Speaker 1: And I think if you can get to a place
Speaker 1: where you're not identifying with the love or the mistreatment,
Speaker 1: you're just like, here's who I am. Here's the intention,
Speaker 1: the motivation that I know I'm acting on and that
Speaker 1: I know that's coming from a good place. And So
Speaker 1: whether they're saying Jay, You're amazing, or they're saying Jay,
Speaker 1: you're the you know you're awful, you're screwing this up,
Speaker 1: you suck, You're just like, I'm gonna do what I
Speaker 1: have to do as long as I'm able to do it. Hey, everyone,
Speaker 1: Welcome back to un Purposed, the number one health podcast
Speaker 1: in the world. Thanks to each and every single one
Speaker 1: of you that come back every week to listen, learn
Speaker 1: and grow. Now, today's guest is someone that I've interviewed,
Speaker 1: not once, not twice, not three times, But this is
Speaker 1: the fourth time we're sitting down together. The first time
Speaker 1: was at half Post back in like twenty sixteen, when
Speaker 1: I was just starting a lot of my online work.
Speaker 1: Then we did in Nazadac Reads probably around twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: maybe twenty eighteen, and then I got to sit down
Speaker 1: with him on the podcast. You've already loved him on
Speaker 1: the show just last year. I think it was just
Speaker 1: before the pandemic, and then now we are having our
Speaker 1: fourth ever interview. I'm talking about the one and only
Speaker 1: Ryan Holiday. Ryan Holiday is one of the world's best
Speaker 1: selling living philosophers. His books like The Obstacle Is the Way,
Speaker 1: Ego Is the Enemy, The Daily Stoic I have all
Speaker 1: reached number one New York Times best seller status, and
Speaker 1: Stillness Is the Key appears in more than forty languages,
Speaker 1: and all of his books have sold more than four
Speaker 1: million copies. Together. They've spent over three hundred weeks three
Speaker 1: hundred weeks on the best seller lists. He lives outside
Speaker 1: Austin with his wife and two boys and a small
Speaker 1: herd of cows and donkeys and goats. And he also
Speaker 1: opened up his own bookstore, which I love. The Painted
Speaker 1: Porch sits on the historic main street in Bastard, Texas.
Speaker 1: And his new book, The Courage Is Calling already in
Speaker 1: New York Times Bestseller. If you haven't read it, I
Speaker 1: highly recommend that you go and grab it. Ryan, like
Speaker 1: you did for so many others, you opened up our
Speaker 1: minds and lives to the teachings of the Stoics, which
Speaker 1: I am eternally grateful for because I think you've broughte
Speaker 1: so much wisdom through that we would have missed out on.
Speaker 1: And you also in many ways inspired me to think
Speaker 1: about how I could do something similar for Vedic philosophers
Speaker 1: and thoughts. So thank you from a personal level, a
Speaker 1: collective level, societal level for I've seen you do a
Speaker 1: lot of activism work too. But Ryan, welcome back to
Speaker 1: the show now. Thanks for having me. And it's crazy
Speaker 1: we do go way back, and I think both of
Speaker 1: us had somewhat circuitous journeys to where we are now.
Speaker 1: Like you interviewed me on two different shows before you
Speaker 1: had your own show. I did a bunch of stuff
Speaker 1: before I was a writer. To me, I in case
Speaker 1: people don't pick up on what that means, is like
Speaker 1: just because you're not like very rarely does anyone just
Speaker 1: get to start like by having their own platform or
Speaker 1: putting out their own thing, and you have to take
Speaker 1: jobs or do things get to work your way there.
Speaker 1: And I think people who are in the middle of
Speaker 1: that sometimes you don't know where it's going to end up.
Speaker 1: You can kind of lose faith. But I think in
Speaker 1: both of our cases, like we put in the work,
Speaker 1: paid our dues, and we did get there, and I
Speaker 1: hope that's encouraging to people because it's amazing. It always
Speaker 1: takes longer than you think it should, but eventually you
Speaker 1: get there. Absolutely. Yeah. I remember talking to you about like,
Speaker 1: you know, you started in marketing, and you know, you
Speaker 1: talk about your time that American apparel, And then I
Speaker 1: also remember talking to you about how you're the Leonardo
Speaker 1: DiCaprio right is where you've written all these amazing books
Speaker 1: that were epic and you were waiting for this, you know,
Speaker 1: the arbitrary idea of ranking on the list, and I
Speaker 1: you know, I think we were talking about that last
Speaker 1: time when we were messaging, and I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: Leonardo DiCaprio has been nominated for an Oscar seven tons
Speaker 1: and only one once and that's pretty much the same
Speaker 1: as you. And it's just one of those amazing things
Speaker 1: that all your journey has brought you to this pace.
Speaker 1: And now when you look back at your beautiful portfolio
Speaker 1: of books and I know that Courage is Calling is
Speaker 1: the part of a new set of four books. I
Speaker 1: really like that you started with that point that we've
Speaker 1: known each other through a lot of different faces, a
Speaker 1: lot of different names, a lot of different banners, And
Speaker 1: you know, today it's beautiful to sit with you and
Speaker 1: do this again. But you know it started very differently.
Speaker 1: But I have to be honest, I've had fun with
Speaker 1: you since day one, so I'm expecting this to be
Speaker 1: no different. Well, you know people talk about like ten
Speaker 1: thousand hours, right, it takes ten thousand hours to get
Speaker 1: to mastery. I think two things are easy to miss.
Speaker 1: Their number one, it's not ten thousand hours of terrible,
Speaker 1: grinding labor. It should be fun. And I had a
Speaker 1: ton of fun along the way too. Just because it
Speaker 1: might take ten thousand hours or it could take twenty
Speaker 1: thousand hours or one hundred thousand hours to actually get
Speaker 1: to the place where you've really truly mastered it, that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that you can't make a great living between
Speaker 1: now and then, and that you can't do work that
Speaker 1: you're proud of that stands up like I'm this is
Speaker 1: my I think twelfth book. I'm proud of all the
Speaker 1: books in between, but the twelfth book is only possible
Speaker 1: because of the eleventh and the tenth, and the ninth
Speaker 1: and the eighth. And the idea should be that you're
Speaker 1: on this journey and that you're getting better as you go,
Speaker 1: even though you are, you know, not ideally where you
Speaker 1: want to be, but you're you're having fun along the way,
Speaker 1: as you said, absolutely, And I wanted to start off
Speaker 1: somewhere before we dive into all the wisdom and the
Speaker 1: insight and the practice is I wanted to know what
Speaker 1: does it feel like as an author during the pandemic
Speaker 1: to have opened your own bookstore called the Painted Points
Speaker 1: like that it seems like a really it's like being
Speaker 1: an artist and then opening your own art gallery, right
Speaker 1: and with other people's art in it as well as
Speaker 1: yours of course, Tell what does that feel like? Well,
Speaker 1: it was very exciting at first. I think right around
Speaker 1: the time I saw you last that was when I
Speaker 1: was thinking about doing it, and we'd sort of made
Speaker 1: some of the initial decisions to do it. And then
Speaker 1: I believe we'd hired our first employee in February of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, so it was all very exciting, and then
Speaker 1: it got very terrifying and very real and very overwhelming
Speaker 1: quickly because the whole world shut down, and you know,
Speaker 1: I think we thought it would be a project that
Speaker 1: would take a year, and it took two years, and
Speaker 1: that was obviously more expensive than intended and scarier than intended,
Speaker 1: but it also was an opportunity to take it slow,
Speaker 1: to do it right, to really think about why we
Speaker 1: were doing it and how we wanted to do it,
Speaker 1: And then it gave us a whole other sense of
Speaker 1: what the meaning of it was. Right, so, you know,
Speaker 1: you're thinking, hey, bookstores are important because it's a place
Speaker 1: people go. You can be around other people, you can
Speaker 1: talk about things. And then when you when we were
Speaker 1: looking at a world where that was not possible, you
Speaker 1: suddenly realize what those things mean to you and you
Speaker 1: don't take them so much for granted anymore. So it
Speaker 1: was really it was a very trying and challenging experience,
Speaker 1: to be sure, but the upside was it made the
Speaker 1: rewards of it so far, you know, much more compelling
Speaker 1: and meaningful. I think, yeah, I love that. It's wonderful.
Speaker 1: It's wonderful hearing that you know you've got through and
Speaker 1: you've figured it out, and I'm sure it's been harder
Speaker 1: than it needed to be, but it sounds wonderful, and
Speaker 1: I hope I get a visit, so I really look
Speaker 1: forward to actually going now I've never been never been
Speaker 1: able to go to a bookstore and say, my friend,
Speaker 1: my friend owns this and he's a writer. It's cool.
Speaker 1: So I really loved I mean, books are such an
Speaker 1: amazing thing. Like if you think about what a book is, right,
Speaker 1: like a book is ten years or a lifetime of
Speaker 1: work and understanding bound between two covers for like twenty dollars,
Speaker 1: Like it's this incredible piece of technology that's you know,
Speaker 1: now endured for thousands of years. That I just books
Speaker 1: have been so important in my life. Obviously, there's there's
Speaker 1: different businesses I would open if what I was interested
Speaker 1: in is making more money a bookstore in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: let alone during a pandemic is you know, like not
Speaker 1: not the best. But I think, you know, I have
Speaker 1: a podcast too, and there's something amazing about reaching millions
Speaker 1: of people at scale digitally throughout the world. But there
Speaker 1: is also something special about holding things and having a space,
Speaker 1: and so I just it. My wife and I were
Speaker 1: just thinking, like, you know, we've been so blessed, We've
Speaker 1: got to do so many cool things. What is something
Speaker 1: that could be fun could also be a business opportunity,
Speaker 1: But you know, I think improve the community in which
Speaker 1: we live. And that that's kind of what I've just
Speaker 1: been thinking about out more lately, is like, not everything
Speaker 1: has to be like how do I reach as many
Speaker 1: people as possible? It could also be like how do
Speaker 1: you really reach the people the smaller amount of people
Speaker 1: that you are reaching? Yeah, I count agree with you more.
Speaker 1: For me as well, it's always been about scale and depth,
Speaker 1: scale and depth, and it's like, you know you have scale,
Speaker 1: but how can you go deep with that scale? But
Speaker 1: then also how can you scale down and take people
Speaker 1: even on a more meaningful and deeper journey more personally.
Speaker 1: And I was able to do that even digitally during
Speaker 1: the pandemic. We a lot of me and my private
Speaker 1: coaching clients, people that I work with one on one,
Speaker 1: we started this like small meditation communities for them and
Speaker 1: their families or them and their friends on zoom and
Speaker 1: I was teaching I'm used to teaching, you know, meditation
Speaker 1: on Instagram live, to you know, hundreds of thousands or
Speaker 1: millions of people after people watch it on the replay,
Speaker 1: and to actually just sit on a zoom which is
Speaker 1: ten faces every single week was beautiful, Like it's it's
Speaker 1: been some of the most meaningful work I've ever done,
Speaker 1: and you're spot on, So I get that. Now I
Speaker 1: want to start. I've got so many questions to ask
Speaker 1: you run so, and we've just been chatting so and
Speaker 1: to like, actually, everyone's gonna be like, what are you
Speaker 1: guys doing? Jays just having a conversation, which is partly
Speaker 1: what I'm doing. But I want to find out you
Speaker 1: introduced stoicism to the world in a huge way, massively,
Speaker 1: like you know, really brought it out beyond where I
Speaker 1: think it had been at least from my knowledge, at
Speaker 1: least for me definitely, And I wanted to understand, like,
Speaker 1: can you tell us the story of how you discovered
Speaker 1: stoicism and how that first moment made you feel and
Speaker 1: why you felt compelled to share with the rest of
Speaker 1: the world. I think a lot of what we're doing,
Speaker 1: you and I are doing is sort of paying it forward, right,
Speaker 1: Somebody introduced you to the ideas and they hit you,
Speaker 1: and you had this amazing sort of life changing transformation
Speaker 1: because of that, and then there's this kind of moment
Speaker 1: where you go, could I do that for someone else?
Speaker 1: And then we're talking about skill earlier, how did I
Speaker 1: do that? Like even better? How could I do that
Speaker 1: to How could I take what I experienced and not
Speaker 1: just do it to the people that I physically interact with,
Speaker 1: but millions of people. So I was in college and
Speaker 1: I went to this conference in West Hollywood and the
Speaker 1: speaker was doctor Drew from from HLN and from love Line.
Speaker 1: Now he has a wonderful podcast as well, and he
Speaker 1: was speaking and I had grown up listening to love Line,
Speaker 1: and so I remember at that age I would whenever
Speaker 1: I would meet smart people that I admired or that
Speaker 1: I had some you know, random circumstances to me, I'd
Speaker 1: be like, what books do you recommend? Because I was
Speaker 1: just just thinking, there's so many books out in the world.
Speaker 1: How do you know which ones to read? And if
Speaker 1: you just I was thinking, if I just read the
Speaker 1: ones that really smart people that I admire have read,
Speaker 1: I'll be like skipping all the stuff that you know.
Speaker 1: It'd be like a It's like getting you know, notes
Speaker 1: from from from people ahead of you. And so um
Speaker 1: I asked him, and he told me he was reading
Speaker 1: the writings of Epictetus, who is this Roman slave. And
Speaker 1: I went back to my hotel room and I bought
Speaker 1: Epictetus and I bought Marcus Surrealius because I'd seen the
Speaker 1: movie Gladiator and h and these two books arrived and
Speaker 1: they they hit me. I read Marcus Arelius first. Actually here,
Speaker 1: let me grab this is mine now, fifteen year old
Speaker 1: copy of Meditations. I've had to retape the cover on
Speaker 1: because I've read it so many times. But but you know,
Speaker 1: you read Meditations, and it just it hit me. It
Speaker 1: hit me like a million bricks. I mean, in the
Speaker 1: in the first line of Meditations, he says, and this
Speaker 1: is like one of my he says, when you awake
Speaker 1: in the morning, tell yourself. The people I will deal
Speaker 1: with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly.
Speaker 1: And he says they are like this because they can't
Speaker 1: tell good from evil. And then but he goes, but
Speaker 1: they can't implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel
Speaker 1: angry at my relative or hate him. We were born
Speaker 1: to work together, like feet and hands and eyes. To
Speaker 1: feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him,
Speaker 1: these are obstructions. And I I just remember being hit
Speaker 1: by that, going like the Emperor of Rome wrote this,
Speaker 1: like he just wrote a note to himself about how
Speaker 1: frustrating and annoying people are going to be, but that
Speaker 1: he couldn't let this change him or make him angry,
Speaker 1: and that he had this obligation to work together with them.
Speaker 1: And I remember I was taking philosophy classes at the time,
Speaker 1: but it was nothing like this, Like when you read Aristotle.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's definitely good parts in it, but you're
Speaker 1: also like, what is he talking about, right, Like he's
Speaker 1: explaining the universe or something He's not saying like this
Speaker 1: is how you deal with a jerk in traffic, or
Speaker 1: you know, this is how you deal with your obnoxious roommate, right, Like.
Speaker 1: I just love that Marcus rus was being so real
Speaker 1: and so practical, but at the same time trying to
Speaker 1: be great, like trying to be decent and good and
Speaker 1: patient and just that was transformative for me. And eventually,
Speaker 1: you know, got to a place where I thought maybe
Speaker 1: I could write stuff like this, or I could write
Speaker 1: about stuff like this, And that's been the journey for
Speaker 1: me now for a decade and a half. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love that. Thank you for sharing that so much, and
Speaker 1: I love so much about what you just said. So
Speaker 1: first of all, I want to point out to everyone
Speaker 1: who's listening. I love that you went up to someone
Speaker 1: and asked, what books do you recommend? Because that's such
Speaker 1: a great question because ninety nine percent of people don't
Speaker 1: go up, and the one percent of people that do
Speaker 1: go up, they go up and say, how can I
Speaker 1: spend more time with you? Or how can I connect
Speaker 1: with you? Or how can how can we have dinner
Speaker 1: or lunch or whatever it may be, And the answer
Speaker 1: ninet nine percent of the time is I don't think
Speaker 1: I have time for that, Like I'm not sure that's
Speaker 1: going to happen. I'd love to, but it's it's not possible.
Speaker 1: And so by asking them what books they're reading, you're
Speaker 1: tapping into their mindset for days, weeks, months, years. You
Speaker 1: would never get time and access to someone that inspires
Speaker 1: you in that way. And thank you for so much
Speaker 1: for reading the first one. I mean, anyone who listens
Speaker 1: to that, you're just like, I want to live like that, right,
Speaker 1: Like that's how you feel. Straight away you go, I
Speaker 1: want to live like that. I want to share with
Speaker 1: you the biggest news of the year. How many of
Speaker 1: you want to meditate? I can see your heads nodding,
Speaker 1: I can see you raising your hands, I can see
Speaker 1: you saying, yes, Jay, I really want to learn to meditate.
Speaker 1: How many of you would like to learn to meditate
Speaker 1: with me? Every single day? Now? I already know what
Speaker 1: the answer is because I know how many messages DMS
Speaker 1: reviews notes that I get saying Jay, I'd love to
Speaker 1: meditate with you. Last year, we took meditation to Instagram
Speaker 1: and I meditated for around forty days live and twenty
Speaker 1: million of you tuned in. Now I am taking that
Speaker 1: same focus, that same presence to Calm. I've partnered up
Speaker 1: with Calm to release a new series called The Daily
Speaker 1: J where you can meditate with me every single day
Speaker 1: for seven minutes to make it a real habit. I
Speaker 1: would love for you to come and join me and
Speaker 1: take part in building a really powerful meditation practice. And
Speaker 1: guess what we're going to do it together? Head over
Speaker 1: right Nowtcalm dot com forward slash J to get forty
Speaker 1: percent off a premium membership. That's Calm dot com Forward
Speaker 1: slash J. Well, the crazy thing about the book question
Speaker 1: is so like even today, you know, I got a
Speaker 1: bunch of emails from random people which saw very nice.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be able to respond to all
Speaker 1: of them. But somebody was like, Hey, I'm struggling with depression,
Speaker 1: what's a book you would recommend? And I would like
Speaker 1: took me two seconds to reply, right, And like that,
Speaker 1: of all the emails today, that's the one that I
Speaker 1: responded to because I love books and if that's an
Speaker 1: easy way I can help a person. But the crazy
Speaker 1: thing about the doctor Drew story was like three months later,
Speaker 1: I went to a different conference and he was there again.
Speaker 1: I don't know how, I don't know how the odds
Speaker 1: of it worked, but I went up to him and
Speaker 1: I was like, you probably don't remember me, but I
Speaker 1: read those books, right, And he was like, I do
Speaker 1: remember you, but I did not think you were going
Speaker 1: to read those books. And he and I are friends now,
Speaker 1: like twenty years later, fifteen years later, we still know
Speaker 1: each other because I didn't just get the recommendation, but
Speaker 1: then I actually did the work, like I read the book,
Speaker 1: and now he and I have this connection forever. And
Speaker 1: I think the amount of people that like asked me
Speaker 1: for recommendation versus the amount of people I hear back
Speaker 1: from who have actually taken the time to read the book.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's a small percentage of a small percentage.
Speaker 1: And so these books are out there, these books that
Speaker 1: have changed people's lives, people have been through the exact
Speaker 1: same thing that you've been through. They're there, but no
Speaker 1: one can read them for you. Yeah really, well, I said,
Speaker 1: And this leads us nicely to courage is calling that
Speaker 1: you know, the new book because to me, you know,
Speaker 1: we have this perception that to have a great life
Speaker 1: we need to be brave, we need to be courageous.
Speaker 1: But you actually start the book at fear, And I
Speaker 1: think what's fascinating about that is a lot of people
Speaker 1: have the fear, or we think we lack the courage
Speaker 1: to go up to someone and ask a question. Then
Speaker 1: we fear taking the step of ordering the books because
Speaker 1: we're thinking, oh, well, when will I get time to
Speaker 1: read them, and they're just going to become a doorstopper,
Speaker 1: and then maybe I'll feel worse about myself or maybe
Speaker 1: we get beyond that, and we order them and then
Speaker 1: we fear reading them. We go, oh, no, well, that
Speaker 1: may need me to change, or that may need me
Speaker 1: to shift, or I may have to give up some
Speaker 1: luxury or some comfort that I'm used to. There's fear
Speaker 1: at every single step walk us through how fear can
Speaker 1: be something that is necessary, but it's also just Will
Speaker 1: you make an important point about courage which I really
Speaker 1: tried to build a book around, which is that courage
Speaker 1: is not just running into battle or a burning building
Speaker 1: or jumping out of an airplane or you know, it's
Speaker 1: not just physical danger, and it's not always dramatic. Right,
Speaker 1: So there's physical courage and moral courage. Moral courage is
Speaker 1: also the courage of a whistleblower or a truth teller
Speaker 1: or a transgressive artist. But it's also just the courage
Speaker 1: to like walk up and talk to a stranger, or
Speaker 1: a courage to start your own podcast, or the courage
Speaker 1: to put yourself out there or to you have this,
Speaker 1: like I don't know, the decision to cut your hair
Speaker 1: a certain way and not give a shit what anyone thinks, right, Like,
Speaker 1: there's also this really small day to day courage. It
Speaker 1: doesn't it's not always this dramatic, glorious thing. And I
Speaker 1: think you're right, Like a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: really basic things in our life come down to a
Speaker 1: failure of courage. Even even you think about people who
Speaker 1: are afraid to true try something, not because they're afraid
Speaker 1: of failing, which they probably are, but also just afraid
Speaker 1: of of success, right, like a afraid of what changes
Speaker 1: would be demanded or what it would mean to then
Speaker 1: have to wrestle with this thing. And so it's it's
Speaker 1: not that we don't know what we should do, it's
Speaker 1: that we have a million reasons why we shouldn't do
Speaker 1: it right, right, That's what fear is. Fear is the
Speaker 1: thing that gets in the way what Stephen Presfield calls
Speaker 1: the resistance between you know, what we can be and
Speaker 1: where we are. So it's not that courageous people do
Speaker 1: not feel those fears, it's that they push past them. Right.
Speaker 1: The things we want in life are on the other
Speaker 1: side of that fear, Like all good things in life
Speaker 1: require courage. I would imagine there's very little that anyone
Speaker 1: listening could think of in their own life that they're
Speaker 1: proud of that did not some triumph over fear. Certainly,
Speaker 1: everything that I'm proud of in my life was something
Speaker 1: that I had to push myself out of my comfort
Speaker 1: zone to get. Yeah. Absolutely, no, I think you're spot on.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, when I'm thinking about that right now,
Speaker 1: and I hope everyone who's listening or watching is thinking
Speaker 1: about that too. I can't think of I can barely
Speaker 1: think of anything, if anything at all. And so you
Speaker 1: know that aligns very strongly, and I like you know.
Speaker 1: In the book, there's the part that you wrote that says,
Speaker 1: and there has never ever been a time when the
Speaker 1: average opinion of faceless, unaccountable strangers should be valued over
Speaker 1: our own judgment. And I love that because I think
Speaker 1: we're living at a time when faceless, unaccountable strangers dictate
Speaker 1: everything in our lives, whether it's a comment, whether it's
Speaker 1: a DM, whether it's a you know, a message and email.
Speaker 1: Walk us through why is it that we take unaccountable
Speaker 1: facing the stranger is so seriously that why does that exist? Look,
Speaker 1: it's not like this just some modern thing. Right. In Meditations,
Speaker 1: Mark Surreali says, the crazy thing is we all love
Speaker 1: ourselves more than other people. We're all self interested, selfish people.
Speaker 1: It's a certain degree, right, And he says, and yet
Speaker 1: we value other people's opinions more than our own. Right.
Speaker 1: You see this sweatshirt you like, and you buy it
Speaker 1: and then someone's like what's that. You're like, Oh, you
Speaker 1: don't like it. I shouldn't like you know, like or
Speaker 1: you spend on the other end of the spectrum. You know,
Speaker 1: you spend two years writing a book and then you go.
Speaker 1: But but did the critics accept me? Did the publisher
Speaker 1: like it? You know, you can even find yourself is
Speaker 1: it any good? And it's like, who is this person
Speaker 1: to decide that it's any good? You're the way, you know,
Speaker 1: this is why you do what you do, and yet
Speaker 1: we hand over approval success to other people, and like,
Speaker 1: look when when the obstacle is the way it came
Speaker 1: out to just to sort of illustrate this idea that
Speaker 1: nobody knows anything. The publisher offered me half what they'd
Speaker 1: offered me for my first book for what was my
Speaker 1: second book. So right out of the gate, I had
Speaker 1: the idea for the Obstacles the Way, and the publisher
Speaker 1: said that idea is half as good as your last idea.
Speaker 1: They like, they did not believe in it. Look, they
Speaker 1: believed in it enough to purchase it, but they did
Speaker 1: not have high hopes. A close friend of mine I
Speaker 1: found out later predicted that it would sell five thousand
Speaker 1: copies right it came out. It didn't hit the best
Speaker 1: seller list. The weekly came out, it sold like maybe
Speaker 1: thirty thousand copies in the first six months, maybe sixty
Speaker 1: thousand in the first year, did not hit a best
Speaker 1: seller list for the first five years of its existence,
Speaker 1: and then ultimately has gone on to sell, you know,
Speaker 1: about a million and a half copies. So the success
Speaker 1: of that book, if I was judging it based on
Speaker 1: what other people said, would have been a failure, would
Speaker 1: have been a disappointment, would have been and mediocre at best.
Speaker 1: But what I knew is that it was one something
Speaker 1: was really important to me. Two, I knew it was
Speaker 1: something that because it had been so important to me,
Speaker 1: that with time it would resonate with people. And then
Speaker 1: three it was pleasurable and exciting and rewarding for me
Speaker 1: to do, and so kind of everything beyond that was
Speaker 1: extra and I moved on to other projects and let
Speaker 1: it do what it did. So the fact that it's
Speaker 1: now had all this success is one is a wonderful
Speaker 1: bonus on top. But that that wasn't why I did it,
Speaker 1: Because if it was why, if that was what had
Speaker 1: been motivating me from the beginning, I never would have
Speaker 1: done it because it would have been killed the second
Speaker 1: the offer came back from the publisher and they said,
Speaker 1: you know, and that is how it works in life. There.
Speaker 1: You know, people are often worried about somebody stealing your idea.
Speaker 1: And there's a great line from a physicist whose name
Speaker 1: I'm forgetting, but he said, don't worry about that. He says,
Speaker 1: if it's an original idea, you're gonna have to ram
Speaker 1: it down people's throats because people aren't going to get
Speaker 1: it at first. Everything that's new, exciting, innovative, important was
Speaker 1: unappreciated or outright despised when it came out. So you
Speaker 1: have to be able to cultivate this sense of why
Speaker 1: you're doing what you're doing, why it's valuable, why it's important,
Speaker 1: what it means to you. And you have to get
Speaker 1: to a place where you're a little bit indifferent, which
Speaker 1: is a stoic term, meaning that if people love it, great,
Speaker 1: If they hate it, that's okay too, but you have
Speaker 1: your own sense of it and that's what allows you
Speaker 1: to sort of ignore both of those things. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: that indifference I find so fascinating because when you first
Speaker 1: hear it, it sounds like there's no fun, and it
Speaker 1: sounds like there's no joy, but actually when you live it,
Speaker 1: it's liberating, and I find that there's something really fascinating.
Speaker 1: I remember first coming across that when I was around
Speaker 1: probably like twenty years old. I was the president of
Speaker 1: a youth organization back in London, and I took on
Speaker 1: this role at about eighteen years old. I was given it.
Speaker 1: I didn't audition for d didn't apply for it. I
Speaker 1: was given it. And for two years my life was
Speaker 1: held because everything I did was massively criticized because it
Speaker 1: wasn't as good as the previous president and so. And
Speaker 1: I didn't knew nothing about leadership. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: leadership is a really big, complex, conscious, thoughtful thing. I
Speaker 1: was eighteen, didn't know anything anyway. For two years, everything
Speaker 1: I did was criticized, it was really cuted, it was compared,
Speaker 1: and I started to feel really bad about myself. But
Speaker 1: the one thing I held onto was that everyone's criticizing
Speaker 1: me for my management, but not for who I am.
Speaker 1: And I held on to that very closely. I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm a bad manager, I'm a bad leader. I'll take
Speaker 1: that all day. No one said I'm a bad person.
Speaker 1: I'm going to hold onto that. And then something really
Speaker 1: fascinating happened. We had a fundraiser when I was about
Speaker 1: twenty years old, and that fundraiser, I like outperformed where
Speaker 1: I've raised lots of money for this really important foundation
Speaker 1: and all this, and all of a sudden, the same
Speaker 1: people were like, Oh my god, Jay, You're like the
Speaker 1: best thing in the world and you're incredible. And it
Speaker 1: was that day that I promised myself that I would
Speaker 1: remain indifferent. And I promised myself, I remember it's still
Speaker 1: now to anyone promising myself going I am not going
Speaker 1: to let the opinions of other people make me feel
Speaker 1: good or bad. And that doesn't stop me from feeling
Speaker 1: joy because I get to feel good for myself when
Speaker 1: I feel like I've done something right. Does that Does
Speaker 1: that feel right? Yeah? Totally. It's kind of similar to
Speaker 1: in meditation, Right, you have these thoughts and you realize
Speaker 1: you don't have to identify with the thoughts. They can
Speaker 1: just exist, right, like a cloud exists and it's there
Speaker 1: in your view and then it drifts off and you
Speaker 1: don't really know what happens to it, right, And I
Speaker 1: think this is where we want to get with success
Speaker 1: as well as criticism or failure or worse, right, like
Speaker 1: being attacked undeservedly. Marxurrealiz talks about being able to accept
Speaker 1: success without arrogance and let the rest go with indifference.
Speaker 1: And I think if you can get to a place
Speaker 1: where you're not identifying with the love or the mistreatment,
Speaker 1: You're just like, here's who I am. Here's the intention,
Speaker 1: the motivation that I know I'm acting on and that
Speaker 1: I know that's coming from a good place. And so
Speaker 1: whether they're saying Jay, You're amazing, or they're saying Jay,
Speaker 1: you're the you know you're awful, you're screwing this up,
Speaker 1: you suck. You're just like, I'm going to do what
Speaker 1: I have to do as long as I'm able to
Speaker 1: do it, and I'm not gonna identify either way. And
Speaker 1: I think, you know, people sort of nod their head
Speaker 1: along with this. It's easy to identify with the success
Speaker 1: on the way up. But then what happens to those
Speaker 1: people is what happens when you inevitably screw up, run
Speaker 1: into bad luck, or whatever you think about an athlete,
Speaker 1: if it is identifying with the hot streak that they're on, well,
Speaker 1: statistically that's just not gonna last, right, And so you
Speaker 1: have to become you have to understand that you're gonna lose,
Speaker 1: that you're gonna miss, you're gonna screw up, and you
Speaker 1: if you're in a place where you identify with those
Speaker 1: external results, you're you're really really vulnerable and you're going
Speaker 1: to be really unhappy, especially in those dark, those dark,
Speaker 1: dark moments. Yeah, so Ryan, then what do we do
Speaker 1: with fear? If everyone's listening and watching that they're going
Speaker 1: through the fears that we know that they are, what
Speaker 1: do we do with fear? I feel like it's such
Speaker 1: a we're almost scared of the emotion in and of itself,
Speaker 1: and then we panic. Well, the Stoics obviously believe in
Speaker 1: the power of reason, right, and a lot of fear
Speaker 1: you can say is unreasonable, right, Like you think about failure. Right,
Speaker 1: Let's say you're putting out a book. I'm putting out
Speaker 1: a book and you're like, what if it doesn't do well? Right,
Speaker 1: and you're sort of scared of this? What the Stokes
Speaker 1: would say is what if that happens? Like, what does
Speaker 1: it actually mean? Right? Not like oh this this vague,
Speaker 1: unpleasant thing, but what does that look like? Well, you
Speaker 1: already got paid for it, you already did the thing, right,
Speaker 1: Like actually it failing is nothing. It doesn't matter at all, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's not what you would choose, but you're not
Speaker 1: going to end up under a bridge. They're not going
Speaker 1: to tar and feather you or something, right, Like, there's
Speaker 1: there's no consequences, and so this is a really important thing.
Speaker 1: I remember when I was dropping out of college, I
Speaker 1: was so scared about it, and I was so convinced
Speaker 1: that I shouldn't do it because I was afraid of
Speaker 1: what might happen. And I remember one of my mentors goes,
Speaker 1: you know, he says, like when I when I was
Speaker 1: in college, I got sick for a year and I
Speaker 1: spent he spent a year in the hospital. And I
Speaker 1: was like, and what happened? And he was like, it's
Speaker 1: literally not come up once in my life. He's like,
Speaker 1: I graduated in five years instead of four years. He's like,
Speaker 1: the worst thing that could happen here is that you
Speaker 1: just go back to school and you have to make
Speaker 1: up for the time that you missed. And that was
Speaker 1: really important, right, to break down the thing that you're
Speaker 1: afraid of, to really think about the worst case scenario. Right,
Speaker 1: people are afraid of that. I have stage fright, right,
Speaker 1: I don't like talking in front of crowds. Literally, what
Speaker 1: is the worst thing that could happen? A bunch of
Speaker 1: strangers you'll never meet again, don't like you, Like, You'll
Speaker 1: be totally fine. And so part of what we should
Speaker 1: do with fear is really break it down, because sometimes, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm peering over this cliff that someone's telling me to
Speaker 1: jump off of. Maybe that's a really bad idea. Right,
Speaker 1: Sometimes you use the power of reason and it reminds you, oh,
Speaker 1: this is a bad idea. I can't afford to lose this.
Speaker 1: But most of the time we break those fears down,
Speaker 1: and then we're better able to manage that fear because
Speaker 1: we have a rational understanding of it instead of this
Speaker 1: sort of irrational emotional understand standing of it. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's incredible once you break through that fear. How now
Speaker 1: you're looking at it and you're like, I can't believe
Speaker 1: I was ever scared of that, right, isn't Isn't that
Speaker 1: just such a fascinating trick of the mind that as
Speaker 1: soon as you break something that felt insurmountable, now when
Speaker 1: you've overcome it, you're almost laughing at yourself, like, how
Speaker 1: was that the thing that he would be back. Well,
Speaker 1: so each time you do something that you were afraid of,
Speaker 1: you push through. You have more confidence, right, You have
Speaker 1: a like dropping out of college made it easier for
Speaker 1: me to then leave my corporate life later to become
Speaker 1: a writer, right because it was like, oh, I could
Speaker 1: just go get another job, or I could get the
Speaker 1: same job again. Right, And so you not only get
Speaker 1: a certain amount of confidence from it, but you also
Speaker 1: get a better understanding of how things work. The problem
Speaker 1: is when you give into fear, not only do not
Speaker 1: do the thing now, you actually have less information about
Speaker 1: how the world works. And so you know, there's that
Speaker 1: sort of cliche about do one thing free day that
Speaker 1: scares you. It's actually pretty good advice. Right, You're sort
Speaker 1: of building the muscle, You're building that ability to override
Speaker 1: the This seems scary, but I'm going to do it anyway.
Speaker 1: I think cultivating that ability to sort of push through
Speaker 1: that fear is really important. And I think again, these
Speaker 1: sometimes can be very pedestrian fears. It's like, I remember
Speaker 1: the decision for Daily Stoic, which is one of the
Speaker 1: things I do, the decision to like make videos, right, Like,
Speaker 1: and I remember talking to you about this. It's like
Speaker 1: I was very comfortable writing things, I was very comfortable
Speaker 1: being on stage, but the idea of making a video, like,
Speaker 1: I was just scared it would be bad. I would
Speaker 1: I think I was really scared of being uncomfortable in
Speaker 1: a new thing, and but pushing past that, it's opened
Speaker 1: up this sort of whole avenue for us. But then also,
Speaker 1: you know, the decision to make sort of long form
Speaker 1: videos also made it easier to be like, oh, TikTok's
Speaker 1: this thing now I can You know, what you're cultivating
Speaker 1: is the ability to be comfortable being uncomfortable and knowing
Speaker 1: that you'll figure it out and eventually get comfortable again. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And what I find so fascinating about what you just said, Ryan,
Speaker 1: is that even when we make big leaps, or we
Speaker 1: break through, or we find the courage, it's so easy
Speaker 1: to get comfortable again. Like, it's fascinating, isn't it. Like
Speaker 1: I remember when so when I went off to become
Speaker 1: a monk, obviously I broke that barrier completely. I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't care if I get a job, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: So I felt extremely confident and courageous, Not that I
Speaker 1: use those words, but that's what I would have felt
Speaker 1: at the time. And then when I left being a monk,
Speaker 1: it was a tough time, but again that was a
Speaker 1: tough decision, so that built more courage and confidence. Then
Speaker 1: I found a job. But as soon as I got
Speaker 1: into a job, I remember leaving that job. I mean
Speaker 1: I left it within two years. But it's like there
Speaker 1: was a moment that that comfort started to feel really safe.
Speaker 1: And comfort is like really alluring, It's it's really mesmerizing,
Speaker 1: and I find that comfort really convinces you that this
Speaker 1: is it settled for this it's safer, it's better, it's happier.
Speaker 1: What are the things that you do to build that
Speaker 1: courage muscle every day, or do something out of your
Speaker 1: comfort zone so that you don't get comfortable. Is there
Speaker 1: something that you've been working on or something that you've
Speaker 1: seen others do that you've spoken to on your podcast. Well,
Speaker 1: this is the paradox, right We tell ourselves like, I
Speaker 1: can't do it now. I'm gonna wait till I'm more
Speaker 1: financially successful, and wait till I'm more well known. Nona,
Speaker 1: wait till I put in more years, or then I'll
Speaker 1: speak up. Then I'll put myself out there then I'll
Speaker 1: take this risk. It'd be wonderful if it worked that way,
Speaker 1: But in fact it's the exact opposite. Right. You think, oh,
Speaker 1: after I've put ten years into this company, then I'll
Speaker 1: put out this new idea. Then I'll but no, now,
Speaker 1: you don't want to lose ten years of work, Right.
Speaker 1: You'd think that financially the financially successful people would be
Speaker 1: the most comfortable taking the risks. But they have the luxury,
Speaker 1: the privilege of knowing exactly what it might cost them, right,
Speaker 1: and they know how hard they had to work to
Speaker 1: get there. And so this is why people are afraid
Speaker 1: to be politically active. This is why people are afraid
Speaker 1: to voice unpopular opinions. I'm sure you and I both
Speaker 1: know people with platforms that have really strong opinions about
Speaker 1: things that are happening in the world, but they just
Speaker 1: don't want to get involved because they know how hard
Speaker 1: it was to get where they are and they don't
Speaker 1: want to lose that. And so you do have to
Speaker 1: cultivate again to go to this kind of indifference. Like, look,
Speaker 1: it's wonderful to have the audience, it's wonderful to have
Speaker 1: the fancy stuff, but you didn't Like I say this
Speaker 1: to people who sometimes get mad about things I say,
Speaker 1: They're like, how could you say that? Didn't you understand you?
Speaker 1: Would you make me angry or whatever? And look, I
Speaker 1: didn't cultivate this platform to not say what I think. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: the job is not having the platform. The job is
Speaker 1: not this or that. The job is doing the thing right.
Speaker 1: Is the speaking the truth, saying what needs to be said,
Speaker 1: speaking to what I think is important, and so we
Speaker 1: can really lie to ourselves. We can tell ourselves later
Speaker 1: I'm going to do this, right, we say, oh, I
Speaker 1: need to make some money first, and then I'm going
Speaker 1: to you know, write that screenplay or do that thing
Speaker 1: or whatever. You're not going to do it because then
Speaker 1: you're gonna be too comfortable. And so you kind of
Speaker 1: have to see that comfort that like taking it for
Speaker 1: grantedness as the enemy, because it's it's what makes you afraid.
Speaker 1: You don't want to lose it. Yeah, I'm so glad
Speaker 1: you said that. And I went through something similar recently
Speaker 1: with some of my team where I was explaining to them.
Speaker 1: They were saying, Jay, don't you think that's a risk,
Speaker 1: And I was just like, well, I work this hard
Speaker 1: so that I can take more risks like I had
Speaker 1: to take risks to get here. And I'm only excited
Speaker 1: if I'm able to take more risks and trying new
Speaker 1: things out, because what was the point otherwise I'm already
Speaker 1: living in bonus Land, right, like I'm ready with house money. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: You're living in a space that you're just I'm so
Speaker 1: much more blessed than I ever thought I would be,
Speaker 1: and so with that, I feel comes a bit more responsibility,
Speaker 1: comes a bit more desire for risk. And I'm not
Speaker 1: just talking about risk for personal growth. I mean I
Speaker 1: mean to try things that I think are beneficial to
Speaker 1: help others, to serve or do things that may be
Speaker 1: unexpected of me, because I understand how that leads to
Speaker 1: more impact or service. Yeah. There's a great story about
Speaker 1: Lyndon Johnson when he proposes passing the civil rights legislation
Speaker 1: and one of his aid says, you know, maybe you
Speaker 1: should wait till after reelection. They say this could be bad.
Speaker 1: You know, it's going to be risky politically, and he says,
Speaker 1: what the hell is the presidency for? Right? And it's
Speaker 1: important to realize that literally, the most powerful man in
Speaker 1: the world was struggling with And that's how seductive it is.
Speaker 1: You get all the way to the top of whatever
Speaker 1: it is that you're doing, and then there's reasons right
Speaker 1: that you shouldn't do X, Y or Z, And at
Speaker 1: a certain point you have to say to yourself, what
Speaker 1: was the point of all of this if I'm not
Speaker 1: going to do what I care about, what I like,
Speaker 1: what I love, what I think needs to be done.
Speaker 1: And that's really what courage is about, the courage to say,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to think about those consequences. I'm going
Speaker 1: to do it because it is the right thing to do,
Speaker 1: come whatever may. And there's no question that things I've written,
Speaker 1: things I've said, things I've done, have cost me a
Speaker 1: certain number of followers, let's say, which ultimately can translate financially.
Speaker 1: But I'm proud of what I said. I'm proud of
Speaker 1: what I put out. I can look myself in the
Speaker 1: mirror and one of the questions I ask myself, and
Speaker 1: I'd be curious if you think about this too, as
Speaker 1: someone who didn't create the things that I write about,
Speaker 1: Like stoicism is this way of thinking that's existed now
Speaker 1: for twenty five hundred or so years and I happen
Speaker 1: to be a well known sort of representative of that idea,
Speaker 1: but it's not mine. And so the thing I tell
Speaker 1: myself is the test I have is am I being
Speaker 1: a good steward of that philosophy? And so if I'm
Speaker 1: afraid to be the same thing for the presidency, You're not.
Speaker 1: You don't own the presidency. You're just the guys or
Speaker 1: woman sitting in that chair right now. And the question
Speaker 1: is are you being a good steward of the office,
Speaker 1: of the occupation of the opportunity or are you just
Speaker 1: protecting what's good for you in the moment. And so
Speaker 1: I think about, you know, is this the right thing
Speaker 1: to do or talk about not? Is this going to
Speaker 1: win me the most friends? Yes? Yeah? Absolutely? Yeah no,
Speaker 1: And I think I ask a very similar question, Like
Speaker 1: for me, it's you know, it is servitorship. It is
Speaker 1: figuring out like to what degree, And a big part
Speaker 1: of that for me has always been if I see
Speaker 1: other people helping the world, how do I view them?
Speaker 1: And it was really interesting. I was sitting with my
Speaker 1: team recently and like, there, you know, I think I've
Speaker 1: always been a fan of yous and you've known that
Speaker 1: from day one. But you know, it's like for me,
Speaker 1: when I see other people who I believed to positively
Speaker 1: impacting people's minds, I want to collaborate, connect do more
Speaker 1: together because I feel like we need more of that.
Speaker 1: And I was speaking to my team recently because I
Speaker 1: was talking about collaborating with someone and they were saying, well, Jay,
Speaker 1: you know like maybe there, you know, like maybe they
Speaker 1: see as competition. And I was just like, well, why
Speaker 1: would I compete with someone who's trying, who has the
Speaker 1: same goal as me, it seems. And I think that's
Speaker 1: how I try and measure where my intention is because often,
Speaker 1: you know, if I get lost in that hierarchy myself,
Speaker 1: that's when you start to recognize that your intention isn't
Speaker 1: as pure as you think it is. Well, this is
Speaker 1: another thing. I think it requires a certain amount of
Speaker 1: courage as far as one's worldview. What you're talking about
Speaker 1: is deciding not to see the world as a zero
Speaker 1: sum place. Right. So some people go through the world
Speaker 1: into like this is about my career, it's about my success,
Speaker 1: is about my family, right, it's about my business. And
Speaker 1: there's no question that attitude, because it's so singularly focused,
Speaker 1: can make you very successful, but I think it's more
Speaker 1: enjoyable ultimately morally rooted to go through the world and
Speaker 1: thinking about it as how does everyone win? How does
Speaker 1: everyone get something out of this? And that was something
Speaker 1: you know. I started my first email list, not talking
Speaker 1: about my own work, but just recommending books that I've loved,
Speaker 1: and I've done that now for since I don't know,
Speaker 1: twelve thirteen years. Like I hear just as often from
Speaker 1: people who their lives were changed not by something I wrote,
Speaker 1: but by a book from someone else that I recommended,
Speaker 1: And that was a big breakthrough for me realizing, oh,
Speaker 1: not only is it not zero sum, but that helping
Speaker 1: other people just being a resource period also helps you.
Speaker 1: And so I think, you know it's your podcast, like, look,
Speaker 1: you could just make your own content every day, but
Speaker 1: the decision to talk to and share other people's stuff
Speaker 1: it benefits you and them. And I think the more
Speaker 1: the more secure one can be in themselves, the more
Speaker 1: helpful they can be to other people, and then ultimately
Speaker 1: the more impact everyone can have together. Yeah. Absolutely, I
Speaker 1: love that. Because I was sharing it someone recently, I
Speaker 1: was like, you know, one of the and I feel,
Speaker 1: this is what you've done with the Stoics and what
Speaker 1: you were sharing for Marcus Aurelius. But you know, for me,
Speaker 1: I've just always been fascinated by studying people's lives, always
Speaker 1: been fascinated by studying, and I love studying people and
Speaker 1: mindsets and decisions and choices. And I was thinking that
Speaker 1: we all have to look at people, and we all
Speaker 1: have two choices. You either study people or you envy people.
Speaker 1: Those are the only practically two choices you have. If
Speaker 1: you don't deeply study, there will be some comparison, some envy,
Speaker 1: some criticism, some sort of unhealthy trait that comes out.
Speaker 1: And if you study someone, then you appreciate, you, admire, you, honor.
Speaker 1: And I know that in my life I would rather
Speaker 1: live with admiration on an appreciation of others than the
Speaker 1: other stuff. And so I naturally gravitate towards how can
Speaker 1: I study someone's life? And when I see you studying
Speaker 1: the Stoics, that's where you're doing. You're studying their life,
Speaker 1: sharing your study and your notes with us. And to me,
Speaker 1: it's almost like thinking, oh, you know, that person just
Speaker 1: sold their house on our street for X amount of money.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, that house is not worth that much.
Speaker 1: It doesn't look that good. You're not realizing that the
Speaker 1: whole value of the street just went up because of
Speaker 1: that house. And I think that's where people don't recognize
Speaker 1: that that collective good is always better than individual success. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a great joke I heard that that envy is
Speaker 1: the only sin that isn't any fun. Yes, right, Like
Speaker 1: sex is fun, even overeating is fun. Right, All most
Speaker 1: of the deadly sins are at least fun while you're
Speaker 1: doing them. Yeah, envy sucks. No one is having less
Speaker 1: fun than the person who is being eaten up with
Speaker 1: envy and jealousy. And so the decision, and it does
Speaker 1: have to be a decision, because I think there's probably
Speaker 1: some evolutionary reasons why we feel envy. The decision to say, like,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to be happy for people. I'm going
Speaker 1: to help other people. I'm going to help other people
Speaker 1: and not ask for anything in return. I'm just going
Speaker 1: to try to put good stuff out in the world.
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to use my assets to help
Speaker 1: other people, and I hope other people do the same.
Speaker 1: But I'm not going to be pissed off when that
Speaker 1: doesn't happen. That's a real lifestyle choice. And I've tried both,
Speaker 1: and the other one is just it's not fun and
Speaker 1: it doesn't get you what you want, you know, being bitter,
Speaker 1: being resentful, being closed off for selfish, it's it's not
Speaker 1: fun totally. And and if and according to your line
Speaker 1: of thought, which I which I like, is that if
Speaker 1: there's an evolutionary purpose of envy, one of them potentially
Speaker 1: could be to lead us to study, right, to study
Speaker 1: what we envy. Like that that's something that could I
Speaker 1: have no idea. That's not a you know, a factual thought.
Speaker 1: It's just an idea that I'm having that. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: envy would make you go, oh well, let me deeply
Speaker 1: look at that, let me understand how that person got there.
Speaker 1: Let me let me actually lead to study through that, right,
Speaker 1: so it can be healthy and useful. Let's look at
Speaker 1: the trade offs. Right. I think oftentimes too, the thing
Speaker 1: the person that you're jealous of if you had to go,
Speaker 1: but it's actually fun to be them, right, Like, I
Speaker 1: think oftentimes we'll look at something that someone has and
Speaker 1: we'll want that thing, so we'll be jealous of them,
Speaker 1: but we don't understand that it's impossible to separate that
Speaker 1: thing from all the other parts of them. And so
Speaker 1: it may well be that it's a bad bargain, right,
Speaker 1: and that the reason you don't have it is that
Speaker 1: you understand that those other tradeoffs they made aren't worth it,
Speaker 1: or perhaps they're impossible for you. And so I think
Speaker 1: just really understanding, like what you want what you have,
Speaker 1: That's that's another big part of it. To stoves talk
Speaker 1: about like how you would be of yourself if you
Speaker 1: didn't have those things, right, or how sad you would
Speaker 1: be if they went away, And so instead of being
Speaker 1: jealous of other people, just step back and try to
Speaker 1: practice some gratitude for what you have. These are all
Speaker 1: ways I think of getting to a happier place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, I wonder from you, what is something currently
Speaker 1: that the two questions here, I'm gonna ask both of
Speaker 1: them now and then you can take him. What is
Speaker 1: the thing that you've been in the last twelve months
Speaker 1: fearing the most? Is what has been a fear that
Speaker 1: you've been tackling with? And then second question to follow
Speaker 1: that up with is you know, what do you think's
Speaker 1: personally the most courageous thing that you've done recently? And
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be huge, right, Like, that's the point.
Speaker 1: I think I have easier time answering the first one
Speaker 1: and the second one. But I have two young kids,
Speaker 1: and so you go through something like this pandemic, what
Speaker 1: you're really forced to grapple with, and there's a big concept,
Speaker 1: is like just how much is out of your control? Right?
Speaker 1: Like you care about these people, this thing more than
Speaker 1: anything in the world, and yet you don't control it. Right.
Speaker 1: It's they're running around, they're outside. And so I think
Speaker 1: one of the things I've really had to grapple with
Speaker 1: over the last eighteen months is anxiety, worry, right, a
Speaker 1: certain amount of powerlessness, a certain amount of frustration with
Speaker 1: just that we're in this mess as a society or
Speaker 1: as a planet. And and so I think, you know,
Speaker 1: when we talk about parenting, I don't think we talk
Speaker 1: about courage enough. Right, So, first off, just to be
Speaker 1: a woman who brings a child into the world is
Speaker 1: an insanely courageous thing to do if you just think
Speaker 1: about Like I mean, look, women die in childbirth all
Speaker 1: the time, and yet women get pregnant all the time.
Speaker 1: Like I think we've gotten so used to it, or
Speaker 1: perhaps we just don't think about what an insanely courageous act,
Speaker 1: it is. But then to be a parent in this
Speaker 1: sort of crazy, messed up world. I think about all
Speaker 1: the parents that I know. I just try to think
Speaker 1: about all the parents in the world that have had
Speaker 1: to endure this you know, insane disruptive life event that
Speaker 1: has challenged us in so many different ways. It's been,
Speaker 1: you know, it's been. It's been a journey. And I
Speaker 1: think when we think about what stoicism is, when we
Speaker 1: think about what Buddhism is, or or or any of
Speaker 1: these philosophical schools, they were designed precisely for these kinds
Speaker 1: of events, Like the ancient world was. You know, people
Speaker 1: talk about things going back to normal. This is normal.
Speaker 1: This is what life was in the ancient world. This
Speaker 1: is what life was like in our grandparents' lives. And
Speaker 1: we're just we were just really really spoiled for a
Speaker 1: long time, and now we're having to wrestle with Hey,
Speaker 1: the world doesn't really care about you or your plans,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna have to figure out how to accommodate
Speaker 1: yourself to those things and managed to be happy and
Speaker 1: productive and and you know, not a wreck inside of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And do you do you genuinely believe and of you know,
Speaker 1: pandemic aside, of course, because that's a huge, huge, huge
Speaker 1: thing that obviously affected everyone on the planet. But do
Speaker 1: you generally believe that a disruption of plans has led
Speaker 1: to better plans, results, ideas, innovation, inventions. Look, no one
Speaker 1: would say, like, hey, in America, you know seven hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand people have died, that this is a
Speaker 1: blessing in disguise, Right, that would be offensive. But we
Speaker 1: add on top of the tragedy by refusing to change
Speaker 1: or be changed by what's happened. Right. So, I don't
Speaker 1: know about you, but this was an enormous forced lifestyle experiment.
Speaker 1: We had to reimagine a lot of things. We probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't be doing this remotely, you know, if it weren't
Speaker 1: for the pandemic. You know, there's things that you're talking about,
Speaker 1: those meditation groups that you made, There's things you've created
Speaker 1: as a result of the constraints of what was happening
Speaker 1: in the world that are on net positives for you.
Speaker 1: And that's certainly been the case for me. It's forced
Speaker 1: me to reimagine, rework a lot of what I sort
Speaker 1: of took for granted previously, I think coming out of
Speaker 1: the pandemic, I'm not going to travel nearly as much,
Speaker 1: not for safety reasons, but just realizing, Oh, I've been
Speaker 1: going a mile a mile a minute for thirty odd
Speaker 1: years of my life, and I was aware of what
Speaker 1: I was getting out of it, but I was less
Speaker 1: aware of what it was costing me or what it
Speaker 1: was preventing me from doing. And so I think it's
Speaker 1: not that the Stokes would say that everything terrible has
Speaker 1: something wonderful inside of it, but that by wrestling with
Speaker 1: what's happened, by looking for what we can do inside
Speaker 1: of what's happened, we managed to excavate little bits of
Speaker 1: positivity or opportunity for progress. And that's what the obstacle is.
Speaker 1: The way is really about. Yeah, beautiful, and so we've
Speaker 1: talked about fear, we talked about courage. The third part
Speaker 1: of the book is the heroic and I find this
Speaker 1: and I love that it's obviously towards the end, but
Speaker 1: it's I found this fascinating because I think everything in
Speaker 1: society makes us want to be a hero. Like the
Speaker 1: movies I watched made me want to be like the
Speaker 1: guy in the movies. The adverts would make me want
Speaker 1: to be like the guy for me or you know,
Speaker 1: for people the girl or that person in the ad
Speaker 1: in the movie, in the book, in the story. But
Speaker 1: you know, you define what it means to be a
Speaker 1: hero morally and physically. I want you to break that
Speaker 1: down for us, like, how do you introduce this and
Speaker 1: how did the stoics think about this? So if we
Speaker 1: think of courage as the triumph over fear, maybe what
Speaker 1: we're saying is that heroic is something beyond even that.
Speaker 1: So in the book, I'm talking about Michael Jordan's decision
Speaker 1: to leave basketball to play baseball. That's an immensely courageous
Speaker 1: thing because it's risky. People critical of it is no idea.
Speaker 1: If you can go from being the best in the
Speaker 1: world at one sport to starting at the bottom of
Speaker 1: another sport, Now, that was a courageous thing to do.
Speaker 1: But I contrast that with Maya Moore's decision, equally dominant
Speaker 1: in the w NBA to walk away from basketball to
Speaker 1: free a man wrongly convicted in prison. Right, So she's
Speaker 1: not just doing something courageous, she's doing something heroic because
Speaker 1: the primary beneficiary of what's happened is not her right.
Speaker 1: So heroism to me, or the heroic is when we
Speaker 1: do something courageous that's well beyond our self interest or
Speaker 1: perhaps very much at odds with our self interest. Right,
Speaker 1: when we talk about the courage to start a business, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, what we're talking about is pushing past doubts
Speaker 1: or risk or whatever. But what about the courage to
Speaker 1: leave a successful business to start a nonprofit? Right, You're
Speaker 1: you're not putting yourself often physical danger, but you're putting
Speaker 1: your interests behind the interests of other people. And that's
Speaker 1: a very scary, difficult thing to do. And it's he wrote,
Speaker 1: because by by putting others above us, we're actually elevating
Speaker 1: all of us. And so I wanted to look at
Speaker 1: that because I'm really really really inspired by that, and that,
Speaker 1: ultimately is what I think we need more of in
Speaker 1: the world. Obviously we need courageous entrepreneurs, but we need
Speaker 1: people who are willing to do something beyond just trying
Speaker 1: to make something for themselves. Yeah, I deeply appreciate that definition.
Speaker 1: Thank you for sharing with us, because to me, that
Speaker 1: that journey from courage to being heroic, that that is
Speaker 1: that purpose, that service, that that extension of oneself for others,
Speaker 1: and ultimately I can agree with you more. I genuinely
Speaker 1: believe that purpose. You know, I was saying, I suppose
Speaker 1: I was speaking to a friend recently. I was saying,
Speaker 1: how you know a dream without service is in complete,
Speaker 1: Like the idea is, like, you know, you can only
Speaker 1: build a dream so far with the desire for it
Speaker 1: to all be about yourself, and then it doesn't even
Speaker 1: do it for you anymore. And I feel like, but
Speaker 1: you've paved a really good path because also you can't
Speaker 1: just jump to being heroic, because there are certain skills
Speaker 1: and muscles and things that you develop on the way
Speaker 1: by building courage first, Like, there are certain tools and
Speaker 1: tricks and tips and things that you pick up along
Speaker 1: the way that make it more powerful to be heroic. Aft. Well,
Speaker 1: one of the things I was inspired by, it's just
Speaker 1: something I ran in a small news story many years ago,
Speaker 1: was the decision I think maybe ten years ago, that
Speaker 1: CVS just decides are going to stop selling cigarettes. Now,
Speaker 1: this is bad for CVS, this is bad for the
Speaker 1: shareholders of CPS, but it's obviously good for the world. Right,
Speaker 1: And as they find overall cigarette consumption goes down across
Speaker 1: the entire country because people are just like it's harder
Speaker 1: to get cigarettes, they just smokes, right, and so like,
Speaker 1: obviously we love ambition, we love creativity, we love people
Speaker 1: who are trying to be successful. But there is something
Speaker 1: beyond that. I think we saw it during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: the people who showed up every day for work, even
Speaker 1: though it must have been scary and terrifying for them,
Speaker 1: but they knew that other people were depending on them,
Speaker 1: that where would we be without those kind of people?
Speaker 1: And so you know, obviously the pandemic revealed some selfishness
Speaker 1: and indifference and all sorts of awful parts of our
Speaker 1: modern society, but it also revealed I think some of
Speaker 1: the best of our society. And I wanted to celebrate
Speaker 1: this idea of of yes, pushing through fear is important,
Speaker 1: but why are you doing it right? Who are you
Speaker 1: doing it for? That really really matters? Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that's beautiful man, Ryan, This has been such a wonderful conversation.
Speaker 1: I highly recommend everyone if you haven't read Ryan's work.
Speaker 1: I mean I would go and buy every single book.
Speaker 1: And I'm not kidding. They not only look beautiful, but
Speaker 1: they are beautiful and you know, obstacle is the way
Speaker 1: is just fantastic. Ego as the enemy. Stillness is the
Speaker 1: key we talked about last time, I mean, and this
Speaker 1: one courage is calling is what we've been talking about today. Ryan.
Speaker 1: We end every interview with the final five. You've done
Speaker 1: this before. These are the fast five. So every question
Speaker 1: needs to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum.
Speaker 1: You are the writers, so you can help me define
Speaker 1: what one sentence counts as, Like, how many words are
Speaker 1: in a sense in a good sentence? Ryan? I? As
Speaker 1: many or as few as there should be? Okay? All right,
Speaker 1: great love. I love the vagueness of that. Okay, brilliant.
Speaker 1: All right. So the first question for you is what
Speaker 1: is something you once were attracted to that has become
Speaker 1: less important to you? I think money, certainly money. I
Speaker 1: think money represented something to me early in my life.
Speaker 1: And the more or you get of it, the more
Speaker 1: you realize that it really doesn't mean anything and there's
Speaker 1: less to do with it than you think there is, right,
Speaker 1: and and did that come off to a stain amount
Speaker 1: of sainse success? Did that? Where did you feel like?
Speaker 1: What made you feel that it doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: a statistical number. I just mean, like, what was it
Speaker 1: that made you feel that way. I don't know if
Speaker 1: there was a specific number, but I remember I had
Speaker 1: a conversation with Tim Ferris once and he was like,
Speaker 1: what do you do with your money? You know? And
Speaker 1: he's like, what do you mean? He's like, he's like,
Speaker 1: do you have a speedboat? You know? Do you invest it?
Speaker 1: What do you And I was like, it just goes
Speaker 1: in the bank, right, Like I don't know. And he's like,
Speaker 1: so it's not important to you really, And I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess not. You know. He was like his point
Speaker 1: was if you're if you don't need the money, just
Speaker 1: make sure that you're not saying yes to things that
Speaker 1: you don't really want to do to get more money
Speaker 1: if you don't really want the money. And that was
Speaker 1: very helpful to me. Yeah, I love that. Okay. Question
Speaker 1: number two, what is something you affect uninterested in that
Speaker 1: has now become something intriguing or a curiosity? I mean,
Speaker 1: I think I always knew I wanted to have kids,
Speaker 1: but I didn't understand just how much I would love
Speaker 1: it and how how much it would transform my life.
Speaker 1: And so I would say, you know, sort of family
Speaker 1: being the sort of big, big thing, especially again during
Speaker 1: the pandemic, just it was like, Oh, this is all
Speaker 1: I really care about, this is all I'm going to
Speaker 1: focus on, So maybe family would be the big thing.
Speaker 1: I love that, alright. Question number three, what's the most
Speaker 1: used piece of Stoic wisdom that you utilize on a
Speaker 1: daily or more regular basis? The first Stoic exercise is
Speaker 1: this idea that there's things that are up to us
Speaker 1: and things that are not up to us, and really
Speaker 1: all we should focus on is what's not is what
Speaker 1: is yes, And that's extremely hard to do, and I
Speaker 1: screwed up all the time, but I find myself constantly
Speaker 1: reminding myself it doesn't matter. No amount of thinking about
Speaker 1: this will change it. Just focus on what you can
Speaker 1: do in response to it, or you know, inside of it.
Speaker 1: That's probably I love that. Ironically, the most basic thing
Speaker 1: is the most complex thing. Absolutely well, I was going
Speaker 1: to ask you that as the next question. What is
Speaker 1: a piece of Stoic advice that you think you're still
Speaker 1: wrestling or grappling with that may be counterintuitive, it may
Speaker 1: even be off the wall, and you may be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is one of those things that you leave out
Speaker 1: the book because it's just it just you know. And
Speaker 1: there's plenty of stuff with that in the Vedic tradition too,
Speaker 1: like there's some stuff that's the stuff the wall. Is
Speaker 1: there something like that from the that you've been reading
Speaker 1: recently that I mean, I think all of it to
Speaker 1: be perfectly honest, all of it is on a day
Speaker 1: to day basis. But there is a line in the
Speaker 1: beginning of Meditations Mark Surrealists lists all these things that
Speaker 1: he learned from his mentors, and I think it's from
Speaker 1: Sextists or Severist someone early on in his life. She
Speaker 1: said that I learned how to be free of passion
Speaker 1: but full of love. And that doesn't that that doesn't
Speaker 1: sound very stoic, right, Um, The idea of being full
Speaker 1: of love, the being free of passions sounds very stud
Speaker 1: but full of love sounds more Eastern and or Christian,
Speaker 1: a little bit of both, and I find that to
Speaker 1: be very beautiful. And the idea of being like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna strip out some of the emotion, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: strip out some of the need to control blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, but I'm gonna replace it with like love, empathy, kindness.
Speaker 1: That is harder for me to do, but but something
Speaker 1: I'm working on. I love that. That's that's beautiful and
Speaker 1: sat okay. Fifth and final question, what are your top
Speaker 1: favorite I don't mind how many numbers, three, four, five
Speaker 1: books that you've read this year, so more recent or
Speaker 1: that you've read this year. It doesn't even see a
Speaker 1: recent book. Doctor Edith Inger wrote this book called The Choice.
Speaker 1: She's a Holocaust survivor. I loved that book. It blew
Speaker 1: me away. Then there's this other little book by Victor
Speaker 1: Frankel that they found recently called A Yes to Life.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, in spite of everything. That's like a collection
Speaker 1: of some of his lost lectures that I really really enjoyed.
Speaker 1: And then I read this book. It doesn't have a
Speaker 1: great title, but it's it's sort of changed how I've
Speaker 1: been thinking about things lately. It's called Indian Givers, and
Speaker 1: it's about what Western society owes and has learned from
Speaker 1: indigenous peoples over the last like five six hundred years.
Speaker 1: And it was an incredible book that like, it just
Speaker 1: didn't I just had no ideas. Isn't unfortunately, what we
Speaker 1: teach in schools and I've just been thinking about that
Speaker 1: book so much. I really really liked it. I love
Speaker 1: that beautiful three that I haven't read. So Produces Amason
Speaker 1: order those books for me right now. I need those books.
Speaker 1: And for everyone's been listening and watching. As you know,
Speaker 1: I've been talking to Ryan Holiday. I want you to
Speaker 1: go and grab a copy of couragees Core, and like
Speaker 1: I said, every other book. You can find Ryan on
Speaker 1: the podcast. He's one of the few guests who've been
Speaker 1: on the podcast twice. This is a second episode, and
Speaker 1: of course Ryan, it's always a joy to have you on.
Speaker 1: I hope we get to do many many more of these.
Speaker 1: I hope you get to go on many many more walks.
Speaker 1: I really do hope we can spend a bit more
Speaker 1: time together. I've never been to Austin, can you believe it?
Speaker 1: So I also need to come out to Austin. But
Speaker 1: thank you for making the time. Thank you for being
Speaker 1: so generous. Everyone who's been listening on watching, make sure
Speaker 1: you tag me and Ryan on Instagram on Twitter. Let
Speaker 1: us know what resonated with you, what connected with you.
Speaker 1: If you've read one of the books that Ryan recommended,
Speaker 1: come back and tell him about it. Like we want
Speaker 1: to hear that, and I love staying connected to this community.
Speaker 1: So thank you to our on purpose community. Thank you
Speaker 1: to Ryan Holiday. Appreciate you man, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: You're the best.