Charles & Chase Koch on the Power of Principles

On today’s podcast, Ryan talks to Charles and Chase Koch about challenging assumptions and leaning on first principles, the advantages of a bottom-up approach as detailed in Charles’ new book Believe in People: Bottom-Up Solutions for a Top-Down World, how to make a difference by working together locally, their philanthropic organization Stand Together, and more. Charles Koch is an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He has been co-owner, chairman, and CEO of Koch Industries since 1967 and has released three books including Good Profit and The Science of Success. His son Chase Koch directs the venture capital company Koch Disruptive Technologies. Their This episode is brought to you by Beekeeper’s Naturals, the company that’s reinventing your medicine with clean, effective products that actually work. As a listener of the Daily Stoic Podcast you can receive 15% off your first order. Just go to beekeepersnaturals.com/STOIC or use code STOIC at checkout to claim this deal. This episode is also brought to you by Eight Sleep. The new Pod Pro Cover by Eight Sleep is the most advanced solution on the market for thermoregulation. You can add the Cover to any mattress, and start sleeping as cool as 55°F or as hot as 110°F. Go to eightsleep.com/dailystoic to check out the Pod Pro Cover and save $150 at checkout. Today’s episode is brought to you by Munk Pack, Keto Granola Bars that contain just a single gram of sugar and 2 to 3 net carbs—and they’re only 140 calories. Get 20% off your first purchase of ANY Munk Pack product by visiting munkpack.com and entering our code STOIC at checkout. This episode is also brought to you by Ladder, a painless way to get the life insurance coverage you need for those you care about most. Ladder makes the process of getting life insurance quick and easy. Go to ladderlife.com/stoic to see if you’re instantly approved today.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicFollow Stand Together:Homepage: http://believeinpeoplebook.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Stand_Together Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/standtogether/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JoinStandTogether/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc3LKvNXVjc2NoHHvVFitiA See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription

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

• 0:02Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these Stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space, when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal,

• 0:46Ryan Holiday?

  and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. Welcome to another very special episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. My guest today is the one and only Charles Koch, industrialist entrepreneur, and as he calls himself, the chief philosophy officer of Koch Industries. I also had on someone I am personally friends with, his son Chase Koch. It's sort of a joint interview together, and we talked about the ideas in Charles's newest book, Believe in People: Bottom-Up Solutions for a Top-Down World. Now, I know there might be some of you who have sort of an aversion to Koch's.

• 1:28Ryan Holiday?

  You've sort of got this idea of the sort of Koch political boogeyman. I've attended a few of their events. I've spent some time talking to them. It was fascinating here, having this interview where we nerd out about ancient philosophy, Stoicism, serving the public good, making a positive difference in the world. And I've got my own different impression. And actually, I think this conversation is in line with something that the Kochs have started to build their philanthropic endeavors around, which is this idea of aligning and working with anyone to do right. You know, we have a politically divided world, a partisan world. A world that's quick to demonize.

• 2:12Ryan Holiday?

  And, and look, there are certainly people that, that, that are demons. I'm, I'm not denying that there aren't bad actors in the world. But generally, I think we have a lot more in common with some of the people we disagree with than we might think. And if we find areas where we have agreement, where our interests align, we can do good work together. We can do, as Marcus really said, works for the common good. And in fact, that's what Marcus said the fruit of this life was. He said, "The fruit of this life is good character and acts for the common good." So that's what today's episode is about. And I think anytime you have someone who's been extraordinarily successful at what they do, who's a bit iconoclastic at what they do, it's good to learn from them. It's good to ask them questions. You don't have to follow them in everything.

• 2:55Ryan Holiday?

  You don't have to agree with them on hardly anything, but you should find what you can learn from them. And as a company, as Coke Industries does, that employs more than 100,000 people and does billions and billions of dollars a year in revenue, I think there's plenty to learn from here. And that's what I focused on in this discussion. We don't really get into politics. In fact, we spend our whole conversation talking about principles, first principles, the principles that motivate father and son here, the principles that I think the Stoics would have agreed on. And then I push back on some things that the Stoics would have disagreed on, or some areas that I think their thinking falls short. And I think that is also in line with what Charles talks about, the idea of challenging

• 3:37Ryan Holiday?

  one's assumptions, challenging people that you talk to, not just focusing on, on where you happen to be totally aligned. So it's a push and pull. I think you're going to like this interview. And I do suggest you check out Believe in People: Bottom-Up Solutions for a Top-Down World. They asked me to blurb it, which is not something I do much these days. And here is my blurb. "If you don't believe in people, what do you believe in? This is a provocative book for the moment. Highly recommend." So here is my conversation with Charles and Chase Coke. I hope you enjoy it. And this is going to require some Stoicism. If you are feeling that tinge of, of political bias creeping in, control your emotions,

• 4:20Ryan Holiday?

  be calm, be reasonable, be rational, and see what you can learn.

• 4:27Ryan Holiday?

  It is funny, I mean, obviously, as someone who writes books, I get why I write books. But sometimes I wonder why someone who has anything else they can do, especially, several billion reasons not to write a book, I gotta wonder why go through the not always pleasant experience of writing.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  What, you know, in reading your daily material and all your others on Stoicism, it's been a long time since I've read a lot about it. But it just, I mean, it's amazing, but I talk a lot about the principles of human progress and the similarities, like your one today on being negative. That's Einstein's philosophy of science, as articulated by Karl Popper in his essay "Science is Falsification." And we practice here this by calling the challenge culture. So we practice exactly that.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  Now, I didn't get that from the Stoics, but so many, and I think the other day when we talked, I went through some of our guiding principles. I mean, it is amazing, and this is what I find, as I'll talk about today, that when I became dedicated to finding principles that could help me, I found all the different disciplines, when there was a fundamental truth, it might have been expressed differently in another discipline or another philosophy, but they were similar, they overlapped. And that's when I saw that, that's when I said, okay, that's gotta be a timeless principle

• 6:19Speaker 01

  if it shows up in so many different ways. So that's, it's fascinating just to see this from reading your material.

• 6:28Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I was gonna, I was gonna say you seem, you seem like a person who, who goes to first principles, to use that expression. And I had Thomas Ricks on the, on the podcast, The Historian, not long ago. But, but the idea of, of sort of getting to the root of whatever you think, I've got to imagine, part of the reason you wrote the book was just to, not, not just to teach other people, but there's something about writing that forces you to examine what you think and why you think it. And, and is that, is that sort of why you did the book?

• 6:58Speaker 01

  No, no, it was, no, and I, I'll get into this if, if

• 7:04Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Interesting is that I discovered my gift at a very, early age. And, but then I didn't know what to do with it. And I struggled with how to develop it and apply it in a way I could believe in myself for like 20 years. And even when I was successful, I felt empty and, and lost. And finally, I said, I got to go find some principles that can guide me. And so I, so I've been like a crazed man on finding and applying principles ever since. And that was, I, I discovered my gift aged seven, so it's turning at 27. I, ever

• 7:49Speaker 01

  since, I've been guided by finding principles. And, and today, principles we've had, just had a meeting with one of our business units, how now they're even applying it better, and getting more innovations, and empowering our people. And, I mean, it's so exciting. At 85, stuff I've been working on 60 years is, is just blossoming.

• 8:15Ryan Holiday?

  Chase, I was gonna ask you, these are probably ideas you have heard over and over again through your life. Is it weird to see them on the page? How, when you? You must have a strange relationship with it because it's their ideas that I imagine you have a certain amount of agreement with, but then also when they're coming from your dad, you probably see them differently.

• 8:39Speaker 02

  No, I mean, I think we probably all have interesting perspectives here and just hearing his story and getting to know you and your story as well, you know, when you started in business, working with American Apparel and, you know, becoming this kind of marketing rock star and the whole thing, like, at some point, like, my understanding of your story is like, you kind of said, hey, it's all about these ideas, and it's about these principles, and you're gonna go all in on that and dedicate your life to helping make Stoicism actionable, so people can improve their lives. So, what's so cool about you two kind of having this conversation is I see like, a lot of similarities, it's

• 9:21Speaker 02

  almost uncanny. But yeah, but with, I guess, with my relationship with these principles, I, you know, at the age of four or five years old, I had no choice, right? It was kind of like, you know, I remember at the dinner table, my sister and I, we had our five principles growing up were love, courage, faith, honor, and loyalty. And so, like, you know, as a kid, you gotta break it down and make them really simple. We weren't quite to Stoicism at that level, right? But we had to, every single night that we'd start dinner with, all right, tell me one principle, and how did you exemplify that over the course of

• 10:01Speaker 02

  your day? So that's kind of how it all started. And then, nine, 10, 11 years old, we'd be in his library on Sunday afternoons, and we'd be listening to books on tape from Milton Friedman and Hayek, and like, are you kidding me? At age 10, 11, like, really?

• 10:17Speaker 01

  Don't forget Aristotle.

• 10:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, Aristotle as well. So, but, but yeah, and then over the course of my life, obviously, you know, you start to learn the importance of the principles and how to apply them. So, you know, when you have them, you're exposed to them as a kid, it all starts to make sense, but.

• 10:34Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, there's a, there's a Plutarch line where he talks about, you know, you learn the words and then you have experiences that bring meaning to the words. I've got to imagine you both, you know, this is sort of what you think, and then you see these ideas play out in the business world or your personal life. So you learn them at 10, but then it's, it's a, it's a totally different thing to actually see, oh, you know, dad wasn't just making this up. And then Charles, for you, like, oh, Aristotle actually knew what he was talking about 2,000 years ago.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  Right. One swallow does not make a spring. I'll never forget that one. But that is, there's a lot more power in that than most people take it at first glance, as there is in, in all of these. But, I mean, it's what, what you said is Michael Plany, Philosopher of Science, captured this book and his personal knowledge. He said, he said, a lot of us have conceptual knowledge. We have concepts in mind, but it's entirely different to make these concepts an extension of yourself. And he, he used someone who becomes a concert

• 11:44Speaker 01

  violinist. Okay. And the way you get there is by understanding the parts conceptually and, and applying them. And for example, first thing she had to do is learn how to hold it, and then how to make certain notes, and then do it in a certain way. And then when you, when, when all those parts become natural and instinctive, then you can focus on the whole, on making beautiful music. And that's what we find for our, our management approach and everything, for our guiding principles and our five dimensions. When they all work in harmony in a reinforcing way, there is the power.

• 12:31Speaker 01

  And I, and saying, when we first started this, I was teaching concepts that, okay, everybody get the now go do it. And nothing happened, except people use it as buzzwords. And then finally, when I read Polanyi, okay, no, no, we've got to find a way to make it personal knowledge. So rather than just teach the concepts, we would help people mentor them, show them how to apply it, and show by example. Here's, and then, and then I have to be the example. Okay, every, every meeting, okay, how are we applying this? And are you applying it this way and that way? And then after a while, now all our leaders and everybody does this instinctively. It's become personal knowledge.

• 13:16Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I think like writing or playing the violin, or, you know, being a woodworker or something, we, we understand sort of that that obviously is a craft, and there's a certain skill to it, and there's, there's certain things you do. What I get, you know, studying your company and, and, and reading your books, is this sense that you sort of applied that mindset, you know, the, the idea of being a master violinist, to managing people. And it, it must be something extraordinary to manage. I mean, how, how many people work for the coat companies? Like 100,000, 150,000?

• 13:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, 130,000 roughly.

• 13:49Ryan Holiday?

  So yeah, so the instrument you're playing is hundred, you know, enough people to fill, you know, a college football stadium, that, that, you know, each one being an expert in something that they do. That must be an extraordinary feeling, but it also must be extraordinarily difficult.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  But it's, but it's so satisfying. And, and it, as you can know, it's not instant pudding. It doesn't happen automatically.

• 14:18Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  So everything we do is guided by these principles that, I mean, they start with

• 14:26Speaker 01

  Okay, how are we going to be successful long term? And it's, and, and, okay, it's by understanding how, what capabilities we have as an organization that will create value for others. And of course, our customers, but, but fellow employees, coworkers, but our suppliers, our communities and society as a whole. And why? Because all of these groups are important to our success. And if we aren't, if we aren't helping them succeed, they won't want us around.

• 15:06Speaker 01

  They certainly won't, our customers won't pay us anything and employees won't be dedicated. It'll be like the old Soviet Union where they would say, they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work. And so what we have now, because, because we, we work at this and we, we, we recruit people who are contribution motivated and have some talent, some particular gift that can help us create value and then get them in a role that fits that, rather than just stick them in a role that doesn't fit their gift and, and passion. And then give them the tools and then reward them for it at every level.

• 15:51Speaker 02

  And Ryan, I think on this idea that, that he's hitting on, one of the most important things that I've learned in like how Coke Industries has been built, not only he's talking about and having the vision and think about it from a capability-based mindset and then where can we capture opportunities based on our capabilities. It's this idea of focus on your gift. And this is, this is highlighted in the book as well, like believing in people and understanding that every single person has a gift. Well, using him as an example, as CEO, atypical CEO. And the reason I say that is that he doesn't call himself CEO, he calls himself Chief Philosophy Officer. Because his comparative advantage is, you know, put the philosophy out there, come up with new.

• 16:35Speaker 02

  Ideas and then if you can get those ideas across the 130,000 employees, they take you empower those people with ideas and they run with it and they innovate it. They innovate around those ideas in their own way versus a top down approach where here's how you do it. Here's the book and that's how you grow a company. There's no way in today's day and age with technology moving so fast, you can have a top down approach. And so hi- his role is is very a good example of how we try to do that within the firm and how we believe that it, you know, works in society to unlock people's potential as well.

• 17:13Ryan Holiday?

  So I love the idea of being a chief philosophy officer, obviously.

• 17:18Ryan Holiday?

  What does that actually look like day to day? I mean, I imagine your role has shifted over time, but you know, we have this idea of the philosopher being someone who just maybe writes books or reads books. But how do you, how do you come up with and continue to study and engage with the philosophy that that's sort of your job to come up with?

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Well, but I I constantly read and look for for new principles and then how to better apply these principles. And I mean, just like reading your material, okay, what, what ideas can I get for that on how we can more effectively apply them and then, and then every engagement I have with, with one of our businesses or capabilities. I ask him questions about, okay, how are you applying this? What innovations are you get are, how are, how are your supervisors at every level?

• 18:17Speaker 01

  Are they, is their primary goal to empower their people to help their people self actualize? So we get the full benefit of their knowledge, ability and ideas. And, and have them turned on so it's mutually beneficial and rewarding.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  Or not.

• 18:37Speaker 02

  But another, another practical way that, that he, he does this is he has two direct reports.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 18:45Speaker 02

  So i- if you want to be chief philosophy officer, right, and, and focus on ideas and carve out time to think as opposed to being in meetings all day, like a lot of CEOs you look at, that's what they've got, you know, 10 direct reports. He organizes life and the structure of the organization so that he can spend the time on where he has the strongest gift. And so if you can apply that 130,000 times over and really get that right, that's, that's a very powerful model.

• 19:12Ryan Holiday?

  I imagine that takes a lot of discipline, right? There's probably a lot of things you would like to be involved with or things, given that you're, you seem very exacting and have high standards, there's probably things you'd like to get in there and micromanage. It probably takes discipline to be the owner or the head of a company and only have two people reporting to you.

• 19:31Speaker 01

  No, but see, I, I mean, what drives me and, and what caused me to, to be lost for 20 years after, after I, I discovered my particular gift was that I am contribution motivated. Unless I feel I'm contributing to the, to the greatest, or as Maslow said, unless I'm realizing my potential, as he said, if you're not realizing your potential and developing your capability, you will be deeply unhappy, no matter how successful you appear to be. And that's where I was. So once I got these principles, started finding these principles and finding out when I applied

• 20:14Speaker 01

  them properly and helped people apply them, the power was so much greater than me going do it itself, than, than myself, that that's what I want to do. So I tell our people, bring me in a meeting if you think I can help. If you don't, don't waste my time in yours, because I'll come in there and start asking, and if it's not going to help, don't invite me. And so they're very good about that because they know where I can help, where I can't.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I break it down to getting out of the way where you don't have a comparative advantage and empowering others to do that, right? It seems like a simple concept, but hard to apply in reality.

• 21:00Ryan Holiday?

  There's a, there's a story from Marcus Aurelius that I think you'd both would love. He's, he's an old man at this point, and he's, you know, the emperor, the most powerful man in the world. And he's seen leaving the palace and one of his friends is walking by and he says, you know, Marcus, where are you going? And he says, I'm, I'm off to see Sextus the philosopher to learn that which I don't yet know. And, and his friend sort of marvels the quote that survives to us. It says, here, here is an old man still taking up his tablets and going to school. You, you seem remarkably curious, like you're always, you're continuing, even though you're raiding mostly old ideas, you're always looking for something new. How do you, how do you stay intellectually curious? I imagine you've read thousands of books,

• 21:44Ryan Holiday?

  you've seen it all. How do you stay curious?

• 21:47Speaker 01

  But see, I haven't seen it all. I mean, the amount of knowledge and wisdom and, and experiences out there are almost infinite. And so there's always more to learn. I mean, and that's what, I mean, that's why humility is one of our principles. And, and so the key, as I said, the key is find your gift, develop it and apply it in a way that enables you to see by helping others succeed. Now, but the other aspect to that is when you learn your gift, then you should also learn what you're not good at.

• 22:28Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  And so in my life, what I have learned the hard way is when I try to do everything myself and micromanage, I'm trying to do a lot of things I'm not that good at. And so I failed. And I don't like to fail that much. So I now, I've learned to partner on everything and on your, your, your thing on being negative. Whenever I have an idea, I think, okay, who can, following Popper's science is falsification. Okay, I look at it, I have, I have a testable hypothesis. And I want you to come and show me the flaws in it, to prove it wrong.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  Or, or better yet, show the flaws and correct it so it can be successful. Now, why everybody doesn't do this is mystery to me. Because, okay, your little ego is gonna be damaged, somebody hurt a little bit. But if you go plunge out in something that has basic flaws and have this big disaster, how's your little ego gonna feel then? And I, so I've never understood why, what, do you just wanna fail?

• 23:44Ryan Holiday?

  Got a quick message from one of our sponsors here, and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned.

• 23:51Ryan Holiday?

  It's, it's tough, right? Because, you know, you only have so much time. Like, so, so most people are like, let's say, struggling to read, right? To make time to read. So then they make time to read. This is something I think about, especially with, with young kids. You, you make time to read. And then you're like, wait, I'm gonna read something that I don't agree with? I'm gonna read something that makes me angry? I'm gonna read something that, that challenges the assumptions I've built my life around? That's a, that's a hard thing for people to, to, to justify, I think.

• 24:21Speaker 01

  No, but that's what I did. I mean, I read, I read, I read Marx, I read Keynes, I read Mao, I read Lenin. I read all these people who were totally top-down, the opposite of, of what we try to do, bottom-up empowerment. People who had what Nietzsche called the will to power. And were obsessed with getting power. And because they were successful. Now, so we can learn something from them. That doesn't mean we wanna do it the way they did it. But what made them successful? And so I've learned from all these, as, as you, you may have noticed in my book, I quote,

• 25:03Speaker 01

  I quote Marx, who said, "The philosophers only interpret the world, the point is to change it."

• 25:11Speaker 01

  So that's, he's right. So you can't just be a philosopher who philosophizes. You've got to go apply it. You've got to, or as Lenin said, we learn through struggle.

• 25:25Speaker 02

  Which is exactly tied into obstacles, the way.

• 25:28Ryan Holiday?

  Well, I was gonna say, Chase, sort of rubber meeting the road, how, how much does your dad enjoy being disagreed with or challenged? And how has that gone throughout your relationship?

• 25:41Speaker 02

  You know, I, I'll give him a lot of credit in that. Well, I'll start with the story. I guess when I, when I was a kid and my, my first, my first role at Coke Industries. So I, I can't remember if I told you this or not, but I, I grew up a pretty competitive tennis player. I was nationally ranked. And by the time I was 15 years old, I just got burned out. It was one of those things. I was playing five, six hours a day. And I just wasn't into it anymore. And I remember my mother coming back to my father and saying, "Look, this kid's going off the rails. He's not trying anymore. He's throwing matches intentionally. What's going on?"

• 26:22Speaker 02

  And so he pulled me aside and said, "You can either give 100% on the tennis court and give it your all because you have a gift there, "or I'm gonna get you a job." And I immediately said, "I want a job. I am so sick of this sport. Like, I just can't take it anymore." So I thought I was gonna be like folding clothes at a, at a clothing store here in Wichita and still hanging out with my friends. The next morning, I was in an old beater pickup truck on the way to Syracuse, Kansas. Six hours later, I show up with 60,000 of my new best friends and they're all cattle. So, you know, like I went from playing tennis to, you know, shoveling cow shit for 60,000 of my new best friends.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  And, but that, so, so there wasn't much of a challenge process there with my dad, but I look back on that.

• 27:11Speaker 01

  No, I gave you a choice.

• 27:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, you did give me a choice. But I look back on that. On that experience and like this whole idea, this goes back to kind of the key principle of the book and believing in people and how do you help people find their gifts so that they can unlock their potential. Ironically, that first job that I had was the first opportunity I had to believe in myself. And it's strange that it takes a job like that to do it, but I was like, I was working with people of diverse backgrounds and learned like how to work with people as a team and all that. First time I learned the value of a dollar, it was the first time I felt good about myself. Right? So then I wanted that feeling over and over and over again.

• 27:54Speaker 02

  And it also helped me discover a gift that I still use today in terms of like what I do in business is I go originate, I build relationships to get access to technology and companies that we can help. And I started learning that at the feed yard at age 15. Right? So, um, anyway, it's, it's just, I think it's one of the core principles is how do you discover your gift as early as possible in life and experiment a lot of different things to do that.

• 28:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I, go ahead.

• 28:25Ryan Holiday?

  No, no, you go ahead.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  No, I, so I mean that in, in our relationship or my relationship with anybody here, I'm not telling them what to do, but I question them and I challenge them. And then I, as a supervisor at, at a, at a certain level, as we expect all our supervisors for their people to challenge them. And if they don't do it and we can't get them to, to get their people to challenge them, then they shouldn't be a supervisor because they're not using the knowledge of the people. And so, so, I mean, Chase has done things that I couldn't have done, like I couldn't

• 29:05Speaker 01

  have gone and built Coke Disruptive Technologies in just a few years and have what over 20 and great investments. Now, by building these relationships and using networking through Koch Industries to help tech entrepreneurs be more successful, and so we can become the preferred investor with them. I mean, I couldn't have done that because I didn't have his abilities. He has different abilities than I. So I learned from him, and I learned from our daughter, who has still different capabilities. So that's why when we get together, we have fun, we learn from each other, and we laugh

• 29:45Speaker 01

  a lot and insult each other in a loving way, and it's great fun.

• 29:51Speaker 02

  I think part of it, Ryan, is starting with an open mindset. And I think that's, if you look at what's happening in our country today with just the divisiveness that's been built up over time, I think we all recognize that openness is the starting point to actually bring people together. Whether they disagree on things or not, that's how you get things done. And Elizabeth, my sister, has really helped us. She even has an organization called Unlikely Collaborators that does nothing but this. Do your internal work first before you think about the external work, because if you can't be open yourself to new ideas, back to this idea of the scientific method, then you really

• 30:34Speaker 02

  have no chance, right, of figuring out how to reach across divides and make things happen.

• 30:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's very much what you teach. I mean, the only person you can really control is yourself, so you better start with that. And that's what, that's her whole effort, is based on that approach.

• 30:56Ryan Holiday?

  Well, let's talk about some challenges to assumptions. I generally agree with the premise of the book, right, which is that bottom up is better than top down, and that sort of central planning tends to fall short. And when you give people the tools, the incentives, and the freedom, they sort of come together and do the right thing. I'm talking to you from Florida, not from Texas, because no power, no water. We just went through this insane sort of freak storm, and then sort of electricity and water crisis. How do you feel, how do you feel some of these sort of top up, sorry, bottom up methodologies?

• 31:39Ryan Holiday?

  How do you feel like they've weathered the last 12 months with the pandemic, with, with, with some of the things we're seeing in the world? How do you, how do you see something like what happened in Texas and, and, and sort of the market failures there? And, and where does that work with your, with your worldview?

• 31:59Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, let's go to the pandemic first.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  What, I mean, I mean, the, the, the role of the government, the primary role is, is to, to me is to protect equal rights, to establish a system of equal rights and, and to have a system that prevents people from violating the rights of others. And, and, and so this would be to be secure. So if somebody's got a, a disease and running around infecting people.

• 32:39Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, it needs to be, to, to use force to prevent, prevent that if you can't prevent it by voluntary means. And, and so on the pandemic, so the, the question is, what should the government role? Well, it should be to, to set standards, but generalized standards, not details one, because every, every situation is different. So what we do here at Coke Industries, throughout Coke Industries, we set the general standards like spacing, don't come to work. If, if you feel uncomfortable, don't come to work if you've been sick.

• 33:25Speaker 01

  Get tested. We encourage you to get vaccinated. And, and then within that, within those general standards, then each location encourages their people to innovate, to practice that rather than we describe, prescribe in detail how to do it. And so we have one of the better records on operation through this than, than, than our competitors.

• 33:59Speaker 01

  And so, so, so it's, yeah, so when, when we say bottom up, what we mean, those who are closest to the problem should decide that, who have the best knowledge. And if, and, and so big on how, how disease spreads would be established by us, by scientists. Now, a lot of these top down, though, had nothing to do with it. Like, you can go along the beach, but you can't swim in the ocean. What are you afraid? The sharks have it? I mean, this is ridiculous. Or let's stick all the people with COVID who are, who are old into nursing homes. I mean, some of these things are, are crazy. So, so you got to be careful

• 34:43Speaker 01

  on top down, one size fits all, because if you're wrong, you have a disaster. Where if one local does it, then you can cure it.

• 34:52Ryan Holiday?

  No, that makes sense. I, I think, I, I totally, I, I agree with the idea that, that the role of government is, is to protect equal rights. I guess I would also say that the role of government, or in a business as well, is to solve collective action problems. And so it, it strikes me that, you know, whether we're talking about climate change, or whether we're talking about racial injustice, or whether we're talking about a pandemic, or in Texas's case, a power grid failure, what, what we have are sort of these large collective action problems. And it's, it, it feels like both sides, whether it's the sort of free market approach, or the top down approach, is falling short as far as solving these difficult collective action problems. Because it's, it's not quite anyone's

• 35:37Ryan Holiday?

  problem. And on the other hand, not quite anyone has the authority or the power to do what obviously needs to be done.

• 35:46Speaker 01

  Well, see, we would, we would agree that, well, we look at, at society as made up of, of four sets of key, core key sets of institutions. Communities, education, business, and government. And they all have a role.

• 36:05Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  But we, but we would say that the role on each of them would be to, to

• 36:13Speaker 01

  To practice their art and their comparative advantage in a way that empowers people to want to do it rather than force them to do it. Because when it's based on force, and sometimes you've got to use force. If you've got somebody going around shooting people, you've got to stop them and get them out of circulation. But at the same time, if you have every, as we had in this country for a number of years, anybody who makes a mistake, let's put them in prison and leave them there forever.

• 36:46Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 36:47Speaker 01

  And then that doesn't work either. And so you're right, we need a combination, but what we try to do is encourage all the institutions to help people to set up rules and practices that help people find their gift, turn it into valued skills, and then practice it in a way that they succeed by helping others succeed. And you find societies through history that best did that are the ones that, well, changed the world starting about 1800.

• 37:23Ryan Holiday?

  It seems like maybe Operation Warp Speed is a good example of that hybrid approach, where you have the sort of the government or the central planners setting some incentives, setting some guidelines, eliminating some obstacles. And then there's the hybrid of the business community coming in, and then the scientists creating something that's never been created and a timeline that's never been done with the sort of the things that might have ordinarily held them back, worried who's going to buy them, you know, the risk of experimenting with this new vaccine. So it works there, and then the rollout, which, you know, does require a certain amount of central planning and logistics, seems to have floundered for the exact opposite

• 38:08Ryan Holiday?

  reason.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think Hayek put it in that, as you know, I like abstractions. And his was that what he called probably the greatest discovery in the history of mankind was that people, the discovery that people could live in peace, live in peace and to their mutual advantage when limited only by abstract rules of conduct.

• 38:42Speaker 01

  So then that's, that's the role of government, but it's also the role of a culture.

• 38:47Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  Because if you have a culture, as John Adams said, this is a system for moral people that will work for no other. If you have people who aren't gonna obey it and are gonna be circularly trying to murder each other, you can set up all the rules you want and you can have police on every corner. As, as I saw years ago when I was in Argentina and they were having their, their civil war. I mean, people are gonna kill each other. So the culture, it starts with culture. And, and to me, politics and, and political system is derivative of that. So that's the main thing we have to work on. How do we get that?

• 39:30Speaker 01

  So, so we wanna succeed by helping others succeed and we realize that that's the best way to succeed.

• 39:39Ryan Holiday?

  I, I totally agree with that. I think, you know, there's this sort of stoic idea that just because you can do something, just because it's legally allowed, just because you can get away with it, doesn't mean that you should. That's this sort of virtue of temperance or moderation or self-discipline.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 39:55Ryan Holiday?

  It, it strikes me that culturally, we're, we're sort of reaping the whirlwind of, it's like you and I know what the norms are, we know what the rules are, we know what the abstract, abstract principles are, cause we've studied them, we've read about them, we, we, we fell in love with them through our books. And I think we're struggling when you have a culture where, where people haven't been taught these ideas. They don't know, uh, uh, any of these things, cause they don't understand why the system is set up the way that it was set up. And then, so, so we see these, not only do we see bad actors sort of overriding the norms, whether they're on the left or the right, um, we see, uh, the public not able to fully understand why this particular norm is important.

• 40:39Ryan Holiday?

  And then we're not able to enforce it politically or culturally, and we're really not able to enforce it legally and we, we kinda just watch the system crumble in front of us.

• 40:50Speaker 01

  No, that's right. No, this is, I mean, that's what we say, what in the book. What we're after is showing there's a better way than this divisiveness. And you're either in my tribe or the other, and we're going to try to hurt your tribe, or you hurt us, and we have violence on both sides. And I mean, this is so, this is scary. And then, and then what, what happens when we see that is the appeal of a strong man. Or, or a strong woman, but it's usually, the bad guy's usually a strong man. And they give all power to them because you got to stop the other side who's going to be worse.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  And then the other side, no, you're gonna, their side's gonna be worse. So we need to be strong and we need to shut you down. And that's just, then that escalates. And then you have a civil war, or hatred, or, or destruction of society. We've seen that happen throughout history. And that's scary. That's the direction we're going. So we're being attacked by both sides, by right and left, daily now. And so it shows, maybe we're on the right track here.

• 42:05Ryan Holiday?

  Got a quick message from one of our sponsors here, and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned.

• 42:12Ryan Holiday?

  I'd be curious, and this is a question for both of you, this idea that just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should. It must be strange to become successful at a level where essentially anything that a person can do, you are able to do, right? How, how does, how does one have that sense of, whether it's as a parent, or a business person, or just a, you know, a human being? How do you, how do you manage that idea? Well, like, I could buy this. I could go on, I could get away with this. I could just have the lawyers take care of that. But I'm not gonna do it because it's not right, it's not good for me. How do you, how do you manage that idea of, I can, but I'm not going to because I don't

• 42:57Ryan Holiday?

  think it's the right thing to do?

• 42:58Speaker 02

  Well, what I've learned since I was a kid is go back to first principles. If you have a framework for what principles are most important and what your own personal North Star is, which ties to your gift, right? What am I going to focus on? Because you have all these resources, what am I going to choose? And is it the right decision? Does it add value to society? Does it harm society or whatever? That's, um, I guess that's the way I've grown up. But without principles, you fall into the trap that I think what you're talking about, right? You could go down, um, you know, the wrong path and do, do harm with, with resources. And you, you, you see that time and time again.

• 43:41Speaker 02

  But I think the way I'd answer your question is you have to start with a framework of core principles and then your own personal North Star of where you're going. And then say no to everything else that doesn't fit, that doesn't fit into that.

• 43:55Speaker 01

  And then, and so for, for me, I mean, I, I agree exactly what, what Jay said is that, is that when I got into these principles and my North Star became, uh, working toward, working for a society based on equal rights and mutual benefit where everybody had the opportunity to realize their potential. And so I needed to behave in that way. I needed to, we needed to, to run our company that way. We need to focus on how do we create value for others? How do we empower our employees? How do we make it, it good for them and reward them so they have a fulfilling life?

• 44:39Speaker 01

  And then how do we get that to spread? So people see, okay, we've become very successful by doing this. So you, rather than short-term, try to get subsidies or try to hurt your competitors or, or keep out competitors or stop innovation that's going to hurt you or, or put you out of business to you innovate.

• 45:03Speaker 01

  You do a better job of empowering your employees. And then we win. And look, if everybody were focused on empowering their employees, and employees became self-actualized and wanted to succeed by helping others, what would that do to the culture? We find our employees who no longer here, they don't owe me anything anymore. They called me. Someone just called me this week, and he said he had to tell me what it's done for his life, not just in business, but it's changed the way he deals with his church, or his synagogue, or whatever, and his charity, his dealings with his family, and everything by living by these principles.

• 45:48Speaker 01

  So it is so powerful, and we just need to get that out. And that's what we're trying to do in the book, is get this out. This will make your life better, and you will feel so much better about yourself.

• 46:02Speaker 02

  Hey, Ryan. One example of this is a key kind of mental model or principle that we use on who do you partner with? I think this goes back to your question. Whether it's in business, or whether it's on the philanthropic side as well, we want to make sure that we have partnerships where there's one aligned vision in terms of where you want to go, and what's the potential of that. Two, aligned values, which we've been talking about here. And then three, complementary capabilities. So I'll use one example, and this is in the book, about a gentleman that we've partnered with to really empower him from the bottom up. And it's around this key issue that we have a lot of focus on, around overcoming addiction.

• 46:47Speaker 02

  And so I don't know if you read this, but Scott Strode is really the story. And he created an organization called The Phoenix. And Scott's quick story is, you know, he battled addiction for many years. And what he found that got him kind of over the hump and start to break through the problem was exercise. He'd get on his bike, and that was like what made him alive again. And so with that idea, what worked for him, he said, okay, what if I can create a gym? That has a community effect of everyone else that's going through the same problem. That I can scale up the, the solution that I created myself and do that in a gym and combine

• 47:29Speaker 02

  the power of exercise with the power of community. And let's see what happens, right? And so he created two or three of these gyms and the results that he got were something like 80% of the folks didn't have any relapse within the first three months, which is just mind boggling results, right? It's an order of magnitude better than, than some of the best programs in the country. And so, so in terms of, okay, what do you focus on, what you don't? We want to go partner with Scott because he has a very innovative approach that gets real results from the bottom up that we can help scale with capital and capability. So just within the last couple of years, he's gone from three locations to almost 60.

• 48:14Speaker 02

  And now he's using virtual with, you know, COVID, this massive discovery that people in France and the UK that are tapping into this now. So it's like a global solution that, that we believe if we keep going with this can create a movement around overcoming addiction. So in terms of choices like we make and what we focus on, those are the partnerships that we want to have.

• 48:37Ryan Holiday?

  No, that's fascinating. The, the idea of finding something that's working and then putting more, you know, more fuel behind that as opposed to trying to think that maybe this goes to your point about ego Charles of like, I'm a genius. I'm going to come up with the perfect solution to this problem. And then I'm going to, I'm going to throw my resources and money behind it until it works. And that's probably, you know, the logic behind most philanthropic endeavors is I've solved this problem and now I'm going to do it as opposed to I'm the investor model of like, who is solving this problem and how can I support them?

• 49:15Speaker 01

  No, and that's right. That's why humility is something. You learn what you're good at, and then you accept what you're not good at, and then you partner with people who are good at all the other things that need to be done. And so, we're good at organizing, and scaling, and doing these things, and having some money to help them along the way. And we've done it. I mean, this is for our work in criminal justice reform. You look at who we've partnered with. Dan Jones, he led a demonstration against one of our first events. And now, he's partnering with us on that, and we think other things. And then, we've partnered from everybody, from the ACLU to the American Conservative Union

• 50:00Speaker 01

  on this, and changed the country's perspective on lock them up and throw away the key to, let's empower them. Let's get, let's show them that they can contribute, and that they will be better off. And use prison time not to make them bigger, more bitter criminals, and who have no other choice when they get out but to be a criminal, but teach them a skill and how to contribute, the values and skills of success. And like Sean Pika, who was in prison at age 16 for murder, and life imprisonment, he started helping the

• 50:40Speaker 01

  other prisoners, and now, he has courses there. And rather than the normal recidivism rate of like 50, 60%, his is like 2%. I mean, get the difference from empowering people rather than controlling them, and limiting, and stifling them.

• 51:03Speaker 02

  And Ryan, I think through these examples, you can tell, like, we believe the way forward, and the better way, is building these coalitions. And we may disagree on a number of issues, right? But getting past that, having an open mindset, and being willing to work with anyone to do right. Criminal justice is a great example of that. But can we apply that to immigration? Can we apply that to, you know, cracking the intractable problem of poverty with new solutions, right? Overcoming violence, overcoming addiction. We're applying that same model across everything. And our message to everyone is we're willing to work with anyone, anyone that has an innovative idea, let's roll up our sleeves and figure out what we can do.

• 51:45Ryan Holiday?

  I wanted to go back to this idea of money for a second because there's a sort of an interesting philosophical tension in Stoicism that maybe you could help shed some light on. So Seneca is the richest man in Rome, other than Nero. And there's this sort of knock on him that somehow, you know, hypocritical for a philosopher to be rich. There's another great joke from Musonius Rufus. There was this super obnoxious, sort of unethical man in Rome, and everyone was complaining about him, was upset. And so Musonius orders him to be given a large amount of money. And somebody said, well, how could

• 52:26Ryan Holiday?

  you, how could you do this? He's a horrible person. And he says, ah, yes, but isn't money exactly what this man deserves? Being that the large fortune would be a punishment on this person because he wouldn't know how to use it. How has, as someone who loves books, loves ideas, loves, you know, as you said, doing right, how has your fortune, there's really no other word for it, how is, how is wealth and fortune tested some of these ideas? How have you, how have you, you know, integrated that in your life? I imagine it must, to a certain extent, be surreal.

• 53:04Speaker 01

  No, no, it's, I mean, having the fortune and constantly testing what we're doing and through trial and error. Are we really empowering people? Are we moving us toward our North Star of equal rights and mutual benefit? Or are we not? And we make mistakes. But it gives us the ability to do that and to help many more people, not by what we think helps them, but by seeing they're transforming their lives. This helps them transform their lives. So, I mean, that's what we want.

• 53:46Speaker 01

  We want people who are helping people live better lives and having a better society that empowers more people, gives more people opportunity. We want them to be successful and have resources. Who do you want to have resources? People use them for that, or ill, or to get power over people and stifle people and enslave them. So, I mean, to me, it's not whether somebody has money. It goes back to this thing. How do people become successful? Is it by empowering people? Or is it by controlling and limiting and trying to rig the system?

• 54:27Ryan Holiday?

  That was Seneca's line. He said, "A philosopher can be rich, provided that his money is not stained in blood." And so I think that's the idea, too. Did your success come from good principles, from creating value? Or does your fortune come from extraction and seeing the world as a zero-sum place?

• 54:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, no. And see, and consistent with that, my philosophy is the end unjustifies the means. The means become the end. For example, we can't use, to be successful in transforming society, we can't use the means of a Lenin or a Hitler. We have to use means consistent with our ends. Otherwise, we will not end up with the kind of society we're advocating.

• 55:25Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, it makes a mockery of the ends if the means are a contradiction of them.

• 55:30Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Yeah, and you will never get there, as we see in all these countries who have these, the destructive means, then the end is destructive.

• 55:42Speaker 02

  Ryan, I think this also ties to Joseph Schumpeter's principle of creative destruction, and how we apply it back in your, you know, how do you grow your business to be successful, and do it in the right way. Creative destruction, which is basically the idea that the way you've done business in the past, you have to creatively destroy that, or the market will. So you have to be drawing new curves in your business all the time. And that's Coke Industries' core vision. Apply creative destruction and come up with products and services that are better than customers' alternatives while always consuming fewer resources. So any product we make, you know, Georgia Pacific toilet paper, for example, we've got to make that

• 56:26Speaker 02

  in a more environmentally friendly way all the time. Use less water, make it more efficient. So when a consumer walks down the aisle and they have a choice, they're saying, "I want that one because it has the lowest environmental footprint and has the best features and benefits." I know it's kind of ironic I'm using toilet paper, but we make a lot of that stuff, right? And so if you have that mindset of continuing to drive creative destruction, then your products and services will be best in the market and you're consuming the fewest resources possible. Back to your extraction question.

• 56:58Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 56:58Speaker 02

  You know, it's like, you're continuing to improve that every day, and that's the way we do business.

• 57:04Ryan Holiday?

  And to go to this idea of ends and means, from what I understand of your lifestyle, from what I've read about you, you don't seem like someone who was particularly motivated by a particular end. You seem like you genuinely love the process, whether it's, like, you love the idea, both of you, the idea of making the process more efficient, or the idea of building a slightly better culture. The idea, is the idea, when you're talking about, you know, sort of making things more efficient, you know, better principles, it's not to get Coke Industries to a certain level, or to make a certain amount of money. It's that you love the craft of the machine, and then you dedicated your life to it.

• 57:50Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, what I'd love is feeling, what turns me on the most when I see, I mean, it's about, not about me, it's about these ideas. And when I see people turn these ideas into personal knowledge and start living by them and it transform their lives, that's the most thrilling thing to me. And having Coke Industries and Stand Together do all this and seeing what they do to help improve people's lives, that's it. And I just, what I want is to spread more and more so more and more people can benefit from these principles.

• 58:34Speaker 01

  And so that's what turns me on. And so, sure, we want Coke Industries to be profitable so we can continue to do it and we can show that dedicating yourself to contributing to others and succeeding by that is the way to go, rather than by rigging the system or hurting others.

• 58:54Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, a friend of mine, the videographer Casey Neistat, he was saying, you know, we don't do the work to make money, we make the money to do more good work.

• 59:06Speaker 01

  That's great, I love it.

• 59:07Ryan Holiday?

  And it's the loop. He's like, because if we were just doing this to make money, we'd all, he was saying, I just direct TV commercials, you know, like you just do whatever the most lucrative form of whatever your craft is. The point is, you're making the money, you're building the business, so you can do work you actually like to do.

• 59:24Speaker 01

  Absolutely, that's fulfilling. That makes you believe in yourself.

• 59:29Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 59:30Speaker 01

  Because that's, I mean, let's face it, our book is Believe in People, but believing in people starts with believing in yourself. Because if you don't believe in yourself, I mean, this is very much the Stoic philosophy, if you don't believe in yourself, how can you believe in anybody else? So you need to work on that first. And not by phony stuff, just, oh, you're wonderful and stuff, no, you're a bum, you're a louse, you're doing bad things, so shape up. I mean, we need to do that to ourselves. I need to be better. I need to do every day, work at getting better.

• 1:00:08Ryan Holiday?

  What I say is, if you don't believe you can do something, you're probably, you know, going to be unable to do it. But just because you believe you can do something, doesn't mean that you can do it. So you have to find something to be confident of in yourself, and that has to be based in the evidence, in the reading you've done, the work you've done, the relationships you've built, the product you make, whatever that is.

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  So how, on your, your, your audience, your, your fans, how can this, any of these, help them? I mean, would, would, would they like to, I mean, what, what are, what are their passions? What are they, what injustices do they see? What, what experience do they have that they can help improve things and empower people? And, I mean, I mean, you'd love to see everybody get engaged in that, in, in, in any of the four sets of institutions, whatever fits their ability, their experiences, and their passions.

• 1:01:17Ryan Holiday?

  Got a quick message from one of our sponsors here, and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned.

• 1:01:24Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, it's interesting, in Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, he uses the phrase "the common good" more than 80 times. I don't think that he means that in a communistic sense. I think what he means is that the Epicureans, as philosophers, turn inward. You know, they retreat to the garden, and they, they study about, you know, they focus on their ideas, and, and they, they think that happiness is in the, sort of, the intellectual and the spiritual pursuit. And I think there's something true about that. You, you go on a meditation retreat, you become a monk, whatever it is, there, there's something fulfilling about that. But what I find so inspiring about the Stoics is the belief that, no, we have to contribute. We have to contribute politically, civically, from a business perspective, you have to...

• 1:02:09Ryan Holiday?

  You know, start and raise a family, you have to, you have to do something. And so I think, I think when I hear from the audience, and I'd be curious for your advice on this. I think what people are struggling with is they go, things are obviously bad, right? Things are falling apart politically, you know, we've got environmental issues. The world looks like it's going through all these sort of different fits and spasms. I think people, some, some, they despair at the magnitude of the problems facing us. And, and perhaps the reason they despair is that they're thinking about it top down. Like, what can I magically do to solve this? What advice do you have for someone about making a difference at a sort of a small individual level?

• 1:02:53Speaker 01

  No, that's a great question. And Maslow, I think, had a great answer for it. He said, he said, that's the problem today. There are so many people who, who see that things aren't right, many things aren't right. And they may have a vision of a better state, but they need a path to get there. And he said, and, and the problem with so many is they say, God, I'm only one person. What can I do? He said, that's all there is. We're all only one person. And the way we can make a difference is join with others who we share vision and values. And that's what Stand Together is.

• 1:03:35Speaker 01

  It's, it's a collection of thousands or tens of thousands of people who are worked, working together. And they're not working all on the same issue. One, one group is really passionate about criminal justice reform. And others are reforming education to empower people rather than a one-size-fits-all, teach-to-test. Others are, are, are, want to get business to be more long-term focused. Focus on creating, succeeding by creating value for others. So we have different ones who focus on that.

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  And, and that's the opportunity and join, and that's what Stand Together provides. Is the opportunity to join with others and focus on what you're passionate about.

• 1:04:28Speaker 02

  Hey Ryan, one example that may bring this to life in terms of how we're really trying to innovate around this question and bring more and more folks into this model that my father described is, you know, I was always really passionate about music and always thought like, God, we have no element or no variable of music in Stand Together. And I believe, at least for me, music is, there's nothing more powerful as a uniter of people than music. You could disagree, you're in a concert, you disagree with, you know, 90% of the folks, but you're all there lined up around music and on the same wavelength, right? So I thought

• 1:05:10Speaker 02

  to myself, how can we take this idea and combine it with the power of Stand Together's ideas in this community that's been built? So during COVID, launched a kind of a virtual Stand Together, Jam Together tour with a number of musicians that we didn't really have relationships with before, but they looked at it and said, wow, you guys really have capability that are getting real results. And it's not something where, you know, I get asked to do a one-off concert for a benefit deal and then it's one and done and I have no idea where that money went. Sure. Right? So now what we're doing is partnering with this community of artists that are excited

• 1:05:50Speaker 02

  about one of these issues. I talked about addiction before, right? So Matt Sorum from Guns N' Roses is part of our group. And he's been on some of our Stand Together, Jam Together virtual shows. And he sees it as, wow, this is a platform. Like, I struggle with addiction. I'm 13 years sober, but I have a voice. Kids like love Guns N' Roses, right? They like the music side and they'll listen to this. I have a new platform for my voice to get out there, but also align with something like The Phoenix, a real concrete organization that is getting real results. And so we're now doing that. These are unlikely collaborations, like what we talked about before. We weren't doing this a year ago. So how does this open

• 1:06:34Speaker 02

  up a whole new world of unlikely collaborations and coalitions to my Father's point to to just really open this thing up and blow the top off and get these ideas out there with bottom up solutions and working with anyone to do right. It's working. I mean, we're just scratching the surface, but more and more artists are now coming to us saying, I see what you've done with this artist or that artist. And we think there's tremendous potential there.

• 1:07:01Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, there's a joke I heard. They were talking about, you know, sort of despairing, you know, the the great man of history theory, you know, the idea that that people are now sort of down on this, the idea that an individual can't make a difference. And the joke is, you know, you think an individual can't change the world. Talk to the person who ate a bat in 2019. Right? Like somebody, so a single person, it changed the entire scope of the world. And so, you know, if it can be done negatively, of course, it can also be done positively. I think about I've been I'm writing about this in my next book, the guy who who starts the Ice Bucket Challenge, which has had, you know, a bigger impact on the the race to find

• 1:07:45Ryan Holiday?

  a cure for ALS than any person in history. It's just some guy who starts an internet video, right? And and that an individual can make a difference. I think the Stoic thing is like, you don't know if it's going to work, but you try and you try and you try and try. And eventually, you know, it does happen. Something happens. It might not be you, but you're part of a tradition of people trying and something sticks.

• 1:08:09Speaker 02

  So Ryan, the way we think about it to get more people engaged and asking, you know, your audience as well is, what's that issue that they care about that their passion that they see an injustice in? And then how can we partner with them to expose them to a broader coalition and then have all these unlikely collaborations to really get synergy behind it? And three, making sure that everyone involved has the courage to act.

• 1:08:36Speaker 02

  Right, and that's what you said before. It's easy to say like, wow, there's all these problems, but not doing the experiment around the ice bucket challenge.

• 1:08:45Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 1:08:45Speaker 02

  It's easy to say, I'm just gonna go through the motions and do what I do every day, instead of thinking differently. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna jump in and experiment and try something new. That can transform my life, but also transform many others' lives at the same time.

• 1:09:01Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, it's funny, like, if it was a business idea you had, you'd start networking, you'd ask around, you'd look for investors, you'd look for collaborators. But then, when you see a problem in the world, you do tend to default towards the model of the top-down solution. What can I do individually as a mandate that solves this? And if we were a bit more entrepreneurial about it, as you're talking about, it would unlock, you know, a lot more solutions and, you know, creative energy that otherwise sits, you know, unused.

• 1:09:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, so you look at, look at the change in criminal justice system. I mean, it's not perfect, but particularly in certain states, we've made a big difference and changed the, the general paradigm about what should be done. I mean, we got a long way to go to,

• 1:09:51Speaker 01

  to deal with, with all the problems. But, but, but that started that same way. That is, we, we, we, we got together, changed paradigms, and, and then it spread as people saw it work better. And that's what we're doing with all of these, is like, we have in, to deal with communities, we have partnerships with like 200 social entrepreneurs. And each one is showing a better way. And as that spreads, then it gets in the, the culture, it changes the culture, it changes the, the, the, the national paradigm. And then it starts

• 1:10:36Speaker 01

  to change. And you look at all the successful social movements in this country, that's the way they started, whether that was abolition, whether that was women's rights, whether that was civil rights, gay rights, all of them started that way. There, there was no momentum for it until a few people got together and had the courage to act. And look at Frederick Douglass. He was a slave. And look what he accomplished because he had the courage to act and he was also contribution motivated, even when he was a slave, he got a chance to teach, to teach

• 1:11:18Speaker 01

  Sunday School and he started teaching them, the other slaves to read. And he says, "At last, I found a way to contribute." He was a slave, tortured, but he wanted to contribute.

• 1:11:31Ryan Holiday?

  It's, uh, yeah, the frustrating thing about America is that change happens very, very slowly and then very, very quickly. So all these movements that you mentioned, there were years and years of no progress and no progress and no progress. And then like that, it can all change. And so I think it's very easy to get depressed, to tell yourself it's broken and nothing's working, but you don't, you don't know that actually three years from now, it's going to be, we're going to make 30 years of progress. And that that is, that is something I was going to ask you about. Maybe it's a good place to sort of wind down, which is, you know, the premise of the book, believe in people. And

• 1:12:15Ryan Holiday?

  I, when I blur a bit, I totally agree with the premise. But I think one of the interesting tensions in Stoicism is, and I think all of philosophy, the more you study human nature, the more you study history, it's easy to become jaded and cynical and a bit depressed. How, and I think the last year has been a little bit of that for me. How do you believe in people when, when people are, are showing you in some ways, uh, maybe that they shouldn't be believed in, right? Like, how do you, how do you retain that optimism in human potential in, in that change is coming when, you know, when we just spent the last 12

• 1:12:57Ryan Holiday?

  months with people, you know, struggling to do, to take even the most basic health precautions for the sake of their neighbors?

• 1:13:04Speaker 01

  Right. No, no. And, and everybody isn't going to be on the right track and we're never going to have a utopia. But we don't need that. All we need is a significant portion of the population who, who, who believes and practices these principles. And, and, and what that takes is an individual.

• 1:13:31Speaker 01

  Really committing themselves to it and practicing it in a way that reaches others. So, I mean, that's the key to social change. And we see that everywhere through the people we work with. And so, this is the encouraging thing to us. We see people who've, across the whole ideological spectrum, where you just peek, including all the people who've endorsed our book, who yourself, and you looked at the spectrum of them, and they believe in this. They see this is a better way.

• 1:14:12Speaker 01

  And so, the first thing is to see that the hatred that both sides are showing is not productive, it's counterproductive. We have to find a way that we will get people to focus on helping each other and succeeding by that, rather than hurting. So, we gotta show them a better way. And until we do that, until we empower people from the bottom up and show them a better way, they're gonna double down on the old way, because that's all they know. So, that's our secret, is to scale, get these ideas out, but not with theory, just with

• 1:14:52Speaker 01

  theory, and with principles, what I like to talk about, but with real, live examples, how it's changed lives, and how Van Jones can lead the demonstration and hate us, and then start working with us, and now he calls our main guy who works, like a brother, and he loves what we're doing. And that's, and we're saying for them, you have respect, and then you start finding new ways to work together, and then the other people aren't totally evil, who need to be destroyed. They're people who haven't been shown a better way.

• 1:15:30Speaker 01

  And that's the only thing, and that's what has happened throughout history. Every time societies have improved, it's been through that mechanism.

• 1:15:38Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, it's funny, Marcus opens Meditations. He says, you know, "The people you will meet today are jealous and stupid and angry and mean and frustrating." He lists all the things, and so you think you know where this is going, right? And there's a certain sort of philosophical value in just anticipating how unpleasant things are going to be. But then he says, "They are only like this because they don't know good from evil." And he said, "They're the same as me, and they're made from the same thing as me." And he says, "And I won't let them implicate me in ugliness." And I think that's sort of what I've tried to remind myself. Because as a writer, you hear from some, you hear from fans, and you also hear from people who are definitely not fans.

• 1:16:20Ryan Holiday?

  And you have to go, "Okay, that's them, they're this way for whatever reason. I'm gonna keep doing what I think is right, and I'm gonna try to connect with as many people who are on that same page as me to do as much right as we can together."

• 1:16:35Speaker 01

  No, that's a...

• 1:16:36Speaker 02

  Well, and Ryan, what I would say is, I wanted to thank you for everything that you do to take these ideas and present them in a very innovative way to your audience. And I'm one of those folks in your audience that's a fan. And, you know, I've called you the modern-day Maslow before. And I truly believe that, because if they're just ideas, and you can't help people turn them into action to really improve their lives, and then help other people improve their lives, then it's, there's not a lot of value there. But you have a very creative way of doing that. And the more people that you can reach, and I think that's what my father's been trying to do, turn ideas into action. Whether it's in business, with market-based management, how we do business,

• 1:17:18Speaker 02

  or how we believe in people through our philanthropy efforts, and how we build coalitions, it's very, very similar. And if we can get more folks to internalize these ideas and then act with courage, you can spark movements to change the trajectory of the country and overcome some of these huge problems that we've been talking about. So a big thank you to you for your leadership in that.

• 1:17:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, just to add to that, I mean, and a key is persistence. Because changing your paradigm...

• 1:17:54Speaker 01

  Means changing your mental models, changing the way your your brain functions. Because you have these mental habits. So your brain is wired to to reinforce and protect those and be defensive about those. So the only way we change that, it's like when we change our body. If you're a weightlifter and you want to be a marathoner, it's not instant pudding. You've got to work intensely over time to change your body. Well, your brain and your mental habits are the same. It takes work, effort over time. And so you have persistence, you're on it every day, reminding people.

• 1:18:36Speaker 01

  And after a while, then that seeps in. And that's what we've found here. I mean, we at first said, as we really got into our our framework, we can, well, we'll make this acquisition and we can change the culture and everything in a few months and everything would be good to go. No, we find it takes years with an acquisition. So as you pointed out, to change the culture in the country to be more loving and helping rather than hurting, this is an instant pudding. And so we have to have persistence and patience and work every day at it.

• 1:19:16Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, Zeno says, well, being is realized by small steps, but it's no small thing. And I think it's about that sort of day to day-ness of it.

• 1:19:26Speaker 01

  That's it, exactly.

• 1:19:28Ryan Holiday?

  All right, so last, last version of this question then for you, and then we should wrap up. But so, you know, you employ hundreds of thousands of people. I imagine, you know, millions of people have been through your organizations over the years. You've met all these different people through your nonprofit works. You've traveled all over the world. You have your fingers in every possible industry you could imagine. You have this idea, you believe in people. What is it fundamentally that keeps you believing in people? What gives you hope that things can get better? What is that core thing that you believe in inside people?

• 1:20:06Speaker 01

  It's that, it's that when, when people believe in themselves, when they find a gift, their gift. And they can develop that and use that to contribute and succeed, then they believe in themselves. And once they believe in themselves and see they succeed by helping others succeed, that transforms them. And we've seen that over and over. For example, my wife and I started this program in one classroom in a tough part of town

• 1:20:46Speaker 01

  in which talks called Youth Entrepreneurs. And so it's not just class, teach them. It's to get them to build a bit, create a business plan, start their own business, and you give them some seed capital and help them find what they're good at. And it's, once they succeed at that and find they can, and have somebody else who believes in them and helps them and mentors them, they're transformed from being throwaway kids, as they're called, or no good kids, to being productive. And a lot of them now are very successful entrepreneurs or have gone on to college

• 1:21:31Speaker 01

  and had very successful lives. It's transformative. That's what I see. So because somebody's bad or made a mistake, they're not throwaway kids. They're not, you believe in them and help them believe in themselves and you can help them transform themselves.

• 1:21:50Ryan Holiday?

  So it sounds like what you really believe in ultimately is not just people. What you believe in is potential. You believe in human potential.

• 1:21:58Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:22:00Ryan Holiday?

  I love it. Guys, this was so great. I'm really glad we did this and I can't wait to see you both in person again.

• 1:22:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you. Thanks, Ryan. Appreciate you having me. Thanks for having us.

• 1:22:11Ryan Holiday?

  Thanks for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. Just a reminder, we've got signed copies of all my books in the Daily Stoic store. You can get them personalized, you can get them sent to a friend, whatever you want. We'd love for you to have a copy. I know I love signed copies of some of my favorite books. If you love a signed copy of The Obstacle is the Way, He Goes the Enemy, Stillness is the Key, the leather bound edition of the Daily Stoic, we have them all in the Daily Stoic store, which you can check out at store.dailystoic.com.