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You’re Not Lazy: How To Make Discipline Easy - Ryan Holiday

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Ryan HolidayguestAli Abdaalhost

Dec 21, 20232h 7mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

130 min read · 25,724 words

0:00 – 1:49
Intro
1. RHRyan Holiday
  So you did it. We talked three years ago, and now it's real. Well, the book is great. I think it's gonna crush
2. AAAli Abdaal
  Fingers crossed, but that's not a thing I can control, so [laughs]
3. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah
4. AAAli Abdaal
  ... I'm not gonna think too hard about it.
5. RHRyan Holiday
  But it, but it already did crush. The way to think about it is that it already-
6. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
7. RHRyan Holiday
  ... did crush and that-
8. AAAli Abdaal
  To what extent do you enjoy writing?
9. RHRyan Holiday
  I enjoy showing up, and then I enjoy finishing. At the end of the writing day, I feel good.
10. AAAli Abdaal
  All of this stuff comes back down to the process.
11. RHRyan Holiday
  Yes. I said this thing once. Maybe you agree with it, but it's like amateurs are obsessed with tools. People will go like, "What kind of, uh, pen do you journal with?"
12. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
13. RHRyan Holiday
  Like this fucking matters at all, right? Pick a fucking system and stick with that system.
14. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
15. RHRyan Holiday
  I think it's not quite sufficient to just say trust the process because it's hard to trust a process that you have not been through. There's an expression I like that says, "Painters like painting. Writers like having written."
16. AAAli Abdaal
  Ooh, nice.
17. RHRyan Holiday
  And then you start the next one.
18. AAAli Abdaal
  Ooh, by the way, in case you have not yet heard, my book is about to come out. It's called Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You, and it's a book that I've been working on for the last three years. Now, it's being published at the end of December 2023, but pre-orders are actually available. And I know people don't like pre-ordering the book, but if you do pre-order the book and you email me your receipt, you will get completely free access to a live exclusive event that I'm hosting in the first weekend of January of 2024, and this is a live online workshop all about annual planning, goal setting, and reflection. And so I'm gonna be facilitating a group with hopefully hundreds of people from all around the world, and we're gonna be going through how to figure out what to do with our life and how to turn that into goals for the year and how to build systems and how to be consistent with stuff and how to make sure that we are enjoying the journey along the way. That is purely exclusively available for people who pre-order the book as a thank you for our little community. So if you wanna check it out, you can check out the book. You can maybe consider pre-ordering it. The link will be down in the video description.
1:49 – 6:27
The process of writing a book
1. RHRyan Holiday
  So you did it. We talked three years ago, and now it's real. You have a book.
2. AAAli Abdaal
  We talked three years ago. We talked on the 7th of October, 2023, which was-
3. RHRyan Holiday
  Really?
4. AAAli Abdaal
  ... like a y- three years and a week ago.
5. RHRyan Holiday
  That's nuts.
6. AAAli Abdaal
  And I was saying to you in that interview that like, "Hey, Ryan, you know, I've just started writing my first book. Any tips?"
7. RHRyan Holiday
  Mm-hmm.
8. AAAli Abdaal
  And you gave some really good advice.
9. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah.
10. AAAli Abdaal
  And-
11. RHRyan Holiday
  What did I say? Do you remember?
12. AAAli Abdaal
  You said, s- you said so much stuff. You said, uh, the importance of structure.
13. RHRyan Holiday
  Okay.
14. AAAli Abdaal
  The importance of having your materials assembled and kind of knowing what you want to say before you begin to write.
15. RHRyan Holiday
  Sure.
16. AAAli Abdaal
  And the analogy you used was like, you're like, "Well, you know, it would be weird if you decided to set off from New York and try and get to San Francisco, but you were just like, 'You know what? I'm just gonna walk, and I'm just gonna figure it out along the way.'" You would, you know, it would be sensible to have a map. Um, but yeah, I mean-
17. RHRyan Holiday
  Although even a- I would say what actu- the problem is people don't even know they're trying to head towards San Francisco.
18. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
19. RHRyan Holiday
  Right? They just know they're trying to get somewhere.
20. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
21. RHRyan Holiday
  And figuring out where you're trying to go as you're, as you're doing it is a bad idea.
22. AAAli Abdaal
  That was, that was a big part of my problem in that, like, the destination changed radically, like, every year-
23. RHRyan Holiday
  Sure
24. AAAli Abdaal
  ... in the three-year process.
25. RHRyan Holiday
  Sure.
26. AAAli Abdaal
  Where, yeah.
27. RHRyan Holiday
  Well, you do, you do... The more-- The problem is you're trying to figure out, when you're work- when you're starting a book, you're trying to figure out the end result.
28. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
29. RHRyan Holiday
  But you haven't done all the thinking required to know the end result.
30. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah. This is why I think, like, the proposal was a bit of a scam.
6:27 – 9:42
Ryan's daily schedule
1. RHRyan Holiday
  anyway.
2. AAAli Abdaal
  What is your, like, I guess, daily routine look like? What's, what's the structure you've built around your-
3. RHRyan Holiday
  Um-
4. AAAli Abdaal
  ...
5. RHRyan Holiday
  I usually try to get up earl- I'll give you an example though. I try to get up early, I try to take my kids for a walk. That's like the beginning of what we do. And this morning, we got up, I got up early, I made their lunches. I, uh, just sort of having quiet time in the morning. And then my son got up, and he got really into Legos. And it was also cold, and so I was like, "Do I wanna rip him out of this thing that I'm al- that's also good, that's also I'm trying to encourage, to have a fight over a thing that might spoil him and wanting to do the thing in future times? I'm gonna say no." Uh, so I sort of ripped up the playbook, and then I made them breakfast, and then I was taking a shower. And then, um, literally as I'm getting in the shower, they wanted to go on a walk.
6. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
7. RHRyan Holiday
  Uh, and so [chuckles] we ended up doing... Like, we just sort of t- So I, I guess, uh, in the 48 Laws of Power, the final law, which I think a lot of people miss, is assume formlessness. So there's all these laws about do this, don't do this, do this, don't do this. But the last law is a kind of a strategic flexibility. And so to answer your question earlier about how I think about this stuff, I, I have found as I've gotten older and more successful that the rigidity that served me well early on has had to give way into a kind of flexibility. Now, there's always a tension or a, a concern. Is that, is that flexibility actually just complacency or laziness? Um, and I have to question each time wha- why, what is my motivation here? But, but that rigidity has to become flexibility, or one, you suck all the fun out of it, and two, it's not sustainable over a long period of time, and it's not, it's very susceptible to being disrupted or blown apart by the complexity of life.
8. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
9. RHRyan Holiday
  So I'm, I'm less, I have less of a routine, and I have more practices that I try to do consistently.
10. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
11. RHRyan Holiday
  And I move them around depending on what's happening.
12. AAAli Abdaal
  What are some of those practices?
13. RHRyan Holiday
  Well, I try to get up early. I try to walk. I try to do some form of hard exercise every day. I try to not eat until, like I try to have kind of a fasting window. Um, and then I try to, I try to do writing before I do other things.
14. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm. Okay.
15. RHRyan Holiday
  So, like I am flexible on a lot of stuff, but I don't write at 3:00 in the afternoon, 'cause that's not conducive to doing it well. So, so just, you kinda know what go... It's more of a, an intuition or a gut feel as opposed to when I was younger, it was like, it was almost, it was almost a form of OCD. Like it has to happen at this time. If it doesn't happen at this time, then there is distress. And, and that distress, you're almost doing the tasks to avoid the distress, which is not a good way
9:42 – 13:23
How having children changes your work
1. RHRyan Holiday
  to live.
2. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah. And how did having kids change your relationship with work?
3. RHRyan Holiday
  Well, it just blows your whole life up.
4. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
5. RHRyan Holiday
  Uh, in a good way, but it blows your whole life up. I remember this New York Times reporter was doing this piece on me right as my son was being born, and she, she asked me like, "How do you think, you know, like having kids is gonna change your routine?" And I said something like, "I don't think it'll change it at all." Uh, which was of course preposterous and, uh, and, uh, very naive. But, uh, it's just totally blown it apart. But it gives you important stuff that you center your life around. So, like I think people are concerned that like having kids or getting married, it'll tie you down, and it does.
6. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
7. RHRyan Holiday
  It objectively does. But it ties you down t- to reality. Like it tethers you to the Earth.
8. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
9. RHRyan Holiday
  There are, school starts at a time, and it ends at a time. Like there's nap time. There is eating time. There is activities that happen every week. You know, there's stuff, right? And so it prevents you from making it all about you.
10. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
11. RHRyan Holiday
  Uh, and it forces you to sort of have non-negotiable things. I mean, I guess it doesn't force you. You could be a bad parent if you want. But if you want your kids to n- not be a nightmare, you realize like routine is very important, structure is very important. But then also rigidity is m- you know, um, impossible. There's, um, uh, uh, Lin-Manuel Miranda was talking about how he had a kid right as Hamilton blew up. And so he would do the play, and then it's the hottest thing in the world. And so every night, celebrities attend, and then they come backstage, and they go, "We're going here after. We're going here." And he was getting invited to all this like incredible stuff. And he had to say no to all of it, 'cause he had to get home. He had to get home not just 'cause he wanted to see his kid, but, um, he knew that his sleep was already a precarious touch-and-go thing, 'cause he has an infant in his house.
12. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
13. RHRyan Holiday
  So if he stays out till like 2:00 in the morning, and then he gets home and he's woken up five times in the middle of the night or whatever, he's just not gonna be able to perform the night before, the, the next night. And so his point was that having a kid actually saved him from spinning off the planet from this kind of stratospheric success that he has. And I, I have found that for sure, that like Again, we think these things are gonna be baggage. It's more like ballast. Like, it balances you out, um, in a way that thinking, "Hey, I'm totally unencumbered, I can do whatever I want, I can fully enjoy all the fruits of all the cool stuff that's happening," you think that's what you want, but it's kind of a recipe for disaster.
14. AAAli Abdaal
  Oh, okay. That's so interesting to hear, because I guess I've been, I've been feeling a bit burnt out from, you know, the whole, like, rush to finish the book, and then all of the batch filming podcasts, and YouTube videos, and the audiobook then, and then, like, all of this book promo stuff that it is apparently-
15. RHRyan Holiday
  Sure
16. AAAli Abdaal
  ... sensible to do and all, all this kind of thing.
17. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah.
18. AAAli Abdaal
  And the conclusion I came to a few days ago, like, was, "Screw it, I just want an empty calendar. A fully empty calendar." [laughs]
19. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah.
20. AAAli Abdaal
  And I guess, [laughs] I'm sure if I experienced that for a few weeks, I'd be like, "Ah, actually, I probably want a bit more structure in my life."
21. RHRyan Holiday
  Well, I want... I- You want an empty calendar of the stuff that you... You want it empty of the stuff that you don't want to do.
22. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
23. RHRyan Holiday
  So, like, when I have an empty calendar, that means I have as much time as I want to write and as much time as I want to spend time with my family.
24. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm-hmm.
25. RHRyan Holiday
  What I haven't scheduled is interruptions from those things.
26. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah, nice.
27. RHRyan Holiday
  Um, even if those things are fun or interesting or whatever.
28. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
13:23 – 22:22
Are numbers in our control?
1. AAAli Abdaal
  Nice.
2. RHRyan Holiday
  By the way, I was reading your, your bio.
3. AAAli Abdaal
  Great.
4. RHRyan Holiday
  It does you, it does you no justice. It says 4.5 million YouTube subscribers, and it says over 93 million total views.
5. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
6. RHRyan Holiday
  But it's way more than that.
7. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah, it's like 4.8, 4.9 now.
8. RHRyan Holiday
  No, no, no, you've done, like, hundreds of millions of YouTube views.
9. AAAli Abdaal
  Have I?
10. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah.
11. AAAli Abdaal
  Oh. I don't even look at that number. [laughs] But-
12. RHRyan Holiday
  You don't?
13. AAAli Abdaal
  No.
14. RHRyan Holiday
  Really?
15. AAAli Abdaal
  I made it a point early in the journey, I think, uh, thanks to all the stoicism Kool-Aid that I was drinking-
16. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah
17. AAAli Abdaal
  ... to only focus on the things that were within my control. [laughs]
18. RHRyan Holiday
  Okay.
19. AAAli Abdaal
  Uh, to the point that I almost never look at analytics. And the only thing I can... I even vaguely keep track of is like, oh, oh yeah, I mean, I was watching one of my own videos and it said 4.9 million rather than 4.8 million, 'cause it, it doesn't even give you the-
20. RHRyan Holiday
  Sure. No, as you get-
21. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
22. RHRyan Holiday
  ... more, the numbers get less precise-
23. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
24. RHRyan Holiday
  ... because you ...
25. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
26. RHRyan Holiday
  ... it matters less.
27. AAAli Abdaal
  And I can see it in YouTube Studio if I go on and, and, and stuff, and I'll occasionally do that just to look at comments and, and, and things. But I don't know. I really try. Like, the, the mo- the more I look at the numbers, the less happy I am with the creative output.
28. RHRyan Holiday
  Well, so, so w- tell me why stoicism taught you not to look at how your YouTube videos are doing. That's very interesting to me.
29. AAAli Abdaal
  I realized that when I would look at how my YouTube videos were doing, in the back of my mind, there would always be that sense of, you know the whole, like, dichotomy of control thing?
30. RHRyan Holiday
  Mm-hmm.
22:22 – 28:10
Focusing on the process
1. AAAli Abdaal
  feel like all of, all of this stuff comes back down to, comes back down to the process.
2. RHRyan Holiday
  Yes.
3. AAAli Abdaal
  And, you know, a big part of what we talk about in, in that book is, um, you know, trying to find a way to make the process enjoyable and energizing. Um, and yeah, I find that when I have that in, at the front of my mind when it comes to the videos or even, even writing the book. You know, like, there were periods in the book journey where I sort of forgot to enjoy the process-
4. RHRyan Holiday
  Mm-hmm
5. AAAli Abdaal
  ... because the seriousness of writing a book was, like, weighing on me, and then I would read, like, I don't know, one of your, like, your newsletter or one of your books or, like, Drive by Dan Pink, and I'm like, "Oh, it's so good. This stuff is so good," and I'd be comparing it to my first draft-
6. RHRyan Holiday
  Sure
7. AAAli Abdaal
  ... and be like, "Why am I, why is my writing so shit?" Um, and it would take my editor to remind me that, you know, like, the whole, the whole message of the book is find a way to make it enjoyable and, and energizing, so, you know. [laughs]
8. RHRyan Holiday
  Well, it's hard if... People say trust the process-
9. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm
10. RHRyan Holiday
  ... right? But it's hard to trust a process that you have not been through before.
11. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
12. RHRyan Holiday
  And so, um, once you've done it one time, you have a sense of the full scope of the process or what you think is a full scope of the process.
13. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
14. RHRyan Holiday
  Then you do it again and again and again, and you start to go, "Oh yeah, this is the part where you start to doubt yourself. This is the part where you get excited," but, uh, like in Texas, we have this season, it's called false fall.
15. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
16. RHRyan Holiday
  So it's cool and awesome right here. It'll probably get hot again, right?
17. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
18. RHRyan Holiday
  Like, we think, we think the summer's finally broken, but there's actually, like, several more hot days coming. Projects are like that too. You think you're over the hump, you think you've done it, and then, oh wait, no, it's gonna get hard again. But you, you s- you start to get a sense of the rhythms of it, and then you can trust the process. And then you can also enjoy the process because, you know, it's like the first time you go on a roller coaster, that specific roller coaster, you have no idea, is this gonna be one of the ones where it's like this, or is it gonna be one of the ones that psh, you... Right? But then once you've done it before, then you have some... You can kind of anticipate it, and you know- When to hold on tight and when you can just go with it, right? And you can kind of watch the other people that have never been on it before, how much scary it is for them. And so I think it's, it's, it's not quite sufficient to just say trust the process because it's, it's hard to trust a process that you have not been through.
19. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah. So true. I think, like, so I, I've, I realized this very, um, sort of tangibly. Also, you know, I've made like seven hundred plus YouTube videos in my time, and I know that recording it always feels like a total shit show where I'm making so many mistakes, and there's so much, like, crap in it.
20. RHRyan Holiday
  Sure.
21. AAAli Abdaal
  But I've done it enough times. I know the final product is going to be good because our, our editor is amazing.
22. RHRyan Holiday
  Sure.
23. AAAli Abdaal
  We chop out all the crap-
24. RHRyan Holiday
  Sure
25. AAAli Abdaal
  ... and we'll make it look amazing. But then when beginner YouTubers see the final result, and then they see themselves recording and-
26. RHRyan Holiday
  Mm-hmm
27. AAAli Abdaal
  ... suddenly they're spluttering and swearing all the time, and-
28. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah
29. AAAli Abdaal
  ... you never see that raw, uncut version of a YouTuber's first take.
30. RHRyan Holiday
  Yes.
28:10 – 41:16
Obsessing over productivity
1. RHRyan Holiday
  So I have a question about productivity for you because I feel like people are obsessed with productivity.
2. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
3. RHRyan Holiday
  And I'm not always sure why. Like I, I said this thing once, maybe you agree with it, but it's like that amateurs are obsessed with tools, right? Like, what's the best software to do this?
4. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
5. RHRyan Holiday
  What is the best way? You know, like people will go like, "What, what kind of a pen do you journal with?"
6. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
7. RHRyan Holiday
  Like this fucking matters at all, right? They'll go, "What, what program do you write with?" Um, and if I was to rank the things that contribute the most to what I do, tools are like not even in the top ten.
8. AAAli Abdaal
  Today's episode is very kindly brought to you by Huel. Now, I've personally been using Huel regularly since twenty seventeen when I discovered it in my fifth year of medical school. And if you've not heard of Huel, they're a business that creates convenient, affordable meals in a variety of different forms, but all of them are nutritionally complete, so they have the perfect balance of nutrients, carbs, fibers, protein, and fat, and contain twenty-six vitamins and minerals. And they've now packaged some of their most popular products into their best seller bundle, so you can try out all the Huel products and see which ones vibe with you. There is Huel Black Edition, which is my personal favorite because it's really tasty and it's high protein, so forty grams of protein, and all you have to do is add water or milk, and you can shake it up and take it with you wherever you want to go. The bundle also has Huel's Instant Meals, which you make in the microwave. There's Huel Ready to Drink range, which are pre-made shakes in a bottle, which is super handy. And I've actually grabbed a few of these in the airport when I've been between flights while traveling. And finally, you'll also get some of the new Huel bars, which I'm very excited to try out myself. Plus, if you're a new customer, you get a totally free Huel T-shirt and a shaker and pot with your first order. Now, I wouldn't recommend having every meal as Huel because that would get a bit much, but it's a fantastic supplement to a healthy, balanced diet. So often for me, I'll have Huel either for breakfast or for lunch, where the alternative would be to otherwise have a relatively unhealthy breakfast. And so Huel is a great way to make sure that you at least have the basics covered when you are living a hectic and/or busy life. Huel has very kindly been a longtime supporter of the podcast as well, and I actually did an interview with the founder of Huel, Julian Hearn, which was a great episode, and that's in season one of the Deep Dive podcast. So anyway, thank you so much, Huel, for sponsoring this episode. Now this season is once again being sponsored very kindly by Trading 212. Now, people ask me all the time for investment advice, uh, because they see that I've made money and I've made videos talking about where I'm investing that money. The thing that Warren Buffett and basically everyone who's sensible in the space recommends, which is to invest in broad stock market index funds, which you can do completely for free using Trading 212. Trading 212 is a fantastic app that lets you invest in stocks and shares and funds in a commission-free fashion. And they've got a bunch of features which are really helpful, which is why I personally use Trading 212 to manage a portion of my portfolio. So firstly, they've got this great Pies and Auto-Invest feature. So if you're interested in potentially getting into investing, what you can do is you can browse the different pies that different people have created on the platform. So you might get like a hedge fund trader who's gone onto the platform and has created a pie of investments, having done a bunch of research and stuff, and that pie might be like, I don't know, twenty percent Apple, twenty percent Tesla, ten percent this, ten percent that, but it's generally way more complicated than that. And you can see the performance of that particular pie of stocks and shares and funds. And then if you want to copy that pie into your own account, you can just copy and paste it directly in. And then you can invest any amount of money, and it will automatically split it according to the allocation in the pie. So if you wanted to just play around with a hundred pounds and you were like, "Okay, that pie looks good," it will split out that hundred pounds based on the allocations of the pie, which is pretty sick. They've also recently added support for multi-currency accounts. Now, this is really helpful because, for example, if you invest in the S&P 500, which is a US-based index fund, then you won't get hit with all the various foreign exchange fees if, for example, you're investing from the UK like I do. And if you have an invest or an ISA account, then Trading 212 also gives you daily interest on your uninvested cash in pounds or euros or US dollars. So if any of that sounds up your street, then do please hit the link in the video description or in the show notes, and that will let you sign up to Trading 212. And if you use that link, you will also get a completely free share up to the value of a hundred pounds, so it's literally free money, so you might as well. So thank you so much, Trading 212, for sponsoring this episode. Yeah, that was kind of [laughs] ... I was, uh, as you were saying that, I was thinking, yeah, the tool is maybe the extra one percent left over at the end-
9. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah
10. AAAli Abdaal
  ... potentially. If like writing in Scrivener is just a little bit nicer than writing in a Google Doc.
11. RHRyan Holiday
  Sure.
12. AAAli Abdaal
  But, like, this is the thing, like, a- as I've basically tried to read basically every productivity book on the market, um, and then some, it all fundamentally comes down to really the way to be productive is to figure out where you're trying to go, figure out what, what habits and what daily/weekly routines you need to get there, then just sitting down and doing the thing.
13. RHRyan Holiday
  Yes.
14. AAAli Abdaal
  And then finding a way to make the thing fun so that you don't get distracted with other shit, and then just doing the thing for a long time. [laughs]
15. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah, yeah.
16. AAAli Abdaal
  And if having a slightly... I mean, I have a really crappy pen that I stole from my brother now because my fountain pen ran out of ink, and it was such a nice fountain pen, but, like, I can write just as well with a crappy ballpoint. [laughs]
17. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah.
18. AAAli Abdaal
  The, the one percent tweaks, um, but it's so much more f- it's, it's almost like, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm trying to, trying to get into fitness now, and I just love researching, you know, on running shoes. Should I get this padding versus that padding? Been for a run maybe once in the last six months.
19. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah.
20. AAAli Abdaal
  But I love the idea of researching running gear because it's great procrastination from actually doing the thing, which is put on anything and just go for a run.
21. RHRyan Holiday
  Yes.
22. AAAli Abdaal
  Or, like, just go to the gym and do anything with progressive overload.
23. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah, it's like people are optimizing a thing they're not doing-
24. AAAli Abdaal
  Yes
25. RHRyan Holiday
  ... which, which is never gonna be the way to get there.
26. AAAli Abdaal
  There was a great, uh, a great moment, um, that, uh, my, my girlfriend called me out, uh, out on this the other day. Uh, you know the whole, like, sauna, ice plunge?
27. RHRyan Holiday
  Mm-hmm.
28. AAAli Abdaal
  Everyone in Austin seems to be doing it.
29. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah.
30. AAAli Abdaal
  I was saying to her, "Hey, you know, what if I join a gym?" And it's like, you know, depending on how busy the sauna is, like, you know, Huberman says, like, four times versus five times and, like, twenty four-minute protocol versus twelve-minute protocol. And she was like, "You've been to the sauna once in the last six months."
41:16 – 46:12
The importance of doing the thing
1. AAAli Abdaal
  uh, back in the day, I used, I used to be a, a close-up magician, and I would perform at like balls and parties at university and stuff. And there was a, a phrase that was often, um, you know, in the, in the world of magic. The, the amateur magician is, is the person who performs 100 tricks to, uh, you know, uh... The amateur magician is the person who per- who performs 100 tricks to the same audience. Whereas the professional magician is the one who performs the same tricks to 100 different audiences.
2. RHRyan Holiday
  Yes.
3. AAAli Abdaal
  Or words to that effect.
4. RHRyan Holiday
  Sure.
5. AAAli Abdaal
  And in the world of magic as well, there was this constant thing, constant like battle between, you know, on the forums, there are the professionals who are actually doing the thing, and then there are all the amateurs being like, "What are the best tricks?"
6. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah.
7. AAAli Abdaal
  And the professional's are like, "It doesn't matter. Just pick three to six of them and just do them ad nauseam-
8. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah
9. AAAli Abdaal
  ... and you will guaranteed be a professional magician."
10. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah.
11. AAAli Abdaal
  And the amateurs are like, "Oh, but like, I've got $1,000. I wanna spend it on like this trick versus that trick versus that trick."
12. RHRyan Holiday
  Yes.
13. AAAli Abdaal
  It's like it, it doesn't matter. Just pick a few and just stick with them and do them repeatedly over a long enough time, and that is how you get good at the thing. But that's a lot less sexy sounding advice than, "This one, this one trick will change your life."
14. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah, like I've been to conferences that have changed my life, but I'm always interested when I notice people are going to lots of them. Like, the chances that every single one is gonna have that same effect is very low, right?
15. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
16. RHRyan Holiday
  And so it's like you should... Y- you beat the casino, leave.
17. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
18. RHRyan Holiday
  You know what I mean? Like, um, there's this tendency to sort of chase more and more when you've already gotten most of the gains.
19. AAAli Abdaal
  I had some f- uh, I've got some friends who, who attended like a sort of eighty-five thousand dollar mastermind week-long retreat type thing.
20. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah.
21. AAAli Abdaal
  And after day one, they were like, "Damn, we know what we have to do here." [laughs]
22. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah.
23. AAAli Abdaal
  We kind of wanna leave and just do it, but, like, we've paid eighty-five thousand dollars, so we've gotta kind of stay for the next five days, knowing full well that, like, all of this is going straight over their head because they just know what-
24. RHRyan Holiday
  They got the one thing
25. AAAli Abdaal
  ... they got the one thing.
26. RHRyan Holiday
  Right.
27. AAAli Abdaal
  And they just need to execute on the one thing, and then two years later, maybe the thing number two or three will become relevant.
28. RHRyan Holiday
  Yes.
29. AAAli Abdaal
  But by then you've forgotten about it, and you'll need to go to another event. [laughs]
30. RHRyan Holiday
  Y- so, so back to procrastination, my... one of my favorite quotes from Seneca is he says, "The one thing all fools have in common is that they're always getting ready to start." Right? So, like, they're gonna do it tomorrow-
46:12 – 58:51
Can you really find joy in hard work?
1. AAAli Abdaal
  To what extent do you enjoy writing?
2. RHRyan Holiday
  Uh, well, there's an expression I like that says, um, "Painters like painting. Writers like having written."
3. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
4. RHRyan Holiday
  Um, so at the end of the writing day, I feel good. Do I feel good the entire time? Not always. Sometimes when it's fucking working, it's nothing better.
5. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
6. RHRyan Holiday
  But if you... that's the only thing that fuels you, you're gonna... you're not gonna be in a good spot. 'Cause some days some of the most important things come, it's one sentence in the midst of two otherwise unproductive, pointless hours.
7. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
8. RHRyan Holiday
  You know? So I enjoy showing up, and then I enjoy finishing.
9. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
10. RHRyan Holiday
  And sometimes that middle period can be torturous.
11. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
12. RHRyan Holiday
  So I was gonna ask you that, like when you say feel-good productivity.
13. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
14. RHRyan Holiday
  Does it actually have to feel good? Uh, there, there's one school of thought that says it's all about finding the torture that you can tolerate.
15. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
16. RHRyan Holiday
  And it's actually the ability to put up with the grind of it that separates kind of the winners from the losers.
17. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah. That's the thing. So I think it, my, my thesis in the book is that it doesn't have to feel good, but it is generally more energizing when it does.
18. RHRyan Holiday
  Sure.
19. AAAli Abdaal
  Generally, like, positive emotions fuel, fuel energy, fuel creativity, fuel, like, reduce stress, all, all that, all that fun stuff. And so the question that, the question that led to the book in the first place was, you know, when I was trying to juggle working full time as a doctor and also building the YouTube channel and the business on the side, it just felt like a huge amount of grind in the day job and then a huge amount of grind afterwards to do the videos. And it seemed like, you know, everyone talks about how, you know, journey before destination, and I realized that I wasn't enjoying my day-to-day because of this sort of grind approach. And so I tried to find any tweak that I could to make it feel just a little bit better. And that's not to say that it was fun all the time or that it objectively felt good all the time- But I found a series of strategies that meant that almost anything I could make feel even just a bit better. And if it felt a bit better, it generates more energy, and it meant I had more energy at the end of the day to give to my, my other hobbies and friends and family and stuff. And it also made me more productive. So I think it's like, you know, when it comes to writing, for example, there are, you know, some, some basic things that I found was, you know, the first chapter in the book is about play and about trying to approach things in the spirit of play. Now, play, you know, a lot of people have talked about how comes about as a result of, um, often a result of the stakes being lower. So, like Ro-Roger Federer probably isn't feeling play when he's in the Wimbledon fi-final-
20. RHRyan Holiday
  Sure
21. AAAli Abdaal
  ... because the stakes are too high. And I found that, for example, with, with, with, with writing the book. When I, when I was thinking about the stakes being high, like, "This is my first book, and it's traditionally published, and it's a big deal," that would suck the joy out of it.
22. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah.
23. AAAli Abdaal
  Whereas when I tried to lower the stakes to be like, "No, it's okay, I'm just writing because I enjoy it, and the goal is for me to write a book I'm proud of," suddenly it became more enjoyable.
24. RHRyan Holiday
  Right.
25. AAAli Abdaal
  So it's the same thing, but, like, just a different framing that makes it feel good.
26. RHRyan Holiday
  No, the pro- the problem is you're not in the Wimbledon finals, but you're fooling yourself into thinking you are.
27. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
28. RHRyan Holiday
  That's where ego comes in and-
29. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
30. RHRyan Holiday
  ... uh, anxiety comes in. You're just, you're just like, you're making it much more than it is.
58:51 – 1:04:14
What motivates Ryan to write?
1. AAAli Abdaal
  rereading, um, Bertrand Russell's essay, In Praise of Idleness, um, where he's basically talking about how this, you know, this attitude that the modern world inculcates within us, which is that kind of work is inherently meaningful, is, like, bad and problematic and-
2. RHRyan Holiday
  Sure
3. AAAli Abdaal
  ... all that jazz. So I'm, like, I'm, I'm curious for you, like, you're presumably planning to write more books because you're fairly young in the grand scheme of things. Um, but, like, why? What is the... If, if, if not, like, I wanna be remembered, I want a legacy, then what's-
4. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah
5. AAAli Abdaal
  ... what's, what's it all in service of?
6. RHRyan Holiday
  No, he has a great line. He says, uh, "The first sign of an impending nervous collapse is the belief that your work is terribly, terribly important."
7. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
8. RHRyan Holiday
  And I think he's totally right. You know, if you have this sense like, "I'm building this monument," you know, or, "The world has to experience my genius, uh, this is gonna last for a thousand years," you know, uh, that's not, that's not only delusional, but, like, it's, uh, kind of a miserable place to be, and it usually end-- it usually feeds on itself and eventually, you know, wears you down. Um, at this point, I write books that I am interested in writing, like, that I find myself better for having done.
9. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
10. RHRyan Holiday
  Um, this, this book that I just did in the Virtue series, so I did, uh, Courage, and I did, uh, Discipline, and now I'm doing Justice. I'm almost certain this will be the worst-selling book in the series-
11. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm-hmm
12. RHRyan Holiday
  ... the Justice one, because it's the least... You know, you talked about certain terms-
13. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm-hmm
14. RHRyan Holiday
  ... you know will perform well-
15. AAAli Abdaal
  And the word discipline is good. [laughs]
16. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah. Discipline-
17. AAAli Abdaal
  Like, yeah, justice.
18. RHRyan Holiday
  Obviously, it was-
19. AAAli Abdaal
  Courage
20. RHRyan Holiday
  ... I knew if I did a good job, it would be a home run.
21. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
22. RHRyan Holiday
  This one, even if I do the greatest job I possibly can be, c- ... possibly can do, you know, it probably has a ceiling on it in some way. But, like, I was better for having done it. It-- I learned something. I articulated something to myself in writing about it. Um, if my kids are the only two people that read it, you know, like, I try to, I try to find standards of success or motivations that have become more self-sufficient as I've gone.
23. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
24. RHRyan Holiday
  So at this point, I write things because creatively I find them interesting-
25. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
26. RHRyan Holiday
  ... and I love the process of being in the middle of it, even, even when it's really hard.
27. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm-hmm.
28. RHRyan Holiday
  And I, uh, the same thing is true with running. Like, I love and I hate running. Like-
29. AAAli Abdaal
  Awesome
30. RHRyan Holiday
  ... uh, I-- obviously not doing it is easier than doing it.
1:04:14 – 1:11:39
Balancing fatherhood and ambition
1. AAAli Abdaal
  recently done a bit of a, well, I wouldn't say pivot, like s- side hustle on the whole Daily Dad stuff [laughs] which is interesting. Um, a lot of, um... I've, I, I've been just found, I found myself reading a lot of, like, parenting advice recently. Uh, I'm not even close to becoming a dad. But [laughs] I was just curious, uh, and I'm part of your daily newsletter on, on that as well, 'cause it's just, it's just interesting. But there seems to be this really common thing of, like, uh, people working hard, uh, in their career, sometimes at the expense of their family.
2. RHRyan Holiday
  Mm-hmm.
3. AAAli Abdaal
  Um, and, you know, you'll hear people say that, like, "I thought I was doing my kids a favor by working on and doing this thing and, like, focusing on my career and stuff. But actually, what I maybe should have done in hindsight is to spend less time on my career and more time on the kid stuff."
4. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah.
5. AAAli Abdaal
  How do you think about that balance between, like, working hard at the thing, but also, like, being there for the, the small ones?
6. RHRyan Holiday
  Well, it's very insidious 'cause you say, "I'm doing it all for them," and so you are doing something very selfish, but you are cloaking it in selflessness.
7. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
8. RHRyan Holiday
  Like, "That's why I'm getting on this airplane. That's why I'm staying this late at the office. That's why I'm, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." But if you asked your kids, you know, what do they want? Like, more money would be nowhere in that list, right? Or if, if it, if it was on the list, it would be such a preposterously and refreshingly childlike understanding of money-
9. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
10. RHRyan Holiday
  ... you know, that it would, I think it would humble you. So you're, you're saying you're doing it for them, but you're not. You're doing it for you. You're doing it for you. Um, and the tragedy of, of... and the irony of I'm doing it f- I'm doing all this for the people I never see-
11. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm
12. RHRyan Holiday
  ... is a very sad, fucked up place that a lot of sort of high-powered, accomplished people find themselves in.
13. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
14. RHRyan Holiday
  And I heard something great once. Someone said, like, "Success is your kids wanting to be with you when you're an adult." Uh, and so, like, how will you measure your life at the end, right? Um, it won't be, like, the size of the, the inheritance that you leave them. It will be, you know, are you still in each other's lives now? So how do you invest in-- That's not something you can do later. You know what I mean?
15. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
16. RHRyan Holiday
  So you have to make those decisions now.
17. AAAli Abdaal
  You can't catch up.
18. RHRyan Holiday
  And they're, and they're costly and uncertain and, and, um- The worst part is you don't even know how much it's costing. I mean, this is obviously much scarier and sort of systemically imposed on women, right? So like, you're gonna take three years out of your, you know, cumulatively three years out of your working life in your twenties and thirties, which has this enormous cumulative compounding effect on the trajectory that you're gonna end up, uh, on. You know, that's a very scary thing. Um, and it's, it's un- it's unfair in a lot of ways. Um, but at the end of your life, you know, it's probably gonna be something you're glad that you did.
19. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
20. RHRyan Holiday
  And so I think a lot of men just sort of unthinkingly don't do it at all, but I've, I've tried to sort of go, "Yeah, what is, what is it that you wanna do, and who do you wanna be?" There's this great term, an art monster. And I forget, this female writer, she was saying like, "My dream was to be an art monster." Basically just, just me and my work and no family, no, you know, uh, no baggage, no impositions, just me and th- And, and it-- there are a lot of art monsters, and they've written great stuff, but when you read their biographies, you just sort of go, "Ugh, what?" You know? Uh, "Was that worth it?" You know? Um, and it, it kind of, it kind of taints all of the stuff that they did. It makes it much more bittersweet and not so great.
21. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm. How did you decide to, you know, go into the dad stuff rather than quit, stay in your lane as the stoic guy?
22. RHRyan Holiday
  I don't know if I really decided it. Um, I mean, so writing The Daily Dad, I mean, the, the reason I decided to do The Daily Dad was that writing The Daily Stoic made me better as a person. You can't every single day sit down and try to take insights from the wisest people who ever lived and distill them down into a couple hundred words over and over and over again and not emerge some- somewhat bonded to those idea-- Like, it just, it gets in your bloodstream, right?
23. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
24. RHRyan Holiday
  You're just... That's what stoicism is. Stoic-- What Marcus Aurelius was doing in his Meditations was writing down things. A lot of it comes from other stoic texts. He's just writing it down, rephrasing it and writing it down and writing it down and rephrasing it and looking at it this way and looking-- He's having this philosophical discussion with himself, with himself. And that's how Marcus Aurelius becomes Marcus Aurelius. So the process of writing The Daily Stoic book and then writing The Daily Stoic every day now for seven years, it's almost a million words that I published for free, uh, to, you know, I think we've done three thousand Daily Stoic emails. That's like seven or eight books worth of content.
25. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
26. RHRyan Holiday
  Um, I have benefited from that. Like, it's built a business around it, but like if I had made precisely zero dollars, that would have been the bargain of a lifetime, right? Like I've gotten so much better from having done that. And so I just decided that I would do the same thing about parenting.
27. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
28. RHRyan Holiday
  And if it helps other people, great. You know? Um, if it sells books, great. But the process of having to intentionally sit down and think about and then write about and then publish, you know, how I wanna think about these things has made me better.
29. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
30. RHRyan Holiday
  And that's how, that's how you should think about it. I was j-- I was talking to my wife last night, we were talking about this, um, book that we were reading and, um, you know, you get all the way to the end and you're like, "Oh, that was good." But actually you needed in-- you needed to read it over like six months, like a couple pages a day. Like, um, I just read this great book by this parenting expert, her name's Dr Becky Kennedy. Um, and so I read it, but then because I'm gonna write about it for Daily Dad, I went through it page by page after and took out all the stuff that I liked.
1:11:39 – 1:16:22
Ryan's growth as a parent
1. AAAli Abdaal
  What are some of the key, um, I guess, you know, from, from here to there, like through the course of writing Daily Dad and kind of being a parent, what is or, or what are some of the key lessons that have really sort of separated the Ryan today from the Ryan of maybe like three years ago?
2. RHRyan Holiday
  Oof. Um, I think patience. I think-- Like if I'm thinking like the, the things I've struggled with most as a parent, but that have also made the most difference.
3. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
4. RHRyan Holiday
  Uh, number one, like the greatest thing you can give your gift-- your, your, your kids is presence. Like not gifts, but presence. Like just actually being there, not doing something else. So, you know, in a digital world, that's extremely difficult to do. Um, so I struggled with that. Patience, of course. Um, you know, it doesn't happen-- it doesn't have to happen quickly. It just has to happen. Um, to take your time with it, to let them take their time, to not rush things.
5. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
6. RHRyan Holiday
  Um, every time you think you can't go on like this, that's when you get some sort of breakthrough. Every time you think they're never gonna figure it out, that's when they figure it out.
7. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
8. RHRyan Holiday
  So I think patience has been a big one. Um, I've, I've read a lot and thought about like sort of how do you just like just root for this person?
9. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
10. RHRyan Holiday
  Not attach any conditions, not attach any judgments, not attach any expectations, but just be an unconditional supporter of them and who they are for who they are and what they are. Um, which I think ties into another idea I've been thinking a lot about, which is, like, your job is to help your kids become that person, not to make them a person that you want them to be.
11. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
12. RHRyan Holiday
  You know? So to just sort of help them become who they are. That's something I've thought a lot about and worked, uh, on a lot. Um, and then the one I've been thinking a lot about, which I heard about in Dr. De- Becky's book, obviously I knew about it, but it made sense, where she talks about, like, don't try to be a perfect parent. Try to be a parent who's really good at repair. Like, at fixing it when you mess up, fixing it when things didn't go the way that you wanted them to go. You know, reconnecting when, you know, there is conflict or when people go in separate directions, but, but repair.
13. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
14. RHRyan Holiday
  So I'd say those are, those are sort of the perennial ones that I struggle with and I'm thinking about.
15. AAAli Abdaal
  That's really cool. Yeah, I, I, I s- um, you know, my YouTube channel is, is essentially an, an exploration of the stuff I'm interested in, and I've recently started to become interested in, uh, relationships in terms of reading books about how to have a healthier, happier relationship. Uh, and I, I hope that when I become a dad and continue making videos, then I'll be like, yeah, reading all these parenting books and, like, making a video every, every couple of months to be like, "Right, I've just read this, Unconditional Parenting, Alfie Kohn. It's good sh- good shit."
16. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah.
17. AAAli Abdaal
  You know, 10, 10 takeaways. That sort of stuff I found, I guess, similar to you kind of writing Daily Stoic, through me trying to make a video or two every week for six-plus years, all personal development adjacent. Those lessons seep into your [laughs] subconscious in a way that, like, they really wouldn't otherwise.
18. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Seneca says we learn as we teach.
19. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
20. RHRyan Holiday
  And so if you as a person who writes self-help books or makes YouTube videos or has podcasts or whatever, if you're thinking, "I'm really smart, and I am telling you everything that I know"-
21. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm
22. RHRyan Holiday
  ... not only is that egotistical, but it actually continues to inflate and, uh, puff up the ego.
23. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
24. RHRyan Holiday
  Right? But if instead you see it as like, "I am trying to figure things out, and I am explaining what I am learning as I am learning it"-
25. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
26. RHRyan Holiday
  ... you are learning it and other people are learning it, and you're creating this feedback loop in which you're both learning at the same time. And by having to articulate it and explain it and distill it-
27. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
28. RHRyan Holiday
  ... you are understanding it better than if you were just learning it for yourself.
29. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah. Yeah, there's a book I'm reading at the moment called, uh, Notes From a Fellow Traveler by Derren Brown. He's a-
30. RHRyan Holiday
  Mm
1:16:22 – 1:19:58
Relationship advice
1. AAAli Abdaal
  things. Do you have any, uh, on relationships in general? Like-
2. RHRyan Holiday
  Uh.
3. AAAli Abdaal
  Like the r- romantic relationship with your wife and things. What are some things that you guys do that maybe you've discovered through reading and stuff that-
4. RHRyan Holiday
  Well, I always say that the number one s- so I've been with my wife now for 17 years. We, we met when we were in college, and, um, we, uh, yeah, we met at a college party. We got married almost 10 years ago.
5. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
6. RHRyan Holiday
  I think it's eight years this year, nine years. So it's been a long time. So it's, uh... And we've basically been married that whole time, uh, in that we always had a, a very sort of involved, like, serious relationship as opposed to just... We, we've known each other a long time.
7. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
8. RHRyan Holiday
  Um, and so people sometimes ask what the secret to, like, uh, you know, lasting that long is, and I usually say that the, the secret is to not break up. That's the secret. That's, the, the number one secret is to just not break up. Um, because, uh, I, I'm joking, but I'm also not joking, right? Like, I think just as a productivity system or a business or a lifestyle-
9. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm
10. RHRyan Holiday
  ... whatever, it, it's about picking a thing and then sticking with that thing-
11. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
12. RHRyan Holiday
  ... right? Um, through the ups and downs of what life inevitably brings you.
13. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
14. RHRyan Holiday
  And I find, you know, ob- obviously we got together before online dating was really even a thing, but then dating apps and, like, I noticed that a lot of my friends struggle because it's easy to break up and it's easy to find another person.
15. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
16. RHRyan Holiday
  Do you know what I mean? Like, essentially an unlimited amount of other fish in the sea exist.
17. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
18. RHRyan Holiday
  And if you conceive of that, it makes it very hard to do what a relationship requires.
19. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
20. RHRyan Holiday
  You know what I mean? Which is sacrifice, which is struggle-
21. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm
22. RHRyan Holiday
  ... which is putting up with shit.
23. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
24. RHRyan Holiday
  You know? So it's hard. It's like, it's really hard. It's hard. Uh, so I, I, uh, profess to have no, no secrets other than don't quit.
25. AAAli Abdaal
  Uh, I mean, it's, it's amazing how in, in all these different spheres, like, you know, the stuff you were talking about with kids, presence, patience, rooting without conditions, judgments, expectations, being repair, not being perfect, all of that stuff applies to, uh, every other aspect of life as well, like work-
26. RHRyan Holiday
  Well, even the kid stuff applies to yourself, right? Because we all have sort of, we all have this inner child that needs work-
27. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm
28. RHRyan Holiday
  ... right? That's stuck somewhere, not fully developed.
29. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
30. RHRyan Holiday
  And one of the beautiful things about having kids is the way that it allows you to re-parent yourself-
1:19:58 – 1:22:09
Fitness advice
1. AAAli Abdaal
  Um, you're in pretty good shape. [laughs] What are some of the secrets to [laughs] stay- staying in good shape as you've, you know, been a, been a parent?
2. RHRyan Holiday
  I possess to have, profess to have no secrets there either, other than I try to run, swim, or bike every day.
3. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
4. RHRyan Holiday
  I just try to do some hard, strenuous physical activity every day.
5. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
6. RHRyan Holiday
  Um, and if there is a health benefit to that, I consider it a bonus-
7. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm
8. RHRyan Holiday
  ... on top of the two real benefits that having an exercise practice gives you. One, you are literally practicing having a practice. Like, every day I go for a run.
9. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
10. RHRyan Holiday
  The default is that I do the thing, and every time I do the thing, I am building the muscle of, of doing the thing and being the kind of person that does what I say I'm going to do.
11. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
12. RHRyan Holiday
  Like, it's not fun to do it. It can hurt to do it, but I get up off the couch, and I do the thing that I say I'm going to do.
13. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
14. RHRyan Holiday
  And the second benefit of having a physical practice is that it's usually getting the mind moving in some way. Uh, and so, you know, there's no screens. There's no multitasking. You're just in-
15. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm
16. RHRyan Holiday
  ... that headspace. So, like, I have the, I have the, the flow state every day from the physical activity. And the days when I don't have it, nothing else is as, works as well.
17. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm. Do you do any weight training or...?
18. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah, I try to lift weights, like, I don't know, a couple times a week.
19. AAAli Abdaal
  I feel like I've seen some B-roll of you in, like, the backyard [laughs] doing some things.
20. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah, like, I'll have kettlebells or I have, like, a squat rack. Like, I do some stuff.
21. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
22. RHRyan Holiday
  Not as... Uh, in the pandemic, I got more into it than I do now. The important thing for me is I run, swim, or bike. Like, I do some form of cardio exercise for a long period of time.
23. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
24. RHRyan Holiday
  And then if I can get the other stuff in, sure.
1:22:09 – 1:32:11
How to manage your ego
1. AAAli Abdaal
  Changing gears a bit, um, I was re-listening to the conversation we had three years ago in the car on the way here. Um, and the, o- o- one of the things you said in that has actually stayed with me for the last three years. It was something to the effect of, you know, you've got all these friends who are in real estate, and sometimes you're like, "Huh, maybe I should get into real estate." And then you realize all your friends want to be self-help book writers [laughs] and you're like, "Huh, I've got a pretty good gig."
2. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah. [laughs]
3. AAAli Abdaal
  I wonder if you can just sort of, like, riff on that for, for a sec.
4. RHRyan Holiday
  Seneca had this word euthymia, which he defines as tranquility. He says tranquility is the sense of the path you are on and not being distracted by the paths that crisscross yours. He says especially from those who are hopelessly lost, which I think is very beautiful and true. Sometimes you find, like, when you're running, you know, someone will pass you, and you go, "Are they faster than me?" They could have started eight seconds ago, and you could be five miles in. Or they could be stronger than you. They could be doing steroid... You know, like, there's unli- the idea that you're comparing yourself to this person when you don't know when they started and you don't know where they're finished, finishing is madness.
5. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
6. RHRyan Holiday
  Right? Um, and life is like that. Like, we're all running our own races, and you've got to have a sense of the race that you are running and what victory or success in that race is to you. So I think that's, like, the number one life lesson and something I, I remember learning. I'd run around this track in college, and I would sometimes catch myself picking up my pace to keep up with someone else, and then they would stop. And I'm like, "I just gassed myself." You know, now I have to cut the run short because I was competing with this person, and I have no idea what their goals are and what they're doing. I've, um, n- I know nothing about them other than someone, competition, you know, and it, it sucks you in. So I think that's a really important lesson that I've learned from the physical practice over the years. But one of the things about jealousy or this sort of envy, that sort of competitive urge that we feel in other parts of our lives, is that we don't spend a lot of time thinking about who that other person is, what their life is like, uh, and what they want.
7. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
8. RHRyan Holiday
  You know, Marcus Aurelius says, like, these, the people whose approval you, you crave, he says take a minute to think about who they really are and whether, and see what that does to the approval you want from them, right? It's like you just go, "Oh, this person has this. I want to be like them," or, "I want to be accepted into that group. I want to be in this club." And you're not really thinking about who those people are, what they do, whether it's working for them. And I've had this surreal sort of experience pertaining to that, where you meet people and you think they have it all.
9. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
10. RHRyan Holiday
  And then, you know, you're jealous of them, and then it turns out they're jealous of you, right? Like, you, you... Jealousy almost always takes for granted what you have, 'cause it's, you know, eyeing what someone else has.
11. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
12. RHRyan Holiday
  And there's usually a, an ignorance of would you act- What, what is it actually like to be that other person? And I've, yeah, I found it's funny, you meet, you meet these billionaires or whatever, and, uh, what do they actually wanna do? They wanna write books. Like, they, they have all the money in the world, and what are they trying to spend the money on? They're trying to spend it on having the thing that I get to do. And, uh, so I, I try to remind myself of that and count myself as lucky to get to do this.
13. AAAli Abdaal
  Do you feel that sense of comparison? Or, or do you/did you ever feel that sense of comparison when it comes to, uh, bestseller lists and s- book sales numbers, and, "Oh, James Clear's got this many five-star reviews on Amazon, and I've only got this many five-star," [laughs] you know, that, that whole shebang?
14. RHRyan Holiday
  Well, that's why it's important to understand what race you're running.
15. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
16. RHRyan Holiday
  Right? So, um, I remember I was at a conference in, was it Canada? I don't remember. I was at some conference, and James, who was, uh, then he had this popular newsletter. I sort of vaguely knew his work. We talked a couple times. I was doing a panel or a, a session on publishing.
17. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
18. RHRyan Holiday
  And he came, and he asked for a bunch of advice. But he was just generally, if I remember correctly, quite skeptical about why anyone would traditionally publish or publish a book at all. He's like, "Why would I do this? I have this huge email newsletter. Why wouldn't I just write stuff on the internet?" And I th- I said, "Look, people have read books for thousands of years. It's a, it's a medium that has a certain cultural significance, and books are actually a great way to deliver ideas," right? But there I was, a person who'd published, you know, a few successful books at that point, and I'm sort of, like, condescend-cendingly telling this internet writer why publishing should, uh, you know, be something that he considers. And then a couple years later, he puts out a book, and that one book has sold more than all of my books combined and then some.
19. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
20. RHRyan Holiday
  So, [laughs] you know, the one reaction to that would just be jealousy-
21. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
22. RHRyan Holiday
  ... scorn, cynic- Like, you could, you could-- That could make you feel shitty.
23. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
24. RHRyan Holiday
  And I think there are times in my life when maybe that would've made me feel shitty.
25. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
26. RHRyan Holiday
  But first off, I, I like James. Second, I think he's a great writer, and I think Atomic Habits is actually a very good book.
27. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
28. RHRyan Holiday
  And third, I don't know how many I'm counting now.
29. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
30. RHRyan Holiday
  But whatever. There is no universe in which that book selling more or less copies affects my life in any negative or positive way.
1:32:11 – 1:38:00
The truth about publishing a book
1. AAAli Abdaal
  So my book is coming out in, at the end of December. So I'm not sure when this is gonna be aired, but end of December. Uh, any advice? [laughs] It's the first one. [laughs] Um, you've been, been through this a lot.
2. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah.
3. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
4. RHRyan Holiday
  Um, so I always tell people when they finish a book-
5. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
6. RHRyan Holiday
  ... that you have completed the first of two marathons.
7. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
8. RHRyan Holiday
  And you, you finish this first marathon, and you think, you know, you stagger across the finish line.
9. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
10. RHRyan Holiday
  And, and you think they're ... Someone grabs you by the hand, and you think that they're gonna take you over to, like, the medal stand.
11. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
12. RHRyan Holiday
  And instead, they're just leading you over to the starting line of the second marathon, which is now marketing and selling the book.
13. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
14. RHRyan Holiday
  Talking about it and getting it into people's hands.
15. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
16. RHRyan Holiday
  And so understanding that these are two equally important races, um, I think is really, really important. And not enough people do that. They just write something, and then they just expect or assume that the world owes them success, which it doesn't.
17. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
18. RHRyan Holiday
  People are busy. People have a lot going on. There's not only all the books that are coming out, but there's literally everything that has ever been published for all of human history up until this point, and a lot of it is very good, and most people haven't even gotten to a fraction of that. So the idea that your thing [laughs] is gonna jump in front of that line-
19. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
20. RHRyan Holiday
  ... is inherently presumptuous, if not delusional. And so it takes a lot of work to break through. You know, The Obstacle Is the Way, when it came out... First off, when the o- I said to myself, "I'm writing a book about ancient philosophy. Most people are not interested in ancient philosophy."
21. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
22. RHRyan Holiday
  "So it's already an uphill battle."
23. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
24. RHRyan Holiday
  And then I said to myself, "I read a lot. How many books do I read the week they come out or the month they come out or the year they come out?" And I read way more than most people.
25. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
26. RHRyan Holiday
  How many pr- books have I pre-ordered ever in my life? Maybe one or two.
27. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
28. RHRyan Holiday
  So the idea that this thing is gonna come out of the gates as a hit-
29. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm
30. RHRyan Holiday
  ... is stupid. You know? It's gonna take a long time. So first off, try to make something that doesn't need, doesn't have an expiration date on it. That's number one.
1:38:00 – 1:42:48
Talking about the same ideas
1. AAAli Abdaal
  so we, w- we have a Telegram group for our podcast, and we said we were gonna interview you, and we had loads of people asking loads of questions. There was one comment from one guy that I felt a bit salty about. He was like, "Ryan Holiday says the same stuff on every podcast he's interviewed on." And I was like, "Hmm." 'Cause I also-- I, I say the same stuff [chuckles] on every podcast I'm interviewed on, and it's like, it's kind of like a thing you have to do. And, uh, like I, I found that it was, it was less a comment on you and m- and more like, I started thinking, "Fuck, you know, I've, I've made the same video so many times." I've talked, been talking about productivity for, like, six-plus years now. I've basically been saying the same stuff. But each year-- each month, we get, like, a hundred thousand new subscribers, so it's clearly new to someone.
2. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah, there's some main character energy in, in people who don't realize that, um-
3. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah. [laughs]
4. RHRyan Holiday
  ... most people are consuming this thing for the first time and hearing about this person for the first time.
5. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
6. RHRyan Holiday
  So, you know, a- as a creator, there's a little bit of narcissism in that you go like, "Everyone's following everything that I do."
7. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
8. RHRyan Holiday
  And in fact, not only does most people not know that you exist, even the people that know you exist and are fans, you're like five hundredth on their list of priorities. Like, I think about my favorite bands, my favorite authors, like, how closely am I following their life? Like, not at all.
9. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah. [laughs]
10. RHRyan Holiday
  I'm in the entire main character, character energy of my own life.
11. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
12. RHRyan Holiday
  So realizing that, like, that self-consciousness can actually hold you back as a creator-
13. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm
14. RHRyan Holiday
  ... 'cause you're like, "They'll, people will get mad that I just talked about this two videos ago."
15. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
16. RHRyan Holiday
  And actually, they didn't see it two videos ago, [chuckles] so you're not. But, um, the other product of this is, is... The other part I would say to that person that's a little tricky is it's like, "Dude, it's not my fault." Like, I can only answer the questions that I'm being asked.
17. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
18. RHRyan Holiday
  And I tend to get asked the same questions a lot, right?
19. AAAli Abdaal
  What is stoicism? [laughs]
20. RHRyan Holiday
  So, so, so, like, I would love to be-- I would love to have a totally u- new and unique conversation every time. And I do f- I, I definitely feel like there are ones where I'm go, "That, that was interesting to me for a change," where I didn't feel like I was-
21. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
22. RHRyan Holiday
  ... sort of, you know, uh, giving the same song and dance. But a lot of people are just asking the same questions 'cause they're introducing you to their audience-
23. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
24. RHRyan Holiday
  ... or they wanna get the, the basics. Do you know what I mean? So it's-- it can be weird.
25. AAAli Abdaal
  Do you ever g- get bored writing about stoicism?
26. RHRyan Holiday
  Um, not really, uh, because one of the ideas from the Greeks is this idea that we don't step in the same river twice 'cause the river changes, and you change. And so, I mean, I've been doing the Daily Stoic email every day for seven years, and I've probably used some of the same quotes hundreds of times at this point. But it feels new to me every time I do it because what I'm trying to say or the way into the idea is different, and I know the audience is different, and I know what's happening in the world is different.
27. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
28. RHRyan Holiday
  So it, it keeps-- it, it certainly keeps me... It feels fresh to me because life is fresh.
29. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
30. RHRyan Holiday
  Um, but when I am bored, I just write about whatever I want. You know, like, it isn't the only thing that I do. Uh, and so when I feel like writing something, I write that thing.
1:42:48 – 1:50:10
Passive income
1. AAAli Abdaal
  reading that book when I was, like, seventeen and just about to apply-
2. RHRyan Holiday
  The 4-Hour Workweek?
3. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah, and just j- like, just about to apply to medical school, and my mind just absolutely blew wide open at the, the thought that I could be making money while I slept.
4. RHRyan Holiday
  Hmm.
5. AAAli Abdaal
  And just that thing of, like, you know, was always, always in the back of my mind. And now we know it's, it's, it's another one of those things that anytime we make a video on YouTube, uh, with the, with the phrase passive income in it, we know it's gonna do well 'cause people love the idea of, of doing a thing and then it making money without needing your additional input. I think kinda like books. Books are a source of passive income.
6. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah, well, intellectual property.
7. AAAli Abdaal
  You write the book. Exactly, yeah.
8. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah.
9. AAAli Abdaal
  You, you know, you wrote The Obstacle Is the Way 10 years ago [laughs]
10. RHRyan Holiday
  Sure
11. AAAli Abdaal
  ... and it's now been making you passive income ever since. Um, I've certainly found in our business, um, the stuff that I, I, I get so much satisfaction out of seeing, like, an, a Stripe notification that someone bought a course I filmed three years ago.
12. RHRyan Holiday
  Mm-hmm.
13. AAAli Abdaal
  And I've made $149 from it.
14. RHRyan Holiday
  Sure.
15. AAAli Abdaal
  And way less satisfaction making way more money on a sponsored video. [laughs]
16. RHRyan Holiday
  Sure.
17. AAAli Abdaal
  There's something about it being an asset that is spinning off, I guess, free money that is, like, really nice, and also, I guess it really appeals to other people. [laughs]
18. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah. I guess that makes sense. I was talking to an internet marketer person that I knew, and, you know, did, like, let's say, he was saying, like, the email subject line, like, "Follow this strategy to make $1,000 a month," or to make thousands of dollars a month, would actually perform worse than, say, like, "This strategy helps me make $1,444 and 17 cents per month." Like, the spe- He was saying, like, the specificity of it-
19. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
20. RHRyan Holiday
  ... even if it was total nonsense-
21. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm
22. RHRyan Holiday
  ... resonated, resonated with people more. Um, and I always wondered what... There's something, naive is not the wrong, right word, maybe unsophisticated is a nicer way to say it. The, about the idea that you, if you just do all this stuff, at some point you won't have to do anything. Do you know what I mean?
23. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
24. RHRyan Holiday
  'Cause that's not really how life works, in my experience.
25. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah. No, it's not really how life works. Um-
26. RHRyan Holiday
  Nor is it how you would actually... Nor is it how the life works for most of the people that you admire. Do you know what I mean?
27. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
28. RHRyan Holiday
  Like, people who do stuff that you're like, "That's cool. I wanna be like that," are not people who own a series of vending machines that passively make money while they sleep.
29. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
30. RHRyan Holiday
  Do you know what I mean? They're people who are actively engaged in what they do.
1:50:10 – 1:58:32
The power of taking risks
1. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah, I think, yeah, like even, like even in the UK, so obviously like health insu- your health insurance is not tied to your employment-
2. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah
3. AAAli Abdaal
  ... and the National Health Service is very good. But even then, people still act as if quitting their job means that they're gonna die.
4. RHRyan Holiday
  Yes.
5. AAAli Abdaal
  And I'll often speak to people who, you know, like, [laughs] you know, uh, back in the day I was a bit concerned that, oh, if I leave medicine, will people think, "Oh, fuck you, I don't wanna listen to your content anymore." Uh, but it's actually kind of the opposite that's happened. People are like, "Oh man, you got out of the system. You like..." [laughs] I don't know, something about the matrix and, and stuff. So people keep ask, ask, ask me for advice around quitting their job all the time. They're like, "Yeah, I really wanna leave my job and do this thing." I'm like, "Great. What's stopping you?" They're like, "Oh, but like, you know, the paycheck." And I'm like, "Okay. Are you on the poverty line where like this paycheck is actually meaningful? There is a difference between survival and not?" They're like, "Nope." "Have you got any dependents?" "Nope." These are all people in their 20s-
6. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah
7. AAAli Abdaal
  ... that have a safety net from their parents, and yet still the thought I might quote, "fall behind"-
8. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah
9. AAAli Abdaal
  ... and like fall behind my friends who are then getting that promotion at McKinsey or whatever the thing might be, is preventing people from making a decision that is very unlikely to regret. [laughs] So I try and like nudge that as much as possible.
10. RHRyan Holiday
  Well, I, I got so lucky when I dropped outta college, as I, I've talked about this before, but when I went in there, I was like, "I'm here to drop out of college."
11. AAAli Abdaal
  Nice.
12. RHRyan Holiday
  And they were like, "What?"
13. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
14. RHRyan Holiday
  You know? Uh, they're like, "Just fill out this form. You take out... You're, you're just taking an indefinite leave of absence."
15. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
16. RHRyan Holiday
  "You can come back whenever you want." There were some consequences. Like I, I remember I was signing, I signed something, and it was like, "Your scholarship may not be here when you're back." As an adult now, I realize they probably just would've given it to me again. But like, so there, it wasn't totally without cost, but it, there was the idea that like I thought it was this permanent, irrevocable lifestyle decision-
17. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm
18. RHRyan Holiday
  ... when in fact it was a pause. And you think, "Hey, I'm gonna leave this to go do this. I'm gonna go give this a try. I'm gonna open this coffee shop." And you think you can never go back.
19. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
20. RHRyan Holiday
  And of course, you can go back. If you were in the hospital for a year, would you be sitting there going, "I can never go back to my job"? No. You would know there's gonna... it's gonna be an adjustment period. You, I might have some catch up I have to... You know, there's... But you, you just go get another job.
21. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
22. RHRyan Holiday
  Like that's how life works, right? And but especially when you're younger and you don't have the experience, it feels like the shift or the transition or the, the quitting can never be undone.
23. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm. Yeah.
24. RHRyan Holiday
  And only with time you realize that the stakes were so much lower than you thought they were.
25. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah. Yeah, I find the, the Tim Ferriss fear setting exercise-
26. RHRyan Holiday
  Mm-hmm
27. AAAli Abdaal
  ... to be just really helpful.
28. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah. What's actually the worst case scenario here?
29. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah. What's the worst case? And it's like, [laughs] okay, what does it look like? How could you mitigate against it? Let's say the worst case does happen. What can you do to come back to where you currently are, or at least some place that's good enough? Um, I think I've done that like three or four times in my life at the sort of crux of making a big decision, and I've always been like, "Oh, this is really helpful." [laughs]
30. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah.
1:58:32 – 2:07:08
Productivity habits for the new year
1. RHRyan Holiday
  So people will probably be listening to this towards the end of the year-
2. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm
3. RHRyan Holiday
  ... where they start thinking of habits and resolutions. If someone's like, "I wanna be more productive next year"-
4. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
5. RHRyan Holiday
  ... what would you tell them?
6. AAAli Abdaal
  Ooh, if someone wants to be more productive next year, all right, I've got, I've got three, three things. Number one is actually just figure out, or at least make a rough first draft of where do you actually want to go. Like, sure, you can be more productive by cranking out more words per day or whatever, but, like, if you're not trying to be a writer [laughs] and-
7. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah. Don't have a vague sense of what-
8. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
9. RHRyan Holiday
  Productivity is not a goal.
10. AAAli Abdaal
  Exactly.
11. RHRyan Holiday
  Yes.
12. AAAli Abdaal
  Productivity is like a sort of an effectiveness measurement en route to a particular goal, and if you don't have that goal, then optimizing for productivity is completely pointless.
13. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah.
14. AAAli Abdaal
  So I think step one is to figure out what the goal is. You know, some people don't like the word goal. Um, the, the most helpful exercise I've, I've ever found for this is, uh, something called The Odyssey Plan from the book Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett. It's-- And this other guy who's like some Stanford professors. Uh, and basically, the idea is that you imagine your life three to five years in the future if you continued down your current path, and you write out what it would look like. Then you go back to, back to day one, back to today, and you imagine your life three to five years from now if you had to take a completely different path, and then you go back. And then you imagine your life three to five years from now if you had to take a completely different path, but money was no object, and you didn't care about what people thought of you. And that just gives you sort of this divergent thinking that most people just never do. And I, I personally enjoy, like, doing that exercise every year and then converting it into a, "Okay, what does my twelve-month celebration look like? Twelve months from now, what would I like to be celebrating in the different realms of life? Health, work, relationships, joy." Those are the four that I like personally.
15. RHRyan Holiday
  Sure.
16. AAAli Abdaal
  And now I've got some goals written down. And there's so much evidence that says that people who write down goals-- [laughs] The, the-- People who have goals are way more productive than people who don't, and people who write them down are even way more productive than people who don't write them down. So step one, figure out what your goals are and just write them down. Step two, I find it super helpful to just convert all of those goals into what is the action I have to take each week. So say if you're, for example, trying to write a book, it might be a daily action of writing for two hours a day or a thousand words or whatever the thing might be. In my case, I'm trying to get fit, and so weight training three times th- three times a week is the habit or the system I'm trying to develop. Um, and then number three is putting all those things in the calendar. [laughs]
17. RHRyan Holiday
  Oh.
18. AAAli Abdaal
  And then if they're in the calendar and you can turn y- and you can make yourself the sort of person that does what's in the calendar, honestly, that is like ninety-five percent of all of, all of the world's productivity advice condensed into three things. Figure out where you wanna go, turn it into f- and figure out how you're gonna get there, and then just put it in the calendar and do the thing when it comes around.
19. RHRyan Holiday
  With a fresh year coming, what would you recommend people stop doing? Like, what's a, what's like a, a destructive habit that you would say to get rid of?
20. AAAli Abdaal
  A really big one That holds everyone back is overthinking. [laughs] Um, so much research from this book, uh, around procrastination was realizing that procrastination is primarily an emotional problem. Um, there is some sort of kind of fear of looking bad, fear of failure, self-doubt. Uh, the mind starts to weave all these stories about how we're not good enough to do this particular thing. And, you know, I've, I've interviewed a couple of kind of procrasti- professors in procrastination who've done all the research about this, and their, their whole thing is like, you've just got to find a way to cut through the bullshit that the mind will present, present to you, and just make a start on the thing. And often procrastination is a problem with getting started, because once we get started, the inertia means that we'll just continue going. It's way harder to-
21. RHRyan Holiday
  Right. Objects in motion-
22. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
23. RHRyan Holiday
  ... tend to continue in motion.
24. AAAli Abdaal
  Exactly. Newton's first law. Yeah, we talk about that [laughs] in chapter four of the book. Um, so the r- recognizing that has, has really helped me recognize that when the mind is getting in the way, the best thing I can do is just get started with the thing.
25. RHRyan Holiday
  Mm.
26. AAAli Abdaal
  And then the mind has a habit of just sort of getting out of the way. But if people can stop overthinking and stop letting this fear of self-doubt and failure and stuff get in the way, uh, getting in the way of living their best life, I would love that. I would love for that to happen.
27. RHRyan Holiday
  All right, last question. What's something you feel like the stoics can teach a person who wants feel-good productivity?
28. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah, I think the, the main one I always come back to is the dichotomy of control. Um, Epictetus, is it?
29. RHRyan Holiday
  Yeah.
30. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah. Um, you know, there are some things that are within our control, and there are other things that are not within our control. And any amount of worrying about the things that are not within our control is usually worry that is wasted. And I think a big part of feel-good productivity is find a way to control the things that you can control. You know, a huge part of what drives intrinsic motivation is the sense of autonomy, sense of control, the sense we have power over what we're doing. And some people are like, "Well, you know, I don't have any control over what my boss tells me to do." It's like, okay, you might not have control over the, the specific thing you have to do, but you might have control over how you choose to approach it. You have control over the process. Can you find a way to make it more interesting? Can you find a way to speed it up? Can you find a way to slow it down? Can you find a way to, I don't know, add music in the background to make it more interesting? There is always control that we can take in basically every situation, even in situations where we feel like we have none.