And, This Is The Stoic's Survival Guide With Ryan Holiday

Summary

Podcast Summary: "And, This Is The Stoic's Survival Guide With Ryan Holiday"

Podcast: This Is Gavin Newsom
Host: Gavin Newsom (iHeartPodcasts)
Guest: Ryan Holiday
Air Date: April 17, 2026

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Overview

This lively and introspective episode features California Governor Gavin Newsom in conversation with bestselling author and modern Stoic Ryan Holiday. The pair explore the life-shaping power of Stoic philosophy, how new generations find meaning and agency in a chaotic world, the evolution of personal and public leadership, and the ongoing challenge of discerning truth in today’s media environment. Throughout, Holiday reflects on his personal journey from suburban Sacramento to apprenticing with legendary author Robert Greene, grappling with the ethical ambiguities of American Apparel, and ultimately popularizing Stoicism for millions.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Origins and Early Life (02:48 – 09:53)

• Sacramento Roots: Ryan recalls his suburban upbringing in Northern California and how the region's "conventional" ethos shaped his early worldview.
• Family Influence: Holiday’s father was a police detective, his mother a principal—public service and education were his frameworks, but creative ambition felt foreign.
• Exposure to Possibility: It wasn’t until college that writing felt possible, thanks to professors and exposure to authors who made the path tangible.

“I don’t know if I ever met anyone growing up who didn’t have a job, just a regular job… I loved books, but I didn’t meet anyone that wrote books.”
— Ryan Holiday (05:18)

2. Mentorship and Breaking Into Writing (10:30 – 17:37)

• College Years: Studied political science and creative writing; pivotal seminar with novelist Susan Strait revealed "you could do this for real."
• Robert Greene Apprenticeship: Began as a researcher for the author of The 48 Laws of Power, which became a career-defining mentorship.
• Learning by Proximity: Holiday underscores the value of being close to those at “the center of things”—absorbing expertise and wisdom informally.

“The mentorship is sealed by you validating the investment they put in you.”
— Ryan Holiday (13:16)

3. American Apparel and Lessons in Ego (18:16 – 26:46)

• American Apparel Tenure: Holiday ascends to head of marketing, gaining a “ringside seat” to the brand’s success and unraveling.
• Culture and Cautionary Tales: Outlines the blurred line between “genius and madness,” the perils of naïveté, and the importance of unlearning toxic lessons after leaving.
• Personal Growth: Explains how hindsight grants clarity about one's participation in dysfunctional organizations and the value of supportive figures (“My wife was telling me every day that this is insane…”).

“It’s very hard to understand something when your salary depends on you not understanding.”
— Ryan Holiday, quoting Upton Sinclair (21:44)

4. "Trust Me, I'm Lying" and the Media Machine (27:01 – 34:07)

• Premature Prophecy: His 2012 exposé on media manipulation foreshadowed today’s era of “alternative facts” and viral misinformation.
• Systemic Vulnerabilities: Details how stories escalate from blogs into mainstream news, and how the public’s understanding of truth is upended by repetition rather than evidence.

“You can introduce alternative facts, as they say, and people believe them. And they believe them even after they’re debunked—sometimes even more so.”
— Ryan Holiday (30:05)

5. Encountering Stoicism (38:06 – 54:29)

• Unexpected Introduction: Dr. Drew (not Robert Greene) first recommended the Stoics; Holiday’s life changed upon reading Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations in college.
• Immediate Resonance: Found guidance not in abstract philosophy, but in raw human wisdom for dealing with anxiety, temper, anger, and mortality.
• Stoicism Misunderstood: Addressed the misconception that Stoicism encourages emotional detachment; instead, it’s about cultivating inner character and responding ethically to life’s challenges.

“Stoicism isn’t, ‘Fuck you, I’ve got mine…’ It’s… an ethical philosophy about responsibilities to other people.”
— Ryan Holiday (52:22)

6. The Evolving Relevance of Stoic Philosophy (54:29 – 59:22)

• Growing with the Classics: How age, experience, and context renew the relevance of classic texts: “You never swim in the same river twice.”
• Agency and Victimhood: Contrasts the Stoic focus on response and responsibility with modern victim mentality; applies Stoic insights to civic engagement and public leadership.

“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
— Marcus Aurelius, discussed by both (56:45)

7. Stoic Virtues, Responsibility, and Modern Challenges (73:29 – 80:23)

• Cardinal Virtues in Action: Courage, wisdom, temperance, discipline, and above all, justice—central to personal and public morality.
• Responsibility as a Civic Value: Nuanced discussion about civic responsibility and the idea of a “Statue of Responsibility” to balance the Statue of Liberty.
• Active Citizenship: Democracy fails without citizens willing to take initiative; Stoic agency means doing what’s possible, not waiting to be told.

“The most important office is the office of citizen. Active, not inert citizenship.”
— Gavin Newsom quoting Brandeis (79:38)

8. Stoicism’s Limitations and Progress (95:24 – 98:11)

• Critiques of Stoic Tradition: Acknowledges historical blind spots, most notably on slavery and social change. The Stoics’ tendency towards resignation is a point for modern revision and continued progress.

“Stoicism cannot simply be a tool for accepting the status quo.”
— Ryan Holiday (98:04)

9. Wisdom, Leadership, and What’s Next (98:11 – End)

• On the Order of Virtues: Wisdom is foundational, but all virtues are entwined. “Being right” is not enough—competence and savvy are essential.
• Forthcoming Projects: Holiday is working on a biography of Admiral James Stockdale, a real-life model of Stoic endurance.
• Daily Stoic and Daily Dad: Holiday shares his philosophy daily through writing and parenting insights, hoping repetition and honesty support others’ journeys.

“You know the parent you want to be, and you’re never being that parent. So it helps to remind yourself over and over again not of where you’re falling short, but what the ideal is that you’re aspiring towards.”
— Ryan Holiday (104:33)

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Notable Quotes and Moments

• On Possibility and Representation:
  “You can’t be what you can’t see. Once you see something, it’s now more tangible.”
  — Gavin Newsom (09:11)

• On Media Manipulation:
  “If media is where public opinion is formed, this vulnerability is just too valuable to too many powerful, important, or deranged people for them not to take advantage of it.”
  — Ryan Holiday (28:25)

• On the Meaning of Stoicism:
  “It’s for people trying to be human beings, like. And trying to just deal with the difficulties of life.”
  — Ryan Holiday (41:28)

• On Agency:
  “It’s not what happens to us, but how we respond to what happens to us.”
  — Ryan Holiday (59:22)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Ryan’s Sacramento Roots & Upbringing: 02:48 – 09:53
• Mentorship & Breaking into Writing: 10:30 – 17:37
• American Apparel & “Ego is the Enemy”: 18:16 – 26:46
• Media Manipulation & “Trust Me, I’m Lying”: 27:01 – 34:07
• Discovering Stoicism with Dr. Drew: 38:06 – 39:11
• Implications for Modern Politics/Media: 30:05 – 33:41, 43:39 – 49:45
• Cardinal Virtues & Civic Responsibility: 73:29 – 80:23
• Stoicism’s Limitations & Progress: 95:24 – 98:11
• Reflections on Wisdom, Stockdale Book: 98:11 – 101:00

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Tone & Style

The episode is conversational, candid, and occasionally humorous—reflecting the mutual respect and curiosity between the host and guest. Newsom leverages his own experiences and vulnerabilities as a public figure, while Holiday is both reflective and direct, using examples from ancient philosophy and modern life to illuminate core lessons.

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Takeaways

• Stoicism’s modern relevance is in cultivating agency, resilience, and ethical responsibility amidst uncertainty and misinformation.
• Action and participation—not resignation—are central to personal growth and societal progress.
• Mentorship and exposure often determine whether people actualize their potential; proximity to "where the action is" matters.
• Striving for improvement—whether in writing, parenting, or public service—is a perpetual, imperfect process, best guided by humility and daily practice.

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For further inspiration or study:

• Subscribe to Ryan Holiday’s Daily Stoic and Daily Dad (frequently recommended during the episode).
• Look for the upcoming biography of Admiral James Stockdale by Ryan Holiday.
• Revisit Holiday’s classic works: The Obstacle Is the Way, Ego Is the Enemy, and Trust Me, I’m Lying.

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This summary covers the essential themes, insights, and memorable quotes from Gavin Newsom’s conversation with Ryan Holiday, providing a practical survival guide for modern Stoic living.

Transcript

[Ryan Holiday]

That line between genius and madness is very fluid. You can sort of introduce alternative facts, as they say, and people believe them. Stoicism is not a formula for you to be a better sociopath. This is Gavin Newsom and this is Ryan Holiday.

[Diana Maria Riva]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.

[Robert Smigel]

Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy not quite on Humor Me with Robert Smigel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier this week. My guests, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an acapella band with their between songs Banter.

[Ryan Holiday]

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes.

[Robert Smigel]

Those people are starving for banter. Listen to Humor Me with Robert Smigel and friends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Host of Psychology of Your 20s]

Your twenties can be so exciting, but they can also be really overwhelming, confusing, and honestly, just kind of lonely. May is mental health awareness month and the psychology of your twenties is breaking down the science behind the biggest roadblocks we face.

[Diana Maria Riva]

I was six years into my career, the 80 hour weeks and just the first one in, the last one out and I ended up burning out.

[Ryan Holiday]

There was a large chunk of my twenties that I like was just so wanting to like be out of that phase, out of my skin and I

[Premier Protein Advertiser]

just like really regret not living in the present more.

[Host of Psychology of Your 20s]

You don't need to have everything figured out right now. You just need to understand yourself a little bit better. Listen to the psychology of your 20s on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Diana Maria Riva]

Hey, I'm Deanna Maria Riva and on my new podcast, How Hard can it Be? I call on my Gen X squad. From Ohio to Hollywood as we navigate midlife's most fantastic bs. Unfiltered conversations from night sweats to fupas to scheduling sex. Wait, what sex? Is it just me or does every woman my age wanna look at Pinterest instead of having sex? Sometimes they say we can't polish a turd, but we're sure gonna try. So let's get blunt with laughs, tears or tears of laughter. Listen to how hard can it Be? Diana Maria Riva on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ryan Holiday]

American soccer is about to explode.

[Gavin Newsom]

The World cup is coming.

[Ryan Holiday]

Ramos sending on Ernie Stewart the chip.

[Gavin Newsom]

I'm Tab Ramos.

[Ryan Holiday]

I'm Tom Boke.

[Carlos King]

On our podcast Inside American Soccer, you'll get the real storylines, the biggest decisions and the truth about the U.S. national team.

[Ryan Holiday]

It wouldn't be a huge surprise that

[Gavin Newsom]

if our team ends up in the quarterfinals or potentially a great run into the semifinals.

[Ryan Holiday]

Listen to Inside American Soccer with Tom

[Carlos King]

Boger and Tab ramos on the iHeartRadio

[Ryan Holiday]

app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.

[Gavin Newsom]

Ryan, thanks for being here, man.

[Ryan Holiday]

Of course.

[Gavin Newsom]

Sacramento, California, you know this area well, don't you?

[Ryan Holiday]

Not this area, because I like. I think people don't understand that Sacramento is a bit like Los Angeles. Where to people who don't live there, it's one place.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

But if you live there, it's a bunch of other. Like I probably came downtown like 10 times in my life.

[Gavin Newsom]

Interesting.

[Ryan Holiday]

Until later because I lived in the suburbs of Sacramento.

[Gavin Newsom]

I mean, so this was a big city, Sacramento back when, it's like this

[Ryan Holiday]

is the town we would pass on the way to Arco arena to watch the Sacramento Kings. Yeah. Or, or we would go down here to see Sutter's Fort or the railroad Museum as a kid. But you wouldn't actually do Sacramento one because it wasn't. I mean it's done so much amazing works or bring it back to life. But also like California is like these self contained suburbs and you live in your.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

In your suburb.

[Gavin Newsom]

But you went, you must have. When you were a kid, you must have gone to the Capitol. Right. You have to. Part of the obligation of childhood here in California. Everyone does a fourth grade, they do a little tour.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

How about the Governor's mansion where we are right now?

[Ryan Holiday]

I'd never been. I've never been here.

[Gavin Newsom]

Interesting.

[Ryan Holiday]

I don't even think I've seen it.

[Gavin Newsom]

You've never seen it?

[Ryan Holiday]

I don't, I don't know. I don't.

[Gavin Newsom]

I mean, you've been driven by Ronald Reagan's old.

[Ryan Holiday]

Here's when I would have seen it. They made you do your driver's test, your driver's training in downtown, because it was the only place that would have like four way stops.

[Gavin Newsom]

Right.

[Ryan Holiday]

Like anyways, I remember driving downtown to get my driver's license.

[Gavin Newsom]

That's it. But you're Fair Oaks, kid. Fair Oaks, California. The suburb here?

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, I was born in Gold River.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

And then, and then we moved to Fair Oaks and. Yeah, I was there for. Till. Till high school to high school.

[Gavin Newsom]

And then you went what, you went down south? You went to.

[Ryan Holiday]

Sure. No, we went to. I went to Granite Bay High School.

[Gavin Newsom]

So you're Granite Bay High School?

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes, yes.

[Gavin Newsom]

You know, and you were, you know, we were. Excellent student. Were you that kid that was always raising your hand or were you in the back? What was. Give me your profile.

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, my parents wanted me to go to Jesuit, and I didn't go to Jesuit, so I was not that student. No, I, I, I think I was like, I was like hit or miss sometimes, Sometimes it was a fit, and when it was a fit, it was good. And then a lot of times it wasn't. It wasn't until I went to college that, that anything really started to happen for me.

[Gavin Newsom]

But in high school, were you just, I mean, what would. You must have had some, it wouldn't be a vision board, but you must add some vision of your future. What was it? What were you thinking you'd become?

[Ryan Holiday]

Oh, I wanted to be in a heavy metal band.

[Gavin Newsom]

So that was it.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

You were certain about that?

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes, yes. I mean, I think I loved music, but I've said this before, but like, I, I don't think I. Sacramento is a lovely place, but it was not then much the territory of entrepreneurs or artists or like, I don't, I, I don't know if I ever met anyone growing up who didn't have a job, like just a regular job, like teachers, doctors, civil servants. Love that, you know, real estate agents. It was just very conventional. Right. And I think that's why people love Sacramento, is that you could have a conventional life here. That version of the American dream was very accessible. Love it. But the idea that, like, I loved books, but I didn't meet anyone that wrote books, you know, it wasn't like, oh, this neighbor, their kid. There wasn't any of that. So it was, I, I just don't, I just didn't have a sense of what was possible. I mean, it wasn't until I, I was probably in my twenties that I even learned Joan Didion was from California. Like, I, There it was, it wasn't a, like, hey, this is a place where people who do that come from.

[Gavin Newsom]

What were your parents, what were your parents doing? What kind of.

[Ryan Holiday]

My dad was a police detective and my mom was a school principal.

[Gavin Newsom]

I love it.

[Ryan Holiday]

So just, you know, like you're classic sort of American job in a school principal.

[Gavin Newsom]

I mean, what kind of mindset do you have with a mom who's a school principal?

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, my mom was a school principal in, in the San Juan school district, but she did like continuing adult education. So she did, she didn't have like kids as her students. It was, Got it. It was like, you know, plumbers going back to get their GED and stuff. So it Was. I mean, it was all. Was all really interesting, but just not what I wanted to do.

[Gavin Newsom]

And were you surrounded by books as a kid? Were they your parents pushing books? You know, your 10th grade? You know, here's. Honey, here's the three books you need to read.

[Ryan Holiday]

I mean, we. I read a lot as a kid, but I read, you know, like. Like westerns and. Action. I didn't know about this thing called philosophy. I didn't know, like. I didn't know there was all these amazing history books. I was just. I don't know. It was a. It was a bubble. In a good way.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

And. And then, I mean, that's why you go away to college, is to. To expand what you're exposed to.

[Gavin Newsom]

So you were in college, and what were you studying? What did you decide to study?

[Ryan Holiday]

I was political science and creative writing.

[Gavin Newsom]

And Creative writing, yeah. Were you always a writer?

[Ryan Holiday]

I think I wanted to be a writer. And I remember my first seminar, we had to go down in the summer, and we had this seminar was taught by Susan Strait, who's one of the great sort of California novelists. And she had assigned. They'd assigned us her book. And it was like. It was a real book. Like, you know, like a book you would see in a bookstore.

[Gavin Newsom]

Right.

[Ryan Holiday]

And I was like, oh, people do this. Like, this is a job you could have. This is a thing people do. And I think, you know, like, we talk about, like, Nepo babies and stuff. And I think one of the things people don't understand about that is that a big part of what it does is it demystifies the possibility of going in certain directions when, you know, oh, hey, like, my mom's friend does that. Or, hey, I've seen my dad practice. You know, his lines for an audition. Like you. I gotta imagine for Steph Curry, being in an NBA arena is like, this is where my dad works. And so it becomes possible in a way that obviously there's the genetics and the privilege and all that, but I think a huge part of it is just like, no, no, this is a thing you can do because you saw other people do it for the same reason that it was probably likely that I'd be a police officer or a schoolteacher. Because, you know, you saw your parents do that.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah. I think about, you know, the old adage, once a mind is stretched, it never goes back to its original form or even the more simple frame, which is probably overstated. But you can't be what you can't see once you see something. Yes, it's now more tangible.

[Ryan Holiday]

And that's like they talk about this like with representation, like if you don't see people like you on T or in art or you know, in the movies or you know, on the headlines, you just don't think someone like you can do it. And, and representation matters not obviously just in terms of gender or class or nationality, but also just like, hey, people like you from this small town can go. That's why, that's why towns celebrate like who came from here. That like there is a way to, to do that.

[Gavin Newsom]

It's my favorite part of American Idol when they come back home and the entire town's out there on Main street and just so proud their native sons. So you, you know, you were out there, but meanwhile you're just so you're doing a little creative writing, but you've got a rock band on the side. What are you doing? I mean, you're sitting there in the. Driving your parents crazy in the garage.

[Ryan Holiday]

Uh huh. That's exactly what I was. I'm sure it was horrible. And they were pretty, they were pretty patient and, and yeah, it just didn't go anywhere and as is to be expected.

[Gavin Newsom]

But, but you lasted how many years in college you were two. Just two.

[Ryan Holiday]

Two.

[Gavin Newsom]

So what happened?

[Ryan Holiday]

I got a chance to be a writer. I, I, so I, I was writing for the college newspaper which again you, you sort of get a chance to do a thing. Oh, this is a, this is, it's like a job. So I was writing for the college newspaper in Riverside and, and I, I started working for this person that I'd written about, this guy named Robert Greene who wrote the 48 laws of power.

[Gavin Newsom]

And how'd you get. I mean, I mean, Robert a legend.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

Doesn't begin to describe him. And I mean you don't have to introduce 40 of Harvey.

[Ryan Holiday]

He's the goat. I mean he's like one of the greatest nonfiction writers of.

[Gavin Newsom]

How did you even get a chance to even. I mean, you're writing about him. Did you. And that all of a sudden then he attached his.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. Then I started doing little things for him here or there and it kind of became this whole. He needed a research assistant. And I was like, that's. I remember thinking like, hey, if this is what I. This was my first job out of college, college would be a success, you know.

[Gavin Newsom]

Did your parents agree with. No, no, they of course didn't. Right.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. Because of my. I think my entire family was horrified. They're all teachers and you know, also for that. That was the thing is, you. Your kids go to college so they don't end up living under a bridge somewhere.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

And so they did not. They did not handle it well. And it was. I mean, it's funny too, because I thought I was. At the time, I thought it was this enormous risk, you know, like, crazy thing that I was doing because I never done anything.

[Gavin Newsom]

You're still a teenager at the time. Yeah. 19 or something.

[Ryan Holiday]

20.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

Maybe. But I do think we put so much pressure on kids that, like, if you don't go to college between the ages of 18 and 22, it's over for you. Like, you're. You're just done. And obviously that's. That's not really true. I could have always gone back and. And I think that the Silicon Valley model of dropping out to go do something actually was very helpful to me because I could be like, oh, all these other people had. Had done it in other ways. And it doesn't. It doesn't ruin your life.

[Gavin Newsom]

And, And Robert was not, you know, so you're doing research, but he's also just an outsized mentor. Yes, in every way. Shape.

[Ryan Holiday]

It was like an apprentice. I mean, in retrospect, you would call it an apprenticeship. I think sometimes people think these things are very official. Like this person, you sign a contract, and then they're your mentor for the next experience. It's an informal thing that develops over time, and you learn a lot. And then also, I think people only claim the relationship if you go on to do things.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah, good point.

[Ryan Holiday]

Right. Like the mentorship is sealed by you, by you, by you validating the investment that they put in you. And so. But. But yeah, I learned everything I could possibly learn about how to do the thing that I wanted to do.

[Gavin Newsom]

And you were. And you had a very definitive, intentional thing you wanted to do. I mean, writing's a construct, but there's so many different disciplines. I mean, were you. Did. Did you. Did you start to follow his path or were you trying to follow your own path and sort of, you know, and all of a sudden you deviated back? What?

[Ryan Holiday]

I knew I wanted to write about sort of history and stuff like that. And he is an interesting model because he's not a university professor or anything like that. He just writes these books that are enormously popular and influential and have been for a really long time kind of outside the system. Like, the 48 laws of power is consistently one of the most shoplifted books in the country.

[Gavin Newsom]

Wow.

[Ryan Holiday]

It's also banned in most prisons.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah. Trust me. I know this. It's a big issue. We were just reviewing. Reviewing our banned books at our California Department of Corrections. It's.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. And like, the Innocence Project will tell people, like, hey, do not have this book in your cell. It will be used against you in sentencing.

[Gavin Newsom]

Oh, deal.

[Ryan Holiday]

So. So he's just written these really interesting books that. That, you know, have this sort of outsized reputation, but. But they're also just, like, meticulously crafted and. And really kind of transgressive in how they're laid out and organized. I just didn't know you. Again, I didn't know you could do something like that. And so that's. I wanted to do something like that, and I do. I think if you're, like, a young person, you're trying to figure out what you want to do, the best thing you can do is find someone who's done something similar, like something just in the ballpark, and find some means of being in the orbit. You know, it's like, how do you go sweep floors in their record studio? How do you stock shelves in the store? How do you drive them? You know, what. What. How can you do anything where you're just in the orbit and that? So.

[Gavin Newsom]

And was that something you had a concept of at the time, or over time, you started to wake up to that appreciation? You started to realize, wait a second, I. I need to really take this in more fully, and I need to really appreciate what I'm learning and what I'm absorbing. Or is that your relationship to that, the idea, you know, success leaves clues that you can pick up on other people's. Did that come in hindsight?

[Ryan Holiday]

I think more in hindsight, yeah. There's a Lyndon Johnson thing where he's like, you go to the people who are at the center of things. Nice. And you just need to be in proximity to power, influence, expertise. So I think I had some sense that you. You just want to go where the action is. Yeah, I think I was very just. It would be like, you know, Robert would assign me to transcribe a bunch of interviews, and. And then he'd be like, bring him by the house, you know, And I'd. And to me, that was where I was getting paid, is that I would get to go. And then, you know, he'd be, okay, so what's in here? And we'd review it, and then I maybe get to sneak in, like, one or two questions.

[Gavin Newsom]

Nice.

[Ryan Holiday]

And. And that, to me, that was. That was how I was getting paid. I mean, he was actually very generous and he did pay me, but like, I, I, I was getting paid in something that I understood was much more valuable than, you know, would show up on a, on a, on a pay stub or whatever, which is like, how do you, how do you get advice from the people who have done, done the thing? Yeah, and that's, I think, where you want to go. It's funny because later he writes this, I think, his best book that, it's probably the book that I would give most young people. He wrote this book called Mastery. And, and it's all about how you become great at something. And he, there's this whole, the whole, I think the second step is about this sort of apprenticeship you have to, the first thing is you find the thing that you're meant to do and when, and when you're lucky enough to be like, oh, this is the thing that lights me up. This is what I want to do. The next step is you find that person who is, who has done it, and you just have to, you know, you have to attach yourself to them. And that, that was that phase for a good chunk of my 20s.

[Gavin Newsom]

Love it. How many, so you were, you were there for how many years then with Robert?

[Ryan Holiday]

20, 19 to 26? 27.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah, it was a, I mean, and

[Ryan Holiday]

like, these things are fluid and they overlap. You know, you get your, you get your first shot. You know, I wrote a book and he was helping me with it. It's not like this one day it ends and you graduate. It's this thing. I mean, I was just talking to him a couple of days ago, asking him for some advice. And so it's kind of a fluid thing. But he ended up getting me a job at this company called American Apparel, and that was kind of the next sort of part of that education.

[Gavin Newsom]

And you were doing marketing work there. How'd that go for you, Ryan?

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, it was interesting.

[Gavin Newsom]

Some people may not know a little bit of this story. We don't have to dwell on this, but it's a hell of an interesting story.

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, it's a sad, you know, it's a sad story too, in that if you had told me at 23 that now I would say that name and people would stare at you blankly. It's a cautionary. I mean, I wrote a book called Ego is the Enemy that I wrote as the company was imploding because I sort of had a ringside seat to this one point, the largest garment manufacturer in the Northern hemisphere is this success story. It was this incredible thing. One of the coolest brands in the world and it just destroyed itself. Destroyed itself. And the, the genius that created it was also the, the demonic energy that destroyed it. And that's a very common thing where like the, that line between genius and madness is very fluid. And, and yeah, it was, it was a, it was a surreal experience. I learned a ton, obviously, and then a lot, a lot of things that took a while to unlearn as well.

[Gavin Newsom]

Did you. I mean, there's, you know, the old frame you put a mask on. I think Orwell and shooting the elephant talked about I put a mask on his face grew into it. Did you see that happening to you in terms of trying to sort of defend or sort of, you know, the PR push does, you know, sort of, you know, mask the deviancy there you,

[Ryan Holiday]

you experience only in looking back, especially as you get older, you go, I had no business being there. Like, like, why did, why was a 22 year old running marketing at a publicly traded company? It, you know, if you'd asked me at 22, I would have said, because I'm that good. And then, and then now I go, oh, I was probably good. But I also didn't know how fucking insane any of this was. And so I think it's helped me understand some of what's happening in the world. Some of the me too. Stuff where you're like, oh, part of the reason that everyone there was in their twenties working for someone who was not in their twenties was that there was a certain amount of control and a certain amount of naivete about what was happening that allowed that sort of system to go on as it did. So, you know, like, yeah, just. I just realized, like, oh, I just shouldn't have been in any of these situations is wildly inappropriate and insane. But I didn't know because I'm a kid from Sacramento and this all seems very exciting and interesting. I, you know, I'm. It's not straight. It's not. It's not striking me as insane that this, you know, single 45 year old multimillionaire wants me to live in his house. You know, like that. That seemed exciting and interesting. Thankfully I did not live in said house. But, but you know, you just, you just don't realize what's crazy until you're out of the thing. And so I am somewhat sympathetic to people who kind of get in over their heads on stuff because that was, that was certainly me. I just didn't. I was just really caught up in the energy and the excitement and the sort of canvas that it was to do what I was doing, but the fact that it was all nuts was a debriefing process. And then the funny thing is my wife and I have been together since we met in college. And so she was there through all of it. And she was like, you know, I was telling you every day that this is insane. Like, told you so, like, so I'll just be in, you know, I'll be on the middle of a run somewhere and something will hit me and I'll come back and I'll tell her. And she's like, I told you that like 800 times, you know, and so that you were just, you know, you're, you're. What's that, that Upton Sinclair thing about? It's very hard to understand something when your salary depends on you not understanding.

[Gavin Newsom]

Well said.

[Ryan Holiday]

And. And there was a lot of that.

[Gavin Newsom]

There was a lot of that as well. So, I mean, how long was that? It was over a two year period.

[Ryan Holiday]

Oh, no, I was there short. 2007, 2014or15, something like that. So it was a huge, big chunk of my. Yeah, it was a big chunk.

[Gavin Newsom]

And meanwhile, though, you started, you said, he goes the enemy. You're starting to, I mean, perfect book to sort of the genesis of that experience and understanding it. And so, I mean, it. Was that the first. I mean, for you. You had written a number of things, but was that, you know, because that sort of starts to move you in the direction that you ultimately are today or.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, I did a book on media first and then I did my first book on stoicism, which was called the Obstacles Away. And then. And then, yeah, ego was sort of at the. Ego was me kind of leaving a good chunk of that behind and watching that sort of explode. So it was, you know, in retrospect, you look back, I'm sure you experienced this writing your book. You think of these things as these kind of clean periods or that you had this, like, you had this insight. Like, this is when I knew I was going to do this. And then like, I am one of the great California writers. This guy, Bud Bud Schulberg, if you know who that is, he wrote what Makes Sammy Run on the Waterfront.

[Gavin Newsom]

Nice.

[Ryan Holiday]

Anyways, he wrote this book called the Harder They Fall, which is about this sort of corrupt PR agent who's working for the mob as they fix boxing fights. And. And I read this book, and if you asked me when I knew I wanted to leave American Apparel and get out of this life, I would tell you it was the day I read that book. And I would Say like. And I know because the last page is this kind of big. Yes. This big insight. It goes. I'm realizing now you cannot deal in filth without becoming the thing you touch. Yeah, this is sort of microc moment. And so I was like, okay. So I read that and I still gone back and looked at it this. I can see the markings that I'm like, holy shit, what is it like? It felt like, you know, when you read something, you're like, I feel so attacked. This is about me specifically. So that would have been when I thought my breakthrough happened. And then I was talking to someone about it. I was actually talking to Tim Miller about this because he and I had similar sort of arcs on our journey.

[Gavin Newsom]

Nice.

[Ryan Holiday]

And I was like, as I was prepping for that conversation, I was like, oh, you know what? I bought this book on Amazon. I can see the day that I bought it. I can. You know, and I went on Amazon and so I left. I left American apparel in 2014 or 15. And. And my Amazon receipt for the Harder they fall is like 2009. Well, it was like way closer to the beginning than the end.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah, right.

[Ryan Holiday]

And so you can often have you. You get the insight or the idea that the thing. You understand it, but it can be a very long time until you. You understand it and then more importantly, you have any of the sort of courage or clarity to act on it. And so that whole period is much more sort of contradictory and overlappy than it feels like. And it is important, if you're a young person, you're like looking at someone's life story that you realize that when they lay it all out, all that gets smooth, all that gets laid out narratively and it gets smoothed out as well. And it can feel like it was this plan or can feel like one thing was leading to the next. And that's all, that's all made up in retrospect. It's not like that in the moment. And by the way, history is not like that in the moment either. Nobody knows how the story is going to end. And so you have to kind of deal in that ambiguity more than you would like.

[Gavin Newsom]

You wrote a lot about sort of ambiguity, wrote a lot about your own experience and wrote a book that, you know, we intentionally have, not even with you being around, have on the, on the, on the shelf there. Trust me, I'm lying.

[Ryan Holiday]

I'm actually doing. I'm supposed to do the 15 year anniversary edition of that book.

[Gavin Newsom]

You have to. Yeah, it was, you were decades ahead.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, it was funny When I was writing. Trust me, I'm lying, I remember saying with the publisher, they were like, we're thinking, you know, like a summer 2012 release. And I go, I don't. I can't wait that long. I was like. It's like. I was like, this. All this stuff is like, no, it needs to come out right now. And. And I remember being rushed, and I was probably 10 years early. Yeah, 15, but 15. It's. It's. I. Yeah, it's a strange. It's a strange.

[Gavin Newsom]

Just for folks that don't know much about this book. I mean, back to, you know, the timestamp 2012.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

And you were talking about citizen journalism. You were talking about legacy media. You were talking about truth and trust. You were talking about manipulation. You were talking about, you know, the validation and how you're able to spread stories and validate that story and sources and. I mean, tell us.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, I was trying to write sort of an expose of how the media system really worked, not how people thought it worked, which was objectivity and fact checkers. And I was looking at how the economics sort of shape it. And I was trying to show you how the sausage gets made, like, how stories that you're reading in the news, where they actually came from, and how easy it is to sort of inject things into that kind of slipstream. And obviously, in 2016, we saw sort of Russia add a whole element of that. And, you know, I was writing before TikTok. I was writing before Instagram even, really. So. So it's obviously become like hyper. Hyperdrive of a lot of the stuff I was talking about in that book. I mean, I. I wish I could sit back here and go, 15 years later, like, I was totally dis. Totally proven wrong, and everything's awesome. But it's sort of like beyond my worst nightmare of all the things I was talking about in that book, which is funny because when I wrote it, although a lot of people read it, the media reaction was mostly like, shoot the messenger. Like, he's the bad guy. And what I was trying to say is like, look, this is what I do to sell T shirts or books, or this is how I can. I can introduce something funny or ridiculous into the media cycle. But if media is where public opinion is formed, this vulnerability is just too valuable to too many powerful, important, or deranged people for them not to take advantage of it. And I think we're seeing now a world where, yeah, you can sort of introduce alternative facts, as they say, into the system, and people believe Them what kind of vulnerabilities that exposes to us.

[Gavin Newsom]

And they believe them. And you've talked about this. They believe them even after they're debunked, sometimes even more after the quote, unquote correction.

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, I think, I mean, again, this is always a complicated thing to talk about, but January 6th is a fascinating example of everyone with eyes saw thing happened and then there was an investigation. Right. That sort of laid out exactly what happened. But because one guy with a lot of followers, you saw him sort of scran. You saw Trump in the early days after January 6, where he was complicit and responsible for an unthinkable and inexcusable thing, scramble around for how is he going to explain this? And then sort of settles on it was antifa. And also these people were patriots,

[Gavin Newsom]

which,

[Ryan Holiday]

by the way, are just two contradictory explanations just off the top of his head. But then if he says it enough times and if there is a financial and ideological and just cognitive reason to want that to be true, eventually a sizable percentage of the population will coalesce around that thing, because to not do it would mean you have to face the tragedy and the horror and the violence and the, you know, the implications of that thing. And so in a way, it just kind of lays bare our media system. I mean, yeah, it's like it's laid out in these different lawsuits, it's laid out in these congress, like we know what happened and we know the role that people played in it happening. And yet afterwards, he was able to kind of, with this media jiu jitsu, just make it not have happened.

[Gavin Newsom]

All right, well, I want to unpack all of that. And we, I mean, you were writing this back. I mean, when you wrote, trust me, I'm lying, you mentioned TikTok, you know, didn't exist. I mean, Facebook probably. It was in its orphan phase. The cloud was in the sky. 4G was a. Probably a parking space back then and LinkedIn a prison. But, you know, you were. The algorithms weren't necessarily. You were talking blogs mostly back then, right?

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, blogs and Twitter and how much traditional media was sort of the final step in that system. And now it doesn't need to be.

[Gavin Newsom]

Final step. After you seed. Yeah, the extreme, then you have a source. You say one sort. Now you have two sources. And all of a sudden, now the main. Now it moves itself up the ladder. When I see that, by the way, I live this.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes.

[Gavin Newsom]

Daily Mail says something. The California Post says something. Now the New York Post says two sources.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes.

[Gavin Newsom]

Have confirmed Something all of a sudden I'm watching Jesse Waters on Fox and then the next night, Hannity and all the rest of the lineup.

[Ryan Holiday]

And then you have to respond to.

[Gavin Newsom]

And I'm responding that I'm chasing something. I'm playing defense. They're already on to the next damn thing.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. And, and I mean, again, Trump at sort of intuitively understanding all this, he's really good at going. A lot of people are saying, A

[Gavin Newsom]

lot of people are saying, everyone, everyone knows.

[Ryan Holiday]

So it's this way that things that are not true become true by you bump into them enough times.

[Gavin Newsom]

But you're, I mean, you're, the point you're making is this is not, this is bad. It's not only bad, but it's, it's, it's been, I mean, it's. Yeah, wake up everybody. It's the way it's been done.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

It's hardly novel.

[Ryan Holiday]

No, no. I mean it's, it, this is, this has been the way that the sausage has been made for a decade and a half, basically.

[Gavin Newsom]

Right. So your new book is going to figure out, tell us what to do about it.

[Ryan Holiday]

No, I mean first it's, it's mortifying, of course, to have to go back and read something that you wrote when you were 23 and you thought you understood how the world worked. Even though I was right about a lot of ways. Like, you know, I think you mostly, the cringe is mostly in the certainty and the arrogance, you know, so, so that, that's why I've been procrastinating it. But, but that, that's, that's what I.

[Gavin Newsom]

Plus you've minted out about 50 other damn books in the, in the interim. So it's not like you're not busy. So I want to sort of circle. But so the, you know, hell of a, hell of a time. American Peril and, and then you, you know, you're, you're hardly an old man. Your wife's saying, I told you so, I told you so, I told you so. Mom and dad are like, Jesus, you know, how did we raise you, young man? Yeah. Or not. They probably are more generous.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Robert Smigel]

Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy not quite on Humor Me with Robert Smigel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier this week. My guests, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an acapella band with their between songs banter.

[Ryan Holiday]

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes Those people

[Robert Smigel]

are starving for banter. Listen to Humor Me with Robert Smigel and friends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Diana Maria Riva]

Why is everyone obsessed with romance right now? Like everyone your co worker who quote unquote doesn't read. Is reading romance your mom? Book talk the entire Internet. I'm Sanjanah bhasker. I'm Tyler McCall and this is Radio831, a romance podcast. The books, the tropes, the adaptations, the drama, the discourse, and what all of it says about how we actually love, yearn and obsess. We're going to Wuthering Heights, which, for the record, is not a romance novel. And yet it has haunted the romance genre for 200 years. We're getting into dark romance age gaps, certain Russian hockey players, and sentient objects in love, which is a thing. That's the kind of conversation we're having every episode. Listen to the Radio 831 podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dr. Dahm]

Agency the ability to know that we're the experts in our own body on the podcast. Cultivating her space Dr. Dahm and Terry Lomax create a space where Black women can show up fully and be heard. I wholeheartedly think, you know, you hit 30, you shouldn't have to share a room with anybody.

[Host of Psychology of Your 20s]

From navigating friendships and healing to setting boundaries and prioritizing your mental health, these are real, honest conversations we don't always get to have out loud.

[Dr. Dahm]

Totally unreasonable with different parts of life, right? Like, oh, we'll have all three meals. And make sure you're mindful during all of them. Absolutely not. During one meal. I'm standing. Realistic. I'm standing and handing my children food.

[Host of Psychology of Your 20s]

Because healing, empowerment and resilience aren't just ideas, they're practices. And this Mental Health Awareness Month, there's no better time to pour back into yourself.

[Dr. Dahm]

Listen to Cultivating her space on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Carlos King]

If you're watching the latest season of the Real Housewives of Atlanta, you already know there's a lot to break down.

[Gavin Newsom]

Portia accusing Kelly of sleeping with a married man.

[Robert Smigel]

They holding K. Michelle back from fighting. Drew Pinky has financial issues.

[Ryan Holiday]

I like the bougie style of Housewives show. I think it looks like it's gonna be interesting.

[Carlos King]

On the podcast. Reality with the King I, Carlos King recap the biggest moments from your favorite reality shows, including the Real Housewives franchise. The Drama, the alliances and the tea everybody's talking about. As an executive producer in reality television, I'm not just watching. I understand the game. As somebody who creates shows, I'll even say this at the end of the day, when people are at home, they want entertainment. To hear this and more. Listen to reality with the king on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

[Gavin Newsom]

you get your podcast, you know. So where are you now in terms of just. You go on a walkabout. Is that when you picked up Meditations or.

[Ryan Holiday]

No, I found. The irony is I found stoicism before. And in college. I was in. It was. Would have been. I found the Amazon receipt for that the other day. October 2006. It's going on 20 years.

[Gavin Newsom]

And what was the motive? You remember the motivation for even making the purchase?

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. You want to know who told me about the Stokes?

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

There's no way you could guess. There's no way you could guess.

[Gavin Newsom]

Robert Greene would be the safe bet.

[Ryan Holiday]

No, it was Dr. Drew. Okay.

[Gavin Newsom]

Why not?

[Ryan Holiday]

I was. I was writing for the college newspaper, and I went to this. They. I got invited to this conference in West Hollywood which was sponsored by Trojan Condoms. Okay. And. And he was. He was giving a talk. And after the talk, I was just. I was like, you know, a young kid. I was just hungry for advice and direction and all these things. And I just said, hey, what, What? You got any book recommendations? And he turned me on to the Stoics and changed the course of my life.

[Gavin Newsom]

And which, Which. Which Stoic and which book?

[Ryan Holiday]

He told me first about Epictetus and about Epictetus and Mark Aurelius and, you know, obviously took a while for them to seep in. But. But, you know, sitting in. In Riverside, California, reading Mark Srili's meditations.

[Gavin Newsom]

And what was that the first.

[Ryan Holiday]

Was that the book that was the first one? Yeah. And I just. I was, what is this?

[Gavin Newsom]

You know, and it really was that immediate.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, yeah, 100%. I didn't know there was writing like this. I didn't know there was advice like this. I didn't know it was what I was looking for, but it was exactly what I was.

[Gavin Newsom]

And did, you know there was about stoicism, that he was about stoicism, or was it just the most powerful man in the world? And that intrigued you? I mean, in its life lessons, we're

[Ryan Holiday]

only a few years out from the movie Gladiator at the time, same time. So I think I was a little bit primed. But. But there. There was something About. I think at the core, young men are looking for direction, right? And they're looking for direction, particularly now in a world where a lot of the old sort of traditions and explicit and implicit instructions in that regard are gone. And so there's this just kind of existential void. There's this leadership void. You just don't. You don't know how to be a person. And there's not. It's not like there are these rituals or these groups or this kind of process by which you become a man that just doesn't exist. And so to pick up the private thoughts of the emperor of Rome, and he's talking to himself about how to not just be, you know, a productive person and a strong person, but also a wise person and a good person and how. How to deal with, you know, everything from his temper to his anxiety to his, you know, sort of fear of death or his frustrations with other people. I just. I didn't. If you had asked me to define philosophy in my late teens, I would have said, I don't know. It's like, you know, it's. It's those people in togas or it's those people on college campuses, you know, asking impossible questions about things for which there are no answers. There you go. You know it like that. It's. First thing, it's for people smarter than me, right?

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

And then to read the Stoics, you go, oh, no, no. This is for people trying to be human beings, like. And trying to just deal with the difficulties of life. And that is what I think struck me so much about meditations, because even compared to the other Stoics, whether you're reading Seneca or Epictetus, they're there at least talking to an audience. And there's something so personal and disarming about meditations, because here it's not meant for publication. It's be to meant. It's just a guy. It's like a guy's inner monologue. It's like the angel on his shoulder trying to be like, you're better than this. You should do this, try to do that. What about this? And so I think I was just. I was blown away. And then particularly that he is such a good writer that even his notes to himself are some of the best philosophy ever written. I think that all is what struck

[Gavin Newsom]

me so was that. So you sort of, you know, all of a sudden, this book speaks to you and your time of life, your state of mind. Titus. Similarly, you mentioned the big three of Stoics, but these aren't the ogs of Stoics. I mean, what. The broader Stoic construct for you, when did that click versus more of a contemporary version of Stoicism?

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, the other. They represent the Ogs of Stoicism. You go back to. You get xeno and anthes and correct sip is Cato being maybe another one that maybe some people have heard of. You know, that that was the process of kind of tracing it back backwards. You kind of. I think most people should start with the. The big three of the. Of the Stoics and then. And work their way back. There's a reason that they're the ones that are most well known. And that is a really cool thing. It just blows your mind about history where you're like, okay, to Marcus Aurelius, Stoicism was ancient philosophy. Ancient philosophy, like five, like Zeno is to Marcus Aurelius what Shakespeare is to us.

[Gavin Newsom]

I was quoting Plutarch the other day. The imbalance between the rich and the poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics says it, you know, I don't know. 50, 70 A.D. yes, the oldest and most fatal ailment, but.

[Ryan Holiday]

And you take Plutarch. Right again. Yeah, probably. One of the great biographers, Truman, would talk about how whenever he had a problem as president, he could take. He could pull out. He said, I pull up my. My old friend Plutarch. My old friend. My old friend Plutarch. And he would have the solution to my problems. But Plutarch is writing about, you know, Caesar and Cicero and Demosthenes and all these Greek and Roman figures who were to him what he is to us, you know, not quite that far. But we think about ancient Greece and Rome as this kind of like brief mom moment, as opposed to a civilization that lasted hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. Even the decline and fall of rome is like 900 years, you know, maybe a little bit less than that, depending on where you want to date it to. But the point is that should give

[Gavin Newsom]

us comfort in the US it does

[Ryan Holiday]

a little bit, but it gives you. You just realize that they were like when they were going through stuff, when Marx Realis is living through civil war, or Cato is living through a civil war, or Seneca is in exile or enduring the reign of Nero. What are they turning to? They're turning to the ancients, who we are also turning to. And then what we have is generations. This is why they call philosophy the great conversation, because it's these core ideas that were sort of brought into existence at some point. But the genius of them is the layering on top of each subsequent generation trying and riffing. And just as the founders. I gave you Jeffrey Rosen's the Pursuit of Happiness. The founders were turning to the Stokes. My 9 year old is obsessed with Hamilton, the play Hamilton, the most famous play in the Western world in the 18th century, was a play about Cato. And it was as famous as Hamilton is now. And in the way that, you know, like if you go immigrants, they get the job done, people know what you're talking about. When George Washington would talk about, you know, looking at events through the calm light of mild philosophy, or when they say, I regret I have but one life to give for my country. These are lines from that play. And so it's this great tradition of these ideas being just so perfectly expressed and the example being so powerful that people have been turning to it over and over again. And that's the really powerful thing. Stoicism wasn't Marcus aurelius. It was 600 years of it in Greece and Rome. And then, I mean, it continues on up. It's not like people haven't been talking about it and riffing about it in the 1800 years since. They absolutely have. And so it's just this, this energy I think you tap into and you go, oh, these are ideas that have really been tested in the crucible of human experience.

[Gavin Newsom]

Was the word Stoic? I mean, was. I mean, when Zeno was 300 BC or something? Yeah. Said I am I declare myself a Stoic? Or was he declared a Stoic?

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, that's that. I think it's to Zeno's credit that the, the philosophy is not called Zenoism. Right. There's a little bit right at the beginning. There's some humility. So Stoa. So the founding story of Stoicism is Zeno's a merchant and he deals in this rare purple dye. And that dye being a commodity in

[Gavin Newsom]

those days, dying purple.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. We think of like, it's funny where the Strait of Hormuz is shut down. Global trade, that's the modern thing. And it's like, no, the purple dye was this commodity that was made across multiple islands in the Mediterranean. And it would get traded and moved around like the same navigational issues we're having right now people were talking about then. But he suffers this shipwreck, he washes up in Athens and ends up there discovering philosophy. And that's where Stoicism starts. But he just begins lecturing about these ideas on the Stoa Poquile, which is the painted porch in Athens. And that's what Stoic means. It just. Stoa means porch. It doesn't mean anything. These are just the guys from the porch bullshitting and talking and sharing. It is funny then, that he would talk about that, this merchant of purple dye. His philosophy would become the philosophy you associate with Marcus Aurelius. Because I could tell you, mouthing the words there. One of the powerful lines in Meditations is Marcus Aurelius. This is a reference to being emperor. He says, be careful that you are not dyed purple. And he's. He's saying that. That make sure that power doesn't corrupt you.

[Gavin Newsom]

God bless.

[Ryan Holiday]

Because the. The Roman emperor was one of the few that could wear the color purple.

[Gavin Newsom]

So you're reading all of this,

[Ryan Holiday]

your

[Gavin Newsom]

portal to this beginning with meditations, which has had an outsized influence and on everybody that's ever picked up.

[Ryan Holiday]

Did you pick it up?

[Gavin Newsom]

Picked up all the wrong versions. Y couldn't understand a damn thing.

[Ryan Holiday]

Interesting.

[Gavin Newsom]

I look back, it's interesting. I must have 15 or 20 different copies. Wow. And it took me listening to you on damn YouTube to go, here's the one I recommend. I'm like, start reading. I'm like, wait, then this makes some sense, because the translations are, you know, time of. Back to decades and decades ago. So I think my father, someone, you know, was around. And then here, my uncle says, here's a book you should read. I'm like, Jesus. You know, last thing. So they just sort of collected dust. But there were few efforts.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes.

[Gavin Newsom]

And they just didn't go anywhere because it didn't speak to me with the kind of language that I understand today.

[Ryan Holiday]

I do. I don't believe in miracles, but I went on Amazon and I just bought a random copy that I got the first one. I got the copy that changed my life. And I've now recommended to so many people that just. That's the first. The algorithm blessed me for someone who's so critical of algorithms. In that one case, the algorithm blessed me.

[Gavin Newsom]

By the way, one of the things I love that you do is you'll go back to the same. You'll go to different translations.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

And you're able to sort of lay them out. And I mean, it shows. I mean, you know, how language has radically changed.

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, that.

[Gavin Newsom]

And how important the translation is.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes. I mean, so I don't speak Greek or Latin, so I don't know exactly. But it is interesting when you read all these different translations, you go, oh, like this is the same idea. And 15 different cuts on it. And what a big role the translator plays. And also what a big role, the moment in time that you're in play. So how we like how you interpret

[Gavin Newsom]

it in the context of something contemporary.

[Ryan Holiday]

So I've been reading meditation for 15 years and then 20, 20 pandemic hits and I'm reading meditations and all of a sudden there's all these references to the plague and to pestilence. And you realize, oh, this is a plague book. This guy wrote in the middle of the antonine plague, this 15 year pandemic that killed millions of people.

[Gavin Newsom]

And you never picked up on that. I mean, necessarily.

[Ryan Holiday]

I guess I just. You don't. You think he's being metaphorical?

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

And then you realize he's being literal. Like one of the passages I thought the most about during the pandemic is this one where he goes, there's two types of plagues. There's the one that can destroy your health and the one that can destroy your character. And then you watch over the next two years, people get radicalized. People turn off their hearts and their neighborliness to other people and in other cases lose their mind, become do and say things they would have been shocked by just a few years earlier. And you go, oh, he must have seen that. You know, he must have seen that. And I think there's a famous story about Marcus Aurelius. He's presiding over some court and one of the lawyers makes this reference to the victims of the plague and he just bursts into tears. And so you think, number one, I thought the Stoics don't have emotions. They don't care about people.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yes.

[Ryan Holiday]

And then. And here he is just sort of weeping over these untold thousands of people who have died, you know, in some cases, people we would have cared deeply about and been very close to. And you go, oh, that's not what stoicism isn't. This, fuck you, I got mine. Or like, I got a strong immune system.

[Gavin Newsom]

Did you think it was when you first heard about it? Because so many people see it as just, yeah, I'm just. I will have no emotion. I'm just being stoic. You know, it's sort of rigid, robotic.

[Ryan Holiday]

I think what I was, I was attracted to stoicism for the reason that young men have been attracted to stoicism for centuries, which is. It's about getting your shit together, getting it on lock, you know, just. Just that sort of ownership and control of the self, which I think if anyone needs help in, it's young men. So I think that was my initial attraction to it. And then. And I think I was attracted to trappings of power and, you know, all the. All the things that make it, you know, interesting and unique compared to, I don't know, existentialism or some other school of philosophy. But over the years, you realize, oh, this is actually a profoundly ethical philosophy. This is about our connections to other people. This is about our responsibilities to other people. This is about being like. When they're talking about excellence, they don't simply mean professional excellence. And that actually, professional excellence is pretty common, but professional and personal excellence, like, sort of rounding that package out is actually the. This sort of thing to be more ambitious about. So I think my initial attraction to it was one thing. And then what. It works on you. And I think it's interesting to hear you talk about sort of starting and stopping it over the years. It's important that people understand Stoicism is a philosophy you should be reading, not a philosophy you have read.

[Gavin Newsom]

You say that. I love that you say that. And also you make the point. I. I don't remember exactly who said it, but you never swim in the same river twice.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes.

[Gavin Newsom]

This notion that the river's changed or stepping the same way, I'll swim in it.

[Ryan Holiday]

I like that, too.

[Gavin Newsom]

American. Just up the block where you were growing up. But we change as well.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes.

[Gavin Newsom]

And back to this. You know, you're reading it again, and now we're in a plague, and all of a sudden you're reading it as. I mean, almost as a new visitor to the same. Same old.

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, I think it's so fascinating that. Yeah. You picked up a book when you were one age, you picked it up again another. It continually wasn't working. And then at some point. And I bet if you actually laid those translations out side by side, they're not that different.

[Gavin Newsom]

They're not that different.

[Ryan Holiday]

I think you were profoundly different.

[Gavin Newsom]

Well, I was trying to find language, period. I wrote a book about my own learning disability. So just. I mean, literally the words just above my pay grade that needs to be explained to me. I remember Shakespeare class in college. I mean, you're toast. Is a dyslexic. You're like me, Dot. I mean, Jesus. So you're like, immediately try to find a Cliff Note version or something on TV that you could claim that I read or understood. Yeah. So no, it's. So you did all that. You know, so you're reading this, but you weren't necessarily going, wait a second. This is my new path, my career that I'm going to become, you know, I'm going to translate this to a whole different audience, that I'm going to be able to express this with new media. I'm going to be able to get a whole new generation to understand and bring to life these extraordinary figures.

[Ryan Holiday]

No, I mean, I was introduced to The Stoics in 2006, and my first book on Stoic philosophy came out in summer of 2014. So.

[Gavin Newsom]

And what was the inspiration? What said, you know, I have to do my version of this, but plenty written about Stoics.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, I don't know. I was, I wrote my first book because I wanted to be a writer, and I knew that that book had to come first. You couldn't write the Stoic books and then the media book. So I knew how to get the media book out of the way. So I did the media book first. And then what I really wanted to write about was, was the Stoics. But no, I, I, I thought I had this idea for one Stoic book about this one passage from Marx.

[Gavin Newsom]

That was it.

[Ryan Holiday]

And, and I think again, obstacles, right?

[Gavin Newsom]

What stands in the way becomes the way.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes.

[Gavin Newsom]

I love it. Come on.

[Ryan Holiday]

I know I heard good say this somewhere.

[Gavin Newsom]

I mean, I just, I just, it's just too good.

[Ryan Holiday]

It's the best.

[Gavin Newsom]

It's the best. Someone, some, the impediment to action becomes the action. Yes, the way becomes the way.

[Ryan Holiday]

But you want to know something funny about that quote again? You, you evolve your understanding of these things as you get. So I wrote the book the Obstacles Away, mostly about how we deal with, like, professional obstacles. Right? Like how you're trying to, like, do something and something gets in the way, which is obviously what he's just partly talking about there. But the fuller quote, which obviously I knew because I edited to put some ellipses in there, but mostly what he's talking about is, is, is annoying people and obnoxious people. He's, he's saying people can cause problems for us, they can get in our way. But, you know, we all, he says we always have the ability to accommodate and adapt. He says we can convert this to our own, you know, our own potential acting. And then he says, you know, the impediment. Action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. And then you go, oh, okay, so when he's saying some, some person comes up and says something horrible to you, or some, some, some person screws something up for you, or some, some person, you know, is just constantly stressing you out or abusing you or whatever, it is. What he's saying is that that's an opportunity for you to be the better person, the bigger person, to grow as a person in wrestling with and handling what this person is doing to you. And so you go, oh, okay. Like when the stoics are saying the obstacles away, they don't necessarily mean, oh, this is a chance to, you know, hey, this huge recession that we just got plunged into is actually a chance for you to retrench in the business and tighten things up and come back smarter and leaner and more organized. It may be, but he's saying, actually this person who just broke your heart, or this person who just lied to you or stole from you, or this person who just said something horrible to you, they're a chance for you to grow as a human being in how you respond to them. That is obviously not my reading of the passage when I'm 19, but it's how I understand it 20 years later

[Gavin Newsom]

and you understand it sort of the core part of what you said is sort of, for you, if you were going to distill the essence of stoicism, this notion that we have agency, that, you know, it's not what happens to us, how we respond to what happens to us.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, yeah. I'd be curious, like in. In politics isn't that it'd be curious to find some line of work in which that's not the case. The case. Right. Like you wake up and somebody gives you the news and then you figure out your job is to say, here's what we're going to do.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah, but so much of our life is this sort of victim mentality that, you know, that it's fate and we can't control our own fate.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

You know, the system's rigged against me. There's nothing I can do. Nothing one person can do.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes. Who? This is whose fault it is. This is how. Why it should have gone the other way. Just a lot of. A lot of dwelling on why it happened as opposed to what you're gonna do about it.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah.

[Robert Smigel]

Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy not quite on Humor Me with Robert Smigel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier this week. Week. My guests, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an acapella band with their between songs banter.

[Ryan Holiday]

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes.

[Robert Smigel]

Those people are starving for banter. Listen to Humor Me with Robert Smigel and friends. On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Diana Maria Riva]

Why is everyone obsessed with romance right now? Like everyone your co worker who quote unquote doesn't read. Is reading romance your mom? Book talk the entire Internet. I'm Sanjanah bhasker. I'm Tyler McCall and this is Radio831, a romance podcast. The books, the tropes, the adaptations, the drama, the discourse, and what all of it says about how we actually love, yearn and obsess. We're going to Wuthering Heights, which, for the record, is not a romance novel. And yet it has haunted the romance genre for 200 years. We're getting into dark romance age gaps, certain Russian hockey players, and sentient objects in love, which is a thing. That's the kind of conversation we're having every episode. Listen to the Radio 831 podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dr. Dahm]

Agency the ability to know that we're the experts in our own body on the podcast. Cultivating her space. Dr. Dom and Terry Lomax create a space where black women can show up fully and be heard. I wholeheartedly think, you know, you hit 30, you shouldn't have to share a room with anybody.

[Host of Psychology of Your 20s]

From navigating friendships and healing to setting boundaries and prioritizing your mental health, these are real, honest conversations we don't always get to have out loud.

[Dr. Dahm]

Totally unreasonable with different parts of life, right? Like, oh, have all three meals and make sure you're mindful during all of them. Absolutely not. During one meal. I'm standing realistic. I'm standing and handing my children food.

[Host of Psychology of Your 20s]

Because healing, empowerment and resilience aren't just ideas, they're practices. And this Mental Health Awareness Month, there's no better time to pour back into yourself.

[Dr. Dahm]

Listen to Cultivating her space on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Carlos King]

If you're watching the latest season of the Real Housewives of Atlanta, you already know there's a lot to break down.

[Gavin Newsom]

Portia accusing Kelly of sleeping with a married man.

[Robert Smigel]

They holding K. Michelle back from fighting. Drew Pinky has financial issues.

[Ryan Holiday]

I like the bougie style of Housewives show. I think it looks like it's gonna be interesting.

[Carlos King]

On the podcast Reality with the King I, Carlos King, recap the biggest moments from your favorite reality shows, including the Real Housewives franchise, the drama, the alliances, and the tea everybody's talking about. As an executive producer in reality television, I'm not Just watching it. I understand the game as somebody who creates shows, I'll even say this at the end of the day, when people are at home, they want entertainment to hear this and more. Listen to Reality with the king on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Gavin Newsom]

So it's interesting to me just, you know, I, I write a little bit and some of my, my friends, like, why are you writing about Tony Robbins? But it's interesting. I, I write about it because I was, you know, around your age, and all of a sudden my contemporary version of, dare I say how dare you was this guy with, you know, who self described with big teeth on, you know, on infomercials, selling me cassette tapes.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

And I listened to those today and I'm like, so much is, you know.

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, I do think that, that there's a little bit there that's just a complete indictment of philosophy as a whole these days. Right. Like, like that, that, that. That's what Socrates was doing. That's what Aristotle was doing. They were trying. I mean, Socrates gets killed for corrupting the youth, which is to say teaching the young boys what they need to know about life that their parents didn't want them to know, or challenging convention or teaching them a new way of thinking. And I guess it just says something that philosophy does not speak to people in a way that it's supposed to. It is supposed to be the guide to the good life, which to me, the American dream is both a financial dream, but also a sort of moral and a spiritual dream of a better life. And philosophy is supposed to be part of that. And it's just, it's just not. And I think we're in extra trouble when organized religion has not just fallen away, but also alienated huge swaths of the population. Whether you're talking about the abuse scandals in the Catholic Church, which is what I grew up in, or you're looking at the sort of political radicalization of evangelical faith. And so if you're not going to have traditions and sort of rituals, you're also not going to have religion. Where are people supposed to learn this stuff? And it's, I think, created a huge vacuum that certain bad actors have stepped in to fill.

[Gavin Newsom]

And you haven't become a bad actor.

[Ryan Holiday]

Thanks.

[Gavin Newsom]

You talk about, you know, because you, you talked. You. We can go back to sort of March 2020 and sort of the beginning, and we could talk about that pandemic. People, you know, I mean, I. Explains more things in more ways on more days of everything sure. Our relationships back to truth and trust is certainly our politics. I didn't fully absorb it, appreciate it at the time, and what we've become on the other side and what. But people became people. They were unrecognizable to this day that went through that process. We can get to Elon Musk in a minute, but I knew him well before.

[Ryan Holiday]

That's my favorite part of your book. You talked about how you came of age as all. You came of age at the same time as all those Silicon Valley people.

[Gavin Newsom]

I was with Larry and Sergey at Google, and when Steve Jobs taps us on the shoulder and says, hey, he wasn't interested in me, he was interested in Larry and Sergey to show us pulled out of his back pocket, the first iPhone. And we're like, you know, it was like a joyride. We're going with our fingers, like, oh, we. And they're all by. You know, they were just. And there was sense of optimism back to when you were writing this book.

[Ryan Holiday]

So what happened? Like, I think that that quote where Elon Musk is on Rogan and he says, you know, empathy is going to be the death of Western civilization. That, to me, was. Was one. And then when I watched Mark Andreessen talk about how he has zero introspection, and he's like, I never look back. He goes, I never look backwards. He's like, by the way, that's not what introspection is. Just to be like, clearly don't even know what it is. Like, introspection is looking inwards just to be clear, not looking backwards. But he goes, you know, the great men of history, they didn't look around. They didn't. It's like the bad ones, the ones who were responsible for genocides and pointless wars and ecological disasters and economic calamities, yes, they had no sense of introspection or history or perspective. But the great ones, whether you're talking about FDR or Truman or Theodore Roosevelt, Washington or Lincoln, the best of the best. All the great. All the greats. And I just named a bunch of white dudes. So I'm sorry, but, like, you know, you could.

[Gavin Newsom]

We could talk about that, too. And where women are in the stoic, you could expand.

[Ryan Holiday]

But the point is, the great historical figures are, by definition, profoundly considerate and conscientious people. And when they're not, it is responsible for their biggest failings.

[Gavin Newsom]

So what's happened?

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, I was.

[Gavin Newsom]

What the hell happened?

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, what happened?

[Gavin Newsom]

And what happened to you that you didn't fall prey to all that? I Mean, your rise, it just gone. I mean, it's. You can. You were wildly successful before the pandemic, but, you know, I mean, now the ubiquity and your success, it's just exploded.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, but.

[Gavin Newsom]

But it's. But it suggests that people are. They're not. We. They haven't necessarily been sold that bill of goods either, that they're looking for something different.

[Ryan Holiday]

I mean, look, I. I've definitely experienced some success at small potatoes compared to being, you know, one of the richest or most powerful people in the world. So I don't want to judge people whose thing. You know, who's. Who's. Who's sort of experience is something I can't even comprehend. But it does seem weird that these people, many of whom I also knew or met over the years and thought were one thing and sort of revealed themselves to be another. What do you. What's your explanation?

[Gavin Newsom]

I'm struggling with it, and I've been strong. I mean, I struggle with it a little bit of the book, even, you know, who I was becoming. I mean, I was, you know, And. And, you know, God bless. I was reading one of your books for years ago and took a little indirect shot at me, and I thought it was completely.

[Ryan Holiday]

What did I say?

[Gavin Newsom]

You just say, you know, back. I don't even want to get back. One of the most important stories you always had. What, during the plague, what Marcus Aurelius did. He sold all the things. And here I was going to a damn restaurant.

[Ryan Holiday]

Oh, did I make.

[Gavin Newsom]

And you made it. And I'm like, you know what? Fair. And it was legit. It hurt. It hurt because it was right. And of course, I knew I was no greater critic of me than me. And so I appreciate it. But. So, you know, but in a lot of what I write about in this book, I mean, talk about ego.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. No, there's some words in there, right?

[Gavin Newsom]

I mean, the whole thing. I mean, I just. I laid it all out and I laid myself out in this sort of journey of discovery, this memoir of discovery and discovering myself and my own, you know, and my own, you know, this. There's so many. But, you know, expectations and how I was living in other people's expectations.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

And I was kind of losing myself and how now. And I think it's why I sort of really dove deep into your work. It just so sort of all coincided. I'm like, oh, you know, just. Literally just breathe again and have perspective and grace and humility.

[Ryan Holiday]

So you're saying introspection, like the thing they Are running away from.

[Gavin Newsom]

Running away from the coarseness.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

That's why I've got. Forgive me, I didn't mean to put you behind these knee pads. And I think about, with Trump, I mean, the obstacles away, to me, it's so profound in the context of how I'm dealing with the challenges and the obstacle, it stands in the way of decent, from my perspective, decency, lack of character, all those, those cardinal virtues that you write so beautifully about, this notion of justice and this notion of what courage really is and temperance, all these things found. What discipline looks, it's anathema to what we have today. And. But I think about. All right, obstacle is the way stands, the way becomes the way. So how we can sort of with agency.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

You know, manifest and take responsibility and have the discipline and the character to, you know, not just identify the problems, but begin to march strategies and iteration to address these problems and to move in a enlightened more direction. And again, you've been a huge part of that for millions of us.

[Ryan Holiday]

It's.

[Gavin Newsom]

But. But certainly for the guy sitting here as a current occupant of the governor's

[Ryan Holiday]

mansion, that's unbelievable to me. I think, you know, there's this passage of Meditations where Marx talks about fighting to be the person that philosophy tried

[Gavin Newsom]

to make you love it.

[Ryan Holiday]

And I think about that. That's what he's doing in Meditations is he's trying. He's trying to be better than whatever he could get away with or whatever. You know, he might just be on his own. He's sort of aspiring to be some greater self. And it does feel like in the sort of Silicon Valley, kind of like leadership class, there is this. And Trump, I think, obviously hastened it, but it's this kind of like, why, why should you try to be better? Just do what you want, get yours. When you're famous, they let you do it. And it's like the embracing of that and the idea of why. One of my favorite headlines of all time, there's this Huffington post headline from 15 years ago, and it says, I don't know how to explain to you that you're supposed to care about other people. And it really does feel like there was this concerted effort in a small group of people to just let themselves off the hook for being responsible for or to anyone, despite the incredible power and privilege that they enjoy.

[Gavin Newsom]

There you go. There you go. And we're, I mean, it's. And we're living with the consequences of that. I mean, we, you know, We've hit on, you know, young men. But you, you subtly made the point. I'll make it more express. Young men are in crisis. And it's interesting how you connect tradition and rituals and you know, now, I mean, we're seeing a little bit now with religion, people are fighting religion a little bit again. But we've lost those institutions that connection to each other. I am. Because you are this notion of ubuntu, this commonwealth, you know, and this. And, and of course with algorithms and now this manosphere, broadly defined and you know, Hustlers University and, and Bugatti. Bugatti get mine. And you know, and, and all the just patriarchy that comes in there. I mean, and these guys sometimes try and attach these. Damn.

[Ryan Holiday]

I know, I know. It's, it's. I try to say it's not. Stoicism is not a formula for you to be a better sociopath. God bless. It's supposed to do the opposite. It's supposed to, it's supposed to help you. Because look, we're all inherently selfish. We are all self interested. And the Stoics talk about this like you come out of the womb being like inherently not just dependent on others, but you will suck your parents dry, literally and figuratively, so you can survive. That's what your genes are designed for you to do.

[Gavin Newsom]

That's right.

[Ryan Holiday]

And that maturation or growth, the Stoics would say, is the, like the overcoming of that realizing that you have these obligations and duties to not just these people immediately around you, but everyone else. Like there's this Stoic named Hierakles and he talked about the circles of concern and that he said the purpose of the philosophy is pulling these outer rings inwards. And to me that like when I heard that, I was like, oh, that's what they were talking about in church as a kid. That's also what Jesus was talking about. And so there is actually if Catholicism especially because it has those cardinal virtues. I think you sort of, you immediately recognize it in the Stoics that, oh, this was the tradition before that tradition and that there's a lot of overlap.

[Diana Maria Riva]

There's.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

Well, I love. And just even when we were celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration, best of Roman Republic, best of Greek democracy, I mean, back to your point in terms, even the books, you just. Thank you for the books, but just reminding me the founding Fathers, the direct inspiration from these greats.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. Washington's the only one of the founders who doesn't read the Stoics in Greek or Latin. Like, he only reads them in English because they were so familiar. Like Jefferson. As Jefferson, as Seneca in French on his nightstand when he dies. And so, like, these were incredibly literate philosophical figures. And, you know, the primary influence on the founders was not, you know, those English legal thinkers. It was the. When they're writing the Federalist Papers and they're masquerading as these Roman characters, they're thinking about Cato, they're thinking about Seneca, they're thinking about Marcus Aurelius. Those are the people who are influencing them the most. And, you know, that does go back to, I think, the founding of America, which we've fundamentally misunderstood this idea that, yes, on the one hand, this is a country about freedom where the state can't tell you how to be or how to live. Your individual behavior is not legally prescribed the way that it would be in another society. But they were very much of the mind that all that freedom was to be counterbalanced by a sense of virtue in the people. And John Adams said, hey, without it, we're fucked. The Constitution is not strong enough. He says it will go like a whale through a net.

[Gavin Newsom]

Like a whale through. I love that.

[Ryan Holiday]

Actually, this is my. I wrote a piece about this for the Economist a couple years ago, and maybe now that you're leaving office, this can be your next project.

[Gavin Newsom]

Thanks a lot.

[Ryan Holiday]

So Viktor Frankl talked about how there's a Statue of Liberty in New York harbor, and he believed that it should be counterbalanced by a Statue of Responsibility in San Francisco Harbor.

[Gavin Newsom]

That's funny.

[Ryan Holiday]

And I think there's people. Yeah. The idea that we're going to spend federal money to make Alcatraz a prison again, when what we desperately need as a society is not to lock more people up. Up. We need a monument, I think, to responsibility and our obligations to each other.

[Gavin Newsom]

Ryan, I was just talking to Senator Padilla about this. We are literally. This is a real conversation.

[Ryan Holiday]

No way.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah. So I'm not waiting until I'm out of office.

[Ryan Holiday]

Okay.

[Gavin Newsom]

All right.

[Ryan Holiday]

Amazing.

[Gavin Newsom]

No, I love this idea.

[Ryan Holiday]

It's.

[Gavin Newsom]

Well, this notion of responsibility, it's. It's. I don't want to get too political, but kind of missing in my party at the kind of level that I think it needs to be. We talk about opportunity, we talk in terms of community sometimes, but not responsibility. It's, you know, about service and civics and, I mean, all these. I mean, it's really critical. And back to, you know, I don't know. There's. It's part of that three legged stool. And I think often we're talking two legs, not that third leg.

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, and also the responsibility and agency are related to each other. Right. Because there is this thing in our society where I think most, most people are like, hey, this shouldn't be happening. This isn't good. I don't like this. This is wrong. And then everyone is waiting for somebody else to do something about it.

[Gavin Newsom]

I mean, Brandeis said, in democracy, the most important office is office of citizen.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

Active, not inert citizenship.

[Ryan Holiday]

But you mentioned the Democratic Party. I think even like your thing on redistricting. Right. Like everyone is like, hey, what they're doing in Texas, which is where I live, is wrong. It's rigging the system, whatever. And then like the typical Democratic Party response would be, they stop doing that.

[Gavin Newsom]

Exactly. Right. It off, Ed.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

So shame on them. Shame on them. Meanwhile, they're consolidating power.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

I mean, it's hard though, right, because you don't, you want to, you know, when they, I mean, the Michelle Obama, when they go low, we want to go high. And we, you know, we have a higher sense of self in that respect. But, you know, we'll lose this republic.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

This is the way I feel.

[Ryan Holiday]

Right.

[Gavin Newsom]

I mean, this is, this is, this is code red.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes.

[Gavin Newsom]

This is serious. And so this notion of having agency stands in the way, becomes. Sorry, I'm going to keep coming back. You wrote the damn book. You know, you rewired my brain. And, and this notion, I mean, it's, it literally that became the foundation, the inspiration and the responsibility to be held to a higher level of accountability, particularly when you have this gift. For me, it's a gift of public service. And to be in this position, I don't want to dream regretting because it

[Ryan Holiday]

also, it could have not worked. It could have been. It could have failed. It could have been embarrassing. It could have been the end of your, oh, 100%.

[Gavin Newsom]

All the above.

[Ryan Holiday]

But there is this, there is this sort of sense of like, well, I gotta keep my powder dry for the moment that there I. There is this thing where people tell themselves, hey, like, later I'll be more secure.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

Or later, that's when I'll do it. And the result is, is nobody's doing anything.

[Gavin Newsom]

Thank you.

[Ryan Holiday]

That's what it feels like.

[Gavin Newsom]

I mean, come on.

[Robert Smigel]

Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy not quite on Humor Me with Robert Smigel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guests SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an acapella band with their between songs.

[Ryan Holiday]

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes.

[Robert Smigel]

Those people are starving for banter. Listen to Humor Me with Robert Smigel and friends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Diana Maria Riva]

Why is everyone obsessed with romance right now? Like everyone your co worker who quote unquote doesn't read. Is reading romance your mom? Book talk? The entire Internet. I'm Sanjana bhasker. I'm Tyler McCall and this is Radio 831, a romance podcast. The books, the tropes, the adaptations, the drama, the discourse and what all of it says about how we actually love, yearn and obsess. We're going to Wuthering Heights, which, for the record, is not a romance novel. And yet it has haunted the romance genre for 200 years. We're getting into dark romance age gaps, certain Russian hockey players and sentient objects in love, which is a thing. That's the kind of conversation we're having every episode. Listen to the Radio 831 podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dr. Dahm]

Agency the ability to know that we're the experts in our own body on the podcast. Cultivating her space Dr. Dom and Terry Lomax create a space where Black women can show up fully and be heard. I wholeheartedly think, you know, you hit 30, you shouldn't have to share a room with anybody.

[Host of Psychology of Your 20s]

From navigating friendships and healing to setting boundaries and prioritizing your mental health, these are real, honest conversations we don't always get to have out loud.

[Dr. Dahm]

Totally unreasonable with different parts of life, right? Like, oh, we'll have all three meals. And make sure you're mindful during all of them. Absolutely not. During one meal, I'm standing. Realistic. I'm standing and handing my children food.

[Host of Psychology of Your 20s]

Because healing, empowerment and resilience aren't just ideas, they're practices. And this Mental Health Awareness Month, there's no better time to pour back into yourself.

[Dr. Dahm]

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[Gavin Newsom]

I mean, what you, you look, you write a lot about this. You talk a lot about this. It just, it's the do. Yeah, yeah. Stop talking, stop thinking about. Just start doing it. You gotta. It's action, you know, and it's. I mean, this notion.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

When I'm 30, then. Or when I'm a millionaire, then. Or when I have, like. Then I'll be, you know, or, you know, this notion even. You have to be something to do something. Yeah. That I have to be a city council or governor or mayor before I can move there. I don't think Gandhi waited around for elected office. I don't recall. Seriously. Was it President King? Dr. King? It wasn't. All right. I mean, you know, even, even the guys that served in office, like Havel or even Mandela, I don't remember. You know, four years of Mandela's presidency were interesting. The new Constitution. I don't want to disregard it, but that's not why I think of Mandela. His peak of his power wasn't. He is in jail.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. And his moral authority. And one of the things that you. You miss, too, is like all the. We're naming the name to guys. We're na. And most of those are men. But you're naming mostly the people that we've heard of as if they also weren't part of enormous organizations of a bunch of ordinary people who are also participating. And so, like, it may fall on you to be one of those people, but it may also just fall on like, Rosa Parks was a secretary at, you know, the naacp. And eventually, yes, she also has her moment in the thing. But if that had been the only thing she'd done, if she'd only been answering phones.

[Gavin Newsom]

There, you've got it.

[Ryan Holiday]

That would have enabled whoever ultimately was the person who doesn't go to the back of the bus. Right.

[Gavin Newsom]

And of course, you know, she was echo of Ida B. Wells and so many others that inspired along the way.

[Ryan Holiday]

There's this other book I should have brought you. Do you know what the Highlander School was? No. Okay. So again, we think of Rosa Parks as, like, this lady that just gets tired one day and, you know, sets in motion. There was this thing in Tennessee, in the mountains of Tennessee called the Highlander School, which is run by this sort of folksy family of activists. And it was a school where they trained activists in nonviolence and political activism. And almost all the major figures of the civil rights movement, including John Lewis, including Rosa Parks, they all go to this school. And it's not only.

[Gavin Newsom]

I'm gonna deny that I didn't know about it. It's humiliating.

[Ryan Holiday]

Not only do they learn the things, like they would practice having racial slurs shouted at them. And how do you roll on the ground and cover yourself as you're getting beaten? How do you talk to people? But it's also where the relationship that they then took back all over the country. But it's like nobody knows the name of this school, or not enough people do. But those people. Their coaching tree. I'm right now forgetting the names of the founders of the Highlander School. Septima Clark was one of the graduates. Their coaching tree leads to the civil rights movement, just as, by the way, Gandhi's coaching tree leads to the people that came back to found the Highlander School. And so, again, you're going to. You. One of the things the stoics talk about is that, like, we're all assigned these, like, parts, these roles. Love it, and we don't know what it is. It could be a big one. It could be a little one, but your job is to just play the hell out of that role. And. But chances are your role is not sit on the sidelines and complain about what's happening.

[Gavin Newsom]

Oh, God, I can't take it. I mean, I. I just can't take. I can't take the. It's. And I don't mean to disregard people that truly do feel like they're victims and have plenty of receipts to back that up. I can't take it. Yeah. Do something seriously. It's exhausting. You know, I love what you're saying about just. You know, we all have this role. I mean, it's. It's the Whitman right o' meal life. You know, the powerful play goes on. And we almost contribute. Yeah. Our verse and this notion that we have to contribute our verse Again, back

[Ryan Holiday]

to the Whitman was doing in the Civil War. He's volunteering in hospitals, taking care of a soldier. Like there's always something you can do.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yes.

[Ryan Holiday]

And. And the problem is, I think our political leaders are not. Are not willing to risk their political careers.

[Gavin Newsom]

Well, they had no problem in risking their political reputation by trying to get rid of Rosa Parks. Race in the social studies books, because it was woke.

[Ryan Holiday]

Right.

[Gavin Newsom]

As if race had anything to do with her story. They finally were called out on that, by the way, as you were called out of the naval. The hell was that?

[Ryan Holiday]

It was. It was surreal. Yeah. I was gonna. I was supposed to some of your

[Gavin Newsom]

great speeches and lectures.

[Ryan Holiday]

Thank you.

[Gavin Newsom]

Are there.

[Ryan Holiday]

I mean, it was an honor in my life to be able.

[Gavin Newsom]

And you're. The reception you get there is off the charts.

[Ryan Holiday]

One of the few things that gives me hope about our society is if you spend any time with people who are in the armed Circle services right now. It's.

[Gavin Newsom]

It's like West Point guy. I was with a dozen of these kids.

[Ryan Holiday]

It blew me away, especially because, like, that was the opposite of who I was at 17, 18, 19, 20. You're just like. Yeah, you just. You meet, like, you have it. You have it together at this level. It's incredible. And they're. I mean, they could. They could be at Harvard, they could be working at some Wall street firm. They could be anywhere other than what they're doing and they're choosing to be there. And then you watch, even as they are being mismanaged, as they objectively are right now, just what they are able to do, the problems they are able to solve. It's incredible. Anyways, yeah, so I was supposed to give a talk at the Naval Academy

[Gavin Newsom]

and I was canceled the last minute.

[Ryan Holiday]

Right. Yeah, about an hour before I was supposed to go on because I was gonna make the political statement that I think removing books from the library, which they did.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah. You know, I think there was, two years ago, 4,340 books, if I recall the exact number that were banned in libraries or schools across this country.

[Ryan Holiday]

This.

[Gavin Newsom]

Banning, binge rewriting history, censoring historical facts as if that makes us stronger and wiser.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. It's like, hey, this person's going to be, you know, in charge of nuclear weapons or flying a fighter jet, but Maya Angelou's memoir is too difficult to handle. Yeah, yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

They can't handle it. Yeah, they're way too sensitive for that.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, exactly.

[Gavin Newsom]

But you gave the lecture nonetheless.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, well, I gave it online. Put the stuff into practice. You know, I was like, oh, actually, you know, it was an interesting insight into it too, because I remember talking to the person giving, you know, the messenger who had to pass along that I was, you know, being. And who I really felt for because it's like, hey, this dude has a pension. Anyways, he goes, look, we just don't want to. We just don't want to draw any attention to ourselves. And I said, I think, I don't think that's how this works. I think canceling a lecture an hour before I'm supposed to go on is going to add a lot more.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah, there were a few dozen headlines.

[Ryan Holiday]

And so, yeah, I gave the talk online and it was obviously seen by a lot more people than would have there.

[Gavin Newsom]

And you had the audacity to talk about, I don't know, these, you know, these extreme progressive liberal woke, you know, admirals like Stockdale.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes, yeah. Yes.

[Gavin Newsom]

Among many others.

[Ryan Holiday]

By the way, a great California story there. He. The Navy sends him to Stanford in 1961 and he gets an advanced degree in.

[Gavin Newsom]

In.

[Ryan Holiday]

And as part of his studies there, he's. He. He takes classes in comparative Marxism. I forgot. That's right. And, and then, and then is introduced to, to Epictetus and it's those two things that allow him to survive the POW experience. And I was like seven years or something. I was fascinated to my grandfather. Just like, what. Get what?

[Gavin Newsom]

He didn't read Epictetus.

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, he came back. And just when you are exposed to an experience that's designed to break you as a human being and they strip you down and then just fling you back into the world like very few people could, can. Can manage that. And that the reason that Stockdale doesn't break is that he is introduced to these things at a woke liberal institution run by, you know, California hippies.

[Gavin Newsom]

And, and it's interesting. I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole with Stockdale, but this notion of optimism, it was not. That wasn't. That wasn't his go to default to just remain optimistic. He just remained clear and confident. The end goal that the optimist didn't tend to do as well as the

[Ryan Holiday]

stoic version of optimism is not, oh, this is going to go amazingly, I'm going to get lucky breaks. The stoic version of optimism is I'm going to be better for this, however horrible it is. And ultimately his view was he was going to comport himself in such a way that if he survived, he would not just be proud of how he acted. That's the idea of returning with honor, which they now teach all POWs. But that he was gonna turn it into something. He said that in retrospect, he would not trade away. And I think that's how we have to see this moment. Look, I would love to have a normal president. I'd love to have normal politics. I'd love to not live through a pandemic. I'd love. I would love all the. If you had given me my choice of how I would like the last 10 years to go, I would have picked very differently. But number one, you don't get a choice. Number two, you think you know how you want it to go, but you actually don't. And three, the only thing you have a say over is how do you look back and go, that was my moment. That was the thing that I rose up to meet. And that's going to be different for all of us. But that's. To me, what the Stoic is trying to say is that, hey, I want to be able to look back on this period and say I was what I was capable of being, and that I grew and was changed by that experience for the better. That is, to me, actually a profoundly optimistic and hopeful thing. It's also realistic.

[Gavin Newsom]

What I mean, you look back at Stoicism, anything they, from your perspective, got wrong?

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, like, basically everyone for the last 2,000 years, they get the whole slavery thing wrong.

[Gavin Newsom]

There was a little of that. I mean, Marcus Aurelius, slavery. You know, you had Seneca working for a guy named, you know, good boss named Nehru.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes. So.

[Gavin Newsom]

So wealthy guy.

[Ryan Holiday]

There's the kind of just basic, you know, personal decisions, and you can't study history and not go, hey, this person was flawed and made mistakes. We're all products of our time. So there's certainly a lot of things like that.

[Gavin Newsom]

How about in their teachings?

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, look, they believed, I think, much more in predetermination and predestination than we do. They had, obviously, To go to the idea of agency. Right. There were all these things that they thought couldn't be changed, that they thought was just a fact of life. In a way, this explains the political stuff. Even Epictetus the slave doesn't question the institution of slavery. And so when you look back at history, you can't help but be grateful to the sort of revolutionary, radical, progressive people who imagined that the world could be something different than it currently is.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah, I love that.

[Ryan Holiday]

And if there's anything that the Stoics get wrong, it's just that they were resigned to the world being the way that it had always been. And we are lucky that Gandhi was like, hey, what if there's a way to solve problems that doesn't involve terrorism or insurrection or overthrowing a government? And Martin Luther King picks that up from him, and the gay rights activists pick that up from them. And we're obviously lucky that all these different innovations happened where people were like, we're in the dead of Thomas Clarkson, who in the 1700s writes an essay at Oxford about whether people should own slaves or not, and then says, well, what if I'm right and they shouldn't? And then maybe someone should do something about it? And then he says, maybe that person could be me. And that's where the abolitionist movement comes from. And, you know, you go back, back and back and back. We are the beneficiaries of the people who imagined the world being better than it is.

[Gavin Newsom]

I love that.

[Ryan Holiday]

And stoicism cannot simply be a tool for accepting the status quo.

[Gavin Newsom]

You just finished a book on wisdom. You talk about these cardinal virtues, you end on wisdom. You don't begin with wisdom, even though you said none of the other virtues are possible without wisdom. So why the hell did you end the series?

[Ryan Holiday]

I saved the hardest one for last. I felt weird starting with wisdom. Just practical writing, standpoint. But I don't know. I felt like the last alphabetically. It's last. No, there's no good reason. They're all. The Zeno said that the cardinal virtues, courage, discipline, temperance, courage, discipline, justice, wisdom. They were independent, yet inseparable from each other. And it really doesn't matter what order you think about them, what do you read about them, whatever you write them about them, they all. You can't have one without the other. I mean, courage in pursuit of injustice is no impressive thing. And then how do you know what the right thing is without wisdom? How do you bring good into the world without savvy incompetence? I think that's one of our big problems right now, is like. Like, we just think that being right is sufficient.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

You know, you have to have. You have to be a savvy political operator. You have to be a savvy business. Like, just because you. You're in the broad strokes. Correct. That'll get you what.

[Gavin Newsom]

So what are you working on next?

[Ryan Holiday]

I'm doing a biography of Stockdale.

[Gavin Newsom]

Oh, good. Okay.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

There you go.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

I mean, you talk about him enough.

[Ryan Holiday]

I. He's one of my time.

[Gavin Newsom]

You. And he's. You know. And forgive me, because it's just, it's impossible to talk about Stockdale except he's better known. And this is why you need to write the book.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

Because he deserves not to be better known.

[Ryan Holiday]

Sure.

[Gavin Newsom]

For one simple line in a vice presidential debate. What sir, was that line?

[Ryan Holiday]

Who am I? Why am I here?

[Gavin Newsom]

Which as a stoic philosophically it's actually a great line for debate prep. You may want to use different language.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes. Yeah. The family. I'll save it for writing. But apparently there's a big story as to how he found himself on that stage.

[Gavin Newsom]

And Ross Perot's running nominee.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. But, but Dennis Miller has a great bit about Stockdale where he says, you know, this was the first guy in last guy out of Vietnam. Hero like seven years.

[Gavin Newsom]

Right.

[Ryan Holiday]

Prisoner war, serves honorably, wins the medal of Honor, does all this and he says he, he committed the one unpardonable sin in our society. Do you know what it is?

[Gavin Newsom]

What I mean, it's.

[Ryan Holiday]

He was bad on television.

[Gavin Newsom]

He was bad on tv. There you go. It's pathetic what's happened to us, huh?

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

Sincerely, this is rather pathetic. Yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

You imagine the incredibly as a charismatic good looking man. I imagine there are many, many more qualified people that could not just can't cut it politically because they look bad in an ad or speech 100% that 80 years ago you only would have been heard about from a newspaper column and they could have I could Taft be president now?

[Gavin Newsom]

Good question. Right. Yeah. Not on the basis of what he's been described.

[Ryan Holiday]

And, and I mean even FDR has to hide that he has a disability.

[Gavin Newsom]

I mean I. Even Kennedy is. There's a reason the rocking chair. I mean you know, and he was, you know, and he was there plenty of, you know, external things that were injected to get him through the day. I mean. Yeah. Yeah. In an Instagram 24 7.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. Probably would not have not have made it.

[Gavin Newsom]

I don't know.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. Well.

[Gavin Newsom]

And of course the infamous there. I mean the first TV president.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes. Yeah. The Nixon. The Nixon.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah. Radio Nixon crushes them TV Kennedy. Yeah. No, look, I. Well, I appreciate it. I'm glad you. So it's good for you on the Stockdale thing. So what is. I mean you got every morning if you haven't got. By the way, everyone listening, watching needs to subscribe to the damn morning email. Oh the daily Stoke email, which is next level. And what I love about it too, it's you know, repetition some other skill too. What I like is it's not one and done. You'll come back to old themes.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

And I'll see that as critique.

[Ryan Holiday]

Any themes.

[Gavin Newsom]

No, but it's. But it's important. Right. So it's just. It's reps and, you know, you're sort of. And so it's. It's. It remarkably. And it's a quick read every morning. Great way to wake up, sort of recalibrate your brain. And it's contemporary. You put things. I love it. If you're feeling all these things, you're like, yes and yes. So clearly someone. Whoever's writing those things, you or others.

[Ryan Holiday]

What do you mean, if someone.

[Gavin Newsom]

Whatever. It's, it's. It's, it's. It's. I mean, it's free. What more can I say? But it's. It's. It's profoundly impactful and. And something everyone should sign up for. You've got. You did. I did again. Your damn January.

[Ryan Holiday]

Oh, you did?

[Gavin Newsom]

Yes. I sat there in Lake Tahoe in, you know, at 1 degrees, jumping in the damn river with icicles, by the way. It should have gone on my Instagram, but I didn't look pretty. I need to get a little better shape. I didn't look good without the shirt on. Plus I had underwear. So it's another conversation. So I was out there and, you know, it was day one, the polar plunge. Well, then I get. I had to burn away my intent. Whatever. The other thing. Yes, but you're doing that. You got 26 for 26. You have the thing. You've got all this stuff on YouTube. Got all the. I mean, come on, man.

[Ryan Holiday]

This is crazy.

[Gavin Newsom]

What's, you know, what's. When's. Enough. Enough? Are you. Are you a stoic? Is this what stock.

[Ryan Holiday]

This is what I like to do. I'd be doing it. This is what I do.

[Gavin Newsom]

This is what I do. Well, it's. I appreciate you coming back home.

[Ryan Holiday]

Of course.

[Gavin Newsom]

Coming back to California.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

Off your ranch in Texas, which ain't so bad, and your credible kids. And I'm going to close on this. The best thing you do as a father of four, the daily dad. And dispensing advice as a father.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. Thank you.

[Gavin Newsom]

What was the inspiration in that? Besides little ones?

[Ryan Holiday]

My life was made better by writing about stoicism every day. The forced practice of having to do the meditation. And so when we had our first, I was like, you know what? I'll do a parent. I'll take the best parenting advice. Not. Not my advice. I don't know shit. But what are the best, smartest people the wisest people say about this, and I'll riff on it each morning. And so the daily dad is almost eight years old now, nine years old. And it's made me a better parent because I'm writing about this. I'm like, when your kids are having trouble getting out of bed in the morning and you want to get. I'm not saying that I didn't just yell at my kids for not getting in the car in time. I'm saying I'm writing, having just done that, trying to not do it tomorrow. You know, it's, it's, you're constantly, you know how you're, you know what, you know the parent you want to be, and you're never being that parent. But so it helps to remind yourself over and over and over again not of where you're falling short, but what the ideal that you're aspiring towards. I love it. And that's what that is, the most important job.

[Gavin Newsom]

Ryan, great to be with you.

[Ryan Holiday]

Thank you very much. It's very cool.

[Diana Maria Riva]

This is an Iheart podcast. Guaranteed human.