Tim FerrissHow to Use Stoicism to Choose Alive Time Over Dead Time — Daily Stoic Author Ryan Holiday
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
55 min read · 11,190 words- 0:00 – 0:15
Intro
- RHRyan Holiday
[upbeat music]
- 0:15 – 2:38
Stoic anchors for a fast-changing crisis: ideals, not pass/fail
- RHRyan Holiday
All right, so I was thinking, so we last talked, uh, podcast related in January, and, uh, man, life comes at you fast. I don't think, uh-
- TFTim Ferriss
It certainly does.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
The three great correctors of human population, war, pestilence, and famine, and we certainly have number two in abundance and, uh, scaling rapidly. So things have changed quite a lot since January.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah. And, and I w- so I was curious a- as someone who i- is a longtime fan of the Stoics like yourself, h- how, how have you been thinking about these sort of ancient ideas or ancient strategies for dealing with what is a very timeless, ancient problem?
- TFTim Ferriss
Well, the first thing I did was I looked into my stored belongings because I moved from California to Austin, Texas three years ago, four years ago?
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure.
- TFTim Ferriss
But the vast majority of my stuff is still in storage, and I had been sent as a gift a bust of Seneca that was still wrapped in bubble wrap.
- RHRyan Holiday
Oh, really?
- TFTim Ferriss
So I tracked that down, opened it up, and put it in an upstairs room where we tend to spend, my girlfriend and I, mornings, so that I would at least see it.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah, sure.
- TFTim Ferriss
And so I think that there are a whole lot of different ways to attempt to answer this.
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure.
- TFTim Ferriss
And I will begin with putting someone like Seneca, although he's a very crafty, funny character, so we could spend a whole lot of time on him specifically-
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... Marcus Aurelius and so on, as ideals that I on some level strive to emulate. And I think the word ideal is important because it is very easy to beat yourself up for not being Stoic or resilient or calm enough, which in and of itself is very un-Stoic. So [laughs] it can turn into this spiral of self-
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... loathing related to not being, one could say Stoic enough or simply calm enough. And s- so the first is to really recognize that these are ideals that I'm striving for, but that they are not a pass/fail hurdle-
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure
- 2:38 – 6:30
Rehearsing adversity: premeditatio malorum and fear-setting in practice
- TFTim Ferriss
... in that, in, in that res- in that respect. The second is I've been doing a lot of rehearsal, so premeditatio malorum, rehearsing of the worst case scenarios, and combining that with the fear setting exercise that I, I-
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... tend to do, which is really just a written practice of writing out the worst case scenarios, what you could do to decrease the likelihood of them happening, what you could do to decrease the damage if they do happen, et cetera, et cetera.
- RHRyan Holiday
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
And a big part of that for me has been deeply envisioning the worst case scenarios and what they would not just look like but feel like to observe and experience. So I, I'll give a concrete example. As is the case for many people and is the case for me, I have seen my stock portfolio drop, I don't know, let's call it 70% in value in certain cases. And I had a, a good line of sight into coronavirus and its growth quite early on and began writing about it publicly in, I wanna say second week of February.
- RHRyan Holiday
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
But had been tracking it prior to that. So I was able to sell a portion of my stock, uh, let's just call it February 2021, whichever was the closest weekday, trading day. And then I decided to hold the rest.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
Now, that could prove to be a terrible, terrible, terrible decision, right?
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
This could be the worst financial decision of my life. Could be. But after lots and lots and lots of discussion and lots of number crunching and lots of thinking about it, I decided to, to hold on-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... with the belief that, and in this case I'm referring to Uber, that I was an early advisor to, so it represents a disproportionately high percentage of my net worth.
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure.
- TFTim Ferriss
Now, this video will be trapped in the amber, so people will [laughs] go back and say, "What a fucking idiot," if it turns out poorly. But the decision-making process I felt was reasonable. I felt like it was, uh, defensible. Now, at the time, the stock was trading around $40 price per share. And the... I was talking to this much more experienced investor, and he said, "If you're going to hold this, you need to commit to yourself to hold for at least five years, and you should expect that the stock will go down to 20 or $15." Now, at the time it was about 40.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
And this seemed not necessarily inconceivable, but probably far off in the distance.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
And he said, "When it hits 20 and 15, you are going to want to sell more than you do now."
- RHRyan Holiday
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
"And you need to prepare for that." And that's what I did. So I, I really mentally committed to holding for an extended period of time. I prepared myself for $15 a share. Little did I know that something like two weeks later, two and a half weeks later, it would actually hit $14 a share-
- RHRyan Holiday
Oh, man
- TFTim Ferriss
... or close to it. And that is the... I have had many struggles throughout this coronavirus experience, and considering the ramifications not just for me, but for my family, I have family members in the service industries, for instance, for the economy, for people who are far less fortunate And I've s- I've, I've struggled a lot in certain areas, but the areas where I have not struggled are the places where I have rehearsed to the extent possible what might happen.
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure.
- TFTim Ferriss
So I think that has been one of the most powerful stoic practices, uh, that I've been using in the last certainly two months.
- 6:30 – 7:50
Totems and perspective: reminders that history continues
- RHRyan Holiday
Well, I've got a bunch of stuff. So this is my Marcus Aurelius statue. Uh, I bought this when I was writing The Obstacle Is the Way. So this, this is, uh... From w- from what I read about it, this, this statue's from 1840. So I, I like looking at it and then thinking like, "Okay, this sta- this literal piece of stone survived through cholera epidemics, smallpox epidemics, polio, the Spanish flu, the flu of the 1950s." So I like thinking about not just, like, okay, uh, who are your ideals, but then also how have humans gotten through... Like, w- what sort of totems or reminders can you have that like, oh, life goes on? Like, I, I'm talking to you from my office, and I, I w- my office was built in 1880, I think. So, like, this office got through, you know, the Spanish flu, the First World War, the Second World War, you know-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah
- RHRyan Holiday
... the Cold War. And, uh, you know what I mean? I think ta- like, part of one of the things I think the stoics would ask us to do is, like, zoom way out and sort of be reminded that like, hey, as bad as it is, like, history does go on. There's no guarantee you and I will be a part of that history-
- TFTim Ferriss
Right
- RHRyan Holiday
... but, like, you know what I mean? Like, we'll either-
- TFTim Ferriss
I do
- RHRyan Holiday
... get through it or we won't. Um-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
- 7:50 – 11:48
Regret, missed moves, and irreversible choices
- RHRyan Holiday
I'm curious about the, the stock market thing, 'cause that's something I was gonna ask you. 'Cause one of the things I'm dealing with, I think the, the loss aversion is a big part of it, and, and it's hard for people to manage. Um, what, w- what I'm struggling with is kicking myself. So I, I wasn't as early as you, but we, you and I had some conversations, and so, uh, I took it seriously. I went and stocked up on food. I cut back on my travel. I basically said, like, "Hey, I'm sort of a buy and hold kind of a guy," uh, and don't have the, the, the exposure that you do to, to some of those stocks. But, but the thing I, I said is like, "Hey, this is gonna be bad, but it's not gonna be literally... It's not gonna be the worst, uh, decline in market history." You know? Uh, I didn't think that, so I didn't do anything. Um, and so one of the things I'm struggling with is, like, regret. You know what I mean?
- TFTim Ferriss
Sure.
- RHRyan Holiday
Uh, and, and I'm wondering sort of what you... How, how you deal with some of that. Like, do, are you mad that you didn't sell more? Like, h- how are you dealing with decisions you made that you can't undo, but now you have a lot of time to sit and think about them?
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. Well, that's the nature of all decisions, right? I mean-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yes
- TFTim Ferriss
... the, as I understand the etymology of the word, to decide, a, a decision, is like an incision. It is a cutting away. So once you have-
- RHRyan Holiday
Wow
- TFTim Ferriss
... cut away. Now, that could be some fake attributed to Mark Twain-
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... and, uh, Abe Lincoln type quote.
- RHRyan Holiday
Right.
- TFTim Ferriss
Maybe Oscar Wilde if we're on the internet. But nonetheless, that's, that's what I've, I've been told before. So all, n- all of our decisions are irreversible, uh, in-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... i- at least temporarily speaking. This is something that I didn't grapple with until reasonably far after the COVID-19 and coronavirus came onto the main stage, so to speak, when-
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... uh, uh, so when I was campaigning i- in part for the cancellation of South by Southwest, which, uh, brings 400,000-plus people to- [laughs]
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... Austin, and it was be- I, I was just attacked by almost all sides and viewed as an alarmist, as fill in the blank. Uh, I did not have trouble with that-
- RHRyan Holiday
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... because I felt like the data were on my side. Uh, but I was so focused, and I think rightly so, on my household, on my family, on my girlfriend and her family, and ensuring that everyone were prepared, that I did not... I, I really wasn't looking at, say, investment as-
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... as an example. So, uh, now there are... And, and I, and so part of the reason I'm not beating myself up is that I, at the time at least, in retrospect, I was beating myself up for a while, then I realized, "Well, do I even have the toolkit to have taken advantage of that effectively?"
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure.
- TFTim Ferriss
And by take advantage of that, one might be talking about shorting the market in some fashion. Well, it turns out it's very easy to get your face ripped off trying to short the market.
- RHRyan Holiday
Right.
- TFTim Ferriss
And it, it's very, very easy to lose that game, or at least those bets.
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure.
- TFTim Ferriss
And so I have f- I ha- I do have friends who are career investors who have the toolkit to take advantage of something like this. I gave them a heads-up that-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... I sh- I, I gave them a preview of what was coming early. So let's call it late January or early February. And they missed those opportunities, and they are beating themselves up because they do have the toolkit and the experience, and yet they didn't-
- 11:48 – 16:54
Zooming out on opportunity: core competencies over frantic timing
- TFTim Ferriss
And, uh, uh, so I, I, I feel as though, uh, my perspective on that specifically has been honed, if, if I could use such a dignified word, through a lot of the startup investing I've done, in the sense that it doesn't matter how many opportunities you miss. It matters how many opportunities You take advantage of
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
D- does that make sense? Just like-
- RHRyan Holiday
Totally
- TFTim Ferriss
... just like, uh, i- if you're putting together a book or a podcast or fill in the blank, it doesn't matter how many people don't get it, it matters how many people get it. And-
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... and by that, I mean if you are really waiting for the fat pitches, as Warren Buffett would say, not necessarily with his style of investing, but if you're-
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... if you understand where your core competencies are and can focus on the most appealing opportunities, you can miss a lot of opportunities and net net still do very, very well. So I view... I try to keep that in mind, and as you said a little bit earlier, to zoom out and not look at this as a, uh, an anomaly of a few weeks. So it could be-
- RHRyan Holiday
Okay
- TFTim Ferriss
... it could be that a year from now we look back and the lowest low was in fact whenever it was. I can't remember when the lowest low was.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
March 12th-
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... or whatever it was. Uh, that might be off. So but some, uh, early March-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... something like that.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
To 2020. At the same time, this could be, and I suspect it will be on some level, a marathon and not a sprint. So there will be-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... more opportunities, and then the reframing of the question for me relieves a lot of stress. So instead of asking, "Why didn't I take advantage of X? What could I have done that I didn't do?" Those are fruitless questions that just create a lot of-
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... stress. If you were to ask, "How might I look for opportunities that do not have the time sensitivity of trying to time the stock market?"
- RHRyan Holiday
Right
- TFTim Ferriss
And one could say the futility of trying to time the stock market. Uh, because even in a bear market, and look, I'm not a professional public equities investor, so no one should take investment advice from me, and I'm not giving investment advice. But the... Even in a bear market, there are these-
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... rallies that can really hurt you, not necessarily financially, although they can, but psychologically, right? Where you buy-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... and then they spike, and right now the volatility, meaning the, you know, simplistically the, the, uh, the sort of amount of up and down is just unbelievable. So you're gonna get whipsawed no matter what.
- RHRyan Holiday
Right
- 16:54 – 21:41
Anger in a pandemic: locus of control and what actually works
- RHRyan Holiday
No. And, and I think for me it's, it's, it's less like opportunities I didn't take advantage of and steps that I should have taken to protect myself, and, and so that connects to, to another emotion I think a lot of people are feeling that I'd be curious your sort of Stoic take on, uh, given like the South by Southwest example is a great one. So you and a handful of other people campaigned to shut down South by Southwest early. Who knows, uh, how much impact that had? Probably a significant amount 'cause it was so early. And then government officials in Texas and all over the country basically, a- a- and this goes back to when it was first coming out of China, sort of sat on that time. It's not like we used that time and built a bunch of ventilators and, you know, should... So, so how are, how are you processing, or, or maybe you don't have any, but for someone who has a lot of anger about how this went or is feeling anger, w- how do you suggest sort of... What do you think the Stoics say about processing that anger? 'Cause I, I, I do know that the, the Stoics did not tend to see anger as a productive or healthy emotion.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. Uh, I'd be curious to hear your take on that, so maybe I'll turn it around. I-
- RHRyan Holiday
Okay
- TFTim Ferriss
... so my d- my default gear for decades was anger.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yes.
- TFTim Ferriss
But right now my focus is related to my locus of control-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... in the sense that my sort of sphere of control has been constrained down to The family effectively-
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... and my closest friends, uh, who, and ensuring to the extent possible those people are safe and prepared, and financially capable to, to cover their-
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... expenses and so on. Uh, I, I am more active, as, as you know, on-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... the national level as well. But, uh, I suppose, I mean, and this is maybe cliched, but it's, I, I would think of the Serenity Prayer, and you probably have the full text somewhere, but, you know, in essence, the sort of strength to act on the things that you can act upon, and-
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... the wisdom to know that which you cannot act upon or influence. And, uh, I would say also that I, I don't think that the time bought by canceling South by Southwest was used optimally.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
But just in having that time and delay, there was a huge benefit, right?
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure.
- TFTim Ferriss
So it wasn't used optimally, but I th- but I, I'm satisfied with that outcome, i- because it has allowed us to see case studies like New York City that then spur local and state governments to do more so that they do not become the next case study. And also in retrospect, looking at, for instance, Mardi Gras in New Orleans-
- RHRyan Holiday
I was just going to say that, yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... spring break in Mi- spring break in Miami and Florida, I don't think those are uncorrelated to those two locations among a handful of others becoming the next hotspot. So I'm very confident in the, the, the benefits of South By being delayed. Anger, let me think about anger for a second because I, I am a somewhat, I'm a connoisseur.
- RHRyan Holiday
Well, I was, what I was thinking about anger is like, okay, in war you could see how anger is a somewhat productive emotion. It's sort of a fury that you could direct at the enemy. So you might at least be able to make the argument that, that it has some productive benefits. Uh, o- obviously the, a pandemic doesn't care how much you hate it. Cancer doesn't care what names you call it, right? Like, so when you're fighting something like this, I think you always wanna think about like, is anger productive? Yes or no. And then one of my favorite Marcus Aurelius quotes, he, it's, it's a quote we know from Euripides, the playwright, but he says, "Why should you feel anger at the world as if the world would notice?" And so that's the other, like, Trump doesn't care that you're angry at him. The governor of Texas doesn't care that you're angry. You know, like, so, so, and, and in fact, i- if you are active in, in politics or at the national level, you have to work with these people. So I think you're also seeing some of the governors, Democrat and Republican, having to figure out, "Oh, hey, if I, if I yell at this person on television, that might feel cathartic," but then the next day you have to call them and ask for ventilators or ask for the National Guard. So, so I think what the stoics talk about is like, is anger making things better or worse? And 90% of the time it makes it worse. That doesn't mean that there wasn't something wrong, and you can't be upset about it, but it's, you've gotta control that anger because there's a problem to solve.
- 21:41 – 24:29
From berating to reinforcing: incentives, politics, and ‘applauding what you want’
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, I agree. And, uh, all, what I've also been trying to do, and this, this actually came out of an interview I did, uh, some time ago with Bozoma Saint John, uh, who is an incredible woman, and sh- one sort of philosophical tenet of hers that she underscored was applauding what you want more of, not just-
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... berating what you want less of.
- RHRyan Holiday
Right.
- TFTim Ferriss
And I think the internet has enabled a lot of things, uh, including the dominance of the noise that is just bitching and moaning without any clear proposal-
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... for solutions. So I have been spending the majority of my time reinforcing, uh, particularly politicians-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... uh, who are in the game. Everyone's playing a game.
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure.
- TFTim Ferriss
You, you and I are playing games. And we all play games. Uh, there are rules, there are stakes, there are rewards, sometimes there are punishments. And step number one is figuring out what game or games you are playing, and one of the games politicians play is reelection. And so you-
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... you have, you have to think about if you want to persuade someone who is playing that game, or not just persuade, but to collaborate in some way, or enable-
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... someone who is playing that game, you have to think about the incentives at play. And, uh, to that end, I've been trying to support people who are making good decisions even if they are late.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh, if they are better late than never decisions. And, uh, that's coming from someone who, I mean, has had a, a lifetime of anger. So I, I do think the, certainly the stoic philosophies and philosophers and writing has had a tremendous impact on my intellectual understanding of why-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... anger can be counterproductive.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
But it's really been getting on the playing field and trying to get shit done that has reinforced how imperative it is from a practical perspective. It's one thing to understand logically why anger is counterproductive-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... and it's, it's quite another to not just keep your anger in check, but to sort of sublimate it into a different area that you can strengthen, right?
- RHRyan Holiday
Yes.
- TFTim Ferriss
And- I'm not the paragon of this. I still get pissed off, but, uh, this-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah, I think there's a-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah
- 24:29 – 26:51
Defusing anger by tracing it to fear
- RHRyan Holiday
... there's a difference between being angry and doing things out of anger.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah, you're allowed to feel angry. Look, I f- I get pissed off, and yeah, so it's not so much a question of suppressing anger, it's, it's more of a question of, I think, taking notice of what angers you so that over time fewer things hopefully anger you.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
And, uh, one thing that's been very helpful to me also, and this is, uh... I can't remember. Well, I do remember one quote from, uh, Krista Tippett, who has a podcast called On Being, which I believe, I'm, I'm gonna paraphrase it, but that, that anger is fear shown publicly. And-
- RHRyan Holiday
Okay
- TFTim Ferriss
... uh, so I try to, at least as an exercise if I'm really angry, to journal or sit and just think about for a moment, if this were traceable to a fear, what would the fear be, right?
- RHRyan Holiday
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
So it's presupposing that it's accurate for the sake of a thought exercise.
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure.
- TFTim Ferriss
And th- because anger, at least for me, right? Anger is, it's harder to wrestle in the sense that, like head-on, treating anger as an object, it's harder for me to, to grapple with and to disarm, if that makes sense.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
Because I get, I get... Uh, where, where, the story I tell myself that perpetuates anger is, "Well, it's the principle."
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
"Justice must be served."
- RHRyan Holiday
Yes.
- TFTim Ferriss
"This is da, da, da, da." And I get on my high horse.
- RHRyan Holiday
That, that, that phrase, how dare they? You know?
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, I get on my-
- RHRyan Holiday
How could you do this?
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, I get on my high, my high horse of righteousness, and you can justify a lot of stupid behavior that way. Uh, but I don't quite know how to defuse it.
- RHRyan Holiday
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
Whereas if I can take the anger and turn it into fear, or not necessarily turn it into fear, but find a source that is related to fear, then I can use fear-setting or other exercises, premeditatio malorum, et cetera, to turn down the volume.
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure.
- TFTim Ferriss
So that's, that's a step that I've found very helpful also.
- 26:51 – 35:18
Fear during uncertainty: normalizing it, rejecting ‘fair,’ and seeing options
- RHRyan Holiday
I'm cur- I'm curious about fear, 'cause obviously you have your fear-setting stuff, which, which you talk about in your TED Talk, which, which is probably very timely for people right now. But, you know, having sort of two young kids, you get this sort of pit in your stomach, right? And I, and I can sort of empath- I, I... People are really afraid, right? And I, I'd be curious... Well, so two things. One, I'd be curious what you say to someone, uh, who, who is afraid, and then the other thing w- which maybe you want to riff on, I was kind of thinking, I was trying to think of, so I was born in '87, so I was like, "What, what scary things did my parents go through with kids?" Which was actually really helpful. So it's like, you know, Black Monday, there was, uh, obviously 9/11, there's the, the tech bubble bursting, there's the financial crisis, there's the end of the Cold War. I tried to go through and think of... There are two wars in, in, in, in the Gulf, right? Like, so, so that was something I did. But I'm just curious, like, how are you thinking about fear, and what would you say to someone who, who is being overwhelmed by fear?
- TFTim Ferriss
It's a very good question.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
It's a very timely question. Uh, I don't, I don't l- I don't have confidence in a single answer for that-
- RHRyan Holiday
Okay
- TFTim Ferriss
... in the sense that I do think it's, it's very highly dependent on what you're afraid of. And I have relatives who had restaurant jobs and so on, and they're in very tough positions, and I don't, I wouldn't want, I wouldn't want to make this purely an academic exercise and lose sight of the fact that fear is a gift in many cases. It tells you what is wrong. So I, I don't want in any way to seem like I'm detached from reality by making it-
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... a sort of mental gymnastics exercise. So, so, so let's start there. I would say that, and I've been telling myself this, so I can-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] Which is just because you're feeling afraid... I have, I have, for instance, I have older parents in poor health who are in New York.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
That causes, has caused me quite a bit of fear and anxiety, and there's very little I can do, and, and, uh, there's very little I can do, and I can do a lot.
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure.
- TFTim Ferriss
And I have very good contacts-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... and I have very good contacts in New York itself. And to, to an almost complete extent, there's next to nothing I can do if they get sick.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
And that has produced a sense of feeling helpless or hopeless or unable to help that I'm very unaccustomed to.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
And, uh, so what I've been telling myself, and might be helpful to others, is number one, it's okay to feel afraid. Like, that doesn't make you-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... flawed. That means that your sort of evolutionary machinery is intact, and there's a lot of value to that, right?
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
And so I would say that you're not alone, you're not flawed. Millions of people, tens of millions, probably hundreds of millions, are feeling the same thing right now.
- RHRyan Holiday
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
And there are reasons to be afraid. It doesn't mean there's n- it does not mean there's nothing you can do. You always have options, right?
- RHRyan Holiday
Right.
- TFTim Ferriss
You always have opti- That's the other thing I would say, and this is what I'm saying to myself, is like you always have options. You may just not like those options.
- RHRyan Holiday
Right
- TFTim Ferriss
Right?
- 35:18 – 39:41
Beyond survival: turning the crisis into a ‘sacred time’ of preparation
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... great letter. So this may not be the perfect citation, but the point I was going to make is that the question I was asking myself early on for me and my family, and it's the question you should be-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... asking initially, was how do we, how do we ensure we don't die? And physically, uh, financially, how do I ensure that my clan doesn't die, right? And that sounds dramatic.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
I don't think, uh, I don't think it's gonna seem that dramatic. Uh, I mean, 80-
- RHRyan Holiday
No, those are the stakes.
- TFTim Ferriss
Those are the stakes, right? I mean, there are 85 refrigerated, uh, double wide trailers that were just brought into New York yesterday as temporary mortuaries, right? I mean-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... this is real, and-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... I have relatives in a number of hotspots, so these, these are, these are stakes.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
Now what I'm trying to ask since I have checked off, at least for the time being, the lower rungs of Maslow's hierarchy of needs-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... and not, and not everyone is in a position to do that. Nonetheless, I do think this question is really worth asking, and I owe my girlfriend credit also for reinforcing this, 'cause she's very good at this. And that is, how can you make the next three to six months some of the most enjoyable or productive of your life? Or, or if that's too much pressure, right, you can phrase it different ways. You know, how can you make the next three to six months something you look back upon as a sacred time that you really treasure, not just survive, right?
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
And it's ki- it's kinda like, and, uh, look, I'm not whatever. I'll use it, but, uh-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... I heard a Nelson Mandela story once from Tony Robbins, actually, who asked... He asked Nelson Mandela during his time in prison, "How did you survive?" Something along those lines.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
And he said, he said, "Oh, I wasn't surviving. I was preparing." And I think that that type of question, not how I can survive. How you can survive, in a sense, is sort of like extreme frugality. Uh, and-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... I'm, I've, I've had my cup of coffee, so I'm off to the races.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
But it's kinda like extreme frugality in the sense that if you're trying to find financial freedom through one tool, and that is extreme frugality, you have a finite ceiling to that.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah. Sure.
- TFTim Ferriss
Right? Like, you make, let's just call it for simplicity $1,000... I'm making this up.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... $1,000 a week, and you can cut from that. You may make some Faustian bargains and-
- 39:41 – 46:04
Alive time vs. dead time: choosing how to use the block of quarantine
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah, the, the, the dichotomy that I use that Robert Greene gave me, and I, I have this written around somewhere. I was gonna show it to you, but he, he says, "Alive time or dead time, what will it be?" And I think that's how... Like, whether you're, whether this quarantine goes for two more weeks, uh, obviously it's gonna go much longer than that, or whether it goes for two more years, h- all you know is that you have that block of time. What you do control is how you use that time and what you get out of it. I have one, one thought on fear. I... There's a Hebrew saying that I love. Um, it's from the 1800s, but he goes, um, "The world is a narrow bridge, and the important thing is to not be afraid." The, the point is when you're walking on a narrow balance beam or a narrow bridge, the, the one thing you can't do is be scared because it'll mess you up and you'll fall, and I think that's sort of the predicament we're in. It's not fair. Nobody chose it. It's not our fault, but you've gotta cross this bridge now, and this fear... Uh, fear, i- as you said, there, uh, some evolutionary reasons, but courage is gonna be important, right? And that's one of those sort of core stoic virtues, which is, like... And, and there's another quote I love from Faulkner. He says, "You can be scared. It, it's okay to be scared. You can't help that." He says, "But, but, but don't be afraid." Do you know what I mean? Like, I think you have to, you have to keep going. That's just the reality, so you might as well-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah
- RHRyan Holiday
... right.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, if, if, if afraid is being paralyzed, right? So for instance-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... a few more comments on fear.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... uh, 'cause you just reminded me of a few things. So, and I- this could be apocryphal, but I believe, based on the sources I had at the time, I have no idea what they are, [laughs] that this is true. So Dean Martin, now, that name may not mean much to a lot of people, but in his day, Dean Martin was the consummate entertainer, sort of top tier, top five most recognizable names in the United States probably.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
And he used to vomit. He would get so nervous, and one could say afraid, that he would vomit-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... before every performance. Mike Tyson, same story, and his hi- the trainer who really made Mike Tyson Mike Tyson, Cus D'Amato, uh, you can find video or at least audio of Cus D'Amato saying this. He would say, "The hero and the coward feel the same thing. They feel the fear. It's what the hero-
- RHRyan Holiday
Right
- TFTim Ferriss
... does that makes him different." And Tyson was also-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... terrified. I mean, uh, terrified may not be the right word, but fearful before he got into the ring, one of the most dominant boxers of all time.
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure.
- TFTim Ferriss
And if they can't get- A immunity bracelet for fear-
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... it's unreasonable to-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... expect yourself to. And I- I would also say, if this is helpful to anybody, and it's very specific to the United States, but the United States at this point in time, we're recording this April 1st, Happy April Fools' Day, uh, and right now New York is, is the-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... the H- Hubei of the US, the global Hubei, effectively. It's the new global epicenter, or will be. This is going to continue. The United States is going to be the largest hotspot. Unless things change dramatically in Russia, it's probably gonna be the largest hotspot in the world for some time to come. And the, prior to Pearl Harbor, what the strategic belief on the part of the Japanese was that by destroying the Pacific Fleet, the morale and capabilities of the US would be completely-
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... shut down or paralyzed for a period of time. What instead happened when, you know, the bear got stabbed in the eye with a stick, meaning the US, is that within a very short period of time that would have previously been inconceivable, suddenly we're, we were producing more tanks than civilians in all of Japan.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
I know that's an exaggeration, but the-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah, yeah, sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... the ca- the capacity of the United States when it is forced into a corner or feels as though it's been forced into a corner through extreme states of duress and crisis-
- 46:04 – 1:05:05
Stoic civic duty and practical ways to help: local support, vetted funds, less complaining
- RHRyan Holiday
So, uh, and, and I'm sure you've gotta go. So a- as far as this sort of a, a, a place to close, 'cause I think this ties in well to the fear, and I think it ties well into stoicism, um, what I love about the stoics in particular, like the stoics and the epicureans were actually much closer philosophically than people thought, right?
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, for sure.
- RHRyan Holiday
And, and, and you're, you, you, you love the good life. You, you have epicurean tendencies, but what I, w- what I think, what I think, what I suspect draws you to the stoics and, and ultimately draws me to the stoics, and I think why there is this thread of stoicism going, not just in the Roman Empire, but to the founding of America, to the US Civil War, to, to, to a lot of the great movements in history, is the stoics felt that we were obligated to participate in public life, to serve the common good, to help other people. Most of the greatest stoics were famous not because of what they wrote, but because of the actual heroism that they did in their life. And I mean, Marcus really specifically is the emperor for 15 years of the Antonine Plague. He ne- he doesn't flee Rome. At one point famously, this is one of my favorite stories in all of history, a- as, as the Roman economy is collapsing under the weight of this pandemic, he, he, uh, he forgives most of the debts owed to the empire, uh, and then he goes through the imperial palace and he marks down the treasures owned by the emperor for sale on the palace lawn to, to like sort of get the economy going. So this to me is what, like w- I think this goes to your point, when, when stuff breaks down, real leaders stand up. And so, uh, uh, maybe as a place to close for people who are afraid but wanna put that energy somewhere productive, what do you advise people as far as how can they help, how can they make a difference, what... a- and, and what good can individuals do? You know, obviously there's a lot of, we all have different resources and skills, but what would you advise people to think about as far as making a difference and, and using this as an opportunity to, to s- to do that sort of ultimate stoic duty?
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, thanks for the question. That's a good question. Uh, I wanna, I wanna just make a- an observation first, and that is you basically have the trifecta of books for understanding and handling this entire-
- RHRyan Holiday
Oh, okay
- TFTim Ferriss
... chapter-
- RHRyan Holiday
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
... of our history right behind your head. For those people who aren't watching the video, you have... And I'll read from the bottom up. You've got The Black Swan, you have, is it The 48 Laws? I can't read.
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah, 48 Laws. Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
The 48 Laws of Power, and then Mastery. So The Black Swan by-
- RHRyan Holiday
And then, uh-
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh
- RHRyan Holiday
... and then I have Meditations right here.
- TFTim Ferriss
And, and then Medita-
- RHRyan Holiday
So-
- TFTim Ferriss
And then Meditations, right
- RHRyan Holiday
... we're set.
- TFTim Ferriss
So-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... so you have [laughs] but The Black Swan, uh, perhaps just as much so Fooled by Randomness by NN Taleb, T-A-L-E-B. I think it pairs-
- RHRyan Holiday
Antifragile.
- TFTim Ferriss
Antifragile. But The Black Swan or Fooled by Randomness specifically, I think, help to explain what we are contending with and why it is so difficult for humans to grasp what is happening and properly prepare for it. So I think that is-
- RHRyan Holiday
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... that is worth reading. Then if you want to understand how seemingly confusingly and irrationally different leaders are behaving, and how polarity-
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... is affecting our response to this in the United States and elsewhere, not just here, you look at Brazil-
- RHRyan Holiday
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... it's the same story, then The 48 Laws of Power do a great job of explaining that. And then if you take Mastery and The 48 Laws of Power combined, those can act as a possible roadmap for the abilities you want to develop in this sacred pause that is being provided to you, not inflicted upon you necessarily. I understand there are-
- RHRyan Holiday
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... some very serious costs, but that's just a f- way that you could plausibly or try to frame it if you want to feel enabled, not disabled. Those are three fantastic, uh, books for the, for the quiver. I'm just gonna say that first.
Episode duration: 1:05:26
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Transcript of episode 7Iknv6rt9uk
