12 Lessons From 7 Years of The Daily Stoic In 2015, my agent called me with an idea. I had published The Obstacle is the Way and was working on Ego is the Enemy, two books which were rooted in Stoic philosophy–but tried not to be too overt about it. Steve, my agent, suggested I do the exact opposite. You should write a daily devotional about Stoicism, he told me, one page per day. It seemed crazy to me. Most people weren’t interested in philosophy (and most publishers weren’t either)....
over 1 year ago • 7 min read
These 14 Small Mindset Shifts Will Change Your Life For the most part, we can’t change the world. We can’t change the fundamental facts of existence–like the fact that we’re going to die. We can’t change other people. Does that mean that everything is hopeless and permanently broken? No, because although we have that extreme powerlessness in one sense, we have an incredible superpower in another: We can change how we think about things. We can change how we view them, how we orient ourselves...
almost 2 years ago • 9 min read
24 Leadership Principles From The Greatest Business, Military, Political, and Sports Leaders People think that leadership is something that just happens. One is anointed a leader. One is promoted to leadership. One is born into leadership. And of course, this is not the case. “Leadership,” Eisenhower said, “is the art of getting someone else to do something that you want done because he wants to do it.” Which means that, like any art, leadership is something that has to be studied. No one...
almost 2 years ago • 13 min read
These 38 Reading Rules Changed My Life It’s a weird thing to say, but I guess I’m a professional reader. That’s really what authors are. A book is made of books. “The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading; a man will turn over half a library to make one book,” Samuel Johnson said. I’ve written 15 books now, which has meant reading many thousands of books in the process. Once a month for the last 15 years, I’ve recommended many of those books in the Reading List Email (which you...
almost 2 years ago • 9 min read
No You Can’t Have It All (Especially as a Parent) Parenting is all about discipline. It’s about being strict and firm and unrelenting. Not with your kids, to be clear. That’s being a disciplinarian. When I say parenting is all about discipline, I’m talking about the only form that matters: self-discipline. There is a story about one of those legendary Beat parties in the early 1960s. Allen Ginsberg was hosting. Jack Kerouac was there holding court. There were drugs and ideas and romance....
almost 2 years ago • 6 min read
What To Do When War, Climate Change, And Other Global Threats Inevitably Hit Your Startup I wouldn't have thought that a book about an obscure school of ancient philosophy would put me in the manufacturing business, but life is full of surprises. Several years ago, after writing a book called The Daily Stoic, I started an email list that delivered one philosophical meditation each day. From there, I expanded the business into prints and then into an e-commerce company that sells all sorts of...
almost 2 years ago • 6 min read
24 Things I Wish I Had Done Sooner (or my biggest regrets) Of all the things in life we don’t control, the past is the clearest. It already happened. It’s done. It’s set in stone. Perhaps we could have controlled and changed it, but the fact is, we didn’t. And now it is what it is, forever a was. For this reason, the Stoics were not big on regret. Neither am I. There’s no reason to whip yourself or be paralyzed by the “What Ifs” of life. Still, we can learn and grow, and in fact, we must. I...
almost 2 years ago • 8 min read
It Always Takes Longer Than You Expect (Even When You Take This Into Account) When I finished my first book, I hired a publicist. I was 25. It cost $20,000 and was, to that point, the most money I had ever spent in my life. As part of the scope of work, they had me put together a list of my top twenty or so media targets—–what I thought I had a reasonable shot of getting and what would be good platforms with the book. Pretty much none of those opportunities happened. It wasn’t the publicist’s...
almost 2 years ago • 4 min read
Why Your Kids Should See You Cry Happy Father’s Day to everyone! Just an FYI, we also send out a daily email (and daily podcast) about parenting over at DailyDad.com. We’d love to have you join us! I’ve always found it interesting that of the handful of legends we have about the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, three of them involve him crying. (Yes, I realize this is an odd way into an essay about being a dad of boys, but stick with me here.) The first story is a sweet one. Marcus was just 17...
about 2 years ago • 2 min read