No Jumper - The Ryan Holiday Interview (2019)

Episode Date: October 15, 2019

Ryan Holiday is a best selling author and someone who I'm frankly just a massive fan of. We got him on the podcast for the 2nd time and he schooled us about mastery, his new book, the distraction that is social media and much more. Enjoy! --- FOLLOW OUR NEW SPOTIFY PLAYLIST! https://spoti.fi/2vi9lsD CHECK OUT OUR ONLINE STORE!!! http://www.nojumper.com/ SUBSCRIBE for new interviews (and more) weekly: http://bit.ly/nastymondayz Follow us on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/nojumper and iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/no-jumper/id1001659715?mt=2 and follow us on Social Media: http://www.twitter.com/nojumper http://www.instagram.com/nojumper http://www.reddit.com/r/nojumper JOIN THE DISCORD: https://discord.gg/Q3XPfBm follow Adam22 as well: http://www.twitter.com/adam22 http://www.instagram.com/adam22 and follow adam22hoe on Snapchat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No Jumbert. Coolest podcast in the world. I'm here with Ryan Holiday, our second time doing an interview. How you doing, man? I'm good. A lot's changed since last time. New spot. New spot. Oh, dude, we were downtown last time. Downtown was a whole thing. A lot of roaches. Ugh. Yeah, we were just having a conversation about these condamas because it's, it's weird. Like, I'll always recommend this kind of thing. Like, you were just asking me if I compare it to BMX in my head. And I totally do. And I feel like that's a big part. part of why I'm such an advocate for kids getting into stuff like BMX skateboarding, condomas, et cetera, because I feel like it's a very good introduction to having something in your life that you're in control of that you can learn using. And then that can sometimes be a good stepping stool towards progressing other parts of your life.

I know for myself, I never really felt like I had something that was rewarding, where I felt like I was in control of my own destiny until I started writing BMX. bikes and I was able to sort of manifest that through that and I think that a lot of kids who really have like a sense of pointlessness and despair a lot of it sort of comes back to the fact that they just don't have that confidence that they can accomplish something new for themselves and I think this is kind of just like a good entry point towards building up that that motivation. I think the drive to mastery is like one of the most important parts of the sort of what makes human's human special and like most kids particularly

kids that come from shitty circumstances, nobody ever encourages them to do that, to say, like, you can, you can become, like, world class at this thing. I think some kids get sports, so that's like a huge outlet. Obviously, lots of white kids and, you know, upper middle class kids get all sorts of academic opportunities to do mastery, you know, but very few people are encouraged to just take something, even if it's not an important thing, and just figure it out, break it down and figure it out and get better and better and better and better at it. But that's that's what that that skill is transferable, whether you're getting really good at BMX or skateboarding or fucking yo-yo or writing or, you know, playing the guitar. Like I think these things are really important. The problem

is we teach kids to like play the cello because we think it'll get them into Harvard, not because like, hey, the mastery of an instrument is like a transferable skill. For you was that writing? Writing was it. I was into music at first, but I wasn't very good. I fell in love with that process of getting good at something and expressing myself. It just took me a couple starts and stops to figure out like actually my best medium was writing words like in books, you know, like in what would become books. But that obsession with like, I'm going to figure this out and I want to consume and learn from everyone that's ever been good at it, that's what keeps you out of trouble. But it also is a positive feedback loop, right?

Because the better you get at it, the more you get out of it, and then the more opportunities it presents. And it just keeps you focus on what matters. I can give you that clear-headed approach. Like that feeling of accepting and knowing that you're bad at something and then being able to work past that and get good at something is, you know, that just knowing that you don't have to be what you were yesterday is something that a lot of young kids just never really gets.

started on that progression of just building upon that idea. When also like, you know, I've been writing about stillness and that's what the new book is about, but like what you have with that, what you also have with BMX, what I have with writing, what I have with running, what I have with swimming, that place you get to when you're doing that thing and you lose track of time and you lose track of noise and you're just like in a flow state where you're just fucking doing it, that's the, that's the real pain. That's when you're like, when were you last half? It was when I was like crushing it on something like that not like the rewards not the numbers not the recognition

It was like I got lost in it. Yeah and when people say flow state is that the same thing that you're referring to when you say stillness? Yeah, I think that's one that's one kind of a that a flow state is a kind of stillness or stillness can manifest itself in the form of a flow state but it's not always there It occurred to me when I started reading your book on a flight on my phone which I never do I always I love the physical copy of the book, which you're still the same way. You do almost all your reading. Yeah. Yeah, because you have that thing that's always in your newsletter where you say I always promise myself that I would never let money get in the way of reading everything I wanted to read, something on those lines.

Yeah, like I hear from people that are like, I stole your book from a store. I'm like, okay, you know? Like, one, I respect you sent this email, but like, and I wish that you wouldn't steal from bookstores, like of all the things. Of all the places to rob. Like, these are like businesses. But I respect the hustle. in that like you didn't steal like alcohol you stole something that has like a positive ROI in your life right you know

it might predict the future where they wouldn't be shoplifting if they get a lot out of the book yeah yeah yeah exactly and and by the way there's also a place where they give away free books they're called libraries god i read the best quote about that the other day they said can you imagine if libraries didn't exist how controversial the idea of a library would be totally You imagine that if like Elizabeth Warren is the president in a year from now and she says we're going to open these buildings where you're going to be able to read whatever book you want it would be considered to be the most controversial concept imaginable. Yeah, of course.

It's a wondrous gift to humanity. And people go, I can't afford to read around time to read. Bullshit. Yeah, I think my mom being a librarian and having her come home every day just filling me with stories about other people learning and people sort of overcoming adversity and things along those lines, that that was hugely informative of my whole life

of just kind of always being reminded of that and always having her to bring me, you know, 20 copies of a new magazine that I wanted to read or just bring me whatever books she had seen on the young readers list or whatever. Well, look, reading is a thing like BMX or this game or whatever too, right? Like, you're like, the more you do it, the more you get out of it,

the different things you can explore, the things you didn't even know existed. Right. And so that's a feedback. I think the problem is like in school, we go like, smart people read, or we just go like, you got to read or you're not going to get good grades. Or we go, like, the Great Gatsby is a beautiful book. That's the extent of the argument we make.

We don't go like, hey, inside books is the greatest, most valuable collection of knowledge in the history of the world. Why would you not avail yourself of this? Like what we don't make the case with reading is that there is a real ROI, like that, like, for 15, And like, so let's say this book is 15 bucks or whatever on Amazon. That's like two years of my life. What I, the rate I consult at for companies, that would be cumulatively like the amount of hours that I spent if you took my consulting rate, this book would be worth literally

millions of dollars. You can buy it for 15 bucks. You know, I'm not making a pitch for my book. What I'm saying is that billionaires write books about their strategy for how they became a billionaire. Rappers write books about how their musical, like Jay-Z has like two books, you know? Like, you're not going to go, you're going to start. You're not going to start where he left off.

You're going to start from scratch. Like, why would you do that? No, totally. Yeah. That is weird. Like, anytime you become aware that somebody doesn't read or even looks down upon reading, that's just like a huge sign that there's something about this person that you might not want to be so trustworthy. Well, there's two, there's two quotes.

So Harry Truman said, not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers. I think that's a good one. And then the other one from Mark Twain, we think he said it. but he said, um, a person who does not read has no advantage over someone who cannot read. Mm. So you're,

if you don't read, you're functionally illiterate. Right. Like, you're not any better than a person not smart enough to read. 100%. Compare reading a full length book to reading, you know,

a lot of people might read a bunch of articles throughout the day on their phone. Like, even for me in a day, if I'm not picking up a book, I still might read 10 New York Times articles. Yeah. Which is, you know, great information,

really well written, really well resource is, something really valuable about it. But compare that as an experience to what you get out of reading books. Well, I think it's a couple things. One, how often do you actually make decisions based on these articles you read? It's like, you're like, oh, here's some trivia about this politician. Here's some scandal about this athlete.

You know, did you hear so-and-so did X. Right. That's not good. But so we tell ourselves that this stuff matters, but really we're just like gossiping. But the experience of sitting down quietly with a book in a corner, or you know as you're sitting in the waiting room of a dentist's office and just deciding to like get lost in this thing and to not have anything that can interrupt you be it in your phone or other people where it's like an extraordinarily rare experience I mean like what other part like for instance when I fly I don't I'm flying to SF tonight so it's an hour flight we're not going to buy Wi-Fi I'm not going to watch some shitty movie on the plane I'm going to read for an hour that's the best excuse to read right there if you don't like even if you don't read any other time throughout the week the flight is I'm still married to that ritual yeah read on the plane read in the car driver took me here I read in the back of the car like I want to

use dead time in my life and use it to expand what I know about the world give me ideas Bismarck I think he said you know any fool can learn by experience I want to learn from the experience of others that's what I'm like when you're sit you see some person sitting in a corner reading what they're doing is like cutting ahead of you in line mm Like they are getting, they are learning things from people who have come before you or the smartest people in the world on this topic or that topic. And you're just, you know, continuing in ignorance. Well said.

Do you still have the same like note card style system that I've always read, you read about it a couple of times where you sort of collect the best, most memorable parts of any book that you read. And that's a lot of, and you can feel it when you read your books that a lot of times it feels like you're coming back to lessons and stories that might have really stood out. to you. Well, that's the thing. I'm not just like reading to impress people or I'm not just reading for fun. Like if I'm going to do something for fun, I'm going to watch, like we live in a golden age of television. This is very true. Yeah. You know, like, so if I'm, if I'm going to be reading, I want to do something that makes me better as a, as a person. And so I'm folding pages, I'm writing. And like, when I see a book, someone's like, here, I read your book. And it's like in perfect condition. I'm like, so you didn't get as much out of it as you could if you really like dug into the text.

Right. So I take notes. And then, yeah, I transfer all that. to note cards. Right. Because I feel like that's one thing that I really like about the physical copies of books. Like, and I was thinking about in comparison to movies is that if I read, if I watch a good movie, a lot of times, you know, I'll have a day or two of discussing it with people that I know, maybe mention it on a podcast or, you know, have a quick conversation about it on Twitter. For the most part, there's no real way for me to keep remembering it. But when I look at my bookshelf, it's just full of all these different memories I have of all these different books that made different impressions on me. And a lot of times, you know, I got curious about the author and I read

more from that author. And that, that's a big part of why it's so important to me is to be able to look at that bookcase and just know that I have all these different things that I've already consumed. And if I were to start rereading one of them, it would instantly feel familiar. Yep. Like, I can't really, like, if I reread a book, I don't, it feels completely different. It's nice, but it's a completely different experience. Well, there's a one of the things of Stokes talk about they go like no man steps in the same river twice. What they mean is the river has changed, right? Because the water's moved, but also the man has changed.

So you're technically reading the exact same book and nothing has changed in it. But you've changed and the context that you're reading has changed and the way that you perceive what you're reading is changed. So it is fundamentally different. And so everything is in a state of flux and being remade. Like if you read all the, reread all the books you read in high school right now, you'd be like, oh, I told you. we missed the point of that. It's because you were 17 and you didn't know anything. And that's kind of one of the perils of the information age, huh? That we are so surrounded by amazing content that it can be hard for people to find the time

to go read something twice. Let alone once. And then the second reading though might be really the thing that like cements it into your brain, I feel like. Yeah. I mean, look, I've read meditations 100, 150 times. Like it's that deep. That's what people used to do with the Bible, right?

You read this book your whole over and over and over again your whole life in, in in Judaism, I forget what it's called, but like you read a, there's a passage you read like a, the Torah is broken up in 52 chunks. Right. So every week for a year, every year of your life, you cycle through this book. And like you can imagine the level of understanding and knowledge and recall and that experience of like it hitting you different ways at different times. Like, you know, I don't know, but you read it when you're 12 and then you read it when you're 29 and then you read it when you're 60 like you're gonna have profoundly different reactions and learn different things because because actually like if you heard there's this expression when the when the student is ready

the teacher appears and so it's like your mind was finally ready to see something in that same book that you were closed off to before that's so you're true um one thing like another person i've read a lot of in my day is sam harris and he's sort of really taking a step back from the podcast thing or from the book thing because of the podcast And it feels like it's surely because of scale. Like he just straight up hits more people. You're somebody who seemed like you're much more content with writing and that you're, you're not really looking for a different medium, not to say that you don't ever do stuff

outside of that. But what is it exactly that keeps you so married to it? Well, to me, that's the form. I mean, if I was like, hey, Adam, I know you like writing a BMX, but like motorcycles are faster, you'd be like, what? That's not the point. Like this is this is where I express myself, right? So like that's my, that's my craft.

You can do different things on a, you know, a sampler than you can do on a guitar. But like if you, if what you achieved mastery in is the guitar, that's your, that's your jam, you know. So part of it's just like, I'm a writer. That's how I see the world. That's why I love. That's what gets me up in the morning. But also, though, it is important that people, the artists don't get too wedded to only reaching their people. people in one form. So like with Daily Stoic we have an Instagram account that's got you know

three 400,000 followers. We got um an email that goes out every day that's got you know hundreds of thousands of subscribers. We got a I do a podcast version of it that's done millions and millions of downloads. Right. So it's like I'm not super I'm here talking on this show and you know yesterday I was talking on some you know fancy, you know, pretentious show like I'll all go and meet and interact with people anywhere. But at the end of the day like, like, where I'm truest in my thing is in like pages of a book. Right. And I mean, I do audio books.

I do all of it. Do you feel like what was it about this topic that felt so essential at that moment? Because a lot of people might not be familiar with your whole history. But I mean, the topics that you cover in your books, like the media manipulation was what first got me interested in you. Then you go in the direction of stoicism, which, To me, as just a fan, I was looking at that, like, well, that's a very interesting decision because that doesn't sound like the most marketable concept to write a book about, but it seems like it's really caught on in a way that maybe even you didn't expect. What is it that drove that book in particular, and what is it that makes you feel a similar way about this? Do you write books with that?

Does it feel like this is what society might need or that the audience needs? Yeah, I mean, a little bit. I think part of it sort of goes what you're saying is like, you've got to do what you like. what you feel is true. And then the fact that it blew up in professional sports and in music and and and the CEOs and that is not my that was not my intention, but my intention was to make something that did something for people. So you got it like if you're thinking about like I'm doing this because this is what's hot

right now. Like that's a one is a shitty way to live. But it's also a shitty place for your art to come from. You know, like nobody makes their best thing when they. when they are thinking solely about mimicking some like commercial trend, which I imagine you must see all the time. Like people are like, this is,

if this thing wasn't popular, they'd be doing some other thing. And if that thing changes, they'd be doing it. Like, they're not wedded to any of this. And like, you can get pretty good at that.

Like, you can do it, but you're not going to build a sustainable career that way, you know? Especially where with books these days, it feels like the majority of success stories, are books that seem very lofty and important and they're really bring something new to the table, or they're just associated with celebrities, and they have a built-in market for them.

I mean, so I'm wearing an Iron Man shirt. My hairs are Iron Maiden. This is a band that has not been on the radio for 39 of the 40 years of the existence of the band, right? But I saw him sell out 20,000 seats in San Antonio last week, and they're on their 25th World Tour. They sold 100 million albums. You know, like, you, his point was like, you don't, I think the lead singer said this. He was like, we have our fields, and that's what we're responsible for. And that's what we're telling and what other people are doing in their fields is of no concern to us.

Right. So you do that. And then it happens. If you can do that well, you can really connect. So, so the, yeah, I was writing about stoicism because I was that I was interested in. I thought it would help people in business primarily. And then it ended up working in all these different domains because, like, I think I'd, touch something that people were really struggling with and really needed. And so that wasn't

coming, that, in a weird, that was coming from a place of stillness. That was coming from a place of like, I love this thing. This is what I have to say. I think it's important. I hope people listen. It wasn't coming from a like, oh, philosophy books are so hot right now. This is where, like, I say this to authors all the time. Like, it's not that you can't make money writing books, but like there's way better ways to make money. So, Don't do it for money. Like if you were primarily motivated by money, like go sell drugs or, you know, like, or like go work on Wall Street. Right.

You know, like this, you already said by choosing this that money is not the most important thing. Right. So don't make the decisions from a better place. And ironically, that's how you'll make better money. Is this something that you've struggled with in your own life where you've found yourself at times distracted by social media or the constant flood of attention coming in? that you just sort of, is this partially manifested by the struggle that you had to go through to sort of clear your own mind at times? I mean, do you go through that?

Oh, hell, yeah. Of course. I think the problem might be that I embrace it too much. I'm not even scared of my Twitter addiction. It's part of your job, right? So that's a little different. But everybody says that. Yeah, right.

But it literally, I mean, like, like, it literally is, right? And so. But you've got to figure out how to, you've got to figure out some way to manage the chaos so it doesn't swallow your life. That's the tricky part. It's like, it's, I think, easier to quit like heroin than it is to quit having an eating disorder because you can just stop doing heroin. You still got to eat. Yeah.

And look, the thing with heroin and eating disorders is very few people are like, there's not the validation side that you get from social media. So what social media preys on is our bill, our desire to be heard and our desire for validation. Right. Like, so it's like Facebook says, what are you thinking today? And then people are like, great thought. Like that's a vicious fucking loop. right so people spend all their time chasing like imaginary internet points rather than doing what matters or what they care about so yeah of course i mean like the busy you are the harder it is to find stillness but the more valuable it is

both personally and professionally like i think about uh you know you you watch uh great football team and it's like how do they there's two minutes on the clock how do they slow it down how they tune out the crowd How do they tune out the pressure? How do they ignore the score and just like do what they got to do? And it can be like they've struggled to move the ball the whole game. But in the last two minutes, they can last 20 seconds, they can suddenly do what they had trouble doing the whole game. And do you regard that as essentially being,

what's some sort of like shared collective motivation to win the game at that point? I think it's presence. I think it's focus. I think it's blocking out. of distraction. I think it's intentionality. You know, it's like it's it's all the things that you need to be great. Right. Interesting. When it comes to, because I mean like writing a book itself is something where the stillness is very much important. Like you have to be able to block out the desire to look at your phone, the desire to, you know, take a selfie and send it to your mom, you know, a million different

things. Or just like I see this with people that's like they want to talk about what they're doing so they can get credit for it as they're doing it and then not actually. actually have to do it. Do you know what I mean? Like it's like let me take a people like, oh, I'm moving to go write my novel. It's like, sure you are. You know what I mean? Like show me some pages. Do you see that a lot though? And what is your writing style? Because sometimes it feels like people are so busy that are you able to shove, you know, to write a couple paragraphs casually in the car the same way that you're able to read a couple chapters in the car? No. So that's, I bet you see all different kinds of rappers. But I, I have not managed to wrap my head around how the like rapper lifestyle is conducive to making good arts.

You know what I mean? Well, you know, just a quick aside so I can explain that to you. The weirdest thing about rap is that it's very much become the kind of thing where a dude's rarely right and they more often than not just get in the booth and just sort of start puking out. Yeah. Bars and slowly constructing the song like that or a lot of guys like if you see sort of like a behind the scenes like Instagram live of them, they'll hear the beat and just start to be like, and they start mumbling.

They might mumble the entire song and then go back through and sort of replace it. But then again, I feel like a lot of the dudes who make music like that, they might be able to make a lot of music, but I think that a very large percentage of the best rap that comes out is written intentionally beforehand because otherwise it's kind of hard to compose

like a real structure. Yeah, no, no, look, you can definitely like gutted out, stream of consciousness. Like, you can make, but I don't think you make lasting enduring stuff that way. So yeah, it's like with the rappers that I've met or dealt, it's like you're, you woke up at three, then you know, you had breakfast, then you went out. And then it's like you roll in the studio like two in the morning.

Like I find that the best like artists across all fields and athletes too are way closer to monks. You know what I mean? It's like for me, it's like I'm starting. I'm not on the phone. And then I go for a walk. and then I journal and it's all about slowing it down, tuning things out, and then preserve, like, protecting the space.

Even just like, you just look at these studios and there's like 50 people in there. Like how are you getting in touch with like what's in here? I think the mentality is that hip hop is so much based on energy that a lot of these dudes sort of get into the mentality that they need to have the right energy going on. And that can ultimately be like the real downfall with drugs and stuff is that they think, Oh, you know, I took a Molly this time and was on cloud nine and I made a bunch of really excited music. So I keep doing that and that just ends up being death creatively. Yeah, yeah.

And I think like people think that like the artist's life is about total freedom. It's like, I don't have a job. I got fuck you money. You know, I got this awesome house. I got these people at work for me. This is the life. And it's like that's not where good like good stuff comes from like Jacco Wilnick. It's like discipline equals freedom.

Like you got to take all that freedom and you got to create order in it because that's like a gun is a focus explosion. You can't just that doesn't work. Right. And I think that's how a lot of people live. Writers too. It's just like your life is a mess. Like you're not going to you woke up at nine. Then you had like brunch and then you did this and then you did that and then you watch TV for two hours.

and then and then you're like, it's three, I'm going to get started. You know, like, that's that you can, you can gut it out. You can make not, like if you're talented, you can make good, you make okay to good stuff, but I don't think you're going to make great stuff. It's like when you hear about one of these athletes, it's like they eat McDonald's. Like, it presidents. Yeah, yes, yes. But, but it's like, it's not that they can't be talented running on, you know, 99 cent

cheeseburgers. It's what would their body be? It's at their body, they're of a freakish body. And what would they be capable of it if they put, like, good fuel in it? Yeah, I mean, I've known, like, world-class athletes who were drinking 15 beers a night. Yeah. And it's, but it's really sad because it always, there's that moment where you're in awe of it.

Like, wow, it's so amazing. He's so good. But they're usually, like, teenagers or early 20s. And then all of a sudden, they're 25. And they start diminishing way faster than people that were taking care of themselves. That's the other thing. And I imagine you see it as now the Internet allows these guys. to just blow up out of nowhere, you might be able to get away with one or two or three things,

but if the goal is like, I want to do this, I want to be one of the best there ever was, I want to do this over 20 years. Like what I think about, there's writers who are Robert Carle's like 85. He shows up to work. He's still the best in the world. You can't do something for 60 years without taking care of it. It's like you can have a classic car if you take care of it, you know, but like if you treat it like your Honda accord like it's not making it to classic car status definitely yeah for myself i find when

i wake up in the morning and just get straight into the writing thing that's when i have the most success when i just straight up i'll wake up i'll make four eggs scrambled and then make a cup of coffee and i'll just go and sit on the couch outside by the pool which i actually have a pool now so that's nice nice um and just post up there and just straight into the work just force myself to dump out whatever I can. I try to, you know, follow my heart in the sense where I'm not going to force myself to finish the chapter that I was working on the day before. If that's not what I'm thinking about. I try to like really just sort of follow whatever I want. Or if sometimes there'll be a part of me that's just like, I just want to read. I just want to like, I don't feel like my brain

is like, even right now, I don't feel like I could wake up tomorrow and write because I've been running around on not enough sleep just doing a million things for the past five or six days. that it's like I feel like I need to like nurture my brain for a day or two before I would really be able to start being creative in that way. Yeah, yeah. You got to like work your way into the rhythm of it. But I think, yeah, I think too many people want it right now. They want it right away. They're not really into do the work.

They'll just take whatever the market will accept. And I don't think that's how you make shit that lasts. You are one of the few really successful creative people. I know who lives, who chooses to live in a place that is fairly barren. You're still in Bastrop? Yeah, outside Austin. Which I only know because one time me and my friends went and got a dog in Bastrop from a farm. Were you in Austin?

Yeah, we stayed in Austin for like three months. And for some reason, one of my friends decided that they wanted a dog. So we drove out the Bastrop. Yeah. That's my only Bastrop memory. All right. Yeah, beautiful town. No, it is nice.

What is it that you find, because I know you've lived in New York and Riverside, correct? No, I've lived in L.A. and L.A. as well. I live not far from your store. Oh, nice. Yeah. But what is it about being in that environment that you don't particularly like? I think about New York City.

I think about New York City's vibe a lot where you wake up and it's just that crazy. You can't help but feel the energy in the air. And that motivates a lot of people. I find it very interesting. You prefer much more quietly. I wanted to get away from that energy. Like I want to be on my energy, you know, and I want to be slower and more deliberate and more reflexive because that's what my job is. that's what my job is, right? Like if I'm a stock trader, maybe that's exactly the energy you want

from a party planner or something. That's exactly what you want. But if your job is to think big picture to come with truths, you know, you need. So for me, it was like, I didn't want to live in L.A. I didn't want to live in San Francisco. I didn't want to live in New York. Austin kind of has the best of a lot of those cities, but slower and smaller, cheaper. And then when we were living there, we're like, if we're going to live in Texas, we should like do it, Texas. So we got a farm or a little ranch. And it's very conducive to writing. Yeah, of course.

Well, no, I just think like there's just fewer distractions. And I mean, look, none of my neighbors are writers. You know, I think that's the other problem is like, you meet people in LA and they're like, oh yeah, I do what you do. But they're just full of shit. You know, like you just end up comparing yourself to other people or it just, it's just the wrong, it's the wrong energy for different reasons. It's not like that up energy. it's that like professional jealousy energy or that like poser energy or you know like bad influence energy right um when you look back at or actually i wanted to ask about in the in the current times is it feel different going into this book versus your prior book about peter teal which must have for sure uh it must have completely different energy in a lot of ways because that's such a politically charged and very much of the current moment book the peter dealbook.

Did you want to get away from doing something like that? Or is it just, again, an instance of your heart was compelling you to tell that story at that time and then this is the book you wanted to write at this time? I didn't want to get away from anything, but I just really like the challenge. Like, could I do that? Like, could I be like, can I make this kind of music? Or could I, like, build this kind of boat? Like, I wanted to see if I could, like, had the skills to do it a different way.

And it was way outside my comfort zone. and it was hard, it was scary. I think I did it. I mean, they're turning into a movie and- Based on your book, are you involved in it? Yeah, I guess I'm a producer and I saw the people last night. It's got like the guy that wrote the screenplay for the big short is a screenwriter,

Francis Lawrence, who directed The Hunger Games as the director. So it's like a legit thing. And so it was just like, could I do it? And I think I did it and I'm proud of it. And but like at the core, what I do is is the obstacles away. He goes into me, stillness. Like that, that's like where I feel the most fulfillment creatively.

But like your life shouldn't be doing the same thing over and over again just because you're good at it. Right. Definitely. Is that, what was the feedback like for that book in comparison? And do you feel like that book kind of gets at the same thing that all your other books do where you're trying to educate somebody about something, period? And it's just that that was more of doing it through telling a story? Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think that book is like, like I wanted people to think not like just what happened, but like how did it happen? How did a billionaire plot in secret to destroy a media outlet? And how did nobody notice? And what can you learn from that? And is it also entertaining and surreal and fascinating? I think so. So yeah, I think it was just was a different thing. And it was weirdly like it leveled me up in a lot of. of ways. Like it was my first book reviewed in the New York Times. My first book reviewed in the Washington

Post. First one to be optioned to turn into a movie and like the kinds of people that I heard from the book is sold well, but it like is definitely punched above its weight in terms of like who's a fan of it. You feel like you were going against the sort of media collective group think that, you know, sort of probably encompasses all these different New York media types who are the ones who are writing reviews and they're the ones, you know, sort of helping form public opinion. And you basically wrote a book that in some ways kind of glorifies somebody that they see as the devil. Yeah, I mean, look, that book could have sold a lot more copies if I had chosen to make Teal the villain. Like if I had said, if I had said like Peter is the irredeemable, Peter Thiel is

the irredeemable villain of this story. And I'm going to, I'm going to make him look that way. That book would have sold a lot more copies. But that wasn't, that wasn't the truth. You know, that wasn't like, I mean, it might be somebody else's truth. They might look at the story and see that way. And that's like that they want to write their own book. They're welcome to. But when I saw it, I saw him as this complicated, I want to say heroic, but like larger than life, solitary, fascinating character. And that's, so that's the story.

Plus, I think, I mean, look, what he, what he did was even if you disagree with it, pretty fucking brutal. Well, there's a lot of criticism, yeah, and brutal and just really cool. If you're able to sort of remove yourself from any sort of, you know, ideological commitment. If I told you Andrew Carnegie plotted in secret to destroy a media, you know, or Johnny Rockefeller, you'd be like, oh, that was sick, you know. Yeah, there's some truth to that. But wait, so do you, when you think about, fuck, why did I lose it? Why did I just lose what I had in my head? We're going to have to edit this one.

I never do this anymore. It's been so long since I lost it. This is why I need a full night sleep every night. I can't be doing these four hours. I talk about this in the book. The idea that, like, you can trade sleep for more work is ridiculous. You do worse work.

Right. No, I 100% agree. That's why I find myself just, like, gearing myself more and more towards having, like, a very structured life. And I've just been totally screwed from flying and everything over the past cold days, not to mention the court making me come in to try to talk about the guy

who put a gun in my face eight months ago. Well, don't you kind of live like an animal existence? Not really. What do you mean? I don't know. From your Instagram, it always looks like you're like this sort of depravity and... No, that's a weird thing.

Is that the brand or that's the story? I was at this contest this whole weekend for these things. And everybody's drinking. And these are people who probably like don't normally drink. And everybody wants me to drink with them. And I'm like, I don't drink. I haven't had a drink in like a year. Like, you know, I haven't done drugs in a couple years.

Like, I was. Like honestly when we did that first interview, I was still partying and still like managing to hold it together. And then it just sort of at a certain point, I was just like there's no possible way that I'm operating at my best potential level, you know? And the stakes were higher. You know what I mean? Like like if you're yeah, I get it. Yeah. I mean, it's weird when I think about that though because I feel like that was kind of part of the appeal at first for a lot of people is that it seemed like I was just living my life in such a reckless fashion.

but it just felt like that just fizzled out so fast as I started to realize that I just wasn't being. Yeah, 100%. And I look at people who I know who are still going out and getting drunk all the time and they're like 40 or 50 and it's just like. It feels sad. It's sad. And I don't understand how they are able to pull that off. Yeah, it's either they're super, they're so talented. They can, you know, like balance it out or it actually is coming at a super high cost.

You think about somebody like Hitch though? Who's Hitch? Christopher Higgins. Oh, yeah. When they sort of like this super romanticized version of him just drinking all this wine and smoking a million cigarettes and just being this prolific writer. Yeah. I mean, shit, maybe.

But that's totally the exceptions of the rule. Exception of the rule. And then you also look at where it tends to end up, right? It's like Hemingway killed himself. Hunterst Thompson killed himself. You know, Jimmy Hendricks accidentally killed himself, right? Like it doesn't go well. Very rarely.

Yeah. No, you never had that phase, huh? You never really felt the need to. No, it was never, it's, it's just not my personality. Although it is interesting, like, I don't think it's a lot of people's personality, but I think they force it. Oh, 100%. And then they get into it because it, there are, there is a nice part to it.

But like, I just never been one for like acquired taste. If I don't like it, I don't like it. And like, why would I feel, like, if you don't want to drink, why would you drink to make other people feel better? Right. No, there's definitely when I think about it, I wish I had that confidence at an earlier point in my life to just say, nah, I don't really like. like that because if I had been more honest with myself, I would have just said, yeah, I don't really

want to go get drunk or, you know, but it's hard to have that confidence as a young person to sort of be able to be able to say no to the thing that everybody else is acting like is the greatest thing on earth. Well, that's, I say confidence is so important. We mistake confidence in ego and a lot of people like Kanye West is not a confident person. Kanye West is an egotistical person. Donald Trump is not a confident person. He's an egotistical person.

That's why they get themselves into trouble all the time. The confident person is the one who doesn't need to get involved in any of that shit, right? The confident person has stillness and has peace and has the sort of control over their work because they can say no. And they're like, I don't care what you think of me. You know what I mean? Or like, like, I don't need to do that. I don't need to be involved. I think of the confidence of like Bob Dylan just like not attending the Nobel Prize ceremony.

Like I don't need. Like, I just like, I don't need this. I don't want to go to Sweden. Right. Oh, I remember what I was going to say that I forgot before. I was going to say that I think that that book. It was controversial in a lot of the same ways that Succession is kind of getting a lot of backlash right now. Have you watched it all?

No. It's fantastic. But it's like it's the humanizing of the rich. Yeah. That is kind of a theme that a lot of people just, their immediate reaction is just a balk at it. There's this famous exchange between Hemingway and Fitzgerald. I ask Scott Fitzgerald who wrote Great Gatsby and and Hemingway, no, is it? Fitzgerald goes, you know, the rich.

bitch, they're different than you and I. And Hemingway's like, yeah, they have more money. That's all that it is. You know? Like we glorify and we think it's different or we think that they're somehow like evil and depraved. But if I was, if, if you started an app and then you sold it for a billion dollars, the idea that you'd just become a transformatively different person is preposterous. Like you pretty much, pretty much baked.

Things can change a little bit. But yeah, it's just people. And what the idea that this billionaire, Peter T. was outed by Gawker, the idea that he wasn't a billionaire when this happened first and foremost. He was very successful, but like in 2007 when Gawker outs Teal, Facebook has 50 million users. It's successful, but it's not like the biggest thing in the world. And just the idea that like it wouldn't hurt to be outed when you, if you didn't want to be outed because you're rich, it's just so, if you applied that logic to any other thing that

wasn't money, you'd be like, what a horrible fallacy. And even the media itself, it's like, there's almost nobody who's actually going to claim that it was okay for Gawker to out Peter Teal or to publish the Hogan sex tape. Those are clear norms that, at least in part, due to those cases, have been established that you're never going to see a Gawker or the equivalent of a Gawker today do those things. Yeah. And the media has a weird thing about it where they think because someone's like in the public eye or because they have a lot of Instagram followers or because they make a lot of money that like it doesn't hurt. You know what I mean? Or that that you don't care and that's ridiculous. Like of course you still feel it. Definitely. There's a weird thing where nowadays it's become so

acceptable to really hate billionaires or to assume that there should be no billionaires. Whereas like somebody like you, I'd say you writing from the perspective of, you know, awe and like you can learn a lot from anyone who's successful from business. How do you feel when you see that sort of becoming this prevailing public sentiment. Yeah, there's this weird sort of element of our society that's just like, let's burn it all down. And it's like, I'm not saying it's perfect, but like, show me a better system, you know, show me a system that's created more, that's worked longer, you know, I don't see it. I think we, we experimented with this burn it all down shit a couple times.

Right. Like millions and millions of people died. You know, like it doesn't work. Yeah, it's true. And it's just, it seems like it's hard to get that into people's heads to even be able to empathize with a billionaire. I mean, would you agree that society as a whole needs to be restructured in many ways because of wealth inequality? Would you agree with that? I mean, look, I think wealth inequality is a huge problem.

I like, look, and I say that as like a rich person because, like, I pay, I probably pay a much higher tax rate than Peter Thiel. Like, I make good money, great money, but like the system's not rigged for me. The system's rigged for the Warren Buffett's and the Peter Thiel. and the Donald Trumps of the world. Right. Right. Like, if you, like, I always think it's funny

when you see these rappers, like, flying in private jets. Like, some of them can afford it, but most of them can't. Like, that's not how the economics of, the music or the writing or the entertainment business really work. But I have had some of those rappers

break it down to me on why it makes sense for them to do it. And it is kind of compelling because it's like a lot of these rappers, they are moving around with eight people in their squad, eight first class flights, versus a jet, a lot of times the jet is cheaper. But there's no law that says you have to travel to your barber, you know?

That's a good guess. A lot of times it is a barber for sure. It totally is. Like, you know, it's like, look, what would the best barber in the city you're landing in cost to come in for one out? It's a weird thing to become a rapper and then decide you need a haircut every three days. Right. But there's a lot of that.

Yeah, no, there's lots of ridiculous things that people do with their money. But the point is like the system is not rigged for the people who make a million dollars in salary per year. The system is rigged for people who have a billion dollars in a bank account. You know what I mean? Like it's not the system is not rigged for people who are making money. The system is rigged for people who have lots of money and want to avoid paying taxes, you know, that sort of thing. So I don't know. I mean, like I think it's in income inequality is a huge problem. A lot of the sort of knee-jerk solutions that people have are, really stupid and like there's smart people who have smart solutions so I don't know we're probably

getting too nerdy for people but no I think that's good um so when you wrote this book was there any like before you had to reference the note cards or things like that was there anything that really stood out to you as the most obvious examples of the idea that you were trying to get across what was thinking of Kennedy in the missile crisis like okay the first one you use pretty much that's the first story in the book you know like here's a guy he wakes up one day there's nuclear missiles in Cuba, Russia put them there, what do you do? Right. Right?

Then military's like, you got to bomb the shit out of Cuba. And he's like, well, what happens next? And he had the strength and the fortitude to slow it down and think about it and work out a solution, not be jerked around, you know, emotionally, right? So that's a big one. Tiger Woods was a big example. Like here you have a guy who's complete master of his body, of his brain, but, like spiritually like was a mess and then one imploded and took the other two down took him 10 years to get back right the tiger woods story really made me think a lot about just child rearing in

general too because of how brutal his dad's way they raised him was oh yeah I think his dad basically abused him like his dad turned him into a machine is I mean his dad referred to the idea of enough as the e word like how fucked up does that like that there's never enough You'll never have enough. You'll never be good enough. You'll never win enough. You'll never win by enough. Should we be surprised that he became insatiable, you know,

and that like that he thought he deserved everything and that having a beautiful wife and kids and family and a great career wasn't enough that he had to go reach, reach until it all came collapsing now? And that's kind of like a common urge with a lot of parents these days where they want to push their kids to be so good at one single thing. almost like they're planning out their hobbies or careers for them in advance. How do you approach that in terms of you as a father? Like what would you, obviously your kids are super young, but how would you want to encourage them to do a lot of different things as opposed to just focusing in on one thing from day one? Did you read Range yet, the David Epstein book?

No. It's really good. He's basically saying he's like there's a Tiger Woods model on one hand, and then there's like the Roger Federer example on the other, and he swam and he played tennis, and he played baseball and he was had all the, like, he's saying that, like, what you actually want is like adaptability. You want range, like a broad swath of skills.

Like, for you, like, you're good at BMX, you're good at fashion. Like, you had all these different things that somehow coalesced into making a totally new thing. Do you know what I mean? Like, if you were only interested in riding bikes, like, that might have made you the best in the world of that one thing, but that would have prevented. you from experimenting with all these little things that you then got results from and rewards and then I spent 10 years being the guy with the best BMX website and that was all I cared about and I couldn't see past it. Okay.

And then eventually I just started to slowly realize that this just was not going to be enough to keep me afloat for the rest of my life. Not financially or whatever, but just, you know, I wanted to grow. Even that you were just interested in having a website. It's like most people weren't, right? Like, like, it's the desire to expand and grow and learn new things and that somehow comes to, especially when, like, you're an entrepreneur or a creator and you're making something that doesn't exist anymore. You need all these different inputs that. And so, like, I talk a lot about the book about the power of hobbies.

You know, like, this is a hobby for you. But, like, Winston Churchill loved painting and, you know, Mr. Rogers loved swimming. And, like, like, great people. Chris Bosch taught himself how to play the good. guitar and a program on computers. And like, you want to have, you can't just do your one thing. You gotta have other things because this is where you learn new ideas. You learn how to learn.

Keep your mind active. And it also helps you relax and replenish. So you can't just only be on the grind. Right. And it's like, I feel like all the good things that have come to me in life have just been the product of me having a lot of disparate interests. And then at some point being able to sort of fuse them together or notice where there were similarities or where they could join together. Yes, totally.

Biggest thing in my life. My mom just, I don't know how the hell she even knows I'm with you, but she just texted me, get me a copy of Ryan's new book. That's amazing. That's so cool. Is she still a librarian? She retired a year and a half ago and she just moved to Santa Clarita, so she's just like 40 minutes north.

Very cool. Yeah, that's pretty cool. She's still, I mean, she retired as a as a librarian and still wakes up at 5.30 in the morning, so she could sit and read, which she did with my whole life. Every. That's such a good model. I think she would maybe be leaving for work at seven. She'd be up at like 5.5.30 every day to be sitting there and read for an hour and a half. That must have been so powerful for you to see.

Just to see that it was that important to her, especially as someone who's a librarian, she's surrounded by books 100% of the day. Right. Did she or you read the Susan Orlean book about libraries, the library book? I don't think so. Susan Orlean wrote a book about the Los Angeles Public Library fire in like 1985. You know that crazy library downtown? Right. Yeah.

big one that's that cool building yeah that just like just went up in flames millions of books got burned they think it was arson but they're not sure wow and it's like this it's super good she would love it you would love it i didn't know about that i got to check that out yeah did you tell that story about kennedy avoiding the nuclear war with the russians you tell that in a way to you know create an illusion towards the fact that it's hard for us to imagine our current president having that same level of, you know, reservation. But then at the same time, it's like, our president has kind of proven them to be a bit of a pussy

when it comes to really going for it with other foreign leaders. Yeah, yeah. Talks tough. No, it's definitely like the sort of sub-tweeting of that story is like, like, who do you think I'm talking about? For sure. And it's, I think it's an argument for the importance of temperament. Like if Donald Trump was the landlord of this building,

you would move out in five seconds because you're like this dude is nuts right like she's always causing problems he's always picking fights he's always blah blah blah like life you'd be like life is too short people are like let's make him president of the most powerful country in the world and give him a hexus to thousands of nuclear weapons it's insane so yes uh the the only redeeming quality about Trump so far is that it turns out he's actually like a complete coward yeah and and and utterly indecisive. So like even when he thinks about doing something really stupid, he backs down because he doesn't actually want the responsibility of owning whatever it is. Yeah. Is it odd for you to see a lot of, you know, a huge percentage of Americans, even probably a lot of people who are fans of

your work being so fond of the guy? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, I think it's alarming. But I think historically if you understand people, you're like, a lot of people supported a lot of bad people, right? Like, the crowd, there's a reason we call the crowd the mob. The mob sucks, right? Like, so I'm not, and I get there's a lot of reasonable people have totally reasonable reasons for supporting Trump. And I can have a conversation with those people. Although it is interesting, like, oh, write, you know, write something and people, how dare you? Like I was, I did a show in New York and some woman got up and was like, you know, my, she was like, I have a question. It wasn't a question. It was like, How dare you criticize Donald Trump or something? She's like, I think it's very unfair that you criticized Donald Trump in your book. And I was like, what does this say? This is my fucking name. It's my book.

I'm going to say whatever I want. You know, like, and people, like, whenever, if I write something thoughtful, like, you know, obviously I was being a little dick right there. But like, if I say, you know, something thoughtful, like some critique about, I talk about temperament or I talk about what it means to, you know, have a fragile ego and maybe I make an illusion to Donald Trump. I'll get all these, like, for Daily Stoic, people will be like, I'm unsubscribing, you should keep politics out of this. Like, you're going to hurt.

It's like, I didn't build this platform or, like, get where I got to not say what I think because I don't want to offend people. I think that's like, like, I don't totally agree with everything you do and, like, we live very different lifestyles and blah. But, like, people should do what they want to do. And, like, the idea that, like, one, the idea that people should censor themselves to not upset other people. is ridiculous to me and kind of offensive actually. But then the other thing that people would be offended by what other people do with their lives and their work is like even more ridiculous.

She could have got up and made an argument against specific things that you said, but the argument that you shouldn't have said your opinion in the first place is not very compelling. No, totally. But that's really what they're saying. They're not saying, I really disagree with your argument. They're saying, my identity is caught up in my support of Donald Trump and you criticized it. Therefore, you're criticizing me as a human and therefore I don't like you and what you have to say anymore.

Which is a ridiculous way. Like, ridiculous way to live. There's an epictetus line. He says, when you're offended, realize you're complicit in the offense. You know, like when you get offended, you are choosing to be offended. Right. Your first book, Media Manipulation, that was the first thing that really did. drew me towards what you were bringing to the table.

It occurs to me that if I were to go back and read that book now, that a lot of the conclusions that you were talking about at that time might seem so obvious that it would almost seem crazy. Because it's so the language of our time is that everyone is outwardly manipulating the media. This stuff seems so self-evident towards us still to this day. And at that time, that was shocking to me. Just the idea of, you know, going about, you know, courting media. in such a direct way, whereas this is just so common now.

Does that, when you look back at that, does it feel kind of strange to have sort of predicted the whole thing? Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's, I have a weird relationship with that book. Because I wrote this book to say like, look, this is how the media is being manipulated. This is bad. This is scary. Should do something about it.

And then you go like, oh, there's this guy. The guy that gave Trump the idea for the wall. It's like, that's his favorite book. And you're like, fuck. You know, that's, I don't want that. Yeah. You know, that's not why I wrote. it.

Because you weren't writing it as a guide to how to do that. No, I'm sure plenty of people. It's kind of presenting it that way, but the argument is like, this is how this works. Shut this down. What are you doing? And so there's a lot of shooting the messenger, which is really frustrating. You know, a lot of bad people like that book and use it.

I don't like that. But I also feel like there's a lot of good people that just, you know, went like this, you know, like plug their ears to it. And a lot of the mess we're in was totally preventable. Right. You know, and like even now, Donald Trump, Marco Rubio got in trouble. You see this where like, so Trump was like, I call on China to investigate Joe Biden. And he's doing it.

And they were like, Marco Rubio, what do you think? And he's like, I don't think Trump means it. I think he said it to get you people to lose your minds about it. Right. And they were like, what a coward. And it's like, he's totally right. That's exactly what happened. Not that Trump is above doing such a despicable thing.

like as far as calling on a foreign power to investigate a political rival. I mean, we know for a fact he's already done this in the Ukraine. But like he is he is just like feeding the trolls. You know what I mean? Like he is just he knows if he does this or says this or talks about this person or sends his tweet. Everyone loses their mind and then they'll be distracted. And like his political opponents will have a harder time making a pervasive argument

to those sort of like middle ground voters. Right. Well, I mean, in that book, you could have probably never predicted the extreme to which the media would be being manipulated. Like when we talk about foreign powers affecting our elections and stuff, do you really see a way back towards normalcy after so much? There's so, you know, it's almost impossible to imagine a scenario in which that gets better for the next election. Yeah, I don't know if you put the cat back in the bag. Yeah. But like, I do think people are, like, I don't know anyone that watches cable news that isn't old, you know.

Fair enough. But now when you go to YouTube, it's all trying to get me to watch CNN and Fox News. That's true. Or, you know, what they're really watching is, you know, Alex Jones. Like, like, there's other problems. But I'm saying, like, I think a lot of this is generational. So I do think we'll figure it out. I think you, either the world ends or we figure it out.

So I'm hoping it's the former. Yeah, it is scary, though. It's like, you know, just it's hard to imagine. Like when Trump got into office, there was a lot of people saying, you know, that I fear that the problem that's going to come from here is that there will be so many norms of decency that will be obliterated. I think like even more so the just norms of conversation seem to be kind of obliterated or this urge to constantly be investigating each other. It's hard to imagine like a future in which we have a Democratic president. and in which the Republicans aren't from day one seeking to impeach him based on whatever, you know,

because we did it to them this time around. And so therefore, you can imagine they're going to be bringing the same thing. I just try to think big picture. I just try to zoom out. You know what I mean? Like, I just try to think like the world has always been like this. There's always been conflict. There's always been, you know what I mean?

I just try to think about it historically a little bit. It gives me some perspective. But it's dark. It's scary. But this is why you need that stillness. Like if you're jerked around, like, I know so many people, They're basically debilitated by the Trump presidency. So think about this way.

Donald Trump is, I don't think I've been a good president. I think he's done a lot of really alarming things. But it's not like he's like sent normal people to like a gulag, right? Like he's, you know what I mean? Like he's not like actually a tyrant in like the Hitlerian sentence. But I mean like a lot of people on the far left or even not so far left would argue he has literally sent people to the gulag because of those camps by the border. Right.

Yeah, but sure. But he didn't send those people there. They came across the border. Now they're there. But I'm not saying that's not a horror. But I don't find it to be a black mark on all that this country stands for it. But what I mean is Trump has not instituted a thought police that prevents me from doing my job or focusing, blah, blah, blah. But I know a bunch of people who voluntarily put themselves in that position because he and politics and whatever the breaking news is is all they can think about, all they can focus on.

They're basically like zombies who for the last three years have been completely controlled by like Trump's energy. You know what I mean? People who still are working on a daily creative writing assignment about how bad Trump is on Twitter. And just I just as bad as the things I sometimes see him do, it's just I very rarely feel the need to try to put it into words. Right. No. And the fact that they're constantly putting into words, I actually would argue as having the opposite effect. because it's kind of this boy who cries wolf thing.

I think when I think my dad, I think my dad's just like, it's not as bad as they said, you know? And that's because they've said, like, literally, we're all going to die. Right. And it's more complicated than that. So, yeah, I think people have sort of voluntarily made themselves prisoners of Trump by being so obsessed by him and so repulsed by him

and so aggravated by him constantly that they don't make good decisions. They don't make the real difference they could make in the world but their work or whatever. Very, very true. What about, oh yeah, the one thing I want to ask you about is just there's this video that went viral that I'm sure you haven't seen on Twitter of this group, the Dobre brothers, who they're doing a mean greet and people basically are. Are they rappers or what are they? They're like YouTube stars. They're like young boy like singers.

And there's a mean greet going on and this girl comes through. She's like a 12 year old girl and she takes a photo with them and they just look so dead and so just lacking any sort of life. And this is a big conversation I've been seeing. I saw Casey Nystatt and H-3-H-3. I have a conversation about it the other day where they were saying that they don't do meet-and-greetz. Because they don't feel that they can like really establish a connection with people when you're having to meet thousands of fans. And I've been through this myself too where once you get past that like, you know, 50th person or 100th person or whatever, you're just going through the motions. You're just saying, hey, man, thanks.

Appreciate the support. Do you go through that? Because I still noticed that you're doing these book tours all the time and stuff. Yeah. I mean, I'm on one right now. And yeah, this is like my, God knows how many hours of these interviews I've recorded. I mean, so I try to be present. I try to be focused.

But yeah, I can only imagine like at Casey's level because these, I remember Casey and I were staying in the same hotel in Amsterdam ones. And like they had to put out like a red carpet and like outside, not a red carpet, but whatever those like barriers are for the people waiting in line. Like this was like the Beatles or something. You know, like, and this was three or four years ago. Like, and that's, that's his reality. I can imagine that just burns you out so much. And so I think you want to ask yourself as like an artist, like, is this how I want to make my money? Right.

You know, especially the ones where you're getting paid. Like, you're not doing it because like you want to give back to the fans. It's like you're charging $100 a person or whatever. Like, there's better ways to make money. Why are you doing it that way? Right. It's just this like desire to not leave any money on the table. Yeah.

Yeah. Like, so I did a signing last night at Book Soup and it was great and there was like 100 people. or so and I said hi to everyone. It was awesome. But you can, yeah, you can't do that every day. And there's kind of a natural limiting factor when it's, you're only being, you're only marketing towards people who have the willingness to read a book. Yes. Right. No, books are way chiller than any of the other. It's like how many people read, how many people buy books. How many people will go to a place to meet an author? How many people go to the back to see what the author? Like, I bet, I mean, books have sold very, very well. But I would say 50% of the people that,

read it like them have no idea who I am right which is wonderful yeah that's what you want yeah very very true um so what else are you excited about at this point do you have any sort of like notion of what the next book might be i'm uh yeah i was been on the phone my agent all day and negotiating the next franchise or series or whatever okay i like to always have the next project because i don't want to ride like i got the sales numbers for the the book uh this morning and it's like i don't want that to sit they're great like way better than expected i don't want to that to, I don't want that to pump me up. And if they were bad, I wouldn't want them to knock me down. I want to know, I want to get back to the work.

Mm. You ever find yourself in that position where you've been, you know, booked up for days or weeks or months? And then all of a sudden you find yourself with a day with a whole big chunk of cleared out time. And it's kind of overwhelming. Yeah, but those are the best. I love those days. Glorious. And that's all, I always like have huge ideas on those days. And then I go, why do am I not making more? The premise of this book is like, the franchise I'm going to work on next, I had that idea while I was on vacation with my family. That idea is worth millions of dollars, right?

Why don't I take more vacations? Yeah. That vacation not only paid for itself because I deserved the vacation, but like, that's where I got the next thing, right? And yet, mostly what we think about is like, how do we cram more work in? Yeah, and that's what this is about, right?

Yeah. Clearing out that stillness, so you've got time to see the truth. Well, if stillness are the best moments or personally and professionally, whatever, like, why is it so rare? I do, I got you something. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, so, okay, so I know you're, I know you're into the Stoicism stuff a little bit, and I know you wouldn't just wear anything, so I had this made for you. Wow. It's rose gold, because I know that's what the rappers are wearing. Oh, shit.

Look at that. Memento Mori. Yeah. What's that mean exactly? Remember you will die. Wow. And then on the inside, and you can get a resize if it doesn't fit, but on the inside, it says you can leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think. Wow.

That's Marcus Aurelius, right? The idea is like life is like that could go away any moment. You seize it. You can't take it for granted. You can't expect to live forever. You can't hang on to grudges. You can't put up with bullshit. Like life is short.

Wow. That's amazing. I appreciate that so much. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You've sort of become a bit of a jeweler over the years, huh? I guess. You had a coin that I think went out with the previous book? Yeah, yeah. No, I have, did I send you one? I think you sent one's my girlfriend or something. Oh, yeah, yeah, I did. But so I started with this, but and then I wanted a ring, so I made a ring. The signet ring is like the one of the oldest forms of jewelry. But, you know, you would put it, seal an envelope with it or whatever. But the idea is like you want, I want to have like a reminder that. that like, it's so easy to just get caught up and whatever. You're like, I've got this, I got this, it's so busy. I'm gonna live for 75 years. You don't know that.

Like we think like, oh, what if I found out I had cancer or something? But you do have cancer. Everybody has cancer. Yeah, this is growing a little slowly right now. Yeah. It'll be there sooner later. When you were born, the doctor knew for certain that you were not long for this world. You know what I mean?

The doctor was like, this person will die. Right. We know this for every single person. And yet most of us live like we have an unlimited amount of time. God, you're making me want to work my house off right now. But it's not just work, though. Like, because a lot of people are like, I got to, I've got to get all this money. And it's like, for what?

You can't take it with you. Yeah. I mean, some of us are lucky. I mean, we're very lucky in the sense that we both find our work very fulfilling. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. But why would you do unfulfilling work to make money to buy things you don't really want or need?

But a lot of people are at that point in their life where they basically have to work to make money to try to get themselves into the position where they could maybe have a shot at doing something that they were more passionate about with their life. Yeah, sure, sure. Or people are in a position where their lifestyle is so ridiculous that they have to do shit they don't want to do just to maintain it.

You haven't found any expensive hobbies yet? No, no, not really. I mean, I got this farm and let me tell you, it's not a money-making proposition. But, no, I mean, I think living below your means is one of the most sort of powerful things you can do. expensive tastes come at the cost of life. Seneca is this thing.

He's like underneath, you know, marble and gold is slavery. You know, like you have a fancy house, but you're working for the house. Yeah. I think that the truth. Yeah. Ryan Holiday. Dude, thanks. No jumper.

I appreciate you coming through again, man. I know there's a lot of people that loved our first one. So I'm excited to see what they got to say with this one. Yeah. No jumper. Ryan Holiday. Coolest podcast the world. Check us on YouTube, SoundCloud, iTunes.

like comment subscribe nojumber.com if you want to support go get yourself in condama if you don't have anything you're can I have one yeah we have ones in packages right that we can give okay perfect appreciate you man thanks thanks