Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast.

Each day we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, illustrated with stories

from history, current events, and literature to help you be better at what you do.

And at the beginning of the week, we try to do a deeper dive, setting a kind of Stoic

intention for the week, something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave

you with, to journal about whatever it is you happen to be doing.

So let's get into it.

This book was not meant for us.

There are very few books like it, certainly none written by someone in such an unusual position.

You see, meditations was not meant to be a book for the reader.

It was a book for the author.

In Greek, the title of meditation is actually translates to two himself.

More recent title also captures the essence, the Emperor's Handbook.

Why write a book that no one would see?

Why create a handbook with no plans to publish it?

Because Marcus himself needed it.

When you need encouragement, think of the qualities the people around you have.

Marcus writes in a passage.

This one's energy.

That one's modesty, another's generosity, and so on.

Nothing is as encouraging as when virtues are visibly embodied in the people around

us.

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