The Stoic Question David Mamet Engraved on His Watch
The Daily Stoic
Daily Stoic | Backyard Ventures
4.5 • 5.3K Ratings
🗓️ 21 January 2026
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
David Mamet is one of the most influential writers of the last half-century, so when he talks about craft, discipline, and courage, it’s worth listening. In this episode, David joins Ryan to talk about acting, writing, Stoicism, and why most people make things far more complicated than they need to be. David breaks down his blunt philosophy on performance and life, why courage matters more than talent, why “just saying the words” is often the hardest part, and the Stoic question he literally engraved on his watch.
David Mamet won a Pulitzer Prize for Glengarry Glen Ross and first broke through in the 1970s with plays like American Buffalo and Sexual Perversity in Chicago. He’s also written and directed films including House of Games, The Spanish Prisoner, and Heist, and wrote the screenplays for The Verdict and The Untouchables. Most recently, David released the film Henry Johnson and published the novel Some Recollections of St. Ives: A Novel.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | One of the things I talk about in my book, Perennial Cellar, is that you want to be as direct |
| 0:03.8 | with your audience as possible, like cut out as many middlemen as possible, which is obviously one of the problems with publishing, right? People sell a book to a publisher, the publisher sells a book to a bookstore, and then eventually somebody has the interaction with the customer, but it's not the person who made the thing. That's one of the best decisions we made here at Daily Stoak. We make stuff and we sell it directly to you. And we have been using Shopify |
| 0:26.2 | since the very beginning. Maybe 2026 will be the year that you launch your business, the year |
| 0:32.6 | you become an entrepreneur, a founder, a maker, a creator, someone with a direct relationship with your |
| 0:40.1 | audience. Shopify gives you everything you need to sell online and in person. We also use Shopify |
| 0:45.3 | as the POS at the Painted Porch bookstore. Millions of entrepreneurs have already done this |
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| 1:15.6 | dot UK slash stoic. |
| 1:18.0 | Go to Shopify.com. |
| 1:20.3 | dot UK slash stoic. |
| 1:24.1 | Hear your first. |
| 1:26.4 | This year was Shopify by your side. |
| 1:35.7 | 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 |
| 1:47.0 | to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to |
| 1:53.4 | some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating, and powerful. |
| 2:00.5 | With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are, |
| 2:05.6 | and also to find peace and wisdom in their lives. |
| 2:21.6 | Hey, it's Ryan. |
| 2:25.3 | Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. |
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