Redefining Success: What Female Stoics Can Teach Us About Money, Ambition, and Inner Peace 

at The Female Stoic Podcast

How ancient philosophy — filtered through the voices of women history nearly forgot — offers a radically freeing answer to the question: "Do I have to want more to be successful?"

Why Women Need Their Own Voice in Stoicism

Stoic philosophy has enjoyed a massive modern revival — but scroll through most stoicism content online and you'll notice something: it's overwhelmingly narrated by men, for men. Cold showers, discipline, "be like Marcus Aurelius." Useful, but incomplete.

Stoicism isn't a male franchise. It's a toolkit for anyone trying to live with clarity, resilience, and purpose — and women have been shaping it since the 18th century, even if their names rarely made it into the popular canon.

This isn't about competing with men or adopting "masculine" traits to be taken seriously. As one modern female stoic voice put it plainly: embracing femininity isn't a weakness to overcome, it's a strength to lean into. Gender-neutral packaging of ambition and empowerment can end up erasing exactly what makes women's perspective valuable in the first place.

The Question at the Heart of This Post: Is Success Really About Money?

A listener recently asked a version of a question so many of us quietly wrestle with:

"I don't have the drive to be rich. I'm happy just paying my bills and making my creative work. Everyone around me says I should want more. Does that mean I'm not successful?"

If you've ever felt guilty for not chasing a bigger salary, a bigger title, or a bigger bank balance — this one's for you.

Meet Elizabeth Montagu: The Original "Bluestocking"

To answer this, it helps to look back at Elizabeth Montagu, the wealthiest and most influential founder of the Bluestocking Society — a circle of women who began gathering around 1750 to discuss literature, art, and ideas at a time when female intellectualism was considered practically scandalous.

Montagu used her position to give female thinkers and creatives a rare gift: financial security and recognition in a world that routinely dismissed them. Her circle included Elizabeth Carter, who famously translated the works of the Stoic philosopher Epictetus — introducing Stoic thought on virtue, reason, and self-control to a wider, and notably female, audience.

Montagu is credited with a line that cuts right to the heart of the money-versus-meaning debate:

"The Muses crown virtue when fortune refuses to do it."

In other words: lasting honour and recognition come from creative and intellectual contribution — not from luck, status, or wealth. Fortune is fickle. Virtue and craft endure.

The Stoic Circle of Control (And Why It's the Antidote to Comparison)

This idea connects directly to one of Stoicism's foundational concepts: the dichotomy of control, sometimes called the Stoic circle of control.

It splits everything in life into two categories:

• Within our control — our thoughts, judgements, motivations, desires, and how we choose to respond to situations
• Outside our control — other people's opinions, actions, the past, the future, and yes, how much money everyone thinks you should be earning

When you stop pouring emotional energy into things outside that circle — like family pressure to "want more" — you free up enormous capacity to focus on what's actually yours to shape: your values, your effort, your craft.

The Four Cardinal Virtues, Applied to Real Life

Stoicism organizes the good life around four virtues:

1. Wisdom — discerning what's actually good for you, not what looks good to others
2. Justice — treating yourself and others fairly and honestly
3. Courage — the quiet strength to stay the course even when people question your choices
4. Temperance — moderation, consistency, and the daily discipline that builds momentum over time

None of these virtues mention a salary. None of them require ambition to look a certain way. That's the point.

So, Is It OK to Just... Not Want to Be Rich?

According to this Stoic framework — yes, completely.

If your version of success is financial stability, meaningful creative work, and inner peace, that is success — as long as it's genuinely your own definition, not a fear response dressed up as contentment. The real work isn't forcing yourself to want more money. It's noticing when you're absorbing other people's anxiety about your choices, and gently letting that go.

Practical takeaways:

• Stay financially organised — save consistently, even in small amounts
• Keep showing up for your creative or meaningful work, even when the results are slow
• Recognise other people's opinions about your ambition as external — not yours to carry
• Measure success by how far you've come, not by a number someone else set

Success measured by mastery of your own emotions, focus, and values is success you can never lose — because no one else controls it.

Final Thought

You don't need to want what everyone else wants to be considered successful. You need to know your own virtues, stay focused on them, and let the noise of external expectation pass through the circle you don't control. That's not a lack of ambition — it's Stoic wisdom in action.

Keep exploring

If this resonated, follow along for more on how history's female thinkers — Bluestockings, Stoics, and quiet revolutionaries — can guide modern women toward a version of success and empowerment that's actually their own.

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