Matthew McConaughey, Greg Harden, Morgan Wade, Casey Neistat & Dr. Samantha Boardman On Creating Better Habits in 2024

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2:29Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are and also to find peace and wisdom in their actual lives. Kind of stoic intention for the week, something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave you with, to journal about, whatever it is you happen to be doing.

3:12So let's get into it. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I don't know exactly when you're listening to this, but we just put up our Christmas tree, got the Christmas lights up, had a nice relaxing weekend as a family and did it without any yelling or stress. So I'm sort of proud of that. You know, there's something about stoicism, I think, that is tested by family coming together, tested by the colds, tested by the shortened days. It feels like it's getting dark so early. My wife and I were just talking about how freaking tired we all are. And, you know, you're coming to the end of the year and you're exhausted with who you are.

4:01Maybe you've relapsed on some bad habits. You're staring down the barrel of another year and you're asking yourself, am I going to do this again? Am I going to be the same person again? Anyways, it's sort of what I'm thinking about. I felt like my eating hasn't been great. I feel like I've been on my phone too much. I feel like maybe I've plateaued working out wise. Like I'm getting it done, but I'm not into it. I'm not doing what I should. Anyways, I want to do better going into 2024. I've got some changes I want to make. And so that's where today's episode is. We're going to focus on self-improvement in today's episode.

4:41And I'm bringing you advice from Matthew McConaughey, Morgan Wade, who is one of my favorite guest this year. Greg Harden, who is Tom Brady's mental skills coach at Michigan. Dr. Samantha Boardman, who was a great guest on the podcast too. Matthew McConaughey, of course, needs no introduction. Morgan Wade, if you haven't checked out her music on Spotify, you absolutely should. Greg Harden has a great book, which I'll link to in today's show notes. Dr. Samantha Boardman has a great book I'll check out. And I think all of their advice, which is about habits and focusing on what matters. I think all their advice ties into and certainly informed the Daily Stoic New Year New You Challenge, which is on sale now.

5:23It's going to start on January 1st. So you don't have much more time to sign up. You can do that at dailystoic.com slash challenge. It's going to be me and thousands of other Stoics. We're all doing it together. And like I said, I've got a bunch of habits. I'm trying to tackle things. I'm trying to change. And I'm looking forward to digging into that on the live chats with all of you. By the way, if you are thinking about doing the challenge, and you want to sign up for Daily Stoic Life, just do that now. You get all the challenges, including New Year, New You, plus all the rest we're going to do in the year.

5:52So we've got a bunch going on. You can sign up now at dailystoic.com slash challenge. I'll mention it at the end of the show as well. In the meantime, here's a compilation of some self-improvement advice as we go into a new year.

6:18I like go, I can't, I'm not like a night out. Really? I'm like an early, early bird. I get up early, so. That's not a very musician thing. No, it's not. And my mom says that all the time. She's like, I'm so surprised because I've always been like that. I always go to bed early, get up early, so. Yeah, I did this book with these rappers this one time. They were like, let's meet in the studio at one. And I thought it was like afternoon. They were like, no, let's meet there. I was like, how could you be starting at this time? This is insane. Yeah, yeah. I wonder how much of that is like sort of like acting like I wonder if everyone's actually probably not that way.

6:52And then I don't know. There are some people that I've worked with and they're like that and they just get going like late at night. But I'm like, no. Yeah. I feel like working normal, regular person hours is way better. Yeah. A lot of the LA people are like right with in LA. They, you know, if you want to do like a co-write or anything like that, it's not that it's not before lunchtime. Like some of them want to start like 3 p.m. Right. And I'm like, you got to understand I'm on the East Coast time. That's six for me. Yeah. I'm winding down at that point. Yeah. And then also I feel like that means.

7:33Yeah. Like if you're someone who wakes up early, you work out, you eat, you do stuff. You're, you're not peaking at three. You're like already on the decline. Oh yeah. You got to figure out when you're, I think creatively have to figure out when you're peaking and then you have to design your life around that, which I guess would be weird. If you peak at one, 1am that makes you into a vampire or something. Yeah. That's not me. That's not me. Do you, so you're like, what time do you get up? This morning I got up like 445. Why? Why that early? I just wake up early. Normally I get up and go to the gym early.

8:07I like to beat everybody else in there. So I don't have to fight for anything. When I'm at home, I get up around that time and I get up, I make my coffee. I come sit back down with the dog. I read and journal, do all that stuff. And then I'll go hit the gym. Yeah. Walk me through your morning routine. So what are you doing? So, yeah, on the road's a little different. But if we go like when I'm at home, yeah, wake up around 5-ish, 445, 5-ish, sometimes a little bit, 515. I have my coffee, sit there with the dog, read, journal, and just kind of like chill for a minute. Like what's a minute? Like 45 minutes, something like that.

8:46So I try to be out the door by 6 o 'clock. Okay, to go to the gym. Yeah, it takes me about 15, 20 minutes to get to the gym. and then it's either because there's a class there a few days a week and so they like take up the whole gym yeah and so it's either get there like 4.30 yeah or try to be there by 7 to like yeah so it depends but yeah go to the gym for a couple hours couple hours yeah I'm in there for a bit and then I go to the coffee shop in town go sit and have coffee I meet my friends there or whatever and then I go back home and I run And there's a trail where I live. So I'm like constantly walking that trail all day.

9:27Wow. And then that's. That's not that's not part of the working out. That's just you're on the trail just being active to think. Yeah, I don't like to sit. I don't like to sit. I constantly walk and I'm training. I'm doing it's less than a month away now. November, first weekend, November, 30 hour race. So I'm trying to hit a hundred miles. Have you done that before? No. The most I've ran, I've ran two 50 mile races. Um, and then a couple of weeks ago I ran, uh, like 30 miles. So I'm kind of that halfway. Yeah. Wow. So, but how often, I mean, that sounds, uh, sounds both terrible and wonderful.

10:06Like I get what it does for you. How often do you actually get to do that though? I imagine that's the exception, not the norm because you're on the road, right? Running or the whole, your whole routine. Like how, how many days a month are you actually getting to do it the way that you want to do it? it has not been like that uh as much lately um i say lately like the last year basically but when i'm on the road as soon as we get there you know and i prefer to get there early um for a show like the day before you mean or what do you mean yeah so we we roll in when you're on the bus you typically leave midnight one in the morning and of course i sleep i get off the stage i get in the bed uh keeps me out of trouble yeah i'm like i don't drink or anything so it's like i go i get in the bed and we wake up you know sometimes it's like 7 a.m just depends and i get up have my coffee i find a gym the headline tour i had uh all the gym equipment like squat rack everything in the trailer so i work out there um but i'll go i map it out find a gym go work out for a couple hours, come back, you know, have my lunch or whatever.

11:15Uh, well sound check, get dialed in, sign all the stuff. And then I just walk, go run, walk for the rest of the day until time to go do VIP. So, so is it, is it you like sort of idle hands or the devil's workshop kind of a thing? Like you can't keep yourself, uh, if you, if you are, have downtime, you get yourself into trouble or is it that it's conducive to positive things? No, it's not that I, I like to say get into trouble. I just, if I stay up late, my idea of getting in trouble is like staying up, eating junk food, you know, that kind of thing. And I just think it's good. It's healthier just to go play, wind down and get in the bed and stay on a good side.

11:57But I mean the walk, like, like why not hang out in your hotel room or see people? Like, so you're just walking. And is it because if you're sitting, you're in distress? Yeah. I mean, I can, I say that like, I can't go sit. Like I'll go sit at like a coffee shop, read my book or like do those kinds of things. But, you know, I listen to, I'll listen to an audible book, whatever, like walking around. But I just like stay moving because I'm like, I don't know. I've, I've, the last couple of years really become like that. Just constantly like moving. And I think too, because I don't know, I don't want to just sit inside.

12:34It's been like really good for me. I know mood wise, it's just, I'm so much happier when I'm like out walking around constantly moving versus just, I'm not going to sit there and watch TV or, you know, anything like that. So I'm like, why not? Is it meditative for you to walk? For sure. Or just sort of a walking meditation? Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, you know, if I have meetings or anything like that, I'm on the phone. I'm just going to walk. Yeah. Because if I sit down, I'm like pacing. I'll get up, like walk around the house. I'm like, go outside and try to walk and take those meetings. That's one thing I've hated from the pandemic is now everyone wants to do fucking Zooms for everything.

13:09And I'm like, no, I'm like, that means that I can't do my other thing at the same time. So I was just, I'd be like, oh, I don't go to receptionist. Right. No, totally. And it's funny because I'll, you know, if it's with my agents or, you know, with the label or whatever they know, I'm going to be walking around. Yeah. I know. And it's probably, I don't even, I try not to even think about what it sounds like to other people because there's all this noise. Especially with the AirPods, it's picking everything else up. And then most of the time my manager's like, are you walking on the highway? My wife said that to me the other day.

13:42She's like, you know, it's like horrible. Like you can't hear anything you're saying. I was like, don't tell me that it's going to mess up. Like the one thing that's working for me. I have to stay moving when I'm doing it. I know. I know. Yeah. And it's weird. I think of all, most of that stuff, my routine is sort of similar, is like the physical benefits are totally unintentional. Like it's actually all about getting to the right headspace, not getting into trouble. It's like, you know, not going crazy. And then if it's keeping me in shape, that's just, that's extra, but that's not why I'm doing it.

14:18Right. Right. Yeah. I, you know, for me, it's just, and you can tell like my mood, I have to get, I have to work out every day. I have to get up and work out. Like there's just, it has to happen or I, it messes with my mood. It messes with my day. And I'm like, it has been good for me as far as touring to not be so married to the schedule. Because, you know, I have really bad OCD and there's certain things that I'm just extremely particular about. And so it was good for me to be like, OK, it's not it. Everything can't happen how you want it to happen. Yes. And to kind of like dial in and adapt to to schedule.

15:04Because, I mean, that's one thing that was really, really like shattering to me. And it caused, you know, a lot of anxiety of being like in panic, which sounds dumb to a lot of people. But in my brain, it was just like, what do you mean? We're not going to be here at this time. I have to do this at this time, you know? Yeah, no, the routine is cathartic and comforting and conducive to getting in the right headspace. But it can have this effect of making you feel like you're in control when you're not. So like, uh, fundamentally we all have a certain powerlessness, right? And so the disruption of the routine, like travel, it can be good because it's forcing you to be a bit more resilient.

15:49You're having to figure out how to operate inside an environment where you don't get to determine how everything goes. It's not revolving around you. Uh, and, and that's probably good because otherwise you become super fragile. Exactly. Yeah. And I mean, the biggest, it was like overseas, you know, I just did the whole run over there and, you know, Germany and Paris and everywhere. It was just like, that's a whole other ballgame of trying to find a gym over there. And instead of like looking at it now was like a stressor, I'm looking at it like, okay, this is a cool challenge. You get to find out.

16:28And then I got to, you know, visit a lot of really cool gyms and stuff over there versus stressing over it. And I'm like, it's such a dumb thing to stress about. Like you're going to the gym to better yourself and because it feels good and, you know, you really thoroughly enjoy it. So trying to look at it from a different perspective. Yeah. It can almost become like a superstition. Right. Right. And then it's not actually helpful or adaptive. Right. Yeah. It's just an addiction like anything else. Well, and I kind of got to this place, too, where everyone around me, you know, on my team was like, okay, we got to make sure Morgan gets to the gym kind of thing.

17:04And I don't mind that as much either. Cause it's like, and my manager's always like, stay on your routine, you know, as much as, and I do try to stay on that as much as possible. Cause I know it's like good for me, but. You're like, I'm not a, it can make you feel like a baby when people are like, and it's like, I can, I'll figure it out. Right. Yeah. And you know, too, for people that don't work out or don't, they just think they're like, you're crazy. You're crazy. And I'm like, no, I mean, I really, it's good for me. Like, I know I know what helps me mentally. But again, it has been, like I said, really good to to not have that ability every day, like to make it a challenge a little bit.

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20:45I can get a hole in one. Yeah. Can't do nothing else. But at one time, that's not enough. Yeah. I can't consistently perform at that level. Right. But consistency is the key to who's going to be the best and who's going to be the winner. Right. But is there a difference between belief, confidence, and like ego? Look, why do you think I like you so much? Look, I'm going to be giving you a book that I signed. Yeah. And in that book, I'm going to go to page 61. Let us turn now to page 61. We're going to turn to page 61 in the book. And on page 61, you will see that it ends by talking about something very specific.

21:37if you look at letting go letting your ego help you instead of just inflate you yes you would think that i talked to you because you look at that last line the secret what does it say the secret is to make your ego your ally not your enemy and some guy wrote a book so how do you make your ego your ally walk me through it well it's important to understand that ego in contemporary society is just bad words. Yes. But if it wasn't for ego, I wouldn't get out of bed no more. I mean, so I've got to shape, I've got to have the ability to be able to be self-motivated, to be able to push myself, to convince myself to not just dream, but to believe.

22:27Dreaming big is nice, but I have to believe big. And so I have to train my ego to be not something that just makes me lie to myself or fantasize that I'm the guy or be a narcissistic buffoon. I've got to convince my ego to be my best friend and to help me when I'm struggling for my what? Self-talk. So what you're saying is ego is a kind of self-sufficiency, right? I think about this, like when I, I have tried to get to a place where as a writer, where I don't really care how the books sell, I don't really care what other people think about them. I know what I'm trying to do. And I try to evaluate if they're good or not based on whether I did everything I was capable of doing, whether it achieved what I wanted to achieve, you know, whether I'm proud of it or not.

23:20And then everything else is extra. And so in one sense, there's kind of an ego to that, right? Because you're saying what I care about and think about matters more than what other people care and think about. But there's also kind of a self-sufficiency to that that's like I'm playing my own game. And that game is higher than the game of the crowd or the market or whatever. Because what we're talking about is having the ability to give 100 % of the time, win, lose, or draw. People get it when I say give 100%, 100 % of the time to be the best. But they miss it when I say win, lose, or draw. And so if I am willing to push myself, to believe in myself, and I end up being okay with it might work, it might not work, but I'm going to do the best I can with what I've got, win, lose, or draw, that frees you and liberates you from the ego that's saying You're nothing unless you've conquered everyone.

24:23Right. You have to be able to shrug off striking out, losing, bad call, et cetera. You have to be able to shrug that off. Bruh. Baseball is one of the most fascinating sports in the world. Yeah. Because if I'm good and 70 % of the time I'm stinking up the place, but 30 % of the time I'm that guy. Yeah. You that guy. Yeah. So you talk about shaping your mind differently because, you know, you can't afford to be tripping hard if you strike out or you don't get a hit. We have the ego of like, I'm the best because I have the best batting average in baseball. I have the most home runs that works for you while it's working.

25:12But what about when, you know, when you have that slump and when you're striking out? Well, that's when we get to the whole obsession of trying to teach people the mental game. And part of the mental game is introducing not just because remember Desmond Howard, Tom Brady, they're not in my office because of mental health and depression and despair. They're trying to be the best. Right. It's an optimization game. That's the name of the game. So teaching people to trust and believe that what they're doing is right and for the right reasons, trying to convince Desmond Howard that you've got to decide with or without football.

25:54Yeah. Your life is going to be amazing. Yeah. Imagine telling Tom Brady at 19, who's obsessed with being the starter on the team, that the most difficult thing I can teach you, Tom, is you've got to believe with or without football, your life is going to be amazing. Yeah, well, it's funny you say embodied optimism because he says at one point that the Stokes say, like, don't talk about your philosophy, embody it. You know, so talking, hey, everything's great. You know, that's well and good. But really what matters is like, what are you saying with your actions? Are you saying like, I have a will to live?

26:31You know, I see a light at the end of the tunnel. I believe this has meaning. You know, the little decisions we make, like getting up and doing the dishes instead of letting them pile up in the sink. The decision to put on, like take a shower and put on fresh clothes and go outside. These are statements that actually say, I think, a lot more than we think they do. They say, like, things matter. Like, I care. You know, like, I'll be here tomorrow. Like, we're actually making little statements about, you know, our values and about the future by nature of these seemingly mundane actions we take in the present moment.

27:14Well, I love, I mean, it's truly, and that's how we're kind of closing that intention action gap when we're doing that. And I think that sometimes we don't even acknowledge those little things. Like we don't give ourselves even credit for showing up and doing the dishes or following through or returning that call. And we never at the end of the day think of, oh, here's my already done list, you know, of great things I did. And, you know, wow. But actually when we do take a moment to think just like our daily lives. There's a lot that we put out and put into them and acknowledge it and recognize it.

27:51There's a wonderful poet who wrote a book about basically delight hunting. It was called The Book of Delight. And I read it during the pandemic and it's by Ross Gay. And he, he deliberately decides to delight hunt every day and to write a small essay on something that delighted him. And how he talks about how he builds his delight muscle over time and how he really learns. And it's sometimes the most sort of mundane interaction. Somebody asks him to hold a plant on a flight. Is there sort of trying to put their suitcase in the overhead bin? Just these little moments of connection that we do fail to recognize or not see.

28:34And I'm thinking of Ellen Langer's work where she talks a lot about the essence of mindfulness is actually just noticing new things and how we kind of wear these blinders where we're just shutting down all the time. And she talked about when, you know, couples who've been married for 30 years, they come into her office and just say, oh, I'm so sick of her. I'm so, you know, sick of the other person. Here she goes again. And how we start just predicting how somebody else is going to behave. We know the end of the movie and this is the way they're going to be. And she said, Nobody's ever come to my office and said, I'm so sick of my dog or I'm so sick of my child or I'm so sick of my plant even because we're kind of expecting them to change.

29:14We're primed to watch them do something different or to be a little bit different in the world. Whereas with our partners, we just sort of fail to see that and we're just completely blind to it. So her advice always was look for something slightly different about them. Find one or two things that you notice about them. It's not the same, but it's different.

29:39But the idea of delight is really interesting to me because, again, yeah, the point about sort of putting the values into practice that when you go through the world like a poet or an artist who notices what's special or interesting or delightful about something, you see a lot more than someone who sort of takes things for granted. And some of the most beautiful passages in Mark's Realist's Meditations are him noticing the way bread cracks open, or he talks about one of my favorite ones. He talks about the way that a stalk of grain bends over hung by its own weight, right? The weight of the stalk of grain as it grows tall, it starts to bend over.

30:21And you go, yeah, there's certainly moments of darkness in the writing. And certainly he experienced, you know, warfare and plague and all these things. Yet if he's still noticing, you know, the way that, you know, bread looks in the oven, there's something to that, right? I like when I go out to my car in the morning and it's like, oh, a cat's been here. You know, you look at like the little cat footprints, like in the dust in your car. I always try to look for those little things that are special or cute or, you know, just sort of highlight the absurdity or daintiness of life. To me, that's something that can always balance out whatever dark shit is happening at the same time.

31:09But you have to be looking for it. And that's the thing. I think you have to sort of override yourself and your inclination to look down, to certainly look at our phones and be primed to see it. And when you are delight hunting, you know, you're much more likely to see it and then you want to share it with somebody. And it is those little moments. I try to take like a different walk to work every day or just to see something that's slightly different. And you're right, that sort of internal smile you get, which is just something funny or amusing that you wouldn't have seen otherwise. but it's only when you're looking for it, you know, or when you're feeling fully present.

31:44Somebody said to me the other day that, you know, be wherever your feet are. And I love that idea. It just sort of says it all, but kind of that sense of noticing what's around you, soaking it in, kind of absorbing that and, you know, with wide eyes looking around you. You know, I think so often we walk into, you know, we're sort of walking around with blinders on, or at least it's as though we're always walking into a dark room and with a flashlight in our hand, we're just sort of looking into the corners to look for where the cockroaches are going to be. And we don't lift it up and we're not seeing, maybe there's a painting on the wall.

32:21Maybe there's a window, maybe there's another doorway to something beautiful. And it's kind of, how do we remember? And it doesn't come naturally to most of us. It's not something that, you know, is just that obvious sort of experience that we're seeking. And I think it's why I always talk about deliberately, like, you know, deliberate vitality and deliberate resilience.

32:53Consistency as a parent, I've found to be one of the kind of the most rewarding things from a child's perspective. It's very hard to get into the mind of a four-year-old, of an eight-year-old. But when there's consistency at hand, like you can really see the response from them. Yeah. What's interesting, right? Like you can see if your kid's routine is disrupted. You see how disrupted they are, right? Like if you normally do things a certain way, or if your life is chaos, you see how it manifests in their behavior. And then we're not that different. Like I realized that if I don't have a routine, I, my behavior suffers and my willpower suffers and my equanimity suffers.

33:32And so I think the idea is like everyone should be on a sleep schedule. Everyone should be on a routine. It's a human thing as opposed to a kid thing. Yeah. Also, there's like no easier way to look someone in the eye and say, I'm better than you. Then what time do you wake up? I wake up at five in the morning every day. That is a powerful. I think I've read all of your books.

34:03and you shouldn't be more than one page into it just to be clear it's it should take you a year if anyone says they finished they already broke the rule and didn't make it through the intro it's very clearly it's one page a day but i've been a you know ryan i have a very interesting history where we met at this outrageous are we allowed to talk about this i think so i don't think it was secret we met at this outrageous google event at a castle in england where they had like like when i say ryan and i were the least important people there i mean like if there's a spectrum of one to a hundred everyone there was in the 90 to a hundred range and we were in single digits like we were so out of our league at this event at this castle that they had rent up and we of spending a lot of time together well for some reason it was you me and like two other people we had to stay in the castle like they didn't put us in a hotel so then all the adults left and then it was just us in the in the and it was a castle but it was more like it's it was a an english estate it's called clevedon i don't know it's this like thing it was the craziest house that i've ever been in and then they just left for very irresponsible people to stay in in the castle One of whom was Tom Hooper, the guy who had just directed and won the Academy Award for the King's Speech.

35:25And I remember like three in the morning, we got in trouble because we were all pissed drunk, playing on some like construction site outside. Wasn't there a slide for some reason, like a slide from a circus? Yeah, it was either that or it was the shoot that the construction workers did. But when the management yelled at us, I remember Tom fought back. Like, how dare you? And I was like, how brutish. This is fantastic. But we've known each other since then. Oh, actually, to give people a sense of who, how this event was, there was like, if you go to conferences, sometimes it's like, and then we're all going to do a joint run in the morning, you know, and it'll be like, we're all going for a one-mile run together because it's like, you know, lowest common denominator.

36:11And then who, they had like. The guy who just won the Olympics for like. Yeah, Mo. Yeah, Mo for. whatever his name is but the guy who just won the fucking olympic gold yes that was who that was who google paid to come in just to lead this one run of google executives yes um but we got to know each other then and i think it was an interesting sort of inflection point in both of our careers um and it was before i had both of my two daughters for your children you'd just been married or just about to get married um and i think that our our friendship uh personal friendship and our professional relationship sort of grew from there and it's been really interesting for me to to learn about you personally as a friend but then also learn about you through your writings and like conspiracy was an all-time favorite because so fucking filthy and just like gossipy and page journey and fun.

37:08But then I learned about the Stoics and learned about Stoicism through your writing. And I like the impact that it's had on my life has been profound beyond certainly your specific writings, like understanding what Stoicism is and, and how that can be applied to your everyday life. And I'm curious about like how you dovetail those themes with a book about heritage yeah so uh yeah we would have met i think it was 10 years ago i was just thinking about this um almost exactly so yeah yeah very um but i and i think the obstacle would the obstacles the way had just come out um so that would have been my first book about so philosophy and then the daily stoke would have come out a little bit later than that i I got so much out of writing the daily stoic, like the idea of doing one page of stoic philosophy every day.

38:03And then obviously I've kept that going with the email. So I've basically written that book, a new version of that book every year since 2016, that when we had kids, I was like, I think that would make me a better parent to do that same process. So obviously the book is for you, but writing, it was very much for me. The idea of like, what do I think? What are my sort of principles? what are the lessons about two that people should do or should not do from figures from history and philosophy that that was the idea in the book but i i'm i think what's weird if you if you went to the parenting section here at barnes and noble you would see a lot of books some of which are interesting some of which are not i would say most of the books for dudes are very patronizing it's like let's put a cowboy hat on the cover or something right it's like like how or we'll make get camouflaged out that like, and I actually remember Adrian's, my publisher is here.

38:57And he was, when I was proposing the book, he was like, uh, men don't buy parenting books. That's what he said. That was a fact of the industry, which is true. But I think the reason that's true. And the reason why parenting books are with the exception of say, what to expect when you're expecting not great sellers is that it's insane to read about some problem you might have 22 years from now, right? So you're reading a book about this thing that you never stopped doing. You're always a parent once you become one, but how could you, how could you read about that in the course of a week and then retain that knowledge?

39:32So I, I think there, what I think is special about this format or what I'm trying to do is that it's a book, not only that you read in small chunks, but ideally you read over and over again. I don't know. I don't know how to put this into a question, right? Something that's interesting is like some, my wife had read a number of parenting books and she highlights a page or you know folds down a page it's like honey you have to read this and that has sort of shifted where now she and i are in this sort of perpetual state of sending each other don't laugh because this is serious you can laugh it's fucking ridiculous sending each other tiktoks do the same things sure from pediatricians and then just from like people who think they know something and they usually do and they're good at compartmentalizing into these little videos and it's interesting and it's helpful and it makes me feel understood and i think something that you've done that has been very interesting for me to to watch as someone who sort of built my own career on social media is like you you're an you're an author i think they called you a media strategist but i you know like i see you as an author i see someone who's able to take ideas and put them on paper and communicate those ideas in a way that people are able to digest them.

40:46But in the last decade, you have leaned into social media, into podcasting. I follow all of your multiple feeds that you or your entities produce on. If you're doing all that, then I don't know when you sleep, but on social media. And like, I'm curious about that transition about that. It's not a transition because you're still writing, but I'm curious about how you came to that and what it's like when people come up to you saying, I love your Instagram videos or I love your YouTube videos versus I've read all your books. Yeah. I'm, I'm a, like in the same way that, so when you write a book, obviously it gets translated into different languages.

41:25Like I don't also write the Spanish version or it would be unintelligible. Uh, you know, I, I don't even, I don't even see like the German or the French or these other versions. Like they just ship them to you after they're done. Like, and you're like, oh, that's an interesting choice. Yeah. And so it just happens, right? But the idea is that obviously there's people who read primarily in French and people who read in German, people who read in Czech, people who read in Russian, any language. And so that's how you expand the reach of what you're doing. And the way I've come to understand is like, I'm a book first person.

42:00That's how I consume information. If I wanted to learn, I'm becoming a parent, I go read a parenting book, right? Or if I wanted to learn about this country I was going to, I would read a book about that thing. Or I want to learn about the civil war. I'm going to read a bunch of books about the civil war, but that's not how a lot of people learn. And that's certainly not the easiest entry point into stuff. And so I think about it as like, I write the books and I think primarily in long form. And then I have a team that helps me translate that into shorter and tighter things that bring people in.

42:29And it it's, it's weird. The books have been this sort of slow, steady climb. and then somewhere around 2020 we started doing this more in the social media stuff like i guess we've had the instagram account for daily stokes since 2016 but we really invested especially in like video stuff and it's just been explosive because the same thing you're saying with the parenting ones it's it's actually a great medium to encapsulate like an entry point into an idea or a concept and then if someone wants to go further from there that's what they do and i think I really learned from your stuff, which is like, how do you do like respecting whatever the medium is and deciding to do it at a high level.

43:13Right. So like, um, actually figuring out what works, what doesn't, um, you know, actually investing in quality and all those things. Uh, so yeah, it's been, it's been a slow journey, which I'm not, I, to this day, I'm not sort of naturally comfortable in, but it's, so it's been a stretch out of my comfort zone. But usually when you find that you've stretched out of your comfort zone, you end up learning and experiencing and usually reap, you know, sort of cool benefits from that.

43:44I'm picking my kids up from school today and then doing our weekly routine, which is I take them over to Whole Foods and we get all our groceries for the week. Then we have dinner. It's one of their favorite things to do. It's one of my favorite things to do and then my wife loves it because she doesn't have to take care of it this holiday season whether you're a guest or hosting the big dinner whole foods market has what you need to delight everyone at your table they even have heat and eat sides from the prepared foods department you can make whole foods your one-stop shop everything follows whole foods markets strict ingredients standards so you know it'll be delicious and good for you you can also order online for pickup and even delivery in select zip codes to skip the crowds shop everything you need at Whole Foods Market to our holiday headquarters.

44:29You 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.

45:02I've been learning about the world through my computer since I was a teenager, opened up so many things. He learns about something. And then what you do, you take the green light when they're open or interested in something. And you say, I can help you see that in person. Let me take the neck. Let's, let's take this up a notch. Let's do this. Let's, let's, let's get in the camper and we'll go there. Yes. There's a great way to use the tool and access of information in places, the virtual access, to then go, let's go see it in reality. Let's go experience it in reality. Now, I want to pivot here for a second on a note on that.

45:48Because I'm loving our discussion on the assets of it. And assets of digital and media and etc. And I agree with you. I'd be an old-fashioned nostalgic fool to be sitting here going like, Oh, I don't ever want to be that guy. I'm not that guy. but what about I have a fear when you see that when we see that our children and myself I'm guilty of it I see that Sandhune and Monaghan and get in the car and we go eight hours to go do it and we're so excited

46:33and the reality is it's a letdown the hill wasn't as steep the didn't go as fast as it looked like they were going on the video the sand's too hot eh five minutes after one rundown I'm done well we did it that that pain that pains me and I it happens sometimes and I It's a larger fear of mine, almost a more existential level of... I mean, reality's a bit of an underdog right now. But not just the beautiful sights, right? I think about how much beauty we take for granted all around us, right? Like, um, you know, you go, Oh, I can't wait to, to watch the sunset over the ocean in Hawaii, but the sunset in Austin is pretty good too.

47:38You know, and how often do I make the time to see it? Or another road trip, we went out to big bend, you know, you're looking at the stars. They're obviously brighter and bigger there. Cause there's less light pollution, but I was taking out the trash last night and I looked up and I was like, fuck, it's pretty good at my house too. I can look at this every single night, but I get distracted. I'm too busy looking at the ground or at my phone. And so I think it's a general practice you got to have to go like, what is magical and amazing? And what am I taking for granted about this moment, about this environment?

48:16You know, like a poet doesn't write about roses and sunsets all the time. What they find the ability to do is to find beauty in the mundane and the ordinary. And I think that's the skill you want to cultivate. So you'd be saying, hey, McConaughey, no reality is not an underdog. It's just what we're looking at, what we're seeing. Yeah. What's the reality? What are you seeing or how are you seeing it? Well, you know, I was just telling this story recently. You know the movie Gladiator, one of the greatest movies of all time. And I don't know why it didn't hit me until I was rewatching it, but the opening scene in Gladiator, right?

49:02Sorry, Maximus is standing there and it's cold. You can see the steam coming off the ground. He looks at this branch, a bird lands on it. he touches the, you know, the, the wheat bending low under its own weight to borrow a phrase from, from Mark's really in the Stoics. He's, it's this beautiful scene, right? You think it's beautiful. And then it zooms out just a little bit and you realize he's on, he's on the front. They're about to fight this terrible battle in this nasty, violent place. And to me, it's, I love that idea. You think about movies as a metaphor here. Uh, you choose the lens, right?

49:42The zoomed in lens, It's beautiful. The zoomed out lens, it's not beautiful, but sometimes it's the opposite. Sometimes you're too zoomed in and you got to zoom way out and you see the beauty. It's all about the lens and the angle of the camera that we decide to look at, at the world. Amen. And our aperture. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's, I love, I love that. I would say that myself and most of us, if we're going to say which one of those should we start on, would be, I think it'd be most healthy for us to move forward with wider lenses right now than close-up lenses.

50:28You know, my brother, I got a brother rooster. He got the cataract surgery. I forget what it was on his eyes. and he hates it. He hates it. I'm like, why? He goes, man, I miss all the fuzzy edges, man. You get all these damn details, man. It's like, oh, I got anxieties I never had before.

50:50I'm like, yeah, sometimes, man. Sometimes that 8K we're talking about, that high def in the zoom close up on 120 lens, we're like, uh-oh. Oh, geez. No, I didn't want to see that. You know, but we also in the version of head down, tighter lens. Oh, wow. Look outside. A wider lens, a macro lens can just at least get relax us, you know, and help us see differently. The one thing that's almost certain in the wider shot is that you are smaller. Right? It shrinks you down proportionally, right? This is the shot of the Earth from space, the blue marble shot. Every astronaut has spoken about how the most life-changing, psychedelic understanding overtakes you when you look at Earth from a distance.

51:44And you see that everything is connected. Everything touches each other. Everything is small. None of the things that you think matter actually matter. and the things you have been putting off feel so urgent and important and the oneness of everything is there. That is one of my posters for selfish, right there. That's what I'm getting at. That's what I'm working to define and explain and understand, right there. You just said it. And you said it, oneness, singularity,

52:24self ish in all those things where you know as a there's a that that that view that point of view does two things and if you're a believer and some would call that oh i'm a the tiniest of a speck in god's palm yeah there there's you can either be and then with that comes humility and you can go for I know for a long time in my life that feeling made me feel like less huh that made me fit made my shoulders crunch over made me lower my head lose confidence feel like oh then what's it all for but something I don't know something I guess spiritually 20 years ago or so hit me. It was like, all of a sudden I felt quite empowered selfishly with that blue dot with that speck.

53:28And then, ah, it took pressure off. Oh, beautiful. Oh my gosh. Yes. That's right. Nothing that I do matters. Oh, that's why it all matters. Thank you. Now I'm, now I'm, I've come alive. More of me is coming out. Yes. yes oh this little blip of timer and dust oh it's a speck who cares yes that's why it matters so much more and to feel that way and not intellectually feel that way but to understand to actually feel that way is is is a magic place to to to to to be if we when we can yeah a stoic philosopher called that the oceanic feeling. So the paradox of it is that you feel very small, but you also feel part of something very big.

54:21And that's the paradox and the beauty and the, the overwhelmingness of it is that you are humbled and elevated at the same time. Yay. Yay. Humbled and elevated at the same time. Well, look, I wanted, I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about the course because I loved it. Uh, you, you are like the King of the one liners, right? The sort of little, almost Zen Cohen's, uh, little, uh, paradoxes of your own. I wanted to riff on some of them with me, uh, with you. Um, one of my favorites is your, you said, I want to be less impressed and more involved. What does that mean? I love that one. I'm kind of glad I can laugh when you said that.

55:09Um, so that's something that came to me soon after my dad passed away and left this life. Um, I was finding a career in Hollywood. I was so happy to be there early. So thankful. This is that line of where we got with gratitude that an over exaggeration of it, a reliance on it can become a debit. I was had a reverence for where I was. People. Wow. Possible. Stardom. Successful actor. Fame. Whoa. Oh, and to the extent, and I was just telling, I had this conversation with one of the Coen brothers. I've always loved the Coen brothers. And I was just telling Joel this story the other day. It's like, you know, I had a meeting with you and your brother and John Malkovich early in my career.

56:13He's like, oh, you did. He's like, oh, yeah, I remember that. I go, probably easy to forget because I was an absolute dud in that meeting. I came into that meeting with such reverence for you and your brother. I was at the table. And I mean, the natural gap to enter the conversations. I was like, I'm afraid to put my foot in my mouth. Had no rhythm. Didn't have the confidence. I was in distance. And then when they did say, so what do you think, Matthew? I gave like a stock fricking chat GBT answer or something. It was just stock. It was not within the moment. It was like, it was boring. not and and i walked away going i blew it well i blew it because i wasn't involved i was so impressed with being there and so around that time and with the courage and clarity and sobriety that you get when you lose a loved one like i just my father just moved on the world becomes flat things that you i revered wow lowered and we're at eye level.

57:17I was like, Oh, that's mortal. I'm in that. I'm engaging in that. I'm going to be myself in that. I'm going to listen and I'm going to reciprocate back and forth with the present moment, what's in front of me. At the same time, things that I looked down upon, things that I was patronizing and ending on, that's not worthy rose up. And I was like, Oh, I'm on, I'm eye to eye with that. That's human. That's real. Don't you dare judge that McConaughey. Uh-uh. Don't you put that down. Don't you belittle that. Look that in the eye. Engage with that. Quit being such a wuss. And that's where that came to me in a dream one night.

57:54And I went out and I carved it in a tree. And I know exactly the tree it's in and where it is. It's in Santa Monica. Less impressed, more involved. And it comes from, it's great to have gratitude. It's great to have, we need to have respect. But we have to be more than just happy to be here. Yeah. if I have such a reverence for you if I'm so impressed with talking to Ryan Holiday today right now oh my gosh man this last hour we've talked would have been a hell of a lot more boring if you didn't find it boring it would have just it would have been stock I would I wouldn't have been here I'd have been like listening to what you say and then trying to go follow up and add a little thing onto what you said and go yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah Yeah.

58:36Conversation is kind of boring. It doesn't have dynamic. It wouldn't have been real. I wouldn't have really been myself because I've been so impressed. I would have been not been involved. So going forward with respect and gratitude, but not such a reverence for mortality and mortal things as to not be engaged with them to be able to give more of ourselves to. So we have to be less impressed and more involved to give more of ourselves to our life, to our relationships, to challenges in front of us, to pleasures and promises and wins and losses. Be there with them. They'll be impressed. They'll be so impressed with the mortal.

59:15I love that. It's the idea of like, if not me, then who? Right? Like, why should, oh, I'm just as good as any of these people. Why can't I be involved? Why can't I do it? Yep. All right. So what is majoring in the minors mean? Majoring in the minors. Oh, well, I think this comes from something in the course I was talking about balance. It's also part of in the course about defining what more of what we value, more value. And we have to measure. Well, look, I have a lot of hobbies that I'm that I'm that I'm really spinning about. not really fair dynamic amount of my day too much of my day on and less on my career.

59:58Sure. Am I spending too much time on the minors and not majoring? Am I majoring too much in my minors? Am I, for me, like in my life, I had, it was around, uh, I don't know, somewhere in the late nineties. Um, I got a phone call from my office where I had a bad-ass office, production office in Venice had a staff of six paying the rent, paying the salaries. And I'm in Texas. My phone rings back when the phones were not our mobile device, but the number would come up as it did on my, on my, on my phone number comes up. I see it's from my office. I reached out to pick up the phone and my hand stopped.

1:00:40And I remember looking at the phone and then looking at my hand going, why'd your hand stop mid grab? Yeah. And I went, cause I don't want to, I don't want to pick up the call from my office. And then I went and I let it ring out and I went, you don't want to pick up the phone call from your office, from one of your employees that you're paying from the office in Venice that you're paying the rent for. What are you doing? What? That doesn't make sense. yeah and i let that phone ring out and as it did i picked the phone back up dialed my lawyer and said i want to shut down my music label and i want to shut down my production office i want to pay a solid severance to everybody but i want to i want to be working my charity i want to work on my family and i want to be an actor for hire and so what that did was i got rid of i had like music label.

1:01:42I had movie development. I had a couple other things I was kind of doing minors. And so I had like eight proverbial campfires on my desk every morning, including my charity, including my acting career. It was, they were all campfires. So what I did is I got rid of about five of the campfires and I was left with the three things that were most important to me. And those three campfires turned into bonfires. So I'm majoring in my majors and I got rid of five minors that I was majoring in, trying to major in. And I, and I was kind of making C pluses and everything. And when I got rid of five classes and concentrated on the three that I really wanted, I started making eight majoring in my majors, quit majoring in my minors and got rid of them.

1:02:31Do less better. Basically do. Yes. yes i got more after i when i got when i had less things that i said that look i only got and we have this conversation with my talk about parenting again i got teenagers coming up their life's starting to get big they're starting to have well i want to do this but i also got this thing i was like yeah 24 hours in the day they ain't giving any more for the first time you're starting to have to go there's a consequence here i can only do this or this yeah how do we balance that you're going to have because you can't do it all up until a few up until a couple years ago for my kids was like you can do it all sure when you want to and now things are starting to overlap and interests are starting to overlap so we're going don't have to have the answer right now but you're gonna start measuring which one do you want to give time to

1:03:25if you want to kick the year off hopefully get your your charcoal lit well then i would love for you to join us in the 2024 Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge. We did the first New Year, New You Challenge in 2018. And year after year, we've realized that really the community is the biggest part. It's the most important part of the dynamic. It's really what takes you to the next level. And even me, having made the challenge, I'm telling people, hey, here's what I did today. Here's how it went, getting feedback, getting encouragement. It keeps me accountable, right? I get something out of it.

1:03:54I know you'll get something out of it. If you want to join us in our version of the Sipionic Circle. One, you can join Daily Stoic Life right now and get the Daily Stoic New Year New Year challenge for free. You can do that at dailystoiclife.com. Or you can just join us in the challenge. You can just start small, do the challenge. It's 21 days of Stoic-inspired challenges. It's three live Q &As. That's the community aspect. It's this community member platform where you can hold yourself and others accountable. And there's this cool calendar that shows you all the progress you're making. It's not going to be theoretical abstract discussions, but real Stoics talking about real ways to get better.

1:04:27And it starts on Monday, January 1st. So stop delaying. Head over right now to dailystoic.com slash challenge to sign up. And I'll see you there. Or as I said, sign up for Daily Stoic Life at dailystoiclife.com and get it for free.

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1:06:02That's why I don't begrudge them when they appear on the shows that I listen to. But again, as a person who has to pay a podcast producer and has to pay for equipment and for the studio and the building that the studio is in, it's a lot to keep something like The Daily Stoic going. So if you want to support a show but not listen to ads? Well, we have partnered with Supercast to bring you a ad free version of Daily Stoic. We're calling it Daily Stoic Premium. And with Premium, you can listen to every episode of the Daily Stoic podcast completely ad free, no interruptions, just the ideas, just the messages, just the conversations you came here for.

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