The Daily Stoic - Josh Brolin on Embracing Life’s Messiness With Stoicism (PT. 2)

Episode Date: February 15, 2025

In today’s Part 2 episode, Josh Brolin and Ryan talk about shedding the ‘young talent’ image, the transformative power of gratitude, and the evolving journey of parenting through life��s different phases.Josh Brolin's breakout role was in The Goonies (1985), and after a hiatus from Hollywood, he made a powerful comeback in No Country for Old Men (2007). He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Dan White in the biopic Milk (2008). Brolin is also known for playing Thanos in the Avengers series, Cable in the Deadpool films, and Gurney Halleck in the Dune franchise.You can grab a copy of From Under The Truck at The Painted Porch. Follow Josh on Instagram @JoshBrolin and on X @TheJoshBrolin🎙️ Listen to PT. 1 on Apple Podcasts and Spotify 📱 Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast🎥 Watch top moments from The Daily Stoic Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dailystoicpodcast✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow us:  Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to the Daily Stoic early and ad free right now. Just join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Daily Stoic is based here in this little town outside Austin. When we have podcast guests come in and go, oh, what hotel should I stay at? Honestly, there's not really many great hotels out here, but there are a bunch of beautiful Airbnbs that you could stay in a ranch. You could stay on something overlooking the Colorado River. They've even got yurts in the woods out here. And Airbnb has a million different options, old historic houses.

Usually when I travel, I'm staying in an Airbnb. That is when I'm bringing my kids. We make a whole experience of it. And usually what I do is I pull up Airbnb, I look at guest favorites, I type in, okay, we want this many rooms, this many bathrooms, we want a pool, we want a washer and dryer, whatever it is, and you can find an awesome place to stay in.

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

week ahead may bring. Hey, it's Ryan, welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic podcast. I was reading this New York Times interview with the actor Garrett Hedlund the other day. Garrett Hedlund was in Troy and Four Brothers. He's in Tulsa King. And he's in Friday Night Lights. Anyways, I'm just reading this interview. I don't know why it came up on the app or whatever, but I'm reading this thing.

And it was asking about some books. And he recommends Awareness by Anthony DeMeo, which is a really good book. And then he says, The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday. And he says, Josh Brolin turned me on to Ryan Holiday's works about a year ago, because I was always quoting Aurelius or Epictetus or Heraclitus or Socrates.

He says, it's really about taking some of the wonderful formidable works of the Stokes and making them relatable to the working man with trials and tribulations. I would say well said, very nice. But I of course texted Josh Brolin about this. I said, hey man, thanks. That is awesome. I love that. And that has actually been an experience

I have had a bunch of times. Josh has been a huge supporter of Daily Stoke in my work and I keep hearing from people that heard about it from him, which is always nice. It's not something you imagine when you write a book about ancient philosophy that like some A-list actor from movies you remember as a kid and now superhero movies and one of my all-time favorite movies,

No Country for Old Men, that he's just gonna be passing it around Hollywood or he's gonna be passing it around on movie sets. But apparently that's what's been happening which is always really cool. And so now it is my turn to return the favor. Josh has a new book called From Under the Truck, which came out back in November. It's about his childhood, it's about addiction, it's about his unusual mother, his unusual father,

and his journey to, well, first through repeating many of their mistakes and then hopefully trying to break that pattern and cycle. Josh sent me a very nice signed copy of the book. It's got a cool like sort of half cover, which actually you see more often on international editions. But he said, Ryan, embrace the absurdity. Thanks for your impact brother, Josh. So that is pretty cool.

And as I was telling you in part one, there's a blurb from McConaughey on the back, which we chatted about when he was here at the studio. After I read the book, but before Josh and I talked, I watched some other podcast he was on and he was telling this story about how he had this pet pig as a kid and his dad surprised him by slaughtering it

and feeding it to the family. And I just said, dude, I do not like this pig story at all. And I live on a ranch. And it's true. I think some of us fantasize about what it would be like to be from, you know from royalty or Hollywood royalty, what it would feel like to be a famous movie star or an actor.

It's not all that it's cracked up to be. As you read in Josh's book, it was a traumatic upbringing. He and I talked, there know, there's that famous, famous Philip Larkin poem about how our parents fuck us up. You know, that definitely comes through in the book, but he doesn't seem bitter about it. It definitely had its impact. It definitely took him a while to work through it. It definitely wasn't without its costs on him and other people, but he seems like he came out on the other side, which is something we bonded about. He's a fan of The Daily Dad. That's something we talk about in today's episode. It's not until you read some of these books that you

go, oh, that's what it would be like. Oh, I was lucky that I got my ordinary childhood that I didn't have exciting, glamorous, artistic parents that maybe I got off easy, you know? I didn't get hit by that truck. That was something I took from the book. Oh, and then it was funny. One of the things we talked about in the episode, we talked briefly at the end about Iron Maiden, and I was telling him that my son had been trying

to learn AI to figure out how to make a Christmas Eddie, and I texted him the picture after. It was an awesome interview. I was so glad to get it, and I thought it was a great conversation. We did part one earlier. This is part two of me and Josh Brolin talking about life, talking about stoicism, talking about reading and a whole bunch

of other awesome topics. And I'm really excited to bring you this episode. You can grab copies of From Under the Truck at the Painted Porch. You can also get the audio book on Audible and anywhere books are sold. You can follow Josh on Instagram at Josh Brolin and you can follow him on Twitter, The Josh Brolin.

I'm sure you have a version of that experience too, where, cause you were like a kid actor, you were like the young talent, right? And you can kind of get your identity stuck there. Like for a huge chunk of my career, I was always like, I was so young, people were like weirded out that I was there. They're like, how did you get here?

What are you doing here? You're like the young kid going places. And then you wake up one day and you have gray hair and it makes perfect sense that you're there, right? But your identity is still of that kid who maybe doesn't deserve to be there or that you think people are gonna be suspicious of you. That must be weird as an actor,

where you go from playing a kid to playing an old man. But your identity is somewhere between those things. Totally, because also you're being accepted. There's an element where the audience is accepting you in a certain way or you're trying to, you know, I don't dye my hair. If I would, if I had to for a role, you know, or lose weight or gain weight or whatever it is. But it all happened in one year for Outer Range, a show that I did for Amazon

and Dune where Dune, I was called Old Man and Outer Range, I was playing the grandpa. And I was like, when the fuck did this happen? And it literally happened in one year. Those are the two things I did that year. And you go, wow. But at the same time, what comes with that, it's like Sebastian Stan was just nominated for two things today. And when he did The Apprentice, because I did W, he called me and he said, I'm freaking out. Like, I, how do I get into this? How, you know, somebody who exists and somebody who, so there was, there was a great vulnerability that he came to me with, or I go, it just kind of hit me and I go, wow, I'm that, I'm that guy. I'm not the kid on the Goonies that has no idea what he's doing.

That's reading every book on Stanislavski and and Antonin Artaud and the Theater of Cruelty and the Poor Theater and, you know, all this stuff to try and accumulate as much information I can with zero experience and zero knowledge of how to kind of utilize all this information. And now it's been 40 years of utilizing information and, you know, trial and error and all this stuff, where I would sit in a corner and slap myself in the face and want to be like Brando or want to be like Montgomery Clift or James Dean. And then at some point, like with this book. You know, at some point you find your voice, you find your technique, you find your writing style,

you know, and you don't have to write like Kerouac anymore. You don't have to write like you try to write like Norman Mailer. You try to look at these master classes and go, God, if I could only write like that. I remember there was a great story of Hunter S Thompson writing out. I can't remember what the novels are, but he'd written out two novels. I think one was Hemingway and one was somebody else. And he just wanted to feel the word. He just wanted to feel brilliance, what it was like to construct sentences and paragraphs in an entire

novel in that way and just through his fingertips, even though none of the words were his. And I understand that. And as you're going through different writers, and if you're like what you said, truly a reader, you know, and you're going through different writers and you're going, God, I wish that I could be this good. and then one day you just have your voice and When I read this book Zev Boro one of the two guys that I sent it to while I was writing it He said if nothing else this book is a hundred percent you and I appreciate that's about the highest praise You can get right is that you set you settled into yourself and you did what you were capable of doing. That's what you want in life and with each individual piece of work.

And accepting it and not shame spiraling because of it. You know, there was a moment where I did the I think you and I talked about this, the audible. Oh, that's the worst. There's nothing worse. I've done like four in this room and I hate it every time. Every single sentence of it. I mean, and I'm a good I read well, I read publicly well. I'm fairly comfortable with it and and I'm reading my book and I'm

stuttering through every sentence and how and I refuse to listen to it. I heard it's good. People are seemingly loving the audible, but I was about halfway through that process and I just started spiraling and I said, I wish that I could burn any evidence that this ever existed as an idea or as a reality, as a manifestation. And then I came to the other side of it, which is I am who I am, but it took a while

and I'm not somebody who spins often. I mean, but I spun. Well, somebody told me, and they might've just been being nice, but there's something about, and there's also probably a metaphor in it. There's something about the way you hear your voice and then the way you hear it in a recording.

Because when you hear it coming out of your mouth, it's vibrating through your head and your ears are picking it up differently than when you hear it on a recording. But there's something just totally mortifying about hearing your voice come back to you. Just as there is, you work on the pages of a book for months and months and years and years, and then you have to read it

out loud and you're like, who's this poser? This guy sucks because you're getting it reflected back to you in a different context than how you made it. You just realized your business needed to hire someone like yesterday. With Indeed, there's no need to stress. You can find amazing candidates fast using Sponsored Jobs. With Sponsored Jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you can reach the people you want faster. And just how fast is Indeed?

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it can be hard to know where to find real help. I'm Janet Lansbury, host of Unruffled, a podcast with answers to the questions that arise when raising children. I've worked with children and parents for over 25 years and I'm eager to share all that I've learned with you and most of all, encourage you to trust yourself. In each episode, I address listeners' questions

through the lens of my respectful parenting approach. From advice for how to address toddler meltdowns, encourage them to develop their skills naturally and joyfully through self-directed play, for helping when our kids are scared, and so much more. I aim to offer you thoughtful advice that will shift your perspective on challenging topics, making them far less intimidating and overwhelming

and free you of the need for scripts and tricks. We can do this. Follow Unruffled on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to Unruffled ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Can you watch yourself on screen? Yeah, I can. And I'm pretty objective. That's why what all everything that you're saying doesn't necessarily pertain to me because

I do Comcast, I do voiceovers, I do, you know, I hear my voice and I can objectively, I'm fairly good at being objective and saying that doesn't sound right. That doesn't sound. I know, I know where the sweet spot is, you know, rhythmically. Yeah, I was listening to Matthew a while, you know, I probably too. I don't know when his book came out, but two years ago, listening to his audible and he reads super fast And he reads super fast. He reads really fast.

And I was like, oh, OK, well, if this works and he's reading fast and I always felt like he had to slow down and all this kind of stuff. But when I when I to answer your question, when I watch myself, even during No Country, we would go and watch, you know, Daly's and all that in a trailer altogether. And it was really like, am I in the zone here? Am I am I doing what needs to be done for the story as opposed to, oh, God, you said that line so bad and oh, please don't use that.

Oh, my God. You know, or why did you look? Did you just look at the camera? But with this, I think it was because of what I think is because it was so naked and so raw. Yeah, you had 40 years of thick skin in the other domain, and then you have almost none here. And when you go out on a limb, when you do something that's unexpected or unusual, like if you were suddenly to record music or something, I think you'd probably have a different sensitivity to it because you haven't built up that callous of, I know more than you, so I know if this is good or not.

And I also, you know, what we talked about in the beginning, writing has been, you know, I think painting, acting, I've had a strange relationship with that I think has changed recently. I think because my dad was an actor and what that represented and there was a celebrity, you know, aspect of it that really irritated him. And so there was there was all this other stuff that, whereas writers don't for the most part, maybe you're the exception, become celebrities, you know, where it's like, you know, you wrote a book and you know, what's a good sell on

a book, you know, you sold. The numbers are very small. Dude, they're minuscule. And when like Dana White, you know, posts something and says, you know, 900,000 people saw this post in your book in an hour. And you go, oh my God, so does that transfer? Let's say it transfers to five percent. That's a lot of books. No, it transfers to like point zero zero zero zero zero one. And you go, wow, but writing has always meant I think think the most to me, writing and painting.

Because when I was traveling, I took off. I remember my mom was like, she didn't want me to do this. And she goes, you know, I'm going to call the cops and I'm going to have you jailed. It's like, I'm just going to Europe. I'm just going to backpack through Europe. This is a good thing. And I took I did an episode of a double episode of Highway to Heaven with Michael Landon. And I took that money and I took off to Europe and I meant to go for six weeks

and I ended up staying there for six months. And I just loved it. And I had the U-rail pass so I would sleep on the train and all that. But I was reading a lot of books then. I spent a lot of time alone. So I was lonely, even though I traveled with people who I met in train stations and all that. And so it was all about bookstores and museums. So there was this relationship

with books that gave me a life when I was super lonely and with paintings where I would go into like, you know, in Florence to the Uffizi for eight hours at a time and just stare at paintings. And I still have that relationship with paintings where I would go into like, you know, in Florence to the Uffizi for eight hours at a time and just stare at paintings. And I still have that relationship with paintings. I still have a thing where it's not like, oh, there's an affectation of I collect Jamie Holmes and I also collect Daniel McKinney. I go, no, no, no. These things have like visceral meaning to me.

You know, well, I bet that's what it is, is that because your father grew up in movies and TV and you saw it and you saw it as it like you would have seen Hollywood as an industry town, right? I think this is the interesting part about the sort of the Nepo baby discussion that people miss is sure there are a bunch of advantages But but the biggest of the advantage is not access. It's demystification. Like Steph Curry obviously gets a bunch of genetics from his father. But but growing up in basketball arenas and seeing being a basketball player as a job was probably the greatest asset that you get, right? You go, oh, this is just a

thing. But so for you, as acting gets demystified, books and other forms of art probably get elevated, right? Because you saw them as being more pure or different, even though it's just as much a nuts and bolts, you know, we slap a cover on this thing and we hope it'll sell a couple of copies. Like even though it's publishing to me is that industry, you know, I imagine that probably contributed to why doing a book and doing an audio book was so tough is because you had extra mystified it in a way that you don't, you know how a movie comes together. You know it sucks at the beginning. That's the biggest asset.

But I also think it's just another like why my dad became an actor. He talks about movies and he talks about, you know, having that fear and confronting that fear. And I think the difference and especially in doing I remember when I was 21 or 22, I did a play in Rochester, New York called Pits and Joe and my dad came to see it and he was confused afterwards. He said, I don't know how you did that. And I played a guy with traumatic brainstem injury and who had gotten into a motorcycle

accident in the play, he goes back and forth. So you'll go into kind of past sequences where the lights change and he's fallen out of his wheelchair and then he'll be normal. And then suddenly he's back to being just traumatic brain stem injury. But I think the difference is, and maybe this has to do with what the it's in the book and whatever trauma or however you want to look at it, just an unconventional, you know, wildlife upbringing is what makes people do what they do and why. And I think that's been the innate fascination for me, which is would make sense as opposed

to just being for me and paying for my own therapy at 14 years old and going, I don't, none of this makes sense to me. And nor does it, it still doesn't make sense to me. Why do people do what they do? I've seen people who are the most calm freak out. I've seen people who are, who I consider are deemed bad, do amazing things and, you know, full of compassion and all that. And you just never can kind of pigeonhole anything ever, you know. And again, you go back to this AA thing and you go, listen, man, everybody deserves a chance.

And you see the guy who's on the street and he's drinking, you know, a half gallon of vodka a day. And you go, well, that guy will never get it. He's done. He's over. And then you see that guy five years later and he's thriving. And you go, wow, I never saw that coming. You know, so I think that's always been. I mean, I know it's everybody's fascination, but it's always been

this insatiable fascination with me of like, why do people do what they do? And this, like what you were saying with your wife, your wife is the more stoic of the two of you. This is me not trying to figure it out, but feeling like I've come to some peace with and you go, OK, so let's experience the trauma through this child's eyes anecdotally or through a fable

or through paintings or through prose poems, impressions, all that kind of stuff. And then and then and then what has come out of that? A deep appreciation for children, a deep appreciation for friendship, for communal effort. You know, why do I why is AA, which people see, you know, for children, a deep appreciation for friendship, for communal effort. You know, why do I why is AA, which people see, you know, AA, you don't drink and what's the thing. But it's a community.

Yeah. And I love the idea of being able to rely on your fellow man. You know, what's a chopper crew? That's a community. You know, if you're going 80 miles an hour down the freeway, you have to peripherally, you have to be so in sync not to die. And I love that, that reliance on other people or what I just said about the gratitude list, like I don't want to do a gratitude list myself and I love the sun and I love the ocean. And you know, and you go, what what if what if we all do this together?

What if we're all relying on each other to grow at least one percent each day? A little bit better, one percent better. Let's just strive to go a little bit further and be a little more communal. Because if we're not sharing what the fuck is all this for? Well, you do seem to be spreading the word about stoicism, which I appreciate. I've heard from so many people that have heard about my stuff or about the Stokes from you. I'm curious what makes you want to talk to someone about her or when you are when you're saying,

hey, check out this book Meditations or Seneca or one of the Stokes. What's your what's your pitch? I'd be curious to hear yours. The pitch is something that I've already said and there's the practical way. There is a messiness to life that we have not embraced because we're looking for the comfort in it all. And there is comfort and there is thriving in the discomfort of it all. And in certain stoics, you're saying, I can't remember who it is.

I can't remember who it is right now. But who would literally had everything and was doing so great and had every comfort and would literally go outside of himself to challenge himself and eat nothing. Who was it? Was it Nero? It was Sanica.

It was Sanica. So Sanica would do it. And challenge himself and embrace that discomfort, not for a day, not for an hour, because that's cheating and that's not really doing it. But actually doing challenging yourself in a way where you go, listen, you're almost putting yourself not in other people's shoes, but you're you give yourself more of an opportunity to be compassionate and to be inclusive when you don't just rely on this thing that you that is not what am I trying to say?

Not just most comfortable, but just wrapped up in your own capsule. Well, he was saying that the lesson he would practice poverty, you would wear like one day a month, he would wear shitty clothes, stay outside of his palace, he'd sleep on the floor, he'd eat bad food, you know, whatever. He wanted to experience poverty, he said, so he could tell himself, so he could answer the question, is this what you're afraid of? Right? The point was to eliminate the fear of the thing that we prefer not to happen. Right? You get so used to things being

the way that you are, that they are, and that's why you work so hard. And that's why you made them the way that they are, is that they're better. But then you can become almost addicted and dependent on them. And then you become anxious and afraid that they might go away. Exactly. And the addictive thing and forget all about the stuff, but the addictive thing and the habit of something is an idea that I've always loved breaking. I've always loved challenging that. So it's like, you know, there was a moment, you know, around

Avengers, you know, and I and I'm listen, man, I'm in a position where I'm around so many actors, so many different, you know, levels of success. And I'm vulnerable to, you know, maybe I should present myself in this way. So I should only take private flights. I should only do this. I should only convey high success. I should use my money doing that, even though I'll go through the money so fast.

And and I go and I'm vulnerable to that because I go, oh, you know, I should I should be doing this as opposed to resorting to myself and doing and doing my own thing. And I think what your books have done, they they've applauded something that I've already chosen. And that is living a life that is as challenging to the status quo as possible. It's like, this is the way you're supposed to do it. This is the way that's acceptable to us.

And I go, I'm not rebelling against that thing. I just wanna be able to stick my toe in all the different waters. Yeah, and to me, resilience is the ability to be okay in just about any situation, right? To be able to go, this is fine. It's totally fine. You know, and that's one of the weird things

when you're successful, people, stuff goes wrong all the time. That doesn't change. What happens is that people run up to you and they go, is this okay? We're so sorry. Can we fix this for you? And to be able to retain the ability to be like, yeah, it's totally fine.

I don't care where I sit. Like I did a talk the other day and they had to push it 30 minutes and they were just like, we are so sorry. And then I was like, it's fine. I'll just go back to my hotel room. I'll see you in 30 minutes. And then afterwards they were like, you are the best. Thank you so much.

And it was like, I literally just, I went back and I did literally nothing. You're paying me either way. What do I give a shit? But you get used to being that person and then that person is very fragile. Yeah. That's why it's good. Taking road trips are good because people don't give a shit and you're staying in motels and some things are not clean and some things are gross

and some TVs don't work and some people at the front and I'm very lucky in that way, you know, I mean, I've done very well in my chosen profession, but I'm also and I remember Robert De Niro saying this, you know, one of the heights of his career, he was saying you'll be recognized if you want to be recognized. If you're an actor, you should have the ability to be able to disappear into a crowd also. And I remember always taking that to heart, not that I was in a position then to challenge that, but I think now I am, you know, and I go, if I'm going around and I'm presenting myself as somebody who needs to be perceived as important. Yeah, it's nice to put yourself in a position where you're right sized and you're just

another fucking human being getting along in this life, you know, looking to commune with other people, looking to have experiences, looking to be able to share and feeling lonely, like going back to that place and feeling lonely in Europe. You know, I do, I try to I try to re insert myself into that same mentality again and again, because it does create something. It creates something inside of you that wants to express or that wants to reach out or that puts your, you know, that that makes you extend when you wouldn't necessarily extend. And what you're saying when you're surrounded by a bunch of yes people,

which is the grossest thing ever. You know what I mean? When you have way too many people working for you that you don't need, you know, and that and I have a really good group of people in that way. I'm my my assistant, Erica, who's one that she's from New Orleans. And I'll be assistant, Erica, who's one of she's from New Orleans. And I'll be like, I'll do a scene and I'll come down and I'll go, what'd you think? And she goes,

Oh, I was reading, I didn't see it. And I go, and part of me is like, well, fucking watch, man. And then the other part of me is like, that's okay, you're doing stuff that you have to do. And my job is just to get up there and do my work. We just did this thing, Knives Out 3. And it was a very, very, very challenging role with an amazing director and amazing actors. And I had to give these big speeches and me give getting up. And I was terrified, man. I mean, after 40, 40 years, I was terrified to get up there and I was like, man. I mean, after 40 years, I was terrified to get up there.

And I was like, do I know my stuff? Am I well enough prepped and all this kind of stuff. And I loved there was something because I think content is soft today for the most part. Maybe that will change soon. I've heard there's some really good movies coming out, but the challenge was I felt adolescent again. And I felt like I didn't know anything.

And I felt like I wanted to go read another acting book to try and, you know, get my footing again. And and I liked it. I liked being scared again, you know? And I think it's a thing that I keep trying to throw myself into again and again, whether you're writing a book and knowing that people are going to come around and go, this is stupid. Yeah, there's got to be an element of danger to it. There has to be an element of danger. Yeah. Well, I think to go to your point about staying normal, that is one of the wonderful things

about having kids. They just don't give a shit about your professional self. I saw someone the other day and he was with his kid and I asked his kid, I was like, do you listen to your dad's podcast or do you watch it? And he was like, oh yeah, I love it. And my son was like, what? He was like, you care about know, he was like, you care about what your dad like because my kids don't give a shit at all. Like, my son the other day

goes, Dad, what do you think the worst book in our bookstore is? I mean, besides yours, you know, like, they're just like, relentlessly busting my balls just all the time. So it's wonderful. Like to watch in my son's eyes, the fact that another kid his age didn't do that was like amazing to him. And I was like, this is actually the more healthy thing. I don't need more people telling me my stuff is good. I need the yawn of indifference from my own family, you know? But it keeps you, it pops the bubble

because all they really care about is, you know, stuff that in some ways is harder to do, to be present, you know, to have fun, to not take yourself seriously. That's what you want. The yawn of indifference. No, man, when you surround yourself with that and there's something so satisfying about it at the end of the day, because you're, again, when you're humbled, there's no feel there's no better feeling than being humbled you can talk a good game there's a lot of people and that's what i love about you too man is that you know there's a lot of people i know and there's a lot of people

i know and the not that this is self-help necessarily but they talk a good game you know every and and then you get to know them and then you get to know what's behind the scenes and you realize that they're not they're not walking their talk. They're just not. It's just something that they like to pontificate and they like to be perceived in a certain way. And if you're not walking your talk to me, you're just not, you're not worth a shit, you know? No, I totally know. That's the that's the hard part. Writing about it's easy, doing it's hard. Last question for you, I'll let you go. But I was fascinated when your story, as of now that I have young kids,

is you're on round two, right? So you had kids when you were very young. And I ask this question to people a lot. My friend Casey Neistat, the filmmaker, he had a kid like in high school, and then he has a kid now, his kid's now. The getting to do it again, what do you feel like you learned the first time

you're doing better the second time? How do you think about it, having this second phase of life, getting to try some of these things over? And it's not like you don't have your other kids, you're still a parent to round one. It's what I always react to is that, how do you feel you get to do it again?

And again, it always makes me feel like my older kids went somewhere. I love the continuation of being a parent. I will have been a parent my entire adult life. I will have gotten out of high school, had about a year to myself, a year and a half to myself, and then I became a parent, and then I will, my youngest will graduate when I'm around 70.

So I will have been a parent, my, you know, raising kids. There was a little moment there where I kind of was off on my own doing my thing and my kids were adults, but not very long. And I've always been a present parent. I've always had this incredible relationship with my older kids. What's different is that I'm, I mean, think about a 20 year old man. You know, when Debbie was pregnant with Trevor, I was looking at prison time. You know what I mean? So it was a different guy.

And even though I think I've always been a very conscientious and good parent, I still had, which is basically what this book is about, you know, I had whatever chaotic vortex that I was living in, you know, that's the nature nurture part. I was still contending with that and I was still unwilling to let it go, meaning I was unwilling to grow up because I thought growing up meant kind of some weighted down idea of having to live this monotone life and I just wasn't willing to do that and because I didn't know that living the way that I'm living now is so much more vivacious and vivid than anything I ever

lived before, you know, and it doesn't have the consequence of having to do jail time or whatever. But I you know, it's healthier too and it's yeah, it's healthier too. And but there's something that's always existed with my kids about their sense of newness and discovery and awe that I think that I treat like people go to church for that reason, or people go see Buddhists for that reason, or people meditate for five hours a day for that reason.

I feel that that is my version of that. I get to be around these kids and I'm not bullshitting when I say it. I've always felt that it is such a gift that I've been given to be able to be the parent of these four children. I think that's the one of the best passages in the book. I have it here. You said, there's nothing so pure as the young who are just beginning to awe at that investment of a breath and slowly so painfully Realizing how all the breasts of their passions hang and wait just out of touch Into their maturity solace will hide with only a yearning scent of milk left in the air, but there they are It is there your own sense of character to be cultivated.

I loved it. The innocence, the sense of discovery, the excitement about things, yeah, that's what lights me up. That's the fucking best. That's why, that makes the sleepless nights and the craziness and the yelling and the noise and the breaking of shit.

It makes it all worth it. Which brings it all the way back to this, which is what I was saying, which is Daily Dad or Daily Stoic or all these fucking books that I have of yours. Literally your books are everywhere that remind me of that. It's like, look, you go through the insanity to be able to be more present for the gift and the gift is right there. You don't have to seek it. It's not out of your grasp.

It's literally right there. You know, I was thinking, Oh, look at the opportunities that you're getting now that you're sober. I go, No, the opportunities were always there. I just I just wasn't available to them. And now I feel like I'm available to them. And you and you've magnified that and I'm not again This is not I've done a lot of interviews for this book man, and I appreciate you more than you probably will ever know

Well that that means a ton to me. I hope we can do it in person sometime, but but this is awesome I I love the book like I got two copies with notes. I thought it was fantastic and awesome. I love the book. Like I got two copies with notes. I thought it was fantastic. And yeah, I hope you do another one. Me too. It's already happening. So we'll see. Good. All right. Well, hit me up if you ever need anything. And then hopefully we'll, we just crossed, we just missed each other when you were in Austin, but let me know when you're here next. Let me see your shirt real quick. Oh, this is Judas Priest. Fuck yeah. I took my kids. Actually, I took my son twice. I took him to see Iron Maiden in Sacramento, which is where I'm from. And then Judas Priest was opening. And so he was telling his five-year-old brother, who I thought was too young to care

about this stuff, and then his brother got jealous. So then they were playing at the F1 track, which is near my house. And so my ranch is out in the country and that's where we live. And it's the closest thing is that track. So I was driving them to school and I was like, hey, you know, that band you just saw us playing. And so anyways, they wanted to go see Judas Priest. We missed Judas Priest when they came to the forum.

I literally, I was supposed to go and I had tickets and I missed it. Really? Oh dude, Judas Priest, when I was a kid, Rob Halper, and then he was kicked out. I forgot his book. No. Dude, super good. Definitely, he has two.

They're both very good. He's a sober guy. He talks a lot about that. I was shocked, one, by how good the books were, and then two, seeing them live, because I saw them once when I was in high school, or I saw Halper performing solo when I was in, one, by how good the books were, and then two, seeing them live, because I saw them once when I was in high school, or I saw Hal for performing solo when I was in high school. But...

When you were in high school, he was already out, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was shocked at how many songs they have. Like, I'm a fan, but then you're like, oh yeah, because they're, you know, they're not like an 80s band, they're like a 70s band, you know, and so there's like an extra 10 years of songs. Totally. That's amazing.

And by the way, Iron Maiden and I know you have your own Iron Maiden shirt and all that. But Iron Maiden was it for me. I mean, I had Sex Crystals. I had the germs. We had the punk rock era. But then Iron Maiden was, I mean, it was it. Eddie floating above the stage and all. I mean, it was just that was it for us. And I still when I was doing Milk, God, what was it when I can't remember the song?

What was it? Number of the Beast, maybe. And when I was doing when I was doing Milk, I was staying in somebody's apartment right above what's the gay area of of San Francisco, the Castro. The Castro was saying right above The Castro. The Castro. I was saying right above the Castro. And I was trying to work myself up into like a frenzy. And I would eat a bunch of M&Ms and I would just fucking bang out to Iron Maiden and that song over and over and over.

And even though I was a massive fan before, it stuck in that kind of time because Milk was such an amazing experience. But yeah, Iron Maiden, massive, massive impact there, massive. They're kind of a late 70s punk band at first. I mean, Paul DeAnno just died, but they kind of started as that and then became a heavy metal band. It's kind of a late transition.

Dude, in the car this morning, just as we were talking kid stuff, I'm trying to teach my kids about AI and how it works. So my son goes, hey, dad, do you think we could ask ChatGPT to make a Christmas version of Eddie? And I was like, what world am I living in? This is the greatest thing that ever happened to me. And he did.

This is what it made. I'll show it to you. Yeah, look at that. Wait, wait, wait. The camera's far away. Let me see how close I can get it. Oh, no way. Dude. And then he asked if we could do a black and white version so he could color it.

So how genius way. Get the fuck. You have to send me that. I will. So so that's what we do in the morning. Sometimes what we'll do is we're trying to keep them off screens, I feel like this doesn't count. But I'll be like, what do you want to color today? They like to color. So what do you want to color today?

And then they ask ChatGPT to make it for them. And then, you know, because like their drawing ability is not good, but their imagination is incredible. And so they can imagine incredible things and then it makes it and then and then they get to fill it in. So but I feel like it's teaching them how to use this technology that's not that's going to, you know, change the world. So for him to say that unsolicited this morning, I was just like, what is my life right now? This is amazing. My kid wants a Christmas Eddie. It's all you. It's amazing. Well, dude, I'll let you go. This was incredible.

Sorry we didn't see each other in Austin. I really do. I would love to see you. I truly appreciate you. You're awesome. Now, likewise, man, this is the best. 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 would really help the show. We appreciate it. I'll see you next episode. If you like The Daily Stoic and thanks for listening, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. And before you go, would you tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey on Wondery.com slash survey.