The Art of Manliness - #384： What It Really Means to Be Self-Reliant

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast when you hear

00:00:18.580 self-reliance what do you think of living off the grid in a cabin somewhere doing everything

00:00:23.260 yourself and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps do these images get at what it really

00:00:27.200 means to be self-reliant or is there a deeper even more profound meaning to be grasped indeed there

00:00:32.140 is my guest today is here to help us unpack it his name is kyle eschenroeder he's a regular

00:00:36.320 contributor here at aom and we've just published a little pocket guide filled with his meditations

00:00:40.640 on what it truly means to be self-reliant today on the show kyle and i discuss what most people

00:00:45.220 get wrong about self-reliance and how he defines it we then get into specific tactics you can use

00:00:49.820 to trust yourself more like spending time in solitude developing an inner scorecard like

00:00:53.940 warren buffett not seeking advice when you're first starting a big project and using intentional

00:00:58.560 introspection kyle and i then discuss how to jive self-reliance with belonging to a community and how

00:01:04.060 to know if you're becoming a more self-reliant man developing a self-reliant mindset is more

00:01:08.720 difficult than ever in our modern world and yet vital to living a satisfying life on your own terms

00:01:13.200 you don't want to miss this show after the show's over check out the show notes at aom.is

00:01:17.280 slash self-reliance you can also buy a copy of the pocket guide to self-reliance at store.artofmanliness.com

00:01:23.060 kyle eschenroeder welcome back to the show thanks for having me again brett this is i'm excited to

00:01:44.120 be here so yeah the last time we had you on we were talking about taking action the philosophy of taking

00:01:50.180 action and we partnered with you and published a book called the pocket guide to action which i know

00:01:55.920 a lot of people have bought and really enjoyed and got something out of it we're actually coming

00:01:59.680 out with another little publication of yours the man's guide to self-reliance it's a little booklet

00:02:04.860 that you can fit in the back of your pocket and it's based on an article that you wrote i guess it was

00:02:09.260 last year right yeah yeah yeah it's called the man's guide to self-reliance so let's start with

00:02:15.120 self-reliance is something that gets thrown around a lot people you know they quote the emerson essay

00:02:20.040 and sort of use it as a as a manifesto of being independent and being uh thinking different and

00:02:27.920 all that whatever you know motivational stuff you you see what do you think most people get wrong

00:02:35.080 about self-reliance or the self-reliance that you're talking about in in this little book

00:02:39.600 yeah i think i think the fundamental thing that that people miss when talking about self-reliance is

00:02:48.220 is kind of conflating self-reliance and self-centeredness and it's not that at all in in my

00:02:55.540 view i think also people come at it from a more you know physical point of view than anything so it's

00:03:02.960 about you know being completely you know being off the grid or you know having a beard and and growing

00:03:10.320 your own food and or just doing kind of eccentric things in the world so you know it's also easy to

00:03:19.040 read you know the his essay as a manifesto for narcissism or a total dismissal of tradition

00:03:26.740 propriety and and kind of put you against society in general and it's i think you know i made a lot of

00:03:34.780 those mistakes in some of my early readings of his essay and i've been reading at least you know

00:03:39.700 once a year for over a decade now so every time you know get something more out of it i think i

00:03:45.040 understand something a little bit more thoroughly and you know some of it so it's also easy to read

00:03:51.100 it as a call to do something huge and and remake the entire world because there's a lot of quotes in

00:03:56.740 there like he talks about like you know who would teach shakespeare shakespeare you know and and you

00:04:01.520 quotes about achieving greatness in general but fundamentally the essay its most important

00:04:08.100 parts are about asking us to live our lives from our center and to actually pay pay closer attention to

00:04:18.760 what's inside us outside of us but in general just kind of come at the world from a deeper self-trust

00:04:26.100 and that doesn't necessitate doing anything crazy breaking society you know denting the universe or

00:04:33.220 or anything like that yeah i think it's interesting how i know a lot of people when they were teenagers

00:04:38.560 that's probably the first time they read emerson's self-reliance and they think like oh my gosh

00:04:43.160 this is this is speaking to me right and then like because you're a teenager and you're dumb

00:04:48.620 you kind of you read with that sort of self-centered i'm going to be a rebel and different

00:04:53.880 whatever mentality when you completely miss the point of it and then as you get older and you read

00:04:59.360 it again you're like oh okay that's what he that's what he's actually talking about exactly and you

00:05:05.360 know i actually recently read one of his his essays it's an essay on manners which is all about

00:05:11.700 propriety and and and you see him balance these ideas of yes you know you can get away with a lot

00:05:19.500 in society if if you're being self-reliant if you're acting from your center you will get away

00:05:25.160 with a lot of eccentricities but you know the the crowd is only going to put up with you being so loud

00:05:31.660 about such and such things and it's not you know it's not an expression of self just to kind of be

00:05:40.140 to be loud and and obnoxious that's that's not the point the point is you know exploring those

00:05:46.760 boundaries and trusting yourself but yeah like like you said it's not it's not about becoming a

00:05:54.040 narcissist yeah well and another transcendentalist you know a guy had is thoreau right these are

00:05:59.680 contemporary contemporary of emerson that idea of like being self-reliant doesn't mean you have to do

00:06:04.820 something huge right and something grand thoreau obviously did you know we were still talking about

00:06:11.460 his work today but i think what's interesting about him with his trajectory his of his career

00:06:17.100 when he was young when he was a young man he had this ambition to go to new york and just make a

00:06:21.420 splash on the literary scene he wanted to be a big name there and he he went out there and he failed

00:06:27.360 completely trying to write this you know the great whatever american novel or whatever so he goes back

00:06:34.480 and he goes to walden pond and he just writes about nature and some other thoughts and like that

00:06:40.920 little thing like he wasn't even trying to like be huge and big and important that little thing that

00:06:46.640 that's the thing that made him huge and big and important was when he started just just following

00:06:51.040 that you know following his bliss whatever it is you want to say yes i think that's that's awesome

00:06:56.440 that's that's a perfect example of of self-reliance and i think you know another aspect of that too

00:07:03.080 that that i think you know people put so much emphasis on self-reliance and you know finances

00:07:08.100 or or being self-contained taking no help at all of course while thoreau was writing on walden pond

00:07:14.940 it was you know on land owned by emerson right so he was getting help to follow that inclination

00:07:23.240 so okay we talked about what self-reliance is and it's not self-centered it's maturity it's an

00:07:29.740 understanding it's just looking at within and following that that voice inside of you doesn't

00:07:36.480 mean you're necessarily going to make a huge dent in the world but let's let's kind of get a positive

00:07:41.240 definition of self-reliance so how what are some of the attributes of self-reliance that you think

00:07:46.600 are really capture when you when emerson was talking about self-reliance yeah these things are so hard to

00:07:54.220 define and and i think we you know spend a lot of this little booklet you know trying to get at

00:07:59.180 what it is and what it's not so it's one of those ideas you can point at from a bunch of different

00:08:03.840 ways but it's tough to kind of wrap up in something tidy but if i'm going to try to do that i would say

00:08:09.220 you know something like maintaining sovereignty over the self in a connected civilized world and i think

00:08:15.060 that that points to the importance about you know being interdirected in such a way that your

00:08:20.160 decisions and opinions are defined primarily by your own experience of the world yeah so so i think

00:08:27.020 that that kind of sums it up maintaining sovereignty over the self in a connected civilized world and so

00:08:32.780 what as you've come up with this idea and as you flesh this idea out in your booklet who are some of

00:08:38.140 the thinkers that have informed that idea or your fleshed out idea of that definition you just gave

00:08:44.520 i think you know i think emerson is you know of course he's the guy that gave it a name he he made

00:08:50.980 the idea click and for a long time that essay on self-reliance kind of served as close to a religious

00:08:57.580 text for me but the stoics especially seneca have helped inform at least my conception of self-reliance

00:09:05.260 especially in the way they use reasoning to to see things more clearly i think nasim taleb is is you

00:09:11.860 know the modern thinker who's who's informed my idea of self-reliance the most and it's partly

00:09:16.600 because of his ideas but mostly just because the posture he takes in the world he's willing to you

00:09:20.860 know say anything piss off anybody so i think you know to some degree he he represents a certain mode

00:09:27.920 of self-reliance and then there's an indian sage krishnamurti who really informed the experiential

00:09:35.260 side of how i see self-reliance and you know he just does such a great job at talking about direct

00:09:41.460 experience and making it clear how how much learning happens in a direct experience that is impossible

00:09:49.260 through secondary experience through hearing other people talk about what they're seeing and or what

00:09:56.000 they've done you know and and really focusing on all the learning that you that can happen from your

00:10:02.280 direct experience and the person who's changed my idea of self-reliance the most recently has been

00:10:09.320 milton mayoroff who is the author of this little book called on caring it's a short book and really

00:10:15.860 incredible and he has some really potent ideas about becoming yourself through serving something else

00:10:22.400 that really helps cut out that narcissistic possibility or potential reading of of self-reliance

00:10:31.100 and his ideas on you know becoming more of yourself through serving another more intensely really

00:10:39.480 kind of made a bunch of sections of emerson's essay pop that i kind of ignored before because maybe i just

00:10:46.920 didn't really get them and i hate to talk about it in such vague terms right now but we'll touch on

00:10:52.540 those later i'm sure but so it's also self-reliance has been one of those central ideas that you know hit

00:10:58.720 me early as a teen like you were talking about and so it became this kind of vortex so everything that

00:11:05.020 i'm reading like brings itself to self-reliance and in one way or another and so now i have in my

00:11:11.740 commonplace book where i kind of collect ideas i have this huge section on self-reliance and and things

00:11:19.040 that point to it in different ways and yeah we'll get to a distillation of a bunch of those in the next

00:11:24.360 next few minutes i'm sure sure and do you think this i this type of self-reliance that you're

00:11:29.480 talking about is it hard to develop and if so why yes i think it's incredibly incredibly difficult

00:11:37.100 you know we have interdependent relationships with everything especially the people in our life

00:11:42.600 so and you know extension of that you know society i think you know self-reliance is an internal thing

00:11:48.120 so it's hard to create objective feedback loops that we would normally use to develop skills and

00:11:54.480 and it's contextual so even when we're talking about it when we try to define something it's it's very

00:11:59.880 difficult because it's a it's a posture more than anything so you know we can't define a set of things

00:12:05.400 to do and then if you do those things that means you're self-reliant right because if you're following

00:12:10.220 something blindly and you know following it doesn't matter how physically independent you are from the

00:12:17.680 world that doesn't mean that you're you're have a self-reliant posture and beyond that it's just

00:12:23.100 it's it's it's a constant practice the default is to be pulled off center and it just takes a

00:12:28.700 a lot of effort and attention to remain self-reliant so let's talk about some of these

00:12:34.760 like specifics that you can like practices meditations that you can take or do to develop

00:12:42.240 self-reliance so you talk off you start off talking about solitude what role does solitude

00:12:46.320 play in developing self-reliance and what kind of solitude are we talking about here yeah i think

00:12:51.300 part of it's you know solitude we're talking about it in a physical and mental and i think

00:12:58.040 solitude allows you to get in touch with your inner voice that can get drowned out in day-to-day life

00:13:05.700 and of course that only happens if you're using solitude in a proper way right so that's you know

00:13:12.400 if you're if you're if you're spending your time you know by yourself but then you're consuming

00:13:17.960 random content or or playing video games you're you know that's not getting you in touch with

00:13:22.940 what you think and what you believe that's just just outside distractions creep creeping into your

00:13:30.160 physical solitude so it's still kind of mental chaos so you know i would define you know solitude

00:13:36.460 physical and mental solitude is an area in which you're able to be physically alone but also be

00:13:44.060 alone with your thoughts so you can actually witness what you think what you believe and see how you're

00:13:50.260 considering things in life gotcha and so how do you go about i mean because like secluding yourself

00:13:56.440 digitally is hard right because you have a phone you might work on your computer so what are some

00:14:02.020 things you do to digitally seclude yourself yeah so so that's that's the tough one right digital

00:14:07.900 seclusion i think airplane mode is our friend on our phones you know having periods of of being

00:14:13.480 unplugged is really helpful and these are you know not novel solutions you know one of the first things

00:14:19.480 i recommended on the first article you all ever published from me at art of manliness was an input

00:14:25.940 deprivation week so that's basically removing yourself from any content consumption for a week

00:14:31.040 deleting all content apps on your phone games or anything else that might be somewhere where you

00:14:37.780 consume content so that means no movies no tv no books no inputs at all ideally not even music so it

00:14:44.980 forces you into noticing your inclinations to consume and instead you spend those times journaling

00:14:51.700 doodling creating working on something talking with people you know and a ton of people have responded

00:14:57.760 to that had absolutely incredible results i've been blown away you know so so that's kind of the

00:15:03.100 extreme but you can do that to different degrees every day so maybe you have an hour a day where

00:15:08.200 you're journaling or you have an hour a day where you're going on a walk with no podcast or not you

00:15:14.600 know no no kind of distraction where you're just there and you know the idea behind this type of

00:15:22.220 solitude isn't that content consumption is bad at all it's it's not and and most professions rely on

00:15:29.500 it i think you know content consumption can help creativity productivity and you know general progress

00:15:35.480 in life but the point is to separate from that and get familiar with yourself your inclinations your

00:15:43.900 style your capabilities outside of of this constant stream of distractions yeah and i think you know

00:15:52.140 that way of creating digital solitude is similar you know to what we're trying to achieve in in

00:15:57.780 moments of solitude physically from other people in general too so you know it's not that society is

00:16:02.580 evil and that you should become a hermit that's like a really bad idea the point is that it's important

00:16:08.300 to be able to retreat from society so that you can get back in touch with what you think want feel

00:16:14.020 etc yeah i just it's kind of related i just saw this thing on the line this week where this travel

00:16:21.500 photographer put together a collage of all the travel photos on instagram and they've all they all look

00:16:28.340 the same and like there are certain motifs like that you know the one like the hand so like there's

00:16:34.520 like the girl in front and like the guy holding the hand you know i'm talking about like that's

00:16:39.540 becoming that's become like everyone does that or like and i think that the point goes that that's

00:16:44.220 what happens whenever you don't make time for seclusion you just end up doing and mimicking what you

00:16:51.300 see other people do instead of trying something new when you're alone because you don't care right

00:16:57.120 like it's it's for you but that thing but that thing you might come up with by yourself

00:17:01.280 might be the stroke of genius but you never know that unless you kind of disconnect yourself from

00:17:06.640 what what's going on around you right right yeah exactly when when you're planning trips around you

00:17:13.620 know the goal of having a certain instagram photo you're you're not going to have the time or room for

00:17:20.100 for yeah that that more quiet desire that's more true to you to go off and and do the thing that could

00:17:26.660 actually make an interesting impact in your life so another sort of tactic or practice that you

00:17:33.620 advocate for and becoming more self-reliant is developing your your inner scorecard what's that

00:17:38.800 and how does that help you become more self-reliant yeah so this is this is an idea from warren buffett

00:17:43.460 and your inner scorecard that's you know you can call it a yardstick that you use to judge yourself

00:17:49.280 and it's created by you for you and it's you know you can contrast it with an outer scorecard

00:17:57.720 which is basically what other people think of you so if you're using an outer scorecard you're judging

00:18:03.600 yourself based on reactions you're getting from random people around you and if you're making

00:18:09.540 decisions based on the outer scorecard then you know it's almost impossible to make a contrarian

00:18:14.500 decision right which means it'll be just about impossible to realize incredible returns whether

00:18:20.540 it's you know an investment idea or an idea for a business or anything else it's gonna you know it's

00:18:26.680 gonna be difficult to break out and it's gonna be difficult to stay sane because the world is really

00:18:33.020 fickle and how they judge you and if if you're relying on them for kind of guidance on on what to do next

00:18:41.520 and and how how to think about yourself you're going to be kind of just really confused and kind

00:18:47.420 of in a bad place so but if you stick to your inner scorecard you'll be able to reliably make better

00:18:53.440 decisions and handle the ups and downs that come with those decisions more easily because you know

00:18:58.900 that you're following the rules you set for yourself and it gives you some reliable standard to judge

00:19:05.920 yourself by i i kind of see it as a tool to to go with the saying don't care what other people think

00:19:12.160 and that's not to be taken you know all the way so i came across a really interesting warren buffett

00:19:18.660 quote the other day he said someone asked him why he loved going to work every morning and he said

00:19:23.960 because i get to paint my own painting and i like the applause and so that brings up kind of a

00:19:30.880 difficult question which is you know can we care about what other people think you know and and

00:19:37.620 still remain self-reliant and i think that we can as long as we you know maintain our dedication to

00:19:45.220 the internal scorecard that we select the people whose opinions we care about at least somewhat

00:19:51.520 carefully and make sure that you know make sure that we know when they're wrong right so having an

00:19:58.440 inner scorecard can help you determine whether or not the applause or booing you're getting from

00:20:04.160 the crowd is is valid and and just to be conscious in general that somebody else's opinion is driving

00:20:09.680 us and to what degree i i think that there's a balance to be had there so using the internal scorecard

00:20:16.020 is kind of the primary thing without pretending that nobody's opinion matters to you which i think

00:20:21.840 is impossible in a world as you know interconnected as ours and as a as a member of a species who's

00:20:27.920 so like thoroughly social so in the inner scorecard doesn't also comes in handy for you know not just

00:20:34.260 for opinions but also just outcomes you have no control over right if you're an entrepreneur or even

00:20:39.560 like a coach i know a lot of sports coaches kind of had this idea of the inner scorecard you know

00:20:43.660 bill walsh has that book the score takes care of itself john wooden had something and their whole thing

00:20:49.500 was like doesn't matter what the score is on the the board as long as we hit these internal metrics

00:20:55.860 that we have for ourself that was the success that's all you can do and sometimes there's

00:21:00.500 nothing else you can do besides that yeah yeah exactly and some and sometimes you know there's

00:21:05.940 there's things that are outside of your control you know so you know they they know that focusing

00:21:12.000 on those metrics are going to give them the best chance at a favorable outcome right so the score

00:21:20.160 takes care of itself after you focus on these things but you're not focusing on on the ultimate

00:21:27.360 score you're focusing on you know each play and you know he goes through the whole book but you know

00:21:31.640 you you're yeah exactly you're you're focusing on your internal scorecard that is designed to create

00:21:37.540 the best possible outcome even if those outcomes are kind of either they can be you know lumpy returns

00:21:43.040 or or just you know there's there's always probability that plays a role so you do your best

00:21:48.600 and sometimes you don't lose but like you said if you stay true to those internal metrics you're

00:21:53.060 you're still one and that that kind of leads to the next point you talk about in the book is you know

00:21:57.140 self-reliant people ignore probabilities why should self-reliant people ignore probabilities i think

00:22:03.040 you know it so i think i should preface this by saying that we shouldn't ignore all probabilities

00:22:08.480 in general but i think the self-reliant person is going to ignore probabilities about the chances

00:22:14.520 of accomplishing what they want to accomplish so there's a few reasons for this first you know

00:22:19.360 peter teal said you are not a lottery ticket a famous investor and i think that that's you you are

00:22:24.800 not a lottery ticket so any set of statistics inherently ignores huge factors that will actually

00:22:31.760 determine your chance at success so they don't take into account things like your experience your

00:22:36.660 network your team resources your talent your grit ingenuity commitment all sorts of things you know

00:22:43.260 these are massive indicators of success and any measurement is going to miss them for the most

00:22:49.240 part so i i have this friend who owns restaurants and and he was trained as a manager at burger king

00:22:55.360 he he thoroughly understands the business side of of owning a restaurant so like when he opens a

00:23:01.400 restaurant they're going to have a much higher rate of success than an athlete right who who made a

00:23:06.920 bunch of money and wants to open a restaurant as kind of an ego thing so so it's you know these are two

00:23:12.820 you know restaurants in general have pretty high failure rates especially over three or five years

00:23:17.800 but that rate of failure like the probability of of success or failure is going to be dramatically

00:23:23.840 different depending on the person you know the financing the situation so that's the first thing

00:23:28.000 the second thing is this is also inspired by a an investor this one ben horowitz of of the venture

00:23:34.360 capital firm andreessen horowitz um he wrote this book the hard thing about hard things and and he says

00:23:40.000 something that's really interesting and it kind of points to what you're talking about he says

00:23:44.000 it matters not whether your chances are nine in ten or one in a thousand your task is the same and the

00:23:51.160 point being that you have to find a way regardless so why worry about the chance the chance you have of

00:23:57.900 getting there because you know that that's just gonna be a distraction so in the uh the pocket guide to

00:24:02.600 action i use this quote from from plutarch that also highlights this point maybe even in a more

00:24:08.360 badass way he says spartans do not ask how many are the enemy but where they are so it doesn't it

00:24:14.360 doesn't matter how hard the obstacle is you have to overcome it once you you know you pick a direction

00:24:20.520 and again you know if if we focus too much on the chances that something might work out or might not

00:24:25.620 work out then we're not focused on what we need to do to make it happen so so to kind of sum this up

00:24:31.460 in general we should not use probabilistic thinking to determine what we want to do but

00:24:37.260 once we choose our direction we should use probability all we can to help us get there

00:24:42.200 gotcha that makes sense all right so going back on this idea of you'd mentioned the the the guru

00:24:47.960 with the indian sage guy krishnamurti is he a guru i mean i don't know if i was i think he's a guru

00:24:54.720 call him a guru well but his whole idea was you know trusting your experience over you know supposed

00:25:01.540 best practices do you think people naturally like to trust their own experience or do they

00:25:07.620 do they like to go to the comfort of you know i'm going to ask for advice or see what what other

00:25:13.100 people have done yeah i i don't i i don't think that's the inclination at all actually um krishnamurti

00:25:19.400 has a really one of my favorite quotes of all time comes from krishnamurti and he said

00:25:23.560 the primary cause of disorder in ourselves is the seeking of reality promised by another

00:25:29.480 and you know primary cause that's like a big claim and i don't think it's far off because you you see

00:25:37.500 this i i have a lot of experience with this and you know i used to help people start e-commerce

00:25:44.200 companies you know i i could tell right away who was going to succeed and who was not the people who

00:25:51.020 were going to succeed were people who took whatever suggestions we gave them tried them out took his

00:25:57.280 took a ton of action on it and found new obstacles or found that hey this isn't working for me in this

00:26:04.320 situation so people that were willing to fail with little pieces of information without a complete

00:26:10.380 picture ended up making a ton of progress people who failed without fail who just did not progress

00:26:18.640 are people that kept coming back week after week wanting an entire explanation of an of a whole

00:26:24.960 process you know tell me how a business works well a business is one of the most like abstract

00:26:30.500 difficult problems to solve in general and and if you're not willing to gain the knowledge that comes

00:26:37.000 with direct experience from that you're just not you're not going to make any progress nobody can tell

00:26:42.240 you exactly how to do it people can lay out frameworks they can you know lay out general rules pitfalls to

00:26:48.620 avoid but if you're unwilling to actually try to sell something it's just it's never going to work

00:26:54.780 and so yeah that's you you see this in in you know it's the phenomena of the the entrepreneur it's like

00:27:00.520 there's a whole industry serving a group of people who have jobs that are kind of dissatisfied with them

00:27:08.100 or very dissatisfied with them and they they don't actually want to take the risk of of moving on or

00:27:15.640 starting something but they want to feel like they're making progress so there's a ton of people

00:27:20.160 offering advice that you know may or may not work but it's never it's not actually designed to take

00:27:26.440 action on it's just designed to sell to people who want to feel like they're doing something like

00:27:32.720 they're they're becoming self-reliant when in fact they're just you know sinking further into stagnation

00:27:38.080 yeah i mean i've had that same experience i get a lot of requests you know people to pick my brain

00:27:43.200 about you know how did you get started the podcast how did you grow the art of manliness and i would

00:27:47.560 give advice to people you know pretty much all the time but then i discovered something you know i'd

00:27:52.680 follow up with these guys three or six months later i was like hey how are things going did you get

00:27:57.380 started and like pretty much nine out of ten of them like had not they had not taken action and they

00:28:03.180 were like oh you know i'm still planning i'm still looking into it and so now my policy is is someone

00:28:08.480 asked me like hey i'm thinking about starting a blog can i you know taking a lunch for an hour

00:28:12.740 and talk about and i was like look here's the how about this you get started come back to me six

00:28:18.120 months after you started and come with like specific questions or roadblocks you hit and i found those

00:28:23.840 like conversations when people take me on that are much more productive because the advice that i could

00:28:29.240 give them about starting a blog probably wouldn't be very useful because i started mine in

00:28:32.820 2008 and the whole ecosystem online was different as it is today like i got a lot of traffic from

00:28:40.260 delicious.com or whatever and that does not exist anymore right so like that wouldn't be useful

00:28:45.280 advice you got to people have to experience on their own to figure out what works for them and what

00:28:49.300 doesn't work and maybe go to someone when you come up to a problem when you've cranked all your

00:28:54.560 widgets and you couldn't find out an answer then maybe go get some advice yeah exactly i think you know part

00:29:00.260 of the one of the mechanisms that you're you're using there is actually like tricking folks to get

00:29:06.440 direct experience so that they actually end up trusting themselves a little bit more with the

00:29:12.280 problem you know if i if i make any progress or or can show brett that i've tried anything then he'll give

00:29:19.220 me some useful advice so you're like you're tricking them into like oh wait i can solve all these problems

00:29:24.980 myself and then when i come up to a really hard one brett could give me you know specific of how he

00:29:30.620 dealt with similar problems in the past right it's probably different different technology but like

00:29:35.960 the shape might be similar and so at that point your advice is probably going to be invaluable and fun to

00:29:41.880 give because it'll be used right he'll have momentum or she'll have momentum and yeah i think i think you

00:29:48.400 know when people ask for too much advice up front they're robbing themselves of of that direct

00:29:55.140 experience which is is a much more important teacher than i think anybody else yeah and if you're

00:30:03.500 a college student this also comes in handy because i i know i knew a lot of college students who would

00:30:08.700 or i did this too when i first started when i was the first my freshman year is i would go to the office

00:30:13.460 hours and just sort of just like vomit like questions all over my teacher and they were

00:30:19.200 overwhelmed and i never we didn't really make any headway and they i think i had finally one

00:30:24.160 professor's like here look here's what you do go back read this stuff try to answer all these

00:30:28.800 questions on your own if you hit a question you cannot answer then come talk to me we'll set up

00:30:33.600 appointment about that specific question and then from then on that's kind of that was my strategy

00:30:37.880 going into teachers appointments during the office hours like i had one or two questions that was it

00:30:42.380 to ask them and everything else i try to figure out on my own yeah that's that's awesome that you

00:30:47.360 figured that out early you know yeah advice is just so confusing if if you don't have anything to do

00:30:54.680 with it so again this bias should be not towards seeking advice but like action first like going back

00:31:01.520 to the pocket guide action questions later maybe exactly yeah questions that can be that are action

00:31:08.520 oriented right you know um if if you're asking a question about a starting a business then you

00:31:14.820 should be ready to take action on the answer you receive very close to immediately right and of

00:31:21.860 course this is you know it's it's different if you're starting a podcast a blog or you know some

00:31:26.300 kind of lifestyle business where the risk is low uh shooting a rocket into space right right

00:31:31.580 don't ask any questions on that right just do it different develop make a make a launch pad in your

00:31:37.880 backyard yeah that's that's bad advice right yeah i think as the stakes get higher you you might need

00:31:43.440 to get lots of counsel and advice to to get that going and then even then like elon musk just kind

00:31:49.700 of proves that that's it's a relative right like because as far as rocket builders go he's asking far

00:31:56.020 fewer questions doing far fewer calculations than you know say the incumbents but he's also you know

00:32:03.060 he's he's taking huge risks and and making much quicker progress by a lot of measures yeah he's

00:32:09.600 probably you know his action is i'm going to hire a consulting company to give me advice on building

00:32:16.540 a rocket right or i'm going to hire this firm to do the league the legal work etc he's not just he he's

00:32:23.260 taking action but in a different on a different level yeah yeah so another practice you talk about

00:32:28.620 is intentional introspection what is that and how do you implement it in your life yeah so i i think

00:32:34.620 it's just being aware of the relationship between you and the world so it's it's noticing when you're

00:32:40.480 aiming at something you know because of an external scorecard or an outer scorecard and you're having a

00:32:46.660 bad time and you're actually bad at the thing that you're aiming at so on the flip side it's it's

00:32:52.620 noticing your strengths when you're likely to you know get into the flow state of that kind of thing

00:32:57.540 implementing this is is just about increasing awareness you know and that can be helped along

00:33:02.780 with meditating or journaling but maybe maybe another part of implementing this is is just realizing that

00:33:08.160 you you don't have to be good at what you think you have to be good at you can pick a different way

00:33:12.640 and and you can make something else work something that you haven't considered yet oh yeah i like i like

00:33:18.780 that a lot and then another point you make and i think this is one of the points of sort of self

00:33:23.900 reliance that can give people pause or at least it gives me pause is this idea of making your own law

00:33:30.400 right becoming a law unto yourself because you know if you fall at that logical conclusion like that would

00:33:36.760 be very bad right because people say well i'm going to steal i don't think it's wrong to steal because

00:33:42.200 my personal law says it's not so what's going on there how what's the nuanced take on making your

00:33:49.180 own law and how do you go about setting your own laws without while not being above you know the

00:33:54.380 shared laws that make civil society possible awesome i'm yeah i'm really glad we get to talk about this

00:33:59.140 so i think to set your own law is just to remain dedicated to what you believe to be right regardless of

00:34:07.620 the opinions of those around you i think it's you know there's determining the path you're going to

00:34:11.880 walk down and continuing to walk down regardless of what's happening around you um and so it's kind

00:34:18.040 of you know respecting those inner contours of your experience so this means paying close attention to your

00:34:25.180 world your experience i what i don't think it means is you know kind of bootstrapping a whole new

00:34:33.380 system of beliefs or or or you know creating something that's completely anti anti-social right so like

00:34:42.240 there there's traditions to be bucked i don't think i don't think anybody in their right mind can look

00:34:50.420 closely at what gives them meaning in the world and want to do serious harm to others and of course

00:35:03.220 there are people that feel that way i think you know they're psychopaths or extremely misguided i

00:35:08.220 think they're they're generally people that are not trusting themselves but trusting somebody who is

00:35:14.060 like mad with power and of course that's you know a subjective claim but i think you know i think it

00:35:19.780 holds up just to how how i experience the world so yeah i you know it's it's it's not a call for

00:35:27.520 for being totally psychopathic and and like we talked about at the beginning of this this essay

00:35:34.460 you know emerson himself even though you know the the wording and and self-reliance that the essay is

00:35:40.900 so romantic and and powerful and and and some of that you know can if you just take one quote it it could

00:35:49.660 be seen as like you know let's throw off all traditions all propriety and be totally just you know forget

00:35:55.720 about anybody else's existence in the world but i think you know if you if you temper this with some

00:36:01.340 of emerson's other essays especially his essay on manners we want to be loved as as humans at least

00:36:07.820 by some people and the only way to do that is by acting in a way that's lovely as as adam smith might

00:36:15.320 say you know as as exuding loveliness so i think anybody who's honest with themselves about what they

00:36:22.300 they truly want and what's important with themselves in life isn't going to be totally

00:36:27.840 anti-social like you don't come to the conclusion that you're going to do harm to humanity and that

00:36:33.800 that's that's how you're going to to get love in in this life well related to this you know making

00:36:39.580 your own laws this idea i think people get from the essay self-reliance and sort of the transcendental

00:36:44.840 thinking is uh you know making your own values you know knowing what you value but i you know my podcast

00:36:50.060 with jordan peterson a couple weeks ago he made the case that it's impossible to create your own

00:36:56.480 values he says it's not possible for you to create your own values and those values to give you

00:37:00.700 significant amount of meaning in your life do you think that's true or would you quibble with that

00:37:07.280 uh so i think it's mostly true and i would quibble with that a little bit anyway so i i love that i love

00:37:15.360 that interview and i'm really happy that i get to to talk about with you so i i love you know peterson

00:37:21.660 used in in that conversation with you as i as i remember it i think he you know he said he said

00:37:27.020 that we can't create meaning that but we can kind of discover and co-create it i think his wording

00:37:32.800 co-create paired with discovery is is really potent and useful so i think this is also a good time to

00:37:39.560 bring up that i i don't think that the self-trust we're aiming for and becoming self-reliant is

00:37:47.660 it is strictly based on our conscious ideas so i think that it's actually a deep trust in your

00:37:56.440 ability to navigate the world including society i think that one of the most effective paths to this

00:38:02.440 self-trust is actually faith in a kind of capital b capital o big other so for emerson that was nature

00:38:09.420 for christians it's god for more secular folks i think it's possible with a cause something bigger

00:38:15.340 than oneself or you know mythology so the the law that you set in serving this other is the law that

00:38:22.460 you're setting for yourself and these laws are generally shaped by patterns or underlying rules

00:38:27.360 beyond the grasp of consciousness i think so so when we talk about when it comes to self-reliance

00:38:31.920 setting your own laws and and abiding by them it's usually more of selecting what you

00:38:39.020 find to be most true to yourself it's not just coming up with it inventing it right so so i think

00:38:46.200 that we have to set our own laws but but it's it's more about being aware and discerning that it is

00:38:52.120 about like defining and creating values out of thin air so like like peterson said in that interview

00:38:57.820 it's it's it's very difficult to foist meaning on something because it it tends to either be there or

00:39:03.620 not so yeah i think it's it's more of a process of co-creation discovery and discernment but as a

00:39:09.620 side note and this is kind of the minor quibble i have with the peterson piece is that i i do believe

00:39:15.520 that we can consciously create meaning but i think it's a slow very weak process and we're much better

00:39:22.060 served by taking advantage of you know both our instincts the meaning that's already there the values

00:39:27.980 that that we can see within ourselves and you know that that that have kind of been developed

00:39:32.940 through thousands of years of of narrative work by our ancestors so yeah in some i i think you know

00:39:41.980 yeah you're gonna have a bad time if you think you can just sit down write on a piece of paper your

00:39:46.840 values and those you know out of pulling those out of thin air i think you're good you're better served

00:39:53.220 by discovering values and choosing them consciously from your experience in the real world

00:39:59.880 yeah this reminds me a lot of a conversation i had with matthew crawford a couple years ago guy who

00:40:05.680 wrote shop classes soul craft but the one really interesting book we talked about was the world beyond

00:40:10.820 your head and one of the points he made the cases he made was that if you really want to become an

00:40:17.740 individual this is kind of saying what you're saying you need to submit yourself to what he

00:40:23.180 he called it tradition or but it could be something bigger than yourself and you might think well

00:40:28.960 that's kind of weird that's counterintuitive how would submitting yourself to tradition allow you to

00:40:33.820 become a unique independent individual in his case was like you you had to have a framework

00:40:39.600 in order to differentiate yourself if you're just sort of trying to be different from everything else

00:40:45.020 that's different like that's hard to do because you don't you don't have a framework okay what is

00:40:48.920 different but once you have that framework you're able to adjust things and make tweaks to it and

00:40:55.600 you can actually see that this is something new and different and the example he gave were these organ

00:41:00.720 makers right they make restore and make classic organs and they use the traditional way and they're very

00:41:08.140 fastidious about that but they also make innovations right they're kind of adding to it and doing a little

00:41:14.920 twist and it's interesting these guys he thinks that these guys they have a more solid sense of self

00:41:21.040 because they've submitted themselves to the the traditions of of class you know classical handmade

00:41:27.100 organ making because they can see how they are different because they are submitted to themselves to that

00:41:33.240 tradition if that that it makes sense a hundred percent a hundred percent yeah i mean i think we can see

00:41:39.780 just in the people in your life at least in mine when i look around the people who have you know

00:41:45.380 dedicated themselves most thoroughly to either a faith or a cause or an idea something that they're

00:41:54.220 working desperately towards you know i mean desperately is not a great word but you know intensely focused

00:41:59.420 on and that's something that's beyond themselves it's not in and that's not just to serve their own ego

00:42:04.240 but it's beyond their ego they are way more self-reliant way more self-trusting and way more

00:42:11.540 just balanced and centered in the world than anybody who whose career is one giant ego play or someone who

00:42:22.000 is you know super dedicated to self-development right i mean you know these people that are you know if

00:42:28.660 you spend your life just improving yourself you're going to be way less way less uh centered than somebody

00:42:35.180 who's dedicated themselves to to something bigger here's a question say you start doing these practices

00:42:40.880 and you're striving to take this posture of self-reliance that we've been talking about how do you know

00:42:45.740 if you're becoming a self-reliant person right because like with losing weight you can go i'm losing weight

00:42:51.520 i'm getting stronger because i can add weight to the bar like those things are really easy to track but how do you

00:42:56.220 track whether you're becoming self more self-reliant so i think one of the biggest tells that you're

00:43:00.780 becoming self-reliant is that you begin to by default respect your experience and kind of stop rejecting

00:43:08.200 your life as it is so you're operating in a way that embodies the understanding of that emerson quote

00:43:14.800 that envy is ignorance imitation is suicide so you're growing but not in a way that rejects your current

00:43:21.600 situation continue continuing to course correct but you know without remorse about where you've

00:43:26.780 been or or past choices you're taking advice from others but only as kind of more data points

00:43:32.900 and decision that you know that you're going to have to make yourself so those those sort of things

00:43:38.960 i like that and and do you think it's possible to become like a you know a self-reliant sage

00:43:43.880 right you're perfectly self-reliant or are we going to be spending most of our lives try you know

00:43:49.160 failing succeeding that self-reliant yeah i've never found a self-reliant sage i i i'm very very

00:43:55.340 far from from that so i think you know and every time i've met somebody this happens you know i meet

00:44:01.440 somebody i'm like oh man they've got it down they you know they they they found it that guy is

00:44:06.100 perfectly self-reliant that woman is perfectly self-reliant if i get the chance to meet one of

00:44:12.000 these people and talk with them and engage with them over any period of time i i've been proven wrong

00:44:18.420 every single time so with this this type of thing i always i really love this this kind of it's quote

00:44:24.400 from confucius and he said something i'm paraphrasing he said you know at 15 i started at 30 i was really

00:44:31.100 getting going at 40 i had no doubts and then he keeps going until at 70 he finally met his ideal he he

00:44:40.020 he he kind of peaked at 70 he he he reached the the pinnacle and you know that's if i can make a

00:44:47.340 little bit of progress every decade i'm gonna be super happy about it but even with that you know

00:44:51.180 that that kind of far out promise of just slow improvement i i think i've you know i've seen

00:44:58.800 gains just in the last decade show up fairly fairly quickly you know i think i think the returns are

00:45:05.040 are really fast especially in in talking about some of the specific things we discussed earlier

00:45:10.940 i think yeah the benefits can come could come pretty quick and then you just realize you keep

00:45:16.780 hitting hitting walls and getting thrown off center and yeah i think i think it's more about the progress

00:45:21.680 than destination for sure right keep the score takes care of itself amen yeah well hey kyle this

00:45:28.300 has been a great conversation where can people go to learn more about the book and your work in

00:45:32.580 general awesome yeah thanks i mean thanks again for having me i know i say this every time it might be

00:45:37.520 getting old but i think it's really incredible what you and kate have created and i'm i'm just really

00:45:43.160 honored to be associated with it in any way so thank you no thank you the best regular writing that i do

00:45:49.840 is in my newsletter that goes out most sundays not all and you can get that at kyleeshen.com

00:45:56.740 slash letter so it's k-y-l-e-s-c-h-e-n dot com slash letter and i dig into my favorite ideas

00:46:05.020 that i found that week there i know at least kate reads and and likes these every once in a while

00:46:10.200 i do too i i read them every time i get them they're fantastic that's awesome yeah that's a

00:46:14.380 super high compliment for me because i know your inbox is is just incredibly bombarded so that's

00:46:20.280 super and i i also like how it's not every sunday because it's always a surprise and that's that's

00:46:25.780 actually that's great for like the dopamine it's like the slot machine effect going on like am i

00:46:30.140 get it this week and it's great so i believe it's because of that because of your advice so

00:46:35.240 so thank you it makes it more fun for me as well you know in general my my best kind of irregular

00:46:40.740 writing goes straight to you guys at the art of manliness so everybody's already in the right

00:46:46.360 place to get that fantastic kyleeshenroeder thank you so much for time it's been a pleasure thank you

00:46:50.560 sir my guest today was kyleeshenroeder he's the author of the book the pocket guide to self-reliance

00:46:55.540 it's available at store.artofmanliness.com also check out kyle's website at kyleeshen.com

00:47:01.180 and check out our show notes at aom.is slash self-reliance where you can find links to resources

00:47:05.700 where you can delve deeper into this topic

00:47:07.540 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:47:20.900 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com if you enjoy the

00:47:24.780 show i've got something out of it i appreciate if you take one minute to give us review on itunes

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00:47:31.760 already thank you so much please share the show with a friend or family member if you think they

00:47:35.480 get something out of it we'd also appreciate that as always thank you for your continued support

00:47:39.420 until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

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The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

#384： What It Really Means to Be Self-Reliant

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