Take This Seriously

Stoicism is not a philosophy for the classroom, but a philosophy for life. You use it and it makes you better. That is, if you take it seriously. If you give it a chance.💡Sign up for Stoicism 101: Ancient Philosophy For Your Actual Life to give you the absolute best of Stoicism, in just 14 days! 🎙️ Listen to Brigid Delaney’s interview on the Daily Stoic on Apple Podcast & Spotify🎥 Watch Brigid Delaney’s interview with Ryan on YouTube✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://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, 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.

• 0:03Ryan 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.

• 0:30Ryan Holiday?

  Take this seriously. Several years ago, Bridget Delaney, a columnist for The Guardian, went through Stoic Week, an annual event where people from around the world experiment in living like the Stoics for a week. She read, she journaled, she engaged with Stoic practices, like the dichotomy of control, accepting what's up to us and what isn't. As she admitted in a recent episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast...

• 0:52Brigid Delaney?

  I didn't really like it. And I wrote essentially a piss-take, saying, "Oh, Stoics, you know, they're so po-faced and boring." And, you know...

• 1:02Ryan Holiday?

  The philosophy was just too strict, too dour for her to take seriously. She was more of an epicurean, she decided. And after her column was published, a bunch of present-day Stoics messaged her and asked her to reconsider. "Try living like a Stoic for real," they said. "Try reading Marcus Aurelius and Seneca and Epictetus. Try discussing the philosophy with family members and colleagues and see if it doesn't seep into you," they said. And so that's what she did. She recruited a friend to join her on the journey and hold her accountable.

• 1:29Brigid Delaney?

  And so we started applying the Stoicism like it was the medicine to each other's lives.

• 1:36Ryan Holiday?

  The second time around, she got it. After living like a Stoic for a year, she said she was calmer, less judgmental, no longer angry like she used to be. When she was passed over for a pay raise at work, she complained and vented, but her Stoic partner in crime reminded her that she was stressing about something that wasn't in her control, and it helped her slow down. She relaxed. She realized that those people who'd messaged her had been proven right. And Stoicism had seeped into her life, and it had improved things. The point of Stoic philosophy is it's to better your life, and by extension, better the lives of those around you. To do that, you gotta put into practice what you read. You gotta find the right stuff and you gotta apply it the right way. That's what we've been doing over in the Stoicism 101 course,

• 2:18Ryan Holiday?

  Ancient Philosophy for Your Actual Life, which we are kicking off as part of Stoic Week this week. Whether you are new to Stoicism or you've been studying it for years, this is about getting serious about that study of practice, giving it a real chance, like Bridget was talking about. In just 14 days, you'll receive the absolute best lessons from Stoicism and we'll talk about some Stoic secrets to success, resilience, productivity, and most of all, virtue. And you don't do it alone. You'll be in a live cohort with a bunch of fellow Stoics, accountability partners, so you can bounce stuff off around. You can do some live office hours with me. I'll answer your questions about Stoic philosophy. That's my favorite part of the course. Seneca was once asked how much progress you'll make. And he said, "Just as much as you try to make." He says, "Why do you wait?

• 3:02Ryan Holiday?

  Wizard comes haphazard to no man." So don't put it off, don't wait. Maybe like Bridget, this could be the year for you to really fall down the rabbit hole of Stoicism. And the course begins on October 28th. That coincides with the start of Stoic Week. And you can head over to dailystoic.com/101 to join the 2024 session of Stoicism 101 today with me and thousands of Stoics all over the world. I can't wait to see you in there. dailystoic.com/101.