The Daily Stoic - Scott Galloway on the Rarity of Restraint and Being Authentic | If You’re Not Seeking Out Challenges, You’re Betraying Yourself

Episode Date: December 15, 2021

Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to professor and bestselling author Scott Galloway about the importance of being authentic and voicing genuine emotions, why living a great life is better than getting revenge, the immense mental and physical value that comes from endurance training, and more.Scott Galloway is a Professor of Marketing at NYU Stern School of Business where he teaches Brand Strategy and Digital Marketing. Professor Galloway has served on the board of directors of Eddie Bauer, The New York Times Company, Gateway Computer, and Berkeley's Haas School of Business. He is the author of several books including Post Corona: From Crisis to Opportunity and The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. → We hope you join us in the 2022 New Year New You Challenge. It’s 3 weeks of actionable challenges, presented in an email per day, built around the best, most timeless wisdom in Stoic philosophy. It’s 3 weeks that will reorient your relationship with time and space and make 2022 your best year yet. Just go to https://dailystoic.com/challenge to sign up before sign ups end on January 1st!GiveWell is the best site for figuring out how and where to donate your money to have the greatest impact. If you’ve never donated to GiveWell’s recommended charities before, you can have your donation matched up to $250 before the end of the year or as long as matching funds last. Just go to GiveWell.org and pick podcast and enter DAILY STOIC at checkout.SimpliSafe has everything you need to make your home safe. This week, our friends at SimpliSafe are giving Daily Stoic listeners early access to all their Holiday deals—40% off their award-winning home security. Take advantage of SimpliSafe’s these deals and get 40% off your new home security system by visiting simplisafe.com/stoic.Uprising Food have cracked the code on healthy bread. Only 2 net carbs per serving, 6 grams of protein and 9 grams of fiber. They cover paleo, to clean keto, to simple low carb, to high fiber, to dairy free to grain free lifestyle. Uprising Food is offering our listeners ten dollars off the starter bundle. that includes two superfood cubes and four pack of freedom chips to try! go to uprisingfood.com/stoic and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout. Ladder makes the process of getting life insurance quick and easy. To apply, you only need a phone or laptop and a few minutes of time. Ladder’s algorithms work quickly and you’ll find out almost immediately if you’re approved. Go to ladderlife.com /stoic to see if you’re instantly approved today.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/dailyemailCheck out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookFollow Scott Galloway: Homepage, Twitter, Instagram, FacebookSee 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 in 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. If you're not seeking out challenges, you're betraying yourself. James Hardin has led the NBA in scoring for three of the past four seasons. He's been named an All Star Nine seasons in a row. He's made the NBA first team list six times, and he was the league's most valuable player in 2018. Every discussion about the best basketball player

in the world includes James Hardin. But perhaps what is most impressive about Hardin is that he refuses to use all of this success as a reason to stagnate. Like the legend who came before him, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, he famously commits to adding at least one element to his game every off season.

When videos went around of Harden already a prolific shooter, shooting these bizarre, one-legged fadeaway three-pointers during the preseason, most assumed that the superstar was just messing around. In fact, he was working. I'm always trying to get better hardened explained to the one-legged shot. This is my eleventh year in the league, he said, then in every single year I want to get better.

I don't want to stay the same. You've got to find ways to keep growing. Whether in sports, in business, or life, the grades are always distinguished by how they're looking to add a new element to their game. This is the stoic way. A stoic has their eye on always improving. As Epictetus said, quoting Socrates, just as one person delights in improving his

farm and another his horse, so I delight in attending to my own improvement day by day. The whole point of life, of working out, of work itself, is to push yourself, to grow day by day as a result of pushing against and through difficulty. An athlete betrays their sport if they stop looking to add to their repertoire, a writer betrays their craft if they do not take on projects just beyond their current capabilities, a lawyer betrays their profession if they only take on the cases they know for sure they will win. And we betray ourselves in our potential if we do not seek out challenges. The new year is almost here and it's a perfect chance to take on a challenge, to push

yourself, to get better and stronger by pushing against and through difficulty to inch closer to your potential. Why not start 2022 by taking the steps towards being the person you know you can be? And that's one reason why we create and run every year the daily stoic new year, new you challenge, which we have an all new

version of here on the eve of 2022. It's a set of 21 actionable challenges presented one per day built around the best, most timeless, stoic wisdom that there is. Our goal, my goal myself, is to become my best self in 2022 and the goal of the challenge is to help you do that. Look, each year, every year, this year, right in front of you, can be the most important year of your life. The one where you become your best, most creative, most centered, most self-reliant, most resilient self. But you have to be willing to step into difficulty, step towards it, because, like lifting weights, growth can't happen

without resistance. And the new year, new UChallenge, it's new content guided by thousands of responses and reactions to the challenges we did in 2020, 2019, 2018. And there's awesome stuff in here. I think you're really gonna like it. It's a whole new challenge.

I can't wait to bring it to you. And the ideas in the challenge are there to help you stop procrastinating, to gain clarity, to learn new skills, to quit harmful vices, to make amends, to be more courageous, and to break destructive thought patterns. And much, much more, of course, we should think here, on the eve of the new year, what are the risks and downsides of not taking control of your life for allowing if we allow another year to pass without living up to our potential, not changing our ways. The risks might not be dire, but none of the downsides are good, and some are downright miserable.

So let's not let that happen this year. Not. Again, seek out challenges. Find ways to keep growing. Don't stay the same. Don't betray your potential. Demand more of yourself in 2022. And one of the ways you can do that is by joining us in the Daily Stoic New Year new you challenge. All you have to do is go to dailystoic.com slash challenge to sign up. Remember daily stoic life members get this challenge and all our challenges for free. But sign up seriously. Think about what one positive change, one good new habit is worth to you. Think about what could be possible if you handed yourself over to a

little bit of a program. We all pushed ourselves together. That's what we're going to do in the challenge. I'm going to be doing it. I do the challenges. All of them alongside everyone else. I'm looking forward to connecting with everyone in the Discord challenge, all the other bonuses. Anyways, check it out. New year, new you, the Daily Stoke Challenge. Sign up at dailystoke.com slash challenge. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke Podcast. I've known about today's guest and his work for a long time. We have the same publisher for starters, so I think my editor, Nithy Papadopoulos, first passed him to me, and then he popped up on my radar again when someone, I think, was my sister pointed out that he was, he

had a copy of the Daily Stoke behind him on some of his video episodes of his podcast, which is great and you should listen to. I am talking about the one and only Scott Galloway, professor Scott Galloway, as he is often known. He's a professor of marketing at the NYU school stern, at the NYU Stern School of Business, he teaches brand strategy in digital marketing, but he's really just a fantastic writer. He's sort of brought, I think, a really good amount of sort of cultural criticism, business strategy, and understanding of the technological changes

and mindset of Silicon Valley to the world. Now, if you remember when we worked just like blew up and mindset of Silicon Valley to the world. Now, if you remember when we worked just like blew up as a company, not like blew up, became popular, but when the sort of house of cards came crumbling down, a lot of this was the result of some of the analysis that Professor Galloway had done. He brought it. He brought the absurdity. He waited through the absurdity in his really trademark way,

was able to explain it to everyday people who wouldn't be well versed in tech. And he just does that on a lot of issues. It's just great. He has a great podcast. He's active on social media, of course, one of the things we talked about. He's served on the board of directors of Eddie Bauer, The New York Times, Gateway Computer,

and the Berkeley Hoss School of Business. He has a BA from UCLA and an MBA from Berkeley. We talk a little bit about the UC system, which is where I dropped out. He's the author of many, many books, Post-Corona from Crisis to Opportunity. The obstacle is the way, as you might say. The four, the hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, and Facebook, and Google. And then I think most interesting to the Daily Stoke audience would be his book, The Algebra of Happiness, Notes on the pursuit of success, love and meaning. You can go to his website profgaloway.com

but you can subscribe to his newsletter which I get no mercy, no malice. He's the cohost of the Pivot podcast with Cara Swisher and just a great guy. You can follow him on TikTok. He's got some great stuff and follow him on Twitter at ProfGalloway. And you know, just a, just a, and he's got a show coming out with on CNN plus soon too. This dude is just making tons of stuff. I've been on his podcast twice. It was a wonderful experience. You can check those out. And I hope you enjoy this interview with us. The thing I think I found most surprising, the two times, now the three times I've talked

to Professor Galloway, as a writer, he's this bombastic, aggressive, like he wields the pen like a sword, and I think that's what, you know, his, as I said, his newsletter's title, no mercy, no mouse. So, I don't know, but I, I, I sort of expected a certain personality. I was, he, he talks very quietly and very calmly, almost like a whisper. And I found that the contrast of that delightful and I really enjoyed talking to him. And I think you'll enjoy this episode. Anyways, here's my interview with Professor Scott Galloway who you should all be a fan of.

I'm excited. I have a bunch I want to talk to you with, but I thought we'd start with with what happened last week. What is it like to be attacked by the richest man in the world on Twitter? We should talk about that. What's that like? Are we recording? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There we are. Okay. So I got, I started getting all these text messages, including one that said, are you okay? And I thought, okay, what's wrong? I do know something I don't. And then it was interesting is clearly there's not a lot of people to follow me. The follow Elon

because I didn't get a lot of my photography. And then I saw it and then someone afforded to message, what's going on here in my podcast co-host? Forward me and he said something along the lines of, this guy is an insufferable num-school, you could don't invest in anything he suggests or something like that. Basically I had said, I'm like, how did I, I've said a lot of stuff about Tesla.

Why now is he coming for me? I'd said that he was using this Twitter poll, that the Twitter poll that people didn't really have any agency, that he'd decided a long time ago to sell stock as evidence by an SEC filing, which somehow riled him up. And, you know, I responded and I try, I enjoy responding to stuff like that.

My view is generally speaking, it's OK to have enemies as long as they're more powerful than you. Yeah. I generally think it means you're probably doing something right. If you have enemies that are less powerful than you, then you're just bullying. What I did, though, is I was really excited about it.

I thought, okay, this is an opportunity for me to respond and every day and get in his head. And then some of the stuff I've learned from you and others, it's like, okay, I'm a 57-year-old man. I really need to be responding to every slide into. I do think that Elon Musk is doing important work. He's trying to put people into space and also building an electric car. I think he's an enormous asshole, but that doesn't mean I need to distract him or get in his head or respond to every slide. So I just, I said my piece and I just kind of just stopped.

And I don't think I would have a few years ago. I'm trying to have more control of my emotions. I'm trying to be, it's okay if someone, everyone's not gonna get the better of you. It's okay, it's not, you know, the next day, you know, one morning, the next morning, my kids still wanted me to take him to school. You know, my friends still wanted to hang out with me.

So I just, the whole thing was, as it should have been kind of a big nothing bird. Because he immediately went on to say much more aggressive, profane things about people, much more famous than me. But yeah, I'm kind of like, I've checked that box.

The, our innovation ages Jesus Christ. It is not happy with me. Well, what is that? Why do you think given that all he has going on and all he's done that he can't do what you said you found yourself doing which is going like, why am I getting sucked into this? Yeah, it's really interesting.

I mean, to be fair, some of it has paid huge dividends. There's an id, or there's a fairly unfortunate component of our species and our society where you're always kind of enjoying people you admire, dunking on others. Sure. So to get back in Bernie's face, when Bernie comes across as indignant and lecturing, which he does a a lot and say, I forgot you were still alive. That kind of is fun, right? It feels good. And especially of the 40 or 50 million followers

that Elon has, I would bet 30 of them are, million of them are young men who kind of enjoy that sort of, I don't want to call it Howard Stern, but that kind of Donald Trump Howard Stern sort of, I don't call it Howard Stern, but that kind of Donald Trump Howard Stern in your face, irreverent. I don't give a shit. I'm not going to be the boring tooth-paced CEO. I'm going to say what I want. I think it's worked really well for him. I mean, I hate to admit it, but I think one of the reasons that Donald Trump was elected is a lot of people are just sick of sort of the blow-dried, starched nature channel meets hallmark channel, veneer of politeness. And so it has worked really well for him.

And Tesla, the most valuable automobile company in history, worth more than the next 10 biggest automobile manufacturers combined, doesn't advertise. And part of the reason they don't need to advertise is that he says these things to get tremendous intentions. So he's always part of the dialogue. And as much as I hate to admit it, it's probably been effective

and probably been a good shareholder driven strategy. The thing I worry about are the thing that, and I feel very much like a boomer and I'd be curious to get your take on the strike because you're younger than me. I think it's a certain point when you get above a certain amount of influence, you do, you know, to, for those who much is given, much is expected, you do have somewhat of an obligation to serve as a role model. Sure. And I think this guy arguably is more of a role model than any athlete or any political figure in history. I think a ton of young men look at what he's accomplished, how he doubled down with his

proceeds and linked in and financed these companies on credit cards, and now he's putting rockets into space. He's electrifying the world. I mean, it really is, there's a ton to just be an awe of Elon Musk. And I guess it's hard to edit that part, but then all right, do you want to train young men to be this course? Do you want young men to believe that once you get to a certain point of success, that you don't kind of acknowledge your blessings and show a little bit more grace, but you get in people's face and you make our dialogue more coarse, and you say, profane things about sitting U.S. senators. I mean, what he said about Ron Wyden, I thought was totally over the limit.

So look, you know, it disappoints me, like, that more of these men who have such incredible influence, whether it's Aaron Rogers or Elon Musk or Donald Trump, that they just don't demonstrate a little bit more grace. I wonder if we're raising a generation of like entrepreneurs, bold risk takers who are also just assholes. Anyway, I'll be curious to get your thoughts. Yeah, I mean, I wonder too, you know, you look at someone like Kanye West

who's sort of similar playbook to Elon Musk. How, there's this interesting moment where the wheels come off and then you go, oh, was it an act? Was it a deliberate strategy or were you actually just not in control of yourself and it worked for you for a very long time? Yeah, the thing about Kanye and,

you know, it's the done in Kruger effect, where you just because you have some success in one area, you automatically think you have domain expertise in another. All of a sudden, all of us have decided where we've been awarded doctorates in epidemiology. You know, we all of a sudden just have a view on the virus. And so I want to be careful. I'm not a trained doctor.

I'm not making a diagnosis here. I think there's enough evidence that Kanye is dealing with a lot of different issues. And Kanye strikes me as someone who is just struggling and occasionally has episodes where trying to just figure out a delicate way to manicure this without coming across these nonchairist psychiatrists. I think Kanye is a different situation. I just mean that, but social media ultimately doesn't really make a distinction. If it's sort of intercaning or interesting, it plays well.

So it's like, I guess I always wonder with someone like you on how much of it is this sort of deliberate marketing strategy and how much of it is a like can't stop himself. I think it's not that. I don't think supposedly he burns through PR executives every 14 days because they just don't know what to do. And they I mean on a risk adjusted basis over the long term, this attitude of being a reverent and occasionally being unscripted and not having every word massage by eight PR consultants, which is what every see, I was a code and there was a bunch of textos there,

and they were all surrounded by an entourage. And their entourage isn't even security, it's not people they're trying to help learn, it's not their chief of staff, it's all these PR hacks. Trying to massage every word and say, okay, they're going to ask you about this, frame it this way. And he's not that. And I think people really respond positively to this sort of unfiltered in your face honesty. But I'm pretty sure, and again, this is a, I'm being reductive, I'm pretty sure he gets really fucking high and goes on Twitter at night. I just, I don't think a sober person, and I relate to some of this because occasionally I'm drunk tweeted and it's not a good idea. But I think he, I think he takes an edible and then

decides to say these things. There's no way, if he screamed any of this through anybody, they would do the math and go, is sitting you as Senator who writes legislation, including tax policy and trust policy, it's probably just not a good idea to just insult him like that. It's just not, you know, these senators pass laws. Sure. So I don't see how over the long term,

this benefits him or his shareholders. Well, your point about the role models is a good one, right? And I've seen this with the athletes that I've worked with, but I also, I interviewed Michael Dell a few weeks back. Like, we do have this sense, you look at the Elon Musk or the Steve Jobs, and you're like, okay, this is what it takes to be that. But there is sort of below them,

a tier of extraordinarily successful people who are not assholes or who are not reckless, who don't, you know, as you said, get high and tweet things. And I found that with athletes too. Obviously you look at Jordan or you look at Tom Brady or you look at Aaron Rogers. And you go, is this what it takes to be world class at what you do? Maybe the sort of assowness is a part of the performance. But it may just be that they are the most public of them. They're the ones we talk about the most. And perhaps the given how anomalous they are, the worst one to try to emulate.

You might want'd be better off emulating the larger class of people you haven't heard of, but are extraordinarily successful, than try to be the one Elon Musk. Yeah, it's just, it's tough because I think one of the things that really is damaging our society

and is led to a lot of things including less opportunity for young people for the first time in our nation's history, a 30 year old man or woman isn't doing as well as as her parents at 30. The percentage of wealth that people under the age of 40 control relative to GDP has gone from 20% to 9%. And I think, okay, how do we, how do we kind of build back this more comedy of man, a nation that seems to, I don't know, be more productive or offer more opportunity, young people.

And I think part of the problem is the erosion of faith in our institutions, where everyone just hates government, everyone blames everybody else. And I don't think you're helping when you start attacking our institutions and showing kind of that level or that disrespect. It's like, what is a young person thing? Whether you like Senator Sanders or not, the greatest deliberative body on this planet or any planet is probably the US Senate. They're cordial each other. They argue, but they pass amazing legislation, whether it's civil rights or funding for vaccines. I mean, they do important work. And it seems

like the one piece of connective tissue that our nation has left as its government. And people are just so coarse and cynical and disparaging of our government. And then our elected officials are so coarse and personally attack each other. I don't know if that's going to, I just don't know if that's going to help. And also what would, if you pivot to where you want to go, the content I have found, I'm guilty of this. I do the same thing when people come after me and I do it less now. And they stick their chin out and they say same thing stupid.

I'm like, oh my gosh, what an opportunity and I go in and, you know, piss me a chin. And I get a ton of likes and I feel good about myself and dunking in 140 characters or less. And then I realized about two, three years ago that I was just adding to the problem. And I wasn't happy doing it. And it didn't reflect well on me personally. And that a certain thing being a man means occasionally just taking it. Just if somebody is angry and upset and having a bad day, I used to be that guy Ryan that when I went to the Delta counter and I was, you know, Delta one K. Any slight, any like, I didn't get upgraded or I didn't, the line was moving fast of anything where I felt the

universe was out of whack and not giving me the respect that I was, I warranted. I had to get angry or bring it back to the equilibrium of me just being the fucking ball or I'd like to think I am. Sure. The reality is I think being a man is occasionally recognizing that sometimes when you get cut off in traffic, sometimes when your food is late, sometimes when someone serving you is disrespectful, then it's not about you. Maybe that person has a kid who's struggling with autism.

Maybe that person is really worried about declaring bankruptcy because his or her wife has lung cancer. And so I think a certain amount of grace, I'm not saying you ever need to be abused, but a certain amount of grace is just to kind of take it and realize it's not about you. And then around authenticity, what I've tried to pivot to, and I think this is the big opportunity for men, is to openly talk about your emotions and be vulnerable. I mean, there's different types of authenticity. Someone says something about you, you get angry, you get back in their face

regardless of the repercussions, right? And it's authentic and people respond to that authenticity. There's also, I think, a more productive authenticity. And now it's talking about, you know, how just devastated you were when you had to put your dog down. We're talking about, you know, investing just devastated you were when you had to put your dog down. We're talking about, you know, investing in your relationship with your spouse. We're talking about, you know, you're looking through old photos of your kids and you just kind of just, you're just sort of not devastated, but you're just so kind of upset that you're

just never going to have that 11 year old back. That he, while he's a lovely 14 year old now, that 11 year old is gone. I have found as I've tried to pivot more than that, unless about calling people out, because I find there's a lot of a former. But there's not as much of the latter, and it's authentic, and people really respond to it. So I'm, you know, it's sort of do it, trying to, you know, the test is like the man, the man in the mirror. I'm trying to be more authentic and less guarded around my emotions that are positive, the concern and care in regard I have for others

and some of the insecurities I have, as opposed to being that guy on Twitter who dunks on people because I'm, I have good facility with words. I'm creative. I'm sort of funny. So I was sort of born to dunk on people and I did it for a while and enjoyed it. And I'm like, what the fuck is this going to get me? What is it going to get me? Is this what I is this the role model I want to be? Is this what I want my voice to be like? So anyways, I'm trying to I'm trying to kind of walk the walk if you if if if you will. And the advice

I would give to young people and a lot of young people listen to show. If you can be authentic about your emotions and your relationships, there's a huge opportunity because most people don't have the confidence to talk about it and everybody. I remember talking about I'm a you know I'm a guy who's fairly successful and I remember talking about the fact I had trouble getting over the death of my mother. And I started hearing from all the, these masters of the universe saying, I still haven't gotten over my mom's death. And what you realize is that there's no shortage of people who will call other people out. With the real opportunity, the real opportunity is whether there's a real market opportunity, if you are looking at it just for a business standpoint, is to be more open about your relationships. And some of the things that some of the demons that haunt you, there's a lot of people out there

who share those sentiments. So anyways, that's what I'm trying. Trying to do less of the former, more of the latter. Yeah, there's a great Jeff Bezos speech that he gave once about some advice that he got from his grandfather, about how it's easier to be clever than kind. And I think about that all the time.

I love that. I love that. And to try and show discipline and just occasionally, you know, if you have an absorber slight, you're going to get it back. Don't worry about it. It's okay. I mean, I'm not saying let anyone take advantage of your abuse you, but to the first time in my life, I thought, you know, I don't want to take any of this guy's head space because he is doing important work. And so have out it,

you know, but also at the same time, you know, I just don't want to be that guy. I just don't want to be that guy. And I hope the young people, if they can, can parse through the amazing things about these individuals and maybe put aside some of the other stuff. The Bahamas. What if you could live in a penthouse

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and SBF would find himself in a jail cell, with tens of thousands of investors blaming him for their crypto losses. From Bloomberg and Wondery comes Spellcaster, a new six-part docu-series about the meteoric rise and spectacular fall of FTX and its founder, Sam Beckman Freed. Follow Spellcaster wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, prime members, you can listen to episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Okay. Like, I do think that it's one of the things I try to remind myself when I get something nasty from someone and like, you know, not perfect at all. And it's a journey.

But I try to remind myself that 99% of the time these people are not winning like at life, like the person who's spreading COVID information at you or whatever, the some random commenter, you know, it sucks to be that person. In a lot of ways, not just because they're making themselves vulnerable to the pandemic, but like chances are they believe a bunch of other nonsense too, and life is not going well. And so I try, pities the wrong word, but I just try to remember that it's not fun to be this person.

I think that's such a great point. A piece of advice, there's only a small number of like, sayings and pieces of advice I have found have held are durable are enduring. And one of them was actually one of my investors and became I became friends with was the CEO of a company called ProLogis and I haven't unfortunately I've sort of lost contact with him. I had him on my podcast, but is a CEO named Hamid Mogoga Dom, who's considered like one of the brightest minds in real estate. And I got kicked off the board and basically driven out of town of my first startup by this very like master

of the University of Catholic. I was just so fucking angry and I spent basically years, years running a proxy battle and trying to seek my revenge. And I would always call Hamid for advice, but the proxy fied and how to take over the company. And he said to me something that's stuck with me, and he said, you realize that the best revenge is just to live really well.

The best revenge is to have a better life. And what I realize is most of the people I get into it or come after me or say false things about me on Twitter or whatever, I just say, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take my, I'm gonna serve this guy a cold launch by just having a fucking amazing life. I'm gonna have a ton of people who I love, who love me,

I'm gonna make a shit ton of money, and I'm gonna spend it all on good things and give a lot of it away. I'm gonna do amazing things with amazing people and I'm gonna raise great citizens. And you know, and just, that's my revenge. And that's the advice I would give to anybody, you know, the best revenge you want to make all of your enemies have.

And by the way, the more, as enemies are a function of success, there's an industrial complex that rewards people for dunking and going after people who get some sort of famer influence. And that's probably a healthy thing. We should probably question power. But the absolute best revenge is just to have an amazing life and such a nice life that that bullshit just plays a smaller and smaller role in your head.

And I've tried to embrace that. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna focus, I'm gonna try to take any energy around that stuff and focus it on being stronger, being more fit, making more money, spending more time with my kids, spending more time with my friends, because that is the ultimate revenge. And then I wish we were a little bit,

I'm trying to bring some heat and some light to people who I think are, who show a lot of grace. Like I was singing like Angola Merkel or Senator Amy Klobuchar. These people are friendly to the guy named Senator Michael Bennett. The thing they do or even Andrew Yang who I'm a big supporter of, the thing they all have in common, they never personally attack anybody. Yes. You know, when you're chancellor of Germany, you could easily use your platform to call out what a fucking idiot Donald Trump is.

And she doesn't, because she realized my job is to serve the German people. The woman's a quantum chemist. You know, she has a PhD in quantum chemistry. My guess is she could absolutely highlight what the, you know, the president of Brazil is saying his junk science about COVID, but she doesn't. She restrains herself. Her attitude is, I'm about helping the German people. And her last week kind of summed up everything that, of course,

no one saw. But I thought was the most heroic tweet of the year. She said, I promise my departure will be remarkably boring. Yes. And I just saw it and then she stopped tweeting. And I thought, that's the kind of leadership. That's the kind of grace we need right now in the world. As people who aren't going to use their platform to piss off people or make us more tribal or say, here, you on this side, and everyone else's our enemy. So I'm, I'm trying to think, how do we, how do we live that, that kind of live up to that ideal? And also how do we bring more attention to the people who just do the

work? I've been, I had Senator Klobuchar on our podcast or I shouldn't say I did it, Cara Brotteron. And she just strikes, she's doing such important work. And she doesn't go after people personally. She doesn't think it's a function of making progress. She has to criticize other people. Yeah, I think it sounds like the theme of what you're saying. It's actually what I'm writing about now, but it is restraint. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

Just because you were rightfully provoked, doesn't mean you need to respond. And that's a, I think that is a attribute that is very, very rare in today's world, people who are restrained. Well, I've been reading a lot about, I'm trying to understand masculinity and a lot of, a lot of discussion of masculinity ends up with a military and strength and warriors. And what it means to be a warrior, and warriors are highly trained, highly skilled, deadly when they need to be. But the other component or an aspect of a true warrior is he or she keeps

their sword in their sheath unless absolutely necessary. They're not running around firing on civilians just because they're worried about them or they're not respectful to them. They keep their guns and their swords kind of locked and in the sheath. And I think that's what it means to be a real warrior is to just have get incredibly strong mentally and physically. I do think that physical fitness and strength, and this is where I'm less woke, I don't buy this body positivity moment. I'm a movement, I think it's important to be physically fit. You are not renting your body. This is not a loner. I think you want to be able to run long distances and

lift heavy weights, both in the real world and in your mind. But you don't, you don't use that strength to hurt people. You don't, you don't use your 40 million Twitter followers to shame people or embarrass them. You keep your sword in its sheath. That's what a warrior is. No, let's talk about the body thing, because I know you've seen some pictures. You're pretty jacked.

It is, to me, the point of exercise in physical fitness is about deciding who's in charge, like you or your body. So to me, even though you're working out your muscles, what you're actually doing when you do that, when you decide to go for run or a bike ride, when you decide to push past the limits that your body tell you to do as possible, it's actually the mind that's getting stronger because the mind is asserting its dominance over the body. It's probably not biologically or physiologically true, but that's how I think about it. It's like, when I work out, I ran this morning, I'll work out tonight.

It's me making a statement about who's in charge of me and my limits and what I do and don't do. So I remember this, you're a runner, right? Yeah. So I think there's, I think there's so, I think what you're saying is really important. I was, I was an athlete growing up. I was a very good athlete.

I was blessed with just enough athletic skill to enjoy it, but not enough to ever have any delusions that I was gonna make a career at it. And since here I lived in, I rode crew at UCLA and I knew a lot of athletes who were amazing athletes. And it ended up being kind of a, not a bad thing, but you know, some of them went to the solo Olympics, some got drafted in the, you know, into like farm teams. But most of them were calling me at the age of 28 and starting their lives. So anyways, but on crew, and I was a terrible oarsman, I was usually the least talented,

at least strong in the boat, but there would be a point when you row where the air coming in and out of your esophagus felt like it was on fire. You couldn't feel your legs. They were so numb with exhaustion. You had to physically focus on trying to not pass out. You'd start seeing black in front of your eyes and thinking, okay, I'm literally about to pass out. And these races are 2,000 meters.

And that would start to happen at 800 meters. And you would go to 2,000. And what that taught me at a very young age at the age of 19 was that about the time you think you can't take it anymore, you're in a bad relationship. About the time you think you can't take it anymore. You're in a bad relationship. About the time you think, I just give up. The world has been so harsh to me professionally. About the time you think, I just can't take anymore

because some bad things have happened to you. When you think you're at your limit, you're about 30% of the way you're actual limit. It is incredible with the body and the mind are capable of. And the moment you learn that, the moment you learn that, you become, you acquire a devastating advantage in weapon. And when I went to work in Morgan Stanley, my first job out of UCLA, I wasn't as well educated,

not because I went to an inferior school, I went to UCLA, but I got a 2.3 GPA. I smoked a lot of pot. I watched Planet of the Apes. I just wasn't as skilled as the majority of my colleagues. I was at a disadvantage, but I thought, you know what, I know my limits are not nearly as limited. And I used to, every week, go into work Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. and I'd stayed till Wednesday night at 5. I would just work through the night. And the whole firm knew about it. And I did it every Tuesday.

And it just kind of, and not like that, it was super easy for me. I was 23, I was in great fucking shape. I was mentally strong. And I had no kids or dogs waiting for me at home. So I'm like, why not? And the thing is everyone would be like, how can you do it? You know, I could never do that. I'm like, yeah, you can. You can do it easily. You just don't because you haven't done it, you don't have the

comfort. You can at a 23 year old can work 36 hours straight, no problem. That's what surgical residents do. That's what that that's a resident, some medical school do. You absolutely can do it. And something that's been a gift my whole life is when I'm feeling down and I feel like I can't take anymore. I know. I'm not even close. I'm not even close. So that kind of, when you run in addition to other things, it's been my, it's for me, I don't know if it's true. It's like my anti-depressant. That's rid of my anger, gives me control over my emotions, makes me feel strong. I enjoy sex more because I feel stronger. It makes me feel just like I can be more kind because I feel stronger. Just everything about it is a gift. And unfortunately, we've conflated

fitness with some sort of shaming of people who aren't, who have genetic problems or in food desert. That's not where we are at all. I want to move back to a society. Remember the presidential fitness awards? I don't know if you're even old enough for that. But in the fifth grade, you'd start doing like pull-ups sit-ups, and if you were in the top desial, you got a badge. And it was a competition, and I think over time it got starched out, because people thought of it as body shaming, or as, you know,

it's definitely not everyone gets a trophy, right? You get a badge, you don't. And you get used to get badge number, like presidential fitness award, two, three, four, five. And I remember missing it one year, because for life, me, I couldn't do pull-ups, I grew, and I didn't have the upper body strength. I couldn't do as many pull-ups,

I was just devastated. And then we need to reinstitute a certain level of expensation and competitiveness and award reward for young people who get in great shape. You don't have to be a great athlete. I don't see any reason why every young person shouldn't be fit. I just think it's...

The terrible stat I heard is like 50% of the young population is not capable of joining the military. Like you are disqualified from joining the military. Because I had a physical or IQ test. No physical physical. It's not just just overweight or, you know, some sort of disability related to that. And you're like, Oh, is that just an existential issue? It's a national security crisis. Yeah. Like it really has, because by not taking care of yourself and we see this during COVID too, but not taking care of yourself if we all lapse in that

also has public health implications too. Huge. If you just suppose what is it one in three Americans or either diabetic or prediabetic and just as we politicize mass on the far right. I think on the far left. Yeah. And then on the far left, I think we've politicized obesity. No one wants to have an open conversation. And some of it is not, I'm not fan shaming. I think a lot of it is food deserts. I think we need programs to give people the opportunity to eat well after school programs have been cut for funding.

Yeah, it's not a willpower thing. These people are not being set up to succeed. That's what we're giving the tools to succeed. And also we have a fashion industrial complex that for the last 30 years has said, be anorexic. And now they've decided to embrace diabetic. And I'm like, well, is there anything in the middle here? Is there just a moderation?

Yeah, isn't there just a, because I didn't realize how powerful the kind of that imagery from media is I was thought, well, you're attracted to who you're attracted to are. And I found it when I moved in New York, I was pursuing when I was single this aesthetic of like the tall woman who looks like a hanger. Yeah. Because I thought, oh, that's what real beauty is. And that's unhealthy. And just as I think it's unhealthy now that these fashion magazines are celebrating what is, in my opinion, just being overweight, I think we should be tolerant and accepting. I think a lot of people are born that way.

But I don't think it's aspirational. I think these people are going to struggle with health concerns before they should. Well, and I think the benefits of exercise as well, besides just the health, what I think is so important is life is hard and life sucks and whatever you're working on, more days than not, it's not gonna go as well as you would like it to go. But one of the things I think is really important

about having some physical practice that you do is that it's something in your control that can always go well. You know what I mean? Like the weights are always in your control, the run is in your control, the swim is in your control, playing basketball with your friends is in your control. You go and do it and it's a win if you go and do it. Like by putting on the shoes you've already won. And so when you deprive people of a practice like that, you are actually making them more dependent on work, life, other things that they don't control going well for them to be happy. It's the for me and I don't know if this is true for you, but it's the easiest marker

It's the for me and I don't know if this is true for you, but it's the easiest marker for whether I had a productive good day or not. Any day, no matter what happens to me, negative or positive, it's a good day. I accomplished something if I worked out. I looked back and I'm like, oh, well, I worked out. And I'm like, everything else is gravy because it's hard and not like that. I'm not somebody. I enjoy it, but I'd kind of rather not do it. If someone would say to me,

we'll give you the benefits of working out seven days a week and you never know. I would hit that button. I would take that pill. I mean, I'm always happy at. It's like being in the Marines. I'm glad I did it. It's just the idea I worked out this morning at 9 a.m.

I have a trainer that I do remotely on Facebook. I'm very privileged. And like at about 855, I'm just sort morning at 9 a.m. I have a trainer that I do remotely on Facebook. I'm very privileged. And like at about 855, I'm just sort of like fuck. I'd really rather not be doing this last night. I took a Delta 8, which is a CBD sleeping aid, and I woke up totally groggy. But this is it. This is a good day.

I mean, I'll get to do this podcast with you. I worked out. Boom. It's like anything else is extra. Yeah, yeah, gravy. Gravy. So I tell kids, and one of the first thing I coach, you know, I coach a lot of young men,

or I try to say, I'm giving me their phone. And I'm like, the first thing we're gonna do, and this would be my recommendation for a lot of people. The first thing, one of the first things, if you really have an embrace physical fitness, and it's so easy, because we're so busy, we've got so much other shit to do. It's to find four to six hours coin base, Twitter, TikTok, porn, whatever it is. Find four to six hours on your phone and you can find a boss.

Just look at where you're spending your time. You can find it and reallocate that four to six hours into physical fitness. I did it when I moved to New York in 2000. I worked out a lot when I was younger. Four to six hours a week, you're saying. Four to six hours a week, I don't know what I said. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure. Four to six hours a week. I played a lot of golf when I lived on the West Coast. I played at least once a week. One round of golf when you're really taking to account, getting the golf course, the beer you have with your your force from afterwards, it's at least six hours. I decided when I got back to New York,

this is pre-internet so I wasn't spending a lot of time on Twitter or not pre-in and after pre-Twitter. I decided I was going to stop golfing and I was going to take four hours and just pile it all into fitness every week. And I was going to take an hour to an hour and a half and do it three or four times a week. And I gave up golf. I'm not saying, it's hard. You got to give something else up because it is real time.

But I'm telling you, every young person, especially young men, I find women are a little bit more efficient, can find four to six hours just on their phone and reallocateated into physical fitness. It's the fastest hack to getting to that warrior status. It's the fastest hack to getting less depressed, more in control, more kindness, making more money. I'm said, we should move on, we're killing this thing.

I said, I think everyone should be able to walk into a room, especially if you're a 30. You should be able to walk into a room, especially if you're 30. You should be able to walk in any room and know there's a reasonable chance. If she got real, you could kill and eat everyone in the room or you could outrun them. I'm getting to the point where it's more about outrunning them, but you want to feel that. You want to feel that strength. You just walk into a room and you think you just feel better about your place in the world and your strength and you can operate

from a position of kindness and strength. Well, you think about our bodies are the result of millions of years of evolution, we're given this incredible Ferrari by nature, right? Or this incredible piece of raw material. I think it does something to you psychologically to walk around and know that you are not even close to realizing that potential, that you're squandering the potential.

So when you're walking around and you're not eating well, you're not sleeping well, you're not pushing yourself physically, I think what you're carrying around, it's guilt, but it's also just this sense of like you're mistreating the vehicle that you've been given and conversely to feel like you're you've got it polished and in great shape is also very empowering and exciting. Yeah, like body image is so important. I think it's I think it's more important or women are more sensitive to it than men because we're evaluated on a multi-dimensional scorecard, a balanced scorecard of a lot of things. Women are primarily, and this is a terrible thing, they're primarily evaluated on aesthetics. And at least initially, so it's unfair, so it's easy to see how women, especially girls, develop body image issues. I definitely have body

image issues. I have, what's it's called body dysmorphia growing up. I was so tall, you look like me, you're tall and skinny. And no one ever feels sorry for us. No one ever says, oh, you can never bring up, I'm skinnier than I'd like. No one has any time of day to listen to that. But when I went to college or when I was a senior in high school, I've been playing sports my whole life.

I hit this growth spread. I was like 6'1, 140 pounds. And sports my whole life. I hit this growth spread. I was like 6 140 pounds and all of a sudden I couldn't play football. I had trouble playing baseball, even playing basketball. I just couldn't go into pain because I would just get, you know, bowled over by someone with more mass than me. And it also just made me feel very insecure, being that tall and that painfully thin. And that's why I've worked out was just, I just, I had such negative body image and working out gave me some control over it. But I think almost everybody, I would bet, I don't know what the numbers are, but I would

bet, you know, 10, 20% of people kind of like feel their body as a source of confidence as opposed to a source of insecurity. And that kind of insecurity drove me. I found working out was real great means of kind of overcoming that dysmorphia. And I still unfortunately, I look at pictures and I look at myself and I know how anorexia starts or I look at myself even when I was like, when I was a younger man, you used to use the word Jack. When I was a younger man, I was jacked. I Jack. When I was a younger man, I was Jack. I was big and I'd look back now and I can see that.

Back then, I would look at those pictures where a lot of people would look at them, go, Jesus Christ right now. And I look at them, but back then I'd look at my body and like, oh my God, I'm so skinny. I need to put on more weight. Right. And I think that's how it starts.

There's how you see yourself and there's how others how others see you but Body image and it's such a it's such a A task. It's such a big issue especially for girls, but it definitely impacted me. I still have that You mentioned being an unremarkable athlete. I know you've talked about being an unremarkable student as well. That's sort of what I was. I wasn't like a loser. I wasn't, I didn't like, you know,

at 800 on the SATs, but I don't think, I don't think there were many teachers that thought I would end up where I was. Why do you find that sort of people fall through the cracks like that, that are just sort of like solid, you know, like C plus to A minus range, it's kind of, they're not failing, but they're not lighting anything on fire.

It seems like the educational system is not set up to maximum. Seems like it'd be easier to get someone from a B to an A, but we actually tend to focus on the too far extreme ends of the spectrum. We kind of ignore the middle. Yeah, so there's a lot there, but the first thing is, you know, neither of us were voted most likely to succeed in our high school, right? Certainly not.

And it's funny, this reminds me. So I just, a few years ago, I sold my company L2 and my best friend, stepfather, came and visited me and I hadn't seen him in a while. And this is just like this wonderful stoic man. And I was showing him around L2 and this was like when L2 was pumping, we had like 140 employees, all these super smart young people. And I took him around and showed him on all these big screens, all the data and the charts and the analytics we were doing. And the office was just on fire and he looked at me and he goes,

God, I got to be honest. I didn't see it. You know, that was the moment where I was expecting him to put his hand on my children. I go, you know, I always knew you would amount to something, kid. And instead, he looked at me as, God, I'd be honest. I didn't see it. And here's the thing, and you brought up higher education. A higher education really is the tip of the sphere for America. A higher education, as higher education goes, so goes America. That's where we find our vaccines.

That's where we train our generals and our presidents and our media figures. The Fortune 500 CEOs all have one thing in common. They all went to college. 98% of our elected representatives went to college. It really does kind of dictate what America is. And I don't like where it's headed and what it says is because education used to be about how we gave

the bottom, you know, 90% a shot at the top 10%. And it's totally flip-to. Well, let's figure out a way to identify the top 1%, meaning either your parents are rich or you're freakishly remarkable. And how do we turn you into billionaires? And what happens is we've more from a society that wants to give the bottom 90% a shot of being in the top 10% to a society that's identified the top 1% as indicated by your wealth, your family's wealth, because you're more likely to have connections and success and are well trained. A lot of wealth kids show up, you know,

really well prepared for college, or you're freakishly remarkable at the age of 17. And I was neither of those things. My mother was a secretary and I was just okay. And we enter into this consensual hallucination that all of our kids in the top 1%, and I can prove to every one of us that 99% of our children are not in the top 1%. And so where we've headed with universities is we take pride in rejecting 90% of the applicants,

which is tantamount to the head of a homeless shelter bragging that he or she turned away 9 and 10 people last night. And that's not what America is supposed to be about. America is not America is supposed to be the place where you give as many people a shot as possible. So I would, and I'm working with the, the chances of Berkeley and UCLA on this, who I believe are really genuine about trying to expand their freshmen seats.

We, you know, 74% of the mid and straight. That's how I got it. I just how Iance rate. That's how I got in. That's just how I got. That's why I'm here with you. Was UCLA was not selective. That's why I'm here. Now 12 kids get in. Now it's 12% admissions rate.

So I would not be here. It's really easy to credit your grit and your character for your success and blame the markets for your failure. But, you know, the access to great affordable higher education is how a lot of unremarkable kids born in the 60s and 70s got to become remarkable slowly. And so it's not only the right thing to do, you know, I pay a lot of money in taxes Ryan, so I'd like to think it's paid off. I'd like to think that the bet we can all make as a society through additional funding, quite frankly more accountability on university

administrators who have engaged in enormous bloat, enormous tuition increases. We believe we're no longer public servants, but Burkin bags. We need to move back to a place where America falls back and left with unremarkables that might become remarkable. And I think that we have headed in entirely the wrong direction. I think we should have something along the lines of a martial plan. I've given up on the Ivy League. They get a lot of press, but they're basically hedge funds educating the children of their limited partners. Our public universities that educate two thirds of our kids, I think understand

the problem. And I think that governments, alumni, and the administrators themselves, by holding themselves more accountable, need to go on a mission to double the number of freshmen seats to our great public universities up in the next 10 years. Otherwise, you're just gonna miss out

on a lot of people that surprise you. That, you know, I got my shit together in graduate school and it kinda inspired an upward spiral that I think has been good for me, good for my family, good for America. And we need to make more of those bets. We need to have more on-remarkables. Well, I was slightly less remarkable

than you I got into Riverside. And I was. You are? Yeah, UCR. And it's cool. It was great. So coming from my father was a police officer. My mother was a

school principal, but for me, UCR was incredibly remarkable. There were professors there who had been in books that I'd read. And, you know, like, it was a glimpse into a whole other world that I had no access to as the normal, unremarkable kid in Sacramento. And so I think the point is to get on campus and then magic can happen there. Yeah, that's right. And, you know, and I, and then just to extend the, how things have changed. I got a 2.27 GPA from UCLA and Berkeley

let me in for graduate school. Imagine that. Right. They're like, okay, we're going to take another big dumb bad on you. And that's when I got my shit together and to their credit. But if they were only letting in 10% of the applicants, they wouldn't have, they don't have the bandwidth to make those, to take those kinds of backs. Well, then we're trying to apply this attitude to the border too. Like the idea of America is reaping the bounty of the people that we've let in over

the last 200 years. And we're trying to close off the universities, close off the borders, even though the whole point is you want to be a country that people want to come to. And then you want to harness that manpower and brainpower and energy and ambition and use it in a way that no other country can. Again, it's insurrectionists and rejectionists and my view are the two biggest threats to our society right now. It's not, we're not luxury brands and we used to, if you talk about quote, unquote, undocumented workers and we're talking about inflation on my podcast later today.

We have this labor force that's, everyone's complaining that people are, you know, that we can't find workers for our frontline workers. For about 40 years, we had this, the most flexible, inexpensive, robust workforce in the world called undocumented workers. And the people who control our government knew this, the shareholders, and they turned a blind eye to it.

And when we had the harvests or seniors or we wanted cheap food, we led in this unbelievable workforce, and it basically kept prices low for 30 years. And now we've decided we don't want them because we're turning them into scapegoats, right? But you're right, we are, imagine if there was a football or a baseball team, and every player in the NFL or the MLB wanted to play for that team, you would win. And that's what America's been doing. It's been winning because everybody wants to play on our team.

So you have to have standards. I do think you have to have borders. I think you have to have immigration. You know, you have to have policies, but we should absolutely open up the nozzle here. We need more people at every skill level to fill the... We should be stealing the talent from all the other teams. 100% what? That just seems insane that we would say no.

If unless you've played for the marlins or you've played for the giants for 20 years, we're not going to let you try out. That just doesn't make any sense at all to me. Right. No, you, and look, no offense to my fellow Americans, but when I look around, I'm not like, this is the best in the whole world. We don't need anyone else. When you travel, you meet wonderful people from all over the world that would be wonderful additions to the team. And yet we have the rejectionist mindset, I think is right. I would say insurrectionist, rejectionist, and then we have this sort of also this kind of political and social class. It's nimbyism, but it's also sort of conservatism in another way where it's just like we don't, we just say no to everything. Like we say no to everything. Yes, obstructionists. Yes.

And then everything comes to a grinding halt and we all hate each other because there's no progress. When the car is moving fast, we all get along. Yeah, I think that's right. What's got this was amazing. I'm a big fan and it's been an honor to chat and we'll do it again soon. Yeah, I hope so Ryan. Congratulations on all your success and thanks for your good work. Likewise appreciate it. Keep his and Elon Musk off. Yeah, I have no choice. All right, man. I'll see you. All right, thanks very much, Ryan. The man, more of yourself in 2022. And one of the ways you can do that is by joining us in the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge.

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