The Daily Stoic - Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Jocko Willink On How to Thrive in Challenging Times

Episode Date: September 2, 2020

On today’s Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan and author (Extreme Ownership, Discipline Equals Freedom) and podcaster Jocko Willink talk about maintaining a solid daily routine, how to react to adverse circumstances, finding the strength to fuel your personal endeavors, and more.Jocko Willink is a retired Navy SEAL, author, and leadership expert. Willink served 20 years in the US Navy, including eight years as a Navy SEAL. Following his retirement from the Navy, Willink has written multiple books about the most effective ways to be a leader, such as the bestselling Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALS Lead and Win and Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual. He also hosts a podcast, The Jocko Podcast, and has authored various children’s books, including his series The Way of the Warrior Kid.This episode is brought to you by Mack Weldon, an amazing online retailer for men’s basics. Mack Weldon believes in smart design, premium fabrics and simple shopping—and they’ve created a great new loyalty program, Weldon Blue. Try out Mack Weldon today. And for 20% off your first order, visit http://mackweldon.com and use promo code STOIC.This episode is brought to you by Thrive Market. Thrive Market is the best online location for getting healthy and sustainable groceries delivered to your doorstep. Thrive Market provides for over 70 diets and value systems, and members save 25-50% off retail prices. Plus, orders over $49 qualify for their carbon-neutral free shipping. Visit thrivemarket.com/dailystoic to get a free gift up to $22 with your first order.***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/dailystoicFollow Jocko Willink:  Homepage/podcast: https://jockopodcast.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/jockowillinkInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/jockowillink/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jkowillink/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. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wundery's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target. The new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. music or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Daily Stoic. For each day, we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight,

wisdom necessary for living good life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at dailystowach.com. Hey there, listeners. While we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think you'll like. It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks to founders behind some of the world's biggest and most innovative companies,

to learn how they built them from the ground up. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace, Manduke Yoga Mats, Soul Cycle, and Codopaxi, as well as entrepreneurs working to solve some of the biggest problems of our time, like developing technology that pulls energy from the ground to heat in cool homes, or even figuring out how to make drinking water from air and sunlight. Together they discuss their entire journey from day one, and all the skills they had to learn along the way, like confronting big challenges, and how to lead through uncertainty. So if you want to get inspired and learn how to think like an entrepreneur, check out how

I built this, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon or Wondery. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of The Daily Stoke Podcast. As you know, in Stoicism, we make a big distinction between what they call the pen and ink philosophers and then the real philosophers. Socrates is a real philosopher. He doesn't write anything down, so he's not a pen and ink philosophers and then the real philosophers. Socrates is a real philosopher. He doesn't write anything down, so he's not a pen and ink

philosopher, but he is a soldier. He is a thinker. He is a doer. Marcus Aurelius, right, is not just a reader and a lover of books, but he's the emperor of Rome. He's a real man doing real things. James Stockdale, Admiral James Stockdale, we've talked about before is sort of the penultimate example of this, not just a student of Epicetus. He's introduced to Epicetus' philosophy at Stanford, but ultimately tests those philosophical ideas, as he says, in the laboratory of human experience, as a POW in Vietnam, credible person, someone I profile in lives of the Stoics as well. And so my guess today, I think is a man whose name deserves to be among those philosophers.

I just mentioned, Jocco Willink, number one, New York Times bestselling author, decorated US Navy SEAL commander, credible human being, leadership consultant, great writer. I'm a big fan of this book here, Discipline Equals, Freedom of Field Manual, also is the author of Extreme Ownership, the Economy of Leadership, and his Leadership and Tactics field manual, as well.

Just a great guy, you've probably heard him on Joe Rogan on Tim Ferris. Maybe you've seen some of his incredibly viral videos. If you're looking for sort of the embodiment of this sort of practical stoic wisdom, even if it's not explicitly rooted in the philosophy itself, watch his YouTube video where he talks about good, he's talking about the soldier coming up to him, hey, there's this problem, there's this problem, there's this problem, each time Jaco just says to him good, right?

That's what this idea of the obstacle being the way is, how do you respond to the problems? You don't just throw up your hands, you don't just write them off, you deal with them, you work with them, you make something happen from them. Jaco is a testament to that. Entrepreneur, as I said, writer, consultant, he's managed to have all these different successful careers,

a Renaissance man, if you will, and it was an honor to have him on the podcast. And one of the reasons I reached out is that I was thinking about him because I was just writing something and a line from a discipline equals freedom popped into my head. He says, how do you get over fear? You go. And I thought, you know what, I'm going to shoot a jaco in email. So I did, he responded. And a jaco was nice enough a few months ago during the pandemic. I told him that I just finished reading his book, The Way of the Warrior Kid, with my oldest son. And he said, no, no, no, your kid's way too young.

And he sent me Mikey and the dragons, which is other awesome kids' book. So if you've got young kids and you wanna expose them to something at least adjacent to Stoke Wisdom. So check it out, the Jocco Willing podcast is great as well. Check out his YouTube videos and of course, read his amazing books. I'm so honored to have Jaco and the podcast today. Here we go. I was curious. Obviously you're you're sort of well known for your your morning routine. I saw

I saw you got up at the at the normal 4.50 AM this morning. What does the what does a perfect day for Jaco look like? If you're totally in control of your schedule and as an entrepreneur in a sense you are, what does that day look like to you? Wake up, work out, surf, do some work, either write or get ready for a podcast, talk to some clients, and go to Jiu Jitsu, and eat a steak. And eat a steak.

Does that order matter for you? Do you like to do those things in the same order or can you shuffle the deck? I kind of like that order. Yeah, I kind of like that order. Yeah, for me, it's like, I gotta do the writing, creative, exercise stuff ideally before, as much I like working with clients,

I want to have done my stuff first. Is that how it is for you? I don't know. I, it's weird, you know, I don't know if I, I don't have like some creative mode that I go into. I don't, I just, for me, it's really mechanical of, I already know what I'm going to write and it's just finding the hour to sit down and write a thousand words. That's what it is for me when it comes to writing. So it's not like I have to sit in a space or get into a mode to come up with ideas.

I just have too many ideas that I want to write about. So I'm just picking them and going with them and that's the way it is for me. So I don't really have like a creative thing that I go into. So it doesn't matter when I'm writing it. And probably the same as you. I've written most of my books on plain strains,

not on mobiles, sitting in hotel rooms, sitting in airport lounges. That's where I wrote them. It is what it is. No, I do think people who have not written or intimidated by the creative profession. And then a lot of people are sort of obsessed with the, maybe the glamour or the myth of it, forget that it's a job and you show up every day and you do it. And that's really the

most important thing. Everything else is kind of details. Yeah. My literary agent is a super smart woman. You know, obviously she, I think she, you know, she went to an Ivy League school and she, and I was just talking to her one day, this was after she'd been my literary agent for a couple years. And she, you know, we were having dinner

and she says, well, you know, I went to Yale. And she went to Yale. So she went to Yale and I would just study literature and history. I said, well, why don't you write books? And she said, when I look at the page, I have, like, I don't know what to put there. Interesting.

And I realized, you know, when I look at the page, I've got like a million things I want to put on there and I had to step to narrow it down. So I think I'm pretty lucky in that respect that there's a bunch of ideas running around and they're wanting to get out. No, I think the rare thing for a writer is not the training. It's like having something to say.

And I've got to imagine your life experiences and all that you've seen and done is primarily what drives that, not your love of putting the words in a certain order. Yeah. And then you're right, though, to get back to your point. It's a it's a I mean, it's a job. I kind of have a hard time I even guess even with that word because it doesn't seem like it's a real hard job You know you but the weird thing is is It might not be that hard, but a lot of people they have a vision of something that they want to write But they never get in front of the word processor and write so

Yeah, it is a job. You got to get the mechanical for me. What else? It's like, it's almost like manual labor. It's manual labor for me. I'm not really thinking about when I'm writing. I'm just, I'm getting those words out onto the page and obviously go back and edit because, you know, the things don't come out perfect the first time usually. So. Well, no, and I think what I like about your stuff is there is an authenticity to it. I mean, even when I saw the dichotomy of leadership, I was like, that is just a blunt ass title.

He was not thinking about, you know, I, what I love about your stuff, and I think it's a testament to the actual quality of the message, is that there is a workman-like quality to it. I don't mean that in a condescending way. It just seems like you said what you wanted to say and that's the most important thing. Yeah, there's no AB testing on which title I'm going to run. It's like this is the title. So I imagine that decisiveness has served you well, but obviously you had your first career. this has served you well, but obviously you had your first career. And was it, was it weird for you or hard or I'm curious about that transition as you go

from Navy, CEO, Commander, the Armed Forces world to entrepreneurship to writing, those are other careers that require their own kind of mastery, have their own kind of logic. And a lot of people get their ass kicked, transitioning from one career to the other. How did you think about sort of starting a new thing essentially from scratch? I just kind of applied the same principles that I applied in the military.

I try to keep things simple. I try to help people out. So cover and move. You know, I basically did the things that are in my books. And I'd say from like the transition, from the transition perspective, I always tell veterans and I guess you could say this to anyone that's leaving one life and entering

another one is you've got to find a new mission and it's very obvious in the military when you're in the military you have a mission you're surrounded by people that have the same mission. It's a it's an honorable mission that you're trying to accomplish and so when you leave the military all of a sudden you don't have that mission anymore and if you find a new mission, well, then you're wandering around and you'll take the path of least resistance. So I found a new mission, which was teaching people about leadership, and then that just kind of, once I had that going, you know, it's another thing that you do in the military. When you're in the military, when you assess an enemy, you are looking for, well, what

you're looking for is weakness that the enemy has. And then you apply some pressure to that weakness. And if you can break through, then you exploit that and you put more troops in that area. In the civilian sector, I've found the same thing. I'm not looking for weakness, but I'm looking for opportunities. And when there's opportunities, then I'll put more resources against those opportunities. And as long as it continues to go in the right good, then I'll put more resources against those opportunities. And as long as it continues to go in the right direction, I'll continue to do that thing. But I mean, you've got to send out prog to see if something works, if something doesn't work.

And I'm interested in a lot of different things. So when I see something, I try it. If I start getting some good feedback, I'll go a little bit further. Yeah, and I've got to imagine the mission and then also that idea of applying your strengths to the weakness of the enemy or the market or whatever it is, is really important because what a lot of people do, I find when you transition from something, you go, hey, I'm really good at this. Therefore, I'm going to be great at whatever I do next. There's this humility in going like, hey, I've got to figure out where I fit in here,

where the best use of my time and energy, as opposed to just assuming that mastery automatically translates from one domain to the other. You gotta. And I'll take that one step further. It's one thing to say, hey, I'm really good at this thing. And therefore, the world should conform to support the thing that I'm really good at this thing and therefore the world should conform to Support the thing that I'm good at like it doesn't work that way. You could be good at something and the world doesn't need it

And I'm sorry, you know, I've said that to friends that I've had that are really good at Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu If they were that good at basketball they'd be you know making $20 million a year They happen to be that good at Jiu-jitsu. They don't make any money from it. Right. The world doesn't conform to you, unfortunately. Right. Yeah. It's like, hey, look, you're a classical musician. You're not going to be as famous as the Rolling Stones.

That's just how the taste align. But I think also your point about weaknesses, that doesn't mean you can't be, there's not extraordinary opportunities to be successful as a classical musician. You just have to be willing to find those and work at them. And I think that's the other thing that people will, hey, I should be a successful writer.

You put out a book, it doesn't sell on copies. And they're like, oh, it's impossible. It's like, no, just you tried the wrong avenue the first time. And there's 50 other avenues left to explore. Yeah, it's a scary thing when you think you have the best idea ever and then you realize that maybe it wasn't the best idea ever, right? It's hard to admit that to yourself and it's hard not to blame the world for not understanding your idea and not appreciating your brilliance and sometimes that's the way it works out.

So speaking of transitions and then the world may be not appreciating, I'd be curious. So obviously I love your good video. What would you say to someone who's who's at their ask kick the last four or five months? Maybe the their industry went sideways, they lost their job, maybe they saw their stock market, portfolio goes sideways, like what would you say to someone who's sort of reeling from the events of the pandemic? Yeah, so from, I have a consulting business to work with a bunch of businesses and the clients that accepted the reality that was upon us, the fastest,

they made the quickest changes and adapted. The people that decided that, well, this isn't gonna last or this isn't a big deal, or we're gonna just keep doing what we're doing because it's always worked, those people are gonna have problems. And really just comes down to having humility because if you're humble enough to say, you know what?

I'm not perfect, I don't know everything. I'm not sure how long this is gonna to last. Then you start to make adjustments. If you let your ego get out and you start saying, well, I've been through this kind of thing before. I remember the whatever virus and it's not that big of a deal and everything will be fine. Besides, look, you can find new sources that actually support any possible opinion that you have. We have, you can verify it. And that doesn't mean it is true. So, you know, I think it's come down to people have been getting their ass kicked over the last four or five months.

Well, guess what? It's time to adjust your plan and attack from a different direction. Yeah, one of my favorite Marcus Relius quotes. And I think it ties into your message. And it's weird to think he was writing during the Antonin plague, a plague that lasts for 15 years, and ultimately he ends up succumbing to it

at the end of his reign. But he writes, he's like, no, it's unfortunate that this happened. And then he says, no, no, no, wait. It's fortunate that it happens to me because not everyone would have basically what I have. And he talks about sort of that that strength is the ability to look at whatever happens and say, sort of, this is exactly what I was looking for. So like, how do

you tell companies to go like, look, yeah, I know you just had to close 50% of your locations or you've had to lay this amount of staff off or, you know, you're not going to be doing live events for the next year and a half. How do they find in that what they're looking for? Um, I've had this very conversation with a bunch of different clients and that is, well, you know, folks, here's what we can do. We can curl up in a ball and get under the covers

on the couch and hide, or we can go on the attack. So what do you want to do? Do you want to go on the attacker? Do you want to curl up in a ball and let the world fall apart around you? I say we go on the attack. And that's pretty much what everyone realizes they have to do. You have to say, okay, this is the new reality,

this is what I'm dealing with, and this is how we're gonna go forward. You know, on my podcast, you know, I've been very lucky to have some pretty incredible people on there and also cover some pretty incredible subjects. And I did a series of podcasts about, there's a guy named Chesty Puller,

who is kind of the biggest hero in the Marine Corps. Five Navy crosses, just the most iconic of all Marines. His son was in the Marine Corps, too. And his son wasn't quite the same kind of hearty stock that Chesney Polar was. Lewis Polar was more of a cerebral guy. He had glasses. that test and polar was, Lewis Polar was more of a cerebral guy. He had glasses.

He just wasn't this sort of Marines Marine, which is what his father was, but he joined the Marine Corps. And then he went to Vietnam 1968 and he ended up getting severely wounded. It's a totally tragic story. And he ended up killing himself after he wrote an incredible book, which is called Fortune of Son. And it seemed like everything was going in the right direction.

The book came out, pulling surprise winner. Well, I had another guy on my podcast who was also wounded in Vietnam. He lost both of his legs and one of his arms. His name is Jim Surlesley, just an incredible guy. And to hear him tell the story, you're waiting for sort of the tragic tone in his voice to come out and it doesn't come out. And then he gets home from Vietnam

and now you're thinking, you know, here's gonna come the tragic tone in his voice and it doesn't come. And instead he's saying, you know, so I had to spend nine months in rehab just to learn how to work my wheelchair. And then and then I got out of there. I went to college. When I went to college, I started a little roofing company. And you're he's just saying this like it's no big deal. Started a roofing company, started getting into real estate, got married. And so he carried on with his life. And and just

just led this incredible life, an incredible life. And the reason I'm telling you all this is because when we got done with the podcast and we were just sitting around and talking and he asked me, he goes, do you know who Lewis Polar is? And I go, yes sir, I do. I did a podcast on him. And he goes, I was in rehab with him.

We were in the same facility learning how to live without legs and he goes and I had to also learn to live without one arm and Lewis Polar had some bad damage to his hands. So we were both kind of in the same boat and he said, you know what happened to him right? And I said, yes sir, I do. And he said, you know, he never fully accepted what happened to him. He said, I think he was at 99%. He said, when I got home, I 100% accepted that this is what had happened,

and I'm gonna move forward. So I think that ties into what we're talking about, you know, things unfold in life. And if you want to sit there and you know shake your fist at the sky and you know, I understand that. And you know, I've done that. And I know we all do that. But if that's what you continue to do, you're not going to be able to move forward. Yeah, I mean, speaking of incredible soldiers, I was just writing about Admiral Stockdale this morning, which is sort of obviously the connection to my work in Stelicism.

And that's sort of what he talks about in his book on being a philosophical fighter pilot. He talks about the sort of radical acceptance of your situation on the one hand. And then on the other, the unshakable faith that you determine the end of your story. And that to me seems like the difference in the two lives that you were just talking about.

Yeah, and I'll tell you this, you know, so this is another thing. So obviously my first book is called Extreme Ownership and you take ownership of everything that's going on in your world and that gives you the power to actually move it in the right direction. And then people start saying to me, and it actually wasn't the first time I'd heard this question before, because people say, well, how do I take ownership of this disease? Well, I'd heard this question, you know, as soon as the book came out, and I started

interacting with people, and people would say, you know, my daughter has cancer. My, you know, my eight-year-old daughter has cancer. How am I supposed to take ownership of that? Or I have leukemia. How am I supposed to take ownership of that? And the fact of the matter is, it's this similar thing of Jim Surlesley, you don't take ownership of the fact that that happened to your daughter.

You take ownership of how you're going to respond to it. Right. How are you going to move forward. So that's a very powerful lesson. And you know, I, I'm not sure what you're working on right now, but a friend, a friend of mine named Charlie Plum spent six years in the Hanoi Hilton with Admiral Stockdale. And I'd be more than happy to put you in touch with them. Just an incredible guy and, and an epic stoic of his own.

No, I would, I would absolutely love that. I had the privilege of talking to Stockdale's son a few weeks back. And you can see just how that lesson passes from person to person, from POW to POW, father to son. How, obviously, you would have been exposed to Stockdale's example in the Navy. I'm just curious.

And I know you've been asked that a little bit before, but what do you think about stoicism? I mean, obviously, you're a big reader. Do you, is that a philosophy you identify with? Or what do you think about it? Yeah, so the crazy thing about me, Ryan, is I enlisted in the Navy out of high school. I listened to Motorhead. I was in the hardcore music as a kid. I listened to Black Flag, the Bad Brains. I mean, I listened to really hard music.

I had no, you said, obviously a reader. I didn't read books. I wasn't into any of that. I didn't like school. I just wanted to go in the military. I wanted to be some kind of a commando. Even when I got in the military, the closest, I mean, what I would read was books about war, books about, and generally first-person account, about accounts about war. So when I started realizing that there was other people that were thousands that had come thousands of years before me that had figured out things like discipline equals freedom, which I thought, you know, look, it's not like I thought I thought of this and no one

else thought of it, but no one else put that into my head. I just was like, oh, yeah, the more discipline you are, the more freedom you have. Sure. Well, it's in stoicism, it's in the Bible. I mean, people have said all kind that that type of thing over and over again. So to say that I was well schooled on this stuff and this is where I developed this and I'm a follower of it is just not true.

I can't make that claim. What I can tell you is this. And I had this interesting conversation with, well, I think I had it with Tim Ferris, and I think I had it with with Jordan Peterson as well, which is when you take some human being and you put them into tough situations and they're able to muddle their way through it. And then if you take it and it's a tough situation, it happens to be a military situation. And then you take that person and you put them in a leadership position in a military situation

and they're going through hard times. You kind of have this framework written and it's not that big of a surprise that when you get the product of that, there is a lot of overlaps and similarities. So, you know, I've covered so much, so much war on my podcast and ancient philosophers of war. And all I'm doing is saying, oh yeah, here's the way this guy that was in China 2000 years ago said the same thing that I tried to say, you know, five years ago when I wrote this book or three years ago,

when I wrote this book or a year ago, and I wrote this other book. So I can't see, like I said, I feel like a, I feel like a poser if I say, well, yes, I'm an obvious, you know, a follower of the Stoics. I be a poser and I would be a liar if I said that when I read stoicism I go, yeah, well, obviously all this makes sense. No, it's, I relate to that.

My, I think my introduction to history and poetry and some of these big sort of epic themes came from my love of Iron Maiden in high school and you're like, oh, you know, like, like people who are cool are interested in this stuff too. And I think that's kind of the problem with philosophy. We think philosophy is this sort of abstract, you know, turtleneck university professor talking about big words, but really the great philosophers, whether they're Zen Buddhist, you know, samurai warriors or whether they're Zen Buddhist, samurai warriors, or whether they're Marcus or really as leading troops into battle, we're sort of warriors, or at the very least,

people struggling with real problems in real world. Yeah, no doubt about it. And I think when people struggle through real problems in the real world, and they act in an admirable way, I think generally that that's a pretty tight group, a pretty tight shot group that you're going to end up with. Because look, you can be, you can go through those hard times and be turning to a horrible

person, right? Yeah. But if you come out and you handle it in an honorable way, then that tightens up the group pretty well. No, it's like virtue is virtue. And I think I, what I sort of liken it to evolution. It's like different animals, like pandas and apes both have opposable thumbs, birds and bats can both fly. They don't really share

common ancestors. It's just like it was important to have those things. So they independently invented them. And I think it's like you can intuitively stumble upon these you can intuitively stumble upon these philosophical, like John McCain didn't study stuicism, Adam Rostockdale did, they both figure out the same way to behave in the Hilton. Exactly right, yeah, I like that analogy of the bats and the birds, it's 100% right. So you mentioned discipline and freedom,

that's one of my favorite books of yours. I love it. It reminds me of the Metallica Black album. Was that a, was that a delivered homage on the cover? Not a, not a delivered homage on the cover because I mean, I'm one of those people that when that album came out, you know, I was going, oh, you can't, please.

Too soft. What kind of person, what, what is Metallica doing making songs that are only three minutes long? They've sold out. So it wasn't all much of that. It was, but definitely there's some, I would say there's some old, old hardcore music roots in the cover of that. Then yeah. So I was curious. So obviously, the sort of spartan lifestyle, it lends itself well to the warrior lifestyle and that, you know, you're posted at some far-flung posting, you're traveling, you're moving around. As you've gone and become more successful now

that you have autonomy over your life financially, as far as what you work on, what you don't work on, how has that been challenged? How, I love the Eisenhower quote, which I think you were subconsciously or independently discovering. He says, freedom is better defined as the opportunity for self discipline. How is your success? How have you wrestled with that?

It's not really a big deal. I really am doing the same things right now that I've always done. You know, I just, I've always done kind of the same things right now that I've always done. I've always done the same things. I, in fact, kind of wear the same clothes that I've always worn. I'm just sort of, I don't really, I'm pretty boring. I'm pretty boring and I just do what I do.

So there's been no major challenges in that arena as far as succumbing to some sort of, you know, there's no, I'm not going any clubs and getting bottle service with a bunch of, you know, 20-year-olds. It's not happening. I'm a grown man. And I'm not doing that kind of stuff. No, I back us what I mean is that there are more temptations that I don't necessarily mean temptations of the flesh. It's just, you know, there's the temptation, for instance, to be complacent after one has accomplished,

you know, things that other people would, you just in your career as a writer, you've accomplished what people have been working for 30 or 40 years have yet to even sniff. So I guess what I'm saying is how do you stay disciplined on top of it? I get being boring, but how do you stay tight when you don't when when you you don't have to? I guess I feel that I do have to. I don't you know, I don't feel like I've really done anything that's all that great.

So, and even more than that, I don't even think about that. You know, like I said earlier, when it comes to, you know, you mentioned writing. When it comes to writing, I've got a lot of other things in my head that want to come out. So I'm going to get them out. When it comes to the podcasts, I've got podcasts that I want to do books I want to do on their people I want to view., I want to do on there, people on review, so I'm going to do them. When it comes to consulting companies,

I mean, it's incredible gratification when you work with a company and they're able to align their leadership, get everyone on board and move forward and improve their profitability and grow their business, that's very gratifying. So I just kind of do what I'm doing. I don't really even, I don't, I guess maybe I'm having a hard time with a question because I don't even really,

it's just not, I'm not really there. I don't feel like I'm there. I don't feel like I'm in some situation where I don't have anything else to do, I guess. No, I think I get it. It's like the next mountain is too attractive I don't feel like I'm in some situation where I don't have anything else to do, I guess. No, I think I get it. It's like the next mountain is too attractive to you to celebrate being on top of the mountain

that you just cloned. Like you're always looking at that. Like one of the things, for instance, I think about with my books, I always have the next book that I'm working on before the one comes out. So that way I'm indifferent either way. If it sells like crazy, cool, I'm busy. If,

if it, you know, if people are upset about it or it's slow-finding its audience, like, who cares? I'm busy. I got a contract, you know? I'm always thinking about like, you know, in a way, routine does the same thing. It's like, you wake up each day. These are the things you have to do. You're not regretting yesterday and you're not worried about tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. When I wrote desplinicals freedom, you're not regretting yesterday and you're not worried about tomorrow. Yeah, yeah, when when I wrote Desperado was freedom, I asked my, as we were going down the road, I asked my publisher, I said, hey, is this the biggest risk you've taken with a book? And he's like, oh my god, this is far away. I've never done anything. No one's ever done anything like this.

It was totally crazy. And I was just kind of, I was like, oh, that's interesting, maybe no one will buy it. And I don't know. I didn't really, I thought it was just going to be a cool book. And I thought I was going to get out certain part of what I think about to people if they wanted it. And I wasn't too concerned about it. But yeah, I mean, even before that one came out, I was right in the next one. So. do concerned about it. But yeah, I mean, even before that one came out, I was writing the next one. So, well, imagine what you've been through turns down the stakes on putting out a book a little bit. Yeah. And also, I guess, as you kind of mentioned, you know, there's people that write books and they

went to college to write books, and they've gotten critique from people, and they go to workshops, and all this stuff. And I mean, I didn't, I look, I was an English major in college. I will say that and I wrote a bunch and I read a bunch in college. But, you know, I didn't, I didn't make these incredible, you know, sacrifices of trying to write and being frustrated and trying to sell my manuscript and like all those things that a normal writer has to go through. I didn't have to go through any of it, which is, which I guess also takes it to, like, I'm kind of just okay. Some people bought my books. Cool. I'm stoked on that. And the fact that they've done pretty well, I'm super stoked. So if I wrote a bomb tomorrow, then I'll smile and be like,

hey, luck ran out. No, and I'll still write more. I mean, it doesn't matter. I'm not writing, I'm not writing just so people by books, you know? And an example that is the Displenicus Freedom Field Manual. You wouldn't write that book thinking, okay, this is what people are looking for. You wouldn't do that. That doesn't make it, you wouldn't write that book thinking, okay, this is what people are looking for. You wouldn't do that.

That doesn't make it. You bring that book to any whatever marketing expert and they would be like, okay, no, let's take this in another direction. And one, in fact, one of the covers that they proposed to me was this metallic diamond plate covering that looked like it was a piece of metal. They're like, this is so awesome. And I said, hey, I will say it looks cool and everything, but no, like, it's not cool. No, I think not having your identity tied up in the results allows you to sort of, I think,

stay a bit truer to what you actually want to do. One last question for you, because we were talking about this a little bit before we started, but I was telling you, my son loves your, loves the way of the warrior kid. He can recite a bunch of the different laws. And a couple of weeks ago, I had on the podcast, I had a professor who sort of focuses on teaching the classics to kids. And her point was these sort of myths, kind of like what Jordan Peterson talks about, these myths, these sort of big moral lessons

are really, really important. But when I compare like the way the warrior kids and most kids books, the big distinction I have is that you're not talking about silly, ridiculous things. You're teaching very serious lessons, mostly that, hey, you're responsible for your own life. These are your obligations as a human. What we're talking about, you don't control what happens, you control how you respond. Was that sort of a conscious effort having been through this with your kids that,, hey, people aren't teaching these things and I got to do it? 100% yeah, 100% and I'll say one of the coolest things that happened with that book is I got

a letter from a guy and I forget all the details, but it was basically, hey, listen, six months ago, I was overweight, I was drinking every night, I was in a, my dead end job wasn't getting anywhere. Just blah, blah, blah. And he said, I read your book. I, you know, I stopped drinking every day. I started eating cleaner. I started actually putting effort in it work. I got a promotion. I've lost 38 pounds. I feel great. You know, he He's whole life turned around and then he says, the book I read was Way of the Warrior Kid. I said, that's pretty awesome.

And I've had many, many people say, I know I'm getting more out of this than my kids are. And yeah, it's absolutely a conscious effort and each one of the books, as you know, as you read each one of the warrior kid books in the warrior kid series, they each have a specific theme or actually they have several specific life lessons that I'm trying to teach to kids.

And yes, I went through that with my own kids. And many of the little stories in there are based on the real situations that I went through with my own kids. Yeah, I think it's weird. I think people, my kids only force it, when I told you we'd read the book, you said, oh, you should read this younger one. I think that's another interesting thing. It's like, we so baby our kids when it comes to books. Meanwhile, 1500 years ago, our kids would have been able to recite the Odyssey and they would have read X you know, Xenophon and they would have read all these crazy, you know, stories about war and history

and dragons and demons and and and now we're like, here, let me let me tell you this book about a kid making pizza, you know, like, and then we wonder why they don't pick up these important lessons and don't aspire to great things. Yeah, yeah, I think you can definitely, well, one thing I've said about kids is the more you help your kids, the more you're hurting your kids. And obviously I'm not talking about, you know, leaving them in danger,

but if you do everything for your kids and you spoon feed them, they're never gonna know how to fend for themselves and that's not gonna be a good thing. Chaco, you're the best. It was an honor to talk to you. I appreciate everything. Yeah, I appreciate it. Sorry, we didn't get... I know we were close to doing this in person in San Diego and I think we're going. So next time we'll do it face to face.

For sure, I'd love that. I don't man. If you're liking this podcast, we would love for you to subscribe. Please leave us a review on iTunes or any of your favorite podcasts, listening apps. It really helps and tell a friend. 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 Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and

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