Mel Robbins | What Would a Stoic Think About The Let Them Theory?

Would the Stoics agree with Mel Robbins’ Let Them Theory? In today's episode, Mel Robbins sits down with Ryan to look at The Let Them Theory through a Stoic lens. They discuss what Marcus Aurelius would really say about letting go, where acceptance becomes strength, and why so much of our stress comes from fighting things that were never in our control to begin with. Ryan and Mel talk about jealousy and comparison, why letting go does not mean giving up, and learning how to protect your energy. Mel Robbins is the creator and host of the award-winningThe Mel Robbins Podcast https://www.youtube.com/@melrobbins, one of the most successful podcasts in the world, and a #1 New York Times bestselling author. The Let Them Theory https://www.amazon.com/Let-Them-Theory-Life-Changing-Millions/dp/1401971369 was the top selling book of 2025 according to Publisher’s Weekly, with +7 million copies sold within nine months of its release date. It is on pace to have the best non-fiction book launch of all time. She is also the author of the multimillion-copy-selling The 5 Second Rule https://www.amazon.com/Second-Rule-Transform-Confidence-Everyday/dp/1682612384/ref=pd_lpo_d_sccl_1/131-0453485-7543633?pd_rd_w=5j8iH&content-id=amzn1.sym.4c8c52db-06f8-4e42-8e56-912796f2ea6c&pf_rd_p=4c8c52db-06f8-4e42-8e56-912796f2ea6c&pf_rd_r=WWETGJD7XVNXAGKQPZ9C&pd_rd_wg=czEnh&pd_rd_r=d4610433-7db9-484d-8bc9-4fffb46a26cd&pd_rd_i=1682612384&psc=1, The High 5 Habit https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/the-high-5-habit-take-control-of-your-life-with-one-simple-habit?_pos=1&_sid=ad80e0814&_ss=r, and seven #1 audiobook releases on Audible. Tune intoThe Mel Robbins Podcast https://www.youtube.com/@melrobbins on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@melrobbins, Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mel-robbins-podcast/id1646101002, and Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/7vz4RYsD5MulTCrcH478t1 Follow Mel Robbins on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/melrobbins/ and TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@melrobbins Pick up a signed copy of The High 5 Habit https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/the-high-5-habit-take-control-of-your-life-with-one-simple-habit?_pos=1&_sid=ad80e0814&_ss=r by Mel Robbins at The Painted Porch: https://www.thepaintedporch.com/ https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/the-high-5-habit-take-control-of-your-life-with-one-simple-habit?_pos=1&_sid=ad80e0814&_ss=r Grab a copies of Mel Robbins’ other books: The Let Them Theory https://www.amazon.com/Let-Them-Theory-Life-Changing-Millions/dp/1401971369 and The 5 Second Rule https://www.amazon.com/Second-Rule-Transform-Confidence-Everyday/dp/1682612384/ref=pd_lpo_d_sccl_1/131-0453485-7543633?pd_rd_w=5j8iH&content-id=amzn1.sym.4c8c52db-06f8-4e42-8e56-912796f2ea6c&pf_rd_p=4c8c52db-06f8-4e42-8e56-912796f2ea6c&pf_rd_r=WWETGJD7XVNXAGKQPZ9C&pd_rd_wg=czEnh&pd_rd_r=d4610433-7db9-484d-8bc9-4fffb46a26cd&pd_rd_i=1682612384&psc=1 It's not too late to join The Daily Stoic New Year New You https://join.dailystoic.com/nyny26/ challenge! Learn more and sign up today at dailystoic.com/challenge http://dailystoic.com/challenge. 🎥 Watch the video episodes onThe Daily Stoic YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos:https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos 👉 Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing toThe Daily Stoic Premium https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content:https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ 🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast onInstagram https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast/?hl=en:https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email athttps://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store:https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/,Twitter https://twitter.com/dailystoic,YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic,TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@daily_stoic?lang=en, andFacebook https://www.facebook.com/dailystoic See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:03Ryan 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.

• 0:54Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. This is the first episode I am recording in the new year. Yesterday, we took a very frigid cold plunge in the Gulf of Mexico. I said that as it should be said. It was like 65 degrees. We try to start every year with the cold plunge. It's also the first day in the New Year, New You Challenge, which I hope you are doing alongside us. My wife and kids and father-in-law all did it, as Seneca did 2,000 years ago, throwing himself in the Virgo aqueduct to start off the new year. This is where his quote about treating the body rigorously so that it's not disobedient to the mind comes from. It's also what we build the challenge around. It's not too late to sign up.

• 1:39Ryan Holiday?

  We haven't closed it just yet. You can sign up at dailystoic.com/challenge. We're already on to day two. As I'm recording this, we're picking a Stoic word for the year. It's going awesome. I'm loving the community. I'm loving seeing you all in there. And if you procrastinated a little bit, I hope you can still sign up and catch up very quickly. Getting ready for day three myself. Anyways, it's a new year. And I was reading this article in the New York Times about the bestselling books of the year. What had moved in publishing, what hadn't. And it's funny, I just had a call with my publisher about this. And they were, my agent was saying, the first sign of a recession is that Bible sales go up.

• 2:21Ryan Holiday?

  He'd learned this for many, many years in publishing, and that was something confirmed in the article, so that was alarming. In slightly more positive news, there was a little section in the piece about Mel Robbins. And it was saying that Mel Robbins' book, The Let Them Theory, had sold 2.7 million copies in 2025, which is insane. That's roughly how many copies The Daily Stoic has sold in 10 years. So it's a monster hit. And in fact, I was in Greece this summer, walking along a pretty desolate beach in Ithaca, and I saw the green cover and I said, is that The Let Them Theory? And of course, it was. And I sent a picture to Mel, and she texted me back and she said, my daughter and I sat

• 3:03Ryan Holiday?

  down and designed that cover to be something that would pop on a beach. And I said, well, mission accomplished. And, and we talked about this when she came out to Bassstrip, Texas back in October. And we had a lovely session doing the podcast. And I'm excited to bring that episode to you. I'm going to split this up in two parts. So she came and sat in the studio. We had this conversation, which I am bringing to you now. And then we did a little walk through the bookstore. And then we walked across the street to the Bassstrip Opera House, where we did a live podcast. So I'll bring that later in the week. But for now, here is me and Mel Robbins talking about The Let Them Theory and Stoicism,

• 3:47Ryan Holiday?

  how the two connect with each other, how the two can inform each other. She passed along some interesting misconceptions about The Let Them Theory. She talked about why she's optimistic about the future amidst all the chaos in the world. And she was just awesome. I love this conversation. I think you're going to like it. If you don't know who Mel Robbins is, well, you should. She is the host of the Mel Robbins Podcast, which is one of the biggest podcasts in the world. You've probably seen clips or heard audio from clips of them because they get repurposed on Instagram and TikTok all the time. She has sold millions and millions of books, and it is on pace to be the best selling nonfiction book of all time. She's also the author of the multimillion copy selling,

• 4:32Ryan Holiday?

  The Five Second Rule, The High Five Habit, and seven number one audiobook releases on Audible. It's nuts. You can follow Mel on all platforms. She is at Mel Robbins. We quickly sold out of all of the copies she signed of The Let Them Theory and The Five Second Rule, but we still have some copies of The High Five Habit at The Painted Porch. You can grab that. Thanks to Mel and her team. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Happy New Year, and I'll see you in the Daily Stoic New Year New You Challenge. If you've already signed up, and if you haven't, just grab it at dailystoic.com/challenge.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  I didn't even know you have a book out right now.

• 5:11Ryan Holiday?

  Tuesday.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  It comes out this Tuesday?

• 5:13Ryan Holiday?

  Last Tuesday.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  Last Tuesday? How's it going? What's it about?

• 5:17Ryan Holiday?

  It's about wisdom. So I just finished this series on the cardinal virtues. So I did courage, discipline, justice, wisdom. So I've been working on it since 2019, and I just finished the whole thing.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  2019?

• 5:30Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 5:31Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 5:31Ryan Holiday?

  Because it's four, it was four books. It was supposed to be four books in four years, but I stretched it out a little bit.

• 5:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:36Ryan Holiday?

  So it's been a lot.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  That sounds like it. And how's it going?

• 5:40Ryan Holiday?

  Good, I think.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can't wait to read it.

• 5:42Ryan Holiday?

  So did you see the list this week?

• 5:43Speaker 01

  No, huh? What's today?

• 5:45Ryan Holiday?

  Today, yeah. It came out yesterday.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  Oh, it did?

• 5:47Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. So you're number one on number two.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  Fuck, yes. Well, unsee me.

• 5:53Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I know. Well, I was thinking I'll let you have the number ones.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  Well, tell you what, I would love to see you at number one.

• 5:59Ryan Holiday?

  I've done it before. I did it on the last one on Right Thing Right Now. That debuted at number one. So once you do it once, it's nice, but everything else is gravy from there. How do you think about that? Because I was thinking, like, I've done some work over the years of like not attaching so much to external stuff. But I do think like, as far as like letting people do stuff, I think one of the things that people struggle with is letting other people succeed.

• 6:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:26Ryan Holiday?

  Right? Like, obviously, you have no say over whether other people succeed, but letting it not... Bother you and letting, letting your mind wrap around the idea that it's not zero sum. I feel like people struggle with that.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  People?

• 6:40Ryan Holiday?

  Me, myself included.

• 6:41Speaker 01

  Everybody.

• 6:42Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  So, there are so many things I want to say.

• 6:45Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  About that one question.

• 6:47Ryan Holiday?

  Okay.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Because in the question, you know, how do you deal with other people's success? How do you not let it bother you a lot? Of course, it used to bother me.

• 6:56Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  And I think the reason why other people's success bothers you and the reason why you get jealous of what other people are achieving is because there is a part of you that dreams of having those things and that you are also simultaneously probably blocking yourself from taking the actions to create it. Or you are talking yourself out of it. Or, you know, the other thing that happens is, I think part of the success, particularly of, of the let them theory, is because, there are so many things about this book that I can explain and I can't explain.

• 7:37Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 7:37Speaker 01

  And there's something magical about the timing of this. And there have been so many times in the past where I have watched somebody else succeed. I have watched somebody else be invited to interviews. I've watched somebody else's work be celebrated. And I have sat in the corner in my house and thought.

• 7:57Ryan Holiday?

  How did they get that?

• 7:57Speaker 01

  Yes. What, what about me? Like, when's it gonna be my, is there something wrong with me? And in those moments, I would just say to myself, Mel, you know, you don't have a control over when things happen.

• 8:10Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  But you have control over what you do about it.

• 8:12Ryan Holiday?

  Sure. That's the definition of Stoicism, basically.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Well, I'm excited to talk to you because I feel like I wrote a book about Stoicism without truly being a master of Stoicism.

• 8:21Ryan Holiday?

  Well, you make it, I mean, it's basically Stoicism, Buddhism, detachment. It's, it's, it's the core of several things, which is the, the idea of like, there's some stuff that's up to you, some stuff that's not up to you, and your happiness depends on you figuring out the difference between those two things.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  Yes. And for most of my life, I did not know the difference.

• 8:38Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 8:39Speaker 01

  Between those two things. And so, I was very unhappy and very self-critical. And I remember so many times when I kept thinking, when, when is it gonna be my turn?

• 8:46Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  And then I, you would start to go, it's never gonna be my turn. And I feel as though I can sit here now and say, I actually understand why.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  The success didn't come until now.

• 8:59Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  And I personally believe because it wasn't meant to.

• 9:03Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  I was building in the dark and I was learning and growing and failing and preparing for the at bat moment.

• 9:14Ryan Holiday?

  Mm hmm.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  That mattered.

• 9:15Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  And I see that very clearly now. Because this book is not only the best thing I have ever done and the thing I've worked the hardest at. I also know it's the legacy that I'm going to leave on the planet.

• 9:31Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  And it is something that is happening at a moment when for so many people, life feels so out of control. And the simplicity of it, the timing of it, is part of the reason why it's become such this magical phenomenon.

• 9:52Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, part of what you're missing when you're like, well, when is it my turn? Why is it happening to them, not me? Is you, you can't actually understand that there might actually be some future better moment that it's building towards. And that if you got what you think you wanted right now, it would actually not be as good as it could be.

• 10:12Speaker 01

  Yes, well, this applies to dating too, you know?

• 10:14Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  That you kind of stay in something and tell yourself there's nothing better coming.

• 10:19Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 10:20Speaker 01

  And you're afraid that there's nothing better, that the best days are behind you. And it's not true. And I don't say that because I think that just having a positive attitude is the way that you solve your problems. I say that because I know the settings in your mind.

• 10:36Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  Impact the biology in your body and they impact whether or not you feel encouraged to take the actions that change everything. I'll tell you a really good book story. So I remember when I, when I first wrote my first book, The Five Second Rule, there was not a publisher that would touch it because I was nobody. And I had this dumb thing that while I was speaking about it on stages, you know, I didn't have a social media following. I didn't have much of a newsletter list unless you were related to me, you were getting emails from me. And this was. Back in the day where I kid you not, Ryan. So I'm the kind of person that when I want to win at something, I become a student of the thing I want to be the master of.

• 11:16Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  And I obsess over what is everybody else doing? And then I figure out the formula and then I do what everybody else is doing, what everybody else was doing, so we're talking 2016 here. What everyone else was doing, do you remember the days where you would create a paperback galley? And then you would sell those in the back of an event. So here's what I was doing. I was schlepping duffel bags of paperback galley versions

• 11:42Ryan Holiday?

  Of.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  Of the five second rule.

• 11:43Ryan Holiday?

  Okay.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  With me as I was going to one speaking event after the other.

• 11:49Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 11:50Speaker 01

  Okay. Duffel bag full of books. I bring them to the back of the conference room at the Marriott Courtyard. I got them out. I've got my freaking notepad. I was such a dummy. I didn't even use an Excel spreadsheet. And I would ask people to pay me $20. And I am going to give you a paperback version now.

• 12:08Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 12:09Speaker 01

  And then if you write down your address, I will order you a copy on Amazon and ship you a copy to your address with the $20 you sent me.

• 12:19Ryan Holiday?

  Wow.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  So I was manually trying to get pre-sales.

• 12:24Ryan Holiday?

  Okay.

• 12:25Speaker 01

  And I didn't know how else to do it.

• 12:27Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, sure.

• 12:27Speaker 01

  And so I accumulate, I don't know, 2, 3,000 names.

• 12:32Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 12:33Speaker 01

  And I'll never forget this story. So I am self-publishing the book and I am self-publishing the audiobook.

• 12:43Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  And I still think that there's some world where I might be able to make the New York Times list.

• 12:52Ryan Holiday?

  Okay.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  I don't know that they don't really ever.

• 12:56Ryan Holiday?

  You're not even being considered.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  Yes, not even be, I'm not, because I'm on nobody's, I'm a nobody.

• 13:00Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  I've got this incredible tool that's changing people's lives. I'm making a living speaking. I am paying off my debt because of it. This is amazing. I write the book because I can't answer people's emails anymore. And so I am so excited. I've done all these pre-sales manually.

• 13:18Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  I have a newsletter list of, I don't know, 10,000 people at this point, mostly people that have been in the audiences at the RE/MAX local real estate thing. And you know, like this is the kind of speaking. So all of a sudden, the book is going to be released the last week in February 2017, and I get news two weeks beforehand that Tony Robbins has moved his book up six months and is releasing on the same day. Yeah. And just to put in perspective, at this point in my life, every event I went to, people would ask me, "Are you his wife?" And so I've never met him, and I, to this day, I've never met him. And I have absolutely, like, "Hi, Tony." Yeah.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  But he was just sort of this kind of figure. I'm like, "Can somebody just please see me? Can somebody recognize me?" Sure. So for, the book comes out, I blast my email list. I also have a couple clients, speaking clients, that have agreed to buy like a couple hundred books that week, pointing them all to Amazon, because not a single bookstore has the book in it. Yeah. I have recorded the audiobook, and my husband has gone to amazon.com and found ACX, which is Amazon's audiobook publishing platform. And he has uploaded the audiobook that we have recorded to Amazon. So long and the short of it is, the book comes out, all the pre-sales that we had manually put in Yeah.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  go out, the book immediately lists as unavailable. Because they didn't have it, they hadn't printed it up? No, because we had worked with a self-publisher to print like 15,000 copies. Back in the day around 2017, if you got a, if they got a flood of orders, they had no way to connect the dots between what was actually happening and inventory. Yeah. So they just immediately put a "Close for Business" sign up. So I have seven speeches that week, all lined up. I'm traveling from Omaha to Vegas to, you know, Reno, to like every little thing to give a speech. Yeah. I am planning on telling the audiences to buy the book. It's not available. Right, it's your worst time of year.

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Every airport I land in, there's Tony's book. There it is. There's the Robbins everybody cares about. Yeah. And I remember the day that the New York Times list came out, I was in Salt Lake City, and I had landed, and I was coming down the escalator.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  And I got a phone call. Hey, the list came out. You didn't make it.

• 15:54Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  Of course I didn't make it.

• 15:56Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, right. You didn't even know the game.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  I don't know if you've ever done this, but have you ever walked into a public bathroom? And walked into a stall? And sat down on a toilet in your pants? And cried?

• 16:08Ryan Holiday?

  I have not, no.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  Okay, well, so I have. I came down the escalator. Everybody's there with their welcome home from your mission signs. I hang up the phone. I haul my iPhone across the luggage area.

• 16:23Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  I walked straight for the women's bathroom and I cried. And I thought, I am the world's biggest idiot. Like, I am an idiot. Like, why? When is it gonna work out? Like, I have been working so hard to get out of debt. This book is like, this rule is making a difference. Like, I'm a good person.

• 16:43Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Like, I'm trying hard. Like, when is it gonna be my turn? And I had forgotten about the audiobook.

• 16:50Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  Now, here's the interesting thing. It took like, three weeks to get it all sorted out with Amazon, because I didn't know who to call.

• 16:57Ryan Holiday?

  Right, there is no one to call.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:59Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  Even when you have a publisher, there's no one to call.

• 17:00Ryan Holiday?

  Right, right.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  And I just was like, I guess I failed. And here's what I kept saying to myself, and this is what I want to say to absolutely anybody that is at a moment where they see everybody else succeeding. And you're saying, when is it gonna be my turn? Why isn't this happening? I'm a good person. I'm working hard. I don't get it. I kept saying to myself, I refuse to believe that if you work this hard? And you are a kind person? That is doing their best? I refuse to believe that it's not gonna work out.

• 17:34Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  I have to believe that this is leading me somewhere incredible. I just don't know where yet. And that little setting, this must be leading me somewhere. I just don't know where yet. It helps me to keep going. And, long story short.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  The book like didn't really sell at all for the first, I don't know, six weeks or whatever. And then all of a sudden, an envelope arrives in the mailbox from Audible. And I was like, what is this? And I was like, oh, wait a minute. Oh, the audiobook.

• 18:12Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  And I opened up the envelope and it was like $25,000. And we were still profoundly in debt. I mean, we were chipping away at the debt that we had. I mean, I remember I was like falling out of my audiobooks. And so I, from that failed book launch, I discovered the power of audiobooks.

• 18:39Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 18:40Speaker 01

  And I also discovered a completely different business model in publishing. Because in 2017, I self-published an audiobook. And that audiobook, and the reason why the check was so big is because every bit of my marketing effort that went to Amazon, the only thing available was the audiobook. So people bought that. And that went on to become the most successful self-published audiobook in history. It also made The Five Second Rule the fifth most read book of the entire year on Amazon. It has never made the New York Times Bestseller list and probably never will.

• 19:18Ryan Holiday?

  Because it's never qualified.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  Never qualified. And I don't care because in that experience, which was excruciating, I discovered the thing that was meant for me. And so in life, for me, it has helped me profoundly because it is you against you. I do believe that success is a matter of not quitting. And that if you can hang in there long enough and you don't put a deadline for when you're going to achieve the things that you hope to achieve, I believe there is a really like, I'm talking 90% chance you're going to make it happen.

• 20:11Ryan Holiday?

  Well, one of the things that Stoics talk about is that it matters what race you're trying to run. So one of the lines from Epictetus, which I think about a lot, he says, "If you only run races where winning is up to you, you will always win." And so the problem is-

• 20:24Speaker 01

  Oh, no, that's a good thing.

• 20:25Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, we're mostly running races where winning is not up to us.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:29Ryan Holiday?

  So if the race you're trying to win is the New York Times bestseller list, or the Nobel Peace Prize selection committee, or something where some committee, or gatekeeper, or somebody other than you decides what that success is, well, then maybe you'll get lucky, but you probably won't. If the race you're running is trying to make something that actually reaches like real human beings-

• 20:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:53Ryan Holiday?

  -that race is much more up to you-

• 20:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:55Ryan Holiday?

  -you have a much better chance.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  Yes, okay.

• 20:56Ryan Holiday?

  And so the thing you should quit is stop trying to impress certain people, or check certain boxes, because that's what you've decided success is. When you redefine it, it's over here, then all that hard work and effort is actually directed at something. You were working extremely hard in a thing that was actually impossible for you to win, because-

• 21:16Speaker 01

  I didn't know.

• 21:17Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, you're literally, the work you're doing does not qualify for the arcane, complicated, black box metrics.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  But can we go back to your original question?

• 21:26Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  Right?

• 21:27Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  Because you just gave the second answer to what I was gonna say-

• 21:32Ryan Holiday?

  Okay.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  -about success. I am one of the most intentional people, other than you, that you will ever meet.

• 21:38Ryan Holiday?

  Okay.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  And I always think about the outcome, and then try to reverse engineer a way to get there. But here's what matters about success. What is the outcome you're measuring?

• 21:52Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 21:53Speaker 01

  And for me, like, you just asked me about the list, it came out, I didn't even know.

• 21:58Ryan Holiday?

  Right, right.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  I don't have the metrics to our podcast. Because that's not the metric that matters. Once a week, I'll say to like our COO or my executive producer that I've worked with for 10 years, Tracy, I'll be like, so how are we doing? We doing okay?

• 22:14Ryan Holiday?

  Is there anything bad I need to know about?

• 22:16Speaker 01

  Yes, because the second you take your eye and you start measuring success up here, you take your eye off the ball of the thing in front of you.

• 22:26Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  That's creating the impact and the success you were seeking in the first place.

• 22:31Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 22:31Speaker 01

  And so I think it's really important, and I've gotten better and better and better at this, in understanding what does success look like on my terms? And I don't do a project at all until I define what success would look like. So for example, when we decided to do our first tour last year, I had a very simple goal. I want to have a lot of fun doing this.

• 22:54Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  I want to challenge myself creatively because I've never done anything like this. I go and give a one hour keynote in front of a corporate audience. I'm like a, I'm like a human defibrillator, waking people up at a corporate event at 10 o'clock in the morning. You know that, you know that job. I've never been in front of a drunk audience on a Friday night.

• 23:16Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  For entertainment.

• 23:17Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, people who chose to be there.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly.

• 23:20Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  I also said, I want every single show to get better so that on the closing night at the Apollo Theater in London, that we can say that was our best show.

• 23:29Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  I want the audience to be gobsmacked. I want people to be so shocked by what they just experienced because they were not expecting that.

• 23:39Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 23:39Speaker 01

  And I don't want to lose too much money. And every time I would say that on a call, my, my, my business partners, my sister-in-law, we'd go, do you please stop saying that? Turns out we lost a lot of money, even though it was a sold out tour.

• 23:51Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  Because production's very expensive and we learned a lot and we achieved everything. I didn't say I wanted to sell it out. I didn't say I wanted to make a lot of money. And how you measure success is actually everything.

• 24:08Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. Right, because it changes whether you're dependent on the gods or luck or whatever smiling on you, or whether you can will it into existence or not.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  Well, and what's interesting about this phenomenon in this book is that there are so many unexplainable things that have happened that could never have been orchestrated.

• 24:34Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  That were, that are so magical that I feel, I feel that my job was writing the book. And now my job is to sit back and to, as this thing is like a rocket ship, to sit back as if you're in an airplane.

• 24:55Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  And look out the window and recognize, like, I literally feel ancestors and ancient wisdom circling around me like the dots on that book, carrying this message through. Because I do believe that this is a timeless message, even though the theory is something that I created and it's a new tool. I believe that ideas have a life of their own. I think Elizabeth Gilbert talks about this a lot.

• 25:21Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 25:21Speaker 01

  And that for whatever reason, this, I'm the one that became the messenger in a way to repackage all of this research and ancient wisdom in a way that people could use it now.

• 25:35Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, nobody knows where ideas come from. And there's something, I think, especially when it works, it's healthy to be like, yeah, I don't know where it came from. It's, it's good to own when things don't work. And then I think it's important when it does work to go, here's the ways I was lucky, the, the magic of creativity. And then someone once told me that there's like a difference between a hit and a freak. And you know what I'm like, a hit is kind of in your control. You can do all the right things.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  Oh, no, this is like a supernova freak. Yeah, this is a whole nother level.

• 26:06Ryan Holiday?

  How does that feel?

• 26:07Speaker 01

  It feels. It's really humbling, honestly, because I don't think it's me. I feel that I'm just so happy in a moment where people feel really worried and scared about what's happening in the world, that people are turning toward a book and a book that can help them lean back into their life. And I love the Trojan horse of this theory, because when you first start saying, let them, the Irish version is fuck them, it has this edge to it that helps you detach.

• 26:48Speaker 01

  But the second part, the let me part, the thing I'm the most proud of is that this is making people's marriages better, it's making them better friends, better sons and daughters, it's bringing families together, because it forces you to see people as they are, to accept them as they are, instead of constantly trying to control and judge and change the people you care about.

• 27:15Ryan Holiday?

  Well, it's a beautiful tension between resignation and empowerment, right? And I think sometimes people struggle with that. They hear ideas of resignation or acceptance. Those are like not great American concepts. Like, we don't like that, because it seems like you're giving up your agency. But really, what you're doing is giving up your delusions of agency about the parts that are not up to you, and then seizing your agency on the parts of agency that actually are up to you. So, yeah, you say that a lot in the book, the idea of like, it seems like it's about them, but really, it's about the me. So you're letting them, and then you're leaning into the me, because it's, I don't control them, but I do control me, so what am I going to do about it?

• 27:58Speaker 01

  Yes. And the other thing that I think is really important about it is that I do believe the research, and the research that I cite is from Dr. Aditi Narakar, that 83% of people, especially here in the United States, coming out of the pandemic in particular, in a chronic state of stress. And the number one source of everybody's stress is other people, because they're super annoying.

• 28:20Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 28:20Speaker 01

  And very frustrating, and they break your heart, and they schedule Zoom meetings at 5 o'clock on a Friday, because they have no life. Like, I just, and I never understood, because I've been a huge fan of your work. I have tried to study Stoicism. I'm married to a Buddhist, Ryan.

• 28:36Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  It's so annoying. Yes, my, my husband's a death doula. You want to talk about a profoundly

• 28:42Ryan Holiday?

  That's heavy.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  present, calm man? That's my husband of 29 years.

• 28:48Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 28:48Speaker 01

  And meanwhile, I'm like, dang, this is the steering wheel of life. And, and if you're not like me, you're probably married to or dating somebody like me.

• 28:56Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  Or your mother was like me, or your sister's like me. And I have tried to let things go. But to me, letting something go feels like losing.

• 29:07Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 29:08Speaker 01

  It feels like no power. I've, I have read Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning probably a dozen times. I could not apply any of it in a moment where I was stressed or frustrated or hurt. I could not remember to recite the Serenity Prayer. And what I have found transformative at a cellular level is saying let them and let me are tools.

• 29:38Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  And I can remember that in a moment in modern life, when the outside world gets in here or some annoying idiot takes up space up here. And it has helped me protect myself from all of the very real things that I have no control over. And in doing so, and you know this because you are the person that everybody turns to when it comes to Stoicism and applications in modern life. What happens is you go, Jesus, I, I have so much more time. I didn't realize I could be calm.

• 30:22Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, yeah. Like you don't have to go through your day just being pissed off all the time.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  I was the person, I am not proud to tell you, that would come home every day and I would be on edge and stressed out and snapping at my kids. And then I would blame work.

• 30:39Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  And I was giving the worst to the people who are the best.

• 30:45Ryan Holiday?

  That's really hard. I feel guilty about that all the time, too. I'm like, I'm pretty good, like, in the world, not getting, like, I feel like I'm polite. I feel like I'm courteous. I feel like I'm patient. And then I go, wait, I'm giving, like, the best to the people I'll never fucking see again.

• 31:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 31:02Ryan Holiday?

  And then, because your kids don't have a choice about where they live, that you're like, you get the leftovers.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 31:10Ryan Holiday?

  And obviously, it should be the opposite.

• 31:11Speaker 01

  Yes. And there is something about protecting yourself all day long, so that you're not gassed by the time you walk in the door, that it's made me a different boss. It's made me a different wife. It has completely transformed the way I feel day to day. I did not realize how hard I was making life for myself.

• 31:32Ryan Holiday?

  Well, I think about that with my kids. Like, I've never had a teacher, or a babysitter, or anyone else be like, your kids are the worst, you know? Like, they're always like, your kids are angels, they're well behaved. And I'm like, that's not what I'm seeing at home, you know? And I realize, oh, wait, they're actually being incredible out in the world. They're doing the same thing I'm doing.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 31:49Ryan Holiday?

  Which is they're behaving and masking and following the rules. And then at home, where they feel safe, they're wild maniacs. And I should, I should take this as a compliment.

• 31:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 31:59Ryan Holiday?

  Not as an indictment. Like, if I thought they were good, and then, you know, it's terrible report cards all day, and they're getting in trouble all the time, I'd be like, okay, something's wrong.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:08Ryan Holiday?

  But it's actually exactly the way you want it to be.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 32:11Ryan Holiday?

  Which is like, it's like, if your behavior's pretty good, but in, in your head, you're like, fuck this person. That's better than, than the alternative.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 32:18Ryan Holiday?

  Right? And so it's, that's how it should be.

• 32:20Speaker 01

  For children.

• 32:20Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  But keep in mind, I'm walking in the door and acting like an eight-year-old.

• 32:23Ryan Holiday?

  Yes, yes.

• 32:24Speaker 01

  And so, when you are an adult, you have the ability to get a hold of this.

• 32:29Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 32:29Speaker 01

  And it is so liberating and so freeing. I've been so excited to talk to you about this, because I am curious about what you see about the let them theory. What you see about it all.

• 32:42Ryan Holiday?

  Well, here, I thought, there's this interesting passage that Marcus opens Meditations with, that I think it's got a little let me in it. Tell me what you think. Okay, so the first part, he opens Meditations with a list of acknowledgements from everything he learned from all of them. Friends, but then he says, this is a famous passage. He says, when you wake up in the morning, tell yourself the people I will deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. And he says, they are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I've seen the beauty of good and the ugliness of evil and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own. He says, and so none of them can hurt me and no one can implicate me in ugliness. He says, I can't feel angry at my relatives or hate them because we were born to work together

• 33:25Ryan Holiday?

  like feet, hands and eyes, like two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural and to feel anger at someone and to turn your back on them are obstructions. And what I like about that is the first part you think is going to be, it's cynical and jaded and nasty. And then, and then he's like, but that's them.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:44Ryan Holiday?

  And like, my job is just to not let myself be like them and also to work with them regardless. That to me is, is Stoicism and the idea of you let them be them and you still have to make sure you are who you're supposed to be.

• 34:02Speaker 01

  I am so grateful that you picked out that passage and I'm going to tell you why.

• 34:06Ryan Holiday?

  Okay.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  It explains what has been the single biggest impact that the let them theory has had in my life, other than transforming me from being the stressed out, controlling, judgmental freak and being more peaceful and powerful and more intentional about how I respond. Can be very intentional about business, but not in charge of my emotions.

• 34:30Ryan Holiday?

  Of course.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  The biggest difference that this has made is in my ability to change the dynamic in a relationship, particularly with family members who are very challenging.

• 34:45Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  And until I had these tools, I spent most of my life bracing, you know, everybody has like, just think of the person in your life that is super challenging, but you're not going to cut them out because you want a relationship with them.

• 35:03Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 35:03Speaker 01

  You just wish they were different.

• 35:04Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 35:04Speaker 01

  You just wish they thought different things and acted a different way. And it could be anybody. It could be your adult kid. It could be your parents. It could be a brother. It could be any, it could be your spouse, if only you're more motivated, if only this. And the judgment that you bring and the wish that somebody were different is part of the tension, but we don't see it.

• 35:26Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 35:26Speaker 01

  And so for me, that passage beautifully summarizes what I've experienced, which is, let's just take, everybody's got somebody who's got like a narcissistic personality style in their family.

• 35:37Ryan Holiday?

  Yep.

• 35:38Speaker 01

  And we brace and we wish it's going to be different. And as we go into interactions with people, you're kind of on edge. This person's been this person since you've known them.

• 35:48Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 35:48Speaker 01

  They're not changing.

• 35:49Ryan Holiday?

  Right. They're certainly not changing because you yelled at them.

• 35:52Speaker 01

  Yes. And they're not changing because you want them to.

• 35:54Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  Because people only change when they're ready to do the work to change for themselves. And so the strategy with the let them theory is you force yourself to just let them be. Let them be who they are. Let them be who they're not. And that includes if they have opinions that you're offended by. That includes if they drink too much. That includes if they're rude. That includes all those things that you want to change. And you may be correct that it would be wonderful if they would change. But the, the major mistake I was making is I thought if they changed, things would get better.

• 36:32Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 36:33Speaker 01

  What this taught me is the moment that you force yourself to accept people as they are, which actually is love.

• 36:39Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 36:40Speaker 01

  And you create this space between you and the other person where they are allowed to have the dignity of their own experience. They are allowed to have their own opinions. They are allowed to screw up their life. They're allowed to be a, they're living their life.

• 36:57Speaker 01

  So when you say let them, you create space for acceptance and non judgment. You create space for compassion. You create space, since you're removing the judgment, to actually lean in and be more curious about what's going on. And then the let me part was revelatory for me because I would always get so on edge about these, oh, God, is so and so going to be there? Do we have to? Oh, God, you know, we all have the person and the extended family that now my energy shifted. And so I'm going in differently. And so when I started saying, well, let me, let me just ask myself, what do I value? And if I value family, or if I value showing up for people, or if I value long-term friendships,

• 37:42Speaker 01

  okay, well, then I'm going because it's my value. I'm choosing. And if I know who I'm walking into, let me look at what I can control. I don't have to stay overnight.

• 37:53Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  I can just stay for two hours. And if they're upset by that, let them. And I can leave any conversation, any text chain, any dinner table, anytime I choose. And when you start to realize, wait, you're not trapped. You actually have more power. You go into it calm.

• 38:12Ryan Holiday?

  And what does this person present you the opportunity to do? So the passage that I built the obstacles, the way around, is also a quote from Marcus Realist, where he says, and he's specifically talking, I made the quote more generally about obstacles.

• 38:26Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 38:26Ryan Holiday?

  But he's specifically talking about difficult people. He says, like, people who get in our way.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 38:30Ryan Holiday?

  He says, what, what, what these people forget is we always have the opportunity to adjust and adapt. And he says, so the impediment to action advances action, what stands in the way becomes away. What he's really saying is this person who you are seeing as an obstacle is actually an opportunity. So that person who has views very different than yours, or that person who's always late, or that person who's too loud, or that person, insert whatever the thing that person is, not only are you not going to change it, you should see them as an opportunity to practice putting up with that, right? To being curious about that thing, forgiving that thing.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  Not getting triggered by it.

• 39:07Ryan Holiday?

  Exactly. Like, hey, I'm just, I'm gonna go into this difficult situation. And the upside in it for me is that by the time I leave, I've practiced being patient with a person who really bothers me. That is, that makes you better. So they're not gonna change, but actually you change in your relation to them and you become better. And that's, the idea is not just that difficult people aren't this curse on your existence, but they're this challenge to you that you can be improved by. Obviously easier to say than to do, but if you can, if you can go into it with this mindset, you do get better over time.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  And something even cooler happens. At least this is what I've discovered.

• 39:49Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 39:50Speaker 01

  So typically in a family dynamic, the most immature and challenging person has the most power. Because everybody's tiptoeing around them and everybody's bracing. And it shifts like that energetic web. When you start to say, let them, I know who my uncle is, I know, I like, just let them be who they be. I'm still going because I want to see my parents and I'm just gonna let me, I'm just gonna stay calm and I'm gonna keep it light and that's it.

• 40:20Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 40:20Speaker 01

  And the second is, I'm just gonna take off, like, no big deal. When you walk in to a, any kind of meeting like that or family gathering like that, and you are settled and you're calm.

• 40:33Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 40:34Speaker 01

  And you are unfuckable with, you're now the most powerful person in the room.

• 40:39Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 40:40Speaker 01

  And, and it shifts everything. You're not as bothered by people. You're not playing into it.

• 40:47Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 40:48Speaker 01

  It is the most, like, it's sort of like, you know, when people are screaming at you and there's a little bit where you're like, just check out? Versus somebody who's really mad? Who just is like, They're not reacting, but you know they're in control of that anger. Like, that is a scarier person, too. Because they're actually in control of themselves. And so you, and me personally, I speak for myself, and this is what we're hearing from readers around the world, that instead of cutting people out of their life, they're able to create the space to have people in their life as they are?

• 41:26Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, what's the term for that? Gray rocking?

• 41:28Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 41:29Ryan Holiday?

  You don't allow them to trigger you, get you worked up.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 41:33Ryan Holiday?

  You understand, hey, this is what they want me to do in this situation. And I'm just, I'm not gonna give you that.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  It actually helps you apply gray rocking. Because if you get all triggered by your narcissistic, you know, personality style X, now they have power over you. But when you go, let them, this is why I'm divorced with this motherfucker. Like, let them do that. Now let me remind myself. I get to choose how I'm gonna respond to this. And I'm not responding to this text.

• 42:01Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 42:02Speaker 01

  And if they text me 17 more times, I'm not responding. Because I get to choose what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna gray rock, or I'm just gonna do the thing where I'm really bland, and then they go away.

• 42:11Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, like, letting someone have the last word is having the last word. If you understand it right. You know, like, you get to decide, hey, I said what I need to say. This conversation is over. They can keep talking, but the conversation is over. And so it's deciding how you're gonna perceive who has the power and who doesn't. And you get to decide.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  Yes. You know, the other thing that I think is important to say, because this is one of the, this is one of the things that is a misconception about the let them theory, which is, you're just saying, let people abuse you, let people walk all over you. It's actually not that at all. Because when you are in a situation, whether you're dating somebody, or you're working for somebody, or you're in a family situation where somebody is wildly disrespectful, or abusive to you in any way, it's already happening.

• 43:01Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  And you're not allowing it, it's happening to you. When you say, let them, you're not saying, I'm letting them do this to me. When you say, let them, you're forcing yourself to recognize that this is who this person is. How they are treating you is how they feel about you. And if the number one rule about life is you cannot change another person, You can only change yourself. Then when you say let them, you have to, this is the radical acceptance part. You're having to see with clear and sober eyes, the situation you're in.

• 43:37Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 43:38Speaker 01

  And then you go to the let me part. And this is where you start to coach yourself and say, let me remind myself, I'm not stuck in this job.

• 43:46Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 43:46Speaker 01

  I may need to pay my bills, but I can use my weekends to brush up the resume and find something else. Let me remind myself if the behavior is unattractive. Cause they don't want to put a label on it, Ryan. And you know what that means? It means they don't like you, but they like sleeping with you. So let them not put a label on it and let me ask myself, is this attractive?

• 44:06Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. They're gonna do what they're gonna do.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 44:09Ryan Holiday?

  And I'm gonna decide whether I participate, witness it, put up with it, subject myself to it. That's the part that's up to you. And you're gonna say, I'm gonna let you do this over here.

• 44:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 44:21Ryan Holiday?

  I'm gonna go do this over here.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  Yes, because so many of us get stuck in very broken patterns and relationships because we live in a fantasy in our mind. Instead of seeing the reality of the situation that we're in. And you know, wanting things to change, that's a, that's a good thing. Wanting somebody to heal, that's a beautiful thing. Wanting things to get better, that is a wonderful thing. It's the fact that we go about it by thinking the powers in changing that person versus accepting the reality and saying, okay, since I can't control what they're gonna do, I just have to focus on what I'm gonna do. And maybe it's nothing right now. Maybe the first step is I'm just seeing this for the first time. And I've been so scared about paying my bills, it hasn't even occurred to me

• 45:08Speaker 01

  that I can't change my boss, but I could, over time, start to change how I spend my time. And I could start to take the actions that get me to a different job.

• 45:20Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. Yeah, and you know, you mentioned misconceptions about the book. That must be interesting because, you know, anyone that puts anything out in public, there's going to be misconceptions, there's going to be criticism, there's going to be people who just don't like it.

• 45:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:33Ryan Holiday?

  And then obviously, when you succeed at a very large level, one of the things you have to wrestle with is like, the number of those people becomes quite large, right?

• 45:41Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 45:43Ryan Holiday?

  No, no, if you sell a million copies of something, the number of people who didn't like it starts to be in the tens, if not the many tens of thousands of people, right? It's just like, you think about how many people don't like Taylor Swift. Lots of people like Taylor Swift, which means lots and lots of people don't like Taylor Swift, right? And so, the idea of like-

• 46:02Speaker 01

  You know what's interesting? I don't think about that.

• 46:05Ryan Holiday?

  But that's my point, is that that's a skill you have to learn.

• 46:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:07Ryan Holiday?

  Letting people have opinions about you-

• 46:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:10Ryan Holiday?

  -that are negative.

• 46:11Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 46:12Ryan Holiday?

  Because they will.

• 46:13Speaker 01

  Yes, but here's, here is the most liberating thing you'll ever learn. If you wake up every day, and you do the best that you can to make decisions that make you proud of who you are, you apologize when you screw up-

• 46:31Ryan Holiday?

  Uh huh.

• 46:32Speaker 01

  And you do the best with the best of intentions, you can lay your head down on the pillow every night and be proud of yourself. And when you're proud of yourself, and you know who you are, and you know your intentions, and you know the way you operate, you don't think about other people at all. Because you actually know the truth.

• 46:52Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 46:53Speaker 01

  And I think you get in trouble in life, like, I cared a lot about what people thought about me, when I didn't like me.

• 46:59Ryan Holiday?

  Yes, because that, that, you're hoping if they like you, then you could like you.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  Correct, and that's also why this has been so transformative for people. Because it reveals this very subtle and hidden thing that most of us don't realize is right in front of your face, which is before you do anything, the default is to stop and think about what somebody else might think. Like, even just the act of posting something online, most people will select a photo, and I'm like, oh, not that photo, not that, not that photo, okay, maybe this photo, okay, this photo, all right, let me put that, filter, filter, filter, filter, okay, now I start writing a ca- oh, is that too much? Too much for who?

• 47:40Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 47:40Speaker 01

  Too much for who? There is this assumption that there is something you could do-

• 47:47Speaker 01

  That would guarantee that another human being will have a thought that you can control that will pop into their mind, or that they will have an emotion that you can guarantee is due to what you just did. And what's happening when people read this and they start to say, let them, they're noticing that that resistance that Steven Pressman talks about, it's almost 1,000% based on your fear of other people.

• 48:13Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  And we don't realize how much we're thinking about other people and how manipulative we are with what we do and what we say. See, like, people pleasing? That's not a weakness. That's manipulation. Because you're acting in a way to try to manipulate people to like you.

• 48:29Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  I used to be a huge people pleaser. And this taught me that people are gonna think what they're gonna think, they're gonna say what they're gonna say, they're gonna make up lies about you, they're gonna hate you just because you're successful, you're gonna, your example's gonna bring up stuff for them that they haven't dealt with. Let them.

• 48:46Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 48:47Speaker 01

  Let them, give them the dignity of their own experience. And let me focus on living my life in a way that I feel good about myself, because I know who I am. I know how I operate.

• 49:09Ryan Holiday?

  I think everyone has that experience as a kid. You, you, you go to the store and you, you get something, you're like, I love this shirt. I love this thing. And then you get to school and it, and then people are like, that shirt is dumb.

• 49:18Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:19Ryan Holiday?

  And that's where you learn, oh, my opinion is not the opinion that counts to me.

• 49:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:25Ryan Holiday?

  It's what other people think.

• 49:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:27Ryan Holiday?

  And the irony that, that people are so sensitive, like in the arts or in the creative space, is like, the whole point is like, what do you like? That, that's why you're the artist. And yet, here you are going like, audience, tell me if this is good or not.

• 49:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:40Ryan Holiday?

  And then you're not doing your job.

• 49:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:42Ryan Holiday?

  Your job is, do I like this photo? Do I think this sentence is good? Does this sound cool to me? That's the job of the artist.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:48Ryan Holiday?

  And you're actually neglecting it and you're telling, you're saying to the audience, no, no, you make the decision for me.

• 49:54Speaker 01

  Yes, it's true. I, I, I think about this a lot because I have somebody that I love deeply, who is an artist and a musician. And I can see the wrestling with like, you know, there's just like 11 songs waiting to go. And the wrestling with the, is it good enough for who? If it's good enough for you, and it's a very hard thing to learn, especially when there is so much negative feedback coming at you. And so many examples is where we started about everybody else's success.

• 50:28Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 50:28Speaker 01

  Like, I don't, I live in Vermont. I don't see what everybody else is doing. I also don't look for it.

• 50:35Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 50:36Speaker 01

  And I've cultivated friendships with peers of ours because my family doesn't know what I'm going through.

• 50:44Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  Only the people that are in our industry kind of know what you're going through. And so I'm very careful about who I take advice and who I take criticism from.

• 50:56Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 50:56Speaker 01

  Because if I don't respect you, or I wouldn't want to trade places with you, or you haven't done the thing that I'm trying to do, then I'm not going to listen to your feedback, most likely.

• 51:09Ryan Holiday?

  Well, the selective ignorance can be helpful too. Like, like, let's say, like, letting them is the theory and the work, right? To get to a place where, hey, you found out all your friends went on vacation without you, and you're wrestling with feelings and you're like, you know what, let them. Or a New York Times review comes out and it's negative. You go, hey, I'm gonna let them have their feeling. That's, that's the skill of it. But I think you can also help yourself by just going, by just spending less time on social media, by saying, hey, I have a rule. I don't read reviews.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:41Ryan Holiday?

  Or deciding to live in Ramon or rural Texas. Like, by not living in New York City and going to parties all the time, where all I'm hearing about is other people's success, I'm, I'm more able to be like, everyone's doing their own thing.

• 51:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 51:55Ryan Holiday?

  I'm doing my thing over here and I just don't know a lot of what's happening. That if it, if I did know, it might bother me and I might have to do some work.

• 52:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 52:02Ryan Holiday?

  But I can, I can cut that off at the source.

• 52:04Speaker 01

  Yes. And there's another layer to the success thing. So I used to be one of the most insecure. Jealous type of friends you could ever have. Great. I'm not proud to tell you this at all. When my husband and I were struggling massively financially. I remember we, I had this experience, we were really good friends of ours. Moved from our town to like, that nice town. Yeah. And they not only moved there, all of a sudden, they got a nice house, like with a long driveway, Ryan. And we've all gotten that invitation. Yeah. Where you're driving up the driveway and you turn to your spouse and you're like, how the hell did they have this much money?

• 52:49Speaker 01

  And I love my friend. Yeah. And I'm happy for my friend and I know they've worked really hard. I'm just really sad for me. And you know, I've got a lien on my house. And I've pulled my kid out of town soccer. I don't want to fucking kill my husband because I want to blame it all on him. I'm unemployed. And then they swing open the door and they hand you that glass of wine. And I grip it like a freaking blankie. And I'm going around the house, Ryan. Holding it like this. I've got that smile like this. Cause I can't contain the anger and the jealousy and the, the sadness.

• 53:33Speaker 01

  And she's winning and I'm losing. And her house looks like a freaking restoration hardware store. And now I'm drinking like crazy and we come around the corner and she has the white kitchen cabinets. And she has the marble on the countertop and I'm thinking that bitch stole my Pinterest board, Ryan. And I drank myself into the ground and then I get into the car. And I am so emotionally immature that I turn to my husband and I say, why couldn't you have gone into finance? Right. Why did you have to like people? And the poor man is like shrinking in the driver's seat. Like, I, I don't know, I wish I had, it would make her life easier.

• 54:16Speaker 01

  The thing that's interesting about that experience, because you're going to feel it in life. Of course. Is that I didn't understand how to live life in a way that someone else's wins are not your losses. Yeah. That other people.

• 54:36Speaker 01

  95% of the stuff in life that can't block your way, you do that.

• 54:41Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, it's not a zero sum game. Someone else's success, not only does it not prevent you from being successful, you know them, it probably actually helps you be more successful if you could figure out how to see it that way.

• 54:53Speaker 01

  But I couldn't for a long time.

• 54:57Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 54:57Speaker 01

  Until I recognized that all of that friction, whether it's jealousy or anger or frustration that stirs up inside you, it's actually very personal. Like if somebody drove down the, the block here and they had a cyber truck, I wouldn't feel anything because I don't want one.

• 55:15Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I know. So fucking dumb.

• 55:16Speaker 01

  It's so, but I just like, I don't want that thing. But if somebody drove down in like a vintage pickup truck, I'd be like, oh, because the things that stir up inside you, they are deeply tied to your dreams and to the things that, that are meant for you. And I, I started to see that, oh, wait a minute. Like all of this friction is just like a directional signal. It's like, you know, some sort of GPS off in the distance saying ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And it's your self doubt that's blocking you.

• 55:50Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 55:50Speaker 01

  It's your inaction. You can work for a decade and make the money to renovate your kitchen. You could paint your kitchen cabinets white right now.

• 55:58Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 55:59Speaker 01

  There's a million ways that you could achieve something adjacent to that. If you recognize that you are capable of doing it through your attitude and your actions. And you understand that all of that stuff that gets churned up is your body and mind and soul trying to say, wake the hell up. Like you could do this. I remember I wanted to get into podcasting for so long because I had started in radio way back in the day, like 2007. And I kept telling myself, it's too late.

• 56:31Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 56:31Speaker 01

  I'm too old. That, that fricking monk, Jay Shetty, he's already said it all. Fucking Stephen Bartlett, screw that guy. Ryan Holiday, he's already got his show. Like I can't write a book now. Like, oh my God, everybody's already said it. I talked myself out of doing it for probably four years.

• 56:48Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 56:49Speaker 01

  How sad.

• 56:50Ryan Holiday?

  I know. It's not just like, hey, there's some stuff that's in your control and some stuff that's not in your control. It's that when you are directing energy, emotions, resentments, et cetera, at the part that's not in your control, what you're doing is taking away energy that could be spent on the part that's in your control.

• 57:07Speaker 01

  Say that again, so they hear you say that. Please.

• 57:10Ryan Holiday?

  It's like, we have a finite amount of energy. And are you gonna throw it against the brick wall over here? Are you gonna throw it on the sort of open road over here? Like, where are you gonna put it? Are you gonna put it where it makes a difference? Or are you gonna keep throwing it where it doesn't make any difference?

• 57:22Speaker 01

  But it feels so good.

• 57:24Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 57:24Speaker 01

  To complain about other people.

• 57:26Ryan Holiday?

  Mm-hmm.

• 57:26Speaker 01

  But it feels so good, in some way, to be like, screw that guy.

• 57:30Ryan Holiday?

  Well, it's safer, for sure, because there's no chance of you actually getting the thing. So you, all you have is the resentment.

• 57:38Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 57:40Ryan Holiday?

  It's rough. It's rough, though.

• 57:41Speaker 01

  Why did it take me 54 years to figure this out?

• 57:43Ryan Holiday?

  Well, I think that it's, why did it take the human race this long to figure? I mean, we know this. Like, ancient people said it. Psychologists have said it. Your grandparents probably told you this. Knowing it and then being able to apply it, it's not just like, it takes a while. It's, it's a gradual thing. Like, like even something like the theory or something like Stoicism, it feels like an epiphany when you hear it for the first time. And there is like, a lot of power in that. But mostly, that's the least valuable part. The part of it is that sort of slow creeping or gradual ability to apply it more and more in your life, or in, in the situations that actually matter.

• 58:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 58:24Ryan Holiday?

  Just knowing it's not that.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  Well, I, that's the thing, that's one of the other reasons. I mean, there's many reasons why this thing has exploded. One of them is the simplicity. The second is that it's a tool.

• 58:36Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 58:36Speaker 01

  There's a very big difference between what you need to know, or why things are happening, and how.

• 58:42Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  To apply it.

• 58:43Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 58:44Speaker 01

  And the third reason why I think this thing has exploded is, is that as you read it, you're like, oh, I know this.

• 58:50Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 58:50Speaker 01

  Because it's reminding you of what you know to be true.

• 58:52Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 58:53Speaker 01

  And the fourth reason why I think this has exploded in popularity and impact is, as you're reading it, you're like, my mother needs this. My sister has got to read this book. My entire team needs to read this book.

• 59:04Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 59:05Speaker 01

  And it's funny, I was talking to Burt on Two Bears in a Cave. And he's like, I just love this book. I love this book. And, you know, everybody needs to read this book. And I said, well, actually, that's one of the reasons why it's so popular, is because... If you're frustrated because you've been trying to change somebody, people read the book and then they're like, oh, my God, I gotta give this to my husband because I'm sick and tired of trying to make him do some change. We're gonna turn him over to Mel. And then all she's like, Leanne, you gave me this book as a Catholic. She's like, exactly, and it worked.

• 59:37Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. I do think people struggle with the popularity of stoicism. I think I've seen some criticism of your book in this where people are like, but the world's falling apart. What about injustice? What about the things that are wrong? And I actually think it applies perfectly, right? There's this line from Solzhenitsyn that I love where he says, you know, let evil come into the world. He says, let untruth come into the world, but you have to say not through me. Right?

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, say that again. That is gorgeous.

• 1:00:05Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, let untruth come into the world, but not through me.

• 1:00:09Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 1:00:09Ryan Holiday?

  And that's the idea, right?

• 1:00:11Speaker 01

  Well, here's what I believe because I am very optimistic. I'm optimistic despite the fact that there are things that are profoundly wrong right now. And the reason why I'm optimistic is because the kind of transformative change that truly takes hold, whether it's in a family or it's in your community or it's in a nation or it's the world at large, never comes from the top.

• 1:00:43Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:44Speaker 01

  It always comes from within. It starts within you or within someone else and then it ripples out through you.

• 1:00:53Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:53Speaker 01

  And what I love about this quote that you just said is that you don't have a choice about what's happening out there, but you do have a choice about whether or not it gets in here. And if you protect your peace and your energy.

• 1:01:13Speaker 01

  What that means is you are not succumbing to that darkness. You are one of those people that are staying in your power and you are operating in a different way, and that has a huge impact. We just had a guy by the name of Dr. Todd Rose, who you would love on the podcast.

• 1:01:36Ryan Holiday?

  Okay.

• 1:01:36Speaker 01

  He wrote this book called Collective Illusions. He was a professor of education at the Harvard School of Education, and he now runs a nonpartisan think tank that has collected the world's largest private data set on what people actually believe and want in life. It is the most empowering and encouraging research you will hear, and it's, I think, the most important podcast episode we've released in the last two years, because he explains in a very, like, just data-driven way that, first of all, one out of every foreigner actions online is a bot, and that is a very conservative estimate, not political,

• 1:02:18Speaker 01

  but like, very, you know, estimate that they think is probably not accurate, probably more, and that they can tell you that 90% of the content that you see is coming from 5% of the voices that are extreme.

• 1:02:30Ryan Holiday?

  The worst people.

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  Yes, and we are at a, at record levels of people admitting that they're self-silencing.

• 1:02:37Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:37Speaker 01

  Because, and this goes to what you were saying about nobody wants to be the weirdo in middle school. You know this, but in case, you know, you're watching and listening and you don't know this, Dr. Rose was explaining that your brain is wired for connection, and being the weirdo, or being the one that disagrees with everybody, it actually triggers in your brain this painful experience that is the same part of the brain that, that governs physical pain.

• 1:03:06Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:06Speaker 01

  Nobody wants to be that person that everybody is outcasting. And so when you have the loudest, most extreme, craziest, awful voices, and they're dominating everywhere.

• 1:03:19Speaker 01

  The vast majority of people self-silence because they start to tell themselves a lie, which is, everybody else must believe this too.

• 1:03:27Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:27Speaker 01

  When they don't.

• 1:03:28Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:28Speaker 01

  And the data set's really interesting because the way that he does the data is, he has this thing called the success index, where you would go into a room, I'd go into a room, they give us a list of 60 attributes. Everything from family to meaningful work to fame to money. And you've got to rank them in order. What does a successful life look like to you? And so you can't go this or that. You have to actually rank them. So there's trade offs.

• 1:03:55Speaker 01

  Of the top 10 things that people privately say, this is a successful life to me. Eight of them are exactly the same. And the number one thing is doing something with my life that makes a difference for other people.

• 1:04:09Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:09Speaker 01

  Number one, doesn't matter what religion, what political, whatever. Now, this is where it gets interesting. They then come in and say to you and to me, okay, Mel, now I want you to do the same ranking, only what do you think other people put?

• 1:04:23Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:25Speaker 01

  And everybody puts fame, status and money at the top, when it was almost at the bottom of theirs.

• 1:04:32Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:33Speaker 01

  And the research, and they've done this in all these different categories, proves that people want the same things. Yeah, we may disagree on policy and the way to get around it, whatever else, but we are in this collective moment of silence. And he also talks a lot about the example of the Velvet Revolution, which I did not know. It is the only time a communist government has been overthrown without a single bullet fired or a single person killed. And it happened in the 1980s when a poet wrote a play that was a satire about the, it's one of the Czech, I mean, I'm gonna get this all wrong because geography is not my strong suit and I did not take European history, so I know that the haters are gonna come in, let them.

• 1:05:17Speaker 01

  Please link in the comments below.

• 1:05:20Ryan Holiday?

  They can teach you something.

• 1:05:21Speaker 01

  Dr. Todd Rose, there's an 80-page, beautiful paper that's free that you can read all about the Velvet Revolution, where this playwright wrote this play that was sort of a satire, but it was just low level enough. That people are laughing hysterically, but the government didn't realize it.

• 1:05:38Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:39Speaker 01

  And people started to go, this is like so stupid. I'm gonna go back to gardening. I'm gonna write some poetry. And then all of a sudden, there was such a groundswell. The same thing happened when gay marriage was, became, you know, legal. There was a vast majority of us that believed and wanted it to be. And then everybody's self silencing. And then finally, people are like, why can't my brother get married? This is stupid.

• 1:06:03Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:04Speaker 01

  Why can't my friend get married? This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. In fact, it's not fair. And then the silent majority became the vocal majority.

• 1:06:14Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 1:06:14Speaker 01

  And so I am optimistic because I believe with every cell of my being that 90% of people want the same things and are weary because they don't believe other people do.

• 1:06:33Ryan Holiday?

  Yes, and you send a powerful signal when you say, hey, I'm not gonna participate in that. Hey, I'm not gonna be a party to that. Hey, that's not good. Hey, that's not how I treat people. I'm gonna show you how I treat people.

• 1:06:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:06:44Ryan Holiday?

  And so that's the idea is like you control. You don't really control what's happening in Washington or Brussels or what all the corporations in the world are doing. But you control how you run your business. You control what you teach your kids. You control how you treat strangers.

• 1:06:58Speaker 01

  Well, you're a good example of this, by the way. Because like, one of the top 10 things, by the way, that people rank that mean a successful life is I am engaged in my community.

• 1:07:10Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:11Speaker 01

  When you made the decision to move to a smaller town to give your kids and your family a different experience, you also got engaged in your community and you opened a bookstore. I'm not kissing your ass. I'm actually using this as an example. Most people believe that being involved in your community.

• 1:07:31Speaker 01

  Is one of the top 10 things that means you're living a meaningful life.

• 1:07:34Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:35Speaker 01

  And 90% of people are not involved in their community.

• 1:07:37Ryan Holiday?

  I know, it's funny. You tell people like, oh, I'm, I'm, I opened a bookstore and they go, oh, I've always wanted to do that. Like you just hear for, that people go, I always wanted to do that. And I go, you know, it wasn't, I mean, it wasn't easy. But it's not like there was an entrance exam that I had to pass. Do you know what I mean? Like there, there, you just do it.

• 1:07:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:07:53Ryan Holiday?

  And it's like the five second rule. You just decide to do it and then you fucking do it.

• 1:07:56Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:07:57Ryan Holiday?

  That you have to, you have to decide to do the things that you want to do.

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, but, but what I want to say is that yes, changing your attitude and managing your stress and changing the settings in your mind so that you start to become more hopeful. You start to believe in the better nature of people. You start to get out of the house.

• 1:08:19Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:19Speaker 01

  And you operate with kindness. You go down to hospice and volunteer, or you go down to the school and you volunteer, or you go down to the nursing home and you volunteer, or the local parks and rec and you volunteer. And you start to meet your neighbor and you start to get re-engaged and you start to reconnect with the basic goodness and decency of most people. And you are now part of the solution because what you will find, and you probably feel this way too, is that when you live in a tiny town, everybody has to participate for the town to work.

• 1:08:54Ryan Holiday?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:08:54Speaker 01

  And when you are up close with your neighbor, even if they voted differently, you realize, wait a minute.

• 1:09:00Ryan Holiday?

  Most of the things you interact with them about have nothing to do with politics at all. So I can let you watch Fox News in your house. I don't really care.

• 1:09:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:09:07Ryan Holiday?

  But as long as you're cool while we're chatting at coffee in the morning.

• 1:09:10Speaker 01

  Yes. And you might find they're really frustrated by what they see with ICE.

• 1:09:13Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 1:09:13Speaker 01

  And you might find that they didn't feel that they voted for what they're saying. And so, again, I personally feel, I, I, I get a little woo woo. I do believe in the physics and the quantum nature and I believe energy is currency.

• 1:09:28Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:28Speaker 01

  I think in life, whether you're a leader or you're a parent or a friend or whatever, you bring the weather.

• 1:09:35Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 1:09:35Speaker 01

  Because you can be a storm or you can be the sun and a beautiful bluebird day. And when you set the tone, because you bring the weather with your energy, that changes everybody around you.

• 1:09:49Ryan Holiday?

  Yes. And your kids are actually the place you're going to have multi-generational impact is at home.

• 1:09:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:09:56Ryan Holiday?

  You want to go check out some books in the bookstore?

• 1:09:58Speaker 01

  I would love to.

• 1:09:59Ryan Holiday?

  All right, let's do that.

• 1:10:05Ryan Holiday?

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