The Daily Stoic - Steven Pressfield on Creating Work That Lasts

Episode Date: January 15, 2023

Ryan speaks with his friend Steven Pressfield during an impromptu walk along Town Lake in downtown Austin, Texas. The two discuss the life experiences behind Steven’s new book Govt Cheese a memoir, the lessons that they've learned from their many mentors, the value of repurposing content, and more.Steven Pressfield wrote for 27 years before he got his first novel published. During that time he worked 21 different jobs in eleven states. Steven taught school, drove tractor-trailers, worked in advertising and as a screenwriter in Hollywood. He worked on offshore oil rigs, and picked fruit as a migrant worker. His books include the best-stelling Turning Pro, The War of Art and Gates of Fire.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 weekend edition of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Sundays, we take a deeper dive into these ancient topics with excerpts from the Stoic texts, from the Stoic texts, audio books that you like here recommend here at Daily Stoic, and other long form wisdom that you can chew on on this relaxing weekend. We hope this helps shape your understanding of this philosophy and most importantly that you're able to apply it to actual life. Thank you for listening. of life. Thank you for listening. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wunderree'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.

Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I think I told you this before, but I hate sitting in my chair. I'm sitting in this chair, recording this right now. I sit in my chair when I write, but if I'm on the phone, I'm walking. It's actually why I hate Zoom.

Like I hate that from the pandemic, like everything is now, let's do a zoom call and they expect you to be in a thing with books behind you. Like I'm like, no, I want to be moving, man, or I want to be driving. I don't want the dead time of I could be doing some other thing that's good for me or crossing something off the list. And instead, I'm having to pretend like I care what the person I'm talking to about this administrative thing is looking like while we're doing it. So anyways, I love walking. So I did my first walking episode of this podcast. I gave a talk in Austin downtown. Where was it? The JW, I think, to Q2, the bank. And it was a great talk.

I'll probably put some chunks of the Q&A on the podcast at some point. But a special guest popped by, he was in town to do Rogan's podcast. The one in Only Stephen Pressfield, we recently ran an excerpt from his pod. Just one of my all-time favorite people, a mentor, a person who's changed my life in so many ways,

who's books that cannot recommend highly enough. Anyway, Stephen popped by to see the talk and then I said, Hey, why don't we just, you've been on the podcast in every format imaginable. We did a downstairs one at the Painted porch. He did a in person podcast before the Painted porch even existed, but I just got in the space. We've done remote, you know, on all the different platform. Anyways, I said, why don't we, why don't we just walk and we'll record. There was some mic issues at first, but we had some nice backup. So anyways, I think the audio here is good enough.

He and I went for about a 30 minute walk along Town Lake, one of my favorite places, which I don't get to see enough, not being in the city anymore. But here is Stephen Pressfield and I talking. He was in town to promote a new book that he just published called Government Cheese. It's his memoir, but I really like the book. It's sort of like, it's the stories

in between the lessons that make turning pro and the War of Art and all those other books so fantastic. He's had a hell of a life. He taught school, drove tractor trailers, worked in advertising, was a screenwriter. He worked on offshore oil rigs, picked fruit. He was in the Marines. He says he's had 21 different jobs in 11 states and it took him almost 30 years to publish his first novel. So it's quite a story and do check out government cheese. We've got sign copies of all his books in the painted porch, which I will link to. You can follow him on Instagram at Steven underscore press field,

follow him on Twitter at Steven press field, his website, Stevenpressfield.com. Just one of my absolute favorite people and excited to bring him back on the podcast, check out his new book, government cheese and all of his books and enjoy this walk and talk with me and Stephen Pressfield. I saw that you did a thing on Instagram where you said the two things, or the three things I learned from Tim Perris. Yeah, yeah. And I wanted to say a couple things

that I learned from you. Oh, okay. I give you some props. All right, I'll take one. And I was really trying to get my feet on the ground, shelf publishing and stuff like that. And I was like, oh, I'm going to do it. I I learned from you. Oh, okay. I give you some prophecy Well, and I was really trying to get my feet on the ground self publishing and stuff like that You were kind enough to let me come here for a day and spend the day with me kind of tell me right stuff

You know right when I got in the building, but the books are in search. Yes, you were like the first person to see it and The first thing you said to me that that of course I knew, but that really was hammered home, was that if you're a writer or an entrepreneur or any kind of an artist and you do your thing, that's only half of it. The marketing is something that is on you, motherfucker, because even if you're with a mainstream publisher, which is absolutely true for me, they don't do anything for you. Whatever it is, you've got to do.

So here we are doing this walk-in-talking thing right now. This is from my point of view, aside from the fun of seeing you, this is marketing, this is the work. Yeah, and for me, like for most artists or creative people, I think it's not natural. It's not my wheelhouse, it's not my comfort zone.

So it's a real thing we got to force yourself through your own resistance. We're walking up a hill now, by the way. No, it feels like it's turning you into a salesperson, which is weird and uncomfortable. But then the way I kind of think about it too, is it's like, if you won't be the salesperson for your work, what does that say

about what you think of your work? Exactly. And this is from your book, Perennial Cellar, and which everybody should read, because you really sort of give a ass kicking, a few pages in there about how if you don't do it. Yeah. And the way I like it, particularly with fiction,

I've got to defend my characters. Yeah. You know, there are these people here that people should know about. There you're being. And I've got to be there champion because they can't do it themselves. Right.

So it's hard, but anybody's listening to this, you know, psych yourself up and do it. And the other thing you told me, you know, when you're a creative writer or whatever it is, and you do something once, you think, well, okay, I've done that, I can't repeat myself, that would be cheating. And you said immediately, wrong, you know,

whatever, if you've done something, repurpose it. Do it again. A chapter in a book can become a blog post, can become an article on medium, can become a video, can become all kinds of things, because only the thinnest sliver of people actually see it the first time. It's not like people are going, oh Ryan did this and that was repeating himself. So that was another big breakthrough for me to think that you can repeat yourself.

And it's just another slice of the pie that you're getting out there. Well, I've got that for you. Thank you for that. Well, I appreciate it. And all of that is stuff that in one way or another, I got from someone else. So I feel like you're always just paying it for it.

But like, so yeah, someone took, like I remember with one of my books, I sent out, so I'd, you know, built the email list which you're supposed to do. And I sent out like one email about it, right? And I was like, that should be enough. And then someone was like, but if you only talk about it, first off, you're like assuming that everyone saw it, which they didn't. But if you only talk about it one time, what is that saying to people about how important you think it is? Yeah. Right? And, and so that was helpful.

And then I was actually talking to Gary Vaynerchuk once. And I actually really like Gary. And he's been great to me. But he said, he's like, I have seven things that I say. And he's like, everything I do is cycling through those seven things. Like I say, he says, I'd say them in different ways. I'd say them in different contexts. I say them in a short way and a long way.

But his point was, he has his seven messages, he's like seven themes or whatever they are. And he goes through them. And I think people sometimes think like, well, I said this one, so I can't do it again. And the reality is, most people haven't seen it, right? And most people, if they have seen it, it's not like it's sun-cated,

it immediately changed their life. They have to hear it in different ways, right? And so this is something I was just talking about in my talk, which is like, people would complain, academics have complained about meditations that Mark has really repeats himself. And it's like, let's not get hit by this bike. He's repeating himself, because it's important.

And because even though he understands it intellectually, he still needs to be reminded of it each time. Like, I read the War of Art whenever I'm starting a creative program. I already know it's in, I've read it a lot of times, but something pops out at me in a new, like, you know, like even though I've read the book, I've read the other books where I know you, you still get something new out of it each time, and that's why, like, even if you are repeating word for word,

the same thing, it can land with someone differently, the algorithm could show it to a new person for the first time. So I think it's just, I think actors have to deal with this more than writers, I think. But self-consciousness is the enemy, right? When you're thinking about how other people are going to think of you or you're worried about embarrassing yourself or debasing yourself or demeaning yourself, what you're really doing, that's a form of resistance too, I think, because it's preventing you from potentially reaching people that you could reach, and your mind is saying, well, no, it's better to be shy about it,

or quiet about it, but you actually do have to put yourself out there. Yes, I mean, it is like if we were an advertising agency, then we were selling Preparation H. We would know, you got to have a campaign and you got to hit it again and again and again and again and again. Yeah, exactly. So anyway, I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to help me out on that and open my eyes to some stuff. Well, speaking of repetition, an unexpected character in the new book is Steven Segal.

He appears multiple times in your memoir, which if I had a guess, like who are some of the characters in a press-filled memoir, I'm not sure that's who I would have guessed. Well, above the law, the movie, Steven Segal's first movie, was, I was one of the writers on that. And so he's such a colorful character

and says so many colorful things that I wanted to put him in there and Give him is due. He said nice things about your house. Yes Not really Well, no, I thought I thought it was funny because it's like even like you have this moment of vanity from him Where you're like doing this scene and he goes like no I don't look good in the desert so you can't have that scene but there is like a remarkable amount of awareness in that statement to where he's like he knows what his strengths are he knows what his craft is and he's like these are

only these are the conditions that it works it is kind of one thing to sort of was amazing me in the working in the movie business was when you think of you know how is a move how does the movie get made? How does the story come together? And a lot of times, like on above the law, we're sitting with Andy Davis, who's the director, and he says one day, we got to have a foot chase. And I thought, what the hell is that?

And he says, think about the French connection. You know, we're Gene Hackman, is in the same closet. He's chasing down the bed. Guys, it's, so a lot of these things are not scenes and movies are not coming out of any philosophical, scientific concept. It's like, what are we missing?

We don't have a torture scene. We don't have a scene where the hero gets a crap beaten out of him by the bad guy. And that's a lot of the way it happens. So that's part of the stuff in there. Well, no, I like that too. You were talking about how, as you were starting, you were kind of both disappointed

but also fascinated with the way that some of these people would just rip off old plots and themes, which seems to be kind of the ultimate like through line and a lot of your work which i've gotten from you which is you sort of mind these old plots or archetypes or classical stories and you put your own spin on them but like what you what they were doing with these old plots, that's what you did with Bagger Vance in the Bakavad Gita. And the idea that you can take, what is it, a new wine and old skins,

or the expression that you can sort of reuse these things. It's also what Shakespeare is doing. Yes, there's no shame. And this is the thing, it's kind of what we were just talking about. There's no shame in taking something that already exists and then putting a spin on it, or making it different. Like, I know your, like, xenophons, the Persian expedition, which is a story, a true story

of this Greek army that went three months into the interior of the Persian Empire, lost a battle and had to fight their way back out. That became the movie The Warriors, the 19, whatever it was. And it was terrific. And I have thought myself, how could I do that in outer space? Or is there another way to do it? Because it's just a classic story.

Like Romeo and Juliet, you can do over and over and over. And anything that will get you started and get some sort of, so you can kind a spin on something. That's, there's no shame in that at all. It's weird sometimes people criticize my work and go, he's just rehashing with the StoExa or just popularizing with the StoExa. And I think that that's an insult,

and maybe that is an insult to a certain type of writer that sees themselves as some sort of bold, visionary groundbreaker. And I'm like, you got it. You nailed exactly what I, you think you are criticizing me, but you're actually telling me that I achieved what I was trying to achieve,

which is take an old idea and make it accessible to new people. But also for you, this stoicism and Marcus Aurelius in the Meditations is coming from your soul in a way. I mean, you're not like, oh, I found a property that I'm gonna exploit. Yet this is something I think you are evolving.

I really wanna see where you're gonna be 10 years from now and what you're gonna be doing. Cause this is sort of flowing through you right now and it doesn't seem to have any end at the moment. But I'm sure that it's going to evolve into something that we couldn't predict right now. And I'd be very interested to see what that's going to be. Well, don't you feel like going back to our conversation about what you owe the characters from a marketing standpoint? I think one of the reasons that I feel okay, marketing, and selling the stuff, and I don't feel super self-conscious about it, is that I feel like I owe a debt to the stuff because

it's not mine. I have this sign on, I wrote it on a little no card next to my desk, and it just says, are you being a good steward of stoicism? Because like, I didn't invent the stuff and it was given to me, right? Like in the sense that it was introduced to me. But also the fact that I'm now associated with it is not a thing that I necessarily, that's also a gift, that's a gift from the market,

that's a gift from the algorithm, that's the thing that happens, right? And so now that I am associated with it, I have to think about, you know, how am I using the success, how am I using the access, how am I using the association? And am I doing it in a way that benefits primarily me?

Or am I doing it in a way that serves the stuff? So when you get visited by the muses, they are giving you something. And then the question is, are you doing them justice or honor or are you, well, you know, it was creatively fulfilling for me and that's the end of it. Like, I kind of think about it that way also. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I mean, you're talking in terms of existing material from the year, whatever year it was, but it's true for fiction as well. Well, for anything that's totally creative, that's coming to you from some other source,

that's a gift as well. And you have to be a steward of that just as well. Yeah, and that's why I think, you know, this, that holds true in how you actually do it day to day. Like, are you showing up and writing and working and doing all that, or are you kind of procrastinating and putting it all off? And then also, you know, once it, or are you procrastinating and putting it all off? And then also, once it exists, are you like, well, I hope it works, or are you really fighting for it and trying to give it a chance to succeed and reach an audience?

Yeah. And like you were asking before, what government cheese that phrase meant in this book of mine? It falls into the exact same category. When I was driving trucks and delivering surplus food to poor communities, IE government cheese, I felt like I'm a steward, I'm delivering a load and it's exactly like writing or anything else, you know? Yeah.

That it's not, I didn't invent this government cheese. Right. I didn't load this trailer, but my job, like a writer's job, is to deliver this load to people. And it's, again, thinking of ego is the enemy. Yeah. Ego is not part of this. You know, one of the things that was interesting about delivering those loads back in the day

was that they never, you were always referred to by the people you were delivering to, which was churches as driver. Nobody ever said Ryan, can we give you a glass cup a coffee or something? It was always like driver, which you pull in over there, and then you would sort of step to the side. And that, I thought, was exactly the way it should be.

That you're steward of this material, but it's not your material, you know? And when you're done and you have that empty trailer, and you sweep it out and you close the doors, that's the hell of a good feeling. Is this thing all? Check one, two, one, two. There y'all.

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That's really interesting. I like that, right? You're, and someone's depending on it, and it'll go bad if you don't get there in a certain amount of time. And, uh... It's food that you're putting on people's tables, which is hopefully what you're doing

with stoicism or any of the books that you're writing, the four cardinal virtues. A lot of people take that in and this changes their lives, or reinforces them or encourages them, including me. Well, I kind of think about that, even with the Daily Stalk and the Daily Dad, which I do, which is I'm a big believer in committing to certain outputs, right? Like, so some people think I do too much, but I think part of the reason that I'm able to do as much as I have is that if you say, hey,

I'm doing a daily email, then people start to anticipate it. It's a thing. And you have to, you have to beat the expectations that you've set. I think for a lot of creative people, or they're like, I'd like to start a company, and then there's no time table, there's no urgency, there's no expectation, and so when you have unlimited time or space, it takes unlimited time or space. And so when I think about it, it's like, no, no, no,

I am currently the producer of this daily thing. I have to deliver that daily load, or it doesn't happen. How did you come to that? I kind of backed into it accidentally. I think when Steve, who's my agent, suggested a daily book, I think I knew about the genre genre but that wasn't like you know what I was really thinking of but when he suggested it what struck me what was really interesting to me about it was what happens on the 366th day. So you

finish it and then what's next. And so I was interested in not the commitment of writing a book that was one page a day. I was interested in creating a thing that was one thought per day. So I was interested in what you would build around the book. And that's what became like, gauestow.com and you know, on all the social media. So I'm interested, like, I function really well when I have commitments like that.

Like, this is what I have to deliver on this, I do this every week, I do this every month, and then when I have that, it keeps me on. Were you always like that? I think so. I think so. I'm someone, if I have to be somewhere at seven, my whole thing is pivoting around that.

Which I actually have to kind of like work on because it'll like, I'll be like, okay, I just like ruined my day because I had one thing to point it for whatever. Which is also why I don't agree to a lot of stuff. Like, if I have one phone call at three, that means I don't have a free flowing riding day. Because I'm thinking about what is this thing that I signed up for at three

Which means I have to be done by this at two fifteen to transition, you know like it becomes the transition becomes this whole thing so I try I try That's why I was showing my talk my ideal days nothing scheduled in the calendar If if I have nothing scheduled in the calendar, I I have nothing scheduled in the calendar, I will write until I am done writing. If I have something in the calendar. I know when you're done writing. I think you know.

You know what I mean, you know. But I feel like if I have something scheduled, like let's say, yeah, let's say I have an appointment at 10, that I'm only writing from 8 to 10. And then the idea that I'll go back and pick it back up It never happens So you know, there's a great you probably have seen that the letter from Charles Dickens To somebody that invited him for lunch. Yeah, and basically he says

Just knowing that I'm having to have lunch with you is gonna fuck up my entire morning You know and so that's why I can to have lunch with you is gonna fuck up my entire morning, you know? Yeah, how it is. And so that's why I can't have lunch with you. Sorry about that. I basically don't schedule anything in the mornings for that reason. Everyone's what I do, or like this. Like the talk I was paid for.

You know what I mean? But I'm not. If someone's like, hey, I wanted to ask you advice on something. I'm like, that better be late in the afternoon. So like every day. So you're a believer of making before managing. Yes, yes, for sure. Are you?

I'm not actually. I used to be. Okay. But somehow I now have so much to manage that I try to sort of get that out of the way so that I can then say, okay now I'm going to write for the next three hours and that's it. You know?

So, but I certainly, I used to be that way. So I think the problem with you're like, I'm gonna get it out of the way, is like, let's say you do manage successfully get it out of the way, it still took something out of you, and then you don't have. That's true. I saw, I went through this the other day,

we were traveling, so we were driving back, so I got to the office at noon, and then I went to sit the other day where we were traveling, so we were driving back, so I got to the office at noon, and then I went to sit down and write. And I called my wife, and I was like, this was actually great that we did this because it's reminding me why I write it in the morning. Because I was like 40% of who I am capable of being sitting down, and I might as well just not

have even been doing it. capable of being sitting down and I might as well just not have even been doing. American apparel used to have these huge factory sales. We rent this whole thing out when I was here and we would just sell like thousands and thousands of dollars. Yes, this is the next going American cultural center or something but we would rent this out for South by Southwest every year. That's how I first started coming to Austin, my movie. Oh. Yeah, no, I really enjoyed the book. I was telling you, I think it's sort of like, it's like showing the actual lesson

or the thing you went through that got you to whatever gets reduced. You know, it's like the Hemingway thing where it's like the iceberg, you know, there's all the stuff underneath. I feel like the book is like the stuff that led up to what is a very pithy, you know, like 400 word section in the War of Art or Turn and Pro. Interesting way of thinking it.

I never thought about that, but that is kind of what I wanted, because I think a lot of people are living in that lower part of the iceberg. We're all living that, right? And we don't think there is an upper part, but there is. Yeah. If we just can believe it. So I want to sort of write my lower part of the iceberg so that people can compare it to their own and say, okay, it's okay that I'm here below the surface.

Just bobbing along. We end you, I think, you don't, whatever you're doing, whether you're an entrepreneur, a leader, a pastor, a writer, whatever, that all these experiences that your, one of the things Robert Green told me once he was like, the good thing about being a writer is that it's all material. Everything that happens to you,

like the worst things that happened to you, the best things that happened to you, the humdrum ordinary experiences, it all eventually fuels the material that you create. And I think this is true, like whatever it is that you do, we're like, fresh to where like, well, this, you know, this is not good or this pandemic's very disruptive in my business,

but you're not thinking about how it's actually shaping who you'll be 10 years from now or 20 years from now or I think about this with like kids, like people I think are dramatically overstating the quote unquote damage that the pandemic did to kids. But when you talk to someone who lived through the depression or a world where two, they're not like, I was never the same. You know, those were the last years.

No, they were the best years in a way, right? Well, there's certainly that, but it shaped who they are now and why you admire them is because of all those experiences. Yeah, and it's not like those experiences become material literally. Like literally you're not going to write about. It's the ice for it. It's, you know, it changes to go on at a deeper level. And like the book, as you know, The Government Cheese is divided into like seven books and each one is named after a different person.

And each one was a mentor to me and practically none of them were writing mentors. They were meant, you know, and they didn't even know they were mentors, some of these people that I happen to meet, you know? But again, in the sense that it's material, it's more than that. It's what's making you whatever you are.

Well, people, because of some of the stuff I've written, people, I get associated as an apprentice under Robert Green. And so people go like, I need to find an apprenticeship. And they're like, how did you become an apprentice to Robert Green? And I try to explain to them that's only the word that came to describe it after the fact, right? There was no like, there was no, like it wasn't like in the old days where my father sold me to a candle maker as an apprentice for seven years, right? Like a lot of these sort of mentorship relationships, look, I recommend you. Um, uh, the, the, the, the, the, the, the thing gets, um,

it, it just is what it is slowly, steadily, and then in retrospect, you look back and you go, that person was a mentor of mine, that person changed life that person taught me X Y or Z if you go around looking for these like official labels to put on it in the moment you're probably actually closing yourself off to that. Yes I agree I agree. The hero's journey is always acted out in a state of benignness. You know, we never really know what the fuck we're doing.

And that's probably exactly the way it should be. Well, the writing mentor that I was most familiar with in the book, because I think he's in the War of Art, is who's the one when you live? Paul Rink. Yes. Is he actually a writer? Yes. Because he connected with his. What's his story? He was a writer of what they would call young adult things

right now, but he also had a bunch of novels that he had written. And he just, I knew him in a previous lifetime in this town. And when I went to this town to write, he lived right down the street to me, and it's probably like Robert Green with you. It just sort of happened. We started having coffee every morning, and he knew my situation. I'm struggling to write my first book, Finish It. And so he took me under his wing, and told me what book's to read, and you know, just kind of talked to me about the discipline and the writer's life and

You know the self command that you had to have you know and the relentless merciless attitude you had to have with yourself So he was a true Writing mentor today. So those figures are so underrated the ones like it's not necessarily what they they taught you You know it's not this sort of, we think of Obi-Wan, instructing Luke Skywalker and all this stuff. In retrospect, it's more like Obi-Wan's, here's a list of books you should go read them. Right? Which is what you do for people, which is great.

Yeah, but it's a less sexy process than you think it is, but a very critical way, the interesting thing, and at the beginning of meditations Marcus really is thanks his philosophy teacher rusticus not for so much what russicus taught him but for lending him a copy of epic teedus and so like it's not just the recommendation of course but it's also does the person take the time to read the thing right like pocket of giving you the list of all these books, but it's the decision to actually read them and to reread them and to think about them and be open to them. That's what really changes the things, right? It's like when the student is ready that

teacher appears. And also in his case, he kind of held me accountable to it, you know? It was like, have you read this and then let's talk about it. Yes. But the other aspect of mentors too, thinking back to the other ones in government cheeses that sometimes they just model something for you. It's just the way they live their life. And you just say, I want to be like that guy.

I don't want to be like these other people. I want to be like that guy. Now, I don't want to be like these other people. I want to be like that guy. And you watch him and you study him. And I mean, was Robert Green and all that way? Oh, I was just going to say that's totally what Robert was. In the way that it would be like, I would call Robert and he wouldn't answer because Robert would be writing. Or Robert would be like, yeah, like, I need you

to drop this off, but like, don't even knock on the door. Just like put it outside the thing because like, at two o'clock I'll be in the minute. This will be where I am in my routine or my system. And like so watching, you know, when you watch someone that's very disciplined and respectful of their craft,

I think it builds in you a kind of a reverence or respect for that thing. Yes. Because you see it so rarely too. Yeah. It really stands out. You go, that's how this guy can do what he's doing. or respect for that thing. Yes. Because you see it so rarely, too. It really stands out, you go, that's how this guy can do what he's doing. Yes.

Well, it keeps you on its cause you're like, what if I disrespect the thing, what they would be disappointed in me? You know what I mean? You sort of inherit their respect for the process or the craft of it. And then I think that's really important. And there are some people you have in your life that all they have to do is give you a look. That look of disappointment, like you tell them, oh yeah I went to the wherever today and they just look at you.

They go, oh no, I feel so terrible. Well, in meditation, the market says that, he goes, nothing is so inspiring. As seeing the virtues you admire, it bodied in the people around you. And so if you kind of have the different people in your life who are what you aspire to be, I think you become like an epictetus as that. He says, if you live with a lame man,

you will learn how to live. You become that vibe. If you surround yourself with those people that you admire, you will become those people. That's exactly right. So we stop right there. That is almost exactly 30 minutes. That's a real pleasure. I wish I could do all the podcast walk.

So much better sitting in the chair. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out.

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Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke early and add free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery add free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.