The Megyn Kelly Show - Ryan Holiday on Confronting Our Fear, the Value of Being ＂Difficult,＂ and Courage

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00:00:30.620 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:32.520 Your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:42.360 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly.

00:00:44.040 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Friday.

00:00:46.600 We have a great show for you today.

00:00:48.360 Something different and something I'm really excited to talk about.

00:00:52.240 Ryan Holiday is here.

00:00:53.900 My assistant Abby is in love with Ryan Holiday.

00:00:55.980 I confess, after Kevin Finan, he's her number two guy.

00:00:59.240 Ryan is a New York Times bestselling author of the mega hit, The Obstacle is the Way, and

00:01:05.880 many, many other books.

00:01:07.640 And as of yesterday, his new book, Courage is Calling, Fortune Favors the Brave, is a New

00:01:14.080 York Times bestseller too.

00:01:15.220 Courage is Calling, Fortune Favors the Brave.

00:01:18.100 His path from self-described media manipulator to champion of stoicism, something I've really

00:01:24.800 been looking forward to learning more about, is fascinating.

00:01:28.040 Ryan, I'm so happy to have you here.

00:01:29.440 Thanks for coming.

00:01:30.260 Yeah.

00:01:30.400 Thanks for having me.

00:01:31.740 It's funny to hear about your assistant.

00:01:33.700 Every day, you're in her inbox giving her thoughts on stoicism.

00:01:37.500 And it's funny because she'll sometimes say like, oh, you've got to read more about stoicism

00:01:41.260 because I'll just say something that she thinks aligns with it.

00:01:44.320 And I have to say, reading your book, I was like, yes, I think I've been living large factions

00:01:49.180 of this without knowing this is what it was called or that it's a whole philosophy.

00:01:53.300 So let's just start with people who are like I am and don't know anything about what stoicism

00:01:58.700 is.

00:01:59.340 It's first of all, this book is the first in a series about what you call cardinal values.

00:02:05.900 So we're going to get three more.

00:02:07.740 But how do you define stoicism?

00:02:10.540 Yeah, when I try to introduce people to stoicism, I don't go back to ancient Greece or Rome or

00:02:15.520 try to throw sort of unpronounceable names at them that tends to create some overwhelm.

00:02:21.820 I try to focus on on what stoicism was as a practical philosophy, a philosophy used by

00:02:28.100 real people in the real world, as opposed to academics or, you know, sort of those sort

00:02:34.420 of figures on the fringes of society.

00:02:36.920 The Stoics were merchants and soldiers and emperors, advisors to kings and senators.

00:02:44.560 And I think at the core of stoicism is this idea that we don't control what happens, but

00:02:50.280 we control how we respond.

00:02:51.820 So how should we respond?

00:02:54.140 The Stoics argue that there's sort of four cardinal virtues, as it happens, the same virtues

00:02:59.360 as Christianity, courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom.

00:03:03.980 And for the Stoics, any and all situations called one or four of those virtues from us,

00:03:12.820 particularly stressful, bad, crises type situation.

00:03:19.820 This is where the Stoics steps up and rises to the occasion.

00:03:24.340 It's funny you should make the reference to Christianity, because I will say, as much as I've been kind

00:03:31.880 of lame about getting to church as a grown-up, though I'm doing better now, I'm getting my

00:03:36.120 kids there now, I do feel like my moral code came largely, of course, from my parents and

00:03:42.080 from church, going to church every Sunday and Sunday school and all the stuff.

00:03:46.900 There's a moral imprint there that sort of comes about in the same way that good dinner

00:03:52.880 table manners come about.

00:03:54.300 Night after night after night after night, the same things are drilled into you, and over

00:03:58.340 a lifetime, they resonate.

00:04:00.280 That's right.

00:04:00.880 That's right.

00:04:01.260 It's sort of a funny historical anomaly that Seneca, one of the great Stoic philosophers,

00:04:06.780 and Jesus are born in the same year in different provinces of the Roman Empire.

00:04:12.480 They walk the earth at the same time.

00:04:14.440 Ultimately, they both die at the hands of the state.

00:04:17.740 But Seneca's brother is in the Bible, Gaio.

00:04:20.600 He adjudicates a case involving St. Paul.

00:04:23.300 So all this stuff was kind of happening around the same time, just as we have always been

00:04:29.460 struggling with these same questions like how to live, what should a good person do and

00:04:34.020 not do, what are my obligations to society, to myself, to God, to the gods, whatever you

00:04:42.620 happen to come down on.

00:04:45.120 But we're really just trying to answer this question, and I think Stoicism is one set of

00:04:49.400 answers, to the question of what is the good life?

00:04:52.440 What is the best way to live?

00:04:55.380 And philosophy and religion are both attempts to answer that question.

00:05:00.420 You talk about virtue in the book and set it up originally with a reference to Hercules.

00:05:06.720 Can you just take us there?

00:05:09.020 Yeah, this is actually the founding story of Stoicism.

00:05:12.460 Zeno, the merchant, washes up in Athens after a shipwreck.

00:05:16.040 He's lost everything.

00:05:17.700 So he's looking for guidance.

00:05:19.600 He's looking for something to point him in the right direction.

00:05:22.240 And he walks into a bookstore, and he hears the bookseller reading a passage from Socrates.

00:05:29.180 And Socrates himself was telling this story called The Choice of Hercules, which is basically

00:05:34.380 that as a young man, Hercules is walking through the hills of Greece, and he comes to a crossroads.

00:05:40.240 And there's a goddess sitting at each of the two paths, the path that diverges in the wood,

00:05:47.560 so to speak.

00:05:48.700 Which direction will he choose?

00:05:50.480 Which will he go?

00:05:51.300 Which god will he choose to follow?

00:05:53.700 And basically, one goddess is virtue, and one is vice.

00:05:57.580 Basically, the easy road or the hard road.

00:05:59.760 The road where you get to do everything you want, and the road where you are held to some

00:06:03.720 sort of standard, and Hercules has this choice, right, just as we all do, right, to sin or to

00:06:08.820 not sin, to be good or not good, to contribute or to extract.

00:06:14.020 What is that choice?

00:06:15.340 And so Stoicism is that this choice, just as Christianity and I think all philosophical

00:06:21.580 schools are a choice between these two paths.

00:06:25.060 And so this choice of Hercules is the choice we all face, and sort of little-known historical

00:06:30.780 fact, John Adams proposed that the choice of Hercules be in the seal of the United States.

00:06:39.380 Like, he thought that this was fundamentally the choice the founders were making as well.

00:06:44.000 You know, the quote about how, you know, the entire American system depends on virtue in

00:06:49.760 the people.

00:06:50.760 They were saying, we're giving you all this freedom.

00:06:53.740 You can do whatever you want, but that doesn't mean you should allow yourself to do whatever

00:06:58.480 you want.

00:06:59.000 You have to have your own set of standards on top of that.

00:07:03.140 So you talk about fear.

00:07:05.620 That's, I mean, I think much of the book is devoted to the concept of fear, how we get

00:07:09.720 past it, what it does to us, how we don't have anything to fear but fear itself.

00:07:15.080 And I loved everything you wrote about this.

00:07:19.560 But before we get to that, you set it up with, we're each called to be something.

00:07:23.080 We are selected, but will we accept or run away?

00:07:27.060 My note to myself was, called by whom?

00:07:29.720 By what?

00:07:30.240 And how do we know when it's there, right?

00:07:32.200 That's half the battle.

00:07:33.420 Like, not, some people are lucky and they're like, I know I was meant to stand on the stage

00:07:38.940 and sing.

00:07:39.860 I know I was meant to lead men into battle.

00:07:43.000 You know, you write about Jocko Willink.

00:07:44.400 He's one of those guys.

00:07:45.400 He was on the show.

00:07:46.440 From a young age, he knew what he wanted to do.

00:07:48.640 So most of us, I would say, are more wishy-washy than that.

00:07:52.440 And part of our life's calling is to figure out what the calling is.

00:07:56.200 Yeah.

00:07:56.760 Although I would argue that we all struggle with this.

00:07:59.660 So Joseph Campbell's conceit of the hero's journey, right?

00:08:03.440 That we all go, this is the myth, the monomyth of history, the hero called to greatness.

00:08:07.980 But the second step in the hero's journey, this is a part in all the hero's calls, is

00:08:14.940 the refusal of the call.

00:08:16.700 So we get it and then we have our reasons why we can't do it, why we shouldn't do it.

00:08:21.480 Or why, as you said, we're not sure if this is the call.

00:08:25.060 And what about all these other things that I'm interested in, right?

00:08:28.000 And so we all struggle with whether we're going to accept the call or not.

00:08:32.040 In the book, I tell the story of Florence Nightingale, which was really inspiring to read

00:08:36.200 during the pandemic, but she gets this call.

00:08:38.620 It's this voice.

00:08:39.680 And she never explains, you know, sort of one way or another, whether it's the voice of

00:08:44.320 God, whether it's her conscience, whether it's an ancestor.

00:08:47.240 But she gets this voice that calls her to do something, to be of service.

00:08:52.420 But she doesn't know what that service is.

00:08:55.020 She doesn't know what it will look like.

00:08:56.520 She doesn't know if it means right now or later.

00:08:59.160 She doesn't know if it means wait around for further instructions.

00:09:02.840 And so that's kind of what she does.

00:09:04.220 It takes her eight years of just kind of thinking and delaying and, you know, living

00:09:08.340 her sort of privileged Victorian life to understand that that was a call to nursing.

00:09:14.460 But the problem is her parents are very much opposed to this, right?

00:09:18.080 A woman was not supposed to work then.

00:09:20.780 And of all of the fields, like nursing was like almost below prostitution as far as like

00:09:26.140 the British upper class were concerned.

00:09:28.080 So the idea that their daughter would do this was not just scary to her parents, but appalling.

00:09:33.760 And so this holds her back for 16 years.

00:09:37.440 She struggles with, is this what I'm supposed to do?

00:09:40.420 Well, my parents don't like it.

00:09:42.140 You know, I'm going to have to give up my inheritance.

00:09:44.200 And she's struggling and struggling and struggling with this.

00:09:47.000 And then ultimately, she hears the voice again.

00:09:49.500 And the voice says, are you going to let what other people think hold you back from my service?

00:09:55.880 And this is like the sort of final push that she needs.

00:09:58.760 And so I tell these stories because I think it's important that we realize that not everyone

00:10:03.560 is born knowing and even great people struggle at least for a time with whether they're going

00:10:09.820 to answer the call or not.

00:10:11.940 I was just talking to my kids about this as I dropped them off to school yesterday saying

00:10:15.440 they were talking about grades.

00:10:16.840 And I actually haven't even talked to Doug, my husband, about this, but I am not a big

00:10:22.680 you have to get straight A's kind of person at all.

00:10:25.380 You know, I didn't.

00:10:26.300 And I went to Syracuse and it worked out fine.

00:10:27.980 And I got a lot of people who went to Harvard who worked for me in the past.

00:10:31.100 So it's like it doesn't necessarily work out the way people think it will, just getting

00:10:34.840 perfect grades and getting into the perfect school and all that stuff.

00:10:37.060 But I was saying to them, your main goal between now and graduating from high school and then

00:10:41.580 college, if you choose to go, is to try as many different things as possible so you can

00:10:45.640 see what resonates with you.

00:10:47.160 Like what you got.

00:10:48.240 How do you know yourself?

00:10:49.120 How do you know what might be your calling unless you cast as wide a net as possible and

00:10:52.540 see what what you gravitate towards?

00:10:54.200 What fires you up?

00:10:55.000 What makes you excited?

00:10:56.120 And then on the on the opposite side, what what that voice in the back of your head is telling

00:11:02.160 you this one's not for me.

00:11:03.700 You know, like the voice is there.

00:11:06.080 I do think if we're quiet enough and still enough and try enough things, the voice is

00:11:09.900 there.

00:11:10.220 It could be God.

00:11:10.880 It could be conscience.

00:11:11.600 It could be the universe.

00:11:12.440 But it's there.

00:11:14.240 Yeah, as I say in the book, courage is calling, but the voice but the call is coming from inside

00:11:19.640 the house.

00:11:20.300 And so it requires some level of self-reflection and stillness, as you said.

00:11:25.580 It can be easy when you're really busy or as a lot as what happens to a lot of successful

00:11:30.580 people, you're distracted by what all your peers are doing.

00:11:34.040 Oh, this person just got this job.

00:11:36.040 Oh, this person just got accepted to this school.

00:11:38.280 When you don't really know what you want or what you are meant to do, it's really easy

00:11:43.420 to just default into following what everyone else is doing.

00:11:47.980 And then you can wake up, you know, 10 years later and you're like, I hate being a lawyer.

00:11:51.920 Why did why did I do this?

00:11:53.720 And so I think that's one of the problems with the system that we do have with young

00:11:58.700 people.

00:11:59.080 And I felt this as a college college dropout.

00:12:02.080 We put so much pressure on them and we expect them to figure it out so early.

00:12:06.900 We don't really give them the space to experiment and try and and question.

00:12:12.280 And then they're $200,000 in debt and they they can't change paths, even if they are meant

00:12:18.640 to do something else.

00:12:19.680 Exactly right.

00:12:20.240 You talk about how we have to study fear.

00:12:24.860 We need to understand and explain it because you can't defeat any enemy you do not understand.

00:12:31.700 To me, this resonated because I've always followed the Dr. Phil pithy short form of this, which

00:12:37.640 is answer the what if question.

00:12:39.920 But right.

00:12:40.220 Like that's that's why we don't take the big risk.

00:12:42.080 It could be something as simple as fear of flying or it could be, do I quit this job and

00:12:46.400 go to another or do I leave this marriage and go to another?

00:12:48.240 It's like, what if so what if I do what what if I leave this job and the new job is a disaster?

00:12:54.860 And if you walk through that process, your point is the fear dissipates.

00:13:00.160 Yeah, the fear is often much vaguer and weirdly more severe because we have not actually explored

00:13:08.680 it.

00:13:09.400 Ulysses S. Grant tells this great story early on in his military career.

00:13:13.560 He's on the plains of Texas and he hears all these wolves and he thinks there's hundreds

00:13:17.800 of them and they're about to devour him, the whole party.

00:13:20.820 Then they finally come upon the wolves and they realize there's only two of them.

00:13:24.160 And he said, I never forgot from that moment forward.

00:13:26.700 There are always fewer of them when they are counted, meaning that the fears when you really

00:13:32.720 get up close, you dig into them, you hold them up to the light and look at them.

00:13:37.880 They're usually less scary than you think.

00:13:39.900 When I went to drop out of college, you know, I thought it was this irrevocable, life changing

00:13:44.500 decision and that if I failed, I'd end up under a bridge somewhere.

00:13:47.640 And I remember going in to drop out and I was like, is there a form to drop out of college?

00:13:52.740 And they were like, no, that's not a thing.

00:13:54.900 They were like, you just take a semester off and then if you want to come back, you can

00:13:58.900 come back any time in the next 10 years.

00:14:01.460 So I thought I was jumping off this cliff and really there was like this nice staircase

00:14:06.260 right next to it, you know?

00:14:07.520 And so that's why we have to explore these things, get up in close and personal with them.

00:14:13.120 Um, because, you know, when they're, when they're just sort of hovering above us, they're very,

00:14:18.200 very intimidating and they're, that's often exaggerating what they really are.

00:14:23.420 This is, uh, this is from the book Courage is Calling with Ryan Holiday.

00:14:27.300 Tell yourself it's just money.

00:14:29.100 It's just a bad article.

00:14:30.400 It's just a meeting with people yelling at one another.

00:14:32.640 Is that something you need to be afraid of?

00:14:35.020 Break it down.

00:14:35.740 Really look at the facts, investigate.

00:14:38.400 And what I was thinking when I read that, Ryan, is that it's so right.

00:14:42.420 You could either come to the conclusion that it's actually not that bad, or you could come

00:14:46.060 to the conclusion that, no, that is really bad and I want to avoid it.

00:14:50.060 Um, I would say my own past I've opted for, well, that wouldn't be that bad.

00:14:55.020 And then I've taken leaps in which there were even more wolves than I thought there would

00:14:58.960 be.

00:14:59.680 And my feeling was, you know what?

00:15:02.320 The other point to this is realization of the terrible thing is actually not necessarily

00:15:09.100 bad.

00:15:10.160 Once the thing happens that you're afraid of, and it is bad when it comes, it's genuinely

00:15:16.680 bad.

00:15:17.680 If you can get back up, then you say, you know what?

00:15:20.840 I'm, I'm okay.

00:15:21.920 And I'm, the fear's gone.

00:15:23.720 After that, the fear's gone.

00:15:25.020 Yeah.

00:15:25.220 Seneca talks about how a person who has never been through adversity is like a fighter that's

00:15:31.520 never been knocked down.

00:15:32.800 They don't really know what they're capable of.

00:15:34.920 You have to be bruised and bloodied and knocked around a bit to be able to actually walk into

00:15:40.360 the ring with confidence.

00:15:41.560 Now you can walk into the ring with ego thinking I'm capable of anything because you're either

00:15:46.260 delusional or you've never experienced anything before.

00:15:48.840 But actually that experience helps instill real confidence because you know that, Hey, I've

00:15:54.620 been through the worst case.

00:15:55.560 It's like a comedian after you've bombed on stage, it is, it's unpleasant, right?

00:16:00.460 And I give lots of talks.

00:16:01.940 They've gone very poorly.

00:16:03.200 I once gave a talk at Yale and it was, we were all sitting around on these couches and

00:16:09.200 a student literally fell asleep on me.

00:16:11.760 They fell asleep and then fell over and laid on my shoulder as I finished the rest of the

00:16:16.840 talk, which was horrible, but also quite freeing because it will almost certainly never

00:16:21.660 get worse than that.

00:16:23.120 And once you've been through the worst case scenario, you have a certain confidence or

00:16:27.960 security in, in, in your ability to move forward.

00:16:32.760 I also think a sense of humor helps.

00:16:35.260 I was just talking to Bridget, Bridget Phetasy on her podcast the other day.

00:16:38.300 Um, uh, walk-ins welcome.

00:16:40.020 And I was saying, you know, the ability to laugh at yourself will get you through most things.

00:16:44.000 And I can relate to this.

00:16:45.420 I co-hosted an event years ago.

00:16:47.260 It's like broadcasting and cable.

00:16:48.520 I co-hosted it with Bob Costas and, um, I had a couple of jokes planned, not one landed.

00:16:53.820 There was absolutely zero laughter in the room.

00:16:55.560 I was completely bombing.

00:16:57.080 I'm like, why am I trying to be funny?

00:16:58.760 This is like, I just like my, my awkward, you know, discomfort.

00:17:02.640 And, uh, I saw my agent at the time when it was done, who was in the room.

00:17:05.340 And I'm like, so, you know, it doesn't seem like it went that well.

00:17:08.440 I don't, I'm not sure.

00:17:09.080 And she, she goes onward.

00:17:14.480 Okay.

00:17:14.800 But it's good if you can laugh your way through it.

00:17:16.620 But I do, I just want to make a point for people out there who are worried about risk

00:17:19.900 taking because of fear.

00:17:21.580 The worst case scenario is actually, it's not that awful for it to happen.

00:17:27.080 It really isn't like it's somehow the dust comes off of you and you're like, you know

00:17:30.580 what?

00:17:30.880 I'm okay.

00:17:32.380 Um, but you talk about how fear is a liability and it holds you back.

00:17:36.600 And this is one of the things I want to talk to you about because sometimes of course,

00:17:39.240 fear saves you, right?

00:17:40.340 Sometimes fear stops you from going off the cliff or touching the hot stove and so on.

00:17:44.340 And so how, like not knowing whether this is a danger that I really need to avoid like

00:17:50.920 the cliff, or this is a danger that I'm just blowing up in my head.

00:17:55.280 That's going to hold me back from reaching my full potential.

00:17:57.640 Figuring out which is which is not always that easy.

00:18:00.260 It's not.

00:18:01.000 It's a, it's a timeless question.

00:18:02.420 Actually 2,000 years ago, Aristotle says that the opposite of courage is not just cowardice,

00:18:09.140 that actually cowardice and courage and recklessness sit on a spectrum.

00:18:15.880 So on the one end is cowardice that holds us back, but also rushing foolheartedly over

00:18:21.660 the side of a cliff or into a conflict that doesn't need to happen, um, is also a problem

00:18:28.240 and is, is, is, is not what we're talking about when we're talking about courage.

00:18:31.980 So he says courage is the midpoint between these two extremes.

00:18:35.720 And I, that's, that's been very helpful for me to see.

00:18:38.320 So, you know, bold is not the same as rash, which is not the same as stupid, which is also

00:18:43.460 not the same as being a coward.

00:18:45.000 So knowing what risks to take, uh, when, when to go all in, when to, when to fold them,

00:18:51.100 this is really, really important.

00:18:52.560 And, uh, you know, it can, if you're someone who doesn't experience fear that might feel

00:18:58.440 like an advantage, um, but it's also an immense liability.

00:19:01.780 You're the person who everyone's going to be saying, no, no, no, no, you're about to crash

00:19:05.540 into a cliff or a crash off a cliff and you're not going to listen.

00:19:08.360 Right.

00:19:09.100 If you, if you always dismiss criticism or, uh, or, or feedback as coming from the haters,

00:19:15.760 if you say, I don't care about the odds, you know, I'm, I'm invincible, you know, eventually

00:19:20.700 your luck will run out.

00:19:22.560 And, and part of the battle is figuring out, okay, so where am I when I'm, when I'm assessing

00:19:26.780 this risk and this opportunity to be courageous, another way of putting it, um, where am I?

00:19:33.100 Is this, am I thinking about being, is this reckless if I do this or is this a calculated

00:19:37.420 risk that's smart?

00:19:38.380 That's going to sort of, you know, potentially improve my life.

00:19:40.940 I think you get to this in the book.

00:19:42.640 I want to get to it later, but how do you, how do you find out where you are on that spectrum?

00:19:46.440 Keep taking more risks.

00:19:47.920 Courage that you point out in the book is it comes from practice.

00:19:50.680 You have to take risks every day.

00:19:53.860 That's where we're going to pick it up on the opposite side of this break.

00:19:55.940 Uh, stand by because my guest today is New York times bestselling author, Ryan Holiday.

00:20:00.960 Um, and there's so much more to go over.

00:20:02.780 You're going to love this show.

00:20:03.540 It's going to make you be a better person.

00:20:04.760 Genuinely.

00:20:05.080 Welcome back to the Megan Kelly show here today with author Ryan Holiday, the author of the New York

00:20:16.600 Times bestseller, courage is calling fortune favors the brave.

00:20:21.260 This is in the context of something called stoicism, which is, I think just a philosophy.

00:20:26.200 It's a way of getting you through life, which has lots of challenges and difficulties.

00:20:29.900 And, uh, it sort of gives you some tools to handle it tools that don't leave you crying

00:20:35.400 in the corner in your soup, which is sort of where the society is going, but you don't

00:20:40.340 need to be one of them.

00:20:41.820 Um, you write that at the root of most fear is what other people think of us, that it's

00:20:48.440 paralyzing.

00:20:49.620 Gosh, I never thought of it like that.

00:20:51.460 People really are terrified of what other people think of them.

00:20:55.600 Can I tell you this, Ryan?

00:20:56.460 I talked to a school, I talked to Stanford business school students every year and, uh,

00:21:01.500 there's a course there by a pal of mine called, um, reputation management.

00:21:05.040 And I always laugh because what I always say to her students is this is a bullshit class

00:21:09.140 and this is a bullshit concept.

00:21:11.080 Reputation is a mirage.

00:21:13.260 It's not real.

00:21:14.500 It doesn't matter what other people say about you.

00:21:16.720 What matters is what you do, how you live your life.

00:21:18.840 You know, are you okay with your own choices?

00:21:20.420 And, um, you know, her whole semester comes crumbling down with my big, my big lecture

00:21:25.740 at the end.

00:21:26.880 Um, but it's hard for most people to internalize that most people are very afraid of what other

00:21:32.160 people are going to say or think about them.

00:21:34.260 Yeah.

00:21:34.980 Marcus Aurelius, the most powerful man in the world in his time, he writes in his journal.

00:21:39.240 So we know that he's struggling with it himself.

00:21:41.200 He says, we love ourselves more than other people, but we value their opinions more than

00:21:48.020 our own, which is such a great way to put it, right?

00:21:51.700 We, we, we put ourselves first, but we, we work on something and then we go, well, what

00:21:56.440 do you think of it?

00:21:57.240 And if someone says that it's great or it's terrible, suddenly that impacts what we think

00:22:01.920 about the thing that we're the expert about.

00:22:04.260 And so a part of stoicism, but I think just part of success generally is, is not just building

00:22:10.000 a thick skin, but developing kind of an internal metric that allows you to value what you do

00:22:15.660 and what you, uh, what's important to you independently of what other people say.

00:22:19.920 And this is so important because we see, you know, genius work that is, uh, criticized in

00:22:25.280 its own time, appreciated later.

00:22:27.060 We see scientific innovation that, you know, takes years to be adopted.

00:22:31.480 We see people who we now, uh, regret how we treated them, uh, you know, in, in the moment.

00:22:37.000 So it's really important that you cultivate an internal metric that you measure yourself by

00:22:41.440 because the, the mob or the crowd is wrong all the time.

00:22:45.080 And if you can't do that, if you can't remind yourself that what you think is what's most

00:22:52.080 important to the choices you're going to make in your life, then try to get away from those

00:22:55.780 other voices.

00:22:56.360 Don't go online.

00:22:57.200 Don't look for likes.

00:22:58.160 Don't, don't partake in social media, be smart and strategic or just strategizing how you're

00:23:04.520 going to set up your own life for success.

00:23:06.540 You write the following.

00:23:07.760 So true.

00:23:08.740 There was never a groundbreaking business that wasn't loudly predicted to fail.

00:23:12.520 By the way, yesterday was the 25th anniversary of Fox news's foundation.

00:23:15.940 And when I worked there for 13, 14 years, Roger rails had signs all over the, all over

00:23:20.780 the building, uh, of the predictions that he was going to fall on his face, that Fox news

00:23:24.840 would never be able to compete with MSNBC PS.

00:23:27.420 They have three times their ratings and have for most of their history, so on and so forth.

00:23:30.840 Right?

00:23:31.340 So there was, there was never a groundbreaking business that wasn't loudly predicted to fail.

00:23:34.840 And there has never, ever been a time when the average opinion of faceless, unaccountable

00:23:40.040 strangers should be valued above our own considered judgment, man.

00:23:45.740 That's true.

00:23:46.320 It's like you, you meet some of these people, you know, who are coming after you online and

00:23:49.780 you're like, Oh my God, what was I listening to them for?

00:23:53.480 Yeah.

00:23:53.920 And, and, uh, the, the great rule I love, uh, in writing, um, is that when somebody tells

00:23:59.740 you something's wrong with what you're writing, uh, they're almost always right.

00:24:04.360 Um, this is the tricky part, but when they tell you how to fix it, they're almost always

00:24:08.300 wrong.

00:24:08.820 So the idea is like, uh, the, the opinions of the crowd or the mob can generally be alerting

00:24:15.500 you to something that you need to think about, that you need to, to double check.

00:24:19.160 You need to make sure that you're communicating effectively, but then you don't actually listen

00:24:23.820 to them about, uh, their opinion.

00:24:26.900 So, so if let's say you have some message and you're morally, uh, and, and, and in terms

00:24:31.420 of justice, completely correct, but then everyone has a negative reaction to it.

00:24:36.260 It's not that you reconsider those principles per se, but you go, well, clearly I see something

00:24:43.120 that you don't see, and I'm going to evaluate how I'm going to communicate this more effectively

00:24:47.700 because obviously the point isn't to stand alone and be correct in isolation.

00:24:53.160 The point is to bring other people to it.

00:24:55.500 It's like, if you have some genius work of art, but nobody appreciates it, um, because

00:25:00.220 you don't know how to market it.

00:25:02.000 How genius is the work actually?

00:25:04.900 It's, it's tricky in today's day and age, however, because we've become so tribal and

00:25:08.820 politicized that so much of the criticism is not in good faith and they're not really trying

00:25:13.740 to persuade.

00:25:14.300 Right.

00:25:14.440 So it's like, you got to sort of figure out whether this is a politics issue, um, or a

00:25:18.820 genuine search to change people's minds and communicate effectively and bring people over

00:25:23.280 to your side of the table, like in a business setting.

00:25:25.760 Well, and it's filtered through the economics and the constraints of social media.

00:25:29.600 So it's like you work for two years on a book and then somebody sums it up in a 240 character

00:25:35.400 tweet.

00:25:35.980 You know, there's a, there's an asymmetry there.

00:25:37.900 So, uh, we're, we're lacking the nuance or the consideration.

00:25:41.340 If you actually sat down and had a conversation with this person, you might find that you agree

00:25:45.860 about more than you disagree.

00:25:47.060 Uh, but in the confines of an internet comment or, you know, a YouTube video, you're not quite

00:25:53.180 getting the same consideration or conscientiousness or good faith.

00:25:57.280 As you said, that, that, that one would normally be entitled to.

00:26:00.860 You write, we shouldn't worry about whether things will be hard.

00:26:04.120 They will be instead focus on the fact that these things will help you.

00:26:10.280 Thus, you do not need to fear them.

00:26:12.340 Our bruises and scars become armor.

00:26:15.540 Our struggles become experience.

00:26:17.520 They make us better.

00:26:18.920 They prepared us for this moment, just as this moment will prepare us for the one that lies

00:26:24.360 ahead.

00:26:25.800 Boom.

00:26:26.880 Honestly, that's my life philosophy.

00:26:28.540 I call it building your superhero muscles.

00:26:30.080 Every time life throws something really challenging at you, you should say, thank you.

00:26:34.660 The Stoics have this concept of, uh, amor fati, which means a, a, a love of fate.

00:26:41.040 Um, and Marcus really uses the image of fire.

00:26:44.580 He says, everything that you throw on top of a fire is fuel for the fire.

00:26:49.180 He says, it turns everything into flame and brightness, which is to me is a beautiful,

00:26:54.400 inspiring way to think about it.

00:26:55.860 This is fuel.

00:26:56.840 I'm going to absorb this.

00:26:58.140 I'm going to consume it and I'm going to turn it into heat.

00:27:00.980 Right.

00:27:01.420 But I would say that the caveat, uh, to that is that if the fire is weak, if it's just like

00:27:07.280 a puny, uh, spark, uh, or, uh, you know, a dying ember, you know, you throw something

00:27:13.060 on top of it, it puts it out.

00:27:14.380 So if you have that energy, that drive, that passion, that commitment, then all the obstacles

00:27:20.140 can be used as fuel.

00:27:21.920 If you're half hearted about it, if you're weak willed about it, then, then the, then

00:27:26.280 the scars and the, and the bruises and the, and, and everything, they don't become armored.

00:27:30.640 They become sort of a mortal blow.

00:27:32.780 So, so, so it's about also what you bring to it that allows you to use it and turn it

00:27:38.400 into something.

00:27:39.320 Well, this is why you need to, and I know you have two young kids now yourself, and I've

00:27:43.620 got three kids.

00:27:44.400 This is why you need to let them take some licks out in the schoolyard and otherwise,

00:27:48.080 so they can start practicing, you know, building up that armor and getting those bruises and

00:27:52.880 scars that become their armor.

00:27:55.020 But be it, be there, be at the ready to step in if you need to, because the wounds shouldn't

00:28:00.400 cut too deep.

00:28:01.260 They're not yet ready to handle that.

00:28:03.860 Yeah.

00:28:04.040 They, they call that a snowplow parenting, the parent that clears all obstacles and impediments

00:28:10.220 out of the way of their children.

00:28:12.040 And I think this is what leads directly into, you know, the college admissions scandal.

00:28:16.160 These were parents who had up until this point removed every obstacle or difficulty from

00:28:22.220 their children's path.

00:28:23.440 And then when it turned out that getting into a good school was harder than expected, they

00:28:28.360 had to pull all sorts of strings, unethical strings, one last time to, to, to solve a problem

00:28:35.060 for them because they hadn't cultivated children.

00:28:37.720 They hadn't raised children who were capable of solving their own problems.

00:28:43.200 Meanwhile, the damage had already been done, right?

00:28:45.340 It's like you can't getting them into a good school, however you're going to do it, you know,

00:28:49.000 ethically, non-ethically, that's not going to solve the problems you created in that

00:28:51.780 kid in those first 18 years.

00:28:53.340 Those kids and all those people who got in, who weren't outed by the scandal, they're going

00:28:57.300 to be facing the same problems at the end of those four years as they ever did.

00:29:00.340 And by the way, I've seen this firsthand myself where on Wall Street, for example, you can

00:29:04.760 get a job pretty easily if you know somebody, if you play lacrosse with the guy, whatever.

00:29:10.460 And so it's actually not that hard to get a very well-paying job on Wall Street.

00:29:13.540 It is hard to keep a job.

00:29:15.320 It is hard, like over time, if they find out you can't do it, you get pushed out pretty

00:29:20.840 quickly.

00:29:21.260 So the parent, they're not always going to be able to save you from that.

00:29:23.580 They got to give you the tools.

00:29:25.560 I love this.

00:29:26.500 Let's talk about worry and distraction because one of the things that I think makes me a

00:29:34.560 stoic, I'm a secret stoic, I guess.

00:29:37.060 I don't know, a subtle stoic, is I don't really have any borrowed worry in my life.

00:29:42.500 I just don't worry about tomorrow's problems until they're smacking me in the face.

00:29:46.600 My sister got very ill recently.

00:29:48.920 My mom was in a panic.

00:29:50.560 She's got to die.

00:29:51.420 She's got this.

00:29:52.080 And I'm like, mom, we're not there yet.

00:29:54.140 Stop those tears.

00:29:55.300 We're not there yet.

00:29:55.960 She's in the hospital.

00:29:56.680 They're going to take a look at her.

00:29:57.760 We might get to the point where we get some terrible diagnosis and then I'm going to be

00:30:00.640 right next to you crying tears.

00:30:02.520 But we're not there yet.

00:30:03.700 We've got to manage our emotions.

00:30:06.760 Thank God she's okay.

00:30:08.400 Well, I'm jealous.

00:30:09.640 That's not naturally how I am.

00:30:11.420 And so I think part of the reason I write about stoicism is that I need the constant

00:30:15.980 reminders.

00:30:17.640 Like I found during the pandemic, I thought like, you know, like let's say I'm late for

00:30:21.860 a flight.

00:30:22.660 I'm anxious.

00:30:23.600 I'm anxious about a lot of things.

00:30:26.040 Right.

00:30:26.360 But I was always under the impression that I was anxious about these specific things that

00:30:31.480 were part of what I did, that were part of the modern world.

00:30:34.260 And I think one of the interesting things about the pandemic in 2020, when everything shuts

00:30:38.680 down and suddenly you're just at home, not able to do anything, I have all the anxiety

00:30:43.520 still.

00:30:44.600 And I realized, oh, I'm the common variable in all of these situations.

00:30:49.000 I'm the one bringing the variable, which is an interesting concept.

00:30:52.540 Mark's realist in medications, again, says, I escaped from my anxiety today.

00:30:57.580 And then he says, actually, wait, no, I discarded it because it was within me.

00:31:03.060 Right.

00:31:03.540 The situations are objective.

00:31:05.500 We bring the anxiety, the worry, the fear to them.

00:31:09.700 And when we realize that, it gives us a choice.

00:31:12.360 We go, ah, I don't have to worry about being three minutes late.

00:31:16.160 This is something I am choosing to do.

00:31:18.360 I can still be concerned about it.

00:31:20.140 I can still be important to me, but I don't have to make myself suffer because I'm worried

00:31:24.700 about X, Y, or Z.

00:31:26.480 And I really think that there are two ways out of it.

00:31:28.740 So if you're somebody like you, you don't want to be worrying.

00:31:32.320 So like my saying to my mom, mom, stop the crying.

00:31:35.120 We don't yet know if we have reason for it.

00:31:37.360 You know, that's not that effective because my mom's like, but I'm upset.

00:31:40.520 I can't get the worry out of my head.

00:31:42.160 I really think there are two things you can do.

00:31:46.420 But basically it boils down to get busier, right?

00:31:49.620 Like distract yourself.

00:31:50.680 I like cognitive behavioral therapy where like you just, you just insist on taking your

00:31:55.780 mind to something else.

00:31:56.560 I used to use my puppy's face.

00:31:58.400 Seriously, it could be something as simple as that.

00:32:01.700 But secondly, stay as busy as humanly possible.

00:32:04.560 The more time you have on your hands, the more likely you are to immerse yourself in borrowed

00:32:09.620 worry.

00:32:10.940 I think that's right.

00:32:11.800 And look, cognitive behavioral therapy has its roots in stoicism.

00:32:15.540 Uh, the, the, the founders of CBT were, were, were students of Marcus Aurelius and Seneca

00:32:20.800 and they sort of quote, quote Epictetus.

00:32:23.280 The Epictetus says, look, there's things that are in our control and things that are outside

00:32:27.140 of our control.

00:32:27.840 And what are we going to spend our resources on?

00:32:29.900 So that's the other key part of worry that I remind myself.

00:32:33.060 I say, this is a resource allocation issue, right?

00:32:36.360 By choosing to focus on this thing that's outside of my control.

00:32:40.000 I am also by extension, choosing not to focus on this thing, which is in my control and may

00:32:46.360 in fact be bringing about the very thing that I am worried about.

00:32:50.220 It may be a better problem to spend time with something you might actually enjoy.

00:32:53.480 I like this guy, Epictetus.

00:32:54.680 I confess I had no idea who this was prior to preparing for this segment, a Greek stoic

00:32:59.020 philosopher.

00:32:59.940 And this is the quote I saw about him online.

00:33:02.780 We suffer, or this is from him.

00:33:04.540 We suffer not from events in our lives, but from our judgments about them.

00:33:08.420 Um, yes, the way I've always said, this is your only problem is your belief that you

00:33:12.380 have a problem.

00:33:13.680 Mm hmm.

00:33:14.340 Yes.

00:33:14.700 There was a quip about Lyndon Johnson.

00:33:16.940 Uh, you know, he, he compared to, to the sort of the best and the brightest was the least

00:33:21.260 educated in the room most of the time.

00:33:23.420 And one of, uh, Kennedy's advisors said, um, it, uh, he, he said that it wasn't Lyndon,

00:33:29.220 that Lyndon Johnson didn't, uh, go to an Ivy league college.

00:33:32.240 The problem was that he thought there was a problem that he hadn't gone to an Ivy league

00:33:36.180 college.

00:33:36.520 His lack of education never caused him a problem, but his sense that he was lacking in education

00:33:41.620 caused him constant problems.

00:33:43.820 And so, yes, it's not things that upset us.

00:33:46.700 It's our opinion about those things.

00:33:48.620 It's the story we tell ourselves about those things.

00:33:52.100 Uh, that that's really the source so often of our anxiety.

00:33:55.640 And this goes back to fear.

00:33:56.980 Why are you worried?

00:33:57.880 Right.

00:33:58.460 I'm going to miss this flight.

00:33:59.860 Okay.

00:34:00.220 And then what?

00:34:01.240 Well, then I'll have to get a different flight.

00:34:03.300 Um, and what will be so bad about that?

00:34:05.420 You know, you, you work through it and you realize it's actually not such a big deal.

00:34:09.520 It's just your, you know, your, your, your mind, uh, running around in circles about this.

00:34:14.140 That's right.

00:34:14.520 And I think about it like, well, who knows why I, why I am going to miss this flight?

00:34:18.460 You know, maybe there's somebody on the next flight I'm going to meet.

00:34:20.680 Who's really special.

00:34:21.520 Maybe my body was just too tired to get myself out of bed this morning.

00:34:24.340 And I needed that extra 15 minutes and it overruled my mind, you know, in looking at

00:34:28.840 the alarm clock.

00:34:29.680 You just, you never know.

00:34:31.340 I mean, I'm sort of more of a surrenderer to situations like that rather than a, an obsessor

00:34:36.840 to them.

00:34:37.580 But I, I want to read this cause I, I thought this is, I'm actually going to print this

00:34:41.220 out and put it on my wall.

00:34:42.200 I love this, Ryan.

00:34:42.940 You, you quote the poet Wilfred Owen, um, from the trenches of France in 1918.

00:34:48.900 This is on the subject of staying busy and it will help you with your worry quote happier.

00:34:55.280 Those who lose imagination.

00:34:58.140 They have enough to carry with ammunition.

00:35:00.640 It's when we imagine everything, when we catastrophize endlessly that we are miserable and most afraid

00:35:07.160 when we focus on what we have to carry and do, we are too busy to worry too busy working.

00:35:15.560 Yes, exactly.

00:35:16.660 Fill your life up nine times out of 10.

00:35:18.740 The people who are obsessing over the meaningless stuff and tearing you down and making nasty

00:35:24.020 comments on Twitter or in your life or what have you, they don't have enough going on.

00:35:29.140 They need to get busier with more important things.

00:35:32.120 Yeah.

00:35:32.600 You know, Cesar Milan, the dog trainer, he's like all dog problems are just solved by taking

00:35:37.120 your dog for a walk.

00:35:38.160 Like just take the dog outside and work it out and it'll be tired and then it'll stop doing

00:35:42.820 whatever, you know, you think the problem is.

00:35:44.780 And I, I, I've certainly found that with, with children.

00:35:47.360 Uh, there's almost no problem.

00:35:49.000 That's not solved by, uh, going for a walk or strapping them into a, uh, stroller.

00:35:53.640 You know, if you can't do that, at least going for a drive, they'll fall asleep or something.

00:35:57.560 Um, you know, getting outside, getting to work on something is just a wonderful way to calm

00:36:04.580 the mind down, to occupy it.

00:36:07.040 So it stops turning on itself, which I think is what's often happening in these moments

00:36:12.400 of anxiety or worry or fear.

00:36:14.300 You know, um, several years ago, Gavin DeBecker, who's a security expert wrote a book called

00:36:20.420 The Gift of Fear, which everyone should read a hundred percent.

00:36:22.980 You should read it.

00:36:23.440 It'll, it'll change.

00:36:24.060 I have it right up there.

00:36:25.660 It's a great book.

00:36:26.080 Oh, it's so good.

00:36:26.980 Um, and it's, it's really about how you've got this sixth sense women in particular, but

00:36:31.380 everybody has got this sixth sense that we too often ignore, uh, when we actually are

00:36:35.680 in danger.

00:36:36.160 Um, but I think you make a different point in your book, which is equally valuable, which

00:36:42.600 is fear is a sign.

00:36:44.660 It's a sign of opportunity.

00:36:47.060 Like good things are on the opposite side of fear in many circumstances.

00:36:52.240 And that's where we're going to pick it up.

00:36:58.560 Okay.

00:36:59.100 Lots to get to fear as a helpful indicator.

00:37:03.380 The fear you feel is a sign.

00:37:06.840 If courage is never required in your life, you are living a boring life.

00:37:13.240 Love it.

00:37:14.180 Explain.

00:37:15.080 There's a story about Theodore Roosevelt when he's, uh, thinking about inviting Booker T.

00:37:19.660 Washington to dine with him at the white house.

00:37:21.540 This would be the first time that a black man had been invited to dine with a sitting

00:37:25.220 us president.

00:37:26.660 And, you know, there's a moment where he hesitates.

00:37:29.440 He thinks of the political consideration.

00:37:31.580 He thinks what his Southern relatives will think.

00:37:33.680 He thinks of just the, the, the hassle of the negative press.

00:37:37.980 Um, but then he writes to a friend later, it was precisely because I hesitated that I

00:37:43.360 felt ashamed and knew that I needed to do it, that it needed to happen.

00:37:47.640 And look, it's not a perfect rule, but I often find that the things we are afraid to say or

00:37:53.040 write about or do for political or professional reasons, because we think they're going to cost

00:37:58.740 this, these are precisely the things that we need to do.

00:38:02.260 Um, this is precisely the fear we need to get over because I think a good way to think

00:38:06.780 about it is what would the world look like if nobody ever did those things, right?

00:38:10.920 Almost all progress, all breakthroughs, all moments of, of heroism and change come from

00:38:16.820 people who pushed past those reservations, uh, pushed past that instinct for self-preservation

00:38:22.420 and did what was right, uh, despite, uh, uh, the considerations.

00:38:28.380 It's, it's the same thing to me as envy.

00:38:31.220 It's, it's not necessarily a fun emotion to feel fear, but like envy, it's a tell about

00:38:37.800 something you feel is lacking in your life or something you, you want to change in your

00:38:42.480 life.

00:38:42.740 So it is sort of a gift.

00:38:43.800 It is a window.

00:38:44.920 You write, our fear points us like a self-indicating arrow in the direction of the right thing to

00:38:50.020 do.

00:38:50.500 One part of us knows what we ought to do, but the other part reminds us of the inevitable

00:38:54.420 consequences.

00:38:55.740 Fear alerts us to danger, but also to opportunity reminds me of the fact that in Chinese, apparently

00:39:02.000 the same symbol is used for both crisis and opportunity.

00:39:05.620 And man, that has certainly been true in my own life.

00:39:08.980 So you, it's just a reframing of something that's previously been like a dark cloud.

00:39:14.580 I think most people see fear as a dark cloud.

00:39:16.280 Yeah.

00:39:17.440 And, and almost all the things that we love about our lives that we're proud of are on

00:39:23.400 the other side of something initially that we were afraid of.

00:39:26.640 Right.

00:39:27.120 And, and so remembering that, Hey, I was scared to do this the first time, or I was scared

00:39:31.440 to do this analogous thing.

00:39:33.560 And I'm so glad that I didn't listen to that fear.

00:39:36.520 Well, how am I going to think about this in the future?

00:39:38.680 And then going back, when I look at my own lives, when I look at places that I've fallen

00:39:43.500 short things that I'm ashamed of things that I wish that I didn't done differently, my

00:39:47.560 excuse at the time, I was afraid about X, I was worried X, Y, or Z that has not aged

00:39:55.320 well.

00:39:55.860 Right.

00:39:56.460 That, that, that doesn't hold up.

00:39:58.380 The reasons felt good at the time.

00:40:00.340 They felt significant or sincere or exculpatory.

00:40:04.740 Um, but now, you know, five years later or 10 years later, you're like, no, that doesn't

00:40:10.880 hold up at all.

00:40:12.120 The things, meaning the things you regret are the risks, not taken, not risks you took that

00:40:19.100 didn't work out.

00:40:20.760 Almost invariably.

00:40:21.900 Yeah.

00:40:22.060 You can excuse failure, right?

00:40:24.420 You can say, well, I tried, um, I did my best.

00:40:27.840 It didn't work out for the following reasons.

00:40:29.240 I wish it had gone differently, but you, for the most part, don't blame yourself, uh, the

00:40:35.620 same way that you do for say, sitting on the sidelines about something.

00:40:40.640 And then, you know, you're better for having taken the risk.

00:40:43.100 You just know that you're a stronger person.

00:40:46.340 Um, and I also feel like there's just sort of a, the laws of natural consequences get us

00:40:52.080 to where we need to be.

00:40:53.300 So you, you take the risk, you fall flat on your face, you suffer humiliation.

00:40:58.100 The people who you were worried about say that terrible things.

00:41:02.020 And then there's just like a cleansing.

00:41:03.600 There's a, like a, like a skin changing, you know, like you shed a skin you, you weren't

00:41:09.180 meant to have, and you grow into a new one you were meant to have.

00:41:12.860 Well, let me ask you, uh, um, in the big moments of courage in your life, the, the big

00:41:18.540 stands that you've taken, that wasn't the first time you ever had to do something you

00:41:23.640 were afraid of, right?

00:41:24.700 That you, do you feel like the smaller moments of courage in your life, the little things

00:41:29.860 that you stood up for, you spoke up about or risks you took, do you feel like that was

00:41:33.660 preparing you for the bigger moments?

00:41:36.960 Definitely.

00:41:37.560 I've, I agreed with what you said where you have to practice these moments of courage

00:41:40.920 because it's not like a lot of people will say, Oh, you seem fearless, fearless, fearless.

00:41:43.880 I've heard that many times and it's, that's not it at all.

00:41:46.420 I, you know, I've had fears, but I will say I have less now, you know, that practicing

00:41:50.960 courage reduces your fear, but I had plenty more when I was younger, but I just made a

00:41:56.060 point of taking them on.

00:41:57.460 And I wrote in my book, um, subtle for more, uh, that's, uh, you, when I was younger, I

00:42:03.720 used to sort of get through like a contentious deposition when I was practicing law where I

00:42:07.260 knew I'd be up against nine times out of 10, a scary guy who had better academic

00:42:11.220 pedigrees than I did, um, was probably at, you know, some amazing firm, probably knew

00:42:15.420 the case better.

00:42:16.100 He was a partner.

00:42:16.700 I was an associate, what have you.

00:42:18.320 I used to just pretend that I was an actress playing a role when I would go into these depositions.

00:42:22.720 And so it wasn't like Megan Kelly and my ego and my skin in it.

00:42:26.500 It was like this fake person who would go in there, just had to do the job of taking the

00:42:30.820 deposition or what have you.

00:42:32.020 And that worked for me.

00:42:33.380 So that, that was a tool I used to do when I was younger.

00:42:36.220 I used to telemarket that was scary for me.

00:42:38.160 Cause unlike you, I don't consider myself a natural salesperson.

00:42:41.220 And, um, I, I would use a fake name.

00:42:43.340 I called myself Rachel and that too was helpful.

00:42:46.380 Put a, put a layer between my ego and what I was doing.

00:42:50.000 So when I was young, I did consciously take risks, but then took measures to protect myself

00:42:55.880 from the downside of it.

00:42:57.280 And over time it gets easier.

00:42:59.760 One of the things I do is like, let's say I have a contentious conversation.

00:43:03.300 I got to call and confront someone about something, or I have to fire someone, or I have to go into

00:43:08.060 a hostile interview or something.

00:43:09.260 I go, this isn't going to be fun, but it's practice.

00:43:12.480 Uh, how else am I going to be better at it when the stakes are higher?

00:43:15.960 If I don't willingly go in it now, consciously go into it now and say, this is an opportunity

00:43:22.100 to get better at something that I don't want to do that.

00:43:24.680 I'm not good at.

00:43:25.420 Um, and as hard as it's going to be, I'm going to emerge from it with a better set of skills

00:43:30.720 and a deeper familiarity with it.

00:43:32.240 I used to say this to Abby when we were at Fox, she's sitting in the studio with me.

00:43:36.060 You're your number one fan.

00:43:37.620 Um, she's sweet.

00:43:38.840 She's from Minnesota originally, right?

00:43:40.380 So she's kind at heart and not cutting.

00:43:43.120 And, um, she'd get kind of screwed over by somebody, let's say in the research department,

00:43:47.460 not to throw them under the bus, but just to take anybody.

00:43:50.220 And, um, she'd bring it to me and say like, this is what they're doing.

00:43:53.540 And ultimately I would be on the short end of it.

00:43:56.000 Like she's my advocate.

00:43:56.880 So I'm the one who's ultimately, you know, going to be the, the wounded one if she can't

00:44:00.620 resolve it.

00:44:01.100 And I would say, Abby, I can solve this for you.

00:44:03.600 I can definitely pick up the phone call, the phone and go yell at that guy, but this

00:44:08.220 is an opportunity for you to go in there and handle it yourself, Minnesota, and see if

00:44:14.140 you can turn it around.

00:44:15.060 And now she's just a total bitch.

00:44:17.360 It's amazing how, no, no, no, no.

00:44:19.280 Well, and, and let's say you cultivate that at work, uh, that's really important.

00:44:25.080 It's good for your career, but then you're on the street and you see someone doing something,

00:44:29.240 uh, uh, unacceptable or abusive or, or, or whatever you, you, you witness something worse.

00:44:34.660 Now you also have cultivated the ability that you're like, I don't need to call anyone to

00:44:39.580 my rescue.

00:44:40.220 I'm going to step up and get involved.

00:44:42.300 I've practiced this.

00:44:43.440 I know what to do.

00:44:44.540 Well, cause you, we, I mentioned this before the other break that you have to practice courage

00:44:48.660 and you say you have to do it every day.

00:44:50.720 So I was wondering like, what does that look like?

00:44:53.620 I think most people are out there saying, I don't feel fear every day.

00:44:56.740 How do I practice it every day?

00:44:58.920 Well, you know, there's that cliche, do one thing every day that scares you.

00:45:02.140 It's actually a decent bit of advice.

00:45:04.220 I think it's a cliche, uh, with, with some truth to it.

00:45:06.960 You know, like this is what we're saying earlier.

00:45:09.060 If you are never doing scary things, um, you know, uh, you're probably living a boring

00:45:14.360 life.

00:45:14.620 So I, I do try to make sure that I am pushing myself in some form or another out of my comfort

00:45:19.940 zone, you know, creatively, uh, relationships or whatever.

00:45:23.640 I try to do that every day.

00:45:24.800 Give us some examples.

00:45:26.720 Give us some examples.

00:45:28.180 Well, my, my rule is I, I, I only write things that I'm afraid to share.

00:45:33.000 So the conclusion of this book was something that, uh, I really went back and forth about

00:45:38.580 publishing.

00:45:39.580 Um, I asked a bunch of people if they thought I should publish it.

00:45:42.500 And then to go to the point precisely because I was hesitant about it, I knew that it was

00:45:47.600 the right thing to do.

00:45:49.760 So what you're saying is I should call into Dr.

00:45:51.800 Laura today and ask her for advice.

00:45:53.580 Cause that's something I'm terrified to do, but I love her.

00:45:56.460 You, you have trouble asking for advice.

00:45:59.260 Just with Dr.

00:46:00.180 Laura, because she's scary.

00:46:01.340 She, if you don't say it fast enough, she'll yell at you, but she's amazing.

00:46:04.360 So I think like my out was, I was just going to have her on the show as a guest and then

00:46:08.540 I'd be able to ask her whatever I wanted.

00:46:09.940 It's much more, I respect the people who call in because man, you got to be up and

00:46:13.460 down on your game.

00:46:14.480 Otherwise this person you deeply admire is going to cut you at the knees.

00:46:18.460 That's, uh, yeah, that's good practice.

00:46:20.000 When you're used to always being in some, uh, form of control in the conversation, I've

00:46:25.620 got to imagine it's intimidating to be on the exact opposite side of it.

00:46:29.920 Depends on the host.

00:46:32.660 Um, but anyway, I'll, I'll work that.

00:46:34.900 I'll work that up at some point.

00:46:35.940 All right.

00:46:36.100 So I'm thinking today, I don't know.

00:46:37.620 I, you know what I will say, one of the things I don't do that well is put myself out there

00:46:41.180 socially.

00:46:42.180 I'm not that emboldened socially.

00:46:43.860 I'm afraid of rejection in my social life.

00:46:46.060 So maybe today I will like send an email or issue an invitation and take the fear of

00:46:53.120 rejection on.

00:46:54.560 Uh, and I love, I would love it if all of you guys would do that too.

00:46:57.100 And the other thing I always ask people to do is try to go a date without apologizing.

00:47:00.800 Women in particular always apologize.

00:47:02.080 Let's do both of those things.

00:47:03.100 We'll take a risk and we won't apologize.

00:47:04.700 And if we take a risk that insults somebody, then we won't apologize for that either.

00:47:08.940 All right, listen, we've got much more to do, uh, today with Ryan holiday, my guest,

00:47:12.940 the New York times number one bestseller.

00:47:14.940 And we're going to get into, um, how taking a break from work actually helped him come

00:47:19.180 up with his new book.

00:47:20.500 Courage is calling fortune favors the brave.

00:47:23.660 Stay with us.

00:47:24.380 I love this part talking about not trying to check yourself on obsessing over what people

00:47:34.720 are going to say.

00:47:35.820 Um, when we flee in the direction of comfort or raising no eyebrows of standing in the back

00:47:40.140 of the room instead of the front, what we are fleeing is opportunity.

00:47:43.500 You go on, they will laugh at you.

00:47:46.440 Losers have always gotten together in little groups and talked about winners.

00:47:49.680 The hopeless have always mocked the hopeful.

00:47:51.540 The scared do their best to convince the brave.

00:47:54.400 There's no point in trying.

00:47:56.340 I love that, that I try to think of it like this.

00:48:00.340 Why would I pay any attention to those who wish to bathe in my reflective light?

00:48:07.980 That the, why would I let them dim the light?

00:48:11.580 So I remember, uh, thinking one time, uh, these people don't work hard enough for me to care

00:48:16.580 about their opinion.

00:48:17.400 Um, so it's very easy for, uh, people who are not busy doing things to come up with creative,

00:48:24.840 even, uh, hurtful, uh, things to say about the people who are busy doing things.

00:48:29.680 This is what's so great about, you know, the Theodore Roosevelt, uh, man in the arena

00:48:33.220 speech.

00:48:33.820 You know, are you a person in the arena?

00:48:35.560 If you are, you're going to have to listen to the crowd.

00:48:38.340 Uh, if you're not, then you can safely sit in the stands and shout whatever you want

00:48:42.400 about the person in the arena.

00:48:43.620 And, uh, I think you make a good point earlier that, that, that these things can be, uh,

00:48:48.500 particularly difficult for women, uh, obviously different genders, different ethnicities, different

00:48:53.580 cultures, people from different backgrounds sort of are taught different, uh, lessons early

00:48:58.980 on about what their role is and, and, uh, how this is supposed to go.

00:49:03.300 But I think generally we, we need people who have the courage to be themselves.

00:49:08.060 Like each one of us is born with a totally unique set of DNA that has never before existed

00:49:14.440 and never will exist again.

00:49:16.300 It's tragic that you would throw that away, or as you said, dim the light of that, um,

00:49:23.360 to be more like other people.

00:49:24.980 We already have lots of other people.

00:49:26.700 We have zero other instances of you.

00:49:30.020 You should have the courage to be that person.

00:49:31.880 And don't worry about them calling you different or difficult.

00:49:35.980 I like this too.

00:49:37.300 It's good to be difficult.

00:49:38.820 The well-behaved rarely make history.

00:49:42.120 I love that.

00:49:43.320 It was a personal trainer.

00:49:44.240 I met at one gym.

00:49:45.600 I was at one time and he, he knew of me, but he didn't know any.

00:49:48.480 And, and, uh, he kind of came over and it was a smile and he goes, only the lions are remembered.

00:49:53.800 Uh, there's a story about Margaret Thatcher.

00:49:58.980 She's before she enters politics, she's a chemist and she's trying to get a job at this

00:50:02.680 chemical company and she can see what the interviewer is writing upside down.

00:50:07.240 Like she can see it from across and she takes, she makes out upside down the man writing.

00:50:11.640 This woman is much too difficult to work here.

00:50:14.820 And, uh, you know what?

00:50:16.180 The guy was right.

00:50:17.040 She obviously was too difficult to work there.

00:50:19.340 That would have been way too small of a place for someone of her personality, temperament,

00:50:25.280 drive, ambition, and, uh, and you know, uh, skill set.

00:50:29.720 So, uh, is, is it going to be easy being difficult?

00:50:33.300 No.

00:50:33.660 And, and are people going to accuse you of being difficult?

00:50:36.120 Of course.

00:50:37.180 But if you went along with everything, you wouldn't do anything special or unique.

00:50:42.320 That's the, that's the trick of it.

00:50:44.160 Yes.

00:50:44.940 Honestly, I was just talking to Gad Saad, a professor in Canada, and I love him.

00:50:48.480 And he was saying one of his regrets is he wished he had gotten along better with people

00:50:54.140 higher on the totem pole than he is at his university.

00:50:57.180 He wished he could sort of kiss up a little better than he can because he thinks he maybe

00:51:02.320 would, whatever he would have done better in the university system.

00:51:05.640 And I was saying to him, absolutely not, because you now have such a huge platform.

00:51:10.280 His podcast is doing well.

00:51:11.760 Everybody listens to him.

00:51:12.660 He's got a big social media presence and he's super fun to talk to and to listen to in part

00:51:17.660 because he's irascible.

00:51:19.140 You know, if he, if he'd made it in the university system, he probably wouldn't have all those

00:51:23.320 sharp edges and he probably wouldn't be able to speak so freely.

00:51:27.000 Yeah.

00:51:27.400 Maybe he would have been promoted.

00:51:28.700 Maybe he'd have published more academic texts, but he probably wouldn't have the podcast.

00:51:32.540 He probably wouldn't be on your show.

00:51:34.620 I wrote a lot in the book about Frank Serpico, who I think is a sort of timely figure to study

00:51:39.600 now as we're having this reckoning about police and their role in society.

00:51:43.400 And as he's being prepared to be cross, as he's being prepared for one of the trials

00:51:49.460 that he's a whistleblower in, a witness in, the DA says to him, like, why are you so difficult?

00:51:54.820 Why can't you just cooperate?

00:51:56.160 And he says, you know, if I cooperated, if I just went along with what everyone wanted,

00:52:02.040 I'd be taking bribes in the precinct right now.

00:52:04.760 The whole point is that I do what I think is right.

00:52:07.660 The point is I'm difficult to work with.

00:52:10.020 That's what got me here.

00:52:11.680 And I think we have to remember that if we if we go along with what everyone wants,

00:52:16.120 things might be easier, but we're certainly not going to break much in the way of new ground.

00:52:22.240 And I also just I keep coming back to this, but I feel like I've lived it.

00:52:25.400 So I want people to remember, even if it doesn't work out short term, let's say you're difficult

00:52:29.400 and they're like, well, let's get rid of her.

00:52:31.320 She's a pain in the ass.

00:52:32.180 To your point about Margaret Thatcher, that's good.

00:52:34.840 Then you'll land someplace that sees the value in the real you and you're never going to

00:52:41.440 succeed and do well at a place that feels differently about that.

00:52:45.080 You know, Margaret Thatcher wasn't going to do well at that chemist place at that lab

00:52:49.700 because they were honest about how they felt.

00:52:52.300 So you'll naturally land where you need to land if you keep testing the limits and just

00:52:57.140 be adhering to your true self.

00:52:59.080 When I talked about this a little earlier when I was mentioning the conclusion of the

00:53:03.180 book, I sort of see this thing unethical at work.

00:53:05.820 I don't want to be a part of it.

00:53:07.080 I am not a part of it, but I I don't escalate it as much as I should.

00:53:11.340 I decide not to get particularly involved in what's happening.

00:53:14.940 My concern was, as the concern of a lot of people, is I didn't want to lose my job.

00:53:19.140 Right.

00:53:19.340 This is a concern we have.

00:53:20.380 I don't want to lose my job.

00:53:21.240 I don't want to get a reputation.

00:53:22.280 I don't want to be difficult, et cetera.

00:53:24.540 But, you know, again, with the benefit of hindsight or maturity or age, it's sort of

00:53:30.020 like, why was I so intent on keeping a job that you could lose by doing what is obviously

00:53:35.740 the right thing?

00:53:36.840 And so we are we're so often concerned about the bad thing happening as if the status quo

00:53:42.980 is perfect.

00:53:44.020 The status quo has problems.

00:53:45.460 And it may well be that you've come to the end of the road there and you have to do this

00:53:50.720 thing that is risky and dangerous and scary and might not work out perfectly.

00:53:55.520 But wherever you land, whatever you do next is liable to be better, because at least it's

00:54:01.540 not whatever this broken thing is.

00:54:03.920 So can we talk about that?

00:54:05.280 Because what's the difference between giving up and having the courage to leave?

00:54:12.960 It's tricky, right?

00:54:14.020 Uh, whistleblowers could obviously just quit and go work somewhere else.

00:54:18.400 Um, there is a certain amount of courage as well to say, like, why should I have to go?

00:54:23.080 I didn't do anything wrong.

00:54:24.660 I'm going to stand up and fight for this.

00:54:26.760 You know, Martin Luther King could have moved to New York City, uh, safely ensconced himself

00:54:31.800 in sort of liberal American life at that time, not, uh, been beaten by the police, not been

00:54:38.460 assassinated.

00:54:39.320 He may well have still been able to affect change through his writings and his speeches.

00:54:44.660 Um, but he said, no, I have to go back down into the valley.

00:54:47.960 He says, I can't be a coward who runs away.

00:54:50.040 So there's a tension here.

00:54:51.160 I'm not saying you should always leave.

00:54:52.420 You should always stay.

00:54:53.700 Uh, but we need people who are, have the courage, not just to say something's wrong,

00:54:59.960 not just to object to it, but also to, to stand, to stand and fight.

00:55:04.140 Mm-hmm.

00:55:05.160 But you do write about sort of don't, don't quit.

00:55:08.500 Don't be a quitter.

00:55:09.880 And yet it all, you also recognize the courage it may take to leave a situation that's not

00:55:15.320 working for you.

00:55:16.100 And I think a lot of people battle with this, right?

00:55:18.680 Like they don't want to just give up on a difficult situation, but you get to this point

00:55:23.060 where you realize this is no longer good for me.

00:55:25.640 Or I just, you point, I thought this was a great point.

00:55:27.720 I just need change in my life.

00:55:28.960 There was a line in your book, I wrote it down, um, uh, uh, hold on.

00:55:33.640 It's pretty certain that continuing to do the same thing in the same way, in the same

00:55:36.840 place over and over, it's not just insanity, but eventually a form of cowardice.

00:55:40.820 I too agree with that.

00:55:43.260 Well, look in a marriage, right?

00:55:44.940 Sometimes it takes courage to stay and try to fix this thing.

00:55:48.620 And sometimes it takes courage to say, this thing has run its course.

00:55:52.900 We are two different people.

00:55:53.940 We are not meant to be together.

00:55:55.200 And this is true for jobs.

00:55:56.480 This is true for a book.

00:55:57.380 You could work every day for three years on a book and then realize the premise is

00:56:02.040 flawed, right?

00:56:02.920 So I think the question is, is quitting the easy thing or the hard thing?

00:56:07.140 And maybe that's the test, right?

00:56:08.640 Are you quitting so you don't have to do it anymore?

00:56:11.320 Or are you quitting because you are going to do the harder thing, which again, maybe

00:56:15.840 deciding to file for divorce, it may be quitting and having to start over and walk away from

00:56:21.640 a retirement package or stock options or, or, or, or whatever it is, right?

00:56:27.020 Um, is quitting the easy thing or the hard thing?

00:56:29.560 If we go back to the choice of Hercules, the hard choice is the one we want to go towards.

00:56:34.280 The, the dour goddess, the, right?

00:56:38.120 There's the one hot goddess.

00:56:40.020 They say she's stern.

00:56:42.520 That's not the same.

00:56:44.360 Okay.

00:56:44.520 I got it.

00:56:45.520 Um, I thought I love this stoicism, deep, deep courage is there to help you recover

00:56:51.280 when the world breaks you and in the recovering to make you stronger at a much more profound

00:56:57.820 level.

00:56:59.120 I mean, honestly, like I, all the likes in the world, uh, this is exactly how I feel.

00:57:04.000 And I, I have to tell you, it's one of the reasons why I'm so concerned about our society

00:57:08.000 right now where, you know, it's all the safe spaces and you have to be protected from

00:57:11.240 words and books and, you know, I just think this is exactly the wrong instinct.

00:57:16.120 How do you feel about what we're seeing in our society right now?

00:57:19.080 I, I do.

00:57:20.300 Um, you know, what I was talking about in that chapter, uh, Audie Murphy, the most decorated,

00:57:25.540 uh, American in military history, uh, in his memoir to hell and back the last section of

00:57:31.380 the book is him essentially broken.

00:57:33.860 He's got PTSD.

00:57:35.520 He's seen horrible things.

00:57:36.740 He's killed people.

00:57:37.540 He's seen the worst of humanity and he, he's talking about like, I'm going to go back to

00:57:44.420 the, I'm not going to give up.

00:57:45.660 I'm not going to quit.

00:57:46.600 I'm going to try to build a life out of this.

00:57:48.340 I'm going to try to, to, to become human again, effectively.

00:57:52.680 Um, and, and so when we talk about courage, we don't just mean the courage on the battlefield.

00:57:57.580 We could also mean the courage of the soldier suffering from PTSD or trauma or, or, or

00:58:02.920 depression saying like, I need help.

00:58:05.000 Right.

00:58:05.920 Um, it is interesting how fragile we have become.

00:58:10.240 I think it's attention, you know, again, admitting that you need help, admitting that

00:58:13.820 you're struggling.

00:58:14.300 I think there's courage in that, but the idea that you can be shielded from all struggle

00:58:18.840 and pain and difficulty is naive.

00:58:20.820 Um, we, we, we have to face these things that we, uh, that, that, that, that make us feel

00:58:27.820 stuff.

00:58:28.100 You can't create a safe space and make sure everyone walks on eggshells around you.

00:58:32.500 You have to go towards that.

00:58:33.920 You have to deal with it.

00:58:34.780 And of course, this is easy to say, hard to do, uh, particularly the harder or, uh, more

00:58:40.640 painful, the, the, the trauma that you're experiencing is, but we all have issues and we have to face

00:58:47.280 them, uh, James Baldwin says, uh, not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can

00:58:53.680 be changed unless it is faced.

00:58:55.300 We have to face the things that are, that are bad and wrong in this world.

00:58:59.300 On the subject of children, um, we're going to take calls later and thank you for agreeing

00:59:03.300 to stick around for that because I'm sure that our audience would love to hit you up with

00:59:06.000 some questions.

00:59:07.180 Um, but I'm going to give you Abby Finan's question for you now.

00:59:10.300 Uh, she wants to know about how do you raise stoic kids?

00:59:13.520 How do you, how do you sort of instill this in children?

00:59:15.500 Well, uh, certainly not by, you know, giving them quotes from Marcus Aurelius or Seneca,

00:59:21.400 I think, uh, goes right over their head.

00:59:23.400 I think ultimately we teach by example, right?

00:59:25.660 We all want courageous kids, let's say, but I say that, what is this?

00:59:30.200 I just said that I told her in the break.

00:59:31.760 Sorry, keep going.

00:59:32.980 Oh, we all, we all want courageous kids, but how, what courageous things have your kids

00:59:38.100 seen you do, right?

00:59:39.400 If you're working a job that you hate, uh, if you refuse to speak up about things that bother

00:59:44.680 you, if you're afraid even to, to, to, to, to ask a waiter for something in a restaurant,

00:59:49.820 you can't then go expect your kids to be extroverted and brave and, uh, happy to get

00:59:55.340 up on stage and talk to people.

00:59:56.700 You have to show them what courage looks like.

00:59:59.720 Um, and I think the other way to do it, uh, something I think a lot about is like, what

01:00:03.920 are the stories that you're telling them?

01:00:05.240 So not just showing them in your own life, but what are the kinds of stories you're teaching

01:00:09.160 and showing them?

01:00:10.220 And I think we used to do a better job of this, uh, the great myths of history, the

01:00:14.260 great fables, et cetera.

01:00:15.740 And now, you know, every children's book seems to be, I don't know, either about silly animals

01:00:21.380 or it's sort of nonsense.

01:00:22.660 Rainbows, unicorns.

01:00:23.460 Yes, that's exactly right.

01:00:24.760 I could show them some Grimm's fairy tales.

01:00:26.440 That'll put some, that'll steal up their spines.

01:00:30.380 No, but, but, but teach them things that inspire them.

01:00:33.080 Tell them about, uh, I don't know, the 300 Spartans or tell them about Florence Nightingale

01:00:38.540 or, or, or Rosa Parks, tell them stories.

01:00:41.500 It sort of steep them in the myths and the legends and the icons of history.

01:00:47.440 Um, the, the, the great joke about, uh, Theodore Roosevelt, again, I know I keep mentioning

01:00:51.960 him, but, um, it was that Theodore Roosevelt grew up hearing about the great men of history

01:00:56.980 and decided to be just like them.

01:00:59.100 That's what you should want for your kids.

01:01:00.720 Didn't, didn't you write that Nelson Mandela read, was it Marcus Aurelius in, um, when he

01:01:07.920 was in prison for 27 years?

01:01:09.680 He, he, he did.

01:01:10.620 And, and, and so have many other people imprisoned, uh, turned to the Stoics because it is a philosophy,

01:01:16.760 I think, ultimately designed, uh, for adversity.

01:01:20.380 The Stoics were exiled.

01:01:21.460 They were thrown in prison.

01:01:22.700 They were executed by emperors.

01:01:24.700 The Stoics knew what it was like to, uh, you know, to, to have to fight for things.

01:01:29.200 You know, to your point, and I won't ask you to comment on this because it was controversial,

01:01:33.080 but I stand by it.

01:01:34.220 Um, when Naomi Osaka refused to play, she, she claimed she was irritated by the, um, the

01:01:43.340 questions that the press corps was asking her.

01:01:45.720 And then she got all sorts of blowback from the other players saying, you know, we all

01:01:48.440 have to do it.

01:01:48.960 You don't get special treatment.

01:01:50.300 And then she was like, well, I'm bailing.

01:01:51.740 Then she's like, I'm bailing.

01:01:52.820 You know, she claimed she had a mental health issue and dealing with people and that she was

01:01:56.000 going to bail from Wimbledon and so on.

01:01:58.000 And the news media treated her like she was some sort of a heroine for doing this.

01:02:01.620 And this is the highest paid athlete in the world, highest paid female athlete in the

01:02:04.300 world.

01:02:04.800 I think number three, uh, overall, she's behind only two male athletes.

01:02:09.080 And, you know, I, I did not think this was a moment of strength at all.

01:02:12.900 And my daughter's school, all girls school at the time celebrated her.

01:02:18.000 They brought her up in class to try to teach the little girls that it was great.

01:02:20.980 She quit and they, they framed it as she was taking care of herself, her mental health

01:02:26.020 issues.

01:02:26.400 Meanwhile, I challenged the whole thing.

01:02:28.300 She doesn't like dealing with the press.

01:02:29.420 That's it.

01:02:29.820 Her sister came out and she doesn't have a mental health issues.

01:02:32.140 So this is my own take on it.

01:02:33.520 So my daughter raises how she's like this, this heroine, this Naomi Osaka for having taken

01:02:38.240 and I said, no, you know, who's a heroine Malala Yousafzai.

01:02:43.220 Let's talk about the little girl who got on the bus in Afghanistan, even though she knew

01:02:47.360 that the Taliban was going to shoot her, that there was a very good chance that they were

01:02:51.140 going to shoot.

01:02:51.500 And they did, they shot her in the head and she, she still went to school.

01:02:56.400 Like she knew that's heroism.

01:02:58.460 That is what we overuse that word anyway, heroism.

01:03:00.780 But to your point of like setting the right examples, that's the kind of storytelling we

01:03:06.960 need with our kids.

01:03:07.880 Not every time somebody naturally, naturally has a human foible or a failing or a moment of

01:03:13.900 fear that we now have to celebrate that.

01:03:16.620 We don't have to go that far in overcorrecting.

01:03:19.220 Well, I think, I think, uh, there's, there's heroism and there's courage.

01:03:22.400 And obviously my distinction is heroism is when it's about someone else.

01:03:27.080 Courage is when it's about you.

01:03:28.860 And it may take courage to, to speak up about something.

01:03:31.860 Maybe you are struggling.

01:03:33.200 Maybe you just decide that this is an obligation you shouldn't have to put up with and you're

01:03:36.640 going to speak your truth and use your power to, to, to, to change the status quo.

01:03:41.240 That could be courageous.

01:03:42.600 I wouldn't, you know, describe it as, uh, as heroic, right?

01:03:45.900 In the book, one of the distinctions I make is look, the decision of Michael Jordan to

01:03:50.000 walk away from basketball, to become a baseball player, took some courage, right?

01:03:54.340 Uh, he's risked money.

01:03:55.640 Uh, he, he risked his reputation.

01:03:57.960 Um, he risked some of the best years of his basketball career to do that.

01:04:01.880 Um, is it heroic?

01:04:03.360 No, I mean, the only person that benefited from that is Michael Jordan, but when Maya

01:04:07.760 Moore walks away from an equally dominant WNBA career to help free a man wrongly convicted

01:04:13.700 of a life sentence from, from jail, that is heroic.

01:04:17.220 So I think we need stories of courage, but primarily we need these stories of, of, of

01:04:22.580 heroism because it's ultimately, the Stoics were very clear about this, what we do for others,

01:04:28.520 the impact we make, what is our courage being in service of?

01:04:34.360 When Pat Tillman left his career as an NFL player to go sign up, uh, and fight for the

01:04:40.080 country in nine 11, I mean, after nine 11, that's like, I mean, I don't, I can't think

01:04:44.140 of a great example.

01:04:45.520 Um, I want to talk about stillness is key.

01:04:48.020 It's, is it, is it your bestselling book?

01:04:51.180 Uh, I think my bestselling book is the obstacle is the way, but who's counting?

01:04:55.860 Okay.

01:04:56.980 Right.

01:04:57.440 They're all great, but I do, cause I want to talk about stillness and what, and why it's

01:05:01.580 key.

01:05:02.080 I haven't read that one.

01:05:03.560 Uh, and I'm going to ask you about it.

01:05:05.040 Plus your, your old career as a media manipulator and how you managed to get yourself onto all,

01:05:10.980 all of the networks and all these papers with a bunch of malarkey.

01:05:14.860 It's kind of a fun story.

01:05:16.280 Uh, and it's an insider's view into how dishonest that the industry is.

01:05:19.620 So help me understand the books that I haven't yet read in a few lines.

01:05:27.100 If you don't mind, stillness is key.

01:05:30.300 What's that about?

01:05:31.440 Slowing down is often the best way to charge ahead.

01:05:34.580 Uh, in the military, they say, uh, uh, slow is smooth and smooth as fast, uh, by, you know,

01:05:40.560 our best work doesn't come when we're doing a million things, when our mind is racing a

01:05:44.920 million, uh, miles an hour.

01:05:46.340 It's when we slow down and we lock into what's important and, uh, we eliminate what is in

01:05:52.600 essential and, uh, ineffective.

01:05:55.640 So I was offered this situation where somebody wants me to do some stuff for them, uh, on

01:06:00.880 a regular basis.

01:06:01.820 And Abby said, don't do it.

01:06:04.360 She said, you're too busy.

01:06:05.880 You're going to regret doing it.

01:06:07.380 And she said, Ryan's going to tell you to say no, but saying no is, is important.

01:06:13.680 And it's important, especially for busy people.

01:06:16.200 It's the, it's the hardest thing in the world.

01:06:18.660 Steve jobs talks about how it's not just saying no to the things that you don't want to do

01:06:23.100 or the things you don't like.

01:06:24.260 The really hard things are the things that you want to do that are really, really cool

01:06:29.880 that actually would make things better, but you know, it distracts you, uh, from what's

01:06:35.480 important.

01:06:36.180 Uh, I gave a talk to the, the LA Rams a couple of years ago and their team motto is keep the

01:06:41.240 main thing.

01:06:41.940 The main thing.

01:06:42.740 Yes.

01:06:43.100 Uh, I think about that often.

01:06:45.020 Yes.

01:06:45.260 I, my, my friend Terry here and always says the main thing is to keep the main thing,

01:06:48.320 the main thing.

01:06:48.860 And it is an easy way of remembering it.

01:06:51.300 Um, so stillness is key.

01:06:52.780 So it's not, you don't necessarily have to meditate, but I know you, you know, you wrote

01:06:56.520 about how you, you backpack through the woods.

01:06:59.380 You live outside of Austin, Texas, and you've gotten some of your best ideas, just downtime,

01:07:03.800 downtime.

01:07:04.980 Yeah.

01:07:05.500 The, the, the, the courage series that I'm working on now, it came because my wife said,

01:07:09.000 Hey, we should go take the kids out for a walk this weekend.

01:07:11.720 And I said, I'm so busy.

01:07:12.980 I don't have time to do this.

01:07:13.920 And, you know, I'm walking through the woods in Bastrop State Park and, uh, the idea pops

01:07:18.580 into my head.

01:07:19.120 And so if you don't make that time, not only are you eventually going to lose the family

01:07:23.740 that you claim to be doing all this work for, uh, but you lack the ability to reflect, to

01:07:29.740 think big picture, to get perspective.

01:07:32.180 Um, I don't think like exercise is a fun thing I do on the side.

01:07:36.040 I consider it integral to the work that I do because I get so many ideas in the swimming

01:07:40.820 pool, you know, at the gym, uh, you know, uh, out, out on the roads.

01:07:45.580 This is why Doug is always telling me I should read more fiction.

01:07:48.000 I always just read, if I read, I'm nine times out of 10, I'm reading more nonfiction, just

01:07:52.320 feel like it, that's an advancement, advancement toward being a better person or being better

01:07:56.580 informed.

01:07:57.000 And he's always like, first of all, he told me I shouldn't tell people that I don't read

01:08:00.260 fiction, but, um, but I don't listen, but to, to your point, you know, your brain needs

01:08:05.760 all sorts of care and feeding.

01:08:08.200 It's not all hard charging data.

01:08:11.080 Yeah.

01:08:11.280 And it may be actually that, that reading some work of fiction, uh, published, you know, 200 years

01:08:17.260 ago may give you the perfect insight to what's happening today in a way that you might not

01:08:22.360 have expected.

01:08:23.360 It's like you found it because you weren't looking for it.

01:08:26.080 Yeah.

01:08:26.500 I like that.

01:08:27.120 All right.

01:08:27.380 That's, that's another risk I may take today.

01:08:29.340 Um, ego is the enemy is another one of your books.

01:08:32.160 And can you just explain that?

01:08:34.020 Because I know stoicism is about, I think they're in part of it's like be humble.

01:08:38.720 Um, I don't know, you know, you need a little bit of ego to make it in today's day and age,

01:08:43.440 but so how do you, what does it mean?

01:08:45.340 Ego is the enemy.

01:08:46.480 Are there egos in your line of work?

01:08:47.880 I would be, uh, I'd be curious to hear.

01:08:50.960 Not that I've met yet.

01:08:53.400 Um, there's a great line from Epic Titus, uh, that I'll give you since you're a new fan.

01:08:58.580 Um, he says it's impossible to learn that which you think you already know.

01:09:02.300 So the problem isn't that you need to be assertive and aggressive and confident that all is important.

01:09:07.920 But if you think, you know, everything, if you think you're perfect, if you think you're

01:09:11.340 God's gift to humanity, it really kind of prevents you from getting better from working

01:09:16.980 with other people, from connecting to other people.

01:09:19.560 And most of all, uh, it prevents you from learning the things that you don't already know because

01:09:24.700 you're convinced that, uh, no such thing exists.

01:09:28.720 I always say be, be a learn it all, not a, not a know it all.

01:09:32.300 Nobody minds.

01:09:32.900 Stay a student at all.

01:09:33.920 Yeah.

01:09:34.140 You know, Socrates' wisdom is that he knows what he doesn't know or that he knows that

01:09:38.680 he knows very little.

01:09:39.720 And if you think about the Socratic method, what is it?

01:09:42.480 It's the asking of questions, right?

01:09:44.420 If you ask questions, you can learn.

01:09:46.180 If you, uh, if you make statements, uh, you, you, you won't learn anything.

01:09:50.640 Yeah, that's so true.

01:09:51.860 All right.

01:09:52.360 Now the obstacle is the way.

01:09:54.840 Now your bestselling book is according to you.

01:09:56.900 What is, why is that so popular?

01:09:58.580 And what is that about?

01:09:59.640 Well, I have it tattooed on my arm as a, as a reminder.

01:10:02.820 The idea is that there is no, there is no problem so bad, uh, so undesirable, so unexpected

01:10:10.560 that some good can't be derived from it.

01:10:13.740 Um, the very least by learning from it, right?

01:10:16.220 At the very least by being humbled by it, at the very least by becoming more resilient

01:10:21.300 because of it.

01:10:22.000 So the Stoics are basically just saying that everything that happens to us in life is an

01:10:26.240 opportunity to be a Stoic, right?

01:10:28.860 To do what you think is right with what you think needs to be done.

01:10:33.600 Um, sometimes the, the thing that looks like the absolute worst thing actually has within

01:10:38.540 its seeds of, you know, wonderful opportunity.

01:10:40.580 But I think it's also just about deciding to move forward to make the most of this, whatever

01:10:46.740 it is, as opposed to expecting or demanding that everything go your way all the time.

01:10:52.680 It's like yet another problem to be solved using my new skills, my new resolve, and my,

01:10:58.100 my willingness to practice all these skills we've been discussing.

01:11:01.880 Okay.

01:11:02.160 That leads me to you.

01:11:03.500 Um, and you, your, your past, you used to be employed by American apparel and the clothing

01:11:10.460 company, and you were the marketing director, I think, and you were young, you were a whippersnapper

01:11:15.060 and you, you were sort of a shit stirrer, um, like young in your career.

01:11:21.360 So both, I guess, as I understand it, both when you worked for them, but also just, you sort

01:11:27.260 of went out there and started messing with blogs or was that all in the context of your

01:11:30.220 work for American apparel?

01:11:31.420 I, I had a marketing company that focused on sort of how the internet operates as a

01:11:38.540 lever, uh, inside the sort of media ecosystem, the way that things bubble up or are created

01:11:45.360 on the internet and then become part of culture.

01:11:48.420 Um, basically I ended up writing a book about fake news, uh, you know, 10 years ago, um, that

01:11:53.360 I thought was, uh, you know, sort of of the moment and turned out to be, unfortunately a

01:11:58.980 little bit ahead of its time.

01:12:00.260 But the premise of the book was like, look, this is how the sausage is made, uh, and it

01:12:06.340 is not pretty.

01:12:07.420 Uh, this is how narratives get created.

01:12:10.220 This is how controversies start.

01:12:12.100 This is how the things that, you know, ultimately culminate in, let's say the, the, the evening,

01:12:17.520 uh, cable talk shows.

01:12:19.200 This is how Twitter kicks those conversations off, you know, hours or days before, and then

01:12:25.800 you're talking about it to your friends the next day because you saw it on TV.

01:12:29.360 And I was sort of showing how that ecosystem works from the perspective of someone who admittedly

01:12:35.540 was taking advantage of said system was a master manipulator.

01:12:39.100 Yes.

01:12:39.380 The headline from Forbes on July 18th, 2012 was how this guy lied his way into MSNBC, ABC

01:12:46.460 news, the New York times, and more.

01:12:48.460 It reminded me of that James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose, um, Peter Boghossian study where

01:12:54.000 they sort of wrote up a bunch of nonsense and got it published, uh, in these journals

01:12:58.180 just to make a point of like, if you're, if you say, you know, the craziest stuff as woke

01:13:03.260 as can be like the penis as a social construct was one of them, you can get it published and

01:13:09.300 you're kind of trying to do the same thing in media.

01:13:12.200 Yeah.

01:13:12.680 And look, I, I felt like I was writing the book from the perspective of like, Hey, this

01:13:17.300 is a problem.

01:13:17.900 Let me show you how this works.

01:13:18.900 Obviously it wasn't always received that way, but you know, then you flash forward to the

01:13:22.580 2016 election and, you know, literally thousands of Russian bots and fake accounts are, are cited

01:13:30.440 and quoted across major media outlets relatively harmlessly for a clothing company or an author

01:13:37.320 or a, you know, a media personality, they have real implications, not just inside our

01:13:42.800 political system, but also for foreign actors.

01:13:45.300 Like if you don't think that China and Russia look at the vulnerabilities of our media system,

01:13:50.260 how easy it is to get people outraged and turned against each other.

01:13:54.440 Um, I think you're being naive.

01:13:56.400 Yeah.

01:13:56.800 You know, before I interviewed Vladimir Putin, I had a briefing by some top former, uh, Intel

01:14:02.760 types and they showed me in great detail how the amplification was done.

01:14:07.320 You know how they, they'd come up with a fake news item and you could, you can track

01:14:11.720 it.

01:14:11.900 You can see you will sort of patient zero, if you will.

01:14:14.060 And then out it goes in these concentric circles out, out, out, out, out to all of their

01:14:17.560 sort of bots.

01:14:19.020 And if you don't think that, you know, we are being manipulated by people who don't have

01:14:22.440 our best interests at heart, you're definitely not paying attention.

01:14:24.320 It's not, it's not to say anything about all the Russiagate.

01:14:26.920 It's just a hundred percent.

01:14:28.700 We're being manipulated by the Russians and the Chinese in our media.

01:14:32.240 And that's not even counting our own people who are doing it.

01:14:35.860 Um, so in a nutshell, can you talk about like, how would you do it?

01:14:39.120 Like is you, you worked the blogs, but you worked mainstream media and you could create

01:14:44.300 really fake news without getting checked on it pretty easily.

01:14:48.260 Yeah.

01:14:48.420 One of the things I talk about in the book, it's called trading up the chain.

01:14:52.180 Basically it's what media manipulators do.

01:14:54.180 So in the case of Russia or the case of a, of a reality television star that wants to

01:14:59.720 be famous is something starts very small.

01:15:02.340 Maybe it's a post on Reddit or it's a post on Twitter or bigger media outlets until suddenly

01:15:07.340 it feels like real news to real people.

01:15:10.820 And what we, we have this trouble in our media system where outlets report on what other people

01:15:16.960 are reporting on.

01:15:18.160 So it's a reaction to a reaction to a reaction in.

01:15:21.920 And, and at some point, uh, you'd hope someone would go, Hey, what's the source for this?

01:15:26.280 Where did this actually come from?

01:15:27.720 But the system is moving so quickly that this doesn't, doesn't really happen.

01:15:31.100 And local news is unfortunately a big conduit in the system.

01:15:35.720 People get something on, you know, uh, the NBC affiliate in St. Louis, and then it becomes

01:15:41.940 a national media story as it, as it invokes more and more reactions.

01:15:45.540 Can you talk about, um, what did you wind up like getting on?

01:15:50.780 And what did you talk is like, what I read in the Forbes piece was on Reuters, he became

01:15:54.380 the poster child for generation.

01:15:56.300 Yikes.

01:15:56.780 Don't know what that means.

01:15:57.480 On ABC, he was one of a new breed of long suffering insomniacs at CBS.

01:16:02.180 He made up an embarrassing office story at MSNBC.

01:16:04.260 He pretended someone sneezed on him while working at Burger King, um, at Manta meant Manta

01:16:11.060 how boats, he offered helpful tips for winterizing your boat.

01:16:14.500 So was that all fake news?

01:16:15.840 Like you weren't, you weren't any of those things?

01:16:18.780 Yeah, I definitely know how to winterize a boat.

01:16:20.820 Um, I was quoted in the New York times as an expert about, uh, vinyl records, which I

01:16:25.860 know nothing about.

01:16:27.060 I was born in 1987.

01:16:29.100 Um, one of the, one of the ways that this happens, there's actually a tool.

01:16:34.180 Uh, it was, it's, I think it still exists, but at the time it was called help a reporter

01:16:37.780 out.

01:16:38.120 And basically instead of journalists going and getting sources like the old fashioned

01:16:43.520 way, they would say, Hey, I need a source who's outraged about this year's Superbowl

01:16:48.860 guests, or, Hey, I need somebody who's an expert about millennials and their retirement

01:16:54.920 accounts, right?

01:16:55.920 So instead of actually calling up someone who's an expert about this, it's like Craigslist.

01:17:00.140 They're just looking for people who have things to sell.

01:17:03.100 And the reality is what those people have to sell is an agenda.

01:17:06.480 And there's very little verification.

01:17:07.800 So I, as part of the stunt, again, the purpose of this was not for personal gain.

01:17:12.940 I didn't get anything out of being a boat winterization expert.

01:17:15.700 It was to show that, Hey, look, um, not only is the Huffington post doing this, but the

01:17:20.320 New York times is doing this, right?

01:17:22.200 The paper of record in the United States is trolling for experts and trend pieces that

01:17:27.820 then, you know, uh, we all react to go, isn't it so interesting that this is happening?

01:17:32.320 And it's like, this may actually not be happening.

01:17:35.100 This could be literally a figment of the reporter's imagination confirmed by, you know, willing

01:17:42.100 pseudo experts who are willing to, uh, you know, say whatever needs to be said to appear

01:17:47.220 in the press.

01:17:48.260 You, um, what was the, the, somebody call only one group called you to see if it was

01:17:54.420 really you, right?

01:17:56.000 Can you tell us that I even, at some point it was working so well and I was busy.

01:18:00.460 I just had somebody else answer the emails for me.

01:18:03.360 Uh, I just said, look, you know, just reply to all these things, just say whatever you

01:18:07.260 want.

01:18:08.160 Um, and again, the point of this was to go like, guys, this is not good.

01:18:12.240 This is like your password is one, two, three, four, five, six.

01:18:16.300 Somebody is going to hack this.

01:18:17.860 This is not safe.

01:18:19.040 And, you know, I wrote this book in 2011.

01:18:22.080 It was published in 2012.

01:18:25.020 Nothing has really changed.

01:18:26.420 I mean, if anything, our system is more dependent on what's happening in social media, what's happening

01:18:32.120 digitally, uh, you know, what, what's happening, uh, you know, faster and faster, um, if anything,

01:18:38.480 the system is probably worse.

01:18:40.100 Yeah.

01:18:40.580 We just did a story a couple of weeks ago about some guy who was all over MSNBC claiming that

01:18:45.880 he was an ER doctor and that the ERs had been turning away patients because they were filled

01:18:52.500 with the unvaccinated and maybe it was ivermectin, you know, people who took ivermectin.

01:18:57.100 It was one of those sort of lines.

01:18:58.360 And, um, he was all over MSNBC millions of people saw him and it turns out that somebody

01:19:05.080 actually followed up and called the hospitals and said, is that true?

01:19:08.560 And, you know, and they were like, we severed our relationship with that guy months ago.

01:19:11.780 He hasn't been in our ER.

01:19:12.860 He doesn't know anything and we're not overflowing and nobody came in for ivermectin overdoses.

01:19:16.780 It's like a simple phone call would have saved you the embarrassment.

01:19:20.600 But the problem is the embarrassment isn't that great anymore.

01:19:25.260 And let's say there's some random, random internet website.

01:19:28.420 Um, you get the story and it goes viral.

01:19:30.920 That's good for you.

01:19:32.100 Then it turns out to be disproven.

01:19:34.080 It goes viral again.

01:19:35.640 Then you have to correct it.

01:19:37.380 That goes viral, right?

01:19:38.920 Like you, you might get three stories where you should have had zero.

01:19:42.320 It's all clicks.

01:19:43.420 So it all goes to your bottom line.

01:19:44.820 The outrage is, is the, is the point, right?

01:19:49.680 The attention is the point.

01:19:51.080 And then because we're not like, if you're a subscriber to something, uh, if you're a regular

01:19:56.640 consumer of something and that, that site or that outlet continually lets you down, you

01:20:02.160 will cease to be a customer of that outlet.

01:20:04.600 Um, the problem is when we just consume internet, uh, sorry, when we just consume our news over

01:20:10.160 the internet via the intermediary of Facebook or Twitter, uh, or Tik TOK or whatever is

01:20:15.760 being spread around, uh, we, we have, there's, there's not a reciprocal relationship.

01:20:22.360 You know, they say like, if you're not paying for it, you're the product that's being sold.

01:20:26.380 Um, the attention, the, the, the design, the, the, the purpose of these websites is to capture

01:20:31.200 your attention by any means necessary, sell that to a digital advertiser in a real-time exchange.

01:20:36.940 And by the time you're halfway through the article and go, this is bogus, they've already

01:20:42.800 profited from that.

01:20:44.420 This is why you have to be so careful, um, when it comes to your news consumption, it's

01:20:49.520 like the same way you wouldn't just choose a random doctor out of the yellow pages.

01:20:53.280 I hope you'd ask friends for a recommendation.

01:20:55.200 You shouldn't just take news off of Facebook and say, this must be real.

01:20:58.580 You should have a news.

01:21:00.280 I think in today's day and age, a news personality who you trust.

01:21:02.840 Don't even don't, don't even buy into a whole organization because there may be people

01:21:06.560 who are honest at that organization and there may be people who are not honest.

01:21:09.460 So don't go with the organization, go with somebody who you trust, who hasn't, you know,

01:21:13.860 who served you well over the years and try to have a few of those people at different

01:21:18.600 ideologically, you know, aligned places because it's garbage in garbage out.

01:21:23.640 Well, this is why I like podcasts though.

01:21:25.500 Like you and I are an hour and a half into this conversation.

01:21:27.780 If this was a cable news show, we would have talked for 90 seconds, right?

01:21:31.080 The, the, the, the long form discussion that's not subject to these sort of wicked economics

01:21:37.240 of like, is this spreadable is really important.

01:21:40.720 The other thing I would add to that is like read books.

01:21:43.720 Um, the best thing that I read that helped me during COVID was John M.

01:21:47.940 Berry's book, the great influenza, which was published in 2005 about the Spanish flu.

01:21:53.840 Right.

01:21:54.280 And, and so that's a 15 year old book about a hundred year old event.

01:21:58.340 Um, but because it's history, because it's not politically motivated or urgency motivated,

01:22:04.860 uh, I think it actually teaches you more, uh, than what's going on right now.

01:22:09.440 So I think we are often concerned with breaking news when really we'd be better getting a historical

01:22:14.780 perspective or a legal perspective or a psychological perspective.

01:22:18.320 Uh, and that would help us understand what's happening in the present moment.

01:22:22.660 So going back to the young you, um, as I mentioned, you work for American apparel,

01:22:27.460 you made a reference to it earlier that you had, you include this in the book, but you had

01:22:32.520 an uncomfortable situation with your boss there, the CEO, when you were 23 years old.

01:22:38.660 And it was brave of you to put it in the book.

01:22:41.120 And I think, you know, you really beat yourself up for how you handled it, but there's definitely

01:22:44.580 positive moments there too.

01:22:45.980 And you're a young guy.

01:22:47.520 Um, so do you want to talk a little bit about what this, the position Dove Charney put you

01:22:52.460 in?

01:22:53.320 Yeah, I was, I was asked to effectively leak photos of a woman that he had been in a, what

01:22:58.700 he claimed was a consensual relationship.

01:23:00.480 Uh, and, and as the sort of company spokesperson, this would normally be my job.

01:23:05.500 The company sued.

01:23:06.460 What's our response?

01:23:07.540 He said, here's the response, you know, give these photos to journalists.

01:23:11.360 Um, and I, I didn't do it, but I also didn't stop it from happening.

01:23:15.980 And I remember walking into his office a few weeks later and, you know, observing a conference

01:23:21.700 call, uh, where he was giving the photos to journalists who, you know, sort of happily

01:23:26.260 ate them up and published them.

01:23:28.100 Um, and it struck me that, you know, just not doing something is not enough.

01:23:32.500 Obviously, if something is unjust, uh, you have, you should prevent it from happening.

01:23:36.400 But this goes to the debate that we were talking about earlier that I think a lot of us struggle

01:23:40.200 with.

01:23:40.960 We're a witness to something.

01:23:43.360 We're a part of something.

01:23:44.300 We see something that's going on.

01:23:46.160 We tell ourselves, I shouldn't do something now.

01:23:49.360 I'll be in a better position to do it later.

01:23:51.700 And that may be true.

01:23:52.760 I was, you know, a few years later in a better position to affect change inside that company.

01:23:58.120 Um, but obviously that's cold comfort to the people who, uh, you know, were on the wrong

01:24:03.740 side of what the company did in the meantime.

01:24:06.080 So you could see this, you know, in the Trump presidency, someone says, well, I don't agree

01:24:09.960 with what's happening, but I'm the adults in the room.

01:24:12.280 Going back to the ancient Stoics, Seneca is the advisor to Nero.

01:24:16.000 And I imagine he told himself, Hey, uh, if I leave Nero, we'll just hire someone worse.

01:24:21.720 So when we talk about fear and courage, it's, it's not an easy, clear cut thing.

01:24:26.220 Um, you can stand on principle, um, and you may get your head cut off or you can stick

01:24:32.980 around and try to, you know, have more leverage, be able to effectuate change later, but that

01:24:39.500 can also be an excuse, a lie you tell yourself.

01:24:42.580 So you don't have to get involved.

01:24:45.040 I have a different perspective on this because I will say, I'll say this without calling out

01:24:49.940 anyone in specific, the media industry is dedicated to destruction of anyone within the

01:24:57.720 industry they feel crosses them.

01:24:59.180 And they use people like you who are on staff full time to not just let somebody exit with

01:25:05.640 a bad narrative, but to absolutely destroy them.

01:25:08.780 The, the, the company turns on somebody that they employ and it's vicious and it is all

01:25:14.640 out.

01:25:15.200 And I've seen it at more than one place.

01:25:17.360 And so I think you didn't even know you were just young that it was, this wasn't a good

01:25:22.440 guy.

01:25:22.700 Obviously he eventually got forced out and all that, but you, it was not even just him or

01:25:27.060 this company.

01:25:29.660 It is this industry.

01:25:30.660 It's disgusting.

01:25:30.900 I've said it before today.

01:25:32.160 It's toxic.

01:25:33.420 It's set up to attract bad people.

01:25:36.300 Bad people thrive in it because you're the exception.

01:25:39.960 The fact that you had any moral qualms about doing that and that you managed to find the

01:25:44.060 courage to say, no, I'm not doing that.

01:25:47.080 And then eventually left.

01:25:48.580 It speaks so well of you.

01:25:50.340 You, you probably didn't realize at the time that you were swimming in a toxic cesspool

01:25:54.980 that was much, much bigger than the company you happen to be at.

01:25:57.400 Well, that's very kind.

01:25:58.680 And obviously in retrospect, I think, you know, I was a 23 year old who shouldn't have

01:26:02.820 had the profession to begin with.

01:26:05.100 And part of the reason I was probably chosen was the thinking that I would go along with

01:26:10.020 whatever was requested of me.

01:26:11.960 So I do think we have to, it's important that we look back and we evaluate and we grow

01:26:17.400 from the experiences because that is the ultimate way, at least from the Stoics, the ultimate

01:26:22.900 way to waste them is to not derive lessons from them that you then apply on a going forward

01:26:29.140 basis, which I, I would like to think that I have.

01:26:32.140 Yeah.

01:26:32.280 So what do you do now?

01:26:33.480 You live on a ranch, you're married.

01:26:35.820 How old are your kids?

01:26:37.020 I have a five-year-old and a two-year-old.

01:26:40.000 And so what does life look like for you?

01:26:42.540 I wake up, I take my kids for a walk in the morning.

01:26:46.460 We have some stillness.

01:26:47.480 My rule is I don't touch the phone for the first one hour that I'm awake.

01:26:51.640 I do a little journaling.

01:26:53.140 I go in and I write and I have a little bookstore in this small town that we live in that my

01:26:58.760 office sits on top of.

01:27:00.100 And I live kind of a Mayberry-esque existence in the, in the middle of Texas.

01:27:05.960 It's quite, it's quite wonderful.

01:27:07.700 And weirdly, the pandemic has been quite clarifying to me in terms of like, what do I want my life

01:27:13.400 to look like?

01:27:13.960 What do I want my days to look like?

01:27:15.520 And, you know, what's really important to me?

01:27:18.260 And I think generationally, we're going to see a lot more of that.

01:27:21.600 Everyone I know seems to be moving to Texas for some reason.

01:27:24.340 Mm-hmm.

01:27:25.120 Well, it's got no state income tax.

01:27:26.600 That's nice.

01:27:27.660 And even if your politics aren't hard read, they're, they're more like leave you alone.

01:27:33.780 And I think even a lot of Democrats like a place that just leaves them alone, lets them

01:27:37.320 do, lets them live their life.

01:27:38.920 I think that's right.

01:27:39.860 There's something nice about living in a, a blue city in a red state kind of checks each

01:27:45.040 other out nicely.

01:27:46.540 Interesting.

01:27:47.180 Yes.

01:27:47.580 Well, and I mean, I feel like I can understand that having worked at Fox News for 14 years

01:27:51.980 and lived on the Upper West Side, right?

01:27:56.480 One of these things is not like the others.

01:28:01.320 It's okay.

01:28:02.100 Shores up my skin.

01:28:03.460 Um, all right.

01:28:04.260 Now is your chance to call in, um, still taking your questions on the COVID show.

01:28:09.380 We have the, uh, had the other day, I guess it's on fire.

01:28:11.400 If you haven't seen the interview that we did with Scott Gottlieb, you really should.

01:28:14.660 It was very spicy.

01:28:16.360 Um, and it was kind of fun and we'd love to get your calls and your questions for Ryan

01:28:19.740 on stoicism, on stillness, on ego.

01:28:22.900 How's your ego doing?

01:28:24.220 Uh, or on a challenging situation that taught you something, maybe a little braver or more

01:28:27.800 courageous or steely spined.

01:28:29.400 Call us at 833-44-MEGYN, 833-446-3496, 446-3496.

01:28:42.380 Welcome back to the Megan Kelly show.

01:28:43.960 We're taking your calls right now.

01:28:45.820 It's not too late.

01:28:46.660 833-44-MEGYN.

01:28:49.100 That's 833-446-3496.

01:28:52.960 And Ryan holiday, bestselling author has agreed to stick around, take a call or two.

01:28:56.780 Uh, we're going to start with Richard out in the great state of Nevada.

01:28:59.980 You got to say it, Nevada.

01:29:01.340 They know you're not from there.

01:29:02.360 If you say Nevada, uh, Richard, what's, what's on your mind?

01:29:05.000 I'd just like to say that your guest today is giving some really good, sage advice and,

01:29:11.380 and, uh, I've enjoyed it, but we all know that, uh, some of it, even though you have a tremendous

01:29:18.860 grip for the English language, you know exactly what they said, but you have to have life experiences

01:29:25.700 to really digest it and dissect it and understand it.

01:29:29.720 And a good example of that is like people told me early in life, experience is the best teacher.

01:29:36.160 Well, actually it's not.

01:29:37.360 It's, it's good for, you know, weddings and winning the lottery, but heart attacks and car wrecks, not so much.

01:29:45.980 And, uh, I, uh, I, I agree.

01:29:50.700 Like I said with your guests, I think it's some great advice.

01:29:54.660 A lot of really good points.

01:29:56.240 And one thing my grandfather said to me when I was young and there again, I heard him perfectly, but I didn't understand.

01:30:03.700 And he always said, never get your exercise jumping to conclusions.

01:30:09.240 I like that.

01:30:09.940 Thank you.

01:30:10.660 You know, what about that point, right?

01:30:12.040 It's like experience can be a great teacher, but some things are just really hard and awful.

01:30:17.180 Yeah.

01:30:17.820 Look, experience can be a great teacher, but ideally, uh, we also want to learn from the experiences of others.

01:30:24.040 Uh, general Mattis talks about this, like as a military commander, you can't learn by experience because that comes at the expense of the lives of the people that you are

01:30:33.600 responsible for.

01:30:34.600 So if you're not reading deeply, if you don't have a mentor, if you're not asking questions, if you're not studying the campaigns and the discoveries of the people who came before you, you're doing a real grave disservice, not just to yourself and to the men and women underneath you, but also to your country and to your cause.

01:30:50.960 Do you think, is it too rosy?

01:30:53.640 This is one of my concerns.

01:30:54.640 Is it too rosy to say like, you know, every experience, I sort of, any downside of risk will get you, you know, stronger and you'll learn and you'll be a better person.

01:31:05.320 You know, I think about some people who get a terrible diagnosis, you know, or struggle with something awful happening to a child.

01:31:12.120 You know, I don't want to put too rosy a spin on it.

01:31:14.180 Yeah, it's really easy to be flip about it and say, and this is something that I try to talk about with The Obstacle is the Way.

01:31:22.660 If you could avoid the adversity, great, you know, you should be.

01:31:26.600 No one should have to learn, as you said, from the death of a child or from a bankruptcy or a robbery or, you know, a natural disaster.

01:31:34.600 When these things do happen, then we have to learn from them.

01:31:39.500 But, you know, it's not courageous to, let's say, not wear a motorcycle helmet or something like that, right?

01:31:45.160 If we can avoid it, if we can create a society that helps support and keep people safe, then great, we should do that.

01:31:53.880 But life should not be harder than it needs to be.

01:31:56.860 And just quickly, because I was dying to ask you this, we were up against it, but like, what about regulating your emotions?

01:32:01.600 We talked about fear, but Stoics like to regulate emotions.

01:32:05.580 Is there a rule of thumb on that?

01:32:07.740 It's key.

01:32:08.700 You have the reaction, that's fine.

01:32:10.560 Just try not to make decisions based on that immediate emotional reaction.

01:32:15.380 The Stoics are not emotionless, but they try not to make emotional decisions.

01:32:20.420 That's such good stuff.

01:32:21.460 This is from the book, A Hero Gets Back Up, They Heal, They Grow for Themselves and for Others.

01:32:28.020 Ryan Holiday, what a pleasure.

01:32:29.300 Thank you so much for being here.

01:32:30.420 It was an honor.

01:32:31.760 Thank you so much.

01:32:32.820 You guys got to check it out.

01:32:34.000 You're going to love the book.

01:32:35.400 Thank you for joining us today.

01:32:36.620 Next week, we have Sharon Osbourne in her first long form interview since the talk booted her off over that nonsense.

01:32:43.120 Also, my pal Dave Rubin will be here.

01:32:44.680 You can download the show on Apple, Pandora, Spotify and Stitcher.

01:32:47.540 Check out YouTube.com slash Megan Kelly if you want some weekend entertainment.

01:32:52.420 Thank you.

01:33:00.420 Thank you.

The Megyn Kelly Show - October 08, 2021

Ryan Holiday on Confronting Our Fear, the Value of Being ＂Difficult,＂ and Courage ｜ Ep. 177

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