Joe Rogan Experience #1836 - Ryan Holiday
Joe Rogan (host), Narrator, Joe Rogan (host), Ryan Holiday (guest), Joe Rogan (host), Narrator
In this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, featuring Joe Rogan and Narrator, Joe Rogan Experience #1836 - Ryan Holiday explores ryan Holiday and Joe Rogan Explore Stoicism, Struggle, and Attention Joe Rogan and Ryan Holiday discuss Stoic philosophy, centering on Marcus Aurelius, discipline, and how ancient ideas map onto modern life, fame, and social media.
Ryan Holiday and Joe Rogan Explore Stoicism, Struggle, and Attention
Joe Rogan and Ryan Holiday discuss Stoic philosophy, centering on Marcus Aurelius, discipline, and how ancient ideas map onto modern life, fame, and social media.
Holiday traces his path from Hollywood assistant to author, explaining how adversity, bad jobs, and unusual experiences ultimately fueled his writing and worldview.
They examine how hard physical challenges, poverty, and failure build character, contrasting that with the fragility bred by comfort, fame, and constant digital stimulation.
The conversation also critiques media, higher education, politics, and audience capture, emphasizing personal responsibility, doing your best, and focusing on what you can control.
Key Takeaways
Use adversity as raw material for growth.
Holiday’s Hollywood horror story and subsequent career show how setbacks can redirect you into more authentic, meaningful work—echoing his Stoic theme that the obstacle becomes the way.
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Train your body to strengthen your mind.
They argue that demanding physical practices—sports, cold plunges, long runs, fighting—build resilience, stillness under pressure, and the ability to push through mental resistance in all areas of life.
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Guard your attention, especially in the morning.
Rogan and Holiday describe how checking email and social media immediately after waking creates a baseline of anxiety; carving out phone-free time protects focus and emotional stability.
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Separate what you can control from what you can’t.
Drawing from Epictetus, Holiday emphasizes that obsessing over lists, reviews, and public opinion drains energy from the only thing you truly own: your effort and your response.
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Beware of audience capture and ideological drift.
They discuss how writers, comics, and commentators can become prisoners of their own fanbases or political tribes, slowly optimizing for applause instead of truth or personal integrity.
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Recognize structural disadvantages without abandoning personal agency.
The conversation on poverty, crime, and student debt stresses that people start from radically different places, yet also highlights the power of effort, discipline, and good environments to change trajectories.
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Measure yourself by whether you did your absolute best.
Holiday shares an Admiral Rickover–Jimmy Carter story to illustrate that external rankings and awards are unreliable; the only meaningful metric is whether you left anything on the table.
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Notable Quotes
“Writers live interesting lives. You have to go earn having a point of view.”
— Ryan Holiday (relaying advice he received)
“The chief task in life is separating things that are in your control from what’s outside your control.”
— Ryan Holiday (paraphrasing Epictetus)
“We treat the body rigorously so that it will not be disobedient to the mind.”
— Ryan Holiday (quoting Seneca)
“If you are constantly dwelling on other people’s opinions and other people’s success, it will 100% diminish your capability of doing good work.”
— Joe Rogan
“Ambition is tying your wellbeing to what other people say or do; sanity is tying it to your own actions.”
— Ryan Holiday (paraphrasing Marcus Aurelius)
Questions Answered in This Episode
How can someone practically start applying Stoic ideas like ‘focus on what you can control’ in a chaotic, social-media-driven life?
Joe Rogan and Ryan Holiday discuss Stoic philosophy, centering on Marcus Aurelius, discipline, and how ancient ideas map onto modern life, fame, and social media.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Where is the line between using adversity as fuel and romanticizing suffering or poverty as inherently ‘good’?
Holiday traces his path from Hollywood assistant to author, explaining how adversity, bad jobs, and unusual experiences ultimately fueled his writing and worldview.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
How can creators and public figures avoid becoming captured by their audience’s expectations while still making a living?
They examine how hard physical challenges, poverty, and failure build character, contrasting that with the fragility bred by comfort, fame, and constant digital stimulation.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
What concrete habits or routines best protect mental stillness in an era of constant digital noise and outrage?
The conversation also critiques media, higher education, politics, and audience capture, emphasizing personal responsibility, doing your best, and focusing on what you can control.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
If modern education and media systems are structurally flawed, what alternative paths to learning and personal development make the most sense today?
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Transcript Preview
(drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music plays) All right, and we're up.
Sweet.
Hello, Brian.
Hi.
Nice to meet you, man.
Yeah, good to meet-
Happy birthday.
Thank you.
How old are you?
I'm 35.
Wow. Do you feel 35?
Uh, I feel like after like late 20s, I just kind of like l- I got to check in every year to be like, "Wait, how old am I again?" You know?
Yeah.
So I, not really, I guess.
It's a strange time, 35.
Why?
'Cause you're kind of middle-aged.
Yes.
But you're young.
Well, I was like successful pretty early in my life, so like I was always like the kid. You know? Like I, I dropped out of college at 19, and so ... And I, I worked in Hollywood, and so I was always like the, the youngest person in the room by far.
Mm-hmm.
And so like I- that's ... It's not been part of my identity, but I like felt it. You know?
What'd you do in Hollywood?
Well, I dropped out of college. I worked o- at a desk in a talent agency, and then, uh, then I started signing new media clients, and then very quickly, it didn't work out. But, uh, you wanna know ... So-
Sure.
So I (laughs) ...
(laughs)
Uh, I was working for ... One of the reasons it didn't work out, it didn't work out for ... 'cause it was a horrible life and I don't know why anyone would want to have it. But I was working a- at this desk as an assistant and, uh, I was also a research assistant for Robert Greene, uh, The 48 Laws of Power guy.
Sure.
Um-
Oh.
By the way, I brought you the new one from him.
Oh, great.
He signed it for you.
Oh, that's awesome.
Yeah.
Robert's a great guy.
He's my favorite human being in the whole world.
All right.
Um-
Damn, I want to be your favorite human being.
(laughs)
(laughs)
Let's see. (laughs) Well, no, so I, I was working for Robert and, uh, I had The 48 Laws of Power on my desk 'cause I was working on it, and one of the partners became like convinced that I was like up to shit.
What?
Yeah, yeah. Like, uh, he was like, he just, he got it in his head that I was like, not a threat, but I was like someone to be suspicious of. And, uh-
(laughs) Because you had the Laws of Power on your-
Yeah.
... desk?
Yeah, yeah. It was the weirdest thi-
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