#321 Ryan Holiday - The Stoic Survival Guide

28:18Ryan Holiday:I imagine there's an extra level of, not temptation, but where you're like, I could break this person in half. That's not a thought that enters my head, but I imagine when you are trained to do what you are trained to do and at different points in your life that has been unleashed, just the restraint of going, hey, that's not the rules of engagement in the world that I'm in now. That would be a level of restraint that you would have to practice. But one of the things I think about is like, okay, if somebody tried to control my thoughts or controlled what I said or controlled what I did, I'd like, I'd resist that.

29:02Ryan Holiday:Like just instinctively, I'm, that's, no, I get to decide. I'm in charge. And yet we kind of hand our minds over to people all the time. Like we let them, we let them just take up like inordinate amounts of time and space in our life. I was talking to this, talking to this writer I know, and she was saying, you know, she really didn't like what was happening politically. And she was saying that she was having trouble. She was like, I just can't. I can't work right now. Like, she's like, I'm so outraged. I'm so upset, so pissed off that like, I just, I can't, I can't do it. And I was saying like, okay, but like, if this administration came to you and was like, hey, if you keep doing your work, we're gonna throw you in prison.

29:47Ryan Holiday:You'd be like, that would be so immediately galvanizing that it would fire you up, right? You would never allow a government of any persuasion to tell you what you can and can't say. Like, that's the job of an artist, right? And that's what it means to be an American. That's what's all right there in the First Amendment. And I was like, but here, voluntarily, you're doing precisely that because you don't like what's happening in the world because it's dark or pissing you off or whatever. You're allowing it to consume so much of your mental bandwidth and your motivation, that's having the same effect.

30:26Ryan Holiday:Like, they might as well be putting a gun to your head and saying you can't do this, but it's actually worse because they're not doing that. And so I do think it's really important that we... You got to have some mechanism by which you put up some walls and boundaries, and then you protect the thing that is yours. Like, the Stoics would say the greatest empire is like command of yourself, right? Your sovereignty as an individual. And the problem is we give that up all the time because somebody cut us off in traffic, you know, like because we opened up our phone and the news was bad, because our parents are visiting, or you know, like we just let these things get inside us and then determine our mood, determine our focus, determine what we think about, determine our behavior.

31:19Ryan Holiday:And I mean, it's not easy. it's a lot of work and I fall down this, you know, sort of into these traps all the time, but I am trying to go, hey, like, I'm, I gotta, I gotta protect this. Even, even if it feels good or it, it, it, it feels natural. I can't allow that. Have you ever done psychedelics? No. Okay. Well, reason I'm asking, yeah, I have. Um, I did an Ibogaine treatment in Mexico four years ago. I haven't had a drop of ooze since, but a lot more in the moment. It was a life-changing experience for me. Anyways, the reason I bring it up is there's been very few times in my life where I've been able to completely separate myself from, I guess, maybe my ego and look at things from just a detached point of view that's maybe a different perspective than what I'm feeling in the moment.

32:29Ryan Holiday:One of the things that I did this really intense therapy thing, and I was sort of like just vomiting all this anger and resentment I had at this group of people, and the therapist was like, you know they're not thinking about you at all, right?

32:53Ryan Holiday:And he was like, they're just doing their thing. That's who they are. They have no awareness. Not only are they not doing it on purpose, but like they're utterly unconcerned and disinterested. of its effect on you. Like, they're not waking up and thinking about torturing you in this way. They're not waking up and thinking about abusing you in this way. They're not waking up and trying to make you miserable. They're inherently selfish, narcissistic people. Like, they're waking up and thinking about them. He's not saying it's awesome to be them. He's just saying, like, they're not thinking about you at all.

33:37Ryan Holiday:And it's like, we can see this, I think, much more clearly in other stuff, like, the economy's not thinking about you. like a hurricane's not thinking about you, that truck barreling towards you on the freeway is not thinking about you. But then for some reason, because people do have intentions and obviously we have to be aware of them, we do, I think, project a lot more intentionality on other people than is actually happening. And I think when you have someone who's like way inside your head, reminding yourself that you're not inside their head, is really important. And then I, like you all, sometimes I'll be like, I just planned out like a whole operation in my head of what I'm gonna do if they do this.

34:26And it's like, this is a hypothetical.

34:29Ryan Holiday:Like I just, my whole run, I was thinking about what I'm gonna say if they say this, and then I'm gonna say this, and then, and it's like, this conversation might not even happen. Contingency planning. Yeah, for a made-up scenario about a person that, again, if you ask them, you're like, they'd be like, who? They wouldn't think about me at all. And so it's like you're not the center of the universe, and almost certainly you're not the center of whatever the situation that you're making all about you is. Makes sense. Also where I was going with that is, is stoicism the ability to kind of view things not as a participant of what's happening?

35:13It's just strictly an observation or observing a situation.

35:18Ryan Holiday:Yeah, it's like sometimes it's really helpful to zoom way in, and then sometimes it's helpful to zoom way out. But it's like, a lot of times it's like, how do I take myself out of this equation? And that's what ego does, right? Ego makes it all about you. It makes you at the center of things. And even just remembering that everyone is the center of their situation, and that you're not the main character in all these other people's stories, you're a tangential character at best, is helpful. It's like, yeah, why am I making this all about? Whatever this was was not specifically chosen to drive you nuts.

35:57Ryan Holiday:Like, and that again, it's totally indifferent to you. Like one of the ideas for the Stoics is events are objective, our opinions about them are not. Like the situation is what it is. And then we say like, this is good or bad. I don't mean morally like positive or negative. We say like, this is fair or unfair. We say this is like mean or cruel. We say this was, you know, targeted. We say like we've been harmed by it. Like the thing is, and then we decide what it means. And a lot of times the stories we tell ourselves about stuff are pretty self-absorbed, pretty distorted, and like pretty emotional.

36:44Ryan Holiday:And I think, how do you get better at going, what if I could see this from another perspective or another way? Or what if I told myself a different story about this event? Yeah. What happens, I mean, what goes through your, when I told you, you know, I'll spend an entire day planning revenge or vengeance, what happens in your head when you're wronged, when you think you've been wronged, when somebody's... Well, oftentimes I go, okay, let's say I pull this revenge off. In all the times in my life when I have done it, how did I feel after? Pretty shitty. Yeah, shitty or at best disappointed, you know?

37:32Ryan Holiday:And why am I telling myself it's going to be different this time? and the idea of thinking about what you're going to think after is like a really powerful way. Do you know the word Epicurean? I don't. That was the rival school to the Stoics. There's the Stoics and the Epicureans. And Epicurean also in English tends to mean like loves pleasure, you know, indulges every whim. And that's not really what they thought at all. But Epicurus, what he would say, he was, let's say, more pleasure-seeking than the Stoics. He would say that if you're going to, you're like, hey, let's share this bottle of wine.

38:13Ryan Holiday:He's like, you can't think about just how it's going to feel on the way down. You have to think about how you're going to feel after. And that part of the experience has to be put into the calculation. But humans are bad at this, right? Like we, we tell ourselves, oh, if I make this amount of money, then I'll feel secure and good. If I get with this person, then I'll feel, it'll be amazing. And then I'll feel good. And people will look, if I get this car, if I, if I win this office, if I, you know, hit this number on the chart, like we, we just, we tell ourselves this lie that like this thing will do something for us.

38:55Ryan Holiday:Now, the first time or when you're younger, we can excuse this because like we don't have, although there's all sorts of wisdom out there telling us that it's not going to do what we think it's going to do for us. We don't, we haven't directly tested the hypothesis ourselves. But I think as you get older to still be falling for that lie is a problem, right? You You know how you feel when you have a hangover. You gotta take, like, that should change the drinking that you do. You know that, I don't know, your marriage is incredibly important to you and certainly not worth a few minutes of pleasure.

39:38Ryan Holiday:And yet you, in the moment, are considering doing something that, you know, would blow that up. or you know all your other accomplishments have never made you feel secure or like you've arrived, that there's an emptiness or a hollowness to them, and yet you go, it's different this time. Like - Why do we, I mean, yeah. Well, I think from an evolutionary standpoint, it makes total sense, right? Like if humans were good at being like, I'm good, I don't need any more. Like enoughness is not a great evolutionary feeling, but like insatiability makes you go on to the next and the next and the next thing.

40:22Ryan Holiday:And so that can be good for the species as a whole, but really bad for the individual. Makes sense. I think it's, we're not, we are not designed to, our biology is not inclined to make us feel content and happy and secure. And it takes a lot of work, like, to counteract that impulse. How have you done it? I mean, I struggle with it like everybody else. I try to walk through this process. Like, how am I going to, like, am I, it's not that to me, like going like, okay, hey, if I get on the other side of this, this accomplishment, this achievement, whatever, it's not going to make me feel, it's not going to magically fill some hole in my soul.

41:20Ryan Holiday:That doesn't mean it's not worth doing. I can find other reasons to do it. Like it's challenging, it's interesting, you know, it's beneficial to people around me. Like there's other reasons to do it. And then what I find is that if I'm doing it for those different reasons, the outcome, if I'm lucky enough to get it, I feel differently about it too. Because there's not a false expectation that was impossible to meet. but i i think i i i mean i i'm constantly trying to to stop and go why do i why do i keep finding myself in this same why don't you know and the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again expecting different results like that's that's like the kind of the human condition and i'm like why why do i keep sort of backing myself into this corner finding myself going down this lane, and then I'm like, I know better than this.

42:21Ryan Holiday:I think I'm doing it better than I was when I was 19, but I'm still doing some version of it. And I think we're all battling these kind of scripts or these patterns that we picked up on in our lives, and we're trying to get a little better at it as we go. Yeah, it reminds me of the saying, nothing's what it's cracked up to be. Yeah. Well, how did you get into this? I was... Stoicism. What caught your interest? Yeah. It's funny. I was in college. I was taking a philosophy class. And then I went to this conference. I wrote for the college newspaper. And I asked the guy who was speaking, I said, like, hey, you got any book recommendations?

43:10Ryan Holiday:And he was like, you know, I'm reading this guy Epictetus. I think he would like it. and I ended up getting somehow, I forget how, but I ended up with Marcus Aurelius instead, probably because I saw the movie Gladiator. And I just, I opened this book and I go, what the fuck has this been? You know, like, this is what, like, this exists. Like, this advice is there. Like, and it kind of just turned my world upside down. How so? Just that I think all young people, anyone coming of age, but men especially in this world are looking for the path. What should you do? What should you not do? And they're looking for it in a way that school doesn't address.

44:03Ryan Holiday:They're looking for it in a way that the church doesn't address. I mean, especially, I think in some ways, like, you know, some sports programs and definitely maybe like a military tradition, it is based on certain values and you're being inducted into a way of life, right? But if you don't have that, you know, you go away to college and they're like, You can do whatever you want. Like, you can be whoever you want. You can do whatever you want. If it feels good, it's right, you know? You just have effectively unlimited choice, right? Like, we live in a world, like, religion used to go like, hey, don't do these things or you'll go to hell.

44:52Ryan Holiday:And I think, obviously, that puts a lot of fear and shame and control on people. That's not good. but the problem is when you when you say hey do whatever you want nothing's wrong everything's right trust your gut you know like the last thing a 19 year old should be doing is trusting their gut like you're an idiot you know especially like a especially a 19 year old dude you know like Like, and so I think what struck me about stoicism was like, oh, this is a 2 ,500-year tradition. This is a tradition that's been followed by the most powerful people in the world, some of the most powerless people in the world.

45:36Ryan Holiday:Epictetus is a slave. And these are people that were dealing with uncertainty and chaos and disorder and dysfunction. They were dealing with temptation. They were dealing with adversity. They were dealing with loss and pain. and, hey, they wrote some of their experiences down. And they put it into a framework that is actually strikingly modern. Let's just say it's timeless. And I think that's what, like, sitting at the table in my college apartment, I was like, oh, okay, like, this makes sense to me. And at 21, you were the director of marketing for American Apparel? Yeah. How did that happen?

46:27Ryan Holiday:An insane... I mean, it says more about the company than it does about me. You know, it was a dysfunctional, crazy, you know... shit show, really. But, yeah... It got to be a huge company. It was. I mean, it was a huge company when I started there. I had nothing to do with it becoming what it became. But I got sort of thrown into the deep end.

46:57Ryan Holiday:And yeah, it was... Yeah, my 20s were nuts. But I watched a guy create a billion dollar company and then destroy a billion dollar company. and I watched people get caught up in it. I watched people get sort of spun sideways by it. I watched people enable it, you know? I enabled it. And so, you know, in a way, it was like, it was quite an education. I mean, it was like a king's court. Like, he was the sort of king and everyone was, you know, currying favor and wanted something. And, you know, it certainly informed, like, what I ended up writing about a lot. And at 25, you wrote, trust me, I'm lying.

48:03Yeah. Where did that come from?

48:04Ryan Holiday:Um, it was also, you know, American Apparel was one of the sort of most controversial companies in the world at that time. And so, you know, I had sort of a window seat to how the media environment worked. And then I worked with a number of other sort of controversial clients and stuff over the years. So I wrote an expose on sort of the media system and marketing and PR. I mean, I basically wrote a book on fake news in 2011. That's what it seems like. Yeah. Yeah. The funny thing is I thought, I remember trying to get the book out as quickly as possible, going like, this is right now. And if anything, I was probably 10 years early.

48:47Ryan Holiday:Um, but I was, I was watching how like the sausage got made, right? Like how true stories got distorted and how made up stories became true and how people could get attention, what attention would do to people, um, the incentives of the media system. And so the book was me kind of trying to rip back the curtain on, on what that was and how it worked. Can you go into it a little bit? Yeah. I mean, it's funny, because I wrote that book. Because it is. It's now. Yeah, but it's funny. It's like, you know, I wrote that book before TikTok existed, before I think maybe Instagram had just come out. I was writing mostly about a world of blogs and, you know, sort of, not traditional media, but like traditional media as it was being intersected by social media.

49:45Ryan Holiday:and i mean if anything just all those trends have accelerated now um but it was ultimately that what i'm trying to say in the book is like you have to think about the incentives operating on both sides of the equation the people that are trying to get messages out and then the people who are communicating those messages and that everyone is effectively competing for attention in this enormous ecosystem or this marketplace. And so in a world where it used to be, okay, half the country subscribes to the New York Times, half subscribes to the Washington Post. Now, both these papers have an agenda.

50:31Ryan Holiday:There's a bias, but mostly they're trying to deliver value for the subscribers of this paid product. And they're putting out a 40-page newspaper where once you buy it, all the information is there, right? Like if you look at like the headline in the New York Times for the Pentagon Papers, it's like, there's no sensationalism in it, there's no crazy, because like you're not buying the New York Times in Grand Central Station with a newsboy like shouting, like extra, extra, read all about it, right? Which was the media environment in the late 1800s and early 1900s. And so basically what the internet did is it broke all that apart and it made it so every story, every headline, every article, every clip is competing with everything else out there.

51:31Ryan Holiday:Right? So it's like, what's the craziest? What tells people what they want to hear? What pisses people off? Right? What offers the most certainty? That's what draws... Like, an analogous way, like, what happened in the early to mid-2000s is akin to what's happening now with podcasts, like, which I'm sure you've experienced, which is, like, there was this period where podcasts were long-form interviews that subscribers of that podcast listened to. Right? So you have all the subscribers to this show, and you think about, like, delivering high-quality guests who you have a long form conversation with and people listen to the whole thing.

52:14Ryan Holiday:And then what's been happening the last, I don't know, two years is like the sort of the clip economy, right? Where now it's like about the most sensational clip. Like, so that two hour conversation is distilled down into a 20 second clip or whatever. And what that's doing is creating, as I'm sure you're seeing it with peers of yours, is like a lot of competition for like the craziest clips, like gotcha moments or conversely, like you're just having the same conversation, but then people are coming and cutting out those clips and spreading them. And so it's now, it's creating a lot of pressure and a lot of noise and changing the incentives of the medium.

52:56Ryan Holiday:And so what I was writing about, and trust me, I'm lying, was that sort of first wave of that happening where like now you don't read a website, you read articles from that website, and you only read them because it's showing up in your Facebook feed or it's showing up in Twitter or it's because somebody emailed it to you, right? And that's creating an incentive, a bias, towards certain kinds of emotion. Like, for instance, they found that, like, the valence of the extremeness of the emotion is, like, the number one predictor of virality. So, like, something that makes you feel pretty good is not gonna be shared as something that makes you extremely angry.

53:37Ryan Holiday:Or something that makes you kind of angry is not going to spread as well as something that makes you laugh really hard. And so it's creating this incentive for extremes, right? So everything becomes an exaggerated, you know, distorted version of itself to meet that. And then you layer on top of that, like this is the first, in the sort of blog world, one of the first kind of big breakthroughs was like reporters or influencers or whatever, your job performance was like how much traffic your article got or how many views your video got, right? Which is different than how journalists had basically been paid for the entirety of the institution.

54:21Ryan Holiday:And so in the same way that you wouldn't want a journalist to own like shares in a stock that they were reporting on, now they own stock in the story. Like they want, instead of being like, hey, it's complicated and we don't know, which isn't going to do well. They're like, it shapes the story that they're writing. And I think what we're seeing now, now that people are working for outlets less and less and working for themselves more and more. Like, are you going to tell your Substack audience what they don't want to hear? are you going to have a guest on like not you but like you can imagine someone in a different financial position um you're like hey when i when i have these kind of guests my patreon numbers go down and when i have these kind of guests my patreon numbers go up or you know um donations go up when i do this and they go down when i do this and so now again these financial incentives are acting on the information that people are getting.

55:25Ryan Holiday:And people are not good at evaluating the reliability of the person they're getting information on. We're just really bad at it. When I'm traveling in the summer, the routine is always the first thing to slip. Different schedule, different bed, late nights, early mornings, and you're usually not eating the same way you would at home. And that's why I rely on AG1. It takes 30 seconds, one scoop, eight ounces of water, and I know I'm getting a daily health drink with a multivitamin, pre - and probiotics, superfoods, and antioxidants. And the next-gen formula delivers 75-plus ingredients that are clinically shown to support gut health, fill common nutrient gaps, and improve key nutrient levels within three months.

56:22For me, it's one simple thing I can keep consistent, whether I'm home, on the road, filming, or trying to get back on track after a long weekend. Visit drinkag1.com slash SRS to get a free AG1 travel case with seven free AG1 travel packs in your welcome kit with your first AG1 subscription. Order while supplies last. That's drinkag1.com slash SRS. I think we've lost that because I think that the thirst for real information has significantly diminished because now people are more concerned with confirming their opinions and their own thoughts. And so rather than actually search for some kind of truth or really try to figure out what the hell is going on, what's at the bottom of this, instead of doing that and spending the time to research and hear other opinions and perspectives, they immediately sift through everything they possibly can to find the one person that is going to tell them everything that they're thinking is correct.

57:39And then it turns into they tell them how to think. And it's become like this lazy search for just confirming your own biases, opinions, and thoughts.

57:51Ryan Holiday:Yeah, and there's always going to be someone who will fill that need. So, like, we saw this, like, in the aftermath of the 2020 election, right? It's like, oh, if you're not going to tell the audience what they want to hear, then they're just going to go watch this channel. And if that channel isn't going to do it, they're going to watch this channel. And so it's hard, like choice is good, but the problem with choice when it comes to information is that you're creating a market incentive for people to lie to you. And typically that incentive is mitigated or by the fact that the media outlet is owned by a big company or the reporter themselves is a salaried employee who identifies as a journalist or a writer or whatever.

58:48Ryan Holiday:It's different when it's like, no, no, no. Like I write for Substack and I am directly dependent on how many subscribers I have. Paying subscribers. So like audience capture, there's fewer intermediaries between the creator and the sort of payment structure. Now, in many ways, this is great for creators because there's fewer people taking, you know, picking their pocket along the way. But it also means that they are directly exposed to some perverse incentive. Like audience captures right there. There's an influence. Yeah, and it takes some character and some self-control and some ideals to be like, no, no, no, no, I have an audience.

59:42Ryan Holiday:The audience doesn't have me. I say what I think needs to be said, not what's going to do well. that's what i try to do i think that's what you do too yeah i mean do you think that because i've always been more of a long game person than a short game and so i see exactly what you're talking about all the time but i would say that the majority of those people don't last very long eventually it patters out and but by being being true to yourself and not being beholden to an audience or financial incentive or whatever i mean you're you're gonna do this and it's a fucking roller coaster yeah yeah they're they're outraged about this and then oh no no we're not outraged about that anymore now we're outraged about this and no no actually i never said that Like, you're surfing the audience.

1:00:45Ryan Holiday:And it's both exhausting and also, it just doesn't feel like success to me, right? Like, if success is like, I have to tell you what you want to hear, then, like, I work for you. It's boring. I mean, just to sit in here, I mean, I get a lot of people pissed at me right now because I've leaned across the aisle because I like new perspectives. That's how shit gets done. you know and and but i just don't i just don't fucking care you know it's i'm like this is it's what i'm gonna do i'm just i'm not gonna be beholden to anybody on who i talk to and do not talk to yeah and and i'm it's boring to me to sit there and talk to somebody that has the exact same opinion to me over and over just to confirm to each other that we're the we're in the right way of thinking but i i'm i'm curious how you navigate it because i've you know when i started this thing it was uh just military guys and you know intelligence folks and people that i'd work with in the past and i really just wanted to kind of correct the record and and and actually have people that had been in the events that these reporters were talking about like well actually here's what actually happened from a guy that was there you know and um and then we started talking about political issues issues with kids like lots of different problems that society faces and it would be a discussion inside one of those yeah and then uh to make a bigger impact i actually started going to this to the to the lawmakers yeah you know to the people in charge people that can make a difference and um and then i realized they all just lied to you you know and they use the platform to to advance themselves and so now now i'm extremely particular even have friends that are running for senate for congress for whatever places in the administration doesn't matter yeah you know and um i won't have them on interesting because i just you're just gonna tell me what you think i want to hear and what i think my audience what you think my audience wants to hear yeah and then even if you do have great intentions i've seen it too many times you're going to get in there you're not going to make an impact you're not going to they're going to own your ass you're not going to be put on committees if you go against the grain and you're is going to turn into the same shit that we see every single time.

1:03:21Ryan Holiday:Yeah. But if you do hold true to your word, I'll help you with your reelection. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah, I think deciding... And deciding what you're going to be a part of and not be a part of to me is like what it's kind of all about.

1:03:42Ryan Holiday:And I think I've been amazed at the degree to which people I know don't think about like, hey, is this a good person? do i agree with them and just not to just agree with them but like are they a bad actor or a you know uh someone at least operating from good faith or whatever and they just think about like how's this gonna do you know and like to me success and a platform comes with responsibilities not not just like hey how do you look yourself in the mirror but like like people are if they see you have someone on or they see you writing about something or talking about something like they assume that it's not a cosign but you're you're you're you're participating right you're like you're they go oh they wouldn't have this person on if they were a psychopath or a lot like people like i i just think there's a responsibility that comes from having a platform or having influence.

1:04:52Ryan Holiday:It's a huge responsibility. Yeah. People make decisions based off what's said in this room. Yeah. Like life-changing decisions. Yeah. Yeah, there was, I remember finding when I was writing, Trust Me, I'm Lying, there was some, and it's funny, none of this stuff is new. There was this media critic, and he was writing in like the late 1800s, early 1900s. And he says, you know, America is a country ruled by public opinion. That's what a democracy is. And he says, therefore, what determines public opinion rules America. And so the people that own newspapers, yeah, sure, it's a for-profit business.

1:05:33Ryan Holiday:but like they are responsible for something that in a way affects like the whole country and that there has to be a response he was saying there has to be a responsibility that these things are kind of public trusts and look i i again i think you get in a real problem territory when the government is deciding you know like i'm not saying it should be like this this isn't something that should be legally policed. But, like, if the people with the platforms are not policing themselves, that's a problem, right? Because then, basically, people without character, people with agendas, they can take advantage of that.

1:06:19Ryan Holiday:You know, they take advantage of that. And we're so consumed in America by like our political disagreements, that we forget that there's people outside America that are also trying to steer and navigate this discourse, right? And just as, by the way, historically, we have done that in other countries. But like, we seem to think that like, the only agenda someone could have is like left or right, not like Russian, Chinese, Iranian, Like, our enemies see these gaping holes in our media system. They see these people who are basically available to the highest bidder. And they're like, do I want to go to a war with America?

1:07:09Ryan Holiday:Or do I want to make America go to war with itself? And I think one of the things I was trying to write in Trust Me, I'm Lying is like, hey, look, here's how I'm getting you to buy T-shirts. or getting you to follow this brand or this person or whatever. But like real bad people can do these same things and in fact are doing these same things. And I think that to me though, even the craziest part of our system isn't just like that bad actors can do, but also like the system can manipulate itself. Just like it's so primed for like going to where the energy of the action is is that sometimes things that start as jokes become real things, or things that start as the most harebrained conspiracy theory that you could imagine becomes real.

1:08:02Ryan Holiday:I live in this town called Bastrop, Texas, and one of the first ones that really caught my eye on this, do you remember the Jade Helm conspiracy? No. There was this conspiracy that, this is during this 2015, so it's during the Obama administration, they were doing these big training exercises in like the South and the Southwest. And this conspiracy theory comes out that like it's actually this false, it's like this crazy operation where they're gonna like, I don't know, the federal government was gonna like occupy the Southern states. It was like a faux military training exercise as a pretext to like start a civil war.

1:08:44Ryan Holiday:So it was this conspiracy theory that starts online and starts on Facebook. And one of the exercises was happening in where I live. And the governor of Texas ends up sending the National Guard to observe the exercises to make sure this didn't happen as if I could do anything. But anyways, the point was it came out in the years after that this was mostly like a foreign sort of propagated theory. Like this thing, some crazy person online said this. And then - It was objected from a foreign influence. Yeah, exactly. They went and they put energy behind, they put spend behind it and spread it and whatever.

1:09:33Ryan Holiday:And so it was like, oh, okay. So again, we're so consumed with like what we're doing to each other that we don't think about the fact that other people have an even bigger incentive to get us really focused on this or that. And so, again, countries that are real close to Russia, like Finland, they spend a lot of time teaching media literacy to their kids because they know that it's real. And they know that these operations and this agenda is right there all the time. And I think we live in a bubble because we've so often been the exporter of culture that we don't think about the ways that, you know, different nations, causes, etc., have a vested interest in directing that culture in certain ways.

1:10:35Ryan Holiday:And so that's one of the things I was talking about in the book, too. Yeah, I've, uh, I mean, I've, like I said, I've changed my tune since the last election. And, you know, what I've realized is I think, I think that the, you can have a better, bigger impact in just initiating, in how you initiate certain conversations rather than who you initiate them with. If you start the conversation properly and plant the seed, then it will grow. It will grow into what it needs to be instead of trying to hit the head honcho and pour your ideas into them and hold them accountable. Interesting. What do you mean?

1:11:18I mean that – what do I mean? I mean that I've just – everybody I've brought on here that can make an immediate impact, that is in a position to make an immediate impact, they always fall short.

1:11:33Ryan Holiday:Okay. No matter what they tell you. But what I have noticed is the things that, just in my own personal experience with some of the discussions that I've had in here, the biggest impact that we've made is by starting a conversation and watching the conversation grow through regular people, through the population. not from getting direct to a president, a congressman, a senator, a CEO of a company, somebody that owns a non-profit, whatever. It's the conversation that happens that engages the population has a much, much bigger impact than going directly to the decision maker. Have you heard that expression that politics is downstream from culture?

1:12:17No.

1:12:18Ryan Holiday:I think that's sort of what you're saying. is like what matters is the consensus or the idea, like the energy, the vibe is more important than like a single decision maker, which is by the way, our whole system, like we have a decentralized system. So where decision-making is decentralized and widespread because the founders were so concerned about sort of man on horseback. And so there really isn't one singular person who can make a difference. Now, the problem is that has also allowed a lot of people who are in positions of power to abdicate their responsibility to make a difference, right? Like everyone is trying to save their jobs for some point in the future when they'll be the decision maker, you know?

1:13:17And like, look, you do need those people,

1:13:23Ryan Holiday:but chances are you're not that person. Yeah. Like chances are you should do the right thing right now. Yeah. It's interesting. It's interesting. I think, what do you think it is? I think it's addiction to power, but then looking at it from the outside, and it does appear that they have a lot of power, but then when you see it and you're like, you're fucking completely powerless because you're not saying what needs to be said even though you know exactly what the fuck you need to do because you want to hang on to the fake power that you think you have. But you're actually powerless because you're not saying what you know needs to be said because you know you won't have that position anymore when that position represents your power, your relevance in society.

1:14:07Ryan Holiday:I think the difference here, there's power and there's status, right? And so they don't exercise the power because they want to keep the status. Like, I mean, look, Thomas Massey is not going to be a congressman much longer. The irony is when you meet a lot of these politicians privately, not only will they tell you a bunch of things they won't say in public, but they will also tell you how much they don't like their job. Like, they fucking hate it. Like, it's a miserable job. They don't like their colleagues. They think there's a lot of performance and they have to spend all this time fundraising.

1:14:44Ryan Holiday:They don't like the job. And yet, when it comes down to these votes that seem to me to be very clearly conscience-based or very stark moral choices, they're like, well, I got to do what I know is wrong to keep this job that I don't fucking like. I'm like, I don't get it at all. It doesn't make any sense to me, right? But the problem is, I remember I was sitting in the Senate dining room talking to a senator. And I was saying, like, hey, why don't you guys, you and I probably have very different politics. But I was like, why don't you know this Trump thing is crazy. Like, what are we doing here?

1:15:25Ryan Holiday:And I was like, why don't you speak out about it, you know? And he goes, see that guy over there? And he's like, I go, yeah. And he's like, that guy was going to be head of the CIA. and he's and i go okay and he's like and then uh i could probably say who it was he said that that the white house was like adult daycare over there i think it was senator corker and he's like he's not even going to be a senator anymore you know he was like that guy was in line for the next office the next level and he made a comment and uh it's not happening anymore and And the guy was basically saying like, that's why.

1:16:04Ryan Holiday:And he was laying it out. Like it is crazy. Cause like me as a citizen, I'm like, you're one of the, you know, hundred most powerful people in the world. And that's not how they see themselves. And so, I don't know. Why would you want, and look, I write about this. I wrote this book on courage. I talk about, I was once, when I was at American Barrel, I was once asked to do this thing that was profoundly wrong and immoral. And I didn't do it, but I thought about doing it, and I struggled with doing it. And the reason that I didn't challenge my boss about it was that I didn't want to get fired, right?

1:16:49Ryan Holiday:Now, in retrospect, why would I want to keep a job that speaking up about something that was wrong would get you fired from? That's crazy. It doesn't make any sense. but this is these are the equations that we make in our heads but why would you want to work in an administration where even the slightest criticism gets you on the shit list it's not going to be a good job this thing this job that you dreamed of having your whole life it it's not what you think it is right like they just showed you it's not what you think it is but we rationalize. Everybody is saving themselves for this... Higher calling?

1:17:32Ryan Holiday:This higher calling, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember, you know Adam Kinzinger? Mm-hmm. I remember he was saying he felt like a lot of... I was talking to him once, and he was telling me that he feels like members of Congress tell themselves there's a super Congress, and their job is, like, that super Congress will take care of it. And it's like, no, no, you were elected to take care of this. This is what we sent you to Washington. We didn't send you there to be in the job for as long as you could have it. We sent you there to represent our interests and to solve the problems of governance, right?

1:18:11Ryan Holiday:That's the fucking job. And you think your job is to continue to be congressman or congresswoman. and you're so afraid of being the former senator from Massachusetts or the former congresswoman from California that you aren't making the tough decisions that you have to make. And look, one of the things I've been trying to remind myself of is like it is very easy as citizens to be like, why aren't these people risking their jobs to do what is right? And why aren't they putting themselves out there? And then it's like you, and by you I mean like the person listening, you are working a job you fucking hate.

1:18:58Ryan Holiday:And you know you could be doing something different or better. You're working in an industry that you know is fucked up. Like, blah, blah, blah. What was the last risk you took like that? Like, you know what I mean? It's very easy to evaluate the moral choices and the complicity and the contradictions in other people. And of course, as citizens, it's our job to do that and to throw those people out. We cannot keep this republic, as Benjamin Franklin said, if we don't do that. However, to me, the main purpose of looking at this, the cowardice and the contradictions and the shamelessness and the sort of petty turf wars is it should be a mirror reflected back at ourselves and go, well, I could be doing more.

1:19:52Ryan Holiday:Like, I could be, I tell my kids to follow their dreams, and then I'm like, not doing it, you know? And so I don't know, I just think it's really easy to kind of just point this, like, judgment lens at Washington or the Statehouse or whatever. But ultimately, you've got to point it at yourself. Yeah, it's interesting you bring that up because I wanted to talk to you about hypocrisy, being a hypocrite. I'm sure we all are. I mean, I'm real quick to point it out in everybody else, but I do do a lot of self-reflection and I talk to a lot of, you know, how can I improve? I'm always thinking about that, whether it's being a dad, being a businessman, being a podcaster, whatever it is.

1:20:41And I can't find my own hypocrisy. Does that make sense? I don't know what it is. I don't know. I mean, now I'm sure it'll show up in the comments section. The comments can be helpful for that. But I can't see it in myself. A lot of times I can't see it in myself right now.

1:21:04Ryan Holiday:No, no. I mean, look, this is why a company's got to have a board of directors. This is why a president is supposed to have a cabinet. I think the most alarming thing about where we are politically right now is that not only are a lot of the governmental checks and balances not there, but a lot of the cultural checks and balances aren't there. Like the press is supposed to be hostile to power. And the cabinet is like, the founders set up a system where ambition was supposed to be a check against ambition, right? The Congress was supposed to zealously enforce its prerogatives. Like part of being a senator, like part of the perk of being a senator and having a six-year term, whereas the president has a four-year term, is you're supposed to be able to go like this to the president when the president is wrong, right?

1:22:03Ryan Holiday:Like, Congress has war-making powers, not the president. But if Congress decides that they don't want to enforce that power, then the president has that power, right? And, you know, if we have a partisan news environment where the left-wing media slobbers all over a left-wing president and the right-wing media slobbers all over the right-wing president. And then if the president has a cabinet and has been allowed to confirm a cabinet of people who are dependent on him and fully bought in on him, then the president's never going to hear no and never going to hear, that's a dumb fucking idea. Like, what about this?

1:22:55Ryan Holiday:What about that? Um, and, and so, I mean, we know historically what happens when people in positions of power are not subject to any checks and balances and when their information diet is degraded. Like one of the oldest stories that we have about this is that the emperor has no clothes, right? And when everyone says, hey, sir, we love your new outfit, and he's walking around naked, there was a reason, there's a moral to that story. And it's funny, actually, Mark Aurelius, the reason Mark Aurelius becomes emperor is actually like 2 ,000 years earlier in illustration of that story. So Hadrian does not have a son.

1:23:46Ryan Holiday:He's the emperor of Rome. He doesn't have a son. So he has to choose his successor. and there's this kid he's a member of a sort of prestigious roman family who somehow he meets that kid is marxerilis and um for some reason marxerilis as a young kid just doesn't seem to be intimidated by the emperor at all and he tells him the truth and you can imagine that the the emperor of rome does not hear the truth very often it's actually a famous story about hadrian where hadrian is in an argument with one of his advisors who's a philosopher and uh some it's like it's we don't know exactly what it was about but it was something where it was like it's like an objective you know like uh anyways the the philosopher ends up saying you know what sir you're right you're i was wrong you're right and um later one of his friends comes up to him and he says you know why did you tell the emperor he was right like the like the math equation is very clear he's wrong and the philosopher looks at him and he says ah this is what you don't understand the man who controls 50 legions is always correct right like people don't tell powerful people the truth because they are afraid of powerful people right and um marx really supposedly tells the emperor hadrian the truth and his nickname is varismus like the truest one Part of what makes Hadrian ultimately select Marcus Aurelius is that he is like the boy in the story, The Emperor Has No Clothes, who actually says to the emperor, sir, you're naked.

1:25:23Ryan Holiday:What are you talking about? Like, I don't care what these people said. You don't have any fucking clothes on. You got conned, right? And so you, as you become powerful and important, and as you, this is why revenge is bad. When you get a reputation for punishing your enemies or punishing your perceived enemies, critics, it degrades your picture of the world because you have just sent a message to everyone around you. Do not challenge that person. Do not tell them the truth. Do not tell them what they don't want to hear. Like, do you think there were many advisors who told Putin that invading Ukraine would be a bad idea?

1:26:10Ryan Holiday:Like, do you think anyone laid out, like, this is how bad it could go? No. No, because you don't want to end up fucking in a plane crash, right? Or like, you don't want to fall out of fourth story window. And so oftentimes you think you want control. You think you want people on board. You think you want true believers. And you don't. Like the antagonistic hostile, like the system of government we have is set up there for a reason. Even the so-called deep state is also there for, like you want career governmental employees who are not necessarily political. I mean, there can be problems with it too.

1:26:56Ryan Holiday:I don't mean to overstate it, but you want a bureaucracy that doesn't want to swing too far in one direction or the other direction. You want Congress to be oppositional. You want your cabinet to have their own political ambitions. Lincoln staffs his cabinet with his political rivals because he wants... He knows that what he has to do is extremely difficult, and if he only has people telling him what he wants to hear, he will not actually be able to do it. And so that, to me, is what alarms me about where we are. I'm just... You know, you brought up an interesting point about... I mean, where do you draw the line between sending a message, maybe not revenge or vengeance, but sending a message.

1:27:53Because I've done this where I will never initiate. I shouldn't say never. I will not initiate arguments, blast people, get in fights on the internet. I just think this shit's stupid and it's a waste of time and causes a lot of stress. But there have been times where powerful people come after me and then I think it is that just I think it from for a variety of reasons I think it's important to stand up yeah into engage one to set an example to anybody else out there that's planning on coming after me if you do come after me this is what the fuck's gonna happen if you back me into a corner I think it also gives other people courage I just went through one of these at the beginning of the year a congressman um went after me and i went right back at him and now he's no longer in fucking congress yeah but you know i did that because uh i i i mean i started this in my attic so i still i i don't i'm still coming to the full realization of the magnitude of the shit that can come out of here because i still consider myself that guy in the attic that was doing this with my wife it's a small thing and but so i'm kind of in the middle of you know does that make sense but i also did that because i wanted to show people like you don't have to get fucking pushed around by these people man yeah they're gonna come after you and it is scary to have somebody that high up in government coming after you but they don't have as much power as you think they do yeah and i just proved that yeah and at the same time i don't want to you know for for for my immediate team like i i ask anybody that's been here for a little bit you know that's especially the guys that have been here from the beginning which is only a handful of them yeah you know i'm always asking them like hey what do you think of this am i off am i off on this right you know and i think they tell me you know especially my top two guys tell me they tell me yeah but you know i don't want to do you see what i'm getting at no totally

1:30:15Ryan Holiday:look sometimes you gotta establish some deterrence or you get you get pushed around i think that's important um but yeah i i do think what we're talking about culturally is the problem like we want people to stand up. We want people to do the right thing. And then what examples do they have of that happening? And I think we're in almost like a cultural death spiral of a lack of those examples. And so I do think it's important, but making a martyr of yourself, you know, is usually not a great thing to do. But like the idea that like there are more people out there that feel this way than people think is really important.

1:31:05Ryan Holiday:And because it's so easy to think like, oh, everyone's going along with this. Everyone's okay with this. Like this is just what we have to put up with. And I think it's important. Like acts of courage. Like cowardice is contagious. and so is courage, moral courage and physical courage. Like if you see someone else do it, it changes your sense of what's possible and what is sort of the cultural expectation. And I think when I say we're in a desperate, it's like everyone is saving themselves for some crisis. and it's like, dude, this is the crisis. This is it, man. What are you... How much worse are you expecting it to get?

1:32:01Ryan Holiday:And look, like, the Stoics are not exempt from this. As I said, Seneca works for Nero. Now, Seneca probably told himself he was the adult in the room, that he was making Nero less bad, and that he prevented Nero from doing a lot of bad stuff. And he almost certainly did. But as a result, he also allowed Nero to do a lot of bad stuff. And these are not easy moral choices. And the only reason I think, like, 2 ,000 years later, it becomes a little clearer, right? But in the moment, they are vexing emotional and moral choices. And when you're asking someone to choose, hey, you're going to lose your job over this.

1:32:48Ryan Holiday:you're gonna be attacked, maybe your family will be threatened. There's a lot to ask of people, I get that. But... chances are, when you look back, you're gonna wish you did more. Mm-hmm. You're gonna wish you said more. You're gonna wish you... You're not gonna be like, I'm so glad I waited. And... because here's the thing about waiting, is that you can always tell yourself that this isn't the right time. that like, again, no, no, no, no, I need to be, I need to stay in the room till the real crisis happens. And then, and what you've actually done is over and over and over again, built the habit of not doing the thing, right?

1:33:36Ryan Holiday:And the idea that suddenly when you're at the second to the top level, that's when you're going to gamble at all and do the hard thing. You have to build it as a hat. Aristotle said that it was wrong to think of virtue as this thing that you have or don't have, like that people are born courageous or born generous or simply are smart or any of the things that we hold up as good. He's like, no, no, no. It's a verb, not a noun. It's a thing you are doing or not doing. Like courage is a muscle you are exercising. Like speaking truth to power is a muscle you are exercising. It's a thing you are doing, not a thing you are or aren't.

1:34:29Ryan Holiday:And so the good news about that is like, if you want to be generous, if you want to be a generous person, you can start right now. Like start tipping bigger, like tie the percentage of your salary, right? You can start doing that right now. That's the good news. The bad news is if you are not doing it, you are building the habit and the muscle of not being that person. And it becomes harder and harder to break as the stakes get higher and higher. That's a damn good point. Ryan, let's take a quick break. All right. Most guys try to cover up body odor with cologne or body spray. But if you've been training, traveling, out in the heat, on long flights, or just grinding through a long day, that only goes so far.

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1:36:35Welcome to Hollywood vs. Reality. Did I do it? Right?

1:36:43What does he do in the movies? Tell me if I'm doing this wrong, because I don't watch any of this. Little flick like that, right? Seems pretty cool. It is pretty cool. Gotta silence it.

1:37:00In another lifetime, I did gun reviews for a living. Proprietary magazine. Supposedly the best engineering in the world. When that breaks, you're f***ing f***ed. And now we're bringing him back.

1:37:19It does look pretty f***ing cool. I gotta admit that. All right, Ryan, we're back from the break. I want to dive into ego. Okay. Ego is the enemy. He wrote a whole book on this. Where do we start?

1:37:34Ryan Holiday:I mean, is there anyone that thinks ego is good? Like, is there anyone who's like, we need some bigger egos around here, that'll help. I don't think so. I like to think of ego as being the thing that gets between you and whatever it is that you want to do. So in a way, like, I'm not saying like, oh, be sort of humble so low to the ground that you don't want anything, you don't try to do anything. Like, I actually think ego is the enemy of the ambition that you have. Like, whatever you're trying to do, like what you need is a sense of reality. You need self-awareness. You need a sense of connection.

1:38:11Ryan Holiday:You need truth. Like the ingredients to doing what you want to do are for the most part, not delusion and grandiosity and selfishness. Like it's the opposite of that. So when I say ego is the enemy, I'm not saying like think you're a piece of shit. I'm saying just don't think you're God's gift to humanity. like confidence to me is somewhere in the middle between those two extremes um and uh and yeah chances are ego is causing the problems not solving the problems and personally or in your organization how do you keep yours in check i mean you're an extremely successful guy well i mean a lot of people that find success and then their ego just fucking explodes.

1:39:00Ryan Holiday:Yeah. Look, first and foremost, admitting that you have one and that it is a problem is a critical step. If I'm sitting here going, let me tell you how to conquer your ego because I don't have one, be real suspicious. Because my ego causes problems for me all the time. It's something I try to work on and I'd be aware of. And knowing that, yeah, success inflates the ego. Success, it not just inflates the ego, but it enables people around you to inflate the ego, right? Like in a way you need to be more self-critical and aware the more successful you are for the reasons we were just talking about, which is the air is thinner and you get less, not only do you get less feedback, but you got this really important piece of feedback that can be really misleading, which is like, you did something that wasn't supposed to be possible.

1:40:01Ryan Holiday:You didn't listen to the critics and doubters and haters. And so do you take from that, that you know better than everyone else? Right? Like this happens to a lot of entrepreneurs. Like everyone said it was a bad idea. Everyone said it didn't work. How do you know when to listen in the future. Like when Elon Musk started SpaceX, which was his second company, with the money that he made from his first company, like his friends had like a literal intervention. Like you cannot do this. This is a bad, bad idea. You will lose everything. I mean, it's going to go public and be a multi-trillion dollar company, right?

1:40:45Ryan Holiday:So like they were wrong. So how does he now, and by the way, this is also true for Tesla, that was supposedly a bad idea, right? Like, how does he, I think this is again, a sort of larger life story that should help us understand this in our own lives. Like, how does he know in future instances, not to just listen to himself, right? And so, you know, he's done some real dumb stuff too. And that's what ego does, is that sense of, I don't need to listen to you, I know better. So with that, earlier we were chatting about trusting your gut instinct. Yeah. Obviously, Elon trusted his gut instinct when it came to SpaceX.

1:41:30It was, it is wildly successful. Maybe the biggest company in the world. Yeah. And so how do you differentiate what to take in from external influences and what got instincts to trust?

1:41:47Ryan Holiday:Well, to me, it comes down to the story you tell yourself. So when I went to my publisher and I was like, hey, I want to write a book about stoic philosophy, they were not like, cha-ching. They were like, what? That sounds like a horrible idea. Like literally they were like, and I think I've said this before, but I took less than half. For the book that became The Obstacles Away, I took less than half what I got for Trust Me, I'm a Lion. So like they thought it was going to be less than 50 % successful. So what's the lesson that I take from that? I mean, it ended up selling millions of copies and being this big thing.

1:42:36Ryan Holiday:Do I take from that, those fucking idiots at my publisher don't know shit, right? Do I take from that, I'm a genius that I can see around corners that I know what the people want? Or do I take from this, hey, I have what I thought was a pretty good idea. and I could see how it wasn't an obvious home run to some other people. And the reason it succeeded is because of, you know, I did the work. I was willing to roll the dice anyway. And also because, like, the downsides of being wrong were not that high either, right? Like, I took a risk and it paid off. It wasn't a certainty that I knew. It's I took a risk and it paid off.

1:43:27Ryan Holiday:So again, you could take, and we have a thousand examples of this, but you could take from this, hey, I'm a genius. I know better. That's ego. Or you can go, hey, I took a risk and it paid off. That's to me confidence with some self-awareness in there. And so whatever story you tell yourself about why you are where you are, it doesn't change what happened. Like, the event doesn't know that you're telling a story about it, but it does change how you make future decisions. Right? Like, if you feel like you're anointed, if you feel like the rules don't apply, if you feel like you can defy gravity, you know, all these things make it really likely that in the future, you're going to overreach.

1:44:12Ryan Holiday:And that tends to be what successful people do, right? They tend to overreach. And so that's what I think you want to take from, from, like, trust your gut, but trust the right part about it, not the delusional part of it. Do you feel that you have ever overreached? Yeah. I mean, I try to think mostly back around the calls that I made where I was super wrong. Like, I don't think about the fights I had with my publisher where I ended up being right. I think about the times where I insisted on getting my way, and in retrospect, they had a point. I try to think about the times where I didn't listen to the feedback and I would have saved myself a painful bump on the head had I done so.

1:45:09Ryan Holiday:And I think that's healthy. I mean, again, if you focus on all the things you know, you don't get any better. If you focus on what you don't know, you can get better. If you focus on where you fell short, you can make improvements. And if you focus on what you got right, you're just jerking yourself off. How about humility? I mean, I think humility is important. To me, confidence is an awareness of strength and an awareness of weakness. Like, to me, the story of David and Goliath is at its core about the power of both of those things, right? David doesn't think, oh, I'm anointed by God, therefore, of course, I can defeat Goliath, right?

1:45:57Ryan Holiday:Right? If he knew that he was preordained to win, he would have just, you know, rushed heedlessly into battle and let God take care of it. Right? Like, to me, the critical part in the story of David and Goliath is when David tries on the armor of the soldier, his brothers, and it's too big. and he goes, I can't do this. Like, this isn't gonna work. He's like, as a shepherd, he's just not able to operate as a traditional warrior. And that's when he turns to the sling, right? The sling is, hey, he's bigger than me. He's stronger than me. He's better trained than me. I don't have these tools in my toolkit, but I do have this thing, right?

1:46:50Ryan Holiday:And so humility to me is a key element in matching what every battle, figurative and literal, is about, which is about matching strength against weakness. Like strength against strength is stupid.

1:47:13Ryan Holiday:It usually creates two losers, even if there's one winner, right? Like what a great general does, what a great athlete does, what a great entrepreneur does is match strength against weakness. Like, and by the way, also protects, hides your own weakness, right? Because that's where you don't want their strength to go against yours. So to me, this humility is really important. Like knowing what you're not that good at, what you need to get better at. is uh yeah it's like a big part of it how do you keep yourself humble you know the kids help uh spouse helps um trying to do hard shit helps like if you are only doing what you're really comfortable with and you're never in situations that you're outmatched that you're um that you're out of your depth in, you lose that feeling of like, oh shit, I got to figure this out.

1:48:24Ryan Holiday:And so like when I take on projects, one of the things I think about is like, is this something I've done before? And if it's something I've done before, like it's not that interesting to me. And if it's something where I'm like, oh, I'm going to have to figure out a lot of different skills to be able to do this. And this can be in, I don't mean like you're reinventing the wheel every time. Like, I just mean, like, what's the element of your game that you're working on? Like, if you go into the off season and you're like, I want to practice getting better at what I'm really good at. I think that that is, you know, not just not just the gains are going to be less than exciting, but like it's a sort of a confirmation of ego.

1:49:08Ryan Holiday:But if you're like, hey, no, no, what I don't what I'm not good at is this. What I could get better at is this. and that's what you're going to spend your time on, to me that helps with humility because you're waking up every day and it's fucking hard. It sucks. And it's just... You can't feel great about how you're doing when you're getting your ass kicked. And so how are you seeking out those experiences? I think that's really important. What about just amongst people? I mean, somebody as successful as yourself, you've reached millions of people with your books. Lots of people seek you out. They want to talk to you.

1:49:54They want to meet you. They want to get an autograph. They want to pick your brain. They just want to be around. Yeah. And that can really inflate your ego. So how do you navigate that? How do you navigate that around your kids?

1:50:09Ryan Holiday:Yeah. Yeah, it is. like when you get recognized around your kids, it's a weird thing. My kids, like, they roll their eyes. And they... We were in Greece this summer and they started playing this game where they wanted to see if they would see more stray cats than I would get recognized. And the fact that they saw, like, hundreds of more stray cats than I got recognized was, like, a thing. They were just constantly shoving in my face. Which I love. I love. And, you know, so yeah, there is that. I think anything you do in public that has fans or, you know, sort of recognition attached to it can sort of puff you up.

1:50:58Ryan Holiday:I have the benefit in what I do in that it's not mine. Like, I write about an ancient philosophy that has been around for 2 ,500 years. Like, the reason the books work is 90 % the philosophy and 10 % me. And I try to remind myself of that fact. Like, I'm a conduit for a thing that not only did I not invent and can't be credited with, I'm not even good at. Like my success in writing about stoicism is very different than my individual journey through stoic philosophy as a human being. And I try to remind myself of that. Do you consider yourself a stoic? Yeah. I mean, if this is the philosophy that I am interested in, that I am trying to apply in my life, do I call myself a stoic?

1:51:50Ryan Holiday:I mean, I would say I am an aspiring stoic. Like, I would certainly not claim to have attained any kind of enlightenment or mastery of the stuff. Like, in fact, the reason that I'm so driven to write about it and talk about it is because it's like, it's really hard. And I really struggle with it. So I try to remind myself that, like, when someone comes to me and says, like, hey, your book's changed my life. They help, you know, or they say stoicism changed my life. It got me through cancer, whatever it is. I go, yeah, it worked for me too. Like, we're on the same journey. Like, what they think is my books is really, like, the philosophy that I am also a student of, if that makes sense.

1:52:46Ryan Holiday:It does make sense. But it's like, you know, when they interview athletes, like, in the locker room after, like, a big game, and they're like, you know, all glory to God. I think they mean that, and I think that's important. I also think that's, like, a really important professional adaptation. Like, if LeBron James or Kobe Bryant or whoever is like, fuck, yeah, that was all fucking me, you know? Like, I'm the greatest. That's bad. Like, that's bad for future performance. It's better to credit. And I don't just mean, like, from a public relations standpoint. Like, you have to mean it. Like, if it's false modesty, you might as well just own it.

1:53:32Ryan Holiday:But if you're like, no, this was the team, this was the training, this is the tradition. like you are, you are, that is the, that is the right and the healthy way to think about it. First off, cause it's true. And second, because it's not good for you to put that on and credit yourself for things that. Why is it not good? Well, I think, as I said, first of it's not, it's not good because it's not true right like everything is a team sport right and second because it breeds complacency and entitlement and um if it if it's not a little scary to you and it's not a little hard and you're not uh you're not questioning your ability to do it you're probably going in the opposite direction.

1:54:30Ryan Holiday:Like you're, it should be getting, it should always stay challenging and hard or else. It's like, you know, you're lifting weights. When it becomes easy, you grew the muscles and you need to crank the thing up. Makes sense. let's move into

1:54:58how do I word this people that have experienced death or been close to death or I guess not experienced death but they've been around death yeah people that have killed people who have seen war people that have been around death a lot and and kind of knowing when to act when to let things go, that kind of stuff. I mean, you have a lot to say on that.

1:55:21Ryan Holiday:I mean, I'd be curious your opinion. I mean, when you experience how fragile life is, does it turn down the volume on stuff for you? For a little bit. Yeah. And then it creeps back. And then it creeps back. Yeah. I liked everything I was reading and then I did. I compared it to myself and I was like, you know, a lot of this stuff bleeds back. And then you get, you know, in my life journey, in my previous life, it was, you know, there was constant, you're humbled again. You're humbled again. You're humbled again. Somebody died. Somebody died. We killed somebody. Somebody, you know, and so there's that constant reminder and you live in that pretty regularly.

1:56:10Then I left, and I'm not around it anymore. And things that maybe don't matter or shouldn't matter, they creep back in, and they seem like a bigger deal than they are, and then I go into my revenge planning, or you know what I mean? And I'm just being honest. It fucking creeps back in. And it creeps back in faster than you would think.

1:56:36Ryan Holiday:Yeah, a friend of mine is in martial arts was telling me that it's like sweeping the floor you don't sweep it once and it's cleaned forever it's a constant process of sweeping and i think ego is that way and i think uh like the urgency of life is another one like you go to the doctor and they're like oh i need to check that out there's that moment where you're like oh shit is this it you know is this did it just get serious or you know you were talking to a friend on friday and then you find out over the weekend they died or, you know, natural disaster, you know, whatever. Anything that happens and suddenly you're like, oh, I forgot.

1:57:18Ryan Holiday:We're mortal. Yeah. The Stoic practice is memento mori, like remember you are mortal. But it has to be an active meditation because like we all know objectively that we're all going to die. Like every person who's ever lived has eventually died. There's no way out of life. And we know that although on average, you know, this is about how long you have,

1:57:53Ryan Holiday:people die before they should all the time. The healthiest people in the world dropped out of a heart attack. The greatest people in the world get, you know, murdered for the money in their wallet. Obviously, we have wars and natural disasters. It happens. But, you know, then you get a little soft, a little entitled. You drift away from that urgency. And so, yeah, to me, it's an active process of reminding yourself that, yeah, tomorrow is not certain. The future is not yours. One of the, I think, the most powerful ideas from the Stoics, this comes from Seneca. You know, he says it's wrong to think of death as something that happens in the future.

1:58:45Ryan Holiday:Like, that death is something we're moving towards. he says actually death is behind us he says like um the time that passes belongs to death so instead of thinking like you live 80 years he says like you've died however many years you're currently old so like like i'm gonna i turn uh 38 next 38 no 39 next month i don't remember But anyways, like my birthday, I should look back and go, this is how many years I have died. What do I have to show for that? Not how many years do I have left, but what do I have to show for the time? because how we spend our time is how we spend our life, right? And so the idea of going like, hey, oh, you know, I don't like this, but I'm going to do it until my kids grow up, or I'm going to do it, you know, for a couple more years.

1:59:45Ryan Holiday:I'm going to do it until things settle down. Like, you know, we tell ourselves, like, we make these assumptions about the future, and really the only thing that's certain is now, the thing you're paying for with your life right now. And so that, I do try to remind myself of that, that like we don't, the choices we're making about our time right now are the choices that matter. The idea of working something you don't like, deferring something you don't like, because what you really wanna do is play golf in your 70s is naive and entitled. And so, by the way, is just the basic procrastination of like, you know what, I think I'm going to start that project next week.

2:00:34Ryan Holiday:Like if you're going to do it, you should do it and you should start right now. That to me is what you take out of the momentum where you practice. See, I really struggle with this. In my personal experience, every time that I have been around death, thought I was going to die, uh there's only one thing that goes through your mind and that is that's your family that's it but still it's not all your shit yeah it's not all your accomplishments it's not what you've done at work it's not any of that it's not how much fucking money the only thing is like shit you know who's gonna watch out for my family yeah when i'm out of here and uh and then you know that that creates the fight you know to stay alive but what you're what you're talking about i and i still struggle with this no matter how many times i thought i was going to die or been around it or been close to it i it's been i've had that constant reminder like none of this matters yeah the only thing that matters in my head is my family and but then there's the preparation you know i have to hit this financial benchmark i have to hit this i have to hit all these accomplishments or or goals or whatever it may be to make the future of of my life my wife's life my kid's life hopefully easier in the future which takes away from living in the now because it's all planning right well even more insidious like at some point you would give literally all back for five more minutes of time with them, right?

2:02:18Ryan Holiday:And then here you are fucking doom scrolling on Twitter with the five minutes that you have for sure right now. Like, you would, you would, you're gonna look back and wish that you could have more of this. And what are you doing with it right now? You're wasting it. And that to me is what I take from it, is like, I have the thing that in the future will be priceless and unattainable. And I'm so frivolous with it. And I say yes to things because I don't want to be rude to someone. I get distracted because something's happening in the world. I, you know, I get overwhelmed and I'm like, I'm going to take a break.

2:03:02You know, like, and you experience it in little, like already,

2:03:07Ryan Holiday:Like, if you have little kids, you're just like, dude, like, a year ago, like, that's gone, right? Like, these periods are so fleeting and so short. And in the moment you want it, you want, like, the next thing, you want to get out of it. I can't wait till they walk. I can't wait till they, you know, talk. I can't wait till they drive, whatever it is. And then actually when those moments come, all you'll wish for is more of what you wished away in the moment because you're entitled or short-tempered or frustrated or whatever.

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2:05:13Claude.ai.srs. How do you reset? but do you find yourself going down those rabbit holes too?

2:05:23Ryan Holiday:Yeah, of course. I mean, I try to... The good news about the present moment is that you're always getting another one until the moment that you don't. And so, to me, how quickly can you get... Like, shit, I'm throwing the phone down. Like, I'm stopping right now. Not like, tomorrow I'll do better, but like, I'm stopping right now. It's like, how fast can you get back to center? Is to me like the key skill, both as a parent and as a person in this crazy modern world. But today was rough, okay. How do you do better tomorrow? And how do you stop whatever the direction you're going in that you know you shouldn't be going in and how quickly you can do that?

2:06:14What are your indications? Do they come from you? Do they come from your wife, your kids?

2:06:19Ryan Holiday:Yeah, I mean, I feel like parenting is a lot of, after they go to bed, you're like, man, what are we doing? Why did it go this way? You know, it's that sort of debrief at night. To me, that's... You know, and it's very rarely... Man, we crushed it today. Like, it's usually like, why did we try to squeeze one more thing in? You know? Why did I... I remember I was putting my son down to bed the other night, and uh you know first i can have a little more ipad time then i gotta brush my teeth oh no now i gotta go to the bathroom again or oh no i'm not in water oh i'm hungry even though i had dinner twice you know all the stuff that is making up for uh you know not going to bed and uh then i finally he's like all right we go in his room and i'm like all right let's get in bed and he's like no i'm sleeping on the floor and i go what you're not sleeping on the floor like and then we just got in this huge, you know, it's like, what do you mean you never said I couldn't sleep on the floor?

2:07:19We're getting this whole fucking argument about why I couldn't sleep on the floor.

2:07:23Ryan Holiday:And then I was finally like, I was like, why do I have an opinion about this? You know, like sleep on the floor. I don't care. I realized like, I think in the moment it was like, I didn't want him to sleep on the floor. Cause here's what I knew what happened. He would sleep on the floor until like the middle of the night and then wake up. And then he'd come in our room, you know, and it was like, I wanted sleep, right? I was extrapolating what this means with, you know, like, instead of like going like, I don't care where you fall asleep. I was thinking about what it means if you sleep here or there, right?

2:07:51Ryan Holiday:And so anyways, finally, I'm like, I just realized I'd gotten down that I was in a battle of wills that like, I had the power to end right then by saying sleep wherever you want, you know, if you want to sleep on this teddy bear on the floor, like, knock yourself out. So anyways, he lays down and uh just when i think he's fallen asleep i go to leave he goes i'm ready to sleep in my bed now and i go all right let's go and he walks and he falls asleep in his bed and it was such an illustrative one for me because it was like it's like i know when it started it started when we walked into his room and he said i wanted to sleep uh on the floor and i said no and then And it ended with him realizing that he didn't want to sleep on the floor and he would rather sleep in his bed.

2:08:43Ryan Holiday:And that whole argument, you know, where I argued one thing and then I realized I was wrong and then I changed, like that whole thing in the middle, it just didn't fucking need to happen. You know, like the whole, like it would have worked itself out had I been a little more go with the flow about something. and i think i what i took from that what i as a parent is just like i need i need to be more in the like does this thing actually matter like why am i thinking that this matters and i'm thinking that it matters because i'm thinking about what it means as opposed to that it means nothing right and that that i could save us both a lot like i could save us both a lot of trouble.

2:09:35Ryan Holiday:And in fact, like, not only did it work itself out, but it worked itself out, except we also had a big argument in the middle, which has a cost to it, right? And so, look, I'm not saying you do everything your kids want and you let, you know, you got King Baby walking around. But most of the conflict, like, when I think about the things I had conflict with with my parents, how many of those, in retrospect, were significant in any way? You know? And how many of those things are they glad that they went to the mattresses on? And I'm trying to get better at that. You're saying pick your battles. Totally.

2:10:22And by pick your battles, I mean avoid 99.9 % of the battles,

2:10:27Ryan Holiday:because they don't fucking matter. So how do you guide them then? I mean, now we're moving into fatherhood. Yeah. How do you guide them without confrontation, without disciplining them? Yeah. I mean, yeah, of course, that's the challenge. You're not creating this fantasy world where they get to do whatever they want whenever they want it. But at the same time, again, why do I care whether you sleep on the floor or their bed? There's no lesson in here. What there actually is, is me wondering about the consequences of this for me, and two, my desire for control. Right? Like, you want to do this, and I want you to do this, and why am I going to let a six-year-old win?

2:11:15Ryan Holiday:You know, like, most, so like, in a way, you think like, oh, I'm giving them discipline, I'm giving them structure, it's very helpful. Actually, you're just showing them like authority is arbitrary and pointless and, you know, should be fought against it. Like you're actually sending the exact opposite lesson you want. And again, I'm saying this all as someone who constantly struggles with this. So I'm not saying this is something I'm good at. It's precisely the opposite. But I mean, look, you teach your kids by example, and you teach your kids often in the moments when they are open to being taught because they've experienced some kind of consequence for a choice, or there is an opening because of something that's happened.

2:12:10Ryan Holiday:for you to actually insert that thing, that bit of wisdom or experience or lesson or whatever. That's kind of how I think about it. Okay. I mean, you wrote a whole book on stoic fatherhood, correct? Well, I did a book called The Daily Dad, which is just sort of, yeah, classical or ancient lessons, like one a day. I think the problem with parenting books is like, you're supposed to read this book and then just be good. Like, I'm supposed to read about, when my kid is 13 months, I'm reading about how you teach things to a 13-year-old. Like, I'm not going to remember any of this. So the idea of the Daily Dad is it's an email, too.

2:12:46Ryan Holiday:The Daily Dad email is just one thought a day. I think, to me, parenting is like a series of values and lessons that you've got to be reminded of over and over and over again. And that's kind of what I've tried to do with it. What are some of the most important ones that stick out to you? um yeah i think that the the most important one i think is just how fast this is all going and that you uh every time i i cut my kids fingernails or take them to get a haircut i go like that's that much life right there that's that much uh of the brief window that they live in my house right that we get to do things together.

2:13:35Ryan Holiday:And I try to be always aware, just as like Memento Mori is about your own mortality, realizing that I don't have a two-year-old anymore. My three-year-old is dead and gone. My four-year-old is dead and gone. You are cycling through those ages and they will never be that thing again. To me, that's one of the ultimate parenting lessons. And the other one, my wife and I were related to that, was like, we were like, do we want to, there was like some kids concert or something we were thinking about going. And we're like, but we got to get in the car. It's like a 30 minute drive. Are they going to appreciate it?

2:14:12Ryan Holiday:And it was just like, how many more times are they going to want to do this? You know, probably not that many more. Like at some point there's the last time. And are we going to be glad that we stayed at home and didn't do the thing? Are we going to be glad that we did the thing? So realizing that you only get so many shots of these things, I think is a big one.

2:14:34Ryan Holiday:That you are the voice that's gonna be in their head. And what is that voice like? Is it a negative voice? Is it a positive voice? Bruce Springsteen talked about how we're gonna be either ancestors or ghosts to our children. Like an ancestor guides and a ghost haunts. and what kind of example are you going to share? I never thought of it like that. And it's not just like what you say, but also like, is dad working on his shit? Is mom working on her shit? Or are they just foisting that stuff on you? And so like thinking about getting serious about the stuff that you know you need to address, you know you need to work on.

2:15:19Ryan Holiday:I think that's one. And then related to that, I think like, Like, I've never lost my temper at my kids and then afterward been like, I'm so glad I did that. Yeah. I have like on my phone, you know, it cycles through like pictures of my kids like as my home screen. And one of the things I'm always struck by is like how little they were. Like, I was real fucking pissed at a very small person. Like, it doesn't age well. Like, the things you get upset about, the things that you thought were a big deal as they get older and you get a little better at this parenting thing i think that the disparity of them and you becomes more obvious and um i'm like why did i like like like what do i give a about the back seat of the car so much for you know or like you know you walk in and he's drawn on the wall or you know uh broke something you know what where's where's the car that my parents were really concerned about me spilling fucking my mcdonald's ketchup on like it's in a it's in a fucking cube somewhere.

2:16:42Ryan Holiday:Like, it doesn't, like, it did not ultimately affect the resale value of said car. It did not teach me any lessons about cleanliness. Like, it was just, like, a stupid argument that we had, right? Like, and I try to think about that. Again, not good at it, but I try to go, like, where will this thing be in the future? Am I going to care about it? you don't put importance on any things yeah yeah or i i try to get better at not a human or the thing what do i care more about you know the the marriage advice is like do you want to be right you want to be married you know um do you do you want to have a good relationship with your kids or do you want to get your way all the time how do you know if you're i mean this is a really good way to put it if you're a positive or a negative in your in your kid's mind how do you gauge that um to me i think it comes down to to like like no no parent is perfect every every every therapy session ultimately ends up in all the ways that your parents could have done better or whatever, right?

2:18:02Ryan Holiday:But like, you know, people say like, oh, my parents did the best they could. I'm not sure that's always true. And so like, are you actually doing your best? Like that's, to me, the question is like, like I go, you know, I'm doing my best. And I go, am I? Because I feel like I try a lot harder at other stuff. Like I'm not saying parenting is easy, but I feel like I do a lot more work evaluating myself professionally. I bring in a lot more help professionally. I measure myself better professionally and then a lot of times as a parent I'm just winging it and then I want them to let me off the hook and go dad was doing his best like I'm not sure that's true and so that does kind of push me to try to do better damn it's like me I'm like that Yeah, because look, and I think culturally for men especially, right?

2:19:05Ryan Holiday:Like your job was where you were supposed to be like your best, where you prove yourself. And then parenting was like an afterthought. and um the expectations were you know that expression uh the soft bigotry of low expectations that that's basically dudes for all of human history when it comes to parenting um and uh like i don't know i i want i want to do better than that what are this i mean what are the steps that you're taking, that you're thinking about taking, that create a better balance? Yeah, I mean, to me, a big one is like, okay, so you're really good at what you do, you're successful at it, and then you think that that somehow exempts you from having to do shit at home right like um like obviously look managing your time and delegating where you can but you're like why am i assuming that like my wife should make the school lunches or there's this like they did this interesting study of like schools where like they needed something at home like like there's some problem at the school right and the the the receptionist or the principal or whatever had to call the parent like what percentage of the time do they call the dad probably a very small percentage and there there's there's the assumption of the person making the call and then there's also the reality of like the family like and um like I've worked really hard, and my wife and I, whenever we hire an assistant or we're like, there's no, we're both the default parent.

2:21:07Ryan Holiday:It's not like, call her if there's anything important, and then call Ryan if you can't reach her. I want to make this a thing that I value. and that like, I heard someone say like, your kids are not a distraction from your work, they are your work. And that's easy to say, but like, what does your calendar say? You know, what does your division of household labor say? Like, a kid has a birthday. Are you just showing up at the birthday party? Or did you make planning decisions? you know did you make purchase decisions did you did it catch you off guard that it was there but like like there's just there's just a uh an assumption i think it's look it's obviously better than it's ever been before but there is like an assumption that like that's not like the term for this is emotional labor that's not emotional labor that the father should have to do unless they're like a single parent or you know whatever um and uh i'm not saying it came easy and i'm not saying it came voluntarily i'm just saying like in my marriage and in my family my wife and i have tried to not do that and it's been like i've had to learn how to do a bunch of that I would not normally be inclined to do or be good at, I've had to figure out how to do.

2:22:47Man, it's just a... Man, it's such a dichotomy, right? I mean, I think about this all the time. I've talked about this several times on the show. I mean, my wife and I have, like, this little bitty fucking hunt cabin that's it is like looks like you can blow on it fall over yeah you know it's it's it's all one room you know the kitchen the bathroom it's all one room yeah and uh and and before my kids were born we would spend weekends down there and just we live out in the women's yeah we live out in the woods you go down there you're really out in the woods and that's the some of the happiest times I've had with my wife is down there zero to there's no cell reception there's no internet there's nothing and um and I keep coming back to this which I love doing this but I'm happier right there no distractions I'm in the moment sure and you know and now that I'm close to being able to just, I could do that.

2:23:59I could get rid of, I could sell the studio. I could get rid of all of this, sell it, it'd be totally fine financially and actually live that life where I'm 100 % dedicated to my family.

2:24:12Ryan Holiday:Yeah. 100 % of the time. Yeah. And knowing that I would probably be happier. Yeah. I'm 99 % sure I would be a happier person. You know, if I put all the, even though I love doing this, you know, put all the world's distractions just away from my life, but I still fucking come back to this. Yeah. Because I love it. And I also think about, you know, would it be better? Realistically, would it be better for me to be there 100 % of the time for my wife and my two kids? and what kind of example is that setting for my son because that's not how society is set up yeah i think it's an interesting question is it better for them is it right it's it's better for them right now is it better for their future yeah because they're they're they're going to hit a point where they're going to have to provide for their family uh it's unattractive i personally think it's unattractive for a woman to whether whether he is a wealthy financially wealthy man or not a trust fund baby, you know, I don't think women, I don't think that's a real attraction.

2:25:25Sure. You know, to find it in a partner. Sure. You know, and so if he doesn't see me providing for the family and doing things that, in my opinion, men should be doing as the leader of the household, then what happens to him when he comes of age to find a wife and have kids and provide.

2:25:50Ryan Holiday:If you never had that example, then what is that going to lead to? And he may not ever find somebody if he doesn't get that example. I remember a couple weeks into the pandemic, my wife was like, please never be home this much ever again. And obviously, I had to do some work on being like, okay, I have to become a more stable, like chill person because this this is it this is a currently operating in a way that's only good in small doses right that wasn't good at the same time like to take the energy and the drives and the competence and the mastery all the stuff that you have and be like i'm gonna put all this at home you know i think that's also how you get fucking stage parents and um you know uh sports parents like what are stage parents i just mean like the parents that make all facets of their existence their family right and then all of a sudden you're just channeling that energy at home.

2:27:01Ryan Holiday:Like, there's an intensity and an energy that has to have her release valve. And I think work and impact, like, that shouldn't all be on your family. Like, we're meant to go out and do things and to figure things out. And it's like, so you're just gonna drive them to school and then play golf all day? Like, I'm not sure that's not thriving as a human being either or setting a good example either. So there's a tension. But yeah, I think one of the things that bothers me, and I think we all delude ourselves with it, is we go, like, I do this all for my family. It's like, no, you don't. You stop needing to do this for your family a long time ago.

2:27:50Ryan Holiday:This is about you, right? and um and that's not to say it's not about them at all but like you're a billionaire dude like you're not doing this for anybody you're doing this because there's never enough for you and so um it can be very easy to take something selfish and make it seem like it's selfless justify it yeah and so understanding the tension between those two things and like what i've tried to i i've tried to say and work on a way that i can be really good at what i do and keep it within some reasonable hours boundaries and and systems like i to me like what i'm working on like my i'm not trying to be to sell the most books in the world have the most impact in the world or be the most famous or any i'm trying to be really good at what I do and be a really good parent.

2:28:54And that in a way, that's actually a more difficult needle to thread than just being all in one or all in the other.

2:29:05Ryan Holiday:And I think it's important that we understand that that's possible to do. Like the athletes that I admire or the entrepreneurs that I admire or the leaders that I admire are not the maniacs, right? It's the ones who seem to be reasonably well-adjusted human beings also, right? Like sometimes you read about these like, this is my daily routine. This is my system. This is how so-and-so prepares in the off season. And you're like, well, I'm sure that's all really easy to do if you don't fucking see your family, you know? Like if you're a piece of shit, that's easier. Yeah. It's, can you be in great shape?

2:29:50Ryan Holiday:Can you do what you do? Can you perform at a high level and do school drop off? Or, I don't know, be involved and be present when you're around. You know, like, can you, like, that's the challenge for me. Like, it used to be like when I was working on a book, I was just an all-consuming thing. I don't just mean the hours. I just mean like I couldn't turn it off. And now I try to judge the success on a book on like how not disruptive it is. Most gear looks good until you actually start using it. Then you find out pretty quickly what holds up and what doesn't. That's why I keep coming back to Roka.

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2:32:06How do you, I mean, what are your indicators for you that tell you if you're leading? I'm talking to you, I doubt you lean too far into family. It seems like you probably lean too far into work. Yes. You know, and so what are your indicators that let you know? Is it a personal guilt? Is it the way your kids are acting or communicating to you? Is it your wife? What are your indicators?

2:32:31Ryan Holiday:Yeah, I mean, look, just practically, I try to measure, like, the stuff that I do or I say yes to, I measure it in bedtimes. Like, how many bedtimes am I going to miss for this thing? And, like, one is a lot. Two is usually too many. Right? So I try to measure it in bedtimes. So that's, like, that's kind of my North Star. Like, physically, is this taking me away, yes or no? And that's kind of how I judge the stuff that comes my way. That being said, that can be a way of fooling yourself, which is like, you're there, but you're not really there. So I try to think about like, hey, how is my emotional state, my focus, like, am I the reason that this is all dysregulated or am I the calming presence?

2:33:18Ryan Holiday:Right? And I think too often, like, I'm... It's like, I came home amped. I came home worked up. I'm stressed. I'm distracted. And you can, like, I think you can just feel the energy in the family dynamic. And I want to be the solution, not the problem. And I think, I know I'm not taking care of the things that I need to be taken care of. And I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing when I am, I'm the problem. You know, like, if the three-year-old is upset because they're a three-year-old, great. If the three-year-old is upset because you snapped at them because you were trying to play with them and check your phone at the same time, you're the problem.

2:34:05Ryan Holiday:And so I try to think about that. Like, how am I fitting into this system, this sort of wavelength, as opposed to I want to make it all about me. Makes a lot of sense. makes a lot of sense. And then you should have a spouse and a family dynamic, co-parent, whatever it is for you, where they're like, dude, what was that? You know, like, I think my wife and I talk a lot about like, like, let's back each other up in the moment, you know? Let's not throw each other under the bus in front of the kids. But like afterwards, like, yeah, you can't do that. Like, you know, you can't do that. You saw, you saw when you made that choice, right?

2:34:46Ryan Holiday:It goes both directions but like i think if if um if if you're not making each other better as parents you're not you're not doing your job yeah yeah you know steve vernello's book yeah about outdoor kids and then inside world i mean there's so many studies to talk about you know the more kids are outside the the percentage of them having depression decreases dramatically. I mean, less screen time, depression decreases dramatically. You're raising your kids on a farm, correct? My youngest is in first grade, and when he started in August, it was the first time he ever sat at a desk. He did kindergarten and pre-K for several years at an outdoor school.

2:35:42Ryan Holiday:like they would go there was no buildings and they did it outside rain or shine you know they ate their lunch around a campfire and they did all the stuff outside that's awesome and it was incredible and that kind of education called i think it's just called a it's like a nature school or an outdoor school i'm guarantee you there's one around here um and it was incredible and And, you know, that was a big, big choice for us. And then, you know, we like one of our big things is like, okay, sure. Screens are maybe better parents than us could exist in a screen-free household. That ship has sailed.

2:36:24Ryan Holiday:but like we try to use them to like how is that an entry point into a world that we we are by nature of where we are financially and the freedom we have like we i can show you that world right like my my boys got really into this podcast called greeking out um which is it's all about the Greek myths. It's amazing. It's like 10 seasons. They listen to every episode multiple times. And so we went on a road trip across Greece, going to Rome this year. If they get interested in a thing, because they watch a video about it, they hear about it, let's go experience that thing in real life. So to me, one of the most important skills you can have in life is first curiosity, but then second, the ability to take that curiosity to its natural conclusion.

2:37:25Ryan Holiday:Right? Like if you're interested in something or you don't know about something, do you have the skills to go figure it out? You know, like there are books about that. There are videos about that. There are podcasts about that. There are places we can go. There are experts about this thing. There's AI, right? Like how you, like to me, I try to see the screen as an entry point into the enormity of the world. And then it's like the algorithm is exposing themselves to stuff. And then because they're interested in it, like my job as a parent is to take them down that rabbit hole. Okay. And so that's kind of how we think about like learning and doing stuff.

2:38:07Ryan Holiday:I like that. Like, oh, we're going on this road trip now, I guess. Like, you know um or and i'm i'm showing them stuff right well it's like like i showed my son this like saturday night live video he thought it was hilarious and then you know um it's like oh you want to take an improv class now done you know or oh did you actually know like lauren michael's papers are at a museum in austin let's go do that so like that that idea of like they have that flicker of interest or um uh awareness of something how do you how do you take them down that rabbit hole so they show interest and you immediately act on it yeah yeah and and like it's not heavy-handed but it's like oh there's so much more of that you don't even know and that's like that gets me excited right because like sometimes it's something i know a lot about and i get to show you all the things that I know about it and that I love about it and then sometimes it's something I know nothing about and we get to go learn about that together do you introduce things to them as well yeah yeah you're it's like you're always like um what about this what about that and you know you don't have a great hit rate but when you when when it when it um when it lights them up that's like the best like music movies um yeah nice let's talk i'm dying to talk about this all right churchill yeah okay

2:39:44i didn't grow up with money yeah was never around it you know and uh now i find myself making a pretty decent amount. Yeah. And I don't know where to look to. You know, how do you raise kids with that? Keep them humble. Keep them from being entitled. Keep them from idolizing shit. Yeah. Fucking cars, watches, whatever. You know, the luxury items. You know, how do you do it? I don't know. And you don't know whether you... You see all these people that have grown up with it. And a lot of times I don't like the way they turn out. You know, I don't wish that for my kids. I'll say that.

2:40:35Ryan Holiday:And you don't know if you're doing a good job until it's like too late. Yeah, no, I think it's the thing that keeps parents up at night. I remember I was talking to Matthew McConaughey one time and he said, you know, there were a lot of things when he was a kid where it was like we can't but then you find yourself in a position as a parent that's very different and it's like we're not going to like we don't do that that challenge like in a way it's not easier because it's hard to not have enough but it takes the choice out of things right like yeah Um,

2:41:20Ryan Holiday:you know, and I think, I think not to idealize the past, but like there used to be

2:41:30society was the, the, the income inequality was less.

2:41:37Ryan Holiday:Like we've never existed with this level of income inequality in this sort of stratified world, right? Where it's like, okay, now it used to be there was first class and uh economy on an airplane now not only are these different levels on an airplane but there's like private and um the people who are flying private are living in a very different world than the people who are not and how do you how do you stay in reality I think is like the first challenge, especially as people get to levels where it's inconsequential to them, like what this costs or that costs.

2:42:31Ryan Holiday:You have to create some artificial boundaries and rules, I think.

2:42:39Ryan Holiday:I just, I don't know. It's fucking tough, man. It is. Because they have to, like, you could starve them from all of that as a parent. And you can starve. But then on the other hand, eventually they're going to be in it. And if they don't know how to act when they're around it, then I also think you're doing them a disservice. And so they really need to know how to operate in both worlds, in my opinion. How do you get them to operate in both worlds without becoming a self-entitled, selfish piece of shit? I mean, for lack of better word. Look, it's a timeless challenge. Plutarch, one of the great biographers of antiquity, was talking about how parents will spend a lot of time on their will, trying to create an estate.

2:43:29Ryan Holiday:Who's going to manage the estate? Who's going to be the guardians? How much money do they get? You know, spend a lot of time thinking about that. and not enough time thinking about, how do I raise a person with enough character that they can handle it? Instead of being like, oh, we're creating a trust fund, and the trust fund gives them this much per year, which is just enough and not too many. It's like, you could also just spend your time trying to raise a child who has good values and a good work ethic, and doesn't derive their value from luxury goods, right? So I think it's a challenge. Certainly, again, nothing close to the challenge of being a single mother on food stamps trying to raise three kids or whatever, but it comes with its own challenges.

2:44:23Ryan Holiday:And ultimately, I think we have to model it. And then I think we have to, like the most valuable gift you can give your kid is not, you know, a huge estate. It's like the ability to like have the thing that lights them up, like that they like doing, that like they want to spend their life doing. Like Robert Greene, my mentor, he calls this your life's task. What is your life's task? Like, what were you put here to do? And I think our job as parents is to help our kids find that thing, to create an environment where they can find that thing and be supported and loved in pursuing that thing. You know, it's not to make them a doctor or a lawyer or to inherit the family business.

2:45:17Ryan Holiday:It's to find the thing that if they didn't do, not only would they be unhappy, but the world would be worse off for them not doing it. I mean, I want to say something too, just for the audience. I don't want to sound like a couple of fucking elitists, you know, sitting up here talking about this. But this is because we're not even talking about what we have, what we don't have. We're just anybody who finds themselves in a position that they are doing better than their parents did. This applies to them. You know what I mean? Look, your average American has a level of choice and privilege that a struggling family almost anywhere else in the world is not having to think about.

2:46:07Ryan Holiday:So this is privilege, but in a way that we're all privileged and there's just different degrees of it. But yeah, how do you raise a kid who is resilient? Stoicism to me is about being in control of yourself, being master of yourself. And that's what we're trying. Like you're trying to raise kids who can go through life and are not going to be, as I said, don't say ew a lot, don't throw in the towel a lot, don't expect other people to solve their problems for them. How do you raise self-sufficient, resilient kids? That's the challenge of our time. And yet it's also the most timeless challenge for us.

2:46:46Ryan Holiday:Every parent for all time has had to deal with that in some form or another. And I think, I don't think there's one thing you do. I think it's a handful of things. Do you think it's how you act? I mean, the things that I've learned, and my kids are very young. My oldest is close to five. But, you know, I think it is, I really am starting to think it's, the only thing that really matters is the example that you set for them yeah so if you idolize your shit they're going to idolize their shit if you get pissed because they fucking scratch your car break a window um whatever break a vase well anything you know and you you overreact and idolize the thing, that's going to be passed on.

2:47:45Ryan Holiday:Yeah. Same with people. They're going to look to see how you treat people, all people, not people you look up to and people that you think that you're above, all people. And they're going to take that in, and hopefully the financial aspect, it doesn't have any relevance. if you lead by example. Yeah, like they say your kids, kids don't always listen, but they're always watching. And like a way to think about it is like, let's say you never gave them a single piece of advice. Like you never told your kids, do this, don't do that. This is important. That's not important. This is what we believe.

2:48:30Ryan Holiday:These are our values. What do you think they would deduce about what you think about those things from the life that you lead like like if you were tried in court would you be convicted of those beliefs from your actions I think that's like you know I think about this it's like okay so I write about stoicism but if if I didn't would my kids say that that's what I believe in or care about? Would that be how they would describe me? You know, and that like, that's the message that ultimately matters. Like, what are you what are you saying with your your deeds, not your words? And you say this matters and this doesn't matter.

2:49:20Ryan Holiday:And then, you know, you're you're your decisions tell a very different story. I like to say like, you know, your calendar doesn't lie. Yeah. And neither, neither ultimately does, does your, you know, your sure behavior at home. Find the vacation you're looking for in Missouri. Whether you're searching for this, wanting something like this. Oh, that's cute. Maybe up for something like this. or just really, really need something more like this. You'll find the vacation you want in Missouri. Missouri, it's the getaway that gets... You. Plan your fun at visitmo.com. Do you ever ask your kids for input?

2:50:16On how you're doing?

2:50:17Ryan Holiday:Oh, like what can I do better? Yeah, all the time. Do you really? Yeah. What do they say? Like they're usually like, can I, you should give us our iPads more, stuff like that. I think it's a lot to ask them to be able to, I think when they're older, they're going to be better at being able to verbalize like what they need more of and what they need less of.

2:50:45Ryan Holiday:But I do try to think like, hey, like, why isn't this working? you know uh i try to like why if this isn't having the effect that i wanted to have i need to do something differently instead of insisting over and over again that this is how it should go this is you know this is what i think

2:51:07Ryan Holiday:but i don't know it's it's it's it's a constant fucking challenge yeah and one of one of the um One of the things I heard someone say that was helpful to me is like, the bad parents aren't thinking about whether they're doing a good job or not. So the fact that it is a challenge and that you are thinking about it and that you're, you know, how are we doing here? Where could we do better? I'm worried about this. Like that's not, that already puts you in, in somewhat elite, uh, company. You're a better parent by, yeah, you're, you're in the better parent category. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I look, I, a lot of people have kids.

2:51:52Ryan Holiday:Not everyone's a parent. Yeah. And the decision to be like, Hey, I'm going to, I'm going to take this thing seriously. I'm going to, it's not this side hustle that I have. It's like my main thing. It's the main reason I'm here. um and uh i'm going to i'm gonna work at this like i work at anything else which means i'm going to take it seriously which means i'm going to ask for advice which means i'm going to actually look at how it's going and the results um and then i'm going to be willing to change and try try it differently i'm not just going to go well my parents did it this way or well this feels right to me but actually be willing to change and take feedback is uh not just change and take feedback i think i think also apologize like there are things that 30 years later my parents apologized for it would mean a lot to me right like i don't know about you but like if my parents were like hey you know what when you were a teenager you really clearly needed this and we didn't do that for you and i bet that was hard and like we thought about it more and like we wish we'd done it differently i'd be like oh my god right so it's never too late right to apologize how how quickly can you do it now though like like can i go hey like the next day hey i don't know why i picked this fight with you about you wanted to sleep on the floor it doesn't matter to me i just love that you still let me put you down and uh picking a fight was not how i wanted it to go but i did and uh i don't want to do that i'm sorry um i mean i don't know about you but i didn't get apologized too much when i was a kid um and and you know maybe some people think that's weak or soft or whatever to me i'm trying to get better and i do it i'm not to get better if i'm not taking accountability and responsibility for when i don't do it the way that i want to do it i do it especially about the phone yeah i feel so guilty and i keep doing it over and over and over again yeah but i probably you know i'm like i do i just i have to do it yeah because i think that once again a lead by example because it also teaches them, like, they need to be able to do that, too.

2:54:21Ryan Holiday:Or just to see you struggle with, like, you're like, hey, this is a thing I have to use, but I use it way more than I have to, and I want to use it less. So here's where I want to be, and here's where I am, and here's your dad trying to get there. To me, that's a much more relatable, a much more inspiring, and ultimately much more practical perception of your parents that mom and dad are perfect their word is law like because kids know that's not true they sense the bullshit yeah and they resent it and it it undermines it undermines their connection and their belief in you and so yeah i try to i try to to own that shit when i can and i try to be i try to be clear about the stuff that i'm working on and the stuff that i'm trying to get better at yeah yeah you know i'm doing a um i got so much out of my first psychedelics uh ibogaine treatment i'm doing it again um in the in the in the foreseeable future and what i'm really hoping i get out of it is some kind of perspective of what my kids think of me oh interesting i really want to see what i look like through their lens yeah and that's probably going to be a hard thing to see but um yeah i uh i just want to i want to improve and uh i just i really want to see that i saw this video of uh this billionaire and uh someone was like you know what's it like to have a billion dollars or what's it like to be rich and he was like rich isn't having a billion dollars.

2:56:10Ryan Holiday:Rich is having kids who want to come home for the holidays. And I think it's really important that you sort of define what success is, right? Like people go, oh, you only get 18 summers with your kids. And it's like, legally, but like you meet families, and they spend a lot of time together. And you're like, oh, that's a whole different thing. I didn't know we could do that. You know, I didn't know that was something we could work towards and so thinking about like what the goal is and so the goal is not to have the shoes nicely lined up by the back door the shoe the the goal is not to have i remember i was talking to someone once she was she's in her 90s and she's like people used to come over and be like it doesn't look like you have kids and she was like i took that as a compliment and i i don't she's like i don't know how i could have possibly been so wrong she was like your house should look like you have kids your life you have kids why what are you doing so like the goal is to have it's to not have these people for 18 years and then eject them and go back to your selfish life like you started a family the goal is to have the family yeah in the future and so remembering that running the things through the lens of that and again it doesn't mean giving them whatever they want whenever they want it because that is also at odds with that i would also say though like if you're a billionaire you can go visit your kids for the holidays you know they don't need to come home but the point is they should want they should want to come home right like like you should the success here is uh that that when the authority ends the relationship is still there yeah and i think uh people lose sight of that i've never heard it like that that's really good let's talk about speed reading oh speed reading is a scam well how do i read faster i don't know it's i think it's illustrative that that's what you want to do you're not like how how do i eat food faster is there a way to have sex faster.

2:58:24Ryan Holiday:Like the point is stuff that's good. You want it, you want it to take how long it's supposed to take. So I don't know why we want to read faster. Like if the question is, how do I read more? I got lots of answers to that question, but I don't think we should try to read faster. Right? Like I would say I read at a medium speed. I just spend a lot of time reading and I spend a lot of time reading because it's worth doing. It's enjoyable to do. And also it's magic. The founding of Stoicism has a story about this. Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, he visits the oracle at Delphi, the famous oracle, and he asks what the secret to the good life is.

2:59:07Ryan Holiday:And he's told that wisdom comes when we begin to have conversations with the dead. and it's only later at a bookstore that he realizes that that's what books are it's a way to talk to people who are dead um that we can converse with marcus aurelius through meditations that we can read the speeches of churchill that we can read you know the poems of emily dickinson that uh you know we can read great novels the campaigns of the greats

2:59:46Ryan Holiday:it's magic it's fucking time travel like here is someone who's no longer with us transporting us to them them to us breaking down you know there's a there's a famous poem that says uh you know uh books are door-shaped like they're portals to another world and and so So anyways, the point is reading is spectacular. Like for$15 or$20 or fucking free at the library that you can have access to the brain of Julius Caesar or Napoleon. You know, you can read from Stockdale. You can read from Marcus Aurelius. You can read from Epictetus. You can read from Frederick Douglass. You can read from Abraham Lincoln.

3:00:32You know, this is incredible.

3:00:34Ryan Holiday:Like, the amount of wisdom and hard-won experience inside the pages of the book is an incredible thing. And, like, most people are like, nah, I'd like to learn by trial and error. Or they're like, eh, I don't know. A lot of good stuff on Instagram, too. Right? Like, it's ridiculous. Tolstoy talked about, like, you can... You can... And converse with the wisest people who ever lived and you choose not to. So I think first and foremost, understanding what reading allows you to do makes the ROI of it much clearer. Is it also entertaining and fun and relaxing? Sure. But it's an incredible thing that we have contained in these pages.

3:01:25Ryan Holiday:The other thing is, like, you got to make time for it. Like, there's no shortcut. Like, you got to do it. but you gotta make time for it. And if I looked at your screen time app, I promise you I could find the time. You know, like you have the time, you're just not spending it. And this is for all of us. Like I could read more, I just get distracted by things. And so one of the reasons I like carry a physical book with me everywhere is like when I sit down, cause I'm a little early or someone's late or I have a few minutes between here or there, like I wanna read a book. I don't wanna go into social media.

3:01:59Ryan Holiday:I don't wanna go into work. I want to read. And I see that as part of my job. It's crazy. Some of my best ideas, some of the biggest successes I've had as an entrepreneur, but also as an employee, came from things I read in books. But for some reason, if someone had come into my office and I was sitting in a chair like this reading, they'd be like, I don't pay you to do this. Yet, if I was sitting at my computer monitor, checking ESPN, they'd have no idea. And so, So I think we need to do a better job understanding that reading is not just work, like has a work benefit, but it's like some of the best, single best way you could spend your time.

3:02:43Ryan Holiday:And I don't know, that's my case for reading. Right on, man. Well, Ryan, I know you got a flight to catch, but this was an awesome conversation. I'd love to have you back at some point. I'd be honored. We do have a hot question. I almost forgot. One last thing. Hot question. Audie Murphy tried to enlist in the Marines at 17. They rejected him for being too small. The paratroopers rejected him too. He finally got into the Army by gaining weight before the physical 5 '5", 112 pounds. He went on to win every U.S. combat decoration for valor, including the Medal of Honor. 28 medals total. The most decorated American soldier in history.

3:03:27He came home, became a movie star, and was haunted by PTSD for the rest of his life. Slept with a loaded pistol under his pillow, got addicted to sleeping pills, locked himself in a hotel room, and kicked a cold turkey. And then he did something nobody at his level was doing in the 1960s. He went public, talked openly about combat trauma, demanded the VA take it seriously, died in a plane crash at age 45. Here's the question. Tell me about Audie Murphy. What does the smallest, quietest guy in the room, becoming the most decorated soldier in American history, tell us about what real toughness actually looks like?

3:04:10Ryan Holiday:Well, they told us quite a bit about Audie Murphy right there. Just an incredible human being, an incredible American. He has a memoir called To Hell and Back, which I should have brought you because it's an amazing book. One of the great memoirs of the 20th century. i'll tell you one little story about audie murphy that all those accomplishments are incredibly impressive um one of the ones he doesn't get enough credit for that i think in in a way is it's not harder but it's rare is um so he becomes a movie star country musician right and um uh he's asked to do a bunch of endorsements and uh he turns down all drug sorry all cigarette and alcohol endorsements because he doesn't want to model that for kids.

3:04:57Ryan Holiday:And so, like, I just think, like, he did a lot of feats of discipline and a lot of feats of courage. Saying no to money is a thing that a lot of brave and powerful people have found it hard to do. And I just, in a way, that's, like, there's physical courage, and then there's moral courage. And the moral courage to say, hey, I'm not going to do that. It doesn't feel right to me. It's courage that we don't celebrate enough. We don't give out medals for that kind of courage. And then the courage to speak out and to speak honestly about what you're struggling with, like vulnerability, like, hey, I'm not okay.

3:05:37Ryan Holiday:Hey, even though I'm capable of all these things, this thing is kicking my ass. I'm struggling with this thing. Again, that's another form of courage that we don't celebrate enough and we don't hold up enough uh and and it's it's uh

3:06:00Ryan Holiday:and we wonder why it's you know we wonder why it's rare and and um it it uh it moves me just just as much he's an incredible person and uh you you read some of those medal of honor citations for those guys and they're just it's just absolutely unreal right yeah yeah there's a follow-up here okay you're gonna like this what does this story say to every influencer right now selling alpha males alpha male stoicism yeah uh uh i uh andrew tate is a fucking abuser of women a shitty person a sex trafficker and the idea that like that's who you should be taking life advice from is insane right like stoicism is not a recipe for making you a better sociopath it is not this pick and choose thing where you take a couple motivational quotes and then you put it up next to an AI-generated picture of Mark Surrealist with a 12-pack and you're like, I get it.

3:07:25Ryan Holiday:It's a philosophy. And it's a philosophy built around virtue. And the four virtues of stoicism, Courage, essential. Discipline, essential. Wisdom, essential. But the fourth is justice. That's ethics. That's the standards you hold yourself to. That's your contribution to society, to the world. And none of the other virtues are of any worth, if not balanced out by, or in fact, directed at justice, right? Like, courage on the battlefield, sure, very impressive. But what if you're fighting a horrible war? Like, I stayed in Franklin and, you know, walked past the Confederate statue. And, you know, it says, there have never been braver men or a cause more honorable.

3:08:24Ryan Holiday:It's like, I can think of quite a few causes more honorable. Like, other than Nazism, it was literally the worst cause. Like, literally the worst cause to ever go to war for. Now it's complicated. And a lot of the men were drafted. Most of them didn't own slaves. They were told a bunch of lies by the slave powers. But let's not lie to ourselves about what that heroism was used for. And what it would have looked like had it triumphed. Like, the world would have been a worse place. In fact, their virtue, that military valor was weaponized and spent in the wrong way for the wrong cause. And so that's ultimately what philosophy is designed to help us wrestle with.

3:09:15It's like, what's right and wrong?

3:09:18Ryan Holiday:What do we owe other people? Are we making the world a better or worse place? and uh look if if the ideas of masculinity and toughness and resilience if that's what if that's what initially attracts you to stoicism awesome right you just you just can't stop there and i think probably you see this in your line of work like the recruiting posters is what gets the people in the door right but ultimately you got to buy into the values and the cause larger than yourself and that it if that's not you that's actually like like the most dangerous person because um like the violence and the power and the strength all that stuff is like it's dangerous if If not moderated by and controlled by this ethical compass.

3:10:21Ryan Holiday:It can become very addictive. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good question. Everyone should read To Hell and Back by Audie Murphy. Just like an incredible book. Right on. Yeah. Well, Ryan. Dude, thank you. Thank you, man. This was awesome. This was awesome. I really appreciate you coming. I've had a great time. I hope you come back. Yeah. Sweet. Cheers.

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