How Stoic Thinking Built a Super Bowl Team | Les Snead (Los Angeles Rams GM)

As a leader, what do you do when your team is falling apart? Or when success comes faster than you expected? In this episode, Ryan sits down with Los Angeles Rams General Manager Les Snead, the man who helped build a Super Bowl–winning team. They talk about what Les calls his “panic rules,” the principles he leans on when things get chaotic, and how he and coach Sean McVay have learned to play to win instead of not to lose. Les Snead is an American football executive who is the general manager of the Los Angeles Rams of the National Football League. Snead played tight end for Auburn from 1992-93 and was part of the Tigers’ perfect 11-0 team in 1993. He also earned Southeast Region Academic All-American honors during his college career. Prior to joining the Rams, Snead spent 13 seasons with the Atlanta Falcons. 📖 Preorder the final book in Ryan Holiday's The Stoic Virtues Series: "Wisdom Takes Work":https://store.dailystoic.com/pages/wisdom-takes-work 🎙️ Listen to Les Snead's first episode on The Daily Stoic Podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgY3LTK9rUs 👉 Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing to The Daily Stoic Premium https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content: https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ 🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast/?hl=en: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast 🎥 Watch the video episodes onThe Daily Stoic YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos:https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/,Twitter https://twitter.com/dailystoic,YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic,TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@daily_stoic?lang=en, andFacebook https://www.facebook.com/dailystoic See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:06Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast where each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are, and also to find peace and wisdom in their lives.

• 0:51Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I love football. You've probably picked this up from some of my books. You've probably picked this up from some of the podcasts. We had Seth Wickersham, who has this new book about the American quarterbacks on just a couple of weeks ago. I love football. The problem is, my kids do not love football. There's a great Tom Segura bit, he's been on the podcast, he's a friend, our kids have hung out, where he's talking about how much his kids hate football. Let me play it real fast.

• 1:27Speaker 01

  I try to take my kids, expose my kids to, like, with sports. Man, I was so excited because I just thought they would be like me and, like, love football, like I did with my dad. They're like, "Football is the worst thing ever."

• 1:39Ryan Holiday?

  For real?

• 1:40Speaker 01

  They say it. They go, "Can we do a thing where we never watch football again?"

• 1:43Ryan Holiday?

  No.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  They hate football. I've, dude, I'm like, "I have two gay sons. This is crazy."

• 1:49Ryan Holiday?

  And this has been my life. No matter how much I've tried to get them to like football, I gave a talk to the Cowboys' sales staff last year, and so they let us come to a game. And we had, like, owner's box seats. It was incredible. My kids were not excited about any of this. They were excited about the cupcakes in the box, and then the fact that Jake Paul was there. We have not managed to make it work. And then, suddenly, I don't know how, I don't know why. I think it might trace back to one kid at their school who really likes football. It just switched. Last Sunday, we went over to my in-law's house, their grandparents. They were watching football. Then we were eating.

• 2:32Ryan Holiday?

  I had football on and they were like somewhat paying attention. And my mother-in-law goes, boys, when did you get into football? And they were like, right now. I was like, okay, so this Sunday, I said, hey, do you want to go back to grandma and grandpa's and watch football? And they did. And we went over there and we watched the entire Eagles Rams game. Cause for some reason they're Eagles fans. I don't want to trace this back. I don't want to question it. I don't want to jinx it. That's not my team. I'm a Saints fan, as you'll see from the video of today's episode. I have been for a long time, but for some reason they're Eagles fans. And for some reason they like football and I'm not going to question it. If you watch the Eagles Rams game, it was incredible.

• 3:16Ryan Holiday?

  It's heartbreaking, but incredible. Two blocked field goals, lose at the last second. It couldn't have been a better game to start liking football with. So our whole worlds have changed and my kids get very obsessed. So then we watched the next game and then we watched Sunday night football. And then as I put my son in the car to go to school this morning, he goes, can we watch Monday night football tonight? So that's my new life. I'm very excited and that dovetails perfectly into today's episode. Because as we're sitting there watching this Rams game, I go, you know, you have a signed Rams jersey. And he goes, what? And I go, yeah, the GM of the team and his wife sent it to you. And he's like, what are you talking about?

• 3:59Ryan Holiday?

  So they had no recollection, but Les Snead and his wife, Cara, have been friends for a very long time. And they spent a good chunk of time in Austin because their son plays at UT. And so this summer they came out to the painted porch. We did a sort of an impromptu episode of the podcast, which I was not expecting to be able to do. But I'm very glad we got to do. And I think it was awesome. You're going to really like this. If you don't know who Les is, Les is the general manager of the Los Angeles Rams, a position he's held since 2012, which is an extremely long time to be a GM at one team in the NFL.

• 4:40Ryan Holiday?

  They made it to the Super Bowl twice. They've won once. Previously, he was with the Jaguars and the Falcons. And in today's episode, we talk about a bunch of awesome stuff, and I think you will really like this episode.

• 5:04Ryan Holiday?

  There's a big marine base in 29 Palms, and I gave a whole talk about, I opened with your story about panic rules. And they really liked it because, I mean, think about it, it's like the bombs start going off or everything falls to ship. What do you, what do you go back to?

• 5:18Speaker 02

  What do you go back to?

• 5:20Ryan Holiday?

  Have you changed your panic rules since we talked?

• 5:22Speaker 02

  You know, I was, I was thinking about it when I was coming today and it probably, that's why I was like, I probably, here's, here's the positive.

• 5:29Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 5:30Speaker 02

  Is I was disappointed at first, like, wow, I'll probably still have some of the main ones.

• 5:34Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  But if they're trying true panic rules.

• 5:36Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, they shouldn't change.

• 5:37Speaker 02

  They shouldn't change. So.

• 5:38Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 5:39Speaker 02

  Now, every now and then I will add a new rule. You know, there's an evolution where you go, okay, this is, this is a new rule.

• 5:46Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 5:47Speaker 02

  And it's based on maybe a.

• 5:48Ryan Holiday?

  What do you, what's a new one?

• 5:50Speaker 02

  I'm trying to see which one, uh, one of them is can't put life in a microwave.

• 5:56Ryan Holiday?

  What does that mean?

• 5:56Speaker 02

  It's okay to evolve. It's okay to put something in the oven. And so even as we've gone through a little bit of a retool.

• 6:02Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 6:03Speaker 02

  And we're not, we're, hey, we're not ideal yet, but it's like, hey, that's, that's life, you know, even with your kids.

• 6:09Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  You're like, you want to give them one talk and they got it.

• 6:12Ryan Holiday?

  Oh, microwave being just like, you heat it up and it's done in 30 seconds. Things are complicated. That's what that means.

• 6:18Speaker 02

  Yes. And every now and then it's probably better to put something in the oven and let it bake. So, hey, it's probably better to earn experience, which probably somehow, right, becomes wisdom. Then you apply the wisdom versus, okay, we want it right now. Let's, is there a cheat code, dude?

• 6:35Ryan Holiday?

  Yes. You know, I remember when I came and saw you guys at that training camp, you had, I think it was, it was the season right after you'd been to the Super Bowl.

• 6:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:44Ryan Holiday?

  And I remember I asked you a question, which might've been insensitive, but I said, how do you not become Carolina? Which is like, you know, every, every couple of years, there's a team that's really good in all the sports, right? There's a team that's really good that goes almost all the way. They could have won it. They didn't. And then you basically never hear from them again. Right? They never make a similar run ever again. And you don't know, was it just like that was a magical moment? They missed it? Or did they screw something up? But obviously you guys didn't do that because not that year, but the next year you won Super Bowl, right?

• 7:15Speaker 02

  Let's see if you lost. It was probably 18. So we went 19, 20, and the 21 season.

• 7:20Ryan Holiday?

  Right. So two seasons.

• 7:21Speaker 02

  Two seasons.

• 7:21Ryan Holiday?

  Two and a, there are three.

• 7:22Speaker 02

  So two seasons, but in that third season after Super Bowl.

• 7:25Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 7:26Speaker 02

  At that point, you were, we were probably in the window and we, we knew we needed to cash in, or we would have been a team that.

• 7:32Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 7:33Speaker 02

  We were a good team, just didn't get it done. But we would have had to begin retooling because.

• 7:37Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 7:37Speaker 02

  In football, right? Age does matter. A, you know, Father Time has a say and all of a sudden you have this new.

• 7:44Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 7:44Speaker 02

  This new, let's call it crop of core players.

• 7:48Ryan Holiday?

  Well, and I don't remember exactly what you said, but I think you were like, obviously that's the goal is to not do that. But what do you think you did? Because that's, I mean, it's pretty, it's pretty rare. It's also, it's probably almost more common. You make it all the way and then the next year you're great again.

• 8:01Speaker 02

  Right.

• 8:02Ryan Holiday?

  But you guys had a little bit of a dip.

• 8:03Speaker 02

  Well, what we probably did 18, 17, 18, 17, we broke through 18, we got there, lost. We were probably contending those two years.

• 8:13Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  But that's when we made the trade for Matthew Stafford. We're like, all right, we, we may need a veteran QB and not a QB who's getting there.

• 8:19Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 8:19Speaker 02

  That's not there yet to really make the most of this window, which, which is a tough deal. You gotta, whatever you call, you gotta prioritize the we over the me. But then at that point, we knew we were probably going to go into this retooling phase. Because Aaron Donald was, you knew he was going to retire. We still have Matthew Stafford, but he's coming to an end. So the way we've been able to do it now to, to retool is all right, let's make the most of the Matthew Stafford era, but we gotta do it. So we kind of retooled the defense, rebuilt the defense. With, let's call it, players on rookie contracts.

• 8:55Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 8:56Speaker 02

  And at the end of the day, kind of put the veterans on the offensive side of the ball. And that's kind of how we've, let's call it, we peaked. We did have the crash after the Super Bowl and injuries, but now we're climbing back again. And in the climb, we've been to the playoffs two years in a row, so.

• 9:10Ryan Holiday?

  It's probably like, making it almost all the way and losing is either really empowering or totally demoralizing. There's probably a choice. You could, you could tell yourself two stories coming out of that. And I wonder if that's part of why some teams make it, some don't.

• 9:26Speaker 02

  When Jim Collins was sitting with Kara at the first one, I think he used a Churchill quote that said, this is, this is the end of the beginning.

• 9:34Ryan Holiday?

  Yes. Yes. This is not the beginning of the end. It's the end of the beginning.

• 9:37Speaker 02

  I'm like, wait a minute. I disagree. We could have won that. But.

• 9:40Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 9:40Speaker 02

  Point being was, okay, y'all broke through. Now you go do your thing. So Kara will always say, maybe we, she would probably say, I bet you don't win that Super Bowl in 21 if we'd have won it in 18. We never know, you know, but that was kind of his, his reframing or his frame on the situation was, there's a breakthrough.

• 10:01Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 10:02Speaker 02

  So in his, if he was in his world, a paradigm of good to great, you just, you just proved you were good.

• 10:08Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  Now it's time to go do great.

• 10:11Ryan Holiday?

  There was one study I saw that was saying that sometime, like in, they looked at like thousands of like March Madness games and being down by like two points at halftime was like somewhat of an advantage. You'd think like, if you're losing at halftime, you'll lose the game, but being down a little bit, the interpretation was something like, you know, you're in contention, right? Like.

• 10:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:33Ryan Holiday?

  That you're in the vicinity and now maybe the coach goes into halftime and gives a really good speech and goes, we're within spitting distance of do, like, we didn't get blown out.

• 10:42Speaker 02

  Psychologically, if you go into halftime with the lead.

• 10:45Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 10:46Speaker 02

  Really this, you're probably mainframe a psychologist, okay, we can't, we can't now lose this.

• 10:53Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 10:53Speaker 02

  Like, we had the lead at half. All we can do now is lose it.

• 10:56Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 10:56Speaker 02

  Where the other team.

• 10:58Ryan Holiday?

  Not to lose versus playing to win.

• 10:59Speaker 02

  And that always creeps in. You got to lead at half or you're gonna.

• 11:02Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 11:02Speaker 02

  Everyone keeps a stat. Hey, what's their record with a lead at halftime? But that, I think that, I talked to when we did a Q and A yesterday in Austin. I talked a little bit about that. Again, I was not there. Uh, when, when, if you're a golf fan and you were watching Roy McIlroy try to win the Masters.

• 11:18Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 11:19Speaker 02

  But when he, when he had the lead and he went to that par five and he really played not to lose when he laid up.

• 11:26Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 11:26Speaker 02

  And then after laying up, he put it in the water. And I'm not sure in Rory's career at Augusta, he's ever laid up on that hole.

• 11:34Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 11:35Speaker 02

  But that's the, that's probably it's, I could see it from a psychological aspect. It's better to be, okay, we're tied, we're stroked back, we're in it, let's keep playing to win.

• 11:45Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 11:45Speaker 02

  Not playing not to lose.

• 11:47Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, playing not to lose, it, trying not to screw up is like, but you're thinking screw up, screw up, screw like.

• 11:53Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, that's all because you had the lead. So all you can.

• 11:56Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, yeah. You get in your own head. The difference between playing not to lose and playing to win, I sort of see that in you as a GM. Like you, you definitely make big moves that maybe, I think, a couple of seasons after a Super Bowl, trading their quarterback, not all GMs would have done that. Because if it doesn't go well, you look like an idiot.

• 12:16Speaker 02

  Yes, but I think we could talk about that. That's, that's kind of been, Sean and our partner together has been, let's play to win.

• 12:23Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 12:23Speaker 02

  In the game theory, right? We're, at that point, if we're in the, let's play to go win that green jacket.

• 12:28Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 12:29Speaker 02

  Let's play to go try, you know, be one of 32. And that's mainly you're not, you're going to get it, but let's just make sure we do that. I would rather try and not win the green jacket than get to the clubhouse and go, ah, I think, I think if we'd have just played to win it, maybe we'd have won this thing. Versus, ah, I think we played not to lose. That psych bleeds down to, right, everyone. It compounds, I think, at halftime, right? It compounds in the second half where now players aren't attacking, they're more trying to.

• 13:00Ryan Holiday?

  You want aggressiveness to go through the whole organization.

• 13:03Speaker 02

  Unpacking the box not to break something versus, hey, let's, let's unpack the box to, you know, make this the best house we've ever moved into, right? You're, and that compounds. And next thing you know, you're like, and oh, by the way, they take the lead and now you've lost momentum. It's very hard to go, oh, okay, we gotta.

• 13:20Ryan Holiday?

  Even at the professional level, like I. I mean, they've done some studies, right? Like, coaches should go for it on fourth down more often than they do statistically. I, I used to be more, maybe it's a little bit less, but it is interesting that sometime, like, the mathematical or the statistical rational thing is not necessarily the thing that people do, even at the level where there's millions of dollars and all the stuff on the line, the most competitive people in the world. Because what people aren't thinking about is the press conference after the game.

• 13:49Speaker 02

  If you brought, maybe I'm dumbing down stoicism, but if you brought that philosophy to say, hey, we're just gonna play one play at a time.

• 13:58Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 13:59Speaker 02

  And after that play, there's no, that's called emotional baggage.

• 14:03Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 14:04Speaker 02

  Of wow, we, we, we didn't get the first down, maybe we should have kicked the field goal.

• 14:10Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  Right? That all those, if you just play it one play at a time, I think that's where the analytics, because analytics probably is unemotional.

• 14:16Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. Would it be a very different game?

• 14:18Speaker 02

  Would be very different game.

• 14:19Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 14:20Speaker 02

  Very different game. I've talked about it with Jim Collins is, he, he would call it return on luck, whether it's good or bad.

• 14:26Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 14:27Speaker 02

  So in that moment, if you, there is probably an element of training where if you train your team, look, we're gonna go for it a lot on fourth down.

• 14:34Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 14:35Speaker 02

  Defense, if we don't get it, right? If that defense runs on the field and say, guess what? Y'all didn't get it, but they're gonna go three and out and they'll punt it to you again.

• 14:43Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  But if the defense runs on the field and goes, oh, can't believe we didn't get that. Man, if we'd just had that field goal, right? And there's, there's all those emotions. So I think that's the human nature of, of probably sports, because there is a probably the finality of a score and time.

• 15:01Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 15:01Speaker 02

  You can just, you see it, you see it ticking down. So that's, hey, in golf, it's Sunday at Augusta, it's not Thursday, it's Sunday.

• 15:09Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 15:09Speaker 02

  Oh, by the way, we're on hole 12 and there's only, you know, seven or eight more.

• 15:14Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 15:14Speaker 02

  It's not, oh, I got 48 holes left.

• 15:17Ryan Holiday?

  What do you think about it as a GM? You would have to have a lot of self-confidence to be Nico Harrison right now. Even at that level, like, GMs probably should make riskier moves than they do. But you don't want the owner to be mad at you. You don't want the fans to be mad at you. You don't want them wearing T-shirts with your face on it. Like, part of everyone's, I think, instinctive choice is to, like, not rock the boat, not get in trouble. Like, and so what you end up leaving on the table is potentially risky success.

• 15:47Speaker 02

  I always say, general manager versus a coach. Coach may, let's just say you have a bad half. You can come and make halftime adjustments.

• 15:53Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 15:54Speaker 02

  And win the game, and you'll forget the bad half.

• 15:58Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 15:58Speaker 02

  Nico, now, right, for that move.

• 16:02Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 16:02Speaker 02

  Right, is going to be somewhat judged on how it all plays out. So it goes back to the microwave. You can't, we can't microwave, right, the tail of the tail.

• 16:12Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 16:13Speaker 02

  In eight years, if it goes Nico's way, he might be considered a genius then.

• 16:19Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 16:19Speaker 02

  But he did have to live through, right, those first 10 days, those first 10 weeks, those first 10 months, until it goes either way. So that's why I say the difference between coaching and GMing sometimes. Microscope versus telescope.

• 16:32Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 16:33Speaker 02

  Is sometimes you have to make a move to not necessarily be liked when a popularity contest, if you're in politics, right, whatever your popularity poll is or approval rating, you really go, you gotta make the decision, go, okay, I think, you know, I'm betting this decision is gonna be the best thing long-term.

• 16:51Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 16:51Speaker 02

  And over time, that'll be the headline.

• 16:55Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  That matters. Not the one the next day of, what did they just do?

• 16:59Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 17:00Speaker 02

  Now, what's interesting, I tell people all the time, in active duty, a lot of times it is hard, let's call it in his case, and I don't know, I don't know Luca, I don't know, I don't know the ins and outs of that, but it's, it's hard to get up in public and go, hey, guys, let me just tell you this. Luca really doesn't love basketball.

• 17:18Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 17:18Speaker 02

  Money's got him.

• 17:19Ryan Holiday?

  He can't explain himself.

• 17:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, it's, and, cause you don't want to do that.

• 17:23Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 17:23Speaker 02

  To the human who also just, right?

• 17:25Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 17:25Speaker 02

  Helped you to the finals the year before, so.

• 17:27Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 17:28Speaker 02

  I always say there's a element of active-duty press conferences is like.

• 17:32Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 17:33Speaker 02

  You're just, you're just getting through it to not, as Cara would say, not create another news story.

• 17:38Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, you're right. He can't, he can't tell the full truth.

• 17:42Speaker 02

  So that would be a panic rule in that. You, you can't microwave life. But if you think that's the best thing for the Dallas Mavericks.

• 17:48Ryan Holiday?

  You gotta do it.

• 17:48Speaker 02

  You gotta do it.

• 17:49Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. And then you gotta own the fact that people are gonna hate you and you could turn out to be right and still get fired.

• 17:57Speaker 02

  Like it'd be better to live in Bastrop than hang out in this room and go, I don't know what's going on out there, but.

• 18:03Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 18:04Speaker 02

  But that, and that, that's part of one of my practices, probably because of my age, 54, I never really had to, right, get into having a social media account. So I've never had a Facebook, never had an Instagram. Now I will, care of, you know, text chains, people will send something and you'll click on Instagram and play it. So it's not like I'm on a diet, but I don't, because I don't have it.

• 18:26Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 18:27Speaker 02

  I don't really get the, every moment, let's call it pure vomit of, of what, let's call it the public's thinking about a decision that, that you've made. So it probably helps you.

• 18:40Ryan Holiday?

  Stay in a little bit of a bubble in a good way where you're.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  You're very naive.

• 18:43Ryan Holiday?

  You're looking at the, the decision, not people's perception of the decision and then their reaction to what you're doing. You're just.

• 18:51Speaker 02

  Now you gotta know your stakeholders, you're important, you're in our circle. So I bet there is an element, if your owner listens to that, reads that, okay, you, you need to be aware so that you're gonna have to explain to him or her.

• 19:05Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  So you gotta know, right, who, I call it who the inner, inner circle is and how you, right, navigate those waters.

• 19:23Ryan Holiday?

  It is interesting when you go to like a team's practice facility or whatever, like that they're watching Stephen A. Smith two. Like, like that, that these shows are on in the background.

• 19:34Speaker 02

  Yes. In the training room.

• 19:35Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 19:35Speaker 02

  Players are having a blast looking at it. I mean, I mean, except when it's them.

• 19:40Ryan Holiday?

  When I sometimes go and I visit people in DC and you're like going to the. Senator's office and he's just watching CNN or MSNBC or whatever. You're just like, oh, you just get the same shitty news that I do. And then you realize like, you would like to think they have like special information or that they're all they're thinking about is like, what's great for the voters or best for the team or you know, the thing.

• 19:59Speaker 02

  Right.

• 19:59Ryan Holiday?

  But they're just like, oh, I heard, I heard on the news today, like, people are just reacting to the same kind of like whispers and rumors that, that the general public is getting. Which is crazy if you think about it, really crazy.

• 20:14Speaker 02

  Growing up in the age where, I mean, a lot of times you're, if you want to call it, you're really legit politicians or leaders that you believe in, it's almost like they, they came to the podium and, and set the message.

• 20:25Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 20:26Speaker 02

  And you're like, okay, that's what.

• 20:27Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 20:27Speaker 02

  Where now it's, it seems like it's more reactive.

• 20:30Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 20:30Speaker 02

  And you're, and yeah, I get it. They're right. They have analytics. They gotta, they gotta get reelected. So they gotta figure out what they're.

• 20:36Ryan Holiday?

  Right. You would like to think they're getting their news straight from the CIA or whatever, but they're just like, no, I heard somebody say on Twitter, fuck, no. You should be getting, you should be getting better intelligence, not like, not just responding to the same crap that everyone else is. We're looking to you and it turns out you're looking to us and we're just like.

• 20:55Speaker 02

  It would seem like in, if I were a politician, I'd probably say we should, maybe you should have a wall of televisions and okay, the left and the right.

• 21:05Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 21:06Speaker 02

  You know, maybe even the TVs, the more center it, the news feed is, get them closer and go, okay, someone needs to be analyzing what everyone's saying, right? All the viewpoints.

• 21:18Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 21:19Speaker 02

  Not just, not just.

• 21:20Ryan Holiday?

  But I mean.

• 21:20Speaker 02

  I think it's just you.

• 21:22Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 21:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think you, yeah, you're in charge. They voted you in and.

• 21:25Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, you should be making your decisions based on the data, not on vibes.

• 21:28Speaker 02

  I might be a one-termer, but that's how I would approach it.

• 21:30Ryan Holiday?

  But that's also why we have term limits. That's what's so crazy about it. You know, it's like you, imagine what you would do as a GM with six years guaranteed job security. Not like a six-year contract, but like you couldn't be fired for six years. You would actually be able to play to win, right? Like the point of the, the job security is we want you to make hard decisions because, and we want your term to not over. Lap with a Senator and a President like you're going to be in office longer than that they are. Right. And so you should have the ability to think longer term. That's why we put that into place and then no, everyone's riding the kind of day to day cycles and they're not thinking long term. That must be the hard part about like trying to plan for the future of a team.

• 22:14Ryan Holiday?

  And at the same time, thinking about your interests, right? Like what's good for you right now might not be what's best for the team five years from now. And the tension between those two things, that's what's so impressive. When you see people who have been somewhere a long time, build an institution is like they were able to defy the gravity.

• 22:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what going back to probably Jim Collins back where I, when I read good to great and the level five leader.

• 22:39Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 22:39Speaker 02

  A little bit, what I not saying I'm level five, tried to model it like, okay, those people put the institution, the organization, the team first.

• 22:47Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 22:47Speaker 02

  And what I've always thought is if you try to do that.

• 22:50Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 22:51Speaker 02

  It'll probably end up benefiting you individually, right? Like if you try to do that and the institution, the organization, the business, the team is successful, then that probably is good for you as the individual as well.

• 23:07Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 23:07Speaker 02

  Versus the other way going, okay, let me try to navigate where I do everything to make sure myself as the individual is reelected.

• 23:14Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 23:15Speaker 02

  And then, hey, if it, if the, if it's good for the institution, then that's, we've seen that when people are navigating the politics and I'm going to, sometimes I thought that just seems exhausting. Like I'm going to try to make sure all the, all the people in charge really, really, let's call it like me.

• 23:31Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 23:31Speaker 02

  And you work that political game when I'm like, it seems like you'd just be easier to go.

• 23:35Ryan Holiday?

  Be good at football.

• 23:36Speaker 02

  Mavericks be good at basketball, then.

• 23:38Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 23:39Speaker 02

  Okay, I need to make sure, you know, I'm saying this to this owner, I'm saying this to the limited partner. I'm saying this to the president and you're playing all of those. Now, some people that might be their superpower.

• 23:52Ryan Holiday?

  Yes. Some people are political animals.

• 23:55Speaker 02

  I'm like, okay, yeah, let's just try to get football, play quality football and it usually works out for everyone.

• 24:01Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. I mean, I think about that as a writer, it's like you can try to trace trends or fads or, you know, get the best or the biggest deal or the best marketing or if you, you only have a finite amount of energy. So you probably just spend your energy trying to make the best fucking thing possible. And more often than not, that's going to get you where you want to go.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  And that's probably how you start.

• 24:22Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I mean, I like, right. Why would I not focus on that, the thing that I got into it for?

• 24:27Speaker 02

  But I get to now, once you, once you have a bestseller, then it's like the marketing people, they, they now, hey, we want another bestseller. So it would probably be easy to go, okay, I'll just write a couple of books and who cares if they're

• 24:40Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 24:41Speaker 02

  Good. And but then it, it would be interesting. You could tell me as a writer, sometimes I'm like, will that catch up with you though? Like, it's like, oh, I'm not reading Ryan again. And then when you do say, you know what, I'm going to pour into the one, one last, you know, book from my soul. And everybody's like, no, I'm not reading that one because your last three were, you know, kind of sequels that.

• 25:02Ryan Holiday?

  I think people can sense when you're doing it for some reason other than what you say you're doing it for. So if you're like, this will get me lots of speaking, or this will get me lots of consulting, or this will make me look smart. But you don't actually care about it. I think you can sense in the product whether the person's heart is in it or not. And also, again, like, there's so many things you could do with your life. So you should spend the life on the things that you like doing.

• 25:29Speaker 02

  And if you can get to that point where there's no pressure of, right, you could be the author who, well, writes, you know, his passion or her passion. And then it's like, wow, okay, I, I'm going to do these two things because I need to, right, feed the family per se. So you get those phases of life where you can understand. I mean, that's real.

• 25:47Ryan Holiday?

  Totally. Yeah, it's, it's all easier to do once you're good.

• 25:51Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 25:51Ryan Holiday?

  Then you can have more sort of creative. But to me, that's also the point of, of getting to a place of good. Right? Like, I think a lot of people say, okay, like, when I'm later, I'm just going to focus on this. Or once I've made enough money, I'm going to do this. But then the problem is we move the goalposts on what that thing is. And so we're never actually secure.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  A lot of people want to get in football and they always ask, hey, what can I do to be a GM? What can I do to grow, climb the ladder? And I go, look, I'm old school, but I would tell you this, just try to be very good at what you're doing now. I would spend my energy trying to be good.

• 26:27Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 26:28Speaker 02

  I'm betting that compounds and at the right time. Now, trying to be one of 32 GMs, that's. You could work a lifetime and just, right? You could, it might not work out.

• 26:40Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 26:40Speaker 02

  But I'm betting if you, I wouldn't, I wouldn't aspire for one seat. There's only 32 up, but you can aspire to be.

• 26:48Ryan Holiday?

  In the game, like, I think what you're saying is like, don't aspire to be a specific position because you don't necessarily control whether you get that or how long you get it or how it goes. But if you're instead inspiring to just have a life that centers around the thing that you love, whether it's football or player development or marketing or whatever, then you're gonna, you can be in the mix. And if you're in the mix long enough, you'll probably get a shot at the big show.

• 27:15Speaker 02

  But I try to think about it, right? If there's, let's just call it, there's someone who never was president, maybe was chief of staff, but I have to imagine that they were very fulfilled.

• 27:27Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 27:28Speaker 02

  Life, right? And, and then that led to some, whatever, but there's that element of like, you have to imagine that that's still very fulfilling even though.

• 27:36Ryan Holiday?

  Well, it's like, are you doing the verb? Or are you trying to be the noun, right? Being or doing? And like, a lot of people focus on the other stuff, like, like the distinction between like, I want to be a writer and I want to have a bestselling book. Those are, those seem like the same things, but one is, is external and one, a lot of other people have a say on whether you get to do it or not. But like, no one can stop you from writing. Like, you could write right now, you could write an unlimited number of books in your lifetime. The problem is you, people get very obsessed with publishing and the politics of the business and deals and agents and how do I get this? And how do I get that? And again, there's only a finite amount of energy. So why aren't you spending it doing the thing, getting really good at the thing? My friend Cal Newport has a book, I'll give it to you in there.

• 28:19Ryan Holiday?

  It's called, "So Good They Can't Ignore You."

• 28:22Speaker 02

  I've read a lot of Cal Newport on kids trying to get to college.

• 28:26Ryan Holiday?

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:26Speaker 02

  So I know he's got a lot of other things.

• 28:28Ryan Holiday?

  Yes, he's the best.

• 28:31Ryan Holiday?

  Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it and I'll see you next episode.