The Daily Stoic - Amazon Kindle Author Fishbowl – Ryan Holiday on The Boy Who Would Be King

Episode Date: May 9, 2021

Today’s episode is an interview with Amazon Author Fishbowl hosted by Jason Yoong for Ryan’s newest book The Boy Who Would Be King. They talk about Ryan’s writing process, how the book came together over the last year, Stoicism as a practical philosophy for day to day life, and more.This episode is also brought to you by the Jordan Harbinger Show. Jordan's podcast is one of the most interesting ones out there, with guests like Kobe Bryant, Mark Manson, Eric Schmidt, and more. Listen to one of Ryan's episodes right now (1, 2), and subscribe to the Jordan Harbinger Show today.This episode is also brought to you by KiwiCo. KiwiCo believes in the power of kids and that small lessons today can mean big, world-changing ideas tomorrow. KiwiCo is a subscription service that delivers everything your kids will need to make, create and play. Get 30% off your first month plus FREE shipping on ANY crate line with code STOIC at kiwico.com. This episode is also brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. LinkedIn Jobs is the best platform for finding the right candidate to join your business this fall. It’s the largest marketplace for job seekers in the world, and it has great search features so that you can find candidates with any hard or soft skills that you need. And now, you can post a job for free. Just visit linkedin.com/STOIC to post a job for free. This episode is also brought to you by Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is a custom formulation of 75 vitamins, minerals, and other whole-food sourced ingredients that make it easier for you to maintain nutrition in just a single scoop. It tastes great and gets you the nutrients you need, whether you're working on the go, fueling an active lifestyle, or just maintaining your good health. Visit athleticgreens.com/stoic to get a FREE year supply of Liquid Vitamin D + 5 FREE Travel Packs with subscription. ***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@daily_stoic –Amazon Fishbowl Original Interview: https://www.facebook.com/kindle/videos/4008106459210617 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members. You can listen to the Daily Stoke podcast early and add free on Amazon music download the app today Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoke each weekday We bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stokes Something to help you live up to those four Stoke virtues of courage justice up to those four stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers.

We explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead may bring.

I know sometimes you guys ask what podcasts I listen to, one of my great friends in podcasting is Jordan Harbinger, who I'm talking to right now. I was curious, Jordan, how many people do you think you've interviewed? It's got to be about a thousand at this point over 14 years. What's the thing you've learned the most? What's funny is everybody goes, wow, what are these productivity tips? What all these great, amazing people that you have on the Jordan Harbinger show have in common. And you'd be surprised. A lot of people think it's like, oh, they've got all these cool systems and tricks and like they, it's all this Tim Ferriss stuff, which is great.

But at the end of the day, what most of them do is they plan their day in advance, like a week before or the day before they get enough sleep. They go outside and go walking or go for a swim when they feel like they're discombobulated or unable to focus. And it's all the same stuff that you can do when you're a college student, you have no money. It's like, all this stuff is free. I love that.

The secret is there's no secret. You can check out the Jordan Harbinger podcast. Jordan shows awesome. Check it out. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another weekend episode of The Daily Stoke Podcast. You know I love books. You know I love bookstores.

I mean, I just opened my own indie bookstore in the middle of a pandemic, the painted porch here in Bastrop, which you're welcome to come to anytime. But maybe this is, maybe some what you need to be among authors, although I think I'm just being honest. I also just freaking love Amazon. Amazon has been a supporter of me as long as I've been a writer. You might not be listening to this if it wasn't for the platform, the reach that Amazon brought to my books. So I was honored when Amazon asked me to do a fish bowl Q&A.

I really liked the conversation. My friend Jason was the one who interviewed me and it was a great conversation. We talked about my book The Boy Who Would Be King. I wanted to bring that conversation to you today because I'm just so fascinated with the early life of Marcus Reles, how this ordinary boy selected from relative obscurity becomes the great emperor that he became and Maybe you wanted some inside on how the book developed why I wrote it how it worked some some inside baseball stuff as far as publishing goes as well I really like this talk. I think you're gonna like it It was an honor to talk to the folks at Amazon

No apologies there because I love Amazon and I think independent bookstores in Amazon can both exist in the same universe. They're just different people have to figure out different places in the market. So anyways, here's my conversation, the Amazon Fishbowl Q&A where we talk about stoicism, markets are really is. And of course, my book, The Boy Who Would Be King, which you can buy directly from me, you can go to dailystalk.com slash king. You can buy it from thepaintedportch.com or you can of course buy it from Amazon.

Whatever is easiest for you, I just want books to get in people's hands. Enjoy this great conversation with me and Jason for the Amazon Fish Bowl. Hey everyone, my name is Jason from Amazon. I'm thrilled to welcome bestselling author and founder of dailystoke.com Brian Holiday for an Amazon Fish Bowl to discuss his newest and first children's book, The Boy Who Would Be King. This is the story of Marcus Raleas. So I have a bunch of questions asked Brian, but this is also a live stream.

So he wants to answer your questions too. So be sure to submit them in the broadcast chat and we'll get to as many as we can. As added bonus, if your question is chosen, you could receive a book of the boy who would be king. Okay, so welcome, Ryan. Thanks for having me again. I appreciate it.

Yeah, great to chat. And congrats on your first children's book. Thank you. I have to ask first question. I'm curious to learn. Did you learn anything different about stoicism or Marcus Arrelius when creating a book you're towards children?

I did. It's a children's book in one sense. I guess I would probably refer to it more as a fable. I wanted it to be a story that sort of works for all ages. Because in some sense, I think I joke about this in the marketing copy that it's a story for the ages and thus for all ages. But I'm just fascinated with the story of Marcus really is because we have this idea that absolute power corrupts absolutely,

right? One of the facts that's immediately observable by any student of history, that people who hold absolute power, even people who hold just lots of power, like the CEO or president, become corrupted by it. And what's so fascinating about Marcus Rillius is that he's like the exception to this rule. And even our understanding of a monarchy, Prince Philip just died and obviously there's a controversy with Meghan Markle as well. And when you look at the Royal Family, part of what's so complicated about the Royal family is this idea of hereditary succession, right? Like the idea that because

somebody is your kid, they're going to be as good as a ruler as you is, you know, it's tough. So what's so fascinating is Marcus Relius, and this is what I really got excited about as I was writing it on it. I started just by telling the story to my own son, but Marcus Aurelius was adopted. So Marcus Aurelius, as a young boy, catches the attention of the emperor Hadrian, who is a pretty good emperor, but the emperor Hadrian has doesn't have any children, and so he doesn't have an heir. But he also gets this sense that to just adopt this kid out of nowhere and set him up to be the king is probably a recipe for disaster. So it's this totally unique plan that I don't quite get into in the book.

It's sort of the prologue to it essentially. But what Hadrian does is Hadrian adopts a 50 year old man named Antoninus Pius, who in turn has to adopt this young teenager named Marcus Aurelius. And so that's what sets Marcus Aurelius up to be king. So not only was his stepfather not king, but his stepfather's stepfather was not King. And so, so he's chosen for leadership and sort of groomed for it over the years. And there was this idea that Marcus, this Antoninus Pius would rule for a few years. In fact, he's emperor for almost two decades. So, Marcus spends like 20 years sort of waiting and training

to become king. And it does become king. And as I was saying, he does a good job. And that's what I was so fascinated by in this story and why I think it's a good sort of a fable for young people and leaders of all types. Yeah, I big class one to that. And you know, I have a few questions on this topic. At the end of the book in the A Knowledgement section, you mentioned your son's Clark and Jones.

Yeah, so I'm really curious to understand what part of the book did they gravitate towards? Well, you know, I think I think for kids that they like any of the funny things or, you know, any of the jokes that how much they're really getting at four years old and two years old, I wouldn't pretend to guess. But I think what I tried to do in the book and I think this is a really key idea in stoicism is, stoicism is kind of the series of aphorisms or reminders,

these sort of ideas that seem really simple, but you have to sort of repeat them to yourself. They're almost like mantras. You repeat them enough times that they kind of become true. And so the book is kind of reminders of those that sort of stick with you. So one of my favorite lines in the book,

and this comes from a real quote from Mark's Realist's Meditations. In Meditations, he says, you know, the best revenge is to not be like that. He says, you know, the best revenge is not to be like a bad person, to be like the person who wronged you. So there's a line in the book where where Marcus is wrestling and the other boy is cheating. And as mentor says to him, the way to be a cheater is to not be like them. And we were racing our bikes the other day.

And I accused my wife of cheating because she was beating me in the race. And my son repeated back the line. He said, the way to be a cheater is to not be like them. And again, how much he gets this is probably very minimal. But the line is already warmed its way into his brain. It makes me hopeful that someday the true meaning of it will also come along with it. So the idea in the book was really to create sort of aphorisms or reminders in the form of a story

that would hopefully stick with people while they're young. I love that story. I mean, I imagine you must have been super excited and proud that you're repeating that. Of course, of course. And so basically I started writing the book in March of 2020 just because I was, I just needed a story to tell my son and we sort of went over it so many times. So you know, he sort of seen it develop and then you know, saw it go from you know, little scribbles on, you know,

the backs of some pieces of paper into, you know, computer draft and then the sketches and then the mockups and then the page proofs and then now the physical book. So he's heard it so many times, but again, that is kind of the idea is that you hear, you stoicism is this idea of reminding yourself of these ideas over and over again

and they kind of become part of your puzzle memory. So to see it pop up was really, really gratifying. Is there on the topic of mantras that you remind yourself or you repeat yourself? Is there another one that you constantly remind yourself about? Yeah, there's a bunch. There's a great one from Epictetus, who obviously this book isn't about, but he says, you know, he says, it's impossible to learn that which you think you already know, which is one I really like. But the best one for Marx is which the book is kind of culminates

with Marx really says, just that you do the right thing, the rest doesn't matter. And so really the book is built around a handful of these quotes. And I put them in different words, I put the words in the mouths of the different characters, but for the most part almost all of the quotes or the ideas come explicitly from stoic philosophy. And then instead of beating someone over the head with it and going, here is a quote of stoicism, I wanted to have it sort of play out over the plot in the book. God, yeah, that makes sense. It's it and it's very different

from the previous book we talked about lives of the Stoics, which I like that that that difference in how you have to frame it. Well, lives of the Stoics is sort of stories for adults, right? These are six or 7,000 word stories. And so,

you know, the last character in Lives of the Stokes is Mark Sirrelius. And I think that's probably a seven or eight thousand word sort of encapsulation of a 60 year or so year life of a great human being. And I think this story is like, I don't know, a thousand words, maybe a little bit less. So the idea was, you know, how can you distill it down to its essence? And that's what I was really trying to do in the book. Yeah. Well, your sons, when you're reading this book with them or going through it, do they have other questions about the book that may have surprised you. Yeah, so you realize how many assumptions you take

for granted in the thing. So you mentioned a gladiator. Well, what's a gladiator? You mentioned ancient Rome. Where's ancient Rome? You talk about Marcus Riss. Who is that? Is he still alive? Where does he live? So, so I think the best children's book stories are the best,

you know, sort of children's stories. If you create a jumping off point to have a lot of discussions about a lot of different topics, and part of the reason that I don't like, like really silly, ridiculous children's books as much is that as fun as they are, they don't like really silly, ridiculous children's books as much, is that as fun as they are, they don't really often create the impetus for that discussion. You don't end up learning other things. So what I wanted this to be was an entry point

into history and general or leadership in general. And then now we've videos about things. We can talk about things. I can show them pictures of things. That was sort of the idea. I love that. It's like an early age in printing of it. To say you could grow that seed. One of the through lines in shaping markets are really is was the teachers and role models

as you depict in the book. How do you think about introducing teachers and role models to your own children? Well, it's kind of, it's a little strange, obviously, during the pandemic, but you know, one of the lines I have in the book too is, you know, is teacher. Then this is Marx Realist, is actual philosophy teacher. A guy named Junius Rousticus. I'm Rousticus is sort of the Obi-Wan character that kind of takes him on this sort of hero's journey. But he talks about sort of the start of Marcus' education which shouldn't be confused with schooling, right? And which is sort of an echo of a Mark Twain line as well, I believe. But what I'm interested in is introducing my kids to big ideas, to people they can learn from,

to people they can ask questions to, as opposed to memorizing a lot of facts and figures and being able to sort of repeat or cite back things. I think so mentors have been very instrumental in my journey. I didn't get an MFA in writing and then become an author. I was a research assistant for a great writer. And so I think these figures are really, really important. And what's fascinating about Marcus Relius

is that he has this close relationship with his mother who's sort of a guiding influence in his life and real life. And then he has these philosophy teachers. And when you open meditations, the first sort of, the first book of the 12 books in Meditations are is really just a cataloging done by Marcus only for his own private use of all the things he learned from the mentors and teachers in his life. He thinks his rhetoric teacher he thinks his

philosophy teachers he thinks he thinks his Latin teacher he thinks you know he thinks his philosophy teachers, he thinks his Latin teacher, he thinks his grandfather, his adopted father, he just, it's very clear that Marcus was shaped primarily by these relationships in his life. He doesn't, he's not thinking, you know, the Institute of Higher Education, not that that really existed, but he's thinking individual teachers,

just like all of us who had a teacher who fundamentally shaped their life. That makes sense. What about, I was reading a lot of the customer of views on Amazon, and what has been the reaction from adults and children to your book, as much as this is your first children's book.

Yeah, it's been really great. So this is somewhat unusual and I hope I'm not speaking out of turn here talking to Amazon. But this is when I self publish this book and it's on Amazon. But I also sold it direct to my own fans. I sold signed copies of the book direct. So so it's kind of a weird thing. You normally as an author, you're like,

you want to sell as many copies on Amazon upfront, you want to pre-order enough copies that you hit a best seller list, all the sort of the hustle that an author does. And self-publishing this one, none of that was really a concern of mine. So it was really interesting to be able to sell, the majority of the copies upfront directly to fans

and then now watching the word of mouth send people to Amazon, which has been cool. But hearing from friends and stuff, that's been the interesting part where one of my wife's friends, they were like, first off, great job in the book. Second, we're very upset with you because we've now had to read this book like 40 or 50 times because our son is obsessed with it. So it's kind of it's interesting writing for a very

different audience. Obviously, the parents are the one reading it, but it's really, they're usually reading it to someone there's an instructive purpose. But my favorite part has been signing these copies as someone who was introduced to Stoicism not until my late teens, to sign these books where the personalization is obviously a mother or a father giving it to their son or daughter or a grandparent giving it to a son or a grandson or a father giving it to their son or daughter or a grandparent giving it to a son or a grandson or a granddaughter or an aunt or uncle giving it to a niece or nephew. That's been like that's been the most rewarding

part watching, you know, hopefully seeding this philosophy which has been so instrumental in my life to much, much younger people. Got a quick message from one of our sponsors here and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned. That's interesting. That that that personalization ship is interesting. When you know that the book may be going to a grandchild, how does that change what you write if at all? Sure, well, so sometimes, so sometimes when I sign my books just because it's a theme I've written about a lot in my writing,

I sign Momento Mori, which is this stoic idea of remember you are mortal, don't take life for granted, you could die at any moment. So obviously that's not how I'm inscribing the books to young children, that would be rather dark. So I had to come up with a new inscription. So I've been writing two things.

Obviously, when people don't have a specific request, one of them, there's this great line, I'll just give you one of them, which I like the most. In Meditations, Marcus writes to himself, he says, fight to be the person that philosophy tried to make you. And so I love this idea that the emperor of Rome, he gets trained in this philosophy by Rousticus and by others. So he knows who he's supposed to be. And then he knows who he would be without any sort of active management of oneself, right?

If he gravitates towards the path of least resistance, he knows where he'll go, and that it's this fight to go from, you know, sort of where you naturally would be, and where your ideal was, and that philosophy is this thing, like fight to be who philosophy wants you to be. I found that to be a really beautiful one. So that's often what I write in the books.

I say, you know, you know, fight to be the person that philosophy wants you to be. That's usually how I've been signing on, which has been fun. Then the other interesting thing, which I do in some of the books is, and this is a weird thing you would only see, you know, if you talk to a lot of people really like stoicism, is like, a lot of the people I'm signing the books for, like their kid is named like Marcus Aurelius or, you know, like Scott Aurelius Smith, or, you know, like, they've named their kids after some of these stoic figures. And so I sometimes will write, you know, like, write, make your namesake proud or make

Marcus proud or something like that. But again, it's just been really humbling and inspiring to just see how deeply these ideas have resonated with people and it makes me feel fantastic to have played a small part in that. That's awesome. You brought up that, you might get a lot of requests. What's like

a common request that you might get from a reader? Well, I'm just saying like people will say like, can you make this out to my daughter, Julia, and then say, you know, some obviously very personal thing between the two of them, which I love. But when I have a chance, I say something like Make Marcus Prouder or a fight to be the person that philosophy makes you. But it's just, it's really touching to write something that someone hasn't even read yet, and they're already giving it as a gift to the most important person in their life. You know, that's just books are already, you know, sort of a calling, but

to feel like that's what that's the role that your work is playing in people's lives is just really touching. Yeah, that's awesome. I love that. So what about, so besides reading this book, what other first steps can a child take towards the path of stoicism or like practical ways to teach children's stoicism? Well, what I tried to do in the book too is we don't really, I don't think the word stoicism appears anywhere in the book. It's not like, hey, let me tell you about this philosophy.

There's a Marxist really talks about how that one isn't supposed to argue what a philosophical person is. You're just supposed to argue what a philosophical person is, you're just supposed to be one. Epictetus says, don't talk about your philosophy, embody it. What I think the best way to teach your kid stosism is one to embody it, but two, to focus on the individual lessons, right?

So, you know, for the Stoics, I think at the core of it is like, we don't control what happens, we control how we respond. Well, as a parent, you have so many opportunities to reinforce that lesson in the things that happen in life, you know, whether it's, you know, your kid breaks their arm, your kid, you know, gets cut from the soccer team, all of us are in the middle of this pandemic, you know, what life is is us responding to the things that are outside of our control. So to me, that's like that sort of core lesson

at the basis of the philosophy is way more important than any of the names, you know, whether you tell them that originates in Greece or it's popularized in Rome. None all of that stuff is irrelevant. What matters is the core actions. Yeah, that makes sense. And it makes sense.

It ties back to the earlier story. You talked about with your stun and the bike ride and your wife. So yeah, it's like there's real time reinforcements, which makes that process. And I think, I think what it is is you get the theory first, right? Like, hey, these are the sort of maxims or the observations. And then you go out in the world and you bump into experiences where those mantras either demand that you do something or they hold true or they're revealed in a new light in light of what you're experiencing.

And so I think the idea is you talk to them about these things enough times and then they go out and they find opportunities to put them to use. Again, we read kids books all the time in our family, and some of them are very funny and very entertaining. But when it's a rat arguing over a piece of pizza or something, there's no greater resonance outside the fantasy world of the story.

I'm not saying there's not a time and place for entertainment. Of course there is, but like we have a book that I got on Amazon. It's long out of print and it's called like 50 great stories illustrated or something like this. It's like an old book that they used to kids used to read in like elementary school or something. And, um, and what I like about it is it's all those famous stories like George Washington chopping down the cherry tree, right? It's not true, but that's not the point. Like the point of that story, I think honestly, I don't really think anyone reading that a hundred years ago or 150 years ago I don't really think anyone reading that a hundred years ago or a hundred and fifty years ago

really thought George Washington chopped down a cherry tree and then couldn't lie about it. I think that they were taking something people were familiar with George Washington and using him to illustrate a sort of a moral anecdote or lesson that sticks with you. And so I love stories that do that. And I would say most of my books are doing that for adults. But the idea that adults should get various stories and children should only get nonsensical ridiculous stories. You know, I just don't like that.

Yeah, that makes sense. Is there, you know, because there's so many books out there and there's a finite amount of time, how do you choose which books to read with your children? We ask for a lot of recommendations, obviously. And then you take your kids to a bookstore, you know, what I like about the Amazon bookstore is like they're only face out. So there's really a chance to like sort of discover stuff.

But you just go around and I would say there's a lot of hit or miss, right? It's a lot of trial and error. You read something, it doesn't resonate. You wait six months, finally it does resonate or you give it away because it doesn't resonate, you wait you wait six months, finally it does resonate or you know, you give it away because it because it doesn't work, but I think our general

philosophy is like we want stuff that is both entertaining and has some sort of moral instruction in it. And I think you know, this is what ASAPs Fables are on like my son loves the story of the Fox without a tail. There's an ace up Fable about a fox who gets his tail cut off in a trap and then tries to convince all the other foxes that they shouldn't have tails

because he feels embarrassed. And then you know, the other fox catches him and he says, you're only saying this because you want us to be like them. If you were trying to convince us to cut off our tails while you still had your tail, I would believe you. So the point is, it's really a moral about the reliability of the narrator or the salesperson that you're talking to. That's really what the story is. But to a four-year-old, it's a funny story about foxes talking to each other and not having tails, right? And so, you know, or the story about the sour grapes, right?

Again, this is kind of a funny story that's when a doll has a deeper resonance. I think this is why the Pixar movies are so great, you know? And I think if you compare, you know, a Pixar movie with another animated movie that might be funnier and, you know, cuter and more ridiculous, but it doesn't have that underlying lesson. You feel the kind of the nutritional difference when you're watching it, and also it's much less enjoyable for the parent, you know. And so I think the premise here was to make something that is both entertaining and resonates and works, you know, kind of whatever your age is. Yeah, I would say, if you know, personally, it worked

for me because whenever I have like a hardcover book, I like to take notes in the pages. And you know, I thought maybe this one I would go by quickly, but I actually, you know, I dog yearned a lot. I wrote a lot of notes, so I'll tell the little stars, I'm quote, so. Yeah, what's that? Two other recommendations. Have you read the little prints? Yep. The little prints is a great example. It's obviously a

bit longer and but has some some killer lines in it. But then have you read the boy, the fox, the horse and the mole? No, it's that's incredible. Also really good, which I would recommend, which is a similar similar style of sort of like.

Kind of a surreal story that's funny and weird and it's got some great jokes in it. The kids get, but it's also got some quotes that. As a parent just sort of hits you right in the solar plexus. OK, I'll write that down. Oh, that's my wish. It's like, I think it's got like 30,000 ratings on Amazon. It's like a monster hit. Okay. Nice.

I'm going to, we're getting quite a bit of, of, uh, viewer questions or audience questions. So I'm going to, I'm going to ask, I'm going to start asking them. So we might jump around a little bit on topics. Um, okay. So first question going to ask, I'm going to start asking them. So we might jump around a little bit on topics. Okay, so first question, Kyle asks, can you talk about whatever intersection there is between stoicism and pure, adulterated fun? For example, can a stoic go to a concert and get lost in the music?

I would say absolutely. Not only did we're a number of the Stoics sort of proficient in music, they were also lovers of poetry, but I think the most compelling example I could get you, give you, that the Stoics were not sort of emotionless robots who didn't ever have any fun. And we may have talked about this chasing at my last one. There was an early stoke in Cricypus. And he's actually on Wikipedia as sort of like one of the most unusual deaths of all time. But the story of Cricypus is that Cricypus was as an old man sitting on his front porch. And he, he, a donkey, a man's donkey wanders into his front porch into his garden

and starts eating the figs out of out of his garden. And Crescipus finds this hilarious one for some reason. And he laughs and he says, Hey, do you want me to give your donkey some wine to wash the figs down? And then he starts laughing so hard at his own joke that he dies of laughter. So the idea that the Stoics don't have any fun to me is totally belied by the fact that one of the most famous Stoics had such a good sense of humor that he like literally tickled himself to death. At a not even that funny joke to me is illustrative of where the Stoics come down as far as humor goes.

I love the example. And I remember starting it in the lives of the Stoic book because I thought it's such an unusual way to die. So it's also like one of the, it's like, it's an awesome way to die because you just laugh at your own joke. Yes, and there's, look, probably not true, right? I probably not true in some way.

But in the ancient world, again, this is sort of the point about children's books, too. In the ancient world, stories and history, there was a difference between biography and lives, right? So lives as a genre was when they would try to capture the essence of a person. They would try to capture sort of who they were and what they represented as opposed to being a stickler for all the facts and figures about that person. And so to me, whether a precipice dies of laughter or not, I think this anecdote is supposed to tell us that like, this was a guy with a sense of humor.

I like that. Okay, we have a next one. Michelle asks, what was your favorite book as a child? Ooh, that's a good question. I don't really remember what my favorite book was as a kid. For whatever reason, I don't remember, but I do remember really falling in love with reading again with like Encyclopedia Brown, with the box card children, the Hardy Boys,

and then when I got a little older, maybe like fourth or fifth grade, I really fell in love with like Westerns, like Louis Lomore novels. So as a kid, I didn't read a lot of great stuff, but I just read a lot and I would just read anything. You know, I'd read, we'd go on a trip and I'd read all my hearty boys books and then my sister would be reading the babysitters club and then I'd read all those too. Like I would just read anything that I would get my hands on.

I remember in our last chat, you talked about rereading as something you do consciously. Do you reread any of the children's books that you read before? I mean definitely with kids, yeah, you find that you read the same book like 50 times,

right? You just read it over and over again. There's two sort of recommendations about kid stuff that I think might make sense here. One kid want to do it. I'm actually in the middle because I'm going to have them on my podcast. I'm rereading meditations from Marcus Realeus. There's a new translation by Robyn Waterfield that's coming out. I'm forgetting the publisher, but there's a new edition. So I'm reading Marcus really is fresh in a new translation right now, which I'm getting a lot of enjoyment out of. But then one of the books we read every night as a kid with our kids, the editor of the book, her name is Ali S. Theory, but she wrote a book called A Poem for Every

Night of the Year. And it's one poem every night You know different different genres different authors different types old poems new poems Experimental poems extract, you know high coups every type of poem you can imagine But it's just one poem every night So we're about I think two thirds of the through. So we've done it for like nine months. But when the idea is kind of like my book, the Daily Stoic, when you get

to the beginning, you just start over again. And so that's that's hopefully going to become kind of a permanent part of our not just nighttime routine, but rereading routine. Oh, interesting. I think my book list is going to expand after this chat. Wait, I have to double click this new translation of meditations that you

see. Anything new or surprising? Yes, so here, let me pull it, let me, let me pull it up on Amazon here. It's, it's by Robin Waterfields. And it's called Meditations, the Annotated Edition. And it is published by Basic Books. And what I like about it is that, so meditations is not the easiest book in the world to read, especially if you get a bad translation. Usually I recommend this edition, which I bought on Amazon when I was 19 years old.

And I just bought whatever first popped up in the algorithm and got lucky that it was a readable one. But it can be hard if you get a bad translation or not the right translation for you. This one is annotated. So at the top it has the passage and then underneath in the footnotes on each page. It explains sort of some of the background like, if you ever read Shakespeare, it's helpful to have an annotated edition because it explains all the terms you don't know. So what I like about this one is not only is it a fresh translation. So I haven't read it quite

like this before. The annotations are quite good as well. Nice. Okay, I'll put that note in as well. Okay, so Darrell asks, will writing this book influence your future writing? Do you intend to write more children book? I am in the middle of another children's book right now. So I'll, uh, these are the page. So these are the pages of it right now.

And then these are the scribbles. My son is trying to learn how to write his name. So we were signing this. But yeah, I'm in the middle of working on a SQL sort of a prequel right now. Like focused on another specific stuff. Another stoic, yeah. Okay, interesting. And so I mean, you just showed us some physical papers that you preferred method.

So I started on, started on like scrap paper and wrote it a handful of times as I got the outline. And then I typed it up and then each every couple days I print it out and I go home and I read it and then I notice like where my kids attentions are flagging, you know, what they have questions about, what I don't like hearing set out loud. The benefit of writing the kids book is that it's just so much shorter, you know, like on one of my books, I couldn't go home, read it to my family multiple times, right? Like they would shoot me. But the kids book only takes like 10 minutes or 15 minutes. So you have the ability to kind of go over and over it. Oh, awesome.

It'd be fun because your kids are young now, but as they grow in each age, to continue writing these books and to see their growth, it'd be fun. Okay, so there's another series of young adult books that sort of inspired me a little bit. I don't know if you've read any of Jocco Willings stuff. He wrote Extreme Ownership and Discipline Equals Freedom. But he has a kid series called The Way of the Warrior Kid that my son kind of gets, but it's pretty enjoyable as well.

Oh, yeah. I remember him talking about it on a previous fish boat that we had with him. Yeah, he's awesome. Nice. What about, okay, so we have another question from Jennifer asks, what would you hope that a college-bound team would get from your book? Well, I think the idea of it being all ages is important because, yeah, what a five year old is going to get out of it should be different than a 15 year old, it should be different than a 25 year old. Just like, I don't actually remember reading the little prints as a kid. I'm not sure I ever heard it as a kid, but I probably read it at 25. And you do get something different out of it.

You know, you're probably not enjoying the pictures as much, but you really understanding what the author is trying to get at. So to me, this is really a sort of a parable or a fable about leadership. To me, the story of Marcus really says that he's chosen for this position, that he doesn't really want. He didn't seek it out in any way. He couldn't have sought it out.

He was too young. But one of the pivotal moments in the story, and this is sort of true as far as we know from the ancient historians, but when Marcus is told that he's going to become emperor, we're told that he weeps. And he weeps because he knew enough history that he knew that almost every emperor before him had been terrible. He wept because he didn't want to be bad at it and he didn't want to become a bad person. And he ends up having this dream the night before he ascends to the throne. He has this dream that his shoulders are made of ivory and on the shoulders are the purple

cloak of the emperor. And this is when he realizes that, you know, sometimes you have a dream you're like, ah, this is what it's trying to tell me. He has this sense that it's trying to tell him that he is strong enough to do this job, that he can do it. And so I would hope that a younger person going out in the world that feels called to do something, but might also be entertaining some doubts or worries about whether they're cut out for it. That that sort of pivotal moment, which happens to Marcus Aurelius, in his 20s, would sort

of sit with someone as being like, no, you can't do this. Your shoulders are stronger than you know. One of the recurring themes that I love was the fact that it was a gift, but it was only a gift because he made it a gift in his actions. Yeah, I love that takeaway. Well, that's, you know, my book, The Opsicle, is the way is this idea that we take the stuff that happens to us and we can turn it into a positive. It's not, it's not, hey, I'm going to put on rose colored glasses and that magically makes everything better.

No, it's that starting with your perceptions, starting by seeing things differently, that's a big start, but then you have to go make that true, right? So Marcus really didn't just go, oh, this is gonna be wonderful. Of course, it's awesome. No, he really worked at it and he transformed this thing that was a great burden in many, in many senses and he turned it into a gift into a positive. Yeah, I think that's a great takeaway

for children to learn at a young age. All right, next audience question. Louis asks, how do you choose a topic to write about? I don't know how much authors really choose what they're gonna write about. I think you choose what you're not gonna write about, like you choose to reject an idea, but there is something strange where,

you know, I had some sense that I wanted to do a kid's book about Marcus Aurelius at some point, but I also really didn't have any sort of control over it. I do believe these things kind of just come to you, and you choose either, kind of like we're just talking about, you choose to either accept it or reject it. Well, I'm curious now. When did this, the thought of a children's book first hit your mind? Well, I get the question a lot, like how can I teach this to my children? And obviously, I've been writing about sources for a long time before I had children. So the urgency of that question didn't make sense to me as much until sort of further down the road.

But I don't know, I just, the idea of Marcus really as being this little boy who's chosen to be in charge of the entire world, just always stuck with me as being something pretty incredible. And again, it's just sort of floating around. And I think what happened in March of 2020 is that suddenly a lot of things were in flux. A lot of things that I thought were important got sort of tossed out the window.

And I suddenly had some time and some space to think about it a bit more seriously. And it kind of just came naturally from there. Got it. Okay. The next one we will say we have a comment from Jen and Jen says my 12 year old daughter's homes going today and is in total awe watching this. She's a gracious reader and a little star struck and I love this fishball. Thank you for being here, Ryan. So, thanks for that. Well, I really appreciate that and that's awesome. You know, there's a, there's a, the other thing I sometimes sign the books to, there's a, there's a Harry Truman quote where he says, not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.

And, and so I think, you know, the idea that reading is something that is part and parcel of becoming great at whatever it is that you choose to do in life. I think it's really important and if you could figure that out at 12, you will have such a huge advantage over so many people. So I would just encourage you to keep reading and read things that you're interested in and push yourself as a reader too. You know, read something now that you don't understand at all and then come back to it in five or ten years and read it again. And you know, the sooner you wrestle with these big things, I think the better. Awesome. Yeah, I love that call to action and take away. Smith asks, who is your favorite non-stowe philosopher and why? That's a good question. I'm interested in anyone as the Stoics were,

anyone who lives an impressive life. So Socrates obviously predates the Stoics, but he's the godfather of Stoicism. So I find Socrates to be fascinating, Buddha, obviously a fascinating philosopher and sort of figure. So maybe I'll spin this around. Seneca says, quote, from anyone, he says, all quote, a bad author if the line is good, meaning like he'll study and learn from anyone provided they have value to give. So I try to be not, I'm very, even though I write about stoicism, I am not dogmatic

about it. I want to learn and read from anyone who's saying anything interesting or valuable. Uh-huh. You know, I have not heard that line yet. That's a good one. I might use that on Twitter. Yeah, he said, Senica says you should study other schools like a spy in the enemy's camp. And so of all the philosophers that Santaca quotes in his in his letters, he quotes

Epicurus ostensibly his rival more than any other philosopher. So more than the Stoics, he's quoting the Epicurians in his Stoic writings, which I think is sort of very illustrative. Interesting. This is a good follow-up audience question to this topic. So Doug asks, what's the best argument by critics against Stoicism and how would you refute it? against socialism, and how would you refute it? So one of the things I get a lot, so the Stoics were about sort of accepting

the things that are outside of our control. So there's this idea that there's a certain amount of resignation in Stoicism. And so where does that leave us when we face, you know, sort of massive global issues, whether that's climate change or systemic racism, or war, or corruption, is a stoic just supposed to plug their ears and close their eyes and just focus on your own stuff.

To me, that's just a big misreading of the Stoics. Almost every single one of the Stoics, including Marcus Relius, was actively engaged in politics, in public life. They served in the armed forces, they did charitable works, they wrote books, they gave lectures. So, you know, right on down through, you know,

modern history. There's a guy named Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who's a translator of Epictetus in the 1800s, a white guy from Massachusetts, who leads one of the first black regiments in the Civil War on the Union cause. There's Stoics who are integral in the creation of collective bargaining and the unionization movement. Thomas Jefferson dies with a copy of Seneca on his nightstand. So the idea that the Stoics were passive is contradicted by the fact that the Stoics were often actively revolutionary and progressive in, you know, in the context of their own times, of course, in the movement for change or improvement. Actually, this is a good follow up to this topic.

John asks, what would Marcus or Alias or Stoics say are the top three things we need to apply most in today's world. So maybe if I could expand that to force, four-stode virtues, and I carry this little coin with me that has the four virtues on the front. But the four-stode virtues are courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom, those there, right there. And on the back, there's a little quote from Mark Sirius who says, try not to exchange these virtues for others. So I think if you were saying like what's missing or what's the root of a lot of the problems that we face as a society, I would argue an absence of courage, a lack of discipline or moderation,

which is what temperance means, not enough focus on justice, equality, fairness, that's the virtue of justice, and then wisdom, a love of learning, a commitment to the truth, these sort of four virtues, what we call the cardinal virtues, to me are the essence of a good life, but also the essence of a fair and free society as well. So I think our inability to ascribe inability to to to ascribe the the proper

place to those four virtues is probably four things that I'd say we're struggling with today. Got a quick message from one of our sponsors here, and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned. We actually this this audience

question just came in and I think it was it's a great segue. Mike asks, Marcus's son, Comedis, was raised with a stoke upbringing, but upon adult, lived a very non stoke lifestyle. Ryan, what went wrong? Yes, conveniently left out of this book because it would be much too complicated to give it. left out of this book because it would be much too complicated to give it. So, Comedis is about as bad as Joaquin Phoenix portrays him in Gladiator, and it would be silly to deny this. Maybe even worse, in real life.

Here's what I would say in favor of Marcus Reales. Marcus Reales has 11 children, including seven sons. He has two sets of twins. It's pretty incredible. Comedest is his only surviving male heir. So imagine losing six children, right? That would be devastating to any family and be devastating to any of the surviving children at the very least.

But I would also say, if you have 11 children, it shouldn't surprise us that one turns out to be a bit of a dud. You know what I mean? So I don't know, it's a great historical quandary that we don't have a lot of insight to Marx really doesn't talk much about parenting, you know, that sort of lost. You know, maybe he was a failure as a father, maybe he did a really great job in his son, suffered from mental illness. We don't know. I would say what we can safely say is a black mark against Marcus Aurelius is that he passes to thrown on to his son, right? I don't really know what he could have done, right? I mean, Hadrian doesn't have a son, so it's possible for him to name Marcus

a realist as the heir. What's he supposed to do? You know, what's he supposed to do? It's an impossible situation, but it certainly raises a lot of questions. Yeah, that I imagine having a lunch conversation with Marcus on his mental models and how he thought about passing the torch considering how he got how he became a

That would have that would be fascinating to be one of the first questions you'd have you'd be like? Yeah. Okay, so Quinton, Christina and Caleb ask, what's the lesson that's been the hardest for you to internalize and habituate? I mean, they're all very they're all very hard. If they were hard, you know, we probably wouldn't need to write books about them. We'd all just sort of intuitively understand. I think the big one for me and for Marcus is this idea that to bring this back to where we start, we don't control what

happened, control how we respond. That's so easy to say. And then somebody blows something that's important to you. You want to yell at them, you want an explanation, you want an apology, you want reparations. But all of that's in the past done. You should be focusing on what you're going to do. You should be focused on the future. It's so easy to say, like, focus on what you control, but it's almost as if we're wired to focus instead on what we don't control. And so it's a continual struggle.

Yeah. Alex asks, what living person do you admire the most and why? I don't know if there's a living person that I admire most. There's lots of, lots of living living people that I admire. I just read a fascinating book about Jimmy Carter's early childhood. He grew up in this sort of rural town in Georgia, but there was a great line in, in the book where someone was saying that Jimmy Carter is the only person to use the presidency as a stepping stone for more important things. And when you look at, again, you, Democrat or Republican, it's hard not to be blown away with what Jimmy Carter's accomplishes, as long as he after being president. You know, the houses that he's built for habitat, for humanity,

know, the houses that he's built for Habitat for Humanity, you know, the charitable works, the books that he's written, his example of sort of leadership and citizenship, all these things. So, you know, probably, you know, accepting that we don't have too many years left of walking the same planet with Jimmy Carter, he might be someone I'd put at the top of the list. Okay, awesome. of walking the same planet with Jimmy Carter. He might be someone I'd put at the top of the list. OK, awesome. Dominic asks, so what part of the book

was the most fun to write? That's a good question. I don't know. It was really fun to pair it with the illustrations. I worked with this great illustrator named Victor Ujas. But you know, you write it and you have one sense and then having to break up the big text into these, hey, what words are going to go on this page, what's the drawing?

I had a lot of fun sort of bringing it to life with the illustrator and that was obviously something I haven't got to do on any of my other books. Plus one, I thought Victor did a great job with illustrations. So I wanted to dive deep on this creative process too. Was there a specific scene like when you're writing the text that you were excited about for the illustration? Oh, that's a good question. Yes, so one of my favorite sections in meditations is Marcus, is this sort of poetic writer who likes to look at nature

and observe all the beauty of the world around him. And so there's this scene in the book where sort of driven away from Rome, he goes out in the countryside and he talks about the the boars with foam on their mouth, he talks about the brow of the lion, he talks about the stocks of grain bending low under their own weight, the figs from the line. He talks about the stocks of grain bending low under their own weight, the figs from the trees. That's just always been one of my favorite passages of meditations and I was really excited to see that laid out.

Awesome. Was there what about on the flip side of that? Was there a scene that was challenging to bring to light? Well, so we talked about the four virtues and there's a scene at the end of the book where he lists the four virtues. And those are hard to illustrate. How do you draw a picture of an internal state of being?

You know what I mean? But I thought Victor did a really good job of doing that. And when I did the coin, I was telling you about the coin, even just the symbols for courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom are not the easiest. It seems like it would be easy, but then like, what is, what does temperance look like? I don't know. It's like, what is, what's a picture of humility, right? Like it's, it's, you know it, but you couldn't describe it.

Yeah, that makes sense. What about, when you were working with Victor on this, how was the process that you wrote the text first and then the illustrations followed by Spursa? How did that work out? Yeah, so I wrote the text and then I broke it up like what text was going to go on each page for the most part. And then I tried to talk about symbols or ideas or inspiration like where these things were coming from. So, you know, what stuff was real, okay, actually I'll give you an example. So, there's a section where Marcus is being talked to by Rousticus and he's sort of bored. He's not listening.

Well, there's actually a really famous statue. Seneca was Nero's teacher and there's a famous statue by Eduardo Barone that shows Seneca trying to instruct Nero in Nero not listening. And it's a really beautiful statue. So I was able to go for this one,

check out this statue. I think it might illustrate what we're trying to do. And so there's a lot of, you asked me about Easter eggs before we got started. I wouldn't say there's Easter eggs, but a lot of the things that might seem like sort of surface level stuff are actually kind of deeply rooted at least in the historical record in some form or another. I like that reference. You know when you look back at this creative process, I imagine creating a children's book is very different from the other books you created. What sticks out to you? You know I I just I loved doing it totally myself. Like I loved the start to finish of it. And I think part of the

reason I did when I went to my publisher who I love and we work together many times, they they had they wanted it to be much longer. They wanted it to sort of be modeled on a handful of other books. And you know, I felt very fortunate to be in a position

financially, professionally, creatively to just be able to go like, that all sounds really cool and I'm sure it would be good, but like what I want to do is this. And so what stands out to me is that I really made the book that

I wanted to make that I thought needed to be made. And I'm very excited that it resonated, but that's all extra, because it's as close to what I wanted as any project I've ever done. What about what was the inspiration for the book cover art?

Like, why, why this image? Yeah, that's a good question. I, so it's one of the drawings towards the back where he runs away from Rome. It's a repeat of that same drawing. So it comes from inside the book. But what I liked about

it, and it's the same, it's the same as the back to the back is that picture. But I didn't, I thought about this a lot and I didn't want you to be able to see Marcus's face from the front because what I wanted the reader to be able to identify with Marcus as themselves potentially, but also to render a historical figure as a boy and a drawing as a tricky thing. And so I wanted the cover not to have to, I didn't want people to be like,

that's not what he looks like. I just wanted it to sort of evoke the feeling or the mood. And then once you get in the book, then you see what he looks like. Oh, interesting. Okay, I didn't know that too bit. Yeah. Is there anything that we did not talk about the regarding,

in regarding the book that is super interesting or that we should know about? I guess one other fun thing about it, so we did like audio books for kids books are weird, right? Because this whole thing takes like 10 minutes to read. So if someone's going to pay full price for an audio book that takes 10 minutes to listen to. So again, doing it myself, I had some

freedom. So I did a bunch of different versions of the audiobook. So there's one where I read it, there's one with a female narrator, there's a male narrator, there's a narrator with a British accent, and then I did a version, for instance, where I read it with my kids. So they're in the background like screaming and yelling and asking questions. And then there's a version with sound effects. There's a version where I just talk about sort of like we just did, I talked about the story of the book. So doing the audiobook was again kind of a creative thing because it's such a short book that I had the freedom to sort of mess around with it in a way that I probably couldn't

if I was traditionally published. Oh, interesting. That's a fun way to format it and style, is it? Yeah, I just thought maybe people would listen to it in the car with their kids or as their kids falling asleep on a sonos or something. Yeah, that reinforces working backwards from the and audience and customer that you're going with. I have to say this is one

of my favorite illustrations. Oh, yeah, I love that one. And I just love the saying, right? But the best way there is to thank a teacher is by living up to what they taught us. So that's very resonant. So you talk about Easter eggs. So there's a philosophy

teacher a few generations before Marcus Realis is a stuck in his name is Misonius Rufus and he teaches this this Asian king. I forget where it is, but some distant province of the Roman Empire. He teaches this king philosophy and the king says, thank you so much. How can I pay you? Whatever you want, you know, name your price and I'll pay you. And Musoni says the greatest payment you could give me

would be to live up to the teachings that we've just discussed. And so, so like I was saying, almost all the lines in the book are rooted either overtly in stoicism or an illusion to some stoic idea. A seven-year-old reading the book does not need to know that that's really based on something real, but I think the reason that line resonates with you is that it's real and it's also true. And I love it even more it even more knowing the, the context behind it. Yeah. I know we're at times.

So it's a last question. Okay. Elsa asks and this is a good one. Good when an arm wrestling match. You or your wife? If this is the Elsa that I think it is, I will say thank you for showing up. This is really funny. But I don't know.

I guess probably, but I would argue my wife, if you want to get arms like this, I've said, you just have to run a lot and do no upper body work. So I don't know much to brag about in the arm department. Awesome. I love that. Oh, Ryan, I mean, every time we chat, it feels like 60 minutes goes by in a flash. We thank you for joining us. Everyone check out Ryan's new book, The Boy Who Would Be King. That's a great story. And I think a nice way to end it is. I love how you end the book by saying, keep reading, keep learning, courage, discipline, justice, wisdom. It's an extraordinary thing indeed. Well, thanks Jason. It's an honor and indeed. Well thanks Jason it's an honor and let's do it on the next book. Yeah I look forward to it. Thanks Ryan. Thanks for listening to the

Daily Stoke podcast. Just a reminder we've got signed copies of all my books in the Daily Stoke Store. You can get them personalized, you can get them sent to a friend. Whatever you want we'd love for you to have a copy. I know I love signed copies of some of my favorite books. If you love a sign copy of the Ops goes the way, you go as the enemy, still in this is the key, the leather bound edition of the Daily Stoke. We have them all in the Daily Stoke store, which you can check out at store.dailystoke.com. Hey, Prime Members! You can listen to the Daily Stoic Early and Add Free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts. Apple podcasts.