Practical Stoicism
Stoicism the pursuit of perfect moral character. If this is not what you understand the objective of Stoicism to be, then you do not understand Stoicism properly. If you would like to understand Stoicism properly, you sh...
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- Tanner Campbell11 eps
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| Date | Episode | Topics | Guests | Brands | Places | Keywords | Sponsor | Length | |
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| 10/19/26 | How to Use Social Media | In this episode, I'm talking about how to use social media as a Stoic, although I should probably begin by admitting that I really don't like social media. I think these platforms have made it far too easy for uninformed opinions to become influential simply because they're popular. And while social media has certainly made connecting with people easier, I'm not convinced the benefits outweigh the damage it can do to our ability to think critically, evaluate information, and form reasonable judgments.Join my free Stoicism community for earnest practitioners: https://skool.com/tannerocampbellI offer three pieces of advice for using social media without allowing it to compromise your reasoning and judgment.First, understand what social media platforms actually reward. Popularity, engagement, and mass appeal are not reliable indicators of accuracy or expertise. Even knowledgeable creators have incentives to package their information in ways that attract attention rather than encourage careful understanding. Before accepting what someone says, consider why you're seeing it and what qualifies that person to speak on the subject.Second, learn to distinguish between information that confirms your opinions and information that's actually true. I use parenting advice as an example, particularly the endless stream of confident recommendations Ross and I encounter about how we should raise our son. It's remarkably easy to accept advice from someone with no particular expertise simply because it agrees with what we already believe. When we repeat that advice to others, we can end up spreading poorly supported claims while imagining we're sharing knowledge.Third, limit your time on social media. If most of your information comes from short videos, influencers, and algorithmically selected opinions rather than books, lectures, documentaries, or other serious sources of instruction, you're likely doing yourself a disservice. Stoicism asks us to develop our capacity for sound judgment, and that requires exposing ourselves to more than whatever happens to appear in our feeds.Ultimately, I suggest treating social media as something to visit briefly rather than somewhere to live intellectually. Enjoy the people who make you laugh, consider what you encounter critically, and then spend more of your time engaging with the world and learning from people who genuinely understand their subjects.Justice, after all, concerns what we owe to the wider human community, and we're unlikely to contribute much to the cosmopolis if we spend our lives reinforcing our own opinions inside algorithmically constructed echo chambers.Mentioned in this episode:If you're interested in booking a call with me, please click below to do so ⬇️Schedule a call with me | 8m 01s | ||||||
| 10/11/26 | How to Get Over Your Ex | In this episode, I'm talking about how to get over your ex, particularly when a relationship ends that you valued more than the other person did. Breakups can be especially difficult because, unlike losing someone to death, you have to watch someone you once shared a life with go on living theirs without you. Over time, the relationship can begin to feel like something that happened in another lifetime, and it's easy to get caught up in missing them, resenting them, or questioning what any of it meant.Join my free Stoicism community for earnest practitioners: https://skool.com/tannerocampbellI approach getting over an ex through three steps grounded in Stoic philosophy, beginning with understanding where your actual value comes from.For the Stoics, our worth isn't determined by our relationships, careers, wealth, or whether somebody wants to be with us. It resides in our rational faculty, the hegemonikon, which receives impressions, forms judgments, and directs our choices. This faculty makes us capable of acting as rational moral agents, and the character we develop through its exercise is what matters most.From there, I ask you to examine what you're doing with that faculty. Are your thoughts and judgments helping you become someone you respect, or are you allowing resentment, longing, and frustration to shape your character? I use some admittedly ridiculous metaphors involving moral auras, coloured plastic, and keeping the inside of your mind from becoming a pigsty, but the point is serious: the quality of our inner lives affects how we show up in the world.Finally, I explain why recognising your responsibility to develop good character changes how you think about your ex. You have something more important to attend to than a relationship that's ended: becoming a decent, rational, virtuous person, not just for your own sake but for the benefit of everyone who shares the cosmopolis with you.The Stoic approach isn't to make your ex irrelevant by pretending the relationship never mattered. It's to recognise that your value was never theirs to give you or take away, and that your attention belongs to the person you're becoming rather than the relationship you've lost.Mentioned in this episode:If you're interested in booking a call with me, please click below to do so ⬇️Schedule a call with me | 7m 07s | ||||||
| 10/5/26 | How to Stop Masturbating | This week, I’m answering a question I genuinely never expected to cover on Practical Stoicism: how do you stop masturbating? More specifically, what do you do when masturbation has stopped being an ordinary sexual behaviour and become something compulsive that you no longer feel reliably able to choose?Apply for private coaching: https://stoicismpod.com/applySupport this podcast financially: https://stoicismpod.com/membersJoin my free community: https://stoicismpod.com/joinI start by clearing up something important: there’s no particular reason to think the ancient Stoics regarded masturbation itself as morally problematic. Sexual pleasure isn’t the issue. The Stoic concern begins when our pursuit of pleasure starts overruling reason, self-command, our responsibilities, or our ability to live appropriately.So this isn’t really an episode about how to stop masturbating. It’s about what to do when your relationship with masturbation has become compulsive enough to interfere with your life.I work through seven practical steps: identifying the triggers that precede the behaviour, changing your environment around those triggers, developing replacement behaviours, addressing any emotional problems you may be using masturbation to regulate, seeking professional help when you repeatedly cannot regain control, considering reputable support groups, and measuring the problem by control and consequences rather than an arbitrary number of times per week.I also talk about the difference between ordinary sexual behaviour and compulsive behaviour. The important question isn’t simply how often you masturbate. It’s whether you can reliably choose not to, whether you continue despite wanting to stop, and whether the behaviour is interfering with your work, relationships, responsibilities, health, or ordinary life.There’s plenty of room for humour when talking about masturbation (and I certainly take advantage of it), but compulsive sexual behaviour can cause genuine distress, shame, isolation, and disruption. The Stoic response isn’t to treat sexuality as dirty or shameful. It’s to recognise when pleasure has begun governing us rather than remaining something we rationally choose.Mentioned in this episode:If you're interested in booking a call with me, please click below to do so ⬇️Schedule a call with me | 12m 36s | ||||||
| 9/30/26 | How to Journal Like a Stoic | In this episode, I’m challenging one of the most common assumptions in modern Stoicism: that journaling is somehow an inherently Stoic practice. Marcus Aurelius wasn’t keeping a daily diary, Epictetus wasn’t assigning journal entries to his students, and the kind of expressive writing we now associate with “Stoic journaling” is largely a modern self-improvement practice.Apply for private coaching: https://stoicismpod.com/applyPurchase the journaling program: https://stoicjournaling.comJoin my free community: https://stoicismpod.com/joinThat doesn’t mean journaling is useless. Regular reflection, planning your day, reviewing your behaviour, and expressive writing can all be helpful. But they’re no more uniquely Stoic than they are Christian, Buddhist, atheist, or useful to an anthropomorphised and literate potato.So if we’re going to talk about “journaling like a Stoic,” I think we need to invent a better standard for what that actually means.I break Stoic development into three parts: study, practice, and living. First, we learn the philosophy from people who know more than we do. Then we practise applying what we’ve learned until new patterns of thinking and behaviour become habituated. Finally, we put down the books and training aids and go out into the world to see whether any of it actually stuck.That middle stage is where I think writing can be genuinely useful to a Stoic practice.Rather than simply recording what happened during your day or writing about your feelings, I suggest explorative writing: take a difficult question or real-world situation and try to reason through it Stoically without reaching for a book, ChatGPT, or a cheat sheet. The purpose is to discover what you actually understand, where your reasoning falls apart, and what you need to return to your studies to learn.That’s also the approach behind my year-long program at StoicJournaling.com, available for a one-time purchase of £72.So, ironically, my advice for journaling like a Stoic is to stop journaling, at least in the conventional sense, and start using writing as a place to practise the philosophy instead.Mentioned in this episode:If you're interested in booking a call with me, please click below to do so ⬇️Schedule a call with me | 7m 51s | ||||||
| 9/22/26 | How to Think About Lindsay Clancy | In this episode, I take on the Lindsay Clancy case, but not to tell you what you should think about her. Instead, I use this extraordinarily difficult case to explore how a Stoic should think when confronted with terrible acts, mental illness, questions of responsibility, and our very human desire for punishment.Apply for private coaching: https://stoicismpod.com/applyJoin my free community: https://stoicismpod.com/joinI begin with the facts as I understand them and an important limitation: I don't know every detail of the case or trial. Clancy killed her three children and attempted to take her own life, but she had also sought extensive psychiatric help before the killings. The defence has argued that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and that her condition had previously been misdiagnosed.For Stoicism, that raises an important question. The acts were hers in the causal sense, but to what extent were they hers in the moral sense? Stoic ethics places enormous importance on our capacity for rational assent. If someone's rational faculty is profoundly impaired by psychosis, then determining their responsibility requires us to consider how capable they actually were of perceiving, judging, and responding to reality rationally.That does not mean pretending the acts didn't happen, nor does compassion require us to ignore the safety of everyone else. If someone remains dangerous, restraint may be entirely appropriate. Justice has obligations both to the person who is ill and to the people who require protection from them.Drawing on Seneca, I distinguish justice from vengeance. Restraint or punishment may be appropriate when it protects others, prevents further harm, or contributes to correction and treatment. Making someone suffer simply because their actions caused suffering is something else.Ultimately, I suggest three things we should hold simultaneously: Clancy is a seriously mentally ill human being; she may require restraint for as long as she presents a danger; and where treatment and restoration are possible, justice should concern itself with those things too.Stoicism should make our responses to cases like this slower, not faster. We should resist the satisfaction of immediate condemnation, examine the context carefully, ask what Justice actually requires, and only then decide how we ought to respond.Mentioned in this episode:If you're interested in booking a call with me, please click below to do so ⬇️Schedule a call with me | 14m 34s | ||||||
| 9/9/26 | How To Live Forever | Most of my listeners are somewhere between 35 and 45, which means quite a few of us are reaching the age when mortality starts feeling a little less theoretical. In this episode, I explore one reason the idea of death can trouble us that has less to do with fear and more to do with something deeply human: the desire not to feel disposable.Apply for private coaching: https://stoicismpod.com/applyJoin my free community: https://stoicismpod.com/joinI begin with a conversation I recently had with a private coaching client about why believing in something after death can be comforting. My suggestion was that the comfort may not necessarily come from imagining rewards, avoiding punishment, or even continuing our conscious existence. It may come from believing that we remain important to something beyond ourselves, that we continue to have a place.Stoicism offers an interesting answer to this without requiring a supernatural afterlife. The Stoics understood the Cosmos itself as God: the complete, contained system of Nature of which every one of us is presently a part.Within that system, nothing simply disappears. The matter and energy that presently constitute us return to the Cosmos and continue participating in it. The individual person, with their name, memories, career, possessions, and personality, may not continue indefinitely, but that from which the individual is constituted remains part of the whole.In that limited but meaningful sense, I suggest there is something resembling immortality available within the Stoic worldview. Stoicism doesn't promise a celestial city, an eternity spent with deceased relatives, or reincarnation as some other creature. Instead, it offers the idea that we were never separate from the Cosmos in the first place, and that what constitutes us continues to belong to and participate in that same whole.If what troubles you about death is the thought of becoming irrelevant or disposable, perhaps there's some comfort in that. You aren't something the Cosmos eventually throws away. You are part of it now, and what constitutes you remains part of it after the particular arrangement presently called "you" is gone.Mentioned in this episode:If you're interested in booking a call with me, please click below to do so ⬇️Schedule a call with me | 5m 58s | ||||||
| 9/4/26 | A Reflection on "Inner Peace" | Marcus Aurelius famously reminds himself that we don't need to retreat to the countryside or the seashore to find peace. In this episode, recorded from my new office in an old textile mill in Dundee, I reflect on why I think Marcus was theoretically right but practically wrong, at least for those of us who aren't sages.Apply for private coaching: https://stoicismpod.com/applySupport this podcast financially: https://stoicismpod.com/membersJoin my free community: https://stoicismpod.com/joinCheck the LinkedIn post: https://lnkd.in/p/emRAsNbzGet alerted when the book goes on sale: https://livingstoicism.tannerocampbell.comInner peace may ultimately be a state of mind, but we're not perfect practitioners. Our surroundings affect us. Sometimes getting away from the noise, finding somewhere that feels comfortable, familiar, and peaceful, genuinely makes practicing Stoicism easier.Since moving to Dundee, I've noticed a quieting in myself that I can't really attribute to anything else. Life hasn't become less demanding. I'm currently cramming roughly 40 hours of work into Monday through Wednesday, then spending Thursday and Friday as a full-time dad while protecting my weekends for my family. If anything, I'm doing more than ever.Yet something about this place feels different. My little office overlooking Dundee, the seagulls and church bells outside the window, our flat beside a park, the city's working-class character, and even the coastal air remind me of places and people from my childhood. After several enormously busy years of marriage, fatherhood, building a business, raising investment, working full-time, and moving repeatedly, I feel unexpectedly at home here.So this episode isn't really a lesson. It's a reflection on the role our environment can play in our ability to find some peace. Theoretically, Marcus was right: the perfect Stoic shouldn't need a particular place in order to achieve tranquility. But none of us are perfect Stoics, and sometimes finding the right place can make the work of becoming better considerably easier.I also share a few updates at the end of the episode, including a request for help choosing the subject of a TED talk I'm working on, some early details about my forthcoming book Living Stoicism, and an invitation to a free community Q&A.Mentioned in this episode:If you're interested in booking a call with me, please click below to do so ⬇️Schedule a call with me | 8m 38s | ||||||
| 8/24/26 | How to have healthy self-esteem | A healthy Stoic practice requires an accurate view of yourself. Think too little of yourself and you misunderstand your capacities; think too much of yourself and you do the same. In this episode, I explore self-esteem through a Stoic lens and explain why accurate self-knowledge matters to our pursuit of eudaimonia and sagehood.Apply for private coaching: https://stoicismpod.com/apply Support this podcast financially: https://stoicismpod.com/members Join my free community: https://stoicismpod.com/joinI begin by separating self-esteem from the popular idea that “ego is the enemy.” Rather than treating a positive view of ourselves as something inherently suspect, I argue that Stoic practice requires us to understand ourselves accurately: our capacities, our roles, our duties, our individual nature, and the ways we are positioned to contribute to the world.That means avoiding two extremes. A depressive view of ourselves causes us to underestimate what we are capable of and what our duties require. A grandiose view causes us to overestimate our importance and abilities. Neither gives reason an accurate picture of the person whose life it is trying to direct.I also look at criticism and the effect other people's judgments can have on our self-understanding. Marcus Aurelius reminds himself in Meditations 2.1 that we will encounter difficult, arrogant, ungrateful, and mistaken people because they misunderstand good and evil. Criticism can contain useful information, and we should examine it when it does, but another person's judgment of our value is not automatically authoritative simply because they have expressed it.Finally, I offer a practical Stoic basis for healthy self-esteem using four areas of reflection: our shared nature as human beings, our individual nature, the circumstances and contexts we have been given, and the roles and paths we have deliberately chosen.The goal is neither humility for its own sake nor inflated confidence. It is accuracy. Understand what you are, understand what is appropriate for you, and then work seriously to fulfil those roles and duties well.Mentioned in this episode:If you're interested in booking a call with me, please click below to do so ⬇️Schedule a call with me | 13m 52s | ||||||
| 8/19/26 | How to defend your standards kindly | In today's episode I discuss whether pursuing a dream is a Stoic thing to do, and how to talk about your ambitions without accidentally insulting the people who don't share them. Before digging in please be aware of all the ways this podcast is able to exist without ads or formal sponsorship:Private Stoic Life Coaching Practice: https://stoicismpod.com/coachingStoic Journaling Program: https://stoicjournaling.comCourses: https://stoicismpod.com/coursesElective Listener Support: https://stoicismpod.com/membersFirst, some genuinely wonderful news. 134 Labs Limited, the company I started in December of 2025 to buy back my intellectual property from Front Porch Media, has closed a pre-seed round of 74,000 US dollars. That means I get to do philosophy full-time for the next 12 months. It took 5 years to get here and 7 months of chasing venture capital to close, and I'm honest in this episode about how ugly it got along the way (including a couple of months where my family had to be on Universal Credit to bridge the gap). Nothing about the podcast changes. No third-party ads, no unaligned sponsors, same content. But this next year is make or break: either I find a morally just way to make a living in philosophy or I walk away.Then we get into the episode proper, which is about the pursuit of dreams. When you tell a friend that a regular life wouldn't be enough for you, they often hear "so my life isn't enough either," and that misunderstanding can wreck relationships. I use my sister as an example of someone wise enough to hear "your life wouldn't make me content" as a statement about alignment rather than a criticism of her choices.To unpack why, I reintroduce the Stoic Daimon. I walk through how logos permeates everything, how different degrees of tonos produce different manifestations, and how in beings like us that becomes rational cognition (I use an electricity-in-a-building analogy to make this digestible). The daimon can incline us toward certain pursuits, but here's the catch: an inclination doesn't guarantee our interpretation of it is correct, and it doesn't guarantee success. An inclination toward music doesn't mean your role is professional musician, and measuring daimon-alignment by material success is measuring poorly.I also talk about how a poorly trained rational faculty confuses things all the time (lust for love being the classic example), and how "follow your heart" guru advice can lead people into neglecting real duties. I share that I have two coaching clients right now whose husbands have been chasing startups for years with nothing to show for it, and I own the awkward fact that my own funding chase could look exactly like that from the outside. The difference, I argue, isn't outcomes. Stoics decide based on role ethics: reasoning about duties, roles, justified risks, and what we're asking others to bear.The episode lands on this: the Stoic answer is neither "follow your heart" nor "settle for whatever falls into your lap." Take your inclinations seriously without treating them as commands, bring them before a properly trained rational faculty, and pursue what is appropriate without making your happiness depend on how the world responds.And, one more thing: if you haven't already, please join my free Stoicism community on Skool: https://skool.com/tannerocampbellMentioned in this episode:If you're interested in booking a call with me, please click below to do so ⬇️Schedule a call with me | 16m 28s | ||||||
| 8/10/26 | How to find your own Stoic path | Apply for private coaching: https://stoicismpod.com/applySupport this podcast financially: https://stoicismpod.com/membersJoin my free community: https://stoicismpod.com/joinIn this episode, I explore why there is not always a single answer to the question, “What would a Stoic do?” Stoicism gives us a shared ethical framework, but it also takes seriously the particular roles, relationships, capacities, dispositions, and circumstances of each individual.I begin with the common search for “the Stoic position” on a given issue. Sometimes a general answer is appropriate, such as returning a lost wallet. But more complex situations, such as war, require us to consider what our particular roles and circumstances demand of us.I turn to Epictetus and his discussion of preserving our proper character, or prosōpon, in Discourses 1.2. His examples of Agrippinus and another man facing the same pressure under Nero show how two people can reason well and still arrive at different actions because their characters, roles, and circumstances differ.From there, I explain how to begin identifying your own path toward sagehood. Start with your roles: parent, employee, neighbour, citizen, friend, carer, and so on. Then consider your individual nature, including your dispositions, strengths, weaknesses, resources, limitations, and circumstances.I also discuss Hierocles' circles of concern and the Stoic responsibility we all share toward the cosmopolis. Everyone has that responsibility, but nobody will fulfil it in exactly the same way.The goal, then, is not to ask, “What would a sage do?” as though there were one universal answer waiting to be discovered. The better question is: “What would I do if I were the sage version of myself, given my roles, capacities, dispositions, circumstances, and context?”Stoicism gives us the same philosophy to guide us, but the path toward sagehood is necessarily particular to each person.Mentioned in this episode:If you're interested in booking a call with me, please click below to do so ⬇️Schedule a call with me | 13m 41s | ||||||
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| 8/7/26 | New book announcement: Living Stoicism | Pre-order today to get the audiobook and the paperback upon release in December. Pre-order here: https://livingstoicism.tannerocampbell.comCheers!Mentioned in this episode:If you're interested in booking a call with me, please click below to do so ⬇️Schedule a call with me | 3m 35s | ||||||
| 7/31/26 | Do outcomes really not matter? | I'm responding to a thoughtful question from listener Alex Stevenson: if good decisions require us to learn from outcomes, then which outcomes should we actually value?Apply for private coaching: https://stoicismpod.com/apply Support this podcast financially: https://stoicismpod.com/members Join my free community: https://stoicismpod.com/joinI begin by revisiting a LinkedIn post about decision-making and the common mistake of judging the quality of our choices by the outcomes they produce. Using the example of helping an elderly woman across the street only for an unforeseeable accident to occur, I explain why outcomes alone can never determine whether a choice was right or wrong.From there, I address Alex's question by drawing an important distinction in Stoic ethics. The Stoics never argued that outcomes are meaningless. Rather, they argued that outcomes cannot determine our moral character because they are never fully within our control.To illustrate this, I use the example of parenting. We cannot guarantee that our children will become good people, yet their flourishing is still something worth pursuing. Their eventual character also provides valuable information that helps us become wiser parents in the future. Outcomes therefore matter in two important ways: they are often preferred indifferents worth aiming toward, and they provide feedback that strengthens our future reasoning.What outcomes cannot do is tell us whether we acted virtuously. Moral worth belongs to the reasoning behind our choices, not to events that unfold long after those choices leave our hands.This episode explores one of the most commonly misunderstood aspects of Stoicism: how to value outcomes without allowing them to become the measure of your character. It's a more theoretical discussion than usual, but an important one if you want to understand how Stoic ethics approaches decision-making.Mentioned in this episode:If you're interested in booking a call with me, please click below to do so ⬇️Schedule a call with me | 9m 20s | ||||||
| 7/20/26 | How to become more confident | Join the free community: https://skool.com/tannerocampbellApply for private coaching: https://stoicismpod.com/applySupport this podcast financially: https://stoicismpod.com/membersDesktop Wallpaper: https://canva.link/bl4qrgp1mb1w65uPhone Wallpaper: https://canva.link/eqpekigl4ga1ctrIn this episode, I explore one of the most valuable—and most misunderstood—benefits of practicing Stoicism: genuine confidence. Not the kind that's built on ego, status, or pretending to know everything, but the quiet confidence that comes from knowing you're living according to a standard you can defend.I argue that a lack of confidence is almost always rooted in uncertainty. We seek the approval of friends, family, colleagues, or society because we haven't yet established ourselves as the primary authority over our own choices. Stoicism asks us to reverse that order. While other perspectives can be valuable, no one else has direct access to the reasoning behind our decisions. They can judge only our actions and their outcomes, never the full context in which those choices were made.To explain why our own rational faculty deserves the highest regard, I present a simple syllogism showing that the only authority capable of judging our choices completely is the one with access to our complete reasoning. Confidence begins when we genuinely internalize that idea and stop outsourcing our self-worth to people who can never possess all the relevant evidence.From there, I discuss the importance of building a personal standard—a set of principles that defines the boundaries of what you're willing and unwilling to do. Rather than offering an exhaustive ethical framework, I provide three practical questions you can use to begin constructing that standard for yourself. These questions are designed to help you identify your non-negotiables, decide what you'll do when every available option seems compromised, and determine how you'll remain steadfast when doing the right thing comes at a personal cost.Ultimately, confidence isn't something you discover. It's something you build. The more consistently your choices align with a carefully reasoned standard that you've freely adopted, the less dependent you become on the approval, praise, or condemnation of others. That's the kind of confidence Stoicism offers, and it's available to anyone willing to do the work.Mentioned in this episode:If you're interested in booking a call with me, please click below to do so ⬇️Schedule a call with me | 10m 59s | ||||||
| 7/17/26 | How to relax like a Stoic | Fill out the survey, get free stuff: https://stoicismpod.com/surveyApply for private coaching: https://stoicismpod.com/applySupport this podcast financially: https://stoicismpod.com/membersIn this episode, I explore what it actually means to relax from a Stoic perspective, and why so much of the advice we're given about relaxation misses the mark.I begin by questioning the common idea that relaxation is something we can simply decide to do. We often tell ourselves to "just relax," but anyone who has ever sat on a beach while worrying about work, money, or family knows it doesn't work that way. I also push back on the Stoic idea—at least as it is often presented—that we should be able to relax anywhere, regardless of our surroundings. While that's true in theory, none of us are Stoic Sages, and our environment does influence how easily we settle our minds.From there, I argue that the real obstacle to relaxation isn't tension in the body but rumination in the mind. We don't fail to relax because we're busy. We fail to relax because we carry unresolved judgments with us wherever we go. The constant internal dialogue about uncertain futures, unfinished work, and imagined disasters prevents us from ever being fully present.I explain that the Stoic solution isn't to eliminate the things worth worrying about. Rather, it's to distinguish between the appropriate actions we should take and the outcomes we cannot control. Once we've reasoned through a problem and made the best choices available to us, continuing to rehearse those same worries serves no purpose. At that point, rumination becomes a choice rather than preparation.Using the example of potential job loss, I show how Stoicism encourages us to prepare well, fulfill our roles responsibly, and then allow ourselves to return our attention to the present moment. Relaxation isn't pretending problems don't exist. It's knowing you've responded to them appropriately and refusing to let imagined futures rob you of the life that's unfolding right now.Ultimately, I argue that relaxation is another expression of Stoic practice. It isn't found by escaping life's difficulties, but by learning to trust your own reasoning, accept what lies beyond your control, and remain fully present with the roles that require your attention today.Mentioned in this episode:If you're interested in booking a call with me, please click below to do so ⬇️Schedule a call with me | 16m 26s | ||||||
| 7/13/26 | How to overcome our internal struggles | Apply for private coaching: https://stoicismpod.com/applySupport this podcast financially: https://stoicismpod.com/membersEpisode Summary:In this episode, I explore why so many of us stay stuck for years—even when we genuinely want to change—and why Stoicism, while powerful, is often only one part of the solution.I begin by sharing an update on my coaching practice and explain why one-on-one philosophical coaching has become the most rewarding work I've ever done. Working directly with people has reinforced something I've long believed: lasting change rarely comes from information alone. It comes from changing the way we habitually choose.From there, I examine how our early experiences shape our patterns of judgment and behavior. Children learn quickly, but they also absorb unhealthy habits before their rational faculties are mature enough to question them. Those habits can become deeply ingrained ways of navigating the world, remaining with us well into adulthood.I argue that overcoming these patterns usually requires more than willpower. Therapy can help us understand where our habits came from. Stoicism provides a framework for deciding what to do with that understanding. In some cases, appropriate medical treatment may also be an important part of recovery. Rather than competing with one another, these approaches can work together.The central message is simple: if you've been struggling with the same problem for years without making meaningful progress, it may not be because you're incapable of change. It may simply be that your current strategy is incomplete.Listening on Spotify? Leave a comment! I'd love to hear which ideas resonated with you most.Mentioned in this episode:If you're interested in booking a call with me, please click below to do so ⬇️Schedule a call with me | 15m 15s | ||||||
| 7/6/26 | How to stop procrastinating | In this episode, I explore procrastination from a Stoic perspective and argue that it isn't a problem of laziness—it's a problem of judgment.Drawing on Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and my own experience with ADHD, I explain why we often mistake temporary discomfort for a good reason to delay action. We tell ourselves we'll start when we feel ready, but readiness is rarely something we possess before beginning. More often, it's something we discover after we've already started.I discuss Seneca's reminder that time is the only thing we truly possess, and Marcus Aurelius' advice to stop waiting for motivation and instead remember what we are made to do as human beings. The Stoics didn't believe motivation came first. They believed right judgment came first.I also talk about procrastination and ADHD. While ADHD can make starting tasks significantly more difficult, it doesn't remove our capacity to choose well. It simply means some of us have a denser forest to cut through before we can begin moving. That reality calls for better strategies, not despair.Finally, I share the surprisingly simple tool that has helped me overcome procrastination in my own life: externalising the consequences of inaction. By making the impact of procrastination visible, I stop seeing the task as something that's merely uncomfortable for me and start seeing how my delay affects the people I'm trying to serve.To make that process easier, I've built a free interactive procrastination tool that walks you through the same decision-making process I use myself. You can find it at https://procrastination.tannerocampbell.comListening on Spotify? Leave a comment! I'd love to know what causes you to procrastinate and what strategies have helped you overcome it.I am a public philosopher; it is my only job. I am enabled to do this job, in large part, thanks to support from my listeners and readers. You can support my work, keep it independent and online, at https://stoicismpod.com/membersLooking for more Stoic content? Consider my weekly newsletter Stoic Brekkie: https://stoicbrekkie.comOvercome decision-making anxiety in 14-days: https://anxiety.tannerocampbell.comMentioned in this episode:If you're interested in booking a call with me, please click below to do so ⬇️Schedule a call with me | 12m 31s | ||||||
| 7/2/26 | How to Stop Caring What People Think | In this episode, I explore why criticism from other people affects us so deeply—and why, from a Stoic perspective, it often shouldn't.The episode begins with a chance encounter in a Starbucks that led me to reflect on something many of us experience: the discomfort of feeling judged. Whether it's criticism from a stranger, a colleague, or someone we care about, our first reaction is usually emotional. The Stoics understood this well. They knew that our initial emotional response isn't something we choose—but what we do next absolutely is.Drawing on Epictetus, I explain the difference between our immediate, instinctive reaction and the rational faculty that follows it. The goal isn't to become emotionally numb. It's to become better at examining criticism before accepting it.I offer a simple question that has helped me navigate criticism more effectively:Is this pointing to something I genuinely did badly, or is it simply someone else's verdict on something I believe I handled well?If the criticism is true, it becomes an opportunity for improvement. If it isn't, then there's no reason to surrender your peace of mind to another person's opinion.The Stoic isn't indifferent to what others think. Rather, the Stoic refuses to allow unexamined opinions to outweigh honest self-knowledge.The challenge isn't to stop caring about people. It's to stop auditioning for them.Listening on Spotify? Leave a comment! I'd love to hear how you handle criticism and whether you've found it difficult to separate useful feedback from mere opinion.I am a public philosopher; it is my only job. I am enabled to do this job, in large part, thanks to support from my listeners and readers. You can support my work, keep it independent and online, at https://stoicismpod.com/membersLooking for more Stoic content? Consider my 3x/week newsletter Stoic Brekkie: https://stoicbrekkie.comMentioned in this episode:If you're interested in booking a call with me, please click below to do so ⬇️Schedule a call with me | 11m 30s | ||||||
| 6/26/26 | How to stop overthinking | Get the archives: https://www.stoicismpod.com/the-archive/In this episode, I explore what overthinking actually is from a Stoic perspective—and why most advice about it misses the point.We often think we're "thinking things through" when we're lying awake replaying conversations, imagining worst-case scenarios, or rehearsing events that haven't happened. But I argue that this isn't really thinking at all. It's rumination: a failure of assent disguised as diligence.Drawing on Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Seneca, I explain how the Stoics distinguished between a bare impression (phantasia) and the stories we immediately build on top of it. The problem isn't the initial impression. The problem is our habit of treating our imagined conclusions as though they were facts.I also distinguish careful Stoic deliberation from rumination. Deliberation moves toward a reasoned decision and an available action. Rumination simply replays the same impression, generating anxiety without producing clarity.To make this practical, I introduce a simple two-question framework you can use whenever you catch yourself overthinking:What does the bare impression actually say?Is there an action available to me right now?If there is, take it. If there isn't, you're probably rehearsing rather than reasoning.The goal isn't to stop your mind from producing impressions. It's to become better at recognising when your imagination has taken over and returning your attention to reality.Listening on Spotify? Leave a comment! Share your thoughts.I am a public philosopher; it is my only job. I am enabled to do this work, in large part, thanks to support from my listeners and readers. You can support my work, keep it independent, and help keep it online at https://stoicismpod.com/members.Looking for more Stoic content? Consider subscribing to my 3x/week newsletter, Stoic Brekkie: https://stoicbrekkie.com.Mentioned in this episode:If you're interested in booking a call with me, please click below to do so ⬇️Schedule a call with me | 14m 45s | ||||||
| 6/12/26 | How to engage in politics like a Stoic | Apply for private mentoring: https://tannerocampbell.com/applySupport my work: https://stoicismpod.com/membersSubscribe to my newsletter: https://stoicbrekkie.comIn this episode I'm tackling the thing nobody wants me to tackle: politics. Before you run away, I promise I'm not endorsing anyone or anything. What I'm interested in is how a Stoic engages politically, not who a Stoic votes for. I get into whether Stoics should vote at all (in most cases, yes, because Stoics are pro-social and voting is one way we attempt to benefit the human community), and I share why I've abstained from local US elections since leaving the country in 2023, and why I won't be voting in Scotland right away once we move there.I also spend a good chunk of this episode on how we talk about our neighbours who vote differently than we do. People assent to the choices they believe are appropriate for them, and flattening someone's reasons into "they must be stupid or evil" is both practically counterproductive and, drawing on Epictetus, deeply un-Stoic, because we cannot truly know the judgements and contexts of minds that aren't our own. From there I look at protest. The Stoic Opposition proved Stoics can stand against tyranny with real force, so protest isn't off the table, but the why matters more than the what. And finally I ask whether we've let politics become a pathos rather than a civic duty, an identity that crowds out our actual identity as Prokoptôn.Also in this episode: an update on Stoic Brekkie by Post (the 50-person beta filled up fast, thank you), and news that I'm building a little Stoicism educational video game, because apparently your Stoicism guy needed another creative outlet.Engage. It's your duty. But engage well.Thanks for listening.Mentioned in this episode:If you're interested in booking a call with me, please click below to do so ⬇️Schedule a call with me | 17m 03s | ||||||
| 6/6/26 | Are Laws Un-Stoic? | Learn more about Stoic Brekkie by post here: https://stoicbrekkie.com/p/stoic-brekkie-is-returning-with-an-analogue-twistRegister your interest in Stoic Brekkie by post here: https://bypost.stoicbrekkie.com ------Mentioned in this episode:If you're interested in booking a call with me, please click below to do so ⬇️Schedule a call with me | 23m 32s | ||||||
| 5/31/26 | Managing Anger as a Parent | In this episode, I talk about parenting, exhaustion, frustration, and the very real challenge of remaining Stoic when your emotional battery is running on empty.Stoic Mentoring: https://tannerocampbell.com/mentoringSunday 7th Webinar: https://stoictalks.uk/june-cosmologyUsing a story from my own 43rd birthday, I walk through a morning that did not go according to plan. What I wanted was a peaceful day. What I got was a very normal morning with a two-year-old child who wanted things his way, struggled to communicate those wants clearly, and repeatedly tested my patience.The story revolves around a simple trip to a café that gradually became a lesson in expectations, frustration, entitlement, and emotional regulation.The deeper lesson is not really about toddlers. It's about the stories we tell ourselves.I had convinced myself that my birthday entitled me to a peaceful day. Rationally, I knew that wasn't true. But emotionally, I had quietly bought into the idea anyway. That expectation became the source of much of my frustration.From there, I explore several Stoic lessons:Managing expectations before frustration takes hold.Recognizing when we're running our emotional batteries too low.Understanding that self-care is not selfishness.Appreciating how much children learn from our behavior, especially when we're angry.Recognizing the difference between discipline and rage.I spend particular time discussing the impression we leave on our children. Children are constantly watching us. Every outburst, every moment of patience, every act of self-control becomes part of the example we set for them.A parent losing their temper doesn't just solve a problem poorly in the moment—it can shape how a child understands relationships, authority, safety, and emotional expression for years to come.I also argue that many parents wait far too long to recharge. We run ourselves into the ground, then expect one special day, one holiday, or one break to somehow restore everything. That's not sustainable.The Stoic approach is much simpler: maintain the battery before it reaches zero.Even a single hour each week dedicated to rest, reflection, reading, walking, or simply being alone can dramatically improve our ability to show up well for the people who depend on us.The central message of the episode is this: parenting is hard, and perfection is impossible. But we can dramatically reduce the likelihood of losing our tempers by managing our expectations, protecting our own wellbeing, and remembering that our children are always learning from how we choose to respond.Listening on Spotify? Leave a comment! Share your thoughts.Mentioned in this episode:If you're interested in booking a call with me, please click below to do so ⬇️Schedule a call with me | 23m 35s | ||||||
| 5/25/26 | Keeping Your Cool | In this episode, I talk about heat, irritability, anger, and why being physically uncomfortable can quietly erode our Stoic practice if we’re not paying attention.First, an announcement: after years of being asked, I’m officially opening applications for 1:1 Stoic mentoring and life coaching. This is a six-month mentorship for people who are serious about applying Stoicism deeply and consistently in their lives. It includes weekly calls, structured curriculum, support between sessions, and a small accountability group. I explain who it’s for, what’s included, and how to apply.Apply for 1:1 mentoring here: https://tannerocampbell.com/applyThe core topic of the episode, though, is anger — specifically how heat and physical discomfort make anger far more likely.I draw heavily from Seneca’s On Anger, where he describes anger as a kind of temporary madness: a passion that overrides reason, destroys judgment, and pushes people toward destructive choices they later regret. I connect this to modern psychological research showing that heat increases irritability, hostility, and aggression.The basic point is straightforward: when we’re physically uncomfortable, our threshold for frustration lowers dramatically. Small provocations escalate faster. We become less patient, less reflective, and more likely to lash out.But rather than treating this as an excuse, I frame it as a call for preparation.A Stoic does not pretend the body doesn’t matter. The Stoic prepares rationally for predictable challenges. If you know extreme heat affects your mood and judgment, then planning ahead becomes part of your moral responsibility.I walk through some practical examples from my own life living in the UK during a heatwave:Buying bags of ice in advance.Staying hydrated constantly.Having contingency plans for cooler environments.Saving for a long-term cooling solution.Refusing to indulge self-pity or dramatics about discomfort.The point is not “be tough.” The point is “be prepared.”I argue that failing to prepare for predictable discomfort is itself a failure of Stoic practice because it unnecessarily increases the risk that we’ll act irrationally toward ourselves or others.The Sage would not ignore heat to prove toughness. The Sage would plan, prepare, adapt, and endure intelligently.That’s the real lesson of the episode: Stoicism isn’t about pretending external conditions don’t affect us. It’s about anticipating their effects and choosing wisely despite them.---Listening on Spotify? Leave a comment! Share your thoughts.---I am a public philosopher, it is my only job. I am enabled to do this job, in large part, thanks to support from my listeners and readers. You can support my work, keep it independent and online, at https://stoicismpod.com/members---Subscribe to A Little Wiser, a newsletter which explores philosophy more broadly than Stoicism and publishes multiple times a week.Mentioned in this episode:If you're interested in booking a call with me, please click below to do so ⬇️Schedule a call with me | 17m 11s | ||||||
| 5/12/26 | Decide Like a Stoic | Support my work for as little as £0.87/wk: https://stoicismpod.com/members--In this episode, I lay out a practical, step-by-step Stoic framework for making decisions well.A lot of people interested in Stoicism know the quotes, know the terminology, and understand the broad concepts — but when an actual difficult choice appears in front of them, they still don’t know what to do. This episode is about solving that problem.I begin by making a distinction the Stoics took very seriously: the difference between wanting something and determining whether something is right. Most difficult decisions are not difficult because we don’t know what we desire, but because we’re uncertain what action accords with virtue and reason.From there, I walk through an orthodox Stoic decision-making method rooted in Panaetius and preserved through Cicero’s De Officiis.The process begins with examining what the Stoics understood to be the four roles every human being occupies simultaneously:Our universal human nature as rational beings bound by the virtues.Our individual nature — our temperament, strengths, and weaknesses.Our circumstantial roles — parent, child, citizen, employee, neighbour.Our chosen roles — career, projects, commitments, ambitions.I use a detailed example throughout the episode: a person deciding whether to take a major overseas promotion while also caring for an aging mother whose health is declining.The key Stoic insight is this: the right action is usually found at the intersection of all four roles. Most modern ethical thinking frames difficult choices as trade-offs, but Stoicism instead asks us to search for the action that satisfies all our legitimate roles without violating virtue.I then explain the “tragic conflict clause” — what to do when no intersection seems possible. In those cases, the Stoics held that lower-order roles must be abandoned before virtue itself is compromised.After identifying a candidate action, I introduce three tests the Stoics would apply:The rational defence test: can you clearly explain why the action is right?The sage test: would a genuinely wise person choose this?The role-fidelity test: does the action honour your responsibilities regardless of what others do?Finally, I discuss the importance of post-action review — what the Stoics called prokopē, or progress. Stoic character is built not through perfect choices, but through repeated examination, correction, and refinement over time.The core point of the episode is simple: Stoicism is not passive inspiration or emotional comfort. It is a disciplined framework for reasoning through life well and choosing in alignment with nature, virtue, and our roles.Listening on Spotify? Leave a comment! Share your thoughts.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesMentioned in this episode:If you're interested in booking a call with me, please click below to do so ⬇️Schedule a call with me | 24m 11s | ||||||
| 5/4/26 | Stoicismself-improvement+4 | — | — | — | Stoicismstoa shaming+4 | — | 8m 02s | ||
| 4/24/26 | Stoic Justiceretribution+5 | — | Cosmopolis | — | Stoicismjustice+6 | — | 15m 55s | ||
| 4/17/26 | Stoicismsilence+4 | — | — | Leicester | Stoicismsilence+5 | Stoic JournalingEASTER50 | 19m 18s | ||
| 4/4/26 | enduranceresilience+4 | — | stoicjournaling.comBREKKIE | Isle of RaasayScottish Inner Hebrides | enduranceresilience+5 | Prokoptôn JournalingBREKKIE | 20m 40s | ||
| 3/24/26 | AIpurpose+4 | — | — | — | AIpurpose+5 | Stoic JournalingBREKKIE | 13m 36s | ||
| 3/19/26 | Stoicismjournaling+3 | — | — | — | Stoicismjournaling+3 | Stoic JournalingBREKKIE | 7m 44s | ||
| 3/17/26 | Stoicismmasculinity+3 | — | Prokoptôn | — | Stoicismmasculinity+3 | — | 17m 53s | ||
| 3/9/26 | angerStoicism+3 | — | ProkoptônMeditations+1 | — | angerStoicism+5 | — | 11m 44s | ||
| 3/3/26 | StoicismJust War Theory+4 | — | Stoicism and Just War TheoryOn Duties | — | StoicismJust War+5 | — | 14m 29s | ||
| 2/19/26 | moral relativismemotivism+3 | — | Stoic BrekkieStoicism Pod | — | moral relativismemotivism+5 | — | 19m 07s | ||
| 2/13/26 | Stoicismphilosophy+3 | — | — | — | StoicismMarcus Aurelius+4 | — | 1h 29m 05s | ||
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Chart history for Practical Stoicism
Peaked at #17 in MY, currently #17 in MY.
| Market | Genre | Peak | Current | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MY | — | #17 | #17 | — |
| Canada | — | #18 | #18 | — |
| NG | — | #20 | #20 | — |
| PH | — | #30 | #30 | — |
| PL | — | #35 | #35 | — |
| HK | — | #36 | #36 | — |
| KE | — | #39 | #39 | — |
| Finland | — | #41 | #41 | — |
| IL | — | #43 | #43 | — |
| ID | — | #44 | #44 | — |
| Brazil | — | #47 | #47 | — |
| AR | — | #48 | #48 | — |
| GR | — | #50 | #50 | — |
| United States | — | #51 | #51 | — |
| New Zealand | — | #64 | #64 | — |
| TR | — | #64 | #64 | — |
| Sweden | — | #68 | #68 | — |
| South Africa | — | #71 | #71 | — |
| Mexico | — | #74 | #74 | — |
| CZ | — | #84 | #84 | — |
Chart Positions
43 placements across 43 markets.
Chart Positions
43 placements across 43 markets.