Chris Bosh on Embracing the Process and Staying Present | This Cannot Be Allowed To Happen

Ryan reads today’s meditation and talks to Chris Bosh about his new book Letters To A Young Athlete, what he learned winning multiple NBA Championships, the importance of having a diverse range of interests, learning to live in the moment, and more. Chris Bosh fell in love with basketball at an early age and earned the prestigious “Mr. Basketball” title while still at Lincoln High School in Dallas, Texas. A McDonald’s All-American, Bosh was selected fourth overall by the Toronto Raptors after one year attending Georgia Tech. In March 2019, Bosh’s #1 jersey was officially retired for the Miami Heat. In addition to his basketball career, in 2010 he founded Team Tomorrow as a community-uplift organization. Bosh regularly speaks to youths about the benefits of reading, coding, and leadership. Bosh, his wife, Adrienne, and their five children reside in Austin, Texas. The Pod Pro Cover by Eight Sleep is the most advanced solution on the market for thermoregulation. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking. You can add the Cover to any mattress, and start sleeping as cool as 55°F or as hot as 110°F. Go to eightsleep.com/dailystoic to check out the Pod Pro Cover and save $150 at checkout. Go Macro is a family-owned maker of some of the finest protein bars around. They're vegan, non-GMO, and they come in a bunch of delicious flavors. Visit gomacro.com and use promo code STOIC for 30% off your order plus free shipping on all orders over $50. 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. Visit athleticgreens.com/stoic to get a FREE year supply of Liquid Vitamin D + 5 FREE Travel Packs with subscription. 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. ***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_stoicFollow Chris Bosh:Homepage: https://www.chrisbosh.com/Instagram: https://instagram.com/chrisboshTwitter: https://twitter.com/chrisboshFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/OfficialChrisBosh/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiWS1VEYfznFrWc8c9zeDsASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Ryan Holiday?

  Bienvenidos al Daily Stoic Podcast, donde cada miércoles te traemos una meditación inspirada por los antiguos estoicos, un corto pasaje de sabiduría antigua diseñado para ayudarte a encontrar fuerza y visión aquí en la vida cotidiana. Y los miércoles, hablamos con algunos de nuestros compañeros estudiantes de filosofía antigua, conocidos y obscuros, fascinantes y poderosos. Con ellos, discutimos las estrategias y hábitos que han ayudado a que se conviertan en quienes son, y también para encontrar paz y sabiduría en sus vidas reales. Pero primero, tenemos un rápido mensaje de uno de nuestros sponsors.

• 0:44Ryan Holiday?

  "No se puede permitir que suceda. El verdadero fin de la República no llegó con la llegada de Julio César. El signo de que las cosas habían colapsado llegó años antes, no una vez, sino muchas veces. El proceso político en Roma, que nunca había sido perfecto, se rompió en troncos de ladrones de ladrones violentos. Como dijo Mike Duncan recientemente en el Daily Stoic Podcast y en su increíble libro "El temor antes del temor", comenzó con la crisis del año 133, la primera vez que la diferencia política se escaló a la violencia. ¿Por qué? Un proyecto de redistribución de tierras. Los nobles y los aristócratas se reunieron detrás de un senador y lanzaron un ataque armado,

• 1:25Ryan Holiday?

  matando a algunos 300 personas. Roma nunca había visto tal masacre, como dice Duncan, y fue uno de los días más sangrados de la historia política romana. Esto es por qué los estoicos estaban tan rutinariamente agotados por los ladrones, por lo que se advirtieron contra la ira y el caos y el odio. Lo habían visto de primera mano. No solo la escalada de la violencia que llevó al colapso de la República, sino que ellos mismos eran las víctimas de la persecución de filósofos. Vieron cómo Nero, muy fácilmente, pudo scapegozar a los cristianos como una puesta de distracción a los romanos de su incompetencia y el mal. And so it goes in America and many other nations. It's why the horrifying murder of Ahmaud Arbery can't be dismissed as just some crime

• 2:09Ryan Holiday?

  that happened in Georgia. It's why violence against Asians and Jews cannot be tolerated, cannot be ignored. David French, another guest on the podcast, recently wrote a moving piece titled, Can America Be America When Jews Are Beaten in the Streets? No country can allow anyone to be beaten in the streets, let alone a vulnerable minority with a 2,000-year history of persecution. Because when the wolves of hate are loose, no one is safe. We cannot allow this to happen. We cannot allow our political process to devolve any further, to descend into open violence in the streets. We cannot dismiss these events as isolated instances.

• 2:52Ryan Holiday?

  We cannot engage in whataboutism. Because if we do, if we do nothing, as Marcus Aurelius said, we are not only committing an injustice by allowing injustice to happen, but we are ultimately imperiling ourselves, just as we saw in Rome, as we saw in Germany, as we have seen anywhere that mob violence is encouraged or allowed.

• 3:18Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. My guest today is a two-time NBA champion, an 11-time NBA All-Star, and, as it happens, an Olympic gold medalist and the author of a wonderful new book that I was very excited and honored to get to work on with him. Chris Bosh happens to live here in Austin, Texas. We got connected and he was thinking about doing a book. And I remember originally he was thinking, should it be a memoir? Should it be a basketball book? And I was telling him about two of my favorite books, Letters to a Young Jazz Musician by Winston Marsalis and Letters to a Young Poet by Rilke.

• 4:00Ryan Holiday?

  I said to him, look, it's been weird how my books, which are ostensibly totally unrelated to sports in any way, have managed to make their way through all these locker rooms because coaches are looking for things that will improve their athletes personally, professionally, mentally, spiritually. And I said, why isn't there a book of letters to a young athlete? And I said, there's so few people who are remotely qualified to do this book. You know, you've achieved all the great prizes in your profession, but also, and we talked about this in the interview, because basketball was tragically taken away from you early, you have an appreciation and understanding of the game, having had

• 4:45Ryan Holiday?

  it ripped from your life, in a way that I think makes you uniquely suited to give advice to young athletes. I said, what are all the things that you wish that you knew when you were coming up in the league? And how can people benefit from your experiences? And so I was lucky enough to collaborate on this book. It comes out this week. It's incredible. I was so impressed with Chris every step of the way. He inspired me. I think he got great work out of me, which is something we talk about, about how do you assemble a great team? How do you get the best of the people around you? How do you lead by example? And we also get into it in the interview. Chris is a big fan of Stoicism. He shares the stuff from The Daily Stoic all the time. So it's just really great to

• 5:25Ryan Holiday?

  talk to this magnificent athlete, this sort of Renaissance man of an artist, an athlete, an entrepreneur, a musician. He does all this interesting stuff. I think this is a great interview, as we begin with my first interview in person in this space ever, and my first one since the pandemic began 15-plus months ago. So it was great. Of all the people to do in person, it's wonderful to talk with Chris. And here's the new book, Letters to a Young Athlete. You gotta read it. You can follow Chris at Chris Bosh on pretty much any platform, and of course, chrisbosh.com as well. And you can check out his new record label, Daddy Jack Records. They're at Daddy Jack Records on Instagram. And enjoy the

• 6:10Ryan Holiday?

  conversation. Do check out the new book. I do highly recommend it, although I'm a little biased, but it's quite good. Check it out. Here's my interview with Chris Bosh.

• 6:21Ryan Holiday?

  So this is my first in person. Have you, have you did a few in person things?

• 6:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've done a few in person things. I think it started like a couple of, or a few weeks ago, we did like Family Feud.

• 6:33Ryan Holiday?

  You did Family Feud? That's amazing.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  The other week.

• 6:36Ryan Holiday?

  Did you win?

• 6:37Speaker 01

  I can't, I can't tell.

• 6:38Ryan Holiday?

  Oh, you can't tell, right? Cause there's the, the gap before it airs.

• 6:41Speaker 01

  You sign stuff. It's crazy. So like, uh, we played, uh, well, we were on a game show and that was like, I guess the first in person kind of thing we went to. And then a few weeks before that, like restaurants, we were like, okay, hey, let's see if we can go to a couple of restaurants. We went to our, start going back to our favorite restaurants. So things are slowly getting, slowly getting back there.

• 7:05Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, it's weird. Even, even when you get the vaccine, you, you know, you're good, but then you're, you were just so used to being careful for so long.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:12Ryan Holiday?

  That it feels irresponsible, even though the facts have changed.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think it's good to have, uh, it's good to have that, that, that layer of protection for yourself to be like, hey, let's wash our hands.

• 7:24Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 7:24Speaker 01

  You know, cause I know I'm, I'm a lot more conscious of how many times I touched my face and, and me just washing my hands and you know, the mask. My thing is like, you know, I, I traveled a lot in my past life, right? So we probably should have been doing a little bit of it, right?

• 7:41Ryan Holiday?

  Why would we ever get in a thin metal tube with a bunch of strangers breathing the same air for like eight hours in a row? It's insane.

• 7:48Speaker 01

  You know, it's just a little layer of protection. And then, you know what? You could take it off once, you know, it's just, it kind of, um, it probably should have been that way. But you know, as we're, as we're kind of getting back to whatever the new normal is, I'm still definitely very, very aware and, and very cautious of things.

• 8:05Ryan Holiday?

  Well, cause you have young kids also. So like the craziest thing for me, the last year and a half is like, I haven't gotten sick like one time.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:12Ryan Holiday?

  Like you, cause when you have kids, you're just sick all the time. Cause they're just like. Germ magnets, they bring them home, they lick your face.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  Especially when you start school.

• 8:19Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  I remember when my son started school, it's like I was coming from road to a baby.

• 8:27Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 8:27Speaker 01

  And I mean, I was sick all the time. And I couldn't even tell if it was me making him sick or him getting me sick. I couldn't tell anymore.

• 8:34Ryan Holiday?

  Well, that's what's so weird to me. Yeah, even like in the NBA, right? Like they have like all the protocols now. And then if you, you know, a certain percentage of the team is vaccinated, then they, then they can relax them. But it's like, you, you basically have all these million dollar racehorses, right? That's what, that's what professional athletes are, like the finest specimens. And it's kind of crazy that there was no protocols before, like this Yankee coach.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:59Ryan Holiday?

  He came in the office, he ended up giving everyone COVID, but he's, he's like, oh, I thought I just had the flu, right? Like, you're like, why would you go, why would you bring flu into this finally, you know, into this finely calibrated environment? Like, why would you do that?

• 9:15Speaker 01

  And anything, and anything will throw the whole business off. One loss can,

• 9:20Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  not to be too dramatic, but you have that one bad stint can just mess up a whole season.

• 9:26Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I was talking to an NBA coach once, and he said that the team had like a day off in New York City. So they did like a family day where they all went to like the Natural History Museum or whatever.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 9:35Ryan Holiday?

  And so he said, all the players, you know, like, they don't usually get to take their kids to museums because they're on the road. So they took them. And he said, the next day, every player was sore because they weren't used to carrying their kids around. And he was like, these are finely tuned machines. And then we put them through this unexpected, uh, like motion. And then we had to like compensate for it. So they didn't pull muscles.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  I mean, they could have, well, I mean, you know, it's easy for me to say, right? They could have saw that coming. I'm only saying that because I have carried my kids to museums and stuff like that.

• 10:09Ryan Holiday?

  No, you're, you're just like,

• 10:10Speaker 01

  You know what I mean?

• 10:11Ryan Holiday?

  And then you wake up, your back hurts.

• 10:12Speaker 01

  I've done the summer trips.

• 10:13Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? And it's just, it's a lot of frustration there, you know? So I wouldn't, I probably wouldn't do the family thing. I would probably do like a family park kind of situation. Museum, woo, boy. My kids don't want to go to a museum. I don't care how cool it is. And and if you do get them to to say, man, that's cool. They'll pick that one thing that you'll be like, no, no, no, guys. Check out this exhibit. No, no, no.

• 10:39Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  I want to go over here. So, I mean, that's, you know, neither here nor there, but I'm sure I'm sure they got something out of it.

• 10:45Ryan Holiday?

  Well, that's been weird to me, you know, sort of following, you know, some some of the vaccination troubles with teams where it's like, these people will do anything for an advantage in the game. And then they can't get everyone on board with not just forget like a life saving. Uh, like the the element of the vaccines. I think it's it's like, imagine if you just have to miss a playoff game because you're in protocols. But like, so it's it's been weird how this pandemic has sort of challenged us. Rationally, like things that if you if you ordinarily said, hey, here's this medicine that will prevent you from having to miss a game for the following reasons, they'd be like, sure, I'll do that in two seconds.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:25Ryan Holiday?

  Or, you know, here's this chemical compound rub on your body and you'll bounce back fast. They do in two seconds. Then they're like, a vaccine, no, no.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a it's definitely, um, I guess a stigma out about vaccines. It makes people, it gives people the willies.

• 11:39Ryan Holiday?

  It does. It's crazy. I I was thinking about you, though, because you so so 2020 threw like a bunch of people for a loop, right? It's like we thought the year was going to be one way.

• 11:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:51Ryan Holiday?

  And then all of a sudden it was not that way and it'll never be the same again. And by the way, you're spending a lot more time with your family than you ever thought possible. That strikes me as eerily similar to the journey you went on a few years ago when you suddenly get, you know, a blood test back.

• 12:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's a it's a very good, very, very good analogy, man. It was, I guess, for me, and and I kind of think about this all the time. Doing one thing like I was watching, um, I've been watching the playoffs, playing games and all that stuff. And it was it was an instance where they were talking about the age of Klay Thompson and and Kevin Durant, James Harden, Steph Curry, the greatest players now, and and they're 32, 33. And I said, wow, I was done playing by now. By that time in their career, right now, I wasn't playing basketball anymore. So that was just kind of a crazy thing.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  And then one of the things that I always kind of come back to is how casual it was in everybody, you know, and everybody's response. I'm not playing back the sport that I love, everything that I've done. And people were so cavalier with everything like, oh, Chris, you'll be fine.

• 13:03Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  Oh, it's good. You're you're good. You off, man. Early retirement, like, you know, I'm turning 32 and I don't know what I'm gonna do. I'm I'm gonna get back in the league. I thought I was gonna still play at that point in time. And I hadn't come to certain realizations yet, you know, but like, just kind of going through that process of getting first, trying to find out what you're gonna do, trying to have some sort of voice.

• 13:29Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  And then adjusting to the new world. And then I was joking with people like, man, last three years have been crazy. It's kind of been a bit of a kick in the nuts for me, not, you know, not to put everything on me. We all go through stuff, but, you know, I couldn't play anymore. And then, you know, my brand new father, again, I've got twins now. And so there's there's a new adjustment to that in the household. And then I'm not playing anymore. I don't know what I'm gonna do. Then, okay, I think I got it.

• 14:00Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 14:00Speaker 01

  Now the pandemic happens, you know what I mean? And it's like, guys, I've been thinking for like, two years. Oh, man, I've got this idea. I'm telling you, I had bought a whole bunch of equipment. I was gonna make like this, like a content creation center.

• 14:17Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  So I bought like a bunch of electronics, like a place where I can create content and some of my friends can, you know, just around the clock.

• 14:24Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  Pandemic happened.

• 14:27Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  It's like, oh, my goodness. So, yeah, in which all of us had to do that, right? But, you know, just kind of going through it, it is very similar in in just saying how you have to, you're doing one thing and how you're used to it. And then next day, next week, next month is totally different and it's changed.

• 14:44Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, there's that expression, man proposes, God disposes, you know? We have our plan and then life's like, nope.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:50Ryan Holiday?

  It's not how it's gonna go.

• 14:51Speaker 01

  It's a good plan. It would have been a good plan.

• 14:53Ryan Holiday?

  It's still probably a good plan. I mean, this bookstore, right? This this was supposed to open exactly a year ago. And and life was like, no, you're gonna sit on it for a year. And every single day, you're gonna wake up and go, was this a huge mistake? You know, is this ever gonna happen? But that that's, you know, that's like how it goes.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's it's kind of, you know, it's playoff time. So I get I start reliving my playoff life. When I was playing basketball, that one of the key things that we always said was stay with it. You know, that's one of the things that will separate a good team from a great team. Because when you're a good team, you can win a couple of games. It's great. When you're on top, it's great. But great teams, even when it's looking bad, they continue to stay, they stay together.

• 15:40Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  They stay with their game plan. They stay with it. So you just gotta say, hey, let's, you can't be, you know, foolish or anything like that. But if you believe in your plan, if you've been working your fundamentals and it's like, no, we've got to this, hey, this is the plan. Let's stay with the plan and keep going.

• 15:58Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, the Stoics kind of talk about this like rhythm. You know, Marcus says, you know, when you're jarred by circumstances, which is what happens, you have to come back to the rhythm.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:07Ryan Holiday?

  And I'm sure it's like that in basketball where it's like, you know, you're pretty good from the three-point line, but you missed three, four in a row.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:14Ryan Holiday?

  Now, all of a sudden, are you, but that's your shot.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:17Ryan Holiday?

  But statistically, you're gonna miss some sometimes, you know? And so you have to be able to go, okay, it didn't work for the following reasons, but I'm not gonna throw out everything I prepared. I have to, I have to re-center, and as you said, I have to stay with it. Because that's exactly what my opponent wants. My opponent wants me to be rattled by things not going my way, not getting the calls, me being tired.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, hoping, wishing. I'm applauding. You're thinking about something else. You're not thinking about the next evolution.

• 16:47Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  You know what I'm saying? That's always the most important thing.

• 16:50Ryan Holiday?

  Well, I think about trash talk too. Like, why do players talk trash? Right?

• 16:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:54Ryan Holiday?

  It's because they wanna get in your head. They wanna rattle you. They want to upset you. They're trying to provoke a reaction. And I kind of think like, life is kind of trash talking us too. You know, like, like, life is, life is trying to distract us, upset us, throw us off our game. And you have to be that person who they can just like lock in and tune it out.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's funny you say distracting and trash talking. The first thing comes to my mind, not, not so much about life trash talking me, but like KG, we were just in Springfield talking about it.

• 17:27Ryan Holiday?

  For the Hall of Fame thing?

• 17:27Speaker 01

  For the Hall of Fame. And it was this one instance where we were playing each other. And he was an avid trash talker.

• 17:34Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  And not only do they use it to get in your head, but it's, it's almost like,

• 17:42Speaker 01

  Just something thrown out to where if you give it attention, now they're hyped up too.

• 17:47Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  Now they're, oh, what are you talking, who are you talking to? I'm, you know, it, it kind of starts going, right?

• 17:53Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  And so I took the bait, I took the bait this one time. And I had one of, not the worst game in my career, but I remember it. That's how bad it was. And he, you know, he gets into his zone and he pretty much dominates me. And I'm, I'm like, I'm tired. They win the game on a last second shot. I'm embarrassed. I was talking trash and I wasn't in shape because I didn't have a whole. It was crazy, man. And I remember just like, losing sleep, like having sleepless nights. Like, and he got the best of me. He, he called, he like, he called me a mama's boy. And ah, I lost it. Cause you know, that, that piece of trash talk, it really gets you if it's true, right?

• 18:35Ryan Holiday?

  Right. Yeah, that's right, right. They're throwing a bunch of stuff out there and if 1% of it's true, that's the only thing you'll hear.

• 18:41Speaker 01

  And, but we, we had a good laugh at it, but you know, that's, that was, I learned two things. I'm not a trash talker. And, and, and, and if someone or something is trying to get, get you off of your game, just, just stay, just do what you do. Be the player who you are. Because you know, that, that's where the ego can kind of get involved and say, oh, well, I'm cool too. And I'm gonna say something to you and they say something back and it's, it's a good one. You know, and, and then I think I scored like seven points. It was, it was, it was bad. I was out of, I wasn't in shape yet. It was, I learned that there was another level that I had to get to, to be successful. You know, no matter how much I thought I was cool.

• 19:24Ryan Holiday?

  You talk about this in the, in the book a little bit, right? Which is like, especially for kids, you, you might not be up against Kevin Garnett, but you know. At any time, you can log on to social media and find somebody has an opinion about you.

• 19:37Speaker 01

  Of course, of course.

• 19:38Ryan Holiday?

  And I find that it's like sometimes, sometimes you can, I think sometimes you crave it, right? Like you know, like, hey, I gotta focus on this stuff. I gotta do what I gotta do. But then you also know, like, if I pull up the internet, I can get lost. It's like you can, you, you know, it's gonna make you miserable, but you do it anyway.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like that indulgence, right? It's like your poison of choice.

• 19:59Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  I was doing the same thing when I was, uh, when I was a kid. And of course, uh, social media wasn't as prominent, of course, but I had a desktop.

• 20:08Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  And, um, it was, uh, it was a website. Oh, man, Texas hoop, Texas hoops, Texas prospects, prospects.com, something along the lines of that.

• 20:20Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 20:20Speaker 01

  And I would click on it and I would be in the comments section, even back then, you know, just reading stuff and people would be talking trash and getting after, but yeah, I, it's like I had to, it's like I had to look at it. I didn't learn until later on in my career. Of course, you know, when it's a kid, it's not threatening, it's fun. But, you know, by the time I got to Miami, you know, in, in that first year that we got together, that was kind of when it reached its tipping point for me and, and, and I was okay with it. I said, okay, I need to, this is like, this is ruining my day. This is the craziest feeling right now. I don't, I shouldn't feel like this one day, you know what I mean? And I stopped.

• 21:04Ryan Holiday?

  I don't think I've ever logged on to social media and then left and been like, I'm so glad I did that. You know, like I feel better as a person.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  That's crazy, right?

• 21:17Ryan Holiday?

  Right. But then we do it anyway.

• 21:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I've, um, I think you have to find that, that sweet spot, but yeah, you definitely, and I've kind of been very much aware of this too, just, you know, one of the things I've learned from this pandemic, it was kind of like me watching the news.

• 21:35Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  It locked me in for a good four years, five years, and I was watching it every day. But then, you know, the insurrection happened. Then after, you know, the election and then, you know, then the insurrection, it was like, man. I can't do this anymore. I can't do it anymore. I have to be more aware of what I'm taking into my brain because this is crazy.

• 22:00Ryan Holiday?

  Well, that's even the defense of some of the people who were arrested at the insurrection.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:05Ryan Holiday?

  They're like, you know, they're like plea or their, their, their defense is like, you don't understand. They've watched so much news. It's broken their brain.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:13Ryan Holiday?

  And I think that's what it does.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:15Ryan Holiday?

  It breaks your brain.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  It can. And I mean, and I mean, think about that's just a news aspect. How many, how many levels and layers of information are on social media and on the internet? So, you know, anytime I'm like, anything I'm consuming, whether I'm watching it, you know, I'm, I'm very aware of it.

• 22:33Ryan Holiday?

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

• 22:41Ryan Holiday?

  So let's, let's go back to what we were talking about earlier, which is like life throws stuff at you. To me, the definition of Stoicism is that you don't control what happens. You control how you respond. And that's what you have to do as an athlete. That's what you have to do as a parent. That's what you had, we had to do the last year in the pandemic, which is like, how do I figure out how to make the best of it? Cause you can't quit.

• 23:04Speaker 01

  Nah, quitting is not an option. I, I, that's one of the sayings I like to say is that, you know, failure is not trying.

• 23:13Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  You know, not even trying, just saying, ah, you know, whatever excuse you give yourself not to, not to try. Every, anything you go after, you're going to take some lumps. You're going to take some punches. You're going to get knocked down, you know? And I didn't understand that, at least for me, until, you know, losing in Dallas in 2011, which was crazy. It's 10 years ago almost to the date. And, um, you know, I watched Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant every, every year. They make it to the finals all the time and they win.

• 23:47Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  You know, so when you get to a point where, you know, you think you have some immunity because of whatever accolades you've racked up in the past, or because you're a professional basketball player on this level, when we lost, it, it really clicked in for me and just said, wow, okay. Because sure, I was dealing thing with things off the court as a person. You feel that's not fair.

• 24:10Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  And then all these other things are happening and that's not fair. At least we could win, right? This dumb championship. Then we lose it.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  And it's like, ah.

• 24:22Ryan Holiday?

  How devastating is that?

• 24:23Speaker 01

  It's like a loss in the family. You know, it's like, um, this is a sudden loss, you know? And especially when you put yourself, you put yourself in a state of mind of visual, visualizing yourself doing it for months and months and months, you know? And then for me, it was especially tough. It's my hometown team. We're playing the Mavericks. I'm watching, I'm watching my ex classmates wear Mavericks jerseys and shirts. They didn't watch that stuff. They didn't, we, nobody wore Mavericks stuff back in the day. Now everybody's, you know, rocking the championship gear. It was just, you know, it was devastating, but it ma, it made me realize how I understood right away of, you know, Jason Kidd, Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Terry.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  Those guys went through pain, losing back in 2006. Jason Kidd back in 2003 and again in 2004. You know, it's just, or in 2001, 2002.

• 25:18Ryan Holiday?

  But imagine how devastated Jason Terry would have been. Cause he got that tattoo, remember? He got the, in advance.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  Hey, man, hey, but you know, and I learned something from that too. I remember that because I remember looking at it like, oh, who do these guys think they are? Hey, man, you gotta get it tatted on you sometimes. It's like, failure is not an option. And, and, and understanding that, I understood after pretty much just coming up short and kind of having that pie in the face moment and, and, you know, knowing that I have to rebuild from that and, and, you know, hopefully, hopefully get back to that level the next year, but accept, you know, whatever consequence comes.

• 25:59Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I was talking to, uh, to Manu Ginobili and he was telling me like the pivotal moment for him was going up for that rebound with you. He said, he, he told me, uh, that he should have fouled you is what he said.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:13Ryan Holiday?

  Uh, but, uh, but he was saying, you know, so he goes up for that, you know, they end up losing the series and, and he comes home and he's like, I've never been more unhappy in my life.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  They had never lost.

• 26:27Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 26:28Speaker 01

  Never lost.

• 26:28Ryan Holiday?

  And, and, and what he was saying, though, is what struck him was he was like, I'm living my dream. I'm one of the best people in the world at what I do. I gave my absolute best. If I'm not having fun, enjoying myself while I'm doing it, like, I'm gonna regret it forever. So did you come out of losing with a better appreciation for the game and for when, like, cause you know, you quote Kipling in the book, you know, like, uh, to, to, to, to treat winning and losing as, as the same imposters, you know? Were you able to come out of that a little bit closer?

• 27:08Speaker 01

  After the loss?

• 27:09Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. You, um, I hate the, the term losing builds character, but it kinda does. You just don't wanna make it a habit.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  You know, you just don't wanna make it a habit. But having those.

• 27:24Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, show me a, the, show me a, a good loser and I'll show you a loser.

• 27:29Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? So, so just like in, in that context, you think about the things that you could have done better. You think about maybe that day off where you're like, ah, let me just kinda coast today or that, that moment, even if it was just for a minute, that you kind of lost focus in, in, in, in what you do. And that time where you say, man, I should have been having a little more, I should have been enjoying myself a little more, cause we lost anyway, you know? At least could have had a good time, you know? There's a fine balance in both and, and I think for me, my, like, my personal journey with that was just understanding that it could happen to you.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  Understanding that, you know, just because of the level you're at doesn't make you impervious to these things. You're, you're, you're human.

• 28:21Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 28:22Speaker 01

  You're gonna have to go through this process. And sometimes you're just gonna get knocked, gonna get beat up.

• 28:27Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  What, what are you gonna, like you say, what are you gonna, how are you going to react? How are you going to be the one to? You know, a challenge, the way that you think in getting better after this. Are you gonna get better or are you just gonna kind of sit around and complain? Cause after a while, you know, that's only gonna get you so far eventually. Which, which for most of us was right away, but like, you know, I got back on the horse and, and, and, you know, got to a point to say, man, I'm not gonna let it beat me next time.

• 28:58Ryan Holiday?

  There's, cause there's some ego in it too, right? There's this quote I love. It's the first sign of an impending nervous collapse is the belief that your work is terribly, terribly important. And it's like, what you do is important. Like I care so much about my books, but then, you know, like, one of the things that's great about having kids is like, they don't care at all, you know, like it's, it's nothing to them. It's a, you might as well be an insurance salesman, you know? And it helps put it in perspective, which is that it's important and excellence is important. And as you said, you don't want to make losing a habit. At the same time, if you think that it's a matter of life and death, it's probably actually a bad strategy over the long term.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, you don't wanna, like fight or flight is there for a reason, right? Do you wanna fight or flight? If you're having those feelings and you're not fighting or flighting, I don't understand, you know? And it's especially if we're putting, sometimes you can't help it.

• 29:54Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  You're gonna have your reaction. If you're putting in, like you say, those life or death situations, I've known people and I've done that for myself as well.

• 30:01Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 30:01Speaker 01

  It's life or death, this game is, you know? Sometimes you use it to kind of psych yourself out, but after a while, you've gotta be loose.

• 30:09Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 30:09Speaker 01

  You know, you have to, you have to have a flow to things. You have to, you just can't be rigid, you know? That was one of the things I learned playing the game too. You know, in, in, in losing that series against Dallas, we were just so uptight.

• 30:25Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh, man, just too tight, nothing was loose. You know, we weren't trusting the work that we had put in up until that point. And we were just kind of beside ourselves a little bit and not concentrating on playing. We were concentrating on mistakes or making it life or death. Or saying, oh, my God, we lost the game. Okay, we got to win the next one then.

• 30:50Ryan Holiday?

  Golf is a good metaphor, I think, in that, you know, like, the harder you try, the worse you are at it. Like, you still have to be good. You still have to train. You know, you still have to know your fundamentals. But like, in Buddhism, they talk about willful will. If you have too much willful will, if you're trying to force it too much, that's when you.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:08Ryan Holiday?

  And you mentioned sort of tight loose, like, that's what a trainer wants you to be. They want you to be loose. If you're tight, that's when you hurt yourself.

• 31:14Speaker 01

  For sure. That's when you hurt yourself. That's when you start pulling stuff. And, and, you know, in playing for different coaches, you know, the greater coaches, they, they emphasize being loose, you know, as a team, you know. You might do something, instead of practice today, let's watch a movie.

• 31:33Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  You know, let's watch He Got Game or something like that, you know, and then let's discuss it. Or let's do things to make sure that we're loose, we're good. Let's not be in this tension of life or death for the whole time. Because, you know, we're human beings. We pick up on those things pretty good. And if it's, and if it's like that collectively as a group, if everybody's tight, then, you know, it's, it's really not going to work.

• 32:01Ryan Holiday?

  I think that's like, for instance, the unfair advantage that Tom Brady has, right? He's been there so many times. He can be like, when, and when you watch him when he's up against, you know, like a Jared Goff, who's the first time he's been in the Super Bowl, like, by definition, who's looser? The guy who's been there like a dozen times? You know, the guy who's, who's, who's not only been in the Super Bowl, but been down by 25 points in the Super Bowl? You can be chill because you're like, and we, you and I have talked about this where it's like, the difference between ego and confidence. Confidence is loose. Ego is like, my identity is riding on this, everything.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:38Ryan Holiday?

  But confidence is like, I've been here before.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, hey, I've been here before. Remember, remember that time we discussed if we're down 25 at halftime?

• 32:46Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 32:47Speaker 01

  This now is the time to implement those things. Good thing that we've talked about this because these are the packages we need to run.

• 32:54Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  And, and I mean, even if I'm in Jared Goff's situation, being a young quarterback, getting to the Super Bowl, you know, Goff, Tom Brady, oh my goodness, you can get into all that stuff. I found that game fascinating because Tom knew, like, okay, I'm, we're just gonna grind these guys into the ground. We're gonna make it close because I know they're a little tight.

• 33:16Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  If, if, if it's a third and four and they're down three, they're gonna feel a little bit,

• 33:23Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  you know, different because they're used to their offense running at a certain level.

• 33:28Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  And if it's not running at that level, you know, they're gonna feel it a little bit. So, you know, it's, it's just kind of, you gotta train, man. You have to, you have to identify what those things that, you know, first what you wanna do, and then work backwards from there and say, okay, hey, I wanna be a really good basketball player, or we wanna win a championship as this team. All right, cool, these are the things that we need to do. We've gotta communicate good, we've gotta make sure we're practicing and putting the work in every day, and we have to make sure that we're together and, and, and we know our stuff. So when it hits the fan, because it will.

• 34:05Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 34:06Speaker 01

  When, you know, we, we don't, we stay together, you know, and make sure we're, you know, doing the things that we always practice.

• 34:13Ryan Holiday?

  Well, that, that goes back to what you were saying earlier about staying with it. If you've been there a bunch of times and you know, like, we're gonna win this game, we don't care if it's sexy, if it's exciting, like, we play, Belichick and Brady were like, this will be the most boring fucking Super Bowl in history. We don't care. But, but, but Goff is like, I got a reputation for throwing it, I'm not being able to throw it, people are, people are gonna blame this on me, you know? All those things running through your head, they make it hard to stay with it.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  And I think, you know, in the situation for like a Jared Goff or even Mahomes.

• 34:45Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  You know, having that, you know, he's running from defensive lineman for the whole game, you know, you have those moments and say, okay, cool. You remember the whole, everything that was running through your head, and I, even for myself, you know, don't get too high, don't get too low, right?

• 35:02Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 35:03Speaker 01

  We were, when we were playing in the finals, we win game one.

• 35:09Ryan Holiday?

  We about to win a championship.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  Lose game two, embarrassingly. Our game two loss, we gave up a 12-point fourth quarter lead late. Oh, man, so embarrassing, bad. Then we get in the game three, we win that one. Yes, we're about to win it again, we back on top. And then, you know, then after that, we fell off a cliff. So like, that was my experience. Should have been straight the whole time because regardless, the game is gonna have a beginning and end. You know, you're gonna have to go through the motions of this game. But like that helped us when we played the Spurs because it's just like one of those things. You flinch for a minute, you lose, you know? So you have to kind of go through the process each game, good, bad, indifferent, you know?

• 35:56Speaker 01

  And regardless, you try to do better the next time around.

• 36:01Ryan Holiday?

  We have a chapter about in the book about leadership. And I think people think leadership is, you know, Tom Brady must have gone in the fourth quarter of that game. They're down 28 to three and given the most exciting speech in the history of sports. You know, like he's Churchill, you know, like we're gonna fight the Nazis on the beaches. That's what you expect. But I think actually leadership is like, Tom's not rattled. You know, like, like Chris doesn't seem to think we're in any trouble. And that, especially for the younger people on the team, to be able to look to the leadership and go, these guys think we still have a chance. That's what leadership is. You know, they say calm is contagious.

• 36:45Ryan Holiday?

  So is hope, so is confidence. All those things are contagious.

• 36:49Speaker 01

  One of the things, speaking of Tom Brady, you say in that part,

• 36:55Speaker 01

  that was the year before that, but the main thing that I watched. To where leadership was that nobody really even talked about was last year, as soon as he got signed with the Bucks, they're out on the field.

• 37:09Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, like a high school.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Running routes.

• 37:11Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 37:11Speaker 01

  Out on the field in the heat. I'm sure football players, oh my God, I'm sure.

• 37:17Ryan Holiday?

  In Florida.

• 37:17Speaker 01

  So many people, yeah, you know what I mean?

• 37:19Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  I think that went over so many people's heads because people only think about the speech that he might be giving right now, or why is he back here again? And they'll show them raising the trophy on replay. I only remember it being in the moment, them running the routes. That's those are the highlights they need to show. You know, because there's a reason why they're cool, calm and collected because they've gone over and over and over and over. And then, so when you're in these situations and you're a leader, you know, you're looking to them, well, first I've put the work in with this person. So I feel comfortable. You know, hopefully they've had a few meals together and they've had some good times. So just like, you know, to your point, if they're not rattled, okay, now I will go

• 38:05Speaker 01

  with this person and lead them because, you know, if you're being a mean person and nobody likes you, or you being a, you know, asshole on the bench or something, you know, people won't follow you to that part. But, you know, doing those small things of when, when, when the situation starts, instead of looking at the, you know, grand picture right away, saying, okay, we want to get there, this is what we got to do. We work, we got to work on our fundamentals.

• 38:31Ryan Holiday?

  Got a quick message from one of our sponsors here and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned. I've raved about Athletic Greens before. With all the things we've all got going on, trying to, to work, stay healthy, stay strong, work out, it's hard to get the right mix of nutrients in your diet and Athletic Greens is a great product. I actually first heard of Athletic Greens almost 10 years ago from Chris the Keywe, the founder. He and I met through Tim Ferriss. He's a great dude. Athletic Greens has more than 75 vitamins, minerals and other whole food sourced ingredients.

• 39:10Ryan Holiday?

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• 39:41Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, there was another story that I think also got looked over. Remember where he accidentally went in the wrong person's house? Did you hear this one? So he thought he was going over to like one of the quarterback coach's house to pick up some plays. And he was new in Tampa and he went in the wrong house. And it was a story because like it's the middle of the pandemic and some guy just looks back and Tom Brady's in his house, like looking for a binder or whatever. But what I loved about that is you have the greatest quarterback of all time, one of the greatest athletes of all time, go into his coach's house in the offseason to pick up a binder of plays to study. You know, like he could have got a PDF. He could have said his assistant.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:22Ryan Holiday?

  He could have made him come to him. But like when you're hung, to me, that's also embodying good leadership, which is like, nobody's too big to learn. Nobody has it down. Like you gotta put in the work and you put in the work before the season even starts.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  For sure, man, for sure. I think so many people could really, really benefit from that because there's so many, too many times when, you know, the media, they have their job to do. It's time, when it's time to pump it up, it's time to pump it up. But if you're, you know, trying to go after something, it's a process and you cannot cheat it. That is one thing you cannot do. You can't cheat the process. And then even then, that doesn't guarantee you anything. You have to have your stuff together because, you know, you want to win. That doesn't guarantee a win, right? You just have to make sure you're doing your process. You know, I had the chance to have a conversation with Kobe. You know, of course, you know, we were friendly and, you know, we'd have dinner.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  We try to have dinner once a year. And he always talked about.

• 41:29Speaker 01

  Loving the process of what you do. That's like, that's important. You have to love what you do and love putting the work in because some days are gonna suck.

• 41:38Ryan Holiday?

  It's always gonna suck to go in the gym and shoot 10,000 free throws, right?

• 41:42Speaker 01

  And I mean, everybody's like, oh, Kobe, this is amazing. He's like, yeah, that's cool. But think about my day. I get up at 4:30, take my kids to school. I lift weights, I go to practice, I pick them up for school. Then I've gotta do treatment because I'm 35 years old in the league. So then I gotta do treatment and then by the time I finish all that stuff, the day's over. I don't do anything else. This is all I do, you know? And, and if you take on that approach, you know, to something that you love, if you can stick with it, even in those tough days, you know, those are, that's when, that's where you want to be.

• 42:17Ryan Holiday?

  Well, I think people miss this. I, I forget which writer told me this, but they were saying, you know, there's a difference between writing and publishing. Publishing is fun, right? Playing in the finals is fun, right? Playing, playing in the NBA is fun. Practicing in the NBA is not as fun.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:32Ryan Holiday?

  You know, like me sitting up in my office, I'm working on this book right now. I, I don't know what it's gonna be. Like, I haven't, I haven't cracked it. Every day I wake up and I'm not making any progress. Or it doesn't feel like I'm making progress. You actually, you have to love the painful part.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 42:48Ryan Holiday?

  And then the other part's extra.

• 42:49Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 42:50Ryan Holiday?

  You know what I mean?

• 42:50Speaker 01

  The grind.

• 42:51Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, you have to love the grind.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  You gotta love the grind, man. And, and, you know, just speaking to what I was saying earlier, like, that's, that's the part, I always like to think of, anytime something gets hard, if I'm pursuing a goal, you know, and I want to quit, it's gonna come, it's gonna come. It's okay, right? How many people would quit right now? You know, that's the first thing I think about. Then I keep going.

• 43:11Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 43:12Speaker 01

  You know what I'm saying? Because I'm like, okay, I'm not gonna let this drop me off, you know, and just, just keep me away from what I'm doing. And I think that's fascinating, you having that problem writing a book. Because I'm sure, pretty sure people are like, oh, yeah, when's the next book coming out? Soon, huh? You know, it's like, uh, it's hard work. I'm kind of stuck, but it's cool. You know, we'll be fine.

• 43:34Ryan Holiday?

  If it was easy, if there was no wall around it, right? Not only would everyone do it, but then everyone would do it and there wouldn't be, uh... There wouldn't be any money in it, right? Like, I know that sounds crap, but like, like, there wouldn't, scarcity is what creates value.

• 43:51Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure.

• 43:51Ryan Holiday?

  Right? So if everyone could do what you did, and if it was fun from beginning to end, there'd be a million people doing it and nothing would break through the noise. Right? Like, yeah, lots of people want to be in the NBA, but few, there's, there can only be 500 of the best players in the world at one time. And so the people who, if, but if, if there could be 10,000 players, like, it doesn't, it changes, it changes the whole game. So I, I always go like, it's good that it's hard. Right? If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. And this would be a minimum wage job, you know?

• 44:30Speaker 01

  It would just be spread. Okay, everybody gets to,

• 44:33Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 44:33Speaker 01

  You know, spread, but I mean, it is what makes it special.

• 44:36Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 44:37Speaker 01

  You know, it is what makes things special. It's, it's, it's rising to the occasion when it's time, you know?

• 44:42Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, it's like a moat keeps people out, or a moat is keeping you out, but you want to think like it's also keeping everyone else out. So it's like, if you can get across this, you've got, you've got to bury your, it's, it's like, it's preventing you from getting in, but once you get over, it's keeping everyone else out too.

• 44:59Speaker 01

  That's a great way to look at it.

• 45:00Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. So there's a book behind you. I was just thinking about when I think of you, one of my favorite books, Range. Have you read Range?

• 45:08Speaker 01

  I have not.

• 45:09Ryan Holiday?

  Oh, so it's, the subtitle is how generous triumph in a specialized world. What's interesting is like, obviously to be great, the NBA, you have, any professional athlete, you have to be super specialized, right? Years and years, 10,000 hours of practice. But at the same time, you're not one of those guys who, as Kobe was, Kobe's all basketball. You were not all basketball. You had a range of interests and you explored those. I'm curious how guitar, music, language, uh, reading, all the other things that you did. How is that, and how did that make you a better basketball player? And how is that sort of informed even now when you think about with your kids?

• 45:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:48Speaker 01

  I always, I always had other things, you know, language. Guitar and music came a little later. I had given up. I gave up on it in my mid twenties, early twenties. That's why, you know, went back to it. But like, I always, I always wanted to get, do some things to take my mind off of basketball. Sure. Right? It's, it's a lot of, lot of flights, a lot of bus rides. So, you know, you need some hobbies. I didn't think of it this way, but I had a friend that told me, you know, hobbies lead to greatness. You know? And, and I always thought that fascinating and just that made me look back on things. And I did these things just to kind of get my mind off of the game. Sure. Because, you know, I was, I was all into basketball.

• 46:32Speaker 01

  That is all I did, but I also had other interests. And one of the things that I found was when I'm, like, so for instance, during the playoffs, I would cook. The day before a game, I would cook dinner. Because you have to concentrate on the meal or it's gonna suck. Right. You know, so I'm looking at the time, I'm checking the meat, I'm making sure I don't burn, boil the water over. It's a thing that I have to focus on. Sure. You know, because if I don't, my brain is gonna start going and then we're gonna start thinking about tomorrow and I'm gonna be back in that rabbit hole. Right. Which is fine, but you don't wanna be there all the time.

• 47:13Speaker 01

  And one of the things I found is that, once I start relaxing in my cooking or in me playing the guitar or in me studying for something in language, I see some weird connection to where I think about basketball. But it'd be like, oh, okay, I could put that to the side. It's like, it was this crazy thing of no, you know, no, no judgment. Wow, I never thought of that before. Yeah. This is the move I'm gonna do tomorrow. I got it.

• 47:41Ryan Holiday?

  Right. Yeah, sometimes when you're thinking about something else, you create room for your brain sort of subconsciously solve some problem that we talked about will for will. You know, if you're, I gotta solve this, I gotta solve this, I gotta solve, you're not going to make any progress.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And I think I read something somewhere like Einstein played the violin. If he ran into a problem, he just played violin for days, weeks, hours, whatever it took. So I always thought I thought that pretty fascinating. And that's kind of what I started using my hobbies for.

• 48:13Ryan Holiday?

  Because the grind will grind you down if you don't have anything to refresh.

• 48:18Speaker 01

  All the way down. You can stay in it. And you can, you know, I was working with this,

• 48:26Speaker 01

  with a video game team in the Overwatch League. And it's these Korean kids, you know, living in LA, competing, and they weren't doing too good. They're supposed to be the best team in the world, and they weren't doing too good. And their thing is to be like, okay, 18 hours a day.

• 48:44Ryan Holiday?

  Playing video games.

• 48:45Speaker 01

  Playing video games. Like, hey, guys, you know what, sometime, yo, go to the park. Sometimes you just stink.

• 48:53Speaker 01

  I've been there plenty of times. Sometimes you just need to go in there and be like, yeah, get out of here. Go for a walk. Go eat a delicious meal. Go do something else. Get out of here. You know, there is, you know, a lot of something to take from, from just taking time off. There that is, you know, you do need time to repair your brain and your body to, to be able to compete at maximum level.

• 49:22Ryan Holiday?

  I bet that made you more resilient when the game went away, too, because so many people, they, their whole life, they're a whatever, then they retire, and then they're like, who am I?

• 49:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:31Ryan Holiday?

  You, you at least knew you had other things you liked to do.

• 49:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it was still tough.

• 49:36Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 49:36Speaker 01

  I couldn't imagine like, not having anything to go through a whole career and say, well, I didn't do anything like anything else. I mean, I didn't watch TV. I didn't, I didn't do anything, you know? And, and, you know, as difficult as it was. You know, I did some writing and I did, you know, music and I, you know, learned a couple of languages and I was just always open to, you know, going to on vacations with my wife. She, she be on me as soon as the season ended. She was like, hey, come on, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go. Cause she knows she only got me for a month.

• 50:11Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 50:12Speaker 01

  So, I mean, we would, you know, take the kids and we'd be in Europe and, you know, take those vacations and really just take in other cultures and stuff like that. And, and, and even after that, even after me losing my career in basketball, it was still difficult, you know, but I had something to say, okay, well, let's go watch a film or let's go on vacation, you know, if I could, you know, luckily I could afford one, you know, but like, you know, you just get, it's these avenues. You don't know what they're, what's downing, but

• 50:45Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm gonna go down and, and see what's here, you know, it makes me feel good.

• 50:49Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. I asked Doug Christie, who's one of my heroes growing up as a basketball player. I, I asked him what I should ask you and he said, cause he knew, he knows you're, you're sort of an intellectual guy. You're always trying to learn stuff. He was saying, what, is there anything that you've learned since you stopped playing that you wish you knew while you were playing?

• 51:10Speaker 01

  I would say like getting more into the body and treatment and stuff like that.

• 51:13Ryan Holiday?

  Really?

• 51:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:14Ryan Holiday?

  You have a chapter about that in the book.

• 51:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:16Ryan Holiday?

  Like what, how much you have to invest in taking care of yourself.

• 51:18Speaker 01

  I wish I would have done a little more.

• 51:20Ryan Holiday?

  Really?

• 51:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, a little more. I mean, we, I was kind of, I was into it quite a bit because being around LeBron and Dwyane, seeing the level that they were at, I said, okay, I gotta get to this level. And I was getting better and better and I was getting older.

• 51:36Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  So you get more into the technology. I wish I would have just taken a little bit of time to, even back then, just take, you know,

• 51:46Speaker 01

  The this hour, two hours a week, you know, just squeeze it in there. And I would definitely like learn more about money.

• 51:53Ryan Holiday?

  Oh, interesting.

• 51:54Speaker 01

  I would just, just the fundamentals, just take, you know, take the time. One hour every other week, nothing crazy, but just have someone walk me through these things so that I can understand it because you can, you know, you kind of get to a point where it's like, yeah, you're just, I'm under a mountain and I don't, yeah, sure, I don't know what's going on.

• 52:17Ryan Holiday?

  I can relate to both those things, you know, obviously for an athlete, like your tools or your body, right? But like, I'll find this like every once in a while, I'll be like, like I like to write in Sharpie, right? And like, you know, Sharpies start to get, they get, they get dull and like, I'll be like, I'll just be using this Sharpie and I'll be like, why am I using this old Sharpie? You know, like a Sharpie is, you know, like you, you, some, it's weird. We know businesses are supposed to invest in themselves, right? They take the profits, they put it into R and D tools, they hire great people. But then when it comes to us, especially if you work for yourself, you know, you, you're like, okay, this is the best, I don't know, physical therapist in the world, it costs $200,000 a year or something. Like, that sounds insane.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:01Ryan Holiday?

  But like, if it, if it had given you a year more of playing.

• 53:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:05Ryan Holiday?

  That would have been the greatest investment you could have ever made.

• 53:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:08Ryan Holiday?

  You know, if, if this Sharpie, if because it's not working, I don't write something down that ends up being a chapter in my book, like you can't, you, it's hard to calculate what stuff's worth, but like you can end up cheaping out on things that, that are your, where you should be investing the most time and money, you know what I mean?

• 53:24Speaker 01

  And I mean, that's a, that's a, that's a hell of a thought. Like, and, you know, young athletes, they're coming from a position where you know nothing to then you're casting the spotlight and you know, that's the, I mean, I guess that's just life.

• 53:39Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 53:39Speaker 01

  How could you know, you know, yeah, now you're a Fortune 500 company, now you gotta run it.

• 53:43Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 53:43Speaker 01

  Don't mess up.

• 53:44Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 53:44Speaker 01

  And don't go broke.

• 53:45Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 53:45Speaker 01

  That doesn't even make any sense. The kid's 18.

• 53:48Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 53:48Speaker 01

  You know, and then, then there's this narrative of saying, oh, well, I please going broke, like, yeah, you know, there's no tools that we're given. You don't even go to a workshop, you're just like, all right, cool, you're working now and this is what you do, you know, so it, it can.

• 54:04Speaker 01

  It can be in a point of being overwhelmed, but I find myself in a position now of really understanding more about teamwork, more about, you know, investing in those things that could help you out and, you know, looking for talent and those, making those close connections with people to hopefully help you or you could help each other achieve greatness.

• 54:26Ryan Holiday?

  Well, and when you're young, you know, there's obviously genetics, whatever makes you tall and a good athlete, but then there's also just the fact that like you are used to just like being able to treat your body like crap. And then as you get older, you realize like, oh, to get the same gas mileage, I have to put in better fuel.

• 54:45Speaker 01

  Right, and you know, you gonna eat some crap every now, you know, I love McDonald's, but I had, I knew some guys, they had a bag coming into, I'm not gonna say a bag full of what, but just a bag coming into the game, you know, but those are those, you know, just things of people coming from where they come from and just not having the tools to learn more. And, you know, hindsight is always 2020, right? But, you know, those are definitely some, some of the things that I wish I would have known. That's why, of course, writing these things, right? You want those.

• 55:14Ryan Holiday?

  You want people to benefit from your experiences.

• 55:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, here now, stressed now, man, why not? LeBron stretched, I didn't.

• 55:19Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 55:21Ryan Holiday?

  I remember when, when, when you asked me to work on the project with you, I remember you had a call with me and the marketing people and the publisher and the editor and all these people. And you said something that really stuck with me. It goes to your point about, about teams. You said like, how can we make this a championship team? And, and it struck me that like as, because I, I don't think about what I do as a team sport, because it's usually not. But you coming from a team sport, you realize the team's not just the, the four other guys on the court with you, but then the people on the bench and the trainers and the person who books the flights.

• 55:58Speaker 01

  Popcorn man.

• 55:59Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 55:59Speaker 01

  Shoot, the lady at the parking, everybody.

• 56:02Ryan Holiday?

  Well, actually, I remember I went to a, a game once and I was going up in the elevator and I saw the, that the, um, the elevator guy had a ring, like a championship ring. And they were like, they gave everyone in the building a ring.

• 56:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:13Ryan Holiday?

  But I, I got to imagine you, you, you understand better than most that success is a team effort.

• 56:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:20Ryan Holiday?

  And you got to figure out who you want on your bus to get where you're trying to go.

• 56:24Speaker 01

  Man, that is one of the main lessons I learned after I was done. So, you know, in this. In this mode of reinvention and rediscovery and finding out who I am as a person. That's what I tell if we have any retired athletes watching this, you have to learn who you are. I'm still learning, of course, but.

• 56:47Ryan Holiday?

  Sure. It's a lifelong journey.

• 56:50Speaker 01

  You know, you try to go into things, you know, that's a time for focus, concentration, like, okay, what, you know, what's in here, you know, um, I'm sorry, I forgot the question.

• 57:00Ryan Holiday?

  No, you were saying you forgot.

• 57:03Speaker 01

  So like after, after coming right out of that and in my self-discovery, you know, I try to do some things or we try to do some things in the house and it's just hard.

• 57:15Ryan Holiday?

  Cause somebody used to take care of everything, right?

• 57:17Speaker 01

  Somebody used to take care of those things. Then it's like, okay, those people that we could call, hey, I'm gonna be real, the phone don't, doesn't, they don't pick up as much or it's not ringing as much, you know? You're not on the forefront of people's head. So like, that made me understand even more so how important teamwork is.

• 57:36Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 57:36Speaker 01

  And, you know, how important, you know, and, and one of the things like that I thought was fascinating in my musical journey, just doing music, you know, sometimes people get very, you know, with art and music and stuff like that, people get very protective of their, of their IP, right? Which they should be, but like, Quincy Jones, when he did Thriller, he got the baddest people on the planet.

• 58:00Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 58:00Speaker 01

  You know, the engineer, the trumpet player. And he's, you know, of course it's the greatest album of all time, but he didn't do it on his own, you know? It takes a team effort to achieve greatness.

• 58:12Ryan Holiday?

  Got a quick message from one of our sponsors here and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned. To me, the most beautiful part of the book is the conclusion. You, you, you say that idea, it's like, look, one day you lace up your shoes.

• 58:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's crazy.

• 58:29Ryan Holiday?

  And it's the last time you're gonna lace up your shoes. Basically that like, life is fragile, stuff changes. You never know when the last time you get to do something. And, and you really felt that in a way much more, you know, everyone has a last game, but you know, Kobe got a farewell tour.

• 58:44Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 58:45Ryan Holiday?

  You know, they know it's their last season. Uh, you didn't get that.

• 58:49Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. That man, I've read the book 12 times. That's like, well, 13, including the audio thing, right? And the last time I read it, that was the thing that struck even me. Like, reading the conclusion over was like, wow. And please, read the conclusions. I can't say that I always read the conclusions, you know? But just kind of, kind of understanding that and knowing and saying, man, like, yeah, it was just all over one day. Like, no, it wasn't, yeah, it wasn't a farewell tour. My good, my good friend Dwyane Wade, they had the world tour.

• 59:26Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 59:27Speaker 01

  Had T-shirts.

• 59:28Ryan Holiday?

  Doc Rivers didn't grab the mic and give you a speech.

• 59:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm out, you know, which is classic Dirk, right? But like, you know, just having the chance for those moments, it made me realize how unique and how special those moments were. And to be happy for those guys. But just what normally happens. I had another friend who, he just got hurt. There's nothing wrong that he did.

• 59:50Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 59:51Speaker 01

  He just kept breaking his foot. And, you know, we could argue of whose fault it was. It wasn't his fault.

• 59:58Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 59:58Speaker 01

  Cause he just wants to play.

• 59:59Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 59:59Speaker 01

  Between doctors and teams and trainers, the ball was dropped.

• 1:00:04Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:04Speaker 01

  You know? And, you know, people were blaming him.

• 1:00:07Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  And then he's not in the league anymore, just because of an injury.

• 1:00:11Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 1:00:11Speaker 01

  You know, so it made me realize how, how real the situation is, you know, of, of what we're really talking about. Like, yeah, it could be over one day. So make sure you're taking these moments now. Stay in your moment and, and, you know, just enjoy it. And make sure you're enjoying what you're doing, cause it was just a regular game. And that's what I have come to understand is that, man, I, I, I like how it ended, you know? Da Vinci, most of his paintings were unfinished, right? His masterpieces weren't finished. That's how my basketball career is, you know? It was just, just a day. It would have been too much pressure to say, this is it. This is the last game. Let's make everything perfect for Chris.

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  It was just coming to the game. The announcer announced it. Popcorn people, you know, pass out the popcorn. We enjoyed the show, you know, and I played. I had a dunk, you know? Man, Chris Webber called my game. Who is going in the Hall of Fame with me? You know, it just kind of hindsight, of course, looking back on it and I appreciate it. But yeah, that that conclusion is powerful. It's really powerful. I hope people really, really understand that.

• 1:01:20Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, like Da Vinci's, you know, journals is like, you know, he writes in these notebooks. He was doing a drawing and his last words, his last creative words were like, I gotta go. The soup's getting cold. And he's like, you know, it's like he had no idea that that was gonna be the last thing that he wrote in his journal. He thought he'd come back and do a thousand more pages.

• 1:01:41Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 1:01:41Ryan Holiday?

  But you never know.

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  You gotta live it. That's why I tell people it has to be a part of your lifestyle. You have to live it. So, you know, if it's, if it's a part of the repetition that you do, it's a part of your life, it won't be this unnecessary pressure using that fight or flight for something that doesn't exist.

• 1:01:58Ryan Holiday?

  Well, to me, the ultimate metaphor of sports, and I'm stealing this from someone, which is that, you know, it's like the life cycle of a person sped way up, you know, like, like.

• 1:02:09Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 1:02:10Ryan Holiday?

  I'm now, the athletes that are now my age are now like old and retiring.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:14Ryan Holiday?

  You know, like the people that I remember being a year older than me, you know, like I remember and they're all out. And so you're watching life sped up, you know, and, and you see in an athlete, the aging process faster.

• 1:02:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:29Ryan Holiday?

  Right? You're like, oh, you know, he's a savvy veteran. It's like, he's 27, you know?

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  Oh, that was vintage.

• 1:02:36Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:36Speaker 01

  I think I read something, D Rose wrote a piece on it, I think somewhere, I read it somewhere, but he said, yeah, what does that even mean? Vintage, what? So I'm successful and I can run all over the place when I'm in my early twenties and I'm successful in running all over the place in my thirties. And you say it's vintage. Yeah, it's some weird thing, but then the kicker is, you know, you'll be old.

• 1:03:00Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:01Speaker 01

  In the locker room and everybody, oh, old man. Then you retire and you come into life. Hello, young man.

• 1:03:07Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:08Speaker 01

  Ah, you don't know nothing.

• 1:03:09Ryan Holiday?

  Right. Yeah.

• 1:03:11Speaker 01

  You know, or you're trying to have one thing, um, like, you know, I can afford to take my kids to private school and put them in private school. All of my friends are 50. I'm at, I'm with the dads, they're in their mid 50s, you know, lawyers and doctors and stuff like that. And it's just like, kind of this, you know, it's two different worlds, you know, but you have to get used to it and you just gotta stick with it.

• 1:03:33Ryan Holiday?

  Well, we'll come back to that, but there's something that I experienced too, because so I like dropped out of college, I was a successful young, and I remember I was talking to this movie producer who was like 26. I was like 19, he's 26, so he seemed so old to me, right? And I was like, tell me, tell me what you've learned, you know, he's like, give me this wisdom, you know, because we'd been on similar tracks and he's like, look, he's like, when you're 20, when you're 21, you're successful, everyone's like very impressed. He's like, all my friends thought I was so cool, I was a movie producer in my twenties. He's like, now I'm 26, all my friends have now graduated from medical school, they're doctors, right? Like, they caught up, right? You know, everything regresses towards the mean. So I bet it's probably humbling too, where like, you take your kids to private school and you're just another rich guy with kids in Texas, like.

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  That's so funny, like, we were at this art, me and my wife went to this art exhibit and like, that's where everybody knew me from. It was like, oh, yeah, the carpool line, yeah, hey, Chris, how's it going?

• 1:04:26Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  He's in my carpool.

• 1:04:28Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? That was the funniest thing, because that's where everybody, you know, um, recognizes you from and you can't, you know, it's a thing we have to fight, you know, that ego keeps knocking at you.

• 1:04:39Ryan Holiday?

  No, I'm special.

• 1:04:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:40Ryan Holiday?

  I'm a special, I did something special.

• 1:04:41Speaker 01

  No, you don't know, back in my day, you know, I didn't wait in lines.

• 1:04:46Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:47Speaker 01

  You know, it was so funny and what was interesting for me, I was not immune to these emotions.

• 1:04:52Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:53Speaker 01

  I'm like, okay, now I understand what the old timers go through.

• 1:04:56Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

  I get it now, let me make sure I'm humble in all of these things that I'm going through and make sure that I understand that it's a phase and we'll work through it, I'm gonna stick with it and I'm not gonna let it get to me too much, because. You know, the feelings and emotions like you'll watch the game. Ah, they're not that good. Where did that come from? Oh, my goodness. Listen to myself, you know?

• 1:05:20Ryan Holiday?

  Well, one of the most powerful parts of meditations to me is Marcus Aurelius goes, he's like, he just starts naming names. He's like Vespasian, Octavian, Hadrian. He's naming the emperors. And you probably, like of the three I just named, you probably heard of like one of them. That was like the most powerful person in the world. And he was like, even then, like, you know, there's only like three emperors behind him. They're gone. Nobody remembers. And so, you know, you get inducted to the Hall of Fame. That's incredible. You're the 0.1% of the 0.1%. But like, yeah, some kid, you know, just getting in the league today is like Chris Bosh.

• 1:05:56Speaker 01

  He was okay.

• 1:05:57Ryan Holiday?

  If he's heard of you at all, you know, like, like, I try to think about, you know, I read a lot of old books. You'll get some old book and be like, that you've never heard of. And you're like, winner of the Pulitzer Prize. And you're like, what? This one? I've never even heard of it. And it came out in 1997.

• 1:06:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. And think of what if that person was just dragging, just banging their head against the wall to get that prize. And this will justify me and everybody's gonna know me.

• 1:06:23Ryan Holiday?

  25 years later, they're irrelevant. So if you think, you know, if you're, if your intention of being good at what you do, you talk about finding your why in the book. If your intention is to be the most famous, the greatest in the world, you might get it. But it will be unsatisfying because it's not going to give you what you think you want. Marcus, in meditations, he says, Alexander the Great and his mule driver, they're both buried in the same ground. You know, like, the guys that you beat out for roster spots in high school, college, pros, you are now both have something in common, which is that you don't play basketball.

• 1:06:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. I was speaking with a friend of mine. He was a guy that we had him at a few of the heat camps. And, you know, he, he was in that tough spot of You know, G League, overseas.

• 1:07:13Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:13Speaker 01

  Maybe a few games in the league.

• 1:07:15Ryan Holiday?

  Somebody gets hurt.

• 1:07:15Speaker 01

  Man, that's a tough schedule, man.

• 1:07:17Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 1:07:17Speaker 01

  And he's in a position where he's, you know, thinking about retirement.

• 1:07:21Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:21Speaker 01

  And it's like, wow, he called me up and it's like, wow, isn't this crazy? We're just, you know, in the same spot. I can hear the kids in the background, you know.

• 1:07:30Ryan Holiday?

  It's the great equalizer.

• 1:07:31Speaker 01

  We're trying to figure things out and it's like, wow. You know, how many, I'm just glad I was a nice guy back then and, you know, cool to talk to because, damn, what if, you know, it's good to like, and now that I'm done playing, it's interesting because like I walk in a room, people, hey, man, how's it going? It's, it's cool to see people smile, you know, because it could be the opposite.

• 1:07:51Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 1:07:51Speaker 01

  And for him to reach out and say, yo, I'm going through this, I'm going through that. It's like, wow, this is crazy. How about this, we're, we're retired guys now and man, my buddy's getting, I have a friend, he's getting married in October.

• 1:08:03Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:04Speaker 01

  You know, it's like, wow, and I'm gonna be in his wedding and we're just, you know, doing the things, you know?

• 1:08:09Ryan Holiday?

  Well, it's like, like who was runner up for the MVP three years ago? You know, like, or who, who was, who was Ronald Reagan's vice president?

• 1:08:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:08:16Ryan Holiday?

  Like, you know, it, it, it gets equalized real fast and not that long of a time.

• 1:08:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's very short, man. I mean, it's very short and I mean, I get to, you know, I've lucky enough to get to live over and over in that tape loop of an NBA champion.

• 1:08:31Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 1:08:31Speaker 01

  Which is great, but I, you know, knowing that, what we're talking about, I've, you know, moved on to other things and I still love breaking the game down, talking about it. But when I look at it, it's, it's a moment in time and it's, it's in the past, you know? Now, you know, they're showing KD and Kyrie and, you know, it's a new big three, man. You know, it's, it's, it's newer, it's younger, it's cooler and, and, and we're the old tape that they're showing. Hey, remember this? You know, we're the remember when guys, which is great, but, you know, you always have to have that, you know, you don't have to know what you're doing, but you have to have those things that you enjoy spending your time doing.

• 1:09:11Ryan Holiday?

  Well, that was my last question for you. So you have this, I think it gets overlooked because it's like, oh, the result is that Chris can't play anymore.

• 1:09:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:19Ryan Holiday?

  But it was like, Chris can't play anymore because he might die.

• 1:09:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:09:22Ryan Holiday?

  If he plays.

• 1:09:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:09:24Ryan Holiday?

  So you, you had like a real up close reminder of this idea of memento mori. Like, life is short.

• 1:09:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:31Ryan Holiday?

  You could go at any moment and now you gotta figure out.

• 1:09:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:35Ryan Holiday?

  You know, you, you still have this gift of time, but you don't know how long you're here for.

• 1:09:40Speaker 01

  My, me and my wife, she's challenged me, um, you know, being a basketball player, having schedules, which you have to have a schedule, I believe, and do all these things. But she's given a challenge to me that, which I've accepted months ago was to be more present, stay in the moment a lot more.

• 1:09:55Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 1:09:55Speaker 01

  You know, even if I'm, you know, at my desk writing or making voice memos or, you know, trying to produce some music and, or get emails out or read these things that I need to read.

• 1:10:07Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 1:10:07Speaker 01

  When it's time to go with the kids, I put it up and it's time to go with the kids.

• 1:10:11Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 1:10:11Speaker 01

  If we're, if we're, if I'm walking back to the office and I see my wife sitting by the pool and, you know, she's answering some emails to, hey babe, let's come out and have lunch.

• 1:10:20Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 1:10:21Speaker 01

  All right, cool. I used to be in a point where I'm like, no, no, no, I have to go back here and I've got to go back to the thing. You know, I'm working now, I'm working on, you know, just, just being more in the moment and appreciating those things. And it's crazy. My work has gotten a lot better. It's been insane.

• 1:10:36Ryan Holiday?

  Well, I struggle with that. I struggle with that too, right? Cause to, to get good at what you do, you have to be driven and you have to be self-driven.

• 1:10:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:43Ryan Holiday?

  Right? Like you don't become great because the coach wants it for you. You have to want it more than the coach wants it. But then it's really hard to turn that off. So yeah, it's like, like I like to get up early and I like to get to work, but then it's like, you know, it's, it's eight oh three and I'm like a jerk because I gotta get here. And it's like, who's watching? You know, like if I got there at eight fifteen, just stay 15 minutes later, you know, like get the work done.

• 1:11:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:07Ryan Holiday?

  But like, you can't sack, like you're rejecting this present moment, which could be five minutes with your kids, could be a nice conversation with your wife, could just be watching the sunset or the sunrise.

• 1:11:18Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 1:11:19Ryan Holiday?

  But you're, I think what I realized about the Stoics, the Stoics are saying like, where are you rushing towards? You're rushing towards death.

• 1:11:25Speaker 01

  Right, for sure.

• 1:11:26Ryan Holiday?

  You're trying to get this over with.

• 1:11:27Speaker 01

  Hurrying and then hit the bump and then, oh, you know, heaven forbid, you know?

• 1:11:32Ryan Holiday?

  Well, you're, no, but also it's like, if you, once you get it all done, what happens? Like, so you finish this, you finish this, you finish this. What's the last thing that happens? You die.

• 1:11:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:41Ryan Holiday?

  So why rush? Like you should be present. You should show up. You should experience it because you only get to do it once and it's, it's almost. Arrogant to to try to get this thing over with so you could do this thing. Like when I put my kids down, I I go like, you know, it's like taking too long. You know, they're they never want to go to bed. I'm like, what am I gonna do?

• 1:12:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:12:02Ryan Holiday?

  What am I gonna do when you go to bed? Right? Like, answer email, watch TV?

• 1:12:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:12:07Ryan Holiday?

  Snack? You know, like, nothing. I'm not gonna do anything that's more important than this.

• 1:12:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, and and I kind of have that same mentality, you know, where we've learned to coexist in the house. You know, um, a lot of the times.

• 1:12:21Ryan Holiday?

  You don't have to travel forty two nights a year.

• 1:12:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, so I'm gonna have my child coming in while I'm trying to do my work and say, Dad, come here, you gotta see this. Dad, let me show you something.

• 1:12:31Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:31Speaker 01

  Let me show you something. And I'm gonna have to walk across the yard because they want me to show me something. And it used to be like, oh, no, you know what I mean? No, no, but now it's like, all right, cool. Yeah, come on. But just having that moment for them to say, wow, they don't care about.

• 1:12:45Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 1:12:45Speaker 01

  All that stuff. What is important to them is that, hey, Dad came with me to look at my stick.

• 1:12:50Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:51Speaker 01

  Look at my Pat Rock, Dad. Like, oh, it's crazy, bro. You know, it's just, but having those moments and and staying present with that, you know, it's definitely given me more of an appreciation for things and how they happen.

• 1:13:05Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:06Speaker 01

  Because this definitely is a great metaphor and that conclusion of saying, okay, man, you know, man, and, you know, and I've had my peers, a few of them gone.

• 1:13:16Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:16Speaker 01

  You know, so let me make sure I'm enjoying today. Let me make sure if I'm working on something, I'm working on something I want to work on.

• 1:13:23Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:23Speaker 01

  You know, and I'm not being a mean person. And even if it's a rough day, man, come on, kids, let's go for some ice cream or something or go for a walk or something. But just to do something or be open to the to the flow taking you somewhere else.

• 1:13:39Ryan Holiday?

  That was one of the most beautiful things I read in an article about Kobe. Couple days before he died, some reporter was like, hey, I want to interview you for this, like, twenty year anniversary, some some big ESPN piece. And they texted him, he just texted back, nah, I got my girls.

• 1:13:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:53Ryan Holiday?

  You know, like, and he didn't know that he only had him for three more days.

• 1:13:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:13:58Ryan Holiday?

  But like, and and how long could that interview have taken? Ten minutes, fifteen minutes? But. That's everything.

• 1:14:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, doesn't matter. Cause he knows like I'm gonna get in Mamba mode and I'll be over here. No, no, no. My girls, and you know, my, my kids are very much the same as well. They're like, hey dad, what are you doing? Ah, another interview. Ah, you know. They want to watch cartoons or, you know, we have gardening bees now and stuff.

• 1:14:23Ryan Holiday?

  You're raising bees?

• 1:14:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, we got some bees, man. We, they wanna go see those things. They wanna, you know, get their hands dirty and have experiences and activities. And this, you know, through that, I've gotten to live through them and with them and say, wow, oh man, look at all this stuff. It's so cool just to smell the dirt and, and the air and stuff, you know? That's, that's a, that's a great thing to be present for.

• 1:14:46Ryan Holiday?

  Thanks, man. Appreciate it. Check out the book, it's very good.

• 1:14:51Ryan Holiday?

  Thanks for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. Just a reminder, we've got signed copies of all my books in the Daily Stoic store. 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, Ego is the Enemy, Stillness is the Key, the leather bound edition of the Daily Stoic, we have them all in the Daily Stoic store, which you can check out at store.dailystoic.com.