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Flynn is Destiny. Just came out and I was shocked to see it peak in the top. 10 of all books on Audible and I just love that so much I love printed books but what I love more is people reading and what I love about audible is it gets people reading, busy people, people on the go but they just love audible. They love the audible Originals. They love new releases on Audible. They have the subscription and that lets them have access to so many books, including one that they can keep from the catalog each and every month, which
New bestsellers and releases like discipline is Destiny. Audible members get access to a growing selection of audible books. Audible Originals audio books podcasts that are all included in the membership. You can listen all you want and get more added every month. Let audible help you discover new ways to laugh. Be inspired and be entertained new members. Can try it for free for 30 days, visit audible.com, daily stoker, text daily, stoked to 500, 500, that's audible.com slash daily stoic or text daily. Stoke to 500
And to try audible free for 30 days, audible.com slash daily Stone.
Hey, it's Ryan holiday. Welcome to another episode of The Daily stoic podcast. I am hard at work on the new book. Just chug in a way trying to not get too distracted with all the things that are happening. It's going. Well, actually, really got in a great rhythm in the last week or so during the launch I was spent a lot of time at the office but was running.
In each day, I got the cold plunge, each day didn't travel because I was rooted in one spot to do the launching really, really was in a rhythm and when the book came out on Tuesday, the 27th, I celebrated, by saving a little chapter that I was really excited to write a story that I was just rear into attack. And I spent that morning, not thinking about how the book was doing, not thinking about, you know, whether people liked it or not, not thinking about some of the issues or problems with the
Sticks are the, you know, all that had happened as excited and proud as I am of discipline is Destiny, and thank you all for the support. And I do hope you read the book. What got me out of bed that morning was the opportunity to work on the next one. I love the work, I love the opportunity to do the work and I don't want it to go to waste. And so I'm chugging away on this new book but I did take a break during the launch week to have a conversation with one of my favorite people. Come all rava Conn. Aye,
I'm an investor in a fund that Kamal did several years ago. I'm a big fan of his book. Love yourself, like your life, depends on it, which I carry here in bookstore, you can check it out. I highly recommend it and actually, we have a plan to excerpt a chunk of it here on the podcast to take sort of cult classic for a reason, almost everyone. I know in Silicon Valley has read it, but I don't talk a lot here about Steve Hanselman my co-author on The Daily stoic.
Literary agents to wonderful, sweet kind human being. Steve doesn't really take on clients. He doesn't look for clients the whole time. I've known him for ten plus years. I don't know how many I maybe count three new clients he's worked with so I don't ever when people go. Hey, can I have an introduction to your literary agent? I go, he doesn't want it. I'd be happy to but he won't get you anywhere. The only person I
Solicited Lee made an introduction to actually have made to unsolicited. Introductions damn one was to Steven pressfield whose literary agent. Sterling Lord, recently passed away and I know, Steve's a fan. So, I connected them. But Kamal was the perhaps only unsolicited author introduction. I have made and they work together. They originally love yourself like your life, depends on. It was self-published and they did an expanded Wonder.
Addition for harpercollins. That's the one I carry in the store, he did that and then he also helped Kamal, sell a novel that he published, which I also recommend. And we talked about all that and more in today's conversation about why I think Kamal is one of the nicest people I've ever met and we began with a near-death experience that he had. Can't recommend kamal's work enough, I'll just get right to it and you can go to his website, come all that blog. You can get his newsletter and newsletter dot Founders. N.com it
You can follow him on pretty much every social platform at Kamal rava cot and do pick up a copy of love yourself. Like your life. Depends on it at the painted porch.com or swing by and grab one. Next time you're in Texas.
Well, I feel like this is a weird way to begin, but I feel like you almost died since the last time we
talked. I did pretty horribly.
What happened
dude, I went in for elective surgery and there's a big mess up and they reroute an artery and didn't do it correctly. And I was, you know, this job like I was coming out of it and and they make, you know, when they make you walk afterwards to to
Make sure you're fine so you can release, you sure artery burst and it was a domino, Audrey in a burst of such force that all this Blood pooled up in my abdomen and burst out, I was spraying blood everywhere and basically, you know, kind of like put it out, you know,
and how like, how fast was this? Like you were just you felt like you felt like you were alive and then your body was just like quitting. Like in a matter of
seconds, it was
When I was walking I felt like someone all of a sudden hit me with a sledgehammer in my groin and my lower abdomen area and I just didn't even know pain like that was possible. Especially you're not expecting it. Sure. And then it just sort of ballooning and I remember looking and shocked just say what the hell and that and as I got back to the bed and then it's also there was like a thousand like a hose. But she first day that I'm spraying blood everywhere. And
Next thing I know I'm not just like covered, it was soaked in my own blood and like, wouldn't recommend this experience to anyone. It was awful. It was the most. I mean, I can't even describe the pain and also, but talk about mortality, right? Like, yeah. Because like I was like she reading I love ascetic Aurelius right, talking about facing your dad and it's not how I expected to do it, you know? And I should remember, they think that served save me was the fact that I had left the hospital yet. Sure.
Every resident told me like luck, if you had just walked out this happen, it probably would have you would have that right away. And so they grabbed me will be no R / me open which ones and fun either. And and let's save my life and to go in and you know clamp that artery and then fix things. But I remember that feeling of when I'm in the willingly. Oh I'm wide awake and I'm just spraying blood everywhere. And there's look at this poor resident. But you know these resin he's got his
Hands on me and he's like 12, spraying for his hands and I'm looking around at this point. You're so shocked. I think you'd have no longer in pain. Just looking around. I was almost like a circus of people running around screaming dings clattering I remember thinking and I remember starting to feel things in myself shut down like things like because I guess later on I looked up y'all like the blood gets shuttle from Oregon's. I was your a graying, you know, bodies like losing blood really fast and members.
Okay.
I am a good man. I don't deserve to go like this, right? And you know, like this is not how I deserve to go and then I thought
Oh, shit. I have no choice, right? And I had to give in to that and in that moment I remember having to give it to that. I had no fucking Choice. Yeah.
Aside from like, well, if you think about, I think we don't do a good job thinking about our mortality at all. But when we do we think like oh what if I find out, I have cancer, right? Or you kind of see it as this slow thing that you're having to Grapple with or wrestle with, right?
But yours will, it was surreal and strange about yours. Is it was this sort of gruesome sudden, emergency thing, but it also wasn't like you got hit by a bus or you. You got shot in a war zone. It was just like a chance error and then a freak set of circumstances, flash forward to your literally, watching your life's shoot out of your body. That must have been
Incredibly strange.
It's like, you know, the thing is the funny thing is. You start thinking all you're doing is it's like at that point, it's just flashes of pictures and yeah, Fierce emotions. And I remember feeling and one point fear, like I didn't know fear was a thing like that, like, like, like because it's like, I think the hindbrain kicks and write the final breaks it, and it's just, it's just emotions and images. And then once in a while before thinking, oh, I don't want this.
This is that how what? I wanted it, I don't want this and then like I don't have a choice and in that moment like you can either fight it or like I didn't think I could fight it because I had no choice and like okay you guys remember surrendering to it and lying back. And that's when I finally closed my eyes and I said are into it and I kind of like spell into this dark dark Blackness. And I remember that this this very clearly and who knows if they're pumping me drugs at that time. Or not, who wins this game?
From but it's literally like falling into a dark ocean. Like you know like you see a diver fall like a free driver hauling, the ocean. Sure. And falling on my back and the ocean is dark and the only light is emanating from me and just falling falling deeper deeper, and then nothing,
how long are we talking about? But from the moment, you stand up till the moment, like, okay
to be, we must stop the bleeding, I don't know, because I think I was to stop the bleeding. They have to go in and I think I was out. I passed out.
Then or so I don't know. It feels like ours. It was probably like minute two minutes out of right. Right.
Isn't that interesting that like how time I think in these moments of Crisis to the pandemic was a moment of Crisis, The Illustrated in a different way? We're suddenly realized what a construct time is and how how strange our relationship with it is where you know, the pandemic three years feels like three months.
But then, in this moment where you're dying, you know, three minutes feels like three
hours. Yeah. Yeah. It's also very clear. The images are very clear, my head. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great observation man. That's a great observation.
So they stopped the bleeding and then you come out of it at some point. Not dead. What is that like?
Yeah, I was in there and the as under surgery for like six hours I woke up and I mean I was very drugged up
Yeah, and then it was like, okay I survived now. And actually the worst part came after it was like because of what they had to do to, you know, go and cause a lot of damage and I basically lost like two years of my life and just fear. Yeah, we are paid just getting to the days and I have finally had another surgery last year that fought and this wonderful doctor from the tough stenciled on the country that got together. And they finally fixed everything. Hmm. And but it was just
It like men talk about like living day to day moment to moment when you're a pain, that's all you do. You just live day to day. Moment to moment was actually harder coming out of it but the living part was harder after a while for the tip. Next, two years.
I imagine me very destabilizing. Did you did you have any anger, though? It feels like there should be a way that one could come out of this, and obviously it was an accident, but it wasn't. It wasn't like a tumor that almost killed you. It was a mistake or a series of
Except were made by people and an institution. How do you imagine? There's this tension between like, I'm so glad that I'm alive and I almost died. How could you do this to me?
Yeah. Actually I wasn't angry beginning. I was grateful because I saved my life but it's later on some stuff came out that oh my God. This was a complete Confederacy of Dunces and I said to you realize this is what a shit show. Some of the medical system can
Maybe it wasn't complete like, oh my God, if I'd known an inkling of what I know going in, I never would have got it, right? That's when the anger came. Sure, you know, but anger, you take action.
You know, so I took action and and that's, that's the thing. Yeah, anger. Kim. Once I learn but jerk or it was like, I felt like I'd survive and then if I was just in survival mode, sure. And I was literally just trying to do what I write about. So like that my main thing was I can't let my mind get destroyed by this, right cannot let the pain, the emotions, destroy my mind because my mind goes everything else, you know, like if I become a shit show their everything else.
This is world wars.
Well I imagine that was a big test for you anyway. Obviously you're an
active, my God. Yeah, you
do like you do lots of stuff that just just to not be mobile and, and the, the the curve of getting back to your old self must have been really hard, but as someone who is so big on self, care, and mental health, and all of these things, I have to imagine that changed your practice in a lot of ways or challenge to the practice for you because, you know, it's easy to look in the mirror and do not easy, but it's
Here to look in the mirror and do some of the stuff that you've talked about in your books. It's it's harder to do that or sorry, it's easier to do that when you're everything else is working. It's harder to do that when you feel like crap right? Like because
my God it's actually yeah they were days where obviously I didn't you know I was miserable. Yeah there were days I was just like, fuck it. I'll let myself stay in the misery but then it was like
I know where this will lead, you know, it's in. Like if you just, it's just that a pattern, you're creating in your mind. And at that time, my body was so screwed. The only thing I could do was work on my mind. Yeah. You know, and, and I'll tell you something, it's incredibly hard. I mean, in fact, there were there were times where I just gave up on him, then I came back to it and but, but I worked this time. I maybe it's funny. Like, how in, like moments of stress, is when we work hardest, sure? Right. That work, hardest of my mind when I could.
When I came out and said, when I got my health back, it's like my personality was different. It's like my inner being is different because of his overtime, just to Cecily survival mode, get up day by day, just work through it. Get sure about our to get to the damn day and then when I got my house back which was just lie about a year ago, it's like my everything, my happiness, everything the bought. My set point is like in a way I never had before.
Really this. It's really interesting. Now, I didn't need this experience is to make me better at anyway. It's like what I chose to do with it made me better makes sense.
Yeah. Because like when I read and I obviously, I know you. But when I, when I read love yourself like your life, depends on it. I see. It is like, this is Kamal at the bottom of this pit and he's clawing his way back to what he's capable of being what he wants to be how he wants his life. To
Go. And so you do that, that's your journey and and I know all the other stuff you've done. I imagine part of what must have been frustrating hard but then also familiar about where you were when you woke up out of this is your you're basically back in that pit but it's it's it's a more severe pit and then in some ways not that the other one was your fault, but it's like it was something that was done to you that just happened. You know what I mean? Like, you're you're back to where you were before.
Having told yourself I've already gotten out of there. You like you? Yeah did to find yourself back there that it must have been familiar in the sense that you're like, oh I know this place and scary probably in the sense that you're like, I could I could not get out of this again.
Yeah, it was. And you know what's really hard to doesn't deal with it because you think itself I don't deserve this. Yeah. But I don't deserve this. Why did this have to happen to me? Sure. And that's like
That's like a good old Seneca. Yeah. Yeah.
That's the good. That comes out of it.
Yeah. Yeah.
No. Yeah. I mean when you
In Seneca like you have it's you I think the senecas life so senecas, this successful young lawyer, and then he gets tuberculosis he has been basically eight years or 10 years in Egypt convalescing, he comes back, he rebuilds his career, then he runs afoul of the emperor and he gets exiled on these trumped-up charges. And like the week before he goes to Exile, he loses his his infant child. Your your you read some of these essays in your like, this isn't a guy talking.
About these things in the abstract. This is a guy who's had his fucking guts ripped out and, you know, is, is on the verge of Despair as looking at the loss of everything they ever worked for, for a second time. Like life life can do that to you.
Yeah. And that diversion it's that not deserving of thing that really messes you up. Yeah. I think that mess. We have more than anything.
Yeah I can
imagine I have to get over that.
You don't
deserve it. You're one of the nicest people I've ever met is that, you know what I mean? It's not like, it's not like you're like this scumbag, or it's not like you were doing something, you knew you shouldn't be doing and then it didn't work out for you, right? It's, it's not like you got canceled and you're like, hey, the punishment is more than the crime, or something like that. Right? This is like a Freak series of incidences. And again, yeah, you're walking down the hall of a hospital. And then you look down in your Bloods, all over the
Lore. And like this is a, that must have been a, you definitely don't deserve it. And then there's also the it can't happen to meanest, which is similar to the, I don't deserve it right? Like yeah, things like this, don't happen to people like me.
Yeah. Or just? Yeah, I couldn't you doing sir. I'm imagining that. Like, even if you sit around and read Imagining the worst case scenario, that's not one of them. Come up in your mind. Yes, you know, I'm not that creative.
Well, I just, I just interviewed Amy Morrison who
You know, the that Viral list of 13 things, really mentally
strong. Yeah, yeah.
She she lost, she was telling me she lost her before she wrote that list. So again, the idea that great insightful work can come out of tragedy and pain, she loses her mother at 23. And then on the third year, anniversary to the day her 26 year, old husband dropped dead of a heart attack. So it's not only I don't deserve this but like this doesn't happen, this
This isn't how things are supposed to go. This is a violation of every actuary tail, every statistic every probability, like, healthy people. Don't go into the hospital for minor procedures and come out worse, that's not how it goes. Yeah, but the truth is that is how it sometimes goes, one out of a thousand times but it happens.
It really is it really is and but you know it's all very until it happens to you.
Yes, until then it's just very
well. We accept we accept the freak. Good luck of our lives with no question, right? Like the fact that you and I are born the fact that you and I have experienced the things that we've experienced, all the lucky breaks, we accept, as our just deserts as totally rational reasonable regular things, even though the vast majority of the people on the globe have experienced, no such luck, right?
And then something bad happens. And we go. Why am I so cursed? How could this happen to me? I mean, I don't, I don't know if I'm in fear of it, but my life has been fairly blessed. And so I often am hot, you know, the mathematical concept of the regression towards the mean. I that hangs over me, like the Sword of Damocles
that's funny. You know, it all these things. The only thing in the end but it comes out anyway, unit. The only thing that matter is cool. Am I going to be through this? Sure.
That's all that matters. You kind of you get to that point and that's a choice. You have to make and no one can make it for me. Sometimes it's a hospital bed choice. You know, I made some very clear decisions in the hospital bed that I'm living sure. I am living in my life is much better for it now but like you've one of his it but the bear in the end, he consented, who am I going to be through this? And that is a choice. It is and it is a choice. When you go through something hard, eventually, everyone has to make. And there's many, there's two paths.
Basically if I was to be very black and white about it, there's two pads. Am I going to be better through it? I'm going to the best I can throw it. Or am I just going to let it be? Let it be bigger than me? It destroyed me
at the early days of the pandemic. You know, I had two young kids under 4. I was staring out at this empty unopenable bookstore. That I'd suck my life savings into and I wrote a little note to myself, it's I think it's back there somewhere, but I basically just wrote, you know,
20/20 is a choice. Will it make you a better person or a worse person? And I know that's kind of how I try to think about that. It's like, it's not, am I going to be at the core? You don't decide whether this moves the ball forward or back, whether you make money or not, whether you survive or not, all of that, the Stokes would say, is, you know, things maybe you can influence a little bit but you don't control, but you decide whether it makes you a better person or not, right? Like because that that's that's something on the inside.
That theoretically nothing on the outside, can touch it. Unless you unless you open up the city walls and you let the enemy in.
Yeah. And you know, no matter your resources and life, if you're in a hospital bed wearing that stupid hospital gown, but all those needles in you and yeah, people coming in and out you've lost all your sense of dignity and just poking and prodding you and you know, like every 20 minutes and goes on for days and days.
It's like you can really it's a, it's, it's nothing interesting thing. That's a great equalizer, no matter what our resources of life, you end up there is no difference. Anybody else in pain do resources in the sense that you're still on the hospital bed and then measuring as like, how am I, what am I gonna do? How am I gonna be? You can have her loved ones around you. So, you know, saying all the right things, but it's still in you in the hospital bed going through that pay, sure, and this
Him and think it's a very, very Human
Experience. This was in the depths of covid, right? Or was this right before?
This was a month before covid. Okay. And then, last year, when I had the surgeries to fix everything, there were complications because the previous things are in the back of the house, but all been injected with every pain, men they had and again the surgeon telling me I could die because of all the stuff before. But this time I didn't die right away. This one, it was more like you could die, right? That was during covid.
And, you know, I'll tell you something very interesting. I told him to stop telling me that you can't put that in my mind, I love, I think you're awesome. You're looking out for me, he was trying to get me, do another surgery and I was like, look, I'm done with surgery and you can't guarantee me that this won't happen again to me. I am so done, you have no idea. I said there's a closed window. They would open the windows because of covid not those the weirdest thing. I'll try to explain to them. The pressure help it would help. Yeah. Yeah. They didn't get is really common household of the worst place.
SEC. Yes, you know. And I was like, look, I rather jump out that window. We have another surgery to see how germs stop saying that I will die, but that surgery and just show your best to treat me and where I am. And what I did was I just sat there the entire time through the pain, and I would just imagine myself on a beach, doing my, gymnastic Rings, feeling healthy, feeling, powerful feeling, like completely cured. Everything was great. And, you know what?
No surgery. I think four or five months later, I was doing to my gymnastic rings on a beach watching the sunset. Yes. Enjoying it, feeling great. And then I remembered, oh my God, this is all I was living in the hospital. This is the exact image. I was leaving the hospital. I'm doing now. There's incredible. It's absolutely incredible. That moment was incredible. I bet
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There's something else, I wrote down I wanted to ask you about like in some, in some sense you're very likely and then in the other you strike me as the most unlikely. But like, I don't think you were an Army Ranger. Where are you?
I wasn't a rage. I was a trade
II. Just I've never heard that part of your story. I don't think you don't talk about it very much but I I've always wanted to ask you about it.
Yeah. I mean, look, I'm very proud of it. I don't make a big deal about it because I've never been to combat.
Yeah, I think the ones who should really get the thanks and everything in the ones who actually, you know, such artists, sure. Yeah. Like I would just in training but I joined when I was a year in college. I was bored out of my mind. I was right people who were just getting drunk and he shipped exams, you just never buddy, Clevenger state school for the first four that year and you just started a night before and you're doing fine, right? It was like multiple choice exams and, and I was bored out of my mind, I was like, I need something better than this and
I'm an immigrant Charles always felt like a strong responsibility to ensure United States that not want to serve this country. So I just went to different Recruiters Office and the Army. Recruiter had this awesome photo of like B's infantry guys, running around shooting business will be a video like that. That's awesome. The signed up and turn 19 and boo-ki and book that it will Benning Georgia.
Wow, yeah, having known your brother a little bit. I sometimes think of the
The two of you have you ever heard that expression? It's like they talked to two brothers and their father was an alcoholic and one of them doesn't drink and the other is a drunk and they go well, you know why? And they're answer for both of them because my dad was a drunk. Right? One goes one way. One goes the
other way. Yeah.
I've always been fascinated. You and your brother are so different, right. You're very similar but you're so different. I've always wondered where like what
What path you de verged from. Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah that's a great point. I think we ought to apply the your father was an outcome that would be great. I'm gonna look especially as a father, I'm sure. Yeah, that interested for you. That's an interesting question. I think we both seek challenges in our own way and we want a strong sense of justice. And our yeah that we want to see Justice in the world and that comes from my childhood. Both of those put where we made those different choices, but I'll tell you one thing.
Thing that the experience of just being boot camp. When I was 18, was such a formative experience that, I think it bad affected, the rest of my life. And the way in the things things, I went off and did and challenges. I took that was a real, like, a market Point. Sure. Honey point that made me go up and made many different paths and then Heaven. Sure, yeah,
yeah, you guys are kind of like a yin and yang of each other. I feel like,
like your gear,
did your the same shape, but then there is something very
In an opposite about YouTube.
Yeah. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's beautiful.
Yeah. And, and yeah, you both seek out you both work in the same part of the world. Know. A lot of this like you know what I mean, it's an interesting series of contrast and then also
connections.
Yeah. Yeah, it is. And I'm very, I'm a look if, you know, Tech Varitek and I'm very grateful for It's A Wonderful industry. Be a part of it, it's bitter. That's not a fad. It's not going away the grand. Thank you going to be just fine. Yeah,
yeah. So when you, when you look at your when you look at the path that you went on, did you feel like it was a reaction against something? Was there? Something you didn't want to be
like yeah I mean look I had a rough.
And I like, there's some things are my brothers. My brother, never experienced that I did. Hmm. I was older than him, and I wrote about him and love yourself because I wanted people to understand that they're not alone. Yeah. That others go through this as well. Like I was molested as a kid and stuff like that. So yeah, thanks man. I mean, I work to it. Yeah. And through therapy and all that, you know, work through it. And but I looking back, I see how the fact that me and the choices that made him one of
Of them was, I'm going to be tough. Hmm. No one's going to mess with me again that I remember clearly. Yeah, said that was part of the choice of joining, the military. I'm going to be tough. I'm going to make myself. Sure. And I still do things like that. Maybe it's all top, you know, idea. And it's like, visit, I guess it comes from, like, no one's ever going to mess with me. Like that. It was very clear. Like, I was a child, I didn't have a, I wasn't strong enough. Now, I'm going to be a matter, I'm going to be very strong, right? Yeah.
So that's huge actually and I met a lot of a lot of things I've done in my life
and I imagine that sort of toughness or that, she'll that you develop that sort of stoicism in the lowercase sense probably made, then the irony is life. Doesn't throw you into a war zone or, you know, subject you to, you know, tough, physical challenges in that sense. It first subjects you to a bunch of Mental Health.
Challenges for which you can't really tough in yourself up for and in fact toughness is the opposite remedy
required. Yeah, what save me. You know what I've I look at my life as before I learned to let me know I love myself and I do love myself and what saved me was inner work, and very soft, very sure. The ultimate and thought, you know, we just love right. There's nothing. Talk in the sense. There is a toughness of love with you. I'm talking about it's just the opposite way.
Think of as being a tough man. Yes, all right. Yeah, that's what saving and that's right. Side me again and I'll say again this is the inner voice listing. You know what's the right words? That vulnerability
but it's a survey work. No, no. It's like it's like you reach this moment where your muscles are of no help
Like yeah, like you know you need, you need the opposite of muscle, you need, you need to go in words. There's not it's not an external physical adversary in terms of another person or you know the elements or some physical challenge. It's you know, how do I find a way to admit that I'm struggling? How do I find a way to like things about myself? How do I find? You know, a way to open up and explore these
Things. It's it's the opposite of what joining the Infantry is about.
Yeah, and it's really interesting because I've come to believe over time and actually I'm really no overtime that it's the inner game. It is the inner game is the ultimate game. Sure. If you're any games off, everything's off because your inner game will get you to the good and the bad and the in a game will make them bad bearable it'll get you through it. But the inner game is off and on the bad, that's when it's really bad.
I'm sure that's when it's really bad, you know, I'm so much of our suffering. You know, the cliche happens without any external input. It just happens in the mind, anyway, right? The mark, 2 and M, and the Mark Twain of, I have had so many problems and very good actually ever happened, and I think it's goes back wherever
we are. There's the, the Milton quote, that I was just talking to someone about yesterday. The mind can make a heaven of Hell, and Hell of heaven, right? Like, it doesn't matter, and I think this is part of what you talked about in the books, but,
It doesn't matter how successful or unsuccessful, you are how great things are going or how terrible they're going. If there's something wrong in here, if there's some misalignment in here, it will be awful. Meanwhile, if there is an alignment here, you can figure out a way through that because it's just a temporary external thing.
Yeah. And you know and if this makes sense and it this is how it works. The more the inner game is better, the faster you can get through the bad times, you know, or at least a bad time seem like, you get it done faster and in the end that's yeah. It's like you know, we both know people who are rich and manageable thing, why I would say most
yeah, more
having extra resources that it's the inner game and it is the most important game there is
we I think what
Happens is the misery or the unpleasantness or whatever it instead of dealing with it manifested cell like you go. Well, I'm going to focus on this thing over here, right? I'm gonna really learn how to play the guitar or I'm going to really throw myself into building this company, right? Or I'm going to do X, Y, or Z and that energy that misplaced energy is so forceful like that. There's a Steven pressfield as this joke about how no one's ever seen Hitler's art.
That basically, it was, it was, it was easier for Hitler to take over Germany and cotton, try to conquer the world than to be an
artist, right? That's hysterical.
And although actually it's the joke is funny. It's not actually true because you can see, Hitler's are the US government owns. Almost all of it. It's in this Vault, They seized it. After the war, they did want there to be a market for Hitler's art afterwards. But, but the idea is that, like, you know, dealing
With your shit is really hard getting good at stuff is hard, but it's easier than dealing with your shit. So, what happens is, people get really good at something. They make a lot of money. They spend a lot of time on it. Always hoping to never have to deal with the shit but that can't go on forever. Eventually rhyme to a moment where it's inescapable that the shit is there, your wife is telling you, you have to deal with it. You know, some public Scandal is telling you, you have to deal with it, you know, some haunting.
In Missouri is telling you have to deal with it. Your kids are making, whatever it is, there's something that forces you to reckon with it. And then you, you are forced to stare at this enormous thing. You've built essentially, as an escape from the thing you've been putting off doing and dealing with
usually by. Then it's become pretty big. Yes. Yes,
both of them have become quite big.
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it is.
I use the word mine. I think it's not like I sometimes separate myself from the mine because I can watch my mind. Sure. And it's really like I think the most important thing I learned from myself, I can do is always work on my mind, always be better at my mind, you know? Like and I want to go back to Seneca is I think he said like you know, you know you're really living philosophy when you're when you become a friend to yourself. Yes. Yes afraid to yourself. Yeah it's in your mind. You know what is it true Frederick sound that's like you know when I do the lumber salt stop you know that's truly like
If I love myself, what would I do? Who would I be? How would I treat myself? Right? Sure. It's in the mind, the whole show. Like, is in the mind,
I love that quote. I actually have a chapter about it in the, in the, in the new book. Disciplines Destiny. Because I think people think that discipline is all about pushing yourself further, and further, and further further harder and harder and harder. But there's an ill discipline in that. Like, if all you do is go Ryan, that's not good. Ryan. That's not good. Brian, that's not good enough. That's
Form of excess and and that is not no one. No one actually gets to Peak Performance to happiness, can to contentment Etc by telling themselves over and over again. That there are worthless piece of
shit. Yeah, that doesn't pay off in the end. Yeah, there's that. I know of.
Anyway, there's a story about clamp, he's one of the early stoic philosophers and he sort of is walking through Athens and he sees this man the man's kind of like, you know, like being very hard on himself, you know, he's
Kind of taught you. You've seen? You've seen it a million times. Not it's just, you could tell someone's in being very hard on themselves and is sort of talking out loud and clear. These goes to him and says, hey I just wanted to tell you you're not talking to a bad person meaning that he himself was not a bad and you think about what an Incredible Gift that reminder can be and how I think we can catch ourselves when we start to spiral or pylon, you know, it's like
You're not a shitty person. So why are you talking to yourself like a shitty? You would never talk to one of your friends, the way that you talk to yourself nor would you allow anyone to talk to one of your friends the way that you're talking to yourself?
It's funny red like throughout human history. The same thing. Yeah, so there's a mind. It just dealing with the mind is feeling here. The scenery changed? Yeah. But the dialogue is pretty similar, right? It's almost comical, you know, years ago.
I think it was love at the college. I saw my I went to see Maya Angelou speaking to a poetry reading. Yes, thank credible. But I was a power. She was a Powerhouse and she mentioned something before she started reading her poems. She said, thousands of years ago. A Roman poet wrote. I'm a human being. Therefore nothing, human is foreign to me. Yes. And I really remember, that's what actually like, one of the things I remember that's Terrence.
Is it
really? Yeah, he's a slave.
Yeah, that's awesome. Because that really made me go the direction in my writing was, you know what? If you know how we talked about the vulnerability? Was that a tough thing? Yeah, I studied obsessively to write a literary fiction. Like, I mean, it was like my idol, like, literary fiction. That's why I trained myself. And then I write an end of writing a book. And, you know, I all I did was collect, rejection letters and Publishers sure, right. And then, a rhyme is little book about, loving yourself and bamboo poles here.
The map as a writer. Yeah, it's kind of funny. Right? There's totally basalts that is the vulnerability. Yeah. And the inner game, not the beautiful craft of telling now, you know, stories,
but also we think it's like, you know, Hemingway's is bold, Brave courageous writer. That's what I want to emulate the sort of masculine thing and then it turns out that the thing that maybe we thought was soft or feminine is actually the scarier thing to do and therefore you actually the truer path, right?
Every way says is I actually have it right here. This is all you have to do is write one true sentence, right? The truest sentence that, you know, you know, it's not a true sentence to emulate, Hemingway doing, all the fun sexy. You know, glamorous stuff it's. Can you go deep and write the thing you're afraid to
write? Yeah. Yeah. That's true. Writing exactly right. Yeah.
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The other thing I was I was thinking about is I think about it all the time and Tim is talked about this, but you you gave Tim Ferriss. If I you were a good friend at a pivotal moment in Ferris is life which is you know he was thinking about do I do this, do I do that? You know do I keep is obviously made a fortune as a tech investor and you were basically like you are very replaceable as a tech investor. If you stop doing this, no one will care. The world will not. Look any different you should do the
And that basically only you can do which is writing is podcasts Etc. II love that advice that I do think that is also what loving yourself is. It's like, don't do the thing that's comfortable. That's rewarding that everyone else will look at without question, do the thing that's a little bit scarier? That is uniquely you. Yeah. Do the thing that only you can do
Yeah, and when you get to excessive that gives you the greatest in our report, if the ideas that are feeling and I can have success in multiple areas in life. I mean, I've had that about the greatest in a reward Council. The thing that was purely worse. Yeah, it's purely yours. Yeah. That you just kept out of that, you give to the world. I talked about that. I think everyone should experience that feeling of the cat, you
know, I was talking to David Rubenstein about this, the, the billionaire and I was saying that one of the things I notice is that all the billionaires I've met, they
I write books.
Meanwhile, every
author that I know wants to be really rich or richer than they are right? And and so there's some irony in that but it's like wait if I have the thing that people with lots of money are trying to use their money to get, right? You should maybe just stick with what you have, right? It's like what do people want to use their money for its freedom, its to feel fulfilled, Etc. Well,
The irony is that money is not always the best way to get that thing. You can have that thing more easily than you often think you
can.
Yeah. Yeah, that's it. You know what? It requires having a realist about be honest with ourselves because think, we often do like a level of honesty. I think, in some ways being in the hospital last year, gave me that I've thought a lot about honesty with oneself and I was like, oh my God, I thought I've been awesome, I thought before, but like when you're in the bottom is like, you know, that's when you're just like him nothing to lose, right? So might as well just be so honest with yourself that,
Before you would horrify yourself but even just a thought and man, I wish we can give ourselves that. I don't think we can just truly be honest with itself. We are we realized how would this is what I really want? Not what I thought I wanted. This is what I read. No,
yeah, well, have you so thinking of the advice that you gave Tim? We were like, you know, life is short. How are you going to spend that time as you came out of it, you know, Stokes talk about like okay, imagine your life is over, you've died and then magically
You come back to life, how are you gonna, how would you change that happens to you?
So what's gonna happen to me? Yeah. What what
after the recovery past? What kind of changes did you end up making as a result of the experience?
Hey, that's a great question. And I'll tell you it's because my mind ice, like, that's why I'm big on the mine because I've worked on my mind and get a, I literally had my own dog food like my, you know, I'm gay. I felt like to buy art cheese, the title, you know,
just keeps I, when I came out and now I've been just like, okay, I'm I'm living in a way, I've never lived before. I try. First of all, I'm truly grateful for every day, every day, every everything, but I've only doing what I want to do. When I want to do on my terms. I don't care what anyone desires of me if I want to do it. I do know. But no is so simple. I will cut off relationships in a
But Fred is if there are an ass to me, once I don't care, I'm too good. I don't have time for this. Yeah, it's and I would loving this like, and that allows me to get time to the ones that matter and even things, like, I tell you something funny, I woke up in November, I don't know where this came from. I thought I want to be like John Wick. So as I went for my network to Market, a dear friend of ours, you know, great guy who put me in touch with the former SEAL Team Six operator, Steve Sanders, incredibly
Like the guy's a legend very well. Decorate, highly decorated has done all this stuff. You would imagine things like the dick right and I called the guy and I tell him that I could go the other end thinking what a jackass you know like he's thinking but I think he's a great come. Come on. Let's let's see. You know, let's see what how you can train. So I showed up and I and I just showed a beginner's mind, but we didn't humble and I showed up and I'm sure start training and like I trade with them. Basically. Pull time for four months. Okay.
Every day I would shop, and he told me later on Deck is like there were days. I did not think you're going shopping things that. Hi, Jess, War your mind out, but L just saw you fall apart and then I show up the next day and what happened was, I got really good. Yeah. And the process it was like very much like the, you know, the one book that really affected me was book of five rings but my master Joshi, right? I was very much just like you, you know, do you do for yourself? You
and I became really good at combat shooting though. It's a skill. I plan on ever using. No. You know, I hope I never have to use it but what's interesting is you follow these little inklings in your head and you know, fortunately I have the collection of resources do it, but it's whatever it is. It's kind of helped me also come to life, like learning something new and challenging yourself, be challenging. It's something new in a beginner's mind, sort of way. And something I was intense. I was coming back to life at a really
Help me come back to life. And give me also different kind of confidence and never had before and I wasn't even expecting. Like I don't want to go around with a gun or anything like that, but I just gave me gave me a very interesting conference and I've always been accomplished guy. Yeah. Like, give you like, a whole level conference never had. And so we've decided that like, I'm going to do more of these things than just going to. Like, I'm going to pick something that interests me and and just find whatever I can work on it to be.
Be the best I can at it, and then challenged me. And because you just get better and better to the process in ways you never expected. Yeah, I didn't expect to fall in love with it and, and like, I really feel and I really feel it's like, I'm learning from a modern-day Samurai who's come back from the Wars hung up his sword and took out a suited for spotting like building this listens and, and is teaching him the way it's incredible.
Has it made it easier? And obviously, this is the first world thing, but
It made it easier for you to say, no to money. Like two things that could be potentially, no, no, I didn't
do anything. I only do things for certain values, right? And I don't give a shit about me, but I don't give a fuck. Yeah. Like, I literally was like, you can't that you can't dissuade me if I want to do it, but if I don't want to do it, you can't convince me, right?
Like it's actually it's a great feeling. Yeah, it's a great.
It's funny because people think like, oh, once I reach a certain level once they have a certain amount then I'll get that right? Then I'll be at a place where I only do things that I want to do and I don't do things that I don't want to do when really, it has nothing to do with what you have or don't have. And it has everything to do with some place that you can get to inside, where you don't feel a need where you have a certain kind of
Security that makes you go. Yeah, I'm not starving. So why do I have to say yes to this thing? Even though it's lucrative or even though other people are doing it, even though it crazy to say no to it. It's really hard to do.
Yeah. Because in the end, I'm proud as part of myself.
Yeah. Sure. You
know, and that allows me to actually focus on things that I think what I want. What I want is over long term will pay off bigger. You know. Like the more because it's easy to say that yes or the short-term quick money heads. Yeah. That takes you.
Away from the big long-term thing. And I like, what? But the real thing is, yeah, and careers. And anything is a long-term game, it's not a short-term gave, a lot of people, forget that especially in business where there are not the goal, I realize this is a long term game your your name, you know, and especially in small Industries, like tackle, whatever your name Bill you know people check on you. You're sad their Road and that will affect you for the rest of your life, rather the short bracket them. Yeah, I'll tell you something very interesting.
We want to share this with you on the podcast and it comes from. Obviously, someone is a billionaire. But notice, there's no money involved in this. And this I realized watching him how he lives the perfect day. And how I've started, I've started playing at the shoulders of federal applying it and and it has, but if you break it down, as nothing could do with this money, because when I first, I tell people, I call you as a billionaire for sure. I'm like, okay. But you can do this too. Okay. Yeah. So I got to hang out and it's not a big deal. There's a lot of
Will do hang on Richard grabs her for a week earlier this year, okay. Then at his eyelid and it was one day that he goes cycling at a neighboring neighbor. Gal that was it a bunch of people. Like 30 is guys very very much like Fitness in Lilliput this includes an Instagram whatever they like how are we going to go? Richard Branson going to go biking with him to connect with him going to hang out with them. I was supposed to go and call us at 5:00 a.m. I woke up. The screw this. I'm going to take that. I thought I think they went and I went to
Because that day and I've never seen a bunch of grown men cry. And moan so much. And these are very fit guys. Yeah. Woke them. Okay, smoke them and be like oh my God I was just uphill for 17 miles. We got type of oil another Hill another Hill right? So then and so then the guy I think Richard Branson's like 71 or 70 or 71, right? And he comes back and and so I made it for breakfast. You know, we hang a breakfast and it goes off because I'm going to work and I'm a demon later for us to rent them later and lung cancer.
Can I just ask them? What was he doing? Its Nevel I was working obviously the guys on Boards of companies or whatever is working, and then he was, he was really bothered by the Ukraine war really barely bought. It was still new. Yeah. And he was actually talking to European leaders about what they can do to maybe like move oil from countries that don't need it. A Gasser to one that needed to kind of like take away the balance of power from Russia. Yeah. Right and then and then after that I saw him he was out kitesurfing, it was just playing in the water.
Our kite, surfing camera, great day. And they went off had dinner with his wife and with his wife with his wife and grandkids, right? So I was like, okay, this guy, what are you doing? How did live as day? Because everyone's holy cow, this kinds of full day. Yeah, imagine living a life of these full days.
He woke up, he did something very physical than most extreme physical fitness for himself, like shit scope, witness that over time because he done it consistently over time. He's smoking. Dudes. At third two thirds is a just and very fittings. Sure. You only get that from consistency over time. First thing in the morning, Benny had obviously, had a good breakfast or whatever, then he goes and works. But says hours in, right, whatever the job is. And then he did sits down and spend a little bit of time on something that
Robinson in the world. Mmm, it could be in your community. It could be on your block. It could be in the world. Making a positive difference, he does something about it, he doesn't get a Twitter and bitch and moan about it. So busy getting arguments there was none of that node lecturing to anywhere any of buttons freely. The someone asked what he thought was right, does something about it and then he plays he makes time to play. Sure. And then gets enough quality time with his family. Yeah, that way that's
A full day. That's a great life than right here at that over time. That's up for Life. Yeah, sure. He's got to go to his grave, like having lived a full life. Yes. And I really took that away. I'm like, I've been applying that. Yeah,
yeah. The Stokes talk about how also what Memento Mori does is you don't think about like, how do I want my life to be? You think, how do I want my day to be? Because this day is itself, a complete life, right? So he's not saying on Tuesdays, I workout and Thursdays
See my family on Fridays. I do this, he's saying, how do I do? How do I have a good enough selection of all the things that provide, meaning and Challenge and connection, and happiness and fun? And how do I set up a day to do it? So if today is the end, then I had a great day and a great life if I get to do it again tomorrow. That's awesome. Right. So I think too many people think about like where they want to end up in life and they don't think how do I want to design?
Design my life day today. So that's the wind, right? People work. Yeah. Here's to sell a company to then have freedom when really, they probably be better off the safer. Bet would be, how do you design a work-life balance? That doesn't require a billion dollars at the end to do the stuff that you
want.
Yeah yeah. And you know it's like it's funny because I met you know and you know both know enough successor. Highly suggest to people some of them along the way. Figure it out. Yeah. And honestly there by that time, they matured enough that what their products are doing even better. Yes we have this myth of like the ninth year old hoodie. I mean look it takes a certain level of obsession greater than great to be a writer. You have to be a crazy. Obsessed person writer, you have to put in the hours but over time.
Time. You realize the balance. And that's what lets you create a body of work. Yeah, than that. One after you can't create the body of work. I mean some writers did but like look at their lives. None of us would want their lives. Yeah, right, yeah, yeah,
interesting. You mentioned, the family thing. You're like one of the nicest people I've met, you're the one that surprises me the most not, not that you have to do these things or don't have to do this. But you're the one that surprised me, the most that isn't married and has kids.
Yeah, that's how it kind of worked out.
No and I'll tell you one thing. This is actually one of this is your main the hospital bed. Yeah I was like okay this is I'm so there's a nice time in the hospital when is my birthday. Yeah. Okay I'm hooked up to a big painting with fentanyl and then check, it has been faithful in the hospital. It's no joke, but yeah, it was really bad, right? And that's why I asked when the, they birth in a hospital bed. My brother friend came to visit me, then they left.
And I'm just there by myself and I was like, dude, you have this long and illustrious line of falling in love, you know, while I'm deeply in love would be wonderful great and they're not working out and then just being miserable and then getting up and then doing a room where that get you and the answer was and a hospital hospital room alone on your birthday by yourself. Sure. You know what I did. All right. You know what, the definition of insanity is right if
Again, I was like, I dropped the desire, I am literally dropped an entire and with it.
I'm not saying I'm not gonna have it. Yeah, they're very capable of having it but tell you freedom and happiness, like inner happiness of lightness is from dropping desires. Sure. Drop that desire. And it's like the world's opened up to me and battery life. I want sure. So I'm actually just playing. I like, look, I just got my life back in year ago. I'm like a kid. Yeah. Lay like a kid is running around. They decide to be here rapid wrapping Christmas presents every day. Like when you lose your health that badly when you
And you have, you know, you like like you have like and I built resources so I can do whatever I want. You know, I work hard but I do whatever I want like you are literally like it's Christmas ever, you know, you want to live your life. Like it's Christmas. So that comes great. But if not I have wonderful nephews that I adore, you know, that shirt. Like and you know, women are plenty of wonderful women. This planet that?
Well, no. It's like it's like I uses
Analogies sometimes but it's like it's like golf the harder, you try it golf, the worst you are at, all right? And and yeah, I think to go to your point about samurai or shooting or archery, it's sometimes, it's your intense desire to do it a certain way that actually disrupts the flow, or the Rhythm or the naturalness of it. And so, the letting go of the willful will as the Buddhists call, it might actually open you up to do the thing that you are. Supposedly relinquishing.
Yeah, I'm not looking for it. Yeah, I'm not and you know it's like what is it like suffering comes from like not having what you desire. So if you trap it desire you just open Journal separate and in still get it. Yeah. But now it's being felt up with a and walking this Earth with an open feeling like you're open. Rather than your seeking is a far. Internally is oh my God is the best.
Yeah, well I also imagine that the new
Or the desperations wrong word. But the the, the wanting this, the expectation of a thing, it must it probably does cloud the energy and the decisions and the thinking about each thing, it makes it harder to just be fully present in whatever moment that you're in.
Yeah, I'll be open to whoever may come sure. I like it's the same in business and same in everything, like it's hard to do. But yeah, you know, they had, they had,
To write thousands of years ago we just have been basically just read what they said and I'm quiet my verses that learn at the hardware ourselves and also write books about
well then I'm so I'm so I'm so glad that you've come out of the other side of it and I do hope another book comes. I do hope another book comes from it because that is that is the unique skill that you have sort of relaying those experiences that taking the
Again, making it Universal. I hope I do hope you do it
again.
Thank you. You know what? I will start we could say it means a lot that we really appreciate
it. You're the best
you are and it's been a pleasure. And look, I said this before we started recording but look it's I didn't say this part. I've known you for about a decade now. Yeah this is like before and you could start with that we still came out whatever before your apps ability, what was the first one you? Was it? Obstacle obstacle? Yeah. Right. And so after a trust me online because
Actually, how I didn't know you then but I actually like, but you did the preset pre-order? Yeah. I got the large bundle so I can have a call with you, but she never did. This is this is the called. Yeah, yeah. So like this guy's sharp. I want to meet her, right? I mean, I'm meeting becoming friends and then watching your like how you just kept at it. Kevin Dad. I think I had it and the body of work you've built and how are you living your life actually, expressing the values, but it's incredible. I am so, like honored.
Be a friend,
likewise man.
Likewise, thank you.
Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the dailies dog podcast. I just wanted to say, we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million. People have downloaded these episodes in the couple years we've been doing it. It's an honor, please spread the word, tell people about it and this isn't to sell anything just wanted to say. Thank you.
