The Daily Stoic - One Day Can Be A Whole Life | Ryan Holiday

Episode Date: June 8, 2025

Sometimes the best days don’t start out that way. In this episode, Ryan Holiday shares a personal story about how a seemingly ordinary, maybe even chaotic, day with his kids turned into something unexpectedly perfect.🎙️ Check out The Daily Dad Podcast | Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📖 Preorder the final book in Ryan Holiday's The Stoic Virtues Series: "Wisdom Takes Work": https://store.dailystoic.com/pages/wisdom-takes-work🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast🎥 Watch top moments from The Daily Stoic Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.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.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to The Daily Stoic early and ad free right now. Just join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcast. It's not the dark you have to be afraid of. It's what's hiding within it. The Shaw Festival presents Wait Until Dark. In a New York apartment, a blind woman becomes the target of ruthless criminals. As night falls, she must use all her wits to survive. Don't miss this heart-stopping thriller, Wait Until Dark at the Shaw. For tickets, go to shawfest.com. 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, audio books that we like here, 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.

Welcome to another episode of a daily stoic Sunday podcast. You are talking to a marked man. I don't mean marked in the stoic sense and that we are all marked for death. Everyone born will die. I guess I am marked in that sense. I mean, marked in the sense that yesterday, if you have a dog, you know that weird, horrifying sound of your dog about to throw up and you have to like get them out of your bed

as fast as humanly possible. Well, that's what happened to us very late the other morning and it was our oldest. He had crawled in the bed with us, our son, and then was just not well. So he spent all day homesick and then Sam woke up that way this morning. So we were supposed to record some Daily Dad weekend episodes and that just got canceled. And then I was supposed to take my youngest, who was final day out for a bike ride.

We'd been doing these laps. They open up the circuit of America's track on Tuesday for bike riders. So that's what I was gonna do with him. And he had to go to the bathroom a few minutes before we left. And then boom, I could just hear it from the other room. And then it was like, oh, and then there was one.

And I was supposed to be meeting my son there as grandparents were taking him, my father-in-law who's been doing the rides with us. I actually, I vividly had this feeling of like, well, I'm almost assuredly going to get this now. It's gonna be brutal. I've now seen three cases of what it looks like, but I feel this now. It's going to be brutal. I've now seen three cases of what it looks like, but I feel fine now. And so I can go have this lovely evening. And then that's it for me. I

know what my next 24 hours is like. There's a rather touching and haunting line in meditations where Marcus Aurelius is saying, you know, that your child is sick, but not that they will die of it. And this is a man who buried nine children. So it puts it in a very profound perspective when you realize that. But I think what he's saying is this thing that we all do as parents, which is we extrapolate, right? When I hear a cough or a sneeze or somebody throws up,

if you have kids, especially young kids that are in school, you're just like, oh man, I know where this goes. It's like dominoes falling. And you know you're just gonna be out for a period of time. It's never like everyone gets it all at once, gets over it all at once. It's this staggered, disgusting thing. And usually by the end of it,

somebody's sick with something else and this is just your life for years and years. But I was kind of thinking about that and going, oh, you know what, no, that might happen, it might not happen, but right now I'm fine. Right now my son is over it and let's go have a lovely evening. We've been doing this every Tuesday that I've been in town

and you can't quite figure it out, but instead of being grateful that we were getting to do it, I was kind of rushing them along, trying to really get them to understand it. And I went into this one, I was thinking, you know, I'm not gonna be anything but encouraging, I'm not gonna be anything but chill, I'm just gonna enjoy this.

And who knows, I might have to tap out. And I should think about how I would want someone to treat me, right? And as it happens, we had an amazing time. We did our fastest laps. He did two laps. Now, is this because I was encouraging and calm and in command of myself?

Maybe, could have been also that they were giving out free ice cream at turn nine. So he was motivated to do a second lap, but we just had a lovely time. He did great. I pushed him up the hills. We have this daily dad thing, this idea of luckter at Emergo,

let them struggle because they emerged stronger from it. And so I was thinking of that as I put my hand on his back, got off my bike and ran him up the very steep hill at the beginning of the racetrack. I was not letting him struggle, although it kind of was, but I was having a good time and he was having a good time and everyone else around us thought it was hilarious. And actually some other guy got off his bike as I'm running my son up.

So if I really pushed, like I really ran and I had my hand on the small of his back, he could keep pedaling and never actually have to stop. And then I could hold my bike on the other hand. Anyways, we passed this guy and he looks over at me and he goes, hey, you're on holiday. I read the daily stoic. So I thought that was funny.

And then my son said, why do people like your book so much? It's not even good. And I said, hey man, I'm in the middle of pushing you up this hill. I'm not sure you want to be saying that. We had an amazing time. And as I got back, I was thinking about this idea of being a marked person, right?

Even though having a stomach bug or a food poisoning, sometimes you feel like you're going to die. It's kind of a nice test. It reminds me of another stoic thing that Mark Strehlis talks about where he talks about, you know, you'll either die of this or you won't, right? That'll take care of the pain either way. The pain will either go away or you'll go away. I sometimes think about that when I'm, you know,

hugging the toilet, but I was thinking, okay, let's say I was a marked man. Let's say this was my last day. Let's say I'd infected some new terrible virus and it was it for me. How would I think about how I spent today? And then I thought I'd think very well of it. I'd think it went amazing.

I got up early, I took my son to school, hung out at Starbucks before we got there. We listened to a great episode of the Creaking Out podcast which she's excited about, and then we both were freaking out because, and this is going to be in the most recent reading list email, we recently, I played on my phone, this New York Times article about this discovery at Pompeii. And as it happened, the room that they were talking about at

Pompeii had a mural about the same story that we were listening to in, greeking out, it's the story of the origin of the golden fleece, if you know Jason and the Argonauts. So we were like excited, like what are the chances we're hanging out? We were at Starbucks, Cher Kressant, he wanted to watch the George Washington's dream episode of Saturn Alright Live.

We watched that and laughed our heads off. And I dropped him off at school and I ran 10 miles around Towne Lake as the sun was coming up and the water was still and I was pushing myself physically. It was amazing. I just thought, what a fucking great morning, right? Of course, not so great for my wife who was, you know,

not able to get out of bed this morning, but I got to the office, I wrote a little bit. I wrote a great daily stoic email based on some Bon Iver lyrics that I listened to on the run. Then I sketched out two daily stoic video ideas that I was excited about. And then I went downstairs to the studio and I recorded a talk.

I gave, you know, all this controversy with the Navy. Still, I gave a talk to a different Navy command today about obstacles and how we use things as opportunities. And so that door wasn't totally shut. ["The Greatest Showman"] Welcome aboard VIA Rail. Please sit and enjoy. Please sit and sip, play, post, taste, view, and enjoy. VIA Rail. Love the way. I got to talk to some wonderful civilians and Naval officers and the Q and A went great. I gave a 30 minute talk from some loosely prepared notes

and I answered questions for 30 minutes. Then I interviewed someone for a job where I hiring someone for daily Stoic and I might hire this person, I might not, but the conversation was great. It was good to meet this person. Like sometimes job interviews are weird. It was like, I like this person and I hope they're successful and maybe they'll be a good member of the team. And then I had a

staff meeting with everyone on the Daily Stealik team and we planned out, you know, some cool stuff we have coming up this summer. We're starting to gear up for the Wisdom Takes Work launch, which by the way, you can pre-order dailystoic.com slash pre-order. The sales are already great. So thank you to everyone who's supporting it. Got some awesome bonuses.

I'm halfway through all the copies that I have to sign. I learned that at the staff meeting. It's been exhausting, but I'm taking my time doing it right. Trying to personalize as many of them as possible. So if you want to grab one of those again, daily stoic.com slash preorder, those definitely will run out. Then I recorded one of those video ideas I had. I, we, we did this daily Stoke video on how to make hard right decisions.

So that'll come out soon. I feel like I was really in my element on it. And then I called my wife and she was like, I am just not doing well. And our youngest, she's like, I'm just worried he's spending too much time on his iPad. And so I said, don't worry on it. And then I call my wife and she's like, I'm just not doing well. And our youngest, she's like, I'm worried he's spending too much time on his iPad. And so I said, don't worry about it. I will be right home. My in-laws picked up my oldest from school, they took him to their house. So he hung out, he was having a great time with his grandparents. And then

I got to go home and spend time in the middle of the day with my youngest, who just finished school, and we went in the middle of the day with my youngest who just finished school and we went in the pool, we played for an hour, then we went upstairs and we played cowboys and then we watched a Mr. Beast video that he was excited to show me about traveling in South America. So now he wants to go to South America. It was just lovely.

I came downstairs, I made him dinner, I made myself dinner and then he promptly threw all that dinner up. And then I got to go to the track. I was telling my wife, she was like, I'm sorry, I blew up the plans. Like I was supposed to be on this call with you today. There was a bunch of stuff we were supposed to do. And I said, no, you don't understand.

This day was amazing. As crazy as it was, this day was amazing. I got to spend time with our youngest in the middle of the day. Our oldest got to spend time with his grandparents. I got to spend time with them this morning. S of the day, our oldest got to spend time with his grandparents. I got to spend time with them this morning. Seneca talks about how one day can be a whole life. And I think about like what the boxes I checked off

for the day, family time, quiet morning time. Like the moon was rising, was still up when we drove into school, like the whole ride, we're looking at this enormous, bright, full moon. Then the sun was coming up the other direction. So it had some sort of morning stillness in nature. Then we got to laugh together.

Then I got to push myself physically. I've been trying to do this 10 mile loop more often. I'm trying to ramp up my mileage. I got to write, which is what I love to do. I had time for that. Not as much as I would have liked, but I put words on the page. I shipped something.

I worked on the business. I got to see our employees. I got to meet someone new. I got to talk to a thousand or so people, to put my impact out in the world of people whose job has a lot of impact on the world. And I got to come home and just be a dad and have fun. Then I got to put into practice

this other thing I've been trying to work on, which is try to be more encouraging, try not to rush. That was what I was saying in the other Daily Dad episode. Like, why am I rushing him to finish this thing? We're trying to spend time together. We're trying to have a good time together. And that what I've learned is that when I rush him, he doesn't go any faster.

When I don't rush him, he goes the same speed or faster. The only difference is the negative taste left in his mouth and my mouth. And so I really just got to do better than I did the week before, which is what we should be trying to do as parents, as aspiring stoics, as human beings. We should just be trying to get better,

working on ourselves day to day, as Epictetus talked about, trying to make a little bit of progress, trying to make better choices. I got to have fun, I got to treat my son, you got the ice cream that he wanted, and then we sat and had tacos. I also got to ride, I had fun, it was cool. You could just see downtown Austin there in the distance.

Oh, and then I forgot, I drive him home, it's sunset and it's beautiful, and my wife says, can you take the distance. Oh, and then I forgot, I drive him home. It's, you know, sunset and it's beautiful. And my wife says, can you take the dog for a walk? I haven't got to do it today because obviously I've been sick. And I said, of course. And then I got to walk our puppy, the puppy we rescued out for a walk.

Found out we've got an armadillo living in the front yard. It's a huge snake. The sun was coming down. I love to live here. And here I am now upstairs. I'm sleeping upstairs so I don't get sick. Hopefully maybe I can dodge the bullet. That part's in my control I guess.

I can make some smart decisions. I can wash my hands, use hand sanitizer, et cetera. But I'm doing what Seneca calls the evening review. He says, after my wife has gone to bed, I put the day up for review. I ask myself, you know, where could I have done better? What did I learn? Where did I fall short? That's what I'm sitting here thinking about. I'm doing this in audio

instead of in my journal because my journal's in the room, my son sleeping. But the idea is taking a little time to reflect and to think and to celebrate the wins. Look at the places you could make some improvements. See what you, and then try to do better. Seneca talked about closing the books of life each day, as I said, seeing the day as a full life, saying to yourself, I had an amazing day. That's what I'm working, that's my dream life today, for the most part.

Oh, it wasn't perfect, there were some things, you know? But mostly a good day. I got that. I didn't leave really anything unfinished, anything undone, I certainly didn't leave anything unsaid. Now I go to bed and I think as Seneca did, that was a whole life. And if I wake up tomorrow, that's lucky. If I wake up tomorrow sick, still lucky, right?

It's bonus, you're playing with house money. That's today's Sunday message. If you like some of these Stilick-inspired parenting thoughts, I do recommend that you check out the Daily Dad podcast. I'm proud of it. I wish more people would listen to it. We do a meditation every day of the week,

and then a sort of a deep dive in the weekend. As I said, a lot of the episodes are me and Samantha talking. I'm recording this in lieu of Samantha and I talking because we had to reschedule what we had on the schedule. And then I'm going to go check on her and go to bed. I'll talk to you all tomorrow. 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 would really help the show. We appreciate it. I'll see you next episode. If you like The Daily Stoic and thanks for listening, you can listen early and ad free

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