B (5:03)

Yeah, thanks for having me.

A (5:04)

I'm delighted. And this is a new podcast, and I've been on your podcast a bunch of times, and we've done stuff together in the past, which I've always really love. And I thought people listening to Office Hours need to hear from Ryan Holiday because everybody needs a little more stoicism in their life.

B (5:18)

Well, I'm a college dropout, so I didn't get to do a lot of office hours, but as a concept, it's always been like, whenever I go back to colleges and I'm talking to college kids, I go, I don't think you understand how insane the concept of office hours is to everyone else in the real world. These professors, which, as, you know, expert witnesses in court cases, charged tens of thousands of dollars an hour in some cases or in. In other cases, you know, speak for tens of thousands of dollars or consult to, you know, some of the biggest, most important people in the world, they are sitting in their office mandated to have a certain number of hours that anyone can come talk to them, and they mostly just sit there and wonder why nobody comes.

A (6:10)

Yeah, no, mine. Mine are on Zoom, and they're booked up in 15 minute increments. Yeah. So their appointments is kind of what it comes down to. And generally speaking, since I teach happiness, they want to talk about their lives. And so it becomes clinical work effectively. And I'm not a clinician, so there you go. I'm a huge fan of your stuff. As you know, I love the stoic philosophy and the way that it actually is. We can implement it in ordinary modern life. And you're the leading exponent on bringing stoicism to literally millions and millions of people. Last I looked, you'd sold 10 million books on stoicism. 10 million. That's a nice round number. I like it.

B (6:46)

Yeah.

A (6:47)

Yeah. And you didn't. And you didn't sell them all through your own bookstore in Bastrop? I mean, this is stuff that I said.

B (6:52)

I wish.

A (6:52)

Yeah, I know. That would be double dipping, man. That's not fair. You write books on stoicism and sell them yourself. And charge twice. I'd love for you to tell me kind of your. The backstory and how you got interested in. In. In Stoicism, how you started to become a modern Stoic philosopher yourself. What. How did that come about? How did a normal guy working for Robert Greene, the author of All Things, wind up becoming a philosopher? Tell me that and then we'll talk about your new book.

B (7:19)

I don't know if I would call myself a philosopher so much as someone who writes about philosophy. I guess I think the title. Someone else has probably got to give you the title, so I'll. I'll take it. But I was in college. I remember I was taking a class on Aristotle. Is it Aristotle and the Meaning of Life? And it was fascinating and interesting, mostly over my head. And I remember I was at a conference. I was writing for a college newspaper and I was at a conference. And I went up to one of the speakers afterwards and I said, I love to read. Are you reading anything interesting? What might you read? Recommend. And the person recommended a biography of Theodore Roosevelt and the Stoics. And I remember grabbing the Stoics on Amazon. The movie Gladiator was still relatively new at this point, so I'd heard of. I'd at least heard the name Marcus Aurelius. Like that rang some bells. And I remember Meditations came to my college apartment and it was nothing like Aristotle. Like, it's in these short, kind of clipped sentences. He's saying what he means, and he's not talking so much about the meaning of life as he is talking about the practical problems of life. Right. There's a passage that I remember hitting me as a 19 year old in the opening of book 5 of Meditations, where he has this extended riff on why he has to get out of bed early in the morning. I know that one doesn't want to.

A (8:44)

The covers are so nice. Yes.

B (8:47)

Yeah, he says, but it's nicer here. And he says, so you're made to feel nice, to huddle under the covers and stay warm. And so there was just something about hearing the most powerful person in the world write these notes to themselves in the way that today someone might write something on a sticky note and put it on their bathroom mirror. And the idea that this was based on an ancient philosophical tradition, I mean, it just lit me up. And I went down this rabbit hole and I started writing about it on. I had a blog. And it certainly was not my plan or my intention, nor could I have imagined that this is where I would end up. My first Two books were about marketing. And I remember I went to my publisher afterwards and I said, for my next book, I'd like to write about an obscure school of ancient philosophy. And they were less than excited. And so it was something that just happened. But to me, it all stems back from this kind of moment of discovery and excitement when you find whatever. I think anyone that's had a religious or a philosophical experience knows, when you find the thing that was written thousands of years ago that feels like it was made exactly for you in that moment, that's a magical thing.

A (10:02)

Yeah. So sum up stoicism for people who don't. I mean, most of people, I guess I suspect that most people who are watching office hours know something about it. But how does the. The world's leading proponent of stoicism today describe it?

B (10:14)

Well, not what people think stoicism is, which is, you know, has no emotions, has no feeling, you know, invulnerable, robotic, whatever. I. I like to tell people that my definition of stoicism is a stoic believes you. You don't control the world around you, but you control how you respond to it. And so stoicism is this. This way of responding or this framework for responding that's built around the cardinal virtues of courage, self discipline, justice and wisdom. And the idea, and this is my first book on stoicism was called the Obstacle is the way it's based on. I think the essence of Stoic philosophy being that every situation you're in is an opportunity for virtue. So the more trying, the more difficult, the more painful, the. The more whatever that situation happens to be for you, the more it calls from us one or all of those four virtues. And I think stoicism, fittingly, for people who don't know, stoicism is a. Is a philosophy that comes in about the 4th century BC when, when a merchant named Zeno suffers a shipwreck. So he loses everything. He was this successful merchant, and. And it's, It's. It's in the rebuilding of his life after this disaster that he's introduced to philosophy. I think it's fitting that Stoicism, which is a philosophy of resilience and responding to what happens to you in life, comes from a guy doing precisely that.

A (11:44)

Yeah. And this is the guy. He. I think he lost a whole boatload, literally a boatload of purple cloth. Right. Isn't that what he was.

B (11:50)

Yes, purple dye.

A (11:51)

Yeah, purple dye. Because that, because, you know, purple dye was unbelievably expensive. And that was his life's work. And all of his savings and all of it was gone. And you say, well, what does that mean? So this actually leads to something you've written about an awful lot, which is central to Stoicism and which is utterly opposed to the modern complex surrounding mental health in young people, which is that if your suffering means something's wrong with you, and that's completely mistaken, pain is not evidence that something's wrong. Pain is evidence that you're alive. And it's not to be eliminated, but to be understood and as an incitement to growth. Is that fair? I mean, I've heard you say this a hundred times, but that's right, isn't it?

B (12:31)

Yeah, yeah. Zeno's joke was that he made a great fortune when he suffered a shipwreck because it introduced him to philosophy. But you could also say it introduces him to himself. Right. It's the thing that challenges him, that requires him to grow, that requires him to change. And so, yeah, you can choose. This is the idea in Stoicism that you could. You don't choose a situation, but you choose the story you tell yourself about it. So you can suffer the shipwreck, metaphorically or otherwise, and say, I've been singled out. I've been mistreated by fate or fortune or God, A tragedy has befallen me. I can never recover. This is awful. Or you can say, this is a chance for me to start over. This is exciting, this is an adventure. This is a chance for me to do something that I wouldn't have ordinarily done. And so Stoicism is really that choice. So it's interesting that people think Stoicism is passivity or resignation, but it's really only passivity or resignation in that one singular moment as to whether you're going to argue about whether something has happened or not. Right. So, yes, it is. It is accepting that it is a shipwreck that is a done deal. But. But where one is not passive is in what one does next.

A (13:51)

So you're writing books about this so that people can use these ideas today. You're not using these ideas so people understand purple dye and xeno, as interesting as that actually is. So let's talk about actually using some of these ideas today. So as I understand it, your. Your description of Stoicism, which seems very robust and. And certainly in accord with my reading of Marcus Aurelius and Seneca and Epictetus and Cicero and I mean, Cicero is a Stoic, right? Do we call him a Stoic?

B (14:19)

I don't think he calls himself A Stoic. But he. Cicero is the means by which we know most of what the Stoics said. He clearly was intellectually and academically fascinated with the Stoics, and he knew many of them. Obviously, he's several hundred years later after Zeno. But, but he, he wrote beautifully about Stoicism and did try to apply it as best he could. So he's got. I kind of see him as this, like he's a fellow traveler. I think his, his personal philosophical beliefs are a bit more eclectic, and he has some Epicurean tendencies, to put it mildly. But, but, but as. As far as.

A (14:59)

Explain that for a second. Explain the Epicurean tendencies in case nobody's getting the reference. Epicurus and Epictetus were the opposing camps. Epictetus was a Stoic. Control yourself. And Epicurus said, let's go feel good, man.

B (15:12)

Yes. And to be fair, I am doing to the Epicureans what others do to the Stoics there. So in the ancient world, two of the rival philosophical schools are the Stoics and the Epicureans. And the Epicureans, people think that means, you know, hedonists, pleasure seekers, I take it. To me, I say the difference is that the Stoic is in the arena, literally and figuratively, active in life, meeting challenges, involved, you know, professionally engaged, perhaps even ambitious. And the Epicurean says, look, none of this really matters. Let's drop out, tune in. Let's just study philosophy and sort of tend to our own intellectual and spiritual nourishment. And so, so there's nothing exactly wrong with that, except, you know, we live in the world that the Stoics made, not the world that the Epicureans made, because the, the Epicureans didn't think you needed to make anything.

A (16:13)

Well, not to mention the fact that Christianity is more Stoic than Epicurean, and, you know, that Christendom actually brought Stoic thinking forward through the centuries and, you know, through St. Thomas Aquinas, et cetera, et cetera. There's a lot more Stoicism in that than there, There's. There's no Epicureanism in that, to be sure. But they do get this wrong, because Epicurus, he had a cult and he had a community around him. And there was nothing morally untoward that was going on. There was not like hedonistic sexual activity or Bacchanalian activity. On the contrary, they were, they were. They were pretty prim and proper. What they were doing was hanging out, not arguing with each other angrily, but rather having very deep philosophical discussions and Trying not to, not trying not to be uncomfortable is what it comes down to. Right.

B (16:57)

Yeah. And so when I said Cicero was epicurean, what I really meant to say is that he was a very wealthy, very powerful, very, he was a lover of the high and the fine life. And I think the, the austerity of stoicism is, is emphasized by some of the thinkers more than others. I think Cicero would certainly preach the austere life and then retreat to his mansion.

A (17:26)

Yeah, it was, and there's a lot of people like that today. I'm, I'm sure there are a lot of people who get major epiphanies from reading, you know, your books and then retreat to playing video games and smoking weed. Right.

B (17:39)

Well, look, I, I, I live in a nice house. I, I, I, I think to, to me, stoicism is not necessarily living, sleeping on the floor. It is living within or beneath one's means. And I think if you can get to a place, and perhaps Cicero was, and so I'm being unfair here, if you can live in a place where you don't need it, where you'd be all right if it went away, then it's fine to have. You know, it's funny, we have this word indifference, and that's what people often associate the Stoics with. But actually the Stoics tended to use the word indifference like E, N T S, not E, N, C, E. And so by indifference they meant that these things didn't matter. So like Seneca talks about how he goes, look, it's better to be tall than short. Like if someone gave you a choice, you would rather be tall than short. But, but because you don't get a choice, it's something, it is an indifferent. But he said there are also what he calls these preferred indifference. And so the idea is, if you can afford a nice car, why would you deliberately drive a beater? Now, there might be a philosophical reason. You go, hey, I don't want to care about something that doesn't matter. Or the other says, hey, look, I like having cruise control and self driving so I don't have to spend so much brain power on a thing that doesn't matter. So, so it's interesting how timeless some of these philosophical debates can get. But, but in the ancient world, the idea was, you know, one was austere to a point, and one was trying to cultivate an indifference to things that didn't really matter.

A (19:20)

Yeah. And so the Buddhists would talk about this in terms of intention without attachment, so that you have an intention towards certain things. You have goals in life, you have preferences, but you're, you're, you're unattached to the attainment of those you're unattached to. Arriving at the destination of your dreams is what it comes down to. And the truth of the matter is that's unbelievably behaviorally robust. There's a ton of modern research that shows that you need intention to make progress in life and to find meaning in life, but you need non attachment or you'll fall prey to the arrival fallacy. And that's one of the greatest tyrannies toward happiness of all time. Something both you and I have written about. And so the Stoics seems to be that those who are talking about the indifferent as opposed to the indifference are getting it just right. That's a core that's in accord with most other really good philosophies. It's interesting, you know, we're talking about Cicero and you know, he did his best. The very last couple of sentences that he pronounced were the most Stoic things ever, weren't they?

B (20:17)

Of course, yes. And you know, there's a great tradition with this and the Stoics, that the whole idea, Cicero said a philosophy is to learn how to die, right? So you can get basically everything else wrong, you can screw up, but if you can die well, if you can die according to your principles, that's sort of the ultimate statement. And Cicero's, I believe, final words as he meets the end at the hands of Octavian's goons on a dusty road outside Rome is. What is it? There's nothing proper.

A (20:52)

Yes, there's nothing proper about what you're about to do, centurion, but do try to do it properly.

B (20:58)

Yes. And Seneca, you know, is a similar figure to Cicero in that he's politically ambitious, he's wealthy, he's morally compromised in the way that the political life at the elite level can compromise a person. And yet he's also writing beautifully about austere and sort of virtuous philosophy. And at the end, Nero sends his goons to kill Seneca. And Seneca is basically saying, as a playwright, he knew this, he knew that the audience will forgive a bad play if it's brought to a close, Right. If the final act is good. And Seneca, you know, forced to commit suicide, does so sort of bravely, without tears, and he delivers a couple of badass one liners, you know, pours out some of the hemlock as a, as an offering to the gods and sort of bequeaths to his friends, his example, and that was the idea. So I think it's easy to judge the life of a person you don't know in scenarios you've never been in. And it's also hard to argue that, you know, in the scariest moment of their life, they were pretty badass.

A (22:15)

Yeah. Let me, based on that, sum up the three principles of Stoicism as you see them for our lives. And then let's talk about modern Stoics and people that are great examples of this today, and then how we can be more like that. Because that's really what you're getting at because, you know, your, your work is about how we can live better lives, have more eudaimonia, have a better lives. Well lived through this ancient philosophy and bringing it to life today. So, number one principle, number one is Stoicism from Ryan Holiday. Manage yourself, not the outside world now, because you can't manage the outside world, and the only thing you can manage is yours, is yourself. So pay attention to the one thing that you can manage, which is yourself and your feelings and your actions and your behaviors and not the outside world. That's number one. Okay.

B (22:59)

Yeah. And that's the greatest empire. The Stoics said, right. Command over oneself. And they didn't, they didn't say this like the Epicureans, you know, in their garden, just sort of judging these people in power. They were like, hey, look, I command this great army. I'm in charge of this province. I am the head of this business empire. Or is it the head of me, you know, who's, who's actually in charge here? And that, that's what they held up as, as the truly impressive thing, not what you were in charge of, but what was in charge of you. And was that you.

A (23:32)

That's important. And we're going to come back to that for sure. Second, everything is an opportunity, including suffering. That's the second big principle, right?

B (23:41)

Yes. That's the obstacle, is the way that it's calling from you something that perhaps would not be possible in ordinary circumstances, that you wouldn't be able to bring out of yourself.

A (23:52)

And so therefore, by extension, if your life philosophy is trying to eliminate suffering, you're eliminating opportunities from your life, and that's a bad way to live.

B (24:01)

Yeah. And you look back on your life, I would argue that most of the things we're most proud of came out of situations that we didn't choose. And most of the things that we thought were unalloyedly negative are in fact, you know, filled with all Sorts of silver linings.

A (24:21)

Yeah, for sure. That's certainly the case in my life and yours and anybody who's thinking about it seriously. And last but not least, if you have to choose, choose virtue over comfort.

B (24:32)

Yeah, yeah. Just that you do the right thing. Marx really says at one point in Meditations, he says, the rest doesn't matter, you know, and. And the idea of like, again, you control the choice that you make. You don't necessarily control whether it's going to be well received. You don't control whether you're going to get a thank you. You don't control like. I think one of the. The idea of karma is beautiful. One of the things I think it does for people is it. It makes them think the universe and the world is fair and that this is an exchange of value. I'll be good so you'll be good to me. Right. I'll do the right thing. You do the right thing. I work hard, I'll get ahead. I think the Stoics lived in a much more capricious world, a much crueler world. And so they understood that you could be a good person. And it might not work out for you in one sense, but in the other sense, it was the only way to be.

A (25:32)

Indeed. And, you know, that leads me to the next question that I have, because in your books, which everybody should read, if you haven't read Ryan's books, read them. You don't just talk about these ancients. You don't talk about Cicero, a highly imperfect kind of character. Sure. You talk about modern figures as well, and that's what makes it really interesting. And so before we talk about how we can be Stoics, give me an example of somebody in relatively modern life, perhaps dead. Maybe, you know, maybe it's General Montgomery, maybe it's Abraham Lincoln, maybe it's Martin Luther King. I don't know who's a modern Stoic, as clear as you can see that. Applying.

B (26:10)

Well, one of the things I try to do in my books is I try to take Stoic ideas and then illustrate them with stories from literature and culture and sports and business, military history. I'm not saying that John D. Rockefeller is a stoic. I'm saying it was stoic, the way he was able to keep his mind clear in the midst of multiple financial crises. Right. I'm not saying that Cicero is a stoic. I'm saying he said something good about Stoicism here that's worth learning from. So what I try to do is illustrate these ideas in little slices, because I think we all know none of us are perfect. And there are moments where we might rise to the ideas or to the occasion, and there's other moments where we fall short. So what I'm always trying to do is just take very specific Stoic ideas or philosophical ideas and then illustrate them. So I've been doing this series on the cardinal virtues, and so there's a bunch of different characters. So I'm talking about, you know, de Gaulle as an example of courage, but he might also be a cautionary example in a chapter that I'm talking about, you know, managing one's ego in the discipline book. And, you know, he might be a profoundly inspiring figure as we're talking about fighting for France. And then as I'm talking in the justice book, you know, his relationship to the larger French empire, you know, could be a cautionary example. So my theory is never, oh, this is a modern Stoic. This person is worthy of being on the Mount Rushmore of Stoics alongside Marcus and Epictetus and Seneca. I'm just saying, in this moment, they have a chance to teach us something about what the Stoics were trying to call us to be.

A (28:09)

Can you think of a figure, however, that at least approaches the Stoic ideal as much as or better than anyone else that you can think of?

B (28:17)

Well, I do think if we're talking about these cardinal virtues, Lincoln is about as close as you can get as an embodiment of all of them. And I tell this story. There's this fascinating story about Tolstoy towards the end of his life. He's in this remote mountain camp in the Caucus Mountains, and he's telling him, you know, they asked him to tell him stories about the great men of history. And towards the end, they go, you know, you've told us about George Washington and Napoleon and this person and that person. They said, but you haven't told us about the greatest man of all. And he goes, who could that be? And the chief of this tribe says, you know, you know, the man with words like thunder and deeds like the rock, and now Tolstoy is really, you know, who did I miss? And then the guy goes, abraham Lincoln. And Tolstoy is just amazed. How could. How could the story of Lincoln made its way all the way here? And what he realizes, he goes, you know, now that I think about it, Abraham Lincoln actually is perhaps the greatest man in history, the one that all nations should be proud because his accomplishments weren't for himself. Right? He's a great military theorist and conqueror. But it's to free a group of people rather than enslave them. His education wasn't to impress other people. It was to claw himself and his family out of poverty. That there was this sort of moral center. That Lincoln was as ambitious as any of those other great men, but his ambition had a kind of a moral center to it. Like, you know, I think it's interesting, I talk about this in the Wisdom book. Abraham Lincoln was known as Honest Abe and he got that reputation as a lawyer. Right. Like that's not where you would think. And his line was, if you can't be an honest lawyer, try to be an honest man in some other profession. Right. And so, so I think, I think it's, it's rare that you see the complete package in that way. And I think that's probably why there's been more books written about Abraham Lincoln than just about any other person to ever live. Because we see in a, essentially a modern figure, an ambitious, a self taught political figure, as opposed to some, you know, person who lived 3,000 years ago. We see all the, all the potential pitfalls that have disrupted many of our leaders and we see him somehow expertly and selflessly navigate them. So I would put him up there, certainly. We don't know if he ever read the Stoics, unfortunately, but he's about as close as you can get to the ideal in the real world.

A (31:05)

Yeah. In the 1830s and 1840s when he would have been a student and young adult. I don't think the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius was in common circulation yet. Right.

B (31:13)

No, no. And in fact, George Long, the British classicist who, who came to work at the University of Virginia, who, who popularized Marcus Aurelius, was a sort of a Southern sympathizer. And, and he, he famously complains in his edition of Meditations that he's a Southerner at heart and he doesn't like all these Yankee entrepreneurs who are publishing the edition of his book. So yeah, we don't know. He was steeped in the ancients, but no overt mentions of the Stoics from him. There is a funny joke that you would like. Not everyone's going to appreciate the obscurity of this, but it's in a campaign biography. When he announces his run, one of his friends writes that, you know, he's this self taught reader who loves the works of Plutarch. And Lincoln reads this and he has to admit that he's never read Plutarch. So instead of having them correct the campaign biography, he goes and he gets the editions of Plutarch, which he reads. And then he says, not only have I now literally read them, but, but I am a fan and it has changed my life. And so, you know, he. My favorite scene of Lincoln and I'm nerding out here, but, but he becomes president and then the Civil War breaks out. And so he calls to the Library of Congress to have them send him every book on war that they can find. Because he has to, he has to figure it out. He was self taught, not just as a kid, but he was this lifelong learner, which I think is, is what the idea, the virtue of wisdom is really about.

A (32:52)

And no doubt an imperfect man. I mean, a lot of the biographies about, you know, Joshua Wolfshank's book on his suffering, et cetera, et cetera, talk about the imperfections. But, but he did follow these three basic Stoic maxims of manage yourself, see suffering as an opportunity and choose virtue over comfort. Specifically fortitude, prudence, Justin justice and wisdom, which he typified, which would. Made him arguably the greatest president in the history of the United States. One might say it was his, I guess, stoic tendencies. If he wasn't a stoic, that actually made him who he was.

B (33:25)

Yeah, and look, Lincoln wouldn't have been Lincoln without the fiery trial of the Civil War. Right? Like, he would have almost certainly wanted to have been president at any other time. And perhaps he would have been a mediocre president if that were the case. He was certainly underwhelming as a congressman. He needed the moment and the moment needed him. Which is, I think, something that's uniquely true about great leaders. And, you know, Marcus Aurelius, 20 years of peace and prosperity, Hadrian and then Antoninus, and then basically Marcus becomes emperor and it's one disaster after another. All external things, nothing he caused. But there's a famine which leads to a plague. Well, there's a flood which leads to a famine which leads to a plague which leads to a civil war. And so without these disasters, you know, perhaps he's a much more philosophical king, but he has to be philosophical in another sense, right? And he has to guide the country through one disaster after another. So you would rather it go away different than it did. But nobody asked, right? You didn't get a choice. And I think Stoicism is the decision to make the. Make what you can of the hand you've been dealt.

A (34:38)

That's interesting. That's a good summary of exactly the three points that you made earlier. Why is that? It's Weird. You know, one of the things that I teach my students is the most shocking thing about happiness is that Mother Nature doesn't care if you're happy. Mother Nature really only wants you to survive and pass on your genes. And so you're going to live. You're going to sit on the couch in a comfy blanket eating Haagen Dazs and watching Netflix as opposed to going down to the gym, left to your devices, because Mother Nature wants you to feel more comfortable at this particular moment, but it's the wrong thing to do. And it seems to me that this maxim of Mother Nature not caring about your happiness lies behind a lot of the truths of Stoicism and why Stoicism is so hard, right? And yet it's so unbelievably beguiling. You've sold 10 million books about Stoicism, which is a philosophy that says, suck it up, buttercup.

B (35:30)

You know, it's funny, I was. I was just giving a talk about Stoicism and happiness, and I was. I was saying that, you know, riffing on that line of About Sisyphus, that I was sort of going through all the things that went wrong for Marcus Aurelius, right? All the disasters we just talked about. Plus, he buries six children. His wife may have been repeatedly unfaithful. He has health issues. It is not a good go of it. And I said, and yet, if we are to understand what Stoicism is about, I think we should imagine Marcus Aurelius happy now, not happy because everything was going the way that he wanted it to go, and because it was fun and nice and peaceful all the time. It's that the idea for the Stoics was, can you be happy even in all of this? Right? I think Cicero talked about the real test of happiness was, could you be happy while you're being tortured to death on the rack? Right? The idea if happiness was only the result of all of your conditions and preferences being met, it was going to be a particularly fragile thing. Now, if happiness is something that you can get despite all of those things, it might be something worthwhile. And so I think there's a line in Meditations where Marx Rua says, convince yourself that all of this is a gift from the gods and. And that things are good and they always will be. And I think that word, convince your. That phrase, convince yourself is in a sense, the definition of Stoic philosophy, right? He's saying that your job here is to not despair, to not take it personally, to not give up, to not quit. But to do the very real mental and spiritual work that allows you to find something to be grateful for even in the midst of a plague, even in the midst of a political disaster, even in the midst of a funeral for someone that you love. Can you do the work to find the gratitude and the satisfaction and the meaning? It's easy to be grateful when you're looking out over your healthy children in your mansion. It's easy to think that the world is wonderful as you're staring out over the Grand Canyon. It's harder to do it when the Spirit Airlines flight you're on is six hours delayed, or you have a terrible case of food poisoning, or, you know, you just got terrible news from the doctor. But, but, but to me, the real work of stoic philosophy is finding a way to feel happy and grateful and content and peaceful in a world that's very much not necessarily conducive to those things.

A (38:29)

Right. And this is entirely consistent with the proper definition of happiness. The misunderstanding of happiness is that it's a feeling. It's the feeling you get when you're doing the things that you enjoy. You can't put it into words, but you know it when you feel it. And that's wrong, because feelings are at best evidence of happiness, like the smell of the turkey is evidence of your Thanksgiving dinner. Happiness, as we understand it in the world of behavioral science is a combination of enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning. And there's a lot of suffering in going from pleasure to enjoyment and deferring your gratification. So you can experience true satisfaction. And most importantly, finding the meaning of your life that's full of suffering, that's just absolutely full of suffering. And so the proper definition of happiness is inherently stoic. Right?

B (39:13)

Yes. And that also. That happiness is work. Right. That happiness isn't getting all the things you want handed to you, but that it's actually work that you have to do, mental, spiritual work to orient yourself. Right. To understand what's happening. Right. That, that. Yeah. If. If it was just a feeling that creeped in, what would it really be worth?

A (39:39)

Right, right. Exactly. It's. It's feelings are largely unearned because they're a product of the limbic system. And what I teach my MBA students at Harvard is, the most important thing that I teach them is emotional self management through the process of metacognition, which is choosing to manage yourself with your prefrontal cortex, as opposed to being managed by your limbic system, which is your emotional console. And there are all kinds of techniques for doing that. But they all talk about bearing up under unpleasant feelings, through understanding, through self management, through convincing yourself, like you just said, using everything from vipassana meditation to journaling to prayers of petition. But one way or another, it's such that you are managing your feelings and they're not managing you. I mean, that's fundamentally a stoic exercise, isn't it?

B (40:26)

No, that's the definition of stoicism. I think people think that, and that's because of what the word stoic means. It, it. They think stoic means has no emotions. I think stoicism is having the emotion and then not being ruled by it. So there's so many things that piss me off, but do I try to go through my life in a state of being pissed off? There's things that I'm afraid of, but I try to go through my life not ruled by fear. There's things that I desire, there's things that I yearn for. There's. There's ambitions that I have, but I try to make sure that I have those things as opposed to those things have me, right? I have a career. My career does not have me. And so what is that kind of line between feeling the emotion, feeling the pull, feeling the attraction, whatever it is. And then to me, the stoicism is the process of processing them. There's a. There was a Stoic named Athena Doris who was the advisor to Octavian, the one who put Cicero to death. And he said, you know, before he writes in this, this, this essay that, you know, before you do anything, you should count all 24 letters of the Alphabet. Now there, there was two fewer letters in the ancient Latin Alphabet than we have today. But his point was you have the feeling you're upset somebody did something, somebody said something, you want to do something, and then, you know, can you pause? And to me, stoicism is that pause and reflection before the action.

A (42:07)

That's metacognition right there. That's what that is. That's exactly what we're talking about.

B (42:12)

So that might appear to someone who doesn't know you very well as not having had the emotion at all. Right, but, but the idea that Seneca, the playwright, didn't have pangs of jealousy when he saw some other playwright succeed, or that it didn't hurt his feelings when a critic said something negative about him, or that, that he didn't feel sad when he, you know, lost someone he loved, that of course, he's a human being. He actually says, no amount of philosophy takes away natural feeling. But you can train yourself to not go around, you know, acting impulsively. Right. And I think that that's the difference.

A (42:55)

And to govern yourself and not be governed by. By these negative, or by the way. The real Stoic master also is not governed by his positive feelings.

B (43:03)

Yes, yes.

A (43:04)

Which is really important. I mean, of course, we like to. We like to overlook that. I want to. I just want to govern my negative feelings, but I don't want to let my positive feelings, you know, range and roam freely. And you don't get that.

B (43:15)

No, to me, it's the. It's the even keel. Right. That's where we're trying to get to some kind of center, some sort of.

A (43:20)

A center while we're still experiencing the emotions, because that's part of human life. Tell me, you know, as you're, you know, you're traveling around the country a lot, you're talking to college students, so am I. What are the protocols of modern Stoicism that you're advising for young people today? You know, what. What should they start doing today to live in a more Stoic fashion?

B (43:38)

Well, I think Stoicism is inseparable as a practice from journaling.

A (43:42)

Right.

B (43:42)

Much of the work we have from Marcus Aurelius is him writing to himself. So it is this process of self examination. And Seneca called this the evening review. He said he'd wait for his wife to go to sleep and he would sit down and he would put himself up for a review. He said, I would let nothing pass by. He'd look at what he did well, what he could have done better, and he'd write this down. And so I think the process of thinking about what you think, thinking about yourself, is not just philosophical, but it's also deeply calming and reassuring. And it cultivates a kind of self awareness and self knowledge that I think is inseparable from enlightenment and wisdom. It's the main thing I would give people. I think I give a bunch more pro, like, practical ones. I think, look, there's a reason Marcus really is just talking about waking up early. He's talking about starting the day off in charge, doing something that you don't want to do. Right. And building a practice where you go, hey, I'm a person who does hard things. I decide what my day is built around. I am asserting that I don't think my job is to lay here under the covers and be warm. Right. So the Stoics have all sorts of sort of adversity that they seek out. They cultivate. There is a physical practice to Stoicism That I think is, you know, a big part of it. So, so, and, and look, I think for a lot of young men, this is why it is a more attractive philosophy than some of the more ethereal or cerebral forms of philosophy. It's like stoicism is a thing you do right, not a thing you read about and then debate in salons.

A (45:27)

It's a practice. It's a set of practices, and we're working through those practices right now. So number one was manage your emotions by journaling. The second was discipline the will by getting up early. So now you've got your emotions under control and you've got your will bent to your goals as a person, as opposed to roaming all over the place. What's the next thing that a young stoic needs to do?

B (45:49)

Well, look, I think what I have loved about the Stoics is that again, opposed to the Epicureans, is that they were involved, right? Involved in running the country, involved in their community, involved in public life. There was this component of justice. So I would say, what is your contribution to society? Where are you making the world a better place? Right. And what is a practice or, or an activity that you regularly do that connects you with other people that leaves this place better than you found it? And that could be running for office on one end, and it could be picking up trash that you see on the street. In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius says you want to have good fortune. He says good fortune is good character, good intentions and good deeds. And so what are you doing that is contributing to this world that you might reasonably see as dark and dysfunctional? What are you doing to make it not that way?

A (46:52)

Now that of course, is entirely consistent with the Jamesian, the William James philosophy of the I self versus the me self. When you act in a publicly virtuous way, you've transcended yourself laterally to other people in much the same way that when you, when you worship God, you transcend yourself vertically. And both work in much the same way with respect to how it improves you, it improves your life. That's what leads to a good life well lived is not focusing on yourself. Right? Self focus is lethal. And the best way for you to not focus on yourself is to focus on others and make their lives better. Is that the point?

B (47:28)

Yes. And then I think that pulls us back to the idea of happiness. There are many people much wealthier than you. There are many people much more accomplished than you, much more famous than you, and chances are many of them are not happier than you. Conversely, Though there are people that have all sorts of jobs that seem exhausting and demoralizing, that are poorly paid. But those people take a lot of meaning and purpose from those professions because it feels like they are contributing to the world. Right. And those people are probably happier than you.

A (48:06)

Oh, yeah.

B (48:07)

So what are the choices or decisions you're making as far as how you're orienting your life that are like, look, I said I wrote two bestselling marketing books before I wrote this book about Stoic philosophy. The Obstacle Is the Way could have sold 15 copies, and it would have been a profoundly important, important and meaningful thing to me. Part of the reason I didn't want to do those, I said, I don't want to do this for the rest of my life. Just go around and tell people how they can sell more of their shit to other people. That's not lighting me up. That's not what I was actually put here to do. And what is the net positive contribution of that? It is very little. And so deciding to find something and to dedicate yourself to something that gives you meaning and purpose, that's where the happiness comes from.

A (49:01)

The last area I want to ask you about for the modern would be stoic or somebody who's actually tending towards stoicism. Who's going toward the Stoic ideal. A young person today that you're talking to, that we're talking to right now. Tell me about device use in the Stoic mold.

B (49:16)

Anything that you have that has power over you is something the Stoics would look at suspiciously. Right. And so if the first thing that you do when you wake up in the morning is grab that device, that's a bad sign. And so, to me, I don't think the Stoics would have been these Luddites who reject all technology, but they would try to set up boundaries and rules and habits that. That, you know, sort of are asserting who's in charge. So, like, I have social media. It's a powerful tool for reaching my audience, but it's not something that I have direct access to. Right. It's not on my device. It's on a device at the office that we use, or it's on my wife's phone if I have to check a message or something. I'm not sleeping with my phone next to my bed. It's in the other room. Right. I read physical books, so I have a lot of time where I'm not staring at my screen. Right. So I think the Stoics would ask, you know, hey, do I Have the phone, or does the phone have me? We've been using that sort of. That. That. That expression quite a bit, but I. That, to me, that's the test. Who's in charge here? Is it. Is it Apple or is it me? Is it Twitter or is it me?

A (50:33)

And. And by the way, the. The same principle applies, as you would read the Meditations, Marcus Aurelius or anything by Epictetus. They don't write about the iPhone, but they do write about not being dominated by any other addictive substance or behavior, because it's the same principle, right? Do not be dominated by strong drink. You know, it's. And the idea of, you know, gambling or alcohol use or drugs or in modern times, Internet use or highly glycemic carbohydrates or pornography or anything that captures your brain and makes your life worse, that's the same principle as excessive device use, right?

B (51:05)

I think that's right. And I do think what I think is powerful about the Stoics is this idea of temperance, right? Or moderation. It's a tricky concept, but it's an important one. And to go to your point about drinking, often the image for the idea of temperance was a man watering down his wine, right? Wine was very strong in the ancient world. And so he's not refusing to partake, but he is diluting the strength of what he would ordinarily have partaken in. And so that's what I'm. I'm not walking around without a phone. Even people go, oh, I have a flip phone. It's like, maybe that works for you, but I have a terrible sense of direction, and I don't want to get lost all the time. Right. Also, by having my phone, it allows me to do a little work here and there and not have to sit at my desk all day. Right. I can take a walk and listen to music or, you know. You know, I can do my phone calls on the moon. I can do stuff. So I use it, but I try to make sure that I am using it and not the other way around.

A (52:11)

That's great. That's great. What did the Stoics get wrong?

B (52:15)

Ooh. Well, I do think they get all the things wrong that the ancients got wrong about, you know, sort of equal rights and equality and, you know, slavery and violence. You know, we are lucky that we don't live in the world of the Roman empires, because unless you were the elite of the elites, it was an empire built on exploitation and force. Right. It's good that we live in the modern world in that sense. So obviously they didn't question most of those assumptions. Every once in a while they did, but not always. I also think the Stoics, because this partly explains that they were a bit more predeterministic than I think they needed to be. Right? So this idea that some things are in your control and some things are not in your control. Okay, well, what do we decide is in our control or not in our control? Right. So, sure, slavery or colonialism, these are things that have existed for countless centuries. But then someone like Gandhi comes along or Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King comes along and says, well, what if I did something about that? Right. Thomas Clarkson comes along and says, well, what if I change that? So I do think that the Stoics were often a bit too lowercase C, conservative in the sense that they respected or venerated tradition that actually was in their control to change. And we would not want to live in a world where everyone accepted everything as outside of their control because. Because what that neglects is our ability to come together collectively and solve complex problems. That's. That's what politics in its best form is about. That's what government should be, us solving difficult problems and making the world better for each of us to live in. So I. I think the Stoics get some of that wrong.

A (54:15)

Yeah. So in a way, you're saying that what Marcus Aurelius got wrong is he didn't live in 2025, which is hardly his fault, but.

B (54:21)

But also the way we got from, you know, 150 AD to 2025 was, you know, that famous line about, you know, the reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The. The unreasonable man adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. There is something a little delusional about one's belief in changing the world or making a dent in the universe that we need also, and I don't want people to think that the Stoics were that. And look, I think we can square this circle pretty easily because the Founding Fathers are both the cautionary example and the inspiring example of this. All of them are steeped in Stoic philosophy. And what do they do? They create a new nation from nothing. And that is a politically revolutionary act. And so Stoicism is not incongruent with that. Although I did a daily Stoic email not that long ago about this letter where, where George Washington, for instance, this goes to my point. George Washington is going like, you know, I really hope someone does something about this slavery thing. You know, and, and it's like, it's like there was not a better person on earth than you in this moment to do something about that. And so, you know, I think his lowercase C, conservatism, the conservatism of Cato, which he very much admired, held him back from imagining a world where certain conditions could be changed and that he could be the one to do it.

A (55:54)

Yeah, and it's this entirely human, entirely human thing. As we go forward through history, we find all kinds of people that did not talk about the Stoics, but use Stoic philosophy in very meaningful ways. And one of them is somebody I mentioned before, which was Thomas Aquina, the greatest of the, of the medieval theologian. He was an Aristotelian originally, sort of a Neoplatonist, but introduced Aristotle's ideas to what were then modern audiences. And he's the reason we read Aristotle today and indirectly why we read a lot of Cicero today and indirectly why we know a lot of Stoicism today was vis a vis Aquinas. And Aquinas in the Summa Theologia, he had this really interesting and very, very Stoic point where he said that all people are beguiled by idols and these idols govern them. What they really want is God, but God is inconvenient. A lot of one sided conversations and inconvenient rules. And so they go for things that seem like they have divine characteristics. Now this is a lot like what the Stoics talk about. I mean, staying under the covers in early in the morning. It feels like it has divine characteristics, but it's just comfort, not virtue. This is, or Marcus's point. And he says that all. And this is a very strong behavioral science point, that very sound point that Thomas Aquinas makes, that there's only four kinds of idols and each of us falls prey to one more than the others. And the four idols are money, power, pleasure and honor. Those are the things we fall prey to. There are other things that beguile us because they capture our brain chemistry. But those are the big idols that he talks about. And when you know what your specific idol is, then you can become self governing in a way that will set you free. And so I have a game I play with my MBAs called what's My Idol? To figure out which of those beguiles them the most so they can pay attention to it and not do the things that they will ultimately regret. Do you want to play?

B (57:49)

I do, I do. And I think this is also where we have some Advantages over the ancients, which is, you know, modern psychology and psychiatry gives us the ability to go, okay, what about my childhood? What about that I was taught is going to predispose me towards one direction or another? Right, right. Basically, what, what did I make up as a kid is more important than it actually is.

A (58:14)

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. So this is the second time I've done this on this kind of new show. It's. You're the second. The first was Rainn Wilson. So, So I love to know he's.

B (58:21)

Yeah, it was.

A (58:21)

That was a great episode. So the four idols. And this is, this is an exhaustive list according to Thomas Aquinas, but very, very sound according to modern behavioral science as well. The thing that will throw you off your game, that will make you not pay attention to your loved ones, it'll make you cut ethical corners, it'll make you do things that you ultimately become non self governing and thus regretful are because they're comfortable are money, power, pleasure and honor. Which, and money just means resources. Power means. It doesn't mean tyranny. It just means persuasion and the ability to have sway and which can be used for great good. Obviously pleasure means feeling good, but also it means comfort or security. So if you're checking your stock portfolio every day, you're a pleasure freak is what that would be. That's your idol. And then fame probably doesn't mean Internet famous for most people. It means being respected and admired by the right people, maybe lots of people or as prestige or whatever happens to be. So the way to play the game in good social science fashion is to eliminate the idols. You don't have Ryan. So the ones that you really, really don't care about because, you know, we're so funny, we're prideful about things that we're not prideful about. You know, it's a, you know, I'm so proud of this that I don't have this, you know, idol. It's.

B (59:40)

Yeah.

A (59:40)

So, so you got to get rid of one. Which one do you get rid of first? Money, power, pleasure. And that doesn't mean that you don't have it. It just means that you're the population mean.

B (59:49)

No, no, my, my, my main one is definitely not pleasure. That's not what lights. Lights me up.

A (59:54)

But I know that you know this because you're, you're, you're not an ascetic, but you're, you could live with some austerity in your life. Right?

B (60:01)

Yeah. And, and I, I, I could probably eliminate power too. I'm, I'm more of an introvert solo figure. What I, I don't. That, that's not what I want. I'm not, I'm not pining for, for influence in, in that sense. Yeah.

A (60:18)

And probably, I would guess, because you just eliminated power, you hate it when people have power over you, right?

B (60:23)

Definitely. Yes.

A (60:24)

Yeah. Every. See, here's the thing. People admire those who have the idol that they hold. Those who have a lot of the idol that they crave after that they hanker for. So if you see that, that would be. Dictators love dictators. They admire dictators, you know, would be, you know, money freaks. They love billionaires is what it comes down to. You can tell somebody's idol by what they admire. Right. And if you really, really, if you just have an aversion to really powerful people, it means power's not your idol almost always.

B (60:56)

Well, don't you see this as an author? You meet a lot of very, very rich and successful people and they're just like, in love with what you do because they, they love books. But they also notice that, that people perceive people with creative chops or an audience or have done that hard thing. They notice that it's perceived differently or that it bats, I think above its, its, its class than just say, you know, having a gazillion dollars. Yeah, I've noticed that. It's, it's what, it's like, what do, what do rich people do as soon as they've made a lot of money, as they pay someone to write a book for them?

A (61:36)

Yeah. And you know, when every time a big time CEO retires, he allows himself to be persuaded that he needs to write a book on leadership.

B (61:44)

Yes, exactly.

A (61:45)

And I got news for you. You don't need to do that. And the world is better if you don't. And you'll be a lot happier and your marriage will be better if you don't do that.

B (61:53)

When I sometimes see those people, I go like, I know why I'm here. I'm getting paid to be here. This is my job. You have a gazillion dollars and you had to come to this dumb conference because you are coveting the other. You are coveting the other thing.

A (62:07)

Interesting. Okay, so we're down to money and honor, and you got to get rid of one. But it's hot in here now because you like both, obviously, or you would have eliminated them. Which one do you get rid of next, even though you like them both?

B (62:19)

I probably like money more than I'd like to Like, I wish it was less important to me. I very much admire people when I hear someone just, I just interviewed this, this guy that had turned down a $17 million NBA contract and I thought, wow, I can't imagine doing that, you know, So I, I admire it because it seems very foreign to me. But, but that's not my main thing. I mean, I wouldn't be writing books about philosophy if money was the main thing.

A (62:46)

Right. And so we know that that honor will be, it's not dominating your life, but if you want to be living up to stoic principles, that's the one to be paying attention to because that's the one that's most likely to govern you in your weak moments. That's the whole point. Right. And that's the one that will make you make decisions and say things that shouldn't have said, that I wanted the approval of people or something. Right.

B (63:08)

Yeah, it's. What, what did my parents value? What did, what did the 17 year old version of you think was the coolest thing in the world? You know, and, and I, I think about, like, I, I love my parents, obviously, but when I go see them, they, they tell me about like the fancy, important people that they met or bumped into or that lives down the road and I go, oh, it probably is not a surprise that I sought out some career that would mean distinction. I didn't pick an anonymous, you know, quiet life. I went for something that would be the kind of thing that my parents would tell other people about.

A (63:45)

Yeah, and your mother is over the back fence to the neighborhood now. You know, you know, Ryan has a new book coming out. You know, Ryan's last book sold a million copies and they're like, I know, we know, we know.

B (63:57)

Yes, yes. Although they did not necessarily have the see this all coming. I think it was a surprise. So there was a dip, right? And this actually goes to the point, right? There was the dip because having the kid who dropped out of college to do whatever seemed like it was heading in the opposite of that direction. And so that probably motivated me on some deeper level also to go like, well, now I really got to prove it.

A (64:24)

Right.

B (64:24)

I think about this a lot.

A (64:25)

Yeah, yeah, me too. And it's great. That means you're thinking about your idol and that means you dominate it and you can live in a more stoic fashion and live a better life as a result, which is great. Let me sum up the four lessons for our listeners on how they can be more stoic. Now, again, you're not going to Be a stoic. What you're going to do is you're trying to be more stoic. Right. That's the. That's the important point. Because stoicism is an ideal, not a state. Right. Okay, so here are the four things to do. Number one, manage your emotions. Best way to do that is journaling. Check.

B (64:56)

Yes.

A (64:57)

Number two, discipline the will. Good way to do that is by winning the day by getting up before dawn.

B (65:03)

Yep. Treat the body rigorously. Seneca says so it's not disobedient to the mind.

A (65:08)

Great. Number three, lower your self focus. Do that by serving others.

B (65:15)

It's the we, not the me.

A (65:17)

And last but not least, extinguish your addictions. And that will probably start with your devices, I think.

B (65:24)

That's right.

A (65:25)

You do those four things. Well, you still need to get the books. And the new book is Wisdom Takes Work. So sum that up for us.

B (65:32)

It's the fourth and the most essential of the cardinal virtues because it's the one that informs all of the others. So it's not a book of wisdom, because to write one would be preposterous. It is a book about the methodology by which one becomes wiser. To go to the way you expressed it earlier, no one is wise, but you can become wiser than you were. That's what the book's about.

A (65:57)

Yeah. All of these things are tied together. You can't be happy. You can only be happier than you were. And all of these things are ideals that you would actually approach. You'll never be a stoic. You'll just be closer to the stoic ideal. And I think that's an important way to live our lives because life is a journey. And that journey should be an incredible adventure in making improvements in our own lives, lifting other people up and bringing them together, and in so doing, finding the best person that we can possibly be. I'm really grateful to you for, you know, the work that you're doing, because, you know, I read it and I feel like I'm a better person as a result.

B (66:30)

Well, I would say the exact same thing about your work. And it's been wonderful getting to know you.

A (66:36)

Thanks. I can't wait to see you in Bastrop, Texas. A beautiful place.

B (66:38)

Yeah. In like a couple months, right? I think you're here in December or something.

A (66:41)

Yeah. I'm going to come on your show. Can't wait.

B (66:43)

We'll do it again. All right.

A (66:44)

Thanks, Ryan.