Practical Stoicism

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:
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First, 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/tannerocampbell

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In 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.

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Cheers!

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?
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I 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.

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In 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.