Who I am
I teach practical Stoicism.
Not the gym-bro version. Not the “never feel anything” version. The old, quiet, stubborn version — the one Marcus Aurelius wrote to himself at night when he couldn’t sleep, the one Epictetus taught to slaves and emperors in the same room, the one Seneca used to stay steady while the politics around him killed everyone he knew.
I came to it the way most people do. Something broke and the usual answers didn’t work. I found Stoicism, practised it badly for years, and slowly got better. I still lose my temper in traffic. I still check my phone when I’m meant to be present with my kids. But less than I used to. That’s what I’m writing about.
I’m Jon Brooks. British, based in the UK, two kids, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu purple belt. I’ve been studying Stoicism for fifteen years and teaching it full-time for most of the last decade.
Jiu-jitsu matters to the story because it’s where I first understood what practice actually means. You can read every book on grappling and still get submitted in thirty seconds by someone who has drilled the same escape a thousand times. Stoicism works the same way. The person who reads Meditations on Sunday and snaps at their partner on Tuesday isn’t a bad Stoic. They just haven’t done the reps yet.
What I do
I write and teach across a few places. Here’s the map, in case you want to go deeper than the newsletter.
The 7-Day Stoic Challenge. Free, and the best place to start. One short audio lesson and one exercise a day for a week. By the end you’ll have trained more than most people who have only read about it. stoicchallenge.co.
The Stoic Handbook podcast. Weekly episodes on handling anxiety, anger, relationships, and everything else that actually tests a philosophy. Around 500,000 downloads as of writing this. You can find it on Apple, Spotify, or at stoichandbook.buzzsprout.com.
The Stoic Vault. A private membership where people practise Stoicism seriously, with weekly exercises, monthly live sessions, and coaching from me. Not a content library. A training ground. Details at stoicvault.com.
Stoic Anxiety Mastery. A self-paced course for people whose main reason for finding Stoicism was anxiety. It’s the condensed version of what I’ve learned teaching and coaching for the last ten years. stoicanxiety.com.
YouTube. Video breakdowns of Stoic ideas, interviews, and occasional thought experiments.
What I believe
Stoicism is a skill, not a theory. You train it.
Most of what the Stoics taught works better than any self-help book I’ve ever read, but it only works if you actually do it. Reading about the Dichotomy of Control once is like watching one jiu-jitsu class and thinking you know how to defend yourself.
I also think most modern takes on Stoicism get it wrong in the same way. They strip out the warmth, the kindness, the sense that we’re all in this together, and leave a kind of emotional armour that looks like strength but is actually brittleness. The real Stoics weren’t cold. Marcus writes about his wife and his tutors with genuine affection. Seneca’s letters to Lucilius read like letters between friends. Epictetus built a whole school around the idea that everyone he met was worthy of respect.
Kindness and courage aren’t opposites. They’re the same skill aimed in two directions.
What others say
“Jon is a great source of information, and his content has helped many people get turned on to modern Stoicism.”
— Donald J. Robertson, Stoicism: Philosophy as a Way of Life
“Thank you, Jon, for one of the most motivational and moving meditations I’ve heard. I’ve listened to it twice now, and it’s one of the few exercises that allows me to turn my negativity into something positive rather than trying to repress it altogether.”
— Dana, Stoic Handbook member
How to start
If this is your first time here, I’d read the Start Here post before the newsletter. It’s short, it points to the three pieces new readers find most useful, and it’ll give you a real feel for the voice before you decide to subscribe.
If you’d rather train than read, start with the free 7-Day Stoic Challenge instead. One audio lesson and one exercise a day for a week.
If you’d rather just dive in, the subscribe box below will send you one post a week. No sales emails. No noise. Unsubscribe in one click if it’s not for you.
