Episode · The Daily Stoic · 2024-10-02
Books mentioned on Brigid Delaney’s Life Changing Year of Living Like a Stoic
Brigid Delaney was at a unique point in her life and found herself looking for answers around life’s deepest questions: What does it mean to be a good person? How do we stop letting the things out of our control rule our emotions?
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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The Correspondence of Marcus Cornelius Fronto with Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Lucius Verus, Antoninus Pius, and Various Friends
Discussed“I thought I'd start in the nerdiest place possible: have you read Marcus's letters to Fronto? You know who Fronto is? The love letters?”
Where to get it
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Meditations
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is a collection of personal journals written by the Roman emperor containing Stoic philosophy and reflections on self-control, humility, and mortality.
Discussed“A lot of the lines and words in 'Meditations' are not Marcus's own, they're something he heard from a philosophy teacher or read in a book. It's important that we see it as what it was; it's kind of a commonplace book. But I get to do that part in public, and then my journaling is much more personal and”
Where to get it
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The Daily Stoic
The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman is a popular guide that offers daily Stoic meditations and practical philosophical insights for modern life.
Discussed“Well, I have the luxury of getting to do a good chunk of my Stoic journaling in public. I wrote this book, 'The Daily Stoic', which was one page a day, and then I just kept going. So every day for eight years, I've published a Stoic meditation.”
Where to get it
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The Daily Stoic Journal
The Daily Stoic Journal by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman provides readers with daily prompts and exercises designed to cultivate ancient Stoic principles in modern life.
Discussed“Yeah, I just have a kind of blank journal that I do, and then I did this book called 'The Daily Journal', which has a Stoic prompt every day, and I like the prompts. So I do those from time to time also. For me, it's kind of a grab bag of different things to think about, but it's usually”
Where to get it
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Dying Every Day
Discussed“I mean, there are different accounts of how culpable Seneca was. I love the James Romm book 'Dying Every Day', it's extraordinary. What I love about Seneca is his humanness; he had this ideal that he tried to reach, and the reality was working for Nero.”
Where to get it
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Moral letters to Lucilius
Discussed“'Letters to Lucilius' is a good example; that's addressed to someone, but you can see him working out death and grief in that work. Same with 'On the Shortness of Life'; it's an intellectual exercise and a spiritual exercise. They didn't have a pre-fitted philosophy or theology that they could live by; they had to come up with it themselves,”
Where to get it
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On the Shortness of Life
On the Shortness of Life by Seneca is a classic philosophical essay offering timeless wisdom on how humans squander their most precious and limited resource through distraction, trivial pursuits, and busyness.
Discussed“'Letters to Lucilius' is a good example; that's addressed to someone, but you can see him working out death and grief in that work. Same with 'On the Shortness of Life'; it's an intellectual exercise and a spiritual exercise. They didn't have a pre-fitted philosophy or theology that they could live by; they had to come up with it themselves,”
Where to get it
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The Therapy of Desire
Discussed“I think she's possibly Princeton or Yale, um, but she wrote a wonderful book called The Therapy of Desire, which looks, you know, there's a, a case study, a kind of fictional case study of a young woman in Stoic times who, um, is learning Stoicism. And you know there's this great, you know, um, Nussbaum is a brilliant writer,”
Where to get it
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Wild Things
Discussed“Um, one of my books, Well Mania was turned into a Netflix show. And, um, it's, it did a great first season. It did really well around the world.”
Where to get it
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The Obstacle Is the Way
The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday is a popular book on stoicism and personal growth that explores how to use obstacles as a means to overcome professional and personal challenges.
Discussed“Yeah, you know, because I think 'Obstacle is the Way.' I also think ego is an obstacle—your own. It's the biggest obstacle, your own sort of sense of your entitlements, you know, where you should be in life.”
Where to get it
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Ego Is the Enemy
Ego Is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday is a philosophical self-help book that examines how unchecked personal ego hinders success, growth, and fulfillment, drawing lessons from historical figures.
Discussed“I was writing, ironically, what would become 'Ego is the Enemy.' But so I didn't take the lack of success that personally because I was busy doing the thing. And then some random lucky things happened, like Amazon discounted it and it stayed discounted, audiobooks started to take off, some sports teams started to talk about it, and then it”
Where to get it
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Stillness Is the Key
Stillness Is the Key by Ryan Holiday is a bestselling exploration of philosophy and Stoic principles aimed at helping readers achieve mental clarity and emotional balance.
Discussed“The first time I hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list, I remember I was in Los Angeles, I was on book tour for 'Stillness is the Key.' And so I was a different time zone, and so I started getting lots of texts and emails. And my thing is I get up early and I don't”
Where to get it
