#419: Ryan Holiday — How to Use Stoicism to Choose Alive Time Over Dead Time

Optimal minimal. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a personal question? Now it is. A cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal empty scale. Sure.

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Well hello, boys and girls, cats and dogs, lemurs and squirrels. This is Tim Ferris. And welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. This is a special quarantine edition, as has been common recently. And it includes a conversation with my good friend Ryan Holiday. Specifically, he had asked me if he could interview me about stoic philosophy, how to apply it in our current uncertain times, how I am using certain tenets from people like Seneca and others to calm my nerves and

And not just survive, but perhaps benefit from this time in some fashion. So who is Ryan? Ryan Holliday on Twitter and Instagram at RyanHolliday is one of the world's foremost thinkers and writers on ancient philosophy and its place in modern life. He is a sought after speaker and strategist and the author of many best selling books, including The Obstacle is the way. Which I loved so much. I was the producer of the audiobook, The Obstacle Is Way, Ego is the Enemy, and The Daily Stoic. His books have been translated into more than thirty languages. His books have also been used by some of the top performing sports coaches in the world, many, many names you would recognize, also in the military, and have sold close to three million copies worldwide. He lives with his family outside of Austin, Texas. You can subscribe to receive his writing at RyanHoliday.net and dailystoic.com. Ryan has also

been a popular guest poster or guest author on my blog, and you can find a number of those, including Stoicism 101. a practical guide for entrepreneurs on Tim.blog. Just search his name, Ryan Holiday, and it it will pop right up. He was also the fourth ever guest on this podcast in the very beginning, many years ago. His latest book is Stillness is the Key, which was an instant number one New York Times bestseller and Wall Street Journal bestseller. Please enjoy.

Alright, so I was thinking so we last talked uh podcast related in January. And uh man, life comes at you fast. I don't think uh Yeah. The three great correctors. of human population.

War Pestilence and famine and we certainly have Number two in abundance and uh scaling rapidly. So things have changed quite a lot since January. Yeah. And and I was so I was curious, uh as someone who is a longtime fan of the stoics like yourself, ha how How have you been thinking about these sort of ancient ideas or ancient strategies for dealing with

What is a Very timeless ancient problem. Well first thing I did. was I looked into my stored belongings. Because I moved from

California to Austin, Texas. Three years ago, four years ago, but the vast majority of my stuff is still in storage. And I had been sent as a gift a bust of Seneca that was still wrapped in bubble wrap. So I tracked that down. Open it up.

And put it in an upstairs where we tend to spend my girlfriend and I mornings. Yeah. So I I think that There are a whole lot of different ways to attempt to answer this. And

I will begin with putting someone like Seneca, although he's a very crafty funny character so we could spend a whole lot of time on him specifically Marcus Aurelius and so on. As ideals that I on some level strive to emulate. And I think the word Ideal is important because

It is very easy to beat yourself up for not being stoic or resilient or calm enough. Which in and of itself is very unstoic. So it can turn into this spiral of self loathing related to not being one could say stoic enough or simply calm enough. And so so the first is to really recognize that these are ideals that I'm striving

But that they're not a pass fail hurdle. Sure. in that in in that resec in that respect. The second is I've been doing a lot of Rehearsal So premeditatio malorum. rehearsing of the worst case scenarios and

combining that with the fear setting exercise that I I tend to do, which is really just a written practice of writing out the worst case scenarios, what you could do to decrease the likelihood of them happening, what you could do to decrease the damage if they do happen, et cetera, et cetera. And a big part of that for me has been Deeply envisioning the worst case scenarios and what they would not just look like but feel like to observe and experience. So I I'll give a concrete example. As is the case for many people and is the case for me, I have seen my stock portfolio drop, I don't know, let's call it Seventy percent in value in certain cases. And

I had a a good line of sight into coronavirus and its growth. quite early on and began writing about it publicly in Wanna say second week of February.

But had been tracking it prior to that. So I was able to sell A portion of my stock Uh let's just call it February twenty twenty one, whichever was the closest weekday, trading day. And then I decided to hold the rest. Now that could prove to be a terrible, terrible, terrible decision, right? This could be the worst financial decision of my life. Could be.

But after lots and lots and lots of discussion and lots of number crunching and lots of thinking about it, I decided to to hold on with the belief that and in this case I'm referring to Uber That I was an early advisor to. So it represents a disproportionate

Now this video will be trapped in the amber, so people will go back and say, What a fucking idiot. If it turns out poorly. But the decision making process I felt Was Reasonable. I felt like it was uh defensible. Now at the time the stock was trading around forty dollars price per share.

And the wh I was talking to this much more experienced investor and he said, if you're going to hold this, you need to commit to yourself to hold for at least five years. And you should expect that the stock will go down to twenty Now at the time it was about forty.

Not necessarily inconceivable, but probably far off in the distance. Yeah. And he said, When it hits twenty and fifteen, you are going to want to sell more than you do now. Mm. And you need to prepare for that. And that's what I did. So I I really mentally committed to holding For an extended period of time. I prepared myself for

Fifteen dollars a share. two weeks later, two and a half weeks later would actually hit fourteen dollars a share or close to it. And That is the I have had many struggles throughout this coronavirus experience and considering the ramifications, not just for me, but for my family. I have family members in the service industries, for instance.

for the economy for people who are far less fortunate. And I've s I've I've struggled a lot in certain areas, but the areas where I have not struggled are the places where I have rehearsed to the extent possible what might happen. So I'm sure that has been

one of the most powerful stoic Practices. uh that I've been using in the last certainly two months. Well, I've got a bunch of stuff. So this is my Marcus Aurelius statue. Uh I bought this when I was riding the obstacles of the way. So this this is Uh

From what from what I read about it, this this statue's from eighteen forty. So I I like looking at it. And then thinking like okay, this stat this literal piece of stone survived through cholera epidemics, smallpox epidemics, polio, the Spanish flu, the flu of the nineteen fifties. So I like thinking about not just like okay, uh who are your ideals But then also How have humans gotten through like w what sort of totems or reminders can you have that like

Oh, life goes on. Like I I'm talking to you from my office, and I I my office was built. In eighteen eighty, I think. So like this office Got through you know, the Spanish flu, the first world war, the second world war, you know, the cold war. And I you know what I mean? I think ta like part of one of the things I think the stoics would ask us to do is like zoom way out and sort of be reminded that like, hey, as bad as it is, like history does go on, there's no guarantee you and I will be a part of that history, but like

You know what I mean? Like we'll either get through it or we won't. Um Yeah, absolutely. I'm curious about the the stock market thing,'cause that's something I was gonna ask you,'cause one of the things I'm dealing with, I think the the loss aversion is a big part of it and and it's hard for people to manage. Um w what I'm struggling with is kicking myself, so

I wasn't as early as you, but we you and I had some conversations. And so uh I took it seriously. I went and stocked up on food, I cut back on my travel. I basically said, like, hey, I'm sort of a buy and hold kind of a guy, uh, and don't have the the the exposure that you do to to some of those stocks. But but the thing I I said is like hey this is gonna be bad But it's not gonna be literally it's not gonna be the worst. Decline in market history.

You know, uh I didn't think that so I didn't do anything. Um and so one of the things I'm struggling with is like regret. You know what I mean? Uh And and I'm wondering sort of what you how how you deal with Some of that like do are you mad that you didn't sell more? Like h how are you dealing with

Decisions you made. that you can't undo, but now you have a lot of time to sit and think about them. Yeah. Well that's the nature of all decisions, right? I mean the as I understand the etymology of the word to decide a a decision is like an incision. It is a cutting away. So once you have Cut away. Now that could be some fake attributed to Mark Twain and uh

Abe Lincoln type quote. Maybe Oscar Wilde if we're on the Internet. Netheless, that's that's what I've I've been told before, so all of our decisions are irreversible, uh in at least temporarily speaking. This is something that I didn't grapple with until reasonably far After

The the COVID nineteen and coronavirus came onto the main stage, so to speak. When campaigning in in part for the cancellation of South by Southwest, which uh brings four hundred thousand plus people to Austin. And was be I I was just attacked by almost all sides and

viewed as an alarmist, as Fill in the blank. Uh I did not have trouble with that. Because I felt like the data were on my side. Uh, but I was so focused, and I think rightly so, on my

household on my family, on my girlfriend and her family, and ensuring that everyone were prepared that I did not I I really wasn't looking at say investment as as an example. So uh Now there are and and I in so part of the reason I'm not beating myself up is that I at the time at least in retrospect I was beating myself up for a while, then I realized, well, do I even have the toolkit to have taken advantage of that? Effectively. And by take advantage of that one might

Well, I think that's the same. It turns out it's very easy to get your face ripped off trying to short the market. And it it's very, very easy to lose that game. Or at least those bets.

And so I have fr I ha I do have friends who are career investors who have the toolkit to take advantage of something like this. I gave them a heads up. That I I sh I I gave them a preview of what was coming early.

So let's call it late January or early February. And they missed those opportunities and they are beating themselves up because they do have the toolkit and the experience and yet they didn't take the actions. Whereas you have say some people who did, like Bill Ackman at Pershing, who I don't know, may two point six billion dollars from short positions or something like that. Yeah. Not bad.

Uh. Uh So I I I feel as though uh my perspective on

that specifically has been honed. If if I could use such a dignified word. Through a lot of the start up investing I've done. In the sense that It doesn't matter how many opportunities you miss, it matters how many opportunities

you take advantage of. Sure. Does that make sense? Just like just like if you're putting together a book or a podcast or fill in the blank, it doesn't matter how many people don't get it. It matters how many people get it. And And uh By that I mean If you are

really waiting for the fat pitches, as Warren Buffett would say, not necessarily with his style of investing, but if you're if you understand where your core competencies R and can focus on the most appealing opportunities, you can miss a lot of opportunities and net net. still do very, very well.

So I view I try to keep that in mind and as you said a little bit earlier, to zoom out and not look at this as a uh an anomaly of a few weeks.

So it could be it could be. that a year from now we look back and the lowest low was in fact Whenever it was. I can't remember when the lowest though was March twelfth or whatever it was. Uh that might be off. S but some uh early March, something like that. Two two thousand twenty.

At the same time This could be And I suspect it will be on some level a marathon and not a sprint. So there will be more opportunities. And then the reframing of the question for me relieves a lot of stress. So instead of asking Why didn't I take advantage of X? What could I have done that I didn't do? Those are fruitless questions that just create a lot of stress.

If you were to ask how might I look for opportunities that do not have the time sensitivity of trying to time the stock market. And one could say the futility of trying to time the stock market. Uh because even in a bear market, and look, I'm not a professional public equities investors. So

No one should take investment advice from me and I'm not giving investment advice. But the Even in a bear market there are these Rallies that can really hurt you not necessarily financially, although they can, but psychologically, right? Where you buy and then they spike. And right now the volatility meaning the you know, simplistically the the uh the sort of amount of up and down

is just unbelievable. So you're gonna get whipsawed no matter what. And that can be super stressful. So so I'm asking myself, well rather than look at my god awful computer screen all day like everybody else in the world, look at all the same information and and and develop The like hubris and Ridiculous

delusion that I can somehow parse out a unique Conclusion from that when millions of people are doing the same thing. What do I have access to? Where are my strengths? Where are my weaknesses? What can I do that

If this is a marathon or if this is going to last at least six months, there are opportunities I might be able to take advantage of. Where do I have unique domain expertise or an informational advantage? Right? So Maybe that's I'm making this up, right? But maybe that is Realest distressed real estate. And

Austin, let's say, since I'm here. Right. Yeah. Any number of other things, but it's probably not going to be figuring out whether Google or Berkshire Hathaway is going to move one direction or another and how much they're gonna move. That is being the sucker at the poker table, I think.

Okay. Yeah. So that so that's maybe a a very But My belief is there are times when I make very Fast.

good decisions, but I almost never make good rushed decisions. So if I feel rushed to make a decision because oh my God, it might go up, it might go this, it might go this, it might it might do that. It the likelihood of me making a bad decision is very high. Right. And and the cost of undoing that bad decision. can also be quite high.

So that that is To say that if you have dry powder, meaning cash, I think I don't I don't think it's a I don't think it's a terrible place to be right now. But again, not I'm not a registered investment advisor nor am I giving investment advice. But that's how I'm thinking about it personally.

No, and and I think for me it's it's it's less like opportunities I didn't take advantage of and steps that I should have taken to protect myself. And and so that connects to to another emotion I think a lot of people are feeling that I'd be curious your sort of stoic take on It give it like the South by South West example is a great one. So you and a handful of other people campaign, they shut down South by Southwest early. Who knows uh how much impact that had? Probably a significant amount. Because it was so early.

And then government officials in Texas and all over the country basically And and this goes back to when it was first coming out of China, sort of sat on that time. It's not like we use that time and built a bunch of ventilators and you know should so so how how are you processing or or maybe you don't have any, but For someone who has a lot of anger.

About how this went. Where is feeling anger w how do you suggest sort of What do you think the Stokes say about processing that anger?'Cause I I I do know that the Stokes did not tend to see anger as a productive or healthy emotion.

Yeah. Uh I'd be curious to hear your take on that. So maybe I'll turn it around. I so my de my default gear for decades was anger. Yeah. But right now

My focus is related to my locus of control. Yeah. In the sense that my sort of sphere of control uh has been constrained down to the family effectively. Sure. And my closest friends. uh and ensuring to the extent possible those people are safe and prepared. and financially capable to to cover

Their expenses and so on. Uh I I am more active, as as you know, on the national level as well, but Uh I suppose I mean and this is

maybe cliched, but it's I I would think of the serenity prayer. And you probably have the full text somewhere, but you know, in essence the sort of strength to act on the things that you can act upon and the wisdom to know that which you cannot act upon or influence. And Uh I would say also that I I don't think that the time

bought by Can't Sling South by Southwest was used optimally. Yeah. But just in having that time and delay. There was a huge benefit. Right. So it wasn't used optimally, but I th uh but I I'm satisfied With

That outcome. because it has allowed us to see case studies like New York City that then spur local and state governments to do more so that they do not become the next case study. And also in retrospect looking at for instance Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Spring Break in Mi Spring Break in Miami and Florida.

I don't think those are Um Correlated. To those two locations among a handful of others.

becoming the next hotspot. So I'm very confident in The the the benefits of South by being delayed. Anger, let me think about anger for a second, because I I am a somewhat I'm a connoisseur. Well I was what I was thinking about anger is like, okay, in war, you could see how anger is a somewhat productive emotion. It's sort of a fury that you could direct at the enemy. So you might at least be able to make the argument that

That it has some productive benefits. Uh Uh obviously the p a pandemic doesn't care how much you hate it. Cancer doesn't care what names you call it, right? Like so when you're fighting something like this, I think you always want to think about like Is anger productive, yes or no? And then one of my favorite Marcus Aurelius quotes, he it's it's a quote we know from Euripides, the playwright, but he says, Why should you feel anger at the world as if the world would notice? And so that's the other like

Trump doesn't care that you're angry at him, the governor of Texas doesn't care that you're angry. You know, like so so in and in fact I if you are active in in politics or at the national level, you have to work with these people. So I think you're also seeing some of the governors, Democrat and Republican, having to figure out, Oh, hey, if I if I yell at this person on television, that might feel cathardic. But then the next day have to call them and ask for ventilators or ask for the National Guard. So so I think what the Stoics talk about is like Is anger making things better or worse? And

Ninety percent of the time it makes it worse. That doesn't mean that there wasn't something wrong and you can't be upset about it. But it's you've got to control that anger because there's a problem to solve. Yeah, I agree. And uh what I've also been trying to do

And this this actually came out of an interview I did uh some time ago with Bozemus St. John. Uh who Is an incredible woman. And uh sh one sort of philosophical tenet of hers as she underscored was

applauding what you want more of, not just berating what you want less of. And I think the internet has enabled a lot of things, uh, including the dominance of the noise that is just bitching and moaning without any clear proposal for solutions. So I have been spending

the majority of my time Reinforcing. uh particularly politicians yeah uh who are in the game Everyone's playing a game. You you and I are playing games.

And we all play games. There are rules, there are stakes, there are rewards, sometimes there are punishments. And step number one is figuring out what game or games you are playing and one of the games politicians play Is Re election. And so you have you have to think about

If you want to persuade Someone who is playing that game. Or Not just persuade, but to collaborate in some way or enable someone who is playing that game, you have to think about the incentives at play. And

To that end, I've been trying to support people who are making good decisions even if they are late. Yeah. If they are better late than never decisions. And

Uh that's coming from someone who I mean it's had a a lifetime. of anger. So I I do think the certainly the stoic philosophies and philosophers and writing

On my Intellectual Understanding Of why anger can be counterproductive. But it's really been getting on the playing field and trying to get shit done.

that is reinforced how imperative it is from a practical perspective. It's one thing to understand logically why anger is counterproductive. And it's it's quite another To Not just keep your anger in check. But to sort of sublimate it. into

a different area w that you can strengthen. Right. And uh I'm not the paragon of this. I still get pissed off but Uh yeah. There's a difference between being angry and doing things out of anger.

Yeah, totally. Yeah, y yeah, you're allowed to feel angry. Look, I've I get pissed off. And yeah, it's so it's it's not so much a question of suppressing anger. It's it's more of a question of I think taking notice of what angers you so that over time Fewer things. hopefully anger you.

And uh one thing that's been very helpful to me also, and this is Uh I can't remember well I do remember one quote from Uh Krista Tippett. Who has a podcast called On Being.

Which I believe I'm I'm gonna paraphrase it, but that That Anger. Is fear shown publicly? Yeah.

And So I try to at least as an exercise if I'm really angry to journal or If this were traceable to a fear, what would the fear be? Right. So it's presupposing that it's accurate for the sake of a thought exercise. Sure.

And Th because anger At least for me, right? Anger is it's harder to wrestle. In the sense that like head on treating anger as an object, it's harder for me to to grapple with and to disarm.

If that makes sense. Because I get I get uh where where uh the story I tell myself that perpetuates anger is well, it's the principle Yeah. Justice must be served. Yes. This is da. And I get on my high horse. How could you do this? Yeah, I get on my high my high horse of righteousness and You can justify a lot of stupid behavior that way. Uh but I don't quite know how to defuse it. Whereas if I can take the anger And turn it

into fear or not necessarily turn it into fear, but find a source that is related to fear, then I can use fear setting or other exercises, premeditatio malorum, et cetera, to Turn down the volume. Sure. So that's that's a step that I've found. very helpful also.

I'm cu I'm curious about fear,'cause obviously you have your fear setting stuff, which which you talk about in your TED talk, which which is probably very timely for people right now. But you know, having sort of two young kids You get this sort of pit in your stomach, right? And and I can sort of empathi I people are really afraid. Right. And I I'd be curious

Well so two things. One, I'd be curious what you say to someone uh uh who who is afraid, and then the other thing uh which uh maybe you want to riff on. I was kind of thinking I was trying to think of so I was born in eighty seven, so I was like What what scary things did my parents go through with kids, which is actually really helpful. So it's like You know, Black Monday. There was Uh obviously nine eleven, there's the the tech bubble bursting, there's the financial crisis, there's the end of the cold war. I tried to go through and think of there are two wars in in in in the Gulf, right?

Like so so that was something I did, but I'm just curious, like, how are you thinking about fear and what would you say to someone who who is being overwhelmed by fear. It's a very good question. It's very Timely question.

I don't have confidence in a single answer for that. Okay. And I have relatives who at restaurant jobs and so on, and they're in very tough positions.

And I don't I wouldn't want I wouldn't want to make this purely an academic exercise and lose sight of the fact that fear is a gift. In many cases. It tells you what is wrong. So I I I don't want in any way to seem like I'm detached from reality by making it.

uh sort of mental gymnastics exercise. So so so let's start there. I would say that And I've been telling myself this, so I can uh which is just because you're feeling afraid. I've I have, for instance, I have older parents In Poor health. who are in New York.

Yeah. That causes has caused me quite a bit of Fear and anxiety. And there's very little I can do.

And uh uh there's very little I can do, and I can do a lot. And I have very good contacts and I have very good contacts in New York itself. And To To an almost complete extent there's Next to nothing I can do. If they get sick.

Yeah. And that has produced a sense of Feeling. helpless or hopeless or

Yeah. And uh so what I've been telling myself And might be helpful to others is is number one, it's okay. to feel afraid. Like that doesn't make you

Flawed. that means that your sort of evolutionary machinery is intact. And there's a lot of value to that. Right. And So I would say that

You're not alone, you're not flawed. millions of people, tens of millions, probably hundreds of millions, are feeling the same thing. Right now. And There are reasons to be afraid.

It doesn't mean uh There's n it does not mean there's nothing you can do. You always have options. Right. You always have options. That's the other thing I would say, and this is what I'm saying to myself, it's like you always have options. You may just not like those options. Right. Right. Sure. Right. So

For instance, if you look at the plight of some workers right now who have gone from kind of getting laid off from one job to say delivering groceries for fill in the blank app or company. And want more personal protective equipment. in order to do that job. It's a very, very difficult situation to be in. Because number one, no matter how much those companies would love to give you personal protective equipment, right now healthcare workers don't even have enough PPE personal protective equipment.

So you have then You you might be inclined in such a position to say I have no choice. you do have choices, they just may be very unattractive, right? So you could stop working for a period of time. You could move in with your parents, you could ask a friend for a loan. you could

Sell some of the belongings you have that you have great sentimental attachment to, or maybe your only car or whatever it might be. I'm not saying these are all viable and just brainstorming. Or that they're fair. Yeah, you have to I mean for me, I just take fair out of the equation. Uh I think f I don't think fair Except perhaps under the law as equal treatment of citizens. I don't think fair is a very uh I don't think it's an enabling concept. Right.

No, I I think the stoics the Stoics would agree. They'd say, you know, Epictetus who goes It's not things that upset us, it's our judgment about things. And so fair is a is a an opinion we have about an objective reality that we're in. Right. So so if I were trying to train a group of a thousand people to be a really effective, like autonomous Army.

Like benevolent army for Handling. Like weather not just weathering, but benefiting from the crisis. Mm-hmm. I think th in and if they were just computers like

You know, West world hosts that that I could program. But not an operating system. There's certain concepts and questions I would remove. I think that. Unfair. Is As true as it may be, subjectively or even objectively. It is a disabling

Word. that even if you are a victim puts you into the passenger seat of life where you feel like you do not have options nor can you take actions. And that is paralyzing and it's just going to compound your fear. So I would remove that. And then there are questions right. Uh and I alluded to this a second ago.

And I I we're probably straying from the stoics, but I feel like I've been so infused I don't know if you've heard of any of these large trees in the Pacific Northwest that have like thirty percent salmon DNA from salmon being dropped off bears and so on. They they become these hybrids. I feel that's too maybe too long a story to explain now, but Uh I believe the Radiolab has a good episode on on this, but the w the wood wide web, if you want to look it up, W O O D but the the point of that extremely confusing uh sidebar is that

I feel like stoicism From having read it and ingested it and ruminated on it and reread it and so on over the years has kind of infused my thinking. To a very large extent. So th the then there are questions of and and this definitely harkens back to certainly some of the moral letters to Lucilius if we wanna cite some of the sources.

Which by he he wrote in difficult times, you know you know, at the end of his career he was threatened by a tyrant, like he wasn't writing this in in a fun, joyful vacation. No. No, he wasn't. Uh and that's that's Molly who's gonna Molly's my dog who's In the habit of going.

Ape shit these days. Molly you feeling stressed because of coronavirus? I know. She's actually she's actually pretty st stoked to have her humans, home. Uh But uh I digress. This is this is audio video verite, quarantine edition. So I was going to say that If you look at say one of

Seneca's letters where he's composing this letter and it's it's somewhat petulantly written, which I find hilarious. Sure. As are many of his letters, but what one of them he's writing As he's discussing The I suppose you would call it like a spa slash gym underneath him. I don't know if you remember this where where you can hear those The slapping of flesh and the grunting of lifting weights and all this, and it's

I open stillness that with that letter. I love that one. Yeah. It's a gr it's a great letter. It's a really, really great letter. So this may not be the perfect citation, but the point I was going to make is that the question I was asking myself early on for me and my family. And it's the question you should be asking initially was how do we how do we ensure we don't die? And physically uh financially, how do I ensure that my clan Doesn't die.

And that sounds dramatic. I don't think Uh I don't think it's gonna seem that dramatic. Uh I mean eight.

Those are the stakes, right? I mean they're eighty five refrigerated uh Double wide Trailers that were just brought into New York yesterday's temporary mortuary, right? I mean, This is real. Yeah.

I have relatives in number of hot spots. So these these are these are stakes. Yeah. Now what I'm trying to ask since I have Checked off. at least for the time being. the lower rungs of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Yeah. And not and not everyone is in a position to do that. None the less I do think this question is really worth asking and I owe my girlfriend credit also for reinforcing this'cause she's very good at this. And that is Uh how can you

make the next three to six months Some of the most enjoyable or productive of your life. Or Or if that's too much pressure. Right.

you can phrase it different ways, you know, how can you make the next three to six months Something you look back Upon as a sacred time. that you really treasure. Not just survive, right? It was kinda it was kinda like

And uh look, I'm not whatever. I'll use it, but uh I heard a Nelson Mandela story once from Tony Robbins actually who asked. He asked Nelson Mandela during his time in prison. How did you survive? Something along those lines.

He said, Oh, I wasn't surviving, I was preparing. And I think that that type of question Not how I can survive. How you can survive. In a sense.

is sort of like extreme frugality. Uh and I'm I've I've had my cup of coffee, so I'm off to the races, but it's kinda like extreme frugality in the sense that If you're trying to find financial freedom through one tool and that is extreme frugality. You have a finite ceiling to that. Yeah. Right. Like you make

Let's just call it for simplicity a thousand. I'm making this up. Thousand dollars a week. And you can cut from that. you may make some Faustian bargains and cut things that materially

Detract from your quality of life. The most that you could possibly subtract is fifty two thousand dollars a year. Yeah. Right. This is ignor ignoring taxes and everything. Where if you're building a business you have

Or you have income generation and you're also focused on that. You have A much broader scope of options. Sure. And similarly, if you ask like how can I survive? Like survive is a binary pass fail. Yeah. And I feel like that places a ceiling on the options

That Are visible to you. If that makes any sense. No. Yeah. So when I ask like how could I most in and I'm gonna use a word here that might bother people, but if you were to ask like how could I most profit And benefit.

from the next three to six months. Like what is this an opportunity to do that I would never otherwise do? So I've been for instance like getting rid of clothing that I've had for years and cleaning up the garage and doing the stuff that seems so mundane. But it will it would otherwise not get done. So trying to Ask myself, you know, if this were

A sacred time and that what can I do Or not do. that will lead me say we're out of this in a year to some extent. To look back and say, Wow, I'm so glad we had that time. In a sense because it allowed me A B C as opposed to shit. I didn't realize

that was going to be so valuable in so many ways and I was blind to it at the time. Yeah, the the the dichotomy that I use that Robert Green gave me and I I have this written around somewhere I was gonna show it to you. But he he says alive time or dead time, what will it be? And I think that's how like Whether you're whether this quarantine goes for two more weeks, uh obviously is gonna go much longer than that, or whether it goes for two more years.

All you know is that you have that block of time. What you do control is how you use that time and what you get out of it. I have one one thought on fear. I there's a Hebrew saying that I love um it's from the eighteen hundreds, but he goes, um The world is a narrow bridge. And the important thing is to not be afraid. The the point is when you're walking on a narrow balance beam or a narrow bridge, the the one thing you can't do is be scared because it'll mess you up and you'll fall. And I think that's sort of the predicament we're in. It's not fair, nobody chose it, it's not our fault. But

You gotta cross this bridge now, and this fear. Fear, as you said, there has some evolutionary reasons, but courage is gonna be important, right? And that's one of those sort of core stoic virtues, which is like And there's another quote I love from Faulkner. He says You can be scared. It's okay to be scared. You can't help that. She says but

But. But don't be afraid. Do you know what I mean? Like I think you have to you have to keep going. That's just the reality. So you might as well. Yeah, if if if afraid is being paralyzed, right? So for instance a few more comments on fear. Yeah. So And I I this could be apocryphal, but I believe, based on the sources I had at the time, I've no idea what they are that this is true. So Dean Martin. Now that name may not mean much to a lot of people, but in his day, Dean Martin was

the consummate entertainers sort of Top tier Top five most recognizable names in the United States, probably. Yeah. And he used to vomit. He would get so nervous. And one could say afraid. that he would vomit before every performance.

Mike Tyson. Same story. And his hi the trainer who really made Mike Tyson Mike Tyson, Costumado Uh you can find video or at least audio of Costamato saying this.

He would say the hero and the coward feel the same thing. They feel The fear. It's what the hero does that makes him different. And Tyson was also.

Terrified. I mean uh terrified may not be the right word, but Fearful. before he got into the ring, one of the most dominant boxers of all time. Sure. And if they can't get A

Immunity bracelet for fear. It's unreasonable to expect yourself to And I would also say If this is helpful to anybody and it's very specific to the United States, but the United States at this point in time were recording this

April first, happy April Fool's Day. Uh and right now New York is is the the Hube of the US, the global hube, effectively. It's the new global epicenter will be. This is going to continue. The United States is going to be the largest hotspot Unless things change dramatically in Russia, it's probably gonna be the largest hotspot in the world for some time to come. And the Prior to Pearl Harbor. What the strategic belief on the part of the Japanese was that by destroying the Pacific Fleet, the morale and capabilities of the US would be

Completely. shutdown or paralyzed for a period of time. What instead happened when you know the the bear got stabbed in the eye with a stick Meaning the US

is that within a very short period of time that would have previously been inconceivable. suddenly we're we were producing more tanks than civilians in All of Japan.

Yeah. The capacity of the United States when it is forced into a corner Or feels as though it's been forced into a corner through extreme states of duress and crisis. Not something you want to bet against. Are truly staggering. Right, and we've fucked this up so many ways.

It's it's really hard to overstate how badly we've screwed this up in terms of supply chain chain management and so on. But None the less I think Give it six months. things are gonna look very, very different.

And Like it or not. The global economy is dependent on the US in large measure. Right. So not that it's too big not that it's too big to fail. Every empire comes to its close. But

Uh But at this point in time It is in everyone's best interest the United States not collapse. Almost everyone's best interest. So Russia has gas to sell. China has products to export. And so on and so forth.

Right. And so so I I am I'm very confident That Crisis will overcome incompetence, if that makes any sense. And uh I'm very confident.

Sh that things will get worse. Yeah, the uh economy is going to get sort of kicked in the nuts for a while. This is not gonna be uh a one quarter affair. At all.

And the US is going to have to take very extreme what what might be seen as extreme measures. to have any chance of survival. economically speaking. Uh so that gives that gives me a degree of optimism.

If that makes sense. Interesting. Sure, that that gives me a degree of optimism. Maybe it will prove unfounded. I hope that's not the case. But Uh that also has the the example of Pearl Harbor And it's not the perfect example. It's just a very

Easily grasped. visual example. I think shows And there are many examples of this what the US can do in times of crisis. Uh so I'm That gives me some degree of

of optimism as well. So uh and and I I'm sure you've gotta go. So as as far as this sort of a a A place to close'cause I think this ties in well to the fear and I think it ties well into stoicism. Um What I love about the Stoics in particular, like the Stoics and the Epicureans were actually much closer philosophically than people thought. Right. And and you're you're you you love the good life, you you have Epicurean tendencies, but what I w what I think

what I think what I suspect draws you to the stoics and and ultimately draws me to the stoics, and I think why There is this thread of stoicism going Not just in the Roman Empire, but to the founding of America, to the US Civil War, to to to a lot of the great movements in history, is the stoics felt that we were obligated. to participate in public life to serve the common good to help other people Most of the greatest stoics were famous not because of what they wrote, but because the actual heroism that they did in their life. And I mean, Marcus Aurelius specifically is the emperor for fifteen years of the Antonine plague.

He never he doesn't flee Rome. At one point famously is one of my Favorite stories in all of history. Аз за Роман економії з колапсин у дес пандемік. Si Хі форг'ястон та емпай.

Uh and then he goes through the Imperial Palace and he marks down the treasures owned by the Emperor for sale on the palace lawn. to to like sort of get the economy going. So this is to me is what Like I think this goes to your point. When when stuff breaks down, real leaders stand up. And so I a maybe as a place to close for people who are afraid, but want to put that energy somewhere productive.

What do you advise people as far as how can they help? How can they make a difference? Воен вот кінвиоз до You know Obviously there's a lot of we all have different resources and skills, but What would you advise people to think about as far as making a difference and and using this as an opportunity to to s to do that sort of ultimate stoic duty?

Yeah, thanks for the question. That's a good question. Uh I wanna I wanna just make an an observation first, and that is you basically have the trifecta of books for understanding and handling this entire chapter of our history. Right behind your head. For those people who aren't watching the video, you have and I'll read from the bottom up, you've got the Black Swan, you have is it the Forty Eight Laws? I can't remember. Yeah, Forty Eight Laws. And then I have meditations right here. So you have but the black swan

Uh perhaps just as much so fooled by randomness by And then Talib T A L E B. I think it's a anti fragile, but the black swan or fooled by randomness specifically I think help to explain what we are contending with and why it is so difficult for humans to grasp.

What is happening. and properly prepare for it. So I think that is that is worth reading. Then if you want to understand How seemingly confusingly and irrationally different leaders are behaving and how polarity is affecting

our response to this in the United States and elsewhere, not just here, you look at Brazil, it's the same story. Then the Forty Eight Laws of Power do a great job of explaining that. And then if you take mastery And the 48 Laws of Power combined, those can act as a possible roadmap for the abilities you want to develop in this sacred pause. that is being provided to you, not inflicted upon you necessarily. I understand there are some s very serious costs, but that's just a f way that you could plausibly or try to frame it if you want to feel enabled and not disabled. Those are three fantastic uh books for the for the quiver. I'm just gonna say that first. As far as Stoic slash civic duty.

And like you said. Many of these stoics per se, if we if we dis if we just put aside the best known names, if we put aside Marcus Aurelius, we put aside Epictetus, we put aside Seneca, and so on, You still have George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, these people are not known as stoics. And yet.

They They were very much informed and directed by Yeah. Much of stoic philosophy. And

Uh to the extent that George Washington, I guess at Valley Forge Had the troops perform I'm blanking on the name of the play, but it was a play about It was Kato, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's Kato.

To boost Morale. And continue the fight. Uh and The I wanna make a comment.

In response to something you said, and then I'll I'll answer super directly. And that is the I do have Epicurean tendencies I find the ep the Epicureans to be of great interest, but what allows me to tend the garden to drink my wine and Derive great pleasure from simple things.

is the safety net that is stoicism. I d for me, I do not think as someone who Uh maybe a story for another time, but had some very uh traumatic experiences in childhood and h have has always been hyper vigilant without

Stoicism and tools that are complementary to stoicism, I don't feel like I have the safety net underneath me. with which I can then walk across that Narrow bridge. Yeah.

And uh that that is what allows the Epicureanism. So it really is the precursor and uh Necessary antecedent to those things. As far as helping, how can you help? There are two different levels of answers. The first would be my my most common recommendation and that is don't try to save the world, help the people around you.

Yeah. And Think of if you are fortunate enough to be in a stable financial position, even if you are suffering financial hardship, but you have time, Think of how you could reach out to people and offer your support. That support could be

A weekly Zoom or Skype chat with a handful of friends who are all sharing difficulties. It could be reaching out to your barber I'm bald, so I don't have a barber, but reaching out to your barber or your local coffee shop owner or fill in the blank.

someone to offer Two help in some fashion because you know they're also suffering from financial hardship. That could be paying them some amount of money if you have the financial means. Yeah, buy a big gift card and then cash it in like buy buy six months of haircuts in advance. Right. It could be something like that. It could also be simply

Reaching out to them and asking, How can I help? And More often than not, because I've done this with say The dog walker. who I've used who's just fantastic and I want them to survive this.

uh the say house cleaners who help. With my home I've reached out with these offers and asked how can I help? Would you like me to pay in advance? Would you like to simply have me continue paying? Most of them have declined. But the act of

Asking, how can I help? And then possibly offering if you have the means. or the space is tremendously Uh I think

reassuring in times of uncertainty. Yeah. The gift doesn't have to be capital. The support doesn't need to be money uh it could just be

group cohesion and people feeling that they have A safety net. of sorts in your offer. uh I think is tremendously compelling. I if you try, as I have done for the last few weeks, to figure out how to save the world or early on just how to stem the tide for the United States to buy time. There were certain things that I could do

Say is it related to South by South West, and so on. But I am in a very unusual position and I have a large platform. For others to feel compelled to do something like that is I think very unproductive because it's going to be like shouting into Gale force wins. It's it's gonna be very frustrating and uh I I I I don't think terribly healthy for people to try. So act locally number one. If you are looking for outfits and ventures that are focused on this crisis and you want to contribute in some fashion.

There is uh there is a GoFundMe campaign going on right now, depending on when this is published. Which is uh a collaboration. I'm blanking on the exact organizations. Flexport I know is one of them, Flexport.com or Flexport.org forward slash donate, but they along with a number of organizations have put together a large GoFundMe campaign. If you just search Flexport, GoFundMe campaign. Uh frontline responders fund. That's what it's called. Yeah. That's right. So frontline responders fund. uh I would say appears to be well vetted. I've had conversations with the CEO of Flexport and Fuel.

Confident. in their integrity at this point. I don't know them that well, but th they certainly have checked a lot of good boxes. There's another organization which may be part of the same, maybe not, called Operation Masks. Operation Masks dot org is co founded by a number of people I've had some contact with. Uh and that is

This landscape is very rapidly changing. and access to personal protective equipment and other items is is In a state of constant flux. particularly since we have states competing against one another and driving prices up. I mean the the entire thing

is quite a fucking spectacle of Messiness. But I I do think the You said the frontline responders. Fun.

This is GoFundMe campaign. which includes Flex port and operation masks are two that have kind of checked a few boxes for me. I can't vouch for either a hundred percent, but there is a lot of noise and those are two that seem to have cut through the noise. So those would be another two options. Uh food bags Yeah, I was gonna say fo food banks, anything you can do to prove. Prevent people from having to leave their houses or go to the store is very important.

Yeah. So food banks I think are another another good option for helping, say, locally, uh, or helping where you grew up. Yeah. Yeah, or both. So th those would be a few that come to mind and Yeah, last but not least, I would say one way you can help is No commit to be constructive and consider

Experimenting and I'm considering doing this myself because I I think right now it could be a particularly valuable. Something like the twenty one day no complaint experiment that that Will Bau and B O W E N wrote about long ago in I believe it was his first book. Uh but this if you just search twenty-one day no complaint experiment, it'll come right up.

Yeah. Complaining is Easy, it's in vogue, it's seductive. It is reinforced. Socially.

And it for me at least is utterly Counterproductive. I think that Complaining and anger are Similar. in this sense, and I can't recall the attribution for this, but that the there's an expression as it relates to anger that you know a vessel that holds acid is is damaged more than anything it pours acid upon.

And uh if you are the vessel for anger or complaining, I think it does more damage to you than that which you Point it at and Uh for that reason If you want to improve or maintain or improve your health, your well being, and your ability to function As

A contributor in society. uh I think a no complaint experiment goes a long way. And by the way If you address complaining, which is easier to identify and measure sometimes than anger There's a very significant carry over effect.

into decreasing anger. very, very large carryover effect. So th those would be a few things that come to mind as as possible. actions people could take. Yeah, and I think for Daily Stoic we've we've been doing this sort of a live time, dead time challenge, like how are you going to use this time? I think that's the

So it's it's locally, you know, what can you do for your family? What can you do for your neighbors? You know, if you have old people that live near you. What can you get them so they don't have to leave their house, right? Like but then I think also You know. This is now a time for entrepreneurs and business people like if if everyone is sitting at home watching Netflix for the next three months. that that's there's been worse economic damage from that than if people are at home being productive thinking about

Y you know what I mean? Like I I think the there is a a real economic damage to to to the world grinding to a halt. It's not just, hey, you can't go to the pizza restaurant anymore. But it's like if you cease working and you see you cease thinking and you cease taking care of the people that you're supposed to be taking care of. Th there's gonna be even longer lasting residue from this as well. Yeah.

I agree. Uh I think this is a You know an an unfortunate and special set of circumstances that can really foster a sense of community where community has largely broken down. Yeah. I mean, us where we're weakest, as David Brooks has said.

Yeah. And I mean I I remember when I moved from San Francisco to Austin and my first neighbors approached me and like knocked on my door and I felt like in a karate stance because it was so shocking to me since that never happened in San Francisco. And I've had more than I've got. Contact at a distance with My neighborhood. in the last few weeks than in

the last few years. And I I do think there's There's something. really unusual about that that will disappear. It will or at least dissipate.

Let me say that. It'll dissipate once business gets Back on track. And Uh the we have a we have a very unusual window of time in which as as you put it, and I really like that expression, That you said that's from Robert Green, the Alive Time, Dead Time?

Yeah. What could you speak to just for my benefit since I have a I'm I I don't r remember reading about this. What what characterizes a live time versus dead time or how does he talk about it? So so uh Actually it came up I when I was thinking about uh leaving uh my job to become a writer, I had about a year left that I owed American apparel. And so I said, Robert, you know, I'm thinking about leaving to become a writer, what should I do? And he said, This year for you could be a live time or dead time. You could show up to work every day you know, cash your paycheck, you know, sit at your desk, or you could learn as much as possible, you could meet as many people as possible. You could the day you leave your job be

have all the research and preparation that you need done for your book, right? So And and and so I I actually ended up writing about this and he goes the enemy, but I I tell the story of of Malcolm X. Malcolm X goes to prison, he's is at at this point is he's known as Malcolm Little. He's sentenced to about ten years. He spends every day in that prison cell reading, uh, writing, studying. He basically gives himself a college education in in this prison. And so I think. You know, Nelson Mandela spent a far worse time in prison than any of us are going to be spending during this quarantine. Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, they all spent time in quarantine, you know, fleeing uh the plague, but how they chose to use that time. To write some of their greatest works, to develop relationships, to come up with theories about the universe, you know, to study, to learn, to get in touch with themselves.

That's A live time. Yeah. Isaac Newton had one of the most productive Years of his entire Life. Yeah.

And and I think I think that's what's so beautiful and haunting about history is like, oh, this actually isn't new. I was telling you about the the statue. This is another thing I keep on my desk. This is a a pen knife It's from I think the the the year two hundred A D. Okay, like speaking of prison, it looks like for those people who aren't watching the video, it's a ship. It looks like a a shiv that you would make out of uh mattress coils. But but you just think about the amount of time That human beings have spent doing exactly what we're doing, which is I can't go outside. A lot of commerce and business has ground to a halt.

This situation is not new at all. The question is Some of those people use that time productively. Isaac Newton, Shakespeare, а не фар морпі. Yeah.

Other people were in the exact same quarantine as William Shakespeare. And they did not write Macbeth. You know, and so that that's That's the one you don't control that you're in the situation, the Stokes would say, but you do control how you respond to the situation, what you use it for. And I think that's ultimately Wood.

That's that's what we should all be focused on. Here, here. All right, well do you want to close it there? Yeah, let's close it there. All right, man. Uh awesome. Appreciate it. Yeah, for sure. And uh just I mentioned the fear setting. For people who want to check check that out. They can just go to Tim.blog forward slash TED. It's also a talk, but the

Text. can be quite helpful as a supplement. And you have the exercise there, right? You should show how it's like. It's it's all there. There's nothing there's no paywall, there's no there shouldn't be any kind of block. If if there's a pop up you can just close it, but No, I mean you actually show the like it it's more than just watching the talk, you like give people how to do the exercise. So it's I give them all the instructions and examples. in the in the text, since this is something I use myself as well. Awesome, man. Really appreciate it. Yeah, my pleasure. Good to see you, man. Yeah, good to see you too.

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