Ryan Holiday

Background Holiday was born in Sacramento County and grew up in Sacramento, California. His father was a police detective and his mother a high school principal. and moved to Los Angeles to work at a Hollywood talent agency. Early on, he "earned a name for himself pranking several media outlets by posing as a fake expert for stories... a suffering insomniac for an ABC News story, an outraged customer... sneezed on at a Burger King for MSNBC[,] and a vinyl record collector for a piece in The New York Times, to name a few... He claims he was exposing flaws in journalistic vetting, but his antics also led to a book deal." Holiday turned that into a role in helping marketing clients plan advertising campaigns with the aim of their coverage going viral. where he "created a sneaky way to get young men to see the Tucker Max movie, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, by organizing a campaign against the film's womanizing plot and bait(ing) people to protest it". He said, "we realized... the best way to get these kids to see this movie... is to tell them not to see (it)".

While at American Apparel, Holiday "grew disillusioned with his work as a hype man and decided to write a self-indicting exposé", receiving an advance for a book in 2012. He runs a marketing firm, Brass Check, and has written "boastfully" about using tactics such as forging and leaking documents, creating fake social media accounts, and buying web traffic for self-generated blog posts on behalf of his clients. The Financial Times said his revelations in the book are "disturbing" and "chilling"; Holiday "seemed to revel in his role as the villain". and was named one of Inc. 's top 10 marketing books of 2014. Holiday's third book, The Obstacle Is the Way, was published in May 2014 by the Penguin Group. By December 2016, the book had sold more than 230,000 copies. NBA all-star Chris Bosh listed Obstacle as an item "he couldn't live without", adding that head coach Erik Spoelstra gave Miami Heat players copies of the book. Holiday published his fourth and fifth books in 2016, both with Penguin. The former, published in June, was Ego Is the Enemy, which uses various historical figures as case studies to illustrate the perils of egotism. The latter was published in October, The Daily Stoic, co-authored by Stephen Hanselman, is a daily devotional containing Stoic meditations. The Daily Stoic reached No. 2 on The Wall Street Journal bestseller list in the hardcover business category, and by 2019, the ebook version was No. 3 in the format's nonfiction category.

In February 2018, Holiday published Conspiracy with Penguin, about the lawsuit between Gawker Media and wrestler Hulk Hogan, and Peter Thiel's involvement in the dispute. It was reviewed by William D. Cohan of The New York Times, who noted, "incessant name-dropping aside—which tends to detract from his gripping narrative—Holiday has written one helluva page-turner." In October 2019, Holiday published Stillness Is the Key.

Books on Stoicism In 2020, Hanselman and Holiday co-authored the Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius. It delves into exploring the lives of famous Stoic philosophers and their teachings. Holiday's work, Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave (2021) studies cardinal virtues focusing on the importance of courage in personal and professional life. Discipline Is Destiny: The Power of Self-Control (2022) examines the role of discipline in achieving success and fulfillment. In 2023, he published The Daily Dad, offering daily Stoic-inspired insights for fathers. His 2024 book, Right Thing, Right Now: Good Values. Good Character. Good Deeds, emphasizes the importance of ethical behavior and integrity. A review by Will Lloyd for The Sunday Times said, "A former PR man has reinvented stoicism for the masses, and created a bestselling business out of his books. It's a shame they're so terrible." Holiday's 2025 book, Wisdom Takes Work, completes his Stoic Virtues Series.

Through his books, articles and lectures, he has been credited by Alexandra Alter of The New York Times with contributing to the increased popularity of Stoicism. When questioned about his role, he defended it "as a self-help strategy". Alter observed that Holiday's approach "sound(s) more entrepreneurial than philosophic".

Zoe Williams, writing for The Guardian said Holiday's books "do not so much represent a meaningful through-line of the ancient philosophy, but instead pick up quotes and notions so freely, attach them to modern exemplars so randomly, that it's like putting stoicism into a Magimix until the only building block of thought you have left is the alphabet".

According to Holiday's blog, he wrote public letters encouraging his father not to vote for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. Despite his public opposition to Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, Holiday reported that he was offered a communications director position within the Trump administration and did not accept it. He supported Joe Biden in the 2020 United States presidential election. In September 2020, Holiday contributed $10,000 toward the removal of two Confederate monuments from the Bastrop County Courthouse to an alternative site. As of 2022, neither monument had been moved.

Published works

(with Stephen Hanselman)

(with Stephen Hanselman)

(with Stephen Hanselman)