The Daily Stoic - It’s A Thinking Person’s Game

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

Life is hard. Life is complicated. Will you make the most of this time you have here?📖 Wisdom Takes Work by Ryan Holiday is out NOW! Grab a copy here: https://store.dailystoic.com/pages/wi...sdom-takes-work👉 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.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Look, ads are annoying. They are to be avoided, if at all possible. I understand as a content creator why they need to exist. That's why I don't begrudge them when they appear on the shows that I listen to. But again, as a person who has to pay a podcast producer and has to pay for equipment and for the studio and the building that the studio is in, it's a lot to keep something like The Daily Stoic going. So if you want to support a show, but not listen to ads. Well, we have partnered with Supercast to bring you a ad-free version of Daily Stoic.
Starting point is 00:00:40 We're calling it Daily Stoic Premium. And with Premium, you can listen to every episode of the Daily Stoic podcast, completely ad-free. No interruptions, just the ideas, just the messages, just the conversations you came here for. And you can also get early access to episodes before they're available to the public. And we're going to have a bunch of exclusive
Starting point is 00:00:59 bonus content and extended interviews in there just for Daily Stoic Premium members as well. If you want to remove distractions, go deeper into Stoicism and support the work we do here. Well, it takes less than a minute to sign up for Daily Stoic Premium, and we are offering a limited time discount of 20% off your first year. Just go to dailystoic.com slash premium to sign up right now or click the link in the show of descriptions to make those ads go away. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a Stoic-inspired meditation designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of
Starting point is 00:01:50 history's greatest men and women to help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visitdailystoic.com. Life is a thinking person's game. Life is heart. is complicated. Life is full of choices. It's full of dilemmas. It's full of complex problems and confusing situations. It's full of obstacles and opportunities. It's full of grifters and liars and con artists and smooth talkers, as Marcus Aurelius said. It's also full of wonderful, fascinating, and
Starting point is 00:02:49 incredible ideas and topics that you can't possibly be satisfied with just getting the gist of. In short, life is a thinking person's game, and it's why the Stoics stressed the pursuit of wisdom because we need it. We need it right now, and we'll need it later. We'll need it when we face ethical dilemmas. We'll need it when we're tested by anger or greed or fear. We'll need it when we decide whether to speak up or stay silent, whether to act or hold back, whether to endure or change. You cannot have a good life without wisdom. Not only will problems overwhelm you even eat you alive, but you'll leave so much unexplored. You will only do a fraction of what you are capable of doing. Yet this wisdom, the kind of the Stoics were often seeking and have
Starting point is 00:03:43 come to be known for, it does not come easily. As we said recently, you can't spell learned without earned. Wisdom takes work. That's not just the title of the new book, which came out Tuesday, and we still have the bonuses, and thank you to everyone who supported the book. I'd love it. If you could check it out if you haven't yet. But wisdom takes work is the truth. Like, wisdom takes work. That is a fact. It is the work of your life, because life is a thinking person's game. Will you be able to make the most of the time you have here? Will you have the wisdom you need when you face complexity and difficulty, misinformation, and partisanship, and distractions. Will you be able to see the opportunities and be of service to others?
Starting point is 00:04:30 Will you have the perspective required to know what matters and what you ought to do? Will you have the skill and the focus to explore what can be explored? That's why we do this work, why we study this philosophy, why we read these books, and continue to talk, as Zeno said, to the dead who can. came before us. If you haven't checked out, Wisdom Takes Work, again, it would mean so much to me. If you could, it came out Tuesday. I was in New York doing the Daily Show and the Breakfast Club and Stephanie Ruh and a bunch of other stuff talking about it. I think it's doing great. I can't wait to hear what you think of it. We've still got the bonuses. I'll honor those. If you go over to
Starting point is 00:05:10 Dailystoke.com slash Wisdom, you can buy one copy, you can buy five copies, you can buy 100. you can even have dinner with me to talk about the ideas in the book. All of that. I can't wait for you to check it out. And I'm really excited to hear what you think. I'm proud of this book. I'm glad to have wrapped up the Virtue series. And anyways, we'll talk soon.

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