Stoic Coffee Break

Challenges

277 - Embracing the Unexpected: How to Handle Life's Plot Twists Like a Stoic cover

277 – Embracing the Unexpected: How to Handle Life’s Plot Twists Like a Stoic

“Life is a storm that will test you unceasingly. Don’t wait for calm waters that may not arrive. Derive purpose from resilience. Learn to sail the raging sea. — @TheStoicEmperor Do you fear the unexpected? Do you stress out when life throws you a curveball? Life is full of surprises. When we think that we’ve got things figured out and that things are going our way, something or someone pops up and throws a monkey wrench into our day to day that disrupts our lives and sends us spinning. Let’s talk about how to handle, appreciate, and even look forward to the unexpected events that life brings your way.

273 - The Four Types of Problems cover

273 – The Four Types of Problems

“We must not let the impressions carry us away so that we are not in control of ourselves, but we must receive them in such a way as to be in control of ourselves.” — Epictetus Understanding the different types of problems can help you face challenges more effectively. Learn about simple, complicated, complex, and chaotic problems and how to approach each one. #problemsolving #personaldevelopment

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269 – Getting Unstuck

“The limit is not the sky. The limit is the mind.” — Wim Hof Are you feeling stuck in life? Do you find it difficult to move forward and break free from the rut you’re in? In this article, we explore the reasons behind getting stuck and offer practical ideas to help you get unstuck. Whether it’s a lack of resources, dependence on others, fear, or burnout, we provide insights and strategies to overcome these obstacles and create positive change in your life. Don’t let stagnation hold you back – it’s time to break free and thrive! #selfimprovement #personaldevelopment #getunstuck

260 - Suffer Well cover

260 – Suffer Well

“Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.” — Seneca Do you give up on things because they’re hard? How willing are you to suffer for the things that you truly want in your life? Today I want to talk about how to get what you want, and why it’s important to learn how to suffer well.

258 - Nothing Endures But Change cover

258 – Nothing Endures But Change

“Nothing endures but change.” — Heraclitus How do you handle change? Does it overwhelm you? Do you try to ignore it or do you embrace it? Today I want to talk about understanding change and how we can use stoicism to help us through some rocky times.

252 - Overwhelmed cover

252 – Overwhelmed

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.” — Marcus Aurelius Do you get overwhelmed with the challenges of life? When life gets to stressful do you shut down and bail out? Today I want to talk about why we let things overwhelm us and what can we do to stay on track.

234 - Easy Life cover

234 – Easy Life

It may seem difficult at first but everything is difficult at first. — Miyamoto Musashi. The path of least resistance is a terrible teacher. — Ryan Holiday Do you want your life to be easy? Do you complain, get stressed out, or upset when challenges come up in your life? Today I want to talk about why we should not only accept adversity in our lives, but learn to embrace it.

154 – The Paradox of Change

One of the weirdest things about being a human is how we get comfortable with our habits, and resist change, while at the same time we get bored when things stay the same. In this weeks episode will talk about how to deal with the paradox of change.

141 – Motivation and Willpower

I’ve been thinking a lot about motivation and how we accomplish the goals that we set out to do. And I think there’s a bit a confusion about motivation and how it helps us get things done. Let’s take a look at the definition of motivation: The state or condition of being motivated or having a strong reason to act or accomplish something And let’s look at the definition of willpower: Control of one’s impulses and actions; self-control. Motivation is the reason why you want to do something. It’s the fuel that gets going. It is not the thing that...

140 – Circumstances Don’t Make The Man

  “Circumstances don’t make the man, they only reveal him to himself.” – Epictetus How do we deal with difficulties? Do we see them as challenges or opportunities? As something that is to be suffered through, or something that teaches us who we are? In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about difficult circumstances and how they are the things we should be most grateful for. Show Notes: What does that mean? Aren’t tough challenges supposed to make us stronger?The stoics remind us that circumstances in and of themselves are neutral. They are not good or bad unless we label...

138 – The Greatest Obstacle to Living

  “Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow, and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune’s control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.” – Seneca Show Notes: – Do you think too much about the future that you are not living in today?– This quote from Seneca hits two...

137 – Worthy of Your Potential

  “Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes. Therefore, give yourself fully to your endeavors. Decide to construct your character through excellent actions and determine to pay the price of a worthy goal. The trials you encounter will introduce you to your strengths. Remain steadfast…and one day you will build something that endures: something worthy of your potential.” ― Epictetus Show Notes: One of most important habits to cultivate is a strong work ethic. Time and dedicated effort make it more fulfilling. There’s a saying: “How you do one thing is how you do everything.” Often, trying to take shortcuts, we’re...

133 – A Momentary Loss of Attention

  “Very little is needed for everything to be upset and ruined, only a slight lapse in reason. it’s much easier for a mariner to wreck his ship than it is for him to keep it sailing safely; all he has to do is head a little more upwind and disaster is instantaneous. In fact, he does not have to do anything: a momentary loss of attention will produce the same result. It’s much the same in our case. If you doze off, all your progress up to that point will be negated. To keep a sharp eye on your...

132 – Anything Can Happen

  “How ridiculous and unrealistic is the man who is astonished at anything that happens in life.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations Book 12 Show Notes: – How often do we think that something in life shouldn’t happen to us?– As if we are somehow immune to the things that happen to anyone else in life.– How often do we think that we are owed something?– As if we are somehow privileged above others, that we deserve something– We may think it’s unfair when something we worked hard for fails to materialize.– We may think it’s unfair that someone we love...

128 – Good Luck, Bad Luck, Who Knows?

    “Man is affected, not by events, but by the view he takes of them.” — Epictetus Show Notes: • Human beings are creatures that love good stories. Stories are the things that we use to make sense of the things in the world.• Myths, such as the Greek and Roman or even Norse gods were used to explain why things happen in the world.• Human beings like to give meaning to the things in their lives.• It’s part of what makes us human. We give meaning to the expressions on other peoples faces. We give meanings to the...

125 – Little By Little

“Well-being is attained little by little, and nevertheless is no little thing itself.” ― Zeno of Citium Show Notes: • Zeno of Citium was the original founder of the Stoic school of philosophy. • Not much of his writing survived, which is why he is not quoted very often when it comes to Stoic philosophy. • But I really like this quote as it talks about the importances of small habits to help us attain our well being and inner peace. • Working on things daily like recognizing what we can and can’t control, recognizing how our opinions on things...

120 – Are You Lucky?

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” ― Seneca Show Notes: – Are you a lucky person?– The Stoics understood that most things in life are out of our control.– The reason that they stress that ideas so much, that we try so hard to control things around us.– Trying to control things outside yourself causes yourself and others a lot of suffering.– Other people, events, and circumstances are certainly outside of our control.– So much of our life is simply up to chance.– The people we meet and become friends with and fall in love with.– The jobs...

112 – Anger Always Outlasts Hurt

  “How much better to heal than seek revenge from injury. Vengeance wastes a lot of time and exposes you to many more injuries than the first that sparked it. Anger always outlasts hurt. Best to take the opposite course. Would anyone think it normal to return a kick to a mule or a bite to a dog?” — Seneca Transcript I was talking with a friend the other day about how to deal with anger. He asked me specifically about how to deal with anger in life, so I felt it only appropriate to talk about anger today. Anger...

110 – Daily Progress

“Progress is not achieved by luck or accident, but by working on yourself daily.” — Epictetus Transcript Often, we find it difficult to take the steps to improve in an area we’re weak in. We can see how we want to be, and we get impatient when we’re not make the progress that we think we should. It also hard because we often know what not to do, but we don’t quite know what we should do to get where we want to be. When I was in high school, I accidentally ended up in choir. And I do mean accidentally. I missed...

109 – Reject The Injury

“Remember, it is not enough to be hit or insulted to be harmed, you must believe that you are being harmed. If someone succeeds in provoking you, realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation. Which is why it is essential that we not respond impulsively to impressions; take a moment before reacting, and you will find it easier to maintain control.”   ― Epictetus

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