The Jordan Harbinger Show - 271: Ryan Holiday | Stillness Is the Key

Episode Date: October 31, 2019

Ryan Holiday (@ryanholiday) is the bestselling author of Trust Me, I'm Lying; The Obstacle Is the Way; Ego Is the Enemy; Conspiracy, and other books about marketing, culture, and the human condition. His latest offering is Stillness Is the Key. What We Discuss with Ryan Holiday: How successful people learn to process feedback -- and consider its source in order to improve and move forward. Why self-awareness is the secret weapon of some of the highest-performing people you'll meet. What can keep us striving and moving upward in a world where it's way too easy to compare ourselves to one another and beat ourselves up in the process. How Ryan found the purpose and motivation to write eight books and ghost write another six by the time he was 30. The eerie, intuitive, borderline magical superpowers of Mr. Rogers, Cesar Millan, and the two daycare miracle workers who can put 15 toddlers down for a nap (including Ryan's son) simultaneously every day. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://jordanharbinger.com/271 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Join entrepreneur, technology investor, and self-experimenter Kevin Rose as he explores new ways to reach peak personal and professional performance on The Kevin Rose Show -- listen here! Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode is sponsored in part by Conspiruality Podcast. You know how I'm always talking about critical thinking and spotting manipulation? Well, there's a podcast that's all about dismantling new age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy med yogis, basically the wild overlap of spirituality and misinformation. It's called the Conspiruality Podcast. The hosts, a journalist, cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic, dive deep into how this stuff spreads, from Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation's dystopian vision of the future to how former leftists get pulled

into far-right conspiracies. An interesting episode to check out is called Speaking Truth to Goop, where Jen Gunter breaks down the pseudoscience behind the wellness industry in a way that is super entertaining and eye-opening. It's sharp, funny, and makes you a lot harder to fool, which, if you listen to this show, you know I'm all about that. From exploring cults to analyzing our cultural and political landscape, the Conspiruality podcast will help you stay informed against misinformation and resist fear tactics.

Find Conspiruality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with producer Jason DeFilippo. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most brilliant and interesting people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. We'll help you see the Matrix when it comes to how these amazing people think and behave, because I want you to become a better thinker. And today, Ryan Holiday, him and I have been friends for years. And if you listen to a lot of different podcasts, he's certainly made the rounds recently. I wanted to have a different sort of conversation with him instead of the same stoicism that everyone else has been drilling into lately.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. I just think there's more room for some other topics here. And if you agree, then listen on. It's just what we did today on the show. Today, you'll hear us discuss how successful people learn to process feedback. Who and what to listen to in order to improve and move forward. We'll also uncover why self-awareness is a secret weapon of some of the highest performing people you'll meet. and what can keep us striving and moving upward in a world where it's way too easy to compare ourselves to one another

and beat ourselves up in the process. Again, this is a much more free-form and offbeat conversation with Ryan, and I think that's refreshing these days, especially since he's been hammering away on his book tour. He's a really smart guy. I'm so grateful we got this amount of time with him here in studio, and I'm looking forward to hearing what you all think of this one. If you want to know how I managed to get all of these great folks in my circle, well, I use systems and tiny habits and I do it very consistently, and it's just a few minutes a day.

I'm teaching you how to do that for free. Check out six-minute networking. That's over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. And by the way, most of the guests on the show, they subscribe to the course and the newsletter.

So come join us and you'll be in great company. All right, here's Ryan Holiday. I do this to myself all the freaking time. Yeah. I don't compare myself to somebody who started when I do. I compare myself either to somebody started 20 years before me, or I compare myself to like,

somebody who started a year ago but has somehow managed to get the spotlight for two seconds. And I go, oh my God, my life is over. This person got featured on something. And now why I even try? Or you go like, oh man, like this person's getting this thing. And you're like, but I've also gotten that thing. Why can't they also get it? Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Like you not only like want things that you don't have or you're jealous of it, but you're also just like territorial about. Yeah. And like it's not like a zero sum game. Like, I have to think about this with authors all the time, like, so-and-so's book blowing up and selling millions of copies. And not only doesn't hurt me, but a bunch of those people probably weren't readers before, and now maybe they are readers, and now, like.

Sure. Like, wow, I bought this book and it was great. Other people who've also bought that recommend this Ryan Holiday book. Maybe I should get that. Nobody's like, oh, I already have a book. So I don't need any more. I'm all set on books. If they do, they're probably not like you're a, they're not a great customer.

Yeah, the person who listens or like only watches one YouTube video month, probably not exactly your... I've listened to a podcast. Yeah. Like, that's not who you're after. No. Yeah. No. People who listen.

Well, as long as they only listen to mine, fine. That's the thing. I'll go like, oh, what other shows do you listen to? And if they have like 10, I'm like, screw this person. You're not a real fan. You're spreading your time out among other people who also create good work. How dare you? It makes no sense.

It's like a very illogical internet-based thing. Yeah. Right. It's like, look, if you're a Coke and they're Pepsi, that makes sense. Although even those, they're totally interchangeable and nobody cares. You forget that, like, actually, you're really in a race against people not listening to podcasts at all. Yeah. They're not buying books at all.

And so it's not like, oh, they bought James Clear's books, so they're not going to buy mine. That's not what's happening at all. They're going to buy all of them and then they're not going to read any of them. Right. And you're still going to get around. Right. What's that stat, though, like 83 plus percent of books they get purchased don't get read or something like that? I'm sure that's a huge majority.

Well, yeah, sometimes people go, like, it must be so weird being famous. And it's like, okay, there's famous and then there's like being an author. Yeah. Like, even if you sold lots of books, like, people don't know what your name is. Even if you sold lots of books, how many people have bothered to read them? Yeah. How many people have looked at the name on the cover? How many people have flipped all the way to the back and looked at the photo?

It's like 5%. Like, it's not, it is not a problem. At your level, it's got to be name recognition, right? Where people go, Ryan Holiday, like, oh, I think I've read one of your books. That must happen at some point. It does. Yeah, every once in a while. I mean, certainly when you start, like, when you start, the worst parts, they go, like, oh, what do you do?

And you go, like, I'm an author. And then they go, would I have read any of your books? I was like, no. No. No, you wouldn't have, unless you have good taste of those. And now you're humiliate. It's like, because, like, the joke is like, oh, tell me one thing you've done in your life that I've heard of. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, good point. Right? Like, if I heard any of the insurance policies that you sold, the answer is no. But, like, if you have a public phasing thing I feel about. That's true. we have to, people think if you're in any sort of public-facing field, you're automatically measured by your notoriety. Yes, by your name recognition amongst total strangers. Not like how successful are you in your niche. Yeah, good point. I didn't even think about that because of course, like, would you have

writing? I don't know. Do you read books that are for smart people? Like, it's not my fault if you don't. It's not my fault. I'm not less because you haven't seen my book. I mean, the other day someone recommended this book to me, and I never heard of it, and I pulled it up on Amazon, it had 16,000 reviews. And you're like, that's like 10 million copies. That's like, like, I'd never even heard of this person. And so, like, it's not that he's not successful. It's that I'm not clued in.

Yeah. So, yeah, you end up using these, like, metrics that maybe would make sense when there used to be like 10 people making a living, writing books. But it's like, that's not how it is anymore. It's like TV. Everyone watched Larry King. People wrote, oh, during Larry King Live, this news event happened. Now, no one's like, during the time that Ryan Holiday and Jordan Harbinger did a Facebook

live, this thing happened. Like, no one would realistically ever care about that. You've done a lot of things that a lot of people are maybe envious of or jealous of or want to do or say they want to do, but never actually wanted to do. One of which is figure out maybe what you wanted to do for a living early. I guess, yeah. No, that is an interesting thing, like, to go to the point about, like, comparing yourself against other people. People are like, I'm 28. I want to be an author or like my book came out and

do a, and it's like, when I was 28, I had nine years of experience. You have to compare yourself against people who are in your peer group and your age bracket for like the amount of years you've been doing it or reps you have because that's the only measurement that really counts. The fact that I figured out that I kind of wanted to be a writer and then I started researching for writer in like before I turned 20-ish, it wasn't like a little advantage. It was like an exponentially large advantage. And like every year those returns are compounding. It's like you start saving for retirement early. You get to that magical point where the grass starts to go like that. Yeah. So it is important, but it's not the age that you started at that's important. It's that it's the

time that's elapsed since that point. It has no magical part that I, I was 20 when I started, it's the eight years, or now it's 12 years. Like, that's the point. So you could start when you're 30, you'll just hit that inflection point in your 40s. Yeah, that's true. I wasn't really thinking about radio or interviewing or anything.

And then I started the show when I was, I think 26. But then I didn't really think, like, I'm interviewing people. I was just like doing all, I was screwing around. Sure. And then I interviewed Robert Green like seven years in, and he's like, hey, you're really good at interviewing. And I was like, well, if he thinks I'm good at it, then maybe I should take it more seriously.

Yeah. Then I started to do that, and it still took me, like, four years after that to be like, oh, this is how professionals prepare for an interview. They actually read the book. I think there is a moment where, let's say, the 10,000 hour theory. And I know there's like back and forth on that. Back and forth. But the general idea that it takes a lot of hours to become really good at something.

I think that's pretty indisputable. Like, for me, I put up my first blog the day I graduated from high school. So let's say it's like 2005. Let's say I really didn't get super serious about it until 2006. and then my first book deal happened. So I started writing my first book in like 2011. So that's like six years, six-ish years. Which is actually a really long time when you're in your 20s.

Oh, yeah, of course. Now I'm in my late 30s, so I'm like, oh, I've known her for seven years. Ah, it's a pretty long time. But when you're in your 20s, you haven't even been a functional adult for more than five or six years. Well, kids do that to you too because, like, my son is now three. And so now I think about like what my other son will be like, in three years. Like, just the idea that I can think in a three-year chunk was not a chunk of time I could

comprehend before. But so I did those six years. I didn't really know I was doing six years. In retrospect, it's obvious I was paying six years of dues. But I was also, like, I just thought I was writing. Like, I was writing. I was having some success, not success. I was seeing the audience tick up every day. So let's say there's like those six years. Then the book came out and you start getting sort of rewards and recognition like at some point like you I don't know the exact conversation I had with someone but it was like at some point I decided I was consciously going to be putting in those hours like I'm really in a way a comedian thinks about getting stage time like that's less clear for other professions but there was at some point where I was just like I'm going to get really good at this and so it's really

from 2012 to 2019 those seven years I probably let's say it was another six years I think I got double or triple the amount of time and the amount of ROI from the time because I was really consciously deciding to get better. And not only writing my own books, but also ghost writing. I was like, ghost writing because one, it would give me some financial freedom to write my own things, but also, like, I just wanted, like, to get really good at the craft. And so now there's really nothing you could put in front of me that I would, I mean, there's things that would be hard and challenging, but there's nothing I think you'd put in front of me writing. And so, now, I think you'd put in front of me writing wise that I'd be like, I'm not sure I could do that. There's things that I wouldn't want to do

that and I wouldn't do, but like I think I could write just about anything. That's a big statement, right? Because that'd be like me saying I could interview anyone. I'm like, wow, I don't know. But I bet you could. I would have to, yeah, it's sort of terrifying to think about doing that, but yeah, I could. So I bet when you first started if I was like, okay, you can introduce the president, you'd probably be like, I could do that. And of course, you would do it. I would figure it out, Yeah. But you would be bad at it. Like, you would listen to the tape.

You'd be like, I can't believe I blew this opportunity. And then there's probably a period where you would have, like, maybe thought you weren't ready for. Like, now you would do it and you would be successful at it. It's sort of what I mean. Yeah. It's funny to look at my, do you ever look at old work that you've done and go, oh, man, what the hell? Yeah, of course. Yeah.

So I've had the weird privilege. So my first book came. I wrote my first book in 2011 on my own. I didn't sell it. I just wrote it. And then I sold it. And then so I worked with an editor to read. shape it came out in 2012. Then in 2013, I did an updated, revised paperback edition,

which I changed some stuff. And then in 2016, after the collapse of Gawker and after the Trump election, I did a third edition of the book. So I've had this weird, unique experience of basically rewriting that book four times. And each time is a horrendous experience because it's like mortifyingly embarrassing. Yeah. I published this. Like, Yeah, I worry about that. Yeah. And what I learned from the experience is like, it's not that it's bad because it's not. And it's not that I'm wrong because I'm usually not.

There's definitely errors in it. But what is the most off-putting and I find the least excusable is the certainty with which I was saying whatever I was saying. Sure. So it was like I might have been right, but I had not done the work to be right, you know? I have no basis for this other than confidence. Yes. Or ego, really.

Or I was right, but like my logic was shoddy or my, the example I was using was a weak one. Do you know what? Yeah. It's good, but I'm missing, and most of all, I'm missing a lot of nuance and empathy and even-handedness. And so that's like one of the things I try to work on now

is I just try to be way less certain of everything. That makes sense. That's great. In an interview, I've gotten more compassionate. Whereas before I'd be like, you know, I got to be challenging because I got a show that I have to like demonstrate authority. Yeah. Now I don't have to do that because I realize it's my show. I kind of already have some authority.

Yeah. And you're like, you're like why would I do gotchas? Yeah. You know, or why do I need to push back? I think to me, and I talk about this a little bit in the new book, I feel like what that is. That's what confidence actually is like. The insecurity is the need to overreach, to overstate to like assert yourself. and the confidence is like, people who will get it will get it.

And like, there's like an element of trying too hard. Sure. That you don't need to do once you're confident. Yeah, that's true. That's true. And it's a non-neediness that actually works really well, but it's really hard to fake. I think readers, listeners, viewers, or whatever, they can like taste it. Yeah.

Yeah, I think so too. I get a lot of email from older listeners that are like, hey, you went too hard on this person, or you need to do more about that. and they're usually right. And the reason they're right is because they're parents and they have kids that are like my age or slightly younger and they're like, I recognize this.

Yeah. This is me 30 years ago. This is my kid who's 17. Like, you're better than that. You know, stop doing that. I'll get emails and, like, the person will just be like totally wrong

about something that would be like, oh, why did you say this or you shouldn't have said this? And like, I'm feeling I'm more confident when I can just like not respond. Mm-hmm. Cool. You know, like, I can just feel like, okay. You know, like, but there's the younger.

part of me has to like make sure to let this person know that they're wrong yeah sure you know and I think the less you have of that the better decisions you make and the less trouble you get yourself into yeah I mean that's it how do we get there though that's the question right because for me it's just been getting older and getting tired of doing that I think like like playing it out in my head and going so I got that person and then they came back and they were mad and then I was like oh you're just mad because I'm right and you know it and then they now hate me so I got nothing from that interaction. You have to do that over.

Right, no, you send the email, and then they're never like, yes, sir. You're right. You're right. I'm wrong. You're right. I like you more now. No.

Yeah, I don't need to get it. I don't need to get into this giant tarp bit. I was looking, the reason I brought this up, I was looking at some of my old prep. You've been on the show, I don't know, like five or six times in the past 10 years.

And I was like, oh, I'll see if there was anything that I didn't ask last time that we just didn't have time for it. That's still interesting. And I was just like, who made this? They're fired. Whoever made this show... Of your notes?

My notes. I was like, these are terrible. Like, what was I thinking? They're organized so poorly. My questions that I wrote underneath phrases from the book are just dumb. Like, they're just not good. Interesting. And I look at people who release, like, best of shows.

You ever see a podcast and it's like, replay, Best of. Yeah. I don't have that. Best of. That's not old stuff. That stuff is not good, in my opinion. Or it's not as good. It's certainly not Best of.

Yeah. So you're that hard on yourself? You can't, you couldn't see a best of. I can, and I'm looking, here's what's funny. On Saturday, I have like a four-hour session plan where I'm gonna relisten to a bunch of old episodes. Yeah. And some of them might get re-aired,

like things I did with like Shaquille O'Neal and things like that. And what I'm worried about is going, oh man, none of these are good enough. But I have to be kind of careful because I'll say that about something I did a month ago. Right. Just because, I don't know.

I just, yeah, I'm a hard of myself. No, I've had to do that with, my talks, like for the first like four or five years that I gave talks, I didn't want them filmed. And I would, if they were filmed, I would never look at them. Probably because I saw one, it was really bad. Oh, yeah, yeah. And so I told myself, if I just like pretend that it doesn't exist, I'll be better. Yeah. And now, now I'm like, I'm actually much more okay with it. I almost wanted to be filmed. I'm comfortable seeing myself on camera. And I want to actively think about how I can get better at it.

Whereas before, I wasn't getting better because I refused to think about that I was not good, you know? And I saw this interesting, Pete Carroll is the coach of the Seahawks. He was talking about coaches love to break down film of players. And he was like, do coaches ever watch film of themselves?

And so he did that one year. He, like, showed all the coaches, like, he did like a clip of each of the coaches throughout the year. And he was like, it totally changed how they coached. So like, I'm screaming at this person. I'm not being who I want to be or what I was thought I was being in that moment, but it's always easier to stick your head in the sand about it. Yeah, that's true. There's a lot of that.

I guess part of it comes from a good place. Like, do you really want to be a person who's like wants to, like, listen to hours and hours of yourself talk? Like, it'd be weird if you were really into it. It's true. But you have to be able to do it because you want to get better. That's true. I hear about guys like Dave Letterman, something about him going home every night, watching tape of the show, shredding himself, beating himself up, being absolutely horrible to himself. And wasn't that show on like five nights a week? Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, doing that to yourself I can't be healthy. It can't be healthy. Right. Yeah. So it's both. Yeah. I think it's a balance. Like, you can't just assume that you're just like constantly spitting fire, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

But you also can't be like treating yourself like a piece of shit. It's tough because you see successful people treating themselves really poorly all the time. And it's easy to go, that's obviously why they're so good at what they do. Yeah. I mean, I talk about this a little bit in the book. Like, you look at someone like Michael Jordan, he was clearly a collector of slights and grudges and resentment and like totally manufactured feuds as a way to fuel himself. And I just think, like, we kind of know where that comes from.

There's this moment when he's like, he says he's cut from his high school basketball team. But really, he just didn't make the varsity basketball. basketball team as a freshman or sophomore, which is like not supposed to happen. Right. It's like I didn't get kicked out of Harvard. I didn't get accepted to Harvard. Like, you know what I mean? Like, like, yeah, it just, that's not how it works.

You can't just make that up. But he comes back the next year and he makes a team and obviously he leaves this guy on the dust. But it's like, he tells himself it's because he like, you know, stewed on it and he shoved in the coaches. He also grew like seven inches in the offseason. Like, that's a same. sample size of one, and he used it to direct the whole course of his life. And it might have nothing to do with, like, do you know what I mean?

Yeah. Like, we can take, like, these singular interactions. It's like, somebody cheats on you and you're like, women lie. Right. You know, and it's like, that woman lied. To you about something, not lied about everything the whole time. Meanwhile, you were also lying. Yeah.

And also, she actually tried to tell you the truth and you refuse to hear. You know, like, so anyways, we take these, like, singular things and then we extrapolate out these like massive stories yeah and so I think causation and correlation are definitely not the same thing so like the fact that there's great people who break themselves down on film and are horrible Jimmy Hendricks is also a drug addict and so is Kirk Cobain like was that healthy or deeply unhealthy right good point yeah I think it is hard to separate high performers from some of their negative habits yeah and that sounds really obvious because we have, I'm sure, mutual friends where we go,

wow, he would be so much better if he didn't, like, shit talk everyone or, like, drink too much. Yes. But people from an external perspective who don't know them that well might be like, oh, you know why Jordan's so good at what he does is because he, like, blows his rails of cocaine every night.

So, of course, he reads 17 books a week. Like, he has all this time. He doesn't sleep. Right, yeah. Right. So in medicine, there's this idea of comorbidity. Like, there's things that, like, depression and addiction.

They don't really cause each other, but they are comorbid. They come along with each other, just like obesity and depression. Like, there's all these things that are comorbid traits. And so I think drive or ambition or talent is often comorbid with a lot of negative things. So, like, for instance, the desire to always focus on the next thing, that's like something I have. Like, I got the sales number this this is this morning for the new book. but I'm also simult, like, I'm not like, this is wonderful, let's have a nice dinner. Yeah, I'm like, I'm not only not reflecting.

I'm actually busy negotiating like the next one, right? And so in some respects, it's obviously served me very well. That's why I'm always stacking projects. I know I have a lot of dead time. But that also prevents me from enjoying the thing. And so, like, for champions, I'm not calling myself one. I'm just like in sports, that desire to never be happy with what you did, even if you broke a world record or won the Super Bowl,

Obviously, you can see why that, like, makes them a champion, but it also means that they never feel like a champion. Yeah, I find this, too, and again, we're far from Kobe Bryant, and I don't have any rings to show for this. But, yeah, we got named, like, Best of 2018 by Apple, and people were sending me messages, and I remember being like, I wish all these texts would stop breaking my focus

because I'm working on something. And friends of mine were like, you must feel great. And I actually felt worse by them saying that, because I was like, well, I don't really. I mean, yes, it's good, but I don't feel good. And it also makes me question, where am I going to be in, like, 30 or 40 years? Am I ever going to sit down and, like, enjoy the fact that I've achieved stuff? Or is it just going to constantly be this way?

It's a little scary, actually. Yeah, no, it is scary. It's certainly a first world problem. Yeah, of course. But it's like people just don't really talk about how to cope with that or deal with it. And I think one of the downsides of not talking about it is not only, do we not solve that problem, but like people become convinced, you go, oh, the problem wasn't that I can't enjoy being named to the best. It's that I was not the most downloaded. You go, like,

I'll feel better if I get that. Yeah, right? Or you go, oh, the Super Bowl was nice, but like, I really want to be in the club of people who have won back-to-back Super Bowls. Or like Kevin Durant, it's like, you won all these rings with the Warriors, but he's like, now I got to win one for myself, you know? Yeah. And it's like, you know what it's gonna feel like when he gets it? If he does, it's gonna feel exactly the same. Yeah, sure.

And it's gonna feel not good because that's the curse of being great. And so it's a, I guess what I'm talking about in the book and what I'm working on myself is like, and maybe it's not possible, but like, I think that it is, it's like, can you get to a place where you do really great work and you perform at an elite level, but you do it from a good place in booze and they, they, they, they, they, they do it. They say like craving is the opposite of stillness. Like anything that's coming from craving is bad. It's not that sex is bad.

It's like the craving is bad. Right, right. The need. And the Stoics talk about this too. They say like a wise man can use many things, but he needs none of them. It's the need, the place of need that's the delusion because you're saying if I get this, if this, then that. Can I write a great book and can I continue to write great books and can I have a career

where I perform at an elite level, where I'm doing it not to prove anyone wrong, not because I'll be happy if I get it, you know, not because I want to have this amount of money or I need this amount of Instagram followers. You know, like, can I just actually be in it and do it and come from there,

not from like, yeah, just that darker place? How do you make that shift? It's not like I don't know that if this happens, I'm saying if this than that, hey look, if I get 100,000 more listeners over the course of the year, it's going to be great, our revenue's going to go like this,

I'm doing if this than that. But I've already played this game before. I've been doing this for 13 years. Like every year it's a different goal and every year I feel the same way. And I'm happy looking back, but I'm not like satisfied ever. So is there a way where you then go,

you know what, this is unhealthy, clearly banging my head against the wall and doing this. The craving is still there. part still unhealthy, you know? Or is this just another, if this than that? Well, if I can get this craving to stop, then I'll be healthy and I'll be able to enjoy myself.

It's the exact same thing. Yeah, inception. I was talking to Pete Holmes about this. He was talking about how he and his wife, like, sometimes fan, I was like, what if we could have a farm? And I was like, I have a farm. It's not that great. It sounds awesome.

You have a lake? Right, it's great. But it's not like, we got it. I thought it was going to be my dream house. And then the next thing, I'm like, well, I don't really like the floors. And like, I really dislike how it's laid out. Like, you're always going to do that. So he was like, what we've slowly realized is, like, this is the farm.

Where we currently live, that's whatever the fantasy is. Right? And that's actually a mantra I have. And I try to say to myself all the time, like, this is enough or, like, this is it. There's not some other thing. Like, there's just this. So I think presence is kind of the antidote to what we're talking about. Because, like, when you're thinking, like, oh, I just need to get 100,000 listeners

or if I can just get the revenues up to the seven figures. Yeah. Like for me, like, I tend to think I have this sort of insecurity. So it's like contracts. Like, if I could just get this locked up, then I can count on it. Or if I can just have this amount of passive income from this, like, then I won't feel like I have any financial needs. And it's like, that's not how that works. But just going like, this is it.

This is enough. That's like kind of a mantra. I try to repeat to myself. And the reason I think it works is that doing a great interview with Malcolm Gladwell or trying to write a book or trying to give a talk in front of this audience is hard enough. Yeah. How arrogant is it to think you can do that while also using 5% or 10% or 50% of your mind over here to think about how you're going to get more subscribers?

Yeah. Yeah, it's a waste. Well, it's not just a waste. It's just like you're cheating the performance. Yeah, that's true. Like you're not giving 100% to the thing. So, like, in a way, it almost makes what you've, because of it's a waste. we all do it, it makes what we managed to accomplish more impressive.

We're like, how'd you manage to hit all these home runs while also fantasizing about the next three years of your career? Right. Like, what could you hit two more home runs with the cumulative amount of mental energy that you wasted thinking of far ahead? You're listening to The Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Ryan Holiday. We'll be right back. Thanks for listening and supporting the show.

And to learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard from our amazing sponsors, visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. Don't forget we have a worksheet for today's episode so you can make sure you solidify your understanding of the key takeaways from Ryan Holiday. That link is in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com slash podcast. If you'd like some tips on how to subscribe to the show, just go to Jordan Harbinger.com.com slash subscribe. Subscribing to the show is absolutely free. It just means that you get all of the latest episodes downloaded automatically to your podcast player so you don't miss a single thing. And now back to our show with Ryan Holiday.

That distracted feeling is so toxic. Whenever it happens, when it happens during an interview or whether I'm being interviewed or talking to somebody else like you, I almost like taste motor oil when I'm like, oh God. Yeah, it's not literally, but I just feel the pull. The pull is a great word because I'm over here and I have to like beat that worry out.

It's like getting an email from your lawyer right before you have to give a talk and you're just like crap. I shouldn't have checked this. I shouldn't have checked this. Yeah, and we do that mentally. So my thing is I don't check my phone in the morning. I don't use it as alarm clock, don't sleep it in the room, and I try not to check my phone. When I'm at home, it's like a minimum of an hour.

Sometimes, like, I'm on the road. Like, it's like, I got to know if I have to, they change the call time for this time or that. But, like, I don't check my phone in the morning. So I had to use my phone as alarm clock because I'm staying in a hotel room. Yeah. Tip, first thing you should do when you get into a hotel room, unplug the alarm clock. You have no idea what horrible times, some idiot sent it to. Yeah.

And four o'clock in the morning. Yeah, I've had things where it's like I had four hours. I could get four hours of sleep and it was actually all ruined because the person before me said the alarm clock. But the point is, I had to use my phone as the alarm clock. So I went to go turn it off and I saw a bunch of texts from my agent about the sales numbers. I could tell they were good. From the glimpse, I could tell they were good. Like, I wanted to check them, but I knew that's not the best way to spend the morning.

Like, that would derail the morning. For sure. Because I'd spend the, then I got to call these people. I see what they are. I got to have a conversation about it. I was like, my plan before I saw it was to wake up, go for a swim, write in my journal, and then get a little bit of writing done before I have to go do this thing. Yeah.

And why am I going to let good news or bad news get in the way of that? And so that email from your lawyer before you go on stage is like, to me is a great analogy because it's like we could be in the right head space, but then we let other things jump in, either external news, internal news, or whatever, but it's just not where you should be. So I was like, okay, I'm not going to check this. I now am going to work to do this swim and actively not think that every time it comes up, I'm going to push it away, and I'm going to try to get back to whatever this experience would have been without peak.

It's like, you know there's a surprise party coming, and you're just going to try to forget that you know, right? You know, and it was work, but you have to be able to push those thoughts away because, like, there are going to be other times with other more serious things with higher stakes that if you haven't worked out that muscle, you're just going to be like, I just blew the opportunity of a lifetime because I saw a very unpleasant tweet from a total stranger because I was checking my phone when I shouldn't be checking my phone. I know. And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I see that. And I think you're right. I think a lot of people who I find are overcome with anxiety, not everyone, of course,

but a lot of these people, they have too much input and they just can't deal with it all. Yeah. And they need to not be on their phone or they need to not be checking it because everything causes like a fight or flight reaction in their life. Look, the news, for instance, is not,

there's no money in making you feel like everything's okay in the world. Yeah, that's a good point. So like, I think people just consume way too much news about everything. Like financial news, political news, celebrity got, like, why are you consuming this information? Got to be up to date. Right. It's like what?

What purpose? So that you can like impress people at a cocktail party that you're not invited to? Exactly. Exactly. And no one ever goes, wow, Jordan, you're so up to date. No. No. You never feel like you don't feel like you get there either. No. And you don't do anything with this information. And most of the time that consuming the information actually makes you deeply unhappy or distracted. So people think, you know, like I follow the news to be informed. And it's like, meanwhile, how many books could you have read about like history or the human experience? or wisdom or spirituality or whatever, that would have actually made you informed

in some sort of lasting way. You talk to these people, and you're like, okay, so you know about the ins and outs of this investigation, but you actually have no idea how our system of government works. Right.

And you tell yourself you're informed, but how could you, you're not informed, you just know some trivia. And then meanwhile, there's this other person who hasn't turned on the news for 10 years, and they could just tell you exactly how this event is going to go.

Yeah. Because they know how history works. I assume maybe, you're referring to this impeachment investigation that's going on. Just any investigation, but yeah. Somebody asked me the other day, oh, yeah, so things are heating up or whatever.

And I was like, yeah, I don't really know. And they're like, oh, you're not following this? And I said, and I was so proud of myself for saying this, I've never uttered this. I said, I'm going to wait for like five years and then there'll be a book about it. I'll just read that. Because there will be.

And I'll get a very well-rounded, complete 360 of the whole thing. And then I'll know it. I don't need to know it now. Well, think of the expression that you just said, I'm not following it. Why would any, why do we need to follow it?

Yeah. You should go where it ends. Right. Right. And look, there are things where, like, if people like, I'm watching the debate because I need to decide who I'm going to vote for. There's that. Okay.

So you have said that consuming this information is going to have an impact on a decision you're going to make. But most of the people who watch the debates know who they're going to vote for. And they're just watching a crappy sports. Yeah. You know, like, yeah. They're watching the worst. sport ever.

Moderated. It's watching moderated debates. Yeah. It's moderated by Anderson Cooper. I want Anderson Cooper to moderate no sports. Yeah. It's a really good point. It's just like a really boring slow pace game of nothing.

Well, and even think about it this way. Debates used to be, this is the debate. And different cable stations are all recording it at the same time, right? So it was an event being covered on television. Now it is an event being put on by television, right? CNN is inventing this debate. This debate was not going to happen without CNN. It's not like the Lincoln Douglas debates

where a bunch of people were watching these two, you know, figures in Illinois debate each other, right? It's like this is a manufactured, this is a press conference, right? Which is done exclusively for the purpose of getting media attention. Yeah, oh, that's a good point. I didn't even think about that. You're right. It's not necessarily a government function now.

It's a CNBC, this is CNBC or CNN or Fox News. going, man, we can get millions of people to tune into an event that we don't have to pay anyone to appear on. Right, yeah, good point. There's no salaries for the athletes or anything. The advertisers involved are still going to pay a huge Super Bowl-level premium

probably if they even have that. Yeah, totally. You figured out what you wanted to do really early in life. He kind of mentioned that you'd thought about being a writer at age 19. A lot of people will write in and go, how do I know what I want to do? Sure.

I'm like, well, crap. I'm the last person to ask. I'm still figuring out. I'm 39 years old. Yeah. I feel like that's a very, it's like, how did you find the person

that you were going to marry? It's like, I don't know. It just happened. Yeah. You fell into it. And then I didn't say no to the experience. So I don't have like a great answer. Although I think Robert Green's book mastery

is probably the book I recommend most to people. And one of the things he talks about is he's like, you got to think back to your childhood to that thing before money and pressure and like what your teacher said. Before any of that, like, what were you sort of like purely attracted to that got you going? You know, like, what was that thing?

And probably inside, like, I kind of think, like, what would you do for free? Yeah. What do you stare out of car windows and think about? I'm not saying that tells you the job, but it should give you a sense of, like, the ballpark of where this career thing is. That's true. I read lots of books. I really admire writers.

Okay, probably something in publishing, you know, maybe. And then it's like where do your skills overlap with this? You're obsessed with baseball. You could be a GM. You could work in the marketing department. You could be a professional baseball player. You could be an agent, you know? You could be the guy that, you know, takes care of the field.

Like, there's a lot of different things, but your sort of subconscious told you that, like, baseball was it. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's a good point. Looking back at my own childhood, I tried to build an FM transmitter when I was like nine. Yeah. because I wanted to talk on the radio. And it turns out it's illegal to attach a huge antenna to those things.

Pesky FCC licenses. But I forgot about that for 20 years or something. And then not quite 20 years, but yeah, close to it. And for me with writing, I think the other thing is people go like, I love video games. I should be a professional video game player. You know, like, it's not, don't just think of the most glamorous thing. I love podcasts. I should have my own podcast.

It's like, where does that overlap with your skill set, right? background and what is the market need. I don't think I was like, I want to be a writer. I started, I love books. I love reading. I want to be around authors. And my first entry point into that was marketing for authors, particularly internet marketing and online social media stuff with, which at the time was a very uncompetitive space and a very poorly understood space. And it was only in working with these people and meeting them and really figuring out how the process work that it was like, oh, I think I could actually do this. Like they're not, you know, maybe you go around basketball players, you're like, wow, these are like just totally different human specimens than me. I didn't have

that feeling being around Robert Green or the other authors that I worked for. I just got this sense that they had dedicated themselves to a different part of the craft and maybe I could do that. Yeah, you could have easily been an editor at a publisher reading other people's work and crossing things out dramatically, which is what I kind of imagine they do. Yeah, yeah. It's mostly in Microsoft words. Yeah. Not a lot of crossing out.

Maybe no crossing out. A lot of those comment bubbles. Oh, yeah. Oh, geez. Yeah, maybe it doesn't sound as fun at that point. No, but you find out, it's like we're in the studio. You're like, I love music. I love recording things.

Go get a job sweeping the floors in a studio. Because I was thinking about this with sports, because my books have become popular in sports. Like, I've met all these people, these sort of team psychologists or mental skills coaches for the teams. And I'm like, I really wish I knew this was a job. Maybe that's actually what I would have been really good. Like I'm writing is clearly what it is for me, but I was like, if you had told me at 19 that like there was a guy who worked for the Sacramento Kings who just helped them be better thinking about basketball, I'd be like, how do I go to school for that?

Right. I didn't know that was a thing. But if my parents had only got a job as a ball boy, I would have needed to take a step towards the industry and then I would have found out that that profession exists. I feel like you are in school for that. You're going to write all these and then someone's going to be like, hey, come give a talk. You're like, how about I give a talk? All the time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every week for a nice fat song. You know, Dan Coyle? He wrote talent code. Yeah, and talent is overrated, I think. He works for the Indians now. Nice. Yeah.

So that makes sense. Yeah, you can do that. Yeah. For me, that's like an alien world, you know, that's like sports thing. But I get it. I would have been really well served being like the coffee kid at a radio station. Well, podcasting didn't exist at first.

No. But it was you following the space enough and messing around enough and being. And that's why, you know, in David Epstein's book about range, like, that's why you got to have all these different interests because they converge together around something. And oftentimes that's where new professions are created as well. Exactly. Yeah. I agree with that. Whenever people ask me how to figure out

what to do with their life, the answer is always make a list of skills that you would like to learn. Go learn those and then figure out where you can apply them in different businesses. It doesn't even have to be the same thing. Yes. You know, if you want to learn

4x trading, you can go ahead and do that, but it doesn't mean you're going to be a 4x trader. You might be like at some desk working with an executive who happens to touch their business. Yeah. And that stuff tends to come together quite nicely. Like, this podcast never started as me interviewing people,

was me talking about how pathetic my dating life was literally 13 years ago. Yeah. And then I was like, I'm out of content. Maybe I'll do an interview with somebody else. And then I was like, that was the most fun episode I've ever done. Sure. So this slow evolution is the only way to do it. I think now people look at these things that they say online or that they see online or that

they read in books and they go, oh, well, this person kind of, this fell into their lap or fell out of the sky. And it's also reinforced negatively by marketers who go, oh, my origin story, crap, I need to come up with a good one. Here's this really smooth curve from me having like an epiphany and then meeting the right people and then getting really lucky and then here we are. And it's like, whoa, none of that happened. You're in the army for 10 years. You don't even talk about that or whatever. Yeah. And Peter Thiel talks about how we have this inclination towards competition.

So like we go like, I don't know what I want to do with my life. A lot of people are doing podcasts. I will do podcasts because we think the fact that lots of people are doing. it makes it safe, right? When really the real gains and the real success in life usually comes from breaking some kind of new ground. So, like, look, I'm an author. Lots of people are authors, and it's like one of the older professions, I would say. But I write a different kind of book for a different kind of audience. When I was like, I wanted to write a book about Stoces and the publisher's not like, oh, yes, that's a very established. It's a hot topic right now. Right.

And if they had, that might have been better for me in the short term, but much worse for me in the long term. So you want to think the key is like, where do these diverse interests overlap and add up to something that doesn't exist? Like people go, I'm smart and I like arguing. I should be a lawyer. That's like the worst one. That's a hot topic because that's what everyone will tell you. And there's people who are not lawyers, they don't even know any lawyers. They're like, oh, and that's how I ended up in law school.

Ants being like, oh, you should be a lawyer. You know, you can get anything you want, kind of job you want with a law degree, and clearly you like to argue or be right, so you should do this. And it's, I think it was like, Tucker Max wrote this whole post where it's like, this is why all of these things are wrong.

Yeah. And that post is, I end up sharing it a lot when people go, should I go to law school? I'm like, you should read this. Because the answer is probably not when your mom says go to law school based on all the stuff I've seen on NCIS Miami or whatever, or law and order.

You know, these are not good representatives of what you're gonna be doing on a daily basis. Yeah, of course. It's not gonna be like JAG where you're flying in a jet and armed and chasing people down to Manhattan. You're gonna be in a cubicle a lot of the time. If you're lucky, you might not even have your own cubicle.

How, uh... It's true, though, right? Sorry for triggering you. Yeah, no, I got that went off on a tangent there. It's true, though, I think a lot of people, they come up with an idea of what something must be like in their head, and they just, it's so unrealistic,

we just assume that that's at least representative a little bit of reality, and it's not even close a lot of the time. Well, one of the things I talk about in the book is, are you actually taking time to, like, stop and think about these things? So people are like, I'm going to be a lawyer. And it's like, how long have you thought about this?

Like, you're saying, I want to be a lawyer from the fact that your mom said you were good at arguing and then, like, you're, this guy down the hall from you is also applying to law school. You're right. That's pretty much it. Yeah. Epic Titus, one of the Stokesy,

talks of these, you got to take these impressions or these inclinations and you got to like stop and put them to the test. Or like the other way is like stop, get out your glasses, put them on and look at it. You know what I mean? Don't just look at the vague shapes and go like, I think I know what this is. Really stop and think about it. Like not like take the evening, but like think about it for like a couple months. Like, do you know any lawyers or, like, do you know people that have done this? Like, what would happen if you actually were successful in this thing? What kind of, like, I talk about this with people who were like, I want to do X or I want to, I go like, but what do you want your life to look like? Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. And that was like what I had sort of

realized, like, I really didn't like having a job where people could tell me what to do. So it's like, oh, so if I become more successful when I was the director of marketing in American apparel. It's like, okay, so what do you do next? I'm probably not going to become the CEO of this company because it's, you know, run the way that it's run. Yeah. So maybe I'll go get a job at, like, I'll make a lateral move or a slightly higher move. I'll get the same position at a bigger, better company. And then it was like, wait, I'll actually be less happy because as chaotic as this company is, it does allow me to, it feels less like a job than a normal place. Success would be me actually moving further away from what I want my life to be.

But when someone says, hey, I'll pay you $100,000 a year to do something that's the opposite of how you want your life to be, all you're thinking about is $100,000. Yeah. You're not thinking, well, how much that $100,000 am I going to have to spend to not feel like I hate my life? Right. All of it. More than all of it.

Yeah, yeah. Or it's like, hey, I know you really love where you live. I know you have that your kids are in great. schools and you have this great routine, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But, like, I'll pay you 20% more than you're currently making. And now you have to live in Buffalo, New York. Yeah. You know, not to hate on Buffalo, New York.

But you've got to take your kids out of school. Yeah, you've got to do all. Yeah, you have to do all this stuff. And your quality of life will be lower. And what are you doing with said money, you know? Retiring early, maybe buying another vacation so that your family doesn't hate living in Buffalo, yeah, or whatever. Like, so I think.

Saying no to money is like extraordinarily difficult. It is. And I have a lot of trouble doing it and I don't do it enough. I had this experience where I got called back in American Apparel and I was a consultant in the turnaround. I sort of detangle myself from it. I got free. And I remember I was, this is when we bought our farm and I was there and I spent all morning

writing. And I got this unsolicited email from a very big tech company that was like, hey, we need sort of a CMO consultant to come in for like four months. It was going to pay a lot of money. There was like some stock. you know, options attached to it, be a cool challenge. And I remember I took the call and I negotiated some of the deal. And then I was like, wait, I have to move to New York and have to show up at a job every day. And I just worked really hard not to have a job. Yeah. Why would I say yes to this? Because money.

Yeah. Because money. And like another, I mean, I wrote a piece about this for the Times, but I got a pretty decent offer for it to be a pretty high-ranking, you know, figure in the Trump administration, one of the cabinet. You did? Yeah, this is like in 2016. That is ironic. Yeah, it was very strange. Clearly they had not,

I'm not sure it would have come all the way to pass because, like, I don't think I'd been vetted yet. And I think they would have realized, like, where I stood. But the point was, like, I remember asking you guys, like, do I have to live in D.C.? He was like, yes. And I was like, what do you get paid? And he was like, you know, not that much.

Jack Squat. Yeah. And then I was like, and what about, like, all the other things that I have, like, books and my investments and all this has to go and, like, a blind trust, and you can't touch them. And so it was like, boom, boom. And then he was like, so are you interested? And I was like, yes.

You know, like, because it was like, it was like in every way, it was the opposite of why I wanted. But it's really hard to say no to things. And we don't take the time to think about them. So thankfully, I took the time to think about it. And when I laid it all out and I talked, like, this is why I think being in relationships is so important. I was single. Yeah. I probably would have jumped off that cliff, right?

You're not able to think long term. Sam was probably like, I don't want to move to D.C. They have winter there. Yeah, yeah. That end of story. She's more like, you know, this contradicts all the things that you like, right? You know, and you're, yeah, but. But how cool would it be?

Secret Service will drive us around. Yeah. But you don't understand. It's also a huge pay cut. Also, I'm ideologically opposed to everything they stand for it. Oh, and I can't do any business or anything. Yeah. And I can't work on any other projects like the ones I love.

But it's like, people are, what are you doing next? What about this? What about this? It's really hard to be like, this is my thing. This is what I'm doing. and to have the patience and the discipline to go to actually weigh the opportunities or the options against whatever that rubric is.

And people just don't do that. And that's why they plunge ahead into stuff that makes them miserable or ruins everything they have. It's true. You know, and the most important time to make those decisions is usually when you feel like you don't have time to make those decisions. So like when I was a lawyer, we had this economic downturn of 2008,

and everyone went, oh my God, we have to find new jobs. And even I did that, and I, even interviewed at some other places. And then I was like, wait, wait, I'm working so hard to get another job that I don't even want. But all my colleagues were like, dude, you're not going to have a paycheck pretty soon. You have law school loans. You've got to repay that.

What are you going to do? And I'm like, literally anything else? I would do anything else. Maybe I should go to the police academy. And they're like, you're crazy. They all scrambled and found new jobs. And now, of course, they're like, oh, man, this big loss sucks. They doubled down.

No. So this idea of like, look, I'm going to really stop and think about this. It's not just about making you more conservative. It's not like you only say no to things. It also helps you plunge ahead on things that other people are afraid of. So, like, when I dropped out of college, I was terrified of it. You know, there's that like, hell yes, hell no. Yeah.

Like, all the big moves of my life have failed that test. And I was really scared about it. And so I ended up deciding to do it. And I remember I went and I was like, I'm ready to drop out. You know, like, that's not how this works. Like, it's much more gradual than that. Like, you know, just take a semester off. Anyways, because I'd done that, because I had some experience taking a leap like that, when I decided I was going to like walk away from like a very good lucrative corporate track to be a writer, I was able to go like, oh, I can always just go back.

You know, like, that was interesting. I thought I was dropping out of college and they're like, you can always come back. And I remember someone told me they're like, when I was in college, I got sick and I missed a year of college. And he was like, do you know how many people have ever asked what? what happened. Yeah, zero. Yeah, they were like, why did you go to college

and this year and then graduate five years later? It was like literally never come up. He's like, I don't even think about it. Yeah, I had mono. Oh, okay. Next. Right, right. And so we look at these things.

We're super intimidated by them because they seem scary because they're unknown. You're suddenly like, I'm a little under a bridge somewhere. I could get murdered or, you know, and it's like, actually, this changes nothing. Like, it's not scary at all

once you break it down. So at the core of Stoicism, And then in the story, I tell the book, like, the beginning of Mr. Rogers, which you're almost going to have to start watching. Oh, I watched that documentary two days ago. So you'll start watching the show now that you have a kid. But, like, the beginning of the show, it's a flashing yellow light, which is, like, slow down. Like, look carefully, right?

And we have to be able to do that in our lives, particularly when stuff is coming, like, a mile in a minute. Like, just because someone sent a tweet to you doesn't mean you have to respond the first thing that comes into your head. just ignore it. Yeah, probably shouldn't do it at all. Or you could wait 24 hours, you know, like this stuff feels like it's real time. But 20 years ago, they would have written it to you in a letter, you know.

You're listening to The Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Ryan Holiday. We'll be right back after this. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers keeps us on the air. To learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, so you can check out those amazing sponsors, visit jordanharbinger.com slash deals. And don't forget the worksheet for today's episode. That link is in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com slash podcast.

And if you're listening to us on The Overcast, Blair, please click that little star next to the episode. We really appreciate it. And now for the conclusion of our episode with Ryan Holiday. Mr. Rogers is an interesting case study. Why did I watch that recently? Is it in the book? It's in the book. Oh, that must be why I watched it because I don't remember what jogged that.

He's amazing. I haven't seen the documentary. Oh, man. Because sometimes you kind of get this, like, professional jealousy about things. So, like, I started writing this book in 2016, 2017, like, before the Mr. Rogers resurgence. And so, like, there are only books about them were these, like, two obscure self-published books by, like, friends of his. And there was not a lot of stuff out there. And so I sort of fell in love with it and I was writing all about it.

And then it was, like, Tom Cruise movie or Tom Hanks movie. Oh, that would be good. That would be good. The action is an action. Phil. Yeah. Mr. Wright's the one that follows his story in that chain letter that everyone got that said he's a Navy SEAL. Yeah, exactly. Starring Tom Cruise. But no, then there's a movie and then there's a documentary. I was like, you know what? Like, I want to preserve, like, whatever the

headspace I have about this thing is. But, like, I think he's, like, one of the greatest people of the 20th century. Definitely agree. Yeah. We don't really have sainthood anymore. Yeah. Maybe we will have a few hundred years. But he would be a good saint. He was a minister. Yeah. Oh, that's right. Yeah. That's right. He was. But he has kids. I'm so desperate to know what he was like when he was super pissed off.

They talk about that in either the documentary or in the books. Must be in a book because I don't think I've heard. He was like kind of mischievous. Like he would like when he would want to say something inappropriate

he'd like do it in one of the voices of the puppets. He did it in King Friday's voice. Yeah, yeah. I bet he was a totally normal human being. Yeah. I mean he would swim every morning. I saw that. He was just like a normal guy

but just also an incredible person at the same time. It's got to be so hard to just talk to kids and be measured Not that he only talked to kids, but his whole life was geared towards talking to small children. I don't know if I could do that. But there are these anecdotes about him just like meeting people and just like having whatever that like sort of angel like energy is and he could just like go to the core of who they were.

I actually think it's more like he had some energy that was so special that it would work on anyone and that it would work on kids is a sign of just how powerful it was. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does, it does. Like Caesar Milan or something. Yeah, he's like the kind of guy that birds probably land on his shoulder.

It just so happens to mesh well with children, so he decided to speak to children. Because it's so rare. He had a talk show for adults, and I'm dying to get my hands on it. I know. I cannot find it. It's not anywhere easily accessible.

I'm sure it's on real-to-reel tape somewhere in the basement of, like, CBS or whatever. There's a story. There's a story, where he gets like a lifetime Emmy or something, and he goes up and he gives his speech. And he's like, I have about 30 seconds to talk. But instead of talking, I'm just going to look at my watch here

and I'm going to give you 20 seconds to think about someone who meant something to you. It's like, wow, who comes up with that? That's incredible. Yeah. But I think about this, like, the energy that it takes to interact with kids or animals. Like, Caesar Milan, obviously,

is someone who's operating on like a totally different level than the rest of us. But like my son goes to this daycare and these two Cuban ladies put like 15 toddlers down for a nap simultaneously every day. We have trouble putting one toddler tonight. You know, he's like running around. I don't want a nap. I hate naps. Like you got to strap in the car and drive around.

Like imagine doing 15 kids who are not your kids. Yeah. Oh my God. Simultaneously. Like just the like if you want to talk about stillness, like think of the energy. and the calmness and the discipline that you have to have to do something like that. And I think those people have something

that we should all study very seriously. How do you start studying habits of people like that? What do you look for? Well, I mean, habits is a great place to start. So it's like, oh, okay, what does Mr. Rogers' day looks like? Yeah, swimming. He gets up early. He pray, like he has some quiet meditative practice.

He swims. He eats the same thing. Just even that he's doing the same thing. It's like, oh, he's simplifying. Right? So he's not picking up energy from like, where do I have lunch? You know, what times does the show start? Should I work out today?

Yes or no. You know, like, we've seen them all. Exactly. Or just even like, hey, this is the intro of the show. I mean, it's his show. He could have changed it up every time. But he's like, no, like routine. You do something for once.

You do it for a week, whatever. You do it for a couple months. It's a routine. But you do it for 30 years, it's like a ritual. You almost become entranced by it. I mean, I don't think it's a coincidence. Someone like that is also deeply spiritual or religious. I'm not saying you have to believe in God.

I have trouble getting there myself. But just like, oh, it's his sort of vulnerability and his almost willingness to submit to something larger than himself. That's probably the key to a lot of that humility and that stillness. It's got to be a part of it. It can't be an accident. Yeah, I think you're right. I found a lot of people, myself included, have trouble staying or getting ground, especially

when we're all wrapped up in our work. And one thing that's been good for me is taking lessons in something that you're not good at. Sure. Because there's nothing quite like getting a voice coach or something for a professional, but even outside of that, like getting a Chinese teacher. Because in the workplace, we kind of have to sell ourselves all the time. Right.

It's hard to go, oh, gee, I'm just not really that good at this or I'm working on this and this because you have to sell yourself. as like the best man for the job. And so getting a teacher and something that you're not necessarily good at has actually been quite good for that. It sort of gets you in, and I'm not even talking about this general student of life mindset.

I mean like looking at actual skill that you suck at and hiring someone to tell you how to do it right. Well, I talk about this a lot in the book, like the power of a hobby is that embodied, right? Like, Winston Churchill after the First World War, he's like in the worst sort of spot in his career. And his sister-in-law gives him this child children's paint set.

And she goes, my kids seem to have fun. Why don't you try having fun? You know, and he falls in love with painting. And he paints something like 500 paintings in his lifetime. And he's not good. Like, the paintings don't belong in museums because they're good. They belong in museums because of what the person who painted them was able to do through painting. Do you get what I'm saying?

Well, yeah, he was like defeating Hitler and he's like, here's a crappy landscape. It's like, well, you also were defeating Hitler. the same time. But it's not like they're related. It's not like he's into BDSM and it's a secret. It's like the process of painting. It's a weird visual. The process of painting and the relaxation that comes from it and the joy that comes from it

and the presence that comes from it was what allowed him to manage the terrible stress that was the insane burden that he was under. That's true, I think. And also to your previous work, I think getting feedback and criticism. in an area that you don't have maybe a ton of ego attached to, helps you go, oh, maybe I should consider doing that in this other area that is my whole life or that I have importance attached to.

And deciding that results are not the primary motivation for doing it. So, like, I've run and swim for a long time now. And people are like, oh, are you training for a marathon? Or, like, why don't you train for a marathon? And it's like, I'm not trying to get better at my hobbies. Like, I'm not trying to win. I am trying to get better at them. I'm not trying to win my hobbies.

And I don't need any more competition in my life. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Like, the win is that I made the time for it. That's a good point. I think for me, with languages, for example, it's really clear because I can go to any bubble tea shop. There'll be a seven or eight-year-old or ten-year-old, whatever kid in there.

And they're speaking more fluently than me. They've got a fourth-grade reading book, and they're reading it, and I need a dictionary to read that same book. And it's just, it's really hard to be like, I'm the best at this. It's like, nope, this child who can't even tie his shoes is actually better than you at this, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And how often do you get that as you become better

and better at what you do? Yeah, it's rare. There's fewer people who are like, Jordan, you're doing a horrible job. Right. You know, like, you need to like get serious about this. Yeah, yeah, it's tough. I actually just emailed Mark Merrin the other day

and he replied today and was like, I can't help you because what I was like, hey, I'll pay you for some like consulting on interviewing. And he was like, I can't articulate what I'm doing, I can't be of any help to you at all. It's not that I don't want to do it. I just can't do it. That's interesting.

You reached out to him as not as a peer? I was just like, hey, would you consider going through like your prep process, your interview process? And I obviously would pay you for that. Because otherwise, he's just like, oh, everyone's going to ask me to do this. Sure, sure. And I've done that with a few journalists and stuff. And a lot of them are like, yeah, let's do it.

Come to New York and we'll do it. Mark Marin was just like, I can't actually help you. I know this already. Oh, interesting. That was interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So I reached out to people like,

that all the time to try to get it is hard to find somebody who's going to be at a higher level that's also willing to like sit down with you and help you do it i was thinking about this or something we're doing for daily stoke right now so my books have sort of made their way through professional sport yeah the amount of coaches who are like best in the world at what they do that like send me emails having read the books is like blown my mind it's not a reflection of me it's a reflection of them most people don't read right most people think they're good at what they do and they're good enough then there's a certain percentage of people that read. That's great. That's like self-improvement. But like what percentage of people are like,

I wonder if there's anything more I can learn from this person. Sure. Do you know what I mean? I've been very impressed and inspired by the culture in sports of like, oh, this person's the best in the world at this thing that's vaguely related to what I do. I'm going to see if I can learn from them. Right? So sports in a way that a lot of business doesn't have a culture of like, hey, let's bring in speakers. I spoke to the University of Alabama, maybe three years ago. Nick Saban sat in the front row and asked the first question after the talk, right? And, like, I don't think that was a reflection of, like, how riveting my talk was. I think it was a reflection of one.

He's trying to model to his players, like, the idea of being a perpetual student. And then maybe there's a 1% chance that I'll actually have an interesting thing to say. And maybe he will learn something from the question. But the point is, like, he's not thinking, I'm Nick Sabin. I'm the greatest coach in the history of collegiate. to athletics, what could you possibly show me? It's the exact opposite of it. Yeah, that's interesting.

And plus, I would imagine he found it through some other coach that maybe at some level competes with him or could have. Yeah, maybe. You've obviously talked with a lot of NFL teams and things like that. They're sharing it with each other, right? So these coaches aren't like,

ooh, I'm not going to share this Ryan Holiday book. That's my little secret. It's everywhere. No, and that's why I was asking about Marin. Like, I would think that you, given what you've accomplished, would be able to just say like, hey, Mark, do you have any advice? Yeah.

You know what I mean? Yeah. But it's also cool that you offer to pay. Yeah, I always do because otherwise a problem is a lot of people have responded, oh, I wouldn't take your money. I would love to do this for you. The problem is I'm so busy for the next like seven months. I'm like, well, I bet you're busy doing things that pay you.

Right. So if I add money to the equation, maybe it speeds the timeline up six months. That's true. You know? And also, if you pay, you get a lot more than just like a two-line email of advice. Generally. No, no, that's true. I was just, I just hired, do you know John Beer? Yeah.

Oh, he emailed me about doing this. Yeah, yeah. I worked with the moment thing. And it's like you have friends who are really great at stuff. And you're like, no, I want to pay you because you are the best in the world at what you do. Was it Jack Taylor? He's like a great publicity firm, right? And like, I'm not going to ask you a favor as a friend. I want like the full thing. The full treatment. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's a weird thing. I think earlier in my career, I would have been like, I gotta get a deal. Yeah. It's like, no, actually, like, expertise is expensive. It is. Yeah, I'm the same way. I like to pay knowing that I'm going to get the full treatment. Yeah.

Yeah, if somebody says, look, I'll do this for free because I only have 30 minutes of stuff for you, then fine. I don't want an eight-week training program for free because it's going to just build resentment if it even exists. What I figured out with my marketing business, because so few people actually were in a position, a lot of people wanted to pay for the full treatment, a lot of people actually were not a good fit for the full treatment.

So I was like, here's what we'll do. You can buy an hour of my time and I'll tell you everything I think you should know and everything I think you should do. And then if it does make sense for us to work together, that'll just apply to the fee. But like we were talking about lawyers. I like the lawyer model, right, of like this is what an hour of legal advice costs. Yeah, six minutes. It doesn't have to be the like, oh, let's go through this big pitch dance and come up with

this thing. and then I think we should be, in a way, we should be a little bit more transactional towards expertise and go like, this is what 30 minutes of Jordan's time costs about starting a podcast, buy it or don't. Yeah, and I'm happy to talk people out of doing it. That part is free if you're at an event

where I'm giving a talk. I'll talk you out of doing a podcast if you. Please, yeah. Because you've talked me out of it. Oh, did I? Well, yeah, I mean, we talked about this, but yeah. Oh, at MMT or something. Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm referring to.

I go to these events and talk about podcast I'm like, let me save all of you a lot of time. Yeah. Don't do it. I do the same thing. You should not write a book. Yeah. We talk about this sometimes in text where I'm like, here's a book.

What could this possibly be about? Yeah. It's like, I should never have been written. Yeah. This is one of those books where they wanted a book so that they could say I have a book. People want the results of having a book. And I think they want the results of having a podcast, but they don't actually want a thing. That's true.

And I think about that. Like, now I have a podcast that's on my terms that I like. So for Daily Stoke, I just read the email every day. So it's like a two-minute podcast. Yeah. It not only doesn't take my eye off the ball of what I like doing, which is writing, but it complements the writing. Sure.

Like it's just bringing the writing to people who don't like to read, you know? Good point. And so it's been wonderful. And like there might be some, like maybe there's 50 people that I want to interview at some point, and maybe I'll do that. But it's like, what I don't want to do is be interviewing five people a week because it's not what gets me out of bed in the morning. Yeah.

It'll keep you up at night, though. Yes. That's actually a great contrast. Yeah. People do, not only do they not do things that get them out of bed in the morning, but they do things that keep them up at night. Yeah, there's something clever in there, right? Yes, there is.

A way of phrasing it. Maybe that should be your book. There we go, yeah. Yeah, it's kind of a long title. All right, in closing, I'm wondering what keeps you driving so hard at your goals, but, you know, it sounds like a stupid question. But on the one hand, there's a lot in stillness is the key about how success is ephemeral, our goals are not really that meaningful, or at least not as we previously thought.

Then you look at your kids and you're like, wow, nothing I do matters except for raising this kid. But then you still show up for work every day. Yeah, and like you're doing a crazy long book tour to try to get this thing going and get it into people's hands. So I guess what I'm asking about is like, what daddy issues do you have that are all coalescing in this book tour? I got a lot. I got a lot of them. I got a lot of them.

I do feel like a lot of very successful, man, maybe it's women too, but I only know about the male experience, but it's like, Daddy. Can you please be proud for you now? Yeah, yeah, finally. It's not going to happen. Like, if you have to say that, it's not going to happen. There are people who become president, and then their parents are like, but you weren't as good as FDR, you know, or whatever.

Like, so I got a little bit of that. But I think there is this fear. People think if I'm content, if I have some idea of enough, I won't make good work anymore. Yeah, I'll lose my edge. Yeah. Same with humility. Yeah. Ego is the enemy had something like this.

Like we're, and I'm totally guilty of this, we think if we're humble, we're totally screwed because then your edge is gone. I would dispute whether the hunger is the edge. Like, so I do have some issue that makes me not want to rest between books, like always have one. And there's a part of me that always wants them to be bigger. As the risk of our sharing, so I'm in the middle of negotiating this deal for the next book. And I was, I saw my dad. And I was like, dad, like, isn't this is a very large number? And he was like, well, you shouldn't think.

about it today, you know, or something like this? And then later he was like, how much do you think this house cost? You know, like, he wanted to talk about anything but that thing. Yeah. And that's, there's a part of that, right? Like, there's clearly a part of that that drives me a little bit. But I don't want to be driven by it. No. So, okay, so maybe that's what created nine books in seven years as opposed to four books in seven years or whatever. But the actual books themselves, that's not an edge. That's the opposite of an edge. The craving or the need is not making them better, if anything, it makes them worse because you're trying to rush through them. Sure. So, like, really you want to be coming at it from a place of, like, I actually, like,

really have something I want to say. I like, I really love this. Like, and this goes to the Robert Green thing. I would do this for free. Like, even if I wasn't getting paid, would you do it for free? So I do talk about how, you know, you have to have some idea of enough and that, you know, like success is ephemeral and no amount of external accomplishment is going to fill a hole in your soul. But I don't think that's the same thing as genuinely loving the process or the craft of the thing. Like I feel like if someone handed me a billion dollars tomorrow, all that would do would it would make my books better. You'd have a nicer desk. I'd have a nicer desk, but I'd also probably even be writing from a slightly pure place. You know, like I'd still be. For sure. Oh, yeah. I'd still be.

writing, I'd be able to dictate terms slightly better. I could think longer term. So, like, to me, that's a sign you're in the right thing. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, if I had a billion dollars, I'd be like, oh, cool, I'll just build my own studio and I'll fly everyone in first class. But otherwise, we're still sitting in chairs, like, shifting around after an hour. Casey Nyset said that to me one time, he was like, you don't do the work to make money. You make money to do more work. So there's a version of that that's unhealthy, right? Like, I got more, more, more, but there's also, it's like, no, I actually, like, this is the most satisfying thing. And the success is about encouraging and facilitating the chase of that meaningful experience

rather than, like, the experience is a means to the end of having the stuff. I mean, like, you have kids or you zoom out a little bit. It does help you to go, like, there would have been a time where, like, if somebody ran in the room was like, you got to stop, like your son wants to go swimming, I'd be like, I have to finish this. Right. And now I go, I don't. Like, there's other things that are important. And if you told me I could trade a certain amount of books for having a really great family, I would take that trade in two seconds because it's not the output of the books that's important to me. It's that I just get to keep doing it. I think it's hard for people who haven't done anything that they feel successful

having done. Sure. Or maybe it's actually harder when you do have success. I'm not sure now. Yeah, a lot of this is like, these weren't things I was wrestling with when I was 20. I was wrestling with like, how do I get my shot? Yeah. And how do I not blow said shot? Not be broke, yeah. Right. But it eventually becomes an issue.

And, you know, writing is, it can be a great profession. It's not one of those things we're like, I don't have to work anymore. Like, I do, I do have to pay bills, right? Sure. And like, my roof isn't free. So if I'm going to do something, I want it to be something that I like. It's also important that you make life decisions. decisions that don't force career decisions.

Oh, that's good. You know, like people decide to live in New York City or they decide they have to have two Teslas or, you know, that they have to fly first class everywhere or whatever. And then that makes it hard for them to make really good career. Yeah, you've got the golden handcuffs. You go to the big law firm, you buy the house in Nantucket because you're miserable in the city and then you get a boat and then you're like, well, I can't quit. I got my building.

There's a reason that corporate firms will sometimes co-sign on my mortgages for you you know jeez i didn't know that yeah because like they want that's evil you know evil genius for sometimes CEOs companies will loan them money you know so upton sinclair has this thing called the dress suit bribe and it was always really powerful to me to think of it she's like so you think like oh i paid this is obviously from that early 90s you paid a quarter to have your shoes shined but how much are you paid to have to shine your shoes you have to have shiny shoes right and so he's like you think they're taking you out to a fancy lunch, but really they're giving you a new baseline of what lunch is, right? And then this becomes this thing, then you can't get out of it. Like,

I was very lucky on my first toicism book. Like, I was paid fairly based on what people thought it could do, but I wasn't like, I could think long term with the book because financially I'd make good decisions. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, I do. Yeah. And so that's another reason people are like, I'm quitting my job to start a podcast. It's like really bad idea. Terrible. Like one of the The worst. The only thing worse than trying to make that podcast money is trying to get rich selling books. Yes. Like there's actually much better money in podcasts right now than that are.

Which is not saying a whole lot. Right. But like it's like, no, you have your job, love your thing, build a parallel track that eventually you can jump on to. It's like quitting your job to be a blogger. The kind of blogging you have to do to keep from starving is not conducive to the kind of reps you need to get great. That's a good point. It's about the quality of the reps

and not just making sure that you've screwed yourself over so that you have to do it full time. 14 hours a day blogging. Yeah, people think there's something glamorous or, you know, sincere about like blowing up your life to start your thing. The whole going all in thing? Oh, that's a whole different show.

Yeah. Follow your passion, go all in, tell your parents to go screw themselves. If they won't let you become an entrepreneur, all terrible advice. Yes. But probably advice for another time. All right.

Thank you very. By the way, who chooses the form factor for these books? Like, this is small. Who chooses, like, oh, I want it to be a miniature version of a book? A snack size. So obstacles the way, they were like, hey, what about this size? And I held it, and I liked it. And I was like, that's great.

And then what we realized there's is something really powerful about a smaller book that you could read in one sitting. And so that's why suddenly you do a 30-minute show and your download spike. And you're like, oh, you know, like, that's how I should do it. And so it was just a random chance thing. but there's a very distinct reason now that the three books are the same size and the same length and the same format.

They're going to look good in a box set. A box set's coming next year. I figured as much. That's good. That's your best of right there. Yeah, it is. All right, stillness is the key. I almost said the way.

I'll take it. I'm sure that's happened before. Also true. Yeah, stillness is the key. It's easier to find if you get the title right. It's much easier to find if you get the title right. Ryan, thank you very much, man. Thanks again.

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