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. This is what to surprise them with.

In the year 161 AD, Marcus A.D.

Marcus Aurelius did something that shocked the world.

Upon inheriting the throne from Antoninus,

he did what almost no one who has ever held absolute power

before has ever done. It gave half of it away by naming his stepbrother, Lucius Veris,

co-emperor. Rome had once been run by two elected consuls, but after 15 emperors,

there was hundreds of years of precedent, which Marcus was shockingly and

selflessly throwing aside. It's like that line in Hamilton when King George finds out that

George Washington was handing over his power and returning to his farm. I wasn't aware that was something

a person could do. But of course it is. We can always choose not to be

imperialized or stained purple, as Marcus Reelius put it in meditations. We don't have to be changed

by power or selfishly cling to it. We can do what's best for our country or our team or our

family. We can share. We can lift others up. And many people have done this

throughout history. There's a whole chapter in Discipline is Destiny about it. It's easy to think that

success means having it all, holding on tightly, standing alone at the top. But Marcus reminds us that

real greatness lies in what we're willing to give away, our ego, our need for control, our fear of being overshadowed.

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