This Is Where True Power Comes From

If you are a slave to your desires, if you are a slave to your fears, if you are a slave to things that were outside of your control, then you are not powerful at all. LIVE Q&A TODAY https://store.dailystoic.com/pages/epictetus-month-2026 | If you get our How To Read Epictetus (A Daily Stoic Guide) http://dailystoic.com/ecourse you’ll receive a private invitation to an exclusive LIVE Q&A with Ryan Holiday, happening today! Head to dailystoic.com/epictetuscourse http://dailystoic.com/epictetuscourse to learn more and get your book, guide, and bundle today! 👉 Get How To Read Epictetus (A Daily Stoic Guide) http://dailystoic.com/ecourse & all other Daily Stoic courses for FREE when you join Daily Stoic Life | dailystoic.com/life https://dailystoic.com/life/ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:00Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

• 0:15Ryan Holiday?

  This is where true power comes from. The triumphal arches and victory columns, the forum and the Colosseum, the temple of Hadrian, the arch of Titus, Marcus Aurelius's victory column. Rome is a monument to greatness and power, to fame and ambition. For all of Rome's monumental architecture, much of it commissioned and directed by the wealthy and the worldly, the important and the triumphant, it's easy to forget that one of the greatest people who ever lived walked the streets of ancient Rome almost entirely anonymously. Epictetus, whose name literally means acquired one,

• 1:00Ryan Holiday?

  was a slave. He spent three decades of his life owned by another human being, toiling anonymously in Nero's court. Yet slowly, as he earned his freedom, literally and figuratively through philosophy, he was becoming one of Rome's greatest thinkers. He was, as we've said, not just your favorite philosopher's favorite philosopher. He was the favorite philosopher of two different emperors. He was read by those very emperors whose temples and arches and buildings he walked among. Hadrian went to Greece to hear Epictetus teach. A generation later, through one of his other students, a copy of his lectures made their way to Marcus Aurelius. The philosopher king.

• 1:45Ryan Holiday?

  How did this happen? Epictetus was an embodiment of the Stoic idea that real power lay in command of yourself. You could command armies, you could live in a huge estate, but if you were a slave to your desires, if you were a slave to your fears, if you were a slave to things that were outside your control, then you were not powerful at all. To the question, who is your master? That was the most important question there was, in his view. After years of studying Stoicism, Epictetus could say, I am my own master. Freedom. True power to the Stoics is being in command of yourself. And that's what we've been talking about. That's what inspired Epictetus Month here at Daily Stoic.

• 2:29Ryan Holiday?

  Through all of August, we've been doing a deep dive into Epictetus, his life, his philosophy, how we can apply his lessons about anxiety and resilience and toughness and adaptability, and ultimately, freedom. Also learn how to be in command of ourselves. And so, we've been reading Epictetus's discourses together as a community, and we've been walking people through it with our guide. As we've said, it's hard to read Epictetus without a guide. And it's been awesome. Whether you're new to Stoicism, whether you've read Meditations a dozen times, whether you've read Epictetus, we think this will all help you in a big way, and we think it'll challenge you to live it. And that's why this month, you can get Epictetus's discourses and his writings

• 3:13Ryan Holiday?

  plus our How to Read Epictetus guide for 30% off. And you can join us in this live Epictetus call we're doing. To date, I think you'll really like it. I would love to see you in there. And remember, if you join Daily Stoic Life, you get this and all the courses we do for free. We've got another great one coming up here really shortly as well. All that at dailystoic.com/epictetuscourse or dailystoiclife.com.