Order of Man - Stillness is the Key ｜ RYAN HOLIDAY

00:00:00.000 We live in a climate where we are inundated with messages and opportunities and entertainment.

00:00:06.080 We've demanded and created a culture where we are never bored, never quiet, and frankly,

00:00:12.240 never satisfied. But what if that noise was one of the largest barriers to satisfaction

00:00:18.240 and fulfillment in our lives? Today, I'm joined by repeat guest Ryan Holiday to talk about his

00:00:24.260 new book, Stillness is the Key. We cover why stillness is the key to mastery, freedom,

00:00:30.180 happiness, and tranquility. We also do a deeper dive into the power of saying no, how to conquer

00:00:36.400 anger, finding confidence, but avoiding ego, and how stillness truly is the key.

00:00:41.860 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly chart

00:00:46.820 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time. You are not

00:00:52.680 easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, or strong. This is your life. This is who you are.

00:00:59.880 This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call

00:01:05.180 yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler, and I am the host and the

00:01:10.800 founder of this podcast and the movement that is Order of Man. I want to welcome you back,

00:01:15.740 or I want to welcome you for the first time, regardless of how long you've been tuning in,

00:01:19.200 even if this is the first time you've ever heard the show. This is a podcast and a movement,

00:01:23.680 a movement to recapture and reclaim masculinity in a society that seems to be increasingly dismissive

00:01:29.620 of it. It's my goal to give you the conversations and tools and guidance and direction that you need

00:01:34.340 to more adequately step up as a capable husband, father, business owner, leader in your community,

00:01:40.500 and every other facet of life that you're showing up as. We've got this interview show. I'm

00:01:45.220 interviewing today, Ryan holiday, but we've had guys like Jocko Willink, David Goggins,

00:01:49.880 Grant Cardone, Andy Frisilla. I say it every week, but the lineup of men that have decided to band with

00:01:54.960 us in some way and join us in these conversations is, is powerful. And I hope you're getting a lot

00:02:01.400 of value from it. We've also got our Friday field notes, which is some of my ramblings and thoughts

00:02:05.480 from throughout the week. And then we've got our Wednesday show, which is an ask me anything show

00:02:09.700 where myself and our co-host Kip Sorensen are fielding questions from the Facebook group and

00:02:15.220 Brotherhood, the iron council. Now guys, I hope you hear an improvement in audio quality today.

00:02:21.260 I got some new microphones still notice a little bit of echo. Uh, that's because my office is still

00:02:27.680 being remodeled in between everything else that I have going on. So I've got to work through some

00:02:32.060 of those issues, but I hope the sound quality and the audio is a little bit better. We're continuing to

00:02:36.500 invest in the tools that are going to make this a more enjoyable and more effective when it comes to

00:02:43.560 our mission. So, uh, with that said, I want to just make a very quick mention of my friends over

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00:04:03.060 Uh, origin, Maine as in the state, Maine origin, Maine.com. And whether you pick up a gi, a rash

00:04:08.260 guard, boots, denim, uh, or their supplemental lineup or anything else that we may have going

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00:04:18.080 at checkout again, origin, Maine.com use the code order. All right, guys, with that said, let me get

00:04:24.160 into the meat of the discussion today. Again, my guest is Ryan holiday, a man who probably doesn't

00:04:28.680 need an introduction for you. Uh, you've heard him on this podcast before. Uh, you probably read

00:04:34.380 his books, not all of them, maybe, maybe all of them, but definitely ego is the enemy. Uh,

00:04:39.840 the obstacle is the way and the daily stoic. And then of course his new book, which is stillness

00:04:44.920 is the key. Uh, this is somebody I consider to be a great thinker and many of his ideas and works

00:04:51.020 have helped me find the philosophy of stoicism and discover more satisfaction and fulfillment

00:04:56.120 in my life. So I'm honored to have Ryan back on the podcast to talk about, uh, the concept of

00:05:01.040 stillness. This is one area that I personally struggle with. So reading his new book and of

00:05:05.460 course, uh, having this conversation have proven to be transformative for me. And I know it will be

00:05:11.500 for you too. Ryan, what's going on, man. Good to see you again. Yeah. Good to see you too. Uh,

00:05:17.060 thanks for having me. Yeah. Round. Well, I was going to say round three, but it's not really

00:05:20.740 round three. Cause how many books have you written? Uh, this is a 10, 10, it was way off,

00:05:27.500 man. I was way off. It's, it's round three. And what I would consider the stoic series. Is that,

00:05:34.680 is that a fair assessment? Yeah. I don't, I don't refer to it as, uh, as the stoic trilogy,

00:05:39.860 but it is a trilogy of three books, obstacles, the way you go is the enemy. And now stillness is

00:05:44.980 the key. Yeah. I was really curious why you chose stillness. Cause there's a lot of virtues.

00:05:50.380 There's a lot of principles that you could have chosen and yet you chose stillness. What is it

00:05:54.380 about stillness? Well, I don't, I don't know if an author so much chooses the book or the book chooses

00:06:02.080 them. I think for me, uh, stillness is this timeless idea that appears in, in almost all the

00:06:09.600 ancient schools. And yet when you say that word, it feels very urgent and timely. I think we're all

00:06:16.140 sort of busier than we've ever been before. We're all trying to get to that, that thing that Cal

00:06:21.280 Newport calls deep work. We're, we're trying to get to a place where as crazy as things are on the

00:06:27.720 outside, we can be sort of calm and clear on the inside. So we can do what's important, whether that's

00:06:33.060 being a father or, or, or, or being an author or being, you know, whatever you, you, you were trying

00:06:38.920 to do in this life. So I think what I'm trying to do in the book or why I wanted to write it was

00:06:44.000 there's this thing that people have struggled with for thousands of years, uh, and, and they've come

00:06:50.320 up with some good strategies for tackling it. Uh, and yet, um, we've forgotten a lot of those

00:06:57.160 principles and we kind of need this, we need that idea. We need that stillness more than ever.

00:07:03.940 Yeah. I, it seems to me that when it comes to behavior, if the, if popular

00:07:08.600 society seems to be going one way that we ought to consider, or at least look at maybe going the

00:07:14.160 other way. Sure. Yeah. I mean, look, uh, I have a quote in the book, in the intro from blaze Pascal,

00:07:19.900 where he says all of humanity's problems stem from our inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

00:07:26.400 And, you know, that was true 500 years ago, certainly true. Now, I guess the question, uh, 0.91

00:07:35.200 to go to your point is, are you going to continue along with this sort of wave of frenetic energy

00:07:41.980 and outrage and busyness and overwhelmingness and, and, and sort of excitability and misery,

00:07:49.760 or are you going to look backwards and see, you know, maybe there's a better way of living?

00:07:54.760 How do you feel that we as a society have gotten to the point where it is chaos and outrage and

00:08:01.680 stimulus and inputs and everything that we're dealing with?

00:08:06.600 Yeah. I mean, look, technology is obviously a huge part of it, but when you, I, I, I opened the

00:08:13.260 book with this story of, of Seneca who right around the turn of, uh, you know, as we switched from BC to

00:08:21.500 AD. So it's a very long time ago. He's sitting in this apartment in Rome trying to write.

00:08:28.000 And he's just talking about how noisy it is outside, just how busy life is and how hard it is

00:08:35.000 to concentrate and focus and do what he needs to do. Um, so I, I think, I think it is this timeless

00:08:42.540 thing. We don't want to focus. We, we don't want to, we don't want to give everything we have to

00:08:49.400 whatever we're doing for a lot of reasons. Um, and, and then when you add on top of that technology

00:08:56.480 and commerce and, you know, all these sort of modern conveniences, you, you, you end up in a

00:09:04.260 world that like, uh, makes, you know, Seneca's or Blaise Pascal's world seem quaint and quiet by

00:09:12.120 comparison. But the truth is, uh, if we were to zoom backwards in time, we'd have trouble sitting

00:09:18.620 quietly alone in a room too. The mind just doesn't want to go there.

00:09:22.600 Yeah. I wonder if it's just in our nature to continue to progress and, and move forward.

00:09:29.200 And in a lot of ways, and I've fallen prey to this is believing that action is prudent,

00:09:33.460 right? That if I'm moving, if I'm going forward, then I'm doing something and it's by default

00:09:39.780 productive when maybe that's not really the case.

00:09:41.820 Well, I think we have this sort of existential, uh, aversion to the present, right? We want to

00:09:52.000 think about what's happened in the past. We want to dwell on our childhood. We want to dwell on what

00:09:56.800 somebody said to us this morning. You know, we want to relive our glory days, or we want to worry

00:10:03.820 about things that are way off in the future. Um, or we want to plan what we're going to do next.

00:10:10.700 Um, or think about how this is going to go before it happens. All of which is a way of, of avoiding

00:10:18.780 what's right in front of you, which is this sort of present moment. And the truth is the present

00:10:25.040 moment is the only place that you can really do anything, right? Like we, we fantasize about

00:10:30.820 love or greatness or accomplishment or whatever way off in the future. But the truth is the only

00:10:37.860 way you get there is by, you know, engaging with what's right in front of you. And so,

00:10:43.240 you know, when I'm talking about stillness, I'm not talking about stillness in this sort of

00:10:47.160 Zen Buddhist way necessarily, where it's like, go, you know, move to an ashram or, or head to a

00:10:53.920 monastery. I'm talking about how do you use stillness to be better at being a podcaster? I mean,

00:11:00.140 like the amount of interviews I do where it's so clear that the person isn't listening to me,

00:11:05.920 but thinking about their next question or thinking about some argument they had with their wife,

00:11:13.080 you know, uh, earlier that day, or they're thinking about the noise that's going on outside or,

00:11:19.360 you know, like it, and those are not the good interviews. The good interviews are where the

00:11:24.020 person is locked in, where they're focused, where it's a real, where it's a real conversation,

00:11:28.780 where they're, they've given up a little bit of the control and they're willing to go where it

00:11:33.300 takes. All of that is, uh, uh, you know, unique to podcasting, but you know, you don't make,

00:11:39.940 you don't write a good book, you know, thinking about, uh, you know, whether you're going to make

00:11:44.860 the bestseller list or not, you make a good book because you were totally engaged in the, the,

00:11:50.620 the sentence you were writing in that moment. So it's all about being present,

00:11:54.580 I think at the core of it. I think you bring up a good point because I, you know,

00:11:58.660 I'm somebody that prides myself on being effective and efficient and wanting to move the needle and

00:12:03.360 wanting to get things done. And I think probably are like that. I think most of the guys listening

00:12:07.300 are like that. And so when we hear this idea of stillness, the conclusion that you might jump to

00:12:14.360 on the surface is, Oh, now I've got to go meditate and pick up some Buddhist practices. And I'm like,

00:12:20.760 you know, I don't have time for that, which is funny because it's kind of a paradox on what the

00:12:25.560 book is all about. Yeah. Look, I'm not saying it's not good to be effective and driven and hard

00:12:31.680 working. I'm actually saying that what you need is some stillness to be better at that thing. And

00:12:36.800 look, I don't think that Eastern religions have done themselves any favors, right? They do talk

00:12:42.060 about meditation as if it's the sort of end all be all. You even look at the imagery. It's like,

00:12:47.120 I remember when they were putting together the cover of the book, they were, they picked all

00:12:51.160 these sort of Zen images and it's like a stone, you know, you know, stacked on top of some other

00:12:56.820 stones, or it's like, you know, ripples in water or what I like, these are not, these are not the images

00:13:03.080 of a doer, but it's important to realize that many of the most, you know, sort of well-known

00:13:09.840 practitioners of Buddhism were, you know, princes and kings or archers or samurai warriors, just as

00:13:19.420 on the, on the sort of Western side, the really great philosophers were not these nerds who loved

00:13:24.020 books. They were the emperor. They were, they were writers, they were politicians, they were

00:13:30.020 businessmen. You know, they were people existing in the real world. So stillness to me is not,

00:13:35.760 you know, this abstraction stillness is what, you know, John F. Kennedy is calling on in the Cuban

00:13:42.140 missile crisis. It's what a baseball player is thinking about as they step up to the plate. You

00:13:47.580 know, it's what, you know, a hedge fund trader is needing to think about as, as the market is, you

00:13:53.880 know, whipsawing up and down. Stillness is what we need in our actual life. You think about, you know,

00:14:01.560 the difference between a grandparent and a parent, a parent is running around with their head cut

00:14:08.020 off, trying to manage it all. The grandparent, a little wiser, a little older, a little more

00:14:13.360 experienced is able to sort of slow things down. They don't get worked up as easily. They don't,

00:14:19.620 oh, we have to go here. It has to be this way. Right. So stillness is this thing that will make you

00:14:25.680 better at, at everything you're doing. Whether it's personal or professional or, or, or everything

00:14:32.100 in between. I'm glad you talked about the baseball player and you've got a lot of good stories in here

00:14:36.540 that tie into perfectly how successful people have used these principles to achieve more. It reminds me

00:14:44.100 there's a, there's a movie with Kevin Costner. I think it's called, I think it's for love of the

00:14:49.140 game. I think it's what it is. And he's, he's got relationship issues with, with his wife and

00:14:55.060 they're going through a deal. And then he's pitching in the baseball game and he's throwing

00:14:58.660 this perfect game. And his, his trigger for lack of a better term is clear the mechanism.

00:15:04.700 Sure. Which, which the way that they portrayed it in the video or in the movie is that everything

00:15:09.240 else is drowned it out. It's all, it's all drowned it out. And he's very hyper focused on that one

00:15:14.920 thing and ends up, well, I don't want to give any spoilers old movie, but he ends up throwing a

00:15:19.020 perfect game. Yeah, no. And that, and that's what you have to, you have to do. You like the,

00:15:23.820 the things that we're trying to do professionally are difficult enough, right? Trying to write a book

00:15:31.100 or make a movie or, or, you know, pull off an investment or start a company or be president,

00:15:37.220 whatever it is, it's already really hard. The idea that you can succeed at that while your mind is

00:15:45.140 preoccupied with a bunch of other unrelated things, it's just insane. And I do talk about baseball a lot

00:15:51.900 in the book because baseball is, I mean, it's not my favorite sport, but baseball is, is the act of

00:15:59.180 hitting in baseball, maybe the single hardest act in all of sports, right? In, in the sense that you

00:16:06.760 have something like 400 milliseconds to identify a pitch and swing at it. So it's incredible. The ball

00:16:14.420 leaves the pitcher's hand who's like 60 some feet away, uh, at, at, you know, a hundred miles an hour,

00:16:22.520 it's coming into a tiny window. Um, and you've got to hit it with a fricking piece of wood. I mean,

00:16:28.700 it's insane, right? Um, you have, you have a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a second to identify

00:16:35.380 that. If you're thinking about what you're going through in your personal life, if you're thinking

00:16:40.160 about, um, what the coach thinks about you, if you think about what they're saying about you on

00:16:45.560 Twitter, if you're even thinking about the pitch that you just swung and missed at, you are taking

00:16:52.820 away, not just valuable real estate, but like critical real estate from the one thing that you

00:17:01.780 are trying to do. And the margin for error there is so small that you just, you can't afford to waste

00:17:06.720 that. So it's in some ways it's stillnesses and this, this clarity, this emptying the mind. It's

00:17:11.560 not just this thing you do in meditation. It's a, it's a, a resource allocation issue. It's a,

00:17:17.780 it's a performance strategy, uh, for, for, you know, sports and life and, uh, and again,

00:17:24.140 everything in between. Yeah. I mean, I like, let's riff on this baseball thing a little bit more

00:17:28.240 because one of the principles that you talk about, you call them principles. One of the strategies,

00:17:32.540 I don't, I don't remember what you call it, uh, is, is to have a routine. And if you think

00:17:37.580 about, for example, a batter coming up to the plate, he is going through the exact same

00:17:43.280 routine, the way that he, uh, is on deck and taking his warmup swings, the way that he steps

00:17:48.900 into the batter's box, how he lines himself up with the plate, the movements that he does

00:17:53.580 with his shoulders or his hips and where he places the bat. It's all a calculated, deliberate

00:17:58.680 routine. I imagine, I mean, I know part of the reason that is, but I imagine also it's

00:18:03.880 so that he can free up the real estate to focus more heavily on the important thing, like the

00:18:08.600 timing or the release of the ball. Yeah, no, it's a, it's about getting into the zone. It's

00:18:14.400 about clearing the mind. Like, look, they've done studies, those weights that batters put

00:18:18.660 on the end of the bat that has like, uh, demonstrably no impact on swing whatsoever. Like it may even

00:18:26.300 be harmful, right? It doesn't help because it changes everything. Yeah. But the process

00:18:31.880 of doing it is why they keep doing it. Um, and it's the same for a lot of the superstitions

00:18:38.340 that you see athletes go through, obviously wearing this pair of socks or, you know, touching

00:18:44.880 their helmet this way or, or, you know, Russell Westbrook, uh, does the same routine after he

00:18:50.300 shoots a free throw and he starts his warmup at the same time and he's the same peanut butter

00:18:55.320 and jelly sandwich. It's the same. It's, it's about, uh, not only getting, uh, into the

00:19:01.360 right, uh, frame of mind, but it, it's, it's a tool for when that equilibrium is, is shattered

00:19:08.260 or violated. So you miss the free throw. It's, it's almost like, uh, you know, like my kid

00:19:13.660 has an Etch-A-Sketch and you can, you, you, some of them you can shake, but this one, it

00:19:18.260 has like a, a, a slide. You just like, you slide it up and it clears the palette. That's

00:19:24.000 what a lot of these rituals are about. It's about sort of starting fresh. Um, so you're

00:19:29.240 like, I messed up, but I'm not going to stay with that. I'm going back into the routine

00:19:34.180 and I'm starting over. So these, these routines are really a better way to talk about them

00:19:39.420 is as rituals. They're sort of ritualistic in the way that you light a candle when you

00:19:44.800 go into a church or you say a certain chant or a prayer. Um, it's about sort of getting

00:19:50.820 into the right headspace and being able to access that on demand.

00:19:55.600 Yeah. That on demand is huge because so many of us, we fly by the seat of our pants. We're

00:20:01.360 very reactional. We're very emotional, right? And so we allow these things to cloud what

00:20:07.660 would otherwise be a very rational human being. And it ends up becoming a, becoming a problem

00:20:13.140 in a lot of ways.

00:20:14.380 Yeah. I think it's about taking some control over your environment and your life and your

00:20:19.480 process rather than being reactionary. Like I don't, uh, like people who write in coffee

00:20:24.920 shops, I don't understand because to me, this is way too chaotic and it's way too uncertain

00:20:30.320 and it allows for interruption. For me, it's like, I, I go to a place, I sit down at that

00:20:36.020 place, I start and I stay there till I'm done. I'm not running around doing 15 things at the

00:20:42.200 same time. You need to have some control over the process and the environment. The stillness

00:20:47.560 is not natural, right? It's a, it's a place you have to work yourself into.

00:20:52.640 Is there, is there a place though for some of that sporadic, that chaotic, um, you know,

00:20:58.780 whether it's at Starbucks or whatever, cause I tend to be a very methodical person, right?

00:21:04.500 So I've got something, I'm going to do step a and then B and then C. And if I do that,

00:21:09.120 I know what's going to work. And if it doesn't work, I can figure out where it doesn't work

00:21:12.360 so I can fix it. Yeah. I don't migrate that way, but I know a lot of people do.

00:21:17.080 Yeah. Yeah. I think you have to have room for flexibility. Of course, like I think about it

00:21:21.360 less as having a daily routine and having daily routines, plural. So if my kid wakes up late,

00:21:29.040 I'm not like freaking out because now the whole thing is, uh, you have to, you have to have some,

00:21:35.960 I heard a great word from a, from a female author's name, I'm forgetting, but she said,

00:21:39.540 you have to have respondability. Like, can you respond to the things that happen? I think this

00:21:44.780 is really important. So you don't want to be so rigid and fragile in your routine that

00:21:49.220 there's no room for life to, to, or Murphy's law. Uh, there's no slack there for you to absorb any of

00:21:57.600 that. But at the same time, if you're just winging it all the time, you're not going to get your best

00:22:03.200 work. Yeah. Yeah. There's, I guess there's the balance and then what you're ultimately trying to,

00:22:08.520 to accomplish as well. Sure. You were talking about, so I've got the book right here. Um,

00:22:13.120 you were talking about the cover. What, what's the significance of the sun? Why did, why choose

00:22:17.460 that then over the rock or whatever else you could have chosen? Yeah. I just wanted something that

00:22:22.280 sort of catches your attention that, that, uh, that, that, um, you know, sort of has this idea of

00:22:30.020 radiating outward, but not in the way that a, you know, a ripple in a pond is insignificant. The sun is

00:22:36.100 the most important thing in our universe. Um, I wanted to talk about how I wanted to sort of

00:22:41.920 capture this idea of stillness being this thing that we possessed, but that we send outward sort

00:22:48.380 of, it radiates around us. So I, it doesn't have a ton of meaning in particular part, part of what a

00:22:54.020 cover is there to do is just to catch your attention. Um, but, but what I, I didn't want to

00:23:00.380 perpetuate some of the sort of tropes or stereotypes of, of the Eastern side of things.

00:23:06.420 Sure. I do like that. You talk about radiating outwards because one of the things that we talk

00:23:11.800 a lot about is working on ourselves as men, improving yourself, focusing on yourself, giving

00:23:16.580 yourself the time and attention you deserve, but it's not an entirely selfish endeavor. We do that

00:23:22.800 so that we can more effectively impact other people's lives in the positive, our kid, wife,

00:23:28.760 our colleagues, employees, whoever it may be. So I do like the idea of stillness, not being this

00:23:35.880 idea of retreating indefinitely, but creating an environment where you can do your best work.

00:23:42.100 You talked about Cal Newport, who's been on the podcast a couple of times so that hopefully you

00:23:46.100 can go out and then serve others more effectively. Ultimately that's why we're here to help each other

00:23:51.260 out. Yeah, no, I think that's right. I think anyone who's been around a particularly sort of still

00:23:58.000 or wise person has recognized how you can almost just feel that. It's just sort of coming off of

00:24:05.440 them. You're just in the same, they say in the military, right? The calm is contagious. You can

00:24:10.960 feel that when you're around people who've just got a lock on themselves and who they are and what

00:24:15.980 they're doing. And so, yeah, I think a big part of the book is, is yeah, this is not about moving to

00:24:21.040 a monastery. This is not about retreating to your library. This is about how do you have stillness

00:24:26.740 in the real world? Uh, and, and how do you, how do you model it for other people? Um, whether that's

00:24:34.040 your children or your friends or your colleagues or whatever, if, if the leader of an organization

00:24:39.000 or a family is freaking out and losing their mind all the time, um, that's, that's, that's going to,

00:24:46.660 that's going to affect other people. It's going to make it very hard for them to maintain their

00:24:52.240 cool, for them to be calm. You know, kids pick up on your anxiety. They pick up on your insecurities.

00:24:58.860 They pick up on your franticness. They pick up when you're overwhelmed in ways that you often don't

00:25:04.160 even understand. I mean, like you, uh, sometimes we'll, we'll go like, Oh, why is our son not sleeping?

00:25:09.780 Or why is our baby having it? It's because the house is just filled with stress. It's picking up

00:25:15.900 that energy. Dogs are the same way. Like if you're in a shitty mood, your dog, you can, you can almost

00:25:21.840 see it reflected in your, in the pets that live in your house. And so this doesn't have to get sort

00:25:27.220 of too woo woo about energy, but the truth is like we, these things manifest themselves in our lives

00:25:32.960 physically, uh, in our body and our body language and the, just the sort of mood that we're giving off.

00:25:39.180 And so we, we have to be able to figure out how to control and contain that.

00:25:44.620 Yeah, I was, uh, it's funny. Cause as you talk about the, the chaos that kids pick up on, I was,

00:25:50.080 I was with somebody that I know and their kids were, were being loud and rambunctious and being

00:25:57.540 children, but they off the walls. I mean, they really were. And the, the mom says, I can't understand

00:26:04.260 why my kids are like this. And she's freaking out. And in my mind, like right here, I'm like,

00:26:08.540 of course, really? Yeah. You don't understand and can't see why your kids are acting like that

00:26:14.460 as you're acting like the grownup version of them right now. It's hard for us to see what we're

00:26:19.200 doing it ourselves. Well, look, and to go back to this idea of routines, if you want some

00:26:24.240 illustration of the power and importance of routine, you know, like try raising a kid with

00:26:29.600 no structure and no routine, right. Or, or have, have it and then just throw it out the window one

00:26:36.520 day. And all of a sudden they're having meltdowns. They're not sleeping. They're doing things they

00:26:42.400 know they're not supposed to do because they, that life is overwhelming, right? There's, it's,

00:26:48.060 it's, there's so many choices. I mean, you could do anything you want at any time, essentially.

00:26:53.120 Right. And so, and so think about an adult who has even more, uh, you know, freedom than a child,

00:26:59.960 uh, to, to, to, to be faced with, with all of that is overwhelming and intimidating. And,

00:27:06.560 and I think it, we, we act out. And so, uh, Eisenhower, I think he said something like

00:27:11.460 opportunity or it's our freedom is best expressed as the opportunity for self-discipline.

00:27:16.700 And I think with kids, it's like, no, you've got like, this is the time that we wake up. This is what

00:27:21.540 we do in the morning. This is when we have breakfast. This is when you go to school.

00:27:25.620 This is what we do after school. Um, and, and, and that structure allows them to calm down

00:27:32.380 and to, to sort of get a handle on themselves because there's just less for them to think

00:27:38.680 and worry about. Yeah. It's, it's, it's really fascinating. You bring up the discipline thing,

00:27:43.420 because I think on the surface, a lot of people hear that and think, well, discipline restriction,

00:27:48.200 right? It's not liberating. It's, it's restricting, but you have guys like, I think

00:27:52.100 you said Eisenhower who had that quote, you have Aristotle 2000 years ago through discipline

00:27:56.840 comes freedom. Jocko willing discipline equals freedom. These are highly successful men who

00:28:01.980 have figured out that discipline isn't designed to limit necessarily. It's voluntary restriction,

00:28:07.860 I guess you'd say, but ultimately creates the freedom for what you want to do. And you hit

00:28:11.780 on that when you talk about, uh, learning to say no and, and limiting your options or,

00:28:17.280 or your endeavors, the things that you're pursuing. Yeah, totally. Totally. You've got,

00:28:22.180 you've got a freedom. Freedom is misery. Complete freedom is misery. Uh, anyone that's experienced

00:28:29.400 it knows that you got to have purpose. You got to have direction. You got to have structure. Uh,

00:28:35.420 because if you don't, you have, you have no stillness. You just have chaos and disorder.

00:28:39.880 Yeah, no, it's, that's true. So how do you then, because I think a lot of people will buy

00:28:45.200 into the idea of limiting and saying, no, it's something I've been sharing for quite a while

00:28:49.120 now and something I've gotten better at. How do you, like, what filters do you place

00:28:54.540 choices and activities through in order to determine, is this something that I should

00:28:58.960 engage in or should I disengage so that I can create some more margin in my life?

00:29:04.420 Yeah, I think there's a, there's a number of filters. I mean, the first one is like,

00:29:07.980 uh, do I actually have to do this or not? I think so many people sort of unthinkingly do things because

00:29:16.500 other people do them, but they unthinkingly want things because other people seem to want them.

00:29:22.980 Right. So they, why do you live in New York city? Well, everyone in my industry lives in New York

00:29:27.700 city. Do you actually have to live there? Like it, would you, would it cost you money if you,

00:29:33.080 if you move? No, I could do whatever I do. And you know, and so, so it's like, is this thing

00:29:38.500 optional or not? Is like, I think the first rule, the second is like, do I want to do it or not?

00:29:43.540 Does it get me closer or further away from the life that I want to lead? Yes or no. Right. Um,

00:29:49.600 and then another way to think about it or a third thing is like, what is the best way to do this?

00:29:54.380 Right. So a lot of people, I'm just always surprised at how, how little they have in the way of

00:30:00.960 systems. So a routine is like, Hey, this is how I structure my day. But a system is like,

00:30:06.220 this is the way I do X, whether it's writing a book or prepare for interviews or, you know,

00:30:13.400 research an investment deal, whatever it is that you're doing, like, what is your system? It can't

00:30:18.580 just be, you know, you walk in, you see people's desk and it's like just piles of garbage. And,

00:30:23.820 and they've got 50 different inboxes that they're monitoring and the phone's ringing off the hook and

00:30:30.060 blah, blah, blah. Like, of course you're overwhelmed. Of course you're not, you know,

00:30:33.880 getting, uh, uh, the, the best performance you can get out of yourself. No, like you got to create

00:30:39.200 a system, uh, that you operate by. And then you have to apply that system to the essential things

00:30:45.860 having eliminated the inessential things. You know, I think that, that being a systemized person

00:30:52.660 probably is a bit inherent in different individuals, right? That might be a strength for them.

00:30:59.320 You know, for example, I imagine you are a systems guy. I I've used your systems for

00:31:04.180 writing a book with the note cards and having the file filing system. Um, is this something that you

00:31:10.600 naturally gravitate towards this idea of stillness and systems, or is this something that you've had

00:31:16.020 to cultivate and develop? Well, look, I think there are certainly minds that are more systematic than

00:31:21.520 others that, as they look at the sort of Asperger's spectrum, they find that sort of systematic

00:31:26.340 mindset in the very extremes is what Asperger's is. And then the lack of it is, is sort of a,

00:31:33.160 its own extreme. But, but like, I wasn't born researching books and using physical note cards,

00:31:40.240 right? Like taught me that system and then in use it and then putting in the work, doing the,

00:31:46.320 laying the groundwork for that system, I was able to, uh, to start to get a return on that investment.

00:31:54.760 And then it's the same as an analogy. I think this applies to systems. Uh, Tyler Cowen was once asked

00:32:02.440 like, you know, how can I read as quickly as you? And he was like, read thousands of books. And what

00:32:08.560 he meant was that because he's read all these other books, he's able to breathe through books because

00:32:14.340 his base of knowledge is so strong that he's not learned things that you're, you're reading this

00:32:21.600 book and you're having to look up all these names and you don't really know what's going on. You

00:32:25.860 don't have a sense of where the story is going. Whereas someone like him who's put in his thousands

00:32:30.480 and thousands of hours has a base of knowledge and skills that allows him to, to sort of cut through

00:32:36.760 the task more quickly. And so I think systems are something that sure, you might have a natural

00:32:42.400 inclination or a natural aversion to them, but it's in building the system and then sticking to

00:32:48.860 the system in through multiple iterations that you start to get more and more benefit and it becomes a

00:32:55.700 virtuous cycle. Um, I, I researched books that way because I'm now familiar with it. And I also just have

00:33:04.620 all this research that I can move and plug around and I, and, and that's why it works for me.

00:33:09.620 Yeah. I mean, I I've, I've got compliments like, Oh, you know, you're, you're great at podcasting

00:33:14.920 or interviewing, you know, how, how do you get, you must've been born, you know, just a natural

00:33:19.260 communicator. I'm like, no. In fact, I told somebody this a couple of weeks ago that went in school.

00:33:25.180 They used to call me the hermit. Cause I didn't want to talk with people. I didn't want to engage.

00:33:28.660 I didn't want to go out. I'm like, I wasn't born that way. Well, how do you get good at it?

00:33:31.980 You do it a lot and then you review it and correct along the way. I mean, same with how do you get

00:33:38.500 better at pull-ups? You do more pull-ups and then you'll get better at it. Yeah. Look, I think that

00:33:43.820 a natural aptitude certainly helps for kicking off that cycle. I mean, uh, but if you were trying to

00:33:51.340 learn a habit or correct a bad habit, you'd start by doing it the way, you know, it's supposed to be

00:33:57.260 done. And the more you do it, the more natural it becomes and the greater confidence you build in

00:34:02.200 your ability to do it that way. Yeah. So with, with the book and I've got some notes here, but

00:34:07.080 with the book, the way that you broke it down is really three primary segments. So you have mind,

00:34:12.020 body, soul. Yep. And then within each one of those, you have these different principles or strategies,

00:34:17.220 whatever you want to call them. How did you identify those? How did you whittle it down and narrow

00:34:22.800 it down to the strategies that you decided to include in the, in the book itself?

00:34:26.460 Well, so mind, mind, body, soul is clearly not a distinction that I made up. That's a pretty sort

00:34:31.640 of common sort of delineation of the sort of parts of life. And so I, I, I'm a pretty big fan of a

00:34:38.720 three-part structure. I think it, it helps the readers sort of the other books in that series,

00:34:44.000 uh, also on a three-part structure. So I was sort of looking for something along those lines,

00:34:48.860 but, but what you tend to find as you research, and again, this goes to the idea of systems,

00:34:55.280 that the systems tends to create patterns. So you're researching, you're exploring, you're,

00:35:02.080 you're, you're experiencing things that are related to this idea and you're accumulating material,

00:35:09.560 but that material is going naturally sort of towards these little pools of, Hey, these are

00:35:16.960 examples of a higher power. These are examples of clearing the mind. These are examples of being

00:35:22.820 present. These are examples of having a routine. These are, uh, examples of the power of, of, of

00:35:29.540 hobbies, you know, whatever it happens to be, there's different ones. Uh, and you, you just sort

00:35:35.300 of start to accumulate. And then as you accumulate, you refine and you, you concentrate. And, and again,

00:35:41.020 a book is, there's a, uh, obviously a huge sort of conscious shaping of it, but it's also a thing

00:35:48.700 that kind of ensues that it's, it's a little bit like music. You know, you sit down and you've

00:35:55.340 practiced and you have something you're trying to express, but you're also just sort of following

00:36:01.820 wherever it, whatever it is leads you. Gentlemen, let me hit the, uh, the pause button real quick.

00:36:08.300 Many of you already know that a couple of months ago we held our first ever main event. Now it was

00:36:15.020 such a huge success that I wanted to open it up again as soon as possible. And so with plenty of

00:36:20.300 notice, uh, we marked our calendars for May 29th through the 31st, 2020. Now those initial seats

00:36:26.940 that we made available have completely been sold out, but we feel like we can facilitate a few more.

00:36:32.780 So we've opened up 20 more spots. That's it. 20 more spots. And once those are filled,

00:36:37.660 we're, we're done. Uh, this is a two and a half day event, uh, designed to help you forge new bonds

00:36:43.980 with men on the same path as you and give you the tools and framework to accomplish more in a 90 day

00:36:49.660 period than potentially you have in your entire life. So if you want to lock in one of those last 20 spots,

00:36:56.620 head to order of man.com slash main event today, you better do it today. Uh, you can watch the video

00:37:03.260 recap of our last event and of course get registered quickly. I hope to see you there, but again,

00:37:08.380 you got to do it quick. Go to order of man.com slash main event. You can do that right after you

00:37:14.300 listen to this podcast for now, I'll get back to my conversation with Ryan. And that's, you know,

00:37:19.900 that's, as you say that it's interesting because I think when, when people think of creative types,

00:37:25.500 they think it's all like that. But what I've experienced is that the more structure you have,

00:37:30.780 the systems, for example, you're talking about, the more you make way and room for

00:37:35.660 the creativity to flow and, and, and have to just go. And that might be a level of confidence knowing

00:37:42.140 that, Hey, we're going to explore this Avenue. We may not ultimately go down that path, but we have

00:37:47.260 room to explore it through the systems and processes that you've created. Yeah, that's right. That's what

00:37:51.880 routine and order and research is about. So you're not sitting down and going, what am I writing about

00:37:57.960 today? Let's see where, where this takes me. What you are doing is sitting down and going, I'm writing

00:38:03.720 a chapter about the power of walking, or I'm writing a chapter about, you know, controlling your temper.

00:38:11.160 And then I have this material here in front of me that it, these are sort of the root notes that I

00:38:19.080 want to build around, or these are the things that I want to, I think I want to include, but let's see

00:38:27.000 where this goes. And so it's, it's, it's sort of riffing inside of, of a structure that you've built,

00:38:37.880 even if that structure is somewhat temporary, um, you know, chapters end up changing and going

00:38:43.080 in different directions all the time. Uh, but, uh, but yeah, that's how that works.

00:38:48.840 Yeah. It makes sense. I mean, you, you got to have some, some level of parameters. Otherwise,

00:38:52.760 yeah, it's going to look like just a bowl of spaghetti thrown against the wall. It won't be

00:38:56.600 very attractive, right? Well, look, I talked to some writers and they'll be like, Oh yeah, no,

00:39:00.900 I wrote 150,000 words, uh, for my manuscript. And then, you know, the published book was 70,000

00:39:07.800 words and you're like, so you wrote an extra book, right? Ruin the trash. Almost two extra books.

00:39:14.360 Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's a, not a good system. Like that, that's what, so doing the, the,

00:39:20.280 the work from the system might seem like less fun or it might seem a bit onerous, but what it's saving

00:39:27.000 you is all the blind alleys and the overlap and the unnecessary things that you didn't need to do in

00:39:34.360 the first place. Yeah. Yeah. I can see how it's a much more efficient way outside of efficiency.

00:39:39.640 And my math was off a little bit there with the two extra books. So forgive me, but outside of the,

00:39:44.760 uh, the efficiency of, of doing it this way, having some systems and the stillness, you know,

00:39:50.880 what are some other benefits that you've experienced as you've incorporated these principles

00:39:54.360 into your life? You mean like artistically, or do you mean like stillness generally in my life?

00:39:59.160 Yeah. Still more stillness, more of the principles and the practices that you outline in the book.

00:40:03.240 Yeah. I mean, look, I don't, I don't think there's anyone that doesn't know what that word

00:40:08.280 stillness means when they hear it. I think we can think of moments in our life when we've

00:40:13.720 experienced it. You know, it was sitting out on a porch swing where it was, you know, watching the

00:40:19.360 snow fall, or it was that moment that you wrote something, or you had that idea that changed your

00:40:25.680 life, or it was that conversation that, you know, you think of, think back to quite often. We know what

00:40:32.080 these moments of stillness are like, and yet they're just like so rare. They just, and it,

00:40:37.040 and it's weird as special as they are and as meaningful as they are to us. It seems weird

00:40:42.400 to me that we just let them happen randomly. We're just like content for them to happen randomly. So,

00:40:48.400 um, for, for me, stillness, it obviously is sort of deeply personal in these moments that I have in my

00:40:54.500 life that are difficult for me to express. A lot of them were quite ordinary where I was just there.

00:41:00.540 I just thought, I love this. I want more of this. So there's lots of moments like that,

00:41:05.160 but, but really I think about it a lot professionally. Like I don't do good work if I am

00:41:13.540 in the middle of, you know, sort of enviously comparing myself to another person, right? I don't

00:41:20.820 have much happiness or freedom in my life if I'm going around, you know, just saying yes to every

00:41:27.960 inquiry and ask and, you know, obligation that the world is throwing at me. So I think stillness for

00:41:34.760 me is about sort of slowing things down, taking control of your life. And then as we were talking

00:41:40.980 about earlier, sort of directing everything you have at whatever is important to you. So whether that's

00:41:48.080 hanging out with my family or whether that's, you know, completing a manuscript, it's, it's,

00:41:52.680 it's ultimately about, you know, bringing the best of yourself to what you're doing.

00:41:57.100 Yeah. It's when you mentioned the, uh, the idea of these experiences are ordinary,

00:42:01.460 it just reminded me or made me think of like not Instagram worthy. Right. And that's one of the

00:42:07.160 traps that I think, gosh, so many people fall into. I fall into it where it's like, you know, I'm,

00:42:12.140 I'm reading books with my kids. And although maybe it's not real exciting for Instagram,

00:42:16.440 it's satisfying, it's fulfilling. I don't need to convince anybody that this is what I should be

00:42:21.480 doing or impress anybody with my reading abilities to, to my children. Like it just isn't something I

00:42:27.300 feel inclined to share or have a desire to. Yeah. So one of the sites I created, I created

00:42:32.260 this site called daily dad, and it's a, an email that goes out for dads every day. And one of the

00:42:38.240 first ones that I wrote about, I wrote about something I actually heard from Jerry Seinfeld in

00:42:42.540 an interview, he was talking about how parents think and speak a lot about quality time. They're

00:42:48.680 like, I gotta have quality time with my kids. Uh, you know, it's all about having these quality

00:42:53.660 experiences. And he's like quality. He's like, the best time is he calls it garbage time. He's like

00:43:00.400 garbage time is, is, you know, like staying up until 3am, just like watching TV on the couch,

00:43:06.180 or it's sitting there eating cereal, or it's, it's driving home from school. Like we go and we seek

00:43:13.280 out these extra special moments. You know, travel is a great example of this. People go, ah, I'm so

00:43:20.420 miserable. I hate my job. I need to get on a plane and I need to fly to Europe. I need to get on a plane 0.75

00:43:27.240 and I need to fly to Bali. And there, once I'm there, then I will be happy and good. And it's like,

00:43:34.080 of course you won't because you are bringing yourself along with you.

00:43:37.760 About the baggage.

00:43:38.860 Yeah.

00:43:39.640 The little and figurative baggage.

00:43:41.420 Yeah. Yeah. Baggage is more than just what you put in the overhead compartment. Baggage is what

00:43:45.820 we're carrying around with us. So, so, uh, this, this idea that you need to go somewhere else or do

00:43:52.600 something else or be someone else or accomplish something else to be happy or to, to be still that,

00:43:59.740 that's like one of the most insidious, insidious myths out there. The real, uh, the real happiness

00:44:06.380 and the real stillness comes from, from accessing sort of what you already possess.

00:44:11.840 It seems like you've created that a little bit for yourself in your, your home environment. You

00:44:17.620 know, what little I do see on Instagram. I see you on the, the farm or the ranch. And I see you,

00:44:22.200 you call it a farm or a ranch.

00:44:23.860 Either way.

00:44:24.520 Okay. And I see you with the donkeys, right? And so I'm like, Oh, this is somebody who's

00:44:28.640 created something that isn't necessarily like this popular thing, although it brings a sense

00:44:34.020 of joy and satisfaction and fulfillment in his life.

00:44:36.840 Yeah. Look, my son and I went on a seven mile bike ride on a dirt road this morning,

00:44:41.520 like looking at cows and just hanging out. And I did that. My phone, I left my phone inside.

00:44:47.880 Uh, you know, it was, it was early in the morning. We watched the sun come up. There was no one

00:44:52.960 bothering us. There was nothing going on. We were just sort of present and experiencing just like

00:44:59.840 the order. I mean, it wasn't like the greatest sunrise of all time. And it wasn't, you know,

00:45:04.400 through the grand Canyon, it was just, you know, an ordinary experience. And yet it's also deeply

00:45:12.920 sort of special and meaningful if you choose for it to be that.

00:45:16.700 Sure. You know, I think though, the, the natural inclination for the average person is to say,

00:45:24.000 is to say something like, well, that's easy for you to say, or that's easy for you to do because

00:45:28.820 you've created this business and you make this income and you have this lifestyle, but I, I have

00:45:35.060 to go to work. I have to do this. I have these obligation responsibilities. Somehow they're,

00:45:40.560 they think they're different.

00:45:41.540 Yeah. It's, it is interesting on the one hand. Yeah, sure. There's all of us are privileged in

00:45:48.120 the sense that we're alive right now, as opposed to a hundred years ago, uh, or a thousand years

00:45:53.360 ago, we're privileged that we're talking here in America. We're privileged that we're talking in a

00:45:57.760 time of peace. Yeah. We're privileged that we're not a persecuted minority or, or, or, or any of these

00:46:04.080 things, but it is interesting, you know, me being able to go on a bike ride with my son in the

00:46:10.020 morning. That wasn't, uh, I wasn't able to do that because I'm rich. I'm able to, that didn't cost

00:46:16.540 anything. You know what I mean? I, I, uh, I could do that, uh, anywhere at any time that walk could

00:46:22.640 have been, uh, through the parking lot at the, you know, at the daycare before he goes in the

00:46:28.500 morning. It could have been there. There's so many circumstances in which the exact same experience

00:46:33.540 could be had. And I think, uh, people, what people don't realize is that it's not, it's not

00:46:40.580 privilege that creates these moments as in you have this because of all you have. It's that those

00:46:47.520 moments are possible because of the things that I say no to, right? Because I choose not to be

00:46:54.340 traveling this week or because I choose not to be doing X, Y, or Z to make extra money. Um, it's not

00:47:01.500 that I don't need those things, uh, or want those things. It's that I chose this thing instead of

00:47:09.020 that thing. And everyone has that power. Obviously there, there's variability, you know, I'm riding a

00:47:16.400 nicer bicycle than I would if I worked at McDonald's, you know, I I'm coming back to a nicer house than if

00:47:22.960 X, Y, or Z. But like, I also made a lot of decisions in my life to prioritize this thing versus

00:47:29.800 another thing. I think it's so important that you're talking about conscious decision because

00:47:34.500 a lot of people, what they'll do is they'll subject themselves to the mercy of their environment. Like

00:47:39.380 I had to do it. I just, I have to say, well, you didn't have to, you, you made that decision for a

00:47:45.020 reason. Sure. The thing that I think a lot of people fall prey to is this, this fear of missing out

00:47:49.900 thing, right? Of course. Because they're not conscious about their life. Like my thought is that if,

00:47:56.220 if there's a party or a concert or a conference or whatever it is that you feel like you're missing

00:48:01.160 out on, that you haven't made a conscious decision to, to deliberately say no to this because you want

00:48:08.980 to spend time with your kids or because you want to write your novel that you're in the process of

00:48:14.960 or practice the guitar or hunt or do whatever it is you do, make those conscious decisions

00:48:20.700 starts to address that issue of fear of missing out. Yeah, I think that's right. And, and, and

00:48:27.420 look, part of the lifestyle decision I made by sort of living where I live, which is in Texas,

00:48:32.620 instead of California or New York, is that there is less for me to have to say no to, right? Like

00:48:39.280 that was a, you know, that decision, sure. It's much cheaper to live where I live, which allows

00:48:45.160 certain freedoms, but you know, I don't, I don't know if I could put a number on it, but certainly

00:48:50.800 the decision to not live in Los Angeles or New York has a very real financial implication for me.

00:48:58.280 There's, I literally am missing out on a number of deals or projects or relationships by nature of not

00:49:06.860 being in those places. Um, but because I'm not aware of what I'm missing out on, I don't think

00:49:15.080 about it. Right. And so it becomes easier to say, no, I don't want to go to that dinner tonight.

00:49:20.680 If I live in Texas, then if I live in New York city, because in New York city, it's 16 blocks away

00:49:29.240 and I feel much more obligated to, to attend. It probably not going to rise to the level of

00:49:35.480 importance that I want to get on a plane to go to a dinner. But if it is, you know, that is probably

00:49:41.080 really important. Right. Yeah. So, so put, so putting some artificial constraints and filters,

00:49:46.460 as we've been talking about has, has some benefits in ways that people don't, don't often think about.

00:49:53.380 Um, but, but have a huge impact on your quality of life. Yeah. I mean, I think it also has to do with

00:49:59.540 a healthy realization or expectation of the cost of doing something and there's a cost, right?

00:50:05.480 There's a, there's a, and there's a cost of not doing something right. If you don't go to LA and

00:50:09.920 take that deal, that's a lost opportunity cost. But if you did, what would be the cost of doing

00:50:16.620 it? Right. There's a cost of action and a cost of inaction and you have to weigh those things

00:50:20.120 consciously. Yeah. Yeah. And you have to be intentional. I think what we're talking about

00:50:24.520 is how do you intentionally live your life rather than just get sort of whipsawed around by

00:50:30.420 what showed up in your inbox. I like as a more benign version, like one of the reasons I think

00:50:36.040 spending less time on social media is good is then you are choosing your mood rather than the

00:50:43.140 algorithm deciding to show you a tweet from Donald Trump six minutes after you woke up,

00:50:49.340 which happens to be upsetting to you. Right. Or conversely, it could be a tweet from,

00:50:53.480 you know, like you're, you're, this has no political implications whatsoever. People wake

00:50:59.560 up, they pull up Instagram and then they see so-and-so is doing better than them. And now

00:51:05.920 they are unhappy. And so this sort of letting your mood be determined by random inputs is a really

00:51:13.760 fragile place to be. And a place that I don't find leads to much, much happiness.

00:51:20.140 Do you feel like you've scaled back? I mean, Instagram is where I'm most active and I don't

00:51:25.660 see a whole lot of engagement from you there. Do you feel like you've deliberately scaled back on

00:51:31.640 the social media usage? Uh, very, very much so. And very intentionally in January, I quit Facebook.

00:51:39.680 Uh, so I, I still have an account that someone manages for me as part of my business. Uh, but then,

00:51:45.860 uh, I, I don't personally have an account that I use to check my feed. Uh, I found that had a huge

00:51:51.880 impact on my happiness and my productivity. Uh, I don't use any social media on my phone.

00:51:58.500 So I check Twitter occasionally on my computer. I see if, uh, you know, someone that I need to talk

00:52:03.640 to is sending me a message or whatever. Um, and then on Instagram, I have an account. I post on it

00:52:09.720 regularly, but I don't have it on my phone. It's on my wife's phone. Uh, and so, uh, you know,

00:52:16.020 I'll text her a picture and say, Hey, will you post this when you get a sec? Uh, or, or I'll grab her 0.52

00:52:20.880 phone when I get home and I'll do it real fast. But the idea is like, I don't want it within arm's

00:52:25.960 reach of myself at all times. It's, it's like, look, some people can drink and some people can't

00:52:31.540 drink. Uh, and, and you've got to know like what the different mediums, what effect the different

00:52:38.340 mediums have on you personally. Some people can watch the news and, you know, uh, not be upset by

00:52:45.560 it. Other people like me get made very unhappy and miserable by the news. So I don't watch a lot

00:52:50.940 of news either, but I, but that's not to say I'm not informed. I just choose the mediums through which

00:52:56.700 I get my information. Right. And that's a great point. And it's funny because I, I've heard people

00:53:00.880 say things like, you know, if you have to place those restrictions on alcohol or social media use or

00:53:06.840 whatever, whatever it is that it's weakness. And I'm like, it's not weakness to set up parameters

00:53:11.060 and systems to keep you on a path that you've chosen to walk. Like that's a tool at your disposal

00:53:16.600 that doesn't make you weak. It actually makes you a master of that thing. Yeah. I would think it's the

00:53:21.780 opposite of, of, of weakness, choosing to lift a heavy weight or choosing not to eat X, Y, or Z is,

00:53:30.100 is an exercise of strength, uh, both willpower and then literal muscular strength.

00:53:36.300 Yeah. Great point. Uh, you know, I made a couple of, uh, little asterisks by some of these, uh,

00:53:41.960 topics that I want to discuss with you, like saying, no, I think we've hit that one pretty well.

00:53:46.760 Uh, one of the ones that you did just briefly mentioned was, uh, accepting a higher power.

00:53:52.580 Can you talk to me a little bit about that?

00:53:54.720 Yeah. So I'm, I'm not someone who's religious. I don't go to church. Uh, I've been an atheist most

00:54:00.000 of my life, uh, most of my adult life, but when you look at the literature about stillness and when

00:54:08.100 you read history, the inescapable conclusion is that most of the wisest, stillest, calmest people

00:54:17.440 believed in some kind of higher power. Um, whether that was the universe, whether that was what the

00:54:24.060 Stoics called the logos, whether that was fate, um, whether that's a Christian God or, or, uh, you

00:54:31.720 know, uh, the gods plural for the ancient Greeks, the, the idea of some kind of higher power. And

00:54:38.060 look, there's a reason in 12 step programs, they, they ask you to accept a higher power because it's

00:54:44.720 about surrender. It's about letting go. It's about, uh, giving up some of the destructive control

00:54:52.200 we have over ourselves. And it's about, I think, ultimately humility. And so, um, this isn't that

00:54:58.640 I don't write my books from a place of necessarily my own sort of full belief, but I write them from

00:55:07.160 a place of what, where I'm trying to go and get. And so this is something I think about a lot and

00:55:12.880 I'm working on myself and I'm constantly sort of exploring and pursuing different avenues,

00:55:17.380 but yeah, ultimately I think it's very hard to be still as a nihilist or, or, or, you know,

00:55:26.500 less so as an atheist, but I think still believing that, that there's no purpose to anything that it's

00:55:31.960 all meaningless and random is a, is a hard pill to swallow. Uh, at, so at this stage in your life,

00:55:39.060 how would you describe your higher power? Um, I mean, I would say I was probably been an atheist

00:55:44.920 since college. And I, I think as I've researched and thought about this more, I've, I've moved sort

00:55:49.960 of firmly in the camp of, of, of being an agnostic, which in the true sense means you, you just don't

00:55:56.200 know, right. It's not an atheist believes in the way that a Christian believes, uh, that they know what

00:56:03.520 the state of things is. So I, I, I've, I've come to a place where it's like, I just don't know.

00:56:09.500 Uh, and, and, and what I do know is that a huge, if not the vast majority of things that happen,

00:56:19.460 I have absolutely no control over. And so it's not that someone is choosing those things necessarily,

00:56:26.980 but I, I can admit quite readily that I'm not choosing those things. And so what you can accept

00:56:33.900 is it just this idea of sort of surrender or a sense of, of submission to this idea that,

00:56:42.580 that, uh, a large percentage of what's happening, uh, is, is just completely beyond us.

00:56:48.540 That that's, uh, and isn't that so liberating? I mean, that's a very stoic thought, right?

00:56:52.920 Control what you can control, let go of the uncontrollable, right? Yeah. I mean, but,

00:56:56.980 but how liberating is it to, to say, you know, I'm not going to focus on the uncontrollables

00:57:02.020 anymore. I mean, just think of what you eliminate from your, from, from your plate just by accepting

00:57:08.480 that thought right there alone. Totally. Totally. You are taking, most people are spending most of

00:57:14.860 their time thinking about worrying about having opinions about things that are not up to them.

00:57:21.820 And so if you can go, look, somebody is doing this, something is doing most of this. I'm just

00:57:27.620 going to focus here on what I do control, which is mostly my own thoughts, my own actions,

00:57:32.420 my own beliefs. Um, I'm going to have more resources than those people.

00:57:38.140 It's funny because I think there's a lot of people out there who believe that, and I've had this

00:57:42.500 because I wrote a book called sovereignty, which is about claiming individual and personal

00:57:46.280 responsibility for yourself. But at the same time, I happen to be spiritual and religious

00:57:51.440 and believe in, in a Christian God. Sure. But I had a lot of people come back with, well, how do

00:57:58.280 you, how do you reconcile being an individual, being sovereign with submitting to a higher power?

00:58:03.240 For me, I don't think they're at odds with each other. I think I've chosen as a sovereign man to

00:58:08.780 walk that path. Sure. Sure. Look, we have a hard time reconciling that. Yeah. Look, you're still,

00:58:15.280 you're still choosing, right? You're still choosing to do that. The stoic, uh, sort of metaphor is they

00:58:22.260 say that we're a dog tied to a cart or a wagon. So it's going and you can choose to lay down and be

00:58:30.300 dragged, or you can sort of cheerfully run alongside, but the choice is yours. Right. And I think that's a

00:58:37.920 good way of thinking about it because, you know, ultimately the world's just doesn't care about you.

00:58:44.020 It doesn't have an opinion about you. Um, as if you believe in God, ultimately you believe that God

00:58:50.040 cares about you, but you can't, you can't, as much as he cares about you as an individual, you also have

00:58:56.300 to look at history and look at all the horrible and surprising and, you know, undesirable things that

00:59:01.800 have happened to millions and billions of people. So, so the idea that you're going to get everything

00:59:06.740 that you want in this life is just, you know, ludicrous. It is. You've, it, it, any way you

00:59:13.840 crack it, you ultimately, it comes back to this idea of some, some sort of submission to these larger

00:59:19.840 forces, whatever they happen to be. Yeah. It's interesting. It reminds me of, um, in high school,

00:59:25.020 I remember we got to a playoff game in baseball and it was the first round of the playoffs. And I,

00:59:30.640 we were up, we must've been up maybe three or four to one. And I remember praying,

00:59:34.620 saying, God, help us win this game. And almost instantaneously, I also had the thought

00:59:40.480 there's guys in the other dugout right now that are the same thing. So who does he pick?

00:59:46.600 Right. The conclusion I came to was he doesn't care whether you win this game or not is irrelevant

00:59:51.320 in the grand scheme of things. Yes. I believe he wants you to be happy and fulfilled just like

00:59:55.760 a father would want his son to be happy and fulfilled. Sure. But I can't make my choices or excuse

01:00:01.540 me. I can't make my son's or my daughter's choices. Right. I have to make those choices

01:00:05.840 and I'll support however I can. That's right. Yeah. That's right. Well, the other one that stuck

01:00:10.480 out to me is, uh, in, in the soul component of things. And this is something I personally dealt

01:00:15.280 with. And I know a lot of men are dealing with this as well is learning to conquer anger. Yeah.

01:00:19.900 Something a lot of men deal with. And I know that just through my own work and trying to let go of

01:00:24.940 some resentment and animosity and things that are, that are upsetting to me has, has been very

01:00:31.080 liberating. Yeah. I'm actually working on a course about this for, for daily stoic.com, like a sort of

01:00:36.520 an anger based challenge, which should come out pretty soon. But I do, I, I, everyone has anger.

01:00:43.160 Everyone has pain. I don't think there's anyone, uh, there, there's no one who's ever lost their

01:00:49.880 temper and thought, I'm really glad I did that. You know what I mean? That was a really positive

01:00:55.020 thing that really helped the situation. Yeah. So, so anger is, uh, that's not to say everyone

01:01:01.120 has an anger problem, but anger is a problem for all of us at one time or another. And I would also

01:01:08.840 say that it's the enemy of stillness, right? You, you cannot, uh, you cannot feel good while you are

01:01:15.380 feeling anger. And that is the irony of anger is that you are primarily the person who is punished

01:01:21.260 by it, right? It there, that's not to say that anger doesn't cause a lot of painful consequences

01:01:26.920 for other people. Um, but pick someone with a really bad temper and really bad anger and ask

01:01:34.600 yourself, is it fun to be them? Right? Like, and the answer is almost always no, even though they're,

01:01:41.000 they could be very rich and very successful and have a wonderful life. It, it, it, anger is actually

01:01:47.840 this thing that's, you know, preventing them from enjoying that. Do you think anger stems from at its

01:01:55.160 root, uh, trying to control things that are beyond your control or where do you, where would you say

01:02:00.780 that stems from? I think often, often it's from trying to control things you, you can't control.

01:02:06.360 I think it's often rooted in taking things personally that have nothing to do with you.

01:02:11.800 I think it's often sort of giving oneself over to one's emotions rather than being sort of

01:02:17.380 intentional. Um, so I, I think there's a lot of causes of anger, but I would say very few of them

01:02:23.320 are, are healthy. Um, there are almost always better ways to go. That's not to say anger can't

01:02:29.340 be a tool. That's not to say, you know, it, it can't have short term benefits. You know,

01:02:34.640 it can certainly be a powerful motivator, but it often, you know, turns getting whatever you

01:02:41.900 wanted to get into being less enjoyable than it could be when you finally get it.

01:02:46.720 Yeah. Yeah. Great point. You know, the other thing I think about too, with emotions,

01:02:49.880 and this is something that's, that's talked about quite a lot when it comes to men is I don't know

01:02:56.280 that, I think it's okay to be angry and use that as emotion, uh, as a tool, but to display anger,

01:03:04.440 is probably counterproductive. Like you can be angry about something and then great. Now,

01:03:09.240 what is your course of action? Sure. But to display it is I think where you start to get in

01:03:14.560 trouble. Yeah. Although there's some exceptions to that rule too. I mean, I've talked to a lot of

01:03:19.400 basketball coaches that sort of talk about how they'll use anger to fire up their team, or they'll

01:03:24.560 get a technical on, on, on purpose to send a message. You know, they're a leader can sometimes

01:03:31.580 use targeted bits of anger, but the point is, and the anger shouldn't be leading. The anger should

01:03:38.580 be, I don't want to say it's acting, but the anger is being deliberately used as a tool rather than you

01:03:45.400 are in the sway of the anger and the anger is the thing making the decisions. Yeah. Controlling it

01:03:50.800 rather than it controlling you. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Cause you talk about even, even with, uh, I think you,

01:03:56.580 you went into, uh, Michael Jordan on the, on the subject of anger and was he really angry? Did he

01:04:01.980 use that anger? Like how was, how did that play out for him? Right? Exactly. Yes. And, and, uh,

01:04:07.660 if you, when you watch the Michael Jordan hall of fame speech, you see just how toxic, uh, anger can

01:04:14.060 end up being for people. Yeah. If you let it consume you, if you use it correctly, again, powerful tool.

01:04:19.880 That's why I tell people, I tell people is, is there's not really a negative emotion. Like

01:04:25.020 emotions are there to serve us. Even the ones we would consider quote unquote negative, they're

01:04:31.180 there to serve us and help us. It's what you do with it that determines whether it's negative or

01:04:36.000 positive. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Well, Ryan, this has been fascinating. I know we talked

01:04:41.640 about a bunch of different things, obviously. And, and I don't know, there's 30 something points in

01:04:46.060 here we could talk about. We won't get to all of them for the sake of time, but just go by the book.

01:04:49.680 That's, that's the easy answer. Just by the book. Yeah, please, please. Uh, I want to ask you a

01:04:54.300 couple of questions as we, as we close things down. Uh, the first one is what does it mean to be a man?

01:05:00.120 Um, to me, uh, uh, a man is, is someone who takes care of what they have to take care of. A man is

01:05:07.340 responsible for themselves, uh, for their emotions. A man is, is responsible generally. I don't remember 0.95

01:05:14.400 what I answered last time. I hope it's similar to that, but to me, um, a man sort of steps

01:05:19.560 up and does what they need to do. So I, I don't necessarily even, uh, think, uh, it needs to be

01:05:25.360 that gendered as a term to me being a man is, is doing, uh, what you got to do.

01:05:31.280 Right on. Appreciate it. How do we connect with you? Obviously we can pick up a copy of the book

01:05:35.420 on Amazon or wherever you're going to do your thing, but, uh, how do we connect more with you?

01:05:38.720 Yeah. So I'm at Ryan holiday on, on pretty much most platforms. Uh, you can check out my site,

01:05:44.400 which is Ryan holiday.net. Uh, daily stoic is daily stoic.com and then daily dad, which I hope

01:05:49.540 everyone checks out. It probably, I think would be a fit for this audience. I write it every single

01:05:53.680 morning. It's just daily dad.com. Perfect. And then you said there was a, uh, an anger course of

01:06:00.240 sorts coming out. Is that available yet? Or it's not available yet, but it'll be up on,

01:06:04.180 on daily stoic.com. If you sign up for the email, right on, we'll sync everything up. So the guys

01:06:08.640 know where to go. Thanks man. Best wishes on the launch, man. I want to tell you, I appreciate

01:06:12.500 you and all your work. It's been valuable in my life and certainly helped me be more stoic in my

01:06:17.000 approach to family and business and everything else. It's, it's served me greatly. So I appreciate

01:06:20.880 it. Awesome, man. Well, thanks for, for, uh, for having me on again and for, for staying at me to do

01:06:26.040 it. I'm glad I did. You bet, brother. Gentlemen, there you go. The conversation with the one and only

01:06:32.260 Ryan holiday. I hope you enjoyed that one as much as I did. His new book came out today.

01:06:36.820 Stillness is the key. So I would highly, highly recommend that you pick up a copy, especially if

01:06:41.660 you're somebody who wants to develop a greater sense of stillness and fulfillment and satisfaction

01:06:46.860 in your life. Again, I've read it. Uh, I was fortunate enough to get an advanced copy and I'm

01:06:51.440 telling you what, it's a great book and has helped me implement some practices that have let me be a

01:06:56.640 little bit more still and fulfilled in my life, in my chaotic life, just like you guys have as

01:07:02.160 well. Uh, make sure you connect with Ryan on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, wherever you're

01:07:06.500 doing the social media thing. He talked about that in the podcast, pick up a copy of the book,

01:07:10.160 connect with me as well. Let me know what you thought about the show. And if you would too,

01:07:13.740 I'm very, very active on Instagram mostly. So if you feel so inclined, please share this show in

01:07:21.180 your Instagram stories, in your Instagram feed, let other men in your life know that you listened to

01:07:26.040 this and you found value in what we're doing here with regards to reclaiming and restoring

01:07:30.760 masculinity. So over on Instagram at Ryan Mickler, and then also very, very active on YouTube.

01:07:37.460 I think in the past, I want to say two weeks, maybe a little over, we've picked up close to

01:07:41.960 11,000 new subscribers over on YouTube. So the channel is starting to take off and blow up a

01:07:46.980 little bit. And I'm honored to have you over there. You can watch the video podcast and everything that

01:07:52.100 we're doing here. Of course, we've got the video podcast with me and Ryan over on YouTube as well.

01:07:56.280 That's youtube.com slash order of man. All right, guys, that's all I've got for you today. We'll

01:08:01.800 be back tomorrow for Kip and I's ask me anything. But until then go out there, take action and become

01:08:08.280 a man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take

01:08:13.460 charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order

01:08:18.120 of man.com.

Order of Man - October 01, 2019

Stillness is the Key ｜ RYAN HOLIDAY

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