The Daily Stoic - Author Candice Millard on the Moments that Define Great Leaders | You Have To Get To The Outside

Episode Date: May 26, 2021

Ryan reads today’s meditation and talks to author and biographer Candice Millard about her books The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey, Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, how we can relate to and learn from the great leaders of history, why you should compete with yourself and root for everyone else, and more.Candice Millard is the author of three books, each of which was a New York Times bestseller and named a best book of the year by several publications, including the New York Times and the Washington Post. Millard's work has also appeared in the New York Times Book Review, Washington Post Book World, the Guardian, National Geographic and Time magazine. She lives in Kansas City with her husband and three children.LMNT is the maker of electrolyte drink mixes that help you stay active at home, work, the gym, or anywhere else. Electrolytes are a key part of a happy, healthy body. As a listener of this show, you can receive a free a free LMNT Sample Pack for only $5 for shipping. To claim this exclusive deal you must go to drinkLMNT.com/dailystoic.GiveWell is the best site for figuring out how and where to donate your money to have the greatest impact. You can have your donation matched up to $1,000 before the end of June or as long as matching funds last. Just go to GiveWell.org/STOIC and pick podcast and The Daily Stoic at checkout. 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. Policygenius helps you compare top insurers in one place, and it lets you save 50% or more on life insurance. You can save 50% or more by comparing quotes. Just go to policygenius.com to get started. ***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_stoicFollow Candice Millard: Homepage: http://www.candicemillard.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/candice_millard Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/candicemillard/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CandiceMillardauthor 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 Stoic Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast where each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are and also to find peace and wisdom in their actual lives. But first, we've got a quick message from one of our sponsors.

Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wonderree'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. You have to get to the outside. In sports, you want to get to the outside of your defender. In life, it's better to get outside to get to fresh air and sunshine. And so it goes with decision making too. When we had Annie Duke on the podcast recently about her book, How to Decide, she kept using the phrase,

getting outside, getting outside your biases, getting outside the immediacy of your problem or the situation. You don't wanna be stuck inside, metaphorically or literally. You wanna break out and break free, so you can really see and think. And this is also what the Stoics advised.

Marcus Aurelius referred to taking Plato's view. He wanted to get up and see from 10,000 feet above. He wanted to see life, see what was bothering him, see what other people were doing with their perspective. He wanted to get to the outside. Why? So he wasn't so biased, so he wasn't so frustrated, so he didn't make it into something more than it needed to be,

so he wasn't blinded by it, so he could make better decisions. And this is what we have to do as well, in sports, in life, in our thinking, in our choices, get to the outside. Don't be trapped inside, get some perspective. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of The Daily Stoke Podcast. One of the coolest experiences I ever had in my life was when I lived in Manhattan, and I was down near Grammar C Park and was walking around, and I just bumped into this building that said the birthplace of Theodore Roosevelt, who I had read a bunch about, who was a hero of mine, and I knew he grew up in New York,

but I didn't think the house was there. I didn't think it was a national park. And if I remember correctly, it was free. And you walk in and you can see the gym, you know, the story I tell in the obstacles away about his father saying, you've got a strong mind, but you've got to make your body. You can see the gym that theater Roosevelt

developed a strenuous life on. But most incredibly, on the downstairs, there's a little museum. And in the museum, they have a copy of Theodore Roosevelt's copy of Epic Titus. And I remember I walked in and I saw this and I didn't know that Theodore Roosevelt had ever really connected with the Stokes in any way. And it's not what I think it is, and it was. And it's inscribed, and it mentions that he took this book with him on his journey exploring the Brazilian Amazon down the river of doubt.

And I knew next to nothing about this, and I went and I read this great book called The River of Doubt, which was authored by today's guest on the podcast Candace Miller, who's one of my absolute favorite writers. She is fantastic. I love all three of her great books. She wrote The River of Doubt Theatre Roosevelt's Darkest Journey. She wrote Destiny of the Republic, a tale of madness, medicine, and the murder of a president. And then most recently, she's the author of Hero of the Empire, The Boer War, a daring escape in the making of Winston Churchill. All of these were New York Times bestselling books, but they are three of my all-time favorites. We sell them at the

painted porch. She is just one of the great authors of our time. I call this genre narrative non-fiction. She refers to it in her interview as sort of a slice of life biography. It's not a biography of Winston Churchill or theater Roosevelt or in the case of Destiny of the Republic of James Garfield. These are biographies about events in that person's life. It's the most riveting, incredible story about that person's life that gives you a sense of who they are, what they represent, and the time they lived in. They're just great books. I cannot rave about them enough. We'll have links in the show notes where you can pick them up at the painted porch. I was so excited to have this conversation because she is an incredible writer, a great

thinker. I was really looking forward to it. One of the unfair advantages about having this podcast is that I get to reach out to people. I'm huge fans of nerd out and have a conversation as much for my benefit as you are benefit. And I think there's a lot of benefits in this one. She is a great author. You're going to love this interview.

You can follow her on Twitter. That's twitter.com slash Candace underscore millered. And you can go to her website at CandaceMillered.com. But do read her books. I would start with Destiny the Republic, then I'd read River Rift Down, then I'd read Hero of the Empire, but all very, very good.

And I think you're gonna like this episode. So I love your books, I'm very excited to talk. I think the thing that struck me most, like obviously I know Winston Churchill is fascinating. I know that theater Roosevelt is fascinating. I guess I wasn't ready for James Garfield to be really interesting, but he totally is. You are not alone.

What, why, do you think it's that he died? And so we just, he just got lost in history, like we just sort of wrote it off as this tragic case or why don't people see him as sort of a great American story and character? Yeah, I think there are a lot of reasons. Probably the principal one is that he was in office for such a short time, just a couple of months before he was shot.

And I think that was part of the great tragedy even at the time is everyone knew that he would be forgotten. Even though to them, he was already a great president. He was, you know, this incredible human being. He represented so much to so many people. He had been born into extreme poverty. His father had died before he was two years old. He didn't have shoes in Ohio

until he was four. But he was brilliant. And his mother and his older brother knew it. And they were to scrape together enough money to send him to school. And he made the most of it. He was a janitor and carpenter at Little University in Ohio until a sophomore year when they made him a professor of literature, ancient languages, and math while he was just a sophomore to student himself and then he became the university president and then he became a hero in the Civil War for the Union

Army. And he wrote an original proof of the Pythagorean theorem, he knew the entire and mead, by heart in Latin. I mean, he was just brilliant, but he, I think what was more important about him is that his heart matched his mind. He was incredibly kind and brave and decent human being. He hit a runaway slave. His argument for Black suffrage on the floor of Congress is what brought about the freedoms that we now all enjoy. And so he was central to so many people. He was important to all these people who had been pioneers.

He was important to all these people who had been pioneers. He was important to immigrants. He was important to former slaves obviously, but also to former slave owners. You know, they all came to his inaugural address and many openly wept in the crowd. He had Frederick Dungless with him on the portico as he has gave his inaugural address. So he met so much, just so many, on the portico as he has gave his a non-political address. So he met so much, just so many, but he was forgotten because he was killed so early and then he just kind of blended in with all the sort of, what we think of the boring bearded,

gilded age presidents. So I have so many questions. Let's start with the practical stuff. So how does someone, is it just pure brilliance? Like how does someone go from being the janitor at a college to the dean of that college in like a very short amount of years? Is this just a function of like how rudimentary education was at that time or is he just like a once in a lifetime star?

Yeah, he was a star. Now, I mean, I think that education was really rigorous at that time as well. And some ways perhaps even more than it is today. You know, everyone had to learn Latin, you know, deep mathematics, critical thinking. And he was at this little school, it's now known as Hiram, the Western Reserve eclectic institute at the time.

But then he went to Williams College, which I think we all know, Massachusetts, it's still considered one of the great liberal arts universities in our country. And he was a star there as well. He was very ambitious in his own way. He took note of the other sort of rising stars among the students and he competed with them, but mostly just competed with himself. He loved to learn. It was

just an innate passion. He read everything he could get his hands on. He was a beautiful writer. And one of those rare individuals who is extremely good with reading and writing but also just brilliant with mathematics. And again, as I say, he was ambitious in his own way. He strangely and perhaps uniquely among U.S. presidents didn't hunger for the presidency. Yeah, it's kind of incredible, just the sheer sort of social mobility of it. I can think of three, there's probably more, but you have Lincoln Garfield and then probably Lyndon Johnson, who go from not just like poverty, but almost like preposterous poverty, like cartoonish poverty, like log cabin poverty, basically, I mean, you can visit the log cabin that Lyndon Johnson's parents were born

in, that they would go from that to where they ended up. It's almost inconceivable now, even though, sort of even though in some ways we're more meritocratic, just the idea that you could go from here to there, it's pretty shocking. I know, but you know, it's interesting and in this way, maybe it's one of the few ways that I think Garfield Churcho and Roosevelt, theater Roosevelt, what they have in common ties them together is that that luck factors into it, you know, they're all brave and I mean put themselves all three of them in, you know, personally, very very difficult and dangerous situations again and again, very, very difficult and dangerous situations, again and again. But they also just worked really, really hard at it. They, again, had their all very ambitious, but they survived,

you know? I mean, it's incredible that Roosevelt lived as long as he did. He only lived to be 60 years old, but he was just throwing himself into these difficult and dangerous situations, often running away from sorrow or his own depression. He had many reasons for doing it, but it's really kind of incredible that he even survived the Spanish-American war. Throughout history, there are a lot of brilliant brave individuals we never hear about because they don't survive. And these guys just happen to, I mean, Churchill himself. It's really a miracle that he lived to be 90

years old. He was constantly, it's a miracle that he lived to be 25, you know, I mean, he had already been in four different wars on three different continents by the time you turn 25 in this POW camp. So luck absolutely factors into it. Yeah, I think to that period of time in American history where Garfield sort of makes his mark and your point of sort of focusing on his heart is interesting because as Americans we kind of tell ourselves this weird story, right? So the Civil War is obviously about slavery and it's a sort of good versus evil. And then obviously the reconstruction, the sort of lost cause myth comes in there. But reconstruction is this weird period in American history where we sort of, it's not that we write it off, but we're just like, we screwed it up, right?

We, I think we look at it as this sort of what it's not that we write it off, but we're just like, we screwed it up, right? We, I think we look at it as this sort of what, what could have been, but we mostly look at it from this sort of, and obviously this makes sense as we start to understand sort of racism in the history of the country and white supremacy, we look at it as this period where like sort of everyone was bad. But the more I dig into it, I wonder if we do ourselves a disservice by sort of focusing on the betrayal, and it was a betrayal that we fight this war to free the slaves, then we pass the 13th, 14th, 15th Amendment, and then sort of abandon them.

But the other way to look at it is like, had someone like Garfield survives, had sort of some of Grant's efforts to sort of prosecute the Clucarch's clan, had some of grants efforts to prosecute the Clucarch's clan. Had some of these efforts been just a tat, like if they almost worked, had it gone just a little bit differently, we might look back at this as one of the great moments of American history. Do you know what I mean? I see a Garfield and I just think, it wasn't that all Americans were uniquely awful and didn't care about what was happening in their country and just wanted to go back to their lives. I see this sort of generation of politicians who really thought, who really on the same page is, say, a Frederick Douglass and saw it

as this transitional pivotal moment. They just didn't quite get it done. Yeah, now I have thought the same thing, and it's, again, an additional tragedy, but I think that if you look at history, again and again, it's the two steps forward, one step back, I mean, things, you know, get better or you get someone who sort of, you know, understands what's wrong, what's broken and attempts to fix it, and they move the ball a little bit, but then, you know, if they're forgotten or they're beaten or they're killed, or they're just not strong enough or not powerful enough, go ahead. No, no, guilt, or they're just not strong enough, or not powerful enough. Go ahead.

No, no, yeah, I'm saying right. Yeah, and then we fall back. And so obviously, still today, we have a long way to go, still, but inch by inch, I mean, I'm an optimist, and I know that, and sometimes it's a bad thing, because often I can be blindsided by things, but I think that in general it seems like we are creeping toward some sort of salvation and we

absolutely need people like this along the way who are willing to fight for what's obviously right, to fight for what's obviously right, but at the time, not accepted, and they risk that, and sometimes they risk their lives for multiple reasons, but they do move us in the right direction, even though it's so painful and so incredibly frustrating, I think each time we make a little progress. Yeah, it's just, it's a shame to me that we do such a bad job sort of deciding who to remember. Your point about sort of Garfield gets forgotten because he's shot. Like, you know, of all the people we martyr

sort of coming out of the second, the Civil War, this seems like it would have been a good person. Instead, you know, we've got sort of Confederate statues all over the country. It's just like, and I don't think this is just sort of a lost cause mistake. I think also, people who genuinely care about sort of fairness and justice and equality

sometimes do a bad job in San Francisco, there's this controversy about renaming certain schools and taking down certain statues. It almost feels like nobody has a good enough, nobody is doing the work historically to sort of understand who we should look up to, who we should be learning from. Because we end up overlooking people

that really do represent, if not the best of us as a country or as human beings, they at least represent the best of us as a country or as human beings, they at least represent the best of a generation of a period. And I think there's something always worth celebrating in people who were ahead of their time as far as understanding these issues that now were all sort of generally on the same page about. Yeah, I agree.

But I will say though, I think even that seems to be getting better. I mean, I see more and more, I know, biographies or general histories about forgotten people and about often people we need to remember. And so I think we're sort of acknowledging that in the first steps, understanding the other problem, and then trying to rectify it.

It was interesting for Garfield, one of the things when I was doing the research that I couldn't believe. So I knew that so he'd been shot in this train station that was on the national mall, right? Here's no sitting president, one of only four in our history has been assassinated, and he shot in this train station on the national mall.

And actually, Theodore Roosevelt, when he was president, ended up tearing down that train station, because it was really dangerous to people walking along the mall, so he tore it toward down and then National Art Gallery's standing in that place now. So when I was doing my research, I wanted to go see you, you know, exactly where Garfield was shot and I just assumed, I think most people would, that there was some kind of plaque or something. Yeah. No, there was nothing. I asked nobody, oh, I didn't know that no, I don't know and I You know, I think maybe it's down in the basement kind of by the

bathrooms No, there's nothing there's absolutely nothing and I say was because I It always bothered me and I sort of you know complained about it But I hadn't really done anything. But then there's this really amazing guy who works at the James A. Garfield National Historic site. I'm grateful to all of home and Ohio, this park ranger, and I was talking to him about it and he was like, you know, I think we can do something about that. And so he got together good with people. I was one of them. There were several other writers.

There were other people from the Parks Department. There are people from the Library of Congress. And we wrote something about Garfield. And actually, the actual spot is kind of right in the middle of the street. So we kind of moved it over onto the mall. So now if you go to the national mall, this is called a wayside. There's this big plaque, big thing that will tell you,

President Garfield was shot here, and a little bit about who he was to watch, why should you care? Which is always the important thing with these people. I mean, there's so many people, we can read so many podcasts, we listen to, so many things that we read so many podcasts we listen to, so many things that we need to educate ourselves about. So who really matters and I think he's one of them.

And so anyway, it's sort of reassuring when things do happen how we're slowly. Got a quick message from one of our sponsors here and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just going to end up on page six or Du Moir or in court. I'm Matt Belles. And I'm Sydney Battle and we're the host of Wonder E's new podcast, Dis and Tell, where each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud.

From the buildup, why it happened, and the repercussions. What does our obsession with these feuds say about us? The first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama, but none is drawn out in personal as Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears. When Britney's fans form the free Britney movement dedicated to fraying her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lynn's lack of public support. It angered some fans. A lot of them. It's a story of two young women who had their choices taken away from them by their controlling parents, but took their anger out on each other. And it's about a movement to save a superstar, which set its sights upon anyone

who failed to fight for Britney. Follow disissentel wherever you get your podcast. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or the Wondering app. That train station is odd too. That's something that always strikes me when I read history. And obviously you're getting somewhat of a bias picture because it's all the stuff that appears in books or whatever. But just the sheer amount of stuff that happens in that train station,

isn't that the same train station where like John Wilkes Booth's brother saves like is it Robert Todd Lincoln? Like it was like everything went through that train station. And it was like a preposterously small world back then. It is amazing, you know, how many times these things overlap. You know, another thanks-ficking of John Wilkes Booth Wolf's booth, when I was researching Garfield, I went to the Museum of Health in Medicine, which was then in Walter Reed, which is no longer but it's been moved. Anyway, so they had the original autopsy report and they had his spine, the section of Garfield's spine, and they had used during the trial of Guto.

But then they also, they have some parts of Guto. There they have a big jar filled pieces of his brain that they had sent out to see if you could see physical signs of insanity, but they also had some of his bones, like his femur, his, you know, arm, his ankle bone. And they had it in the bowl. Where's the rest of it? With the bones of John Woltzbooth. And so I was like, is this like the assassin's drawer? Yeah, isn't that bizarre? It's so weird. I was just reading something too. Apparently, there's a whole subterranean building under the Lincoln monument that we just forgot about for 80 years.

Yeah, it's very weird. Speaking of weird coincidence, I also saw you share this on Twitter that your great, great, great grandfather was in Ford's theater when Lincoln was shot. Yes, isn't that bizarre? Yeah, my daughter who's a freshman in college right now, she, she just got home, but she, yeah, she texted me one day and she was, I don't even know how she came across it. She's like, you know, I think that, and her name is Emory, and this guy's name was James Emory, and my grandfather's also a whole series of Emory's. But anyway, she was like, I think that he was at Ford's Baylor the night that Lincoln was shot.

And I was like, hi, I'm always skeptical. She's always angry with me, because I'm like, where did you read that? I know, show me the source. So I just started doing a little digging. I found his obituary, and I lived in Kansas City, and he was in Kansas just a few hours from where I am, and it said, yeah, he was there the night that Lincoln was shot, and that he then walked in the funeral procession. Along with him, he also had been injured in the Civil War for the Union Army

and had been in a hospital in Washington, D.C. and had left and had gone to the theater. Have you seen this clip of the, I think it's on that game show? What's what's your secret or I've got a secret there's a game show in the 50s. And it's this old man and they're asking a bunch of questions, you know, is like I was there for a major historic event. I think Lucille Ball is like the person is like the celebrity guest on the show.

So just to give you a sense of like history overlapping, and you know, it was, it's scary, and he says, yes, it was very scary, you know, and they're guessing all this stuff. And it turns out this guy who's like 105 or something in the, at the time, was a boy at, for its theater with his parents on the night. And it's, you know, it's just so weird,

he's telling the story, it was like, you know, my father who lived in Maryland was, was there to petition the it's, you know, it's just so weird. He's telling the story. It was like, you know, my father who lived in Maryland was there to petition the government about, you know, some business he had. And it turns out his father was a slave owner who was, you know, like petition it. And then you're just like flash forward a hundred years in this person whose parents own slaves

who, you know, who was there when Lincoln was assassinated is on a game show with Lucille Ballad. I'm watching it on YouTube you know 70 years later you're just like history feels so distant but it's also kind of like that. It really is and you know the older I get the more I realize like I'm I'm 53 years old and I remember when I turned 49 because that's the age that Garfield was when he died. And when I had started, I thought, oh, you know, what a tragedy he was young, but then I

thought, he was really young. It doesn't seem so long ago at all. The older I get, that's even the Oderozo on the River of Doubt. Not so long ago, you know, really when I went to that river in the Amazon and I found this group of Cintal Argo, which had been the group that had attacked Rosal on this man, they remembered, it's part of, I mean, that, they, but their grandparents, you know,

it had told that this is part of their tribal history and they had passed down this story through the generation. So the people I was talking to, it was their grandparents, you know, I told them about it. Yeah, David Brooks had a column about age and gracefully and he was talking about how, you know, the famous photo of Lyndon Johnson sort of at the end of his presidency, he's worn down,

he looks like the oldest man in the world. He's like, he is, Bruce Springsteen is that age right now. Oh, me. You know, and you're just like that perspective. But if you thought about this as it, like, who is the oldest person you met, the earliest in your life? Like, have you thought about like,

what the oldest age that your life overlaps with, like how far back that goes. I have not. No, I haven't thought about that. That's really interesting. Yeah, I got to know a guy here in Austin. His name was Richard Overton, and he was the oldest man in the world

before he died at 111 or 12. Wow, really. But it was, and he was the oldest veteran. And so I remember I looked, he died about two years ago, but I was like, who was the oldest veteran when he was born? And it was like a guy from the Black Hawk War. And he was like, wow, so you get, this gets back real quickly. Wow, it does. Yeah, it really does.

And to me, the coolest part of it is, even though obviously we have technology and things that people even, you know, even our parents could not have imagined when they're kids, fundamentally people don't change, you know. This is what I love about history is finding that part of somebody's life, even somebody who's ultra famous, like Winston

Churchill, or Theodore Roosevelt, that we can absolutely connect to. We all can understand fear, we can all understand sorrow, we can all understand triumph. We've all had those moments and we can absolutely connect to them. And to me, what's most interesting and what we're most revealing is not those moments of triumph in these, even in these quote unquote great men's lives, but it's the moments when they're really struggling. And we can really see them for who they are.

I'll never forget Garfield himself called it the bed of the sea. Everything is stripped bare and you see somebody's character for what it really is. And that's what I love about history. And that's what I love about meeting people from different generations and feeling that connection and also, okay, I always tell my kids, meeting people from other places in the world.

The best part of my job is I did to go to all these really fascinating places with people who, you know, when you're a kid, I grew up in a little time in Ohio and I, you know, had never loved Ohio much less loved the United States. And so if somebody spoke a different language or they ate different food or they dressed differently, they seemed very different. But when you get allegins of the world, and that's so important to be able to, when we safely can, is you see we're all so connected

and we're all so similar. And that's what makes us better people and makes everybody safe. Yeah, that's what I love about Churchill, because as unrealist Churchill's life, I mean, he's born to this great family. At the same time, he's sort of got parents who underestimate him.

So that's pretty relatable. And teachers who don't think he'll become anything. But I read a book a few years ago called, I think it's called No More Champagne. And it's like an analysis of Churchill's finances. And there's just these movements where, yeah, where he's like, you know, fighting, you know, leading the side of the world war.

Yeah, he's doing all this stuff. And then he's like arguing with his publisher over like rights issues or advances. And you're just like, oh man, he had the same job as me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, he's right. He totally supported himself on his riding. You know, that's what got him through. And yeah, and friends, you know, we saved his house.

And yeah, and some, and, you know, and also I think that, like I said, I, so, you know, I grew up in the little working class town, you know, my, we had sort of one vacation a year and three sisters my parents didn't go to college. I had the best childhood the happiest Most enviable childhood. I think even though you know now like my daughter is at Princeton and she is seeing all these people who have had these You know kind of crazy lives in certain cases I wouldn't change my life with anybody certainly not with Winston Churchill. You know my childhood, I mean it really makes you so grateful to have just you know parents who love you, parents who you know aren't pushing you but kind of supportive and you are able to just go out and do anything you want. And I think the greatest thing that happened to Churchill

and and by association kind of the Western world is that he wasn't the air to blend up, you know? I mean, you know, inheriting this palace that he was born into, that, you know, the first Duke of Marlboro had built is an immense burden and would have made it very, very difficult for him to do all the things that he was able to do. Yeah, I am fascinated with the great men of history. The great women of history, I think it's the same thing. You know, sort of how few of them would you actually trade places with them if they could. None. Yeah. Yeah, I really think none.

No, it's a great question. And from what I've seen in my limited scope, I would not change my life with any of them. I think it's difficult. And I think it's especially difficult, unfortunately, to be the child of this person. Again, just comparing these three men have written about the happiest family out of the three, the happiest descendants were by far the Garfields

because they didn't have wealth and they didn't have fame and they just got on with their lives. And you see him and them even to this day, the decency, the kindness, the patriarchy of the family who died just a few years ago was one of the finest human beings I've ever met. And you see that, but they were able to live a quiet anonymous life and not have this immense shadow hanging over them. Yeah, I was just going to say the fact that I never even, it never even occurred to me to wonder what they were up to is probably an indication that they lived happier lives.

Whereas, yeah, Roosevelt children go on to do a bunch of stuff. Churchill's, you know, kids. Yeah, very Churchill seemed all right, but, but the other one's not so much. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I know I think it's all right, you know, kids. Very churchill seemed all right, but the other ones not so much. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I know I think it's all right, you know, it's, it can be okay, but it's, it's much more difficult, I think just to be able to have the freedom

to do what you want and be who you are. Got a quick message from one of our sponsors here, and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned. I am fascinated with that question because so obviously I write about Marcus Aurelius quite a bit and you know that's another instance where you have a great man and then sort of a dud of a child. Is that, you know, why does that happen, right?

Is it that there's so, is it that Churchill is so busy that he doesn't have time for Randolph? Is it the expectations are so high? Roosevelt's kids seemed all right, although obviously, pressure is one of them to fight in World War I. Is it the pressure? Is it the busyness? Is it the, there are two, there's not enough oxygen? Like what is it? I think it's a combination of all that you've said. I mean, I think so.

So I think Roosevelt's children, they struggled with depression like he did. But he was there for them. He was incredibly involved as busy. I marveled when I read his letters and thanks again he lived only to be sixty years old he did all of these things and at the same time their letters from him to

his son permit you know saying hey you know i noticed that you got to be on your last history test by the way at that football game blah blah blah so he was absolutely plugged in and i knew that you know he would take them into the woods and throw them into ponds and make them scurry of trees. I mean, he was very, very involved with his children. So they did have this name that they carry, but they did have their flowers attention.

And in short, show a so while he loved his children, he hadn't had this at all. They hadn't had really anything from his parents and his childhood. And I think he was so, I think that when you have that kind of ambition inside of you, it's really hard to turn it off. And it's almost impossible to pass the baton.

And that's extremely extremely difficult for kids. Yeah, I have I have three children and they if you're going to be a parent, they have to be first in your life, no matter what. And if you are the prime minister of Britain or if you're fighting a war or if you're leading a country, whatever it is, it's extremely, extremely dangerous. You know, like, Theodore Roosevelt's daughter Alice, you know, who's always getting in trouble, people complain to him about her and he's like, look, I can run the country, I can watch over Alice, I can't do both.

So, I mean, I think that, you know, I would never, being a parent is really difficult. And so I would never criticize anybody's decisions. And I think we all try to do our best. But I do think that if you don't put them first, they know it. And sometimes it can have really painful ramifications. Yeah, I feel like Churchill, even though he's more, you know, sort of closer to our time, Churchill is alive and raised in the sort of British aristocratic culture of parenting, which is like the exact opposite of attachment

parenting, right? But Roosevelt has a surprisingly modern sort of take on parenting. As you said, he's active, he's involved, he has like a parenting philosophy. He seems fun to be around. I wonder if with him the trouble is, it's sort of, it seemed like it was a bit manic or bipolar. So it's probably, sometimes he was amazing. And other times, you know, he was in some zone where he's writing or just, like,

or he, as you write in your book, decides to go off and explore the world, you know, explore some ridiculous river in South America and, you know, endanger himself and his son for really no reason whatsoever, but that he can't stop himself. Right, right. He can't turn it off. Yeah. And I think that, I also think, you know, there are these incredible expectations.

So he himself was so ambitious and he admired his own father so much. So he absolutely expected his sons to fight in any war that might come up. And- Because his father didn't, right? That was sort of different. Right, that's right, right, right, because his mother was from the South and so his mother's brothers, she didn't want her husband and her brothers to be fighting on opposite sides. And so he did what many sort of aristocratic or wealthy men did at that

time, paid another man to fight for him. And yeah, it always hurt his son because he admired his father so much. And so, but I think that when his own son dies, he's in a quentin, in the war, it's profoundly devastating for him, because I think this is so often true in life. It's one thing you're barely towards some goal, and you believe very strongly about something. And then when it happens, I mean, I think he'd always pictured himself dying and war, dying, this is a gallant death,

but it's an absolutely and devastatingly different thing when it's your child who dies. Yeah, I took it as a very powerful sort of metaphor for this reminder that like, you can't try to do things through your kids, right? Like, it was like, he wanted to, he couldn't fight in the World War I and so he tried to do it through his time.

He wanted to fight in a world of fun and he hated Woodrow Wilson, they for winning the presidency, but be for keeping out the war and your right. And then he loses one. Yeah, it's tragic. Although, you know, what know, it is interesting with Roosevelt because of all the U.S. presidents,

I suspect maybe he had the most fun. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I think so too. And you know, it's really interesting, you know, we were talking about who's remembered and who's forgotten. And it's always been really interesting to me that theodore Roosevelt is one of our best known presidents.

People love him. I was laughing when I was writing the book because there's this Theodore Roosevelt Association they call himself the Ted Ed's. They're just like just obsessed with him. And then but Roosevelt himself said, if you don't have the great event, you don't have the great leader.

And that's what he was so angry that Wilson got the war that should have been his. He didn't have, like FDR had, the Great Depression. And in other words, FDR had all these great events, and he rose to the occasion. But despite the fact that Theodore Roosevelt didn't have these sort of big moments in history that we remember, we remember him and I think it's largely the force of his personality. He's kind of like Cicero in the way where he was so eloquent

and so brilliant, but he also wanted to be great, but he never quite had the moment, but he did force it a bunch of times, usually to be great, but he never quite had the moment, but he did force it a bunch of times, usually to his detriment, right? So like the Spanish-American War and, you know, Cicero with the Catalonian conspiracy. It was like they, it was almost like their, their strength was their ambition, but it kind of became the hammer that turned everything into a nail. And they weren't able to just be enough to actually maybe be as great as they could have been.

In fact, the sort of big marks on their against their legacy are these things that they forced, like trying to make something small or medium sized into that great event. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, thank you. So what your point about remembering Theodore Roosevelt is interesting, because I was it that, was it always that way? I remember when I visited the Theodore Roosevelt birthplace in Manhattan, I was like, wow, this is where he lived.

And they were like, well, sort of, we tore it down and then immediately rebuilt it like a year later after we realized what we'd done. Well, that's really interesting. Yeah, I mean, I don't, I can't think of a time when he wasn't considered to be somebody special, somebody to be remembered. I mean, his death was a very big deal,

especially since he was so young. And it seems like he had always been an important part of our history. As far as underrated museums go, I think that's one that everyone should go to. I mean, you walk into this basically townhouse next to a restaurant in Midtown Manhattan, and they've got the bloody shirt and the bullet from the assassin when he gives this speech after being shot. And then incredibly for me, they have his copy of Epic Titus' Discourses, which he took

with him on the River of Doub. Wow. That's amazing. Yeah, there's nothing better than going to a place. You know, that's always my favorite part of writing a book is doing the research. And obviously, I love, you know, like going to the river of doubt or going to where the Four War played out. But I especially love archives or museums.

I love papers that I love, these physical artifacts, you know, and I love poems and things, and it's amazing what you can find with the, with Destiny in the Republic, you know, because Garfield was such a forgotten figure, and all of his papers are at the Library of Congress and the presidential papers and the Madison building, but not many people have kind of rife will through them. And so when I went, I was spending, I was spending just a whole week going through box after box after box after box. And you know, they have all these rules that you absolutely have to and absolutely should follow to keep these papers safe.

So I was really carefully following them and I got, I had one of the boxes on my table and I opened up a folder and inside was this envelope. I had no idea and I've been through so many boxes. So I just picked up this envelope and the front of it was facing the table and I opened it and all of this hair falls out, this hair all over the table. I turn around, turn the envelope around, I look at the front and it says handwritten clip from President Garfield's head on his deathbed. And I'm like, you know, first, my first emotion was like, tear, because I thought, you know, they're going to kick me out of here.

I'm never going to be able to come back. And I'm sort of desperately trying to scoop it back into the envelope. But then the second emotion was just like, just this overwhelming sense of sorrow. Like, you realize, once again, like, this was a real person. You know, he was 49 years old. He had a family, had children who had dored him and his wife and this young country that he had so much hope and promise for it.

And this never should have happened. And it's one of the reasons, the many reasons I do all my own research because it's just a reminder of this immense responsibility that you have. When you're trying to tell somebody's story of doing everything you can to get it right and to help people understand who this person was and what happened during this moment and time. And yeah, I'll never forget it, but it's a kind of saying that, if you hire somebody else to go

to do some of your research, you just would never experience. Yeah, I went to, this is maybe in January of 2020. I was in London and I went out and I visited Chartwell and I was walking through the, and you're like, oh, this is a brick dollhouse that Churchill built with his own hands. Wow, he's writing his books sort of in exile and you're just like, these really are,

yeah, real people, I mean, at the Theodore birthplace you can you can visit the gym that his father built him where he sort of discovers like oh this is what the strenuous life is like. Right right exactly you know it's um it's really important and it's the same with the Garfield house and mentor Ohio you know it's like I said it's a national historic site now, but 80% of every nut and it's a furniture, but everything in the house is original to when Garfield was there. And you can't go there without having a sort of haunting sense of who he was and what we lost. I mean, even like, you know, Queen Victoria sent a funeral wreath, and it's still there.

I mean, you really are transported in time and also also at the Library of Congress and the Theater Rosalp papers they have his son Kermit's diary that he kept on the river of doubt and it's this beautiful leather of lads of London, diary, you know, but it is warped and torn and streaked with mud and curmed himself. He wrote just like a few sentences each time, mostly just, you know, I'm worried about my father, worried about father, but you hold this and you are transported to that river in that moment. What do you think, sir, this driving theme I would think in the lives of those three men, and a lot of men in women throughout history, was this idea of glory, right?

Which is not really a word anyone uses, and if you ask some athlete, like, what are you motivated by, and they said, glory, it would sound dissonant and weird. But like, to them, it was in some way, like, what are you motivated by? And they said, glory, it would sound dissonant and weird. But like to them, it was in some way sort of glory and honor were everything. What did that mean to them? And where does that idea go?

Yeah, I know. That's really interesting. I mean, it can go in a really good place, you know, as it, I think, did for Garfield, you know, I think maybe for Garfield it was more honor than glory. It was a bigger picture of what he wanted for more people, not just what he wanted for himself. And so obviously very good things can come out of that. But then it can go too far. For Churchill, that was his, well, I would say for Churchill, he wanted glory but for a purpose.

It was a means to an end. It was his road to power. He called war the glittering gateway to power and position and ability to do even cooler, bigger things. So it does, yeah, it depends on the person and how it's used. I mean, I don't think that glory is something that we necessarily want people to aspire to toward.

But again, like we were saying, even though some of these people with their children, maybe the children are kind of the, are left behind or almost sacrificed. In a way, we need these people who are willing to stand up, who want the glory, who want the attention, who want the opportunity, the great event, to step forward when we need them, whether it's to inspire us, or to lead us, or to encourage us, or take away that fear. We need leaders in our life, and I think some of them are motivated by glory. Yeah, there was sort of a sneer

from one of Roosevelt's biographers that I think about often where they said, Roosevelt was one of those kids who grew up hearing about the great men of history and decided he wanted to be just like them. And I think they meant that sort of condescendingly, like he was sort of not naive, but like, you know, almost too earnest in his sort of drive for glory or whatever. But it does strike me that we need those people.

And if you don't believe that you or anyone else can be those people, what does that say? No one else is going to believe it. I know and that's what another thing I would find really fascinating about Churchill's because he from a such a young age and when he's in the board war, he's on this armored train and it's being attacked and he's the only guy on there who's not part of the military. He's a journalist, right? And he's 24 years old, and he immediately starts giving orders. And more than that, everybody listens to him. They're all listening to him taking his orders.

And I think it's this, I always say that it's like any other talent. You know, you can always kind of get better, but either you can paint or you can't paint. Either you can sing or you can't sing. You can get better, you can take lessons, but you're never going to be, you know, somebody great at the end. I think it's the same thing with leadership. Either you have it or you don't.

And it shows up in a very, very early, early age, especially for Churchill. And more than that, it's contagious. He believes he can do it, he believes you can do it, so you believe him. It's this incredible wave of courage and confidence, and it's absolutely contagious, and it's absolutely necessary and any situation that's a danger or a crisis. Yeah, I de Gaulle is a character in my next book and I was just thinking, which is what a preposterous character he was in that he had no authority, you know, no one was actually behind him at first. And he just, he wills France back into existence, essentially, you know. And so there's, there's

almost an ego or a megalomania to it. And at the same time, a sort of a profound sense of sort of service or belief in a higher purpose at the say it's it's really remarkable and and I worry that we are losing those characters I'm not saying they all have to be white dudes but I just don't know who's stepping up into that breach. Yeah no I agree I mean obviously Martin Luther King Jr had the same, unbelievable, irresistible leadership. And there are many women who state the A-Brums, I think, has that same quality,

just immediate leadership, a building you recognize it, and you step in line. And we do need those people. But again, like we're saying, would we want to be those people? Right. I would not. I would not. I'm fascinated. I love to study them. And I'm grateful for them in many ways. But it's a huge sacrifice. Well, that strikes me as a good place to wrap up because

you put out a tweet that made me think that I should reach out to you. And that's why we're talking. But you tweeted something the other day that's sort of a motto I try to live by. I wonder if it's more of a writer's motto than a sort of great man or woman of history motto. But you said something like the secret is to compete with yourself and root for everyone else. And to me that's how you have to be as a creative because there is no real definition of success and different success comes at different times and in different ways and there's short term success and long term success. I don't know if that would work for Roosevelt or Garfield or Churchill, but it does strike

me as a happier way to be ambitious. Precisely, exactly. Yeah, I completely agree. How do you how do you hold true to that? Because I think it's easy to say but but surprisingly difficult to live by. It is. It is. And you're always so you know you and I are as writers, you're always wondering like, oh you know what's this person right about is anybody writing about what I'm writing about. I always breaks my heart for people and I'll when I see a review that's like, you know, reviewing

three different books about somebody is like, oh, there's four people, you know, they spent the last 10 years of their lives and then and it is hard and it's our nature, you know, it's, I mean, we're all jealous sometimes. You know, we're all NDS. But it's a road to misery, it really is, because you can never, like, my daughter has a little sign in her room. You know, was it NDS if Theeaf of Joy or something like that? And it's absolutely different. I think that's from Roosevelt.

Competition. I don't know. Maybe that's what I want. I think that's a quote from Roosevelt. It's a comparison is The Theeaf of Joy. A comparison, yeah. Is it Roosevelt? quote from Roosevelt. It's a comparison is the thief of joy. A comparison, yeah, isn't it, Roosevelt? I think so, it's very fitting. That's interesting.

Yeah, but it's absolutely true. And also, it's a total waste of time, when you should be thinking about what am I interested in? And this is what I also say. Don't try to be somebody else. Don't try to write like someone else. don't try to be like somebody I don't try to write like someone else don't try to whatever you do run like someone else build like someone else you know you can only do it the way you do it and and and if it's a subject that you love and you pour yourself into it you will find

great happiness and that and great satisfaction. And then you'll be able to be able to cheer other people on and be genuinely interested in them. And it can be a struggle. But if you want to be happy, it's absolutely necessary, I think. Yeah, Peter Teele, who I wrote a book about has this line that I think is true. He says, a competition is for losers. Yeah.

And what I love about your books, for instance, is like, there's lots of people that write biographies. There's lots of people that write narrative nonfiction. But I can't really think of any peers to your three books. And honestly, the destiny of the Republic is the most unique, because it's not really even about Garfield. It's really about Garfield and all these other characters. So what I love about your books is that you did create a genre within a genre, which is what makes them stand out. So it's a good business strategy, too.

which is what makes them stand out. So it's a good business strategy too. Thank you. But you know, I didn't set out to do, you know, they have a name for it, sort of now, slice of life biography. I didn't know that term. I didn't set out to do that. I just, you know, word to national geographic.

I was really interested in science. I was interested in nature. I was interested in history. And I was talking with a friend who told me out, have you ever heard of that theater result took this trip down this unmapped group on the Amazon? It was this complete gift. And I started researching it and totally fell in love with it.

And I had no idea if I could do it, if I could write a book. I had no idea. I mean, it felt presumptuous, certainly writing about Winston Churchill felt presumptuous. But I just thought, I'm really interested in it. And I'm just going to bury myself in research and see where it takes me. And I can only write like me. And I remember my agent when I turned in the proposal for theatre Roosevelt, for theatre Roosevelt book, she said, you write like a man.

I don't know what that means, but I just look right like myself. And with the Winston Churchill book, my publisher and London was like, well, do you think this, you wrote this book because you're an American woman? It's like, I just wrote this book this way because I'm Candace Mallard. This is a book I would have wanted to read. This is only story I can tell. No, I think the best books, and this is something that's actually kind of a perk of being

an author, is where you don't actually really think about the author at all, whether they're a man or a woman or this identity or that. You wrote those books because they're great fucking stories. Thank you. Thanks. I, I mean, I loved it. I loved every minute and, you know, each one took me four, five, six years and I didn't write a second of it. I, you know, there were times that it was really, really hard, but it was always fascinating. Yeah, the only book I would compare yours towards and it's one of my absolute favorites too is Empire of the Summer Moon. Oh, yeah, I love that book. Well, thank you. That's, that's an honor.

I do love that book. Yeah, he's, he's a friend here in Austin. So what are you working, what are you working on next? So I'm actually almost done. I've been working on a book about the search for the source of the Nile, specifically focusing on three men Richard Burton, John Hennings Speak, and City Move Barclay. So most people have heard of Richard Burton. He was this incredible linguist. He spoke 29 different languages and he was obsessed with finding the source of the Nile. And then John Hennig speak with just this British soldier who happens to meet him and he kind of takes him under his wing

and it just turns out that speaks the one who ends up finding the Nile Anse, which we now know is like Victoria. And then City with Barg Bombay is this extraordinary character who has been completely lost to history. So he had been kidnapped as a child and taken from his home in East Africa to India

and was there as a slave until the man who owned him died and he was given his freedom and he made his way back to East Africa, which is where he met Burton and Speak. And he led them to both to Lake Tengen Yika, which is where Janko-Dol's Gombay reserve is in Tanzania, and then he led them to the Nyanza, to what we know, there was Victoria and Uganda. And then he ended up leading Henry Morn Stanley to find David Livingston.

Wow. And then he later led another bread across the first to cross the entire continent of Africa from east to west. So he's just this extraordinary, extraordinary figure. I mean by far the most accomplished guide in the history of African exploration. And as so many central, central guides were, has been forgotten. So it's been really fascinating to research him. And unfortunately, I mean, he couldn't write his story,

but he did tell his story to many of these guys. His speak, especially, became really close to him because speak, didn't speak all these languages, ironically. And he, so Bombay was also his interpreter, so it became very close and he told his story. And so I have quite a bit of it. So anyway, so that's the story of friendship and betrayal and and and and our search not just for the source of you know the greatest river in the world, the Nile, but also the sort of the source of our of humanity, of our understanding of what what Africa means to us. Well, it sounds amazing. Please send it to me as soon as as soon as you have a really copy that I can't wait to read it. Sounds amazing. Thank you so much. I

would love to do that. All right. Well, we'll talk soon. I really enjoy the conversation. Thank you, Ryan. Thanks for listening to another episode of The Daily Stoke. It's mind-blowing to me now that we are well over 30 million downloads of this show. It means so much to me to have all of you listen. If you want to help spread the word about the show, please leave a review on iTunes or whatever your favorite podcasting platform is. It helps a lot.

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