Ryan And Jordan Harbinger Live At The West

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1:30Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Sundays, we take a deeper dive into these ancient topics with excerpts from the Stoic texts, audiobooks that we like here or recommend here at Daily Stoic, and other long-form wisdom that you can chew on on this relaxing weekend. We hope this helps shape your understanding of this philosophy, and most importantly, that you're able to apply it to your actual life. Thank you for listening.

2:12Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to a weekend episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I guess it was almost a year ago, maybe a little bit less than a year ago, I flew out to Los Angeles to see one of my favorite people, Jordan Harbinger, who may have been one of the first podcasts I ever did, like way back. Trust me, I'm lying. So he and I have known each other a very long time, have both been through some complicated things with business partners and projects over the years and definitely leaned on each other. He's one of my favorite people to text. He I do know he reads The Daily Dad every morning because he always sends me little notes about it, which I enjoy.

2:53So he was doing a live episode of his podcast at a place called The West in Los Angeles. So I flew out. We did a quick interview. If you've been watching the YouTube channel, you might have seen some B-roll of that because we had a nice conversation out back with some friends. Anyways, here is Jordan Harbinger interviewing me, having a bit of a conversation. and he was telling me that his Memento Mori medallion had recently been stolen or lost. So I happened to have a spare one in my pocket, which I gave him. And that was just one of the many stoic themes we talked about in this great conversation.

3:30You can listen to the Jordan Harbinger podcast anywhere you get your podcasts. I usually listen to it on Spotify myself, but I've got three, four episodes. We did maybe two in person, couple remote, one remote during the pandemic. all of which is to say if you want more of me and Jordan you can check out the Jordan Harbinger podcast and then I think in a later episode this week I'm going to bring you some of the Q &A from that conversation thanks to Jordan for having me on you can follow him on Instagram at Jordan Harbinger you can go to his website jordanharbinger.com and of course follow the Jordan Harbinger podcast and hopefully he'll be out in Texas to do a daily stoic podcast soon

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5:22Ryan, thank you for coming all the way from Texas, man. I appreciate that. There was a little scare this morning, maybe a little flight delay here and there. Five and a half hours. No big deal. No big deal. Do you feel like you're in the future when you get to California from Texas? Well, everyone from California is moving to Texas. That is true. You got me on that one. It's like I'm going back in time. You got me on that one. A robot passed me on the way to get a juice today, which I thought was like I'm like wow this is this is really like that what's that Disney movie where no one walks anymore and they're all super fat WALL-E I'm like this is the beginning of that in Texas the robot would be carrying an assault rifle yeah yeah an AR it's not an assault rifle it's the brand name okay all right so it's good to see you man thank you so much for doing this yeah I know I know we're we're in some COVID protocols here a lot of people showed up for this.

6:12I'm, you know, I was surprised. I have to say, I probably shouldn't say this out loud. I was very surprised at the demand for this. Cause I thought, Oh, who wants to see a live show? Because usually I'm doing this in my literal, we were just talking about it. I'm usually in my underwear, but I'm like a button down kind of guy on the top. And, uh, and nobody has to know. And here we are. I had to put pants on for this, but most of you had to drive here and park for this in LA traffic. So you guys are the real heroes here. And, uh, this table, I wanted to I wanted to get a Vladimir Putin-style table.

6:43So we were really far from each other? Yeah, but this is actually the only table they had. All right. Do you get nervous for doing a live broadcast at all? Not really. No? I don't think so. Do you? No, not until the - This is significantly less people than you would normally talk to. Yeah, that's true. Although hopefully more people will listen at some point to what we're doing here. I've heard you say that you're not nervous for television either, even live TV. Yeah, I guess not. I mean, I feel like when you know what you're talking about, people are like, are you afraid going on stage? But I feel like if I was giving a lecture about physics, I would be nervous or something I didn't know about.

7:24But I was also thinking before we've done this, I think I've been on the show more than any other person. That's probably true. So we have a lot of practice. Yeah, we have a lot of practice. When you know what you're talking about, I usually don't really necessarily know what I'm talking about. But you're not talking. You're asking questions. That's a good point. You're the one who has to be ready for questions. I can just sort of wing it. I think getting prep done, though, is never easy for live TV. You can do your best. You can be prepared. But you can't really guess what's coming from the interviewer.

7:57Well, live TV is weird. Like when you do like cable news spots, I actually – it's a harder thing because you have like three minutes or five minutes you have to talk. Like this is an hour or whatever. I feel like even if I suck at the beginning, I can probably pull myself out enough time. The really tight spots are hard. Like when you have only a very little bit of time. And then I think you also realize like every medium has its own set of rules. And the people who do it a lot have figured out those rules. So, you know, sort of figuring out what works in each space. But I see it more as like a puzzle as opposed to like something that's like intimidating.

8:35that's a that's a good way to look at it actually yeah because live radio when you're doing like call in live radio when i was on sirius xm a zillion years ago you a caller can't sit there and be like let me tell you the beginning of this story you're like nope get right to the question you're sitting there with like dr drew or something get right to the question the worst part of radio and like morning radio shows or then like the cable news spots is actually like when you get there so you get there like 30 minutes earlier you're calling like 30 minutes early and then you have to watch the thing so like i i find for instance cable news to be like one of the most toxic things you can put in your body or your brain yeah and so i avoid it at all costs and then it's like wait before i'm about to go do this really hard thing yeah i just had to watch 30 minutes of fox news or whatever and you're like it's going into it's very hard to like keep your equilibrium and then morning radio you're like you're having to listen to like you know bobby and the douche or whatever for like 20 minutes and like it actually like it i feel like it takes you out of your normal headspace and then you uh so so it's like it's keeping whatever the sort of bubble that you exist in as like a person who knows what you're talking about and likes what you're doing uh and then it can be weird to like go into the the zone the same when like when you do talks they're like like i gave this talk a couple years ago i talked at the nfl owners meeting and it was the weirdest talk i've ever given why is that i mean that sounds exciting well i mean it was weird in the sense that the audience was all the owners of the nfl all the gms and all the coaches so it's like 32 billionaires uh like you know then uh like uh then the people you see on television every you know it's like the the people you know right and it's huge the always looking angry guys yeah yeah and like they said they set it up and they were like okay like i was speaking last and they were like okay you just sit here in the front row and i was like i can't sit here for two hours watching other like i can't watch the whole event and then talk right like i was like i need to go in the back and pace like a crazy person um and go to the bathroom like 30 times and like you know so i think that when you're like performing or doing anything in public it's like you have to figure out like how you get into the zone or whatever that headspace you do.

10:48And that is hard if all of a sudden you're thrust in a very unfamiliar environment. I think that's why you see like NBA players or whatever, like they're listening to headphones. You have to towel on. Yeah. You have to like go into some, I don't know what you would call it, but you're going into this place and you have to figure out how to stay there because if you're, you know, like your traffic, you have to figure out how to access whatever it is that you do. That's interesting. Yeah. Cause people talk about things like flow state or whatever. And for sports, I understand that you're doing pushups or jumping jacks in the back, you get warmed up, stretched out, and then you stay in the locker room, you go to your vault.

11:22I mean, I know a lot about gymnastics, as you can tell, but with a podcast or with a talk, I just kind of, I have like a playlist on Spotify that I never use, but I know is there. And I'll play like half of one song. And then, you know, I'm thinking about things, reviewing notes, et cetera. But for something like that, it seems like, yeah, when you're taking, you're not in your home with your own clothes like you're in you just got off a flight you're jet lagged it's a totally different uh totally different environment and uh like you said you're doing talk cable news or talk radio something you said is the most toxic thing and you're about to contribute to that problem yes and you have to get into that headspace but also your own headspace of of how you're going to perform but i think just generally like whatever it is you do what is the headspace where you do your best work i think we often are just sort of like winging it like we don't think that much about sort of cultivating the environment going into going into whatever that like my book stillness i call that space stillness like how do you get into a place where it can be crazy around you but you've you've sort of slowed it down you've eliminated the extraneous your mind is not thinking of 50 other things um you know you you have to figure out how to access that to do what it is that you do it's not that you can't white knuckle it or just force it but it's just that's never where like the best performance comes from.

12:40Does it feel still when you're doing it? Because I feel like for me, it doesn't feel still. I'm like checking volume, checking notes, making sure the baby's not crying in my current situation, checking the internet again and repeat like ad nauseum. Yeah, I guess. I mean, I try to sort of slow that stuff down. I mean, you can be very active. Yeah, I call it neurotic, but whatever. Yeah, I mean, you're active. The irony of stillness is that you need it most when you're doing the most. Like you think of an athlete on the free throw line. You think of someone about to compete in a race or about to sing.

13:17You're doing something that's very physically taxing, but you have to get to a place where that is the only thing that you're doing. You can't be doing a bunch of other things at the same time. Yeah, always a process, I suppose. I guess the most free-flowing conversations are the ones where I almost forget that the recording device is on. Yeah, and when you watch post-game interviews, they're like, Like, oh, you know, I wasn't thinking about it. They'll go, what was going through your head when you did X? And the answer is almost invariably nothing, right? Like I wasn't thinking about it. It just happened.

13:45And with writing, the weird thing about writing is you sit down and like, where does it come from? It is obviously from you, but somehow you just know, like it just happens. Toni Morrison calls this making contact. Like, you know, what do you, and she talked a lot about like in the morning, Like, how do you set up your life to make contact? And for her, she was talking about how she could only make she she found that she best made contact before she heard the word mom. So that meant like getting up very early. Right. She would like to watch the sun come up while she was working. And then the first time she was like, mom, maybe, you know, whatever that it was like over.

14:24So that was like her window. And so you got to think about what what that is for you. And I mean, ideally, you can sort of get it on demand. And I think you can get a lot of it on demand. But I do try to set up my life and my systems. And then when I'm doing something really hard, what are the kind of rituals or processes that allow you to get into that place? I do wonder about that whenever I text you because sometimes you'll reply right away, like right away. And we'll have a conversation. Other times it's like three days later. I'm like, all right. I'm not, you know, I don't push the issue.

14:53But I'm like, what is he doing right now? Well, I'm very excited about I heard that Apple is rolling out like you can mark messages as unread. in text. Oh, finally. Yes. Thank you. Yes. Applause. Because finally. Yeah. So I'm more of an email person for that reason. And so like the problem is I'm, I'm usually getting the text and then I'm like, but I'm in the middle of something. I have to do it. And then I just forget that it exists. Okay, good. I was, I'm the same. I tried it. And that, but I feel like, oh, well, if I don't answer, they're going to be like, oh, Jordan doesn't appreciate this.

15:23So it breaks focus every time. So I don't check it. So I turn the notifications off, which means at the end of the day, I'm like, oh, 49. Oh, my wife asking all these different questions about what to get from the store and all these important things are also not making it through. Yeah, that's a welcome advance, finally. I heard you've sold more books than Marcus Aurelius. Is that true? How many papyrus scrolls have you sold though? Probably not that many. Only since BookScan has been reporting in America and capturing roughly 80 % of stuff. Okay, so like 50 BC and onwards. Yeah, so for the first 1 ,800 years, you know, he was, but you could also argue that he had 1 ,800 years to get up to the speed and then we're measuring at the same time.

16:09That's right. He's sold like no e-books probably by now. A handful. None of his new stuff. And I narrate my own audio books. He doesn't. That's true. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, you got him on that one. I noticed your tattoos there. What's going on there? I have obstacle, ego, and stillness. Okay. And then I haven't done the four virtues for that series yet. I don't know why I just haven't, but that's all I got. There's a guy here that has an obstacle. Is it ego is the enemy or obstacle is the way? Yeah, he's got the same tattoo as you. Nice. I like a shirt too. I'm fairly sure he got it before you.

16:43You needed two reminders? What's your ego situation? Yeah. But he does actually have that tattoo. I saw that and I was like, wow, you must be like a... I mean, he tattooed your book title on his body. That's got to feel good. A lot of, I mean, not the tattoo part. That definitely doesn't feel good. Not for him, yeah. But in making that literal impression on people. It is. It's weird. I try not to think about it. I get that. It's just like odd. Not that you did it. It's like, I think the irony of a lot of creative professions. Dig your way out of this one. You do something because like you want to be like seen or you want your work to be received.

17:22Sure. And then it happens and then you're like, it makes him comfortable. It's kind of irony of like you got the thing you wanted and then you realize you didn't actually maybe want that thing. For me, it's less I didn't want it. Like I love the fact that I can – other people enjoy the stuff that I create. But I don't – I realize I spent so many years being like, and then I'll be a cool person. And then when it happens, you're like – oh, not that it's happened yet. But in theory, then you're like, oh, I guess I love interacting with people and all this. And I love the fact that it's impressed on so many people.

17:54But I'm like almost like blushing like, oh, geez, I don't require this. So when I meet people, when I lived in Hollywood, I met a lot of people who thrived off that. And they were never that healthy emotionally. Yes. I know it is funny, but it's also like, oh, I'm so glad I don't have that bone. yeah i mean one of the things i talked about in egos enemy is like how do you cultivate uh a relationship with the work where uh in the bhagavad gita they say like you're entitled to the labor but not the fruits of the labor so how do you get to a place where that's extra right not why you do it because uh you can work really hard on something do something that's really awesome it can be ahead of its time or it can be swallowed up by news events or can be you know bungled by a publisher or whatever.

18:42So you have to cultivate a place where that's not why you're doing it because it's a really unhealthy way to do it. And some people do it for that reason. They want the attention. They want the adulation. They want the recognition. And I guess it's good if you get it, but there's no guarantee that you'll get it. And it can also be taken away, right? Whether you get canceled or you can just become irrelevant or you could screw it up or whatever it is, right? You want to cultivate a relationship with the work, or at least what I try to do is, like I have this book coming out in September and like, I want it to be a success.

19:18I'm about to do the last round of edits. Do you have a title yet? Can we like bump it? Yes, it's called Discipline is Destiny. It's the second in this Four Virtues series I'm doing. But like, the idea is, I'm not done yet, so I can't say it yet, but like, there is this point where you finish and then it goes to the printer or whatever like you can't touch it anymore i have to i have to be it has to have succeeded or failed at that moment does that make sense like oh i see i would say like on my first book which came out it's crazy to think my first book i was just thinking about this is exactly 10 years old and i would say with my first book It was 10 % satisfied with it intrinsically for what I did and 90 % like, are people going to like it?

20:06Is the first book, trust me, I'm lying. Yeah. You know, how many copies did it sell that hit the bestseller list, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I would, I'm, I'm think, or I would like to think that I'm closer to flipping that ratio. But ideally you get to a place where you're totally self-contained. The zen, like, sage place would be, like, you do what you do and you don't even know how it does, right? Like, it just is. That seems laughably far away for somebody who creates things. Or for me, creating things. Like, I'm always interested in what people think up until – I wouldn't say it's in a healthy way, but man, does it push the limits sometimes.

20:45But can it affect your mood or happiness? Very – for short periods of time? Yeah, certainly. not like for a day but for like a few minutes i'm like wow well that's a bunch of crap and then i'm like uh whatever some dude on the internet on youtube especially it's like nah one of the there used to be this site called novel rank and you could like type in your name and it would tell you the in real time the amazon rank of all your books in every country they were published oh that seems like a bad and it like some for some reason it like closed like six or seven years ago and i I would say that it was one of the greatest moments of life.

21:19Because now I can't check it and I couldn't think about it. And then you realize like, oh, every time I've taken some step like in my system or my process that's like insulated me a little bit more from like real time feedback or like hearing. Like I feel like the work has gotten better, but also my happiness has gotten better. yeah that makes that's the equivalent for podcasters of like checking your apple or spotify rank all the time not that i do that but if i did definitely do it would definitely get old really fast yeah so at what point in the book process do you get the tattoo like when you publish it after it becomes a bestseller what when does the tattoo happen uh all of these i got before the book came out and then staring because what if they're like oh we really can't use this title No, it is a negotiating.

22:10It's a bit of leverage with the publisher. It's already decided. It's on my body and I won't tell you where. So we have to use it. Although like so on the discipline book, like I went through a bunch of different titles. And this is the latest ever in the process that I've changed a title. All right. And so like if I'd gotten it earlier, that would have been bad. But I usually try to build the book around the title. So I've known for a really long time what it's going to be. But yeah, part of it would be, yeah, it's not, oh, it did well. I want to get a tattoo of it. I'm trying to get a tattoo of something I feel like I need to be reminded of.

22:49That also happens to be a book title, which is why I don't have titles for my, or tattoos for my marketing books. That makes sense. Because I was like, what is he going to do if it doesn't become a, you know, put Big Bird over it or something? What are you going to do? You're so packed into a corner at that point. All right. Right. There's a lot of people here, especially here in the United States, maybe in the West in general or the whole world, whatever. They feel they need to exert some sense of control. Yeah. And they feel like everything is falling apart. And we see that narrative allotting like clickbait headlines and things like that.

23:18Are you seeing this? What do you think about this? I mean, the world is falling apart. OK, fine. It's not great. I don't think anyone's like, this is how things should be going. But I'm not sure there's been many moments in history where that is the case. right like where everything was operating as it should the white history is a unending series of disasters and ups and uh you know tragedies right so i this is what stoicism is built around epictetus is the first task of the philosopher is to separate things into the category of things you control the category of things you don't control and the latter category is much bigger than the first, like most things you don't control.

24:03Um, and yet what we spend an inordinate amount of time and energy on is what is not in our control. So, I mean, it's, it's a tempting thing, uh, but it's ultimately a distraction and, and, uh, you know, sort of a waste of your research. So I, I'm always trying to sort of act like, you know, is this thing that I'm upset about is this thing I'm worried about is this thing I'm repeatedly checking. Is it a thing that's in my control, which goes back to the, you know, about the creative work. Like you don't control whether you get on the bestseller list. You don't control how the algorithm surfaces your content, right?

24:38You don't, you control over a long enough timeline. If you do good work, you know, I think generally you'll be recognized for that work, but you control cell work. You don't control the recognition for the work. You know, you control if you're a good person. You don't control if people acknowledge that, right? You can do the right thing. You don't control whether it's contagious in any way. So I think as the world is falling apart, it's not that you turn away from the world, but you try to zoom in your focus ultimately to that circle of things that are up to you. And then do you respond with those?

25:12You've got these four, well, not you, but I guess Stoicism has these four virtues, one of which you're writing about now. Yes. They're called the cardinal virtues. They're cardinal virtues in stoicism they're also the cardinal virtues in christianity people think because they're also the sort of catholic cardinal virtues that it has a religious connotation like cardinal so it's like are these the virtues from the cardinal cardinal comes from the latin cardos which means hinge these are like pivotal things this is like what the the good life hangs on would be the implication um and yeah the idea is uh so the stoics say you don't control what happens, you control how you respond to what happens, right?

25:52I don't control that my flight was delayed. I do control, you know, what I do with that time. I do control whether I lose my temper. You know, I control how I react to that. And the Stoics would say that you can always control with one of, or perhaps some combination of those four virtues, which are courage, temperance, or self-discipline, justice, and wisdom. So you're going to write about each one of those that's a that's a pretty good i mean they gave you a nice list they did it looked out very nice so i've done the first two and then on this week i am starting the beginning like talking about going into the zone i'm start that i have in my calendar to start the process on what will be the third book wow that's how many bestsellers have you written so far i'm gonna be that guy who like sets you up for this thing and then everyone's like yeah i uh i don't know i don't know exactly uh i think i i think it's what depends on how you count them but let's say it's more than 10 books and i think all of them have probably hit some list or or another wow i mean we'll get into that yes thank you finally somebody's listening well you did all right these people got them i heard you you uh well how do you feel when a book hits the list uh you know i think the first time it was was some again this my my point is that i cared about it a lot the first time uh it didn't hit my my trust me i'm lying didn't hit the new york times list although it's old enough copies and then it did hit the wall street journalist and it felt nice i guess um it's like ephemeral but but like ultimately it's much more all these things are much more ephemeral than you think they're going to be like i remember uh i was i'm mowing my lawn like so so uh the obstacle is the way came out in 2000 may of 2014 and it didn't hit any list that's so long ago i feel like i read that two years ago uh yeah i mean the pandemic is unbelievable yeah i have questions about that that's so long ago that i almost don't believe you but you would know you'd be the authoritative person for that one.

27:58Yes, it was May 2014. Wow. And it didn't hit any list for five years or six or something. Oh my gosh. But it sold quite well. And so that was helpful in the sense that it decoupled sort of like critical success or recognition of success and then the actual raw numbers of like people you're meeting. But again, a third thing would be like, is it good or not? There's plenty of things that sell well that are not good and plenty of great things that never sell for a variety of reasons. But I remember when obstacle hit number one for the first time, which was like almost exactly on the anniversary of five or six years.

28:39I remember I was mowing my lawn when it happened. And it was cool. My agent called me and I was like, oh, what happened? And he told me. And then, you know, I mean, I still had to finish mowing my lawn. It's not like there was no like parade. Nothing changed. So you just sort of realize like, oh, it just is. And it's the point, like you think it's going to be this thing and then it's not that thing. The problem is you can have two reactions to that kind of anticlimacticness, which is one, it can it can realize, oh, this I was after this thing that no external thing is ever going to get me. and if that happens then you've been given a wonderful gift and you have a certain newfound freedom that can certainly kind of only come from you know i imagine that someone who's trying so hard to be a billionaire elon musk who wants to get people on mars like it's going to happen and then it's just like oh it's just another day right it just happens uh it's not to say it's not an impressive accomplishment but it never is that never gets you what you think it's going to get you so if you had that realization like you've been given a double success the problem is what most people do and i've done this also is you go like let's say the first time a book hits a list you're like ah but it's not the new york times if i get new york times it's x or if it hits number one it's x or you go you win a super bowl and you go ah but it one time can be a fluke you have to repeat right kevin durant wins all these titles with a golden state and then he's like ah but i have nobody thinks i earned it i have to go do it somewhere so the problem is we think like more even though once was not enough, it's like a drug.

30:12Once is not enough or once was just special enough, but then it disappeared quickly. And then you're chasing that drag and you think more of it's finally going to get your dad to be proud of you or you to feel cool, like you're saying, or like you think it's going to be this thing, but it's never going to happen because no external thing can fix or validate internally. That has to be a thing you give yourself. I think this is from one of your Instagram videos, I believe. You can't change internal issues with external accomplishments. It's probably like a paraphrase from someone. I love that because I feel like most of it, well, I shouldn't speak for other people.

30:50So many people I know, including myself, will try to change an internal issue with an external accomplishment. And it's so hard to get over that habit. And the problem is it's a very powerful driver, right? Like you can see how, especially in a capitalistic society, we would be, that would be a powerful sort of motive force that makes the world go round, right? If people felt good after doing this one thing, it's probably an evolutionary force in some way, right? If you ate one time and then you're like, I'm full forever, like you would die. The insatiability of the human species is probably responsible for all our great art and accomplishments and inventions.

31:29Why we don't stop and go, hey, you know, ancient Greece, life in ancient Greece, that's good enough. Right. Like it's why we don't settle. And it makes sense collectively, but individually, it is also a recipe for misery. So you have to figure out this way to go like, how can I do what I do from a place of fullness that's motivated by like, I genuinely love it. I'm genuinely trying to express this thing. I am having fun while I'm doing it. And not, I will feel good when X happens, right? Or like, you ever talk to someone and they have a number? Yeah, like an arbitrary number. Yeah, they're like, when will you be good?

32:09And the number is always like absurd. It's always like$20 million or whatever. And it's like, you guarantee if you get$20 million, it will first off, the number will immediately change to another one and it will be anticlimactic. And like literally every, every person who's ever achieved something has said, you know, like it, it wasn't as magical as I thought it was going to be. Olympians talk about this a lot. They get the gold and then they're super depressed after this or any metal for that. Yeah. And, but it's, it might just be one of those things that you kind of have to learn by experience.

32:41But the idea is, does it take five Super Bowls for you to get it? Or can you pick it up after winning a scholarship to play in college? The earlier you earn it, I think the more balanced and normal you can be as a human being, even if you're talented and ambitious and trying to do stuff. How many million more books do you think you need to sell to hire a landscaper? I don't know the answer to that question. I would, I, I do like, I like one of the, the blessings or the curse of success is. Cutting your own lawn. Are you really going there? Is this what's happening right now? Whether, whether it gets you to a place of enoughness or not.

33:24And, and you can see how insatiability would drive you to certain heights. But then when you really study the lives of those people, it never feels like that success is particularly fun. Yeah. It's a, it's a little, in a way it's kind of depressing because nothing's ever enough, but also that has to be liberating because you realize, well, if nothing's ever enough, then I can be satisfied with what I have. But it's so much easier if you just had a little more. Well, to me, the more interesting thing is, can you be great at what you do or world-class at what you do and not do it from a place of emptiness, right?

34:02Like in a way, like, oh, like, why are you doing this? Well, I feel like a worthless human being if I'm not doing X, like that in a way feels easier to me than doing it from a like no I'm like a normal well-adjusted person and I do what I do at a level that you know has impact I've heard you say you cultivate a new identity each year did I get that right I don't think so no okay you talk about these new years habits and you cultivate like a new well maybe it's a new element of your identity not like you change your name yeah i don't know i mean i guess i mean you you are i think each there is something special about the turning over of a new year where you get to like sort of decide you know like who you're going to be or what you're going to do um there's also something kind of sad that we like only in january though like yeah if like i have a bad habit in june i I got six months.

35:01Five more months of meth. Yeah, exactly. You know, you do have the ability to do that at any time. But there is something nice about the calendar turning over. You mentioned, like, leave your running shoes where you can see it. Because if you cultivate this, I guess it's a habit in a way. But also, if you're stepping over the running shoes, now you're violating the identity. You talk about Taylor Swift, right, who had mentioned she looked at herself and had, like, decided to make this big change. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I remember the Taylor Swift Netflix documentary is actually very good. But she was talking about this sort of pattern.

35:34I think it was like an eating disorder thing. She was saying she was looking at a picture of herself, and she could feel the pattern starting, like the spiral that starts. And then she was talking about, she was like, no, I don't do that anymore. And I think this is sort of what cognitive behavioral therapy is rooted in, which is itself rooted in stoicism. But I think the idea that like we have patterns or loops that we get into and recognizing what those are and deciding which of those you're going to continue to indulge and which of those you aren't. And like I think decide making that choice, I think, is a is a realizing when you have the power to make that choice.

36:17Just because you've done something for a long time, just because you always do something like I. people do this often where they'll like explain a certain behavior they do as if it excuses said behavior. And it's like, no, that's just an explanation. It's not a justification of it. That doesn't mean it doesn't suck for everyone around you, right? It's like, no, I'm anxious because, you know, my mom did X, Y, or Z. That doesn't make it less crappy for your family to be around you. So like recognizing those patterns and deciding which of those patterns are connected to the person that you want to be, I think is a very powerful and empowering idea.

36:55So we cultivate habits, identity to control what we can control. Yeah. And we leave the rest up to fate. Yeah. Yeah. The Stoics would say, it's not that you leave it up to fate, but it's, you're going to focus on how you respond to that. I'm trying to lead you into a more fati here. You got to make it easy. I see. I see. Yes. Well, the Stoics say that it's not just even accepting what's outside of your control, but like genuinely embracing what's outside of your control as like an opportunity when when the stoics say that the obstacle is the way which is mark's risk is the impediment to action advances action what stands in the way becomes the way he's not um he's not just saying you're short your shoulders and it is what it is he's saying that and he's and he's also not saying like this thing that happened to you is someone dying you're getting fired you know losing your leg in an accident, whatever.

37:45He's not, oh, it's wonderful. Like, good for you. What he's saying is that thing presents to you, if you accept it, which you have no choice but to do, you can choose not to accept it, but it doesn't change whether it happened or not. But when you accept it for what it is and you embrace it and you say, within this is an opportunity to be excellent in some form or another, to practice something, to be something, to do something, this is, that's what the obstacles away means. That's ultimately what amor fati means, which just translates to a love of fate. So it's not even like, okay, but yes, this is what I was looking for and this is how I use it.

38:26And in meditations, Mark Surylois says, you know, a strong stomach digests what it eats. And he says, a fire turns everything that is thrown into it into flame and brightness and heat. So the idea being that you cultivate this kind of will inside yourself that takes the things that happened to you and uses and uses them to some positive end it's not that it's wonderful that your mom died but that it did happen and so what changes are you making in your life in response to what you learned or what you went through that makes you better for having gone through that thing

39:08The world is full of tours. But you don't choose a Toyota truck to follow the beaten path. You choose it to find the places in between. The detours, where each adventure pulls you toward the next. And wrong turns turn out right. so why would you ever take a tour when you could take a detour toyota trucks

39:42some of those come later though right because like when i'm some of you remember when i had to restart my show some of you are newer and didn't see that but me and my producer jason who's here tonight we weren't like oh great we're not gonna sleep for weeks professional career is probably dead in the water. This is great. Let's savor this. But in retrospect, 2020 hindsight, probably the best thing that's ever happened to me. And I mean that. And I know people, like when people told me that though, I wanted to punch them in the throat. It's funny though. So like, if that's where you're going to end up, why are you torturing yourself now?

40:18Because you don't know that's the end. But when is it not the case? Well, I don't know. There's almost nothing in your life that you look back to that happens and you're like, even the worst things you're like, but even though I didn't like it, even though it was awful, it still got me where I am now, which is like something I like and I'm proud of. And you realize that it's inseparable from, there's no way you could have gotten where you are now without that thing happening. Right. Um, but that was also true at the moment. Right. It's like, um, I, I forget where I heard this but so i'm stealing it but they were talking about like in time travel like every time travel movie they're like you go back in time you can't touch anything right because it will change but but then like in our own lives where like stuff happens and we don't we we like wish it was otherwise or resent it or we fight against it as if it's not contributing to where we're ultimately going to end up in the future i suppose that's true and that's comforting but it's all in the moment it's just like well this still sucks though yeah but i guess that's part of the you got to keep the coin but and i think if you see it it's not like again it's not these sort of rose-colored glasses it says like something bad happened and you're just like oh it's wonderful it's that you have the power within you to change that thing into uh or change yourself in response to that into someone you want to be or someone who is better for having gone through that right it could have been the worst thing that happened to you you're like let's all the things you were worried about when that moment happened and i remember we were talking about this other time yeah you sent me a book actually that's right which book did i send you oh man it was you know i don't remember the title but it was like so black and white drawings no we read that thing over and over but it was like a very small book with a bunch of this sounds so dumb with like pictures and drawings on it and my wife and i were like this is really helpful right now and i can't for the life of me.

42:15I literally have no idea what you're talking about. You said, this helps me through a hard time. You just mailed it to me out of the blue. I was like, this is the nicest gift ever. Of course, now I sound like all the things, all the things you were worried about happening, you could have ensured that that was true, right? It could have been the worst thing. It could have been the worst thing that happened to you. It could have been the end of your career. Those were choices you could have made, right? By not doing anything. Yeah. Right.

42:43By throwing fail, but you could also guarantee that you fail by quitting. Right. So it's a. Thankfully, I wasn't qualified to do anything else at all. So so that helped, actually. Well, I think we often also underestimate like like it's not like it magically that three days later was the best thing that happened. No, it took like eight months for me to be like, OK, this is not. But it was a lot of work. And those those sort of gains were cumulative and then compounded. Right. So it's also like, I think we underestimate the process too. The book I'm about to start, in my mind, as the way my schedule on the books works out, it's hard because I'm finishing one and the other is just a vague idea in my head.

43:29And so that seems like a very unbridgeable gap. And I went through this when I was writing Discipline because it was the same time roughly last year. And I was like, there's no way this book's coming together. I don't know who the characters are going to be. I don't think I have the material I don't know if I'm qualified to do the book I don't know if I want to do like all these thoughts were running in my head because I was comparing it to the book that I just finished and as I was going through my note cards which as I do all my books I notice and sort of going through them I found a note card that I'd written to myself and then we can sort of send messages to ourselves in the future this way I guess but I was like you will probably not think that this book is going to come together but if you show up every day and do your note cards, the book will reveal itself.

44:10You wrote that in your notes for the book. And I said in June, when you go through your note cards, like I, and I don't remember when I wrote it. Um, but I wrote this note to myself that I needed like several months later. And it was true. It didn't, it wasn't the next day it magically, uh, came together. And there was really no point in which it just was all there, but a little bit started to come together and a little bit more started to come together and I did those things. And over time, eventually the process, there's a great writing rule, like just a couple of crappy pages a day. A couple of crappy pages a day eventually got me to a rough draft, which I edit, you know, and now it's there.

44:49And I have, when you, when you watch the process, like the sort of daily grind of work or work on a thing pay off a few times, this is actually what success helps you with. It's not like, oh, I'm amazing and people love me it's you're like no if i do these things like stuff comes out the other side and having done this now you know at least 10 times i at least more or less trust like if i show up every day and i don't quit i'll get something that's not embarrassingly bad that's a low bar low bars are helpful though yeah i mean you know people are like i just want to be like a supermodel or You know, like you just want to be in amazing shape.

45:32And it's like, what if you just started eating healthier and you just sort of saw what happened? I was talking with Kobe Bryant after our interview on the show. That's a nice name drop. Yeah, no, I know. I thought about not including that, but then it didn't make as much sense. Your friend Kobe. Yeah, we go way back. Afterwards, we started talking about our kids and he actually really lit up. And it was basically his only focus after getting out this book that was about like a girl who played tennis in a magical land, a children's book. and I was really impressed that one of the most famous athletes in the world was not prioritizing fame, not prioritizing money, recognition, but instead was focused on his kids.

46:11And that's how you know you're on the right track. And you and I talk about this sometimes, but a lot of people, when I bring this up, they'll go, oh, well, he had the luxury, right, of doing that because he already had fame, he already had money, he already had recognition. So all those things were satisfied, which doesn't make a lot of sense if it's a bottomless pit, right? yeah um i think that might be backwards i remember i read an interview like right after or it was a it was an article by a reporter that interviewed kobe bryant a bunch of times this is right after he died and she was putting together some retrospective about the lakers and she'd reached out to kobe she texted him so they knew each other well enough she said hey i'm doing this piece can i get like 20 minutes with you uh you know and this is a guy who has like a shoe brand he has a book it's all this stuff that like media is what drives yeah what drives it and he texts back he's like no I'm like heads down focus on my girls right now uh like hit me up in a couple weeks and he had no idea that he had like seven days left with them right and I I I that's a haunting story but I think it's also a powerful story because like you don't know like part of the reason we neglect things or people or ourselves is that as the Stoics say we we assume we have unlimited amounts of time it's not that life is short it's that we waste it because we think we have a lot of it right and i think what as a parent as a creative as a person who's trying to do whatever it is you're trying to do the ability to say no to stuff stuff that you want to do stuff that other people think you should do stuff that would be good or lucrative for you to do um it's hard it's really hard i have an email in my inbox that came earlier today for like a significant amount of money to do a thing that i don't really want to do and my instinct is like it was immediately like i don't want to do that it doesn't sound fun um and and i wrote no and then i deleted it and went back to unread and i was like like there's a part of my brain that was like find a way to justify doing this yeah but i know i need to say no to that thing and the ability to say no to those things is like a superpower and it's a superpower because real you know it's a superpower because really powerful people are very bad at it like extremely bad at it yeah like i go to i speak at a lot of conferences and it's like i know why i'm there you're worth seven billion dollars why are you here right yeah um or like uh they need that applause that you're gonna give us after this podcast it's hard to say it's hard it's hard to say no to things it's really hard to say no to things.

48:44And it's obviously harder earlier in your career. It's hard depending on your socioeconomic position. It's harder at different places for different people totally. But I once heard this quote about, or this observation by Sondra Day O 'Connor, the Supreme Court justice. And one of her female aides was saying, what was she so admired about Justice O 'Connor was that she never said sorry before she said no. She just said no. And she was like, I've never met a woman who just said no, because like the instinct was to please or to feel like she had to do more than everyone else. Right. Or she was just like, no, I don't want to do it.

49:25And that that is really powerful and important. And I think when you have kids, one of the helpful exercises for me is realizing that when I say yes to things, I'm saying no to them. Yeah. Or I'm stealing that time from them you write about that in the daily dad newsletter dailydad.com that i subscribe to and uh it's you write about that many other things actually but that that has stuck with me because i'll be like oh i don't have anything else to do wait a minute of course i have something else i could be doing yeah you sign up for a lifetime obligation to this little person yeah and then somebody asks you to do this thing that you don't want to do but you say no you won't say no or you say maybe and you just hope it'll like go away yeah then they're done that for sure or or you just i think uh like having a have uh having kids also helped me the pandemic too but just be like better with boundaries like i will do that but i won't do any of that other stuff you're asking me to do like to just be able to really clearly say what you're comfortable with not comfortable with and own it um and not feel uncomfortable about it or awkward about it it's like it's not just like you deserve it but like it will also make you better at whatever it is it's it's funny you should say that because as i started cultivating those same types of things from reading the daily dead and the pandemic and stuff you and i talk about during podcasts when you're kicking would-be landscapers out of your bookshop uh i have also realized that when other people say like oh hey look i can't i'm like don't even explain it yeah 100 okay with it because the boundaries when you when you get your own you realize that these are it one hard for other people to put forward but so much more important than you ever imagined so i don't bug people for most i did bug you to do this but whatever that's aside from because i knew you'd be great but aside from that i will never bug anybody or like try and step over those boundaries for that reason yeah uh and i i heard uh from someone they told me like if you just say you have a rule people will respect it like i have a rule i don't do live podcasts yeah people would be like oh okay that sounds serious yeah uh and so like jordan harbinger show must have been pretty bad pretty horrible so if you say you have a rule or uh but but also like my wife like i'll be like i really don't want to do this like how do i say no and she's like just say no and then it's like you're not weird for saying no to something you don't want to do yeah you don't the problem is when you're like no because that like you give these reasons and then what you're really doing is giving the person you're telling them if you just say no like i can't i won't or whatever uh or if you go no i'm just like really busy they go well this won't take that much time or like they find what you're telling them is that you would like them to argue with you about uh why you should do it when really if you just own it uh it they it also doesn't waste their time that's true although to be fair you did say let me ask my wife and see what she says you are fully setting up the whole like if she doesn't want me to go i'm not doing that sounds right yeah yeah but hey she's probably happy you know i i think that's one of the things that you realize is like oh i will steal an unlimited amount of time myself so you have to create boundaries or checks that actually i was uh i was reading the new judd apatow book and he was uh he interviewed lynn manuel miranda and i didn't know this but he had had a kid like two weeks before hamilton started oh wow and and he was like it was actually the best thing that ever happened to me because um he's like i didn't go out a single night after hamilton came out so like we we sometimes think like family like oh it it it holds you down and it does it holds you down to reality right like so he wasn't out partying he He wasn't flying all over.

53:13He wasn't doing every bit of press. He was like, no, like after the show, because the show's at night, like I have to go home. Right. And like, uh, I think one of the things that having a family or more balanced personal life that you're not sort of mortgaging over to your work is it allows you, uh, some checks against that impulse to like do an unlimited amount. How do you teach your kids the stoic values? Or I'm sure you probably don't necessarily think about them that way when you're teaching your kids, but I assume they're not sitting back plowing through meditation. by Marcus Aurelius before nap time.

53:44No, my oldest is six or almost six. So he's plowing through it, but the youngest ones are. Yeah. He's more into Minecraft and Paw Patrol and things. That sounds about right. No, I mean, look, the only way to teach your kids, people are like, well, I want my kids to be Christian, so I take them to church every week. And it's like, well, what if you just actually lived by biblical teaching? You know, that might be a stronger argument. Let's not get carried away. So, like, ultimately... Live by example? No, thank you. If I want my kids to observe these ideas, I have to, like, actually model them, right?

54:25And that's the harder thing. The Jordan Harbinger Show, brought to you by Hyundai Ioniq 5. You know, we humans have come a long way on our journey. Our first language wasn't exactly, well, a language. Our first vehicles weren't the fastest. Our first phones weren't smart. Text mom, winky face emoji. And the first electric vehicles weren't, eh, let's just say they look nothing like the first ever Ioniq 5. Two-way charging, 300-mile range. The point is, it's been a long journey, but worth it. Evolve your journey. The fully electric Hyundai Ioniq 5. Tell me about The Harder They Fall by Bud Schulberg.

55:05that book taught you something pretty important oh yeah and if you can't think of it then i will no no it's one of my favorite novels i so he has two novels he has a novel called what makes sammy run which i like a little bit more and then the the harder they fall is this sort of boxing novel that he wrote um i read it when i was well it was funny so i reread that book you kind of have you you should always be very suspicious of the stories you tell yourself in your head because you're a pretty good liar. But I read, I would have, I thought that I read The Heart of They Fall, which is a novel about a corrupt boxing, like an organized crime infiltrating boxing.

55:42And then there's like public relations guy who's like the main character. And he's sort of corrupted by it. And then he walks away from it. And if you had asked me my own story earlier this year i would have told you i read that book and that's why i left american apparel to become a writer and i reread it this year and i pulled up amazon to see when i bought it and i worked at american pro for like five four years or four more years or something like i i we think that change happens in these sort of epiphanies or wake-up calls and it's almost always a lot more gradual than that is a long time too yes uh and and i didn't leave for the same reasons that the character in the novel was reading, which is that we're really good at telling ourselves that one, our work is really important.

56:33And then he has this line in the book, he says, you know, I delude, I, he says, I, I told myself the lie that you can deal in filth and not become the thing you touch. And with American apparel, quite literally the case. No, but you tell yourself like, Oh, like think about all the people that, uh, you know, work in this administration or that administration, people that work in industries that they know are evil or corrupting or straight. And they're like, well, I'm one of the good guys, or I'm steering it in the right direction, or I'm the adults in the room. We are really good at lying to ourselves.

57:11There's an Upton Sinclair line that says, it's very hard to get someone to understand something when their salary depends on you not understanding it and so very often you have you deep down know what's true but then you have you know whatever your salary is that many reasons to not take it seriously or make the make the step that you obviously know you need to make there's a lot i have on ego i'm going to try and condense this down i know i know you've done an entire i mean we've done it actually you and I have done entire shows on this in the past. So I don't want to dwell on it too much, I guess.

57:48But my son, he's almost three. He's in the why phase right now. So it's like, oh man, I'm hungry. Why? And it's like, oh, now, and then you eventually you get to philosophy, which is probably really good for you. Actually. It's like your bag. I know, I know this trips up tons of people. We can all think of examples, but if I say like, okay, fine. Uh, ego is the enemy. You ask me why I don't have a succinct answer. You obviously do at this point. Well, no, I mean, if I had a succinct answer, I wouldn't have written the whole book about it. Yeah, that's true. People go like, tell me the book in one sentence.

58:19And I go, if I could have done this in one sentence, I would save myself a lot of trouble. What's your favorite episode out of your 1 ,400? I would have just done that. It would have been a lot easier. No, but I think, first off, if you make a distinction - Less profitable, for sure, though. If you make a distinction between ego and confidence, which I think is important. Confidence, I feel like, is something you earn. ego is something beyond confidence based on, you know, sort of nothing real. If you define ego as that sort of voice in your head that says you're better than other people, the rules don't apply, it's different this time, everyone wants this from, you know, all the sort of self-aggrandizing, you know, sort of delusions of grandeur, I don't see the purpose that it serves, right?

59:04Right. Ego is this thing I've I found that gets between you and the thing that you want to do. It's between you and other people. It's between you and reality. It's in between you and the work that you need to do. It gets in between you and truth that you're trying to tell. It gets between you and the feedback you need to hear. Right. So ego is this thing that gets in the way. And when you sweep it away, you have this momentary connection with what you're doing, what you need to do, what's required. And then, of course, you make a little progress and then ego comes back. So I see it as a sort of continual sweeping away or eliminate reduction of ego.

59:44But the second you think you have done it is like the most egotistical thought you have. The second you go, I am ego free. Ego has has has reintroduced itself. I think you I don't know if you wrote this being a know-it-all is a self-fulfilling prophecy. I love that because that is. Yes. Well, if you think you know everything that there is to know, it is true for you because you are not capable of learning anything else. But, you know, going back to Socrates, what Socrates' wisdom is rooted in the fact that he knows nothing or that he knows that he doesn't know anything. And what is the Socratic method?

1:00:19He goes around and asks people questions. Like Socrates wasn't wise because he went around and told people the answer. He went around because he asked, like your son, why, why, why, why, why? And eventually discovered something in the process of doing that. How do you think about people who expect you to be? This is a personal question, I suppose. They expect you to be one way because stoicism, right? And I chose some choice Instagram quotes here. I was going to leave these out, but I just can't because your wife will be very disappointed, I think. You want to express your honest beliefs, right?

1:00:53You've got a lot of IG drama. I'm not going to say these people's handles here because it probably... I'm very concerned about what this is going on. Yeah, one guy said, this is after you gave a speech about tearing down these Confederate statues. Yes. I'm sure you remember that post. Somebody said, why choose to move somewhere and then start agitating for that place to change because you don't like something about your new home? You use social media and your platform to magnify your paternalism and amplify your shaming techniques. Live and let live, man. And this is a guy that we both know, which I was surprised, but not surprised.

1:01:27I'll show you later. I'm not going to put it on the live stream. This is one reason that I do check the comments less than I used to do. Well, so one of the things that's weird, like when you have a platform, is do you have the platform or does the platform have you? That's a question I ask myself a lot. And I think I know a lot of people where they sort of don't say what they think, not because they're worried about being canceled, but they're worried it will cost them something. And that doesn't seem to me to be a very, that doesn't seem to me to be a successful place. Right. Like I write because I have things that I want to say, not because people have things that they want to hear.

1:02:20Right. And so I have tried and I generally try not to think about what other people are going to think when I am doing work. Because if you do, then you've you've like sort of handed over your power. So, yeah, like, I mean, first off, it doesn't seem strike me as unreasonable to live in a town and then be like, what is this monument to literally a monument to white supremacy and go maybe that doesn't need to be here yeah and and maybe just because it's been here for a while doesn't mean we have to keep paying to maintain it that doesn't strike me as a crazy thought um so i felt good about obviously what i said and then if it pisses some people off the other thing that's funny is when you piss people off they often they're like well i'm not going to be a fan anymore or whatever and they don't realize that like not only do you not care but maybe the reason that you said it was specifically to filter out said people like one of the weird things like it sort of hit me somewhat recently i guess maybe surprisingly recently but like as the platform particularly daily stow it grew and grew and grew i realized that like people came to it for different reasons right and like people heard about it because i did some weightlifters podcast and now there's like these meatheads that are following it and then nothing wrong with meatheads no no no just don't unsubscribe they they they they came to it thinking it was one thing right and i could continue to have them as fans if i didn't disabuse them of that incorrect notion right so like they thought stoicism, for instance, was just, it would certainly be better for me financially and easier for me as a human being in the world who doesn't like people saying mean things to me, to only talk about the elements of stoicism that people like hearing about, right?

1:04:20About individual resiliency, about productivity, about not having opinions. It would be easy to focus on just the sort of individualistic elements. But as it happens, one of the four virtues is justice, right? How inconvenient. And, you know, when I write about the other things, and it turns out that it upsets the people who wanted the version of stoicism that made them a better sociopath, you know like that's just where we part ways and that's uh that i'm i'm it's not that i like that but i i you can't i can't like that's just that's just what it is right that i can't pick and choose yeah i i could have spent the weekend i did pick up some choice ones but as i reread them now i'm like whoa maybe not on the show like there's some bad you know bad ones what's weird is when you get crazy like if you get crazy comments from some like anonymous thing and you're like is this a troll is this a real person is this a robot uh and but then every once in a while you'll get them from like people with like blue check marks and you're like whoa okay um but it you know it is what it is yeah it's it's it's i mean i say surprising but also you're like well i kind of know that guy and it's not but you do see a lot of it just shows us how divided many people are in many ways but a lot of the stuff man they really do try to cut deep i know that your wife actually noticed because she'll what did she say the jordan harbinger has entered the chat whatever oh yes yes you're always there commenting which i wouldn't say always there sometimes i'm just sort of there with the popcorn to watch yes tell but tell me about the plague that infects your character like literally and metaphorically actually so i think what i love about the stoics is that they were real people writing real things in the real world that they live in which is although very different from ours not that different from ours.

1:06:15So obviously I intellectually understood, for instance, that Mark Sturilis was writing during a pandemic. He lived during a pandemic. In fact, they named a pandemic after him. It was called the Antonine Plague. Sort of like how we called it the Spanish flu, even though it's from Kansas. Oh yeah. Because they were the only ones who admitted that it existed. Well, no, we took it, like it started here and then we put a bunch of people on boats in the first world war and sent them over to Europe and they brought the plague. They brought the 1918, 1919 flu with them. But anyways, it's called the Antonine Plague.

1:06:50It wasn't his fault, but it happened when he was the emperor. So it's called the Antonine Plague. And so I intellectually understood that some of meditations was written during a plague and that he may have even died of it. But it's not until a pandemic happens in our lifetime that you realize like, oh, he's not figuratively talking about the plague. He's also literally reacting to what a global pandemic would do to human beings. And it turns out like what it does to human beings is remarkably consistent. And so the quote that struck me most during the pandemic, he said, there's two types of plagues.

1:07:27There's the plague that destroys your character, or he says, there's a plague that takes your life. And then he's like, there's another pestilence that can destroy your character. And the idea that, um, I think maybe, you know, some of these people, I know people who, uh, well, they, they also got COVID, but they got, they got something worse than COVID. And it's a long COVID and that they're not coming back from it anytime soon. Right. Like something happened in their brain, a flip or a virus got in there and they're like, not the same as they were a few years ago. And I think that's what Marcus was talking about is that like, you know, this thing happens.

1:08:03And does that thing make you more empathetic or less empathetic, more connected to reality and reason or less connected to reality and reason, more involved civically, less involved civically, more selfish, less selfish, right? And I think his point was that obviously you don't want to get physically sick, but this character virus is the thing to really be worried about and uh i it's been weird to watch people i know people are fans of stuff that happened to them but uh it's just it's just interesting to think that they were thinking about the same things that we're thinking about yeah when you're like what happened you know we were before we came here we're just like did you see what happened to so and so and it's like yeah it can happen to anyone lost soul yeah maybe now's a good time to talk about memento mori right because we're talking about death.

1:08:53Tell me about that. Someone stole my Memento Mori coin, by the way. Well, I would like to say they needed it more than me, but I think they were just kind of a prick. Let's see if I can do it. That's the other one. I think I can solve this problem. Yes. Hey, all right. Thank you, man. It's also interesting to think, Marcus... Keep your paws off this coin, by the way. No, if you think about Marcus living in this plague because millions of people in a time when, like, literally they thought they could stop the plague by burning incense that was like that was the extent we still have that that's called they're called essential oil diffusers and they're still for sale on etsy well the more things the more things change the more they stay the same that's right um free shipping though yeah and it's part of an mlm so you can sell it to other people yeah um no i he he's watching this happen right and it's a reminder of his mortality in fact marcus's last words is is dying ostensibly of the plague or uh we believe to be of the plague and his friends are crying and he and he says like this is what happens and he's like don't be sad about me he said think about the same thing happening to you the point is we all die but um that doesn't mean we have to waste the present moment right and and i think a big part of the stoic literature is about precisely that how do you seize the moment but in front of you and thinking about your mortality is not morbid, but it's actually very clarifying.

1:10:24The back of the coin says you could leave life right now, but let that determine what you do and say and think. And that's what memento mori is about. And again, if Marcus Aurelius had to remind himself of this, when you literally could die at any moment of like cutting your finger and getting infected, like the idea that we wouldn't need that reminder when our average life expectancy would stun people living in the ancient world uh to me it's it's it's extra important that we have this practice thinking about it for yourself makes a lot of sense what about thinking about it for other people in your life um i mean people you love not people you actually go around and like hey by the way you could die at any moment it's it's it's a it's a but uh one of the most haunting passages in meditations is marx really says as you tuck your child in at night yeah you don't tell them but you tell yourself that they could go at any moment and it's it's extremely hard to do and the fact that it's hard to do i think is part of it the idea is not detachment the idea is presence right um you know your kid's like hey can we read one more book and you're like no i gotta go you don't have to go you don't have to go um and there will come a time in your life hopefully just because they're a little bit older but it could be for more tragic reasons when you would give literally anything for the opportunity to do that one more time and you have it now and you're rushing through it because you're streaming something yeah or because you left your phone in the other i mean it's game five but i get it yeah yes yeah um so this this moment you had you have it now for sure.

1:12:08And yet you rush through it. And I think what the Stoics would say, I think this is the most powerful part. The Stoics would say is that where you're rushing from is life. Seneca says, don't think of death as something in the future, but think of death as something that's happening now. He says, the time that passes belongs to death, which I think is a really powerful perception shift. That death isn't this thing that happens once. Hopefully when you're 86 years old, death happened every day of those 86 years. Because once time passes, it's dead. And the person that you were in that moment is dead.

1:12:43And nothing can revive it and nothing can get more of it. All you have is that present moment. How do you choose to spend it? That's what matters. Well, time flies during a great conversation, my friend. Thank you for making this trip. Special thanks to Hyundai for sponsoring the show and making this happen. And thank you all for coming out. Amazing. Thank you so much.

1:13:10Thanks for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. Just a reminder, we've got signed copies of all my books in the Daily Stoic store. You can get them personalized. You can get them sent to a friend. The obstacle is the way you go is the enemy. Stillness is the key. The leather-bound edition of the Daily Stoic. We have them all in the Daily Stoic store, which you can check out at store.dailystoic.com.

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