The Daily Stoic - The Most Critical (And Rarest) Ability In Life | Practice Love

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

There is no technology that can do it for you. There is no app. No teacher who can simply download everything into your brain. 📖 Preorder the final book in Ryan Holiday's The Stoic Virtues Series: "Wisdom Takes Work": https://store.dailystoic.com/pages/wisdom-takes-work📓 Pick up a signed edition of The Daily Stoic Journal: 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on The Art of Living: https://store.dailystoic.com/👉 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/🎙️ 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.

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 history's greatest men and women 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. Everything we need to do draws on the same ability. Every problem we face, every decision we make, every risk we take,

every belief we choose to accept a question, it all requires the skill of discernment. Life, business, ethics, success, it all comes down to being able to see what is what in a given situation, what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. And no skill was more cultivated than this by the Stoics. Epictetus talked of money-changers who could tell just by banging a coin on the table, whether it was counterfeit or not.

This, he said, was what a good philosopher had to be able to do, to know the right impression from the wrong one, a good response from a bad one, a virtue from a vice. This is what Seneca was doing in his evening reviews. It was what Marcus Aurelius was trained in by Rousticus and Fronto and Antoninus. To be able to see what's in front of you with clarity, to know what's important and what isn't, how things work. That's what wisdom is.

It's not an encyclopedic knowledge of facts and figures, but something both profound and applied, for it was not Gandhi's sharp legal mind that made him the Mahatma. No one is born with this critical and all too rare ability. It is not something Seneca reminds us that can be delegated to someone else. There is no technology that can do it for you. There is no app, no teacher who can simply download everything, into your brain, no guru who can lead you to enlightenment or shaman who can give it to you

in a dose. No, I say, it's Brian here, by the way, that wisdom takes work. That's the title of the new book. You can pre-order signed and numbered first editions. It is out in two weeks. It means so much to me if you did. But basically wisdom takes work. Lots of work. Lots of reading. Lots of teachers. Lots of experience. Lots of reflecting. Took lots of work in the ancient world and it takes lots of work today. But where would we be without it? Who would we be without it? The reason we need discernment is that life is constantly putting us in difficult situations, asking us difficult questions, putting us in ethical dilemmas, especially in a world of social media and algorithms where we are bombarded with information, with noise, with temptations, with endless distractions.

How will we navigate this? How will we make sense of it? Without wisdom, we cannot. We will be carried away, we will be misled, we will do the wrong thing. And as I said, the new book is all about that, how to do it, why it matters, what wisdom is, and the methodology that will help bring it into our lives. Wisdom takes work is the fourth and final book in the Stoic Virtue series, and I think it's the best. I'm incredibly proud of it. It's meant a lot to me to be able to do it, and it means a lot to me to be able to tell you about it. If you could pre-order it, it would mean a lot to me. what helps an author more than basically anything else. If you've gotten anything out of this email, this podcast, Daily Stoak over the years, it would be a huge help. You just go over to

Dailystead.com slash pre-order to do that. We've got signed and numbered first editions, plus a bunch of awesome pre-order bonuses, including a chance to have dinner with me. You can get pages from the original manuscript, bonus chapters, and a bunch of other stuff. As I said, dailystead.com slash pre-order, we will run out of these signed and numbered first editions. We did it with all the first three books in the series. We already ran out of the four virtue set. So this is your chance. DailyStoic.com slash pre-order. I can't wait for you to read this thing. Look, if you take supplements or you know much about the supplement space, you know, it can be a little shady, it can be hard to know who to trust, it can be hard to know what actually works, what do the

pros use, what are the best in class people take, how much do they take, what brands do they take? And that's where today's sponsor comes in, Momentus. All Momentus formulas are designed with human performance in mind. They are NSF and informed sport certified, which provides a high level of trust to over 200 pro-sport and collegiate customers. And they source every one of their ingredients for quality, not just what's cheapest, and what's on the label is what you get with Momentus. They call this the Momentus standard.

And it's the reason their products are trusted by pro sports teams, Olympic athletes, military top performers. Momentus is not just another supplement brand. They built their entire reputation around doing the fundamentals with precision and backing it all with science, transparency, and elite-level trust. And Momentus, as a new supplement, their creatine lemon delivers the purest creatine on the planet.

It's called Creepure. It's in a naturally flavored lemonade-style powder for on-the-go travel packs that you can mix with water any time, anywhere, no mess, no measuring, no missed days. If you take creatine, you should check out momentous creatine. There's no fillers, there's no artificial junk, just clinically validated ingredients that work. And if you've been curious about creatine or you've taken it before and you've dropped out, this is your moment to get back on track with a formula you can actually use and enjoy

and it'll make you feel great thanks to its superior quality. So what are you waiting for? Just head over to live momentous.com and use code stoic for up to 35% off your first order. That's stoic at live momentous.com for 35% off your first order. So what are you waiting for? Just go over to live momentous.com and use code Daily Dad for 35% off your order. That's code Daily Dad at LiveMumentus.com. So something you might not know about me. I live on a Halloween street here in Bastrop. like they close the whole street down and there's decorations everywhere. People go absolutely insane, thousands of people from all over this enormous county, mostly farm kids that can't trick or treat where they live, come out, and it's crazy.

So we're already putting up our Halloween decorations. We're already going all out. And that's where today's sponsor comes in. Wayfair. Not only did we look at our Halloween decorations, but we already started looking at Christmas decorations too. Wayfair makes it easy to tackle your home goals. holiday season with endless inspiration for every space and budget. They offer free and easy delivery, even on the big stuff. No more huge delivery fees for furniture. You can get big

stuff like sofas, dining tables, beds, desks, and more shipped for free. And as I said, all your seasonal must-havs from furniture to holiday decor. Get organized, refreshed, and ready for the holidays for way less. Head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R-com. Wayfair, every style, every home. Practice love. The stoic notion of sympathya that we are all part of an organic whole connected by mutual interests and affinities is greater than the golden rule. Don't treat others how you would like to be treated.

Treat them like you would treat yourself because we are all one. Seneca said that whenever he encountered another human being, he saw an opportunity for kindness. And he learned from Hokado of Rhodes that if you, you want to be loved, there's only one thing you can do. Love others. Who can you give love to this week? What kindness can you expend? How can you show how you feel the strangers to friends and family? And how can you show them that you actually believe we are all part of the same whole? And this is from this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal, 366 days of writing and reflection on the art of living by yours truly and my co-writer and translator Stephen Hanselman.

I actually do this journal every single day. There's a question in the morning, a question in the afternoon, and then there's these sort of weekly meditations. As Epictita says, every day and night, we keep thoughts like this at hand, write them, read them aloud, and talk to yourself and others about them. You can check out the Daily Stoke Journal anywhere books are sold, and also get a signed personalized copy from me

in the Daily Stoke store at store.dailystoke.com. In the All is One chapter of stillness is the key. There's a quote I like from Seneca. He says, all that you behold, that which comprises both God and man is one, we are all part of one great body. And there's this quote I love from Edgar Mitchell, the astronaut who was up in space looking down at the earth. And he says that he felt an instant global consciousness,

a people orientation and intense dissatisfaction, the state of the world and a compulsion to do something about it. So this idea that we are all one, this sympathia idea to me, is the essence of Stoicism. Stoicism isn't to make you an island to disconnect you from other people. Quite the contrary, as Seneca says, it's to make you kinder and more connected to other people. And Seneca, the three quotes we have today, one is Seneca quoting Hiccato. He says, I can teach you a love potion made without any drugs, herbs, or special spell, if you would be loved, love. And then in the happy life, Seneca says, a benefit should be kept like

a buried treasure only to be dug up in necessity. Nature bids us to do well by all. Wherever there is a human being, we have an opportunity for kindness. And then in moral letters 95, he says, nature produced us as a family since we all sprang from the same source and towards the same end. Nature bestowed upon us a mutual love and joined us together as friends. I think going out into nature looking at something majestic, or as Edgar Mitchell did, looking at the earth from a distance, it does give you this sense of our interconnectedness. It makes a lot of the things that we get angry about feel very petty and small and insignificant. Being around your kids does this as well. You see just how sweet and innocent and pure they are, and it feels weird to carry anger or

resentment about anything or anyone. But one of the things I wanted to do in today's episode, But I wanted to riff, give you a little TikTok that we did that was popular. You might think that the Stoics are kind of these unfeeling people. And I get that, but it's actually not true at all. Seneca says, if you want love in your life, he says, then love. Marcus Surreali says that he learns from one of his mentors to be free of passions, yes, but full of love. Do you have affection for other people? If you want to feel good, if you want to be loved by other people, it's about what you put out in the world.

As the Beatles say, it's about the energy you put. out on the world because ultimately that's what you control. If you want to feel better, don't go expecting other people to validate you, other people to give you what you want, give what you want. Marcus Ria says, if you want to feel good, do good. If you want to feel loved, put love out in the world, put affection out in the world. See everyone you meet, as Seneca says, as an opportunity to practice kindness, and the rest will take care of itself, I promise. As the, as the Beatles say, and in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make what are you putting out in the world what are you contributing to the whole how are you remembering that we are all you know one finger on a

on a large hand or that we're all part of the same body the more you feel this the more connected you are to it not only will your anger and fear and resentment and anxiety dissipate but you will do better you will be better you will make the world a better place that's my message for today out and do a kindness, go out and do something good. If you want to feel good, do good as the Stoics say, and I'll leave it there. Sympathia, everyone. We are all part of the same whole. Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please spread

the word, tell people about it, and this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say, thank you. 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. 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 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 descriptions to make those ads go away.