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The Diary of a CEO

Most Replayed Moment: Make 2026 Your Best Year Yet! 5 Daily Practices For Health And Happiness

20 min episode · 2 min read

Episode

20 min

Read time

2 min

Topics

Productivity, Health & Wellness, Philosophy & Wisdom

AI-Generated Summary

Key Takeaways

  • Control allocation: Separate everything into two categories—what you control versus what you don't—then direct 100% of your energy toward controllable factors, like putting car power only on wheels touching the ground for maximum traction and impact.
  • Movement rituals: Take daily walks and spend time near water for mental clarity, as humans evolved traveling long distances. Physical movement creates rhythm that slows thinking, increases presence, and unlocks solutions that emerge during breaks from focused work.
  • Physical challenge: Complete one physically demanding activity daily—lifting weights, sprinting, cycling, or spin classes—to build the essential skill of pushing limits, which prepares you for whatever difficulties life presents and prevents sedentary lifestyle deterioration.
  • Mortality awareness: Practice memento mori by remembering you received a terminal diagnosis at birth—death is certain, timing unknown. This perspective eliminates procrastination, creates urgency for health priorities, and prevents wasting life assuming you have unlimited time remaining.

What It Covers

Ryan Holiday shares five daily Stoic practices for living well: focusing on controllable factors, taking long walks, doing physically difficult activities, serving others, and remembering mortality to create urgency and perspective.

Key Questions Answered

  • Control allocation: Separate everything into two categories—what you control versus what you don't—then direct 100% of your energy toward controllable factors, like putting car power only on wheels touching the ground for maximum traction and impact.
  • Movement rituals: Take daily walks and spend time near water for mental clarity, as humans evolved traveling long distances. Physical movement creates rhythm that slows thinking, increases presence, and unlocks solutions that emerge during breaks from focused work.
  • Physical challenge: Complete one physically demanding activity daily—lifting weights, sprinting, cycling, or spin classes—to build the essential skill of pushing limits, which prepares you for whatever difficulties life presents and prevents sedentary lifestyle deterioration.
  • Mortality awareness: Practice memento mori by remembering you received a terminal diagnosis at birth—death is certain, timing unknown. This perspective eliminates procrastination, creates urgency for health priorities, and prevents wasting life assuming you have unlimited time remaining.

Notable Moment

Holiday describes his friend, basketball coach Shaka Smart, responding to questions about weather preferences by saying he's a "dress for the weather guy"—embodying Stoic adaptability by thriving in any conditions rather than requiring specific circumstances.

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Episode Transcript

This year, most business owners have had one thing top of mind, which is how to make AI work for them because its potential is limitless. But if you don't know what you're doing, then you're guessing, which can be incredibly risky. Our sponsor, NetSuite by Oracle, helps businesses to get AI embedded throughout their organization, whether they're earning millions or hundreds of millions. NetSuite is the number one AI cloud financial system, and through their platform, you get all of your accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR in one place. Their AI connector also lets you pick the AI of your choice. Connect it with your business's data, then you can ask it questions, like how much cash on hand have we got in the company, or who are our key customers. And because all of that data is connected, it makes your AI smarter so it can automate routine tasks, deliver specific actionable insights, and help you cut the costs. Already, over 43,000 businesses have chosen to future proof their business with NetSuite. So if you'd like to learn more on how you can help your business, just get their business guide, which is called Demystifying AI, and you can get that free at netsuite.com/bartlett. You've read so much. You write so much. You have the the wisdom of a of someone who is who has lived many, many lives. That's what reading is, by the way. You know what I mean? Reading is is maybe the the only way that you can live multiple lives. Like, you think about the millions of people who have done crazy things, groundbreaking things, terrible things, and You think of all that wisdom. It's all there in books. And, you know, it's $10. Sometimes it's a dollar. Isn't it funny how similar the wisdom is, though? Yeah. I think the more you read that you you come up with some sort of themes that boils down Eastern and Western philosophy, kind of like a horseshoe, you know, that come come come together towards the the ends. But What are those themes? What are the themes of living a good life that I must know? First would be, let's say, you you focus on what's in your control. Like what's up to you. Okay. What does that mean in practical in in day to day life? So someone cuts me off in traffic? Yeah. Somebody you don't, somebody doesn't like something that you did, the weather, you know. How much of your energy are you spending emoting about, complaining about, worrying about things that are not up to you? And what do the is there any particular examples from stoicism where? Well, epic fetuses is like that's our first job in life. Separate things into two categories. Is this up to me or is this not up to me? And it's a resource allocation issue. Right? Like, if you are focusing your energy, even half of it on stuff that's not up …

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