Every Day Can Be A Thanksgiving | Ask Daily Stoic

There's something wonderful about being together, family, traveling in from near and far good people enjoying good food, taking a break from the busyness of the world, reflecting on all the things you're grateful for, remembering and making new memories. That's what Thanksgiving, which we're celebrating here in the US today is all about. Feeding America https://teamfeed.feedingamerica.org/participants/19745 | We donated the first $30,000 and would love your help in getting to our goal of $300,000 https://teamfeed.feedingamerica.org/participants/19745—which would provide over 3 million meals for families across the country! Just head over to dailystoic.com/feeding http://dailystoic.com/feeding—every dollar provides 10 meals, even a small donation makes a big difference. 🎟️ Come seeRyan Holiday LIVE https://www.dailystoiclive.com/: https://www.dailystoiclive.com/ Seattle, WA - December 3, 2025 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/daily-stoic-live-onstage-with-ryan-holiday-tickets-1830976292379?aff=oddtdtcreatorSan Diego, CA - February 5, 2026 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/daily-stoic-live-onstage-with-ryan-holiday-tickets-1527497619499?aff=oddtdtcreatorPhoenix, AZ - February 27, 2026 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/daily-stoic-live-onstage-with-ryan-holiday-tickets-1830981698549?aff=oddtdtcreator 👉 Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing toThe Daily Stoic Premium https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content:https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ 🎥 Watch the video episodes onThe Daily Stoic YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos:https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos 🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast onInstagram https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast/?hl=en:https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email athttps://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store:https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/,Twitter https://twitter.com/dailystoic,YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic,TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@daily_stoic?lang=en, andFacebook https://www.facebook.com/dailystoic See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:05Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a Stoic-inspired meditation, designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women, help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit DailyStoic.com.

• 0:57Ryan Holiday?

  Every day can be a Thanksgiving. There's something wonderful about being together. Family, traveling in from near and far. Good people enjoying good food. Taking a break from the busyness of the world. Reflecting on all the things you're grateful for. Remembering and making new memories. That's what Thanksgiving, which we're celebrating here in the US today, is all about. We all have so much to be thankful for. But the Stoics urge us to take this practice even a little bit further. Can you work to be grateful for the less obvious things? For the travel delays and the annoying people at the store? For the kid who wakes up with a cold? For the oven that doesn't work well? For the obstacles at work?

• 1:42Ryan Holiday?

  For the political dysfunction? For the back pain? For the dirty dishes and the passive-aggressive mother-in-law? The Stoics saw gratitude as a kind of medicine, that saying "thank you for every experience" was the key to good mental health. "Convince yourself that everything is a gift from the gods," Marcus really has said, "that things are good and always will be." The emphasis there was on everything. And this quote takes on a special meaning. When you realize how much pain and heartbreak and struggle that life inflicted on Marcus Aurelius, it wasn't natural to see it all as a gift. You had to work for it. Stoicism is not just enjoying special days like Thanksgiving

• 2:27Ryan Holiday?

  means finding the good in every day and all things. Why? Because we're only experiencing them because we're alive, because obstacles are a form of fuel for us, an opportunity inside each one, because surely someone has it worse. Epictetus said that every situation has two handles. Which are you going to decide to grab? The anger or the appreciation? Resentment or thanks? Are you going to let those situations defeat you or help make you stronger? As you gather around your family and friends this Thanksgiving or any other celebration you may partake in, appreciate it and give thanks for all the bountiful gifts that the present moment presents. Just make sure that when that moment passes

• 3:12Ryan Holiday?

  as you go back to your regular life, that you make gratitude a regular part of it. Again, not simply for what is easy and immediately pleasing, but for all of us. And I'm here with my family. We're having a wonderful time. And one of the things we're all excited about and talking about is the fact that we're teaming up with Feeding America to provide meals for hungry families. You can head over to dailystoic.com/feeding right now to learn more. We're trying to make a small but meaningful difference in the lives of neighbors who are facing hunger. There's a great line from Marcus Aurelius where he says in meditations that it's not just that he had never known Sirius One, it's that he was always lucky enough to be able to help other people. Like, what a wonderful thing to be grateful for

• 3:57Ryan Holiday?

  and a thing to pay forward. As they say, if you've been blessed, be a blessing. So we're trying to raise $300,000 for Feeding America. That'll provide basically 3 million meals. I put up the first 30,000. If you want to donate $3 or $30 or $300, any amount makes a big difference. That's dailystoic.com/feeding. And I think we're already at 70,000 or maybe a little bit more. I think we can get to that 300,000 goal. And I'm grateful for all of you who are listening, who participate, and I hope you have a great Thanksgiving.

• 4:40Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast.

• 4:46Speaker 01

  My son is playing hide and seek here.

• 4:48Ryan Holiday?

  He's not in here.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  My other son is trying to find him.

• 4:52Ryan Holiday?

  But I am recording the intro for today's Thursday episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I get to travel all over the world and give talks. And one of the questions I get the most is like, how to find motivation when you're burnt out, how to be resilient in tough times. You know, the stuff that the sort of bread and butter of Stoicism. So in today's episode, I wanted to bring you a compilation of those. That's the theme we're meditating on today.

• 5:19Speaker 01

  Where are you going, bud?

• 5:21Ryan Holiday?

  Okay, he's just moving hiding spots, but so far he remains undiscovered. In any case, I'm going to be in Seattle on December 3rd. I'm going to be in San Diego on February 5th and Phoenix on February 27th. You can go to dailystoiclive.com to grab tickets for that. Ask me questions like the lovely folks who asked me these questions on this topic, which I always enjoy thinking about. And I'm trying to stay motivated myself. I'm in the middle of this book that I'm working on now. And you know, you have good days and bad days, but mostly you gotta sit your ass in the chair and do the work. And then have other things that balance you out in life, which is, my kids in this case, who are having a very spirited game of hide and seek. And I am going to go join them.

• 6:06Ryan Holiday?

  So I'm going to wrap this up. Hope to see you, as I said, Seattle, San Diego, or Phoenix, dailystoiclive.com. And I hope you like this episode and you're enjoying your Thanksgiving break if you're currently on one.

• 6:21Ryan Holiday?

  My question has to do, you've obviously cornered the market on modern Stoicism and you're very prolific. But my question is, as an artist, do you ever one day wake up and go, fuck today? Like you probably have interests that are all over the map, I would expect. Did you ever wake up and go, fuck, I really want to write a book on?

• 6:39Speaker 02

  I don't know, Spain, or whatever it might be. And if so, how do you put that aside while you're working and doing everything you do?

• 6:46Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, when I sort of set out to write about this stuff, there's the topic that I was interested in. But then there's also the way that I write about the topic, which is I take stories and I illustrate the ideas. So although I am writing about this overarching topic, I get to bring in all the other things that I'm interested in. So I read very widely and I bring them back to the thing that I talk about. So there's not a ton that I feel like, hey, I have like lots of good material over here that I can't use. But I have done other projects that are very different. I mean, this parenting one, that was a big part of my life. So I do daily dad every day, which is advice, but you know, about a very specific part of my life. Uh, I have the podcast, I get to talk to people about different things.

• 7:28Ryan Holiday?

  Um, and then I, I've done a couple of books in like sort of different, different genres. But I think when you find something that like really lights you up, chances are you don't have like 10 things that light you up to an equal degree. So there is, when I was talking about, you have to be able to say no. I, there's some things that I'm saying no to, but mostly I'm saying no to things. So I can say yes to this one thing that I'm the most excited about.

• 7:53Speaker 03

  Where do you find your motivation to keep going when you have like long workdays? And you feel like your to do list is never ending, or it's just created by other people? What do you find your, you know, your inspiration and your motivation to kind of keep going?

• 8:08Ryan Holiday?

  I, there's a great writing rule that someone told me, they said, um, just two crappy pages a day. That's all you have to do. And so I, I've talked about sort of boiling it down to its essence. It's like, what are the, what is like the least amount you can do to call it a win? And so I, I have that and that kind of creates momentum for me. So it's like, I just try to make a positive contribution to the work every day. And almost always I do a lot more than that, but it creates like a minimum for me. That allows me to sort of never have that fully taken away. Even if travel was crazy, I'm stuck at the airport, I can, I can do one thing, right? Or, you know, my kids are sick, I can figure out how to do one thing.

• 8:48Ryan Holiday?

  I, I try to sort of narrow it down, but I, I do try to, you've got to protect whatever that main thing is. I said, you know, it's, it's kind of interesting when you write books and then people want you to speak or consult or advise or then they invite you to stuff. It's all, it's all wonderful, but it's really important that you. If you know why you're doing your thing and what like, what that non-negotiable is for me, I have just had to be very clear like, the reward for succeeding as an author cannot be that I don't get to write. Like, the whole point is writing. That's the thing that I control, that I like, that inspires me and fulfills me. So I, I just have to protect that thing.

• 9:32Ryan Holiday?

  And if you don't, it can become very easy to just be flooded with or, or, you know, overwhelmed with all the potential distractions and opportunities that are, that are out there.

• 9:45Speaker 04

  I just want to ask you, like, work-life balance is a thing which is, like, everybody talks about that.

• 9:50Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 9:51Speaker 04

  And people say that you need, to stay happy, you need to have work-life balance.

• 9:55Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 9:55Speaker 04

  But there are professions where sometimes it is hard to achieve.

• 9:59Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 10:00Speaker 04

  On many days. What are the main principles of Stoicism, which those people can apply when they can't achieve work-life balance to stay happy?

• 10:10Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. Without that work-life balance, I think we burn ourselves out. We spin off the planet. We neglect our other responsibilities and obligations. It, it can be hard. I mean, Mark Schrute is in Meditations. He's talking about how people who love what they do wear themselves down doing it. They forget to wash and eat and sleep. It's true. He says that. But he also says later, maybe correcting for that overcorrection, he says, you know, "Don't be all about business." You know, he talks about finding stillness and peace. And, and clearly, relationships are really important to him. So I, I like the idea of balance. Maybe tension is another word, that these things are in tension or in opposition for each other. And you find, you know, maybe you go too far in one direction, you gotta correct a little bit.

• 10:55Ryan Holiday?

  You go too far in the other direction, you gotta correct a little bit. To me, it's, it's a, it's a constant sort of recalibration, especially because it's not like your family is this stagnant thing, right? What your kids need when they're two is different than what they need when they're 20. You know, their school schedule is different. Their emotional needs are different. So understanding that there's kind of seasons to these things. I keep, every time I feel like I figure out the perfect schedule, the perfect, you know, list of priorities, what they want from me changes. Or, you know, how bedtime goes changes, or they wake up sick, or then they have to change schools.

• 11:35Ryan Holiday?

  So it is, to me, just a constant process of figuring it out as opposed to having figured it out. There is no singular balance. You're just always adjusting and figuring out the scales to get closer to what, you know, you and they need in that moment.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  My question is this, it was sort of like, when I write, it's frustratingly difficult. And I guess I'm just wondering, as someone who has written 10 books, or whatever, over the last 10 years, like, does it get easier? In other words, when you are trying to write something that is so deep and so good, that it can define a space, I find that I'll write a chapter, it takes me like a month, and then I have to like rewrite that same chapter like seven times, and so now it takes me like four years to write a fucking book. And I'm just like, how do I, how do I like do this, how do I get deeper faster?

• 12:24Ryan Holiday?

  Well, one thing I try to tell myself is that if it was easy, everyone would do it, right? And so it's good that it's hard, right? Like, that's what keeps the riffraff out. Can it get easier for you as you do it more? To a degree, but you're still trying to do an incredibly difficult thing, which is, take something in your head that makes sense to you, and not only make it make sense to other people, but make it interesting to other people. And then, you know, ideally make it shareable or of value, like, you're trying to do a really hard thing, right? And so, like, I'm more confident as I go, because I know what to expect, like, I know where the dips are, and I know how long it's supposed to take, and, you know, I have recall

• 13:08Ryan Holiday?

  of certain things, you know, I have that, but it's still fundamentally, you're starting with a, like, I am dreading what I'm gonna have to start in the next couple of months, because I know what to expect, which is why it's gonna be hard. You know what I mean?

• 13:27Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple of years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please, spread the word. Tell people about it. And this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say thank you.