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Ryan Holiday

Goodreads Author

Born

The United States

Website

http://www.ryanholiday.net

Twitter

ryanholiday

Genre

Nonfiction

Influences

Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Viktor E. Frankl, Robert Greene, Chuck Palahn ...more

Member Since

June 2012

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Ryan Holiday is media strategist for notorious clients like Tucker Max and Dov Charney. After dropping out of college at 19 to apprentice under the strategist Robert Greene, he went on to advise many bestselling authors and multi-platinum musicians. He is the Director of Marketing at American Apparel, where his work in advertising was internationally known. His strategies are used as case studies by Twitter, YouTube, and Google, and have been written about in AdAge, the New York Times, Gawker, and Fast Company. He is the author is *Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator*, which is due out in July. He currently lives in New Orleans, with his rebellious puppy, Hanno. ...more

408 posts
Ryan Holiday's Blog

I’m Sorry But There’s No Shortcut for This (And That’s a Good Thing)

It’s clearly a timeless tendency because Seneca tells us a story about it from two thousand years ago.

People have always wanted to get something for nothing. They’ve always wanted to get the results without doing the work.

Especially when it comes to knowledge.

“Wanting to appear a well-read man,” Seneca writes about a rich but lazy Roman named Calvisius Sabinus, “he thought up the following

Combine Editions
Ryan Holiday’s books

Average rating: 4.16 · 399,001 ratings · 28,288 reviews · 86 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph 4.15 avg rating — 104,937 ratings — published 2014 — 112 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Ego Is the Enemy 4.13 avg rating — 92,668 ratings — published 2016 — 101 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living by Ryan Holiday (Goodreads Author), Stephen Hanselman 4.36 avg rating — 55,043 ratings — published 2016	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Stillness Is the Key 4.22 avg rating — 42,665 ratings — published 2019 — 67 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Discipline Is Destiny: The Power of Self-Control 4.24 avg rating — 25,390 ratings — published 2022 — 29 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave 4.03 avg rating — 17,961 ratings — published 2021 — 44 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator 3.85 avg rating — 12,511 ratings — published 2012 — 38 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Growth Hacker Marketing: A Primer on the Future of PR, Marketing, and Advertising 3.77 avg rating — 11,195 ratings — 45 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius by Ryan Holiday (Goodreads Author), Stephen Hanselman 4.03 avg rating — 8,146 ratings — published 2020 — 32 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue 3.96 avg rating — 7,216 ratings — published 2018 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Ryan Holiday…

Series by Ryan Holiday

The Way, The Enemy, and The Key (3 books)
by

Ryan Holiday (Goodreads Author)

4.15 avg rating — 240,226 ratings

Stoic Virtue Series (4 books)
by

Ryan Holiday (Goodreads Author)

4.16 avg rating — 53,595 ratings

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Ryan’s Recent Updates

Ryan Holiday wrote a new blog post I’m Sorry But There’s No Shortcut for This (And That’s a Good Thing) It’s clearly a timeless tendency because Seneca tells us a story about it from two thousand years ago. People have always wanted to get something for Read more of this blog post »
Sep 17, 2026 01:25AM · 1 like · like

More of Ryan's books…

Quotes by Ryan Holiday (?)

“Your potential, the absolute best you’re capable of—that’s the metric to measure yourself against. Your standards are. Winning is not enough. People can get lucky and win. People can be assholes and win. Anyone can win. But not everyone is the best possible version of themselves.”
― Ryan Holiday, Ego Is the Enemy

283 likes

“Impressing people is utterly different from being truly impressive.”
― Ryan Holiday, Ego Is the Enemy

193 likes

“There is no good or bad without us, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic Journal: 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living

175 likes

See all Ryan Holiday's quotes »

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