BONUS | Where Service Meets Stoicism — U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Joe Byerly & Ryan Holiday

The Daily Stoic

Daily Stoic | Backyard Ventures

Education, 694393, Daily Stoic, Society & Culture, Stoic, Stoicism, Self-improvement, Business, Stoic Philosophy, Philosophy, Ryan Holiday

4.6 • 4.7K Ratings

🗓️ 13 November 2025

⏱️ 73 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this bonus episode, Ryan sits down with his friend and collaborator, Joe Byerly, retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel, writer, and host of From the Green Notebook. The two talk about the overlap between Stoicism and service, the discipline it takes to think clearly, and why wisdom isn’t something you’re born with.

Joe Byerly is a recently retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel with 20 years of service, including combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and command of a cavalry squadron in Europe. He’s earned multiple honors, including the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, and the Purple Heart.

In 2013, he founded From the Green Notebook, a platform that helps leaders reflect, grow, and share their experiences. Joe’s passionate about the power of reading, writing, and self-reflection—and he’s the author of The Leader’s 90-Day Notebook and co-author of My Green Notebook: “Know Thyself” Before Changing Jobs.

Follow Joe on Instagram @FromTheGreenNotebook and on X @jbyerly81

Check out Joe’s podcast From The Green Notebook on YouTube, Apple Podcast, and Spotify

See more of Joe’s work on his website: https://fromthegreennotebook.com/

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a stoic-inspired meditation
0:11.7	designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life.
0:18.8	Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of
0:24.2	history's greatest men and women to help you learn from them, to follow in their example,
0:33.0	and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom.
0:40.3	For more, visit DailyStoic.com.
0:57.3	Hey, it's Ryan.
1:00.4	Welcome to another episode of The Daily Stoak podcast.
1:03.7	So this is my life, a little window into my life.
1:08.5	I write a book and then I send it into the publisher and they work on it for a while.
1:12.1	They edit it, they design it, they send it back to me, they copy it.
1:13.0	We go back and forth.
1:14.9	But this whole process takes many, many months.
1:17.4	So, like, wisdom takes work.
1:21.7	I think I turned in, more or less, as the book was going to be.
1:26.4	Like, I stopped writing, writing, like, in December of 2024.
1:31.4	And it just came out, like, two weeks ago, right? So that's several months of one book ending before that book comes out. So what do I do in that interim period?
1:37.8	I start writing the next book, always writing. This is advice I got from Stephen Pressville.
1:43.1	Just start the next book. Start the next book.
1:45.1	So I am already shrugging away on the next book. You may have heard me talk about it in interviews or some of the walkthroughs because people come into my office and then I show them what I'm working on. And I'm working on a biography. I'm actually working on a biography of James Stockdale. And Billy Oppenheimer has been my researcher for a long time.
2:02.0	He worked on all four books in the Stoic Virtue series. working on a biography of James Stockdale. And Billy Oppenheimer has been my researcher for a long time.
2:02.0	He worked on all four books in the Stoic Virtue series. And he's fantastic. He has a lovely
	...

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