The Daily Stoic - Tony Gonzalez, Keita Bates-Diop, Courtney Dauwalter, and Steven Rinella on Sports and Building Resilience

Episode Date: December 31, 2022

Ryan looks back on some of the best interviews of 2022 about sports and building resilience. Featuring football legend Tony Gonzalez on the path to becoming your best self, basketball player Keita Bates-Diop on doing what you do for love over money, ultramarathon runner Courtney Dauwalter on her metaphor of the pain cave that she visualizes when pushing her body, and hunter Steven Rinella on the temperance that is required to be a great hunter.🎓 Sign up for the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge to create better habits in 2023: https://dailystoic.com/challenge✉️  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 Stoke podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoke. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stokes. Something to help you live up to those four Stoke virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have. Here on the weekend when you have a

little bit more space when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. Stoics were obsessed with sports. They played sports. They used sports metaphors. Cricypus was a runner.

Client, these was a boxer. Epictetus talked about ball throwers. Mark Serelytes wrestled, they hunted, you know, they knew their way around a playing field. And I think like we do today, they saw the playing field as practice ground for life. In today's episode, we're gonna talk about what sports can teach us about resilience,

some great lessons from champions, endurance athletes, greats in their chosen field, and how they apply these lessons on and off the field themselves. Talking to Tony Gonzalez, one of the greatest NFL tight ends of all time. He came by the painted porch, and we talked in person. We're going to talk to Keeta Bates, D-Up, on what he's learned playing for Coach Greg Popovich. I'm going to talk to Courtney Dew Bates, D.O.P on what he's learned playing for Coach Greg Popovich. I'm going to talk to Courtney Dewalter, one of the greatest endurance athletes of our time,

her metaphor of the pain cave as she pushes herself past her limits. And then we're going to talk to Steven Rinella, the hunter and television host, on the discipline and patience and poise required to be a great hunter. And then something that hit me quite hard about finding the right balance between achieving that greatness and spending time with your family.

So this is a great episode one I put a lot of thought into collecting all my favorite spots from the year. So enjoy that. And just a reminder, just like three or four days left to sign up for the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge, 21 Days of Stoic, Inspired Exercises that will make you better help, make you become the person you wanna become this next year. It's funny as we do the challenge,

we start talking about an early December and a few people sign up and then a few more people sign up and it's this slow trickle and then right at the end of the year, everyone's like, okay fine, I'm gonna do it. So don't delay. If you're going to do it, just sign up now. It makes it easier for you, easier for us. Commit yourself to it now. I'll be doing the challenge there right alongside you, but I'm really excited to have you join us in the daily stoic, new year, new new challenge. I think it's our fifth year doing this, something like that. It's absolutely crazy,

but thousands of people have been through the challenge. I have habits that I practice every day that came from the 2019 challenges, 2020 challenge. It's come from all the different challenges that we do as I make them for myself as much as all of you. And that's why I'm there doing them alongside you. It's been awesome spending the last couple months crafting this thing.

But now's the time to sign up, dailystoic.com slash challenge. And remember, if you're a daily stoke life member, or you're thinking about joining daily stoke life, you get this challenge, all the challenges for free. I'll see you in a couple days. Enjoy. I remember I was talking to John Snyder once, the GM of the Seahawks, and he was saying,

like, they have trouble when they draft players who have never been through anything before, because like almost everyone goes through some version of that dip when you start, because you're like, the best in college, and then you're like, oh shit, like the NFL is another level. The NFL is another level. And if you've never had to adjust to like not getting everything you want and like struggling and having to learn and grow, like it's gonna kick your ass.

Yeah, well, I had that when I was younger. I guess kind of had a bully. People can look up that story. But I had a bully long story short. I guess kind of had a bully. People can look up that story. But I had a bully long story short. I had a bully. I played Pop Warner football. I was the worst kid on the team. Had this bully come down trying to beat me up

and I changed everything and it helped me become a better football player. Yeah. But then after that, once I figured that out, a football, oh man, I just, I was the man until I was a first round draft choice. I was that guy that you probably wouldn't like. But I bet in that experience, as. Oh man, I just, I was the man until I was a first round drive choice. I was that guy that you probably wouldn't like. But I bet in that experience as you were adjusting, even though you're still

struggling, you were drawing on the strength that you drew on. Like if you hadn't gone through what you went through as a kid, maybe you wouldn't have made it out of the other side of those three years. And you're right. And maybe I wouldn't have, but I still did not know the formula for success when I became a professional. Now, before that talent wise, I'm 65, I can jump really high, I'm strong, I'm quick, I'm athletic, and I didn't ask for this, this was just given to me from birth genetically.

And so I relied on that a lot. Now, I worked hard, don't get me wrong, I worked my ass off, but I did, my working my ass off was what they told me to do. So if practice started at one, I showed up at one and I worked my ass off for those two hours until three o'clock, three, thirty, whatever it is, and went home. I did exactly what they asked me to do. And this is what I tell incoming rookies now in the NFL. I say welcome to the world of you're no longer special.

No one gives a shit. Yeah. You ran up four, three, soda's he, soda's he, soda's he. Oh, you bench four and a half. So does he. Oh, your first team, all American. Good, good for you. You won the Heisman.

Is that guy over there, he won the Heisman? He doesn't even start. Yeah. Okay, nobody cares who you are and what you've been through anymore. What's going to separate you at the professional level. This is, I don't care what it is. It's the obsession. Yeah.

It's the, for me, I had to forget, I had to go out, I can't show up at one o'clock and be done at 3.30 after practice. I have to show up earlier, 30 minutes before everybody gets out there and I need to catch balls. Yeah. And while the defense is going, I need to catch balls while when coach calls us up afterwards

and everybody goes home to go play video games and go talk to the sweetie pies, I'm going to stay after I'm going to catch more balls with my chin strap buckled, mouthpiece in, eyes wide open, focused in the game situation, getting ready, obsessed with being the best. When I go home, I don't turn it off. I can be watching a basketball game or a football game like that. I'm always thinking about, okay, how am I going to get better? I make the joke right. I would be walking down a hallway in my house and I still do this to the day. I'll fake left and go right around the corner to go get some out of the refrigerator because it's just, I was so obsessed and so programmed with that. And that's one of the things,

you talk about that transition, I forgot, that's what made me so great at football. And I think a lot of players forget about what made them so great when they played. And that's why you look at the statistics, when players get done playing, any professional sport, they, it's a huge falloff. I mean, depression, financial troubles, divorce, addiction,

all that stuff that happens. And I think it's because they expect to be great again right away at whatever it is they choose. Not really. Not really. It's not a real thing. That you got to go through all that embarrassment again, all that boring work again,

all that stuff that made you great before, you forget and I forgot. I forgot. I thought, okay, well, I'll study for an hour and get ready for this broadcast and I'll be great. And it's like, no, it, it, it. But also I imagine there's an epictetus quote I like, he says, like, if you want to improve

or get good at something, you have to be willing to be seen as foolish or ignorant. And so I imagine acting is hard one because it's a stereotype, but the jock doesn't also do theater, right? So I imagine there's the challenge of just the emotional vulnerability and the different parts of you that acting is accessing.

And so you have to have a certain amount of courage the different parts of you that acting is accessing. But then, and so you have to have a certain amount of courage and self-control to do that and be willing to be seen as something different or act in a way that maybe people don't expect from you. But then also the willingness to go from world class at one thing to not world class at the other thing and not be like, fuck this, I quit. That must be the hardest part. It's the hardest part because the chances are that you're going to make it

in acting or any really great professional thing at your job that you want to do. It's slim. And we all know that though, too. That's why I think we quit sometimes. It's like, man, I put everything I had into it and it still didn't work. So I might as well quit and do something else. And I got to the point like that with acting. In fact, I almost did. I gave up.

I remember I was trying and trying. I started, but I went to all the classes. I started, I was doing two classes a week. I was really throwing myself into it and I was doing all these auditions and getting nothing, nothing. Right. Getting, to go from being everything that's inbound,

Hey, Tony, who are you doing this? Hey, Tony, who are you doing this? We want this endorsement, you know, probably to then having to go like, being rejected for stuff. Yeah. That would be a challenge. Yeah, and you get me, and that's acting now.

I mean, you have to understand. Where'd you see even putting yourself out there? I want this and they're like, No, you're not right. No. That's not fun. I asked him about acting too. You walk into a room, they've already made up their minds. Right and they're like, no, you're not right. That's not fun. And that's the thing about acting too. You walk to a room. They've already made up their minds. Right. They're like, no, no. And then somewhat being somewhat recognizable where people just

want to come meet you or something like that. Yeah. Come here. Hey, I loved you. Yeah. I dropped the one. And then we've already decided, but we just wanted to see you. And anyway, yeah, but you know, it's been, it's been great. And now I've already decided, but we just wanted to see you anyway. We just wanted to see you. We could do it. But, you know, it's been great. And now I've been able to get some momentum. I got a couple, you know, I did a couple movies. I got a couple shows now. And you start to, you just, it's all part of it. Yeah.

I mean, you get to fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail. And then you finally will crack one a little bit open. And you're like, okay, I can do this. And then you start building off of that. And you have to remember that, like I told you, confidence was a problem for me. And I used to teach my kids this,

and I think I was wrong. I used to tell them after games, because maybe this is what I did. But I didn't do it, but I thought I was doing this, where I was like, hey, you remember my son, we play a basketball game, or my son would play football, and he'd have six or seven tackles in the game, but I'd be like, hey, you missed three tackles.

Go home and think about those missed tackles. That's what you need to focus on. And to me, I thought that was right, but that's, I did focus on the things that were I got it wrong. But for the most part, I was focusing on where I got it right. That's what I replayed over and over in my head, and I built, I was building off of that.

And now I tell my kids, like, like, yeah, you had a couple turnovers, whatever, in the basketball game, but man, those that step back jumper, remember that. Remember you did that and keep building off of that. That's what you think about before you go to sleep tonight. And first of all, it makes it more fun for you. Sure.

You know, keep your confidence up. It'll keep you coming back for more. Because if you keep this negative way of thinking, and there's books written on the power of negative thinking or whatever, then you, that'll kill you in the long run. That'll make it not fun. Yes. And it doesn't build confidence.

It doesn't build confidence, right? Like if you're focusing on what you did wrong, in some sense, it does potentially allow you to solve for that thing. Like if all you focus on is what you did right, then you know, you're never going to fix your mistakes. But if all you focus on is what you did wrong, you're also not going to develop any confidence, you're not going to develop any like enthusiasm or pleasant memories with the thing. Yeah. And, yeah, it's a tension that you have to do both, again, to go to what we're talking about.

You have to be able to see what you did wrong, but also not let that so consume you that you don't see that you did most of what you needed to do right. Absolutely. And I want to ask you, what is your thoughts on a balance in life? What balance, family balance? Yeah, I mean, I think about it in terms of sustainability. And so like, did let's say drugs influence or make like Jimmy Hendrix or Kurt Cobain,

or who members music better, maybe, but it also killed them. So it's not good fuel, right? So like I think about like, let's say, like a lot of people think that like having kids, for instance, it makes it hard to continue to write. And this is definitely true for women, especially historically, because like, having kids takes so much time,

and they didn't have time to write, or the freedom to write, or make changes, or whatever. So it definitely takes something out of you in the short term, I think. But if it opens you up emotionally, if it balances you out, if it gives you, we're talking about it, outlet, or some sort of other thing that you're, I think my interest is not to write like a couple good books

and then like take the money and retire. I want to get really good at this over a long period of time, right? Like one of the benefits of acting or writing versus football is like, like Tom Brady's like the longest ever do it and it's not really that long, right? Like, like versus football is like, like, Tom Brady's like the longest ever do it. And it's not really that long, right? Like, like, it's like, can you believe you're still doing it in his, in his early 40s, right?

Like, like, people published great books when they're 80, you know what I mean? So like, I think about it over a long horizon. And so when I think about family and life and balance and pacing myself, et cetera, I'm thinking about that. Like, is this, I'm thinking about that. Is this, I'm hoping it's contributing to me being able to do it sustainably and at a high level of excellence over a long period of time.

And also, like when I hear about these people, like, you can't have a family, don't have kid blah, blah, blah. I'm like, but how you're cutting yourself off from a huge part of a human experience, and then you're supposedly going to make art or work that relates to those people? You need that, but I think the balance is actually really important to being able to do it over a long period of time and not lose your mind. Well, that's what scares me with my profession, anything that I do now. And I got a good balance right now, quote unquote. But if the more success you have, and with that obsession comes, okay,

how are you going to be the best parent you can, the best husband you can? And I, you look at the people that have done extraordinary things, you look at their personal lives. Yeah. But doesn't it, don't you think it underwives? Because those accomplishments, like when I, like, Hemingway, shitty husband, shitty parent,

to me that is a poll that hangs over the works. Do you know what I mean? But doesn't, isn't that a lot of, Buddha, believe in his family? Yeah. I look at, maybe Marluit the King, like you look at the presidents, I look at coaches.

There's a lot of coaches that have shitty families. I won't name names, but there's a lot, like famous, famous, famous coaches, that their home life is abysmal, and their relationship with their children is not good. Can you be obsessed with something and still have that, that, that, I think it certainly can be done, right?

There are people that do it well. So the question is, like, who is it? I forget, um, some author and he was saying that early on in his career, someone said to him, uh, every kid you have is a book you won't write, right? Um, let's say being a better father as, as so we don't name names, the better, being a better father or mother would have earned this coach one extra super bowl or 10% more wins or made this artist's work 10% better. Who gives a shit? Right? Like Mark just really talks about this.

He's like, people who long for like posthumous fame to be considered the best who ever did it. They're forgetting two things. One, that they won't be around to enjoy the posthumous fame, right? And two, the people in the future will also suck. So why do you really care that much about impressing them, right? And so I think sometimes, yeah, you go like, this is what it takes. This is the trade-off. Yeah. But like, why are you making that trade-off? Like, you know what I mean?

Like, you've already proven that you can master this thing. You've already proven that you can win. You've already made a positive impact in the world through what you've done. I guess the virtue of temperance or moderation is really important. Like, taken too far, the greatness becomes a vice or an addiction. And you don't even get the benefit of like, like, at a certain point, you have enough.

And I think you have to, I think I'm more interested in being great at my thing. And I think that I have sort of a journey. So for me, it's like I wanna do great work. I wanna have great marriage, and then I wanna raise great kids. And those three things, they're not in tension with each other, but they check each other.

In the same way that we have an executive, and a legislature, and a judicial branch, they check each other out. And if one of them has too much power, it screws up the balance of those three. So I think about it that way. They're in tension with each other. If I focused exclusively on my marriage to what you could do, but it came at the expense of like, your kids, that wouldn't be great. And then if I only was focused on family and then like what I feel like my contributions

through my writing and my work would go away, you know that I would feel like I was leaving something on the table, but also if you told me, hey, you could sell 100% more books, but once your kids move out, they'll never come home for the holidays again. You'll look back. You're talking to your wife exclusively

through lawyers or something. I wouldn't be like, I want. I did it. You know what I mean? And so I think they're in tension with each other, but they also complement and improve each other if done right. Yeah. Yeah.

And that's, I guess that's part of it, right? That's to figure out what is that you have to give up stuff in order to do that. Yes, you can't. Well, the rule I heard I had Austin Cleon here, who I really like, he says, work family scene, pick two. Yeah. So we're, I think you can do great work. You can have, you can be a good family person, but you're probably not gonna get to good as many parties. Do as much cool. King on the trips, King on the,

and that's the stuff you have to give up. A lot of people, when you're young, that's tough. Yeah, I always see that with athletes. I'm like, what are you doing at this nightclub? Like, why? Like, what are you there for? I know why I was there. I was that guy. Yeah, of course. But that's coming at the expense of this nightclub, like, why? Like, what are you there for? I know why I was there. I was that guy.

Yeah, of course. Yeah, of course. But that's coming at the expense of this other thing which deep down ultimately brings more happiness of the film. It's probably the reason I didn't get married until I was 30. Yeah. And I got in the league when I was, shoot,

I was just turned to 21. So I had a long time to be in the league and it was football and fun for me. Yeah. That was it. Yeah. And then once you get married, I stop going out and stop having that quote unquote fun.

That's different type of fun. Yes. And that's how I was able to remain. You can't, you can't have all three. Yes. I think it's either family and work, or and that's it. And I think that's the thing that you don't get everything you want. You can't have it all.

Yeah. And you have to make trade-offs. Mm. It's tough. That's life though. It's life. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's that's that's part of you have to plan for it. That's part of your route. Me, I have a routine like when I wake up, I have I want to do my writing, I want to do my reading, I want to do all this stuff, and this is... Why do I remember I asked you if you wanted, if you were having someone over for dinner and you wanted to come, you're like, no, this is like kids' movie night.

And I was like, oh, I love that. Yeah. You're like, this is the thing. I like that where I'll talk to someone that, no, I'm home for bath time every night. And I think you need that, though. In the same way that as an athlete, you need to look, practice starts at this time.

And if you're like, you have to have structure, you have to have structure and systems and routine, or your life is chaos and disorder. And I think family, if done right, although it is disruptive and it blows up your life in a lot of ways, it also provides structure because you really quickly realize kids need structure. You know, like if you're just like,

oh, sometimes we're here, sometimes we're there, sometimes we get up at this time, sometimes we go to the, your kids are a nightmare because they're like the world is chaotic and unpredictable. But when you're like, no, this is when we do these things. Yeah. Everyone just like, there's a stillness to it.

Everyone calms down. You just get, you realize human beings need like a rhythm. Yeah, a stillness to it. Everyone calms down. You just get you realize human beings need like a rhythm. Yeah, yeah, I love it. 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. FTX Founder Sam Bankman Freed lived that dream life, but it was all funded with other people's money, but he allegedly stole. Many thought Sam Bankman Freed was changing the game as he graced the pages of Forbes and Bannety Fair.

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Hey, prime members, you can listen to episodes Add Free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just going to end up on Page Six or Du Moir or in court. I'm Matt Bellesai. And I'm Sydney Battle. And we're the host of Wonder E's new podcast, Dis and Tell, where each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud. From the buildup, why it happened, and the repercussions.

What does our obsession with these feud say about us? The first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama, but none is drawn out in personal as Brittany and Jamie Lin Spears. When Brittany's fans formed the free Brittany movement dedicated to fraying her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lin's lack of public support, it angered some fans, a lot of them. It's a story of two young women who had their choices taken away from them by their controlling parents, but took their anger out on each other.

And it's about a movement to save a superstar, which set its sights upon anyone who failed to fight for Brittany. Follow Dissentel wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or The Wondery App. What have you learned playing for pop? He seems like a very intense guy. He is, he super intense because he cares so much.

He wants to win, but also cares what his people, like he will talk about basketball one time with them, I'll talk about, you know, what's going on in Ukraine for X amount of time. Like he goes back and forth or whatever else to go on, it really does not matter to him because he's such an intelligent guy. But then aside from basketball,

you could just talk to him from a normal person. Like you forget kind of who he is sometimes, which is great, to be because he could be so much different. He could be, I mean, he's a Hall of Fame coach, one of the greatest, if not the greatest of all time. He could be, in fact, completely different than what he does, which is kind of not a shock to me, because I heard good things before I got there,

but he's everything and more in the person that you think he is. I went to again, this was maybe a couple of seasons ago. This was still when Tim Duncan was an assistant coach, and I was sitting next to R.C. Duford, who I think was still the GM had transitioned to CEO role. Anyways, although I just, I just saw him over the weekend and he says he was, he was very excited that we were talking.

But anyways, he was like, watch this pops going to get thrown out of the game. Like the spurs it, you guys had been like pretty lackluster the whole game. You might have been, You might have been there. And he gets thrown out forces Tim Duncan to take over. And then you guys almost win the game. You come back from a huge deficit and almost win the game. But I thought it was so, it was like, oh, it wasn't like he was so pissed off,

he got thrown out of the game. It was that he knew the team was lacking energy and he got thrown out on purpose just to shake things up. And I was like, that is someone who has been around a very long time and is in so control of themselves that he's just like pulling the puppet strings. Oh my God, yes. So that was a year before I got there.

I'm rewatching that when it happened. But then I got there. I was like, you know, he was really in tune with the team one and then I needed like a post routine and no way for him to do it. So most coaches could not, I don't think, would be able to get away with that and have the outcome almost, you know,

the outcome would be what you want from the beginning. I was thinking three, four steps ahead. I could have played well. What can I ahead. I can't play it well. What can I do? I try all these other options. Let me get kicked out. I mean, it gives us the best chance to win the game, which is like, are you guys just crazy to think about that?

That that's a piece of coaching for Al Nohael about 40 years, whatever it is. Like that's knowledge that you cannot teach. You just have to earn it over-examination. Yeah, no, it takes a certain amount of self-control and discipline to be able to go like 51% of the time this works, right? Like people who count cards, they're not like, they're not like they figured out a secret that lets them win every time, is just statistically on average their thing will work.

And you need to have the discipline and the patience to let it play out over a long period of time. And people don't have that kind of patience, I think, because like you said, like 51% of the time, if it works, mostly you're not going to take those eyes, but over time, if you do it, however long it takes, if it's a whole summer, if it's a whole season, whatever it is, you do the right things over and over again, then it will eventually work. If you buy into it.

Do you have that? Like, do you know, like, hey, like, if I shoot it from this spot on the court, I hit it 62% of the time. So you can kind of not disassociate, but you can just like walk in and do it and then not feel it too much either way if it goes in or it doesn't go in or do you still struggle with that? Yeah, definitely. I think because analytics is a big part of the game now, but it's a little bit give and take. Like we are still people with minds and emotions. You have to take both into account like just because it says that someone shoots for a person here doesn't mean they're going to go for for 10 every single time. They may go one for 10 and then the next time I go seven or whatever it is, but I know if I shoot this floater or this corner three, maker miss, I'm gonna make it most of the time.

And then I'll be shot. I'm like, I don't feel as comfortable shooting these. I'll take them, but I know this isn't what I want to do more so. And that's kind of a whole giving it up for somebody else kind of thing. I know this is a modern normal shot. If I'm not gonna just take this over and over. Because I haven't built that level of confidence or that many reps with this specific shot. But actually, that kind of goes back to these humility and self-awareness thing where it's like,

if you know that you hit this shot 52% of the time, but this guy hits the shot where he's standing 56% of the time, you have to be able to pass it even though you're depriving yourself of a stat for a thing that majority of the time would go your way, but that fractional difference, you have to be willing to accept. Absolutely, I think the biggest example of that is Dremont on the Warriors.

Cause I think he's came out and said, like, I think he dick him out and say, you know, it was that quote, but why would I take this shot when I see Steph running off this? And I know he's the greatest shooter of all time. Like, why would I have to make any sense to not people are like, oh, you should take it just because. And I was like, no, he's kind of right. You should probably give yourself up for it.

And that's the greatest example ever. Obviously it was having stuff on your team, but that's what you said. Like he shoots this at 50% I shoot this at 2025. We do this over and over again, and Nally F3 championships, we work out a fourth. But do the hard part about that is, okay, in five years when he's up for the Hall of Fame, and they're looking at his career

stats, right? They're gonna go, well, you only scored this minute, I mean, obviously, he's issuing. But what I mean is when people look at the totality of his career later, they're gonna be like, hey, he didn't score as many points as this person, this person. No one remembers back and goes, yeah, but those points he didn't score, he was just making it statistically more likely that Steph Curry would score those same points. So I think we often think that being selfless in Game Theory, they call it the suckers payoff, that you're basically screwing yourself, but like you have to ask yourself

what's more important, the individual or the group or the collective goal, I guess. And that collective goal is to win as many games as far as win. In short term, win this again, long term win the championship. And that's been their whole thing the last seven or eight years. So if we do this, and then when they do what's gonna happen, it's absolutely gonna happen in about 15 years when he gets, he's a first baller for sure, but when he gets in, they're gonna be like,

well, the only average in six and six, but then they're gonna look and be like, at minimum three times, shame up, two times, I've been a player of the year, first team all, all these, two times, I've been as a player of the year, first team all, all these, a bunch of other things that weren't directly points, you know, I mean, I'm not scoring, but how would be everything else besides that? Well, I was, I was thinking about this because while we were talking, we were talking

about, you know, would you go and the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, And what do you think your guess is? Like percentage wise, do you think of his games played? What percentage do you think he started? You know, I think I've actually looked it up, like his career stats, I say at most, 25 to 80% at most. Yeah, it looks like he says, it says he played a thousand games and he started 3449 of them.

That's how the ball ran as probably because I should remember if I remember he started like one year, like a lot, like for the whole year. That's probably the chunk of that. But he child memory growing up, he was never like a starter. He was never like, you know, the two-gar on the 10th line, two good buddy played 25-30 minutes and won a lot of games. Like, it doesn't really,

doesn't really matter in the end. And it's funny to say that because they ask us that in pre-Jap, they ask us questions like that to get to know like where our minds are at or whatever before they draft this. They'll ask questions like, would you rather be a starter or play a lot or confidence?

Was you, how would you feel if we sent you down to the Glee for a lot of your rookie year or not at all, or was you rather be on the championship team or not play a lot or be on a terrible team and play, you know, 30 minutes? Like the question is that you would normally think about being asked when you're going into these rooms, but they add, they prep, they prep us beforehand, like, hey, I would clap this in your mind.

Like, they're going to ask you these kind of questions, like, be honest and we'll try and think ahead of what they're trying to think about. Well, and you think about Mono's career. So four rings rings incredible. And also, would he have been able to play as long as he did if he was a star? So it's also like, I don't wanna say humble, but being willing to be a role player

might actually be a more sustainable path also, right? So we're so often obsessed with immediate gratification that we don't realize the expense at which that's actually coming. Oh, for sure. You look at, like, he probably played 17, 18 years or whatever it was. 16 years is in the NBA.

But it was 16 years, but he's, his first NBA season, he was like 25, right? Because he came over. And you're right. That's right. You know,, he's like the old one of the older rookies. Uh, mm-hmm. So yeah, I mean, it's, and that's part of the, the being able to take or understand your position now. I know a lot of guys, you kind of look around the league, it's kind of hard for some guys to shift from certain roles into this new role. And then they kind of get flamed out early, whereas certain guys will play 12, 13, 14, 15 years,

coming off the bench, because they know off their role, they're very comfortable and if they'll ask for more, they'll ask for less. They know what it is. And they, like, we will, is probably, probably only started a hundred games in a career, we will, but he's put the greatest six man of all time.

And he's coffee was comfortable in that role for that mountains. It's 16 cents in here without for this. You grew up it. Did you you were born in Sacramento or did you grow up there? So I was born like a little

west like the Leo more like North Bay. My family's like my size to lives out there. So I was there and then moved Illinois for a few years, like Florida for two years, and back to Illinois for a famous

the rest of like teenage life up until like 12 12. I think we've got out of the learner 12 and then through high school. See, I was just wondering because I was saying earlier, I grew up in Sacramento. So I was a huge Sacramento Keenspin. But Bobby

Jackson is another one of those players that was never a starter, but had this huge roll off the bench, but you have to be willing to put aside what other people think, what other people expect, and to just do your job. Yeah, just do your job, whatever the ask of you, just do that. And some guys, they're like, hey, we think you can do more. Like we're gonna ask you more. Other guys are like, yeah, we love you in this role. We got to keep you in this role. And some guys are like cool with me. Other guys are like, now one more in and they get more and they're okay with it. But it's some, it has to do some work out as

well. Yeah, I guess it's attention too, right? Because if you're just, if you're so accepting or passive, that you just take what's offered, like you also have to be the person that's willing to speak up, that's willing to volunteer, that's willing to grow for it, that's not resigned to the status quo, right? Or otherwise, you'd never grow, you'd never improve, you'd never reach. I guess it's a tension to be both ambitious and a team player at the same time. Oh, yeah, for sure. That's what we're giving take and it is not, you can't ask for the whole house immediately. Right.

If you want it, you got to take pieces of it. If you want that and if they want that from there's someone in the league wants that from you. But yes, that's a tough kind of like, I was going to look for it. That's a tough way to go about things. We have to go through all the players have to go back and forth with that until they get solidified in especially early on in that career. Have you read the captain's class by Sam Walker? I think you would like that book a lot, but it's a great book about how often like the most, the best teams have a captain

who it's not who you think it was. Like Michael Jordan wasn't the captain of the Bulls. It was Bill Cartwright. And that's the reason that they were able to do what they did. But anyways, he wrote another book, or I think he's writing a book about it, but he wrote an article about it. It was talking about Eisenhower.

Eisenhower doesn't want to be president. He's drafted, like sort of called to be president. And his point was that often the best leaders are people who don't want to be leaders. Like, it's not like they were like, no, give me the ball. Like, I deserve to be in charge. I'm better than all of you. It's more the person who's like quietly working on their own stuff

over here that everyone's senses is capable of more and could do a really good job. And the team kind of goes like, we need more from you. That's what we want to be. Oh, yeah, for sure. When we're all other 14 guys, look what you want to be. Oh, yeah, for sure. When all other 14 guys look at two,

like you're the guy we want that versus the guy that's loud in there, just to probably listen to that's what you want. Like you say, you want, though you want to be approval and respect everybody else before you take on that role. Yeah, there's a story about Marcus Relius as this young boy,

because he's not, his father is an emperor. He's chosen to be emperor. He's this young Katie has his potential. And so the emperor Hadrian selects Marcus, but he realizes that Marcus isn't ready. So he picks this other guy. So basically Hadrian adopts a man named Antoninus Pius, who in turn adopts Marcus really. So they set in motion this chain. But Marcus, when he's told like, hey, you're going to become emperor in the future,

he's like, I can't do it. I don't have what it takes. Like, it's impossible. And so that, to me, is that doubt that we all have. But then he has this dream, and in the dream, he, in the dream, he has shoulders made of ivory. And this is, this is the story is that, he realizes that he's stronger than he thought he was, right?

And I think that's the journey that we go on. Instead of being like, I'm perfect, I'm the best I deserve this. You almost want a go on. Instead of being like, I'm perfect, I'm the best, I deserve this. You almost want a little bit of that imposter syndrome, right? That little doubt. And then you prove it to yourself that actually you're more capable than you know. Absolutely.

Like you said, it's that imposter syndrome, but then you kind of keep that with you for the length of your leadership time, whatever it is. Like, you did that. I don't think that really goes away, especially especially those people that didn't want that role first, that feeling of, I worked on it quietly and no longer really noticed until then, that kind of sticks with you your whole time and probably the rest of your life, you know what I mean? I kind of like being underestimated too.

It's less scrutiny, less people hassling you. You get to be at the radar a little bit. Like when you meet people that are like really famous or really at the top of it, you're kind of like, oh, it's not as fun as I thought it would be. Oh no, no, no, no. You've met many famous people. I know a few.

If you ask them behind closed doors, what's they really like? They're like, I don't like it. I wish people would just leave me alone or I could just, but the super, super famous ones can't even go get to the grocery store or go to the movies. Like, that's, I do not envy that at all. No, you want, it's funny. You know that, and then then you're like, well, why am I doing this? And it's like, it's to get the thing that I don't want, right? Like, like, it's this get the thing that I don't want. Right? Like, it's

this contradiction. Like, you're like, I really like my privacy. And yet all the decisions I make are about trying to get more famous. Like, what is that? Yeah, literally. I love basketball. I want to play as long as possible. But each day passes, I get more and more, you know, noticeably, they book you right. You get more and more. Notice of what I was like, well, I love doing this, but this is the bad that comes with it. Well, no, I've said this about writing. Like one of the weird things as you become successful as a writer, people ask you to do a whole bunch of stuff that's not writing.

And you're just like, yes, yes, yes. And then you're like, where did all my time go? And it's like, you got the thing you wanted, which was punishment that deprives you of the thing you thought you wanted. Exactly. Same thing with the sweet, you get the sense we get drafted as well. We're just going to play basketball. No, we got to do a hundred of everything before we can even step off the court. That's like, well, this is kind of what I asked for. Yeah, exactly. It's like, uh, to the worst thing that can happen is you get everything you want. Yeah, and never very rarely is. But I could truly love the thing. You obviously will continue to do it.

You've, I think, a really good job of kind of keeping all that at bay. Like, obviously, you're very very successful, but it's not like you're over while you live in Texas. You live in, you know, I layered New York where it's like, that's all the time, that's the last every day. You kind of get to live in a quiet space. Yeah, that's always been a weird thing where like, whenever I'm in like a club or I'm at like a party or whatever, I'm like, this is horrible.

Why am I here anymore? And then you see people who are like way richer and more successful and you're like, why are you here? Like, listen to me here. You want to hear it. It's weird that things people like voluntarily choose. You don't want to be here. Everyone's asking the same question. Like, why are we doing for this two or three hours? It's late, like, I'm tired, but for some reason, I'm out at the super loud and there, a part of your club or whatever. And then everyone goes home and it's like, I want to be doing your

guests. If you watched the new, as seasons are, he's special on, on Netflix. That's really good. I was really cool. Yeah, there's this, he's talking about Frank Ocean. And he's like, he's talking Frank Ocean. He's like, man, you seem to just like make music, you put it out when you want. He's like, you're not always on tour, you're not doing endorsements, blah, blah, blah, blah.

How do you do it? And Frank Ocean apparently looks at him and goes, oh, you just gotta be comfortable making less money. Yeah. It was okay making less money. Yeah. It was okay more than that. Right. But it was like, oh, yeah, that's right.

Like the reason you do the stuff is because you think one because other people are doing it. But because it feels really hard to say no to things that people are offering you money to do, even if you don't want to do those things, or in a lot of cases for a lot of people, you don't need the money. So, but you're saying yes, because,

you look at some of these athletes, it's said you made $50 million last year, and then you're one off day, you're spending filming a commercial to make more money that you don't need. That's very crazy thing to think about. Like Frank Ocean probably definitely commands a lot of money if he wants to step outside and do any show or make a album or any feature, but he's like, no, I'm good. That's why I love guys.

Like, Hawaii's got, he's branched out a little bit, but it was a good three or four-year stretch where it was like, we don't know where this guy lives, we don't know what he drives, we don't know anything about on the sides from like, the team mandated like games and interviews. But he kind of lives like that too, like Frank Ocean, he stuffs up every now and then, and it's like this big thing, and it's like, oh my God, he's,

he's out of size. He's doing, I think he does have Frank Ocean NYC, maybe for the first time in like months or years, whatever it was, and I was like NYC maybe for the first time and like months or years whatever it was. And I was like, big thing for a couple days. Well, I, Robert Green, who I worked for, he's always been sort of my, I don't do it as well as him, and I do a lot more stuff than he does.

But he's always been kind of like the monk. You know, he's like, I just do this thing, and that's how I'm good at this thing. I don't do the distractions and quiet is kind of like that. Yeah, he's definitely to branch out a little bit. I've actually seen him in a couple commercials, new bounce commercials, but he just lives a very peaceful quiet life.

A lot of guys do, honestly, just see here about or see some guys always doing something like the one off day. But a lot of guys I think now, just the dialogue that's around privacy and all this, like guys are really, really just one piece as much as they can. Like some stuff you have to do,

but if you don't, I think a lot of guys find it to be like, and if I love it, really love them, I'm not gonna do it. love it, really love them, I'm not gonna do it. That's an attitude that can apply outside of sports, like for instance, with money. You're like, wow, this person has so much more money than me. And it's like, well, you did choose not to start a tech startup, right?

Like, or let's say you're a classical musician and then you look at some, you look at Adele's earnings or something. Well, you're like, she chose a different kind of artistic path than you. It's preposterous to think that you would earn that much or be that famous. So you have to figure out sort of what, what you're doing and then what the ceiling of what you're doing is and then not be like totally tuned out or indifferent to all of the question is like, are you maximizing your potential, earning potential, physical potential, artistic potential? And then if the answer is yes, then that's the end of it. You can't then go, but why don't I have what this person who

works on Wall Street has? Like you chose to get into public service. How did you not understand that there was a ceiling on the earning potential of X, Y, or Z? Yeah, yeah, that's an interesting comparison. And I think, like, one of my reasons or my why I'm in this sport and why I keep signing up for these really, really long races is that I want to see what's possible.

So physically and mentally, what are we capable of if we just keep chipping away at it? Like I call it my pain cave and I'm trying to make it bigger. So I'm hoping that this ceiling or back of my cave can be made bigger if I just keep on going into it and trying to do something a little bit harder or push a little farther than I've ever gone before. And then to keep looking for that, what is possible? Like what if our brains and our bodies can work together and we can train and put ourselves in these situations to just try? Like how far can we go or how fast can we do it?

So you want to know how far back the cave goes basically? Yeah, I want to keep exploring that cave and see how big it can get and what that means. Like as it gets bigger, what will that look like physically and mentally? And how do you know when you're in the cave? It's kind of like when you reach that feeling of like it's impossible to go another step, like I'm not sure how I'll keep moving forward, that's when I know I'm like really back in the back corners of the cave. So, okay, so the vast majority or a big chunk of a race,

you're not, you're, you haven't gotten to the cave yet. The cave is where you get, the cave is, you're entering the cave when you, when you start to butt up against your limits. And then you're like, nah, you know, you know what I mean? Where they're like, the first 50 reps don't matter. It's the 50 first rep that it's where the muscle is being made. Is that sort of how it is? Kind of, but I would say in these Romney and Racist, sometimes you're

shocked by a very early cave appearance, like just whatever happens with the day or the train or, you know, for some reason, you might hit the cave much, much sooner. Or maybe you just pushed really hard, really early, you know, and then found yourself at the entrance of the cave like, will you sooner than maybe you just pushed really hard, really early. And then found yourself at the entrance of the cave, like, will you sooner than maybe you should have? But then I don't think that necessarily means

you shy away from going in. I think that's when you dive in and keep working the cave in different spots. Maybe it's not the distance part of your cave where you're seeing what's new for, what's possible for a new distance, but maybe it's like the effort or how efficiently you could be pushing up this mountain

or whatever, like making it wider in some areas or tunneling different parts. And I'm really visual, so when it gets to be that state, when I'm running, I'll actually picture the cave and holding like a chisel and a hard hat and just like getting to work on making it bigger. Oh, so you when Matt to extend this metaphor to ridiculously, but so you don't even think about it as you're exploring the cave, you actually think, if you're saying you're holding a chisel, are you even, you're expanding the cave? Like you're, so it's more of a mine than a cave. And you're trying to go further deep into

the bedrock. Absolutely. And I think that's like the part where, you know, you think this is the limit of yourself. But if you went in the cave and just made it you think this is the limit of yourself. But if you went in the cave and just made it a little bigger, the limit suddenly is a little farther back. So, you know, in high school, 10 miles was like our long run and we would be knocked out for days after like so exhausted and so shocked that we had run 10 miles. And then as you keep going in, that distance, that number keeps growing and your ability to go deeper into the cave

gets a little bit bigger. My son is obsessed with these, and I've had him on the podcast too. My son is obsessed with this ghost town in California where the guy goes and he explores all these abandoned mines that were dug by hand or by pickaxx, like 100 years ago. It's right near Mount Whitney, so like a thousand feet over Death Valley. And anyways, so I've learned more than I would want to know about mining. But one of the things I thought was really interesting that sort of goes to this metaphor

you're talking about. So you know, you're tuddling, you know, you're chipping away. It's this giant rock face and you're just, you're digging this little tunnel, right? And you're going back and back. Do you know what a stope is? No. So a stope is your digging. And then suddenly, you reach a hollow place inside the rock.

So it can be like a massive pocket of space and land that you didn't have anything to do with making, but suddenly it's just there. And so I imagine. And a lot for you. Yeah, yeah. So I imagine it's kind of there. You're like chipping away at it. It's super slow going.

And then suddenly you're like, oh, you just had to get past all this stuff. And then there's this whole thing that you didn't even know was possible. But it's actually easier going for that little bit than you thought. And then suddenly you're back against a wall and you're chipping away again.

This is perfect. Because I think that is what it's like. You do reach those moments where it's like, yeah, you've gotten your cave bigger and it's a little less effort to keep then diving into that back part. I'm going to send you a picture of this one that he found. It's incredible. He's going through these tiny tunnels and then suddenly it looks like he's in the middle of like Penn station, just this enormous space, right? And you're just like, where did that

come from? And it just appeared. It's kind of incredible what's back there. That's awesome. And it's really cool that your kids obsessed with that. He's totally obsessed. It's his favorite thing in the whole world. That's awesome. I don't know if I want him exploring minds, but we can watch videos of it. Yeah. Well, so another sort of cave analogy here.

Do you know the allegory of Plato's cave? I'm not sure. So the Plato's cave is basically that we're all, this is a sort of an allegory about knowledge that we're trapped in this cave and it's dark in the cave. And then he says, basically, if you come to have understanding or insight as to what's going on in the cave,

like you get out and then you're able to see you know, sort of what's in there, he says you have an obligation to go back in the cave and explain to people what they're seeing, right? What's in here? What do you feel like you have learned inside the pain cave, not just about yourself, but about the limits of ourselves?

What do you feel like you've learned about pain or life in the cave that you, we need to understand. I think we've spoken about a lot of it. Like, some of the pain just being those, you know, little teaser warnings of, you know, trying to take the easy route out or choose a path that's much simpler or takes less energy to travel on. I think like the biggest one that I just keep being reminded of is how that cave is connected to our body and like for me for running,

it's physically connected, but your head space and your brain are definitely the drivers of that. And that connection is just like so interesting to keep on exploring and like finding myself in those situations where, I mean, I tried to really just notice, like, what am I thinking right now, and how is that, you know, domino effecting some things,

and then if I flip the script, what does that do when I just change a very simple thought in my brain? Does exploring the sort of, the pain cave as a runner has it changed how you approach pain or difficulty in your, let's call it your civilian life? I think where I can like most explicitly experience it

is still just running. I haven't been able to branch it and connect it to a lot of other things in my life, but I also currently feel like I'm investing just a lot of myself into exploring the running piece of it. And so I'm not sure that I've even like dove into any other parts of the cave, or if they're separate caves, I'm not sure. I mean, it still hasn't made like sitting in traffic easier. I haven't connected those two.

Well, to me, that's what the allegory of the cave is about obligating us to do, which is like, you're on this sort of frontier of like the human limits. And so if that knowledge only remains for you getting a little better at running, I mean obviously that's as fans, that helps us. But what I would hope is that you discover some things out there on the frontier that you can bring back to us that we can apply.

Just like, you know, we get all these inventions that came from exploring space, you know, have changed our basic understanding of, our basic technology here in life. I would love to know what we learn on those outer limits of the pain cave. Yeah, yeah. I ponder it a lot,

but I'll have to get back to you on some concrete things. Well, I hope you write a book about it someday. I think that would be, I think that would be a way to do it in the exhibition. Well, so what do you think of the argument? Cause I've seen a bunch of articles who are speculating on this with you. The idea that men or women have different,

sort of not paying thresholds, but that perhaps there's some, is sort of called it like a female advantage or edge. I guess the thinking was men should be, not should, but extrapolating how it works in other sports, men should be overwhelmingly dominant in the times, but then you're sort of like right up there, if not often beating it. Do you think that pain is an equalizer in that sense, or what do you think of the fascination there with the sort of male, female discussion?

It's pretty cool, and it's a great time to be in the sport right now, because there's tons of women trying to see what's possible and just more and more women getting into ultra running. So we have more information. But I haven't actually ever seen a legit study about it. So everyone I think is just hypothesizing what could be the reasons where the longer distances

seem to make it so many women are a little bit closer in ability. And I don't know. When I stand on a start line, I'm not thinking about muscle size or comparing my calves to the next person's calves. I'm trying to just think about what I can bring to this race to try and be my best version.

And maybe my muscles aren't as big as the person next to me, who maybe is a man, but maybe I can be a little more, like mentally tough, or maybe I can problem solve a little more efficiently, or things that I'm nothing to do with the fact that I'm a woman. So I think that ends up being a factor in those really long races, is the things that can help you keep moving

really strongly through two days of running aren't totally tied to being a male or a female. It also feels like people get really obsessed with lexers. Statistically, who's better at this or in a large group or even now we have these sort of political discussions about IQ or what gender is in this field or that field. And it strikes me at the end of the day, none of that changes the difficulty of what the individual is having to do that day, right?

So like, let's say it was statistically proven that women did better in these races. Like, it's still really fucking hard to run 200 miles. And nobody is getting a free pass. It's still just fucking hard. And it doesn't change that even in a head to head matchup of you and another person, if Moore comes down to how you both trained for that race, what injuries you have, what the weather's like, what random strokes of luck happen in the course of the race, and then at the end of the day, as you said,

like, who wants it more, and who doesn't quit? Yeah, but yeah, it's still 200 miles, and it's still a really long time of running. And that's why these races are also so special and build such a cool community, because the finish lines, everyone's just hanging out cheering for everyone who came in. You know, a person finishing a 200 mileer

at the time cutoff is, you know, that they were out there for five days covering those 200 miles. And that's the same 200 miles that the people in the front did. It's just as cool and it's just as huge of a accomplishment. And it creates this really awesome feeling of community at those finish lines because of that. Well, it's like statistically,

when Tom Brady is down 28 to 3 in the Super Bowl, you lose every time, right? Like statistically, you don't come back from that. But also statistics don't matter when the individual will and circumstances of a totally unique situation are in front. Like, there's almost like a lack of we focus on these statistics as if they kind of like, and as a result they kind of deprive us of agency. Like what ultimately matters is like,

what is the individual going to bring to bear on the situation in front of them? It is not a predetermined outcome. It like we decide what happens. Yeah, exactly. So predictions or things, you know, hypothesizing what might happen or what might not happen. And they don't matter.

You have to just bring it on that day in whatever that thing is that you're doing. Yeah, and we have what's so fascinating about your sport is that it's like, no other sport where it's just not quitting is 80% of it. You know what I mean? Every football game finishes, right? Because it's so at the extremes of the pain cave to use your metaphor that it's like, the person actually put that, do they push through or do they just stop? Yeah, that quitting is huge.

Well, I think about that as a writer too. It's like, look, I can't edit something that I don't create a draft of, right? So the first marathon is just getting to the end. It doesn't matter how ugly it is, how janky it is, how much work, you can't place an erase that you don't get to the finish line. The first qualifying event is just like not dying halfway through. Yeah, just survive it, get to that finish line,

and then you can usually look back and see, oh, here are the things I could try differently this time to try and get to the finish line better on the next attempt. I just reread American Buffalo, which I told you is one of my favorites. But even though I hadn't read it in probably 10 years, I think about a line in the book, like probably once a week. It's the scene you find this buffalo school and you pick it up and you start sort of asking yourself these questions

about like who shot it first, like who found it first. Like I think you have it, you're like, what did this person think about this? What time did they wake up in the morning? What did they think about God? I think about that question all the time. Whenever I come across something really old, like this building I'm talking to you

and it's like a hundred and something years old, I think about like the person that sat in this room before me and like what went through their head, what their understanding of the world was like. And that line in the book has always struck me as a very beautiful encapsulation of that idea. The book is always struck me as a very beautiful encapsulation of that idea. Yeah, I think it's particularly vexing around when you get back into deep enough into history. I spent a lot of time in that Buffalo book talking about the ISH hundreds.

And what the problem there is will never ever ever know. I mean, barring some like incredibly, just in barring some incredible scientific breakthrough that I can't even understand, it would like border into metaphysics, I don't think we're ever going to know. I don't think we're ever gonna know 10,000 years ago, 11,000 years ago, 12, whatever, what those people thought about anything. Yes. Like what they thought about anything, man. And even the stuff that they left behind carvings and things.

Yes, you just never know. I was reading recently about a, there was a mammoth hunting culture in Siberia. They found these two children that were buried with 500 beads made of mammoth tusk ivory. Why? Right. Sure. of Tosca ivory. Why, right? Sure. There's no one there. That's good. But don't you think when you do an activity that

is somewhat timeless, it's the closest you get to that, for instance, in the Havillina video, which I have probably watched 30 times now, because it's the favorite one for some reason. Even though where we live, there's boars, like wild boars. So you'd think he'd be into those hunts, but he likes the Havillina one. We've never seen a Havillina out in central Texas. But you're like looking for shelter in that video

and you just stumble across cave paintings in this like little cave by someone who almost certainly was doing the exact same thing that you were doing. So you don't really know what they think, but it couldn't have been that different than what you're doing, which is like walking around looking for an animal to kill. Yeah, I think so, man. I think that you're bound, like one thing that binds hunters over time, One thing that binds hunters over time, at least the really dedicated ones, is with notable exceptions, is what binds them is a real reverence for animals, a deep desire to understand animals.

But, man, growing up, coming from a theist culture, right, and having that upbringing, it's so hard to understand animism. The way people used to imagine that all these animate and inanimate objects had some sort of desires and individuality. Do you know what I mean? It's like you feel like you feel a connection to it because the discipline is so similar. The animals are unchanged. They haven't gone through a cognitive revolution. The animals are unchanged. There are sensory perceptions are unchanged.

There are habits that are largely unchanged. So you're engaging with something that that half of the equation is unchanged, right? In a big part of like the big part of the big portion of the human equations unchanged too, like the things you need to do, right? The physicality of it, like that's unchanged, but the spiritual component, whatever that was, man, I marvel about it, you know?

You know, for some reason, it feels good to think that maybe you, maybe you can approach that level of understanding that people might have had for their environment, but then this might be strained a little too far away what you're asking but I spent time with Amarindians in South America hunting with people who uh hunting with people who hunt 200 hunt fish 250 days a year within a 50 mile radius of not only their home but their father's home grandfathers home great grandfathers, and the level of understanding they have for their environment far exceeds anything you will achieve living in the United States of America.

You're looking at that. You're looking at the world. You're looking at the world. You're looking at the world. It's sort of like looking at the stars. You feel both like really small and really big at the same time, right? I think when you think about like the past, you get these moments of connection

to this unbroken chain of human beings and at the same time feel totally removed from whatever their conception of the world and the tradition that they came from at the same time. Yeah, and one of the beauties of hunting is that it's a continuum. However you define the beginning of history, it's been going on uninterrupted for that long. Yes.

Right? With only a handful of other things. Yeah, and if you're in a handful of activities. Yeah, if you're into like stand up paddle boarding, you cannot say the same thing about stand up paddle boarding. It's like, you're like, it's a new thing that someone recently thought up, but hunting is like, it's pardon me,

but it's more legitimate. You know, I was thinking about that recently, I was telling someone, you know who Dusty Baker is, like the baseball player and the manager manages the, the Astros right now? No, do you know what's the play it on sports? I got some friends at play, special sports, and I know about them. Well, so he's like, he's like 80, he's the manager of the Astros right now. He was a great baseball player for the A's.

Oh, and he's still a manager, he, that's good. Yeah, yeah, but this baseball player for the A's. Oh, and he still a manager, he, that's good. Yeah, yeah, but this, this will blow your mind. He got the first high five. Is that right? Like, yeah, like one of his teammates has had a beginning. Yeah, in the 70s, like in the, in the late, so like, yeah, some of these things we think are so old,

are really super new, but you're just like that guy, his team, it was coming in from a home run. He had his hand up in the air. And so Dusty Baker like put his hand up in the air and then boom. And then this thing that we think is that you bake with his part of like human culture and connection.

Like this one guy was there when it happened. So yeah, like we think that we will never get that kind of connection deeper further back. And it's weird how ancient and then also recent like culture is. Let me do this so far, Australia. I get you taking interest in that, based on what I tell you thing. I heard a linguist talking about this linguist was explaining their work to someone and they were saying how they were giving a for instance of the kind of thing they're interested in and they were talking about a waitress or waiter saying are you still working on that?

Yeah there was a time when no one had said that. And then somehow, right, in the 70s, people were not saying, are you still working on that? But somehow it like, right? He's like, this lingua was saying, where did that begin? And how did it do what it did? But isn't that actually not that far afraid? Because that's what memes are, right? Right now we think of memes as funny graphics that spread on the internet, but memes in the

Richard Dawkins sense are ideas that spread. Someone comes up with an idea and then people copy it. You think about all these techniques in hunting that at one point did not exist. Were tools that did not exist. And then someone was like, hey, if you do it this way, it's much better. And then because it actually is better,

it beats out the old way of doing things. And that could have happened over five years. It could have happened over 5,000 years. Right. And we can only guess at it from the archaeological history, but like, all these things were invented by ingenious humans at some point. And now monkeys are picking up on some of them, which is also terrifying. In my lifetime, I have seen things that are now like dominant, sort of the dominant hunting practices. I have seen them emerge strategies that have become like adopted by a large margin of people who are really into a certain discipline. And I always wonder like, but did they really, do you know what I mean?

It has to be that you're coming back around and rethinking of something. You know, that's probably true. Yeah, that's probably true. You know, I was thinking about this. I went to Budapest right before the pandemic. And I sort of knew vaguely that Marcus really said written chunks of meditations there. And so I'm sort of walking around and going this

old Roman camp, you're walking around. And then there's a hot springs that you can sit in. There's a cool one in Big Ben too that we were just at. But you're sitting in this hot springs and you know, the hot, the cold, the hot and the cold. And you're like, oh, man, this is also something human beings have been doing for thousands of years. Like from the same geothermal, like freakish occurrence, hot water's coming up and people are like, life is dusty and disgusting and it feels good to go from hot to cold.

And that like whatever the feeling experience I'm having right now, the most powerful person in the world had in this spot 2,000 years ago, that's fucking weird. That's good, that's good. You know, Marcus Aurelis was talks in meditations a handful of time about hunting boars, and they think he was a hunter that he hunted with the Emperor Hadrian, who was himself a pretty big hunter. I think about that what I've read is that,

like as a young man, they hunted together and that this was partly where Hadrian gets the sense that Marcus Aurelius might have what it takes to be emperor. Because Marx Aurelius's not Hadrian's son. He's adopted, so five emperors in a row adopt a male heir to become emperor. And so what does he see in this young boy? I've always wondered if it was something while they were hunting because hunting, the Romans hunted them on horses with spears.

And then they had slaves carrying nets also. And I just think about how terrifying and stressful, like hunting boars with a rifle is not the least scary thing in the world. I can only imagine chasing them on a horse with a spear and what you would learn about someone watching how they do that. Yeah, you'd learn a lot about the horse too. That's right. Yeah, you'd learn a lot about the horse too. That's right. Well, so one of the people might think it's weird that I have my five-year-old watch videos of somebody hunting.

And it came because he likes watching these videos, a friend of mine lives in this ghost town in California, and he makes videos about like going into the mines and doing stuff. And YouTube was like, you might like this other video. And I was like, Clark, I know this person, we should watch this one. And that's how you got into them. But weirdly, why I think the Netflix show and the YouTube episodes are so good

is that ostensibly you're hunting an animal. But really, each episode is you going on a journey. You're trying to figure something out, you're trying to do something hard, and then you put in all the work, and then you may or may not get rewarded by the end of the episode. Right? And to me, though, the main lesson that I talked to him about over and over again is actually the episodes where you don't get the animal, either because you did something wrong, which

occasionally happens. But to me, I'm most interested because I'm just working now on this book about temperance or self-discipline. I'm always amazed at the episodes where you have a shot, but it's not quite the shot you want and then you choose not to take it. Or like you have two minutes of daylight,

like legal daylight left. And then you go, no one would actually see if I waited five minutes longer, but I'm interested in that element of your hunting persona. Because it seems like a very cultivated part of who you are. And you talk about it in the outdoor book and you talk about it in the outdoor book, and you talk about it in the American Buffalo book that like the sort of rules that a hunter enforces on themselves are kind of the most important thing. One of the people we regard is sort of one of the fathers of modern wildlife conservation.

And also in some ways a person who's deeply influential to me though, he, you know, we never crossed paths. He's got name Aldo Leopold, who his most famous work is San County Almanac, right, which was basically a collection of things that he'd written during the sort of dark ages of American wildlife, which was around the 1920s. He had once said that ethics is doing the right thing when no one's watching. For me, it was that trying to, like, as hard as you can adhere to the law and adhere to ethics was not that was learned behavior. We took a lot of liberties when we were young, man. You just mentioned like legal shooting light, you know. When we were in high school, we would go in and hunt wood ducks and apply us where the wood ducks didn't start coming into this

pond until I after legal light, you know. And we'd done it anyway and I really even give it any thought and it was funny because that I had been brought up that way. Like I had been brought up where people I grew up around. My dad was a World War II veteran. He had me very old when he was old. He hung out with World War II veterans. So these are patriotic people who made tremendous sacrifices for their country, right? But they had a very strange relationship, a very selective understanding of what laws were for and what they were meant to do. They were interested in the spirit of the law. They were more interested in capturing what kind of what the law was getting at, rather

than all these intricate components of it. And you can't tell me what to do kind of thing. Sure, and it was like, if you tell me I'm allowed a dear, I accept that. I'm allowed a dear. Don't tell me like how to get it and when to get it. Right? So that's like really, or I'm allowed to catch X number of fish. I'm not allowed to sell them, but how is that your business? Like I accept that I'm allowed 50 per today, fine. But don't tell me I can't sell them. It's like looking back on it's like

so hard to understand the mentality, you know. But over the years, over the years, I became for a variety of reasons, man. I understand why the game laws are there. I have faith in and accept how they're arrived at, okay? Like I understand the system and I understand what it's going for. Even things that strike me is like not a good idea or came about in ways that the laws

that are now largely feel obsolete to me. I do it because it's doing so is you stepping forward and saying I accept this program I accept this this mission that we're on and I'll give blind allegiance to it because I agree with like the principle of the whole thing right and until that's if something were to happen in the future Where I would lose that sense, and I could see this being a thing that happened,

depending on social, political things, that I could see all of a sudden feeling like I was thrust into, you know, forced into being an outlaw, right? Yeah. If hunting all of a sudden became, because of cultural, social stuff like hunting became categorically illegal, but I still felt that the wildlife management aspect,

that wildlife populations were sustainable and all that, I would have, we'd be having a very different conversation right now. Well, I probably wouldn't talk to anybody? I'd probably be very, very quiet. But right now in America, we have a, we have this good sound. I guess I'm an American. I am an American exceptionalist. We have the best system in the world for managing wildlife. And I support it. And when you're filming things and distributing media, I think you have on top of that even a higher obligation to demonstrate a certain behavior. here. Hey, it's Ryan.

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