#80: Thomas Edison's Formula for Greatness

This episode is intended to help you with unexpected problems that will crop up this week. My guest is Ryan Holiday, who became Director of Marketing at American Apparel at age 21 (!). He's a beast. Since dropping out of college at 19 to apprentice under strategist Robert Greene (author of The 48 Laws of Power), Ryan has advised many New York Times bestselling authors and mega-multi-platinum musicians. He knows how to build massive buzz while responding to unexpected crises. He can compete or counterpunch with the best. For this reason, I asked him to share one of his popular stories on Thomas Edison, as well as Jack Johnson and others. If you want to thrive in high-stress environments, this is well worth the time. The sponsors for this episode, both of which I use, are: Vimeo -- See some of my favorite movies here https://vimeo.com/ondemand/discover/timferriss. Mizzen + Main -- These are the only dress shirts that I travel with http://mizzenandmain.com/collections/tim. For more on Ryan and his books, check out this page http://fourhourworkweek.com/2014/05/06/the-tim-ferriss-podcast-episode-4-ryan-holiday/.

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

• 0:01Speaker 00

  At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a personal question?

• 0:08Speaker 01

  No, we're just in an appropriate time.

• 0:12Speaker 00

  I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

• 0:24Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by two sponsors that I use all the time. The first is Vimeo, and why should you check it out? You should check it out because I keep track of all the movies I watch, and I watch some really esoteric, weird stuff. I find some gems in the rough, if that's the proper expression. The diamonds in the jungle, however you want to put it. And I've collected some of my favorite movies at 4hourworkweek.com/vimeo. That's all spelled out, 4hourworkweek.com/vimeo. And there are a couple that I'd like to highlight. And there are all types, and that includes a lot of nonfiction. So documentaries on breakdancing, big wall climbing, motorcycles, the resurrection of manual labor.

• 1:07Tim Ferriss?

  And there are others that I've recommended that you guys have loved, like the science fiction short The World of Tomorrow, which won the grand jury prize at Sundance. 16 minutes, it'll blow your mind. Check it out, World of Tomorrow. All of these are listed, and you can watch the trailers. I'm going to suggest you watch two trailers in particular because many of you have already checked these out, based on my recommendation, and they could really, really improve the quality of your life. The first is Waking Up by Sam Harris. The second is The Lady in Number Six. And just check out the trailers. The trailers are literally one to two minutes long. You could check these out, pause right now, and I think that you'll get a very good taste for why I like these. So Waking Up with Sam Harris is really

• 1:50Tim Ferriss?

  one of the best introductions and guides to pragmatic meditation and mindfulness. If you want to be a high performer in high-stress environments, this is what you want to check out. Sam Harris has a PhD in neuroscience, and a lot of people think, when I've talked about meditation in the past in interviews, because 80% or so of the top Performers I interview, including people like Arnold Schwarzenegger and DJs and athletes, all have a meditation practice. You don't have to grow dreadlocks and listen to Digger Redo or play the Digger Redo to do this. It can be very, very pragmatic and systematic. So check out the trailer, "Waking Up with Sam Harris." You'll get exactly what I'm talking about, and he's also hilarious.

• 2:31Tim Ferriss?

  Lady number six, Alice is 109 and the world's oldest pianist and Holocaust survivor. This is a short, the entire thing is about 30 minutes long, about her story. So if you want to upgrade your optimism and mindset, this is a very short dose of medicine that I think could force you to look at your own problems in a new way. So check those out, fourhourworkweek.com/vimeo. And then second, Mizzen and Main. I've talked about these guys quite a lot. These are the only dress shirts that I travel with and wear at this point. Mizzen and Main offer shirts that address all of the problems that make me angsty and annoyed, related to dress shirts. So usually you sweat through them easily, you look like a monkey stuck with a blow

• 3:14Tim Ferriss?

  dart. They're horrible to iron, terrible to travel with, a lot of labor. You can grab a Mizzen and Main shirt, throw it into a duffel bag, land where you're going after a flight, pull it out, no ironing, no nothing, throw it on, have people compliment you on the shirt, never have to do anything with it, and if you don't even wash it for a week or so, it will not smell, at least in my experience. It's because it's made from athletic sweat-wicking material. It's a great, amazing, practical head fake. So check out my favorite shirt that I travel with, and if you've seen any of my speaking engagements recently, you'll notice that I'm wearing the Henley. It's great for just casual drinks with friends

• 3:52Tim Ferriss?

  or doing something formal. Go to fourhourworkweek.com/shirts. That's fourhourworkweek.com/shirts, and you can check them up. Check them up, check them out, check them in, check them around, whatever the proper English is. And I use all these things myself. So check them out. Enjoy. Onward.

• 4:16Tim Ferriss?

  Guten Tag, ladies and gentlemen. This is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where usually, the objective is to deconstruct excellence in an interview. So I will interview hedge fund managers, chess prodigies, professional athletes, actors, politicians, et cetera, to dissect the tools, tips, routines, et cetera, that make them as good at what they do as they are. Now, in this particular case, it is a Monday, and I'm recording this on a Monday, although you can certainly listen to it any other day of the week. And I'm thinking ahead to the week, and I've already had a couple of fires explode in front of me, and it goes without saying that the unexpected will happen. There are stressful things that will pop up.

• 4:58Tim Ferriss?

  And one of my favorite quotes is actually from Marcus Aurelius. And I won't go into too much on Marcus Aurelius, but at one point, he was the most powerful man on the planet. And he kept effectively a war journal. It was never intended for publication, which became the book Meditations, which is a very famous collection of Stoic philosophical thinking. That's how it's thought of, at least. But one of his notes that he put in his notebook was, and I quote, "When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself, 'The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good in the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own,

• 5:41Tim Ferriss?

  not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so, none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness." This is very important, and it goes on. But if you're going to overcome massive challenges, difficult people, difficult conversations, you have to change your mindset. And I constantly have to remind myself of that and read things that facilitate that. And one of those things that helps me is a chapter, an essay, it's really effectively self-contained, called "Love Everything That Happens: Amor Fati." And it is a chapter from a book called "The Obstacle Is The Way," by Ryan Holiday.

• 6:25Tim Ferriss?

  And if you don't recognize the name Ryan Holiday, Ryan became Director of Marketing at American Apparel when he was 21 years old. He's a beast. He dropped out of college at 19 to apprentice under strategist Robert Greene. You may know that name because he authored The 48 Laws of Power. And since then, Ryan has done a great many things. He's advised many New York Times bestselling authors and mega multi-platinum musicians on launches, for instance. He's a master of the media, knows how to build massive buzz while responding to unexpected crises, so he can compete and counterpunch with the best out there. I've been very impressed with Ryan. He helped me with the launches for The 4-Hour Body and The 4-Hour Chef. So I've seen him walk the talk. He's not just a theorist. And what I'd like to share with you today, so that you can prepare for whatever is coming up,

• 7:08Tim Ferriss?

  whether that's today, this week, and to really be mentally prepped for the unexpected, is to share Thomas Edison's formula for greatness, in effect. And the story of Thomas Edison, as well as Jack Johnson and a few others, from the book The Obstacle is the Way. And if you want to see some of my favorite books, including The Obstacle is the Way, and find samples from all of them, and there are, I think, six or seven of them now, you can go to audible.com/timsbooks. So audible.com/timsbooks. You can see some of the books that have had a massive impact on my life and that continue to have a massive impact on my life. So, without further ado, I encourage you to check out this essay, digest it, and

• 7:51Tim Ferriss?

  meditate on it, from The Obstacle is the Way. And if you want to hear more from Ryan, we also did a one and a half to two-hour podcast together focused on Stoic thinking. So you can just search Ryan Holiday, Tim Ferriss podcast, and it'll pop right up. But in the meantime, here is a morsel to get you started. Enjoy.

• 8:14Speaker 03

  Love everything that happens. Amor Fati.

• 8:19Speaker 03

  My formula for greatness in a human being is a Morfati, that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it, but love it. Nietzsche. At age 67, Thomas Edison returned home early one evening from another day at the laboratory. Shortly after dinner, a man came rushing into his house with urgent news. A fire had broken out at Edison's research and production campus a few miles away. Fire engines from the eight nearby towns rushed to the scene, but they could not contain the blaze. Fueled by the strange chemicals in the various buildings, green and yellow flames shot up

• 9:04Speaker 03

  six and seven stories, threatening to destroy the entire empire Edison had spent his life building. Edison calmly but quickly made his way to the fire, through the now hundreds of onlookers and devastated employees looking for his son. "Go get your mother and all of your friends," he told his son with childlike excitement. "They'll never see a fire like this again." "What?" "Don't worry," Edison calmed him. "It's all right. We've just got rid of a lot of rubbish." That's a pretty amazing reaction, but when you think about it, there really was no other response. What should Edison have done? Wept? Gotten angry? Quit and gone home? What exactly would that have accomplished?

• 9:49Speaker 03

  You know the answer now. It's nothing. So he didn't waste time indulging himself. To do great things, we need to be able to endure tragedy and setbacks. We've got to love what we do and all that it entails, good and bad. We have to learn to find joy in every single thing that happens. Because there was a little more than rubbish in Edison's buildings, years and years of priceless records, prototypes, and research were turned to ash. The buildings, which had been made of what was supposedly fireproofed concrete, had been insured for only a fraction of their worth. Thinking that they were immune to such disasters, Edison and his investors were covered for about a third of the damage.

• 10:32Speaker 03

  Still Edison wasn't heartbroken, not as he could have and probably should have been. Instead, it all invigorated him. As he told a reporter the next day, "He wasn't too old to make a fresh start." "I've been through a lot of things like this," he said. "It prevents a man from being afflicted with ennui."

• 10:54Speaker 03

  Within about three weeks, the factory was partially back up and running. Within a month, its men were working two shifts a day, churning out new products that the world had never seen. Despite a loss of almost $1 million, more than $23 million in today's dollars, Edison would marshal enough energy to make nearly $10 million in revenue that year, $200-plus million today. He not only suffered a spectacular disaster, but he recovered and replied to it spectacularly. "The next step after we discard our expectations and accept what happens to us, after understanding that certain things, particularly bad things, are outside our control, is this: loving

• 11:36Speaker 03

  whatever happens to us and facing it with unfailing cheerfulness. It is the act of turning what we must do into what we get to do. We put our energies and emotions and exertions where they will have real impact. This is that place. We will tell ourselves, 'This is what I've gotta do or put up with. Well, I might as well be happy about it.'" Here's an image to consider: the great boxer Jack Johnson in his famous 15-round brawl with Jim Jefferies. Jefferies, the great white hope, called out of retirement like some deranged Cincinnatus to defeat the ascendant black champion, and Johnson, genuinely hated

• 12:18Speaker 03

  by his opponent in the crowd, still enjoying every minute of it, smiling, joking, playing the whole fight. Why not? There's no value in any other reaction. Should he hate them for hating him? Bitterness was their burden, and Johnson refused to pick it up.

• 12:37Speaker 03

  Not that he simply took the abuse. Instead, Johnson designed his fight plan around it. At every nasty remark from Jeffrey's corner, he'd give his opponent another lacing. At every low trick or rush from Jeffrey's, Johnson would quip and beat it back, but never lose his cool. And when one well-placed blow opened a cut on Johnson's lip, he kept smiling. A gory, bloody, but nevertheless cheerful smile. Every round, he got happier, friendlier, as his opponent grew enraged, tired, eventually losing the will to fight. In your worst moments, picture Johnson. Always calm, always in control, genuinely loving the opportunity to prove himself, to perform for people,

• 13:21Speaker 03

  whether they wanted him to succeed or not. Each remark bringing the response it deserved and no more, letting the opponent dig his own grave. Until the fight ended with Jeffrey's on the floor and every doubt about Johnson silenced. As Jack London, the famous novelist, reported from the ringside seats, "No one understands him, this man who smiles. While the story of the fight is the story of a smile. If ever a man won by nothing more fatiguing than a smile, Johnson won today." That man is us, or rather, it can be us if we strive to become like him. For we're in our own fight with our own obstacles and we can wear them down with our relentless smile,

• 14:04Speaker 03

  frustrating the people or impediments attempting to frustrate us. We can be Edison, our factory on fire, not bemoaning our fate, but enjoying the spectacular scene and then starting the recovery effort the very next day, roaring back soon enough. Your obstacle may not be so serious or violent, but they are nevertheless significant and outside your control. They warrant only one response: a smile.

• 14:32Speaker 03

  As the Stoics commanded themselves, cheerfulness in all situations, especially the bad ones. Who knows where Edison and Johnson learned this epigram, but they clearly did. Learning not to kick and scream about matters we can't control is one thing. Indifference and acceptance are certainly better than disappointment or rage. Very few understand or practice that art, but it is only a first step. Better than all of that is love for all that happens to us, for every situation. The goal is not, "I'm okay with this," not, "I think I feel good about this," but, "I feel great about it, because if it happened, then it was meant to happen, and I am glad that it did when it did.

• 15:17Speaker 03

  I am meant to make the best of it," and proceed to do exactly that. We don't get to choose what happens to us, but we can always choose how we feel about it. And why on earth would you choose to feel anything but good? We can choose to render a good account of ourselves. If the event must occur, amor fatti, a love of fate, is the response. Don't waste a second looking back at your expectations. Face forward and face it with a smug little grin. It's important to look at Johnson and Edison because they weren't passive. They didn't simply roll over and tolerate adversity. They accepted what happened to them. They liked it.

• 16:00Speaker 03

  It's a little unnatural, I know, to feel gratitude for things we never wanted to happen in the first place, but we know at this point the opportunities and benefits that lay within adversities. We know that in overcoming them, we emerge stronger, sharper, empowered. There's little reason to delay these feelings, to begrudgingly acknowledge later that it was for the best, when we could have felt that in advance, because it was inevitable. You love it because it's all fuel, and you don't just want fuel, you need it. You can't go anywhere without it. No one or no thing can, so you're grateful for it. That is not to say that the good will always outweigh the bad, or that it comes free and

• 16:44Speaker 03

  without cost, but there is always some good, even if only barely perceptible at first, contained within the bad, and we can find it and be cheerful because of it.

• 16:58Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by two sponsors that I use all the time. The first is Vimeo and why should you check it out? You should check it out because I keep track of all the movies I watch and I watch some really esoteric weird stuff. I find some gems in the rough, if that's the proper expression, the diamonds in the jungle, however you want to put it. And I've collected some of my favorite movies at 4hourworkweek.com/vimeo. That's all spelled out, 4hourworkweek.com/vimeo. And there are a couple that I'd like to highlight and there are all types and that includes a lot of nonfiction, so documentaries on breakdancing, big wall climbing, motorcycles, the resurrection of manual labor.

• 17:41Tim Ferriss?

  And there are others that I've recommended that you guys have loved, like the science fiction short, The World of Tomorrow, which won the grand jury prize at Sundance. 16 minutes, it'll blow your mind, check it out, World of Tomorrow. All of these are listed and you can watch trailers. I'm going to suggest you watch two trailers in particular because many of you have already checked these out based on my recommendation and they could really, really improve the quality of your life. The first is Waking Up by Sam Harris, the second is The Lady in Number Six. And just check out the trailers. The trailers are literally one to two minutes long. You could check these out, pause right now and I think that you'll get a very good taste for why I like these.

• 18:22Tim Ferriss?

  So Waking Up with Sam Harris is really one of the best introductions and guides to pragmatic meditation and mindfulness. If you want to be a high performer in high-stress environments, this is what you want to check out. Sam Harris has a PhD in neuroscience and a lot of people think, when I've talked about meditation in the past in interviews, because 80% or so of the top performers I interview, including people like Arnold Schwarzenegger and DJs and athletes, all have a meditation practice. You don't have to grow dreadlocks and listen to Diggeredoo or play the Diggeredoo to do this. It can be very, very pragmatic and systematic. So check out the trailer, Waking Up with Sam Harris. You'll get exactly what I'm talking about and he's also hilarious. Lady in Number Six, Alice

• 19:06Tim Ferriss?

  is 109 and the world's oldest pianist and Holocaust survivor. This is a short, the entire thing is about 30 minutes long about her story. So if you want to upgrade your optimism and mindset, this is a very short dose of medicine that I think could force you to look at your own problems in a new way. So check those out, fourhourworkweek.com/vimeo. And then second, Mizzen and Main. I've talked about these guys quite a lot. These are the only dress shirts that I travel with and wear at this point. Mizzen and Main offer shirts that address all of the problems that make me angsty and annoyed, related to dress shirts. So usually you sweat through them easily, you look like a monkey stuck with a blow dart.

• 19:49Tim Ferriss?

  They're horrible to iron, terrible to travel with, a lot of labor. You can grab a Mizzen and Main shirt, throw it into a duffel bag, land where you're going after a flight, pull it out, no ironing, no nothing, throw it on, have people compliment you on the shirt, never have to do anything with it. And if you don't even wash it for a week or so, it will not smell, at least in my experience. And it's because it's made from athletic sweat-wicking material. It's a great, amazing, practical head fake. So check out my favorite shirt that I travel with. And if you've seen any of my speaking engagements recently, you'll notice that I'm wearing the Henley. It's great for just casual drinks with friends or doing something formal. Go to fourhourworkweek.com/shirts.

• 20:31Tim Ferriss?

  That's fourhourworkweek.com/shirts. And you can check them up. Check them up, check them out, check them in, check them around, whatever the proper English is. And I use all these things myself. So check them out, enjoy, onward.