Ryan Holiday

Ryan Holiday grew up in Sacramento, California. He left the University of California, Riverside, at 19 to work in Hollywood and as a research assistant to the writer Robert Greene. He became director of marketing at American Apparel while still in his early twenties. His first book, Trust Me, I'm Lying (2012), described how he and others fed false or staged stories to blogs and news sites.

He found Stoic philosophy in college, through Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. The Obstacle Is the Way (2014) applies one Stoic idea: what stands in the way becomes the way. It teaches three disciplines: perception, action and will. The book became popular with athletes and coaches. Some scholars say his books turn Stoicism into a set of self-help tactics and leave out its ethics and its view of the cosmos.

He followed it with Ego Is the Enemy, The Daily Stoic, Stillness Is the Key and a series on the four Stoic virtues. He runs the Daily Stoic newsletter and podcast and a bookstore in Bastrop, Texas, where he lives on a farm with his family.