The Daily Stoic - Finding Enough, Getting Sober, and Improving Your Life | Sam Parr PT 2

Episode Date: March 27, 2024

Sam Parr is the founder of The Hustle, which is one of the fastest-growing media companies in the country, and Hustle Con - a one-day conference that teaches non-technical startup tactics. Sam recently co-founded Hampton which is a highly vetted membership community for entrepreneurs, founders and CEOs. Alongside his companies, he is also a prolific podcaster, hosting "The Hustle Podcast" and co-hosts "My First Million".With his diverse skill set, extensive experience, and passion for entrepreneurship, Sam Parr continues to make waves in the business world, inspiring others to pursue their own ventures and redefine the future of commerce.IG and X: @TheSamParrNewsletter: The Anti-MBA✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, 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 Daily Stoic Podcast, where each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are

and also to find peace and wisdom in their actual lives. Setting a kind of stoic intention for the week, something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave you with, to journal about, whatever it is you happen to be doing. So let's get into it. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke Podcast. You know, it's funny, you think you know someone and then you sit down and you talk to them

for a while and you learn that there's a whole side of them that you didn't even know. I've known Sam Parr a long time. I've been a big fan of his work for a long time. And every time I text him or chat with him, I go, oh, I didn't know that about you. It turns out we're even more in alignment or agreement than I thought. But it was funny in the second half of this conversation,

I had no idea that he had gotten sober, that he'd had this period in his early 20s where he was very much not sober and sort of hit rock bottom. And it was actually just, it was a really interesting conversation, but also a reminder of what I do love about podcasts. And sometimes I have these podcasts conversations and I think, why is it only when I'm recording

that I get this in depth with people that I know? And I learn these things, like what other excuse do I have to sit down and talk for two hours with someone? I never do this and I should do it more. Sam's a great guy. I've been a fan of his work for a long time. That's always a wonderful thing. He's the founder of The Hustle, as I was telling you.

Built this huge newsletter business out of it. Also has HustleCon, a one-day conference that teaches non-technical startup tactics. And now he's recently the co-founder of a company called Hampton, which is a membership community for entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs. He's a prolific podcaster. He has the Hustle Podcast and My First Million, which I've been on a couple of times. So I'll bring you the second half of my conversation with Sam Parr. I thought this was a great conversation. As always, you can follow him on social media at the Sam Parr, get his newsletter,

the Anti-MBA, which I will link to, and do check out his podcast, My First Million, which I've been on a couple of times and I'll link to. Thanks to Sam for coming out. I think this is a great conversation. Enjoy. With writing, there's this sort of debate about like, when can you call yourself a writer? When you become like, when have you, when have you earned the title? Right? And I think early on, you know, you're either jealous or judgmental of people who, like,

call themselves a writer. They're obviously not. Right. And then you also don't want to be the person who, like, you obviously are it, but you're depriving yourself of it. Right. But yeah, there's this sort of you, you get some sense that like when you get the thing, you'll be good.

You'll have been accepted. You'll have proved it. And it was never an external thing to begin with. The need was fundamentally internal from the beginning. Some insecurity, some sense of not being enough, your parents not grabbing you at the right moment at the right time and being like, you're good. You know, whatever, you know, the Mr. Rogers thing, like you make the world better just by being you.

And so you have some sense that you can get it if you just achieve X, Y or Z, if you can just get the medal, the Grammy, you know, so the certain amount of bank account. You have a Grammy right here. I do have a Grammy. I don't, is that for you or someone else's? No, no, I was a producer on an album that won a Grammy.

Wow, okay, so you have a Grammy. Yes. You have sold a shit ton of books. You are probably more successful than a lot of the authors that like get better, like all over the place in terms of like sales. Yeah, with awards or industry, darling, sure. Right, and your buddies with like world-class athletes

as well as authors, do you feel feel I don't know who you admire? I admire Robert Green. I know you know him well. Sure. Maybe there's like five or 10 others who you're like, this person's the pinnacle. Robert Carr, Caro. Yeah. When when you are around them, are you like we aren't the same? Oh, that's a good question. You know, OK, I'll tell you a story.

I heard, you know, Pete Holmes, the comedian, he was talking to some other comedian and she was saying like, do you have like an aspiration to be one of the greats? And he was like, I am one of the greats. And like, when I heard it the first time, I was like, that's like, what? You know, that's like arrogant or weird or lame or not true.

And then he was like, I am one of the greats. He's like, I've had like a show on HBO. I've done multiple specials. And he's like, I'm proud of the work that like it sounded like it was coming from a very arrogant place. Like I think when you first hear it and as an artist, you're very judgmental because you're like, wait, are they allowed to say that about themselves? And I don't say that about myself. And then I realized, because I know Pete, he's actually coming at it

from a very humble place, which is like he was saying like great. A great is like someone who just gets to do comedy. You know what I mean? And that like he's done the things and whatever the like who is sold the most, sold the most tickets, you know, performed at the best venues, the highest rated this or that. That's all superfluous stuff. Well after, you know, any, any, any point of necessity.

And so I kind of think about it like that. Like, so when I, if I'm around like people who've done it, like, I feel like I'm an equal in the sense that we're all having, we said this, we're all apprentices in a craft that has no master. Like we're all just doing the thing. Like they know what it's like to stare at a blank page and start at zero and I know what it's like. Is there a one person or a few people who you'd be self-conscious around?

Yeah, I mean, I would be self-conscious around anyone whose work I really like because I'm like, how do you do that? Like, where did that come from? But so I feel equal in because I'm like, where, how do you do that? Like, where did, where did that come from? But so, so I feel equal in the sense that like we're all doing the thing. And then I feel not equal in the sense that I feel like they have fulfilled. They have reached to a plane above that I think I'm either still aspiring to or that it's not on me to say whether I did or not. Does that make sense? Yeah. I think like the most

intoxicating thing about hanging out, you know, I have a podcast, so I'm able to hang out with successful people. Success in the sometimes financial, sometimes like you've just achieved happiness or whatever. You've achieved what you wanted to achieve. You've carved a path and you've walked the path. The cool part about that is that you see that in actually many cases, you guys can be in the same stadium of like IQ and ability. The difference is that they chose this path and you chose this path.

Something like that. Or at a certain point, choice goes out the window they chose this path and you chose this path. Or at a certain point, choice goes out the window and it's about market and genre and luck and timing. And also like it's too early to tell. You know, like it's just, it's so really like I think about it, it's like, you were talking about boys club. Like I just want to be in the league.

Like how many NBA players are there each, you know, any one time? I want to be one of those. I don't need to be the best. And by the way, luck is real. Like I don't like anyone who like like a player's have a bootstrap. It's like, dude, like fucking luck is a thing. Like you work hard and you're lucky. Like it's all a couple.

But what I what I've done, what I've learned to hang out with all these badasses, bad ass people is that. I've only met a few people where I just think your oven just burns hotter than me. Like there's just nothing I could ever do will amount to anything you will do. So like this guy named Max, he started Grammarly. Yeah, I've hung out with him and I'm like, oh, you're just smarter than like you are just significantly like I just your brain has more power.

You can lift more weight than I can just falling out of bed. Sure. That goes faster than me. Yeah. But in general, like to achieve make a success, there's been so many times where I've hung out with people where I'm like, oh no, we're in the same. We're in the same league. We're just we it's just up to me. Like, I don't want to play this. We work game that raises lots of money and it's high stress. So it's more so like I now have faith in my ability that I can kick my debt in the on the earth like pretty nicely.

It's just like what game do I want to play? And so that that's actually quite relieving to have that feeling. And I and I encourage people to like truly embrace that because I remember like reading you, Noah and all these guys. Now you guys are my buddies. And I'm like, yeah, they're great. But like, if maybe if I like they're skilled and talented and all this stuff. But I bet if I dedicated 10 years, like I could be in that ballpark of like whatever craft, if we have, you know, overlap of skill set or an interest, I'm like, I bet you I could be a decade away from that. Do you know what I mean? And having that epiphany has really changed life.

It depended on where you went to school, but you go, oh, I'm not good enough to go to Harvard or something. And then when you actually meet not just one person that went to Harvard, but lots of people that have gone to Harvard. You meet one person that sold the company for a lot of money, and then you meet a lot of them.

You go, oh, yeah, you know, you meet one person that sold the company for a lot of money and then you meet a lot of them, you go, oh yeah, this is, you start to get a sense that it's a much more representative pool than you think it is. And they aren't these kind of singular individuals that pretty much anyone could do it if they are willing to commit to all these things and stay at it long enough to get lucky. Yeah, like in most cases, you're like a decade away of like being almost as good as your heroes. Yeah.

And of course there's freaks, like no amount of hard work will ever make me Usain Bolt. Yeah. But like, I bet you I can go to the Olympics if I dedicated 10 years and picked some sport, like, you know, like, and you game the system, you're like, you know what I'm saying? Like, like you can, you could, if you pick game, the system. You're like, you know what I'm saying?

Like, like you can you could if you pick the right game or pick a game that you think suits your taste and you give it 10 years, you're actually not that far from being in the one percent. There's also this kind of demystifying thing where. I'm not sure there's anything that like the richest person in the world has experienced that. Like, like, OK, obviously, what the richest person in the world has experienced is vastly different than what, like, the poorest person in the world

experiences. And we're not talking about, like, what is it? What is everything like day to day? But there is very little that a billionaire has experienced that I have not also experienced. Being relatively having gone just a few steps up the economic ladder. You know what I mean? Like there's not like I've eaten in what is considered the greatest restaurant in the world. It was expensive, but it wasn't like the cost of a house. And if you want that to be your thing,

that can be your thing. Yeah, or like I've flown first class, I've been on a private jet before. You get this sense that like, oh, everything would change if you got to this level. And it's like, yeah, in the sense that you would do a lot of these unusual things more often, but they're not that different

than things that you could experience now. And once you experience them, you go, that was cool. I don't know if it's worth orienting my entire life and making every one of my decisions around being in a position to do that all the time. By the way, I know people who do all these things on a regular basis. There's very few of the things that are actually worth it or it moves the needle. Yeah.

I think having a nice big house that can house your family when they visit. Yeah. That's one of those things. I'm not convinced flying private is one all the time is one of those things, but that could be borderline one of those things. Besides that, maybe some services like cleaning. But besides that, there's not a huge list of things that I actually think moves the needle that you could have on a daily basis. Our friend Nathan Barry has his blog post. I forget what it was called, but he basically documents. He's like, you know, what's crazy is that Jeff Bezos and me have the same laptop

Yes, we have the same iPhone. We have the same We're probably going to use a lot of the similar software Like I can build many of the things that he's able to build like we have it's it's it's almost democratized Like what we have access to and that's actually a really cool idea. I think no, it's very cool And then and then yeah, you go. oh, OK, like it's not. So the only reason to do it is the delusion that it somehow proves something or makes you superior to other people, which it doesn't.

So I have this company called Hampton, which is like, it's a CEO group, whatever. And we did a survey amongst them. And we do surveys all the time where we create cool content for them because we'll have like 500 people who run an e-commerce company. And we'll be like, what's your monthly spend on Facebook

and what's your return right now? And so we'll share it with everyone. We did this one called the wealth survey where we asked them about income, expenses, net worth, what their goals are, a variety of things. And what was interesting is we had a bunch of people ranging from $10,000 a month in spend all the way up to $200,000 a month in spend. This is personal spend. Yeah.

And both groups of people, it seemed had about equal. So we asked them like happiness and like how satisfied are you? So both groups of people had similar amounts of happiness and both groups of people were like, it doesn't even feel like that much money that I'm spending. Yeah. And like in like the higher end guys, they had this like we'd ask them, they could like type in anything they wanted in the comments section. Maybe like, man, I just added up how much I spend. Like I'm shocked. Like it doesn't even like I feel middle class. I don't even spend that much. And I thought that was crazy that you could spend like with this one guy

spends 100 grand a month. He's like, it's not even that much money. And I'm like, well, that is a lot of money. But that's crazy that you think that because it must not. Like, you're not spending it effectively or something. Or or it just won't change that much past. Like maybe 20 grand a month is plenty good versus 150. And it was just insane to hear these people say they spend these numbers. like maybe 20 grand a month is plenty good versus 150.

And it was just insane to hear these people say that they spend these numbers and they're like, it doesn't feel like a lot. It is helpful to realize like one, most people have no idea what they're doing. Two, most people are not happy. These are people who are more successful than you. So most people who are very successful,

you're looking up to or whatever, they don't know what they're doing. They're not happy. And also things are not what they seem. I was talking to Molly Bloom and- She's Molly's game? Yeah, yeah, the poker player. So she ran this illegal underground poker game

for many years. She probably hung out with the richest, most unheavy people on earth. Totally. And we were talking about someone we knew and who seemed to live a very lavish lifestyle. And I was like, how is that possible? Like, I know that business. How is that business possible? knew and who seemed to live a very lavish lifestyle. And I was like, how is that possible?

Like I know that business. How is that business possible? Like how, how is that possible? I was like, it's not adding up, right? I wasn't necessarily comparing myself to it, but I was like, how am I doing something wrong that I should be having that if we're in similar business? And she goes, you know, it's always worth remembering they could be criminals. And I was like, oh, in my, in my mind, in my frame of reference,

everyone's doing everything above board. Everything's legitimate, because, like, of course, right. Paying taxes, they should be. They're paying their employees on time. But but from her perspective, having experienced a different world, right, like literally the underworld and then also like people who are degenerate gamblers or criminals or or or just like living way outside their means. She was just like, it was just a totally different lens on thinking about it. It's like, oh, it could literally be all smoke and mirrors. Like none of it could be real.

And it could all come crashing down at any moment. And that was like really helpful to me because now I, I just sort of, I don't do it in a judgy way. I do it in a way that's letting me off the hook. When I see something, I just go like, I have no idea what's happening there behind the scenes, but it could be the opposite of what it appears. And I'm just going to like, focus on my stuff. Who have you met? Like which heroes or people you've looked up to have you met and they've lived up to the hype that you created in your head and you've thought to yourself, this person has nailed it. I really admire. And like, not that you created in your head. And you've thought to yourself, this person has nailed it. I really admire.

And like, not that you'd trade with them, but you're like, that's something to build to. That is a good life. That's a life worth living. I would say first though, that idea, like you realize there are almost no people that you would trade places with. Of course. Right?

So when you're jealous or when you're insecure, you're comparing yourself to other people, you have to remind yourself you can't do partial trades. Like it's all or nothing, right? Like you got to live inside that head and you have to think about things the way they think about them. You don't get to have your values, your perspective, your knowledge, your age. You don't get to have any of that other stuff.

It's the whole kit and caboodle and it's suddenly the trade doesn't look so attractive. You're trying to have what you have and what they have. I'm sure you've hung out with people where you're like, they're nailing it. Oh yeah. I'm just saying, I think it's worth pointing out that that's the stupidity of jealousy is that you find when you really look at it. Yeah, it's all bullshit. You would almost never trade places. When you read that Elon Musk biography, like I've refused to read it because

I don't really love him, but I respect his work. But I like I read the excerpts and I'm like, this sounds like the most high stress, like I was like, it sounds like it's horrible. I think I don't want to I don't I don't want to read a scary book. Yeah, no, it sounds like it's absolutely horrible to be him. and then that all of it comes at a very high cost. Oh, yeah For sure. Yeah, I think there's people I've met here or there that I would go. Oh that they seem like they're doing it right, it's also I try not to like call people out specifically because I also feel like not that's unfair, but like I'm sure it's

I'm sure they're dealing with shit in their own life. Sure, sure, sure. And they don't want to be held up as like the perfect person who's got it figured out. I'm not saying perfect. I'm just being like, you got a good handle on things. Like you're doing all right. I really, I admire. Yeah. And it's funny though,

like what are the things that tend to make you feel that way about someone? It's not, it's normally like, what's their marriage like? Do their kids like them? Yeah. You know, like how chill is their life? You know, like how how good do they see it? It's not normally like, no, no, this guy could throw the ball further than this guy or this woman is more beautiful than that one.

It's it's usually comes down to things that are really cheap. I so I live like out in the country most of the time. And I remember I was at some point during the pandemic, I was walking down the road to my house. It was cheap comparative to what it's worth now because everything in Austin blew up. But my house wasn't cheap. It's more than most people can afford.

But I was thinking, what do I like about it? And I live on a literally a dirt road. Many of my neighbors are trailers. I have more land than most of my neighbors. I have a nicer house than most of my neighbors. But I was like, what do I love about where I live? What are the things? And it's like, I love the way the sun sets and the way it rises.

I love that it is a dirt road and like, it can't ever be a paved road. You know, I love like the, I love the deer that wander around. I love, I love all the things about it that my neighbor who is living in a trailer also gets. Right. And, and sort of remembering that the things that are actually valuable or that you appreciate or provide most of the meaning or happiness are not the expensive fancy things is really important. And I think you see that with people too.

The things you admire about them are not the things that they paid for. It's like character and kindness and, you know, have you met Laird Hamilton? I've met his wife. His wife, yeah. Laird came on our podcast because I was a huge fan of his. He's a person who I think like I admire. So he has so many qualities that I admire. The way that they built this home and it's like become a center of community I love that the way that he prioritizes family and surfing and then like business is like number four or five or six

It's like I admire that guy a lot. I admire him. Do you know Rob Rob Deerdick? Yep we had him on the pod and I'm a I skateboard as well and When they pitched us him I'm like, I don't want a fucking skateboarder coming on here. And then he came on and he blew my mind. Like how like dialed in. He doesn't skateboard anymore though. No, not even. And he's so dialed in to like,

and I'm not dialed in like that at all. And I don't want to be like that. But I like, he was like, I like to spend this much time with my family. I'm only going to work from nine to five. And I know like, and then from noon to one, we'll have lunch. Like he's dialed in and I really,

and he's got a really positive outlook on life. I, and I appreciate him. But I think those two guys are who I've talked to where I'm like, I respect the shit out of you. Also Dar mesh, the guy who founded HubSpot, have you ever talked to that guy? No, he bought your company, right? He bought my company.

He's a billionaire, which is cool. But what I'm, what I'm like, he like, he's like, Hey, I'm teaching my kid how to code. So we made this website and it's like a game website and it's like now really popular. And like, I just like appreciate these family men who are loyal to their wives. It's one of the reasons why I love John Rockefeller. He's one of the few people who I've read about who was mostly honest. He only lied like one or two times publicly, where he was blatantly like, dude, that's a lie, you just lied.

He was loyal to his wife the whole time. He was a little tough on his children, but in general he was a wonderful father. And so I seek out these guys. I think on your suggestion I read Patriarch, Joe Kennedy. Oh, I don't think I recommended that book, but I'm familiar with Joe Kennedy. Horrible guy. The worst.

The worst. But, like, I wanted him to be awesome. And so, like, it's actually quite rare to find these people that meet this traditional... When you see the trauma of that family continuing to this moment. Yeah, it's like you wouldn't trade it for any of that. Like, why is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. a piece of shit? It's because Joe Kennedy was a piece of shit.

It continues down to this day. It's crazy. And so, like, I look for these characters that, like, are mostly awesome, like mostly well-rounded good men. And there's not a significant amount of them who have books that are also fun to read. But, like, Rockefeller is one of them. I think he only lied like a few times. And he was a good, he seemed like a good husband. Yes. But. Well, what's interesting about Rockefeller, speaking of trauma, is like his dad sucked.

His dad was horrible. It's not that you grade people on a- What are they called? Slick Willy or something? Yeah. It's not that you grade people on a curve, but the idea that he seemed to do better than you would expect from where he came from. I think you have to give some people some credit there.

Yeah, and there's not a lot. So like some of the books I've seen you recommend, you love the Lyndon B. Johnson series, right? He was kind of not that great of a guy. Oh, no, I don't think that that book is celebrating him as a great deal. No, I don't think so either. Teddy Roosevelt, you've recommended a lot of books about him. Dude, he fucking bailed on his kid.

I believe his wife gave birth to the kid, the wife died that day, and his mother died that day in the same home. And weeks later, he bounces to the Dakotas or whatever for like 15 months or something like that. And it's like, you're a great American and you do all these great things, but like fucking bailed on your kid. Like that's messed up. So like it's interesting to like see like all these people I admire and then to see all the flaws that come with them. And it's actually hard to find a lot of people who you're like, that's the way to live.

Yeah. I mean, how many US presidents were not absolute garbage people or complete psychopaths? Like it's probably you can narrow it down to 10 and then you could debate those 10. Right. We always say, I always say all great men are evil men. All great men are bad men. Meaning in order to be great, you know, like great at the level. If they build a statue of you, chances are you did some real fucked up shit. Yeah. And I remember like someone was like, well, I like Obama. I'm like, OK, cool.

You can like him. But I bet you like those people who got droned like don't. You know what I mean? Like in order to like achieve greatness. It also takes a while. It's too early. I mean, look, it doesn't always take a while. Sometimes, you know, someone's a monster from the beginning. Well, you don't have to be a monster to also be bad. No, no. But I'm saying sometimes like the rottenness of the person is obvious

from day one. And then sometimes you find the the secret that they were hiding or the secret life or, you know, whatever actually wasn't great about them. Only a small circle of people knew about. Right. It took time. Took time to be revealed. And like Obama still living. So I think he's pretty great. But I think he's a great guy. But what I mean is like, you're going to piss people off. Yeah, like you're not in order to achieve anything on a large scale.

There are going to be a lot of unhappy people with you. Right, because you're making decisions. I mean, look, he's the president of America, not the president of the country that he's droning. Right. And so that's the that you have this so that's the problem with being a leader, is that you're leading one group of people, not all groups of people.

And so you're making decisions that involve a weighing of interests, which inherently leads to, at that level, treating human beings as not as valuable as other human beings. Yeah. And maybe that's a big takeaway for this episode, which is like, I've been so fortunate to meet all these badass people, so have you, people I admire. And there's weaknesses in all of them. Yeah, of course. What are you eating here? It's just a mint with caffeine. Like, what do you eat? Yeah, of course. What do you eat in here?

It's just a mint with caffeine. This is caffeine? Yeah. How much? I think two is a cup of coffee. Two is one cup of coffee? Yeah. Do you drink caffeine?

No. I don't drink coffee. I don't drink coffee. So this isn't gonna make me anxious or jittery? I don't think so. I didn't mean for this to be an ad for NeuroBit, but yeah. I don't mean for this to be an ad for Neuromid, but yeah, I don't do coffee. I don't do soda.

Do you drink? No. I don't drink either. Why not? I was an alcoholic. Oh. When did you get sober? I was intoxicated every day from the age age of 20 to like the age of 23.

Okay. 24 hours a day. Yeah, it was pretty bad. I went to jail. Yeah, it sucked. And then I think it was at age 23 or 24, I was like, I went cold turkey and I got withdrawals. I got hospitalized because you start getting seizures and stuff. So it was like an it was an ordeal. Other than the consequences, what helped you get sober?

It's fucking cringe when I say it, but I was watching this concert. It was Oasis. Uh huh. I was watching on YouTube. Oasis is famous because they threw the biggest concerts. They kind of invented this like huge big concert thing in England. There was like 100000 people there. It was one of the biggest concerts in the world. And I saw Noel Gallagher barely singing.

He was singing very lightly. You know, he wasn't that lot of a singer. But the the the sound was was so loud and all these people were singing back to them. I was like, this guy is exerting so little energy and he's getting so much energy back and having such a big impact. I think I have the ability to do that, but I'm a fucking loser right now. I'm sitting here intoxicated.

I just got out of jail. I'm just a total fucking loser. And I remember like having that feeling like I got to get my shit together. And so I had a bunch of false starts. And then eventually I just took like six weeks or something and I just locked myself in a room and just got over it. It was pretty hard. But that happened and then I got arrested one time. I got arrested like two or three times.

I got arrested one time and I spent 24 hours in jail and my dog was left alone in my house. And I got home and he had shit all over the house. And I'm like, dude, I just totally failed you, man. I'm so sorry. You're my responsibility and I let you down and I just felt like my heart was broken It's like those two things like got my act together and you just did it Total willpower. Well, you know the first time I did but then I got hospitalized and I was like screw it I'm gonna I'm getting back on it. And then the second time I was like I'm doing this and I just like bought like a blood pressure machine to make sure it wasn't getting too high because the first time I got hospitalized from blood

pressure issues and I just like monitored it and I was like I'm saying you you you did it like you went to rehab or you know you did no no no no I went to AA a couple times but no I just took three or four weeks off of life and I just stayed at home for a long time. And what allows you to stay sober? Again, just pure discipline or? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you feel like you're on the edge always?

No. Or you feel like it's? No. Well, I feel like if I go to the hospital, like, for example, I have kidney stones. And like if they give me pain pills, I'm like, I can only have three. Like, you can give me one now. I'll take one home. My wife can have give me one now, I'll take one home, my wife can have the other one. Or they'll give you like 60 of them. And then when we go get it and like Sarah,

put the three in the bag, go throw those away right now. So I feel like you can go down. I feel like I don't crave alcohol anymore because I drink non-alcoholic beer that helps a ton. But I have a propensity to be addicted to things. I do nicotine, so I like to suck on Zin. And then for a long time, it was sugar was my thing, where I was just like, I'll just eat as much candy as I want. And I'll address that at a later date in order to help me get off alcohol.

No, no, I think I have the exact whatever, whatever the thing that makes someone an addict, I have. And then, you know, we all have our traumas. Whatever might've been a sort of a more profound trauma or experience that might've sealed it early for me, I feel like lucky enough to have escaped. But then I feel like if it is possible to get addicted to a thing,

I can get addicted to that thing. I can do that. And it's important to know that. Yeah, and it's luck. to be able to know that about yourself is is a thing that I think a lot of people have to blow up their entire lives to be able to figure out. But yeah, I sort of feel like I'm always. It's just better. I bet for me, I'm like a better not person. Yeah. And I think that that's important to realize. I think that if I had a bet, I'm like a better not person. Yeah. And I think that that's important to realize.

I think that if I had a bet, I'm from Missouri. So I live in New York a little bit. I live in San Francisco and Austin. All three are like yuppie, health conscious places. The middle America, middle America of the South, like the normal part of the country, I actually would get, if I had a bet, I would say 35% are alcoholics. I think it's like way more common than people realize.

They don't call it alcoholism. But- The society functions around making that seem normal. Yeah, I think young people now drink way less. So it's actually different amongst young people, but older people, the 40 to 60 year olds, I think going to the bar after work is quite normal. I think that more people than you realize

do what I used to do, which is you wake up and you chug beers before you get out of bed. I think that's far more common, I think that more people than you realized do what I used to do which is you wake up and you chug beers before you get out of bed. I think that happen. That's far more common. I think the most people realize so I think like the It's pretty crazy how many people are addicted to something. Yes Particularly now Pharmaceuticals so like whatever that is. I mean I used to love that shit too. I mean, it's awesome It makes you feel awesome until it doesn't But I think like a large percentage percentage of America is actually would be a true addict But people don't talk about it that much. But yeah, anyway, I had issues and also like meeting a great woman helps

I think you have this blog post where we say like What was your blog post about your wife? It was was the best life hack on earth is who you pick. Uh-huh. Is that what it was? Something like that, yeah. I firmly believe that to be true. So like getting a good woman or a good man where it's one plus one equals three,

that makes life 1,000 times better. I think as a rule, you're talking about how rare it is to find a successful, powerful, or whatever person you admire. Almost to a person, there is another person involved in that equation and that's why they either didn't go over to the dark side or why they didn't make this mistake or that mistake or what, you know. I would say I think quite unequivocally, being married ties youies you down like it ties you in a good way.

Yes, in a good way, it ties you down to reality, which if you are a successful, ambitious and then at some point famous or well known or well respected person or extremely talented person, you are very susceptible to being puffed up, floating away to becoming unmoored, because you are lacking the ballast that holds a normal person down. And so you almost need it more than ever.

Well, the way that I, the visualization I have in my head is a lot of people who like to achieve, we're just cars with our back wheels jacked up and we're going to peddle the metal. And what you have to do, and it helps when you have a good partner, is you got to set that car in the right direction and then pull the plug and boom, you can go. And for me, I was going in that direction. So up until recently, I used to sleep on the street sometimes. I literally thought I was going to be a homeless person.

I thought I was going to be a homeless person in jail. Because you were drinking so much? Yeah, and I was just like, I was going to be a homeless person. I thought I was going to be a homeless person in jail. That's right. You're drinking so much. Yeah. And I was just like, I'm going to be a criminal like this. Like I just want to party. This is like my life. And like I remember there'd be times I'd wake up on a bench and I'm like, the fuck? Where are we? OK. Or like when I got to San Francisco, I used to sneak on the bus because I didn't have any money. Yeah.

Like and like I was just like, I'm just going to be a vagrant. Like it's just my life. And so you have to get, if you're this car that's moving fast, you've got to figure out something to get pointed in that right direction. Otherwise, if you get too far down that path, you're fucked. And I think that if you do get too far down that path, there is no turning back.

I mean, have you ever met someone who recovered from heroin? Most of them are still messed up in some capacity. Sometimes it works. A lot of times it doesn't. I have this story in the book that I'm writing now, the Justice one. Do you know the story of Bunkminster Fuller, the architect? So he's sort of failing as an architect. He's just been kicked out of Harvard. He's a drinking problem. He just buried one of his children and he's staring out over Lake Michigan.

He's like, I'm just going to swim out there far enough until I drown. He's just going to like kill himself. He's like standing on the edge of it, just sort of contemplating like what a loser he is, the mistakes that he's made, that it's sort of all over for him. And he hears his voice and the voice basically says like, how dare you? He's like, how dare you think this belongs to you? That's interesting. Right?

And it's not just because you had children, but what he took the voice to mean was like, you have potential, you have gifts, you have the potential to contribute to humanity. You have the obligation to- And you're fucking blowing it. Yeah, to contribute to humanity. And not just have you blown it up until this point, you're about to blow it all up, right? Like you're about to quit

instead of realizing that potential. And that voice sort of brings him back from the edge and he goes on to be this sort of fascinating, you know, sort of influential character. And hopefully, you know, we'd say also sort of makes it right with his kids and his spouse and his family and is just also like a nice, decent human being. Maybe that's too much to ask.

I don't know. But the idea is like, it doesn't belong to you. Like you have, I think anyone with gifts or potential or talent, you, it comes with certain obligations. So I like, I know writers- Well, I think getting married is awesome. We have a lot of friends, you and I, mutual friends who are, I call them Peter Pan's. Yes, they're children.

They're 43 year old men who are single. And if you're single because you haven't found the right person, yeah, cool. But sometimes I think, well, you're not settling down because you want, you're like missing, you feel like you're going to be held back. And that's loser talk. That means you have the wrong person and that's the wrong attitude. If you want to be single, be single, but that reason, and so what a lot of our friends will do

is they turn to psychedelics. And I'm like, you know what would be a much better psychedelic? Have a kid or get a dog. Do anything where other people rely on you. And so you are now thinking to yourself, not I am lost, you are thinking, I need to provide for this.

I need to give to others. And that is a significantly better, I think, experience. I'm actually in favor of, I don't do any drugs. I don't do psychedelics. I'm in favor in some cases of that. But in general, I think that people go too far down that path and I'm like, dude, just have like someone that relies on you

and you will feel better. I just, I don't like the idea that there's some magical solution to your existential problems, right? Like the question of what gives life meaning or how do you make sense of pain or failure or adversity or grief or mistakes that you've made in your life. Like welcome to the human condition. Like humans have been wrestling with that exact thing

for as long as there have been human beings. And the idea that you can have some shaman in Peru like mix a paste for you and then they'll magically go away. It's fucking preposterous. I've never done that stuff. I imagine it could be one tool in the toolbox. You know, like I do, but like I've got a bunch of friends that are veterans

and they're like, I had huge issues and this has helped like, help me come to terms some of the trauma. I'm like, all right, I agree. I think that's awesome. But, uh, I, I tweeted this out and I got shit on a lot where I'm like, all you people that are doing psychedelics, like have children or something, like think beyond who you are or have employees or do something where it's like, I have to serve others. So it's no longer about. Put down roots, be an adult, do adult things and get comfortable with that. Yeah, I agree. Look, if you have profound, untreatable traumas, by all means experiment with that because the other

things that they have you experiment with are also super heavy. But if you can't figure out why, you know, scrolling on Tinder every day isn't doing it for you and why success, financial success hasn't done it for you and fame hasn't done it for you. And you just think this is finally going to be the thing that is doing it for you. I think you're just fooling yourself and you're being obnoxious. And then worse, worse, what I really don't like about it. And again, I know people who are serious

about it, they support like actual research in it and blah, blah, blah. So I'm not talking about that. But I am very disturbed by the casualness with which people have who have zero medical training, tell other people that drugs are the solution to their problems. You know what I mean? Like there is this weird tendency, especially among broken people to find something and then tell everyone else that it's the solution to their problems when really they're just projecting and trying to convince themselves

that they have solved their problems. No, I've done shrooms when I was like partying, but I've never done any of that stuff medicinally. I've done it one time, shrooms one time, never like medicinally. I refuse to do any of it. It's not, I'm gonna fall off the cliff. Like I feel like I'm like, I can't do any of this stuff,

but I respect some, in some cases I any of this stuff, but I respect some. In some cases, I respect it, but I'm reluctant to fuck with your brain chemistry, which I believe can't be unfucked once it's been fucked with. And then I think we're all also because we either. This is more a problem, like in the sort of community you and I are in, because we don't want to be judgmental. We don't want to call anyone out publicly. I think we're all just dancing around the fact

that a bunch of these people have lost their fucking minds. And it's all traceable back to that. And they're not even just like nuts, like they're doing horrendous things to people around them and then also to society with the nonsense that they're spreading. So like, I think it like, I think sort of the proof is in the pudding when you look at the impact it's had on the lives of the people who do it a lot, right? The people were like, I did it once and I got over this thing with my parents and I told him I loved him and now we're good.

Like, sure, whatever. I don't have a problem with that. With a person who is like becomes the evangelist and the guru about it. I. And I, I struggled to come up with a case in which it did not end horribly. Yeah, it's like polygamy or an open relationship. Yes. I'm like, I don't know, man. I don't know if that's going to end well. If you think it's going to do, you should do whatever makes you happy. But also, you should just shut the fuck up about it and

like, let's see how it works. Exactly. Do you have any vices? I have a ton of vices. Like what? Like any chemical? Any any vices? I have a ton of vices. Like what? Like any chemical? Any chemical vices? No. Probably those mints are the only substance I take on a consistent basis that like, you know, in a perfect world I would not take.

Do you scroll on your phone a lot? Yes. I have a phone that has Instagram on it that I, you know, like have at my house that I don't like carry around with me. And sometimes I like, sometimes I'll get sucked down a rabbit hole. My wife will be like, you're browsing more than you want to be. And I'll be like, I'll just throw it. Is your browsing entertainment or like fitness people or what? No, I think I'm I'm it's more just like mindless, funny,

like silly, silly, stupid stuff. And then and then I tell myself one out of 100 things comes up with something cool that I do for Daily Stow. That's what I said. So so, you know, I say about Twitter. No, Twitter. Twitter is the worst. I mean, look at look at what Twitter has cost Elon Musk in every way and I go, that is worse than heroin. So you don't use Twitter at all?

I have not logged on or touched Twitter in many, many years. Every once in a while, there'll be a link to something on Twitter that I wanna see and someone will link to me and then because he broke it and now you can't see whole threads. I go, oh yeah, fuck, and then I close it. I think Twitter has broken more successful people I admire than psychedelics.

It's happened about five times where I've worked with someone as I'm friends with them. They're either very wealthy or they are a professional athlete or whatever they are, they're like just the best, you know, but they're not popular on the internet. So maybe I'll name one person like Chris Pronger. So Chris Pronger, famous hockey player. He's like the second or third highest earning hockey player of all time. But that was like 20 years ago, and hockey's

not terribly popular, whatever, successful. And they're like, hey, I want to get popular on Twitter. I was like, yeah, dude, I'll just help you write a handful of things, and I'll just tell you how it works. They do it, and it blows up. And I'm like, don't fall down this trap. You have one already. You don't need this.

And they all get addicted to it. Where they're like, I want more. I'm like, dude, I only have an audience and I'm only trying to be popular online because I had, this is the only, this is the skillset I had and it makes my, I have to do it for my job. You don't need this job.

Don't sign up for it. Of all the mediums, it's also the least conducive to growth or development, right? Because it's the smallest space. It's encourages certainty and immediacy, and it is the most inherently, I think, antagonistic. And so I think it's all downside and almost no upside. I would disagree. There is upside. I think that like you can find smart people and you could get inside there.

You could hear their thoughts. So Instagram is picture based. So it's what you look. I can take a picture that makes me artificially look good. It's much harder to hide bad ideas and good writing. And it exists out there. But but good writing is inherently not done in the medium that is Twitter. No, that's nonsense.

That's all you're only saying that because. Threaded writing is the is the is a medium inherently not conducive to good thinking. And that is why like think about it, right? Like Twitter or sorry, Instagram, the other social networks exist because they made it possible to do a thing that like literally was not possible to do before. You're putting value on long being good. No, I'm saying that the way the mind works and the way that ideas are best communicated,

human beings have been experimenting with writing for thousands of years. Right. And there's a reason we don't communicate to each other in like 140 character chunks or that we don't communicate to each other in like weird, threaded writing. There's a reason we developed the mechanisms by which we communicate because it engenders good thinking from the people doing the thinking. And then it requires reflection and, uh, you know, um, consideration from the person reading it. I think the medium of Twitter of like react to something in real time, or even just express what you're thinking as you're thinking it is by

definition, bad thinking. I'll get, let me give you a counter example. There's a guy I love. It's one of my favorite people to follow. So I don't follow too many business people. I don't follow news. I don't pay attention to the news. There's a guy named Dai Workwear and it is all about fashion and the history of fashion.

Yeah. This morning or not this morning, a few months ago, a month ago, he wrote this amazing post about how the Japanese, so you like like vintage American fashion, the best shits from Japan now. Have you ever noticed that? Okay. So like, like I've got fancy jeans on that are American jeans. They're actually made in Japan. Yeah, sure. And so he did this amazing post where he explained how Japan,

when we, when the Americans occupied them after World War II, Japan thought the Americans were going to slaughter them. The Americans were gonna slaughter them. The Americans were actually pretty kind. They were like, we're gonna try and like, make you guys love us. So hopefully we don't have fights again, whatever. And so because of that, the Japanese were like, all right, cool, let's be friends.

I love that fashion. And it warped into this American fashion plus Japanese craftsmanship and created this amazing like new genre of fashion. He wrote this whole thread on this was 2000 words. I was like so inspired that I went and bought this book called How Japan Saved American Fashion. I read it. I learned all about culture, the culture of Japan. It was amazing. And I, that was all because of Twitter.

So I don't know how you could like dismiss it as like, there's no, I mean, you just described what blogging is or articles are. Right. But so so you can get those outside of Twitter. And that's where I would say that's where I would consume my information. And that the the the fact that there is some non-garbage on Twitter is not an argument for why one would spend time on. No, but it is an argument that there is upside along with some.

You said you said there is, there is virtually no upside and all of the outside. What I'm saying is that inherently the medium is designed to compress and distort thinking. So even when you see good stuff, that stuff would have been better in another medium, right? So that would have been better outside of the Twitter algorithm or the Twitter culture. And so like, I feel very fortunate to have been better outside of the Twitter algorithm or the Twitter culture. And so, like, I feel very fortunate to have been able to live in a time where discoverability,

like Twitter is where, like, Billy, who works for me, Billy Oppenheimer. Oh, is that him back here? Yeah, yeah. Oh, I love Billy. I know his work. He lives in a world where to break out as a writer, a thinker. That was Billy back there? Yeah. Billy, I love your ship, man.er. That was Billy back there? Yeah.

Billy, I love your ship, man. I follow you. I think you're great. No, he's great. I'm just saying, that is not where I think that's a wicked environment to develop as a thinker and to win attention as a thinker. And so I think if you can avoid being on it and if you can avoid consuming on it, it's almost certainly better for your mental health, your brain develop all across the board.

I think it's the it's again, it's the most I think it's the most toxic. And this is demonstrated by the fact that it not only ruined Elon Musk before he bought it, but it's something broken in the algorithm, literally made him white 20, 30 billion dollars on fire. It broke it broke his brain in every way you can imagine. If you're a young person listening to this, here's what I think they should do. The era from like 05 to like 15 of blogging was so good. That's where I-

And all that stuff still exists. If you go back and discover it. It still exists. And so you need to go back and read it. And so I use Web Archive all the time to go back and look at websites and how they used to be. And you could actually find old blog posts. That's how I found you was through Thought Catalog, which isn't even a thing anymore. No, they bought a column for me every week for like two years or something.

So I liked that. And then I also liked, you know what was crazy is Ryan Holiday and Gavin McInnis were on the same blog. I mean, there's another person who was broken by the algorithm, probably Twitter, I mean, there's another person who is who is broken by the algorithm, probably Twitter. I mean, that's what I knew Gavin because he was an advertiser American pair would advertise in Vice and he was actually I think he's a performance artist or is

he actually insane? I mean, I think he was an interesting thinker and then kind of had a performance artist. And then I think there's that saying like fame is a mask that eats the face. I think it revealed underneath like real bigotry and awfulness and sort of a fascistic impulse, and he created a literal gang that was instrumental in literally attempting to overthrow the

United States government. So if you want to talk again about how sort of being terminally online and like fighting in culture war issues online and sort of responding to what gets engagement and whatever, what that can do to a person. I mean, like, well, his story is insane. It fucking broke him. And then he in turn nearly broke the United States. Well, like his whole thing. So I used to read him on Thought Catalog and I used to watch his videos.

And he's a really good writer. Yeah, he's very funny. And he's very funny. And you read his old vice stuff and you're like, oh, you push the you push the limit. And I always thought of him as a comedian as well as an artist who just gets off and pushing the limit, which I love those types of people. And then I was like, wait, what's Proud Boys? Like, oh, that's funny. It's a joke.

It's a misogynistic club. It's like a social club that turns into a gag. And then it becomes a thing. And I have no idea. I've never I don't listen to him anymore. But I was always in my head, I was like, I think this guy just started a gag. And it just like, well, another great, you know, do you know who JP Sears is? Yeah, he's like has the red hair.

Yeah, the woke hair. Yeah. The woke thing. Yeah. He started this. He started on all the different social networks as basically a parody. Yeah, the wig of like extreme like sort of woo woo like yoga. And then he bought into it. Well, no. And then and then he became this person who performed for the algorithm. So we make fun of like whatever was in the moment.

But it became like surfing the algorithm and being like, like, you know, sort of making fun of stuff and getting attention kind of became his personality. And then he became during the pandemic, like, you know, what horseshoe theory is, where you he just went from one end of the horseshoe all the way to the other end of the horseshoe and is like a monstrous moron. Like I say that in the sense of like, he's very stupid,

but the things he is stupid about have monstrous impacts on society and the world. And that, like, that's what happened. That's what, like, these things are, I I think much more dangerous than people wanna talk about. And they can, like audience capture is very real and it can fuck with you. And just like when I, as I've been doing this for 20 years now, I've watched people go from like,

oh, they're very normal, blah, blah, blah. And then I'm like, holy shit, I can't believe I once knew that person. And then you're like watching what they do at the, it's crazy. But that era, right when you were coming up of 05 to like 15, I think that was like a little bit, not quite pre-social, but almost. If you're young and you're listening to this, try and find all those blog posts. Those blog posts that I just read those all the time, like the whole idea of a blog role

where you would see at the bottom, Ryan recommends these people. And you would just subscribe to these people and just talk about them. It was so good. Like the writing and the creation, I think like people talk about creators nowadays, or crater, or what are they called?

Just craters. And I way prefer like these bloggers. It was typically nerdy people, really nerdy, sometimes hermit style people, but it was less pranks or whatever YouTube is and these like really interesting, well thought out posts. And so I go to Hacker News every day. You ever go to Hacker News? So Hacker News is still like a-

Yeah, they're like, check out this article from this person you've never heard of. Yeah, and it's all like- It's 8,000 words on some super in depth topic. And you're like, oh, that's really cool. And maybe that's all that person had in them. They never wrote anything good after that. I loved it. I loved it.

I love that era of writing. That's one of my favorite eras. I'm doing a chapter on that in my book now, like writing to think there's a reason. Amazon, if you like have an idea or you want to call a meeting, you have to like write a long memo. Yeah, like a six page memo.

Yeah, like Jeff Bezos doesn't say like, do a 240 character summation of what we're gonna talk about. No, no, no, no, no. You have to spend some time to figure out what the fuck you're talking about and what you're thinking about. Yeah, because you can't hide bad ideas in writing. Yes.

You'll very clearly see it's bad. You can hide bad ideas in Twitter threads or Instagram posts. Or in a PowerPoint. And in a one minute TikTok, you know, all those mediums are deceptive because they say you can't call it an honest spam, right? Like your audience is trying to hack the process. They're trying to get like in-depth information

in a very short period of time. And so like I play with all those tools at Daily Stoke because I think I can do it within- Well, I love your YouTube channel. I think your, because your videos are like 18 and 25 minutes long. Sometimes. Yeah. And whenever I watch them, you have beautiful background music. It feels like a movie.

Dude, those are so good. I watch them all the time. But those are a lot of them are collections of shorter things. Yeah, but they're the best. I love them. Like I always do the ones there's like different like leadership ones and whatever. Like because I actually feel like I do them when I when I go for walks, I always listen to you because I put out a page, one of those, just the audio of one of them each week on the podcast. I don't even know that I always go to YouTube.

I forget which day of the week it is, but one day of the week of the episode, I do the email, I just read the email and then I just take the audio from one of the YouTube videos. It's the best. You did another one about like money and philosophers. Yeah. That's so good. There is what are you laughing about? That I actually. That's funny. That's very nice. No, I listen to all of them.

I like I'm a huge fan of the Daily Stoic, the YouTube channel. Yeah. I like listen to so many of them. I've heard all of them. And like I remember you used to do. I always search for the ones where it's just like on one person. Yeah, I know. I so many of them. I've heard all of them. I remember you used to, I always search for the ones where it's just like on one person. Yeah, I know, I need to make more of those. And you haven't done more of those.

Lately it's been aggregating like a variety of lessons to learn. I'm like, no, no, no, I just want the deep dive on this one here. All right, I'll do. I wrote a whole book about this. I did a book called, Lives of the Stokes, which is a bios of each of the Stokes.

But for some reason, I like your voice and I like the music that you have behind it. Because it does a good job of setting up tension and releasing tension. It's like a little bit of a movie, you know what I'm saying? Yes, of course. And I thoroughly enjoy that. And usually they were like 15 to 25 minutes.

And so like on a walk, I would do two. I love it. I really like the Daily Stoic. A shit ton of history. And I would, it basically was a history podcast that I was listening to. Well, you want to call this here and I'll show you some history books that the book started?

Yeah, I'm down. All right. All right. Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. If you don't know this, you can get these delivered to you via email every day. Check it out at DailyStoic.com slash email. Hey, Prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic early and ad free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts. Experience college hoops like never before with BetMGM,

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