Find The Space

Think about the last time that someone made you upset. What did they say? What did they do? Now think back: How did you react? What did you say? What did you feel?📕 Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" is available for pre-order now! We’ve put together a bunch of cool preorder bonuses—among them is a signed and numbered page from the original manuscript of the book. You can learn more about those and how to receive them over at Dailystoic.com/preorder. ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See 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.

• 0:03Ryan 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, dailystoic.com.

• 0:26Ryan Holiday?

  Find a space.

• 0:31Ryan Holiday?

  Think about the last time that someone made you upset. What did they say? What did they do? Now, think back. How did you react? What did you say? What did you feel? Now, think about the situation another way. If, when that provocation came, you had given yourself space to pause, could you have controlled your reaction? Could you have stayed sober and calm in the face of their hysterics and yelling? Could you have kept your head about you? Marcus Aurelius said, "You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength." Viktor Frankl talked about how between stimulus and response, we have space.

• 1:16Ryan Holiday?

  And in that space, we determine not just our response, but who we are. What we're trying to do here is to train ourselves to do that. All this reading, this writing, this stepping back and reflecting on our patterns of behavior, it's for a purpose. It's to improve that default response so that while others give themselves over to their emotions, we can keep any destructive emotions in check. As they freak out, we can calm down. That's the whole point of Stoicism, to restore the power over your mind to the only person who ought to have it: you.

• 2:07Ryan 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.