Why Grit Isn’t Enough | Angela Duckworth

0:00Ryan Holiday: AI isn't just opening new business opportunities, it's changing the way businesses get work done. Questions they ask, the decisions they make, the routine tasks that can be handed off. That's the idea behind NetSuite Next, the next generation of NetSuite, with AI woven into the tools that your business already relies on. NetSuite Next surfaces insights exactly when you need them, puts agents to work on routine tasks and problems, and lets you ask complex questions in plain language, like talking to a knowledgeable colleague. But technology is only part of the story. AI is also shaping how people and teams work together.

0:36Ryan Holiday: That shift is underway. And that's why there is a new expert created business guide for you. It's called Aligning for the Agentic Era, how AI is changing everyday work. And right now, it's totally free. It can explain how AI can reshape work across your entire organization and how businesses like yours can prosper from it. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get this free business guide aligning for the agentic era at netsuite.com slash stoic. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com slash stoic. If you understand what grit is, you might think that a proponent of grit would tell you that the secret to success in life, the secret to succeeding is to just try harder, to push beyond your limits, to do more.

1:22Ryan Holiday: And I think sometimes people expect that to be my advice too, that it's all about effort, that it's all about sort of reaching within you and pulling out what you need in a given moment. But that's not how life is. That's not how it is in practice. And I think anyone that's done anything or that has any shred of self-awareness knows that this isn't true, right? In some moments, we're exactly what we need to be. and in other moments we fall short. Why is that? What's the cause? I mean, it could be as simple as forgetting to eat breakfast or not getting enough sleep the night before or just having the wrong attitude about something.

2:00Ryan Holiday: I guess what I'm saying is that virtue, greatness, success, so often it is situational, which is the concept of Angela Duckworth's new book. If you read Grit, great. It's a great book. I think this new book is just as important and it's really, really interesting. It's called Situated. The subtitle is Find the People and Places that Bring Out Your Best. I'm a huge fan of Angela Duckworth's book. She's been on the podcast once before she came here right when we opened the Daily Stoke studio. I was very excited to have her back and we had an amazing conversation. You know, grit is not a thing you're born with or not born with that you have or don't have that is all or nothing.

2:42Ryan Holiday: It is so much more complicated than that. And I think as a result, so much more interesting than that. Angela Duckworth is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She's the co-director of the Penn Wharton Behavior Change for Good Initiative. She's also a 2013 MacArthur Fellow. Her TED Talk is one of the most viewed of all time. She's entertaining. She's brilliant. And I think her work is really, really important. Funny enough, the day after she was here in the studio, she was giving a talk in San Francisco with Steve Kerr, the coach of the Golden State Warriors, and my sister attended. So we'll call this a little bit of a family affair.

3:20Ryan Holiday: You can pick up signed copies of Angela's new book, Situated, Find the People and Places that Bring Out Your Best, as well as signed copies of Grit here at The Painted Porch. Of course, they are also available anywhere books are sold. Let's get into it.

3:38Ryan Holiday: So I was driving to pick up my kids from school the other day, and Pete Carroll called me.

3:43Angela Duckworth: What?

3:43Ryan Holiday: Yeah, which I was like, what is happening right now? Are you BFSing with me, Carol? No, I was like, how did you get this number? You know, like in a good way. But I was just like a total surprise.

3:52Angela Duckworth: Yeah, actually, how did he get this? Wait, has he been on the show?

3:54Ryan Holiday: No, I think, so I spoke to the team like many, many years ago.

3:58Angela Duckworth: You went to go talk to the Seahawks.

4:00Ryan Holiday: Yeah, like in maybe 2015 or something. And so maybe he got it there and just never, we never communicated in any way other than that. Why did he call you? he was he was working on he's teaching this class at usc and yeah yeah but you came up like in the first like five seconds which i i thought was funny because you're here he's like i know angela duckworth says you can't teach grit i was like i was like i don't i don't know if that's what she

4:26Angela Duckworth: said i don't think that's still saying that i feel like this is our like we've got like some like laurel and hardy kind of like thing he knows i don't well anyway that's a it's like i think it's not a good, it's not a well phrased question, actually. I think the answer is less like complicated than the question. Well, I was going to put it to you.

4:44Ryan Holiday: You can, right? I mean, one of that's one of the ideas in the book is that it's something you can cultivate, right?

4:49Angela Duckworth: I think almost every feature of human nature is cultivatable slash malleable, right? And then, which are not the same thing because some things might be malleable, but you have no agency to cultivate it, right? But I do think that you can cultivate it. You can encourage or discourage. I mean, do you agree? Like, like humility, sociability, charisma, wisdom. I mean, you know, these are malleable. I think they're malleable and cultivatable.

5:14Ryan Holiday: Yeah. And I can get why as a coach, he would have a visceral reaction to any implication that these things can't be taught because like his job is to teach and get these things out.

5:24Angela Duckworth: Literally, I think this is it. So at the end of my TED talk, I said, I think accurately, we don't yet know how to encourage grit in young people. And I think I tried to do something like too cute by half. It's like, and we have to be gritty about like figuring that out. Okay, cut to black, right? Like that was like, you know, a six minute TED talk. And I think he saw that because I think he saw that and that's what made him reach out to me now more than 10 years ago. But we have had so many interactions, including him coming to my class. So Pete should know that when I teach a class called Grit Lab to undergraduates, the implicit message is like, of course you can cultivate it.

6:03Angela Duckworth: I think you can cultivate it.

6:04Ryan Holiday: It's funny because actually athletic performance is probably a good example where like different people are born with different amounts of abilities. Certainly you can waste that ability and not cultivate it even if you have the necessary ingredients. And then other people can, on paper, shouldn't be able to do the thing at an elite level at all and find a way to do it. And find a way.

6:26Angela Duckworth: OK, but then let's go beyond sports, right? Because like human nature, right? Nature and nurture. Like what does I was going to say 50 years, maybe more of behavioral genetics tell us. So like I have my DNA from my biological mother and my biological father. And it is true that I cannot change that DNA. So let's call that fixed. Right. And let's leave epigenetics aside, because obviously the expression of your DNA does have some influence from the environment. But we know from all of those years, all the twin studies, that every characteristic that has ever been studied, in addition to the DNA influence, has environmental influence.

7:06Angela Duckworth: So, like, right there, it should tell you that extroversion, religiosity, grit, and everything else about you, including height, by the way, like, has an environmental input. And, you know, that's the part that, like, I feel maybe somehow, like, is hard to communicate, like, the nuance that it's both. And that the more interesting, I think the more interesting conversation is, like, assuming that you can change these things to some degree. like how does that happen right and like how stable it and also you know how much of it is just like you're in a particular situation and your grit is encouraged versus like you are actually literally grittier over time like ryan in 2026 compared to ryan in 2021 versus like oh ryan's just in this situation and he's he's being passionate and persevering but in that other situation he's not i think they're by the way both true like this is the level of nuance by the way Ryan, I think it's very hard in this like media environment, for lack of a better word, to like get anybody to think about something for like more than a sentence.

8:10Angela Duckworth: But like, you know, grit isn't fixed is like one sentence. But like, I think there are more sentences.

8:16Ryan Holiday: Well, that is, I think, some of the problems with, yeah, the sort of short form video culture and then also the AI. Just give me a summary or give me the argument. It's like, if I thought this thing could be captured in five paragraphs, I would not have written an entire book. Now, But there are certainly people who are writing books because they gave a TED Talk and then someone gave them a book contract. And they're taking an idea that doesn't have any nuance and just inflating it.

8:41Angela Duckworth: Like taking a tire pump to it.

8:42Ryan Holiday: But most of the time, actually, with a book, what they're doing is having to explore this thing at length. Right. Because length is the only place that it can be explored and explained.

8:52Angela Duckworth: People forget books are a technology, right? Like a technology is the application of knowledge to solve a problem, right? Right. So like tables are technology, forks and knives are technology. Light bulbs are technology. AI is a technology. But books are technology. And I OK, so after I wrote Grit, I first was disappointed that I didn't think the goal, which was to share something about the nature of human excellence. You know, I was disappointed candidly that I was like, oh, this didn't change as many lives as I thought. So then for a good five years, I cast about for a different way, like a different technology.

9:31Angela Duckworth: I was like, maybe I should create a class. Maybe I should create a video class. And I came around to the idea that the technology of the book is maybe not the only technology. But the reason I think we still have books is that this particular human innovation is a fantastic way to explore an idea with depth. But also, like, you don't spend your whole lifetime with the author, right? You're not like, OK, I'm so interested in stoicism. I'm going to study under that person. I'm going to study under that person. I'm not going to do anything else. But a book is like an incredibly efficient medium for the author to explore an idea and to present it to you in a way I hope that's provided.

10:12Angela Duckworth: And then also for the for the reader. And I think that's why.

10:16Ryan Holiday: Yeah, I think it's I think the second part is actually as important. So so the author has 50 ,000 to 100 ,000 or, you know, in the case of a big biography, 500 ,000 words to explore the topic.

10:28Angela Duckworth: Yeah.

10:28Ryan Holiday: But it's actually the other side of spending not 20 minutes with an idea, but 10 or 15 or 20 hours with an idea, not consecutively. that is the value, right? Because very rarely does someone sit down and read a book from cover to cover. You're reading it on this airplane flight and then you're reading it before bed and then you're reading it at the beach and then you're reading it and then you're discussing it in your book club or whatever it is, right? It's that you, the author, spent thousands of hours with an idea and it was just still down into this thing and then that person paid for it and then paid for it again with many hours of their time.

11:06Angela Duckworth: And also not in one sitting.

11:08Ryan Holiday: The time in between where it's just gestating and they're reflecting on and thinking about it. And then ideally, there's some other use after where you're discussing it or you're writing about it or you're taking notes from it or whatever. But I think it is, it's not just a great technology, but it's your point is that books are a very under celebrated form of technology that have lasted for thousands of years for a reason. And it has evolved from little scrolls that you rolled up to, you know, this, which is maybe the best form of it, to an e-book, an audio book. But all of these are the fundamental same technological idea that's lasted for a reason.

11:47Angela Duckworth: So last night I had dinner with Bob Bowman, who I know you know, because Austinite, is that a term? He's an Austinite. He was telling me about The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, which I was like, I started that book. He's like, did you hate it? And I was like, I definitely did not hate it. I can't remember finishing it. But anyway, so he tells me he's read it not once, but I think in his estimate 10 to 12 times. Right. And right. Not all in one sitting and over years. Right. And he told me about like the context of like why he read it the first time and like why it was so important. He remembered and like has internalized and continues to masticate over the thesis of it.

12:25Angela Duckworth: Right. Like now is real. The future is not. The past isn't. But now is now. Anyway, the idea that a book. I mean, you know, again, I cast about for alternative technologies, right? And I personally haven't found one. And I think you're right to point out it's not only a miraculous technology for the author. Like, it's a great medium for you to actually think through and write down. But also, you know, writing is thinking and thinking is writing. But also on the reader's side, right? Like, it's a marvelous, you know, thing.

12:55Ryan Holiday: It's portable. It's storageable. It goes on the shelf after. You can come back to it. You can mark it.

13:00Angela Duckworth: The haptics of it, right? Like, you know, the like and also paper is a goddamn good technology, right? Like paper is great. Like it's flexible. Like, you know what I mean? Like you can fold it. Like so. So anyway, I in praise of books.

13:13Ryan Holiday: So it's great that we have two books in the bookstore, which, by the way, another technology that goes back. Bookstores. Very long time. Yes. Bookstores like you go. Can't the algorithm just automatically select for you? It's like, no, actually, the browsing and the covers and the experience, all of this. Stoicism starts in a bookstore. I don't know if you know this story. No, no, no.

13:30Angela Duckworth: Tell me the origin story.

13:31Ryan Holiday: So the founder of stoicism, he says, guys, you know, he visits the temple of Apollo at Delphi in Greece. And the prophecy from the priestess says, you know, the good life is having conversations with the dead. He has no idea what this means. So many years later, he's in Athens. Conversations with the dead.

13:49Angela Duckworth: Okay, I'm following it. Yeah.

13:50Ryan Holiday: At a bookseller. He walks past a stand. Because, again, you need less space when they're little scrolls. He's at this book stand in the Athenian Agora. Bookseller, cart maybe. And the bookseller is reading, I don't know if it's sideways or this way, but he's reading something from Xenophon's story of Socrates, Hercules at the Crossroads. Okay.

14:10Angela Duckworth: Story of Socrates, but obviously not written by Socrates.

14:12Ryan Holiday: It's a story that Socrates tells us via Xenophon about Hercules coming to this crossroads and he has to pick the easy way or the hard way. And Socrates is dead. And this is when Zeno realizes that that's what conversations with the dead are. The books are a way to talk with the past. And so the prophecy makes sense. So it's at this bookseller that he has this epiphany. So that's why the bookstore is called The Painted Porch.

14:36Angela Duckworth: Is that why it's called The Painted Porch? Like literally?

14:39Ryan Holiday: He sets up shop at the Stoa Pokila in Athens across the street from this book stand, which was a famous, it was called, it was like a long porch that had a famous painting on it. So it's called The Painted Porch.

14:51Angela Duckworth: Oh, got it. So I read this book called The Great Good Place. Did you read this? Because you didn't read The Great Good Place? No, never even heard of it. I remember actually buying it. It had a green cover and orange font. It was no fancy. Like somebody made it in Microsoft Word or something. And it was one. Remember those like bookstores where you'd be like a dollar a book kind of thing? So I bought it and it was worth more than a dollar. It talked about third places. So like there's, you know, your workplace. There's also your home. But a third place is this like kind of it's not as private as your home.

15:24Angela Duckworth: It's maybe not as public as, you know, something like, you know, the court system. But you're in a coffee shop. You're in a park. Basically, these third places is where people gather. And it has some level of intimacy, but also you're in society. And bookstores are a third place. Coffee shops are a third place. You know, in certain cultures, like tea houses are a third place. And basically, he was saying like how important these physical spaces are to like the functioning of a society, to our everyday well-being. that are like growth and enlightenment. So I read the book. It was really good, by the way.

15:58Angela Duckworth: I recommend it. It's probably not in print. But yeah, I mean, you know, obviously I've been thinking a lot about the situation, but I think sometimes these trivial details, like are you holding a physical book? Do you prefer, like, what are you holding? Like, where are you? I mean, that is what occupied me since writing the first book, Grit, which is, you know, like, I think complementary to this idea that the situation matters. But anyway, in print bookstores.

16:23Ryan Holiday: I'm so glad you said this because I have thought about this a long time, that it is maybe the primary form of technology. Like it's the technology that so much of civilization is based on. The analogy I sometimes give is like, you know, like when you watch like futuristic movies, they're always like the doors are always like. It's like some super complicated technology for the door. And then here we are living in the future and it's like doors are just doors with a door handle and a physical key. Like I have a keypad for my house and it's a giant pain in the ass. And like most of the time.

16:55Angela Duckworth: The batteries are always going down. Yeah.

16:56Ryan Holiday: You're just like, oh, the door. Just like a door as a door has always been with hinges and a knob and a key. It's obviously gotten a little bit better over time, but it's still the same fundamental technology because at some level it just does the job about as good as you need the job to be done. And everything else is kind of like fiddling at the margins.

17:18Angela Duckworth: So, okay, all that said, right, there is a lot that is changing. I mean, like, one reason I persisted in writing this book, which was hell, is that I felt like, I don't think we're in a great situation. Like, I know that there's some perennial things where we're like, oh, we still have bookstores and we still have books. And like, look, we have doors and like tables and forks. By the way, I read a whole book on the history of the fork. It's another great technology.

17:40Ryan Holiday: Because then we used to just use knives for everything and it was violent.

17:43Angela Duckworth: Somebody was like, oh, wait, but you know, it keeps the fork's a great technology, right? It's better than chopsticks, I'll say. As somebody who's been raised with chopsticks, I have to agree. Although I think if you're really good at chopsticks, like my mom can like pick up a raw chicken with a pair of chopsticks. So it has its advantages. But I don't think we're in a great situation. Like I don't think the world is the same as it was 10 or 20 years ago. And so I want to say, like, yeah, like a lot of things that have persisted are great. And some of the things that are changing are not great.

18:15Ryan Holiday: Benjamin Franklin said time is money in 1748. That was his advice to a young man. 278 years later, some of us, depending on what you do, are still spending part of every month typing receipts into a form. It's bad use of your time. That's bad use of company time. Expense reports are tedious. It's not what I want my employees doing. Well, Ramp makes collecting and submitting expenses super simple. With Ramp, expenses submit themselves. You just text or email your receipt and Ramp categorizes codes and submits it. And when you book business travel with Ramp, they find the best flights and hotels you're actually allowed to book.

18:54Ryan Holiday: You don't find out later that your company is only partially going to cover it. Ramp is the only finance platform that employees and finance teams both rave about. and companies have saved over$12 billion with Ramp. Time is money. Save both with Ramp. New customers get$250 off at ramp.com slash Daily Stoic.

19:14Angela Duckworth: That's ramp.com slash Daily Stoic.

19:16Ryan Holiday: So I have a bunch of traveling I'm doing through the end of the year on Daily Stoic Live Tour. I just got back from San Diego. I like to stay in the places that I'm staying. I like to book places on Airbnb so I can be like a local. I not only do some of my best writing, but I learn about things that I wouldn't have known otherwise. When I was just in San Diego, I took a walk along the water. I bumped into someone who recognized me and they told me about their favorite local bookstore, which was like two blocks from where I was staying. And I never would have known about it if it wasn't for that encounter.

19:46Ryan Holiday: It was cool to me to think that I have helped facilitate that experience for many, many people coming to Austin over the years. The first house that I bought in Austin when my wife and I first moved here, we would list it on Airbnb and it helped me make the transition from my corporate life to being a full-time writer. So if you're going to be away, you should maybe think about listing your place on Airbnb. It can be a great way to earn extra cash while you travel. It can offset the cost of your trip or maybe even go towards whatever you're doing next. If you've got travel coming up, check out Airbnb.

20:17Ryan Holiday: Your home might be worth more than you think and you can find out how much at airbnb.com slash host. Of course. Well, do you know the analogy, like Chesterton's fence? Do you know this? No, I don't even know who Chesterton is.

20:29Angela Duckworth: Like C, G, K. Okay.

20:31Ryan Holiday: C, G, K. Two initials. He's one of those people that you see him as quotes, but nobody actually reads anymore. Exactly. Who was he? Except for like conservatives. He's very popular with the religious conservatives. Oh, okay. Like the thinking ones. But anyways, there's this, and this is a metaphor that they love. It's called the Chestertonian fence. Okay. The idea is like, okay, you walk into a field and there's a fence. And a liberal or progressive or somebody who loves change in the future goes, what is this fence here for? Tear it down. And then a conservative goes, no, no, let's find out what this fence is for.

21:04Ryan Holiday: Maybe it's for a reason.

21:05Angela Duckworth: Yeah, maybe we should keep it the way it was.

21:07Ryan Holiday: And there's this idea that traditions are solutions to problems we forgot about. And I think that is a similar thing with books or norms are a great example of this where you're like, you don't remember why we do it this way, but we do it this way because it's bad. It was a solution. It is a solution. And there's so many underlying technologies that we take for granted because we don't think about them as technology. Like freedom of religion or the separation of church and state is a technology that was designed not just because it's morally correct, but because we kept murdering each other over distinctions that don't fucking matter.

21:44Ryan Holiday: Right. And it was impossible to have a society where people saying, my God is better than your God and my God wants me to kill you. And we're the ones that are in control of the church. This was a technology invented, by the way, basically in the United States by I'm forgetting his name, whoever is the founder of Rhode Island. He was because we think about the pilgrims coming to America, fleeing religious persecution.

22:11Angela Duckworth: They did. I remember this was seventh grade social studies.

22:14Ryan Holiday: But it was to set up a religious hegemony of their own. Right. It was not in the spirit of tolerance then.

22:21Angela Duckworth: It was just like we're trying to escape.

22:23Ryan Holiday: It was you are not being tolerant of us. Yeah. But basically, like, we have the correct religion and we should be dominant. Like, they wanted to come here and enact their own religious tyranny over their people. And if you read about the original colonies, like, it wasn't fun to be on the wrong side of that thing. There was all these insane punishments and they were super micromanaging everyone's life. But it was and again, I'm forgetting his name, maybe Roger Brown, the guy who wrote that book, The Great Influenza, whose name I'm also forgetting, wrote an incredible book about this specific founder who we don't.

22:55Ryan Holiday: He's like, no, no, no. You can believe whatever you want here in Rhode Island. And that was like a that was had some basis in English law, but that was the technology that actually allows America to escape this sort of trap of sectarian violence. And it allows the energy to go like, hey, you manage your own interior, spiritual and religious life. The state is about creating a functional society and the technology of government, not like religious control and about the celebration of God. And so, again, that's a technology. We kept murdering each other. The idea that the police can't arrest and stop you without due process is obviously a moral inalienable right, but it's also a technology that allows innocent people not to be harassed by the state.

23:45Ryan Holiday: And it has the, you know, another great example, and there's a whole play about this in the ancient Greek world, like the technology of a jury of impartial people deciding a case. Right. There's this famous cycle of plays about it goes back to the Trojan War. You have a great Odysseus story in the book. But like basically. We could talk about Odysseus all day long, by the way. Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter to win the war. Then he comes home and then his wife and her lover kill him. And then their son kills her. And then he escapes and he finds refuge at the temple of Apollo. And Athena is chased by the Furies because you're not allowed to kill your mother.

24:25Ryan Holiday: He's chased by these angry sort of gods. Anyways, the final play in the trilogy, Orestia, again, I don't know how to pronounce these things, but the final technology in the play is like, they're like, let's have a jury of 12 people decide, you know, whether he's like, I killed her. It was just and the gods are like, no, you can't do this. Anyways, they have this trial and this trial finds that he was in his rights to do this. And this stops the cycle of violence because now he doesn't have to be killed. And so, again, it's like, oh, we have this problem, which is like you do this and then I have to do this and then your kid has to do this.

25:03Ryan Holiday: And then and we can't have a society. And so someone was like, OK, what do we do? And we invent these things. And then, you know, now people will talk vaguely about the rule of law or whatever. But it's like we invented these things because they were addressing a problem that was holding society back from flourishing.

25:24Angela Duckworth: OK, so this may or may not be the right characterization of Ryan Holiday. But like if you are a modern day Stoic, how do you think about and, you know, I think from our previous conversation, if you recall, like I don't know a lot about Stoicism. I'm not trained as a philosopher and I don't read philosophy for fun. So I probably have a, you know, like two dimensional cartoon version of stoicism. But when I wrote this book about the situation, which includes like modern day technologies, age old technologies, you know, judicial system, freedom of speech, like the situation is everything. You know, it's like this wooden table and this microphone and, you know, my bottle of water over here.

26:01Angela Duckworth: But it's also like I'm sitting across from Orion. Like it's also I'm living in a particular culture. Norms do or don't exist. The norms that exist are part of my situation. When I think about stoicism, I think perhaps wrongly about like what you can do to change what's inside you. Right. Like your reaction to the situation, your response to the situation, but not the situation itself. So do you agree with my thesis that agency extends to the outside world and that we do have agency over the situation? And what would the Stoics say about this?

26:36Ryan Holiday: Oh, I totally agree with the premise. I think it all comes. You're saying I'm Stoic. Are you? I would say it all comes down to the situation, right? Like it comes down to this. It comes down to the situation. And by that, I mean, have I set myself up to be the person that I want to be in this situation?

26:54Angela Duckworth: Do the Stoics believe in that, though? So maybe maybe like educate me. Right. Because like I think the the sort of like cookie, you know, the fortune cookie, like right. The one liner version of Stoicism, which hopefully we have like, you know, more patience to like, you know, get to like two or three lines. Like, is it isn't it sort of like, oh, I mean, that's what people say, right? Like to be stoic is to not complain about the situation, not to worry about whether you're set up and in fact to make the best.

27:17Ryan Holiday: Well, I just think like, OK, there's this famous passage in Mark's notes where he talks about waking up early in the morning and he's like, but it's warmer under the covers. Do I want to get up? Why should I write? It's like the debate that everyone has every morning. Yes. And and yeah, to a certain degree, it's like, hey, you got to get your ass out of bed. Do you have the willpower to get your ass out of bed? But I think you don't have to be a genius to.

27:39Angela Duckworth: Is that what happens at the end of his meditation on that? He's like, and then you have to get out of bed.

27:43Ryan Holiday: He's basically like, look, you have a job to do. People are depending on you. This is important.

27:48Angela Duckworth: Yeah.

27:49Ryan Holiday: He's like, animals can do it. You can't do it. But I think if you zoom out a little bit and you go, okay, but what time did you go to bed last night?

27:56Angela Duckworth: Right.

27:56Ryan Holiday: And so, look, at a certain point, and I think a pro is able to do what they need to do, not perfectly, but regardless of the situation. But then there's another element of being a pro that is like, I'm going to set myself up to bring my best self to this situation. So I think it's both. And the idea, like the Stoics are talking about this 2000 years ago with, in some ways, like a almost unbelievable understanding of behavioral psychology, but it's intuitive. and the idea that we wouldn't have added to our store of knowledge about this and realize that, hey, it actually does come down to decisions you made before this decision.

28:37Angela Duckworth: And they would be on board with that, right? I think so, of course. They couldn't not be, right, because they were too wise, right? Yes. Like, it's sort of like any observer. So have you ever read the William James? I've read much more of William James than the Stoics, but he also writes about getting out of bed on a cold morning. And the way his little passage ends is that you do something other than will yourself. Right. So I would call that like box three. If you gave me like the three box model, I'm like, OK, box three is your response. Box two are your thoughts. Box one is the situation. What William James said is that like instead of just willing yourself, like get out of bed in box two, you could think about what you were going to get done that day.

29:15Angela Duckworth: Like he's like, once you start thinking about the things that you need to get done that day, you will want to get out of bed. Right. So change your thoughts to change your response. Right. You don't have to like just force yourself. And I think to me, I mean, Ryan, I'm not exaggerating when I say that I really wrote a book about this, which it was 10 ,000 times harder to write than grit. And the only reason I the major reason I persisted, probably I persisted in part because I'm gritty. But a major reason is like, I don't think there are a lot of books that tell you like, OK, but before you rethink, you know, you're like, why don't you just change the situation?

29:51Angela Duckworth: Like, yeah, what time do you go to bed? Or, you know, so many people have studied like it's very intentional how they've decorated the space of what's within three feet of them. And like yet the first thing they see when they wake up is, for example, I mean, some people find this a turnoff, but like a goal sheet, you know what I mean? Or like a quote. And to me, like that's changing box one, your situation. If you change box one, your situation, that will change box two, your thoughts and then box two, your response. When Bob Bowman wants to change his box two thoughts to be about the present and not about the future and not about the past, he could say, well, I'll just think that the present is now, you know, the power of now.

30:29Angela Duckworth: He could also just have a hard copy of The Power of Now on his desk so that like he could just pick it up or just, you know, that his eyes will light on it. So like to me, I I'm kind of like shocked that there aren't like a thousand books on the situation, but I I haven't found them.

30:45Ryan Holiday: No, I think to me, it all comes back down to this thing that Aristotle said. It kind of just explains everything. So he said like it's wrong to think of the virtues as like a thing you have or don't have. He said it's like a thing you do or don't do. And then so he believed everything was in the action. It's in the action. So it's like courage isn't like, oh, that's a courageous person. It's like, did they take a courageous action right now? Right? Like it's a verb.

31:10Angela Duckworth: So like courage is inherent in the action taken, not inherent in the person necessarily.

31:14Ryan Holiday: So it's not, oh, this passed you through your courageous father via the bloodline or like because you were courageous once, you're courageous forever.

31:22Angela Duckworth: So I guess it must have been iconoclastic at the time, right? Because that was the historical thing. Yes, totally.

31:26Ryan Holiday: But he's saying that they're verbs and not nouns, which I think is the right way to think about it. But that also gives us the idea of training, right? So like, are you training for this thing or not? Coming back to malleability. Yeah, he's saying like a brave soldier is not that different than like a talented woodworker or a musician. They've just practiced this thing. But I think the other thing it sets up is what you're calling situation and situational agency is like, yeah, how did you, did you rest last night? Like the courage could come down to like, did you have a good breakfast? Because you're drawing on something inside you.

32:00Ryan Holiday: And I think like to me, I know I am kinder and nicer when I am coming at life from a place of like I've taken care of myself than when like I'm tired, I'm frustrated. Everything is a disaster. Like I have a deeper well to draw from. And so like, again, you might go like this person is nice or not nice. You talk about the fundamental attribution bias. Like we go like, oh, I saw that person in that moment. and this Aristotle's point about it, it's whether you do it or not, but like, you're not only how you acted in that situation. You have a continual, you're always in the situation over and over and over again.

32:38Ryan Holiday: And it matters. Like, what are you bringing in that situation? Society might say, oh, that person's an asshole because they, they filmed you in one moment having a meltdown at the grocery store. Yeah. But like, actually what matters is like how you're talking to the next person and the next person and the next, it's like, what matters is the situation in front of you and what resources and willpower are you bringing to it? And have you set yourself up to be that?

33:03Angela Duckworth: So I think what you're saying is that Aristotle was trying to get us not to make the fundamental attribution error, right? And to say, witness one cowardly act and call the man or the woman a coward. And I agree, of course. I, by the way, find myself committing the fundamental attribution error all the time, even after writing about the fundamental attribution error, right? And I think that means that it must be so strong of a bias to say that, you know, when my husband, so, you know, I did write quite brutally honestly about my marriage crisis, right? And so this was, by the way, with permission and encouragement from my husband, because I was like, you know, you've written and it seems like you have an easier time writing than I do, Ryan.

33:54Angela Duckworth: But I was, struggling for some personal example that could make clear how imperative it is to not just try harder and get nowhere and then try harder still. And my husband says, why don't you write about our marriage crisis? Something I didn't quite elaborate on as much as probably I should have is that when I said to Jason, like, you know, in this incredibly stressful time where we were in a bad situation. But I just thought it was like a bad marriage. I was like, oh, you know, this isn't meant to be. And I didn't recognize that the situation was against us. And if we change the situation, I would realize that it was a great marriage, but terrible circumstances.

34:32Angela Duckworth: Something that I didn't say enough is that when I told Jason that we should split up or try or, you know, test out what it would be like to be separated, I think I was committing the fundamental attribution error because my like hundred hour a week, frankly, like, you know, like you said, you know, sometimes, you know, your best is like it wasn't it wasn't a great version of Jason, to be honest. And he was not happy. I projected onto him this kind of like you're a melancholic person. Like, that's who you are. Like, you are going to be like grinding, but like white knuckled and grimacing and miserable.

35:15Angela Duckworth: And that's who you are. And I just have come to the realization that I can't be married to that person. But really, what I couldn't see, and again, I probably should have said even more than I did, is that I was just assuming that like that is and was and would always be Jason Duckworth. And the imagination that he asked me to have, I mean, he somehow saw that, well, of course, he was him. So maybe he just wanted to assert. He's like, Like this, there is a, there is a range. Like I have, I have many Jason Duckworths. And like, if you would just help me and help yourself and like have some patience, like, like there is another me that you could be with.

35:55Angela Duckworth: And so basically that fundamental attribution error, you know, having studied it in graduate school, even now, like having written about it, I find myself like slipping into sort of like, oh God, that person's incompetent or like, oh, this person's really like narcissistic And like, but I think I'm just committing the fundamental attribution error again and basically ignoring how important their situation is.

36:18Ryan Holiday: No, I think that's a really important piece of marriage advice. And that's what was my favorite part of the book. But the idea of going like, hey, not like I don't love you, but I don't love this version of you. Or I just I don't want to be married to this version of you for the rest of my life. Like, I just can't do this. No, I can't do you. I just can't do this forever. And you might even be able to say to them, hey, I can do this for like another six months. but like but like I this is not what I want of my life to be with this person who's this way you know and going like if you can not be that I'm all about it it's just and I know that isn't you because that's not the person I started with and I see flashes of it not being that way like it's a different conversation than like I no longer love you and I love this other person over here

37:03Angela Duckworth: I just want to give him I agree with you and I wish I had agreed with you like earlier because it really was like very hard for me to see. You know, there is this like cognitive narrowing that happens when we're stressed and unhappy. And I really think I like, you know, the aperture was like closing to like a pinpoint and I could only see one way. And I do think the imagination, like what would it be like if we were in a different situation? Like, you know, I think that I have to like write this down on a post. I've actually taken to writing. I was going to get everything made on Etsy, but I couldn't figure out how Etsy worked.

37:36Angela Duckworth: So basically, I've been writing quotes down on two by two, you know, post-it notes and then just like taping them like at eye level. And I feel like I need to like install a new little billboard about the like just sort of like, you know, like the situation is all you can see if you can see it at all. But to imagine a different situation is really a leap that I think I need to get even better at.

38:02Ryan Holiday: I think that's interesting because like you've probably experienced this with some of the sports people you've interacted with is it's like that's what they're all about. They're about like, let's take this quote and we're going to put it on a T-shirt. Let's take this quote and we're going to put it on the wall. And there's some there's some element of it. If you're not in that world, it feels a little like cheesy or like very mockable.

38:20Angela Duckworth: Yes. And then you go like, but they're obviously doing it for a reason.

38:24Ryan Holiday: And it's like these people are getting paid millions of dollars. They want it more than any. They need a reminder. Like you tell the story of like the wolves, which one are you going to, I've seen that on the wall. The good wolf and the bad wolf. Yeah, in a locker room, right? Right. And you're like, it's not a real story or anything, I'm sure. Somebody made it. It probably started as like a chain email or something. It probably doesn't trace its way back to some classical thinker or something.

38:49Angela Duckworth: I did try to look it up. I think it's like more recent than 1999. But right. Anyway, the point is, is that it's, yeah.

38:55Ryan Holiday: Yeah. And you're just like, oh, but no, they need it over and over and over and over again, even at that level. I've been thinking about this. My wife and I were talking about this with our kids. We're like, do I have to tell you again? And it's like, yes. Like if Aaron Judge needs to be told it every day and he's getting paid hundreds of millions of dollars. The answer is yes. Then probably I can tell my nine-year-old like where the shoes go again or like why we don't do X, Y, or Z. They just need more reminders.

39:23Angela Duckworth: Okay, so, all right, two things. One is the generalizable truth here. I mean, you know, the laws of physics are inescapable. So are the laws of psychology. And one of the laws of psychology is that we are reactive to our situation. You know, you think like, oh, what did you think about all day? Like, you thought about what you wanted to think about? your attention and your thinking is so much more like bottom up situation. Like, why do you think about coffee? Because somebody had a coffee cup out. Like, why did you think about, you know, this quote from this author? Because that book just happened to be on a desk, right?

39:56Angela Duckworth: I mean, obviously, this is how advertising works. I just think the more profound insight is that we think of ourselves as intentional, more or less like top down directive, like that's what makes us human. And we are much more like dogs and cats, sort of like, you know, reacting to things. So that is, I think, the generalizable truth of the matter. And then in terms of the like, okay, application of it, I was staying in my friend's house. There were three kids and these are two very high achieving people. They have very high achieving kids. And I noticed since I was just like walking around the house looking for whatever I was looking for, an outlet, that there are quotes like not at my eye level, but at kid eye level.

40:35Angela Duckworth: Right. And they were the kinds of quotes that you would expect to be in a house of like very high achieving people. It's because that mental like that box, too. It's like I want to be thinking like positive, optimistic thoughts or I want to be like remembering my values or I want to remember the virtues that I hold most dear. Like, if you want that, freaking decorate your world. And it's not I know it's mockable, but Ryan, it's not just like athletes. It's CEOs. It's like pastors. It's like moms and dads. I feel like the psychologically wise people do not leave it to their own like memory, which is fallible or their own intention, which is fleeting.

41:16Angela Duckworth: They just like it's just a common sense thing, right? Like, you know, stores have their hours on the front. Like, it's a good technology. So, like, the situation is a technology. And I feel like sometimes people think either or. So the message that, you know, our thoughts determine our behavior, I think, has been internalized by modern culture. I think much more than any civilization before us, like, we recognize that our thoughts shape how we feel and they shape what we. And also that those thoughts are subjective and also those thoughts are malleable. I don't feel like we've like moved upstream enough to say, like, well, where do the thoughts come from?

41:53Angela Duckworth: Well, what what can I do to make those thoughts the thoughts I have?

41:57Ryan Holiday: Yes. You look at some ruin and they're like, why did they have this statue here? Why was this inscription? They were in a way when when mass culture was harder to communicate, when they couldn't send an inspirational text to their kid or whatever, that all the parents had to get together and build a statue or, you know, inscribe in a monument, a poem, right? Like, how were they supposed to communicate the ideas and the values of their society? It was in, you know, the frieze on a necropolis or whatever, right? Like, that was there, like, because they couldn't watch a video on their phone about it, you know?

42:36Angela Duckworth: Right, which, you know, I have a preference for, like, you know, that which is inscribed in stone over videos. But wait, can I ask you a question? I don't have a tattoo. I feel like I'm like one of only, you know, a few people now in the world who don't have a tattoo. Like, why do you have tattoos? Do you feel like it's basically the same thing that in some ways this is like, you know, Angela has two by two, like, you know, post-it notes because she doesn't want to get a tattoo. But like, like, are these reminders for you?

43:01Ryan Holiday: Yeah, these are, I mean, they became book titles because I wrote books about them. But these are the, these are the sort of the main values that I try to live by or build my life on. And they're helpful reminders to see. I mean, look, I think when I first got them, it was a little... Was it a win? No, no. I'm just saying everything recedes into the background. I mean, I've had them for...

43:22Angela Duckworth: What do you mean everything recedes into the background?

43:24Ryan Holiday: Well, I'm just saying when I first got the tattoo, it was more a visible reminder that it would catch my attention. Now it's part of my body in a way that maybe catches my attention less. Okay. Right, right, right.

43:35Angela Duckworth: You've habituated a little bit, but not entirely. Right. Right, right. But that is exactly what, that has to be a reason. I mean, maybe there are other reasons.

43:43Ryan Holiday: No, and I think about my office is designed with reminders of the things that I want to see and my house is designed that way.

43:48Angela Duckworth: What can I ask you? I'm very curious.

43:50Ryan Holiday: I'll show it to you before we go. But yeah, I mean, I just think about, you know, what are quotes, what are ideas, who are people that inspire me. I have like paintings. I have little statues. Every time I do a book about an idea, I try to get some kind of historical memento of that idea.

44:07Angela Duckworth: Really? To have out just to like put yourself like just to like. Just kind of memorialize and then have a physical manifestation of that thing

44:14Ryan Holiday: because like obviously I'm not reading my own book as a reminder of the ideas. So like for me, it's like, oh, this is this is that thing that I spent all that time thinking about. And this is evocative of all of that.

44:26Angela Duckworth: But be an example of that. Now I'm really curious.

44:27Ryan Holiday: Yeah. So I did this Virtue series. And so I have one kind of like physical reminder of each one, like the discipline one, the serve hero of that was Queen Elizabeth. So I have a signed Andy Warhol print of Queen Elizabeth. That's like up the stairs on the way to the office. Then for Courage, de Gaulle was the main figure. So I have a free French battle flag that has blood on it. You know, so like just it's like, OK, this is the embodiment of everything in that book.

44:52Angela Duckworth: OK, so right. So it's not just, you know, like NFL quarterbacks, right? Like it's like it's like anybody who wants. I mean, that to me is like the power move. And what are the things about the modern day situation that you worry about? So we talked about, well, constitutional amendments that like you and I both think are really important. But like, I mean, do you wake up at night and think about like social media? Like, what are the things that you think? I think there are a lot of macro trends, if you will, where like if you let them take you where they like you're not going to live a happy, meaningful life.

45:25Angela Duckworth: So what are you worried about?

45:27Ryan Holiday: The big problem that I see for people is they wake up and they are on their phone before they've even gotten out of bed. And so what happened that night, what texts they got, what news of alerts came in, what emails they got, like their mood and the direction of their day is determined by someone or something else. So instead of waking up and going, what do I feel like doing today? What's important to me to do today? What was I thinking about last night that I want to tackle today? Like, what person do I want to be? Yeah. They're like, are you fucking kidding me? That's like how they're starting the day.

46:01Angela Duckworth: And that's their those are their thoughts. Right. So you pick up your phone. Right. That's your situation. And then whatever's on your phone. But you don't control. Right. Like it's your feed. And then and then and your thoughts lead to then your response. And then which is like a very path dependent thing.

46:15Ryan Holiday: The moment you woke up, instead of being proactive and big picture or what, I think that's, for me, a huge one. It's like, how are you starting the day?

46:25Angela Duckworth: Because I do. What do you do?

46:27Ryan Holiday: Well, no, I was going to say, look, I know the research on it is a little bit whatever, but like I do believe we have a finite amount of sort of willpower or focus or whatever. And the idea that you're going to be frivolous with that in the morning to me is a huge mistake.

46:40Angela Duckworth: Or to just be like foolish, right? I think that would be let's talk about that research, because I think you're probably I think that your instinct that your attention and your like free will or whatever, like your ability to like, you know, I'm going to do this. Like, I think your intuition that it's finite is actually probably grounded. But like there's some nuance. But let me tell you about some data that I just collected that I haven't even published yet. So Gallup organization does a poll for me. We survey kids 13 to 18, and we also survey at the same time their parents. So I'm like processing this data from this one question that I asked.

47:20Angela Duckworth: When you go to bed, where do you keep your phone? Either within arm's reach or in the room, but not within arm's reach or another room altogether. By the way, there is another category, which is I don't own a phone, but like nobody checks that off. Like, yeah, who did even at 13? Right. Like, you know, Americans have phones. And by the way, across all socioeconomic levels, like it is no longer technology, which has a socioeconomic gradient. Basically, just everybody has a phone. Of course. So at first I like look at the teenager data and I'm like, whoa, like something like seven out of 10, like 68 percent of teenagers sleep with their phone within arm's reach.

47:56Angela Duckworth: Right. And then, you know, you allocate. And then I look at the parent data and it's even more. It's like 75 percent, like three out of four Americans. Now, many of these adults, I'm sure, like will tell you they don't have a problem. It's not something that they care about. But I think the reality is that it is the last thing they interact with. Right. The last thing they see, the last thing they touch and the last thing that like changes their thoughts. Right. And then it's the first thing when they wake up. And again, I'm sure a lot of people are like, yeah, but I need to look at my calendar.

48:24Angela Duckworth: Like I check the weather, my alarm.

48:25Ryan Holiday: Emergency room doctor, sure.

48:27Angela Duckworth: You know, like. Where do you keep your phone? Like, where do you let your kids keep their phones?

48:32Ryan Holiday: My kids don't have phones because they're. Your kids don't know. My oldest is nine.

48:35Angela Duckworth: Oh, wait, they're younger than I thought. OK, got it.

48:38Ryan Holiday: So we're not quite there yet. Not at phone yet. But my phone is on the other side of the bedroom because it is my alarm. Yes, yes. But like, I can't touch it. And I have built a practice that I don't check texts or emails until I'm well through the morning.

48:55Angela Duckworth: Yeah. If it were on your nightstand, Ryan, right? Like you could still say, like, I have a habit of like not checking. And then, you know, but like it was intentional to put it across the room. Yeah, of course. Right. OK, got it. So like.

49:08Ryan Holiday: I try to I have a book on the bedside table and I try to read a few minutes before bed every night and I have my journals there. Yeah. Because that's an activity I would like to wind the day up with. I mean, I would find when it was next to the bed, like I might get up and go to the bathroom, like not even trying to check it, but it's like, oh, someone sent me a text from a different time zone. And like my day is ruined before it's even started. Like I might have three hours of sleep left. Right. But I'm going back to that sleep in a bad mood or I'm not even able to go back to sleep because I saw something that I.

49:40Ryan Holiday: So, yeah, look, the stoic idea would be like you should be able to get any news at any time and not be affected by it. and maybe someone

49:48Angela Duckworth: Is that the sort of like I mean I think that's the ideal right? The Buddhist or the Stoic is trying to be able

49:53Ryan Holiday: to handle everything with equilibrium but there's this other Stoic named Pubilius Sirius who said that like you know rivers are easiest to cross at their source and like to me it's like hey I would rather just avoid

50:04Angela Duckworth: Yeah right like just be smart to me it's like Incredible Hulk versus 007 right? Like yeah you can be really strong and like you know walk through a wall or you can be like James Bond and like very cleverly like make temptation So I want to say something about what, you know, this ego depletion sort of like is self-control limited resource? Like, what about attention? And then also talk about why it is like, you know, when I say the psychological laws of human nature, you know, the laws of psychology are as ineluctable and as eternal as the laws of physics. Like, I really mean it. So when you wake up and you're cranky or, you know, you say something you shouldn't have said, like you are enacting something.

50:40Angela Duckworth: Now, it doesn't mean you have free will, because, of course, if you understand the laws, you can act differently. And OK, but here's what I want to say. I think your intuition that when you do something that requires will. Right. And requires attention that it does feel somehow like it's a limited resource. Right. And I guess you're saying that partly because you feel what is it that like next you have less of it or you kind of like just at that time it's divided.

51:04Ryan Holiday: Well, I read this thing that Toni Morrison talked about where she was saying that, like, it's very important as a writer that you know when you're at your best, when you're most inspired. And so, like, and you have to set your day up around that. So, like, for some people, this is three in the morning and because it's like at the end of the day and for other people, it's whatever.

51:26Angela Duckworth: For some people, it's a busy coffee shop. For another person, it's like dead quiet in their kitchen.

51:29Ryan Holiday: But you got to know when you're at your best. At your best. And she was saying that for her, she had to do all her writing. There was something about the sunrise that was inspiring and important. She wanted to be writing as the sun rose. And then the other part was she wanted to get all of her writing done before she heard the word mom for the first time.

51:47Angela Duckworth: Oh, God, I forgot that she was a mother. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

51:50Ryan Holiday: I mean, she was a single mother and she had a day job as an editor at Penguin Random House or then Random House.

51:55Angela Duckworth: I didn't know that.

51:56Ryan Holiday: And so like she to write her novel, she had to squeeze it in. You can't squeeze it in, but you can't squeeze it in after you've hit it. You can't do it like for her. It can't be at the bottom of the waterfall. It's going to be at the top of the waterfall, I think. Right, right, right.

52:06Angela Duckworth: Cross the river at the front. Exactly.

52:08Ryan Holiday: So I think it's like kind of knowing when you're at your best. And I was actually just talking about this with someone this morning. I went running with Alexi Pappas. She's an Olympic runner. And I was talking about how I was asking her if she had the same experience. But I found that when I was younger, I could get more out of my worst self. Obviously, it was always better to be my best self.

52:28Angela Duckworth: But there was a little like a range. You were like, yeah, I have some give. I was like, I could get up running, for example. Yeah.

52:34Ryan Holiday: Like I could get up from the when I was 20, I could get up from the Thanksgiving Day table and just run 10 miles and like be fine. Yeah. And now it's like if I eat poorly that morning or whatever, like now it's just a more finely tuned machine or whatever. And I've just found that, like, especially writing, like, I can't do it past a certain time. And where do you do it? Can I ask you where you do it?

53:00Angela Duckworth: In my office here. But I can do it in other places.

53:03Ryan Holiday: But again, it's like, I just know it's like to get the quality that I want, the environmental and the situation is more important than it was before. Than it was before, right?

53:14Angela Duckworth: There was more range. Like, sleep, running. I remember like eating a loaf of bread with, I think, peanut butter and then going for a run in my like early 20s. Right. Everything has to go right for me to like, you know, not have a disaster happen. So this intuition that, you know, yes, we can, you know, do things that are harder, pay attention. And, you know, like you can. And by the way, it does feel exhausting. So that you're on rock solid research that that when you do something and you don't want to do it, Essentially, a lot of the things that we consider to be virtuous are acts of self-control in that they're delayed gratification.

53:48Angela Duckworth: Honesty is not always the most rewarding thing in the very, very moment that you're being honest or kindness, generosity and discipline, etc. But I think the key here is that when you are able to change the situation, even in micro ways. So there's a paper that just got accepted. It hasn't been published yet. It's looking at one, two and three seconds of delay. So we're not talking about like delaying gratification for like 10 years. Like I'll be healthier. I'll have better relationships and something on the order of like two to four years. Right. We're just talking about like seconds. You know, the nature of human nature is that we're extremely averse to like any form of delay of gratification.

54:26Angela Duckworth: And, you know, we did this with like website loading. But basically, for example, you take like people are trying to code and they're on this platform. They're trying to learn, you know, coding. And like if it just takes like one or two seconds longer, like then they just like go off and like do something else and like don't finish their lesson. So I don't think that says something about like those people being lazy. I think it says something about the nature of things. And I do worry that, you know, we're talking about the situation. I asked you like, what do you think? You're like, oh, well, people pick up their phone and then like, you know, they're off.

54:55Angela Duckworth: I do feel like attention and intention are so shaped by the situation that we are increasingly in a culture where like it's always trying to be grabbed by something or someone. And if you're not countercultural, like if you don't say like, OK, because of that, I'm going to put my phone across the room. OK, because of that, I'm going to delete this app because of that. I'm going to like, you know, make sure that I spend time with it. I'm going to like make a post-it note to her mind. Like then, then like the, I think there may have been past historical times where we didn't have to do so much work to get situated.

55:31Ryan Holiday: I think that's right. And we, I would say we have a society that doesn't have a lot of empathy for how hard it is to be other people. Like I was listening to this podcast, Annie Lowry just wrote this book about time tax. I don't know. It's just basically saying the way that bureaucracy and inefficiency taxes individuals, particularly poor and lower income people. And she was just talking about like some of these like forms you have to fill out to get like Medicaid answer. The ones that we think everyone deserves are much easier than the ones that we have moral judgments about.

56:01Angela Duckworth: So it's like, okay, if you're a single mother and

56:03Ryan Holiday: you're trying to get welfare, because as a society, we judge that person, we make it really hard. And I was just thinking, bringing my freshest best self, I have no patience for forms. Imagine, I just tried to imagine like I'm poor, I'm struggling, I'm working two jobs, I have kids, I can barely get Netflix to work after I put my kids to bed, let alone having to fill out this complicated form that it was designed to not be intuitive, to discourage people to do it. And just understanding that like the environmental conditions, like you talk even about like privilege in the book, is just not even being aware of how your situation might be different from somebody else's situation.

56:40Ryan Holiday: And I don't know, I was just thinking about that. So let me ask you this.

56:43Angela Duckworth: Like, so if empathy extends not only so we usually define empathy as like being able to feel what another person feels. Right. And then there's something that psychologists sometimes take pains to distinguish, which is like perspective taking. And that's like seeing what the other person. But anyway, we get it. Like putting yourself in their shoes. Right. So, you know, if this book has a thesis, it's like, OK, well, then also trying to understand like their box one. Right. Like what is their box one? Right. Like and how could I not commit the fundamental attribution error? I'm just curious. I remember having a discussion with Melody Hobson, who's like an investor and like very wise.

57:16Angela Duckworth: And it was on the topic of empathy. And she was actually saying, you know, I think that like through fiction and through film, right, like that is where we are able to put ourselves in the shoes of other people. I think that is right. But I wonder what your thought is on empathy, because I think you're right about our lack of empathy. I wonder if you have any thoughts about whether that is like a bigger problem today than it was 10 or 20 years ago. And what do you think the limits of empathy are? Like, can you really appreciate? I mean, how far can we go like in a visceral way, not just an intellectual way to understand other people's situations?

57:54Ryan Holiday: Well, I think there's a couple of things there. I think one, yeah, obviously there's some limits to empathy. And there's that German word, umwelt, like how can you truly understand what it's like to be a bat or a bird or another person? Goldfish or whatever. Yeah. Really can and probably can only vaguely understand what it's like to be another person from different circumstances. So I think there's some limits there. I think empathy can also be limiting, right? Like if all you have is empathy, you can kind of, I've noticed that my wife's much more empathetic than me. sometimes like I'll be like, OK, but ultimately you're just letting this person off the hook at some level where you're like you're paying them to do a thing.

58:30Ryan Holiday: And like it kind of doesn't matter why or how or where they're coming from.

58:34Angela Duckworth: Like if you spend all the time thinking about how they feel and think, you're like, OK, but also they didn't do. Yeah.

58:39Ryan Holiday: Or even with your own kids, you're like, oh, they're having a hard time. It's like, OK, but there are rules to society that you've got to figure out how to do. And if no one ever holds you accountable to them because they're always thinking about there can be problems. But I think you have to be a sociopath to look at our society and think our problem is that we're too empathetic. Like Elon Musk has made this thing. It's like the West has suicidal empathy. We're too empathetic. Blah, blah. It's like, no, almost all of our problems are the lack of empathy and a lack of understanding of the conditions.

59:15Angela Duckworth: What he's saying of society, though, it sounds to me a version, arguably, of what you're saying about your wife, though, right? Look, it can be a problem. Too much compassion or something.

59:23Ryan Holiday: And I think at an individual level, we can sometimes struggle with that or individual situations. Right. But it's like, look, why is Iran acting the way that it is? Sure. But it is also a totalitarian fascist religious state that is insane. You can understand why they think what they think and not go like, they're the good guys. You can also understand your own country's problems and responsibilities and all of that. and still go, okay, but.

59:52Angela Duckworth: And still it's not acceptable. Okay, but. Okay, right. I actually wrote a version of this book that actually, you know, much more ink spilled about who I think is like the intellectual proprietor of this model, right? And it's not that he would say he's a monopoly on this because honestly, Ryan, I know psychology and like every psychologist I know understands that the situation leads to the thoughts and thoughts lead to response. Cognitive therapy, that's like your thoughts leading to response. Like behaviorism, that's like the situation. Like it's all there. habit is like situation directly so it's not provocative it's not necessarily revolutionary but james gross who's you know really i think the person who deserves credit for this you know framework because it's so simple the thing that i love about it and for me because i only discovered it like halfway through you know my career as a psychologist is that you could take anything right like let's take you know welfare right you're like okay so you know this this mother is like applying or not applying, you know, she did or didn't get this job.

1:00:49Angela Duckworth: So that's that is box three. Like, that's her response. Right. And then with some curiosity and hopefully, you know, not too much judgment, although to judge is human, you just have to ask, like, what were the thoughts that led to that? OK, so that's box two leading to box three. Just because there are always thoughts. I mean, for anything we do, what we eat, what you drink, what you say, what you feel. And then just to ask, like, and here's where you overcome the fundamental attribution error. You You say like instead of just saying like, well, she's the sort of person who like thinks those thoughts.

1:01:19Angela Duckworth: All you're doing is simply saying like, well, there's another box. Like I have to fill it out. And that is the situation. That is the objective situation physically and socially. And to me, that like helps to explain so much. And it at least gives you a tool, if you will, to overcome what I do agree with you, just like this profound lack of empathy at so many levels.

1:01:43Ryan Holiday: So I have a bunch of traveling I'm doing through the end of the year on Daily Stoic Live Tour. I just got back from San Diego. I like to stay in the places that I'm staying. I like to book places on Airbnb so I can be like a local. I not only do some of my best writing, but I learn about things that I wouldn't have known otherwise. When I was just in San Diego, I took a walk along the water. I bumped into someone who recognized me. And they told me about their favorite local bookstore, which was like two blocks from where I was staying. And I never would have known about it if it wasn't for that encounter.

1:02:13Ryan Holiday: It was cool to me to think that I have helped facilitate that experience for many, many people coming to Austin over the years. The first house that I bought in Austin when my wife and I first moved here, we would list it on Airbnb. And it helped me make the transition from my corporate life to being a full-time writer. So if you're going to be away, you should maybe think about listing your place on Airbnb. It can be a great way to earn extra cash while you travel. It can offset the cost of your trip or maybe even go towards whatever you're doing next. If you've got travel coming up, check out Airbnb.

1:02:44Ryan Holiday: Your home might be worth more than you think, and you can find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host. So I woke up this morning as I do every morning, thanks to my 8 Sleep. I've loved my 8 Sleep for years. The new 8 Sleep Pod 6 is officially available. 8 Sleep can result in up to 34 % more deep sleep and a 32 % average increase in sleep quality scores. And the 8 Sleep's sixth generation of the Pod is a smart mattress cover that now truly fits on any size mattress. The hub is 50 % smaller than the previous versions. Its thermal engine is 20 % faster. And the new cover has nine times the biometric sensors of the Pod 5.

1:03:28Ryan Holiday: And now with AI in the autopilot, it learns your patterns and adjusts every single night.

1:03:33Angela Duckworth: The Pod 6 starts at$1 ,999.

1:03:35Ryan Holiday: That's the lowest price 8 Sleep has ever offered. And you can use code DailyStoic right now at 8sleep.com slash DailyStoic for up to$200 off the Pod 6. And you'll get 30 days at home to try it. Free returns if it's not for you. Yeah, Ayn Rand wrote this book called The Virtue of Selfishness. And there's this famous exchange with Christopher Hitchens where he's just like, I'm not sure that is a thing that anyone needs help with. Like, you know, like...

1:04:04Angela Duckworth: Like, by the way, doesn't everybody read Ayn Rand and for like one week, you're like, oh, you know, she's got it all right. And I'm going to be Howard Rourke.

1:04:13Ryan Holiday: And you think about it for five seconds and you go, oh, what would it look like if everyone thought this way?

1:04:18Angela Duckworth: You're like, oh, wait, everyone being like even more selfish than they are. OK, just kidding. I thought that was a good idea. But yeah, I was like, you know, for a week I was an objectivist. I was like, oh, my God, he was laying in the back.

1:04:28Ryan Holiday: You know, there's an emotional immaturity to the lack of it. Like you think you figured it out. It's, oh, the problem is I'm being too caring or whatever. And it's like, that's not the problem. That's not the problem. So I think there's an emotional immaturity there, which actually was something I was going to ask you. Because in the beginning of the book, you talk about Montaigne, who is fascinating. And he's basically saying that in different situations, we act differently. And that someone could be courageous in one situation and cowardly in the other. And he's basically saying it all comes down to - Speaking of himself, of course.

1:04:57Angela Duckworth: Yes.

1:04:57Ryan Holiday: Well, that's what I wanted to say, because to me, giving yourself more situational agency or being better at what you're talking about in this book comes down to what his life's work was, which he basically invented, which is like the idea of self-awareness. Like the idea of sitting down and thinking about like, what do I think? Why do I think it? Why am I this way? What do I like? What am I trying to be?

1:05:16Angela Duckworth: I would say he invented the essay. I don't know if he invented like self-awareness.

1:05:19Ryan Holiday: But all other philosophers before Montaigne were like, why is the universe this way? Why are other people this way? They studied humanity. He studied himself.

1:05:29Angela Duckworth: Yeah, he basically retires from public life.

1:05:31Ryan Holiday: And he's like, what do I know? His fundamental question is, what do I know? And then he's like, I think his other questions are sort of like, who am I? Yes. And what matters to me? And like, that was new ground. Like, he's coming out of the Reformation and into the early days of the Renaissance, right? Like, where I guess -

1:05:51Angela Duckworth: You're giving me the historical context. Like, I've read Montaigne, but actually, I am no student of history. He's a contemporary of Shakespeare.

1:05:57Ryan Holiday: So it's not, it's a long time ago, right? Like, and he's kind of like, yeah, why also talking about religious tolerance? This is like where we're figuring out, oh, it's a problem. Like to not be able to have different people believe different things. I guess I'm just saying like, I feel like what Montaigne figures out is like that there's a lot of interesting self-exploration you could do as other people are exploring the universe for the first time. I mean, he just asked all these really interesting questions.

1:06:26Angela Duckworth: And he's actually explaining the universe within. I mean, he was a world-class psychologist. By the way, have you ever seen, and I haven't seen it in person, but I have seen photos of his study in his room with the quotes. Talk about quotes. Motivational quotes on the ceiling beams. Yes, and not on two-by-two post-it notes, of course. And I don't believe that he had tattoos, but just engraved into wood, like into the rafters. And again, like you think that somebody with the mind of Montaigne would have already memorized these things, but he chose to be able to see them on a daily basis. So the essays that I wrote about there, I haven't read, I maybe have read all of Montaigne, but I'm not an expert on Montaigne.

1:07:00Angela Duckworth: And he did write a lot of essays. But he wrote several on the idea of the inconstancy of the self, right? That there was a Montaigne. I mean, he particularly was observant of his own anger, right? And there was an angry Michel de Montaigne and a calm Michel de Montaigne. And to me, his insight goes almost all the way where I want it to go. So he gets pretty far and farther than most of us, which he says, we like to think of ourselves as the captain of our ship, but we are carried. We do not go. We are carried, right? Carried by the current. So, yes, we have some sense of like, I am the master of my soul, I'm the captain of my fate.

1:07:35Angela Duckworth: But like, really, what ocean are you going to choose to sail on? And like, which current are you going to pick? because that is going to determine really where you go. The reason I say, Ryan, that he doesn't go far enough is that in all of his writing, I didn't come to a passage where he said, therefore, be very intentional about the oceans and so forth. Like, he just was like, you know, the situation is like the ocean current. And I just want to say that, hey man, maybe this is just, you know, I am a student of Marty Seligman. I will never stop believing in agency. I don't see that he's gone enough to like he hasn't written enough or didn't write that I could see about how you can change the situation.

1:08:19Ryan Holiday: I think that's right. I mean, it's interesting that he's primarily writing these essays at first. Like one of his biographers says he's trying to catch himself in the act of thinking. That's what the essays were. He's sort of writing to think. The idea of like, hey, I'm going to write these essays and then publish them. I wasn't really the intention until kind of later.

1:08:37Angela Duckworth: Did he publish them in his lifetime?

1:08:38Ryan Holiday: He does. And then he edits them again. And but it was again, he's writing for other Montaigne's, right? Like he's writing for the smartest people in the world. Shakespeare reads them. You know, the king reads them. But like I do think one of the good pressures of commercial publishing, which you and I exist in, is that you don't get to sit in your study and just kind of like whimsically explore ideas. Like you do have to go all the way. Like, what does this mean? What are you saying? Yeah.

1:09:04Angela Duckworth: What are you saying plainly? And also, could you please be helpful? Right. So maybe you would argue that if he had a larger audience that he perhaps would have gone farther.

1:09:14Ryan Holiday: Yeah. And I think some of the people who have written after him or written about him have gotten there in a way that he didn't have to get to as a person who's also like, there's something about, you know, people go like, well, because sometimes I'll come out and do things or I've done courses and they'll be like, would Seneca do this? And it's like, Seneca lived on an estate tended by slaves. OK, like he did not have to think about anyone. There wasn't an audience he was writing to. There wasn't value he was having to provide. There was a there's just kind of a intellectual. This is intellectual for intellectual sake.

1:09:50Ryan Holiday: Ness to some ancient philosophy and some of that kind of even Renaissance thinking like this is for the elite of the elite. This is for people who know for people like me. I'm not writing for an audience that is in a way that Shakespeare was. Shakespeare is like peasants to the queen. everyone in between.

1:10:08Angela Duckworth: Right. Much more Pixar, if you will. Yes, it has to operate on multiple levels. Right? For like everyone. Okay, but there's something else that's different. I would conjecture, and it's purely conjecture, that situational agency has increased over time. I mean, I told you I'm no student of history, but, you know, there was a time where, you know, you're a blacksmith because your father was a blacksmith and you're a woman and you have to be the wife of a blacksmith. Like, you know, you can't change where you live because like you live in this village and it's impossible to get anywhere. Like, OK, so if it's broadly true that situational agency, our ability to change our circumstances, to set ourselves up for like the thoughts that we want and the behavior that went, arguably 400 years ago, there was less of it.

1:10:51Angela Duckworth: Right. So maybe that's another reason why he said like we do not go. We are carried. But he didn't say like, oh, but you can like chart your own course because maybe it was not possible.

1:10:58Ryan Holiday: No, I think you're you're totally right. His father maps out his whole life. You know, he has he has like a Tiger Woods-esque father.

1:11:06Angela Duckworth: Montaigne did? Yeah.

1:11:07Ryan Holiday: But in a good way. But he's like a good Tiger Woods father. I mean, like, so do you know Montaigne's life story? There's a book I'm going to give you.

1:11:14Angela Duckworth: But I mean, I know he's like a nobleman who like retires and then just like writes essays. OK, so that's all I know.

1:11:19Ryan Holiday: I'll give you a glimpse into it. Why does Montaigne have empathy in a time when there's no empathy? His father believes is comes from this rich family. His father sends him from birth to be raised by a peasant family. in the village that they own. In order to have empathy with the... To grow up around regular people. Really? And to have affinity and affection for the people that he would in the future be responsible for and have to leave.

1:11:42Angela Duckworth: So his father was unusually wise and enlightened.

1:11:46Ryan Holiday: His father sort of travels in part of diplomatic or economics. I forget exactly what his dad does, but basically is fascinated with child development. And he basically, Montaigne's childhood is a giant educational experiment. Experiment in a way, yeah. Then when he comes home, Montaigne doesn't learn to speak French until he is like seven or eight because he literally never heard it. After the two years as an infant in this peasant family, he comes home and only Latin is spoken in their household. And so he basically grows up in antiquity. Like he grows up in Rome. Like they only speak Latin. So he's this expert on Latin because he grew up as if it was a real language and not a dead language.

1:12:27Ryan Holiday: And so there's all these different other ones I could bore you with them. But like he has a weird childhood that is shaped by his father's understanding that like you're learning and being taught to do things to be of service to other people. It's a very weird childhood. It's a very weird child, which shapes him, right?

1:12:46Angela Duckworth: I mean, you could maybe define, you know, you write a book and then every hammer is everything's a nail. But I mean, you could argue that all of parenting is essentially like shaping and selecting situations, right? Like what else are you going to do? Right. There is no like telepathy. Like you cannot like will your child to do something the way you can will your elbow to like, you know, go up or down. So, yeah, you know, and I'm not saying like every parent gets everything right. Like definitely not saying that or that I did. But but that was his father. Right. Like that that was parenting to him.

1:13:17Angela Duckworth: That was being a father to him.

1:13:19Ryan Holiday: I wanted to go to the thing you said before that, though, which is I think agency is a technology. It is a belief that was not widespread in the ancient world or even until relatively. Like I just think it's interesting.

1:13:30Angela Duckworth: You go to the Iliad and it's like there's no agency.

1:13:33Ryan Holiday: Yeah. You have to do this. Yeah. The gods. But also, yeah. As you said, it's like, no, no, my father was a blacksmith, so I have to be a blacksmith. It's in my name. Like, my name says my profession. Or the idea that you could move to another country and just live there. You know, like, all the kinds of agency and change that we take for granted today did not exist. And even just the idea, like, that an individual could change the trajectory of history in a positive way. that an institution like slavery could, you could have an opinion that it was bad, and then you could make it not exist.

1:14:11Angela Duckworth: And that you could change it. Yes. That you could change it.

1:14:12Ryan Holiday: Totally.

1:14:13Angela Duckworth: So, as a student of Marty Seligman, I have to say that, you know, his last 10 years have been on agency. And it is a way, like, as a psychologist, the only thing he's ever studied, right? So, he got his PhD very early. I think something at, like, 24 or something ungodly. Like, Like he was a very quick Ph.D., but also he went to college early. So Marty's been studying agency from day one as a psychologist. And his latest thinking, reflecting the last decade of his work, is that the arc of human history. Right. And to the extent that there has been progress, which he argues there has been. Right.

1:14:46Angela Duckworth: And some would argue not. But I agree with him. Like, you know, you just can't believe you look at the really grand sweep and you don't like think about like little wrinkles here and there. This is a much kinder, more peaceful, verdant, you know, thoughtful society than we did, you know, 100 years ago, 2 ,000 years ago, 3 ,000 years ago. And Marty would argue that it is all agency, that agency is the prime mover of everything, as opposed to, you know, I would just add to it, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because if you define agency as the belief that you can change, right, psychological agency, what's inside your head, situational agency, what's outside your head.

1:15:22Angela Duckworth: But the self-fulfilling prophecy is that if you don't believe you have agency, of course you make that happen because you actually don't make anything happen. Right. If you do have agency, it's not that everything always works out. But like, yeah, you you act and then the future is shaped by your actions. So that is Marty's, you know, that I think, you know, Marty's 83. There may be another chapter where like he has another great discovery. But I think he would argue it's like the great discovery of his life that like all of human civilization is founded on psychological and situational agency.

1:15:58Ryan Holiday: Yeah, I think one of the mistakes we made culturally and academically was getting rid of the great man of history theory.

1:16:05Angela Duckworth: Marty's a big great man of history proponent.

1:16:08Ryan Holiday: Yeah, we explain everything systemically or structurally.

1:16:11Angela Duckworth: Which makes it like inevitable and like actually diminishes like individual will. Totally. Yeah. I think we're living in a time where like you have to just say like definitely one person can change the world.

1:16:23Ryan Holiday: Well, the problem with the people who debunk the theory is that they will also tell you how all the bad things in the world are the result of a handful of people. We all agree that bad people can make the world worse.

1:16:36Angela Duckworth: And then there's argument about other good people can make the world better. Well, I'm on the side that like, yeah, individuals do shape the world for better and also for worse.

1:16:46Ryan Holiday: Well, I have so many books I want to show you. So we're going to go next door.

1:16:48Angela Duckworth: Let's do it.