WEBVTT - And, This Is The Stoic's Survival Guide With Ryan Holiday 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:03.960 That line between genius and madness is very fluid. You 0:00:03.960 --> 0:00:07.360 can sort of introduce alternative facts, as they say, and 0:00:07.440 --> 0:00:10.440 people believe them. Stoicism is not a formula for you 0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:15.800 to be a better sociopath. This is Gavin Newsom and 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:19.960 this is Ryan Holiday. 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:24.000 Ryan, thanks for being here. Man. Of course, Sacramento, California. 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:26.639 You know this area? Well, don't you not? 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:29.560 This area? Because I like, I think people don't understand 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:32.680 that Sacramento is a bit like Los Angeles where to 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:35.320 people who don't live there, it's one place, yeah, but 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:36.800 if you live there, it's a bunch of other Like 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:39.400 I probably came downtown like ten times in my life, 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:43.159 interesting until later because I lived in the suburbs of 0:00:43.200 --> 0:00:44.000 sacrament I mean. 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:46.680 So this was a big city Sacramento back when. 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:48.680 Yeah, but it's like this is the town we would 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:54.160 pass on the way to Arco Arena Kings, yeah, or 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:56.640 or we would go down here in Sutter's Ford or 0:00:56.800 --> 0:00:59.160 the Railroad Museum as a kid. But you wouldn't actually 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:04.280 do Sacromeno one because it wasn't. I mean, it's done 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:06.160 so much amazing works for bringing it back to life. 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:11.399 But also like California is like these self contained suburbs 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:13.920 and you live in your in your suburb. 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:15.280 But you went you must have when you were a kid, 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:17.240 you must have gone to the capitol, right, you have to. 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:20.319 Part of the obligation of childhood. Here in California, everyone 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:22.479 does a fourth grade they do a little tour. Yeah. 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:24.680 Yeah, how about the Governor's mansion where we are right now. 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:27.480 I've never been. I've never been here. Interesting, I don't 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:29.640 even think I've seen it. You've never seen it, I don't, 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:30.080 I don't know. 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:33.039 I don't even Ronald Reagan's. 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:34.240 Here's when I would have seen it. 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:34.680 Uh. 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:37.959 They made you do your driver's tests and your driver's 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:40.400 training in downtown because it was the only place that 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:43.920 would have like four way stops. Right like anyways, I 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:46.480 remember driving downtown to to get my drivers That's it. 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:49.280 But you're far Oaks kid, far Oaks, California, the suburb here. 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:52.280 I was born in Gold River. Yeah, and then and 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:54.880 then we moved to fair Oaks and uh, yeah, I 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:56.920 was there till high school. 0:01:56.960 --> 0:01:58.680 Until high school and then you went what you went 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:00.680 down South? Went to? Sure? 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:03.200 No, we went to I went to Granpe High School. 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:06.000 So your Granded Bay High School? Yes, yes, you know 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:09.359 and you were you know, we're an excellent student. Were 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:11.679 you that kid that was always raising your hand or 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:14.240 were you in the back? What was give me your profile? 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:15.920 Well, my parents wanted me to go to Jesuit and 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:18.320 I didn't go to Jesuits. So I was not that student. 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:24.680 No I I uh, I think I was like I 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:28.000 was like hit or miss. Uh. Sometimes sometimes it was 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:29.520 a fit, and when it was a fit, it was good, 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:31.839 and then a lot of times it wasn't. It wasn't 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:36.480 until I went to college that uh, that anything really 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:37.480 started to happen for me. 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:39.720 But in high school, were you just was I mean 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:42.040 what you must have had some it wouldn't be a 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:43.840 vision board, but you must have had some vision of 0:02:43.840 --> 0:02:45.960 your future. What was it? What were you thinking you'd become? 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:48.280 Oh, I wanted to be in a heavy metal band. 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:50.639 So that was it. That's just you were certain about that. 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:55.240 Yes, yes, I mean I think I want, I want. 0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:58.040 I loved music. But I've said this before, but like 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:02.560 I I don't think Sacramento is a lovely place. But 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:09.560 it was not then much the territory of entrepreneurs or 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:13.520 artists or like I don't, I don't know if I 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:16.280 ever met anyone growing up who didn't have a job 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:23.240 like just a regular like like teachers, doctors, civil servants, 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:26.160 you know, real estate agents. It was it was just 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:29.760 very conventional, right, And I think that's why people love 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:33.320 Sacramento is that you could have a conventional life here. 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:38.400 That version of the American dream was very accessible. But 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:41.440 the idea that like I loved books, but I didn't 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:44.120 meet anyone that wrote books, and you know, it wasn't 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:47.160 like oh this neighbor there kid, you know, there wasn't 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:51.800 any of that. So it was I just don't I 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:54.760 just didn't have a sense of what was possible. I mean, 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:57.960 it wasn't until I it was probably in my twenties 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:00.760 that I even learned Joan Didion was from out for it. Like, 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:04.080 it wasn't a like, hey, this is a place where 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:06.120 people who do that come from. 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:08.200 What were your parents? What were your parents doing? What 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:08.720 kind of My. 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:10.600 Dad was a police detective and my mom was a 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:13.200 school principal. I love it so just you know, like 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:17.039 your classic sort of American job and. 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:19.400 A school principal. I mean, what kind of mindset do 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:21.360 you have with a mom who's a school principal. 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:23.960 Well, my mom was a school principal in the San 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:27.719 Juan School District. But she did like continuing adult education, 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:31.400 so she did. She didn't have like kids as her students. 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:34.599 It got it. It was like you know, plumbers going 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:37.320 back to get their ged and stuff. So it was 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:41.440 I mean, it was all. It was all really interesting, 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:42.960 but just not what I wanted to do. 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:45.000 And were you surrounded by books as a kid, with 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:48.840 your parents pushing books from you know, your tenth grade. 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:51.920 You know, here's honey, here's the three books you need 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:52.320 to read. 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:55.120 I mean I read a lot as a kid, but 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:59.000 I read you know, like like Westerns and action. I 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:02.080 didn't know about this thing called philosophy. I didn't know, 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:04.880 Like I didn't know there was all these amazing history books. 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:07.800 I was just I don't know. It was a It 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:12.000 was a bubble in a good way. Yeah. And uh 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:14.279 and then I mean that's why you go away to 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:18.479 college is to expand what you're exposed to. 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:21.040 So you were in college and what we were studying, 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:22.000 what'd you start to study? 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:25.120 I was a political science and creative writing. 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:26.919 And creative writing. Yeah. We always a writer. 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:30.120 I think I wanted to be a writer, and I 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:34.120 remember my first seminar. We had to go down in 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:36.760 the summer and we had the seminar was taught by 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:38.839 Susan Straight, who's one of the great sort of novel 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:42.760 California novelists, and she had assigned they had assigned us 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:45.040 her book, and it was like it was a real book, 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:47.200 like a you know, like a like a book you 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:49.560 would see in a bookstore. And I was like, Oh, 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:51.839 people do this, Like this is a this is a 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:54.960 job you could have, This is a thing people do. 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:57.800 And I think, you know, like you talked about like 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:01.560 NEPO babies and stuff, and I think one of the 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:05.480 things people don't understand about that is that a big 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:09.920 part of what it does is it demystifies the possibility 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:13.480 of going in certain directions. You know, oh, hey, like 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:15.680 my mom's friend does that, or hey, I've seen my 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:19.160 dad practice you know, his lines for an audition like you. 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:22.360 I got to imagine for Steph Curry being in an 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:25.520 NBA arena is like, this is where my dad works, 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:29.280 and so it becomes possible in a way that obviously 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:31.839 there's the genetics and the privilege and all that, but 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:34.040 I think a huge part of it is just like no, no, no, 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:36.200 this is a thing you can do because you saw 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:38.320 other people do it, for the same reason that it 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:40.440 was probably likely that I'd be a police officer or 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:43.479 a school teacher because you know, you saw your parents. 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:44.880 Do that, And I think about you know, all that is. 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:47.120 Once a mind is stretched, it never goes back to 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:49.800 its original form or even the more simple frame, which 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:52.440 is probably overstated, but you can't be what you can't see. 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:55.200 Once you see something, yes, it's now more tangible. 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:58.440 And that's like they talk about this like with representation, 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:00.799 Like if you don't see people like you on TV 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:04.600 or in art, or you know, in the movies or 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:06.679 you know, on the headlines, you just don't think someone 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:10.400 like you can do it. And representation matters, not obviously 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:14.440 just in terms of gender or class or nationality, but 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:18.000 also just like, hey, people like you from this small 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:21.480 town can That's why that's why towns celebrate like who 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:24.040 came from here? That like there is a way to 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:24.920 do that. 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:27.240 This is my favorite part of American Idol when they 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:29.400 come back home and the entire town's out there on 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:32.560 main Street. I'm just so proud their native sons. So 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:34.680 you you know, you were out there. But meanwhile, you're 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:37.080 just so, you're doing a little creative writing, but you've 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:38.880 got a rock band on the side. What are you doing? 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:41.080 I mean you're sitting there in the driving your parents 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:42.520 crazy in the garage. 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:45.400 Uh huh, That's exactly what I was. I'm sure it 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:48.840 was horrible, and they were pretty they were pretty patient, 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:54.920 and and yeah, I just didn't go anywhere. And as 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:57.360 is to be expected, But. 0:07:56.840 --> 0:07:59.680 You lasted how many years in college? You too? Just 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:01.360 too too? So what happened? 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:05.000 I got a chance to be a writer. So I 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:08.880 was writing for the college newspaper, which, again you sort 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:10.720 of get a chance to do a thing. Oh, this 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:14.200 is a this is like a job. So I was 0:08:14.200 --> 0:08:17.840 writing for the college newspaper in Riverside, and and I 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:21.800 I started working for this person that i'd written about, 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:23.800 this guy named Robert Green who wrote the Forty Laws 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:24.120 of Power. 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:25.720 And how did you get I mean, I mean Robert 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:30.280 a legend. Yeah, and begin to describe him, and I 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:33.000 mean you don't have to introduce forty Laws power. 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:36.240 I mean it's like one of the greatest nonfiction writers of. 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:38.320 So how do you even get a chance to even 0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:40.040 I mean you're writing about him, did you? And that 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:41.520 all of a sudden, then he attached this. 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:43.800 Yeah, and then I started doing little things for him 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:46.720 here there, and and it kind of became this whole 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:51.559 He needed a research assistant, and I was like that's 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:55.880 I remember thinking like, hey, if this is what I 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:58.240 this is my first job out of college, college would 0:08:58.280 --> 0:08:58.880 be a success. 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:00.160 You know. 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:02.040 Did my parents agree with horror? 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:02.280 No? 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:05.080 No, they of course didn't, right, Yeah, because I I 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:08.960 think my entire family was horrified. They're all teachers, and 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:11.600 you know, also for that that was the thing is 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:15.400 you your kids go to college so they don't end 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:18.480 up living under a bridge somewhere, and so they did not. 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:24.600 They did not handle it well. And it was I mean, 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:30.120 it's funny too because I thought I was at the time. 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:33.160 I thought it was this enormous risk, you know, like 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:37.720 crazy thing that I was doing because I've never done anything. 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:40.600 You're still a teenager at the time, yeah, nineteen or something. 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:46.440 Yeah, maybe, but I do I do think we we 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:50.240 put so much pressure on kids that like, if you 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:53.080 don't go to college between the ages of eighteen and 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:59.000 twenty two, it's over for you. Like you're you're just done. 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:01.640 And I've so that's that's not really true. I could 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:04.560 have always gone back. And I think that the Silicon 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:08.560 Valley model of dropping out to go do something, actually 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:11.600 it was very helpful to me because I could be like, oh, 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:13.640 all these other people had had done it in other 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:16.280 ways and it doesn't it doesn't ruin your life. 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:18.679 And what and Robert was not you know, so you're 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:21.319 doing research, but he's also just an outsized mentor. 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:23.640 Yes, in every way, it was like an appres I mean, 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:27.040 in retrospect, you would call it an apprenticeship. I think 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:30.840 sometimes people think these things are very official, like this person. 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:33.600 You know, you sign a contract and then you're there 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:37.079 your mentor for the next experience. It's it's a it's 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:41.040 an informal thing that develops over time and you learn 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:45.720 a lot. And then also I think people only claim 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:48.439 the relationship if you go on to do things good. 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:51.640 Point right, like that the mentorship is is sealed by 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:56.160 you by you, by you validating the investment that they 0:10:56.200 --> 0:10:59.080 put in you. And so but but yeah, I learned 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:03.400 everything I could possibly learn about how to do the 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:04.520 thing that I wanted to do. 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:08.319 And you were and you had a very definitive intentional 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:12.040 thing you wanted to do. I mean, writing's construct but 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:15.280 there's so many different disciplines. I mean, where you did 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:17.960 did you did you start to follow his path or 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:20.160 were you trying to follow your own path and sort 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:22.240 of you know, and all of a sudden you deviated back. 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:25.480 What I knew I wanted to write about sort of 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:30.800 history and and stuff like that. And he is an 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:34.040 interesting model because you know, he's not a university professor 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:36.960 or anything like that. He just writes these books that 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:39.880 are enormously popular and influential and have been for a 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:42.440 really long time kind of outside the system. Like The 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:46.000 forty Laws of Powers is consistently one of the most 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:49.520 shoplifted books in the country. Well, it's also banned in 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:50.760 most prisons. 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:52.160 Yeah, I trust me, I know this. 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:53.600 Yeah, it's like a issue. 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:56.400 We were just reviewing our banned books at our California 0:11:56.440 --> 0:11:57.520 and Department of Corrections. 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:00.760 It's yeah, like the Innocence Project will tell people like, hey, 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:03.320 do not have this book in yourself. It will be 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:05.000 used against you in sentencing. 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:05.680 Oh deal. 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:08.920 So you've just written these really interesting books that that 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:11.280 you know, have this sort of outsized reputation, but but 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:17.600 they're also just like meticulously crafted and really kind of 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:22.080 transgressive in how they're laid out and organized it. I 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:23.800 just didn't know you. Again, I didn't know you could 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:27.920 do something like that, and and uh so that's I 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:31.240 wanted to do something like that, and I do. I 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:32.920 think if you're like a young person, you're trying to 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:35.960 figure out what you want to do, the best thing 0:12:36.040 --> 0:12:38.600 you can do is find someone who's done something similar, 0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:42.960 like something just in the ballpark, and find some means 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:46.160 of being in the orbit. You know, It's like, how 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:49.160 do you go sweep floors in their record studio? How 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:51.160 do you know? How do use stock shelves in the store? 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:53.480 How do you drive them? You know? 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:53.960 What? What? 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:56.160 How can you do anything where you're just in the orbit? 0:12:56.520 --> 0:13:00.000 And that? So was that something you had a concept 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:03.200 of at the time, or over time you started to 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:06.280 wake up to that appreciation you started to realize, wait 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:10.600 a second, I need to really take this in more fully, 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:14.280 and I need to really appreciate what I'm learning and 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:16.839 what I'm sory Or is that your relationship to that 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:20.120 the idea you know, successfullys clues that you can pick 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:23.320 up on other peoples. Did that come in hindsight? 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:25.960 I think more in hindsight, Yeah, there's a Lyndon Johnson 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:28.200 thing where he's like, you go to the people who 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:30.520 are at the center of things nice, and you just 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:34.840 need to be in proximity to power, influence, expertise. So 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:37.080 I think I had some sense that you just want 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:41.640 to go where the action is. I think I was 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:45.920 very just. It would be like, you know, Robert would 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:51.120 assign me to transcribe a bunch of interviews and then 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:52.840 he'd be like, bring them by the house, you know, 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:55.720 And and to me, that was where I was getting paid, 0:13:56.600 --> 0:13:58.920 is that I would get to go and then you know, 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:01.200 he'd okay, so what's in here and we'd review it, 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:03.720 and then I maybe get to sneak in like one 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:06.600 or two questions nice and and that, to me, that 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:08.800 was that was how I was getting paid. He was 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:11.640 actually very generous and he did pay me, but like 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:16.760 I was getting paid in something that I understood was 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:19.680 much more valuable than you know, would show up on 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:22.640 a on a on a paste or whatever, which is like, 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:26.080 how do you how do you get advice from the 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:28.280 people who have done done the thing? 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:28.840 Yep? 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:31.840 And that's I think where you want to go. It's 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:34.840 funny because later he writes this I think his best book. 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:36.440 That it's probably the book that I would give most 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:39.960 young people. You wrote this book called Mastery and and 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:42.080 it's all about how you become great at something, and 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:46.880 there's this whole, the whole. I think the second step 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:49.760 is about this sort of apprenticeship you have. The first 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:51.480 thing is you find the thing that you're meant to 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:54.560 do and when and when you're lucky enough to be like, oh, 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:56.400 this is the thing that lights me up, this is 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:58.400 what I want to do. The next step is you 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:01.160 find that person who is who has done it and 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:03.160 you just have to you know, you have to attach 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:07.240 yourself to them. And that that was the that phase 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:08.960 for a good chunk of my twenties. 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:11.160 Love it. How many so you were? You were there 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:14.120 for how many years? Then with Robert uh. 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:21.640 Twenty nineteen to twenty six twenty, it was I mean 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:26.080 and and like I these things are fluid and they overlap. 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:28.720 You know, you get your you get your first shot. 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:31.720 You know, I wrote a book and he was helping 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:34.000 me with it. It's not like this one day it 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:36.280 ends and you graduate. It's this, it's this thing. I mean. 0:15:36.280 --> 0:15:38.160 I was just talking to him a couple of days ago. 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:40.600 Asking him for some advice, and so it's a it's 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:43.160 kind of a fluid thing. But he ended up getting 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:45.200 me a job at this company called American Apparel and 0:15:45.240 --> 0:15:47.720 that was kind of the next sort of part of 0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:48.440 that education. 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:51.600 And you were doing marketing work there. How'd that go 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:58.240 for you, Ryan, Well, it was it was interesting. Some 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:00.000 people may not know a little bit of this story. 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:02.720 Give you we don't have to dwell on this, but 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:05.080 it's a it's a hell of an interesting story. 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:07.320 What's a sad you know, it's a sad story too, 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:10.960 in that if you had told me at twenty three 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:14.080 that that now, I would say that name and people 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:16.240 would stare at you blankly. It's kind of it's a 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:18.840 cautionary I mean, I wrote I wrote a book called 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:21.800 Ego is the Enemy that I wrote as the company 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:24.560 was imploding, because I sort of had a ringside seat 0:16:24.600 --> 0:16:28.200 to this one point, the largest garment manufacturer in the 0:16:28.240 --> 0:16:32.320 Northern Hemisphere. It was this success story. It was this 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:36.160 incredible thing, one of the coolest brands in the world, 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:43.680 and it just it destroyed itself, destroyed itself, and the 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:49.480 genius that created it was also the demonic energy that 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:52.640 destroyed it and and that's a very common thing where 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:58.680 like that line between genius and madness is very fluid, 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:03.520 and and yeah, it was. It was a it was 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:07.360 a surreal experience. I learned a ton, obviously, and then 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:10.320 a lot a lot of things that took a while 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:11.400 to unlearned as well. 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:14.560 Did you I mean, there's you know, the old frame 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:16.960 you put a mask on, you know, I think, orwell 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:18.960 and shooting the elephant talked about he put a mask 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:21.000 on his face grew into it. Did you see that 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:24.119 happening to you in terms of trying to sort of 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:28.399 defend or sort of you know, the pr push you know, 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:31.560 sort of you know, mask the DEVNC. 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:37.560 There you you experience only in looking back, especially as 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:39.960 you get older, you go, I had no business being there, 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:42.920 Like like why did why was a twenty two year 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:47.439 old running marketing at a publicly traded company it You know, 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:49.520 if you'd ask me a twenty two I would have said, 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:55.520 because I'm that good and then and then now I go, oh, 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:58.960 I was probably good. But I also didn't know how 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:02.000 fucking insane it of this was. And so that I 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:04.280 think it helped me understand some of some of what's 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:05.800 happening in the world, some of them the two stuff 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:09.280 where you're like, oh, part of the reason that everyone 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:13.600 there was was in their twenties working for someone who 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:16.119 was not in their twenties was that there was a 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:19.800 certain amount of control and a certain amount of naivete 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:23.800 about what was happening that allowed allowed that sort of 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:31.000 system to go on as it did. So you know, like, yeah, 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:33.159 just I just realized, like, oh, I just shouldn't have 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:36.520 been in any of these situations. Is wildly inappropriate and insane. 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:40.320 But I didn't know because I'm a kid from Sacramento, 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:44.119 and this all seems very exciting and interesting. I you know, 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:48.919 I'm it's not sting, it's not it's not striking me 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:53.640 as insane that this you know, single forty five year 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:57.080 old multi millionaire wants me to live in his house. 0:18:57.480 --> 0:19:02.480 You know, like that that seemed exciting and interesting. Thankfully 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:04.800 I did not live in set house. But uh, but 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:08.000 you know, you just you just don't realize what's crazy 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:10.320 until you're out of the thing. And so I am 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:12.880 somewhat sympathetic to people who kind of get in over 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:15.240 their heads on stuff because that was that was certainly me. 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:19.439 I just didn't I was I was. I was just 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:21.959 really caught up in the energy and the excitement and 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:25.320 the sort of canvas that it was to to you know, 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:31.879 uh do what I was doing. But the the the 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:34.520 fact that it was all nuts, you know, was a 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:38.800 was a was a debriefing process. And then the funny 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:40.919 thing is, you know, I've my wife and I've been 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:43.919 together since we met in college, and so she was 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:45.560 there through all of it, and she was like, you know, 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:49.560 I was telling you every day that this insane like 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:52.600 like I told you so, like I'll just be in 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:54.040 you know, I'll be on the middle of a run 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:55.479 somewhere and something will hit me and I'll come back 0:19:55.520 --> 0:19:58.359 and I'll tell her and she's like, I told you 0:19:58.400 --> 0:20:02.040 that like eight hundred times, you know. And and so you 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:06.560 were just you know, your you're what's that that Upton 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:08.879 sinclear thing about it's very hard to understand something when 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:12.200 your salary depends on you're not understanding. Well said yes, 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:14.680 and was a lot of that. 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:16.399 There was a lot of that as well. So, I mean, 0:20:16.400 --> 0:20:18.000 how long was that Probably it was over a two 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:21.600 year pero. Oh no, I was there. 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:28.520 Two thousand and seven, two thousand and fourteen or fifteen 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:29.480 something like that. 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:31.240 So it was a it was a big chunk of 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:33.960 my Yeah, it was a big trunk. And meanwhile, though 0:20:33.960 --> 0:20:36.560 you start you said, egoes the enemy. You're starting to 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:40.560 I mean perfect book sort of the genesis of that 0:20:40.680 --> 0:20:43.199 experience and understanding it. And so I mean it was 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:45.719 that the first I mean for you and you had 0:20:45.760 --> 0:20:48.680 written a number of things. But was that, yeah, because 0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:50.880 that sort of starts to move you in the direction 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:52.880 that you ultimately are today, Or. 0:20:53.280 --> 0:20:54.879 Yeah, I did when I did a book, I did 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:57.760 a book on media first, and then I did my 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:00.520 first book on stoicism was called the Opps was Away, 0:21:01.400 --> 0:21:03.920 and then and then yet ego was sort of at 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:08.000 the Ego was was me kind of leaving a good 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:15.320 chunk of that behind and watching that sort of explode. 0:21:15.520 --> 0:21:19.359 So it was it was, you know, in retrospect you 0:21:19.400 --> 0:21:21.440 look back, I'm sure you experienced this writing your book. 0:21:21.680 --> 0:21:23.520 You think of these things as these kind of clean 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:27.240 periods or that you had this like you had this insight, 0:21:27.520 --> 0:21:29.000 like this is when I knew I was going to 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:33.280 do this. And then like I am one of the 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:36.239 great California writers. Is this guy Bud's Bud Schulberg. If 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:37.680 you know who that is. He wrote What makes Sammy 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:40.920 Run on the Waterfront. Anyways, he wrote this book called 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:44.679 The Herder They Fall, which is about this sort of 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:48.919 corrupt PR agent who's working for the mob as they 0:21:49.040 --> 0:21:52.719 fix boxing fights. And and I read this book. And 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:55.439 if you asked me when I knew I wanted to 0:21:55.520 --> 0:21:58.600 leave American Apparel and get out of this life, I 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:01.080 would tell you it was the day I read that book, 0:22:01.320 --> 0:22:04.600 and I would say like, like, and I know it 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:07.439 because the like the last not the last page is 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:10.480 this kind of big yes, this big insight because you know, 0:22:10.480 --> 0:22:14.960 I've realizing now you cannot deal in filth without becoming 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:17.199 the thing you touch. Yeah, this is sort of my 0:22:17.240 --> 0:22:20.479 truck moment. And so I was like, okay, so I 0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:23.159 read that, and I can I still gone back and 0:22:23.160 --> 0:22:25.560 looked at it. You know this, I can see the 0:22:25.600 --> 0:22:29.080 markings that I'm my holy shit, what is it like? 0:22:29.280 --> 0:22:30.800 It felt like, you know when you read something like 0:22:30.800 --> 0:22:33.840 I feel so attacked. You know this is about me specifically. 0:22:33.840 --> 0:22:35.639 Interesting away that would have been when I thought I 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:39.919 I my breakthrough happened, and then I was talking to 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:41.600 someone about it. I was actually talking to Tim Miller 0:22:41.640 --> 0:22:43.439 about this because he and I had similar sort of 0:22:43.520 --> 0:22:47.040 arcs on our journey. And and I was like, as 0:22:47.080 --> 0:22:48.720 I was prepping for that conversation, I was like, oh, 0:22:48.720 --> 0:22:50.199 you know what, I bought this book on Amazon. I 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:52.160 can see the day that I bought it. I can, 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:55.720 you know. And I went on Amazon, and so I left. 0:22:55.760 --> 0:22:59.880 I left America Apparel in two thousand and fourteen or fifteen, 0:23:00.480 --> 0:23:03.879 and and that my Amazon receipt for the Heart of 0:23:03.920 --> 0:23:07.199 They Fall is like two thousand and nine. Well, it 0:23:07.280 --> 0:23:09.520 was like way closer to the beginning than the end. 0:23:10.119 --> 0:23:14.280 And so you can often have you you get the 0:23:14.320 --> 0:23:18.239 insight or the idea that the thing, you understand it, 0:23:18.280 --> 0:23:20.680 but it can be a very long time until you 0:23:21.600 --> 0:23:23.719 understand it, and then more importantly, you have any of 0:23:23.760 --> 0:23:27.520 the sort of courage or clarity to act on it. 0:23:28.040 --> 0:23:32.639 And so it was that whole period is much more 0:23:33.400 --> 0:23:39.720 sort of contradictory and overlappy than it feels like. And 0:23:39.880 --> 0:23:43.679 it is important if you're a young person you're like 0:23:43.760 --> 0:23:47.280 looking at someone's life story, that you realize that when 0:23:47.280 --> 0:23:49.639 they lay it all out, it's all that gets smooth, 0:23:49.640 --> 0:23:52.480 that all it gets laid out narratively, and it gets 0:23:52.560 --> 0:23:56.479 smoothed out as well. And they it can feel like 0:23:56.560 --> 0:23:58.960 it was this plan, or can feel like at one 0:23:59.000 --> 0:24:02.440 thing was leading to the next, and that's all that's 0:24:02.480 --> 0:24:05.399 all made up in retrospect. It's not like that in 0:24:05.440 --> 0:24:07.359 the moment. And by the way, history is not like 0:24:07.400 --> 0:24:10.320 that in the moment either. Nobody knows how the story 0:24:10.400 --> 0:24:13.840 is going to end, and so you have to kind 0:24:13.840 --> 0:24:17.679 of deal in that ambiguity more than you would like. 0:24:18.480 --> 0:24:21.680 You wrote a lot about sort of ambiguity, wrote a 0:24:21.760 --> 0:24:25.200 lot about your own experience, and wrote a book that 0:24:25.720 --> 0:24:30.040 you know, we intentionally have not even with you being around, 0:24:30.080 --> 0:24:33.400 have on the on the shelf there. Trust me, I'm. 0:24:33.240 --> 0:24:36.359 Lying, I'm actually doing I'm supposed to do the fifteen 0:24:36.400 --> 0:24:38.200 year anniversary edition of that book. 0:24:38.680 --> 0:24:42.080 You have to. Yeah, it was you were decades ahead. 0:24:42.400 --> 0:24:44.119 Yeah, it was funny when I was writing. Trust mean 0:24:44.119 --> 0:24:45.879 on lying. I remember saying in the publisher they were like, 0:24:45.880 --> 0:24:49.320 we're thinking, you know, like a summer twenty twelve release, 0:24:49.440 --> 0:24:52.080 and I go, I can't wait that long. I was like, 0:24:52.240 --> 0:24:54.359 it's like, I was like this all this stuff is 0:24:54.400 --> 0:24:56.680 like no, it needs to come out right now. And 0:24:57.320 --> 0:25:00.840 I remember being rushed and I was probably ten years early. Yeah, 0:25:01.400 --> 0:25:05.240 but fifteen it's a yeah, it's a strange. 0:25:05.400 --> 0:25:07.640 It's a strange just for folks that don't know much 0:25:07.640 --> 0:25:10.080 about this book. I mean back to you know, the 0:25:10.240 --> 0:25:13.960 timestamp in twenty twelve. Yeah, and you were talking about 0:25:13.960 --> 0:25:16.720 citizen journalism. You were talking about legacy media, you were 0:25:16.760 --> 0:25:20.120 talking about truth and trust, you were talking about manipulation. 0:25:20.280 --> 0:25:24.280 You were talking about you know, the validation and how 0:25:24.560 --> 0:25:29.040 you're able to spread stories and validate that story and sources, 0:25:29.160 --> 0:25:30.520 and I mean. 0:25:30.560 --> 0:25:32.840 Tell us, Yeah, I was trying to write sort of 0:25:32.880 --> 0:25:36.439 an expose of how the media system really worked, not 0:25:37.000 --> 0:25:41.680 how people thought it worked, which was objectivity and fact checkers, 0:25:41.920 --> 0:25:45.720 and I was looking at how the economics sort of 0:25:45.760 --> 0:25:48.440 shape shape it. And I was trying to show you, 0:25:48.880 --> 0:25:51.960 like how the sausage gets made, Like how how stories 0:25:52.440 --> 0:25:55.679 that you're reading in the news where they actually came from, 0:25:56.240 --> 0:26:03.320 and how easy it is to sort of inject things 0:26:03.359 --> 0:26:07.960 into that kind of slipstream. And obviously in twenty sixteen 0:26:07.960 --> 0:26:10.880 we saw a sort of Russia at a whole element 0:26:10.960 --> 0:26:13.760 of that. And you know, I was writing before TikTok, 0:26:13.800 --> 0:26:18.000 I was writing before Instagram even really, so it's obviously 0:26:18.000 --> 0:26:22.800 become like hyper hyperdrive of a lot of the stuff 0:26:22.800 --> 0:26:25.119 I was talking about in that book. I mean, I 0:26:25.160 --> 0:26:27.480 wish I could sit back here and go fifteen years later, 0:26:27.520 --> 0:26:30.399 like I was totally dis totally proven wrong and everything 0:26:30.440 --> 0:26:33.440 was awesome. But it's sort of like beyond my worst 0:26:33.520 --> 0:26:36.199 nightmare of all the things I was talking about in 0:26:36.200 --> 0:26:38.920 that book. Which is funny because when I wrote it, 0:26:39.840 --> 0:26:42.960 although a lot of people read it, the media reaction 0:26:43.200 --> 0:26:47.600 was mostly like shoot the messenger, like he's he's the 0:26:47.680 --> 0:26:51.800 bad guy. And what I was trying to say is like, look, 0:26:51.800 --> 0:26:54.600 this is what I do to sell t shirts or 0:26:54.680 --> 0:26:56.919 books or you know, the this is how I can 0:26:57.359 --> 0:27:00.639 I can, you know, introduce something funny, ridiculous into the 0:27:00.720 --> 0:27:07.280 media cycle. But like if if media is where public 0:27:07.320 --> 0:27:12.680 opinion is formed, it this this vulnerability is just too 0:27:13.440 --> 0:27:17.919 too valuable to too many powerful, important or deranged people 0:27:18.080 --> 0:27:20.040 for them not to sort of take advantage of it. 0:27:20.080 --> 0:27:25.640 And I think we're seeing now a world where yeah, 0:27:25.680 --> 0:27:30.560 you can, you can sort of introduce alternative facts, as 0:27:30.560 --> 0:27:34.760 they say, into into this and people believe them. What 0:27:34.760 --> 0:27:37.440 what kind of vulnerabilities that exposes to us? 0:27:37.480 --> 0:27:39.800 And they believe them and you've you've talked about this, 0:27:40.240 --> 0:27:43.920 they believe them even after they're debunked, sometimes even more 0:27:44.480 --> 0:27:45.880 after the quote unquote correction. 0:27:46.640 --> 0:27:49.879 Well, I think I mean in a Again, this is 0:27:49.880 --> 0:27:52.000 always a complicate thing to talk about, but January sixth 0:27:52.040 --> 0:27:55.200 is a fascinating example of like everyone with eyes saw 0:27:55.240 --> 0:28:00.000 a thing happen, and then there was an investigation, right 0:28:00.240 --> 0:28:03.960 that that sort of laid out exactly what happened. But 0:28:04.080 --> 0:28:07.040 because one guy with a lot of followers, you saw 0:28:07.119 --> 0:28:09.240 him sort of scramb You saw Trump in the early 0:28:09.320 --> 0:28:13.120 days after January six where he was complicit and responsible 0:28:13.119 --> 0:28:21.879 for an unthinkable and inexcusable thing, scramble around for how 0:28:21.960 --> 0:28:25.280 is he going to explain this? And then and then 0:28:25.560 --> 0:28:29.280 sort of settles on it was Antifa, and also these 0:28:29.320 --> 0:28:33.440 people were patriots and and by the way, are just 0:28:33.480 --> 0:28:37.920 two contradictory explanations, uh, just on the top of his head. 0:28:38.200 --> 0:28:41.680 But then if he says it enough times, and if 0:28:41.680 --> 0:28:47.600 there is a financial and ideological and just cognitive reason 0:28:47.760 --> 0:28:54.080 to want that to be true, eventually a sizeable percentage 0:28:54.080 --> 0:28:58.320 of the population will coalesce around that thing, because to 0:28:59.280 --> 0:29:02.400 not do it would mean you have to face the 0:29:02.440 --> 0:29:07.680 tragedy and the horror and the violence and the you know, 0:29:08.200 --> 0:29:12.600 the implications of that thing, and so in a way, 0:29:13.320 --> 0:29:18.480 it just kind of lays bare our media system. I mean, yeah, 0:29:18.520 --> 0:29:20.880 it's like it's laid out in these different lawsuits, it's 0:29:20.960 --> 0:29:23.080 laid out in these congress like we know what happened, 0:29:23.080 --> 0:29:26.200 and we know the role that people played in it happening. 0:29:26.720 --> 0:29:30.040 And yet afterwards he was able to kind of with 0:29:30.120 --> 0:29:34.120 this media jiu jitsu, just make it not have happened. 0:29:35.840 --> 0:29:38.680 All right, I want to unpack all of that, and 0:29:38.760 --> 0:29:40.400 we I mean, you were right in this back I 0:29:40.400 --> 0:29:44.120 mean when you wrote trust Me Online, you mentioned Dick Tuck. 0:29:44.560 --> 0:29:47.720 You know it didn't exist. I mean, Facebook probably it 0:29:47.760 --> 0:29:50.200 was in its orphan phase. The cloud was in the sky, 0:29:50.280 --> 0:29:53.280 four G was probably a parking space back then, in 0:29:53.320 --> 0:29:55.680 linked in a prison. But you know, you were the 0:29:56.000 --> 0:29:59.760 algorithms weren't necessarily you were talking blogs mostly back then, right. 0:29:59.720 --> 0:30:03.840 Yeah, logs and Twitter and and and how much traditional 0:30:03.880 --> 0:30:07.000 media was sort of the final step in that system. 0:30:07.400 --> 0:30:08.640 And now it doesn't need. 0:30:08.520 --> 0:30:11.600 To be final step after you seed yeah, the extreme. 0:30:11.640 --> 0:30:13.680 Then you have a source, you say one sort now 0:30:13.720 --> 0:30:15.840 you have two sources, and all of a sudden, now 0:30:16.320 --> 0:30:19.120 now it moves itself up the ladder. I see that 0:30:19.200 --> 0:30:22.360 by the way I live this. Yes, Daily Mail says something, 0:30:22.440 --> 0:30:25.280 The California Post says something. Now, The New York Post 0:30:25.280 --> 0:30:28.520 says two sources have confirmed something. All of a sudden, 0:30:28.520 --> 0:30:31.400 I'm watching Jesse Waters on Fox and then the next 0:30:31.480 --> 0:30:33.280 night Hannity and all the rest of the lineup, and 0:30:33.280 --> 0:30:35.080 then you had to respond to it. And I'm responding. 0:30:35.120 --> 0:30:37.600 Then I'm chasing something and I'm playing defense. They're already 0:30:37.600 --> 0:30:38.520 onto the next damn thing. 0:30:38.840 --> 0:30:41.240 Yeah, And I mean again, Trump, it's sort of intuitively 0:30:41.320 --> 0:30:43.280 understanding all this. He is really good at going and 0:30:43.320 --> 0:30:49.080 a lot of people are saying and so it's this 0:30:49.160 --> 0:30:52.240 way that things that are not true become true by 0:30:52.600 --> 0:30:54.280 you bump into them enough time. 0:30:54.400 --> 0:30:56.560 But you're I mean, you're. The point you're making is 0:30:56.600 --> 0:30:59.840 this is not this is bad. It's not only bad, 0:31:00.160 --> 0:31:04.360 but it's it's it's been I mean, it's uh, wake up, everybody. 0:31:04.440 --> 0:31:07.200 It's the way it's been done. It's hardly novel. 0:31:07.280 --> 0:31:09.600 No, No, I mean, it's it. This is this has 0:31:09.680 --> 0:31:12.000 been the way that the sausage has been made for 0:31:12.200 --> 0:31:13.800 a decade and a half, basically, right. 0:31:13.680 --> 0:31:15.920 So your new book is going to figure out to 0:31:15.920 --> 0:31:17.000 tell us what to do about it. 0:31:17.280 --> 0:31:20.080 No, I mean, first, it's it's mortifying, of course to 0:31:20.160 --> 0:31:21.800 have to go back and read something that you wrote 0:31:21.800 --> 0:31:24.120 when you were twenty three and you thought you understood 0:31:24.120 --> 0:31:26.280 how the world worked, even though I was right about 0:31:26.280 --> 0:31:28.000 a lot of ways that you know, I think you 0:31:28.160 --> 0:31:33.240 mostly the cringe is mostly in the certainty and the 0:31:33.240 --> 0:31:34.440 the arrogance. 0:31:34.280 --> 0:31:34.520 You know. 0:31:34.920 --> 0:31:37.520 So, so that that's why I've been procrastinating it. 0:31:37.520 --> 0:31:40.800 But that's that's plus you've meant it out about fifty 0:31:40.800 --> 0:31:42.840 other damn books in the in the interim, so it's 0:31:42.840 --> 0:31:45.600 not like you're not busy. So I want to sort 0:31:45.600 --> 0:31:48.400 of circle by so the you know, hell of a 0:31:48.440 --> 0:31:51.320 hell of a time American Peril and uh and then 0:31:51.400 --> 0:31:55.720 you you know, you're you're hardly an old man. Your 0:31:55.720 --> 0:31:57.240 wife saying I told you so, I told you so, 0:31:57.280 --> 0:31:59.320 I told you so. Mom and Dad are like Jesus, 0:31:59.560 --> 0:32:02.840 you know, how did we raise you young man? Yeah? Or not? 0:32:03.200 --> 0:32:06.880 They probably are more generous. Yeah, you know. So where 0:32:06.880 --> 0:32:08.600 are you now in terms of just you go on 0:32:08.680 --> 0:32:11.680 a walk about? Is that when you picked up meditations 0:32:11.800 --> 0:32:12.480 or no, I know. 0:32:12.760 --> 0:32:17.360 I found the irony is I found stuicism before and 0:32:17.320 --> 0:32:20.400 in college I was in it was would have been 0:32:21.320 --> 0:32:23.040 I found the Amazon receipt for that the other day, 0:32:23.040 --> 0:32:25.320 October two thousand and six, So it's going on twenty years. 0:32:25.480 --> 0:32:28.000 And what it was a motive, you remember, the motivation 0:32:28.160 --> 0:32:29.440 for even making the purchase. 0:32:29.880 --> 0:32:34.400 Yeah, you want to know who told me about the Stokes. Yeah, 0:32:34.480 --> 0:32:36.000 there's no way you could guess. 0:32:36.760 --> 0:32:39.720 There's no way you could guess Robert Green would be 0:32:39.760 --> 0:32:40.520 the safe bet. 0:32:40.600 --> 0:32:46.840 No, it was doctor Drew. Okay, why not? 0:32:47.680 --> 0:32:47.959 I was. 0:32:48.040 --> 0:32:49.840 I was writing for the college newspaper and I went 0:32:49.880 --> 0:32:53.360 to this h I got invited to this conference in 0:32:53.760 --> 0:32:58.440 West Hollywood which was sponsored by Trojan Condoms, and he 0:32:58.480 --> 0:33:00.920 was he was giving a talk, and after the talk, 0:33:01.600 --> 0:33:03.000 I was just I was like, you know, a young 0:33:03.080 --> 0:33:05.640 kid was just hungry for advice and direction and all 0:33:05.680 --> 0:33:08.720 these things. And I just said, hey, I'm what what 0:33:09.320 --> 0:33:12.920 you got any book recommendations? And he turned me onto 0:33:12.960 --> 0:33:14.240 the Stokes and changed the course of. 0:33:14.200 --> 0:33:16.280 My life in which which was which stoic and. 0:33:16.280 --> 0:33:19.480 Which he told me first about Epictetus, about Epictetus and 0:33:19.520 --> 0:33:23.280 Mark Surelius and uh, you know, obviously it took a 0:33:23.280 --> 0:33:25.719 while for them to sleep in. But but you know, 0:33:25.800 --> 0:33:30.160 sitting in Riverside, California, reading Mark Trelis's meditations. 0:33:29.680 --> 0:33:31.400 And what was that the first book? Was that the 0:33:31.400 --> 0:33:32.040 book that was. 0:33:31.960 --> 0:33:36.000 The first one? Yeah? And I just I was what 0:33:36.280 --> 0:33:36.600 is this? 0:33:37.000 --> 0:33:38.760 You know? And it really was that immediate. 0:33:39.040 --> 0:33:43.200 Yeah, yeah, Perc. I didn't know there was writing like this. 0:33:43.280 --> 0:33:45.800 I didn't know there was advice like this. I didn't 0:33:45.840 --> 0:33:47.520 know it was what I was looking for. But it 0:33:47.560 --> 0:33:48.400 was exactly what I was. 0:33:48.440 --> 0:33:52.280 And did you know there was about stoicism that he 0:33:52.400 --> 0:33:55.640 was about stoicism? Or was it just the most powerful 0:33:55.640 --> 0:33:57.479 man in the world and that intrigued you, I mean 0:33:57.640 --> 0:33:58.720 in its life lessons. 0:33:58.800 --> 0:34:00.680 You know, we're only a few years out from the 0:34:00.680 --> 0:34:02.920 movie Gladiator at this time, so I think I was 0:34:02.960 --> 0:34:05.840 a little bit primed. But but there there was something 0:34:05.880 --> 0:34:09.200 about I think, what at the core young men are 0:34:09.200 --> 0:34:13.239 looking for direction, right, and they're looking for direction, particularly 0:34:13.320 --> 0:34:15.760 now in a world where a lot of the old 0:34:16.400 --> 0:34:21.480 sort of traditions and explicit and implicit instructions in that 0:34:21.600 --> 0:34:24.560 regard are gone, and so there's this just kind of 0:34:24.600 --> 0:34:28.440 existential void. There's this leadership void. You just don't you 0:34:28.480 --> 0:34:31.279 don't know how to be a person, and and there's 0:34:31.320 --> 0:34:35.720 not it's not like they're these rituals or these groups, 0:34:35.800 --> 0:34:39.640 or this kind of process by which you become a 0:34:39.680 --> 0:34:43.040 man that just doesn't exist. And so to sort of 0:34:43.080 --> 0:34:46.720 pick up the private thoughts of the Emperor of Rome, 0:34:47.520 --> 0:34:51.040 and he's he's talking to himself about how to how 0:34:51.040 --> 0:34:54.840 to not just be you know, a productive person and 0:34:54.920 --> 0:34:58.640 a strong person, but also a wise person and a 0:34:58.640 --> 0:35:01.359 good person, and how how to deal with you know, 0:35:01.760 --> 0:35:05.319 everything from his temper to his anxiety to his you know, 0:35:05.400 --> 0:35:08.600 sort of fear of death or his frustrations with other people. 0:35:08.880 --> 0:35:12.360 I just I didn't If you had asked me to 0:35:12.400 --> 0:35:17.520 define philosophy in my late teens, I would have said, 0:35:17.840 --> 0:35:20.440 I don't know. It's like, you know, it's it's those 0:35:20.480 --> 0:35:23.239 people in togas, or it's those people on college campuses, 0:35:23.880 --> 0:35:28.440 you know, asking impossible questions about things for which there 0:35:28.440 --> 0:35:31.640 are no answers, you know, like that it's first things, 0:35:31.719 --> 0:35:34.880 it's for people smarter than me, right, And then to 0:35:35.000 --> 0:35:37.920 read the Stoics, you go, oh no, no, this is 0:35:37.960 --> 0:35:42.400 for people trying to be human beings like and trying 0:35:42.400 --> 0:35:49.640 to just deal with the difficulties of life. And that 0:35:51.360 --> 0:35:53.840 is what I think struck me so much about meditation, 0:35:53.960 --> 0:35:56.719 because even compared to the other Stoics, you know, whether 0:35:56.719 --> 0:35:59.240 they're reading senec or epicteties, they're there at least talking 0:35:59.280 --> 0:36:04.360 to an audience. And and there's something so personal and 0:36:04.840 --> 0:36:09.080 disarming about meditations because here it's it's it's not meant 0:36:09.080 --> 0:36:13.239 for publication. It's it's it's just a guy. It's like 0:36:13.280 --> 0:36:16.799 a guy's inner monologue. It's like that the angel on 0:36:16.840 --> 0:36:20.040 his shoulder, you know, trying to be like, you're better 0:36:20.080 --> 0:36:21.799 than this, you should do this, try to do that. 0:36:21.840 --> 0:36:24.080 What about this? And and so I think I was 0:36:24.160 --> 0:36:28.600 just I was blown away. And then particularly that he 0:36:28.719 --> 0:36:31.920 is such a good writer, that even his notes to 0:36:32.040 --> 0:36:35.560 himself are some of the best philosophy ever written. I 0:36:35.600 --> 0:36:37.840 think that that all is what's struck me. 0:36:38.040 --> 0:36:40.880 So was that. So it's sort of you know, all 0:36:40.920 --> 0:36:43.359 of a sudden, this book speaks to you and your 0:36:43.400 --> 0:36:48.719 time of life, your state of mind titis. Similarly, you 0:36:48.760 --> 0:36:51.239 mentioned the Big three of Stokes, but these aren't the 0:36:51.280 --> 0:36:56.120 ogesus stoves. I mean, what the broader stoic construct for you? 0:36:56.400 --> 0:37:00.920 When did that click versus more of a contemporary no stoicism. 0:37:00.960 --> 0:37:04.080 Well, they represent the ogs of stoicism. You go back to, 0:37:04.160 --> 0:37:08.279 you get Zeno and Anthes and Chris Zippi's Cato being 0:37:08.600 --> 0:37:10.120 maybe another one that maybe some. 0:37:10.000 --> 0:37:10.920 People have heard of. 0:37:12.360 --> 0:37:14.440 You know that that was the process of kind of 0:37:14.560 --> 0:37:17.480 tracing it back the words you kind of. I think 0:37:17.520 --> 0:37:20.120 most people should start with the big three of the 0:37:20.239 --> 0:37:23.920 of the Stoics and then and work their way back. 0:37:23.960 --> 0:37:25.759 There's a reason that they're the ones that are most 0:37:25.760 --> 0:37:28.600 well known, and that is a really cool thing. It 0:37:28.640 --> 0:37:31.640 just blows your mind about history, where you're like, Okay, 0:37:32.360 --> 0:37:38.600 to Marcus Aurelius, Stoicism was ancient philosophy, ancient philosophy like five, 0:37:39.000 --> 0:37:44.520 like Zeno is to Marcus Aurelius what Shakespeare is to us. 0:37:44.920 --> 0:37:47.680 I was quoting Plutarch the other day. The imbalance between 0:37:47.680 --> 0:37:49.879 the rich and the poor is the oldest and most 0:37:49.920 --> 0:37:53.120 fatal ailment of all republics, says it. You know, I 0:37:53.120 --> 0:37:57.080 don't know fifty seventy eighty. Yes, the oldest and most 0:37:57.080 --> 0:37:58.040 fatal ailments. 0:37:58.080 --> 0:38:01.520 But that's so and you hey, Plutarch right again, Yeah, 0:38:01.560 --> 0:38:05.040 probably the great, one of the great biographers. Truman would 0:38:05.080 --> 0:38:06.960 talk about how whenever he had a problem as president, 0:38:07.000 --> 0:38:08.640 he could take he could pull out. He said, I 0:38:08.680 --> 0:38:11.840 pulled up my old friend Plutarch, my old friend, my 0:38:11.920 --> 0:38:14.360 old friend Plutarch, and he would have the solution to 0:38:14.400 --> 0:38:18.560 my problems. But Plutarch is writing about you know, Caesar 0:38:18.640 --> 0:38:24.480 and Cicero and Demosthenes and and all these Greek and 0:38:24.560 --> 0:38:29.279 Roman figures who were to him what he is to us, 0:38:29.360 --> 0:38:31.960 you know, not quite that far. But but but we 0:38:32.000 --> 0:38:34.840 think about ancient Greece and Rome as this kind of 0:38:34.880 --> 0:38:38.400 like brief moment as opposed to a civilization that lasted 0:38:38.480 --> 0:38:41.360 hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. Even the decline 0:38:41.600 --> 0:38:44.960 and fall of Rome is like nine hundred years, you know, 0:38:46.040 --> 0:38:47.680 maybe a little bit less than that, depending on where 0:38:47.680 --> 0:38:49.000 you want to date it to. But the point is 0:38:49.560 --> 0:38:50.200 that should give. 0:38:50.120 --> 0:38:51.080 Us comfort in the US. 0:38:51.239 --> 0:38:54.799 It's a little bit, but it gives you. You just 0:38:54.880 --> 0:38:58.839 realized that that they were like when they were going 0:38:58.880 --> 0:39:02.799 through stuff. When when when Marx realist is living through 0:39:02.920 --> 0:39:05.719 a civil war, or Cato is living through a civil war, 0:39:06.360 --> 0:39:10.040 or Seneca is in exile or during the reign of Nero, 0:39:10.600 --> 0:39:13.920 what are they turning to? They're turning to the ancients, 0:39:14.280 --> 0:39:16.799 who we are also turning to. And then what we 0:39:16.880 --> 0:39:19.640 have is generations. This is why they call philosophy the 0:39:19.640 --> 0:39:26.040 Great Conversation, because it's these core ideas that were sort 0:39:26.040 --> 0:39:30.480 of brought into existence at some point. But the genius 0:39:30.480 --> 0:39:33.560 of them is the layering on top of each subsequent 0:39:33.640 --> 0:39:36.880 generation trying and riffing. And just as just as the 0:39:36.920 --> 0:39:41.080 Founders I give you Jeffrey Rosen's The Pursuit of Happiness, 0:39:41.400 --> 0:39:46.799 the Founders were turning to the stokes that my nine 0:39:46.840 --> 0:39:50.680 years obsessed with Hamilton. Oh, the play Hamilton, the most 0:39:50.680 --> 0:39:54.920 famous play in the Western world in the eighteenth century, 0:39:55.239 --> 0:39:58.200 was a play about Cato, and it was as famous 0:39:58.239 --> 0:40:00.960 as Hamilton is now, and in the way that you know, 0:40:01.840 --> 0:40:03.879 like if you go immigrants, they get the job done. 0:40:03.880 --> 0:40:09.759 People know what you're talking about. When George Washington would 0:40:09.760 --> 0:40:13.480 talk about, you know, looking at events through the calm 0:40:13.560 --> 0:40:16.800 light of mild philosophy, or when they say I regret 0:40:16.880 --> 0:40:19.240 I have but one life to give for my country, 0:40:19.520 --> 0:40:22.440 these are lines from that play. And so it's this 0:40:22.560 --> 0:40:26.520 great tradition of these ideas being just so perfectly expressed 0:40:26.520 --> 0:40:28.600 and the example being so powerful that people have been 0:40:28.640 --> 0:40:32.799 turning to it over and over again. And that's the 0:40:32.880 --> 0:40:36.960 really powerful thing. Stoicism wasn't Marcus realized. It was six 0:40:37.040 --> 0:40:42.279 hundred years of it in Greece and Rome and then 0:40:42.719 --> 0:40:44.920 you know, I mean it continues on up. It's not 0:40:44.960 --> 0:40:48.040 like people haven't been talking about and riffing about it 0:40:48.040 --> 0:40:50.360 in the eighteen hundred years since. They absolutely have. And 0:40:50.440 --> 0:40:54.000 so it's just this energy I think you tap into 0:40:54.040 --> 0:40:56.800 and you go, oh, these are ideas that have really 0:40:56.840 --> 0:41:00.600 been tested in the crucible of human EXPSI. 0:41:00.400 --> 0:41:03.440 Was the stoic? I mean, was I mean when Zeno 0:41:04.040 --> 0:41:07.080 it was three hundred BC or something. Yeah, he said, 0:41:07.160 --> 0:41:10.640 I am I declare myself a Stoic? Uh it was? 0:41:10.960 --> 0:41:12.760 Or was he declared a stoic? 0:41:13.280 --> 0:41:16.279 Well, that's that. I think it's to Zeno's credit that 0:41:16.719 --> 0:41:19.279 the philosophy is not called Xenoism. Right, there's a little 0:41:19.320 --> 0:41:22.440 bit right at the beginning. There's some humility, so Stoa. 0:41:22.920 --> 0:41:27.919 So so the founding story of Stoicism is Zeno's a merchant. Uh, 0:41:27.960 --> 0:41:31.799 and he deals in this rare purple dye and uh 0:41:32.239 --> 0:41:35.640 that that die being a commodity in those days, a 0:41:36.080 --> 0:41:39.160 dyeing purple. Yeah, we we we we think of like 0:41:39.880 --> 0:41:42.200 it's funny where the straight of four moves is shut 0:41:42.239 --> 0:41:45.680 down global trade, but it's the modern thing. It's like, no, 0:41:45.840 --> 0:41:49.760 the purple dye was this commodity that that was made 0:41:49.920 --> 0:41:53.080 across multiple islands in the Mediterranean, and it would get 0:41:53.080 --> 0:41:58.200 traded and moved around like the same the same navigational 0:41:58.239 --> 0:42:01.960 issues we're having right now people talking about then. But 0:42:02.200 --> 0:42:04.880 but but he suffers this shipwreck, he washes up in 0:42:04.920 --> 0:42:10.200 Athens and ends up there discovering philosophy, and that's where 0:42:10.239 --> 0:42:13.920 stoicism starts. But he just begins lecturing about these ideas 0:42:14.480 --> 0:42:17.800 on the Stoa Pochila, which is the painted porch in Athens, 0:42:18.280 --> 0:42:22.240 and that's where that's what stoic means. It just Stoa 0:42:22.360 --> 0:42:25.040 means porch. It doesn't mean anything. These are just the 0:42:25.040 --> 0:42:29.799 guys from the porch, bullshitting and talking and sharing. It 0:42:29.880 --> 0:42:31.959 is funny then that he would talk about that, that's 0:42:32.360 --> 0:42:37.799 this merchant of purple dye. His philosophy would become the 0:42:37.800 --> 0:42:41.359 philosophy associate with Marcus Relis because I could tell you 0:42:41.480 --> 0:42:44.840 mouthing the words there. One of the powerful lines and meditations, 0:42:44.840 --> 0:42:48.440 as Mark Sali says, this is a reference to being emperors, 0:42:48.520 --> 0:42:52.239 is be careful that you are not dyed purple. And 0:42:52.480 --> 0:42:55.840 he's saying that that make sure that power doesn't corrupt 0:42:55.920 --> 0:42:58.719 youss because the Roman emperor was one of the few 0:42:58.760 --> 0:42:59.759 that could wear the color. 0:43:01.880 --> 0:43:06.960 So you're reading all of this, your portal to this 0:43:07.400 --> 0:43:11.640 beginning with Meditations, which has had an outsize influence and 0:43:11.920 --> 0:43:14.520 on everybody that's ever picked up did you read? You 0:43:14.600 --> 0:43:16.800 pick it up? I picked up all the wrong versions, 0:43:17.520 --> 0:43:20.480 couldn't understand a damn thing interesting. I look back, it's interesting. 0:43:20.680 --> 0:43:23.719 I must have fifteen or twenty different copies. Wow, And 0:43:23.840 --> 0:43:26.600 it took me listening to you on damn YouTube to 0:43:26.719 --> 0:43:29.000 go here's the one I recommend. I'm like, start reading. 0:43:29.040 --> 0:43:32.560 I'm like, wait, this makes some sense because the translations are, 0:43:32.640 --> 0:43:35.400 you know, time back to decades and decades ago. So 0:43:35.440 --> 0:43:37.560 I think my father, someone you know, was around, and 0:43:37.640 --> 0:43:40.160 then here my uncle says, here's a book you should read, 0:43:40.320 --> 0:43:42.360 like Jesus, you know. Lasting. So they just sort of 0:43:42.400 --> 0:43:45.440 collected dust. But there were a few efforts, and they 0:43:45.560 --> 0:43:48.239 just didn't go anywhere because it didn't speak to me 0:43:48.360 --> 0:43:51.320 with the kind of language that I understand today. I do. 0:43:51.600 --> 0:43:53.760 I don't believe in miracles, but I went on Amazon 0:43:53.800 --> 0:43:55.919 and I just bought a random copy that I got 0:43:56.160 --> 0:43:58.640 was just the first one I like. I got the 0:43:58.920 --> 0:44:01.840 copy that change my life, and I've now recommended it 0:44:01.960 --> 0:44:05.320 so many people that just that's the first the algorithm 0:44:05.400 --> 0:44:08.120 blessed me, someone who's so critical of algorithms, and that 0:44:08.239 --> 0:44:10.000 one case the algorithm blessed me. 0:44:10.160 --> 0:44:11.440 By the way, one of the things I love that 0:44:11.520 --> 0:44:14.000 you do is you'll go back to the same you'll 0:44:14.040 --> 0:44:16.600 go to different translations. Yeah, and you're able to sort 0:44:16.600 --> 0:44:19.080 of lay them out. And I mean it shows, I mean, 0:44:19.560 --> 0:44:22.680 you know how language is radically changed. Well that and 0:44:22.760 --> 0:44:24.759 how important the translation is. 0:44:25.040 --> 0:44:27.080 Yes, I mean, so I don't speak Greek or Latin, 0:44:27.160 --> 0:44:31.800 so I don't I don't know exactly, but it is 0:44:31.880 --> 0:44:34.880 interesting when you read all these different translations, you go, oh, like, 0:44:35.640 --> 0:44:38.440 this is the same idea, fifteen different cuts on it, 0:44:38.560 --> 0:44:41.320 and what a big role the translator plays, and also 0:44:42.560 --> 0:44:46.719 what a big role the moment in time that you're in. 0:44:47.640 --> 0:44:49.840 So how we like how you interpret it in the 0:44:49.920 --> 0:44:52.040 context of something contemporary. 0:44:52.560 --> 0:44:56.960 So I've been reading Meditation for fifteen years and then 0:44:57.880 --> 0:45:02.080 twenty twenty pandemic hits. I'm reading Meditations and all of 0:45:02.160 --> 0:45:05.640 a sudden there's all these references to the plague and 0:45:05.719 --> 0:45:09.160 to pestilence, and and you realize, oh, it's this is 0:45:09.160 --> 0:45:11.560 a plague book. This guy wrote in the middle of 0:45:11.640 --> 0:45:16.000 the Antonine plague, this fifteen year pandemic that killed millions 0:45:16.000 --> 0:45:16.279 of things. 0:45:16.280 --> 0:45:18.320 And you never picked up on that, I mean necessarily, 0:45:18.440 --> 0:45:22.600 I guess, I just you don't. You think he's being metaphorical. Yeah, 0:45:22.840 --> 0:45:24.840 and then and then you realize he's being literal. 0:45:24.920 --> 0:45:27.000 Like one of the passages I thought the most about 0:45:27.040 --> 0:45:30.040 during the pandemic is this one where he goes, there's 0:45:30.280 --> 0:45:33.200 there's two types of plagues. There's the one that can 0:45:33.320 --> 0:45:37.200 destroy your health and the one that can destroy your character. 0:45:37.680 --> 0:45:40.000 And I and then then you watch over the next 0:45:40.160 --> 0:45:45.560 two years, people get radicalized, People turn off their hearts 0:45:45.840 --> 0:45:50.759 and their their neighborliness to other people, and and you 0:45:51.200 --> 0:45:55.040 and in other cases lose their mind come, you know, 0:45:56.640 --> 0:45:59.480 do and say things they would have been shocked by, 0:45:59.600 --> 0:46:03.000 just if you years earlier. And you, oh that he 0:46:03.160 --> 0:46:05.839 must have seen that, you know, he must he must 0:46:05.880 --> 0:46:09.839 have seen that. And and I think there's a there's 0:46:09.880 --> 0:46:14.000 a famous story about Markusrelius. He's presiding over some court 0:46:14.080 --> 0:46:17.920 and one of the lawyers, uh makes this reference to 0:46:18.200 --> 0:46:21.960 the victims of the plague, and he just bursts into tears. 0:46:22.640 --> 0:46:25.400 And so you think Number one, I thought this is 0:46:25.440 --> 0:46:28.319 the stoics don't have emotions, they don't care about people. Yes, 0:46:28.440 --> 0:46:30.040 and then and and here he is just sort of 0:46:30.080 --> 0:46:33.719 weeping over these untold thousands of people who have died. 0:46:33.920 --> 0:46:35.960 You know, in some cases people we would have uh 0:46:36.920 --> 0:46:41.439 cared deeply about and been very close to. And you go, oh, 0:46:42.600 --> 0:46:47.600 that's not what stoicism Isn't this uh uh fuck you? 0:46:47.880 --> 0:46:50.440 I got mine, or like I got a strong immune 0:46:50.480 --> 0:46:51.440 stitu I think there. 0:46:51.600 --> 0:46:54.440 Was when you first heard about it, because so many 0:46:54.480 --> 0:46:56.560 people see it as just yeah, I'm just I will 0:46:56.600 --> 0:46:59.320 have no emotion. I'm just being stoic, you know, the 0:46:59.440 --> 0:47:00.960 sort of ridge, robotic. 0:47:02.080 --> 0:47:04.160 I think what I was at I was attracted to 0:47:04.200 --> 0:47:06.520 stoicism for the reason that young men have been attracted 0:47:06.560 --> 0:47:09.960 to stoicism for centuries, which is it's about getting your 0:47:10.000 --> 0:47:16.160 shit together, getting it on lock, you know, just just 0:47:16.560 --> 0:47:20.000 that sort of ownership and control of the self, which 0:47:20.120 --> 0:47:23.080 I think if anyone needs help in, it's young men. 0:47:23.560 --> 0:47:26.200 So so I think that was my initial attraction to it. 0:47:26.719 --> 0:47:30.000 And then and I think I was attracted to trappings 0:47:30.040 --> 0:47:32.520 of power and you know, all the all the things 0:47:32.560 --> 0:47:35.520 that make it, you know, interesting and unique compared to 0:47:35.880 --> 0:47:39.680 I don't know, existentialism or some other school of philosophy, 0:47:40.640 --> 0:47:44.680 but over the years you realize, oh, this is actually 0:47:44.760 --> 0:47:49.759 a profoundly ethical philosophy. This is about our connections to 0:47:49.840 --> 0:47:52.480 other people. This is about our responsibilities to other people. 0:47:53.160 --> 0:47:58.520 This is about being like when when they're talking about excellence, 0:47:58.560 --> 0:48:03.120 they don't simply mean perfection excellence, and that actually professional 0:48:03.239 --> 0:48:09.160 excellence is pretty common, but professional and personal excellence, like 0:48:09.600 --> 0:48:12.560 sort of rounding that package out is actually the sort 0:48:12.600 --> 0:48:15.680 of thing to be more ambitious about. So I think 0:48:16.160 --> 0:48:18.080 my initial attraction to it was one thing, and then 0:48:18.120 --> 0:48:21.480 what it works on you, And I think it's interesting 0:48:21.520 --> 0:48:23.960 to hear you talk about sort of starting and stopping 0:48:24.000 --> 0:48:28.280 it over the years. It's it's important that people understand 0:48:28.320 --> 0:48:32.960 stoicism is a philosophy you should be reading, not a 0:48:33.040 --> 0:48:34.120 philosophy you have read. 0:48:35.120 --> 0:48:36.719 You say that. I love that you say that. And 0:48:36.920 --> 0:48:39.880 also you make the point and I don't remember exactly 0:48:39.920 --> 0:48:41.520 who said it, but you never swim in the same 0:48:41.600 --> 0:48:44.480 river twice. Yeah, this notion that the river's changed or 0:48:44.560 --> 0:48:46.680 step in the same way. Yeah, I'll swim in it 0:48:47.480 --> 0:48:49.759 American just up the black where you were growing up. 0:48:50.600 --> 0:48:52.800 But we change as well, Yes, and back to this. 0:48:53.239 --> 0:48:55.880 You know, you're reading it again, and now we're in 0:48:55.960 --> 0:48:58.200 a plague, and all of a sudden you're reading it 0:48:58.840 --> 0:49:01.879 as I mean almost as a new visitor to the same, 0:49:02.320 --> 0:49:03.200 same old Well. 0:49:03.239 --> 0:49:05.319 I think it's so fascinating that, Yeah, you picked up 0:49:05.320 --> 0:49:08.320 a book when you were one age, you picked it 0:49:08.400 --> 0:49:11.239 up again another, it continually wasn't working, and then at 0:49:11.320 --> 0:49:15.000 some point, and I bet if you actually laid those 0:49:15.080 --> 0:49:17.840 translations outside by side, they're not that different. 0:49:17.880 --> 0:49:18.359 They're not there. 0:49:18.400 --> 0:49:19.239 I think you were. 0:49:19.880 --> 0:49:23.360 You were profound Well, I was trying to find language period. 0:49:23.440 --> 0:49:25.640 I you know, wrote a book about my own learning disability. 0:49:25.680 --> 0:49:28.440 So just I mean literally the words just above my 0:49:28.520 --> 0:49:30.320 pay grade that needs to be explained to me. I 0:49:30.520 --> 0:49:33.279 remember Shakespeare class in college. I mean, your toast is 0:49:33.320 --> 0:49:37.280 a dyslexic. You're like me, doth thought that, I mean Jesus, 0:49:37.600 --> 0:49:39.960 So you like immediately try to find a cliff note 0:49:40.080 --> 0:49:42.600 version or something on TV that you could claim that 0:49:42.719 --> 0:49:45.800 I read or understood. Yeah. So no, it's so you 0:49:45.920 --> 0:49:48.360 did all that. You know, so you're reading this, but 0:49:48.800 --> 0:49:51.000 you weren't necessarily going Wait a second, this is my 0:49:51.160 --> 0:49:54.320 new path, my career that I'm going to become. You 0:49:54.400 --> 0:49:57.440 know I'm going to translate this to a whole different 0:49:57.480 --> 0:50:00.120 audience that I'm going to be able to express this 0:50:00.239 --> 0:50:02.279 with new media. I'm going to be able to get 0:50:02.280 --> 0:50:05.319 a whole new generation to understand and bring to life 0:50:06.000 --> 0:50:07.440 these extraordinary figures. 0:50:07.640 --> 0:50:10.160 No, I mean I was introduced to the Stokes in 0:50:10.160 --> 0:50:12.080 two thousand and six, and my first book on PTol 0:50:12.080 --> 0:50:15.560 philosophy came out in summer of twenty fourteen. 0:50:16.600 --> 0:50:19.440 So what was the in spir What what said? You know, 0:50:19.640 --> 0:50:22.279 I have to do my version of this, But I've 0:50:22.280 --> 0:50:25.080 written about store. Yeah, I don't know. I was. 0:50:25.280 --> 0:50:27.160 I wrote my first book because I wanted to be 0:50:27.200 --> 0:50:30.759 a writer, and I knew that that book had to 0:50:30.800 --> 0:50:32.640 come first. You couldn't write the stoic books and then 0:50:32.680 --> 0:50:34.120 the media book. So I knew I had to get 0:50:34.160 --> 0:50:35.839 the media book out of the way. So I did 0:50:35.880 --> 0:50:37.480 the media book first, and then what I really wanted 0:50:37.520 --> 0:50:40.960 to write about was was the Stoics. But no, I 0:50:41.120 --> 0:50:44.080 I thought I had this idea for one Stoic book 0:50:44.200 --> 0:50:46.239 about this one passage from Archstreet. That was it. 0:50:47.200 --> 0:50:50.320 And I think again, obstacles away, what stands in the 0:50:50.360 --> 0:50:52.360 way becomes the way. Yes, I love it. 0:50:52.440 --> 0:50:54.800 Come on, I know, I could somewhere. I mean, I just, 0:50:54.920 --> 0:50:57.960 I just it's too good. It's the best, it's the best. 0:50:58.520 --> 0:51:03.440 Someone some to action becomes the action. Yes, the way 0:51:03.440 --> 0:51:06.080 becomes away. But you want to know something funny about 0:51:06.120 --> 0:51:08.800 that quote there Again, you you evolve your understanding of 0:51:08.880 --> 0:51:11.719 these things as you get So I wrote the book 0:51:11.920 --> 0:51:14.120 and The Obstacles Away mostly about how we deal with 0:51:14.400 --> 0:51:18.800 like professional obstacles, right, Like how you're trying to like 0:51:19.360 --> 0:51:21.200 do something and something gets in the way, which is 0:51:21.239 --> 0:51:24.359 obviously what he's partly talking about there. But the fuller quote, 0:51:24.360 --> 0:51:26.759 which obviously I knew is I edited to put some 0:51:26.840 --> 0:51:29.920 ellipses in there, But mostly what he's talking about is 0:51:30.320 --> 0:51:34.640 is is annoying people and obnoxious people's He's saying, people 0:51:35.080 --> 0:51:37.719 can cause problems for us, they can get in our way, 0:51:38.920 --> 0:51:42.480 but you know, we all, he says, we always have 0:51:42.560 --> 0:51:44.600 the ability to accommodate and adapt. He says, we can 0:51:44.680 --> 0:51:49.160 convert this to our own, you know, our own potential acting. 0:51:49.200 --> 0:51:50.800 And then he says, you know, the impediment action in 0:51:50.800 --> 0:51:52.839 advances action, what stands in the way becomes a way, 0:51:53.560 --> 0:51:56.279 and then you go, okay. So when he's saying, some 0:51:56.760 --> 0:51:59.759 person comes up and says something horrible to you, or 0:52:00.320 --> 0:52:02.960 some some some person screw something up for you, or 0:52:03.040 --> 0:52:08.160 some some person, uh you know, it's just constantly uh 0:52:08.800 --> 0:52:11.400 stressing you out or abusing you or whatever it is. 0:52:11.600 --> 0:52:15.200 What he's saying is that that's an opportunity for you 0:52:15.440 --> 0:52:17.919 to be the better person, the bigger person, to grow 0:52:18.120 --> 0:52:24.000 as a person in wrestling with and handling what this 0:52:24.200 --> 0:52:28.640 person is doing to you. And and so you go, Okay, 0:52:28.800 --> 0:52:31.560 Like when the Stokes are saying the obstacles the way, 0:52:31.560 --> 0:52:33.800 they don't necessarily mean, oh, this is a chance to 0:52:34.400 --> 0:52:37.960 you know, hey, this, this huge recession that we just 0:52:38.080 --> 0:52:40.840 got plunged into, is actually a chance for you to 0:52:40.960 --> 0:52:44.560 retrench in the business and tighten things up and come 0:52:44.640 --> 0:52:49.600 back smarter and and and leaner, and you know, more organized. 0:52:49.719 --> 0:52:50.120 It may be. 0:52:50.680 --> 0:52:54.360 But he's saying, actually, you know this, this, this person 0:52:54.440 --> 0:52:57.000 who just broke your heart, or this person who just 0:52:57.120 --> 0:52:59.920 lied to you or stole from you, or this per 0:53:00.239 --> 0:53:03.359 who just said something horrible to you, they're a chance 0:53:03.480 --> 0:53:06.319 for you to grow as a human being in how 0:53:06.440 --> 0:53:10.440 you respond to them. That is obviously not my reading 0:53:10.520 --> 0:53:13.320 of the passage when I'm nineteen, but it's how I 0:53:13.440 --> 0:53:14.759 understand it. Twenty years later and. 0:53:14.840 --> 0:53:17.040 You understand it. It's sort of the core part of 0:53:17.080 --> 0:53:19.040 what you said is sort of for you if you 0:53:19.080 --> 0:53:22.359 were going to distill the essence of stoicism, this notion 0:53:22.719 --> 0:53:25.600 that we have agency, Yeah, that you know, it's not 0:53:25.840 --> 0:53:28.000 what happens to us, how we respond to what happens 0:53:28.000 --> 0:53:28.279 to us. 0:53:28.400 --> 0:53:32.799 Yeah, yeah, would I'd be curious, Like in politics, isn't 0:53:32.840 --> 0:53:36.200 that I'd be curious to find some line of work 0:53:36.239 --> 0:53:39.560 in which that's not the case the case, right, Like 0:53:40.000 --> 0:53:42.520 you wake up and somebody gives you the news and 0:53:42.640 --> 0:53:45.839 then you figure out your job is to say, here's 0:53:45.840 --> 0:53:46.400 what we're going to do. 0:53:46.680 --> 0:53:49.279 Yeah, but so much of our life is this sort 0:53:49.320 --> 0:53:52.920 of victim mentality that you know that it's fate and 0:53:53.080 --> 0:53:55.759 we can't control our own fate. Yeah, you know, the 0:53:56.160 --> 0:53:59.439 systems rigged against me. There's nothing I can do, nothing 0:53:59.520 --> 0:54:03.520 one person can do. Yes, who this is, whose fault 0:54:03.600 --> 0:54:05.520 it is? This is how why it should have gone 0:54:05.560 --> 0:54:09.080 the other way. Just a lot of a lot of 0:54:09.360 --> 0:54:11.919 dwelling on why it happened, as. 0:54:11.800 --> 0:54:13.680 Opposed to what you're gonna do about it. 0:54:13.840 --> 0:54:16.800 Yeah. So it's interesting to me just you know, I 0:54:17.080 --> 0:54:19.960 write a little bit and uh, some of my my 0:54:20.080 --> 0:54:23.120 friends like why you're writing about Tony Robbins. But it's 0:54:23.160 --> 0:54:25.880 interesting I write about it because I was, you know, 0:54:25.960 --> 0:54:28.280 around your age, and all of a sudden, my contemporary 0:54:28.360 --> 0:54:32.799 version dare I say, how dare you? Was this guy 0:54:33.480 --> 0:54:36.160 with you know, who was self described with big teeth 0:54:36.239 --> 0:54:39.799 on you know, on infomercials selling me cassette tapes. Yeah, 0:54:40.360 --> 0:54:43.759 and I listened to those today and I'm like, so 0:54:43.920 --> 0:54:46.040 much is you know? 0:54:46.600 --> 0:54:48.759 Well, I do think that that there's a little bit 0:54:48.800 --> 0:54:52.480 there that's just a complete indictment of philosophy as a 0:54:52.480 --> 0:54:55.800 whole these days, right, like like that that that is, 0:54:57.600 --> 0:55:00.239 that's what Socrates is doing, That's what that That's what 0:55:00.960 --> 0:55:05.560 uh Aristotle was doing. They were they were trying. I mean, 0:55:05.920 --> 0:55:08.759 Socrates gets killed for corrupting the youth, which is to say, 0:55:09.040 --> 0:55:12.760 teaching the young boys what they need to know about 0:55:12.840 --> 0:55:16.359 life that their parents didn't want them to know, right, 0:55:17.480 --> 0:55:21.840 or challenging convention or or you know, teaching them a 0:55:21.920 --> 0:55:24.439 new way of thinking. And I guess it just says 0:55:24.520 --> 0:55:30.000 something that that philosophy does not speak to people in 0:55:30.120 --> 0:55:32.520 a way that it's supposed to. It is supposed to 0:55:32.520 --> 0:55:34.560 be the guide to the good life, which you know, 0:55:35.160 --> 0:55:38.719 to me, the American dream is both a financial dream 0:55:38.760 --> 0:55:42.920 but also a sort of a moral and a spiritual 0:55:43.040 --> 0:55:46.440 dream of a of a better life. And and philosophy 0:55:46.560 --> 0:55:48.640 is supposed to be part of that and and it's 0:55:48.880 --> 0:55:51.880 just it's just not and and I think we're in 0:55:52.160 --> 0:55:57.600 extra trouble when you know, organized religion has not just 0:55:57.760 --> 0:56:03.560 fallen away, but also you know, alienated huge swats of 0:56:03.600 --> 0:56:05.960 the population, whether you're talking about the abuse scandals in 0:56:06.040 --> 0:56:08.600 the in the Catholic Church, which is what I grew 0:56:08.680 --> 0:56:11.520 up in, or you're looking at the sort of political 0:56:11.640 --> 0:56:18.719 radicalization of sort of evangelical faith. And so if if 0:56:19.880 --> 0:56:24.640 you're not going to have traditions and sort of rituals, 0:56:24.920 --> 0:56:28.480 you're also not going to have religion, what are you 0:56:28.880 --> 0:56:34.040 Where are people supposed to learn this stuff? And and 0:56:34.480 --> 0:56:37.440 and it's I think created a huge vacuum that that 0:56:37.600 --> 0:56:41.279 certain you know, bad actors have stepped into phil and. 0:56:41.360 --> 0:56:45.560 You haven't become a bad actor. Thanks you talk about 0:56:45.760 --> 0:56:47.520 you know, because you you talked to you, we can 0:56:47.600 --> 0:56:49.759 go back to sort of March twenty twenty and sort 0:56:49.760 --> 0:56:52.000 of the beginning, and we could talk about that pandemic people, 0:56:52.600 --> 0:56:55.799 you know, I mean, I explained more things in more ways, 0:56:55.800 --> 0:56:59.600 on more days of everything. Sure, our relationships back to 0:56:59.680 --> 0:57:04.360 truth trust. This certainly are politics. I didn't fully absorb 0:57:04.440 --> 0:57:07.160 it appreciate it at the time. And what we've become 0:57:07.239 --> 0:57:09.800 on the other side, and what people became people I 0:57:09.840 --> 0:57:13.279 don't they were unrecognizable to this day that went through 0:57:13.360 --> 0:57:15.359 that process. We can get Elon Musk in a minute, 0:57:15.400 --> 0:57:17.200 but I knew him well before. 0:57:17.480 --> 0:57:20.400 That's my favorite part of your book. You talked about 0:57:21.040 --> 0:57:26.040 how you came of age as all. You came of 0:57:26.080 --> 0:57:29.479 age at the same time as all those Silicon Valley people. 0:57:29.680 --> 0:57:31.960 I was with Larry and Serge at Google and when 0:57:32.320 --> 0:57:34.440 Steve Jobs taps us on the shoulder and says, hey, 0:57:34.840 --> 0:57:36.600 he wasn't interested in me, he was interested in Larry 0:57:36.600 --> 0:57:38.200 and Serge to show us pulled out of his back 0:57:38.240 --> 0:57:41.080 pocket the first iPhone and we're like, you know, it 0:57:41.200 --> 0:57:43.320 was like a joy ride. We're going with our fingers 0:57:43.600 --> 0:57:45.960 like oh we and they're all by you know, they 0:57:46.000 --> 0:57:47.880 were just in. There was sense of optimism back to 0:57:47.960 --> 0:57:49.240 you when you were writing this book. 0:57:49.760 --> 0:57:52.840 So what happened? Like I think that that quote where 0:57:53.000 --> 0:57:54.760 Elon Musk is on Rogan and he says, you know, 0:57:55.160 --> 0:57:57.160 empathy is going to be the death of Western civilization. 0:57:57.560 --> 0:57:59.280 That to me was one. And then when I watched 0:57:59.360 --> 0:58:01.960 Mark and Drees and talk about how he has zero 0:58:02.120 --> 0:58:05.840 introspection and and he's like, I never looked backward. He goes, 0:58:05.880 --> 0:58:08.040 I never looked backwards. It's like, by the way, that's 0:58:08.080 --> 0:58:10.200 not what introspection is. Just to be like, you clearly 0:58:10.240 --> 0:58:13.680 don't even know what it is. Like introspection is looking inwards. 0:58:13.760 --> 0:58:16.880 Just to be clear, that's not looking backwards. But but 0:58:17.440 --> 0:58:19.280 but he goes, you know, the great men of history, 0:58:19.360 --> 0:58:22.280 they they they they didn't look around. They didn't It's 0:58:22.360 --> 0:58:25.200 like the bad ones, you know, the ones who were 0:58:25.280 --> 0:58:30.800 responsible for genocides and pointless wars and uh ecological disasters 0:58:30.920 --> 0:58:36.080 and economic calamities. Yes, they had no sense of introspection 0:58:36.440 --> 0:58:40.440 or history or perspective. But the great ones, whether you're 0:58:40.480 --> 0:58:45.240 talking about FDR or Truman or Theodore Roosevelt, Washington or Lincoln, 0:58:46.280 --> 0:58:49.160 the best of the best, all the great, all the greats. 0:58:49.240 --> 0:58:51.320 And I just named a bunch of of white dudes. 0:58:51.320 --> 0:58:53.880 So I'm sorry, but like you know, you could we could. 0:58:53.720 --> 0:58:56.200 Talk about that too, and where women are in the story, 0:58:56.320 --> 0:58:57.040 you could expand. 0:58:57.560 --> 0:59:01.600 But the point is that the great historical figures are 0:59:02.000 --> 0:59:09.800 by definition profoundly considerate and conscientious people, and and when 0:59:10.040 --> 0:59:14.000 when they're not, it is responsible for their biggest failings. 0:59:14.320 --> 0:59:16.560 And so what so what's. 0:59:16.440 --> 0:59:18.520 Happened was what happened? 0:59:18.800 --> 0:59:19.200 What happened? 0:59:19.200 --> 0:59:21.000 And what happened to you? That you didn't fall prey 0:59:21.040 --> 0:59:23.720 to all that? I mean you you, I mean, your 0:59:23.880 --> 0:59:27.080 rise just gone. I mean it's you can you were 0:59:27.440 --> 0:59:31.520 wildly successful before the pandemic. But you know, I mean, 0:59:31.600 --> 0:59:36.720 now the ubiquity and your success it's just exploded. But 0:59:36.880 --> 0:59:39.520 but it's but it suggests that people are they're not 0:59:40.160 --> 0:59:42.840 they haven't necessarily been sold that bill of goods either, 0:59:43.240 --> 0:59:44.520 that they're looking for something different. 0:59:44.680 --> 0:59:47.560 I mean, look, I've definitely experienced some success. It's small 0:59:47.600 --> 0:59:49.680 potatoes compared to being, you know, one of the richest 0:59:49.760 --> 0:59:51.480 or most powerful people in the world. So I I 0:59:52.240 --> 0:59:55.600 don't want to judge people whose thing you know, who's 0:59:55.720 --> 0:59:59.040 who's uh, whose you know sort of experiences is something 0:59:59.080 --> 0:59:59.920 I can't even comprehend. 1:00:00.000 --> 1:00:00.360 But it does. 1:00:00.480 --> 1:00:03.680 It does seem weird that these people, many of whom 1:00:03.720 --> 1:00:05.800 I I also knew or met over the years and 1:00:05.880 --> 1:00:08.920 thought were one thing. It sort of revealed themselves to 1:00:08.960 --> 1:00:10.960 be another. What do you what's your explanation. 1:00:12.240 --> 1:00:14.200 I'm struggling with it, and I've been strung. I mean, 1:00:14.200 --> 1:00:15.800 I struggled with it a little bit of the book. 1:00:15.840 --> 1:00:18.640 It looks even you know who I was becoming. I 1:00:18.720 --> 1:00:21.200 mean I was, you know, and and you know, God bless, 1:00:21.240 --> 1:00:23.000 I was reading one of your books for years ago 1:00:23.040 --> 1:00:25.440 and took a little indirect shot at me, and I 1:00:25.480 --> 1:00:27.960 thought it was completely you to see, you know back. 1:00:28.000 --> 1:00:31.320 I don't want anyone get back. The one of the 1:00:31.440 --> 1:00:34.680 most important stories. You always say, what during the plague? 1:00:34.840 --> 1:00:37.760 What Marcus really did? He sold all the things in here? 1:00:37.800 --> 1:00:40.920 I was going to a damn restaurant and you made it. 1:00:41.000 --> 1:00:43.000 And I'm like, you know what fair? And it was 1:00:43.120 --> 1:00:46.640 Legit hurt. It hurt because it was right. And of 1:00:46.760 --> 1:00:48.360 course I knew I had no greater critic of me 1:00:48.480 --> 1:00:51.440 than me, and so I appreciate it. But so you know, 1:00:51.920 --> 1:00:53.520 but in a lot of what I write about in 1:00:53.560 --> 1:00:57.800 this book, I mean talk about ego, there's I mean 1:00:58.320 --> 1:01:00.320 the whole thing. I mean, I just I laid it 1:01:00.320 --> 1:01:02.920 all out, and I laid myself out in this sort 1:01:02.960 --> 1:01:06.640 of journey of discovery, this memoir of discovery, and discovering 1:01:06.960 --> 1:01:10.240 myself and my own you know, and my own you 1:01:10.280 --> 1:01:14.240 know this, there's so many but you know, expectations and 1:01:14.320 --> 1:01:17.680 how I was living in other people's expectations and I 1:01:17.760 --> 1:01:20.280 was kind of losing myself and how now And I 1:01:20.360 --> 1:01:23.400 think it's why sort of reading dove deep into your work. 1:01:23.840 --> 1:01:26.640 It's just so sort of all coincided. I'm like, oh, 1:01:27.600 --> 1:01:31.320 you know, just literally just breathe again and have perspective 1:01:31.480 --> 1:01:33.160 and grace and humility. 1:01:33.480 --> 1:01:37.400 You're saying, introspection, interest like the thing they are running 1:01:37.400 --> 1:01:37.919 away from. 1:01:37.880 --> 1:01:42.680 Running away from the coarseness. That's why I've got forgive me. 1:01:42.800 --> 1:01:45.480 I didn't mean to put you behind these knee pads. 1:01:45.680 --> 1:01:48.120 And I think about with Trump, I mean the obstacles away. 1:01:48.160 --> 1:01:50.720 To me, it's so profound in the context of how 1:01:50.800 --> 1:01:53.880 I'm dealing with the challenges and the obstacle it stands 1:01:53.960 --> 1:01:57.400 in the way of decent. From my perspective, decency, lack 1:01:57.440 --> 1:02:00.480 of character, all those those cardinal VERSI choose that you 1:02:00.600 --> 1:02:03.360 write so beautifully about this notion of justice and this 1:02:03.520 --> 1:02:05.760 notion of what courage really is in temperance, all these 1:02:05.960 --> 1:02:09.000 found what discipline looks. It's a math amount of what 1:02:09.080 --> 1:02:12.240 we have today. But I think about, all, right, obstacle 1:02:12.400 --> 1:02:14.760 is the way it stands, the way becomes away. So 1:02:15.120 --> 1:02:19.240 how we can sort of with agency, you know, manifest 1:02:19.880 --> 1:02:23.880 and take responsibility and have the discipline and the character 1:02:24.400 --> 1:02:27.800 to you know, not just identify the problems, but begin 1:02:27.880 --> 1:02:31.520 to march strategies and iteration to address these problems and 1:02:31.880 --> 1:02:34.760 to move in a more enlightened direction. And again, you've 1:02:34.800 --> 1:02:37.440 been a huge part of that for millions of us, 1:02:38.880 --> 1:02:41.560 but certainly for the guy sitting here as the current 1:02:41.600 --> 1:02:43.800 occupant of the governor's mansion. 1:02:44.200 --> 1:02:48.160 That's unbelievable to me. I think, you know, there's this 1:02:48.280 --> 1:02:50.800 passage of Meditations where Mark Schmiz talks about fighting to 1:02:50.880 --> 1:02:53.280 be the person that philosophy tried to make you love it. 1:02:53.520 --> 1:02:55.480 And now I think about that, that's what he's doing 1:02:55.640 --> 1:02:58.680 in Meditations, is he's trying. He's trying to be better 1:02:58.760 --> 1:03:01.800 than whatever he could get away with or whatever you know, 1:03:02.240 --> 1:03:05.640 he would he might just be on his own. He's 1:03:05.720 --> 1:03:09.040 sure sort of aspiring to be some greater self. And 1:03:09.360 --> 1:03:13.320 it does feel like in the sort of Silicon Valley 1:03:14.200 --> 1:03:20.520 kind of like leadership class, there is this and Trump 1:03:20.680 --> 1:03:23.440 I think obviously hastened it. But it's this kind of 1:03:23.600 --> 1:03:25.480 like why why should you try to be back? 1:03:25.560 --> 1:03:27.960 Why just do what you want? Yeah, you know yours 1:03:28.840 --> 1:03:29.720 when you're. 1:03:29.640 --> 1:03:32.600 Famous, they let you do it, you know. And it's 1:03:32.680 --> 1:03:37.080 like the embracing of that and the idea of like why. 1:03:38.440 --> 1:03:40.040 One of my favorite headlines of all time, there's this 1:03:40.120 --> 1:03:43.680 Huffington Post headline from fifteen years ago and it says, uh, 1:03:44.360 --> 1:03:46.920 I don't know how to explain to you that you're 1:03:46.960 --> 1:03:50.440 supposed to care about other people and that, and it 1:03:50.560 --> 1:03:55.800 really does feel like like there was this concerted effort 1:03:55.920 --> 1:03:59.640 in a small group of people to just let themselves 1:03:59.720 --> 1:04:03.760 off the hook for being responsible for or to anyone, 1:04:03.880 --> 1:04:08.120 despite the incredible power and privilege that they enjoy. 1:04:08.640 --> 1:04:12.000 There you go, there you go, and we're I mean, 1:04:12.080 --> 1:04:14.200 it's and we're living with the consequences of that. I 1:04:14.280 --> 1:04:17.200 mean we you know, we've hit on you know, young men, 1:04:17.360 --> 1:04:20.360 but you you know, subtly made the point. I'll make 1:04:20.400 --> 1:04:23.840 it more expressive. Young men are in crisis. Yeah, And 1:04:24.160 --> 1:04:27.880 it's interesting how you connect tradition and rituals. And now, 1:04:27.920 --> 1:04:29.800 I mean we're seeing a little bit now with religion. 1:04:29.840 --> 1:04:32.400 People are finding religion a little bit again. But we've 1:04:32.440 --> 1:04:35.840 lost those institutions, that connection to each other. I am, 1:04:35.920 --> 1:04:39.360 because you are this notion of untu, this commonwealth, you know, 1:04:39.440 --> 1:04:43.680 and this uh and and of course with algorithms and 1:04:43.960 --> 1:04:48.280 now this manus for broadly defined and you know Hustlers 1:04:48.400 --> 1:04:52.360 University and Bugatti Bugotti you get mine and you know, 1:04:52.480 --> 1:04:55.640 and and all the just patriarchy that comes in there. 1:04:55.640 --> 1:04:59.200 I mean, and these guys sometimes trying attach these name 1:04:59.520 --> 1:05:00.360 I know, and. 1:05:00.440 --> 1:05:03.920 Now it's it's uh, I try to say, it's not. 1:05:04.320 --> 1:05:07.080 Stoicism is not a formula for you to be a 1:05:07.160 --> 1:05:10.480 better sociopath. It's supposed to do the opposite. It's supposed 1:05:10.480 --> 1:05:14.040 to it's supposed to help you because look, we're all 1:05:14.480 --> 1:05:20.840 inherently selfish. We are all self interested. And the Stokes 1:05:20.880 --> 1:05:22.479 talk about this like you come out of the womb 1:05:22.960 --> 1:05:28.840 being like inherently not just dependent on others, but you 1:05:29.000 --> 1:05:33.160 will you will suck your parents dry literally and figuratively 1:05:33.400 --> 1:05:36.360 so you can survive. That's what your genes are designed 1:05:36.400 --> 1:05:40.000 for you to do. Right, And and that maturation or growth, 1:05:40.040 --> 1:05:43.640 the Stokes would say, is the like the the the 1:05:43.800 --> 1:05:48.120 overcoming of that realizing that you have these obligations and 1:05:48.240 --> 1:05:52.520 duties to to not just these people immediately around you, 1:05:52.840 --> 1:05:57.640 but everyone else like, there's this there's this stoke named 1:05:57.680 --> 1:06:01.400 Hirocles and he talked about the circles of concern and 1:06:01.920 --> 1:06:04.840 that he said, the purpose of the philosophy is pulling 1:06:04.960 --> 1:06:09.120 these outer rings inwards. And to me that like when 1:06:09.120 --> 1:06:11.480 I heard that, I was like, Oh, that's that's what 1:06:11.600 --> 1:06:14.560 they were talking about in church as a kid. That's 1:06:14.720 --> 1:06:17.680 also what Jesus was talking about. And so there is 1:06:17.840 --> 1:06:22.560 there is actually a if Catholicism, especially because it has 1:06:22.640 --> 1:06:27.960 those cardinal virtues that I think you sort of you 1:06:28.080 --> 1:06:31.440 immediately recognize it in the Stoics that oh, oh, this 1:06:31.680 --> 1:06:34.400 was the tradition before that tradition, and that there's a 1:06:34.440 --> 1:06:35.400 lot of overlap there. 1:06:35.760 --> 1:06:37.440 Yeah, well, I love. I mean, just even when we 1:06:37.480 --> 1:06:40.120 were celebrating the two and fifteth anniversary of the declaration 1:06:40.560 --> 1:06:43.200 Best of Roman Republic, Best of Greek Democracy. I mean 1:06:43.400 --> 1:06:45.280 back to your point in terms even the books. You 1:06:45.400 --> 1:06:47.800 just thank you for the books, but just reminding me 1:06:47.960 --> 1:06:52.760 the founding fathers, the direct inspiration from these greats. 1:06:53.320 --> 1:06:55.800 You know, Washington's the only one of the founders who 1:06:56.560 --> 1:07:02.640 doesn't read the Stoics in Greek or Latin like them 1:07:02.680 --> 1:07:07.320 in English, because every they were. They were so familiar, 1:07:07.360 --> 1:07:11.680 like Jefferson as Jefferson as Seneca in French on his nightstand, 1:07:11.720 --> 1:07:14.960 when he dies, and so like these were These were 1:07:15.080 --> 1:07:21.120 incredibly literate philosophical figures. And you know, the primary influence 1:07:21.160 --> 1:07:28.480 on the Founders was not you know, those English legal thinkers, 1:07:28.840 --> 1:07:31.960 It was the It was the when they're writing the 1:07:32.880 --> 1:07:36.680 Federalist papers and they're masquerading as these Roman characters, they're 1:07:36.720 --> 1:07:39.880 thinking about Cato, they're thinking about Seneca, they're thinking about 1:07:40.240 --> 1:07:43.520 Marcus Aurelius. That those are the people who are influencing 1:07:43.600 --> 1:07:47.080 them the most. And you know that that that does 1:07:47.200 --> 1:07:49.160 go back to I think the founding of America, which 1:07:49.200 --> 1:07:55.400 we've fundamentally misunderstood, this idea that, yes, on the one hand, 1:07:55.440 --> 1:07:58.280 this is a country about freedom where you're the state 1:07:58.440 --> 1:08:01.680 can't tell you how to be or how to live, 1:08:04.400 --> 1:08:09.440 your your individual behavior is not legally prescribed the way 1:08:09.520 --> 1:08:15.600 that it would be in another society. But they were 1:08:15.800 --> 1:08:18.360 very much of the mind that all that freedom was 1:08:18.439 --> 1:08:25.200 to be counterbalanced by a sense of virtue in the people. 1:08:25.479 --> 1:08:28.120 And John Adams said, like, hey, without it, we're fucked, 1:08:28.200 --> 1:08:33.599 Like the constitution cannot is not strong enough. He says 1:08:34.280 --> 1:08:40.479 it will go like a whale through a net like ah, actually, 1:08:40.560 --> 1:08:42.599 this is my this is my I wrote a piece 1:08:42.640 --> 1:08:44.280 about this for the Economists a couple of years ago, 1:08:44.360 --> 1:08:46.479 and maybe maybe now that you're leaving office, it's going 1:08:46.520 --> 1:08:49.759 to be a next project. Okay. So so Victor Frankel 1:08:49.800 --> 1:08:53.320 talked about how there's a statue of liberty in New 1:08:53.400 --> 1:08:56.360 York Harbor and he believed that it should be counterbalanced 1:08:56.439 --> 1:08:59.320 by a statue of responsibility in San Francisco Harbor. 1:08:59.439 --> 1:09:02.200 It's funny, and I think there's people. 1:09:02.439 --> 1:09:05.559 Yeah, the idea that we're we're going to spend federal 1:09:05.640 --> 1:09:09.800 money to make Alcatraz a pro God when when what 1:09:10.240 --> 1:09:12.760 what we desperately need as a society is not to 1:09:13.080 --> 1:09:16.559 lock more people up. We need a monument, I think, 1:09:16.720 --> 1:09:20.080 to responsibility and our obligations to each other. 1:09:21.439 --> 1:09:23.320 Right, I was just tritt a Senator Padia about this. 1:09:23.520 --> 1:09:26.599 We are literally this is a real conversation. No way. Yeah, 1:09:26.680 --> 1:09:28.519 So I'm not waiting till I'm out of it. Okay, 1:09:28.560 --> 1:09:31.920 all right, No, I love this idea. It's well, this 1:09:32.040 --> 1:09:35.400 notion of responsibility, it's that's uh. I don't want to 1:09:35.400 --> 1:09:37.920 get the too political, but kind of missing in my 1:09:38.000 --> 1:09:39.640 party at the kind of level that I think it 1:09:39.720 --> 1:09:43.280 needs to be. We talk about opportunity, we talk in 1:09:43.560 --> 1:09:47.080 terms of community sometimes but not responsibility. It's you know, 1:09:47.120 --> 1:09:49.760 about service and civics and I mean all these, I 1:09:49.800 --> 1:09:52.880 mean it's really critical and back to you know, I 1:09:52.920 --> 1:09:55.920 don't know, there's uh, it's part of that three legged stool, 1:09:55.960 --> 1:09:58.439 and I think often we're talking two legs, not that 1:09:58.560 --> 1:09:59.680 third leg when and. 1:09:59.800 --> 1:10:03.120 All, so the responsibility and agency are related to each other, right, 1:10:03.240 --> 1:10:06.479 because there is this thing in our society where I 1:10:06.520 --> 1:10:09.439 think most most people are like, hey, this shouldn't be happening. 1:10:09.520 --> 1:10:12.639 This isn't good. I don't like this, this is wrong, 1:10:13.240 --> 1:10:16.559 and then everyone is waiting for somebodybody to do something 1:10:16.600 --> 1:10:16.840 about it. 1:10:16.960 --> 1:10:19.879 I mean, brand I said, in democracy, the most important 1:10:19.880 --> 1:10:24.560 office is office of citizen active, not inert citizenship. 1:10:24.800 --> 1:10:26.920 But you mentioned the Democratic Party. I think, even like 1:10:27.080 --> 1:10:29.680 your thing on redistricting, right, like everyone is like, hey, 1:10:29.760 --> 1:10:31.720 what they're doing in Texas, which is where I live, 1:10:32.080 --> 1:10:35.880 is wrong, it's it's regulousism whatever. And then like the 1:10:36.520 --> 1:10:41.000 typical Democratic Party response would be why do they stop 1:10:41.160 --> 1:10:41.560 doing that? 1:10:43.520 --> 1:10:46.720 Yeah, so shame on them, shame on them. Meanwhile, they're 1:10:46.720 --> 1:10:50.400 consolidating power. Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's hard though, right, 1:10:50.439 --> 1:10:52.000 because you don't you know what you know, when they 1:10:52.160 --> 1:10:54.600 I mean the Michelle rama, when they go low, we 1:10:54.680 --> 1:10:56.400 want to go high and we you know, we have 1:10:56.479 --> 1:11:00.160 a higher sense of self in that respect. But you 1:11:00.240 --> 1:11:03.720 know we'll lose this republic. Yeah, that's the way I feel, right, 1:11:03.800 --> 1:11:06.559 I mean, this is this is this is code read Yes, 1:11:06.680 --> 1:11:09.559 this is serious. And so this notion of having agency 1:11:09.920 --> 1:11:12.160 stands in the way becomes sorry, I'm going to keep 1:11:12.200 --> 1:11:15.160 coming back. You wrote the damn book. You know, you 1:11:15.320 --> 1:11:19.120 rewired my brain and uh and uh, this notion, I mean, 1:11:19.200 --> 1:11:22.719 it's it literally that became the foundation of the inspiration 1:11:22.880 --> 1:11:26.760 and the responsibility to be held to a higher level 1:11:26.800 --> 1:11:30.080 of accountability, particularly when you have this gift for me, 1:11:30.200 --> 1:11:32.519 it's a gift of public service. And to be in 1:11:32.600 --> 1:11:35.400 this position I don't want to dream of ready well. 1:11:35.320 --> 1:11:38.160 And because it also it could have not worked. It 1:11:38.240 --> 1:11:40.479 could have been it could have failed, it could have 1:11:40.520 --> 1:11:43.080 been embarrassing, it could have been the end of your 1:11:44.439 --> 1:11:46.439 and all the book. But there is this, there is 1:11:46.560 --> 1:11:49.519 this sort of sense of like, well, I got to 1:11:49.560 --> 1:11:53.920 keep my powder dry for the moment that there I 1:11:54.680 --> 1:11:57.640 there is this thing where people tell themselves, hey, like 1:11:57.920 --> 1:12:01.360 later i'll be more secure, yeah, or later that's when 1:12:01.400 --> 1:12:05.639 I'll do it. And the result is is nobody's doing anything. 1:12:05.960 --> 1:12:06.240 Thank you? 1:12:06.360 --> 1:12:06.960 What it feels like. 1:12:07.280 --> 1:12:09.559 I mean, come on, I mean what you you look, 1:12:09.640 --> 1:12:11.280 you write a lot about this, you talk a lot 1:12:11.320 --> 1:12:15.040 about this. It just it's the do yeah yeah, stop talking, 1:12:15.080 --> 1:12:17.640 stop thinking about, just start doing it. You got it? 1:12:17.680 --> 1:12:20.120 Its action, you know, And it's I mean this notion 1:12:20.400 --> 1:12:22.880 when I'm thirty then, or when i'm a millionaire then, 1:12:23.320 --> 1:12:24.800 or when I have that then I'll be you know, 1:12:24.880 --> 1:12:27.479 yeah or you know this notion even have to be 1:12:27.680 --> 1:12:29.519 something to do something that I have to be a 1:12:29.600 --> 1:12:32.439 city council or governor or mayor before I can meet 1:12:32.720 --> 1:12:35.719 move there. I don't think Gandhi waited around for elected office. 1:12:35.760 --> 1:12:39.559 I don't recall, seriously, was it President, King, doctor king? 1:12:40.200 --> 1:12:42.639 It wasn't all right, I mean, you know, even even 1:12:42.680 --> 1:12:45.799 the guys that served in office, like Hovel or even Mendela, 1:12:46.520 --> 1:12:49.080 I don't remember. You know, four years of Mendela's presidency 1:12:49.160 --> 1:12:52.040 were interesting. The new con I don't want to disregard it. 1:12:52.400 --> 1:12:54.280 But that's not why I think of Mendela. His peak 1:12:54.320 --> 1:12:56.840 of his power wasn't he is in jail. Yeah, and 1:12:57.240 --> 1:12:58.280 there's moral authority. 1:12:58.360 --> 1:13:02.760 And one of the things that you you missed too 1:13:03.000 --> 1:13:05.679 is like all the we're naming the name to guys 1:13:05.760 --> 1:13:07.960 we're named, and most of those were men, but you're 1:13:08.160 --> 1:13:11.519 you're naming mostly the people that we've heard of, as 1:13:11.600 --> 1:13:14.920 if they also weren't part of enormous organizations of a 1:13:14.960 --> 1:13:17.920 bunch of ordinary p bhoblos who were also participating. And 1:13:18.040 --> 1:13:21.360 so like it may it may fall on you to 1:13:21.479 --> 1:13:25.240 be one of those people, but uh, it may also 1:13:25.400 --> 1:13:28.080 just fall on like like Rosa Parks was a secretary 1:13:28.400 --> 1:13:32.960 at you know, the NAACP and and and eventually, yes, 1:13:33.080 --> 1:13:35.439 she also has her moment in the thing. But if 1:13:35.760 --> 1:13:37.559 if that had been the only thing she'd done, if 1:13:37.560 --> 1:13:41.000 she'd only been answering phones, there you've got that would 1:13:41.000 --> 1:13:44.360 have enabled whoever ultimately was the person who doesn't go 1:13:44.400 --> 1:13:45.360 to the back of the bus. 1:13:45.320 --> 1:13:47.320 Right And and of course you know she was an 1:13:47.320 --> 1:13:49.880 echo of Vita b. Wells and so many others that 1:13:50.080 --> 1:13:51.200 that that inspired. 1:13:51.240 --> 1:13:53.080 Along the way, there's this other book I should have 1:13:53.080 --> 1:13:56.080 brought you, do you know what the Highlander School was? No? Okay, 1:13:56.200 --> 1:13:59.600 So so again we think of Rosa Parks as like 1:13:59.720 --> 1:14:02.280 this lady that just gets tired one day and you know, 1:14:02.479 --> 1:14:05.439 sets in motion. There is this thing in Tennessee and 1:14:05.479 --> 1:14:07.640 the mountains of Tennessee called the Highlanders School, which is 1:14:07.720 --> 1:14:11.520 run by this this sort of folksy family of activists. 1:14:11.880 --> 1:14:15.080 And it was a school where they trained activists in 1:14:15.360 --> 1:14:22.240 nonviolence and political activism. And almost all the major figures 1:14:22.280 --> 1:14:27.280 of the civil rights movement, including John Lewis, including Rosa Parks, 1:14:27.800 --> 1:14:28.920 they all go to this school. 1:14:29.160 --> 1:14:31.600 And it's not only I didn't know about it. 1:14:32.960 --> 1:14:35.880 Not only do they they learn the things like they 1:14:35.920 --> 1:14:38.639 would practice, you know, having racial slurs shouted at them, 1:14:38.680 --> 1:14:40.600 and how how do you how do you roll on 1:14:40.640 --> 1:14:43.559 the ground and cover yourself as you're getting beaten? How 1:14:43.600 --> 1:14:45.439 do you you know, how do you talk to people? 1:14:45.960 --> 1:14:48.439 But it's also where like the relationships that they then 1:14:48.520 --> 1:14:51.320 took back all over the country. But it's like nobody 1:14:51.439 --> 1:14:53.560 knows the name of this school, or not enough people do. 1:14:53.920 --> 1:14:57.920 But those people they're coaching trees. I'm free, I'm right 1:14:57.960 --> 1:14:59.879 now forgetting the names of the founders of the Highlanders, 1:15:00.200 --> 1:15:03.439 except mclark was one of the graduates that their coaching 1:15:03.560 --> 1:15:06.320 tree leads to the civil rights movement, just as by 1:15:06.360 --> 1:15:09.160 the way Gandhi's coaching tree leads to the people that 1:15:09.320 --> 1:15:12.240 came back to found the Highlander School, and so again 1:15:12.320 --> 1:15:16.160 you're gonna you. One of the things that Stokes talk 1:15:16.240 --> 1:15:19.960 about is that like we're all assigned these like parts, 1:15:20.120 --> 1:15:22.760 these roles, and we don't know what it is. It 1:15:22.800 --> 1:15:24.120 could be a big one, it could be a little one. 1:15:24.439 --> 1:15:26.360 But your job is to just play the hell out 1:15:26.400 --> 1:15:33.000 of that role and you but chances are your role 1:15:33.160 --> 1:15:36.040 is not sit on the sidelines and complain about God. 1:15:36.240 --> 1:15:40.560 I can't take it. I mean, I just can't take it. 1:15:40.600 --> 1:15:43.599 I can't take the's and I don't mean to disregard 1:15:43.680 --> 1:15:46.519 people that really do feel like they're victims and have 1:15:47.680 --> 1:15:51.160 plenty of receipts to back that up. I can't take it. 1:15:51.880 --> 1:15:55.840 Do something. Seriously, it's exhausting. You know, I love what 1:15:55.920 --> 1:15:57.880 you're saying about. Just you know, we all have this role. 1:15:57.880 --> 1:16:00.280 I mean, it's it's the women, right, oh mell life. 1:16:00.360 --> 1:16:02.920 You know, the powerful play goes on and we almost 1:16:02.960 --> 1:16:06.040 contribute our verse. And this notion that we have to 1:16:06.160 --> 1:16:08.040 contribute our verse again back to agent was. 1:16:08.080 --> 1:16:10.800 Doing in the civil worries, volunteering in hospitals, taking care 1:16:10.800 --> 1:16:14.280 of soldiers, like there's always something you can do, yes, 1:16:14.520 --> 1:16:19.160 And and the problem is, I think that our political 1:16:19.240 --> 1:16:23.400 leaders are not are not willing to risk their political careers. 1:16:23.720 --> 1:16:26.400 Well, they had no problem in risking their political reputation 1:16:26.520 --> 1:16:29.840 by trying to get rid of Rosa Park's race in 1:16:29.960 --> 1:16:33.639 the social studies books, because it was woke, as if 1:16:33.800 --> 1:16:37.920 race said anything to do with her story. Uh. They 1:16:38.040 --> 1:16:40.240 finally were called out on that, by the way, as 1:16:40.439 --> 1:16:42.960 you were called out of the Naval Academy. 1:16:42.960 --> 1:16:46.960 Fun the hell was that it was? It was surreal. Yeah, 1:16:47.000 --> 1:16:47.439 I was gonna. 1:16:47.520 --> 1:16:49.960 I was with some of your great speeches and lectures. 1:16:50.160 --> 1:16:50.960 Thank you are there. 1:16:51.080 --> 1:16:52.800 And there was honor. It was the honor of my 1:16:52.880 --> 1:16:53.760 life to be able to. 1:16:53.760 --> 1:16:56.240 And the reception you get there is off the charts. 1:16:56.560 --> 1:16:57.639 But one of the few. 1:16:57.600 --> 1:16:59.640 Things that gives me hope about our society is if 1:16:59.680 --> 1:17:01.640 you spend any time with people who are in the 1:17:02.120 --> 1:17:04.400 armed services right now, it's it's less point. 1:17:04.560 --> 1:17:07.040 Guy. I was with a dozen of these kids. 1:17:07.400 --> 1:17:10.760 It blew me away, especially because like that was the 1:17:10.800 --> 1:17:13.760 opposite of who I was at seventeen, eighteen eighty twenty. 1:17:13.800 --> 1:17:16.880 You're just like, yeah, you just like you have it, 1:17:17.120 --> 1:17:19.200 you have it together at this level. It's incredible. 1:17:19.240 --> 1:17:19.559 And there. 1:17:19.880 --> 1:17:22.320 I mean they could they could be at Harvard, they 1:17:22.400 --> 1:17:24.559 could be working at some Wall Street firm, they could 1:17:24.600 --> 1:17:27.719 be anywhere other than what they're doing, and they're choosing 1:17:27.840 --> 1:17:30.640 to be there. And then you watch, even even as 1:17:30.920 --> 1:17:34.360 as they are being mismanaged, as they objectively are right now, 1:17:35.120 --> 1:17:37.639 just the what they are able to do, the problems 1:17:37.680 --> 1:17:44.800 they are able to solve, it's incredible. Anyways, Yeah, so 1:17:44.840 --> 1:17:46.120 I was supposed to give a talk at the the 1:17:46.200 --> 1:17:49.360 Naval Academy and I was canceled the last minute, right, yeah, 1:17:49.360 --> 1:17:50.960 about about an hour before I was supposed to go 1:17:51.040 --> 1:17:55.080 on because because I because I was going to make 1:17:55.160 --> 1:17:58.799 the political statement that I think removing books from the library, 1:17:58.920 --> 1:17:59.880 which they did idea. 1:18:00.320 --> 1:18:02.880 Yeah, you know, I think there was two years ago, 1:18:02.960 --> 1:18:06.000 four three and forty books, if I recall the exact 1:18:06.120 --> 1:18:08.920 number that were been in libraries or schools across this country. 1:18:08.960 --> 1:18:12.880 This banning bende rewriting history, censoring historical facts, as if 1:18:12.920 --> 1:18:14.839 that makes us stronger and wiser. 1:18:15.360 --> 1:18:17.519 Yeah, it's like, hey, this person is going to be uh, 1:18:18.600 --> 1:18:21.519 you know, in charge of nuclear weapons or flying a 1:18:21.600 --> 1:18:26.600 fighter jet. But maya Angelou's memoir is to. 1:18:28.160 --> 1:18:32.000 Handle. Yeah. Yeah, they can't handle it. Yeah, they're way 1:18:32.000 --> 1:18:35.280 too sensitive for that. Yeah, exactly. But you gave the 1:18:35.400 --> 1:18:36.360 lecture nonetheless. 1:18:36.600 --> 1:18:38.640 Yeah, get well, I gave it one to put this 1:18:38.640 --> 1:18:42.560 stuff into practice. You know, it's like, oh, actually, you 1:18:42.640 --> 1:18:44.920 know it's it's an It was an interesting insight into 1:18:44.960 --> 1:18:47.200 it too, because I remember talking to the person giving 1:18:47.320 --> 1:18:49.400 you know, the messenger who had to pass along that 1:18:49.520 --> 1:18:51.639 I was, you know, being, and who I really felt 1:18:51.640 --> 1:18:56.120 for because it's like, hey, this this dude has a pension. Anyways, 1:18:56.160 --> 1:18:58.920 I he goes, Look, we just don't want to we 1:18:59.040 --> 1:19:01.640 just don't want to draw any tention to ourselves, you know. 1:19:01.720 --> 1:19:04.840 And I said, I think I don't think that's how 1:19:04.920 --> 1:19:07.439 this works. I think I think canceling the lecture an 1:19:07.479 --> 1:19:08.960 hour before I'm supposed to go on is going to 1:19:09.120 --> 1:19:10.040 add a lot more here. 1:19:10.080 --> 1:19:12.280 There were a few dozen headlines. 1:19:11.840 --> 1:19:14.559 And yeah, and and so yeah, I gave I gave 1:19:14.600 --> 1:19:16.200 the talk online, and it was obviously seen by a 1:19:16.200 --> 1:19:18.400 lot more people than would have there. 1:19:18.640 --> 1:19:20.640 But and you had the audacity to talk about I 1:19:20.680 --> 1:19:25.200 don't know these uh, you know, these extreme progressive liberal 1:19:25.400 --> 1:19:29.160 woke you know, admirals like Stockdale. Yes, yes, yes, a 1:19:29.240 --> 1:19:30.120 move many others. 1:19:30.000 --> 1:19:35.120 By the way, A great California story there. He the 1:19:35.240 --> 1:19:39.280 Navy sends him to Stanford in nineteen sixty one and 1:19:39.360 --> 1:19:43.160 he gets an advanced degree and in and as part 1:19:43.200 --> 1:19:45.960 of his studies there, he's he he takes classes in 1:19:46.160 --> 1:19:51.439 comparative Marxism, I forgot it and then and then is 1:19:51.520 --> 1:19:55.519 introduced to to Epictetus and and it's those two things 1:19:56.120 --> 1:19:59.799 that allow him to survive the Pow experience. 1:19:59.800 --> 1:20:01.519 And it was like seven years or something. 1:20:01.600 --> 1:20:04.720 I was fascinated to my grandfriendrandfather just like what. 1:20:04.880 --> 1:20:07.200 Get what he didn't read Aupictitis. 1:20:07.600 --> 1:20:10.880 Well, you came back just when you are exposed to 1:20:11.000 --> 1:20:13.800 an experience that's designed to break you as a human being, 1:20:14.840 --> 1:20:17.880 and they strip you down and then just fling you 1:20:18.040 --> 1:20:20.880 back into the world like very few people could can 1:20:21.560 --> 1:20:24.120 can manage that. And the reason that Stockdale doesn't break 1:20:24.240 --> 1:20:28.080 is that he is introduced to these things at a 1:20:28.479 --> 1:20:33.400 woe liberal institution run by you know, California hippies. 1:20:34.640 --> 1:20:37.280 And uh and it's interesting and I want to go 1:20:37.400 --> 1:20:39.880 too far down the rabbit all with Stockdale. But this 1:20:40.040 --> 1:20:43.880 notion of optimism, it was not that, wasn't that wasn't 1:20:44.320 --> 1:20:48.800 his go to default, so it just remain optimistic. He 1:20:48.960 --> 1:20:53.840 just remained clear and confident with the end goal. The 1:20:53.960 --> 1:20:57.000 optimist didn't tend to do as well as well. 1:20:57.520 --> 1:21:00.160 The stoic version of optimism is not, oh, this is 1:21:00.280 --> 1:21:03.120 going to go amazingly, I'm going to get lucky breaks. 1:21:03.320 --> 1:21:06.720 The stoic version of optimism is I'm going to be 1:21:06.840 --> 1:21:11.040 better for this, however horrible it is. And ultimately his 1:21:11.240 --> 1:21:17.320 view was he was going to comport himself in such 1:21:17.320 --> 1:21:20.160 a way that if he survived, he would not just 1:21:20.280 --> 1:21:22.920 be proud of how he acted. That's the idea of 1:21:23.000 --> 1:21:25.960 returning with honor, which they now teach all POWs, but 1:21:26.680 --> 1:21:28.680 that he was going to turn it into something. He 1:21:28.760 --> 1:21:31.040 said that in retrospect he would not trade away. And 1:21:31.120 --> 1:21:33.639 I think that's how we have to see this moment. Like, look, 1:21:33.680 --> 1:21:35.680 I would love to have a normal president. I'd love 1:21:35.720 --> 1:21:38.479 to have normal politics. I'd love to have not lived 1:21:38.520 --> 1:21:42.080 through a pandemic. I would love all the If you 1:21:42.200 --> 1:21:44.080 had had given me my choice of how I would 1:21:44.120 --> 1:21:46.600 like the last ten years to go, I would have 1:21:46.600 --> 1:21:49.640 picked very differently. But the number one you don't get 1:21:49.680 --> 1:21:53.280 a choice. Number two, you think you know how you 1:21:53.360 --> 1:21:56.679 want it to go, but you actually don't. And three, 1:21:56.840 --> 1:21:59.840 the only thing you have to say over is how 1:22:00.240 --> 1:22:03.439 do you look back and go that was my moment, 1:22:03.640 --> 1:22:06.200 that was a thing that I rose up to meet, 1:22:06.400 --> 1:22:08.280 and that's going to be different for all of us. 1:22:08.400 --> 1:22:10.800 But that's to me, what the stoic is trying to 1:22:10.840 --> 1:22:12.680 say is that, Hey, I want to be able to 1:22:12.720 --> 1:22:16.680 look back on this period and say I was what 1:22:16.840 --> 1:22:20.800 I was capable of being, and that I grew and 1:22:21.000 --> 1:22:24.760 was changed by that experience for the better. That that 1:22:25.120 --> 1:22:29.200 is to me actually profoundly optimistic and hopeful thing to say. 1:22:29.840 --> 1:22:32.800 It's also realistic what. 1:22:33.240 --> 1:22:36.559 I mean, you look back at stoicism and anything they 1:22:36.840 --> 1:22:38.640 from your perspective got wrong. 1:22:39.520 --> 1:22:42.519 Well like basically everyone for the last two thousand years. 1:22:42.520 --> 1:22:43.880 They get the whole slavery thing wrong. 1:22:44.200 --> 1:22:46.639 There was a little that I mean, Marcus, realist slavery. 1:22:47.040 --> 1:22:49.400 You know, you had Seneca working for a guy named 1:22:49.640 --> 1:22:51.040 you know, good loss named Narrow. 1:22:51.240 --> 1:22:54.200 Yes, so wealthy guy. There's the kind of just basic, 1:22:54.560 --> 1:22:57.479 you know, personal decisions, and you can't study history and 1:22:57.600 --> 1:23:03.479 not go, hey, this person was flawed and made mistakes. 1:23:03.520 --> 1:23:06.559 We're all products of our time, so that there's certainly 1:23:06.560 --> 1:23:10.519 a lot of things like that. How about in their teachings, Well, look, 1:23:10.520 --> 1:23:14.360 they believed, I think, much more in predetermination and predestination 1:23:14.520 --> 1:23:25.080 than we do. They they they had obviously to go 1:23:25.200 --> 1:23:28.640 to the idea of agency, right like they were all 1:23:28.720 --> 1:23:31.120 these things that they thought couldn't be changed, that they 1:23:31.360 --> 1:23:33.600 that they thought was just a fact of life. And 1:23:33.760 --> 1:23:36.120 in a way this explains the political stuff, right like 1:23:36.600 --> 1:23:40.759 even epictetis the Slave doesn't question the institution of slavery. 1:23:41.479 --> 1:23:45.439 And so, you know, when you look back at history, 1:23:46.280 --> 1:23:50.360 you can't help but be grateful to the sort of revolutionary, radical, 1:23:50.520 --> 1:23:53.800 progressive people who imagined that the world could be something 1:23:53.880 --> 1:23:58.200 different than it currently is. And if there's anything that 1:23:58.520 --> 1:24:02.479 the Stokes get wrong, it's just that they were resigned 1:24:02.720 --> 1:24:06.000 to the world being the way that it had always been. 1:24:06.680 --> 1:24:13.320 And we are lucky that Gandhi was like, hey, what 1:24:13.400 --> 1:24:15.679 if there's a way to solve problems that doesn't involve 1:24:16.240 --> 1:24:22.320 terrorism or insurrection or overthrowing a government, you know, and 1:24:22.680 --> 1:24:26.600 Martin Luther King picks that up from him, and the 1:24:28.560 --> 1:24:31.920 gay rights activists pick that up from them, and you know, 1:24:32.360 --> 1:24:37.400 we're obviously lucky that all these different innovations happened where 1:24:37.400 --> 1:24:39.720 people were like, you know, we're in the debt of 1:24:40.080 --> 1:24:45.280 Thomas Clarkson, who in the seventeen hundreds writes an essay 1:24:45.320 --> 1:24:50.439 at Oxford about whether people should own slaves or not 1:24:51.160 --> 1:24:54.479 and then says, well, what if I'm right and they shouldn't, 1:24:55.200 --> 1:24:58.160 and then maybe someone should do something about it, And 1:24:58.240 --> 1:25:00.640 then he says, maybe that person could be me. And 1:25:00.760 --> 1:25:03.080 that's where the abolitionist movement comes from. And you know, 1:25:03.160 --> 1:25:06.040 you go back, back and back and back. We are 1:25:06.840 --> 1:25:10.720 the beneficiaries of the people who imagined the world being 1:25:10.800 --> 1:25:16.000 better than it is, and stoicism cannot simply be a 1:25:16.240 --> 1:25:18.080 tool for accepting the status quo. 1:25:19.479 --> 1:25:23.400 You just finished the book on wisdom. You talk about 1:25:23.439 --> 1:25:28.880 these cardinal virtues, you end on wisdom. You don't begin 1:25:29.240 --> 1:25:31.280 with wisdom, even though you said none of the other 1:25:31.360 --> 1:25:34.320 virtues are possible without yeah, wisdom, So why the hell 1:25:34.400 --> 1:25:35.880 do you end the. 1:25:35.960 --> 1:25:38.880 Series the hardest I say the hardest one for last. 1:25:38.920 --> 1:25:41.519 I felt weird starting with wisdom, just aving a practical 1:25:42.040 --> 1:25:48.439 writing standpoint, But I don't know, I felt like the 1:25:48.520 --> 1:25:53.320 last alphabetically it's last. Now there's no good reason they're 1:25:53.360 --> 1:26:00.799 all that. Zeno said that the cardinal virtues, courage, discipline, tempera, courage, discipline, justice, wisdom. 1:26:01.120 --> 1:26:04.360 They were independent yet inseparable from each other. Yeah, and 1:26:04.840 --> 1:26:07.720 and it really doesn't matter what order you think about them, 1:26:07.800 --> 1:26:10.679 whatever you read about them, whatever you write them about them. 1:26:10.840 --> 1:26:11.400 They all. 1:26:13.040 --> 1:26:15.040 You can't have one without the other. I mean, courage 1:26:15.080 --> 1:26:21.320 in pursuit of injustice is no impressive thing. And then 1:26:21.640 --> 1:26:23.920 you know, how do you know what the right thing 1:26:24.080 --> 1:26:28.720 is without wisdom? You know, how do you how do 1:26:28.800 --> 1:26:32.160 you bring good into the world without savvy incompetence. I 1:26:32.200 --> 1:26:33.960 think that's one of our big problems right now, is 1:26:34.080 --> 1:26:39.920 like we just think that being right is sufficient. Yeah, 1:26:41.160 --> 1:26:42.720 you know, you have to have you have to be 1:26:42.880 --> 1:26:45.519 a savvy political operator. You have to be a savy 1:26:45.560 --> 1:26:49.280 business like just because you you're in the broad strokes, correct, 1:26:50.080 --> 1:26:51.080 I don't get you. 1:26:51.520 --> 1:26:55.040 What, So what are you working on next? 1:26:55.360 --> 1:26:56.799 I'm doing a biography of Stockdale? 1:26:57.160 --> 1:27:00.280 Oh good, okay, yeah, there you go. Yeah. I mean 1:27:00.800 --> 1:27:03.679 you talk about him enough. He's one of my time 1:27:03.760 --> 1:27:06.360 you and he's you know, and and forgive me because 1:27:06.400 --> 1:27:10.120 it's just it's impossible to talk about Stockdale except he's 1:27:10.560 --> 1:27:13.240 better known. And this is why you need to write 1:27:13.280 --> 1:27:15.439 the book, Yeah, because he deserves not to be better 1:27:16.400 --> 1:27:20.840 for one simple line and a vice presidential debate, What sir, 1:27:21.040 --> 1:27:21.599 was that line? 1:27:21.920 --> 1:27:23.040 Who am I? Why am I here? 1:27:24.040 --> 1:27:26.440 Which as a stoic. 1:27:27.040 --> 1:27:28.920 Philosophically, it's actually line. 1:27:30.479 --> 1:27:32.879 For debate prep. You may want to use different language. 1:27:33.040 --> 1:27:36.080 Yes, yeah, the family. I'll save it for writing. But 1:27:36.120 --> 1:27:38.120 apparently it's a big story as to how he found 1:27:38.200 --> 1:27:39.680 himself on that stage. 1:27:40.920 --> 1:27:46.519 And ros Pro's but but uh. 1:27:47.479 --> 1:27:51.240 Dennis Miller has a great bit about Stockdale where he says, 1:27:51.280 --> 1:27:53.720 you know, this was the first guy in last guy 1:27:53.800 --> 1:27:58.760 out of Vietnam hero like seven years right, prisoner serves honorably. 1:27:59.280 --> 1:28:00.880 When's the medal of or does all this? And he 1:28:00.920 --> 1:28:04.559 says he he committed the one unpardonable sin in our society. 1:28:05.080 --> 1:28:06.720 Do you know what it is? What I mean, it's 1:28:07.160 --> 1:28:08.280 he was bad on television? 1:28:08.320 --> 1:28:11.000 He was on TV. There you go. It's pathetic. What's 1:28:11.000 --> 1:28:14.519 happened to us? Huh? Yeah, sincerely, this is rather pathetic. 1:28:14.960 --> 1:28:21.000 Yeah, you imagine that incredibly as as a as a charismatic, 1:28:21.080 --> 1:28:24.880 good looking man, he's there there, there, there are I 1:28:25.000 --> 1:28:28.400 imagine there are many many more qualified people. But I 1:28:28.479 --> 1:28:31.880 could not just can't cut it politically because they different, 1:28:31.920 --> 1:28:35.400 they look bad or in a speech that that, you know, 1:28:37.479 --> 1:28:40.479 eighty years ago you only would have been heard about 1:28:40.520 --> 1:28:44.240 from a newspaper column, and they could have I could 1:28:44.280 --> 1:28:46.759 taft to be president now, good question. 1:28:46.760 --> 1:28:50.040 Right, Yeah, not on the basis of what he's been described. 1:28:50.479 --> 1:28:52.560 And I mean even FDR has to hide that he 1:28:52.680 --> 1:28:54.160 has a reponsibility. 1:28:54.240 --> 1:28:56.960 I mean, even Kennedy is there's a reason the rocking chair. 1:28:57.040 --> 1:28:58.640 I mean, you know, and he was you know, and 1:28:58.800 --> 1:29:02.120 he was plenty of you know, external things that were 1:29:02.160 --> 1:29:05.320 injected to get them through the day. I mean yeah, yeah, 1:29:05.479 --> 1:29:07.639 in Instagram twenty four to seven. 1:29:07.960 --> 1:29:10.760 Yeah, probably would not have not have made it. 1:29:10.840 --> 1:29:11.240 I don't know. 1:29:11.720 --> 1:29:11.920 Yeah. 1:29:12.000 --> 1:29:14.400 Well, and of course the infamous there, I mean the 1:29:14.640 --> 1:29:15.880 first TV president. 1:29:15.800 --> 1:29:19.000 Yes, yeah, then Nixon, the Nixon candibs. 1:29:18.680 --> 1:29:25.000 Yeah, Radio Nixon crushes them TV Kennedy. Yeah, no, Look, 1:29:25.080 --> 1:29:27.160 I appreciate it. I'm glad you. So it's good for 1:29:27.200 --> 1:29:29.280 you on this Starckdale thing. So what is I mean 1:29:29.640 --> 1:29:32.080 you got every morning? If you haven't got, by the way, 1:29:32.120 --> 1:29:37.400 everyone listening watching needs to subscribe to the damn Morning Email, 1:29:38.720 --> 1:29:41.120 which is next level. And what I love about it too, 1:29:41.200 --> 1:29:43.760 it's you know, repetitions and other skill too. What I 1:29:43.960 --> 1:29:46.240 like is it's not one and done. You'll come back 1:29:46.360 --> 1:29:49.519 to old themes. Yeah, and I'll see that as a critique. No, 1:29:49.640 --> 1:29:51.639 but it's but it's important, right, So it's just it's 1:29:51.800 --> 1:29:54.800 reps and you know you're sort of and so it's 1:29:54.920 --> 1:29:58.439 it's remarkably and it's a quick read every morning, way 1:29:58.520 --> 1:30:01.439 to wake up, uh, sort of recalibrate your brain. And 1:30:01.520 --> 1:30:04.080 it's contemporary. You put things. I love it. If you're 1:30:04.120 --> 1:30:06.439 feeling all these things, you're like, yes and yes. So 1:30:06.640 --> 1:30:09.320 clearly someone whoever's writing those things you were, what do 1:30:09.360 --> 1:30:14.120 you mean whatever? It's uh, it's uh, uh, it's it's 1:30:14.640 --> 1:30:17.559 it's I mean, it's free. What more can I say? 1:30:17.640 --> 1:30:22.439 But it's uh, it's it's profoundly impactful and and something 1:30:22.479 --> 1:30:25.680 everyone should sign up for. You've got you did what 1:30:25.800 --> 1:30:28.519 I did again? Your damn January? Oh you did? 1:30:28.920 --> 1:30:29.120 Yeah? 1:30:29.360 --> 1:30:32.400 I sat there in Lake Tahoe and you know, one 1:30:32.520 --> 1:30:37.200 degrees jumping in the damn river with icicles. By the way, 1:30:37.600 --> 1:30:39.840 it should have gone on my Instagram. But I didn't 1:30:39.840 --> 1:30:41.840 look pretty. I need to get a little better shape. 1:30:42.000 --> 1:30:43.720 I didn't look good without the shirt on. Plus I 1:30:43.720 --> 1:30:46.400 had underwear. So it's another conversation. So I was out 1:30:46.439 --> 1:30:49.120 there and you know, it was day one the polar plunge. 1:30:49.160 --> 1:30:50.760 Well then I get I had to burn away mind, tent, 1:30:50.880 --> 1:30:53.800 whatever the other things. Yes, but you're doing that. You 1:30:53.920 --> 1:30:55.760 got twenty six for twenty six, you had the thing, 1:30:55.800 --> 1:30:57.560 You've got all the stuff on YouTube, got all the 1:30:57.920 --> 1:31:01.360 I mean, come on, man, this is crazy. What's you know? 1:31:01.920 --> 1:31:01.960 What? 1:31:02.200 --> 1:31:04.920 When's enough enough? Are you? Are you a stoic? 1:31:05.120 --> 1:31:07.840 Is this this is what I like to do? I'd 1:31:07.880 --> 1:31:09.200 be doing it, and this is what I do. 1:31:10.040 --> 1:31:13.920 This is what I do. Uh, well, it's uh. I 1:31:14.040 --> 1:31:18.439 appreciate you coming back home, of course, coming back to California. Yeah, 1:31:19.160 --> 1:31:22.960 off your ranch in Texas which ain't so bad. Uh, 1:31:23.200 --> 1:31:25.400 and your credible kids. And I'm going to close on 1:31:25.520 --> 1:31:30.439 this the best thing you do as a father of four, 1:31:31.240 --> 1:31:37.160 the daily dead and dispensing advice as a father. Yeah, 1:31:37.680 --> 1:31:39.240 thank you. What was the inspiration of that? 1:31:39.400 --> 1:31:43.000 Besides I on my life was made better by writing 1:31:43.040 --> 1:31:45.760 about stoicism every day, the forced practice of having to 1:31:45.880 --> 1:31:49.200 do the meditation. And so when I when I when 1:31:49.240 --> 1:31:50.560 we had our first I was like, you know what 1:31:50.600 --> 1:31:52.719 I'll do a parent, I'll take the best parenting advice, 1:31:52.840 --> 1:31:56.400 not not my advice. I don't know shit, but like, 1:31:56.479 --> 1:31:59.800 what are the best smartest people, the wisest people say 1:32:00.040 --> 1:32:02.080 out this and all riff on it each morning, and 1:32:02.120 --> 1:32:06.000 so the daily Dad has almost eight years old, now 1:32:06.960 --> 1:32:10.400 nine years old, and it's it's made me a better 1:32:10.439 --> 1:32:13.280 parent because I'm I'm writing about this. I'm like, you know, 1:32:13.400 --> 1:32:16.800 when your kids are having trouble, you know, getting out 1:32:16.840 --> 1:32:18.080 of bed in the morning and you want to get 1:32:18.080 --> 1:32:20.760 you know, I'm not saying that I didn't just yell 1:32:20.840 --> 1:32:23.200 at my kids for not getting in the car in time. 1:32:23.240 --> 1:32:26.920 I'm saying I'm writing having just done that, trying to 1:32:27.280 --> 1:32:31.080 not do it tomorrow. You know, it's it's a you're 1:32:31.200 --> 1:32:34.160 constantly you know how you're you know what you know 1:32:34.240 --> 1:32:35.800 the parent you want to be and you're never being 1:32:35.880 --> 1:32:38.840 that parent. But so it helps to remind yourself over 1:32:38.880 --> 1:32:40.840 and over and over again, not of we're falling, sure, 1:32:40.840 --> 1:32:43.120 but what the ideal that you're aspiring towards. 1:32:43.400 --> 1:32:45.519 Love it and that's what that is the most important 1:32:45.600 --> 1:32:48.320 job right great to be with you, Thank you very much.