Amazon Kindle Author Fishbowl – Ryan Holiday on The Boy Who Would Be King

Today’s episode is an interview with Amazon Author Fishbowl hosted by Jason Yoong for Ryan’s newest book The Boy Who Would Be King. They talk about Ryan’s writing process, how the book came together over the last year, Stoicism as a practical philosophy for day to day life, and more. This episode is also brought to you by the Jordan Harbinger Show. Jordan's podcast is one of the most interesting ones out there, 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. This episode is also brought to you by KiwiCo. KiwiCo believes in the power of kids and that small lessons today can mean big, world-changing ideas tomorrow. KiwiCo is a subscription service that delivers everything your kids will need to make, create and play. Get 30% off your first month plus FREE shipping on ANY crate line with code STOIC at kiwico.com. This episode is also brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. LinkedIn Jobs is the best platform for finding the right candidate to join your business this fall. It’s the largest marketplace for job seekers in the world, and it has great search features so that you can find candidates with any hard or soft skills that you need. And now, you can post a job for free. Just visit linkedin.com/STOIC to post a job for free. This episode is also brought to you by Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is a custom formulation of 75 vitamins, minerals, and other whole-food sourced ingredients that make it easier for you to maintain nutrition in just a single scoop. It tastes great and gets you the nutrients you need, whether you're working on the go, fueling an active lifestyle, or just maintaining your good health. Visit athleticgreens.com/stoic to get a FREE year supply of Liquid Vitamin D + 5 FREE Travel Packs with subscription. ***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 –Amazon Fishbowl Original Interview: https://www.facebook.com/kindle/videos/4008106459210617 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:02Speaker 00

  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,

• 0:46Speaker 00

  and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. I know sometimes you guys ask what podcasts I listen to. One of my great friends in podcasting is Jordan Harbinger, who I'm talking to right now. I was curious, Jordan, how many people do you think you've interviewed?

• 1:03Speaker 01

  It's gotta be about a thousand at this point, over 14 years.

• 1:07Speaker 00

  What's the thing you've learned the most?

• 1:09Speaker 01

  What's funny is everybody goes, wow, what are these productivity tips? What all these great, amazing people that you have on The Jordan Harbinger Show have in common? And you'd be surprised. A lot of people think it's like, oh, they've got all these cool systems and tricks. And like, it's all this Tim Ferriss stuff, which is great. But at the end of the day, what most of them do is they plan their day in advance, like a week before or the day before. They get enough sleep. They go outside and go walking or go for a swim when they feel like they're discombobulated or unable to focus. And it's all the same stuff that you can do when you're a college student. You have no money. It's like, all this stuff is free.

• 1:45Speaker 00

  I love that. The secret is, there's no secret. You can check out the Jordan Harbinger podcast. Jordan's show's awesome. Check it out.

• 1:53Speaker 00

  Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another weekend episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. You know I love books. You know I love bookstores. I mean, I just opened my own indie bookstore in the middle of a pandemic, The Painted Porch, here in Bastrop, which you're welcome to come to anytime. But maybe this makes me somewhat unique among authors, although I think I'm just being honest. I also just friggin' love Amazon. Amazon has been a supporter of me as long as I've been a writer. You might not be listening to this if it wasn't for the platform, the reach that Amazon brought to my books. So I was honored when Amazon asked me to do a Fishbowl Q and A.

• 2:34Speaker 00

  I really liked the conversation. My friend Jason was the one who interviewed me, and it was a great conversation. We talked about my book, The Boy Who Would Be King. I wanted to bring that conversation to you today because I'm just so fascinated with the early life of Marcus Aurelius, how this ordinary boy selected, from relative obscurity, becomes the great emperor that he became. And maybe you wanted some insight on how the book developed, why I wrote it, how it worked, some inside baseball stuff as far as publishing goes as well. I really liked this talk. I think you're gonna like it. It was an honor to talk to the folks at Amazon. No apologies there, because I love Amazon, and I think independent bookstores and Amazon can both

• 3:19Speaker 00

  exist in the same universe. They're just different people have to figure out different places in the market. So anyways, here's my conversation, the Amazon Fishbowl Q and A, where we talk about Stoicism, Marcus Aurelius, and of course, my book, The Boy Who Would Be King, which you can buy directly from me. You can go to dailystoic.com/king. You can buy it from thepaintedporch.com, or you can, of course, buy it from Amazon. Whatever is easiest for you. I just want books to get in people's hands. Enjoy this great conversation with me and Jason for the Amazon Fishbowl.

• 3:58Speaker 02

  Hey everyone. My name's Jason from Amazon and I'm thrilled to welcome bestselling author and founder of DailyStoic.com, Brian Holiday, for an Amazon Fishbowl to discuss his newest and first children's book, The Boy Who Would Be King: The Stoic of Marcus Aurelius. So I have a bunch of questions to ask Brian, but this is also a live stream, so he wants to answer your questions too. So be sure to submit them in the broadcast chat and we'll get to as many as we can. As added bonus, if your question is chosen, you could receive a book of The Boy Who Would Be King. Okay, so welcome, Ryan.

• 4:33Speaker 00

  Thanks for having me again. I appreciate it.

• 4:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, great to chat and congrats on your first children's book.

• 4:39Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 4:40Speaker 02

  I have to ask, first question, I'm curious to learn, did you learn anything different about Stoicism or Marcus Aurelius when creating a book here towards children?

• 4:50Speaker 00

  I did. You know, it's a children's book in one sense. I guess I would probably refer to it more as a fable. I wanted it to be a story that sort of works for all ages. Because in some sense, I think I joke about this in the marketing copy, that it's a story for the ages and thus for all ages. But I'm just fascinated with the story of Marcus Aurelius because, you know, we have this idea that absolute power corrupts absolutely, right? It's sort of one of the, one of the facts that's sort of immediately observable by any student of history, that people who hold absolute power, even people who hold just

• 5:29Speaker 00

  lots of power, like the CEO or president, become corrupted by it. And what's so fascinating about Marcus Aurelius is that he's like the exception to this rule. And, and even our understanding of a monarchy, you know, Prince Philip just died and, and obviously there's a controversy with Meghan Markle as well. You know, when you look at like the royal family, part of what's so complicated about the royal family is this idea of hereditary succession, right? Like the idea that because somebody is your kid, they're going to be as good as a ruler as you is, you know, it's tough. So what's so fascinating in Marcus

• 6:12Speaker 00

  Aurelius, and this is what I really got excited about as I was writing it, and I started just by telling the story to my own son. But Marcus Aurelius was adopted. So Marcus Aurelius...

• 6:24Speaker 00

  As a young boy catches the attention of the Emperor Hadrian, who is a pretty good emperor. But the Emperor Hadrian doesn't have any children. And so he doesn't have an heir. But he also gets this sense that to just adopt this kid out of nowhere and set him up to be the king is probably a recipe for disaster. So it's this totally unique plan that I don't quite get into in the book. It's sort of the prologue to it essentially. But what Hadrian does is Hadrian adopts a 50 year old man named Antoninus Pius, who in turn has to adopt this young teenager named Marcus Aurelius.

• 7:07Speaker 00

  And so that's what sets Marcus Aurelius up to be king. So not only was his stepfather not king, but his stepfather's stepfather was not king. And so he's chosen for leadership and sort of groomed for it over the years. And there was this idea that Marcus, you know, this Antoninus Pius would rule for a few years. In fact, he's emperor for almost two decades. So Marcus spends like 20 years sort of waiting and training to become king. And then does become king. And as I was saying, it's this, he does a, he does a good job. And that's, that's what I was so fascinated by in this story and why I think it's a good sort of a fable

• 7:50Speaker 00

  for, for young people and leaders of all types.

• 7:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, I put a big plus one to that. And, you know, I have a few questions on this topic. At the end of the book, in the acknowledgement section, you mentioned your sons, Clark and Jones. So I'm really curious to understand, what part of the book did they gravitate towards?

• 8:09Speaker 00

  Well, you know, I think, I think for kids, they like any of the funny things or, you know, any of the jokes. How much they're really getting at four years old and two years old? I, I, I wouldn't pretend to, to, to guess, but I think.

• 8:26Speaker 00

  What I tried to do in the book, and I think this is a really key idea in Stoicism, is Stoicism is kind of this, these series of aphorisms or reminders, these sort of ideas that seem really simple, but, but you have to sort of repeat them to yourself, they're almost like mantras, you repeat them enough times that they kind of become true. And so the book is, is kind of reminders of those that sort of stick with you. So, one of my, one of my favorite lines in the book, and this comes from a real quote from Marx's Realist's Meditations. In Meditations, he says, you know, "The best revenge is to not be like that." He said, so that, you know, "The best revenge is not to be like a bad

• 9:09Speaker 00

  person, to be like the person who wronged you." So there's a line in the book where, where Marcus is wrestling and the other boy is cheating, and his mentor says to him, you know, "The way to be, to be a cheater is to not be like them." And, and we were, we were racing our bikes the other day, and I accused my wife of cheating because she was beating me in the race. And my son, and my son repeated back the line, he said, you know, "The way to be a cheater is to not be like them." And, and, and, you know, again, how much he gets this, you know, is probably very minimal, but that, but that

• 9:48Speaker 00

  the line has already wormed its way into his brain, makes me hopeful that someday the true meaning of it will also come along with it. So, the idea in the book was really to create sort of aphorisms or reminders in the form of a story that would hopefully stick with people while they're, while they're young.

• 10:07Speaker 02

  I love that story. I mean, I imagine you must have been super excited and proud that you repeated that.

• 10:15Speaker 00

  Of course, of course. And, and, and so basically, I started writing the book in March of 2020, just because I was, I just needed a story to tell my son, and, and as we sort of went over it so many times. So, you know, he's sort of seen it develop, and then, you know, saw it go from, you know, little scribbles on, you know, the backs of some pieces of paper into, you know, computer draft, and then the sketches, and then the mockups, and then the page proofs, and then now the physical book. So, he's heard it so many times, but, but again, that is kind of the idea, is that... You hear, you, you, Stoicism is this idea of reminding yourself of these ideas over and over again, and they kind of become part of your muscle memory. So to see it pop up was, was really, really gratifying.

• 11:00Speaker 02

  Is there, on, on the topic of mantras that you remind yourself or you repeat to yourself, is there another one that you constantly remind yourself about?

• 11:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's a bunch. Uh, there's a great one from Epictetus, who obviously this book isn't about, but he says, um, you know, he says, uh, he says, "It's impossible to learn that which you think you already know," uh, which is, is one I really like. But the, the, the best one from Marcus Aurelius, which the book is kind of, kind of culminates with, Marcus Aurelius says, "Just that you do the right thing, the rest doesn't matter." Um, and so, so really the book is built around a handful of these quotes. Um, and, and I put them in different words. I put the words in the mouths of the different characters, but for the most part, almost all of the quotes or the ideas come explicitly from Stoic philosophy.

• 11:50Speaker 00

  And then instead of beating someone over the head with it and going, "Here is a quote of Stoicism," I wanted to have it sort of play out over the plot in the book.

• 12:00Speaker 02

  Got it. Yeah, that, that makes sense. It's, and it's very different from the previous book we talked about, Lives of the Stoics, which I like that, uh, that, that difference in, in how you have to frame it.

• 12:11Speaker 00

  Well, Lives of the Stoics is sort of stories for adults, right? These are six or 7,000 word stories. And so, you know, the, the last character in Lives of the Stoics is Marcus Aurelius, and I think that's probably a, a seven or 8,000 word sort of, you know, encapsulation of a, of a 60 or so year life of a, of a great human being. Um, and I think this story is like, uh, I don't know, um, a thousand words, maybe a little bit less. So, uh, the, the idea was, you know, how can you distill it down to its essence? Uh, and, and that's what I was really trying to do in the book.

• 12:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, so your sons, when you're reading this book with them or going through it, did they have other questions about the book that may have surprised you?

• 13:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, so you know, you you realize how many sort of assumptions you take for granted in a thing. So you know, you mentioned a gladiator. Well, what's a gladiator? You know, you mentioned ancient Rome. Where's ancient Rome? You know, you talk about Marcus Aurelius. Who is that? Is he still alive? Where does he live? So so I think the best children's book stories are the best, you know, sort of children's stories give you create a jumping off point to have a lot of discussions about a lot of different topics. And part of the reason that I don't like, like really silly, ridiculous children's books as much is that as fun as they are, they don't really often create the impetus for that discussion. You don't end up learning

• 13:45Speaker 00

  other things. So what I wanted this to be was an entry point into, you know, history in general or leadership in general. And then, you know, now we videos about things, we can talk about things, you know, I can show them pictures of things that that was sort of the idea.

• 14:05Speaker 02

  I love that. It's like it's like an early age imprinting of it to so you could grow that seed. So one of the through lines in shaping Marcus Aurelius was the teachers and role models that you depict in the book. How do you think about introducing teachers and role models to your own children?

• 14:25Speaker 00

  Well, it's kind of it's a little strange, obviously during the pandemic. But you know, one of the one of the lines I have in the book, too, is, you know, is teacher, then this is Marcus Aurelius's actual philosophy teacher, a guy named Junius Rusticus. Rusticus is sort of the Obi-Wan character that kind of takes him on this sort of hero's journey. But but he talks about sort of the start of Marcus's education, which shouldn't be confused with schooling, right? Which is sort of an echo of a Mark Twain line as well, I believe. But what I what I'm interested in is introducing my kids to big ideas, to people they can learn from, to people they can

• 15:06Speaker 00

  ask questions to, as opposed to, you know, memorizing a lot of facts and figures and, and, you know, being able to sort of repeat or, or, or cite back things. I think, so mentors have been, you know, very instrumental in my journey. Like, I didn't, I didn't get an MFA in writing and then become an author. I was a research assistant for a great writer. And so I, I think these figures are really, really important. And what's fascinating about Marcus Aurelius is that, you know, he, he, he has this close relationship with his mother, who's sort of a guiding influence in his life, in real life. And then he has these philosophy teachers. And,

• 15:47Speaker 00

  and when you open meditations, the, the first sort of, the first book of the 12 books in meditations are, is really just a cataloguing done by Marcus only for his own private use of all the things he learned from the mentors and teachers in his life. He thanks his, his rhetoric teacher, he thanks his philosophy teachers, he thinks, he thanks his Latin teacher, he thanks, you know, he thanks his grandfather, his, his adopted father. He, he just, it's very clear that Marcus was shaped primarily by these relationships in his life. He doesn't, he's

• 16:30Speaker 00

  not thanking, you know, the, the Institute of Higher Education, not that that really existed, but, you know, he's thanking individual teachers, just like all of us, who were, who were, had a, you know, a teacher who fundamentally shaped their life.

• 16:45Speaker 02

  That makes sense. What about, you know, I was reading a lot of the customer reviews on Amazon. And what has been the reaction from adults and children to your book? Especially since it's your first children's book?

• 16:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's been, it's been really great. So this is somewhat unusual and I hope I'm not speaking out of turn here talking to Amazon. But this is when I self publish this book and it's on Amazon, but I also sold it direct to my own fans. I sold signed copies of the book direct. So, so it's kind of a weird thing. Normally as an author, you're like, you want to sell as many copies on Amazon upfront, you want to preorder enough copies that you hit a bestseller list, all, all the sort of the hustle that an author does. And self publishing this one, you know, none of that was really my, a concern of mine. So, so it was really interesting to be able to sell, you know, the majority of the copies up, upfront directly

• 17:41Speaker 00

  to fans and then now watching, you know, the word of mouth send people to Amazon, which has been cool. But, but, you know, hearing from friends and stuff, that's been the interesting part where like, one of my, one of my wife's friends, they were like, first off, great job on the book. Second, we're very upset with you because we've now had to read this book like 40 or 50 times because our son is obsessed with it. So, so it's kind of, it's, it's interesting writing for a very different audience. Like, you know, obviously the parents are the one reading it, but it's really, it's, they're usually reading it to someone. There's a sort of an instructive purpose. But my favorite part has been signing these

• 18:22Speaker 00

  copies. As someone who was introduced to Stoicism not until my late teens, to sign these books where the personalization is obviously a mother or a father giving it to their son or daughter, or a grandparent giving it to a son, or a grandson, or a granddaughter, or an aunt or uncle giving it to, you know, a niece or nephew. That's been like, that's been the most rewarding part, watching, you know, hopefully seeding this philosophy, which has been so instrumental in my life to, to much, much younger people. Got a quick message from one of our sponsors here and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  That's interesting. That personalization shift is interesting. When you know that the book may be going to a grandchild, how does that change what you write, if at all?

• 19:17Speaker 00

  Sure. Well, so sometimes, so sometimes when I, when I sign my books, just because it's a theme I've written about a lot in my writing, I sign Memento Mori, which is this Stoic idea of remember you are mortal, don't take life for granted, you could die at any moment. So obviously, that's not how I'm inscribing the books to young children. That would be rather dark. So I had to come up with a new inscription. So, so I've been writing two things, obviously, when people don't have a specific request. And one of them, I, there's this great line, I'll just give you one of them, which I like the most. In Meditations, Marcus writes to himself, he says, "Fight to be the person that philosophy tried to make you."

• 20:01Speaker 00

  And so I love this idea that the Emperor of Rome, he gets trained in this philosophy by Rusticus and by others. So he knows who he's supposed to be, and then he knows who he would be without any sort of active management of oneself, right? If, if he gravitates towards the path of least resistance, he knows where he'll go. And that it's this fight to go from, you know, sort of where you naturally would be and where your ideal was. And that philosophy is this, this thing, like fight to be who philosophy wants you to be. I found that to be a really beautiful line. So that's often what I write in the books. I say, you know,

• 20:44Speaker 00

  you know, fight to be the person that philosophy wants you to be. That's usually how I've been signing them, which has been fun. Then the other interesting thing, which I do in some of the books is, and this is a weird thing you would only see, you know, if, if you talk to a lot of people really like Stoicism, is like, a lot of the people I'm signing the books for, like their kid is named like Marcus Aurelius, or, you know, like Scott Aurelius Smith, or, you know, like, they've named their kids after some of these Stoic figures. And so I, sometimes I'll write, you know, like, try, make, make your namesake proud, or make Marcus proud, or something like that. But again, it's just been really humbling and inspiring to just see how deeply these ideas have resonated with people.

• 21:28Speaker 00

  And, and it makes me feel fantastic, you know, to have played a small part in that.

• 21:33Speaker 02

  Oh, that's awesome. You brought up that you might get a lot of requests. What's like a common request that you might get from a reader?

• 21:41Speaker 00

  Well, I'm just saying like people will say like, can you make this out to my, you know, my daughter Julia and then say, you know, some, some obviously very personal thing between the two of them, which I love. But when I, when I have a chance, I say something like make Marcus prouder or fight to be the person that philosophy makes you. But it yeah, it's just, it's really touching to, to write something that someone hasn't even read yet and they're already giving it as a gift to the most important person in their life. You know, that's just, books are, books are already, you know, sort of a calling, but, but to feel like that's what, that's the role that your work is playing in people's lives is just really touching.

• 22:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's awesome. I love that. So what about, so besides reading this book, what other first steps can a child take towards the path of Stoicism or like practical ways to teach children's Stoicism?

• 22:40Speaker 00

  Well, what I tried to do in the book too is we don't really, I don't, I don't think the word Stoicism appears anywhere in the book. It's not like, hey, let me tell you about this philosophy. There's a, Marcus Aurelius talks about how that, that, that one isn't supposed to argue what a philosophical person is. You're just supposed to be one. Epictetus says, don't talk about your philosophy, embody it. What I, I think the best way to teach your kids Stoicism is one, to embody it, but two, to, to focus on the individual lessons, right? So, you know, for the Stoics, I think at the core of it is like, we don't control what happens, we control how we respond. Well, as a parent, you have so many opportunities

• 23:22Speaker 00

  to reinforce that lesson in the things that happen in life, you know, whether it's, you know, your kid breaks their arm, your kid, you know, gets cut from the soccer team. All of us are in the middle of this pandemic. You know, what life is, is how is is us responding to the things that are outside of our control. So to me, that's like that sort of core lesson at the at the the basis of the philosophy is way more important than any of the names, you know, whether you tell them that originates in Greece or it's popularized in Rome, you know, none, all of that stuff is irrelevant. What matters is like, is is the sort of core core actions.

• 24:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, that makes sense. And it it makes sense. It ties back to the earlier story you you talked about with your your son and and the bike ride and your wife. So, yeah, it's it's like those real time reinforcements. It makes that process.

• 24:19Speaker 00

  And I think I think what it is, is you you get the theory first, right? Like, hey, these are the sort of maxims or the the the the observations. And then you go out in the world and you bump into experiences where those mantras either demand that you do something or they hold true or they're revealed in a new light in in light of what you're experiencing. And so I think the idea is you talk to them about these things enough times. And then they go out and they find, you know, opportunities to put them to use. Again, I love, we read kids books all the time in our family and and and some of them are very funny and very entertaining.

• 25:02Speaker 00

  But when it's, you know, like a rat arguing over a piece of pizza or something, there's there's no, there's no greater resonance outside the fantasy world of the story. And and I'm not saying there's not a time and place for for entertainment. Of course, there is. But like, we have a book that I got on Amazon. It's long out of print and it's called, like, Fifty Great Stories Illustrated or something like this. It's it's like an old book that they used to, kids used to read in like elementary school or something. And

• 25:39Speaker 00

  And what I like about it is it's all those famous stories like George Washington chopping down the cherry tree, right? It's not true, but that's not the point. Like, the point of that story, I, I think, honestly, I, I don't really think anyone reading that a hundred years ago, or a hundred and fifty years ago, really thought George Washington chopped down a cherry tree and then couldn't lie about it. I think that they were taking some things people were familiar with, George Washington, and using him to illustrate a sort of a moral anecdote or lesson that sticks with you. And, and so I love stories that do that. And I would say most of my books are doing that for adults. But the

• 26:24Speaker 00

  idea that, that adults should get serious stories, and children should only get nonsensical, ridiculous stories, um, you know, I ju- I just don't like that.

• 26:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, that, that makes sense. Is there a, you know, because there's, there's so many books out there, and there's a finite amount of time. How do you choose which books to read with your children?

• 26:45Speaker 00

  Uh, we ask for a lot of recommendations, obviously. Um, and, uh, and, and then, you know, you take your kids to a bookstore, you know, uh, what I like about the Amazon bookstore is like, they're only face out. So, uh, you know, there's really a chance to like, sort of discover stuff. Um, but, but, you know, you just sort of, you, you just go around and, uh, I, I would say that there's a lot of hit or miss, right? It's a lot of trial and error. You know, you read something, it doesn't resonate, you wait, you wait six months, finally it does resonate, or, you know, you give it away because it, because it doesn't work. But, um, I think our general philosophy is like, we want stuff

• 27:24Speaker 00

  that is both entertaining and has some sort of moral instruction in it. And I think, you know, this is what Aesop's fables are. On, on, like, um, my son, uh, loves the story of the fox without a tail. There's an Aesop's fable about a fox, uh, who gets his tail cut off in a trap, and then tries to convince all the other foxes that they shouldn't have tails. Because he feels embarrassed. And then, you know, the other fox catches him and he says, you're only saying this because you want us to be like them. If you were trying to convince us to cut off our tails while you still had your tail, I would believe you. So the point is, it's really a moral about the reliability of the narrator or the salesperson that you're

• 28:08Speaker 00

  talking to. That's really what the story is. But to a four year old, it's a funny story about foxes talking to each other and not having tails, right? And so, you know, or the story about the sour grapes, right? Again, this is kind of a funny story that to an adult has a deeper resonance. I think this is why the Pixar movies are so great, you know. And I think if you compare, you know, a Pixar movie with another animated movie that might be funnier, and, you know, cuter and more ridiculous, but it doesn't have that underlying lesson, you feel the kind of the nutritional difference when you're watching it. And also, it's much less enjoyable for the parent, you know. And so I think the premise here was to make something

• 28:53Speaker 00

  that that is both entertaining and resonates and works, you know, kind of whatever your age is.

• 29:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would say if, you know, personally, it worked for me because whenever I have like a hardcover book, I like to take notes in the pages. And, you know, I thought maybe this one I would go by quickly, but I actually, you know, I dogeared a lot. I wrote a lot of notes. So I'll put little stars on quotes. So yeah, we'll talk about.

• 29:18Speaker 00

  Two other recommendations. Have you read The Little Prince?

• 29:21Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 29:21Speaker 00

  So The Little Prince is a great example. It's obviously a bit longer, and but has some some killer lines in it. But then, have you read The Boy, the Fox, the Horse and the Mole?

• 29:33Speaker 02

  No.

• 29:33Speaker 00

  Oh, it's that's incredible. Also really good, which I would recommend, which is a similar similar style of sort of like, kind of a surreal story that's funny and weird. And it's got some great jokes in it that kids get. But it's also got some quotes that, as a parent, just sort of hits you right in the solar plexus.

• 29:55Speaker 02

  Okay, I'll write that down. That's my wishlist.

• 29:58Speaker 00

  Like, I think it's got like 30,000 ratings on Amazon. It's like a monster hit.

• 30:04Speaker 02

  Okay, nice. I'm gonna, we're getting quite a bit of viewer questions or audience questions. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask, I'm gonna start asking them. So we might jump around a little bit on topics.

• 30:17Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 30:18Speaker 02

  Okay, so first question. Kyle asks, can you talk about whatever intersection there is between Stoicism and pure adulterated fun? For example, can a Stoic go to a concert and get lost in the music?

• 30:33Speaker 00

  I would say absolutely. Not only were a number of the Stoics sort of proficient in music, they were also lovers of poetry. But I think the most compelling example I could get you, give you, that the Stoics were not sort of emotionless robots who didn't ever have any fun. And, and we may have talked about this, Jason, at my, at my last one. There was an early Stoic in Chrysippus. And he is actually on Wikipedia as a, as sort of like one of the most unusual deaths of all time. But the story of Chrysippus is that Chrysippus was, as an old man, sitting on his front porch.

• 31:14Speaker 00

  And he, a donkey, a man's donkey wanders into his front porch, into his garden, and starts eating the figs out of, out of his garden. And Chrysippus finds this hilarious for one, for some reason. And he laughs and he says, hey, do you want me to give your donkey some wine to wash the figs down? And then he starts laughing so hard at his own joke that he dies of laughter. So the idea that the Stoics don't have any fun, to me, is totally belied by the fact that one of the most famous Stoics had such a good sense of humor that he like literally tickled himself to death. At a, at a not even that funny joke, to me is illustrative of where the Stoics come down as far as humor goes.

• 32:01Speaker 02

  I love that example and I remember starting it in the Lives of the Stoic book because I thought it's such an unusual way to die. But it's also like one of the, it's like, it's an awesome way to die because you're just laughing at your own joke.

• 32:14Speaker 00

  Yes, and there's, look, probably not true, right? Probably not true in some way. But in the ancient world, again, this is sort of the point about children's books too. In the ancient world, stories and history, there was a difference between biography and lives, right? So lives as a genre was when they would try to capture the essence of a person. They would try to capture sort of who they were and what they represented as opposed to being a stickler for all the facts and figures about that person. And so to me, whether Chrysippus dies of laughter or not,

• 32:54Speaker 00

  I think this anecdote is supposed to tell us that like, this was a guy with a sense of humor.

• 33:02Speaker 02

  I like that.

• 33:04Speaker 02

  Okay, we have the next one. Michelle asks, what was your favorite book as a child?

• 33:09Speaker 00

  Ooh, that's a good question. I don't, I don't really remember what my favorite book was as a kid. For whatever reason, I don't remember. But I do remember really falling in love with reading, again, with like Encyclopedia Brown, with the Boxcar Children, the Hardy Boys. And then, and then when I got a little older, maybe like fourth or fifth grade, I really fell in love with like westerns, like Louis L'Amour novels. So I, as a kid, I didn't read a lot of great stuff, but I just read a lot and I would just read anything. You know, I'd read, we'd go on a trip and I'd read all my Hardy Boys books

• 33:50Speaker 00

  and then my sister would be reading The Babysitter's Club and then I'd read all those too. Like I would just read anything that I would get my hands on.

• 33:58Speaker 02

  I remember in our last chat, you talked about rereading as something you do consciously. Do you reread any of like the children's books that you've read before?

• 34:07Speaker 00

  Um, I mean, definitely with kids. Yeah, you you find that you read the same book like 50 times. Right. You just read it over and over again. Um, there's two, two, um, sort of recommendations about about, uh, kid stuff that that I think might make sense here. Or one, one kid, one adult. I'm actually in the middle because I'm gonna have him on my podcast. I'm rereading Meditations from Marcus Aurelius. There's a new translation, uh, by Robin Waterfield, uh, that's coming out. Um, I'm forgetting the publisher, but there's a new addition. So I'm, I'm reading Marcus Aurelius fresh in a new translation right now, which I'm getting a lot of enjoyment out of. Um, but then, uh, one of the books we read every night as a kid with our kids, um, uh, the, the, the editor

• 34:50Speaker 00

  of the book, her name is Ally S. Theory, um, but she wrote a book called A Poem for Every Night of the Year. Um, and it's one poem every night. Um, you know, different, different genres, different authors, different types, um, old poems, new poems, uh, experimental poems, extract, you know, haikus, every type of poem you can imagine. But it's just one poem every night. So we're about, I think, two thirds of the way through. So we've, we've done it for like nine months. But when the idea is kind of like my book, The Daily Stoic, when you get to the beginning, you just start over again. Um, and, and so that's, that's hopefully going to become kind of a permanent part of our, uh, not just nighttime routine, but rereading routine.

• 35:33Speaker 02

  Oh, interesting. I think my, my book list is going to expand after this chat. Um, wait, I have to double click. This new translation of Meditations that, anything new or surprising?

• 35:46Speaker 00

  Yes. So here, let me pull it, let me, let me pull it up on Amazon here. Um, it's, uh, it's by Robin Waterfield.

• 35:57Speaker 00

  And it's by, it's called Meditations, the annotated edition. And it is published by Basic Books. And what I like about it is that so, so Meditations is not the easiest book in the world to read, especially if you get a bad translation. Usually I recommend this, uh, this edition, which, you know, I bought on Amazon when I was 19 years old. And I just bought, you know, whatever first popped up in the algorithm and got lucky that it was a readable one. But it can be hard if you get a bad translation or not the right translation for you. This one is annotated. So at the top, it has the passage and then underneath in the footnotes on each page,

• 36:40Speaker 00

  it explains sort of some of the background. Like, like if you ever read Shakespeare, it's helpful to have an annotated edition because it explains all the terms you don't know. So what I like about this one is not only is it a fresh translation, so I haven't read it quite like this before, the annotations are quite good as well.

• 36:58Speaker 02

  Oh, nice. Okay, I'll, I'll put that note in as well. Uh, okay, so Daryl asks, will writing this book influence your future writing? Do you intend to write more children's book?

• 37:09Speaker 00

  I am in the middle of another children's book right now. So I'll, uh, these are the, the, the pages. So these are the, these are the pages of it right now. And then these are the scribbles. My son is trying to learn how to write his name. So we, we were signing it. So yeah, I'm, I'm in the middle of, of, of working on a sequel, sort of a prequel right now.

• 37:31Speaker 02

  Oh, prequel, like focused on another specific stoic?

• 37:34Speaker 00

  Another, another stoic, yeah.

• 37:37Speaker 02

  Oh, okay. Interesting. And so, I, I mean, you just showed us some, some physical papers. That, that's your preferred method?

• 37:45Speaker 00

  Um, so I started on, uh, I started on like scrap paper and wrote it a handful of times as I got the outline and then I typed it up. And then each, every couple of days I printed out and I go home and I read it. And then I noticed like where my kids' attentions are flagging, uh, you know, what they have questions about, what I don't like hearing said out loud. The benefit of writing the kids' book is that it's just so much shorter. You know, like, um, on, on one of my books, I, I couldn't go home, read it to my family multiple times, right? Like they would, they would shoot me. But the kids' book, you know, only takes like 10 minutes or 15 minutes. So you, you have the ability to kind of go over and then over it.

• 38:26Speaker 02

  Oh, awesome. It'd be fun because your kids are young now, but as they grow in each age, to continue writing these books and to see their growth, yeah, that'll be fun.

• 38:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's another great series of of young adult books that sort of inspired me a little bit. I don't know if you've read any of Jaco Willink's stuff. He wrote Extreme Ownership and Discipline Equals Freedom. But he has a kid's series called The Way of the Warrior Kid that my my son kind of gets, but it's pretty enjoyable as well.

• 38:57Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, I remember him talking about it on a previous fishbowl that we had with him.

• 39:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's awesome.

• 39:03Speaker 02

  Nice. What about, okay, so we have another question from Jennifer asks, what would you hope that a college bound teen would get from your book?

• 39:12Speaker 00

  Well, I think the idea of it being all ages is important because, yeah, what a five year old is going to get out of it should be different than a 15 year old, should be different than a 25 year old. Just like, I don't actually remember reading The Little Prince as a kid. I'm not sure I ever heard it as a kid, but I probably read it at 25. And you do get something different out of it. You know, you're probably not enjoying the pictures as much, but you're really understanding what the author is trying to get at. So to me, this is really a sort of a parable or a fable about leadership. To me, the story of Marcus Aurelius is that he's chosen for this position that he doesn't really want. He didn't seek it out in any way. He couldn't have sought it out. He was too young.

• 39:57Speaker 00

  But but one of the sort of pivotal moments in the story, and this is this is sort of true as far as we know from the ancient historians. But when Marcus is told that he's going to become emperor, we're told that he weeps. And he weeps because he knew enough history that he knew that almost every emperor before him had been terrible. He wept because he didn't want to be bad at it and he didn't want to become a bad person. And he ends up having this dream the night before he ascends to the throne. He has this dream that his shoulders are made of ivory and on the shoulders are the purple cloak of the emperor. And this is when he realizes that, you know, sometimes you have a dream, you're like,

• 40:40Speaker 00

  ah, this is what it's trying to tell me. He has this sense that it's trying to tell him that he is strong enough to do this job, that he can do it. And so I would hope that a younger person going out in the world that feels called to do something, but might also be entertaining some doubts or worries about whether they're cut out for it, that that sort of pivotal moment, which, which happens to Marcus Aurelius, you know, in his twenties, it would, would sort of sit with someone as, as being like, no, you, you can do this. Your shoulders are stronger than you know.

• 41:14Speaker 02

  One of the recurring themes that I loved was the fact that it was a gift, but it was only a gift because he made it a gift through his actions. Yeah, I love, I love that takeaway.

• 41:29Speaker 00

  Well, that, that's, you know, my book, The Obstacle is the Way, is, is this idea that we take the stuff that happens to us and we can turn it into a positive. It's not, it's not, hey, I'm going to put on rose colored glasses and that magically makes everything better. No, it's that, starting with your perceptions, starting by seeing things differently, that's a, that's a big start, but then you have to go make that true. Right? So Marcus Aurelius didn't, didn't just go, oh, this is going to be wonderful. Of course, it's awesome. No, he really worked at it and he transformed this, this thing that was a great burden in many, in many senses, and he turned it into a gift, into a positive.

• 42:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. I think that's a great takeaway for children to, to learn at a young age. All right. Next audience question. Louis asks, how do you choose a topic to write about?

• 42:22Speaker 00

  I don't know how much authors really choose what they're going to write about. I think you choose what you're not going to write about, like you choose to reject an idea. But there is something strange where, you know, I, I had some sense that I wanted to do a kid's book about Marcus Aurelius at some point, but I also really didn't have any sort of control over it. It just, I, I, I do believe these things kind of just come to you and you choose either, kind of like we're just talking about, you choose to either accept it or reject it.

• 42:54Speaker 02

  Well, I'm curious now, when did this, the thought of a children's book first hit your mind?

• 43:01Speaker 00

  Well, I get, I get the question a lot, like, how can I teach this to my children? And, and obviously, you know, I, I've been writing about socialism for a long time before I had children. So the urgency of that question didn't make sense to me as much until sort of further down the road. But I don't know, I just, I, the idea of Marcus Aurelius being this little boy who's chosen to be in charge of the entire world, just always stuck with me as being something pretty incredible. And, and, and again, it was just sort of floating around. And I think what happened in, in March of 2020 is that suddenly a lot of things were in flux.

• 43:46Speaker 00

  A lot of things that I thought were important got sort of tossed out the window. And I suddenly had some time and some space to think about it a bit more seriously. And it kind of just came naturally from there.

• 43:58Speaker 02

  Got it. Okay. The next one, we, so we have a comment from Jen. And Jen says, "My 12-year-old daughter's homeschooling today and is in total awe watching this. She's a voracious reader and a little starstruck. And I love this fishbowl. Thank you for being here, Ryan."

• 44:17Speaker 00

  Well, I, I really appreciate that and, and that's awesome. You know, there's a, there's a, the other thing I sometimes sign the books to, there's a, there's a Harry Truman quote, where he says, "Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers." And, and so I think, you know, the idea that like reading is something that is part and parcel of becoming great at whatever it is that you choose to do in life. I think it's really important and, and it's, if you could figure that out at 12, you will have such a huge advantage over so many people. So I would just encourage you to keep reading and, and read things that you're interested in and, and, and push yourself as a reader too.

• 45:00Speaker 00

  You know, read something now that you don't understand at all, and then come back to it in five or 10 years and read it again. And, and you know, the sooner you wrestle with these big things, I think the better.

• 45:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, I love that call to action and takeaway. Smith asks, who is your favorite non-Stoic philosopher and why?

• 45:22Speaker 00

  That's a good question. I mean, I'm interested in in sort of anyone, as the Stoics were, sort of anyone who lives an impressive life. So Socrates obviously predates the Stoics, but he's sort of kind of the godfather of Stoicism. So I find I find Socrates to be fascinating. Buddha, obviously, a fascinating philosopher and and sort of figure. So maybe maybe I'll spin this around. Seneca says, like, quote from anyone, he says, I'll quote a bad author if the line is good, meaning like he'll study and learn from anyone, provided they have value to give. So so I'm I try to be not I I'm very, even though I write about Stoicism,

• 46:06Speaker 00

  I am not dogmatic about it. I want to learn and read from anyone who's saying anything interesting or valuable.

• 46:13Speaker 02

  Ah, you know, I have not heard that line yet. That's a good one. I might use that on Twitter.

• 46:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, he said Seneca says, you should study other schools like a spy in the enemy's camp. And so of all the philosophers that Seneca quotes in his in his letters, he quotes Epicurus, ostensibly his rival, more than any other philosopher. So more than the Stoics, he's quoting the Epicurians in his Stoic writings, which I think is sort of very illustrative.

• 46:44Speaker 02

  Interesting. This is this is a good follow-up audience question to to this topic. So Doug asks, what's the best argument by critics against Stoicism? And how would you refute it?

• 46:56Speaker 00

  So one of the things I get a lot, so the Stoics were about sort of accepting the things that are outside of our control. So there's this idea that there's a certain amount of resignation in Stoicism. And and so where does that leave us when we face, you know, sort of massive global issues, whether that's climate change, or systemic racism, or, you know, Or corruption, you know, is a Stoic just supposed to plug their ears and close their eyes and just focus on your own stuff? And, and to me, that's just a, a, a big misreading of the Stoics. Almost every single one of the Stoics, including Marcus Aurelius, was actively

• 47:41Speaker 00

  engaged in politics, in public life. They served in the armed forces. They were, they did charitable works. They wrote books. They gave lectures. So, you know, um, right, right on down through, uh, you know, modern, modern history, um, uh, there's a guy named Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who's a translator of Epictetus in the 1800s, uh, a, a, a white guy from Massachusetts, who leads one of the first black regiments in, in the Civil War, uh, on, on the Union cause. There's Stoics who are integral in the, uh, in the creation of sort of collective bargaining and the unionization movement, you know, uh, Thomas Jefferson dies with a copy of, of, uh,

• 48:22Speaker 00

  Seneca on his nightstand. So the idea that the Stoics were passive, um, is, is contradicted by the fact that the Stoics were often actively revolutionary and progressive in, you know, in the context of their own times, of course, in, in the movement for, for change or improvement.

• 48:44Speaker 02

  Hmm. Actually, this is a good follow-up, uh, to, to this topic. John asks, what would Marcus Aurelius or Stoics say are the top three things we need to apply most in today's world?

• 48:57Speaker 00

  So the, maybe, uh, I, if I could expand that to four, four Stoic virtues, and I, I carry this little coin with me that has the, the four virtues on the front. But the four Stoic virtues are courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom. Those, they're right there. Uh, and on the back, there's a little quote from Marcus Aurelius, where he says, "Try not to exchange these virtues for others." So I think if you were, if you were saying like, what's missing, or, or what's the root of a lot of the problems that we face as a society? I would argue, an absence of courage, a lack of discipline or moderation, which is what temperance means, not enough focus on justice, equality, fairness, that's the virtue of justice, and then wisdom, a love of learning, a commitment to the truth.

• 49:41Speaker 00

  These sort of four virtues, what we call the cardinal virtues, to me are the essence of a good life, but also the essence of a fair and free society as well. So I think our inability to ascribe the proper place to those four virtues is probably four things that I'd say we're struggling with today. Got a quick message from one of our sponsors here, and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned.

• 50:11Speaker 02

  We actually, this audience question just came in, and I think it's a great segue. Mike asks, Marcus's son, Commodus, was raised with a Stoic upbringing, but upon adult, lived a very non-Stoic lifestyle. Ryan, what went wrong?

• 50:28Speaker 00

  Yes. Conveniently left out of this book, because it would be much too complicated to give it. So Commodus is about as bad as Joaquin Phoenix portrays him in Gladiator, and it would be silly to deny this, maybe even worse in real. Here's what I would say in favor of Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius has 11 children, including seven sons. He has two sets of twins. It's pretty incredible. Commodus is his only surviving male heir. So imagine losing six children, right? That would be devastating to any family, and be devastating to any of the surviving children, at the

• 51:12Speaker 00

  very least. But I would also say, if you have 11 children, it shouldn't surprise us that one turns out to be a bit of a dud. You know what I mean? So I don't know. It's a great historical quandary that we don't have a lot of insight to. Marcus Aurelius doesn't talk much about parenting, you know, that sort of lost.

• 51:34Speaker 00

  You know, maybe he was a failure as a father, maybe he did a really great job and his son suffered from mental illness. We don't know. I would say what we can safely say is a black mark against Marcus Aurelius is that he passes, he passes the throne on to his son, right? I don't really know what he could have done, right? I mean, Hadrian doesn't have a son, so it's possible for him to, to name Marcus Aurelius as the heir. What's he supposed to do? You know, uh, what's he supposed to do? It's an impossible situation, but, but it, it certainly raises a lot of questions.

• 52:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, that, I imagine having a lunch conversation with Marcus on his mental models and how he thought about passing the torch, considering how he got, how he became emperor, that would, that would be fascinating to.

• 52:23Speaker 00

  It would be one of the first questions you'd have, you'd, you'd be like, dude, you know, like, you gotta explain yourself. It would be, it would definitely be at the top of the list of questions to ask of what went wrong here.

• 52:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. Um, okay. So Quinton, Tristana and Caleb ask, what's the lesson that's been the hardest for you to internalize and habituate?

• 52:45Speaker 00

  I mean, they're all, they're all very hard. Uh, if they were hard, uh, you know, we probably wouldn't need to write books about them. We'd all just sort of intuitively understand. Um, I, I think, uh, I, I think the, the big one for Mark, for me and, and for Marcus is, is this idea that, to, to bring this back to where we start, we don't control what happens, control how we respond. That's so easy to say. And then somebody blows something that's important to you. You want to yell at them, you know, you want, you want an explanation, you, you want an apology, uh, you want reparations, you know,

• 53:27Speaker 00

  but all of that's in the past, done. You, you should be focusing on what you're going to do. You should be focused on the future. You know, it's so easy to say like, focus on what you control, but it's almost as if we're wired to focus instead on what we don't control. Uh, and so I, and you know, it's a continual struggle.

• 53:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. Uh, Alex asks, what living person do you admire the most and why?

• 53:54Speaker 00

  I don't know if there's a living person that I admire most. There's lots of, lots of living, uh, living people that I admire. I just read a fascinating book about Jimmy Carter's, um, uh, early childhood. He grew up in this sort of rural town in, in Georgia, but there was a great line in, in, in the book where someone was saying that Jimmy Carter is the only person to use the presidency as a stepping stone for more important things. And when you look at, again, Democrat or Republican, it's hard not to be blown away with what Jimmy Carter's accomplished his legacy after being president. You know, the houses that he's built for Habitat for Humanity, um, you know, the, the, the charitable works, the, the

• 54:39Speaker 00

  books that he's written, uh, his example of, of sort of leadership and citizenship, all, all of these things. Um, so I, you know, at probably, you know, accepting that we, we don't have too many years left of, of walking the same planet with Jimmy Carter. He might be someone I'd put at the top of the list.

• 54:57Speaker 02

  Okay, awesome. Um, Toman asks, so what part of the book was the most fun to write?

• 55:03Speaker 00

  Um, that's a good question. Uh, I don't know. Um, it was really fun to pair it with the illustrations. I worked with this great illustrator named Victor Yuhas. Um, but you know, you write it and you have one sense and then, then having to break up the big text into these, hey, what words are going to go on this page? What's the drawing? I, I had a lot of fun sort of bringing it to life with the illustrator and that was obviously something I, I haven't got to do on any of my other books.

• 55:32Speaker 02

  Uh, plus one, I thought Victor did a great job with illustrations. Um, so I wanted to dive deep on this creative process too.

• 55:38Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 55:39Speaker 02

  Was there a specific scene, uh, like when you're writing the text that you were excited about for the illustration?

• 55:46Speaker 00

  Ooh, that's a good question. Um.

• 55:50Speaker 00

  Yes. So one of my favorite sections in meditations is Marcus is this sort of poetic writer who likes to look at nature and observe all the beauty of the world around him. And so there's this scene in the book where sort of driven away from Rome, he goes out in the countryside and he talks about the boars with foam on their mouth. He talks about the brow of the lion. He talks about the stalks of grain bending low under their own weight, the figs from the trees. That's just always been one of my favorite passages of meditations. And I was really excited to see that laid out.

• 56:27Speaker 02

  Oh, awesome. Was there, what about on the flip side of that? Was there a scene that was challenging to bring to life?

• 56:34Speaker 00

  Well, so we talked about the four virtues and there's a scene at the end of the book where he lists the four virtues. And those are hard to illustrate. You know, how do you, how do you sort of draw a picture of like an internal state of being? You know what I mean? But I thought Victor did a really good job sort of doing that. And when, when I did the coin, I was telling you about the coin, even, even just the symbols for courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom are not the easiest. It seems like it would be easy, but then like, what, what is, what does temperance look like? I don't know. It's like, what is, what's a picture of humility? Right? Like it's, it's, you know it, but you couldn't describe it.

• 57:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, that makes sense. What about, when you were working with Victor on this, how, was the process that you wrote the text first and then the illustrations followed, vice versa? How did that work out?

• 57:29Speaker 00

  Yeah. So I wrote the text and then I broke it up, like what text was going to go on each page for the most part. And then I tried to talk about symbols or ideas or inspiration, like where these things were coming from. So, you know, what, what stuff was real, what, like, you know, okay, actually, I'll give you an example. So there's a, there's a section where Marcus is being talked to by

• 57:56Speaker 00

  By by Rusticus and he's sort of bored. He's not listening. Well, there's actually a really famous statue. Seneca was Nero's teacher and there's a famous statue by Eduardo Barone. That shows Seneca trying to instruct Nero and Nero not listening. It's a really beautiful statue. So I was able to go for this one. Check out this statue. I think it might, you know, illustrate what you're what we're trying to do. And so there's a lot of. You asked me about Easter eggs before we got started. I wouldn't say there's Easter eggs, but a lot of the things that might seem like sort of surface level stuff are actually kind of deep. Deeply rooted, at least in the in the historical record in some form or another.

• 58:41Speaker 02

  I like I like that reference. You know, when you look back at this creative process, I imagine creating a children's book is very different from the other books you created. What what sticks out to you?

• 58:55Speaker 00

  You know, I just I love doing it totally myself. Like, I loved the the start to finish of it. And and I think part of the reason I did, when I went to my publisher, who I love, and we worked together many times, they. They had, they wanted it to be much longer. They wanted it to sort of be modeled on a handful of other books. And, you know, I I felt very fortunate to be in a position financially, professionally, creatively, to just be able to go like. That all sounds really cool and I'm sure it would be good, but like what I want to do is this. And so what stands out to me is that I really made the book that I wanted to make that I thought needed to be made.

• 59:35Speaker 00

  And I'm very excited that it resonated, but that's that's all extra because it's what it's it's as close to what I wanted. As any project I've ever done.

• 59:46Speaker 02

  Awesome. What about, what was the inspiration for the book cover art? Like, how did, why, why this image?

• 59:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's a good question. I so it's it's it's one of the drawings towards the back where he runs away from Rome. It's it's a repeat of that same drawing. So it comes from inside the book. But what I liked about it, and it's the same, it's the same as the the back to. The back is that picture, but. I didn't, I thought about this a lot and I didn't want you to be able to see Marcus's face from the front because one, I wanted the reader to be able to identify with Marcus as themselves potentially, but also to render a historical figure in as a boy in a drawing is a tricky thing. And so I wanted the cover not to have to, I didn't want people to be

• 1:00:38Speaker 00

  like, that's not what he looks like. I just wanted it to sort of evoke the feeling or the mood. And then, once you get in the book, then you see what he looks like.

• 1:00:48Speaker 02

  Oh, interesting. Okay. I didn't know that tidbit. Um, yeah. Is there anything that we did not talk about the, about regarding, in regarding the book that is super interesting or that we should know about?

• 1:01:00Speaker 00

  Um, I guess one other fun thing about it. So we did at like audiobooks for kids books are weird, right? Because like this whole thing takes like 10 minutes to read. So is someone going to pay full price for an audiobook that takes, you know, 10 minutes to listen to? So again, doing it myself, I had some freedom. So I did a bunch of different versions of the audiobook. So there's one where I read it. There's one with a female narrator. There's a male narrator. There's a narrator with a British accent. And then I did a version, for instance, where I read it with my kids. So they're in the background like screaming and yelling and asking questions. And then, then there's a version with sound effects. There's a version where I just talk about sort of like, we just did, I talked about

• 1:01:44Speaker 00

  the story of the book. So, so doing the audiobook was again, kind of a creative thing because it's such a short book that I had the freedom to sort of mess around with it in a way that I probably couldn't if it, if, if I was traditionally published.

• 1:02:00Speaker 02

  Oh, interesting. That's a fun way to, to format it and stylize it.

• 1:02:05Speaker 00

  Um, yeah, I just thought maybe people would listen to it in the car with their kids or as their kids falling asleep on a Sonos or something.

• 1:02:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, that reinforces working backwards from the end audience and customer that you're going with. I have to say, this is one of my favorite illustrations.

• 1:02:22Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, I love that one.

• 1:02:24Speaker 02

  And I just love the saying, right? The best way there is to thank a teacher is by living up to what they taught us. So I thought that was very resonant.

• 1:02:32Speaker 00

  So you talk about Easter eggs. So there's a philosophy teacher, a few generations before Marcus Aurelius, he's a Stoic, and his name is Musonius Rufus. And he teaches this Asian king. I forget where it is, but some distant province of the Roman Empire. He teaches this king philosophy. And the king says, thank you so much. How can I pay you whatever you want? You know, name your price and I'll pay you. And Musonia says, the greatest payment you could give me would be to live up to the teachings that we've just discussed. And so, so like I was saying, almost all the lines in the book are rooted

• 1:03:15Speaker 00

  either overtly in Stoicism or an allusion to some Stoic idea. You know, a seven-year-old reading the book does not need to know that that's really based on something real. But I think the reason that line resonates with you is that it's it's real and and it is it's also true.

• 1:03:34Speaker 02

  And I love I love it even more knowing the the context behind it. I know we're at time. So so last question.

• 1:03:41Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:03:43Speaker 02

  Elsa asks, and this is a good one. Who would win an arm wrestling match? You or your wife?

• 1:03:49Speaker 00

  If this is the Elsa that I think it is, I will say thank you for showing up. This is really funny. But I don't know, I guess, probably, I would argue my wife. If you want to get arms like this, I've said, you just have to run a lot and do no upper body work. So I don't I don't have much to brag about in the arm department.

• 1:04:11Speaker 02

  Awesome. I love that. All right. I mean, every time we chat, it feels like 16 minutes goes by in a flash. We thank you for joining us. Everyone, check out Ryan's new book, The Boy Who Would Be King. It's a great story. And I think a nice way to end it is I love how you end the book by saying, "Keep reading, keep learning, courage, discipline, justice, wisdom." It's an extraordinary thing indeed.

• 1:04:37Speaker 00

  Well, thanks, Jason. It's an honor. And let's do it on the next book.

• 1:04:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, I look forward to it. Thanks, Ryan.

• 1:04:45Speaker 00

  Thanks for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. Just a reminder, we've got signed copies of all my books in the Daily Stoic Stoic. You can get them personalized. You can get them sent to a friend, whatever you want. We'd love for you to have a copy. I know I love signed copies of some of my favorite books. If you love a signed copy of The Obstacle is the Way, You Go is the Enemy, Stillness is the Key, the leather-bound edition of the Daily Stoic, we have them all in the Daily Stoic Stoic, which you can check out at store.dailystoic.com.