#111 How To Build Self-Discipline (5 Step Routine) | Ryan Holiday

Summary

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BigDeal Podcast #111 - How To Build Self-Discipline (5 Step Routine) | Ryan Holiday

Date: December 31, 2025
Host: Codie Sanchez
Guest: Ryan Holiday (bestselling author and modern authority on Stoicism)

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Episode Overview

In this in-depth, candid conversation, Codie Sanchez sits down with Ryan Holiday to break down the practical art of self-discipline, pulling wisdom from ancient Stoic philosophy and modern personal experience. Ryan shares actionable frameworks on building discipline, overcoming procrastination, handling criticism, structuring focused work, and living meaningfully—both now and for the long term. Expect clear, no-BS advice on how to cultivate habits, make sharper decisions under pressure, and achieve freedom through structure. The episode is packed with direct lessons, memorable quotes, and personal stories that will resonate with ambitious listeners seeking more agency and resilience in their lives.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Nature of Discipline: Identity vs. Practice

Timestamps: [00:32], [08:22]

• Discipline is not an innate trait but a habit you build.
  • “The problem is, we tend to think of these ideas as like, things you are or aren’t... Aristotle specifically says, no, no, that’s totally wrong… If you want to be more courageous, you gotta do stuff on a consistent basis that scares you. That’s how you have courage. That’s what discipline is. It’s a habit or a practice that you build, not a thing that you are or aren’t.” — Ryan Holiday [00:37]
• Make discipline accessible and atomic.
  • Rather than framing discipline as a monumental identity goal, pick one clear, actionable habit—like bedtime, or “no sugar”—and build from there. Identity forms through repeated action.

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2. Panic Rules & Handling Crisis

Timestamps: [01:43], [01:57]

• Stoicism is practical for crisis:
  • “When you're sort of in the shit, all [complexity] goes out the window. That’s what I feel like Stoicism as a philosophy is… For the ancients, it was this kind of thing that you practiced…So that in big moments...what do you do then?” — Ryan Holiday [01:57]
• Panic Rules:
  • Focus on what you control.
  • Do the right thing.
  • Don’t let emotions cloud judgement.
  • Simple doesn’t mean easy—return to fundamentals under pressure. [01:57]

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3. Delayed Gratification: “Labor Passes, Rewards Last”

Timestamps: [03:23], [03:50]

• The Stoic View: Hard effort leads to lasting satisfaction; shortcuts yield only fleeting pleasure.
  • “When you do something in pursuit of pleasure, the benefit passes quickly, but the shame or the consequence of it lasts. Conversely, when you do something hard, the labor passes quickly, but the good from that remains.” — Ryan Holiday [03:50]
• Discipline = Present constraint, future freedom.
  • “At some point you do get that gratification and it’s a more sustainable, enduring and stronger reward than whatever you would like to get in this moment.” — Ryan Holiday [03:50]

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4. Freedom Within Constraints

Timestamps: [05:18], [05:57]

• Rules as channels for creativity and cooperation:
  • “If you question everything…what you live in is chaos and dysfunction…discipline is freedom from chaos and dysfunction. It’s allowing you to channel your energy.” — Ryan Holiday [05:57]
• Balancing independent thinking and structure:
  • The best teams (military, business, creative) balance rule-following with independent thought when rules fall short.

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5. Atomic Habits & The Power of Preemptive Moves

Timestamps: [10:30], [10:55]

• Identify “gateway” habits that snowball into larger success:
  • “What is that preemptive move you could do that’s 10x easier but leads to a higher likelihood of you doing the next step?” — Codie Sanchez [10:30]
  • For example: Laying out workout clothes → gym attendance. Deleting social apps → less screen time.
• Remove temptation and make good choices easier.
  • “I don’t have any social media apps on my phone…” — Ryan Holiday [11:05]

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6. Focus & Deep Work

Timestamps: [12:31], [12:42], [14:49]

• Uninterrupted time is key:
  • “The secret to success in almost all fields is large, uninterrupted blocks of focused time.” — Ryan Holiday [12:42]
• Systems to protect focus:
  • Ruthlessly keep things out of your calendar. Schedule your best concentration zones (often mornings) for your most important work.
  • Example: Toni Morrison wrote before sunrise for best focus.

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7. Procrastination as Entitlement & The Reality of Mortality

Timestamps: [16:26], [16:48], [18:59]

• Procrastination is arrogant:
  • “To procrastinate is to be entitled. It assumes there will be a later. It assumes you’ll have the discipline to get it later despite not having the discipline now.” — Codie Sanchez quoting Ryan Holiday [16:26]
• Memento Mori:
  • Stoics meditate on mortality not to be morbid, but to urge action now—because “I'll do it later” is an assumption you may not get to test.
  • “Not only do you not have forever… the person or the thing you’re taking for granted could go away at any moment…in light of it, [procrastination] becomes extremely entitled and in some cases, very reckless.” — Ryan Holiday [16:48]

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8. Enjoying the Journey & Not Just the Reward

Timestamps: [20:26], [23:20]

• Don’t mortgage happiness for results alone:
  • “The idea that the shit now is worth enduring because it will be amazing later is a dangerous thing to fool with…You can do everything right in life and get fucked.” — Ryan Holiday [20:26]
• Love the work itself:
  • “You’re entitled to the work, not the rewards of the work.” — Ryan Holiday [23:20]
  • Don’t be “miserable fuck day to day so that in the future I feel good for two weeks when it comes out, and then I start the whole thing again. That seems like a bad trade…” — Ryan Holiday [23:20]

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9. Negative Visualization & Planning For the Worst

Timestamps: [29:16], [31:52]

• Stoics practice negative visualization:
  • “The unexpected blow lands heaviest...the job of a leader is to be like, okay, we planned for this. Here’s what we’re gonna do.” — Ryan Holiday [29:16]
• Anticipate adversity so you’re not caught off guard.
  • Napoleon: “His generals should say...‘What would I do if the enemy appeared on my left? On my right? Behind me?’” — Ryan Holiday [31:52]

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10. Knowledge Crafting: Ryan's Method for Deep Learning

Timestamps: [33:47], [34:15]

• Analog note-taking:
  • “When I find information that is interesting to me, I write it and organize it and return to it enough times that I develop a feel for it...I read with a pen and I take notes and then I transfer those notes by hand.” — Ryan Holiday [34:09]
• The slowness is the point:
  • It’s about scratching information into memory—“Some things are supposed to be hard.” [34:15]

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11. Favorite & Most-Influential Books

Timestamps: [40:05]

• Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
• Robert Greene, Mastery, 48 Laws of Power, Laws of Human Nature
• Emerson & Thoreau, Self-Reliance, Civil Disobedience
• Tolstoy, Calendar of Wisdom
  • (Recommended as a daily reader)
• All of the Stoics: Seneca, Epictetus

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12. Teaching Wisdom to Children

Timestamps: [42:34], [44:46]

• Use stories and fables to seed wisdom.
• Familiarity with great stories (e.g., Odyssey, myths) builds long-term moral frameworks.

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13. Self-Knowledge as the Ultimate Asset

Timestamps: [45:13], [45:34]

• Know thyself: “So much knowledge is lost to us because we are ourselves lost and lost unto ourselves.”
• Self-awareness beats “smarts” in crucial moments—know what triggers your patterns.

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14. Ego: When Confidence Becomes a Liability

Timestamps: [48:07], [50:16]

• Ego prevents growth by blocking feedback and objective self-evaluation.
  • “The idea that you don’t have an ego is like the definition of ego.”
• Most obstacles are internal, not external.
• Don’t let achievements trap you in a fixed identity or fear of failure.

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15. Practices to Check Ego and Accept Critique

Timestamps: [53:21]

• Watch for signs: defensiveness, “How dare you?” “Who do they think they are?”
  • Delay your reaction to criticism.
  • Your first reaction is usually ego; engage with feedback after a cooling period.

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16. Opinions: The Power to Abstain

Timestamps: [55:06], [55:22]

• You always have the power to have no opinion—don’t waste energy on unhelpful arguments.
• Save strong opinions for things that truly matter to your life or values.

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17. Social Media & Haters: The Stoic Perspective

Timestamps: [61:58], [62:10], [64:05], [66:52], [67:33], [68:40]

• Negative reactions are inevitable; the more success, the more raw numbers of critics.
  • “I take to mean there are millions of people who don’t like me, not just millions who do.” — Ryan Holiday [64:05]
• Criticism is a mathematical certainty: accept it, don’t personalize.
• Marcus Aurelius: We care more about others’ opinions than our own, which is irrational.
• “If they truly knew you, they’d probably say something worse.” — Epictetus via Ryan Holiday [66:52]
• “Don’t let them drag you down to their level...we’re all made to work with each other.” — Ryan Holiday [67:35]
• Compassion for haters; their negativity is their lot, not yours.

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18. Bonus: Donkeys, Parenting, and Marketing Stunts

Timestamps: [68:43], [70:08], [71:05]

• Ryan is a fan of donkeys—protective, loving, clever animals, useful for his ranch and family.
• His early career explored the limits of marketing, sometimes via provocative or unconventional stunts (Trust Me, I’m Lying).
• Eventually pivoted to focus on work that reflected his values, informed by lessons on integrity and selfhood.

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Notable Quotes

• On Discipline:
  • “It’s a habit or a practice that you build, not a thing that you are or aren’t." — Ryan Holiday [00:37]
• On Procrastination:
  • “To procrastinate is to be entitled. It assumes there will be a later…" — Codie Sanchez [16:26]
• On Work and Reward:
  • “You’re entitled to the work, not the rewards of the work.” — Ryan Holiday [23:20]
• On Critics:
  • “This person was statistically guaranteed to exist. There’s no escaping it.” — Ryan Holiday [64:05]
• On Ego:
  • “The idea that you don’t have an ego is like the definition of ego.” — Ryan Holiday [48:07]
• On Deep Work:
  • “The secret to success in almost all fields is large, uninterrupted blocks of focused time.” — Ryan Holiday [12:42]
• On Self-Awareness:
  • “So much knowledge is lost to us because we are ourselves lost and lost unto ourselves.” — Codie Sanchez [45:13]

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Memorable Moments

• Ryan talks through his “no social media apps on phone” rule and the power of environment design. [11:05]
• The story of the editorial feedback loop and using delay to override immediate ego reactions. [53:21]
• A frank discussion on the futility of chasing universal approval or legacy—and why it doesn’t matter. [64:05]
• Parenting wisdom: using myths, stories, and history to impart enduring lessons to children. [44:46]

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Suggested Action Steps

• Choose one “discipline gateway” habit to start, with a clear boundary (e.g., bedtime, dietary rule).
• Schedule a blank block on your calendar for deep work.
• Practice negative visualization: plan for what could go wrong so you’re less rattled by setbacks.
• Set up your environment to make good behaviors easier: remove digital temptations, etc.
• Cultivate self-knowledge: reflect, journal, and seek objective feedback.
• Accept that criticism and haters are a mathematical inevitability—not a personal referendum.
• Remember: “You’re entitled to the work, not the rewards of the work.”
• Re-read formative books, not just once, but again as you grow.

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For further reading:
Ryan Holiday’s books (The Obstacle is the Way, Ego is the Enemy, The Daily Stoic, Wisdom at Work, Trust Me, I’m Lying) and recommended classical texts: Meditations, Emerson, Thoreau, Robert Greene, Tolstoy’s Calendar of Wisdom.

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Transcript

[Ryan Holiday]

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[Podcast Host]

Just grew out of.

[Ryan Holiday]

Download depop to start selling.

[Podcast Host]

What is the simplest, smallest action that you could apply to have discipline in your life?

[Ryan Holiday]

The problem is, we tend to think of these ideas as, like, things you are or aren't. Aristotle specifically says, no, no, that's totally wrong. So if you want to be more courageous, you got to do stuff on a consistent basis that scares you. That's how you have courage. That's what discipline is. It's a habit or a practice that you build, not a thing that you are or aren't.

[Podcast Host]

Today, bestselling author Ryan Holiday breaks down the exact frameworks he uses to stay calm when everything's on fire, make sharper decisions under pressure, and, most importantly for you, to get things done. So if you want to build a mind that doesn't crack when the stakes get high, this conversation is for you. How do you battle procrastination, and what have you learned through stoicism? On how the greats do this, too.

[Ryan Holiday]

Seneca says, this is the one thing all fools have in common, is that they're always getting ready to start. You know, I'll do it in the morning is probably the most insidious lie there is. But it also presumes that there is a later.

[Podcast Host]

Can stoicism help with anxiety?

[Ryan Holiday]

Of course we know the stoics experience anxiety. Mark Zabrelis talks about it in Meditations. He says.

[Podcast Host]

You gave some advice that I thought was really prolific on what to do when you are panicking and you have no idea what to do next. So I wanted to ask you, what do you do when you're in a moment of crisis? You're panicking, but you've got to break free.

[Ryan Holiday]

So actually, this came from a talk I gave to the Los Angeles Rams. We were talking about this idea of panic rules. Like, what do you do when coverage gets blown? What do you do when things go crazy? What are the sort of bedrock best practices that you go back to? Because I think we make a lot of things very complicated. And then when you're sort of in the shit, all that goes out the window. That's what I feel like Stoicism as a philosophy is we tend to think of philosophy as theoretical and abstract and very high minded. But for the ancients, it was this kind of thing that you practiced and you went over over and over and over again. So that in big moments, like when you have a big life decision or your life is on the line, or your whole world is falling apart, like, what do you do then? So that's what I think a panic rule is. And I guess if you're sort of distilling stoicism down to some core practices, it's like, focus on what you control, do the right thing. You know, don't let your emotions cloud your judgment about this. Just because they're simple doesn't mean they're easy.

[Podcast Host]

That's so, so true. You know, it's interesting because I have read your book, I was telling you for years, the Daily Stoic. And why I love it is because Stoicism, you know, if I'm going to go back and read Epictetus, or if I'm going to go back and read even Meditations, which I find like a little bit more accessible, it's dense stuff.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

And what I think your books do such an incredible job of, and I want people to get today, is how to take these core ideas that lead to a disciplined and in some ways more beautiful life because of that discipline, and get it simply. And so you had this great quote that I loved, which is, when you're lacking motivation, remind yourself, discipline now, freedom later. The labor will pass and the rewards will last. Can you tell me more about that?

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. There's a line from one of the great Stoic teachers, his name was Musonius Rufus. And he said, you know, when you do something in pursuit of pleasure, or you're taking a shortcut, like the benefit that you get from that passes quickly, but the shame or the consequence of it lasts. And he says, conversely, when you do something hard, the labor passes quickly, but like the good from that remains. Like when you work out, it's painful in the moment. When you get in a cold plunge, it's unpleasant at first. When you get up early, you're tired, when you work an extra hour, there's a cost to that, but the benefits, they not just endure in many cases way off in the future. The pleasures or the benefits that you experience are a lagging indicator from that. And so if we want to think of discipline, discipline is, or self discipline anyway, is about constraint. Do this, don't do that, that's hard. But it provides you the freedom down the road because you either have some financial security, you have strength, you have confidence, you have health, whatever the thing you're delaying gratification for. Well, at some point you do get that gratification and it's a more sustainable, enduring and stronger reward than whatever you would like to get in this moment.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. My husband's a former Navy seal and he, I remember, you know, asking him once, like, why do you like to follow the rules so much? He actually likes to follow the rules often. I think you would agree with that classification. And I, I sort of don't. And so, and silly rules, like, I'm going to walk across the street, not in the crosswalk, like, very silly things. And he'll be like, let's just wait for the. And you know, I was like, how does that work? Like, you're a Navy seal. And his comment to me was like, the only reason that we could do the things that we did is because we had to operate inside of the rules.

[Ryan Holiday]

Sure.

[Podcast Host]

And like the second that you lose the rules, there's actually all of this freedom within the constraints.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. There's an artist, I forget who it was, that said, you know, you want to be orderly in your sort of personal life, in your space, in the studio, so that you could be radically transgressive in the art. And I think there's something to that. Like, it does require a certain amount of rule breaking and independent thinking to be successful at anything. But if you question everything, if you're contrarian about everything, if you're disregard everything, what you live in is chaos and dysfunction. And also it's exhausting because you have to think about everything. And so when we think about discipline, again, as a constraint, what it really is is freedom also from that chaos and disgr. Dysfunction. And it's allowing you to channel your energy. One of the things I do talk about when I talk to military groups is sort of the tension you're talking about, which is like the whole system is about creating rule followers, creating cohesion, creating coherence, creating camaraderie, a sameness, and yet ultimately be successful at the end. There has to be independent thinking. There has to be the ability to, in the moment, do hard, right things. And so, you know, from the entrepreneurial space, you can get so used to just doing your own thing that it makes it hard for you to function as part of a team or part of a group or, or just like simplify your existence. And then conversely, you can live in a very simple, straightforward existence. You know, you do what they tell you your whole life, and then come some big moment where what they're telling you is wrong or incorrect or dangerous, and do you have the courage and strength to ignore those rules? Then? That's the tension every individual has to figure out.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, you know, you've read I don't even know how many books and papers and research. You own a bookstore, for the love of God. And so what I think is interesting is if we take these esoteric ideas, kind of like discipline, you do a great job of simplifying them to the things that you can do. So if somebody's listening today and they're like, all right, I'm buying in. I'm buying what you're selling. I'm buying this idea that a life that is more disciplined could actually be better. What is the simplest, smallest daily habit or action that you could apply to have discipline in your life?

[Ryan Holiday]

The problem is we tend to think of these virtues or these ideas as things you are or aren't that you have or don't have. I'm a courageous person. I'm a creative person. I'm a disciplined person. And then it's this matter of identity. And then when we don't have it, we feel bad about ourselves. Actually, the ancients, Aristotle specifically says, no, no, no, that's totally wrong. It's something you do or don't do, Right? He says, to be a woodworker, you work with wood. That's how you develop the skill, the virtue of woodworking or playing the flute or whatever it is. So if you want to be more courageous, you got to do stuff on a consistent basis that scares you. That's how you have courage. You either are doing it or not. So it's a verb and not a noun. And so if discipline. You're going into the new year, a lot of us are like, I want to eat better. Maybe you're like, I want to be more disciplined. Well, that's a really hard thing to be, generally. So you want to pick some specific things and, you know, like, what time you wake up is a great one. Or conversely, what time do you go to bed? Like, a lot of people are like, you got to wake up early. Well, waking up early in isolation is not great if you stay up till two in the morning, right? Because now you're actually being. You have what they would call in the military, poor sleep. Discipline, Right? And so maybe it's like, hey, in 2026, I'm going to go to bed by 10pm every night. Then You've just, by the way, made getting up earlier a lot easier. So I would pick some core, accessible, definable tasks or items that you're going to be more disciplined about. Even, like, I want to eat better this year. That is a very hard, ill defined thing to do. But if you say, I'm going to quit sugar this year or, or I'm gonna go vegan this year, whatever, it could be any across the spectrum of the thing. The point is, what is the black and white line that you're drawing? And then you're on one side of that line or not. That's what discipline is. It's a habit or a practice that you build, not a thing that you are or aren't.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, that's a good point. I also like this idea of that you said. What is the one easier sort of snowball effect move that you could do that makes the others more simple? And so, like, you're right, getting up early is harder than going to sleep earlier. Whereas, like, laying out your workout clothes easier than just going to the gym. Sure. So it's like, what is that preemptive move you could do that's 10x easier but leads to a higher likelihood of you doing the next step?

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, like, I want to use my phone less this year. Okay, so I'm going to delete social media apps from my phone or I'm not going to.

[Podcast Host]

Do you actually do that?

[Ryan Holiday]

I don't have any social media apps on my phone.

[Podcast Host]

It's like, my husband, he's the same.

[Ryan Holiday]

This is. So obviously I have to use it for my work. I mean, I have a team that helps me, but if I have to check, it's on my wife's phone. So I go, hey, can I borrow your phone for a second? And then there's a ticking clock. She's like, give me my phone back. But the point is, how do you make it a little bit less tempting? Right? Or maybe you go, I'm not going to sleep with my phone in the room, or I'm going to leave it in the car when I get home from work. And so you can say, hey, generally I just want to do less of this thing. Which means you're going to have to make lots of individual choices throughout the day and the week and the month and the year. And you might be able to start strong with that. But as you go on, because you're tired, because you're hungry, because stuff's happening, you're going to be able to make excuses. And so how can you make clearer, simpler things that have like a big cumulative impact. That's what you want to think about.

[Podcast Host]

We're just such good self rationalizing machines too. Like, I've realized that, you know, everybody's like, oh, that guy's bad, that guy's good. I'm like, we're all sort of bad and good. We're just varying degrees of good at self rationalizing why we're bad or good.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes. Yeah. I mean, there is this insidious voice that's always sort of, well, it's okay this time, right? The ability to make excuses, the ability to make exceptions. This is like our superpower. And you want to sort of preempt that as much as you can.

[Podcast Host]

I like this idea of no phones because you have another quote I love, which is the secret to success in almost all fields is large, uninterrupted blocks of focused time, of course, which feels one impossible to get.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

And so how do we get it? And why is that the key? What does history and your experience tell us?

[Ryan Holiday]

You know, most of the big things in my life came from lots of thinking or concentration. I had an epiphany, I had an insight, I had an idea. I worked really hard on a problem. And then you go, well, if that's really the big mover, right? I mean, even the number of ideas that I've had on vacation or on walks with my family, I go, if I didn't have the discipline to put my work down and go for a hike. The last series I did, I had the idea on a hike with my kids. And so how are you setting the events in motion so that thing can happen? Right? And I think people know that, you know, creativity and problem solving requires focus. And then you go, okay, but when I look at your calendar, you were all meetings, all day, all week. Of course you haven't been having ideas, right? Of course you haven't been having those conversations that unlock something. And also, of course you aren't happy. Like, this isn't what you're meant to do. You're not meant to be on zoom calls all day. This sucks. Right? And so I think, like, when I look at my calendar, I was just talking to my assistant about this. Their job is to keep things out of the calendar, not put things in the calendar. The calendar should have large amounts of white space, in my opinion. And that's not because I'm not working. It's because I haven't scheduled interruptions to the work. If there's a blank space in the calendar, I'm going to use that productively. That's who I am. But if there is podcasts and meetings and errands and phone calls, not only am I not doing the thing now, the thing I'm supposed to be doing is I'm trying to squeeze into the little cracks as opposed to it being the main thing. So how do we schedule the time when we're at our best is really important. And to me, I think you find this with most creative people, it's usually the mornings when it's quietest. Toni Morrison, the novelist, she was a single mom and she was an editor at Random House as she's working on her first novel. And she found, like, to get any writing done, she had to get up, she said, not just to get writing done, but to do her best writing. She liked to write as she saw the sunrise. And then she said she found that she did her best writing before she heard the word mom for the first time. And so you're like, okay, so you know that that is from 4:30am to 6:00am and so you've got to orient your day around that. Not. Well, that's when I'm best. But I actually sit down finally to write at 2pm and so when are you at your best? When can you concentrate the most? When are the fewest interruptions? And then how do you make some hard adult decisions to center everything around that?

[Podcast Host]

I feel like you need to stop yelling at me.

[Ryan Holiday]

Sorry.

[Podcast Host]

Because I feel very called out about this.

[Ryan Holiday]

I'm yelling at myself as well. And these are things you learn the hard way. Like, every time I sit down to work in the afternoon, I'm like, this is why I don't do this. Because, like, I'm at best 70% of my best, you know, and that's not what you want to be doing.

[Podcast Host]

But I love that line. Like, your job is to take things, keep things off the calendar. Not put that on, put them on. That is not typically how we think. And it's like this inverse thinking, you know, the Charlie Mungerism, which is like, what is actually the goal? And so how can we think two or three steps forward? I like how your mind works like that. And so you have a couple quotes that I love too, on procrastination.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Which is something we all struggle with. But this one about to procrastinate is to be entitled. It is arrogant. It assumes there will be a later. It assumes you'll have the discipline to get it later. Despite not having the discipline now.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

And it's so beautiful. And so tell me, how do you battle procrastination? And what have you learned through stoicism? On how the greats do this too?

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, we all battle procrastination. Seneca says this is the one thing all fools have in common is that they're always getting ready to start, right? Like, we don't say we're never going to do it, we say tomorrow, we say next week, we say in the new year, right? We say when the kids start school. We make up a reason why it can't be now. And the problem with this, this connects to another really, I think, powerful stoic practice. I have a memento mori ring on right now. The Stoics are meditating on our mortality. So it's not just like, hey, you're probably not gonna get to it later. That's a lie we tell ourselves. I'll do it in the morning is probably the most insidious lie there is. But it also presumes that there is a later, right? It presumes that you can call your mom, you know, when things settle down. It presumes that next year is yours to take for granted. And it's not. We don't have forever. Not just that all of us are going to die at some point, but that point could be like, right now, or conversely, could be someone else. I mean, it was a very life changing experience for me. I feel guilty on some level that it came out of such a, you know, that it came at such a cost. But I remember when I was an editor at this newspaper, a friend of mine sent me this article. He was like, hey, here's my column. And I saw it. I remember I looked at the email and I was like, I'll get to this on Monday, you know, and he died on Sunday. He went out for a hike and he had a heart attack and he died. And I didn't even give him the courtesy of saying, like, hey, I got this. Thank you. I'll review it on Monday. I just. I left him on read, you know, and so not only do you not have forever, not only could you go at any moment, but the person or the thing that you're taking for granted could go away at any moment. And so it's not that it is for certain going to go, but it could. And this has to inform our procrastination, our tendency to procrastinate, because in light of it, it becomes extremely entitled and in some cases, very reckless.

[Podcast Host]

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[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things you see as high achievers or high performance people is this idea. We're talking about delayed gratification. That is what makes them great. Right? Like, I'm going to be really miserable now so that in the future I can be successful. And there's something to that, right? Like, as I say, all success is a lagging indicator. The problem is, and this isn't so much about Memento Mori, but it is an important thing. The idea that the shit now is worth enduring because it will be amazing later is a dangerous thing to fool with. Not just because you might not get later, but because you don't actually control whether later happens. By that, I don't mean you could die. I just mean the market could shift, the economy could crash, the government could nationalize your industry. So many things could happen, right? Like, you can do everything right in life and get fucked. And so I do think we spend a lot of time doing things in the present, but we're trading it for this future payoff. And again, this is partly rational and partly okay, but it can be like I've just learned that if, and I learned this the hard way over the many books that I've done. If the experience is miserable and painful and lonely and stressful, but the payoff is that it comes out and it hits the list and people say nice things about it. That's a big gamble because you can get screwed by the list. Your book could come out in the middle of a pandemic. You could get canceled. Things can happen. And so I've tried to do a lot of work at getting better, at not being miserable while I'm doing it right? Like, how do I enjoy it while I'm doing it? That doesn't mean I don't work any less hard. But what I try to do is go like, this is the part that's up to me. And so enjoying it and getting rewarded for it is also up to me. And I'm not going to be a miserable fuck day to day so that in the future I feel good for two weeks when it comes out, and then I start the whole thing again. That seems like a bad trade is, I guess what I'm saying. And I think a lot of, like, whenever I talk to athletes, there's not a single athlete that you will ever talk to who's retired, who doesn't say something like, I wish I enjoyed playing more, because at some point it just goes away. And then at that point, the winning and losing stops mattering. And all they think back is like, I was in the NBA and I was miserable because of winning or losing instead of being able to just be grateful that I get to play professional basketball. Do you know what I mean?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, 100%. So how do you enjoy the journey while it is a miserable one?

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, in the Bhagavad Gita, they say that you're entitled to the work, not the rewards of the work. And so you go, okay, this is the thing. There was a period in my life when I was younger when all I wanted was a chance to do a book right? And here I am doing that right. Like, this is the dream. This is what I signed up for. Like, you love real estate, you love managing people, you love training, you love practice, whatever. The thing is, you have to love it and not what maybe or maybe not comes out of the other side. And so I just try to put the finishing touches on it each day and go, like, I did my absolute best. I made a positive contribution. I got to do this thing. I gave my best. That's wonderful. And then I try to think of whatever rewards or success happens later, not as unimportant, but as extra so. I've said this before, but I remember on my first book, you know, I was probably 10% proud and happy that I got to do a book and 90% that that period where so for people don't know, your books, your books come out on a Tuesday, sales are basically pre orders then Tuesday through Sunday and then there's this period from Sunday to Wednesday and then back a million years ago when I started, there was also Friday. You would find out on the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal list that week period where the book was done. And there's nothing else I could do. And I was waiting to hear how it did. That was 90% of the success for me on that first book. Right. Like I'm waiting, I'm waiting for somebody else who I don't know, who is following arbitrary made up rules and has a bias and an agenda. I'm waiting for them to tell me the vast majority, whether in the vast majority of cases what I just worked for years of my life on was worth it or not. And that is crazy, right? Like if, if waiting for the deal to close or the wire to come through or the, the article to hit the presses or whatever the thing is, right, the Grammy nomination to come in, the, the, the Oscars, whatever. The thing is, if that's all of it for you, you better hope everything goes right and you're part of the in crowd and they accept you. And so I've tried steadily and it's been a lot of work and there's been some ups and downs, but I've tried to flip that like 90%. I get to do my dream. I said what I wanted to say. I worked really hard on this. I know it's good. I grew as a person. All these things that are up to me and then there's 10% where I'm like, sweet. It debuted at number one. That's really cool too. But like, I was already in the A range before that happened.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. You know, it's funny with creating online too. It's. I've really found it the same way. I haven't been doing it as long as you, but let's say I started getting online three and a half, four years ago. And at first it's so easy to get sucked into this arbitrary number of people who engage or don't engage, like or don't like. And at some point you start realizing that you hate the thing that you created to get the likes for other People to like it, but you don't like it. It is the most bizarre circle. Until finally, thankfully, I was older when I started doing it. And I was like, this is a sick disease. Why are we playing this game? Yes, let's create things we actually like and are proud of. And don't get me wrong, we stray away from it all the time and all of a sudden I'm in a chicken suit on South Congress or something ludicrous. You're like, how did we get here? But that practice of coming back to, did I create this thing? Because I'm really proud of it and I think it should exist in the world and if everybody hates it, fuck me, but I don't care.

[Ryan Holiday]

And also, how do you set up systems and a culture and make choices where it's enjoyable while you're doing it? Right? So if you create so much stress and so much anxiety and so much pressure, and by the way, you're doing so many things at one time that your life sucks again. You're putting it all on the potential payoff, which if you talk to successful people, nobody ever gets. And I don't mean that they're never successful. I just mean nobody feels like they arrived, that they finally got more out of it than they put into it. That never happens. So you have to think, how do you make your day to day life and system and career and the thing you do as close to a form of reward and enjoyment and a process that you appreciate? And then here's the trick is like, if that's the case, you will do it a lot and you will probably make good stuff that works, right? If you hate it and it's the worst, I know people who, they haven't done this and so they just don't do that much work. They're intimidated and reluctant to start again. Right. Like, if you're an athlete who's dreading the start of the season, well, you're not gonna work that hard in the off season. But if you're like someone who I just fucking love playing, you're gonna play all the time and you're always gonna be thinking about it and you're just gonna put more into it. So weirdly, I found the less I think about what the stoics would call the externals, the more I just do better work. And then paradoxically, the more I get the things.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, it is sort of funny, isn't it? You know, I wanna talk about another paradox that I loved, a story you wrote actually in the new book Wisdom at Work. Which is you tell the story of a Zen master and his beautifully prized cup, and what happens? And then the story of Epictetus and his lamp. And one, I think it'd be interesting for you to tell the story if you remember it. And then two, I want to talk about. I can't sometimes reconcile the positive versus the negative of, like, manifesting or focusing on things.

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, the Zen masters have a lot of stories about cups. I think the one you're talking about is the Zen master who has a cup. It's his prized possession. And he tells himself over and over again, the cup is already broken. The cup is already broken. And one day the cup breaks. And he's not surprised by it. For the Stoics, although I'm sure they did appreciate positive visualization, they actually practiced negative visualization. So if the Stoics believed that the secret was real, they'd be getting themselves in some real trouble, right? Because they said that actually you should be thinking about the worst case scenario, thinking about the cup being broken, thinking about the travel delays, thinking about getting canceled, thinking about the deal falling through, thinking about negative media attention. And their point was not that this invites this to happen, because that's not how that works. It was that the unexpected lands the heaviest, right? Seneca said that the one thing a leader is never allowed to say is, wow, I didn't think that would happen. And you're right. He's right. That is the job of a leader is to be like, okay, we planned for this. Here's what we're gonna do, right? And you're talking about your husband, a Navy seal. They practice for the worst things the most, right? They don't go like, and here's how it goes swimmingly, because it always goes swimmingly, right? It's like, I mean, on the famous bin Laden raid, they had an extra helicopter because they planned that one might crash, right? And what you get, not only is the situations where one crashes and then you have the extra helicopter, but you've also developed this muscle of like, hey, shit goes wrong all the time, and I don't freak out. I just go to the next option. And so that's what you want to cultivate, right? So, like, people. The Stoics use this word indifferent a lot. And people think that indifference is like. That's a controversial word, right? Like, indifference means you. You don't care. But the Stoics meant it in the sense like, I'm indifferent to whether it is hot or cold. I'm indifferent to whether it is a bull market. Or a bear market. Right. Like whether it's time of peace or time of war. Because I'm going to figure out what I'm going to do. Right. That's what it's about. So I don't think it's like pessimistic and I also don't think it's like tempting fate. What you're trying to do is think about what could happen so that if and when that does happen, you're like, okay. And then you do what you need to do.

[Podcast Host]

So do you think most people visualize or manifest wrong?

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, I think most people are afraid to think of bad things because. Because they think they'll invite that into their life. And the problem is bad things are going to come into your life whether you think about them or not. And that's what they mean when they say the unexpected blow lands heaviest. Like, to be surprised is to add insults to injury. Right. To think it's unfair, to think that it's devastating to not know what to do. That's how you take a bad thing and make it worse. So I don't think in a bull market or in a boom, time to be going, what would I do if market dropped by 40%? That's not going to make the market go up or down. But it does put in, it puts in motion some thoughts that you might need to rely on at some point. Napoleon said that his generals should say to themselves three times a day, what would I do if the enemy appeared on my left? What would I do if the enemy appeared on my right? What would I do if the enemy appeared on me, behind me? And this is to say, like, you don't know what the enemy is going to do. They're precisely trying to come upon you as a surprise. But also I think it's just a good mental exercise. Like it's, it's keeping your mind moving instead of being complacent and secure, which, you know, none of us are.

[Podcast Host]

Do you think you have a photographic memory? Your one liner recall is amazing.

[Ryan Holiday]

This is my job. This is my job. I don't think I have a. Actually, I know I don't have a photographic memory. What I have is a system by which when I find information that is interesting to me, I write it and organize it and return to it enough times that I develop a feel for it.

[Podcast Host]

I want to hear about that because, you know, you talk about Abraham Lincoln, you know, famously, I think people would call him a stubborn reader.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

And that he, you know, would have to in order to get him to remember something, you would have to, like, etch it on steel. And steel is quite hard to etch.

[Ryan Holiday]

No, no, what he said was that his mind was like steel, that it's, it was hard. It's hard to scratch something into it.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Ryan Holiday]

But once it's there, it's there forever.

[Podcast Host]

So I want to talk about that. So what is your process to do that?

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, I read a lot. I see myself as like a professional reader. That's my job. And then I don't leave it there. Like, I read with a pen and I take notes and then I transfer those notes. I was just before this, I just read something for a book I'm writing and taking that, and I'm transferring it to note cards by hand. And it's not quick and it is not scalable. But that is like the whole point. I think sometimes we look for technological solutions to make things easy. And the whole point is some things are supposed to be hard. You know, it's supposed to be difficult. And it is in the difficult part that you're scratching it into the steel and then it's there. So I do. I take advantage of all sorts of new tools, of course, AI being one of them. But my research method is as analog and as old school as it can be because I'm trying to actually understand what I'm dealing with.

[Podcast Host]

You know, I love this because you talk a lot about knowledge. I mean, you could say your entire project in some way is that. And I think it was in Wisdom at Work. But I loved the line from the book. It's actually from Thomas Gray, I believe, where he said, you must love learning if you would possess it.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

And, and I think that was applied to, to Lincoln in your book. But as a stubborn learner, somebody who wants to possess knowledge, how do we do that? How do you actually go and learn things? You've talked about reading books multiple times. You've talked about rereading them. Like, how does one go and really acquire deep knowledge and remember it.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. There's a, a magical thing that happens when you get a payoff for having learned and studied something. Right. I think in school you're assigned a bunch of books and the payoff is like you do well on a test that you're not sure why you're having to do. But the first time you read a book and it changes your life or it makes you a friend or it makes you money and you go, oh, there was a return on this investment. Warren Buffett is told to read the Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. And that's probably the single best investment in human history. He reads this one book and he makes $100 billion. But my life was changed by a handful of books that I read. It's a hard thing to explain until you've experienced it. But when you go, oh, this is for something, this isn't just to impress random people. But there is in these books, in these lectures, in these experiences, and these people out there like priceless wisdom. Things that can not just save you painful trial and error, but can make you money, can change the course of your life. That's like a really powerful thing. And it's sad to think, like, most people or many people have never experienced that. Like, you talk to people when you're like, oh, I haven't read a book since high school. And you go, so you learned a lot of things the hard way. You know, there's a lot of things that every phase of your life from then to now, everything you've done, a lot of people have done before you and made all the mistakes and made all the right choices and written books about it or made videos about it or talked about it, or there's movies. There's so many things you could have learned that you decided to learn on your own. That's crazy.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. So good, so good. So good.

[Ryan Holiday]

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[Podcast Host]

Toast the holidays in a new way and raise a glass of Rumchata, a delicious creamy blend of horchata with rum. Enjoy it over ice or in your coffee. Rumchata. Your holiday cocktails just got sweeter tap or click the banner for more drink responsibly. Caribbean rum with real dairy cream, natural and artificial flavors. Alcohol 13.75% by volume 27.5 proof. Copyright 2025 Agave Loco Brands, Pojoaquee, Wisconsin. All rights of reserved. So you're about to make a trade based on a friend's text, but which you do you listen to is it we could buy a house in Tulum, get optioning those options. We could lose everything. Or let's do a little research, get your head in the trade and make the investment decision that's right for you. Learn [e-mail] TradeSmart Also, I think books are really unique because you have to. If you're not listening to them but reading them, you really can't do anything else. There's no multitasking while reading a book. Whereas a movie, you could be thinking about other things. It's very passive. Like reading is so active. And again, to your point, on hard things lead to the right outcome. It's harder.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

And so it probably does get that scratch and steal that, you know, Lincoln talks about. But I was curious for you. You're a big re reader of books from what I can see. So what are the five, ten books that Ryan Holiday says changed his life and that you go back to and reread over and over again?

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, I think reading a book once is great, but when you read it again, you are reading a new book because you're a new person. The book is the same, but you are in a different place and you will take different things out of it. I think Marcus Aurelius's Meditations is one of the most incredible books ever written. The Private Thoughts are the most powerful man in the world. It's an amazing book. I think all of Robert Greene's books are amazing. Mastery is worth reading and rereading. The 48 laws of power, the laws of Human Nature, Reich Roberts stuff is designed to be layered and to take multiple things out of them. I think Thoreau and Emerson, civil disobedience and self reliance. Also incredible. All of the Stoics. You have Seneca, you have Epictetus. I love. I read this book by Tolstoy almost every day called the Calendar of Wisdom, which is like a collection of all of the reading he did in the course of his life. Just like little passages every day. It sort of says it's a similar book to the Daily Stoic. I think the idea is that to really understand something, you got to spend a lot of time with. Can't be. People are always looking for shortcuts, you know, and they're like, oh, I read this on 3x speed on audiobook. And you're like, I don't know if that's. I don't know if that's winning here. Like, I don't. It's. I don't know if you're trying to get it done as fast as possible. I think you're trying to spend as much time as possible with it. And so, you know, I don't know anyone that reads a lot. That's like trying to. To spend less time doing it.

[Podcast Host]

No, that's Definitely not. The case is Tolstoy's book. Is he just like tragically sad throughout it? I find all of his writing to be such.

[Ryan Holiday]

His fiction is very much that way. But this is. It has more hope in it and it's more spiritual than you would guess.

[Podcast Host]

Interesting.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, it was banned, so he wrote it. He thought it was his greatest book. This thing called Calendar of Wisdom. And then the Russian Revolution happens almost right after his death. And so it's banned and it's not really rediscovered until the late 80s. So it's just. It's a very popular book, but it's much, much less known than any of his fiction. And it's like a lovely little self help book.

[Podcast Host]

What let's give, like for a particular person. So you're a father, you have a son and a daughter?

[Ryan Holiday]

I have two sons.

[Podcast Host]

Two sons, yeah. So, you know, for them coming into young men, let's say, what are the books that you will set on their desk as they come into being young men that you would want?

[Ryan Holiday]

That's a good question. I haven't come up with the reading list yet. Cause they're still pretty young, but we spent a lot of time when they were young. Look, children's books are great and they're all about pizza and monkeys and ridiculous shit. And I love that. There's nothing better than your kids having fun reading. Adam Rubin has this book called the High Five Book. Have you seen this one where you're smacking it? They have this one right now that they love called the the Dumb Guide to All the Stupid Birds in the World. And it's just filled with cursing. I love all that stuff. But I think that's not why we read to our kids. Right? Like we read to our kids to instill them lessons and to teach them how to be a person in the world. And so we've spent a lot of time with the sort of myths and stories and fables, you know, like Aesop's fables operate on these incredible multitude of levels. Right. Like to them it's a funny story about a fox and grapes. And to you it's a lesson about not being jealous or abandoning what you have because you want something else or writing off what someone else has. What I mean is that I try to go to the things that contain wisdom that maybe they don't fully understand in the moment. But I want that familiarity to be there and I want it to be working on their brains. So we spent the last couple years doing the Odyssey and then we listened to podcasts about it, and then we read a graphic novel about it, and then we read the actual poetry, and then we went to Greece. And what I'm trying to do is when there's that flicker of interest, to fill it with all the possibilities of that thing. But I try to go mostly to stories of great men and women from history that are gonna inspire them to want to be like those people. Because I don't want them to be like a monkey or whatever. Like, I want them to be like Cincinnatus or the 300 Spartans or George Washington. I want to pick those kind of stories that whether they're true or not is much less important to me than whether they have some kind of moral lesson that sticks with them. That, by the way, when they get into situations in life, I can be like, this is like that thing that we learned about. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

You know, you have a lot in here, which I think is hard for people to do, but so important, which is about, like, knowing oneself. And so, you know, there's a quote about so much knowledge is lost to us because we are ourselves lost and lost unto ourselves. The Oracle of Delphi sort of famously says, know thyself.

[Ryan Holiday]

There's three things inscribed over the temple of Apollo in Delphi, where I was just this summer, and it's know thyself, all things in moderation. And then this one, I think, has particular relevance to entrepreneurs, planners. It says, offer a guarantee and disaster threatens, which is basically Murphy's Law. If you think it's going to go this way, just wait. But we tend to chase knowledge. We want to learn about all these facts in the world. We want to learn about these systems, this history, how physics works, how the universe works. And then, yeah, we're strangers to ourselves. I've met a lot of smart people. I would say I've met many fewer people with what we would call self awareness, right? And that self knowledge and knowledge of our weaknesses. A knowledge of why we are the way we are, a knowledge of what we like, knowledge of what we don't like, knowledge of how and why we operate, by the way, also, just knowledge of humanity, too, is why I think Robert Greene's book on human nature is so important. But just like knowing, like, how we work, why we work. And some of this you get from reading, some of it you get from experience, some of it you get from therapy, some of it you get from close friends. But the idea of just knowing yourself is ultimately going to be the knowledge I think you need most at difficult points in your life, because you're going to want to catch yourself from doing that thing that you might unconsciously do or following that pattern again, or reacting immaturely or irresponsibly. Like we all have, I would say, like an inner child. Right. Like there's that part of us that's still a kid and you don't want a kid making adult decisions for you. Right. And so if you don't know who that kid is and what they're triggered by and why they do the things they do, you're going to make some real irresponsible, dangerous decisions in the moment. You're going to think they make sense. But if you had a little more self awareness, you'd be like, no, no, that's that part of me that just like instinctively, intuitively, like, you know, you tell me to do this, I'm gonna do that. And it's like, sometimes that's a good thing to do, but maybe in this case it's not.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. You know, you wrote an entire book, Ego is the Enemy. You talk about a lot about ego being bad, but can you tell us, like, the greats had to struggle with ego?

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, it is interesting, right? Like, I think we've all seen, whether in direct personal experience or culture, history, art, we can see what ego looks like in other people and we can see how it holds them back. And it's not that egotistical people never become successful. Many of them do. Right. Most successful people have big egos, but what you see up close is how this ego prevents them from being more successful. And then, of course, what you don't see is all the times that that ego destroyed someone before they became successful, and you never, you never heard about them. But I guess what I'm saying is that you can see how ego holds other people back so much, and then you're like, but not me. And that's fucking ego right there. You know, like. Like the idea that you don't have an ego is like the definition of ego, right? You're like, I'm above this, though it's different with me is like, you know, profoundly egotistical. But yeah, what ego does is it gets in the way of the feedback that we need to get the relationships. We need to have the truth. We need to see the reality. We need to understand the weaknesses we have but can't see. And so if you're trying to do something that's really hard and the risks are high and the odds are low, ego is like a real dangerous thing to get in the mix. Now, oftentimes people go, but isn't a little bit of ego important? Don't you have to have that part of you that wants to do stuff or that believes you can do stuff? I would say what you're probably talking about, there is confidence. This person you're talking about, I think you probably very clearly see a distinction between confidence and ego. Ego is something toxic and much harder to deal with.

[Podcast Host]

Oh yeah. I mean, what stories or moments made you even recognize this? You know how sometimes I don't know about you, but I'll have to have a story break me through and you could tell me something theoretical. And then unless you can kind of like, can you explain that to me or give me a case study or like, tell me a time where there's like, let me explain to you how ego destroyed a man or a woman. Yes. Or what we could learn from it.

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, this is why reading and experience, like in the pursuit of wisdom are so important. Like, you read about things and then you, you see it in real life and you go, oh, this is what that playwright from 2,000 years ago was talking about. Or conversely, you go out and you have a bunch of experiences and then you're watching Shakespeare or a movie, or you're listening to a song or a poem, you're reading a book and you're like, oh, this is that right? Like there's this similarity there. And so I was thinking about doing this book about ego. So I wrote the Obstacles Away, which is about the things that get in our way and how we can use them to our advantage. But I was like, well, but most obstacles are not external. It's not like, oh, this is a bear market, or oh, they just put a bunch of regulations in, or oh, this happened to this person. And now they have to overcome most of the reasons that empires fall or people don't succeed. It has nothing to do with external stuff at all. It's in here. The problem is you. Ego's like that big problem. So I was thinking about doing a book about ego. And I had been for many years the director of marketing and American Apparel. And I'd left when my book started to work. And I got called back when they famously fired the CEO and founder and I was a consultant in what was a last ditch attempt to save the company from him and the sort of downward spiral that he put it in. And watching someone who'd built basically a billion dollar company that 250 stores in 20 countries that had revolutionized fashion, that had done a lot of good in the world too. And just also was this feat of logistical and business and creative genius. Watch them destroy it, and then watch them not be able to handle the objective feedback that, hey, you fucked this up and we're firing you, and if you can just sit over here and be in timeout, your shares will one day be worth a lot of money again. And instead engage in this sort of. This death wish. Like, he destroyed it from the outside. He couldn't even allow it to be handed off to someone else. And it wasn't me that was doing it, but watching him then destroy it from the outside, double down on all the things that got him in trouble, and then lose all the shares and the. Everyone lost their job. That was the sort of subtext of the book is I was writing about ego historically, but I was watching it also happen in real time. And that. That's not a. That's not a. An isolated incident, right? Like, there are so many stories like that in the history of business and politics. And there's this point where all the. All the assets the person has turn into liabilities. And ego is usually like the swing vote in that transition.

[Podcast Host]

How do you tell if you're falling prey to ego? Is there, like, a practice you do. Do you look in the mirror and you go, ryan, you could look at son of the bitch, this is not it.

[Ryan Holiday]

When you find yourself saying, like, how dare you? You know, or like, who are they?

[Podcast Host]

Who do they think they are?

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes. Do you have any idea? You know, those are all things. Like when you're. When you're saying, like, oh, it's different this time, or the rules don't apply, or it's different with me, or you don't understand. I tend to find those kind of phrases or ideas to be very insightful little indicators. Oftentimes I find. And again, ego is there. It's always there. It's just, are you letting it make the decisions or not? When I send in one of my books and I have in my inbox right now a round of notes from my editor, and I've not looked at it for three weeks because I know my initial reaction is, what the fuck? You know, how. Like, who are you to tell me, you know, like, I want to let this sit and I want to get in a better place. And then, you know, I find when I go through and I go, okay, well, there's some stuff in here. And then, you know, maybe I'll do this one. You know, maybe I'll start with all the typos. I'll, you know, and then after I've gone through it a couple times, I put in, like, 80% of what they said. Right. But in the. In the initial moment, you're like, I handed you perfection and you gave me, you know, marked up underlined draft. How dare you. You know, so it's. It's like, I tend to find that the first reaction is emotional or egotistical or, you know, that's where your insecurities come to light. But if you sort of sit and let it process a little bit, you can get something closer to more objective or rational.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. One of the other things I like about what you talk about is you have a lot of opinions, obviously, but. Which I think is a good thing. But I loved one of the lines you have from Marcus Aurelius, which is that you always have the power to have no opinion.

[Ryan Holiday]

Sure.

[Podcast Host]

So I was curious on you. Do you think everyone should have an opinion? And if so, why? If not, why?

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, we all have opinions. It's just how often are these opinions serving us and how often did anyone ask? Understanding that you have the power to just not think about something, to not have an opinion, I think is very empowering, especially to go, hey, I don't have to care about what you like. I think that's. When you're young, you have a lot of opinions about whether music or art or comedy or whatever is objectively good or not. And then you get older, you're like, who gives a shit if you like this, you like it, you're not wrong. If you like it, you are not wrong. If you told me I have to like it, that's different. But that's not what you're doing. But we just tend to have opinions about so many things. That's what the media ecosystem is about. Right. That's what social media is driven by. Hey, this happened. What do you think of this? Don't you want to leave a comment? Don't you want to get in an argument with a total fucking stranger about something that not only does it matter, but they might not even be a total stranger. You could be arguing with a bot right now. And so the ability to go, that's what you think. Cool. Is really, really important. And what this should do, ultimately, is save you to have opinions or to feel strongly about the things that do matter and that you do have some semblance of a say. And so I think just a lot of us are following too much in the sort of latest outrage cycle. We're following too much in real time as it's Happening. I even think about this as a parent, the arguments I got in with my parents over things as a kid that in retrospect, they don't care about and I don't care about anymore. And if they had just waited, I would have gotten over it. You know what I mean? So I just try to think with my kids, just, like, do I need to have a thought on, like, how this. Like, I'm making this as. As if it's some issue of character or if it's some. Something, you know, essential about the functioning of our lives and it isn't, you know, like, if you want to wear Crocs, wear Crocs. I don't care. You know, like, no, that's not allowed.

[Podcast Host]

You know, baseline.

[Ryan Holiday]

But. But so much of conflict, especially when your kids are older, is rooted in just your parents having the parents having opinions about things that they. That they don't. They don't need to have an opinion about.

[Podcast Host]

That's very true. Have you ever left negative comments under somebody else's post on the Internet?

[Ryan Holiday]

I mean, every time I regret, like, there is not a single time I've ever posted anything on social media. Like, in the moment that I later was like, I'm so glad I did that.

[Podcast Host]

You know, I just always wonder who's out there, comma, you know, like, I'm having a breakfast, and I really don't like yogurt, so no yogurt today. And somebody's like, fuck you. I love yogurt. You're like, why can't you just love yogurt over there somewhere else?

[Ryan Holiday]

I mean, we. For Daily Stoic, we were just doing this fundraising thing for Feeding America, and it was amazing to watch people have negative opinions about that, you know, Feeding America. Yeah. It was just like, well, what about this? You know, or whatever. Oh, you know, like, what about this cause? Or like, you know, I didn't see you talking about this also. Or are you also gonna raise money for this? And it's like, I'm doing this right now. This is the one I'm doing. You don't have to participate. No one asked. They didn't even ask you to participate. And by the way, what they're trying to do is denigrate the good that you are doing so they don't have to feel bad about the nothing they are generally doing. They're trying to go, if I cancel this out, then we're even, and then I don't have to feel compelled to do something. That's something. I think it took me a While to understand, but why do people gamble in casinos? Why do people smoke? Why do people do a lot of things that they shouldn't be doing? Is there some kind of biological urge or susceptibility that smart people or some kind of chemical or system has triggering is triggers or preys on and they don't understand that that's what's happening? Do you know what I mean? I think just realizing that social media is dependent on your unpaid labor, emotional and otherwise, it is designed to make you uncomfortable or provoke you into clicking, reading or posting or watching or whatever it is, and that it's really good at that. And so I do have some sympathy for the people. Right. Like the only way to win is not to play. Right. And they've got to understand that like this thing is manipulating you, like you're the product that's being sold here. And outrage that you're feeling, this fight that you're picking, that's the driving engine of this whole system and you gotta not do it.

[Podcast Host]

It's very true. Yeah. I've increasingly now these days I'm like totally uninterested in discussing for instance, politics. And so I think it's important as a civic person, a member of society to do your civics duty and to participate in it. But I find angrily yelling at people on the Internet one way or the other is not that useful. And then what's fascinating is every. I have found somebody who might diabolically disagree with me. You know, I've had people on the podcast that are way to the left. I've had people on the podcast that are way to the right. Carl, Robert. I've got the full spectrum. And I actually loved Carl and I loved the other, which I won't say because I don't know if she would classify herself that way. But as way to the left, I loved too. And like I learned lessons from both and I know, well, I guess kind of where I wanted to go to this is like, I think we worry so much about what other people think about us and we worry so much about what other people think or allowed to think. And I was reading some of your pieces on. I believe it was Seneca. Is he the one that was like enslaved and imprisoned and I always call it Epictetus, but it's Epictetus.

[Ryan Holiday]

He's dead, he doesn't care.

[Podcast Host]

Anyway, I would be curious your take on like you have so much from so many greats on. What do you do when you feel like there are haters or people that don't like You.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, well, haters existed in the ancient world. I mean, Seneca, who you're talking about, is not just a controversial political figure. It's not just a wealthy guy who has sort of people who don't like him for that reason. He's also Rome's greatest playwright at that time. So he would have written things and people would have said, that sucks, I hate this. So they got it from all angles. Marcus Aurelius is the emperor of Rome. Like, there are statues of him, like people who are saying you're the greatest, like literally worshiping him as a God. And then there are people who are trying to kill him. And so, like, this is a timeless thing, right? He says in Meditations that for some reason, even though we all love ourselves more than other people, we care about other people's opinions more than our own. And one of the things I try to remind myself a couple things, I go, number one, is it possible for everyone to like you? Is it possible that you could publish a book that 100% of the people think is good and appreciate? It's like, no, definitely not, right? It's a percentage, even a good percentage. There's still going to be a percentage of people that don't like it. And actually, the more successful you are, the bigger, in raw terms, that that percentage will amount to. So I've been very fortunate. My books have sold millions of copies, which I take to mean there are millions of people who don't like me, not just millions of people who saw this stuff and then decided, like, I would argue more people saw it and decided not to buy it than saw it and decided to buy it. And then of the 10 million people that have bought one of the books, I can't have 100% satisfaction guaranteed, right? So let's say 10% of people didn't like it. That's a million people. That's a major city in the United States that doesn't like me.

[Podcast Host]

Just anti Ryan signs.

[Ryan Holiday]

But when you can do that math and you're like, okay, when I get a shitty email or I see a comment or a review in a newspaper is bad, what you're able to do is say to yourself, this is one of those people. This person was statistically guaranteed to exist. There's no escaping it. Why am I surprised that I encountered one of them? Right? In fact, they are the tip of a larger iceberg that I'm not seeing. So let's leave it there. The other thing I try to tell myself is, who is this person to tell me how to do what I'm doing. I remember at one point this thought occurred to me. I was like, these people don't work hard enough for me to care about their opinion. They don't know what I'm, what I'm doing. They don't know what I'm trying to do. They don't know what success is to me. They don't know what I value. And also look at what they've done. You know, why am I. Why am I letting them decide whether I succeeded or failed or not? And so when you kind of go, okay, certain percentage of people are not going to like you, certain number of those people aren't worth thinking about at all. And then ultimately, like, success has to be self defined or else it's not worth anything. That's kind of how I think about the haters thing. And then the other one that Marcus Realis does talk about a lot that I think is really interesting is he talks about people who want to leave a legacy, people who want to be remembered. And he just goes, what good is that? He's like, the people in the future are just as dumb as the people who exist now. And you won't exist, so it won't do you any good whether they like you or not. Right. Like, I think a lot of people, they spend all this time trying to create this. Not just success now, but this monument that endures for all time, as if that's of value. Like, it isn't. It's not only something you don't control, even if it was guaranteed, it doesn't do Marcus Aurelius any good that I'm quoting from Meditations right now. It doesn't bring him back from the dead.

[Podcast Host]

Also, if he walked on the street, we wouldn't even recognize him.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, sure.

[Podcast Host]

So, like, it's like there's no. And he's probably one of the most pervasive.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, that's one of the most famous people who ever lived in their own life. And he's mostly forgotten. And if the movie Gladiator didn't exist, he'd be even more forgotten. It's like, it's just not something worth chasing.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, it's so good. Yeah. I always thought there was like a little Instagram line that I thought was funny and it was like, you don't like me. You don't even have personality privileges. And I just got giggled because I think the Gen Z gets it right sometime, you know? And a lot of these people, they say that they don't like you, they know nothing about you. And how many people truly know you?

[Ryan Holiday]

Truly well, the Stoics would also say, and this is from Epictetus, he says, if they truly knew you, they'd probably say something worse. So, like, just tell yourself you got off easy. Like, they're criticizing you for something that they read, that you wrote or that they saw you do. Imagine if they could really peek inside. They could see your deepest thoughts. They could see what you do in private. You got off easy with this criticism. So take it and move on.

[Podcast Host]

It's actually so good. There's also. My husband bought a little magnet that we kept in San Diego. And on it was a line from Marcus Aurelius. But it was something like, when you step outside your door, expect people to be terrible.

[Ryan Holiday]

He opens Meditations with this.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, how does that go? Do you remember?

[Ryan Holiday]

He says, today the people you will meet will be angry. Angry and jealous and dishonest and stupid and obnoxious. And he just goes on down the list. And that is true. That's what the Stoics are saying. Don't be surprised. Don't expect to avoid this. But the second part of this is actually a little more hopeful than people give the Stoics credit for. He goes, but don't let them implicate you in ugliness. Don't let them drag you down to their level. And he says, it doesn't change the fact that we're all made to work with each other. And by the way, again, if. If there is a statistical necessity or certainty that some people are those things, then you should have sympathy for those people. You go, this is their job. Just like, somebody has to pick up trash. Somebody has to clean toilets. Somebody has to do stuff right. Somebody has to be that person, too. And you're lucky that you're not that person. And they're unlucky that they are that person. And that's. You go, okay. You're the one out of 100 that sucks. And that sucks.

[Podcast Host]

Really important question.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

Should we all really get a donkey?

[Ryan Holiday]

I think that donkeys are amazing. I actually asked Arnold Schwarzenegger that question. Cause he has one, too.

[Podcast Host]

Get out of town.

[Ryan Holiday]

And he said, I don't know if they're the best pets, but they're like big, dumb dogs. Yeah, they're not smart that take care of themselves. Well, they're very smart, but just like, big. I mean, dumb in that they're not as, like, coordinated as dogs. You know, ours can open our fence. It can open the back door to our house. Like, they're very Clever. And they all, like. People think they're stubborn, but it's more like they just don't do anything that they don't see a reason to do.

[Podcast Host]

Do they cuddle? Do you cuddle their donkeys?

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, they're very. They'll come up and if you have carrots and stuff, they'll nuzzle against you. We have cows on our ranch, and so you need a donkey as like a livestock guarding animal. So we got one.

[Podcast Host]

The donkey protects the cows.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, they'll. They'll chase off coyotes and mountain lions and dogs and stuff.

[Podcast Host]

Whoa.

[Ryan Holiday]

They're very. They're very, very protective. They just kind of. Just. They kind of hang out on the periphery of the herd and they just don't like anything messing up the vibe.

[Podcast Host]

I like this. I knew I wanted a donkey is on my Christmas list. So now we've moved that up.

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, I'll give. If we have a. The problem. So we have one and we had to get another one because they get lonely and they have a baby every 13 or so months, and then it's a problem of what do we do? So I usually give them to people.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, my God. Put me on the giveaway list, the riot holiday donkey list. I would do some unhinged things for that, especially the baby donkeys. Okay. That was important. The other thing, I didn't even know this about you. I had such a fun. You know how you follow somebody online for a long time, you read their books, and you have this parasocial relationship. Right. So you're like, ah, I know what Ryan's all about. And then I went down a. Just a rabbit hole of how long you have been on the Internet and asked a bunch of your friends. But I came across like a lot of your marketing background, which I didn't know about.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

And there was like a quote from a New York Times profile about you, by the way, the quote was amazing. I mean, the article was amazing.

[Ryan Holiday]

Okay.

[Podcast Host]

But the line was, ryan Holiday runs his own marketing firm, Brasscheck, and has written boastfully about depraved publicity tactics he deployed on behalf of his clients. What a fucking L. I want to hear about some of these firsthand. What are these ridiculous marketing stunts you've done?

[Ryan Holiday]

Oh, well, I mean, I wrote a whole book about sort of publicity stunts. And which one was that? It's called Trust Me, I'm Lying.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

And it's about sort of media manipulation and how the media system can be vulnerable to all of these things. I mean, I opened that book with Story about a movie I was working on, and it had a very small budget, and so, you know, we couldn't spend very much. So we took the relatively small bit of the budget. We bought some ads, which I then defaced, and then we took pictures of them, then we sent them around, and we created this sort of backlash against a campaign that, like, didn't exist, really. And, you know, we got, like. It was banned by the Chicago Transit Authority. Like, we tried. We tried to buy, you know, like, ads in Chicago on all the trains, and then they rejected it, which is, like, what we wanted because we didn't have the money to spend on the thing. But then the media coverage around that got seen by many thousands of more people than would have ever seen the ad. So I did. I did a lot of stuff like. Like that.

[Podcast Host]

Do you do any of that anymore? Do you do anything?

[Ryan Holiday]

Not so much anymore. I mean, every once in a while, I'll do something for fun, but my career there was fascinating and compelling. I wouldn't say it was, you know, exactly a positive contribution to society. And so I think I sort of grew out of it a little bit, But I was really interested in, like, how this system worked and what the vulnerabilities were in the system. And I sort of saw it as this challenge. I did a lot of stuff that was funny and interesting and provocative, but, you know, again, not really what I felt ultimately, like I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing what's funny. There's a quote in that New York Times profile you mentioned that it's not a haunted me, but some people try to throw in my face. I said. She was like, maybe you're just writing about this to make money or something. And I was like, look, if you're good at marketing and you could sell anything. And I was like, especially if you don't have a conscience, right? I was like, you could sell cryptocurrency or this or that. You'd sell whatever you want, right? And I was like, why would I choose this? That's what I was saying. But she sort of cut off the last part. So I was basically just saying, if you're good enough and shameless enough, you can sell anything. Which is why you always have to be careful about making sure your complete thought is untrucable, right? Because the context of it can be stripped out of it. But my point was, I just got tired. I was like, I don't want to spend my life selling other people's shit. That's just not really what I wanted to do. And so I was like, well, what do I care about? What am I interested in? And ultimately, even my marketing business, which I kept for many years, and I consulted mostly, but I just thought. I just got tired of giving advice that nobody listened to, even though they paid me for it. And I just thought, well, I know who will take my advice. Me. So I just started to make my own things. And I think ultimately, if you have, like, real marketing chops, that's what you should eventually evolve towards, is your own stuff.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. I, like, on accident, got invited by a friend who was the one getting the award to this kind of famous advertising association event in New York. And I went because I was in town and I adore her, and she needed a buddy. And so I went with her. And it was the most fascinating night, actually, because it's an advertising event.

[Ryan Holiday]

Right.

[Podcast Host]

And yet, if you were to hear the speeches, were they bad? Well, no, no. They're actually beautiful, and the videos are beautiful. But it was like, this is the most important room in the world with the people who are changing the world every day. And I'm like, am I in the cancer wing? Like, wait a second. Like, I feel like I'm in the wrong area. And so it was fascinating because person after person was talking about how advertising and marketing is, like, the cornerstone of humanity. And, like, you could argue with that one way or the other. But what I kind of did like about it is, like, whatever you're going.

[Ryan Holiday]

To do should be good at it.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. And you should maybe feel that way about it.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. Although I remember when I was in American Pro, every year I would go to this thing in New York called adweer, which is this, like, series of conferences and galas and award shows like that. And I remember the first time I went, you know, I was probably, like, 20, 21. And I'm like, the kid there. I'm the only one not in a suit, you know, the only one not working at some big company with a huge budget. Then I went the next year, sort of same thing, and next year. And I always felt like an outsider. And I remember it occurring to me, like, the third or fourth year, if I keep coming to this, I'm going to be a guy in a suit. Like, you can't do. You can't. You become like the people you spend time with. Right. And actually, Epictetus has this line. He says, if you live with a lame man, you will learn how to limp. And I just realized, like, oh, this is an interesting period in My life and I'm learning a lot and I'm making good money and it's exciting and interesting, but like there is a point of no return that I am approaching and I have to get out soon or I have to commit to this thing. And so that was part of the reason that I ultimately sort of made the leap, which seemed crazy at the time. Like when you're the director of marketing a publicly trade company, you're going to go write a book. Like you don't even, you don't even have a book deal for. You're just going to go write a book. Like, what's wrong with you? You know? But I just knew that wasn't who I wanted to be and what I wanted to do. And again, to go to the idea of procrastination, everyone says at some point I'm going to do it and you're not. And the longer you don't do it, the more and more likely it is that you will never do it because you've actually sent over and over again who you actually are, which is the person you're currently being, not the person you think you could be.

[Podcast Host]

It's so true. We call it the corner office phenomenon. And I'm like, basically, I found this happens a lot with people that were in corporate spaces. It happened with me. I remember I had a moment like you where I literally, I looked down the hall at the guy who was in the corner office, who had the job that I would have if one day I achieved the highest of the heights in my profession. And I was like, oh my fucking God, no. You know, he looks miserable. He had multiple wives. There were lots of cars in the garage. I don't care about garages. He was working nonstop. He wasn't healthy. Vitamin D to deprived all of the things. And I think often we can just look at that and go, oh, when I'm there, I'm not going to be like that. It'll be different when I'm there. But if instead you can really look down the hall and go, if I had lived that man's life, I would probably be that man. And so am I sure that that's what I want. If I can look into the future and see is that the kind of suit that I want to wear?

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. The system is shaping you every day that you are in it it and you are internalizing its values and its personality and its identity and the idea that you're going to go along to get along for 40 years and then be a visionary rule breaking Leader is extremely unlikely. You just followed the rules for 40 years to get this thing that you're now terrified of losing. You're actually going to be less courageous, more risk averse than you thought you would be. Like, you're like, if I was in charge, it would be different. And it's like, no, it's going to be exactly the same because it was shaping you as you were in it.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. So do you think that humans are contagious?

[Ryan Holiday]

I think examples are contagious. I think culture is contagious. Values are contagious. Sure.

[Podcast Host]

I think we named the company Contrarian thinking, obviously. And to your point, I kind of labored over that one. It's a terrible name. There's so many vowels and it's like A's and I's and I don't know where they're located. Nobody can spell it. But maybe more important than that. I remember reading Letters to Young Contrarians back in the day, and I always really liked that book. It's kind of a ridiculous, short, cute book in some ways, but I liked the idea of like, you know, if you do not question things, then you will just assume everybody else's fate. You have to be careful to not be a contrarian for contrarian's sake. But like, at a base level, we do just kind of move along to get along. Right. And so this pushback is hard. And with your books, I would say, you know, most of the stuff that you've created and you do it now, today, like you'll post something about something politically, you might think, and a lot of people hate it and a lot of people love it. And like, I sometimes think maybe that's like inoculation against caring. But, like, how do you inoculate yourself against becoming somebody else's representation of you?

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I think. Do you know what audience capture is?

[Podcast Host]

No.

[Ryan Holiday]

I think we work really hard as a creator, an artist or writer, whatever, to build an audience. And then you think you have the audience, but actually the audience has you because now you're afraid of losing it. Right. You're like, oh, when I talk about this, people don't like it. Or when I wrote about this, substack subscriptions went down, or I got a lot of angry emails. Okay, so now what you've said is that you have a boss. I became a writer and a creator to make what I wanted to make, not to make what you want me to make for you. Right. And so that, that's something, I just think a lot about, like, is this something that I think is important? Is this interesting to me? And then also I try to think, like, what are my obligations? I have, like, a little note card on my desk, and it just says, like, are you being a good steward of stoicism? And I think about that because, you know, I didn't invent this philosophy. It's a. A tradition that. That stretches back 25 centuries. I just happen to be publicly associated with it, and it's done me a lot of good. But if I'm only going to use it to tell people what they want to hear or tell people the easy, obvious stuff, then I'm. Then I'm exploiting it as opposed to contributing to it. And so I think there's a fine line, of course. Like, it's not about a giant middle finger to the audience all the time. That's not right. But you have to. You have to do and say what you think is true and important. Because, by the way, nobody was begging for me to talk about this 15 years ago when I started. Right. If I asked for approval, I wouldn't have had the support to get going. So you have to trust that instinct.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Yeah, it's a good point. I think it's a beautiful line because you get. You can become so selfish sometimes, I think, as a creator or as somebody with an audience or as somebody successful, because you can really surround yourself with sycophants, you know, and then you can create this weird world in which everything actually caters to you.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Simultaneously, I think most people don't end up there. Maybe really successful people do. I think that's actually less normal. And it seems like most people let other people become the architects of the houses that they live in.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. And it's also. It's just more information and feedback than a human could possibly deal with. You know, like, the daily Stoke email goes out to a million people every day. Like, even if 0.01% of them liked or didn't like what I said that day, that's. I can't. I have to have a boundary that. That doesn't get in, you know?

[Podcast Host]

Do you ever, like, read the really bad ones out loud, like the Hollywood actors do? Sometimes?

[Ryan Holiday]

Anytime I come across, I go, why did I subject myself to this? This doesn't make me feel good. It doesn't make me feel bad. It just makes me confused, you know? Like, it's like I. You know what it is? It's like you got to have a compass and you got to keep magnets away. From the compass because it fucks with it, right? And this is actually something Seneca talks about. He says, you know, you got to know the path that you're on. And he says, not be distracted by the paths that crisscross yours or the footsteps from those who are hopelessly lost. And it's like, I'm doing what I'm trying to do. You might think you know what I'm trying to do, or you might think, you know what I should do, but you don't. And conversely, other people doing their own thing, whether they're creators or writers or philosophers, they're doing their own thing. And if I take my eye off my paper to look at theirs, I'm gonna get myself into trouble. And so I try to keep kind of a narrow focus where, like, this is what I'm doing. This is what I care about, and that's enough.

[Podcast Host]

That's beautiful. Well, Ryan Holiday, I love your books. I've read Ego is the Enemy and the Obstacle is the Way and the Daily Stoic, and now Wisdom Takes Work. And now I have about 42 other books of yours read, but those are some of my favorite. And truly, you know, there are a couple authors that like Robert Greene. I was very nervous when I had him on the podcast.

[Ryan Holiday]

He's the best.

[Podcast Host]

He's amazing, and he's just as good in real life. And even after a stroke, you know, I was like, this man's horsepower is insane. But I was just such a fan of the way his brain worked. And I think it's the same with you. Like, you know, reading these books, these cannot be easy to put together, to take these complex ideas and make them simple. And so, you know, if you're watching, they're really, really worth the read, which is not always true for every book today. And so, well, thank you for writing them. Thank you for spending some time here with us.

[Ryan Holiday]

Thanks for having me. Curious about the future of energy and how batteries and storage are powering everything from our phones to smart cities. Join in on the conversation and tune into the Battery and Storage podcast, hosted by me, Bill Durasmo, and her energy partner at Troutman Pepper Lock. Each episode explores the latest trends and features conversations with leading experts to answer your burning questions about batteries, renewables, and the future of the grid. Listen to the Battery and Storage podcast on all major platforms.