Stay steady and fair under pressure: the Stoics' daily practices, built for leaders
Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus and Seneca turned into a morning preparation, a control sort, an evening review, a team pre-mortem and a 12-week programme, with a file for every leadership moment.
- A 10-chapter e-book with 38 verbatim quotations from public-domain translations and Bodhih's own plain-words renderings
- Two Excel workbooks: a 9-sheet practice workbook with streak counter and dashboard, and the Control Sorter and Pre-Mortem diagnostic
- 5 fillable forms and 7 Word templates, including 40 scripts, a crisis playbook, a workshop guide, 52 team emails and 27 AI prompts
- A 52-card practice deck, 3 cheat sheets, a Start Here map, a 55-event calendar and a 34-task board import
The Stoic Leader · Bodhih Pro Kits · 138 by Bodhih Training, trainers to 2,000+ companies since 2008.
What is Stoic leadership?
Stoic leadership applies the ideas of Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius to leading people: act on what is yours, check your judgements before reacting, delay before anger, prepare for setbacks, and test decisions against wisdom, courage, justice and self-control. The Stoic Leader kit from Bodhih Training turns these into daily practices and tools.
Want the full free guide first? Read What Is Stoic Leadership? 7 Daily Practices for Managers.
You already feel the problem. Here is what it is costing you.
The room borrows your mood
When an incident lands, people take their cue from the leader. A quick voice and three questions without waiting for answers spread faster than any update.
Busy on everything, in charge of little
Some mornings you are drafting replies to problems that are not yours to fix while the parts that are yours wait. It feels like work and moves almost nothing.
The message you wish you had not sent
Anger arrives in seconds and the sent message stays for months. People who see a leader explode stop bringing bad news early.
Risks everybody knew about
After a failed launch, someone says they always thought it would happen. In polite meetings nobody wants to be the doubter.
Stoicism as slogans
Quotes on posters and in feeds rarely become habits. Without a routine, a log and a team practice, the ideas stay on the wall.
A calendar that has eaten the week
Thirty-plus meetings and the plan written on Thursday night. The time leaks in pieces too small to notice.
Picture the next few weeks with the kit open beside you.
Picture tomorrow at 07:40. Before you open the inbox, you write one line on the morning page: the hardest moment today will be the 10:00 meeting. You write the first sentence you will say when it gets heated. Three minutes, and the day already feels less like an ambush.
Now it is mid-morning and a problem lands. Instead of replying at once, you split it into fully mine, partly mine and not mine. The angry draft never leaves your notes app. As you do the first action within the hour, you notice the worry has somewhere to go.
Imagine Friday afternoon in week five. Your team has just spent 45 minutes imagining that next month's launch failed. Someone named the risk everyone had been avoiding, and you thanked them by name. The plan has moved a week, and nobody had to be the doubter.
And picture week twelve. You open the Dashboard: the streak, the calm rating by week, the most-used principle, the team pulse. Whether you begin with the e-book tonight or the morning page tomorrow, the practice is already in your calendar.
22 files that do the work for you
The e-book shows you how. The tools make it happen. Here is exactly what you download.
The Stoic Leader (e-book, PDF)
The guide: methods, worked examples, scripts and exercises
Start here map
The daily, weekly and monthly rhythm on one page, which file to open for each leadership moment, your first hour and a 30/60/90 day use plan.
Stoic Leader Practice Workbook
Nine-sheet master workbook: settings, 18-principle library, daily practice log with streak counter, weekly review, situations log, monthly team pulse, 12-week programme tracker and a dashboard with a calm-by-week chart.
Control Sorter and Pre-Mortem workbook
The kit's signature diagnostic: a control sorter with suggested bins and worry flags, a pre-mortem risk register with scores and levels, a four-virtues option scorer with verdicts and ranks, and a dashboard.
Daily practice pages: morning preparation and evening review
Three fillable pages: a week of three-minute morning preparations on one page, a week of five-minute evening reviews on one page, and a Friday weekly review with premeditation.
Control sort worksheet
Two-page fillable worksheet: sort any problem into fully mine, partly mine and not mine with an action or check date for each, plus a team version for meetings.
Premeditation of adversity: team pre-mortem
Three-page fillable facilitation form for a 45-minute team pre-mortem: set-up, silent writing, scoring, prevention with owners and a close.
Four virtues decision test
Two-page fillable decision test: score up to three options on wisdom, courage, justice and self-control, apply the three rules and record the decision.
Anger cool-down plan (after Seneca)
Two-page fillable plan written while calm: your warning signs, ten-second and ten-minute moves, three checks before acting, and a log for using the plan.
Leadership scripts and messages
40 exact-words scripts and messages for incidents, anger, conflict, recognition, feedback, ethical pressure and time, each with when to use it and what to do next.
Team workshop facilitator guide
Facilitator guide for a 90-minute session and a half-day workshop on Stoic practice for teams: timed agendas, slide outline, exercises, debrief questions and follow-up.
Stoic leadership code: team charter
One-page team charter to adopt in a workshop: how we sort problems, handle pressure and anger, decide, disagree, recognise each other and serve the people who rely on us.
Principle of the week: 52 team emails
52 short team emails or chat posts (one per card), each with a subject line, one principle, one question and one action, ready to send every Monday.
Crisis leadership playbook: first 24 hours, first week, first month
Playbook for leading through an incident: a first-hour card to fill in now, the 24-hour rhythm, first week and first month, update templates, handover script and an after-action review.
AI prompt pack for Stoic leaders
27 tool-agnostic prompts grouped by leadership moment, each with what to paste in and what to check before using the output.
Worked example pack: Farah's 12 weeks
The kit's main forms completely filled in for one composite leader: morning and evening pages, control sort, team pre-mortem, four virtues test, anger cool-down plan, team pulse and her week-12 dashboard.
All principles on one page, and the sources
All 18 principles with source and plain words, the four virtues test, and a page on the texts and translations used and how to read them.
Situation finder decision card
If this happens, use this: 16 leadership moments with the principle, the file to open and the first move.
Misreadings and mistakes card
Eight harmful misreadings of Stoicism at work, ten practice mistakes and a Friday self-check.
Stoic practice card deck
52 printable practice cards in four suits, one principle per card with a verbatim source line or an In plain words line, a question and a one-line action, plus a how-to page.
12-week programme calendar
55 calendar events: set-up, a Monday card-and-chapter reminder, each programme action and a Friday review for all 12 weeks, each naming the file to open.
12-week programme task board import
34 programme actions as a CSV for Trello, Asana, Notion, Planner or Jira, with week, focus, file to open and due date.
Chapter by chapter
Each chapter opens with a real situation, gives you a method and ends with something to do today, using the tools in your kit.
- Format
- PDF e-book + XLSX + fillable PDF + DOCX + printable PDF + ICS + CSV
- Files
- 22 files plus a one-click ZIP
- E-book
- 67 pages
- Workbooks
- 9 and 6 sheets with sample data, formulas and dashboards
- Works with
- Excel, Google Sheets, LibreOffice, Word, Google Docs, Acrobat Reader, GoodNotes, Google Calendar, Outlook, Apple Calendar, Trello, Asana, Notion, Planner, Jira
- Best for
- Managers and leaders at any level who want a daily practice for pressure, anger, risk and judgement
Steady Hands in a Shaking Room
A 02:40 outage, three very different Stoics, the daily engine, and a note on the sources and translations used.
The Control Sort
Sorting every problem into fully mine, partly mine and not mine, with an action or a check date for each.
Judgements, Not Events
The four-line reframe (camera, story, test, choose) for the moments when your story runs ahead of the facts.
The Morning Preparation
Three minutes before the inbox: the hardest moment, the people, what is yours and one virtue to practise.
The Evening Review
Five minutes at night, honest but kind: what went well, what to change, what to repair.
Premeditation: The Team Pre-Mortem
Premeditation of adversity for yourself each week, and a 45-minute team pre-mortem before anything that matters.
The Four Virtues Decision Test
Scoring options on wisdom, courage, justice and self-control, and three rules for when to wait or ask.
Anger, Delay and the Cool-Down Plan
Seneca's first remedy, delay, built into a written cool-down plan with three checks before you act.
Crisis: The Obstacle and the View from Above
The crisis rhythm: steady yourself, sort at speed, set one owner and one update time, then look for what the obstacle makes possible.
Time and Attention
A one-week calendar audit, Marcus's filtering question and two protected thinking blocks a week.
Giving, Receiving and the Common Good
Recognition by Seneca's rules, receiving correction gladly, and a one-page leadership code for the team.
Twelve Weeks, Then a Lifetime of Practice
How the 12 weeks run, what to do when you miss days, and how to keep practising afterwards.
Misreadings, Limits and When to Get Support
Harmful misreadings of Stoicism at work, Seneca's contradictions, and when and where to get support.
How to Read the Old Translations
Who translated what, and four tips for reading 19th-century translations with ease.
Not just reading. Tools you will actually open again.
E-book
- The Stoic Leader: 10 chapters, introduction, conclusion, 2 appendices and 6 hand-drawn figures, about 10,500 words (PDF)
Start here
- 00-Start-Here-Map: the daily, weekly and monthly rhythm, which file to open for each leadership moment, your first hour and a 30/60/90 day plan
Spreadsheets
- Stoic Leader Practice Workbook (9 sheets): Start here, Settings, Principles library of 18, Daily Log with streak counter, Weekly Review, Situations Log, Team Pulse, Programme Tracker and a Dashboard with a calm-by-week chart
- Control Sorter and Pre-Mortem workbook (6 sheets): control sorter with worry flags, pre-mortem risk register, four-virtues option scorer and a dashboard
Fillable PDF forms
- Daily practice pages: morning preparation and evening review, a week per page, plus a Friday review
- Control sort worksheet, with a team version
- Premeditation of adversity: team pre-mortem
- Four virtues decision test
- Anger cool-down plan (after Seneca)
Word templates
- Leadership scripts and messages: 40 scripts
- Team workshop facilitator guide: 90-minute and half-day versions
- Stoic leadership code: one-page team charter
- Principle of the week: 52 team emails
- Crisis leadership playbook: first 24 hours, first week, first month
- AI prompt pack for Stoic leaders: 27 prompts
- Worked example pack: Farah's 12 weeks, the main forms filled in
Cheat sheets
- All principles on one page, with the sources and how to read them
- Situation finder decision card: if this happens, use this
- Misreadings and mistakes card
- Stoic practice card deck: 52 cards in four suits plus a how-to page (14 printable pages)
Calendar and import
- 12-week programme calendar (ICS): 55 events for Google Calendar, Outlook or Apple Calendar
- 12-week programme task board (CSV): 34 tasks for Trello, Asana, Notion, Planner or Jira
When you have worked through it, you will be able to…
Every outcome is practised with a worked example and a tool, not just described.
- Start a three-minute morning preparation and a five-minute evening review you can keep up on busy days
- Sort any problem into fully mine, partly mine and not mine, and act on the right part first
- Check the story you add to events before you reply, using the four-line reframe
- Use delay and a written cool-down plan when anger rises, and repair quickly when it slips through
- Run a 45-minute team pre-mortem that makes it safe to name uncomfortable risks
- Test decisions against wisdom, courage, justice and self-control, and know when to ask the experts
- Lead an incident with one owner, one channel and one update time
- Recognise people quickly and specifically, ask for correction, and agree a leadership code with your team
Know your starting point. Prove your progress.
People who measure before and after improve faster and can show it. AssessAll, our sister assessment platform, has AI-graded assessments that pair with this kit. Take one now, work through the kit, then re-take it.
Resilience & Stress Management
Take the assessment →AssessAll assessmentBehaviour Under Pressure Assessment for Working Professionals
Take the assessment →AssessAll assessmentEmotional Intelligence Profile
Take the assessment →JobularyIf-then plans that make habits stick (Jobulary)
Make it a growth plan →A taste of the Introduction
Seneca (born around 4 to 1 BCE, died 65 CE) was a Roman statesman and writer. He was exiled, recalled, made tutor to the young Nero and then one of his chief advisers. He became one of the richest men of his age while writing about the value of simple living, and he knew the gap was noticed. In 65 CE Nero ordered him to take his own life. We use Seneca honestly in this kit: as a sharp observer of anger, time and generosity who did not always live up to his own words, and said so. Epictetus (born in the 50s CE, died around 135) came from Hierapolis in Asia Minor and was for a time the slave of Epaphroditus, a freedman at Nero's court. Once free, he studied philosophy; when Domitian banished philosophers from Rome, he moved to Nicopolis in north-west Greece and opened a school. He wrote nothing himself. His student Arrian recorded his teaching in the Discourses, and the short Enchiridion, or Handbook, distils it.
The honest comparison
| Free templates and typical advice | This kit | |
|---|---|---|
| The ideas | Quotes on a poster | 38 verbatim quotations with sources, each turned into a method with steps and a worked example |
| The sources | Unattributed lines, often misquoted | Word-for-word public-domain translations (Long, Higginson, Stewart), with section numbers |
| Daily practice | "Journal every day" | Morning and evening pages, a Daily Log with streak counter and a Weekly Review with averages |
| Risk | "Expect the worst" | A 45-minute team pre-mortem form and a scored risk register |
| Anger | "Stay calm" | A written cool-down plan, holding lines and an anger curve |
| The team | Personal self-help only | Workshop guide, leadership code, 52 team emails, monthly pulse and a 52-card deck |
| Cautions | "Tough it out" | A 'What this does not mean' box in every chapter and a section on when to get support |
Made for you if…
- Managers, team leads and supervisors who want to stay calm and fair when pressure rises
- Founders and heads of function carrying crises, change and hard decisions
- Operations, healthcare, retail, education and public-sector leaders whose days are full of incidents
- HR and L&D leaders looking for a structured resilience and judgement programme for managers
- Senior professionals who have read about Stoicism and want a practical system rather than quotes
- Leaders of any faith or none: the kit is philosophy for work, not religion
Probably not for you if…
- Anyone looking for mental-health treatment: the kit is educational and points you to professional support where needed
- Readers wanting academic scholarship on Stoic philosophy: the history is brief and the focus is practice
- People wanting a 'tough it out' manual: the kit argues against suppressing feelings and ignoring stress
Built by trainers, tested in real rooms.
Bodhih Training has designed and delivered corporate programmes since 2008. Bodhih Pro Kits package what works in those workshops into a guide plus the exact tools we use, so you can apply it the same day without a facilitator in the room.
From here to using it in three steps
- STEP 1
Tap Get the kit
Name, email and country. UPI, card or netbanking in India; international cards everywhere else. No account to create.
- STEP 2
Download instantly
Your download page opens at once, with every file and a one-click ZIP. A permanent link lands in your inbox too.
- STEP 3
Open the first tool
Start with the quick-start chapter, then the main spreadsheet or planner. Most buyers use something from the kit the same day.
The next hard moment is already on its way. Meet it prepared.
Open the Start Here map, type your start date into the Settings sheet and put the morning page where you will see it first tomorrow. Whether you start with the e-book tonight or the control sort on your next problem, the practice begins the same day.
Personal licence for the buyer's own use (and use with your own team or clients where the kit says so). Please don't share or resell the files. Team and company licences: solutions@bodhih.com.
The Bodhih family, when you are ready for more
The Gita Leader
Decisions, duty and calm from the Bhagavad Gita.
Sun Tzu's Art of War for Leaders
Strategy and competition from Sun Tzu.
Chanakya's Arthashastra for Leaders
Governance and strategy from Kautilya.
Old Wisdom for Modern Days
Ten philosophies for everyday life.
AssessAll
250+ AI-graded assessments to measure skills and earn verified credentials.
Jobulary
Individual development plans that start from evidence and stay yours.
Bodhih Training
Run this topic as a live workshop for your team, in person or online.
Pewple
Book a vetted coach for career, leadership or communication. Pay per session.
Bodhih.org pathways
Certification pathways in Applied AI, Workplace English and management.
Is this a religious book?
No. It is philosophy put to work in leadership. The Stoics wrote about the gods and a rational order in nature; the kit uses their ethics and practices for work, leaves theology to each reader, and treats believers' views with respect. It is written for leaders of any faith or none.
Which translation do you use and why?
Every quotation is copied word for word from public-domain 19th-century translations: George Long's Marcus Aurelius (1862) and Epictetus (1877), T. W. Higginson's Enchiridion (1865) and Aubrey Stewart's Seneca (1887 and 1889). They are accurate, freely usable and citable by section. The In plain words lines and everything else are Bodhih Training's own original wording.
What is the dichotomy of control?
It is the Stoic idea, from the first chapter of Epictetus's Enchiridion, that some things are in our power (our opinions, choices and conduct) and others are not. The kit turns it into a three-bin control sort, fully mine, partly mine and not mine, with an action or a check date for each part of a problem.
How do Stoic leaders handle anger?
Seneca's first remedy is delay: let the first heat pass before you send, decide or confront. The kit's Anger Cool-Down Plan has you write your warning signs, a ten-second move, a ten-minute rule and three checks while you are calm, so the plan is ready when you are not.
How long does the daily practice take?
About ten minutes a day: three minutes in the morning, two minutes whenever a problem lands, five minutes in the evening. The weekly review takes twenty minutes and a team pre-mortem forty-five.
Can I use it with my team?
Yes. The workshop guide has 90-minute and half-day versions, the leadership code is a one-page team charter, and the 52 principle-of-the-week emails match the card deck. Your personal licence covers use with your own team; company licences are available.
How do I measure my starting point?
AssessAll offers three assessments that fit this kit: Resilience & Stress Management, Behaviour Under Pressure Assessment for Working Professionals, Emotional Intelligence Profile. Take one in week one and again after week twelve to compare. They are separate products, not included in the kit; links are on the Start Here map.
How do I turn the practices into lasting habits?
The programme pairs each practice with a time and a trigger. The Jobulary guide 'If-then plans that make habits stick', linked on the Start Here map, shows how to turn each practice into a development plan of simple if-then rules.
Is this mental-health advice?
No. The kit is educational. It does not diagnose or treat stress, anxiety or anger problems. If stress, low mood, poor sleep or anger persist for two weeks or longer, talk to your doctor, a qualified professional or your employee assistance programme (EAP); the e-book's Appendix A says more.
How is this different from Old Wisdom for Modern Days?
Old Wisdom for Modern Days covers ten philosophies for personal life. The Stoic Leader goes deep on one tradition for people who lead, with team tools, a crisis playbook, two workbooks and a 12-week programme.
How much does The Stoic Leader cost?
₹1,299 including 18% GST for buyers in India, or $34 for buyers outside India. One-time payment, no subscription, with an automatic invoice.
How do I get the files after paying?
Instantly. Your download page opens the moment payment succeeds, and a permanent download link is emailed to you. Download each file separately or everything in one ZIP.
What software do I need?
Any of the usual tools: Excel or Google Sheets for spreadsheets, Word or Google Docs for templates, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Preview, Xodo or GoodNotes for the fillable PDFs, and Google, Outlook or Apple Calendar for the calendar plan.
Can I get a refund?
Because it is a digital download, kits are not refundable once downloaded. We always refund a duplicate charge or a failed delivery, and if a file is corrupted and we cannot fix it within 3 working days. Full terms: bodhih.org/refunds.
Can my company buy this for a team?
Yes. Team and company licences, and workshops on this topic run by Bodhih Training, are available. Write to solutions@bodhih.com or call +91 99000 11601.
