BONUS | Jefferson Fisher's Reading List (From Ryan Holiday)

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1:09of him as a writer, which is of course an amazing writer. He wrote all his speeches down. So it's him as like a thinker, but this is my favorite one. This is a good one. President Lincoln, you read that one? Okay, that one's incredible. That one's so good. Lincoln's Virtues by Miller is also very good. But have you read Lincoln at Gettysburg? I have not. So like my favorite fact read about that one. There's more pages in that book than words in the Gettysburg Address. But like his basic argument is that Lincoln is making, We think of Gettysburg as this inspirational speech. Of course. But it's actually a legal argument in which he subtly redefines what the war is about right in front of everyone's noses.

1:49Everyone thinks they're fighting to keep the union together. And he's writing, actually, no. He's saying, no, we're dedicated to this proposition that all men are Korean people. And that's what we're on this battlefield. He redefined it. Yeah, Will's argument is that most of the people who died at Gettysburg would not have agreed before the speech that that's what they were there for. In fact, many of them were probably explicitly against that. Very, very opposite. But he's doing this beautiful thing in a lawyerly way of just redefining and then proving in the address that, hey, no, no, we're actually here.

2:21And that becomes sort of a second founding document. But if you can see it as a legal argument from a lawyer, it makes a lot more sense. Yeah, I can tell. He's framing his argument. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean he doesn't mention Gettysburg, doesn't mention any of the people who fought there, doesn't mention anything about the battle at all. It's just an argument as to why they're there. It's incredible. Yeah, and the guy that spoke before him, your point about like, he just let them do all the talking, the guy before him gave a two hour address. And here comes Lincoln. The prayer was longer than the Gettysburg address.

3:01Jeez. And so it's also this mastery of, I think probably as a lawyer or two understands like juries get tired. Oh, yeah, they don't want to hear from you like just lay it out Even long prayers. Yeah, and so his point of like like that. It's so short I think his his mind is also how do you print this in a newspaper? Right like so is he speaking to the 5 ,000 people Gettysburg? No, I'm speaking to us now Yeah, right like it's this masterful sort of foundational document and he's seeing it that way That's one of my all-time favorites. These are awesome This is the team of rivals. Oh yeah, team of rivals, of course.

3:37Incredible. Her book Leadership is really good. Yes. Because it's sort of a best of all of them. Yeah, I haven't read it, but I know she has it. I'm going to do her next week, actually. Are you really? Yeah. Okay, this is an obscure legal book I think you would like, which is... And you've read all of these, I think. The premise is that they're all books that my wife and I have read and loved, as opposed to just any book. Where is... Are you just a speed reader? No, I mean, this is over the course of a life. I didn't all read these all yesterday. Yeah. I'm looking for furious hours. Okay, furious hours.

4:10So, after Harper Lee writes To Kill a Mockingbird, she doesn't write for a very long time, but she has this idea for a book. She wants to write about this preacher in Alabama who is murdering family members to take the insurance money. Oh. And she goes to write this book. And so half the book is about the case. Like about the, it's like a true crime book about the true crime. And then the other half is about her and writer's block and how she never ends up publishing this book, but she moves to this town and she goes to the trial every day and she's gonna write a book about it, but she never does.

4:45But it would have been an incredible book if she had. Wow. Because she doesn't get enough credit. She was Truman Capote's like collaborator on In Cold Blood. Oh. Because they were childhood friends. like he's dill in to kill a mockingbird is that right yeah they're childhood friends and so he's fictionalized in that book wow yeah that's cool yeah i didn't know that yeah it's nuts so that one's super good i think you'll like that one these are all great books yeah that's the idea only hits all killer no killer yeah it's beautiful

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6:46That's human with two N's dot com slash stoic for an extra 15 % off with code stoic at checkout. We just took our kids to an outdoor performance at the Nutcracker. They had a snow cone and then they went insane in the car ride home. And one of the things I try to remind myself when that's happening is that I don't control my kids behavior, especially when they're too far gone like that, but I do control how I respond, right? That's stoicism, but it's also what Dr. Becky talks about. Dr. Becky is a clinical psychologist and a best-selling author, and she founded Good Inside, which is there to give parents practical, actionable tools for handling those everyday challenges with confidence.

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8:04Becky. She's been a great influence for me as a parent and just as a human being. And Daily Stoic listeners can join for 15 % off with code STOIC15. You just got to head over to goodinside.com to catch the events.

8:24I saw you interview Charles Duhigg. Super communicative. Yeah, very good. He's awesome. I love these. and also like Robert's amazing book he's just a really cool guy and then the hills came out have you seen I've not it's just a 50 cent no no that's the that's the 50s all that was the first book I was a researcher so this one it's so this is like the 25th anniversary edition of 40 miles of hour so it's like Machiavelli on the side I see what he did and then Robert on this one it's my favorite it's pretty cool nerd out on books now like when you when you look at the covers and all that stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

9:02Because I've been through that process now of what it really takes to build a cover. Traces, yeah. Yeah, sure. And you don't think about just the white space, the font. Yeah, or you have ideas, like, I want to have color pictures or whatever. No, you can do it. You published your first, when you were like, what, 22? My first book came out when I wrote it when I was 24. It came out when I was 25. That's crazy. That's trust in line down here. I actually do, so this is my only loosely related to the law book, The Sapiens is good. This is a conspiracy, which is about, so Peter Thiel is outed by Gawker, which is this gossip website.

9:42And he finds this horribly offensive and doesn't like him, so he decides he's gonna destroy them. But instead of suing them, because what they did to him was perfectly legal, he searches out cases where they have done things on the wrong side of the law and funds them because he's a billionaire and so he they run a sex tape for Hogan and he sues them for a hundred million dollars and he tells Hulk Hogan and lawyers like I'll pay for whatever just looks for plaintiffs to take these cases with the idea of slowly bankrupting them and so the Hogan case goes and like at every step of the way Gawker is trying to settle and they can't figure out why hokokin is not settling and it's because the one condition of taking the case was that you have to take it to a verdict ah which is like breaking the legal system yeah every step of the way both parties should be incentivized to settle and he's not hoping not and eventually they went 140 million dollars and it bankrupts the oh it has to company and um now there's definitely people who weaponize that well what he realized so the the big sort of moment in the case is he realizes that he deposes like that basically got it's this gossip website and they've sort of broken the system which is they realize that they can basically say anything they want about anyone because you never sue a media outlet because it just makes the case more popular yeah and so he starts pursuing the case and he gets the the CEO and the editor the CEO of the company's been around for like 15 years he gets them into depositing the first question of a deposition is have you ever been deposed for a lawsuit before and he He goes, no.

11:18And then he realizes, oh, nobody's ever gotten this far before. And that's what, like, so they seem invincible. They're actually not invincible, just no one's ever challenged them in any way. So they weren't following the rules. They were actually very reckless because they thought they were invincible, but they weren't. That's incredible. Yeah. That's awesome. That's a great story. It was a crazy, weird book to do. That's a great list, man. What else are you into? Tell me, I just, I'm curious. I've always been curious about your coins. Just how that kind of came to be for you. You know like in the military they carry like challenge coins.

11:50So it's sort of based on that. You just have that idea of just, you know what I should do? Well, so in a lot of like Renaissance art and churches and stuff they have like memento mori like the reminder of mortality and I was like, you know, you see it would be like a philosopher at his table and he has a skull there. Oh, it would be cool to have some kind of like memento mori. Table something? Something. I was like, I'm probably not gonna buy a skull. And I was like, what if I had like a challenge for me, like a challenge winner. So that's where the momentum where I want came from. That's cool, man.

12:19That was like, I don't know, eight or nine years ago. I was like, let's just make like 500 of them. Yeah. And that'll pay for me to have one. Right. You know, like I'll just, yeah. And then we've sold like tens of thousands. It's been crazy. You want one? It's like incredible. I'd be honored. Which one, what do you want? So we have whatever you think kind of captures our talk. All right. Can you give me a four virtues one? I've also been following this daily dad stuff. Oh, thank you. I really like it a lot. Is that like your passion project? Yeah, I would say so. In a good way. Yeah, no, totally.

12:49Our kids are pretty much the same age. Yeah, I would say it's really much better writing it. And so if it sells one copy then great. Right. But like in writing it, I'd always say the stuff to myself. Yeah, of course. And do you ever like find, because I know you travel and I travel like with my kids. Yeah. That something will happen and you're like, I need to remember that thought and need to remember that. Yeah, all the time. Oh, here, this is the four virtues. This is cool. So the four virtues of stoicism are courage, discipline, justice, and that's what happened. I have this one in here, but - Yeah, yeah, I don't care about that one.

13:22Yeah, man, this is so impressive. What an awesome life you've - Well, thanks. You've carved out, man, it's great. And here in Bastrop. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it. When I found out you were in Bastrop, I was like, what? The same, I thought the exact same thing when I found out you were in Beaumont. Yeah, I know. That's why I was like, no, I'm not coming to Bastard without bringing my booze. There we go. Here, we gotta take a picture. I read a lot. It's sort of my job. You can't write without reading. For almost 15 years now, once a month, I send out an email with my favorite book recommendations for that month, books that I've been reading, books that I've been going through, books that changed my life, that inspired me, that I can connect to what's happening in the world.

13:59And you can sign up right now at ryanholiday.net slash reading list.

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