode, Ryan shares simple Stoic rules to live by that can help you live with more clarity, purpose, and steadiness right now.

If you think history is boring, irrelevant, or just not your "thing", this episode is for you. In today's episode, Ryan sits down with Kenny Curtis, host of the new podcast History Snacks, to make the case for history. They discuss why history isn't about memorizing dates or dusty textbooks, but a superpower that gives you perspective, clarity, and calm.

It's discouraging. It's distracting. All the stuff that's happening in the world. But you know what you can't do? You can't give up your work, your freedom of thought, your freedom of choice pre-emptively.

We should pride ourselves on our ability to put up with these people, to be able to be nice to people who are not nice, to be able to turn the other cheek and not be made bitter and cynical.

The Stoics knew that wanting less increases gratitude, just as wanting more obliterates it. "Freedom isn't secured by filling up on your heart's desire but by removing your desire." - Epictetus

Day to day, it's only our individual actions that are up to us: How we treat people, how we run our businesses, what we think about.

It's not that you should never speak up. It's not that you should never speak truth to power. It's just that you should never do it while you're angry. Do it after you've calmed down. Do it after you've had time to think about it. Do it after you've slept on it.

All that we see must be illuminated by the calm light of mild philosophy. So we can see what it really is. So we don't do anything we regret.

Most people don't read that many books, maybe a few a year at most. So if you're only going to read a couple books this year, the decision of which ones you choose becomes really important.In today's episode, Ryan shares a handful of books he's confident are worth your time. They've changed him, made him better, and he believes they'll make you better too in a lot of different areas of your life.

Love isn't just an emotion. It's not just a feeling that hits you out of nowhere. It's an action, something you can practice and something you can get better at. And while philosophy might not seem like a guide to a great love life, especially Stoicism, it actually has a lot to teach us.

Marcus Aurelius said that if you ever found anything better in life than courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom—the four virtues—it must be an extraordinary thing indeed. Which raises the question: is there anything better?

Life has a way of stripping all our reasons bare, of humbling our plans and assumptions. We must live, as Marcus Aurelius said, as if death hangs over us. Because it does.

It can feel like everything is falling to pieces. It can feel like you're lost. It can feel like there's no hope, no way forward, nothing to do. But that's just because you've gotten rattled.

Why do the same patterns keep showing up in completely different centuries? In this episode, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Stephen Greenblatt joins Ryan to discuss how power, fear, ego, and insecurity keep producing the same patterns. They talk about why dangerous leaders do not look dangerous at first, how great thinkers learned to survive unstable rulers, and why some of the most important ideas in history had to be hidden inside art, literature, and fiction just to stay alive. Stephen Greenblatt is Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. He has written extensively on English Renaissance literature and acts as general editor of The Norton Anthology of English Literature and The Norton Shakespeare. He is the author of fourteen books, including The Swerve, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, and Will in the World, a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

It would be wonderful if the world was naturally just, if people were automatically good, always doing the right thing. But of course, they don't.

At the core of Stoicism is the idea that our emotions are our responsibility. No one can make us frustrated. No one can offend us either, Epictetus said, not without us being complicit in the taking of offense.

After recording their episode, Ryan and Bert Kreischer stopped by The Painted Porch, where Ryan shared some must-read books with Bert.Watch this episode on Ryan Holiday's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VH7tzlzRwY

The most fearless philosopher in the ancient world didn't rule an empire or write books. He lived on the street and begged for food. And yet, he was bold enough to challenge Alexander the Great to his face. In today's episode, we're talking about Diogenes, the philosopher who rejected status, comfort, and approval and may have understood freedom better than anyone who came after him.

You're tough. You're firm. You don't get bothered by things. You keep yourself under control. Good. But you're missing something else just as important and perhaps more impressive.

From corruption to tyranny, the Stoics refused to sit on the sidelines. They tried to change things.

If your New Year motivation didn't make it to February, this episode is for you. Ryan and his business partner and longtime friend, Brent Underwood, talk about how waiting for permission, perfect conditions, or external validation quietly turns into procrastination, even for high performers. They discuss why open-ended ambitions are harder than deadlines, how success can actually make starting new things scarier, and the trap of telling yourself, “I'll get to it later.”Let's not write the year off just yet. The Daily Stoic New Year New You challenge is opening back up for a limited time. Learn more and sign up today at dailystoic.com/challenge.

It's always been a dilemma: Why should I be honest when no one else seems to be? Why should I play by the rules when others are so visibly breaking them? Why should I be respectful or kind or fair when nobody else is?

Few writers understand American culture like Chuck Klosterman, which is why he joins Ryan ahead of the Super Bowl to talk about how football reshaped American culture.In this episode, Chuck and Ryan discuss what football really reveals about American culture, power, and the stories we tell ourselves about expertise and control. Chuck shares his observations, strange historical parallels, and personal stories that connect sports to technology, identity, and how monocultures form and eventually fade.

Obstacles, adversaries, pitfalls, and bad luck. It's going to be there. It's going to happen.