Stephen Hanselman

Stephen Hanselman studied philosophy and history at Fresno Pacific University, where he first read the Stoics. He went on to earn a master's degree at Harvard Divinity School and also studied in Harvard's philosophy department.

He has worked in books for more than three decades, as a bookseller, a publisher and an agent. He spent 13 years at HarperCollins in sales, marketing and editorial roles and became publisher of HarperSanFrancisco. In 2005 he founded LevelFiveMedia, a literary agency whose clients have included Tim Ferriss, Jack Canfield and Ryan Holiday.

He wrote The Daily Stoic (2016) with Holiday, his client. The book gives one short passage from a Stoic thinker for each day of the year, with a comment on how to apply it. Hanselman translated the passages from Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus and lesser-known Stoics into plain modern English. The two later wrote The Daily Stoic Journal (2017) and Lives of the Stoics (2020) together.