Stoicism with Ryan Holiday - Part 1

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1:09Plus, the card earns unlimited double miles on every purchase, so the more a business spends, the more miles earned. And when traveling, the Venture X Business Card grants access to over 1 ,000 airport lounges. The Venture X Business Card. What's in your wallet? Terms and conditions apply. Find out more at CapitalOne.com slash VentureXBusiness. Today on the James Altucher Show. It wasn't until I was like midway through it that I figured it out that it was about ego. I nailed that. So I usually like just don't talk about it until it's like well underway and it exists. You can't write a book for the sake of writing a book.

1:47That's how bad books are written. One of the traps of our time is that you have to have an opinion on every issue. I think people have to get along before they can have any sway on someone's opinions. But who's actually benefiting from you? Well, yeah, who has the audience, right? Do you have the audience or does the audience have you? What kind of success is it that you actually have less freedom once you've achieved it? This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is The James Altucher Show.

2:26So what have you been mostly up to? I know you have a book coming out in October. Yes, I do. I think it's October. So I'm finishing that. And then, yeah, starting to think about the next one. What do you think is going to be the next one? I know, I'm just not saying. Okay, I respect that. I think talking about it sometimes kills the energy a little. No, totally. I think, well, it's two things. Talking about it is a way to kind of get credit in advance. Yeah, it's like that go green hit. People are like, oh, it's so amazing. You know, whatever. I try to avoid that. But also I find that it's very discouraging to me because if I had my arms wrapped around it, I'd have probably done it already.

3:06I'm still like thinking about it. And so if I like describe it to you, it's going to sound stupid. And then your reaction is going to influence my… You know what? I'll be able to tell you exactly what it is and what it's about when I'm almost done. And if I'm doing it now. I feel like you were able to do that before, though. You had such a solid grounding with Ego is the Enemy and the whole series of Stoicism books. I think you were able to more... When there's a concept that is just really solid, I think you don't have that problem. Yeah, but see, Ego is the Enemy started as a book about humility.

3:50So if you're like, what are you working on next? And then I'm like, I'm doing this book about humility. Because I'm the expert. You'd be like, oh, cool. Good for you. I hope that does well. You know, and I'd be like, it wasn't until I was like midway through it that I figured it out that it was about ego. I nailed that. So, so I, I usually like just don't talk about it until it's like well underway and it exists. I think that's good. Like, I think, you know, I wrote, I wrote one to two books a year from 2003 to 2021. Yes. And then I haven't, so this is like the first time as an adult that I haven't written a book.

4:25in a couple of years. You feel backed up? Very much so. But I think you have to be true to yourself. You can't write a book for the sake of writing a book. That's how bad books are written. You've always seemed to me as someone who sort of is compulsively creative. Like I thought when you were doing your comedy stuff, I saw that as like, oh, actually, social media, writing online and doing books, James is like, no, he's just having to mainline it like directly from the source. Like you were like trying to get to the most unadulterated form of like expression, reaction, expression, reaction. That's sort of what I saw you chasing there.

5:08Yeah, I never thought of it that way, but you're right. A book, there's a very long waiting time between starting the book and getting the dopamine hit from releasing the book. But in standup comedy, you get that hit or not every day. And if you don't get it one day, You just go back the next day or the next hour and, and go for it. And that's true. And also it's, it's a very high pressure creativity. Like I need material for tonight. And so you have to be writing every day. And you see, you notice this with comedians, like even like take someone like Jerry Seinfeld, who's so successful as the greatest television show creator ever.

5:46He would say, if you say, well, what do you do for, he would say, I'm a comedian. Like comedians are comedians at the core. And ultimately, I was not a comedian. So that's not my core. But for comedians, that's their core. No matter what else, Kevin Hart, more of a movie guy and a production guy than a comedian. But he's a comedian at the core. Yeah, no, I think you're someone who has things to say. You have a point of view or a voice. And I think I've watched you. I was thinking about this on the way here. I would have started reading your stuff in 2010. So it's crazy to me that it's been 15 years.

6:19And I was realizing one of the first articles I read from you was an article you wrote about not going to college or dropping out of college. And I realized that that article hit me because I was still relatively close to having done that. Like, that's how long ago it was in my life that I was like, oh, this guy's like speaking to this thing that I did that I'm still not sure if it was the right decision or not. Because I don't know the end of the story yet. And so you've always struck me as a person who has strong opinions. and you've been trying your hand at lots of different outlets with a whole bunch of success.

6:57You sort of succeeded in each one of the mediums, but that you're like a point of view guy. That's what you are. Yeah, point of view. It's an interesting thing, point of view, because, and that means something different now than I think it meant 10 years ago or 15 years ago. Like now there's only two points of view and you're either like... What, woke and anti-woke or what? Or just like, you know, either Trump or anti-Trump or whatever. And like, I have actually like no interest in that. And so then the question is, what's ethical? Like, do you need to have an interest in that? Like I was talking to Mehdi Hassan and he was like, you need to have an interest in this.

7:36And, but I was more like, you know, I'm more interested in how I can become a better person. and then as just a side effect of that, that if people relate to that, then how other people become better people. Sure. And it's like different layers of where you should focus. So if I focus on, let's say, this other layer, then it might distract me from how I can become a better person. Like maybe how I become a better person by convincing people to have one stance or another when I don't even know. Like Ukraine's a great example. I have no clue other than what people tell me about what's going on in Ukraine.

8:12And so I can have a stance based on what people tell me. But then in terms of me then regurgitating that stance, I'd rather talk about what makes what adventures I'm going through that make me a better person. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, one of the traps of our time is that you have to have an opinion on every issue. Well, but people say silence is violence. So they make you feel like it's unethical if you're silent. Well, and it's hard because there is some truth to that, right? If they're taking people away to concentration camps and you don't have an opinion because you're really into physics, that you're complicit in that happening.

8:47And so obviously at some level, silence is violence. At the same time, the idea that everyone should have an opinion on everything all at the same time is partly what you could argue there's also a form of violence in that. We used to have this impression, and this is like a very 20th century opinion, that, or sort of worldview that authoritarian governments were about depriving people of information and enforcing sort of silence or whatever. And now what authoritarian regimes realize is that it's much easier to allow an ungodly amount of information, contradictory information out in the world, and then people just get confused and tune out or they don't, they're able to tell themselves whatever is comforting, right?

9:35And so part of, you could also argue that noise is violence because what it allows for is people to do sneaky shit or to do not sneaky shit, but just to do it in such a way that they get away with it. And so I think the idea that everyone should have every opinion all the time and be talking about it all the time is also wrong. There's some middle ground that each individual and then certainly each person with a platform or brand or an audience has to figure out the right amount of also. It's true. I guess in all that you just said, all that's true is the has to that you said in the last sentence there is where I wonder, like, what do I have to do?

10:18Like, I'm not obligated to my platform. Well, that's true. You don't have to do anything. And that's what makes it an ethical choice. Right. But then that's interesting though. Right. So there's a line where, of course, if I'm a physicist and that's all I'm interested in, but my neighbor is going to a concentration, I have to speak about that. That I could see. But, you know, I sort of, honestly, I sort of missed like 2011 and 2012 because nobody actually cared whether Barack Obama or Mitt Romney won. I mean, people did. Like if you're a Democrat, you wanted Barack to win. If you're a Republican, you wanted Mitt Romney to win.

10:50But nobody talked about it. I remember every other election. I don't remember 2012's election day. Well, look, in normal times, most people don't have to be political because there's an Overton window where, you know, okay, they might disagree this way or this way, but there's a sort of a box that we're all in relative agreement that these are the sort of assumptions. I think the problem is what has happened is what we're now sometimes calling political issues are actually sort of fundamental like social contract issues. And they're actually, like, I think sometimes people think I'm political and I'm actually not really talking about the passage of SB 112 or, you know, like the name of some law.

11:39Like I'm actually talking about philosophical issues and our politics have gotten so toxic that we're not talking about politics, but we're talking about bedrock philosophical things. Do you know what I mean? And yeah, I agree with that. Particularly the toxicity. Like I feel people, I feel, I feel like the problem now is people can't have conversations like, and, and like I have, I'm pro-choice, but I have a business partner who's pro-life and we've been business partners since 1999. Like he's kind of in the background of a lot of my business stuff. And we've never once had an argument, even though we've discussed pro-life, pro-choice stuff, like he adopts kids.

12:19Like he puts his, you know, his life where his opinion is. And I strongly disagree, but we never, there's no point in arguing because like he's got his view. I'm not going to change his mind and he's not going to change mine, but people still, I think people have to get along before they can change, you know, have any sway on someone's opinions. Yeah. I do think a part of it is probably rooted in the fact that what social media is built around is the solicitation of opinion, right? Like it is, it requires you, it, the fuel of social media is opinion and judgment. I would say now, but like 10 years ago, I don't think that was the case.

13:01Like I could talk about, Oh, here's the 10 things I did when I was broke and depressed to kind of overcome that. And that would get attention because people believed me and they trusted me and they would know my story or learn my story and then they would want to repeat or emulate what I did. So the big switch and like Jonathan Heights talked about this, but so like they say like social media is bad for kids or whatever. Actually, when you look at the data, it's not like social media has been around a long time. It's actually not like the level of mental health levels or whatever they track in kids that sort of see the spike.

13:34It's actually not like the day Twitter is invented or the day Facebook is invented. It's right when the social networks switched from a chronological feed to an algorithmic feed. Yeah, I agree. And so I think about this even with podcasting, which I'd be curious to have your take. I'll talk about that in a second. But the switch from chronological to algorithmic or even what TikTok does, which is switch it even from the social graph to purely the viral graph, right? Is the switch from, hey, I like that person. I want to follow them to this is what's being surfaced to me based on what the algorithm thinks will be the most engaging to me and based on what other people are sharing.

14:21And so it breaks social media from being this way to follow different people or things that you're interested in to being this thing that surfaces the most extreme, the most invigorating, the most outrageous, whatever, right? That's the fundamental switch. And that's why it goes from, yeah, people talking about their interesting lives to like sort of all politics, all division, all culture war stuff all the time. Yeah, and you're right. So, and then not only, the problem is the algorithm exists almost as an entity. So it's not like I'm tweeting something controversial so people are going to follow me because of the algorithm.

15:00It's we're both catering to the algorithm. Like now people tweet because they know it feeds, this giant algorithm monster and that people then are also praying down to, like, I'm going to go to the algorithm monster to look at all, to feel exciting and interesting. Well, instead of being a point of view guy, like, here's what I think. What happens, I think I've seen this happen to so many people I know. They were sort of a point of view person. They had an audience, they were putting stuff out. And then they touch upon an issue or they say something or they connect in some way. And then they become all that all the time.

15:37Right, which I think is very limiting. I feel like when I began the podcast, it was about what I cared about and what I was interested in. And I keep it that way. I mean, I've had some drift in different directions, but so many people say, oh no, you will get so many more downloads and followers if you pick one side or the other and you just go all in. I can't do it because A, I'm not that interested in that. And B, I don't think I serve anybody. If you're just preaching to the echo chamber, who's actually benefiting from you? Well, yeah, who has the audience, right? Do you have the audience or does the audience have you?

16:17Right. And I think that's what happens. And that's always the challenge with every writer. Like if you're just like, oh, I have to write books about stoicism because that's what my audience wants, then you just became a slave to your audience. Totally. And the challenge for any creative is to not be a slave to your work. Yes. I mean, that's why you see like... That's why you got into it. It was for the expression not to be corrupted and controlled by some algorithm. That seems like, what kind of success is it that you actually have less freedom once you've achieved it? Yeah, I mean, you can argue the brain.

16:51There's a built-in algorithm in the brain. It's like Joseph Campbell's Ark of the Hero, you know, the hero's journey. And you have to cater to that structure in the brain that appeals to heroic journeys. But that's about it. Well, I'm thinking about writing this article that I was once very bullish on podcasts. And now I'm increasingly beginning to think they're very bad for you. And I think part of it is the switch from a feed-based universe. If you think about podcasts five or ten years ago, a podcast is something you subscribe to. It's long form. It's the ads are pre-sold. So whether an episode does a million views or five, or sorry, a million listens or 500 listens, like you already sold it, right?

17:42It's not sort of sold in this real-time marketplace. It's primarily conversational. And so I thought those are all relatively positive elements of a medium that I think are designed to produce intelligent, good information. Now, what happens is podcast goes from being just audio to also video. And video, like people, a good chunk, 30 % to 40 % of the people who are consuming this episode will be watching it on YouTube. That's why I have this studio, right? But YouTube is inherently algorithmic. So it becomes how the thumbnail of the episode and the title of the episode and how many comments it generates and the watch time.

18:26All these other forces are now operating on you as a content creator. And then I would say the other thing is they now sell real-time ads in your thing. So for people to understand, you plug in this little chunk of code and they sell ads in that code. So if the episode blows up, they serve more ads. If it doesn't, whatever, they serve less. And so there's a greater sort of connection between content and profit. it. And then I think the other thing that I'm realizing is that, like, when McLuhan said the medium is the message, what he was saying is that, you know, and Postman talked about this too, whatever the medium goes towards or elicits from the creator or is most conducive to, it shapes the kind of content, right?

19:13And so, like, it's very hard. I think people think that podcasts are good because it has like two people who disagree talking with each other or it's like maybe um you know people outside the mainstream or whatever actually what i think a two-hour conversation is really good for is bullshit like it's very like you don't i'm not going to have you here and then like hold your feet to the fire for two hours that's like that'd be incredibly awkward on a personal level do you know what i mean also boring and well yeah sort of that too. But I guess what I'm saying is that what the friendliness of the medium actually allows crazy people and bullshit artists and manipulators and whatever who are good to use the medium to introduce shitty ideas or untrue things.

20:03But do you think that's true for every medium? Yes, but it's harder to insert outright nonsense and bullshit into a mainstream newspaper than a three-hour conversation where both people are smoking weed. Do you know what I mean? And also, you have to understand with podcasts, I'm talking about audio podcasts now, you have a captive audience because they're either in their car or they're at their gym. That's where people consume podcasts. And so they're not switching while they're driving. They're not switching while they're on the treadmill. So you have, it's probably more than most media, you have a captive audience.

20:37Yes, and so you can kind of do these meandering long form, Like, I just, when I hear people talk about things that I really know about, I'm like, this is, they're not even close, you know? And so it's interesting to watch people as, and I think any medium as it develops, it's, there's this kind of innocence and purity in the early days. and then people who need access to an audience get really good at figuring out how to sort of inject themselves into... I think Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a great example of a person who's just utterly full of shit and probably like literally insane who has figured out that, oh, this medium is conducive to spreading my type of thinking because it's fundamentally unrigorous and there's fundamentally a captive audience.

21:26And it doesn't, you don't go to a podcast to get political or medical advice for the most part. But if your favorite comedian is interviewing that person, now you're, that's being downloaded directly into your brain in a way that I think if he was forced to defend himself on television or in a debate or, you know, in an op-ed, it would fall apart. It's true because like, you know, I had him on my podcast and I knew I am for vaccines, but I don't know anything. I don't know any facts. And he knows a lot. And then we were going to talk about his autobiography, but then he goes for 20 minutes on this stuff.

22:08And I just don't know how to, I'm not, I can't respond to it. I don't know how to respond. And you're not, you're like, we got three hours left in the, or two hours left in this interview. I'm not going to be like, well, that was bullshit. You're not going to say that, right? And you're not. you're not 60 minutes or something where your job is to be hostile if they're, you know, like it's not an interrogation. And so what it does is I think it enables stuff to spread. It's an unfair playing field. And so I don't know, when I hear people tell me that they listen to lots of podcasts, I usually go like, I might turn, I might switch the ratio.

22:48I think podcasts are good. if you read a lot, if you talk to lots of smart people, if you have other information inputs and you also have a strong base of knowledge, I think podcasts can be great. They can be additive. But if you're just like a long-haul truck driver and you just do nothing but listen to podcasts all day, I think it will destroy your brain. It's bad for you. What should a long-form truck driver… I think audio… I mean, think about the… Like an audiobook and a podcast sound essentially the same. Right. But the amount of effort that goes into one versus the other, it's not even on the same planet.

23:26Right. Because an audio book will take you, let's say, two to three years. Yes. And it has to be worth paying for. It's designed to last for a long period of time. It's been at least edited. Like the person went over it several times. There was an editor and a copy editor and a legal review. And then the press, you know, there was a process. It's not a perfect process, but there was, it's the result. There's some stress applied to it. And then what a podcast is for the most part is a thought literally coming off the top of that person's head.

24:07Take a quick break. If you like this episode, I'd really, really appreciate it. It means so much to me. Please share it with your friends and subscribe to the podcast. email me at Alcatra at gmail.com and tell me why you subscribed. Thanks.

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26:05Being an entrepreneur is a 24-7 job. And when you're hiring, you need a partner that works as hard as you do. That hiring partner is LinkedIn Jobs. When you clock out, LinkedIn clocks in. LinkedIn makes it easy to post your job for free, share with your network, get qualified candidates that you can manage all in one place. For one thing, you can post a job. LinkedIn's new feature can help you write job descriptions and then quickly get your job in front of the right people. You get qualified candidates. at the end of the day, the most important thing to your business is the quality of the candidates.