You Can Do This. You Can Do This.

“Marcus Aurelius didn’t believe he was suited to be emperor. In fact, when he received the news of Hadrian’s plans to have Antoninus Pius adopt him and place him next in line for the throne, he broke down in tears. There was no one he revered more than Antoninus. How could he possibly live up to the task of following in his footsteps?”Ryan explains why you have everything you need to live up to the moment that you are in, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. The Boy Who Would Be King is out now, written by Ryan Holiday in the depths of the pandemic (not unlike the one Marcus ruled through), this new beautifully crafted book is available now. Go to dailystoic.com/king to order now and you’ll automatically get the free audiobook.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow Daily Stoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom in everyday life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us, dailystoic.com.

• 0:27Ryan Holiday?

  You can do this. You can do this. Marcus Aurelius didn't believe he was suited to be emperor. In fact, when he received the news of Hadrian's plans to have Antoninus Pius adopt him and place him in turn in line for the throne, Marcus broke down in tears. There was no one he revered more than Antoninus. How could he possibly live up to the task of following in these footsteps? Today, you would say that Marcus was struggling with what we call impostor syndrome. It's a very real thing that many of us wrestle with. Am I good enough? Can I do this? Are the people going to find out that I don't have what it takes? Neil Gaiman talks about this in his famous commencement speech, that any moment now, they will discover you.

• 1:12Ryan Holiday?

  It holds so many people back. It wastes so much time, as if anyone is thinking about discovering you. No, they're thinking about themselves. This came up on an episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast that we did with Stephen Pressfield, the author of one of my favorite books, The War of Art and Turning Pro. He said, "I don't think there really is such a thing as being an impostor. You're just on the spectrum of getting better and getting better. But I do think that we're sort of led to a calling or something that we do. The trick, to me, is self-belief. It's just believing you're not an impostor. Who says you're an impostor? That's the voice of resistance in your head, trying to sabotage you. You're being called in some sort of way like a dream,

• 1:57Ryan Holiday?

  and you wouldn't be called to that if you weren't capable somehow of enacting it." The night of his adoption, after his breakdown about whether he was ready, Marcus Aurelius supposedly had a dream. In the dream, he found that his shoulders were made of ivory. It was a sign. He was not an impostor. He was not weak. He could do it. And guess what? He did do it, better than anyone in history. Well, your shoulders are made of ivory too. As Stephen said, you wouldn't be called to do what you're doing if you weren't ready. You can do this. You are not an impostor. Do not be afraid. Do the work. Show us what you're capable of. What makes Marcus great are his teachers and the early influences in his life. Rousikis,

• 2:42Ryan Holiday?

  Antoninus Pius. I mean, the whole opening section of Meditations is him really acknowledging the people who were formative in helping him become the man that philosophy wanted him to become. And that's the story I tell in my new book, The Boy Who Would Be King. It's an illustrated fable about the early years of Marcus Aurelius, how this little boy was selected from obscurity and ruled the world and did so without being corrupted by it. He really did become the man that philosophy wanted him to be. And that book is now out. It's available everywhere. I've been working on this book for the last year. It came out of the pandemic for me, something I've wanted to do for a really long time. You can check it out. Go to dailystoic.com/king, or you can pick up The Boy Who Would Be King

• 3:26Ryan Holiday?

  anywhere. Books are sold, including on Amazon. But if you buy it from us at dailystoic.com/king, you get the audiobook for free, which has me reading it and a bunch of other cool people. So check it out, The Boy Who Would Be King. And we should learn to lead like Marcus Aurelius, and we should try to not just make Stoicism proud, but we should try to make the example of Marcus Aurelius proud.