Ryan (3:24)

Ebook has been dropped to 299 as.

Daily Stoic Host (3:27)

An ebook right now. So if there's someone you want to give it to as a gift, if you want to get it in another format, you can grab that on Amazon or anywhere you get your ebooks. I'll link to it in today's show Notes. If you want a premium edition, one that should stand the test of time, hopefully forever, you can grab the leather edition of the Daily Stoic also. That's in the Daily Stokes store. I'll link to that, too.

Ryan (3:46)

Happy New Year, everyone. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. I actually just finished my online therapy session just a few minutes ago. The year's coming to an end. I guess I could have pushed it till January, but I thought, you know what? No. I want the holidays to go well. I want to be focused on what I should be focused on. I want to take care of myself. I want to get better. And that's where today's sponsor, BetterHelp, comes in. Therapy is a great way to get a unbiased perspective on your life. It's how you can get a weight off your shoulders. It's so you can focus on the future. It's so you can break old patterns and be who you want to be in 2026. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is one of the world's largest online therapy platforms. They've served more than 5 million people all over the world. BetterHelp therapists work according to a strict code of conduct. They are fully licensed in the US and they even do the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. If you aren't happy with your therapist, you can switch to a different one at any time from their recommendations. If you want to leave some stuff behind, leave it in the past, leave it in 2025. Well, BetterHelp can help you do that. And you can sign up right now for 10% off@betterhelp.com DailyStoicPod that's betterhelp.com DailyStoicpod Just this morning, as I do every morning, I was taking the supplements that take. And if you're not taking any supplements, well, January is a good time to think about doing that. Choosing the right supplements can be confusing because there's so many brands and you know, it's kind of a low trust category. It's not super regulated. The products are easy to make and the companies don't even have to say everything that's on their label. That's why we are happy to work with Momentous and why I take their supplements. They've become a high trust brand in a low trust category. They don't just meet the industry standard, they built the momentous standard, which is their commitment to doing things the right way, not the easy way. Momentous sources only the highest quality ingredients on the planet. Their whey protein comes from grass fed European dairy cows. Their creatine uses the purest form of creatine monohydrate. And nearly every formula is made with clinically backed, highly bioavailable nutrients with no fillers and no artificial sweeteners. My wife is like allergic to everything. She's very sensitive about what she puts in her body and when she doesn't, she and she loves their stuff too. If a product doesn't meet Momentous standards, it doesn't hit the shelves. In a space where trust is rare, Momentous is redefining what trust looks like. And right now, Momentous is offering our listeners up to 35% off your first order with promo code DAILY STOIC. Head over to livemomentous.com and use promo code DAILY STOIC for up to 35 percent off your first order. That's livemomentous.com promo code DAILY Stoic.

Ryan Holiday (6:49)

Clarify your intentions this is the January 5 entry from the Daily Stoic. Today's entry starts with a quote from Seneca. He says, in on tranquility of the mind, let all your efforts be directed to something. Let it keep that end in view. It's not activity that disturbs people, but false conceptions of things that drive them mad. And Then I write law 29 of the 48 laws of power is plan all the way to the end. Robert Greene writes, by planning to the end, you will not be overwhelmed by circumstances and you will know when to stop. Gently guide fortune and help determine the future by thinking far ahead. And as it happens, the second habit in the seven habits of Highly Effective People is begin with an end in mind. Having an end in mind is no guarantee that you'll reach it no Stoic would tolerate that assumption. But not having an end in mind is a guarantee that you won't. To the stoics, false conceptions are responsible not just for disturbances in the soul, but for chaotic and dysfunctional lives and operations. When your efforts are not directed at a cause or a purpose, how will you know what to do day in and day out? How will you know what to say no to and what to say yes to? How will you know when you've had enough, when you've reached your goal, when you have gotten off track? If you have never defined what those things are, the answer is that you cannot. And so you are driven into failure, or worse, into madness, by the oblivion of directionlessness. One of my favorite quotes from Seneca, and actually Montegna quotes it as well, he says, you know, if you know not what port you are sailing to, no wind is favorable. If you don't know where you're trying to go, if you don't know what the end is, if you don't know what you want your life to look like, what you want this project to look like, if you haven't defined what success is to you, you're going to have a real hard time not just getting there, but making every individual decision in the course of your life. When I consult with people, that's one of the things I ask them almost always, especially authors, I go, what does success look like to you? Because so often we just go, well, I want what that person has and that person has and that person has and that person has. Or we go, oh, what other people are doing. That's what I want. Right? This is what Rene Girard says. We don't know what we want, so we want what other people want. We just sort of default to the defaults. And we haven't actually thought about how that fits for us, what that means to us, what that actually looks like, if we'll actually be happy with that thing that we're sacrificing and working so hard for. So when you clarify your intentions, when you get clear about what you're trying to do, who you're trying to be, who you want to be, when you get there, you're going to be in a tough spot. And so at the beginning of a year, it's a great time to think about that, to think about who you want to be, to think about what you want to do, to think about what success looks like and define it concretely. Not abstractly, but concretely. The reason Robert talks about planning all the way to the end is he talks about. This isn't just a problem of somebody at step zero not knowing where to go, but this is the person who, on step 99, doesn't stop after one more step. They go through that. They keep going and they turn. They snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. They go too far. They go past the mark they aimed for. So you plan all the way to the end so you're not taken to excess, so you're not distracted, and so you know how to plan what to do. You know what's important. If you don't know where you're sailing, no wind is favorable, right? You can't ask for directions to a destination you haven't defined. So today, here at the beginning of the year, let's spend some time defining precisely that. Our intentions, our goals, what success looks like to us. And it's fun to be starting the Daily Stoic again. And hopefully the same is true for you. All right, talk tomorrow.

Ryan (10:56)

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.

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