Not All Readers Are Good Parents, But All Good Parents Are Readers

There was a famous exchange between the Stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus and the King of Syria. The King traveled to ask Musonius, is it appropriate for a leader to study philosophy? Not only is it appropriate, Musonius said, but for no one is it more appropriate. What is the leader’s duty? Musonius asked, then answered, “to be able to protect and benefit his people.” Through countless situations that they have never been in before. Trying, painful, stressful, baffling dilemmas and difficulties unlike any they have known.

You’ll notice, this is nearly verbatim to what we say it means not to have kids, but to be a parent. A parent makes a commitment—a commitment to protecting and benefiting their children. “The person who intends to protect and help people,” Musonius says, “must know what is good for a human being and what is bad, what is helpful and what is harmful, what is useful and what is useless.”

Well, Musonius continues, to be able to protect and benefit your children, you have to know what is good for them and what is bad, what is helpful to them and what is harmful, what is beneficial to them and what is detrimental. Where does one go to arm themselves with the knowledge necessary to be able to make these distinctions? Books.

Harry Truman famously said that not all readers are leaders but all leader are readers. It is also true: not all readers are great parents but all great parents are readers. We have to be. We have to learn how to read for our own benefit—and so that we might benefit our children. We have to read to have aid to offer them, to be able to help learn good from bad, helpful from harmful, and useful from useless. We have to read to lead.

If you want to become a great reader, Musonius and the Stoics can help. We built out their best insights into our Read to Lead: A Daily Stoic Reading Challenge. Since it first launched in 2019, Read to Lead has been Daily Stoic’s most popular challenge, taken on by almost ten thousand participants. Today, we’re excited to announce that, for the first time ever, registration to join the 2022 live cohort is officially open.

The 2022 live course will take place across 5 weeks at a pace of 2 emails a week (~30,000 words of exclusive content), in which Read To Lead participants will learn:

  • how to get the most out of your reading
  • how to find books with the potential of changing your life
  • how to think more critically
  • how to find time to read
  • how to digest books above your level

And much more.

Additionally, there will be weekly live video sessions with Ryan Holiday, author of 12 books about Stoic philosophy which have sold more than 5 million copies in over 30 languages. And Ryan’s monthly newsletter dedicated to book recommendations goes out to nearly 300,000 people. Videos on his reading habit have gotten millions and millions of views.

As a participant in Read to Lead: A Daily Stoic Reading Challenge, you’ll not only become a better reader and build a real reading habit, you’ll get to learn from Ryan and the practice that’s made him, as it’s been said, “the king of reading as a form of self-improvement.”

This will be a live course. Beginning on TUESDAY MAY 17, all participants will move through the course together at the same pace.

Registration is now officially open.

Registration will close on MONDAY MAY 16 at MIDNIGHT.

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