Mel Robbins Reading List (From Ryan Holiday)

After recording the podcast, Ryan and Mel Robbins walked next door to The Painted Porch https://www.thepaintedporch.com/to talk books. Head to Ryan Holiday’s YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@RyanHolidayOfficialto watch the video of him giving Mel Robbins book recommendations at The Painted Porch https://www.thepaintedporch.com/: https://www.youtube.com/@RyanHolidayOfficial 📚 Books Ryan gave Mel: Wisdom Takes Work https://store.dailystoic.com/products/wisdom-takes-work-learn-apply-repeatPhospherescence https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/phosphorescence-a-memoir-of-finding-joy-when-your-world-goes-dark?_pos=1&_sid=4ed3b2c70&_ss=rGift From The Sea https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/gift-from-the-sea-50th-anniversary-edition?_pos=1&_sid=2bcfbd7f9&_ss=rFrom Blood and Ash https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/from-blood-and-ash?_pos=1&_sid=126869d83&_ss=rDire Bound https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/dire-bound-the-wolves-of-ruin-1?_pos=1&_sid=2beef5aed&_ss=r Magical Midlife Madness https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/magical-midlife-madness-leveling-up?_pos=1&_sid=6617b0afa&_ss=rThe Lost Spells https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/the-lost-spells?_pos=1&_sid=1e5b176d9&_ss=rDon’t Trust Fish https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/dont-trust-fish?_pos=1&_sid=cd8d09ef4&_ss=rI Need A New Butt! https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/i-need-a-new-butt-i-broke-my-butt-my-butt-is-so-noisy-3-hilarious-stories-in-one-noisy-book?_pos=1&_sid=6d3379159&_ss=rThe Book With No Pictures https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/childrens1?_pos=1&_sid=c09cb60ab&_ss=rThe Field Guide to Dumb Birds of the Whole Stupid World https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/the-field-guide-to-dumb-birds-of-the-whole-stupid-world?_pos=2&_sid=7801860bd&_ss=r 👉 Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing toThe Daily Stoic Premium https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content:https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ 🎥 Watch the video episodes onThe Daily Stoic YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos:https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos 🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast onInstagram https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast/?hl=en:https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email athttps://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store:https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/,Twitter https://twitter.com/dailystoic,YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic,TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@daily_stoic?lang=en, andFacebook https://www.facebook.com/dailystoic See 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.

• 0:07Speaker 00

  Wow, this is... Hi, how are you guys?

• 0:09Ryan Holiday?

  Hi everyone. So this is the...

• 0:13Speaker 00

  It's beautiful!

• 0:15Ryan Holiday?

  So this is how it started.

• 0:17Speaker 00

  Wow! Oh, so this is where somebody tried to pull the books out?

• 0:21Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, he was like up here, he was like trying to...

• 0:23Speaker 00

  Oh my gosh!

• 0:25Ryan Holiday?

  So yeah, but this is, uh, what is it? 2,000 books? Uh, 2,000 books, 4,000 screws, 6 gallons of glue, and it weighs 1,900 pounds.

• 0:35Speaker 00

  This is a great cookbook, by the way.

• 0:36Ryan Holiday?

  Is it really?

• 0:37Speaker 00

  That's an excellent cookbook.

• 0:39Ryan Holiday?

  The books get worse as it goes up because you can't read the titles as easily, so...

• 0:43Speaker 00

  Did you actually order them in terms of where they would go?

• 0:46Ryan Holiday?

  So...

• 0:47Speaker 00

  Yes?

• 0:48Ryan Holiday?

  Sort of, like the worst books are up top because like they give you lots of like, "That one's called Free Stuff for Seniors," you know, or like there's some trash books that are closer to the top.

• 0:58Speaker 00

  Well, when I ordered the books for my podcast studio?

• 1:01Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:02Speaker 00

  Because I wanted it all beige and white?

• 1:03Ryan Holiday?

  Yes. That's what they specialize in.

• 1:05Speaker 00

  It's like all Mariah Carey and Danielle Steele books? I'm like, "Please don't read this." "Please don't look at that." Like, don't, like when intellectual people come in?

• 1:12Ryan Holiday?

  You can also kind of see like which books were really popular at different... So it's like, it's kind of humbling and inspiring to think like, whatever books were popular at a period, at some point, they all end up at Goodwill. And then, and then that's, that's how they end up in stuff like this.

• 1:26Speaker 00

  It's so true.

• 1:28Ryan Holiday?

  So what we normally do is you kind of just walk through and pick out some books that the person might like, or if you, if they're books you like, uh, or you have been thinking about reading, just...

• 1:37Speaker 00

  I want to read the new one by the guy who did The Fox, The Mall.

• 1:43Ryan Holiday?

  Oh, yes!

• 1:44Speaker 00

  I want that book.

• 1:45Ryan Holiday?

  Charles is next.

• 1:46Speaker 00

  Oh, I'm a huge barn owl person.

• 1:50Ryan Holiday?

  You like barn owls?

• 1:51Speaker 00

  Bard.

• 1:52Ryan Holiday?

  Oh.

• 1:52Speaker 00

  Yes, because I live in Vermont and they're all over. This is not one, but I'm drawn to this. My husband and I actually hit an owl on our anniversary, and it's this...

• 2:04Speaker 00

  It was a very life-changing experience. We didn't hit the owl. The car in front of us hit an owl on a rainy night on our 27th wedding anniversary. And I jumped out of the car in the pouring rain. And the thing was laid across the ground and it was raining, raining, raining, raining. We were in the back roads in Vermont and I straddled it and went to scoop it up and it turned its face around and looked me in the eyes. And the pouring rain was coming down and it was on our 27th wedding anniversary. And luckily, a guy in a pickup truck pulled over and was like, "Don't grab it, the talons." And I was so in the moment with this bird that I didn't even know where I was.

• 2:48Speaker 00

  So he came over with a towel, we scooped him up and I held him in my lap for 45 minutes while we drove home. And then put him in a laundry basket and you put a, um, and his wing was like this. It was so sad and there's a beautiful rescue nonprofit, I think it's Vins, in Vermont. And they came and got him and sadly.

• 3:10Ryan Holiday?

  Oh, he didn't make it?

• 3:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, but I feel like there was a, because it was on our 27th wedding anniversary, there was a deeply spiritual thing that was happening around the owl that night.

• 3:22Ryan Holiday?

  Well, this is slightly lighter, but this is my favorite bird book.

• 3:25Speaker 00

  Oh!

• 3:26Ryan Holiday?

  It's called, uh, my kids love it because they like to get their grandparents to read it because it's just got curse words in it.

• 3:31Speaker 00

  Oh, my God. Scottish fuckface. I have a fourth grade boy's sense of humor.

• 3:38Ryan Holiday?

  Okay, me too. So it's like my favorite book. It's amazing. We read it, we read it most nights before bed.

• 3:43Speaker 00

  I love this. I love this, thank you.

• 3:47Ryan Holiday?

  All right, so take that one.

• 3:48Speaker 00

  Okay, I need your book.

• 3:49Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I'll give you wisdom.

• 3:50Speaker 00

  I need your book.

• 3:52Ryan Holiday?

  Have you read Phosphorescence? Did you know Julia Baird? She's an Australian writer. She's great. I love that book.

• 3:57Speaker 00

  Oh!

• 3:58Ryan Holiday?

  Take that.

• 3:58Speaker 00

  I would love this. Okay, what about fantasy porn?

• 4:03Ryan Holiday?

  Fantasy porn? Like romanticy? Is that what you like?

• 4:08Speaker 00

  I'm talking about like, poor Rose.

• 4:11Ryan Holiday?

  Samantha, are you here? She is the expert on all of those.

• 4:15Speaker 00

  I love those.

• 4:16Ryan Holiday?

  Have you read A Gift From the Sea by Emerald?

• 4:18Speaker 00

  No. What's that? What the hell is that?

• 4:23Speaker 00

  What is that? Okay, sorry.

• 4:24Ryan Holiday?

  Yes, it's very annoying. It does this all the time.

• 4:27Speaker 00

  Where's the kids' section?

• 4:29Ryan Holiday?

  Kids' section? Oh, it's back here.

• 4:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:31Ryan Holiday?

  I don't know if we have the new Charlie magazine book, because I love The Boy the Fox.

• 4:34Speaker 00

  Oh, I do too. I actually wanted to get it to send it to my son, because he's feeling kinda sad.

• 4:39Ryan Holiday?

  So this was, most recently, a restaurant.

• 4:43Speaker 00

  This? Oh, wow. How long ago is this a restaurant?

• 4:47Ryan Holiday?

  Well, the building's like 130 years old, but this was a restaurant like 10 years ago. And so this was like the...

• 4:54Speaker 00

  I love the little table. What do you have down here?

• 5:02Speaker 00

  What book did you like to read your kids?

• 5:05Ryan Holiday?

  What do we like? Well, I love The Boy the Fox, The Horse and the Mole. My son is obsessed with Greek history, so we read a lot of that. We've read...

• 5:12Speaker 00

  Ferdinand? Ferdinand?

• 5:14Ryan Holiday?

  Ferdinand is good. This one's really good.

• 5:16Speaker 00

  I don't know this book.

• 5:17Ryan Holiday?

  This is new.

• 5:18Speaker 00

  And also because my kids are 26, 25, 20.

• 5:21Ryan Holiday?

  There's the ones you... There's the ones of each era, right? The new ones? Have you read The Book With No Pictures? Did you... Is that a...

• 5:28Speaker 00

  No, but I would go right for the butter face joke.

• 5:31Ryan Holiday?

  Butter face is good.

• 5:33Speaker 00

  What's The Book With No Pictures? What do you mean, a book with no pictures?

• 5:36Ryan Holiday?

  You know, BJ Novak from The Office?

• 5:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:39Ryan Holiday?

  He wrote the book called The Book With No Pictures, which I...

• 5:41Speaker 00

  Really? And it has no pictures?

• 5:43Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 5:43Speaker 00

  That's a word that's hard for me to say.

• 5:45Ryan Holiday?

  Good.

• 5:46Speaker 00

  The Book With No Pictures.

• 5:48Ryan Holiday?

  Is incredible. So, the idea is like...

• 5:51Speaker 00

  You know what I'm already feeling vibes of?

• 5:53Ryan Holiday?

  What?

• 5:54Speaker 00

  Guess.

• 5:54Ryan Holiday?

  I don't know.

• 5:55Speaker 00

  How old are you?

• 5:56Ryan Holiday?

  I'm 38, I think.

• 5:58Speaker 00

  Oh shit, I'm a lot older than you. I'm 57. Wow.

• 6:01Ryan Holiday?

  What are the vibes?

• 6:03Speaker 00

  I was starting, like, just this made me think of my childhood. I was obsessed, obsessed with Shel Silverstone.

• 6:12Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. Mm-hmm. It does, it's probably the same box.

• 6:14Speaker 00

  There's something about this that, yes.

• 6:16Ryan Holiday?

  But so the idea is, the idea is, is like, you know, you have to read the book to the kids, right? So it starts as a normal book.

• 6:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:24Ryan Holiday?

  This is a book with no pictures, might seem like no fun, seems boring, except they have to read everything the book says, no matter what. So it gets crazier and crazier, and you have to say all this ridiculous shit.

• 6:36Speaker 00

  Yes, I am a monkey. My head is made of blueberry pizza.

• 6:39Ryan Holiday?

  Right, I eat ants off the rug. So it's just, the kids love it, right? Because they're seeing the play.

• 6:45Speaker 00

  Oh my god, my only friend in the whole world is a hippo named Boo Boo Butt.

• 6:50Ryan Holiday?

  This is a massive...

• 6:51Speaker 00

  This is amazing!

• 6:53Ryan Holiday?

  People love it. It's a great book. He's awesome.

• 6:55Speaker 00

  Oh my god.

• 6:56Ryan Holiday?

  Oh, and then because...

• 6:57Speaker 00

  Oh my god, look at all this.

• 6:59Ryan Holiday?

  This is one of my favorites.

• 7:01Speaker 00

  What's this? I need a new butt?

• 7:02Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, because it has a crack in it.

• 7:04Speaker 00

  Wait, but wait, what? What has a crack? He doesn't have a crack?

• 7:07Ryan Holiday?

  No, his butt has a crack in it, that's why he needs a new one.

• 7:09Speaker 00

  Wait, hold on, do I open this and it farts?

• 7:10Ryan Holiday?

  I think you press the, where's the fart? Uh, it does fart somehow.

• 7:15Speaker 00

  Oh my god. Oh, you don't pull out the tab, because I bet there's a tab in here.

• 7:19Ryan Holiday?

  Maybe it's off.

• 7:19Speaker 00

  See, it's off.

• 7:22Ryan Holiday?

  There we go.

• 7:25Ryan Holiday?

  It's great. It's a classic. It's a classic.

• 7:27Speaker 00

  I have never, I'm turning that off so I don't blow it all on the ground.

• 7:32Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, you can take that one.

• 7:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, now I'm just gonna, now, this is easier than a whoopee cushion.

• 7:36Ryan Holiday?

  It is, it is.

• 7:38Speaker 00

  You can be like David Faxon, "Stop farting."

• 7:41Ryan Holiday?

  Okay, so you like, you like, uh, romantic, you said, what do you like in...

• 7:47Speaker 00

  I've got a lot, like, I already have a stack of books that I feel guilty that I haven't read, so you can't give me too many.

• 8:03Speaker 00

  Like, you know the book that I read that I just loved?

• 8:09Speaker 00

  The Emperor of Gladness.

• 8:11Ryan Holiday?

  Uh...

• 8:11Speaker 00

  Ocean Bond.

• 8:12Ryan Holiday?

  I've not read that. The Emperor of Gladness?

• 8:14Speaker 00

  Oh my god, it is so good.

• 8:16Ryan Holiday?

  Okay.

• 8:16Speaker 00

  It is written by a guy. The whole storyline is a guy growing up outside of Hartford.

• 8:27Ryan Holiday?

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:28Speaker 00

  And all these things happen to him. His mom does nails for a living. And it's a story about the beauty and dignity of someone's life who feels like they're on the edges of society. And it centers around this group of people who all meet working at a Boston market.

• 8:46Ryan Holiday?

  I do love Boston markets.

• 8:47Speaker 00

  Me too. And it was... And they become like a family for a while. In terms of supporting each other. And all the stories interacting and it is one of the most mesmerizingly beautiful books.

• 9:00Ryan Holiday?

  You've been... Someone asked where this money...

• 9:03Speaker 00

  Oh, Samantha, here she is. I'm like, "Give me the fairy plot."

• 9:07Speaker 02

  Oh, you want the good book?

• 9:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, Court of Thorn and Roses, baby. Although I like the graphic audio.

• 9:12Speaker 02

  How's it going?

• 9:13Speaker 00

  It's good.

• 9:14Speaker 02

  Have you listened to the graphic audio?

• 9:15Speaker 00

  Oh my god, yes.

• 9:16Speaker 02

  Okay, I love it, but it also creeps me out a little bit how there's like the noises in the background.

• 9:21Speaker 00

  Oh, I love it. I'm addicted to it. I love it.

• 9:23Speaker 02

  Have you listened to it more than once?

• 9:25Speaker 00

  Uh, no, but my entire family's... My husband's listened to it. Like, it's incredible.

• 9:30Speaker 02

  He read the first... He's halfway through the second one and then he...

• 9:32Speaker 00

  I haven't read them. I've only listened to graphic audio.

• 9:35Speaker 02

  Uh-huh.

• 9:36Ryan Holiday?

  I just probably actually... I still don't have time to squeeze in like another thousand-page book.

• 9:40Speaker 00

  Well, just listen to your car.

• 9:42Ryan Holiday?

  That's a great... I think that's a good idea.

• 9:43Speaker 02

  It's a movie in your mind.

• 9:44Speaker 00

  It's a movie in your mind.

• 9:46Ryan Holiday?

  I didn't feel qualified to make any recommendations in this category, but what would you do?

• 9:50Speaker 00

  Why not? I've already read Fourth Way of All. I've already read the whole Court of Thorn and Roses series. I... Okay.

• 9:59Speaker 02

  Do you want more plot or more smut?

• 10:02Speaker 00

  What's your favorite?

• 10:04Speaker 02

  I... This one's very smutty, but I really like it.

• 10:06Speaker 00

  Okay, great. I'll take it. Is it the first?

• 10:09Speaker 02

  This is the first one.

• 10:10Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 10:11Speaker 02

  The prequel series is really good. And then if you like those in those vein, I would also recommend Dyer Bound.

• 10:17Ryan Holiday?

  Do you have the door one?

• 10:18Speaker 00

  What door one? What door one?

• 10:21Speaker 02

  No.

• 10:21Speaker 00

  What door one?

• 10:22Speaker 02

  It's not... It's not a fantasy. There's this genre of, um...

• 10:27Speaker 02

  I would say it's more of like an art form where they, there's like romance with sentient objects.

• 10:35Speaker 00

  What?

• 10:37Speaker 02

  And it's Ryan's favorite.

• 10:39Speaker 00

  Really? Does it improve your sex life with your husband?

• 10:43Speaker 02

  But it takes for an interesting conversation.

• 10:44Speaker 00

  Okay, what is it?

• 10:46Speaker 02

  I don't have that.

• 10:47Speaker 00

  Why do you not have that?

• 10:48Speaker 02

  You can't carry those in the bookstore.

• 10:50Speaker 00

  Why not?

• 10:50Speaker 02

  Um, just, do you ever, do you read just romance? You like fantasy?

• 10:53Speaker 00

  No, I like fantasy.

• 10:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:56Speaker 00

  I like fantasy.

• 10:57Speaker 02

  This is a...

• 10:57Speaker 00

  Because I actually want to write a fantasy trilogy. That's the next thing I'm gonna do.

• 11:04Ryan Holiday?

  That's a good challenge.

• 11:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, I've, I've never thought about like, I'm always, I'm so impressed by world building. And by what must take to just imagine a world that doesn't exist.

• 11:16Ryan Holiday?

  I know.

• 11:17Speaker 00

  And so I just thought it'd be really fun to challenge myself to try to do that. And my daughters and I have been working on a concept. Honestly, for 10 years.

• 11:28Ryan Holiday?

  You wrote Let Them with your daughter, right?

• 11:29Speaker 00

  Yes, yes. Every word. We argued over every word. And we are the exact opposite person. She's a walking Excel spreadsheet. And I'm like, you know, if you take mice and put them in a cardboard box and took it over, that is me. And I would say, well, what about this story? She'd be like, that's a dumb story. Nobody my age cares about that. And we would go, fuck you. And then I would leave and then we'd be like, let her, let her, let her. And let it go, fill my relationship. And it was incredible, Ryan, because we, you know how you have people in your life that you love, but there's this mismatch? And you kind of feel like, why can't we just get along? Why is there always something?

• 12:10Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 12:12Speaker 00

  And writing this book together.

• 12:15Ryan Holiday?

  How old is she?

• 12:16Speaker 00

  26.

• 12:16Ryan Holiday?

  Okay.

• 12:17Speaker 00

  And she's the one that came up with Let Me. I first was writing a book. There was a lot of them, and I finished and I'm like, this book sucks.

• 12:26Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, that's the other piece of it.

• 12:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I said to her, would you do some research for me? Because she was doing marketing research for a cybersecurity firm as a job. And she said, yes, you know, can I, can I talk, I don't want to work for you, but I'll do this for some extra cash. And I gave her four weeks. She came back 36 hours later with a 28-page spreadsheet.

• 12:46Ryan Holiday?

  Wow. And... You must have been so proud. Like, first off, it's good for the book, but you must have just been like proud.

• 12:50Speaker 00

  Well, first, as a parent, here's what I'll tell you. She is so hard on herself. And when I saw that, my heart sank. Because for the first time, I actually recognized that she is such a brain with horsepower.

• 13:06Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 13:07Speaker 00

  That if it's not aimed at something, she aims at herself.

• 13:11Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 13:12Speaker 00

  And so I felt, as a mom, that I've gone 25 years with this human being and I actually never understood this.

• 13:21Ryan Holiday?

  But that's beautiful. That's amazing.

• 13:23Speaker 00

  It's beautiful. It's beautiful, but she said, with this 28-page spreadsheet and all these citations, they said, "I want you to do research. Something's missing. Don't tell me why people love it. Tell me what's not working."

• 13:34Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 13:34Speaker 00

  And she came back and said, "You can't write the book." And I said, "Why?" And she said, "Well, when people say, 'Let them,' they love it because you feel superior and you kind of have an edge. But then you start to notice your siblings don't call you back. You notice that your friends aren't reciprocal. You notice your boss is a dick." And she said, "This is making people lonely."

• 13:53Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 13:54Speaker 00

  Because they don't know what to do.

• 13:55Ryan Holiday?

  What's the other part?

• 13:56Speaker 00

  And she's like, "There has to be a second part." And I'm like, "Okay, what is it?" She's like, "Well, let me."

• 14:01Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 14:02Speaker 00

  So then the second part was born. I'm like, "You have to write this with me." And we spent 11 months working together. She lived at home in Vermont. I would not recommend this, by the way. And it was incredible. It healed our relationship, honestly.

• 14:17Ryan Holiday?

  That's amazing.

• 14:17Speaker 00

  Because we were forced to be with each other all day and work through the emotions and judgments that we had with one another.

• 14:25Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 14:26Speaker 00

  All day long. And create this space of acceptance and love. And for a mom, allowing her her emotions, and by the way, as we were writing the love chapter, her boyfriend of two years, the End of the Isle guy, broke up with her.

• 14:43Ryan Holiday?

  Oof.

• 14:44Speaker 00

  And so she rips up that, say, "I hate this fucking thing. What am I supposed to do? Let him sleep with people? Let him walk out of my life?" We wrote the entire love section while she was going through the biggest heartbreak of her life and applying the advice. And... It was unbelievable and it helped me as the mom. Just let her be sad, let her be depressed, don't fix this. Let her have this experience and just be with her without trying to fix it. It was unbelievable.

• 15:20Ryan Holiday?

  You want to see my office real fast?

• 15:22Speaker 00

  I do.

• 15:22Ryan Holiday?

  And then we gotta sign this.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  We have a book representation.

• 15:25Speaker 00

  Yes!

• 15:26Speaker 02

  Yes! Okay. This one, I think most of the books, most books in the genre are geared towards younger audiences. This woman, her kid went off to college and she's like talks about, she's in it, but it's fantasy. She like gets this house and the house has all these magical things.

• 15:44Speaker 00

  Oh, really?

• 15:45Speaker 02

  It's like the, one of the only series that I've read that is like an adult. An adult woman. Who's going through a midlife crisis.

• 15:53Speaker 00

  I love this, thank you, I'm so excited.

• 15:57Speaker 02

  Do you want me to hold those so you can go walk me right up?

• 15:58Speaker 00

  I want you to also sign the insides of the fantasy books for me. Like so if I flip them open, like I got a little note for you.

• 16:06Speaker 02

  Would you be that for me? I can carry them.

• 16:08Speaker 00

  Really? Of course, I had to have the fart book. Yeah, of course, of course. Everybody needs the fart book. I got the dumb swearing birds. This one?

• 16:19Speaker 02

  Phosphorus and slugs.

• 16:20Speaker 00

  I just have a thing with owls, so I don't know that, is this sent?

• 16:22Speaker 02

  This is really beautiful, my brother recommended this because the illustrations are so good.

• 16:25Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 16:26Speaker 02

  And so you started carrying this stuff? Yeah, okay. Ryan likes this one a lot.

• 16:30Ryan Holiday?

  This is the coolest one.

• 16:32Speaker 00

  Whoa. Oh, wait, what's happening there? Wow, well, hi, how are you doing?

• 16:37Ryan Holiday?

  Good, how are you?

• 16:38Speaker 00

  I'm excellent.

• 16:39Ryan Holiday?

  Eric ordered all your books.

• 16:40Speaker 00

  Thank you, Eric. Thank you. This, it's up here?

• 16:45Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. This is the, this is the second.

• 16:46Speaker 00

  So did you buy his belly?

• 16:48Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, we bought these two and we bought that, that third one, uh, during the.

• 16:52Speaker 00

  Oh, for the podcast?

• 16:53Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, we did that.

• 16:54Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 16:56Ryan Holiday?

  So much.

• 16:56Speaker 00

  Look at it, that is not the code, right there, that is not the code.

• 17:00Ryan Holiday?

  No, uh, none of this is probably. Uh, but yeah, so this is, that's my next book that I'm working on, so this is where I write. All my books are all messed up right now, but this is where it, uh, where it goes.

• 17:10Speaker 00

  Wow, look, you have an owl.

• 17:12Ryan Holiday?

  Do, oh yeah, wisdom, yeah, that's the symbol of, an owl is the symbol of wisdom. I have an owl tattoo, don't I? Yeah.

• 17:19Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 17:20Ryan Holiday?

  That's the, of the four virtues. Wisdom is the most important.

• 17:24Speaker 00

  The owl, that's my husband.

• 17:27Ryan Holiday?

  He's the owl?

• 17:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, my husband, that's just like owls. We have tons of barred owls on our property.

• 17:35Ryan Holiday?

  I don't know if we have any owls. We get hawks and stuff. I don't think we have any owls.

• 17:40Speaker 00

  Let me look in here. So you're mapping out your book. I have to do this too visually. So what are you gonna write about?

• 17:44Ryan Holiday?

  I'm doing a biography of, uh...

• 17:46Speaker 00

  Fantasy porn writer?

• 17:47Ryan Holiday?

  Yes, exactly. No, I'm doing a biography. Uh, so that's the next one.

• 17:50Speaker 00

  A biography?

• 17:51Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, like a, like a big...

• 17:52Speaker 00

  Like an authorized one, or...

• 17:54Ryan Holiday?

  Uh, I guess, I'm not authorized in that. I'm not like collaborating.

• 17:58Speaker 00

  So the person is a person alive?

• 17:59Ryan Holiday?

  No, the person's dead. Admiral James Stockdale. You know who that is?

• 18:02Speaker 00

  That's the one who you were gonna give the speech about, right?

• 18:04Ryan Holiday?

  Yes, yeah, at the Naval Academy, yeah.

• 18:06Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 18:06Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, he was, so he spent seven years in a prison camp in North Vietnam. Uh, and then, uh... Yeah, like if you've read Good to Great, the Jim Collins book, he's the, the Stockdale paradox, that's from him. He's this sort of interesting unsung kind of...

• 18:22Speaker 00

  And, and, and so it's a whole different way?

• 18:25Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I'm here.

• 18:26Speaker 00

  And can I ask a question?

• 18:28Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 18:28Speaker 00

  So...

• 18:28Ryan Holiday?

  I've never done a book laid out like this.

• 18:30Speaker 00

  Oh, I noticed that you have Stockdale on all those. So is it...

• 18:33Ryan Holiday?

  The no cards, yeah. Those are the no cards.

• 18:35Speaker 00

  So is that so that if you have a thought but you're not in here, you can put it on a Stockdale card?

• 18:40Ryan Holiday?

  I do, I do, I do all my stuff on no cards, like all my books. And then so each book, like for the Virtue series, so I, I had, and then I would just circle which book.

• 18:48Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 18:49Ryan Holiday?

  I'm usually, I, I, lately I've been working on more than one book at a time. So I, that way, when I'm writing on no cards, I, I'm researching for more than one project at one time.

• 18:57Speaker 00

  That's so cool. And which one is the fart book that you're writing?

• 19:00Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I haven't written the fart book yet. That's next.

• 19:08Ryan Holiday?

  All right, let's go sign these at work, and then we'll go talk to our people.

• 19:11Speaker 00

  Okay, awesome.

• 19:12Ryan Holiday?

  I read a lot. It's sort of my job. You can't write without reading. For almost 15 years now, once a month, I send out an email with my favorite book recommendations for that month. Books that I've been reading, books that I've been going through, books that changed my life, that inspired me, that I can connect to what's happening in the world. And you can sign up right now at ryanholiday.net/readinglist.