BONUS | Where Service Meets Stoicism — U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Joe Byerly & Ryan Holiday

In this bonus episode, Ryan sits down with his friend and collaborator, Joe Byerly, a U. S. Army veteran, writer, and host of From the Green Notebook. The two talk about the overlap between Stoicism and service, the discipline it takes to think clearly, and why wisdom isn’t something you’re born with. Joe Byerly is a recently retired U. S. Army Lieutenant Colonel with 20 years of service, including combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and command of a cavalry squadron in Europe. He’s earned multiple honors, including the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, and the Purple Heart. In 2013, he founded From the Green Notebook, a platform that helps leaders reflect, grow, and share their experiences. Joe’s passionate about the power of reading, writing, and self-reflection—and he’s the author of The Leader’s 90-Day Notebook and co-author of My Green Notebook: “Know Thyself” Before Changing Jobs. Follow Joe on Instagram @FromTheGreenNotebook and on X @jbyerly81Check out Joe’s podcast From The Green Notebook on YouTube, Apple Podcast, and Spotify See more of Joe’s work on his website: https://fromthegreennotebook.com/📖 Wisdom Takes Work by Ryan Holiday is out NOW! Grab a copy here: https://store.dailystoic.com/pages/wisdom-takes-work🎥 Watch the video episodes on The Daily Stoic YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast✉️ 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, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription

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

• 0:05Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a Stoic-inspired meditation designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women, help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit dailystoic.com.

• 0:56Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. So, this is my life, a little window into my life. I write a book, and then I send it into the publisher, and then they work on it for a while. They edit it, they design it, they send it back to me, they copy it. We go back and forth, but this whole process takes many, many months. So, like, wisdom takes work. I think I turned in, more or less, as the book was going to be. Like, I stopped writing, writing, like, in December of 2024, and it just came out, like, two weeks ago, right? So, that's several months of one book ending before that book comes out. So, what do I do in that interim period? I start writing the next book, always

• 1:40Ryan Holiday?

  writing. This is advice I got from Steven Pressfield. Just start the next book, start the next book. So, I am already chugging away on the next book. You may have heard me talk about it in interviews or some of the walkthroughs, because people come into my office, and then I show them what I'm working on. And I'm working on a biography. I'm actually working on a biography of James Stockdale. And Billy Oppenheimer has been my researcher for a long time. He worked on all four books in the Stoic Virtue series, and he's fantastic. He has a lovely email that I've talked about before, where he says- Sends out a bunch of things to think about every Sunday evening. You can sign up for that at BillyOppenheimer.com. So Billy's my go to guy. He's like what I was for Robert Creed, right? But Billy's a little busier these days, not just because he's working for some other interesting people.

• 2:24Ryan Holiday?

  And he works on lots of stuff for Daily Stoic, but he's also working on his own book. So I decided when I was going to start this other book that I wanted to work with someone else. And given that this is a book about the military and about the Vietnam War, I decided I wanted someone with a background in that. And so I was trying to think about who I might work with. And there was someone that I'd done their podcast a couple of years ago. We had some mutual friends. We would chat back and forth every once in a while. I knew he wanted to be a writer. I knew he was retiring. He'd just spent 20 years in the US Army. He was a lieutenant colonel, a tank commander. He ran a cavalry squadron in Europe where he'd won a Bronze Star and the Legion of Merit and a Purple Heart.

• 3:09Ryan Holiday?

  Just an incredible dude. And I said, hey, I don't know what you're thinking about doing next. You probably could go make a fortune as a consultant or as an executive at a defense company or something. But, but maybe you want to do this instead. And he said, that's exactly what I want to do. And so I've been working with Joe Byerly and Joe has been helping me research on this book that I'm doing now. And it's been an awesome experience. It's been not just great to watch him grow, but like he's found so much stuff that I would not have found on my own. He's been able to help me sort of scale myself a little bit, do some of the travel, like go into these different archives and stuff, which I don't have the bandwidth for. We've been chugging away on this book.

• 3:49Ryan Holiday?

  So he wanted to interview me about Wisdom Ticks work, which he made some contributions to as well. And I said, okay, but I also want to run this conversation on the Daily Stoic, because I think people would benefit from it. And I think more people should check out his site called From the Green Notebook, which is a podcast and an email list and sort of a platform for leaders, mostly military leaders, but I think leaders of all type who are trying to grow and get better. Joe talks a lot about reading and writing and self-reflection. He's also got two. Little Books, The Leader's 90 Day Notebook, and he's also the co-author of My Green Notebook, Know Thyself Before Changing Jobs. His writing has appeared all over the place. You can follow him on Instagram from The Green Notebook, and his podcast is called From The Green Notebook,

• 4:34Ryan Holiday?

  which you can find on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify. I wanted to bring this interview to you, so you can kind of see behind the scenes, what it's like to work for me, what I'm working on, how I think about things, and then Joe's perspective as well. You can watch the video version of this on YouTube, which I'll link to in the show notes. And of course, you can check out Wisdom Takes Work, which is in stores everywhere. I really appreciate the support, everyone, and let's just get into it.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  Welcome to another episode of From The Green Notebook. I'm your host, Joe Byerly, and today I'm sitting down once again with my friend, New York Times bestselling author, Ryan Holiday. This conversation is a little different for me. It's my third time interviewing Ryan, but my first time since we started working together last summer. After 20 years in the Army, stepping into the world of writing a book has been a completely new experience. At 44, I find myself very much an apprentice again, proof that growth never stops, which is one of the central themes of Ryan's latest book, Wisdom Takes Work. In our discussion, we talk about the importance of staying curious,

• 5:51Speaker 01

  the need to write things down and to reflect, because our belief systems are at stake and can be easily influenced in today's world of social media. Ryan also shares why we should listen more than we talk, think with nuance, and ruthlessly question our own beliefs. We dig into why mental struggle is necessary, why shortcuts rob us of real knowledge, and how power and intelligence can be dangerous without the tempering influence of wisdom. In addition to exploring ideas in Wisdom Takes Work, you'll also get a sneak peek behind the curtain into Ryan's writing process. We talk about his next project and what both of us are learning as we work together for the first time.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  So with that, please welcome to the show, Ryan Holiday.

• 6:39Ryan Holiday?

  Yes, I think you have a little glimpse into my life, working on this next book together, which is that...

• 6:48Ryan Holiday?

  Although I have one coming out, what I'm actually excited about and thinking about all the time is the next one. And it's this sort of blessing and curse of this like track that I'm on because yeah, you're, you're, you're talking about the thing that's done that you lived in for a while, but you're living in a totally different world.

• 7:07Speaker 01

  It's interesting too, because the, I was actually listening, I was listening to it, but I don't think we recorded it. So the last, the first podcast we did, I think was in 2020 for Courage is Calling, when that was coming out. And you made a comment, you said, I, I think, I hope this works out. But you were like, I just signed up to do this four part series.

• 7:29Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  And, you know, so it's, it's like a, you were like basically at the base of a mountain, looking up and you only had one under your, your, your belt at the time.

• 7:41Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I've, I've never done, I'd never done books that are related before. My ego, obstacle and stillness were sort of accidentally part of a set. And they're not really linked in any way other than stylistically. And then I guess they're influenced by Stoic philosophy. But yeah, this is the first time I'd ever, first and so far, only time that I'd ever done interrelated projects. It's not just weird, like doing any books that are interrelated, but the, the four virtues as an idea, like going back 2,500 years, Zeno talked about how they are distinct, yet inseparable from each other. And, and there's something about that

• 8:22Ryan Holiday?

  that I think goes to the essence of the virtues, because, you know, courage, but in pursuit of what? Or, you know, wisdom, but in pursuit of what? And so they're all related to each other. So where one book begins and ends is a little fuzzy and somewhat arbitrary. And then also, your As I was writing each one, until I got to the last one, I was always thinking about the the next one. And then you get to the end and you're like, well, I would do courage differently. If I was starting, you know, so it's it's been it's been an interesting project for sure.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then, you know, for listeners, like what like the thing that Ryan was alluded to right before we went into this discussion was, uh, you know, I think I've been working with you now for a year. And this is the book uh, that that I've

• 9:15Ryan Holiday?

  Oh, great. Because you you you looked at the Raveling book a little bit.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was like my first taste of it. And then this one was to kind of towards the finish line.

• 9:25Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  And then now we're just like we're we're building the ingredients for the next one.

• 9:31Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. And so it's a weird part of publishing where promotion is about the thing you've already done. And right as you start to finish a project, you tend you start to think you usually finding what you're getting excited about next. And so it it and they they tend to overlap like right when it's because I mean, the wisdom has been in the can. I think I submitted it as a final, I I submitted the manuscript to the publisher in like maybe December of twenty four. So it's it's been that that didn't mean there wasn't a lot of work and a lot of editing to do. There was. But um, most of the the the creative,

• 10:16Ryan Holiday?

  you know, sort of part of it has been done for, you know, nearly a year and you're what even by the time you turn it in, you've already been winding it down for a while. So yeah, it's it's a it's a weird um, it's a weird headspace because right when you're the most precious about your time and most in excited and engaged with the thing you're doing now, you take large chunks of time to do podcasts and interviews and then the book tour and all that kind of stuff. So it's a yeah, it's it's a it's a weird experience.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. So so let's go back in time then to

• 10:50Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  to la- a last year conversation. So how do you how do you define wisdom?

• 10:57Ryan Holiday?

  I would say that I don't. I think if you if you could, if you feel like you could define wisdom, you're almost certainly exhibiting some quality that is not wisdom. Like, there is something fundamentally ineffable about it, which isn't to say I don't think we can, that we can't wrap our heads around it. We can. But there's something ineffable about wisdom that, by that I mean, it is many things. It's not one thing, right? It's experience and intuition and education and intelligence and understanding. It's creativity, it's perspective, it's, you know, it's being philosophical

• 11:41Ryan Holiday?

  in the lowercase sense of that word, right? So it's all these things and more. I guess what I have come to say is that

• 11:55Ryan Holiday?

  the one thing we can say for certain about wisdom is that it has to be earned, right? That it doesn't, it's not something you're born with and it's not something anyone can give you, right? Wisdom is the result of hard work. That's what the title is. It is, it is a, it is something that ensues as a result of a relatively timeless and unchanging process, is a method, and it's the byproduct of that method. So, you know,

• 12:31Ryan Holiday?

  it's this thing that we are aspiring towards as opposed to something that you go, oh, this person has it.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Right. And even if somebody has it, they may only have it in one area.

• 12:44Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, sure. And that the possession of it is fleeting at best, right? Not just because circumstances is always, are always changing, but also because the possibilities, all the additional things that one can learn, are also always changing. So it's this...

• 13:06Ryan Holiday?

  It's like the, it's like the horizon, right? You can make progress towards it, uh, but it also gets further away.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I actually, I, I got this note card. Somebody got me on this thing of writing stuff down on note cards.

• 13:20Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, sorry about that.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  And, uh, it's from Plutarch and he's talking about this Persian who visited, uh, this, um, this studio of a sculptor's studio and he, he, the, the sculptor says, "As long as you kept quiet, you seem to be someone because of your golden jewelry and purple dye clothes. But now even these lads here grinding the pigment are laughing at you for talking nonsense." And, uh, cause this guy came in thinking because he was rich, he was wise. And, uh, we see people making that mistake today.

• 13:54Ryan Holiday?

  Well, that's, uh, obviously the, uh, the, uh, the kind of thing you should write down on a note card. But yeah, there, there's a, there's a famous quote, is it Lincoln about, you know, "I'd rather be quiet and thoughtful than open my mouth and remove, uh, all doubt." And then there's an episode of The Simpsons where someone says that to Homer Simpson and he says, uh, you know, "Takes one to know one." And then in his mind, he goes, uh, swish, you know? So, so there, I think there is something about wisdom that is, is one fundamentally about humility and two, something very different than success, power, wealth. Um, it, it is, uh, there, there are many smart people who are fundamentally foolish.

• 14:39Ryan Holiday?

  Uh, and then there are very, there are very many people who no one would define as well-educated, but are in fact quite wise.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  Who are some of the people as you were researching and, you know, thinking about the topic of wisdom that, that you kind of held up as being a wise person?

• 14:56Ryan Holiday?

  Well, obviously, there's some characters that run through the whole series of the books. That's been a part of it. One of the things I've liked about doing these interrelated books is to be able to sort of track different people's evolutions and to be able to sort of hold them up and look at them from all these different angles. But the sort of three main characters of the book, I first, I start with Montaigne, the French thinker, who has this very untraditional education, both a mix of sort of self-education and traditional education, and then tutoring and life experience and travel. This is just sort of fascinating, one of the smartest people who ever lived, but also one of the most unconventional thinkers who ever lived.

• 15:38Ryan Holiday?

  And so I sort of talk about the education that forms this man and the ongoing nature of it. So he's the primary character at the beginning. And then at the end, I talk about Lincoln as a sort of ultimate man, the complete man, if you will, both self-educated in the way that Montaigne is, and then also, you know, a great moral figure who does one of the hardest things there is to do, which is to take this wisdom, this ability to see what other people can't see, and then change the world in that image. And then in between, the middle part of the book, is about this idea we were talking about, which is how smart people can be very foolish, and how there are these sort of

• 16:23Ryan Holiday?

  sirens or pitfalls that can blunt, you know, considerable intelligence and in fact, even maybe weaponize that intelligence. And so for that character, I look, you know, quite in-depth at Elon Musk, who I think is both one of the smartest people in the world, and then one of the most dangerously stupid people in the world. And I sort of look at this incredible rise. How does a guy basically teach himself the automotive business, teach himself the space business, you know, solve these incredibly complex and complicated problems, not just like mathematically and from a physics standpoint, but the...

• 17:07Ryan Holiday?

  The hardest thing to do in innovation, which I was saying, is like bringing it into the world. Like he's a, he's a logistical genius and a bureaucratic genius and a manufacturing genius and an organizational genius. And so, you know, how does he accomplish all these incredible things? And then, you know, you look at him today and you're like, what happened? You know, how, how, how does this person who goes from reading Soviet rocket manuals, go to, you know, like retweeting misinformation from Russian bots? And, and, uh, you know, I think he's a cautionary tale in many ways. This isn't a political thing. Just how does someone by nature of their information diet and the stress and the strain,

• 17:52Ryan Holiday?

  go from being, you know, one of the most widely admired people on the planet to being this divisive, polarizing person who's, you know, gutted the federal government and done, you know, a number of other things. Um, so, so those are, that's sort of the arc that the book takes people on.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  I'm trying to think back to your past books and from what I remember, I think this is like the first time that you've taken a critical look at a contemporary person.

• 18:21Ryan Holiday?

  Oh, I don't think that's exactly true. Um, certainly in the Virtue series, almost every one of the main characters has not been alive. Uh, Queen Elizabeth died in the middle of Discipline is Destiny. So I mostly try to pick people that are not alive. Um, and then, uh, and mostly historic because they're less polarizing and partisan. Um, but I definitely in my other books, I've told stories of, of, you know, athletes and entrepreneurs and people, um, mo- I think you're right, mostly, uh, positive. I do mostly try to celebrate, you know, Alex Haley said the job of the author is to find the good and praise it. And I kind of feel like most of the stories that I do are celebratory.

• 19:06Ryan Holiday?

  But I also, you know, I started as a research assistant for Robert Greene. And I think one of the genius parts of the stylistic layout of the Forty Eight Laws of Power is that he, as often as he's showing the observance of the law of power, he's showing a transgression of the law. And in many ways, this can be more compelling and persuasive to see the costs of rejecting, you know, wisdom or, or, you know, a fundamental part of the human experience. And so I don't have a problem doing negative examples. Actually, you know, in Ego is the Enemy, I sort of break down Howard Hughes at some length as one of the middle characters of that book.

• 19:51Ryan Holiday?

  And in many ways, that set, the irony is that I heard about the book that I, that I, that I ended up basing a lot of that writing on. I heard about it from an interview I read with Elon Musk in like 2015. He was saying that, you know, Howard Hughes is both an inspiring and a cautionary tale. And so, you know, I think I was predisposed to, to sort of follow that trajectory then. And it wasn't a choice that I took lightly by any means. I mean, I've met him before. I've been to a party at his house. We have a lot of mutual friends. He's like basically the owner of this town that I live in. You know, it's not something I was excited to do.

• 20:36Ryan Holiday?

  And, you know, I could come to rue the decision, I'm sure. But, but, but it, it, it struck me as a very powerful example of what can happen when you don't take care of yourself. And also when you get high on your own supply, which is, I think, what happened. We have to remember, like, the story of King Midas is a cautionary tale.

• 21:00Ryan Holiday?

  You know, pride goeth before the fall, but, but also it's just, it's a.

• 21:07Ryan Holiday?

  It's not sustainable to expose oneself to the amount of stress and strain and the workload that he has done. And you add into that the very potent element of everyone telling you that you're one of the smartest people in the world, and you are one of the most powerful and richest people in the world. To go to your point about Plutarch, Plutarch would very much recognize this, not just this personality type, but this arc, as would Montaigne and as would Shakespeare and as would Homer. This is what happens, right? This is not the exception to the rule. This is the rule.

• 21:47Ryan Holiday?

  And, you know, if you read and you study history, this is what happens to MacArthur in many ways. This is what happens to most of the great men and women of history. You break under the strain. And I think that my argument is that's largely what happened here.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, going back to even like writing this book, or the writing you've done in general, I think a lot of people think that, you know, they could just read or, you know, consume information. What role does writing have in the development of wisdom?

• 22:34Ryan Holiday?

  Well, you helped kick off one of my favorite chapters in the book. It was a story I was familiar with, but hadn't dug that deeply into. I have a chapter in the middle of the book about writing as a way of clarifying and articulating your thoughts and then holding yourself intellectually accountable. I tell the story of the monk Thomas Merton, who believed that writing was a contemplative act.

• 23:07Ryan Holiday?

  But then the the sort of B story in that chapter is the story of Eisenhower, who's called into Marshall's office, the outbreak of World War II. And as he is sort of being interviewed for a larger role, Marshall is really testing him and a number of other officers. Not so much on the caliber of their ideas, but how they go about coming up with those ideas. And so I I make this up a little bit, but as far as we know Eisenhower is the only the only general that Marshall interviews that when asked, what would he do to save, you know, basically the Pacific Theater in in what is now the second, truly a world war?

• 23:52Ryan Holiday?

  What would he do? Marshall's, or sorry Eisenhower is the only one who goes, hey, I need some time to think about this. And he borrows a typewriter and some paper. And actually, I just found the papers you had, you found like actually that the stock of paper circa, you know, 1941 or 1942 that he would have written this on. But he basically sits down and he puts his thoughts into writing. So instead of riffing, he puts his thoughts into writing. And I think the reason I I liked that story and the reason it struck me is it it's sort of central to who I am as a person. Like, I've said this before, but I I think I became a writer because when I would get in discussions with my father

• 24:36Ryan Holiday?

  or my teachers and I would I would feel like I was stumbling for the words or I feel like I wasn't explaining myself well, I feel like my impulse was I want to go in my room and write this out. Like, and and thinking with your fingers, to borrow the an expression from Robert Caro, is to me, one of the best ways to clarify your your thoughts and to and to get them to get them there. Because You know, one of the things I don't like about podcasts is it's a lot of bullshitting. It's a lot of first takes and your first take is very rarely a good one. Writing is, is even your first draft is not your first take because you're having to think about it

• 25:20Ryan Holiday?

  and think about the word choice. But then, uh, as you, as you saw in the process of the book, you get edited and edited and edited and edited, even down to in this room, you know, two months ago, I started the audio book. And the, there, I, I had another final round of edits, just hearing it out loud. So, so it's, it's the writing and the editing as a process that helps one develop as a thinker.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, the, uh, I, I know I read it somewhere, but I, I've like talked, I've written about this. So it comes quickly to the, to the forefront of my mind.

• 25:55Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  I think we have between like 50 and 75,000 thoughts a day swirling around in our heads. And, and it's when you, you know, the, how we opened the podcast, that Ian Forster quote, how do I know what I think until I see what I say?

• 26:08Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 26:09Speaker 01

  Seeing what, you know, seeing it on paper really helps to clarify the thinking. And then when you see it, you actually see gaps in your knowledge. And I know like in the, in the writing process, sometimes I'll look at something and be like, wait, wait, why did this happen? But I wouldn't have asked the why question if I didn't see it written down first.

• 26:32Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, it's, it's writing and then, uh, it, it's not just writing to see what you think, but also, uh, if you then conceive of the audience reading it, it adds this whole other wrinkle. Like Jo, Joan Didion said that writing is a hostile act. And by that she meant you are having to take what you think and say it forcefully and persuasively and logically enough that somebody else agrees with it. Like they don't just read your writing, but they concede the point. And so, so now, if you're now thinking about the audience and you don't want to think about it too much, but you need, you can't not think about it. You've now brought empathy into the equation. You've now.

• 27:18Ryan Holiday?

  preemptively considered the objections to your line of thinking. You've you've you've considered the attention span of the audience. And you've tightened what you've said. So so there's all these different angles now. So so if it's just like, hey, here's what I think, you know, um, maybe that's sufficient. But but when you're you're thinking, hey, what do I think? What are the problems with what I think? What are the problems other people are going to have with what I think? And then how do I make this snappy and compelling and um, interesting? Uh, and stylistically solid, all of this forces you to refine and distill and refine and distill

• 27:59Ryan Holiday?

  until you've gotten something close, i- if not to the best way to say it, then certainly a better way than you would have said it if not subjected to that pressure.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you know, we're talking about it in the context of of writing a book or writing an article, but you know, for leaders listening to this show, I mean, like, you're constantly communicating, you're communicating down into your formation or your organization, you're communicating up to, you know, superiors, the the marshals of the world. And, you know, laterally to your peers. And so each one of those people is a different audience. And as you think about those things and get it down and writing, you can kind of take that step back and look at it objectively. And, you know, tighten your argument up and make sure that, again, you're speaking to the right audience and the right voice. And so it's not just, this isn't just a skill for writing, which I guess is why it's in the wisdom book.

• 28:53Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  Uh, it it's it's, you know, part of the process.

• 28:57Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, and look, like, a world where you're sending Slack messages to your fellow employees is not, you know, imagine your marshal or Eisenhower, you're having to write memos to the president, you're having to write orders to your generals, who in turn have to then write orders, who in turn have to write orders. And so i- i- i- if you're not starting from a point of clarity and conciseness, um, if if you haven't, uh, well-defined what you're doing and why you're doing it and what the priorities are, it's going to get, you know, you add that sort of game of telephone on top of it, it's going to get real sloppy, real fast.

• 29:41Ryan Holiday?

  And so, yeah, writing is is is an art. And it's something that you need to be good at. And young people need to be good at. And I, this is obviously one of the worries about AI is not, um. You know, it's not that term term papers are that important. But the ability to produce a good term paper. That is to say, a good, uh, the ability to get your thoughts on paper. Um, and explain something in a way that is satisfactory to someone else. That is the skill. And like, I think that's one of the things that's interesting as I fool around with AI. Just how bad it is actually at writing, you know?

• 30:22Ryan Holiday?

  Um, and but but also, one of the things you get from being a good writer is the ability to recognize bad writing. Right? And I think, um, that's been striking to me. One of the other chapters in the book that I'm, I think is most relevant and most important. I talk about, you know, sort of sophistry and and demagogues and conspiracy theories and misinformation. Like, you, um, you notice that it's not just that people are bad at writing. But they're bad at reading too. And by that, I mean, they're bad at recognizing bad writing. You know, like, I I I wrote an article a couple of weeks ago and and like, somebody replied. You know, with like a link to a Gateway Pundit article.

• 31:07Ryan Holiday?

  And it's like, this is a person who, uh, uh, you know, is not able to recognize just bad thinking, bad writing. They can't even recognize, like aesthetically, what a reputable website looks like compared to a not reputable website. And so so writing i- isn't just forming your ability to communicate what you need to communicate. But it allows you to effectively parse what other people are communicating. And recognize sort of tricks, uh, and and shortcuts and bad thinking. Uh, and and, you know, insufficient, uh, you know, um, uh,

• 31:49Ryan Holiday?

  or or illogical arguments or insufficient arguments. Like, this is all, these are all critical skills, both in the ancient and in the modern world.

• 31:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'll I'll try to expla- I wrote it out and let's see if I can explain it. But uh, yeah, I wrote something called the walls we build. And essentially, we have like, like our belief system is built up over time. And in each brick, you know, it's come from childhood. They come from stuff your parents said, your coaches. So you're building up these these walls of belief. And you know, all across the internet, there are people just handing bricks out. Whether they're hot takes on X or Facebook or this gateway article. Maybe that's two or three bricks. And if you're not careful, algorithms are going to build the wall. People who are misinformed are going to build that wall. Russian or Chinese disinformation is going to build that wall. And I think over time, if you're not careful, you're going to have a belief system

• 32:44Speaker 01

  that's built on a bunch of shitty bricks.

• 32:47Ryan Holiday?

  Well, I'll give you, I'll give you a funny example. So uh, and then I might need to actually help you what I will need to have you help me track down this actual stat. But for for for the Stockdale thing, uh, I I I wanted to know how many graduates from the Naval Academy had died in World War Two. Um, and you might, we might have already talked about this, but I I needed to know how many Naval Academy graduates had had had died during the Second World War. So I I I said, I I typed this into ChatGPT and like the newest, like that, not like the free one, but like the one I pay a lot of money for. And it said, you know, and it to its credit, it was showing me its work. But that's why it was, that's why this was so visible to me.

• 33:29Ryan Holiday?

  It goes, okay, um, six percent of the graduates who served in the uh, from the academy uh, died during the Second World War. And then it said between nineteen forty and nineteen forty five, seventy five hundred people graduated from the Naval Academy. So therefore, you know, it's like four hundred and twenty two. Well, obviously, uh, that looks like thinking and it was typed out persuasively, right? But the problem with this is that those are two totally unrelated variables. Um, I I happen to know from something else that I'd read that like fifty four classes.

• 34:12Ryan Holiday?

  From the academy, served in the Second World War. So, so the fact that seventy five hundred people graduated between nineteen forty and nineteen forty five, which is roughly the war years, is totally, is totally unrelated to, or, or, um, irrelevant to the fact that there was a six percent death rate, right? You, you, it, it, and, and then the fact that there is a six percent death rate means that the actual statistic is available somewhere. Like, this, this would be in, you know, the VA would have this statistic or someone would have it. Um, and, and so I remember saying to ChatGPT, like, hey, these are totally, I was like, hey, this is wrong. I was just, this isn't even close to the answer, try again.

• 34:56Ryan Holiday?

  You know, and it goes, well, I was just estimating, let me try to be a bit more, you know, uh, precise. And I said, you know, estimation is not the problem. The problem is you're just smashing two unrelated numbers together and, and telling me that that's, you know, the answer, and it's not. Um, and I, and I said, you know, obviously, by, again, by nature of you having the six percent number, that was derived from the total number of people who served and the total number of people who died. We can get there. Um, and then I, and I, and then the irony is, and this is the, I think, the thing that where, where smart people often outsmart themselves or, or make simple things complicated.

• 35:36Ryan Holiday?

  There is the simple fact that there is a memorial on the wall in Memorial Hall at the academy that lists all of the names, uh, which, which, you know, I could just get a picture of and count. Uh, and so, so the, my, my point is not that AI is not impressive and then it can't do some things. My point is that the, the, actually, the challenge of the twenty first century, although this is arguably always the challenge, is how good are you at spotting bullshit? Um, how good are you? At questioning the answers that you get from other people or from other things.

• 36:15Ryan Holiday?

  And so in this case, I needed to know a bunch of information and have some basic critical thinking skills. Like, I still don't know the answer. I just know that what you gave me is not even close to the answer. And that the formula that you attempted is not ever going to be able to produce that answer. And so in that way, I'm inoculated against being incorrect. But it still doesn't actually solve for me the problem that I need to solve. And so when we talk about wisdom, this is kind of what we're talking about, right? It's not having all the answers, but it's knowing how to find the answers. And it's also knowing what is not the answer.

• 36:57Ryan Holiday?

  Because just not falling for bad thinking, sloppy thinking, manipulative thinking, propaganda, et cetera, is just a big part of being a wise person. Just not being stupid is the first part of getting closer to wisdom.

• 37:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, and like curiosity too would play.

• 37:19Ryan Holiday?

  Yes, not being satisfied with the first answer is a big part of it too. Like, you ask a question or you read a book. And I think that's been the interesting part. You and I were talking about this on the stock deal book. You read something or you think you have a good sense of something. And it's only when you keep pulling on the thread that you find, oh, there's just so much more here. There's just so much more than you could have ever imagined. And it's really the desire to keep pushing and to not be satisfied with like, you know, what are often secondary or non-primary sources.

• 38:02Ryan Holiday?

  And really to take it back to the roots, that's what it's all about.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  The other thing about your reading too is, you know, okay, like you can read, you can listen to informative podcasts, whatever your method for intake is. But you know, like something that I was thinking about this morning was is the forgetting curve. Where 24 to 48 hours after you finish reading something, you forget 75% of it.

• 38:28Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  So for you. The importance of writing.

• 38:33Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 38:34Speaker 01

  Like writing things.

• 38:35Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, not, not writing prose, but, but the, reading the book and then the note cards of it.

• 38:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:41Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, uh, and, and, uh, there needs to be some process by which you record and synthesize the information that you have. One of the, one of the stories I tell in the book, which I, I ended up reaching out to him and I got a bit more color on, uh, General Mattis tells the story in, in his memoirs of, of, you know, hitchhiking to go see the philosopher Eric Ho- uh, Eric Hoffer talk. And, and he goes up to him later and he asks him for advice and he says, you know, uh, make sure you write down anything interesting that you hear or read. And, um, what I, I asked Mattis about this and, and he told me that, that, that he has something

• 39:24Ryan Holiday?

  he calls his book of wisdom, which are three-ring binders where for the last, you know, sixty or seventy years, I forget exactly when this Hoffer thing happened, but, but basically for the rest of his life, he has been doing that. And you can imagine the many, many, you know, binders that he's filled of these insights and ideas. And as it happens, Eric Hoffer did this too. Uh, at the Hoover Institute, there are supposedly file cabinets filled with note cards that Eric Hoffer accumulated in the course of his travels and, and experience and writing and reading. So it's not just the reading, it's, it's the, the processing of the information. And the only thing that, that, that I, I, um, I

• 40:07Ryan Holiday?

  struggle with this is like, I, I read a lot, some of it for work, some of it for pleasure, some of it just for, for my own education. And I'm, I'm horribly backed up right now. Like, I'm, I'm, I'm reading all this stuff for the book that I'm writing now and having to process that. And every day, the stack of, you know, novels and. Uh, nonfiction and biography that I've read that I haven't had the time to process uh piles up. And the funny thing is so much of what appears in this book and my past books has has actually come not when I was reading for uh for for for work, so to speak, right?

• 40:50Ryan Holiday?

  It's it's when you're reading randomly or arbitrarily and you find something that you didn't even think of was related to some project you hadn't even started yet. So i- i- it's it's not just the reading, but it's it's the the what comes after that I'm really interested in.

• 41:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, and George Ravling, he had, he did something similar too with his three ring binders. And he was, you know, highly successful executive, basketball coach. So I like there there's something to that.

• 41:16Ryan Holiday?

  It is funny, though, because I've I've met so many people over the years that have like sort of proudly shown me their like, like Buzz Williams, who's at who's at Maryland now. You know, I went to his office one time and he starts handing me these binders that he's been doing. And it's like, it's only interesting to them, right? Like, like, like, it can't make any sense to anyone else. Like, like, if if so, if George Ravling had, uh, in his will, given me his binders of wisdom, like, that would have meant a lot to me, but it would have been almost totally worthless to me because it's it's like not just in his

• 41:56Ryan Holiday?

  handwriting and in his shorthand, but it's it's it's what he thought he needed to know, right? And so there is something like I spend, I've spent thousands of hours on my note cards, and they're really of value only to me and indecipherable to basically anyone and everyone else. But but that's the point. You're not creating a resource for other people. You're creating a second brain for yourself.

• 42:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, in a couple of things on that. One, I like, I started doing this in 2012. And I actually remember Googling. I was like, oh, this, I should write about writing things down in a notebook.

• 42:38Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  It's like, oh, who's this, Ryan Holiday? It was like.

• 42:42Ryan Holiday?

  Is that how you found me?

• 42:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, 2016, 2017.

• 42:45Ryan Holiday?

  That's interesting.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  He wrote something about commonplace notebook. And I just started going through all, you know, the writing. I was like, I really like this. So. Um, so I, I found that I was, you know, keeping a small three by five notebook on me.

• 42:59Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  You know, throughout my back half of my military career.

• 43:03Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 43:03Speaker 01

  I was constantly looking at stuff over and over and over again. And I found that it was almost like. Things were at the tip of my, you know, not just my tongue, but my mind when I was facing problems that that were new. Um, you know, I was having to address like very complex issues. Uh, I was able to rely on those notebooks.

• 43:24Ryan Holiday?

  Well, it helps with the, it helps with the recall, right? So I think people. Look, I, I have no problem with audiobooks and ebooks. Like I, I like the people buy them. And I think at this point, they're like 50 or 60%. Of my sales. So I'm, I'm certainly not complaining. But I think if you tell yourself, oh, I'm, I'm. Saving this on my Kindle, or I'm making a note in Audible, and I'm going to remember it. Um, I think you're fooling yourself, right? Like, that to me, it's, it's the long hand. It's, uh, taking the notes in the book and then transferring it. And then it's the ability to go back to your shelf and grab it and find, okay, I.

• 44:06Ryan Holiday?

  I see here on the note card or in my thing that this is the quote, it's on page 92. And it's not just the quote, but the larger context of the quote. And, um. So, yeah, I, I, I, I not only read all my books longhand, uh, but when I am. Like if I'm just reading, you know, the news of the day, I'll read it on my phone or whatever. But like I print out articles, interviews, you know, research papers. I print them out and I go through them by hand. Because I wanted, I want that to be my sole focus. And then I want to have the, the paper record of it. So I can go back to it later. Um, and then even, you know, like, uh, the process is always refined.

• 44:50Ryan Holiday?

  I never, until I'd done this biography, you know, I, I, I hadn't needed as much, uh, material that wasn't in books. But these kind of, uh, briefing books that you've been putting together have been, you know, a really important part because, you know, I'm reading, you know, dozens and dozens of letters. I'm reading, you know, memos. I'm, I'm, I'm reading transcripts of interviews. And, and again, I, I need to physically have it and be able to read it once, mark all the stuff that's important and then go back to it and transfer it from here, either into no cards or into the, the chapter or the section that I'm writing.

• 45:29Speaker 01

  So for those listening, this is where, when you don't know that working on a general staff is ever going to pay off in the future.

• 45:36Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  This is where it's paying.

• 45:38Ryan Holiday?

  I would say, I would say it's, it's substantially improved the process for me. The pages keep coming out of these little books.

• 45:45Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 45:45Ryan Holiday?

  It's, I, I think from a technology standpoint, I would be, I, I, I, we're in the middle of it and it doesn't matter. But like if I was traveling a lot or I could only imagine one of these briefing books in a combat zone or something. Uh, I, I, there's gotta be like a better technology for it.

• 46:00Speaker 01

  The trick is they don't read it. You prepare it.

• 46:03Ryan Holiday?

  Ah.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  They never look at it or they look at it one time. Well, and then.

• 46:07Ryan Holiday?

  Or, or also it's like, you know, you open it halfway. I'm, I'm the same way. I was just going through this on my, my nine-year-old's like homework this morning. It's like that what I've always hated about the three-ring binders and stuff is you're like. You know, you get like halfway and then you should be able to just snap it closed. Instead, it's this like delicate process of like, you know, like whatever. But um, it's just, it's funny too, just to think, and there's this great book that I read, I've been raving about called The Notebook. Uh, which is about the history of notebooks.

• 46:37Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, I interviewed Roland.

• 46:40Ryan Holiday?

  Roland.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 46:41Ryan Holiday?

  Uh, but, but just that, that like, as a technology, it's, it's old, but not that old. Like just that the technology of a notebook, it, you know, um, is like from the fourteen hundreds. Like the modern notebook dates to like the fourteen hundreds. Which means like, on the one hand, the Romans didn't have access to something that's convenient. On the other hand, like Da Vinci is complaining the same way that we're complaining. Or, you know, I'm left-handed. And so one of the things I hate about writing by hand, and I, I tend to use like Sharpies a lot, is like my, I'm just like covered. Uh, because I, I'm dragging or whatever, you know.

• 47:22Ryan Holiday?

  So, so anyways, it, just the timelessness of like, the, the insufficient nature of all these different mediums. And the complaints about the technology is pretty great. There's actually a line in Isaacson's bio of Da Vinci, where he, he talks about how incredible it is that Da Vinci's pages survive to us, right? And, and I, I, I was in Milan a few years ago and I went and I saw some, some of the pages of the notebook. Um, but, but, but he points out that when he was working on the Steve Jobs book, that Steve Jobs was like, oh, I, I have some diary pages, or, you know, I have some, some things that I wrote about this, let me find it. And Steve Jobs is going back to this old Mac that he had from like the eighties.

• 48:06Ryan Holiday?

  And like, even Steve Jobs is having trouble getting the things that he'd put on this computer out of the computer. Meanwhile, these diary pages from Da Vinci, you know, five hundred years ago, are like.

• 48:21Ryan Holiday?

  Readable to your average layperson. And he was saying like, basically, put it on paper. The best place to put it is on paper. And I think that's, that's largely right.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  And the stock deal book would be very hard to do now if it wasn't for.

• 48:36Ryan Holiday?

  The letters? Yes. Yeah, of course. Well, and just paper copies of his orders. And yeah, all these, all these artifacts for, for sure. At the same time, uh, if he had lived, if he had been born, you know, a century earlier, there wouldn't be these oral histories uh, that, that are so valuable too. So it's a, it's a, it's a little of both.

• 49:10Speaker 01

  The last, you know, as, as we wind down, I'm curious. Cause a lot of people listening, they're like, well, I'm so busy. I don't have time like, and, and even now, like I'm looking, like I'm looking around right now. I have like stack of like stuff for you. I have my own stack. I have like my personal reading and then I've got like books that are just coming in from folks.

• 49:29Ryan Holiday?

  Uh, sure.

• 49:30Speaker 01

  You're like, hey, you should read this. So I'm also getting backed up right now. So how do you find time or how do you make time in your schedule for, to go back and kind of pull these notes out of your, your books into note cards?

• 49:46Ryan Holiday?

  Well, I, I remind myself that pretty much everything I know and everything I write is a lagging indicator of work that I did at some point in the past, right? It was not just reading the book, but then processing it um, that put it on a note card. Uh, that then, you know, as I was going through and organizing the next book, you know, was sort of perfectly exactly what I needed in that moment. So, so I just have to remind myself that it's, it's like, it's a form of time travel. It is a gift I'm giving my future self. In, in the same way that it would be awesome to be able to like travel back in time and tell a younger version of you something you learned. This is a way that a.

• 50:30Ryan Holiday?

  Present you can travel to the future and tell a future version of something that you're probably gonna forget. Like Joan Didion was talking about how she says that notebooks are a way of remembering who you used to be. It's also a way of remembering what you used to know, right? And so I just have to remind myself, this is, this might feel like it's not moving me forward, or it's of value, but that's because it's not moving me forward right now. It's not of value right now. But it's actually gonna be the exact solution to a problem that I have six years from now, because I'm writing something,

• 51:12Ryan Holiday?

  or because I'm dealing something with my kids and suddenly the recall, the memory of having written this down pops into my head, or I'm gonna be doing a memo, or a video, or whatever. It's a gift to your future self. So I usually go through periods, like I'm not caught up right now because I'm so unbalanced working on this thing. But I'm, I know that when this slows down, I have to go back through that backlog.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  Does this slow down?

• 51:40Ryan Holiday?

  Well, yes, yes, because as we're talking about, like, I finished the Wisdom Book in, you know, let's say, November, December of last year, I finished most of the writing and the researching. And then I immediately started going through everything that I'd read about Stockdale, everything I'd read about Vietnam, everything I'd, you know, read about the POW experience. And that formed the basis of the, the sort of outline for the book that I'm now researching and writing. So, yeah, I know, like, stuff is piling up for the next project, and I'm kind of putting it over to the side, and I know I'm gonna go back through it later.

• 52:25Speaker 01

  Oh, Ryan, I appreciate you making time, man. I know, I actually can say I know how busy you are.

• 52:33Ryan Holiday?

  No, this has been, dude, you're doing amazing. This has been actually a great experience. And I can't, I was just telling Samantha the other day, like, I

• 52:45Ryan Holiday?

  I'm like loving this, like I'm loving being in the middle of the thing and that um that I I um I should not only enjoy it, but I should not rush through it like like I I can turn the book in whenever. Uh like the I don't know, I didn't tell you this, but my publisher was like um. Hey, so so uh we wanted to talk about release dates on the book and and I said, okay, what are you thinking? And they they gave me this this um this date and I I said, okay, but when would I have to turn it in? And they were like, I don't know, sometime December or January of this year. And and um I was just like, immediately, no. And I was like, not because I couldn't, I think I probably could. Uh like I could get something, you know, rough.

• 53:30Ryan Holiday?

  But I was like, why would I? Why would I I'm enjoying this meal, why would I try to finish it as quickly as possible? And so um yeah, I just I I genuinely loved being in this person's life and in this period of time. And um there's something too about when the world feels like it's falling apart. Uh I I'm enjoying being in the the twenties and the thirties and the forties. Yeah, I guess it says something about um, you know, our our current moment that there's something relaxing about living in the nineteen forties, you know? Uh but but it is right because because you're you're you know how that story ends.

• 54:16Ryan Holiday?

  And you don't know how the present ends. And there's something wonderful about being in you know, somebody's journals and diaries and these sort of great men and women of history. Uh that that uh sort of turns down the volume in a way that you don't experience in the in the current moment.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, agreed. I'm I'm a again, right, right there with you in the trenches of this one. So uh again, Ryan, appreciate your time, man. And uh yeah, like I've been I've telling people like. It was like six months before I retired and I remember we had a conversation and I didn't want to commit to anything.

• 54:53Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 54:54Speaker 01

  I was just like, I just want to retire and I'll figure it out later.

• 54:57Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 54:57Speaker 01

  Like, wouldn't it be nice if you just knew that you were walking into something next? And I was like, okay, that's a, that's a good valid point. That may take some of the stress off.

• 55:08Ryan Holiday?

  Oh, that's funny. I said that. Interesting.

• 55:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:11Ryan Holiday?

  Do you feel like you're learning? Like, uh, cause I feel like I'm like, obviously I've done projects similar to this and I've researched a lot. But I feel like I'm learning a lot about, um, uh, not just about this person, but I feel like, uh, I'm adding, in, in, I found this conspiracy where I had to read a lot of legal papers and just even the process of procuring all the legal papers was a lot. But, but I feel like I'm learning, uh, about, uh, just different kinds of archives and types of information. And I, it's been an interesting experience.

• 55:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I was, I was like, this is book, this will be what? Book seventeen?

• 55:53Ryan Holiday?

  I don't know. Something like that. Yeah.

• 55:55Speaker 01

  But I would imagine for the process, and I was, I was telling, I think I was telling Amanda this is like, this process would have been different for Obstacle is the Way or Ego is the Enemy.

• 56:05Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 56:05Speaker 01

  But now that you're like, have several under, like I, I can tell you're trying to push the limits of what you've done before.

• 56:14Ryan Holiday?

  Well, I've done that in all, all the books. I, I would say that was actually the excruciating part of, um, of, uh, The Obstacle is the Way, uh, the 10 year anniversary edition, cause I, I had to go back and, and do it. And, and I noticed not just, uh, well, first off, what struck me is like, oh, these were, this was like basically everything that I knew. Like this was all the stories and anecdotes and history that I knew up until that point, you know, I was, I think I was largely writing it at like 24, 25. So I'd read a lot and I researched a lot, but that was, that was everything that I knew. And now I know a lot more. So it's like, I'd read one biography of Grant, you know, now I've read five.

• 56:55Ryan Holiday?

  And then other, you know, so I just had a larger base of knowledge. And so what, what I found was sometimes the things that, the claims that I were making, I was making were thin. Right? Like that that I was resting it only on, you know, one line from one person. And and and and that that I just wouldn't, I wouldn't allow myself to do that now.

• 57:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's the thing is like, now I feel like because you're at this level, like, it's almost like you're, from an educational standpoint, uh, I'm learning where you're at on this number book.

• 57:30Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 57:30Speaker 01

  So I've seen that inside of it.

• 57:32Ryan Holiday?

  And I remember when I was a researcher for Robert Greene, you know, he'd be like, try to find me this and I'd find it and he would just be like, ah, that's not, he, that was not good enough. And and he just meant like the story wasn't good enough. And then other times he would mean like, that's not a serious enough source, right? And I would have to go back and find more and more and more and really, uh, actually, uh, support this claim. Um, and so, uh, I, but what, as I've gotten better, I've tried to not only find different, I th- I feel like my writing, that the examples have gotten more diverse. The history has gotten more interesting. And then I also feel like the the ground that I'm standing on has gotten firmer because I've I've asked that of myself. But I do remember also working for Robert, he told me he's like,

• 58:14Ryan Holiday?

  and and he was, you know, four books in maybe, but but his books are just different. He'd been doing it, you know, fifteen or so years probably when, when I started working for him. And he was saying, he was like, at some point, you you get to a place where you can just smell, uh, what you're looking for like a shark can smell blood in the water. And I just remember thinking, oh, that's really interesting. Um, and I wonder what that's like. And you've probably seen that on on this where I'm like, I know this is somewhere. I don't know where it is, but I know that it's somewhere. And I, let's keep looking until we find that thing. The the the stories were, the,

• 58:55Ryan Holiday?

  I I, it's funny, as before I came down here, I just finished the section, finished, the section on West Brown. I feel like finally I have. All the information I need to make the claims that I'm making and to also, as we were talking about, you think about the audience. I, I, I feel like I've, I've disproven, I, I could, I, that, that, I haven't left anything unchallenged. I, I've, I've looked at it from every angle. I have all the information I have. I can safely make this conclusion. And have this section and it's supported and justified and um. That, that if anything, it's the tip of the iceberg. I could say more if I wanted, but I'm leaving it here.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  So on that, like, and I wrote this down the other day, because of, because of the, this thing, and for listeners, you'll have to wait till the book comes out. But, uh, but this idea of learning from instincts. And so like when I was working for senior officers, they would make gut calls. They would make instinctual calls like that. And I remember I would write them down and then go back and reflect on like, you know, what information did he receive, he or she receive in order to, to make that call. And so, uh, the other day when we started going down this West Brown.

• 1:00:17Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:17Speaker 01

  You know, theme of the story in the book. I was like, man, like Brian has an instinct there. And sure enough, like as we've

• 1:00:26Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:26Speaker 01

  locked that, that wing of the hotel, there's plenty of doors to, to open, but like is this idea of people who are you know, in this, you know, mentor protege role is not only, you know, paying attention to the things they're saying, but like learning from instincts, I think is, is something I want to learn.

• 1:00:45Ryan Holiday?

  Well, and, and in, in like, like what Robert was having me do is chase stuff down to either prove or disprove an instinct he had. Like he'd be like, I think there might be a story in this person. Go read like five books and come tell me if there is, right? And so he could do that and he knows how to do that. But uh he he he's it's not worth his time because the the chances of it being true or not true is low, right? Or valuable or not valuable is low. The the important stuff he's doing himself. And but but what I'm learning is how to to do that. And then you're you're

• 1:01:27Ryan Holiday?

  developing that same instinct. And so now I can say to you, hey, um, there's gotta be uh like, you know, I I think we're uh there was something that was like a speech. And I was like, this, there's gotta be something out that out there. And you're like, I don't think there is. And then I was like, there's no way that one of the most famous people in the world visited this small town in Iowa. Oh, yeah. It was not it was not covered wall to wall by newspapers, you know, and you were able to find it. And that that was because I remember I'd done some stuff, I'd researched some stuff that and I I just I was just amazed at the level of, you know,

• 1:02:12Ryan Holiday?

  detail that was covered in these newspapers. And I mean, I wrote a whole book about media criticism. So I just had a sense that there was that this was there. I mean, and this goes to the AI thing. I I couldn't tell you for sure where it was, or that it existed. I just knew that more likely than not, it it it it was there. And that that it it could this this uh got instinct was um falsifiable, right? Like, you you could go search the archives of these three newspapers, and we would find very quickly whether it did or didn't exist. And so so and that that's where and I talk about sort of

• 1:02:54Ryan Holiday?

  delegation and stuff in the discipline book. That's what leadership ultimately is on a level that's different than being a writer. Like, like, sure, I if I wanted to spend the next eight years of my life, I could track down each one of those leads. But but what what you get good at is knowing the falsifiable assertion, and then having trustworthy people who can then go

• 1:03:23Ryan Holiday?

  Give you the answer one way or the other. That's what it's about.

• 1:03:27Speaker 01

  Right. Well, as we, as we wind this down.

• 1:03:30Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:30Speaker 01

  That was the last question. So one more.

• 1:03:31Ryan Holiday?

  All right.

• 1:03:32Speaker 01

  Uh, what is one thing after finishing this book that has changed your life or that you're doing differently or?

• 1:03:41Ryan Holiday?

  Oh, that's a good question. Um, what have I taken out of this book? Uh, well, one of my favorite stories in the book, I talked about Socrates being a, a very smart guy who had sort of poor social intelligence. Right? Like they killed Socrates because he was obnoxious, not because he was smart, because he was obnoxious. And I, I, I just put a lot of, I, I, I'm putting more thought into like, it's not just what you say, but it's how what you say makes people feel. And, um, that I think this is a, this is another way where smart people, um, you know, get themselves into trouble.

• 1:04:22Ryan Holiday?

  And I am trying to be a bit more thoughtful and deliberate, especially in this kind of fragile. Um, you know, sensitive slash incendiary world we're living in. Um, you just don't, you don't do yourself any favors. Uh, posting or saying the first thought that pops into your head. This isn't to say you censor yourself. That's not what I'm saying at all, but it is, um, you know, it is the ability to say, hey, what is the best way to say this? Not the most diplomatic way, but what is the way that will make sure that what I'm actually saying is heard?

• 1:05:03Ryan Holiday?

  Not, uh, how do I immediately offend slash turn the other people off?

• 1:05:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. Ben Franklin actually wrote, he wrote about that. He, he talked about like, that's the ultimate goal. So do so in a way to where it will be received. So maybe if you just start wearing like bifocals and a coonskin cap.

• 1:05:23Ryan Holiday?

  Well, Ben Franklin is a really interesting example. And I talk about him a little bit in the book, like it's very rare that the smartest person in the world. Is also one of the most well-liked people in the world. And people really fucking liked Ben Franklin. Like, like, tha- tha- and that's a level of his genius that he doesn't get enough credit for. Is like, people really liked Ben Franklin. Nobody locked Ben Franklin up in the tower, right? Like, um, eh, e- even the British were sort of begrudging fans of Ben Franklin. And, um, that's a, that's a, that social intelligence and interpersonal relations is another layer of wisdom and intelligence that we, um, we often ignore to our peril.

• 1:06:08Ryan Holiday?

  Elon Musk being a great example of this.

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  Well, Ryan, uh, thanks for your time, man.

• 1:06:14Ryan Holiday?

  Of course.

• 1:06:14Speaker 01

  This was awesome. I, I think the next interview on the, the Stockdale book's gonna be very, it'll be different. It'll be, I don't know what it'll be like, uh,

• 1:06:24Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 1:06:25Speaker 01

  By the time that comes around, so.

• 1:06:26Ryan Holiday?

  Well, we gotta get to the finish line first. And we're only maybe 20% done, so.

• 1:06:30Speaker 01

  Oh, that's great. That's good to know. Good to know. I know what my, my weekend's gonna be. But, uh, again, thanks, thanks for, uh, making time today and, and thanks for the last year. It's been, uh,

• 1:06:40Ryan Holiday?

  It's been awesome.

• 1:06:41Speaker 01

  It's been a fun post-military education. Thank you again for listening to another episode of From the Green Notebook Podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please give us five stars wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps us gain visibility and the opportunity to help more people on their leadership journey. Also, make sure you check out our website at www dot from the green notebook dot com. There you can listen to past episodes, read leadership articles written by military leaders from around the world. You can sign up for our monthly reading list email where you can learn about new books that are coming out. And our Sunday reflection email that comes out every Sunday morning is really short. It's a two-minute read, but I guarantee you it's gonna start your week off on the right foot.

• 1:07:23Speaker 01

  Finally, make sure you follow us on Twitter at FTGA Notebook. And you can find us on Instagram and Facebook by searching for From the Green Notebook. Again, thank you so much for coming on this journey with us. I am humbled by the opportunity to learn these lessons alongside you. So please join us next week for another episode of From the Green Notebook, where we're gonna help you lead with the best version of yourself.

• 1:07:55Speaker 02

  Strong like a tree There's roots where I stand Oh, I've been running from the law Hope they won't shoot me down soon