Olympian Kate Courtney on Optimization and Embracing the Process | This is What You Have To Choose

Ryan reads today’s meditation and talks to mountain bike champion Kate Courtney about her recent trip to the Tokyo Olympics which she wrote about in the Washington Post, seeing moments of failure as opportunities for growth, the important distinction between optimization vs. maximization, and more. Kate Courtney is a professional mountain bike racer for the Scott-SRAM MTB Racing Team. Kate is the 2019 Elite XCO World Cup Overall Champion, and the 2018 Elite XCO World Champion. In 2017, Kate won four U23 World Cups and earned the U23 Overall World Cup victory as well as her first Elite National Championship Title. In 2018, Kate became the first American in 17 years to win an Elite MTB World Championship and only the fourth American woman to do so. Kate also secured her spot as a member of the US Olympic team for Tokyo 2020. Check out the Amor Fati challenge coin at store.dailystoic.comBlinkist is the app that gets you fifteen-minute summaries of the best nonfiction books out there. Blinkist lets you get the topline information and the most important points from the most important nonfiction books out there, whether it’s Ryan’s own The Daily Stoic, Yuval Harari’s Sapiens, and more. Go to blinkist.com/stoic, try it free for 7 days, and save 25% off your new subscription, too. Ten Thousand makes the highest quality, best-fitting, and most comfortable training shorts I have ever worn. They are a direct-to-consumer company, no middleman so you get premium fabrics, trims, and techniques that other brands simply cannot afford. Ten Thousand is offering our listeners 15% off your purchase. go to Tenthousand.cc and enter code STOIC to receive 15% off your purchase. The Jordan Harbinger Show is one of the most interesting podcasts on the web, with guests like Kobe Bryant, Mark Manson, Eric Schmidt, and more. Listen to one of Ryan's episodes right now (1, 2), and subscribe to the Jordan Harbinger Show today. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/emailCheck out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more. Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookFollow Kate Courtney: Homepage, Instagram, Twitter, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription

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

• 0:03Ryan Holiday?

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

• 0:44Ryan Holiday?

  This is what you have to choose. Needless to say, life does not go as planned, especially lately. "We propose and God disposes," goes the saying, "and rarely then do we get what we want." But does it always have to be that way? Epictetus suggests that the secret to happiness is to stop wishing for things to happen and to start wishing for what has happened. What he is talking about is choosing the things that have been chosen for us. You didn't want to make your entire workforce go remote, but you had to. What good is resenting or bemoaning a reality that was out of your control? You didn't intend to cut out travel

• 1:25Ryan Holiday?

  for most of the year, but here you are. You didn't want to blow out your shoulder or your knee, but that's how it went. And now you're laid up rehabbing or learning to swim because you can't play soccer anymore. So you might as well switch your attitude from "have to" to "get to." Events have chosen you, so you might as well choose them back. Several times in meditations, Marcus Aurelius uses the word "ascent." That's what he's referring to. He's talking about endorsing what has happened because no amount of anger or complaining will make it otherwise. He's talking about loving what has happened because hatred ain't

• 2:03Ryan Holiday?

  getting you nowhere. A more fatty, accept, choose, love what the world has chosen for you. It's a better way. It's the only way.

• 2:19Ryan Holiday?

  That is my Morfati coin. I was just giving a talk and showing it off to them, actually. But a Morfati, as Nietzsche says, "Not merely to bear what is necessary, but love it." I carry this challenge coin with me most of where I go. Although during the pandemic, my clothing choices have changed and I'm not going as many places. So I also just have one sitting on my desk and I love to sort of roll it around and spin it and touch it and just be reminded of this idea that I didn't choose for it to be this way, but now that it has happened, I'm going to choose to accept it and to make the most of it and to use it. That's what a Morfati is all about. You can check that out at store.dailystoic.com.

• 3:02Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I've been trying to get today's guest on the podcast for months and months and months. She was a little busy competing in the Tokyo Olympics. She is one of the best athletes in the world at what she does, talking about Kate Courtney. She's a professional mountain bike racer, an Olympic athlete, multi-World Cup champion. She recently graduated from Stanford University and now is focused on being a professional athlete. All of that really interesting, but she wrote, and we talked about this at the beginning of the interview, an article I think everyone should read for the Washington Post, "When Her Olympic Race Did Not Go As Planned."

• 3:47Ryan Holiday?

  And she talks, I think, in a profoundly stoic and brave way, a vulnerable way, but also a resilient way about what it feels like to train for years and years to do something and then to get a really bad break. And that break can break you or it can make you better. And that's really what "The Obstacle is the Way" is about. It's really what the final chapter of Courage is Calling is about, the idea of like bouncing back from a devastating experience.

• 4:19Ryan Holiday?

  And as she says, in her case, one that had to happen, not just in front of people in the moment, but the millions of people watching on television. And so I think you'll take from this interview what an incredibly strong and courageous and self-aware person Kate is, how dedicated and committed she is as an athlete, how much she has studied, not just her sport itself, but the mental side of things. It's lovely to connect with her and her study of Stoicism and how the philosophy has made her better at what she does. I was just so pumped to do this interview. I think you're gonna like it. You can go to Kate's website at katecourtney.com. You can follow her on Instagram, which I do. I think she's awesome there.

• 5:03Ryan Holiday?

  It's @kateplusfate. Follow along on her epic journey and watch her not just not be destroyed by what happened, but bounce back better because of it and continue to dominate what must be an extraordinarily difficult sport mentally and physically. And with that, I will give you my interview with Olympian Kate Courtney, mountain bike champion and aspiring Stoic philosopher.

• 5:34Ryan Holiday?

  So you're on kind of a break, right?

• 5:36Speaker 01

  I'm just coming back. We're on day three of training.

• 5:40Ryan Holiday?

  Oh, so it's like it's sort of an off-season. Is there an off-season in what you do?

• 5:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we kind of have, I typically have only taken a couple of weeks off every year, but we are off from racing pretty much from like September to March. But like the first chunk is rest and recover, and then we start the build-up to the season.

• 6:00Ryan Holiday?

  Is that hard for you, like, or do you like the off-season?

• 6:04Speaker 01

  I hate the off-season.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  I mean, this is like, I think, yeah, that's like the hardest part often.

• 6:10Ryan Holiday?

  Why?

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Being out of your routine, like I love riding my bike. I love training. And also like it's, it's just uncomfortable. Like when you really train that much, it's a big change for your body. So it's like takes a while and yeah, but a lot of it is fun. Like we get a break also. So.

• 6:29Ryan Holiday?

  But I bet you have to fill up most of that time with other obligations that you've been putting off the entire season. Right?

• 6:35Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah. So it's, it's a lot of that. Do you, I'm guessing you don't have an off season. You're just on, on.

• 6:41Ryan Holiday?

  I sort of don't have an off season, but for me it's weird. Like there's such a difference between like writing and putting out books. So like I'm in the middle. So my, my courage book came out in, at the end of September. Oh, amazing. Okay.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  I have like 10 pages left. I was gonna, I was gonna try to finish it before he chatted, but 10 pages.

• 7:01Ryan Holiday?

  Well, we're talking about me or we're talking about you, not me. So you don't need to have finished it, but I think the, the hard part for me is the disruption of putting out the book. Because it blows apart like the writing routine, which is the, the thing I actually like doing. Like Lance Armstrong actually said something to me once that I really resonated with. He was like, uh, they paid me to compete. Like he liked riding his bike, but he didn't like competing. And so what he was actually paid for was the disruption of like the training and like to go to the place and do the thing. And so I, I sort of think about it like that, like putting out the book blows up my whole life. I actually like writing the books.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. But I think, uh, you know, with the stoic philosophy mindset, it's like, those times are also an opportunity to appreciate what you like about being in the routine. So even right now, like just having a schedule, being like, I get up at this time. I get on my bike at this time. I do strength work at this time is like an amazing feeling. Whereas sometimes by the end of the season, you're like, I've been doing the same thing every day for 10 months.

• 8:06Ryan Holiday?

  Right. No, that's a really good way to think about it. So it's like, while you're in it, remembering that when you are in the opposite of it, you're going to be wishing that you are where you are right now.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  100%.

• 8:17Ryan Holiday?

  All right. Well, I want to start. I want to start sort of at the end, and I know you're super accomplished. So this is going to be a weird place to start, probably an uncomfortable place to start. But I loved the piece that you wrote for the Washington Post after the Olympics. Like, we obviously, we so celebrate what winning looks like, and it's so rare that we don't spend that much time talking about what it feels like to to not perform at your absolute best. So so walk walk me through that, because I just thought that piece was, I'm sure incredibly difficult to write, but it also struck me as very beautiful and important.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  Well, thank you. I'm honored you wrote read it. You are obviously one of my favorite authors, and I have come back to your books again and again throughout my racing career. And I guess to the overall Stoke philosophy that they impart in a very relatable way. But I think for me, that Olympic moment was really, really challenging, but it was also an opportunity. And I think writing that piece, I did for me. I wrote it as a way to process that experience and to understand what had led up to that moment. And also, you know, you know, how I could respond to it. And in some cases, there isn't really some triumphant response. You kind of just acknowledge, process, take the learnings

• 9:41Speaker 01

  and move forward. And that was kind of the first step for me in doing so was, you know, writing about the experience, sharing it. And it was honestly amazing to see the response to that. And I think for me, as an athlete, of course, I love the moments where I have this breakthrough performance, and it's an inspiration. And it, you know, shows some people that they could do something they never thought they could do, or encourages them to get on the bike. And of course, that's like more fun to be in that moment. But in this moment, I actually got A much deeper response and a response from a lot of people who I think throughout the pandemic had been dealing with similar, uh, big challenges and moments of working

• 10:25Speaker 01

  really hard for something and, and maybe just not having it come through or work out. Um, and to be honest, you know, even in the course of my career, which is so far, I would say like, I've had big success in races. I've lost farmer races than I've won. Um, and I think that's kind of how, how it goes in life a little bit is you're, um, trying to learn from and deal with and grow through those challenges to allow you to have your next big win. Um, and so for me, that was definitely a pivotal one of those moments. And I'm still figuring out kind of the learnings towards the next big win, hopefully.

• 11:01Ryan Holiday?

  Well, one of the things you touch on in the piece that, that I thought was worth exploring was like, I think we, we sometimes think that like winning or being great at something is simply a matter of willpower, that it's like, if you train for it, if you get in the right headspace, like it'll happen. And if it doesn't happen, it's like a reflection of you as a person. But like, you sort of just, you kind of gloss over it, but it sounds like you just like, it just didn't happen. Like you just did, you just, you thought it would go a certain way and you just, it just, you just weren't yourself that day. Do you know what I mean? Like it just, you just didn't get the performance that you expected out of yourself for really no particular reason.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think in the time since that, um, I've kind of understood a little bit more about maybe what could have been different in my preparation or what could, um, change. But at the end of the day, that's completely true. Uh, and I think part of what I'm seeing in the world of sports in general and with me personally is as an athlete, I show up, I have this process, I follow it, I get to these races as prepared as possible. Um, and sometimes it works out and sometimes, you know, maybe there's factors outside of my control or truly maybe I just fail to have the best performance that I'm capable of that day. Um, but you're still the same person and you still have the same approach and The chunk of my time spent preparing and processing and learning still comes from the same place.

• 12:30Speaker 01

  And so it's this interesting disconnect where you're really forced to separate the outcome from who you are as a person, which I think is a very healthy thing long term, but it's also very challenging in the moment because especially when things are going really well, you you want to identify with what you do. And for me, at least, I care so much about this sport. I love it. I've put so much of my life into it that it is an identity that's important to me.

• 12:56Ryan Holiday?

  Well, yeah, like when everything's going well and you're identifying with it, it doesn't seem like there's any problem with that, right? Besides, maybe a little bit of ego, right? Like, you obviously know you don't want to think that you're perfect or something, but you go, as long as I'm not being a monster, what good is there? What what problem is there being proud of how well everything's going? But I think the problem is what happens when it doesn't go well? And you still did everything right? Or what happens when it doesn't go well? And it's like, it's not your fault. Then you're devastated because you identify just as much with the failure.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And that's a pretty tough moment to be in. But I think one that is is part of the game. If you're going to do something and put your whole self into it, you have to learn how to deal with that. And for me, I'm still early in my career. I'm still learning through those experiences and understanding how to have that little bit of separation, but still care just as much. Because in many ways, being devastated by the Olympics shows how much I care, shows how hard I worked to get there and how much it means to me. And in many ways, that points me in the direction of trying again, even in a moment when it can feel really challenging to think about that.

• 14:14Ryan Holiday?

  What would you do differently as far as preparation? You said, as you think about it a bit more.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, um, so the Olympics aren't for another three years again. I think for me, part of this has been a little bit of a disillusionment of that one race. For me, I race all year. We have nine World Cups this year, and that's actually the same field in mountain biking as the Olympics. It's actually bigger because you don't technically have to qualify. So I think for me, it's really understanding how to separate my personal progression and my goals as an athlete, you know, comparing to myself year over year and getting better at my craft from those outcomes. And that means that

• 14:59Speaker 01

  I probably won't put the same emphasis, at least internally, on that Olympic year, but really see that in the context of my evolution as an athlete this next go around. And it seems, that seems like a subtle shift, but I think mindset wise, that that's what happens when you get experience in these sports. And then, of course, like the specifics of training, there's definitely some nuances that need to be changed. And part of what's challenging about being an athlete is that you're kind of, you have this perfect plan, but you also are relying on your physiology. And, you know, this year, the main thing I learned was like, what we tried didn't work for my physiology. I just didn't respond

• 15:40Speaker 01

  to this type of training. And that's a hard lesson to learn, but it also, like, when you can identify what didn't work, when you can identify what did work, it's a huge learning and chance to do what works and know why it works in the future.

• 15:56Ryan Holiday?

  I'm writing about Lou Gehrig in the book that I'm doing now on self-discipline. And there's this thing I was just, I was just working on it, honestly, before we talked. So it's kind of perfect. But he goes through, he sort of goes through this slump early in his career, and he, he'd sort of always been really good. So when he goes through the slump, he's like despondent, right? Like, he thinks, he gets knocked down to the minor leagues, and he thinks they're going to cut him. And it's this sort of downward spiral that he's in. And the scout that had discovered him sort of gets dispatched by the owner of the Yankees to find him. And they end up having this, this exchange, and he sort of bucks him up. And then as he's, as he's leaving, like, it's a sort of cinematic scene where he jumps on the train, he's pulling away, and the scout says, "The most important

• 16:40Ryan Holiday?

  thing that a young ballplayer can learn is that you can't be good every day." And I love that so much. And baseball is such a good example of that because, you know, like, if you bat 300, you're incredible. But that means you're going to be missing the vast majority of times that you're at bat. And so I imagine that your first Olympics, it's so big in your life. And even just, although you've raced a lot, in four years, you have raced considerably more times. It probably loomed very large in your life. And I imagine the pressure of it and the place and what it meant to you only compounded all the things that we're talking about.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  Completely. And I would toss the pandemic in there as well as an extra year of thinking about it. But I do, I love that.

• 17:29Ryan Holiday?

  You had an extra year to be in your head about it.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, completely. No, I really, I love that quote. And I think it applies a lot to a sport like cycling where there's, there's these big cycles. And this year, I've taken more of a break than ever before. So I'm very slow right now. But again, that's, that's a question my coach keeps asking me, do you want to be fast now? Or do you want to be fast at the next World Cup? And that, I think, is, it takes a little bit of maturity to appreciate. And it is, it's an interesting balance between being future thinking and looking at the process and understanding where you're going and trusting that you're going somewhere, but also being okay with where you are right now, and being like, present with, okay, this is where I am fitness wise, right in this moment. And that doesn't mean

• 18:16Speaker 01

  this is going to be the moment forever. But you have to honor that break and that rest and what regeneration happens in your body to be able to actually deliver when you need to be fast.

• 18:28Ryan Holiday?

  I'm writing this down. So what does that mean to you? Do you want to be fast now or fast later? Because is that the idea of like, doing something hard now that you're not good at, that will have long term impact on your skill set or your, but what does that mean?

• 18:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the interesting thing about being a professional athlete is we do have these goals and we have cycles and we have training structure for the entire year and the goal is to really peak. So we're trying to have kind of like superhuman performance for a few big events a year. And a lot of people think that means that you're just training as hard as you can all the time 24/7. But really, I would say what differentiates amateur and elite athletes primarily is the recovery time, the ability to make that work count and to allow your body to recover between these hard sessions. So a lot of what we do in the fall is long, easy rides and

• 19:27Speaker 01

  just preparing your body to be able to take on this load. And it might feel like you're not, you know, going as fast as you can or doing all that you can. But it's it's critical to performance when the time comes.

• 19:43Ryan Holiday?

  No, this is so interesting to me because obviously you talk a lot about courage in that piece, which I want to talk to you about. But it really sounds like what you're talking about here is temperance, where the idea of moderation, which I imagine is extra difficult when you are super committed, super ambitious, super driven, and it sucks to not like, I imagine it sucks to not be peaking right now, because that means you're having to be okay with not being as good as you'd like to be in the present moment, or for even for extended periods of time.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would. So my dad actually describes this, and this is probably more of a business term, but of optimizing versus maximizing. And I think for me, that's really a big part of this phase of my career is understanding what things you're doing that make a big difference and doing those things fully and completely, but not maximizing. And maximizing, I would, I would think of like the young athlete who's, I need to meditate and stretch and do this and do the cold bath and do the, you know, adding in every single possible thing you could be doing, just to feel like you're doing everything you can. And really, it is temperance, as you said, the optimizing, the being able to identify what actually matters, what you actually need to do

• 21:02Speaker 01

  to be successful, execute those things at the highest level possible, and then trust that they're going to work.

• 21:09Ryan Holiday?

  When and I imagine holding back is difficult. You want to give like you didn't become who you were if you weren't really good at giving everything you were capable of giving, right? And then so for a coach or for a race or for a training structure to say, yeah, you can only go 70% here, kind of goes against like what how you're wired, but it's that's the difference between like fast now and fast later.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that I would say, you know, to tie it back to that Olympic experience and to my experience last year, one of the biggest things that I learned is, you know, I kind of pushed so hard in the last two years, I executed every training schedule to the best of my ability. And often, you know, I'm the one who's like always at the high end of the range of hours, always, always pushing. And midway through the year, when it seemed like things weren't working out, I had a lot of conversations and I talked to some of the best people in my sport. I talked to my teammate, Nino Sherter, and to his coach. And really learned that a lot of what I was missing was that that pushing too hard wasn't doing what I was supposed to do.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  So if I was given a two hour ride and they went for a three hour ride, in their mind, that was wrong. That was not, oh, you're like doing more, you're overachieving, you're pushing the limit. That was not respecting the assignment. And so that's kind of a reconceptualization for me this season about really respecting the plan. And that involves a new level of trust and, and making sure that you understand, okay, why is it important that I do exactly this? And then having that temperance, having that ability to say, this is the optimal thing. It's not the most I could do, but it is the right thing to do today, this week, this training block.

• 23:05Ryan Holiday?

  Well, yeah, most people, let's say you're supposed to do a two hour ride or something. Most people don't do it, right? Like, most of us have, like, we know what we should do to get better, and we don't do it. But there are some of us who we do more than we're supposed to do. But it's hard to think that, like, sort of the horseshoe, those are actually much more similar to each other than we would like to admit. Because it's like, no, I did what I was supposed to, and I did extra. But by doing extra, you're actually taking away instead of adding to your capacity.

• 23:39Speaker 01

  Completely. I am, yeah, I've been talking to my teammate's coach. He's, you know, given me some advice in the last year. And he called me one day and said, ma chérie, Kate, he's, he's French Swiss. I said, ma chérie, it's an emergency. Said, what's up? What's going on? He goes, I see on the schedules, there is no complete day off. There has to be a day off for the family, for the dog, for you. Like, you have to have a day off. And that was a really interesting moment for me, because I, I've had a few days off, but I always begged my coach to go ride an hour or go do something. And really, when you look at the people who are most elite at what they do,

• 24:21Speaker 01

  who are doing it at the top level sustainably over a long time, that's what they have. They have that piece of balance where there is that rest day, there is that moment to step away and allow the work to marinate.

• 24:34Ryan Holiday?

  So how do you bounce back? Because that's what you talk a lot about in the piece. So it doesn't go well. How does that not, although I'm sure it's devastating, how does it not devastate you, right? Like, I talked, I remember I visited the LA Rams after they'd made it all the way to the Super Bowl and then lost. And I sort of said, like, how do you not become Carolina, or one of the teams that goes to the Super Bowl, and then that's sort of the high watermark, and then they're just never the same, right? Obviously, lots of teams win and then never come back. But there are also teams where it's sort of, they get almost there, and instead of it being a confidence builder, it destroys the confidence, and they're just sort of never the same.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Well, I hope that doesn't happen to me. But I think a lot of that is about having the self-reflection to turn it into the learning moment. And the way I was actually originally introduced to your books, my nutritionist every year, Kyle Faffenbach, hi, shout out Kyle, he's gonna be listening. He's a huge fan also, but he sends me two books at the beginning of every year. And they're always different, but the first year that I worked with him, he sent me Ego's Enemy and The Obstacle is the Way. And this was very early in my career and before kind of a lot of these ups and downs. And I loved the books and I think in particular, The Obstacle is the Way informs the way that I respond to failure in my career. Because I think if you take the like thousand-foot

• 26:04Speaker 01

  view, all athletes have these ups and downs. You're not gonna win every time, you're gonna have these devastating moments. And if you lean into it, those are the moments where you really learn. And I, as much as that's not a fun emotional experience, I think it's actually a really fun intellectual process for me of thinking, okay, like, this is a science experiment. Here's the variables that we put into play this year, but it didn't work. And I like to say, it's like, if you multiply everything and one variable's zero, it doesn't matter what the other variables are. So if the training plan's not the right one, and that's zero, doesn't matter

• 26:43Speaker 01

  how hard you tried, or how well you executed your training schedule, or how much sleep you got. But when you get that variable right, you know, you don't know what the outcome is gonna be. And so for me, it's been really identifying, okay, what things are working, what things stay, what things change, what people do I need around me to make that possible? And then again, treating that confidence piece as one of the variables. What do I need to do to build that confidence? What do I need to do to trust my coach and trust my team and trust that what I'm doing every day is going to work next time? And of course, we have not seen the outcome of that new equation yet, but at least we have it in place.

• 27:26Ryan Holiday?

  Interesting. Yeah, that's something else I'm writing about in the Timberance book. Until 1960, no heavyweight champion who'd lost the title ever won it again. So like now, it's happened like a half dozen times since. But the idea then was like, if you lost the title, you were just done. No one ever, it was such, it was such a devastating thing to be the champion of the world. And then back to like regular fighter that no one ever came back from that. Right. And Floyd Patterson was the first boxer to ever lose the, so win a title, lose it, and then reclaim the title.

• 28:05Ryan Holiday?

  And I think it's just so, it goes back to what we're talking about is when you associate with the outcome or with the status of the thing, then when you don't have it, you're, it's like you're suddenly missing, especially in something like boxing, I guess, which is so dependent on confidence. If you, if you have even just the slightest hesitation that you're capable of doing something, you won't be able to do it anymore.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  Completely. And I think that's more common in the sports world than we even recognize because it is such a kind of gift and a curse to be at the top. It's, in my opinion, much harder to stay there than to get there the first time. But I think, again, it's, it's also that opportunity for clarity. And I think the one thing that you get when you do kind of fall back to the bottom is you realize that you don't have to do it. You don't have to come back. You don't, you could, I could go do something else. I could go to business school. I could, you know, I could choose something else for myself. And that kind of, those moments, I think, give you the opportunity to like really listen to your

• 29:16Speaker 01

  internal voice and to say, what is, what is it that I most want to do if I could do anything in the world? And I think when you have that kind of Maybe it's not confidence in my ability level yet, but it's confidence in myself and in my motivation and in who's, who's driving this, this train.

• 29:36Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  Um, and that I think can be really powerful and hopefully is the beginning of a great comeback.

• 29:43Ryan Holiday?

  Well, you know, I would say that winning also brings about the same sort of existential crisis, right? Because you do it and then it never feels exactly as you thought it would be, right? There's always a sort of anticlimacticness to it. And, um, you sort of can, if you don't, if you can't fall back on the fact that I actually love doing it, like I love training or I love the process of it, you probably also aren't going to be able to sustain it or continue to do it. Like, so it's like, if you can sort of, either winning or losing should strip away for you that association with results. And then it, it, that can be

• 30:28Ryan Holiday?

  either both really painful or really disillusioning, but the outcome should be really freeing either direction because now all that you're left with is like the joy of doing it or not. If you don't have the joy, you probably shouldn't keep doing it.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  Exactly. No. And I think that's like the point you get to when, um, when that kind of gold star is taken away, you have to have the joy of doing it. Uh, and I love, there's a quote, I think it's from the Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance where he says it's the, it's the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top. Um, and I think that's really-

• 31:06Ryan Holiday?

  It's very barren up at the top of the mountain.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  It's very barren at the top and it's tough at the bottom, but it's like that middle piece, that kind of in pursuit moment.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  That is most gratifying and where hopefully I think if you're doing things right, you spend the majority of your life is like, okay, you have the top where you're kind of headed, what those centering goals are. And you can look back and see how far you've come. But when you get there, you kind of end up hopefully at the base of another mountain. And I think those transitions are like the uncomfortable pieces at the top or at the bottom. And then you settle back into, you know, stacking bricks on your way to the top.

• 31:47Ryan Holiday?

  Well, I had Bob Bowman on the podcast, the swimming coach for like Michael Phelps. And I imagine swimming and cycling are similar in that they're very long sports. So if you don't enjoy, it's all like sprinting sucks, I'm sure, but it only takes like nine seconds. Right. And even the training is pretty concentrated, right? But like, so, so maybe you could be a sprinter and not like sprinting that much. I don't know. I don't know enough about it, but the, but like, if you don't love cycling,

• 32:16Ryan Holiday?

  it's probably the wrong sport for you because you're going to be doing a lot of cycling.

• 32:20Speaker 01

  You're, that's all you're doing. So if you don't like it, you have a tough time.

• 32:24Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. And so it's like, if you don't like writing, like the, the launch of a book is, you know, like six weeks, maybe, right? So if you're doing it for that, that's a lot of delayed gratification and probably not sufficient to justify the enormous expense of, of work, of the inputs that go into it. But if you actually like sitting alone in your office, thinking about ideas, chipping away on the manuscript, then you're kind of indifferent. I mean, obviously you want it to go better than worse. When the stoics say indifferent, they, they mean like you, you, you could be happy with either. But of course you want the good outcome more than

• 33:04Ryan Holiday?

  the bad outcome. But, but if you actually enjoy the process of it, the day to day-ness of it, then what happens at the end of the race is a bonus, or at the very least, just a, you know, a slight detraction as opposed to the thing that decides whether it was worth doing or not.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  Completely. And I think it's a very good comparison because it is very similar. I spent a lot of time toiling away out alone on my bike in a similar way. But I actually, after the season, one of my friends who studied neuroscience told me a story. It's some study she read and she said it was on young kids and making art. And so they took two groups and they gave one group gold stars. They started giving them gold stars every time they made art. The other group, no gold stars. And at the end of the study, they stopped giving the gold stars and the kids stopped making art. And the other kids who'd never gotten gold stars just kept making art because they loved it.

• 34:05Speaker 01

  And I just thought that was, I was like, wow, like my gold stars got taken away and I had a moment's pause. And I think for me, you know, I've always loved riding my bike. From the very first moment I did it, it's something that brought me joy and I loved and I was curious about. And so I think for me, it's been, you know, getting those gold stars back has been figuring out how to give them to myself. For enjoying it and, you know, following that curiosity, following those things that helped me fall in love with the sport in the first place. And then you do kind of feel a little bit, not indifferent, like you, you have that confidence. And I think when you're in that place, you kind of know in the back of your head, it's more likely it's going to go well.

• 34:50Speaker 01

  Because you care a little bit less in some way.

• 34:55Speaker 01

  But at a certain point, like you're very resilient to the outcome.

• 35:01Ryan Holiday?

  Well, it's kind of like, and I'm sure you've experienced this, it's obviously a champagne thing. But like you get invited to do things and you're like, oh, that sounds awesome. I would love to do that. And then they're like, and we'll pay you. You're like, oh, that's like the best, you know, that's, that's that, right? But like you were gonna do it anyway. That, I think that's how you want to get towards the external results, which is like, I was gonna do this thing anyway. And then the fact that I'm also getting recognized for it is extra. And of course I want as much recognition as they're willing to give. But that it's it's I remember I lived in New Orleans and they had this great they had this great word lanyard, which basically refers to the 13th donut. So it's like you ordered 12 donuts.

• 35:45Ryan Holiday?

  But if 13 comes, of course, you're like, oh, this is awesome. Right? So so it's like the extra on top of the already worthwhile thing.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And I I actually think this is a really interesting problem that we're having with the kind of age of social media, which is that I think that's how it always starts is you do the thing. And then you get a little bit of recognition and then you do it again and you get a little more and then you do it again.

• 36:11Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 36:11Speaker 01

  Um, and for me, I think the challenge is to always make sure the thing and the project and the thing I'm excited about and doing comes first. And then I allow other people to take pictures and make videos and do projects around that. And that is so gratifying. That's like 13th donut heaven. But I do think this kind of like being starved for content world that we live in oftentimes has started to put the content first or the the idea of the thing before the thing itself. And that's something that I think you have to be like, at least personally for me, I have to be careful about and I have to think about

• 36:52Speaker 01

  and make sure that I'm not just filling the cup and then saying no when it's full. And instead, like really examining what are the things that I'm choosing to prioritize? And sometimes that means saying no to absolutely everything until I come up with like a really cool idea and then calling all those people back and being like, okay, actually, we're doing this.

• 37:12Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I was talking to someone who works for me. His name is Dawson. He'll probably be editing this podcast, but he he was talking about, I could tell he was a little down and I was asking what was wrong. And he was like, sort of disappointed that some like the view counts on the things that he'd been editing of me were not doing as well as they had done like the previous month. We'd had like a monster month where things had performed better than expected and then things were performing slightly better or worse than perspective expected. And so it was like, first off, how do you think that I feel like it's my face, right? Like this is a much more this is literally a thumbs up or a thumbs down of me as a person, right? But like, I had to sort of remind him that

• 37:53Ryan Holiday?

  like, first off, me as the boss was not measuring his performance based on these. Arbitrary, made up metrics that don't actually mean anything. But that like, I was very happy with not just how they'd done, but that, that the thing was good. Right? And so you have to, I think, uh, this is sort of the distinction between an inner scorecard and an outer scorecard. You want to have like, what is it that you are attempting to accomplish? How are you measuring yourself? And ideally, you want that to be, uh, as, uh, you want that to be primarily rooted in things that other people or masses of other people don't have control over.

• 38:36Ryan Holiday?

  So like, if you're like, I judge how my career is going based on how many Instagram followers I have. Then, then Instagram gets to decide whether you're being successful or not. Right? If you're, if your thing is like, no, uh, success for me is whether I'm helping people, whether I'm doing something that I'm proud of, whether I'm getting better as a this, that, or the other. Then obviously you can look at how those numbers are and you want, again, you want those numbers to be higher than lower. But an, an algorithm controlled by a publicly traded company doesn't get to go like this or that to who you are as a person.

• 39:16Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Yeah. And for me, I mean, I think the, the metric has become simpler and simpler, uh, year to year, which is just, do I wake up excited to ride my bike? Like, that is a great indicator for me because, yeah, it sounds really, really simple. But if I wake up really excited to ride my bike, everything else goes great. Like, that is the kind of metric of, uh, Kate-ness in my life. Like, how much of my authentic energy and self am I bringing to what I do? And I think, um, it's always interesting talking to people who have a different, like, you have a very different sphere. You work in a very different sphere. But from what I hear from you and what I know about your work, like, I think.

• 39:58Speaker 01

  You know, you are someone who seems like you wake up excited to work on what you're working on, and that comes through in the product in the end. And you've gotten people so excited about Stoic philosophy. And now, like, all my friends have read your books and talk about it, which is different than when I, you know, first discovered it. It was kind of this niche, new, new thing. And that shouldn't, that probably didn't change that much for you, like, how excited you were to work on it, and how it felt to write the book, dependent on, you know, how much enthusiasm it garnered.

• 40:32Ryan Holiday?

  It was actually weird. So during the pandemic, like, because the world sort of suddenly was shaken for a lot of people, I, going into the pandemic, I thought, this is going to be really bad for me. And like, from a career standpoint, in the sense of like, can't travel around, bookstores are closed. Like, my, my thinking was, I'm going to take a huge hit from this. Obviously, that's not my primary concern. My primary concern is my family. But I just thought, like, if I had to evaluate what the impact was this, I would, I would have said, it was going to have a negative impact on sales. But weirdly, it had the opposite, because people needed Stoicism. So there was this kind of weird moment where realizing that, exactly as you said, I'd just been busy working, and then you sort of check some of the numbers, or you're, you're, you get like a royalty check

• 41:17Ryan Holiday?

  or something, and you're like, oh, no, it's like significantly leveled up. But I think this is what we're talking about, which is, if you actually are just waking up excited to do what you're doing, it could be 10 times higher or 10 times lower, and it doesn't change your day to day concern, because you're really just getting up and doing what you like to do.

• 41:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and that's also what's remarkable. Like, I think the enthusiasm that I bring to cycling is what made people probably, I'm guessing, I'm doing some inferring here, probably follow me in the first place, is, wow, we love how much she loves what she's doing, and it makes us fall in love a little bit with it. And that is, that's kind of like the life force of what I do. And that's like the most important resource to manage.

• 42:13Ryan Holiday?

  Okay, but what do you do about the days, because they also exist, when you wake up and you are not excited because you're tired, or because you hurt, or because you're, you know, deep in the training season, but you're far, you're in that weird period where you're probably, you don't have a race to get excited about, you're just like in the wilderness on it. How do you, how do you know whether it's just something you push through, or whether it's like a canary in the coal mine thing to be worried about?

• 42:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's always the challenging thing. And I think for me, a lot of times I use data to help with that decision making. I use Whoop to track recovery, and I use a power meter and a heart rate monitor. And we just have a plethora of data to at least help me understand if my body's in an okay place. But beyond that, I think those days can actually be some of the best ones when you kind of push through and have that breakthrough moment. And there's kind of two, I would say, two types. There's like the hard interval day where it's, I might not be that motivated, I might not want to do it, and it's going to be very hard. But it's like, checking that box gives me so much gratification and pride, that it might be kind of a type two fun day, where it's not fun while you're

• 43:33Speaker 01

  doing it, but it's fun looking back on the experience.

• 43:37Ryan Holiday?

  Or like three quarters of the way through, once your body is sort of consumed by it, you're like, oh, I'm glad I pushed through.

• 43:45Speaker 01

  Completely. And then the other side of that is just kind of the boring days. And I think that's something that when you're really pursuing mastery or excellence in something, it's actually fun to work hard because you're like, I'm making progress towards my goal. The thing that can be more challenging is stretching and like, doing your two hour bike ride, and your little bit of core, and just doing these things that are so monotonous every single day for eight months. And for that, I have a lot of strategies. Like, my number one, I would say, is bring cookies with you on your bike ride and eat them at the farthest point from home.

• 44:22Ryan Holiday?

  Okay.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  You have to get back. Great, great option. Riding with people that are fun and interesting and that have intellectually stimulating fun conversations. Like, that's magic. You're just out, you know, basically having a social hour and also doing something you like to do. So I think there's a lot of different little tactics, like staying motivated. But I also think what you said about the canary in the coal mine. The thing that often is the best sign for me of motivation is when I'm rested. And so if you're just so exhausted and really hitting that wall and it's like a struggle every single day, you might be overdoing it. You might need a rest day, as Nico said, with the complete rest day.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  And that, that tends to work as well.

• 45:11Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, it's, it's sort of like, also, the longer you've done it, the more, I think, aware you are that those days simply exist, right? So it's like, now I'm on my 10th or 11th book, so I'm like, there are just gonna be, let's say the thing takes a year, there might be several weeks in that year that suck, right? That just feel like I'm not making progress, that I'm stalled out. Like, I, I definitely felt that on this book and I had this weird experience where apparently I wrote a note to myself and I, because I use these note cards and I wrote this note card, I said like, "Look, this isn't gonna feel like it's coming together, but sort of trust the process and it will."

• 45:54Ryan Holiday?

  And I remember finding that note card like months later at this sort of low moment. And shortly thereafter, it did sort of come together. But I think it's like, you know, it's like, you, you, it's like when you're cleaning your house and it gets dirty first. It gets dirtier first, you know, like, and, but like, after you've done it enough times, you're like, no, no, this is that stage in the process, right before it all comes together. I don't, if I quit now, it will definitely stay this way. But if I just power through over this hump, like tomorrow, it's gonna look great. You, you have to have that kind of experiential knowledge that gets you over those sort of low point. That Paul Graham calls it the trough of despair. You have to get through the trough of despair.

• 46:38Speaker 01

  You have to get through it. Yeah. But it's, yeah, and I, I think there is another huge similarity in our, our career paths here where I'm working for that moment where the race goes perfectly and everything comes together and you get the result that you wanted. And I'm sure it's a little bit similar with kind of like a book launch or these moments where you look back and all of these decisions you made, all of this work that you did, seems like it was perfectly correlated to land you in this great moment where everything worked out. But you don't really get to control when those moments happen. And I think that's really been something I've thought about a lot in the last, you know, six months in particular

• 47:19Speaker 01

  is that, you know, I had, I had the mantra one season that good is the enemy of great. Like everything I do every day, I have to be great. I have to be, you know, worthy of that next moment. When really, my, my new one is perfection is the enemy of good. Yes. When you try too hard to have that moment every single day, you actually rob yourself of that kind of synchronicity that happens when it does all come together. And when you have been like toiling and working and just focusing on that process and also adapting to what's happening in the world, which might be, yeah, having a few weeks where you feel off. For me, I was just sick

• 48:00Speaker 01

  and had to take an extra week off the bike. Those things happen. And it's not going to be perfect, but oftentimes in my career, when I really analyze what's happened in those kind of like big, amazing moments, there will often be a few things that I look back on, like 2018, when I won the world championship, I actually hurt my knee in June and I took two weeks off. And at that moment of winning Worlds, I said, man, I'm so glad I hurt myself. I had this break. I ended the season so energized. But in the moment, it felt like my career was ending. Right. So I, I think, yeah, having that kind of long view and trusting that process is so

• 48:43Speaker 01

  much easier said than done, but it is really kind of the crux of making those moments possible.

• 48:49Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I think Tom Brady has lost four Super Bowls or something like that, right? Like, he's been to all the way and it might be three, but, but, you know, to, to get there and, and also be like, you're like, oh yeah, sometimes you just go to the Super Bowl and you don't win, right? Like, to be, to be not comfortable with that, but like, uh, understand and sort of experience that, that that is an outcome would be weirdly a skill. So if you do it once and you come back and you win, like, uh, obviously for some people, they lose the Super Bowl and that's sort of the end of their career. But the, the idea of like, no, this is just one of the outcomes that's possible. And then you're able to sort of get back and go, it, you've, it's like, it's like you've

• 49:32Ryan Holiday?

  absorbed it and been able to get past it. So now it sort of doesn't have that same power over you. Like, uh, you, you now know, it might not seem like a good thing, but you know what it's like to not win a gold medal, as you're writing about in the piece.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  You know.

• 49:47Ryan Holiday?

  You know, which is, which is an elite club, right? Like, easy to gloss over that that's an elite club. Like, uh, I, you could fit all of the people that know that experience probably in a single arena, right? Like, uh, in, in all of human history, like, over 2,000 years, right? Like, not that many people have made it all the way to the Olympics and then not won. Cause not that many people have made it to the Olympics. But like, it is actually a unique and powerful experience that should, should make you both a better athlete, but also a better human being because you're gonna meet people who are experiencing some sort of devastating failure in life.

• 50:28Ryan Holiday?

  And you'll know what it's like to not only do that, but do it in front of millions of people and be able to help them with that.

• 50:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. My, my brother was actually going through a tough breakup during the time of the Olympics. And he said, you know, this is tough, but at least I'm not on TV. I was like, okay, buddy. Okay. Um, but yeah, no, I think that's really true. And I think that is the where, um, This kind of having, having reflection, having some kind of philosophy, having the ability to pick up and read books from throughout human history is a huge asset. Because I think, you know, what you said earlier about, okay, well, how do you know that you're going to come back and not be the one who, you know, that say, and the answer is I don't. But I do know that I will use this experience.

• 51:17Speaker 01

  And I think that's like, when you start to take back power from those failures is when you say, I'm going to use it to be a better athlete, but I'm definitely going to use it to be a better person. And it will inform both what I do in my cycling career, but also beyond that. And, you know, it doesn't have to be as big as that maybe one, one challenging race in my life. There are opportunities like that all the time to learn and adapt and to use an experience to at least help you get to know yourself and get to know what you want to do and how you want to be in the world a little bit better.

• 51:57Ryan Holiday?

  I have a really specific question for you. What are you like, when you're training, do you listen to music? Do you listen to podcasts? Do you talk to people? Like, how do you occupy your brain for what must be sort of hours of repetitive activity?

• 52:11Speaker 01

  It's, that's a really good question. Often music, but I've actually this, this year, right now, I'm having kind of like a little challenge to myself to not listen to music, at least for the first hour of every ride.

• 52:24Ryan Holiday?

  Because you can't listen during a race, can you? Or you can't?

• 52:28Speaker 01

  You can't. So I do not ever listen to music during intervals. So that's always been kind of part of my preparation because you can't listen to it during a race. So when I'm at that pace, when I'm like doing hard work, I haven't. But of course, when you're on a five or six hour easy ride, having someone along to talk to, listening to music, even listening to audiobooks or podcasts can be great. But I do think, for me at least, like, I recognize this in myself when I'm using that as a crutch. And when I'm just like, if I have something playing all the time, for example, that's like a red flag to me that I'm like avoiding something or just like not comfortable being... In silence by myself, which I think a lot of people are uncomfortable with.

• 53:13Speaker 01

  So right now I'm in a little challenge of like not putting on a podcast and listening to a book or music kind of all the time and making sure that I do have that time where I am still and quiet and like, you know, ride through or think through whatever's going on.

• 53:29Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I imagine that's almost its own sort of feat of endurance, right? So to ride for six hours is physically hard, but then to not have a distraction mentally for five hours might even, might in some ways be more difficult, especially probably the younger you are and the more sort of connected or digitally native you are, where you're not, you're just, your whole life you've been stimulated.

• 53:57Speaker 01

  Oh my God. Yeah, I think it's, it's definitely intentional now. Like I have to have these little rules for myself, but it, it works well. Like I think when I have these kind of, yeah, like set a parameter around it and say, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna try to ride, I'm gonna leave my phone at home today. What's gonna happen? And I think you recognize, one, that oftentimes it's just like so nice to have a break. Like it's not, it's not tortured to have a break from that kind of stuff. But also that's really valuable in a lot of ways. And I find that I have my best ideas, I have the most appreciation for my rides when I'm not distracted.

• 54:39Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, it feels like, uh, yeah, you're just like, oh, I want to take a picture of that, or oh, I want to write that down. But it's like, we make up an endless amount of reasons to need a thing that obviously even like 20 years ago, humans could not have even conceived of existing.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  Yes, I know. I, I gotta, I had like a watch that I could have my phone connected to for a while. So I was like, okay, at least if something terrible happens, I have this watch. But you're totally right. Like if, if I did have an issue out on the road, you know, that, that was the case long before cell phones and you flagged down a car and figure it out.

• 55:16Ryan Holiday?

  Yes. Yeah, but it's, it's, it's so nice to have that it becomes, I think your point is like, when is it, when is it being a crutch versus when is it just sort of a harmless indulgence? And that distinction being a pretty important one.

• 55:31Speaker 01

  It's, it's back to the 13th donut. I feel like that's really the, the crux of our conversation here. But when you're on a bike ride and you're just so happy to be out there and you feel good and you're focused on your breathing and you're focused on your body. And then you also have a super interesting podcast to listen to. It's the 13th donut. Whereas if you're like, I will do this, but I need some form of entertainment, then it's the crutch.

• 55:57Ryan Holiday?

  I think about that with routine too. Like I like doing a certain number of things like before I talk or before I write or whatever. And then I go, but like, if I have to have it, then it's probably not good. Right? And so can I do it without it? Right? Like, um, like I remember a couple, like I like to shave before I talk. I don't like being like scruffy. And then I was like, I'm just not, I'm just gonna like, I'm just gonna set up the routine. So I don't shave this morning. So I can remind myself that I'm perfectly capable of doing the thing without the routine. It's like, because it can, the routine can become, it's like, you do the routine enough, it becomes a ritual and it's wonderful.

• 56:38Ryan Holiday?

  But if you do too much, it becomes like a superstition and then you're, you're dependent on it and it's, it's a vulnerability.

• 56:46Speaker 01

  I feel personally targeted. That is, that is totally how it works with sports as well. I think there's a lot of like, once something's gone well, you hear about the lucky socks, the lucky sports, you know, for me, it often has to do with data. Like we race with power meters. So you have power numbers, you have this data all the time.

• 57:08Speaker 01

  And it's a huge positive. It allows you to track and understand and analyze. And that's kind of like the nerd side of my brain is very happy with it. But it also, if you're, okay, I hit this number and then I had a great race. So now I have to do that every single time.

• 57:22Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 57:23Speaker 01

  You're putting, you know, some.

• 57:26Speaker 01

  I think an inappropriate level of control over something that is really a mix of factors and that becomes the superstition when really you you're capable of performing without that and you need to know that to have confidence in all situations.

• 57:43Ryan Holiday?

  What's I think it goes to a very primitive part of our brain. We don't like sitting with uncertainty, so we make stuff up that allows us to feel certain or comfortable. It's almost like I'll find myself even doing this with like COVID where it's like, oh, I somebody came in, I bumped into someone, they weren't wearing a mask and I was like, oh shit. And then I'm like, I should, I should put hand sanitizer on. They're totally unrelated, but it's like, that was like, that's like a thing that my mind is going to as like a thing I control. Right. And so like, I think this is what people do with the rosary, or this is what people do with, with, you know, you know,

• 58:22Ryan Holiday?

  basketball players will do a certain thing with their hands or the, you know, like we, we come up with a routine or a ritual. It's really about taking the, the uncertainty and the randomness out of what we do. It's just about pretending that that's not the case, when of course it's totally the case and life isn't fair. And so much of it is just like random, you know, a random rolling of the dice.

• 58:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and I think it's too like, understanding when that's working for you and when that's not. Because there's cases, I mean, one kind of ritual that I love. When I started working with a sports psychologist and I would talk about making a mistake in a race. We started using, I would like say the word reset out loud. And that it, it sounds very funny from the sidelines, but it totally works for me. Like if I make a mistake and I say the word reset out loud, it's like new game, clean slate. It didn't happen.

• 59:19Speaker 01

  And so that works me really well. Like it's completely the same thing. Like, oh yeah, if I say this word, I won't make another mistake. And I've erased my past and this and that, but it works.

• 59:28Ryan Holiday?

  Here's why I don't have a problem with that. That's totally in your control. Right. So like, if it's like, no, I have to get to the arena.

• 59:37Ryan Holiday?

  An hour and a half before game time, then I have to do this, then I have to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich made this way with these ingredients, then I have to have my lucky shoes, which I put on in this order, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You are very dependent on access to all of those things, right? So if it's a mental thing like, hey, this is what I do when I find myself spiraling out of control or making a mistake, you're always going to be able to do that, right? Any circumstance where you couldn't say to yourself, reset, like, you're so fucked, it doesn't even matter. But, but so that, to me, is different than like, I need things to happen in a certain way, in a certain order, right? Like, I like writing in the mornings, that's my routine,

• 1:00:19Ryan Holiday?

  but if my morning gets messed up for some reason, and I'm only able to write in the morning, I can't sort of gut it out in the afternoon, well, then, then I have to kiss that day goodbye, and that's not a good place to be in.

• 1:00:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. And that's like, allowing the internal to dictate, or allowing the external to dictate, which is sometimes challenging to separate out those things, but I think it's, it's important.

• 1:00:46Ryan Holiday?

  So, last question for you. When, when I first heard about you, it's because Peter Attia sent me a picture that you had posted on Instagram, you were reading Obstacle, but you had some weird thing on your leg that I couldn't figure out. What, it was like some chamber you were in or something? I always wanted to know what that was.

• 1:01:03Speaker 01

  Good question. The Nor-Tec boots.

• 1:01:06Ryan Holiday?

  What is that?

• 1:01:06Speaker 01

  So they're, they're from this brand, Hyper, so it does recovery products, and it, it like, squeezes your leg, and so it essentially is like a massage, and it like restricts blood flow, and then, you know, hopefully increases blood flow to help you recover between workouts. So, that's usually, I always like read in the middle of the day, that's kind of my like luck, like little ritual that I love to recover between workouts.

• 1:01:35Ryan Holiday?

  Right. So, yeah, I'm sure you have just dead time where like you're, you're having to be recovered, or rubbed down, or, or wait for stuff. Is that when you, is that the time that you use for like, personal development stuff?

• 1:01:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'd say, yeah, sitting in those old norm tech boots, like maybe I've done a gym workout and have a ride coming up. This is again, what we talked about at the very beginning, which is often like it's hardest to rest. Like it's hard for me to be like, here I am, doing my job, reading this book in the middle of the day, or like taking a nap. But it really is part of my job. And so I've kind of tried to make it like a little bit luxurious, my recovery time.

• 1:02:13Ryan Holiday?

  No, I struggle with that, too. It's like, let's say it's like two in the afternoon. I've done like most of what I have to do for the day. The idea of like going into the other room in my office and sitting and reading a book feels very self indulgent, especially when I have kids and like I know my wife or someone else is having to take care of the kids. And I also know that I have like a million emails. It feels more like work to sit at my computer and answer emails than to sit and think, or go for a walk, or read. But I guess that also goes to the question you put earlier, which is like, do you want to look productive now? Or do you want to be productive over a long period of time? And that distinction is really, really important.

• 1:02:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely. And it's, and it's optimizing, not maximizing. Sometimes I think that for me, that recovery time, that time where I'm sitting and resting is probably what allows me to go and have a great second workout. And maybe for you, thinking, walking, reading is what allows you to have that next great idea. It's just not what we think of as productive. And it's also, you know, appreciating, I guess, in some ways, like some of those extraneous factors, like things tend to work out better for me when I'm well rested and go better on my ride, even if I'm not like necessarily connecting one thing to another, exactly.

• 1:03:35Ryan Holiday?

  Well, it's also about like, if it works, not giving a shit what it looks like to other people.

• 1:03:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:41Ryan Holiday?

  You know, I, I, I wrote this book with, um, with Chris Bosch that you might like called, Letters to a Young Athlete. And he was talking about how he remembered one time they were flying on the team plane. They were all playing cards and LeBron James was like, I gotta get up and stretch. And he starts doing yoga, like in the middle of the thing. And everyone's laughing at him like he was an idiot or a weirdo for doing this. And he's like, and Chris Bosch was like, but you know, LeBron James is still playing and nobody else on that plane is playing anymore. And so he had this, it was both courage and then also just like an indifference. But it was courage, commitment to a certain set of things, and then also indifference to what it looked like. Now, of course, everyone does that stuff. But he was like, I don't care that this looks

• 1:04:25Ryan Holiday?

  stupid or silly. It's good for me. And so I'm gonna do it, even though people are busting my balls about it.

• 1:04:33Speaker 01

  Totally. Yeah. And I think you see that in every sport. It's, you know, someone will do something and everyone wants to comment on why it won't work. And then if it works, how'd you do? What'd you do? Can I hire that coach? Can I get on that program? And so I think the challenge as the athlete is to always be looking for that thing that's going to work and not necessarily basing your training protocol off of who the latest win was.

• 1:05:00Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. Malcolm Gladwell talked about this in one of the episodes of his podcast where I guess like, shooting a free throw, uh, like granny style is like objectively a superior way to do it. And it's much more accurate, but no player in the NBA will do it because it looks so lame.

• 1:05:18Speaker 01

  That's really funny. It, it kinda does.

• 1:05:21Ryan Holiday?

  It looks terrible. Yes.

• 1:05:22Speaker 01

  It looks terrible. But what works, works.

• 1:05:24Ryan Holiday?

  Right. These guys will do.

• 1:05:25Speaker 01

  Winning looks great.

• 1:05:26Ryan Holiday?

  Yes. These guys will do anything for an edge, but not that.

• 1:05:31Speaker 01

  Wow. Hey, if you, uh, if you give me the uncool thing that'll work in biking, I'll, I'll give it a whirl.

• 1:05:37Ryan Holiday?

  There you go. No, this was so awesome. I'm so glad we finally got to do it. And, uh, I'm so excited to watch what happens next for you.

• 1:05:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you so much. And I, I have my 10 pages left.

• 1:05:47Ryan Holiday?

  Good.

• 1:05:47Speaker 01

  Just calling, but I love it so far. So.

• 1:05:50Ryan Holiday?

  Amazing. Well, I appreciate.

• 1:05:51Speaker 01

  It's perfect for my moment. So thanks for writing to my life right now.

• 1:05:55Ryan Holiday?

  You talked about that, that word. Let me pull it up. I wonder how many times you say it. You, in your.

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  Probably quite a few.

• 1:06:02Ryan Holiday?

  It was like more times than I remember. 10 times.

• 1:06:06Speaker 01

  Wow, that's a lot of times.

• 1:06:08Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I mean, it wasn't the theme you would think would be the sort of the main, the main, the main theme of the piece, but it's, I think, actually makes perfect sense.

• 1:06:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I have a new favorite definition of courage, which was in your book, courage is an endurance of the soul, which I feel like is very applicable to trying and trying again in things that you love.

• 1:06:34Ryan Holiday?

  Well, to be fair, that's, that's, that's Socrates. He kind of knew what he was talking about.

• 1:06:41Speaker 01

  But you have introduced it to me, so it's Socrates via Ryan Alden.

• 1:06:46Ryan Holiday?

  I'll take it, I'll take it. All right, well, we'll talk soon.

• 1:06:49Speaker 01

  All right, thank you so much.

• 1:06:52Ryan Holiday?

  Thanks so much for listening. If you could leave a review for the podcast, we'd really appreciate it. The reviews make a difference, and of course, every nice review from a nice person helps balance out the crazy people who get triggered and angry anytime we say something they disagree with. So if you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and would really help the show. We appreciate it, and I'll see you next episode.