Ryan Holiday ON: How To Remain Calm When Others Panic & Practice Stillness Under High Stress Situations

Ryan Holiday begins his mornings with nature, his children and no phone. The author and widely-renowned expert on stillness and stoic ancient wisdom admitted to Jay Shetty that the power of presence teaches him more than any textbook ever could. Holiday has discovered that stillness is so much more than not moving and is committed to intentional living. Listen in as Shetty and Holiday unpack this deeply profound, yet simple principle that has the power to transform lives. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Jay Shetty?

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• 0:44Jay Shetty?

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• 2:16Jay Shetty?

  And when everything around you is changing, it helps to have a few things you can rely on. AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop. AG1's ingredients are sourced from quality partners for absorption, potency, and nutrient density to deliver the foundational nutrition your body needs. And alongside a proper diet, AG1 Next Gen meets 94% of nutrient requirements and is clinically shown to enrich the gut microbiome. For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1

• 2:59Jay Shetty?

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• 3:09Ryan Holiday?

  People think that the Stoics didn't have emotions. Yeah. That's not what it is at all because the Stoics were human. The Seneca is like, no amount of wisdom can eliminate our human impulses. He's like, no amount of training can make you not blush. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? Or not cold, or not feel adrenaline. But what the Stoic is striving to do is not be driven by those emotions when they make decisions.

• 3:38Jay Shetty?

  Hey, everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every one of you that come back every single week to listen, to learn, and to grow. Now, you know that I'm a big reader. I absolutely love books and I love books that help expand our mind, help us learn new truths or old ones, and help us think differently. Now, today's guest is an author that I've been fascinated by his books for a long, long time, basically because of my fascination with Stoicism, but also his way of making it accessible, relevant, and innovative for the modern world. I've interviewed him twice before this. We've been on some incredible walks in New York City as well, maybe a couple of those.

• 4:21Jay Shetty?

  And today I'm glad to see an old friend and have him on the show. It's none other than Ryan Holiday. Now, for those of you that don't know Ryan, Ryan is one of the world's foremost thinkers. And writers on ancient philosophy and its place in everyday life. He's a sought after speaker, strategist and the author of many bestselling books and some of my favorites, including The Obstacle is the Way, Ego is the Enemy and The Daily Stoic. Today, I'm excited to talk to him about how we can incorporate stillness into our lives and what it means to live a fulfilling life. Welcome to the show, Ryan Holiday.

• 4:54Ryan Holiday?

  Thanks for having me. I wish we could be walking.

• 4:56Jay Shetty?

  I know. Do you know what? I've thought about that many times. Like, could you do a good interview walking?

• 5:02Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 5:03Jay Shetty?

  And I think the audio police would be on my case. And they'd be like, Jay, the audio is gonna be terrible.

• 5:09Ryan Holiday?

  You can't control the environment, which would be bad, but like, it is ironic that I find sort of the most stillness like in movement. You know, so like for me, like I do all my phone calls walking. So like, if I have to do a phone call with someone, I walk. When we met in New York that time, we're like, why would we sit here? We could go for, I like to go outside, you get moving and then weirdly it slows the, I think it turns off parts of the mind and then it focuses other parts of the mind. So like somehow the body moving creates a kind of an inner stillness that I, that I love.

• 5:45Jay Shetty?

  That's fascinating. What does stillness mean to you? Like, because that already is like, you're not thinking about stillness in.

• 5:52Ryan Holiday?

  It's not just this.

• 5:53Jay Shetty?

  It's not just a gross form of stillness, like a physical. What is stillness to you?

• 5:57Ryan Holiday?

  To me, it's when everything kind of slows down. When you eliminate what's extraneous, when you become sort of fully present in whatever it is that you're doing. And you have the ability to sort of direct your thoughts, direct your body, direct your sort of spirits and emotions, rather than kind of be directed by them. So like, what's interesting is I think. When you think about the really great people that you admire, whether they're spiritually great, or athletically great, or creatively great, I think what they all share is some kind of stillness. There's like, even if they're really active, there's something about them that is really deep, you know?

• 6:40Ryan Holiday?

  And so, the book and sort of what I've, where I've tried to go in my life more recently is like, how do you cultivate that? How do you create that? How do you create space for that? Because I think it's where all the, all the good stuff comes from.

• 6:55Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, absolutely. No, that's, I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, when you're talking about stillness, though, you're a dad too.

• 7:01Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 7:02Jay Shetty?

  And, and I'm intrigued by how the process of stillness, I'm not a dad yet, so I'm asking as, as early coaching. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm married, so I, you know, hopefully it will happen at some point. But, you know, what's the latest adventure you went on with your son? Or where you see stillness in that relationship?

• 7:17Ryan Holiday?

  So that's actually like, every morning, we get up. My kids like, do not sleep well. So, we get up early, I take them outside, and we go for a walk while my wife catches up on sleep. And so, that walk is like a huge part of the routine for us. My thing is, I don't take a phone on it, so I'm not, I'm not doing anything but that. And we're outside, and we like, experience nature, we see things, you know, they sing, we talk. And it, what's interesting to me is like, how much crazier the day is if we don't do that. Like, even though they're not, so it's not actually them being tired, because they're not walking, I'm walking. But, the, it somehow ripples through the day

• 8:01Ryan Holiday?

  if we don't have that kind of centering experience. I think there's something too about like, getting up early, that's really great. About getting outside, that's great. But you kind of realize that, I think one of, one of the weird things about being a parent is like, you think it's going to be doing all these activities, right? It's all the, it's like, you're doing. But it's actually, it's just like, the being there that is parenting. So it's like, oh, we're just gonna play in the dirt for the next hour. And we, by we, I mean like, you're going to do it, I just have to sit here and let you do that. And so, it's kind of, it's kind of humbling, because you think it's going to be this active thing that you're in charge of, but really, it's, it's much more about you sort of allowing, and encouraging, and participating, and sort of protecting than it is.

• 8:50Ryan Holiday?

  You know, planning and organizing.

• 8:52Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, absolutely. No, that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. And, and you talk there about how you're not trying to be distracted at the time.

• 8:58Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 8:59Jay Shetty?

  And, and I know you've talked about like not using your phone for the first thirty minutes of the day.

• 9:04Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, that's, that's part of my thing is like, I, I started with ten minutes and I worked my, like, it could be now, I might, let's say I wake up at six, I might not touch my phone till eleven or twelve. Like, it's, it's, the, the point is, it's, it's not that the phone is bad. And it's not even that the things inside the phone are bad. It's that I wanna be in control rather than be controlled by the technology. So, just the amount of people I know that it's like, what Donald Trump tweeted while they're sleeping is determining the caliber of their day or the quality of their day. And, and it's like, let's say that's too politically charged. It's just like, that email that came in while they were sleeping,

• 9:43Ryan Holiday?

  they didn't actually need to see until later, until they, so, so for me, it's like, cause I write, it's about protecting the space to do the writing. So it's like, I wanna go for the walk, I wanna do the journaling, I wanna get in the right headspace, and then I wanna go into the writing. What I don't want is, you know, some email from my accountant or email from my publisher or email from random hater who I, you know, don't even know how they got my email. I don't want that to get in my head and be like, actually, no, all the work, all the preparation, all the things you should be thinking about, that's out the window because so and so messed up or so and so said you're an asshole or whatever it is. Like, you don't, you have to protect that space.

• 10:26Ryan Holiday?

  And look, it'd be wonderful if you could get to a place where nothing that anyone said, you know, had a, had an impact on you, you could tune it out. This is not the reality. So I'd rather create an environment that allows me to, you know, to, to be focused.

• 10:42Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I'm, I'm a hundred percent with you. And that's amazing that you've been able to do it from, cause I wake up around six, too. And I've trained myself to not look at my phone till about eight fifteen when I go to the gym.

• 10:50Ryan Holiday?

  But those two and a half hours is really great.

• 10:53Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, it's a great time. That's like when I'm meditating, it's when I'm doing gratitude. It's when I'm, eight fifteen is when I go to the gym. So it's like. Only on my walk down to the gym, but I found that whenever I break that rule, and and of course, I still have days where I break that rule. And I'll wake up and I wake up a bit late and I look at my phone at like, say, seven.

• 11:11Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 11:12Jay Shetty?

  It's like, I could waste two hours.

• 11:14Ryan Holiday?

  Totally.

• 11:14Jay Shetty?

  Being reactive in bed. And now it's like, my meditation's gonna happen later. My my exercise regime may not happen that day. And and the the amount of time it consumes as well.

• 11:24Ryan Holiday?

  And it doesn't just have to be bad things, right? I I remember I was I was in L A when Stillness came out. And so the the way it works is is and you'll experience this. And so your book comes out and then there's a week on sale. And then basically, like, they're tallying the sales on Monday and Tuesday. And then Wednesday, you get the numbers. And that's when you find out about the New York Times list.

• 11:44Jay Shetty?

  And congrats.

• 11:45Ryan Holiday?

  Thank you. But this is that story, right? So yeah, so like, I was, I woke up because I was traveling. I couldn't use like, there was no alarm clock, so I had to use my phone as the alarm clock. So it's it makes it harder to not check your phone when it's literally you have to turn it off to wake up. And so like, you know, I woke up at the normal time and my plan was to go swimming. But I could see a bunch of text messages from my agent and from my publisher.

• 12:13Ryan Holiday?

  That were, you know, like, sitting on the home screen. And so it was like, okay, the rule is you don't use the phone. It, from what I knew, it was it was heading in the right direction. So it's like, it's probably good news, right? But I had to sort of consciously go like, actually, no, like, I want I want to exist for the next hour or two hours of the workout and the journaling and the writing I want to do for the day. As if that reality, like, apart from that reality, in a universe where there's like Schrodinger's cat, like, where you don't know if it's alive or dead. You don't know if the news is good or bad. Like, I just want to exist for two hours more not knowing either way. And so it was like, I'm not gonna check in, I'm gonna go do the thing because.

• 13:00Ryan Holiday?

  As soon as I got the good news, and it was great news that we debuted at number one, we sold more copies than we thought, but it was like, in a weird way, the day was shot, even if it'd been, it was shot just as much as it being good as it would have been if it was bad, because you're like, celebrating or excited, you want to know this or that. And like, I don't, the whole point is that you don't wake up and be reactive. You should wake up and be intentional and do what it is that you want to do for the day. Then once that's over, I'm fine to be reactive from noon to five. You know what I mean? Like, once I've, once I've gotten the important thing done, fine to be reactive. But I don't want to be reactive if it comes at the expense of the daily practices that I have.

• 13:43Ryan Holiday?

  To me, that's what stillness is actually about.

• 13:46Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, and that's the benefit, right? Because a lot of people may listen to that and be like, well, Ryan, that means you just don't want to celebrate and, you know, you can't be happy for yourself. And, you know, what's your issue with like, just having a moment? You work so hard. But actually, what you're saying is, the benefit is you can be happy after, but you still want to create that space in your mind where you get to exist, be intentional, and basically, train your mind out of being reactive. Because whether your mind is being reactively good or reactively bad, you're still training your mind to be reactive.

• 14:17Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, it's like, it's in a way, it's like, people are like, okay, I'm not going to read the comments on my video because they're negative or whatever, right? We get why that's bad. But then what will happen also is like, you post something and it blows up. You can waste a whole day refreshing, just take, like, just mainlining the ego. And, and like, sure, there are some days where you should do that, or, you know, like, you do that every once in a while. It's not like the worst thing in the world. It's like having a soda or something. But you realize you could lose a whole day. And, and so it's like, wait, the, the reward for my success in this instance is that I'm not doing the thing that I actually love doing. Like, I didn't become a writer so I can refresh things,

• 14:59Ryan Holiday?

  you know? I didn't become a writer so I could count the likes or the comments. I became a writer because I genuinely enjoy writing. And so I actually, you want to see anything that deprives you of the chance to do that as, like, I think it's like, you know, Bob Dylan didn't want to go accept his Nobel Prize thing. It's like, Yeah, I totally get that. Like, it's not that he doesn't want it, it's that it's like, he doesn't want to fly and waste a whole day doing something that he didn't try to get in the first place. Like, that's the highest level of doing it and probably more discipline than I have. But like, yeah, I think early in your career, you think like doing interviews is gonna be awesome, getting attention is gonna be awesome, you know, like seeing yourself hit number one is gonna be awesome. And then if you actually get to the right place about it, you see those things

• 15:44Ryan Holiday?

  as like distractions from what you actually want to be doing.

• 15:50Jay Shetty?

  That's powerful. That's powerful, using the word distraction from what you want to be doing.

• 15:55Ryan Holiday?

  I read this thing, this like sort of obituary of Kobe Bryant, and they were saying like, this ESPN reporter was saying like, sort of two weeks, two or three weeks before he died, she had texted him to say like, hey, I want to interview you for this story. And like, on the one hand, yeah, the reason you want to become the world's best at whatever it is you do is to be interviewed. You want to see yourself on ESPN. And he has shoe deals and social media followers and things that would benefit from being in the media. And his response was like, he texted her back, he's like, can't, my girls are keeping me busy, like hit me up some other time. And first off, the discipline that takes normally is incredible. But I'm so touched by the idea

• 16:35Ryan Holiday?

  that like, he didn't know how much time he had left. And so, and he didn't, he doesn't control that, right? Like, he doesn't control the fact that he's about to be deprived of years of life. But he does control whether he's gonna waste 15 minutes or not. And he chose in that moment

• 16:54Ryan Holiday?

  to not waste it. And he gave that time to the people that he loved. And I'm so, I'm so touched by that. I think, to me, that's like his final performance, right? Like, and so I try to think about that always. And I've thought about it for a long time, but I'm always looking for examples of like, that sort of powerful no, or that, you know, ability.

• 17:16Ryan Holiday?

  I was, I called Robert Greene this morning, who's been sort of my mentor for a long time. And I was like, Robert, I'm like, driving by your house on my way to this thing. Do you want me to stop by and say hello? And he was like, I'm doing my work right now. Let's see each other later. I'm like, like, you could be insulted by that, but actually I was like, I was like, oh, my God. This is, this is how, this is what it takes to be great. Do you know what I mean? And like, so in a weird way, I'm, I was, not only was I not hurt, I was like, that's, that's, that's, that's professionalism. Do you know what I mean? Like, but it, cause it's easier to say yes. It's easy to be like, oh, come over, like, oh, turn on the TV or oh, you know, whatever. It's easy to say yes. It's hard to say no.

• 18:00Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, absolutely. There was another interview, you remind me of that with Kobe Bryant. And I think it was one of his last interviews as well. Can't remember what channel it was on, but he was asked like, to describe with one word, a few things in his life. And so they asked him like basketball, he says love and LA and he says home. And then they ask him, uh, retirement.

• 18:20Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 18:20Jay Shetty?

  And he says peace. And, and you know, it's, it's an amazing thing. And I was fortunate enough to interview Kobe Bryant last year. And even when you were with him, he was in such a peaceful, happy space in retirement, which for most athletes.

• 18:36Ryan Holiday?

  It's the opposite.

• 18:37Jay Shetty?

  It's the opposite, right? It's like full of anxiety. So you're trying to figure out your identity again and who you are and your ego and everything. Whereas for him, he was just totally like happy storytelling and writing and like, funnily enough, like in this storytelling world.

• 18:52Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 18:52Jay Shetty?

  And I'm, I like basketball. I don't know everything about it. So we ended up talking for an hour about storytelling.

• 18:57Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 18:58Jay Shetty?

  Because that's what he was doing now. And he was so satisfied with that being his purpose.

• 19:03Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 19:03Jay Shetty?

  And anyway, it's just when someone says peace in retirement, you're like, wow, like that, you know, but stillness is the key.

• 19:08Ryan Holiday?

  No, no.

• 19:09Jay Shetty?

  I was just like, wow, there's so much.

• 19:10Ryan Holiday?

  You wish everyone could have that. And, and I think the other thing, you might go like, okay, how many years of not peace versus how many years of peace?

• 19:17Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 19:17Ryan Holiday?

  But that it's actually like what the, what the sort of philosophers would say east and west is like, one minute of it is everything. Do you know what I mean? Like, if you could experience it for one minute, you've experienced it for eternity.

• 19:30Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 19:30Ryan Holiday?

  You know, and, and so, um, to get there at 40 is impressive. To get there at all is impressive. And, and I think. The, you know, the sort of Stoic practice of memento mori, where actually a memento mori ring.

• 19:44Jay Shetty?

  You give me the coin.

• 19:45Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 19:45Jay Shetty?

  I have it up in.

• 19:46Ryan Holiday?

  Oh, you do?

• 19:46Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 19:47Ryan Holiday?

  So I started wearing this ring too, because I want to like sort of touch it always. But yeah, the, the idea of like death looming over all of it should put some urgency on it. Not like, oh, I have to, like, people go, oh yeah, when I retire, when I'm 60, I'll get to do that. But like, you get hit by a bus, you know, your helicopter could crash, like, get cancer, you know? Like, you're, the, the idea that death is, death should be this sort of urgent thing reminding you not to take the future for granted and that like, you've got to be working towards that stillness or that peace or that focus or don't defer the work that you have to do. Because like, you don't know you're going to get to come back to it.

• 20:28Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, absolutely. And, and I mean, with all of these teachings, like obviously Stoicism has been something that you've been helping all of us understand and, and I love it. I absolutely love it. But from that, which of the teachings in this book has kind of like, was there a teaching that almost surprised you or took you longer to wrap your head around as you've been writing all these books, like, that's kind of come to the fore in this one?

• 20:51Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 20:52Jay Shetty?

  Like something you didn't believe in straight away, but kind of like, you know?

• 20:56Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, one of the things I struggled with a little bit more in the book, that I, like, I wanted to tackle things that made me uncomfortable. And, and so like, I've probably been an atheist since, I don't know, high school, late high school.

• 21:10Jay Shetty?

  On higher power.

• 21:11Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. And so, and, and I knew that chapter would be controversial and like, like I knew it pissed people off and it did piss people off. Like, I was looking the other day, like the first review on Amazon is some person who was like triggered by the fact that I was talking about this thing. And what I'm interested in is like things that are working for people, right? And it's like, it's hard not to look back at history and not see that pretty much everyone believed in some kind of higher, like, like atheism is the exception, not the rule. And I was in Budapest a couple of months ago and I was walking by this church and they were, there's some like classical music concert and I hate. Classical music, but I had like, and I just went in and I sat and I watched this

• 21:56Ryan Holiday?

  like this sort of classical concert, they were singing in Latin in a like a Catholic, you know, like a 500 year old Catholic church or something. And, you know, the acoustics were perfect. Like, I understood none of it. But I was just like, this experience, like this experience is what people have been having for thousands of years. Like, what is it that's working for them? Why, you know, and why am I closing myself off to it? So I didn't like, I'm still like on that path, I think, but I certainly moved from like atheist, which is like, you know, there's no God, to agnostic, which is like, I don't know. And sort of an openness

• 22:34Ryan Holiday?

  to larger experiences. So I think, again, like, I think the theme in my book is like, what is smarter, wiser people than me a long time ago figured out? And let me try to articulate that in a modern context. And so that was certainly a big one for me.

• 22:53Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, no, I love that. And I just love how open you are, because I've always said that to people. I'm like, with any belief, it's like, if someone was able to present to me a better, stronger case

• 23:05Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 23:05Jay Shetty?

  for a new set of beliefs that are timeless and universal in application.

• 23:10Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 23:11Jay Shetty?

  I would adopt them.

• 23:12Ryan Holiday?

  You should.

• 23:12Jay Shetty?

  You should. Yeah, like, as a genuine seeker of what works,

• 23:16Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 23:17Jay Shetty?

  what is fascinating and what actually has an impact versus a fad or a trend that that may not have that longevity.

• 23:23Ryan Holiday?

  Well, there's one of my favorite quotes from Epictetus is like, it's impossible to learn that which you think you already know. And so actually, I feel like on the path towards wisdom of learning, you shouldn't be coming more certain in your beliefs. You should actually become less certain and more open. Right? And so I think it was sort of realizing, oh, this atheism is because I read a Richard Dawkins book when I was 19, which was great. And I'm glad I read it because it made me question things I'd accepted as a child. But that if I'm just stuck there, I'm not, I'm not getting better, I'm not learning, and I'm no better than people I might be criticizing for their own, you know, not fought out beliefs. And so, like, I think one of the things I've experienced as I've gotten older, as I've read more,

• 24:07Ryan Holiday?

  as I've become successful is like, Is just a kind of an openness and a like less rigidity in my beliefs. And, and I think that's a theme in the Stoics is just this idea of like, yeah, if someone can prove that you might be wrong about something or get you to consider some question that you previously thought you had the answer to, they're doing you a huge favor. Yeah. You know, even if they're knocking down a whole structure that you've been living your life, they're doing you a favor because like that was built on unsteady ground. Yeah. And so, yeah, it like seeking that out, embracing it, appreciating it, not, not resenting it, not reacting against it has been, I think, I think that's an important practice.

• 24:57Jay Shetty?

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• 26:36Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. If you're talking about quality food, you can't forget Whole Foods Market, who've been holding themselves to the highest standards since they opened in 1980. That means you'll see thousands of organic products across their stores, from the produce department to the aisles. It also means you'll never see certain ingredients. They've banned artificial sweeteners and colors, high fructose corn syrup and more, so you can shop with peace of mind. Shop Whole Foods Market in-store or online. Yeah, I agree. That's beautifully said. Do you think it's in a... What I find fascinating about all of this is when you're an early... Whether it's an early atheist, theist, early adopter of a

• 27:22Jay Shetty?

  a new diet, or whatever it is, we develop this sort of like ego around being this evangelical ambassador of it. And you're like, you know, you're like putting everyone in a place, trying to school everyone. Is that coming from a... What would be the Stoic or the wisdom answer from? Because for me, it's like, it's almost like a protective mechanism.

• 27:39Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 27:39Jay Shetty?

  It's like what you're saying to others is what you want to say to yourself.

• 27:42Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 27:43Jay Shetty?

  So it's like if I've just started waking up at 6:00 AM, I'm now the biggest proponent of like,

• 27:47Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:47Jay Shetty?

  "You wake up at 7? Like, oh, you're slacking, right?"

• 27:50Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:50Jay Shetty?

  "You, you don't wake up till 6:30?" Or if someone wakes up at 4, you're like, "Oh, no, that's too early."

• 27:55Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 27:55Jay Shetty?

  Because you become this false ambassador. Tell me a bit about your thought process around that ego of that.

• 28:00Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, yeah, it's like a projection. Like, you're so insecure about it, you gotta convince other people about it, so then you're...

• 28:05Jay Shetty?

  Exactly.

• 28:06Ryan Holiday?

  No, and I think as a, as like a public figure, as someone who writes, you're definitely more prone to that. Like, when I look back at my early writing, the one thing that invariably makes me cringe is like how certain I was about stuff that I'd like literally just learned about, you know? Like, it's not like I'd known this to be true for 30 years and then I was writing about it. It was like, literally like I'd heard about this like the day before. And that's the stuff that never ages well.

• 28:32Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 28:33Ryan Holiday?

  Uh, I heard this great expression, like, "It ages like milk." You know?

• 28:37Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

• 28:37Ryan Holiday?

  That certainty ages so badly.

• 28:40Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 28:40Ryan Holiday?

  And like, one of the weird things, like when I look at obstacle ego and stillness is like, okay, obstacles... Like 50,000 words, ego's like 55 and let's say stillness is 60 or something like that. And, and I was like, are these books getting longer because like I'm just more full of myself? Or actually, no, it's like now when I read back obstacle, I think one of the reasons it works and it's so is that I'm saying things very emphatically, very clearly, but also with no nuance.

• 29:09Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 29:10Ryan Holiday?

  You know, and as I've gotten older, as I've experienced more, it's like, uh, it's more complicated than that.

• 29:15Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 29:15Ryan Holiday?

  And so actually it's like, as I've gotten, as I've gone on in my career, I'm less comfortable saying things in black and white terms.

• 29:23Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 29:24Ryan Holiday?

  I want to, it's not that I'm hedging.

• 29:27Jay Shetty?

  No.

• 29:27Ryan Holiday?

  But, but that I'm, I'm just not going to say that this is, I'm not going to say this with no equivocation because you, you can't actually know that.

• 29:35Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 29:35Ryan Holiday?

  And that, and that again, like emails I've gotten are things that it's like, oh, you know what? Like I may have, I didn't consider what it's like to be, you know, a single mom with three kids. And that maybe it's not, it's easy for them to get up at 6am or whatever it is.

• 29:49Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 29:49Ryan Holiday?

  You just realize like you're being flipped because your experience is limited. And so I think as I've gone older, gone on and gotten older, I'm negative capability. It's from Keats, I think. And it's the idea that like genius or real intelligence is the ability to hold opposing ideas in your head at the same time.

• 30:08Jay Shetty?

  Right.

• 30:08Ryan Holiday?

  That you don't actually have to simplify things down. You don't have to make them black and white. You can embrace like paradoxes.

• 30:15Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 30:16Ryan Holiday?

  Right? Like people will go like, oh, you know, in this chapter you're saying this, but over here you're saying this. That's a contradiction. It's like, welcome to the universe where sometimes you have to do this.

• 30:26Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 30:27Ryan Holiday?

  And sometimes the opposite is what's called for.

• 30:29Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. In my book, you've reminded me of something for me. It's like, I talk about the need for routine and spontaneity.

• 30:36Ryan Holiday?

  Totally.

• 30:37Jay Shetty?

  And, and it's like, in one sense, and I remember tackling it when I was writing, because I was like, Oh, wait a minute. And I'm like, no, but I believe in both.

• 30:43Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 30:44Jay Shetty?

  And I believe one leads to the other.

• 30:46Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 30:46Jay Shetty?

  And I believe that there is a space for both. And I, I mean, encouraging people in my own way to embrace polarities more.

• 30:53Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 30:53Jay Shetty?

  Because I feel like we're always like, what is the one way to show this? And I'm like, well, sometimes I can be affectionate, but sometimes you've got to be assertive. And sometimes you've got to be this and that. It's like, you don't have to be one thing all of the time.

• 31:05Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I think I talked about this in obstacle, like Arthur Ashe, his sort of motto is like physically tight, mentally loose. And so it's like, isn't that a contradiction? Actually, no, that they fuel and feed each other. And yeah, the world is complicated. I think that that's definitely something that the eastern philosophers get better is that you're sort of embracing paradoxes and nonsensical sayings and like, like you're supposed to go, you're supposed to sit with that.

• 31:32Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 31:32Ryan Holiday?

  And maybe even get comfortable with the fact that it is irresolvable. Maybe that's the lesson, you know, whereas like, people are like, no, what it like, because invariably in interviews, people go like, and what is the five, you know, step framework for overcoming obstacles? And it was like, there isn't one, because no obstacle is the same. And, you know, no person is the same. I think what there are are fundamental principles or ideas that if you equip yourself with, it will become clear which to use in which situation. But yeah, people want, they want like a roadmap and there is no roadmap.

• 32:08Jay Shetty?

  No, exactly. Was that when you were writing the book, was there anything, was there in most, what was the most intriguing way someone finds stillness that you've experienced, even if not in the book, but people you've spoken to? Like something that you were like, whoa, I didn't like some, you know, skydiving or like whatever.

• 32:22Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:23Jay Shetty?

  How does that give stillness?

• 32:24Ryan Holiday?

  So I'm fascinated with Churchill and Churchill wrote a book called Painting as a Pastime. And I was like, what? Why would, first off, I don't think people think of Churchill as a writer, but that's how he made his living.

• 32:35Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 32:36Ryan Holiday?

  And, and you don't think like prime minister, the guy that stands up to the Nazis, you're like, and he must have loved watercolors, right? But like, or I think he was more oil paints. But the, but the point is like, he has this nervous breakdown after the second, after the First World War and his. Sister in law gives him her children's paint set. And says like, hey, this might help you relax. And he'd always been ambitious, always had an insane work ethic, always been busy. And this was the first time where he like was doing something only for its own sake. And I was just in London and I went straight from Heathrow to Chartwell before my meeting.

• 33:14Ryan Holiday?

  Cause I wanted to go see his painting studio and you're like, oh, this is what kept this guy sane amidst incredible stress, fear, anxiety, responsibility, you know, people not doing what they're supposed to do. Like he would paint and, and so he, he would talk, he was like, the most important thing that a powerful person can have, he said, is like one or two hobbies. It's like, what are your hobbies? And for him, it was painting and, and writing was sort of one of them. And it was, he had this, you know, estate in the countryside. It was like, it was the opposite of his work, basically, right? And you have to have that. The prime minister, a generation or two before him, William Gladstone, was like, he had this big property.

• 33:59Ryan Holiday?

  He would just go out and chop down trees. Like he just liked chopping down trees with an axe. And like, it's, um, I, I live on a small farm outside Texas and people, isn't that a lot of work? And it's like, it is, but it's the opposite of my actual work. And so it's actually very restorative. And, and so I think the power of hobbies is like, probably the thing I was most excited to write about.

• 34:22Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. And also sometimes the power of like, I feel like simple quote unquote mundane tasks. Like the, I, I remember, you know, when, when I lived as a monk, like we did so many mundane tasks, like cleaning or pot washing or taking care of the farms or cows or whatever it was. And it was like, a lot of me coming from London and being educated and all the rest of it was just like, this is such a waste of time. Like I should be like reading or studying or like teaching or like changing the world. Like that's, I've always been like that. But, but then I started to see, and I was forced to do it because they saw value in it. It wasn't just like, we need someone to clean stuff. It was like, no, there's value in it for you.

• 35:00Ryan Holiday?

  Right. There's like a Zen story I tell in the book, I'm forgetting who it was, but the, these two students go to this Zen master. They visit him on his farm and they're like, will, will you please show us the way of Zen? And he's like, yes, of course. Will you just open the farm for me this morning? Like do all the farm chores. So, you know, they, they sort of muck the stables and they, you know, milk the cows or they, you know, they. Let the animals out. They go through this whole process as the sun is coming up and they're going through it and they come back and they say, you know, like, master, we've opened the farm. Like, what is Zen? And he just goes, like, that manual labor, that experience, being outside, experiencing nature, watching the sun come up, that is it. And that's that idea of like, chop wood, carry water, like, just do the thing. One foot in front of the

• 35:42Ryan Holiday?

  other, follow the steps. Don't try to make this into something, just appreciate it for what it is. Um, is really great. Like, yeah, fixing fences on my farm, going out to feed the cows, going on a walk, just watching the animals. Like, that is the experience, right? And it's so the opposite of sitting at your computer, answering emails, that it's really, even if it's stressful, even if it's hard work, even if it's exhausting, it restores the mind in a different way. That maybe, it's like, if I just went and sat, all my mind might be doing is thinking about those, the things that I left at the computer. Whereas,

• 36:24Ryan Holiday?

  when I'm doing the task, it forces you to become so present and lose, and you can't think about anything else.

• 36:31Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. Being in the, now that you mentioned presence, being present is, you know, we've heard it a lot. People have talked about it a lot, the power of now. I mean, it's in all the Stoic and Vedic texts too, like of being in the moment. Like, what's your favorite way of being present? Or what is your favorite way of explaining to people what that genuinely means, or what it means to you?

• 36:52Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. I was talking, I was talking about Robert earlier. When I was thinking about becoming a writer, I had this sort of like year left on, uh, basically I had to stay at American Apparel for another year.

• 37:02Jay Shetty?

  I remember, yeah.

• 37:02Ryan Holiday?

  And, and, uh, he was like, so, he's like, he's like, there's two kinds of time in life. There's like a live time and dead time. Dead time is when you're like checked out, you're just waiting for things to happen, you know, just like burning the days, basically. And he's like, alive time is like, what will you make of this? Right? And so for me, what I always, I always, I actually wrote, I have a note card on my wall that I wrote, you know, seven or eight years ago now, that just says, alive time versus dead time, question mark. And I think about that, like, what I'm, what I'm thinking about is like, is this gonna be alive time or dead time for me? So, like, yeah, yesterday, I'm flying here. The plane's delayed. I've got a dinner that like, you know, tight window. I gotta get my rental car, drive, go to the dinner. Don't want to be late. But like LA traffic. And you can spiral

• 37:47Ryan Holiday?

  really quickly. Like, after this, this got it. And then what you're doing is not sitting in the chair that you're in, reading a book, or FaceTiming with someone that you like, or just not doing anything. Like, what you're not doing is being where you are. And so I try to like, always, I try to always come back to the present. What I try to remind myself is like, this moment is enough. Like, you don't, you don't actually have to be doing anything else. Like, you don't have to go to that thing later. You don't have to be on time. Like, you don't have, you just have to be here.

• 38:23Jay Shetty?

  Totally.

• 38:24Ryan Holiday?

  And it, it's not something you intellectually know and then automatically do. It actually has to be kind of like a mantra in your life that you're repeating all the time. And that's why I have it on my wall, too.

• 38:39Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 38:39Ryan Holiday?

  You know what I mean? Because it's so easy to forget.

• 38:41Jay Shetty?

  So easy to forget. And the funny thing is, it actually drains so much energy when you live in the future. Like,

• 38:45Ryan Holiday?

  Totally.

• 38:46Jay Shetty?

  If you're constantly planning, or like, what I've got to do next, or if I'm, if I'm doing this podcast and thinking about all the things I have to do now, and which I've not been thinking about until this point, where now I'm thinking about it. And I just looked at all the slips I'm signing for my book right now.

• 38:58Ryan Holiday?

  Oh, you're doing pages?

• 38:59Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's the inserts. And so it's like, now that I just looked at that, and I'm like, when I start thinking about it, all of a sudden, I'm anxious, because I know how many I have to get through, as opposed to when I was just sitting here and being present.

• 39:10Ryan Holiday?

  Totally, totally. And then, like, what I, what I remind myself is that it's arrogant. Like, like, doing an interview is hard. You know, writing a book is really hard. You know, driving is hard. Hitting a, hitting a pitch in Major League Baseball is hard. The idea that you are so good at this, that you can do it while not 100% being focused, I just, like, that is arrogant. Like, it is too, like, you are competing, like, I say to myself, you're competing against the best writers in the world, and you're competing against that kid, man or woman, who wants to break in more than anything. The idea

• 39:51Ryan Holiday?

  that you're so good, and that people love you so much, that you can do this with only Thirty seven percent focus is arrogant and that's when you lose.

• 40:02Jay Shetty?

  That is a great point. I love that point. That is brilliant. Wow. Never looked at it like that.

• 40:07Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 40:07Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, no, it's spot on. I get it.

• 40:09Ryan Holiday?

  Like in baseball, you have 400 milliseconds to decide and swing at a pitch. The idea that you can, you can be thinking about your last one or your next one in that moment is insane, right?

• 40:26Jay Shetty?

  It's insane, yeah.

• 40:27Ryan Holiday?

  Like, like, I think, you know, this, now we ask this question because we're so politically charged. We, we ask, we go like, if you win, are you gonna go to the White House? Are you gonna accept it? And it's like, you should not be thinking about that at all. Like, you should not even have, it should not even be a question. Like, cross that bridge when you come to it. Think about the fact that like, you're in the Super Bowl tomorrow.

• 40:48Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 40:49Ryan Holiday?

  And, and the other team wants it really bad, too. So the idea that you can, you can spend one millisecond not focusing.

• 40:56Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 40:57Ryan Holiday?

  Is, is nuts.

• 40:59Jay Shetty?

  That is, that's brilliant. I love that. I'm never gonna forget that. That's awesome. No, no, I love it. That's such a unique point of view and yeah, I love that. That's brilliant.

• 41:07Ryan Holiday?

  And, and then I think it's not just personal success, right? Because I think what you talk about a lot is like, how do you apply these things to relationship? Like, the idea that like, your wife is, loves you so much that you can only be 80% present, you know? Or that your kid is, your kid can do with, with 32% of a father. Like, you know, it's like you promised to be there.

• 41:31Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 41:31Ryan Holiday?

  And the idea that you can do this and be on your phone, or you can do this and be mulling over your meeting tomorrow or whatever, like, you're stealing that from someone.

• 41:42Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. Now, when you talk about focus in that way, though, I feel like, I feel like stillness. And silence and all these kind of like, they're so rare now.

• 41:53Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, sure.

• 41:53Jay Shetty?

  And so we're almost scared of them. Like, we're scared of what's rare.

• 41:57Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, of course.

• 41:58Jay Shetty?

  And we get scared of telling things that we don't do often. And so like, when people talk about like, like when you have an awkward silence, like, there are no silences in this conversation because it's genuinely back and forth. But if I didn't know what to say, I would be silent. But if you did that in a date scenario, if you did that in a interview, like, I remember, uh, yeah, you've just, when I was interviewing for a role in my company, I was interviewing people and none of them would stop to think.

• 42:21Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 42:21Jay Shetty?

  Because I think they expected to have an answer straight away. And I had one person who would stop and say, can I think about that for a moment?

• 42:29Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, that's always so impressive.

• 42:30Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. And I was so impressed that I hired that person. And, and there was, and when I hired them, I was so scared because I thought two things. Either they're really stupid, right? Or they're really smart. And thankfully, they ended up being really smart.

• 42:43Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 42:43Jay Shetty?

  But it was like that point of just like, we're so scared of stillness and silence. What have you, like, have you seen that? Have you noticed that? And like,

• 42:50Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, yeah. I, I think we're afraid of what the silence is gonna reveal. Like, I think we're afraid to look in the mirror. So we distract ourselves. Do you know what I mean? Like, we know that the silence will reveal the emptiness, right? And so that's why we're always doing, doing, doing, talking, talking, talking. Like, the amount of, of people I know that it's like, they're listening to audiobooks, like tweeting, watch it, like, just, just like, can you just sit there? Like, sometimes I'll remind my, oh, yeah, I'll get somewhere early. I'm just gonna sit here. Like, I'm not gonna do anything. I'm just gonna sit here. And, and actually, yeah, like, the nothing is the something is, is,

• 43:32Ryan Holiday?

  is hard for people to do. You just realize, like, people are like, you know, if I turn my mind off for two seconds, like, I might realize that I hate my job.

• 43:41Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 43:42Ryan Holiday?

  Or that, like, this relationship is over and I gotta leave it. Or, you know, like, we're afraid of the, that we're afraid of the truths that we're gonna find out. And so that's why, yeah, people are glued to the television, glued to their phone, glued to consume and consume and consuming. So they don't have to create, so they don't have to face, they don't have to think. And, uh,

• 44:07Ryan Holiday?

  That that is, I think, yeah, that's the that's the problem of our time.

• 44:10Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, and that's the mistake, too, because it numbs us from the reality that we're experiencing.

• 44:16Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 44:16Jay Shetty?

  And then five, 10, 15 years down the line, you're now like, oh, I should have known this before.

• 44:23Ryan Holiday?

  Well, I talk a little bit in the book about like the Cuban Missile Crisis.

• 44:25Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 44:26Ryan Holiday?

  That's like, that happens over 13 days. Just the idea of like allowing that to happen over 13 days, like now it'd be like, oh, we got to tweet out a response. Like right now, you know, like just the idea of letting something unfold, going like, I'm not sure I have all the information. You know, like Kennedy's expression was like, I want to use time as a tool, but not as a couch. So you're not like, it's not silence, it's not retreating, it's not thinking because you're afraid of facing it. It's that you're like, no, I'm gonna deal with this, but I don't want to deal with it like half cocked or only partially informed. And so having the discipline, but also the confidence to do that is really important. And I think, so I think at the end of the day, a lot of these emotional reactions, a lot of these instantaneous reactions,

• 45:10Ryan Holiday?

  a lot of the chatter is rooted in like insecurity and fear and anxiety. And actually, the more, like, if you walked into a martial arts studio right now, the the highest ranked person would be the slowest moving, the most chill, the most welcoming, you know, and it's like the newbie who's like all wired and aggressive and, you know. And so I think ideally, as you get better, you should be getting more chill.

• 45:41Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's that's time as a tool, not as a couch. That's that's genius. Yeah, that's brilliant. That makes so much sense because most of us use time as a couch. When we're scared of something.

• 45:51Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 45:52Jay Shetty?

  We're like, I'm not gonna think about it or not gonna talk about it for like.

• 45:55Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 45:55Jay Shetty?

  Days sometimes, always procrastinating or overthinking.

• 45:58Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, and we're not using time as a tool either. So we're like, I have everything I need to know, I'm ready to go.

• 46:03Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 46:04Ryan Holiday?

  But it's like, actually, did you really study this? Did you ask for all the advice that you can? Did you walk through what could go wrong? You know, did you get, uh, you know, information from people who disagree with you? You know, like, have you actually done that? Like, most of the, I would say, I would say most of the conflicts I've gotten in sort of professionally, creatively, most of the, the, you know, it it came from me. Rushing in like I unthinkingly escalated or you know pushed ahead when like maybe I could have ignored it or maybe I could have slept on it or maybe I could have written the email, deleted it and rewritten the email, you know, like, like Lincoln was famous, he would, he would

• 46:49Ryan Holiday?

  write these letters, like, you know, someone would piss him off, they would do it, he'd write this like, you're the, he would just light them up and then he'd put it in his desk and he'd never send it, you know, and, and just the, just that idea of like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say what I, I'm gonna do it, but I'm gonna wait before I send it. And yeah, just not doing it out of anger. People think that the Stoics didn't have emotions. That's not what it is at all. Cause the Stoics were human. The Senate was like, no amount of wisdom can reduce, can eliminate like our human impulses. He's like, no amount of training can make you not blush, right? Or not cold, or not feel adrenaline. But what the Stoic is striving to do is not be driven by those

• 47:34Ryan Holiday?

  emotions when they make decisions. So it's not that you wouldn't lust after something. It's like, are you gonna blow up your life for five minutes with a stranger, right? It's, it's not, should you strive to be the best in your sport or in your field, but it's, are you gonna, are you gonna do it because you love it? Not because you're trying to prove your dad wrong? Or what, you know, like, just doing it from a, a place that's not, the Stoics, now we talk, it's like, find your passion. The Stoics were like, passions are bad. You know, passions are like these demons that possess us and they're, so we're not doing that.

• 48:13Jay Shetty?

  What I found in most of our emotions, because a lot of people would be like, oh, well, if I meditate, do I get rid of stress completely? Like, and I was just like, You know, one of our teachers, like thousands of years ago, there's a teacher named Yamanacharya, and he would talk about, he was a renunciant, and he was free from sex life. So, you know, and his, he would always say, like, I, I have a, it's, it's not that I never have a thought of

• 48:38Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 48:38Jay Shetty?

  sex or lust.

• 48:39Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 48:40Jay Shetty?

  He was just that I have my response to it.

• 48:42Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 48:43Jay Shetty?

  And his response is now shortening the time of how long he entertains that feeling.

• 48:48Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I think Viktor Frankl's like, there's stimulus and there's response. And what you're trying to train is that space between those two.

• 48:56Jay Shetty?

  Totally.

• 48:57Ryan Holiday?

  And I think early on, we're private, there's no space, it's like this, and you're just trying to, if you can add a half second, do you know what I mean?

• 49:04Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 49:05Ryan Holiday?

  To, to just even, like, to just even go like, no, I'm not gonna do that.

• 49:09Jay Shetty?

  Totally.

• 49:10Ryan Holiday?

  Uh, or I'm gonna do it this way instead.

• 49:13Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 49:13Ryan Holiday?

  Or maybe I'll do tomorrow.

• 49:14Jay Shetty?

  Totally, yeah.

• 49:15Ryan Holiday?

  You write the letter, but do you have to send, you write the letter because you're so angry, you're gonna go do, but do you have the control an hour later not to put it in the mail?

• 49:25Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, that's my, my thing with that is I'm always just like, I need to sleep on stuff.

• 49:29Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 49:30Jay Shetty?

  I need to take the day, think about it, stretch that moment out.

• 49:34Ryan Holiday?

  Totally.

• 49:34Jay Shetty?

  Because, yeah, your initial reaction is usually fueled by ego, or, you know, if you're responding to something or reacting to something.

• 49:40Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 49:41Jay Shetty?

  And, and I see that myself all the time, but you, you have to give yourself that space to allow your ego to feel it. Give yourself that space to feel the fear, if that's what it is.

• 49:49Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 49:50Jay Shetty?

  And then, yeah, I love that, I love that. And today, we're just in this send culture, right? That's the challenge, like, you don't even think about sending a million messages a day.

• 49:56Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I think, and Seneca's point is like, look, it's okay to be afraid, it's okay to grieve when you lose someone.

• 50:02Jay Shetty?

  Of course.

• 50:02Ryan Holiday?

  But it's like, a year later, if you're still crippled by that thing, you gotta do some work to walk through, to, so it's like, uh, I think Miss Team Taleb was, it's not about the elimination of emotions, it's about the domestication of them.

• 50:16Jay Shetty?

  Hmm.

• 50:16Ryan Holiday?

  You know, a dog is the same as a wolf. But it's been trained and some of those things have been bred out of them to a level that allows them to function in society, you know, like, but there's still that little bit of that wild animal in there. You gotta keep it on a, on the chain.

• 50:33Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I love that. Let's dive into, we've been talking about, for all of you who are listening and watching and loving this conversation, Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday. It's already number one New York Times bestseller. So make sure you go grab the book. But there were a few pages that I just turned in that I wanna, I remember we did this for the Daily Stoic too. The best things about Ryan's book is they're just, he's a great storyteller. The stories are unique, fresh. You might never, I've never heard any of those stories about Churchill and was it Gladstone?

• 51:00Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 51:01Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, that ever before. And so, yeah, he's a great storyteller. But there's this one that I picked out. You can either tell the story or people can read it in the book. But it's the story you tell from the let go chapter. It kicks off the let go chapter and you talk about the story that Kenzo once told of his student.

• 51:16Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. Yeah. If, if people haven't read the Zen, Zen and the Art of Archery, it's incredible. But like, you know, he's talking about how when he would train his students, he was like, don't even think about hitting the target. Just think about form, right? Like get lost in the form, get lost in the process. And that's actually something I kind of try to focus on my books is like, like, okay, whenever, and I know you have a book coming out, so that we could talk about this a little bit. Whenever I hear someone have a sales goal for their book, I'm like, you're lost. You know, like you, you, you've already thought about this the wrong way. Because

• 51:52Ryan Holiday?

  at the very best, your goal should be to sell an unlimited, like the idea that you're like, a million copies is success means you've like, cause what if, what if you sell zero copies, but you change the world? What if you sell 10 million copies and then it's disproved? You know, like, like it's not about that. It's not about the end state. It's about the process, right? It's about, it's about the impact. It's about doing it right. Because that's all that you control. And so, we, we think that it's all about goals. And, and certainly, there are people who would be improved by having goals because they leave, they lead an aimless life. But actually, for really ambitious, talented people, it's actually about. Removing goals because those are outcome oriented and focusing internally on process

• 52:36Ryan Holiday?

  and form and, and, and presence, especially with something like archery where archery is kind of like golf where like the harder you try, the worse you do at it because you've, instead of being present, you're thinking about all these other things. And so, yeah, he would like, he'd be like, bad shot, forget it. Good shot, definitely forget. Like what the form, the form, the form and, and smooth and slow and, and, and effortlessness. That's actually what you're trying to get to. And I think writing is like that. Music is like that. Acting is like, the harder you're trying to be a good actor, the worse of an actor you are.

• 53:19Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. Yeah. You have to get lost in it.

• 53:21Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, totally.

• 53:21Jay Shetty?

  And then that was, I, I've recently started, I got a tennis coach recently.

• 53:24Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, tennis also, yeah.

• 53:25Jay Shetty?

  So tennis was something that I used to play a lot as a kid and a teenager, but never was trained. And I picked it up and I'm competitive. So I could play. But then when I went to get trained, I was like, no, I want to do it properly. So I was like, I don't, I don't want to pretend I can play. And so we've trained now for the past four weekends, we have not played a game of tennis yet.

• 53:44Ryan Holiday?

  Right, right.

• 53:45Jay Shetty?

  So he's just getting my form right. And it's the same, like, he actually doesn't care where the ball ends up on the other side. It's just all about my form and the swing. And we're doing backhands and forehands and, and it's so beautiful. Like, it's actually such a fun way of learning.

• 53:58Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 53:58Jay Shetty?

  But I can imagine if I was taught that as a kid, I would have been like, I just want to play the game.

• 54:02Ryan Holiday?

  Right. No, there's a famous story about Lombardi and he walks in and he's like, this is the Green Bay Packers. So obviously they're all great football players. And he opens the season with like, gentlemen, this is a football. You know, like he starts at so the basic level, but it's like, that's actually where we need to focus.

• 54:19Jay Shetty?

  Totally.

• 54:20Ryan Holiday?

  Because we have all this stuff in our head. And if you're, if you're running down the field thinking, where's my route? What should I be doing? What did coach say? You are doing it the wrong way. You got to get actually out of that and into your body and into the process and into the form.

• 54:34Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. The time when I really felt that was a couple of years ago, two, three years ago, I tested like seven different business strategies.

• 54:44Ryan Holiday?

  Okay.

• 54:45Jay Shetty?

  So seven different businesses, ideas, concepts, revenue streams, whatever you want to call it. And the interesting was that all seven of them worked financially. But I only enjoyed four of them.

• 54:59Ryan Holiday?

  Okay.

• 54:59Jay Shetty?

  In the process.

• 55:00Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, sure.

• 55:01Jay Shetty?

  So financially, all seven worked. They all reaped rewards, they all made money. But actually, only four of them actually made me feel happy when I was doing them.

• 55:10Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 55:11Jay Shetty?

  And so I remember going, I am never doing those other three things ever again.

• 55:15Ryan Holiday?

  And that might seem like a basic decision, but most people do the exact opposite.

• 55:18Jay Shetty?

  Totally.

• 55:18Ryan Holiday?

  They're like, which of the seven made the most money?

• 55:20Jay Shetty?

  Totally.

• 55:21Ryan Holiday?

  That's the right one to do.

• 55:22Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, but I know that, and I still say it now, like, I the biggest satisfaction for me today is I get to wake up and do what I love every day. Like, to me, that's just like.

• 55:30Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 55:31Jay Shetty?

  It's life-changing. And, you know, I work with and coach, and I'm sure you do too. So many people who literally will come to me and be like, Jay, I just built this billion-dollar business.

• 55:40Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 55:40Jay Shetty?

  In 12 years, but I wasted 12 years of my life, or I didn't enjoy it.

• 55:45Ryan Holiday?

  Well, one of the things that was really helpful to me, because I built this company where we work with authors and do ghostwriting and help build sort of the stuff we're talking about for people. And I kept noticing over and over again that the people that were coming to me had like built, yeah, billion-dollar companies, huge brands, they'd done this thing. And it was like, wait, all they want to do is be what I get to do, right? All they, they built this thing that's way harder to do than what I do. And now they want, and so I was like, I have to make sure it's so easy to get away from that thing, because you have all these other opportunities. It's like, wait, if the person becomes a billionaire and what they really want to do is write for a living.

• 56:27Ryan Holiday?

  And I am lucky enough to write for a living without having had to be a billionaire.

• 56:31Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 56:31Ryan Holiday?

  I gotta make sure I protect that purity and that space and that privilege to do that thing that I have found what I love. And not be tempted away from it by what's more exciting, what's more lucrative, you know, what's more, you know, the bigger ego hit, whatever.

• 56:51Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, exactly. And I think those are such. They're such like subliminal lures and like, you know, just everything we see and you go for the shiny objects or the platform or the title or whatever it may be. I actually said that it was, it's really, I'm really happy hearing from you. You've written, what, nine books now?

• 57:09Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, nine or 10, something like that.

• 57:10Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, nine, you know, it's like, I'm happy hearing it from you because I said the same thing to my team and, and because we wrote a chapter on process and not result too, based on the Bhagavad Gita code they use. And so when I was writing that, I was, I was explaining that to my team. I was like, I'm not writing this trying to be a New York Times bestseller or a Wall Street. I was like, that's not, I was trying to explain the concept through my own process. I was like, I'm trying to make sure we write the best book we possibly can write and that I absolutely love and that I'm enjoying while I'm doing it.

• 57:37Ryan Holiday?

  And look, you have to do that because it's inherently unpredictable, right? Like, let's say, let's say eight of my first nine books did not appear on the Times list and they probably sold enough copies to, because the world isn't fair, because somebody made a mistake, because somebody had a vendetta. I don't know why. But like, like, is that going to determine success for me? Then I've just handed over my sanity, my happiness, my success to an outside entity. And, and, and then conversely, let's say you do get it. Well, what if I'd gotten it, but actually I knew deep down the book was no good, right? Or that I, that I cheated or plagiarized or, you know, had someone write it for me

• 58:17Ryan Holiday?

  or that I bought my way onto the list, which you can do, right? Like, I'm prefacing or preferring an outcome to process and missing the entire point.

• 58:29Jay Shetty?

  Totally, totally. And as I'm, I think I messaged you when I saw the news that you now share something in common with Leonardo DiCaprio, where it's like, the guys have to wait so long to get an Oscar.

• 58:38Ryan Holiday?

  Well, look, the other thing, I, it's like, three weeks after I hit it or four weeks after I hit it, like Donald Trump Jr. took the number one spot. So it's like, this doesn't matter. You know what I mean? Like, like, you also have to remind yourself that, like, it doesn't actually matter. It's just a piece of paper. It's just a random accomplishment. How many people have done it before you? How many people will do it after you? If, if it was meaningless when you were deprived of it, also have to remind yourself, it doesn't really matter when you get it. It's just extra.

• 59:09Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I love that. I'm so aligned with that. And yeah, let that blow your mind if it's, if it takes a bit of time, because I think it does take a bit of time to, we're always trying to move away from pain. Because we think we have to move closer to pleasure.

• 59:22Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 59:23Jay Shetty?

  When actually.

• 59:24Ryan Holiday?

  You mean, the Stoics talk about indifference.

• 59:26Jay Shetty?

  Correct, yeah. And in Vedic terms, it's neutrality.

• 59:29Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 59:29Jay Shetty?

  Like, it's same, same thing, but different, yeah, just that neutrality in happiness and distress, in fame and infamy, in.

• 59:37Ryan Holiday?

  Well, so, one of the things, so, like, that indifference can feel like, okay, does nothing matter? Is that nihilism? And one of the way the Stoics sort of navigate that, which I love, Seneca goes, "But there's also preferred indifference." Like, not indifference, C E, T S, right? There's things you are indifferent to, but you would prefer, right? So he's like, "It's better to be tall than short, it's better to be rich than poor," or whatever. "It's better to hit the list versus not hit the list, but you also still have to not let it affect you either way," right? And realizing that, yeah, okay, it's good to get it, but it can't be everything to get it.

• 1:00:19Jay Shetty?

  Correct.

• 1:00:19Ryan Holiday?

  There, I lived in New Orleans when I was writing my first book, and they have this word that I love there, "Lanyap," do you know this word?

• 1:00:25Jay Shetty?

  No, I don't know.

• 1:00:26Ryan Holiday?

  It's, it means like, the 13th donut. It means like, the extra, like, so you buy 12 donuts, and they throw in an extra donut?

• 1:00:33Jay Shetty?

  Right.

• 1:00:33Ryan Holiday?

  You're like, you paid for 12, you get 12, great, right? If you got 11, you'd say, "Hey, you owe me one." But like, it's the extra, it's like the cream, it's the, it's the, it's the bonus. And so, so for me, it's not that like, I didn't care that I hit number one, it's not that I don't care that my books have sold copies, that I've got to do cool things, that it's been lucrative, it's that that is extra on top of that I enjoy doing the work, that I get to, you know, I get to do my passion, that I know, you know, it's, it's extra on top. And then that way, you can take it or leave it.

• 1:01:10Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, no, I love that. Okay. This is from the chapter called Heal the Inner Child.

• 1:01:15Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:16Jay Shetty?

  Which I thought was fascinating, because I've never heard you talk about that before, I don't feel like.

• 1:01:20Ryan Holiday?

  I don't think so.

• 1:01:21Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I don't think I've really heard you mention that. Tell me where that idea sparked from for this chapter, and why it was such a focus.

• 1:01:28Ryan Holiday?

  I mean, part of it, like, to be perfectly honest, from like, therapy, right? Like, you realize that a lot of the really strong reactions and feelings and things that you have.

• 1:01:40Ryan Holiday?

  Are not you as an adult. They're you at whatever age you're stuck in, right? So it's you, the 13 year old whose parents got divorced. It's you, the 11 year old who is humiliated in front of math class, right? Or it's you, the six year old who had to wear glasses and you didn't like it. Or, you know, it's, we have, we all have experienced trauma and pain and deficiencies and problems. And there's a part of us that is that age that needs, that needed something then that we didn't get. And now we have to do the work to parent that inner child.

• 1:02:16Ryan Holiday?

  Because, yeah, an 11 year old or a, you know, an arrogant 17 year old is not going to cut it in the world of publishing. Right? Cause like, you're going to have to be an adult. You're going to have to be the bigger person. You're going to have to be responsive. You're going to have to be mature. And so just the act of deciding to parent that inner child, to reassure them, to comfort them, to be what you didn't get from the people who should have done it when you were that age is really important. And if you don't have that, if you don't have, if you can't not, if you cannot settle that inner child, you will not have stillness, you will not have success, or you will end up destroying that success. Because you're not capable, you're not mature enough to deal with it.

• 1:02:59Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:59Ryan Holiday?

  And so, yeah, like, you're not going to meditate your way into healing that inner child. Like, you gotta go to therapy or you gotta have some unpleasant conversations. You gotta look in the mirror. You gotta journal. You gotta do some work there. But, but yeah, I think it's an important part of getting better and getting healthy.

• 1:03:19Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I recorded a podcast last year called, uh, Why We Need To Develop The Emotional Skills Our Parents Didn't Have. And, and it was always, it's also about that compassion, that when you go through that process of building those skills, you realize how hard it is.

• 1:03:33Ryan Holiday?

  Oh, totally.

• 1:03:34Jay Shetty?

  And then to display it and to express it and for people to feel it and. And to be able to learn how to do it for yourself. And I think that's what, you know, what therapy or meditation really is, is your ability to parent yourself, your ability to give yourself what you feel you need from others.

• 1:03:49Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 1:03:50Jay Shetty?

  And becoming aware and being specific about what that is.

• 1:03:54Ryan Holiday?

  And just making sure your life is not ruled by these emotional reactions or issues that it's not your fault that you have them. But it is your fault if you don't deal with it.

• 1:04:04Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:05Ryan Holiday?

  You know?

• 1:04:05Jay Shetty?

  Exactly.

• 1:04:06Ryan Holiday?

  And, and it'll blow, if you don't, it'll blow up your marriage, it'll blow up your work, it'll blow up your, you know, it'll just make your life not as good as it can be. And, and yeah, taking the time to, to, to do that, like, inner work is really, really important.

• 1:04:21Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, absolutely. So Ryan, we've got these two segments now that we end with. You're, you're probably, you're the only second person after my wife to have done this.

• 1:04:28Ryan Holiday?

  Okay.

• 1:04:29Jay Shetty?

  So it'll be fun to do with you. It's called fill in the blanks.

• 1:04:31Ryan Holiday?

  Okay.

• 1:04:32Jay Shetty?

  So you have to end the sentence. And you can end it with more than one word, but you end the sentence. So, good writing is never.

• 1:04:39Ryan Holiday?

  Easy.

• 1:04:39Jay Shetty?

  Stillness is similar to?

• 1:04:42Ryan Holiday?

  Well, I would say nothing, right? It's, it's a singular, what I love about stillness is that like, it's very hard to define, but everyone knows what it is. You know what I mean? Like, everyone's experienced it, might have been in, for me, you know, not for me, but it's like, for one person, it was, you know, watching the snowfall, for the other, it was playing the piano, and for the other, it was, you know, who knows, right? It's a totally different thing. But it is this singular, unique thing that, what I love about it is that it appears in every philosophical school and religion. And there are very few things that that's true for.

• 1:05:15Jay Shetty?

  It's true, absolutely. All right, I love that. Ryan Holiday loves?

• 1:05:19Ryan Holiday?

  Uh, family, work, like, family writing, like, family craft, and, uh, life.

• 1:05:29Jay Shetty?

  Having a farm helps me.

• 1:05:32Ryan Holiday?

  Relax, disconnect, and be active.

• 1:05:40Jay Shetty?

  I have no tolerance for?

• 1:05:43Ryan Holiday?

  Too many things, unfortunately.

• 1:05:48Ryan Holiday?

  You know, the expression of suffering fools? Like, I have, I have problems realizing like, not everyone holds themselves to the standard, to my standards, and that they're my standards, and it's totally unfair to expect other people to live up to a promise they never made.

• 1:06:05Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I've always found that hard. I've always, I can totally relate to that one for sure. And I've been blown away, and there's, there's probably only two people in the world who are my monk teachers that I know that don't have that.

• 1:06:15Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:16Jay Shetty?

  And when they first displayed that, I was just like, wow, like, they're like the hardest working, they made the most sacrifice, they meditate for the longest time, they wake up the earliest, they do more than everyone, yet they do have not, do not have that expectation.

• 1:06:28Ryan Holiday?

  That was Kobe's big problem, right? Like, he couldn't understand that not everyone was Kobe. That they were great, but not at his level. And like, I think great leaders figure out how to work with people who are not like them.

• 1:06:41Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, and it's hard. I think that takes the most.

• 1:06:43Ryan Holiday?

  Totally.

• 1:06:44Jay Shetty?

  Most stress. Okay, that was good. You performed really well. That was awesome.

• 1:06:46Ryan Holiday?

  All right.

• 1:06:47Jay Shetty?

  So, we end every interview with the final five.

• 1:06:50Ryan Holiday?

  Okay.

• 1:06:50Jay Shetty?

  Which is our rapid fire, quick fire answer. These are one word to one sentence answers. They're a bit deeper than the other ones. The last ones are fun. So, this is, what question do you ask yourself the most?

• 1:07:02Ryan Holiday?

  Does this matter?

• 1:07:03Jay Shetty?

  Oh, nice. Okay, the book you're most proud of and why?

• 1:07:07Ryan Holiday?

  I actually think Conspiracy is my best book.

• 1:07:10Jay Shetty?

  Oh, interesting. That's one of yours that I haven't read.

• 1:07:12Ryan Holiday?

  It was, it was the most outside my comfort zone. It was the, it was, and weirdly, has done the worst. And so, I also love that, like, I can be proud of it for intrinsic reasons.

• 1:07:26Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, that is, the funny thing about that is, that's how I feel about some of my favorite videos.

• 1:07:31Ryan Holiday?

  Of course. I think every creative person is like, you, you, you have to learn how to separate best from most popular.

• 1:07:38Jay Shetty?

  Totally, yeah.

• 1:07:38Ryan Holiday?

  Because they're not the same.

• 1:07:40Jay Shetty?

  They're not the same. Absolutely, yeah, I agree with you. Okay, question number three. What question do you wish people asked you more often?

• 1:07:46Ryan Holiday?

  I never have a good answer to that question.

• 1:07:48Jay Shetty?

  Ah, interesting.

• 1:07:49Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:49Jay Shetty?

  Okay.

• 1:07:50Ryan Holiday?

  I just don't think about questions that I should be asked.

• 1:07:52Jay Shetty?

  Oh, great. Because your fourth question would have been, I would have asked you that question.

• 1:07:55Ryan Holiday?

  Okay.

• 1:07:55Jay Shetty?

  If you could create a law, based on the teaching you've learned, for the world to follow, what would it be?

• 1:08:02Ryan Holiday?

  That's really good. I don't know, and sort of mandating something defeats the purpose of it. But like, oh, man, that's really good.

• 1:08:14Jay Shetty?

  Thank you, John.

• 1:08:15Ryan Holiday?

  I was talking to Shaka Smart, who's the coach at UT, the basketball coach. He's awesome, very zen, very philosophical. He's saying that he works as a coach. He never criticizes players for something that's not in their control. So like, it's not whether the shot goes in or not. It's whether it was a good shot to take or not, right? And so a lot of times in society, we try to hold people accountable for the the part after the ball has left their fingers, you know? And so maybe there's something about like, sort of going like, hey, was this a good idea at the time you did it? Then you're off the hook. Was this obviously bad when you made the decision? Okay, now actually, we're going to come down on you with full weight, even if it worked out, you know what I mean?

• 1:09:00Ryan Holiday?

  And maybe there's something there.

• 1:09:01Jay Shetty?

  No, that's brilliant. I love that. I don't know how you build a law around it, but

• 1:09:04Ryan Holiday?

  I don't either.

• 1:09:05Jay Shetty?

  That is, yeah, that's, I fully believe that. I think we're so, we so try and either predict how a decision is going to pan out.

• 1:09:13Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:13Jay Shetty?

  And that stops us from making a good decision right now.

• 1:09:15Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:15Jay Shetty?

  Or when the decision goes wrong, we start blaming the time that we made it.

• 1:09:20Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 1:09:20Jay Shetty?

  And like, oh, you shouldn't have told me to do that, or whatever it is. Yeah, that's powerful. I really like that.

• 1:09:25Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:26Jay Shetty?

  Was it a good shot to take?

• 1:09:27Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 1:09:28Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, that's really cool.

• 1:09:29Ryan Holiday?

  Because, look, you know, a great shooter is only going to shoot 50 or 60% from the field. So it's going to miss a certain percentage of the time. But if they don't take the shot, they're not going to make it. So how do you, how do you, how do you? It's easy to yell at them for missing.

• 1:09:43Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:44Ryan Holiday?

  It's harder to go, you'll get it next time.

• 1:09:48Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, exactly. Or you made the right decision there.

• 1:09:51Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 1:09:51Jay Shetty?

  Or you made the wrong, it wasn't, it wasn't that I'm mad that it didn't go in.

• 1:09:54Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:54Jay Shetty?

  I'm actually more upset about the fact that you took a, you went for a three pointer.

• 1:09:58Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, there's, there's like a famous story about John Wooden, where like, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or something made like a behind the back pass. Worked out great, you know, worked out perfectly. And he was like, I'm mad at you because, you know, a behind the back pass, you know, works 70% of the time. Chest pass in that scenario works 80% of the time. So the fact that you made the behind the back pass and it worked. Statistically, does not make that a good decision or not. You actually made the right, you made the wrong decision, even though you got the right outcome.

• 1:10:28Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:28Ryan Holiday?

  Conversely, if you made the chess pass and it hadn't worked out, not, you know, that doesn't mean it's the wrong decision.

• 1:10:34Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. That's, yeah, that's, that's a fun one. I like that a lot. Okay, fifth and final question of the final five is what's been your biggest personal lesson in the last 12 months?

• 1:10:46Ryan Holiday?

  The reason I wrote Stillness was realizing like all the best moments in my life had some kind of stillness in them. And then going, why am I content for that to happen accidentally? Right? So yeah, sure, there's a certain amount of sort of consciously seeking something out can deprive you of it. But it's more like, how am I just going to make sure that I'm not making this thing that I, I actually want X? But are my decisions making X more or less likely, you know? And going, okay, so stillness is the goal. That's the, that's what the aim, that's what success is. But am I making decisions that create more or less room for stillness?

• 1:11:24Ryan Holiday?

  And, and so just that, oh yeah, all the great moments are like this, rather than just sort of hoping that you accidentally get what you want. That's been big for me.

• 1:11:34Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely. Ryan Holiday, everyone. That was his final five. Stillness is the key. Go grab a copy of the book. We will put the link in the bio section and all other places. So make sure you go grab a copy of this book. Like I said, it's, Ryan writes some awesome books. If you haven't read Obstacle is the Way or Ego is the Enemy, which are two of my favorites, then go and grab those with this one too. They all, they're all the same size. They're all perfectly, they, they look good on your shelf together too. Was it, it was always meant to be a trilogy, right?

• 1:12:02Ryan Holiday?

  Sort of. It kind of happened.

• 1:12:03Jay Shetty?

  Okay.

• 1:12:04Ryan Holiday?

  But it's coming out as a box set.

• 1:12:06Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, it is.

• 1:12:07Ryan Holiday?

  It should be fun, yeah.

• 1:12:07Jay Shetty?

  Oh, amazing. I love that. Yeah, no, they're all, they're, they're perfectly designed. I love it.

• 1:12:12Ryan Holiday?

  Thanks, man.

• 1:12:12Jay Shetty?

  But go grab a copy for sure. And Ryan, thank you so much. Go and find Ryan on, on Instagram. Where else would you like people to find you, Ryan?

• 1:12:18Ryan Holiday?

  At Daily Stoic.

• 1:12:19Jay Shetty?

  At Daily Stoic.

• 1:12:20Ryan Holiday?

  Daily Stoic Podcast and then Daily Stoic YouTube.

• 1:12:23Jay Shetty?

  Amazing. Yeah, make sure you go check it out on all the platforms, everyone. Thank you so much for listening. What I'd love for you to do is anything that Ryan said that stood out, and there was a ton in this. I mean, there were incredible stories of people that I've never heard before. There's some great Zen takeaways and the little nuggets of wisdom that are from the book. Tag us both in the Instagram posts when you share them because I love to see what you're learning and what you're gaining from as well, whether you're on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram. Put them out there. Make sure you tag both of us and thank you for listening to On Purpose.

• 1:12:53Ryan Holiday?

  Awesome. Awesome. Thanks, man. That was great. Appreciate it.

• 1:13:05Speaker 02

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' healthcare to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.