12 Lessons From 7 Years Of The Daily Stoic

In 2015, my agent called me with an idea. I had published The Obstacle is the Way and was working on Ego is the Enemy, two books which were rooted in Stoic philosophy–but tried not to be too overt about it.

Steve, my agent, suggested I do the exact opposite. You should write a daily devotional about Stoicism, he told me, one page per day. It seemed crazy to me. Most people weren’t interested in philosophy (and most publishers weren’t either). Besides, I don’t speak Greek or Latin, so how would I do the translations? “I’ll do them,” Steve told me, “and I promise it will be your bestselling book.”

This was preposterous to me on many levels. For one, Steve knew Greek and Latin? But it turns out he did…and he was right!

The Daily Stoic released seven years ago and has gone on to sell over 2M English language copies, and it’s been translated into more than 30 languages. For the 7th anniversary of The Daily Stoic, I thought I would share some lessons from that book–or rather, lessons that came from writing and publishing it, because the whole process taught me as much about business and life as it did about philosophy.

1. Take the assignment. As I mentioned, the idea for The Daily Stoic wasn’t mine. In fact, I wasn’t totally convinced the idea would have much appeal, but I was at a point in my career…