Modern WisdomFinding Courage & Overcoming Fear - Ryan Holiday | Modern Wisdom Podcast 378
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
125 min read · 25,144 words- 0:00 – 0:39
Intro
- RHRyan Holiday
I don't have faith in myself, I have evidence. If you have faith in yourself, you're operating on some false, almost delusional level. False says like, without evidence, I believe. Evidence says like, here's the information that I have to make what I think is a good call, but I could be wrong. Like, when I wrote my first book, I didn't have faith that I could complete it; I had evidence that I've completed hard things before, that I had trained for this, that I wasn't a quitter. And so I was willing to make that leap. But the idea that I knew for certain that I would finish, that it would be a success, that I wouldn't regret walking away from a sure thing to do an unsure thing, I mean, that's, that's the whole point.
- 0:39 – 11:19
Moments of Great Courage
- RHRyan Holiday
(wind blows)
- CWChris Williamson
So I've been watching a lot of the September 11th documentaries, obviously 20th anniversary, and watching that, like, it, it genuinely doesn't feel real to me. It's shaken my worldview a lot more than I thought it would watching it back. I was 12, something, at the time. I remember my mom picking me up from school and it was on the radio, but that was kind of it. But yeah, watching that back, it seems insane that that even happened, and then watching it from the perspective of the firefighters and the police officers is ridiculous.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah, it is. I was a freshman in high school, so I remember being on a, on a, on the West Coast time zone, I remember waking up and it was on the radio and sort of getting the sense that life wouldn't be the same again. I think looking, you know, at it with 20 years distance, you, I think, uh, especially pertaining to the new book, sort of two, two big themes emerged to me. One was the sort of quiet, ordinary heroism that you're talking about, whether it's firefighters or policemen, or just people who were in the buildings, like, uh, working. You know, some people just ran away and some people said, "I'm not leaving until I get all of my people out with me." Right? People who had no sort of real legal or professional obligation, they were just office colleagues sort of reacting with e- extraordinary courage and compassion and, and, uh, selflessness. And then I think you contrast that, 'cause I've been thinking a lot about this too, obviously it coincides with the withdraw from Afghanistan, the, there's sort of two kinds of courage, right? There's the courage that, uh, charges ahead into a burning building, but there's also, uh, I think, courage in restraint, in sort of seeing a provocation within its context. And so, you know, the, the, the terrible tragedy of 9/11 is not just what happens on that day, but then the immense, uh, and mistaken, uh, foreign policy that comes after, not just, uh, you know, uh, uh, y- I think the, the entrance into Afghanistan makes sense. What we sort of do there over the next 20 years makes a lot less sense. What we do, what the United States does in Iraq makes almost no sense in retrospect. Um, and then, and then you look at these successive presidents and prime ministers who lacked the courage to be able to say, like, "What the hell are we doing here? What are we spending all this money and this manpower and this energy on? What are, w- what does this have to do with the, the tragic events that brought us there in the first place?" So w- in the book, I'm talking about courage. It's not just can you run into a building in the middle of a, a terrorist attack and, and save people, although that's really important, but also can you have the courage to, uh, both stick with your convic- convictions and question your convictions? Can you, um... There, there was an expression about Lyndon Johnson in the Vietnam War that he lacked the courage to be seen as a coward to withdraw from Vietnam, right? And, uh, so, so courage is an immensely complicated topic, but I think 9/11 brings all of its various forms to the forefront, for sure.
- CWChris Williamson
There's a Winston Churchill, uh, section where weren't people encouraging him to try and go into Germany or to throw all of the forces and, and he had to show some restraint as well?
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah, so after, after France is overrun, the, the French, uh, are like, "We need the entirety of the Royal Air Force and we need it now." Right? Like, "We can't afford to lose France." And, and you couldn't, and yet Churchill knew that this wasn't the decisive moment, that, that the real sort of opportunity to drive the Germans back wasn't going to be the British fighting over France. It was going to be the Battle of Britain and, and, and the British sort of fighting, uh, in those dark days, uh, o- over, over London and, and, and everywhere else. So, you know, we, we, we, again, we often think of courage as charging forward, but courage is also restraint. Courage is also, uh, you know, holding your fire for the exact right moment. You know, quitting your job takes courage, like quitting your job to start a business, but the, the moment that you choose to do this is also important, right? You know, did you prepare enough? Are you ready? Is this actually the opportunity to do it, or is this just the first, you know, the first thing that popped into your head? I, um, actually I remember I was maybe 22 or 23 when I got my first, um, my first book deal. Uh, they, they, they came to me and they said, "We want you to write a book about Stoicism." And I remember I went to a mentor of mine and I said, you know, "This is my dream. This is what I have always wanted to do and I'm, I'm ready to, to go." And he was like, "You're not ready." Um, he's like, "It, this, this book, when you do it, will be better if you wait." And turning that deal down was one of the hardest things that I've ever done. It w- wasn't a lot of money or anything, but it was just, like, that was the thing that I had wanted. That was the sh-
- CWChris Williamson
Accolade and status and renown and prestige.
- RHRyan Holiday
Oh, I mean, even more than that. It was just the shot that I wanted, right? Like, this was, like, I thought this was my one and only shot, and to turn it down was terrifying because, you know, what if it doesn't come back? But The Obstacle is the Way came out probably...... four years after that. And it wa- it- it- i- my mentor was totally right. I was more prepared, I had a better platform, I was a better writer. Um, the, the moment in time was better as well. Um, and so, you know, if I, if I had rushed, if I had sort of courageously pursued the opportunity, um, I actually would have been worse off than, than, than the discipline, uh, to, to sort of check that impulse.
- CWChris Williamson
What's the common thread then? If we've got multiple types of courage, we have sort of restraint and bravery?
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure. I, I, to me, I think the, the, what all forms of courage have in common is it's about putting your ass on the line. So it's about, it's about risk, right? Um, if it's a for sure, if it's a guarantee, if there's no danger, you know, we're not talking about courage. That doesn't mean it's not hard, that doesn't mean it's not important, but we're not talking about courage. So, um, there has to be some element of uncertainty, or danger, or risk to it, um, or, or there's no courage. And, and does that mean that something can be risky and dangerous and, uh, not be, be a good idea to do? Ab- absolutely, right? Um, it could also be immensely dangerous, you can be successful, but if it's for the wrong thing, you know, is that what we're talking about? No. Um, so, so it is a difficult thing to calibrate. And going back all the way to the, to the Greeks, the idea of, like, where's the fine line between courage and recklessness has always been a long debate. So, yeah, I don't wanna make this seem like it's an obvious thing, or that just, like, just because there's risk involved, you should courageously push forward. That- that's what the Winston Churchill story is about. Um, there was a moment and then the right moment, and the difference between those two things was everything.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, it seems like there's a paradigm, isn't there? Or there's a spectrum between-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... cowardice, recklessness, and courage. Is that right?
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah, Aristotle calls this the golden mean, and that, that courage sits in the middle between those two vices of cowardice and recklessness. There's a great story about a Spartan, um, who's fined, uh, for fighting without armor. Like, in the midst of this battle-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RHRyan Holiday
... he rips off his armor, and he fights, like, you know, immensely bravely, and, and they win. Um, but he's fined for endangering a Spartan asset, right? Like, he-
- CWChris Williamson
Hisself.
- RHRyan Holiday
... he took a, he took an unnecessary risk. Yeah. And I, and I think about that. Just because it paid off doesn't mean it was a good idea, right? And, and it may have been courageous. It might also have been, uh, needlessly stupid.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, reckless. There's a difference, I think you talk about, between is it bold and rash as well?
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, same thing.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah, just, just waiting for the right moment is, is really, is really everything. And, uh, and again, this is moral courage and, uh, and physical courage, right? You know, don't fire between- b- before you see the whites of their eyes is the, is the expression from the American Revolution. But also, you know, like, let's say, um, you've seen something unethical, or you believe that there, there's something wrong, like, at a company or an industry you're in. You know, just getting up and shouting it, uh, at the top of your lungs, that might be the morally correct thing to do. But what ... And it ... And there may be a certain amount of courage to it, but I w- I would argue that the point of it was to stop it from happening. And so being able to identify the right moment, or the right plan, uh, or the right, uh, sort of strategy to actually make this thing successful, to have the, to maximize the impact of what you're trying to do, that also requires courage. So, like, the person who just sort of, uh, says everything that they think, you know, uh, might, might seem courageous, but at, at a certain point, nobody listens to that person, right? And it's almost, it's almost not courageous, because, uh, they never, you know, have to deal with the consequences of their actions. So to, to really sort of stop and, and think about the intersection between courage and self-restraint, I think, is really important.
- CWChris Williamson
And it needs to be filtered through wisdom as well.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
Because if you're deploying it in service of the wrong thing, it's just you're spray, spray gunning it all over the place.
- RHRyan Holiday
Or what if, what if you're just fundamentally incorrect, right? So, uh, in the US, we have, uh ... All over the world, there's a number of people who are vaccine resistant, let's say. But what about the people who are, uh, uh, vaccine, uh, refusers, right? And, uh, does it take courage to sort of risk your job or your reputation to reject, uh, this thing? Uh, sure, you're also risking death, um, but you're fundamentally incorrect, right? So, so I think it's not just, uh, wisdom is like sort of how you do it, but what if, what if you're, uh, just misinformed, right? And so what you're doing feels courageous, and, and there is a certain amount of risk to speaking out about it, sort of, uh, culturally or, you know, financially or whatever. Um, but, but yes, the c- the cause ultimately determines whether, uh, it, it, it, it, it will ... it matters.
- 11:19 – 17:00
Courage Amidst Unpopularity
- RHRyan Holiday
- CWChris Williamson
There's some, um, examples from history that you talk about to do with famous, I think it's ex-presidents of the UK or advisor, uh, uh, of the US or advisors who wrote these great books or had these fantastic lives, but then they were incredibly courageous around white supremacy or around discrimination.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And it's sort of this very unforgivable type of courage.
- RHRyan Holiday
Well, so, so Kennedy, uh, famously writes a book called Profiles in Courage where he, uh, writes about a number of politicians who did unpopular, but what he felt like were courageous stands. And one of the stands ... Uh, he's writing this in the '60s, so about 100 years after the U.S. Civil War. Uh, or sorry, he's writing this in the '50s, I guess, so a b- a, a little less than 100 years after the Civil War. Um, and one of the, one of the things that we, people have often s- looked at in, uh, in the aftermath of the U.S. Civil War is the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. Um, there's some, uh, sort of the, the, the North wins the American Civil War, uh, then Lincoln is assassinated, his vice president succeed- succeeds him and, um, uh, he immediately gets sort of bogged down in these, uh, political battles over Reconstruction. What, what, what rights are we gonna give African Americans, h- how are we gonna rebuild, e- et cetera. And so Johnson is, uh, essentially captured by Southern interests and blocks most of the Reconstruction agenda. Uh, an agenda that today we now see was the right thing, but at the time, you know, uh, tinged with racism, was, was, was not a big priority. But anyways, he gets impeached over some complicated issues that, uh, are not really that important to understand, but he gets impeached. Uh, but a number of Republican, uh, senators, uh, block the impeachment even though, uh, their party is the one trying to impeach him. Um, so, so basically, uh, they, the, the, Kennedy's view is that this was a brave political stand because they were bucking their own party in defense of the institution of the presidency, um, and, and, and blah, blah, blah. Well, a h- uh, a little more distance, we can see a couple things. So one, they were really, um, they were really sort of blocking this Reconstruction agenda, which in retrospect the fact that the United States sort of stalled out here is one of our great moral failings, and it's why, uh, the Civil Rights movement has to happen and it's why we're still reckoning with civil rights today. Um, Andrew Johnson, uh, should have been impeached, and if he had been impeached, we probably would've been able to, uh, heal the wounds of the Civil War earlier. And I know I'm getting way off in the weeds here. But the, to me the, the other second failure, and this is a thing that happens, um, by, by blocking the impeachment, um, it's now, like, next to impossible to actually get rid of an American president. Like, Nixon should have been fully impeached rather than resigning. Uh, Clinton probably should have been impeached and removed from office for lying under oath. Trump definitely should have been impeached. So my, my point is that what Kennedy is looking at, he's seeing this as political courage because they're blocking their political party, they're taking an unpopular stand. But I would actually argue that the real courageous thing would have been to fire the guy over doing the wrong thing. And so sometimes what can seem like a courageous stand, because it was risky, you, you, you have to zoom out and you have to go, "Well, what am I really fighting for here?" Right? "What is the cause to which I'm aligned? If I am successful, what am I bringing into the world?" And so, like, look, there was, uh, I'm sure there's all sorts of statues to, to, to interesting people in, in, in Britain, uh, who were war heroes, but if we step back and go, "Well, what was this war about again?" it, it loses some of its luster. Right? And, and, and I think this is certainly true of the American Civil War. Lots of brave people on both sides, but, you know, when you're fighting for the enslavement of, uh, a large portion of your population, it's not so admirable.
- CWChris Williamson
So courage has to be in service of a better world.
- RHRyan Holiday
Well, yeah. So of the four virtues, right? And we've been bouncing around, but basically I'm doing a series now on these four virtues. The first is courage, the next is-
- CWChris Williamson
Why is that the first?
- RHRyan Holiday
Um, well, here, I'll say what they all are and then I'll say why I put them in this order. So, uh, and this is the historical order, it's not the one I chose. But, uh, courage, self-discipline or temperance, then justice, and then wisdom. Now, this dates back, uh, pre-Stoics, but is the sort of core, uh, ideas that the, that Stoicism is based around. Uh, I think courage is first. C.S. Lewis said, uh, quite brilliantly that, that, uh, courage is all the virtues at their testing point. Right? It's difficult to be self-disciplined in a world of excess without courage. Uh, it's, you can't pursue justice without courage. Uh, justice without courage is worthless. Right? Um, and then to, to, to, to pursue truth, of course, is, I think, the scariest thing of all. Um, so that's the, the four disciplines. But, um, when, when we're talking about these, how these, uh, these, uh, virtues intersect with each other, it's really important that you, to realize that you can't separate them. Right? So again, the pursuit of an idea or a, a concept courageously is good, but if it's not in pursuit of justice, of making the world a better place, or conversely it's in pursuit of injustice, right? Um, that, that's, that's not a good thing. Uh, so, so you could be a, a courageous business person, but if your business is, like, raping the environment or you treat your employees really poorly,
- 17:00 – 28:56
How to React to Fear
- RHRyan Holiday
that's, that's not what this is about.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Yeah. What's the difference between feeling fear and being afraid? Because it feels like fear is the thing that holds people back from courage.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah. There's a great Faulkner quote, he says, uh, "Be scared, you can't help that. Don't be afraid." Um, I think the distinction is fear is, or being scared, is a natural, biological, instantaneous reaction. We all have fear. Um, but it's about what we do after that. So to me being afraid is, uh, when fear is made permanent. Right? Or when fear is extended into a state of being. Right? It's the difference between being angry and doing something out of anger.... right? It's okay to be upset by something, but can you keep it under control and can you make sure that your response is rational and not emotional? Um, and, and the Stoics talk about this. Like, they're like, "Look, if you jump around, if you jump out from behind a corner and scare me, I'm gonna have a reaction," right? That's not... No amount of philosophical training is gonna prevent that from happening. Um, but a certain amount of training, in the case of a fire, uh, fighter or a police officer, as we're talking about, can make it so despite the terror and fear and very real danger, you go into the building instead of away from the building like everyone else.
- CWChris Williamson
There's a quote that you use at the start of the chapter that says, "Fear, before you're actually in the battle, is a normal emotional reaction. It's the last step of preparation, the not knowing. This is where you'll prove you're a good soldier. That first fight, the fight with yourself, will have gone, then you'll be ready to fight the enemy." And that was a British soldier handbook or something.
- RHRyan Holiday
Well, I fo- I actually have found, uh, I found it. I bought a really old rare copy of it 'cause I'd heard the quote somewhere. But basically, it, there was a handbook that every soldier in, at least in the US forces, I don't know if it went out to all the Allied Forces, but I, I suppose it might have. Um, but and, and mine is dated, like, 1943 and, like, you can see the name of the soldier in it, um, like, his, his personal copy. Um, but, but the idea was that, um, they basically took all these people who had no training, no experience, they were not lifelong, you know, sort of military, uh, figures, and they, they, they trained them to go fight in battle. And part of that training was this book, and they were talking about exactly what we're talking about, which is the first battle is not with the enemy but it's with that internal enemy, your own doubts, your own fear, your own questions, um, and you have to overcome that to be able to proceed. And I don't think anyone is... Again, no one is saying that brave people don't feel those things. In fact, they do. They might even feel them more than you. Uh, but what makes them impressive, what they, what they manage to accomplish is what they do in spite of those doubts and fears and worries and dangers.
- CWChris Williamson
I like the fact that, in that quote, it reminds us that you have challenges that you can control yourself and that, by overcoming those, that is the first step on the way to controlling the challenges that are outside of you.
- RHRyan Holiday
I would say that, and I would also say that it's also the first step collectively, right? So we go, like, "How do, how do you make an army brave," right? Or, "How do you make a company brave?" Well, there's nothing you can do for everyone else, but you can deal with your doubts and fears, and that is contagious. There's a great expression that courage is contagious, so is calmness. Um, so by, by dealing with what you control, which is like, "Here's what I'm feeling, here's how I'm gonna work through what I'm feeling, here's what I'm gonna do despite those feelings," that affects not only your own actions, but it ripples through the people around you. You know, panic is also contagious. Doubt is contagious. Uh, you know, a- as we've seen during the pandemic, not only is the, is the virus, uh, profoundly contagious, but so is, you know, sort of selfish thinking, so are conspiracy theories, right? So is anger. So these emotions are also very contagious, and, and when we keep them in check or we, we triumph over them, we are also having a positive impact on the people around us.
- CWChris Williamson
How can people overcome fear then? Because it's a very visceral emotion. Like, it's-
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure.
- CWChris Williamson
... so overpowering.
- RHRyan Holiday
Of course. Of course. And look, there's obviously different kinds of fear and different levels of fear, but I think we start by, like, thinking about it, right? So much of what we fear is just this kind of vague notion, this sort of like, "Well, what's the worst case scenario? How bad is it gonna be? Um, what if I do this? What i-..." Y- you know, we s- we sort of just, our mind races instead of taking a minute and really thinking about it. The Stoics talk about putting every impression to the test, sort of. Uh, they, they s- they talk about it. It's like, you know when you pass like a... You, you spend like a large bill at a, at a, at a establishment? They, they put the, the thing up to the light or they run the marker over it to see if it's counterfeit, and I think that's something, that's a, a good analogy when we're thinking about courage, is like, "Is what I'm thinking here based on anything real or, uh, is it, is it, this in my own head?" Um, there's a great acronym for fear, uh, false emotions appearing real. And so often, what, what our fears are have almost no basis in fact or reality, um, but it's this thing we've made up in our head that feels real.
- CWChris Williamson
I couldn't believe that the most repeated phrase in the Bible was to do with fear.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah. Be not afraid. Um, and it sort of makes sense.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you know how many times it's in there?
- RHRyan Holiday
Uh, many times. There's one...
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RHRyan Holiday
One reading of it is that it's in there, like, more than 365 times, which from what I found is not the case. But, but it's many, many, many times. I mean, I know it appears like a dozen times in The Odyssey as well. It's sort of this... If you think of... And, and as soon as you think about it, you realize that that's a very common almost trope in literature, right? It's like the person is afraid, and then the angel or a god or a mentor or an Obi-Wan, you know-
- CWChris Williamson
Helps them transcend it.
- RHRyan Holiday
... flashback-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- RHRyan Holiday
... yeah, says, says, uh, you know, "Don't be afraid. Remember your training," or like, "Don't be afraid. Remember what I told you," or like, "It's gonna be okay." Like, "I'm looking out for you," right? So, so that, that is like the constant battle of the human species, which is that we're really afraid of something, um, but there's a part of us or a memory or a, a, a, an instructor or a guide or whatever that we have that, uh, reminds us, uh, that, that we've got this and that we should proceed.
- CWChris Williamson
Does that mean that we have, collectively, we have a duty to help other people be courageous?
- RHRyan Holiday
I think so. Yeah, I think so. I mean, look, the, I think the first, the first battle is with your own fear, right? Like, most of us are called to do something, and then we don't do it. Um, or, or we see something and we go, "I don't wanna get involved." Or we feel compelled to act or contribute to something, and then we go, "Ah. But, like, what if it goes badly or what if I get criticized or whatever," right? So, I think our first duty is to our own destiny. Like, am I gonna courageously do what I'm put on this planet? But I do... So, I basically, in the book, I sort of split it up. I think first is the battle with fear, then is this triumph over fear, which is courage. But the highest level of courage is when you call courage out of the people around you when you inspire other people to be better, when you make other people better. So, I do think we have a duty to, um, make, uh, to, to, to help other people who are faltering in moments of cowardice or fear or whatever. Um, but I, I really feel like, uh, you first have to get your own house in order.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. So after we've stress tested the fear, what comes next? Because there's still times where you don't know you're able to kid yourself into believing that this thing is real. Where do they go next?
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah. I mean, I think the, a- after you sort of battled with this fear, then you, you go, right? Like, you, you take that first step. And I think, you know, it's been interesting, the couple moments, uh, where I've sort of taken big swings in my life, whether it was dropping out of college and leaving my corporate job to become a writer. Um, you're very, you're terrified, right? You're like, "This is gonna go so poorly. Uh, what about this? What about this? What about this?" You know, maybe people you know or care about, in my case it was my parents on my, when I dropped outta college, "Don't do it." You know, like people trying to actively hold you back. Um, and, uh, but what I, well, the interesting thing is, like, once, once it's in motion... Shakespeare talks about how, um, the, between, like, the consideration and the act is this sort of torture. Um, but it's like once you go, it's, it all falls away, right? And so I think that's really kind of the next part, is like just actually, actually doing it. Because once you've done it, you're too busy to be afraid, right? You're like, dropping out of college, the decision to go into the office and fill out the paperwork, that was terrifying. But immediately after, like, now I have to figure out what the hell I'm doing with my life, right? Now I don't have time to think about whether it was the right decision or not, 'cause it's done. So I think the, the, the going is, is really the next battle.
- CWChris Williamson
Those liminal spaces in between are the ones that hurt. I had a, a neuroscientist on. He was talking about our brain's desire for closure. And this is one of the reasons why when you have missing persons, you know, the, uh, uh, the 9/11, perfect example.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
All of the names and faces stapled. It was thou- a thousand people, thousands of people that weren't ever found. Bodies not found, no one identified.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And it's just that people, they, they needed to know. Even if the news was terrible.
- 28:56 – 34:55
Increasing Your Capacity
- CWChris Williamson
a good s-
- RHRyan Holiday
Well, I w-
- CWChris Williamson
... prescription.
- RHRyan Holiday
I, I wrote a piece a couple years ago, and, and it's sort of my philosophy, which is like, I don't have faith in myself, I have evidence. Right? If you have faith in yourself, you're operating on some false, almost delusional level, right? False says like, "Without evidence, I believe." Right? Um, uh, evidence says like, "Here's the information that I have to make what I think is a good call, but I could be wrong." Right? Like, when I wrote my first book, I didn't have faith that I could complete it. I had evidence that I've completed hard things before, that I had trained for this, um, that I wasn't a quitter. And so I was willing to make that leap. But the idea that I knew for certain that I would finish, that it would be a success, that it, that I wouldn't regret, you know, walking away from a sure thing to do an unsure thing, I mean, that's, that's the whole point. You don't know.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you think that that could cause people to sell themselves short sometimes?
- RHRyan Holiday
How so?
- CWChris Williamson
That a lot of the time, we are unaware of our own capacities. That if you are the sort of person who is inclined to downplay your ability, that you may constantly be living with too much being left on the table.
- RHRyan Holiday
Well, you, you do have to be able to step back and see yourself from a distance. Sometimes that means, "Hey, I'm not as great as I think I am." Other times, it's, "Oh, like, I may be underselling myself," as you said. Uh, like, one of the reasons that I was confident in the decision I made is that although I didn't quite see it, people that I trusted and admired who advised me, they did see it. So I had... I was willing to trust their view perhaps a little bit more than my own. When, when my mentor said, "Don't write this book, you know, it's too early," again, same thing. I wanted to do it. I thought I could do it. Um, but I, but I wanted to trust this external assessment more. Um, and, and, and that, that was also a, a bit of a leap as well. So yeah. I, I think it's a tension. So, like, if you don't believe you can do something, it's very unlikely that you'll be able to do it. But just because you believe you can do something doesn't mean you can. So, that's the tension, right? Like, if you don't believe you can do it or if you believe something's impossible, it's impossible for you, right? Like, you're not gonna be the one that does it. Um, so that, that, that's, that is the, the, that is the difficult tension. It's the million-dollar question. Like, um, you know, whe- whether you've got, whether you've got it in this case or not.
- CWChris Williamson
Just what am I capable of? Yeah. Yeah.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah. Of course.
- CWChris Williamson
What were the, um-
- RHRyan Holiday
And, and, and how do you do it on something you've never done be- how do you know on something you've never done before?
- CWChris Williamson
This is what I spoke to Seth Godin about, talking about imposter syndrome. And he said, "Well, if you're doing something that you haven't done before, by its very nature, you should have imposter syndrome. You're treading untrodden ground. This is trailblazing. This part of the map hasn't been terrained out yet." Like, imposter syndrome comes along for the ride as you break new, new boundaries. Um, I suppose-
- RHRyan Holiday
So, but-
- CWChris Williamson
... what, what you're saying here is that with the evidence behind you, you should be able to extrapolate forward, "Okay, what can I realistically expect to be able to achieve here?"
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah. Um, in my Ego is the Enemy book, I think, uh, I talk about this tension a little bit. So, um, if, if you don't have any doubts, there's probably some ego at play, right? Um, but also, if you're consumed by imposter syndrome, like all you're thinking about is like, "They're out to get me. They, they think I don't have what it takes. They're whispering about me behind my back," you're probably also exaggerating your importance to other people. Like, nobody gives a shit. They're not thinking about you at all, right? So, so often, the imposter syndrome or the cowardice is, like, overestimating your importance, right? So, like, people will go, like, "Well, this is really bad, uh, but I don't wanna get involved yet because later in the future, I'll be in a position where I have even more influence, and then I'll get involved." Uh, or, or they tell themselves, and this was very common with Trump, a lot of the enablers... Obviously, there was the real toxics or true believers, but there was also the Trump followers who, who considered themselves the adults in the room, right? And this is actually very similar to Seneca's relationship with Nero. Um, like, "I'm very important. I'm a check against the bad impulses of this person. So, I might not agree with what they're doing and I might think that it's wrong, but I'm gonna stay here because I'm preventing it from being as bad as it could be." The ego in that is, again, that you're overestimating your importance. You're not that important at all. Nobody cares. So, so ego can sort of trip us up either by making us, uh, you know, sort of unaware of our capacities or, uh, disingenuously overstate our capacities to ourselves.
- CWChris Williamson
What were the Spartan temples of Fear?
- RHRyan Holiday
Um, I, I think the idea is that, like, you would pay, um, you would pay your respects to Fear. Like, you would pray to the idea of, of God as a Fear to, uh, to, to know, right? Like, that... And I think this is also the point. If you pretend that it doesn't exist, that you don't feel it, you're probably m- making things more dangerous than sort of respecting it, right? It's like, um, I think... Again, we've seen this during the virus, like people are going like, "I don't wanna live my life in fear. You're afraid of it." And it's like, "I'm not afraid of it. I'm just taking it seriously," right? Because it, it's real and its consequences are real. And you'd have to be an idiot not to, uh, to s- to see what it is, right? So, I, I don't think acknowledging that something is scary or dangerous or, or that the odds are stacked against you or that you might not make it out alive or whatever it is you're facing in the situation, I don't think that's fearful. I think that's actually part of the process of s- then
- 34:55 – 44:56
Lessons from Marcus Aurelius
- RHRyan Holiday
stepping forward courageously to do what needs to be done.
- CWChris Williamson
What about Marcus Aurelius? Is there a particularly courageous moment that you like from your research on him?
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah. I mean, I think just, just the, the, the decision to accept the incredible sort of destiny/burden that, that's foisted upon him. Um, he's gonna be more a character in my book on self-discipline, but, you know, Marcus Aurelius is not born, uh, to be the king. He's born to just, like, an ordinary, uh, upper class Roman family. And the Emperor Hadrian sees something in him as, like, a very young man and sort of sets up this process where, uh, he eventually becomes emperor. But, like, if you had asked Marcus Aurelius, "What do you wanna do with your life?" he probably would have said, "Anything but be in charge." In fact, he weeps, uh, when, when told that, you know, the throne is his. He, he cries. Um, again, the idea that the Stoics don't have any emotions doesn't hold up. But, um, he, he... Because he's aware of what a terrible job most kings have done.And he doesn't want to do that. Um, and so I think for Marcus Aurelius, the decision to accept the immensity of the responsibility... You know, you look at, like, pictures of Obama when he takes office versus when he leaves office-
- CWChris Williamson
Fucked.
- RHRyan Holiday
... and you're like, "Oh, man, this job-"
- CWChris Williamson
Fully fucked.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah. "Thi- this, this job, uh, takes its toll."
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RHRyan Holiday
And so I think, you know, just a, a pretty ordinary example for Marcus Aurelius is like, does, he does the hard thing instead of running away from it.
- CWChris Williamson
Looking back, do you think he was, do you think he took pleasure or satisfaction from doing what he did?
- RHRyan Holiday
I mean, I think he, he came to take, uh, a lot of pride in being good at it and not, not going the way of his predecessors.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHRyan Holiday
But I think he saw it more a- of a duty-
- CWChris Williamson
Duty. Yeah.
- RHRyan Holiday
... than as a pleasure.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
- RHRyan Holiday
Um, there's some people who, you know, are, desire power, um, and, you know, occasionally they make good leaders. But I would say more often than not, the best leaders are the ones who want nothing to do with the power or responsibility.
- CWChris Williamson
I was thinking about what would happen if everybody in the world was courageous. Do you think it would be too chaotic if, if everybody was trying to be in the vanguard? Do you know what I mean?
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah. It's, look, it's an interesting hypothetical. Um, you know, does, does, uh... There's an expression, I think it was at Iwo Jima and, and talking about, you know, the men raised that, that, that famous flag. And someone said, uh, "Where uncommon valor was common virtue." Basically, like, everyone was courageous, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RHRyan Holiday
Which is extraordinarily rare. You know, if, if everyone acted with uncommon valor, would valor then become less valuable because it was commonplace?
- CWChris Williamson
The Overton window of valor has moved again. Yeah.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah. Uh, prob- probably. Um, but look, you know, we've been recording some version of, like, our historical epics for 5,000 years. Um, I think the reason that these stories still resonate with us is that it never has been and likely never will be, uh, common. It, it... You know, you, you'll, you'll hear, like, a hero will save someone i- from in front of a train or something and they go, "I just did what anyone would have done." And it's like, "No, you didn't." Like, uh...
- CWChris Williamson
It wouldn't be a big story if anyone would have done that.
- RHRyan Holiday
(laughs) Yeah. Right. And, and there were, uh... You're, it's not that you're lying, but you're being, uh, we were talking about what you were talking about earlier, you're being, um, uh, you're, you're selling yourself short because there were other people there when this happened, and you were the only one. Right? So, uh, I, I think it would be a very wonderful champagne problem to have if courage was too ubiquitous.
- CWChris Williamson
In surplus. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
- RHRyan Holiday
Um, but, but I, I suspect that that's never gonna be, uh, never gonna be the status quo.
- CWChris Williamson
What about social pressure? Because that is a big limitation on people being courageous.
- RHRyan Holiday
Well, uh, I think, thankfully, you know, there's social pressure to be courageous, right? Like, we, we hold it up as, uh... I think one of the paradoxes of courage is that we all admire it and then it's rare. Right? So, like, there... And, and there have been certain societies, uh, versus others that have really prioritized courage. The Spartans, of course, being one. But I, I, I get your point, which is that, um, often the reason we are not courageous is that we're worried what other people will think. That's probably the most common fear. Um, and the character I use to tell the story is Florence Nightingale in the book. You know, she's born to this immense British family of means, um, doesn't have to do anything. She gets called to nursing. And her parents are like, "We'd rather you be a prostitute." Like, like, they're like, "This is the worst thing you could possibly do. What will our friends think?" And so her battle was not against disease or danger on the battlefield. It was, um, against the expectations of what a woman should be doing. It was against the desire of her co-dependent family. It was, you know, against comfort and against, uh, you know, the status quo and being alone and carving out a new path in life. So, um-
- CWChris Williamson
Didn't, didn't she spend, like, 17 years in that liminal space that we were talking about?
- 44:56 – 53:58
Growing Through Uncertainty
- CWChris Williamson
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah. Ve- ver- very young. Very young.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. It's terrifying, man. Thinking about people's fear of growth and change, but I, I think that there's another layer of guilt or shame to it, because sometimes we know that there isn't a big line at the door. It's just this sort of very internal battle between us and the, the new job or the, the leaving the relationship or the telling your coworker that what they're doing is, is making you feel bad. Like that, it's these little things, right?
- RHRyan Holiday
Well, in those cases, you're, you're still leaving safety behind, right? The safety of silence, the safety of the status quo, um, the safety of a safety net, right? And the decision to, uh, to change, to work on yourself... Uh, one of the s- the sort of examples I talk about is like Tiger Woods deciding to reinvent his golf swing, right? Imagine you're one of the best in the world and you go, "Ah, but to get to the next level, I have to break down this thing that's working and rebuild it from the ground up, which means I'm going to be bad for a period." That's... Or you think about Reed Hastings and Netflix. He has a multi-billion dollar business shipping people DVDs, right? And he says, "That's not the future. I'm going to jettison all of that and become a streaming platform." Um, people don't do that, right? I mean, th- the reason we talk about businesses being disrupted is because they don't disrupt themselves.
- CWChris Williamson
What was the story about you at American Apparel?
- RHRyan Holiday
Oh, at the end of the book?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah. I, I tell a story at the end of the book about sort of being asked to do something unethical at work. And, you know, I wanted to conclude the book not with a story of like heroism, but like a sort of a, a more sobering reminder of like how complicated the world is and, and how often we've, we can fall short. My- myself, uh, being no exception of that. And, and so I got asked to do this thing and, um, I really struggled with it and I decided that it was the wrong thing to do and I wasn't gonna do it, but that's like as far as I took it, right? I didn't stop it from happening. Um, and I think the reason I didn't stop it from happening is that I didn't want to lose my job. I was willing to risk my job to a certain degree by saying like, "That's not for me. Find someone else." But I wasn't willing to essentially quit the job, uh, or, or get fired by actively opposing the thing. And the, the irony is, uh, and the thing I struggle with looking back at it is like, why did I want to keep a job that by doing the right thing I would have lost? Right? So that's, that's kind of the, the strange thing about these moments of cowardice, right? We're protecting some- we s- we tell ourselves we're protecting something or someone. In fact, we're almost always degrading or risking or damaging the very thing, right? So w- again, we tell ourselves, "Oh, well, if I leave, then there won't be any other adults in the room." Or we tell ourselves like, "But, you know, I did- I worked so hard. I shouldn't have to..." You know? But it's like that doesn't age well. And that's part of the reason I wanted to tell the story is that it was morally complex at the time, right? I was like, "Well, what about this and what about this and what about this?" And, and there wasn't even any public scrutiny. This was all private. But in retrospect, it doesn't age well at all. You know, it's like i- the right thing is obvious.And so, it's not that it's in hindsight it's obvious, it's that, um, all my reasons at the time were just sort of short-term bullshit that, uh, I should have had the courage to be able to see past.
- CWChris Williamson
It's the difference between being complicit because of omission and being complicit because of commission.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RHRyan Holiday
Marcus Aurelius says, "Look, you can commit injustice by doing nothing also." Right? And like, so I didn't do the thing and I don't act that way and it's not something I approved, and I expressed my disapproval. But it happened anyway. Now, again, it's-
- CWChris Williamson
But you knew the tolerance, right? You knew that not complying probably wouldn't get you fired, but also would give you the Get Out of Jail Free card that would make future Ryan perhaps feel less, uh, culpable.
- RHRyan Holiday
I cov- I covered my a- I, I risked my ass, but I also covered my ass, right, to the, to the perfect balance, right? (laughs) Um, and, and, and look, it is, it is complicated though, because let's say I had just quit on principle, it probably still would've happened, right? So I would feel better about myself in that sense. Um, but, uh, you know, flash forward three or so years later, I was in a position to hold this person accountable, uh, and, uh, you know, ended up, um, you know, sort of bringing justice about in that sense. Um, so it's, it, it's complicated, right? It's never clear-cut. Um, and I guess the question is, and this is the, always the revisionist what if, is like perhaps if I had stood up or been more vocal, if this had spurred me earlier, that thing might not have happened three years in the future, but maybe it would've happened one year in the future, or maybe it would've been brought about in that very moment. So, you know, it's complicated.
- CWChris Williamson
How do people not lambast themselves for not being as courageous as they should have been at the time?
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah. (laughs) It's, uh, it's complicated. Uh, again, um, I guess the stoics would say like, uh, whipping yourself accomplishes nothing. Learning from it makes you better. So for me, I try to think about, and I have tried to think about, um, you know, not like, "Oh, am I a piece of shit?" You know, "Am I a hypocrite? Do I, should I, you know, uh, you know, do I need to, uh, w- how do I punish myself for this?" Um, and I try to think more about, "How can I learn about this go- learn from this going forward? How can I identify whatever sort of insidious logic, you know, was, it, was, was going on in my head at the time?" And then also, by writing about it, you know, how do I, how do I sort of help people, uh, learn from the example as well? So, you know, lambasting yourself probably, uh, uh, doesn't move the ball forward much.
- CWChris Williamson
Also, I guess focusing on action, as you said, sort of stress testing the ideas and then looking at what's the next step, that's gonna help to, um, pattern interrupt the neuroticism. It's gonna stop you from doing that, because you- you're too busy actually making a thing happen, hopefully with a little bit more wisdom.
- RHRyan Holiday
Well, and sometimes you hear from people who have really dropped the ball or really failed, they're like, "I'm a coward." So they, they actually, they label themselves, and it almost b-
- CWChris Williamson
Start to identify with their own failures, yeah.
- RHRyan Holiday
Exactly. It becomes sort of part of the identity, and thus makes it even less likely that in the future, uh, you'll be able to, to, to step up. You, you wanna ideally like, when I, when I look at that, I don't see that as like, um, uh, like proof of who I am. To me, it's me falling short of who I am. Right? So I identify with like the higher self, and the lower self was what I did, and the journey and the, the hard work is in getting those closer together.
- CWChris Williamson
Is William Tyndale in the book?
- RHRyan Holiday
I don't think so. Who's that?
- CWChris Williamson
The, the guy that translated the Bible into English for the first time.
- RHRyan Holiday
No.
- CWChris Williamson
So he was, he's a, a pretty cool story. So he got arrested and executed, but it was originally that the Bible was only ever in Latin, because-
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure.
- CWChris Williamson
... it wasn't supposed to be, that the common people in the common parlance were able to read it, and there was this sort of, this gatekeeping thing going on with the church. "You can only access God through us."
- RHRyan Holiday
Hm.
- CWChris Williamson
This sort of bourgeois, um, yeah, the restriction of access from the normal people.
- RHRyan Holiday
Wow. No, no, that, that's fascinating.
- 53:58 – 1:01:11
Impacts of Being Outspoken
- RHRyan Holiday
by talking about, it will cost me fans or money? Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
I, I wanted to dig into that, because the last year you've been more outspoken, I think, about some pretty contentious topics, whether that be vaccine hesitancy, whether that be mask mandates, whether that be Trump and stuff like that. And I think you've mentioned it's, you've damaged, or at least, uh, metric-wise, objectively-
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure.
- CWChris Williamson
... this has hurt, this has hurt your following. Can you just dig into that for me?
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah. Uh...To me, uh, so, so sometimes I'll, I'll s- I'll write something maybe... And I, I don't actually think that I'm particularly political. I, I feel like I'm often talking about, like, sort of basic social contract issues. I'm not like, "Oh, you know, we need to pass this bill," or, you know, I really don't get involved in, in specific political issues. But I'm just talking about sort of, uh, in the... We're talking about justice, I talk about sort of basic issues of justice or fairness or caring about people. Um, but someone will write something, they'll go, "Why did you have to say this? Um, you must have known it would piss people like me off," or something. And I usually reply something that depends on what kind of mood I'm in. But, um, like, I didn't build a large platform, I didn't become a writer, um, to have this microphone to then not say what I think out of fear of offending people. In fact, I got here by saying what I think, and I'm going to continue to say what I think because not only is it my moral obligation as a citizen, but it's also my professional obligation as, uh, a person who identifies, like, as a writer. Like, to me, the job of a writer is to say unpleasant or unpopular truths, or just to say the truth generally, not to tell people what they want to hear. Um, I, I tend to find that most of the people who are offended by that stuff are not, uh, actually your fans and don't actually matter. Like, you know, it's, it's interesting, like, I'll, I'll... Let's say I'll criticize, like, a Republican president. Um, I'll get a bunch of angry emails from random people, and then I'll get, like, emails from actual Republicans in office who will be like, "Oh, I liked today's email. That was well said." Like, so, so I tend to find that smart, intelligent people can understand, uh, and disagree. It's usually very fragile people who themselves are sort of afraid of being challenged that get the most upset when someone disagrees. But, like, one of the, the sort of, one of the things that I try to live by as a person who writes about ideas that are primarily not mine, right? Like, I write about Stoic philosophy. I am not the founder or the creator-
- CWChris Williamson
Repurposing it, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- RHRyan Holiday
... of, of Stoic philosophy, right? So, if ... writes about this thing, um, who people identify with that, those ideas, then I feel that I have a duty or an obligation to be a good steward of the tradition and the values of the tradition. So, could I... Would it be more profitable and more pleasant to only talk about, uh, the resiliency side of Stoicism and the productivity side of Stoicism and the, the courageous fun parts of Stoicism? Yes. Um, but, but to me, that would be neglecting the other r- I mean, justice is one of the four virtues. So, the idea that I'm not gonna talk about it because some people might, uh, be triggered by what the Stoics' definition of justice is, you know, um, that's a, that's just, that's just how it shakes out.
- CWChris Williamson
One of the interesting things that I've learned over the last couple of months is how people like yourself, uh, and Sam Harris and Eric Weinstein are two other examples of people that do this, they purposefully prune their audience. Uh, they actively go out of their way. They realize that, kind of like barnacles on the hull of a ship, that they've picked up some flotsam and jetsam and, and they kind of need to get rid of it, and they actually go out of their way to self-destruct a, a little bit. They sort of perform a, um, amputation on a part of themselves. And I think, I actually think that playing chess with cancel culture in this way is... I think you're going to see more of it. Well, maybe you're not going to see more of it, because by its very nature it's quite complex and, and, and sort of multifaceted. It's Brazilian jiu-jitsu lexically.
- RHRyan Holiday
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Um, but I, I got fascinated by it. I, I really, really did get fascinated, because the, the show has grown a lot, like tenfold since the last time that you were on. And I-
- RHRyan Holiday
Congrats.
- CWChris Williamson
Thank you. Um, and I'm like, "Fucking hell. Like, how do I avoid audience capture? Who's actually here for the things that are supposed to be here?" And, um, yeah, learning that as a tool, man, like, actively going out of your way to say things that you know would trigger the people that you don't want to be there is a really smart tactic.
- RHRyan Holiday
I don't... I don't know if I'm actively trying to trigger or turn people off, but I think-
- CWChris Williamson
Do you think you lean into it a little bit?
- RHRyan Holiday
Uh, some, sometimes, I guess. But I, I think what, what I've sort of realized is this. Like, and I, I really noticed this when I started talking about certain things that were getting kind of an unexpected backlash. And what it, what I realized sort of doing the math, honestly, was that as the books have really, uh, and the, the different kinds of content that I do has really taken off, um, a bunch of... Like, I thought this was all kind of this small audience and we'd grown together. We were all on the same page. And then you realize actually, no, people heard about you from the algorithm, they heard about you from this article, you know, they got refer... They may have come to you and thought that you were about one thing when actually you're about the other thing. And so you have to be very... Audience capture is when you try to be what the audience wants to be as opposed to being who you actually are. Does that make sense?
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- RHRyan Holiday
So, what I just try to do is like, "Who am I? What do I think? What's important to me?" That's what I'm gonna say. And then as the Stoics talk about, I'm indifferent to whether that gets me more fans or less fans, right? So, I don't care either way, because what's important to me is that w- I say what I think is important to the people that I'm trying to communicate with, right? So, I'm not necessarily trying to drive people away, but I'm definitely not not saying things because I'm worried that people will leave.
- CWChris Williamson
All right. Well, you've done-
- RHRyan Holiday
And if you are worried that people are leaving, not only are you failing them by not telling them what they need to hear, you're also depriving your actual audience of truths that they are equipped to deal with and need to hear, and so it's kind of a double failure.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, you end up trying to be your version of someone else, which means that at the very, very best, you're going to be the second best in the world at whatever you choose to do, 'cause you're never going to do what somebody else does better than them.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RHRyan Holiday
And, and look, you're, it's also a risk, it, like people think, "Oh, it's safer not to do it." But it's also risky to, to not be yourself because eventually you'll get hammered for being complicit, for being silent, um, you know, for ignoring what's happening in the world. I th- I think about this with my kids. Like part of why I talk about what I talk about, I take the stands I wanna take is like my kids are gonna ask me in 10 or 20 years, they'll be like, "Hey, when this thing was happening, what did you do?" And I don't wanna say, "Oh, I wrote a lot of self-improvement articles." Do you know what I mean? (laughs) Like, uh, I, like I don't wanna say, "Oh, I was really, I was, I was really concerned about growing my email list so I, I sort of sat that one out." That's not
- 1:01:11 – 1:05:52
Heroism of James Stockdale
- RHRyan Holiday
gonna-
- CWChris Williamson
Like create some awesome lead magnets. Yeah.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah. That's not gonna age well.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. James Stockdale, that story about him beating himself up and trying to kill himself. Can you tell us that?
- RHRyan Holiday
Mm-hmm. Well he's one of the, the, the great American heroes of the, of the later 20th century and, um, one of the, the sort of last most famous sort of explicit students of The Stokes. He reads Epictetus when he's a graduate student at Stanford, which the Navy had sent him to, and shortly thereafter he gets shot down over Vietnam and there's sort of two seminal moments in his time. He spends like seven years in this prisoner of war camp, like one of the worst, uh, prisoner of war camps in history. A, a horrible human rights, uh, injustice. But, um, like he's there for like two days and they want him to go on camera and say, you know, "Everyone's nice here. This is great." And, uh, and so, so they say, "Go into the bathroom and shave, uh, and, uh, come back and we'll film this thing." And while he is in the bathroom, he cuts a gash across his forehead and so he can't, so he can't be filmed and they, they patch it up and, uh, they try to make him go on camera anyway. So he grabs a stool and he beats his face to a giant puffy mess so it's like literally impossible for him to, to film this video. And then later in the camp, um, later in the camp he, when the torture gets really, really bad, um, he attempts to kill himself because he's now sort of well known for being in the camp and he attempts to kill himself sort of in an act of defiance and protest of the torture. Um, so it's not that he's killing himself to escape the torture. He's making a statement or a, uh, a sort of a public challenge to the, the captors that would've publicly embarrassed them to a degree that, uh, you know, might, might have massively escalated the war effort. So in these sort of two moments, he puts his physical appearance, safety, wellbeing, and then even his life, uh, on the line to protect e- e- both his duty to his country, uh, and then also to the, his fellow prisoners.
- CWChris Williamson
That's the transcending, that's the heroic element of courage, right?
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah. Look, c- the courage to start your own business is real, right? Uh, I talk about Michael Jordan, Michael Jordan leaving basketball to, to play Minor League Baseball, courageous, scary, terrifying, really interesting. Um, Maya Moore walking away from the WNBA to get a man wrongly convicted out of prison, you know, is a different level of courage, uh, and selflessness, right? She's not, she's risking it, but she doesn't get the benefit of it. She's not risking it 'cause she wants to go play baseball. She's risking it because she can't live with herself, uh, if this guy, uh, you know, spends one more day unnecessarily in jail.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. What's the best James Stockdale book? 'Cause every time that I read something of yours he gets brought up, but I don't know what to read.
- RHRyan Holiday
He, he wrote a number of, of, of like little short books. There's unfortunately not a great biography of him, but he has a short book called Courage Under Fire, um, that's sort of about, uh, stoicism and his time in that prison camp. Um, and then Jim Collins talks about him a lot in Good to Great, uh, as well.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. Someone should do that. Someone should-
- RHRyan Holiday
They should. They should.
- CWChris Williamson
... put all of that together. Somebody that's, someone that's listening. Have you read Alistair Urquhart's The Forgotten Highlander?
- RHRyan Holiday
Mm-mm.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, dude.
- RHRyan Holiday
I'll write this down.
- CWChris Williamson
Bro, this is-
- RHRyan Holiday
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
This is the most Ryan Holiday book that I can think of.
- RHRyan Holiday
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, so this guy who is in the, uh, Scot- The Forgotten Highlander by Alistair Urquhart, Scottish regiment, uh, working in, I wanna say Singapore, uh, when Vietnam go to war with America.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Gets captured by, uh, when, uh, Japan go to war with America, gets captured by the Japanese, builds the bridge over the River Kwai, gets put in a forced labor camp for basically four years, constantly has dysentery and every tropical disease under the sun, gets locked on one of these hell ships, which is a tin box with no food or water out at sea in 40 degree heat for a month. Then he gets knocked off his feet by the Nagasaki bomb blast as he's working 30 miles from it, stays silent for 50 years because the army told him to, and then finally writes this memoir as a call to account for the Japanese for the atrocities that they've gone through. It's one of my top 10 all-time favorite books. It's outstanding.
- RHRyan Holiday
W- well, I wrote this down and I'm gonna look up William Tyndale as well.
- CWChris Williamson
Sick. Well, look, Ryan man, courage is very much needed it seems like at the moment in the 21st century.
- RHRyan Holiday
Very much.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, and we are in short supply. Courage
- 1:05:52 – 1:06:29
Where to Find Ryan
- CWChris Williamson
Is Calling will be linked in the show notes below. Where should people go to keep up to date with you, the stuff that you do?
- RHRyan Holiday
Um, I do an email, uh, totally for free about stoicism every single day, uh, dailystoic.com and @dailystoic and @ryanholiday on pretty much every platform.
- CWChris Williamson
I love it man. Until next time.
- RHRyan Holiday
Thanks. Congrats on the growth.
- CWChris Williamson
Thank you, man. Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few months. And don't forget to subscribe. It makes me very happy indeed. Peace.
Episode duration: 1:06:30
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