The Stoic Handbook with Jon Brooks

What would it mean to work with the life you have, even when it takes a turn you would never have chosen?

This recorded talk explores amor fati, the practice of loving your fate, and the difference between active acceptance and passive resignation. I connect the idea with three everyday practices: looking for a useful response to adversity, separating what is up to you from what is not, and noticing what you can still appreciate.

Bring one current frustration to mind and use it as the starting point for the exercises.
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Your first jiu-jitsu class can expose how little your toughness helps. Going back takes a different kind of courage.

Jon Friedland joins me to explore what training can teach us about Stoicism. We discuss competition nerves, judging a performance without clinging to the result, and why a black belt can leave someone's ego bigger than before. Jon explains how he keeps learning after nearly thirty years on the mats.

One question from the conversation stayed with me: what advice would you give someone else in your position? Jon uses it when he's stuck under pressure and struggling to see an option.

Jon is the founder and head instructor of Neutral Ground Academy and the author of Jiujitsu Stoic.

Jon’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jon_friedland/
Neutral Ground Academy: https://www.ngmke.com/about-us/jon-friedland/
Jon’s book: https://jiujitsustoic.com/
Jiujitsu Stoic on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HKLX73Y5
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How do you stay yourself around someone who keeps drawing you into conflict?

In this recorded Stoic masterclass, I work through five practical moves: expect difficulty, notice the hook, drop the rope, make your boundary a behaviour, and look honestly at your own patterns. We also map the inner citadel: what belongs to you, and what was never yours to control.

The session distinguishes everyday friction from harmful and dangerous relationships, then offers exercises you can use before, during and after a difficult interaction.
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You can get better at handling difficulty and still forget to enjoy your life.

This half-hour Stoic talk explores six habits for practising joy, including the seven-second control check, the View from Above and the Joy of Enough. It also covers a 24-hour virtue experiment, obstacle training and a morning-and-evening routine.

Choose one habit from the session and give it a place in your day. There's no need to turn all six into another list of things you're failing to do.
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Marcus Aurelius expected to be knocked off balance. His advice was to come back quickly and treat every return as training. This short Stoic practice is for the moment after you’ve snapped or started spiralling.

The Reset uses SPQR as a modern memory aid: Stop, Pause, Question, Reframe. Take one breath, check the story you’re telling yourself, and look at what’s actually here and what your part is. Try one Reset today and record whether you came back.

This is episode two of One Passage. Passage: Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.11, translated by George Long.
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