Going Deep with Chad and JT - Ep. 99 - Author Ryan Holiday Joins

Episode Date: October 28, 2019

What up stokers, in this episode we get into a deep discush with author, Ryan Holiday, to discuss his new book, Stillness is the Key. We discuss the ego, his path to becoming an author, and the benefits of finding stillness. Check out Ryan's book here.

all right butter me up put me in the oven and happy thanksgiving this is chad kroger coming in with the going deep and chad jt podcast uh i'm here with my compadre john thomas what up boom clap stokers and uh we are here with Ryan Holiday best-selling author uh author of stillness is the key JT and I both read it fully and we were stoked on it um I still have a couple pages to go but I loved it yeah yeah it was like a much needed shot of wisdom yeah it really sort of came at a uh essential time because i was it was a time when like i was letting a lot of ego come into my life and this sort of reminded me to sort of um remind myself of what's important in terms of like relationships and gratitude and all that

kind of stuff yeah i mean i sort of say in the book like there's the ego is the opposite of stillness right because as much as people think it's confidence it's actually sort of like deep insecurity and anxiety all the time yeah um you're sort of going around comparing yourself to other people you're going around thinking everyone's talking about you and of course they're not uh and so yeah i mean i think i think uh you know we live in a time that obviously sort of encourages ego clearly from social media and everything so that's that's very cool to hear yeah it's kind of uh because we sort of live in the social media world that's kind of part of our job so and as we've sort of climbed higher i guess it's

it's so you talk about in the book it is sort of you let your possessions own you. Yeah. In the sense. So as, as you gain more traction, I think that fear of losing everything just compounds even more. Yeah. Or you,

even if they're not physical possessions, you're very concerned with how many followers you have or how many likes your most recent photo got. Yeah. Um, like I see this because i have two young kids and i see my friends it's so obvious that like they were feeling shitty about themselves and they thought like oh if i post a photo of my kid this morning i'll get a lot of likes and then

i'll know that i'm worth something you know what i mean which feels very gross to me but there's this just sort of endless it's like what social media has revealed if anything is that we are absolutely insatiable uh when it comes to validation that we haven't well there is no amount that's too much yeah yeah i agree with that yeah like you know when you pull up someone's like instagram story and it's like just like hundreds of the dashes yeah yeah you're like oh man you were not feeling good today were you well that's often us yeah we both do a lot of stories yeah no no there's a difference between like hey you posted seven photos today and like hey you posted 60 photos today yeah you did not

experience a single thing where you were just like oh that was cool it was like i experienced this and i need other people to know that i experienced it right and then i need to check to see how many views to see that people like what i experienced yes and that i'm winning this fake game yeah it's almost uh and this book sort of reminded me to get back to the core of why you do whatever you do, which is for the sake of doing it. Of course. Because we do comedy and stuff, and doing it for the sake of comedy, and sort of the key is to have fun and enjoy the process

and not sort of be so result-oriented. Yeah, yeah, of course. I mean, that's what I love about comedy is like that even the biggest acts in the world are going on in front of like 60 people or 13 people because like it's about it is about the process and it's about reps um writing is like books it's a little different because you do them so even someone like me has done a large number, still haven't done that many. And so you can sort of start to think that it's all about publishing,

when really it's about writing, you know? And so, yeah, people just get very concerned with the external results. And the problem with the external results is that sometimes you control them, but a lot of times you don't. Like, this book came out last week and so on the wednesday like so basically it's like you sell however many copies you're going to sell and then so the the week i think the sales run from like the day it comes so it'd be

like sunday to saturday like that's your that's one week of sales um but then you don't find out till like about the following wednesday like where you fall on the list like the bestseller list um and it's not an objective thing by any means right so you're sort of like just sitting there going am i gonna let this news that's art like then it's either gonna happen or something or are you gonna let the fact that it's like okay it finished on sunday and it's like i did a great job like i accomplished everything i wanted to accomplish but then like the news from this third party on wednesday it's gonna tell me whether it was good or like that but that's what people do right you take you you enjoy it like you think hey i'm really great and then you see somebody

else has 10 more and you're like actually no now i suck you know like that's that's the problem with it all yeah compare and despair yeah or uh comparison is the thief of joy right which is an expression i love and then so it's the new york times bestseller list this is new york times there's basically three national lists uh so like when you see a book that's a says like national bestseller that means that it either made the new york times list the wall street journalist or the usa today list right but even those three lists have radically different criteria and you and you're just total bullshit and trust me i'm lying you said that like if they have like an issue with you, they won't put you on the list,

even if your book does the sales numbers, right? I've hit the Wall Street Journal list 20 times. I've hit the USA Today list with all the books, but never the New York Times list with any of the books. So it's just, you can't let an... Think about how many great actors have never won an Oscar or an Academy Award. And so is that what we're going to determine? If you decide that, literally, the Academy decides whether you're a great actor or not,

or not you've now like handed over the the you've handed over your career to a a body that's not yourself so what metrics do you use to kind of evaluate in my own career yeah well i mean the first is like did i did i write what i think like did i say what i wanted to say like did i get there right um because there are plenty of ways that you could compromise during the process or phone in the work or you know like feel like you you you know hit publish before you got where you wanted to go because you needed the money or you were tired or whatever so so like one is like did i does the does the, does the book say what I want it to say? And the second is like, did I do my absolute best? Like, did I get, did I, did I leave anything on the table? Right. And then the third is usually um to the people that i know and admire so not like a lot not like hey do the critics like it but more like does a small group of people that i sort of let see the projects early like did

did it do something for them right um and then who are those people um just like friends and uh that i've sort of picked up over the years through the books like so some are in sports some are in business some are other authors but it's it's like did did people who really know what a good so like i guess what i'm saying is like let's say the book came out and it was like ahead of its say it's ahead of its time or some radical experiment I was doing and it sold zero copies. But like the 10 or 15 people who I sort of consider to be peers were like, no,

you like, you did it, you know, like people aren't going to get it, but you did it. That would, that would be, so I don't totally control that,

but I do, I do feel like I control it does that make sense yeah and i think that's one of the coolest parts about uh getting notoriety for what you do is is not actually like the stuff you get but the access you get to people yes and like the and then like like even with our stuff now certain comedians will ask me for my opinion on something and it's like the best feeling in the world they're like right i'm gonna shoot this thing like what do you think i should do i'm like yeah like i want to talk to you about that yeah yeah yeah it's like the best feeling in the world they're like right i'm gonna shoot this thing like what do you think i should do i'm like yeah like i want to talk to you about that yeah yeah yeah it's like you got into the club that you suspected existed when you were just a fan

you know um totally that's that's like the best feeling and so obviously there's some scenario in which like i could know i did something great but like even those people didn't get it but like to me they're a pretty good proxy for like you know you can't really totally be objective about your own work and so you kind of want that the reason they're asking you is the same reason that i'm asking the people in my space is like you want to just make sure you're not just like way out too far over your skis yeah yeah yeah and if you're making a lot of stuff you're going to be wrong off some of your stuff's going to suck yeah like a yawn winner from rolling stone used to just do blow in the office and then

just start throwing out ideas yeah and all the writers were like yeah nine out of ten ideas were the worst thing you ever heard literally would have like one of them was great brought the whole place down and then one of them was just the most genius sure sure yeah no no so so like those and then and then sort of the fourth one uh like sales matter to me but as much lower on the criteria so i guess the point is like it's hard it's hard to fake sell like moving units like did the fans buy it because like it did something for them that obviously matters to me much more than you know winning some award or whatever do you ever find yourself falling victim to the external results and then what are some ways that you pull yourself out of that trap yeah of course i mean you

you are i mean one of the one of the so I was in this sort of author group on Facebook. It was like, and it was great. People were sharing all sorts of like information. But I found that the information instead of making me better was making me more sort of status obsessed is the wrong word. word but it was like i was i was if i didn't know other people's deals or other people's sales figures it wasn't something that was like i was i cared about do you know what i mean but knowing like oh so and so just got x now all of a sudden that was changing my opinion on what i got and i just found that like wasn't health that wasn't like that wasn't moving the ball forward in some way. It was only making me not feel good.

So yeah, you can get concerned with what other people are selling. Mark Maron talks about this. He'll be like, how did they get that? You see someone get something and you're like, oh, he must have cheated. But it's something he would never even want to do. Yeah, he would never want to just like oh he must have like but it's something he would never even want to yeah you never want to do right yeah um or or uh you you very well could do it you just like refuse to do whatever is required to get that thing

you're just like jealous of the other person's result do you know what i mean um so yeah yeah you can get caught but so one of the reasons i quit i like i just i changed the password on my facebook account in like january is that i found that i was consuming information that was only contributing to professional unhappiness um and i'd much rather just be sort of down focused on what i'm supposed to be doing it seems like you're always like checking yourself for like the like ego stuff that's popping up yeah yeah well it's a process like i think people go it's like oh i don't have an ego it's like no everyone has an ego and it's all it's always going to be manifesting itself differently in different phases in your life you cut off one tentacle and another one's gonna like it's like addiction like people will quit

drinking and then all of a sudden like they start gambling they start gambling or yeah they start shopping online a lot like the the energy has to go somewhere so it's like a constant process of like okay it's manifesting itself this way or that way like for me as i as i um sort of close different what i find is that i that I'll replace it with just doing stuff. So it's like as long as I'm busy, so maybe I'm not comparing myself against other people, but it's just manifesting itself and I'm just doing, doing, doing, so I'm never stopping. Do you have a morning routine to sort of clear your mind yeah yeah um so this morning uh i've i've different not only i have different routines or have morning

routines but i have like different routines depending on sort of like where i am and what i'm doing so um like i'm in la today we're at the athletic club and so this morning I got up early, I went swimming, and then I wrote in my journals, then I had breakfast, I read while I had breakfast, and then if I wasn't doing this, if somehow I didn't have something to do until the afternoon or if I was at my house, I would have just gone right into the writing process. So, so it's, it's sort of like, I'm trying to get into whatever the day is as soon as possible. Um, and I'm trying to use the phone or devices as little as possible. Yeah. I loved what you said in the book about routines and, and sort of, uh, cultivating this sort of a little bit of a regimented schedule. Yeah. So that it helps you achieve sort of peace of mind, especially when you talk about sprints. Yeah.

Because I love doing sprints. Yeah. And so when you mentioned sprints, how that sort of you get into a meditative state, I was like, I totally, that's sort of, I mean, I love the physical benefits, but mostly it's just a feeling I get where it's sort of to get my mind right. What's your sprinting routine? What do you like to do? I do 20 minutes. First 10 minutes, 45 seconds on, 45 seconds off. And then after 10 minutes, I go a minute on, a minute off. And then I do four miles per hour and then 11.8.

Like you do this on a treadmill treadmill okay yeah at crunch nice it's a good gym it's a good gym yeah a lot of solid dudes there um and ladies um and uh yeah so or actually sometimes if we do something big you know like we do like we do like city council meetings for our stuff i'll do sprints after or like if we get wind down the energy yeah or if we do get like a viral video yeah like we on barstool for example i'll have so much pent-up energy that i just go straight to the gym and just run it out i did see one of your city council meetings and it gave me like ptsd flashbacks so one of the worst experiences of my life so i was working at american apparel

uh the factories was right down the street from here actually i had sort of just started it was like a sort of chaotic dysfunctional company where you know like different people had the power to do also like sort of depending on your relationship with the founder and this this like several years previous this like girl had gone to san francisco just signed a bunch of, all over the state, just signed a bunch of leases. Like she had the power to sign leases to open new stores, but she didn't really know what she was doing. And so she signed a lease for a store in San Francisco in the Mission District. This was like in, I think she signed it in let's say 2006. And then so it happened in 2007.

And San Francisco was not, you know, the San Francisco of today. It was sort of much quirkier and weirder. And so she'd signed a lease in the Mission District, and the rule was if you had more than 10 locations, you had to get this, like, sort of special city council approval to open it was like a way to prevent like a walmart from just like opening in the middle of town

and so american apparel had way more than 10 stores and so people got really mad uh that like that we hadn't like followed the process right and so this like huge protest erupted that like we were going to open this store in the Mission District. And like there was like there was these protests and like people were defacing the store. And anyways, somebody called me. I just started. And they were like, Ryan, you have to go fix this. And there was a city council meeting.

And they sent me to San Francisco. So you can imagine a regular city council meeting in a normal city, and then a city council meeting in San Francisco. And they sent me, and they told me I would have 10 minutes to talk. And I got up there, and they told me I had two minutes as I was starting, so I could basically get through like 20% of my remarks. And so I talked, and then they then they're like okay you sit down now and then i had to sit there as i think they allowed 200 people to speak and 200 people

one right after another went up and just yelled at me for five hours and like i saw a photo like i saw a photo of it recently like it like shows up in google images and i'm wearing a gray shirt i'm like literally just like the whole side is gray because i because like you can imagine like it's just crazy people who want to yell basically right but like very rarely is like the person responsible for the thing there and so like i was there as like the face of the company like this one guy got up and he was like um you know american apparel paid me to be here today he basically did what you do he was like american apparel paid me today but i've decided i'm not like they paid me to be a shill

but he's like but i'm not gonna do it i'm gonna come clean and he like did this performance art where he pretended to be like a paid spy that was like revealing wait but that wasn't true no it's total it was just a crazy person wow but was it believable yeah i mean it was insane just imagine just all of this for like several hours so it was just uh one of the weirdest it was like an episode of parks and recreation but it was my real life did you guys end up winning no of course no it's horrible what was the name what was the name of the guy who ran that that company american apparel dove charney right yeah so was that like a company that was like totally built around just like the size of his personality yeah a little bit yeah definitely

yeah because it felt like it rose like so yeah uh quickly and then it kind of had like a big like yeah crash too uh yeah i mean it doesn't exist anymore right okay yeah yeah and he worked himself into the ground right yeah yeah yeah yeah i talk about him in the book a little bit yeah how he sort of uh he would like conduct he had to like call employees until he could fall asleep, right? Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah, he would do that. I mean, so his thing was he had an open-door policy. So it was like anyone could call him at any time. But he had 12,000 employees in 20 countries,

which meant someone was always calling. And I think the sleep deprivation actually did get to him. And I think he cracked under the pressure a little bit i mean there was at one point you know where la mirada is um we like opened this transfer this sort of like distribution facility there and like it was like it was one of those things where there was supposed to be kind of a slow transition you know like basically when you transfer warehouses you set up two parallel warehouses and then you turn one off and switch to the other you don't go like you know you don't just like move it all over there at the same because like the whole thing would explode

basically and so it was like let's say they had like a three-month transition plan he was like i want to transfer you know by the end of the week or something like that which it was like a bad idea and so and i'm not remembering the details so if people involved here this will probably get I want it transferred by the end of the week or something like that, which it was like a bad idea. And I'm not remembering the details, so if people involved hear this, they'll probably get upset with me. But basically, let's say he rushes the transfer and then the wheels start to come off.

So it's totally his fault, but then he sort of heroically sweeps in to solve a problem that he created. And so he gets there and it's like you know pandemonium so he takes one of the offices in the building and he installs a shower and a bed and he moves in and he sleeps there for like six months but because he's sleeping on the floor of a warehouse working 24 7 instead of making it better it's like he's sort of descending into madness basically uh and uh yeah it was it was insane eventually like somebody called his mom and his mom came

and like quietly like took him home and he recuperated would you say anything to him would you be like dude i don't know if this is like sustainable yeah of course i mean it's like you know like earlier this year i guess it was last year like elon musk sort of was seemed to be in this like crazy downward spiral yeah you can imagine a lot of people like elon musk like or they're like donald trump like just don't tweet anything like everything will be cool just like don't do this right and he's like you can't stop that's sort of like or kanye west they're like don't go see donald trump right but i have to you just get you just get in a sort of a manic cycle and you can't get out they think they like can't live without that behavior but it's just like a false truth that they're telling themselves

yeah yeah you're just well it's like people can't tell you no you can't tell yourself no you can't relinquish like power control and then it's like so imagine like so you cause this problem and then you move into the factory you're not sleeping you're angry at these people when it's actually your fault and so like it just becomes like it becomes a vicious cycle like you you made this mistake now you're not sleeping so now you're exhausted you feel like you're the heroic like savior of it when really you're actually the problem if you just like went back to your house and slept it would probably fix itself over like a couple weeks but you're there like just imagine if you were like working at a company your boss was sleeping on the floor in like the next room like it would be

insane i love what you said in the book about like how just being patient with problems like not feeling like you have to fix every problem in that moment and then most of them will like correct themselves if you can just like detach from the intensity of it a little bit yeah yeah we're just like uh you know it's like somebody sends you a nasty email it's like what if you can just like detach from the intensity of it a little bit yeah yeah we're just like uh you know it's like somebody sends you a nasty email it's like what if you just like didn't see it right like three weeks later you'd have like some positive interaction with them and it would all be water under the bridge but if you if you decide to go like how dare you speak to me this way you know i mean look there's some there's some problems that you have to nip in the bud,

but a lot of times we tell ourselves we have to nip it in the bud when really it's like completely an isolated incident and we're just like expanding and exaggerating the significance of whatever it is. Yeah, you talk about Wu Wei, is that how you say it? Yeah, non-action. Yeah, non-action.

And it's sort of like the cultural norm, I think it's changing now, but it's like the harder you work the more successful you'll get and now people like ariana huffington they talk about like churchill yeah and um all these people talk about the importance of it's just balance you know you need to you need to enjoy your work hard and enjoy your time um to achieve probably the best results well i imagine you guys with with some of the comedy stuff it's like if you're like we need seven bits today that's like the worst way to come up with

bits yeah you know that kind of stuff yeah i'm so like like but but like for me like like the book idea i'm gonna do next like i came up with it when i was like on vacation with my family like if i had not taken the vacation yeah so if i had not decided not to work i wouldn't have had the work breakthrough yeah or like like the it might seem like oh i have all this stuff to do like how can i justify going swimming but it's like actually no the swimming was like the most important creative thing that i'm going to do today even if I won't get the benefits of it until like later this afternoon. It's like, where you are mentally, where you are physically, where you are spiritually has a huge impact on what place the work ultimately comes from. But we think like, oh, like, it's really important.

I'm not going to go to bed tonight. Or like, oh, this is really important. Like, I have to like work, work, work. And oftentimes, like, look, if you work at a factory, yeah, of course, you have to like show up. That's the only, but if you, if your job is to be creative or to have ideas or to, you know, decide how to solve difficult problems, like often doing is not the way you have those mental breakthroughs yeah it's so hard to uh because my dad's pretty like stoic okay he's a doctor yeah and he's kind of doctor hand surgeon okay and he's he's 73 now okay he's his mindset is still he's like why would i stop working he's like what would i do and so i i have that in me sure me too and i i apologize to jt because

i get so obsessive because she's like we need to do this and this and this and so i'm learning now to sort of cultivate yeah that patience it helps a lot i mean it creates a lot of sure it's a i need a spark to yeah we guys probably balance each other yeah it's a balance yeah so but i do find i'll go on like hikes and stuff and that's where my most creative juices come from right uh as opposed to just staying in the pocket and just like staring at like a notebook just like i need this joke to come out well and and like being a surgeon like working is doing the surgery you know your dad's not like for a hike and he's like oh this is how i will do the surgery like it's a it's much

more of a sort of a repetitive process right yeah and i think as as the kinds of professions uh that are possible have opened up because the internet and because of where society's gone it's just a it's it's a little different and like like i think about that, yeah, with my parents, whereas they only got paid if they were at work. And that's not how it is for me. And it can be very lumpy. You can have an idea that could be worth several years of work. And so you have to, whatever it takes to get you to a place

where you can do that is where you want to go and so that's sort of what i call stillness in the book is like that whatever space you get in where on a hike you have an idea or um or or in my case like a book idea or one sentence that i need to fix one part in one chapter there's a lot there's lots of ways to get there and it's not usually like scheduling and i think like it was like david epstein said when we talked to him that like if it's the same process over and over again repetition is so important for being better at it yeah but if you live in if you work in a more dynamic space yeah it's it's not like that no it's not like i mean you still need to have the reps but but it's... Well, you need different kinds of reps.

Yeah. And you can burn out in a way that is different. I mean, you could certainly burn out as a surgeon, but it's like you can... If you're not having the sort of space or freedom to be creative, you're not going to do the work that you need to do. I've been using your stillness, too. I was at a concert with my girlfriend, who's like the biggest fan of yours by the way and i thought that's awesome signed book for sure um what concert uh we saw vampire weekend okay and they were great i mean

they did the same guitar for every song it's like and it gets on my nerves but they have a beautiful sound around that too yeah but um i was just dancing like crazy to one of their songs walcott she's like you're going crazy i was like actually, actually, if you read Ryan's new book, I'm actually in stillness right now because I'm very present and I'm letting the music flow through me. I'm just totally in the moment. Yeah. Very cool.

So I've been calling everything I do basically stillness. Sure, it works for me. All right, cool. He does have a knack for being able to get into the moment. I think he has an inner passion, I that when he when he spark it got it well when good music comes on he just starts dancing sure yeah i think it comes from my mom i was about to say that yeah referencing the kafka letters the letters to his father i read that i think christopher hitchens talked about that and like catch 22 well i mean just referenced it

yeah i know i don't know where i heard about it but i wondered if that was where yeah i think we have a lot of the same fandom, too, because you're a big Tyler Cowen fan, and I love him. Huge. Yeah. And then I love that you tricked your way onto being on his blog. That was amazing. I met him for the first time a couple months ago in Utah.

It was awesome. Is he just as brilliant in person? Yeah, yeah. It was hilarious. His podcast is amazing. Dude, it's the best. It's one of the few that I really listen to. The one with Carl von Nosgaard, I started reading his book, too. Oh, yeah was hilarious. His podcast is amazing. Dude, it's the best. It's like one of the few that I really listen to.

The one with Carl von Nosgaard, I started reading his book too. Oh, yeah, yeah. Just the way that he asks questions is just different than anybody else. I remember when he does the audience one, and he's like, do not ask multi-part questions. I will stop you. If you start talking, I will cut you off. Yeah. He's like real cool about it.

You know, people always ask self-aggrandizing questions during Q&As. Oh, right. Where they're like, I really felt this way about the thing. And I have my own project that's kind of parallel to it, and everyone's like real cool about it you know people always ask self-aggrandizing questions during q and a's oh they're like i really felt this way about the thing and i have my own project that's kind of parallel to and everyone's like shut up like he will literally be like stop or at least threatens it yeah but in the in the kafka letters to the father i remember reading that and it was it really impacted me especially the part where he talked about because his dad i guess was like an overbearing kind of ass yeah and uh did you relate to that no no my dad's great but but i related to this one part about having an he was my dad was

overbearing but not an ass i would say yeah i think and then uh but he says like when you punished me it was my fault and then when you didn't punish me i was grateful to you for not punishing me yeah so it was like always my fault fault. And I was always in gratitude to you or upset at myself for disappointing you. And I thought that really speaks to a lot of dynamics when you have like a boss that you really want to impress. Yeah. Or like your parents and stuff like that.

There's a part in the letter, and then I read about another book, but he like, he gave his dad, you know, like his first book or whatever that he wrote. And it just sat like unopened on his dad's nightstand for like ever dude that's torture yeah did but so he he got all of his success after he died right yeah which is why which is the really hard part about results right like yeah that happens you know does that mean it wasn't good of Of course not. I know, but I'm like, what would I rather, like, you know, like John Kennedy Tool, like, with Confederacy of Dunces?

Yeah. Yeah, no, I talked about that in Ego. These poor fucks, man. He writes this book, and it's like his editor and his agent is like, this sucks. Yeah. And he kills himself. And then the same book wins, like, the Pulitzer Prize. Yeah.

Nothing changes. Does the story, does the story does the context need to be there for i think it's they're all amazing books i haven't read kofka actually but i've read a confederacy of dunces and it's amazing yeah but i see what you're saying if he doesn't kill himself do people not think people think it's uh still think it's good yeah because it makes me think about you too with like and you're such a tremendous writer like stillness is amazing i've only read two now but like it's amazing but like if you hadn't done the the trust me i'm lying stuff if you hadn't lived that life first sure would you have yeah look i think that certainly it

enhances the narrative but like walker percy is one of the great novelists of the 20th century that's who the mom if you've ever read the movie goer it's just like fantastic but though after her son dies the mom finds the book and she brings it to him and i don't know how much of the story she told him but like when he saw it he was like this is a masterpiece like people who had real taste knew instantly that it was great so maybe it doesn't win the awards but like look most people that good is good you're good it's good and most people that read the book aren't like oh i'm reading this because i know he kills himself right you know like yeah but it there i guess to me the story is that a lot of luck a lot of random chance a lot of extracurricular stuff goes into making

things successful and so there's all sorts of brilliant work that doesn't get appreciated right away or doesn't get appreciated in the artist's lifetime and so obviously that would be heartbreaking but that can't be the you can't be doing it for the recognition because the recognition is not what you control and there's nothing you can't predict it yeah and then but i thought it was cool to read and trust me i'm lying and then stillness because i it almost feel like did you need you needed stoicism because you were in this like vicious system even though you knew how to kind of play it yeah you knew you couldn't change the system so you just changed yeah yeah i mean i think what i say in the beginning of that book is that I was like sort of not

integrated. Like I had a part of me that was doing this stuff that was sort of thrilling and trollish and fun, but also probably knew it wasn't right. But it was also my job, you know? So there's sort of an ends justify the means um you know rationalization um but but was trying to sort of move past it or get out of it so it it was like i had two different parts of me and then i i wanted to get to a place where i wasn't so compartmentalized.

Yeah. One of my favorite lines from the book is when you say, peace is when we realize victory and defeat are the same. Yeah. Just because, yeah, thinking about that stuff gives me so much, it's such a good feeling inside of just doing stuff for the sake of doing it and enjoying enjoying because like you're talking about with your writing yes that's when when you're writing and you're in that flow that's sort of your happiest state i think it's about pete holmes

podcast yeah um and that's sort of like when we're making stuff and we're doing comedy when when you feel like you're in a creative mode yeah that's the best yeah and then when you become result oriented it ruins it it totally ruins it there's a marcus rios quote where he goes like uh the rock gains nothing by going up and loses nothing by coming down and so that i kind of think about it that way it's like when everyone's saying you're amazing it's not changing the quality of it and when nobody's getting it or um like look like it's it's very hard right now for instance for anyone to get any kind of attention that's not political right like um

trump has just sort of swallowed the media world. So like anyone that wants to get attention has to be like overtly political. So that means like a whole bunch of awesome stuff is just like not getting the attention. And then the stuff that is getting attention, it's not really a statement of its quality. It's just a statement of like what the news cycle is demanding. And so I don't know. I just think that chasing that is not a good place to be. And it doesn't really say anything. To me, it's the work that matters.

How would you advise, like, if you were doing, like, the campaign management for, like, someone running against Trump, what would you tell them to do? I'm sure it's different person to person. Yeah, yeah. to do i'm sure it's different person to person yeah yeah i mean i think i think um the democratic candidates haven't really realized how insatiable the news cycle is and and so uh like what trump is really good at even when he's totally wrong even when he's being insane is being that he's really entertaining and the democratic candidates seem to think that the way into the White House is like through virtue signaling, like showing how pure they are, when really, to me, the way into the White House right now is like by telling a really compelling story and driving the news cycle

rather than reacting to it. And so I think right now with the impeachment stump, Trump's just throwing everything he can at it. And it's actually kind of, if you notice, it was like a week ago or two weeks ago, it was like, holy shit, this is really bad. I can't believe he did this. And now it's hopelessly confusing because there's this and this.

And Joe Biden's just like... Yeah, he throws out all these equivalencies hopelessly confusing because it's like there's this and this and it's like and and joe biden's just like yeah he throws out all these equivalencies and yeah and some and he's not really like he's just like trump shouldn't be saying this you know like that's like the extent of his response right now he's like not able to tell a story of his own he should he should be able to seize this and turn it into a way to dominate the news cycle but instead it's like he's on the bad end of the cycle yeah you see that in kind of entertainment these days when they have this agenda they're like we need like comedy and stuff or whatever they're like we need to take down trump we need to show how bad he is but i feel

like they along the way they sort of lose what they're really trying to do is entertain and yeah and and tell funny stories and compelling stories so it's sort of um and it like diminishes them to make him the center of what they're doing right when they should be at the center of it yeah yeah i totally agree yeah um i wanted to talk about uh sort of the importance of relationships okay because a lot of times especially in like the entertainment world and stuff and i'm sure with writing it's like you need to be you need to be isolated to to be successful you need to like i don't have time for relationship right now i'm focusing on my career exactly yeah yeah i mean comedy would be really hard because comedy logistically is so difficult in the sense that, like, I would never want to be in a club at, like, one in the morning.

That's, like, the opposite of normal life for me. But, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I've been with my wife since I was in college. And it's not only not held me back. I think it's done the opposite of that. And so I'm a big proponent of being on a team rather than doing this as a lone wolf thing. I think it improves the work, actually. And I think most importantly it prevents the stresses and the temptations that come along with the work from fucking with you too much so like an american apparel like there

was shit going on but like i was going home at seven yeah do you know what i mean yeah it keeps you out of trouble yeah yeah it keeps you out of trouble it prevents you from taking any of it too seriously um yeah uh and and it also helps ground you in reality so you're not like oh yeah this is normal right you know tanahasi code says like i live simply so i can write like radically or something like that yeah totally and he has like a wife and a kid yeah yeah it's like you don't want to put all your eggs in one basket yeah i think it achieved like a balance in all areas yeah they're just like i'm here and then i'm here and then i'm here and they're like they're on the road all the

time like i'm on the road right now for the book, but it's like, I have a place that I have a home that I want to get back to. They're just like, they're like drifters. You know what I mean? Yeah, I dated a girl like that. She was really compelling, but she was, she had big ups and downs. Yeah, it's kind of glamorous

and it looks good on Instagram, but like, I think it's really lonely and kind of sad yeah because it's like you you receive all these accolades you have all these accomplishments but if you're just isolated in the end who really cares right right oh i think all you want is someone to share it with and i don't i don't think it's like you gotta get married you gotta have kids you gotta be with only one person there's different ways to do it but it's just like it's like they're they don't have a job they don't have a relationship they it's like they're they don't have a job they don't have a relationship they don't have an apartment they don't have a house

like they're living out of a fucking backpack yeah like they're they're drifters yeah yeah you gotta have like a crew even if it's just a crew of friends that are like your guys that you can come back to and and it's they're the same yeah you know what i mean yeah but yeah i think i mean i think we romanticize the drifter so much too with like the beatniks and stuff like that and then a lot of them were fucking drug addicts a lot of them killed themselves you know like do you like their writing are you not really yeah a lot of my friends don't i'm not i've never read them but a lot of my friends like it's kind of trash because they can revise and stuff it was all like yeah first drafts yeah not for you no no uh and yeah so i don't know i think and then i think the reality is most of the people on the other side of what you're making are not drifters so like the art becomes really unrelatable you know what i mean because it's like who are you making this like the reality that you

live in is not at all it's like how like every tv show and novel is like starving artists living in la you know a starving writer living in new york it's because that's all they know like yeah it's not they don't know what normal people are i think like someone like bruce springsteen is writing is so good because it reflects such a broad swath of he's my favorite people musician of all time yeah yeah well and but i think also he lives 10 miles from where he was born yeah he's he's tethered he's like and as much as he kind of hates where he grew up like in dark it is yeah he's still tethered to it yeah he had to go and come back and go and come back now there was a time where i hated the oc where i'm from i was

like i resented it you know all the dudes were too hot yeah all the girls were too hot everyone was just too hot yeah sure and then at a certain point i was like you know what i love hot people that's just where i grew up have you watched the hills Hills reboot? No. Oh, it's so good. It's good? It's so good. The original was phenomenal. Well, I'm like obsessed with it because now they're all older. I mean, it's like so preposterous

that they're like pretending that they're like all friends and they like brought in one of the actual characters from the OC and like pretend. Yeah, Misha Barton is on it. We've been friends for years.

Misha Barton is on it? Well, I love that. It's so meta. It's hilarious. But the best part is like, they're all like, they're all sort of like our age. But then,

but like growing up, it didn't feel like they were my age. Like it felt like adults, you know? Yeah. But like, they all just like talk about how anxious they are all the time. Like,

it's just like super real like their problems have matured yeah their problems are like yeah they're just like anxious or like they're just like i'm so anxious like like heidi this is my favorite like heidi has like a kid and she like refuses to like go out she doesn't want to leave her kid alone like like it's just like super normal uh it's the best that's so funny about their 401ks yeah and bobby's still on there he is he's an incredible human being how's that i mean there's just nobody like him i mean like he's so good looking and he's just such a douche but he's so unapologetic about it that it's like you can't

help but just like like him a little bit uh i can nerd out about this show for quite some it's his like arc on the new season is like so preposterously constructed it's like the best does he play it like convincingly somewhat convincingly but then it's also just like what like so the thing is like it's a sort of like will they won't they with like uh stephanie pratt right oh it doesn't make any sense like spencer's pissed about it yeah sort of and then adrina's pissed about it it's like the best it's because they were just like clearly they just like put all the characters up on a board and then we're like drawing triangles and they're like what where can we create drama i love it siesta key is also fire have you watched that no oh it's on mtv too okay but

they're in the bahamas yeah sort of laguna beach vibe but reality or the hills vibe reality yeah yeah and um it's it's just really hot people on an island with huge houses they're just like the villain dude the villain he's like this rich kid yeah oh i forgot to say also spencer has like a business where he sells crystals now i didn't want to say i work out at the same gym as spencer so i hear him talking about it one time he came and he's like he's like hey sifu he's talking to the guy who trains him he's like i'm gonna get a handgun because like the trainer was like he needs a handgun like he's got crystals on him at all times i was like i don't think spencer prod from the hills should have a should have a heater on him yeah i was like what am i looking at dude yeah no it's like it's just

it's the best and i think i think the reason i like it is it makes me like think back to however young i was when i was watching it like in high school or whatever and you're just like oh yeah this is what life is like and then you're older you're like this is the most preposterously scripted you know like there's this one scene it's like just doing brazilian jiu-jitsu and it's like living room with like a trainer and it's like they were just like well we need him to do something and you know like that's my dream i love combat sports so yeah i'm all about it yeah this is the best laguna beach was like life goals for me i would like at night visualize. I'm like, I need to live that life.

Which character did you want to be? I like Talon. Talon was probably the coolest. I had some friends who played football with him and they said he laid hat too. He was good. And he cooked dinner that one time. He had a date with LC

and he put together like a beautiful Italian dinner for them. Like he had a skill set at like 16. was just a beast he's so chill and he never really attracted drama like steven you know what he's up to have you looked he's an actor right yeah and he was dating a rod stewart's daughter for a while nice yeah beast here you go so yeah his life's been i yeah i knew some of those families too like i remember the reinharts their dad like invented frozen burritos or something crazy like that like that makes you royalty in orange county it's like that's like totally what an orange county fortune would be based on yeah exactly in new york it'd be like yeah they they own these buildings or the

right the ceo of boeing but in the oc it'd be like it's a burrito dad's like the burrito king i was like what kind of burritos they were like chico's burritos i was like that's amazing but that's my favorite thing about like the ball family is that like there's like the ball estate but it's in like chino right yeah yeah i'll do the slurpy guys next door yeah um yeah maybe uh yeah so i'm so sorry no it's great stuff i love it i wish we could keep going but i'm i'm so interested in just like your trajectory like okay you drop out of college and then you become like this marketing wunderkind and then you transition into like basically writing about philosophy yeah um and i i'm just wondering like did you always just kind of see

the world differently or was there an aha moment where you were like wait i kind of know how this whole thing works and i think i can skip levels here so it wasn't so much a transition like i remember when i went to work at american apparel i they wanted to hire me to do some like marketing stuff and i was like look i want to do that but like i had this like blog like i'm a writer, and so we had to work out an agreement with, for instance, the confidentiality agreements that I could continue to do that thing. So anyways, the marketing book came out, and people were like, oh, you write books about marketing.

But really, I'd been writing about philosophy for several years at this point. So I kind of had these two parallel tracks, and it was like the marketing track went as far as i was willing to ride and then i hopped off and was like i'm gonna do this other thing and so i'm always just so curious about like the narrative component of it were you like all right i got to do this marketing book first to give me the kind of like platform to then transition to the more a little bit high-minded stuff so i actually got so the obstacles away was my sort of first breakout book on philosophy and i actually got offered i remember i was walking

up spring street uh which which is like two blocks from here i was walking up spring street and i got a call from someone that had read an article that i'd written and they wanted me to turn it into a book so i got an offer to do that book first. But it just wasn't the right timing and I wasn't really ready for it yet. And so, trust me, I'm lying. The genesis of that book was probably like two years later. But I just knew when I had that idea that it was a much more marketable idea. It was much more provocative. It was much uh it was much more provocative it would it was the right it was much more timely and so that it was the right one to start with it was it's crazy it's so readable yeah because

and it and it's it made me think about something else too where like you were robert green's apprentice yeah and then like some people i was just doing like a smattering of research on it people were like his books are dangerous because they they give powers to people basically yeah they'll understand how to manipulate people sure too much yeah and i mean i'm reading yours i didn't think that was an issue but i but i felt that power while reading it i was like yeah and also it's kind of scared me a little bit no i think uh yeah his books are are really cool i mean they're like banned in the federal prison system yeah which is fucking dark mean they're like banned in the federal prison system yeah which is fucking dark because they think they'll make the prisoners like

they'll be able to connive too well after that i guess yeah yeah it makes them hard to control but you've read them do you think they are that do you think that's right i'm not i'm not uh as an author i'm very leery of anytime books are being being banned. Right. Like, not a... But I do think they're good. Like, I do think they have the power to teach people things, certainly. Is this going to lead to a prison rebellion? I don't know. But, you know.

But, yeah, I just... How would Robert feel if that... He'd probably be bummed out. Yeah. What? If there was a prison rebellion? Yeah, no, he's not... His favorite book was your book.

Yeah, he's not, like, you know, in with the Aryan Brotherhood or something. No, sure, sure. That's not why he wrote the book. Yeah. No, but I wanted the books. I wanted to, it's just I knew that the marketing stuff, although I was really good at it, and it's challenging, and I still do some of it. It was like, that's just not what I wanted to do with my life.

So it was a transition at some point did you always want to be a writer not like for the time i was six but like at some point i sort of hardened on that idea probably like towards the end of high school and did you discover philosophy is like i remember in college i studied philosophy yeah and where'd you go santa clara okay university yeah and uh originally i wanted to do english yeah and where'd you go uh santa clara okay university yeah and i originally i wanted to do english yeah and um but then i discovered philosophy in this sort of style of thinking i was like oh my mind works totally yeah i think i think what it was is like i wanted to be a writer and i wanted to write like sort of books like roberts and then when i sort of fell into stoicism

it was like oh this is a thing like this is a there's a whole genre here yeah and and it just like it was just sort of the perfect fit yeah for me i was like oh this is the stuff i think about all the time yeah it's just like how to live well or sort of the nature of existence or all that kind of stuff yeah i bet it's like you know there's there's like comedy so most people there's like comedy. So most people are like in comedy. They just love all kinds of comedy. And then like you'll see someone, you're like, oh, I was like,

oh, I didn't know there was a clean comic like Jim Gaffigan. Or I didn't know there was like a weird sort of performance artist comic like a Galifianakis. Or I didn't know there was a one-liner comic like Machete. You know, like you, and I'm sure there's a one-liner comic like you know like right you and i'm sure there's like female comics where people you're like oh i didn't know that was okay you know and then you're like i'm gonna do my version of that yeah i think i had kind of a reaction like that oh that's cool to went to the stoic philosophy yeah yeah i was like oh this is there's this is a

subject matter this is a style you know this is a genre like that's what i want yeah i was like oh this is there's this is a subject matter this is a style you know this is a genre like that's what i want yeah i love it it speaks like so immediately to what i need to fix in my life that's what i felt yeah that was that was how it hit me the first time yeah i um i just love the uh i don't even know what i'm trying to say right now i was just talking go Go, baby, go. I'm just thinking about Laguna Beach. Sure. No, I,

Yeah, I think Talon's a stoicism guy. Oh, for sure. I mean, the way he handled that crew. Definitely not Steven. I know, I know Elsie follows me on Instagram. She follows the Daily Stoic. No, no, not Elsie.

Shit. What's the other one? No, who's Elsie's friend that was not high on Trina? Low, low. Low Super Endo-like lifestyle stuff now. Yeah. lifestyle yeah yeah yeah stevie you could tell he was all up in his ego low is your favorite gal my favorite yeah she's like the most normal one right yeah she's i think she sort of hated the spotlight a little bit yeah um but uh yeah so what i was gonna ask you just like some current events of like all right what do you think about uh this whole sport do you hear sports illustrated got bought by maven i'm not sure

what maven does but they're gonna basically turn it into like a content farm where instead of being like one central report or yeah like sports nation where there's like a one for each town and then like freelance writers are just generating yeah local content it makes me sad too because like sports illustrated to me is like, it means like this is if it's in there, it's real, it's a real investigation. Real resources were thrown at it.

Yeah. And yeah, I don't know. I was just wondering, cause you talk so much about it. Like, yeah, that's like what happened to Forbes.

That's what happened to time magazine. It's sort of like a kind of a established model at this point, but I'm not sure how well it ends up for anyone. Essentially what that game is, it's arbitrage. They'll open it up to contributors. So then I can write for Sports Illustrated.

And then I can write about whoever I want. And then they can go like, did you see me? I was in Sports Illustrated. And that means something to people because they're thinking Sports Illustrated from 1996, not from 2019. And so it seems more prestigious than it is.

That's the hustle there. So what's the solution? I mean, I think the solution is subscription like making stuff that's so good that people actually want to pay for it um and it's probably just not not operating at the scale that a lot of these magazines are magazines and publications were operating on so like i don't know how many people work at sports illustrious but i imagine it's huge right um and so it should be like a couple hundred rather than like a couple thousand we're operating on. So like, I don't know how many people work at sports illustrator, but I imagine it's huge. Right.

Um, and so it should be like a couple of hundred rather than like a couple of thousand or something like that. Yeah. Is there anything else we should ask? I mean, I guess I had, I had some more stuff on stillness. I guess it was cool when you talked about John F.

Kennedy, how you utilize stillness to avoid global disaster. Beast. Yeah, I mean, I'm talking about, I think when people hear the word stillness, they think it's meditating or it's like moving into a monastery or something. I wanted to talk about how do you do stillness

in the real world, in real life, when the stakes are very high. The Cuban Missile Crisis is obviously one of those. I mean, the world is this close to basically ending um and it was sort of through his self-discipline and his his sort of empathy his ability to slow things down that he prevents that from happening um and i think that's a good model like you know when shit goes happen when shit shit goes sideways you get sued or you get confronted or you know you're you run out of money in your company or you're you know in some you know staring down the barrel of a divorce like whatever we we tend to make those

really bad situations worse by escalating them rather than sort of like unwinding them and getting to whatever the core of the essence of the problem is sort of being reactive totally to life totally and not, uh, yeah. Taking a moment to think. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

That was, uh, that was one of my favorite parts. When you, when you like come to the discovery that like ego is the opposite of stillness. Yeah. Like, is that through writing or is that like ego is the opposite of stillness yeah like is that through writing or is that like a thought that pops in your head or is it yeah i mean so i wrote a whole book on ego so obviously i've thought a lot about it but it just having met my

share of very egotistical people it doesn't seem like they're having a lot of fun and in fact their life is this sort of like endless cycle of drama and conflict most of which is totally self-inflicted um because they're just trying to beat everybody so what do you go to ego takes like a totally innocuous remark and it makes it personal right or ego takes some uh you know unrelated situation and it inserts itself into it. Or ego is, instead of being happy with everything that it has, ego's like, I got to have more. So it overreaches.

You know, ego is just this like, when you, and I have a lot of friends, and I see it, you know, you pull up Twitter and you're just like, who are you shouting and i have a lot of friends and i see it you know you pull up twitter and you're just like who are you shouting at you know what i mean like they like they really do have the belief that like like there's like millions of people hanging on that it matters yeah and it's like dude just relax like nobody gives a shit like you've just worked yourself up on this. Nobody is reading this. And in fact, you've probably prematurely used whatever ammunition you have for some moment in favor of just getting upset instead of using it at some moment when you could actually

change someone's mind. like getting upset instead of using it at some moment when you could like actually change someone's mind yeah it's sort of like in fighting for attention or anything like that it's like once you get what you've been fighting for it's always kind of a it's never a good feeling inside it's sort of like you're like oh i kind of i was fighting for like uh all this attention like with stand-up or something you like want to be the center of attention. Yeah. Well, no, I was watching SNL clips last night, and they were like,

I guess last month, Trump tweeted 800 times as president. That's fucking insane. And Chrissy Teigen tweeted like 250 times, which is also way too much. Do you know what I mean? Sure. I was like, what are you guys doing?

Yeah. Like, this is horrible. Yeah, and they both probably have too much influence yeah although our manager also represents chrissy teigen so i love her to death she's fired i was gonna ask about that i don't know yeah what were we we were oh s now yeah do you do you have a take on the shane gillis thing oh he's the one that got in trouble for saying uh yeah and I'm sorry for just lobbing this huge issue you'd mean like break it down but no no uh I mean look I'm not a super big proponent of like cancel culture I'm not not a pro I think cancel culture is really dangerous and I think we've sort of like cultivated uh uh i think people are now sort of like almost excited for the opportunity to cancel people which i think is really like dark and messed up um at the same time from what i saw the comments it's like dude what are you talking about this is like horrible right right like what

he was saying yeah yeah i mean i think that i think there's like political correctness and then there's like whatever that was yeah but uh so i didn't it's like i wasn't like oh these are totally cool everyone's overreacting at the same time like i think we've got to come back to this idea that like people do a lot of really dumb fucked up stuff and they do it for a lot of different reasons most of which i would say most of the time it's not because they're bad people yeah and so our inability to have sort of like mercy or empathy for that and are like sort of glee at like taking whatever good things they've accumulated in their life away from them that just doesn't strike me as like a positive part of society

yeah and then you see like the tweets and stuff in the comments like like he tweeted after he got fired and then the responses to him yeah just like go die you piece of shit yeah exactly the worst human alive yeah and it's like it's like he's not even in the top 1000 yeah you know like like it just yeah send that to like pole pot if he was yeah yeah there's so there's so much genuine evil and awful in the world that like a guy who made a racist comment on a podcast like some time ago yeah he should never be the center of our universe yeah yeah and and i think what we've also lost is like what we the idea that there's some positive that could come out of this does not even occur to people like it okay so so you force this guy to get fired. You make him totally radioactive.

He's incapable of working in his chosen profession again. Does this make him more a contributing member of society or less? If you want to make someone bitter and angry and less willing to understand and reconsider their past beliefs, and less willing to like understand and reconsider their past beliefs like sort of like uh whatever the reaction we're choosing to have in these situations is like pretty much the perfect recipe for that yeah like you know one thing like how do we get the best out of this person yeah everyone's just like all right like die or or you're a hero yeah yeah it's like yeah you're a terrible piece of shit and look there there there is like some hypocrisy in it there was this like new york times reporter that they caught you know saying a bunch of like i would call them racist she's like an asian reporter and she was like saying a bunch of

stuff like she's like i hate she was like there are a bunch of tweets about white people remember this like a year ago and we're like oh like this is understandable because it was like a joke or like we we like people went out of their way to like rationalize to like project good intentions and what she was saying and she kept her job. And so it's, it's like, it's hard to, I think also the hypocrisy of it only drives sort of people on the, who are on the right, who are kind of like on the line between someone. Am I like, am I right? Or am I alt right?

It's like, it's like makes them more alt right. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. And, uh, there's also a case of about a week ago or some of the,

this guy got, went viral for, he put up this sign, he's like, Venmo me for Bush Light beers. Yeah, yeah, and he supposedly said something dumb when he was like 16. Yeah, from like 2011, he tweeted something. He tweeted some racist stuff. And it's sort of like the reporters

from the Iowa newspaper. He's like, I got him. And then someone found tweets that he sent a racist the reporter they're like dude what about these dude and he's like oh yeah my bad um no it's like when other people do it it's because they're horrible awful people and then when you do it it's my bad right and i think that sort of encapsulates the moral bankruptcy of all of it. And with the people who are seeking this stuff out or who are reacting the most passionately to it, it's almost like, what's going on with you? Sure.

Almost like, what are you hiding or what are you trying to cover up? Sure. I always get that feeling. Or a lot of free time, too. Someone tried to cancel my girlfriend. Really? Yeah. She works in brand. She's a brand director. healing or a lot of free time to someone tried to cancel my girlfriend. Oh yeah. Like she,

she works in brand, she's a brand director. And then, uh, this person, I tried to cancel her. And then I, I looked at the person and I was like, they just have way too much free time on their hands.

Yeah. Like I was like, she's not, she doesn't have a job right now. She was ill. And I was like, look, she's ill.

She feels kind of powerless. This is really tangible power. Yeah. And yeah. All right. Question time. All right. What up, Stokers?

I'm coming at you with a serious dilemma from the high plains of Wyoming. I was up in my lady's cabin last week with her fam. Her father granted me with the task of cutting down an overhanging tree next to the cabin. Long story short, I miscut the tree and ended up falling on top of the cabin and totally fucked it up. Her dad went insane and made me leave on the spot. I've been trying to talk with her dad and he won't answer any of my calls and my lady says he never wants to see me ever again.

It sucks because I feel like the stoke level was soaring before this and now it's completely gone. I want to fix the issue like a man but her father is not letting me do anything. I need some advice. P.S. The podcast is freaking rad. I got all my homies listening to it now ned ned ned uh cut down a tree and it destroyed the cabin yeah at the at the dad's house the dad commissioned him to cut down the tree put faith in him and then he fucked up the dad's house and now the dad is writing him off forever and he wants to know how he can bounce back what do you think or do i have to answer i think you're like start with your dude yeah i mean

i first i would say like i don't like uh the dad sort of like dragooning uh like his daughter's boyfriend and doing manual labor at his cabin like uh i'm not i'm not doing any work at my i'm not doing any work in my girlfriend's house because her dad asked me like that's not what i signed up for so like i feel like he sort of got what he paid for you know right so i'm not that sympathetic to the dad and i kind of feel like the i feel like ned is maybe taking this all more seriously than he needs to like you apologized maybe if you want to offer to pay for it cool but like i don't think he did anything wrong is he a professional tree trimmer like what qualifications uh arborist yeah an arborist yeah like what what he's like oh but then i did it wrong it's

like it's probably because you didn't fucking know how to trim any trees and you had no business doing this in the first place nor should you have been asked to so i i don't know i feel like all that really matters is is the girl still into you if she is cool continue if she's going to take her dad's side like this is never going to work out to begin with because it's a fucked up relationship yeah it's almost like welcome to my um lake house now scale that tree and cut off that branch yeah i'd be like no yeah sorry and dude here's the thing we all at some point fuck up our girlfriend's parents house that's just something that happens you know you're gonna break a vase you're horny you guys aren't able to get it in you knock something over because you got all that energy and look in time they'll forgive you it'll be a funny story you just gotta in the face of a mistake have consistent good

behavior and you know don't cut any more trees down on their house and which can be tough but i think you can do it and then you'll be good. Yeah, dude. I mean, I think you just got to stay strong and just own your mistake. Be like, I fucked up that tree. I'm not sure he made a mistake though. I feel like the dad is clearly in the wrong. Wait for him to come around or don't. He'll either come around or he won't. Send him a bill for that job and then send him a prospective contract to fix it.

Yeah. For like two grand. Yeah. Yeah. For like two grand. Yeah. Send the proper professionals to his place. Yeah. What up, Stokers? I've been surfing for years with my cousin, Tom. We have been shredding and always enjoy a good time.

Over the years, we have brought in a couple new bros to increase the stoke. Here's the problem. A couple years ago, Tom brought in a friend from his work who was a total schmole. A schmole is a friend that nobody likes in the group. Got it was also a kook to add to it i have no problems with kooks kooks is like a poser surfer got it we all start somewhere but this guy was just the worst lucky for me he didn't last more than two sessions before he bailed crisis averted so i thought three weeks ago the schmole reappeared after two years he came back with extra schmoleness and it has made surf sessions unbearable.

He is still on kook level and instead of respecting the line, the etiquette, he yells, whistles, talks loud and tries to jump on every wave, then gets mad because the Groms figure him out and jump on every wave soon after. He's worse than a kneeboarder.

Shout out Gary, you loser. Gary's a rival of ours who upsets Chad a lot. He sucks. And he's stuck in my squad. And kneeboarding is a not cool sport? It's cool. I respect it. But the way Gary approaches it,

totally selfish, hogging the barrels. Got it. Just tries to dominate. Kind of like this schmole he's describing. And I think kneeboarding is cool, but in the hierarchy of the aquatic sports, you got to know where you fall. So right size your confidence, Gary.

Right. exactly. So I feel like I'm guilty just by association on the beach. I have told Tom how it bums me out and he tells me to be cool and the schmole's a nice guy. To be fair, he's not a horrible person, just not rad for the squad. I have a pretty excellent schmole meter

and this dude is just going to harsh the entire squad's surf vibes. I love our traditional weekly surf sessions and don't want to lose a day riding giants with my bros. What should I do? I mean, what seemed to be missing there survives I love our traditional weekly surf sessions and don't want to lose a riding Giants a day riding Giants with my bros what should I do I mean what seemed to be missing there was telling him not to invite this guy anymore like

it doesn't seem that complicated this seems like a problem like a 17 year old would have and not an adult like he might be 17 I don't like it when you invite this person I'm not going to come if you keep inviting them sort of end of conversation that's not too harsh you don't think i think i mean it doesn't seem that harsh you're like hey this guy's a douche i don't have any fun when he's around he's annoying i'd prefer if you didn't invite him anymore i'm i guess i'm weird

what if i was that douche i guess i'd learn how else would you learn yeah yeah yeah i think i don't think you would be because in this case there's clear-cut surf etiquette yeah and you know there's only so many waves per person and sort of maintaining a good vibe in the water is essential like i have there's a friend of a friend who just like gets super wasted anytime we spent so i like hate spending time with him so i just like if he's coming i just don't come like i just don't come i just go do something else or if he shows up i leave like does he know like when you leave does he know are you pretty like so but that's the thing as an adult like this isn't really my problem i'm just like

if i don't like something i'm just not gonna spend i'm not gonna be around it do you know what i mean like if you if you really i you either, you either got to figure out like how much does this person bother you? Do they bother you so much that you don't want to be around them? If so, leave, you know, or, or ask them not to be invited anymore. For sure. And he could talk to the schmole about his behavior. See, to me, that's like now you're getting super complicated.

You're getting up in people's business. Like it's not your job to change this person. It's your job to either invite them or not be around when they are invited. I think it is my job. But what about to educate him on... It sounds like he's already talked to him about it. Didn't he say that?

He's mentioned the schmoleness to the intermediary. To the actual schmoleness? Not to the actual schmoleness. He hasn't gone to the schmaltz schmaltz schmaltz source yeah what up gods of stoke my question is how do you get over your ex babe our fire romance has been put out and my stoke has not been the same thanks guys really appreciate this and shout out my dog abe shapiro for being a legend. What up, Abe?

The next question's also about this, too. What is it? He's still hung up on his ex, and he wants to know how to get over her. I'm less qualified to answer this one. Because you've been with the same... Yeah, it's been a while since I've gone through a breakup. Wow. I would say get out in the world, do stuff. Yeah.

Get active, get social, go paintballing with your dogs, go get ample Pokeballs, go meditate. I mean, just do stuff. I think if you isolate and you just watch you know 10 things I hate about you then it's just gonna amplify the pain

Pokeballs kind of came out of nowhere didn't they yeah well for us we kind of saw it coming yeah not to be braggy

no you guys were on the on the cutting edge of the if I had if I had the funds I would have invested early yeah you were always like dude sweet fin yeah like we got to throw in the stock for sweet fin i kept telling my dad that i was like that

sweet fin is gonna pop off and he's like i don't even know what that is so do you think it's gonna be like the the the next wave of like cupcakes or it's gonna crash yeah they're gonna find something health-wise that yeah like if you eat too much tuna like you grow like a sixth toe or something yeah right and then i'm just gonna be stoked that my sandals have a little more spread at the end yeah i'm gonna be stoked that i'll have more tuna yeah more tuna for me um chad and jt savants of stoke my bro at work and i find ourselves in the most upsetting predicament our supervisor is a total re-nob. I know what that is. Oh, nice. But Chad likes to say it. It's boner backwards. Yeah, I know. I grew up in California.

Where'd you grow up? Sacramento. Nice, dude. That's fire. Our supervisor is a total re-nob. It's boner backwards. And we find our stoke levels depleted more by the day. He's an epic schmole and we find it a great struggle to keep ourselves staying amp. The dude is mad overbearing and is constantly being a major tool.

He's also got this weird obsession with skulls and has them decorated all over his office, which also makes him a major tryhard. Do you guys have any ideas on how we can keep each other on the up and up even though we're stuck with this dick all the time? P.S. Your fire pod has helped raise our stoke and give us a strong game face to take on his negative attitude. Mad props to you dudes and stay righteous.

I'm going to slide in real quick. Dude, I think Mr. Holiday's books, I mean S'm being sincere too would actually help with this a lot yeah they might yeah you could also just uh change jobs i like your i like your uh solutions it's kind of just like just separate yourself from the problem yeah like don't even get involved you're not going to change your re-nob of a boss yeah you can't change people involved you're not going to change your renub of a boss yeah you can't change people you can't you can't change your renub no you can't fix a renub you can't make it flaccid i'd either i'd either go like look i'm i'm i have this job for the next like year while i'm graduating college or whatever so i'm gonna like sort of learn what not to do

from this person or i'm gonna sort of use it as an opportunity to figure out you know this or that about like sort of leadership or work what up bros one of my friends asked me to talk with her the other day 30 minutes in she tells me that she and her friends have noticed i've been flirting with her deaf have not she knows i've got a girl and she definitely knows my personality so this kid has been brought up over text but the fact that she wanted to talk in person was super suspect and she was being extra sketch some of the bros thought it was too suspect and said she wants the pipe. I think she was just concerned even though there was obvious sexual tension in her voice. Was she concerned or does she want the pipe? How do I let this babe, a hard eight, soft nine, down without letting her down?

What do you got? I think you just don't have to respond. Like if she's like, Hey, like let's go hook up. You don't even have to say no. You just let it sit there. She'll get the message and you just keep your space and focus on you and yours. And like Ryan suggests in the book, the problem will work itself out over time. Yeah.

This doesn't strike me as like a huge crisis. Like, like it's like, how do I, how do I not sleep with hot chicks? Yeah, just don't. Sometimes people write in just because I think they want to let us know that there's a hot chick that wants to sleep with them. I think they like having the problem. Yeah, and I think that's nice. You want to be seen.

Because it is nice if a hot person wants to hook up with you. And you want people to see that. And so I appreciate that you wrote into us, dude. But you know the answer. That's just to not do this. And you don't ever have to write this email again. I appreciate that you wrote into us, dude. But you know the answer. That's just to not do this. And you don't ever have to write this email again. You got it out of your system, dog. Although you probably didn't.

And as men, we like that. We like people to know that we're desirable. Of course. Maybe I just cap that off by saying congrats. Congrats that the super hot chick wants to hook up with you, dude. I'm proud of you. I'm stoked for you. I'm sure you have a I'm stoked for you.

I'm sure you have a magnetic personality and you're charming and props. Well, and now the cooler thing is like can you not do a shitty thing? Yeah. Like to someone else. Yeah. It's like we respect that you have the opportunity, but we respect more if you say no to the opportunity because of your moral fortitude. Exactly. Fire. Yeah. Maint maintain nobility all right don't bone yeah don't bone chad what is your beef of the week

uh my beef of the week keeping with the theme is with ego um ego can trip you up uh i'm trying to explain ego with Ryan here. He's like, you're getting it all wrong, dude. But yeah, ego, you know, it's especially because we live in the social media world. It's so easy to get caught up in likes and sort of accolades and comments and all that kind of stuff. And entertainment world too, you know, you just, you're trying to keep rising. And then you sort of feel like that's dependent upon the opinions of other people's and the way it is but i think especially after reading this book and just getting back to um sort of my understanding of all this stuff it's

important to just remember that doing something for the sake of doing it and i think having fun and taking risks and enjoying it is the most important thing and everything else that happens as a byproduct um in the end it doesn't matter what matters is that you're enjoying your life and you're cultivating a well-balanced life um friends family and all that kind of stuff fire did i do it felt kind of like a weak beef though i mean what are you what are you opposing what's your i guess i guess okay yeah i guess i was just dealing with um i mean i agree with all of it yeah what my actually i didn't say what my beef is yeah you're right thanks for calling me out um what is my beef we might have to keep it moving too dog yeah i have a good one i don't like these sort of really long instagram

captions like where people are writing he hates that whole fucking essay the rock yeah yeah if the rock you know he does a paragraph for each post i'm like dude if you just said stoked yeah that would speak volume this is a photographic medium you know i don't need an essay that i have to read yeah they say a photo is worth a thousand words so why'd you just write another thought this is now two thousand words totally yeah and it's always like this like in, like pseudo profundity about like nonsense. Right. Like I was struggling and then I really decided one day that I was just going

to like let myself be. And you're like, what does that have to do with you being on a jet ski in the Cayman Islands? Right. No, it's always like, it's like, I've been struggling so much with how,

how unbeautiful I feel. And it's like, you just really wanted people to say that you're pretty. It's just like this long way to fish for compliments. Yeah. Like I just, when I put up a photo like that, I just go, tell me I'm pretty. And then I just smile as it rolls in. There you go.

All right. My Beef of the Week is with a historical beef between Richard Gere and Sly Stallone. I guess they were at a party and they were both going after Princess Diana. Is it Diana or Diane? Diana. Diana. After she had broken up with Charles. I guess Sly was really mad because Richard Gere was just such a Lothario.

He was complaining to other people. He's like, if I would have known that fucking prince was here, I never would have come. He was just fuming. I guess at one point, they actually came to fisticuffs. I just think think imagine those two you know pillars of the entertainment industry doing battle over a queen or princess is uh really exciting so i'm glad it happened yeah um you already did your beef i did mine chad who is your babe of the week before i began i think i think the beef i was going for is the notification aspect of phones okay sure yeah i don't like it all right well said that's a great bit yeah i

fucking hate it all right that's my beef i don't have to explain anymore all right uh what was babe or legend babe babe is kristen bell but kristen bell i would say she's a babe because she does fire performances and forgetting sir marshall i love veronica mars and i love her and dax shepherd together i think it's very charming and cute for sure dude my babe of the week is my dogs all of them how many um not my canine dogs my dog dogs um. My boys. I love them all. They're the best guys in the world. They've made me a better person.

They've seen me through thick and thin. And yeah, I'm just thankful for them. And I think sometimes we think like as we get older, as things change, you got to lose your dogs. But that's just a lie that's been perpetuated by no one bad. It's just people think that. Like I got kicked out of school in high school. My parents were like, you're going to make all new friends.

And I was like, nah, I think I'm going to keep my old friends. And I kept them. And we're still dogs. So, you know, if you want to stay dogs with your dogs, that's totally doable as well. And if you want to transition,

that's cool too. Mr. Holiday, who's your baby of the week? I don't really have one. Nice, dude. Interesting. Yeah. I wasn't brief that I would need to come up with one. I know i know we kind of throw it at people it'd probably be better if we

let them prep but then like people don't want to prep for a podcast yeah that's true yeah i've sent the messages to people and i'm like i don't think someone at this status is really gonna like want to do so i just tell them like come in we'll do all the work yeah can you do a legend babe beef quote yeah and they're like okay yeah and then you gotta explain what it is all right chad who's your legend of the week my legend of the week is lao tzu author of the dao de ching i feel like you uh gleaned a lot of wisdom from the dao um maintaining balance you know the maintaining balance is legit dude so um make sure you don't go to one extreme or the other you know try to find balance

in all areas of your life and shout out to Lao Tzu for being a freaking legend my legend of the week is Anne Frank also referenced in Mr. Holiday's book stillness is the key um do you like being called Mr. Holiday or not all right cool thanks for being easy going about it um some people get fired up uh yeah just what an incredible human being yeah i mean and what she taught us about humanity from such a young age like how precocious and just um and how humanistic she was in terms of just like accepting people like the way she talks about the soul is like pretty incredible and i'm thankful that a beast like her existed probably a weird thing to call her a beast but so it's a bit odd yeah oh so So I'll do,

so Babe Legend, my sister got married on Friday. Amy, also from California. Nice. That was awesome. Good for her.

Nice. All right, Chad, this is what we'll end it with. Chad, what is your quote of the week? My quote of the week comes from our buddy

Brad Fuller. He said, he always tells his kids to repeat humble and grateful. Nice. Good quote. My quote of the week is from your book to wage peace with oneself. Oh,

that's a good quote. I like that. I loved it. Do you have a quote of the week? Um, I like your Blaine Pascal quote a lot. Oh yeah, let's do that.

Okay. So he said, um, uh, all of humanity's problems stem from our inability to sit quietly in a room alone. I feel that so much, dude. And that was 500 years ago.

I can't wait to get home and just do nothing. And then once I get home and do nothing, sirens start going off in my dome. Yep. Yep. All right.

Sweet. My beef of the week is actually with my lack of beef of the week. Cool. Eat a cow, dog. All right. Mr. Holiday, thank you so much for everything.

I don't know why I'm calling you that. Ryan, my dog. Thank you for doing the pod. Can you sign something for my GF, of course? Cool. All right. All right. Sweet.

Let's do it. Guys, check out Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday. Here it is. And, dude, thank you for coming in if you need advice but these guys are really nice you wanna know what to do where to go when you need someone to guide you There's no place to have No place to hide You're going deep

Going deep Let's go deep I'm going deep I'm going deep The JT.