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[00:00]
Ryan Holiday
Welcome to the daily Stoic podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice and wisdom, into the real world. This is the math that losers do. You could be focused on what you're going to do about it. You could be focused on solutions. You could be thinking about forgiveness or patience or acceptance. Instead, you're thinking about who's to blame, making, as the Noah Khan song goes,
[00:32]
Zain Asher
making quiet calculations where the fall lies.
[00:35]
Ryan Holiday
Why are they like this? Why did they do it? Why didn't they listen? Why couldn't have things gone differently? The better question is, what good is all this going to do you? It happened, it's done. It doesn't change your responsibilities. Nothing is more pathetic, Marcus Aurelius writes in meditations than people who run around in circles, delving into the things that lie beneath and conducting investigations into the souls of the people around them. He's saying that it's very easy to get distracted by putting other people on trial and that this is a way to let yourself off the hook. We should instead focus on how we're going to respond to this, how we're going to, as the Stoics teach us, use this as an opportunity to practice virtue. We can keep running the numbers, replaying the mistakes, assigning fault, but the total never changes. That type of math keeps us stuck in the past. The past is gone and no amount of calculation will bring it back or make it fair. What we have is agency right now. We can choose to let it go, to move on, to move forward. Agency doesn't exist in the past, only exists now. Look, this is the time of the year we try to get our health in order, try to get back on track, try to have better habits, put better things into our bodies. So maybe you're thinking about supplements. If you are, you know, it's a confusing space. There's a lot of brands out there. It's a low trust category, not a lot of regulation, a lot of scammers, a lot of big, unpronounceable ingredients. It's hard. And that's where momentous comes in. And it's also what makes them stand out. They become a high trust brand in a low trust category. They weren't satisfied with the industry standard, so they built the Momentus standard, which is their commitment to doing things the right way, not the easy way. They use only the highest quality ingredients on the planet. Everything is based with clinically backed, highly bioavailable nutrients, no fillers and no artificial sweeteners. Every product is independently certified by NSF for sport or informed sport, which means they test it for contaminants, heavy metals, banned substances, and verify for label accuracy. If you want to start this year with supplements, I can't recommend them enough. You can try their protein or creatine or omega 3. Those are all ones that I have tried. I've been taking the creatine lately 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. Livemomentous.com promo code DAILY Stoic we are just getting back from a trip so the fridge is empty and we were like oh man, we gotta go to the store we're gonna have for dinner tonight. And then I realized no no no, hellofresh just came. So we took the hellofresh meals out and we got to work. We love hellofresh in our household cause the meals are simple. You can make em on a busy work night, you can do it on the weekend, you can do it when you get to the end of your groceries. They have more than a hundred recipes every week, which is especially great if people at your home have allergies or preferences or they don't like to eat the same thing twice. You can always make just the right amount of food so everyone feels full and satisfied and there aren't a bunch of leftovers to deal with. And there's now three times the seafood for no upcharge. If you've got folks coming over for dinner, impress them with new grass fed steak ribeyes. My kids love steak. HelloFresh always has delicious options with seasonal produce like pears, apples and asparagus. When dinner tastes this good, nothing hits like home cooking. And we love home cooking with hellofresh. And I think you'll love it too. Just go to hellofresh.com stoic10fm to get 10 free meals and a free zwilling knife which is $144 value on your third box. Offer valued while supplies last free. Me applied as discount on first box. New subscribers only. Varies by plan. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic podcast. Okay, so a couple of weeks ago I was on cnn. They have a show called One World with Zane Asher and they wanted to talk about how stoicism can help us navigate these turbulent times we're living in. The questions we all have. It was a really cool opportunity. I'm glad I got to squeeze it in, but when I got on air, I was just, like, blown away, like, oh, this host knows their stuff about stoicism. So I wanted to bring you a chunk of that interview here today in case you weren't mainlining CNN in the middle of the day. Thanks to Zayn for having me on asking those great questions and giving me a platform to talk about stoicism. You can follow her on Instagram. Zayn AsherCNN.
[05:27]
Zain Asher
For centuries, leaders, generals and politicians have been inspired by the thoughts and writings of thinkers like Marcus Aurelius, the essence of his teachings. How do we learn to live well in a world that we simply cannot control? And what would that mean for our peace of mind? Our next guest says that he was introduced to the philosophy of stoicism about two decades ago. Ryan Holiday joins us live now from Austin, Texas. He's the host of the podcast the Daily Stoic and the author of several books. Many of them I read myself, including his latest one Wisdom Takes Work, Learn, Apply, and Repeat. Ryan, so, so good to have you on the program. I am a huge fan of yours. Obviously, I am a news anchor and I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that the news cycle feels relentless. It feels very emotionally charged. What does stoicism have to teach us about how we can respond or how we should respond to injustice? Ryan?
[06:29]
Ryan Holiday
Yeah, Stoicism is ultimately a philosophy about acceptance, accepting things that are outside your control. But the one area that the Stoics are quite clear, that we don't accept things that we do respond is in the case of injustice, the four Stoic virtues being courage, self discipline, justice, and wisdom. And I think courage and justice come together there. To sort of turn away, to not pay attention because it's upsetting to you is obviously wrong. And we have Marx, Aurelius, the emperor of Rome, saying that to himself. A reminder that injustices is not just something you do. You can also commit an injustice, he said, by doing nothing, by saying, that's not my problem. That doesn't affect me, by looking for excuses. So the Stoics are actively involved in the world. They just try to be in command of themselves while doing so.
[07:22]
Zain Asher
That's such an important point because I think a lot of people, you know, when I first discovered Stoicism, I think my misinterpretation was that it was similar to sort of apathy and disengagement, but it's not like that at all. Does anger have a role to play in stoicism?
[07:39]
Ryan Holiday
Yeah, I think being Upset when you see something outrageous is natural and human, but it is precisely when the stakes are high. It is precisely when people are counting on you or you're in some position of responsibility that you can't afford to go around being outraged and acting on that emotion. The Stoics were often sort of connected to the halls of power. And we have one Stoic, his name is Athena Doris, and he's advising the first emperor of Rome, Octavian, the future Augustus. And he tells him that whenever he's upset, he has to first count all 24 letters of the Alphabet. It was too shorter then. And he says you have to count all the letters of the Alphabet before you respond. And I think pausing and reflecting before taking action is a big part of what Stoicism teaches us. It's not that you don't take the action, it's that you don't want to take it while you're angry, while you're blinded by fear or jealousy or whatever strong emotion is coming up, that's not what you want informing what you do.
[08:43]
Zain Asher
What I find so interesting is how so many of these philosophies overlap. I practice Kabbalah and that is a big part of it, pausing before any kind of emotional response. So one of my questions to you is really just moving away from the new cycle, just talking about some of the issues that people might be dealing with in their everyday life. Two people can go through the same thing. A divorce, heartbreak, your boyfriend breaks up with you, death in the family, somebody gets cancer, who you care about, you get cancer. One person collapses under all of that pressure. Totally understandable. Another person adapts. What determines the difference between the two? Ryan?
[09:21]
Ryan Holiday
I. I don't know. I. That's one of the great mysteries of life. Why? Why? One person responds this way and another this way. And I think the same person might be able to deal with something heart wrenching, like cancer, and then their car breaks down. And that's devastating. So I think so much depends on the circumstances, depends on the moment. What the Stoics try to teach us though, is that when we are challenged by life, the point is to rise and to meet that challenge. It's not to turn away from it, it's not to wish it was otherwise, it's not to blame it on other people, but to say to yourself, what does this give me an opportunity to do right? What can I learn from this? How can I be of service to others through this? What virtue is being asked of me here? And in this way, even the most difficult and unfair and challenging of circumstances presents us an opportunity to be better for it. It's not going to be fun while we're going through it, but afterwards we can look back and go, hey, who I am now is only possible because of how I responded to what happened then.
[10:26]
Zain Asher
I loved what you said about just now about what virtue is being asked of me here. Sort of using some of the challenges that you might experience to be of service to others. That's a big part of Kabbalah as well. And it sounds stoicism too. You know, it's one thing to practice stoicism by yourself in your bedroom when your life is going well and when your life is so, when things are going smoothly, but when you are really tested, when the rubber meets the road and something goes wrong in your life, like you lose your job, for example, it's very easy people to then sort of abandon. I don't have time for stoicism right now. I need to deal with this. How do you make sure that you incorporate everything that you've learned in private to when it really matters when you are being tested?
[11:05]
Ryan Holiday
Yeah, it's easy to be stoic about something when you're not being tested. When it's easy, it is precisely in moments of extreme success, but also extreme difficulty and adversity that I think we're most called to sort of have that even keel to have that self command. So if it was easy, everyone would do it. If this was just something you were born with, it wouldn't be that impressive either. So it's important that we see that, that this is work, it's hard work. It's not something you read once and you magically have it's work and we should be getting better at it as we go. That is how we turn obstacles into opportunities in one most simple way, which is we go, hey, I'm getting practice dealing with stuff like this and it's going to prepare me and make me better for when I have to deal with something even more difficult than this at some point down the road. So I just try to think about it always as I'm getting reps. I don't want to be having this conversation. I don't want to be dealing with this. I would love the news to be positive instead of negative, but it isn't. And so I'm getting practice dealing with precisely that.
[12:15]
Zain Asher
Ryan, thank you so much for your work. I mean, obviously I've read the Obstacle is the Way and just, just in terms of really sort of teaching me how to respond to the challenges that we all experience in life. My self esteem, I mean I've been through quite a bit over the past couple of years and just what you have taught me about how to react and how to respond rather than react has been life changing. So I thank you for that. Ryan Holiday Live for us. Thank you so much.
[12:45]
Ryan Holiday
Hey it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love 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. Foreign.
[13:23]
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[14:40]
Ryan Holiday
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Summary5 min read

The Daily Stoic – “This is The Math That Losers Do | What Virtue Is This Moment Asking of You?”

Date: February 24, 2026
Host: Ryan Holiday
Guest Segment: Zain Asher, CNN anchor (from "One World" on CNN)

Episode Overview

In this episode, Ryan Holiday explores the idea of “the math that losers do”—the trap of obsessing over blame and fairness instead of focusing on proactive, virtuous responses to life’s obstacles. Drawing from Stoic principles, especially as articulated by Marcus Aurelius, Ryan discusses the importance of agency in the present and how we can use adversity as an opportunity to practice virtue. The episode features a substantive interview segment with Zain Asher from CNN’s "One World," where they delve into Stoicism’s application amid injustice, emotional turmoil, and everyday challenges.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Futility of Blame and Retrospection (00:00–01:45)

Ryan’s Opening Reflection:
- Many people, when wronged or faced with setbacks, engage in endless “math”—calculating blame, replaying mistakes—which ultimately serves no purpose.
- This kind of thinking only keeps us stuck in the past and avoids our responsibility to respond.
- Key Insight:
  - “Nothing is more pathetic, Marcus Aurelius writes in meditations, than people who run around in circles, delving into the things that lie beneath…” (01:00)
- The essential question: Not “who’s to blame?” but, “what good is focusing on blame going to do you?”
- Agency exists only in the present moment; we have the choice, right now, to let go, move on, and respond virtuously.

2. What Makes Stoicism Pragmatic in Modern Life? (05:27–06:28)

Zain Asher Introduction:
- Highlights how Stoicism has inspired leaders for centuries to find peace in an uncontrollable world.
- Asks: What does Stoicism teach about responding to relentless, emotionally charged news cycles and to injustice?

Stoic View on Injustice (Ryan’s Response):

Stoicism is about acceptance of what’s outside your control—but with a crucial exception: Injustice.
“The one area that the Stoics are quite clear [on], that we don’t accept, that we do respond [to] is in the case of injustice…To not pay attention because it’s upsetting to you is obviously wrong.” (06:28)
He references Marcus Aurelius: Even inaction in the face of injustice is a form of injustice.
Justice and Courage:
- Stoics advocate for active engagement with the world, but with self-command and virtue.

3. Stoicism Versus Apathy – The Role of Anger (07:21–08:43)

Zain’s Question:
- Common misconception: Is Stoicism similar to apathy or disengagement? Is there a role for anger?

Ryan’s Reply:

Being upset by outrageous things is normal and human.
But when stakes are high, acting out of outrage isn’t constructive or Stoic.
“Pausing and reflecting before taking action is a big part of what Stoicism teaches us. It’s not that you don’t take action, it’s that you don’t want to take it while you’re angry…” (08:13)
Recounts Athena Doris’ advice to Augustus: “Count all the letters of the alphabet before you respond” (an early version of ‘count to ten’).

4. Responding to Life’s Hardships: Resilience & Opportunity (08:43–10:26)

Zain’s Question:
- Why do some individuals adapt to hardship, while others collapse?

Ryan’s Reply:

Admits: “That’s one of the great mysteries of life.” (09:20)
Even the same person may handle different adversities with different strengths.
The Stoic practice:
- “When we are challenged by life, the point is to rise and to meet that challenge...What virtue is being asked of me here?” (09:57)
Difficulties are opportunities for growth and to be of service to others.
In retrospect, we realize how adversity shaped our best selves.

5. Taking Stoicism Into Real Life, Especially in Crisis (10:26–12:15)

Zain’s Question:
- How can people ensure they apply Stoic lessons when times get tough, not just when life is smooth?

Ryan’s Reply:

It’s easy to be “stoic” when untested; true test comes during success and, more so, adversity.
“If it was easy, everyone would do it…It’s work and we should be getting better at it as we go.” (11:18)
Each challenge is practice (“getting reps”) for greater obstacles down the line.
Emphasizes practical, continuous work to prepare for difficulty.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Blame:
- “We can keep running the numbers, replaying the mistakes, assigning fault, but the total never changes. That type of math keeps us stuck in the past. The past is gone and no amount of calculation will bring it back or make it fair. What we have is agency right now.”
  — Ryan Holiday (01:14)
On Injustice:
- “Injustices is not just something you do. You can also commit an injustice…by doing nothing, by saying 'that’s not my problem.'”
  — Ryan Holiday (06:56)
On Action and Anger:
- “It’s not that you don’t take action, it’s that you don’t want to take it while you’re angry, while you’re blinded by fear or jealousy or whatever strong emotion is coming up, that’s not what you want informing what you do.”
  — Ryan Holiday (08:23)
On Practicing Stoic Virtue Amid Hardship:
- “What can I learn from this? How can I be of service to others through this? What virtue is being asked of me here? And in this way, even the most difficult and unfair…circumstances presents us an opportunity to be better for it.”
  — Ryan Holiday (09:54)
On Stoic Practice:
- “If this was just something you were born with, it wouldn’t be that impressive either. So it’s important that we see that, that this is work, it’s hard work…that is how we turn obstacles into opportunities.”
  — Ryan Holiday (11:20)
Zain’s Reflection:
- “Just in terms of really sort of teaching me how to respond to the challenges that we all experience in life… what you have taught me about how to react and how to respond rather than react has been life changing.”
  — Zain Asher (12:33)

Timestamps for Key Segments

00:00–01:45 — Opening thoughts: The math that losers do, the danger of focusing on blame and the past.
05:27–06:28 — Zain Asher introduces Stoicism’s relevance to world events and injustice.
06:28–07:21 — Stoicism’s stance on acceptance versus responding to injustice.
07:21–08:43 — Misconceptions about Stoicism, the place of anger, and pausing before reaction.
08:43–10:26 — Coping with personal hardship; differentiating responses and finding virtue in suffering.
10:26–12:15 — Turning Stoic philosophy into lived practice during crisis, not just comfort.
12:33–12:44 — Zain’s gratitude and testimonial to Stoic lessons.

Takeaways

Let go of blame; focus on present agency.
Injustice demands response, but with courage, justice, and self-discipline.
Don’t act in anger—pause, reflect, then act.
Hardship is universal; our response is where virtue and growth happen.
Stoicism is a daily practice, not a one-off insight—true value appears most when we’re truly tested.

End of summary.

Loading summary

Transcript15 lines

[00:00]
Ryan Holiday
Welcome to the daily Stoic podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice and wisdom, into the real world. This is the math that losers do. You could be focused on what you're going to do about it. You could be focused on solutions. You could be thinking about forgiveness or patience or acceptance. Instead, you're thinking about who's to blame, making, as the Noah Khan song goes,
[00:32]
Zain Asher
making quiet calculations where the fall lies.
[00:35]
Ryan Holiday
Why are they like this? Why did they do it? Why didn't they listen? Why couldn't have things gone differently? The better question is, what good is all this going to do you? It happened, it's done. It doesn't change your responsibilities. Nothing is more pathetic, Marcus Aurelius writes in meditations than people who run around in circles, delving into the things that lie beneath and conducting investigations into the souls of the people around them. He's saying that it's very easy to get distracted by putting other people on trial and that this is a way to let yourself off the hook. We should instead focus on how we're going to respond to this, how we're going to, as the Stoics teach us, use this as an opportunity to practice virtue. We can keep running the numbers, replaying the mistakes, assigning fault, but the total never changes. That type of math keeps us stuck in the past. The past is gone and no amount of calculation will bring it back or make it fair. What we have is agency right now. We can choose to let it go, to move on, to move forward. Agency doesn't exist in the past, only exists now. Look, this is the time of the year we try to get our health in order, try to get back on track, try to have better habits, put better things into our bodies. So maybe you're thinking about supplements. If you are, you know, it's a confusing space. There's a lot of brands out there. It's a low trust category, not a lot of regulation, a lot of scammers, a lot of big, unpronounceable ingredients. It's hard. And that's where momentous comes in. And it's also what makes them stand out. They become a high trust brand in a low trust category. They weren't satisfied with the industry standard, so they built the Momentus standard, which is their commitment to doing things the right way, not the easy way. They use only the highest quality ingredients on the planet. Everything is based with clinically backed, highly bioavailable nutrients, no fillers and no artificial sweeteners. Every product is independently certified by NSF for sport or informed sport, which means they test it for contaminants, heavy metals, banned substances, and verify for label accuracy. If you want to start this year with supplements, I can't recommend them enough. You can try their protein or creatine or omega 3. Those are all ones that I have tried. I've been taking the creatine lately 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. Livemomentous.com promo code DAILY Stoic we are just getting back from a trip so the fridge is empty and we were like oh man, we gotta go to the store we're gonna have for dinner tonight. And then I realized no no no, hellofresh just came. So we took the hellofresh meals out and we got to work. We love hellofresh in our household cause the meals are simple. You can make em on a busy work night, you can do it on the weekend, you can do it when you get to the end of your groceries. They have more than a hundred recipes every week, which is especially great if people at your home have allergies or preferences or they don't like to eat the same thing twice. You can always make just the right amount of food so everyone feels full and satisfied and there aren't a bunch of leftovers to deal with. And there's now three times the seafood for no upcharge. If you've got folks coming over for dinner, impress them with new grass fed steak ribeyes. My kids love steak. HelloFresh always has delicious options with seasonal produce like pears, apples and asparagus. When dinner tastes this good, nothing hits like home cooking. And we love home cooking with hellofresh. And I think you'll love it too. Just go to hellofresh.com stoic10fm to get 10 free meals and a free zwilling knife which is $144 value on your third box. Offer valued while supplies last free. Me applied as discount on first box. New subscribers only. Varies by plan. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic podcast. Okay, so a couple of weeks ago I was on cnn. They have a show called One World with Zane Asher and they wanted to talk about how stoicism can help us navigate these turbulent times we're living in. The questions we all have. It was a really cool opportunity. I'm glad I got to squeeze it in, but when I got on air, I was just, like, blown away, like, oh, this host knows their stuff about stoicism. So I wanted to bring you a chunk of that interview here today in case you weren't mainlining CNN in the middle of the day. Thanks to Zayn for having me on asking those great questions and giving me a platform to talk about stoicism. You can follow her on Instagram. Zayn AsherCNN.
[05:27]
Zain Asher
For centuries, leaders, generals and politicians have been inspired by the thoughts and writings of thinkers like Marcus Aurelius, the essence of his teachings. How do we learn to live well in a world that we simply cannot control? And what would that mean for our peace of mind? Our next guest says that he was introduced to the philosophy of stoicism about two decades ago. Ryan Holiday joins us live now from Austin, Texas. He's the host of the podcast the Daily Stoic and the author of several books. Many of them I read myself, including his latest one Wisdom Takes Work, Learn, Apply, and Repeat. Ryan, so, so good to have you on the program. I am a huge fan of yours. Obviously, I am a news anchor and I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that the news cycle feels relentless. It feels very emotionally charged. What does stoicism have to teach us about how we can respond or how we should respond to injustice? Ryan?
[06:29]
Ryan Holiday
Yeah, Stoicism is ultimately a philosophy about acceptance, accepting things that are outside your control. But the one area that the Stoics are quite clear, that we don't accept things that we do respond is in the case of injustice, the four Stoic virtues being courage, self discipline, justice, and wisdom. And I think courage and justice come together there. To sort of turn away, to not pay attention because it's upsetting to you is obviously wrong. And we have Marx, Aurelius, the emperor of Rome, saying that to himself. A reminder that injustices is not just something you do. You can also commit an injustice, he said, by doing nothing, by saying, that's not my problem. That doesn't affect me, by looking for excuses. So the Stoics are actively involved in the world. They just try to be in command of themselves while doing so.
[07:22]
Zain Asher
That's such an important point because I think a lot of people, you know, when I first discovered Stoicism, I think my misinterpretation was that it was similar to sort of apathy and disengagement, but it's not like that at all. Does anger have a role to play in stoicism?
[07:39]
Ryan Holiday
Yeah, I think being Upset when you see something outrageous is natural and human, but it is precisely when the stakes are high. It is precisely when people are counting on you or you're in some position of responsibility that you can't afford to go around being outraged and acting on that emotion. The Stoics were often sort of connected to the halls of power. And we have one Stoic, his name is Athena Doris, and he's advising the first emperor of Rome, Octavian, the future Augustus. And he tells him that whenever he's upset, he has to first count all 24 letters of the Alphabet. It was too shorter then. And he says you have to count all the letters of the Alphabet before you respond. And I think pausing and reflecting before taking action is a big part of what Stoicism teaches us. It's not that you don't take the action, it's that you don't want to take it while you're angry, while you're blinded by fear or jealousy or whatever strong emotion is coming up, that's not what you want informing what you do.
[08:43]
Zain Asher
What I find so interesting is how so many of these philosophies overlap. I practice Kabbalah and that is a big part of it, pausing before any kind of emotional response. So one of my questions to you is really just moving away from the new cycle, just talking about some of the issues that people might be dealing with in their everyday life. Two people can go through the same thing. A divorce, heartbreak, your boyfriend breaks up with you, death in the family, somebody gets cancer, who you care about, you get cancer. One person collapses under all of that pressure. Totally understandable. Another person adapts. What determines the difference between the two? Ryan?
[09:21]
Ryan Holiday
I. I don't know. I. That's one of the great mysteries of life. Why? Why? One person responds this way and another this way. And I think the same person might be able to deal with something heart wrenching, like cancer, and then their car breaks down. And that's devastating. So I think so much depends on the circumstances, depends on the moment. What the Stoics try to teach us though, is that when we are challenged by life, the point is to rise and to meet that challenge. It's not to turn away from it, it's not to wish it was otherwise, it's not to blame it on other people, but to say to yourself, what does this give me an opportunity to do right? What can I learn from this? How can I be of service to others through this? What virtue is being asked of me here? And in this way, even the most difficult and unfair and challenging of circumstances presents us an opportunity to be better for it. It's not going to be fun while we're going through it, but afterwards we can look back and go, hey, who I am now is only possible because of how I responded to what happened then.
[10:26]
Zain Asher
I loved what you said about just now about what virtue is being asked of me here. Sort of using some of the challenges that you might experience to be of service to others. That's a big part of Kabbalah as well. And it sounds stoicism too. You know, it's one thing to practice stoicism by yourself in your bedroom when your life is going well and when your life is so, when things are going smoothly, but when you are really tested, when the rubber meets the road and something goes wrong in your life, like you lose your job, for example, it's very easy people to then sort of abandon. I don't have time for stoicism right now. I need to deal with this. How do you make sure that you incorporate everything that you've learned in private to when it really matters when you are being tested?
[11:05]
Ryan Holiday
Yeah, it's easy to be stoic about something when you're not being tested. When it's easy, it is precisely in moments of extreme success, but also extreme difficulty and adversity that I think we're most called to sort of have that even keel to have that self command. So if it was easy, everyone would do it. If this was just something you were born with, it wouldn't be that impressive either. So it's important that we see that, that this is work, it's hard work. It's not something you read once and you magically have it's work and we should be getting better at it as we go. That is how we turn obstacles into opportunities in one most simple way, which is we go, hey, I'm getting practice dealing with stuff like this and it's going to prepare me and make me better for when I have to deal with something even more difficult than this at some point down the road. So I just try to think about it always as I'm getting reps. I don't want to be having this conversation. I don't want to be dealing with this. I would love the news to be positive instead of negative, but it isn't. And so I'm getting practice dealing with precisely that.
[12:15]
Zain Asher
Ryan, thank you so much for your work. I mean, obviously I've read the Obstacle is the Way and just, just in terms of really sort of teaching me how to respond to the challenges that we all experience in life. My self esteem, I mean I've been through quite a bit over the past couple of years and just what you have taught me about how to react and how to respond rather than react has been life changing. So I thank you for that. Ryan Holiday Live for us. Thank you so much.
[12:45]
Ryan Holiday
Hey it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love 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. Foreign.
[13:23]
American Airlines Advertiser
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[14:40]
Ryan Holiday
Sometimes AT T Business Wireless Connecting changes everything.