Adrian Grenier On Recovering From Being Famous

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1:45Welcome 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.

2:35Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. This is part two of my interview with Adrian Grenier. I'll get right into it. I won't put a big second intro on here, but there was another funny story that you touch on in this, which is when I was in American Apparel, Adrian's name started floating around because he was following Dove around or looking to do a documentary on Dove. So he and I had this sort of weird, almost connection, almost 10 plus, more than 10 years ago. We never ended up meeting. I forget why. But of course I was a big fan. I knew his work really well.

3:11And so when he came up to me at that party and said, Hey, can you give me a ride home? It was like, is this real life? What's happening? And I guess he and I moving to the same small town is a sign of where things are going. Austin is a great place. He and I were both in East Austin before we ended up in what they sometimes jokingly call Far East Austin or just east of Weird. That's Bastrop. The painted porch is on the little historic main street there. His ranch is not far away. My ranch is down the road a bit as well. And I think we're both putting down roots here. He has a young son. I've got two young sons are both invested in the community trying to make cool stuff.

3:55And I think that's what he's talking a lot about over at Earthspeed, which is his sort of nature-based lifestyle platform. He's really gone into like sustainability and it's just, you wouldn't have, the guy that you saw in Entourage, I don't think you would recognize there on his tractor, his four by four working on his ranch. And it's a beautiful piece of property that he has. and he's done a lot of amazing work restoring it. We share animal tips. I'll probably give him a donkey one of these days when Buddy and Sugar have a baby here in the next couple months. But it's been really cool and I'm excited to bring you a chat with not just a guest, but a friend of mine.

4:36You can check out Adrian's work at Adrian Grenier. You can check out his lifestyle platform at Earthspeed. You can watch episodes of his podcast. We talk a lot of parenting stuff in this one, Man Upright on At Earth Speed, Adrian Grenier on YouTube. I'll link to all this. And of course, if you haven't watched Entourage, you should. He's also in The Devil Wears Prada. He was on the new series, the new Netflix series Clickbait in 2021. And I checked out after this interview, his documentary Teenage Paparazzo, which talked about a lot of the same themes that I was talking about. And trust me, I'm lying all at the same time.

5:13So this was a long time coming and I hope you like this chat with me and Adrian Grenier.

5:33This is very true as parents, right? So like, you follow these accounts that give you a sense of how other parents are doing or what their life looks like. And it's not realistic at all. Like, like I've never seen a single like sort of parenting mom or dad Instagram account where the house wasn't spotless. I've never seen one where the kids are crying and screaming and yelling, where the parents are stressed, where they haven't shot. Like it looks perfect. And that's not what it looks like. And it's definitely not what my house looks like. Shit. And so now you tell me. You have like this idea of like, who are you trying to impress?

6:14What image are you trying to keep up? Like if you can get in this sort of algorithmic loop that's making you feel inadequate and shitty all the time. And this can happen to you if you're a 12 year old girl, or it can happen to you if you're a 50 year old man who thinks that the truck that you or I drive is cool. And then, then you see somebody else driving an insert fancy car and you go, well, I don't have that. Am I, did I make the wrong decision? Am I not, do I not have what they, it's not good for the brain to like keeping up with the Jones is a very natural thing. So you have to be very diligent about what Joneses you let in your life.

6:53Yeah. And that's tough with the algorithms who are telling you what Joneses you want in your life. Yeah. So I saw an Instagram account and there was a tip on how to change a diaper to avoid blowouts. And so I was doing it for the longest time and I kept getting blowouts. And finally, Jordan, she looked at the way I was doing it and I was doing it totally wrong. I was like folding it under. And I think it might've been a prank. Like someone probably put that out there to just fuck with parents and increase blowouts. Yeah. Or who knows? Maybe they're just an idiot or like a crazy person or whatever.

7:31Yeah. You have no idea. Yeah. Too much trust in and what you see, you know, I saw it, of course it's, you know, it's, so it's funny. We, we are very much like, um, cause you did a lot of work in, uh, media, uh, critique. Um, I don't know if you've seen Teenage Paparazzo. Have you seen my film? So that's basically a media literacy film from the eyes of a celebrity. and I basically turned the cameras onto a paparazzo who's 13 years old. Yeah. And he's an aspiring paparazzi, you know, taking pictures. What a strange thing to respond. And it became this, yeah, it became this hall of mirrors, like this fractured, you know, media landscape where everyone's taking pictures of everybody and everybody's striving to be what I had and I'm trying to deconstruct it.

8:27I urge you to check it out because I think you'll see that we're we have yet another thing in common well you were working on a documentary about Dove at one point weren't you? and then there's that yeah I remember hearing about that and I was trying to do a narrative series oh about him like fictional? fictional yeah like a written I was going to play Dove and I just needed him to give me his life rights and his trust so that I could go make a series about him. And obviously you could do all the salacious stuff because we share. You worked with Dove and I was friendly with him in trying to make this project.

9:13But I really wanted to make a show that would not vindicate him but really show the contradictions within the fashion industry that would look at a guy like Dove Charney and shame him and make him this perverted figure. When, if you look across fashion, there's a lot of perversion. And there's different kinds of perversions, right? So it's like, hey, the decision to do these slightly pornographic or misqué or controversial ads, that's one area that someone could say ethically, I don't like that. But that same person has a 17-year-old girl working 10 hours a day in a windowless factory that could collapse by earthquake at any moment making 50 cents an hour, right?

10:12So there's different forms of exploitation. Totally. And the exploitation that is visible and titillating or, you know, sexual in some way that like really stands out to people. But I remember he said once to me, he would go like, he said something like, if you're buying a swimsuit for$8, somebody got fucked. You know, like his point was like, you can't do that. Right. In any ethical, non-exploitative, cruel way. And we as a society have totally taken that for granted, that that's what things should cost. And for the same reason, we don't think about where our food comes from. We don't want to think about just how inherently exploitative and awful most of the clothes or items we wear, where they come from.

11:05100%, yeah, yeah. So I guess he was one of the early figures that was being canceled. And this is pre-Me Too. Yes. So he was sort of getting away with it to a large degree. And then me too, just undermined. He's also a fascinating figure. I think it's a very common thing that like super talented, super successful people, they have the thing that makes them great. And then they have the demon or the wound. Which is usually the same. Which is usually the same and ultimately destroys them after it's propelled them to some height. You know, like there's something, one of the things I came to understand was like the American apparel girl, which was so iconic and fascinating and popular.

11:54Like his image, like the thing he was upset, his like Gatsby-esque, like that's the, like it wasn't just this thing he found aesthetically pleasing. There was something, there was some, like that must've been the girl that he was in love with in high school and could never get because of who he was. And so later, after he'd achieved all this incredible success and had so much going for him, the fact that he would risk all of that, you know, legally, ethically, morally, just plain self-control, that he couldn't stop himself and wouldn't stop himself when they said, Dove, you will lose everything if you have another relationship with a person who works for you.

12:41you know like um josh peck actually interviewed him he he asked if i would connect you know who josh peck is yeah um he interviewed and he was like he's like dove like i'm gonna describe a situation to you he's like you cannot eat peanuts right and he's like if you eat if you touch one more peanut you will lose everything right you know he's just talking metaphorically and dove goes i should be able to have sex with whoever i like don't even metaphorically wrap his head around the idea that there's some things that you can't do. And so he destroys, he, he's, when Dove was following his sort of ethical North star of like fashion companies shouldn't fuck people over and clothes can be like, it don't have to ruin the environment.

13:24Like when he had this sort of sense, this vision for what creatively and, um, sort of, um, structurally was possible, like as an entrepreneur, he was amazing. And then when he was driven by like the opposite of his North Star, which is his dick, he was a monster. Whatever hole inside him, you know, American Apparel Girl hole, sized hole in his heart, right? And Rosebud. Yes. It's a Rosebud thing for him. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. I mean, and he's brilliant. So he's definitely a flawed hero. Like that's how I saw him, a flawed hero in a culture that is just as fucked as him, but gets away with it because they have all the, you know, sexual harassment rules in the workplace.

14:12I mean, even on Entourage, right? So like my relationship to sex was partly cultivated by Entourage. Because that's what the character's lifestyle was. Right. And the more I became the character, the more approval I got from people and women, and the more I started to become that character and live that lifestyle. So I had a different relationship with sex, quite unhealthy, where I was like, yeah, people are so uptight. There's such puritanical culture still. I heard Dove make these rants. What's that? I've heard Dove make these rants. 100%. And I understood him. I was like, yeah, you know, you're honest.

14:54You're, you're like, you're wearing it on your sleeve. Like people know who you are. So, and, um, I guess I'm a lot more conservative now. And I've found my own Pius, um, take on, on love and relationships. It's bad for you. Like there's that saying, like fame is a mask that eats at the face. Yes. And like most, anything that is in control of you rather than you being in control of it is this dangerous road to go down. And I think. And you do hurt people too. Yeah, of course. It's bad for you, but then look at what you're doing to the people around you. And, you know, alcohol, for example, is destructive, self-destructive, but then it also starts to hurt your family, right?

15:42If you're, if you're off the deep end, same with any vice. And I, you know, I learned those lessons and I, you know, come back to center and now I, you know, I truly feel like I've been rehabilitated. Um, but I, I, I don't know if Dove ever hit rock bottom enough to see himself in those ways. I remember Robert Green and I were talking to him once. We're like, Dove, you need like a hobby. Like you need to like run or swim or do something. And he's like, I have a hobby. And we're like, what is it? And he was like, sex. I'm like, sex is not a hobby. Sex is a vice, right? It's not that it's always bad, but sex is a vice.

16:20And - Or at best, it's a thing to procreate with, to make family. It consumed his life. And what's crazy about Dove, the idea that he didn't hit rock bottom. I mean, And like literally everything was taken for, he lost, he not just lost to the company, but like he owes one of the hedge funds that he used to try to regain control of the company. He owes them$20 million. And like, even then he's not changed a single habit. And like, the world can blow you up and then you can decide, you have two choices there, right? It's like you hit that rock bottom and you can decide to climb your way down or you can keep digging.

17:09And I mean, you know Dove is now running Kanye West's company? No. Yes. He's a Jewish man who is running the fashion company of a virulent anti-Semite slash profoundly ill person. Like I think what Kanye West has done is - is unforgivable and awful and sad. And then also like clearly not a sane, healthy, like something like there's, there's something there that I don't want to say takes him off the hook, but like he's, he's a victim of what's happening to him also. And the fact that they found each other. And I was just talking to someone the other day. I was like, I can't imagine what their meetings are like, like the two of them.

17:57Cause you, I'm sure you were around going off the rails. He would talk for like five hours. Yeah, he's super entertaining. I actually started drinking lukewarm coffee, lukewarm instant coffee because of him. Yeah, Dove didn't do any drugs, but what he would do is, and Robert Greene told me he was doing this literally as he was being fired from American Apparel. He would get a cup of cold water and then he would open a pack of like a Nescafe pod that you're supposed to put like through a machine. This is like a curing cup. And he would just pour basically straight caffeine into a cup of water and then just drink it.

18:37Because he was in such a manic phase all the time. He just needed it to kind of keep it going. Or maybe he was even, he may have even been taking the caffeine to come down from his like natural insanity. I remember a lot of times he would just call me at like three in the morning. and I would realize he was just calling me as he was falling asleep. Like he was so lonely and had so, like the idea of even whatever the women he was around, like he didn't actually like them. He was just calling to hear a voice so that he would not be alone with his own thoughts for the two minutes before he passed out having been awake for 36 hours straight.

19:21Yeah, yeah. It's terrible. I mean, you just realize a lot of these people that you think you want to be like, you do not want to be like. Flawed hero, a tragedy nonetheless. Yeah. I wish I could have made that show. I think so. His favorite novel was his book. Do you think he'd give me the rights now? I don't know. I don't think so. And that was the thing too, is I was like, Dove, what could I do? What story could I tell that isn't already out there? You know, Six Ways to Sunday. Yeah. I'm actually going to tell a more nuanced story about your full range of complexity. You're going to be the best, nicest person to do it.

19:58Yeah. Right. I mean, I just don't know if I could do it now, but it's one of those, you know, nine unfinished things in my heart that I wish that would have happened. He loved the story of Duddy Kravitz. Yes, yes. Yeah. Yeah, who's like shamed for having a boner or something. Yeah, that might be the beginning. there's also a movie with Richard Dreyfuss where he plays Dedy Kravitz it's like a great movie but it's about this sort of hustling young Jewish kid in Montreal who like he hears from his grandfather that like a man owns land funny what we're talking about it's like a man owns land that was like the mark of success they came from nothing and Dedy becomes this sort of hustler he starts with like arcade games and he trades his way up till he's really successful and then he ends up like hurting or betraying his best friend to like get the land like his friend ends up in a wheelchair basically does literally anything to get the success and then he you know he takes his grandfather to see the land but his grandfather has heard what he's done to get it and Duddy can't can't understand slash accept that like he can't he can't understand that some things are worth more than other things and And your self-respect, your honor, your values are more important than the success.

21:21And the irony for Dove to have loved that movie and that story, he probably never read the book. He probably only watched the movie. But it's like he only watched the first two acts and he missed the turn where it's a cautionary tale. Come on, Dove plays the thing, man. Yeah, it's like missing that Gatsby dies at the end of Great Gatsby. You know, like he ends up floating in a pool, murdered. Right. But all you saw was the cool parties. You're like, that's who I want to be. Yeah, that's hilarious. I always liked, so the opening of the show as I saw it was Dove at eight years old. Yeah. I don't know if he ever told you this story.

22:02Because he had fashion in his blood. Is this where he's selling t-shirts? Selling t-shirts, yeah. Yeah. So what he was doing, well, no, no, no. He was selling t-shirts crossing the border illegally with, to buy t-shirts in New York and bring them back to Canada. There's that. Um, uh, but no, he was like eight years old and he was running for school council or something or president and, but they had no hot water in the house. And this is in Montreal. It's freezing cold. There's snow on the ground. So he was walking, he'd go to his neighbors, um, to take a shower and then put on like a suit to go to school and run for office or he wanted to like, you know, win, win presidency.

22:46And, um, so the opening in my mind was, you know, a snow storm, um, in like a small little neighborhood in Montreal and little dove comes out of the one house, walks down wearing these big snow boots, but like in, in those like American apparel, tighty whities, like walking to the neighbors, coming up, knocking on the door. Hey, water out again? Yeah, come on in, kid. You know, so she brings him in. He showers and puts on this suit and then goes to school. And that was going to be the opening of the whole thing. That's amazing. He told me a story. He was arrested at like 11 or 12 years old selling bootleg Madonna t-shirts outside the Montreal Forum.

23:27Yeah. So there's some part of him that was like a hustler from the very beginning that was his greatness. but then ultimately, you know, you can't, you can't turn it off. Yep. Yeah. There was no part of him that could retire, that could hand over control, that could staff around him like anyone. Like in retrospect that I worked there was insane. Not that I continue to work there, but who hires a 21 year old with basically no experience to run the marketing for your publicly traded company? It was insane. Like the whole thing. But I realized that for the same reason he liked to hook up with these store employees, he hired me because I was not threatening.

24:12Do you know what I mean? And that I could be manipulated and controlled. There was a grooming there too. Interesting. It wasn't the same kind of sexual thing, but it was still fundamentally exploitative. Like when you walked around, like almost none of us had any business working there or being there because he should have had the best people in fashion working there, but he had us because it could facilitate the sort of secondary purpose of all of it, which was the wound. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I get that. I get that. You create sort of lack of accountability in the youngsters you bring in because they don't have the capacity to hold you accountable.

25:02And they're just happy to be there. And they're like, I'm the head of this and I'm 21. This is a good thing. Yeah. Yeah. It's like Hollywood. It's Hollywood. Yeah, of course. You know, when you're grooming the kids to be, you know, little starlets. Or you start as an assistant and then you work and you see the bad behaviors modeled and it becomes normalized. So when I left, one of the big parts for me was like sort of just relearning how to be a person, how to be a colleague, how to be a boss. because I'd seen what I thought successful people did, but actually only manic, unhinged, like, you know, crazy people did.

25:44And so it worked for him in that one environment, but they weren't transferable skills. And it also wasn't like, it wasn't what I wanted my life to be. Yeah, you grew out of it. Yeah. I mean, I was very lucky also. I think the one, like, so I was with my wife the entire time I worked there. So there was a whole set of behaviors slash world that I was not only not interested in, but not invited to, you know, like Dove wasn't like, come stay at my house. Like, you know what I mean? Come stay at my house. Because he knew that like, both I appreciate that he respected it, but he probably also sensed something in me.

26:22He was like, this isn't someone that wants to participate in my extracurricular activities. so I never got sucked into it in the way that I'm sure was in Hollywood there wasn't like we have to protect Adrian no you you were sucked into the very world that you were fictionally portraying but it wasn't fictional it was your actual life yeah yeah yeah and there's a lot of reward in it you know sure it's designed to to keep you there well that person's probably easier to control easier to take like if you're living outside your means if you're in some sort of oblivion slash you know like not taking like to like go here like you're easier to make to do stuff and to not question stuff and to not it's like also it's like if you're too sucked into the present moment then you can't think about what things mean or where that you're gonna end you You know, you can't think like big picture.

27:21Yeah.

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30:38So you just, did you just get up one day and walk away or did someone end it for you or how do you? I had to say no. I had to, I called my agent and I said, and I was in tears. I wept because I quit acting. I said, you know, I really respect you and I don't want you to put any effort or work when I'm going to not take anything. I'm going to just, because in many ways, acting wasn't something that I had to do. It wasn't something I wanted to do. I was just doing it. Because you were good at it and got paid for it. I got paid for it. I, I, I could, I could be the man instead of being a man, you know?

31:36And so all the ego things and all the, um, yeah, it just, it was something I had to reject fully before I, and I'll act now. Like I can say no now. Now I know how to say no. So I'm open to acting. And by the way, in our neighborhood, there's like, they film shit all the time now. Well, yeah, there's like a hub here. So, which is going to be great because I say no to so many projects now because it takes me away from my family, you know, for extended periods of time or the content. Like I, like I'm, I want to do, um, I only want to do like things that I would want, I would be proud of from my kids.

32:22Yeah. You know, my, my wife was like, do you think we'll ever let our son watch Entourage? And I'm like, oh my God, that's like giving me a headache just trying to, you know, get my head around that. Hopefully not at 17. Yeah. You know, there's going to be a point when I'm going to have to, you know, share with my son where I come from and who I am and, you know, the things I've done and, you know, how I've overcome. Sure. You know, just not, not yet. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. What is it like to be famous? You should know. Come on. Nah, that's not the same. No? Why? No. Authors are famous in a very, first off, because only with a small fraction of the population.

33:04You're new media famous. Social media famous is, it's also, it is interesting and different. It was weird for me also because like a lot of it happened during the pandemic. So like I was like not around, like life was different. So like my level of being recognizable was going up, but I wasn't in a position to be recognized. Oh, interesting. And then when that's changed, then it was like, oh, whoa, this is, so it was like, it was like accumulating, but I wasn't experiencing it. So that was a little bit disorienting. But there's, I mean, you were, you were famous and you were playing a famous person.

33:41So that must've been, that's definitely interesting. Well, there's a thing called a pure celebrity, right? Where you're famous for being famous. Yeah. So you have like, you know, the Paris Hilton's of the world and whatever. And in many ways, I was a pure celebrity because I was famous for being famous on TV. Oh, yeah. Right. Extra weird. Yes. So, but, you know, anyone who's famous has to deal with that. They have to confront that reality. And, you know, I, at one point after I made my film Teenage Paparazzo, which is basically me figuring out what it's like to be famous and what the hell this, when I woke up one day and people are like standing outside my door taking pictures you know of me like a paparazzi it's just something you have to confront it's like holy what is this what is going on why me yeah you know and and i think you see varying degrees of celebrities dealing with their fame yeah and and they deal with it in different ways so the way i dealt with it is i made a film and I humbled myself in some ways.

34:44So I was keeping myself on some level, giving myself perspective. Yeah. And then at the same time, indulging in it. But I think a lot of times any famous person will, they need to believe they're bullshit. They need to believe that they're somehow special so they will do everything they can to maintain that status. Yeah. And they will, they will surround themselves with yes, people who confirm it. An entourage, if you will. An entourage of people who are like, keep going. Yes. And they will reject people who want to call them out. Right. Right. Or hold up a mirror. And when I had my transformation, I had to uncouple with people who we had a mutual neurotic friendship, you know, like, and we were sort of indulging each other in a lifestyle and they, they benefited from me being famous and I benefited from them, you know, supporting that lifestyle.

36:01And so I lost a lot of friends, friends. It must be weird, right? Because you sort of are famous, but then you're playing someone who fame is such a big part of what that character is and that show is. Define a culture. So you're having to think about both what you're experiencing and a level above what you're actually experiencing. So it was probably one of the reasons I imagine you were able to get out is that you had kind of an ironic distance from it in a way that if you actually were that character in real life, you wouldn't have because it would have been all that you knew. You weren't thinking about what it was like to be you.

36:42I remember I reluctantly took the part. Yeah, yeah. I remember when they came in to tell me I got the role. And for the first time, someone called me Vince in earnest because now I was the guy. I hung my head. I was like, oh, man, this. Because I knew it was going to be successful. And I knew I was going to have to deal with all this stuff. And it was funny. It's a funny story. The HBO came to me with an idea. and they said, hey, how would you feel about us calling the character Adrian? Well, name the character Adrian Grenier instead of Vincent Chase. And I was like, oh, that's an interesting, that's curious.

37:25I liked it as an idea, as a concept. And I was almost going to go for it just because I thought it was a cool idea. And then I realized, I was like, I will have no separation from this character if I do that. Zero. It will be me. I will be it. Yeah. And so I said, no, thank God. Yeah, sure. Even just that tiny difference was probably allowed you to jump in between two worlds. Oh, yeah. Big time, big time. And just, it was meta as fuck to say the least. And I think part of the way I adapted and the way I processed it was creating more reflections, more layers removed. Sure. you know, um, by, by revealing it, by pulling the curtain back, showing like, it's all just fake.

38:18This is not real. Like I'm, I'm just a guy, you know, all the, and that kept me honest. And, and like you said, you had an idea of what Hollywood would be like when you got there. I, I thought I was going to have a house on the hills overlooking with the starlight, you know, the night, you know, the speckled LA at night, I was going to have a nice car and I'd be driving through the hills of Beverly Hills or something. I saw that. I ended up living in Los Feliz. I lived with like a bunch of guys, not like entourage guys, but like friends, like roommates. And we lived really just low to the ground, just cool, like hipsters.

38:59And I drove a Prius, you know? Because it wasn't actually as lucrative or glamorous as you thought or because you chose to live that? I chose that. Right. I always, like, as lost as I got in the lifestyle, and it was really more like my relationship to sex and women and attention. Yeah. I always was leery of fame going into it. Yeah. I was like, I don't know if I want to do this whole thing, which is why I was in Mexico doing documentaries. So I always made documentaries. trees. I always played music. I always just tried to call, like just maintain my ego to some degree. I didn't, and I don't, and I really believe that I didn't get, I didn't get detrimentally.

39:46I didn't like Dove Charney. I was able to get out of it. Sure. Does, does fame fuel ego or does ego seek fame? I mean, chicken and egg, I guess. Right. Yeah. Um, yeah. I think it's, it's funny right now because right now I'm ranching. Yeah. Yeah. Wrangling snakes and, you know, being in a family man living out outside of Austin. Um, and there's still a part of me that feels a little inadequate. Like I feel, uh, like I, cause I don't have the same attention and accolades that I once did. And attention is very seductive and very addictive. And so there are times when I feel, um, like a loser. I feel like I am not successful because people aren't telling me you're doing good.

40:45Yay. I saw your show. And so that's something that I, I, I see is built within me. And that maybe that's an ego thing where I, if I'm not getting that attention or that, those accolades, then I feel like I'm, I'm, I'm a failure. I got to imagine like, if you grow up feeling seen and valued and enough, you probably don't seek out any of the professions like the ones we have sought. Well, I think this must be my father thing, right? Because my dad bounced. So, you know, that's my wound. Like, I feel like if I had felt understood, I probably wouldn't have spent so much time trying to figure out how to articulate and explain and communicate what I'm feeling and thinking.

41:37Do you know what I mean? Like I'd just be a regular person or something. Do you know what I mean? Like I wouldn't, I wouldn't have sought out. Yeah. I wouldn't, I wouldn't have sought out the, the means that I make my living by, because I, I, I wouldn't, what it, one of the things it does for me, I wouldn't have needed to have done for me. Well, and we're all glad you suffered in such ways because we like you. We like what you brought us. But if you're like someone who got enough attention as a kid, do you seek out a profession that is fundamentally about attention? You're like, I'm good. Just like, I'm sure like if you grow up never needing to think about money, you're probably not like, I got to go to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange like and make my fortune.

42:28Yeah. And I look at it from like a permaculture, you know, natural systems point of view, you know, like there, there's tension within us and there's certain driving forces, which may be neurotic or, you know, Trump trauma-based, they drive you, you know, ideally you don't have trauma, but at the same time, there's that very trauma that composts you into new life, you know? So, you know, I, I try not to be dogmatic about like, oh, one way or the other, but I, I appreciate my journey. I'm so happy to be where I'm at and, you know, I wouldn't trade it necessarily. I was reading about this species of, I think a conifer tree or whatever, it's in Canada.

43:10And it's like pine cones. They only become like fertile or can grow a new tree if unlocked by temperatures that are not naturally present. So basically only fire allows it to germinate and grow. I'm probably using the wrong terms here. But the idea is like the forest fire isn't destroying this species. It needs the forest fire to unlock something in it. And that's probably true about some forms of creativity or ambition or whatever. Ideally, you have a childhood or a life that doesn't subject you to the forces that unlock whatever that is in you. Just like whatever the primal force is required to like kill in a war or, you know, everyone probably has that, but only circumstances draw it out from a person or, or cultivate a specific kind of person into like the warrior life, let's say.

44:14I think there's probably something about certain kinds of childhoods or certain kinds of experiences or moments in time that draw from someone these kind of certain callings. Yeah. Yeah. Can we talk a little bit about Daily Dad? Yeah, of course. Yeah. So our series Men Upright is about, you know, men's work and being a better father. Yeah. And so I was like, yes, this is such great. So you wrote a book called Daily Dad, which is basically just daily meditations from Stoic tradition on how to be a good father. Yeah. Or a good parent. A good parent. Yeah. There you go. Well, in my case, good father.

45:01Yes, yes. I mean, I call it a daily dad because I'm a dad, but the idea, like daily parent sounds weird, but that's, I hear from lots of women that also read it. Yeah. So do you find, it's a great book, by the way. Thank you. Um, I'm, I'm halfway through it probably. It's, it's by day. You're supposed to, you should only be, should only be like, well, maybe. No, I skipped ahead. But you're, you're supposed to only read the days, the days date. No, I, I skipped. Right. So I skipped, I've read like, you know, however many days. Whenever, whenever it came out. A couple months worth. Yes, yes, yes.

45:34Um, but what was I going to say? So do you find like, so you wrote the book, you get it, but do you, are you able to practice those? Like, do you find that you're able to actually embody those ideas, those philosophies, that wisdom when you're in the moment with your kids? Well, I would say I wrote it to practice it, right? So when I wrote The Daily Stoic, I found that not just writing the book, but then doing this, I've done the email every day since 2016. that the process of taking a minute every day to think about like what my values say or what I'm aspiring to be like or what the greats have been like is this wonderful sort of meditative intention setting process so then when we had kids I had this idea like I wonder if doing a parenting version of it would make me a better parent so like the fact that more than one person reads it is like gravy for me because the process of doing it makes, not just has made me better, but makes me better, which I hope implies very clearly that I'm not good at any of it and that I'm trying to get better at it.

46:48So like, I'm not writing the ideas like I, this is what I've perfected, but it's more like, here's something I'm thinking about, or here's what the ideal is, or here's what I'm trying to do. Like, I'll give you an example. I was just talking about with my wife. Like I heard someone smart say like, don't tell your kids to be careful because that's a meaningless thing to shout. What you're saying is I'm worried. I don't want you to get hurt, which is not, it's just true. That's your emotion. That's where be careful comes from because you don't want anything bad to happen to your kids. But that phrase doesn't provide any value or instruction, right?

47:26Like, be careful is not a thing you can be. So you should actually say something like, hey, what's your plan? Like, hey, try to, you know, put your arms out when you're on this, you know, narrow ledge or, hey, don't go so fast. Yell out some sort of actual instruction or value add. But like yesterday and every day before that, I find myself instinctively saying, like be careful when my feral animal children are doing dangerous shit you know so so like i know what i should say and then i catch myself saying the wrong thing and then i try to go okay now that you've shouted this meaningless you know warning try to actually like help in some way so i it's it's like i guess what i'm saying is it's a process for me and i hope what i found with the study of stoicism is like when I first read it when I was 19 versus what I was putting into practice when I was 20 versus what I was putting into practice when I was 25 versus 35.

48:28It's not, it's not just, it's not, it's actually not incremental growth. It's logarithmic growth or exponential. So it compounds with time. The longer you do it, at some point you start to actually see the benefits and the returns. Right. Because I mean, you're essentially an expert in stoicism, right? I mean, you're - I would say I know the philosophy - Foremost intellectual of stoicism of our day? I know the philosophy well. I would not say I am an expert stoic. I could make that distinction between the practice and the understanding. But you are meditating on it enough that you start to internalize it and embody it so that when you look back over time, you realize, oh, wow, I'm actually better than I was at 20, better than I was at 30 and so on.

49:16I don't know how old you are now. Yeah. Okay. So, um, and that's what I found, uh, myself is it actually took me multiple years, several years to become the man that I am today so that I felt like I could be a good father. Yes. Because instead of telling the kid how to be or teaching them the Stoic philosophy, If I could just be it, you know, they will just through osmosis absorb and, and feel it, um, embodied in me. I was talking about this with Samantha the other day. She said something like the most valuable skill a person could have is the ability to appropriately deal with frustration. Cause life is frustrating and Chico's wrong and it's never the way you want it to be.

50:08And most people are really bad at dealing with frustration. And there's really no way to teach how to be good at dealing with frustration to your children other than getting better at dealing with frustration. And so just the process of understanding what you're going through, trying not to be the person that you would have been a year ago or 10 years ago. And then also when you make mistakes or you don't do it the way that you would have liked to do it, to be able to communicate, reflect on, apologize for that. That's how you teach your kids how to do it. Or like in your relationship with your wife, like how you show up for each other, how you work through conflict, all that stuff.

50:53Yeah. Okay. So to bring it all together, what do you do about media and your kids? Something that we're talking about a lot. You know, we have no, you don't share. We don't do any pictures of their faces. We decided that at like day one, even though like my profile is much lower than, I just found like there was something, there was something first off kind of ethically wrong with like signing up for their kids for this thing that they didn't sign up for yes yes but i i also know like when i think about when i think about what you think when you're posting on social media like i hope i hope people like this yeah i hope it's popular i hope i get validation you know i hope i get approved i hope i hope this grows my account like all those emotions which social media is designed to exploit in both individuals and famous people and brands and whatever.

51:52I felt very uncomfortable with using my kids to get something out of that. Yeah. Like, hey, no one's really responding to what I've been doing lately. Cute kid. Call in the baby. You know, I just really, I just decided we weren't going to do that. And it was, I think it's been great from a privacy standpoint, but much better from a, that's not a component of our relationship with our kids. We take lots of pictures of our kids. Could we probably be more present? Generally sure everyone could with their phone, but the pictures we are taking are for us or for people we know very well that we are going to share with directly.

52:38or it's for them. Like my son fell asleep two nights ago. He wanted to watch the iPad and I didn't let him, but I did, you know, how your phone, you know how the iPhone, like it makes like slideshows for you of memories. I was like, let's watch like when we went to the beach, let's watch last year. Like we watched memories together. Like that's what I'm taking pictures of, not for the Facebook algorithm. Right. And what about exposing them to media? Are you, and it's hard. I mean, I don't even know if it's possible. I don't think it is. And it certainly wasn't in 2020 when we couldn't leave the house.

53:25And there was this idea of like, we also have to work. How do you, I think you're lucky in that you missed that with your kid. I think talking with parents who have kids the same age as ours, there is definitely an extra element. The screens are already addictive, but I can tell my oldest has, when he is stressed or afraid or feels overwhelmed, there's something about the screen that is magically soothing. We all know that. Because that's what it was for him when the world actually was scary for that period of time. Yeah. I did not grow up with iPhones and screens. And I got my first flip phone in my early 20s, like 22.

54:22I can't imagine these kids. But at the same time, genie's out of the bottle. Yeah. Now we have AI. what is going to happen? And how do you model for your kids as a dad, as a daily dad stoic, their relationship to phones? And what would the stoics say about phones and such? One of the things we try to do with the phones is I try to connect it to life. So it's like, he's watching a YouTube video about somebody going on a road trip, let's say, or whatever. I go like, you know, we can do that. You want to go do that? Like, so like, there are lots of things we have done in real life that he has learned about from first from the screens.

55:06So when we try to introduce him to stuff, or we try to what we're letting him watch, it's not just people playing video games, but it's people doing stuff in real life to then inspire us to go do stuff in real life. Right. So I think to me, that's the relationship I had with the internet when I was a kid, right? It wasn't this immersive, all, you know, encompassing thing. It was more like learning about stuff that you didn't know existed and then going and further down the rabbit hole. We tried to do that a lot. But I think one of the reasons I continue to read physical books at home, for sure, is like, I want to make sure my kids see me doing that a lot.

55:50yeah i mean there's no complaints with reading books right yeah it's like read as many books as you want all day long forever yeah but there's something about the screen that feels different and it is different but it's also not different it is because the medium is a message right so it's like just uniform like whether it's educational or entertainment it's all the same action the same experience there's not there's not like the tactile visceral experience of smell the smelling an old book or opening it or having to actually, I think it's very different. I just. In your internal, you know, conversation where you're, you're, you're like challenging yourself inside and having to, to work at participating because you're participating when you're reading because you're also imagining what it is as opposed to just purely being a consumer and being told, you know, as a passive consumer.

56:42I mean, one, one unique experience I've had with, with my books is like, I hear from lots of people that didn't read a lot before they read my books. So they didn't think they liked books. They didn't grow up reading. And then, you know, somebody gave them an audio book or they watched a YouTube video and then came and read it. And so like, I have tried to work on, I'm a physical book person. I mean, we're surrounded by books. I have a bookstore. I love books. I think books are the greatest invention in the history of humankind. But I try not to be snobbish about it. And I understand that different people have different journeys and different ways of learning.

57:24And so let's say it turns out that one of my kids is not that way. They're not a person who reads by learning. They learn by video or they learn by audio. Like I'm trying not to, I'm, I am trying to be relaxed about the different ways that we come to information. The same thing. I've talked to people who didn't read a lot as a kid and then they fell in love with it later. And so just also understanding that like people are on their own journey and that if you try to force or mold someone into being a certain way that you think is the only way or the best way, you'll probably not just, you'll probably not only not succeed, but you'll probably do damage.

58:08Like you'll probably push them further in the opposite direction. So like one of the things like finding out that my son is like very interested in, let's say YouTube or the specific YouTubers or whatever, I've tried to go like, let's think about who this person is and let's not just think about them as this thing on a screen, but to talk about how like they're an entrepreneur, this is a job and they have a cool job, which is like this person plays video games for a living like that wasn't a thing when i was a kid you couldn't do that as your kid and and so like i i have tried to like meet my kids where they are with this stuff as opposed to projecting or judging he likes slack slack is that what that is oh he likes minecraft he's obsessed with mine right but i mean watching people play minecraft yeah yeah he loves um he loves his kid beck bro jack have you ever done that by the way i mean you must have.

59:05What played? Just like watch people play? Yes. It's extremely compelling. It seems insane that it would even be remotely interesting. And then you realize, no, what's actually fun about it is the same reason it was fun to play video games as a kid, which is not so much the game, but the ball busting and the jokes and the narration that's happening as it's happening plus the immersiveness of the world. I'm going to send you a YouTube channel of a guy who basically takes, um, games like a video games and he cuts them together, uh, in like a, a philosophical, like, um, um, like a little philosophical diatribe using video games.

59:51So it might be interesting because there's deeper wisdom and ideas. Essay is what I'm trying to say. A philosophical essay using video games. Yeah, yeah.

1:00:09You hear that? That's not just a Toyota truck. That's the sound of no crowds. No alerts. No distractions. And no telling what you'll find next. You know, like a detour. So why would you ever take a tour when you could take a detour? Toyota trucks. You probably heard the headlines about all the different cuts to foreign aid and food benefits. This is having a profound impact on the world's poorest people and the world's poorest communities. But, you know, just hearing about that, that's not what stoicism is about. But stoicism is, to me, what you're going to do about it. And that's where GiveWell comes in.

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1:02:10You know, there's a big YouTuber that lives out here. I'm forgetting his name. Really? He like, he shut down. He shoots over here at a... Yeah, and he like shut down all... He did something with like kids stayed up all night and camped down the street. I'm forgetting his name. So it was a Mr. Beast guy. Yeah, Mr. Beast guy. It's a Mr. Beast guy. Like a guy in the universe. Right, yeah, yeah. Yes, yes. I think it was an elegant. Yeah, we punch above our weight over here. Well, there's... Yeah, I think there's only like 10 of us. So it's a small group. That's enough. That's enough. Who's the other actor that lives out here?

1:02:44He's in the Marvel Universe, I think, or the DC Universe. Zack. Yes. Zack Levi. Yes. Yeah. Have you met him? I have, yeah. yeah and then i guess there's elon also elon's on his way yeah just don't dump it don't Don't dump shit in the river. Water into our river, please. That's all. Yeah, of course. Yeah, I was... I may have reason to keep that conversation for after cameras are off. I definitely want to... There's a lot of development around here, and I have been actively reaching out to developers to offer my permaculture design perspective. Oh, that's cool. Because if they're going to do it anyway, Why is what?

1:03:34Put a bug in their ear and be like, hey, how are you dealing with water? Sure. What are you doing with wildlife? One of the things I've noticed about here that's kind of changed how I think about politically, it's very hard to build in Austin, right? Permitting is hard. Zoning is bad. So there's a lot of nimbyism in Austin that has made it extremely expensive to live in Austin. Like the house that I bought in East Austin, right? It's like one of those, it was because there was somewhat permissive zoning. Like somebody bought an old house and turned it into two little houses, like smaller houses.

1:04:08Because it's hard to build apartment complexes on, right? It's hard, even though people think Austin's blowing up, Austin has San Francisco level zoning restrictions that are very exclusionary, ultimately have very racist origins. Like the reason you and I live, we're able to live in East Austin is that the zoning was less restrictive on what was previously the segregated part of town. So Austin thinks, hey, we're protecting the environment by not allowing people to build and being restrictive. But then when you drive from Austin to Bastrop, what you notice is trailer parks and crappy houses and all sorts of things where as soon as you cross over the line, it is permissive.

1:04:53So Austin thinks they're preventing things from happening. But what they're actually doing is just bulldozing the beautiful land that's here, right? So instead of somebody being able to build an apartment complex that has density in Austin that would then lower prices and make it affordable or reasonable for people to live, they are essentially creating like shanty towns and ghettos in this county. And that's kind of changed how I think about things politically as I'm a pretty liberal person. And you think, hey, this is the right thing, but you don't understand how it's actually externalize like you think you're protecting the environment but you're actually harming the environment there's the same thing like um they wanted to build like some low-cost housing down the road here like on the other side of town that's like next to a tire shop it's not good land at all but a bunch of people were like well i don't want low-income housing right and so they they all got together and they shut it down and those are people who see themselves as good people as people who are stewards of the land.

1:05:55Yeah, not in my backyard. But they don't realize that those people are going to have to live somewhere. It's just going to be in a worse place than that. So I'm going to send you a deck of what we're doing at Kintsugi. Yeah. Kintsugi Ranch is our property. And we're essentially developing the land, but not for density, but for nature. Yeah, sure. So we'll have a number of people living there. but one thing that we are considering is who can afford to be there and what kind of apartment what kind of houses are we going to build so that we can have as much range of diversity of humans both low income and and people who can you know afford a little bigger place or whatever and also the the demographic of people who are inviting in because you know when all said and done, we're going to have a community of, you know, 30, 35, 40 people living and working there.

1:06:58And, um, so it's kind of cool to have your own little, um, canvas to, um, sure your own little canvas, uh, to develop and zone and create, which, so that's what I like about this neighborhood is I have a lot of control leverage to do that a lot of leeway I meant so have you been to Community Village or Community First Village Community First yeah the homeless thing oh yeah yeah yeah so cool yeah and they're building like 3D printed houses out there so Icon I'm talking to them because we're building a chapel on our property oh so I want to do a 3D printed chapel and I got a lot of ideas I'm going to show I would love that I'm going to enlist you I don't know if I can do an interview with one of these in my mouth.

1:07:46Oh, I just put it in the side. I suck on it. It has caffeine in it. Oh, it does have caffeine? Nice. Yeah, it's not lukewarm water, but how has being a parent changed you? It's only been two months, but how do you feel like you've changed? Well, I feel like a lot of your change was leading up to it, which is better. I made the choice to change so that I can arrive for this moment. That's very beautiful. You know, and so I don't feel like I'm playing catch up. Sure. I'm really just settling into what I've known I wanted. Yeah. and like deep down inside the little boy in me who uh sort of abandoned my romantic like i i was a one woman when i was a kid i told my mom i'm a one woman man yeah i'm eight years old yeah and then i ended up becoming a fucking playboy right and it's like the the disconnect so i really came back to my true nature is like i'm married so happily married my wife and i are getting along so well by the way i don't know if i mentioned this the girl who dumped me to set me flat on my rock bottom my rock bottom um i ended up winning her back and we got married so jordan right is the chick you know who basically um slapped i i say it's like cosmic bitch slap karmic bitch slap I had a moment like that.

1:09:24Yeah. When American Apparel was sort of, when Dove was fired and I came back and we were trying to turn the company around, I was this ball of stress. And my identity and my life was so tied up in work. Sam and I were fighting all the time. And I remember she was just like, I'm not doing this anymore. And I remember thinking like, am I going to lose this person? We've probably been together like 10 years at that point. am I going to lose the person I've been with for 10 years that's like made me better in all these ways for like a consulting gig at a company that's like, I didn't even start that at the end of the day, like I don't even care about like, and by the way, like the double whammy was like, I'd already written three books.

1:10:05Like I, I also had my other dream that I'd achieved simultaneously. And meanwhile, like I'm fucking in an office all day. This is insane. And so that was like a huge, That was a huge wake-up call for me. So sometimes you need that. I think sometimes people think being with someone, they go, I don't have time for relationships or I'm focused on my career so I can't be with someone. And you don't actually realize, yes, being with someone ties you down. But if you're an ambitious or even somewhat egotistical person, what it's actually doing is tying you down to planet Earth, to reality. It's like Dove desperately needed to be married.

1:10:47He needed some counter ballast to prevent him from being all one thing. And so it's actually been sort of a huge advantage. And women have a knack of revealing yourself to you and pushing you to be better. Sure. They'll call you out when you're not being your best or, you know, when you're, um, they'll just, you know, I see my wife as the Oracle, you know, she's the navigator. Yeah. She's like, you're going the wrong way. Turn left, turn right. Okay. Yes, honey. Like, okay. I'm on. Sure. And like, I can just drive, go straight. That's, and, and, you know, take orders. Not in a bad way. We talked about saying no earlier.

1:11:34I think two ways. Having a spouse makes it so much easier to say no because you can be like, I know I'm biased here. You tell me whether I should do this. Not tell me whether I'm allowed to do this or not, but you know my values and you know our values and our values as a couple. So as a less interested party, make this choice easy for me. So that happens a lot. And there's a deep knowing. It's a felt experience. It's not, you know, intellectual or you're not rationalizing something. They feel it. You know, it's the greatest thing that having kids does is it gives you perspective. Like you find out how much tolerance you had for bullshit before that when you have kids, hopefully you no longer have tolerance for.

1:12:21Like I have in my office, which you may have seen. I remember you recorded something on my desk. I have a picture of my kids, like a picture of my oldest, a picture of my youngest. And then in the middle, there's a sign that just says no. And the reminder for me there is not no generally, but that when I am saying yes to stuff, the random shit that comes in my inbox, I'm saying no to these two people. And then when I'm saying no to things that I don't need to do, I'm saying yes to these two people. And there is something magical about how understanding people are when you have young kids, because they know what it's like and they feel guilty about the things that they did that they shouldn't have done when they had kids so they leave you alone a little bit and they give you space and they're tolerant and so like i well that's one thing i tell people is like milk this for all that it's worth you know like i can't my kid is sick is a magical excuse i can't my son has a doctor's appointment uh dance recital you know we're going on family vacation like i gotta be home in time for this yeah that that was um i remember uh do you know casey neistat he's like a huge youtuber uh and great filmmaker but he he i remember um he did me a huge favor one time i asked him if he wanted to do something like go to dinner and he goes i don't miss bath time and that was like i didn't have kids yet so that felt weird to me that felt like something like Like, I don't know that.

1:13:49Right. Like some gendered stereotype that like somebody else does, like that the wife does, or that like, like my dad was never home in time for bath time. That was not his role in our family. So the idea that this person I respect whose work I respect is like, I don't miss bath time was really helpful to me and very practical. Like the idea that like I get home at night and I'm a dad at home, like that's my job has not just kept me out of trouble, but it's just eliminated even the consideration of a whole bunch of things that ordinarily you get asked to do. And it wasn't like an overnight thing.

1:14:27It took time and I've made mistakes and sort of waffled. But that idea of I get home to do X or I don't miss X, these are great hard and fast rules to practice as a parent that make you, by having the rule, it makes you the person that you aspire to be. Yeah. it's a container yeah in which you can be more free in many ways yeah like i remember i was talking to some very rich dude and i was telling him some version of this and he was like no one would believe me if i said that because like uh they know i have staff right like they know you know and i was like that's sad like that that sucks like i try to drive like i i'm the one that drives and a lot of the times picks my kids up like that's my that's my job and that that's not a thing I'm ashamed of it's like a part of my identity right like I like it I'm proud of it I like that I'm successful enough that I can make my own hours that I can drop my kids off and pick them up and by making some of those choices you can put yourself in the position to be the parent that you want to be well we're very happy that so far we've we haven't used a night nurse or nanny or anything.

1:15:45We've been very, just her and I. Yeah. And, you know, we're, we're blessed that we can be, but also we're blessed that we chose to do it. You know, we've made that choice to, to, to become the people that could hold that. And look, there's, there's, there, I, when I say these things, I try to stipulate that I'm not judging someone who can't do that, especially people who have no choice, right? Like they literally have to work this amount. They work in an industry where maternity leave or pre-leave Everybody gets to decide how they live their life. Sort of. But also, like, look, if you came to this country as an immigrant escaping persecution and now you have to work incredible hours just to keep your kids in clothes, I'm not judging that.

1:16:30What I am talking about is people who have way more than enough and then tell themselves they're working for their family that they don't see to provide things for them that their kids don't need when actually what their kids have asked for is them. Like how, how, how wealthy are you if you can't afford to see your family? Yeah. Yep. That seems like it, like to me, having a very busy schedule is a form of poverty, not like starvation poverty, but that's an impoverished way to live. Time is the most valuable thing. So how much time do you have to do the things that are important to you? One of the tricky things about writing is that as you succeed, you have more and more impositions on your time that take away from your ability to write.

1:17:24And so for me, like, somebody gave me this advice once, his name is Austin Kleon, he's this great writer, he said, them. Work, family scene, pick two. Like your career, your family, or like the art scene, parties, events, you know, it's like pick two. And, you know, I know which two I want. Damn. Yeah. You can't, because you can't have it all. Nobody can have it all. Well, I might be able to actually. Okay. So I've, I'm building a community, right? That's my work. I think if my work is the scene yes but or if they if they live on your property if it's community at that level we're we're veering close to some form of extended family at that point also fine right like you've you've merged it together yeah in a way that is you know different than um like I just like I get this is again a champagne but people be like oh like we're going to Italy for two weeks and I'm going like, cool.

1:18:33I like my kids. Like, you know what I mean? Or like, Hey, we're all going like a helis skiing in British Columbia or something. I go, that sounds cool. But like, I like my, I like my kids. Yeah. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm so happy where I am. And by design, I, you know, want to be able to merge my work. My work will, uh, play time together so that I can be with my kids to, and I say kids, cause I plan on having more cause I love it. But yeah, you have to, you have to design your life in that way, you know, and that's, that takes a little bit of, um, thinking outside the box and the, the, the courage to, to try it a new way.

1:19:20Sure. Um, I definitely, I feel so, so deeply grounded and there's such a relief. I was always chasing, like always having to go somewhere, always have to be somewhere. It's like, ah, and now there's just a calm, uh, you know, and my son, my son is, I can't wait for you to meet him. Yeah. He's so cute. Do you, um, do you ever worry that the future you will regret things that you turned down now? Like, like some, like, so let's say I get an offer to do something. I go, I don't need it. Um, I want to do this, but I sometimes go, yeah, but will Ryan 12 years from now go like, I really could use that now.

1:20:06I'll be honest. I'm not making as much money as I once did. So, um, there's a part of me that's like, Oh, are you gonna, you're gonna run out? You're gonna be, you're gonna be impoverished. But I keep reminding myself, I can always live in a camper in the backyard. You know, I can live low to the ground. I can live the, you know, to me, I'm, I, I expand to meet my, my opportunities and, and, and to, to, to, to live beyond, you know, just the, the material, you know, goods that I have. And, and so I can live, I can live small, I can live large. And so I have that range. So I don't think I'll regret it.

1:20:55Cause if, if I ever dwindled down to a place where I feel like I'm struggling, I know, I know I could sell, I could sell some stuff. You know, I can always, do so. I know I have the capacity to earn. Yeah. But I choose now to be present with my kids. Yeah. There's a confidence in that too, where you're like, I earned this stuff, not simple. Like there's kind of like an imposter syndrome that comes or that goes along with creative success because it is so unpredictable and you do know people that, you know, their career falls off, but there is a sense that like, you didn't deserve it. You didn't earn it.

1:21:32Didn't have anything to do with you. So of course it could be taken away. Shut up and be thankful. Instead of going like, Hey, like it was through savvy and skill and hard work that I did this. And even if it gets taken away, I still have most of those skills. Right. Um, and I will say like having the ranch and doing stuff, like anytime, like I, I work with like, it's like someone's replacing the floors i go like you know and then they they say they're going to show up and they don't don't show up and the job was supposed to take two days take six days and i go i'm confident in my ability to learn how to install floors right like if everything were to go to take you six days but no no i was gonna say like but i but i also know what i have that i could bank on if things went to shit is like i do what i say and i show up and i don't cheap you know what i like i go like Like I, it's not that I could do anything because there's some things I can't do.

1:22:30But what I'm saying is that like part of that fear when you have creative success is like rooted in the idea that that's the only thing that you can do. And when you've done other things and you have kind of a self-sufficiency. I can always mend fences. Yeah, exactly. I can do a lot of other shit. I can always bring in money. I can always live well. if it's on a smaller piece of property or if it's a smaller house or it's an apartment share, whatever it is, the important things are presence, love, family, community. And yeah, I rest assured that all the stuff and things can go away because they have and still find, you know, peace and happiness.

1:23:16Seneca, who was a very wealthy man, which some people thought was a contradiction between, you know, sort of philosophy and, you know, that there was a contradiction between being successful and being a philosopher. Right. And he said, no, there wasn't. But he did, he would practice this exercise. He would try to practice poverty like one day a month, like he would - Slum it. Slum it, you know, eat bad food or go without food, wear crappy clothes or walk the streets, not being Seneca, right? not in a wealthy Roman would have an entourage and bodyguards and he would just walk, you know, as a regular person.

1:23:54And the exercise he said was to get to a place where he could say to himself, is this what I was afraid of? And not be afraid of it anymore. Because that is the paradox of success is that we think it will make us more secure, but it makes us less secure because now we don't want to lose it. Now we're afraid of going back to how we were. Even though we were perfectly happy or we survived perfectly well before we had these things. Once we get them, it seems inconceivable not to have them anymore. Yeah. The things you own, own you. Yeah. Or the status, like the, but when you, when you can go, hey, we, we went on a vacation.

1:24:35Instead of staying in the Four Seasons, we stayed at a motel on a road trip and it was just as fun. And you go, oh yeah, I can't afford these things. So I do experience them, but I don't actually need them. They're not part of who I am, not dependent on them. And so to have that ability not to be afraid of some different way of life is kind of a superpower. Yeah, it's part of manifestation is to uncouple yourself with the goal and to be grasping and clinging to it and really let things flow. Energy flows in nature. When energy is stuck or stagnant, it breaks or it's missing from the – it creates a knot in your body.

1:25:27And then when – and same with money. I think wealth is an energy that needs to flow. And if you're held onto it too tight, it won't bring abundance. it'll actually bring the opposite. Yeah, and a lot of people have abundance, but still their mindset is scarcity. Yes, exactly. And that's, again, not a particularly rich life. Right. You can have all the things, but still feel like you're lacking. Yeah. Yeah. Especially, and that's definitely common if you were getting the things because you felt like you were lacking, Like you thought, hey, if I have a Ferrari, then I'm an important, you know, cool person.

1:26:17Like if you were trying to get the things to be a person as opposed to just being a person who likes some things. Like take away the Ferrari and there you are. Yeah, if you identify success with your success or your status or your possessions on the way up or when they're good, then you, by definition, are afraid to lose them. And everyone goes through slumps and transitions and down periods. Yeah. It's how you, your resilience and how you actually get through the down times is what makes you, creates your character. Yeah. You know, when things are easy, it's like, yeah, okay. But can you knowingly overcome adversity?

1:27:04That's the important thing. And I have confidence in that. Yeah. Yeah. And stripping things down and getting up close and personal with them is a way of cultivating that kind of resilience. And back to death, the meditations on death. Sure. That is the one thing that we will all have to confront one day and to practice that and get good at it. So when it does happen, you can do it with ease and with courage and grace. also i think meditating on death strips away a lot of the pretension and the significance of these things that you're chasing it's the great it's the great equalizer and and this is why it's helpful to go like what would i do if i found out i had cancer you'd immediately stop caring about 80 of the shit that you care about yeah and the the truth is you do have cancer Yeah.

1:27:59Like you do. You will die. You will die. And so the idea that you're like waiting for it to become real. Right. Or like close to it, it's silly. Yeah. And letting go of all the material things one step further is just letting go of the material flesh, you know, this body, which is temporary. And I'm sure that was part of the experience of the sort of rock bottom for you with your now wife, right? So you're arguing about things, you're fighting about things, you have these disagreements over priorities or how things should be. Then you lose that person, which is a form of death, right? It's the death of a relationship or a death of a future that you had taken for granted.

1:28:42And in an instant, none of those things are important anymore. And so much of what we argue about or fight about, there's an arrogance to it. There's an arrogance that you have forever, right? That's the sort of immortality delusion that we have. Or there's the arrogance that like the relationship can bear an unlimited amount of mistakes or stress or entitlements or whatever it is. And then suddenly you are reminded of the precariousness of either of those things. And you go, I was just pretending I give up on all of it. It's not actually important to me at all. Yeah. Yeah. It's true. It's true.

1:29:23Anything else we should cover? I'm good. I think we should just keep doing this more often. Yeah, let's do it. I do want to come to your ranch. Anytime. Yeah. Yeah. Mine's kind of ugly right now. The only reason I was thinking it was better to do this here is that that's one thing I found during the pandemic. It was like a funny thing. We bought it in April of 2015, maybe. But the point was, it was amazing. and then you know you take it for granted right it just becomes normal that's where you live but like when when the pandemic shuts down in march of 2020 i realized how few marches and aprils i had spent at that place because i'm always traveling i was like i it was experiencing the beauty and the perfectness of it because that's the best time of weather in this part of the country everything's green yeah uh it's not hot yet and you're just like oh this is what it's like, this is why I fell in love with it.

1:30:23And then we are in the, we are in the ugliest part of the year. The throes of a drought and, you know, hot, hot heat. Well, no, I mean, look, we'll wait till it gets pretty for you. But I mainly want to just get to know you, your relationship to the work and nature. Maybe you can come help me fix some things. And yeah, I'm down. We'll do that. Seriously. No, anytime. Yours is, yours is fantastic. I'm sending you this deck Yeah, please Well, I'm going to ask for some support Okay I won't do it on camera so that you can say no, but No, sure You'll see what I'm up to No, come out We're just hanging out Are you around for a bit?

1:31:10We're done Bye everyone

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