When I first moved in, six years ago.
If you walk into the locker room or practice facility for a professional sports team or elite college program, one of the things that strikes you is what they put up on the wall.
The walls are tattooed with precepts. Every hallway and doorway is decorated with motivational quotes. There are statues of former players and coaches, the legends who set the standard. There are framed photographs of the greatest moments in the team’s history.
Why do they do this?
Because reminders are powerful. They make you better. They give you something to hold up and try to live up to each day. They turn the habits, standards, or values you’re trying to hold yourself to into something more than an idea, and that helps—a lot.
I do something similar in my office. It’s filled with little knicknacks and pictures. Reminders and totems. Things I’ve collected over the years that mean something to me. Objects that represent who I’m trying to be, what I’m trying to do, how I want to work and live.
Here are 13 of them—and what they’re there to remind me of.
1. A “No” Sign
A few years ago, Dr. Jonathan Fader, a sports psychologist who spent nearly a decade with the New York Mets, gave me this picture of Oliver Sacks in his office. Behind Sacks, who is speaking on the phone, is a large sign that just says, “NO!” I have it hanging between two pictures of my kids—a reminder that when I say no, I am saying YES to them.
I have that photo hanging on the wall in my office, just a few feet from a couple of Truman memos. One, from 1969, politely explains his long-standing policy not to answer questions from every random person who contacts him—he was eighty-five, still working, sensing his time was limited. The other is a brief reply telling someone that their question would be answered in detail in his next book. But the one I like the most has Truman’s handwriting on it. Shortly after he became president, Truman was invited to the fifth annual Roosevelt Day in Chicago. His secretary wrote an inner-office memo to ask if they should start saying no to these sorts of requests with all the demands he had on his schedule. “The proper answer underlined, HST”, he wrote back.
I once heard someone say that early in our careers, we say yes to everything so that one day we can afford to say no. As I’ve been lucky enough to succeed as a writer, I’ve watched my inbound requests skyrocket. It is literally impossible to even read, let alone reply, to everyone and everything.
Life is about tradeoffs. It demands that we be a little selfish. It requires that we tune out and tune in. Otherwise we can’t do what we do.
The photos and letters are my constant reminders that everything I say yes to is taking me away from my family who I’ve already promised most of my time to. And from my writing, which is not only the thing that is most meaningful to me and how I make my actual living, but it’s how I can help the most people. So if I say yes to one random person, I’m saying no to a lot more people by taking that time and energy away from my writing.
2. Books. Books. Books.
This isn’t one object. It’s hundreds of them. Thousands, actually. I have books lining the walls, stacked on the floor, piled on my desk, crammed into every available surface.
It’s been said that a house without books is not a home. Cicero famously said that all that was needed for a happy life was a library and a garden. Aristotle filled his house with so many books that Plato nicknamed it “the house of the reader.”
I don’t know if my office qualifies as a proper library, but it’s close. And there’s a reason for that. I want to be surrounded by the best thinking of the last few thousand years. I want history’s greatest minds within arm’s reach. I want to be able to look up from my desk and see the spines of books that have shaped how I think, how I write, how I live.
In Wisdom Takes Work, I talk about how books allow us to talk to the dead. A shelf full of books allows us to create a room full of mentors, waiting patiently to be consulted.
They don’t demand anything. They just sit there, ready, until you need them. That’s the kind of company I want to keep.
3. My “Why”
This notecard is tapped to the wall next to my desk
I’ve been very lucky. I did not think when I started writing The Obstacle is the Way more than ten years ago that it would sell nearly as well as it did or that I would have anything close to the success—or platform—that I’ve somehow found myself with. I loved the ideas in Stoicism and was just trying to talk to people about them. I have no formal training or expertise, so I had no idea that I would somehow be identified with them, or seen as a representative of them.
What this means to me then, as I look at the fact that the books have sold millions of copies and accumulated millions of followers, is that I have a certain responsibility and obligation. I did not invent this philosophy. It is not mine. So yes, writing books is a business. My bookstore, The Painted Porch, is a business. Daily Stoic is a business. But I always try to ask myself not if I am making good business decisions, but am I being a good steward of Stoicism, of the philosophy that’s given so much to me? Am I being honest and ethical and fair and reasonable and moderate?
That question guides everything we do. How we spend our time and money. The content we make. The decision to stop spending money on advertising. The causes we support. The injustices we speak out about. Not all of these decisions are good for business. Some are not popular. Some make people mad. Some have probably cost us business.
But the filter isn’t if I am making good business decisions. It’s if I am being a good steward of Stoicism, of the philosophy that’s given so much to me. Am I being honest and ethical and fair and reasonable and moderate? Am I using the success that this philosophy has brought me to introduce more people to the philosophy? That’s my goal.
4. A Grammy?
Years ago, I was an associate producer on a jazz album that won a Grammy in 2017. I got to walk the red carpet and go onstage and accept it. It was pretty surreal. Afterwards, they gave us a paper certificate instead of actual trophies for everyone involved. So I had this one made with a special inscription on it:
When you die, this will go in the trash alongside all your other “accomplishments”
It’s a reminder that awards, bestseller lists, medals, championship rings—none of it really matters. They’re just pieces of metal, bits of glass, plaques on a wall. Stuff that will end up in an estate sale or a box in an attic or a landfill.
In the end, what matters is who you were as a person. Did you do your best while you were in the game? Did you leave anything on the table creatively? Did you phone it in or did you give it everything you had?
That’s what matters. Everything else is garbage.
5. Joan Didion’s Chair
Speaking of estate sales…
After Joan Didion died, her estate auctioned off some of her belongings, and I bought her writing chair.
Last year, I was sitting in it, working on a chapter in Wisdom Takes Work about the importance of keeping a commonplace book. I pulled out my notecards and found an old, worn card referencing something Didion had written about notebooks in her book Slouching Towards Bethlehem. I walked over to the shelf, pulled it down, and there it was—a beautiful essay called “On Keeping a Notebook,” written in 1966.
I got goosebumps. Not just because it was exactly what I needed, but because I was sitting, at that very moment, in her chair. How did I know, nine years ago when I first read that book, when I took the time to jot that little reference on a notecard, that it would be of use to future-me?
“Why did I write it down?” Didion asks in that essay. “In order to remember, of course, but exactly what was it I wanted to remember?”
Anyways, Didion was, like me, from Sacramento. And when I see her chair, I think about where I’m from and where it’s possible to go. I think about how I’m not alone in this work. How I’m part of a long tradition of writers and thinkers and note-takers stretching back centuries. How the craft has been handed down, and it’s my job to honor it.
6. Notecards and Notecards and Notecards
And speaking of the importance of keeping a commonplace book…
I think everyone should have a commonplace book, or, to use a more modern term, a second brain—a collection of ideas, quotes, observations, and information gathered over time. (Here’s a video on my commonplace book method).
Two thousand years ago, Pliny the elder said, “Never read without taking extracts.” Seneca put it another way: “We should hunt out the helpful pieces of teaching and the spirited and noble-minded sayings which are capable of immediate practical application—not far far-fetched or archaic expressions or extravagant metaphors and figures of speech—and learn them so well that words become works.”
That’s why I keep blank notecards everywhere. I’m constantly capturing quotes, stories, ideas, observations—anything that strikes me.
Whether we’re beginning some creative work or we’re trying to solve some complex problem, we should never be starting from zero. Invariably, at some point in our lives, we have seen or read or heard something that would be of use in this situation. But will we remember it? Will we have access to it?
It happens to me all the time. I’m working on something, stuck, not sure where to go next—and I reach into a box and pull out a notecard I wrote five or ten years ago, and it’s exactly what I needed. And every time this happens, I’m grateful I took the few seconds to write the thing down.
7. The Four Virtues
I mentioned earlier that sports facilities are filled with reminders—signs and symbols placed in spots where players can’t miss them. Above the tunnel. Outside the weight room. On the way to the field.
On the wall coming down the stairs from my office, I had the Four Virtues logo painted on the wall. Every time I leave to go down into to the bookstore or out into the world, I pass it.
Courage. Temperance. Justice. Wisdom.
The “touchstones of goodness,” Marcus Aurelius called them. They’re known as the cardinal virtues—not because they come down from church authorities, C. S. Lewis pointed out, but because the word comes from the Latin cardo, meaning hinge. They’re pivotal. The stuff that the door to the good life hangs on.
There’s a reason the four points on a compass are called the cardinal directions. North, south, east, west—these four virtues are a kind of compass (there’s a reason that the four points on a compass are called the “cardinal directions”).
They guide me. They show me where I am and where I’m trying to go.
8. First Draft Print
The famous Hemingway line on writing helps me through every book.
I’m in the middle of my next book right now, for instance. It’s natural to instinctively compare it to the ones that have been published. But that’s not a helpful comparison, and it’s not a fair comparison. Precisely zero of those other books were immediately accepted by my publisher. Every one of them went through countless drafts to get to where they needed to be.
So I can only compare this book I’m in the middle of against the middle of my other books—not what I eventually published. It’s helpful to have the constant reminder: every book—not just mine—looks and feels clumsy and awkward and imperfect at this point.
Precisely zero of my sixteen books were immediately accepted by my publisher—and they were right to kick them back at me. In being forced to go back to the manuscript, I got the books to where they needed to be.
9. A Very Special Pinecone
When I was reading John Vaillant’s book Fire Weather (he also wrote The Tiger), I learned about this conifer tree I’d never heard of before.
It’s like any other pine tree: it drops its pinecone and the pinecone is what generates the next generation of trees. Except this species is different. The cone is sealed shut with resin, locking the seeds inside. It only opens up—only looks like the one I’m holding in the picture above—if it’s exposed to temperatures that the climate does not naturally reach. It’s only a forest fire, which seems destructive and merciless and awful, that can unlock this tree’s ability to spawn and grow.
I have a few of these pinecones sitting on my desk. To me, they’re an illustration of the idea that the obstacle is the way. Unless we are exposed to difficulty and stress and adversity and situations that we did not want, we can’t fully become what we’re capable of becoming. We can’t fully unlock our potential.
10. Me, But Younger
On the back cover of Anthony Hopkins’ memoir (which, to my disbelief, I was mentioned in), there’s a photograph of him at three or four years old, on a beach with his father. Looking back at that photo eighty years later, Hopkins said, “I look now at my life, and I think, ‘We did ok, kid. We did ok.’”
That’s part of why I keep a few photos of younger me in my office. To remember to step back from time to time to see how far I’ve come. To look at that kid and say, We’re doing alright. We’re doing alright.
There’s another reason too.
In Stillness is the Key, I wrote about inner child work—the practice of staying aware of the younger version of yourself that still lives inside you. When you’re hurt or betrayed or unexpectedly challenged, pay attention to how you react. Notice the “age” of that reaction. Is it mature, measured, proportional? Or does it feel more like a wounded eight-year-old lashing out?
That’s your inner child—the pain you still carry from early experiences, hijacking your adult mind.
The photos help me stay aware of him. To notice when he’s the one reacting instead of me. To take care of him rather than let him run the show.
11. “Sense of Urgency” Signs
Preparation is important.
Planning is important.
Reflection is important.
I mean, I wrote a whole book on this because it’s true.
At the same time, I put up two signs at The Daily Stoic offices and in the backstock of The Painted Porch that say, “Sense of Urgency.”
It’s something I cribbed from the kitchens of Thomas Keller, the creator of Per Se. He wanted his staff to understand that they weren’t waiting on customers…the customers were quite literally waiting for them. Sure, making great food takes time and it can’t be rushed…but it also can’t be slow-walked.
There is an old Latin expression that I think captures the balance here nicely: Festina lente. Make haste slowly. A sense of urgency…with a purpose. Energy plus moderation. Measured exertion. Eagerness, with control.
That, to me, is what the “Sense of Urgency” sign is a reminder of—it’s about getting things done, properly and consistently.
12. Chunk of an Old Tombstone
I’ve talked before about the Memento Mori coin—I keep one on my desk and carry another in my pocket. On the front it has a rendering of Champaigne’s Still Life with a Skull painting. On the back, it has Marcus Aurelius’s quote: “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” Except I cut off the last part—as a reminder that there isn’t even time to go through the whole quote.
I also have this chunk of an old Victorian tombstone. How it left that cemetery and came to be for sale, I don’t know and don’t want to know.
But I know that it sobers me and sets me right each time I look at it. Because the piece had just one word on it. It says, “Dad.”
Somebody who so identified with that word they wanted it on their tombstone; who lived and died and whose gravestone eventually even fell into disrepair. Who were they? How did they pass? Are they missed? Were they famous? It doesn’t matter. They are gone now. Almost certainly, they were gone too soon. They left behind a family. They will never walk or speak or love or cry again.
And so it will go for me. And so it will go for you.
13. My Guiding Sentences
On every project I do, I print out a notecard with a sentence or an admonition that captures the essence of what I am trying to achieve on that project.
When I was working on Ego is the Enemy, I had this quote from Machiavelli on the wall to inspire its style and ethos: “I have not adorned this work with fine phrases, with swelling, pompous words, or with any of those blandishments or external ornaments with which many set forth and decorate their matter. For I have chosen either that nothing at all should bring it honor or that the variety of its material and the gravity of its subject matter alone should make it welcome.”
When I was working on the Stoic Virtues series, I had a quote from Martha Graham: “Never be afraid of the material. The material knows when you are frightened and will not help.”
One from Boccaccio: “Who in our day can penetrate the hearts of the Ancients? Who can bring to light and life again minds long since removed in death? Who can elicit their meaning? A divine task that—not human! It is, therefore, my plan of interpretation first to write what I learn from the Ancients, and when they fail me, or I find them inexplicit, to set down my own opinion.”
And one from Bob Johnson to Johnny Cash: “You need to build a mausoleum in your head with big iron doors so that nobody can get in there except you. You don’t let me in there, you don’t let June in there, you don’t let your manager in there, you don’t let the record company people in there. You have to decide for yourself what you want to do with your music and not let anyone else tell you.”
And for the project I am working on now, it’s a quote from Paul Horgan, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer and historian: “Historical writing which is not literature is subject to oblivion.”
—
I have all these reminders because I need them.
On the Daily Stoic podcast, I once asked Pau Gasol—two-time NBA champion, six-time All-Star—about the role these kinds of reminders play in sports.
“Athletes appreciate pointers and directions,” he said. He mentioned the famous mantra displayed throughout the San Antonio Spurs facilities: Pound the rock. “That was a big one…Just keep pounding the rock. If you hit it a thousand times or two thousand times, you might not see a crack, but it’s that next hit, that next pound where the rock will crack. You just got to keep at it, keep at it, keep at it.”
Reminders matter. They make you better. They keep you centered. If life were easy, if we were perfect, we wouldn’t need them. But it isn’t, and we aren’t. Things get complicated. Things go awry. We get mixed signals and we get overwhelmed and we get knocked off course. In those moments, it helps to have a good reminder to fall back on.
So whatever form these things take for you—a sign, a notecard, a print, a picture, a quote on the wall, a pine cone on your desk—surround yourself with things that mean something to you. Tattoo your walls with precepts. Fill your shelves with totems. Put good advice on and around your desk.
It will make you better.
