This Is How The Impossible Became Possible

What Epictetus learned in his fascinating life—beginning in slavery and culminating in a legacy as one of the most influential philosophers of all time—was simple, profound, and enduring. It’s why countless Roman families sent their children to learn from Epictetus at his school in Nicopolis. And that’s why we’re spending this month doing a deep dive into Epictetus—because if reading him changed Marcus Aurelius’ life, how might he change yours?💡 We designed our How To Read Epictetus (A Daily Stoic Guide) as a personal field guide —part book club, part masterclass, part daily practice. It’s designed to help you not just read the words of Epictetus, but live them—to turn his timeless wisdom into real change in your own life and the lives of those around you. And if you get the guide before July 26th, you’ll receive a private invitation to an exclusive LIVE Q&A with Ryan Holiday, where he’ll go deep on all things Epictetus, Stoicism, and how to apply these ideas right now, in today’s world. Head to dailystoic.com/epictetuscourse to learn more and get your book, guide, and bundle today!📖 Preorder the final book in Ryan Holiday's The Stoic Virtues Series: "Wisdom Takes Work": https://store.dailystoic.com/pages/wisdom-takes-work🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast🎥 Watch top moments from The Daily Stoic Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dailystoicpodcast✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee 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.

• 0:05Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a Stoic-inspired meditation, designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women, help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit DailyStoic.com.

• 0:55Ryan Holiday?

  This is how the impossible became possible. Look, it doesn't just happen. People tend not to handle power well, and what we know from history is that they absolutely cannot handle absolute power well. So how did it happen, then? How did Marcus Aurelius remain good? How did he manage to remain a master of himself when he was literally the master of millions? Well, it's because he was handed a book as a teenager. His philosophy teacher thought he would benefit from reading Epictetus's lectures, which Marcus tells us his teacher loaned him from his own shelf. It was this remarkable bit of philosophy, the teachings of a slave,

• 1:39Ryan Holiday?

  which properly trained and oriented Marcus Aurelius to be the richest, most powerful, most famous human on earth. How crazy is that? Except it's not crazy, because Epictetus knew not just adversity and pain, having spent 30 years of his life as a slave, but he also knew temptation and corruption and vanity, having spent the bulk of his life attached to an owner who worked directly with the Emperor Nero. What Epictetus learned in his fascinating life, beginning in slavery and culminating in a legacy as one of the most influential philosophers of all time, was simple, profound, and enduring. Perhaps his greatest insight shaped by his experiences as a slave was what he called

• 2:21Ryan Holiday?

  "our chief task in life: to distinguish between what is up to us and what is not." And he taught that true freedom comes from recognizing what lies beyond our control and focusing only on, in his words, "what is up to us." And this is why the most powerful Romans flocked to learn from the former slave, including the Emperor Hadrian himself. It's why countless Roman families sent their children to learn from Epictetus at his school in Acropolis. And that's why we're spending this month at Daily Stoic doing a deep dive into Epictetus. Because if reading him changed Marcus Aurelius's life, how might he change yours? And that's right, just like we did with Marcus Aurelius for Meditations Month in July,

• 3:05Ryan Holiday?

  we're doing Epictetus Month here at Daily Stoic, and we're going to be peeling back the layers of Epictetus and his discourses, those lectures that Marcus read as a teenager. And we're going to show you how to apply this wisdom to improve your life and the lives of those around you. And to do that, we created what we think is this awesome guide on how to read Epictetus, which we think is the best place to start with Epictetus. It's what I wish that I had when I first started reading Epictetus. It's something I've been going through, and as I've been traveling around Greece here the last couple of weeks, trying to sort of follow a little bit in some of Epictetus's footsteps and the early Stoics. And we want to all work through his teachings together, thousands of us all over the world

• 3:50Ryan Holiday?

  who want to rise above temptation, want to live more deliberately, and focus our energy on what is up to us, letting go of the rest. You know, Epictetus didn't write any of his philosophy down. Instead, it was one of his students, Arian, who put those lectures down, and that's what made its way to Rosticus, Marcus Aurelius's teacher, and then to Marcus Aurelius. But just like Marcus Schuris had someone to walk him through Epictetus's teachings, I think it's beneficial that you had that too. And that's what we designed this guide around. And we're going to be doing a live Q and A together about it on July 26th as part of Epictetus Month. We've got a great package where you can get our favorite edition of Epictetus, plus the Q and A, plus the course, all of that at a discount.

• 4:33Ryan Holiday?

  You've just got to go to dailystoic.com/epictetuscourse. Of course, I have a link to all this in today's show notes. I'll wrap this episode up. You can hear some of the cars and motorcycles zipping around me here in Ithaca, where I'm spending a couple more days. But I'm really excited about this thing. I'm excited to do this deep dive in Epictetus. He's the Stoic philosopher that changed my life. He was actually the first Stoic that I ever heard of, and I'm really excited. So I hope you join us. That's dailystoic.com/epictetuscourse. I'll see it in there. And of course, remember to sign up for Daily Stoic Life. You get all these courses, including this one, for free. That's dailystoiclife.com.