Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a stoic-inspired meditation

designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life.

Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of

history's greatest men and women to help you learn from them, to follow in their example,

and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom.

For more, visit Dailystoic.com. It's not something you're born with. It's something you earn.

Marcus Aurelius was not born wise. Neither was Seneca or Epictetus, Norcaito, or Xeno, or

Clanthes. No one is born wise, ever. Though there are many forms of wisdom, one thing all wise people

have in common is that they earned it. Wisdom is the result of an incredible amount of work,

study, mentorship, experience, reflection. Just as one becomes strong through lifting weights or

skilled at woodworking through hours in the shop, we become wise through the same kind of effort.

As Seneca said, no man ever became wise by chance.

And indeed, he said, much toil remains for all of us, no matter how brilliant or smart we naturally are.

More reading, more journaling, more asking questions, listening, debating, observing, learning from mistakes, seeking advice, questioning

assumptions, more trying, more failing, more teachers, more long walks, more, more, more.

Like the other virtues, wisdom is a byproduct of doing the right thing in the

right way at the right time, not just once, but consistently over the course of a life. It is the

result of a method. And yet, it is not actually ever possessed. That's because it is a method. Not a groundbreaking one,

but it's the same practices, the same questions that people have posed since we first started

roaming the earth. And that's what the new book, Wisdom Takes Work, is about, the method,

the timeless practices that help us get a little wiser each day.

And the inspiration and the motivation, we need to sustain that practice.

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