Ryan Holiday: The Stoic Way To Calm Your Mind & Control Your Response To Anything!

What if the secret to a happier life isn’t controlling what happens to you, but changing how you respond? In this inspiring episode of Begin Again, Davina McCall sits down with bestselling author and Daily Stoic creator Ryan Holiday to explore how the ancient philosophy of Stoicism can help us find calm, courage and purpose when life feels overwhelming. Ryan explains why so much of our anxiety, anger and unhappiness comes from focusing on things we can’t control, and how the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius and Seneca can help us face life’s challenges differently. Together, Davina and Ryan explore how to let go of regret, overcome procrastination, build emotional resilience, and use journaling to make more intentional choices. They also discuss why accepting our mortality can help us feel more alive, and why Stoicism isn’t about shutting down our emotions, but learning how to respond with greater wisdom. 🌟Like, comment and subscribe for more honest conversations about purpose, resilience, love, loss and beginning again. Follow us here: 📸www.instagram.com/beginagain 🎥https://www.tiktok.com/@beginagainpod ✨Sign up for the Begin Again newsletter for behind-the-scenes access, recommendations and much more: https://linkly.link/2g2xm Follow Ryan Holiday here: 📸https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/ 🎥https://youtube.com/@ryanholidayofficial?si=fSfGMNvYF-2t1yC_ The Daily Stoic – 10th Anniversary Edition: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman is available now from Profile Books. Get your copy at: https://linkly.link/2zELj (00:00) Intro (01:32) Selling 10 Million Books Worldwide (04:31) How Stoicism Changes Our View Of Death (09:45) Stoic Parenting: Learning To Let Go (12:02) The Power Of Apologising (13:59) Ryan On Dropping Out Of University (16:58) Where Can Young Men Find Guidance Today (18:30) How Stoic Philosophy Changes With Age (20:31) BHF Ad (21:42) Ancient + Brave Ad (23:20) Why Ancient Stoicism Still Applies To Modern Life (28:56) Stoicism Isn't About Suppressing Emotions (38:09) Do Health Ad (39:19) How Stoicism Helps You Learn From Mistakes & Overcome Regret (46:22) Ryan's Favourite Stoic Philosophers (47:08) The Obstacle Is The Way: Overcoming Adversity (50:40) Ryan's Book Recommendations Sponsored by: British Heart Foundation: To help fund lifesaving research, visit https://bhf.org.uk/keepusbeating to donate now and keep us beating Ancient & Brave - https://ancientandbrave.earth/plant use code BEGINAGIN for 20% off Do Health - The waitlist is open. Begin Again listeners get fixed early access pricing when they sign up today at dohealth.co/beginagain use code BEGINAGAIN SYNC ID: MB01T1TMLNT92BF Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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• 1:27Speaker 03

  The world has always felt like it is falling apart. There are plagues, environmental crises, family issues.

• 1:33Speaker 04

  Love, broken hearts.

• 1:35Speaker 03

  The one thing they all have in common is it feels like something we've never dealt with before.

• 1:39Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:40Speaker 03

  And we have dealt with things like this before.

• 1:41Speaker 04

  And history just goes around in circles.

• 1:44Speaker 03

  Same thing happening over and over and over again.

• 1:45Speaker 04

  Today, I am joined by one of the world's greatest living philosophers, Ryan Holiday.

• 1:50Speaker 03

  Stoicism is not stiff upper lip. It's knowing that life never goes the way that we want it to go. But we don't control what happens. We control how we respond to what happens. Most of our misery and frustration and suffering is when we're focused on what's not up to us. It's kind of catastrophizing. It's just the source of so much conflict.

• 2:07Speaker 04

  God, I wish we'd done this 20 years ago.

• 2:10Speaker 03

  Things go wrong all the time. And then we figure out what we're going to do about it.

• 2:15Speaker 04

  What are the Stoic things that have helped you being a dad? How can you handle regret in the best possible way? Is it possible to change yourself and live the life you want to live so you can die happy?

• 2:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean.

• 2:29Speaker 04

  Because whoever you are and whatever you've been through, you are always allowed to begin again.

• 2:38Speaker 04

  Ryan?

• 2:38Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:39Speaker 04

  I'm having a bit of a pinch me moment.

• 2:41Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:42Speaker 04

  I'm so excited that you're.

• 2:43Speaker 03

  You seem very excited.

• 2:44Speaker 04

  No, Ryan, you don't understand. I've been such a mega fan for so long. Well, you know that because we've been talking about you, me and Michael, for so long publicly.

• 2:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:54Speaker 04

  So I'm so grateful that you made time out of your busy schedule to come on Begin Again.

• 2:58Speaker 03

  Well, thanks for having me.

• 3:00Speaker 04

  Oh, I mean, honestly, over 10 million books worldwide. That's quite an achievement.

• 3:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't. I certainly didn't think that's how it was going to go. Like, when I went to my publisher in 2000, when would this have been? 2012. And I said, you know, I want to write about an obscure school of ancient philosophy. They were not like, yeah, 10 million, that sounds right. You know, and if I had said, you know, within 15 years, I'd sell 10 million copies. It'd be in 40 languages. Like, that would have been delusional, right? Like, I think you always have a sense that what you're doing could work and is worthwhile. Or else, why would you do it?

• 3:42Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 3:42Speaker 03

  But the certainty is usually post hoc. You know, it's usually made up afterwards. I actually feel like I got lucky because my first book came out and it did okay. It didn't blow the doors off or anything, but it did okay. And then so by the time I was working on the second book, I was too busy to think about whether it had succeeded or failed.

• 4:03Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 4:04Speaker 03

  Because I had a deadline. You know, like, I think the best thing you can do on any project is just start the next one. Because you control the project you're working on. You don't control how the last one did. Or you control one more than the other.

• 4:16Speaker 04

  When I was reading about you, I mean, I obviously already know a lot about you anyway. But I was constantly thinking of the Serenity Prayer. I have been in recovery for decades. And at the end of every meeting, you must know the Serenity Prayer. It's so good. I'm just going to quickly say it. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. And it feels like the Stoic philosophers have so many brilliant words that thousands of years later, we're still talking about the same stuff. Can you just explain what Stoicism is?

• 4:58Speaker 03

  So Stoicism is a philosophy. It starts in Athens in the 4th century B.C. And it makes its way to Rome. It becomes this philosophy built around this idea that we don't control what happens. We control how we respond to what happens, which is basically the Serenity Prayer. I think the Serenity Prayer feels much older to people than it actually is. It only dates back to the middle of the 1900s. But that's because Reinhold Niebuhr is drawing on the Christian tradition and then also the Stoic tradition, which is basically this idea that, look, there's some stuff that's up to us and there's some stuff that's not up to us. And that most of our misery and frustration and suffering is when we're focused on what's not up to us. And most of our happiness and contentment

• 5:43Speaker 03

  and empowerment comes from when we're focusing on what is up to us, which is largely our opinions, our thoughts, and then, in some cases, our the actions that we take in response to the situations we find ourselves in. And so there's just a lot of wisdom in those couple lines.

• 5:59Speaker 04

  I mean, there's, there's, literally, my brain is firing off firecrackers like every two seconds because there's so, so many directions I want to go in. But I think first of all, I'm going to touch on Begin Again as a podcast. The concept came up when I accepted death, another good Stoic philosophy. And what I had needed in life to get me to a point where I felt okay if I died tomorrow. Is it Marcus Aurelius who did that?

• 6:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, the Stoic idea is memento mori, which is sort of an active meditation on your mortality. Because, you know, again, there's some stuff that's in our control and some stuff that's not in our control. And when we're born and when we die are two things that are not in our control. And they are facts of existence. It's the one thing we all have in common. And so the Stoics are saying like, well, the sooner you accept this and go to terms with it, the sooner it can be a positive in your life rather than a negative. If it's this thing you're dreading, if it's this thing you're worried about all the time, you're depriving yourself of the present moment. If it's something that gives you urgency and perspective and clarity, well, then, you know, you've turned

• 7:12Speaker 03

  a seemingly a negative into a, into a positive.

• 7:15Speaker 04

  I mean, would it be right in saying that the Stoics kind of are saying, do your bucket list now?

• 7:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, my favorite quote from, from the Stoics, probably in the entire canon, is, is, is from Seneca, where he's saying it's actually wrong to think of death as this thing that's in the future. So I think, you know, because we have a better sense of life expectancy than they did in the ancient world, you know, we can be even more guilty of this where we go, okay, you know, a man lives to be 76 and a woman lives to be 77. So I have however many years left. And first off, you don't know that, right? Because you get hit by a bus, you could get cancer. You know, the world could get hit by a comet. Well, you know, whatever. But he's saying it's, death isn't in the future. He's saying death is happening now. Death is the time that passes. And so it's kind of a, for the Stoics,

• 8:04Speaker 03

  it was the idea of like a birthday.

• 8:06Speaker 04

  Wait, blow my mind. Death is the time that passes?

• 8:10Speaker 03

  Yes, death is the time that has passed.

• 8:12Speaker 04

  That has passed.

• 8:13Speaker 03

  Yes. So when you think about your birthday, you're like, oh, this is how many years I have died. It's, it's, he says, we're dying every minute. We're dying every day.

• 8:21Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 8:22Speaker 03

  And, and when you think about it this way, it puts in perspective the decisions you make on a day to day basis as to what you spend your time on. And it sort of points out that, you know, we are so tightfisted with money. You know, if your neighbor encroached on your property, you know, you'd, you'd file a lawsuit or you'd go to the police. And, and then, you know, we waste our time. We waste our most precious resource doing things that we don't need to do, that we shouldn't do because.

• 8:49Speaker 04

  That feed anger.

• 8:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, we procrastinate because we're afraid of things, you know? And, and so, you know, when you realize that, that the time that passes is death, it gives you some perspective as to how you spend that time day to day.

• 9:03Speaker 04

  Because this is, this is exactly what I want to do on this podcast is show people that if you have lived a life that you love.

• 9:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:12Speaker 04

  When you come to facing death, in that moment, you go, I really did it.

• 9:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:19Speaker 04

  I gave it my best shot. Take me. I'm, I'm happy. You know, I've, I've lived life. It's like live the life you want to live so you can die happy.

• 9:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, we're always putting things off. I mean, the biggest lie in the world is I'll do it in the morning or I'll do it when things go back to normal or when the kids are out of the house or after I make a certain amount of money or whatever it is, right? So we're always delaying doing the things that we know deep down we should be doing or that we deeply want to do. And then at some point, you realize you can't do those things.

• 9:54Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 9:54Speaker 03

  I mean, this is the, the perennial example is like people waiting to travel until they get older. And then you find out you can't go up the Spanish steps anymore because you physically cannot do it. And so you might be literally alive, but that part of you is gone. And I think that the other more haunting way to think about this, which I think about with my kids, is, I mean, obviously, something can always happen to your kids, which is why, you know, you want to be present and you want to be, you know, you never want to do things you regret or take them for granted. But the other way to think about it is, in the best case scenario, you will not have a five year old for very long. And in the best case scenario, you're not, you will not have a 15 year old for very long.

• 10:38Speaker 03

  You are constantly losing each version of your child. And so to rush through it because you don't like this phase or to rush through it because you want to get back to your phone and check your email, to rush through it because you're tired, to rush through it because, you know, you're excited about the next phase, is to lose this thing that you won't get back. And so this is true not just for your kids, but it's also true for you. You're not going to be in this phase in this moment in your life much longer either.

• 11:13Speaker 04

  God, I wish we'd done this 20 years ago. Um, I, I've just said goodbye to my youngest child, gone to university.

• 11:21Speaker 03

  Wow, congrats.

• 11:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, and I loved what you've, you've said in the past about, I mean, the kind of way that I remember it is choose your battles with your kids.

• 11:29Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 11:30Speaker 04

  So in parenting, say, what are the kind of most stoic things that have, you've come across that have helped you being a dad? Cause I love your, your book, The Daily Dad.

• 11:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, the things we hassle our kids about, right?

• 11:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:43Speaker 03

  Leaving the lights on, leaving their shoes out, uh, you know, their tone. It, it will not be very long that none of those things will seem important to you. And I think one of the things we do with kids is we're always extrapolating, right? What does this mean? If I let them do this here, what will it mean in the future? And by definition, when you're extrapolating, what you're not doing is being in the present moment. You're not just looking at the individual situation for what it is, which is that they're tired or that you're tired or that you're arguing over a thing that does not matter. Uh, no one's gonna die because they didn't take a bath tonight.

• 12:28Speaker 03

  Uh, their life isn't gonna be ruined about whether they do this homework assignment or not, right? And so what you do is you take yourself out of the present moment and you think, well, what if this moment happens over and over and over and over and over again? And I let it go, then they're gonna end up under a bridge somewhere. And that's just not how it's gonna go. And so this kind of catastrophizing is a thing we do in all aspects of our lives. But I think particularly with our kids, it's just the source of so much conflict. And they're, you're not gonna remember caring about this. They're not gonna remember caring about this, but they are gonna remember cumulatively the amount of arguments that you had and the amount of fighting that you had and that you were always on them and that home wasn't safe.

• 13:10Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 13:11Speaker 03

  And that home wasn't calm. And, and I say this as a person who is constantly failing at this exact thing. Uh, and then you step back and you go, why did I make a big deal out about this? And then I think it comes down to how quickly can you repair this? And then how quickly can you try the next time to not make a mountain out of a molehill?

• 13:30Speaker 04

  Can I ask you something? Cause I, um, I made a habit out of when I felt that I did something wrong, I would apologize to my kids, kind of very seriously, hand on heart. And it actually set up a situation where they quite quickly would apologize to me if they'd done something wrong. It was a very nice circle of kind of understanding. Um, to how like, cause you said, we all, we all do it. Nobody parents perfectly from the get go.

• 13:58Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, did your parents apologize?

• 14:00Speaker 04

  Um, oh, I mean, I had an alcoholic mother.

• 14:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:03Speaker 04

  Who was, no, never. My dad was actually pretty amazing. He's on the top shelf up there. Um, he was a great dad. I can't really remember him apologizing, but.

• 14:15Speaker 03

  I think it's a powerful thing. I, I, I mean, I think about things that if my parents apologized for them now, it would matter. Like decades later, it would matter. So.

• 14:27Speaker 04

  That's interesting. So an apology still means something.

• 14:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:30Speaker 04

  Doesn't matter when you say it.

• 14:31Speaker 03

  So, so I think we do this thing where we go, oh, it's too late. That was earlier or that was a couple of years ago. And if you think about it in your own life, what it would mean to you to have certain things acknowledged or, or discussed openly. Um, I think it's an incredible habit to, to, to get into with your kids about, hey, I was stressed out earlier or I made a big deal out of something that didn't matter. Or here's why I thought it mattered, but I didn't like how that went and I'm sorry. Like, and, and it's like, ultimately you're trying to raise someone who takes accountability, who's responsible, who, who, who's able to, to sort of step back and see themselves with some distance. And what a better way to model that than to show that like even parents do that.

• 15:14Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 15:14Speaker 03

  But I think, I think people are so worried about, you know, authority or worried about their sort of place in a hierarchy in the family that they're afraid to do that.

• 15:27Speaker 04

  Could I ask you about your parents?

• 15:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:28Speaker 04

  Cause um, your dad was, was he a detective?

• 15:32Speaker 03

  He was, yeah.

• 15:32Speaker 04

  That's so cool. And then your mom was a high, high school principal?

• 15:36Speaker 03

  Uh, sort of a continuing education principal, but yeah, she was a school principal.

• 15:41Speaker 04

  So two pretty like, um, on it together.

• 15:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:45Speaker 04

  Jobs. And what I, what I loved was that, um, you went to university, but after a year you decided that you didn't want to go anymore. How were they about that? Because there'll be lots of people watching with kids at university age. And I didn't go to university and, and my dad's family, they all went.

• 16:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:03Speaker 04

  But he was actually all right with me about that. How was it for you when you decided that you wanted to give up after a year?

• 16:09Speaker 03

  It was not great. Uh, they did not handle it well. I think for a, a certain generation of parents, the whole referendum of you as a parent was whether your kids went to college or not.

• 16:21Speaker 04

  Right.

• 16:21Speaker 03

  That, that is success. If you got them out of the house and into college, they were gonna be fine. Because college was the ticket to a better life. And so when I, I left at the end of my sophomore year, uh, that was to them, an indictment of them, which is I think another mistake that's so easy to make as a parent.

• 16:42Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 16:42Speaker 03

  Which is like your, the path that your kids go in life is their path. It's not a reflection of you. Um, and, and so they did not handle it well. And, uh, you know, it put a very big strain on our relationship for a long time. Because, you know, I think so often the instinct is to wanna be right as a parent or to get your way as a parent and not to be there for your kid when they need you in something. So, you know, I think what they struggled to understand was although I was making this life-changing decision that I thought was right for me, I was simultaneously terrified and simultaneously very worried that it wouldn't work out.

• 17:23Speaker 03

  Like what I, I definitely didn't need was the two people that are supposed to believe in you to be, to go like, we, we not only don't believe in you, we're really worried you're also blowing up your life, you know? So it was, it was not great. Um, and it was.

• 17:38Speaker 04

  You had the strength to continue.

• 17:39Speaker 03

  I did. I mean, I, I think one of my favorite things from the Stoics is this idea that, um, you don't choose your parents, but you choose whose children you wanna be. And, and so I, I had a, a number of really great mentors and people in my life that were there in that time.

• 17:56Speaker 04

  You've just done it again.

• 17:57Speaker 03

  Sorry.

• 17:57Speaker 04

  That's so good.

• 17:59Speaker 03

  Of course. It's a, it's an amazing idea. I mean, the idea that like, and this doesn't have to be a person you even know.

• 18:05Speaker 04

  No.

• 18:05Speaker 03

  Right? Like.

• 18:06Speaker 04

  Could be a writer.

• 18:08Speaker 03

  It could be someone who's been dead for a thousand years, you know? Uh, you choose whose example you're gonna follow, whose wisdom you're gonna let into your life. You know, um, it felt like the scariest thing I'd ever done in my life cause I hadn't done that many scary things in my life at that point. But it always feels like you're more alone than you actually are. I mean, I, I feel like what I'm doing with the Stoics is paying forward where what they were for me at that point in my life. And I, I do think, you know, there, we have this sort of crisis for young men right now. And part of the reason that that's happening is because the, the various sort of traditions or sort of, um, uh, institutions that used to give, uh, young men, not just meaning and purpose,

• 18:52Speaker 03

  but also a lot of kind of moral instruction and guidance are gone. You know, most young men are not going to church. Most young men are not joining the armed forces. Most young men are not part of a, a, a union or a guild or.

• 19:06Speaker 04

  Project even, like the Cubs or the Scouts or something like that.

• 19:09Speaker 03

  So, so these questions about, you know, what it means to be not just a man, but what it means to be a good person, what it means to, to, to sort of find and uncover your gifts and make them real and, um, you know, be a contributing member to society. Like I, I, there's not a lot of overt guidance in that regard. There's a lot of calling out and identifying what's toxic, what's bad, what's not okay. And that's important, but there also has to be the, the, the light that you celebrate in addition to the, the dark that you point out. And so I think for me, you know, just sitting down and you're reading this kind of ancient tradition that's stood up for 25 centuries.

• 19:53Speaker 03

  You're like, oh, this is, it was just exactly what I needed at 19, 20, you know? And then still what I need even now. Um, and so I, I think there's, there's something very powerful about, about these ideas that kind of reach through the, from the past into the present moment.

• 20:09Speaker 04

  What's so incredible is that, um, you can just keep reading the same ideas year after year, but because your life is changing. You know, it's just like you've said a couple of things to me that seem pertinent to me right now, that every year it means something different. You can read the similar kind of philosophies and outlooks, but you think, oh no, this year this means this.

• 20:32Speaker 03

  Yeah. Who the Stoics were to me at 19 is very different than who they were to me at 29. And they're different to me at 39. And, you know, the word.

• 20:41Speaker 04

  You've got a big birthday next year, haven't you?

• 20:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 20:43Speaker 04

  I was born in 67 and you were in 87, right? So like, we're both, let's have a joint party.

• 20:49Speaker 03

  It's, it's, um, it's, it's weird for me because I was always the kid.

• 20:53Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 20:53Speaker 03

  You know, as I started very young and my first books came out when I was very young. So I was always very young and then to be 40, you're like, oh, I'm not, uh, I'm not, definitely not the kid.

• 21:03Speaker 04

  You are to me. So that's nice. Stick with me and I'll always make you feel young.

• 21:08Speaker 03

  Well, I appreciate that.

• 21:09Speaker 04

  Yay.

• 21:09Speaker 03

  No, I, I think, uh, the words in the books don't change, but who you are changes. And so you take something new out of them. And, and that's what this, that's what philosophy has always been. Um, I think it's important that you, that you think of philosophy, not something that you have read, but something that you're reading. It's an ongoing conversation, right? And that you're going back to it over and over again. So I think a lot of people go, oh, I studied that in college, right? Or, oh, you know, I, I listened to a podcast about that and then you're done. And that isn't to say it can't be influential the first time you, you hear it, but it's meant to be gone over, over and over and over again. Yes.

• 21:52Speaker 03

  Um, and, and that, that's, that's the practice.

• 21:58Speaker 04

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  That's true.

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• 24:41Speaker 05

  That, Davina, was true.

• 24:49Speaker 00

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• 25:18Speaker 04

  Can we go back to the days of those great philosophers and just picture what their life was like? Because I'm thinking, you know, you talk about books because I know you are a voracious reader and reading is really important to you. You have a kind of philosophy on how we can consume more books. And it's quite simple, really. Could you just explain to people like your outlook on how we can all read more?

• 25:46Speaker 03

  So in the 4th century B.C., Xeno, the founder of Stoicism, he's a merchant. He has no idea he's going to be a philosopher. And he's traveling and he visits the oracle, the temple of Apollo at Delphi. And he asks the oracle for the secret to the good life. And she tells him that it's having conversations with the dead. He has no idea what this means until he loses everything and he washes up in this shipwreck in Athens. And at a bookshop, he discovers Socrates and the ancient philosophers who were, most of them had already died by the time this happens. And he realizes that that's what philosophy is.

• 26:28Speaker 03

  It's a conversation with the great minds of the past, minds who are no longer with us. And that's what reading is. It's this magical thing where you're having a conversation with someone you've never met who might have been dead for 25 centuries. And I think way too many people are consuming way too much real time information these days, you know, breaking news, their social media feeds. And what they're not doing is communing with the wisest people who have ever lived. And there's something to me very soothing about reading things from a long time ago. And then what I find when I read a book about a historical event from 100 years ago or

• 27:12Speaker 03

  500 years ago is it helps me understand the present moment without any of my bias, right? So, you know, how do you want to understand what's happening in the United States right now? You know, read about what was happening in the United States 100 years ago or 150 years ago.

• 27:26Speaker 04

  I was just learning about the Civil War.

• 27:28Speaker 03

  Oh, it'll, it both terrifies you. Because you see how bad things can get. And then it also helps give you some perspective of, oh, these forces have always been with us. It's always been about.

• 27:39Speaker 04

  It's constantly repeating itself, isn't it? I love the things that the Stoics, the issues that they were talking about at the time. Can you just list some of those issues because they're exactly what we are all talking about now?

• 27:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know, we think, we think of Socrates walking around in his toga and, you know, Athens is gleaming and brilliant and it's a golden age. And, you know, actually, Socrates lives through the Peloponnesian War, right? Where his country loses, like Athens loses the Peloponnesian War. You know, it's ruled for a time by the 30 tyrants. There are plagues, there are environmental crises, there are, you know, trends and fads. And then on top of it, what we forget too, when we think about history, is that in addition to all the enormous things that are happening, people have health problems, people, people have family issues.

• 28:37Speaker 04

  Love.

• 28:38Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 28:39Speaker 04

  Broken hearts.

• 28:39Speaker 03

  Totally. They're just dealing with life all the time. And life is never simple. It's never easy. It never goes the way that we want it to go. It's largely outside of our control. And so they lived through moments of flux and change that the world has always felt like it is falling apart. And it always has been falling apart, even as it's been getting better, right? Like, they lived, we talk now about technological disruption and change. You know, every time that's ever existed, maybe except for the Dark Ages, was the most advanced time in human history. And so, you know, for them, it was like, hey, have you seen this new thing? It's called a mirror. We just invented a mirror, you know? And then, and then today we go, have you heard of this new thing?

• 29:24Speaker 03

  It's called social media. But both played to our fundamental human narcissism, right? And both change, you know, whatever we thought the status quo was.

• 29:34Speaker 04

  Sorry, you've just blown my mind. Wait, sorry, I've just suddenly thought about what the invention of the mirror was like.

• 29:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, you used to have to look at your reflection in water or something, right? Like, it literally did not exist.

• 29:46Speaker 04

  And also, it would do exactly the same thing as social media has done for young women and men about, I don't look good, I hate myself.

• 29:54Speaker 03

  I mean, even, you know, makeup is invented at some point or it gets better at some point. All these things are constantly being invented. We just assume that things have always been the way that they've been. And by that, I mean, we just assume these, these technologies were always there.

• 30:16Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 30:16Speaker 03

  And they weren't. You know, there's always been something causing some crisis, like, you know, we've gone through over the last 20 years, like the opioid crisis. But there was a gin crisis, you know, 100 years ago. Like, there's always been these enormous sort of disruptive forces that are roiling society. And they're different, but the one thing they all have in common is it feels like something we've never dealt with before.

• 30:43Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 30:44Speaker 03

  And we have dealt with things like this before.

• 30:47Speaker 04

  You know, reading this book makes you realize that history just goes around in circles.

• 30:52Speaker 03

  Same thing happening over and over and over again.

• 30:54Speaker 04

  And the other thing I think is interesting is Stoicism, or being Stoic, was always seen as something. Emotionless.

• 31:02Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 31:03Speaker 04

  You know, that people are like, oh, he's so stoic and it's somebody who shows no emotion. But that's not stoicism.

• 31:10Speaker 03

  No, I mean, stoicism is not stiff, upper lip, repress it, stuff it down. I mean, I do think stoicism is at some level trying to be less emotional when you're making decisions, but it's not being emotionless entirely, right? It's trying to step back and go, hey, is this going to age well? Right? Is my excitement about this going to wane? Is my anxiety about this going to wane? Is my fear about this going to look silly in retrospect? Is my anger about this going to take me in the wrong direction? That is stoicism. But I think lowercase stoicism in the English language is very different than uppercase stoicism, the philosophy, which is about.

• 31:52Speaker 04

  Stoicism.

• 31:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, which is about virtue and resilience and goodness and decency and all these other things.

• 31:58Speaker 04

  I was thinking about what you were just saying, you know, asking yourself the questions about being stoic. Am I, am I, am I, is this going to do something to make me do this? And this morning I woke up, I've been really nervous about today. Like, I really, I don't know what it is. Well, I just respect you so much, I think.

• 32:18Speaker 03

  That's very nice.

• 32:19Speaker 04

  And I was thinking about, I woke up and I was like, oh, my God, victim, victimhood is the opposite of stoicism. So if you were going to take stoicism over here, taking responsibility, you are in control of your own life, being in the present, and then you take victimhood, it's everybody else's fault.

• 32:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:39Speaker 04

  I have no control of my life. Is it possible, like, say you read this every day for a year? Do you think it would be possible to check? Because I feel like sometimes victimhood is so deep rooted in someone. It's been a pattern that someone's learned from childhood. Is it possible to change yourself? I mean, the willingness, I guess, has to be there, right? But.

• 33:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, to me, the study of stoicism is this process of working on yourself about trying to write new patterns about how you think about things. So if your, you know, your first impulse is to focus on, you know, the obstacle, how this is a problem, how this is holding you back, the stoics are trying to go, yeah, but what is this actually an opportunity for you to do? By the way, isn't the whole point of going to the gym that you struggle with hard, difficult things and you get stronger? And so it's kind of reframing how you think about this. You know, if you're constantly being bothered or upset by other people, the stoics are going, okay, but if you didn't know this was happening, would it bother you? If you thought they were joking, would you think about it differently?

• 33:46Speaker 03

  You know, if you pitied them, would you take it less personally? You know? And so they're trying to go, oh, wait, I have a certain, there's a certain amount of interpretation that's happening here. There's a certain amount of context that determines whether this is offensive or not, whether this is humiliating or not, degrading or not. And so it's this process. And what's so wonderful, I think, particularly about Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, is that you are glimpsing at the most powerful person in the world doing that for himself. You know, he goes, okay, so you bumped into this annoying, obnoxious person today. And then he goes, okay, but is a world without those kind of people possible? Well, no, a certain percentage of people are going to be that way.

• 34:30Speaker 03

  Okay, so it was a statistical inevitability that you would bump into them at some point. Why are you surprised? Why are you taking it personally? Why are you writing off the rest of humanity just because you experienced one person who you know is in the minority? And so you get this kind of, you're glimpsing at Marcus Aurelius practicing stoicism as opposed to being told what stoicism is.

• 34:57Speaker 04

  And I mean, this is an amazing bit of journaling.

• 35:01Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 35:01Speaker 04

  Right? And I know you do a lot of journaling and.

• 35:04Speaker 03

  I did it this morning before I came here.

• 35:06Speaker 04

  Don't you? It's like either read or journal.

• 35:09Speaker 04

  But journaling is looking, reflecting on, it's not like, I got up this morning and I had granola and milk. It's thinking about something that's happened to you.

• 35:21Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 35:22Speaker 04

  Or that might happen. Or that might happen.

• 35:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, like I.

• 35:25Speaker 04

  How to react.

• 35:26Speaker 03

  I could sit down and, you know, write down the facts of yesterday. And maybe if you're recording, if your journaling is for historical purposes, that's interesting. And we're lucky that some people have done that. But this morning I sat down with my journal and I said, okay, you're flying on the red eye from, from London to the West Coast of the United States today. That is a long flight. You're going to be tired, right? You're flying out of Heathrow, so almost certainly you're going to experience delays. You know, when you land, you're going to immediately have to do this, this and that. You know, who do you want to be on this? Right? What do you want to have to show for that time? Right? Like, what are you going to try to, are you going to veg out on the plane and watch movies?

• 36:11Speaker 03

  Are you going to catch up on sleep? You know, maybe that's what you want to do. Or, you know, here's the, here's, here's my to do list for that time. And then here's.

• 36:19Speaker 04

  What did that look like?

• 36:21Speaker 03

  I'm just writing them on the pages of a journal. I'm just.

• 36:23Speaker 04

  The to do list, though, what was in that?

• 36:25Speaker 03

  Like, oh, there's a thing I want to edit, there's some reading I want to do, there's some sleep that I do want to catch up. You know, I'm just writing, hey, this is, this is how I'd like this to go. And then here's who I want to be during that. You know, I don't want to lose my cool. I don't want to, you know, I don't, I also, I think one of the things I try to remind myself of is like, most of the things that you kind of see as an obligation or a burden are the things you dreamed of getting to do, you know? You know, like, you're so lucky, you know, to be.

• 36:56Speaker 04

  Me now.

• 36:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, to be jaded about this, or to roll your eyes at this, or to wish it was over, is to reject, you know, not just the present moment, but like your incredible good fortune and, and how not that many years ago, you would have loved to be, you know, like, for authors, like, you're, you're like, I hope my publisher sends me on book tour. That's the dream. And then they send you on book tour and you're like, oh, this is exhausting. I can't believe I have to go on book. How quickly the thing that we, we thought we'd be lucky to get to do someday, we, we suddenly, you know, take for granted and resent.

• 37:33Speaker 04

  I love that you've said all of that because that is why it isn't, I have studied the Stoics.

• 37:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:39Speaker 04

  That is why it is a revisit, a constant revisit. I mean, you talk about frameworks and I, I love a framework because, you know, obviously the opposite to a framework is chaos and chaos is terrifying. And to create a kind of framework where you have, it's safety makes me feel secure. Can you explain what a stoic framework or what that might look like?

• 38:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, what I'm trying to do when I journal is set an intention or a standard that I want to live by. I think when you are winging it, when you are just taking it as it comes, the chances that you're going to bring your best self to that are, are low, you know? And, and for the Stoics, the idea of the unexpected, you know, landing the heaviest is a big, is a, is a big part of it. So like, what is, what is this going catastrophically wrong? What does that look like? And would you be able to handle it? What would you do if that happened?

• 38:46Speaker 03

  You know, is it, and because part of it is like, oh, I'm anxious because I'm traveling. But what's the worst case that's, most of the worst case scenarios are still pretty good.

• 38:59Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 38:59Speaker 03

  You know, and, and very handleable. And so you kind of just work through the different things and then you walk through what, what, you know, you would like to be in those situations. That's kind of how I think about it. The confidence that I've handled things like this before, I've been through stuff before and I always come out okay, is, I think, what you're trying to train for, that you can, you know, I, I'll figure it out. And, and so much of, if you think about it, so much of your anxiety is selling yourself short, right? You're like, well, then I'll, what, oh my, you're not going to die, okay? Like, it's going to be fine.

• 39:44Speaker 03

  But you're, all you're thinking about is what could go wrong and not the fact that, yes, things go wrong all the time and then we figure out what we're going to do about it. We come up with a response, we come up with a solution, we come up with a plan B. And, and knowing that you've done that before should be evidence that you'll be able to do it again.

• 40:05Speaker 04

  And yes.

• 40:08Speaker 00

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• 42:15Speaker 04

  I love, there is a kind of list of things that you can do with your day, or that Stoics want to do, or the way that they look at things. And one of them was to do something for someone else.

• 42:26Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 42:27Speaker 04

  Could you give me those, that, there's a list, isn't there? What was there was one about dying as well that I really found fascinating? Because obviously, I'm, I'm slightly obsessed with death. And having a good death, I really want to die well.

• 42:38Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 42:38Speaker 04

  And the Stoics were thinking how to live a life.

• 42:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, the, the line from Cicero is that to philosophize is to learn how to die. That we're all learning ultimately, it's all going towards one place, which is eventually this thing comes to a close. And how, how are you going to wrap this up?

• 42:54Speaker 04

  Yes, like such a great way to think though, isn't it?

• 42:58Speaker 03

  It is. I mean, look, what leadership is, is about being the person that when somebody comes to you with a mistake, or a problem, or a concern, that you make it better and not worse, right? Your employee comes to you and goes, hey, I forgot to do this. Or hey, I interpreted this wrong. Or hey, you know, here's this problem. Oh my God, how could, you know, are you, are you that? Or are you, okay, here's what we're gonna do, right? There's a famous story, I think it's about the CEO of Intel, or maybe Hewlett Packard. This employee comes in, you know, they made this mistake that had cost the company like $10 million. And, you know, they come in and they say to the boss, I'm fired, right?

• 43:43Speaker 03

  And he goes, why would I fire you? I just spent $10 million educating you, right? And the, the job of the leader is to, is to go, hey, what are we learning from this? Now, look, sometimes there's consequences and sometimes, you know, the mistake has been made enough times that they're not learning the lesson.

• 44:00Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 44:00Speaker 03

  But, but, but mostly you're trying to think, what are we gonna do about this? What are we gonna do with this? What, how do we salvage it at best, you know, at worst? And at best, how do we use this to improve our processes in some way? How do we use this to, as a starting point for a conversation? You know, oftentimes, I'm thinking about this with my team, where it's like, somebody made this mistake. I want to talk about it, the meaning not to humiliate or, you know, embarrass this person feel bad. But to go, hey, here's my philosophy. This brought up an opportunity for me to explain my philosophy about how we do things here. And so, yes, I didn't like that this happened.

• 44:45Speaker 03

  But if we can all learn from it, then, then ultimately, it's better that it happened than it didn't happen.

• 44:53Speaker 04

  Yes, I mean, I think my boss, when I was working at Models One, if I made a mistake, he was quite a, a, a strong boss.

• 45:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:02Speaker 04

  But if I made a mistake, I would always tell him, no matter how

• 45:06Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 45:07Speaker 04

  big it was, because he would always act with gratitude, even if he was a bit like, okay, we've got to deal with this, but, you know, thank you.

• 45:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, if you know about it, you can deal with it.

• 45:17Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 45:18Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 45:18Speaker 04

  Exactly. Never cover up a mistake.

• 45:20Speaker 03

  Yes. Yeah, I mean, the, the other way, the other analogy people use is like, if you lie to the doctor, the doctor can't help you get better. And so, having a policy of honesty and facing things in your life about yourself, or about what you've done, is, you know, the sort of first step to actually doing something about it.

• 45:42Speaker 04

  I mean, you've recently written a brilliant, brilliant piece about regret, and how it's, there's no point in it. Could you just give us a sort of synopsis about regret? And what to do with that? Because I think people sometimes, and it's a, it's a little bit like saying sorry, and it doesn't matter when you say sorry. You can feel regret for something that you did. I had somebody come up and apologize for something that happened 20 years ago, that I didn't, I wasn't even aware that they did.

• 46:15Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 46:16Speaker 04

  So what does regret do to people? And how can you handle that in the best possible way?

• 46:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, it, it, it's either something you're in denial about, or it's something that's chewing you up. And I don't think either of those is the right, is the right way to think about it. You know, why did you do it? What were you thinking? What did you, what, what assumptions did you have? I think when I, when I think back to periods of my life where I made mistakes, or I did the wrong thing, I, I'm always interested in what story I was telling myself in that moment, right? And have I learned to tell myself a better story now? Ultimately, if, if you learn from it, if you grow from it, if you're changed from it, it's part of getting you to where you're gonna end up.

• 47:07Speaker 03

  But just this kind of sitting in the past is really no different than, you know, sort of dreading or, or being anxious about the future. What, what you're neglecting is the, the things you could be doing right here in the present moment.

• 47:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, so you want to be, everything that you've done in the past helps you behave in an appropriate manner now.

• 47:29Speaker 03

  Hopefully. Or you're just repeating the same mistakes over and over again, which is also what we do. Is this pattern serving me?

• 47:37Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 47:37Speaker 03

  Right? Feels good in the moment, but then I feel horrible later. And there's a connection between these two things. And so, how do we, how do we try to do it differently? How do we, you know, I'm thinking about, because the Daily Stoic is 10 years old now. And so, the world has changed so much in that time, so much. But how am I different, right? How, what changes have I made? What, and then, I think more alarmingly, where am I the same? Like, where am I still doing the same things over and over and over again? And not liking where it gets me?

• 48:13Speaker 04

  But this is why I love life, because if we'd have done it, it would be boring, right?

• 48:17Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 48:18Speaker 04

  Like if we were a finished piece.

• 48:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, or if there was a pill you could take to fix all the things.

• 48:22Speaker 04

  You don't want to do that.

• 48:23Speaker 03

  No.

• 48:23Speaker 04

  The journey's the best bit.

• 48:25Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm. And it's, uh, you know, the, the patterns might still be there, but maybe they're faster, right? Or, or the tendencies might be there, but maybe you're slower to be triggered by them, right? And so, I think, you know, it's about getting better.

• 48:45Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 48:45Speaker 03

  It's about, it's about making incremental iterative changes. And to, to, to be proud of yourself for the progress that you've, that you've made. Like, I, I would, I wouldn't call myself a Stoic, or say that I am an embodiment of Stoic philosophy. But when I compare myself to who I was at 19, you know,

• 49:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, you're winning.

• 49:05Speaker 03

  Of course, yeah, you did all right.

• 49:07Speaker 04

  And I like the way you talk about just walk forwards.

• 49:11Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 49:12Speaker 04

  You know, don't stand still, don't go backwards, just keep.

• 49:15Speaker 03

  Just do a little bit every day.

• 49:16Speaker 04

  Every day, yeah. I really want to know, who are your three favorite Stoic philosophers?

• 49:23Speaker 03

  Well, that's easy, because the Stoicism is defined by the big three. We have Marcus Aurelius, the Emperor of Rome. Then we have his favorite philosopher, Epictetus, who was a slave. So you, you have extreme power and powerlessness. And then, kind of right in the middle of those two, sort of ideologically and temperamentally, you have Seneca. So Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus are kind of the big Stoics, the best, they're the Stoics who we have the most complete and, the complete writings of. And I think at different phases in my life, different Stoics have struck me differently. But, but Marcus Aurelius is my guy.

• 50:03Speaker 04

  Hmm. Could I ask you also to talk very quickly? Because you did mention earlier, the obstacle is the way. Or you just talked about the obstacle, but you wrote that brilliant book, The Obstacle is the Way, and that is such a, I think that is another game changing book, because people always get paralyzed by obstacles. It's like, oh, I can't get past it, like, I don't know what to do. But just in a nutshell, could you sum up your entire book in one brilliant soundbite, please?

• 50:31Speaker 03

  I can.

• 50:31Speaker 04

  Ryan, that would be great.

• 50:32Speaker 03

  Yes, the, the idea for the Stoics is that every situation we face, good, bad, big, small, every encounter, every interaction, every choice is not an obstacle, it's not a problem. It's not something being done to you. It's something that's being presented to you as an opportunity, right? The impediment to action advances action, it stands in the way, becomes the way. Marcus Aurelius is like, actually, yeah, you had this plan, you had this idea, you, you, you wanted it to go a certain way. But, but you have this superpower, which you've always changed that in response to the situation that you're in. So, so Stoicism is the idea that every situation is an opportunity to practice one of the Stoic virtues.

• 51:16Speaker 03

  Courage, self-discipline, justice, or wisdom. So, so, you know, you thought today was gonna be, you know, a day of self-discipline, and actually, it's a day of forgiveness. Or, you know, you thought it was gonna be, you know, a day of learning, and it's a day of courage, right? You're constantly being presented this opportunity in big situations and small ones, to put these ideas into practice. And in fact, I think The more stressful, the more complicated, the more difficult, the higher the stakes, the situation, the more, the more the opportunity is there to, to step up and be one of those things.

• 51:55Speaker 04

  That, I mean, that's why I love what you say when you say do something difficult every day.

• 51:59Speaker 03

  Yes. Yeah, you, you want to build the, the practice of, of stepping towards challenges rather than away from challenges.

• 52:08Speaker 03

  You know, it's funny because, you know, The Obstacle is the Way became this book that's popular with entrepreneurs and athletes, and they're mostly talking about, you know, what happens when the economy turns? What happens when you blow out your knee? What happens when the, the team is, you know, way down at halftime? How do you respond to that obstacle? And that is a huge part of like how we, we turn obstacles upside down. But, but practically, when Marcus Realist is talking about this formulation, when he, when he writes it in Meditations, he's actually talking about like jerks. He's talking about people who are rude, people who are frustrating. He's saying, you know, this person is a chance for you to put your ideas

• 52:48Speaker 03

  about Stoicism into practice, to be patient, to be understanding, to be empathetic, you know, to be creative. How do I get this person to do what needs to be done, even though they definitely don't want to do it?

• 53:01Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 53:02Speaker 03

  And, and so if we can go, oh yeah, this, this person, this person isn't doing something to me. They're not blowing apart my plans because they are my plans. This is the mission, right? The mission is to get through this encounter and not be an asshole too, right? Like it's, it's, it's to, it's to not let them make you like them. That's the challenge. And that, that might not be what you woke up thinking you were going to do today, but that is the moment that you're in right now.

• 53:30Speaker 04

  Oh my gosh, Ryan, you might have to come back and do a part two at some point.

• 53:36Speaker 04

  So.

• 53:36Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 53:38Speaker 04

  Before we end, we're going to talk about books. I do one of the things that you suggest, which I love, which is take a book with you, like everywhere, and instead of picking out your phone on the train, get your book out. And even if it's five minutes, two pages, you're, you're getting through it, right?

• 53:54Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 53:55Speaker 04

  So we thought we'd recommend some books.

• 53:57Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 53:57Speaker 04

  So my one that I am recommending to everybody is this. This is a life-changing book. And it's 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living. And it is by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman. And it is amazing. Over 3 million copies sold. It must be more than that now.

• 54:22Speaker 03

  It's crazy.

• 54:23Speaker 04

  It's, I mean, it is amazing. It's 10 years, isn't it?

• 54:25Speaker 03

  Mm hmm. This is the 10-year anniversary edition.

• 54:28Speaker 04

  I mean, the number of people's lives that you have changed with this book is so brilliant. Anyway, that's my, everybody, in fact, buy 10 copies and gift it to everybody for Christmas, birthday, blah, blah, blah. Really important. Great, great gift for anybody going to university. Michael gave it to my son.

• 54:45Speaker 03

  That's very sweet.

• 54:46Speaker 04

  So these are your three.

• 54:48Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 54:48Speaker 04

  Please can you talk me through them?

• 54:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, you told, you told me to pick three books for someone who is starting over.

• 54:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:54Speaker 03

  Yes. Okay. So let's do Seneca's On the Shortness of Life first. He says, it's not that life is short, it's that we waste a lot of it.

• 55:05Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 55:06Speaker 03

  And, and my favorite line from him is, he says, the one thing fools have in common is that they're always getting ready to start. They say, I'll do it later, right? I'll do it when I get everything perfect. And life's too short for that, right? He says, the future is uncertain. Live immediately, get after it. You know, it doesn't matter how old you are. What matters is that you have some indeterminate amount of time left in the future. How are you going to spend it? And I think this is, you know, just one of the most powerful essays ever written on making the most of the short time we have on this planet.

• 55:47Speaker 04

  Do you know who is doing that in a major way? I don't know him, but it's an actor called Damian Lewis. I don't know if you've heard of him. He was.

• 55:55Speaker 03

  From Homeland?

• 55:56Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 55:57Speaker 03

  Yes, yeah.

• 55:58Speaker 04

  And he has, very, very sadly, he lost his wife, Helen McQuarrie. And he has decided that he is going to be a musician. He's the frontman in a band.

• 56:10Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 56:10Speaker 04

  And he's touring around and he doesn't give two hoots what anybody thinks about that. You know, because sometimes people are like, singers can't be actors, actors can't be singers. He's like, I don't care what you think. I'm doing this. And it's never, it's never too late.

• 56:24Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 56:25Speaker 04

  Like, if that's the thing he's always wanted to do, go do it.

• 56:28Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 56:29Speaker 04

  And yeah, so I feel like he's somebody who's living that right now. Well done, Damian.

• 56:34Speaker 03

  Okay, so at middle age, Montaigne, whose entire life had been directed by his father, by his sort of, by the, his family, by his ambition, decides to retire to his library to study himself. He says, I'm going to figure out who I am, what I believe, what I think, you know, what matters to me.

• 56:58Speaker 04

  I definitely want to.

• 56:59Speaker 03

  And his essays are some of the most, you know, incredible, he invents the essay, but, but his essays are some of the most incredible sort of memoir and self-study you will ever read. Sarah Bakewell writes this sort of series of, she, she, she explores the questions that Montaigne asks in his essays. It's a, it's a lovely, a lovely book.

• 57:20Speaker 04

  What's it called again?

• 57:21Speaker 03

  This is called How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and 20 Attempts to Answer.

• 57:26Speaker 04

  I'm taking that home.

• 57:27Speaker 03

  It's very good, of course.

• 57:27Speaker 04

  Thank you very much. Thank you, Ryan.

• 57:29Speaker 03

  And then.

• 57:29Speaker 04

  That's amazing.

• 57:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, Montaigne's thing is people are experts on philosophy, they're experts on science, but how many people know themselves? And, and if you don't know yourself, what do you know?

• 57:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:42Speaker 03

  Right? Okay, last one is the autobiography of Malcolm X. It's a coming, it's a coming of age first, you know? He, he, he has a troubled childhood, troubled teenage years. He becomes a criminal, goes to jail. And in, in, in prison, he discovers reading, he discovers books, and he comes out civil rights activist, a, a religious figure. I think that's, that's the first coming of age in Malcolm X's life. But at the end, he has this kind of second coming of age. Like, I think when I read Autobiography of Malcolm X as a young man, I was interested in Malcolm X finding himself as a young man and rebuilding his life, becoming, you know, going from Malcolm Little to Malcolm X.

• 58:25Speaker 03

  But as I've gotten older, I'm much more interested in his second coming of age towards the end of his life. And we don't know, you know, where it ultimately would have ended up, but, but coming to terms with the fact that he didn't believe all the things that he believed anymore. And that, that he might have, you know, said or done or believed things that, that actually weren't true with his values, that he might have, you know, he breaks with the Nation of Islam, right? And, and ultimately becomes, you know, in, in his final days, is talking about a philosophy of, of much more about love and openness and connection and understanding and collaboration. And, and I guess that, that idea of questioning the things you've believed

• 59:05Speaker 03

  for a long time and the, the willingness to begin again and to become a new person is, I think, a really powerful, beautiful thing. I'm, I'm fascinated with people who change political parties or change churches or change philosophies or change careers. Because, you know, sometimes it's because they disavow everything and sometimes it's just because that chapter in their life has come to an end and they're ready to, to start something new.

• 59:34Speaker 04

  Ryan, you did not disappoint. You like the perfect guest for this podcast because that is exactly it. You are never stuck. Everyone can begin again.

• 59:45Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 59:46Speaker 04

  Doesn't matter who you are, where you are, when it is like, you, you can change. And, and if you change, that's okay.

• 59:54Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 59:55Speaker 04

  Be who you want to be.

• 59:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, Seneca said, too many people live as, too many people are afraid to change and simply live as they have begun.

• 1:00:06Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:00:07Speaker 03

  Which, which leads me to another book I would throw, I'll, I'll throw you a bonus one. Have you read David Brooks's The Second Mountain?

• 1:00:14Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:00:14Speaker 03

  He's basically saying that, you know, you spend the first half of your life trying to climb some mountain, you know, it's sports or it's business or it's entertainment or, or whatever it is. And then you get there and you realize it wasn't all that you thought it would be or that it didn't, it didn't do everything for you that you thought it would.

• 1:00:32Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:00:33Speaker 03

  And you, you kind of at that moment face a question of, well, are you going to do more and more and more of it and hope that things change? Or are you going to try to climb a, a second mountain? And usually that second mountain should be less financial and more service oriented.

• 1:00:51Speaker 04

  I'm coming to hug you. Oh my God. Thank you. Thank you. No, Ryan, you don't understand. You are amazing.

• 1:01:00Speaker 03

  So nice.

• 1:01:01Speaker 04

  Everybody, Ryan Holiday. You are, like, you, you are so brilliant. So just in case you missed this episode here, if you loved today's episode, I know you're going to love that one, that one, there.

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