I really wanted to like this book. It’s a great premise. Using ancient stoic wisdom to teach courage to a cowardly generation. Unfortunately, the author himself comes across cowardly and weak. His stories were boring. His political rants were misplaced. The book was just blah. If you want good stoic philosophy then read the real stoic classics.

I’m a big fan of Ryan Holiday in general but this book has slightly disappointed me. Too often it felt like motivational posters hanging on a random co-working space walls. To be honest, the most interesting part is the last one where the author shares his own personal experiences from American Apparel days and writer’s life that required courage, how he has failed and then learned to be better at that.

The book gives me nothing to hook on to. No big ideas. At times if feels like a string of quotes patched together by an AI. A fairly sophisticated AI, I admit. It almost gets it right, but a lack of humanity makes itself present between the lines..I think it’s partly the author and partly the subjects fault: Ryan relies too much on his writing formula..🧾Ryan’s chapter formula:.1️⃣ Start with a story from the life of a historically important person.2️⃣ Fill the main body of the text with quotes,

I’m a longtime reader of Ryan Holiday and typically a fan of his writing, but this one fell flat for me for a number of reasons.Firstly, the entire book is based on the idea that courage is required in order to achieve greatness. This presupposes that the goal is greatness, which contradicts Ryan’s earlier works, including Ego is the Enemy. The goal should not be greatness, it should be goodness. Virtue, not glory, is supposed to be the highest aim of life. Given our current political climate, i...

I bought this new Ryan Holiday book on launch day and managed to finish it. One of the great things about Ryan’s books is that they aren’t insanely long (unlike his mentor Robert Greene’s books lol). If you’re a fan of Ryan Holiday, you’ll enjoy this book. Much like his other books, he uses figures from throughout history up to modern times to motivate and inspire. This book is filled with various acts of courage, and I was glad to hear that this is the first part of a series of four virtues. I

I have very few positive things to say about this book. I like history. I like learning from the past. But this didn't feel like a study of history. There are a number of points the author tries to make his point using quotes from the Bible, but speaking as a Christian and a pastor, his use of the Bible was generally ignorant of the context and larger purposes of Scripture. That left me wondering if all the other sources he quoted from were similarly sketchy. The book as a whole felt like a secu...

Never read anything by Holiday and now I know why. This book was garbage. I wish I could get a refund. Researched on this self proclaimed stoic and found out that he is sketchy to say the least and wrote his first “book” Trust Me I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator. There you go he is a cheap manipulator that does disservice to stoicism turning it into a marketing business to sell crap with engraved “memento mori” on it.Calling Ryan Holiday a philosopher is like calling Bezos a philant...

"Let us not wait for other people to come to us and call upon us to do great deeds. Let us instead be the first to summon the rest to the path of honor. Show yourself to be the bravest of all the captains, with more of a right to leadership than those who are our leaders at present."~ XenophonI am generally a fan of books about mastery, so I put this one on my list as soon as I came across it.Courage Is Calling was a decent book, but did not meet the high-water mark established by the author for...

If you're looking for a purely inspirational book (to boost your morale and 'pump you up'), feel free to add 2 stars to the rating. Unfortunately, I was looking for something more ... (inspired by some considerations regarding Ukrainians standing for their country, invaded by Putin's hordes).I was interested in the moral aspects of courage (can we expect courage from everyone? under what conditions?). In the dissection of courage (based on what you risk - your life, your property, someone else i...

"What makes a king out of a slave? Courage! What makes the flag on a mast to wave? Courage! What makes an elephant charge his tusk, in the misty mist or the dusky dusk? What makes a muskrat guard his musk? Courage! What makes the sphinx the Seventh Wonder? Courage! What makes the dawn come up like THUNDER? Courage! What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the "ape" in apricot?" Cowardly lion speech in Wizard of Oz. What is courage? Is it the bravery of the warrior as he goes off to war? Or is

Ryan Holiday is hands down one my favorite authors and his works have been transformative in my life. Once again, his little book made me think, highlight passages, reflect on myself and strive to be better. I love his ability to craft the Stoic virtues and ancient and modern day examples. I scored it 4 stars- I liked his previous books slightly better. But this definitely was worth my time. Basically, I'll read anything Holiday writes regarding Stoicism.

Not as good as Holiday’s previous works. I felt this book was too repetitive. I also disliked that the authors political opinions were so apparent. I’m hoping that the rest of the series focuses more on the stoics and is better organized.

I loved this book! It inspires me to be more courageous and brave. Also appreciated that he used more female and POC examples of courage. I know I will revisit this book whenever I need an extra boost of courage!

There are SO many amazing and empowering nuggets of wisdom within these pages! This is one book that I have decided to purchase as a resource so I can read over again, underline, study and contemplate. I'd also love to learn more about the courageous lives of the heroes Ryan Holiday spotlights in this book. It has given me some fabulous ideas of biographies for my future reading adventures.

This book is terrible. It consists of self-indulgent ramblings about how people should live; pontifications from another so called "thought leader" of the same timber that we so often see speaking at Ted Talks. I find it revolting.

A great book with many ideas and examples of courage and how we need more courage today! Ryan Holiday is one of my favorite authors. I enjoyed this book very much, many ideas I can use for my tennis team and teaching career.

In a review of over 100 values, I've listed GROWTH as one of my top 2 values. The other one is COURAGE. I find that these two values are very much related: it's difficult to imagine courage bound by a comfort zone, and challenging to see growth without courage.Hence, my avid interest in reading Ryan Holiday's recent book, COURAGE IS CALLING.I've read 4 of Ryan Holiday's books (Stillness is the Key, Ego is the Enemy, The Obstacle is the Way, The Daily Stoic) and purchased this on Audible as a pre...

“Today each of us receives our own call to service, to take a risk, to challenge the status quo, to run toward while others run away, to rise above our station, to do what people say is impossible.”3.5 stars. Courage is a virtue that does not come naturally to me and I actively seek. I love reading books about people who have found the courage to do hard things. Their examples inspire me. This book on courage included lots of stories, including Florence Nightingale, Ulysses Grant, Charles Lindbe...