BONUS | Where Service Meets Stoicism — U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Joe Byerly & Ryan Holiday

0:05Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a Stoic inspired meditation designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2 ,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women to help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit dailystoic.com.

1:09it, they design it, they send it back to me, they copy it, we go back and forth. But this whole process takes many, many months. So like wisdom takes work. I think I turned in more or less as the book was going to be. Like I stopped writing, writing like in December of 2024. And it just came out like two weeks ago, right? So that's several months of one book ending before that book comes out. So what do I do in that interim period? I start writing the next book. Always writing. This is advice I got from Steven Pressfield. Just start the next book. Start the next book. So I am already chugging away on the next book.

1:48You may have heard me talk about it in interviews or some of the walkthroughs because people come into my office and then I show them what I'm working on. And I'm working on a biography. I'm actually working on a biography of James Stockdale. And Billy Oppenheimer has been my researcher for a long time. He worked on all four books in the Stoic Virtue series. And he's fantastic. He has a lovely email that I've talked about before where he sends out a bunch of things to think about every Sunday evening. You can sign up for that at billyoppenheimer.com. So Billy's my go-to guy. He's like what I was for Robert Crean, right?

2:19But Billy's a little busier these days, not just because he's working for some other interesting people and he works on lots of stuff for Daily Stoic, but he's also working on his own book. So I decided when I was going to start this other book that I wanted to work with someone else. And given that this is a book about the military and about the Vietnam War, I decided I wanted someone with a background in that. And so I was trying to think about who I might work with. And there was someone that I'd done their podcast a couple of years ago. We had some mutual friends. We would chat back and forth every once in a while.

2:53I knew he wanted to be a writer. I knew he was retiring. He'd just spent 20 years in the US Army. He was a lieutenant colonel, a tank commander. He ran a cavalry squadron in Europe where he won a Bronze Star and the Legion of Merit and a Purple Heart. Just an incredible dude. And I said, hey, I don't know what you're thinking about doing next. You probably could go make a fortune as a consultant or as an executive at a defense company or something. But maybe you want to do this instead. And he said, that's exactly what I want to do. And so I've been working with Joe Byerly and Joe has been helping me research on this book that I'm doing now.

3:31And it's been an awesome experience. It's been not just great to watch him grow, but like he's found so much stuff that I would not have found on my own. He's been able to help me sort of scale myself a little bit, do some of the travel, like going to these different archives and stuff, which I don't have the bandwidth for. We've been chugging away on this book. So he wanted to interview me about Wisdom Takes Work, which he made some contributions to as well. And I said, OK, but I also want to run this conversation on The Daily Stoic because I think people would benefit from it. And I think more people should check out his site called From the Green Notebook, which is a podcast and an email list and sort of a platform for leaders, mostly military leaders, but I think leaders of all type who are trying to grow and get better.

4:16Joe talks a lot about reading and writing and self-reflection. He's also got two little books, The Leader's 90 Day Notebook, and he's also the co-author of My Green Notebook, Know Thyself Before Changing Jobs. His writing has appeared all over the place. You can follow him on Instagram, From the Green Notebook, and his podcast is called From the Green Notebook, which you can find on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify. I wanted to bring this interview to you so you can kind of see behind the scenes what it's like to work for me, what I'm working on, how I think about things, and then Joe's perspective as well.

4:47You can watch the video version of this on YouTube, which I'll link to in the show notes. And of course, you can check out Wisdom Takes Work, which is in stores everywhere. I really appreciate the support, everyone. And let's just get into it.

5:06We 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. My wife introduced me to Dr.

5:43Becky's books. I love them. I've recommended them a million times. I've had her on the podcast. And as it happens, Dr. Becky is hosting two live Q &A events for Good Inside members. I am one of them. She signed me up for it about a year and a half ago. I've loved it ever since. On December 1st, you can join Dr. Becky for her How Not to Raise Assholes event, which is about avoiding entitlement and raising kind, empathetic kids. And on December 15th, she's hosting her How Not to Lose It over the holidays event, which I'm sure we could all use. As I said, I'm a big fan of Dr. Becky. She's been a great influence for me as a parent and just as a human being.

6:24And Daily Stoic listeners can join for 15 % off with code STOIC15. You just got to head over to goodinside.com to catch the events. Look, when you're hiring, you don't want just anyone. You need the right person with the right background who can move your business forward. And when I need candidates who match what we're looking for at Daily Stoic for any of my businesses, we trust Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Because when you're hiring, Indeed is all you need. You can give your job the best chance to be seen with Indeed's Sponsored Jobs. They can help you stand out and hire quality candidates who can drive the results you need.

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7:46Just go to Indeed.com slash Daily Stoic right now to support the show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash Daily Stoic. Terms and conditions apply. If you're hiring, do it the right way with Indeed.

8:03Welcome to another episode of From the Green Notebook. I'm your host, Joe Byerly. And today I'm sitting down once again with my friend, New York Times bestselling author, Ryan Holiday. This conversation is a little different for me. It's my third time interviewing Ryan, but my first time since we started working together last summer. After 20 years in the army, stepping into the world of writing a book has been a completely new experience. At 44, I find myself very much an apprentice again, proof that growth never stops, which is one of the central themes of Ryan's latest book, Wisdom Takes Work.

8:40In our discussion, we talk about the importance of staying curious, the need to write things down and to reflect, because our belief systems are at stake and can be easily influenced in today's world of social media. Ryan also shares why we should listen more than we talk, think with nuance, and ruthlessly question our own beliefs. We dig into why mental struggle is necessary, why shortcuts rob us of real knowledge, and how power and intelligence can be dangerous without the tempering influence of wisdom. In addition to exploring ideas in Wisdom Takes Work, you'll also get a sneak peek behind the curtain into Ryan's writing process.

9:20We talk about his next project and what both of us are learning as we work together for the first time. So with that, please welcome to the show, Ryan Holiday. yes I think you have a little glimpse into my life uh working on this next book together which is that although I have one coming out what I'm actually excited about and thinking about all the time is the next one and it's the sort of blessing and curse of this like uh track that I'm on because yeah you're you're you're talking about the thing that's done that you lived in for a while but you're living in a totally different world it's interesting too because the i was actually listening i was listening to it but i don't think we recorded it so the last the first podcast we did i think was in 2020 for courage is calling when coming out and you made a comment you said i i think uh i hope this works out but you're like i just signed up to do this four-part series yeah uh and you know so it's it's like a you're like basically at the base of a mountain uh looking up and you only had one under your your uh your belt at the time yeah i've never done i've never done books that are related before uh my uh ego obstacle and stillness were sort of accidentally part of a set and they're not really linked in any way other than stylistically and then i guess they're influenced by stoic philosophy but yeah this is the first time i'd ever first and so far only time that I'd ever done interrelated projects.

10:58It's not just weird, like doing any books that are interrelated, but the four virtues as an idea, like going back 2 ,500 years, Zeno talked about how they are distinct yet inseparable from each other. And there's something about that that I think goes to the essence of the virtues because, you know courage but in pursuit of what or you know wisdom uh but in pursuit of what and so they're all related to each other so where one book begins and ends is a little fuzzy and somewhat arbitrary and then also your as i was writing each one until i got to the last one i was always thinking about the the next one and then you get to the end and you're like well i would do courage differently if I was starting you know so it's it's been a it's been an interesting project for sure yeah and then you know for listeners like what like the thing that Ryan was alluded to right before we went into this discussion was uh you know I think I've been working with you now for a year and this is the book uh that I've I've oh right because you you you looked at the raveling book a little bit yeah that was like my first taste of it and then this one was to kind of towards the finish line yeah and uh and then now we're just like we're building the ingredients for the next one yeah and so it's a weird part of publishing where promotion is about the thing you've already done and right as you start to finish a project you tend you start to think you're usually finding what you're getting excited about next And so it and they tend to overlap like right when it's because I mean that wisdom has been in the can.

12:50I think I submitted it as a final I submitted the manuscript to the publisher in like maybe December of 24. So it's been that didn't mean there wasn't a lot of work and a lot of editing to do. there was but um most of the the the creative you know sort of part of it has been done for you know nearly a year and you're what even by the time you turn it in you've already been winding it down for a while so yeah it's it's a it's a weird um it's a weird headspace because right when you're the most precious about your time and most excited and engaged with the thing you're doing now, you take large chunks of time to do podcasts and interviews and then the book tour and all that kind of stuff.

13:38So it's a, yeah, it's a, it's a weird experience. Yeah. So, so let's go back in time then to, to a last year conversation. So how do you, how do you define wisdom? I would say that I don't, I think if you, if you could, if you feel like you could define wisdom, you're almost certainly exhibiting some quality that is not wisdom. Like there is something fundamentally ineffable about it, which isn't to say I don't think we can wrap it, that we can't wrap our heads around it. We can. But there's something ineffable about wisdom that by that I mean it is many things. It's not one thing, right? It's experience and intuition and education and intelligence and understanding, it's creativity, it's perspective, it's being philosophical in the lowercase sense of that word, right?

14:37So it's all these things and more. I guess what I have come to say is that the one thing we can say for certain about wisdom is that it has to be earned, right? That it doesn't, it's not something you're born with and it's not something anyone can give you, right? Wisdom is the result of hard work. That's what the title is. It is something that ensues as a result of a relatively timeless and unchanging process. It is a method, and it's the byproduct of that method. So, you know, it's this thing that we are aspiring towards as opposed to something that you go, oh, this person has it. Right. And even if somebody has it, they may only have it in one area.

15:36Yeah, sure. And that the possession of it is fleeting at best. Right. Not just because circumstances are always changing, but also because the possibilities, all the additional things that one can learn are also always changing. So it's like the horizon, right? You can make progress towards it, but it also gets further away. Yeah, I actually, I got this note card. Somebody got me on this thing of writing stuff down on note cards. Yeah, sorry about that. And it's from Plutarch, and he's talking about this Persian who visited this studio of a sculptor's studio. And the sculptor says, as long as you kept quiet, you seem to be someone because of your golden jewelry and purple dye clothes.

16:32But now even these lads here grinding the pigment are laughing at you for talking nonsense. And because this guy came in thinking because he was rich, he was wise. And we see people making that mistake today. Well, that's obviously the kind of thing you should write down on a note card. But yeah, there's a famous quote, is it Lincoln, about, you know, I'd rather be quiet and thought a fool than open my mouth and remove all doubt. And then there's an episode of The Simpsons where someone says that to Homer Simpson and he says, you know, takes one to know one. And then in his mind, he goes, swish, you know.

17:13So I think there is something about wisdom that is, one, fundamentally about humility. And two, something very different than success, power, wealth. There are many smart people who are fundamentally foolish. And then there are very many people who no one would define as well-educated but are, in fact, quite wise. Who are some of the people as you were researching and, you know, thinking about the topic of wisdom that you kind of held up as being a wise person? Well, obviously, there's some some characters that run through the whole series of the books. That's been a part of it. One of the things I've liked about doing these interrelated books is to be able to sort of track different people's evolutions and to be able to sort of hold them up and look at them from all these different angles.

18:07But the sort of three main characters of the book, I first I start with Montaigne, the French thinker who has this very untraditional education, both a mix of sort of self-education and traditional education and then tutoring and life experience and travel. He's just sort of fascinating, one of the smartest people who ever lived, but also one of the most unconventional thinkers who ever lived. And so I sort of talk about the education that forms this man and the ongoing nature of it. So he's the primary character at the beginning. And then at the end, I talk about Lincoln as the sort of ultimate man, the complete man, if you will, both self-educated in the way that Montaigne is, and then also a great moral figure who does one of the hardest things there is to do, which is to take this wisdom, this ability to see what other people can't see, and then change the world in that image.

19:06And then in between, the middle part of the book is about this idea we were talking about, which is how smart people can be very foolish and how there are these sort of sirens or pitfalls that can blunt, you know, considerable intelligence and in fact, even maybe weaponize that intelligence. And so for that character, I look, you know, quite in depth at Elon Musk, who I think is both one of the smartest people in the world and then one of the most dangerously stupid people in the world. And I sort of look at this incredible rise. How does a guy basically teach himself the automotive business, teach himself the space business, you know, solve these incredibly complex and complicated problems, not just like mathematically and from a physics standpoint, but the hardest thing to do in innovation, which I was saying, is like bringing it into the world.

20:05Like he's a logistical genius and a bureaucratic genius and a manufacturing genius and an organizational genius. And so, you know, how does he accomplish all these incredible things? And then, you know, you look at him today and you're like, what happened? You know, how does this person who goes from reading Soviet rocket manuals go to, you know, like retweeting misinformation from Russian bots? And, you know, I think he's a cautionary tale in many ways. This isn't a political thing. Just how does someone by nature of their information diet and the stress and the strain go from being, you know, one of the most widely admired people on the planet to being this divisive polarizing person who is, you know, gutted the federal government and done, you know, a number of other things.

20:58So that's sort of the arc that the book takes people on. I'm trying to think back to your past books. And from what I remember, I think this is like the first time that you've taken a critical look at a contemporary person. Oh, I don't think that's exactly true. Certainly in the Virtue series, almost every one of the main characters has not been alive. Queen Elizabeth died in the middle of Discipline is Destiny. So I mostly try to pick people that are not alive and then and mostly historic because they're less polarizing and partisan. But I definitely in my other books, I've told stories of, you know, athletes and entrepreneurs and people.

21:43I think you're right. Mostly positive. I do mostly try to celebrate. You know, Alex Haley said the job of the author is to find the good and praise it. And I kind of feel like most of the stories that I do are celebratory. But I also, you know, I started as a research assistant for Robert Greene. And I think one of the genius parts of the stylistic layout of the 48 Laws of Power is that he has as often as he's showing the observance of a law of power, he's showing a transgression of the law. And in many ways, this can be more compelling and persuasive to see the cost of rejecting, you know, wisdom or, you know, a fundamental part of the human experience.

22:29And so I don't have a problem doing negative examples. Actually, you know, in Ego is the Enemy, I sort of break down Howard Hughes at some length as one of the middle characters of that book. And in many ways, the irony is that I heard about the book that I ended up basing a lot of that writing on. I heard about it from an interview I read with Elon Musk in like 2015. He was saying that Howard Hughes is both an inspiring and a cautionary tale. And so, you know, I think I was predisposed to sort of follow that trajectory then. And it wasn't a choice that I took lightly by any means. I mean, I've met him before.

23:19I've been to a party at his house. We have a lot of mutual friends. He's like basically the owner of this town that I live in. And, you know, it's not something I was excited to do. And, you know, I could come to rue the decision, I'm sure. But it struck me as a very powerful example of what can happen when you don't take care of yourself and also when you get high on your own supply, which is, I think, what happened. We have to remember, like, the story of King Midas is a cautionary tale. You know, pride goeth before the fall, but also it's just, it's not sustainable to expose oneself to the amount of stress and strain and the workload that he has done.

24:09And you add into that the very potent element of everyone telling you that you're one of the smartest people in the world and you are one of the most powerful and richest people in the world. To go to your point about Plutarch, Plutarch would very much recognize this, not just this personality type, but this arc, as as would Montaigne and as would Shakespeare and as would Homer. this is what happens, right? This is not the exception to the rule. This is the rule. And, you know, if you read and you study history, this is what happens to MacArthur in many ways. This is what happens to most of the great men and women of history.

24:54You break under the strain. And I think that my argument is that's largely what happened here.

25:06Thanks to Toyota Trucks for sponsoring this episode. When I bought my ranch in 2015 out here in Bastro County, I drove my car about halfway down the dirt road that we live on, thought this isn't going to work, stopped, parked it, walked the rest of the way home, borrowed my wife's car, drove into Austin and bought a truck. What I bought was a Toyota Tacoma. And this truck wasn't just transportation getting me to and from my house. It unlocked a whole different style of living for us, not just on the ranch, but in our little Texas towns. There were places I could go now that I couldn't go before, especially out here in the piney forests, through the fields and on the unpaved roads like the one that I lived in.

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27:27yeah well going back to you know even like writing this book or the writing you've done in general i think a lot of people think that you know they can just read or you know consume information what role does writing have in the development of wisdom well uh you you helped uh kick off one of my favorite chapters in the book it was a story i was familiar with um but but uh hadn't dug that deeply into. I have a chapter in the middle of the book about writing as a way of clarifying and articulating your thoughts and holding yourself intellectually accountable. I tell the story of the monk, Thomas Merton, who believed that writing was a contemplative act.

28:17But then the sort of B story in that chapter is a story of Eisenhower, who's called into Marshall's office, the outbreak of World War II. And as he is sort of being interviewed for a larger role, Marshall is really testing him and a number of other officers, not so much on the caliber of their ideas, but how they go about coming up with those ideas. And so I make this up a little bit, But as far as we know, Eisenhower is the only the only general that Marshall interviews that when asked, what would he do to save, you know, basically the Pacific theater in what what is now the second truly a world war?

29:03What would he do? Marshall's the sorry. Eisenhower is the only one who goes, hey, I need some time to think about this. And he borrows a typewriter and some paper. And actually, I just found the papers you had. You found like actually the stock of paper circa 1941 or 1942 that he would have written this on. But he basically sits down and he puts his thoughts into writing. So instead of riffing, he puts his thoughts into writing. And I think the reason I like that story and the reason it struck me is it's sort of central to who I am as a person. And like I've said this before, but I I think I became a writer because when I would get in discussions with my father or my teachers and I would I would feel like I was stumbling for the words or I feel like I wasn't explaining myself well.

29:54I feel like my impulse was I want to go in my room and write this out like and and thinking with your fingers to borrow the an expression from Robert Caro is to me one of the best ways to clarify your thoughts and to and to get them to get them there. Because, you know, one of the things I don't like about podcasts is it's a lot of bullshitting. It's a lot of first takes and your first take is very rarely a good one. And writing is even your first draft is not your first take because you're having to think about it and think about the word choice. But then, as you as you saw in the process of the book, you get edited and edited and edited and edited, even down to in this room.

30:42You know, two months ago, I started the audio book and I had another final round of edits just hearing it out loud. So it's the writing and the editing as a process that helps one develop as a thinker. Yeah, I know I read it somewhere, but I've written about this, so it comes quickly to the forefront of my mind. I think we have between like 50 and 75 ,000 thoughts a day swirling around in our heads. And it's when you, you know, how we opened the podcast, that Ian Forster quote, how do I know what I think until I see what I say? Yes. Seeing it on paper really helps to clarify the thinking. And then when you see it, you actually see gaps in your knowledge.

31:30And I know in the writing process, sometimes I'll look at something and be like, wait, wait, why did this happen? But I wouldn't have asked the why question if I didn't see it written down first. Yeah, it's writing. And then it's not just writing to see what you think, but also if you then conceive of the audience reading it, it adds this whole other wrinkle. Like Joan Didion said that writing is a hostile act. And by that, she meant you are having to take what you think and say it forcefully and persuasively and logically enough that somebody else agrees with it. Like they don't just read your writing, but they concede the point.

32:16And so so now if you're now thinking about the audience and you don't want to think about it too much, but you need you can't not think about it. You've now brought empathy into the equation. You've now preemptively considered the objections to your line of thinking. You've you've you've considered the attention span of the audience and you've tightened what you said. So there's all these different angles now. So if it's just like, hey, here's what I think, you know, maybe that's sufficient. But when you're thinking, hey, what do I think? What are the problems with what I think? What are the problems other people are going to have with what I think?

32:56And then how do I make this snappy and compelling and interesting and stylistically solid? All of this forces you to refine and distill and refine and distill until you've gotten something close, if not to the best way to say it, then certainly a better way than you would have said it if not subjected to that pressure. Yeah. And, you know, we're talking about it in the context of writing a book or writing an article. But, you know, for leaders listening to this show, I mean, like you're constantly communicating, you're communicating down into your formation or organization. You're communicating up to, you know, superiors, the marshals of the world and, you know, laterally to your peers.

33:40And so each one of those people is a different audience. And as you think about those things and get it down in writing, you can kind of take a step back and look at it objectively and, you know, tighten your argument up and make sure that, again, you're speaking to the right audience and the right voice. And so it's not just this isn't just a skill for writing, which I guess is why it's in the wisdom book. Yeah, it's it's part of the process. Yeah. And look, like a world where you're sending Slack messages to your fellow employees is not, you know, imagine you're Marshall or Eisenhower. You're having to write memos to the president.

34:22You're having to write orders to your generals who in turn have to then write orders who in turn have to write orders. And so if you're not starting from a point of clarity and conciseness, if you haven't well defined what you're doing and why you're doing it and what the priorities are, it's going to get, you know, you add that sort of game of telephone on top of it. It's going to get real sloppy real fast. And so, yeah, writing is an art and it's something that you need to be good at. and young people need to be good at. And this is obviously one of the worries about AI is not, you know, it's not that term papers are that important, but the ability to produce a good term paper, that is to say, a good, the ability to get your thoughts on paper and explain something in a way that is satisfactory to someone else, that is the skill.

35:25And like, I think that's one of the things that's interesting as I fool around with AI, just how bad it is actually at writing, you know, um, but, but also one of the things you get from being a good writer is the ability to recognize bad writing. Right. And I think, um, that's been striking to me. One of the other chapters in the book that I'm, I think is most relevant and most important. I talk about, you know, sort of sophistry and demagogues and conspiracy theories and misinformation. Like you um you notice that it's not just that people are bad at writing but they're bad at reading too and by that i mean they're bad at recognizing bad writing you know like i i wrote an article a couple weeks ago and and like somebody replied you know with like a link to a gateway pundit article.

36:17And it's like, this is a person who, you know, is not able to recognize just bad thinking, bad writing. They can't even recognize like aesthetically what a reputable website looks like compared to a not reputable website. And so, so writing isn't just forming your ability to communicate what you need to communicate, but it allows you to effectively parse what other people are communicating and recognize sort of tricks uh and and shortcuts and bad thinking uh and and you know insufficient uh you know um uh or illogical arguments or insufficient arguments like this is all these are all critical skills both in the ancient and in the modern world yeah i'll i'll try to explain i wrote it out and let's see if i can explain it but uh yeah like i wrote something called the walls we build and essentially we have like like our belief system is built up over time and in each brick you know yeah bricks come from childhood they come from stuff your parents said your coaches so you're building up these these walls of belief and you know all across the internet there are people just handing bricks out whether they're hot takes on x or Facebook or this gateway article, maybe that's two or three bricks.

37:40And if you're not careful, algorithms are going to build the wall. People who are misinformed are going to build that wall. Russian or Chinese disinformation is going to build that wall. And I think over time, if you're not careful, you're going to have a belief system that's built on a bunch of shitty bricks. Well, I'll give you a funny example. And then I might need to actually help you. what I will need to have you help me track down this actual stat. But for the Stockdale thing, I wanted to know how many graduates from the Naval Academy had died in World War II. And we might have already talked about this, but I needed to know how many Naval Academy graduates had died during the Second World War.

38:24So I said, I typed this into chat, GBT, and like the newest, not like the free one, but like the one I pay a lot of money for. And it said, you know, and to its credit, it was showing me its work. But that's why it was that's why this was so visible to me. It goes, OK, 6 percent of the graduates who served in the from the academy died during the Second World War. And then it said between 1940 and 1945, 7 ,500 people graduated from the Naval Academy. So therefore, you know, it's like 422. Well, obviously, that looks like thinking and it was typed out persuasively. Right. But the problem with this is that those are two totally unrelated variables.

39:16I happen to know from something else that I'd read that like 54 classes from the academy served in the Second World War. So so the fact that seventy five hundred people graduated between 1940 and 1945, which is roughly the war years, is totally is totally unrelated to or irrelevant to the fact that there was a six percent death rate. Right. You you. And then the fact that there is a six percent death rate means that the actual statistic is available somewhere like this. This would be in, you know, the V.A. would have this statistic or someone would have it. And so I remember saying to Chachi Petit, like, hey, these are totally I was like, hey, this is wrong.

40:04This isn't even close to the answer. Try again. You know, and it goes, well, I was just estimating. Let me try to be a bit more, you know, precise. And I said, you know, estimation is not the problem. The problem is you're just smashing two unrelated numbers together and telling me that that's, you know, the answer. And it's not. And I said, you know, obviously, again, by nature of you having this 6 % number, that was derived from the total number of people who served and the total number of people who died. We can get there. And then the irony is, and this is, I think, the thing where smart people often outsmart themselves or make simple things complicated, there is the simple fact that there is a memorial on the wall in Memorial Hall at the academy that lists all of the names, which I could just get a picture of and count.

41:00And so my point is not that AI is not impressive and that it can't do some things. My point is that actually the challenge of the 21st century, although this is arguably always the challenge, is how good are you at spotting bullshit? it? How good are you at questioning the answers that you get from other people or from other things? And so in this case, I needed to know a bunch of information and have some basic critical thinking skills. Like I still don't know the answer. I just know that what you gave me is not even close to the answer and that the formula that you attempted is not ever going to be able to produce that answer.

41:47And so in that way, I'm inoculated against being incorrect, but it still doesn't actually solve for me the problem that I need to solve. And so when we talk about wisdom, this is kind of what we're talking about, right? It's not having all the answers, but it's knowing how to find the answers. And it's also knowing what is not the answer, Because just not falling for bad thinking, sloppy thinking, manipulative thinking, propaganda, etc. is just a big part of being a wise person. Just not being stupid is the first part of getting closer to wisdom. Yeah, and curiosity, too, would play. Yes, not being satisfied with the first answer is a big part of it, too.

42:34Like you ask a question or you read a book. And I think that's been the interesting part when you and I were talking about this on the Stockdale book. You read something or you you think you have a good sense of something. And it's only when you keep pulling on the thread that you find, oh, there's just so much more here. There's just so much more than you could have ever imagined. And it's really the desire to keep pushing and to not be satisfied with what are often secondary or non-primary sources and really to take it back to the roots. That's what it's all about. The other thing about your reading, too, is you can read, you can listen to informative podcast, whatever your method for intake is.

43:29But, you know, like something that I was thinking about this morning was is the forgetting curve where 24 to 48 hours after you finish reading something, you forget 75 percent of it. Yes. So for you, the importance of writing, like writing things. Yeah, not not writing prose, but but the reading the book and then the note cards of it. Yeah. And and there needs to be some process by which you record and synthesize the information that you have. One of the stories I tell in the book, which I ended up reaching out to him and I got a bit more color on, General Mattis tells the story in his memoirs of hitchhiking to go see the philosopher Eric Hoffer talk.

44:18And he goes up to him later and he asks him for advice. And he says, you know, make sure you write down anything interesting that you hear or read. And what I asked Mattis about this, and he told me that he has something he calls his book of wisdom, which are three ring binders, where for the last 60 or 70 years, I forget exactly when this Hoffer thing happened, but basically for the rest of his life, he has been doing that. And you can imagine the many, many binders that he's filled of these insights and ideas. And as it happens, Eric Hoffer did this, too. At the Hoover Institute, there are supposedly file cabinets filled with note cards that Eric Hoffer accumulated in the course of his travels and experience and writing and reading.

45:09So it's not just the reading, it's the processing of the information. And the only thing that that that I I struggle with this is like I read a lot, some of it for work, some of it for pleasure, some of it just for for my own education. And I'm I'm horribly backed up right now. Like I'm I'm reading all this stuff for the book that I'm writing now and having to process that. And every day the stack of, you know, novels and nonfiction and biography that I've read that I haven't had the time to process piles up. And the funny thing is so much of what appears in this book and my past books has actually come not when I was reading for work, so to speak, right?

46:00It's when you're reading randomly or arbitrarily and you find something that you didn't even think of was related to some project you hadn't even started yet. So it's not just the reading, but it's the what comes after that I'm really interested in. Yeah. And George Raveling, he had, he did something similar to with his three ring binders and he was, you know, highly successful executive basketball coach. So I like, there's something to that. It is funny though, because I've met so many people over the years that have like sort of proudly shown me their, like, like, um, Buzz Williams, who's at, who's at Maryland now, you know, I went to his office one time and he starts handing me these binders that he's been doing.

46:41And it's like, it's only interesting to them. Right. Like, like, Like it can't make any sense to anyone else. Like, like if, if, if George Raveling had in his will, given me his binders of wisdom, like that would have meant a lot to me, but it would have been almost totally worthless to me because it's, it's like not just in his handwriting and in his shorthand, but it's, it's, it's what he thought he needed to know. Right. And so there is something like I've spent thousands of hours on my note cards, and they're really of value only to me and indecipherable to basically anyone and everyone else.

47:27But that's the point. You're not creating a resource for other people. You're creating a second brain for yourself. yeah in a couple things on that one like i started doing this in 2012 and i actually remember googling i was like oh this i should write about writing things down in the notebook yeah it's like oh who's this uh ryan holland it was like is that how you found me yeah 2016 2017 that's like he wrote something about commonplace notebook and i just started going through all the writing. I was like, I really like this. So I found that I was keeping a small three by five notebook on me throughout my back half of my military career.

48:14I was constantly looking at this stuff over and over and over again. And I found that it was almost like things were at the tip of my, not just my tongue, but my mind when I was facing problems that were were new, you know, I was having to address like very complex issues. I was able to rely on those notebooks. Well, it helps with the recall, right? So I think people, look, I have no problem with audiobooks and ebooks. Like I like that people buy them. And I think at this point, they're like 50 or 60 % of my sales. So I'm certainly not complaining. But I think if you tell yourself, oh, I'm saving this on my Kindle or I'm making a note in Audible and I'm going to remember it, I think you're fooling yourself, right?

49:03Like to me, it's the longhand. It's taking the notes in the book and then transferring it. And then it's the ability to go back to your shelf and grab it and find, OK, I see here on the note card or in my thing that this is the quote. It's on page 92. And it's not just the quote, but the larger context of the quote. And so, yeah, I not only read all my books longhand, but when I am like if I'm just reading, you know, the news of the day, I'll read it on my phone or whatever. But like I print out articles, interviews, you know, research papers. I print them out and I go through them by hand because I want to I want that to be my sole focus.

49:52And then I want to have the paper record of it. so I can go back to it later. And then even, you know, like the process is always refined. I never, until I'd done this biography, you know, I hadn't needed as much material that wasn't in books. But these kind of briefing books that you've been putting together have been, you know, a really important part because, you know, I'm reading, you know, dozens and dozens of letters. I'm reading, you know, memos. I'm reading transcripts of interviews. And again, I need to physically have it and be able to read it once, mark all the stuff that's important, and then go back to it and transfer it from here, either into note cards or into the chapter or the section that I'm writing.

50:40So for those listening, this is where when you don't know that working on a general staff is ever going to pay off in the future. Yeah. This is where it's paying. I would say it's substantially improved the process for me. The pages keep coming out of these little books. I think from a technology standpoint, I would be, we're in the middle of it and it doesn't matter. But like if I was traveling a lot or I could only imagine one of these briefing books in a combat zone or something, there's got to be like a better technology for it. The trick is they don't read it. You prepare it. They never look at it.

51:16They look at it one time. Or also it's like, you know, you open it halfway. I'm the same way. I was just going through this on my my nine-year-olds like homework this morning it's like that what i've always hated about the three ring binders and stuff is you're like you know you get like halfway and then you should be able to just snap it closed instead it's this like delicate process of like bet you know like whatever but um it's just it's funny too just to think and there's this great book that i read i've been raving about called the notebook um which is about the history of notebooks oh yeah yeah i I interviewed Roland.

51:51Roland? Oh, yeah. But just that, like, as a technology, it's old, but not that old. Like, just the technology of a notebook, you know, is, like, from the 1400s. Like, the modern notebook dates to, like, the 1400s. Which means, like, on the one hand, the Romans didn't have access to something this convenient. on the other hand like da vinci is complaining the same way that we're complaining or you know i'm left-handed and so one of the things i hate about writing by hand and i i tend to use like sharpies a lot is like my i'm just like covered uh because i i'm dragging or whatever you know so so anyways it just the timelessness of like the the insufficient nature of all these different mediums and the complaints about the technology is pretty great there's actually a line in isaacson's bio of da Vinci, where he talks about how incredible it is that da Vinci's pages survived to us, right?

52:52And I was in Milan a few years ago, and I went and I saw some of the pages of the notebook. But he points out that when he was working on the Steve Jobs book, that Steve Jobs was like, oh, I have some diary pages, or, you know, I have some things that I wrote about this, Let me find it. And Steve Jobs is going back to this old Mac that he had from like the 80s. And like even Steve Jobs is having trouble getting the things that he put on this computer out of the computer. Meanwhile, these diary pages from Da Vinci, you know, 500 years ago are like readable to your average layperson. And he was saying, like, basically put it on paper.

53:37The best place to put it is on paper. And I think that's that's largely right. And the Stockdale book would be very hard to do now if it wasn't for the letters. Yes. Yeah, of course. Well, and just paper copies of his orders. And yeah, all these all these artifacts for for sure. At the same time, if he had lived, if he had been born, you know, a century earlier, there wouldn't be these oral histories that are so valuable, too. So it's a little of both.

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55:22As we wind down, I'm curious. Because a lot of people listen. And they're like, well, I'm so busy. I don't have time. And even now, I'm looking around right now. I have a stack of stuff for you. I have my own stack. I have my personal reading. And then I've got books that are just coming in from folks. You're like, hey, you should read this. So I'm also getting backed up right now. So how do you find time or how do you make time in your schedule for to go back and kind of pull these notes out of your books into note cards? Well, I remind myself that pretty much everything I know and everything I write is a lagging indicator of work that I did at some point in the past.

56:09Right. It was not just reading the book, but then processing it that put it on a note card that then, you know, as I was going through and organizing the next book, you know, was sort of perfectly exactly what I needed in that moment. So I just have to remind myself that it's a form of time travel. It is a gift I'm giving my future self. In the same way that it would be awesome to be able to travel back in time and tell a younger version of you something you learned, this is a way that a present you can travel to the future and tell a future version of something that you're probably going to forget.

56:51Like Joan Didion was talking about how she says that notebooks are a way of remembering who you used to be. It's also a way of remembering what you used to know. Right. And so I just have to remind myself, this is this might feel like it's not moving me forward or it's a value. But that's because it's not moving before right now. It's not a value right now. But it's actually going to be the exact solution to a problem that I have six years from now because I'm writing something or because I'm dealing something with my kids. And suddenly the recall, the memory of having written this down pops into my head or I'm going to be doing a memo or a video or whatever.

57:34It's a gift to your future self. So I usually go through periods like I'm not caught up right now because I'm so unbalanced working on this thing. But I know that when this slows down, I have to go back through that backlog. Does this slow down? Well, yes. Yes, because as we're talking about, like I finished the wisdom book in, you know, let's say November, December of last year or finished most of the writing and the researching. And then I immediately started going through everything that I'd read about Stockdale, everything I'd read about Vietnam, everything I'd read about the POW experience.

58:19And that formed the basis of the the sort of outline for the book that I'm now researching and writing. So, yeah, I know like stuff is piling up for the next project and I'm kind of putting it over to the side and I know I'm going to go back through it later. oh right and i appreciate you making time man i know i actually can say i know how busy uh you are no this has been a dude you you're doing amazing this has been actually a great experience and i can't i was just telling samantha the other day like um i uh i'm like loving this like i'm loving being in the middle of the thing and that, um, that, uh, I, um, I should not only enjoy it, but I should not rush through it.

59:08Like, like I, I can turn the book in whenever, uh, like that, I don't know. I didn't tell you this, but my publisher was like, um, Hey, so, so, uh, we wanted to talk about release dates on the book. And I said, okay, when are you thinking? And they, they gave me this, this, um, this date. And I, I said, okay, but when would I have to turn it in? And they were like, I don't know, sometime December or January of this year. And and I was just like, immediately, no. And I was like, not because I couldn't. I think I probably could like I could get something, you know, rough. But I was like, why would I why would I I'm enjoying this meal?

59:46Why would I try to finish it as quickly as possible? And so, yeah, I just I genuinely loved being in this person's life and in this period of time. And there's something, too, about when the world feels like it's falling apart. I'm enjoying being in the 20s and the 30s and the 40s. I guess it says something about, you know, our our current moment that there's something relaxing about living in the 1940s, you know, but but it is right because because you're you're you know how that story ends and you don't know how the president ends. And there's something wonderful about being in, you know, somebody's journals and diaries and these sort of great men and women of history that sort of turns down the volume in a way that you don't experience in the current moment.

1:00:45Yeah, agreed. I'm, again, right there with you in the trenches of this one. So, again, Ryan, I appreciate your time, man. And I'd tell people, it was like six months before I retired. And I remember we had a conversation. And I didn't want to commit to anything. I was just like, I just want to retire and I'll figure it out later. And they were like, wouldn't it be nice if you just knew that you were walking into something next? And I was like, okay, that's a good valid point. That may take some of the stress off. Oh, that's funny. I said that. Interesting. do you feel like you're learning like because i feel like i'm like obviously i've done projects similar to this and i've researched a lot but i feel like i'm learning a lot about um not just about this person but i feel like uh i'm adding in i found this conspiracy where i had to read a lot of legal papers and just even the process of procuring all the legal papers was a lot but but i feel like i'm learning uh about uh just different kinds of archives and types of information and i it's been an interesting experience yeah and i was i was like this is book this will be what book 17 i don't know something like that yeah but i would imagine for the process and i was i was telling i think i was telling amanda this is like this process would have been different for obstacle is the way or ego is the enemy sure But now that you're like have several under like I can tell you're trying to push the limits of what you've done before.

1:02:26Well, I've done that in all the books. I would say that was actually the excruciating part of of the Obstacles Away, the 10 year anniversary edition, because I had to go back and do it. And I noticed not just first off, what struck me is like, oh, these were this was like basically everything that I knew. Like this was all the stories and anecdotes and history that I knew up until that point. You know, I was I think I was largely writing it at like 24, 25. So I'd read a lot and I researched a lot. But that was that was everything that I knew. And now I know a lot more. So it's like I'd read one biography of Grant.

1:03:05You know, now I've read five and then another. So I just had a larger base of knowledge. And so what I found was sometimes the things that the claims that I was making were thin, right? Like that I was resting it only on, you know, one line from one person. And that I just wouldn't allow myself to do that now. Yeah. And that's the thing is like now I feel like because you're at this level, like it's almost like you're from an educational standpoint. I'm learning where you're at on this number book. Yes. Yeah. You learn inside of it. And I remember when I was a researcher for Robert Greene, you know, he'd be like, try to find me this.

1:03:48And I'd find it. And he would just be like, oh, that's not that was not good enough. And he just meant like the story wasn't good enough. And then other times he would mean like, that's not a serious enough source. Right. And I would have to go back and find more and more and more and really actually support this claim. And so I but what as I've gotten better, I've tried to not only find different. I feel like my writing that the examples have gotten more diverse. The history has gotten more interesting. And then I also feel like the ground that I'm standing on, it's gotten firmer because I've asked that of myself.

1:04:22But I do remember also working for Robert. He told me he's like and he was, you know, four books in maybe. But but his books are just different. He'd been doing it, you know, 15 or so years, probably when when I started working for him. And he was saying he's like, at some point you get to a place where you can just smell what you're looking for, like a shark can smell blood in the water. And I just remember thinking, oh, that's really interesting. And I wonder what that's like. And you've probably seen that on this where I'm like, I know this is somewhere. I don't know where it is, but I know that it's somewhere.

1:05:01And I let's keep looking until we find that thing. The stories were the I it's funny as before I came down here, I just finished the section finished the section on West Brown. I feel like finally I have all the information I need to make the claims that I'm making. And to also, as we were talking about, you think about the audience, I feel like I've disproven, I haven't left anything unchallenged. I've looked at it from every angle. I have all the information I have. I can safely make this conclusion and have this section. and it's supported and justified and that if anything, it's the tip of the iceberg.

1:05:47I could say more if I wanted, but I'm leaving it here. So on that, like, and I wrote this down the other day because of this thing, and for listeners, you'll have to wait till the book comes out, but this idea of learning from the instincts. And so like when I was working for senior officers, they would make gut calls they would make instinctual calls like that and i would remember i would write them down and then go back and reflect on like you know what information did he receive he or she receive in order to to make that call and so uh the other day when we started going down this west brown yeah you know theme the story in the book i was like man like brian has an instinct there and sure enough like as we've yeah locked that that wing of the hotel there's plenty of doors to to open but like is this idea of people who are you know in this you know mentor protege role is not only you know paying attention to things they're saying but like learning from instincts i think is something i want to explore well and and in in like like Like what Robert was having me do is chase stuff down to either prove or disprove an instinct he had.

1:07:08Like he'd be like, I think there might be a story in this person. Go read like five books and come tell me if there is. Right. And so he could do that and he knows how to do that. But it's not worth his time because the chances of it being true or not true is low. right or valuable or not valuable is low the the important stuff he's doing himself and but but what i'm learning is how to to do that and then you're you're developing that same instinct and so now i can say to you hey um there's got to be uh like you know i i think we're uh there was something it was like a speech and uh i was like this there's got to be something out there and you're like, I don't think there is.

1:07:57And then I was like, there's no way that one of the most famous people in the world visited this small town in Iowa. It was not covered wall to wall by newspapers, you know, and you were able to find it. And that was because I remember I'd done some stuff. I'd researched some stuff that, and I just, I was just amazed at the level of, you know, detail that was covered in these newspapers. And I mean, I wrote a whole book about media criticism. So I just had a sense that there was that this was there. I mean, and this goes to the AI thing. I couldn't tell you for sure where it was, or that it existed.

1:08:40I just knew that more likely than not, it was there. And that it could, this gut instinct was falsifiable, right? Like you, you could go search the archives of these three newspapers, and we would find very quickly whether it did or didn't exist. And so, so, and that, that's where, and I talk about sort of delegation and stuff in the discipline book, that's what leadership ultimately is on a level that's different than being a writer. Like, like, sure, if I wanted to spend the next eight years of my life, I could track down each one of those leads. But what you get good at is knowing the falsifiable assertion and then having trustworthy people who can then go give you the answer one way or the other.

1:09:37That's what it's about. Right. Well, as we wind this down, because that was the last question, so one more. All right. What is one thing after finishing this book that has changed your life or that you're doing differently or? Oh. That's a good question. What have I taken out of this book? Well, one of my favorite stories in the book, I talked about Socrates being a very smart guy who had sort of poor social intelligence. Right. Like they killed Socrates because he was obnoxious, not because he was smart, because he was obnoxious. And I just put a lot of I'm putting more thought into like it's not just what you say, but it's how what you say makes people feel.

1:10:27And that I think this is a this is another way where smart people, you know, get themselves into trouble. And I am trying to be a bit more thoughtful and deliberate, especially in this kind of fragile, you know, sensitive slash incendiary world we're living in. You just don't you don't do yourself any favors. Posting or saying the first thought that pops into your head, this isn't to say you censor yourself, that's not what I'm saying at all. But it is, you know, it is the ability to say, hey, what is the best way to say this? Not the most diplomatic way, but what is the way that will make sure that what I'm actually saying is heard, not how do I immediately offend slash turn the other people off?

1:11:21yeah ben franklin actually wrote he wrote about that he talked about that that's the ultimate goal so do so in a way to where it will be received so maybe if you just start wearing like bifocals and a coonskin cap well ben ben franklin is a really interesting example and i talk about him a little bit in the book like it's very rare that the smartest person in the world is also one of the most well-liked people in the world and people really fucking like ben franklin Like like that. And that's a level of his genius that he doesn't get enough credit for is like people really liked Ben Franklin. Nobody locked Ben Franklin up in the tower.

1:11:59Right. Like even the British were sort of begrudging fans of Ben Franklin. And that social intelligence and interpersonal relations is another layer of wisdom and intelligence that we often ignore to our peril. Elon Musk being a great example of this. well Ryan thanks for your time man of course this was awesome I I think the next interview on the the Stockdale book is going to be very it'll be I don't know what it'll be like yes the time that comes around so we got to get to the finish line first and we're only maybe 20 percent done so that's great that's good to know good to know I know what my my weekend's going to be but again thanks thanks for making time today and thanks for the last year It's been awesome.

1:12:52It's been a fun post-military education. Thank you again for listening to another episode of From the Green Notebook podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please give us five stars wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps us gain visibility and the opportunity to help more people on their leadership journey. Also, make sure you check out our website at www.fromthegreennotebook.com. There, you can listen to past episodes, read leadership articles written by military leaders from around the world. You can sign up for our monthly reading list email where you can learn about new books that are coming out and our Sunday reflection email that comes out every Sunday morning.

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