The Jordan Harbinger Show - 740: Ryan Holiday | Discipline is Destiny (Live from Los Angeles)

Episode Date: October 20, 2022

Ryan Holiday (@ryanholiday) is the host of The Daily Stoic podcast and the bestselling author of countless books about marketing, culture, Stoicism, and the human condition. His latest offering is Discipline Is Destiny: The Power of Self-Control, and he joined us live in Los Angeles to talk about this and lots more! What We Discuss with Ryan Holiday: How do you get into the headspace where you do your best work when everything in the modern world is trying to distract you from getting there? In spite of writing his first book about 1,800 years after Marcus Aurelius wrote his last, has Ryan really outsold the Stoic philosopher emperor? How do we keep from letting our desire to be perceived as great get in the way of truly achieving greatness (or at least creating good work)? Do you have the serenity of mind to accept that which cannot be changed, courage to change that which can be changed, and wisdom to know the one from the other in order to live your best life? How Stoicism's four cardinal virtues (courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom) can guide you even when the circumstances in which you find yourself are beyond your control. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/740 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Miss our conversation with Daniel Levin, a man who knows how to track down people who have gone missing in war zones and bring them home alive? Catch up with episode 617: Daniel Levin | How to Find a Missing Person in the Middle East 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.

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Start your free trial today. Coming up next on the Jordan Harbinger Show. So the show, you don't control. what happens, you control how you respond to what happens, right? I don't control that my flight was delayed. I do control what I do with that time. I do control whether I lose my temper. I control how I react to that. And the Stoics would say that you can always control with one of, or perhaps some combination of those four virtues, which are courage, temperance, or self-discipline, justice, and wisdom. Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the

Stories, secrets, and skills are the world's most fascinating people. We have in-depth conversations with scientists and entrepreneurs, spies and psychologists, even the occasional organized crime figure, war correspondent, extreme athlete or gold smuggler, and each episode turns our guest's wisdom into practical advice that you can use to build a deeper understanding of how the world works and become a better thinker. If you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about the show, I highly suggest our episode starter packs. These are a great place to begin. their collections of our favorite episodes, organized by topic to help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show.

Topics like persuasion and influence, disinformation and cyber warfare, abnormal psychology, negotiation, communication, crime and cults, and more. Just visit jordanharbinger.com slash start, or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Today, a bit of a different episode for you. This is my first ever live show. I did this in Los Angeles, sponsored by Hyundai. First live show I've ever done in my entire career, at least, memory here was so much fun. I definitely want to do it again. The audience was great. The conversation was

a lot of fun. I was really feeding off the energy of the crowd and almost wish all my shows were in person. Of course, we had Ryan Holiday fly out and do me a huge solid fly out and do this with me. We talk creation, work ethics, stoicism, success, parenting, ego, censorship, and more. Ryan Holiday, sure, many of you know who he is, but if you don't, he's got, I think, 15 plus bestselling books now. He even seemed to have lost count last time. checked. So a very prolific author, probably one of the most successful authors ever. I think we can say that. Certainly one of the most successful living authors of our generation here. And if you like Ryan Holiday, you're going to love this episode. And if you don't, you will still get a lot out of

this conversation and have a chance to laugh with us over the next hour or so here. So I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I enjoyed creating it. And here we go with Ryan Holiday. All right. Well, this is a perfectly normal environment to have a conversation. Welcome, everyone. Tonight's show is brought to you by the first ever fully electric Hyundai Ionic 5, which is also a totally natural thing to say. Ryan, thank you for coming all the way from Texas, man. I appreciate that.

There's a little scare this morning, maybe a little flight delay here and there. Five and a half hours. No big deal. No big deal. Do you feel like you're in the future when you get to California from Texas? Well, everyone from California is moving to Texas. That is true. You got me on that one.

It's like I'm going back in time. You got me on that one. A robot passed me on the way to get a juice today. which I thought was like, I'm like, wow, this is, this is really like that, what's that Disney movie where no one walks anymore and they're all super fat? Wally. I'm like, this is the beginning of that. In Texas, the robot would be carrying an assault rifle.

Yeah, yeah. In AR. It's not an assault rifle. It's the brand name, okay? All right. So it's good to see you, man. Thank you so much for doing this. Yeah.

I know we're in some COVID protocols here. A lot of people showed up for this. You know, I was surprised. I have to say, I probably shouldn't say this out loud. I was very surprised at the demand for this because I thought, oh, who wants to see a live show? Because usually I'm doing this in my underwear, but I'm like a button down kind of guy on the top. And nobody has to know. And here we are.

I had to put pants on for this. But most of you had to drive here and park for this in L.A. traffic. So you guys are the real heroes here. Do you get nervous for doing a live broadcast at all? Not really? No. I don't think so. Do you?

No. Not until the... Significantly less people than you would normally talk to. Yeah. true, although hopefully more people will listen at some point to what we're doing here. I've heard you say that you're not nervous for television either, even live TV. Yeah, I guess not. I feel like when you know what you're talking about, like people are like, are you afraid going on stage? But I feel like if I was giving a lecture about physics, I would be nervous, you know, or something I didn't know

about. But I was also thinking before we've done this, I think I've been on the show more than any other person. That's probably true. We have a lot of practice. Yeah, we have a lot of practice. When you know what you're talking about, I usually don't really necessarily know what I'm talking about. But you're not talking. That's a good point. That's a good point. You're the one who has to be ready for questions. I can just sort of waiting. Getting prep done, though,

is never easy for live TV. You can do your best. You can be prepared. You can't really guess what's coming from the interviewer. Well, live TV is weird when you do like cable news spots. Yeah. I actually, it's a harder thing because you have like three minutes or five minutes you have to talk. Like this is an hour or whatever.

I feel like even if I suck at the beginning, I can probably pull myself out. I have enough time. The really tight spots are hard, like when you have only a very little bit of time. And then I think you also realize, like, every medium has its own set of rules, and the people who do it a lot have figured out those rules.

So, you know, sort of figuring out what works in each space. But I see it more as, like, a puzzle as opposed to, like, something that's, like, intimidating. That's a good way to look at it, actually. Yeah, because live radio, when you're doing like call in live radio when I was on Sirius XM a zillion years ago, a caller can't sit there and be like,

let me tell you the beginning of this story. You're like, nope, get right to the question. You're sitting there with like Dr. Drew or something. The worst part of radio and like morning radio shows or then like the cable news spots is actually like when you get there, so you get there like 30 minutes earlier, you're calling like 30 minutes early.

And then you have to watch the thing. So like I find, for instance, cable news to be like one of the most toxic things that you can put in your body your brain. And so I avoided at all costs. And then it's like, wait, before I'm about to go do this really hard thing. I just had to watch 30 minutes of Fox News or whatever. And you're like, it's very hard to like keep your equilibrium. And then morning radio, you're like, you're having to listen to like, you know, Bobby and the Dush or whatever for like 20 minutes. And like it actually like it, I feel

like it takes you out of your normal headspace. And then you, it's keeping whatever the sort of bubble that you exist in as like a person who knows what you're talking about and likes what you're doing. And then it can be weird to, like, go into the zone. The same when, like, when you do talks, like, I gave this talk a couple years ago. I talked at the NFL owners meeting. And it was the weirdest talk I've ever given. Why is that I mean, that's it was weird in the sense that the audience was all the owners of the NFL, all the GMs and all the coaches. So it's like 32 billionaires.

Like, you know, then the people you see on television every, you know, it's like the people you know, right? And it's huge. The always looking angry guys. Yeah. And they set it up and they were like, okay, I was speaking last and they were like, okay, you'll just sit here in the front row. And I was like, I can't sit here for two hours watching other, like I can't watch the whole event and then talk. Right. Like I was like, I need to go in the back and pace like a crazy person and go to the bathroom like 30 times.

And like, you know, so I think that when you're like performing or doing anything in public, it's like you have to figure out how you get into the zone or whatever that headspace you do. and that is hard if all of a sudden you're thrust in a very unfamiliar environment. I think that's why you see like NBA players or whatever. Like they're listening to headphones. Like the towel on. Yeah, you have to like go into some, I don't know what you would call, but you're going into this place and you have to figure out how to stay there. You have to figure out how to access whatever it is that you do.

That's interesting, yeah, because people talk about things like flow state or whatever. And for sports, I understand that. You're doing push-ups or jumping jacks in the back. You get warmed up, stretched out, and then you stay in the locker room. you go to your vault. I mean, I know a lot about gymnastics, as you can tell. But with a podcast or with a talk, I have like a playlist on Spotify that I never use, but I know is there. And I'll play like half of one song. And then, you know, I'm thinking about things, reviewing notes, et cetera. But for something like that, it seems like, yeah, when you're taking, you're not in your home

with your own clothes up. Like you're in, you just got off a flight, you're jet lagged. It's a totally different, totally different environment. And like you said, you're doing cable news or talk radio something you said is a most toxic thing and you're about to contribute to that problem. Yes. And you have to get into that headspace, but also your own headspace of how you're going to perform. But I think just generally, like, whatever it is you do, what is the headspace where you do your best work? I think we often are just sort of like winging it. Like we don't think that much about sort of cultivating the environment going into the book. Like in my book stillness, I call that space stillness. Like how do you get into a place where it can be crazy around you, but you've sort of

slowed it down, you've eliminated the extraneous. Your mind is not thinking of 50 other things. You have to figure out how to access that to do what it is that you do. It's not that you can't white knuckle it or just force it, but it's just that's never where, like, the best performance comes from. Does it feel still when you're doing it? Because I feel like for me, it doesn't feel still. I'm like checking volume, checking notes, making sure the baby's not crying in my current situation, checking the internet again and repeat like ad nauseum. Yeah, I guess. I mean, I try to sort of slow that stuff down. I mean, you can be very active.

Yeah, I call it neurotic, but whatever. Yeah. I mean, you should, you're active. The irony of stillness is that you need it most when you're doing the most. Like you think of an athlete on the free throw line. You think of someone about to compete in a race or about to sing. Like, you're doing something that's very physically taxing. But like you have to get to a place where that is the only thing that you're doing.

You can't be doing a bunch of other things at the same time. Yeah, always a problem. I guess the most free flowing conversations are the ones where I almost forget that the recording device is on. Yeah. And when you like watch like postgame interviews, they're like, oh, you know, I wasn't thinking about it. Right. What was going through your head when you did X? And the answer is almost invariably nothing, right? Like I wasn't thinking about it. It just happened. And with writing, the weird thing about writing is you sit down and like, where does it come from? It is obviously from you, but somehow you just know

like it just happens Tony Morrison calls us making contact and she talked a lot about like how do you set up your life to make contact and for her she was talking about how

she found that she best made contact before she heard the word mom so that meant like getting up very early right she would like to watch the sun come up while she was working and then the first time she was like mom made me you know whatever that it was like over so that was like her window

and so you got to think about what that is for you. And I mean, ideally, you can sort of get it on demand. And I think you can get a lot of it on demand. But I do try to set up my life and my systems. And then when I'm doing something really hard, what are the kind of rituals or processes that allow you to get into that place? I do wonder about that whenever I text you, because sometimes you'll reply right away, like right away. And we'll have a conversation. Other times it's like, three days later. I'm like, all right. I'm not, you know, I don't push the issue, but I'm like, what is he doing right now? Well, I'm very excited about, I heard that Apple is rolling out, like, you can mark messages as unread in text.

Oh, finally. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Yes. Aplaws. Because, like, finally. Yeah.

So I'm more of an email person for that reason. And so, like, the problem is I'm usually getting the text. And then I'm like, but I'm in the middle of something I have to do it. And then I just forget that it exists. I'm the same. But I feel like, oh, well, if I don't answer, they're going to be like, oh, Jordan doesn't appreciate this. So it breaks focus every time. So I don't check it.

So I turn the notifications off. which means at the end of the day I'm like, oh, 49. Oh, my wife asking all these different questions about what to get from the store and all these important things are also not making it through. Yeah, that's a welcome advance. Finally. I heard you've sold more books than Marcus Aurelius. Is that true?

How many papyrus scrolls have you sold, though? Probably not that many. Only since BookScan has been reporting in America and capturing roughly 80% of stuff. Okay, so like 50 BC and on it. Yeah, so for the first 1,800 years, you know, he was, but you could also argue that he had 1800 years to get up to the speed and then we're measuring at the same. That's right. He sold like no e-books probably by now.

Well, I'm a handful. None of his new stuff. And I narrate my own audio books. He doesn't. That's true. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, you got them on that one. I notice your tattoos there.

What's going on there? I have obstacle, ego, and stillness. Okay. And then I haven't. done the four virtues for that series yet. I don't know why I just haven't, but that's all I got. There's a guy here that has an obstacle as though. Is it ego is the enemy or obstacles away? Yeah, he's got the same tattoo as you. Nice. Although I like a shirt too. I'm fairly sure you got up before you needed two reminders. What's your ego situation? Yeah. But he does actually have that

tattoo. I saw that and I was like, wow, you must be like a, I mean, he tattooed your book title on his body. That's got to feel good. A lot of, I mean, not the tattoo part. That definitely doesn't feel good. But making that literal impression on people. It is. It's weird. I try not to think about it. I get that. It's just like odd.

Not that you did it. It's like I think the irony of a lot of creative professions. Dig your way out of this one. You do something because like you want to be like seen or you want your work to be received. Sure. And then it happens and then you're like makes it uncomfortable. Yeah. It's kind of irony of like you got the thing you wanted and then you realize you didn't actually maybe want that thing.

For me, it's less I didn't want it. Like, I love the fact that I can, the other people enjoy the stuff that I create. But I don't, I realize, I spent so many years being like, and then I'll be a cool person. And then when it happens, you're like, oh, not that it's happened yet.

But in theory, then you're like, oh, I guess I love interacting with people and all this, and I love the fact that it's impressed on so many people, but I'm like, almost like blushing, like, oh, geez, I don't require this. So when I meet people, when I lived in Hollywood, I met a lot of people who thrived off that, and they were never.

that healthy emotionally. Yes. I know it is funny, but it's also like, oh, I'm so glad I don't have that bone. Yeah, I mean, one of the things I talked about in Egos, the enemy, is like, how do you cultivate a relationship with the work where in the Bacavagita, they say like you're entitled to the labor, but not the fruits of the labor? So how do you get to a place where that's extra, right? Not why you do it.

Because you can work really hard on something, do something that's really awesome. it can be ahead of its time or it can be swallowed up by news events or can be, you know, bungled by a publisher or whatever. So you have to cultivate a place where that's not why you're doing because it's a really unhealthy way to do it. And some people do it for that reason. They want the attention. They want the adulation. They want the recognition. And it's, I guess it's good if you get it, but there's no guarantee that you'll get it. And it can also be taken away, right? Whether you canceled or you can just become irrelevant or you could screw it up or whatever it is, right? You want to cultivate a relationship with the work, or at least what I try to do,

is I got this book coming out in September. And I want it to be a success. I'm about to do the last round of edits. Do you have a title yet? Can we like bump it or? Yes, it's called Discipline is Destiny. It's the second in this four virtues series I'm doing. But like the idea is I'm not done yet, so I can't say it yet.

But like there is this point where you finish and then it goes. to the printer or whatever. Like, you can't touch it anymore. It has to have succeeded or failed at that moment. Like, I would say, like, on my first book, which came out, it's crazy to think. My first book, I was just thinking about this, is exactly 10 years old. And I would say with my first book, it was 10% satisfied with it intrinsically for what I did, and 90% like, are people going to like it?

Is the first book, trust me, I'm lying? Yeah. You know, how many copies it had sold that hit the best seller list, you know, blah, blah, blah. and I would think or I would like to think that I'm closer to flipping that ratio, but ideally you get to a place where you're totally self-contained. The Zen, like, sage place would be like, you do what you do and you don't even know how it does, right? Like, it just is. That seems laughably far away for somebody who creates things or for me, creating things.

Like, I'm always interested in what people think up until, I wouldn't say it's in a healthy way, but it's man does it push the limit sometimes but can it affect your mood or happiness for short periods of time yeah certainly not like for a day but for like a few minutes i'm like well that's a bunch of crap and then i'm like uh whatever some dude on the on youtube especially it's like nah one of the there there used to be this set called novel rank and you could like type in your name and it would tell you the in real time the amazon rank of all your books in every country they were published oh that seems like a bad and it like some for some reason it like closed like six or seven years ago, and I would say that it was one of the greatest moments of it.

Because now I can't check it and I couldn't think about it. And then you realize, like, every time I've taken some step, like in my system or my process, that's, like, insulated me a little bit more from, like, real-time feedback or, like, hearing. Like, I feel like the work has gotten better, but also my happiness has gotten better. Yeah, that makes sense. That's the equivalent for podcasters of, like, checking your Apple or Spotify rank all the time. Not that I do that. But if I did, it would definitely do that. It would definitely get old really fast, yeah. So at what point in the book process do you get the tattoo?

Like when you publish it after it becomes a bestseller, when does the tattoo happen? All of these I got before the book came out and then... Ooh, staring. Because what if they're like, yeah, we really can't use this title? Well, no, it is a negotiating... It's a bit of leverage with the publisher. It's already decided... It's on my body and I won't tell you where, so we have to use it.

Although, like, so on the discipline book, like, I went through a bunch of different titles, and this is the latest ever in the process that I've, I've changed the title. And so, like, if I've gotten it earlier, that would have been, that would have been back. But I usually try to build the book around the title, so I've known for a really long time what it's going to be. But, yeah, part of it would be, yeah, it's not, oh, it did well. I want to get a tattoo about it. I'm trying to get a tattoo of something I feel like I need to be reminded of that also. happens to be a booked out of, which is why I don't have tattoos for my marketing books.

That makes sense. Because I was like, what is he going to do if it doesn't become a, you know, put big bird over it or something? What are you going to do? You're so backed into a corner at that point. All right. There's a lot of people here, especially here in the United States, maybe in the West in general, or, yeah, the whole world, whatever.

They feel they need to exert some sense of control. Yeah. And they feel like everything is falling apart. And we see that narrative allotting like clickbait, headlines and things like that. Are you seeing this? What do you think about this? I mean, the world is fall. apart. Okay, it's fine. It's not great. I don't think anyone's like, this is how things should be

going. But I'm not sure there's been many moments in history where that is the case, right? Like where everything was operating as it should. The history is an unending series of disasters and, you know, tragedies, right? So this is what stoicism is built around. Epic Getus is the first task of a philosopher is to separate things into the category of, of things you control and the category of things you don't control. And the latter category is much bigger than the first, like most things you don't control. And yet what we spend an inordinate amount of time and energy on is what is not in our control. So it's a tempting thing, but it's ultimately a distraction and, you know, sort of a waste of your research. So I'm always trying to

sort of like, you know, is this thing that I'm upset about, is this thing I'm worried about, this thing I'm repeatedly checking, is it a thing that's in my control? Which goes back to the, you know, about the creative work. Like, you don't control whether you get on the best set of list. You don't control how the algorithm surfaces your content, right? You don't, you control over a long enough timeline. If you do good work, you know, I think generally you'll be recognized for that work, but you control so work. You don't control the recognition for the work. You know, you control if you're a good person. You don't control if people acknowledge that, right? you can do the right thing. You don't control whether it's contagious in any way. So I think

as the world is falling apart, it's not that you turn away from the world, but you try to zoom in your focus ultimately to that circle of things that are up to you. And then do you respond with those, you've got these four, well, not you, but I guess stoicism has these four virtues, one of what you're writing about now. Yes. They're called the cardinal virtues. They're cardinal virtues in stoicism. They're also the cardinal virtues in Christianity. People think because they're also the sort of Catholic cardinal virtues that it has a religious connotation, like cardinal. So are these the virtues from the cardinal? Cardinal comes from the Latin cardos, which means hinge. These are like pivotal things. This is like what the good life hangs on would be the implication.

And yeah, the idea is, so the soics would say you don't control what happens. You control how you respond to what happens, right? I don't control that my flight was delayed. I do control, you know, what I do with that time. I do control whether I lose my time. I control how I react to that. And the Stoics would say that you can always control with one of or perhaps some combination of those four virtues, which are courage, temperance, for self-discipline, justice, and wisdom. So you're going to write about each one of those. That's a pretty good.

I mean, they gave you a nice list. They did. It looked out very nice. So I've done the first two. And then this week I am starting the beginning, like talking about going into the zone, I have in my calendar to start the process on what will be the third book. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest Ryan Holiday. We'll be right back.

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Start your free trial today. If you're wondering how I managed to book all these amazing folks for the show, it is about my network. I know that sounds a little schmoozy, a little gross, but I want to teach you how to build your network in a non-shmoozy, non-gross way, non-cringy, no tail between your legs, awkwardness. I'm teaching you how to do it in my course. It's a free course.

Jordan Harbinger.com slash course is where you'll find it. I don't need your credit card number, none of that stuff. It's all just about improving your connection skills, inspiring other people to develop a personal and professional relationship with you. It'll make you a better connector, but it'll also make you a better thinker. And if you like Ryan Holiday's stuff, you know he's all about that. That's all at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. And by the way, many of the guests on this show, subscribe and contribute to that course.

Come join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. Now back to my live show with Ryan Holiday. How many bestsellers have you written so far? I'm going to be that guy who sets you out for this thing, and then everyone's like, I don't know exactly. I think it's it depends on how you count them, but let's say it's more than 10 books. And I think all of them have probably hit some list or another.

Wow. We'll get into that. Yes. Thank you. Finally. Somebody's listening. Well, you did. These people bought them. I heard you, you, well, how do you feel when a book hits the list? You know, I think the first time it was, again, my point is that I cared about it a lot. The first time, trust of mine, didn't. hit the New York Times list, although it's old enough copies, and then it did hit the Wall Street Journalist. And it felt nice, I guess. It's like ephemeral. But like ultimately it's much more,

all these things are much more ephemeral than you think they are going to be. Like I remember the obstacles the way came out in 2000, May of 2014. It didn't hit any list for five years or six or something. But it sold quite well. And so that was my, that was helpful in the sense that it decoupled sort of critical success or recognition of success and then the actual raw numbers of like people you're meeting. But again, a third thing would be like, is it good or not? There's plenty of things that sell well that are not good and plenty of great things that never sell for a variety of reasons.

But I remember when obstacle hit number one for the first time, which was like almost exactly on the anniversary of five or six years. I remember I was mowing my lawn when it happened. And it was cool. My agent called me and I was like, oh, what happened? and he told me. And then, you know, I mean, I still had to finish mowing my lawn.

It's not like, yeah, there was no, like, parade, nothing changed. So you just sort of realize, like, oh, it just is. And it's the point, like, you think it's going to be this thing and then it's not that thing. The problem is you can have two reactions to that kind of anticlimacticness, which is one, it can realize, oh, this, I was after this thing that no external thing is ever going to get me.

And if that happens, then you've, you've, been given a wonderful gift and you have a certain newfound freedom that can kind of only come from, I imagine that someone who's trying so hard to be a billionaire, Elon Musk, he wants to get people on Mars. Like, it's going to happen. And then it's just like, oh, it's just another day, right? It just happens. It's not to say it's not an impressive accomplishment, but it never is the, never gets you what you think it's going to get you. So if you had that realization, like, you've been given a double success. The problem is what most people do, and I've done this also, is you go, like, let's say the first time my book hits a list, you're like, ah, but it's not the New York Times.

If I get New York Times, it's X. Or if it hits number one, it's X. Or you go, you win a Super Bowl and you go, ah, but it one time can be a fluke. You have to repeat, right? Kevin Durant wins all these titles with Golden State. And then he's like, ah, but I have, nobody thinks I earned it. I have to go do it somewhere. So the problem is we think like more, even though once was not enough. It's like a drug. Once is not enough or once was just special enough, but then it disappeared quickly. And then you're chasing that drag, and you think more of it's finally going to get your dad to be proud of you or you to feel cool like you were saying. You think it's going to be this thing, but it's never going to happen because no external thing can fix or validate internally. That has to be a thing you give yourself.

This is one of your Instagram videos, I believe. You can't change internal issues with external accomplishments. It's probably like a paraphrase from someone. I love that because so many people I know, including myself, will try to change an internal issue with an external accomplishment. And it's so hard to get over that habit. And the problem is it's a very powerful driver, right? Like you can see how, especially in a capitalistic society,

we would be a powerful sort of motive force that makes the world go around, right? If people felt good after doing this one thing, it's probably an evolutionary force in some way, right? If you ate one time and then you're like, I'm full forever, like you would die. The insatiability of the human species is probably responsible for all our great art and accomplishments and in vengeance. It's why we don't stop and go, hey, you know, ancient Greece, life in ancient Greece, that's good enough, right? Like, it's why we don't settle.

And it makes sense collectively, but individually, it is also a recipe for misery. So you have to figure out this way to go, like, how can I do what I do? from a place of fullness that's motivated by like I genuinely love it. I'm genuinely trying to express this thing. I am having fun while I'm doing it and not I will feel good when X happens, right? Or like you ever talk to someone and they have a number? Like an arbitrary number. Yeah. They're like, when will you be good? And the number is always like absurd. It's always like $20 million or whatever. And it's like you guarantee you if you get $20 million, dollars it will first off the number will immediately change to another one and it will be anti-climactic

and like literally every person who's ever achieved something has said you know like it wasn't as magical as i thought it was going to be olympians talk about this a lot they get the gold and then they're super depressed after this or any medal for them yeah but it might just be one of those things that you kind of have to learn by experience but the idea is does it take five super bowls for you to get it or can you pick it up after winning a you know a scholarship to playing college. The earlier you earn it, I think the more balanced and normal you can be as a human being, even if you're talented and ambitious in trying to do stuff. How many more million more books do you think you need to sell to hire a landscaper? I don't know the answer to that question.

The blessings or the curse of success is... Cutting your own lawn? Are you really going there? Is this what happening right now? Whether it gets you to a place of enoughness or not. And you can see how insatiability would drive you to certain heights, but then when you really study the lives of those people, it never feels like that success is particularly fun. In a way, it's kind of depressing because nothing's ever enough, but also that has to be liberating because you realize, well, if nothing's ever enough, then I can be satisfied with what I have, but it's so much easier if you just had a little more. To me, the more interesting thing is can you be great at what you do or world-class at what you do and not do it from a place of empty?

right like in a way like oh like why are you doing this well i feel like a worthless human being if i'm not doing x like that in a way feels easier to me than doing it from a like no i'm like a normal well-adjusted person and i do what i do at a level that has impact i've heard you say you cultivate a new identity each year did i get that right i don't think so no okay you talk about these new year's habits and you cultivate like a new well maybe it's a new element of your identity. Not like you change your name every year. There is something special about the turning over of a new year where you get to like sort of decide who you're going to be or what you're going to do. There's also something kind of sad that we like only in January though. If like I have a bad

habit in June, I get six months. Five more months of mess. Yeah, exactly. You know, you do have the ability to do that at any time. But there is something nice about the calendar turning over. Yeah. mention like leave your running shoes where you can see it because if you if you cultivate this i guess it's a habit in a way but also if you're stepping over the running shoes now you're violating the identity you talk about taylor swift right who had mentioned she looked at herself and had like decided to make this big change oh yeah i remember i the the Taylor Swift Netflix documentary is actually very good but she was talking about i think it was like an eating disorder thing she was saying

she was like looking at a picture of herself and she could feel the pattern starting like the spiral that starts. And then she was talking about, she was like, no, I don't do that anymore. She had this and I think this is sort of what cognitive behavioral therapy is rooted in, which is itself rooted in stoicism. But I think the idea that like we have patterns or loops that we get into and recognizing what those are and deciding which of those you're going to continue to indulge and which of those you aren't, I think, realizing one, you have the power to make that choice. Just because you've done something for a long time just because you always do something. Like, people do this often where they'll, like, explain a certain behavior they do as if

it excuses said behavior. And it's like, no, that's just an explanation. It's not a justification of it. That doesn't mean it doesn't suck for everyone around you, right? It's like, no, I'm anxious because, you know, my mom did X, Y, or Z. That doesn't make it less crappy for your family to be around you. So, like, recognizing those patterns and deciding which of those patterns are connected to the person that you want to be, I think is a very powerful and empowering idea.

So we cultivate habits, identity, to control what we can control. Yeah. And we leave the rest up to fate, yeah? Yeah, the Stoics would say, it's not that you leave it up to fate, but it's, you're going to focus on how you respond to that. I'm trying to lead you into a morphati here. You've got to make it easy. I see, I see, yes.

Well, the Stoics say that it's not just even accepting what's outside of your control, but, like, genuinely embracing what's outside of your control as. like an opportunity. When the Stoics say that the obstacle is the way, which is Marks Chris, is the impediment to action advances action. It stands in the way, it comes the way. He's not just saying you're sort of shrugged your shoulders and it is what it is. And he's also not saying like this thing that happened to you is someone dying, you're getting fired, you know, losing your leg in an accident, whatever. He's not, oh, it's wonderful, like good for you. What he's saying is that thing presents to you if you accept it,

which you have no choice but to do. You can choose. not to accept it, but it doesn't change whether it happened or not. But when you accept it for what it is and you embrace it and you say, within this is an opportunity to be excellent in some form or another, to practice something, to be something, to do something. That's what the obstacles away means. That's ultimately what Morphati means, which translates to a love of fate. So it's not even like, okay, but yes, this is what I was looking for it and this is how I use it. And in meditations, Marx's Realism, a strong stomach digest what it eats. And he says, a fire turns everything that is thrown into it into flame and brightness and heat.

So the idea being that you cultivate this kind of will inside yourself that takes the things that happen to you and uses them to some positive end. It's not that it's wonderful that your mom died, but that it did happen. And so what changes are you making in your life in response to what you learned or what you went through that makes you better for having gone through that thing. Some of those come later though, right? Because like when I, some of you remember when I had to restart my show, some of you are newer and didn't see that.

But me and my producer, Jason, who's here tonight, we weren't like, oh, great, we're not going to sleep for weeks. Professional career is probably dead in the water. This is great. Yes. Let's savor this. But in retrospect, right? 2020 hindsight, probably the best thing that's ever happened to me.

And I mean that. And I know people, like when people told me that, though, I wanted to punch them in the throat. But it is, it is, it's like, it's funny, though. So, like, if that's where you're going to end up, why are you torturing yourself now? Because you don't know that's the end. But when is it not the case?

Well, I don't know. I don't want to find out. Like, there's almost nothing in your life that you look back to that happens. Even the worst thing, which you're like, but even though I didn't like it, even though it was awful, it still got me where I am now, which is like something I like and I'm proud of. And you realize that it's inseparable

from there's no way you could have gotten where you are now without that thing happening, right? But that was also true at the moment, right? It's like, I forget where I heard this, but so I'm stealing it. But they were talking about like in time travel, like every time travel movie, they're like, if you go back in time, you can't touch anything. Right.

Because it will change. But then, like, in our own lives where like stuff happens, we like wish it was otherwise or resented or we fight against it, as if it's not contributing to, where we're ultimately going to end up in the future. I suppose that's true. And that's comforting, but in the moment, it's just like, well, this still sucks, though. Yeah.

But I guess that's part of the, you got to keep the coin in your body. And I think if you see it, it's not like, again, it's not these sort of rose-colored glasses. It says like something bad happened and you're just like, oh, it's wonderful. It's that you have the power within you to change that thing into or change yourself in response to that into someone you want to be or someone who is better for having gone through that, right? It could have been the worst thing that happened to you. Like all the things you were worried about when that moment happened. And I remember we were talking about this other time. Yeah, you sent me a book actually. That's right. What's book did I send you? Oh, man. It was,

you know, I don't remember the title, but it was like black and white drawings. No, we read that thing over and over, but it was like a very small book with a bunch of, this sounds so dumb, with like pictures and drawings on it. And my wife and I were like, this is really helpful right now. And I can't for the life of me. I literally have no idea what you're talking about. You said, this helps me through a hard time. You just mailed it to me out of the blue. I was like, this is the nicest gift ever. Of course, now it sound like all the things that all the things you were worried about happening. You could have ensured that that was true, right? It could have been the worst thing. It could have been the worst thing that happened to you. It could have been the end

of your career. Those were choices you could have made. Right? By not doing anything. Yeah. Right. By throwing it's out. Right. Right. It's, right. It's, it's, right. It's like you could fail, but you could also guarantee that you fail by quitting. Thankfully, I wasn't qualified to do anything else at all. So that helped, actually. Well, I think we often also underestimate, like, it's not like it magically that three days later was the best thing that happened. No, it took like eight months for me to be like, okay, this is not. But it was a lot of work and those sort of gains were cumulative and then compounded, right? So it's also like, I think we underestimate the process too. Like the book

I'm about to start. The way my schedule and the books works out, it's hard because, like, I'm finishing one and the other is just a vague idea in my head. And so that seems like a very unbridgeable gap. And I went through this when I was writing discipline, because it was the same time roughly last year. And I was like, there's no way this book's coming together. I don't know who the characters are going to be.

I don't think I have the material. I don't know if I'm qualified to do the book. I don't know if I wanted to do it. All these thoughts were running in my head because I was comparing it to the book that I just finished. And as I was going through my note cards, which as I do all my books, I noticed and sort of going through them, I found a note card that I'd written to myself. We can sort of send messages to ourselves in the future this way, I guess. But I was like, you will probably not think that this book is going to come together.

But if you show up every day and do your note cards, the book will reveal itself. You wrote that in your notes for the book. And I said in June, when you go through your note cards. Wow. I don't remember when I wrote it, but I wrote this note to myself that I needed like several months. later. And it was true. It didn't, it wasn't the next day it magically came together. And there was really no point in which it just was all there. But a little bit started to come together and a little bit more started to come together. And I did those things. And over time, eventually the process, there's a great

writing rule like just a couple crappy pages a day. A couple crappy pages a day eventually got me to a rough draft, which I edit, you know, and now it's there. And I have, when you've watched the process, like the sort of daily grind of work or work on a thing pay off a few times. This is actually what success helps you with. It's not like, oh, I'm amazing and people love me. It's you're like, no, if I do these things, stuff comes out the other side. And having done this now, you know, at least 10 times, I at least more or less trust. Like, if I show up every day and I don't quit, I'll get something that's not embarrassingly bad. That's a low bar. Low bars are helpful, though.

Yeah, I mean. You know, people are like, I just want to be like a supermodel or something. You just want to be an amazing shape. And it's like, what if you just started eating healthier and you just sort of saw what happened? I was talking with Kobe Bryant after our interview on the show. That's a nice name drop. Yeah, no, I know. I thought about not including that, but then it didn't make as much sense.

Your friend, Kobe. Yeah, we go way back. Afterwards, we started talking about our kids and he actually really lit up. And it was basically his only focus after getting out this book that was about like a girl who played tennis in a magical land, a children's book. And I was really impressed that one of the most famous athletes in the world was not prioritizing fame, not prioritizing money, recognition, but instead was focused on his kids. And that's how you know you're on the right track.

And you and I talk about this sometimes, but a lot of people, when I bring this up, they'll go, oh, well, he had the luxury, right, of doing that because he already had fame, he already had money, he already had recognition. So all those things were satisfied, which doesn't make a lot of sense if it's a bottomless pit, right? Yeah. I think that might be backwards. I remember I read an interview like right after, or it was an article by a reporter that had interviewed Kobe Bryant a bunch of times. This is right after he died. And she was putting together some retrospective about the Lakers and she'd reached out to Kobe. She'd texted him. So they knew each other well enough. She said,

hey, I'm doing this piece. Can I get like 20 minutes with you? You know, and this is a guy who has like a shoe brandy, has a book, it's all this stuff that like media is what drives. Yeah. What drives it? And he texts back. He's like, no, I'm like heads down. and focus on my girls right now, like hit me up in a couple weeks. And he had no idea that he had like seven days left with them. It's a haunting story, but I think it's also a powerful story because like you don't know. Like part of the reason we neglect things or people or ourselves is that, as the Stoics say, we assume we have unlimited amounts of time. It's not that life is short, it's that we waste it because we think we have a lot of it, right? And as a parent, as a creative,

as a person who's trying to do whatever it is you're trying to do, the ability to say no to stuff, stuff that you want to do, stuff that other people think you should do, stuff that would be good or lucrative for you to do. It's hard. It's really hard. I have an email in my inbox that came earlier today

for like a significant amount of money to do a thing that I don't really want to do. And my instinct is like, it was immediately like I don't want to do that. It doesn't sound fun. I wrote no and then I deleted it and went back to unread and I was like, but there's a part of my brain

that was like, find a way to justify doing this for stuff. But I know I need to say no to that thing. And the ability to say no to those things is like a superpower and it's a superpower because you know it's a superpower because really powerful people are

very bad at it. Like extremely bad at it. Yeah. Like I speak at a lot of conferences and it's like, I know why I'm there? You're worth $7 billion. Why are you here? Right. Yeah. Or like, they need that applause that you're going to give us after this podcast.

It's hard to say, it's hard to say no to things. It's really hard to say no to things. And it's obviously harder earlier in your career. It's hard depending on your socioeconomic. It's harder at different places for different people totally. But I once heard this quote about, or this observation by Sondra Day O'Connor,

the Supreme Court Justice. And one of her female aides was saying, what was she so admired about Justice O'Connor was that she never said, sorry before she said no. She just said no. And she was like, I never met a woman who just said no. Because like the instinct was to please or to feel like she had to do more than everyone else, right? Or she was just like, no, I don't want to do it. And that is really powerful and important. And I think when you have kids, one of the helpful exercises for me is realizing that when I say yes

to things, I'm saying no to them. Or I'm stealing that time from them. This is the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Ryan Holiday. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for supporting the show. And of course, you came out to see this one live. Thank you times 100. That was amazing. Your support of our advertisers and sponsors really keeps us going.

All the discounts, all the URLs, all the discount codes. Those are all at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. You can also search for any sponsor using the search box right there on the website as well. Please consider supporting those who support this show. Now for the rest of my conversation, with Ryan Holiday. You write about that in the Daily Dad Newsletter, dailydad.com that I subscribe to.

And you read about that in many other things, actually. But that has stuck with me because I'll be like, oh, I don't have anything else to do. Wait a minute. Of course I have something else I could be doing. Yeah, you signed up for a lifetime obligation to this little person. Yeah.

And then somebody asks you to do this thing that you don't want to do, but you won't say no. Or you say maybe, and you just hope it'll, like, go away. Yeah. Been there done that, for sure. Or you're just, I think, like, having kids also help me the pandemic too, but just be like better with boundaries.

Like, I will do that, but I won't do any of that other stuff you're asking me to do. Like to just be able to really clearly say what you're comfortable with, not comfortable with, and own it and not feel uncomfortable about it or awkward about it. It's like, it's not just you deserve it, but like it will also make you better at whatever it is. It's funny you should say that because as I started cultivating those same types of things from reading The Daily Dead and, the pandemic and stuff you and I talk about during podcast when you're kicking would-be landscapers out of your bookshop. I have also realized that when other people say like, oh, hey, look, I can't. I'm like, don't even explain it. One hundred percent okay with it. Because the boundaries, when you get your own, you realize that these are, one, hard for other people

to put forward, but so much more important than you ever imagined. So I don't bug people for most I did bug you to do this, but whatever. That's aside from the, because I knew you'd be great, But aside from that, I will never bug anybody or try and step over those boundaries for that reason. And I heard from someone they told me, like, if you just say you have a rule, people will respect it. I have a rule. I don't do live podcasts.

And people would be like, oh, okay. That sounds serious. And so like Jordan Harbinger show must have been pretty bad, pretty horrible. So if you say you have a rule or. But also like my wife, like, I'll be like, I really don't want to do this. Like, how do I say no? And she's like, just say no. And then it's like, you're not weird.

for saying no to something you don't want to do. Yeah. You don't, the problem is when you're like, no, because that, like, you give these reasons and then what you're really doing is giving the person, you're telling the, if you just say no, like I can't, I won't or whatever, or if you go, no, I'm just like really busy. They go, well, this won't take that much time. Or, like, they find, what you're telling them is that you would like them to argue with you

about why you should do it. When really, if you just own it, it also doesn't waste their time. That's true. to be fair, you did say, let me ask my wife and see what she says. You are fully setting up the whole, like, if she doesn't want me to go, I'm not doing it. That sounds right. Yeah, yeah. But hey, she's probably happy to play a bad guy. I think that's one of the things that you realize is like, oh, I will steal an unlimited amount of time for myself. So you have to create boundaries or checks that actually I was reading the new Judd Apatow book and he interviewed Lynn, Manuel,

Miranda. And I didn't know this, but he had had a kid like two weeks before Hamilton started. Oh, wow. And he was like, it was actually the best thing that ever happened to me because he's like, I didn't go out a single night after Hamilton came out. So like we sometimes think like family like, oh, it holds you down. And it does. It holds you down to reality. Right.

So he wasn't out partying. He wasn't flying all over. He wasn't doing every bit of press. He was like, no, like after the show, because the shows at night, like I have to go home. Right. And like, I think one of the things that having a family or. more balanced personal life that you're not in sort of mortgaging over to your work, is it allows you some checks against that impulse to like do an unlimited amount.

How do you teach your kids the stoic values? Or I'm sure you probably don't necessarily think about them that way when you're teaching your kids. But I assume they're not sitting back plowing through meditations by Marcus Aurelius before nap time. No, my oldest is six or almost six. So he's plowing through it, but the youngest ones are. Yeah. look, the only way to teach your kids, and people are like, well, I want my kids to be Christian,

so I take them to church every week. And it's like, well, what if you just, like, actually lived by biblical teaching? You know, that might be a more, a stronger argument. Let's not get carried away. Yeah. So, like, like, ultimately. Live by example?

No, thank you. If I want my kids to observe these ideas, I have to, like, actually model them, right? And that's the harder thing. Tell me about the harder thing. They Fall by Bud Shullberg. That book taught you something pretty important. Oh, yeah.

And if you can't think of it, then I will. No, no, it's one of my favorite novels. So he has two novels. He has a novel called What Makes Sammy Run, which I like a little bit more. And then the harder they fall is this sort of boxing novel that he wrote. I read it when I was, well, it was funny. So I reread that book. You should always be very suspicious of the stories you tell yourself in your head because

you're a pretty good liar. I thought that I read The Harder They Fall, which is a novel about a correct. boxing, like organized crime, infiltrating boxing, and then this public relations guy who's like the main character, and he sort of corrupted by it, and then he walks away from it.

If you would ask me my own story earlier this year, I would have told you I read that book, and that's why I left American Apparel to become a writer. And I reread it this year, and I pulled up Amazon to see when I bought it, and I worked at American Apparel for like five years

or four more years or something. Like I we think that change happens in these sort of epiphanies or wake-up calls and it's almost always a lot more gradual than that. Five years a long time too. Yes. And I didn't leave for the same reasons that the character and the novel was reading, which is that we're really good at telling ourselves that one, our work is really important. And then he has this line in the book. He says, I told myself the lie that you can deal in filth and not become the thing you touch. And with American Apparel quite literally the case.

No, but you tell yourself like, oh, like think about all the people that, you know, work in this administration or that administration, people that work in industries that they know are evil or corrupting or strained. And they're like, well, I'm one of the good guys or I'm steering it in the right direction or I'm the adults in the room. We are really good at lying to ourselves. There's an up in Sinclair line and says it's very hard to get someone to understand something. when their salary depends on their not understanding it. And so very often you have, you deep down know what's true, but then you have, you know, whatever your salary is, that many reasons to not take it seriously or make the step that you obviously know you need to make.

There's a lot I have on ego. I'm going to try and condense this down. I know you've done an entire, I mean, we've done it. Actually, you and I have done an entire shows on this in the past, so I don't want to dwell on it too much, I guess. but my son, he's almost three. He's in the Y phase right now. So it's like, oh, man, I'm hungry.

Why? And it's like, oh, now. And then eventually you get to philosophy, which is probably really good for you, actually. It's like your bag. I know this trips up tons of people. We can all think of examples. But if I say like, okay, fine,

ego is the enemy. You ask me why? I don't have a succinct answer. You obviously do at this point. Well, no, I mean, if I had a succinct answer, I wouldn't have written a whole book about it. Yeah, that's true. People go like, people will go like,

tell me the book like in one sentence. And I go, if I could have done this in one sentence, I would save myself a lot of trouble. What's your favorite episode out of your 1400? I would have just done that. It would have been a lot easier. No, but I think, first off, if you make a distinction. Less profitable for sure, though. If you make a distinction between ego and confidence, which I think is important.

Confidence, I feel like is something you earn. Ego is something beyond confidence based on, you know, sort of nothing real. If you define ego as that sort of voice in your head that says you're better than other people, the rules don't apply. it's different this time. Everyone wants this from, you know, all this sort of self-aggrandizing delusions of grandeur. I don't see the purpose that it serves, right?

Ego is this thing I found that gets between you and the thing that you want to do. It gets between you and other people. It gets between you and the work that you need to do. It gets in between you and the truth that you're trying to tell. It gets between you and the feedback you need to hear. Right. So ego is this thing that gets in the,

the way. And when you sweep it away, you have this momentary connection with what you're doing, what you need to do, what's required. And then, of course, you make a little progress and then ego comes back. So I see it as a sort of continual sweeping away or eliminate reduction of ego. But the second you think you have done it is like the most egotistical thought you have. Then the second you go, I am ego free. Ego has reintroduced itself. I think you, I don't know if you wrote this being a know-it-all as a self-fulfilling prophecy. I love that because that is entirely true. If you think you know everything that there is to know is true for you because you are not capable of learning anything else. But, you know, going back to Socrates, what Socrates's

wisdom is rooted in the fact that he knows nothing or that he knows that he doesn't know anything. And what is the Socratic method? He goes around and asks people questions. Like, Socrates wasn't wise because he went around and told people the answer. He went around because he asked like their son, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, and eventually discovered something in the process of doing that. How do you think about people who expect you to be? This is a personal question, I suppose. They expect you to be one way because stoicism, right?

And I chose some choice Instagram quotes here. I was going to leave these out, but I just, I can't because your wife will be very disappointed, I think. You want to express your honest beliefs, right? You've got a lot of IG drama. I'm not going to say these people's handles here because it probably someone will concerned about what this is going. Yeah, one guy said, this is after you gave a speech about tearing down these Confederate statues.

I'm sure you remember that post. Somebody said, why choose to move somewhere and then start agitating for that place to change because you don't like something about your new home? You use social media and your platform to magnify your paternalism and amplify your shaming techniques. Live and let live, man. And this is a guy that we both know, which I was surprised. I mean, who is this?

I'll show you later. I'm not going to put it on the live stream. This is one reason that I do check the comments less than I used to do. So one of the things that's weird, like when you have a platform, is do you have the platform or does the platform have you? That's a question I ask myself a lot. And I think I know a lot of people where they sort of don't say what they think, not because they're worried about being canceled, but they're worried it will cost them something. and that doesn't seem to me to be, that doesn't seem to me to be a successful place, right?

Like, I write because I have things that I want to say, not because people have things that they want to hear, right? And so I have tried, and I generally try, not to think about what other people are going to think when I am doing work. Because if you do, then you've like sort of handed over it, over your power. So, yeah, like, I mean, first off, it doesn't seem, strike me as unreasonable to live in a town and

then be like, what is this monument to literally a monument to white supremacy and go, maybe that doesn't need to be here. Yeah. And maybe just because it's been here for a while doesn't mean we have to keep paying to maintain it. That doesn't strike me as a crazy thought. So I felt good about obviously what I said. And then if it pisses some people off, the other thing that's funny is when you piss people off. They often, they're like, well, I'm not going to be a fan anymore or whatever. And they don't

realize that not only do you not care, but maybe the reason that you said it was specifically to filter out said people. Like, it sort of hit me somewhat recently, I guess maybe surprisingly recently, but like as the platform, particularly Daly Stowe, it grew and grew and grew, I realized that like people came to it for different reasons, right? And like, people heard about it because, I did some weightlifters podcast, and now there's like these meatheads that are following it. Nothing wrong with meatheads. No, no, no, just like... Don't unsubscribe.

They came to it thinking it was one thing. Right. And I could continue to have them as fans if I didn't disabuse them of that incorrect notion, right? So, like, they thought stoicism, for instance, was just... It would certainly be better for me financially and easier for me as a human being in the world who doesn't like people saying mean things to me, to only talk about the elements of stoicism that people like hearing about,

about individual resiliency, about productivity, about not having opinions. It would be easy to focus on just the sort of individualistic elements. But as it happens, one of the four virtues is justice, right? Yeah. How inconvenient. And, you know, when I write about the other things, and it turns out that it upsets the people who wanted the version of stoicism that made them a better sociopath.

You know, like, that's just where we part ways. It's not that I like that, but I, that's just what it is, right? That I can't pick and choose. Yeah, I could have spent the weekend. I did pick up some choice ones, but as I reread them, now I'm like, ooh, maybe not on the show. Like, there's some bad, you know, bad ones. What's weird is when you get crazy, like, if you get crazy comments from some, like, anonymous, thing, and you're like, is this a troll?

Is this a real person? Is this a robot? But then every once in a while, you'll get them from, like, people with, like, blue check marks. And you're like, whoa, okay. But, you know, it is what it is. It's, I mean, I say surprising, but also you're like, well, I kind of know that guy, and it's not. But you do see a lot of, it just shows us how divided many people are in many ways. But a lot of the stuff, man, they really do try to cut deep.

I know that your wife actually noticed because she'll, what does she say, the Jordan Harbinger has entered the chat whenever I replied. Yes, yes. You're always there commenting, which I wouldn't say always there. Sometimes I mean that. You're sort of there with the popcorn to watch. Yes. But tell me about the plague that infects your character, like literally and metaphorically, actually.

So I think what I love about Asterox is that they were real people writing real things in the real world that they live in, which is, although very different from ours, not that different from ours. So obviously, I intellectually understood, for instance, that Mark's surrealist was writing during a pandemic. He lived during a pandemic. In fact, they named a pandemic after him. It was called the Antonine Plague.

Sort of like how we called it the Spanish flu, even though it was from Kansas. Oh, yeah. Because they were the only ones who admitted that it existed? Well, no, we took it. It started here, and then we put a bunch of people on boats in the First World War and sent them over to Europe. And they brought the plane. They brought the 1918, 19, 19, flu with them. But anyways, it's called the Antenine Plague.

It was his fault. But it happened when he was the emperor. So it's called the Antonine Plague. So I intellectually understood that some. of meditations was written during a plague and then he may have even died of it but it's not until a pandemic happens in our lifetime that you realize like oh he's not figuratively talking about the plague he's also literally reacting to what a global pandemic would do to human beings and it turns out like what it does to human beings is remarkably consistent and so the quote that struck me most during the

pandemic he said there's two types of plagues there's the plague that takes your life and then he's like there's another pestilence that can destroy your character. And the idea that, I think maybe you know some of these people, I know people who, well, they also got COVID, but they got something worse than COVID. Oh, yeah. And it's a long COVID and that they're not coming back from it anytime soon, right? Like something happened in their brain, a flip or a virus got in there. And they're like not the same as they were a few years ago. And I think that's what Marcus was talking about is that like, you know, this thing happens. And does that thing make? you more empathetic or less empathetic, more connected to reality and reason or less connected

to reality and reason, more involved civically, less involved civically, more selfish, right? And I think this point was that obviously you don't want to get physically sick, but this character virus is the thing to really be worried about. And it's been weird to watch people I know, people are friends and stuff that happened to them. But it's just interesting to think that they were thinking about the same things that we're thinking about. Yeah. When you're like, what happened?

You know, we were, before we came here, we were just like, did you see what happened to so-and-so? And it's like, yeah, it can happen anyway. Lost soul. Yeah, maybe now's a good time to talk about Memento Mori, right? Because we're talking about death. Tell me about that. Someone stole my Memento Mori coin, by the way.

Well, I would like to say they needed it more than me, but I think they were just kind of a prick. I think I can solve this problem. Yes. Hey, all right. Thank you, man. No, if you think about market, is living in this plague because millions of people

in a time when, like, literally they thought they could stop the plague by burning incense. That was like, that was the extent of the... We still have that. They're called essential oil diffusers and they're still for sale on Etsy. Well, the more things change, the more they stay the same. That's right. Free shipping, though.

And it's part of an MLM. You can sell to other people. Yeah. No, he's watching this happen, right? And it's a reminder of his mortality. In fact, Marcus's last words He's dying ostensibly of the plague, or we believe to be of the plague. And his friends are crying. And he says, like, this is what happens.

And he's like, don't be sad about me. He said, think about the same thing happening to you. The point is, we all die, but that doesn't mean we have to waste the present moment, right? And I think a big part of the stoic literature is about precisely that. How do you seize the moment in front of you? And thinking about your mortality is not. not morbid, but it's actually very clarifying. The back of the coin says, you could leave life right now,

let that determine what you do and say and think. And that's what Memento Mori is about. And again, if Marcus Aurelius had to remind himself for this, when you literally could die at any moment of like cutting your finger and getting infected, like the idea that we wouldn't need that reminder when our average life expectancy would stun people living in the ancient world, it's extra important that we have this practice. Thinking about it for yourself makes a lot of sense.

What about thinking about it for other people in your life? I mean, people you love, not people you actually want to. It's not that you go around and they're like, hey, by the way, you could die any moment. It's a, it's a dis. But one of the most haunting passages in meditations is Marks, really says as you tuck your child in it night. Yeah. You don't tell them, but you tell yourself that they could go at any moment.

And it's extremely hard to do. and the fact that it's hard to do, I think, is part of it. The idea is not detachment. The idea is presence. You know, your kid's like, hey, can we read one more book? And you're like, no, I got to go. You don't have to go. You don't have to go.

And there will come a time in your life, hopefully just because they're a little bit older, but it could be for more tragic reasons, when you would give literally anything for the opportunity to do that one more time. And you have it now, and you're rushing through it because you're, you're, streaming something or because you left your phone in the other room. I mean, it's game five, but I get it. Yeah. Yes.

So this moment you have, you have it now for sure, and yet you rush through it. And I think what the Stoics would say, I think this is the most powerful part of it. The Stokes would say is that what you're rushing from is life. Seneca says, don't think of death as something in the future, but think of death is something that's happening now. He says the time that passes belongs to death, which I think is a really powerful perception shift. That death isn't this thing that happens once,

hopefully when you're 86 years old, death happened every day of those 86 years. Because once time passes, it's dead. And the person that you were in that moment is dead. And nothing can revive it and nothing can get more of it. All you have is that present moment. How do you choose to spend it? That's what matters.

Well, time flies during a great conversation, my friend. Thank you for making this trip. Special thanks to Hyundai for sponsoring the show. and making this happen. And thank you all for coming out. Amazing. Thank you so much. You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger show with the go-to person to help negotiate a hostage situation in Syria when no other intelligence agency would help. When you have a hostage negotiation, especially in a war zone, the hardest thing to do is to actually figure out who the hostage takers are. And the rumors are off the charts. Proof of life is getting that

authentication, that you're talking with the people who actually have the person. And you want to know of course, that the person's still alive. You ask him for some question or some nickname, something that no one would be able to know. And if they can't come back with that answer, you walk away. The person I had to flag down and find who held this Westerner hostage

was probably the biggest Capiton dealer in the country. And they often use the same distribution routes for the Capiton as they do for human trafficking. So the same people who take little girls from villages and send them to the Gulf, to Dubai, to Riyadh and Saudi Arabia, to other places there. They fill also stomachs of the girls with drugs and use them as couriers while also shipping them as the product itself. The first thing you have to do is tell the parents to stop doing something that they want to do

and that every schmuck under the sun is telling him to do, which is to seek public support, right? To get public statements, to do Facebook campaigns. The Secretary of State say how we're not going to leave a stone unturned until this awful act is being brought to justice. What just happens with that is your price went up before you even started a negotiation. You do not want to drive up the perceived value of the hostage. Sometimes people are taken hostage just for the shock value of executing them. What you're going to do with the campaign that you're doing right now is going to get your child or your spouse killed. How is pissing off the people who hold that person's life in their hands helping you?

By the time I get involved, it's usually too late. To learn all about the nuances of negotiating with criminals and here, human traffickers, check out episode 617 of the Jordan Harbinger show. Again, thanks so much to Hyundai for sponsoring us and to Ryan Holiday for flying out to L.A. Just to do this show. His new book out right now, by the way, discipline is destiny. Please use our website links if you buy books from the guests on the show. The links are always in the show notes.

Are also at Jordan Harbinger.com slash books. It does help support the show. This new book sold something like 60,000 copies in the first week. 60,000. Success really well earned, my friend. really proud of Ryan Holiday for this and all his successful endeavors and proud to call him a friend. And thanks to you, all of you, who came out to the live show. I really enjoyed meeting and hanging out with all of you as well. One of you is the Red Power Ranger. That was pretty

cool. All of you were great folks. Made me very, very proud that the Jordan Harbinger show, fan-based community is just full of such high-quality people. I really enjoyed the heck out of that evening. I hope I get to do it again and again in many cities in the future. And of course, Thanks again to Hyundai for sponsoring this episode and making it happen. Hopefully more live shows in the future with them as well. Links to all things, Ryan Holiday will be on our website in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com. Remember to use those book links, Jordan Harbinger.com slash books. Transcripts in the show notes.

Videos up on YouTube. This is a fully professionally produced show with multiple camera angles, so it's a pretty good one if you're going to watch anything on YouTube from this show. It's not just two dudes on webcams. Advertisers, deals, and discount codes. The people that keep the lights on around here, all of those codes and deals are at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. And I've said this once, but I'll say it again, please consider supporting those who support this show.

I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram, and you can also connect with me on LinkedIn. I love talking with you, whether it's in person or online. I'm teaching you how to connect with great people and manage relationships using the same system, software, and tiny habits that I use every single day. It's our six-minute networking course, and that course is free over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course.

I'm teaching you how to dig that well before you get thirsty, build relationships before you need them, and hey, many of the guests on the show, they subscribe and contribute to that course. So come join us, and you will be in smart company right where you belong. This show is created in association with podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Millie Ocampo, Ian Baird, Josh Ballard, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for this show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. If you know a Ryan Holiday fan or somebody who would be interested in what we discussed here in this episode, please do share this episode with them.

The greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen, and we'll see you next time. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time. If you like the Jordan Harbinger show, you'll probably like Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. It's one of those shows that makes you smarter in a practical, useful way. Same curiosity vibe we go for here, just in a fast-focused format.

Mike brings on top experts and asks the exact questions that you'd want to ask, and the topics are all over the place in the best way. Recently, they've covered things like why we care so much what other people think, the benefits of laughter, why sports fans get so invested, and what makes people like you or not. The through line is always the same. Smart ideas you can actually use in real life. Something you should know has been featured in Apple's shows we love,

and it's got thousands of five-star reviews because it's consistently interesting. So if you want another show that scratches that I want to understand how people in the world really work, itch, search for something you should know wherever you get your podcasts. Look for the bright yellow light bulb and start listening. You can thank me later.