I know someone that spends close to $20,000 a month on a publicist.

I know an author who spends something like that out of their own pocket each month on what’s called co-op, or extra prominent placement at airport bookstores.

I know many people who spend more than that on advertising.

I myself have hired publicists. I have paid for co-op. I used to spend six figures a year on Facebook ads for Daily Stoic.

But several years ago I made a decision that changed my business and radically transformed my career.

I stopped spending money on all of that.

It’s not that I wasn’t getting a return on my investment. But it struck me just how empty it all was. I was putting all this time and energy and money into something, which were I ever to stop, would leave barely a trace behind!

I was thinking of a wonderful quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald, who, while criticizing advertising and publicity, pointed out that a person, “cannot be honest without admitting that its constructive contribution to humanity is exactly minus zero.”

So I took that money and did something very different with it: I used it to start making stuff.

I hired a videographer. I hired a social media manager. I hired another researcher. I hired a bunch of people. I took the entire budget that I had been putting into advertising and built a content team. We built the Daily Stoic podcast. We started making YouTube videos. We started cutting clips from the talks I gave. We wrote explainers and SEO pieces about philosophy. We launched DailyDad.com. We started @DailyPhilosopher on Instagram.

Some people might shrug and say, “Yeah that’s called content marketing,” but it’s actually a deeper philosophical shift.

Over the years, Daily Stoic has created hundreds of videos, articles and emails. With the 500-word daily newsletter, that’s a little more than two books a year of free content delivered straight to email inboxes around the world every morning. We’ve essentially created the largest Stoic library in the world. Hundreds of hours of video on the great Stoic works, the rules the Stoics lived by, Stoic habits, Stoic don’ts, and Stoic questions for a better life. Hundreds of thousands of words across articles on the Big 3 (Marucs Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus), timeless Stoic strategies for happiness, dealing with stress, getting and staying motivated, overcoming procrastination, and handling rude people.

A lot of people have seen that stuff as a result. We’ve done something like 63 million views on YouTube (4.4 million hours watched), and we just hit 1 million subscribers to the channel last week. The podcast does around 5 million downloads a month (well over 120M downloads). The email goes out to nearly 600,000 subscribers every morning…and has been sent something like 450 million times. You can add on top of that this bi-monthly email you’re reading here, plus my monthly Reading List Email too.

Some of the people that have found this content have gone on to be customers, sure. Advertising and publicity are largely used as a means of attracting attention for someone’s business. Content marketing is also a way of doing that. But I’m not saying you should trade Strategy A for Strategy B, or that Strategy B is more cost effective. It probably isn’t–making all this content has been an enormous amount of work and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

What I am saying is that instead of using your energy and resources and effort to make stuff that converts, you should use your energy and resources and effort to make stuff that matters.

Because it is valuable in and of itself.

Someone gets shown an ad and buys something, that’s great. But the people who get shown an ad and do nothing? What a lost opportunity! What a waste of their time and yours. It’s nice for the ego to get profiled in some publication…but it is quickly forgotten.

Deciding to make videos, write articles, produce thousands of hours of audio–what I decided to prioritize my work around was making work.

Creating value for others that lasts.

I have a little notecard on my wall next to my desk that says “Am I Being a Good Steward of Stoicism?” I found I couldn’t sleep with myself knowing I was spending a bunch of money on extractive ads. But I can swell with pride knowing I spent the profits that my books have earned making content that millions of people have consumed for free, that has helped spread the ideas in Stoicism to people who would have never heard them otherwise. One helps the world, one helps no one but the ad network.

I could stop making new content today…I could die tomorrow and the stuff we have made would keep on keeping on, reaching people, helping people. And this is really the best part: I would die a better person for having made it too. It was fun. It was educational. It was rewarding.

I must say I wouldn’t go as far as saying all advertising is worthless (we have ads at the bottom of our emails a few times a week, including this one). At American Apparel, nothing was more rewarding than using our advertising budget to support causes like legalizing gay marriage or immigration reform. We also deliberately sought out publications that we believed were doing important work, that we felt contributed to the scene or the community–we put our money there, knowing that in addition to reaching people about our products, we were also helping that publication survive or thrive.

The other reason I want to make it clear that I’m not just talking about content marketing versus ads is that I have very much stretched the definition of ‘content.’ The decision to open a small town bookstore in rural Texas? That’s not the same as a blogpost but it is doing stuff, it is making something that matters.

The Painted Porch as a business makes very little sense on its own. It’s too risky, too expensive, too regional. Yet it’s accomplished so much–not only has it gotten tons of publicity, but it’s been a story I have been able to tell in my content as well as make my content in. It’s also a physical space people have been able to travel all over the world to visit, to bring people to, to post pictures and talk to other people about.

I promise you, the feeling of walking into it–this modern version of the ancient Stoa–is vastly more satisfying than looking at some spreadsheet looking at which Twitter or Reddit ad is converting better. The same goes when I see the people who are on our team: Billy, Dawson, Chelsea, Kristen, Rachel, Ernie, Deezie, and Jess (plus many great contractors all over the world). To be able to provide a living for them, to see them learn on the job, to benefit from and learn myself from their contributions, to watch us come together and make something larger than the sum of our parts? It’s cool seeing your books on an end table at Hudson’s at JFK, but I like this a lot better.

If you’re going to do something, I say, do something real. Do something that matters, that makes a difference.

Each of us is only here so long. We can only work on so many things. We can spend our time, energy and resources in only so many ways.

The question is how are you going to use these limited resources?

To me, the answer is to do stuff that matters. Make things that matter to people, that help people.

Make a constructive contribution to humanity.

It will come back to you.

Marcus Aurelius never claimed to be a Stoic.

Gregory Hays, one of Marcus Aurelius’s best translators, writes in his introduction to Meditations, “If he had to be identified with a particular school, [Stoicism] is surely the one he would have chosen. Yet I suspect that if asked what it was that he studied, his answer would not have been ‘Stoicism’ but simply ‘philosophy.’”

He then notes that in the ancient world, “philosophy” was not perceived the way it is today. It played a much different role. “It was not merely a subject to write or argue about,” Hays writes, “but one that was expected to provide a ‘design for living’—a set of rules to live one’s life by.”

That’s what this philosophy gives us: a design for living. Which is great because, as Seneca wrote, “Life without a design is erratic.” What were some of Marcus’s rules?

These are some of my favorites.

Put people first. My favorite story about Marcus Aurelius comes in the depths of the Antonine Plague, a horrible pandemic in Ancient Rome that killed millions of people. Rome’s economy has been devastated, people are dying in the streets, and everyone feels like it can’t possibly get better. What does Marcus do? He walks through the imperial palace and begins marking things for sale. Then for two months, on the lawn of the great emperor’s palace, he sells jewels, furniture, and finery owned by the emperor. He’s sending a message saying, ‘I’m not going to put myself first. I don’t need these fancy things—not when people are struggling.’ To me, this is like the CEO who takes a pay cut in a bad economy. This is the athlete who renegotiates their contract so the team can bring on new players. This is the leader who sacrifices and struggles and puts their people ahead of their own comfort and needs. That’s what greatness is.

Never be overheard complaining…Not even to yourself. In Meditations, Marcus speaks to this idea over and over and over again: Look inward, not outward. Don’t complain. Don’t meddle in the affairs of others. When you see someone acting objectionably, remember when you have acted that way. The Stoic does not have time to complain about others because they have too much to improve on at home. When we make the distinction between what’s in our control and outside our control, we see very quickly that it is only our own decisions and actions and words and thoughts that are worthy of our attention. Everything else is the business of everyone else.

Do only what’s essential. This was Marcus’ simple recipe for productivity and for happiness. “If you seek tranquility,” he said, “do less.” And then he clarifies. Not nothing. Less. Do only what’s essential. “Which brings a double satisfaction: to do less, better.” Follow this advice today and everyday. Put it somewhere you will see it frequently: do only what’s essential.

Waste no time worrying about other people’s opinions. Marcus talked about a strange contradiction: we are generally selfish people, yet, more than ourselves, we value other people’s opinions about us. “It never ceases to amaze me,” he wrote, “we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.” The fundamental Stoic principle is that we focus only on the things that are within our control. Other people’s opinions are not within our control. Don’t spend any time worrying about what other people think.

Don’t suffer imagined troubles. “Don’t let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole,” Marcus reminded himself. “Stick with the situation at hand.” Focus on the moment. Waste no time thinking about the monsters that may or may not be up ahead.

Focus on effort, not outcomes. It’s a strange paradox. The people who are most successful in life, who accomplish the most, who dominate their professions—they don’t care that much about winning. They don’t care about outcomes. As Marcus said, it’s insane to tie your wellbeing to things outside of your control. Success, mastery, sanity, Marcus writes, comes from tying your wellbeing, “to your own actions.” If you did your best, if you gave it your all, if you acted with your best judgment—that is a win…regardless of whether it’s a good or bad outcome.

Ask this question. Marcus liked to filter his choices through the question, “You’re afraid of death because you won’t be able to do this anymore?” That’s the thing about memento mori . It’s so clarifying. If you had unlimited time, maybe you wouldn’t mind spending two hours a day in traffic. Maybe you wouldn’t mind endlessly doom scrolling the cesspool of Twitter or tackling the blackhole that is your inbox. But if death was suddenly real to you—if you were given a few months or years to live—what would you immediately spend less time doing? What would the “this” Marcus referred to that you would cut out? Well cut that thing out now, not later.

Choose sympathy over outrage. In Meditations, Marcus writes that asking for a world without shameless people and evil acts is to ask the impossible. He adds that people who do harm others end up only harming themselves—”To do an injustice is to do yourself an injustice—it degrades you.” Marcus says these people actually deserve pity. “When people injure you,” he wrote, “feel sympathy rather than outrage or anger. Your sense of good and evil may be the same as theirs, or near it, in which case you have to excuse them. Or your sense of good and evil may differ from theirs. In which case they’re misguided and deserve your compassion.”

Blow your own nose. Marcus noticed how often he found himself praying to get something. Wouldn’t it be better, he thought, to make yourself strong enough not to need whatever you were hoping the gods would grace you with? Epictetus calls this blowing your own nose. Don’t wait around hoping for someone to save you. Instead, listen to Marcus’ empowering call to, “get active in your own rescue—if you care for yourself at all—and do it while you can.”

Think progress, not perfection. Marcus reminded himself: “Don’t await the perfection of Plato’s Republic.” Because if you do, that’s all you’ll do…wait. That’s one of the ironies about perfectionism: it rarely begets perfection—only disappointment, frustration, and of course, procrastination. So instead, Marcus said, “be satisfied with even the smallest progress.” You’re never going to be perfect—there is no such thing. You’re human. So instead, aim for progress, even the smallest amount.

Let go of anxiety. “Today I escaped from anxiety,” Marcus says. “Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions—not outside.” He writes this during a plague, no less. We tell ourselves we are stressed and anxious and worried because of the pressure our boss puts on us or because of some looming deadline or because of all of the places we have to be and people we have to see. And then when all that gets paired down, you realize, ‘Oh, no, it was me. I’m the common variable.’ The anxiety is coming from the inside. And you can choose to discard it.

Do the more difficult thing. Whenever we come to a little crossroad—a decision about how to do things and what things to do—Marcus said to default to the option that challenges you the most. He writes in Meditations about holding the reins in his non-dominant hand as both an exercise to practice and a metaphor for doing the difficult thing. Jump into the colder pool. Walk instead of drive. Pick up the book instead of your phone. Take responsibility instead of hoping it goes unnoticed. In matters big and small, courage is choosing the more difficult option. Make it a habit. Iron sharpens iron, after all. You’ll be better for it—not only for the improvement that comes from the challenge itself, but for the willpower you are developing by choosing that option on purpose.

Wake up early. Speaking of doing the difficult thing—one of the most relatable moments in Meditations is the argument he has with himself in the opening of book 5. It’s clearly an argument he’s had with himself many times, on many mornings—as have many of us: He knows he has to get out of bed, but so desperately wants to remain under the warm covers. It’s relatable…but it’s also impressive. Marcus didn’t actually have to get out of bed. He didn’t really have to do anything. The emperor had all sorts of prerogatives, and here Marcus was insisting that he rise early and get to work. Why? Because Marcus knew that winning the morning was key to winning the day and winning at life. He wouldn’t have heard the expression “the early bird gets the worm,” but he was well aware that a day well-begun is half done. By pushing himself to do something uncomfortable and tough, by insisting on doing what he said he knew he was born to do and what he loved to do, Marcus was beginning a process that would lead to a successful day.

Be strict with yourself and tolerant of others. It’s called self-discipline. It’s called self-improvement. And remember: Stoicism is a personal philosophy that’s designed to direct your behavior. It’s tempting to try to hold others to the very same standards you hold yourself to, but this is not only unfair (they didn’t sign up for that), it’s often counterproductive. An observation from Marcus’ most thoughtful biographer, Ernest Renan, explains the right way to do it. “The consequence of austere philosophy might have produced stiffness and severity. But here it was that the rare goodness of the nature of Marcus Aurelius shone out in all its brilliancy. His severity was confined only to himself.” That’s exactly the key. Your standards are for you. Marcus said philosophy is about being strict with yourself and forgiving of other people. That’s not only the kind way to be, it’s the only effective way to be.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Yes, a Stoic is strong. Yes, a Stoic is brave. Yes, a Stoic carries the load, and willingly carries the load for others when necessary. But they also have to be able to ask for help. Because sometimes that’s the strongest and bravest thing to do. “Don’t be ashamed to need help,” Marcus Aurelius wrote. “Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you’ve been wounded and you need a comrade to pull you up? So what?” If you need a minute, ask. If you need a helping hand, ask. If you need reassurance, ask. If you need a favor, ask. If you need therapy, go. If you need to start over, go for it. If you need to lean on someone or something, do it.

Treat success and failure the same. Some days, Marcus wrote, the crowd cheers and worships you. Other days, they hate you and hit you with brickbats. You get a lucky break sometimes—get more credit and attention than you deserve. Other times you’ll get held to an impossibly unfair standard. They’ll build you up, and then tear you down—and act like it was your fault you got way up there in the first place. They’ll criticize you in public and privately tell you it’s all for show. There will be good years and bad years. Times when the cards fall our way, times when the dice keep coming up snake eyes. That’s just the way it goes. The key, Marcus said, is to assent to all of it. Accept the good stuff without arrogance, he writes in Meditations. Let the bad stuff go with indifference. Neither success nor failure say anything about you. A rock thrown in the air gains nothing by going up, Marcus said, and nothing by falling down.

Be free of passion and full of love. Marcus wasn’t an unfeeling robot. He didn’t stuff things down. He was a husband and a father. He wrote beautifully, took principled stands, worked hard and sacrificed. None of these things are possible for an unfeeling person. Yet, it’s undeniable that he and the Stoics talked extensively about the management of one’s emotions. He talked about conquering their temper. He talked about overcoming grief. He talked about quenching lust and dispelling fear. It’s a paradox, but quite a wonderful one. At least, it is in Marcus’ expression. He explains at the opening of Meditations that he learned from his teacher Sextus, “not to display anger or other emotions. To be free of passion and yet full of love.” Beautiful. It’s not that the Stoics had no temper or had no fear. It’s that they controlled those emotions and replaced them with love. They loved their fate (amor fati), they loved other people, they loved every minute they were alive. Love, love, love. That’s what you replace it all with.

The obstacle is the way. When you think you’re stuck, Marcus said, you’re not. Yes, one path might be closed, but there’s always others that remain open. The impediment to action advances action, Marcus famously wrote. What stands in the way becomes the way. That’s not to say that nothing can ever get in your way. It’s to say that nothing can stop you from accommodating and adapting. There is nothing so bad that we can’t make some good out of it. We can treat every problem as an opportunity to practice virtue.

Always do the right thing. “Just that you do the right thing,” Marcus wrote. “The rest doesn’t matter. Cold or warm. Tired or well-rested. Despised or honored. Dying…or busy with other assignments.”

Marcus Aurelius thought a lot about thinking.

“Our life is dyed by the color of our thoughts,” he wrote. So naturally, he tried to be thoughtful about what he thought and how he thought. “Get used to winnowing your thoughts,” he said, “so that when someone asked you what you were thinking, you could answer straightforwardly.”

This is a good test for us today as we run around busy and preoccupied by our thoughts. If someone asked us, “What are you doing? Why are you doing it? What are you thinking about?”—would we have a good answer?

One of the things I am doing at the beginning of this year is meditating on a handful of ideas—most from the Stoics—that will hopefully make me better. Things that will hopefully dye my life a good color.

Here are some of them…

[1] Doing less, better. One of the challenges of the Daily Stoic New Year New You Challenge was to pick a mantra. I picked, “do less,” an idea that comes from Marcus Aurelius. “If you seek tranquility,” he said, “do less.” And then he follows the note to himself with some clarification. Not nothing, less. Do only what’s essential. “Which brings a double satisfaction,” he writes, “to do less, better.”

[2] Being fast now and later. I had Olympic mountain biker Kate Courtney on the podcast while I was working on Discipline is Destiny and she told me a piece of advice she had gotten from her coach when she was pushing herself too hard in practice. “Do you want to be fast now,” they asked, “or later?” Meaning, do you want to win this workout or win the race?

[3] Being a good steward of Stoicism. Next to my desk, I have a notecard tapped to the wall that says, “Am I being a good steward of Stoicism?” 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 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—I try to think about all those things.

[4] Not always having an opinion. It’s possible, Marcus Aurelius said, to not have an opinion. You don’t have to turn this into something, he reminds himself. You don’t have to let this upset you. You don’t have to think something about everything.

[5] One small win per day is a lot. One of the best pieces of advice from Seneca was actually pretty simple. “Each day,” he told Lucilius, you should, “acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other misfortunes, as well.” One gain per day. That’s it.

[6] Paying my taxes. Not just from the government. Seneca wrote to Lucilius, “All the things which cause complaint or dread are like the taxes of life—things from which, my dear Lucilius, you should never hope for exemption or seek escape.” Annoying people are a tax on being outside your house. Delays are a tax on travel. Haters are a tax on having a YouTube channel. There’s a tax on money too–and the more successful I have been, the more I’ve had to pay. There’s a tax on everything in life. You can whine. Or you can pay them gladly.

[7] The garbage time. There’s no such thing as ‘quality’ time. Time is time. In fact, as Jerry Seinfeld said, garbage time—eating cereal together late at night, laying around on the couch — is actually the best time. Forget chasing HUGE experiences. It can all be wonderful, if you so choose.

[8] Having a crowded table. It’s helpful to sit and really think about what success looks like. When you flash way forward into the future, what is it? You’re not going to think about how much money you made, how great a business you built, how many books or albums or companies you sold…if you’re alone, if your kids won’t answer your call, if your friends won’t have anything to do with you. Success, at the end of your life, is a crowded table—family and friends that want to be around you.

[9] The mundane is beautiful. In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius marvels at “nature’s inadvertence.” A baker, he writes, makes the dough, kneads it and then puts it in the oven. Then Nature takes over. “The way loaves of bread split open,” Marcus writes, “the ridges are just byproducts of the baking, and yet pleasing, somehow: they rouse our appetite without our knowing why.” It’s a beautiful observation about such a banal part of daily life, something only a poet could see. It’s also just a beautiful way to move through life. Notice the soft paw prints on the dusty trunk of a car. Marvel at the steam wafting from the vents on a New York City morning, the sound of a pen gliding across a notecard, and the floor filled with a child’s toys, arranged in the chaos of exhausted enjoyment. Find the beauty in the mundane.

[10] Patience. Seneca wrote, “The greatest remedy for anger is delay.” And Robert Greene said, “practice patience. Wait a day before taking action on the pressing problem.” And Joyce Carol Oates had a simple rule, “I almost never publish immediately.” Every first draft is placed in a drawer where it sits, sometimes for a year or more. When three of my all-time favorite thinkers converge, I know I’ve found an important thing to think about.

[11] Alive time of dead time? Speaking of Robert, a few years ago, Robert gave me a piece of advice I think about just about every day. At a time when I was stuck in a job I wanted out of, Robert told me there are two types of time: alive time and dead time. One is when you sit around, when you wait until things happen to you. The other is when you are in control, when you make every second count, when you are learning and improving and growing. So I decided I would make the absolute most of every moment while I was stuck in that job. It became an incredibly productive period of reading and researching and filling boxes of notecards that helped me write The Obstacle is the Way and Ego is the Enemy.

And bringing it full circle, I’m excited to announce that Robert and I are hosting an evening of conversation and philosophy on Power, Seduction, Ego and Destiny on March 10th and 11th.

Tickets are on sale now at ryanholiday.net/tour. If you are in or can make it to San Francisco or Seattle, I would love to see you any and all of you there!