This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey gang how we doing? We talk a lot about Buddhism and meditation on this show, but today we're going to talk about another ancient tradition that has excellent strategies for managing stress and anxiety.

Stoicism. Here is just one quote among many that stuck out to me from this interview. It's from the ancient philosopher Seneca. He's a Roman or he was a Roman. Here's the quote. He who suffers before it is necessary

suffers more than necessary.

I love that.

And it's really just the tip of the iceberg

when it comes to practical stoic wisdom.

My guest today has done perhaps more than anybody to

popularize and evangelize on behalf of Stoicism. Ryan Holiday is a prolific

author whose books include the obstacle is the way Way, Ego is The Enemy, and Discipline

is Destiny.

His newest book, Right Thing Right Now, comes out in June and is available for pre-order.

Ryan is also the host of the Daily Stoic Podcast. In this conversation we talk

about how Ryan got into Stoicism in the first place after a career in marketing. The

basics of Stoic history and philosophy, We walk through several stoic exercises including

pre-Meditatio malorum which translates into the premeditation of evils which

is designed to get you comfortable with all the hard things that might happen

to you.

We also talk about Amor Fati, loving your fate, which is about making peace with the hard stuff

that has already happened to you.

And we talk about Memento Mori, which is all about remembering the fact

that life is fleeting, that you and everybody you know is going to die,

which can sound morbid, but is actually, in in my experience quite the opposite.

...