It’s About Infusing It Into Your DNA

“Marcus Aurelius read Epictetus… a lot. We know this because Meditations is proof of it. Almost every page has some direct quote or allusion to Epictetus. We also find, upon deeper inspection, references to the works of Panaetius, Chrysippus, the plays of Euripides, Zeno and countless other philosophers.”Ryan explains the importance of lingering on great work so that it becomes a part of you, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Great news! The Daily Stoic is $1.99 as an ebook right now (UK discounted too)!***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 Daily Stoic: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.

• 0:04Ryan 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?

  It's about infusing it into your DNA. Marcus Aurelius read Epictetus a lot. We know this because Meditations is proof of it. Almost every page has some direct quote or allusion to Epictetus. We also find, upon deeper inspection, references to the works of Panathеus, Chrysippus, the plays of Euripides, Zeno, and countless other philosophers. How does someone develop recall like that? By repetition and practice. Although Marcus Aurelius never refers to Seneca, it's clear that he had absorbed a piece of advice from that Stoic too. "We must linger upon a limited number of master thinkers and digest their works," Seneca wrote, "if you would derive ideas that should win firm

• 1:11Ryan Holiday?

  hold in your mind." Over and over, the Stoics poured over the same texts so the ideas could take firm hold, so they could be absorbed, so it could become muscle memory infused into their DNA. Once, ha, that is not enough. It was about reading and rereading, writing, journaling, discussing, reflecting, experiencing. As Epictetus commanded, "Every day and night, keep thoughts like these at hand. Write them, read them aloud, talk to yourself and others about them." Marcus would later talk about how the philosopher is one with their weapons, like a boxer more than a swordsman. A boxer just clenches their fists. A fencer has to pick something up. And that's what we are trying to do as we study.

• 1:55Ryan Holiday?

  We're trying to create a practice, get in the reps so that it fuses us with our philosophy, so we become one with it, inserting it into our DNA so that we are forever changed by it. Make that your goal this year. It's not about skimming. It's not about having done it once. It's not about getting the gist of it, as Marcus derided. It's about making it part of your life and your mind. It's about lingering and digesting until it takes firm hold, never, ever, to be dislodged.

• 2:28Ryan Holiday?

  And on that note, as we've said earlier, The Daily Stoic is $1.99 as an ebook right now to kick off 2021, and we have a premium leather edition of the book available as well. Look, when I published The Daily Stoic in 2016, I had no idea it would go on to sell more than a million copies in 30 languages, spend hundreds of weeks on the bestseller list. If you haven't read it yet or want to give it as a gift, this is as cheap as the book will ever get. I hope you enjoy it. I hope you kick the year off right, not just with some reading, but with some rereading and absorbing, making the study of Stoicism a practice. Hopefully, The Daily Stoic can be part of that, but you can do it with any of the Stoics. Check out The Daily Stoic, $1.99 as an ebook. It's discounted in the

• 3:10Ryan Holiday?

  UK as well, or you can get the cool new leather-bound edition in the Daily Stoic store. These are available everywhere books are sold. Be well.