The Daily Stoic - Why Grit Isn’t Enough | Angela Duckworth

Episode Date: October 17, 2026

You’d expect the psychologist behind the bestselling book Grit to tell you to try harder, but Angela Duckworth knows why that isn’t always the answer. In today’s episode, the University of Pennsylvania professor and MacArthur Fellow joins Ryan to discuss her new book, Situated, why certain people and places bring out our best, what she misunderstood about her own marriage, how we give away control of our attention, why our worst moments don’t tell the whole story, and more.Angela Duckworth is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and co-director of the Penn-Wharton Behavior Change for Good Initiative. A former public school teacher and 2013 MacArthur Fellow, she studies what helps people achieve their goals. Her TED talk is among the most viewed of all time. Pick up signed copies of Angela’s new book, Situated: Find the People and Places That Bring Out Your Best, and her bestselling book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perserverance at The Painted Porch | https://www.thepaintedporch.com/Learn more about Angela Duckworth's new book here: https://www.angeladuckworth.com/situatedAngela Duckworth’s Website: https://www.angeladuckworth.com/Follow Angela on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/angelalduckworth/The new 10th Anniversary Edition of The Daily Stoic is out NOW! 👉 Grab your copy here: https://store.dailystoic.com/pages/the-daily-stoic-10🎟️ DAILY STOIC LIVE | Ryan Holiday is coming to a city near you! Grab tickets here | https://www.dailystoiclive.com/🎙️ AD-FREE | Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing to The Daily Stoic Premium - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content: https://dailystoic.supercast.com/✉️ FREE STOIC WISDOM | Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail--Stop online threats before they become real-world attacks. Visit ironwall.com/DAILYSTOIC and request a free Risk Assessment to see exactly how exposed your executives are. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you understand what grit is, you might think that a proponent of grit would tell you that the secret to success in life, the secret to succeeding, is to just try harder, to push beyond your limits, to do more. And I think sometimes people expect that to be my advice, too, that it's all about effort, that it's all about sort of reaching within you and pulling out what you need in a given moment. But that's not how life is. That's not how it is in practice. And I think anyone that's done anything or that has any shred of self-awareness knows that this isn't true. Right? In some moments, we're exactly what we need to be. And in other moments, we fall short.

Why is that? What's the cause? I mean, it could be as simple as forgetting to eat breakfast or not getting enough sleep the night before or just having the wrong attitude about something. I guess what I'm saying is that virtue, greatness, success. So often, it is situational, which is the concept of Angela Duckworth's new book. If you read Grit, great, it's a great book. I think this new book is just as important.

And it's really, really interesting. It's called Situated. The subtitle is Find the People and Places that Bring Out Your Best. I'm a huge fan of Angela Duckworth's book. She's been on the podcast once before she came here right when we opened the Daily Stoke studio. I was very excited to have her back. And we had an amazing conversation. You know, Grit is not a thing you're born with or not born with that you have or don't have.

That is all or nothing. It is so much more complicated than that. And I think, as a result, so much more interesting than that. Angela Duckworth is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She's the co-director of the Penn Wharton Behavior Change for Good Initiative. She's also a 2013 MacArthur fellow. Her TED Talk is one of the most viewed of all time. She's entertaining. She's brilliant. And I think her work is really, really important. Funny enough, the day after she was here in the studio, she was giving a talk in San Francisco with Steve Kerr, the coach of the Golden State Warriors, and my sister attended. So we'll call this a little bit of a family affair. You can pick up signed copies of Angela's new book, situated, find the people in places that bring out your best, as well as signed copies of grit here at the painted porch. Of course, they are also available anywhere. Books are sold. Let's get into it.

it. So I was driving to pick up my kids from school the other day and Pete Carroll called me. What? Yeah, which I was like, why is happening right now? You PFS with him. No, I was like, how did you get this number? You know, like, in a good way. But I was just like, a total surprise. Yeah, actually, how did he get there? Wait, has he been on the show? No, I think. So I spoke to the team like many, many years ago. You went to go talk to the Seahawks. Yeah, like in maybe 2015 or something. And so maybe he got it. Maybe he got it there and just never. We'd never communicate. communicated in any way other than that. Why did you call you? He was working on, he's teaching this class at USC and he was going to ask me something. But you came up like in the first like five seconds,

which I thought was funny because you're here. He's like, I know Angela Duckworth says you can't teach grit. Did he say that? I was like, I don't, I don't know if that's what she said. I don't think that's the thing. Wait, is he still saying that? I feel like this is our like, we've got like some like Laurel and Hardy kind of like thing. He knows I don't. Well, anyway, that's a it's like, I think it's not a good, it's not a well-phrased question, actually. I think the answer is less like complicated than the question. I was going to put it to you. You can, right?

I mean, that's one of the ideas in the book is that it's something you can cultivate, right? I think almost every feature of human nature is cultivatable slash malleable, right? And then, which are not the same thing because some things might be malleable, but you have no agency to cultivate it, right? But I do think that you can cultivate it. You can encourage or discourage. I mean, do you agree? Like humility, sociability, charisma, wisdom. I mean, you know, these are malleable.

I think they're malleable and cultivatable. Yeah. And I can get why as a coach, he would have a visceral reaction to any implication that these things can't be taught because, like, his job is to teach and get these things out. Literally, I think this is it. So at the end of my TED talk, I said, I think accurately, we don't yet know how to encourage grit in young people. Yeah.

And I think I tried to do something. like too cute by half. It's like, and we have to be gritty about like figuring that out. Okay, cut to black, right? Like that was like, you know, a six-minute TED talk. And I think he saw that because I think he saw that and that's what made him reach out to me now more than 10 years ago. But we have had so many interactions, including him coming to my class. So Pete should know that when I teach a class called grit lab to undergraduates, the implicit message is like, of course you can cultivate it.

I think you can cultivate it. It's funny because actually athletic performance is probably a good example where, like, different people are born with different amounts of abilities. Certainly, you can waste that ability and not cultivate it, even if you have the necessary ingredients. And then other people can, on paper, shouldn't be able to do the thing at an elite level at all and find a way to do it. And find a way. Okay. But then let's go beyond sports, right? Because, like, human nature, right? Nature and nurture, like, what does? I was going to say, I was going to say, say 50 years, maybe more of behavioral genetics tell us. So like, I have my DNA from my biological mother and my biological father. And it is true that I cannot change that DNA. So let's call that fixed,

right? And let's leave epigenetics side because obviously the expression of your DNA does have some influence from the environment. But we know from all of those years, all the twin studies, that every characteristic that has ever been studied, in addition to the DNA influence, has environmental influence. So, like, right there, it should tell you that extroversion, religiosity, grit, and everything else about you, including hype, by the way, like has an environmental input. And, you know, that's the part that, like, I feel maybe somehow, like, is hard to communicate, like the nuance that it's that it's both and that the more interesting, I think the more interesting conversation is like assuming that you can change these things to some degree,

like, how does that happen, right? And like how stable it. And also, you know, how much of it is just like you're in a particular situation and your grit is encouraged versus like you are actually literally grittier over time. Like Ryan in 2026 compared to Ryan in 2021 versus like, oh, Ryan's just in this situation and he's, he's being passionate and person. persevering, but in that other situation, he's not. I think they're, by the way, both true. Like, this is the level of nuance, by the way, Ryan, I think it's very hard in this, like, media environment, for lack of better word, to, like, get anybody think about something for, like, more than a sentence. But, like, you know, grit isn't fixed as, like, one sentence. But, like, I think there are more sentences. Well, that is, I think, some of the problems with, yeah, the sort of short form video culture and then also the AI, just give me a summary or give me the argument. It's like, if I thought this thing could be captured in. in five paragraphs. I would not have written an entire book.

Now, there are certainly people who are writing books because they gave a TED talk and then someone gave them a book contract. And they're taking an idea that doesn't have any nuance and just inflating it. Like taking a tire pump to it. But most of the time, actually with a book, what they're doing is having to explore this thing at length. Right. Because length is the only place that it can be explored and explained. People forget books are a technology, right?

Like a technology is the application of knowledge to solve a problem. Right? So like tables are a technology, forks and knives are technology, light bulbs are a technology, AI is a technology. But books are technology. And I, okay, so after I wrote grit, I first was disappointed that I didn't think the goal, which was to share something about the nature of human excellence. You know, I was disappointed, candidly, that I was like, oh, this didn't change as many lives as I thought. So then for a good, for a good five years, I cast about for a different way, like a different technology. I was like, maybe I should create a class. Maybe I should create a video class. And I came around to the idea that the technology of the book is maybe not the only technology. But the reason I think we still have books is that this particular human innovation is a fantastic way to explore an idea with depth, but also, like, you don't have to spend your whole lifetime with the author, right? You're not like, okay, I'm so interested in Stoicism.

I'm going to study into that person. I'm going to study into that person. I'm not going to do anything else. But a book is, like, an incredibly efficient medium for the author to explore an idea and to present it to you in a way, I hope that's provided. And then also for the reader. And I think that's why, like, books out. Yeah.

I think it's, I think the second part is actually as important. So the author has 50,000 to, 100,000 or, you know, in the case of a big biography, 500,000 words to explore the topic. Yeah. But it's actually the other side of spending not 20 minutes with an idea, but 10 or 15 or 20 hours with an idea, not consecutively that is the value, right? Because very rarely does someone sit down and read a book from cover to cover? You're reading it on this airplane flight and then you're reading it before bed and then you're

reading it at the beach and then you're discussing it in your book club or whatever it is, right? It's that you, the author, spent thousands of hours with an idea. And it was just still down into this thing. And then that person paid for it and then paid for it again with many hours of their time. And also not in one sitting. The time in between where it's just dating and they're reflecting on and thinking about it. And then ideally there's some other use after where you're discussing it or you're writing about it or you're taking notes from it or whatever. But I think it is, it's not just a great technology, but your point is that books are a very under-celebrated form of technology that have lasted four thousands of years for the reason.

It has evolved from little scrolls that you rolled up to this, which is maybe the best form of it, to an e-book and audiobook. But all of these are the fundamental same technological idea that's lasted for a reason. So last night I had dinner with Bob Bowman, who I know you know, because Austinite, is that a term? Like he's an Austinite. He was telling me about the power of now by Eckhart Toll, which I was like, I started that book. He's like, did you hate it?

And I was like, I definitely did not hate it. I can't remember finishing it. But anyway, so he tells me he's read it not once, but I think in his estimate 10 to 12 times, right? And right, not at all in one sitting and over years, right? And he told me about like the context of like why he read it the first time and like why it was so important. He remembered and like has internalized and continues to masticate over the thesis of it, right? Like now is real.

The future is not. The past isn't. But now is now. Anyway, the idea that a book, I mean, you know, again, I cast about for alternative technologies, right? And I personally haven't found one. And I think you're right to point out it's not only a miraculous technology for the author. Like, it's a great medium for you to actually think through and write down, but also, you know, writing is thinking and thinking is writing. But also on the reader side, right?

Like, it's a marvelous, you know. It's portable. It's storageable. It goes on the shelf after. You can come back to it. You can mark what it. The tactics of it, right? Like, you know, the like, and also paper's a goddamn good technology, right?

Like, paper's great. Like, it's flexible. Like, you know what I mean? Like you can fold it. What are you? Like, so anyway, I, in praise of books. So it's great that we're, yeah. Two books in the bookstore.

which, by the way, another technology that goes back for a very long time. Yes, bookstores. You go, well, can't the algorithm just automatically select for you? It's like, no, actually the browsing and the covers and the experience, all of this. Stoicism starts in a bookstore. I don't know if you know this story. No, no, no.

Tell me the origin. So the founder of Stoicism, he's guys, you know, he visits the temple of Apollo at Delphi in Greece. And the prophecy from the priestess says, you know, the good life is having conversations with the dead. He has no idea what this means. So many years later, he's in Athens. Conversations with the dead. Okay, I'm following it. Yeah.

At a book cell, he walks past a stand. Because, again, you need less space when they're little scrolls. He's at this bookstand in the Athenian Agora, bookseller, cart maybe. And the bookseller is reading, I don't know if it's sideways or this way, but he's reading something from Xenophon's story of Socrates, Hercules at the Crossroads. It's famous story between. Okay. Story of Socrates, but obviously not written by that.

It's a story. that Socrates tells us via Xenophon about Hercules coming to this crossroads and he has to pick the easy way or the hard way. And Socrates is dead. And this is when Zeno realizes that that's what conversations with the dead are. The books are a way to talk with the past. And so the prophecy makes sense. So it's at this bookseller that he has his epitominee. So that's why the bookstore is called the painted porch. Is that why it's called the painted porch? Like literally? He sets up shop at the Stoa Pocila in Athens across the city. street from this book stand, which was a famous, it was called, it was a, like a long porch

that had a famous painting on it. So it's called the painted porch. Oh, got it. So I read this book called The Great Good Place. Did you read this? You didn't read The Great Good Place? I remember actually buying it, it had a green cover and orange font. It was a no fancy, like, somebody made it in Microsoft Word or something. And it was one, remember those like bookstores where you'd be like a dollar a book kind of thing? So I bought it and it was worth more than a dollar. It talked about third places. So, like, there's, you know, your workplace. There's also your home.

But a third place is this, like, kind of it's, it's not as private as your home. It's maybe not as public as, you know, something like, you know, the court system. But you're in a coffee shop. You're in a park. Basically, these third places is where people gather. And it has some level of intimacy, but also you're in society. And bookstores are a third place. Yes.

Coffee shops are a third place, you know, in certain cultures like tea houses are a third place. And basically, you were saying like how important these physical spaces are to like the functioning of a society, to our everyday well-being, to our like growth and enlightenment. So I read the book. It was really good, by the way. I recommend it. It's probably not in print. But yeah, I mean, you know, obviously I've been thinking a lot about the situation. But I think sometimes these trivial details like, are you holding a physical book? Do you prefer like, what are you holding? Like, where are you? I mean, that, that is what occupied me since writing the first book grit, which is, you know, like, I think complimentary to this idea that the situation matters. But anyway, in print of bookstores. I'm so glad you said this because I have thought about this a long time, that it is, it's the, maybe the primary form of technology. Like, it's, it's, the technology that so much of civilization is based on. The analogy I sometimes give is like, you know, like when you watch like futuristic movies, they're always like, like, the doors are always like, or, you know, like, it's like some super complicated technology for the door.

Yes, yes. And then here we are living in the future. And it's like doors are just doors with a door handle and a physical key. Like, I have a keypad for my house and it's a giant pain in the ass. And like, most of the time. The batteries are all going down. Yeah. You're just like, oh, the door. Just like a door as a door has always been with hinges and a knob and a key.

It's obviously gotten a little bit better over time. But it's still the same fundamental technology. Because at some level, it just does the job. about as good as you need the job to be done, and everything else is kind of like fiddling at the margins. So, okay, all that said, right, there is a lot that is changing. I mean, like, one reason I persisted in writing this book,

which was hell, is that I felt like, I don't think we're in a great situation. Like, I know that there's some perennial things or like, oh, we still have bookstores and we still have books and, like, look, we have doors and, like, tables and forks. By the way, I read a whole book on the history of the fork. It's another great technology.

Because didn't we used to just use knives for everything? And it was violent. Somebody was like, away, but you know, it keeps things. The fork is a great technology, right? And it's better than chopsticks, I'll say. As somebody who's been raised with chopsticks, I have to agree. Although I think if you're really good at chopsticks, like, my mom can, like, pick up a raw chicken with a pair of chopsticks. So it has its advantages.

But I don't think we're in a great situation. Like, I don't think the world is the same as it was 10 or 20 years ago. Sure. And so I want to say, like, yeah, like a lot of things that have persisted are great. And some of the things that are changing are not great. Of course. Well, do you know the analogy, like Chesterton's fence? Do you know this?

No, I don't even know who Chesterton. Like, GK. G.K. Okay. G.K. I don't know. Two initials. He's one of those people that, you see him as quotes, but nobody actually reads

anymore. Exactly. Who was he? Except for like conservatives. He's very popular with religious conservatives. Okay. Like the thinking ones. But anyways, there's this, and this is a metaphor that they love.

It's called the Chestertonian fence. Okay. The idea is like, okay, you walk into a field and there's a fence. And a liberal or progressive or somebody who loves change in the future goes, what does this fence here for, tear it down? Yeah. And then a conservative goes, no, no, let's find out what this fence is for. Maybe it's for a reason. Yeah, maybe we should keep it the way it was.

Yes. And there's this idea that traditions are solutions to problems we forgot about. And I think that is a similar thing with books. Or norms are a great example of this where you're like, you don't remember why we do it this way, but we do it this way because it's bad. It was a solution. Yes. And there's so many underlying technologies that we take for granted because we don't think about them as technology. Like freedom of religion or the separation of church and state is a technology that was designed not just because it's morally correct, but because we kept murdering each other over distinctions that don't fucking matter.

Right. And it was impossible to have a society where people saying, my God is better than your God and my God wants me to kill you. And we're the ones that are in control of the church. This was a technology invented, by the way, basically in the United States by, I'm forgetting his name, whoever is the founder of Rhode Island. He was because we think about the pilgrims coming to America fleeing religious persecution, which they did to a degree. I remember this from seventh grade social studies. But it was to set up a religious hegemony of their own, right? It was not in the spirit of tolerance then. It was just like we're trying to escape. It was you are not being tolerant of us. Yeah. But basically, like, we have the correct religion and we should be dominant. Like, they wanted to come here and enact of their own religious tyranny over their people.

And if you lead about the original colonies, like, it wasn't fun to be on the wrong side of that thing. There was all these insane punishments. and they were super micromanaging everyone's life. But it was, and again, I'm forgetting his name, maybe Roger Brown. The guy who wrote that book, The Great Influenza, whose name I'm also forgetting, we're an incredible book about this specific founder who we don't. He's like, no, no, no, you can believe whatever you want here in Rhode Island. And that was like a, that was had some basis in English law,

but that was the technology that actually allows America to escape this sort of trap of sectarian violence. And it allows the energy to go like, hey, you manage your own interior spiritual and religious life, the state is about creating a functional society and the technology of government, not like religious control and about the celebration of God. And so, again, that's a technology. Like, we kept murdering each other. Like, the idea that, like, the police can't arrest and stop you without due process is obviously a moral inalienable right, but it's also a technology that allows innocent people not to be harassed by the state.

And it has another great example, and there's a whole play about this in the ancient Greek world, like the technology of a jury of impartial people deciding a case. Right. There's this famous cycle of plays about, it goes back to the Trojan War. You have a great Odysseus during the book. But like, basically. We could talk about Odysseus all day long, by the way. Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter to win the war.

and then he comes home, and then his wife and her lover kill him, and then their son kills her, and then he escapes, and he finds refuge at the temple of Apollo, and Athena, he's chased by the furies, because you're not allowed to kill your mother, he's chased by these angry sort of gods.

Anyways, the final play in the trilogy, Arestia, again, I don't know how to pronounce these things, but the final technology in the play is like, they're like, let's have a jury of 12, 12 people decide, you know, whether he's like, I killed her. It was just. And the gods are like, no, you can't do this. Anyways, they have this trial. And this trial finds that he was in his rights to do this. And this stops the cycle of violence because now he doesn't have to be killed. And so again, it's like, oh, we have this problem, which is like, you do this and then I have to do this. And then

your kid has to do this. And then we can't have a society. And so someone was like, okay, what do we do? And we invent these things. And then, you know, now people will talk vaguely about the rule of law or whatever, but it's like we invented these things because they were addressing a problem that was holding society back from flourishing. Okay. So this may or may not be the right characterization of Ryan Holiday, but like if you are a modern-day Stoic, how do you think about, and you know, I think from our previous conversation, if you recall, like I don't know a lot about Stoicism and not true. trained as a philosopher, and I don't read philosophy for fun. So I probably have a, you know, like, two-dimensional cartoon version of Stoicism. But when I wrote this book about the situation, which includes like

modern day technologies, age-old technologies, you know, judicial system, freedom of speech, like, the situation is everything, you know? It's like this wooden table and this microphone and, you know, my bottle of water over here, but it's also like, I'm sitting across from Ryan. Like, it's also, I'm living in a particular culture. Norms do or don't exist. the norms that exist are part of my situation. When I think about stoicism, I think, perhaps wrongly, about like what you can do to change what's inside you, right? Like your reaction to the situation, your response to the situation, but not the situation itself. So do you agree with my thesis that agency extends to the outside world and that we do have agency over the situation? And what

would the Stoics say about this? Oh, I totally agree with the premise. I, think it all comes, you're saying I'm Stowe. Are you? I would say it all comes down to the situation, right? Like, it comes down to this, it comes down to the situation. And by that I mean, have I set myself up to be the person that I want to be in this situation? Does the Stoach believe in that, though? So maybe, maybe like educate me, right?

Because like I think the sort of like cookie, you know, the fortune cookie, like, right, the one-liner version of Stoicism, which hopefully we have like, you know, more patience to like, you know, get to like two or three lines. But, like, isn't it sort of like, oh, I mean, that's what people say, right? Like, to be stoic is to not complain about the situation, not to worry about whether you're set up and, in fact, to make the best. Well, I just think, like, okay, there's this famous passage in Mark's true. He talks about waking up early in the morning. And he's like, but it's warmer under the covers. Do I want to get up? Why should it, right?

It's like the debate that everyone has every morning. Yes. And, yeah, to a certain degree, it's like, hey, you got to get your ass out of bed. Do you have the willpower to get your ass out of bed? But I think you don't have to be a genius to... Is that what happens at the end of his meditation on that? He's like, and then you have to get out of bed. He's basically like, look, you have a job to do.

People are depending on you. This is important. He's like, like animals can do it. You can't do it. But I think if you zoom out a little bit and you go, okay, but what time did you go to bed last night? Right. And so look, at a certain point, and I think a pro is able to do what they need to do, not perfectly, but regardless of the situation,

but then there's another element of being a pro that is like, I'm going to set myself up to bring my best self to this situation. So I think it's both. And the idea, like the Stoics are talking about this 2,000 years ago with in some ways, like an almost unbelievable understanding of behavioral psychology, but it's intuitive. And the idea that we wouldn't have added to our store of knowledge about this and realize that, hey,

it actually does come down to, decisions you made before this decision. And they would be on board with that, right? I think so, of course. And they couldn't not be, right, because they were too wise, right? Like, it's sort of like any observer. So have you ever read the William James? I've read much more of William James than the Stoics.

But he also writes about getting out of bed on a cold morning. And the way his little passage ends is that you do something other than will yourself, right? So I would call that like box three. If you gave me like the three box model, I'm like, okay, box three is your response. It's box two or your thoughts. Box one is the situation. What William James said is that, like, instead of just willing yourself, like, get out of bed. In box two, you could think about what you were going to get done that day. He's like, once you start thinking about the things that you need to get done that day, you will want to get out of bed, right? So change your thoughts to change your response, right? You don't have to like just force yourself. And I think to me, I mean, Ryan, I'm not exaggerating when I say that I really wrote a book about this, which it was. 10,000 times word right than grit. And the only reason, the major reason I persisted, probably I persisted in part because I'm gritty, but a major reason is like, I don't think there are a lot of books that tell you like, okay, but before you rethink, you know, your, like, why don't you just

change the situation? Like, yeah, what time do you go to bed? Or, you know, so many people who studied, like, it's very intentional how they've decorated the space of what's within three feet of them. And like, yet the first thing they see when they wake up is, for example, I mean, people will find this a turnoff, but like a goal sheet, you know what I mean? Or like a quote. And to me, like that's changing box one, your situation. If you change box one, your situation, that will change box to your thoughts and then box through your response. When Bob Bowman wants to change his box two thoughts to be about the present and not about the future and not about the past, he could say, well, I'll just think that the present is now, you know, the power of now. He could also just

have a hard copy of the power of now on his desk so that, like, he could just pick it up or just, you know, that his eyes will light on it. So, like, to me, I'm kind of, like, shocked that there aren't, like, a thousand books on the situation, but I haven't found them. No, I think to me, it all comes back down to this thing that Aristotle said. It kind of just explains everything. So he said, like, it's wrong to think of the virtues as, like, a thing you have or don't have. He said it's like a thing you do or don't do.

And then so he believed everything was trainable. So it's in the action. It's in the action. So it's like courage isn't like, oh, that's a courageous person. It's like, did they take a courageous action right now? Right? Like it's a verb. So like courage is inherent in the action taken, not inherent in the person.

So it's not, oh, this passed you through your courageous father via the bloodline or like because you were courageous once you're courageous forever. So I guess it must have been iconoclastic at the time, right? Because that was the historical thing. Yes, totally. Yeah. But he's saying that they're verbs and not. which I think is the right way to think about it. But that also gives us the idea of training, right? So, like, are you training for this thing or not? So he's saying, like, a brave

soldier is not that different than like a talented woodworker or a musician. They've just practiced this thing. But I think the other thing it sets up is which you're calling situation and situational agency is like, yeah, how did you, did you rest last night? Like, the courage could come down to, like, did you have a good breakfast? Because you're driving. drawing on something inside you. And I think, like, to me, I know I am kinder and nicer when I am coming at life from a place of, like, I've taken care of myself than when, like, I'm tired, I'm frustrated. Everything is a disaster. Like, I have a deeper well to draw from. And so, like, again, you might go, like, this person is nice or not nice. You talk about the fundamental

attribution bias. Like, we go, like, oh, I saw that person in that moment. And this Aristotle's point about it, it's whether you do it or not, but like, you're not only how you acted in that situation. You have a continual, you're always in the situation over and over and over again, and it matters, like, what are you bringing in that situation? Society might say, oh, that person's an asshole because they filmed you in one moment having a meltdown at the grocery store. Yeah. But, like, actually what matters is, like, how you're talking to the next person and the next person and the next person. It's like, what matters is the situation in front of you and what resources and willpower are you bringing to it and have you set yourself up to be that?

And have you set up? And have you said so, so I think what you're saying is that Aristotle was trying to get us not to make the fundamental attribution error, right? And to say, witness one cowardly act and call the man or the woman a coward. And I agree, of course. I, by the way, find myself committing the fundamental attribution error all the time. even after writing about the fundamental attribution, right? And I think that means that it must be so strong of a bias to say that, you know, when my husband, so, you know, I did write quite brutally honestly about my marriage crisis, right? And so this was, by the way, with permission and encouragement for my husband because I was like, you know, you've written and and it seems like you have an easier time writing than I do, Ryan. But I was struggling for some personal example that could make clear how imperative it is to not just try harder and get nowhere and then try harder still.

And my husband says, why don't you write about our marriage crisis? Something I didn't quite elaborate on as much as probably I should have is that when I said to Jason like, you know, in this incredibly stressful time where we were in a bad situation, but I just thought it was like a bad marriage. I was like, oh, you know, this isn't meant to be. And I didn't recognize that the situation was against us. And if we changed a situation, I would realize that it was a great marriage, but terrible circumstances. Something that I didn't say enough is that when I told Jason that we should split up or try or, you know, test how it would it be like to be separated, I think I was committing the fundamental attribution error because my like 100 hour a week, frankly, like, you know, like you said, you know, sometimes you. you know, your best is like it wasn't, it wasn't a great version of Jason, to be honest, and he was not happy. I projected onto him this kind of like, you're a melancholic person. Like, that's who you are.

Like, you are going to be, like, grinding, but like white knuckled and grimacing and miserable. And that's who you are. And I just have come to the realization that I can't be married to that person. But really, what I couldn't see. And again, I probably should have said even more than I did is that I was just assuming that, like, that is and was and would always be Jason Duckworth. And the imagination that he asked me to have, I mean, he somehow saw that, well, of course, he was him. So maybe he just wanted to assert. He's like, this, there is a, there is a range. Like, I have, I have many Jason Duckworth's. And like, if you would just help me and help yourself and like have some patience, like, like there is another me that you could be with. And so basically that fundamental attribution error, you know, having studied it in graduate school, even now, like having written about it, I find myself like slipping into sort of like, oh, God, that person's incompetent or like, oh, this person's really like narcissistic. But I think I'm just committing the fundamental attribution error again and basically ignoring how important their situation is.

No, I think that's a really important piece of marriage advice. and that's what was my favorite part of the book. But the idea of going like, hey, not like I don't love you, but I don't love this version of you or I just, I don't want to be married to this version of you for the rest of my life. Like, I just can't do this. Not I can't do you. I just can't do this forever.

And you might even be able to say to them, hey, I can do this for like another six months. But like, this is not what I want of my life to be with this person who's this way, you know, and going like, if you cannot be that, I'm all about it. And I know that isn't you because that's not the person I started with. And I see flashes of it not being that way. Like it's a different conversation than like,

I no longer love you and I love this other person over here. I just want to give him. I agree with you. And I wish I had agreed with you like earlier because it really was like very hard for me to see. You know, there is this like cognitive narrowing that happens when we're stressed and unhappy. And I really think I like, you know, the aperture was like, closing to like a pinpoint and I could only see one way. And I do think the imagination, like what would it be like if we were in a different situation? Like, you know, I think that I

have to like write this down on a post. I've actually taken to writing, I was going to get everything made on Etsy, but I couldn't figure out how Etsy worked. So basically, I've been writing quotes down on two by two, you know, post-it notes and then just like taping them like at eye level. And I feel like I need to like install a new little billboard about the like just sort of like, you know, like the situation is all you can see if you can see it at all. But to imagine a different situation is really a leap that I think I need to get even better at. I think that's interesting because like you've probably experienced this with some of the sports people you've interacted with is it's like, that's what they're all about. They're about like, let's take this quote.

We're going to put it on a t-shirt. Let's take this quote. We're going to put it on the wall. And there's some element of it, if you're not in that world, it feels a little like cheesy or like. Very mockable. Yes. And then you go like, but they're obviously doing it for a reason. And it's like these people are getting paid millions of dollars.

They want it more than any. They need a reminder. Like you tell the story of like the wolves, which one are you going to have. I've seen that on the wall. The good wolf and the bad wolf. Yeah. In a locker room, right? Right.

And you're like, it's not a real story or anything, I'm sure. Somebody made it. I was probably started as like a chain. It's a parable or so. It's starting as a chain email or something. It probably doesn't trace its way back to some classical think or something. I did try to look it up. I think it's like more recent than 1999.

But right. Anyway, the point is, is that it's, yeah. Yeah, and you're just like, oh, but no, they need it over and over and over and over again. Even at that level. I've been thinking about this. My wife and I were talking about this with our kids where we're like, do I have to tell you again? And it's like, yes. Like, if Aaron Judge needs to be told it every day and he's getting paid hundreds of millions,

of dollars. The answer is yes. Then probably I can tell my nine-year-old, like, where the shoes go again or like why we don't do X, Y, or Z. They just need more reminders. Okay, so all right, two things. One is the generalizable truth here. I mean, you know, the laws of physics are inescapable. So are the laws of psychology. And one of the laws of psychology is that we are reactive to our situation. You know, you think like, oh, what did you think about all day? Like you thought about what you wanted to think about, your attention and your thinking is so much more, like, bottom-up situation. Like, why did you think about coffee? Because somebody had a coffee cup out. Like, why did you think about, you know, this quote from this author? Because that book just happened to be

on a desk, right? I mean, obviously, this is how advertising works. I just think the more profound insight is that we think of ourselves as intentional, more or less like top-down directive, like, that's what makes us human. And we are much more like dogs and cats sort of, like, you know, reacting to things. So that is, I think, the generalizable truth of the matter. And then in terms of the, like, okay, application of it, I was staying in my friend's house, there were three kids, and these are two very high achieving people. They have very high achieving kids. And I noticed, since I was just like walking around the house looking for whatever I was looking for, an outlet, that there are quotes, like, not at my eye level, but at kid eye level, right? And they were the kinds of

quotes that you would expect to be in a house of like very high achieving people. It's because that mental like that box too, it's like I want to be thinking like positive optimistic thoughts or I want to be like remembering my values or I want to remember the virtues that I hold most dear. Like if you want that, freaking decorate your world. And it's not, I know it's mockable, but Ryan, it's not just like athletes. It's CEOs. It's like pastors. It's like moms and dads. I feel like. I feel like. the psychologically wise people do not leave it to their own, like, memory, which is fallible, or their own intention, which is fleeting. They just, like, it's just a common sense thing, right? Like, you know, stores have their hours on the front. Like, it's a good technology. So, like,

the situation is a technology. And I, I feel like sometimes people think either or. So the message that, you know, our thoughts determine our behavior, I think has been internalized. by modern culture, I think much more than any civilization before us, like we recognize that our thoughts shape how we feel and they shape what. And also that those thoughts are subjective and also those thoughts are malleable. I don't feel like we've like moved upstream enough to say like, well, where do the thoughts come from? Well, what can I do to make those thoughts the thoughts I have? Yes. You look at some ruin and they're like, why did they have this statue here? Why was this inscription? They were in a way when when mass culture was hard. to communicate when they couldn't send an inspirational text to their kid or whatever, all the parents had to get together and build a statue or, you know, inscribe in a monument, a poem, right? Like, how were they supposed to communicate the ideas and the values of their society? It was in, you know, the friece on a on a necropolis or whatever, right? Like, that was there, like, because they, they couldn't watch a video on their phone about it, you know? Right. Which

you know, I have a preference for like, you know, that which is inscribed in stone over videos. But wait, can I ask you a question? I don't have a tattoo. I feel like I'm like one of only, you know, a few people now in the world who don't have a tattoo. Like, why do you have tattoos? Do you feel like it's basically the same thing that in some ways this is like, you know, Angela has two by two like, you know, post-it notes because she doesn't want to get a tattoo? But like, like, are these are these are, I mean, they became book titles because I wrote books about them. But these are the, these are the sort of the main values that I. I try to live by or build my life on and they're helpful reminders to see. I mean, look, I think when I first got them, it was a little, like, every, no, no, everything. I'm just saying everything recedes into the background. If you've, I mean, I've had them for. What do you mean everything recedes into the background? Well, I'm just saying when I first got the tattoo, it was more a visible reminder that it would

catch my attention now. Right. Okay. Part of my body in a way that I maybe catches my attention less. Okay, right, right. You know. You've habituated a little bit. But non-tarly, right?

Right, right. And but that is exactly what, that has to be a reason. I mean, maybe there are other reasons. No, and I think about my office is designed with reminders of the things that I want to see and my house is designed that way. Like, what can I ask you? I'm very curious. I'll show it to you before we go. But yeah, I mean, I just think about, you know, what are quotes, what are ideas who are people that inspire me.

I have like paintings. I have all statues. Every time I do a book, it's about an idea. I try to get some kind of. historical momento of that idea. Really? To have out just to like put yourself like just to like. Just kind of memorialize and then have a physical manifestation of that thing because like obviously

I'm not reading my own book as a reminder of the ideas. So like for me it's like, oh, this is this is that thing that I spent all that time thinking about and this is evocative of all of that. Like it will be an example of that. Now I'm really curious. Yeah. So I did this virtue series and so I have one kind of like physical reminder of each one like the discipline one, the sort of hero of that was.

Queen Elizabeth. So I have a signed Andy Warhol print of Queen Elizabeth that's like up the stairs on the way to the office. Then for courage, de Gaul was the main figure. So I have a free French battle flag that has blood on it. You know, so like just it's like, okay, this is the embodiment of everything in that book. Okay. So right. So it's not just, you know, like NFL quarterbacks, right? Like it's like, it's like anybody who wants. I mean, that to me is like the power move. And what are the things about the modern day situation that you worry about? So we talked about, well, constitutional amendments that, like, you and I both think are really important. But, like, I mean, do you wake up at night and think about, like, social media? Like, what are the things that you think?

I think there are a lot of macro trends, if you will, where, like, if you let them take you where they, like, you're not going to live a happy, meaningful life. So, like, what are you worried about? The big problem that I see for people is they wake up and they are on their phone. before they've even gotten out of bed. And so what happened that night, what texts they got, what news of alerts came in, what emails they got, like their mood and the direction of their day is determined by someone or something else. So instead of waking up and going, what do I feel like doing today?

What's important to me to do today? What was I thinking about last night that I want to tackle today? Like, what person do I want to be? Yeah. They're like, are you fucking kidding me? You know, like, that's like how they're starting the day. And that's their, those are their thoughts, right? So you pick up your phone, right?

That's your situation. And then whatever's on your phone. But you don't control, right? Exactly. Like it's in your feed. And then, and then you're, the thoughts lead to then your response. And then, which is like a very path dependent thing. You're reactive from the moment you woke up instead of being proactive and big picture or whatever.

I think that's a, for me, a huge one. It's like, how are you starting the day? Because I do. What do you do? Well, no, I was just going to say, look, I know the research on it's a little bit, whatever, but like I do believe we have a finite amount of sort of willpower or focus or whatever. And the idea that you're going to be frivolous with that in the morning to be swander or to just be like foolish, right? I think that would be. Let's talk about that research

because I think you're probably, I think that your instinct that your attention and your like free will or whatever, like your ability to like, you know, I'm going to do this. Like I think your intuition that it's finite is actually probably grounded, but like there's some nuance. But let me tell you about some data that I just collected that I haven't even published yet. So Gallup organization does a poll for me. We survey kids 13 to 18. And we also survey at the same time their parents. So I'm like processing this data from this one question that I asked, when you go to bed, where do you keep your phone? Either within arm's reach or in the room, but not within arms reach or another room altogether. By the way, there is another category,

which is I don't own a phone, but like nobody checks that off. Like, yeah, who did, even at 13, right? Like, you know, Americans have phones. And by the way, across all socioeconomic levels, like, it is no longer a technology, which has a socioeconomic gradient, basically just everybody has a phone. Of course. So at first I, like, look at the teenager data and I'm like, whoa, like something like seven out of 10, like 68% of teenagers, sleep with their phone within arm's reach, right? And then then, you know, you allocate it. And then I look at the parent data and it's even more. It's like 75 percent, like three out of four Americans. Now, many of these adults, I'm sure, like, will tell you they don't have a problem. Like, it's not something that they care about. But I think

the reality is that it is the last thing they interact with, right? The last thing they see, the last thing they touch. And the last thing that like changes their thoughts, right? And then it's the first thing when they wake up. And again, I'm sure a lot of people are like, yeah, but I need to look at my calendar. Like I check the weather, my alarm. Emergency room doctor, sure. You know? Where do you keep your phone? Like, where do you let your kids keep their phones?

My kids don't have phones because they're... Your kids don't know. My oldest is nine. Oh, wait. They're all younger than I thought. Okay, got it. So we're not quite there yet. I'm not at phone.

But my phone is on the other side of the bedroom because it is my alarm. Yes, yes. But like, I can't touch it. And I have built a practice that I don't check texts or emails until I'm well through the morning. Yeah. If you were on your nightstand, Ryan, right? Like, you could still say, like, I have a habit of, like, not checking and then, you know, but like it was intentional to put it across the room. Yeah, of course. Right. Okay. Got it. So like. I try to, I have a book on the bedside table and I try to read a few minutes before bed every night. And I have my journals there. Yeah. Because that's an activity I would like to wind the day up with. I mean, I would find when it was next to the bed, like, I might get up and go to the bathroom. Like, not even trying to check it, but it's like, oh, someone sent me a. from a different time zone.

And, like, my day is ruined before it's even started. Like, I might have three hours of sleep left. Right. But I'm going back to that sleep in a bad mood. Or I'm not even able to go back to sleep because I saw something that I. So, yeah, look, the Stoic idea would be like, you should be able to get any news at any time and not be affected by it. And maybe someone. Is that the sort of like, yeah.

I mean, I think that's the ideal, right? The extremist or the Stoic is trying to be able to handle everything with equilibrium. But there was this other stoic named Pubilius Cirrus who said that, like, you know, rivers are easiest to cross at their source. And like, to me, it's like, hey, I would rather just avoid. Yeah, right. Like, just be smart. To me, it's like, Incredible Hulk versus 007, right? Like, yeah, you can be really strong and, like, you know, walk through a wall.

Or you could be like James Bond and, like, very cleverly, like, make temptation go over. So I want to say something about what, you know, this ego depletion, sort of like is self-control, limited resource. Like, what about attention? and then also talk about why it is. Like, you know, when I say the psychological laws of human nature, you know, the laws of psychology are as ineluctible and as eternal as the laws of physics, like, I really mean it. So when you wake up and you're cranky or, you know,

you say something you shouldn't have said, like, you are enacting something. Now, it doesn't mean you all free will because, of course, if you understand the laws, you can act differently. And, okay, but here's what I want to say. I think your intuition that when you do something that requires will, right, and requires attention that it does feel somehow like it's a limited resource, right? And I guess you're saying that partly because you feel, what is it that like next you have less of it or you kind of like just at that time it's divided?

Well, I read this thing that Tony Morrison talked about where she was saying that like it's very important as a writer that you know when you're at your best, when you're most inspired. And so like, and you have to set your day up around that. So, like, for some people, this is three in the morning and because it's like at the end of the day and for other people it's whatever. For some people it's a busy coffee shop. For another person it's like dead quiet in their kitchen. But you got to know when you're at your best. At your best. And she was saying that for her, she had to do all her writing.

There was something about the sunrise that was inspiring and important she wanted to be writing as the sunrose. And then the other part was she wanted to get all of her writing done before she heard the word mom for the first time. Oh, God. I forgot that she was a mother. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, she was a single mother, and she had a day job as an editor at Penguin Random House or Den Random House. I didn't know that. And so, like, to write her novel, she had to squeeze it in.

Squeeze it in, but you can't squeeze it in after you've. You can't do it like for her. It can be at the bottom of the waterfall. It's going to be at the waterfall. Exactly. So I think it's like kind of knowing when you're at your best. And I was actually just talking about this with someone this morning. I went running with Alexi Pappas.

She's an Olympic runner. And I was talking about how I was asking her if she had the same experience. But like, I found that when I was younger, I could get more out of my worst self. Like, obviously it was always better to be my best self. Right. But there was a little like a range. You were like, yeah, I have some give. I was like, I could get up.

For running, for example. Yeah. Like I could get up from the, when I was 20, I could get up from the Thanksgiving Day table and just run 10 miles and like be fine. Yeah. And now it's like if I eat poorly that morning, you know, or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. It's just a more finely tuned machine or whatever.

And I've just found that like especially writing, like, I can't do it past a certain time. Mm. Or just it's not working. Can I ask you where you do it? In my office here. But I can do it in other places. But again, it's like I just know it's like to get the quality that I want, the environmental and the situation is more important than it was before. Right.

There was more range. Like sleep running. I remember like eating a loaf of bread with, I think, peanut butter and then going for a run in my like early 20s. Right. Everything has to go right for me to like, you know, not have a disaster happen. So this intuition that, you know, yes, we can, you know, do things that are harder, pay attention and, you know, like, it can, and by the way, it does feel exhausting. So that you're on rock solid research that when you do something and you don't want to do it, essentially a lot of the things that we consider to be virtuous are acts of self-control. in that their delay gratification. Yeah.

Honesty is not always the most rewarding thing in the very, very moment that you're being honest, kindness, generosity, and discipline, etc. But I think the key here is that when you are able to change the situation, even in microways, so there's a paper that just got accepted. It hasn't been published yet. It's looking at one, two, and three seconds of delay. So we're not talking about delaying gratification for like 10 years, like I'll be healthier, I'll have better relationships and something on the order of like two to four years, right?

We're just talking about like seconds. You know, the nature of human nature is that we're extremely averse to like any form of delay gratification. And, you know, we did this with like website loading. But basically, for example, you take like people are trying to code and they're on this platform. They're trying to learn, you know, code. And like if it just takes like one or two seconds longer, like, then they just like go off and like do something else and like don't finish their lesson.

So I don't think that says something about like those people being lazy. I think it says something about the nature of things. And I do worry that, you know, we're talking about the situation. I asked you like, what do you think? You're like, oh, well, people pick up their phone and then like, you know, they're off. I do feel like attention and intention are so shaped by the situation that we are increasingly in a culture where like it's always trying to be grabbed by something or someone. And if you're not. countercultural. Like if you don't say like, okay, because of that, I'm going to put my phone across the room. Okay, because of that, I'm going to like, you know, make sure that I spend time with it. I'm going to like make a post-a note to remind. Like, then, like, I think there may have been past historical times where we didn't have to do so much work to get situated. I think that's right. And we would say we have a society that doesn't have a lot of empathy for how hard it is to be other people. Like I was listening to this podcast, Annie Lowry, just wrote this book about time tax. I don't know. It's basically saying the way that bureaucracy and inefficiency taxes individuals, particularly poor and lower income people. And she was just talking about like some of these like forms. You have to fill out to get like Medicaid. The ones that we think everyone deserves are much easier than the ones that we have moral judgments about. Yes. So it's like, okay, if you're a single mother and you're trying to get welfare because of society, we judge that person, we make it really hard.

And I was just thinking bringing my freshest best self, I have no. patience for forms. Imagine, I just tried to imagine, like, I'm poor, I'm struggling, I'm working with two jobs, I have kids. I can barely get Netflix to work after I put my kids to bed, let alone having to fill out this complicated form, that it was designed to not be intuitive, to discourage people to do it. And just understanding that like the environmental conditions, like you talk even about like sort of privilege in the book, is just not even being aware of how your situation might be different from somebody else's situation. And I don't know, I was just Okay, so let me ask you this.

Like, so if empathy extends, not only, like, so we usually define empathy as like being able to feel what another person feels, right? And then there's something that psychologists sometimes take pains to distinguish, which is like perspective taking. And that's like seeing what the other person is. But anyway, we get it. Like putting yourself in their shoes, right? So, you know, if this book has a thesis, it's like, okay, well, then also trying to

understand like their box one, right? Like, what is their box one, right? Like, and how could I not commit the fundamental attributionary? I'm just curious. I remember having a discussion with Melody Hobson, who's like an investor and like very wise. And it was on the topic of empathy. And she was actually saying, you know, I think that like through fiction and through film, right, like that is where we are able to put ourselves in the shoes of other people. I think that is right.

But I wonder what your thought is on empathy, because I think you're right about our lack of empathy. I wonder if you have any thoughts about whether that is like, a bigger problem today than it was 10 or 20 years ago. And what do you think the limits of empathy are like, can you really appreciate, I mean, how far can we go, like in a visceral way, not just an intellectual way, to understand other people's situations? Well, I think there's a couple things there.

I think one, yeah, obviously there's some limits to empathy and there's that German word, umwelt, like how can you truly understand what it's like to be a bat or a bird or another person? Goldfish or whatever, yeah. Really can and probably can only, vaguely understand what it's like to be another person from different circumstances. So I think there's some limits there. I think empathy can also be limiting, right?

Like if all you have is empathy, you can kind of, I've noticed my wife's much more empathetic than me. Sometimes I'll be like, okay, but ultimately you're just letting this person off the hook at some level where you're like, you're paying them to do a thing. And like, it kind of doesn't matter why or how, where they're coming from. Like if you spend all the time thinking about how they feel big, you're like, okay, but also they didn't do. Yeah, or even with your own kids.

You're like, oh, they're having a hard time. It's like, okay, but there are rules to society that you've got to figure out how to do. And if no one ever holds you accountable to them because they're always thinking about there can be problems. But I think you have to be a sociopath to look at our society and think our problem is that we're too empathetic. Like Elon Musk has made this thing that's like the West has suicidal empathy. We're too empathetic. Blah, blah. It's like, no, almost all of our problems are the lack of empathy and a lack of understanding of the conditions.

What he's saying of society, though, it sounds to me a version arguably what you were saying about your wife, though, right? Look, it can be a problem. Too much compassion or something. And I think at an individual level, we can sometimes struggle with that or individual situations. Right. But it's like, look, why is Iran acting the way that it is? Sure. But it is also a totalitarian, fascist religious state that is insane.

You know, like you can understand why they think what they think and not go like, they're the good guys, you know. Like, you can also understand your own country's problems and responsibilities and, you know, all that and still go, okay, but. And still it's not acceptable. Okay, but. Okay, right. You know, I actually wrote a version of this book that actually, you know, much more ink spilled about who I think is like the intellectual proprietor of this model, right? And it's not that he would say he's a monopoly on this. Because of it's a honestly, Ryan, I know psychology. And like every psychologist I know understands that the situation leads to the thoughts and thoughts leads to response. Cognitive therapy, that's like your thoughts leading to response. Like behaviorism, that's like the situation. Like it's all there. Habit is like situation directly. So it's not provocative. It's not necessarily revolutionary. But James Gross, who's, you know, really I think the person who deserves credit for this, you know, framework is it so simple. The thing that I love about it and for me, because I only discovered it like halfway through you know, my career as a psychologist, is that you could take anything, right? Like, let's take,

you know, welfare, right? You're like, okay, so, you know, this mother is like applying or not applying, you know, she did or didn't get this job. So that's, that is box three. Like, that's her response, right? And then with some curiosity and hopefully, you know, not too much judgment, although to judge as human, you just have to ask, like, what were the thoughts that led to that? Okay, so that's box two leading to box three, just because there are all those thoughts. I I mean, for anything we do, what you eat, what you drink, what you say, what you feel. And then just to ask, like, and here's where you overcome the fundamental attributionary. You say, like, instead of just saying, like, well, she's the sort of person who, like, thinks those thoughts.

All you're doing is simply saying, like, well, there's another box. Like, I have to fill it out. And that is the situation. That is the objective situation physically and socially. And to me, that, like, helps to explain so much. And it at least gives you a tool, if you will. to overcome what I do agree with you, just like this profound lack of empathy at so many levels. Yeah, Ayn Rand wrote this book called The Virtue of Selfishness,

and there's this famous exchange with Christopher Hitchens where he's just like, I'm not sure that is a thing that anyone needs help with. Like, you know, like, like, by the way, doesn't everybody read Ayn Rand and for like one week? You're like, oh, you know, she's got it all right and I'm going to be Howard Roeck. Then you think about it for five seconds and you go, oh, what would it look like if everyone thought this way? You're like, oh, wait, everyone being like even more selfish than they are. Okay, just kidding. I thought that was a good idea.

But yeah, I was like, you know, for a week, I was an objectivist. I was like, oh, my, you was like, you was like in the back. You know, there's an emotional immaturity to the lack of it. Like, you think you figured it out is, oh, the problem is I'm being too caring or whatever. And it's like, that's not the problem. That's not like, that's not the problem. So there's like, I think there's an emotional immaturity there, which I think I'm actually, it was something I was going to ask you, because you, in the beginning of the book,

you talk about Montaigne, who is fascinating. And he's basically saying that, like, in different situations, we act differently and that someone could be courageous in one situation and cowardly and the other. And he's basically saying it all comes down to. Speaking of himself, of course, yes. Well, that's what I wanted to say, because to me, giving yourself more situational agency or being better at what you're talking about in this book comes down to what his life's work was, which he basically invented, which is like the idea of self-awareness. Like, the idea of sitting down and thinking about, like, what do I think? Why do I think it? Why am I this way? What do I like? What am I trying to be? I would say he invented the essay. I don't know if he invented like self-awareness. But all other philosophers before Montaigne were like, why is the universe this way? Why are other people this way? They studied human. He was the first one. He studied himself. Yeah, he basically retires from public life. And he's like, what do I know? His fundamental question is what do I know? And then he's like, I think his other questions are sort of like, who am I? Yes. And what matters to me? And, like, that was new ground.

Like, he's coming out of the, the Reformation and into the early days of the Renaissance, right? Like, where I guess is— You're giving me the historical kind of as like, I've read Montaigne, but actually, I am no student of history. He's a contemporary of Shakespeare. So it's not—it's a long time ago, right? Like, and he's kind of like, yeah, why also talking about religious tolerance? This is like where we're figuring out, oh, it's a problem, like, to not be able to have different people believe different things. I'm just saying, like, I feel like what Montaigne figures out is like that there's a lot of interesting self-exploration you could do as other people are exploring the universe for the first time.

I mean, he just asked all these really interesting questions. And he's exploiting the universe within. I mean, he was a world-class psychologist. By the way, have you ever seen, and I haven't seen it in person, but I have seen photos of his, like of his study in his room, like with the quotes. Talk about quotes. Like, you know. Motivational quotes on the beard on the ceiling beads. Not on two by two post-it notes, of course.

and I don't believe that he had tattoos, but like just ingrained into wood, like into the rafters, right? And again, like, you think that somebody with the mind of Montaigne would have already memorized these things, but he chose to be able to see them on a daily basis. So the essays that I wrote about there,

I haven't read, I've maybe have read all of Montaigne, but I'm not an expert on Montaigne, and he did write a lot of essays, but he wrote several on the idea of the inconstancy of the self, right? That there was a Montaigne, I mean, he particularly was observant of his own anger, right? And there was an angry Michel de Montaigne and a calm Michel de Montaigne. And to me,

his insight goes almost all the way where I want it to go. So he gets pretty far and farther than most of us, which he says, we like to think of ourselves as the captain of our ship, but we are carried. We do not go. We are carried, right? Carried by the current. So yes, we have some sense of like, I am the master of my soul, I'm the captain of my fate. But like, really, what ocean are you going to choose to sail on and like which current are you going to pick because that is going to determine really where you go. The reason I say Ryan that he doesn't go far enough is that in all of his writing, I didn't come to a passage where he said, therefore be very intentional about the oceans and so forth. Like he just was like, you know, the situation is like the ocean current.

And I just want to say that, hey man, maybe this is just, you know, I am a student of Marty Seligman. I will never stop believing in agency. I don't see that he's gone enough to like, he hasn't written enough or didn't write that I could see about how you can change a situation. I think that's right. I mean, it's interesting that he's primarily writing these essays at first, like one of his biographers says he's trying to catch himself

in the act of thinking. That's what the essays were. He's sort of writing to think. The idea of like, hey, I'm going to write these essays and then publish them. I wasn't really the intention until kind of later. Did he publish them in his lifetime? He does, and then he edits them again. But it was, again, he's writing for other montaines, right?

Like, he's writing for the smartest people in the world. Shakespeare reads them. You know, the king reads them. But, like, I do think one of the good pressures of commercial publishing, which you and I exist in, is that you don't get to sit in your study and just kind of, like, rinsically explore ideas. Like, you do have to go all the way. Like, what does this mean?

What are you saying? Yeah, what are you saying plainly? And also, could you please be helpful? Right? So maybe you would argue that if he had a larger audience that he perhaps would have gone farther. Yeah. And I think some of the people who have written after him or written about him have gotten there in a way that he didn't have to get to as a person who's also like, there's something about, you know, people go like, well, well, because sometimes they'll come out and do things or have been course and they'll be like, would Seneca do this? And it's like, Seneca lived on an estate tended by slaves. Okay. He did not have to think about anyone. There wasn't an audience he was writing to. There wasn't value he was having to provide. There was a, there's just kind of an intellectual, this is intellectual for intellectuals

sakenness to some ancient philosophy and some of that kind of even Renaissance thinking. Like this is for the elite of the elite. This is for people who know. It's for people like me. I'm not writing for an audience that is in a way that Shakespeare was. Shakespeare is like peasants to the queen. Right. everyone in between.

Right. Much more Pixar, if you will. Yes, it has to operate on multiple levels. Right. For like everyone. Okay, but there's something else that's different. I would conjecture, and it's purely conjecture, that situational agency has increased over time. I mean, I told you I'm no student of history, but, you know, there was a time where, you know, you're a blacksmith because your father was a blacksmith and you're a woman and you have to be the wife of a blacksmith.

Like, you know, you can't change where you live because, like, you live in this village and it's impossible to. get anywhere. Like, okay, so if it's broadly true that situational agency, our ability to change our circumstances, to set us ourselves up for like the thoughts that we want and the behavior that went, arguably 400 years ago, there was less of it, right? So maybe that's another reason why he said, like, we do not go. We are carried. But he didn't say like, oh, but you can, like, chart your own course because maybe it was not possible. No, I think you're, you're totally right. His father maps out his whole life, you know? He has, he has like a Tiger Woods-esque father. Montaigne did?

Yeah. But in a good way. Maybe like a good tiger was fond of... So do you know Montane's life story? There's a book I'm going to give you. I mean, I know he's like a nobleman who like retires and then just like writes essays. Okay, so I'll give you a glimpse in it. Why does Montane have empathy in a time when there's no empathy?

His father believes, comes from this rich family, his father sends him from birth to be raised by a peasant family in the village that they own. In order to have empathy with... To grow up around regular people and to have affinity and affection for the people that he would in the future be responsible for and have to leave. So his father was unusually wise. His father sort of travels in part of like diplomatic or economics or I forget exactly what his dad does. But like basically is like fascinated with child development. And he basically Montaigne's childhood is a giant educational experiment. Then when he comes home, Montaigne doesn't learn to speak French.

until he is like seven or eight because he literally never heard it. After the two years as an infant in this peasant family, he comes home and only Latin is spoken in their household. And so he basically grows up in antiquity. Like he grows up in Rome. Like they only speak Latin. So he's this expert on Latin because he grew up as if it was a real language and not a dead language.

And so there's all these different other ones I could bore you with them. But like he has a weird childhood that is shaped by his. fathers understanding that like you're learning and being taught to do things to be of service to other people. It's a very weird childhood. It's a very weird childhood which shapes him, right? I mean, you could maybe define, you know, you write a book and then every hammer is everything's a nail. But I mean, you could argue that all of parenting is essentially like shaping and selecting situations, right? Like what else are you going to do, right? There is no like telepathy. Like you cannot like will your child to do something.

the way you can will your elbow to, like, you know, go up or down. So, yeah, you know, and I'm not saying like every parent gets everything right. Like, definitely not saying that or that I did. But that was his father, right? Like, like, that was parenting to him. That was being a father to him. I wanted to go to the thing you said before that, though, which is, I think agency is a technology. It is a belief that was not widespread in the ancient world or even until relatively, like, I just think it's interesting.

Like, you go to the Iliad and it's like, there's no agency. Yeah. You have to do this. The gods. Yeah, the gods. But also, yeah, as you said, it's like, no, no, my father was a blacksmith, so I have to be a blacksmith. It's in my name. Like, my name says my profession or I'm the idea that you could move to another country and just live there. You know, like all the kinds of agency and change that we take for granted today did not exist. And even just the idea like that an individual could change the trajectory of history in a positive way that an institution like slavery. could have an opinion that it was bad and then you could make it not exist. And then you could change it. Yes. That you could change it.

Totally. So as a student of Marty Seligman, I have to say that, you know, his last 10 years have been on agency. And it is a way, like as a psychologist, the only thing he's ever studied, right? So he got his PhD very early. I think something at like 24 or something ungodly. Like he was a very quick PhD, but also he went to college early. So Marty's been saying.

studying agency from day one as a psychologist and his latest thinking, reflecting the last decade of his work, is that the arc of human history, right, and to the extent that there has been progress, which he argues there has been, right? And some would argue not, but I agree with him. Like, you know, you just kept to leave. If you look at the really grand sweep and you don't, like, think about like little wrinkles here and there, this is a much kinder, more peaceful, verdant, you know, thoughtful society than we dad, you know, 100 years ago, 2,000 years ago, 3,000 years ago. And Marty would argue that it is all agency, that agency is the prime mover of everything, as opposed to, you know, I would just add to it, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy,

because if you define agency as the belief that you can change, right, psychological agency, what's inside your head, situational agency, what's outside your head, the self-fulfilling prophecy is that if you don't believe you have agency, of course you make that happen, because you actually don't make anything happen, right? If you do have agency, it's not that everything always works out, but like, yeah, you act. And then the future is shaped by your actions. So that is Marty's, you know, I think, you know, Marty's 83. There may be another chapter where, like, he has another great discovery. But I think he would argue it's like the great discovery of his life that, like, all of human civilization is founded on psychological and situational agency. Yeah, I think one of the

mistakes we made culturally and academically was getting rid of the great man of history theory. Martin's a big great man of history proponent. Yeah, we explain everything systemically or structurally. Which makes it like inevitable and like actually diminishes like individual will. Totally. Yeah. I think we're living in a time where like you have to just say like definitely one person can change the world. Well, and the problem with the people who debunk the theory is that they will also tell you. how all the bad things in the world are the result of a handful of people. Right? It's like we all agree that bad people can make the world worse. Yeah. And then there's argument about other good people can make the whole better.

Well, I'm on the side that like, yeah, individuals do you shape the world for better and also for worse? Well, I have so many books I want to show you. So we're going to go next door. Let's do it.