Tools for Thinking and Living Better
The Practical Philosopher explores timeless wisdom from Stoicism, Buddhism, and cutting-edge psychology, distilled into actionable insights for modern life. Hosted by Colin Burke, each episode is an invitation to think more clearly and live more deliberately.
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How to Be Ambitious and Actually Enjoy Your Life
If you got everything you're chasing right now, how long would the feeling actually last? In this episode, Colin breaks down why the fight between living in the moment and chasing your goals is a false one. Drawing on Stoicism, Buddhism, and modern psychology, including the Harvard study showing we spend nearly half our waking hours thinking about something other than what we're doing, and that this mind-wandering typically makes us unhappy, this episode makes one thing clear: your career is a story that lives in the past and future, but your life only exists right now. In this episode you'll learn:Why "I'll be happy when" is a promise your brain can't keepHow to turn goals into compasses instead of destinationsHow to stop shooting the second arrowHow to tell a worthy grind from a bad trade dressed up as disciplineChase hard. Be here. You can do both.Study referenced: Killingsworth & Gilbert (2010), "A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind," Science
All Episodes
The Philosophy of Starting Over (It's Not Too Late for This Year)
Welcome to July the exact halfway point of the year.I want you to be honest. How many of your January goals are still alive? If the answer is not something your proud of this episo...
Episode 9: "There Are No Tigers" how to beat overthinking
Overthinking might be the quietest thing standing between you and the life you want. As someone who loves data and analysis, learning when not to think has been one of my hardest l...
Nothing Lasts: And That's the Point: How Impermanence Reveals Your Bigger Why- Episode 8
What would you do if you really accepted that your time is limited? In this episode, Colin explores why impermanence isn't the enemy of purpose it's the engine. Drawing from Buddhi...
The Discipline Paradox: Why Consistency Creates Freedom - Episode 7
In this episode of The Practical Philosopher, I reframe discipline as something radically different: not self-punishment, but self-respect. Not intensity, but consistency. Not hype...
Episode 6: The Three Bs: A Compass for 2026
It’s hard to know if you’re going in the right direction—especially when life is full of choices, setbacks, and uncertainty that you can’t control. In this New Year’s episode of Th...
Episode 5: The Five Hindrances: Understanding the Mind’s Resistance
In this episode of The Practical Philosopher, we dive into one of the most powerful frameworks for understanding why inner peace — and meaningful action — often slips through our f...
Episode 4: Existentialism the call to create your own purpose
What is the purpose of life? Existentialism’s answer is simple: no one can choose it for you — you must create it yourself.In this episode, we break down existentialism in a clear ...
Episode 3: The Blueprint Behind Your Life: How to Build a Personal Philosophy
In this episode, we step back from Stoicism and Buddhism and zoom into something even more fundamental — the personal philosophy you’re already living by. Most people go through li...
Episode 2: The Practical Side of Buddhism — How to Let Go Without Giving Up
In this episode of The Practical Philosopher, we explore the timeless wisdom of Buddhism — not as dogma, but as a way of living. Colin unpacks the life of Siddhartha Gautama, the m...
Episode 1 How Stoicism Changed the Way I See Life
In this debut episode of The Practical Philosopher, host Colin Burke unpacks one of history’s most practical and enduring schools of thought: Stoicism.We’ll cut through the myths t...
The Practical Philosopher Introduction
Welcome to The Practical Philosopher, hosted by Colin Burke.This podcast explores how timeless ideas—from Stoicism to Buddhism and beyond—can be turned into practical wisdom for mo...
About the Host
I spent six years as a personal trainer before I ever opened a book on Stoicism. That job taught me, the hard way, that motivation is unreliable and systems are what actually change a life. Chasing that same question, what actually works, is what eventually pulled me out of the gym and into philosophy: not the academic kind, but the kind Marcus Aurelius and the Buddha used to survive an actual life.
I started The Practical Philosopher to turn that search into something useful for other people. I host it while training for a marathon, running a business, and navigating my own career pivot in real time, so nothing on this show is theoretical for me. Every episode is the same experiment: take an idea that's two thousand years old, or two years old, and find out if it holds up on an ordinary Tuesday.