The Stoic Handbook with Jon Brooks
Oct 13, 2026 · 35 min · 12 segments
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…
Jon BrooksHost
He says, "When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly.
But I have seen the beauty of good and the ugliness of evil, and I have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own.
Not the same blood or birth, but of the same mind and possessing a share of the divine.
We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower." So what do you think is going on there? There are lots of different approaches and systems, and there's a bit been a lot read into this quote.
So on the surface, Marcus is preparing his mind, and we're gonna look at some of these techniques before he begins the day, right? He's saying, "When you wake up in the morning, the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly." It sort of takes away the sting.
You know, sometimes when we get frustrated, it's mostly because our expectations of reality didn't match reality.
So Marcus is saying, "Hey, you probably are going to be frustrated today dealing with these types of people," but it doesn't end there, right? So Marcus continues after he reminds himself o- of this.
We have a part of God in us, even the people that annoy us." Um, so as you can see, he's reminding himself of the types of people that he's gonna meet.
He's already forgiving them beforehand, and he's also saying, "I'm actually quite like them, and we both share divinity." And then he ends with, you know, "We are born to work together like feet, hands, eyes, two rows of teeth, upper and lower." Okay? So there's a lot going on in that quote and, um, if you unpack it, you can find a whole training manual in there.
He says, "When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly.
But I have seen the beauty of good and the ugliness of evil, and I have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own.
Not the same blood or birth, but of the same mind and possessing a share of the divine.
We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower." So what do you think is going on there? There are lots of different approaches and systems, and there's a bit been a lot read into this quote.
So on the surface, Marcus is preparing his mind, and we're gonna look at some of these techniques before he begins the day, right? He's saying, "When you wake up in the morning, the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly." It sort of takes away the sting.
You know, sometimes when we get frustrated, it's mostly because our expectations of reality didn't match reality.
So Marcus is saying, "Hey, you probably are going to be frustrated today dealing with these types of people," but it doesn't end there, right? So Marcus continues after he reminds himself o- of this.
We have a part of God in us, even the people that annoy us." Um, so as you can see, he's reminding himself of the types of people that he's gonna meet.
He's already forgiving them beforehand, and he's also saying, "I'm actually quite like them, and we both share divinity." And then he ends with, you know, "We are born to work together like feet, hands, eyes, two rows of teeth, upper and lower." Okay? So there's a lot going on in that quote and, um, if you unpack it, you can find a whole training manual in there.
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