Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Billy Bush Discuss the Stoic Reaction to Public Shaming and How to Grow Beyond It

In today’s episode, Ryan and TV news anchor Billy Bush discuss how to deal with being publicly shamed, the practical use of premeditatio malorum, and what Billy learned from being enmeshed in a significant public controversy. Billy Bush is the current anchor for TV’s Extra, with a career in broadcast journalism spanning over 20 years. He was part of one of the defining moments of the 2016 US presidential campaign, when footage was leaked of a 2005 appearance by Donald Trump on Access Hollywood during which Trump made lewd comments about various women. This episode is brought to you by the Theragun. The new Gen 4 Theragun is perfect for easing muscle aches and tightness, helping you recover from physical exertion, long periods of sitting down, and more—and its new motor makes it as quiet as an electric toothbrush. Try the Theragun risk-free for 30 days, starting at just $199.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicFollow Billy Bush: Twitter: https://twitter.com/thebillybushInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/billybush/Extra on Twitter: https://twitter.com/extratvExtra on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/extratv/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription

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

• 0:04Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Weekend Edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something that can help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, wisdom, and temperance. And here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers, we reflect, we prepare, we think deeply about the challenging issues of our time, and we work through this philosophy in a way that's more possible here when we're not rushing to work or to get the kids to school, when we have the time to think, to go for a walk,

• 0:46Ryan Holiday?

  to sit with our journals, and to prepare for what the future will bring.

• 0:54Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I don't know if you remember what happened on October 7, 2016, but that date is seared into the memory of my next guest. The person that I talked to on the podcast this week is someone I've gotten to know over the last three-plus years, someone who I would not have expected I would get to know, someone I would have not expected to have a friendship with. Certainly, when I was sitting down and writing my books, not someone I thought that I was writing for, but that's the direction that life takes us, and specifically, it took me. And it's been an eye-opening friendship for me.

• 1:38Ryan Holiday?

  It's been a sort of a humbling and an educational one for me. And it's just, you know, one I think is sort of emblematic of our times. And so, the person I'm talking about, I'm talking about Billy Bush. And if you don't remember what happened on October 7, 2016, that is the day that the Access Hollywood tape of Donald Trump, you know, sort of infamously and alarmingly talking about, you know, grabbing women by the pussy and all the other disturbing, sort of gross things that were recorded on that bus while filming a segment for Access Hollywood, for which Billy Bush was the host. And... We don't need to get into the politics of it.

• 2:18Ryan Holiday?

  I don't think we need to get into whether those remarks qualify or disqualify someone for president. I think we can all decide that individually. What I'm interested in, and I think this is very much a non-political episode, I'm interested in how does it feel to have a single event define your life? How does it feel to have something that you'd utterly forgotten about, that had happened years and years earlier, that by the way, you were not the sort of primary guilty party for comeback and utterly upend your life? As I say to Billy, you know, a lot of people are interested in what happened on that bus, but you know, I'm interested in the fact that basically Billy Bush got hit by the bus.

• 3:03Ryan Holiday?

  And I'm interested in that, not just because it's human and it's real and it deals with the intersection of technology and culture and so much of what's going on in our world right now, but because of the journey that that put Billy Bush on, specifically to Stoicism. You know, he read The Daily Stoic, he read The Obstacle is the Way, he's done a number of the challenges now that we've done with Daily Stoic. And he and I have had a number of discussions about Stoicism since. And so when we talk about Stoicism as being this philosophy for life, you know, we're not just talking about James Stockdale in a prison camp and we're not just talking about, you know, university professors, we're talking about real people who find themselves

• 3:46Ryan Holiday?

  in incredible surreal, life-altering situations. And we're looking at how one survives that, how one picks up the pieces of their life. Again, even if you think that Billy Bush is totally guilty, that he made a huge mistake, that he was as complicit in what happened as Trump was, which I don't agree with at all, but even if you think that, do you think that he deserves the career death penalty? You know, do you think that he should be driven to despair and despondency to the point where, you know, he contemplated suicide, as I happen to know Billy did?

• 4:26Ryan Holiday?

  And it's been weird from my books, because my first book is about sort of media manipulation and the sort of mob mentality of the online system. And because of my stoicism books, I've happened to meet a lot of the people that have been on the other side of what we now sort of call public shamings or sort of mob justices. And even when they are culpable and even when they have made major mistakes, these are situations I try to respond to with sympathy, with empathy, with understanding. One of Seneca's most beautiful essays is an essay about clemency, which is, how do people with power treat people who are without power?

• 5:06Ryan Holiday?

  And one of the things that our sort of system now does is very quickly take a powerful person and render them someone who is now without power. And so this conversation with Billy, I think, is illustrative. Again, I try to get into the personal of it. I want to know, how does someone bounce back from something like that? How does one deal with and process what must have been an overwhelming number of different emotions? From fear and anxiety to anger and pain and self-loathing? And how can good come out of that? And, you know, Billy talks about a New York Times op-ed that he wrote, that he feels like he never would have had the opportunity to have written had this not happened. He talks about the new gig that he has.

• 5:50Ryan Holiday?

  He's now the host of Fox's Extra. And he talks about how he's tried to keep going through this pandemic, how I think other people may be caught off guard by their life flipping upside down, but he's had at least a little bit of training in this. And then I think more inspiring is how he's tried to become a resource or a shoulder for people who have now found themselves in similarly surprising, unnerving, overwhelming situations as he had, which of course I think is at the core stoicism. How do we, if we can't solve something for ourselves, how can we at least help those who come after us? And then finally, we talk a little bit about Memento Mori because lesser known fact,

• 6:33Ryan Holiday?

  but shortly after this happened to Billy Bush, he was nearly killed in a golf accident. And so, you know, Billy's life intersects so well with the things we're talking about. I appreciate him, you know, being willing to share. I could certainly understand just wanting to close that chapter of my life and never talk about it again. So you can hear him on the podcast. He's upbeat, he's interesting, he's vulnerable and willing to share. And I hope you give this episode a chance. And again, I hope we can put any political beliefs aside and just focus on the human element, which is certainly what I tried to do in this episode, and I hope you can as well. All right. So walk me through your introduction to Stoicism. I'm flattered.

• 7:18Ryan Holiday?

  I believe it was one of my books, but do you remember how you came to hear about them?

• 7:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's The Daily Stoic, and it was given to me by a great friend. When we all go through something in life, and I was going through my thing, my friend, David Walton, who's an actor, done a lot of different shows, About a Boy on NBC and New Girl on Fox. Anyway, he said, you got to read this every day, page a day. And I threw myself into it, and it was really, really important. It opened my eyes to life. So I became a modern Stoic in that moment.

• 8:01Ryan Holiday?

  No, I love it. And talking about you going through something, I imagine most people want to know or are curious about sort of what happened on that famous incident on the bus. But I'm more interested in what happens to a person when they are figuratively hit by a bus. You know, your life was going along, your career was never better, and then you find yourself, you know, how does that affect a person? I'm fascinated with that.

• 8:33Speaker 02

  Well, you know, if you're fortified and you're studied in Stoicism, it doesn't affect you that terribly because you've become a master of controlling your reaction to things, certain events. You know, happened. The basic tenet of Stoicism is, you know, you can't control events. You can only control how you react to them. And I was just so unprepared because, as can happen in this, you know, internet age, in two seconds, you can go from as high as you've ever been to as low as you've ever been and getting lower. And it happens

• 9:12Speaker 02

  on a dime. And I was not fortified. I fell apart completely and, and realized how immature and, and, you know, weak, I guess I was. And I had to build myself up, uh, back from that sort of entirely. And Stoicism, you know, helped a lot. I think the next bad thing that happens to me, there will not be, I will not fall apart like I did because I know bad things are gonna happen again. At some point, something.

• 9:45Ryan Holiday?

  It, it must have been a surreal experience too, because obviously you, you played a role in what had happened. And there, there were, there were things I imagine you look back, you, you, you know, you'd wish you'd done differently. But at the same time, you were getting, it, it must be weird to be the recipient of a lot of anger and rage and pent up feelings that people have that, that you must have known really had not that much to do with you. And yet, there wasn't anything you could do about it.

• 10:19Speaker 02

  Nothing you can do about it. That's right. And yeah, it's sort of a lost, a lost feeling. But nobody goes unscathed, you know, in life.

• 10:30Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 10:31Speaker 02

  Um, and that's an absolute fact. If you haven't gone through something calamitous, you will. And the best thing you can do is be ready for it, right? There's another tenet of Stoicism is to expect it. It's to lie and wait for it. Imagine it, picture it, and then sort of feel out how you'll respond to that. What's the best way? And know that it will pass and you will move on and you will grow. It's very hard to know that and until you've gone through it.

• 11:03Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. So is that something you actively practice now that your life sort of has regained some semblance of normalcy? You're back on TV, you're doing what you do. Obviously, we're in the middle of a pandemic, so that's sort of one of these unexpected events. But do you sort of practice that idea of premeditatio morum? How do you fortify yourself?

• 11:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, I also am just a, I grew up. I think I had some growing up to do anyway in my life. I had a reckoning due for me in my life because I think it was pretty sheltered and pampered. And, you know, one contract after the next, a little more money here, a little more money, kept going, kept going, talking to celebrities. Hey, what up, life's good. And I never had anything. So I got mine in a tremendous spectacular form, like, ooh, the details, it's so unique. But I got it. And two years ago, two and a half years ago, I would think it impossible to be able to sit at any point and say, boy, that was actually a good thing. Because I think I stood to be a little more patient. I could be a little nicer.

• 12:05Speaker 02

  I could be a little more thoughtful of other people. And having your ass handed to you, you know, like that, brings that gift with it in the end, if you're willing to accept it.

• 12:19Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, it must be strange for you now to sort of watch also. I wonder what sort of insights it gives you into where we are culturally. I was, I won't get into the specifics of it, but I was watching some, some sort of thing that all my friends were sharing on, on social media, sort of a social justice thing. You know, a video came out on the internet and they were all very convinced that they knew exactly what happened and they were demanding, you know, sort of very specific actions. And I totally agree on the, on the face of this, from what I saw, it does not look good at all. But it is interesting how quickly the mob mentality sort of rises up within us and how bad we are as a culture at questioning that sort of, those simple narratives and

• 13:04Ryan Holiday?

  that sort of lack of any humility that we might not know what happened just yet and it may need time to sort itself out.

• 13:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true. And I think, although, since

• 13:18Speaker 02

  You know, three years ago, when my sort of world came undone in an instant, um, I think it's gotten a little bit better and people have gotten a little more open to embracing failure and falling down and forgiving and letting people sort of see how they respond and, and build themselves back. That's the ideal. You know, Oprah, Oprah said, you know, it's not the little successes in her life that led to the big success. It's the failures. We have to be able to fail. We have to tell our children it's okay to fail and to not be at your best and to screw up and be deplorable

• 13:59Speaker 02

  or do, do whatever it is, as long as you can, you know, and, and then build yourself back up. But people have to allow other people to do that. And it's not, it's, it's not sustaining to not allow people to do that because it's going to be you looking at some point for that welcoming, empathetic embrace and that, uh, and the room to, to better yourself.

• 14:24Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, it's, it's like, uh, we, we do a bad job imagining ourselves on the other side of the judgment we are swiftly rendering against other people. So I, I, has going through this made you, I, I would wonder if it would make you a better journalist in that you're more empathetic.

• 14:43Speaker 02

  Way better. Yes. Way more empathetic, way more understanding, not about, not about to cast judgment. And I was a little bit of a judgy shit in a way sometimes. Look back at like, you know, six years ago, oh my God, no one in Hollywood stays married. Look at these people. They're so immoral and then, then, then, then, then like, what little high horse are you on? You know, I mean, and now there's always something more. You never have the full picture. You know, you're, you're, you've heard of DBT, dialectical behavioral therapy, cognitive behavior therapy. These are things my child has gone through and I've learned, I think you should teach it in every university. You, you don't know

• 15:25Speaker 02

  what someone's going through, what the different ingredients are, what all the components are. So wait, breathe until you do, right? And then justice is, is a stoic value. You know what I mean? So it will be served. But is but this, you know, lash out, destroy thing is not sustainable and it's not going to help anyone.

• 15:48Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, Seneca, he says, you know, like, we're wicked people living amongst wicked people. And I think making sure that you see that you probably wouldn't stand up to scrutiny if your worst, most embarrassing moment was flashed in front of the entire world as as as one of yours was.

• 16:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's not even my worst. I mean, if I went through, if everything we did in our lives was public domain, I mean, every one of us, I think, would be, you know, torched if we went and selected out, let me see, Ryan Holiday circa 93. Let me see, let me find a moment. And then I'm going to judge Ryan Holiday on that moment, in that moment alone.

• 16:30Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, no, and I think that's why the Stoics sort of talk about resisting the impulses of the mob.

• 16:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think the the mob is comforting, though, right? I guess. I mean, I don't know if I've ever been, I've never launched a hate tweet in my life and never would. I'm too scared. You know, it just that karma's got to come back in some form. I wouldn't do that. But, you know, the mob feels good, I guess, community and, you know, knocking people down. It's a kind of a dopamine hit or something.

• 17:00Ryan Holiday?

  Well, yeah, it's like, you got to be awfully certain of yourself to write the things that people are willing to write about people they've never met on social media.

• 17:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, I've been so wrong about people so many times. It's like, that guy this, that guy that, or maybe it's a reflection of my own insecurity or something. And then you meet him and you're like, what a terrific guy. Well, you know, like that woman, it's just, how many times have we all done that? You know?

• 17:28Ryan Holiday?

  Totally. Well, I was talking to someone the other day, and actually, on this podcast, his name's Ben Hardy. He's a great writer. He was talking about how, you know, what you want to do is is realize that the person who you were in the past is a different person than who you are now. And the person who you'll be in the future is a different person than who you are now. And so, you know, I imagine one of the things people have asked you is is this idea of like, if you could do it again, would you do it differently?

• 18:00Speaker 02

  Yes, of course I would. I don't, you know, I mean, it's, it's, it happens. It's a moment. And I think, you know, what would happen, you know, I I didn't react well. I didn't drive the moment. I just didn't react well. I react in a, you know, in a way that I sure love to have reacted differently, but that's kind of what I came up with in the moment and it was too bad, wrong one.

• 18:25Ryan Holiday?

  Well, that's, that's sort of my point. It's kind of an uninteresting question because of course you would do it differently. And even, even if you were not a good person, you'd have done it differently because the response was so overwhelmingly negative. Like who would do it the same way? I'm more interested in like, what have you learned from that experience and from the experiences of the last couple of years? I'm like, how do you feel like it's changed you as a person? What's the journey you're on? Being more empathetic is one of them, but, but what else do you sort of bring to your job and your life that you feel like maybe you didn't have when you were a different person, you know, before having gone through this?

• 19:06Speaker 02

  You know, better ears, better listener to what other people are saying and, and going through. I'm very interested in transformational stories. I want to see people who have been, you know, fallen down. I want to see them get up. I want to be part of the movement that says, hang on for a second, you know, he amongst us who doesn't have this capability within themselves. Stand, stand up, come forward, let us applaud you because you are unbelievably noble and fantastic. But if you can acknowledge that you do have that wiring within you, that you are wired

• 19:45Speaker 02

  equally for evil as you are for good, then let's watch this person get up. I'll never forget when Jimmy Fallon had Norm MacDonald booked on the Tonight Show. And Norm had said something, I don't know about Roseanne Barr, it might've been favorable or something, but it was like, Roseanne was definitely out on the outs and not good and Norm's something. All of a sudden,

• 20:08Ryan Holiday?

  She'd been canceled.

• 20:09Speaker 02

  Norm's an okay guest, right? Good guy, really funny, but it's not like you just got Spielberg or whatever, but you know, they canceled him. Norm, you can't come on. You've upset too many people and on our staff and, you know, we're injured from what you've said and we have to let you go. And he was in the makeup room. All of a sudden, Norm MacDonald, that's a guy. All of a sudden, you've got an A plus booking. What are you talking about? I would say, I would have him on for sure and say, what did you mean? What were you saying? It wasn't taken that way, you know, that way. Tell us more and listen to what Norm has to say at that point. Instead of stuff him down like a hatch, he was gonna be left like, okay. Well, geez, here I go. That's

• 20:51Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  part of what I've learned, I think, is that I'm interested vested in people being able to experience failure and then go on to success.

• 21:04Ryan Holiday?

  No, that's, that's a really interesting point because, yeah, we, we talk, we talk about, you know, not wanting to normalize things. And in a weird way, I almost wonder if that's the wrong way to think about it. It's, it's, you should make it normal so we can have a conversation about it. And then you could, you could reasonably try to open someone's mind or reach them or, or at least try to figure out why they're operating the way that they're operating on this sort of idea of canceling people or deleting them or eliminating them because they, yeah, they ran afoul of some illusionary, constantly moving lines seems both very short sighted. And then also, as you said, sort of very unkind.

• 21:46Speaker 02

  Right, but like, here's the, here's the thing, right? About cancel culture. What if that person says, I agree. What I did was just awful. I'm really not who I've been. I've done that one of, I wanna, I wanna do better. Isn't that person now aligned and a supporter of the cause that's at the root of your reaction? Right? They're now on

• 22:11Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 22:11Speaker 02

  theme, they're, they're with you. So why wouldn't you want to be stronger in numbers? Like, welcome aboard. You know what I mean?

• 22:19Ryan Holiday?

  Well, that's sort of the irony, right? Is that the way that the cancel culture works is it really only punishes the people who are at their core. Decent or normal people. And, and the irony is that it is the, the Trumps or the cast of the Jersey Shore, or the, the sort of extreme, extreme end of the spectrum. And not to, you know, not to conflate the, the Jersey Shore with, with Trump. But the, the point is it's only the people who have decided, I really don't care what anyone says or anyone thinks of me. And I am deciding not to play by society's rules at all. That are not like, you can't cancel Donald Trump. They, they could cancel Billy Bush.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:03Ryan Holiday?

  But they could like, of the, of the people on that bus, only one of them really felt any consequences for that exchange.

• 23:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, you, because it's the voters that decide, but I can get fired by NBC in two seconds. That's their, that's, you know, no problem. Bye bye, but you can't fire him. He's running that people are going to vote for him or not. And, you know, and they went on and did.

• 23:25Ryan Holiday?

  I mean, so, yeah, no, it's, it, I, I do feel like, cause I remember we talked about it at the time. You, you have, I think, tried also, you know, your point that Norm would then make great television. I think that's the other sort of stoic part of this, which is like, even if this is not ideal, even if we don't want this, how can we then use the spotlight or the attention or the moment for good in some way? And I, I really liked the, the New York Times op ed that you wrote. I don't think you would have been in a position to write that had what you went through, had you not gone through what you went through.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  I literally just wrote it and I sent it to a friend and I said, what do you think? He said, I'm sending this to my friend at the New York Times. I said, well, go ahead. I mean, I, I was just going to put it online or something. And so the guy called me and yeah, they, they, they ran with it. But it was an eye opener for me. And I'll tell you what led me to write that. Is I just finished your book, The Obstacle is the Way. Here's this obstacle in my life has destroyed me. I'm so deeply depressed. I'm, I'm, you know, thinking of horrible things I could do to myself to get away from it all and take the easy way out and all these terrible things. Cause it just hurt, hurt, hurt, hurt, hurt. And then I read The Obstacle is the Way and I'm telling you what a brilliant book.

• 24:43Speaker 02

  Like, wait a minute, why am I trying to run away, hide from, run around? No, go right through the darn center of the thing. And that book is what led to the New York Times op ed. You know, you, you deeply affected somebody in a, in a really hard spot. So I'll always, you know, and then I've gone on to read everything else you've done. So you know, I'm a fan.

• 25:04Ryan Holiday?

  No, that, that means a lot to me. And that, that is ultimately what, what I'm trying to do. And I think that's what the, you know, Seneca goes, what does philosophy offer? Philosophy offers counsel. And, and I think what's so powerful about writing and philosophy is I think you and I had met by this point. I don't remember, but the, the point is those words from, you know, these ancient people all these years ago, were there in the moment that you needed them. And I'd be curious if, if someone listening is going through something right now. Maybe they just lost their job because of COVID or maybe they, they messed up and did something dumb. Uh, or they're, you know, they're going, when, when you're in that, that sort of hellish, dark place.

• 25:46Ryan Holiday?

  I'm just curious as someone who's now come out of the other side of it. What would you say to yourself if you could, if you could look back and talk to that person?

• 25:55Speaker 02

  Well, what I do now is I've, I've taken to making random phone calls to people that are the next ones in the media to, to take a hit. I reach out to them. I remember there's a Buffalo news weatherman in Buffalo or no Rochester. He was, they said that he said a racial epithet on the air. I listened to it 10 times over. I didn't hear it. I didn't hear it. I still couldn't hear it. I still couldn't hear it. The guy, and if, there's no way, looking at this man's life, that this is a racist human being. I know he's not. And they, his life completely dismantled in front of him. And I just, I called him and I said, I'm Billy Bush. He's like, the Billy Bush? That, that, that guy? I said, yeah. And I know exactly what hell you are in right now,

• 26:40Speaker 02

  and your family and everything. And he's like, oh my God, like, what is this? And we just talked for half an hour and checked in on him every once in a while. I'm worried because public shaming is so unbelievably brutal, that I'm worried people will take their lives. I mean, to go all the way to the, you know, that's not an overstatement. Many have because of it. And I was worried about this person in Rochester. So him, and I've done it many times.

• 27:11Ryan Holiday?

  How, how do you feel doing that? Does it, is, is that something that gives you a lot of?

• 27:15Speaker 02

  I have to. I'm a human being. I know what it feels like. It, I'm, I'm, to, to, to, to not do that is, uh, is, what have you learned? What have you learned, man? That's, I've learned a lot of things. That's part of what I've learned. And first and foremost is the guy's safety. I need him to know that it's gonna be okay, that it's gonna be better on the other side. And people have said that to me and sometimes it worked and I listened to him and sometimes I told him, you have no idea what you're talking about. Shut up. Uh, but coming from me, something so public, something so, you know, that he had, how could he, he'd have to believe me.

• 27:53Ryan Holiday?

  Sure. No, you, you have a unique authority about uh, what, what it is like to, to, to have life kick your ass. And, and I am curious about that now because I, I do feel like life is kicking collectively the ass of, uh, of, of maybe the whole country right now. How have you, having been through what you've been through the last couple of years, what was your sort of inclination and reaction to what was happening? Were you prepared? Like you said, you wanted to be prepared? And, and how have you sort of gotten through it so far?

• 28:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, the first thing I did was, uh, I went to my bosses and said, we are an essential business. I am a journalist. I am not, you know, reading gossip on a teleprompter. I'm a journalist. I tell stories. I get information. I call people. I do my work. We're an essential business. I know what's going to happen. I know that cable news on one side is going to begin politicizing this thing and using it as their weapon. And the other side is going to start doing that. And then that's going to taint the information. And I honestly want to just get to the basic information every night with our medical professionals and give it to people straight from the independent, politically independent voice that I am. And they said, okay. And I said, I don't want to do this from home.

• 29:11Speaker 02

  I want to come in to the studio and keep that sense of normalcy. And they said, all right. And so we have a very lean crew and I haven't missed one day. And I think we're the only show in our genre that is, you know, doing that. But we're doing it responsibly and it's important because I know we're going to get through it. I know we're going to get to the other side. And I know that a tremendous opportunity for growth for all of us in this culture is upon us. I want to be part of that. It's a macrocosm of, you know, what happened with me is a micro. But this is, this is a massive challenge. And I think we could be a whole lot better on the other side. I believe it.

• 29:53Ryan Holiday?

  No, I, I believe it too. I believe it too. All right. So, so last question, this is a little sensitive as well, but, but so, but, but I think deep and I think very connected to Stoic philosophy. So, most people know what happened there on the bus. Fewer people know that like, was it several weeks after, not long after, you nearly died, right? You, you got hit in the head with a golf ball. Walk me through your near death experience and what you learned from that.

• 30:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, I did. I was playing at the twilight and a whole bunch of us decided to, you know, group up on the last hole in order to finish by, by daylight. And I was off to the right and looking on a ravine. And my friend, who's a very bad golfer, took a terrible three wood. I mean, that's three wood. And he It he ripped it and it bounced once before it hit me. Thank God, but it was coming. It came in like unbelievable, missed my center of the temple by about a centimeter, but it nailed the side of my head just off my temple. But it started swelling up badly and I knocked out and I fell down and I knew I was in serious trouble and I thought this is, I'm gonna swell up and die here.

• 31:03Speaker 02

  And I started yelling for help and they're like laughing for a second. And then when they realize it's real, they, you know, my guy, my buddy Swing, the guy that hit me, in short, whipped me to the hospital. And we were in a CAT scan machine in thirty five minutes. And they monitored me overnight and the whole thing. And in the end, I was, I was okay. But I certainly thought in that car ride, you know, wow, this could be the end. But, you know, keep breathing, keep going. We're gonna get there, we're fine and, and made it. I feel bad for my friends.

• 31:42Ryan Holiday?

  What did you?

• 31:43Speaker 02

  I haven't played with him since.

• 31:46Ryan Holiday?

  Yes, right, right. What did coming that close, especially in sort of connection to your, your, it's like, it's like you went through career death and then almost actual death in such a short.

• 32:01Speaker 02

  Message here of God, take me. Just go ahead. I, I, I got the point. This place is better off without me. So just, but.

• 32:13Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, they're coming to finish you off.

• 32:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, finish me off for the love of God, stop it. No, I don't know. I, I, I think it, I, I realized sort of on the other side of that. I think it was actually a, let's get going. You know what I mean? The worst is definitely behind us now. I don't know if I'm the luckiest guy because of that or the unluckiest guy. But I'm gonna choose the luckiest guy cuz I could've died and I didn't. Now let's get rolling.

• 32:36Ryan Holiday?

  You having been through what you've been through, it would turn down the volume on a lot of crap on, you know, it would allow you to go through life not being bothered by the things that a lot of us blow up and allow us to bother us.

• 32:51Speaker 02

  I'm better with that. I used to sweat that small stuff like crazy. I was actually, I remember every little detail would drive me crazy at work. If we missed this or someone missed that, I was kinda like, who, who did that? Why did we get that wrong? Like, you, you so and so. Now I don't give a shit. And I say, you know what? We got another show tomorrow. Don't worry about it. It's fine. And I'm, I feel so good to be that person. Because imagine the young producer who's scared that they screwed up something that they were supposed to have in my thing, you know, and I was some kinda mercurial prick because of it, you know? And instead of, hey, don't worry about it. We got another show tomorrow. We'll fix it. Not, not, not a big deal. That's the guy you wanna work

• 33:32Speaker 02

  for, you wanna learn from, you wanna be around. I wanna be that person. I choose to be that person.

• 33:38Ryan Holiday?

  And I imagine that person does better work, right? That's, that's the irony is like, it's not that you care less, it's that you care more about the things that you have control over and thus do a better job.

• 33:49Speaker 02

  When we got, I started Extra, the entertainment show, and, you know, in September, and it was a one-year deal for Fox. They said, we'll give you a shot for a year, and Billy Bush is the new host, and we're coming in and changing the show. And five weeks later, and next year it always gotten a year-to-year pickup, you know, kinda NBC would take it for a year, and okay, we'll do one more year. And so everybody, like, you know, people who were employees, like, if they had a roof project on their garage, you know, they couldn't, I don't know if I'm gonna be working a year from now, so I don't know. We went in, and in five weeks, Fox came and said, we will pick this show up for a total of four years. And it was like jubilation in the hallways, and all these employees, and we were celebrating

• 34:31Speaker 02

  together, and I got gifts, and I got letters, and I got tears from moms, you know, single moms who were working at the show, and now they can, woo, take a breath. And I really felt like, oh, my God. And it's not, not giving myself the credit for it, but... You know, I threw myself in and we decided to change the program. My executive producer was terrific and she's been awesome and we did it together. And I just, it was like, wow, how about that? After all this comes this. So hang in there, whoever you are.

• 35:04Ryan Holiday?

  No, that's the perfect place to close it. Billy, thanks so much.

• 35:08Speaker 02

  Ryan, I love you. You've been a great influence in my life through your work and the person you are. I thank you.

• 35:14Ryan Holiday?

  Oh, man. Hit me up anytime.

• 35:17Ryan Holiday?

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