EducationSelf-ImprovementSociety & CulturePhilosophyHealth & FitnessMental Health

The Stoic Handbook with Jon Brooks

Jon Brooks

You've read the books. You know what Marcus Aurelius would do. But when life gets hard, the philosophy disappears. This podcast is for people who want to close the gap between knowing Stoicism and actually living it. New episodes weekly. Start with the free 7-Day Stoic Challenge: https://www.stoicchallenge.co/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show-description&utm_content=global

Play

Open in

25 episodes
Avg 19 min
English

Episodes 25

Newest Oldest Longest

All20 Unplayed20 In progress0 Played0

Counted on this page — what you have heard stays on this device, so it is not something the list can be paged by.

Thursday · 5 min
Stoic Morning Practice: Be Fair To Yourself
Some mornings, the first voice you hear is a prosecutor. It lists what you did badly, what you did not finish and what you should have become by now. This guided Stoic morning practice helps you take one honest mistake, separate the facts from the verdict you added, and test that verdict against what you would say to someone you care about. It draws on Seneca's nightly self-review and Epictetus's distinction between events and our judgements about them. Being fair to yourself does not mean pretending nothing happened. It means keeping the fact and dropping the attack. Free 7-Day Stoic Challenge: stoicchallenge.co The Stoic Vault: stoicvault.com
- Transcript
Tuesday · 8 min
You Broke the Streak. Now What?
One missed day is rarely the problem. The story you tell yourself the next day is. This episode looks at the Stoic idea of progress, why trends survive lapses while streaks do not, and the Same Day Return: one tiny action that gets you back into a practice without trying to catch up. Free 7-Day Stoic Challenge: stoicchallenge.co The Stoic Vault: stoicvault.com
- Transcript
August 27 · 7 min
Stoic Attention Practice: Return Before The Noise
Before the first message, headline, or demand, practise the Stoic discipline of attention. This guided meditation introduces prosochē: noticing where the mind has gone and returning before an impression becomes an automatic judgement or action. It draws on Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.29, and Seneca, Letters 13.4. The sound, body, breath, and one-word labelling sequence is a modern guided adaptation, not a reconstructed ancient ritual. The point is not perfect concentration. The return is the practice. Free 7-Day Stoic Challenge: stoicchallenge.co The Stoic Vault: stoicvault.com
- Transcript
August 25 · 6 min
The Stoic Skill Underneath Every Other Skill
You look up and twenty minutes have gone. The problem is not only the phone. It is the tiny judgements your mind keeps accepting while you scroll. In this episode, I explain prosochē, the Stoic practice of attention, and share Name the Hook: a one-word exercise for catching what has taken hold of you before shame takes over. Free 7-Day Stoic Challenge: stoicchallenge.co The Stoic Vault: stoicvault.com
- Transcript
August 23 · 5 min
Stoic Morning Practice: Start Before You Feel Ready
Some mornings, nothing has gone wrong and the day already feels like too much. This guided Stoic morning practice starts from Marcus Aurelius's own argument with the bed in Meditations 5.1. Rather than manufacturing enthusiasm, you will choose one real reason to move and one obstacle to begin. The practice also draws on Meditations 5.20, where Marcus treats an obstruction as material for action. You do not need to feel ready. You need one honest start. Free 7-Day Stoic Challenge: stoicchallenge.co The Stoic Vault: stoicvault.com
- Transcript
August 18 · 9 min
Why You Knew Better and Did It Anyway
We usually explain regret as knowing better but lacking discipline. This episode argues something more useful: in a hot state, the values on your internal scoreboard change. I connect Epictetus with hot-cold empathy gaps, self-control replication research and implementation intentions. Then I give you a four-minute handover note: one specific if-then plan, written while you can still see clearly, for the version of you who will not realise their judgement has changed. Sources and further reading: - Epictetus, Discourses 1.28 - Seneca, Letters 76.34-35 - George Loewenstein, “Hot-Cold Empathy Gaps and Medical Decision Making” (2005) - Hagger et al., “A Multilab Preregistered Replication of the Ego-Depletion Effect” (2016) - Peter Gollwitzer and Paschal Sheeran, “Implementation Intentions and Goal Achievement” (2006) - Keith Stanovich, Richard West and Maggie Toplak, work on myside bias and rational thinking Free 7-Day Stoic Challenge: stoicchallenge.co The Stoic Vault: stoicvault.com
- Transcript
August 11 · 17 min
Nobody Does Evil on Purpose. Really?
Stoicism says nobody does wrong on purpose: every bad act begins in a mistaken judgement about what is good. But does that survive contact with clear-eyed cruelty, compulsive habit and modern moral psychology? I test the claim against Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Medea, research on psychopathy and the Stoics' own internal disagreement. Then I keep the practical part that still works: catching one assent before it hardens into action. Sources and further reading: - Epictetus, Discourses 1.28 and 2.17 - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.1, 7.26 and 11.18 - Cicero, On Fate 42-43 - Aharoni, Sinnott-Armstrong and Kiehl, “Can Psychopathic Offenders Discern Moral Wrongs?” (2012) - Aharoni, Sinnott-Armstrong and Kiehl, “What's Wrong? Moral Understanding in Psychopathic Offenders” (2014) - Kühn and Gallinat, “Brain Structure and Functional Connectivity Associated With Pornography Consumption” (2014) - Grubbs et al., “Pornography Problems Due to Moral Incongruence” (2019) Free 7-Day Stoic Challenge: stoicchallenge.co The Stoic Vault: stoicvault.com
- Transcript
August 3 · 1 hr 48 min
Why the Relaxed Man Always Wins (with Bas Rutten)
The most feared striker in MMA history spent this conversation talking about calm. Before his first fight in Japan, Bas Rutten wrote one letter on each fist with a marker: R, for rustig, Dutch for relaxed. He'd found out that morning his opponent was 33 pounds heavier, the round was thirty minutes long, and there were no rules he recognised. Mid-fight he was calm enough to overhear two spectators in the front row discussing a house move, and that was when he noticed the two voices in him. The aggressive one, and the one that kept him still. He retired without losing any of his last 22 fights and credits the whole run to that discovery. We talk about why the relaxed fighter beats the aggressive one nine times out of ten, the skin disease and asthma that made him the outcast of his school and which he now calls a blessing, the difference between anger and aggression, the single line that ended his drinking, and where Stoicism and the Catholic faith he returned to line up almost exactly. He also walks through the practices he runs daily: the pre-fight question "what's the worst thing that can happen?", the friend test for anger, and an evening examination of conscience he has kept for twelve years that Seneca describes almost word for word. Follow Bas Rutten: YouTube: youtube.com/user/OfficialBasRutten Instagram: @basruttenmma Website: basrutten.com The O2Trainer, the breathing device he invented: o2trainer.com His MMA Workout audio, the striking tape I mention my friend Joel wearing out: o2trainer.com/products/bas-rutten-s-mixed-martial-arts-workout-dvd Companion article and full show notes: stoichandbook.co/bas-rutten-staying-calm Free 7-Day Stoic Challenge: stoicchallenge.co The Stoic Vault: stoicvault.com
- Transcript
July 25 · 1 hr 7 min
Are You Using Stoicism to Numb Out? | with Erick Cloward
Stoicism is meant to help you master your emotions. There's a version of it that just teaches you to avoid them. In this conversation I joined Erick Cloward on the Stoic Coffee Break to talk about "stoic bypassing" (Jules Evans' term): using the philosophy to suppress hard feelings instead of feeling them. We both grew up learning to push emotions down, so it got personal. We cover the difference between suppression and reappraisal, alexithymia, why the Let Them Theory is thinner than it looks, how the manosphere funnels every emotion through anger, the case for voluntary discomfort, and a reframe from Epictetus that means you can never lose a first date. This first aired on Erick's show, the Stoic Coffee Break. Go and follow him. Erick Cloward / Stoic Coffee Break Podcast: https://stoic.coffee Original episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5oBAAeiX5x1aMCqoahP3Dv?si=6av80YqGSmeIMG7wdTjGbg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stoic.coffee Free 7-Day Stoic Challenge: stoicchallenge.co The Stoic Vault: stoicvault.com
- Transcript
June 26 · 7 min
Marcus Aurelius Morning Preparation: Stoic Affirmations from the Meditations
During the 170s of the common era, while ruling an empire and often away from Rome, Marcus Aurelius wrote notes to himself in Greek. What survived is not a public book. It is a private notebook, the Meditations, sentences a man wrote to remind himself how to live. This is a short morning practice built from eight lines drawn from the Meditations. Some are close to verbatim, others are rendered in modern English to be repeatable in the mouth and the mind. Between each line there is a little silence. At the end, one quiet commitment for the day ahead. These were notes he wrote to himself. We are not the first to need them. Free 7-Day Stoic Challenge: stoicchallenge.co The Stoic Vault: stoicvault.com
- Transcript
June 15 · 1 hr 34 min
Are Stoics Emotionless? Erick Cloward, Author of Stoicism 101
Are Stoics really emotionless? It is the most common thing people believe about Stoicism, and it puts a lot of people off the one idea that might actually help them. In this conversation I sit down with Erick Cloward, host of the Stoic Coffee Break podcast and author of Stoicism 101, to take the myth apart. We get into why the word "stoic" came to mean cold and shut down, and why the Stoics actually felt their emotions fully. They just learned to be masters of them rather than ruled by them. Erick shares the example that makes it click: two people miss the same bus. One shrugs and reads a book, the other is furious. Same event, two reactions. The difference is never the event. It is the judgement you add to it. We also get into amor fati, the view from above, and what it really takes to react less and recover faster. Try this after listening: next time you react strongly, name the event in plain terms, then name the story you added on top. The gap between them is where the work happens. Erick's book and podcast: stoic.coffee Companion article: https://www.stoichandbook.co/podcast/are-stoics-emotionless/ Free 7-Day Stoic Challenge: stoicchallenge.co The Stoic Vault: stoicvault.com
- Transcript
June 12 · 11 min
Marcus Aurelius Was Terrible at Stoicism
Marcus Aurelius is the most quoted philosopher on the internet, and his private journal shows a man who kept failing at the thing he's famous for. He struggled to get out of bed. He needed ten separate strategies to manage his temper. Near the end of his life he wrote, to himself, that he was "far from philosophy." In this episode I read the passages most Stoicism channels skip. The two getting-out-of-bed debates, four books apart. The brutal self-talk about caring what people think. The procrastination confession. The contradiction of Commodus and the gladiatorial games. And the old distinction that makes sense of all of it: the sage versus the Stoic in training. Marcus knew which one he was. If you've ever felt like a fraud for relearning the same lesson again and again, this one is for you. Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/h1Rm4Cv_aQY Free 7-Day Stoic Challenge: stoicchallenge.co The Stoic Vault: stoicvault.com
- Transcript
June 11 · 6 min
Stoic Morning Practice: Quiet The Inner Critic
You haven't done anything yet, and the voice is already running its commentary. Too slow, too weak, not enough. The day hasn't started and you're already failing in advance. This guided Stoic practice works with the inner critic directly — not to silence it, but to strip it of the authority it doesn't deserve. You'll practise the Stoic technique of examining your impressions: separating the bare facts from the judgements your mind adds automatically. Drawing on Epictetus's principle that it's not events but our judgements about them that disturb us, and on Marcus Aurelius's habit of asking "what is this thing in itself, stripped of my story?" — you'll learn to recognise the critic's voice as opinion, not fact. For best results, listen every morning for 30 days. The critic gets quieter when you stop agreeing with it. For mornings when the issue is letting go of what already happened, try "Stoic Morning Practice: Let Go Of What You Can't Control" — part of the same daily series. Free 7-Day Stoic Challenge: stoicchallenge.co The Stoic Vault: stoicvault.com
- Transcript
June 5 · 8 min
Stoic Morning Affirmations: Eight Truths for the Day Ahead (Guided Practice)
Most morning affirmations ask you to declare a future you wish for. The Stoics did the opposite. They began the day by recollecting what was already true. This is a short guided practice built from eight lines drawn from Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus and Seneca. No manifestation, no raising your vibration. Just eight reminders, a little silence between each, a brief rehearsal of one difficulty you expect today, and a single quiet plan to carry into it. Best listened to first thing, before you open your phone. Find somewhere to settle, and let the day start a little steadier. Free 7-Day Stoic Challenge: stoicchallenge.co The Stoic Vault: stoicvault.com
- Transcript
May 21 · 15 min
The Manosphere Got Stoicism Backwards
The manosphere has spent years quoting the Stoics to young men. Marcus Aurelius. Epictetus. Seneca. The version they sell, anger as strength, dominance as virtue, emotion as weakness, is the opposite of what those philosophers actually wrote. In Meditations 11.18, Marcus Aurelius wrote in his private journal that gentleness is more manly than rage. Seneca, in Letter 63, wrote that we may weep but must not wail, and admitted he had been overcome by grief himself. Epictetus, in Discourses 2.10, said the man who turns into a wild beast has lost something essential. Musonius Rufus argued in Lecture IV that virtue is the same in man and woman. Cleanthes, Zeno's successor as head of the Stoic school, wrote a whole treatise on that idea in the 3rd century BCE. This episode walks through what the original Stoics actually said about being a man, why the manosphere reading gets it backwards, and four traits of the Stoic version of manhood you can test yourself against. Watch the video version: youtu.be/_CKtK4ajc2M Free 7-Day Stoic Challenge: stoicchallenge.co The Stoic Vault: stoicvault.com
- Transcript
May 11 · 12 min
Overthinking Is Not a Thinking Problem
Most advice for overthinking points you at the thoughts themselves. Journal them. Replace the negative ones with positive ones. Breathe. Meditate. Run. But what if the thoughts were never the problem? Epictetus taught that it is not events that disturb us, but our judgements about them. Overthinking is not a volume problem. It is a judgement problem. Somewhere in the loop you added a meaning to something that was otherwise neutral, and that meaning is what keeps you awake. In this episode I walk through phantasia, the Stoic science of impressions, and three ways to catch the judgement before it spirals: stripping back to the first impression, applying the dichotomy of control to your thoughts, and the rational observer technique. Watch the video version: youtu.be/-Gwg4NDHkJQ Free 7-Day Stoic Challenge: stoicchallenge.co The Stoic Vault: stoicvault.com
- Transcript
May 6 · 11 min
The Anxiety Trap: Why Fighting Makes It Worse
For most of my adult life I had a low-level hypervigilance running in the background. I tried to fight it with books, breathwork, control techniques, willpower. The harder I fought, the worse it got. In this episode I share the breakthrough that came when I stopped fighting and started welcoming. It is a Stoic and Nietzschean reframe called amor fati, the love of fate, and it changed my relationship with anxiety. We get into the two layers of suffering and why fighting anxiety creates the second one, what Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus understood about welcoming difficulty, why Nietzsche called amor fati the formula for greatness, the Stoic idea of indifferents and why anxiety is not bad in itself, and a daily practice for treating anxiety as a training partner rather than an enemy. Watch the video version: youtu.be/cY4AMcWhSko Sources: Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Hays); Epictetus, Discourses and Enchiridion (Hard); Nietzsche, The Gay Science; Donald Robertson, How to Think Like a Roman Emperor. Free 7-Day Stoic Challenge: stoicchallenge.co The Stoic Vault: stoicvault.com
- Transcript
April 13 · 13 min
Why the Stoics Never Needed Willpower
You have quit every hard goal for the same reason, and it is not lack of willpower. The Stoics worked this out 2,000 years ago. Instead of fighting discomfort with more discipline, they asked one question that bypasses the willpower battle entirely. In this episode I walk through the Stoic framework of virtue, vice and the indifferents, and the single question from Epictetus that replaced willpower in my own life, including the 12-pound cut I am on right now. We get into why discipline is a finite resource and willpower always loses, the Stoic distinction between good, bad and indifferent, the one question that reframes hunger, hard conversations and difficult training, how to turn discomfort into material for character instead of an enemy to defeat, and the preferred indifferents caveat: why the Stoics were not masochists. Watch the video version: youtu.be/uoAz9VCW0mE Free 7-Day Stoic Challenge: stoicchallenge.co The Stoic Vault: stoicvault.com
- Transcript
April 10 · 6 min
Stoic Morning Practice: Stop Dreading Day Before It Starts
Some mornings the dread arrives before the alarm. A tightness in the chest, a list already forming, a quiet resistance to the day ahead. This guided Stoic practice meets you there, not with forced optimism, but with honest preparation. You will practise the ancient Stoic technique of premeditatio malorum: facing what you are afraid of before it has power over you. Not to make yourself anxious, but to take the charge out of it. When you name what you are dreading, it shrinks. Free 7-Day Stoic Challenge: stoicchallenge.co The Stoic Vault: stoicvault.com
- Transcript
March 30 · 11 min
When the World Feels Unjust (A Stoic Response)
Most people hear focus on what you can control and assume Stoicism means stop caring about everything else. That is not what it means, and it might be one of the most misunderstood ideas in the whole philosophy. It starts with a line from Marcus Aurelius that most people skip: you can commit injustice by doing nothing. That is not an invitation to detach. It is a call to show up. In this episode I cover three Stoic approaches for responding to injustice without losing yourself: premeditatio malorum, the pre-rehearsal of what is coming; redirecting anger into one concrete act of kindness; and a daily question, what is within my power right now. Practical Stoicism for anyone who cares about the world and refuses to look away. This one was inspired by a question from a member of The Stoic Vault. Watch the video version: youtu.be/Vzg67EtqNK8 Free 7-Day Stoic Challenge: stoicchallenge.co The Stoic Vault: stoicvault.com
- Transcript

Showing 1–20 of 25 episodes