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Welcome to the Daily Stoke. For each day, we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living good life.

Each one of these passages is based on the 2000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at DailyStoke.com.

How to Concentrate like a Roman. There is so much on our plate. We have emails to respond to, calls to make. There is a meeting in a couple hours.

The folks we met with yesterday are waiting on an answer or a decision we promised we'd make. Twitter beckons, so do our hopes and dreams.

And yet, as so many directions as we find ourselves pulled in, it's safe to assume that markets are really as was under even more tension. Make no mistake, the ancient world was not some quiet, peaceful place.

It too was filled with crises and distractions, gossip and ambitious goal setting. All the temptations we face today have their analogs in the past. Plus things were scary, deadlier and more precarious.

So we should listen to the command that Marcus gave himself after one of those trying days when he was struggling to stay focused.

He said, Concentrate every minute like a Roman, like a man, on doing what's in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly willingly with justice.

And he wasn't just trying himself to do some impossible thing. There was a method to this concentration, he said. What was that?

It was do everything as if it was the last thing you were doing in your life. That's the power of momentum. The key Marcus said was to not let your emotions override your mind and to give yourself a strong purpose for aimlessness is an enabler of distraction.

You can do that. You have the power to concentrate like a Roman. You know how to do this thing in front of you. You can treat it right. And most important, you should because it may well be the last thing you ever do in your life.

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Entrepreneur Phil Knight started a company called Blue Ribbon Sports on the strength of what he called a crazy idea that American joggers needed better running shoes and that they pay top dollar to get them.

Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, host of Wondering Show Business Movers. We tell the true stories of business leaders who risked it all, the critical moments that define their journey and the ideas that transform the way we live our lives.

In our latest series, Phil Knight sets out to build an empire by importing athletic shoes from overseas in Japan. But in 1971, a dispute with a Japanese manufacturer almost brings Blue Ribbon's growth to a screeching halt.

In this moment of crisis, Phil bets the future of his company on a big move. He creates an in-house brand and takes control of the production of his product.

Following this bold new direction, Phil ultimately creates one of the most recognizable and successful companies in the world, Nike.

Follow business movers wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon music or Wondering app.

Grace Beach is essential to a functioning democracy. Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle? What should be done? Is a new platform needed? Is Twitter dying?

I'm David Brown, host of the new Wondering Podcast, flipping the bird, Elon versus Twitter. Join us as we unravel the fascinating story of Elon Musk's unexpected bid to buy Twitter. And all of the drama that has happened since then.

Those still employed at Twitter soon saw the company and its culture morphed into something they didn't recognize.

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