Speaker 1: Hi everyone, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast. In this episode,
Speaker 1: I talked to best selling author Ryan Holiday about his
Speaker 1: newest book, Courage Is Calling. We discussed his unique definition
Speaker 1: of courage and how people can practice it in their
Speaker 1: daily lives. Upon a closer examination of history, Ryan and
Speaker 1: I question whether the stories of American heroism are as
Speaker 1: honorable as we've been led to believe. We also touch
Speaker 1: on the topics of social justice, hope, stoicism, resilience, and virtues.
Speaker 1: It's always a great time chatting with Ryan, and I
Speaker 1: hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. So,
Speaker 1: without further ado, I'll bring you Ryan Holiday. Hey, Ryan,
Speaker 1: it's so great to chat with you today on the
Speaker 1: Psychology Podcast. I appreciate it. It's always fun to talk
Speaker 1: to you. So yeah, I always love chatting with you.
Speaker 1: And your new book is just as interesting as the
Speaker 1: other ones on courage and it's called Courage Is Calling.
Speaker 1: So why do decide to write this one? Well, I'm
Speaker 1: doing this series on the cardinal virtues, so courage, temperance, justice,
Speaker 1: and wisdom, courage being not just I think the first
Speaker 1: and the most important of the virtues. I do feel
Speaker 1: like it is the most timely of the virtues. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure there's anyone that looks at what's going on
Speaker 1: in the world and thinks like we have too much courage.
Speaker 1: I think I think we are living in the shadows
Speaker 1: or the wreckage of of what happens when you're leaders
Speaker 1: and artists and academics, and you know, sort of every
Speaker 1: facet of society is is either deficient in courage or
Speaker 1: has chosen to prioritize other things over courage. Well, what
Speaker 1: are some things you think we're prioritizing over courage? I
Speaker 1: agree with you, But like, what what do you have
Speaker 1: in your in mind right now that you think is
Speaker 1: kind of the forefront of society's priorities right now? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean this as an indictment across the board. So
Speaker 1: I'm not just like one segment of society and other
Speaker 1: segment I think generally, and I'm not exempting myself feels
Speaker 1: like we're deficient in courage. I would say, you know,
Speaker 1: on one end of the spectrum, you might have a
Speaker 1: prioritizing of the self of like sort of what's good
Speaker 1: for you your self interest. So when we look at
Speaker 1: sort of the pandemic, we see I think a deficiency
Speaker 1: and courage in this sort of people's willingness to be
Speaker 1: even the slightest uncomfort uncomfortable, the slightest bit uncomfortable, or
Speaker 1: take the slightest risk that might benefit someone else. Right,
Speaker 1: you go all the way to the other end of
Speaker 1: the spectrum, and we have a deficiency encourage in our
Speaker 1: sort of unwillingness to engage with ideas that make us
Speaker 1: uncomfortable or that might challenge beliefs that we have. So
Speaker 1: I think what we when we think about courage. Of
Speaker 1: course we're talking thing about physical courage and also moral courage,
Speaker 1: but we're really talking about what we're willing to risk
Speaker 1: in alignment with our values, our obligations, and you know,
Speaker 1: the potential that we're trying to fulfill as individuals. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a really good definition of courage. It's one of
Speaker 1: the succinct definitions I've heard. I've heard. You know, there's
Speaker 1: lots of definitions of courage in the psychology literature, and
Speaker 1: they can get quite long and convoluted and complex. I
Speaker 1: really like that you argue in your book that it's
Speaker 1: in short supply today. What do you think are some forces,
Speaker 1: causal forces that are making it more difficult for us
Speaker 1: to express that that's within most of us. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean I think when I look at, say,
Speaker 1: my own childhood, I don't really see courage as a
Speaker 1: thing that anyone talked about that like a value that
Speaker 1: my parents sort of held up as an important one
Speaker 1: in the way that you know, one hundred year years
Speaker 1: ago or five hundred years ago, courage would have been
Speaker 1: courage and honor, right, like, these are sort of very
Speaker 1: primal but timeless virtues in a like let's say, in
Speaker 1: a warrior culture, you might there's almost nothing that's held
Speaker 1: up higher than courage. So I think, you know, my
Speaker 1: parents wanted me to be successful. They wanted me to
Speaker 1: be safe, right, They wanted me to do They wanted
Speaker 1: me to do a lot of things. Taking risks was
Speaker 1: not one that was high on their list. And in fact,
Speaker 1: one of the biggest challenges in my relationship with my
Speaker 1: parents was my decision to drop out of college. You know,
Speaker 1: my parents thought this was you know, like the idea
Speaker 1: that it might be courageous or scary or you know,
Speaker 1: the necessary buy into an unconventional life was you know,
Speaker 1: to them, overshadowed by the fact that it would make
Speaker 1: them uncomfortable in front of their friends, or that you know,
Speaker 1: it might it might not be as safe, or as
Speaker 1: secure or as dependable as like the sort of more
Speaker 1: conventional path. So I just I think a big part
Speaker 1: of it. And one of the reasons I wanted to
Speaker 1: write the book, which I really just tried to tell
Speaker 1: a lot of different stories of courage, stories that I
Speaker 1: think should be more well known, was the idea of
Speaker 1: just like, let's celebrate courage for what it is. Let's
Speaker 1: make it part of the topic of conversation, because I
Speaker 1: think that's how you get courageous people. There's this great
Speaker 1: quote from one of the biographers of Theodore Roosevelt. They said,
Speaker 1: you know, Theodore Roosevelt grew up hearing about the great
Speaker 1: men of history and decided to be just like them. Right,
Speaker 1: And when we think about courage, I mean, it's about
Speaker 1: trying to be like the people you admire, the heroes
Speaker 1: that you had, and I think we do a poor
Speaker 1: job of that as a society. I completely agree. You know,
Speaker 1: your definition of courage seems to have baked in a
Speaker 1: pro social or positivelopment to which is interesting. One couldn't
Speaker 1: make the case that you know, it's be worthy to
Speaker 1: have the construct of courage that could go in either direction.
Speaker 1: You know, you have a quote in an ugly world,
Speaker 1: courage is beautiful. It allows beautiful things to exist. So
Speaker 1: I just just a riff on that a little bit.
Speaker 1: I mean, do you not see did Hitler never have
Speaker 1: courage and any of the things he did? Like, in
Speaker 1: order to have courage, must there be this sort of
Speaker 1: like beautiful aspect to it? As what I'm wondering. No,
Speaker 1: I think it's a great question. Look, if we think
Speaker 1: about courage as simply the taking of risk, then sure,
Speaker 1: anyone who takes a risk or faces down insane odds
Speaker 1: would be said to be courageous. But if we're talking
Speaker 1: about courage as a virtue, and more specifically, we're talking
Speaker 1: about courage which sits among four inter related, interconnected virtue,
Speaker 1: then I do think it's impossible to look at courage independently.
Speaker 1: So courage isn't like, hey, look what I can do.
Speaker 1: I could put a gun to my head and in
Speaker 1: the chambers and not flinch, right, I think courage as
Speaker 1: a virtue is bravery in pursuit of what is right. Right,
Speaker 1: So let's take something sort of very of the moment
Speaker 1: vaccine resistance. Right, if you simply look at courage as
Speaker 1: I won't be told what to do and I will
Speaker 1: be willing to brave any obstacle, difficulty, punishment, or threat
Speaker 1: to protect my autonomy. In that sense, then of course,
Speaker 1: you know the school teacher that gets fired because they
Speaker 1: won't get vaccinate Andy or Kyrie Irving who gives up,
Speaker 1: you know, millions of dollars to not be vaccinated would
Speaker 1: be said to be courageous. But courage in relation to
Speaker 1: the virtues of justice, the virtues of wisdom. Being anti
Speaker 1: vaxx is of course, you know, preposterously out of step
Speaker 1: with sort of courage in that sense. So when I
Speaker 1: think about courage, were there brave, courageous Confederates in the
Speaker 1: in the US Civil War? I mean absolutely, just as
Speaker 1: you know it takes a certain audacity to invade Russia
Speaker 1: or to declare war on the United States, in Britain
Speaker 1: and Russia all at the same time. But I think
Speaker 1: when that courage is in pursuit of a monstrous cause,
Speaker 1: I think we can all agree that there's something hollow
Speaker 1: and uh wrong about it. Well, I think this would
Speaker 1: be a fun thing to riff on because it's a
Speaker 1: really interesting point. And just to zoom out for a second,
Speaker 1: these I want to make poor to our audience. What
Speaker 1: the four virtues, cardinal virtues you're talking about that are
Speaker 1: well when they're well integrated. I completely agree that's some
Speaker 1: badass stuff going on there. If you've got courage, temperance, justice,
Speaker 1: and wisdom, I'll take I'll take the integration of those
Speaker 1: four things. So, yeah, I really liked what you're saying
Speaker 1: about that. Yeah, they balance each other out, right, So
Speaker 1: courage is checked by temperance, because unlimited courage becomes not
Speaker 1: just unbalanced and unrestrained, but it also becomes dangerous and
Speaker 1: therefore unwise right or needlessly dangerous, or think about a
Speaker 1: reckless form of courage like I don't care, I'm charging
Speaker 1: ahead anyway. You're a soldier in the army, Well, you're
Speaker 1: endangering the other men and women in your platoon. So
Speaker 1: it's also unjust right. And so the virtues they check
Speaker 1: and they balance each other out in a really important way.
Speaker 1: They do. They do. And so, but regarding your point
Speaker 1: about the anti vaxxers, I know that you know you
Speaker 1: you get some pushback obviously on that, right, on your
Speaker 1: I've seen comments your Instagram page now, so from their perspective,
Speaker 1: their point of view, they are they do think they're
Speaker 1: being They think they're being courageous by going on your
Speaker 1: Instagram page and responding to you. So it's a very
Speaker 1: they do. You know, they'll probably hold each other up
Speaker 1: and say like, yeah, you were so braved to take
Speaker 1: that risk. Now, who's to say they aren't the brave
Speaker 1: ones and you're not the brave one. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of people that do a lot of things the
Speaker 1: name of justice and courage that eventually it goes very,
Speaker 1: very wrong. But in their heads at the time, they
Speaker 1: thought they were being fighting for justice encouraged, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Yeah, Look, it's obviously very complex, and
Speaker 1: we have to look at these things with the sort
Speaker 1: of a view of distance of course, to know what
Speaker 1: was right and what was wrong. So it's difficult obviously
Speaker 1: to make sweeping judgments. But take something like speaking truth
Speaker 1: to power, right, which is what I think a lot
Speaker 1: of vaccine resistors think they're doing when they're let's say,
Speaker 1: commenting on my page. Although not powerful, but let's just say,
Speaker 1: speaking truth to power is a form of courage. But
Speaker 1: what if the truth that you're speaking is nonsense, right, Like,
Speaker 1: it's not take vaccines out of it. Let's just say
Speaker 1: it's not based on anything real. Right. Let's say you're
Speaker 1: just accusing a powerful person of something that's not true. Now,
Speaker 1: it's courageous brave in the sense that you're willing to
Speaker 1: risk their ire or anger to speak this truth. But
Speaker 1: if it's not true, you're not really speaking truth to power, right,
Speaker 1: And so I think what's tricky about you know, this
Speaker 1: specific issue with courage. Yeah, Look, being willing to risk
Speaker 1: one's livelihood or one's reputation for what you believe is,
Speaker 1: you know, not a thing that should be taken lightly.
Speaker 1: And I have a kind of a begrudging respect in
Speaker 1: the abstract for anyone that does that. Right, But if
Speaker 1: what you're protecting is your ability to be a vector
Speaker 1: for a deadly virus that is currently killed three quarters
Speaker 1: of a million people in the US and millions of
Speaker 1: people all over the world, Like, what you're not doing
Speaker 1: is being courageous. In fact, you're afraid of doing the
Speaker 1: thing that would be just and honorable and wise, and
Speaker 1: you're dressing it up in courage and acting like you're
Speaker 1: doing a good and noble and virtuous thing, when in
Speaker 1: fact you're doing an incredibly selfish thing that you've already
Speaker 1: done dozens of times in your life when these things
Speaker 1: were not so politicized, and now suddenly it's different. Are
Speaker 1: are there? Is there also some gray area here with
Speaker 1: some religious exemptions or whatever. Sure, but by and large,
Speaker 1: thirty percent of the population does not have a religious
Speaker 1: exemption or a health exemption. They have simply been misinformed
Speaker 1: and radicalized and are taking an action that affects not
Speaker 1: just them and not just the healthcare system, but sort
Speaker 1: of negatively externalizing their bad decision on the healthcare system,
Speaker 1: but is actively endangering, you know, millions of fellow human
Speaker 1: beings and citizens, many of whom are now dead and buried.
Speaker 1: And so I take a very strong and I think
Speaker 1: it's a great example of courage or a great sort
Speaker 1: of test case of courage. You know, just because you're
Speaker 1: risking something doesn't make it courageous. It matters. The why
Speaker 1: matters a great deal, and the what matters a great thing.
Speaker 1: You think about Roberty Lee. Roberty Lee gives up everything
Speaker 1: to join the Confederacy. He's one of the top ranking
Speaker 1: generals in the Union Army. He's a descent, he's a
Speaker 1: relative of George Washington. By the end of the war,
Speaker 1: he loses his home, which is now Arlington National Cemetery,
Speaker 1: he loses friends, you know, But was that courageous or
Speaker 1: was the courageous thing for him to have had to
Speaker 1: choose country over identity? Right, and he couldn't do it.
Speaker 1: And so I was just talking to a great biographer,
Speaker 1: Robert Lee, and we sort of talked about this. It's
Speaker 1: actually Roberty Lee was constantly afraid of doing the harder
Speaker 1: thing that sort of slides him into this path that
Speaker 1: ultimately makes him the head of one of the worst
Speaker 1: causes in world history. Right, It's different than Hitler. Right.
Speaker 1: Hitler is just a monster who aggressively seeks out this
Speaker 1: horrible stuff. Right, Robert E. Lee is actually much closer
Speaker 1: to an example of someone who repeatedly failed to do
Speaker 1: the harder thing and then kind of called it courage
Speaker 1: at the end of it. Thanks for riffing with me
Speaker 1: on this and having a little bit of a higher
Speaker 1: level conversation about this, because I'm really fast, truly fascinated
Speaker 1: in the idea of courage, the construct as being a
Speaker 1: narrative and how especially when you have competing narratives, right, So,
Speaker 1: I mean America has all sorts of narratives that we
Speaker 1: learn in the history books about like how courageous Christopher
Speaker 1: Columbus was coming over. I mean, I can guarantee you
Speaker 1: there are other narratives that exist as well about the
Speaker 1: courageousness of indigenous peoples during that time as well. So
Speaker 1: I I just wanted to kind of riff on this
Speaker 1: intell actually with you. Yeah, no, no, I think it's important.
Speaker 1: And look, I think, like most things, those things can
Speaker 1: both be true. It was immensely courageous to sail out
Speaker 1: into the unknown, to brave the elements and the doubts
Speaker 1: in the way that Christopher Columbus did, you know, to
Speaker 1: then slaughter innocent people and begin what became a multi
Speaker 1: century genocide. I don't think we put that under the
Speaker 1: bucket of courage, right, And so I think this actually
Speaker 1: brings up a larger question, which is another thing we're
Speaker 1: struggling with as a society. And this goes to our
Speaker 1: point about multiple forms of courage and then the deficiencies
Speaker 1: of courage across the board. I think where we're really
Speaker 1: struggling academically, intellectually, culturally as a society is we want
Speaker 1: history to be really clean and straightforward, right, we want
Speaker 1: it to be Christopher Columbus is all good, or Christopher
Speaker 1: Columbus is the human being whoever lived? Right, America is
Speaker 1: this shining city on the hill, manifest destiny, a wonderful,
Speaker 1: you know, beacon of freedom and hope. And then the
Speaker 1: sort of Howard Zen model of America as like the
Speaker 1: worst country that's ever ever existed. History is really fucked
Speaker 1: up and complicated. And the study of history, if it
Speaker 1: doesn't make you uncomfortable and it doesn't challenge you, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't make you feel disgusted with people that you'd
Speaker 1: like to be a fan of or that you'd like
Speaker 1: to identify with, you're probably not studying history, you know.
Speaker 1: And so I think we lack even the courage to
Speaker 1: face and study the unpleasant, uncertain, you know, unclear nature
Speaker 1: of the human species and our own ancestors. So I
Speaker 1: think we really struggle with that as well. And it
Speaker 1: takes like the study of truth, the pursuit of truth
Speaker 1: is not for the squeamish, that's for sure. That's for sure. Well,
Speaker 1: you've done some work on statues being you've argued we
Speaker 1: should take down some statues, right yeah, I mean, look,
Speaker 1: I hate this bullshit argument that like, oh, how will
Speaker 1: we remember the past if we remove these monuments. It's like, look,
Speaker 1: this is what books and museums are for. I have
Speaker 1: an office and a little bookstore here in a small
Speaker 1: town outside Austin, Texas, and there is there's a Confederate
Speaker 1: monument on the lawn of the county courthouse where they
Speaker 1: regularly judge like death penalty cases. Right, So, imagine you're
Speaker 1: a black man or a black woman and you have
Speaker 1: to walk past a Confederate statue celebrating the people who
Speaker 1: committed treason to preserve their right to enslave you and
Speaker 1: your ancestors. Imagine you have to walk past that statue
Speaker 1: on your way into a court, a courtroom where that
Speaker 1: same county or administration is supposed to render impartial justice
Speaker 1: and decide whether you deserve to live or die. I mean,
Speaker 1: the symbolism of that is preposterous, and I think again
Speaker 1: you study history. If Confederate monuments were put up in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty six by the grieving orphans and widows of
Speaker 1: the Confederates who died in the war. We could have
Speaker 1: a discussion about that. This statue was put up in
Speaker 1: nineteen ten. Specifically, the one I've been talking about is
Speaker 1: put up in nineteen ten. That'd be like putting up
Speaker 1: a Nazi statue in Germany today, seventy years after the
Speaker 1: battle happened or the war happened, right, And so the
Speaker 1: connotation the actual history of that statue has almost nothing
Speaker 1: to do with the Civil War and everything to do
Speaker 1: with the assertion the dominance of Jim Crow government or
Speaker 1: Jim Crow segregation at that time. That basically said, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: you black people live here, but you actually don't control government,
Speaker 1: you have no voice in government, and we are going
Speaker 1: to use taxpayer dollars and taxpayer time and taxpayer land
Speaker 1: to put up a to the people who raped and
Speaker 1: murdered your ancestors. So when like, when you look at
Speaker 1: history that way, which requires some discomfort and some inspection,
Speaker 1: I think the argument is pretty clear there. So anyways,
Speaker 1: that rant over, I don't think i've ever seen you
Speaker 1: this fired up. Oh really? You you? Yes, I really haven't.
Speaker 1: There's there's such a zeal, there's such a passion in
Speaker 1: you about these political slash social justice topics that. I
Speaker 1: guess we've just never We've never covered that in prior episodes.
Speaker 1: We always cover kind of more by the book. In
Speaker 1: terms of the writings of your books, have you gotten
Speaker 1: more interested in social justice in recent years? I mean,
Speaker 1: it's unfortunate that term social justice is almost a pejorative now,
Speaker 1: like it has a negative context to me, I don't
Speaker 1: see myself. I don't mean it as a pejorative, no,
Speaker 1: of course, of course, I just I'm just saying it
Speaker 1: says something about where we are as a society that
Speaker 1: to call some a warrior for social justice is to
Speaker 1: insult them, when like, ideally that's what we should all be.
Speaker 1: I tend to find that the things that I get
Speaker 1: fired up about are less political issues, although they are
Speaker 1: political to me, they are basic social contract issues. So
Speaker 1: to me, the Confederate statue on the lawn of a
Speaker 1: courthouse is less to do my passion for it and
Speaker 1: my feeling about it is less to do with like,
Speaker 1: let's say, coming at it from the lens of social justice,
Speaker 1: and it's more like, first off, this is historically incorrect.
Speaker 1: This was an attempt to lie about history. This was
Speaker 1: an active piece of propaganda put up, not that long ago,
Speaker 1: Like I knew a guy he died about two years ago.
Speaker 1: He was very old, obviously, but I met a human
Speaker 1: being who was born before this statue was put up, right,
Speaker 1: so like it was put up very recently. And so
Speaker 1: when I think about it as as a like what
Speaker 1: do we owe our fellow human beings as part of
Speaker 1: the social contract, the sanctity of you know, your right
Speaker 1: to a fair trial is a very basic issue to me,
Speaker 1: And so I get upset or vaccines, I get upset,
Speaker 1: or I get I get committed to them again, not
Speaker 1: from a like a partisan standpoint or a particularly political view,
Speaker 1: but I think about it much more in the context
Speaker 1: of the virtue of the larger virtue of justice, which is, like,
Speaker 1: what do we owe each other? What is our what
Speaker 1: are our basic sort of bedrock principles as a society.
Speaker 1: That's what I want to enforce. Like I really care
Speaker 1: less about like sort of what political party one is in,
Speaker 1: what specific laws one supports, or you know, whether you
Speaker 1: know the right wing take on this issue or the
Speaker 1: left wing take on this issue. I think we're so
Speaker 1: fucked right now as a society that we're we're struggling
Speaker 1: to litigate like basic social contract issues, and that's that's
Speaker 1: where I tend to focus, Like, hey, you owe it
Speaker 1: to other people not to infect them with a virus
Speaker 1: if that is avoidable. Oh, wouldn't be wonderful if we
Speaker 1: could separate politics from truth. I mean, that would be
Speaker 1: a wonderful thing. Then part of the reason why a
Speaker 1: society is so, as you put it, fucked is because
Speaker 1: these things are so intertwined right now, and perceptions of
Speaker 1: truth in politics or so we can't have rational conversations
Speaker 1: about what we think is right apart from people labeling
Speaker 1: us as in a particular camp. So I very much
Speaker 1: agree with that, and I think it's that is very well,
Speaker 1: it's beyond problematic. I'll often find the word problematic like
Speaker 1: an understatement in a lot of situations. People like that
Speaker 1: racism was problematic. I'll be like, no, it's fucked up,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, or it's it's implications are like terrifying
Speaker 1: to at worst destabilizing at best, you know, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I read a great headline from David French, who's a
Speaker 1: conservaive writer. I wrote, I like, and it was something like,
Speaker 1: can America be America if Jews are beaten in the streets, right,
Speaker 1: If Jews are beaten openly in the streets, right, So
Speaker 1: that's not a political issue to me. Like a rise
Speaker 1: in anti Semitic violence is not a political issue, just
Speaker 1: as you know, a black man being gunned down by
Speaker 1: three Hillbillies when he's out for a run is not
Speaker 1: a political issue to me. This is the entire premise
Speaker 1: of our government and our civilization is that we have
Speaker 1: sort of rules and laws and norms that prevent things
Speaker 1: like that from happening. And so, you know, the peaceful
Speaker 1: transfer of power, right, which failed in twenty twenty you know,
Speaker 1: less than in twenty twenty one, less than a year ago, Right,
Speaker 1: the United States failed to peacefully hand power from one
Speaker 1: party to another party, and for people just to revert
Speaker 1: back to normal after that and go like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: in this election, I'm going to I like the Republican
Speaker 1: candidate more than the Democratic candidate. When that when the
Speaker 1: stance of that candidate, let's say, is not crystal clear
Speaker 1: on whether, like the peaceful transfer of power is an
Speaker 1: unquestioned priority for our system of government. Like, yeah, problematic,
Speaker 1: as you said, is the understatement of the century. Yeah,
Speaker 1: huge understatement. Well, you know, it just occurs to me
Speaker 1: that a big part of your courage as well is
Speaker 1: being completely okay risking alienating audiences that would buy your
Speaker 1: book normally. There's a certain authenticity I see in you
Speaker 1: right now that I've never seen as full force. Not
Speaker 1: that you've ever been inauthentic. I've always found you, as
Speaker 1: long as i've known you to be a very authentic human.
Speaker 1: But when I said, I've never there's something else going
Speaker 1: on today, I'm seeing in you like I've never seen
Speaker 1: this before, it with such intensity, which is sort of
Speaker 1: like it seems to me like you'd be okay, you know,
Speaker 1: being committed to a position and stating your position with passion,
Speaker 1: even if like let's say, thirty forty percent of your
Speaker 1: audience got upset with you for talking about those things
Speaker 1: that they veahtently disagree with and they boycott your books.
Speaker 1: It seems to me like you'd kind of be okay
Speaker 1: with that. Yeah, I mean, I'm okay with it. It's
Speaker 1: a reality I'm dealing with for sure. I guess, okay,
Speaker 1: the happening, this is happening. Yeah, yeah, I mean I've
Speaker 1: certainly experienced consequences for stand I mean, I get enough
Speaker 1: emails to know. There are definitely people who have decided
Speaker 1: to head to the exits for some things. But the
Speaker 1: way I see it as this, like I have been
Speaker 1: extremely fortunate to be compensated well for the writing that
Speaker 1: I've done, to have success for the books that I've written,
Speaker 1: and you know, the things that I've done in life.
Speaker 1: There is a part of us that we say, like,
Speaker 1: when I am successful, then I will do X, Y
Speaker 1: or Z, right, but I have to be conservative or
Speaker 1: I have to be circumspect on the way up until
Speaker 1: I get to a place of freeam, autonomy, power, influence whatever.
Speaker 1: I tend to find that in practice the opposite becomes true.
Speaker 1: You work your way up to you almost having tenure
Speaker 1: or getting tenure, or making a certain amount of money,
Speaker 1: or being promoted to this position or that position, and
Speaker 1: then you don't say things because you don't want to
Speaker 1: lose those things, right, And to me, the obligation the
Speaker 1: success that I've had, it's kind of weird to write
Speaker 1: about ancient philosophy and be handsomely paid as a result
Speaker 1: of that success. It's not that I'm conflicted about it,
Speaker 1: but I do feel like that success if I then
Speaker 1: only say the things that are popular as opposed to
Speaker 1: the things the full teachings of the philosophy. So I
Speaker 1: guess what I'm saying is I could have a much
Speaker 1: larger audience and introduce more people to stoic philosophy by
Speaker 1: only talking about the personal development aspects of the philosophy resiliency,
Speaker 1: you know, self discipline, et cetera, and skip the wisdom
Speaker 1: or the virtue sorry, the justice part of the virtues.
Speaker 1: Right If, as you said, if we just talked about
Speaker 1: courage as being brave, I think that would be easier
Speaker 1: and more palatable. But to me that that would feel
Speaker 1: like like strip mining the philosophy. It would feel exploitative
Speaker 1: to me, like I was being a bad steward of
Speaker 1: the ideas. It also doesn't strike me as particularly fulfilling
Speaker 1: or exciting. And so I think just in the last
Speaker 1: few years, I've just made a pivot towards like I
Speaker 1: have the audience, I had the platform, I have the
Speaker 1: ability to speak in a way that gets people to listen,
Speaker 1: to only tell people what they want to hear, or
Speaker 1: to only speak about the unchallenging aspects of the philosophy.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it just it just strikes me as
Speaker 1: a shirking of duty. That's fascinating. You know, one could
Speaker 1: make the case that keeping your personal opinions out of
Speaker 1: it entirely may strengthen the message and the applicability to
Speaker 1: as wide an audience as possible. But what you've decided
Speaker 1: to do, which is very interesting, and it's it's happening
Speaker 1: in our in our chat even today, is there is
Speaker 1: you're you're trying to live like you've you kind of
Speaker 1: it sounds to me like you're committed to living your
Speaker 1: principles as well. Well, yeah, look, I don't think I'm
Speaker 1: not interjecting my personal opinion about bands that I like
Speaker 1: or you know, like my personal opinion about trivial things
Speaker 1: is not what I'm inserting into the philosophy. I feel
Speaker 1: like what I am talking about, or I feel confident
Speaker 1: in believing that the opinions that I have about these
Speaker 1: sort of social contract issues are based in the ethical
Speaker 1: framework of the philosophy, right like, like, look, imagine you're
Speaker 1: a and I'm not likening myself to this, but as
Speaker 1: a thought experiment, like let's say you're a preacher or
Speaker 1: a pastor in the American South during segregation. Right now,
Speaker 1: your church for hundreds of years has had a certain
Speaker 1: set of values, and your congregation has had a certain
Speaker 1: set of values and expectations about like certain assumptions or
Speaker 1: cultural ideas that are not to be questioned. Now it's
Speaker 1: pretty obvious that these things are in conflict with the
Speaker 1: actual teachings of Christ. Right, you know, blessed are the meek,
Speaker 1: you know what are a love thy neighbor, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So you have a choice as a pastor. You could
Speaker 1: continue to grow your congregation and have a happy, pleasant
Speaker 1: congregation by maintaining or arguing for the status quo. Or
Speaker 1: you can upset and aggravate and perhaps drastically shrink the
Speaker 1: size of your congregation by speaking the truth that you
Speaker 1: you then know, or speaking to one's Christian duty to
Speaker 1: to to to to address the injustices and the wrongs
Speaker 1: that are happening around you. To me the idea that
Speaker 1: you would continue to preach to the choir as they say,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's not just shortsighted and immoral, but
Speaker 1: it's not helping anyone, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 1: think I'd rather speak to a smaller audience that I'm
Speaker 1: helping actually fulfill the ideas in the philosophy then have
Speaker 1: a bigger audience, like like, I guess what I'm saying
Speaker 1: is what I rather have a stoic audience of people
Speaker 1: who actually understand all four virtues and are actively committed
Speaker 1: to trying to bring them into daily practice in the
Speaker 1: real world. Or would I rather have a larger, brower,
Speaker 1: self helpier, you know, the secret kind of audience, but
Speaker 1: that we stay at a very level and we don't
Speaker 1: address things that actually matter, and we leave good large
Speaker 1: chunks of the philosophy just sort of untouched because it
Speaker 1: would upset some people. I don't know. To me, that's
Speaker 1: a pretty straightforward choice. Yeah, I was just gonna say
Speaker 1: it's it's a deliberate choice you made. You know, you
Speaker 1: could see a different model where someone just teaches the
Speaker 1: stoic philosophy and talks about courage and that. Let's say
Speaker 1: you have people in the far right that really resonate
Speaker 1: with your ideas or even dare I say conservatives not
Speaker 1: an not everyone. You know these days, if you're just
Speaker 1: a little bit to the right of the far left,
Speaker 1: they paint you as ault right, which is unfortunate. But
Speaker 1: let's say you're just a conservative, and let's say you
Speaker 1: never voiced any of your opinions about vaccinations or any
Speaker 1: other things that tend to be politicized in our culture.
Speaker 1: And they they really are inspired by your work and
Speaker 1: they use it to be courageous in their own ideas.
Speaker 1: Are you saying you like you wouldn't be okay with that,
Speaker 1: Like you want your ideas to be applied to people
Speaker 1: who you see as aligned with your values. Is that
Speaker 1: what you're saying. I don't know. I don't know exactly.
Speaker 1: I guess what I'm saying. I'll give you a good example.
Speaker 1: So I found out a few weeks ago that Aaron
Speaker 1: Rodgers is a big fan of The Daily Stoke, that
Speaker 1: he reads it every day, and he chose it for
Speaker 1: this book club thing. Now. I posted about this on
Speaker 1: Instagram and I sent a message to him and I
Speaker 1: was like, look, welcome to the tent. Right, Stoicism is
Speaker 1: a very big tent. Here's I'm glad to hear that
Speaker 1: you're reading philosophy and I hope it makes your life better.
Speaker 1: But I said, like, I do think it's worth pointing
Speaker 1: out here that the stoic view on this thing not
Speaker 1: my personal view, but my understanding of having studied this
Speaker 1: now for fifteen years, knowing that, say, Marcus Aurelius was
Speaker 1: the emperor during the Antonine plague and likely died of it,
Speaker 1: you know, and like, having studied this from top to bottom,
Speaker 1: here's what I think this stoic take on this issue
Speaker 1: would be, which is that life, like football, is a
Speaker 1: team sport, and we have an obligation to take small
Speaker 1: measures that make everyone else, including ourselves, better and safer. Right.
Speaker 1: So I'm not saying that like, fuck you, I don't
Speaker 1: want your money, right, although I'll tell you something in
Speaker 1: a second, I'm not saying fuck you, I don't want
Speaker 1: your money. I'm just saying, hey, good to be here.
Speaker 1: But I'm not going to censor myself just because I
Speaker 1: see you sitting in the front row, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to hurt your feelings, right, although I'll give you
Speaker 1: I'll give you an example. A few months ago, somebody
Speaker 1: who's friends with Rudy Giuliani emailed me to ask if
Speaker 1: I would sign a copy to give to Rudy Giuliani
Speaker 1: for his birthday or something, and I said, look, again,
Speaker 1: it's a big tent. I'll welcome anyone in it, but
Speaker 1: I'm not going to accept money and I'm not going
Speaker 1: to exert any time or energy personalizing a copy of
Speaker 1: a book for a person who has tried to overthrow,
Speaker 1: you know, a free and fair democratic election. That's where
Speaker 1: I draw the line. If he wants to buy it
Speaker 1: from Amazon and read it all he wants, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to stop him. But you know, if you see him,
Speaker 1: tell him. I think he's a piece of shit, you know.
Speaker 1: So that's sort of my my Wow. So I do
Speaker 1: think that you are a little bit different in this
Speaker 1: space because you do very clearly see a lot of
Speaker 1: best selling authors sort of have this attitude like if
Speaker 1: someone no matter who it is, if they tweet like
Speaker 1: that was the best book I ever read by this person,
Speaker 1: they'll retweet it right like they'll they're they're just that's
Speaker 1: their number one thing. Is like okay, amazing. I don't
Speaker 1: care who it is, but like they like my book,
Speaker 1: I like them. And you have a little bit of
Speaker 1: a different sort of way of being, which is very interesting.
Speaker 1: I'm glad we're getting into this today. I'm I mean, look,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't want to give myself too much
Speaker 1: credit because it's been a journey for me. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think any the tricky thing is anyone who is
Speaker 1: a public facing person, an author, an artist, like a
Speaker 1: public figure, intellectual like herself. I think clearly that is
Speaker 1: in some way rooted in I don't want to call
Speaker 1: it a wound, but it is rooted in a need
Speaker 1: or a desire for attention and validation, right because otherwise
Speaker 1: you don't have to have it. You are seeking it out.
Speaker 1: And so I think, especially early on in my career,
Speaker 1: especially early on, even even as I was coming up
Speaker 1: as an author, you're sort of you'll take whatever you
Speaker 1: can get, right, And you know, it's easier, of course,
Speaker 1: in the position that I am in now to say
Speaker 1: like I don't need this, I don't want this, because
Speaker 1: that's literally true. I think it's harder to do when
Speaker 1: that principle costs you money that you need, or challenges
Speaker 1: that wound or that that need for attention in a
Speaker 1: way that you know, can feel like almost like a
Speaker 1: life or death issue. So I mean, I don't see
Speaker 1: myself as perfect. I see there's a bunch of mistakes, associations, relationships,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever, that I've made over the years that
Speaker 1: if I was doing it over again, I would do differently.
Speaker 1: But I am trying. It is something I work on
Speaker 1: or I think at least consciously about. Yeah, thanks for
Speaker 1: thanks for elaboration. Another aspect of your book that was
Speaker 1: really interesting to me is your elements of heroism or
Speaker 1: heroism however one pronounces that word, right, So why is
Speaker 1: why do we make our own luck? And how was
Speaker 1: that to do with being a hero? Well, there's a concept,
Speaker 1: as you know, called moral luck, which is like when
Speaker 1: you exist, what time you're born, what situations you find
Speaker 1: yourself in, determines to a certain degree how heroic or
Speaker 1: a great one can be. Like you and I, through
Speaker 1: no fault of our own, are not part of the
Speaker 1: Greatest Generation. That's not because we ducked our service in
Speaker 1: World War Two. It's that we were not alive to
Speaker 1: be a part of that generation, right. And so moral
Speaker 1: luck is the idea of like sort of when, when
Speaker 1: and where you are does to a certain degree determine
Speaker 1: you know, what's possible for you to do. But there's
Speaker 1: a part of that that also feels like a cop
Speaker 1: out to me, because it's not as if there aren't
Speaker 1: enormous issues of enormous moral consequence happening in the world
Speaker 1: today that historically people will wonder, you know what stand
Speaker 1: we took where we were involved, and so I'm just poking.
Speaker 1: I think. I guess what I'm saying is courage doesn't
Speaker 1: just wait around for things to happen to it. I
Speaker 1: think you also have to to seek out those opportunities
Speaker 1: or moments to be engaged. You don't just wait for
Speaker 1: someone to ask you, hey, do you want to take
Speaker 1: the unconventional path in life? You can also go seek
Speaker 1: out an unconventional path. So as heroism an extreme version
Speaker 1: of courage, Like, how do you define how do you
Speaker 1: distinguish between the two constructs? Yeah, I'll get it. It's
Speaker 1: a very academic no, No, it's something I thought a
Speaker 1: lot about. So a good example. So, Michael Jordan leaves
Speaker 1: professional basketball to become to pursue a baseball career. Right,
Speaker 1: he loses a year of playing time, everyone thinks it's crazy,
Speaker 1: cost him millions of dollars, but he walks away from
Speaker 1: basketball at the height of his powers to do this
Speaker 1: other thing. We can imagine how scary that is and
Speaker 1: what kind of courage, what a huge bet that is
Speaker 1: on oneself. Now flash forward about two to two and
Speaker 1: a half years ago. The WNBA player Maya Moore walks
Speaker 1: away from the WNBA at the height of her powers,
Speaker 1: at the height of her dominance, a lot less financially
Speaker 1: secure than Michael Jordan, sue not another athletic endeavor, but
Speaker 1: to try to free a man wrongly convicted from prison,
Speaker 1: which she ultimately was successful at. So I think you know,
Speaker 1: had Michael Jordan been successful and become a professional baseball player,
Speaker 1: he would have read he reaped the benefits of that decision.
Speaker 1: Maya More is not the primary beneficiary of freeing a
Speaker 1: man from prison. Right, It's a selfless acts. It's not
Speaker 1: just a selfless act. It's an act at great expense
Speaker 1: to the self. Right. She has not returned to the
Speaker 1: WNBA yet as far as I understand. So when we're
Speaker 1: talking about heroin, it's not just that it's an extreme
Speaker 1: form of courage, because the extreme form of courage could
Speaker 1: just be recklessness. To me, it's a higher form of courage.
Speaker 1: It's courage in pursuit of a selfless aim. Nice, I
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, the selflessness of love, you have a
Speaker 1: whole chapter on that. Yeah. And well, in my research,
Speaker 1: I've distinguished between love and connection. The need for connection
Speaker 1: can be actually very selfish sometimes, Right, you only like
Speaker 1: people that you feel an immediate sense of connection with,
Speaker 1: but love is a higher form of being where you
Speaker 1: can even love people you don't even like particularly. So
Speaker 1: do you agree with that kind of distinction? I do. Yeah. Look,
Speaker 1: the connection of like, hey, I'm going to quit my
Speaker 1: job and move across the country to take a chance
Speaker 1: on this relationship, right, that's about connection. It's also a
Speaker 1: courageous thing to do. But you know, the parent that
Speaker 1: throws themselves in front of a car to save the
Speaker 1: life of their child at the expense of their own life,
Speaker 1: I think that is something high. That's not about seeking connection.
Speaker 1: That's the profound selflessness of love. Yeah, I completely agree,
Speaker 1: completely agree. Another chapter you have in that section on
Speaker 1: heroism is silence is violence. Now, this one that sounds
Speaker 1: like this can get a little political, So can you
Speaker 1: tell me a little bit of it? And I know
Speaker 1: you don't mean in that way, but you know a
Speaker 1: lot of people will say, you know, in the anti
Speaker 1: racism movement right now, that if you're not actively fighting
Speaker 1: against racism, kind of drop everything you're doing in your
Speaker 1: life and fighting for that, then you're racist. Yes, So
Speaker 1: what do you mean by it? I'm deliberately playing on
Speaker 1: the connotation of that, you know, sort of very loaded
Speaker 1: provocative phrase. Of course, I'm just I'm just saying that
Speaker 1: when we talk about speaking up or getting involved in things,
Speaker 1: often the reason we don't do it is we think,
Speaker 1: what will happen to me? Right? What about like why
Speaker 1: doesn't why doesn't the NBA or Lebron James take a
Speaker 1: stronger stand against the very clear and profoundly alarming injustices
Speaker 1: of the Chinese regime? Right? It's because that is a really, really,
Speaker 1: really bad decision for a business. Right, So we can
Speaker 1: understand why they don't do it, But that silence they're inability,
Speaker 1: their unwillingness to do something about it, has a very
Speaker 1: real cost for other people. There's a story I talk
Speaker 1: about in the book speaking of China in the Korean War,
Speaker 1: it's very clear that MacArthur has sort of gone off
Speaker 1: the reservation. He started to lose his connection with reality.
Speaker 1: And this young aide in the war department goes like, guys,
Speaker 1: I think you think he understands what his orders are,
Speaker 1: but he does not, and I think you need to
Speaker 1: be much clearer. And the Secretary of State says, kid,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about do you want to go
Speaker 1: contradict the joint chiefs of staff to their face and
Speaker 1: the guys well, obviously not. And the result is that
Speaker 1: World War three with China nearly happens. Right, And so
Speaker 1: when we think about the things that we don't speak
Speaker 1: up about, there is a very real cost in meditation.
Speaker 1: And Marcusurrelis talks about how we can commit injustice by
Speaker 1: doing nothing. So the failure of courage is not just
Speaker 1: an indictment of who you are as a person, can
Speaker 1: also make you complicit in monstrous things that by not
Speaker 1: speaking up about, by not lending your voice to you
Speaker 1: might have either prevented from happening or hastened the resolution
Speaker 1: of them. Yeah, look, I think it's a really good point.
Speaker 1: I think we can hold that in our mind simultaneously
Speaker 1: with the idea that often speaking up about things you
Speaker 1: have no clue what you're talking about can also lead
Speaker 1: to violence. So of course I like to take a
Speaker 1: nuanced view a video on this. You have a lot
Speaker 1: of people speaking up about things that with such confidence
Speaker 1: and they actually have no idea what they're talking about. No,
Speaker 1: you're totally right. And look, we just saw this with
Speaker 1: the Kyle Rittenhouse case with the Justin Smolett case. Right,
Speaker 1: just because something happened and you saw a five second
Speaker 1: video about it on the internet five seconds after it happened,
Speaker 1: does it mean you have to immediately make your opinion known,
Speaker 1: especially if your opinion has no nuance, no room for complexity,
Speaker 1: and a limited understanding of what's actually happened. So yes, again,
Speaker 1: this is where the virtues balance each other out. The
Speaker 1: courage to speak up, the courage to to not be silent,
Speaker 1: is key, But so too is the courage, so too
Speaker 1: is the virtue of restraint of justice. Right, You don't
Speaker 1: want to create an injustice by jumping to a conclusion.
Speaker 1: And also, wisdom means a careful study of things, right,
Speaker 1: it means the truth and perhaps the truth is not
Speaker 1: yet knowable, And by being a tad more patient waiting
Speaker 1: for all the facts to arrive, you would have been
Speaker 1: better off speaking Three months later, you still speak up
Speaker 1: about it, but you're not rushing to a conclusion and
Speaker 1: just trying to virtue signal on the internet. Well said,
Speaker 1: Well said, Okay, so I really like that toggle. Right,
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna kind of integrate multiple sections of your
Speaker 1: book in this question I'm going to ask, now, what
Speaker 1: do you see as the big enemy of fear and
Speaker 1: how can people overcome that to inspire people through fearlessness? Wait,
Speaker 1: what's the biggest enemy of fear? What do you mean? Well,
Speaker 1: you yes, because you have a whole chapter on what
Speaker 1: is the enemy and yeah, so in your Elements of
Speaker 1: Fear section you talk about Yeah, I think so. To me,
Speaker 1: fear is the enemy. Like we know often what we
Speaker 1: should do or what we can do. Then fear is
Speaker 1: what holds us back from doing the thing. But I
Speaker 1: think the thing we are most afraid of the real
Speaker 1: sort of deep down rooted fear is what are other
Speaker 1: people going to think? Right, Like, as a tribal species,
Speaker 1: as a person who does not want to be exiled, ostracized, canceled, criticized, attacked,
Speaker 1: made the center of attention, we're just really scared of
Speaker 1: what other people are thinking or will think, and this
Speaker 1: holds us back. Ironically, you know, we try to play
Speaker 1: it safe and then we do something that I think
Speaker 1: thinking person understands that five years from now, ten years
Speaker 1: from now will not age well, right, So yeah, sure, Again,
Speaker 1: to go to the segregation example, let's say you're a
Speaker 1: white Southerner in nineteen sixty two speaking out, you know
Speaker 1: your neighbors are gonna be upset, blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: But I think if you could step back and see
Speaker 1: the trajectory of history, you're like, is this really gonna
Speaker 1: Is this system gonna hold? Like? Is this gonna? You know,
Speaker 1: you end up sticking to a viewpoint that becomes morally
Speaker 1: unjustifiable or indefensible as time goes by. So it's ironic.
Speaker 1: We often care about what people think at the expense
Speaker 1: of our legacy, right like history. There's a great Atlantic
Speaker 1: piece and I loved your piece recently by the way
Speaker 1: that I saw blow up, But there was a great
Speaker 1: Atlantic piece from Annie Applebaum and the title was History
Speaker 1: will judge the Complicit. And I think that's what if
Speaker 1: you care about people, what people think, think about what
Speaker 1: history is going to think of this moment? Love that?
Speaker 1: Are you referring to my group narcissism article, by the way, No,
Speaker 1: you're one about toxic positivity? Oh okay, cool, cool, okay, excellent.
Speaker 1: I wrote another one on group narcissism, so I didn't
Speaker 1: know if that's what you were a fray you might
Speaker 1: like that one too, But I yeah, I really like that,
Speaker 1: and I like how we can underestimate. I like how
Speaker 1: you talk about how we can underestimate the extent to
Speaker 1: which we can inspire people through this fearlessness. Right, So
Speaker 1: we often because we care so much what people think,
Speaker 1: we may actually be jeopardizing ourselves from inspiring many, many
Speaker 1: more people. And so I just think that's an important point.
Speaker 1: That's what I was trying to get at with my integration,
Speaker 1: which I did a little clunkily, but that's what I'm
Speaker 1: trying to get at. No, you're right. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: there's a great expression that courage is contagious, right, And
Speaker 1: if you think about courage as this thing that by
Speaker 1: doing it, you are also inspiring other people, even if
Speaker 1: it's just as simple as voting, even if it's just
Speaker 1: as simple as I don't know, being a decent neighbor.
Speaker 1: You know, you are making a very microscopic, tiny difference
Speaker 1: that cumulatively has a large impact. Yeah. Yeah, But at
Speaker 1: the same time, it's also important to recognize that, well,
Speaker 1: even heroes aren't perfect, right, And you have a whole
Speaker 1: whole section on this, right, how no one is unbreakable
Speaker 1: and why is that important for aspiring heroes too well.
Speaker 1: I think this is really important within the context of stoicism,
Speaker 1: which some people have tried to link with this idea
Speaker 1: of toxic masculinity, like the idea of invulnerability, emotionlessness, you know,
Speaker 1: almost an inhuman amount of resilience. You're missing the point.
Speaker 1: A resilient person is not someone who never breaks. A
Speaker 1: resilient person is a person who comes back after they
Speaker 1: have been broken. Hemingway talks about this in a Farewell
Speaker 1: to Arms. You know, he says, if you don't break,
Speaker 1: life kills you. But he says the strong become stronger
Speaker 1: in the broken places. Right, that we we sort of
Speaker 1: come back from from the blows that life lands on us.
Speaker 1: So I just wanted to make it clear that courage
Speaker 1: is not like I never feel fear, I never feel vulnerable,
Speaker 1: I never ask for help, I never struggle. To me,
Speaker 1: that's the opposite of courage. Have you read this book,
Speaker 1: The Boy, The Fox, The Horse, and the Mole. I
Speaker 1: have not. It's a little kid it's a kid's book.
Speaker 1: It's I had I had Charlie on the podcast somewhat recently,
Speaker 1: but it's it's a it's sort of like an allegory
Speaker 1: it's kind of like a little kid's book, but like
Speaker 1: the Little Prince like, it's also for adults. It's like
Speaker 1: a fable for adults too. And there's this page in
Speaker 1: the book where He's where one of the characters says,
Speaker 1: you know, asking for help isn't giving up. Asking for
Speaker 1: help is refusing to give up. And I think that's
Speaker 1: like perfectly expressed and that's what I'm trying to talk
Speaker 1: about in that chapter. Well absolutely, then I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: to check out that book. Okay, so hope. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about hope little bit. You'd say that it's audacious to
Speaker 1: show hope sometimes, why is that? I mean, look at
Speaker 1: the world right now. We're struggling with so many things.
Speaker 1: We have so many sort of overwhelming problems whose enormity
Speaker 1: would could very easily be an excuse to despair or
Speaker 1: to quit, or to turn bitter and resentful. And so
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just find that the people that
Speaker 1: I find the most courageous, that I admire the most
Speaker 1: are the people who who still believe in, people who
Speaker 1: still have hope. So, to me, courage is the hope
Speaker 1: is the most courageous thing, especially right now, Yeah, especially
Speaker 1: right now, and I actually wanted to ask you as
Speaker 1: as maybe our last question today is how in this
Speaker 1: time of COVID of divisions, can people flex their courage
Speaker 1: muscle more and practice it. Well, look like we spent
Speaker 1: a good chunk of us talking about vaccine hesitancy and
Speaker 1: vaccine resistance, which which is obviously real and alarming, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of a black light that's been shown on society,
Speaker 1: and it turns out that things are a little dirtier
Speaker 1: and unpleasant than we'd like them to be. But the
Speaker 1: other way to look at that is like, holy shit,
Speaker 1: in a matter of months, we had like a moon landing,
Speaker 1: like something akin to the moon landing in terms of
Speaker 1: its scientific unprecedentedness and breaks through miss like that just happened. Collectively.
Speaker 1: Society came together and solved a thing in amazing the
Speaker 1: record time. Now, is it also illustrative that a thirty
Speaker 1: percent of the population is like, no, thanks, I don't
Speaker 1: believe in it. Yeah, that's sad, But seventy percent of
Speaker 1: the population is on board, and it should give us
Speaker 1: hope and inspiration that we were able to do that right.
Speaker 1: And so that's something that I take hope in just
Speaker 1: I want to focus on what we did right as
Speaker 1: opposed to what went wrong, and I want to be
Speaker 1: inspired by those people. And to answer a question, it's like, well,
Speaker 1: what breakthroughs are you making? What small or big problems
Speaker 1: are you? Are you? Are you a part of where
Speaker 1: are you making a difference in the work that you do?
Speaker 1: To me, that's flexing, not just the courage muscle, but
Speaker 1: I think generally the virtue muscle, Like first, are you
Speaker 1: part of the problem, Let's let's make sure the answer
Speaker 1: is no. And then second, are you contributing to a solution,
Speaker 1: Let's make sure the answer is yes. I love that.
Speaker 1: I'm going to end today with a quote from your book.
Speaker 1: I really like It's quite long, but I think you're
Speaker 1: our audience is going to love this quote. We have
Speaker 1: to stop thinking of courage only is what happens on
Speaker 1: the battlefield or on a bus during the freedom rides.
Speaker 1: It's also just not being afraid of your boss. It's
Speaker 1: the decision to follow your own creative path. It's drawing
Speaker 1: an ethical line. It's being a weirdo if that's who
Speaker 1: you are. It's voting your conscience. Conscience not what the
Speaker 1: crowd wants or your parents it's not only doing these
Speaker 1: things when destiny calls you onto the world stage. It's also,
Speaker 1: as we've talked about, making courage a habit, something you
Speaker 1: do in matters big and small, day in and day out,
Speaker 1: so that it feels as natural in every moment, no
Speaker 1: matter who is watching, no matter the stakes. I do
Speaker 1: hope our listeners today were inspired to make it more
Speaker 1: of a habit, may courage more of a habit in
Speaker 1: their lives. Thank you so much, Ryan for chatting with
Speaker 1: me again on The Psychology Podcast. You're one of my
Speaker 1: most repeat guests and I always enjoy having higher level
Speaker 1: discussions with you whenever you're on the show. It's an honor.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to react in some way to something
Speaker 1: you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion
Speaker 1: at Thusychology podcast dot com or on our YouTube page
Speaker 1: the Psychology Podcast. We also put up some videos of
Speaker 1: some episodes on our YouTube page as well, so you'll
Speaker 1: want to check that out. Thanks for being such a
Speaker 1: great supporter of the show, and tune in next time
Speaker 1: for more on the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.