You Must Challenge Yourself

"After returning from particularly notable campaigns, the commanders of Roman legions would distribute small coins to their men as rewards for their service and mementos of their time in those campaigns. These coins were the originators of a now-ancient tradition—the challenge coin—that continues all these centuries later, with generals like Washington, Grant, and Mattis handing out small, specially designed coins to their men the same way generals like Fabius and Scipio did."Ryan discusses the history of challenge coins and their deeper meaning on today's Daily Stoic Podcast.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee 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.

• 0:06Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to The Daily Stoic, where each day we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living the good 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.

• 0:29Ryan Holiday?

  You must challenge yourself. After returning from particularly notable campaigns, the commanders of Roman legions would distribute small coins to their men as rewards for their service and mementos of their time in those campaigns. These coins were originators of a now ancient tradition, the challenge coin, that continues all the centuries later, with generals like Washington, Grant, and Mattis handing out small, specially-designed coins for their men, the same way that generals like Fabius and CPO did. What is so telling about the power and purpose of this tradition is that other communities have picked up on it as well. Twelve-step groups hand them out to mark stretches of sobriety, government

• 1:11Ryan Holiday?

  agencies give them to mark service in a presidential administration, and so on. We even have challenge coins here at Daily Stoic to immortalize the most important Stoic concepts: memento mori, amor fati, simpatia, the Four Virtues, and more. What binds these disparate groups in their attraction and connection to the challenge coin is the way that word "challenge" can be taken and turned and applied to the lives of the people in those groups. In one sense, it can be taken to mean that if you've been given a coin for, say, serving on a campaign, you can be challenged by a compatriot from the campaign, and if you're not carrying it, drinks are for you. In another sense, these coins represent and memorialize the actual

• 1:53Ryan Holiday?

  challenges that their holders have been through or are currently dealing with. In this way, one would not expect to find a set of challenge coins commemorating a family's annual spring break vacation, whereas marking 10 years of recovery or memorializing membership to the hallowed ranks of 9/11 first responders makes perfect sense for a challenge coin. The idea fits hand and glove with Stoic philosophy. To the Stoics, life was all about challenge. Those who have never been tested should be pitied, Seneca said, because they don't know what they're capable of. To Marcus, philosophy was all about challenging yourself. It was about settling on words and reminders, epithets, he called them, to live up to, particularly in difficult situations.

• 2:38Ryan Holiday?

  We must always be challenging ourselves, seeking to be part of important moments in history, not running away from the call to serve or to help others. A challenge coin is a way to memorialize that kind of challenging idea and the standards required to live up to it. It's something we can carry with us, something we can touch, something to remind us of all that we have done and all that we must do. So the question is, are you up to the challenge? And of course, as always, you can check out the challenge coins in the Daily Stoic store. Just go to store.dailystoic.com.