Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired

by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength

and insight here in everyday life.

And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known

and obscure, fascinating, and powerful.

With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are

and also to find peace and wisdom in their actual lives.

But first, we've got a quick message from one of our sponsors.

Okay, it's Ryan Holliday, welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast.

But it's good to be competitive, it's good to be driven, it's good to want to be the best

at what you do.

The problem is, you know, life is not exactly like sports in the sense that there's like

a winner and a loser, it's zero sum.

So I think when people are competitive, you know, in my industry friends and say writing

books, you're seeing someone who does something similar to what you do as a competitor, as

opposed to an ally, as opposed to fellow traveler, as opposed to appear.

And so one of the reasons I've tried to push that out of my mind is that I'm always surprised

when I get to know someone, uniform in a similar space, is how much we have in common,

how much we can learn from each other.

And now we're better off helping each other than the alternative.

I got to know Brad Stolberg, I actually don't know when, right around me at the time, his

first book came out, Pete Performance, which is a great book.

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