Ask Daily Stoic: Guest Starring Steven Pressfield

This week's extra-long Saturday episode of Ask Daily Stoic features Ryan talking about, and speaking with, author Steven Pressfield, writer of classic books such as The Legend of Bagger Vance, Gates of Fire, and The War of Art. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:05Speaker 00

  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.

• 0:29Speaker 00

  It's been more than 10 years ago now that somebody gave me a copy of Steven Pressfield's The War of Art. And honestly, I don't think I would be sitting here, I don't think I would have been able to write the books that I've written, I don't think I would have been able to have the career I've had without Steven's books. And so, I am so honored, he was out in Austin, he wanted to talk to me about some marketing stuff, and we got him in here, and we're doing our first-ever guest version of Ask Daily Stoic. So, I think Steven is one of the great sort of writer philosophers of our time. He's got all these fascinating beliefs about the muses, about routine, but really, it's his concept of resistance, this sort of force, he says, that's sort of between us and where we want to get creatively,

• 1:12Speaker 00

  artistically, in our personal lives. And then, it's the sort of battle with this resistance that makes us who we are. Obviously, the Stoics don't talk about resistance, but I think they would have immediately and intuitively understood the concept. So, I thought I'd talk through, you know, quickly, three or so of Steven's books, and how they influenced me, and what concepts I think you can take from them. So, the first, as I said, is The War of Art. This is where this concept of the resistance comes in and comes from. He believes that, as he says in the interview a little bit, he says this, amateur habits and professional habits, and about how you set up routines. It's just such a clever title, too, right? It's like, the War of Art, the Art of War. He's saying that, basically, creating something is this kind of daily battle with yourself, with your fears, with

• 1:57Speaker 00

  your doubts. And then, it's about the commitment that you put in, and the habits that you build, and the place that you go to that this work is able to come from. So, you know, for me, to read this book at 19 or 20 years old was just so influential, because I was probably, I sort of naively thought that writing was fun, that it would come easy, that, you know, if you wanted to make a movie, you could make a movie. If you, you know, to hear that Steven, like, basically spent 20 years putting in his hours, paying his dues, before he had his first breakthrough, you know, sort of incredibly inspiring and also humbling. His other book, which I really love, which is kind of a sequel to The War of Art, is Turning Pro. There's this idea that you turn pro as a writer, or as an athlete,

• 2:40Speaker 00

  or whatever sort of career or path you're on. It's this transition. And that's what he means. There's sort of amateur habits and professional habits. So it's not whether you're getting paid. It's not this sort of NCAA distinction. It's the, are you acting like a pro, or are you acting like an amateur? And I think this is a concept that the Stoics would have very much agreed with. Like, are you acting philosophically? Are you doing the work? Have you put yourself in the position to be successful? Or are you just expecting life to be easy, to give you what you want? And so this idea of turning pro, I think, is a critical turning point in everyone's career that we should all think about. And I asked him a little bit about that. And then his other book, Gates of Fire, about the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae is just sort of beautiful. If you've seen the movie 300,

• 3:23Speaker 00

  I actually think his book is a better version of that same story. It's super popular with the military. I was telling you guys last week that I was at Aviano, the NATO base, and I was speaking to the general there. And he's a huge fan of Gates of Fire. It's on their assigned reading list for their airmen. It's just a classic story about what it means to be a warrior, what it means to sacrifice, what it means to be part of a group, what it means to put it all on the line. So I strongly recommend that book. I recommend everything Stephen's done. He's just fantastic. The other novel, maybe you've seen the movie, but he also wrote the book, The Legend of Bagger Vance, which has turned into a movie with Will Smith. So a lot of the ideas in Stephen's books is fiction. Gates of Fire, Tides of War, Virtues of War are about themes the Stoics would have been

• 4:05Speaker 00

  intimately familiar with, whether it's the Spartans, or Alexander the Great, or the Athenian navy. You read these books and you're just transported back in time. So I'm so excited that I got to talk to him. I feel like it was, I've met him a few times, but every time I talk to him, it's like meeting one of my heroes. I come away wiser for it. So I'm really excited for you guys to hear from him. If you haven't read Stephen's books, you absolutely should. His Writing Wednesday posts on his site are really great. You should sign up for his email list. Follow him on social media. He's had this fascinating career. He's a great dude. He's one of my absolute favorite People, he's someone I'm trying to model my career after. And so I can't speak highly enough of this guy.

• 4:46Speaker 00

  And little known fact, it was actually Stephen and his editor who gave me the idea to do the three-part structure that is The Obstacle Is The Way. And obviously I recreated Ego Is The Enemy and then In Stillness Is The Key. And you might have noticed that it's a quote from Steven Pressfield that's on the cover of those first two books. So I feel very indebted to Stephen. He's an awesome guy. I'm so happy we got to bring this to you and I can't wait to hear what everyone thinks.

• 5:12Speaker 00

  For today's reading, I'm going to do the February 29th entry from The Daily Stoic. It's actually funny. You'd think it'd be 365 meditations, but you have to do 366 because it is a leap year this year. But for three out of the four years this book has been around, this entry has not been there to be read. But I guess that ties in well with the title, which is, "You can't always be getting what you want. When children stick their hand down a narrow goodie jar, they can't get their fist full out and start crying. Drop a few treats and you will get it out. Curb your desire. Don't set your heart on so many things and you will get what you need." That's Epictetus from The Discourses, Book Three.

• 5:56Speaker 00

  "We can have it all is the mantra of our modern lives. Work, family, purpose, success, leisure time. We want all of this at the same time, right now, to boot. In Greece, the lecture hall was a leisure center where students contemplated the higher things, the good, the true, the beautiful, for the purpose of living a better life. It was about prioritization, about questioning the priorities of the outside world. But today, we're too busy getting things, just like kids jamming their hand down a jar of goodies, to do much of this questioning. 'Don't set your heart on so many things,' says Epictetus. Focus. Prioritize. Train your mind to ask, 'Do I need this thing? What will happen if I do not get it? Can I make do without it?

• 6:40Speaker 00

  The answers to these questions will help you relax, help you cut out the things that make you too busy to be balanced or happy.'" One of the best pieces of advice I got was from Austin Kleon. I was just moving to Austin. My sort of career as a writer was just taking off and he said something to me. He said, "Think about it this way." He's like, "There's work, family, and scene, like the sort of social scene." And he's like, "Pick two." Meaning that- As a writer, or as whatever you're doing, you can sort of be, you can go out all the right parties, you can have fun, you can do all the cool stuff, and you can do great work, but that comes at the expense of your family. Or you can have a family you love, and party, and hang out, and do fun stuff all the time, but your work will suffer. Or

• 7:21Speaker 00

  you can do great work, and you can have a great family, but you will be conspicuously absent at all the things. And so, this is a core Stoic idea, the idea of saying no. One of my favorite stories from the Stoics is a story from Agrippinus, who refuses to go to one of Nero's parties. And not only does he refuse to go, he never even considered going, because Nero was corrupt, because he didn't want to do these things. And Agrippinus didn't mind standing out, he didn't mind being different, he didn't mind being conspicuously absent. In fact, the whole point was to be conspicuously absent, to be conspicuously conspicuous, because he wanted to do what he thought was right, and he wanted to do what he thought was important. So I think that's something to meditate about today, something to think

• 8:02Speaker 00

  about. You can't get everything you want, you can't have it all, no one can have it all. Everything we say yes to comes at the expense of something else we say no to, and everything we say no to means, hopefully, that we are saying yes to something that really matters.

• 8:20Speaker 00

  Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of Ask Daily Stoic. We're doing it with a guest this week. This is Steven Pressfield, one of my favorite authors of all time. And we're going to talk philosophy, ancient history, and answer some of your questions. So the first question, Stephen, is from someone named Emily. And Emily is talking about, this is a Stoic exercise of premeditatio malorum. So her question is, how do you think someone can plan for adversity and think about it, but not become nervous and anxious?

• 8:49Speaker 01

  Wow, that's a hell of a question. I don't know if I know the answer to that. I know, if my girlfriend, Diana, were here, she would say, "Don't think about those negative things, because you're putting it out into the universe, and you bring the negative stuff in." But I'm, I am a believer in kind of... Pre-thinking, you know, things that could go wrong.

• 9:08Speaker 00

  Right.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  So that when they do go wrong, you know, actually, I was, I wrote a book called The Lion's Gate a few years ago about the Six Day War in Israel.

• 9:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  And I spent a lot of time with fighter pilots over there. And their mentality has kind of soaked into me a little bit. They very definitely, on a mission, they will, like, in this, in the Six Day War, Israeli fighter planes flew like 100 feet off the water to attack Egyptian airfields. And these guys rehearsed, second by second, everything that could possibly go wrong.

• 9:39Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  So that when it did go wrong, they weren't freaked out by it.

• 9:44Speaker 00

  Right.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  You know, they were, you know, they were ready for it. They'd rehearsed it. So I'm not sure if this is an answer.

• 9:49Speaker 00

  No, it is. I think it is. Seneca quotes Fabius, and he says, "The only inexcusable thing for a military commander to say is, 'I didn't think it would happen.'"

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 9:59Speaker 00

  And so you don't just wake up in the morning and you're like, "Today could be horrible." You're not just like brooding on all the stuff that can go wrong. I don't think that's the way to do it. You want to think specifically as you, it's like, when you're giving a talk, you don't want to get on stage and then the projector doesn't work, and then you've never conceived

• 10:17Speaker 01

  Right, right, right.

• 10:18Speaker 00

  of that scenario happening, and you don't know what to do.

• 10:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:20Speaker 00

  It's about, I think, creating contingencies. So actually, you're not anxious because you've prepared for it to happen.

• 10:26Speaker 01

  Yes, I would definitely agree. This was one fighter pilot in Israel, where they, on this, on this day when they were going to attack the Egyptian airfields, they had planned to go into their dive at 2,500 feet and pull out at 1,000 feet, their bombing run on the fields. So this pilot made a couple of runs on the Egyptian fields, and then they got called off to Syria. And he suddenly, so he went into his bombing run, and suddenly he looked at the windshield, and he saw the, the ground was getting very big, very close, and he realized, "Oh, my God, we're on the Syrian plateau that's 1,500 feet higher."

• 11:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  You know, and he like pulled out at about one foot, you know? So that was a case of, if you had done that premeditatio, whatever it is, you would have thought, "Okay."

• 11:09Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  You know? So. It's great to do that.

• 11:13Speaker 00

  I think that's right. All right, so our next question comes from Carissa. How would Marcus Aurelius or the Stoics approach imposter syndrome? Certainly, Marcus wasn't 100% qualified to be the emperor. And she says, in my own job, I go through the motions and have been promoted, but I feel I'm in too deep at maybe she'll say something someday that reveals how little she knows. I know you talk about this in your books, this idea of like, am I a writer or not? Can I call myself a writer? So there's that imposter syndrome that people feel. I'm just curious, what do you think about it?

• 11:42Speaker 01

  That's another great question. I don't think there really is such a thing as being an imposter.

• 11:47Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  You know, I think if you're just on the spectrum of getting better and getting better. But I do think that we're sort of led to a calling or to something that we do. The trick to me is just self-belief, is just believing that you're not an imposter. I mean, who says you're an imposter? That's the voice of resistance in your head, trying to sabotage you. And I think a lot of times, once you get into the moment of it, you'll be amazed at what comes out of your mouth.

• 12:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think there's almost some ego in imposter syndrome because you think people are thinking about you.

• 12:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, right, yeah.

• 12:24Speaker 00

  When really, nobody cares. Like, nobody is trying to catch you as an imposter, is what I like to say. They're not thinking about you at all. They're thinking about themselves. But the question about Marcus Aurelius is interesting because, so Marcus Aurelius is not, it's not like he's born knowing he's gonna be emperor. His father, there's five Roman emperors in a row who don't have a male heir. So he's selected to be emperor as like a little kid, basically, as a teenager. So you can imagine, like, a teenager's gonna have two reactions. Either you're gonna be like, of course, I'm meant to be king, or you're gonna be like, what? This is like, and so Marcus has the second reaction, and he doesn't think that he's suited for it at all. Supposedly, he like breaks down in tears as he thinks about it.

• 13:08Speaker 00

  He thinks about the emperors that come before him, how bad a job many of them have done. And he ends up having this dream that night, he has this dream that his shoulders are made of ivory. And this is a symbol that like he could bear the weight of the responsibility. So I think the truth is, we all struggle with that doubt. But then it's the question of like, are you going to identify with that doubt? Or are you gonna sort of push past it? So in a way, imposter syndrome is identifying with the wrong thing. It's identifying with the doubts, to me, rather than identifying with the confidence. Like, when I set out to write my first book, I don't know about you, but it's not like, by definition, your first book, you've never done this before.

• 13:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:47Speaker 00

  So how do you know that you can do it? If you're like, of course I can write a book because I'm me and I'm a genius. I don't think that's the right way to think about it. I think that's ego. To me, it's, okay, well, what do I know about myself that gives me the impression or is evidence that I can write this book? Right? And so for me, it was, oh, like, I'm a hard worker. I don't quit. I ask questions. You know, I've written other things before. So I think you focus, choosing on what you're gonna focus on. I think you focus on the traits that you know that should qualify you to do whatever you're doing.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  The other thing, I think, is that if you have the idea to write a book, where does that idea come from? You're being called in some sort of way, like a dream is calling you, like your unconscious or the muse or whatever.

• 14:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:32Speaker 01

  And it wouldn't, you wouldn't be given that idea. You wouldn't have the idea unless you were capable of somehow enacting it.

• 14:39Speaker 00

  No, that's very beautiful. I love that. Anna Will says, how does this go about dealing with people who are different than them in terms of lifestyle or work ethic? There are people in my life that are constantly complaining, have little work ethic, and sometimes be simply the opposite of how I choose to live my life. I know I can't control them, so I roll it off and remind myself that their actions don't determine what I do and feel. But sometimes I struggle with this. I don't wanna be arrogant, but I feel that. So she's asking for, basically, how do you deal with people who are not as talented, as skilled, as driven? Any advice?

• 15:12Speaker 01

  Actually, I just had kind of an instance of this, where I got into this real negative spiral in my head of thinking about someone and thinking, you know, they're lazy, they're a bum, they're letting me down, da-da-da-da-da. And I just thought to myself, you know, this is my stuff in my head. And I decided. Instead to reach out to them in a really positive, trusting way.

• 15:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:36Speaker 01

  And it really worked. So I think that probably doesn't work all the time.

• 15:42Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  Most people, I think, are trying their best.

• 15:45Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  And I think, I sort of thought, you know, this person that I'm having a problem with, I bet if I heard his side of it, he'd probably say, you know, things I'm doing is screwing him up.

• 15:55Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  I just tried to make it a positive, and I think that's probably a pretty good way. Obviously, some people you can't, you can't work with. Like, to go back to another Israeli story, Moshe Dayan, a famous Israeli general, he broke people down into two categories, those who are possible and those who are impossible.

• 16:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  And the possible ones, those people that he worked with, he would give them all the leeway they could possibly have.

• 16:20Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  And the impossible ones, he just said, you know, I'm not working with them at all. They're impossible.

• 16:25Speaker 00

  I remember in Gates of Fire, because I wrote the quote down, I think you were quoting him. He was talking about, too, though, he would rather have a horse you have to rein in.

• 16:34Speaker 01

  Right, yes.

• 16:35Speaker 00

  Than one you have to prod. And so, yes, if you're choosing who you're going to work with, you want someone.

• 16:39Speaker 01

  Yes, if you can choose, yeah.

• 16:41Speaker 00

  But the reality is, we don't get to choose most of the time. And that's one of the things the ancient historians sort of credit Marcus Aurelius with is like, a lot of times, the really smart, brilliant, talented, dedicated leaders have trouble, like, this was a problem Obama had, where it's had trouble, it's like, people were not as good as him.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  Right, or Kobe Bryant, trying to get his teammates.

• 17:01Speaker 00

  Right, yeah, Kobe Bryant could not wrap his head around the fact that not everyone was Kobe Bryant. And so, one of the things they credit Marcus Aurelius with is, he had this philosophy, he's like, you don't choose who is in the empire. He's like, everyone can be of service to the empire in some way. How do I get that out of those people? The empire's not going to be staffed with philosophers, basically, you know? And so, realizing that, like... These are your standards that you hold yourself to and that that's what matters. But that you are not only going to be miserable, but you are probably not going to get the best out of other people expecting others to live up to standards they never agreed to live up to in the first place. So I think the really great leaders like Lincoln is a great example too, where he's

• 17:44Speaker 00

  like, how can I get the best out of all different kinds of people, especially flawed people, even people that don't like me? That this, to me, this is a, this is an opportunity to grow as a leader, which is like, the leader's job is to get the most out of the people around them, not to bully or intimidate or judge people for not being something other than they are.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  What I'm about to say is not going to answer Anibal's question, but I think maybe this applies to you a little too even. One of the reasons I'm glad I'm a writer is the only person I really have to worry about is myself.

• 18:19Speaker 00

  Totally, totally.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  I can crack the whip over myself.

• 18:21Speaker 00

  And that, that's actually a great point too, though. I think it does answer your question. Maybe you're someone who can't work with other people and you, like, there are a number of writers that we probably both know that it's like, because they've had success as a writer, you can assume, oh, I would be great running a company. And actually, you're not suited for that at all. And so really knowing your strengths, are you an introvert? Are you an extrovert? Can you work with other people? Do you like working with other people?

• 18:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:46Speaker 00

  Do you have a lot of patience? Do you not have a lot of patience?

• 18:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's that great book, Quiet.

• 18:51Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  That might be up on Anabelle Street.

• 18:53Speaker 00

  By Susan Cain.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. About introverts and the strengths of being an introvert.

• 18:58Speaker 00

  Yes, I think your point is a good one, is that like, some of us are more self-driven, solitary figures. And the great news about how the world has worked out is that now you can, that's a viable career path that maybe it wasn't before. And so maybe that's, that's for you. And this is almost perfectly suited for you, Stephen. It says, how do I stop procrastinating? He says he wants to write a book and he's been thinking about it for almost four years, but he's not started. He's even bought a note card box and index cards. He spends hours researching how to improve his writing, but in the end, he doesn't write anything. What do the Stoics say or what do you say about, about overcoming procrastination?

• 19:36Speaker 01

  I mean, there are some problems, and I'm sure you'll agree with me, Ryan, that can only be solved by the will. By just making up your mind to do it. And do it, I mean, there's many sort of hacks, I hate that word. And tricks. I mean, you could certainly set a schedule and just say that every morning at seven, I'm gonna write for an hour, I'm gonna do something. But then if you're a procrastinator, you'll go back to bed, whatever it is. But I think there's no, it's like the Nike slogan, just do it. There's no substitute for strengthening the willpower, however you have to do that. Habit is a great thing. You know, Twyla Tharp's book, The Creative Habit. I wouldn't know what to do if it wasn't for habits.

• 20:19Speaker 01

  In fact, a lot of what I do in the day as a writer is just to try to strengthen the habits that I have. Remember, there are professional habits and there are amateur habits. And procrastination is an amateur habit par excellence, you know? So, like, for me, when I first started, the real bugaboo for me was finishing something. I could go for two and a half years, you know, and get this far from the end and then, and I just, I just said to myself, I'm either gonna kill myself or I'm gonna solve this thing. And just willpower. The one thing I will say for that thing, and maybe this will apply to Aiden's question of procrastinating, is once you beat it, you'll always beat it from then on.

• 21:04Speaker 00

  Yes. I think one of the things that I see people, because they read books, they love books, the books are, books and writing are synonymous to them. And they're not the same thing.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  Good point.

• 21:16Speaker 00

  And so, you know, if you wanted to start running, you wouldn't commit to doing a marathon tomorrow. If you did, you'd just be put, if you're like, I'm gonna run a marathon, you'd just be putting it off over and over and over again, because it's so hard. Like, I wrote almost every day for six years before my first book was done, you know? And thank God.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  Was that just journaling, or were you?

• 21:37Speaker 00

  No, no, I mean, I wrote online. Like, I wrote, I wrote articles and I wrote on a blog. There's no way my first book would have been my first book if I started from there.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  Good point.

• 21:46Speaker 00

  So you don't set out to run a marathon, you run a mile, and then you run two miles, and then you run 20 miles in a week, you know, and you have to build up muscle. So I think this goes to your point about habit. The idea of starting with the largest end of the obstacle is not the way to do it. I think you want to start smaller. So, you know, he's saying, in the end, I don't write anything. Well, commit to writing a tweet, or an Instagram caption, or an article, or answer questions on Quora, or write emails to your friends, you know, like, just start writing. Seneca has this point, he's like, the path to wisdom is like, just pick one thing every day, like, find one thing every day that is like, fortifies you against poverty, or helps you fear death less.

• 22:28Speaker 00

  Just look for like, one quote, one insight, one story a day, and that this adds up. And so I think, to do a book, it's the accumulation of days with your ass in the chair. But to be a writer, you just have to start publishing, you know, so you start writing. If you'd written a page a day for four years, you'd have four or five books, you know, at this point. So I think I'd start, start smaller. Another book recommendation, James Clear's book, Atomic Habits. He talks about like, what's the smallest, the smallest habit you can start with? And Twyla talks about that in her book. She's like, for me, it's like, getting up, getting downstairs, getting in the cab. That's putting me on the path to the habit. You know, James Clear's like, if you want to go running,

• 23:13Speaker 00

  lay out your running clothes in front of your bedroom door the night before, and then you have to step over them to not, you know what I mean? Like, you're putting obstacles between you and the procrastination. So, you know, if you decide to write one article a week, that's going to be easier to do than writing a book, which you've never done before, and so of course it's intimidating.

• 23:34Speaker 01

  The other thing I would say, there's a couple of other things. I have a saying that says, put your ass where your heart wants to be.

• 23:41Speaker 00

  Oh, that's beautiful.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  And, which would mean, in Aiden's case, sit in the chair.

• 23:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Don't assign yourself any more than that.

• 23:48Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 23:49Speaker 01

  Just have the typewriter or whatever it is, and sit in the chair.

• 23:51Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 23:51Speaker 01

  And then just, you know, that's where you want to be. If you're a painter, get in front of an easel. The other thing I would say is, if it's been going on for four years, Don't feel too bad about it. For me, it was like seven years before I could finally kind of break through that thing. And also, the monumental scale of Aiden's resistance tells me that there's something really great in there. Because there wouldn't be that big resistance if there wasn't something, a dream, a vision, a book, a number of books. So, I would say not to be discouraged.

• 24:26Speaker 00

  Okay, so John has a question here about saying no. For the stoics, you know, the idea of like, you know, Marx really says like, only say yes to what is essential, ask yourself if this is necessary. So the art of saying no, separating what you should be doing from what you shouldn't be doing, given the no one wants to read your shit, is so great. You must have millions of requests coming your way, but you seem, even more than me, very disciplined in what you say yes or no to. I'm wondering, do you have good strategies for saying no to things?

• 24:55Speaker 01

  Wow, I wish, it's been a real problem for me my whole life. Because I have this idea that I want to be thought of as a nice guy. And so, you know, when requests come in that are from, obviously, well-meaning, good-hearted people, or they're real, you know, but you absolutely, you can't do that, you know? I have, I once got a chance to visit a security company, like the kind that protects celebrities from harassment and stuff like that. And one of the things that they do is they will, every piece of mail or email that comes to the celebrity, goes through them first. And they absolutely screen it.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  And so, we are not celebrities, maybe, but we sort of have to do that ourselves. You know, just say, if I were the security firm, would I throw this in the? And there was, I remember there was a display they had at the place, and it was a Plexiglas case that went up about 10 feet high, had four compartments, and it was all full of letters that one person had written to a celebrity.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  Thousands of them, sometimes they were 18 a day.

• 26:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:07Speaker 01

  And the security firm, the celebrity never saw any of them. This is a day, they wouldn't tell me the name.

• 26:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  He doesn't, he or she doesn't even know. They intercepted them and put them away. So, there's a great quote by Dickens. It's a note from in those days, you would write a note to your friend. About a friend that asked him to lunch. And he said, you know, it may seem like nothing to you. It's only an hour.

• 26:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  But my thinking about it through the day, it's gonna screw me up in the morning before I go. Then when I come back, I'm gonna have to try to get back. So I hope you understand, Dickens said, I just can't do it.

• 26:42Speaker 00

  That, that's it for me. It's like, so it might seem like it's like an hour. But now my whole day is pivoted around that thing. Like for me, the sign of success is an empty calendar, not a full calendar. That means I'm living my life how I wanna live it. The Stoics are talking about like, how we're just a slave to these responsibilities and obligations. And then there's no time left for ourselves. And then we're exchanging this time for money. But we can't get the time back, you know? And so, yeah, it causes me a lot of stress and anxiety. I heard Steve Cam, who runs Nerd Fitness, which is a great website. I know he's a fan of yours. He was telling me recently, if you phrase it as you have a rule. People are much more understanding.

• 27:27Speaker 00

  Because they understand that it's not personally a rejection of them. So like for book blurbs, he's like, you don't say, no, I won't blurb your book. You say, I have a rule against blurbing books. Someone just two days ago asked me to write a foreword to one of their books. And this is true, I don't write forewords for books. Because like, I only wanna write books. I only want my name on Amazon to be on my own books. I feel like a foreword is a very big endorsement, like it just. And so I said, look, the request was very nice, and you know, blah, blah, blah. It was as well done as the request could possibly be. And I said, look, this is a great request, thank you so much, I'm flattered. But I have a rule, I don't write book forewords. Welcome to send me the book, I'm happy to look at it, you know? And I'll, maybe I'll tell people about it when it comes out.

• 28:12Speaker 00

  But I have a rule against doing this. And he was like, done, you know? But if I, if I was like, eh, I don't know if I like your book, you know, that whole thing. So, so the idea of rules, that's something I'm applying now.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  It's a good one.

• 28:25Speaker 00

  And, and the black and whiteness of it is really good.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  I guess I won't ask you to write the forewords.

• 28:31Speaker 01

  The other thing that I heard once, it's also a really good way to think about this is when you say yes to some request that comes in, you're simultaneously saying no

• 28:41Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  to something else, like your kid has a soccer game?

• 28:43Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 28:44Speaker 01

  Okay, I'm not gonna be able to go to see Janie's soccer game.

• 28:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  And which is more important? Or, I think sometimes, for me, this is a tough one, I'm sure you do the same thing, Ryan. Sometimes for me, it's just, what I wanna do is just daydream.

• 28:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  Or I wanna sleep. Or I wanna watch some dumb thing on TV.

• 29:00Speaker 00

  That feels selfish.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  And that's valuable.

• 29:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  You know, that counts.

• 29:04Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 29:04Speaker 01

  I also don't write forwards because it's just an incredible request. I mean, unless it's from your brother.

• 29:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:12Speaker 01

  You know, forget about it.

• 29:13Speaker 00

  Right.

• 29:13Speaker 01

  You know that show The Shop that LeBron James does?

• 29:16Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  With the barber shop, you know? And they were talking about, since you got famous, has your family started wanting you to buy them houses? And everybody was just laughing one after another about how, yeah, yeah, yeah. Everybody comes out of the woodwork.

• 29:31Speaker 00

  Right.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  And how they just kinda learned to laugh it off and say no.

• 29:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, actually, and I know there's sort of different schools of thought with writers about like, you know, is having kids make it harder to be a writer, easier? I've actually found that having kids is very clarifying for me as far as saying no goes because apparently I have an unlimited tendency to steal time from myself.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 29:53Speaker 00

  And my wife is pretty patient, so she'll let me steal time from her. She's not like, hey, you're doing this, we were supposed to have dinner. She doesn't care. But realizing that saying yes to writing this forward, or saying yes to some dinner, or, you know, things like that, that I'm stealing that time from a three-year-old is,

• 30:10Speaker 01

  Ah, yeah.

• 30:11Speaker 00

  It embodies it in a visceral, like heartbreaking form.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 30:16Speaker 00

  It forces you to be much stricter. Which is ironic, Seneca would say, because like, yeah, sure, you obviously don't wanna make a child sad, but it should be enough that you're giving away life that you could never get back.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:28Speaker 00

  But it's not enough for us.

• 30:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:29Speaker 00

  And so, we end up just, you know, we say yes, yes, yes, we don't wanna be a bad guy, and then we sit on our deathbed and wonder where all the time.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:38Speaker 00

  Because actually, we have a Daily Stoic email coming out about this, but I was reading a touching obituary of Kobe Bryant, who recently just died in this tragic helicopter accident. And the reporter was talking about her whole career covering Kobe, and that about a month before he died, she emailed him, she was doing this story on Phil Jackson and the triangle offense, and she wanted to interview Kobe for the story. And so, especially if you become a public person, like, that's so flattering. That's like, you want to be interviewed. Like, you want to talk about your things. You want to manage your legacy. You're financially motivated to do it, all these things. And so she texts him, and he texts back, and he says, "Hey, sorry, my girls are keeping me busy. Hit me up some other time."

• 31:21Speaker 00

  When he said that, he had no idea that he only had one month left to live.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  It's a great story, yeah.

• 31:25Speaker 00

  But, you know, maybe in that moment, as he's... Like, it touches me very deeply to think, like, maybe he recognized, as his life was flashing before his eyes, that that hour, or 10 minutes, or five minutes on the phone, he gave that to the people that mattered, rather than to some other thing that no one... We wouldn't be sitting here and going, "I'm really glad Kobe was quoted in that ESPN story." You know what I mean? But that five minutes that he spent with his daughter instead, she's going to remember forever. You know, the Stoics do not have an unlimited amount of time to do your work, to be with your family. And so, you're saying no feels selfish, but also, if what you do is important, and the relationships that you have are important,

• 32:10Speaker 00

  it's actually more selfish to say yes.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or your favorite podcast app. And if you don't get the Daily Stoic email, go to dailystoic.com/email.