1: Feeling anxious or overwhelmed? Or, perhaps, a bit too full of ourselves?

The stoic Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius has some advice for us:

“Often think of the rapidity with which things pass by and disappear. . . For substance is like a river in continual flow, and the activities of things are in constant change, and the causes work in infinite varieties; and there is hardly anything which stands … continue reading

1: Author Oliver Burkeman was anxious.

He was waiting for the subway at the Union Street station in Brooklyn “fretting in my customary manner, this time about the logistics of a forthcoming move between apartments, although it could have been anything,” he writes in his terrific book Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts.

What was he worried about? He was … 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.

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: What do Marcus Aurelius, Cato, Seneca, Thomas Jefferson, James Stockdale, Epictetus, Theodore Roosevelt, and George Washington have in common?  

“They explicitly practiced and studied Stoicism,” writes Ryan Holiday in The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph. “We know this for a fact.” 

What exactly does it mean to be a stoic?

Philosopher and writer Nassim Nicholas Taleb defines a Stoic as someone … continue reading

1: “Late in his reign, sick and possibly near death, [the Roman Emperor] Marcus Aurelius received surprising news,” writes Ryan Holiday in The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph.

“His old friend and most trusted general, Avidius Cassius, had rebelled in Syria,” Ryan notes. “Having heard the emperor was vulnerable or possibly dead, the ambitious general had decided to declare himself Caesar and … continue reading

“Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been.”  -Marcus Aurelius

1: The year was 1966.  Rubin “Hurricane” Carter was a contender for the middleweight boxing title.  

Then, he experienced a bewildering fall.  At the height of his career, he was “wrongly accused of a horrific crime he did not commit: triple homicide. He went on trial, and a biased, bogus verdict followed: three life … continue reading