These Conversations Are How You Learn

“In times of clickbait and divisiveness, of the filter bubble and superficiality, one medium of communication has continued to grow exponentially: podcasts. On the one hand, this is a new technology. Recording equipment, bandwidth, the ubiquity of smartphones has made the proliferation of these longform conversations possible.”Ryan explains why you must spend time doing this in order to truly gain knowledge. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/emailFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom, designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom in everyday life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at DailyStoic.com.

• 0:26Ryan Holiday?

  These conversations are how you learn. In times of clickbait and divisiveness of the filter bubble and superficiality, one medium of communication has continued to grow exponentially: podcasts. On the one hand, this is a new technology that is the product of a whole suite of other technologies: recording equipment, bandwidth, smartphones. They've made the proliferation of these long-form conversations possible. On the other, a podcast, even more than books, is the oldest medium there is. It's people talking, not just soundbites, not live over the air, not to bring you breaking news, not to make something go viral. It's usually a long conversation.

• 1:08Ryan Holiday?

  It's a lecture, it's a meandering deep dive, an hour, maybe two, maybe three, to a long topic of interest to the host. And in a perfect world, the millions of listeners, just as these short-form, little episodes are a one-shot, digestible bit of insight for you every day. In that sense, listening to a good podcast is not unlike being a fly on the wall during one of Socrates' chats, or being a part of one of the dialogues Cicero captured between the Stoics of the Cypionic Circle, or one of the long dinner parties that Cato or Antipater had, including the discussion that Cato had on the very last night of his life. What do you think Marcus Aurelius was going to do when he went off to learn that which he did not yet know? Have you ever read Epictetus?

• 1:53Ryan Holiday?

  Because it's basically a transcript of his long conversations with students. The world would be better off if we watched less news, spent less time on social media, spent more time listening. Listening to conversations between two smart people, listening to people we disagreed with, listening to shows about stuff we've always wondered about but have never taken the time to learn, listening to hours and hours of audio that teaches us, expands our mind, connects us to others. It's not as good as reading, of course, but it's certainly better than watching TV or scrolling through a feed. We can listen, we can host our own, we can share what we've benefited from hearing, we can be a part of reconstituting the free marketplace of ideas.

• 2:37Ryan Holiday?

  And of course, that's what we do here on the Daily Stoic Podcast. I'd love for you to spread the word. If you don't listen to our longer weekend episodes and our Wednesday interview episodes, I think you'd like it. We've had awesome people on from Robert Greene to Pau Gasol, Dominique Dawes, Cal Newport, Chris Bosh, Malcolm Gladwell, so many others. You can listen on your favorite podcast app, of course. And for those of you who do listen and have been listening, I just wanted to say thanks. I appreciate it.