The Daily Stoic - Illustrator Victor Juhasz on Marcus Aurelius and The Boy Who Would Be King

Episode Date: March 10, 2021

On today’s podcast, Ryan speaks to his collaborator and illustrator for his new book The Boy Who Would Be King about the process of creating the art for the book, imposing discipline on yourself, how he was impacted by Marcus Aurelius’ story, and more. Victor Juhasz is an artist and illustrator whose work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Time Magazine, and Esquire Magazine, and more. He has illustrated many books including G is for Gladiator: An Ancient Rome Alphabet and is for Zeus: A Greek Mythology Alphabet.This episode is brought to you by Beekeeper’s Naturals, the company that’s reinventing your medicine with clean, effective products that actually work. Beekeepers Naturals has great products like Propolis Spray and B.LXR. As a listener of the Daily Stoic Podcast you can receive 15% off your first order. Just go to beekeepersnaturals.com/STOIC or use code STOIC at checkout to claim this deal.This episode is also brought to you by The School of Greatness podcast. Go listen to School of Greatness, it’s an amazing show and Lewis is an engaging host who really wants to help people. Subscribe to The School of Greatness on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or visit lewishowes.com/podcast.This episode is also brought to you by FitTrack, the best way to calculate your body’s composition accurately, reliably, and consistently. Every FitTrack smart scale uses advanced algorithms to offer insights into 17 different metrics indicative of bodily health. Go to fittrack.com/stoic to take 50% off your order, plus get an additional 30% with code BUILD30 at checkout. This episode is brought to you by Blinkist, the app that gets you fifteen-minute summaries of the best nonfiction books out there. Blinkist lets you get the topline information and the most important points from the most important nonfiction books out there, whether it’s Ryan’s own The Daily Stoic, and more. Go to blinkist.com/stoic, try it free for 7 days, and save 25% off your new subscription, too.***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 Victor Juhasz:Homepage: https://juhaszillustration.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/juhaszillos Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juhaszillustrationSee 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 day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom every everyday 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 dailystowup.com. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wunderree'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. Hey, it's Ryan. What I wanted to do in addition to telling you the story of how the book came together, giving you a couple of different reads of it for the audiobook, I wanted it to really explain the scenes process behind-the-scenes process with Vic Ujas, my wonderful collaborator on the art, which obviously listening to the audiobook, you would not have seen, but I do hope you check out the physical version of the book, because I think it itself is a work of art. I'm so proud of it. And Vic was an amazing collaborator to work with.

He does sort of really funny stuff and really serious illustrations. He's appeared in every major publication. You can think of, you may have seen some of his best work in Rolling Stone. Among the books, he's also illustrated as D is for democracy, a citizen's alphabet. G is for gladiator and R is for rhyme. He lives with his wife in the New York Berkshires. Vick is an award-winning illustrator, a great guy, and you can see really understood deeply the material we were dealing with here in Marcus Relays. And I think you'll enjoy this discussion between two collaborators with a lot of respect for each other and how this book came

together and what the Stuart characters meant to us and some of the decisions that went into the book that you've just listened to. So here is me talking with Vic Ujas hope you enjoy it. Well I'm so happy like it exists. It's it's a time people are listening to this it will be like it exists. It's, it's, it's, the time people are listening to this, it will be well into a year of the process, but it feels amazing to me to sort of hold. I don't have the finished finish book in my hands,

but I have been the final, the final page proofs, and it feels incredible to me that the thing that was just an idea in my head is now a real book, and you helped make that possible. I appreciate it so much. My pleasure. It was an absolutely fascinating process and I learned so much during it and also from my standpoint, it was such a great fun to do and it was one of those blessed experiences in an illustrator's life.

Well, the idea of it being somewhat blessed struck me in that afterwards, and I guess maybe I should have done more of my research, but you came so highly recommended by our mutual friend, Sean Coyne, that, and I saw your drawings on your sign. I was like, this guy can do it. But what was incredible to me was you sent me to like like last month, you sent me two children's books that you'd done about ancient Rome. I didn't even know you did

that. What are the chances that you'd already studied this exact era and practiced? Yeah, well, that was a year ago. I did those. One was on actually Greek mythology. Z is for Zeus. It was for Sleeping Bear Press. And the other one was, G is for Gladiator about the Romans. Also for Sleeping Bear Press. And with both of those books,

I did an awful lot of research. I think one of the great pleasures of being an illustrator and doing a book like this is the research time that I get to put in. I'd say 40% of the book is basically just looking up and reading and finding reference and just learning more. Yeah, I was curious about that. So like when you, like, let's say you set out to draw someone like Marcus Aurelius as a young boy, and I know I gave you some pictures of my kid as a loose inspiration, but like when you go to like, I want to get the essence of someone who's, you know, I'm trying to depict

on the page. What do you look for? I would think that most important for me is getting that as much factual reference as I can before I start interpreting the factual reference. Now, of course, we have those statues of Marcus Aurelius. I think we even have a painting or two, but I do know that we have statues. And actually there I found something on Google and God bless Google for all this access to information. I found reference one sculpting of him, attributed to him as a young boy. So I said, okay, good.

So now I can jump back and forth. As it turns out, I found his face very interesting and aged it appropriately to the older Marcus Aurelius statues. And from that point, it was a matter of just staying faithful to the sketches, the drawings that I had created so that we didn't veer off too far. I think during the process of sending sketches back and forth with you, it became apparent that I had to kind of pay attention to some of the details and not make Marcus really

as this zelling kind of character look in all sorts of different ways. What did you find so interesting about his face? That's a curious statement. There was a certain sadness in that, an older soul, let's not call it sadness, let's call it an older soul characteristic in the sculpting of him as a young boy. And then of course you look at the older portrait sculpting of him and he has definitely become a wise adult.

Yeah, you're right. I'm looking at this statue. There is kind of a sat. There is a satan. It's partly because I've got to imagine it's partly because the eyes are missing. But if you think about what that must have been like, you're this kid, you're, you know, you're, you're, if you're the print, I'm watching the queen right now,

you know, if you're the Prince of Wales, you're born knowing you're the Prince of Wales. And there's a tradition and there's a sort of a burden almost from birth. It must, you know, my son's four, I imagine, okay, let's say he's nine or 10 years old. Imagine he just, you know, comes home from school one day and he's been informed by the emperor of Rome that he's going to be the next emperor. I mean, that would have been an incredible burden to place on a child.

In any era, you know, and especially in an era where the average lifespan, that was one of the other parts of the research. The average lifespan for a Roman was somewhere around 35 years old. Well, yeah, I mean, even not to flash forward too much, but even Marcus Aurelius' life, I think he loses like, between six children. He has six children not make it to adulthood. And you're just like, death obviously would have just been everywhere. So there's probably a number of explanations for the sadness that you're picking up on in that statue.

And also, the reference that you had sent me, and then which then became my personal Arabid holes of finding out more information about him, regarding his seriousness. He was a serious kid. He wasn't like Lucius, who was apparently more agrarious and a much more enjoyable personality be around, I believe Marcus slept as a young boy on a very hard bed, so it's not to get himself too comfortable.

Yeah, he did. I think, obviously, so much of this is projection, but that's what we do as artists, but it's interesting to think like, so he's showing at an early age this proclivity, this affinity for philosophy. And you know, as you said, he's sleeping on a hard mattress, he's reading these books, he's very studious. This is from what we know, before he's chosen to be emperor.

So who does that? It's an introverted, quiet kind of intellectual kid. So to then be chosen for what is not just a public position, but at that time, the most public position, it must have been, it must have been such a difficult thing. And that's why, you know, we start the book with the idea of like, he doesn't want this. So many kids, like, when I grow up, I want to be president. We think that we think that that's the norm,

but a bunch of kids, but to many, many kids, if you said that, that would sound horrible. They would be, you know, they wouldn't want that at all. It's probably true, especially nowadays, you know. Yeah, so you pick up on a sadness. What else strikes you about the art about Marcus Riz as you're trying to capture this essence of a person? Not a robust looking kid.

I, as a matter of fact, my early sketches for you did not really portray a robust child. The more I read about him, again, compared to Lucius, he was not. And he had apparently a fair amount of health problems as he, as he got older. So I didn't want to make him too, I didn't want this to be like a comic book in a sense, like a superhero kind of story, you know? This, I was trying to push as much as possible a more accessible human angle to the drawings. I love that, and I think I picked up on it for the same reason, because, so again, it's

like, there's only one person who's born, the son of a king or a of a queen, right? It's fair. In one sense, it's completely impossible to relate to. That doesn't happen to the vast, vast majority of human beings. What's so surreal, but also accessible, I think, about Marcus' story is he was just a regular kid. I mean, he comes from a good family, and clearly he was in the right circles. I mean, how do you even meet the emperor of Rome? But at the same time, you know, he is,

this is much closer to almost something out of a fairy tale or a, what is that? A ratio, Algar story, where the ordinary boy is selected for extraordinary things. Right. And as we follow the progression of the story, when you first sent me the manuscript and I was reading through it,

and I kind of dashed off a number of ideas to you. When we were just into talking process, I don't even know if I had been selected to actually do the book yet, but I dashed off a bunch of ideas to you when we were just into talking process. I don't even know if I was had been selected to actually do the book yet. But I dashed off a bunch of ideas to you and they were of a much lighter vein, stylistically as well as content-wise. And then once we really got into the book, And then once we really got into the book, the next challenge that I saw happening was as the book evolves, as your story evolves, the story becomes far more serious. And suddenly, where I started off, maybe in a more humorous, whimsical manner with the drawings, I had to start adjusting the drawings to compliment an echo that growing seriousness that's going on in the in the story itself. So even though this

is a, technically a children's book, this is actually also a book that adults can read. Yeah, I see it less of a children's book and more as a fable or as a parable and parables are accessible to all ages. Yes. But you're right. It, I mean, it's a serious story in that leadership is a serious thing. And those of us who are selected to it,

you know, to, on the one hand, look like art is fun and spontaneous as you know, and you're into it because you're passionate about it and all those things. But you also realize like, it's not that it's a burden, but that it's serious. You know what I mean? That there's not sort of obligations and responsibilities attached to it

that you sort of have to come to terms with. And that's sort of always been my reading of the story. People think it would be so fun to be the emperor and it's probably fun if you're a bad one, but to do it well is extraordinarily difficult and just think of the way that you have to carry. Well, the only proof we have in terms of modern times is just to look at how rapidly a leader ages.

Oh, right, yeah, those pictures of Obama, you know, when he gets elected in 2008, and then when he leaves office in 2016, you watch him go from black hair to almost solid gray hair. Yeah, I can't think of one leader who has not left office and not looked like they've been through a storm. Well, they have been through a storm and storm. Cassius Dio says, you know, for all of his talent and brilliance, he's not met with the luck that he deserves, right?

He's Marx to realize this sickly, as you said, then there's the Antonine plague, then there's a coup, then there's wars at the border. It's, you know, again, I think everyone thinks like, oh, it would be fun to be president. And then you look at the crises that are, you know, that define every presidency or emperor, you're like, whoa, you, you, you don't, you didn't just go through one storm. It was storm after storm after storm. Right, right. And I just can't imagine that kind of existence. I think you and I in our own respective fields as as artists, we deal with the daily, the daily challenges, the daily obstacles in front of us to produce, to create.

And we have those resistances on a daily basis and those distractions that we have to kind of put out of the way. By the way, the daily stoic has been, since hooked up on this project that the daily stoic was has become like like my morning Bible reading. I run. You know, so. Got a quick message from one of our sponsors and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned.

Is this thing all? Check one, two, one, two. There y'all. I'm Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, a singer, an entrepreneur, and a Virgo. Just the name of you. Now, I've held so many occupations over the years that my fans lovingly nicknamed me Kiki Kiki Ba-Bag Palmer.

And trust me, I keep a bag of love. But if you ask me, I'm just getting started. And there's so much I still want to do. So I decided I want to be a podcast host. I'm proud to introduce you to the baby Mrs. Kiki Palmer podcast. I'm putting my friends, family, and some of the dopest experts in the hot seat to ask them the questions that have been burning in my mind. What will former child stars be if they weren't actors?

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Download the Amazon Music app today. Well, no, I think, I think people, again, people think it would be fun, but they don't. So people don't often, often, people are often attracted to power or something, because they think they're gonna be able to wield it, it's gonna give them what they want. I think Marcus is a bit of a cautionary tale in the sense of like, no, he was reluctant, because he knew what it was gonna take out out of him.

So like, it's funny, you know, on the extreme end of the spectrum of the Stokes, you have Marcus Realis on one end, extreme power and privilege. You have Epictetus on the other, you know, sort of extreme powerlessness. He's a slave, adversity, difficulty. But they're kind of both very similar souls and that they understand that, you know, they've been dealt a hand by fate that people think is one thing, but it's actually much more complex.

And I think they're aware of the burdens, but also the, they're just aware that, hey, look, life deals you a hand and you gotta figure out how to play it. Right, right. I found myself very intrigued by Junius Rusthicus as well, and definitely wanted to create a character based on whatever reference we were able to find, and I believe there is one statue of him that maybe him, maybe not. I mean, there's no real way to tell, but it's attributed to him.

And so when I, and I think that was the one that I told you, I said he looks like Roger Waters more than anybody else. He has that kind of long nose and chiseled out features according to the statue. So I kind of modeled, I wanted to model rusticists in a Roger Waters kind of way. Well, Rousticus of all of the characters in the book is the most, and fatically a character. In the sense of, Marcus Aurelis is real. Most of what is said or done in the book is either something he learned

or something directly from the Stoke philosophy. I wanted, you know, the real story of Marcus Aurelis' life is unfortunately much more tragic and complicated than than we do in the fable, right? Marx, he loses his father at a very young age. He's raised in part by his two grandfathers, then Hadrian sees potential in him. Hadrian selects him to be the emperor, but, you know, Marx is just a boy and he realizes how, that Marcus is just a boy and he realizes how insane it would be to put a boy in charge of the empire. So he adopts Antoninus Pius, who in turn adopts Marcus to realize.

And I suspect Hadrian thinks that Antoninus Pius is going to live for a few years, that he might lead until Marcus is in his early 20s and then Marcus takes over. In fact, I think Antoninus rules for like almost two decades. So Marcus has this extraordinary experience with like basically a third father or a fourth father, right? His actual father is grandfather's, Antonin, Hadrian, then Antoninus Pius. So that was his way to complicate it. grandfathers, then Antoninus Pius.

That was his way to complicate it. And frankly, because I did want kids to read the book, I didn't want to get into, I didn't want to, I didn't want to talk to my own son just yet about, that your father can die, and then your stepfather can die, and then your other stepfather dies. That was a bit much. So I decided instead to focus all of that

paternal mentor energy into kind of an OB-1 guide, you know, educator mentor character, which I call rusticists. In reality, I don't think Marcus meets rusticist until he's like 25. But for people listening, rusticist is a composite character of many influences in Marcus' life. Right. Right. So when you're trying to project,

when you're trying to, so Marcus, you can look at all these different statues and sort of get to the bottom of it. How do you decide to render Rousticus as you do? I wanted to render, to create a character that looked like he had a great deal of experience and information and wisdom to impart on Marcus Aurelius. And that became a matter of, like I said, I used Roger Waters as a guide and at once sculpting

that we was found in reference. And then he became like this, he becomes like this foil in a sense to, to Marcus' acting out. And he comes in, if this was a movie, he comes in at the right time to kind of talk him off the ledge or to, to get him to refocus or, or to do something, to get back on course. And so he pops in and out. And at the same time, those scenes, those, those scenes that I was setting up between him and Marcus, where they're having those conversations where Marcus, I mean, where Marcus is not really on board with doing what he has to do. And Rousticus is very patiently telling him,

sometimes emphatically, but still he's very patient and he's like, you know, you've got to, this is not what you're meant to do in life. You've really got to get on the ball here and refocus. Yeah, in the concept of the hero's journey, there's that sort of, you know, you get the call to adventure, and to me that's what Marcus being selected to become emperor is.

And then you sort of struggle with it, and you're not sure, and maybe you stumble a little bit, and then there's this sort of critical phase where you, I think Campbell says, you meet the mentor. And the meeting of the mentor is such a critical breakthrough. And to me that's what Rousticus is. He's the sort of the guide that helps Marcus realize that potential. And again, in reality, Antoninus Pius does this the most.

Like when you read meditations, the longest sort of page of thanks is to Antoninus, although Rousticus gets quite a bit too, but he could not have become who he became without this mentor. Exactly. What's so funny though is so you just have to find the mentor, and I tell this story loosely in lives of the Stoics, but Seneca, you know, Nero is not born to be emperor either. His mother marries the emperor, and then she sort of, you know, helps him eliminate his rivals and sort of jostles.

So eventually Nero is in line. But Nero meets Seneca, one of the greatest wisestest toics, roughly the same age, you know, a few years different, few years earlier, even, then Marcus meets Rousticus in real life. And yet the two emperors could not have turned out differently. So, you know, there's that expression, you know, when the student is ready to teach her appears, but the reality is, Nero probably has a better teacher than Marcus has in Rousticus, but you get a very different result. Because ultimately it's about, you know, what is the student willing to do? Well, yeah, yeah. I think one of the things that we realized as we were art students

was that it didn't really necessarily matter what school you went to. It was great to go to a very good art school. But it was what you brought to it. I mean, if you didn't, if you were not there with, in the spirit of wanting to do something with it, you could have gone to the best school in the world and not produced, you know, and not come out of it. Right.

You got to do the, as Ristica says in the book, it's not going to be easy. I can show you the way, but sort of you got to do it. Which is good. Which is good, which is good, which is what we hope to, we've imparted on our, well, you, we're a young father, but I had hoped that I was imparting to my son and maybe I didn't impart it in the most subtle ways at times, but the intention was to, this is whatever successes, and I'm gonna harass you in a sense, but in the long run, if you succeed, it's because you followed through on it, not me.

I didn't do your homework, you did. Yeah, that's right. I can show you how to do it, but ultimately you have to do it. One of the things that we do know happened, again, it was at a different age, but we have the scene where Rousticus Gizmarkis, the stack of books, one of the things that we do know happened, again, it was at a different age, but we have the scene where Rousticus gives Marcus the stack of books. One of the things that I think is so incredible, just because it feels so modern, and Marcus

thanks him at the beginning of meditations for this. Rousticus is the one who introduces Marcus to Epictetus. And Marcus says, thank you to Rousticus for loaning me his copy of Epictetus directly from his own library. And we actually get the sense because Epictetus didn't publish anything that these may have not, this may not have been a copy of Epictetus.

This may have been Rousticus's own notes like Rousticus himself may have met Epictetus. And I just think that's so incredible that here you have a slave in influencing the most powerful man in the world through only a singular intermediary. And I just love the idea that it's like this guy changed his student's life by recommending a book because that's happened to all of us. All of us, absolutely, absolutely. I think all of us can thank certain people in our lives who saw something in us that maybe at the time we didn't see, or more certainly at the time

we didn't see ourselves, but they pushed us. They could, they kicked us in the ass, maybe. You know, you can say, no, totally. And, and I think that's a tricky thing with kids too. And this is why I wanted to do the book. Is that like, there are, there are a lot of very entertaining kids books. There's a lot of very funny kids books. They're, where I think it struggles is sort of entertaining well-done books that are also

in any way educational. Right. Right. Did you have any books that you want that you were modeling it on? Well, I like the boy, the fox, the mole, and the horse. I think I'm probably got him in the wrong order, but that's a good one. It feels, that book feels a lot more for adults

than it feels for kids. I think it's a great book. It's clearly sold extremely well because it's resonating on both levels. But the big model for me, and this is why I wanted to talk to you about it, was the little prince, because you have this sort of fantastical surreal kind of adventure story for kids that's also operating

on this totally different level for adults. And your son worked on the Netflix version of the little prince, so that when you told me that the whole thing felt very faded. And I didn't even know that you'd't do kids books about roman grease so if i known then we i think we would have we would have worked together even faster well i just as well that you didn't know it right then and that it it forced me to kind of present myself without the advance information. But, but tell it, but your son did work on that, right? Well, yes. My son Alex was supervising the stop motion portion of that animated movie. Yes. Did you expect your kids to sort of follow in the family business? Was that was that

something you you wanted or did it surprise you or did you sense that that was the direction from the beginning? Well, I have three sons and I never have worked anywhere else but in the home. So I've never gone to work someplace. I mean going to work was going to the third floor or yeah basically going to the third floor and into the studio. So I was always a presence in the house. I think in so many respects they what they saw was somebody who was working a lot, sometimes under a lot of pressure. Deadlines and such. Deadlines, but also not necessarily doing work that you wanted to do.

You were doing work, certainly in the early part of my career, I was doing a lot of work to get known, to pay the bills, to keep a family functioning. And so they sort of, it was not always a lot of fun. I think there's another fantasy about artists that it's just great, free-flowing, wonderful kind of energy. And a lot of times it's this great free-flowing, wonderful kind of energy. And a lot of times it's work. And it's work that you may not necessarily find all that much fun.

As I was going on in my career, I kind of made a deal with myself or justified the work that I didn't want to do, but was paying the bills with those that percentage of assignments that came in that were much more satisfying, you know, and that kind of balanced it off. It made the process more amenable. I got a quick message from one of our sponsors I'm a metaphor. I'm a metaphor. I'm a metaphor. I'm a metaphor.

I'm a metaphor. I'm a metaphor. I'm a metaphor. I'm a metaphor. I'm a metaphor. I'm a metaphor. I'm a metaphor. I'm a metaphor.

I'm a metaphor. I'm a metaphor. I'm a metaphor. I'm a metaphor. I'm a metaphor. I'm a metaphor. I'm a metaphor. I'm a metaphor.

I'm a metaphor. I'm a metaphor. I'm a metaphor. I'm a metaphor. I'm a metaphor. I'm a metaphor. advice as far as sort of pursuing that call. Alex, for Alex, it was, it was just being on his back, just to follow through. He had more than one rusticist in that situation. I, he kind of drove several of his instructors at School of Visual Arts, kind of crazy

because Alex was and still is incredibly charming. And at the same time, there was a tendency on his part to let that charm cover lack of follow-through. Interesting. As he got older, and I think once he went on his own journey, once he left the East Coast and went to the West Coast, his story really picks up where he leaves all his, he leaves those common temptations behind the easy things that we can always fall back onto to distract us

and he just he grew exponentially, once he came out the California and started working on animations out there. Well, that's sort of a lesson in the book too, that the sort of stoic discipline of discipline. Like, I think, again, people have this fantasy, whether it's being an emperor and artist, you're like, oh, I work for myself,

I get to do whatever I want. In reality, when you work for yourself, you almost have the fewest choices, because so much is riding on you, and what the right thing is is so obvious, and you just sort of have to do it. Yeah, yeah, and it's on you. If you fail, it's in a sense, it's on you. If you succeed, yeah, take a bow, you know, but let's see. Yeah, the ability to rule oneself, like it's like, okay, if you have a regular job, you have to get there at a certain time,

which means you have to leave your house at a certain time, and then you have these prescribed breaks. And then here's the sort of rhythm of the office, and here's when they do meetings, and here's when this involve, but when you work for yourself, you know, now you have to impose all that structure. And so, you know, sure, there's not a tyrant telling you what to do, but you have to be the tyrant now or else there's just chaos. And so there's this sort of this sort of self imposed discipline is almost a harder discipline because you know you could get away with not doing it, but then you also know you get stuck with the consequences if you don't. And so I tend to find being self-driven is a little bit exhausting. I don't know why more so than anything else, but there is a kind of a, just, you're just tired. Yeah, I don't disagree with that at all. I think there's something almost fearful,

fearsome about imposing the discipline within yourself to get things done. There is something I think very comforting about going someplace where the format is laid out for you, when you're creating your own format and you have to get up in the morning and you have to get through the initial exercises of the day, be it the physical exercises, mental exercises, meditation, jogging, whatever. And I can't say that I'm the most strict follower of those, especially when it comes to the exercise, and you just don't do it because you've got to do it. Well, I wonder if part of why it's so fearsome or exhausted is also like, okay, so let's say you work at a company, there's kind of a ceiling, right? It's like, this is how many widgets you're supposed to sell.

This is what your salary is, blah, blah, blah. But then when you're a freelancer, you're doing your own thing, it's unlimited, which is good in one sense, but it's also, it makes it hard to not do it. Do you know what I mean? It's like, you can always do more, and so that's sort of looming over you. And you're like, well, you know, this offer came in to do X.

I feel guilty if I turn it down. I feel, you know, there's just the discipline never has an end as opposed to like, I put in my eight hours, I'm good to go. Yeah, and at the same time, you've focused on that in the daily stoic, that you have to learn how to say no at certain points. You have to protect yourself. You're not doing yourself a favor by just functioning in a constant forward motion.

There has to be time to pull back and reflect and not be in that work mode all the time. Yeah, that's where the stillness comes in. And I think for me, that's what meditation clearly was for Marcus. That was a guy who had a limited amount of work who was always dealing with something, sort of carving out a little time for himself. And, you know, brand blanchard calls it, in the midnight dimness, you know, he sat down with his journal.

And I think that's what he was doing. And I think that's why it resonates with all of us, because we've been at that place that he clearly is coming from in the writing. It'll be curious what kind of impact you have on your own kids that how they'll pick up on your work ethic. I know, as my eldest son, he's always

wanted to be an entrepreneur. He never wanted to work, quote, for somebody else on that, quote, nine to five basis. And that was, you know, as time went on and we would talk, he would say that that was just watching me was one of those motivating factors to do that in his own life, to be his own boss. Yeah, that's right.

And I think probably being like growing up, I don't remember really seeing or meeting hardly anyone who didn't have a job. You know, Sacramento where I grew up was a government town and you know, everyone else was a, you know, had a job. They worked at a company, you know, Intel was there. There was a few big tech companies too. But the point was almost everyone had a job.

So it wasn't like San Francisco, where you're like, oh, this person started this company. It was this person, you know, it wasn't like, hey, this person started Twitter. It was like, oh, this guy works at Intel. And so, so I think I got to imagine watching your dad as your, your boys were able to do, watching you work for yourself

and, and, and not just be really good at it, like the craft of it, but to be successful at it, to make a living at it, not be a starving artist, there's probably something empowering in that. I've talked about this with some athletes too. It's like, it's not just that their dad or their mom passed on, you know, superior genes that made them tall. It's that Steph Curry grew up in basketball arenas watching his dad play basketball as a

professional athlete that probably made the NBA seem a lot less intimidating and a lot more real to him than it would have been to your average kid with the same height and the same skills. Steph Curry just had an advantage. There wasn't a mistake about it. Right, right. Interesting observation. I don't think I've ever thought of it that way. Well, I wanted to talk to you about another relationship

in the book, because it's what I've been endlessly fascinated with. The relationship between Marcus and Lucius because they're not technically brothers, although Marcus refers to him as his brother in meditations and in his letters. So he clearly had a great deal of affection for him, but you know, we know what a king is supposed to do when there is a rival to the throne of, you know, an illegitimate rival or of a different bloodline, even in the Stoic history, Octavian, who is advised by his Stoic teachers to eliminate Julius Caesar's son with Cleopatra. So there is a being a king is a bloody F'dup thing, right? And yet Marcus has totally the opposite relationship with his brother. It's really incredible. Yeah, as we get on in the book, I mean, there are days they combine at several

points in the book so that they're the scene where they're practicing wrestling and Lucius is obviously stronger. The scenes where Marcus is not happy with the fate that he's been handed in terms of becoming the emperor, but Lucius is kind of pissed off because it's like, why is he getting all the pomp and circumstances and all the special treatment? And so that scene where their mom comes in and says, I don't want to hear either one of you complaining. Yes.

Yeah, no, it's really strange because they must have, you know, sometimes opposites get along very well, but I've got to imagine their personality types were so different that it almost makes it more impressive that they were able to get along and were and openly antagonistic towards each other. Like, these were, if you were describing them on paper, you have this austere philosopher who believes that being emperor is a burden, but that Stoic, Stoicism obligates you to do this and this, and it feels this intense connection to the public good. And then you describe Lucius who's this sort of,

you know, maybe a bit of a drinker and he's fun and he's much more Cragarius and personable, you know, isn't actually selected for the throne, the way that Marcus is. It's, you would not think that they would then work well together, but by all, you know, accounts they did. Interesting, because, uh, didn't Lucius, Lucius was not in reality, such a great manager, right? Well, they sort of split from what I understand, they sort of split their roles, uh, and, and Lucius

sort of takes care of the army and is away from Rome for large chunks. He ends up dying, I think midway through Marcus's reign. But, but you know, there's no accounts of them fighting with each other, plotting against each other, you know, trying to hurt each other. You know, I remember actually one of the last, let's talk about that, because I remember one of the last notes that I gave to you. I thought that book was really good.

I thought we're basically done. And I said, there I'm so sorry, I have a last minute change, which is that I really noticed on the page where Marcus names Lucius Coemperer, not just spoiler alert, but I felt like the faces on the people observing this weren't stunned enough because it's it's totally without precedent in all of human

history. I mean, imagine again, I'm watching the queen right now. So it's top of mind, but imagine if when Queen Elizabeth becomes queen, her father dies. She was just like, oh yeah, I'm not going to be queen. I'm going to be co-queen and Princess Margaret is going to take half of the burdens. Like, people would be stunned. That's not, we know that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Nobody willingly gives half of it away. And so, I really wanted just the stunningness, the incredibleness of that to be conveyed because it's almost unbelievable. Yeah, yeah. I hope I pulled that off on the revise. I know I changed a number of the expressions,

but since it was already the crowning, I think my comment to you back then was like, okay, so let's not make it look like everybody just walked in and this is happening. Of course. But we will show some amazement at this unique event, this unique kind of crowning. Yeah, I mean, even, right, it's not like there's a ceremony, right? There's a ceremony for when someone becomes emperor. What ceremony is there when you become co-emperor? It never happened. And I don't think it ever happened again. I'm not sure, but now you got me a little confused.

Was it Lucius who went off to fight the wars? Well, Marcus did several, but I think almost all of the, the entirety of their reign was, was, was, was defined by, by wars of some former another, which is kind of just the reality of Roman history, to be honest. But just, I mean, just, again, just the idea of sharing power, I just found to be so incredible. And there was a line in a much, much earlier version of the book. I don't know if you saw it, but which, I basically have Marcus saying something like, the job is big enough, is bigger than one person

and the more help you can get the better. And I wanted to sort of capture this or something. And Marcus's, the annotations where he talks about not being afraid to ask for help. And I think there's something about that too. It's not just the lack of ego. It's not just the willingness to share, but it's also maybe this sense that Marcus knew there were that deficiencies in his personality,

but that he could use an extra pair of hands. And I think as a moral lesson, that's an interesting part of the idea. Because when I keep saying there's no precedent, the interesting part is there actually is a precedent in Roman history. You know, there was no precedent over it. When Rome was a republic, there was no singular head. There was two consuls. So in Roman sort of democratic history, the idea always was there was not one single person in charge.

And when that happened, that was called a dictator. I mean, it was for emergencies. But that power was meant to be shared. And that it was actually less dangerous when it was shared. It's just, that was the system. So for Marcus to do it voluntarily is, is, you know, again, unprecedented. Yeah, yeah. And an incredible bit of wisdom on his part, that he realized that there were strengths that Lucius

could bring into it. Yes. And that he had his own strengths. You know, if I'm correct, the indigenous Americans, they had like the sacum. You had a sacum chief, a peace time chief, but you also had a war chief too. And they kind of, depending on the circumstances of the time, one would take over, or one would become predominant during a particular period of time. Wow. There was a war going on with another tribe, then the war chief would basically be running the show. Got a quick message from one of our sponsors and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned.

One other thing on Marcus and Lucius, which I think is interesting, is there's some precedent for in Roman history, at least in the Stokes, you have this person who sort of very strict with themselves. Marcus is very strict with himself, but he says in meditations, he says tolerant with others strict with himself. I love that line. I love that line. I think that encapsulates his relationship with Lucius, where it's like, Marcus is like, here's my standard, here's who I am.

But I'm going to love my brother anyway. And there's a story, Kato is famously very, very strict with himself, but he had a brother. And he loved his brother so much, even though his brother was his brother, you know, wore perfume and fancy clothes and was much more, you know, again, outgoing and ambitious. When I wrote about him in Lives of the Stoics, I quote that great line from Springsteen, where he says, sometimes when it's your brother, you look the other way.

I think that's what Marcus does with Lucius. Yeah. Yeah. An, yeah. An interesting relationship. And it certainly inspires me to continue reading about that period of time. I'm a big history buff anyway. So I've got just more material now that I've to explore. But I love this because it passes on to the kids. I can't wait for the grandkids

to be getting copies of this and to give it to friends who have children and stuff like that. And also just to give it a pass it around. I think it's going to look beautiful. And the last time I saw the proofs, I think we have a gorgeous book. Well, thank you. Yeah, I think one other thing I was going to say about Lucius and Marcus, it's interesting too, is you know, the big sort of historical question about Marcus is, well, why is his own son so troublesome? Why does it not work for comedists? And anyone who's seen the movie Gladiators or anyone who knows how the story ends. But there's also a big historical what if?

Because from what I understand, Marcus's original plan was that one of his sons and one of Lucius' sons would rule as co-emperors afterwards. So his thinking was, nobody should be all powerful. Power should be shared. And then when Lucius either doesn't have a son or his son passes, Marcus thinks, well, then two of my sons are going to share it. And then that fails to come to pass, again, because of tragedy.

So I think Marcus clearly had this idea that power was best shared and not wielded unilaterally. And then he ends up being proven right. He's the exception that proves that rule. Yep. And I do believe that Comedist kind of broke his heart in terms of what he was developing into. I suspect so. It's probably the final mercy of Marcus's life is that he doesn't end up, he doesn't know what happens to his son. He doesn't know how bad it gets. Right. Right. Well, as we wrap up, I think the sort of conclusion of the book, it sort of concludes with the idea of the four virtues.

And the idea that again, this is a parable of leadership. This isn't the one off, fantastical story of one boy chosen to be emperor. To me, this is what happens to all of us. We're all chosen for something, whether it's art, or writing, or film, or entrepreneurship, or politics, or public service. We're all chosen for something. And in some respects, that's a burden,

but it's also an opportunity, because it allows us to become who we can be, and it calls from us, you know, courage and justice and wisdom and discipline. Yep. Yes, sir. Absolutely correct. What do you think, is there anything in Marcus' story

that you didn't quite get to capture or that you're still amusing on any sort of questions that you're left with. I'm just just curious about anything we haven't talked about. I'm kind of fascinated by the relationship he had with his mother. I get the impression he loved his mother dearly. And but at least the way we portray her in the book, she's also not, she's not a much she kind of mother, she's, she's got that sense of the responsibility to of what he's got to assume. So consequently, she's another kind of Obi-Wan in pulling him back to reality.

Yes, yeah, no, that's really important. I mean, so there are these sort of adopted paternal influences in Marcus' life, but I've got to imagine that the absence of his father, losing his father early, it must have, he could not have become who he was without a strong maternal presence as well. Mm-hmm. Yeah. The scene where he's kind of like are we revealing anything? No, no, go ahead. Go ahead. The scene where he's being very mischievous and disrupts a shepherd's

flock, which does that's a that's a real story, although I think it happened when he was much older. Okay. And he turns home and mom's waiting for him at the gate. Which does that's a that's a real story although I think it happened when he was much older okay And he comes he turns home and mom's waiting for him at the gate like it I I thought that was kind of charming that we were able to include that and set it up that way But no, and I think that that probably drives with a lot of people's experiences where it's like dad would be angry But mom would be disappointed and And that was probably worse. Yes. Yes. It's so funny.

Now, this is a side story, and it's not even relevant to what we're talking about, but you just maybe think of something else. I'm not going to say. Okay. Are you sure? Yeah, because when I was a kid, when I was a grade school, I got involved in doing something really stupid that somehow brought the cops into the picture. And I remember one of my friends, you know, his father got the phone call from the cops.

And the father went off on the police. And when my father got the call, I was watching him. And after he listened, said, OK. And then he hung up the phone. And he looked so heartbroken. And he said, well, we'll just see what happens. And how do you beat me? I would have preferred to get the beating rather than the expression on his face and realizing that I'd done something that had really saddened him or really disappointed him, you know.

That was a far worse punishment than getting a strap. But knowing that that's where that sort of virtue of discipline comes in sort of in all sense of the word. The discipline that your father had not to give in to what also must have been anger or frustration and instead be restrained is far more powerful and probably teaches you a lesson later with your own kids, but also just a lesson about your temper. How could your dad then ever, you know, for dad's losing his temperate

you all the time? What more authority does he have when you lose yours? The funny thing is straight there. It says more. The funny thing, he did lose his temper all the time. And this was like, only times that I could remember, or he didn't, I was so excited. And it was the absolute opposite response. That's funny. Yeah, I was gonna say when you're bringing up Marcus's mother, that's one story I remember,

which is that apparently one, so we tell the story about Marcus not wanting to be emperor and he sort of has this dream that it makes him think he can do it. I'll also a real part. But apparently one as a young boy and this strikes me so sweet and I don't know what age has happened that. But apparently one of Marcus's main reservations about being selected for this was that he didn't want to leave,

he didn't want to have to move out of his house with his mother and move to the palace. He wanted to be able to stay with her. And I just find that such a revealing, if true, such a revealing insight into what a sort of a softie he must have been underneath. Yeah, yeah, just think of him as emperor. I think it was every year that he was emperor. There was, like you mentioned before, there was some sort of war going on. What a conflict that must have been, how sorry against his internal grain, that must have been to constantly be in a state of defense or offense, you know? Totally. I mean, he spends at one point,

I think, eight years away from Rome. And so imagine, you know, he's missing his family, he's missing his kids, he's missing his books, you know, he's missing his routine. This couldn't, this wasn't the job he wanted. And it's not like, oh, hey, I don't wanna be president, but I was elected president, and I have to serve for four or eight years. It's like, it was the job he didn't want. And it's the job you can only stop doing when you die.

I mean, it's such a, it's a, it's a, it was a tragic gift. Yeah, yeah. One can only imagine what, what will it took for him to keep pushing on every day? Well, and the line we have, you mentioned it where the mother says, you know, never be heard complaining not even to yourself. Marcus writes that in meditations to himself. So we know he didn't want to be emperor. And he says, never let yourself be overheard

complaining at court, not even to yourself. So he there must have been a part he's like, I don't want to do this. I just want to go home, but he sticks with it and he doesn't even allow himself to whine about it. I know, I know. That's beautiful. So many lessons that will be of value from this book and in that kind of condensed life history. So I'm looking forward to it to seeing it in print. When is it coming out actually? So when people are hearing this and when it will come out are different things, but just it's an interesting insight into the production process for people listening. So it went one of the big things. So typically I traditionally publish all my books.

So I send them the manuscript and then that's sort of not my problem from there. And then this one I decided to self publish that I wanted more sort of control over it. I wanted it to be on my own timeline. But then all of a sudden you're faced with all these decisions, right? Decisions that you didn't have to make before. I don't know what printer Penguin Random House uses, right? I don't know what they pay. I don't know the timelines of it. I know sometimes my books go out of print, but I don't, I don't know how that works. So that was actually a big decision we made on this one was to print it in the US. So it went to the printer last week

and it should be here, I think. They said about three and a half to four weeks. So we should have books here very shortly and then people were listening to this or either listening to the podcast and then also this file is gonna be attached to the audio book. So we spent file is going to be attached to the audio book. So we spent a bunch of time I spent the last couple of weeks working up the audio book.

So I read it to my kids. I did have I had two different narrators read it. We're going to do a version with sound effects and then did sort of an explainer like sort of how how the book came to be. But um oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, um, oh, anyway, a whole different experience. Shout out to the kids who, who offered critiques of their own on, on the drawings that I was sending in. Oh, my kids, yeah, they definitely had feelings. I really appreciated that because that's always nice to, to get that kind of feedback, that kind of, uh, they're very honest.

What is that? Right. Right. No, that, that honestly, like, you know, one of the things, I don't know, your experience is with this, but one of the ways I've found you maintain your sanity as a creative is that you wanted to find your success as much as possible. This is a very stoke idea within the bounds of what's up to you, like what's in your control. And so where I got on this project and again, we're recording this before it's out, whether it sells thousand copies or a million copies, whether it's a big successor, you know, take a bath on it. It's already a huge victory for me and that I got to spend so much time with my kid,

one so much time with the material, which I'm fascinated with. But every night during the early months of the pandemic, you know, I started just writing this on, you know, just random sheets of paper, going over and over and over it with my kids and then being involved in its evolution was just such a wonderful experience

that I wouldn't trade anything for. Every copy that sells is just gravy because I already got that, that part was already worth it. And just the satisfaction of like, now it exists, like I got to work with you and I'm seeing my idea, you know, illustrating in a way that I couldn't have done,

but the experience was really the rewarding part, which is where you want to be, I think. Mm-hmm. Yep, and I really appreciate the opportunity to have come on to this project with you. Well, Sean Coin has been a pivotal influence, not just in this project, but for people listening or fans of my other book, Sean Coin is partly a pivotal influence not just in this project, but for people listening who are fans of my other book Sean Coin is partly the one who gave me the idea on obstacle is the way to split that book up into three parts as as I ended up doing

So that was a very lucky conversation and connection and Vic Thank you so much. It was an honor to do this. I'm glad we recorded this episode as well Let's Let's start thinking about the next one. Absolutely. I'm game. I'm always game. All right, man. Thank you very much, sir. What makes Marcus great are his teachers

and the early influences in his life. Roosticus Antoninus Pius. I mean, the whole opening section of meditations is him really acknowledging the people who were formative and helping him become the man that philosophy wanted him to become. And that's the story I tell in my new book The Boy Who Would Be King. It's an illustrated fable about the early years of Marcus Aurelius. How this little boy was selected from obscurity and ruled the world and did so without being corrupted by it.

He really did become the man that philosophy wanted him to be. And that book is now out. It's available everywhere. I've been working on this book for the last year. It came out of the pandemic for me. Something I've wanted to do for a really long time. You can check it out. Go to dailystoke.com slash king, or you can pick up the boy who would be king anywhere, books are sold, including on Amazon. But if you buy

it from us at dailystoke.com slash king, you get the audio book for free, which has me reading it and a bunch of the cool people. So check it out, the boy who would be king, and we should learn to lead like markets are really, and we should try to not just make stoicism proud, but we should try to make the example of Marcus Aurelius proud. Hey, Prime Members. You can listen to the Daily Stoic Early and Add Free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts. early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.