Daniel Barkhuff on Restoring the 4 Stoic Virtues to Leadership

On today’s episode Ryan talks to Daniel Barkhuff about his path to the Naval academy and becoming a Navy SEAL, our individual obligation to each other and to serving the common good, Admiral Stockdale and restoring the 4 Stoic virtues to leadership, and more. Daniel Barkhuff is the president and treasurer of Veterans for Responsible Leadership. He attended the United States Naval Academy and served 7 years on active duty as a member of Naval Special Warfare and completed multiple combat tours. Upon leaving active duty he attended Harvard Medical School and is now a faculty member and Emergency Medicine doctor at the University of Vermont, and the father of three small girls. GiveWell is the best site for figuring out how and where to donate your money to have the greatest impact. If you’ve never donated to GiveWell’s recommended charities before, you can have your donation matched up to $1,000 before the end of June or as long as matching funds last. Just go to GiveWell.org/STOIC and pick podcast and The Daily Stoic at checkout. Streak is a fully embedded workflow and productivity software in Gmail that lets you manage all your work right in your inbox. Streak gives you tools for email tracking, mail merges, and snippets to save time and scale up your email efficiency. Sign up for Streak today at Streak.com/stoic and get 20% off your first year of their Pro Plan. Go Macro is a family-owned maker of some of the finest protein bars around. They're vegan, non-GMO, and they come in a bunch of delicious flavors. Visit gomacro.com and use promo code STOIC for 30% off your order plus free shipping on all orders over $50. The Jordan Harbinger Show is one of the most interesting podcasts on the web, with guests like Kobe Bryant, Mark Manson, Eric Schmidt, and more. Listen to one of Ryan's episodes right now (1, 2), and subscribe to the Jordan Harbinger Show today.***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/dailystoicTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@daily_stoic Follow Daniel Barkhuff: Veterans for Responsible Leadership: https://vfrl.org/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DBarkhuff 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.

• 0:02Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these Stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space, when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal,

• 0:46Ryan Holiday?

  and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead may bring.

• 0:53Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. My guest today is a Navy SEAL, medical doctor, combat veteran. I loved this conversation. I reached out to Daniel Barkov maybe four months ago and didn't really hear back, so I followed up. I followed up. I kept chasing it because he was someone I really wanted to talk to ever since I saw a viral video of him, which I won't spoil because I really want you to listen to this interview. So Dan attended the United States Naval Academy. He graduated in May 2001. He spent seven years on active duty as a member of Naval Special Warfare.

• 1:37Ryan Holiday?

  He completed multiple combat tours. And then after medical school, if that wasn't enough service and if that wasn't an elite enough group, he just went ahead and attended Harvard Medical School. And then he attended his Emergency Medicine residency at the University of New Mexico. And he's now a Doctor of Emergency Medicine and a faculty member at the University of Vermont. He's the father of three young girls. He's dipped his toe, I don't want to say into politics. I would say he's dipped his toes into public leadership. He's the founder of the Veterans for Responsible Leadership. I don't think it's a partisan organization at all. I think it's actually very much needed. It's an organization that's trying to restore

• 2:22Ryan Holiday?

  Ethics, responsibility, ownership, accountability, wisdom. You know, actually, those four stoic virtues of courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom to leadership at the local level, the national level. And he's calling on veterans who, I think, more than, you know, us civilians, have had some very special training in not just leadership, but in one's sort of constitutional obligations, right? They swear an oath to protect and uphold the Constitution of the United States, to protect us from enemies, foreign and domestic. And Dan, you can tell in this interview, takes that very, very seriously. It's a great interview. We talk about COVID.

• 3:07Ryan Holiday?

  We talk about our obligations to each other. We talk about his path to the Naval Academy, to the SEALs. And then we do talk politics, but again, we talk about it through the lens of what does great leadership look like? Not Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, but what does leadership look like? What does it mean to be a serious person, to be responsible, to be honest, to serve something greater than yourself? Dan knows a lot about that. We talk about Admiral Stockdale, we talk about the great influenza, talk about a lot of stuff. I think you're really going to like this interview. I felt so fired up after doing it. You can check out the Veterans for Responsible Leadership.

• 3:51Ryan Holiday?

  Their website is vfrl.org. If you are a veteran, he really wants you to sign up to become a member. You can also donate to support this wonderful organization. And you can follow Dan on Twitter, which I do. I think he's great. At @DBarkuff. That's @D and then B A R K H U F F. So check it out. And check out his viral commercial. He did a commercial for the Lincoln Project, actually two. And then he's written some great articles for The Daily Beast. All great stuff. And there's also a great profile of him in The New Yorker. If you're getting triggered from this because you don't like it when I, you know, even vaguely dip my toe into politics.

• 4:37Ryan Holiday?

  I don't know what to tell you. The Stoics were involved in politics. They were involved in public life. I'm certainly not dragging Marcus Aurelius, or Seneca, or Cato into the political realm. And this is where they made their living. This is what their job was. So if you are triggered, I would ask you to be Stoic and listen to this interview. I think you can learn the most. And I think we'll all leave being inspired by Dan. I'll leave you this quote that he tweeted. It says 49 minutes ago. He says, "There's no tangible policy or benefit worth sacrificing one's honor. Nothing comes close. Nothing." I think it's totally right and a good encapsulation of today's episode. Here's my interview with

• 5:18Ryan Holiday?

  Dan Barkov of the Veterans for Responsible Leadership. So I was curious about your path into the Navy. It seemed like you've been somewhat unassuming about it, but clearly you had your act together a little bit, or you wouldn't have gotten into the Naval Academy, right?

• 5:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I was, you know, one of those kids who just was interested in the military, you know, from an early age. So, you know, reading books and, you know, all that kind of stuff. And was sort of, well, still am a history buff of sorts. You know, and I only applied to the service academy. So I applied to Air Force West Point and Navy, and that was it. And I always had my heart kind of set on one of those. And, you know, the Naval Academy at the time, you know, seemed, I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do besides wear a uniform. So at the time, you know, the Naval Academy can do anything in

• 6:20Speaker 01

  the Navy, plus anything in the Marine Corps. So it seemed like the most, the broadest set of choices to make, to simplify it.

• 6:32Ryan Holiday?

  But you don't come from like a military family, right?

• 6:35Speaker 01

  No, we're not a military family. I think, you know, I, just like everybody, I had a, you know, a grandfather who served in World War II, but my grandfather was stateside the entire time. You know, to hear him, hear him discuss it, he worked on some, you know, some radar sets in Michigan, and that was his wartime service. My other grandfather was a scientist, a chemist, and I think he did some, some peripheral work on, on the Manhattan Project. And then my parents were, neither one of them were, were military. Yeah, so not, not a military background at all, just kind of always just was interested.

• 7:20Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I've, I've been lucky enough to speak at the, at the academy, I think, twice, once to the Stockdale Center. And what I'm always blown away by when you meet these kids is like, you know, you meet a regular college kid and, you know, they're young, they have ambition or whatever, but there does seem to be sort of a seriousness and a, and a maturity to them that when I think back at where I was at 18 years old, or, you know, 15 years old, when you're starting to think seriously about it, it's, it's like almost incomprehensible to me. Where, where did that drive in you come from? Or where did that sort of sense of, what is it, duty? Is it responsibility? Is it call to adventure? What, what draws you there?

• 8:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, good, good question. So it's, it's actually an interesting question. When you think about military recruiting at all, you know, one, one of the things that fascinates me is, is this issue of having switched from a conscription-based force in, in Vietnam. In 1973, we ended draft and switching to an all-volunteer force. And, you know, you get this selection bias, right? So there's, you know, I don't mean the term bias in the, you know, as a layperson, but scientific bias where if you're, if you're trying to recruit volunteers, you have to appeal to them in some way. And the military's done that. Pretty well, for the most part, you know, through a couple of different means.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  One is, you know, sort of socioeconomic incentives, right? You come in, we'll pay for college, you know? You get, you get a free college experience and to a lot of folks that was, you know, attractive. That's why they joined the military. Or, you know, it's simple to get out of, you know, their, their small little town and see the world and all that kind of thing. And then you have a cohort of folks who, who really are interested in, you know, for lack of a better term, the adventure of it. So, you know, they want to fly a jet. They want to jump out of an airplane. They want to go to a combat zone. Uh, you know, I, I started at USNA in, in 97, so we're, you know, four years pre nine 11.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  Um, you know, the only show in town at that time was like Bosnia, you know, Kosovo, you know, people were, um, and, and so choosing the SEAL teams in part was, um, was, was a, a natural tendency to, to be drawn towards, um, you know, an area of conflict. So, you know, the, uh, the, the naval academy was just something that just seemed really cool to me. And, you know, I wish I had a, uh, you know, a deeper, you know, I think they inculcate values of, of duty and honor and responsibility, but that's not why I went there. I went there because I wanted to fly jets and jump out of airplanes.

• 10:11Ryan Holiday?

  Well, that, that is an interesting part of it that I feel like, again, only from my experiences, I, I also talked to the Marine Recruiting Command, uh, maybe two or three years ago. And, and I was talking to one of the recruiters and he was like, one of the things people don't understand about this is he's like, my job is to poach kids who otherwise would have gone to Harvard or Yale or Dartmouth or UCLA. Like, I didn't really, again, it was so outside of my experience, I didn't really think about like, this is the elite of the elite. And, and so, so it's not like these kids that end up at the Naval Academy, um, were otherwise going to go to community college. Like, these are the, some of the best kids in the nation.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, and the the service academies are really, really good at, um, you know, appealing to to to kids who are wired like like I was wired, right? Like, so, you know, you see it and you see it even in their, you know, their recruiting commercials, right? You know, you you got the the Marine Corps, you know, the guy is the the handsome young man who, you know, climbs the mountain and slays the dragon and, you know, all that kind of stuff. That's appealing to a certain demographic, right? That's that's appealing to that's, you know, there's self-selection there. That's not something everyone's gonna want to do. You know, the vast majority of the population has no interest in, you know,

• 11:33Speaker 01

  climbing the mountain and slaying the dragon, but to to a certain, uh, you know, a certain subset of people who are attracted to that that adventure and being part of that tribe, um, that that deals with, you know, national security problems, um, that that's that's a compelling compelling message.

• 11:54Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I was watching this, uh, that college admissions scandal documentary on Netflix, and I I read a book about it, too. And it was just striking, it it, you know, you could sort of lump all kids in together. And then I was just thinking about like, you know, not only were not all kids trying to cheat their way into USC, but but certain kids were sort of passing up, you know, options to go to these great schools, to to go to one of these service academies. The other thing I was gonna, I was curious to get your opinion about on the academy, um, and it it it's just another observation I had, um, you know, that obviously it was somewhat controversial for a long time, whether they should allow women, whether women should be in certain roles. One of the things that struck me is like, the young men were very impressive, uh, but maybe it's the maturity

• 12:37Ryan Holiday?

  difference in the in the genders at those ages. But it's every time I met a young woman at the Naval Academy or in one of the armed forces, in any position of sort of a young, but in a position that was going places, you're just like, wow, you know, like, there's just a, there's a real, like, you could just feel the the maturity and the seriousness on this person. It's an interesting sensation that I, again, I haven't really experienced in, what would you call it, civilian life.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  Sure, yeah, that's, I mean, that's a, that's a great point. So, you know, I mean, when I think of, you know, the women that I was privileged to, to serve alongside, um, you know, all the, all the hardships and, and dangers of a military existence during wartime that, you know, I experienced, that, you know, any, anyone in the military, you know, the danger of, um, eating an IED on route Irish, the danger of, um, you know, just being away from home and your loved ones for, for years on end and, and dealing with that, the dangers of, of TBI, the dangers of, you know, psychological

• 13:45Speaker 01

  injury, um, they have all that, plus on top of that, you know, they're dealing with systemic sexism, right, you know, so, um, a- a- at least if, you know, even if the command climate is, uh, you know, even if you've got the best commanding officer and the best command sergeant major ever, and they're, you know, all about having, um, enabling, you know, women, um, it's still, you know, frankly, there, there are difficulties of, you know, of gender, um, that exist probably in any profession, but they're still there in the military. So, you know, on top of all the hardships of military life, they're also signing up to join, you know, a male-dominated organization, right?

• 14:28Speaker 01

  So, you know, it, it, it takes a special kind of, of citizen to, uh, you know, to sign up for that, and I couldn't agree more. I, I've been very impressed from, um, you know, all of my experiences with, uh, you know, women in the armed forces.

• 14:45Ryan Holiday?

  So, you, you mentioned briefly that sort of maybe you don't enter one of these, uh, branches or these academies with the, the fullest sense of duty and honor and responsibility and leadership, but these are values that you get hammered, uh, into your skull almost immediately. Talk to me about the sort of, I, I think especially at the Naval Academy, the, the code of conduct. It seems like one of the things the academies do extremely well is teaching, uh, principles and sort of core values.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, so...

• 15:23Speaker 01

  The Naval Academy, and I would imagine, although I don't know this for sure, I would imagine the Air Force Academy and probably West Point as well, though it's, it's because of the, uh, the experience of the Vietnam POWs, and, you know, a large number of them were pilots. I'd imagine Air Force and Navy, you know, are, um, even more so than West Point, really kind of, kind of, um, you know, inculcate their new recruits with, with this messaging. And what I mean by that is, you know, you, you go to the Naval Academy, um, you know, I forget exactly when you start. Let's say you start July 1st, and you're, you're there in pleat summer.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  And within 24 hours, you know, people are talking to you. The, the oral tradition of the POWs in Vietnam, um, is, is part of your daily existence. You know, you talk about the rope trick. You talk about the Hanoi Hilton. You talk about the tap code. Um, you know, you, you hear firsthand, um, you know, people like, uh, you know, Coff- uh, Coffey and McCain and Stockdale. Um, you know, these people come and, and at the time, they actually spoke to us. I remember Admiral Stockdale coming to lunch one day and just talking about, you know, um, you know, duty and honor.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  And, you know, you, you do absorb those lessons. And you see, you absorb them, not just through like rote repetition, but you absorb them because you see, you know, firsthand that your peers are trying to do the right thing, trying to live up to, to that. Um, and you know, it starts in small ways. It starts when, um, You know, I obviously didn't go to normal college, right? I went to the service academy.

• 17:17Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  The, you know, people are not cheating on tests, right? People are not, you know, telling, telling lies. They're not, they're not lying about where they were, you know, when they, they missed curfew or the like, you know, they're, they're telling the truth. And when you see other people doing that, when you see your peers doing that, when you see your friends doing that, there's a positive peer pressure to, to ethical conduct that I think, you know, the service academies have just mastered, kind of, you know, getting people to buy into that. And, and, you know, after a time, you know, you realize that that's how you want to live your life.

• 17:59Ryan Holiday?

  It's, it's weird writing about Stoicism because, you know, it's this sort of ancient thing. It's dusty, it's, you know, it's these, these names from history, a lot of which, you know, people struggle to pronounce. What's so fascinating about Stockdale is, is like, it wasn't that long ago. I mean, you met him, but it feels, it, it feels like he's from another age and then at the same time, he's very much of this age and made, you know, like a difference for you and all your classes and all the classes since. I just, I find that to be both sort of reassuring and very inspiring at the same time.

• 18:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. So Stockdale is just, he is just, you know, the definition of an American badass, right? Like, so the dude, the dude is a POW and smashes his face in with a chair so he doesn't get put on camera. They take his chair out of his room. He cuts his wrist because he's like, nope, I'm not doing it. And, you know, he led those men through, you know, years and years of torment and captivity and loneliness. And he did it, I mean, you know, I, I don't know how familiar you are with Stockdale, but I imagine you've heard this, you know, he gets shot down and as he's floating down to earth, he's like, I have now entered the world of Epictetus, right?

• 19:20Speaker 01

  So he, he, he realized immediately, immediately that he no longer had control over much of his existence. But what he could control is the way he saw it. You know, it's very. It's very David Foster Wallace of him to, you know, to recognize that seconds after being blown out of the sky.

• 19:45Ryan Holiday?

  I spoke to his son, maybe about a year ago, and, you know, I'd always been under the impression that Stockdale was the highest ranking prisoner. And what he had told me is that, that sort of, strictly speaking, that wasn't true. That there were a handful of other pilots, not a handful, let's say, one or two other pilots, who for whatever reason either didn't want to be identified as the highest ranking, or, you know, maybe they knew something and it was important that they, that they weren't identified as being higher ranking. And he said, what he felt encapsulated who his dad was as a person, was that he decided, like, he stepped into that role. So it's not just like, like, hey, he's the highest ranking, so, you know, there's certain

• 20:30Ryan Holiday?

  responsibilities and he's going to accept that. It's, it's more, it's, it's almost more of a de Gaulle situation where, you know, the leadership had collapsed in some form or another, or there wasn't, it wasn't clear, you know, who deserved the ball at that moment. And what I think is so badass about Stockdale is this sense that, no, no, he called for it, like, he took, he took it because it was there.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  When you, when you're, you're at a point where you recognize something that needs to be done, and you realize that you have the, you know, you have the, the chutzpah and the, and the, you know, qualifications to do it, and you decide that your duty is to do it, that's, that's, you know, in my opinion, that's, that's the gold standard. And that's what it means to be, you know, to be a man, to, to, and I don't mean that that women can't do it as well, you know, of course.

• 21:29Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  You know, I mean, it, you know, to, to recognize your duty and to do your duty despite consequence is, is fascinating. And, you know, that my, my heroes, whether they're, you know, whether they're fictional like Robert Jordan, or whether they're real like Admiral Stockdale, they all aspire to that. And, and, and I aspire to it, though I've, I've, you know, everyone's imperfect, but, you know, that's, that's what. I would like to be remembered for.

• 22:01Ryan Holiday?

  No, I want to talk about that, too. I just know if we touch it in the beginning, certain people will turn off. So I want to warm up to it. No, to me, what Stockdale does in that moment, and what I think great leaders do, it's some sort of reverberation of that question from Hillel, you know, if not me, then who? Or, you know, Moses asked himself in the Bible, like, who am I to go to the Pharaoh? And the answer is like, the fucking guy. You're the guy. Like, if you don't do it, it's not going to get done. And I think what leaders do when stuff breaks down, or there is no, you know, when things have bogged down or gotten stuck, a leader steps up and says, here's the direction we're going to go. Follow me.

• 22:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, you know, the, the reason these, you know, ideals are so powerful is that they're not, you know, they apply across time and space, right? They're not, they're not unique to a particular culture. You know, when I think of, probably my closest friend that I lost in, in the wars was this, was this guy Nate Hardy, who was, he was killed in, in 2008. It's just absolute stud. I was just, just shocked, along with, you know, so many other people when, when we found out that he was killed. And, and, you know,

• 23:31Speaker 01

  he was just a, just a lion, like, just an absolute, like, the last guy you would have thought, just good at everything, just incredible at everything, incredible operator. And, you know, when he's, he's buried now in Arlington, and, you know, I still have the flyer from, you know, his funeral, and it's, you know, but who will go for us, right? Like, who will go for us? Here I am, send me. You know, that is, you know, people who, people who view challenge like that is, it's a powerful, it's a powerful and eternal and universal

• 24:12Speaker 01

  good. You know, humankind recognizes the, you know, the sacrifice of the individual for the greater good as, you know, something noble.

• 24:24Ryan Holiday?

  Got a quick message from one of our sponsors here and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned.

• 24:31Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. And speaking of Arlington, and again, we'll just dance around this first part. But you know, the, the, the sort of infamous question of a certain leader standing in Arlington saying, I don't get it. What's in it for them? You know, what's striking to me about that is, is, is that that question kind of works both ways, right? Like you could, you can say it in this sort of sneering, like sucker implication, but also what's so majestic and inspiring and heroic about every one of those gravestones and, and not just the gravestones,

• 25:11Ryan Holiday?

  but also, you know, the life of someone like Stockdale who, who did make it home, is that there wasn't anything in it for them. And yet they did it anyway. But greatness, to me, one definition of, of heroism is when you do something good that's not in your self-interest. Like, I like writing books. I write books. It's also in my interest. That can't qualify as heroic because like my interests with it are aligned. To me, heroism is when you do the hard thing, even though you bear the brunt of the consequences of that thing.

• 25:53Speaker 01

  Sure. I mean, I would, I would push back a tiny bit and say that, um, you know, that the, you know, what's in it for them or what was in it for them? Well, well, a lot was in it for them. Um, you know, they chose to stay truth to their oath. They chose not to, you know, drop their shield. And, um, you know, they're, they're immortal for that. And, and, you know, the, you know, it's a very stoic thing to, um, you know, to, to say these external consequences are of less import than the internal consequence. So,

• 26:33Speaker 01

  you know, in a way, it's, you know, for, um, you know, the, the actualization of, of sacrifice in, in wartime is, uh, you know, the most stoic thing imaginable.

• 26:46Ryan Holiday?

  No, I think that's right. Stockdale said something like, you know, it's not that the Stoics don't feel pain or are invulnerable to harm. It's just the shame of violating the principle, the commitment, the sense of duty, the obligation, the responsibility is actually more painful, in fact, perhaps even more painful than dying, trying to do the right thing. So I agree, your point that there was some intrinsic rewards for these people who did the thing. But what I'm saying is that they were willing to sacrifice

• 27:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 27:25Ryan Holiday?

  everything.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:27Ryan Holiday?

  For that bigger thing that they don't get to now enjoy. We get to enjoy it and abuse it and take it for granted. But, you know, they will not grow old, as the poem says.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I agree with that 100%. I mean, you know, Tim O'Brien, you know, the things they carried, if you're listening and you haven't read that, I mean, you just got to read, you just got to read the things they carried. But, you know, he talks in that book about, you know, soldiers dying because they were too cowardly not to, right? And, you know, that's, that's a way to look at it. But, you know, the, I would take issue with the cowardly part. But, you know, of course, the, what he's really trying to say is, you

• 28:15Speaker 01

  know, people choose the honor of not letting their comrades down over personal safety. And that's just, I mean, forever has just been an incredibly powerful thing for young men and women who step into harm's way is they are not, they choose danger over being thought less.

• 28:47Ryan Holiday?

  So you mentioned that idea of dropping the shield and I love that. I was, my friend Steven Pressfield wrote a great thing at the beginning of the pandemic where he said, you know, for the Spartans, if you lose your helmet in battle, if you lose your sword in battle, if you lose your shield in the battle, no problem, they'll replace it. They know you lost it fighting. But if you came home without your shield, it was the end because that meant that you dropped your most valuable asset, which is the thing you use to protect the people next to you. Basically, it means that you abandoned your duty, your spot in the failings.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 29:25Ryan Holiday?

  And so his, his point was, in the middle of this pandemic, probably the closest to wartime that your average person is hopefully ever going to get, the mask, social distancing, now the vaccine, is that form of the shield. Or even just, you know, talking to friends who are, you know, going on their fifth vacation during the pandemic, you know, not doing certain things. Because, or, you know, I was talking to a friend who's like gotten a massage every, you know, twice a week for the last year and a half. Just like, hey, you know, that's not good for you and it's not good for the person who's having to give you the massage, right?

• 30:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:03Ryan Holiday?

  Like, not, being able to understand a duty and to be able to sacrifice even like the smallest amount. Why is that so fucking hard for people?

• 30:13Speaker 01

  It's a great question. You know,

• 30:17Ryan Holiday?

  We've asked you for nothing. You haven't had to get drafted. You haven't, like, like my grandfather, like yours fought in World War II, you know, he landed at Normandy. He, you know, he had to do so much. All I had to do was wear this piece of cloth on my face and get my groceries delivered instead of going inside the store. And people can't do that.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  Sure. I think it, you know, I think it has to do with,

• 30:44Speaker 01

  You know, almost a, almost a deeper question of, of like, what, what really is freedom, right? You know, so what, and what is, how is our society set up to enable freedom?

• 30:55Speaker 01

  You know, the, the, the, the guy who doesn't want to wear the mask, right? It's, it's a small thing, um, you know, it's, and, and his argument is that, no, no, this is, this is freedom. Um, but what he's, what he's missing is, you know, real freedom is, is living in a society that, um, you know, allows dissent. And, but it's not dissent to simply, you know, say, I'm not going to do it. I mean, that, that's a, that's what my three-year-old does, right? You know, I don't want to get in the car. I'm going to throw a temper tantrum about it and you can't make me. Well, that's not real freedom.

• 31:40Speaker 01

  Real freedom is being able to, uh, you know, to, to pursue life, liberty and happiness in a way that, um, you know, I would argue has, there has to be modified with some degree of, of personal and collective responsibility. So, um, you know, it's, it's very simplistic thinking to, to think that, um, your, your rights or your freedom is, is impinged by being asked to wear a mask for, you know, again, most of the time, not for your sake, but for others.

• 32:12Speaker 01

  You know, I, I, I work in the emergency room and, and, uh, we're lucky. I'm, I'm at, I'm in Vermont and, and we've been spared the, the worst of the pandemic. And in part-

• 32:21Ryan Holiday?

  Vermont's one of the best states in the country, right? As far as pandemic response?

• 32:25Speaker 01

  And, um, in part, that's, you know, responsible leadership. In part, that's, um, uh, you know, a population that, um, I think takes public health more serious than the average.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  But we've had our first year of COVID and you know, it was brutal on the, you know, the nursing homes and you know, people, people died up here, you know, thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people across the country, millions across the world have died because you know, folks don't want to make, it's not even a sacrifice, it's just, it's just an adolescent kind of simplistic view of what your, your rights are to, to say, I don't want to wear a mask. You know, the vaccine, the vaccine, I, I get that, you know, there's hesitation. I get that there are, you know, certain groups with historical

• 33:20Speaker 01

  distrust for, for good reason of the medical establishment. But you know, the, the vaccine, I get a little bit more, but the mask stuff is just, just blows my mind. I mean, it's such a simple thing and you're going to kill someone's grandmother.

• 33:36Ryan Holiday?

  Well, that, that's what strikes me about it. You know, Stockdale said, you know, the flip side of freedom is that I am my brother's keeper. And I was thinking about that actually on, on Monday. I had lunch with a, a person I know, this is like a well-known person. Like if I said this person's name, you would know who they are. You've seen them in many things before. And, you know, I was talking about, I, I've gotten the vaccine. I, I volunteered a handful of times at this vaccine clinic down the street. And I was talking about it and he's like, oh, this would be a good time for me to tell you, I'm not going to get it. And I said, why? And he said, well, he's like, I'm young, I'm healthy, there might be negative side effects. Why should I risk it? And, and I, again, I thought

• 34:21Ryan Holiday?

  back to my grandfather. It's like, do you know what the prognosis was for like, for Normandy? Like, it was not good. It was, it was like, most of them were going to die and it might not even work. And you can't even take a vaccine that primarily protects you and then definitely protects other people. You, you can't, you can't even do that because what, like zero in 150 million people have, have been harmed by the vaccine so far? It's, it struck me not only as insane and then doubly insane.

• 34:54Ryan Holiday?

  This person was off to an acupuncture appointment afterwards. And you're just like, the science versus acupuncture versus vaccines. I mean, come on. So it, yeah, it's, it's so baffling to me. I thought you of all people might have some insights.

• 35:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, you know, so there's, there's certain, um, a vaccine is a, is a, you know, being told to take this new vaccine is, is a new thing. So, you know, my, you know, for me, the greater blame lies with, so, so people turn to, to whom they trust, right? So, you know, so people turn, you know, some people trust physicians. So they turn to the physicians. The physicians say, hey, get the vaccine. Okay. Now, you know, there's been, there's been issues with, um, you know, vaccine, uh, you know, the, the vaccine in, for example, communities of color, right? So in the American community.

• 35:48Speaker 01

  Well, you know, when you think about the context of Henrietta Lacks and Tuskegee, um, that makes sense. You know, and, you know, but some people are getting, some people are trusting, for example, Fox News, right? And Tucker Carlson. And, you know, they're doing, you know, they, those are a trusted voice. And, you know, even, even, uh, you know, and I'll give credit here to, um, you know, the Mike Pence and, and Marco Rubio and all these people who I politically oppose very deeply, but they went on camera and got a vaccine.

• 36:25Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 36:25Speaker 01

  And they, I, I like to think that they did that, uh, to help, you know, negate the, um, you know, the falsehoods coming out of, out of, uh, a lot of right wing media. And, you know, but it's, it's a new thing. People turn to who they trusted for information on it. And some voices that are trusted by people, you know, just came back with a bunch of bullshit and said, don't get it. So that's kind of what happened. And, you know, Joe Rogan, right? You know, Joe Rogan the other day said, hey, you know, if, if you're a young person, don't get the vaccine. Well, that is just universally selfish. That is, um, uh, you know,

• 37:10Speaker 01

  People, young people, you know, should think of it almost the other way. Like, they should be ashamed not to get it. I, I would be, I would be ashamed to know that I could.

• 37:21Ryan Holiday?

  It's like draft dodging. It's like draft dodging, but at least, at least not wanting to get shot at in the jungles of Vietnam, especially if you're of certain communities. At least, at least there's the, the self-interest argument there.

• 37:36Speaker 01

  Right. Right. And, and, you know, there, people are saying, well, it's this new, and I get that people don't understand the science. And it, it does behoove the medical establishment to, you know, try to explain, you know, mRNA vaccines in a way that makes sense.

• 37:54Speaker 01

  But, but, you know, it's, there are trusted voices who are saying the wrong thing. That's just, it's just as simple as that.

• 38:02Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I have a, I have a small bookstore here outside Austin and, and I put out a thing about it. And I said, look, you know, it, Massa required vaxes preferred. And somebody emailed in and they said, you know, let me know when you lift your policy of discrimination. And I said, you know what, man? The no asshole rule is going to be true well through the pandemic. Because that, that's, I think, really the issue actually has less to do with, well, look, the pandemic is very important. And the vaccine is critical because we've already lost, you know, it took, it took, uh, World War Two, you know, four plus years to kill the same amount of people the vaccine has done in less than a year. And it's still going.

• 38:42Ryan Holiday?

  But, but like the, I, this, to me, I, I think you, you mentioned with your kid, this sort of petulant, like, you can't make me, I would rather other people die if it allows me to own the other political party. I think I'm smarter than everyone. I'm more important than everyone. I will not allow my personal plans to be disrupted in any way. Who are you to stop? It's such a preposterous understanding of what freedom is.

• 39:13Ryan Holiday?

  And I think the irony of it is like, the only reason there's mask mandates is because people aren't voluntarily wearing their masks. You know, like if in, if in March, if, if in March, everyone fucking got their act together, or if, hey, people were socially distancing and cases were low, they, they would be able to repeal the mandate and just suggest it. But like, I'm amazed, I would be curious for your medical opinion, like if we've had 100 million vaccines, uh, plus, or is it 200 million, we've had a very large amount of vaccines, of, uh, millions of people have gotten the cases, have gotten cases since March of last year. Who are the, who are these 100,000 people a day that are getting

• 39:57Ryan Holiday?

  it? Like, it's almost amazing to me that, I, I, I assume a good portion of them are people who have no choice. They're, they're forced to work this place or that place because lack of options. But, you know, the, the, the people who have options who are, who are getting it now, it's, it's almost baffling to me.

• 40:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, it's, it's, um, it's gonna be, it's gonna be interesting to unpack this and, you know, it, people are gonna, people are gonna look at this, right? So, you know, this is the books, the books and the scholarship that's gonna come out of, you know, our national responses, you know, whoever writes the book, I'm, I'm gonna buy it, you know, it's, it's gonna be the psychology of, of how we ended up here and, and, you know.

• 40:42Ryan Holiday?

  Have you read The Great Influenza?

• 40:44Speaker 01

  Yes, I have, yeah.

• 40:46Ryan Holiday?

  Incredible book.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  It, it is an incredible book and, you know, it, it's fascinating that, um, you know, what came out of that, right? Like it led directly to the discovery of DNA and, you know, all this sort of stuff. If you, if you're, you know, as far as like laypeople books, that's one of the best ones, um, you know, to, to understand what happens in a pandemic and, and, you know, what can happen with, in this case with the flu and, um, you know, in the first world war.

• 41:19Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, it's, it's, and sometimes, sometimes if you, if you feel like this is too political, one of the best things you can do is go read historically and get a sense of like, oh, this has happened before. I mean, you know, obviously I write about Marcus Aurelius. He has this amazing quote that he writes during the Antonine Plague. He says, look, a plague can take your life, but the one you got to worry about is the, is the pestilence that destroys your character. And, and I think it's very clear, a good chunk of society, unfortunately, has caught something worse than COVID.

• 41:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, that's, I mean, that's, that's true. You know, it's, it's, um,

• 41:57Speaker 01

  there's a lot to, there's a lot to unpack there. You know, the, the, um, you know, the mistrust of expertise, you know, the, uh, um, you know, the, the, the, the broad, you know, kind of small d democratization of, of knowledge on the internet is, is incredible. And, and, you know, it's great and I use it all the time. If I want to change a light switch in my house, I go to YouTube and I'm like, yeah, this is how you change a light switch, right? You know, but people think because we can Google something now that that, you know, makes them an expert. I would never try to, you know, there are certain electrical problems I definitely would call an electrician for, you know?

• 42:40Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 42:42Speaker 01

  But yeah, it's, it's in part, um, you know, the, the way that we're connected now and the way that people get their information, um, is, it's got issues with it. And, um, you know, broadly, there are many, there are many wonderful things about it. Um, you know, anyone with a laptop or, or an iPhone can, can, you know, essentially find out anything, right? But, um, it's, it's not the same as, as expertise. And, you know, I think, I think a large, this is a bit of a tangent, but I think a large part of the problem, both with COVID and, and to, you know, perhaps a lesser extent, the, you know, the wars, um, is...

• 43:25Speaker 01

  People don't see it, you know, so, um, you know, we have HIPAA, right? So HIPAA, of course, is a good thing, you know? I shouldn't be able to see a patient and then talk to my neighbor about, you know, someone's heart attack or something like that. But one of the consequences of that is people don't see, um, you know, Mr. Smith who can't breathe and has an O2 sat of 72% and is literally turning purple. You know, they don't know what that looks like. They, you know, they, they're like, yeah, you know, I don't know. I heard some old people in the nursing home got it. And, um, you know, without, you know, human beings are visual creatures without really seeing what this means, what 600,000 body bags means.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  You know, is it's, um,

• 44:15Speaker 01

  I'm not arguing for TV cameras and hospital wards necessarily. I'm just saying that, you know, with, if we don't, if we don't draw people's attention to what is actually happening, um, in part, that's, you know, that's part of the problem.

• 44:33Ryan Holiday?

  Got a quick message from one of our sponsors here and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned.

• 44:40Ryan Holiday?

  No, I, I'm very glad you brought this up because I think it's true. And in a weird way, it has the extra, I don't want to say benefit, but it has the extra side effect of really revealing just some of the fundamental flaws and inequities in our society. I was reading about Karl-Anthony Towns, the NBA player. He nearly died of COVID. His mom died of COVID and I think like seven or eight relatives also died of COVID. Right? So different communities, if you asked your, you know, if you ask someone who's a black American, they're almost certainly going to know someone who died of COVID. If you ask your average privileged young white person, they're probably not going to know anyone. And so, you know, and also depending on what state you live in, you know? So Vermont does it pretty well.

• 45:24Ryan Holiday?

  If you live in El Paso, you know, you probably definitely know someone. So the inequities are there and, and I, what I would urge people to do, and it's a habit I've sort of picked up before, before COVID, but like, Go to the New York Times obituaries. They have like a whole section called like the people we've lost or those we've lost. That's just obituaries of people who have died of COVID. I was reading, you know, a 40 year old, a sort of bio researcher, a 41 year old, like beloved preschool teacher, you know, it can be very easy to think like, oh, the vast majority of people who've died have been old. But I think the reality is like 150, six figures of the deaths are people

• 46:09Ryan Holiday?

  like 50 and younger. It's like, these are appalling numbers that your filter bubble can prevent you from comprehending and you have to actually actively go look for the information. So you're not able to dismiss what you don't want to hear or think about.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course. And I mean, you know, if you stacked, you know, 600,000 people, that's enough. You know, if you stacked those bodies end to end, we're, you know, we're 600, 700 miles of just dead people.

• 46:38Ryan Holiday?

  That's the Civil War. That's the whole Civil War.

• 46:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. I mean, and you know, we're just talking about deaths, right? Which obviously is what is most important. But, you know, a little example, I did my residency at University of New Mexico in emergency medicine and great program, great place, love Albuquerque. The, um, there was a co-resident of mine who stayed in New Mexico and became, um, you know, he's one of the physicians there and, uh, works in the ICU and the emergency department. He got COVID, um, last summer. And, um, last time I talked to him, which was, you know,

• 47:19Speaker 01

  around Christmas, he was still on oxygen. You know, this is a healthy 35 year old, um, you know, male, he was like a rock climber, mountain biker, you know, outdoorsy type stud athlete, absolutely like stud athlete in the best shape of, you know, Anyone I know just about and he is still walking around seeing patients dragging an oxygen tank, you know, and there are for, you know, all of these deaths, you know, there, there's tons more sequelae that's coming, you know, people are going to have permanent lung damage, people are going to have permanent heart damage, you know, it's, it's, um, we don't even talk about that, you know, but it's, it's, it's massive, it's just massive.

• 48:02Ryan Holiday?

  Well, and that, that's where the sense of, you know, fighting for the person next to you is so important. I, uh, some of my listeners and fans have, you know, said that I've overreacted because I'm young and healthy and that we live out in the country. So we've just been like in our bubble, like we haven't really done anything. I haven't gone anywhere. I haven't been on an airplane. Our kids aren't going to daycare because we can do all those things. We took every precaution we could. Um, and had there been cool things that I've missed out on? Have there been opportunities to make money on things that I've, yes, but to me, I would, and, and even though the risk to my children, for instance, is extraordinarily low, I would just never forgive myself if I, because I had to go sit at a bar with

• 48:42Ryan Holiday?

  my friend, that I negatively impacted my child's future, right? And I think the Stoics talk about this idea of our sort of circles of concern, right? And so first, our first circle of concern is yourself, your family gets bigger and bigger, but I, I tried to work myself to a place where like, yeah, I just don't know if I could live with myself if I had to have a call with someone and said, Hey, look, we saw each other. I hadn't been being safe, you know, you're now exposed. And then something were to happen to them. I, I think people have struggled with the, being able, they, they just don't want to think about the fact that they're making decisions that are fine for them, but negatively

• 49:22Ryan Holiday?

  externalizing serious consequences or potential consequences on other people.

• 49:28Speaker 01

  Of course. I mean, what you're describing is just, is duty, right? You know, that's, that's duty, you know, my duty to my, to my fellow citizen, um, to, to people I, I care about and, you know, to a stranger I don't know. Um, but, you know, the,

• 49:46Speaker 01

  The duty we feel and, and you know, don't get, don't get me wrong. There's, I bet there are lots of people, and I mean this in a, in an incredibly positive way. I bet there are lots of people, thousands of people, millions of people who are not at risk for the vaccine and they know they're not and they got the vaccine anyway.

• 50:06Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 50:06Speaker 01

  And thankful for that, you know, that, that they are, they're like, ah, yeah, it's a pain in the butt. I gotta go down to the, you know, to the clinic and I gotta get a shot and then I get another one in a couple of weeks and.

• 50:19Ryan Holiday?

  I, I watched, I watched a little old lady sit in her car for 45 minutes. She's terrified of needles. I watched her work herself up the courage to ask for a wheelchair, to ask to be pushed inside to get this thing that she did not want to get. You know, it's, it's better for her. She's not super healthy, as you were saying, but like, you know, there, yes, we should be celebrating too, the, the quiet courage of the people who have gotten it.

• 50:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, I, I've started to see lately more and more of these, you know, millennial, Gen Z types, you know, come in with a, you know, a sprained ankle or whatever in the emergency room and, and, um, you know, we routinely ask, you know, are you vaccinated? And they're, they're saying yes. And, and that's fantastic. Like they, you know, people are taking, you know, this, this, they're taking their own personal safety seriously, but they're also taking the safety of their, you know, their friends and family and, and fellow citizenry seriously. And that, that should be lauded. Yeah.

• 51:23Ryan Holiday?

  No, I love that. I love the sort of quiet, ordinary courage. I think it's, uh, George Eliot said, you know, we lionize all form of courage, all forms of courage, except for that which we can show to our closest neighbor. Um, you know, we do celebrate martial courage, but just the, uh, hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be a good person, raise my family, pay my taxes, fulfill my obligations. This is also courageous and heroic.

• 51:49Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. Absolutely.

• 51:51Ryan Holiday?

  So let's talk about your sense of duty that draws you into something and, and maybe I'm making this up, but I get the sense that you were reluctantly drawn into the political realm, particularly with the stands you've had to take. Like you, you didn't seek it out, you, but you felt it was seeking you out.

• 52:13Speaker 01

  I think that's fair. Um, you know, the, I've always kind of like followed politics, right? You know, but my, not, not to the degree I do now, but you know, I always had a loose sense of, you know, what was going on in Washington and, and this and that. And, and, you know, again, back to the Naval Academy, one of those things was you had to read the newspaper every day. So, you know, when you're a plebe, you had to, I think I got the, the Post or something, you know, delivered and you had to, you had to, every morning you'd open your door and there was literally a newspaper there and you're expected to be able to be conversant about, um, you know, it couldn't all just be sports. You had to, you had to be able to talk about, you know, kind of the issues with, uh, you know, your

• 52:57Speaker 01

  fellow, your upperclassmen and that sort of thing. So, you know, I got involved, I started this group, Veterans for Responsible Leadership, um, pretty quickly after, after Trump was inaugurated. And, you know, I just found him, um, in addition to just sort of, um, you know, disgusting, for lack of a better term.

• 53:20Ryan Holiday?

  Like just as a human being, you mean?

• 53:22Speaker 01

  As a human being. Um, you know, he, he, it really started with the, the original Michael Flynn stuff. Um, you know, it was, it was Michael Flynn lying to the FBI and, you know, and, and lying to, to, um, Vice President Pence. And, you know, we were complaining and one of my fellow Naval Academy, I was complaining on Facebook or something about it. One of my fellow, fellow Naval Academy grads, the guy who actually was my original co-founder, was like, well, are you going to do anything about it or just, uh, you know, just complain about Facebook? And so, you know, and, and it initially, I'll be

• 54:02Speaker 01

  honest, probably started as almost a, um, almost a vanity project. You know, I wanted to be able to look my daughters, I have three daughters, I want to be able to look them in the eye and say, hey, I tried to do something about this misogynistic, um, racist president. And-

• 54:20Ryan Holiday?

  That doesn't sound like vanity.

• 54:23Speaker 01

  Well, well, you know, I I felt I owed it to them to, you know, to to try. And so, you know, it it it gathered some support and, you know, we had a, um, you know, we we kind of organized largely on social media and we're, you know, looking for funding and all this kind of stuff. And then, you know, of course, um, the the Lincoln Project stuff happened. And, you know, I did not want to, you know, do those videos. Um, you know, I live in a, I live in Vermont and, you know, it's a, it's a super blue state. And, um, I chose the most conservative parts of, you know, sort of my, um, you know,

• 55:04Speaker 01

  personality and my story to to highlight, um, deliberately to try to, uh, you know, tip the needle against this guy. And, you know, VFRL is an organization that's, you know, now is is much bigger than me. There was, there was about eighteen months or so where VFRL was me sitting on my couch.

• 55:25Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 55:27Speaker 01

  And, you know, now we've got thousands of members and we're, you know, we're trying to, we've gotten out of the startup phase and we're trying to, you know, we're in the growth phase, really. And, um, you know, but the, the, the binding glue is people who believe that their oath did not come with an expiration date and their role as a citizen, their duty as a citizen, requires them to get involved. And that is something that I've been, I've been fortunate enough to, to be a part of. And, and, you know, we have, you know, I like to, I like to say that VFRL has, we have no opinion on your

• 56:09Speaker 01

  opinions, um, except for, you know, loyalty to the rules of the game. So, you know, if you're, you know, we're endorsing this kid, Michael Wood, down in Texas, and he is running

• 56:21Ryan Holiday?

  Congress or Senator, what is it?

• 56:23Speaker 01

  Congress. So he's a, he's in Texas six, and it's this jungle primary. Um, it was for the congressman who who was elected and then, and then died of COVID. Um, and the special election's coming up. And you know what? I don't agree with him on a whole lot of stuff. Um, you know, he's a, um, worried about China. He's big pro oil. Um, he's ardently pro-life. Um, you know, I identify as, as personally pro-life, but I wouldn't, um, you know, change laws regarding that. I view it as sort of a supply and demand issue.

• 56:55Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 56:55Speaker 01

  Um, you know, but he, he would restrict, uh, you know, abortion access and, and things like that. But you know what he does? He tells the truth. He says, hey, Donald Trump lied to you. I'm not going to lie to you. You know, Donald Trump is, you know, full of it. He is lying to you. Uh, Fox News is lying to you and you know, he's an, he's a, you know, an Adam Kinzinger Republican. And we need to support that. We need to have honest debate in this country. We need to talk to people we oppose politically, um, using the same set of facts.

• 57:32Speaker 01

  Right? And, and that's what this kid represents and, um, you know, the, that's what VFRL represents is, you know, we've got people who are Bernie bros in VFRL and we've got people who are like pretty hardcore conservatives. And we all agree that the rules of the game, the constitution of the United States requires us, it, it informs our duty as citizens.

• 57:58Ryan Holiday?

  It's, it's interesting because sometimes I'll take hits from my audience for, you know, why, why'd you have to drag politics into this? And I live in a very red state and I, I, you know, I, I like guns. I don't like guns. I have guns. I hunt. You know, I, I, I like low taxes. I like to be left alone. So it's, it's funny, uh, because people sort of make up certain assumptions when you, when you sort of talk about these things. But it's interesting, like most of what you're talking about, most of what I talk about, I don't actually see this as political at all. To me, this is like, Bedrock, social contract stuff, human decency stuff, truth stuff. Like, to me, politics is like, do you support, you know, like, school vouchers?

• 58:42Ryan Holiday?

  Or like, what should the budget be? Or, you know, like, do you support the infrastructure bill? Yes or no? To me, like, I'm, I have no interest. I don't even think I'm smart enough to have an opinion about a lot of those things. But I do feel like it is the basic human obligation to call a spade a spade. I mean, one of the, one of the original suggested slogans for the United States instead of e pluribus unum was, and I'm forgetting the Latin expression. It's just rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. That's what, that's what America is about. It's, it's supposed to be like calling a spade a spade, drawing a certain line against authoritarian impulses, excesses, et cetera.

• 59:27Ryan Holiday?

  And it's ironic to me that the people who, who can't wear a mask to not infect their neighbor to death are also totally silent on like legit, you know, violations of the Constitution you're talking about.

• 59:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's, it's, you know, we have to, we have to agree on the facts to have an honest debate, right? And so, you know, that's where we are. Like, that's, that's why VFRL has, you know, taken off. That's why there's a role for it in, in the national discourse is because we've devolved so much that we can't, you know, we, you know, we, we can't decide if it's cloudy or sunny outside. And when you get to a space like that, the, the, the special thing about this organization is it's full of folks who already once, you know, raised their hand and, and, you know,

• 1:00:27Speaker 01

  bought into that higher calling. And, and now they are taking their citizenship equally as seriously. And, you know, we're

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  We're trying to, you know, we have to move the national dialogue back to, um, you know, actual factual things because our, we have real, you know, adversaries internationally. You know, we have real problems. We have an aging population. We have, um, you know, China and Russia. We have, um, you know, the forever wars. We have, um, you know, global warming. We have all these challenges that nothing is going to happen on any of them until we can agree what is true. So.

• 1:01:14Ryan Holiday?

  Do you have a good definition of what responsible leadership is or like sort of the model for responsible leaders? Cause I think sometimes maybe I, I feel like part of the reason Trump was able to, to, to masquerade as certain things to certain people is we've, we've, we can't point to a Stockdale because he doesn't loom large enough in people's minds to be like, that's what a leader or a man or an officer behaves like.

• 1:01:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's a great question. The, um, you know, for me, a responsible leader is, so first of all, it can absolutely be someone I disagree with on a particular policy, right? But a responsible leader recognizes that their role only exists for, you know, the greater good of the group. And, you know, they are someone who, uh, you know, politicians, you know, they like to be in politics, right? They like the bright lights. They like the cameras, all that stuff. That's fine. And, you know, if that's your incentive, you know, sure, but you know, your job is to look after, you know, your,

• 1:02:26Speaker 01

  your quote unquote followers, right? Like that's the reason leadership exists. Um, you know, and so a responsible leader is someone who, for starters, takes that seriously and they think about how their actions will affect the people that have elected them. Um, you know, so, uh, a good example of this is someone like, um, you know, Senator Romney, right? Like, you know, you can say what you want about Mitt Romney and, you know.

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  You know, maybe you like his particular policy on this or that. But, you know, he's a guy who really thinks through decisions and doesn't always do what's in his personal best interest when it conflicts with what he views as his duty.

• 1:03:14Ryan Holiday?

  He's a serious person.

• 1:03:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a great, yes. Simplistically put, yes, he's a, he's a serious person who takes governing seriously.

• 1:03:23Ryan Holiday?

  Can you, can you keep going a little bit, by the way, if you have to jump?

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  No, no, yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, but that's, that's what we need more of. And, you know, it's frustrating to see, you know, it's frustrating to see how that, you know, not everyone wants that. I want that. I suspect you want that. Many, many people want that. But some people just want, you know, the show and to own the libs and, you know, all that kind of stuff. So.

• 1:03:56Ryan Holiday?

  What, what is with the attraction then? So we, I, I interviewed your, I guess you'd call him, former colleague, Dan Crenshaw, last year. We, he and I had a mutual friend. I, I thought maybe he would be a serious person. I, I've, I've worked with Eric Greitens before. Again, thought this is a serious person. I'm, I'm fascinated by two things. One, what do you think is making these guys tick? And it's not just guys. There's some obviously very unserious female leaders out there. What, what is going on there? And, but I'm also more, more, if, I'm also interested, if not more interested in how, how are they fooling people? Like, how do people not see now that it's been laid bare?

• 1:04:41Ryan Holiday?

  Sort of what is going on there? That, that's so strange to me.

• 1:04:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, no, it's, it's a great question. So Greitens is kind of a special case. So I'm going to set him aside for a second.

• 1:04:52Ryan Holiday?

  Okay.

• 1:04:53Speaker 01

  Well, you know, Dan.

• 1:04:56Speaker 01

  So first of all, I'm going to preface this statement. I did not serve with Dan Crenshaw in the SEAL teams. But everyone, you know, one degree of separation, it's a small community. Everyone who heard has said, he served honorably while he was on duty and, you know, clearly has the wounds to, you know, to back that up. And I've had one conversation with Dan Crenshaw ever in my life. And it was when Viaforal was starting and he was running for Congress and it was during his Republican primary. And I just think Dan is kind of a classic politician. You can see Dan's, you can see his impulse come out. You can see his better impulses come out sometimes, you know?

• 1:05:37Speaker 01

  He'll say something, he'll make a real argument for a conservative principle that I have to, you know, sit there for a second and be like, okay, that's a, I don't agree with that maybe, but that's a fair argument that is based in fact. And then he'll turn around and, you know, tweet something about, you know, you know, the election fraud or what have you, you know? So Dan's-

• 1:06:00Ryan Holiday?

  Sometimes I wonder, maybe like, somebody's doing that for them. It's so discordant that it's almost unfathomable that the same things could come out of one adult with a decent education and a decent track record as a human being. It's, it's-

• 1:06:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you know, Dan is, is no more hypocritical than many other politicians, right? He just, he's a guy who wants his cake and he wants to, you know, he wants to have his cake and eat it too. And I get that. Okay, that's Crenshaw. Greitens is a straight up sociopath. He was one Bud's class in front of me and I didn't like him then. And everybody who's ever worked with the guy. Here's the thing about Eric Greitens. Eric Greitens was the most flaming, card carrying liberal. He was not liked in the SEAL teams because he never really served as a Navy SEAL. But in addition, at the time, he was sort of this like liberal, left leaning, loved Obama, like loved Obama.

• 1:06:59Speaker 01

  And then he realized, wait- I'm from Missouri. This is not going to get me elected. And he just turned into this shill Republican, you know, like MAGA guy. And, you know, I think, I know he's running again, and we'll oppose him. He's legitimately a true sociopath, in my opinion.

• 1:07:22Ryan Holiday?

  Well, that goes to the Stockdale thing we were talking about earlier. Like, I think what's remarkable, actually, kind of in both cases, but more in Greitens, is the shamelessness, right? Like, I'm not saying if you cheat on your wife, and you get caught, and you have to resign in disgrace, you know, you should be shunned from all society forever. I actually thought it was admirable that he, you know, he re-enlisted in the Navy. But that struck me as like, oh, that's what, that would be the right move when you've exhausted all your other options. The idea that, like, three years later, you would be running for public office again, actually having gone more, like, gone further from the center, and then sort of pretending that you're somehow a victim of all the things that have happened

• 1:08:05Ryan Holiday?

  to you. Like, there are some things worse than death, being shameless, and, you know, that, to me, is a thing worse than death.

• 1:08:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. So here's what I'll say about Greitens. Oh, boy, he's smart. He really is smart. And he's smart, you know, he's book smart. But he's, he knows this is his way back in. Right? Like, he is, you know, he's calculating, he's manipulative, and he knows that he can pull this off. And it's, I mean, it's terrifying to me that he can pull it off. But he, you know, so you, you know, you asked a question, do, you know, how does this, how does this happen? Well, it happens-

• 1:08:51Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, why can't he pull it off? That's, that's, like, why will people allow him to pull it off? That strikes me as nuts.

• 1:08:56Speaker 01

  The reason this is happening is because of, because you and I are having this conversation. Right, like there are people um who more than anything else, they want to own the libs, you know, like they want to um, you know, they think, you know, if you went to college, you're, you know, fancy and and, you know, high and mighty and, you know, what have you, and they they, you know, they disdain expertise. And those people exist and they love Donald Trump and Greitens realizes that. He's like, yeah, he's like, this this is just, this is just populism, right? This is just national populism.

• 1:09:37Speaker 01

  This is, I'm gonna go um anti, as anti-elite as I can. And the fact that um, you know, it makes Dan Barkov mad that um, you know, I'm up in the polls, people, you know, people are gonna like that, right? Like, that's that's the attraction, is he pisses people off.

• 1:09:56Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, and and I guess shameless, you know, like I was thinking about what is Trump's superpower, right? Trump's superpower is like, let's say you had done the locker room talk and you had uh, you had been recorded saying horrible things about women. And actually, I actually know Billy Bush, uh, and so I'm I'm pretty fascinated and familiar with this whole conversation. But let's say somehow unwittingly, wittingly, you say the the worst possible thing you could say on camera, you get caught, you're humiliated in front of the whole world, you're you're a side of you that you would never want to be seen is is revealed. Like, you know, that's where like a human is commit, that's where a normal person is committing hairy carry, going underground, right? Ending your political career.

• 1:10:41Ryan Holiday?

  But Trump's superpower was that second debate, whereas you and I would have gotten up and said, I'm out, sorry. He he said, you know, he was not only able to go up in front of 70 million people, but he could, he could go up in front of 70 million people and make it everyone else's fault but his own? That shamelessness is, to me, the virus that we have not figured out how to fight yet. And our society, especially the way the founders set it up, the whole system was designed, the ultimate check and balance was restraint, was caring about your reputation, was, you know, your word mattering to you.

• 1:11:24Ryan Holiday?

  And we're kind of defenseless against these like superbugs who are sociopaths or totally shameless.

• 1:11:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. It's a great point. I think, you know, I, during the pandemic, I read the Chernow book on Hamilton and, you know, it's the, you know, the profile on Aaron Burr is, you know, is sort of, you know, he's got some Trumpy aspects to him, just this lack of, you know, caring about, you know, what other people think, no matter how disgraceful his own personal behavior is. And, you know, there's, there's a thin line between having a thick skin and like really not actually caring.

• 1:12:08Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 1:12:09Speaker 01

  And, you know, and so I agree with you. I think, you know, Trump, Trump went through a million things that would have, you know, destroyed any other politician in our national history, right? Like, you know, I mean, Nixon, Watergate, you know, he broke, he lied about breaking into, you know, the DNC, right? Like, if Trump did that, Trump, there's no way Trump would have resigned, right? Like, Trump would have pulled a Watergate, it would have been a footnote. And, you know, it's, it just, it just highlights the, you know, where we are, I think, as a society, that, you know, some of it's reality TV, some of it's, you know, just how kind of cushy and easy our society has become, you know, in

• 1:12:54Speaker 01

  general. And I think it's, it's fascinating. It's absolutely fascinating.

• 1:13:00Ryan Holiday?

  And what about the even more extreme characters, right? Some of, I, let's not even name them so we don't give them, you know, more name recognition. But, you know, at least Crenshaw or Greitens, like, they did serve their country, you know, they have done things in real life. They are, they are legitimately intelligent as well, right? You know, Josh Hawley has, has degrees from real schools, right? Then there's, then there's characters even further afield from him. And I've noticed this also in the sort of the police brutality debate too. There seems to be this obsession or tolerance with this sort of pseudo warrior culture. Like, like, I think, I think about this sort of like, you know, like the thin blue line flags.

• 1:13:43Ryan Holiday?

  And it's like, you're not the thin line between, between chaos. You are the chaos. Like, and I say this as a person whose father was a police officer. Like, you had people waving thin blue line flags as they beat police officers nearly to death when they stormed the Capitol on January 6th. What is this screwed up, like, distorted, sort of martial culture that doesn't actually seem to be emanating from people in the military at all?

• 1:14:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, great question. There's, there's, you know, you can, you know, this, this, this would take hours to talk about, but, you know, the, the, the short answer, so, I, I actually wrote a piece a few years back for The Daily Beast, you can probably find it, but it, you know,

• 1:14:34Ryan Holiday?

  I've read it, it's a great piece.

• 1:14:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, about guns and stuff. And, and, you know, I think that, you know, in part, this is because of, you know, my community and, you know, what happened with 9/11 and, you know, Marcus Luttrell and killing Bin Laden and, you know, all this sort of stuff. And, and it's not just Navy SEALs, but, you know, we, we're probably the, the most egregious example of it. But, you know, the gun community got 20 years of free advertising every night, right? Like, you know, they, you know, everyone wanted to be, I mean, you can even see it with beards, right? You know, I, I truly think beards started because people wanted to look like cool guys

• 1:15:20Speaker 01

  in Afghanistan, and now everyone has a beard. And, you know, the, you know, that-

• 1:15:27Speaker 01

  The NRA, you know, really doubled down on, you know, we're instead of hunting and fishing, we're talking about, you know, self-defense. And then, you know, the natural step after self-defense is, well, you need to defend yourself from the government, too. And so, you know, there's this worship, there's this, oh, sorry, there's this martial worship that, you know, people who join the military don't expect. I hate it when people are like, you know, "Thank you for your service." Like, I get the sentiment behind it, but it's, it's not, I didn't, you know, do what I did so a little old lady in the grocery store can say, "Thank you for your service," right? Like, that's not, it's almost embarrassing.

• 1:16:08Speaker 01

  And, you know, but we've had this just sort of explosion that, in, in my opinion, goes back to, you know, again, the end of the draft. Like, this is, this is what happens when you have a volunteer force that fights two decades' worth of war. You know, this is, this hasn't happened in American history before. We don't have a precedent for this. You know, we've often been a conscription-based force, and we've never had a war that lasted 20 years. Even Vietnam didn't go on that long. So, you know, the, this is kind of new, uncharted territory for us, but we've got this, you know, the pendulum swung so far the other way.

• 1:16:50Speaker 01

  You know, you hear this, this Vietnam story, you know, Karl Marlon is talking about, you know, "I came home and there were protesters, and I had to change in civilian clothes, so I didn't get spit on." And, you know, you hear, you know, that's, that's a common Vietnam-era trope, e- even if it's not entirely true. But, you know, the pendulum came all the way back where you can't say anything to criticize anyone in the military. You know, military, people in the military are experts on everything, right? You know, let's put, you know, some, some junior officer who did 12 months in a war zone, and all of a sudden, he's got a Fox gig. You know, that, that stuff is...

• 1:17:29Speaker 01

  Is is harmful to our society to to to worship this, um, you know, one aspect of of state-sponsored violent power.

• 1:17:39Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, and and you know, it's like, if you ever do martial arts, the whole thing is about how you're supposed to never have to use this stuff, right? And what's weird about gun culture, and I say this as a as a person who not only owns guns and and hunts, like, my house in Texas, when I bought it, came with a walk-in closet that had been turned into a giant gun vault. Like, I I'm not anti-gun in any way. What I do find insane is why anyone needs a semi-automatic, uh, you know, a high-powered rifle. I I say this as someone who has an open carry permit that I that I never use, but like, the the idea that you would want these massively destructive

• 1:18:21Ryan Holiday?

  and dangerous things around your house that you would talk about, that you that you would feel that it's okay to brandish them around as a form of political protest. It's it's it's literally the opposite of what this country was about. The whole point of civilian, uh, the distinction between civilian and military control was not so civilians would walk around openly brandishing weapons. I mean, the the Wild West was a hellscape. We don't want to go back to that. It's nonsense.

• 1:18:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you know, the I one thing, one thing that came out of the Trump, um, and I'm very proud of this, though I, you know, I'm proud of this as an American, not Dan Barkov, had anything to do with this, right? But like, I am proud that the military in our country, the uniformed military, you know, the the senior leadership refused to become political and and said that we, you know, we have no role in in our elections. We are we are here to preserve democracy, not to practice it. And That, I think, when we look back, when we think about how close we were, you know,

• 1:19:30Speaker 01

  if this were, you know, if we were in Burma, right, like that, you know, the general in charge of the air force would have been like, yeah, cool, let's do the, let's do the coup, right, you know, and that didn't happen here. And, and that, I believe, is why, you know, I truly believe that, in large part, that's why, you know, Trump left, ultimately left, more or less peacefully, is that the military said, uh-uh, we're not, no. Because, you know, I, I, there had to have been overtures, you know, what are you going to do if we don't leave, you know, like, what, you know, that.

• 1:20:04Ryan Holiday?

  Right. Dave, you want to talk about deterrence? There was a quiet deterrence there that that wasn't going to fall as easily as the other American institutions.

• 1:20:15Speaker 01

  Yes. And, you know, and that speaks to, you know, people's sense of duty. And, you know, you know, back to the, back to the Stoic, you know, virtue, it speaks to people who took an oath and took the responsibilities of that oath seriously and, and quietly held the line.

• 1:20:40Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, no, it goes to the, the maddest thing, probably our closest and most explicitly well-known, uh, modern Stoic, you know, sort of hold the line, uh, stand up for what you believe in, you know, just because the world is crazy doesn't mean you have to get sucked into it. And in fact, you know, Marcus Aurelius talks about being, he says, be like the rock that the waves crash over and eventually the sea falls still around. I think that's what duty does. People go crazy, people lose their mind, the mob gets, you know, stirred up. But if, if good people hold the line, people step up and do the individual, small and big, sort of, roles they feel duty prescribes, you know, hopefully, eventually.

• 1:21:24Ryan Holiday?

  Things calm down and we can get back more on even footing.

• 1:21:29Speaker 01

  I could not agree more.

• 1:21:31Ryan Holiday?

  Dan, thank you so much, not just for talking to me, but for your work. I imagine it did not, although it's probably fun and challenging in some ways. I imagine it was scary and did not involve, and involve some personal risk. And so I appreciate it. And your distinction, I've read in a piece between moral and physical courage. You know, my argument is anytime you put your ass on the line figuratively or literally, that's what courage is. And I think you did that with Veterans for Responsible Leadership, and I really appreciate it.

• 1:22:03Speaker 01

  Thanks, Ron. I appreciate it. Guys, check out vfrl.org if you're interested. And if you're a veteran listening and you like what we're talking about, please, please join.

• 1:22:16Ryan Holiday?

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