The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 213: Ryan Holiday - How To Make Work That Lasts (Perennial Seller)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Robert Green said to me, it starts by wanting to create a classic. And I don't, I think people say that's what they want, but they don't mean it, and it's not actually their priority. Like, I think, you know, people, they want to hire some company to just do it for them. You know, they want it to be good enough. They think, hey, I'll just, you know, I'll just read this into a tape recorder and have it transcribe. And that's a book. It's not, you know. People think, oh, I'm just going to hire this songwriter to just make.

Starting point is 00:00:30 make this for me or whatever. They're phoning in the creative process and then they're wondering why it's not standing up against the people who are not doing that. This episode is brought to you by my friends at Callaway Golf. Calaway's business and marketing approach has turned heads over the last several years, helping the company make a dramatic turnaround from losing millions of dollars per year to being a leader in the industry. Products like the GBB Epic Driver, steelhead XR irons and Calloway's Chrome Soft golf ball are aimed at avid golfers looking for premium performance. And the coolest part about this partnership is we're doing a giveaway.

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Starting point is 00:01:56 And over the course of a few months, we will gather them all, and then we will, will draw a random winner and my friends at Callaway will send you the GBB epic driver. Thank you so much. I look forward to seeing all of your great responses on Twitter and Instagram at Ryan Hawk 12. And thank you to my friends at Callaway Golf. Hey and welcome to the Learning Leader show. I am Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. It is mindful Monday. Go to learning leader.com. Enter your email address. Receive the latest trends, topics, features on some of the bright. leadership minds in the world every Monday morning 9 o'clock I love sharing those details with all of you and I appreciate the communication back and forth with all of you the great fans listeners supporters of the learning

Starting point is 00:02:47 leader show now on to tonight's episode with one of my favorite writers thinkers thought-provoking people for the third time it's best-selling author Ryan Holiday he's written the obstacle is the way ego is the enemy followed by so many influential people like Bill Belichick Pete Carroll people from all over the world bring him in to speak to their teams to help discuss leadership stoicism and many other topics a few of the other things we got into tonight as newest books called perennial seller the art of making and marketing work that last we dove deep into that how to make work that last how to build carmic debt by give give give give give give some more why the world is not a zero-sum game

Starting point is 00:03:31 then how creators like Kevin Hart have built their plot form long before they were famous. There's so much good stuff here. Ladies and gentlemen, you're going to love this one like I always do with Ryan Holiday. Well, it's funny. AJ, my brother just recorded with John Schneider, the GM of the Seahawks. Oh, yeah. And with the first part of, you know, I help them prepare a little bit sometimes, this little things. And one of the first things that came up in their conversation was you. Oh, that's amazing. And Shiner was like, oh, God, yeah, I love, I love Ryan Holiday. man, that stuff is so great.

Starting point is 00:04:09 And me and Pete, we implemented it. So did you go up and do talks with them or did you just talk to them? You talked to the team. What did you do with for them? So I sort of like bump. They brought me out to training camp and I like met some people. I didn't do a talk. And then I was there like three weeks ago for one of my talks.

Starting point is 00:04:23 And so there's actually a guy I think would be good for you to have on Ben Malcumson. He's, uh, Pete Carroll's like assistant. Um, and he became Pete Carroll's assistant because in college, he wrote for their college. He wrote for the USC newspaper. paper and he did a story where he tried to be a walk-on player to the Trojans for a story, and Pete Carroll put him on the team. Like, just he called his bluff and he put him on the team. And it's like this whole, and now he's worked for him for like 10 years.

Starting point is 00:04:53 Oh, wow. That's cool. You know, Pete Carroll's really into like the inner game of tennis. Yes, I love that. That's a pretty, I saw, it's interesting, both Tom Brady and Pete Carroll and other, other kind of of the top of the top best athletes are reading that and talking about it. So I immediately picked it up. It's really good.

Starting point is 00:05:14 I love that these guys, they're so much more innovative and thoughtful about their approach to sports than I think it probably used to be. And so when you combine like the combination of analytics now and more thoughtful intelligence, AJ and Shiner talked about that a little bit. I think that that's more my speed. I like to see that that that that's into sports as opposed to just, you know, going and bashing each other. Yeah, well, I think they realize that it's like all the competitive edge has been taken out of beating. Like you can't get that much bigger, stronger, faster without like cheating, basically.

Starting point is 00:05:52 So like all that's left is the mental side of things. Yeah, it's good. Well, dude, this is round three. So I appreciate it, man. I, I, so what I did is, as I've done like the past couple times we talked is really just, I read the book. And then I don't really, I mean, I have questions, but I mainly just take notes. And then I think it, I think what I think would be good is, is for us just to kind of go through some of the, the pages that I wrote notes in and documented. I just had like an Evernote file of this book and kind of go through what I thought was interesting.

Starting point is 00:06:28 And then you, you do what you do, expand or share a lot. of the story. Is that cool? You're my first one on this book, so I'm excited. Yeah. Nice. It's July 18th, right? Is that what I tell?

Starting point is 00:06:41 It's interesting. When you're talking about perennial sellers, so I don't know if this is the, if it correlates, but I was building this, the house that I now live in about four years ago. And with my builder, and we kept using the phrase, we want to make it a timeless. home, not a home for the current times. And I think there's some correlation there between the fact that, because not that I plan to sell my house anytime soon, we love it, and we're going to live here probably for a while, but it was still like, I'd rather it be something that doesn't look crazy or people

Starting point is 00:07:20 say, what were you thinking like five years from when it was built? Oh, that's kind of like what you're talking about as a perennial seller is something that can, lives on and not just let's hit the list in week one and then it just dies as a book if I'm thinking as a book. And I don't know, that kind of reminding me of the home building process for me. No, totally. It's like you're remodeling your bathroom. If you're taking the coolest picture that you see on Pinterest as your inspiration, it might

Starting point is 00:07:49 look good for a short period of time. But you have to ask yourself, you know, how is this trend going to age? How are the materials that I'm using going to age? And it's not necessarily a given that they are going to age well just because they look good now. Like I always think it's like, do you, when you look at a picture of yourself from 10 years ago, do you think, oh, I look good or do you think what was I thinking? You know what I mean? It's like if you're wearing jeans in a white t-shirt, you probably look good, right? Like you probably look exactly the same then as you do now.

Starting point is 00:08:23 If you were wearing whatever the trendiest thing at that moment was or you had the trendiest haircut or, you know, you were trying to be really cool, you probably look ridiculous and foolish, right? And so I think we get that appearance wise. But then with our work, we're like, well, what's hot? Like, it's like right now you can make a, you can make a business selling fidget spinners because they're what everyone's talking about. but are, you know, in six months, are you going to be glad you invested that time and energy in that thing? Or is it all going to turn out to have been wasted when the trend shifts? Yeah. What made you want to write this?

Starting point is 00:09:07 Was it just the fact that you work in the industry of creating art, of helping other people do it, of seeing the how fanatical people are about hitting lists? I mean, what was all those things? What made you want to want to do this? It was definitely all those things. So I had gotten, I tried to follow my own advice, right? So I'd gotten a contract to write a book about book marketing, which is one of the things that my firm Brash Check does. So I've worked with, you know, authors of sold millions of copies.

Starting point is 00:09:39 We've had all the different bestseller list. And so I was sort of sitting down. I was researching for the book. It is sort of the raw period in any project. You're just researching and thinking and accumulating materials. The note cards part for you. Yeah, but I think it's really important that you don't dive into the project until you actually have like a map or a pathway forward. Like some authors go like don't write until you know the last sentence.

Starting point is 00:10:04 I don't really think that way, but I think like what does this book look like? I have to have that picture in my head and why is it going to work and who's it going to work for. These are really important questions. And so I felt like I could write a book marketing book in my sleep. And I could because I have calls about it. meetings about this, what I do. But as I was trying to think about the book, I kept coming up against this idea that, like, it would be a lot of work to write a book about all these marketing tactics that three or four years later I would have to update because they'd changed.

Starting point is 00:10:36 You know, if I'm talking about these Twitter strategies and then Twitter continues its decline, that's not going to be a good use of anyone's time. If I'm talking about pitching this site or that site and then those sites merge or one of them goes out of business. This isn't. So I was thinking, well, how do I make this last? So I'm always first trying to gravitate towards the timeless part of whatever I'm doing. And I came across this quote from Cyril Connolly, who's one of my favorite writers. And he was saying, he was defining literary greatness as something that lasts for 10 years or more

Starting point is 00:11:11 because that's like past any sort of ephemeral trend. And I really like that. And so what I ended up doing was going, hey, I have to follow my own advice here. Like, if, how can I, if I want a book that's going to last, I can't give people marketing advice that isn't going to last either. And so the book, you know, the book evolved and it changed and it became really a meditation on this singular theme of, okay, look, there's many ways to be successful. I think the best way to be successful is to be perennially or timelessly successful to be successful for a, like, dynastically successful, like in the football sense, how do you do that? That's what I ended up zooming in on. And my own books have fallen in that realm, too. You know, like my first book is hitting its five-year

Starting point is 00:12:00 anniversary and it's selling better this year than it did the year before. Obstacles away is at like a three-year mark. And I think this week is the one-year anniversary of, of, ego is the enemy. people don't realize that in the book space, really like one year is all the time that publisher's budget for a book. Like the big transition in publishing is front list versus backlist. Frontless title is new. Kevin Hart's memoir is out this week. That's their big front list title. But a year from now, that book will be considered backlist, and they'll have basically quit on it. The publisher will basically be going, it's on its own now. And I think that's a huge mistake. I think there's things you can do that make it sell over time. And that's what the book's about.

Starting point is 00:12:50 It's really well done. I'm not just saying that. I mean, you know, I'm a fan of your work. That's why I like that's why I wanted to have you on a third time. And when I heard you were writing, I thought, well, we got to talk about this. And I'm appreciative of your team for sending it to me early so I could take a peek and I just devoured it pretty quickly. You interviewed a lot of people and you talked to a lot of them. And speaking of Kevin Hart, and I'm going to jump around, actually. plan to go in order, but now that you mentioned Kevin Hart, let's just go there. So specifically when it comes to building a platform, and I actually had no idea about his strategic process to build his platform until I read, read this book. And the fact that he basically went on a

Starting point is 00:13:29 nationwide tour doing stand-up, and he asked the people in the audience, if I messed anything up, let me know, but I took a notice from the books. He asked people in the audience to give them their email address, which just seems so basic and enormous. normal. And so this is how he built his list. And then he actually eventually got into fights with Sony, I believe, because they wanted to use the list that he created. He said, if you want to use what I've built my platform that I spent years putting together, you're going to have to pay for it. And I just thought, wow, if people think he just got lucky or it's just random chance, like he had a vision and ideas and strategy in place to build his plan. And I just thought, wow, if people think he just got lucky or it's just random chance, like he had a vision and ideas and strategy in place to

Starting point is 00:14:12 build his platform. And I love for you to share more about Kevin Hart and others as far as when it comes to creators really thinking about how they build their platform. Well, one of the things that I see with authors and celebrities and entrepreneurs that I work with is, is they sort of make, not only do they not think about how their thing is going to last, whatever they're making, they're not thinking about how it's going to be timeless or who it's for any of these things. They're also not thinking like, how am I launching this? They're just, they're so excited and passionate about what they're making that they figure

Starting point is 00:14:51 they'll cross all the other bridges when they come to them. And to me, that's a very risky idea. And so I think an essential part of creating a platform or creating a perennial seller, something that last is having a platform that you launched you. You know, Kevin Kelly has this idea of a thousand true fans. Like, who's buying the first 1,000,000 copies? copies of your book, who's downloading the first 1,000, you know, downloads of your podcast. You know, who are you launching this thing too? And I think these are things you want to develop simultaneously. So obviously, it's hard to get fans if you don't have any work, but it's very hard to get fans for your work if nobody knows who you are. And so it's this building of a platform that's very

Starting point is 00:15:34 essential. And, you know, Kevin Hart tried this sort of traditional, like he was a comedian. Obviously, he was, he would tour the country, but most comedians think the way to break into the mainstream is to be in, on a TV show or a movie is to use somebody else's platform or distribution to make yourself famous. And he'd been in a number of like big projects that everyone thought was going to be a huge hit that didn't work. He was in that movie Soulplane, which is a flop. He had a TV show that didn't that didn't get picked up. And so he really was sort of knocked on his ass. And what he ended up doing is going, okay, I'm not going to be dependent on these other

Starting point is 00:16:12 people to get fans anymore. I'm going to tour the country repeatedly. I think he toured for like three years. And he would actually go specifically to cities where he didn't have that many fans. He had an assistant that traveled with him and they would put out a business card on every chair, on every table in the comedy clubs that said, Kevin Hart needs to know who you are. Please put in your email address. And then the assistant would go and gather them all at the end of the show, enter them in a spreadsheet.

Starting point is 00:16:37 And he built an email list of hundreds of thousands of people in every city in the country, which is not only a huge asset as a stand-up comedian who's largely responsible for selling your own tickets, but it built him a huge, hardcore base of really loyal Kevin Hart fans that he was able to launch these specials to, that he was able to launch his movies to. And yeah, ultimately, I forget what movie it was, but Sony was like, why aren't you promoting this movie enough? And he was basically like, you paid me to be in the movie. You didn't pay me to promote the movie, right? And platforms are incredibly valuable. I tend to find the problem is people want to have a platform. They don't want to build a platform. And they want a platform now.

Starting point is 00:17:25 They don't want to think about it long before they need it. with my own books, right? I knew I wanted to be an author, and I knew I needed fans, but I felt, I felt uncomfortable with this idea of like, here, sign up for my newsletter. Like, what am I going to say that's going to make, this is when I'm, I don't know, 20 or 21? Why is anyone going to sign up for Ryan Holiday's newsletter? He's never done anything. And what I did was I started a newsletter where I just recommended books. I love reading. I love books. So I would recommend books every month. And the first email that went out, went to 50 people. Like, it was enough people that I copied and pasted their email in the BCC form in Gmail. And it slowly grew, it grew to 500, which was at that point,

Starting point is 00:18:09 the limit of the amount of emails you could send per day on Gmail. And then I switched to, like, a provider. And I sent one out, the monthly email out for June last week. And it was to, it was to like 81, 81,000 people. And so, you know, and when I, when I promote perennial, I'm going to send an email to that list of 81,000 people who love books, and I'm going to say, hey, you might like this book. I wrote it, right? But I built a platform that existed for something like six years, five years before I even put out my first book. And so you have to build a platform in advance. Obviously, being successful and having something that people like can also grow a platform, but you've got to build it first too. It takes, I think, a real thought through

Starting point is 00:18:57 giving for I'll tell you example like me the same thing with the email list doing it a Facebook a not like page I mean I have that but mainly it's the actual community I have a Facebook community called learning league community where people it's closed so you have to ask to be a part of it and you let them in but my what I've said to everyone the group is I will I will do nothing but give and offer up insights and thoughts I won't sell anything and the first thing I'm going to probably sell through that will be a book. But it probably won't be until maybe three years post creation. So there'll be three full years worth of giving for free, everything.

Starting point is 00:19:40 Including, that's also the same thing with like Mindful Monday emails I send out to my list that people know about that too. But it'll be, I will not try to sell a single thing. I mean, the podcast is obviously free. But at some point, that's like, okay, you build it up for for so long where it's Give, give, give, give, give. I guess a little Gary V stuff, maybe, I don't know. But give, give, give, give. And then at some point, they'll be like, hey, I've kind of created something here that maybe you'd like.

Starting point is 00:20:07 And it sounds like that's what you've done and are currently still doing. Yeah, I mean, I don't, I'm terrible at mass. I won't embarrass myself. But I've recommended probably a thousand books to this list over the eight or nine years that it's been going. And I've written six. you know, if you want to do the math on, on what percentage that is, it's very, very small, right? And it's sold, it's definitely paid for itself. You know, it's sold quite well. The books have, but, you know, I mostly built that platform recommending books from authors who are not me, you know, like

Starting point is 00:20:48 overwhelmingly recommending. And the point is, it's, I think people think it's like a zero-sum game, right? They think if you're promoting other people that that's somehow less room for you. And it's actually the opposite, right? People who like other people are more likely to like you. And so that's, that's how you want to think about it. Definitely. I always am recommending other podcasts to people. I'm like, have you listened to Reed Hoffman's new one or Malcolm Blabler or whoever? And they're like, dude, why are you, why are you recommending podcasts that there's only so much time in the day to listen to a podcast? And I'm like, no. I mean, if it's great work that I believe in that, I personally enjoy, how would I not share it?

Starting point is 00:21:27 I mean, that's just, I think, I think, common sense. But I think if you do view the world as a zero-sum place, it's kind of sad and maybe just misguided. It's a combination of probably sad and misguided of not fully understanding. And there's a lot of work out there. I think that shows it. I mean, I reference Adam Grant all the time, but he talks, he studied that in depth about it almost changed my viewpoint when I read give and take to talk about the difference between

Starting point is 00:21:51 givers and takers and matchers of that. if you're giving, giving, giving, I'm a firm believer that good things are going to happen to. Yes, I think so. And you're also, you know, it's not because this is like a charity. It's that you're building relationships. You're building, I sort of call it carmic debt. You know, you're out there doing things that are, you know, you're connecting with people. You're building relationships.

Starting point is 00:22:16 You're building insight. You know, you're developing all these things that eventually you get to bring to bear on your own project. So a couple other things that are people that you've talked to. You studied a lot of perennial sellers, people who build work that or create work that last. What are some of the patterns or common themes if you had to pull out a few of them amongst people who seem to have figured it out when it comes to creating perennial sellers? There's this line from Jeff Bezos that I have in the book where he says, you know, focus on. the things that don't change. And his point is, like, people always want things that are cheaper and they always want to get them right away. Right. So he's saying, like, that's what I'm going to

Starting point is 00:23:03 focus on. I'm not going to focus on the fact that everyone's talking about this or that. So I think really zooming in on something timeless in your themes and in your work is really important, right? So, you know, if you're writing a book about how to master social media, what you're doing is you're betting that social media is going to continue to be important and continue to be really confusing for people. And that's not necessarily true, right? Like, I think you can make an argument that's risky. Guy Kawasaki wrote an amazing book called Enchantment, which is, you know, about like how you sort of blow people's mind and create this sort of infatuation with your customers. That book is perennial and is sold very well. So is this book, The Art of the Start. And then

Starting point is 00:23:50 he also writes a book called what to or no what's it called oh uh what the plus right and it's like how to master google plus right and so not a great book right like that that trend that was a bet on a trend that doesn't happen and i think it would have if you looked at if you were if a betting man was having to say which you know creating an enchanting relationship with your customers or this new social network that's three months old what one is more likely to be here in a couple years. I mean, I don't think that's that confusing. So that's one of the things I think you want to think about. And then really focusing on, I think that perfectionism matters too. Like Robert Green said to me, it starts by wanting to create a classic. And I don't, I think people say

Starting point is 00:24:38 that's what they want, but they don't mean it and it's not actually their priority. Like, I think, you know, people, they want to hire some company to just do it for them. You know, they want it to be good enough. They think, hey, I'll just, you know, I'll just read this into a tape recorder and have it transcribe and that's a book. It's not, you know, people think, oh, I'm just going to hire this songwriter to just make this for me or whatever. They're phoning in the creative process and then they're wondering why it's not standing up against the people who are not doing that. You have to realize, like, given what the internet has done and the amount of stuff it's made available, like from the past and it's the democratization of creation is that, like, if you,

Starting point is 00:25:25 if you put out a book tomorrow, you're not just competing against all the other books that week. You're competing against every other book that's ever been published. If you, if, if you have a TV show that's coming out or a YouTube channel, you're competing against Mad Men and Breaking Bad and all the people who haven't even watched the wire yet. Do you know what I mean? Like, you're competing against all of history. And so if you think that you can cheat or hack your way into getting there, I think you're going to be sorely mistaken. There is this seduction, as I think you even wrote with short-term notability, getting featured in Forbes, make a hitting a list.

Starting point is 00:26:07 But the real focus I think we're talking about here is long-term success and being renowned. And so how do we avoid, though, that seduction? because even I think the best most well-intentioned people can fall victim to this. So how do we avoid that seduction, though, that short-term excitement and try to create something that's long-term successful? Yeah, it's important to remember, like when you hit a bestseller list, that means you were the best seller in a seven-day period, right? It does not mean that you sold the best period.

Starting point is 00:26:46 especially over the course of a year or over the course of the lifetime of work. So I think people go, what they're just doing is moving the food around the plate. I see this a lot with authors. So it's like their book is really only, they only wrote a book that's really going to be readable by like 10,000 people. So they just try to front load all those sales in the first week. They sell 10,000 books. They're a bestseller.

Starting point is 00:27:13 and then they don't they don't even make it to 10,000 and one copies, right? Which is really bad. I think you want to be, I'd rather sell 5,000 copies per year over three years than 10,000 copies in one year. You could also just argue purely from a tax perspective that spreading it out is better. But I'd rather have continued relevance over time. There's this phenomenon called the Lindy effect, which I talk about in the book. It was invented in the 1920s. is popularized by Nassim Talib.

Starting point is 00:27:45 And he's saying that your half-life doubles for every year that you exist or that it doubles the longer you exist. So if you survive for a year, it's likely that you'll survive for two years. If you survive for two years, it's likely you'll survive to three years. And that it's increasing as you go. So if you survive for 10 years, you're likely to survive for 20 years. Like it's actually doubling. And so I think this is really important.

Starting point is 00:28:12 This is what I'm trying. to, instead of trying to front load my sales, I'm actually trying to do the opposite. I'm trying to create something that's going to sell steadily over time, because if you can get there, if you can solve a problem for people, if you can get your book to a place where people are recommending it over and over and over again, then it's more likely that you're going to continue to do so over time, which is how you stay relevant. It's how you say financially solvent, right? What good is it if you make all the money from a book in the first three weeks and then, you know, how do you pay the bills going forward? Right. So I think standing the test of time makes sense from an economic perspective.

Starting point is 00:28:53 And then also it's like, look, it takes the same amount of work to make a book that's going to last or not last or roughly the same amount of work. Why would you make something that's going to disappear? Yeah, I mean, something that's going to stand the test of time. And I think of, I don't know, I mean, obviously you know your numbers, but obstacle is the way. It feels like it had this groundswell that wasn't at during the release date. I could be wrong. But I remember feeling like I kept reading about it, whether it was from Bill Belichick or other people, it just like caught fire, but it definitely wasn't at launch time.

Starting point is 00:29:30 It was maybe a year or two even into the book being out. So like how did that, if you look at like a line graph, what were the sales of that book? And I'm sure it's still selling pretty well. What did it look like with obstacle? No, it looked sort of exactly like you just said. It sold, let's say it sold maybe three or four thousand copies in its first week. And then I think maybe six weeks in, we did a discount where we steeply discounted the price. And so the sales spiked again.

Starting point is 00:29:58 So like one month in, we had a second really good week. And then it was just sort of steady, you know, like a couple hundred copies a week for six or seven months. And then it started to, it started to pick up. The number that Sean Coyne is a really smart thinker about publishing and a book agent, and he's a great writer too, actually. But he's saying that 10,000 copies is the sort of the tipping point on a book. If you can organically get to 10,000 copies, 10,000 people read a book and experience it and like it, that's about what you need to sort of have velocity to spread by word of mouth on its own from there. So it took me about six or so months to get to that 10,000 copies.

Starting point is 00:30:44 I mean, to get to that real critical mass of readers. And then it sort of started to go from there. And then, yeah, important or influential people started talking about how they were reading it. There was a few big media hits. And it's now selling, you know, it sells about 1,500 copies a week every week. And I don't do any marketing for it. Wow. So it's gotten to a best.

Starting point is 00:31:09 about, it's gotten to that sort of perennial status mark that I'm talking about in the book. If you can get something like that going, it's now operating under its own power. But yeah, it wasn't because I had this blowout launch. It was because I wrote a book that was good that resonated with people. I launched it to my platform. They were the first customers. They read it. They liked it.

Starting point is 00:31:37 They started passing it around. And then it took time for to start to take hold. And now it's it's sort of like, I think an important part about being a perennial seller is, is meeting a or solving a perennial problem. So it's now the book that people give to someone when a friend is going through a hard time or they just got, you know, they just got knocked down and they're looking about how to get back. You know, they, they, they blew out their knee and their professional athlete or their company, their startup just went bankrupt or they just graduated from college and it's a tough job market. It's now a book that people go, oh, here's the book for your problem. And the longer I can be seen as a solution to that problem, the longer the book is going to continue to sell.

Starting point is 00:32:24 One of the aspects you do to touch on is marketing as well. And this is what you do for a living. And I'm hopeful maybe we can talk about. how this relates to not just people who write books, because there's a lot of people listening who will never write a book, but to anything that somebody wants to market and just the overall philosophy and thought process. And this actually came up because I just had Eric Barker on. I haven't released it yet, but I just had Eric Barker on whose book Barking Up the Wrong Tree did well. And I said, I said, what did you think was one of the keys of success? And he said,

Starting point is 00:32:56 Ryan Holiday. And I said, really? And I didn't know that you guys even work together. And he said, Yeah, and I'm like, well, it's a really good book. And I didn't know you guys teamed up. And he said, yeah, I would say Ryan was a massive help. And I got to believe that was from a marketing perspective or maybe we helped edit. I don't know. I didn't, we didn't go much deeper, but he mentioned that. Well, so look, the real reason Eric's book is a huge success is one because it's good.

Starting point is 00:33:21 And two, because he built a platform of like 300,000 email addresses, right? Like that it would be hard for that book not to at least be a success out of the gate at some level. You don't build a platform like that and then sell zero copies. So he did so much work early on. And I would also say, look, although I work with lots of authors, perennial seller and perennial seller is not just about books. It's about sort of all genres of creative things because I think at the core, when you're selling an idea, you want your idea to be perennial to last. That's that's the premise. What I think about from a marketing perspective is

Starting point is 00:34:01 the most critical marketing decision you make is what you make and who you make it for. And so you have to get that right. And then once you have gotten that right, what marketing is really about doing is seeding that work to those people. It's getting the initial attention. It's selling those first few thousand copies. It's bringing the right influencers or gatekeepers on board. So to me, marketing is not this separate thing you do. It's a part of a puzzle. It's an important part of the puzzle, but it's actually like the second or it's the third step in in the puzzle, the third critical piece. But it doesn't work. It's just hype and promotion if you haven't got those early parts right. Does that make sense?

Starting point is 00:34:50 Yeah. Do you, I'm curious, do you have, are you polarizing to some people because of Trust Me I'm lying or because of some of the Tucker Max stuff? Does that still come up like with you? Or even if you did maybe the Q&A part of talks, so they say, Ryan Holiday, you wrote a book called Trust Me, I'm lying, or I saw you did this, this stunt for Tucker Max. And it was years ago, obviously. But now you're writing on stoicism and about perennial sellers.

Starting point is 00:35:14 Like, does that still come up and how do you handle it if it does? Yeah, it does. I mean, the good news about trust me, I'm lying, which is this sort of expose of the media system, is that it turned out to be very right. It sort of predicted a lot of the political and media problems that we're having right now. I think if the book had been this sort of crazy anomaly that didn't stand up well, I guess my point is it's actually become less controversial over time because it was somewhat ahead of its time. But yeah, I think, I think I think people are afraid of being controversial. They're afraid of like ruffling feathers,

Starting point is 00:35:52 but they don't realize that the purpose of doing that is to break through the noise. And once you've broken through the noise, if you deliver the goods, like if you break through the noise and you're an idiot or you break through the noise and you don't have any value to offer people, it doesn't pan out.

Starting point is 00:36:10 But if you break through the noise and then you last, like your work, people like what you have to say, you're right about things, you know, people are buying your stuff and enjoying it and talking about it, what happens is that as time passes, they forget why they forget about the controversy to some degree, right? They just remember that they've heard your name.

Starting point is 00:36:30 They don't remember how they've heard about your, I mean, obviously the Kardashians are the most famous example of this. I mean, they've created like a billion dollar empire that really began with a sex tape, right? And it turns out, I don't know why, but millions of Americans like watching the Kardashians on television. And so the origins of how that came to be sort of fall away if you can stick. But you have to break through before you can stick. Another aspect is a lot of people talk about ideas about what they're about to do. The great Casey Neistadt quote that you have in your book, and I'm a Casey Neistead fan,

Starting point is 00:37:11 is I don't want to hear your best idea. The idea is the easy part. And for me, I've always thought about, and I've asked questions to many high achievers, people who've sustained excellence, is talk to me about the actual execution of it, the implementation. We all do a good job. All of us listening here are learners, and we try that we do our best to improve. But it's the aspect that to me is even more important is what do you do once you've learned something?

Starting point is 00:37:38 How do you put it into play? and it's interesting I talked to Max Joseph who was in Casey's video that Nike video that won viral 25 million views called Make It Count which is awesome I've recommended to people

Starting point is 00:37:50 but talk to me about going from idea and this can apply to anything again this is not just writing books this is just creating something this is doing work but talk to me about the ideas which is important obviously

Starting point is 00:38:04 idea creation is important but then the actual execution of doing the work so it's sort of answers your question, but I try to treat every project that I'm working on, whether it's a book or a client or, you know, a talk or whatever I'm working on, I try to treat it as like a little conspiracy that's just for me to know, right? Like I'm working on it in secret. I'm waking up every day I'm working on. I'm throwing myself into it. I'm planning how it's going to go. I'm lining up

Starting point is 00:38:32 my allies and my launch strategy and all this stuff. And only when I'm far enough along in the process that it's not a foregone conclusion, but that like it's got real momentum and it's, I can sort of see the end of, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. That's when I start talking about it. And I realize it can be different for other people, but I find that if you're out there talking about what you're going to do, what you want to do, what you're thinking about doing, that's precisely the thing that you're probably not going to do. These things are so hard, writing a book, writing a screenplay, you know, launching a company. They're so hard that if you're, if you're, you know, if the first thing you do is when you start a company is like put yourself as the CEO on LinkedIn so you can get recognition for it.

Starting point is 00:39:26 I think in some ways it's like you're cheating yourself. You're giving yourself the rewards for the accomplishment before you've done the. the work and then you're more likely to quit at some point in the process because you're not like after the the thing you're doing it for it doesn't feel like mysterious and alluring and and off in the distance if that makes sense so like I don't talk about a book until it's two-thirds the way done maybe more because the whole that two-thirds in secret that's where that's where it's won or lost. And so I need to do that for me, not for attention.

Starting point is 00:40:12 What about routines and writing routines? I know this is something that's big. I'm fascinated by this. I love learning the details behind literally how somebody works. I get the sense you are too, but really detailing out how you actually execute on those ideas. I'm huge on routines. Actually, I just started a website called writing routines. got the email this morning. Eric was in it. Yeah, yeah. That's interviews with people who have

Starting point is 00:40:39 interesting routines. I think obviously it's not like Eisenhower would say it's it's not the plans that are important, but the planning is everything or plans are worthless, but the planning is everything. It's not that there's some ideal routine. It's that you have to have a routine. Right. So your routine could be that you wake up at 3.30. in the morning and that's when you start working or it could be that you don't go to bed until 3.30 in the morning but what matters is that you have a that you have you have to treat this professional you're sorry you have to treat this creative profession as a profession and it requires routine and ritual and order I think it's we love this idea the you know the the musician never going to sleep doing drugs partying all the time and then just rolling into the studio

Starting point is 00:41:34 and being a genius. And I'm not, I don't think, I think it's very rare that it ever works like that. You know, we think of Hunter S. Thompson being this party, but really he was very disciplined about his work. And so I think my routine is that I get up early. I write first thing in the morning before I get sucked into the business of the day. And then that way, by the time I finish, whether it's 10 or 11 or 12 o'clock, the rest of the day is upside for me.

Starting point is 00:42:02 If I managed to get other things done, that's great, but I already did the most important thing for me. And so you have to have that routine. There's lots of hacks and secrets you can borrow from other people. There really is no right or wrong answer except that you have to have one. And understanding what it is for you. I mean, I like learning about other people so I can try things out to see what works. The important part, like you said, is, yeah, for me, I'm the same way with a morning thing. But the difference for me is when I, the morning, my morning time is definitely a move my body working out.

Starting point is 00:42:36 Sure. Time when you, you write. And I obviously, like I said, from following what you do on Instagram, from an active activity standpoint, you've written about this too. When it comes to how running and being active helps you and your creative pursuits. And anyone who, like I said, follows you on social media sees that like I look at your watch, your Apple Watch that, you know, take a picture of, I believe, just about every day. And I think, God, like Ryan Holiday runs and swims a ton. I mean, a lot.

Starting point is 00:43:08 Not just, it's obviously not just a hobby. It is a legit part of your life to be very active. Talk about how your activities when it comes to swimming and running, and especially when you travel, it's like even when you travel, you're always active then too. How that helps you as a creator is keeping your body in great shape. Yeah, I consider running to be like part of my job. I have ideas to write while I'm running. I solve problems that I've been struggling with.

Starting point is 00:43:38 I think of things that I'd forgotten about when I run. So plus it centers me and makes me feel good and the endorphins help and it keeps me in shape. So I consider it to be part of my job. So I budget time for it accordingly. You know, to go to routines like you're saying, it's like I've, I've so many successful business people that I've read about work out first thing in the morning. They get up at like 4.30 a.m. and they hit the gym or whatever.

Starting point is 00:44:07 And so I've tried that. And like you're saying, you want to, oh, if somebody you respect is swearing by something, it's like, you should give it a shot. But what I've found is that if I work out in the morning, it's pushing the start date for me, like, or the start time for me so far that it makes it easy to not write. Like with writing, you're always trying not to do it because it's unpleasant. And yeah, and it's easier to send an email or talk on the phone or watch TV or, you know, any number of other activities. So I've found that if I'm giving myself something to delay it with, it's bad.

Starting point is 00:44:43 So I've tried it. It didn't have the upside. So for me, I want to, I want to do some form of strenuous physical exercise, probably 2 p.m. at the earliest, like 5 or 6 p.m. at the latest. So sometime in that afternoon window, which isn't great given that I live in the South because like today, if I go for a run at four, it'll be 102 outside. But I've toughened myself up enough that I can take it. But that period is one of the, it's like I wrote in the morning. I handled business in the middle of the day. Maybe I was fooling around with some writing before I went on my run.

Starting point is 00:45:20 I'm going to have creative ideas when I'm doing that run or that swim that I'm going to take notes on when I finish, that it's going to give me what I'm supposed to start with the following day. So it's sort of the transition point where it's like I've done everything that I'm doing today and now I'm setting myself up for tomorrow. And that sort of Jerry Seinfeld has talked about this chain method. You know, it's like every day you write you saying and you put an X on the calendar and you should have as long a chain as possible. And your job is to not break the chain. That's how I think about it with my work. It's every day. I'm not trying to write a book or create, you know, some, you know, I'm launching a website or a project.

Starting point is 00:46:07 I'm not trying to do it in some fit of genius or inspiration. I'm trying to chip away at it every single day. Is there a reason you share it on social media? media? No, I just like to. And it sort of keeps me accountable, I think. And then what I like about it on social media, if we're talking about the chain method, is that it disappears. You know, if you do it on like an Instagram story or Snapchat, it disappears within 24 hours. So it's like every day you're starting from scratch. And I like that. Do you get a lot of engagement from followers based on your exercise, your runt, swims?

Starting point is 00:46:46 A little bit. I actually try not to like try not to engage, right? Like I think different brands and different people have different relationships with their audience. And I think you've got to know what you're going for. Like what does success look like for you. If you're like an extrovert and all you love is to be interacting with and connecting with people, then social media is like this amazing opportunity for you. If you're more of an introverted person, I see it as more of a one-way medium, right? It's like, here's what I'm sharing. Here's what I'm interested in. I'd like to talk about it with my friends, like the people I actually know. But I don't need to like chat about it with the masses, if that makes sense. Yeah, I got you. I noticed it.

Starting point is 00:47:33 And I'm just saying, who I know what he's doing today or where it is because you're traveling a lot too. I give him the speeches. And I've noticed it. And I thought it's an interesting way to share with your followers. like you do real physical work in addition to all the creative work. Yeah. And I mean, it's in a weird way, like that's what I'm proud. Like, I see some people like they travel and they're like they're wanting to show you what they're.

Starting point is 00:48:01 They wanted to show you that like they're in Thailand and you should admire them because they're in Thailand or whatever. Right. Like they're they're like proud of the work accomplishments to me. Like I'm proud of the fact that it's, I'm on. five hours sleep and I'm still getting a run in to me that's that like I'm proud of that and myself and so that's what I'm sharing or that's what I'm talking about less like less you know the fact that I'm giving a speech to X amount of people or that you know this is my nice hotel room that stuff doesn't isn't impressive to me what's impressive to me is the work yeah something to

Starting point is 00:48:37 agent I talk about we have for a long time is it's it's easy to work when you feel good the people who make it who make a difference who excel who are going to be world class and whatever they do is that they get up and they do it when they feel bad. And I literally think of our conversations, AJ and I's conversations almost daily when I run a treadmill some and I'm like my legs are so sore because I lifted the legs yesterday heavy. But this is the exact reason why I'm going to run today because they feel terrible, but I got to push through it. And when you get done, I think fighting through some of that adversity that you've created for yourself can make you stronger in all aspects of your life because it shows that you're disciplined. And you take that discipline from one area and apply it to others. Totally. I totally agree.

Starting point is 00:49:29 It's the workouts that are not fun that if you push through ultimately end up being the most rewarding. Although I found, and this is something I've been working on with myself lately is like I found that like, It's actually, like, if I don't want to run, it's easier for me to force myself to run than it is to listen to myself as to maybe why I shouldn't run. Like right now, like, my foot really hurts. I got these really bad blisters. And so it actually takes less discipline for me to tough through that than it would be to go, is it actually a good idea? Like, is it actually a good idea to run today or should I rest? Like days off are harder, and this isn't like a humble brag.

Starting point is 00:50:12 Days off are harder for me than putting in a shitty, dangerous, you know, harmful workout. And so that's something I, you got to know. Like some people are, some people, it's hard to have willpower to do things. Other people, it's hard for them to question that willpower. And neither of them is objectively good or bad, you know. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, it's just like that fine balance of understanding.

Starting point is 00:50:38 understanding the difference between it like can I push through something that's not dangerous or stupid But but but also am I just or am I just feeling sorry for for myself because my legs are sore? It's there's a difference Yes Then from from real it's like being hurt or being injured when we played football we talked about it but hey man this is this this is good I'm so appreciative every time. I hope we can keep doing having these talks. I love it It's so much fun and what do you what's next? You're always you always got something I know you don't want to talk about it until you're more than halfway there but I read about the Galker, Peter Thiel, Hawk Hogan stuff. I mean, that's kind of publicly out there now?

Starting point is 00:51:13 Is that what's next or what's going on? I mean, I've got an interview in front of me that I was going through and working on the manuscript today. So, like, we're taught. I took a break from that to talk to you. Like, I'm, I woke up this morning and I, my routine was off because I'd been, uh, traveling and now I'm back home and I'm, you know, sort of right back at it. I think I try to have, I try to have my next project in the queue.

Starting point is 00:51:38 long before my last one comes out because I don't want I don't like this idea of sort of sitting there and congratulating yourself for how awesome it is I want to have I want to celebrate success by throwing myself into the next project so yeah I'm doing this book on the sort of the war between Peter Thiel uh Holkogen and Gawker and then but when I start to see the light at the end of the tunnel on this one I'll be on to the next one it's uh you you talk to Craig Newmark the guy from Craigslist. Yeah. And I love the way you ended, ended the book.

Starting point is 00:52:12 You said his answer was perfect. It feels nice, quote, it feels nice for a moment, then surreal, then back to work. And it feels like that's kind of your rhythm of it might feel nice for a little moment. Then it's a little bit surreal. If, you know, the Bella texts of the world are quoting Ryan Holiday. And then it's like, all right, I got to be about to work. And I think that's the approach of why you're able to continue to pump out not just quality books, but articles that I find myself reading all of them.

Starting point is 00:52:39 I know Brian Kauffman said, if Ryan Holiday writes something, I'm reading it, and I'm like, I feel the same way. And I know so many others do too. So thanks for putting all this stuff out there, man.

Starting point is 00:52:47 I really, you know, I'm a fan. It was cool getting to meet you and Sam and have multiple meals with you guys out in Ohio. It's been like well over a year now. So it's great that we got to hang out in person in addition to these talks now.

Starting point is 00:53:01 And I want to continue to. By the way, is it your birthday tomorrow? It is, yeah. Wow. 30. Happy birthday, man. Thanks.

Starting point is 00:53:08 You got anything big planned? No, just hanging out. Just hanging out. Okay. And congrats to get on the birth of your son. I don't show pictures of them on social media. But that's such a life-changing moment. And I'm guessing you guys are loving it, man.

Starting point is 00:53:20 I am. So, well, thanks again, man. We'll obviously continue talking, man. Yeah. All right. Talk soon. And you got to start your book. I have been.

Starting point is 00:53:30 I actually want to talk to you about that. I want to, we'll figure out the best way to do it because of how busy you are. but I want to send you the proposal. Yeah, fire away. Just about done, man. Cool. All right. Awesome.

Starting point is 00:53:42 Thanks, man. Bye. This episode of the Learning Leader Show is over, but we have plenty more to keep you locked in until next time. Head over to Learning Leadershow.com for more information and to request your favorite entrepreneur, CEO, world class athlete, or anyone else that inspires you. You can also talk to Ryan directly by reaching out to him on Twitter at Ryan Hawk 12.

Starting point is 00:54:03 Thanks again, and we'll see you next time on the Learning leader show. This episode is brought to you by my friends at Callaway Golf. Calloway's business and marketing approach has turned heads over the last several years, helping the company make a dramatic turnaround from losing millions of dollars per year to being a leader in the industry. Products like the GB Epic Driver, Steelhead XR irons, and Calloway's Chrome Soft Golf Ball are aimed at avid golfers looking for premium performance. And the coolest part about this partnership, is we're doing a giveaway. Yes, we're giving away the number one selling driver of 2017,

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The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 213: Ryan Holiday - How To Make Work That Lasts (Perennial Seller)

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