The Daily Stoic - Every Great Leader Has THIS Secret Weapon | Les Snead (Los Angeles Rams GM)

Episode Date: October 18, 2025

The difference between panic and power comes down to a few simple rules. In today’s episode, Ryan dives into Les Snead’s philosophy on “panic rules” and why it’s stuck with him ever since they first talked. Ryan and Les discuss how these rules help leaders stay calm under pressure, make hard decisions, and mentor the next generation. Then, they wrap up the conversation at The Painted Porch, where Ryan shares some book recommendations with Les and his wife Kara.Les Snead is an American football executive who is the general manager of the Los Angeles Rams of the National Football League. Snead played tight end for Auburn from 1992-93 and was part of the Tigers’ perfect 11-0 team in 1993. He also earned Southeast Region Academic All-American honors during his college career. Prior to joining the Rams, Snead spent 13 seasons with the Atlanta Falcons.  📚 Full list of books that Ryan gave to Les and Kara:Bittersweet by Susan CainSlow Productivity by Cal NewportLetters to a Young Athlete by Chris BoshIt’s Better To Be Feared by Seth WickershamThe Way of the Champion by Paul RabilLevels of the Game by John McPheeNotes to John by Joan DidionGrit by Angela Duckworth The Notebook by Rolland AllenSacred Hoops by Phil JacksonPlato and The Tyrant by James RommThe Second Mountain by David BrooksDie With Zero by Bill PerkinsFrom Strength to Strength by Arthur Brooks On Character by General Stanley McChrystal 📖 Preorder the final book in Ryan Holiday's The Stoic Virtues Series: "Wisdom Takes Work": https://store.dailystoic.com/pages/wisdom-takes-work🎙️ Listen to Les Snead's first episode on The Daily Stoic Podcast🎥 Watch the video episodes on The Daily Stoic YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos👉 Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing to The Daily Stoic Premium - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content: https://dailystoic.supercast.com/✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow us:  Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers. we explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space, when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your

journal, and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stelic podcast. So back in 2022, I believe, I gave a talk to the Marines out in 29 Palms. And I was trying to think, like, where did I want to start this thing? What did I want to build this talk around? It was actually sort of true. I was talking to a thing. theater of about 2,000 Marines, and then the next day did the same talk. It rotated another big group of Marines. And so I was like, what do I want to talk about? What would be interesting?

How do I catch these young men and women's attention? Because they were all like 18, 19. Most of them hadn't gone to college. Most of them were not excited to get a talk about ancient philosophy. What can I connect them with? And I decided I would open with football. And here's what I opened with. This is not the first time I've talked to a group of Marines, but it is the first time I've seen Marines eating popcorn while I talk, so this is quite a privilege for me. We're going to talk about ancient philosophy,

and I know that sounds strange. Pretty much every audience I get in front of, while they put the popcorn away real quick when they hear that I'm going to talk about ancient philosophy, because it doesn't sound like the most exciting thing in the world. I get that. It seems old and dusty and ancient. A couple years ago,

I had the opportunity I went and I talked to the Los Angeles Rams at their training camp up in Irvine. And it was a pretty cool experience. And you might be thinking again what they were thinking, which is what does ancient philosophy have to teach a professional football team? What is an old dusty book from an obscure school of ancient philosophy possibly have to do with winning, with victory, with beating the shit out of someone else? I get that. But in fact, ancient philosophy in the ancient world, philosophers weren't like, your professors or your teachers. They didn't wear turtlenecks.

They were active people in the actual world. They fought in wars. They started companies. They ran for political office. They did things in real life. The Stoics were athletes and generals, thinkers, writers. They did stuff, right? Philosophy was something that informed what they did.

It shaped what they did. It made them better at what they did. And as it happened, the Rams managed to turn things around. They had a bad season and then a pretty good season. They won a Super Bowl. They sent me a pretty cool Super Bowl ring. But I got to know Les Need, who's the GM of the Rams, and we've become friends over the years. And when I was talking to Les, I interviewed him on the Daily Stoic podcast not too long ago. One of the things we talked about, he brought up this idea of panic rules. He said a panic rule is like what you do when you're overwhelmed,

when things are falling apart, when you're flooded with information, with conflicting information, What do you revert to in moments of crisis, personal or professional, right, the things that always stand true, sort of really short aphorisms or epigrams or slogans that you stick to, that you go to in moments where you really need clarity? Some of his, you gave me some, there's a batting order for a reason, nip it in the bud, right? We is greater than me, wake up sprinting, don't be scared, keep the main thing, the main thing. And he's got a bunch of them, just like every team has a bunch of them, just like you guys have a bunch of them. So this idea of panic rules, I think it's pretty applicable. It's what I wanted to talk to you guys about today.

The art of not panicking, right, getting clarity. I know you guys have some of your slogans, right? It was kind of a weird experience for me because I'm actually a Saints fan. And after Sean Payton was suspended for the trumped-up Bounty Gate scandal, which we don't need to get into here, He put this large poster on the wall, the practice facility. He just said, do your job, right? This is a panic rule situation. Your coach is suspended.

You miss him for a year. It's a bunch of penalties. What are we supposed to do? You're supposed to do your job, right? You're supposed to do your job in every situation and circumstance, right? In things big and small, glamorous or not, your job is to do your job, right? Whether you get credit for it or not, your job. job is to do your job, right? If you do it right, it doesn't matter if it's not fancy or special or

recognized, right? It's meaningful and important and significant and honorable if you do it well. As they say, how you do anything is how you do everything. You take the task, menial or not, and you do it with everything you have. This is what the Stoics are talking about. This is excellence, right? So when you're overwhelmed, when you don't know what to do, what you do, is the most basic part of your job. As I said, Les Needs had talked about this the first time he was on the Daily Stoic podcast. This is what he'd actually said. The really good teams, the really good coaches, right?

They're able to teach and keep these simple principles, right, simple during the chaos and lack of order that's going on during a game and obviously life. No, that's a good, that's a good analogy for life because it's sort of like, you know, tell the truth, be a good person, do your best. These are like things we know, we say. And then life makes things really complicated. And now it's not quite clear what your best is or should you tell the whole truth. But there might be consequences for telling the truth, right?

there's all these reasons where those simple rules, life is trying to sort of distract you from those simple rules. But if you just stick with what you know, if you stick with what you believe, General Mattis says, you know, know your flat-ass rules and stick to them. If you just do that, you'll be fine. But the problem is almost when we when we overthink it, when we allow ourselves to be sort of knocked off the job we've been assigned, that's where we get into trouble. Yeah, I think going to General Madison and circling back to what I just chatted about, really good coaches will talk about your panic rules, right? When there's chaos and your brain is panicking, okay, just go to your flat-ass-out rules. A lot just happened, but slow down, go to you.

You got number three. You got the third eligible. There he is. One, two, three. Maybe it all changed before. is simple math, go to your flat-ass panic rules, stay with three, it'll probably work out. But a lot of times, as you said, during the chaos and lack of order, you may even forget that you had three and now who is three and why is that three and can I even count the three?

Well, I like the idea of panic rules. Do you have those as a GM? Like, I've got to imagine like you're thinking, hey, we're going to draft this person or we're going to make this trade or we're going to renegotiate this contract. And then all of a sudden, somebody says something on social media, then there's a report on ESPN, you know, now the fans, they think strongly about this or you're getting, you know, the owner is putting in their opinion. Do you have like flat-ass rules or panic rules that you revert to under pressure or stress? Like, here's what I, here are the basic assumptions I have as a GM, you know, what are those? And how do you revert back to them? pressure. We definitely have panic rules and it's interesting when us in sports get a chance to to read books by people like yourselves. We add to those panic rules because some of those simple rules and the wisdom that that you articulate and the examples behind them can can go to the list. So

There is definitely, and probably at the end of the day somewhere along the way, keep the main thing, the main thing is a panic rule. Sure. We say around here, we not me, and sometimes that means we is greater than me, even though we're well aware that the individual, the mees that make up the we are the heartbeat and matter because they're people, but it can help you go back to, okay. Okay, wait a minute. We're here to do what's best for the whole. So how do we make a decision? Okay, maybe we're making a more individual's decision that may set some precedence that these other individuals that are part of the we now, right, are disturbed by it. It's an unattended consequence. So there's many of them. And one of them is when in doubt, don't act. when in doubt think about it more right because there's an element of doubt there that okay if we have to make the decision right now and there's more doubt than certainty don't make it right don't don't make the don't trade somebody under pressure that kind of thing and it might and in making that trade might have been right the right thing to do but we would

rather have the, let's call it the fault, is that right? We'd rather have the false negative than false positive. Yeah. So, but okay, wait a minute, don't, tomorrow we still have an opportunity to make that same trade. Okay, let's, let's think about it longer. We thought there was a timeline. There's not, so you, you just continue right, analyzing this issue. So there's a lot of those panic rules. No, I see, I see what you're saying. It's like, it's better that you miss out potentially on a trade than to develop the habit of making decisions that you're not 100% sure about. Right. So when he came back out to the painted porch this summer, I wanted to build on this idea of

panic rules. And I wanted to talk more about football. As I said, in part one, my relationship with the Rams goes back quite a ways. I've known less quite a long time through his wife, Kara. who's been a big booster and supporter of the books. And actually, they got to see me talk twice. I gave a talk in L.A. with Robert Green several years ago, which they came out to. That was awesome. And then I gave a talk at the NFL owners meeting. I believe this was in 2019, which Les was there. It was the owners, the GMs, and the head coaches, and then the spouses. So it was a pretty surreal audience. I've talked about this before, but they helped sort of brief me and walk me through sort of what would be relevant and what would not be relevant to this audience.

A couple years after I gave that talk, I had a meeting in Beverly Hills. The person asked if I would meet them at the montage in Beverly Hills. There's a very fancy hotel. So I pull up in my rental car, the valet, give the keys to the valet. And the guy goes, hey, are you Ryan Holiday? And I go, yeah. And he goes, oh, I love your books. And I'm reading meditations.

And I go, oh, this is awesome. This is what I absolutely love to hear. And I go, how did you hear about it? And he goes, well, you know, Mr. Cronky, he spends a lot of time at this hotel, and he told me to read it. So Stan had heard about my books through Les and from my talk at the owner's meeting. And then here he is, passing it to the valet at a fancy hotel. This young kid is finding philosophy. I just, I love that.

I love stuff like that. That's what lights me up. That's why I do what I do. sometimes people are a little snooty about my work you know it's popular with bros and sports or whatever but that's to me what it's about through sports that can find this large wider audience which is why I'm excited my kids have now gotten into football and hopefully we can displace Alexander Hamilton a little bit in our rotation and maybe occasionally listen to some other things and do some other things it was fascinating to have less out we not only did

did this podcast. Then we also went, did a long walkthrough of the bookstore and talked about books for quite some time. So I think you're really going to like this. I split this one up into two parts because I thought it was important and very listenable. And I'm excited to bring it to you now. As I said, Les is the GM of the Rams position he's held for 13 years, which is an incredible tenure. It's got a Super Bowl in there. Another Super Bowl appearance. He's just totally turned the Rams around. Before that, it was with the Jaguars and the Falcons. And here's today's episode. I think you're really going to like it. You guys were just talking about your assistant, your former assistant, who just got hired as a GM. Yes. Did he follow your advice? Like, just do the thing?

You know, the answer would be yes. And it was interesting about him. I don't know if he ever, He's one of those, let's call it, probably rare people that that's how he was coded anyway. Right. So he was perfect for that in that. He never tried to get the next job. He never tried. He really just wanted to do his best at making, let's call it, my life easier or making the GM jobs more impactful. Yeah.

So that's what he went about doing. And by doing that, I think he was very, let's call it, proactive in probably my idiosyncrasies. And also then, hey, maybe what the organization needed, desire, what would make it more efficient. So he never came and said, I think we ought to do this. Yeah. He just, the next time, right, the phase of the calendar came around that he had already implemented all of that. And you were like, wow, okay, that's, I guess that's what's. really good is, is that we never had a meeting. He just said, he just did it. He just did it.

How long did he work for you? It was probably, it would be about nine years. I think that's the other thing is people want the thing, but they want it right now. They're like, how can I be a GM or how can I be bestselling author? And how can I do it right now? You would appreciate this from his dad. So you get it. It's interesting, too. He was 34. So he's 34, one of the youngest GMs, if not the youngest. And I remember when Jacksonville, one of their best players ever, Tony Bisselli was helping with the search. I remember him asking me, how old is James?

I'm like, you know what, Tony? You can ask my staff, I'm not really a big birthday guy. You know, can't say I, you got to believe in birthdays that happen, but it's just, I really don't know how old he is. And he's like, what do you mean? You don't know how old he is? I'm like, I promise you, I don't. I mean, he's somewhere between 25 and 30.

But you'd really appreciate his dad, but his dad, long time high. school football coach. And probably James was on his path in St. Louis. That's where we first met. And he coached my son in St. Louis. And that was probably going to be his path. I would bet he would be a head football coach and a principal of a high school and be one of the best at both. But his dad during this whole process, his question and advice really is question, James, you know you don't have to go be a GM if you don't want to be. Wow. I want to make sure. that's what you want to do. Because James had never really ever articulated to anyone.

Really? Hey, I would like to be a GM one day. Yeah. He really basically articulated, look, however long we work together, I want to, right? Just be great at what I'm doing. And then we'll see what happens after that. So it was really neat to see a parent going, okay. The opposite of pressure.

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how long does it take? And it goes, 10 years. And the student's like, no, no, no, I really want to be a samurai master. I'm going to give everything. I'll be very dedicated. How long will it take? And then the master goes, 15 years. And he goes, no, no, I don't think you understand. I'm in a hurry. I got to be the master. I'm coming to you. I want you to teach me to be a master. And I need to do it in as short a time as possible. How long will it take? And the teacher goes 20 years. And there's something about patience there that if you think you can do it in a short amount of time, if you think you're the kid going places, if you think you can somehow speed it up. Like the people who become the youngest to ever do something, I actually tend to find we're not that motivated to do a thing

by a certain time. They were just totally absorbed in doing the thing. And then somebody else very successful or experienced sees something in them and elevates them sooner than that. then maybe they even think they were ready for it. That's how it happens. It's not something you can force or even like acquire for yourself. Perfect. Now, because you use that story, I was thinking, I was coming, okay, how are you going to, how are you going to be impressive on this podcast, right? There's pressure. And I'm like, okay, my panic rules and the only thing I have is my new panic rule is you can't microwave life. But the samurai master just, that's what he's saying. It's saying that now it is interesting. Someone like James,

It seems like it was microwave, but maybe he was... Nine years is not a Michael. Yeah, that is still nine years. But the point being is he didn't try to do it in a day. He didn't try to do it. That was not his goal. And he was... I think I...

We made the joke as it was... As he was making news around the time he got the job, but not that an apprentice, this is all you do, but I really, really loved green tea. And I always go, James, the first thing I want you to do is just make sure I got a green tea in the morning. because he had gotten a job and I'm like, there's going to be times where I don't even know what to give you to do. But if I'm busy, just make sure you don't come look like one of those puppies. You got your puppy out there and they're kind of looking at you.

You're like, let's go play. And I'm like, I just don't have time to play right now. But I use the example that there was that moment of James just recognizing that even though I never asked for a green tea in the afternoon, he kind of knew that I really wanted to be. I wanted a green tea in the afternoon. And then I probably wasn't going to be the guy to go, hey, James. I know you're getting me a green tea in the morning, but you need to do it in the afternoon. Yeah.

So he, but he kind of recognized all of that. Then next thing you know, there was always the green tea there. Interesting. And then next thing you know, I'm like, wow, this is great. And then, but the point being is, I know there's more to life than getting someone green tea. But he dominated that. And what I tell people is everything after that, as he got more responsibility. How you do anything is how you do everything.

If you treat that as serious, you'll treat all the other things. serious, you'll be great at that. I know in the NFL, like, if another team wants to hire someone, they have to, they have to, like, ask the team if they can interview that person, right? Yes. So is an assistant in a position that the Jaguars had to message you to ask if they could interview your assistant? Now the rules, rules are a little different where if you're going to, if you're going to interview someone for their number one football executive, then you don't have to ask for permission. You just got to notify. So did you get notified? Definitely got What was your reaction like?

Because I think there's two different types of bosses. There's the sort of possessive, resentful boss, right? This is what Robert Green talks about and don't outshine the master. There's that boss. And then there's like the sort of coaching tree boss. There's the, you look at like an organization like the Spurs, which is basically a coaching and GM clinic for the NBA at this point, right? At that point, I called it sweet bitter. So the bitter being, wow, we got a chance to lose a very valuable human being.

The sweet is he's definitely earned this. he's ready. Wasn't totally surprised because I started in Jacksonville. I knew a lot of people in that building. They had hired Liam Cohen, who had worked with us as our offensive coordinator. Now, he was coming from Tampa Bay at the time. So there was this, when Liam was interviewing, there was. You said it might happen.

He definitely discussed, hey, if I were the head coach here, I'd love to set it up like we had it set up when I was in Los Angeles. So there was a lot of discussion about how we did things systematically. in L.A. with the Rams that so it wasn't it wasn't like wow there's all of a sudden we get a notification and yeah yeah oh wow they discovered James so you somewhat knew it was coming based on that but so more spurs more sweet better yeah but definitely sweet first because it was oh I see we're saying sweet bitter because it's it's more sweet than bitter like you're you're happy and then you also understand like shit this is going to cost me at some level and then also now you have to you're in competition but happy for James yeah yeah it's very good yeah

and all he had done for myself, the ramp, more happy than better is. And that's also, I think that's the obligation. Like, very few people, when you hire them, you're like, this person's going to work for me forever. Like, you're part of the arrangement. Part of the payoff for getting the green tea is that you're not only not going to stand in this person's way in the future, but you're actually going to help them get to where they want to go, which is, again, almost certainly not getting green tea forever. Like, like, it's an exchange.

you have an obligation and I think a duty to like pay forward the door opening that other people did for you. That's the fortunate thing being maybe it's going in it started in my first year as a GM was 2012. We're going into the 25 season. Yeah. Right. So is that 14, 13, whatever. Pretty good run. It was, I would have never, I would have bet the under.

Yeah. So point being is when you sit back and realize the only way you as an individual have that kind of run is a lot of people like James. and a lot of others, right, dominating their roles and it's all compounded the rounds are successful and here I am. But at this phase in the career, in the journey and the adventure, there's that, that let's call it, paradigm framing that, you know what? You definitely want to give back to those that are, give back to the game. People did that to myself and now it's really cool to be in this position. Wow, you can really impact. At the end of your career, you're not going to be like, can you believe, like in 2026, I made X, you know, or you're not even probably going to be thinking

in the Super Bowls. You're probably going to be thinking about the impact that you had on other, like I think at the end of your career, you're going to be thinking about other people. You're thinking about your family, but you're also going to think professionally, did you leave the game better than you found it? Did you help other people do what you're doing? I think about your legacy is ultimately measured not just in what you do, but in what the people you helped go on to do. And that's how you have. much bigger outsized impact. And there's some coaches that don't have good coaching trees, you know.

And then there's some coaches that we don't think of as being that great, you know, they didn't win a Super Bowl or they didn't win a championship. But then you sort of zoom out and you go, oh, but seven of their assistants did, you know, and you go, oh, wow, that's actually almost more impressive. Yes. We've lost a lot of people, coaches. Brad Holmes, who's in Detroit, worked with us and went on to become a GM. What's probably is called very fulfilling when you sit back.

It's one thing to help someone, let's go, either get the interview, help someone get the job. But we've had a lot of people leave our building and actually, right, have success. Yeah. And I think Sean and I'll even say, it's not like we sat down and had these, right, classes and said, okay, this is how you become successful. It's, it has a lot to do with who they were. Yeah. We were just fortunate to, hey, ask them to get on the boat.

You get them for a passing moment, yes, yes. But we all got together, and as we said earlier, tried to be good. We tried to help the Rams be good or better, and it worked. And then when they go on, but to see them have success, I was called, it's one of those fulfilling, almost surreal moments. Like, wow, there was a tree that went out and now it's thriving somewhere else. And you really didn't set out to do it. It just, it can be overwhelming at times like, okay, that's, it goes back to what we said earlier. best advice, at least there's a lot of the advice, there's a lot of philosophies and systems,

but, wow, let's just, especially if there's a collective and there's a collaborative, let's try to make the we. Let's try to go help the we be good to great. Help the league, help the people. I think that's the thing that actually people, because it's not totally selfless. Like, people don't understand kind of the genius of the way the Spurs have done it too, which is interesting. So all these coaches have gone on, coaches and players have gone on to do other things. But what's also interesting is how many of them have come back to the spurs for stints, you know, like a coach gets fired and then you'll notice, oh, whoa, like you'll go to Spurs game and be like, is that who I think it is like

at the, you know, sitting behind the bench? Or is that who, you know, in the owner's box? And you realize, oh, yeah, this former head coach came back and spent two years as a consultant in San Antonio or two years as, like, they've created a culture where it's a safe place. So yeah, people go on and do other things that get poached. But it doesn't always work out. and nobody is outside the organization forever. But if you've created a place that people want to be that feels safe and is a home base, you can get access to those people again. And I'm sure that's just the visible port.

I'm sure there are texts and phone calls about, hey, we can't draft this guy, but you might want to take a look. I bet it comes back to it. You put enough good shit out in the world. It comes back to you. What's neat is I'm sure a lot of people, let's use the spurs of example. And what I've always felt was one of the probably more impactful things you can do as if you're somewhere good, you know, especially when you're, let's, I always call it, instead of trying to climb, right, try to be good at what you're doing. But in that moment where you have some downtime, journal why you think, right, this ecosystem sustained success.

Yeah. So that's the positives. But in the other column go, if I ever had a chance to take this philosophy somewhere else, maybe I would add this to it. Yes. And what's neat is you probably see, it's called a spur system. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. But as it moves on, there's a chance that it's actually evolving and getting stronger. Yeah.

And sometimes when you're in charge, so if you're R.C. Buford, if you're Greg Poffavitch, they're going through their changes now, right? Because they have the responsibility of sustaining this, you often don't have as much time to journal. Sure. you're just hey the next day on the calendar trying to sustain it and I do think that's why really good people right underworking within the ecosystem do have that time yes to journal and go ooh and it's awesome if you can sit down and download after action view how do we get better from within but when someone takes it and uh I call it adds their fingerprint to it like you said Steve

yeah they go out they and maybe they can experiment and try things that you can't do in your organization and then if they come back you can apply or you can just learn from what they're doing Yeah, you should want your assistance and your coworkers and your employees to go off and do things and report back. Like the exchange continues, even if you're not technically colleagues or, you know, coworkers anymore. No doubt. You want to go check out some books? You know, it's great. is this is the whole stalking section, right?

Like all the people that we've stopped and use football as a way to kind of get him in the net like yourself. I don't know if you remember, that's how we found you. But it is. It's Jim Collins. It's Annie Duke.

Thinking and bats become, and then Annie ends up hooking us up with Susan Kane, who I'm sure somewhere around here. I changed her book. Angela Duckworth. That's what, okay. I was like, is he saying that wrong? Did you read Bitter's Sweet?

It's very good. Oh, Bitter Sweet's amazing. And, you know, this is how, and quiet has changed. Quiet changed his life. This is my favorite. She has the Ten Commandments in here. So this is when I moved out as an introvert. She has one that basically said are you the person who will, let's call it,

if I see you coming there, instead of going cross the street, I'll take the ride and avoid you. Yeah. It was in there. Oh, yeah. It's okay to cross the street. street to avoid making small. Of course.

So number seven has been my entire life. That's you. Yeah. No, totally. So no. That's been probably, I think that's been the most fun thing for us. And now, Austin, obviously, is perfect for it, right? Like, it's the intersection of sports and big ideas, because every single one of these

books ends up having a sports chapter in it. Totally. Grette, Angela Duckworth, right? And then we end up helping Susan Kane find a kicking coach for her amazing. and kid. And he's now nailing 50-some-odd-yard-kill goals. Really? Yes. So that's the random cycle of things. And how funny must it be for her, like she's this sort of literary, introverted author person. And then she has a kid who's like a star athlete, probably very opposite personalities. Well, and if you've met her husband, he's obviously very, he is a force

in nature too. So it shouldn't surprise you when the apple doesn't fall too far. But she's, right? but she loves it. She blames us on the, obviously, he's genetically good. You find it? Yep. She blames us. She blames us for the other ball, but come to it. All right, so here's still proactive.

The point, his point is that, like, most things require long bits of concentration, but that that concentration isn't necessarily, like, sitting at a computer deliberately thinking. It's long walks. It's, we go here for the summer, and I just kind of think and work on stuff and fiddle around. You know, it's, it doesn't always. look like what you think it's going to look like I also think too it marinates in the back of your head right if any if you've ever

learned that's why hobbies are so important oh like I'm learning to play guitar and learning is very difficult yes at this time but it's amazing when you take time off you struggle struggle struggle you take time off for whatever reason a couple weeks and you come back and your fingers can do it

yes it's working in the background somewhere it's very strange with I totally growing up in New Fall Alabama and they had the It's similar to Nashville. They had the sidewalks, but there was a park. I call it green space in the middle. So I would every year...

Just a strip, like a strip, big trees down the middle. So it would be, okay, there would be an art show there. So it would like an October Fest or one of those deals. But I remember always being, it would kind of be when the football, the whole cycle of football was over, and it was kind of the first of summer. Yeah. I would always go back to my hometown, and I would take walks kind of where I grew up. Sure.

and basically just walk all day, but that's where I would be some of my better. Let's call it innovative, creative ideas. And I was just thinking, oh, weird. Why can't I think of that at work at the office? I try to do a walk in the morning and a walk in night, and that's usually, that'll give me what I'm supposed to work on during the day. And that's how I think about the thing that I was working on all day.

And I go, oh, that's it. And then I'll come back, I'll solve whatever that thing is. I did you a couple sportsbooks in my life? I don't know. Did I ever send you this Chris Bosch book that I did? You know, it's really. hilarious. We blame you. For some reason, we get Chris Bosch's Christmas fart every year. And we have no idea why we've done him out. It's just runs. Did I

think it's your fault? Did you get this one? No. His wife, Adrian, it's like on top of it. She's amazing, and that's probably why you did it. That's Tom Brady's favorite sports. Yeah. And then the four, do you care a little forward? Oh, I've worked on did you know Paul Rabel is like the greatest lacrosse player to ever live? Just just like totally dominant. We didn't do lacrosse. Belichick tried to get him to... The opening story in the book is that Belichick sees him

and tries to convince him to become a tight end. And then he's thinking about it. And then Belichick's, you know what? It goes like, you know what? Actually, you have a chance to be the greatest lacrosse player ever. Do that instead. But it's like, you know, it's probably a $50 million decision, you know? Well, and the other answer you can do both, right?

Like there's this kid at Notre Dame who is one of their best receivers or was i don't know if he got drafted the sheriff's on he comes back he won all these national champions now and he's he's incredible on football field too that book's great this is one of the best yes there was this was he's in love with phil jackson as a concept that you know that's it's probably 1996 when i was with the jackson old jaguars and i mean phil jackson wasn't phil jackson right of it is that would be before all the lake this is i think that's one of the That's very philosophical book, won't lie. Totally.

His 11 Rings is pretty good, too. Have you read Levels of the Game by John McPhee? Oh, I love John McPhee so much. Great. That's, I'm buying that one. Okay, that book's incredible. It's about Arthur Act. Oh, that's cool.

Yes. Yeah, I love John McPhee. What's the one I just read that? You've read that? Have listened to them. Oh, God. He was on the podcast on that long now. Yeah, I think that's, that's, that's,

explains a lot, and explains a lot, too, why, you know, this generation of kids is a little more difficult to, uh, in football. I mean, this is, these are these people who have been on the show recently. Oh, right here? Yeah. You was here today. I love this. I love these. He was here a couple weeks ago. These two books, I think of a lot. You're a Springsteen fan? Not necessarily. I mean, no, I don't know. I just like him, but I like this book about the naked Nebraska. I get back to the blonde people. Yeah. Oh, tell me about Plato and the tyrant. No, no, the album in the bros. Okay.

If you're asking that, it's not the book. It's not for you. Plato and the tyrant, tell me about that. So, Plato, obviously, is a writer about philosophy and government. It's a republic. But then he feels like he needs to sort of get in the game and, like, actually advise people in politics. And so he starts working for this guy. He was just here at the holy school.

He starts working for, what's his name? what's his name, Dian Isis. And the guy sucks. He's just like bad. And Plato is sort of like in this trap. You can't see it. It's like people now who like they see what they want to see in Trump. And they think they can reform him and use him to their own purposes.

And it goes badly for all of them. That's what it's. And so it's about Plato and that. He wrote another book that I love that's more connected to the Stokes, which is like Seneca is Nero's teacher. And so how does this really smart man create such a horrendous protege? And why didn't he leave sooner? And it's all about that.

About just seeing what you want to see it. Totally. I mean, you see this, like, how many teams think, oh, we can fix that guy or we can change him? Or it'll be different here. The inside of him, right? Like, that's what we always say. So many years that I've realized you can't. Yeah.

You're not fixing anyone. Yeah. You're either putting up with it or. Yeah. managing around it. Yes. I will say that's what their culture. Sometimes that's good.

The goal is to fix, if the person can be useful, that's one thing. But to fix someone then to become useful, usually they never become useful. Oh, that's a really interesting distinction. Right. If you're like, hey, I think we can absorb them into the culture, we'll get something out of it. That's different than they're broken and I can fix them. And then they'll be what I want them to be. Yes.

Right. That's usually where. And I think what they're really good at is. no character is fate as they say and they do what they're really good at is we're not bringing you on Ryan but you can only bring part of yourself with you yeah right like we know what we're dealing with so bring your whole self as long as this part which is the football part yeah is right then we don't care what you do I'm sorry but and also that's a big deal within reason the live people tell themselves though it's like it'll be different here our culture is so good right like you know

we're going to have these guardrails in place. We're going to do this. And it's like, it always goes to same time. But it is interesting. There's a kind of an offshoot of it. So somebody like Baker Mayfield, who had gotten deflated for whatever reason when he was in, Cleveland. And he comes into our culture. And because he is such a high energy guy, and all he had to do was think about football,

which is what he wanted to do. And he wasn't the first overall pick. He was not in two days later, he leads one of the great. come back saying right what we'd like to he revitalized his love for for football we all have let's go let's just say we're in football yeah this is our task list of how to help the rounds be good today so we say whoever we bring in just give them the tasks we all work together compounds to yeah good not okay before that person can execute his or her task we now have to change these, what we would consider maybe, you know, flaws and adequately so we're having.

So it's never about changing the person. It's more about inviting the person in. Right. Give them our task list and we all look together. But it's also, too, you've changed every time over where now you really look at it as like you're selecting people into almost like special forces. It's an elite thing where you're not, you know, bringing somebody in. I'm trying to, try to develop.

You might can change. A culture probably can influence by degrees, but not by time. Yeah. Right, you're not going to, they're not going to become someone totally different. Like, Kyrie Irving is always going to be Kyrie Irving, which is to say, a problem. You know what I mean? He's always going to be, yeah, I did say that. It's like, hey, how many teams is this guy going to blow up before you go?

He blows up teams. That's what he does because he's. Or they have a shelf life and you have to know that. and know what going in and not think to your point, then it'll be different here. Yes, right. That's a great name of a book. It'll be different here. It's different this time.

It's the thing I'm going to tell me to church now. This book, you would like this, about the history of no books. Oh, and then I told you I gave you the Joan Givian book. We were sitting at her table. Oh, yeah. I mean, your magical thinking is one of, like, just the most devastating. You're a magical thing. Devastating beautiful.

Blue Knights is about the death of her daughter. Yes, I read that too, which is amazing. So what she never talks about in Blue Nights is her daughter didn't just drop dead. She's an alcoholic. And so they obviously struggled with it as a family for a long time. And this is every week she would go to therapy and trying to work on herself because that's all you can control. But then also what do they do about this situation with their daughter. And after each session, she would write this, like basically write up verbatim, what happened?

in the session, what she learned, what she's working on. And then she kept it in a little envelope, or in a manila folder next her desk and just says, Dear John, it was just addressed to her husband. And then nobody knew about it until after she died and they found it next her desk. Wow. It's like, it's kind of this like, it reads almost like a, you know, like a novel where the novels like letters, it feels like the letters of one parent to another as they're both dealing with this. So you're getting only one side of it and you know it, but it's also just you feeling in the gap. And you, but the. But the. tragic, the terrible part is you know how it ends, and she doesn't. Not yet. This session,

you need like something where people can just crawl up in a ball from the floor. I mean, death be not proud. Are you kidding me? Have you read 84 Charned Cross Road? No. So speaking of like books of letters. Okay. So this woman, she's an American writer who's trying to get a hold of this rare book. And this is right after World War II. And so she writes to this British bookseller at 84 Charned Cross Road. And they start up this friendship. And it's just a collection of her letters between her and this family over about 10 years of history. She's becoming a successful writer. They're living through, like, rationing and all this.

It's a beautiful book about people. Here's my, I love ideas. So here's my new idea that we start letter writing again. Yeah. It's got to be a little desk where people can write letters here. And we're going to start the art of letter writing again. You will like this, this notebook book is incredible, though. You will like that lot.

I'm trying to think what else we might have. Do we have so good you can't ignore you? I'm surprised that we don't. Here's a good question for you. Is it James Madison? Is there a good book on James Madison? President?

Yes. Not that I've read, but I'll give you this one. So this is a slave in the White House. Not many people know about this book. But it's a biography and then sort of a memoir from this guy named Paul Jennings, who was a slave in the Madison household, and he writes about

his time working in the White House for them. He's the one that, you know, Dolly Madison seriously saves a painting? Do you think this Southern lady was cutting down a painting and rolling it up? Like, he did it. That's a book. Yes. But I had a good James Madison book. That's an interesting one. Someone was just in here the other day, like some random person that they did a biography on every president. Where did you hear about James Madison? Well, it was on a podcast. It was on someone has written a book, and it's about how we need to ease in homosexual, atheist, Jew, writing a book about that the basis of our society is Christianity, and we need to be called back up into it. And he talked about it.

But it was interesting. Madison's philosophy on how, let's call it, a country's ecosystem naturally handles factions. Yeah. And then the ambition. And it was, I was like, oh, that was pretty brilliant. And I was like, where's the Madison book? I haven't written, but I'll do that. It will start with his.

You would like that book, Les? Surely, you're joking, Mr. Feynman? I just read a, it was a letter that he wrote to his wife. Yes. And she had been dead already for several years. I have a better Feynman book. Let me see. Look, Les.

Lazy, where's Feynman's rainbow? I'm going to squeeze it. If you want to trigger a lash, you show him this. You don't like that? He doesn't like this. That book or that concept of... He's like, I'm not dying here. I'm like, I might.

Who are you saying that for? For the next day. In case, I'd like this. This is Feynman as he's dying. Speaking of Apprentice, apprentices and it sort of has this grad student as this kind of exchange between student and teacher. It's really, really good.

That's cool. Have you found, because it's interesting, especially being around Austin, And a lot of these people are, first, like, they did it themselves. They'd bootstrapped. They didn't have somebody paving the way. And they're trying to now, like, get onto that second arc and, like, give back. And it's really interesting.

The Arthur Brooks book made me think of it. Right. But have you read the second album? No. I don't think of that. Second mound is by David Brooks. And it's about what you do in the second half of your career. It shouldn't be just more of the same thing.

Your second mountain is sort of war. The first book we ever read together with David Brooks, the social animal. Social animal, yeah. Stanley McChrystal's new book on character, very good. Oh, that would be cool. I was thinking about him. So when you were talking about,

when you guys were in the podcast and you were talking about that you can tell if somebody's writing something, doing something, and there's bad intention behind it. he said on something, and I can't get it out of my mind, intention has a smell. Ah. And so you know when somebody wants something from you, or you know when somebody's doing something that's, um, so when football season comes around and everybody wants tickets. Yes.

You, you, and all of a sudden, they're inviting you to lunch. Hi. Yeah. It's like, you can smell it on people like a bag for one. So same thing with writing books that you're trying to accomplish something. instead of just writing a book. No, I can tell to when people want book for it. And he just connected with him.

And Les, yeah, I just saw him the other night. And Les, I had to email him because he now has the second lowest cholesterol in the history of the Rams, thanks to Peter and Tia. He's very excited about that. That's quite an achievement. I win competitive mode, but don't get peter, but are you still eating only Sarvians and eat poor friends or whatever you're eating? I go in phases, so sardines are not a regular anymore. Even when they're still good.

You would, and you guys got into it some. Thank you for a lot. Oh, yeah. Never put that. That, to me, is another thing. Playing it, yeah. And we talk about it a lot. Like, if you're in sports.

If you're in sports, it's like, what are we doing? Are we trying to win or are we trying to, you know, just not get fired? And you do feel, I hear him on the phone. I'm not naming names, but I hear them on the phone with other general managers in your life. Difference between people who are, A, you're stable because you're in a good ecosystem, so you're not worried about your job, but also like some people make bold moves and some people that's just not how to wire. It's more like the I even take it to another vote. We're really trying to do something special. Hey, Les, be honest about something.

You ready? Okay. Okay. At the end of your career, are you going to be? most excited about the people you helped or your Super Bowl ring. I'll answer that by saying because we have the Super Bowl ring. Is there I? Yes, I can be jacked about helping here. I'll show you guys my office. Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show.

We appreciate it. And I'll see you next episode. I don't.