The Joy of Not Being Dead (with Ryan Holiday on The Daily Stoic)

19:40And it turns out from the research that that's a thing that works really well. If you imagine, okay, I want to get fit, say, well, then I have to go to the gym every day. I have to put my sneakers out. I really have to commit to this. That helps you know what the plan is because you kind of rehearsed it. It's not as bad or not That's as much of a pain in the butt. But also sometimes you do that and you're like, actually, there's no way I'm going to get my act together to do that. Right. And then you can have a more appropriate goal, right? You can kind of use your imagination to figure out which goals are appropriate.

20:06Ryan Holiday:Well, I think of, we're talking about testing the stoic ideas, like in the laboratory. Person who did that most recently is Stockdale. Stockdale gets a graduate degree in ancient philosophy at Stanford. The Navy sends him and then he gets thrown into a real Stanford prison experiment. To be fair, most psychologists don't go as hardcore as Stockdale, but yeah. Yeah. And there he's basically testing a lot of these ideas. He's also really well steeped in the sort of literature as well. But what I think is fascinating is they asked him after, you know, who had the hardest time? And he said it was the optimists because there was this sense that they would get out by the—they were always falling for the, hey, by Christmas or, you know, news stories would trickle back to them or they'd hear things in letters.

20:50Ryan Holiday:You know, an arms justice is coming. And then when that wouldn't happen, they were crushed. And what's interesting in his memoirs, which I obviously wrote after the fact, but you can even see it in some of the letters he wrote at the time, he kept saying, like, it's going to be at least another two years. It's going to be at least like he was, as it turned out, underestimating how long it would take. But he was not at all convinced that this would happen quickly. And so there's something about optimism that can set you up to be crushed by a world you don't control. Because, again, what our mind is doing is it's setting up these reference points.

21:22And if we set up a reference point like by Christmas, everything's going to be great and it's going to be perfect and we don't get there. You know, we feel terrible, even if objectively we probably could have made it. I mean, we're talking about terrible Vietnamese prisons, probably, you know, bad extreme case. But the idea is if you set your reference point too high, then even getting the second best possible thing, you know, feels feels kind of crappy. Here's another one of my favorite psych reference point studies. So researchers analyze people's smiles on the Olympic medal stand. right and i just who's happiest right so you look at the gold medalist he's that person you know best in the world really happy what's going on with the silver medalist turns out they're not showing expressions of happiness they're showing expressions of things like grief contempt deep sadness and that's because like you know their reference point was like i almost got gold so they're objectively second best in the world but feeling really crappy about it that kind of makes sense but the reason i love the studies they also analyze the smiles of the bronze medalist right happy to be there they're so happy to be there in fact in some cases their smiles are bigger than the gold medalist.

22:22Because like, oh my God, my alternative, my negative visualization is like, I almost didn't get up here at all. And that study has always been really powerful to me.

22:30Ryan Holiday:And I love that because I think there's a Seinfeld bit about that, that predates the study. He sort of intuited it just as a student of human nature. And that's the best studies confirm kind of what we obviously know, or it confirms like the opposite of what we think we know. But that one, so he nails, that's exactly what it is. Jerry Seinfeld was such a great psychologist in so many, so many different ways. Yeah. Yeah. I think for me, the memento mori thing is it's not that you are going to die tomorrow, but that you could. Yes. And the couldness puts a level of uncertainty and then it forces you to make some decisions.

23:10Ryan Holiday:I think that's kind of how I think about it. That's right. And I think those decisions ultimately are ones that make us a lot happier, right? The decisions are usually to be a little bit more present, to not fall for the low-value dopamine hit in the current parlance, even though it's not really a dopamine hit. But just the kind of low-value quick, like I'm looking at my phone rather than hanging out with a kid right before he goes to bed. And those changes matter a lot. Those changes matter a lot for our moment-to-moment happiness. But I think those changes matter a lot for really appreciating the stuff we have in life, which, again, as the Stoics so lovingly pointed out, is not guaranteed at any point.

23:43Ryan Holiday:Yeah, the like, hey, should we extend the vacation one day? Or hey, should I blow off work and go spend an extra bit of time for this? Should I take this phone call? It could be the last time that you get that thing. Correct. And so you should probably seize it while it's here. That is, I think, just a real practical way of momentum working helps you make better day-to-day decisions. It also changes our time horizon, right? Like psychologists often worry about these cases of myopia, right? Where you're not saving enough. You're not eating healthy enough. You're not protecting your future self.

24:13I, from a happiness standpoint, worry a lot about the opposite, which is hyperopia, which is like, we're constantly saying, I'm doing something for my future self, right? But we both get our future self wrong. And sometimes, like, the future isn't guaranteed. So, you know, take the reward. Take that fun thing now. You know, how many times, like, do people not end up spending their frequent flyer miles and they expire? Or, you know, buy this nice bottle of wine that you and your partner are going to have one day and then you finally find it and it's, like, corked or something. Right, right. I feel like we're constantly in danger of corking our lives, even in these local domains.

24:46I mean, I've heard you use the example of your kids going to bed and that stoic mantra, helping you notice and be present. What would you be doing if you weren't being present? Well, you'd probably be checking an email for something. Like Future You is trying to get something. Not important at all. Exactly. Yes. And so fighting our hyperopia and making sure we're prioritizing things in the present so that we get the right future benefit, I think is important.

25:08Ryan Holiday:I've never met someone who's not saving for retirement, not taking care of themselves, because they have philosophically worked themselves into that position. Yes. They're not doing that because they're just not responsible. It's not a philosophical point of view. I do think there's a trouble with some philosophy and some people, people like they, they try to like overthink it. And for these edge cases that aren't real or would affect such a minority of the, it's like, it's like people don't want to work out because they don't want to be too fit. Yeah. You know, you're you're not going to get there.

25:39Ryan Holiday:Don't worry about it. You know, and it's like, you know, if everyone actually put in this ancient philosophical practice, Social Security would go bankrupt. And it's like, no. OK, first off, it's automatically taken out of everyone's account. It's not a choice. That's why. But like, no, the people that are not doing it are doing it for other irresponsible reasons, not for an extreme philosophical principle. Yeah. And I do feel like hyperopia is one of the, you know, people who are a little philosophically informed or thinking about how to live a good life. they're often the ones that are pretty good at like discounting, right?

26:10Like, you know, withholding. But then if you do that too much, you know, again, none of us know what our moment is. And the mimetomori is just a reminder of like, could be tonight. What do I want to do different if it was?

26:20Ryan Holiday:Well, how many of these people that are obsessed with sort of radical life extension have a life worth extending? Seneca talks about this story about this emperor, this criminal sort of begging to be spared, like, don't put me to death. And he says, oh, you're really alive. That's what the emperor says to him. Like you have wasted your life. You're a shitty person doing shitty things. And now you're begging to be spared. To do what? So you can go back to your life of crime. This is not a statement on the justice of the death penalty. The point is when I look at the life that these people are trying to extend, I'm like, what?

26:54Ryan Holiday:You're living like a monk, but not in a philosophical way. Yes. And like getting random injections and you can't hang out with people because when you hang out with people, you're going to have a drink or go out and have some food. You're going to eat real food. because you're worried about this. Like what you're doing is stripping all the reasons for existence out of existence to then prolong the existence. So maybe in the future, you'll someday be happy. You could be happy now. And I think they're getting the evidence wrong. I think a lot of the evidence for that form of longevity comes from like, I don't know, supplement research.

27:22But if you look psychologically at the kinds of things that extend longevity, it is happiness in the moment, your social connections, right? The good that you're doing in the world, the sense of purpose and value, right? These are the things that extend life when you're faced with terminal illnesses and so on. And so it's like, I think they're doing it for the wrong reasons. They're gonna get a long life that's not very valuable. But I also think they're missing out. If really what your goal was longevity, you might actually just want a happy life in the moment because that would work for you.

27:47Ryan Holiday:Have you ever talked to someone who's really old, like 90 to 100 or whatever? I've talked to many of them. And first off, they don't talk about being old. They don't talk about wanting to live longer. And they're not even particularly pumped that they're still alive, to be perfectly honest. I don't mean like their life is depressing, But one of the striking things about someone, you meet anyone over 100, they are not clinging to life. They are not like, I hope I make it to 112. I need two more years to get this stuff done. What they actually are is day to day. And like I knew this guy, Richard Overton in Austin, he was 112.

28:20Ryan Holiday:And I asked him if he takes it day by day. And he said, at my age, you take it day by night. He's like, look, I just, if I live through the evening, if I wake up tomorrow, that's like defying the odds once again. And in fact, it can sometimes be painful if you love these people. They're like, I'm ready to go. And you're like, don't say that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you're not ready for them to go. Yes. But they have gotten to a place where life is no longer so precious to them. And that's probably part of it. But it's just interesting to me that when you talk to the people who have, it's like, I guess this is also true for wealth.

28:52Ryan Holiday:When you talk to the people who have it, they're like, it's not that great. I'd trade it for X, Y, or Z. And then the people that are obsessed with life expectancy are often neglecting the present moment at the expense of some optimized future. Yes, yes. And ultimately, like when you get there, you might be happier than you think, no matter what you optimized. Right. I think this is another stunning thing is that as people as people get older, but specifically as people get closer to death, they wind up being more positive rather than less. And one of the cute studies that looked at this, I mean, just talking about a structural issue that we should talk about and fight about, but it looked at people on death row, right?

29:29Where for older individuals, probably they're getting closer to that last moment, but we don't know when it's going to be. Unfortunately, with individuals on death row, we can measure it. And so researchers look at people's journals, their expressions and things as they get closer. And rather than getting more negative, they actually get substantially more positive.

29:46Ryan Holiday:Because the anger, the frustration, the fear just dissipates because what's the point? Yeah, you're working out, right? I think we don't actually know why it is, but it seems like psychologically what happens is you wind up kind of happier. And if you look at kind of death row notes, because often people will write, you know, know about their situation, whatever, like way more strongly, like two to one strongly positive words and other oriented words like kindness and their connection and the meaning they've gotten and so on. Like, it's not like me. It turns down the noise on the trivial shit.

30:15Ryan Holiday:They're not like this guy stole this thing from my bunk. You know, like just the things you're holding on to when there's an eternity. There's a story Lincoln tells this guy in his town who hated this other guy. They hated each other and he finds out he has some terminal illness. And so he reaches out and he says, I want to make amends. And so the guy comes in and sees them and they make amends. And as the former enemy is leaving, he says, hey, I just want you to know if I survive this, the grudge is back. It's back. And there's something about the silliness of what we cling to that the ephemerality of life renders insignificant.

30:55Ryan Holiday:And I imagine whether you're sitting on death row, you just found out you have cancer or you're 95, you're just like, it doesn't matter. Yeah. I mean, this is one of the benefits of awful situations like finding out you have a terminal illness or going through terrible trauma or cancer scare or something. It's like you wind up more positive, more likely to kind of drop the BS. There's lots of evidence for what researchers call post-traumatic growth, which is kind of just what it sounds like, right? You go through this traumatic experience and you're like, I feel more connected to my purpose. I feel more connected to other people.

31:26I feel it's much easier to kind of do what the Stoics said a lot about, which is like just don't deal with the – just drop the boring stuff, right? And that seems to come naturally when you face something kind of existential in this rich way. You have been listening to me chatting with Ryan Holiday on the Daily Stoic podcast. We'll get to more conversation after the break. Does anyone else feel like August is the Sunday of summer? Especially when the new school year looms, I start thinking about resetting my routine. And for me, that often begins with my closet. I've been trying to buy fewer, better pieces, the kind I know I'll wear again and again.

32:02And that's why I've become such a fan of Quince. The piece I keep reaching for is Quince's washable stretch silk tiered maxi dress. The silk feels incredibly soft, it has a little stretch to it so it's comfortable to wear all day long, and the fact that it's washable makes it so much more practical than you'd expect from a silk dress. Also, it's got pockets. Love the pockets. That dress looks polished but effortless. Exactly what I want from the clothes I wear most. Upgrade your everyday. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com slash happiness. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns.

32:41Now available in Canada and the UK too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash happiness. Before you jump back in, you know that feeling when feedback, notes, and data are coming in from every direction? ChatGPT work can make sense of it all. Turning scattered inputs into ready-to-review work. With your permission, ChatGPT Work can gather context from apps and files, summarize incoming messages, rebuild decks, and help finalize high-quality documents for your team or clients. Stay in control as you move from a goal to polished work faster with ChatGPT Work. Download the ChatGPT Desktop app today and take on your most ambitious work.

33:23Ready, set, summer with the Honda Summer Event. With impressive efficiency and sport-tuned suspension, the Honda Civic and HR-V have all you need to get summer-ready with the most fuel-efficient full-line automaker in America. For a limited time, well-qualified buyers can get a 3.99 % APR on a 2027 HR-V.

33:42Ryan Holiday:For more details, visit your Chicagoland Northwest Indiana Honda dealer today. See dealer for financing details. Based on EPA estimate of 2024 large full-line automaker fleet-wide fuel economy. EPA Automotive Trends Report 2025. To me, the essence of wisdom is like knowing what matters and what doesn't matter. And mental more is obviously a shortcut to like the ultimate wisdom of like, hey, basically nothing matters except this present moment and the people you love. But just, yeah, the faster and better you can get at being like, I have no control over that. It doesn't matter. Like Seneca talks about paying the taxes of life gladly.

34:16Yes.

34:17Ryan Holiday:I posted, we posted a daily story like every April 15th. And the irony of the people who get angry and think it's making a political point and they go, IRS, you know, taxation is theft. And it's like, no, he's saying that taxes are an unavoidable part of life, not just from the government, but like delays or attacks on travel. Rainy days are attacks on, you know, living in the tropics. Right. Like they're just every rose has its thorn. That's what he's saying. And I think the element of what philosophy is supposed to get you to, what wisdom and sort of these practices, okay, this is just a fact.

34:53Ryan Holiday:This is just a thing. And my opinion about it doesn't matter. Fighting about it doesn't matter. I just accept it and move on. And that's how you know you're making progress is the less hung up and resentful and bent out of shape you are about those things that just don't matter or are inalterable. And I think if you understand a little bit about the psychology, you can realize that like, not only do you have some agency in that, but there's learning that goes on, right? There's growth, right? If you take this mindset of like, I'm not going to let the BS destroy me, then when the BS shows up, you're like, oh, hang on, this is my time to level up.

35:27Like, this is some really good BS to like, achieve my comments on. And that reading the Stoics has been kind of a game changer for me is to remember that when the tax shows up, you're like, oh, good thing. This is how I build up my life tax resilience. And this is actually good. This is a chance for me to show my mettle or something. And I think that kind of stance can be really powerful because it means you almost not only are you like, I'm just accepting of the BS when it shows up. You're almost like, bring it. You know, I go to the airport and I'm like, is this going to be like when you go to the bath situation?

35:58Like, let's, you know, you know. Yeah.

36:00Ryan Holiday:I remember when I moved to New York, a friend who'd lived there a long time, he's like, look, the secret to New York is you got to understand that it costs what it costs. You come from somewhere else, you're like, this is insanely expensive. This is insanely dirty. You just have all these objections that this isn't how it should be. And he was basically saying, like, look, if you're going to go out for drinks in New York City, it's going to cost a lot of money. If you're going to go out to breakfast, your apartment's going to – that's just what it is. And the sooner you accept that, and he wasn't making a financial point.

36:28Ryan Holiday:He was saying, like, don't add on top of this resentment and bafflement and don't spend a ton of energy trying to think you can beat the system. It costs what it costs. And to me, that's like just a really basic philosophical, like life is what it is. People are people. When you go to the baths, expect this thing. That's what it is. And that was true in ancient Rome. It was true in ancient Greece. It was true in this or that dynasty in China. It's just how it is. It's just how it is. The sooner you go, it costs what it costs. I'm just going to pay it. And I'm going to pay it gladly, the happier you can be as a person.

37:04And this, I think, is where imagination can help us because you can help yourself remember that, ooh, this is a situation coming up where, like, it's a bath situation. My husband's a philosopher, also a big stoic stan like me, and he constantly is reminding me, like, this is a bath situation. He lives in the Midwest, which means we're constantly flying through O 'Hare Airport. And I think, like, you know, Epictetus wasn't talking about O 'Hare Airport, but he could have been when he was talking about the baths. And, like, literally when I'm about to book a flight and I'm like, here's our labor in O 'Hare, my husband will be like, remember, we go to the baths.

37:33Like, when you go to O 'Hare, flights get canceled, there is snow, And you just have to, and I'm like, oh yeah, it's a bad situation.

37:40Ryan Holiday:I flew through O 'Hare a week and a half ago. And even though as I was looking at the flight on FlightAware, it's like average flights out of O 'Hare are 32 minutes delayed, right? And I get there and I was flying from Dubai. And so it's like, all I wanted to do was get home. You know, it's like the last two and a half hour leg and get there, board the plane, immediate 32 minute delay. And I'm surprised by it. I'm like, what? You know? And it's like, no, no, they told you on average this was going to happen. It could actually be worse that it was almost certainly not going to be better. And here you are.

38:16Ryan Holiday:You have the information. You know what O 'Hara is like. And you know what O 'Hara is like right now. And then you're disappointed, caught off guard, and you are like frustrated as if something's being done to you, as if it's not being done to everyone and they didn't warn you in advance. Yes, yes, yes. But for me, that advanced simulation when I'm like I'm going to – we're here in Texas having this conversation. I'm in Austin relative to the Northeast. There's just a lot of traffic. There's a lot of like you're just going to not go very far and you're going to sit in traffic. And I just have to – when you're in Austin, you just do what they're going to do.

38:50Ryan Holiday:You go, hey, at least it's not Sao Paulo or something. Yes. But the perspective goes is, hey, would you rather it be canceled? Yes. And that moment of negativity, like recognizing you have the agency to pick a different reference point is so, so powerful. A couple of years ago, I broke my knee on the ice for the second time. So I broke my knee on the ice the first time. And then a few years later, I broke my knee again. And it was like right at the beginning of this very busy period of my life. And I was so bummed out about it. And I was like, this is a time for the Stoics. And I picked up Bill Irvine, the philosopher.

39:20I think you've had him on the show. It's a book, Stoic Challenge. And he was like, you know, this is a Stoic Challenge. But the book is awesome because it goes through like, you know, you broke your leg. I was like, well, that happened to me. Like, bummer. But then he's like, but you could be, you know, blind. Like, you could have, like, had your leg chopped off. You could be locked in, right? Where, like, you know, you literally can't communicate with anybody except blinking your eyes and you're drooling. And I was like, oh, that's – knee is great. I can deal with knee. It's like – and so just having that power, like, taking the agency to remember that you can find this reference point that makes you feel not that bad.

39:51That, for me, has been a real game changer.

39:53Ryan Holiday:Well, Epictetus said, you know, we choose which handle we're going to grab. That every situation has two handles. And I actually, I don't disagree with the Stoics too much, but I would say actually every situation has an infinite number of handles and you get to choose which one you're going to go. So, hey, it's broke your knee instead of, you know, an amputation. That's one. The other is what are the fucking chances that I broke my knee twice the same way? Isn't this hilarious? You know, there's an infinite number. The Stoics talk about humor a lot because I feel like that's where my mind goes to with some of these negative visualizations, but I don't see that as much.

40:25Ryan Holiday:Well, Seneca says that there's two schools of thought. She says there's Democritus, who basically despaired and cried over the awfulness of life, and Heraclitus, who laughed at it. And which are you going to choose? So again, that's the handle, right? You're going to choose the depressing, cynical handle, or you're going to choose the absurdity laughter handle. We know that one of the Stoics, Chrysippus, dies of laughter. He's actually on the Wikipedia page for unusual deaths. And the joke is he was sitting on his front porch and a donkey runs away from its owner and runs up and begins eating like figs out of his garden.

41:02Ryan Holiday:And Chrysippus says, you should get that donkey some wine to wash down those figs. And then starts to laugh at his own joke, which as I do not understand, like I don't get the joke. What does it mean? And he laughs so hard that he dies. That's beautiful. Which I love because first off, we had this idea of the humorless Stoics. Yes, yes. And then in and of itself is funny. What a ridiculous way to die. Like probably if you could have told him that was how he's going to die, he's like, that's beautiful. It's a legacy. And it's kind of a memento mori thing too. Like, you know, you look at like famous people who died on the toilet or, you know, like, just like you think life is so dignified and in your control and you're going to die with your boots on.

41:40Ryan Holiday:And it's like, actually, no, you're going to sneeze too hard and have a stroke. You know, like the human body is so lame and stupid and you're not any bit above that. Yeah. And when you ultimately look at that, it's kind of funny, right? It's kind of, it's like connects you with everything, right? Yes. You see like, oh, there's a deer got an antler stuck in a tree. They'll find, or have you ever seen where it's like two, like a deer with another deer's head? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. And you're just like, that's so dumb. And then you're like, like human history is in full of dumber ways that we've killed each other.

42:13Ryan Holiday:or accidentally killed ourselves. You know, it's just like life is pathetic in that way. Yeah. Recognizing that humor can be part of your agency, I think is really, really, really powerful. Do you feel like the Stoics didn't talk about happiness enough? Well, I think, I mean, their whole point was getting to a happy life. I think they didn't define it that much because I think they were kind of like, what you want is like not to be bothered by the BS of life. Like, I think they didn't state that out because they just thought it was so self-aware. Let's eliminate all the pointless causes of unhappiness.

42:42Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And ultimately, I think, you know, they're channeling something I think is really important in the happiness science, which is like even in extreme circumstances, like it doesn't define your happiness in the way that you think. Right. And all the good stuff definitely doesn't define your happiness, like getting more money, getting more prestige, that stuff. It doesn't make you happier. And I think the Stoics were on to that, but also for a different reason, which is like at any point it could go away. Right. And so if you're going for that and you tend not to have control over that stuff as much.

43:10Right. Right. So leading a life where you really don't want to be perturbed, just go for the stuff that you can control and you make it much easier on yourself.

43:17Ryan Holiday:Well, Cicero's question was like, can you be happy on the rack? Yes. And that seems like, you know, is that like a philosophical question, like the trolley problem? And then it's like, well, this dude did get his head and hands chopped off by a vindictive, you know, enemy. So it wasn't so abstract. Like he did mean, can you be happy when you're grieving the loss of a child? Can you be happy when your government has fallen? Can you be happy when you're in exile? I do think the Stoics specifically had a more robust and resilient happiness in mind. They weren't talking about laughter and fun so much.

43:57Ryan Holiday:It's not smiling happiness, but it's something more profound. It's eudaimonia, right? They're like stealing from these other ancient concepts. So it's really about kind of having a flourishing life. But I think the difference of a flourishing life for the Stoics is like, okay, have the flourishing life and do all the good, valuable, moral things. But also don't let the BS get you down. Like don't experience the perturbations. Or just not get rid of the negative emotions, but use them in ways to get you towards your values and regulate them as quickly as possible. In part because like you can, right?

44:25And so I think what the Stoics are really focused on, or at least my read of the Stoics is focused on, is like regulating that negative emotion so that you feel happy kind of in your life. Modern day psychologists tend to think about happiness as having these two parts, sort of being happy in your life. So ideally lots of positive emotion, the laughter and so on, but less negative emotion, not none, but less negative emotion. And then second, being happy with your life, which is kind of like you think your life is going well. It has value. It has purpose. Having enough. Having enough.

44:52Ryan Holiday:Not needing some conditional future thing to go a certain way to become happy then, but you have it now. Yeah. And I think the Stoics tapped into both of these. Often psychologists talk about these two parts as sort of the affective part of happiness, how your life feels versus the cognitive part of happiness, how you think your life is going. Right. And I think the Stoics wanted to kind of achieve both, right? You regulate your negative emotions. You come up with all these strategies to have control over them. But you also have control over your thoughts and how you think it's going, right? And so even in a bad situation, you can think it's going well because you have a mechanism of appreciating it.

45:25Ryan Holiday:Yeah. It's tough, though. It's tough, though. How many powerful, successful, important people would we say were happy? Very few, right? Yeah. But I think the Stoics would be like, yep, because they're going after all these things that they ultimately can't control, right? Right. But I think also the Stoics, so that's another big principle of the happiness science. You can definitely become happier. You can't become infinitely happier. Most of the modal size of most of the effects in the field are about 10%. Dan Harris has this idea of 10 % happier. And it's really built on the evidence because you can go up about a point on a 10-point happiness scale.

46:03It's what most of these interventions do, right? So you can get happier, but ultimately it takes some work. And I think those Stoics knew about, you know, I mean, some of the most painful passages in the Stoics for me are when they're just like laying out like, yeah, you know, your kid could go and you got to like just be like, yep, he didn't belong to me anyway. And you're like, yeah, but like, yeah, you know, it didn't belong to me. So if I really want to be happy, I just have to not, I have to, you know, the day after your spouse dies, you're like, yeah, I'm not perturbed because my goal is to live unperturbed.

46:32And you're like, oh man, that's rough. That takes a lot of work.

46:36Ryan Holiday:It's a lot to ask. It's a bit much to be like, you know, Mark Surrealist's meditation is a little depressing. It's like, okay, this guy was the most powerful person in the world. Yeah. He spent his whole reign at war. There was a flood. There was a famine. There was a coup attempt. Some historians think his wife was repeatedly unfaithful. unfaithful. He buried more than half of his children. He lost his father as a young man. You know, just think of the conniving, awful, disingenuous people he would have had to deal with on a day-to-day basis. And by the way, what he really liked was books, and he never had a time.

47:10Ryan Holiday:Like, it's a lot to be like, well, you know, he could have been more fun. Like, that this guy got out of bed in the morning was a profound statement about his happiness and hopefulness and, you know, sort of character and resilience. Like, I think it would have wrecked most people. Yeah, it's insane that he didn't kill himself, to be quite honest. Like, how did he not stagger under those blows? And I would say he probably did, but there was some fundamental love of life and the day-to-day that kept him going. And I think that this, you know, this idea of a fundamental love of life and the day-to-day that keeps you going is so powerful, right?

47:51In the happiness space, folks often talk about gratitude, which I think can sometimes sound cheesy. I wish I had better marketing. I like to talk often about delights, which are just kind of just like things in the world that you like delight. Like it's just, you know, sunny out. This cat's here and it's really cute. You know, I mean, morning coffee has a little swirl in it. And that's funny. It's like, oh, delight. It's just like -

48:10Ryan Holiday:But that's some of the best writing and meditations. He's talking about like a stalk of grain bending under its own weight. He talks about the brow of a lion. And my favorite delight one, he talks about the way that you put a loaf of bread in the oven and when it comes out, it has this crack on the top. And he's like, nobody knows why. And it wasn't on purpose, but it's sort of pretty. And just like the poet's eye for the mundane extraordinariness of life. Yeah. And I think, you know, what they're tapping into is a positive emotion that we know is super important for happiness. We don't talk about a lot, which is this emotion of awe.

48:45Yeah. Right. It's kind of something bigger than you. It's kind of like you don't really understand it. So it kind of makes you feel a little bit weird. And I think that Stoics saw that level of awe in so many things, including the moral goodness of other people, right? This guy, Dacher Keltner at UC Berkeley, does a lot of studies of awe. And he kind of goes through the different categories where we experience awe. Like you think it's like, you know, like some spiritual moment or taking psychedelics or the Grand Canyon. And he's like, most of the ones that normal people report on a day to day are the moral goodness of other people.

49:15Ryan Holiday:Yeah. Just like somebody did something really amazing and good or somebody achieved some really interesting thing. Like, and I think this - You lose a pair of sunglasses and they're at the lost and found when you come back for them. Yeah, somebody turn them in. Or, you know, you're walking and somebody drops their ID and you see someone else pick up the ID for them and you're like, that's just - You see someone help a mom down a flight of stairs, like carry the stroller or whatever, you know, like strangers when it's like, oh, holding the door open. Yes. Yeah. They're just kind of helpers around.

49:41And I think that the Stoics were looking for those moments of moral goodness. They wanted to experience them themselves and be the kind of person that did that stuff. But they also were like open to noticing it. Plus the cracks on the bread, right? The little tiny little wonderful delights in the world.

49:56Ryan Holiday:You were saying awe. It's like, how do you find awe in an awful world? Right? Like not, hey, look, if you retreat to a monastery and you live in the beautiful green hills of China, you know, open up the window and be like, wow, this is amazing. That's one thing. It's like, I'm gonna go to the beach this weekend. It's gonna be wonderful. The ocean is the ocean. But it's, can you find the awe in the delayed flight on the way there? Yes. That this is the miracle of flight. Yes. And that, you know, the rude person, hey, that we're not like stabbing each other to death is actually pretty incredible.

50:29Ryan Holiday:The coordination of all of this. And, you know, can you find it in the not so awesome things? Yeah. That's where the work is. The anthropologist, Sarah Herdy, who studies primates and primate interactions has this essay about getting off a flight where everybody stands up and everybody's like pissy and kind of hungry. And she's like, if this was any other species, like she literally says, no one would leave with their testicles. Like testicles would just be all over this Delta Flay, like on the chairs and stuff. We'd be killing each other. And she's like, it is amazing that we have one, that we get to be in one of the few species that all that happens is somebody says a nasty thing to them by the intent.

51:06it, right?

51:07Ryan Holiday:By and large, cooperate and collaborate with each other. So even in like the O 'Hare terribleness, you can find, you know, these moments of awe. But as we were just saying, it's hard. And it's hard in part because our mind is built with this negativity bias. We instantly go to the terrible things. It takes no work whatsoever to find like how mad I am about O 'Hare or the flights delayed, right? But it takes some work to notice the neutral stuff or the good stuff. But this is what I think that the kind of training and the practice is about, right? Is that you build up the ability to do that better and better.

51:35I hope you've been enjoying my conversation with Ryan Holiday on the Daily Stoic Podcast. We'll have even more after the break. Does anyone else feel like August is the Sunday of summer? Especially when the new school year looms, I start thinking about resetting my routine. And for me, that often begins with my closet. I've been trying to buy fewer, better pieces, the kind I know I'll wear again and again. And that's why I've become such a fan of quince. The piece I keep reaching for is quince's washable stretch silk tiered maxi dress. The silk feels incredibly soft, it has a little stretch to it so it's comfortable to wear all day long, and the fact that it's washable makes it so much more practical than you'd expect from a silk dress.

52:18Also, it's got pockets. Love the pockets. That dress looks polished but effortless. Exactly what I want from the clothes I wear most. Upgrade your everyday. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com slash happiness. Get free shipping on your order, and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. That's quince.com slash happiness. Before you jump back in, you know that feeling when feedback, notes, and data are coming in from every direction? ChatGPT work can make sense of it all, turning scattered inputs into ready-to-review work. With your permission, ChatGPT work can gather context from apps and files, summarize incoming messages, rebuild decks, and help finalize high-quality documents for your team or clients.

53:09Stay in control as you move from a goal to polished work faster with ChatGPT work. Download the ChatGPT desktop app today and take on your most ambitious work. I'm Jake Brennan, and on my podcast, Hollywoodland, I revisit some of the biggest stories from Hollywood history, separating the myths people want to believe from the reality underneath them. Like how the story of Marilyn Monroe isn't just the story of a Hollywood icon. Marilyn Monroe has become so iconic that her death can only be explained through conspiracy theories. And for some fans who can't let go, these stories have metastasized from conjecture to accepted fact.

53:53So on August 4th, 1962, Marilyn Monroe died. Then the rumors started and she died again. And now we're going to set the record straight and learn about the way Marilyn Monroe actually died the third way. Learn more about what happens when fame, media obsession, and conspiracy collide. Listen to Hollywoodland on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

54:20Ryan Holiday:Don't you think that's the challenge of our time though? It's like, how do you find And in so much awfulness, how do you not let miserable, awful people, which we see on the headlines or in the headlines? Yeah, I could pick up my phone right now and change my mood negatively if I wanted to. How do you not let that make you miserable? How do you not like the Stoics talk about how the best revenge is to not be like that? How do you find happiness in profoundly unhappy times? That's the challenge. Well, one of the insights I had, because I think sometimes also people think an additional challenge of that is people think it's not moral to find happiness in those times, right?

54:57How can you be the person that's looking away when, you know, the economy is falling apart, the climate's falling apart, the world's falling apart? Like, you're a bad person. Like the idea of if you're not angry, you're not paying attention. Right. But this winds up being an interesting empirical question for nerdy psychologists like me. Like that has a certain hypothesis, which is like if you're not like violently angry and very perturbed in the stoic words about this, you're not doing anything about it. And this guy, Konstantin Kuchlev at Georgetown has been studying this. He actually goes out and asks, like, who are the people who are like showing up at a protest, for example, for like, say, Black Lives Matter or climate justice or something.

55:31And he finds it's actually the people who are experiencing the least negative emotion. And you kind of when you reflect on it, you get that you're like, oh, if I'm experiencing extreme negative emotion, like I'm not getting out of bed. Like I'm just under the duvet about like all the terrible things in the world.

55:44Ryan Holiday:There's a statement of hope to go to the protest. Exactly. You think that there's some agency that you can take to fix it. And that set of findings has helped me a little bit because sometimes I kind of fall under that, like, how dare I not be upset at this? How dare I not be angry or sad or whatever? And that research suggests, like, actually, if you want the bandwidth to make a difference, you got to go stoic and regulate some of your emotions so that you're noticing the bad things, but you're not affected, perturbed by them, right? And in theory, that's going to give you the psychological bandwidth to actually fix this stuff.

56:15So I've been helped by recognizing like, oh, it's not just not a bad thing to not be pissed off at all this stuff or participate in it to the point that it affects my emotions. It's actually the most effective thing I could do if what I want to do is act better.

56:27Ryan Holiday:Well, it all comes down to efficacy, right? Because if you are up against evil or powerful interests or intractable, you know, complex issues, the idea that you're going to bring your best self while you're caught up in the passions, as the Stokes would say, is preposterous. No, it's precisely here that you need to be the most calm, the most in command of yourself, because they're not going to give you anything, right? They want you to be angry. That's actually, I mean, part of the media strategy, as they have disclosed, is this idea of flooding the zone with shit, making everyone confused and overwhelmed, making them believe they're more powerful than they are, that the resistance is less powerful and the powers that be are more powerful, to make you think it's not possible, that it's only going to get worse, and then you don't do anything.

57:15Ryan Holiday:That's the whole point, is to make you irrational so you can't rationally solve for the actually somewhat solvable problems. Yeah, and I think that what the research really shows is that we're just much better at solving these problems when we are not beset by our emotions, right? I mean, I think this is the thing you forget, that like, you know, there's this other cute study by my former colleague, Susan Nolan-Huximo, where she looks at this idea that we sometimes assume that like, if I ruminate about this problem, I get really upset about it. If it's like really affecting me, then I'll find a solution.

57:47Because I think we have this, we're not like masochists and wanting to be so upset about stuff. I think we think that this is the right thing to do to get to a good solution. But she has people either ruminate about a particular problem. These are college students. So it's like, someone's not hanging out with you. It's like these problems that aren't, you know, world peace and these big things we're worried about. But she either has people ruminate about it or just distract yourself. Just do something else to distract yourself when you're thinking about this problem. And then she has people go through optimal solutions.

58:10And she finds that people who are ruminating, people who are thinking about it, getting so upset about it, they actually came up with the worst solutions. The infirmity who just distracted themselves and were like, I'm not going to. And so this is a sort of strategy I've taken with the current news cycle where it's one thing to be informed, but it's another to be destroyed by this stuff. And I think that what what you actually need to do to get informed is not as much as we think. It's not being on social media every day. Like, you're going to hear about what's going on in 24 to 48 hours.

58:40Ryan Holiday:I don't need any more information to let me know that what they're doing is criminal, that it's cruel, that it's stupid, that it violates most of the laws of economics. Also, like, I know this by now, right? Like, and this is also the fundamental idea from the ancients that character is fate. Like when you like even if some of the ideas were good, the people who are trying to execute them are bad people doing them for, you know, motivated by bad reasons. So I'm opposed. Right. So I don't need to follow this day to day. Like, sometimes it can be helpful to look back historically. Like, if in 1964, you sort of actually put some thought into what was happening in Vietnam and the bogus reasons we were there, you would go, yeah, we have no business being here and everything we do there is wrong.

59:29Ryan Holiday:You didn't need to then follow it day to day for the next seven or eight years to update your opinion. Your opinion was correct from the outset. Actually, you could be organizing. You could be moving. You could be running for office. There's a bunch of things you could do. But reading the day-to-day news reports is only going to make you despair. And that was when it was day-to-day, right? The problem is we, like, I mean, you know, a gift to you if you only look at this stuff like once a day. newspaper. Oh my God, that would be incredible. Yeah. I mean, I often think about like, what would the Stoics think about what we are, you know, just like the clickbaity headlines designed to like steal your emotions.

1:00:10They would be like, what, what have you done?

1:00:12Ryan Holiday:Think about Mark Cerise. He's the head of this empire. So all the news, all the important, he's, it's all his purview. He would look at your and my information diet and be like, how do you manage? And he was running an empire of 50 million people in which information was essential, right? And he'd be like, you're just getting minute to minute reports about like cabinet meetings. He'd be like, I mean, they tell me like, I've been at the front for the last two years. They send me summaries and I read that. Like it's insane how much information. And if you're not an intelligence operative or a hedge fund manager, chances are you are doing nothing with this information, but torturing you.

1:00:52Ryan Holiday:You want to get just enough and you want to have rooted it enough in psychology and history and philosophy that you can know what's what. You can know what's good, what's bad, what's cruel, what's immoral, et cetera. But I don't think you need the minutes of these meetings. You're not in the cabinet. Yeah. And I think you need to notice how it's affecting you. This is why I always love stealing all the ancients and pulling them together. I think this was something that the Buddhists talked about a lot, right, is this idea of noticing every time I pick up my phone and go on Blue Sky, I leave with my, you know, my chest clenched.

1:01:29I'm like ready to scream. You know, my husband's talking. It's like, oh, that wasn't good. But I think sometimes these things happen, like our emotions change so unconsciously and then we can unconsciously affect other people. It's a real skill to be noticing what this stuff is doing to you. And so I think just notice, like, you know, did you get the information you wanted or is it making you feel better after or worse?

1:01:52Ryan Holiday:Yeah, exactly. I feel worse every time I do this. Why am I doing it over and over and over again, expecting to feel differently? Yeah. And it's time to like, you know, what are the, I think sitting down and going, hey, what parts of my information diet can I cut out? And again, that you have a duty to be an informed participating citizen. But where is the proof that this is informing you? Or helping you participate. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Catherine Price, who's been on my podcast, The Happiness Lab, a bunch. She has this lovely book called How to Break Up with Your Phone, where she kind of argues you don't need to break up with your phone, but you need to take it like to couples counseling for kind of situations like this with the news.

1:02:30And she has this acronym. She uses WWW. Whenever she tries to interact with her social media, which stands for what for, why now, and what else? Like, what was this for? Was there a purpose to it? Was I trying to check some effectoid about what was happening in the news? Or was I just like sucked in, right? Why now? And this is a kind of mindfulness mode, like what drew you in? Were you already a little anxious and that made you scroll even more? So you kind of, you know, created your own doom spiral.

1:02:54Ryan Holiday:Frustrated, tired, bored. Right. Like all these things that if we were, you know, following the Stoics, we'd just find some other way to notice and find some way to deal with. But the biggest one, what else? Right. There's an opportunity cost whenever you're spending your limited time, you know, moving up to your eventual death. Right. Like doing this stuff. And like what, you know, what else could you be doing with that time that might fit with your higher ideals and your values better? And the acronym has kind of helped me because sometimes I'll, you know, you probably do this too. You just find yourself with your phone in your hand.

1:03:21You're midstream. You're like, wait, WWW. Like I was being avoidant because I was avoiding some other problem. And now I'm anxious about this other thing. And like I could put this down and take a walk or I could put this down and go talk to my husband or something.

1:03:33Ryan Holiday:Yeah. My wife and I try to like when we see each other, you know, really getting stuck in the phone, we go, you don't want to be doing that. And then as soon as you kind of break the trance, you're like, oh, yeah, but I'm like, it was designed by the smartest people with the best technology for the same reason the casino doesn't have clocks or windows. And you just need someone to snap you out of the hypnosis a little bit. And then you can make a you can make a better new decision instead of just the continuing the decision that you already made. I mean, that's another thing I'm constantly thinking about what the Stoics would think about.

1:04:07you know, we just talked about like the information overload that we're all experiencing, the kind of fire hose, how's it the Stoics would be fascinated by the trance, right? There's so much stuff now that sucks us into a trance. And I think, you know, the Buddhists had a different take on that, which is like, you want to be present in the trance is bad for that reason. I think the Stoics think you're, the trance causes you to miss out on so many positive emotions and often is indirectly sucking you into lots of negative emotions too.

1:04:31Ryan Holiday:Yes. Yeah. Anything that like had power over you, they would have been very skeptical of. So you're like, I can't not do this thing. They'd be like, well, it doesn't stop. Yeah, you got to get away from that. So you have the Memento Mori ring. And then what's the other bracelet? So the other bracelet, which actually my producer, Ryan, who's my co-writer for my podcast, The Happiness Lab, gave me, is it's an arrow with two arrow points that goes around as a bracelet. Sometimes it stabs me because it's very sharp. But that's drawing me the parable of the second arrow, which comes from the Buddhist.

1:05:00So if you don't know it, Buddha is talking to his followers and he asks his followers, if you're walking down the street and someone shoots you with an arrow, is that bad? And the followers are like, yeah, kind of seems like that sucks. Like, Buddha says, OK, imagine you're walking down the street, someone shoots you with the first arrow. But then they also immediately after that shoot you with the second arrow, too. Is the second arrow, is that worse? And the followers are like, yeah, it sucks twice as much to get shot by a second arrow. So Buddha says, first arrow is the circumstances of life.

1:05:26That's your car doesn't start. That's you break your knee. That's your O 'Hara point and your flight's delayed. You don't have any control over that. That's the world shooting with the arrow. But the second arrow is usually the one you shoot yourself with. That's that I get really pissed off at the delayed flight. I'm angry and I'm pissy at my husband when I break my knee or whatever it is. And he's like, you don't have any control over that first arrow, but the second arrow you are shooting yourself with. And in my case, in the worst moments, it's not just a second arrow. It's like a 16th and a 17th arrow.

1:05:54Because like, you know, I like, you know, somebody at work does something stupid. Hours later, I'm talking to a friend. I'm like, oh, my God, I can't believe that person did that. And it's like the person's action is done. This is hours later. And so it's a Buddhist, you know, parable in a Buddhist tradition. But I think it fits so much with the Stoics. It's like the one arrow, let that go. Because like you can't control it, you know, ignore it, deal with it. But the second arrow, it's on you. You definitely can control that one. And so for me, that's been really helpful is like, is this the first arrow or is this the second arrow?

1:06:27Sometimes my producer, Ryan, who gave me the thing, well, if I'm complaining about something over text, he's based in London, so we're often texting each other. He'll text me the archery emoji. Archery emoji. And I'm like, OK, fair enough. Shut up. I'm moving on.

1:06:38Ryan Holiday:Well, Epictetus said, you know, it's not things that upset us. It's our opinion about things. And our opinion about things is the second arrow, right? It happened. It is bad. It happened. I'm harmed by it. It happened because that person is an asshole and they purposely targeted me. That's the second arrow stuff. The story we tell ourselves about it. I'll never recover, et cetera. And it's so amazing just how differently you feel when you change the story. My father-in-law passed away recently and everything was discombobulated and I was like, you know, we weren't doing stuff. And I found myself remembering that like, hey, this is a possibility in people's lives.

1:07:15People die. And, you know, was that like, you know, a parking lot or something and somebody like pulled into my space and my instant reaction other than like that person was like maybe a family member of theirs died it was just like in the possibility space for me and that just like changed my reaction to everything like instead of being pissy I had like compassion I'm like oh my gosh cut cut and cut in line you know do this thing and that just feels so different but it really was just like a slight change in the possibility space of which handle I was grabbing to interpret this event and you just realize that's possible for you all the time yeah in a way

1:07:48Ryan Holiday:some of our grief is the second arrow. Not that we're sad that we lost them. This is the one I have to say. It's like, I get it. I know the Stoics are right, but like, wow, is this one hard? Like your kid dies. You're like, well, it wasn't really mine in the first place. Moving on. No, that's not what I mean. Because I feel like the grief of just loss is unavoidable and a fact, right? I don't think any of the Stoics were like, oh, they were mortal when I met them. I don't think anyone's actually doing that, right? And I'm not sure it's healthy to do that. but the decision to say be haunted by the memory of this person is a loss on top of the loss so while they were alive every time you thought of them it was positive yeah yeah and when you saw them it was positive and now they're gone and you know you think of the anniversary of their death or you know every time every once in a while like i think about how many dead people are on my phone Oh, yeah.

1:08:41Ryan Holiday:Right. Because I type in the letter C and then, oh, shit, I forgot. But the feeling of sadness, loss, bitterness, whatever, I could also feel joy and love and gratitude. And so there's this second, and Seneca talks about this in one of his consolation essays, where he's like, do you think your father would want you to break down in sadness every time you think of him? That would have been like, if as he was leaving life, he was like, by the way, your memory is going to haunt your daughter. He'd be like, no, that's the worst thing. All anyone would want is to be remembered fondly and be a positive, ongoing sort of energy in your life.

1:09:26Ryan Holiday:And that is, we don't have total control of that, especially right as it happens. But as time goes by, I think you get to choose whether, how you think about that memory and what that death means to you. And I think the Stoics were kind of hedging against a certain form of that grief, which is like, I didn't do right by that person. I didn't spend time with them. Right. Like in theory, they're hedging against the regret of what happened so that, you know, when a person you care about passes, you're like, I recognize they were mortal the whole time. No, I'm not grieving, but I don't regret what I did when they were alive.

1:09:58I spent the time that I could have spent with them. I invested as much like, you know, I'm washing my hands of the regret part of it. And that that does feel like a different way to grieve.

1:10:09Ryan Holiday:I think they're certainly not holding on to the grudge. Yeah, they're dead. So like, I'm not sure they want you to be like, I should have called more. You know, they have let that go. You probably can too. Yeah. But if you do it in advance, then everybody, you know, then it's happy all the way through. Yeah. But yeah, the second arrow of like, okay, you lost them too soon. And now you feel guilty all the time. Yeah. Like you did lose them too soon and you could have done better. But the decision to wake up today and feel like a piece of shit about it. that's the second arrow or third arrow, fourth arrow.

1:10:44That's right. And recognize the second arrow is on you. Like it's sort of, you know, like two things, right? Like this is in the second category. This is a thing that you can control and it might be hard and it might take some work, but you actually can change your opinion about it.

1:10:58Ryan Holiday:Yeah, fate took them from you, but you are taking this out on yourself. Yes, yeah. That's a very stoic way to reinterpret from the second arrow. No, it's so beautiful how, like, I do know there's a couple of Stoic archery lessons. I mean, they just had the same technology and they were alive at the same time. Well, I was wondering, it's just people getting shot with arrows all over the place in the Buddhist days. Like, what was going on in these ancient times? I know both the Stoics and the Buddhists use that muddy water one. And so you're just like, even the metaphors are the same. They're just coming on the same essential truths.

1:11:31Ryan Holiday:And it's very rare that you come across any of the philosophical schools and you're like, this is something totally different than any of the others. and to go to the earlier point, this totally contradicts all the science about this subject. Well, I was saying the Buddhists, there are these cases where I like the Buddhists better than the Stoics. Here's the case where I like the Stoics better than the Buddhists, which is that the Buddhists were like really into the idea of suffering, not into it like you should get it, just like it is inevitable, it is there, it is centered. And I think the Stoics were like, yeah, there's the perturbations, but like it's number two.

1:12:04Like it's, these are, conceptually these are two distinct categories. So whereas the Buddhists were like Like the central is suffering and then you got to do the stuff around it. The Stoics were like, I don't know, man, these are two categories and we could kind of think about them differently. And so that's always given me a little bit more hope.

1:12:17Ryan Holiday:I also think, you know, living in Western civilization, there's something about the Stoics that that is not just familiar, but sort of practical in the sense where it's like somebody's got to run for office. Yeah. Somebody's got to man the sewers. I think Buddhism is a more spiritual and sort of individualistic pursuit. And there's something about Stoic philosophy that is like, okay, but this will work for society, not a band of roving monks. Yeah. I mean, the Stoics were like the OG advice column, self-help. It was going to be not in the posh books and stuff. It was going to be in whatever the tabloid magazine TikTok video of the time was going to be, minus the terrible algorithmic stuff.

1:13:03Ryan Holiday:But I think the Buddhists and the cynics are closer to each other in the sense where they're like, this is all bullshit, man. Yeah. And the Stoics are like a little. Some of it is. But like. Dude, you got to get through your day. You know. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like you you have a kid and they're hungry. So how are you going to feed them? You know, there's just like there's a sort of this is life. This is this human organism we were born into, and we have to figure out how to operate collectively in this city that we live in. And there's like positive emotion on the other side of that, right? There's like these kind of opportunities for growth or humor and all these things we were talking about.

1:13:39Ryan Holiday:Well, this is awesome. You want to check out some books real fast? Yeah, please. Let's do it.

1:13:49Ryan Holiday:Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it. And I'll see you next episode.

1:14:17One last thing before you go. You know that feeling when feedback, notes, and data are coming in from every direction? ChatGPT work can make sense of it all, turning scattered inputs into ready-to-review work. With your permission, work in ChatGPT can gather context from apps and files, summarize incoming messages, rebuild decks, and help finalize high-quality documents for your team or clients. Stay in control as you move from a goal to polished work faster with ChatGPT work. Download the ChatGPT desktop app today and take on your most ambitious work. On August 4th, 1962, Marilyn Monroe died.

1:14:54Then the rumors started and she died again. And now we're going to set the record straight and learn about the way Marilyn Monroe actually died. The third way. I'm Jake Brennan. And on my podcast, Hollywoodland, I revisit some of the biggest stories from Hollywood history. separating the myths people want to believe from the reality underneath them. Hollywoodland is part of the Exactly Right Network. Listen to new episodes every Monday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.