Excellence Is Not an Act, But a Habit

We are what we do. What we do determines who we can be. 👉 The Daily Stoic Habits for Success, Habits for Happiness https://dailystoic.com/habits course is a six-week challenge designed to change your entire relationship with habits for the better. Sign up https://dailystoic.com/habits to take the first step toward a more effective, happier life |https://challenge.dailystoic.com/habits 🎟️ DAILY STOIC LIVE https://www.dailystoiclive.com/| Ryan Holiday is coming to a city near you https://www.dailystoiclive.com/! Grab tickets here https://www.dailystoiclive.com/ | https://www.dailystoiclive.com/ 🎙️ AD-FREE https://dailystoic.supercast.com/| Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing to The Daily Stoic Premium https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content: https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ 🎥 VIDEO EPISODES https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos| Watch the video episodes on The Daily Stoic YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos: https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos ✉️ FREE STOIC WISDOM https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail | Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 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.

• 0:00Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues—courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom—into the real world.

• 0:14Ryan Holiday?

  Erite, that's a powerful word. To the Greeks, it meant excellence. It was the ultimate expression of human greatness—moral, physical, spiritual. It's what the Stoics were chasing. It's what you're chasing today. But how do we get there? Well, erite requires a certain philosophical approach, because brilliance and inspiration and skill are not enough. "We are what we repeatedly do," Aristotle said. "Therefore, excellence is not an act, but a habit." In other words, excellence isn't this thing you do one time. It's a way of living. It's foundational. It's like an operating system, and the code this system operates on is habit.

• 0:58Ryan Holiday?

  As Epictetus would later say, "capability is confirmed and grows in its corresponding actions, walking by walking and running by running. Therefore, if you want to do something, make a habit of it." So if we want to be happy, if we want to be successful, if we want to be great, we have to develop the capability. We have to develop the day-to-day habits that allow this to ensue. And that's great news, because it means that impressive results and enormous changes are possible without Herculean effort or magical formulas. Small adjustments, good systems, the right processes, that's what it takes. Things like when we wake up, what we study and practice, who we have in our lives as influences, where we go,

• 1:43Ryan Holiday?

  and how we spend our time. There is nothing more powerful than a good habit, nothing that holds us back quite like a bad habit. We are what we do. What we do determines who we can be. You know this. You've seen the forces at work in your own life, for better and, frustratingly all too often, for worse. Today is the day to start harnessing these powers and wielding them properly, to stop being jerked around by our habits, to no longer be a passive observer of our own virtues and vices. It won't be easy, but it will be transformational. Daily Stoic has been developing the Daily Stoic Habits Challenge, Habits for Success, Habits for Happiness.

• 2:28Ryan Holiday?

  We've sifted through the greatest Stoic wisdom and aimed it at one of the most challenging parts of life: habit formation and growth. These are difficult times we're in. Economic uncertainty, personal adversity, these things can sink you, or they can be opportunities to improve. They can be obstacles you triumph over, or setbacks that bring you to your knees. What will it be? Habits answer that question. If you can cultivate good habits, you can survive, even thrive what lies ahead. If you relapse and fall to the level of your worst habits, these hard times will only be harder. We're inviting you to spend the next six weeks challenging yourself to change what you repeatedly do. And we are promising that if you can do that,

• 3:13Ryan Holiday?

  you can achieve erite personally, professionally. If you want to do or be something, Epictetus said, make a habit of it. So let's make a habit of erite. And let's remember his most urgent and challenging question: How much longer are you going to wait to demand the best of yourself? How about not one second longer? Let's start today. If you want to join us in this challenge, I'll be doing it alongside you. It's six weeks of really awesome, life-altering habits based on Stoic wisdom. You can check that out at dailystoic.com/habits. dailystoic.com/habits. Can't wait to see you. Let's change and improve together.