The Stoic’s Guide Podcast by Brad Young

Let me start with a question, and I want you to be honest with yourself, because nobody hears your answer but you. Think about how you actually begin your day. Not the day you wish you had, the one you really have. When you first open your eyes, what happens? Do you reach for your phone before your feet even touch the floor, letting a flood of messages, news, and other people's demands pour into your mind before you have had a single thought of your own? Or do you take a quiet moment, before the world gets to you, to decide the kind of person you want to be today?
Sit with that for a second. Because how you begin your morning quietly shapes everything that follows, and most of us hand those first precious minutes away without even noticing. Today, we talk about taking them back.

Let me start with a question, and I want you to be honest with yourself, because nobody hears your answer but you. Think about the last time you truly lost your temper. Not a small flash of irritation. Real anger. The kind that made your heart pound, your voice rise, your hands shake. Now think about what came out of it. Did that anger fix the thing that made you angry? Did it make your life better in any way? Or did it leave a mess behind, a broken conversation, a wound in someone you love, a knot in your own stomach that lingered for hours or even days after the person who triggered it had moved on with their life?

Let me start with a question, and I want you to be honest with yourself, because nobody hears your answer but you. Think about the people and the things in your life that you love the most. The person sleeping beside you. The child in the next room. The health of your body. The roof over your head. Now be honest about something. When was the last time you actually felt grateful for any of them? Not said the words. Felt it. Really felt the weight of how much you would miss them if they were suddenly gone. Sit with that for a second. Because most of us walk right past our greatest treasures every single day without a second glance, and we only wake up to their value the moment we lose them. Today, we talk about a practice that fixes that, and it is one of the strangest and most powerful ideas the Stoics ever gave us.

Let me start with a question, and I want you to be honest with yourself, because nobody hears your answer but you. Think about the last time you lay awake at night, your mind spinning, your chest tight, worry running in circles that would not stop. Now be honest about what you were worrying about. Were you worrying about what someone else might think of you? Were you replaying something that already happened and could not be changed? Were you dreading something in the future that you had no power over anyway? Sit with that for a second. Because I would bet almost everything I own that most of what steals your peace lives entirely outside your control. And learning to see that, clearly and honestly, is the entire subject of today.

Let me start with a question, and I want you to be honest with yourself, because nobody hears your answer but you. Think about the last big obstacle that landed in your path. The setback at work. The relationship that fell apart. The plan that collapsed right when you thought everything was finally coming together. Now ask yourself something. When that obstacle showed up, what did you decide it was? Did you decide it was proof that you were finished, that the door was closed for good? Or did you find a way to make it the very thing that pushed you forward?
Sit with that for a second. Because the difference between those two responses is the entire subject of today, and honestly, it might be the most important idea in all of Stoic philosophy.

Today's episode is about something that is affecting every one of us, whether we're paying attention to it or not. We're talking about the information environment we live inside of. The news we consume. The voices we've decided to trust. The emotional weather that a given cable news segment can produce in a matter of minutes.
Here's a question I want you to consider honestly: When was the last time you watched a news program — or a political commentary show — and walked away feeling calmer, better informed, and more capable of engaging with people who think differently than you?
If you're like most people, the answer is: not recently. Maybe never.
And that gap — between what the news claims to offer and what it actually produces in us — is exactly where Stoic philosophy has something important to say.

Today's episode is about something that touches every part of your life, whether you think about it consciously or not. We're talking about relationships. All of them. The ones that sustain you. The ones that frustrate you. The friendships that have lasted decades and the conversations that went sideways last Tuesday.
Here's a question I want you to sit with for a moment: How much of your suffering — the real, daily kind — is caused by other people? Or more precisely, by your reactions to other people?
For most of us, the honest answer is: a lot.

Today's episode is one I've been wanting to record for a while. We're asking a question that sounds simple on the surface but gets more interesting the longer you sit with it: What does it actually mean to live like a Stoic today?
Not in ancient Athens. Not in the Roman court of Marcus Aurelius. Not in the barracks of Epictetus. But right now — with your phone buzzing every four minutes, a news cycle designed to terrify you, an inbox that never empties, and a social media feed that somehow manages to be both boring and overwhelming at the same time.
The Stoics had a lot to say about adversity, about discipline, about the nature of a well-lived life. But they didn't have to deal with Instagram. They didn't wake up to push notifications. They weren't navigating a world of infinite distraction and 24-hour outrage.

Today we are going to talk about something that most people spend their entire lives running from.
Obstacles.
Not how to avoid them. Not how to survive them. But how to use them. How to let them shape you into the version of yourself you were always capable of becoming.
Here is the truth that this episode is built on: the obstacle is not in your way. The obstacle is the way. And the person who understands that has access to a kind of personal power that most people never discover.
We are going to go deep today. We are going to draw on the wisdom of the Stoics, look at the lives of real people who were forged by real difficulty, and by the end of this episode, I want you to see your struggles not as problems to be solved but as raw material to be used.
Let us get into it.

Epictetus was born a slave in ancient Rome. He spent his early years owned by another man, with very little control over his own body, his own time, even where he could go. At some point, his leg was badly injured, and for the rest of his life he walked with a limp. So this was not a man writing from a comfortable mansion, telling you to just think positive. This was a man who had every reason in the world to be bitter, angry, and broken. And yet he became one of the wisest, calmest, most free human beings who ever lived. Think about that. A slave who became free in the only way that truly matters. Free on the inside.
And the secret he discovered is the secret we're unpacking today. So let's get into it.