1: Getting better at getting better is what RiseWithDrew is all about.
Monday through Thursday, we explore ideas from authors, thought leaders, and exemplary organizations. On Friday, I share something about myself or what we are working on at PCI.
This week, we’ve been examining the life of the great Stoic philosopher king, Marcus Aurelius.
“Marcus Aurelius managed to not be corrupted by power, managed to not be afraid … continue reading
1: Roman Emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius lived a hard, difficult life.
“He was not strong in body,” the Roman historian Dio Cassius writes, “and was involved in a multitude of troubles throughout practically his entire reign.”
Marcus was surrounded by death and dying.
He lost his father when he was three. In 149 AD, when he was twenty-eight, “he lost newborn twin boys,” Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman … continue reading
1: The Roman Emperor Hadrian once got so angry he stabbed a secretary in the eye with his writing stylus.
Were there consequences?
Of course not. He was the Emperor.
Not Marcus Aurelius. Coming to the throne just decades after Hadrian, Marcus took a different path. The Stoic philosophy path.
He “could have taken advantage of this freedom to behave as he liked,” Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman write … continue reading
1: The year was 161 AD. Marcus Aurelius‘s adoptive father, Antoninus Pius, died, and Marcus was named Emperor of Rome, a position only fifteen people had ever held.
What was his first action as Emperor?
One hundred eighty-two years earlier, when Augustus became Emperor, he was advised to “get rid of young Caesarion, the son of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra,” Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman write in … continue reading
1: In the English language, the word “stoic” means the unemotional endurance of pain.
But the definition above fails to capture the true essence of the stoic philosophy, which dates back to Greece in the third century BC.
“The Stoics have a bad reputation among the uninformed for being too callous and therefore unlikely to give good advice to kings and princes,” the great stoic writer Seneca wrote in 55 … continue reading
1: Getting better at getting better is what RiseWithDrew is all about.
Monday through Thursday, we explore ideas from authors, thought leaders, and exemplary organizations. On Friday, I share something about myself or what we are working on at PCI.
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” I used to say with pride.
Work hard. Play hard. Get up early. Stay up late. Pack as much as I could into each and … continue reading
1: Dr. Peter Attia met Anahad O’Connor in 2012. Both had traveled to France to receive an award from the French-American Foundation.
“We immediately bonded,” Peter writes in his book Outlive. “I think it was because we were the only two guys on the trip who skipped the pain au chocolat and spent our spare time in the gym.
“Also, he wrote about health and science for the New … continue reading
1: “Scientists have been exploring the medical mysteries of the human heart for almost as long as poets have been probing its metaphorical depths,” Dr. Peter Attia writes in his brilliant book Outlive.
“It is a wondrous organ, a tireless muscle that pumps blood around the body every moment of our lives. . .
“And when it stops, we stop.”
Heart disease remains our deadliest killer.
We can think … continue reading
1: Heart disease remains our deadliest killer.
“It need not be,” Dr. Peter Attia writes in his excellent book Outlive. “With the right strategy, and attention to the correct risk factors at the correct time, it should be possible to eliminate much of the morbidity and mortality that is still associated [with heart disease].”
“Bluntly put,” he writes, “this should be the tenth leading cause of death, not the … continue reading
1: When he was in his mid-thirties, Peter Attia realized he knew how he would die.
It was shortly after becoming a father for the first time when it struck Peter: “All of a sudden, the awareness of my own mortality crashed over my head like a rogue wave, coming out of nowhere on one of my long swims,” he writes in his terrific book Outlive.
Peter was five … continue reading
