The Daily Stoic - Jeff Waldman on Craftsmanship, Memento Mori, and Developing Competence | It’s Not That You Read, It’s How You Read

Episode Date: May 4, 2022

Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to Jeff Waldman about his new book “Tools: The Ultimate Guide” (which you can get a signed copy of at the Painted Porch), the Stoic concept of Memento Mori, why it’s so vital to develop competence, and more.Jeff Waldman is a maker, builder and creator with a talent for connecting with interesting people and even more interesting projects. With the help of their friends, he and his partner designed and hand-built their own cabin and communal getaway in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. You can often find him tinkering in his shop where he works to build similar experiences for many others from different walks of life. Jeff’s book, Tools, launches this week. This is the book for answering all your tool questions, gaining knowledge before hiring a professional, or rifling through just for the joy of learning something new about the objects that shape our world.If you want to become a great reader, the Stoics can help. We built out their best insights into our Read to Lead: A Daily Stoic Reading Challenge. Since it first launched in 2019, Read to Lead has been our most popular challenge, taken on by almost ten thousand participants. Today, we’re excited to announce that, for the first time ever, registration to join the 2022 live cohort is officially open.Kion Aminos is backed by over 20 years of clinical research, has the highest quality ingredients, no fillers or junk, undergoes rigorous quality testing, and tastes amazing with all-natural flavors. Go to getkion.com/dailystoic to save 20% on subscriptions and 10% on one-time purchases.The Jordan Harbinger Show is one of the most interesting podcasts on the web, with guests like Kobe Bryant, Mark Manson, Eric Schmidt, and more. Listen to one of Ryan's episodes right now (1, 2), and subscribe to the Jordan Harbinger Show today.Talkspace is an online and mobile therapy company. Visit talkspace.com and get $100 off your first month when you use promo code STOIC at sign-up. That’s $100 off at talkspace.com, promo code STOIC.Right now, when you purchase a 3-month Babbel subscription, you’ll get an additional 3 months for FREE. That’s 6 months, for the price of 3! Just go to Babbel.com and use promo code DAILYSTOIC.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailCheck out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookFollow Jeff Waldman: Website, InstagramSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic Podcast early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. 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. But first, we've got a quick message from one of our sponsors. As you know, the human body is mostly water. What you didn't know is that everything else in your body is basically 50% amino acids.

And these building blocks are essential to health and fitness and life. And if you like to move, which I do, amino acids are essential, and that's why Kion Aminos is a fundamental supplement for fitness. You can drink them every day for energy, build muscle, and recover faster. It's got the highest quality ingredients, no fillers, no junk. Every product undergoes rigorous quality testing. It tastes amazing with all natural flavors. If you want more energy, lean muscle, faster recovery, you have to get Keon Aminos. And you can say 20% now on subscriptions or 10% off one time purchase. Just go to get keon.com slash daily stooot. I'll spell it out for you. That's g-e-t-k-i-o-n dot com slash daily stu it to get this awesome supplement for fitness that's keon aminos and

Check it out. It's not what you read. It's how you read. We tend to think that how much we read is proof that we're making progress. We like to show off our library. We listen to audio books on two or three X speed. We think less is more quality over quantity, not with books. We think that because reading is a good thing wouldn't more be better. But the answer is no. Not all reading is created equal. As Epictetus said, I cannot call

someone hard working knowing only that they read, even if all night long is added. I cannot say it. He says, not until I know the focus of all this energy. Of course, spending hours or days in front of books is better than say hours watching stupid internet videos, but it can still be a waste of time. Far too many brains, Senuka said, have been afflicted by the pointless enthusiasm for useless knowledge. To be a great reader, it is not enough that you read.

It's how you read. It's not about reading to impress people or for mental gymnastics. It's not about pouring inputs into your brain. It's about getting better. It's about filtering what gets into your brain. It's about finding useful knowledge. Knowledge you can use in your actual life. It's about putting the information up to the test examining it. Seeing how it applies to your life, asking yourself how you might use it and what it's prompting you to think. Well, and if you want to be a great reader, the Stokes can help.

And over the years, we've built out their best insights into what we're calling the Read to Lead Daily Stoke Reading Challenge. And since it first launched in 2019, Read to Lead has been our most popular challenge here at Daily Stuck, taking almost 10,000 participants. And today we're excited to announce it for the first time ever registration to join the 2022 cohort is open. It's going to take place across five weeks, two emails a week, 30,000 words of content about being a better reader. We'll learn how to get the most out of your reading, how to read more, how to find books with the potential of changing our life, how to think more critically,

how to find more time to read, how to digest books above your level, and a lot more. And look, there's gonna be weekly live videos with me, written my fair share, books about stoch philosophy. My reading list newsletter goes out to almost 300,000 people and videos about my own reading habits

have gotten millions and millions of views. And I think you're really gonna like, this is the practice that I use to be a better reader. You'll become a better reader, you'll build a better reading habit, you'll get to learn from me. It's going to start on Monday, May 17th. We all move this course together at the same time. Registration is now officially open, but registration will close on Sunday, May 16th. At midnight,

that's your last chance to join us all as part of this cohort participate in the sessions with me. So sign up at dailystoke.com slash reading. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke Podcast. When I dropped out of college, I moved to a house in Los Angeles, Crenshaw and Venice, or thereabouts, I think Arlington and Venice, trying to remember the exact address. Let's just say it was not a nice part of town.

Like one time a dog, clearly tragically, part of a dog fighting ring, just walked into our front yard, which was concrete, and just died. So that's the kind of neighborhood it was. Anyways, I lived on a mattress. So I was working for this author and he was like, come live with me. I'll teach you how to be a writer and work this talent agency and how I would what I was doing. And he was like, I got a place for you to stay. So I remember pulling away from Samantha, my wife's apartment in Riverside

for the summer, not fully knowing I was dropping out yet, but I, Mutele, thinking I don't know. I had some vision that it was going to be like the television show, Entourage, not fully understanding the economics of the author of the world. Anyways, I get there and they point to me that they have a mattress for me on the floor in the living room. And I was later informed that they'd found the mattress outside, and said disgusting neighborhood, but it was enough for me. And it set in motion my whole career and life, and I wouldn't trade that experience or just spend anything. But the person in the bedroom across from the mattress that I was living on was my guest today, the one and only Jeff Waldman. Today you might know him as a maker and builder and creator. His incredible Instagram account elevated spaces makes some cool ass shit houses

ass shit houses cabins tree forts and in fact if you have followed my Instagram or watched the Daily Stalk videos you might have seen the tree fort on my farm here in Austin Texas Jeff helped me build that a couple years ago but if you have been to the painted porch you've definitely seen Jeff's handy work because in February Jeff came out and apropos of his new book tools the ultimate guide 500 tools and ultimate guide basically a history and breakdown of how some of the great tools of history were made how they work what they do how to think about them, how to use them. It's his first book. It's a spectacular book. I think a great dad gift, a great grad gift, a great coffee table book, a really fun book.

Anyway, apropos of that book had actually come out to Austin as I was thinking about doing the bookstore when he helped me build the tree fort. And I showed them the property and it was into it. And he was like, let's come out and do a project together. That's who Jeff is. Jeff's like, what's a cool thing you're trying to do at your house? Let me come over and help you do it. He's just like a great friend, great person.

Very different than I remember him 15 years ago, as we'll talk about in today's episode. But anyways, he came out and I had this crazy idea. I wanted to do something extra cool for the story. So you've seen our cool book tower, which is like 20 feet of books made at a brick, a brick, books, stack like bricks, going all the way up to the ceiling

along the fireplace on the right hand wall at the bookstore. I wanted to do something even cooler than that. And so I said, Jeff, wouldn't it be cool if it looked like a tree was growing out of the floor of the bookstore all the way up to the 20 foot ceilings and then out

the ceiling. And Jeff being Jeff and Jeff knowing his way around tools, he was like, I can figure out how to do that. And so he came out and we just had an awesome time. We found this huge tree that fell in the ice storm in 2021 and we chopped it up into pieces. We had to use all the tools he's talking about, chain saws and saws and drills and hammers and everything else you can imagine. Roaps and winches, levers, and we moved this thousand pound or so tree in pieces. The actual tree was about 30 feet.

We cut it down to about 17. It comes up from the floor. It goes into the balcony underneath some of the offices, grows through the balcony, and then up and out through the ceiling, and some of them reach straight out into the store. It's just one of the coolest things that I've seen, and I'm just so proud of it.

Every time Jeff comes, he makes me proud of what I'm capable of doing that. I don't feel like I'm just so proud of it every time Jeff comes he makes me proud of what I'm capable of doing that I don't feel like I'm ordinarily capable of doing and I'm just so excited to have him on the podcast Jeff Waldman's new book tools the ultimate guide it features over 500 tools You can hear those are the tabs of the book that he sent me the copy and tagged all the important parts This is a great book. He's a great dude You can go to his website, elevatedspaces.ca. You can follow him on Instagram at elevatedspaces.

And you may be remembering Jeff vaguely, because Jeff is in the first chapter of Trust Me Online. He did this other awesome thing, where he went up and he set up swings all over California, like these rope swings, this sort of really low, like no-frills swings, like two ropes, a piece of wood, and he just put up these swings and people could swing on them and they helped them recapture their childhood, and I got to show him how I worked, I helped do some of the marketing for it,

and ended up blowing up becoming this whole thing. It became an international commercial for Coca-Cola and blew up all over and set Jeff on this cool path that ended now in this book and building the tree in the bookstore. I am really excited for you to check out this book. I think we have some sign copies in the painted porch. If you want to check it out, you can get the books anywhere books are sold. It's published by Chronicle Books. And it's fantastic. Tools, the Ultimate Guide, check out Jess website,

elevatedspaces.com. He also sells cool plans for his different cabins. So if you're thinking about building a cabin on your property, you wanna tree forward, or I know it's kind of a niche thing, but it's a great business for him, you can check those out too.

And follow him on Instagram at elevatedspaces. And come check out his handiwork here at the Painted Porch and we'll hopefully be here for a very long time. And here's my conversation about craftsmanship, memento, Mori, embracing change and developing competence, which I think is a critical part of confidence with the one and only Jeff Waldman. I was trying to think when we met each other. So it would have been 2007 or was it 2008? Something like that, right?

It was at a PF Changs or something? It was 2007 or maybe even 2006. Maybe. It definitely wasn't 2008 by 2008 We're kind of into the swing of things movie wise. It was before that right we were already Yeah, we would have been living together then I lived on the on the P stained dog mattress Yeah, when you lived on the P stained dog dog mattress at what what year was that when did you leave college that would have been Well, so I left college after

That but that would have been the summer of 2007. Okay. I think maybe early 2007, possibly like late 2006. That sounds right. That's how many years is that? Is that like 15 years? Yeah, that's crazy. Jesus. That's fair. That is an insane, that is an insane amount of time. That's, well, it's also weird now. Like, I don't know, as you get older, you're like, you're stopped. Like, I had to ask Samantha how old I was the other day. I was like, how am I again? But like, also that I could say something that's 15 years and that's not half or more of my life is also a new thing I'm having to think about. Yeah, I remember when I was a kid, my dad used to brag to me, he'd be like,

oh, I've had this down jacket for 20 years. And it seemed at the time, I was like, wow, that seems like a really long time. And now I'm like, yeah, I think I've got like a bunch of stuff that's 20 years old. Like, it moves fast. You and I talked about Chuck Klosterman, and I interviewed him, but he never talked about this

in the book, I don't think, but like when someone pointed out to me that the 90s, which is the subject of his new book, we are as distant from the 90s as the 90s were from the 60s. He's like a polingly, hits you a polingly hard, You're like, whoa, okay, that is like crazy. Well, yeah, because when we were kids, I mean, you and I are a little bit different in age, but I remember in the 90s being in like middle school, folks were really into that late 60s,

70s stuff, and it felt decidedly retro, entirely from a different era, and to think about it now as we're like, oh, that was just people being into what was 20 years ago. It's the same thing as the 90s now. I don't know. It just, it makes me look at that past very differently. Is it felt like we weren't just looking back on a couple of decades, because that's what everyone always does? It felt like we're looking back on a very specific time in place in American culture. Like, oh, this is the retro time. But like, no, it's just a couple decades back. But also, I feel like the world seemed like,

and this is one of the things he talks about in the 90s, which is that like the 60s to the 90s felt like an unfathomable gulf between them. Like, these are different worlds, right? Like, the 60s was still a part of the world, where the 40s was recent, you know what I mean? Like, it's felt so long ago. And then like 90s, 2000s, 2010s, those do blur together

in a way that it doesn't feel like, even 9-11, doesn't feel like some moment where it was like, although the geopolitical stage changed, it doesn't feel like how the world was constituted and what it was made up by that changed. Things are still mass produced, things are still digital, you know, like that is, like, it feels more constant in that sense. Yeah, I don't remember if you use this word in the book, but I've used basically of looting to like the homogenization of culture over the past couple decades.

And it's like, it really does blur together. The caveat to that, though, is that I remember thinking in the 90s. I was like, oh, man, it's weird that every era had a look to it at a certain fashion style. And we just don't. We't, our clothes look totally normal. But now when you look back 20 years, you go, no, those clothes definitely look like the 90s. So I wonder if in looking back,

what feels very homogenized now will feel a lot more stratified in the future. Yeah, funny enough, the Stokes do kind of talk about that. He talks about how different these names sound. He's naming off the different emperors and they're the most powerful people. How the names sound so anachronistic and weird, even though they thought that they would be remembered forever. It is weird how the things that seem like a big deal, like just with the passage of not that much time,

suddenly don't feel like being such a big deal. And then the things that you thought were normal as you're saying, like with clothes, you're like, oh, I'm just a normal person. We're in a regular shirt and regular pants. And you don't realize the degree to which the things you're taking for granted are actually the products of trends and fads

and of the moments. And then you look at the pants 20 years later and you're like, that's so lame. Like that's like I was trying so hard, even though I thought I wasn't trying. Sure. Yeah. I mean, it's hard to see that whole fish tank

when you're inside of it, I think. But that's, but the other thing is like, okay, so 15 years ago, it doesn't seem that long ago. But then if you think about who you were or I was 15 years ago, that seems as distant to me as the 60s. Like I have no conception of who that person was or was thinking or doing because it's like another person to me. Yeah.

That I agree with completely. Does that bring you shame? Like does that make you feel negative feelings when you look back at yourself from 15 years ago? Or do you just accept it as, hey, I'm a work in progress, it's all good? That's a good question. I think it's both.

There are definitely moments as the word very much of the moment. There are definitely moments of cringe when I I look back, definitely with writing, it's also weird to me. So, trust me, I'm lying on my first book, is 10 years old, this summer, it's 10 years old. And actually, obstacle came out eight years ago yesterday, which is also like insane to me.

When I read stuff that I wrote that long ago, the thing that strikes me, it's not that I feel shame, but I sort of feel like I was being way too certain or like, like I'm sort of embarrassed at the forcefulness with which I held opinions and express those opinions that now in retrospect, since I don't agree with, I think, well, that was stupid. Yeah. Yeah. Any of those beliefs that you're binding too tightly to, it's like, you don't know anything. I got into a little bit of an argument with a guy that I'm in this group therapy thing for like 10 years. And there was a guy in there that he was saying the truth is the truth, and I know what it is. And like, because I was. And there was a guy in there that he was he was saying the truth is

the truth. And I know what it is. And like, because I was arguing that there's a lot of ambiguity and things, a lot of gray area. And it's some of this stuff is unknowable. And he said, no, it's I know it for a fact. And I said, yeah, but I've been in this group with you for like 10 years. I remember eight years ago, you had different stances on things. And he goes, yeah, I was wrong then. But I'm not wrong now. It's like, come on. He goes, yeah, I was wrong then, but I'm not wrong now. It's like, come on. If you accept that you're a wrong man, then maybe you just shouldn't hold too tightly to those beliefs. No, it is. One thing reflecting on who you were in the past, it should make you more humble and less tightly held to your opinions now because you're like, oh, it's like, okay, you felt some intense amount of pain like you stubbed your toe. you're like, oh, it's like, okay, you felt some intense amount

of pain like you stubbed your toe. You're like, that passes, right? The same will be true with the opinions or the things that you're really worked up about because there's significance in the world changes, you change, the facts change, whatever it is, I find certainty and arrogance do not age well? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, what positions could you possibly hold in your 20s that are just going to continually stand up? Yeah. I go back to your cringe thing. Now, I think sometime in the past five years, I've gotten to the point where I can flip through photos and go through old emails and I can do it kind of peacefully. Yes.

But for almost my entire history up until about five years ago, to even look at old photos or to look through old emails would make me cringe so hard that I would like close the laptop and I couldn't even do it. I couldn't revisit the past and the acknowledgement of like who I was. It'd be like, no, looking forward, can't look back. Yeah, the Stokes talk a little bit about being kind to yourself.

I think it's hard to look back at who you were and what you were doing and not be very judgmental. In a way that you wouldn't be that judgmental if it was another person. Like if you were looking at an embarrassing photo of someone from the 90s, you would laugh. You'd be like, oh, that's so funny. But you, you're like, what a loser.

You know, like it's meaner when you look at it with yourself for some reason, I feel like. Yeah, I mean, I agree with that, but the counter to it is that we often grant ourselves so much more latitude than we're willing to give others. Like, you'll judge, you'll judge somebody by a sound bite or by a single wrong action. When you yourself, like, you know that you're a more complete picture and that you would hope that nobody would judge you by the single screw up thing you set on your friend's podcast. That's true. We do that with sort of what they're calling cancel culture,

which we don't need to get into a whole thing about. Like like like the idea that like the person like the person that said this thing in a moment of anger in a private communication 20 years ago, that that is fully who they are. Do you know what I mean? And that you don't have tons of those skeletons in your closet. Like it seems like in very, I remember there was this one,

it was like the let editor of Vogue or Teen Vogue or something, she'd like said some racist things and like emails are on Facebook when she was in college. And the main person who'd attacked her and gotten her fired, it turned out she also had done that. It's that idea of not casting stones. And you're sure of reminding that everyone

was an idiot 10 years ago. And you are in 10 years, you will think of yourself as an idiot. Yeah, I Mean you knew me 10 years ago 15 years ago. It was a real idiot But no, that's what I was I was actually gonna ask you some version of the how do you think about it because that seems so different and we were both sort of very We both inherited a set of certain opinions about how the world would work and how things were going to go. And then we both had our own sort of issues and demons that we had to deal with.

How do you think back to who you were then and could you have imagined that 15 years later you'd be like a builder on the internet who sells like plans for exotic tree houses like that's the other thing that's really humbling is like. exotic tree houses, like that's the other thing that's really humbling is like conceiving of where could you have conceived of where you are now then and like just how random life is and where it takes you. Yeah, I couldn't have conceived of it at all. Yeah, I think I just speak to something about like the uncertainty of your path, like you just don't know the direction things are going to go. And that kind of goes back to what you were saying about being a little bit softer with like the opinions and the things that you hold on to dearly, because like that's certainty. I don't know, I was just going to bog you down. Yeah, I don't know, like 15 years ago, I think that I was a very different person.

I had a very different outlook. It's a lot angrier. I didn't really have a sense of who I was. I didn't have a lot of confidence in myself. I didn't really feel like, you know, I love myself and that therefore, like other people would kind of like me. So I started trying on a lot of different hats and identities, which you sort of saw a lot of back then.

And I just, you know, I couldn't have imagined like the path that things would take. It's, you know, a strange turn of events. I mean, I'm sure the same for you. Like you had your eye on writing, but, you know, beyond that, like you couldn't really predict the trajectory things we're going to go on. One thing the Stoics all have in common is that they love to learn. They love to learn from people who had experiences, had insights, had interesting lives.

That's one of the things I love about podcasts. It's like an hour or two hours or three hours, sometimes right into the brain of a person who thinks very differently or has experienced things, very different from what you've experienced. And that's something I always feel when I listen to my friend Jordan Harbinger's podcast, the Jordan Harbinger Show, which is the sponsor of today's episode.

It's show, as interviewed, basically everywhere. You can listen to his episode with Robert Green on the laws of human nature, or both my episodes. I talk about solving for what you want in life. I talk about my book, Conspiracy, or Stillness's Key. I mean, he's had literally everyone you can imagine on professional art foragers, to billionaire entrepreneurs, to mafia, hitmen, to models, to professional athletes. He did this episode about birth control and how it alters the partners we pick

and how medicine can affect elements of our personalities. He talks about just everything you can imagine. It's just a great show, recommend it. The podcast covers a lot, but I think the one thing that's constant is he always pulls useful bits of advice from his guests, and I can say that from experience. I always feel like the interviews I do on the Jordan Harbinger show get something out of me

that I didn't talk about the interview I did just a few days earlier. Like, when I would point you to those interviews, if I would say, hey, someone's like, hey, what's a podcast you were on? I connect you. I might link you to one of my episodes of Jordan, because it would be different from all the other ones. And I think that's all you can really ask for from a podcast.

I enjoy it. I recommend it. There's so much there. You can check out JordanHarbinger.com slash start for episode recommendations or just look for the Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you to Jordan for sponsoring this podcast and I hope you give it a listen. Yeah, that's why I think it's weird when people have very specific goals or ideas.

I think you want to have like a general point on the horizon you're aiming towards and then you're sort of, you have no idea the terrain that's going to exist between you and there and the obstacles you're going to encounter and you have to be willing, I think, to be flexible and adjust to the facts as you find them along the way. Yeah, I mean, it's a long journey. Yeah, I mean, you're just going to come up against so many impediments, and I mean, it's like that, you know, the Mike Tyson quote, about everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face, you know, like you can, you can be fixated on this is my life goal,

this is the thing I'm gonna do. Like I've got to, but it's not gonna work out that way. It's just not gonna pan out the way that you need it to. And if you're in, not flexible enough, I feel like you're just gonna break. And then like I do remember you being a very angry person and that being sort of who I thought you were and I remember being very surprised meeting you, seeing you for something or talking to something several

years later and then this was some like the absence of that, it was like, it wasn't like there was a hole but that was like what you were built around, right? So it was weird to see that disappear. And then like, I guess anything could have rushed in to fill that hole, right? And then, but like, I think very rarely do you see it get filled with the opposite of what was there before, which is a roundabout way of complimenting you, which is I think you replace what was anger with like a lot of kindness and niceness, which again was very unexpected, weirdly.

Yeah, I mean, I think if I dig down deep and I kind of look back through years of therapy and self examination, the problem that I had going on was that I didn't feel good about myself, I didn't feel confident, I didn't feel like I had a sort of identity and a craft and a trade. I'm sure plumbers feel really good because they're contribution to societies that they plum and I didn't like my shirt, myself was a little bit more open-ended. And because of that, like thought I'm gonna be rejected. And one of the ways that I push back against that

or I felt some power is like, I'm gonna be angry. I'm gonna push back first. I'm gonna control the situation. And at least I can kind of, garner an identity as like, I don't know, an angry, volatile person, volatile person, which isn't much of an identity at all. But that's coming from a place of like yearning, right?

Like I want the community, I want the friends, I want to be accepted, I want to feel like I have a place in the community and something to contribute. Like I'm actually- I am- I am divly rejecting it. Yeah. And so if I can eventually get to a place where that's sort of quelled, and like you said, now there's a vacuant, like what's gonna rush in.

I mean, the things that I was sort of yearning to fill it in and I was just doing it in a very misguided way are like, okay, community building and feeling good about myself and creating an identity and a craft and a trade. And so now, like I find myself in a place where I'm working very hard to build friendships and build skills, working with my hands, doing a bunch of community building type things that all the stuff that I do in

terms of building is really just like making stuff with my friends and wanting to be a part of workshops and put on workshops, that type of thing. And so that's filling the void that I was, I don't know, kind of replacing before with anger. So I think you look at it as the polar opposite, but really it's just like, you know, what is that anger a placeholder for? And now, like I can confidently sort of, you look at what I've got going on now

and I think that's what the anger was a placeholder for. It's also weird, lucky for tourists, I don't know how you want to say it, but like, so you have this coping mechanism, whatever it is, it's anger, you know, it's an addiction, whatever the thing the person has. And it's sort of a not constructive, it's destructive, right? And so you get in this sort of downward spiral with it. But then if you switch to something that's positive,

that makes the world better, sometimes you get lucky and it becomes a positive feedback loop. So like, you know, you did that, I remember you did the first thing with the swings where you put up the swings all over San Francisco and LA and people started liking it and then it got attention and then it became a code commercial. But like, I think about that is like,

you kind of trying on a very different thing and it being rewarded and creating a different kind of loop. Do you know what I mean? Like, and I kind of think about that with my career too, whereas because on this marketing track, it was very successful and was making money. I wouldn't exactly describe it as constructive, but the stoicism stuff becomes suddenly. It's like, first off, I'm interested in it, first off, I like it. But then because it actually does something for people in a way that's not extractive, the way the other stuff was, suddenly it becomes this whole thing and you can sort of build

your life around this new thing, that because it's making the world better, you actually get encouragement for it as opposed to just like, you know, like things you like, like, like, you're not forcing it, it's the opposite. You're being like pulled instead of pushing. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that speaks to the flexibility you're talking about before, because it took, you know, stumbling into those paths to find that positive feedback loop. You know, I just kind of, I mean, I liked playing in the park with friends and hanging out and doing some weird things, but like hanging those swings and sort of touching upon like, oh, this has some positive thing here. I'm doing something that's creating a feedback loop that's helpful

and same thing with building stuff out in our land and finding that, I don't know, working with my hands and that kind of design and trade like had a positive thing. I mean, in you with the stoicism, like, I don't know, it just, it takes, it's not like 15 years ago, you had said, I'm going to build a career and a path about writing about the stoics. Like you had to stumble into that and to be into the sort of direction it might go. And then to also recognize, you know, here's something positive in my life. People are vibing on this. It's working for me. Like maybe there's something here I should pull this thread a little bit.

What is weird because people ask me about that? Like they sort of like, so I was interested. I read the Stokes before I met you. So this sort of in 2006-ish. And I was interested in that. That Stokes before I met you. So this would have been 2006-ish. And I was interested in that. That's what I wanted to write about. And that's what I was writing about on my blog that nobody read.

But then, but let's go. I think you're a log. Yes, I read yours as well. But we were like the only ones. But I just remember, I think people think about it as like I was on this marketing track for a long time and then I switched. And he didn't realize that actually one predated the other,

it was just sort of like, actually I say this and trust me, I'm lying. You know the word disintegrated, disintegrated, right? We think of disintegrated means like falling apart, right? Like a plane disintegrates in the you know in the air, but it also means not integrated Right That I sort of had these different parts like I was interested in this thing I was interested in this thing. I was interested in this thing. I was ambitious

I was young whatever, but it wasn't all it didn't it was it was not put together in any It was not put together in any Sensical way so like most of my energy and time and ambition was dedicated towards this one career path But really the thing that I was interested in and cared the most about was this other thing Yeah, and it took a longer amount of time for them to be integrated for me to get rid of the stuff that wasn't working for me to ramp up The stuff that was working, but It was just a weird period that whole my whole mid-twenties is just a weird period. Or early twenties. But that means that somewhere along the way there was an alignment of like how you saw yourself and the things you wanted to write about and how the public was seeing you

and what you wanted to write about. That's right. Does some peace come from that? And just before you answer it, the reason I'm bringing it up is there is, I gotta, can't remember who it was now, but there was somebody that used to write about addicts and they were talking about the thing that addicts were sort of medicating away was this disconnect between how they saw themselves and how they felt the world saw themselves.

And because there wasn't an alignment there, there was a great dissatisfaction. I think that's right. You can be very good at something, you can be very well liked for something, you can be very well compensated for something, and it not be what you were meant to do. And if you're spending most of your time doing what you're not willing to do, or being the person you're not willing to be. I think that causes a kind of distress or suffering that you can either address by looking in the mirror and making hard decisions, right, and like painful, costly choices, or you

can go get drunk or you can work a lot, or can have like you can be consumed by your sex life or you know you can get in trouble like there's a bunch of things you can do to distract you from that distress or or you can address it yeah yeah yeah I think distress is the right word for it yeah with a Buddhist it's ducca I think is how you say it, but it's like suffering or like pain. It's just that like that. It's just the things that cause you distress, you know, and, you know, how do you treat that distress?

Do you get to the root symptoms or do you get to the root causes or do you medicate the symptoms more and more until eventually you reach some sort of crisis? Well, yeah. I mean, speaking from experience, the risk in that medicating away, the symptoms as an addict is that you build up these patterns of avoidance and you never really learn how to deal with it, you know, to begin with. And I mean, it just gets harder and harder to dig yourself out of that hole.

Yeah, and just you're doing a thing compulsively and then it becomes its own, you do it. You don't even, like there's this great expression that traditions are our solutions to problems we forgot about, right? So if you think about, like, why do we do it this way? It's probably because at one point, someone is like, we should solve this problem.

This is why we have this policy, you know. And I think oftentimes the things we do or how we spend our time are solutions to distress or anxieties or fears or bad advice or, you know, things we've internalized. And then we do them for so long that we don't even remember why we do them, we just do them, and it feels painful to not do them, or it feels stupid to stop doing it. You're like, I make $200,000 a year as an executive at this company.

I should just leave it because I actually have more fun doing X, that sounds insane. You know what I mean? And so either, you know, this is obviously the plot of Fight Club. Like he has this life that deep down he knows is wrong and his subconscious has to destroy it for him to be able to leave it. I think that is flaws of the book and movie aside, that is a very common modern predicament. Yeah. I mean, then it brings up a complicated relationship with like, bucking convention and changing things up.

Because on the one hand, you go, well, this has probably been done this way for a while. But on the other, sometimes it feels like you need to kind of shake things up and do it a little bit differently. There's also like, when it comes to behaviors, like, you know, I mean, how many, I know I keep coming back to the attic thing, but like how many alcohol acts have said like,

well, now I think I can have a drink because like things are going pretty good for me. And then forgetting, like the reason things are going good for you is because you haven't been drinking. So like there's a, that push pull relationship with the, I think that I should change things up dramatically because there might be some good that'll come from it or to buck convention of how things are typically done.

But then on the flip side of it, it's like, well, perhaps things have been done that way for a reason and perhaps you shouldn't rock the boat too much. Yes. Yes. I guess goes back to the very first part of this conversation, which is like not holding too tightly, is any one idea.

No, I think that's right. I think that's right. No, so it was fat. I don't think I would have predicted the direction you ended up going, but it's been very interesting to, like, I think that's the other thing that I do like about the economy and how the world works.

It's just like, you really can do do like, you can have weird jobs. Like that can be a thing that you do, right? Like, you're like, oh, I baked tree houses for living or whatever. Like, you're like, that's a thing. You can do that. Even, even now, I think like, it's like, oh, yeah, I talk about an obscure school of ancient philosophy. That's my job. And they're like, oh, did you go to philosophy school? No, like, oh, did you university? No. How does it work? I don't know. It just works. You know, like, you, so that is the, the, the, the tricky thing about those conventions, too, is like, some of them exist for a reason and some of them are totally made up dumb stuff. And you have to know which ones you can sort of knock the legs out from under.

Yeah, you talked about this on your podcast with Chuck Klosterman, you're talking about movie making, and like some of the approaches there, and like, well, why do we need to do it this way? It's like, well, there's a reason, because everybody's been making movies this way for a while. Like, they've worked out the kinks, not all conventions need to be bucked.

Yeah. Well, it's extra tricky if you have built a career breaking conventions, how do you then respect the conventions? Right. Yeah. Totally. Like you're on Musk, right? Every company, everything he's ever done, they're like, that won't work for the following

reasons, right? Mm-hmm. But I saw this at American Apparel. If that becomes your identity, like I, I break conventions, I don't think about what those people, what, you know, the DJ Khaled, they, I don't listen to that. What they say, well, sometimes, in fact, a lot of times they are right. Right? And so you're like so if you develop this sort of, this is where I think the colloquial definition for this would be ego, if you develop the identity

that you intuitively and instinctively know better than everyone, eventually you will bump into the thing in which that is not true, and that will be your waterloo, rock bottom crash. That will be the thing that brings you back down to earth. Yeah. Well, I mean, I've been seeing a bunch of stuff on social media in terms of people's profile pictures, their bios, talking about making fun of the fact that folks are into the current

thing. Whatever the current thing is. And there are a few things to talk about this. Yeah. And so there are, there are, from, there are many people have come across now where their entire identity is pushing back against that. To lampoon it and to say, I am not for the current thing. Well, if that's your entire identity, pushing back against the conventional wisdom of whatever the population is generally into, you are also going to find yourself in a population is generally into, you are also

going to find yourself in a position at some point where you are absolutely on the wrong side of a topic. Like, you can't just bind that tightly to the like, I buck convention. I do what others tell me I shouldn't do. I do what they say we shouldn't and they are wrong about the current thing. Like to just push back against the nebulous they is always gonna leave you in a bad place eventually. Mark really says, you know, you gotta do what's essential. Focus on what's essential to you. But sometimes we don't know what that is

or sometimes we get caught up and think the wrong things are essential. And one of the places you can dive into, what makes you tick, why you want the things you want, why you get distracted by the things that you don't want is therapy. And I'm not ashamed to say that I go to therapy, that I've gone to therapy, and I love having advertisers like Talkspace sponsored a podcast because I think the service is important. Are you taking care of yourself? Are you being vulnerable? Are you putting yourself

out there? You shouldn't be afraid to ask for help. And you shouldn't be afraid to make time to get that help. And that's where today's sponsor comes in. Talkspace Online Therapy gives you unlimited access to a licensed therapist so you can set aside time to put yourself first. Instead of a therapist squeezing you into their busy schedule, talkspace fits into yours with 24.7 A synchronous messaging,

you can talk about what's on your mind in the moment without waiting for an appointment, you know, a regular therapist isn't gonna let you text them. You can also have chat, video options, audio options for live sessions, you can get support on your own terms. Your privacy is a priority and talk space has encryption and added security features to help keep those conversations. So, here, get the one size fits one support you need with Toxbase. Sign up today at Toxbase.com

and get 100 bucks off your first month with the promo code Stoic. That's 100 bucks off at Toxbase.com promo code Stoic. Yeah, well Peter Teo says, you know, like it can't just be, you put a minus sign in front of, like that doesn't, that doesn't work. Cause yeah, eventually it's, you're putting the negative sign in front of a life-saving medical technique or what, like I saw that, I actually saw injuries and, you know, I was talking about the sale the day where they were like, all of a, like, they started, they were talking about free speech and this, and in all of a sudden, they're like opining about like SSRIs and anti-depressants. And it's like, look, first off, you might be right.

The chances of you being right are very low because you have zero understanding or training in this thing. And also, this isn't the same as speculating about whether the Patriots should draft so and so or not. Right? Like, you're talking about a thing that millions of people depend on or believe they depend on to literally not commit suicide. So maybe just shut the fuck up because like the caught, you know what I'm saying?

Like this sort of intuitive, reflective, like my identity is eye challenge whatever those people think. And I think what's happening, and you and I both know some people whose identity has been warped by this because those people were rude to you or dismissive or wrong about

you in the past. Your identity is now fuck whatever they like, believe, care about. It's even pettier than just like, I think the opposite of whatever the crowd thinks. It's more like, spite, like politics and spite. I don't like those people, so whatever they like or think about or support, I'm gonna reject even if they happen to be right about this, that or the other. And it takes you down a dark corridor.

I mean, that and that you're just speaking to like the sort of national division and culture wars in this country. Of course. And also like where you're talking about Andres and Musk, that's the downside of that positive feedback loop we were talking about earlier, where you see success in a thing, you get rewarded for your expertise

in one sector, and like, society loves you for it. You got fans, you're doing well, things are great, and now you feel comfortable stepping outside of your lane. You know, I've seen what's his name, the astronomer guy. Oh, Neil de Grasse Tyson. Neil de Grasse Tyson. I've seen him speak about a few things where I think he got really enabled by such a positive feedback in terms of his contributions to the scientific community and specifically in his field. And then he'll speak about other stuff. It's way outside

of his lane. It's not It's way outside of his lane. It's not quite as far outside of his lane as Musk talking about SSRIs, but it's like, ah, I don't know, man. I think maybe you should just keep talking about stars. Like, I read an interesting study once that was saying that oftentimes conspiracy theorists are like, obviously there's the Alex Jones sort of

whack jobs out there. That's not what we're talking about. But like the people that propagate the sort of real big conspiracy theories are almost always academic experts in something else. So they're an astronomer or a sociologist or an expert in this kind of medicine or on this diet. And what happens, this is what ego does, ego makes you think, I'm an expert here, I'm an expert in all things. Like you carry on the certainty built from years of study in X field,

you carry it around like a backpack, you know, they talk when they talk about privilege, the invisible backpack. The uncertainty is your, the certainty is your invisible backpack. Like, years walking around, convinced that this thing that you thought about for three seconds is rooted in the same 20 years of study

as your scientific observations in that exact field and they're not and that's why you're being the crazy person. Yeah, I mean you hit the nail in the head with that word certainty. Like that's, I don't know, that's what I've kind of come to see as the poison. And it's, it creates like a little bit of a weird relationship with the truth because I want to feel good about certain things. You know, I want to listen to experts when they tell me I should do this or do that. But by and large, like certainty, real die hard certainty is something that I see as, I don't know, a negative thing in my life. And I certainly don't appreciate it generally when I tend to hear it from most folks.

Like, I just, how can you be so sure about everything? I mean, and of course, that's a conversation that used to be less problematic. Now we're dealing with people who think the earth is flat, and I feel like you can be pretty certain that the earth is a sphere, but yeah, it's, I don't know. That certainty and ego, like it's been poisonous for a long time.

Well, that's a tricky part too, right? So like conspiracy theorists that like say, believe the world is flat or anti-vaxxers or whatever, they're like in two, they're wrong about a lot of stuff. But you have to then go, you have to, you can't be like, what does Alex Jones think about X? I think the opposite of X, right? You have to flex and push back.

Yeah, because you're actually doing the same thing. You have to go putting aside what everyone thinks, what do I think about this independently? Do you know what I mean? Like politically, like, let's say you find like Musk repulsive for like the things that you're just talking about him saying and other things.

Like if you then predict he's gonna be a failure in everything because you don't like him personally, that's gonna cost you. Right. Like, or if you, you know, if you are reposed by this political figure and therefore reject every part of the plank that their party or that their campaign is built on, you're gonna miss the handful of things

that they're actually not wrong about. So you have to have this discipline to be like, that's what Tiel told me, his definition of being anti-mimetic is, Mimesis coming from the philosopher René Girard, is not that you just do the opposite of whatever the crowd is, it's that you try not to think about what the crowd thinks, and you try to come up with your own opinion based on as much independent information as possible. Yeah, and the benefit of that is that whatever certainty that affords you in the moment,

that philosophy means that you're always open to new information. So you're flexible, you're moving with it, you're allowing your opinions to be changed, which frankly, these days is about the biggest compliment I can kind of give somebody is that I see that their opinions are sort of open to be changed with new information. That's right. Yeah. All right, I wanted to ask you about something. So you sort of built up this

whole new life and then suddenly all the work that you've done literally burnt to the ground. Talk to me about the fire and how you respond, because I remember finding, again, for a person who'd been angry and had some issues in the past, I remember finding your reaction to it to be, to have, I remember finding it remarkably self-controlled and calm, considering the circumstances. Sure.

You want me to give a little background on that property? It's not just you and I here, right? Yes. So like six years ago, my wife and I, now wife, and I bought a property up in the mountains. It was just like a piece of dirt recreational land. We were like, okay, we can't really leave our house just yet. We don't want to leave the city of San Francisco.

We want to have a place where we can kind of like host friends and gather and spend kind of quality time that we've done at friends, ranches and Airbnb's. So we're like, we're gonna buy this land and we're gonna kind of build it out. And then we just spend the next four years building. And I didn't, when we entered into it, we didn't have much of a skill set.

I think, I mean, you having known me for like 15 years, you know that I was probably the guy you might call over to help you try and fix your dishwasher, but I didn't really know what I, like, I tinkered, but I didn't really know what I was doing building wise. And so we just started plotting down this road of like, okay, we'll bring some friends over and we'll clear some trees and we'll build a picnic table.

And then we'll bring some more friends over and we'll try our hand up like a little pavilion. And then maybe like, I don't know, let's organize a big weekend, get together and have a friend fly in from out of town. And we'll try building a deck up in the trees like we'll tree house deck. And we just kept doing that until, after a few years in,

we had cabin, those like featured in magazines and stuff. We had a network of tree decks of wood fire and hot tub up in the tree, a very nice outhouse, sheds and hammock stands and hammock hooks in the trees and a fire pit and a little network of trails. Like we built out this full little adult retreat center. It was just for us and our friends to use.

And when we would do these big annual gatherings or like weekend hangs, the invite list, what started out going out to maybe like six or so people toward the end there was going out to about 60 or 70. Just because the build parties and the big hangs and stuff, it just attracted like-minded people, good quality friends of friends, that type of thing. So we had, you know, got archery and axe throwing,

summer camp vibes. It was just a total Zen retreat space that everybody loved. It was like a place and a reason to gather. We had a bunch of friends that would fly in a couple times a year. It was a whole thing. It was really beautiful.

And then California wildfires of 2020, one came through and just burnt it all to the ground. And I didn't really touch on this a second ago, but like, I mean, we built out the plumbing in that place, all of the trails, every bit of infrastructure, the roads, like other than planting the trees, if there was anything there that looked like it had a human hand on it, it was something that we did, you know, we didn't really hire anyone to do anything. So yeah, 2020, August 17th, I think, wildfire came through and just annihilated it. Nothing was left standing except for the larger trees, all the small ones burned everything that we built. You know, roads remained, but that's about it. And yeah, my reaction to it was, it, I said this a

bunch of times to people and it's sort of the cliche thing to say, but I don't mind losing the stuff so much because it was the experience that was gained and like the quality time with friends. And I have a bunch of caveats to that. But the reason the cliche is true and I'm not just saying it to sound nice is because during the past five years or so of building there, and there was just a lot of personal growth.

I really came to understand who I was to see my value in the community, to kind of come to love myself and the sort of service and identity I provide. It enriched the relationships that I had with friends. It cemented a firm feeling of like, okay, I know who I am, I know what I can do, I know what my contribution is. Like, I figured out who I was in that place and I figured out what it was that I kind of desired in life and we saw enough of it through that even postfire.

It's like, okay, what I'm left with is such important lifelong lessons that, you know, that can't really be taken away. The caveat to all that is that what goes hand in hand with it is that thing was a huge social tool. It was a reason and a place to gather. Like I said, we're friends flying in, we're doing big events and the truth is good habits and good practices and good community, like those things are all great, but they're certainly enabled by the tools

that can enable them and having that infrastructure in that place. Socially, things have taken a little bit of a hit, but it also came during the pandemic and people living cities and stuff. But yeah, it's some... Didn't you tell me you looked at it a lot? Like a mandala that booted this kind of art

where it's like you make the thing and then it wipes it clean and then you get to do it again. Totally. And I mean we've you know built a new outhouse in a little a frame cabin and I'm currently working on putting in some new water. I will concede that the The drive is a little bit different just because there's a mild amount of trevidation. So, you know, in terms of investing like a lot of time and money, it's like, well, maybe we don't go at it at the exact same speed as which we did before. The approach is a little bit different. But yeah, it's total mandala. Like the truth is, what I really enjoyed from that place was seeing a project through

and doing it with friends. So we'd get together for a weekend. I would have all the plans in place in terms of amassing a bunch of lumber and tools. And you know, I've I've thought through every bit of this because you only get one shot at it. And we're going to do a wall raising and we're going to build a pavilion. Building that thing in a weekend and sitting underneath it on Sunday and eating with friends, and that kind of shared sense of accomplishment of this thing didn't exist, but now it does. Like, that's all I was really living for,

and that was the best part for me. And then just like having it in perpetuity, I can take it or leave it. And if you wipe the slate clean and you tell me that I just get to do it all over again and I get a fresh project, it's kind of exciting because it's just, I don't know, it's the process and not, you know, ultimately having the thing at the end of it. Well, that's kind of that way in writing, right? Like you're writing something in a computer, it gets destroyed.

Theoretically, you could just write it again because it's in your head right you can't take away the idea and you can still there there's and you can see it as an opportunity to do it again better right but there is something less fun about doing it the second time in that it's that what you have lost is the first time this, right? You've lost doing it uniquely for the first time, which is probably why driving back from a trip is not as fun as driving there. Like you already saw it. Yeah, the comparison I would make to writing is,

I don't look at this property as a single entity where it's like I did it once and now I'm doing it again. Sure. Instead, it's just sort of a venue for this continued process of like learning how to design and build and host events and gather. So it's kind of like if you wrote your book, you completed it.

You closed that laptop and you were like, it's done, I finished it, maybe even sent it off to the publisher. And then for whatever reason, You completed it. You closed that laptop and you were like, it's done. I finished it. Maybe you've sent it off to the publisher. And then for whatever reason, they just lost all the copies of it. But that satisfaction of use saw it through. That's what I have. It doesn't exist in perpetuity. It's not still in the shelves for people to buy. But I saw that project through. And now I just get to start on the new book. It doesn't really feel to me like the computer ate it halfway through. But that requires a certain philosophical understanding that the thing was process, not outcomes.

Right. So it's like if the purpose for doing the book was where it hits on the bestseller list or if the purpose of the book was impressing fancy people or whatever that stuff is, then the losing of the manuscript is the tragedy, right? Like, I did, this book I did lives of the Stoics. Obviously I wanted to do well, but part of the reason I wrote it was,

there was a bunch of Stoics that I didn't know very well. And so even if that book had never come out or even if it had sold zero copies, I would be better because of what I learned to write the book. And so if you can think about doing the things, to me that's the ultimate distinction about process first outcomes.

Are you doing it because you enjoy the process or you're doing it for what you get out enjoy the process? Are you doing it for what you get out of the process? Or are you doing it for what happens at the end, for the reward at the end of the process? Those are very different mindsets. And one is much more fragile and vulnerable to what happens in the world than the other. Yeah, I mean, I hate to just categorize something as wrong or worse, but it feels like you're hanging a lot on that second one Things that are beyond your control. You just don't know how it's gonna turn out As epititides says it's impossible to learn that what you think you already know You should be a student. He's saying try to always learn. He also says you can't get better unless you're willing to look a little bit foolish

One thing that I think humbles us, but also makes us better is learning languages. Babel, the language learning app has sold more than 10 million subscriptions for this reason. It takes 15-minute lessons that are designed to help you learn a new language on the go. Other language learning apps use AI for the lesson plans, but Babel lessons were created with over 100 different language experts. And their teaching method has been scientifically proven to be effective. You can choose from 14 languages, Spanish, French, Italian, and German. And their speech recognition technology helps you improve your pronunciation and accent. Right now, when you purchase a three month Babel subscription,

you get an additional three months free. That's six months for the price of three. So 50% off, you can go to babble.com and use promo code dailystoward. That's b-a-b-b-e-l.com, use code dailystoward. Babble, language for life. That's right. You know, in obstacle, I tell this story about Edison,

this is when his men low park laboratory burns up. And I say this line in all my talks as people love it But you know he's rushes in his factories on fire and he stands his son he finds his son standing there and it goes Go get your mother and all her friends will never see a fire like this again And I love that because it's not just like the oh, I'm not gonna be bitter about it afterwards But also like man, this is cool like like even if you're like, it's like, it's like when you're a kid, you build the, I do this when I get to all the time, you build the thing, the fun part is knocking it down, right?

Like, it's not that you made it, and now you have to protect it forever and keep it exactly as it is. That is not only not fun, it's the opposite of fun because now like you're walking on eggshells and you can't, you know, you're like, you're scared all the time. And I think that one of the tragedies

of people who become successful or do stuff is that you become very risk averse, you become very protectionist. Because you can't fathom not having what you didn't have, not that long ago. Yeah, I mean, that's just a dangerous road to go down. Because now, I mean, there's just so much that's beyond your control. You want to steal yourself against all the things that are bound to happen in the world, you know? And don't you think, like I wrote an email about this a while ago, which is like obviously you're scared about someone taking this thing from you,

your house burning down, even losing people that you love. I was saying like, they can take it from you, your house burning down, even losing people that you love, I was saying like, they can take it from you, the vague and life can take it from you, but it can't take that you had it from you. If that distinction makes sense. Oh, of course. And if we can remember that,

I think it does make us much more resilient. It's like, yeah, the marriage blew up, but like the 10 years were good. And you can't take that away. Like I control the memory of the thing, short of Alzheimer's or whatever is always yours. Yeah. That's funny.

You talk about the marriage there. People talk about like, you know, failed marriages. The marriage failed after 20 years. They talk the same thing about businesses. The business failed. But it was doing well for like 25 years. Yeah, it didn't fail. Like, yeah, there's an idea that something's

supposed to persist in perpetuity, I guess. Yeah. I've said this to a bunch of people. I wish I could have seen the cabin burn down. It must have been an awesome fire. Yes. The handle, when Molly and I went back to the wreckage, we were thinking we might be able to salvage some souvenirs.

You know, I thought, oh, my cast iron pans might be in there or something. The handles melted off the cast iron pans. Our stove melted. The wood stove that's supposed to hold up to a fire inside of it melted. Now, that's crazy. It must have been awesome.

Yeah, just think about the sheer power of nature and what it can do when it's at full force is humbling and then also literally awesome. Yeah, I mean, in the true sense of the word. But yeah, I mean, if you think about that, who am I to think that I can control that? Like, you can't control against that. You can't stop the power of a fire that's so strong, it makes trees explode from the sap boiling inside.

So, you know, it's just, it's a mandala. Yeah, to me, the saddest part about a fire like that is not the buildings, et cetera, no offense. It's the things that can't come back in terms of like this tree took 100 years to become what it is. Yeah. When I think about the, just the,

it's not even a loss, because I guess it's nature, but just like when something like that happens, and you know, like you know eventually it will come back, but it will not be something that you are able to appreciate. Yeah, I mean, the landscape is gonna be forever altered. Things are looking better over to our property now because there's new growth and we got rid of a bunch

of the dead trees, but those trees are black and the bark is on the redwoods. Redwoods is gonna remain black for hundreds of years. It's just always going to be that way. But yeah, I mean, on the flip side, I don't know, I got a bunch of random commenters on the internet who were lamenting the damage to the forest. The forest is fine.

It's part of its process. Probably better. Yeah, the redwood trees, like their bark is fire resistant, they're fine. It's just the shit we put in the forest at first. Well, and it's your anti-mandoleness, right? The like, I like this forest, the way that I saw it when I was a kid or the way I was there. As if it's not just whatever forest is there since they

clear-cut it a hundred years ago, since before, you know, like, like, we have this sense of keeping nature the way we like it as if nature itself isn't constantly changing and going in different directions and doesn't care what we think about it at all. Yeah, well, that's one of the flaws in those very rigid arguments that are always pushing for, we absolutely need to preserve this or go back to this or whatever. They're often predicated on a very small snapshot of time. It's like you forget that these things have been in a constant state of evolution for

so long. Your desire, your demand that we need to go back to how things were at the time of European contact or just the way that you remember them as a kid during your formative years, like, no, that's when it was best. No, that's when it just was. Like, it just, you know, things are constantly changing and evolving and you're right. Like, we're, I don't know. We like them to stay the same.

It's a human thing that you kind of have to fight back against. Well, let's talk about the new book, which I loved. I love the idea of thinking intellectually about a thing that we often sort of see almost as anti-intellectual. Like when I was interviewing Steve Bernal, we were talking about like how the high five was kind of recently invented and like different techniques. It's weird to think like every single tool in this book was like a massive innovation.

Like someone was like, what if we put, like someone designed each one of these things? And it literally, in some cases, changed the course of human history that someone was like, you know, if you do this, suddenly boom. Yeah, but we just take it for granted. Yeah, that's true. I mean, I mean, I'm standing in a house But we just need to be able to do it. But we just need to be able to do it. But we just need to be able to do it.

But we just need to be able to do it. But we just need to be able to do it. But we just need to be able to do it. But we just need to be able to do it. But we just need to be able to do it. But we just need to be able to do it. But we just need to be able to do it. But we just need to be able to do it.

But we just need to be able to do it. But we just need to be able to do it. Like people talk about the Stone Age and Bronze Age. And I mean, big shifts in humanity in terms of what we were able to accomplish and how we were able to shape our landscape came around when they figured out that new thing. They're like, holy shit, I can make a saw blade out of metal and put it on a stick and like all the sudden

the world's different. Well, I was telling the kids this morning we were on a walk along the Colorado River behind the bookstore where you helped us install the tree that now towers from Florida ceiling. And there was like a tree in the middle of the river that had fallen down. And I was telling them, I was like, okay, the pine trees that grow in this town originally Bastrop was a lumber town. And I was like, guys, this is gonna blow your mind.

But at one time, there were not trucks and there were not trains. And so how do you think they moved these giant trees after they cut them down? How did they get them all over the way? And I was explaining that they would cut the trees, roll them into the river, and then float them from Bastrop to the Gulf of Mexico out.

And then it was like, so they did, because they couldn't travel them on roads, they would just float them down, like hundreds and hundreds of miles of curvy river, they would float these logs down until they got out to the open ocean, and then they would load them onto boats, and they would take them all over. And I was also telling them they love this, that what would happen is these massive bottlenecks would happen, like one tree would go sideways and it would create enormous, enormous log,

like literal log jams, and they would just blow it up with dynamite. And, but anyways, just when you think about just how hard the world was and what a major intervention, one of these minor inventions must have been, it's insane to consider. Oh, yeah, completely. I mean, just figuring out leverage the wheel. Look what the wheel is done for us.

You don't hear people talking about it a lot. Yeah. So what is your fascination with tools? Is it what tools do for you? Is it what goes into tool? Like why do you end up writing a book about tools? It is the ability to create, to make something that didn't exist before.

Because I don't know, or just to repair things, which I think comes with a feeling of capability. And I like feeling capable. It makes me feel kind of powerful. It makes me feel like I have something to contribute. It makes me feel like I'm worth something. And I don't know, it stands in contrast with a lot of folks that I've met who do not feel capable.

And for them, that's a sort of, I I've met who do not feel capable and for them, like that's a sort of, I don't know, it's a detriment. So I don't know, it's knowing how to wield a tool, knowing how to speak that language, knowing the landscape so that you can go into the hardware store to ask the right question because it's a sort of like, it's an unknowably vast thing, right? But if you have enough of a base knowledge, we're like, okay, I can talk to the repair guy or I can kind of, I know how to research a problem to solve it. It puts you in a position where I don't know, like I can solve problems. I can, I, there's a hammock stand in my front yard right now and there wasn't yesterday. Yesterday, I was like,

I kind of want to hammock stand here and I realized that we just moved into a new house and my friends used to live here. He left a bunch of lumber in the backyard. It's like I can want a hammock stand here and I realized that we just moved into a new house and my friends used to live here. He left a bunch of lumber in the backyard. It's like I can make a hammock stand from that lumber and I made it and my wife was here and her parents were here and they were marveling at it and she laid in the hammock and she got some joy from it. Like, I don't know, I'm just being able to create that

to, I don't know, like to shape my world and fix problems. It's just great. And you can't really do that without tools. And it means a broad definition. Like this book, I tend to cover tools that are just in the shop, garage, you know, home apartment, that sort of thing. But the truth is, like, if you're cooking or knitting or what, like, the world's full of tools. And so they kind of enable us humans to get shit done. It sounds like you're also talking about the distinction between where the link between confidence and competence.

Like you know how to do something when you have a skill set or a base of knowledge, it allows you to be like, yeah, I can handle that, or it allows you to just be more resilient because you know, okay, it won't go the way I want it to go, but I believe I have evidence in my ability to figure my way out of here. Yeah, I mean, look, I'm on this planet for like 80 years or something if I'm lucky. And feeling like I'm not too scared by the process is pretty important. And as we're social creatures, feeling like I have something to contribute to my community. That's pretty important. And tools and just a general competence and confidence about, like, I know how to problem

solve, I know how to fix things. I can make stuff happen, I a trade they enable all that immensely Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. What do you think of the the the remark from Aristotle that the the the most important thing in life is figuring out how you spend your leisure time Like the idea to figure out what your hobbies are. Like what do you do with your free time? It strikes me as you have a pretty good answer to that question, but what do you think of the question? Yeah, I mean, I guess that's just Aristotle

getting down to like what matters to you, you know? Because like that's what you do with your free time. You do the things that matter to you. And there's that incongruence between the things that matter to you and the things that you what you do with your free time. You do the things that matter to you. And that incongruence between the things that matter to you and the things that you have to do, as we said before, kind of brings you a lot of displeasure and discomfort. Yeah, there's, well, I mean,

I was about to say like, you know, a lot of folks would strive to figure out how to, you know, do the thing you love and you'll never work a day in your life. And there's kind of some truth to that, but it also seems like a path to pervert the thing that you love. So there's, I don't know. But yeah, it's, it computes for me, that you, you want to figure out what is it at my core that I value? What are my values? What matters to me? If I don't have anything standing in my way, what do I want to do that's important to me, and how do I want to spend my time? And I'm

very fortunate that I've stumbled down a path that has put me in a position where that's just all of my time now. I don't do anything that I don't want to do. I work on projects that bring me joy and I help out friends. I drove halfway across the country to help you put that tree up and it makes me very happy that I was able to do that. Like that, that's a sort of dream existence after me. Well, that was the last thing I was going to ask you, which is you told me that the sort of still idea of memento Mori was in part or was part of that like why am I spending my time on this how am I going to spend my time? Walk me through how you came to that, how you decided to give up a pretty well-paying job, to change your life to just sort of do cool-ass projects?

Yeah. For years, I have been in shing closer and closer to kind of that position and a decision point of like, you know, I could leave my job to spend my time doing the things that matter to me. But it is so hard to make that jump because you're sitting on a cushy paycheck, it's stable, it's got nice health insurance, I was making more money than I've ever made for what was honestly probably the easiest job I've ever had and it's very difficult to turn that down. And every year that goes by that I'm going deeper into it is just like more

money than I'm saving for retirement or more money that I'm socking away, like the math says you shouldn't leave your job. So I kind of kept putting that decision off for quite a while and then somewhere deep into the territory of thinking about it, I don't know, I got like your seventh email talking about that. The market is really as quote of like, you know, you could live, you could die tomorrow, let that determine what you say and do and think now, something to that effect. And I do remember that, one of those struck a bit of a chord. And I was like, fuck, like,

I told, like, I could die tomorrow, you know, like, um, and yes, I just, I made the decision. I was like, all right, like I'm actually going to leave my job and that I Left it. I made the decision to leave and then my property burned down and I still left I was like, no, like this is I made the decision large in large part to leave and to focus on things in my property And even after it burned down, I was like, well, it wasn't the place, it's the process. I'm still doing this. And now, I just spend all my time working on personal projects and projects with friends. And it was absolutely the right decision,

but it came in large part from thinking about that quote. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny people sometimes like, why do you say the same thing over and over again? Because not everyone gets it the first time for starters. And you know, it's, it's not like there's anything in that quote that you haven't heard of. Like we all know you only have so much time and blah, blah, blah. But it's like, can it get you at the right time when you're in the right position? You know, it's the timing of it is everything, right? And this is the other stoke idea

if we don't step in the same river twice. Are you in a position where it can hit you, then it might work. And you might have to hear it like 500 times before it makes sense to you. Totally. I mean, it just doesn't always land the same way every time. You got to be in the right headspace. And then also I think that it's kind of the tenant of advertising, right? So like continually keep planning the seed. And eventually if you see Coca-Cola enough time, it's maybe by the 10th time you're like, I think I need a Coca-Cola. So I mean, I think that it works that way a little bit as well.

You planted that seed, and it was in there sort of like nying away for a while, and then one day you read it the eighth time, and you're like, it lands a little different today for whatever reason, and it motivates that change. Yeah, that, what's the expression when the student is ready, the teacher appears. Yeah. No.

It's been good, I appreciate it. Thanks for blasting those emails out all the time. Yeah, of course, that's my job. I like building those. I like the ephemerality of like, I wrote this thing. It will go out to a group of people and then it doesn't, it might as well not even exist anymore. Do you know what I mean?

Like, and then so six months later, I can do it again because everyone forgot what I said the last, but that's, that, those are the things that I like building. I like the little puzzle of the daily email of it. Yeah, I totally get it. Yeah. I, I felt similarly about the book and finishing it up. Like, I felt really good about the research I put into it and figuring out how to organize all those different tools and just sort of catalog those things.

And now that it's done, I'm good. I don't actually care if anybody buys it. I'm unsatisfied. Well, don't tell the publisher that, but I very much relate to the expression. All right, man. This is awesome. I appreciate, man, this is awesome. I appreciate it. The book is great.

This is my marked-up copy that you gave me. And there is a physical manifestation of it, not just in the store, but at my house, in the tree house that you helped me build also. Nice. I'm glad that thing's still up. It hasn't collapsed yet. It has not collapsed yet, and it's going strong. Cool.

You can talk with your right talking to you, man. 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. 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. Hey there listeners, while we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another

podcast that I think you'll like. It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks to founders behind some of the world's biggest and most innovative companies, to learn how they built them from the ground up. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace, Manduke Yoga Mats, Soul Cycle, and Cotopaxi, as well as entrepreneurs working to solve some of the biggest problems of our time, like developing technology that pulls energy from the ground to heat in cool homes, or even figuring out how to make drinking water from air and sunlight. Together they discuss their entire journey from day one, and all the skills they had to

learn along the way, like confronting big challenges, and how to lead through uncertainty. So if you want to get inspired and learn how to think like an entrepreneur, check out how I built this, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon or Wondery app. Is this thing all? Check one, two, one, two. Hey y'all! I'm Kiki Palmer, I'm an actress, a singer, an entrepreneur, and a Virgo, just the name

of you. Now I've held so many occupations over the years that my fans lovingly nicknamed me Kiki Keep a Bag Palmer. And trust me, I keep a Bag Love. But if you ask me, I'm just getting started, and there's so much I still want to do. So I decided I want to be a podcast host. I'm proud to introduce you to the Baby Mrs. Kiki Palmer podcast. I'm putting my friends, family, and some of the dopest

experts in the hot seat to ask them the questions that have been burning in my mind. What will former child stars be if they weren't actors? What happened to sitcoms? It's only fans, only bad. I want to know. So I asked my mom about it.

These are the questions that keep me up at night. But I'm taking these questions out of my head, and I'm bringing them to you. Because on Baby Mrs. Kiki Palmer, no topping is off limits. Follow Baby This Is Kiki Palmer whatever you get your podcast. Hey, Prime members, you can listen early and app-free on Amazon music.

Download the Amazon music app today.