Stop Judging People. Go Meet Them. | Peter Santenello

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2:08Ryan Holiday: Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

2:23Ryan Holiday: Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I told you a couple days ago about our crazy road trip down the Washington, Oregon, and California coast. I've driven across good swaths of this country. I've seen quite a bit of it. There's some parts I haven't been to, but I've seen my share. And I think that's important, right? I talked in wisdom takes work about travel. And it is important to travel all over the world and see all these distant lands. But it's also important to travel through your own country as a tourist. Travel through your hometown as a tourist, right?

2:59Ryan Holiday: It's one of the things we've tried to instill in our kids. They're always wanting to watch screens in YouTube or whatever. One of the things we do allow them to watch a lot of is travel videos on YouTube, where people are traveling to new places, exploring things. I love that because then we can go to those places, right? I want to encourage them to hear about something, be interested about something, and then go see it in real life. We're about to embark on a road trip in a couple of days. We're driving across a good chunk of the South. We've done it many times, but every time we do it, we discover new things, new people.

3:37Ryan Holiday: We have friends we stop and see along the ways. And one of the YouTube channels we've been watching is Peter Santanello's channel. He's traveled all over the world, but all over America. He actually has this really great new book called Your Fellow Americans, where he's trying to introduce people to this country and all the different parts of it. That was so amazing on our trip to Washington, just like the sheer difference in climate from where we'd taken off and where we landed and then even from where we started driving to where we ended. That's just like how big America is. Although I was talking to someone in Australia a couple of days ago and we were talking about just how big Australia is and how few people in Australia know all the different parts of Australia.

4:28Ryan Holiday: Anyways, I want to get you to today's episode because it's a really awesome conversation. Peter was fascinating. Also, he sent me a text afterwards. He went home and saw Rush. I went home, saw ACDC. We had this marvelous connection. We both kind of spent a chunk of our late teens in the same small town near Lake Tahoe, which was pretty cool. Anyways, I'll just get into it. And do check out this new book. I love books about America. I love books about traveling across America. And this is a new one that is going straight in our collection. We're going to carry it in the bookstore. He signed a bunch of them.

5:05Ryan Holiday: You can pick them up. And if you want a great YouTube channel to start following, check out his channel at youtube.com slash Peter Santanello. He's got 4.27 million YouTube subscribers for Goodreads. Let me pull this up. Oh, he's done 850 million views. It's a huge channel. I'm just looking here at his most recent ones. He's traveling across Maine, across Philadelphia, Memphis, the Deep South, the Ozarks, one of America's fastest shrinking cities, Arkansas, Colorado, some guy living in the Everglades in old Florida, a modern company town. All this stuff is awesome. You will love his stuff and you will love this conversation.

5:49Ryan Holiday: Thanks to Peter for coming out. And then hopefully he and I are going to get together when he comes back to Texas and do some collabs together as well. Do check out your fellow Americans. By that, I mean his great book. And if you live in America, your fellow Americans or your fellow citizens wherever you happen to live. I felt good reading your book. I've lived in two of the places and then I just did a road trip down through the Redwoods. So I felt like I was reasonably familiar with it. All right. All right. What places? So in the Redwoods? We started in Seattle and we drove down through Sacramento.

6:21Ryan Holiday: So we did all of Oregon, basically all of Washington, all of Oregon, and then a little bit of California at the top and then down through. I had a talk in Portland in San Francisco. So we started in Seattle and did a road trip with the kids. So that was the most recent one. But then I've lived in East LA and I have lived in Louisiana. So I've done all of it. Oh, cool. You have stories. Yeah, I do. I'm a big road trip guy. I think it's like the best way to see a place. 100%. And we're in the country for it. Yes. You said America is kind of like a choose your own adventure country or like it's a country I think you have to see by car.

7:01Ryan Holiday: I mean, we did invent the car. So it makes sense that you have to see it by car. My wife, who's from Ukraine, says it's a build your own bowl country. That's what you said. Pick your protein. Yeah. Pick your toppings, your dressing. Yeah. And that's geography. That's climate. That's even politics to who you want to be around. Yeah. Million choices. Driving from from Washington to Sacramento. It was weird going like it's June and it's cold in America. I was like, what? You know, and like not being in Alaska or something. I'm just like, wait, it's cold. Like San Francisco was the was the warm place on the drive.

7:38Ryan Holiday: And I was just like, what is happening? Because I left Texas. It was like 100 degrees. Yeah. And I basically didn't see the sun for like five or six days. And then, you know, like the ocean in Seattle is so radically different than the ocean in even in San Francisco. Yes. And then I've lived in L.A. and then that's it. You're like, how is this all the same? Then we've been in Hawaii a couple months earlier. Just like so many cuts on the same thing. Uh-huh. But the United States is so big that it totally changes what you're experiencing. Yeah, and you can fly around, obviously. People have been to Las Vegas or New York or Miami.

8:14But when you connect it through that road trip, and then when you get off the highways, and then you really start connecting the dots, it's endless. Yes. It's a lifetime.

8:23Ryan Holiday: I think the one thing that you find, and to me, this is what I sort of took from the book, is like, people are people. Yeah. Like, even though they might speak with radically different accents, they might have different political views, they might have very different lifestyles. but like it's all basically people i mean you get that travel all over the world but it's you also get that at home there are very few i don't swear on my channel because i got a bunch of kids watching so i'm gonna try to continue that okay jackoffs let's call them that there are very few right if you go in with an open mind and you're cool to people you get that back yes i run into very few problems like yeah i can't even think of any yeah it is weird people are intimidated by travel.

9:05Ryan Holiday: And I don't know if I've ever experienced anything that would confirm that intimidation anywhere I've been in the world. So you've been to a lot of these places in the book. Yeah. Any new places you didn't know of? Well, I've never been to Alaska. Okay. So I thought that was fascinating. And then even, that is another thing you find when you travel is like, you think a place is one place and then you realize like, it's a place plus a bunch of islands or do you know what you know what i'm saying like you're like alaska is alaska and then it's also a bunch of islands like you think taiwan is an island but taiwan is an island and other islands like the philippines is like a bazillion islands like it's it's too much for one mind to comprehend yeah so we we use easy labels like the u.s is this italy is that right yeah and then you can break it down to like texas is this california is that right and then you can break it down to counties and then you can go granular on the town.

9:58And every town's in its cycle right now in America. It's either coming down at the bottom or going up and peaking. And so I was just in Austin, haven't been in Austin for a little bit. A lot of energy there, a lot of excitement. You can feel that's on the up or I don't know if it's at the top, but it's on the up. It's rising. I was just in Maine, did a series there, was in a town where it's on its floor. Right. Right. So even when you talk about a state or even a county, it depends where you are in that place. Sure. But it's too hard to explain all that. Yes. I try to get into that in my content.

10:33Don't label easily because Sacramento is different than Tahoe.

10:39Ryan Holiday: Yeah. Roseville is even different. Yes. I love the Sierra Foothills, Nevada City, Grass Valley. Mm-hmm. You can live a different life out there. Totally. So we're in a tense time, I think we can all admit. And most of our dialogue is political, which a lot of it's needed. And we should have that conversation. But politics isn't everything. And we need to not forget a lot of what's so cool about this country. And my perspective comes from living in four other countries, traveling to 85, and then in 2020, coming back from Ukraine, lived in Ukraine for four years, and seeing America in a whole different light.

11:17Yeah. More pumped on the country than ever before, which sounds odd to most people. Yeah. But that's what the videos capture, and that's what the book captured.

11:26Ryan Holiday: Well, the politics thing is interesting because people will go like, Texas is red, California is blue. Right, right. And it's like, well, I live in Austin, which is blue in Texas. Yeah. And then I grew up in Sacramento in a county that was incredibly red, like one of the most red counties in California at that time. Yeah. And so it's like my experience was conservative upbringing, living in a liberal place now, but on a zoomed out enough map, that doesn't seem like it would be true. 100%. And then, of course, it's like, for the people that live there, it's like, what is their friend group like?

12:02Ryan Holiday: What are their neighbors like? If you're talking to a theater kid in South Dakota, they might have one experience and you're talking to a son or a daughter of parents with a very different occupation. It doesn't match the labels, I guess, is what you find. It doesn't at all. In California, okay, I live in Florida now. Where in Florida? I live in Palm Beach Gardens, north of West Palm, about 20 minutes. So hour and 20 north of Miami. Okay. Florida has its labels. California has its labels. I lived in California the majority of my adult life. Yeah. Right? And both labels are true to some degree.

12:42But then once again, once you go granular, you can break them up in two seconds, like with what you just said. You can choose in either one of those big states like Texas, Florida, California, they're their own countries. Yes. There's everything there. Every type of person there.

12:59Ryan Holiday: Yeah. What's the line about Florida? Like the further north you go, the deeper south you get? The further south you go, the more north you get. Yes. You go down far enough. It's all my neighbors are New Yorkers or from Jersey. Right? Yeah. And then when you get down south enough to Miami, it's the capital of Latin America. Right. That's what they say. Yeah. It's all mixed up. Yes. So Florida is as redneck as you want. Mm-hmm. It's as gay as you want. You have Key West. You have Miami Beach. It's as Latino as you want. It's as retiree as you want. It's as business. Disney as you want. Disney. It's business centric.

13:38A lot of entrepreneurs. It's like Texas. It's attracting creators. So it's many things. We often go off the last bit of information we have. For example, my mom, when I said I'm moving to Florida, she said, what are you retiring?

13:54Ryan Holiday: she's like she's gonna be around old people it's also whatever your sense of that place different places mean different things to people based on the era that was most formative to them yes and or let's take mexico city for example when i first went there in 2008 so many people said don't go there it's dangerous yeah and they're going off information yeah there's danger there sure but they're going off information when it was way more dangerous yes or you could even And say that with the Balkans and Sarajevo, for example. Sarajevo is fine to travel to now. Yeah. The last bit of information, people have the war in their head.

14:29Ryan Holiday: Yeah. Quite often. It's very hard to correct impressions. You have to update constantly. All these places are always changing. San Francisco, where I left, when I left in 21, it was at its low point. Yeah. Right now, it's much better than what it was. Not totally different, but a lot better. And so people will go, oh, it's so terrible there. But have you returned lately? Have you checked it out lately? Yes. So to go with everything, I mean, it's the same story with everything. The book tries to go into these stories through individuals in this country that most people probably have never met, these types of people, because we're all in our bubbles.

15:07It doesn't matter where you live. You can be in the richest neighborhood. You can be in the poorest neighborhood. Everyone's in a bubble. And this gets you out of your bubble into a different bubble. Yeah. Smith Island, Elizabethan English still being spoken there. I met this guy. His family's been there 370 years because it was so removed for so long. The old timers still have some of that accent.

15:29Ryan Holiday: Yeah. Like there's a form of Texas German. Then there's like Louisiana French, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And like that feels like it would have been a long time ago. And then it's not. The tradition is still there. I don't know Texas too well. Does Texas, when you get close to Louisiana, is there any of that Cajun culture coming over? A little bit. I mean, Houston and Beaumont, like there is, you're just so far north in Louisiana, you're out of it. Okay, okay. A bit. But I mean, there were towns, like there's this story that Robert Caro tells in his book on Lyndon Johnson, where one of the first sort of foreign leaders that Johnson entertains when he becomes president is the chancellor of Germany.

16:07Ryan Holiday: And he brings them to some town in central Texas or right around here in the hill country, one of those Texas German towns. And the guy's just like, what is he's like, I'm back home. Yeah. You know, because like the Germans had come there, you know, a hundred plus years earlier and the community they created was so insular. They were so isolated that it was basically Germany, you know, and like the idea of the six flags. Right. Like how many different flags have flown over Texas or these different parts of the country that feels like distant history. It's not that it's not. It's one or two generations in some cases.

16:43Ryan Holiday: Right. Right. The thing is, we adjust and change quickly. Yeah. Which makes it exciting. Seeing all the cranes in Austin right now. My hotel, I'm looking down on a massive construction site coming out here. You can see the sprawl coming out. It probably doesn't make you too excited. I can imagine. Yeah. You move to a small town and then it doesn't stay small. Right. But this is happening all over the country. It's like places are attracting or detracting. And it's easier for people like you and me. Well, you're pretty tied in with your bookstore, so you're probably not, it's not easy and you got kids here.

17:14But if you're working online, it's a new phenomenon. I want to go where it's going to work better for me. And you pack up and move and it's happening all over the country. I think it's fascinating. Yes. I mean, we've always been a country of migrants from abroad and internally. People always moving around for the opportunity.

17:30Ryan Holiday: It's weird because there's kind of a divergence there, right? It's like some people are incredibly mobile and some people are not mobile at all. And so much of the driver of American prosperity was like if New York was on fire, if L.A. was hot, people could go there and live and work. And part of the problem of the housing crisis is that it's just it's hard to move. Right. If you have money, it's not hard. If you don't have money, it's very hard. If you have money, you're not tied in super deep to your community, many generations. And I'm sure out here there's a lot of that, which I admire very much.

18:02I think it's very cool. The more I travel the country, I really admire these places where the family's like six, seven, eight generations. It's cool. I think it's an awesome thing. You either have that or you don't. But so fresh in the American story, all our ancestry, how insane were they? They're just like, I'm going to leave my language, my work, my family. I'm going for this new thing. No guarantees. We'll see what happens.

18:27Ryan Holiday: Have you seen the new Little House on the Prairie? Haven't. It's kind of an interesting take on it because like we've often celebrated the pioneers as being like courageous. Sure. Whatever. And obviously there's the whole, you know, taking other people's land part of it that we didn't do a good job talking about. Sure. But the other thing we've missed is that like, to borrow a very offensive word, we weren't always sending our best. Like it wasn't people with options that were choosing to cross the planes by wagon. Okay. Like these were somewhat impulsive people. These were people that had blown up their lives.

19:02Ryan Holiday: These were people that were fleeing from something. And so one of the things they do a better job of in the show is like, why are they moving so much? It's like because the dad's kind of not a deadbeat, but like not like the reason Lincoln moves around a lot as a kid is his dad was just kind of a ne 'er do well. Right. Like if it's working, you stay where you are. That's true. You know. And so part of that American spirit is like it's not working here. I'm going to walk a thousand miles and start fresh in Oregon. There's some gold over there. Yes. And there is a little bit of, I mean, it's fundamentally irresponsible to take your family by covered wagon through unsettled lands.

19:44Ryan Holiday: To be in the Donner Party? Yeah, because you read a newspaper article that said there's stuff over here and then this guy sold you a map, you know. Who'd be the modern day version of that? Well, the Donner Party guy was a charlatan, like the guy that sold them the secret path or whatever. Like he was like an internet marketer basically, right? He was like, this is how you, you know. And so, but just to follow that is also crazy, you know? It is crazy, but there's that adventure in all of us, right? To some degree, some have more of it than others. Yes. And I could imagine in those times you're just getting by and then it just sounds so good.

20:23It's sort of like the internet today, right? Some people can make some things sound so great. Yeah. And people follow it. Totally. Right? And so you're like, oh, man, my life sucks, but I'm going to get some land over there, Homestead Act, 160 acres. I can farm it. I can live my dream.

20:38Ryan Holiday: Yeah. And now it's like, oh, you're watching a Trad Wife or you're watching this person or this person. And you're like, that's what I want my life to be. Just a different medium, huh? Yes. Totally. Similar impulse. Mm-hmm. Different medium. And the same people willing to tell you what you want to hear and sell you what you want to hear. Exactly. The wishful thinking of hearing it and not checking it too closely. Right. You know? Yeah. It's all there. One of the things I think the internet has shown us is that you got to directly connect with the people that you're trying to reach. You want as few intermediaries and as few sort of artificial blocks between you and what you're trying to do or what you're trying to say or who you're trying to reach as possible.

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23:52Ryan Holiday: For more information, please see the episode description. One of the things I was thinking about as I was reading your book is like travel is a little bit like reading in that there's all the places you want to go, just like there's all the books you want to read. And the problem is some places traveling to once or reading once is not enough, right? Like, it's hard to justify rereading when there's all these books that you haven't read. But there's something about traveling to the same plate. Like, we were just in Rome and it was maybe my fourth time. And it was crazy to think I'm walking around on the forum.

24:26Ryan Holiday: I could afford this time to hire this really good guy. And she's showing this stuff. And I'm like, I don't remember seeing this. And she's like, oh, this just opened. And I'm like, it's been here for 2000 years. And I was here 10 years ago and I couldn't see this. Like, they just excavated it. So like 10 years is that in Roman history, but it fundamentally changed the experience that I was able. So it's hard for someone to afford to go to Europe once. It's hard to do a family road trip across the United States once, but actually have to do it like three or four or five or 10 times to actually get it.

25:03Ryan Holiday: And so this tension between reading and rereading, traveling and coming back is like, that's the tricky part. That's a great comparison. Yeah, that one, I mean, it's a good problem to have, firstly. But I understand what you're saying. Like, I'm not trying to toot my horn. I've been to 85 countries. I could have been to all of them. But I went back to Istanbul 20 times. Yeah. Lived in Ukraine. Wanted to go to somewhere warm in the winter. Two hours. Okay, cool. And I love that city. It's fantastic. In Italy, how is it? It's really hard not to go back to Italy. Sure. So I get you. And the older I get now, it's I don't need as much adventurous stuff.

25:37Don't need to go to Pakistan again. And Iran, I don't really think that would go so well these days. I don't know. Right? But going back to some more stable and I'd say easier travel places as you get older makes sense.

25:51Ryan Holiday: It's like, are you going to understand a handful of places really, really deeply? Yeah. Or are you going to have been like, you know, you hear they're like, we're going on this cruise and we're going to stop in 16 cities. Yeah. And you're like, OK, you got two hours here, one hour. I mean, it's better than nothing, but like you skimmed the surface. It's go everywhere, see nothing. Yeah. And so that's a tough balance. And that's tough to sell to someone who gets two weeks. Like if you're working the average job in the United States, what are you getting? Two weeks? Maybe. Right. And so Christmas, family, Thanksgiving family, you're lucky if you're going overseas.

26:27And so you got six days in LA. Yeah. Do you just want to stay in Rome and just see Rome? where you're like, I got to see all these things that we've dreamed of going to. Everything's a choice. You know, I saw with my father when I was growing up, we never traveled growing up and he never got vacation time. His industry didn't allow for it. And so I'm like, okay, if I want to see the world, don't do that. And you can sort of line it up at a younger age and be like, okay, these are my priorities. And maybe you don't know your priorities at 18. But if you're like, I really want world travel, well you can x a lot of things off your list sure and you might be broker than your buddies who got that corporate job yes and ascended the ladder that's all a personal choice or there's some of this attitude like you got is you know the the more well-traveled someone is that you know the higher they are in the hierarchy or something yeah which i think is total bs because you know i've i've sacrificed not having a family i'm married we don't have kids and so to do my work the sacrifice.

27:30And that is, well, if I want to be a great parent, I'd have to cut back on that.

27:35Ryan Holiday: You have the fantasy of traveling with your kids and then you realize like, it's actually not really fair to them. You know what I mean? Every time I hear someone, they're like, we're selling everything and we're going to travel for a year on a sailboat. I'm like, yeah, okay. I'm sure that's actually great for your kids. Not a nightmare. No judging, but you get what I'm saying. It's like kids need routine and structure and obviously also novelty and adventure, but like they want to go to their friend's house. They don't want to go to France. And when you become a parent, that's your number one priority, right?

28:06Yeah. It should be, right? I would think. And so greater point is everything has a sacrifice. And just seeing as many countries as possible doesn't win you any award in my opinion.

28:16Ryan Holiday: Yeah. They don't get a prize and you're probably not on your deathbed being like, I'm so glad I went to, I saw all the countries. Done. You know? Right. You're going to be thinking of a handful of experiences, not the long list. The beauty, and you're going to get a very pro-American talk with me because that's the premise of the book and my videos. And the beauty of this country is a lot of people have that option. I get it. If you have health issues, if you're taking care of your parents, you're not going anywhere. But more than anywhere I've seen, and I've been very open-minded with it, you can cut your own life here.

28:52Yeah. You want to open up a bookstore, have a cool pod, do what you've done, live in a small town in Texas, go for it. You can do it. And many places in the world, let's take Ukraine, for example. You know, it's war now. It's a bit different. But if you want to do take your career to the top, it's pretty much one or two places to go. Yeah.

29:15Ryan Holiday: You also see this in foreign countries, particularly Europe. You're like, oh, like the social safety net makes it creates a floor. Yep. But there's also kind of a ceiling. A hundred percent. You're like, oh, like waiter is good job. You know what I mean? And so there there is especially like for young people, you know, there's there's there's either like if I stay here, there's limited opportunities or I have to leave. Yeah. And you can kind of feel that. And in America, you can leave and just go to another part of America because it's so big. And without having to do anything with the government.

29:50OK, you get a new driver's license. Sure. There are other countries you have to like you have to get approval to live in different regions of the country. Yeah. You can't just get up and go. Yeah. And so it's interesting. My wife being Ukrainian, I lived there for four years. We were married a couple of years before we came back to the U.S. Seeing it all through her eyes. and she edits all of our content so that's a full-on crash course on america seeing different regions just how insanely big it is insanely big and how different the people are yeah and like the most pro-american person i know that's funny because she she loves it she's totally embraced it she speaks english perfectly you're seeing things through someone else's eyes for the first time you're like oh i didn't think of that or i didn't see it that way and she was a big help in this project too.

30:39Ryan Holiday: That's why it's important that Americans travel. So you can see how other countries see the world and then how other countries see you. Like one of my favorite passages from Bill Bryson who's like one of the greatest travel writers ever. He's talking about being in Australia and picking up a newspaper. Yeah. And just how absurd the news felt to him. He's like, he's reading about some murder and it's not scary because the names are ridiculous and the circumstances you know don't seem real he's reading about their politicians but he doesn't care he has no stakes right it's just he's just able to see it as this thing and then like we were in australia two years ago like during the 2024 election and on the one hand it's weird how much american politics are on the front page of uh you know other countries newspapers and then also their news broadcasts at the same time like we're watching olympic coverage from another country yep and you're just like, oh, yeah, they're rooting for different people.

31:39Ryan Holiday: Like, it's just totally like it's just you're watching the same thing, but the lens is different. Yeah. And it forces you to realize, oh, like my perspective is not the only perspective. And that everyone is going around. It's like everyone's the main character in their own movie. And every country is the main character in their own movie, even if America looms so large, literally and figuratively, in other people's stories. Yeah, and international travel, it allows, because we're in the game. I like to say we're in the game right now. Yeah. We're on, it's World Cup time or just finished. We're on the football field.

32:17Yeah. Right? When you're in it, you only see what's in front of you in that perspective. And then when you're in the stands, you're looking down at the game from a different perspective. And that's international travel. I've learned more about the U.S. in many ways from being outside of it and viewing it as a spectator than sometimes when you're in the thing.

32:36Ryan Holiday: And that probably is, I mean, in your videos, there's usually some person from there showing you around, right? You have that person's perspective on that place. I have two styles. So one is I meet up with someone that let's say is an expert. This next video we're doing is about a lobster man in Maine. And so I want to get into that world and show that perspective. Other videos, about half of them, I call it wing it videos where I have a plan, what I'm going to do, where I'm going, but it's really who I run into along the way. And the goal is to show the audience, like things are way more mixed up than we ever think they are.

33:11I never know what anyone's going to say. And it's my responsibility to be the conduit to bring that message out, whether I agree with it or not, and let the audience see it. Yeah. Sometimes someone will say something, you know, that's over here. And then the next second they're saying, you know, someone else is saying something that's totally different and that all exists. The only way to truly get a story. How many people live in this town?

33:37Ryan Holiday: Eight to ten in the town. And then it's like 80 ,000 in the county. OK, so let's say there's 10 ,000 here would be to do 10 ,000 stories. Sure. Because everyone's experience is different. It's the only way to really get it in an accurate way. But usually there's some consensus. Like, for example, if there are, you know, people on the streets, you know, every other step someone's passed out, you know, on fentanyl or something. Pretty much everyone say, hey, we have a fentanyl problem. Yeah. Right. So there's some consensus with most stuff. Sure. But then you realize how wildly different people are with what they think.

34:14And that comes from their experience. And it's not for me to tell them they're right or wrong. is to tap into that because I didn't live the life they lived.

34:22Ryan Holiday: Yeah. It's like, I mean, I feel like life is about figuring out how the other half lives. You know, like, oh, this is what it's like for you. You know? Yes. And then what do you do with that information, I guess is the question. When you can understand where someone's coming from, it definitely develops empathy. Yeah. I want everyone to be able to watch or read this and not feel all triggered. And here's where I'm at. Yeah. The number one comment goes something like this. My family and I can't get together for Thanksgiving without arguing about politics. We can't watch anything on TV that has anything to do with culture because Uncle Larry starts arguing at Ann Jane and blah, blah, blah.

35:03Your content is something we can all sit around and watch and enjoy together. And so that's my lane. Now, does politics get into things? Because politics gets into life. There's no way around it sometimes. And things are going to go into that. They're going to flirt along that.

35:18Ryan Holiday: Everything is the way that it is because of politics. It's all policy, right? Sure. Pretty much everything and results are because of policy and economics, which is from policy. Why one county is doing well and the other isn't. Why the freeway is here as opposed to here. why they grow soybeans instead of this or that. You know, all these are ultimately are incentives and policy decisions. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think about this all the time. I'm always talking about we were in Natchez, Mississippi, and we were driven up from New Orleans. We were in Natchez, Mississippi, and we're going to Vicksburg.

35:52Ryan Holiday: I want to see the Civil War battlefield. We're talking to this waitress, and she was telling us she's from there. And I go, oh, so have you ever been to Vicksburg before? What's it like? What should we expect? And she's like, I've never been. And I'm like, it's like 30 minutes away from here. And you realize like, oh, just some people have literally never, for whatever reason, have never gone outside their little area. Right. You talk to people, they're like, I'm going on my air. You know, I'm flying on an airplane for the first time to visit my aunt in Nashville. And you're like, OK, you're in your 40s.

36:27Ryan Holiday: And so that's just a very different way of experiencing the world. put aside passports, put aside international travel, whether you're, you know, setting up routes in one city or traveling by train. It's like some people haven't been to the next town over. For sure. The most extreme form of that would be the Schwartzen Trouber Amish. Yeah. The Schwartzen Troubers are what most people think of when they think of Amish. No technology, basically living in 1871, kerosene lamps. And I met up with some of those people when I was in Holmes County. Holmes County, people think of Lancaster County was the home of the Amish.

37:03Yes, it is, but Holmes County, not far behind. And so like everything, you have the Schwartz and Schruber on this end. For those listening, I got my hand way out to the right. And then you have the beachy Amish on this end. And now that's almost Mennonite. Yeah. And the beachy are going to drive around, use microwaves and have electricity. Now they're all technically Amish. Now, when I was with some Schwartzen troopers that I meant accidentally, and I was very respectful. I'm like, guys, I'm making a video. They didn't really even know what a video was. Right. They didn't know who the president was.

37:40Wow. Yeah. That'd be nice. They just had no clue about any of this stuff. They're living in their own world. Yeah. And I said, do you mind if I show some of this? And they're like, yeah, just don't have our faces on it. So I made a video without putting the camera on their faces. and the woman said to me her number one question i said is there anything you want to know about the outside world she looked up and she's like have you ever flown in a plane and i was like wow yeah and she's like what's that like and i had to think about it what's like i don't know it's sort of like flying in a dream state through clouds and gets you somewhere really quickly

38:20Ryan Holiday: yeah she's getting you to think about something magical that you have completely taken for granted totally and i looked in the rearview mirror as i was leaving and she's looking up at the sky like a little smile and you realize she's just as american as you and i in the same country but yeah that's a different world and we also tend to think that those things it's like oh way over here far away maybe there's these amish people that are very it's like there's a mennonite community like five minutes from here yeah and it's like if you look from there's so much. You're closer to people living in a completely different reality than you, than you think.

38:59Ryan Holiday: I mean, right down to unhoused and homeless people who are living in a completely different reality. Every state, you know, who's the richest person in that state? What is their life like compared to yours? Like they might live in Texas, but they don't live in Texas. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. They live in the world and their domicile is in Texas. Right. And like just the wide, enormous breadth of experiences that different people looking up at more or less the same horizon are experiencing. Yeah. I have a part in the book called Neither Here Nor There. Yeah. And it's about people that are in the country, obviously, but sort of living in their own world.

39:41Siberian Yupik up in St. Lawrence Island, Alaska. You can see Russia from it. It's 30 miles away. Three times the size of Maui. They still hunt whale every year. reindeer. Wow. Yeah. You need an invite to get on the island. Yeah.

39:56Ryan Holiday: And then you go to Molokai too. I mean, just like the Hawaiian islands are radically different than each other. Molokai and Oahu, two different universes. Sure. So the St. Lawrence, in St. Lawrence Island, Siberian-Nupic people, you know, they've never seen a tree before. It's just too far north. And then you have the Chicanos, you know, East LA. And if you tap into Chicano culture, It's its own thing. You'll meet guys that have a Spanish accent that don't speak Spanish. Yeah. Like they're speaking English with a Spanish accent. And then the Amish, I think, is the class, you know, top example of, you know, beating to their own drum.

40:35Ryan Holiday: I remember I was I was going to talk to a baseball team and I was just asking all these questions. This guy was telling me the interesting culture between like they were like one of the faux pas is like if you assume one of the black players speak Spanish because like in that world, it's different than other parts of America. Yeah. Right. Like, like you're like, oh, right. Because this is such a global game. You're drawing different distinctions, boundaries, in groups, out groups, whatever that I'm even clocking is happening. Yeah. I'm excited about Texas. Texas. I'm going to I don't know much about Texas.

41:13I worked at when I was living in Lake Tahoe in my young 20s. Where in Lake Tahoe? I lived in Kings Beach. I lived in Homewood. I lived in Tahoe City.

41:22Ryan Holiday: Grew up in Homewood every summer. I worked at, do you know Obexers? Of course. My first job was at Obexers. I started a business off the Obexers community board. Really? Yeah. That's amazing. When was this? I was hammered drunk one night and stoned with my buddy. And we're young Tahoe guys snowboarding all winter and summer's coming around. What are we going to do for work? This was 2000 probably. roughly then it would have been 2000 the summer of 2000 maybe 2001 so maybe maybe i made you a sandwich i got those sandwiches all the time huge sandwiches i loved it pdq is better you did half of the time pdq is better than ovexer sandwich was pdq was better so i was with a buddy late night and we're like what are we going to do how are we going to stay in tow we're just right didn't want to have anything to do with getting a corporate job or anything there probably isn't one.

42:12There isn't. You'd have to move off the hill. You'd have to go to Sacramento or the Bay. And I'm like, okay, there's all these wealthy people here. They need their cars cleaned. Auto detailing. I posted something at the PDQ, get a call the next day. And my buddy and I tore it up all day. This is when I drank many years ago. Get a call the next day. And the lady's like, I'm calling about the auto detailing. And I'm like, what are you talking about?

42:37Ryan Holiday: Oh, you had your first customer already and you don't agree on. I had no clue. And then I'm like, she's like, when can you get in the schedule? I'm like, hold on one second, ma 'am. Let me check the calendar. I'm like, should I do this or not? And then I said, yeah. So my first job came out of there too. There you go. Yeah. Nice. But West Shore, what a place. It's the best. The best shore. Of course. I lived seven or eight years up there. But if you want to further your life, unless you're in real estate, construction, I guess own a restaurant. There's not much. Yeah. Or you're a tech billionaire or something.

43:11You're a tech billionaire. Now Incline Village is taken. I mean, it was always wealthy, but it's really taken off.

43:16Ryan Holiday: Well, and then the point about you think it's one thing, it's the other. It's like, right, because you cross a state border and the taxes are different. Yeah. So it attracts a different clientele. And so it's just different worlds. The borders are made up and arbitrary, but one side of the line versus the other can mean a totally different experience, conception. Yeah, I do miss that part of the country. You're in Tahoe in the winter, and there's eight feet of snow out your door. Yeah. And in the same county, there are palm trees. You go down to Auburn. I moved to Granite Bay when I was in high school, and our house was in Placer County, and my parents' little cabin in Tahoe was also in Placer County.

43:54Ryan Holiday: Nice. So it was like, as suburbs as suburbs get, and the mountains that, you know, I guess we're closer to the lake. But anyway, what's the lake at? Three, 4 ,000 feet? No, 62. Yeah. So like that much elevation climb in one county. Yeah. And then different worlds, different climates. And then you go to Reno. It's dry, high desert, eight inches of rain a year. Yeah. And then you got the Bay, San Francisco. My heart's there. I love that city. Of course. And then obviously the coast. It's really spectacular. I do miss it a lot. Do you miss it back there? Of course. Yeah. Because this is totally different.

44:30It's totally different. What do you like here? Just the big open spaces?

44:33Ryan Holiday: I love the big open spaces. For me, as I travel out, it's in the middle of the country. It's nice. Yeah, sure. Yeah, I think I like the space. I kind of like the heat. People are nice. People are nice. You bounce around and you find your place. Yeah. I was ready to be down with California. Okay. When did you move out? 2011. Okay. It's been a while. But I've lived all over. But this is like, not compromise, but this checks a bunch of different boxes that I wanted. then you set up roots and then you're like oh this is where i lived yeah that's cool which is the interesting thing you meet people and you're like why are you here and they're like i don't know you know what i mean like sometimes i think you think people have an affinity for why they're there and it could be the most people are there because they're taking care of their parents people are there because their car broke down at 40 years ago and they were like this is where i live now nate park etsy has a joke about you know you grew up in this town and it was named after Andrew Jackson and people go like, he was a bad guy.

45:28Ryan Holiday: And he's like, we didn't know him, you know, like, yeah, that's not why we live there. Jacksonville. Yeah. But his point is like, we just put so much on people about where they live and why they live there and what it means. I mean, I was talking to, there's a woman, she is a dermatology clinic down the road. She's a dermatologist. She went to Harvard. I'm like, why are you here? You know, she's like, because if I set my clinic up here, I got my student loan debt compensated. And if I did it in Austin, I didn't. So that's why I live here. You just realize people live in different places for all.

46:02Ryan Holiday: And when you're open and you're curious, it gets so much more interesting than when you think you know what it says about somebody. Yeah. And there's a big uptick in people moving to rural areas. I mean, depending, COVID was big for that. And it also shows you, we have a housing crisis in this country and housing's expensive in so many areas. And then it's not. Do you want to live there though? That's the question. But I was just in Little Rock. I did a video there. I met this young couple. They bought a really cool home for 182 ,000 with land, nice ranch style. You can go way cheaper. Even California, if you want to go up to Crescent City and buy a, I mean, it's not dirt cheap, but I think you get something for like$250.

46:52Or anywhere in Central California. Central Valley. Yeah.

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49:23Ryan Holiday: It's not just a one-time snapshot. It tracks your results over your lifetime. As I said, Superpower is the most affordable 100 plus biomarker blood tests starting at$199 and it's HSA FSA eligible. Take control of your health with superpower and for a limited time, our listeners will get$20 off to unlock their new health intelligence. Head over to superpower.com and use code STOIC for$20 off your$199 superpower membership. Tell them the daily STOIC sent you to support the show. I remember I was driving from, where were we driving? We were driving from 30A to Orlando. Okay. So down the panhandle into Florida.

50:04Ryan Holiday: And we're like, I was like, I feel like just this six hour drive, you could solve the entire housing crisis in this country. You know, you're just passing through nowhere with nothing in one of the now more expensive states. Right? And you're just like, how, you know, you just realize like the one thing we do have is lots and lots and lots of space. We're so lucky. It's insane. I think we're just 100 years behind Europe with that, right? Europe's tapped out. Western Europe, if you go to Switzerland or Italy, it's like in a way every square inch is sort of taken. I mean, there's plenty of nature.

50:42Yeah. But as far as housing, if you're in Switzerland, they don't have the opportunity as a young person in America who could, like, again, you gotta be the have the right mindset but like they're not building a development with a thousand

50:53Ryan Holiday: houses like they're doing down the street anywhere in europe because how where exactly when i moved out of tahoe i so badly wanted to move to san francisco yeah like so badly and i just was i was very practical with the numbers and i'm like man if i moved to reno which sounded all it's it sounded it awful when I said that to everyone. Everyone gave me a hard time on that one. They're like, you're ruining your life. Why would you go there? I'm like, yeah, but I want to own a house. And so it's 45 minutes down the hill. That mortgage was cheaper than rent in San Francisco. And I wanted to go back to college and I'm just, I had to pay my way.

51:36So University of Nevada, no, it's not Harvard, but hey, I could have the opportunity to go and I was paying. So I was like, all right, crunch the numbers could do that. That time Reno is cheap. Reno's not cheap anymore. Like that blew out. And so there's always this next place or like, how do you see it before the thing gets expensive? And there's still plenty of places in this country.

51:59Ryan Holiday: That's the energy of America. There's still places to go. And people are able now to go back, like it was Detroit for a while, right? You could go to places - You can go back, yes. You go back to places that were once nice. And that's your point about cities being in different points in the cycle. Yep. Detroit downtown, when I was there last, it was actually pretty nice downtown. But yeah, the population cleared out. Comets story, I mean, that's a theme I get into a lot. I think about, you know, I want my videos not just to be a travel video. That doesn't interest me. I would do something else.

52:33But is there meat on the bone? Is there substance in there? Can we learn something? Like, what's the culture doing? And a theme I just see a lot is industrial town, industry left, jobs left. Yeah. Thing collapses.

52:46Ryan Holiday: And how that cycle repeats. I mean, the reason this area is booming between Austin is because Tesla is here and SpaceX is here and the Boring Company is here and then all the adjacent things are coming around. And it's like, I don't know where that is in the cycle, but it doesn't last forever. You know? Studebaker seemed like it would last forever. And, you know, all these companies did. And now we refer to that area as the Rust Belt, right? So it is. It's a cycle. And it might be your lifetime. It might be two generations. Or it could be a really fast cycle. There's booms and busts. You know, you see that in the Old West, that this was a metropolitan city.

53:22Ryan Holiday: And then it's Tombstone, Arizona, right? Or the fact we still have company towns in Arizona. So the company town was huge, what, 80, 100 years ago. A lot in West Virginia. Got paid in script. Company money, go to the company store. And I've done a lot of those videos. And then I was looking late night on Google Maps. I'm like, Baghdad? Yeah. Baghdad, Arizona? What? And so I go in on it and I start researching the town. And it's like, oh, Freeport McMorrin owns this town? Yeah. Okay, it's a copper mine. And so they still have that old school structure, as in my company owns all the real estate.

54:06Everyone that lives there works for the company. And I went in thinking, look, company towns don't have a great reputation in the past. I mean, they were almost slaves. Like an indentured servant. Indentured servants, right? And you're stuck there. And then if your husband dies in the mine, the wife has to leave the housing immediately. It was awful, right? In many ways. I get out there to Baghdad, sort of with that in the back of my mind. And I talk to as many people as possible. What's it like living out here? And that starts into something else because Americans are great at opening up and wanting to talk if you take interest.

54:38And so I'm getting into the strength. Oh, average salary, I believe, around$90 ,000. My rent for my three-bedroom, two-bath home is$350. All health care taken care of. My kids are taken care of. Summer camp. School's great. No crime because if someone's had a lie in the company and kicks them out of town. Yeah, yeah. It's good while it lasts. And it's good while it lasts. Copper's good right now. Not for me. Yeah. I'm guessing not for you. Yeah. I don't want to be in that mold. But for somebody, it's the dream. But I can totally get it in this time now where it's like, where's your job going? Where's inflation going?

55:13How expensive housing is getting? I saw just like tamp down on the pressure of modern life. I was like, that's pretty cool. And there are two of those towns. There's another one, Morenci, which is bigger in Arizona. and these open mind pits are insane. Have you read Nomadland? I haven't. I've heard of it. I haven't read it.

55:32Ryan Holiday: She talks about that. That's the dark side of the company town is Amazon sets up a temporary Christmas fulfillment center or it's these people that travel from sort of temp job to temp job in campers and RVs. And by the way - That's a video also, right? Yes. Okay. It's a movie also. It's a movie. I've seen it. The book is incredible. The movie is also good. But just like you realize like the company town isn't isn't always so permanent because it's seasonal, right? All the people that work adjacent to national parks or this tourist season or this, you know, big shipping or fulfillment or, you know, mineral season, like, and you're temporarily here and then we're all going here and we're chasing and it's, you're never setting up roots.

56:17Ryan Holiday: It's, there's a sadness to it also. Oh yeah. So I was out, I believe it took place there, Quartzsite, Arizona. They're living on BLM land. And a lot of people are sold, hey, live a cheap retirement, live out of your car, live out of your van. And that's all great until the summer comes around. And a lot of people die out there. It's pretty hardcore. People should spend some time in some RV parks and get a different slice of what America is for some people and has become because of the screwed up nature of our social safety net, income inequality, how expensive stuff is. Yeah, there are a lot of retirees suffering.

56:59Ryan Holiday: People are never required from the financial crisis. Their social security isn't keeping up. And for example, my mom, her property taxes just went up 25 % in two years. She's on a fixed income. Right. Right. And there's a lot of those situations. I remember being in Charlotte, North Carolina. That's a boom town. It's really taken off. And this old woman just been there since the beginning. Tiny home and her property taxes were nothing. Right. And now because of the comps around her gets reassessed and she can't afford to live in her home. which property tax is an interesting one because look, I'm all for doing my part and I pay quite a bit of taxes.

57:41I'm sure you do too. But the property one's interesting because if you own your home and then you want to go monka mode, you're old, you don't have any money. Maybe you don't have any money. It's not your home.

57:52Ryan Holiday: Who is the tax code favoring? Is it people who make lots of money? Is it people who make lots of, you know, and you realize like the part of the Texas, Florida dream is that it's actually quite hard on the low end. Not only do you not get the social services, but if you own your own home, retiree or whatever, you're just getting slaughtered on these property taxes. Yeah. Because they go up every year. In California, they don't go up. Yeah. I didn't think the conversation would go into that, but it's a good one. Because I think about this a lot because everything gets oversimplified, right? The 1%.

58:25So the 1 % could be that surgeon in Irvine making$2 million a year. Earned income, ordinary income, not to bore your audience, but it's like you're making money from an employer. That guy's paying over 50%,

58:39Ryan Holiday: right? And so that's in the same group as Jeff Bezos, right? The 1%. Yeah. Somebody who sold a company for$200 million might pay less taxes than the surgeon who makes$2 million. And that one never opens up clearly because the way it's set up for the uber wealthy, take out loans against your assets, you're not getting ordinary income. None of them would live in California if they're getting ordinary income and paying the full rip, right? And you depreciate X, Y, and Z. And at that super high level, your effective rate is not much. And then also on the other end of the spectrum, there's the people who are renting and then the people who maybe they've had this house in a not so great part of town that's been in the family for a couple of generations.

59:26Ryan Holiday: Yeah. Right? You know, a black family in the segregated part of Austin. The parents gave it to the kid and maybe a grandkid lives in it. But now the property taxes, which were low even 10 years ago, are now$10 ,000,$20 ,000 a year. Exactly. It's crazy. It's complicated. But the property tax thing, when it's too much, is out of line. Now in Hawaii, they have the lowest property taxes. And I think it's because, look, Hawaii became a state in what, 1950? Yeah. All the natives would be booted off, right? if they had to keep up with those tax rates, a lot of them would. My brother lives in Kauai. Until recently, he rented from a native Hawaiian.

1:00:00There aren't many natives left, truly natives, like native, native, because everything gets mixed eventually. And his guy, he's like right in Hanalei. The place is probably worth, I don't know, 5 million. It's nothing much of a home, but because of location, if he had to pay the tax bill, he'd be smoked. Or you can go to native reservations, and that's a whole different story. Right. 576 federally recognized tribes in this country. All different. Yeah.

1:00:28Ryan Holiday: You drive through and you realize just how big some of these reservations are. I mean, a fraction of obviously what their ancestral lands were, which was the whole country. Navajo Nation is the size of New Jersey. Yeah. Size of Israel, basically. As we wrap up. Okay. I loved your book because it's an introduction to your fellow Americans. I think it's a great concept. Like, who are these people? We're all Americans, but we live in such radically different universes, different countries. I thought I'd recommend some of my favorite, we're in a bookstore, I'd recommend some of my favorite books that will also help people meet their fellow Americans, maybe more in a historical sense.

1:01:01Ryan Holiday: Do you know who Frederick Law Olmsted is? Have not read it. But do you know who he is? Nope. He's the designer of Central Park. Okay. Oh, cool. And Audubon Park in New Orleans. So one of our great designers. But lead up to the Civil War, he rides a horse through all of Texas. Several weeks, months, just all over Texas. One of my favorite things is he complains that Austin is getting too expensive. But he does this journey through Texas on horseback. And he gives this enormous glimpse of America at that time. He's meeting his fellow Americans right before we go to war with each other. Tony Horowitz wrote another book where he recreates the journey.

1:01:40Ryan Holiday: It's his last book. And it's called Spying on the South. Also amazing. So take that. Thank you. Have you read The Warmth of Other Suns about the Great Migration? Have not. Okay, so this is obviously coming out of the Civil War, the reemergence of Jim Crow and segregation. Black people are like, we're majority, but we're always going to be a minority. They've kept us out of political power. So we got to go somewhere else. So where do they go? They go to New York. They go to Chicago. They go to Detroit. They go to California. That's what we call the great migration. That's what changes the face of the country, right?

1:02:13Ryan Holiday: Because millions of people, it's like this great immigration. To the industrialized areas. Exactly. They're going up to Detroit, Chicago. Out of the deep south. Chasing jobs. Chasing family. This is like 10 books in one. Thank you. This is a recreation of Journey Through Texas. So you'll like that. Life on the Mississippi. Rinker Buck builds a Mississippi flatboat. Okay. Gets in Illinois and recreates Lincoln's journey to New Orleans. Okay. does all of the big American rivers as they would have done it 150 years ago. You will love this. I think there's a book in there for you. Okay. Cool. Ghostwriter, you're a Rush fan.

1:02:57Ryan Holiday: Of course. I'm seeing them. You've read this? I'm seeing them in two weeks. Me too. Me too. I'm going to see them. I think they're in San Antonio. I saw them on the 30th anniversary tour, so I got to see Neil Peart. Yeah. I'm in now the 40th. My first show, Montreal, 16 years old. Rush. Counterparts tour. Wow. Yeah. Neil Peart was the best. Have you read this book? The Professor, yeah. I think it's the best road trip book ever written about North America. And Nika Niles is doing a pretty good job. She's not Neil Peart, though. I'm not going to watch any videos. I'm not going to listen to anything.

1:03:24Ryan Holiday: I just want to be surprised. No, they're doing well right now. I'm also seeing Iron Maiden in a couple of weeks. Nice. And they have a new drummer, too, because their drummer retired. So I'm excited about that. Okay, so great road trip book. And then Joan Didion, this is her table, by the way, does a road trip book. she's from Sacramento but she does a road trip book through the south it was supposed to be a a larger book but this is all that survives you'll love this um the small and mighty by Sharon man you'll love great she's great what else would I add to this I would add um have you read how to hide an empire no okay it's a history of the greater United States so it's a history of all the territories, provinces, you know, like America doesn't see itself as an empire.

1:04:11Ryan Holiday: America sees itself as the contiguous United States and then Alaska and Hawaii are down here, even though they're way as far as you can imagine. But we don't, at one point, America was a hundred other territories. I mean, we saw this with the bad bunny nonsense, right? It's like, why don't you have an American perform? And like, so I thought maybe that's your sequel. is the greater American experience. Right. Because we don't see those people as Americans, but they are. I haven't gone into territories. Yeah. And that's on the list for sure. I thought of that book when I was reading your book. I think you'll like it.

1:04:47Ryan Holiday: Like, we don't even think, like, when Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, they're attacking America, even though it wasn't an American state yet. And then when they were attacking the Philippines, you know who they were attacking? Not Filipinos, us. Yeah. Because we were still, it was in the process of being transitioned to home rule. But like, it would have been like Germany attacking Australia. Right? Like, that's a blow at Great Britain. That's not another country. Right. But we so didn't see ourselves as a colonial power. And we've never seen ourselves as a colonial power. But we are. And we have been.

1:05:24Is it because we weren't as bad as the Brits with that? We weren't as bad. Or the Spanish, the Portuguese?

1:05:29Ryan Holiday: What we did in the Philippines was heinous and horrible. But I think the more interesting thing is coming out of the Second World War, how we cobbled together an enormous empire that wasn't inherently colonial. That was about cooperation and collaboration. And hey, we'll lease a military. Instead of owning your country, can we just have this little bit of land and we'll have a military base here? And now we're in the middle of dismantling that, not deliberately, but in a form of suicide, I guess. Like now we are in the middle of destroying and undermining that in a way that I don't think, because we didn't fully appreciate who we were, we don't fully appreciate where we're going.

1:06:16Ryan Holiday: And you'll love this book. I'll give it to you next door. Awesome.

1:06:56Ryan Holiday: We'll be right back. for large full-line automaker fleet-wide fuel economy. EPA Automotive Trends Report 2025.