Martellus Bennett - Super Bowl Champion on Finding Success

On today’s Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan talks with author and former NFL player Martellus Bennett about the clarifying effects that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on their day-to-day lives, how readers should engage with the books they acquire, how Marcus persevered to help the New England Patriots come back from the largest Super Bowl score deficit in NFL history, and more. Martellus Bennett is a former NFL tight end who played for 10 seasons with teams such as the Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, New England Patriots, and more. Bennett was part of the Patriots team that defeated the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI, coming back from a 28-3 deficit to win in overtime. In 2014, Bennett created The Imagination Agency, a production company focused on children’s literature and entertainment; they have released multiple children’s books and movies, all written and designed by Bennett. This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. Four Sigmatic is a maker of mushroom coffee, lattes, elixirs, and more. Their drinks all taste amazing and they've full of all sorts of all-natural compounds and immunity boosters to help you think clearly and live well. Four Sigmatic has a new exclusive deal for Daily Stoic listeners: get up to 39% off their bestselling Lion’s Mane bundle by visiting foursigmatic.com/stoic. This episode is also brought to you by the Theragun. The new Gen 4 Theragun is perfect for easing muscle aches and tightness, helping you recover from physical exertion, long periods of sitting down, and more—and its new motor makes it as quiet as an electric toothbrush. Try the Theragun risk-free for 30 days, starting at just $199.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicFollow Martellus Bennett: Twitter: https://twitter.com/martysaurusrexInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/martellusb/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MartellusBennettOfficial/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.

• 0:05Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to The Daily Stoic, where each day we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living the good life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at DailyStoic.com.

• 0:29Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. There's another story that starts in an airport, unknown time and date. I was exhausted. It was some international flight with a bunch of stops, and I was trying to get to some airport lounge. I had no idea where I was, what was happening. I was staggering around, and I finally got there. I opened my laptop, and I was checking my email, and someone had sent me an email that Martellus Bennett had tweeted about reading Ego is the Enemy. And he was there at the Packers at the time. This was, you know, I didn't know he was reading the book. It was a total surprise. We ended up connecting and becoming

• 1:12Ryan Holiday?

  friends as a result of it. And he had me out to his animation studio a few, like a year or so later. I think he was still playing at the time. I don't remember. But I remember after our conversation, I went and I, this is when we talked on Twitter, I bought, because I'd just had my first son, and I bought the kid's book that he'd written. He wrote a great kid's book called Hey AJ, It's Bedtime. And he was sort of bemoaning the lack of people of color in children's books. He'd written one for his daughter, and it's a great book. And I just had no idea. He was into all this different stuff, you know. We had LeBron James has that stuff more than an athlete. And I think when we hear people say more than an athlete, we think, oh, they're also politically engaged. And

• 1:54Ryan Holiday?

  Martellus definitely is. But what I love about Marty is that he is, it's like, football is just one of the things he's good at, and it's not even the thing that he's most interested in. So to give you a sense of how, I mean, how incredibly talented you would have to be, that you could play on the New England Patriots. Win a Super Bowl with them, perhaps the greatest Super Bowl victory of all time, and it's not even your primary interest. And that should give you a sense of what a talented artist he is. Anyways, he had this amazing studio in LA, like floor to ceiling books. Basically looked like a set from the movie Big. He had all these toys and it was like,

• 2:36Ryan Holiday?

  it was a dream office and was so awesome to talk to him. And so I wanted to have him on the podcast because he's a big reader. He's interested in Stoicism. He's interested in creativity. But, you know, Marty has also been someone that I've gotten to know and we've talked about things that are happening in the world and you'll hear, you'll actually hear this happen a little bit in the interview. But I feel like every time I hear Marty say something, whether it's about race or politics or, you know, American history, he's, he just, he presents it in a way that I hadn't thought about it before. And that always, I cherish people that make me think, that can provoke me, that can think about things in a different way. And again, it's important to realize, like, he's able to do this because he's not

• 3:21Ryan Holiday?

  just this person you see on television chasing after a ball, but an extraordinarily unique and special human being and is a human being. And it can be so easy to sort of depersonalize people because they have different experiences than you, because they, you know, you see them on TV and this is where we get this nonsense about shut up and dribble. Anyways, fascinating guy. Other Bennett story. I had been at, and I mentioned this in the episode too, but I'd been at a Seahawks practice because the Seahawks had read my book and I was standing on the sideline. This big fight broke out and the instigator slash winner of said fight was Michael Bennett, Marty's brother. And let me tell you, I would not

• 4:02Ryan Holiday?

  want to get in a fight with Michael Bennett. Anyways, fascinating family, great writer. You can follow Marty on Twitter. He's MartySaurusRex. You can check out theimaginationagency.com. You can see his books. He wrote a book recently called Dear Black Boy. It just says sincerely, Marty on the cover. It's sort of a letter to a young black kid, which I think is a Fascinating little book. You can see his comic Towel Boy and then of course the Hey AJ It's Bedtime and Hey AJ It's Saturday series, which are worth checking out and got a bunch of cool merch there you can check out as well. So anyways, here is my guest today, Super Bowl champion, NFL star, and most importantly,

• 4:46Ryan Holiday?

  brilliant artist, fascinating human being, Martellus Bennett.

• 4:52Ryan Holiday?

  I do bet as a, as a creative person, and you seem like a little bit of a homebody, that, that, that this sort of lockdowny thing has been, been good for you creatively and family wise?

• 5:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't really like being around a lot of people and I enjoy, like I, I didn't realize how much of my life was tied to things, right? Like, unfortunately I had to furlough a lot of people at the company, but then I didn't realize how much of my life was tied to my, the people who worked for me, you know, like I had to be there or be certain places for them or to be some like, you know, 9am and honestly, I've been questioning, questioning the way that we've been living in the past a lot, like, a lot of the stuff that we have done are just basically constraints that we put on ourselves and our times tied to like going somewhere or being somewhere that you really don't need to be.

• 5:50Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. And, and it's like, it's, you wouldn't think it would be easy for like an artist or writer to forget that like you're, you're the only thing that really counts is like doing the work, like are you making good stuff? That that's the engine that keeps it all going, but I feel like I clearly lost track of that or I wouldn't have been so productive and happy the last few months when all that other stuff, including a lot of lucrative stuff, you know, just disappeared like that.

• 6:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you can't do the speaking engagements. What the fuck are we gonna do about that?

• 6:25Speaker 01

  I mean, that's a good source of income. I mean,

• 6:28Ryan Holiday?

  Totally.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  Speaking of somebody via Zoom ain't the same thing as being in a room. And the energy's not even the same. Like, your presentation don't feel the same. Like, this whole idea of interacting with another human being via Zoom. I almost would prefer a phone call.

• 6:44Ryan Holiday?

  Right, right.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  Well, I got to see.

• 6:46Ryan Holiday?

  No, no, I like doing this with, I like doing this with, like, I'm doing it with you. We're not doing video because, like, weirdly, it helps me concentrate more than, like, watching this grainy video of you just sitting in your chair.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  I know. And also, I get tired of looking at myself. I think I see myself so often in meetings or whatever, whenever I try not to do Zoom or whatever, that you become subconscious about the way you look, how you present on the screen, all these things that normally when I'm talking to somebody, I don't really think about it as often. You know, you may have moments where you, like, twist and turn your shirt. But now you constantly see yourself and how you look, and it's kind of like, yo, this is just crazy.

• 7:27Ryan Holiday?

  So have you, have you been getting a lot, have you been doing a lot of drawing and making your next, your next projects? Have you at least used that time for, for that?

• 7:36Speaker 01

  Oh, man, that's all I've been doing. So the best thing about it, I think, is allow me to realize that sometimes I thought I was focused, but I was actually kind of unfocused, right? So it gave me a chance to really, like, just buckle down and just like, yo,

• 7:50Speaker 01

  and jump into extreme focus, because I'm not working with as many people or, or on as many things with others. So that gives me more space just to sit and think, which is, and to imagine. Like, I just have more time to just imagine and to think. Like, I can wander. Like, I can go for a three-hour walk, and it's just not for any purpose whatsoever, but to think, right? And

• 8:14Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  Like, I can read as many books, like, I find more time to read. And then also just the work of my artistry as an artist, like, my art, my hand from, you know, five months ago to how my style is today. It's just not even, it's just not even day. It's totally different. I'm way better because I draw more often. Like, I'm drawing, drawing, drawing, drawing, writing, and creating every single day, all day.

• 8:40Ryan Holiday?

  Well, I wanted to ask you about your reading thing, so I'm glad you brought it up. You have a rather unusual, let's call it iconoclastic, reading style where you don't, you don't like read a book left to right, page to page, right? You read differently, or do you not do that anymore?

• 8:58Speaker 01

  Well, I still do. I try to read only the left-hand pages, depending on what the book is. If it's like a really good book that deserves me to read two pages, I read both left and right. But a lot of time when I'm reading like philosophy or anything that would be like self-help, or like, you know, I just self, self, I don't know what the category would be called. Because I don't really think self-help is the right

• 9:23Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  name for it. But like, even though I read any of those books, I only read the left-hand page, like, for sure.

• 9:32Ryan Holiday?

  And why is that?

• 9:34Speaker 01

  Well, one, there's this guy named Bruce Ma, and he wrote this incomplete manifesto of growth. And he's like this really creative dude that's like, you know, I would say like the Olivia Pope of creativity, which is kind of like where I would like to be too. But I don't, I mean, that's just from my reading. I never met the guy. I don't really know much about him. I mean, besides what I've read about him or just saw. But he wrote this, this thing called the incomplete manifesto and growth, and there's like 46 bullet points. And one of them is like, he only read the left-hand side of the page. And this was probably like six or seven years ago I was reading it. And I started, I was like, well, because, you know, because a lot of times what happens when you read a book,

• 10:17Speaker 01

  it doesn't leave room for imagination or for, it gives us the answer, right? So our mind doesn't have to really work for the answer, because the more you read, the more answers you will, you'll get progressively, they give you the actual question, and then the author will give you the answer. And sometimes I feel like writers don't give, leave enough incompleteness to what they write to allow the reader to imagine their own answers to things that arrive in the book, right? We feel like, a lot of times we feel like we got readers are dumb, so let's give them the answer on this page, or this page, or this page, instead of just letting them just kind of dive into it. I'm gonna say the thing like with movies, that some movies you'll get to watch and you'll get to, the director won't give you all of the answers as you go.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  Like Knives Out was a really great movie that did this very well. Right, like it kept you on the edge of your seat. A lot of people don't write like that anymore. They just reveal, reveal, reveal, reveal, reveal.

• 11:14Ryan Holiday?

  Well, I was gonna say, as a person who slaves over both the light, the, the left and the right hand side of the page when I'm writing, I'm somewhat hurt, but then also as a create, as a person who sort of respects creativity, I love it. There's a, there's a quote from this poet, Juan Ramon Jimenez. And he says, like, his rule is like, if they give you lined paper, he says, like, go the other way. Or, you know, write the other way. Basically, like, if they, if they tell you to go left, go right, they tell you to, to look up, look down. And so, but I, I, I, I could see why your sort of reflexive, like, you don't, I'm gonna do it my way. Attitude is also creative and probably works for you.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  So, okay, so when I first started doing this, I used to get headaches. Right, when I first started reading just the left-hand page, I would get headaches. And I could feel my mind basically saying like, yo, something is missing. Like, what is missing, what is missing? And not know, and not knowing the information, you know, searching for it, I'm reading. Cause sometimes I may read something on page thirty, it may not connect until like page fifty. But the whole time my mind is looking for answers or make, creating its own solutions. Because it wasn't given to them. And I, I, I read like that too, because a lot of times if we're in a, anyone, we're talking to anybody, we never get all of the information. Like, you never get all of it. And even when you read a book, like, it's really one side perspective.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  And your perspective as the writer is how they see the world. So like, when you write something, I get to step into your lens and see the world through your eyes. Right, and that's an interesting thing, but at the same time, I don't wanna see exactly how you see. Cause I wanna see some of what you see, but then I wanna mix in how I see it as well. So I take it more as a conversation than a more, than a lecture whenever I read these books.

• 13:06Ryan Holiday?

  No, it's definitely gotta be a back and forth and and sometimes like people will they'll be like, oh, I loved your book and they'll show me it. And it'll be like in great shape. And to me, that's a sign that they didn't actually engage with it like. Like, I feel like it should be an intense conversation between the writer and the reader and the reader should disagree and. And if the book's not pissing you off in one or two places, you know, the the author's probably not taking risks too.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  I agree. I I like to, because I so I think a lot of times like I get in conversations with people. And people think to be informed is to read one book on a subject. But I think that you gotta read multiple authors and multiple, you know. Connections to that subject and then you have to draw your own conclusions. I think sometimes like people just take the author as the know it all and just. Live with the conclusion that they have drawn and what their literature that they have read. Well, I think that like it's really just a conversation starter to see like, yo, what are your thoughts about this? Right? Like right now, I'm reading about Wabi Sabi, right? I don't know shit about Wabi Sabi and.

• 14:14Speaker 01

  But like there are certain things they say that I'm like, okay, I get this, but then I'm like, oh, this shit don't make sense. Why would anybody do this? You know what I'm saying? Like. But it's my right to do that, like. Because the author doesn't know everything about Wabi Sabi. It's their interpretation of Wabi Sabi from their studies. And things that they have learned. They say this in the beginning of the book. So it's like, I don't have to take it as like. This is what Wabi Sabi is. These are the underlying tones of Wabi Sabi, but then Wabi Sabi is the individual thing. They say so in the book. So why am I? Why would I read this book? In terms of thinking about what Wabi Sabi is to her. Instead of like taking the information that she's talking and decide what Wabi Sabi is to me. While I'm reading about what she thinks about Wabi Sabi.

• 15:00Ryan Holiday?

  No, I love that. I love that. You know, so obviously you're much more than an athlete. So I don't, and I know you prefer to talk about the other stuff, which I want to do as well. I had two sort of quick philosophy of sports things for you, and I think you'll see how they apply to stoicism. But so obviously you played in maybe the greatest Super Bowl of all time. You know, the 28 to three comeback against the Atlanta Falcons. Walk me through, because obviously from a physical performance standpoint, you were incredible in that game. That game was incredible. But like, how, how does someone look at that scoreboard at that point in the

• 15:43Ryan Holiday?

  game and not give up hope?

• 15:47Speaker 01

  Well, I'll just tell you the most interesting thing about that game. It was nothing that happened on the field, by the way. Like, well, there was two, there was two things. There was one thing that happened on the field, and I'll tell you about that. But the first thing I want to tell you about is we went into halftime. When we went into halftime, I didn't really realize what the score actually was, right? Because we were so caught up in like trying to get things right. Because I just knew, we just knew things weren't going our way. But like, it was never, we always felt like it wasn't going our way because we were making mistakes. So like, the whole time was like, damn, I should did better. I should did, you know, like, each person felt that way.

• 16:24Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  Going into halftime, which is very rare usually when you're losing. When you're usually losing, everyone points the finger, right? Like, in a big game, especially like in a Super Bowl, like, it's the last chance. This is a big moment. It's easy to just be like, yo, you needed to do this, you needed to do this, you needed to do this. So we go into halftime, and mind you, we only lost two games that year. We lost one to the Supers, uh, the, I was about to say Supersonics, to the Seattle Seahawks, if I know about sports. We lost one to the Seattle Seahawks on a last play where they batted the ball away from Brock. That was a good, that was a good loss. Meaning that we played a really good team. It was a great game. They happened to come out with the victory at the end.

• 17:07Speaker 01

  That's a, that's one of the, the way that game went is one of those losses that you can go home and just be like, all right, I can't wait till next week because you gave it everything you got and they played well too. Like that's a respect thing like, yo, those motherfuckers about to ball in today, but we were hitting them right back in the mouth. So we lost that game to them, which was the only game that we really lost with Tom. The other game we lost was with Jacoby Brissette against the Buffalo Bills, which we all just took as a fluke. Like, man, that was just a, you know, it's like, I can't believe we lost to the Buffalo Bills. Like, one of those things, right? Like, that shit never happened. But there was a couple of other issues that came up, like, you know, Jimmy Garoppolo got hurt. Ja- Jacoby Brissette was there. So we felt like we didn't have a whole squad and then Tom came back the next week. So it was like the week before Tom.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  So we haven't been in, like, we've been in some, like, adversity. This is my first year on the Patriots and we were winning like a motherfucker. Like, I've never won that much in my life or anything. Well, basketball, we won like that before, like, growing up, but like, in NFL to be winning fourteen, to win fourteen weeks out of sixteen is ridiculous.

• 18:12Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, right.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  Right? Like, and then you lose one by a last second pass and then you lose one to your third string quarterback. Right? Like, and some other key missing pieces. So it's like, and that game you should have won, but you know it didn't go right. So anyway, we get to the Super Bowl. And we're getting ass kicked. Right? Like, everything's going wrong. Interception, fumble, I don't, I don't get out of bounds on a play. They could have got us closer for another chance to score, but we had to settle for a field goal, which gave us the three. You know what I'm saying? So it was just kind of like, all these things are going wrong, but it's like, yo, like, yeah, Tom would be like, man, I should, why did I even throw that ball? And then I'll be like, man, how did I even miss that block?

• 18:52Speaker 01

  So we get into halftime and I walk into halftime and this is my time. I'm like, cause I'm, like, losing to me is nothing. Right? Like,

• 19:02Speaker 01

  I've lost so many games that to me losing is like I've never given up, right? Like I, I, I, I lost so many games like in Chicago and Dallas or wherever I played that like. It's not your identity. It's not your identity. Like it doesn't define me. So like, I don't really care about losing the so, the way some people care about losing. But losing in New England kind of defines you because they don't lose often. So like when I'm, when they lost a game, like when we lost that Buffalo, um, Bills game, it was like someone died. And then we lost to the Seahawks. And to me, I'm telling you how I was after the Seahawk game. Like damn, that was a good game. Like, yo, next week, next time we see these dudes, we going to whistle them. Like they could be in a, you know, Super Bowl or whatever. Like we meet them again, we'll get them.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  That's how I think, right? Because that's the way I was, I've been on so many losing situations that it's kind of like, oh, next time I'm gonna go out there and ball even more. I'm gonna do whatever I can to make, make sure we don't lose. And I never want to be the guy on a losing team that doesn't play well in the third or fourth quarter because the game is done. But I had never seen them, but I'm saying this because I had never truly seen my teammates on the Patriots in losing situation where we may be down for a touchdown or down by field goal, but 28 to three in the Super Bowl is a big deal. I know I'm telling this the story the long way, but I have to give you the. No, no, I love it. The back, the backstory of like the, how, why we felt and why we did certain things.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  So we get to the Super Bowl, we down, right? Things, we got the interceptions, everything going wrong. They sacking us, they dancing. We look over, so then we go in halftime and we go to halftime. I'm like, all right. I wonder what's gonna happen because I've seen losses go, I see people yell. I see people curse each other out. I see people throw chairs. I see people want to fight. I see people blame each other. Like I've been in lots of losing situations. Like one thing I know how to do, I, one thing I know is what a loser looks like. Right? Like, cause I've been around losers before, right? So, but when I walk in this locker room, I didn't see any losers. I didn't see any of the losers antics or anything that losers do.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  All the stuff that I've been seeing other losers at moments of time. Happened to them in a situation and I knew the way that they react. I was bracing for it because I've been around people losing. And now I've been around these guys who've been winning and never really experienced losing like this with me this year. But I can't even say I was surprised. Like when I walked in the locker room, because we had practice halftime. Like we practiced halftime leading up to the Super Bowl because it was longer like. What the schedule is going to be like, what we're going to do when we're in the locker room. Yeah, you know, five minutes to yourself, coach is going to be with you. Like we knew what halftime was going to be like because we actually worked halftime into our Super Bowl practices like.

• 21:46Ryan Holiday?

  Practiced halftime, that's incredible.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, so Bill would take a long, however the long halftime is, is like fifteen, seventeen minutes or something. Right, like double the time. We had that actual halftime at practice where you had to get around, you had to stretch again and get ready to go back out and play. For the second half practice. So we practiced this, which to me, I didn't, I first I was like, oh, fuck, we practicing halftime, man. Damn, Bill, like, get this shit.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  Get this shit over with, like, goddamn, bro, like, because at practice, you're just sitting around, you kind of half that. Like, you don't go through all the plays and stuff. You're just like, hey, this five minutes, we'll be talking about this. And then you'll sit about five minutes and nobody's talking about anything about, except for what they want to do after practice today, et cetera, et cetera. Like, you just have this time to yourself. Which I also think was really good as well because really you started being like, man, we just fucking around too much. We can't be fucked, because everyone started looking at everybody like, man, we can't be fucking around like this during the game. So anyway, we get in at halftime and I walk in and literally no one yells. No one throws a chair, no coaches shouting, no coaches do, say, say anything. And I think the only thing that Bill, Bill said, hey, you got five minutes before you meet with your coaches.

• 23:01Speaker 01

  Right? Wow. So I go to my locker and I sit down, I eat my peanut butter jelly sandwiches, it's like the regular, just like crackers, right? I'm in there and you know, I always change socks at halftime. Uh, it was just kinda like this thing I always do, like, so like, I'm changing, I take off your pads, guys are like kicking their feet up, kinda relaxing. But when you look around, you can see that every single guy was individually, they were focused individuals, like they were thinking about what they could do. They had their headphones on, nobody was, uh, messing around, it was everyone like reflecting on themselves and what they had did the first half. Right? Right.

• 23:41Speaker 01

  And then you look over, you see the coaches huddle up, the coaches aren't yelling, they're just like, you can see them having a good conversation, like, yeah, I think this, I think this, oh, what do you think about this? Like, you could see a really like over there, like not fussing, but trying to figure out solutions to the problem, which is us losing. And so I'm looking around, I'm like, damn, this is incredible. So I take off my pads and stuff and relax and then they call us up and we meet and we're talking or whatever. And then Josh McDaniels and, and Bill or Tom, all of them, basically, they'll be like, what do you guys see out there? So here we are in the biggest game, these coaches who are usually, you know, coaches come from the ego standpoint, like there was no ego in there.

• 24:23Speaker 01

  They want, everybody there just wanted to win because the question they asked was like, so what do you guys see? And you know, I tell, hey, this is what I'm seeing, boom, boom, boom. Then he's like, hey, do you think that we could do this, this and that? I was like, yeah. And then, and I was like, we get, it was like, we get a lot of pressure off the edges. And I was like, yeah, I was like, I could chip. And, uh, I, I think if I chipped a bit more, we could slow down, like, cause a tight end, cause they're playing man to man. And as a tight end, the last thing you wanna do is chip and run to the flats because you're never gonna get the ball. It never, you're never gonna get the ball in the flat against man to man when you're chipping on the, uh, D and L C decide to, uh, unless he shadow rushes. But, um, or trigger rush, depending what system you play in.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  So we have this conversation and then, you know, we huddle back up and Bill's like, all right, guys, like, let's get ready to go back out. You know, three minutes or guys start tying up their shoes, getting ready, stretching, all those things. Well, we had to go stretch, everyone stretched in, do a little warm up and things like that. And then we huddle, like, you know, when everyone, all the players get together. And you know, usually this is that any given Sunday moment like they write in the movies. Yeah. You know, it was like the program, you know, like it's just, this is a perfect time for that moment in a movie. But, but if what happened next happened in a movie, everybody would be unsatisfied because all that happened was we got in a huddle and Julian Edelman is in the middle and I remember his words to this day and he was like,

• 25:53Speaker 01

  hey, all right, guys, we got thirty minutes to make history. Patriots on three, one, two, three, Patriots, and we went out. And then you did it. Yes, because when, but what was crazy when we got back on the field was, I cannot tell you what was happening during the game. Right? And I think it was kind of like this for everybody in a way of each person was doing their individual job. Like our model, our slogan for the season was do your job. But this was the first time I thought that every single person was focused solely solely on doing their job. Like if my job was to chip,

• 26:34Speaker 01

  like Dwight Freeney started shaking his head when he saw me, saw me like, uh, line up next to him. Because most tight ends are just trying to chip and get out. But I was lighting his ass up. There was literally a moment in the game where our helmets got stuck together. Like that's how, that's how much I was on him. And we had to take our helmets, the referees had to take our helmets off to get them apart. Like that's how hard, that's how hard the game was. And I just remember seeing his, uh, face and looking up at me and the way that he looked, I looked across the entire defense and they looked the same way because they was like, damn, these motherfuckers will not quit. Because they would get first down, second down, they'd make good plays, but then we'd have a third down conversion. Cause what people don't really realize is in that game, I think that we ran a hundred and one plays or a hundred plus plays.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  Uh, cause I remember cause, uh, Chris Hogan had did every single play of the game. And he had like a hundred and eleven snaps or something like that. But that's because we kept doing our job, right? We were able to stay on the field because one of the things we realized is their offense was explosive. So we couldn't give the ball right back to them, right? Because they had really good players like, you watch Julio Jones catches in that game? Like the defense was amazing, but he just had making some amazing catches. Like it was just like one of those things like, man, this is why he's Julio Jones right there, right? There's like any other person can't make those catches. Only Julio Jones can do what Julio Jones just did in a situation.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  So anyway, I, what I said is like, I was so hyper, super focused, hyper focused that like there was a, remember when we won the game? I didn't even know if we won. I asked Tom, I said, Tom, did we just win? He was like, yeah, but the game's over.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  Literally, bro, like that's how, that's, that's how focused I was. I didn't know how much time was left. Like when we went to overtime, I didn't know, I was just kind of like, I never, like, it was like we were in complete flow. Like I lost track of time and I wasn't really paying attention to time. It was just like, all right, we gotta go again, we gotta go again. So the whole thing was like, let's just get the job done. But that was kind of like the most interesting thing about the Super Bowl. I mean, all the catches and all that stuff was cool, but like.

• 28:49Ryan Holiday?

  Have, have you ever, have you ever come anywhere close to that flow state like before or since? It seems like it'd be on, you'd never get there again, but maybe you have.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  Never, never while playing football.

• 29:02Ryan Holiday?

  Get anything else?

• 29:04Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, I get it there like when I write and I draw and, and sometimes I'm like that all the, I can get, I get there all the time when I'm creating. I live in a conscious state of flow. Like, cause I've been, I've been able to create a, an environment and a system that induces flow for me. So I know exactly how to enter flow because I had to enter it so many times.

• 29:26Ryan Holiday?

  Speaking of sort of flow and focus, I'm always been fascinated by this because like I culturally come from a very different place, have always, have never sort of been into it. And it's definitely more in the athlete culture, but you know, I've done some like rap books and stuff before and it was there. What is the relationship with weed? Like from a creative standpoint, from an elite performance standpoint? It seems like it would be a performance inhibitor, but I know you've talked about it as being like, for a long time at least, sort of just part of your lifestyle and part of your routine.

• 30:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I don't think that weed makes you more creative. I don't think weed makes you more of anything besides of what you already, what you already, you know, what you already are like. For me, like marijuana helps me focus. So like, like, like I, cause like when I create, if I'm not high and if I am high, the stories I write are exactly the same, right? The difference is that when I am high, instead of writing, like, I'm not as easily distracted. So I, instead of writing for two hours, I would write for five hours straight. You know what I'm saying? Just kind of like be in flow and be in my zone.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  Where I'm not, like, if I'm not smoking, it's like, I may write for two hours and, you know, lollygag around for a bit and then get back into it and then go back. So the interesting thing about flow is that once you enter it, like anything can trigger and pull you out and it takes you a minute to get back into it, right? So like, I usually don't like, I don't like talking to anybody before, um, like 12 o'clock, really.

• 31:13Ryan Holiday?

  You, you keep the mornings for your, your creative space?

• 31:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, five, from five a, five, five AM to 12, like if, if I'm talking to somebody, it's usually about something I'm creating. If I got a question about something or things like that, I don't like to have phone calls. I don't like to do anything with my mornings. I feel like my mornings are mine.

• 31:32Ryan Holiday?

  I'm the, I'm the exact same way.

• 31:35Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, it's crazy. Cause even like, like just where like I just, it just feels good to wake up and just make something.

• 31:43Ryan Holiday?

  Totally. Do you, so, so it sounds like maybe you've got like, I, I don't want to diagnose you, but it sounds like you've got some like attention focus issues. Like my wife is like that, like has trouble sort of focusing maybe a little ADD. And it certainly sounds like marijuana is a much better than, you know, Ritalin or, or, or, you know, what's essentially speed that they, they prescribe a lot of kids. So do you feel like that's what pot does for you?

• 32:08Speaker 01

  No, I don't think that, like, I wouldn't say that. I think that it like, cause when I write and I'm focused, like it's, it's interesting. Cause like, if I'm writing, like say I'm editing, uh, like right now I've got this new graphic novel series that I'm working on. What I mean is that like, so for me, the way that I work is that everything is a part of the process. So I could be writing, but I may need to just, I may switch to drawing, right? So I may switch to drawing and then from switching to drawing, I may go into whatever. Cause the way that my writing style is not consistent of like any one method, right?

• 32:48Speaker 01

  Like sometimes I storyboard, sometimes I do script and sometimes I write, you know, synopsis, like, right? Like I just do whatever I can to get the story out. Um, I would say that the thing about, and, and I get things done, but I just, I just feel like, I wouldn't say that I'm able to pay attention longer when I'm high. I don't hear as much noise, right? Like my ears aren't as open when, as they are when I'm not high. When I'm high, my ears aren't as open to that of the world. Like what I'm hearing and what I'm receiving is like hyper focus of what I'm taking in. Cause I'm only taking in stuff that has to do with my, um, my work.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  When I'm not high, my ears are more open. So I could take in more randomness from the universe, right? Like I feel like the vibrations of the universe, I'm more in tune. It's a wider cast when I'm not high, but when I am high, my frequency is more, um, More fun, like it's just like, it's almost like being on a radio station, you know, not completely on ninety seven nine the box, which may be on ninety seven point three, right?

• 33:53Ryan Holiday?

  You're tuning in.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. So like when I'm hot, I tune in better. That's basically what I'm saying. Yeah. Like my crystals in my ears and shit are, you know, the frequencies are better.

• 34:03Ryan Holiday?

  So, so why i- is there such a stigma or such stiff penalties about it in not just the NFL, but all professional sports?

• 34:14Speaker 01

  Because the same reason why there's a penalty for all types of shit right now, because motherfuckers live in the past. Like, why are we still governing ourselves on rules made in the, in times when people didn't have cell phones, right? You know what I'm saying? Like, people used to think marijuana was such a bad thing in the seventies and sixties and whatever, but so those people who grew up in a time where marijuana was such a bad thing in the sixties and the seventies, and it was built as this, you know, a whole propaganda plan to put people who smoked weed in a category, those people are in charge now, right? They were alive when, when, you know, it was, you had to be a rebel or different to want to smoke weed. It was like a negative thing.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  So if it was a negative thing when they were growing up, it's a negative thing when they're in charge. Like them motherfuckers ain't gonna change their minds.

• 35:03Ryan Holiday?

  Right. No, nobody hears about, you know, uh, an NBA coach who has a big wine collection and thinks like, oh, that guy's a degenerate, you know, we should find him. But, but maybe that's what, what weed is.

• 35:17Speaker 01

  See, but wine has been branded as like the sophisticated thing, right? Weed was not branded that way. It's all about brand and language. Like the language that was always used to describe weed in a way that was, the imagery used was like some stoner sitting in a chair, chips on their stomach, et cetera, et cetera. Well, like, I'll get high and I'll go run five miles, you know what I'm saying? Like it's not like, and my, and my run would be better, right? Like it'll just be like, yeah, cause I'm like, it's just what it is. So like, they built this culture and this, they built this brand identity for marijuana that made it seem like it was such a terrible thing.

• 35:59Speaker 01

  And now even with science proving that it isn't, they still, because of branding and brand image, they still think it's a really bad thing.

• 36:08Ryan Holiday?

  I know you, you wrote like a really beautiful, although it's, it's also tragic. When, when, when your brother got, you know, arrested and there was that, that thing in, in Vegas in, was that 2017? I remember your Instagram post, it like, it really hit me like, so I grew up, my father was a police officer. So it always sort of had, you know, like, you know, you hear things and you go, oh, okay. I assume this is what's happening. I assume this is what's happening. But I remember when I read that, it was eye opening. You were, you were basically saying like, look, this could happen to anyone and it could happen to you. I, I'm just, I'm just curious, like, what are you feeling about everything that's happening in the world right now?

• 36:49Speaker 01

  Well, I just think that is like, people always be like, they associate black or they're associated with, associated, I don't know. The struggle, right? With blackness, right? So like, if you have money, it's almost like they don't see you as black as someone that's poor and black, right? Like, cause they think, when they think of black, they think of poor. But if you have money, it's like, well, you're not black and poor. You're like a whole different type of black, right? It's like, no.

• 37:21Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 37:22Speaker 01

  Right? You know what I'm saying? Like I'm just as, I'm just as black as everybody else. I had, like one person told me like, why do you care about this thing? I have friends who are blacker than you. It's just like white dude, I was like, bro, like, how could you have somebody that is blacker than me? What does that even fucking mean? Like, you know what I'm saying?

• 37:39Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 37:40Speaker 01

  Because he, because he associated with it because they didn't have the things that I have in my life. My thing is that like, when you're black, I don't care how much money you have or how much money you don't have, your blackness is the same in the world, right? Like, when the police see my black, he doesn't see my black as any different than anyone else's black, until he reads the ID, right? Until he reads the driver's license or something, then they'll treat you differently in that situation. But if there's a chance, opportunity where they don't have your license and something is going down, right, they treat you as they would treat you if they thought you were the other black to them, right?

• 38:25Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 38:26Speaker 01

  And so I just feel like everybody is a suspect. No matter how much money you have as black, you are the suspect. I mean, you have it where you have the Milwaukee Bucks player in Milwaukee getting, you know, tased for parking in a handicap spot.

• 38:46Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, or did, did you see that video of the, the GM from the, the Raptors when he was trying to walk onto the court after they'd, they'd won a championship? And it's like,

• 38:55Speaker 01

  What the fuck is that?

• 38:56Ryan Holiday?

  I mean, it's, it's, it's like, if you, and you've obviously done it, but you know, you know, you, you, sometimes you have backstage passes to something or, or, or, you know, you've, you've got, you have access or whatever. You sort of walk in and your body language and the way you're dressed and who you're with sort of says like, I belong to be here, I, I belong here, right? Let me through. And he was used to that because he should be, that, that's what his job is. And you could tell that the cop just, it does not compute to the cop that this, that this well-dressed black man would have any business walking onto the court, you know, as the game is winning.

• 39:36Ryan Holiday?

  But if he had been an, an elderly white man, I'm, I've got to imagine that he's going to have a very different reaction. And that, that is the problem.

• 39:45Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, that was Jerry West, and he was just being like, alright, yeah, go there, Jerry, Jerry West. They could be, if you would have walked by and seen when the clipboard, they probably wouldn't let you right by.

• 39:54Ryan Holiday?

  I think so. I mean, Although I look like a kid, so people, people always assume, actually, I remember I was at, this is a good example of that. I was at a Patriots game when my, when my books had first sort of been read by the Patriots. This would have been maybe 2014 and, and so I was on the field before the game. And then, you know, like they start, they clear everyone out who's not supposed to be there. And, you know, the game's about to begin, but nobody comes over and explicitly tells us like, hey, you gotta get out of here. So we were just like, let's just, you know, let's just see how long we can go here. And, and we made it all, all the way, almost all the way through the first quarter on the field where we had no business of being.

• 40:40Ryan Holiday?

  And, and that's because somebody just assumed like, oh, he's a kid. He's probably one of the coach's sons. I won't bother him. But if I had been dressed differently or of a different race, I'm not going to get that benefit of the doubt. And I think I can't understand why it's so hard for people to wrap their head around that being a part of our reality and something that through conversation and change, we should be able to address and rectify.

• 41:09Speaker 01

  See, but my whole, like, I don't think conversation is the, is the, um, the right move because it's like,

• 41:16Ryan Holiday?

  Okay.

• 41:16Speaker 01

  All right. So like, so say like, all right. So there is conversation, but I think the conversation has to be peer to peer, right? Like it has to be white man to white man or someone in their family has to be like, yo, you're wrong. It can't really come from an outside source of like me like, yo, black people feel this way. This is what we going on. That doesn't always work because when they go back into a wild, like think about right now in quarantine, there's white people who haven't seen a black person.

• 41:43Ryan Holiday?

  Sure, sure. Right. Yeah.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  Since quarantine started, right? But there's not a black person who hasn't seen a white person, right? Because our bubbles aren't built that way, right? Like we see white people everywhere. Of course, we're only 12%, of population. So my thing is like, So

• 41:58Ryan Holiday?

  Right, no, you're inherent, you're inherently surrounded at all times.

• 42:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, so if they're not, but they're not surrounded by black, all the time they experience black is through music, through TV, through something else in the culture, through the news. So their interpretation of black is created by the media and not by experience. So therefore, that conversation that they have to have will have to be someone around them that knows black people or have black friends that looks like them, that they know, that could tell them about it, right?

• 42:32Speaker 01

  And that's how I feel. I feel like there are few, but there's not many who will change through a conversation with somebody that's not, they're not familiar with, right? It's hard to, like, as you know, it's hard to inspire people, you know, to change. Like, change is a really hard thing.

• 42:48Ryan Holiday?

  No, look, and I feel like every time, although, look, I think conversation works in the sense that every time I talk to you, you manage to say something that, and I think this is, this is what's special about you, is you have such a unique perspective that, and you manage to always, and this is the artist in you, you manage to always pick a really vivid, either analogy or metaphor or like way of expressing it, and it always hits me in a weird way, which I wrote down, I wanted to talk to you about. We were texting and we were talking about, I forget what it was, but your point was, you were like, you were talking about your goals with your animation studio and your art,

• 43:29Ryan Holiday?

  and you were just like, look, like Disney is the most successful animation, you know, sort of movie studio of all time. You were like, look, that was founded in 1923. And then you said something to me like, like, think about what it was like to be a black person in America in 1923. And that's why Walt Disney is owned by a white person and not owned by a black person.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, because if the competition, if the playing field was even, who knows if Walt Disney would be as popular as he is? He could have got beat out and some black media company could have been the biggest media company in the world. Right? Like, or just as equal. Like, there could be two, side by side, like, right? Like, serving two groups of people, like, you know, in a way that, like, I think about that about most media, right? I'll watch, like, we didn't have the opportunity to start businesses, and then when you did start businesses a hundred years ago, they burnt them down.

• 44:24Ryan Holiday?

  No, I mean, like, I was reading, I've been reading a lot about reconstruction and about the Jim Crow years, and I think it's just hard for people to wrap their head around, like, it wasn't that people were racist back then. It was as if society was ruled, not in all of America, but definitely in the South, it was as if America was ruled by a series of gangsters who would murder you if you stepped out of line in some way. Like, Jim Crow wasn't just like, hey, you got a drink at this water fountain, and then we'll give you a nice water fountain. Jim Crow was like, we will literally murder you and your family if you try to approach this ballot box. You know what I mean?

• 45:08Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 45:09Ryan Holiday?

  Like, it was viciously and ferociously aggressive, and I don't, I think that's hard for people to wrap their heads around.

• 45:18Speaker 01

  I mean, I tell people like that, like, it's, it is like, it's crazy, because it wasn't that long ago either. Like, I think my dad was born a year after the Jim Crow ended. Like, yo, that's just crazy. Like, that's my father. Like, and it's not that many generations removed. But the thing is, like, some households want to talk about their family's experience during that generation, right? Because they may be embarrassed about it, or they may not be embarrassed about it. They may feel like that's the way things should be, right? So there's like this whole space of where these conversations are happening with children in these households, right? Like, if the parents, the grandparents are racist, and then the kids are racist, then racism is taught, right? It's like, and people don't think that they're teaching it, but the number one thing that we learn is by

• 46:03Speaker 01

  seeing, seeing the behavior, right? We see racism. Like, when they used to hang people, it used to be like a family gathering. Like, it was a damn football game. Everyone just goes around and like, let's go see who hangs the niggas. Like, it's the craziest thing ever. Like, everyone stands around, like, kids are there, right? Parents are there. They eat sandwiches. They're picnic, picnicking and lynching.

• 46:25Ryan Holiday?

  No, and if you missed it, you could buy a postcard of it later. And there's postcards that you can fucking buy with, you know, like charred bodies on them. Or, or, uh, or, you know, like a dangling, uh, you know, a dangling cadaver. Or, I mean, even, I mean, even, you know, you go to college football, like those, those gator bait chants. Like that, that is not just, you know, a funny thing. That, that has roots in racist art that, that, you know, comes from, uh, you know, who knows if it was true or not, but comes from a very, very vicious place culturally. It's like, we'll feed your babies to an alligator. That wasn't white babies.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  And you know what, I know it was really fucked up. I never thought about, like, just going back in history, like, I never realized that a master bedroom was called a master bedroom because that's where the master lived in. And it's just like, yo, like, bro, like, that's so fucked up. Like, that's just crazy, and the biggest room in the house. And everyone wants the master bedroom when you get to the house, right? Everyone talks about this. This room was made for the person who ran the plantation.

• 47:39Ryan Holiday?

  No, that's, that's, that's true.

• 47:41Speaker 01

  I say that because racism and these tropes are, these ideals are still entrenched in our society. And my problem with everything that everyone is trying to do, right? This is my issue with everything that's happening right now. Well, it's not my issue. Like, it's just, this is a big part of my thoughts on what's going on right now. I know you're asking that. Well, the problem I see is that everyone is looking for new ways to work within the system that we already live in. When what really should be happening is a new way for people should be designing a new way of life to live. The old system, no matter how you rework a room, the room is still the same size.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  You can move the furniture, you can move things round and round, left and right, all that shit. You can do all that shit, it's cool. But the room is still the same. Just because I decorate it different, doesn't mean that the room is a different room. It may have a little different feeling to it, right? You change the color of the paint, right? You get a new piece of art, you add some new carpet. Now, it may feel different, but at the end of the day, it's still the same room. Right? And the worst thing, what we, the problem with ours is that it, the, the way the system is set up is root, is rotten at the foundation. Cause the foundation was built racism, hate, crime, th- thievery, stolen.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  Like sometimes like, like, like if you're, if you're, if you're white, and this may sound radical as hell, but I'm just trying to say something. There might be a time where one of your ancestors have stolen something that made your family prosper, prosperous down the line from people that they shouldn't have been stealing from. And they got away with it because they were white. And the person they stole it from was black. Who knows how many inventions that people got credit for that were stolen from black people, right? Because those black people didn't have a voice, they couldn't take it to court, there was nothing they could do about it. This is mine now, right?

• 49:46Ryan Holiday?

  So to go to your, to go to your point about, about competition, I mean, that's, that's something I've, I've, I've wrestled with. So it's like my, my grandmother, uh, on my father's side grew, grew up in, in Arkansas in the, you know, this would have been the twenties and thirties and forties. And, and so it's like, uh, obviously her schools would have been segregated. And then, and, and so people go, okay, and then maybe they confuse themselves with the separate but equal thing. But let's just think about when she went to apply to college, right? Black people in the South were not allowed to go to these colleges. So when we think now about how competitive it wa- it is to get in college, to, to get into college and people complain about it.

• 50:30Ryan Holiday?

  And, you know, it's, it's such a, it's such, it's so competitive and so hard. And they sort of think back to the glory days of it. Well, it's, it's like, hey dude, I don't know how to tell you this, but, uh, It was at a minimum 12% less competitive in 1930 because a whole swath of the population was threatened at the point of a gun or the noose of a rope from bothering to apply. And so we don't, we have trouble wrapping our head around what the consequences of those things are. So somebody goes, hey, I earned my way into college. I blah, blah, blah. I

• 51:11Ryan Holiday?

  picked my, myself up for my bootstraps. But it would be, you know, it's like, no, the competition was artificially tilted in your favor and you just, you just never thought about it that way.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  But the thing, the crazy thing is about that is that the system is, education is still set up that way, right? These schools and neighborhoods or communities that, you know, black people live in are largely forgotten. They don't get the, they don't get the tools. They don't get the assets. They don't get the introduction. It's like, I go like, I been fortunate enough to put my daughter, like my daughter, like my school growing up wasn't bad, right? Like I went to a good school. My school was brand new, first built. My neighborhood was very diverse. But like, I dropped my daughter off at school. She's six, right?

• 51:59Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 51:59Speaker 01

  They're fucking building robots, right? And I read to a lot of kids, right? And I go to a lot of predominantly black schools, right? And when you go in these spaces, the lights are ugly. It's not an inspiring place. It feels like a jail. It just, it, you know, there's no reason to want to go there, right? Like, and then if you have a, if you're living, your home situation is, you know, not the best, and then you go to school and that's no better, then like, you don't want to be at home. You don't want to be at school. Neither one of those places inspire you, right? Like, schools should be inspiring. And they, and I really think the school system is all fucked up. They need to redesign the

• 52:42Speaker 01

  entire school system. And they need to get the motherfuckers out that's in charge of the school system out of it and start empowering teachers and people who actually work within the system to design it. And I also think that schools should be designed for the communities that they live in. They do it with Starbucks's. They do it with Apple stores. Why is an Apple store more inspiring than a schoolhouse? Right? I don't get it. Like, why am I more inspired to want to do design or be great or think different when I go to? Apple and then when I go to school, it's just like, oh, this place is bad, right? Like, what, what is that about? And then they, they need to, they need to let the students, like, you know, so if they desire for communities, because these students, these teachers know their neighborhood is the best, right?

• 53:26Speaker 01

  No different from your barista at the store, but she'd be like, damn, Tony's not here today. Tony makes the best, you know, mocha, mocha latte, you know, but they, it's Suzanne. You know Suzanne don't know me that well, she don't do the little thing like Tony, you know what I'm saying? Like it's

• 53:39Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 53:39Speaker 01

  It's more personal, right? Like that was a whole branding experience. So I feel like schools should be more personal to their communities. They should be serving the community and not serving the government, right? Because as a government, what happens is they also serve these kids up to, to, they prepare them for prison, right? We all know about the school, the prison, the prison pipeline. But a big part of it is that one out of three, every black man, I know I'm just kind of going on a bunch of shit right now, but one out of three black men will, you know, experience jail, right? Like, I've never been to jail. I know that's shocking to a lot of people because I'm, I'm, you know, I could be crashed at times, but I've never been to jail, you know what I'm saying? So people use that to me, like, oh, you're a criminal. I'm like, bro, like, my record is way, you know what I'm saying?

• 54:23Speaker 01

  Then, then you're, but so anyway, so basically one out of three men, you know, black men experience prison. All right, so prison, prison system is a private business and the business is, the prison is booming, right? We see her, like, you know, they, they suffering right now because prison inmates can't fight fires, which they paying two, two dollars an hour for, to go out there and risk their lives to fight, to fight fires.

• 54:46Ryan Holiday?

  No, and then, and then when these, these prisoners get out of jail from having learned a bunch of experience fighting fires, they can't get, they can't get hired as firemen because, you know, they have a marijuana arrest on their record. It's absurd.

• 55:00Speaker 01

  Bro. Exactly, right?

• 55:04Ryan Holiday?

  No, they're good enough as slave labor, but God forbid they want to be paid and be a contributing member of society, then all of a sudden, they're untouchable.

• 55:15Speaker 01

  They basically are sharecroppers. This is exactly the same sharecropper system they did. Basically, they would have, like, you work on this farm, you have this land, and then you have to buy your food back from the owner of the farm. So it was just like another way to sell slavery. But then, they could raise the price of your rent, raise the price of the food. If they want to pay you pennies on your food, they could, they could control the market. So it was like no real way, and they created more debt for you. So it was like you could never pay off, or whatever you could do. And there's like this debt still being paid by someone with a marijuana charge. You know what I'm saying? It's like, yo, like, I could fight fires for you when I was incarcerated, but I can't be a firefighter. I might be damn good at this. This job could possibly change my life.

• 55:55Ryan Holiday?

  Well, no, and look, that's what I think people miss too, right? So they'll go like, okay, you know, whether it's the Michael Brown case, or whether it's the George Floyd case, or whether it's the, was it Jacob Blake case in Kenosha right now? People are like, well, why are they, you know, why are they resisting arrest? Why aren't they going peacefully? It's like, first off, you know, they're resisting arrest because they still get killed even when they are not resisting arrest, which anyone who watches a George Floyd video will see. But if you have a relationship with law enforcement, where law enforcement is essentially an arm

• 56:35Ryan Holiday?

  of the sharecropping store come to collect absurd, unpayable debts from you in the form of, you know, parking tickets, and court fees, and bail amounts, etc., you're going to have a much more hostile, like, when I get, if I get pulled over, I'm like, okay, the worst thing that happens is I have to pay this ticket. I don't, I'm not spiraling through in my head, if I, you know, I'm already on probation for this charge, and so I could go back to jail for that, if I get this fine and I can't pay the fine, or if I can't miss work to do my court appearance, you know, like, the threat of losing my freedom is never there.

• 57:13Speaker 01

  Bro, and why do people, this two things, fuck all that, I don't have any arrests and I, every time I get pulled up, I hear a siren in a rap song, I get nervous. Right, like god damn it, like why do I have to get nervous, why am I driving, like sometimes, like I had, I was driving a Mercedes Benz, I went tip the windows.

• 57:34Speaker 01

  Right, because I'm just like, yo, they gotta see me. My wife, I was jogging, I live in Hollywood, I was jogging through Hollywood and I stopped because I felt like I looked suspicious. Running past the sidewalk every damn day. In my neighborhood, my wife would let me walk at night. Because, you know, I have to wake up at 6 a.m. to walk and sometimes I gotta gauge what time, if the sun goes down, I can't go for a walk for the day. If I miss my, so I can't walk in the evening unless I bring my poodle with me, you know what I'm saying, or my dog with me, whatever, right? Because then it's like, you know, here's a big black man with a poodle, he can't be suspicious, right, like, you know, so like, in my own neighborhood.

• 58:11Ryan Holiday?

  I hate that, man, that sucks, I hate that.

• 58:14Speaker 01

  And another thing that you touched on too, why do people say that not communicating with the police is resisting arrest? If I'm not under arrest, I don't have to fucking talk to you?

• 58:30Ryan Holiday?

  No, I think, we, we've been sold a, we've been sold a weird bill of goods with the police, it's like, the police, the police work for me and they work for you, right, like, like the police have got this weird perception where, where they are, they are the good guys and everyone is the bad guys, black and white, when, when really they should understand that's like, like, look, you, you work for me and, and so we've accepted a whole warrior culture from the police and it's like, who are you at war with? You're at war with the, the state that provides your job in the first place, it's absurd.

• 59:07Speaker 01

  You wanna know why, you know, you wanna know why that's absolutely fa- facts? Because the whole idea of blue lives matter. Right, that says that like, we're not white, we're not black, we're a whole different species. We're a whole different person, like, we're blue lives, like, this is a whole, like, you know what I'm saying, like,

• 59:24Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 59:25Speaker 01

  That's, if you think about what they encapsulate as people, when we say Black Lives Matter, they encapsulate everyone that's black. When you say Blue Lives Matter, they encapsulate anyone that's wearing a uniform, which isn't a fucking thing, right? You're white in a blue uniform, you're black or Hispanic in a uniform, you're not, not, you're not. If you're black and you wear a blue uniform, you still part of Black Lives Matter, right? If you're white and you wear, you wear a blue uniform, you're still part of white America. You're not part of blue America, what the fuck is that?

• 59:58Ryan Holiday?

  Well, I was trying to, I was talking to a friend about this the other day, I was like, look, man, nobody hates the fire department. Because the fire department, the, the, the fire department doesn't, first off, the fire department does their job without killing people. Uh, and second of all, the, the fire department, like, like, when you walk by a fire department, they're flashing the lights at, at your kids and they're waving and they're, you know, they're like, they, they, they have a different culture and it's a culture, you know, the protect and serve culture of police. Everyone knows that's a, you know, that, that euphemism is bullshit, like, nobody's walking up and protecting and serving. That's not how they walk through the world, and I think that's a cultural problem that has to be addressed.

• 1:00:40Speaker 01

  There's nothing friendly, there's nothing friendly about police officers.

• 1:00:44Ryan Holiday?

  And, and, go ahead.

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  All right, here's my question, have you ever held a gun?

• 1:00:49Ryan Holiday?

  Yes, of course, I live in Texas.

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, how does it make you feel? Like, someone holding a gun, the way that it makes someone with a gun, the way it makes you feel, is, is, is crazy, right?

• 1:01:03Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, there's a pa- a power in it.

• 1:01:05Speaker 01

  All right, have you ever had someone, have you ever pointed a gun at something?

• 1:01:11Ryan Holiday?

  Like an animal, yes, but a, a human being, no.

• 1:01:15Speaker 01

  Okay, so like, yeah, so like, that moment, when you, as an animal, even as an animal, that feeling that you get, right, because, think about this, there's a period of time where black people have been considered humans, right? We were labeled and treated as animals, right? So like, alright, so, when you point that weapon at that animal, you know that that animal can't fuck with you, right? You're not worried about that animal attacking you or doing anything. And that animal, when it sees you point that gun, it is scared shitless. They don't, like, they know that they're in danger, right?

• 1:01:53Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:01:54Speaker 01

  Like, they know, like, this animal's like, fuck, this motherfucker has a gun. Animals know this shit. And some animals will freeze, they're so scared, and then other animals, they fucking take off, right?

• 1:02:10Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  Alright, so, have you ever had someone point a gun at you?

• 1:02:16Ryan Holiday?

  No, thankfully, no.

• 1:02:18Speaker 01

  Why you didn't have a gun? Could you imagine being the animal? While you were pointing, not that shit, I'm not saying that killing animals is bad if you're eating the meat and all that shit, but like, if you were the animal, right? If that was you, right? If there was a person or whatever, like, you was on the other end and someone else has a gun, and you were in an animal's shoes, what the fuck would you do?

• 1:02:41Ryan Holiday?

  No, it would be an overwhelming emotional experience. Like, imagine how people feel getting yelled at and having someone pointing a gun at you, threatening to kill you, must be like, a thousand times that.

• 1:02:52Speaker 01

  Alright, so check this out. Have you ever seen, have you ever, have you ever had your kid hold a gun?

• 1:03:01Ryan Holiday?

  No, he's only four.

• 1:03:02Speaker 01

  Okay, if your kid was holding a gun, how would you feel?

• 1:03:08Ryan Holiday?

  I would be scared, I wouldn't like that.

• 1:03:11Speaker 01

  Right, right. Now, imagine walking into a room, and someone's holding a gun, don't have to be pointed at your kid, it could be another kid, holding a gun while your kid is in the room. How are you feeling?

• 1:03:26Ryan Holiday?

  I mean, I can only imagine what you must have felt when you watched that video of those people pointing, those policemen pointing weapons at your brother. And, and, and I can only imagine how he must have felt, knowing that there was, that even though the situation was wrong, there was nothing he could do about it, and that these people could kill him, and he would be blamed for it.

• 1:03:49Speaker 01

  Right. And you know what? That situation changed my brother's entire life. It's out of the life.

• 1:03:57Ryan Holiday?

  Sure. It'd be like being in a plane that almost crashes or something. It would just fundamentally change how you walk through the world.

• 1:04:03Speaker 01

  So, right, my brother experienced that. It changed my life, seeing it, right? Now, if you go on Instagram, Twitter, what do you see all the time? Black men getting shot, black men getting, you know what I'm saying? It's torture, right? But visually, like you get, you see someone who looks like you getting murdered, like you start to identify with those people because it's another one after another one after another one. And then you start to think like, well, damn, am I next? Right? So now there's a spirit that's in the air around, right? That's when, that's when the shit gets really scary, when, you

• 1:04:43Speaker 01

  know, you know, the, the world is a, damn, it's a negative, it's a crazy place out there, man.

• 1:04:51Ryan Holiday?

  No, look, a, a, and I, I think, I think what you're talking about is empathy. And I think, you know, people think Stoicism is this philosophy of, of unfeelingness, of mastering the emotions. But I've talked about this a couple of times. Marcus Aurelius talks about, he's like, look, you have to, you strip out the emotions and you have to replace them with love. And, and if, just for anyone listening, like, if you watch these videos, like, if you watch the video of, of Martellus's brother, or you watch the George Floyd video, or the, the Arbery video, if you watch that, and it doesn't hit you in a soft place, regardless of your race. You are, I need you to know that you are the problem.

• 1:05:35Ryan Holiday?

  Like you, you have somehow walled off a part of yourself, or you, you have dehumanized other people to a degree, where like, it changes my life to watch those videos. And, and I know I don't really have to worry about it the same way. Like, I don't have to worry about when I'm walking through my neighborhood, as you're talking about. It, it, it's just, it's not, you have to care about people to a degree that when you see something like that, it should hit you in, your, your message was so good, where you're saying, how would you feel if people were pointing a gun at your kid? You gotta get to a place where when you watch that, George Floyd was somebody's kid, and George Floyd had to, you know, have kids. Like, you have to be able to see people that way.

• 1:06:18Speaker 01

  You have to be human, right? You have to be human. You, like, empathy. A lot of times when people talk about empathy, they think, people think he wants sympathy. Nobody's asking for your sympathy. Empathy is really hard. Sympathy is easy. Empathy is really hard. And, and if anybody wants to learn about empathy, the only thing they need to do is watch E.T. Seriously, that whole movie is about empathy, right? And it began a movie to do, that his brother, Elliot's brother is like, why don't you put somebody else, why don't you put yourself in someone else's shoes for a change? Right? And that entire movie, he feels what E.T. feels. He's literally in E.T.'s shoes. That was the lesson about Elliot learning about empathy.

• 1:07:03Speaker 01

  It was an empathetic movie. I know it was random, but like, that's some true shit. Like, E.T. is a movie about empathy. And I also think that E.T. stands for empathy training. But.

• 1:07:17Ryan Holiday?

  No, I mean, look, I, I watched your, I was at a Seahawks practice once, and I watched your brother get in a fight, and, and expertly handle himself to a, to a very intimidating degree. You know, he's a Super Bowl champion, he's a Pro Bowler, he's made millions of dollars. He does not need my sympathy, but he does need, for me and for everyone who watches that, to see it and go, this is insane. This cannot happen.

• 1:07:47Speaker 01

  But could you imagine if you had to arrest my brother? And he made any set of moves, knowing the how big he is, how strong he is, the I, and not only that, the concept of the black man, the I, the ideologies that they put out to the world about the black man. You walk up to this black man, and then with the heightened situation of what's going on in the world where, I know white people feel like everyone that's black is mad at them. Right, if you're like, man, I can't, oh man, I can't, my, my black friends probably pissed off at me. A lot of white people don't know where they stand with their black friends, if they have them. Right, they just like, oh, can I, can I talk to them, am I, am I racist? Have I been racist and not known, you know what I'm saying, so like, now you hate that situation with,

• 1:08:29Speaker 01

  you know, guns and all this, and these moments of time, because all these are single, these are moments of time, right? These are just

• 1:08:36Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:36Speaker 01

  Moments of time that's happening, like, eight minutes and forty sec, eight, eight minutes and forty six seconds in our lives, you know what I'm saying, that's not even a stretch moment before you go run. You stretch longer. You stretch for longer periods than you, than what they did when they killed George Floyd. Right, so like, all this is crazy. I find the world to be a fascinating place. Like, I find people to be fascinating, the fact that like, history repeats itself because we keep trying to work within the, the, the infrastructure that was built by history, instead of trying to write a new history. And, or build a new world, a new place. They built a one world, now it's time to start building a new world.

• 1:09:18Speaker 01

  What does that world look like, and what does that leadership of the world look like, like who means it? And honestly, the old motherfuckers, they get out the way and start letting the youth be in more positions of power, like, we the, we have to go in here and struggle. I have to sit in rooms where eight white people tell me what black families want to watch on TV. Eight old white men, you know what I'm saying, like, why, how do you know? Like, when's the last time, fuck their market research, when's the last time you had dinner with a black family, or went to a barbecue and just hung out on top of two black parents? That wasn't in a room for marketing or testing?

• 1:09:50Ryan Holiday?

  No, look, and I think to go back to where we started, I think with the craziness of the world, with the awful things that we're seeing and the... One of the things you gotta do is make art, because art does make a tiny, tiny difference.

• 1:10:07Speaker 01

  Okay, I gotta jump on that. This is the last thing I would say, because what you said is perfect, right? Everything that a human being enjoys is the result of another human being's creativity. Everything. You like your house, you like your car, you like your movies, you like your music, you like your dances, you like your, you know, the way that you do your farming, like, everything that you enjoy, your garden, et cetera, et cetera, is the result of another human being's creativity. So, the only thing that can save the world is creativity. But I don't see any leaders with creativity, and also the problem with leadership is, they stop learning. Like, they don't look, they're not people who continue to learn.

• 1:10:47Speaker 01

  They just try to lead, instead of realizing the best way to lead is realizing, is probably realizing that you don't know. And when you realize you don't know, you're more open to more solutions. When you think that you know, right, or you think that you just have this small group of people that know everything, and you're not, you're not furthering your knowledge of the world or the people that you're serving, right? The people you're serving today aren't the people that, you know, George Washington was serving, right? The mindset ain't the same. So, like, a lot of stuff that has been done that may have been right in the past ain't right today. So, creativity is the only thing that can save the world. Imagination, without imagination, we cannot create solutions. And we keep putting people in power who lack imagination.

• 1:11:31Speaker 01

  So, they can't see a better world, they can't see new solutions, they can't see new things, because they don't have the power that they need, which is the power of imagination. And then they rip that out of our schools, so we're raising future leaders not to be imaginative people, which then will create a world that's unimaginative. And that is the problem I see with a lot of things that's going on.

• 1:11:55Ryan Holiday?

  No, man, I love your shit so much. Thank you.

• 1:11:59Ryan Holiday?

  And I wanted to wrap up this episode, something that happened afterwards. And so I got home from the interview and I was telling my wife, I was like, I just had this incredible conversation with Martellus Bennett. And I was saying like, you know, sometimes, you know, people hit you with stuff. And I was telling her how he was saying that, that because he's, you know, spacey and artistic and a human being, it doesn't occur to him that there are times that you can't just get up and go for a walk in his neighborhood because, you know, someone might think that he's suspicious or be intimidated by the fact that there's a, you know, a huge black man walking around his neighborhood. And I was just telling her how hard that hit me and how just, how nuts that is.

• 1:12:42Ryan Holiday?

  I mean, here you have, again, a Super Bowl champion who is having to navigate the world in a way that just doesn't even compute to me. I would, I mean, I don't know about you, but I would never have to think, is it an appropriate, safe time for me to go around my neighborhood? And I could totally see not thinking that way and then having to have someone who's smarter and wiser, as my wife is for me, you know, remind me of that. And so anyways, I was telling her that and she was listening and she was like, you know, what's crazy is when I was hearing it, I was assuming, and she was like, this is the definition of what privilege, you know, sort of does to your thinking. She was like, I was thinking you meant that he couldn't just go for a walk whenever he

• 1:13:25Ryan Holiday?

  wanted because he was famous. And, and it just struck me how, how sad the state of things are that, that a human being has to navigate the world that way. And I know I said this during the interview, but if, if hearing these things doesn't hit you in a soft place, if it doesn't strike your sense of what is just or unjust, then you're doing this philosophy wrong. And look, I know it would be more pleasant to just talk about how Stoicism can make you a more productive person, a more resilient person, but the Stoics would remind us that what good are those things if not deployed in the pursuit of or in the fight for justice?

• 1:14:09Ryan Holiday?

  And so I'm really glad I got to have this conversation with Marty. I hope it opened your mind a little bit. I know it certainly did for me. And anyway, thanks, Marty. And I hope we can all work towards a better world because certainly the one that we have now is not nearly what it needs to be to fulfill not just, not just what the founders of America had in mind, but of course, what Mark Sereles was talking about, what do you learn from Helvidius? Equality under the law, justice, truth, free speech, all of those things that go to the core of what Stoicism is. If you're liking this podcast, we would love for you to subscribe. Please leave us a review on iTunes or any of your favorite podcast listening apps. It really helps. And tell a friend.