Adam Kinzinger On Doing The Unexpected And Freeing Ourselves From Fear

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1:16GiveWell is trusted by tens of thousands of donors each year because they provide free and independent research that helps you understand how to have a big impact. GiveWell has spent the last 18 years researching global health and poverty alleviation, and they direct funding to the highest impact opportunities. Over 150 ,000 donors have already trusted GiveWell to give more than$2.5 billion over the last several years, and research suggests that these donations will save over 300 ,000 lives. I myself am one of those donors. I donate to GiveWell every year. It means a lot to me. And you can find all their research and recommendations on their site for free.

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2:29Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating, and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are and also to find peace and wisdom in their actual lives. But first, we've got a quick message from one of our sponsors.

3:10Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I'm going to ask you something for today's episode. I want you to put away what you think you know. I want you to put away your political affiliation. I want you to put away any preconceived notions here at all. And I'm just going to tell you, I'm going to talk to someone who was a pilot in the National Guard, was deployed in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. He's a guy who, as you'll hear in today's episode, saved a woman's life when she was nearly decapitated by some sort of crazy meth head, and he steps in and saves this person's life.

3:52He runs for political office. He serves six terms as a congressman. And there's certainly things I disagree about his political views. And that's great. That's fine. I have no problem with that. What I respect here, why I wanted to talk to today's guest, is that when shit got real, when a line was crossed, he put his job on the line to do what he thought was right. And it did. It cost him his job. It cost him relationships, cost him friends. It threatened his safety, as anyone who's sort of waded into these matters can tell you. all the crazy people come out of the woodwork. And it required him to cross party lines.

4:42It required him to speak truth to power. It required him to make an enemy of what was then the most powerful man in the world. And even once out of power, one of the most indicative and loud mouths in the world. And I think he withstood all this with a remarkable aplomb, with some courage, with some insights about American history and democracy and our obligations to each other. And so I was really excited to have Adam Kinzinger on the podcast, former congressman, member of the January 6th commission, former House committee member on energy and commerce, foreign affairs committee. And as I said, Iraq and Afghanistan veteran pilot, he flew out to this interview and flew out after.

5:32He's a new Texas resident and the author of a book, Renegade, Defending Democracy and Liberty in Our Divided Country, is out as of Halloween. You can follow him at Twitter and on Instagram at Adam Kinzinger. He's actually quite funny there and doesn't suffer fools gladly and claps back at all the trolls. I think this is a really important interview. I had Colonel Alexander Vindman on a few years back. That was one of my favorite interviews. And I think this is important. If you think Stoicism is apolitical, you're getting it wrong. The Stoics were not just politicians. We can imagine Cato taking stands against the strongman populist figures of his day.

6:10That's who the Stoics were. There was a whole thing actually called the Stoic opposition, right? Who stood against the tyranny of their time and suffered for it, had to put their job on the line. I'm not comparing Adam to this. I'm just saying this is a tradition in the Stoics. And that's one of the things we talk about. Talk about Stockdale amongst many other things. So thanks to Adam for coming on the podcast. Check out his new book, Renegade, Defending Democracy and Liberty in Our Divided Country. Follow him on social media. And anyways, I wish we had more politicians with him. And it's a shame to me that someone taking a stand like this costs their job because it's actually precisely the kind of person we need.

6:47Without further ado, here's my interview.

7:00So we were like, sold the house, and then it was just like, well, let's go. We'll just live in there because they have a place they're not in. So we'll just stay there while we figure it out. And then it was just like, I'm done moving. I'm just not going to keep moving. It is weird. Texas doesn't have a, well, rightfully so. But you don't think like sort of immigrants Texas. Yeah. As like, I mean, obviously you think of the border, but you don't think of Texas as like Houston's the most diverse city in the United States. Yeah, it's pretty cool. And so it doesn't, it's, it's weird, the sort of reputation of Texas.

7:29And then when you actually look at like, who's here and what's going on, it's totally different. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it is, I was actually surprised. Cause like a few years ago, I was saying Texas is purple, you know, it's like, and it's kind of had this like not purple thing going on for a little bit, but there's a really diverse community. I was in, I was at the Trib Fest yesterday and that was, I mean, that was interesting. Right. It's like all the Texas liberals. And it's like there's a pretty big community of people that aren't Ken Paxton here. You know? Yes. Thankfully, he is literally not representative in the sense that there's just sort of this sort of minority takeover of the – Yeah.

8:09I don't think a Democrat has been elected to statewide office in Texas in like 20 or 30 years. It's something like crazy. Yeah. It's been – was it Ann Richards would have been the last one, right? I think so. Or maybe some of the other – Yeah. somebody right there in the middle that's crazy well thanks for doing this it's good to do it it's a cool set up in here this was a barber shop for a hundred years and then the guy passed away these are the original floors we're in the process of turning it into a studio I like the book thing though that's cool the bookstore? no the bookstore is cool but the whole wall is cool yeah it's not bad i i did this talk in seattle uh yesterday or no day before yesterday and sort of in the middle of it a woman got up i don't go to the bathroom or something and she passed out and hit her head oh dude and like the paramedics had to come the whole thing stopped her and it was really interesting to see how people like like so i'm on stage uh with someone else and we're sort of the lights come on because something happens.

9:17But I watched like a thousand people respond to a crisis. It was like a weird science experiment. And then I couldn't really do anything about it. It was when I'm on stage, but two, by the time I saw what was happening, people had already knew. But you sort of watched a bunch of people do nothing. You watched a bunch of people get really involved. Then you watched people sort of try to be involved, like just sort shout things at the people who are involved it was uh it was strange then i was reading your book and i was reading about your your incident in the parking lot yeah so that's really interesting because i that's what i'm gonna say is there's um there's like this idea they teach you this in like officer training and stuff thank you that uh you know like 10 what is it 50 percent of people will run yes okay 40 percent will freeze because they want to act but they can't think it through yeah and then 10 percent will act and i saw that even in my incident so we could talk about that Yeah, what happened?

10:16So I'm walking back with my girlfriend. It was like 12.20 in the morning. And we had gone out to dinner, a couple of drinks. So it was like a buddy, the girl I was dating. We're walking back to the car. And this girl just – the best way to describe it, I first thought it was like this Halloween thing. Okay. And even though it was August, it's just your mind. Yeah. And this girl's running across the street and just bleeding out basically. basically, and a guy is following her. And he had basically thrown her down on the ground and tried to, in essence, try to decapitate her, but try to cut her head.

10:50We try to cut her head off, I guess, cut her twice. She rolls out and runs. And then that's when I ended up intervening. Yeah. At one point he had gone like, go pull her out of the car. And he was going to stab her again. And and that's when I and I don't have any real memory of doing this part, but that's when I grabbed his hand and just pulled him away. and i just remember feeling him like trying to stab me yeah it was just like uh oh my gosh and then thankfully i got him down but that was crazy that was like what was that oh six i think yeah it's it's weird because you have this uh moment to do something or not do something like the the idea that some people get involved some people don't i think it's also it's like the same person in different situations in different moments oh it's so true that's so true it's not like there's heroic people and cowardly people it's like what were you thinking about two seconds before what did you have for dinner last night you know like all these factors go into what you do in that moment when it counts it's crazy because i the the one thing i think about is if you know it's like fight or flee and that is the biggest realist battle like the most primal battle in your body right and your mind and your body and i just remember i think if somebody would have even whispered in my ear like run yeah i would have been gone oh interesting because you're just waiting for that like your your your mind even my own mind is just like what do i do do i run or do i fight yeah yeah and i just remember thinking like okay if i fight i'm gonna get stabbed yeah and die yeah because i mean i would fight a guy with a gun before i'd fight a guy with a knife yes second was i can't watch this happen to her and live with myself yeah like i I can't wake up every day with this memory and feel like, sure.

12:37Feel like I'm worthy of even being called anything, anything tough. So yeah. But I really, and if it happened right now, like if somebody came in here, I may run too. I don't know. Right. But that time I didn't. I remember I was at a gas station once that all these things seem to happen at like way late at night, which is a good reason to just not be out at night. Just go home. But I was like at a gas station. It was like, I don't know, like 12 in the morning. I was coming back from something. and like i saw this this car sort of over by the side of the gas station and um the guy's like trying to get in the car and then you know that game you would play with like your brothers and sisters where like you're in the car and you're you're locking you know go go you're like so i thought that's what's happening he's like frantically sort of like clawing at the handle and um so i'm like what is this guy doing and i don't think he could see me and then all of a sudden the door opens and in like a second he's in the car and he just starts wailing on this woman who clearly was trying not to let him in the car and i don't know maybe he had his so she starts wailing on her and so i go like hey hey what the fuck are you doing you know like and and so he freezes and then i'm like well what am i supposed to do he freezes and then they're both like yeah because like i think he thought he was all alone and then he gets in the car and sort of peels off yeah and so now i'm like do i have to follow this person right and so they they kind of they kind of drove like a you know a few a few yards down the road and then stopped for a second and then so i got my car and i'm sort of calling 911 on the on the um on my cell phone when i got the license plate and then it but what's weird too now in this crazy world that we live in especially in texas is you're like now i have to worry about getting shot by this person you know we live in a world where that is unfortunately awash with guns.

14:23I actually have my concealed carry permit, but I don't carry. I don't feel safer doing it. But you're just like, I think there is this sort of wanting to get involved and then there are the reasons to not get involved. And that's probably where the just sort of instantaneous, just do the thing is what matters. But if you think about it too much, you get your, there's all the reasons not to do it. Yeah, and I think like, it's, okay. So when you get overwhelmed with this like idea, like when you see this guy wailing on this woman, when I saw a lady come over stabbed, I just had something and I was in Pompano Beach.

14:59And so I have this weird thing where I see car fires all the time. Really? I've seen like 20 car fires in my life. Most people are like they've seen one car on fire. It happens to me all the time. Anyway, so this is probably two months ago. I'm sitting in a 7-Eleven in Pompano Beach and I'm taking a drink of water and I'm calling to FaceTime my kid. I'm getting ready to. And I look in my rearview mirror and this freaking huge van's on fire. And I'm like, so I get out and everybody's just like, ah, and they're like running away. And I call 911 and this guy's trying to get into his car. It's a terrible story.

15:35The guy was homeless, lived in his car. His car caught fire. And so I'm not just trying to get away from this thing. He's trying to get his stuff. Yeah. Yeah. He had a dog in there and the dog came out, but you know, he's going to lose his house basically. And so I ended up having to like kind of be aggressive and be like, dude, get out. Like there's nothing we can do to this thing. Sure. But you still, what you see in that is just like, this is why I think it makes mental sense to kind of prepare yourself for these moments. Yeah. Because I, there's all the time where I'm thinking like, you know, how many times do you drive by somebody in distress on the side of the road?

16:06Totally. All the time. Yeah. It doesn't mean, it doesn't mean pull over every time. Right. Like we got to be realistic here. But you know, I always play in my mind like, okay, what happens if I see somebody who's like truly hurting and doesn't just have a flat tire. And that like, I think programs you to make the right decision. But again, it's, it's, it's dangerous. Cause it's also like, look, don't fight guys with knives. You know, I got lucky and it was literally lucky. Don't do it. Yeah. There is this, I think one of the dangers of this sort of collapse of some of our like civil and polite society is that it makes it very hard for people to do what is the right thing because there's this sort of other element of it right like you think about uh the sort of even like the political politicalization of some of police right so now like i remember i was driving actually on the road to come to here to do a podcast one time and i saw see this car sort of careen it crashes through it goes off the side of the road flips and so it's crazy too when you see it you're just like this isn't real because you're in your just normal life and then like movie life happens you know it's a koreans it flips upside down so i get out of the car i run over some other guys running over to the cars upside down the guys in the car the wheels are still spinning and we end up we sort of break the window and the guy crawls out we're like wow okay and you know you think okay we're gonna wait around for the police like what's gonna happen and this guy like it was crazy like within maybe two minutes another car pulls up and this guy just gets and runs and jumps in that car and drives away and you go oh this is a guy who doesn't want yeah to see the police and it i mean out here you're like oh this is probably an immigration issue right and so you go oh yeah this is what happens when like hey people want to do the right thing and then they're worried about getting shot or people were worried about doing the wrong thing they don't but they don't they don't trust the police they don't trust other people you know so it becomes this kind of feedback loop where very quickly the, the good Samaritan-ness of people, you know, bumps into the messy reality of like, you're going to regret doing something or they're going to, and, and so it's this, it's this weird sort of sad commentary, I think, on where we are.

18:18And it's like, it like further reinforces this division. Cause it's like all of a sudden, you know, you can't trust somebody you don't know. We used to kind of default to like, you can trust somebody until you can't trust them. Now we kind of default to you can't trust somebody until you learn you can. Well, in like society where there's millions of people and thousands of interactions in your life every day, you know, to have a default, like you have to earn my trust. Nobody's going to earn your trust because you have these limited time windows. The interesting thing, by the way, you talk about the car flipping over and what I think a lot of people don't think about until you're in that moment is, so if you'd have played that out in your mind prior and said, okay, I know that there's going to be this car that flips over the thing you know you would have had a certain view and it's beneficial but when you show up and you talked about the wheel spinning that's what triggered me on a second because i'm like you probably heard the wheel spinning you could probably smell something there's like this overwhelming senses that are actually all screaming danger by the way yeah you might smell fuel you might smell fumes you might you know hearing that those tires if the accelerator is still going that sounds dangerous and it's like everything firing is saying, go away from this.

19:26And it takes like really disciplining the thing to say, I'm going to like breaking the window and pulling a guy out may seem simple. It's actually a pretty big decision and it's, and it's a hard decision because now you're saying this car could blow up and I'm right here. It could catch on fire. This guy could be dead. Maybe he dies while I'm doing this. It's somebody else's property. You know what I mean? You're just like, you're having to make these sort of executive adult decisions that are outside the bounds of normal reality. Yeah. Yeah. But it's good once you do it also, like once you're someone who gets involved, then you build this muscle of being the person who gets involved.

20:03Like, are you the person who keeps driving? Are you the person who calls 911? Are you the person that walks and sees what's happening? Are you the person that, you know? And so I think building the muscle of being the responsible person that gets involved is good because then every time you do it, it's still scary, but it's a little bit less scary also.

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23:27Jesus Christ. The dude got charged with attempted murder, and I think he's out now. This was still, I guess we're approaching 15 years ago, 17 years ago. but I if that wouldn't have happened first off I don't know if I'd have ever been elected to Congress sure secondly would I have been the one kind of standing up on the January 6th stuff I don't know sure because what it does because you mentioned it's like you build that muscle I proved it to myself that I had what it took in a situation like that right because I think every particularly young man but probably everybody in their life thinks about okay if something happens do I have what it takes to act?

24:06Everybody plays this through their mind. And at that moment I did. Like I said, that doesn't mean I'll have it at every time. Sure. I may run faster than you if something happens next time, but it was something where you can prove like, yeah, I can survive that and I can do what it takes. And so it just, I don't know. I think it's important when even just calling 911. Yes. I've called 911 probably five times just in these car fire incidents or whatever. And it's like each time I'm nervous calling 911. it's not like i don't like call and then i'm just like hey what's up 9-1-1 it's like there's a there's a little bit of nerves in talking to it because you're like okay i'm now i'm not pulling the handle basically i said this once i was like if you've never called 9-1-1 you're not living an interesting enough life like you're not out doing thing but like that's true you actually even learn like the first time you call 9-1-1 you've never done it before so you don't know what's happening right yeah and then i remember the i've probably called 9-1-1 like 20 times uh because i'm always seeing stuff and and whatever but like you know car accidents dude we can't hang out man or else there's gonna be like car fires and accidents and stuff i remember one time my wife and i were driving we're driving to new orleans from texas and we saw we saw someone like you know you're on this sort of like bayou like there's highways where you can see the water yeah and and someone was clearly stuck because they were their boat was there and then they were standing next to the boat and they were just like waving by the side of the road so we did call them we got transferred to like the coast guard but anyways you you call and the person is very calm and you're super stressed and then they're like asking all these questions you know and i remember i was like i don't have time for this shit like something is happening and i remember she was like i've already contacted the police like she was like i message like yeah she was explaining how it works which is like i thought she's like asking me all these questions that are much less important than like where is it and when is it coming and whatever and she's like i've already done that i'm just getting the additional information from you and i'm realizing oh she's just trying to keep me on the phone in case something else happens and so you you you realize that like there's just this whole other world of emergencies crises whatever that a lot of people are very experienced dealing with and you're not and you get this sort of peek into it and then yeah you're not as intimidated when you call 9-1-1.

26:24You're like, hey, there's this thing. No, I don't want to leave my number. I do, you know, and you're just like, you just know how it works. And then you're part of the club of people who help as opposed to the bystander club. Yeah, and it's funny because it's like, it's kind of like, I guess, flying on a plane. Your first time you go up on a plane, you're like, how in God's name is this thing in the air? Yes. And then like me, you become a pilot and it's just like second nature. And so you think of like calling 9-1-1, try to call it a couple of times. Don't fake call 911. Please don't do that.

26:55But, you know, if there's a moment where you think there's an emergency, give it a call and like breathe in the whole experience of being somebody that now called 911. And that person on the other end, by the way, you know, you hear 911 calls and sometimes it's like, OK, why was the 911 operator such an ass or whatever? And it's like, well, they deal with fake calls all the time. Yes. But like I couldn't imagine being on the other end all day long of somebody's worst moment in their life. Yeah, you basically have a job where people are just injecting cortisol and adrenaline into you and you can't receive any of it.

27:30Right. Like, so you have this sort of, that is interesting. You know, we don't, we sometimes think like, yeah, police officers, EMTs, military people, special forces, like, they're not actually like magically better than anyone else. They've just been exposed to it over and over and over again. It's a training thing. and training thing and they've they've just had reps well that's where it comes like okay and i know this is what you like to focus on too is like kind of that mental discipline yeah so the physical discipline too says okay if you're a police officer and frankly i think if you're so i typically conceal carry i'm not today because i had to fly commercial but uh typically but uh and it's not because i want to be cool about it it's because of the threats i've had but like one of the things i'd encourage anybody that does carry or obviously if you're in law enforcement you already know this, is practice in your mind when you pull that gun and practice pulling it because not so that you become some John Wayne that does it proactively.

28:32I think actually that makes it less likely you pull it out. And if you do pull that gun out because you need to, or if you're an officer because you need to use lethal force, now your entire hands aren't going to go numb, which is actually what happens. Right. Because your brain becomes, your body becomes basically self-preserving, So you lose all your, you can't hear, you can't see well. Sure. And, but on the mental side of thing, it's that things, it's that too. It's just being able to discipline, you know, being able to take pain, being able to push through that moment, being able to continually have repetitions of what happens if this happens, what happens if this happens, what happens if, you know, you're in Congress and you have to take a, basically a career ending vote, whatever that is.

29:15I think the more you think through and focus on it, the more you're apt to actually do the right thing. And it won't hurt as bad because it's just not strange. You've already thought this through. Well, you're talking in your book about sort of the refueling in the air. And you just think about how stressful and high stakes that is. And yeah, you're talking, there's like the fuel hose is 50 feet long just to give you a set. Like, you know what I mean? They're not like a mile apart. And And so I've got to imagine you're just exposed over and over again to high stress situations and you practice all the different contingencies.

29:51So, I mean, you're still alert and there's nerves. And if there aren't nerves, that's probably means it's time to go. But you are familiar with it. And that familiarity creates the calmness, which then allows you to do what you have to do. Yeah, so on – I flew refuelers for about two years, and there are a couple of planes specifically that produce what's called a really big bow wave. And you think about it, it's like if a boat's going fast in the water, that wave it's pushing in front of it. Well, the same thing happens in the air. And so particularly with B2s or C17s, they're very maneuverable.

30:25But they have this bow wave that as they come up, you don't notice, and then all of a sudden, boom, it pushes. So they're pushing you as they come up towards – Yeah, it creates like a disturbance in the air and you just you feel your tail kind of go up and it's just unsteady. First time that happens, you're like, oh, balls, we're dead. You know, we're going to die. And then you eventually just get used to it, even though that's still a very dangerous moment. But the most the scared scared is the right word. The most the high anxiety I've ever had in flying was always nighttime in Iraq in the RC-26, which is the thing I've flown for the last 15 years.

31:00coming in night vision goggles. We're out, I don't know, you start at like 10 ,000 feet in the air, 10 miles out from the end of the runway. And you basically just create this massive drag so you can descend as fast as you can and as intensely as you can. And you can't get it wrong. Because if you get it wrong, you're going to land too fast on the runway and go off the runway. Or worst case, you've got to go around and you're now in like enemy weapons area. First few times I did that, I was just like, if you saw my vitals, they'd be off the charts. then they got better and it's like navy pilots landing on carriers they say that's like that's worse for them than combat so yeah i um have you read uh tom wolf's the right stuff yeah yeah yeah it's a great great book yeah one of the greatest and i remember the thing that struck me in that book is he's talking about when john glenn orbits the earth his heart rate never goes above 100 you know he's there like you know he's like 12 16 hours something he's just orbiting the earth but he's so he's been in this situation so many times and you know been in planes doing crazy stuff so many times that he's just sort of calmed himself down i remember i went to this conference one time and i get seated at this table and i'm sitting across from from jim lovell uh the guy in apollo 13 and i i go is that could that possibly have been true could his heart rate never have gone above and he was like oh we were just so chill because you know we just done it so many times they practice for every contingency you're just high stress situations are just sort of the sea that you learn how to swim in yeah yeah and well it's like it by the way and that's the the coolest story by the way just because like i would love to just hang out and drink with those guys one night and just like i mean i'm sure there was just i mean it was pretty intense but you know they drink you under the under the table sure of course they would i mean if you're gonna go into space you better learn how to drink prior to that well you see like someone like buzz aldrin right now he looks like this old man and you don't realize what a badass he was you know and he would have ripped your throat out you know didn't you punch some dude in the face for like questioning the moon landing like 10 years ago yes i thought that was perfect he just punched him knocked him out it's old man but uh yeah i mean so i think that so it was it was uh one i guess one of the more kind of examples of that in my training was something called seer which is survival evasion resist and escape and so every pilot will tell you or every air crew member that's gone through it'll tell you like it's the worst training but it's the best and you just get like you you live in the woods you know you're eating bugs right it's that don't you have to kill a rabbit you're talking about yeah you have to kill a rabbit and i killed a rabbit i'm sorry sorry jesus did you have to catch the rabbit or do they give you the right no they give it to you yeah it would make it worse if you had to chase this thing and like then you're just like a real asked.

33:44Yeah. But I guess it's worse because he's in a cage, but they want to get you past. I mean, it's important because they want to get you past that like aversion. Sure. So it's not, they're not going to bring out like some, you know, a deer that you may have shot when you were a kid. They're going to bring out a rabbit, which is so cute and fluffy. Sure. And you've got to kill it. And it's like, look, we're not here to like, like celebrate killing animals, but we've got to get you past your aversion. And that includes like, I was always scared to death of spiders. I still am. I hate spiders. But when I'm out in the field, you know, I'd see one crawling over me and I'd just kind of like brush it away.

34:18Whereas even now I'd be like, oh damn, it's a spider. But like in, in the thing about the survival was then you go into this prisoner camp where really good people, really good actors, I'll say, are basically treating you as a prisoner. And I mean, a lot of the enhanced interrogation techniques you hear about is stuff they actually took from what they do to us. But it's fantastic training. And it just teaches you kind of, again, the mental side of what happens if you're captured by the enemy. Well, in Vietnam, they didn't tell anybody what to do. And these guys tried to resist to the point of death.

34:50Lance Sijon, for instance, died from resisting. John McCain and everybody else broke at some point. Well, you're going to break under pressure. And you need to not have guilt for that. And a lot of these guys had guilt racked. That's what the whole thing was about. Did you study Stockdale? at all uh yeah a little bit yeah he was he was a pretty intense dude yeah like and that's what's sad when he ran for vice president you know he kind of became a caricature yes but that dude is i don't remember all the details of his story but like i just remember being like this dude is he's he's one of the best like him sam johnson from texas former representative i actually got to serve with him for a few years when i actually read his book like that was a pretty incredible story.

35:34He was in prison for, he was there like with McCain, but for like six years as well. Yeah. Stockdale studied stoicism. The Navy had sent him to Stanford where he gets this philosophy degree. So he has Epictetus with him. And so supposedly as he's parachuting down, he goes, I'm leaving the world of technology and entering the world of Epictetus. And his point was, this is where you test those ideas in the laboratory. But yeah, there was this idea, and I think some people think that's what stoic means, is sort of invincible and invulnerable. And one of the things that Stockdale sort of puts into place in those camps is what he's primarily dealing with is the guilt, right?

36:14Is like, you think you're not going to break. And then he realized very quickly that inevitably everyone does break. And so what actually he found his job was not so much enforcing discipline as far as making everyone strong and resilient, or rather he found that resilience was how do you bring a guy back after he breaks or after he feels shame or guilt? Because that's what creates the downward spiral that says, I'm worthless, I'll just give them everything or I'm worthless, I don't deserve to live. And so it was really about sort of the forgiving of the guilt, bringing them back into the fold and also kind of being strategic about what they did break.

36:57What were you willing to give? And then what actually do you resist unto death? And the reality is most of the guys didn't know anything worth resisting unto the death for. The only thing that, you know, in Stockdale's case that he wins the Medal of Honor for is he's like, I'll die if it saves someone else from torture, right? So he famously shatters a mirror and cuts his own wrist and then he beats himself nearly to death with a stool. i didn't know all this stuff yeah so they they're they're taking him they're taking him down to do this propaganda video and uh he's like okay can i just like use the restroom really fast and he walks in and he he grabs this stool and he first he shatters the mirror and he cuts his forehead so he's bleeding all over the place and then he starts beating himself with a stool so he's not camera ready right and and uh he's like i won't be going downtown but where they were going to film.

37:54And so for him, resistance wasn't, oh, I have these state secrets. I mean, what does he really know? He's just a pilot, but he's like, I won't be used as a tool to hurt the other people in the camp. Yeah. And that's what they say is like, I mean, I wish I could go into all the secrets, but like, that's the thing is, is understanding they're going to make propaganda with you. I mean, one of the things they did to us, I guess I can't even say reveal this, but like you end up in the very first part of this, like when you're being interrogated, making propaganda that you had no idea you're making.

38:25So a lot of that is like eye opening, just like you thought you were doing one thing, but like, Oh, just noticing the subtle ways in which they could, they could get you to do something that could be used against you, but you don't even understand what's happening. Yeah. I mean, imagine this, imagine if they're putting you in a stress position and saying, hold this board. Yeah. Right. So you're holding a board. You think that that is the punishment until you realize later that in front of the board is a sign that as like, I bomb women and children. Right. Right. So it's recognizing that it's also recognizing how to be able to, to make your, when you are forced to be on camera, like what Stockdale did, you are not credible.

39:03You know, if you're nervous, if you're shifting around, if you're looking off camera, for instance, if I'm looking at the camera, making a video and I look over like this, you know, everybody's like, Oh, there's somebody over there that's telling me. So you just discredit at that stuff. But that is in, in a time when you're getting beat and you know, whatever is not something that you're going to think about unless you think it through ahead of time and you're trained on it. Do you know who Jeremiah Denton was? I know the name, but he was in that same, those same camps. And then he, he ran for Senate in maybe Alabama or Mississippi.

39:33He was a senator for a couple of years, but, um, he famously is forced to do this propaganda video and he blinks Morse code, some sort of - We learned all that. Yeah, I forget what the message was, but it was some giant middle finger to the captors. I think it was like coercion or torture. I think he blinks torture. Yeah. I mean, there's so many kind of cool things I've forgotten them all, but I think like if I actually was put in a prisoner camp today, you'd probably come up with them. And that's probably why they taught you. It's not supposed to be at the top of your mind. It's supposed to sit there as this sort of deep, deep, deep thing that you access only when yes uh certain pressure is applied yeah and then when if you if two of you are in prison together you're like hey remember that thing that shows coercion it's like well oh yeah it was this thing right and uh but yeah i mean it's the vietnam generation maybe this is a bit off topic but the vietnam generation i every time i get a chance i thank them because regardless of the vietnam war i think we all agree like it was not a great war right we shouldn't have gone in.

40:36But these guys and what they took, I mean, when I got back from Iraq, both in 08 and 09, you know, the weird thing is, so people imagine guys coming back from war, men and women coming back from war. And like, you somehow go through this Plinko set of deprogramming, and then you end up kind of magically back at your unit. The truth is you literally end up on a plane to go to like Qatar, and then you take a plane to Baltimore, and then you get your connection home. You're just on a Southwest flight. Yeah, you're just there. And but coming off that plane in Baltimore, there was like 100 people, I think, that just stand there and like line the way and applaud as we walk off.

41:18And it's like there's like three or four hundred of us coming off this plane. And all they do is just sit there and clap. Yeah. And I mean, I know that they probably are there clapping all day, every day. Sure. But the fact that they were there saying like, welcome home and thank you. And I'm not a ground soldier. You know, I don't have PTSD from my time, but it just meant so much. And those Vietnam guys are the reason we have that because of the crap they had to endure at home. Sure. And then when they got in prisoner camp, the complete lack of training they had and having to deal with the shame that we've now been taught, like, don't carry that shame.

41:51Yes. Yes. I interviewed Captain Dave Carey, who was also there, and he was talking about how he found he didn't need therapy afterwards because what Stockdale and McCain and these other guys had set up in the camps was these sort of groups where they were constantly debriefing and talking about what happened. And so it was the camaraderie of the unit that provides the processing and sort of dealing with the moral injury and the doubt and all of that. And you can joke about it. Yes. That actually makes a huge difference too. Yes. Being able to just joke about it. Like the dark humor, by the way, in war, any of your veterans that have been to war will know this.

42:30Like if – when I was in politics, my biggest fear was like somehow somebody recorded our conversations in Iraq and like, oh, how am I going to explain some of this stuff? But you just – it's all that dark humor that helps you just deal with that moment and the camaraderie is so important. And that's why like when you look at the breakdown of society and I think when you look at whether it's the political system, whether it's even your neighborhood. I mean who goes out and does barbecues with their neighbors anymore? Sure. Really? Nobody. There are a few neighborhoods I've been to where you can kind of see camaraderie but that used to be a regular thing.

43:04Sure. I remember that growing up. is just the importance of that social interaction and the importance of seeing people outside of their meme, outside of their front and having those relationships again, you know, whether it's, I mean, it doesn't matter. Just, just being able to share and being able to be vulnerable and not vulnerable in a weak way of like, I'm going to sit around and cry and just share everything, but just like some, sometimes you have to offload those emotions. And I know you obviously are into this stuff even far better than I am. And all the stuff I've seen is pretty impressive.

43:36And it's like just that ability to be able to handle those stresses every day.

43:55I'm picking my kids up from school today and then doing our weekly routine, which is I take them over to Whole Foods. We get all our groceries for the week. Then we have dinner. It's one of their favorite things to do. It's one of my favorite things to do. And then my wife loves it because she doesn't have to take care of it. This holiday season, whether you're a guest or hosting the big dinner Whole Foods Market has what you need to delight everyone at your table. They even have heat and eat sides from the prepared foods department. You can make Whole Foods your one stop shop. Everything follows Whole Foods Market's strict ingredients standards.

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45:53The best part is you still get 30 days to try it at home and return it if you don't like it, but I know you will. Trust me, your body will thank you for this investment in Better Sleep, shipping to many countries worldwide. See details at 8sleep.com slash Daily Stoic. Well, transitions are really hard, right? You're leaving professional sports and suddenly you're a civilian again. You're leaving the military, you're suddenly a civilian again. Or I imagine there's not much of a transition slash support system for someone who leaves office, right? Especially under the circumstances that you end up having to do it, right?

46:28Like it's not like the end of a long career and you're passing it to a successor and you feel great about the state of things. Yeah, sure. Right. Yeah. No, it was, look, I, I'd always imagine kind of early on. It's funny. So when I got back from Iraq and I announced I was running for Congress, the one thing I said, I said it a few times publicly, which is like, but I repeated it to myself a lot. I said, if I'm going to vote on issues of war and peace, like if I'm going to vote to send men and women to combat and inevitably die, but I have to be willing to give my career for the country because that is such a tiny, tiny, like sacrifice versus somebody that's given their life.

47:10And, uh, so I'd always imagine like the end of my career would be like, I'd make some announcement. You'd go to the local Kiwanis club where they give you all your fricking hats and whatever for all your service. And, uh, you know, maybe I took some career ending vote to save social security or something. And when this happened and it was like, I basically kind of, kind of got ghosted by my district in essence. It was kind of like lack of support anymore. yeah it was when i got out in january out of the combat of the january 6 stuff and the hearings it took a while for it to sink in the actual toll it took yeah and yes there is no and there shouldn't be like you know support groups for former members of congress but it does because congress just like military whatever is your identity yeah you know when i when i for 13 years if i would go into a room if unless the president was there yes unless the president of the united States was there, I was one of the most important people in the room.

48:07Sure. That's something that takes some getting used to not having that, but I love it now. Well, and because you get so used to it, it becomes normal and thus you're afraid to lose it. Right. You forget what it's like to be a regular person, even though you existed for a long time as a regular person, and so you don't want to lose it. There's this story about Seneca, who's a sort of very wealthy guy. And then he becomes a political power broker. Talk about sort of modern equivalence. He ends up the tutor for this young kid who's going to be the emperor of Rome. And that kid turns out to be Nero.

48:45So he has basically like the worst adult in the room job you can imagine. But he would supposedly practice poverty on a regular basis. So he'd like wear rags and not eat, not stay in his house. And his point was, he said, you wanted to get up close and personal with this thing so you could say to yourself, is this what you're afraid of? That's, yeah. And I can imagine, obviously, 99.9 % of people who leave office leave so and become, do better, right? Like, they become lobbyists, they become authors, they become speakers, they become whatever. Maybe they even get a better office, right? But they don't unless they go to jail, unless they're leaving because they committed crimes, right?

49:29It's a pretty soft landing even in the worst case scenarios. And yet there is this intense fear of that future because it's unknown. And so because they're afraid of it, they'll do things they shouldn't do to keep it. Totally. So it's the moral – so it's like when I look and say sometimes like, okay, why is it that my colleagues couldn't see the danger? I saw. And it's like, well, they could. They could see it. They just didn't think they could make a difference. And their own fear of losing their identity, their fear of being kicked out of their tribe. And I got to tell you, I mean, that is a fear that I think is stronger than death, like is being kicked out of your tribe.

50:08Why is it that people will willingly like die for their country versus being shamed? You know, some of that is this tribal thing, which in that case, it's important that we have people willing to fight. But in the case of politics, when it's like, look, I got so many of the texts that are just like, you're a traitor. I got my co-pilot in Iraq sent me that he was ashamed to ever fly with me. Yeah. And I mean, this stuff is stuff that, you know, family members that would send things. It's stuff that I'll tell you, it would almost be easier to die than deal with that. What's a form of death losing your identity?

50:42Totally. It totally is. Like the only thing you're not losing is your physical like presence somewhere, but everything else, all this other cloak. And so I think that's what happens in politics where people are too scared to lose that identity. And like you said, once you walk the plank, so once I started like really speaking out once January 6th happened, I started prior to that, but then it's all of a sudden like, okay, I can do this. It's not that hard. And by the way, yes, I can. If I look at all my Twitter comments, they're not that good. So I'm just not going to look at them. And if I do this and you realize like life is actually quite better when you all of a sudden are freed from fear.

51:18And I got freed from fear of losing my job. I was freed from fear of losing my tribe. And even though it was an intense couple of years, it was much more mentally healthy for me than anything else. Well, just like physical courage is this muscle you have to build. You expose yourself to high stress situations. The problem, I think, with moral courage is that usually like to become the CEO, to make it that long in Congress, right, to get where you get, even in the military to work your way up the ranks, you almost by definition are someone who has to go along to get along, right? You're actually building the opposite muscle.

51:54Like you think about someone like Tim Cook. The reason he's not doing these massively transgressive, bold, visionary things with Apple is that he's a career employee of Apple working under Steve Jobs. Like there was only room for one of those people. So you end up building this muscle that says, I don't really rock the boat. I suppress certain opinions. I might sort of work

52:44that they will stand up. And what I've learned is very few people get those kind of big public moments, those opportunities, and a minuscule amount do it. So if you think about now, if you've been in Congress for eight years, or you're just starting your congressional career, and you have these visions of grandeur, because it takes a lot of ego to run for office. Yeah, you talk a lot about that. Yeah. And I think it's important to say, because nobody runs for office completely selflessly. There is a bit of ego in everything, including in me. You go that, a hundred people are senators, I deserve to be one of the 100 or there's one most powerful person in the world.

53:19That's me. That is inherently a sort of a superior self-righteous point of view. Yeah. You think about it in Congress, you represent 700 ,000 people. So you look around and go, boy, there's 35 soldier fields of people here. I'm definitely the best one for this job, right? No, there's probably people better than me out there. But when you're invested in that career, whether it's the beginning, whether it's the middle. I mean, even at 12 years, I did 12 years, yeah, I could look and say, well, I could be a chairman of a committee next time. And there's always some further step. And by then you get into sunken cost fallacy.

53:54Why did we not leave Vietnam after 10 ,000 men died? Because 10 ,000 men already died. How could we leave Vietnam now? Yeah, Lyndon Johnson was like, I won't be the coward that leaves, right? Even though that would have been the braver thing. Right. It was a cowardly decision to stay. Yes. And so you look at it now, let's say you've been in the GOP and you don't like what Donald Trump's been doing, but you've gone along with it because you've convinced yourself. Now, all of a sudden he's crossed a line where you say, I have to speak out. Two things are happening. Number one, you've never practiced that muscle.

54:26And number two, you have to admit by admitting that, that everything you did already to enable him to this point was wrong. Sure. I mean, I've tried to come clean on that. Like I voted against the first impeachment and I have deep regrets on that. You know, I was probably the most outspoken Republican House member against Trump, but there was a lot of stuff I swallowed and dealt with. Sure. And I think we have to be able to confront that and say it disarms it. If you sit back and you're like, boy, I'm afraid somebody's going to ask me why I voted against the first impeachment, then you don't speak out.

54:58You don't speak up. And isn't that the tricky part of it, though? Like, if you hadn't, you wouldn't have been in the position to speak out on January 6th and vote for the second impeachment, potentially. Right. So the insidious part, this is the trap that Seneca finds himself in. Right. Eventually, he does conspire against Nero and and sort of loses his life in the process. But he was always telling himself, if I go, someone worse will take my spot. Right. And he's not wrong, but morally he also is wrong. And so it's this incredibly complicated moral dilemma that I don't envy the people who have to do.

55:37Well, it's like, okay, so let's look at the, not to just inject, keep injecting politics, but look at the Republican debate. The Republicans that aren't Trump. Like they're all saying, yes, I'll vote for Trump if he wins. Well, why? Because you have to say that to have a chance of winning the GOP primary. But the fact that everybody is saying I'll vote for Trump is telling the base that Trump's actually not that bad because they're all going to vote for him. Well, nobody wants to be the one who goes over the wall first. Right. I've been there. It's not fun. You get shot. Yeah, yeah. I remember this one Republican senator had read some of my books and so he invited me.

56:13I had breakfast in the Senate dining room and I was like – he was sort of telling me privately all these sort of things about Trump. So why don't you say something? And he goes, see that guy over there? And he points to Bob Corker and he goes, he could have been the head of the CIA or he starts naming all these things. And you get it. And then you also go, but look, you're waiting for some more powerful person to come in and do this. And it's like, you're one of a hundred. There's no one else. It's like everyone's kicking the problem upstairs. cares. And there's almost a certain amount of ego and going, no, I'm going to be the one that does something about it.

56:52And so that's like a sort of a good ego. It's like a good self-importance. There's kind of an absurdity in the people that take these moral stands for which they end up being martyred for. But if we don't have people that do it, then everyone just continues to go along. Well, and our system is set up that way. So, you know, think about, so politics, obviously an example, but think about like anything in any community. Yeah. Um, what is the old saying? It's like, if you're 10 steps ahead, you're a martyr. If you're five steps ahead, you're a leader, you know, something like that. But you know, the, the question, when you say like, talk about, I call it the white horse syndrome and I didn't come up with that.

57:29Probably you did. And it came through, but the idea is like, everybody is waiting around. Cause we, since we were kids, you know, something goes wrong at school, mom and dad are there or the principals there, there's always some level of something that fixes things. You know, we get attacked on 9-11, the military is going to protect us. There's a point in your adult life when, whether it's in your community, whether it's in your home, whether it's in anything where you are the white horse, you're the guy on the white horse or the girl on the white horse. And I'd come to realize, as you mentioned, literally people that I worked with in the house had this idea that somehow this whole kind of corruption that's happening was going to naturally work itself out magically because it always had.

58:16And I was looking around going, if anything's going to happen, it's from us because we're the people that can do it. We're the only ones that can do it. And we're sitting there waiting for what, there's not like a super Congress that we elect that's going to come along. And I think that's a lesson that I think people have to take, whether you're ever in Congress or not, it doesn't matter. But in your community, in your home, in your neighborhood, in your friendships is like, if there's something that's not working, there's not somebody else is going to come and fix it. It's you. When it goes back to you're in the parking lot and something happens, somebody is going to have to deal with this.

58:48Like somebody is going to get their hands dirty or their shirt bloody. Like somebody has to do something and you, you, there's not an infinite supply of people other than you who will do it. And when you got elected to do it or, you know, you signed an oath to do it or whatever it is, like at some point you got to go, oh yeah, this is what they pay me for right and you got to reread the oath yeah and say like this is sorry all right we'll wrap up we've got like five minutes yeah whatever we need um no i um i i think the other interesting thing is that especially when you talk to people in politics is that they all also hate it right they hate like it's a shitty job it is a shitty job so the irony is they don't want to lose the job that five seconds ago they were complaining about right so there's this paradox too of like we we were comfortable with the status quo even that we're uncomfortable with that's how afraid we are of the future but if we had a little more confidence like to go like whatever it is i'll figure it out i'm not going to end up under a bridge somewhere yeah there's plenty of other people who are making a living and surviving i'm going to be okay even if i'm humiliated i'm going to be okay but i there's it almost boils down to sort of a lack of belief in our own ability to deal with the future.

1:00:10I cannot explain to you how right you are, particularly when it comes to, I mean, you know, my experience, members of government, how absolutely right you are that there is that fear. And I'll say I had it where it's like, if you talk to any member of really any political thing that's made announced they're not going to run again, the biggest fear is not really not being in office. The biggest fear is the second after you announce it, having regrets. Oh, sure. So you think about it, because you're like, now you're already like the cart's out of the horse or the horse is out of the barn. Or the wind duck.

1:00:43Yeah. And so, but that's exactly what that is. And the second you announce it, it's fine. But it's that deep seated fear of like, I don't know what comes next. And all I know is that, you know, my unique experience in the house is one thing that hopefully people can learn from, but I'm sure that is replicated a thousand ways in everybody's life on any different level. Well, imagine you leave the Air Force and you run for office and you lose. Now you're the idiot who left the good thing. I know. But that's life, right? Like sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. There's this great quote I love from Mark Struz.

1:01:18He's like, how will you meet the future? And he says, like, but the same weapons that you met the past with. And going like, oh, yeah, I've been through all sorts of things in my life. I'm going to be fine. This might be the hardest thing that I've gone through. Or maybe it's not. Like, it turns out it could be not as crazy as you think. but to have the courage to go like, this is the right thing and I'll figure it out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And just to embrace the, I don't know. And I'm going to say this as somebody that doesn't do this, but like embrace kind of the excitement of the fear, the excitement of the challenge, the excitement of the change.

1:01:49You know, it's harder, I think, as I'm 45 now, as I get older, I have a kid, I have a family. I can't go be as reckless as I could have been younger. Not reckless, but more like kind of changing. But I think there is some excitement And I think of everything I've done when I made the decision to go into the military, that scared the living shit out of me. And because I'm like, I made a 12 year commitment to the military. Right. I may not have liked it, but I was in for 12 years. I mean, I was in for 20. I've been in. But that was the commitment was 12 years. But I also look back and say, those are my proudest moments.

1:02:19The time I voted in Congress against my party, not just the impeachment, all the other bills. Those are the proudest moments I look at. Not when I went along with the crowd. It was when I stood alone. That's the irony of cognitive dissonance is that you almost never regret the scary, brave thing that you did because your mind won't let you. Right. So you think you're going to be like, I don't want to look back on it. But no, you're going to look back at it and your mind's going to tell you it was the greatest thing that you ever did. Right. And so it's actually it's scary up until the moment that you do it.

1:02:53And then you're so busy doing it that it's not scary anymore. Yeah, that's right. And like you said, I mean, how many times, again, particularly in Congress, but I think in anything, if you make a tough decision, you make a change, you kind of jump into the water, you're probably not going to end up living under a bridge begging for food. Yes. You're probably not. Now, maybe you will. I can't make a promise. So don't sue me if you do. But like chances are whether you make more or less. Here's what I've learned in my life, man. The more money I make makes zero freaking difference on how happy I am.

1:03:26Yes. Now, that doesn't mean I want to go back to making what I used to because now it becomes a different calculus. Sure. But I have never gotten a pay raise – like I make more now than I made in Congress. Never gotten a pay raise that made me appreciably happier. Sure. I've had lifestyle changes that have made me happier. I've had relationships that have made me happier. I've had decisions that have made me happier. Never money. I think that's a great place to stop. Congressman, thank you so much. Oh, this is awesome. Thank you. I enjoyed it.

1:04:01thanks so much for listening if you could rate this podcast and leave a review on itunes that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show we appreciate it i'll see you next episode

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