The Daily Stoic - How Many of These 7 Stoic Traits Do You Have?

Episode Date: January 18, 2026

In today's episode, you’ll hear about 7 traits that the Stoics actually lived by, and why they shaped leaders we’re still learning from 2,000 years later.💡 We designed The Daily Stoic Leadership Challenge: Ancient Wisdom For Modern Leaders to mirror the kind of education that produced historically great leaders like Marcus Aurelius. Check it out at store.dailystoic.comGet The Daily Stoic Leadership Challenge: Ancient Wisdom For Modern Leaders & all other Daily Stoic courses for FREE when you join Daily Stoic Life | dailystoic.com/life👉 Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing to The Daily Stoic Premium - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content: https://dailystoic.supercast.com/🎥 Watch the video episodes on The Daily Stoic YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast✉️ 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.

Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic podcast. On Sundays, we take a deeper dive into these ancient topics with excerpts from the Stoic texts, audiobooks that we like here or recommend here at Daily Stoic, and other long-form wisdom that you can chew on on this relaxing weekend. We hope this helps shape your understanding of this philosophy, and most importantly, that you're able to apply it to your actual life. Thank you. for listening. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic podcast. We have a

shortage of leaders these days. In fact, the only thing we're really being shown as far as leadership lately is like what its opposite looks like. Like what is bad leadership, what's selfish leadership, what's what's unprincipled leadership, what's leadership of the few, what's leadership in the wrong direction. I don't know. I don't need to go down this road. I think we can all agree wherever you sit politically, we don't exactly have some great models of leadership these days. And so in today's episode, I wanted to bring you some stoic lessons on leadership. And it's true, the stoics were leaders and historically have been leaders. They ran for public office. They served in the military. They led movements. They dealt with adversity and difficulty.

I think they also show us, right, that there's no single personality type required to be a courageous or a virtuous leader. I mean, Epictetus doesn't hold any public office, but as a thinker and as a teacher, he ends up influencing Hadrian, the emperor of Rome, and Marcus Aurelius, the emperor of Rome. And conversely, you have Nero, who Epictetus is also spending time with, who manages to miss all of Epictetus's insights about leadership. But in any case, today's episode goes all the way back to September 2020. We put together this piece for the launch of lives of the Stoics, which is all about who the Stoics actually were in practice, not just what they wrote about. And it's called Seven Traits in the Lives of the Stoic Leaders. And it was read, not by me, you can't tell my voice sounds horrible. So Katie McGurl, our wonderful editor for the Daily Stoic email, did the voice.

so you can take a break from hearing from me and you can hear from her. And I hope this episode inspires you to reflect on some Stoic traits, some Stoic leadership traits. And you can check out lives of the Stoics if the article resonates with you. Or you can check out the Daily Stoic Leadership Challenge, which is one of our most popular challenges. It's got a bunch of Q&A's with leaders on the Daily Stoak podcast over the years. It's funny.

Actually, a bunch of those people have gone on to do incredibly impressive things, not that they hadn't already done impressive things, but you look at the people interviewed as part of the Daily Stoic Leadership Challenge and you'll be pretty blown away. I'll link to that too. If you're looking for an excuse for signing up for Daily Stoic Life, this is a good one because that challenge itself is like the price of a Daily Stoic Life membership. So that's daily soaklif.com. We'll get into it. Thanks, Katie, for sparing my voice. Seven common traits in the lives of stoic leaders. Sound aim and preparation. What is quite unlooked for is more crushing in its effect, and unexpectedness adds to the weight of a disaster. The fact that it was unforeseen has never failed to intensify a person's grief. This is a reason for ensuring that nothing ever takes us by surprise.

We should project our thoughts ahead of us at every turn, and have in mind every possible eventuality, instead of only the usual course of events. Seneca. Also under the virtue of practical wisdom, the Stoics tried to develop soundness of aim and careful preparation. Antipater, the fifth leader of the Stoic school, use the image of an archer to talk about how a good leader goes about their work.

After assessing the true value of things, we must set our aim correctly on something of true worth for ourselves and for others in our care. This requires great training and practice, and just like an archer who spends much time and effort to develop a good aim, they also work to learn all the external factors of wind, temperature, humidity, which aren't in anyone's control, and can affect whether we hit the target or not. Preparation in all these areas increases our chances of hitting the target. Even so, we often will miss the target, sometimes by a lot. Preparation isn't only about getting the skills needed to succeed, It's also about contemplating failure in advance.

A good leader spends time preparing for the worst as well. Seneca was an ardent practitioner of premeditadio Malorum, the premeditation of bad things. He urged us to always do the same. Here's a lesson to test your mind's metal. Take part of a week in which you have only the most meager and cheap food, dress scantly in shabby clothes, and ask yourself if this is really the worst that you feared.

It is when times are good that you should gird yourself for tougher times ahead. For when fortune is kind, the soul can build defenses against her ravages. So it is that soldiers practice maneuvers in peacetime, erecting bunkers with no enemies in sight, and exhausting themselves under no attack so that when it comes they won't grow tired. After Seneca, Epictetus would talk about the need for a hard winter training, like Rome's soldiers would practice when on break from the battlefront in winter. Epictetus had learned physical disciplines that build character from his teacher Musonius Rufus, who practiced similar deprivations and hardships to build his resilience.

Our aims, skill development, and constant review of what can go wrong, all of this is preparation. We must undergo a hard winter training and not rush into things for which we haven't prepared, Epictetus urged to students. If we don't prepare for the worst, the Stoics teach, we simply aren't prepared. Shrewdness and ingenuity. If anyone can refute me, show me I'm making a mistake or looking at things from the wrong perspective, I'll gladly change. It's the truth I'm after, and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance, Marcus Aurelius.

When Arius de Dydymus, one of the two Stoic advisors to the Emperor Augustus, wrote about the various aspects of the virtue of wisdom, he included two facets that really stand out. Shrewdness and ingenuity. Stoic wisdom wasn't up in the clouds. It was more about the practical knowledge that would immediately let you know what to do and avoid, and, when stuck, how to work your way out of the situation. Aristo, one of the early rebels in stoicism, was one who highlighted the trait of shrewdness the most. He believed in throwing out all the rulebooks, and that a well-prepared Stoic would simply immediately know what to do. The right course of of action would just pop into his head. Just like a sea captain facing a great wave, a leader won't go

running to the ship's manual for guidance in a pinch. But in the real world, things play out over a longer period of time and get a lot more dicey and difficult than that. And so orthodox stoic teaching always used a lot of practical rules and reminders, including stories of great exemplars in difficult situations, to help cultivate the ingenuity that would help navigate such tough seas. Aristo was tricked by Perseus, the student and personal scribe to Zeno, who had one twin deposit a sum with Aristo, and later sent the other twin to collect the money. When Aristo discovered he had given the money to the wrong brother, and that Perseus had refuted his claimed infallibility, he was dumbstruck.

Shrudeness always needs the balance of humility. Marcus Aurelius taught that we should keep all our decisions and actions under reservation. meaning that whatever judgments we've made and course we've steered, we have to be ready to annul that judgment and set a new course if circumstances prove our initial assessment incorrect. A good leader is always ready to admit they are wrong. Marcus always strove to maintain the view from above, something he got from Plato,

to avoid being lost in the minutia of the moment. The universe is change and life is opinion, he wrote. We must be ready to revoke the opinions we hold that put us in a bind, especially when a truer opinion awaits our discovery. The ingenuity to do this is what turns obstacles into opportunities, not only for success in our endeavors, but for growth as leaders. Tough on themselves, understanding of others. Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself, Marcus Aurelius.

If humility helps increase the trade of ingenuity in us, the Stoics teach, we will always do better if we keep our focus on correcting our own conceitedness and self-deception, rather than focusing on the faults of others. Heraclitus, who had influenced Zeno and Clanthes, who wrote a four-volume commentary on his work, and all the Stoics after them, said that self-deception was an awful disease and eyesight a lying sense. The Stoics took this teaching to heart,

focusing on how our blindness to self-deception is really the root problem we need to focus. on. Besides, what we often think we see clearly as the problem with others is mistaken. This is one of the first traits the Stoics sought to cultivate under the virtue of self-control, by learning to keep an eye on our own deceptions and errors first. And here, the Stoics offer a simple program. First, be strict with your own fallibilities. Next, be more lenient with what you perceive as the failings of others. Great leaders are excellent at practicing these two things. Marcus would constantly remind himself, whenever you take offense at someone's wrongdoing, immediately turn to your own similar failings, such as seeing money as good or pleasure or a little

fame, whatever form it takes. By thinking on this, you'll quickly forget your anger, considering also what compels them, for what else could they do? Or, if you are able, remove their compulsion. That's a great exercise for anyone with responsibilities for managing a group. When it comes time to needing to correct someone, Marcus always invoked kindness. If someone is slipping up, he wrote, kindly correct them and point out what they missed. But if you can't, blame yourself or no one. This is how philosophy should work in practice. As Seneca put it, philosophy is a way of scraping off our own faults, not railing at the fault. of others. Even when a reprimand or punitive action must be taken with someone in your care,

there is a kind path. Epictetus loved to share a story about the stoic governor of Crete and Cyrene. When Agrippinus was governor, Epictetus would recount admiringly, he used to try to persuade the persons whom he's sentenced, that it was proper for them to be sentenced. For, he would say, it is not as an enemy or as a brigand that I record my vote against them, but as a cure and guardian, just as also the physician encourages the man upon whom he is operating and persuades him to submit to the operation. Good stoic leaders hold themselves to a higher standard, and when handing down judgments on others, they do it as curators, guardians, or as a doctor trying to save someone, never in anger or superiority. Taming the tongue, listening more than talking.

Better to trip with the feet than the tongue. Zeno. This modesty and speech made Stoic leaders expert listeners. Zeno had said that we have two ears in one mouth because that's the ratio of listening to speaking we should adhere to in life. He also said it was better to trip with the feet than with the tongue. Cato, whose words could move the entire Senate and people of Rome, famously said that he would only speak when he was convinced what he was about to say

wasn't better left unsaid. In Epictetus's Enchiridian 33, he lays down a whole series of prescriptions for behavior, including remaining silent for the most part in meetings, and when speaking, to use as few words as necessary. He's also noticeably clear on a point that many need to hear today, that we should avoid using foul language at all costs and reprimand anyone who may happen to lapse into it. The Stoics also believed, especially with friends and family, in frankness, their character prized free, open, and direct speech to address matters of importance. For the Stoics, part of building a character anchored in self-control is about removing course language and the kind of character and lifestyle that goes with it,

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your first order with promo code Daily Stoic. Head over to LiveMomenus.com and use promo code Daily Stoic for up to 35% off your first order. That's livemometis.com promo code Daily Stoic. Kindness, fellowship, and fair dealing. Remind yourself that your task is to be a good human being. Then do it, without hesitation, and speak the truth as you see it. But with kindness, with humility, without hypocrisy. For a stoic leader, the virtue of justice shows itself in several related character traits. Broadly, the virtue meant knowing how to properly apportion things as they are due.

Even with respect to the gods, they saw a practice of justice showing itself in reverend. and piety, giving the gods their due. Turning to people, they tried to develop kindness as we have seen as a balance to their own strictness with themselves. Related to kindness, they believed in honesty, good fellowship, and fair dealing in business. All these facets of character were part of the stoic conception of justice. Antipater was the first stoic to debate business ethics with his teacher, Diogenes of Babylon. Diogenes took a caveat mTOR, Bayer, Bayer, beware, positioned in terms of what needed to be disclosed in business transactions. Other than not breaking the law, Diogenes believed it didn't matter what you left out for the other

party to discover later. Antipater said that if your sewer system were broken on your house, the interests of the family buying it would obligate you to tell the truth. Why should your gain be the source of someone else's financial ruin? Antipater believed that we can't ever let our self-interest cause injustice to the interests of our fellow human beings. Antipater believed that we can't ever let our self-interest cause injustice to the interests of our fellow human beings. Later, Hierocles would create a model of behavior that tried to make this insight a kind of stoic golden rule. We should see our circle of concern or self-interest as connected to an ever-widening circle of interests of others, our family, neighborhood, city, country, and world.

No matter how far out on the circle we go, there is an unbreakable connection, between our self-interest and the concerns of others. Consequently, we should always be working to draw these circles closer to us. We can begin at home by treating family as we would ourself, friends as we would family, fellow citizens as we would friends, and foreigners as fellow countrymen. In our time, Jim Collins would talk about the concept of a level five leader, someone who is always taking the larger interests of the organization

and its stakeholders into account in every decision. decision and action they take. It's a vision of a more just leadership that the Stoics worked hard to develop. Marcus Aurelius himself, the most powerful Stoic whoever lived, looked to the lives of previous Stoics like Thracia Padas and Helvidius Priscus, whose leadership inspired him to create a just state based on laws of equality, freedom of speech, and individual liberty. Cleanthe's great poem The Hym to Zeus imagined a whole universe covered by the divine law of justice. Marcus was trying to make that cosmic order

characteristic of his reign and the Roman state. He would write that the fruit of this life is a good character and acts for the common good. Bravery is serving the common good. I'll accept whatever happens, and because of my relationship to other parts, I will do nothing selfish,

but aim instead to join them, to direct my every action toward what benefits us all, and to avoid what doesn't. If I do all that, then my life should go smoothly, Marcus Aurelius. In the many generations before stoicism came to Rome, there was a strong tradition of conveying the virtue of bravery in more classic martial terms, just as soldiers will face terrible odds on the battlefield and endure the most difficult of conditions, so we should conduct ourselves in everyday situations no matter how difficult. By the time Panadius had met Scipio Amelianus, it was clear that the young leaders of Roman society needed something else. By this time, generals and magistrates had come to see their appointments as primarily means of winning personal honor and financial gain.

A bravery framed only in a victor taking the spoils mentality was destroying Roman society, just as it is our own today. Panadius knew that when dealing with what's expedient in public life, it's easy to get lost and do things which are cowardly and unjust. In his second book of his great work on duties concerning appropriate actions, he emphasized that when dealing with the expediencies of politics, you must always keep justice in mind. For this reason, Panadius shifted his writings about bravery to focus on the greatness of soul that young leaders needed. This shift moved the emphasis away from service to personal ends to the service of the common good. With this new focus on magnanimity,

Pinedius also talked about mercy, kindness, and being helpful to others. He believed that everyone has an inborn desire to lead and serve, and that while we all can't be the brave Scipio on the battlefield, we can use the virtue of bravery and perseverance to serve others. Nowhere is this shift toward magnanimity and a new kind of resilience for the common good better expressed than in the life of Panadius' student, Publius, Ritilius Rufus. Rutilius was a towering figure in his day.

Serving with Scipio on the battlefield in Carthage and Numantia, his bravery was renowned. He began his public service and eventually became responsible for training Rome's troops, revising the entire training regimen and vastly improving the quality and effectiveness of the Roman military. Marius, the great general who ended up serving as consul, record seven times, preferred the troops trained by Rutilius above all others. Many young leaders would be happy to accept that kind of personal public honor as enough and keep their head down, not Rutilius. He saw the nefarious means that Marius and his cronies used to gain office and siphon money from the state. When a Stoic sees something, they say

something. This is true bravery. Rutilius launched an attack on Marius and on the equestrian class tax farmers who were bilking the Anatolian population of their money. In exchange for this greatness of soul aimed at correcting the injustices of the state, Routilius himself was brought up on the same charges and convicted of them in a kangaroo court, stripped of his estate, and exiled. The only dignity left to him was choosing the location of his exile, which he immediately made Smyrna, the very place he was wrongly convicted of defrauding. The Smyrnans welcomed him with a grant of citizenship, which he denied while living happily among them. When Sulla superseded Marius, and became dictator of Rome,

he offered Routilius a pardon and a return from exile, to which Routilius replied, I would rather have my country blush for my exile than weep at my return. Routilius learned well from Pinedius, the full meaning of bravery, service for a larger common good,

and spent his last days in Smyrna writing a history of Rome and receiving prominent visitors like Cicero. Character is fate. True good fortune is what you make for yourself. Good fortune, good character, good intentions, and good actions. Marcus Aurelius Finally, Stoic leaders all exemplified an intense focus on character

in carrying out their duties for the common good. They believed a good character was created by a pursuit of all the virtues in each of our actions. They didn't let the power and fame of position distract or ruin this deeper work. Marcus Aurelius, the most powerful leader of his day, put it best. Make sure you're not made emperor, avoid that imperial stain. It can happen to you, so keep yourself simple, good, pure, saintly, plain, a friend of justice, god-fearing, gracious, affectionate, and strong for your proper work. Fight to remain the person that philosophy wished to make you.

Revere the gods and look after each other. Life is short. The fruit of this life is a good character and acts for the common good. Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it. And I'll see you next episode.