The Daily Stoic - Los Angeles Rams GM Les Snead on Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing | Think About This

Episode Date: August 4, 2021

Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to Los Angeles Rams GM Les Snead about the cultural pillars of the Rams organization, making tough decisions under intense pressure, ignoring the short term incentives and the noise that comes along with his profession, and more.Les Snead is an American football executive who is the general manager of the Los Angeles Rams of the National Football League. Snead played tight end for Auburn from 1992-93 and was part of the Tigers’ perfect 11-0 team in 1993. He also earned Southeast Region Academic All-American honors during his college career. He is in his 10th season as general manager of the Rams. Prior to joining the Rams, Snead spent 13 seasons with the Atlanta Falcons. Snead is married to Kara Henderson Snead, a sports media personality. 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.LMNT is the maker of electrolyte drink mixes that help you stay active at home, work, the gym, or anywhere else. Electrolytes are a key part of a happy, healthy body. As a listener of this show, you can receive a free LMNT Sample Pack for only $5 for shipping. To claim this exclusive deal you must go to drinkLMNT.com/dailystoic. If you don’t love it, they will refund your $5 no questions asked.Beekeeper’s Naturals is the company that’s reinventing your medicine with clean, effective products that actually work. Beekeepers Naturals has great products like Propolis Spray and B.LXR. Visit beekeepersnaturals.com/STOIC or enter code “STOIC” to get 20% off your first order.Magic Spoon makes delicious cereal just like you remember from when you were a kid—only this version has only 3g carbs and 11g of protein. Use code DAILYSTOIC at magicspoon.com to get free shipping. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 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. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wonderree's podcast business wars.

And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Think about this. It's probably because it's painful that we don't do it very often. But when was the last time you really thought about a moment when whatever you did or said was wrong? Like really, really, really wrong. Maybe you were gun-ho about invading Iraq. Maybe you confidently sold a bunch of cryptocurrency in 2014 before the crash, you were sure it was coming.

Maybe you fell for a scam or you got caught up in bad company. Maybe you're older and you grew up with a negative view of Martin Luther King Jr. in his agitation tactics. Maybe you and some college phase were optimistic about the potential of Hugo Chavez or some other dictator. The point is, you've had moments when you were wrong.

It happens to all of us. And yet, as we've talked about before, we struggle to come to terms with this, despite its universality. Clearly, it wasn't easy for Sen Seneca to come to terms with how badly he misjudged Nero. Don't you think Marcus Aurelius had at least a little bit of trouble seeing the truth about Lucius Varis or Avidius Cassius? Admitting you have been wrong about something can be very uncomfortable, especially the more public your air was. But we can't shy away from the reality of that uncomfortable truth.

If anything, we have to deliberately seek out this discomfort, because wisdom, at a very minimum, is about not making the same mistake twice. If Marcus had been able to wrestle with his blindness to certain people's flaws, might he have been able to avert disaster with his son, Comitus? he have been able to avert disaster with his son, Comedis. Nowhere in Seneca's writings in his extensive personal correspondence does he deal with his complicity in Nero's misdeeds. Had he been willing to discuss it, probate might he have acted sooner, more overtly. This self-reflection and self-criticism which Seneca claimed to do nightly might have saved lives, including his own.

We are all wrong from time to time. We have held stupid and utterly incorrect opinions. There is some shame, and that but the truly shameful thing is to deny that it happened and refuse to learn from the experience. Which is why we have to take some time to think about our own thinking, and to let the acknowledgement of the errors of our ways make us better. Hey, it's Ryan Holliday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke Podcast. I guess it was a couple years ago now. Four years ago, three years ago now, somebody sent me an article that was in like the OC

register that the GM of the Los Angeles Rams who had just moved back there, had one of the Memento Morricoins on his desk. And I thought that was super cool, and I emailed the reporter, and I said, hey, that's so cool, thank you for including that. And he ended up connecting me, not to Les Nid, who is the gym of the Rams,

but his wife, Cara. And Cara and I became friends. We shared book recommendations. She's a huge reader. And then I got to meet them for the first time in person when I believe it was in 2019 that I spoke at the NFL owners meeting, which I've talked about in other episodes. And they gave me a whole bunch of great advice on what I should talk about, how to reach the people in the audience.

And this awesome friendship has come from it. They've gotten to be friends with Robert Green as well. They brought us out to a Rams game. Robert having been a lifelong Angelino, grew up a Rams fan. So it's been this awesome thing. And then to see them go to the Super Bowl and be one of the best teams in football,

it's been a really cool experience. I went out and I spoke to the coaching and scouting staff at the Rams, the season before COVID, which was a really cool experience as well. When they were training out there, I think in Irvine, which was cool. And anyways, today's episode is my interview with the one and only less Sneed. Less Sneed has been the general manager of the Rams since 2012. That's quite a ten year in professional sports. Before that, he was with the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Atlanta Falcons. He attended University of Alabama at Birmingham. He played for the football team there and then transferred to Auburn.

He is a fascinating guy, a big reader as you'll get in today's episode. And we talked about some of the sort of cultural pillars of an organization like the Rams, how someone like Les makes decisions under pressure, how he ignores the short term incentives of his profession, how he ignores the noise and the criticisms, focuses on doing this job, focusing on keeping the main thing, the main thing, which is one of the mantras there at

the Rams. And a whole bunch of other fascinating stuff, I think you're really going to like this episode. The only other thing I would say, a related episode you might enjoy, but a few months ago I had Neetah Strauss on the podcast, who I also connected the Sneeds with because she happens to play the national anthem and all the on-field music for the Rams. She's one of the great guitarists of our time. So if you enjoyed this episode with Lesne, check out my interview with Neetah Strauss and

of course, check out the Rams this season. Hopefully, it will be a great year. And I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this episode. Be safe everyone. This Delta variant is no joke. It's several times more infectious and contagious than the previous variant by some count. We shed something like a thousand times more of the virus.

What I'm saying is that it's never been more dangerous to be unvaccinated. Please get vaccinated as you've known, I've talked about this bunch on the episode. We're asking very little of people, right? And the Stokes talk about serving the common good, being good, doing good, getting vaccinated. Is the tiniest little thing you can do for the collective health, being good, doing good, getting vaccinated, is the tiniest little thing you

can do for the collective health, not just of your family and your friends and your community, but the country and the world. So please do it. I don't mind expending any of my relationship or audience capital talking about this, and I don't think less would either. Here's the episode. Talk soon. Here's my first question that I remain fascinated with and I probably asked like 10 people. So

you of all people would be able to answer though. Is it possible to be great in professional sports that say as a GM of a team and work somewhat normal hours. Where does everyone have to do to like get there at 4 a.m. work around the clock, sort of thing that coaches and GMs are notorious for? If I answered that, this is my 25th NFL training camp. Yeah. So if I answered that 25 years ago, I would say, it would be different. I would say, oh, you got to be there at four and maybe if everybody's getting there at four,

you got to be there at three, 45. Right. I do think 10 years now into being a GM, not just entry-level job and professional sports, because of the experience that you earn, and sometimes you earn it the hard way, we can definitely intentionally manage our schedules for intentional focused work and not have to be right. Let's call it working the grind. Observe hours that really right now, right? And we're bringing in sports science to professional sports.

Thanks to a lot of sports overseas and sleep's important. There's even some, I know there is even some professional sports team, probably college teams that are actually charting the decisions, let's call it a coaching staff makes after 9 p.m. And in there, let's call it journal analytics, it does, I've been told by a few people that I've appreciated that, okay, our decisions after 9pm are less than

our decisions maybe before then. Yeah, because it seems like sports have been relatively late to the idea, like I have a chapter about load management in the book that I'm working on right now. It's crazy to think that Papa Vitch basically pioneers the concept of load management, not like in the 90s, but this was like 2015 or 2012. I forget what it is, but late mid 2010s,

that's when you first get a coach going like, hey, if we manage the wear and tear that we put on a player, it can play for longer, right? Right. So, as sports have come to the idea of load management for athletes, I'm curious, do you think about it also inside the front office as well? Like, how do you reduce the grind so people make better decisions?

They're healthier, happier, you know, less likely to burn out on a job. Definitely. And like I opened the first answer, 10 years into being a GM a lot different than 10 years ago. But definitely in my role, I want to do my part in engineering, an ecosystem right where there can be an element of balance and with that being said, enjoy the journey. So here's what's interesting, Ryan, though, I do think to be great in professional sports

and maybe even great at something for a long period. There probably has to be an element of obsession where maybe you don't add hours to the day, but you might delete, let's call it big rocks in your life, right? You might have less hobbies. So now you're, you maybe, you may, your big rocks may be down to one to two to three. Hopefully, at least two, right, where it's family and your obsession. And then maybe a couple to three more after that, but even after that, you know, those top two are somehow dominating, right, the, you're basically our pie chart. Yeah, I think that's right. In meditations, Mark Serio

has talked about how people who love what they do wear themselves down doing it. So like, you have to love what you do. Like I love writing clearly, you love football. It just, I'm always interested whether it's Wall Street or sports, movies, where people work these insane hours. I wonder what at the,

I wonder how much of that is actually the obsession and the love, how much of it is the fact that other people are doing it. You know what I mean? I feel like it's like, if all the GM suddenly said, you know, these are the hours, if the on field product would be visibly different to the fan. I don't actually don't think but I think you're you're on to something right when you

when you first get in it, it could be the element right of just social pressure. Yeah. If this successful GM is doing, I got to do it his way. And if I don't and then I'm not as successful, and then somebody finds out, then it's going to, right, bowl down, well, he's working two more hours a day than you. And I think we all would probably add those two hours more into the workday if it, if there was a study that proved the amount of hours actually led to right successful results all the time. But I think when you really drill down and reverse engineer, it's not necessarily the hours is probably the quality of the hours.

Well, there's the law of diminishing returns, right? You get to certain point where, just because you're putting more hours in, doesn't mean you're getting more results back out. Correct. And we have yet to find our, and I was distracted because my computer keeps beeping when an email comes in. So new computer that I've got, so haven't been able to turn that off.

So hopefully, that's not... No, it's no problem. We can... Our analytics is showing that, and I think 10 years in, and even getting to age 50, it is interesting, like it. I mean, I think of the absurd hour sometimes I could do when I was 29, and it might be you just wake up at 3.40 am,m. and you're wide awake and you go right to the office and you leave at 11. But you didn't seem to get tired and you certainly couldn't feel like, wait a minute, my brain is foggy right now. But at my age now, I can tell when I've gotten less than seven hours of sleep. I can tell when I've gotten less than seven hours of sleep.

I wake up and I'm not firing on all cylinders, right? And I can definitely tell as it gets later in the night, like, okay, I must turn off this. And from this point forward, only do something recreational or relaxing because, you know, I'm not productive. I'm not innovative. I'm not thinking it's clearly, I'm not solving any problem or creating anything

worth a while. And it can kind of create a wicked feedback loop, right? You're working extra hard, you're working these hours. As you said, your decision-making ability goes down. So then you make not, you make bad decisions or less than ideal situations that you then have to spend the next day unfucking or resolving because you lost your temper at somebody or you sent some email you shouldn't have or you you started messing with something that you should have left alone. And then now you can't sleep because you have to be at the office solving some problem that actually you created. Excellent, excellent wisdom. And it's interesting to my my

wondered to too. And in life right, we're not going to come up with a with a game plan that we can execute daily. So I mean, I'm sure if you're starting a new business per se and maybe there's your obsessed with that business, but because you're starting something new, you're actually engineering the the structure that's going to carry right the the working area, business workplace, whatever it is forward. I think if any wisdom I would give then it would be okay. Like you said, maybe this four day stretch when we open the doors, we're going to really be working way too long, but there's going to be an element of adrenaline

there that probably carries you through. Sure. But certainly, probably chunk on the other side of those four hours is, OK, I really, truly need to get away for the weekend and provide fresh recover. And there's probably even wisdom there where if you're starting a new business in that same analogy, you getting away

is maybe the founder and leaving it to next in charge, it would be a very nice learning opportunity early in the day when probably one hiccup isn't gonna, you know, bring or close the doors. So, when I came out and talked to you guys, I guess it was two years ago now or three, I forget. But one of the things you would showed me that was sort of in the Rams cultural values

was keep the main thing, the main thing. What does that mean and how do you guys sort of actually apply that? So really simply, I think what I would say, let's call it the, let's call it one, the one variable that the first variable is, all right, we have, we have an organization made up of a lot of different we have an organization made up of a lot of different people and within that each want to write these individuals has an expertise and and some of those individuals are leading other experts in in kind of their realm or that groups expertise and some of the some of the people in those groups are trying to become experts and may have other roles that help the experts.

So number one would be the first variable was if we all come into the building and try to help the Rams improve it football. Whatever your job description is, check. Spend our energy there, right? So what that leads to, what we're hoping is, right? Some version of some compound interest, a Jim Collins flywheel effect, a snowball effect where,

right, we just keep rolling the snow and the ball gets bigger and bigger and bigger and it's because we're focused on that snowball, right? So that's number one. The other two is I think it can cut down on some of the people interaction, collaboration, drama, right? In terms of that, I do that. I think Hendersers production is okay. That's that's not the main thing, right? Whether whether, you know, one person likes

this color and the other person likes that color, one person voted for this politician, the other that's okay, that's not the main thing here. Let's get back to making rounds football better. So that that's probably the and I can go this and you're gonna you're gonna ask a question in the entertainment business because our product is is really they I it we're creating it for the public yeah and the neat thing is what keeps, it's called entertainment, rolling and professional sports, rolling is maybe the drama that takes place in between the games. There is an element right of, there's going to be a lot of noise on the outside. Critics what have you ideas and but let's not that's not the main thing that the main

thing is to create a product of it. Uh our fans can discuss it whether they thumbs up it or thumbs down it that's we have to stay focused on the main thing and the main thing is when it makes the grams but well it's really I think it's not necessarily winning. That would be the result. I think what we can control is dominating our role and trying to make rams football better. And that's a little bit easier to control. It's a little bit easier to build a task list than, hey, let's go win a game. What we're hoping Ryan is, all of that combines that on Sunday, when the clock runs out

and there's zero, zero, zero's on the clock, we have more points than the other team. So is it like that the organization has the main thing of like get better at football? And then does each subsequent person have their own main thing? Like the GM has the main thing of like get better at football. And then does each subsequent person have their own main thing? Like the GM has a main thing, the coach has a main thing, the running back has a main thing, the janitor has a main thing, and that's sort of where the the bellicic idea of like just do your job comes in.

Do your job be clear and concise on what that job is, right? And then stealing a little bit from James Clear and some of his habit journal stuff, right? And he talks about the 80, 20 rule, right? Yeah. It is making sure everyone in the building has those one, the two, the three, four things that they can dominate. They actually can manage enough time and intensely focus

on that and dominate. And again, that gets back to your first question now, right? Is, right? Everyone has a specific role. They know that role, they understand that role. That should allow them to not have to be at the opposite 4 a.m. and leave it 11. And it can also help individuals determine, wait a minute, this isn't a role that truly fulfills me.

So maybe I better go look somewhere else. Right. It must be weird for the GM because you have so much control, but then you also have so little control. Like you can assemble the players, you can negotiate their contracts, you can set up incentives. But at the end of

the day, like you can't actually throw or catch the football for them and you can't decide what plays get called. So is that is that a challenge to you? Like how do you how does each person in the organization stay in their lane? That is that is the humbling part of sports, probably a humbling part of a lot of life, but it is maybe the more fulfilling part of sports is right where there is a collection of humans and we're just collaborating to compete, right? We're collaborating not necessary to be the best GM or be the best offensive line coach or be the best athletic trainer

or be the best team chaplain or be the best team psychologist. We're all collectively collaborating for the Rams to be greater. And that whole Rams is greater than all of us. So both humbling and frustrating. And us. So both humbling and frustrating, fulfilling, yeah, humbling, frustrating and fulfilling at the same time. Yeah, because not all I can I check out and go close the door real quick.

Of course. Can you hear the construction? A little bit. Much better. Yeah, one of those things you can't control. We have training camp that in Irvine and our hotel is going under full bone construction, but during COVID, or times it is right, the obf school is the way or the rows of the thorn is, there's only us really at this hotel. Oh nice, right. We're not sharing it. I remember when you goes the enemy, there was this exchange between John Snyder

and Pete Carroll, someone was asking them, they said, how have you guys worked together for so long, most GMs and coaches are not, don't have long-term collaborative relationships, it tends to be short-term or collaborative or worse, they hate each other. And John Snyder said something like ego is the enemy, meaning that the two of them were able to collaborate because they took ego out of it. How does that relationship work? Not just between you and Sean, is how does that relationship work? Not just between you and Sean, but how does it work?

Generally, because I imagine there is some jockeying for power and control, but the only way you're both gonna be successful is if you're able to collaborate with each other. Yes, and going back to the main thing, and the main thing, main thing, keep the main thing and the main thing, keep the main thing the main thing. If your main thing is a general manager head coaches to gain more power control within your organization, that doesn't necessarily help you on Sundays.

Now, maybe the reason one of the two is trying because they actually think that but the energy spent trying to gain that extra power control probably somewhere along the way dilutes what they're really experts at and then going back to that right both for General Manager head coach and anyone in this building right we probably have different superpowers, different expertise, and there's an element right where you definitely have to respect and then trust that the other can do, you know, and be useful and dominate their responsibility. So I think that is is very key and that's what really

works between Sean and myself is, he really wants to coach football. And I would not be any good at coaching football. And he doesn't want to do my job. Right. He might be good at my job, but he doesn't want to do it. And I think we both, right, that allowing each other to do their job, that allows us to really focus on what we're experts at. And at the end of the day, that truly helps

when we do sit down to solve problems, overcome obstacles collectively, collaboratively, right, to figure out the best solution or the better innovation and things like that. We've got a quick message from one of our sponsors here and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned. Ah, the Bahamas. What if you could live in a penthouse above the crystal clear ocean working during the day and partying at night with your best friends and have it be 100% paid for?

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about the Bulls? Yes. I was fascinated. It's actually pretty common where like, you have a GM, Jerry Krauss, and then you have the coach, Phil Jackson. And the GM is like jealous of the coach, the coach getting all the attention in the credit.

And it's like, dude, you picked the job that is the least sexy and public facing. And then you're mad that you're not getting the same amount of attention as the guy who's on television every night. I'm going through this with some friends that bought a business together. And it's like, one of them is the public facing. And the other was like the behind the scenes guy, but the behind the scenes guy is jealous that the public facing guy is public.

And it's like, how did you not see this coming? So I'm always fascinated with the way ego can destroy a relationship that they went into with their eyes open and somehow we still, we wanna have our cake and eat it too. Like, do you know what I mean? Oh, no, that's, that's probably why stillness is the key, right? So you, you could sit down and be still.

And as I think through that, in the bull's analogy, right, Jerry Krauss wouldn't be jealous of Phil Jackson unless they were successful, right? If Jackson was flopping, he wouldn't be jealous of Phil Jackson, unless they were successful, right? If Jackson was flopping, he wouldn't be jealous of Phil Jackson. But at the end of the day, both Phil and Jerry were hired to have a successful basketball team. And that is exactly what occurred. So sometimes I laugh at that. I mean, sweet white, termed them high class problems or, you know, in psychology, right?

Small differences. But at the end of the day, right, at GM, right, number one, should want a really successful coach and coaching staff that is preparing a team to be successful on game days. I mean, that's, so, I mean, that's, now we should be celebrating that, right? We, that's cigar moment, maybe. That's, that's, yeah, you're resenting the person

for doing exactly what they were hired to do. And deep down, you became a scout or a GM because you're not that person. Do you know what I mean? You're not the person who seeks out the limelight who can do the thing on camera. So it's strange. It's like we want, like I know people who they'll write a book and then they'll sort of suddenly be mad that, not mad, but they'll be envious of someone like an entrepreneur who made lots of money. And it's like, were you under the impression that book publishing was where you would go to make the most money?

Like, you pick the wrong thing. If that, you can't pick a thing being very aware of the inherent trade-offs of that thing. And then, and then once you get to the finish line, expect it to magically be different than it was promised to you at the time you started the process. Yeah, I think you mentioned it, right? That keen awareness of what you saw was it,

what you signed up for. And being accountable for the sum of all the things you've signed up for, and then, right, say, if you get to the end, and that's not as fulfilling for whatever reason, right? Okay, in your case, right, the author now puts up his pen and paper or typewriter or computer, and now goes and starts a business. I don't know if it works but yeah that's probably how the process should go and there should not be a lot of griping or moaning or groaning about them. Well it's's like we, we, what we, when we're jealous of someone,

it's very rarely that we're like, oh, I would trade places with them. We want everything that we have and we want what they have, you know, like Jerry Kraus wasn't like, no, I'd like to be the head coach and I want someone else to be the GM. It's that to go to your point about doing your job,

it's like, we want to do our job and then we want other people to do their job, but we also want credit for the way that they did their job. Yeah, I think it, I love psychology, and you know my wife will, and she does, but I mean, there's some, there's some element of homeostasis there, right? You, right?

You wanted to be a successful GM and having a successful coach and a successful team is his part of that. But once that sets in and that becomes the norm, you're exactly right. Wait a minute, something else go well. I would like to be the one that does the press conference every day. But now maybe you wouldn't like to, right, design the plan every week to beat the other opponent, but you would love to be the face. And again, it gets back into that why we simply design the main thing, the main thing. Because a lot of times, right, why does a simple slogan like that?

How does it have complexity and how is it useful to a dynamic, complex organism organization and it can be in those moments when you're struggling that way as an individual or two people are in the bit or what happened we can always go back to, okay, is this the main thing? No, what is the main thing? Those tight slogans, if you live them

and use them intentionally and still are moments, right, can, let's call recalibrate all of us to what we signed up for as you said. That's what I love about sports. It's been fascinating to get to see it up close, is that all these cliches that you see on the outside, though, I focus on what you control, keep the main thing, the main thing.

You realize that those were invented in sports to solve like very real and very common problems. Like I remember when I spoke at the Browns a couple of years ago, I felt a little stupid. I was like, you know, I was like, okay, I did a part of my talk was on focus on what you control, part of my talk was on tuning out distractions. And I felt like this was very basic stuff.

Like, you know, is this really what I should be talking about? And then I remember that the Browns went out, they had a not good season. At the end of it, starting for last year, Baker Mayfield was like, someone asked Baker Mayfield, like, what are you going to do better this year? What do you think went wrong last year? And he was like, I really spent a lot of time distracted by things and not focusing

on what was in my control. And you're like, oh, yeah, that's right. That these clichés are there because the same problems, the same human tendencies just sort of pop up over and over again, and you're sort of boiling things down to their essence. So they're very simple, as you said. But there's also a lot of complexity

and applicability to them. Yes, and I think that the simplicity of it allows it to be on the tip of your tongue, maybe put it on the wall. Yeah. And the key, like you said, it's very simple. Like the majority of our wisdom is, right? And you've, for whatever reason, right, had found the passion in past wisdom that many generations have curated and bolded down to maybe a sentence or two.

And sometimes it seems common sense, but it's not necessarily common practice because we get life gets so fast. But I think when things are speeding and life gets fast and whatever, having that simple guardrail to say, stay between the lines or slow down, maybe just a simple speed bump. We have to now slow down and think about. Well, simple and easy aren't the same thing. Yes, it's probably harder to probably write something really simple that last three to four generations are longer.

Well, no, what I mean is like beware your feet are. Keep the main thing, the main thing. Focus on what you control. That's very simple, but it's super hard. It's like the hardest thing to do. And I imagine it's extraordinarily hard when you are worried about a 300-pound man running at full speed trying to hurt you, or when you're negotiating a $150 million contract, or when you have 60,000 fans screaming at you, those ideas

are very simple, but applying them is very difficult in the moment. Very much. Because we're discussing sports too, that most, a lot of strategy within the game of football is again designed to take simple rules of engagement but create this illusion of complexity. Right? It just a state with football, American football, an offense. Offences do a lot of motions and things are going fast, but what it's designed to do is cause the defender's brain that actually has these very simple rules, right?

Like I have, I had, so there's five eligible that can catch a football, right? And it can be why receivers tie it in or running backs, but there's five of them. Sometimes there's three row receivers in the game, sometimes there's only two. But each defender, a lot of their rules are based on, okay, I have the first wide receiver,

or I have the first eligible. And then I have the second eligible and I have the third and it usually goes, let's just call it left, the right. And there's these simple rules. But when one's motioning and now he's the four and routes are designed, it's all designed to take simple rules and create havoc and distraction and chaos to that order. But the really good teams, the really good coaches, right?

They're able to teach and keep these simple principles, right, simple during the chaos and lack of order that's going on during a game and obviously life. No, that's a good analogy for life because it's sort of like, you know, tell the truth. Be a good person. Do your best. These are like, you know, tell the truth. Be a good person. Do your best. These are like things we know, we say.

And then life makes things really complicated. And now there's a, now it's not quite clear what your best is or should you tell the whole truth. But there might be consequences for telling the truth, right? But there's all these reasons where those simple rules, it life is trying to sort of distract you from those simple rules. But if you just stick with what you know, if you stick with what you believe, General Matas says, you know, know your flat ass rules and stick to them. If you just do that, you'll be fine. But the problem is almost when we when we overthink it, when we when we allow ourselves

to be sort of knocked off the job we've been assigned, that's where we get into trouble. Yeah, I think going to to general man, Madison and circling back to what I just shouted about, really good coaches, we'll talk about your panic panic rules right. When there's chaos and your brain is panicking, okay, just go to your flat ass out rules. A lot just happened but slow down, go to your you got number three, you got the third eligible, there he is, one, two, three, maybe it all changed before but it's simple math, go to your flat ass panic rules, stay with three, it'll probably work out. But a lot of times as you said during the chaos and lack of order, you may even forget that you had three and now who is three and why is that

three and can I even count the three? Well, I like the idea of panic rules. Do you have those as a GM? Like, I've got to imagine like, you're thinking, hey, we're going to draft this person or we're going to make this trade or we're going to renegotiate this contract. And then all of a sudden somebody says something on social media, then there's a report on ESPN. You know, now the fans, they think strongly about this or you're getting, you know, owner, the owner is putting in their opinion, do you have like flat ass rules or panic rules that you revert to under pressure or stress? Like, here's what I, here are the basic assumptions I have as a GM, you know, what are those and how do you revert back to them

under pressure? But definitely have panic rules and it's interesting when us in sports get a chance to read books by people like yourselves. We add to those panic rules because some of those simple rules and the wisdom that you articulate and the examples behind them can go to the list. So there is definitely, and probably at the end of the day somewhere along the way, keep the main thing, the main thing is a panic rule. Sure. We say around here, we not me, and sometimes that means we is greater than me. Even though

we're well aware that the individual, the means that make up the we are the heartbeat and matter because they're people, but it can help you go back to, okay, wait a minute, we're here to do what's best for the whole. So how do we make a decision, okay, maybe we're making a more individual decision that may set some precedence that these other individuals that are part of the week now are disturbed by it. And it's an unintended consequence. So there's many of them, and one of them is,

So there's there's many of them and and one of them is Winning doubt don't act when in doubt Think about it more right because there's an element of doubt there that Okay, if we have to make the decision right now and there's more doubt than certainty Don't make it right right? Don't make the fault. Don't trade somebody under pressure. That's right.

And making that trade might have been, right, the right thing to do. But we would rather have the, let's call it the fault, is that right? We'd rather have the faults negative than false positive. Yeah. So, but okay, wait a minute, tomorrow we still have an opportunity to make that same trade. Okay, let's think about it longer. We thought there was a timeline. There's not. So you just continue right analyzing decision. So there's a lot of those panic rules. No, I see I see you were saying it's like you it's better that you miss out potentially

on a trade than to develop the habit of making decisions that you're not 100% sure about. Right. And not the right technically probably you're never 100% sure but I would say the certainty of decision we're sure of than the than the uncertainty or the doubt of. Well, that's like that rule, you know, like a hell yes or no, like you either really want to do it or don't do it. And that's a good rule because it, yes, you'll miss out on some stuff that would have been amazing. And I'm terrible at enforcing this rule,

but you'll miss out on a lot of stuff, you might miss out on stuff that's amazing, but you won't drift into doing stuff that deep down, you're not really sure about and you know you probably shouldn't do. Yes, and what's interesting, I've attributed that role in my book, like, right, if it's not a hell, yes, it's a no.

Yeah. But I've attributed to you, and I know other people have right, if it's not a hell, yes, it's a no. Yeah. But I've attributed to you, and I know other people have discussed it, but you've mentioned it a lot, but I wonder, right, because that may be the pain point, the PTSD that you're constantly trying to get there, you're not there yet, you've probably improved a lot, but you want to continue getting

there. I wonder if that what makes you great at actually getting that point across. Got a quick message from one of our sponsors here and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned. I think I know I definitely didn't come up with the rule. I've seen it from lots of people. I think the way the reason I struggle with the rule is like when I think I know I definitely didn't come up with the rule. I've seen it from lots of people. I think the reason I struggle with the rule is like, when I think about a couple of big decisions I made, the decision to drop out of college, the decision to leave my corporate job to become a writer, I was not sure it was the right decision.

Do you know what I mean? I was like 60, 40 that it would work. Even this bookstore that I opened, there were so many moments where I'm like, this is obviously a terrible idea. What am I doing, right? And so I think if you expect everything to be clear all the time, you're probably not taking enough risks.

I think that's the problem with that rule. Right. The great point. Well, what about you? Because one of the knocks on the Rams is that you guys traded away all your first round draft picks. How do you, one, I'm curious what your actual take on it, because I imagine there was a lot more strategy to it than people think.

But two, how do you ignore criticism or doubts in the organization outside the organization maybe in your own head Because I'm sure you see the point of view that people have there, but clearly you did it intentionally Get it intentionally very strategic. I think number one is I 10 years in I read a lot less, but I can't tell you, Ryan, that if I do read something, right, I'm not, I'm still enough to, or I've taken a lot of wisdom from you, right? I'm stoic enough, or at least intentionally practice stoicism, that, okay, this comment, this tweet, this simple take, right, shouldn't disrupt disrupt or even rough them or or get my emotions high or low depending on whether it's praise or criticism uh now but I

and I'm also aware that right why get into uh right a business, let's call it the entertainment business, like I said, where a lot of the content that drives our business to be, I mean, it drives NFL football to be maybe the number one, right, viewed sport and entertainment entity right now. It is, again, the drama that the speculation. Don't get into this business if, if, and you're also aware that right good television is probably debate. Someone has to take the side that the Rams are doing, you know, cool things are, are not

right. And somebody has to take the side that they're not and they got it, they got a banter about it and it's fun and it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's like, so you gotta be aware of that like you said and, and that is, that is just noise, that's part of it and that's actually a good thing for the business, but what it shouldn't do right is derail you like all of a sudden, what someone says is, is now getting you to get, if it does get you to doubt what you're doing, you probably, the process was a little bit flawed, you can learn from it.

But here's simply put too. We've given up our first round draft pick up. I say this strategically, there's many ways to use draft capital. It doesn't necessarily have to be using it on a Draft Pit. If you're picking 15th in the Draft, you don't have to use it on the 15th player. You can move it, you can move back,

use it on the 22nd player and add more picks. So strategically, we've given up a lot of first round picks, but over the last three to four years we have, we're not number one, but we're probably top five and actually number of draft picks made over that three to four years, right? So we're doing other things strategically, intentionally, to collect more draft capital so that we can add more young players, but we're determining the use that really valued resource on some known commodities, known players, and it's only because we're aware of the wind. If we were building

something, it would probably not suit us to go out and get a veteran in his prime to come maybe help us get to six and 10, to seven and nine, to eight, and eight to nine and seven, I'll say, right? So what I do know is that's a very simple take and it gathers attention and it should be discussed. It's something fun to discuss.

We're doing things differently than maybe others or that's ever been done in the past, just as many other teams are doing. But there's definitely probably more boring nuance that doesn't make the headlines or does it make Twitter or TikTok. That's behind it all. When I would imagine the fact that it is controversial is probably at least some evidence that it's cutting edge or counter programming. If you were doing what every other team was doing, that's probably because it's safe

and conventional. The fact that some people don't see the merit in it is at least a possible sign that you might be getting value that other people are not getting. Right, and another simple rule, panic rule, maybe, right, is, and we say it a lot of times, is, hey, let's wake up sprinting and and and don't be scared and and waking up sprinting doesn't necessarily mean waking up early and sprinting to 11 and and but the the

sprinting part comes up hey when we wake up know that we're in a league with 32 teams we're either on top or chasing and at the end of the day right we're in a league with 32 teams, we're either on top or chasing. And at the end of the day, we're going to have to get an edge. We can't do, like you said, what everybody else is doing because people can watch the film or people can copy what everybody's doing. So there has to be this element that all of us take that we believe that on to give us an edge,

but maybe on proven. Yeah, remember Peter Tiel, who we met at that thing in Malibu together, his line, which I think about a lot, he says, competition is for losers. So obviously sports is competition, but his point is, if you're all competing for who gets the number one draft pick, then somebody loses that competition, right? But if you're trying to go after the things that nobody else is thinking about or that

nobody else wants, you're going to win because you have a monopoly. You're the only one scrounging through the trash pile looking for the stuff that everyone else has written off Exactly right and he nailed it and in right. I don't think any office would get in professional sports right if If this was real business real life you wouldn't suggest your Your investor get into something where there's only, you know, there's 32 chasing one thing. And every year, right, every year one company makes it and 31 goes out of business per say,

Peter would go, okay, I'm not investing. That's bad business. Yes, and obviously he hasn't done that to be where he is. So, but you know how we can use that that rule not necessarily for like what type of business you're going to start or problem you're going to try to solve right, but to also use that rule within the process is that we can control that's, I'm writing that one down when we leave. Well, I was talking to an NBA coach day before yesterday. We were talking about how basketball is now a three-point game.

And then everyone is focusing on these sort of super teams, and that's where it's been. And yet, when you look at the two teams in the NBA finals this year, they were the closest to an older style, complete basketball team. They had, obviously, Giannis is a superstar. But the suns especially are much closer to the kind of basketball that I grew up with, as opposed to the game that the Warriors play or

the Nets play. And so there's this kind of, I think Mark Twain said, when you're on the side of the majority pause and reflect, you always want to see what everyone else is doing. And then you want to see, you know, how can I not do the opposite of that, but how can I question some of the assumptions in that and find unexpected value? Beautiful, beautifully said. I mean, and that could go on forever, right? If every team's looking for really good three-point shooters and then there's only so many on them and everyone collects them, you may want that, you may have that vision, you know it works, but can you actually acquire that and then to to say wait a minute there's another way right to be successful in basketball

and I think about that in our game of football so many years ago let's take college football the spread offense where right there's a quarterback in the shotgun and there's five wide receivers I mean the eligible are split out maybe there's four the shotgun and there's five wide receivers. I mean, the eligible are split out. Maybe there's four split out and there's one running back. But this whole spread game, teams that actually started that, right, were maybe high school teams that were out-manned, right? They were in a school district where mom and dad didn't produce the athletes at the other school districts.

So they spread everything out to be different. To wait a minute, we gotta play this team and we've never seen this before and we're bigger and stronger and they're faster and then everybody has gone to that. So what's interesting in college football in the pack 12, I think a Stanford who, of Stanford's right because it's very, very, very, very hard to get into Stanford, right?

They they they they're recruiting bases is a lot. The pool is a lot smaller than most things, but what they ended up doing right? Everybody spread out and when you spread out, you want to be faster quicker. That means you want to they ended up doing, right? Everybody spread out, and when you spread out, you wanna be faster quicker. That means you wanna, you have smaller players, right? There's only so many people who are large, who are also fast and quick. So they went the totally opposite because their recruiting base was, right, smaller

to begin with based on the academic, but they went large, big and strong, and then they went old school football, no spread, and just run right at you. So and they've been very successful and competitive because, hey, we're playing these smaller teams that are built to stop, right? The spread, just like in basketball, built to stop three pointers. But all of a sudden, there's this big center who's the strongest player

and in the NBA and I remember reading him like, well okay, I get his game where he has, they called it as more, the last time we've seen someone scores many points off a lay-ups and lay-ups, you know, you're lay- your layup line and basketball, but basically probably taking a step to the basket and banking it was Shaquille O'Neal. So they were able to... Giannis? Yes, Giannis. So, right? Everybody's built for speed and quickness and but wait a minute, how do we get in front of that locomotive? Yeah, it's um... Have you uh, Ess SEGWIN who wrote, uh, Empire of the Summer Moon, one of the greatest, uh, nonfiction books, I think of all time I've had him on the podcast.

But did you read his book, The Perfect Pass? I did not. So you wrote this book, and I never thought about it, but like, it basically talks about the invention of the passing game and football, that like, somebody invented that. Like, obviously you've always been able to throw the football, but for like the first 50 years of the game of football,

it was basically entirely a running game with the occasional throw. And you know, a couple of coaches, understanding that that's what programming and football was, designed counter programming to it. And that's where we get the modern football game. And, and that, yeah, you always want to, you always want to look for the unexploded opportunities

as opposed to bashing yourself against the very well established defenses in an industry, in a game, you know, even, even when you're like arguing with someone, we think like, I just got to bombard this person with facts. I'm gonna like overwhelm them and dominate them. And it's like, have you ever changed your mind when someone has done that to you? No, you gotta go around. And as we know in these,

this is why these fast and simple rules, when we slow down and we're still can be very effective is right. You think how tough it is to actually right move forward and execute something differently. And even if it was strategic with the box right how close it might have been to being perceived as a failed experiment where they were the one seed for two years in a row, but didn't advance. They were down two games to none twice this year. If they were to, if they would have lost that net series down to, they might have, they might have even fired the coach and the experiment ended and what, what has to, to, to stay pat to packed to go that direction as we all know

in real time, right? There's definitely obstacles. There's definitely headways that you got to persevere through and probably should read Angela.worfs book grit if you're going to take on that challenge because there's definitely gonna be headwinds and hopefully just hills to climb and not necessarily mountains. Well, that must have been part of your experience, right? So you get all the way to a Super Bowl

and you guys got there really fast. And then it doesn't go your way. One, how does it feel to lose a Super Bowl? How do you handle something like that? And then two, how do you not over-correct? That must be the real dangerous thing, right? It's like, clearly if the game had just gone slightly in a different direction, everyone would be celebrating you.

So how do you not over-correct in the face of something like that? Yeah, the very tough to get over a Super Bowl loss. There's probably two factors in that. Normally in sports, you have a next game that just automatically, right? Even if even if your fandom is not over it, you have to get over it quick because you got a next right any me that's coming in. The Super Bowl, right, because of the magnitude of the game or or right, how the odds of actually getting to the game, I think about it when I watch these Olympians, right? It's like they're they got one shot for

the gold. And if you come up with the bronze or silver, and you, and you should feel it, at the end of the day, when you're probably telling stories and retirement, winning a silver medal is probably gonna be a peak moment in your life, but in that moment, because you had a chance for the gold, the silver seems like the worst thing, so it's a very tough.

And then you gotta wait four years to do it again. Right, because you just don't know when you're getting back and you're exactly right, you, we do this in life and sports a lot, right, over, over, correct from the last game, but if an organization got to the Super Bowl, they did a lot of things right. So there's probably less tweaking that needs to be done.

So you definitely want to use that as a guard rail to go, okay, wait a minute, just because we, let's say we were really good at something the whole year and it actually got us to the Super Bowl. And then in the Super Bowl, we didn't execute that well or maybe the enemy defended it a little better or what have you, right? You got to sit down and go, wait a minute, is this still what we do better? Is this still, right, the best way for us to approach our strategy and, right, the data says you're successful more times than not. So, and the last thing I can say, and this is probably pre-superbow. In sports, ownership really matters.

And I give our ownership credit because at the end of the day, and take losing the Superbow out of it, just for myself, right, for our owner and our team president to allow me to continue being GM because we began the build and but you didn't have the fruits necessary and we made a coaching change but they elected to keep myself but in keeping myself could be good or bad the good part of that would be you're able to have this wisdom and experience that no one else would have like hey wait a, we should tweak that, not this or at least have those thoughts

and the ownership, not, let's call overreacting to emotional losses or seasons and allowing, right, allowing continuity to occur and and hoping or with the bet that continuity actually right provides wisdom that Helps us keep climbing well Stan Kronk he seems to be a bit of an even keel kind of a guy. He seems like he's a difficult guy to rattle Yeah, I know you met him But boy that and I know you met him, but boy, I know he likes reading some of the stoic philosophy, but whether he reads your stoic philosophy reads any at all, he

is definitely born stoic, or if he wasn't born stoic, he does a heck of a job intentionally practicing and I think that really helps him in his probably in his you want to call in his top expertise which is buying selling real estate right I think it you definitely have a whole takes a lot of discipline, right? There's no doubt. And to know when to buy and what for and, you know, not necessarily buy, right, when you see it, all of those things. So it's interesting if some of those, right, whether it's learn, socialize, genetic, a lot of all of that mixed in there together, actually, he picked the right obsession to

be obsessed with. I remember a couple years ago, I had a meeting at the Montage in Beverly Hills and I was leaving, I was getting in the Uber and the valet was like, hey, are you Ryan Holiday? It's very unusual that authors get recognized. And I was like, I was, how do you know? And it was like, very weird story, but Stan Kronke came here a few months ago, and I asked him for a book recommendation. This is what the valet was telling me.

And he was like, and he recommended that I read Marcus Aurelius, which I did, and that was how the valet had found my books. So he is definitely a student of the still ex. And I, he does seem to, yeah, I imagine, you know, you spend all this time, all this money, your team gets to the very highest point. And then you don't quite get it there.

It, there would be the out of anger or frustration or, you know, desire to shake things up. I could see where you're like, we gotta change everything. But, yeah, if your business is buying and holding real estate, that idea of sticking with percentages, you know, if you take a shot, that you're going to hit 70% of the time, and you miss it, your impulse, your instinct is to get mad at yourself. But that was actually the exact shot you should have taken. And you have to understand it three out of ten times,

it's not going to go your way. That's hard for the mind and the body and the heart to sit with when it doesn't go your way. Yeah, I think that's, if you're using sports in the simplicity sometimes, right, the John Wooden one play at a time that Nick Sabin is saying, right, that's part of that, right? You can control and you actually have a chance, right, if you take things one play at a time to be successful at one play, but again, like you said, the success is right, seven made and three.

So even if you miss those three, right, back to back, and maybe your next three, back to back, a part of the next 10, you know, as long as the process is there, and you know, right, what the bigger data is saying that okay, continue taking that. And we're gonna eventually all of a sudden you're gonna make maybe 14 in a row because you've now

missed six and all of a sudden you're on a run and I think the math can tell you that I think really good coaches can present that to their players in a very emotional state to go okay, we've missed six straight but we're about to hit 14 the math says, and we're going to go on a run, and their leads going to dissipate, and it's going to get back to normal, and then we've got to go do what we've got to do. But the really, really, really good coaches can take, right, that complexity, bowl it down into something simple, and actually believable in a moment when there's a lot of doubt, right, in the room. Well, I think about that Sean Peyton on-side kick and the Super Bowl. Statistically, actually a decent decision, and in fact, coaches should do more on-side

kicks and go for it more often and on-forth down than they do. But when you have 70 million people watching, taking a thing that is gonna work out in your favor six out of 10 times or four out of 10 times, that takes some stones. You know what I mean? You have to be willing to sit with if that doesn't work.

People are gonna call you a lot of names. Oh, you're in those type moments, right? When the outcome, the magnitude of the outcome is it weighs more than normal, right? And that's what makes it fortunate. That made me think going back to right seven out of 10, they were playing Peyton Manning. And I have not done the analytics at all, but I do know, Peyton Manning is one of the best quarterbacks in football.

He's one of the more cerebral at that point. I wonder if they actually had data that goes, OK, we just went into the locker room at halftime. Peyton Manning coming out of halftime, if he gets the ball, they have a 80% chance of scoring a touch, you know, up, you know, a feel goal to 72% scoring a touch because they made adjustments. So, and they've learned what you're doing, they've learned what they, and then they, how do they change it? So they're, and he's like, hey, we're going to, whether we pin them deep

or not, the analytics say he's scoring anyway. So, let's shake things up. Let's shake things up. And if we steal that possession, right, we've given ourselves a chance, rather than kicking off and now maybe patent, making what was maybe a small lead or tie game, a bigger lead for them or what have you.

So, but it's those coaches being able to use that intelligence that sometimes isn't thought about by the world that's gonna react on Twitter. I don't think Twitter was rolling in that particular Super Bowl but could you imagine Twitter right after that own side kick? And maybe there was Twitter then but maybe that's what made Twitter big, like after that on-site kick.

You know, you need to put that energy somewhere. Yes. All right, last question for you, because it's something I'm writing about right now. Tyler Cowan, who I love for Marjorie Revolution, he talks about this. He says, you know, like a musician to get better, a musician practices their scales, right? You practice the scales. You just over and over again, you go through the motions. This is how you get better, a musician practices their scales, right? You practice the scales. You just over and over again, you go through the motions,

is how you get better. He thinks about, you know, how do other professions get better, right? And I was thinking about the idea of practice, like it's obvious what a football team, how a football team practices to get better at football, right? Quarterback, how they practice to get better, running back, how they practice to get better at football, right? Quarterback, how they practice to get better, running back, how they practice to get better.

How do you think about getting better at what you do? Because what you do isn't, it's not so obvious, right? You can't, I mean, what do you do? Do you play fantasy sports? Like, how do you get better at being a GM other than just learning on the job? Well, I think the first thing you gotta do is put, right, all your decisions and bucket them, right?

This was a trade decision. This was actually an evaluation of amateur decision, college draft, right? This was a staffing, bigger picture staffing decision, right? This was a staffing, bigger picture staffing decision, right? You get a bucket, your decisions first. And and and and I like to you like to put, I like to weigh them as well. Like if I get a C in all these decisions, it really means it doesn't affect us one way, doesn't affect the main thing. So let's now, let's not let that clutter

right, our focus and intensity. And then and get to these decisions right here way a lot. They're very crucial. Okay, which ones am I actually good at or not? And if I'm not good, can I actually get good at them? And if the answer's no, well, let's consult that, let's hire somebody who is good at that, and now I can really focus on, and I've narrowed it down on to the thing

similar to the musician, right? I've narrowed it down on, let's call it playing the piano, right? I know what I can actually get better at. I'm not now gonna practice piano and drums and saxophones. Sure. Maybe I'll pick two of those and as a GM, you gotta be a little bit broader.

But again, if I'm not good at the saxophone, we're gonna hire a saxophone player. I'm gonna focus on drums and piano, and then at that point, at that point really all all you can do is there's an element of somehow right assessing right the results and determining and you get into it. And a lot of times it's meeting with smarter people. Sometimes a result doesn't mean you had a bad process.

It was just a you know bad luck things like that. So hey learning how to analyze decisions, learning how to practice. Like you said earlier, it's not necessarily, right? It's not as cut and dry as, and I do believe I could probably practice shooting free throws right now at age 50 every day and some improve my percentage of 100 shots, right? But okay, that's not helping me. Basketballs passed me by and it's just a hobby, but sometimes GMing is less kind of driving. With them that it might be, wait a minute,

we missed on these draft picks. They didn't work out like we thought they would. Okay, now let's try to bucket the why. And it might be, holy cow, we're missing on, on, or maybe doing some type of intangible assessment, right? Or it may be we're valuing a certain physical trait more than it should. And so it's really... There's a flaw in your data or your assumptions and you want to analyze that. But again, I think you got to build these buckets and really narrow it down because that musician that's a drummer, right?

Even he didn't go out and say, I'm going to practice the entire song when he practiced or she drummer, right? Even he didn't go out and say I'm going to practice the entire song when he practiced or she practices, right? Here she's going to practice some specific something that it takes to play drums. It's not going to be okay. I'm going to just practice the entire song. It might be this particular note at this particular transition, I struggle with no matter the song and I'm really going to work on things like that. So I think we have to do that and it takes and stillness is the key. I remember I was reading about Pete Carroll. He was saying one year he made the coaches watch film of themselves on the sideline. Like they had to break down film of their coaching

and how deeply uncomfortable that was for everyone because they were so used to dissecting every tiny movement or mistake of the players. And then all of a sudden that scrutiny was applied to themselves. And it was very unpleasant and surprising. But that's kind of what we have to do is, you have to put yourself up for review if you wanna get better.

Yeah, it's interesting. Like, because I know what I'm really accountable for as a GM, like I really want to self-assess, I really want good critics critics, constructive, critics. It's countable means something, but it's interesting, similar to the, it just may be think on the coaching part, which is a brilliant idea,

but like I hate listening to myself, or so I would never listen to this podcast. So I don't know whether I'm good or bad, but it would just, but my wife always tells me, okay, if you want to do get better at being a better podcast, guess, you need to listen to yourself no matter how, like, and I would hear myself mumbling or rambling and going, holy cow, I've talked too long and Ron's giving me every bit of body language to shut up.

This is a podcast. I don't want anybody to cut this off, right? And I still didn't listen to your body, but when I saw it at my hitting replay, I would go, it would make me feel so That would probably become a better podcast. Yes. No, I'm the same way actually like when I when I spoke at the NFL owners meeting Where where you were there That's a question. I asked them for the recording of it, and I was like, I'm gonna watch this and see what I could do better.

And of course, I couldn't, it's too uncomfortable, but I do find you can go like, you can just ask people who you trust, you can be like, look, I always try to go, like give me some feedback, but no positive feedback. Like tell me what's not working. Like when I give someone a draft of my book for notes, I say, you know, like, what's the worst part of this?

Like, what do you hate? What do I need to get rid of? I try to just, I try to get that, that feedback by asking for, for hard times. I can't imagine if I were charged to do a TED talk. Like, I would probably spend two years. I would probably go back to waking up at 4 a.m. and going to bed at 11 a.m.

just to practice on. But I'm not sure that would make you better. I think then you'd be all exhausted and burnt out and you'd be in your own head about it. So. That shows you how hard it is to right live the simple panic rules. Exactly.

We revert back to what we knew, but what we knew wasn't necessarily wise. Last question, what are you reading? You're a big reader. Are you reading anything good? You'd recommend. I remember when I visited you at training camp, you had a big stack of the books you were reading.

The one I finished this summer, The one I finished this summer, Annie Duke, Angela Duckworth had recommended super forecasters. Yep. Right. And that whole Penn group, brilliant people that's in the decision making and psychology decision making.

But I had never read it. It's a little bit older book, but there's an element of what we do Of course It's especially in in player personnel right decisions where you have these large staffs and and right We're all we have these independent opinions and trying to right Have you rolled out food by randomness? I? Indians and trying to, right? Have you read a fool by randomness?

I have not. I have heard. But what I end up doing, Ron, like I'm the opposite of some people, I end up reading a book, and then I really wanna now study it and make sure I, now every now and then I'll read something just to go, okay, I need to get away and I read. And I, but it's interesting, I had to tell my brain,

this is a book that I'm not taking notes. This is a book I'm just gonna digest, right? And enjoy and it's gonna take me away. And I'm sure I'm gonna remember a nugget here there. And then there's some books that I go, okay, I want someone recommended this one, just like the one you just did and go, okay, how do I need to read that when I need to study it. And now review it and then review it again. So it, my, and man, my wife,

Kira can like read. If she gets everything right. Yeah, she gave me four or five books a week if she gets into it and she can give me the cliff notes and then passes but she passes books to me mind stack up and it would take me a lifetime to read. So it took me two summers. I just finished this summer reading for the first time because I didn't read it young, at least shrugged. So I mean I mean it's of thousands, something pages into a pretty... What did you think? You know what? Well, this is a controversial, right? You know what I thought Anne, right?

I thought she was brilliant. It was very interesting sociology being from Russia to now probably United States and some of those. Whether you are all in on her ideology or not, what was interesting is I thought she was brilliant some of those, whether you are all in on her ideology or not. What was interesting is I thought she was brilliant into getting her ideology across. And like all ideologies, I'm never gonna fall in the sword

for all of it, right? But what I try to do in books like that that are deep and meaningful is, okay. If I were all in, these are the positives. If I were all in, these are the positives. If I were all against, these are the negatives. Kind of look at those and see in reality, right? Which ones blended together, you know, are working or not working.

So like everything, right? There's probably some thumbs up, parts in it, and there's maybe some thumbs down parts. Like I don't know if that could really work, but... No, it's what I think about Atlas Shrug, is it's very interesting, and it's impressive that she was able to make it interesting. Yeah. But it's also, I read it when I was 19 or 20, and I think a lot of young men read it at

that age, and it feels good. And then as you get older, I think you go, this is kind of childish. Like you're like, oh, you don't appreciate me and my talents. You don't love me for all my contributions to society. So I'm gonna take my ball and I'm gonna go to my gulch, you know, in the middle of wherever. And there, only around my fellow brilliant people

will I be appreciated. My thing is, what would the world look like if people did that? It would be horrible. So, my ultimate takeaway on Atlas Shrugged is that it's immature. Does that make sense? Yes, definitely. I mean, we could talk all day on that, right? But going back to the technique of the book,

I started it when the quarantine kind of hit and I'm like, there's no better time to read. If I'm gonna read Atlas Shrub then maybe now. Yeah, so I started it last summer. I'm a slow reader and this is dense. And then I came back and finished it this summer. But what was fascinating is, for her to set up all those characters, and I guess it was interesting enough for me to stay with it, but then in the second half, when it really

went the rolling and there was action, and now the people are preaching the ideology and you're figuring it all out, you're like, how did I get through that first part where she like, like I really know Dagnie now. I mean, I feel like Dagnie is my sister, like I know her. And but it took a long time to get to know her, which I don't know if you could pull off a book that dense and let's call it Modern Gen Z Millennial. That's right. ADD Times. That's what I kept going back to. Could this book be successful today?

No, no. It's in your novel. You could. It's extraordinarily difficult. And you think that the book is basically like a series of like 20 page speeches. It's like character, 20 page speech, 20 page speech, 20 and you're like, when you finish it, you're like, this shouldn't have worked, but somehow it did. So artistically, it's a feat of genius, philosophically, it's sort of like the joke about Ein Rand is that her thing is about the virtue of selfishness, right? I think it's Christopher Vincent who said, do you really find that people have trouble The joke about Ayn Rand is that her thing is about the virtue of selfishness, right?

I think it was Christopher Wins who said, do you really find that people have trouble with that? You know, like, if you ever met anyone who wasn't selfish enough, and I think that's where it falls short. Is it sort of addressing a problem that doesn't actually exist? No, no. Less, this is amazing. I can't wait to see you again soon soon and yeah, we'll do this again.

Looking forward to it. I enjoyed it. Talk soon. Talk soon. Hey, it's Ryan. If you want to take your study of stoicism to the next level, I want to invite you to join us over at Daily Stoic Life. We have daily conversations about the podcast episodes, about the Daily email. We actually do a

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