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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 Wednesday

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.

Hey, it's Ryan Holiday welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast.

You probably notice in my books in my writing maybe if you follow me on Instagram I am a sports addict.

I grew up in Sacramento so I'm a Kings fan. I have gotten to visit with and talked to a bunch of different sports.

Certainly I was not thinking when I wrote this book about ancient philosophy that I would get to connect with these different teams without it's been a very cool experience.

And one of the things you notice in these locker rooms in these front offices is they're just running the same sports shows that the rest of us are watching.

You might think you know you watch these talk shows on the SPN like who are these people talking to? They're not just talking to fans like they all

are talking to the people in the industry which is crazy. Even if people in the industry say they don't know what they're talking about they can't stop watching them like the rest of us.

And I guess I've been watching my guest today Steven A Smith for longer than I can really remember he is one of the biggest names in sports commentary.

Certainly one of the biggest to not have come to it from the field and he has a new book that came out in January called Straight Shooter.

A memoir of second chances and first takes.

And it's about the highs and lows of his careers his thoughts on all the controversies and arguments he's gotten in thoughts on the biggest stories in sports and his quite nearly fatal bout of COVID.

And you know it's in the same styles all the Steven A Smith stuff that you've seen but when I had the chance to have him on the podcast he wasn't someone I was thinking would be your typical daily still guests and that's why I guess I was looking forward to having him on.

And we had a great conversation.

Steven played basketball at Winston Salem State University. He wrote for the New York Daily News in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

He's been on ESPN's first take since 2012. He's an analyst on NBA countdown as the host of NBA and Steven A's world and has a new podcast called No Mercy with Steven A Smith.

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