Welcome to the Daily stoic or each day. We read a short
passage designed to help you cultivate
the strength
Insight wisdom necessary for living the good life. Each. One of these passages is based on the 2000 year old philosophy that has guided some of History's Greatest men and women form or you can visit us daily stoic.com
Hey everyone. Thanks for listening for the last several years. I've been traveling giving talks all over the country about the ideas of my books about the ideas I research and so this quarantine has been strange for me because suddenly I'm not traveling now. I am doing so many of the interviews and calls and stuff that I'm doing over zoom. And so I was just thinking the other day I needed something to wear for these things because on a normal day. I'm just wearing a t-shirt. So I've Loved Mac weldon's tennis shirts. They've been awesome.
Lightweight, they're comfortable. They look good. It's the perfect thing for a zoom call. Mac. Weldon makes the best men's Basics not just underwear but t-shirts socks and more. They've got a great line of board short swim trunks all sorts of awesome stuff. Like I said, I picked up to collared shirts just the other day and I'm rotating them during my zoom calls and zoom interviews got some mac Weldon slippers that I like got some mac Weldon, pajama pants that I like they even have their own totally free loyalty program called Weldon blue.
With great rewards for frequent purchasers at level 1 you get free shipping for life. And once you spend 200 bucks you reach level 2 and you get 20% off every single order for the next year get 20% off your first order today just visit Mac Weldon.com stoic and enter promo code stoic. That's Mac Weldon.com stoic promo code stoic. Hey, it's Ryan holiday. Welcome to another episode of The Daily Stoke podcast, as you know, in stoicism. We make a big distinction.
Between what they call the pen and ink philosophers and then the real philosophers Socrates is a is a real philosopher. You doesn't write anything down. So he's not a pen-and-ink philosopher, but he is a soldier he is a thinker he is a doer Marcus Aurelius right is not just a reader and a lover of books. But he's the emperor of Rome. He's a real man doing real things James Stockdale Admiral James Stockdale, we've talked about before is sort of the penultimate example of this not just a student of Epictetus he
He's introduced to Epictetus his philosophy at Stanford. But ultimately tests the those philosophical ideas as he says in the laboratory of human experience as a PO W in Vietnam credible person someone I profiled lives of the stoics as well. And so my guest today I think is a man whose name deserves to be among those philosophers. I just mentioned Jocko willing number one New York Times bestselling author decorated us.
Navy SEAL Commander credible human being leadership consultant great writer. I'm a big fan of this book here discipline equals freedom of field manual. He also is the author of extreme ownership that dichotomy of leadership and his leadership and tactics Field Manual as well. Just a great guy. You've probably heard him on Joe Rogan on Tim Ferriss. Maybe you've seen some of his incredibly viral videos If you're looking for sort of the embodiment of this this sort of practical still quiz,
Them even if it's not explicitly rooted in the philosophy itself watches YouTube video where he talks about good he's talking about this Soldier coming up to him. Hey, there's this problem. There's this problem. There's this problem each time Jocko just says to good right? That's what this idea of the obstacle being the way is how do you respond to the problems? You don't just throw up your hands. You don't just write them off you deal with them you work with them you make something happen from them Jocko is a testament to that entrepreneur as I said writer consultant. He's managed to have all these
Different successful careers a renaissance man, if you will and it was an honor to have him on the podcast and one of the reasons I reached out is that I was thinking about him because I was just writing something and a line from a discipline equals Freedom popped into my head. He says, how do you get over fear you go and I thought you know what? I'm going to shoot jock own email. So I did he responded and Jocko was nice enough a few months ago during the pandemic. I told him that I just finished reading his book The Way of the warrior kid with my oldest son, and he said no no your kids waiting.
Too young and he sent me my key and the dragons which is other awesome kids book. So if you've got young kids and you want to expose them to something at least adjacent to stoke wisdom. So check it out. The Jocko willing podcast is great as well. Check out his YouTube videos. And of course, we'd his amazing books. I'm so honored have Jocko on the podcast today. Here we go. I was curious. Obviously, you're sort of well-known for your morning routine. I saw I saw you got up at the at the normal 4:50 a.m. This morning. What does the what does it?
Perfect day for Jocko look like if you're totally in control of your schedule and as an entrepreneur in a sense you are what does that day? Look like to
you. Wake up workout surf do some work either right or get ready for a podcast talk to some clients and go to jiu jitsu and eat a
steak. I need a steak. Does that order matter for you? Like do you like to do those things in the same order or it can you Shuffle the
deck? All right. I kind of like that.
Order yeah, I kind of like that
order. Yeah for me. It's like I got to do the writing creative exercise stuff ideally before as much as I like working with clients. I want to I want to have done my stuff first. Is that how it is for you?
I don't know. I it's weird. You know, I don't know if I I don't have like some creative mode that I go into. I don't I just for me it's really mechanical of I already know.
Going to write and it's just finding the hour to sit down and write a thousand words. That's what it is for me when it comes to writing. So it's not like I have to sit in a space or get into a mode to to come up with ideas. I just I just have too many ideas that I want to write about. So I'm just picking them and going with them and that's the way it is for me. So I don't really have like a creative thing that I go into so I got doesn't matter when I'm writing it and and, you know, probably
The same as you I mean I've written most of my books on Planes Trains and Automobiles sitting in hotel rooms, you know sitting in the airport lounges that's where I wrote him till you know, it is what it is.
No, I do think people who have not written or intimidated by the creative profession and then a lot of people were sort of obsessed with the maybe the glamour or the myth of it forget that it's a job and you show up every day and you do it and that's really the most important thing. Everything else is kind of
Pause. Yeah, my literary agent is a super smart woman, you know, obviously she I think she she went to an Ivy League school and she and I was talking to her one day. This was after she'd been my literary agent for a couple years and she you know, we were having dinner and she says well, you know, I went to Yale and she went to Yale. So she went to Yale and I would you study literature and history and I said, why don't you write books and she said when I look at
the page I have like I don't know what to put there and I realized you know, I when I look at the page, I've got like a million things I want to put on there and I had just have to narrow it down. So I think I'm pretty lucky in that respect that there's a bunch of ideas running around and they're wanting to get out.
No, I think the rare thing for a writer is not the training. It's like having something to say and I've got to imagine your life experiences and and all that you've seen and done is primarily what drives that not you're not your love of putting the
In a certain order.
Yeah, and and then you're right though to get back to your point. It's a it's a I mean, it's a job. I kind of have a hard time I guess even without word because it doesn't seem like it's a real hard job, you know you but the weird thing is is it might not be that hard but a lot of people they have a vision of something that they want to write but they never get in front of the word processor and right. So yeah, it is a job. You got to get the mechanical for me what I say. It's like it's almost like
Manual labor, it's manual labor for me. I'm not really thinking about what I'm writing. I'm just I'm getting those words out onto the page and obviously go back and edit because you know, the things don't come out perfect their first time usually so
what know and I think what I like about your stuff is there is an authenticity to it. I mean, even when I saw the dichotomy of leadership, I was like that that is just a blunt asked title that he was not thinking about you know, I what I love about your stuff and I think it's Anna.
It's a testament to the actual quality of the message. Is that it? There is a Workman like quality to it. I don't mean that in a condescending way just seems like you said what you wanted to say. And that's the most important thing.
Yeah, there's no a/b testing on which title I'm going to run. It's like this is the
title. Right? No, I so I imagine that decisiveness has served you well, but but I obviously you had your you had your first career and was it was it weird for you or harm?
Our door I'm curious about that transition as you as you go from Navy SEAL Commander the Armed Forces World to entrepreneurship to writing. Those are those are other careers that require their own kind of Mastery have their own kind of logic and a lot of people get their ass kicked transitioning from one one career to the other. How did you think about sort of starting a new thing essentially from scratch? I just kind of
apply
The same principles that I applied in the military, you know, I try to keep things simple. I tried to help people out so cover and move, you know, I basically did the things that are that are in my books and and I'd say from like the transition from the transition perspective. I always tell veterans and I guess you could say this to anyone that's leaving one life and entering another one is you got to find a new Mission and it's very obvious in the
Terry when you're in the military you have a mission you're surrounded by people that have the same Mission. It's a it's an honorable mission that you're trying to accomplish. And so when you leave the military all of a sudden you don't have that mission anymore. And if you don't find a new Mission, well, then you're wandering around and you'll take the path of least resistance. So I found a new Mission which was teaching people about leadership and then that just kind of
once I once I had that
going
You know, it's another thing that you do in the military when you're in the military when you assess an enemy you are looking for what you're looking for is weakness that the enemy has and then you apply some pressure that weakness and if you can if you can break through then you then you exploit that and you put more troops in that area in the civilian sector have found the same thing. I'm not I'm not looking for weakness, but I'm looking for opportunities and when there's opportunities, then I'll put more resources against those opportunities and as long as it continues
He's going the right direction all continue to do that thin if but I mean, you know, you've got to send out probes see if something works if something doesn't work, and I'm interested in a lot of different things. So when I see something I like I tried if I start getting some good feedback. I'll go a little bit further.
Yeah, and I've got to imagine that the mission and then also that idea of finding of applying your strengths to the weakness of the enemy or the market or whatever. It is is really important because what a lot of people do I find when you transition from something you go. Hey, I'm really good at this.
Therefore I'm going to be great at whatever I do next you like there's a humility and going like hey, I've got to figure out where I fit in here where the best use of my time and energy as opposed to just assuming that that Mastery automatically translates from one domain to the other you got it
and I'll take that one step further. It's one thing to say. Hey, I'm really good at this thing and therefore the world should conform to
To support the thing that I'm good at like doesn't work that way you can be good at something in the world doesn't need it. And I'm sorry, you know, I've said that to friends that I've had that are really good at Brazilian jiu-jitsu if they were that good at basketball, they'd be you know, making twenty million dollars a year. They happen to be that good at Jujitsu. They don't make any money from it. The world doesn't conform to you. Unfortunately,
right? Yeah. It's like hey, look you're a classical musician. You're not going to be as famous as the Rolling Stones. That's just how the
Align, but I think also your point about weaknesses that doesn't mean you can't be there's not extraordinary opportunities to be successful as a classical musician. You just have to be willing to find those and work at them. And I think that's the other thing that people will hey I should be a successful writer you put out a book doesn't sell any copies and they're like, oh this it's impossible. It's like no just you tried the wrong Avenue the first time and there's 50 other avenues left to explore.
Yeah, it's a it's a scary thing. When you think you have the best idea ever and then you realize that maybe it wasn't the best
idea ever
right? It's hard to admit that to yourself and it's hard not to blame the world for not understanding your idea and not appreciating your Brilliance. And sometimes that's the way it works out.
So speaking of Transitions and then the world maybe not appreciating I'd be curious say obviously I love your good video. What would you say?
Say
to someone who's add their ass kicked the last four or five months, maybe the their industry went sideways. They lost their job. Maybe they saw their stock market portfolio. Go sideways. Like what would you say to someone who's sort of reeling from the events of the
pandemic? Yeah. So from the I have a Consulting business to work with a bunch of businesses and the clients that accepted the reality that was upon us the fastest. They made the quickest changes in adapted.
And the people that decided that well this isn't going to last or it's this isn't a big deal or we're going to just keep doing what we're doing because it's always worked. Those people are going to have problems and really just comes down to having humility because if you're humble enough to say, you know what I'm not perfect. I don't know everything. I'm not sure how long this is going to last then then you start to make adjustments. If you if you let your ego get out and you start saying well, you know, I've been through this kind of thing before
Or and you know, I remember the whatever virus and it's not that big of a deal and everything will be fine. And besides look, you know and look we could find new sources that actually support any possible opinion that you can we have you can verify it and that doesn't mean it is true. So, you know, I think it's come down to if people have been getting their ass kicked over the last four or five months. Well guess what it's time to adjust your plan and attack from a different direction.
Yeah, one of my favorite Marcus
Alias quotes and I think it ties into your message and he it's weird to think he was writing during the antonine plague a plague that lasts for 15 years and ultimately he ends up succumbing to it at the end of his Reign, but you know, he writes a he's like no, it's unfortunate that this happens and then he says no no way. It's fortunate that it happens to me because not everyone would have basically what I have and he's talks about sort of that that strength is the ability to
Okay, whatever happens and say sort of this is exactly what I was looking for. So like how do you tell companies to go? Like look? Yeah. I know you just had to close 50% of your locations or you've had to lay this amount of staff off or you know, you're not going to be doing live events for the next year and a half. How do they find in that what they're looking for?
I've had this very conversation with a with a bunch of different clients. And that is well, you know folks here's what we can do.
We can curl up in a ball and get under the covers on on the couch and hide or we can go on the attack. So what do you want to do? You want to go on the attack or do you want to curl up in a ball and let the world fall apart around you? I say we go on the attack and that's pretty much a pretty much what everyone realizes they have to do. You have to say Okay. This is the new reality. This is what I'm dealing with and this is how we're going to go forward, you know, I on my podcast and I've been very lucky to have some some pretty incredible people on.
And and and also cover some pretty incredible subjects tonight.
I did a series of podcasts about there's a guy named chesty puller who is kind of the biggest hero in the Marine Corps five Navy crosses. Just the were the the probably the most iconic of all Marines sure, his son was in the Marine Corps to and his son wasn't quite the same kind of hearty stock that a test bowler was Louis polar was more of a cerebral guy. He had glasses. He just he just wasn't this
Sort of Marines Marine, which is what his father was but you know, he joined the Marine Corps and then he went to Vietnam 1968 and he ended up getting severely wounded. It's a trip totally tragic story and he ended up he ended up killing himself after he wrote an Incredible Book, which is called Fortunate Son and it seemed like everything was going in the right direction. The book came out Pulitzer Prize winner. Well, I had a had another guy on my podcast who was also wounded in Vietnam.
Vietnam he lost both of his legs and one of his arms. His name is Jim Searles Lee just an incredible guy and to hear him. Tell the story.
You're waiting for sort of the tragic tone in his voice to come out and it doesn't come out and then he gets home from Vietnam. And now you're thinking you know, here's going to come the tragic tone in his voice and it doesn't come and instead he's saying, you know, so I had to spend nine months in rehab just to learn how to work my wheelchair and then and then I got out of there. I went to college when I went to college. I started a little roofing company and your he's just saying this like it's no big deal started a roofing company started getting into real estate.
State got married, and so he carried on with his life and and just just LED this incredible life and incredible life. And the reason I'm telling you all this is because when we got done with the podcast and and we were just sitting around and talking and he asked me he goes, do you know who Louis polar is and I go yes, sir. I do. I did a podcast on him and he goes I was in rehab with him. We were in the same facility learning how to
If without legs and he goes and I had to also learn to live without one arm and and Louis polar had some bad damage to his hands. So we were both kind of in the same boat.
And he said, you know what happened to him, right? And I said, yes, sir. I do and he said, you know, he never fully accepted what happened to him?
He said I think he was at 99% He said when I got home I 100% accepted that this is what happened and I'm going to move forward. So I think that ties into what we're talking about, you know things unfold in life and if you want to sit there and you know, shake your fist at the sky and you know, I understand that and you know, I've done that and I know we all do that, but if that's what you continue to do.
You're not going to be able to move forward.
Yeah, I mean in speaking of incredible soldiers. I was just writing about Admiral Stockdale this morning, which is sort of obviously the connection to my work and stoicism and that's sort of what he talks about in his book on being a philosophical fighter pilot, you know, he talks about the sort of radical acceptance of your situation on the one hand and then on the other the unshakable faith that you determine the
the end of your story and that to me seems like the difference in the two lives that you were just talking about.
Yeah, and I'll tell you this, you know, so is another thing so obviously my first book is called Extreme ownership and you know, you take ownership of everything that's going on in your world and that gives you the power to actually move it in the right direction and then people started saying to me and it actually wasn't the first time I heard this question before because you know, people say well, how do I take ownership of this disease? Well, I'd heard this question, you know, as soon as the book came out and I started interacting with people.
People would say, you know, my daughter has cancer my you know, my eight-year-old daughter has cancer. How am I supposed to take ownership of that or I have leukemia how am I supposed to take ownership of that? And the fact of the matter is it's the similar thing of Jim seriously, you don't take ownership of the fact that that happens your daughter you take ownership of how you're going to respond to it. Right? How you going to move forward? So that's a very powerful lesson and you know, I'm not sure what you're working on right now.
But a friend and a friend of mine named Charlie Plum spent six years in the Hanoi Hilton with Admiral Stockdale and I'd be more than happy to put you in touch with him just an incredible guy and and an epic stoic of his
own. No, I would I would absolutely love that. I had the privilege of talking to Stockdale son a few weeks back and you can see just how that lesson passes from person to person from, you know pow2 poww father to son how
So you would have been exposed to stock Tails example in the Navy. I'm just curious. I know you've been asked that a little bit before but what do you think about stoicism? I mean, obviously you're a big reader. Do you is that is that a philosophy you identify with or what do you think about it?
Yeah. So the crazy thing about me Ryan is I enlisted in the Navy out of high school. I I listened to Motorhead. You know, I was I was I was in
Hardcore music as a kid, I listened to black men fan Black Flag the Bad Brains. I mean I listened to really hard music. I had no, you know, you said, you know, obviously a reader I didn't I didn't read books. I wasn't in any of that. I didn't like school. I just wanted to go in the military. Wanted to be some kind of a Commando even when I got in the military the closest I mean, what I would read was books about war books about and generally first person account about accounts about war so
When I started realizing that there was other people that were thousand that had come thousands of years before me that had figured out things like discipline equals Freedom, which I thought you know, look it's not like I thought I thought of this and no one else thought of it but no one else put that into my head. I just was like, oh, yeah, the more discipline you are the more freedom you have sure well, it's in stoicism. It's in the Bible. I mean people have said all kinds that that type of thing over and over again.
So to say that I was you know, well schooled on this stuff and this is where I developed this and I'm a follower of it is just not true. I can't I can't I can't make that claim what I can tell you is this and I had this interesting conversation with
Well, I think I had it with Tim Ferriss and I think I had a worth with Jordan Peterson as well, which is when you take some human being and you put them into tough situations and they're able to muddle their way through it. And then if you take it and it's a tough situation that happens to be a military situation and then you take that person and you put them in a leadership position in a military situation and they're going through hard times.
You you kind of have this framework written and it's not that big of a surprise that when you get the product of that there's a lot of overlaps and similarities. So, you know, I've covered so much so much war on my podcast and ancient philosophers of war and all I'm doing is saying oh, yeah. Here's the way this guy that was in China 2000 years ago said the same thing that I tried to say, you know.
Five years ago when I wrote this book or three years ago, when I wrote this book are a year ago when I wrote this other book, so I can't see like I said, I feel like a I feel like a poser if I say well, yes. I'm an obvious, you know of follower of the stoics. I'd be a poser and I would be a liar if I said that when I read stoicism I go. Yeah. Well, I'll be asleep all this make sense.
Hey, it's Ryan got a quick message from one of our sponsors.
And then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned. Honestly. It's been so long. I don't even remember when I first signed up for Thrive Market, but it's basically been a part of our sort of grocery day-to-day life now for so long that we didn't even skip a beat when the pandemic happened. We've not had to go to the grocery store now in months and months and months because we get awesome healthy food delivered safely to our door Thrive markets got high quality Home Goods, like dish soap bath tissues more all produced.
Sustainably all sorts of products for various diets and value systems. So whether you're vegan paleo you avoid GMO or gluten Thrive Market has you covered they've got Pet Food vitamins diapers everything the family could need and not only do I like all the stuff but the savings are amazing Thrive Market helps you save 20 to 50% off traditional retail prices and their carbon neutral shipping is free for orders over $49. Plus they provide and they've done this since the beginning a free membership for someone in need every time a paid membership is purchased that helped someone
in a food desert get access to healthier better groceries delivered to their door and their covid-19 Relief Fund has raised over seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars to date you can go to thrive market.com daily stoic right now join today, you get a free gift of your choosing with the $20 value. That's Thrive Market. Thr, I ve market.com daily Stoke to start a risk free membership and get a free gift today Thrive market.com stoic now. It's a
Relate to that my I think my introduction to history and and poetry and some of these big sort of epic themes came from my love of Iron Maiden in high school and you're like, oh, you know, like like people who are cool are interested in this stuff too. And I think that's kind of the problem with philosophy. We think philosophy is this sort of abstract, you know, turtleneck University Professor talking about big words, but really the great philosophers weather there.
Zen Buddhist, you know Samurai Warriors or whether their Marcus Aurelius leading troops into battle. We're sort of Warriors or at the very least people struggling with real problems and real world.
Yeah, no doubt about it. And I think when people struggle through real problems in the real world and they act in an admirable way, I think generally that that's a pretty tight group of pretty tight shot group that you're going to end up with because look you can be you can go through those hard times and be turned into
A horrible person, right? Yeah, but if you come out you you handle it in an honorable way then that tightens up the group pretty well
now it's like virtue is virtue and I think I thought the I sort of liken it to Evolution. It's like different animals like pandas and apes both have opposable thumbs birds and bats can both fly They Don't Really share common ancestors. It's just like it was important to have those things. So the independently invented them and I think it's like you can you can intuitively stumble.
Upon these philosophical like John McCain didn't study stoicism Admiral Stockdale. Did they both figure out the same way to behave in the in in the
Hilton exactly, right? Yep. I like that that analogy of the bats and the birds. It's a hundred percent.
Right? So you mentioned discipline and freedom. That's one of my favorite books of yours. I love it. It reminds me of the the the Metallica Black album was that it was a deliver dommage.
On the on the on the cover
not a not a deliberate omage on the cover because I mean, I'm one of those people that when that album came out, you know, I was going oh, you can't force too soft. What kind of person what do I what is Metallica do in making songs that are only three minutes long? They've sold out so it wasn't so much that it was but definitely there's some I would say there's some old old hardcore music roots in the cover of that then yeah,
so I was curious. So obviously the sort of Spartan lifestyle. It lends itself well to the warrior lifestyle and that you know your
He posted it some far-flung posting you're traveling or moving around as you've gone and become more successful. Now that you are, you know, you have autonomy over your life, you know financially scare, you know, and as far as what you work on what you don't work on. How is that been challenged how you know, I love the Eisenhower quote, which I think you were subconsciously or independently discovering. He says freedom is better defined as the opportunity for
Self-discipline. How is your success? Have you wrestled with
that? It's not really a big deal. I really am doing the same things right now that I've that I've always done. You know, I just I've always done kind of the same things. I
in fact kind of wear the same clothes that
I've always worn. I'm just sort of you know, I don't really I'm pretty boring. I'm pretty boring and I just do what I do. So there's been no, you know,
Major challenges in that Arena as far as you know succumbing to some sort of see, you know, there's no I'm not I'm not going any clubs and getting bottle service with a bunch of you know, 20 year olds. It's not it's not happening. I'm a grown man and does not not doing that kind of stuff.
No I Bacchus what I mean is that there are more Temptations and I don't necessarily mean Temptations of the flesh. It's just you know that there's the Temptation for
Since to be complacent after one has accomplished, you know things that other people would you just in your career as a writer you've accomplished what people have been working for 30 or 40 years at have yet to even sniff. So I guess I'm saying this how do you stay discipline on top of it? I get being boring. But how do you stay tight? When you don't when when you you don't have to
I guess I feel that I do have to I don't.
You know, I don't feel like I'm really done anything. That's all that great. So and even more than that, I don't really think about that. You know, I like I said earlier when it comes to you know, you mentioned writing when it comes to writing. I've got a lot of other things in my head that want to come out so I'm going to get him out when it comes to the podcast. I've got podcast that I want to do books I want to do on their people interview. So I'm going to do them when it comes to Consulting companies. I mean, it's it's incredible.
Gratification when you work with a company and they're able to align their leadership get everyone on board and move forward and improve their their profitability and grow their business and that's very gratifying. So I just kind of do what I'm doing. I don't really even I don't I guess maybe I'm having a hard time with a question because I don't even really it's just not I don't I'm not really there. I don't feel like I'm there. I don't feel like I'm in some situation where
Don't have anything else to do I guess
no, I think I get it. It's like the next mountain is too attractive to you to celebrate being on top of the mountain that you just climbed like you're always looking at like I've one of the things for instance I think about my books. I always have the next book that I'm working on before the the one comes out so that way I'm indifferent either way if it sells like crazy cool. I'm busy if you know if people are upset about it or it's slow finding its audience like who cares? I'm busy.
Yeah, I got a contract. You know, I'm always thinking about like, you know in a way routine does the same thing. It's like you wake up each day. These are the things you have to do. You're not regretting yesterday and you're not worried about tomorrow.
Yeah. Yeah, when I wrote discipline equals freedom, I asked my as we were going down the road. I asked my pop my publisher I said, hey, is this the biggest risk? You've taken with a book. He's like, oh my God. This is far away. This is this I've never done anything. No one's ever heard anything like
This was totally crazy. And and I was just kind of was like, oh that's interesting. Maybe no no by it. And I don't know I didn't really I thought it was just going to be a cool book and I thought it was going to get out certain part of what I think about two people if they wanted it and I wasn't too concerned about it. But yeah, I mean even before that one came out I was right in the next one. So
when I imagine what you've been through turns down the stakes on putting out a book a little bit.
Yeah, and also I guess as you kind of mentioned, you know, there's people that write books and they went to college to write books and they've gotten critique from people and they go to workshops and all this stuff. And I mean I didn't I look I was an English major in college. I will say that and I wrote a bunch and I read a bunch in college, but you know, I didn't I didn't make these incredible, you know sacrifices of trying to write and being frustrated and
trying to sell my
manuscript.
Like all those things that are normal writer has to go through I have to go through any of it, which is which is I guess also takes it to like I'm kind of just okay, some people want my books cool. I'm stoked on that and the fact that they've done pretty well. I'm super stoked. So if I wrote a bomb tomorrow,
Then I'll smile and be like, hey luck ran out now. I don't still right more. I mean, it doesn't matter. I'm not writing not.
I'm not writing just so people buy books, you know
and an example, that
is the discipline equals freedom field manual. You wouldn't write that book thinking. Okay. This is what people are looking for. You wouldn't do that. That doesn't make it you bring that book to any whatever marketing expert and they would they would be like, okay. No, let's say this in a number of other direction and one in fact, one of the covers that they proposed to me was this metallic?
Alec diamond plate covering that looked like it was a piece of metal there like this is so awesome. And I said hey, I will say it looks cool and everything but no like it's not cool.
No, I think not having your identity tied up in the results allows you to sort of I think stay a bit true or to what you actually want to do one last question for you because when we were talking about this a little bit before we started, but I was telling you
My son loves your loves out of the way of the warrior kid. He can recite a bunch of the bunch of the different laws and a couple weeks ago. I had on the podcast. I had a professor who sort of focuses on teaching the classics two kids and her point was these sort of myths kind of like what Jordan Peterson talks about these myths these sort of big moral lessons are really really important. But when I compare like the way the warrior kid to most kids books the big distinction
Ian I have is that you know, you're not talking about, you know, Silly ridiculous things. You're trying your teaching very serious lessons mostly that. Hey you're responsible for your own life. You know, these are your obligations as a human like it what we were talking about. You don't control what happens you control how you respond was that sort of a conscious effort having been through this with your kids that like, hey people aren't teaching these things and I got to do it
a hundred percent Yeah a hundred percent and I'll tell you what,
Was things that happened with that book is I got a letter from a guy and I forget all the details but it was basically Hey, listen six months ago. I was overweight. I was drinking every night. I was in my dead-end job wasn't getting anywhere just blah blah blah and he said I read your book. I you know, I stopped drinking every day. I started eating cleaner. I started actually putting effort in it work. I got a promotion I've lost.
38 pounds, I feel great, you know his whole life turned around and then he says the book I read was way of the warrior kid and houses I said, you know, that's pretty awesome. And I've had many many people say hey, I know I'm getting more out of this than my kids are and yeah, it was its absolute absolutely a conscious effort and each one of the books as you know, as you read each one of the warrior kid books in The Warrior could series they each have a specific theme or actually have several specific.
Lessons that I'm trying to teach the kids and yes, I went through that with my own kids and many of the little stories in there are based on the real situations that I went through with my own kids.
Yeah. I think it's weird people I think people and my kids only for so when I when I told you we'd read the book he said, oh you should read this younger one. I think that's another interesting thing is like we so baby our kids when it comes to books. Meanwhile, you know, 1500 years ago. Our kids would have been
Able to recite the Odyssey and they would have read you know xenophon and they would have read all these crazy, you know stories about war and history and dragons and demons and and and now we're like here let me let me tell you this book about a kid making pizza, you know, like and then we wonder why they don't pick up these important lessons and and don't aspire to great things.
Yeah. Yeah. I think you can definitely
Well you what one thing I've said about kids is the more you help your kids the more you're hurting your kids. And and obviously I'm not talking about, you know, leaving them in danger. But if you do everything for your kids and you spoon-feed them, they're never need know how to fend for themselves and that's not going to be a good thing
chapter. You're the best. It was an honor to talk to you. I appreciate
everything. Yeah, I appreciate it. Sorry. We didn't get I know we were close to doing this in person in San Diego and I think I've gone so next time we'll do it
face-to-face for sure. I'd love that right?
No, man, if you're liking this podcast, we would love for you to subscribe. Please leave us a review on iTunes or any of your favorite podcast listening apps. It really helps and tell a friend.