The Daily Stoic - YouTube Superstar Ali Abdaal on Productivity and Essentialism

Episode Date: December 20, 2023

On this episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan talks with YouTube Superstar Ali Abdaal on how stoicism influences analytics, concrete vs. ineffable, the importance of sticking to the system, and his new book: Feel Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You.Ali Abdaal is a doctor, entrepreneur, and the world’s most followed productivity expert. He became intrigued by the science of productivity while juggling the demands of medical training at Cambridge University with building his business. Ali’s evidence-based videos, podcasts, and articles about the human mind have reached hundreds of millions of people around the world. YouTube | IG | Twitter/X: @AliAbdaalListen to his podcast (where this episode will also be released) Deep Dive with Ali Abdall. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the Ancient 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 and everyday life. And on Wednesdays we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy well-known and obscure fascinating and powerful. With them we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are, and also to find peace and wisdom in their actual lives. For more you can visit us at dailystoward.com. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stood Podcast. We got a two

parter for you that I'm excited about. I first met today's guest, Ali Abdahl, a guest in 2021. He interviewed me for a video he was doing or something like that. I know he was asking some advice about a book he was doing and it's been really interesting to watch him on this journey. Ali is a doctor. There's not a lot of productivity gurus who are also trained medical doctors, but he learned where I think you got to learn on the job, juggling the demands of medical school, which he did at Cambridge, and then building this business, and trying to just organize all the stuff life was throwing in him, which is, you know, what we're what we're all doing.

He's a doctor and entrepreneur, one of the world's most followed productivity experts and just a really nice guy. He has a new book out called Feel Good Productivity, How to Do More of What Matters to You. We actually recorded this interview when he was here in the late summer. So I have a very early copy of the book, which I liked and I got to see this book develop. So I'm going to bring you part one now by by interview with the one and only Ali Abdel. You can follow him on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, at Ali Abdel. I'll link to that in today's show notes.

And this episode will also be released on his podcast, Deep Dive with Ali Abdel. Check it out. We talked three years ago and now it's real. We talked three years ago. We talked on the 7th of October 2023, which was like three years and a week ago. That's nuts. And I was saying to you in that interview that like, hey Ryan, you know, I've just started writing my first book, any tips.

Mm-hmm. And you gave some really good advice. Yeah. And what did I say, do you remember? You said, you said so much stuff. You said the importance of structure, the importance of having your materials assembled and kind of knowing what you want to say

before you begin to write. Sure. And the analogy you used was like, well, you know, it would be weird if you decided to settle from New York and try and get to San Francisco, but you were just like, you know what, I'm just gonna walk and I'm just gonna figure it out

along the way. You would, you know, it would be sensible to have a map. Although, even you would just like, you know what, I'm just going to walk and I'm just going to figure it out along the way. You would be sensible to have a map. Although even I would say what actually the problem is people don't even know they're trying to head towards San Francisco. Right. They just know they're trying to get somewhere and figuring out where you're trying to go as you're doing it. It's a bad idea.

That was that was a big part of my problem in that like the destination changed radically like every year into three year process. Sure. Yeah. Well, you do, you do, the more, the problem is you're trying to figure out, when you're, when you're starting about, you're trying to figure out the end results,

but you haven't done all the thinking required to know the end result. Yeah. This is why I think like the proposal was a bit of a scam. Because the proposal, when I look at, compared the proposal to the final result, there's almost nothing in there that's the same. The old point is that a business plan,

very few businesses resemble the business plan, but there's an Eisenhower court, he says plans are worthless, but planning is everything. And so I think it's actually similar there in that if you don't do a proposal, this is why I actually, I think most self-published books don't work. It's that because there's no forcing function required to get approval to start.

There's no deadline. There's no constraints as to how long it can be, what it can look like. You can basically do whatever you want, which you would think would be an artistic sort of creative dream, but it's actually like potentially a death sentence. Okay, so here's something I'm struggling with at the moment. So I've been making videos on YouTube for the last like six and a bit years, made like 700-something videos, and like a couple weeks ago I had a sort of family health crisis, and that gave me a newfound appreciation of mortality and stuff as it tends to. And I started asking myself this question, you know, if money were no object, how would

I be spending my time? And I realized I would still want to make YouTube videos and still write books, but I would want to do it on my own terms. I wouldn't want to stick to an upload schedule. I don't want to have stuff in the calendar. I liked the idea of an empty calendar, which is something that he was said years ago. And I like being, I like the idea of being able to write a book and make a video and stuff when I feel like it, rather than on a deadline. Sure.

And so I'm kind of saying to my team, guys, like, screw all the deadline, let's throw the upload schedule out the window. But I'm kind of worried, will that turn me into some sort of waste man who's not actually doing the thing? Yeah. No, it's, it's tricky, right? Because if you were to talk to, let's say, a professional athlete, you'd be like, okay, you have this health scare. What would it teach you?

You'd be like, it would really teach me how much I love football, how much I love basketball, right? And so they would still want it in their lives. Maybe they would change their relationship to it a little bit, but just winging it on your own is not how you are elite at a thing, right? So, I agree you want to do it on your own terms. At the same time, if you are literally doing it on your own terms, you probably are not going to do it as well as you could do it

or even do it in a way that is worth doing. Oh, okay. So it's like, look, obviously the more YouTube videos you make, the more you realize that you should just be doing it for you, not for the audience, right? But if you truly didn't give a shit about the audience, why would you make them at all? Exactly.

You would just not, you would make things, but it would never, so by publishing them, you are admitting that it is for other people. It's some level, right? Some level, yeah. And so it's not as simple as it. So I do try to, I think less about sales. For instance, I'm doing it for me in that sense.

And yet, I benefit from the deadlines. And I still, I can move the deadlines, but like to not have to not have anyone pushing back on you is a look, as a kid, you think you want to be able to do whatever you want, and you want no rules. But if you actually got that, you would have a miserable childhood and you would turn out to be a miserable person. So you need constraints. You need guardrails. And what happens when people self-published, I tend to find is that one, it just never

happens. happens, or two, they end up ignoring conventions that are actually important for the consumer generally. So books should roughly be a certain length, you know, they should, there are certain conceits or tropes that, that if they're not, it becomes needlessly transgressive. Sometimes you should transgress those things, but you need, you need, at all comes down to, you need some, just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

How, so how do you think about this balance? Because like, you've already made it, you can do whatever you want, et cetera, et cetera, and yet you still write books on, seemingly on a deadline, because they come up fairly frequently. Like, how do you balance these? Well, I do balance it.

So I saw this four book series on the Cardinal Virtues. So I've done two. And then I finished the third. And then I pushed it a year. So it's done. I'm taking more time to do it. It's now like in the deadlines or the releases the summer of next year.

But there's attention. So on discipline, I felt like pushing it, and it was actually the right thing to push through, and the deadline forced me to get serious about it and do it right. And then on this book, I was actually more or less ahead of schedule and to do in grade. But then I decided for just family and lifestyle reasons to push it a year. So am I pushing it a year because I'm being lazy or am I pushing it because I want more time to do it well or I wanted to fit in a more balanced way into my life. So I think I function well with deadlines,

I function well with the sort of day to dayness of it. And I think, again, people think that the perk of success is being able to do whatever you want. And weirdly, you actually find that once you can do whatever you want, you need to self-impose constraints and boundaries if you want to keep doing it well and in a balanced way. Yeah, I found that when the pandemic hit and that was when I took time out of full time medicine for the first time, suddenly my whole calendar was empty.

Yeah. And I immediately realized that, oh, like, I kinda need some constraints here. And so I signed up like art lessons and singing lessons and piano lessons and stuff to give some structure to the day and fit in the YouTube and then some of the later some of the writing stuff around that. And I found that that was really nice, but it always felt like a constant battle between kind of structuring myself and scheduling things in versus

following my energy and like, oh, you know, today I have a lot of energy there for one of some of the video today, versus I don't really feel like it today, but like, you know, I said I would do it every day, that whole thing. Yeah, it'd be wonderful if inspiration was sufficient, but it usually isn't. And you have to build a structure or a system. I think it's really important anyway. What is your, like, I guess, a daily routine look like? What's the structure you've built around your?

I usually try to get up, I'll give you an example though, I try to get up early, I try to take my kids for a walk. That's like the beginning of a video. And this morning, I got up early, I made their lunches, just sort of having quite a time in the morning, and then my son got up, and he got really into Legos, and it was also cold. So I was like, do I want to rip him out of this thing that's also good, that's also I'm trying to encourage, to have a fight over a thing that might spoil him and wanting

to do the thing in future times, I'm gonna say no. So I sort of ripped up the playbook and then I made them breakfast and then I was taking a shower and then literally as I'm getting in the shower, they wanted to go on a walk. And so we ended up doing,

like we just sort of, so I guess in the 40 laws of power, the final law, which I think a lot of people miss, is assume formlessness. So there's all these laws about do this, don't do this, do this, don't do this, but the last law is a kind of a strategic flexibility. And so to answer your question earlier about how I think about this stuff, I have found as I've gotten older and more successful that the rigidity that served me well early on has had to give way into a kind of flexibility. Now, there's always a tension or a concern, is that flexibility actually just complacency

or laziness. And I have to question each time, what is my motivation here? But that rigidity has to become flexibility or one, you suck all the fun out of it. And two, it's not sustainable over a long period of time. And it's very susceptible to being disrupted or blown apart by the complexity of life.

So I'm less, I have less of a routine and I have more practices that I try to do consistently and I move them around depending on what's happening. What are some of those practices? Well, I try to get up early, I try to walk, I try to do some form of hard exercise every day, I try to not eat until I try to have kind of a fasting window, and then I try to do writing before I do other things.

try to do writing before I do other things. So like I am flexible on a lot of stuff, but I don't write it three in the afternoon, because that's not conducive to doing it well. So just you kind of know what because it's more of an intuition or a gut feel as opposed to when I was younger, it was almost it was almost a form of OCD. It has to happen at this time, if it doesn't happen at this time, then there is distress. And that distress, you're almost doing the tasks to avoid the distress, which is not a good way to live. How did having kids change your relationship with the work? Which is, blows your whole life up. Yeah. In a good way, live. How did having kids change your relationship with the work? We'll just blow your whole life up.

Yeah. In a good way, but it blows your whole life up. I remember this New York Times reporter was doing this piece on me right as my son was being born, and she asked me like, how do you think, you know, like having kids is going to change your routine. And I said something like, I don't think it'll change it at all. And which was of course, preposterous and very naive,

but it's just totally blown it apart. But it gives you important stuff that you center your life around. So I think people are concerned that having kids or getting married, it will tie you down. And it does, it objectively does, but it ties you down to reality. Like it tethers you to the earth.

There are school starts at a time and it ends at a time. Like there's nap time. There is eating time. There is activities that happen every week. You know, there's stuff, right? And so it prevents you from making it all about you and it forces you to sort of have non-negotiable things. I mean, I guess it doesn't force you,

you could be a bad parent if you want, but if you want your kids to not be a nightmare and you realize like routine is very important, structure is very important, but then also, rigidity is, you know, impossible. There's a Lin-Manuel Miranda was talking about how he had a kid right as Hamilton blew up. And so he would do the play, and then it's the hottest thing in the world.

And so every night celebrities attend and then they come back stage and they go, we're going here after, we're going here, I'm just getting invited, all this like incredible stuff. And he had to say no to all of it because he had to get home. He had to get home not just because he wanted to see his kid, but he knew that his sleep was already a precarious touching go thing because he has an infinite in his house. So if he stays out till like two in the morning and then he gets home and he's woken up five times a millenite or whatever, he's not going to be able to perform the night before then the next night. And so his point was that having a kid actually saved him from spinning off the planet from this kind of

stratospheric success that he has. And I have found that for sure, that like, again, we think these things are gonna be baggage. It's more like ballast, like it balances you out in a way that thinking, hey, I'm totally unencumbered, I can do whatever I want, I can fully enjoy all the fruits of all the cool stuff that's happening. You think that's what you want,

but it's kind of a recipe for disaster. Oh, okay, that's so interesting to hear, because I guess I've been feeling a bit burnt out from the whole rush to finish the book, and then all of the batch filming podcasts, and YouTube videos, and the audio book then, and then all of this book promo stuff that it is pretty sensible to do,

and all this kind of thing. And the conclusion I came to a few days ago was, I just want an empty calendar, a fully empty calendar. Yeah, and I guess, I'm sure if I experience that for a few weeks, I'd be like, ah, actually, I probably want a bit more structure. Well, you want an empty calendar of the stuff that you want an empty of the stuff that you don't want to do.

So when I have an empty calendar, that means I have as much time as I want an empty of the stuff that you don't want to do. So like, when I have an empty calendar, that means I have as much time as I want to write and as much time as I want to spend time in my family. What I haven't scheduled is interruptions from those things, unless even if those things are fun or interesting or whatever. By the way, I was reading your bio. It does you, it does you no justice. It says 4.5 million YouTube subscribers and it says over 93 million total views. But it's way more than that.

Yeah, it's like 4.8, 4.9 now. No, no, no, no, you've done like hundreds of millions of YouTube views. Have we? Yeah. Oh, I don't even look at that number. But you don't. No, really. I made it a point early in the journey. I think thanks to all the stoses and cool aides that I was drinking, you only focus on the things that were within my control. OK. To the point that I almost never look at analytics.

And the only thing I can even vague you keep track of is like, oh, yeah, I mean, I was watching one of my own videos and it said 4.9 million, rather than 4.8 million, because it doesn't even give you the... Sure, no, as you I mean, I was watching one of my own videos and it said 4.9 million rather than 4.8 million because it doesn't even give you the sure, no, as you get more, the numbers get less precise because you, it matters less. And I can see it in YouTube studio if I go on and stuff and occasionally do that, just look at comments and things. But I don't know, I really try it like the more I look at the numbers, the less happy I am with the creative output.

So tell me why Stoicism tried you not to look at how YouTube videos are doing. That's very interesting to me. I realized that when I would look at how my YouTube videos were doing, in the back of my mind, there would always be that sense of, you know, the whole like dichotomy of control thing, sort of like a number of views on a YouTube video, it's sort of in the intersection where it's partly in my control, but partly outside of my control. And I knew that if I, like, looking at those,

I wasn't able to look at them purely dispassionately and I would always get a sense, oh, that one did it so well. Sure. And that one did, oh, that one didn't. And I found that, if I keep a general eye on the trend of a period of several months, that gives me all the data I need

to be like, oh, that sort of topic is really resonating with the audience. That sort of video got like a thousand comments compared to 300. That helps me figure out, okay, maybe what, like I should do more of this unless that. Yeah. But I try not to take it too far because, you know, you get the whole audience capture

thing where you become a caricature of, um, of the person that your audience initially initially enjoyed. Yeah. And I fell, I very much fell into this trap during the pandemic actually. So, um, the word productivity in my videos was like really taking off any video with the word productivity or the productive in it, I was like immediately like doing super well. And so I was thinking, well, you know, this does really well.

Let me just say, productive in everything, my productive day in the life, my productive desk setup, my productive dating habits, my productive sleeping routine and all this kind of stuff. And after a few videos of it, like people in the comments started to be like, okay, this is getting bit much. And I started feeling icky about the content. Sure.

Because I was putting productive in it to try and get the views. Yeah. Because videos with the word productive in it were getting more views. I don't know. Whenever I have this sort of weird relationship with numbers versus what's in my control. Well, it's interesting too, because it's somewhat

in your control as you're making it. But then once it's out, it's done. But that's when we spend the most time refreshing. Like you've flung it to the public, you've put it out. And now, you're like, well, do they like me? Do they like me? Do they like me? How much do they like me?

Give me all the likes. When, if there was any time to think about how something was going to do, it maybe could have been as you were making it, right? But now that's over. So now you're really just emoting about what you would like to happen and the ship has sailed. Yeah. Man, that's the true.

Like, oh, the way we do use analytics is in IT generation and types of thumbnails. Yeah. And that's the thing. Thankfully, one of my team members does because I don't, I don't get joy out of trying to package up a video with the perfect title and thumbnail to make it click baity enough, but not so click baity that it feel click baity. Right. So I come up with a concept that, hey, I'd love to do a video about, I don't know, Ryan's new book. Yeah. And we were like, okay, cool. We can't call it discipline as destiny because that would be a bit weird.

Okay, we've got to find an angle of like the one habit that's changing your law, like the discipline expert. Or like how do we, you know, all that kind of stuff. I also was that to the team. And then they tell me, okay, we've tested this. With the audience, we think the best title is, this book made me more disciplined. And I'm like, great.

I can make a video based on that title. Sure. What a life these celebrities lead. Great, I can make a video based on that type of... Sure. on it. What's he all about? I'm just saying, being really, really famous. It's not always easy. I'm Emily Loitani and I'm Annelion Grofie and we're the hosts of Terribly Famous from Wondery. The podcast which tells the stories of our favourite celebrities from their perspective. Each season we show you what it's really like being famous by taking you inside the life of a British icon. We walk you through their glittering highs and eyebrow raising lows and ask, is fame and fortune really worth it?

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and add free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Yeah, and it's also, it's not just one of the ways I've found it to be dangerous is actually when it works. So I don't know, an article comes out about you and it's positive or a video comes out and it's doing well. Your book is out, whatever you're doing, the thing. And then you lose, you lose a day, or more than a day, just kind of basking in it. You're just like refreshing and watching.

Like, so it's not even like you're torturing yourself, you feel crappy that nobody likes you. But you're, it's like your reward for succeeding is a loss in productivity, because you're just soaking in this thing that's really not in your control that if it had gone the other way, you would be trying to work your mind around not taking it seriously. Do you know what I mean?

You'd be like, that's not why I made it. What matters is that I like it. What matters is how it does it. You be trying to think through logically why you shouldn't be devastated by this bad news. But then when the positive happens, you don't do any of that. And you just kind of sit there and soak it in. And really the punishment though,

is that you're not spending your energy where it matters or where it makes a difference, which is like making the next thing. Or just taking the day off. Like if you're gonna waste a day, go waste a day. Don't waste a day refreshing your Twitter feed. I think it's that like Zen proverb or something, which is, you know, before enlightenment, after enlightenment, before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water, after enlightenment,

chop wood, carry water. Sure. And I often think of that when it comes to videos and I also suspect with the book, because I think think of that when it comes to videos and I also suspect with the book, because I think currently I have an unhealthy attachment to the New York Times bestseller list as a lot of writers do. But I just really try to remind myself of whether or not the video does well, you know, learn stuff, write about it, make a video. It's like that's the thing and it's like getting back to the process rather than thinking and talking about the outcome. You asked me about self publishing earlier,lishing earlier. One, I experienced this unintentionally and intentionally.

When the obstacles away came out, I'd already sold the sequel. And so in one respect, that probably cost me a lot of money because the obstacles away did over the next year or two start to do really well. So if I had waited, I probably could have sold what became ego as the enemy for a lot of money, a lot more money. And I was, but I'd actually sold like a proposal version of it while I was still figuring the book out. So I was under, I was still figuring, doing the work of figuring the book out, but I was under contract. So I really didn't care that the book kind of was doing okay. And then I really didn't care that much when it started to do well. Like that right there is the first time that book hit the best cellar list,

which is five years after I came out. 11. So I not only written the next book, but I written several more books. Like I, by having contracts for the next projects, I was just focused on doing the next projects, not on how each one did. And then with this four book series, it's kind of in the same thing. Like, in 2019, I sold, I basically locked myself in till 2024, 2025. So basically, like, the next four or five years of my thing were locked in. So again, the downside is courage came out of it.

Okay, discipline came out. It did spectacular. So maybe I could have been selling. I could have sold justice for more. But all of that was irrelevant because I was just in the middle of writing that book. And I think it's better to be chopping wood and carrying water than going,

constantly renegotiating your rate for what you are gonna chop wood and carry water for. Or what are you gonna put it like? To just have the next thing. So, if you're a thing that I make a video every week, you are already making the next video before one comes out. Yeah.

Right? A comedian comes up with an hour, records the hour, then there is time before that hour comes out. And it's in that interim period that they're already working on the next hour. Yeah. So, if the special comes out and it's a huge hit, they're working on the next hour. If the special comes out and it's not a huge hit, they're working on the next hour. If the special comes out and it's not as you chit, they're working on the next special. And you want to be in a rhythm like that

because it insulates you from the thing that's not in your control, which is whether other people say you're amazing or whether other people say you suck. Yeah, I feel like all of this stuff comes back down to the process. And big part of what we talk about in that book is trying to find a way to make the process enjoyable

and energizing. And yeah, I find that when I have that in the front of my mind when it comes to the videos or even writing the book. There were periods in the book journey where I sort of forgot to enjoy the process because the seriousness of writing a book was like weighing on me and then I would read like,

I don't know, one of your newsletter or one of your books or like, drive by Dan Pank and I'm like, oh, it's so good, this stuff is so good and I'd be comparing it to my first draft and be like, why is my writing so shit? And it would take my editor to remind me that, you know, I'll leave the whole message of the book is find a way to make it enjoyable and energizing.

So, you know. Well, it's hard if people say, trust the process, right? But it's hard to trust a process that you have not been through before. And so once you've done it one time, you have a sense of the full scope of the process or what you think is a full scope of the process. Then you do it again and again and again and you start to go, oh yeah, this is the part where you start to doubt yourself. This is the part where you get excited.

But like in Texas, we have this season. It's called false fall. So it's cool and awesome right here. It'll probably get hot again, right? Like, we think we think the summer's finally broken, but there's actually like several more hot days coming. Projects are like that too. You think you're over the hump,

you think you've done it, and then oh wait, no, it's gonna get hard again. But you start to get a sense of the rhythms of it, and then you can trust the process. And then you can also enjoy the process because, you know, it's like the first time you go on a roller coaster, that specific roller coaster, you have no idea, is this gonna be one of the ones where it's like the first time you go on a roller coaster, that specific roller coaster, you have no idea.

Is this going to be one of the ones where it's like this? Or is it going to be the ones who... Fshh, you... Right? But then once you've done it before, then you have some... You can kind of anticipate it and you know when to hold on tight and when you can just go with it, right? And you can kind of watch the other people that have never been on it before, how much scary it is for them.

And so I think it's... It's not quite sufficient to just say, trust the process, because it's hard to trust a process that you have not been through. Yeah, that's the true. So I realized this very tangibly, or was so, you know, I've made like 700 plus YouTube videos in my time. And I know

that recording always feels like a total shit show, where I'm making so many mistakes and there's so much like crap in it. But I've done it enough time, so I know the final product's going to be good because our editors amazing. You can chop out all the crap, we'll make it look amazing. But then when beginner YouTubers see the final result and then they see themselves recording and suddenly they're spluttering and swearing all the time, and you never see that raw, uncut version of a YouTubers first take. You only see the final product. And so now that I've been through the process once with the book, knowing how crap the first draft was, and then seeing the magic of editing over several months to trim it down and make it good, I'm like, oh, okay, I don't mind so much

about having a crappy first draft now. Yeah, you have your crappy first good. I'm like, oh, okay, I don't mind so much about having a crappy first rough now. Well, yeah, you have your crappy first drafts. I actually have a shirt that says there's a Hemingway quote and he says, I have a print of it in my eyes and I'm a shirt too, but he says, you know, the first draft of everything is shit. And the conceit is that it's sort of showing how even that sentence probably didn't write it perfectly the first time. But the idea when is that every every first draft sucks and you want to get comfortable with that, you have to get comfortable with the messiness of the process. But weirdly, as you get better, I do think your first drafts get less shitty or less wasteful, right? So like, you, with your videos, and certainly I found this

with my books, is that there is less and less left over at the end, because you start to be able to shoot only what you know you're going to use, or you write less, you go down less blind alleys as a writer or you, you overwrite less. Because again, you know what isn't going to be possible, what's going to be extraneous. You have a sense of what you actually need, right? So you're trusting the process, but also you understand the process better. And so, yeah, when you tend to be overdoing whatever it is you're doing the process better. And so, yeah, when you're you tend to be overdoing whatever it is you're doing the first time. And then one of the signs of mastery or I guess a trait of mastery is the conservation of energy. Like you know when and what to apply in a given moment

whereas when you're just starting or you're doing it for the first time, there's a lot of just kind of sheer force of will and enthusiasm, which is important, but often inefficient. I imagine a video three years ago, maybe you shot an hour of footage for a 10 minute video, and hopefully now you could shoot 20 minutes of footage for a 10 minute video. Yeah, it is a little bit tight to know that it was before. But even like, yes, especially on the writing front, initially my worry was, I don't have enough material. And then after the first draft, I was actually

oh my god, I have way too much material. Yeah. Yeah, you find that I think writing becomes a process much more of tightening as you go because you realize you just need it to get it all down and then you're realizing, oh, I've said this twice now and actually here covers it over here. So I can cancel each other out or I can get rid of one. So it's a process of understanding that. So I have a question of our productivity for you

because I feel like people are obsessed with productivity and I'm not always sure why. Like I said this thing once, maybe you agree with it, but it's like that amateurs are obsessed with tools, right? Like what's the best software to do this? What is the best way, you know, like people will go like, what kind of a pen do you journal with? This fucking matters at all, right?

What program do you write with? If I was to rank the things that contribute the most to what I do, tools are not even in the top 10. Yeah, that was kind of, as you were saying, that I was thinking, yeah, the tool is maybe the extra 1% leftover at the end, potentially, if like writing in script and there is just a little bit nicer than writing in a Google Doc. Sure. But like, this is the thing, like as I've basically tried to read basically every productivity

book on the market and then some, it all fundamentally comes down to really the way to be productive is to figure out where you're trying to go, figure out what habits and what daily you slightly weekly routines you need to get there, and just sitting down and doing the thing. Yes. And then finding a way to make the thing fun so that you don't get distracted with other shit and then just doing the thing for a long time. Yeah. And if having a slightly, I mean, I have a really crappy pen that I stole from my brother

now because my fountain pen ran out of ink and it was such a nice fountain pen, but like I can write just as well with like crappy ballpoint. Yeah. The 1% tweaks. But it's so much more, it's almost like, you know, I'm trying to, I'm trying to get into fitness now. And I just love researching, you know, on running shoes, should I get this padding versus that padding? Been for a run maybe once in the last six months. I love the idea of researching running gear, because it's great procrastination from actually doing the thing, which is put on anything and just go for a run, or just go to the gym and do anything with progressive overload. Yeah, it's a people are optimizing the thing they're not doing, which is never going to be the way to get there. That was a great moment.

My girlfriend called me out on this the other day. You know the whole like sauna, ice plunge, everyone in Austin seems to be doing it. I was saying to her, hey, you know, what if I join a gym and it's like, you know, depending on how busy the sauna is, like, you know, a human says like four times versus five times and like 24 minute protocol

versus 12 minute protocol. And she was like, you've been to the sauna once in the last six months. Yeah. That's just good to sort of first. And then we can worry about them surviving it later. Sure. I was like, a 12 minute protocol. And she was like, you've been to the sauna once in the last six months. Yeah. Let's just go to the sauna first. And then we can worry about optimizing it later. Sure. And I was like, yeah, so true.

And I think this obsession with productivity, it often feels productive to be reading productivity flex ironically and researching the tools as a distraction from just sitting down and doing the thing. Well, the irony that obsessing about productivity is a form of procrastination, right? It's giving you the sense that you are serious, that you're hearts in the right place, that you are trying or making progress, but in fact, you're not. And you're avoiding the hard thing, which is doing the thing.

Doing the thing. There is one aspect of productivity that I think is valuable to obsess over, and that is kind of journaling prompts. And just asking yourself serious questions about why you're doing the thing that you think you want to do, where you're actually trying to go, I spend a lot of time comparatively thinking, is the direction I'm currently going and actually the direction that I want to be going in? Sure.

And I find that there's almost no amount of too much journaling that can happen there, because in an hour of journaling, I might land on one insight, which would, if it nudges my course, even like 0.1%, that compounds over the long term. Yeah, I would say being intentional about what you're doing and then clear with yourself about why and what you are doing

is really important. Whereas productivity, a lot of productivity advice seems to me is optimized for how you're going to pack your suitcase or what your suitcase is, is or what brand it is or whatever. And you really haven't questioned why you're going, where you're going, or if you should be going there, if it's the right time to be going there. Any of the actually important questions that are gonna determine whether this thing is a success or not. Yeah, I think the other unfortunate thing is, we did a video recently that was something like,

I read 107 productivity books, here's what actually works. And all of it was basically like, pick some goals, figure out the method. But it was like the basic stuff. And then we made another video that was like, 12 productivity tools I can't live without. And that video did so much better. And I'm like, oh, yeah, so annoying that like the thing that had the meat versus the thing that had the candy, the candy performs better.

Yes. And so writ large, you know, the incentives are there for people who write or make videos or whatever about this stuff is to lean into the tools because the tools are the thing that, you know, is the candy that people want. Well, I don't even know if it's candy. It's just, it's concrete, right? So you can go, here's this sort of ephemeral, you know, metaphysical question about why you're doing it, what success is, you know, why does it matter? You're asking these big picture questions. And by the time you get to the end of it, there actually isn't an answer because it's about the question. And that's a lot less clear than these are the three best pens.

This is the number one bit of software where here's a really interesting complicated system that a successful person uses, who's work you are a fan of, right? One is very concrete and the other is essentially ineffable, right? naturally, especially at the early stages, one's much more digestible and understandable. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. You're also contemplating questions that someone, if they're an aspiring high school insert,

you know, is not even gonna understand as a question, do you know what I mean? Like Tom Brady talking about whether, you know, how much is enough for, you know, where to find deep motivation or whatever, that's a lot for someone who's not even competed at an elite level to think about. So it's easier to start with, what do you have for breakfast? Or like what kind of gloves do you wear?

Do you know what I mean? Like one is much more relatable and accessible, but ultimately much more inconsequential. Yeah, I do find that there are some tools that, certainly when I was more of a beginner in the space, helped develop the habit, which was the thing that actually mattered. So for example, reading about how different people do a weekly review is quite helpful. And I downloaded like the, initially the PDF template and then the Google Doc template. And now, notion templates are all the rage. But the point is the weekly review journaling prompt slash questions helped me actually do

a weekly review. And a weekly review is just a very useful habit to figure out. Like, how did I do this week? What are my top three things I want to do next week? Great. Let's just do those things. So there are some instances in which a tool helps build the habit, which is when the habit is the thing that matters.

Sure, but it's easy to take it too far. Like I find whenever I rewatch your video about your note card system, I know I'm just procrastinating because the thing you actually do is you write every day. But even in the color on the way here, I was like, you know, what if I had an analog no-cut system? And then I'm like, no, but I'm traveling.

It's like, oh, well, I get dang it. Like, let me look at the Zettle Custom System or we find another app. And it's so easy for the mind to go in those directions because like, Brian Holiday has a no-cut system. I also find it's like, you know, people who believe one conspiracy theory tend to believe all the conspiracy theories, right?

Even though it actually becomes less likely that they're all true, right? Like it's like, if you bit one and that's your thing, maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, but if you believe all of them simultaneously, well, they contradict each other. So it doesn't really work, right? But it's like, I tend to find people who are really into productivity systems. The problem is it that this system is not as good as this system. It's that they're missing the point that a lot of it is a placebo, which is like, pick a fucking system and stick with that system. That's the hat, like you're supposed to pick a thing and then that's your thing, right?

And then you stop thinking about it. The problem is they're like, first they're over here and then they hear this one's a little bit better and then they search for the, so it's actually, it's not the system that's the problem. It's not the tools that it's actually, it's not the system that's the problem. It's not the tools that's actually the amateur quality. The amateur quality is the constantly moving and abandoning, moving and abandoning because that's what's profoundly inefficient, right?

Like you've found the system and it was working for you. Like I know actually at this point, there's probably something better than the no card system, but is it transformatively better? Probably not, right? So am I going to uproot the thing that I'm comfortable with, that works for me, that my old stuff is in for something that's 9% better? Like if I want a 9% productivity increase, that's pretty easy to find. You know what I mean? As opposed to relearning how I do everything.

So back in the day, I used to be a close up magician. And I would perform it like balls and parties at university and stuff. And there was a phrase that was often, in the world of magic, the amateur magician is the person who performs 100 tricks to, you know, the amateur magician is the person who performs 100 tricks to... The Amateur Magician is the person who performs 100 tricks

to the same audience, whereas the professional magician is the one who performs the same tricks to 100 different audiences. Or what's that effect? And in the world of magic as well, there was this constant thing, constant battle between on the forums, there are the professionals who are actually doing the thing,

and then there are all the amateurs being like, what are the best tricks? And the professional is like, it doesn't matter. Just pick three to six of them and just do them at nauseam. And you will guarantee to be a professional magician. And the amateurs are like, oh, but like, I've got $1,000. I want to spend it on like this trick versus that trick versus that trick. It doesn't matter.

Just pick a few and just stick with them and do them repeatedly over a long enough time. And that is how you get good at the thing. But that's a lot less sexy and sounding advice than this one trick will change your life. Yeah, like I've been to conferences that have changed my life, but I'm always interested when I notice people are going to lots of that. Like the chances that every single one is going to have that same effect is very low, right? And so it's like, you should, you beat the casino leave. You know what I mean? Like, there's this tendency to sort of chase more and more when you've already gotten most of the games. I have to, I've got some friends who attended like a sort

of $85,000 mastermind week long retreat type thing. And after day one, they were like, damn, we know what we have to do. We kind of want to leave and just do it. But like, we've paid $85,000. So we've got to kind of stay for the next five days, knowing full well that like all of this is going straight over the head because they just know what they've got the one thing. And they need to execute on the one thing.

And then two years later, maybe the thing number two or three will become relevant. But by then you've forgotten about it and you'll need to go to another event. So back to procrastination, my one of my favorite quotes from Senegalese is the one thing all fools have in common is that they're always getting ready to start. So they're going to do it tomorrow or they're going to do it later. They're going to do it once they get all the materials or tools that they need it. So I did give you the advice that to start a book you want to do all your research first, which is true. And yet, really the important thing is that at some point you start doing it. Right. And because it can go on forever to

sort of preparing and analyzing and gathering. And, you know, I just need this other thing first. But really what you need to be doing is to think. Mm. Yeah. It always just comes down to this. It comes back to this. And I've... I don't know if you've played around with this,

but I've experimented with so many different ways of doing the thing. Some, you know, when it comes to videos, for example. Some weeks, I'm like, okay. The way I'm going to keep doing the thing is I'm just going to make a video every single day. And then I'll do that for a bit. And then I'll be like, okay, but that's like too rigid. And it's like, well, for the experience, okay, cool. Tim Ferriss is batching is good. So I'm going to batch it. And Thursday is going to be my filming day.

And it's like, I'll do that for a bit. And I'll be like, oh, no, but like I missed that Thursday. And then I'll be like, you know, Tim Ferriss had batching is good. So why don't I batch in a whole week and film 15 videos in that week. And then I can chill for six weeks. And then this was supposed to be a batch from a week in Austin, and I don't feel nothing because I was like, I'm actually not feeling it. So there's almost this constant search

at least in my life for this magical consistent system that will cover me 100% of the time. Thankfully, we have just still been publishing activities a week for the last six years. So it's like, it's not, hopefully, you're not gonna take too much away from actually doing the thing. But I wonder for you, like, you've been doing this a lot,

this sort of stuff a lot longer than I have. How often is your system for doing the thing actually changed? Well, I do a handful of different things, right? So like, but the main thing, and I think this is important, you have to know what your main thing is, right? We live in a world where there's all these other kind of supporting things, they're necessary. No, not absolutely necessary, but I think they're important. And but still you have to know what the main driver of everything is. So for me, that's writing.

Writing the books is the main thing that the other things are supporting the writing the books, and the writing of the books is creating the ideas and the platform and the brand and all that make the other things necessary to be in it. So the writing routine is essentially unchanged. There's little tweaks here and there, but the main thing is like just sitting down and doing that thing. And it's not a thing that can be outsourced. It's not a thing that can be batched.

It's the day to dayness of doing it on a consistent basis. To what extent do you enjoy writing? Well, there's an expression I like that says, painters like painting, writers like having written. So at the end of the writing day, I feel good. Do I feel good the entire time? Not always. Sometimes when it's fucking working, it's nothing better. But if you, that's the only thing that fuels you, you're not going to be a good spot. Because some days, some of the most important things come one sentence in the midst of two otherwise unproductive pointless hours. So I enjoy showing up and then I enjoy finishing. And sometimes that middle period can be torturous. So I was gonna ask you that,

like when you say feel good productivity, does it actually have to feel good? There's one school of thought that says it's all about finding the torture that you can tolerate, and it's actually the ability to put up with the grind of it that separates the winners from the losers. Yeah, that's the thing. So I think my thesis in the book is that it doesn't have to feel good, but it is generally more energizing when it does. Generally positive emotions, fuel energy, fuel creativity, fuel stress, all that fun stuff.

And so the question that led to the book in the first place was when I was trying to juggle working full time as a doctor and also building the YouTube channel and the book in the first place was, when I was trying to juggle working full time as a doctor and also building the YouTube channel and the business on the side, it just felt like a huge amount of grind in the day job and then a huge amount of grind afterwards to do the videos. And it seemed like everyone talks about how

journey before destination. And I realized that I wasn't enjoying my day today because of this sort of grind approach. And so I tried to find any tweak that I could to make it feel just a little bit better. And that's not to say that it was fun all the time or that it objectively felt good all the time. But I found a series of strategies that meant that almost anything I could make feel even just a bit better. And if it felt a bit better, it generates more energy and it meant that I had more energy at the end of the day to give to my other hobbies and friends and family and stuff.

And it also made me more productive. So I think it's like, when it comes to writing, for example, there are some basic things that I found was, you know, the first chapter in the book is about play and about trying to approach things in the spirit of play. Now play, you know, a lot of people have talked about how comes about as a result of, often a result of the stakes being lower.

So like Roger Federer probably isn't feeling play when he's in the Wimbledon fight final because the stakes are too high. And I found that, for example, with writing the book, when I was thinking about the stakes being high, like, this is my first book, and it's traditionally published, and it's a big deal. That would suck the joy out of it. Whereas when I tried to lower the stakes,

to be like, no, it's okay, I'm just writing because I enjoy it, and the goal is for me to write a book I'm proud of. Suddenly it became more enjoyable. So it's the same thing, but just a different framing that makes it feel good. The problem is you're not in the Wembleton finals, but you're fooling yourself into thinking you are. That's where ego comes in and anxiety comes in. You're just like, you're making it much more than it is. And then you're actually, ironically making yourself worse at it.

Yes, exactly. And the other big one is the idea of power. So we talked about it, talk about it, talk about it, chapter two. Play power in people are like the three main energizers that I found if you shoe horn a bit. And this idea that we get to choose what we're doing. You can be doing the same thing,

but if you think of it as I have to do this versus I choose to do this, makes a huge difference to how we personally feel about the thing. I really found this a lot when I was working in medicine where there was one day where I'd finished the end of like a 13 hour shift. And I was just about to go home to be like,

yes, I'm gonna go home. And then the nurse was like, hey, Ali, can you put an IV, a cannula in this lady in Bay number four or whatever it was? I was like, oh shit, like this is going to be another half an hour job. It's like the nurses tried and she couldn't do it. And so there's going to be really high. I was just about to go home.

13 freaking hours, have an eaten. And then I overheard that some other patient talking about like, oh, it's so nice being in hospital. The doctor's been so nice to me and things. I kind of realized that I'd been falling into that trap of thinking I have to do this thing. And I think Seth Godin has a blog post about this that I remember at the time, which was, you can just reframe that too. I get to do this thing. Sure. So I was like, huh, I get to do this kind of like,

get to make this person's morning sickness better so that, you know, her baby's better and that she's better. Because I was working on OB-GYN. And it was just like this huge wave of relief that came over me purely as a result of a simple mindset shift of like, have to become, get to. Hello listeners, this is Mike Corey of Against the Odds. You might know that I adventure around the world while recording this podcast, and over the years, I've learned that where I stay when I travel can make all the difference. Airbnb has been my go-to place for finding the perfect accommodations.

Because with hotels, you often don't have the luxury of extra space or privacy. Recently, I had a bunch of friends come down to visit in Mexico. We found this large house and the place had a pool, a barbecue, a kitchen, and a great big living room to play cards. Watch movies and just chill out. It honestly made all the difference in the trip. It felt like we were all roommates again. The next time you're planning a trip, whether it's with friends, family, or yourself, check out Airbnb to find something you won't forget.

Well, also, I think one of the things I had is that is important things are hard, right? And so if you are good at something, if you have some sort of calling, you're supposed, like, I feel like each of us has kind of a unique potential or we get sort of certain opportunities. Yeah. And with those opportunities comes a kind of an obligation. So when I hear about someone who is really talented and really good, and then I get the sense that they're just kind of half-assing it, or they're stuck, or whatever.

It's not that I'm judgmental, but I find it to be sad. You know, like, what do you mean you only wrote one book in 10 years? Like, you're not Robert Carro, you're not like, you're not, you weren't slaving away on some amazing masterpiece. You were just ill-disciplined and you took the obligations that I think your talent came with, you took, you didn't take them seriously. So I agree, you should mostly be doing what you want to do, but I also think there's something kind of sad and it may be even pathetic about people who are just like, not unproductive, but maybe only partially for Bill their potential. Yeah, I was going to ask you about this.

So you said earlier that, you know, you sometimes ask yourself, am I pushing this book out of laziness for complacency versus like out of a genuine need for balance or something like that? I was kind of thinking in my mind like, why does it matter? Like why does it matter to you if you're being lazy or complacent? And I mean, for like a book a year for the last like 10 years or something of such like that. Like, to you. Well, I think like you have, I would argue that we sort of have a higher self and the lower self, right? And, you know, the lower self says, just like, eat whatever you want, work only when you want, say whatever you want, don't think about consequent. There's this immediate

gratification short-term impulses that we all have, right? That if indulged repeatedly, tend to get us into place that we actually don't want to be, right? The person, they don't have any friends because they say you mean things, right? They feel gross, they look gross, they're not in good health because they don't take good care of themselves. They look back and they go, oh, I wish that hadn't taken like, if I'd gotten serious about that earlier, I'd have been done sooner. I would have done more, I could have helped more people, whatever, right? So there's this kind of tension between like our higher self and the lower self. Stephen Presfield says in between is the resistance, right? And so to me, the question is, is whether I'm,

am I doing this because it's the well-adjusted, mature, responsible, you know, right thing to do? Or am I just doing it because the other thing is harder. You know what I mean? The other thing is gonna take more out of me and I'm scared or intimidated by that. So it's not like I feel like, oh, I have to write these certain number of books, so then I'll be remembered forever. It's just, so I just took today off. But what did I get out? For what reason? Do you know what I mean?

Like, so I watched TV all day, I sat around all day. If I decided not to work, because I'm going to hang out with my family, or I'm going to take a long walk on the beach, I'm going to read, or I'm going to take care of myself, that's perfectly fine. That's a part of a great life. So doing it because... I want to watch TV. Yeah, that doesn't...

I don't think that gives you where you want to go. Some people might argue that watching TV is self-care. And so it's like, oh, I didn't work today because I felt, I don't know, stressed or burned out and I needed to watch TV. No. I think if you're doing that, because if that's actually what it is, more power to you, but is that it or are you lying to yourself? So for you, when it comes to writing more books, I'll put it this way. Recovery is important,

right? If you work out recovery is important, you have to have a certain number of days where you recover, you let the body rest and recuperate. Is that what you're doing or are you just not doing it because it's hard to do? It's always hard to do, right? The whole point is that it's hard to do, who's easy to do. There wouldn't be any benefits to it, right? So are you stopping because you're sensitive to an injury or are you stopping because pretending that you're being sensitive to an injury is an excuse to stop? Yeah. So I was rereading Bertrand Russell's essay in praise of idleness

where he's basically talking about how this attitude that the modern world inculcates within us, which is that kind of work is inherently meaningful is like bad and problematic and all that jazz. I'm curious for you, like you're presumably planning to write more books because you're very young in the grass, give me things. But like why?

What is the, if not like, I want to be remembered, I want to legacy them. What's, what's it all in service of? No, he has a great line. He says, the first sign of an impending nervous collapse is the belief that your work is terribly, terribly important. And I think it's totally right. You know, if you had this sense, like, I'm building totally right, you know, if you had this sense like I'm building this monument, you know, or the world has to experience my genius, this is going to last for a thousand

years, you know, that's not only delusional, but like it's kind of a miserable place to be and it usually feeds on itself and eventually, you know, wears you down. At this point, I write books that I am interested in, right, like that I find myself better for having done. This book that I just did in the virtues here, So I did Courage, I did Discipline and Now I'm Doing Justice. I'm almost certain this will be the worst selling book in the series, the Justice One, because it's the least, you talked about certain terms,

you know, will perform all of this. And the one that doesn't plan as good. Yeah, discipline, obviously, I knew if I did a good job, it would be a home run. This one, even if I do the greatest job I possibly can do, it probably has a ceiling on it in some way, but I was better for having done it. I learned something, I articulated something to myself in writing about it. My kids are the only two people that read it, you know, like I try to find standards

of success or motivations that have become more self-sufficient as I've gone. So at this point, I write things because creatively I find them interesting and I love the process of being in the middle of it even Even when it's really hard and I have the same thing is true with running like I love and I hate running I Obviously not doing it is easier than doing it Yeah, but when I don't do it I I feel worse. Like I feel not in an addictive way, but I feel when I do it, I feel proud of myself, I feel physically good. I mind gets it like it's better that I do it than not do it. And they're the feeling of being in the middle of a book, both the momentum of it and the frustratingness of it, it all kind of combines into it just an overall

rewarding, immersive experience. That's what our flow state is. Yeah. So it sounds like for you, writing is the thing that your higher self does and wants to do. And therefore is almost good in its own right, regardless of how the outcome turns out to be. I think so. And so you push yourself to write on days even when you don't feel like it. It's like going for a run, like going to the gym. It's like the thing that you know is good for you, that you know is aligned with your own personal values. And you don't want to be the sort of guy that's like, you know what, I'm going to skip writing for the next

year so I can play more video games kind of vibe. Yeah, one of the Stoics's name is Moussoni Srophesy says, when you do something shameful for pleasure, the pleasure passes quickly, but the shame endures. And then he says, but when you do something hard for good, the effort passes quickly, but the good endures. Oh, nice. I think that's good. You find whether it's pushing yourself physically,

like exercise, that's throwing yourself into a big project, whether it's sacrificing for someone or something, you quickly forget all that it took out of you and all that went into it, and you think about the impact that you had, or you just think about the plane you temporarily ascended to to get there. And then when you think about, I don't know, the cake that you ate, or the off day that you took, or the urge that you submitted to afterwards, there's that period where you go,

that's what I did all that for, that know, that, that, that five seconds, you know, or not even the five seconds, right? And that's the higher, lower self. So you've recently done a bit of a, I wouldn't say pivot, like side hustle on the whole daily dad stuff, which is interesting. I've been just found myself reading a lot of parenting advice recently. I'm not even close to becoming a dad, but I was just curious. I'm part of your daily newsletter on that as well, because it's just interesting. But there seems to be this really common thing of like It's interesting, but there seems to be this really common thing of like people working hard in their career, sometimes at the expense of their family. Mm-hmm.

And you know, you'll hear people say that like I thought I was doing my kids a favor by working on doing this thing and like focusing on my career and stuff, but actually what I maybe should have done in hindsight is to spend less time on my career and more time on the kid stuff. How do you think about that balance between working hard at the thing, but also being there for the small ones? It's very insidious, because you say I'm doing it all for them, and so you are doing something very selfish, but you are cloaking it in selflessness. That's why I'm getting on this airplane.

That's why I'm staying this late at the office. That's why I'm blah, blah, blah, blah. But if you asked your kids what do they want? More money would be nowhere in that list, right? Or if it was on the list, it would be such a preposterously and refreshingly child like understanding of money, that I think it would humble you. So you're saying you're doing it for them,

but you're not. You're doing it for you. You're doing it for you. And the tragedy of, and the irony of I'm doing it, I'm doing all this for the people I never see. It was a very sad, fucked up place that a lot of sort of high power to accomplish people find themselves in. And I heard something great when someone said like, success is your kids wanting to be

with you when you're an adult. And so like how will you measure your life at the end, right? It won't be like the size of the inheritance that you leave them. It will be, you know, are you still in each other's lives now? So how do you invest in that's not something you can do later. You know, you have to make those discussions. And they're and they're costly and uncertain. And the worst part is you don't even know how much it's costing. I mean, this is obviously much scarier and sort of systemically imposed on women. Right. So like, you're going gonna take three years out of your, you know, cumulatively three years out of your working life in your 20s and 30s, which has this enormous, cumulative compounding effect on the trajectory

that you're gonna end up on. You know, that's a very scary thing, and it's unfair in a lot of ways. But at the end of your life, it's probably gonna be something you're gonna glad that you did. And so I think a lot of men just sort of unthinkingly don't do it at all,

but I've tried to sort of go, yeah, what is it that you wanna do? And who do you wanna be? There's this great term in art monster I'm forget this female writer. She was saying like my dream was to be an art monster Basically just just me and my work and a family no You know No baggage no

Impositions just me and and there are a lot of our monsters and they've written great stuff But when you read their biographies, you just sort of go what you know impositions just me and and there are a lot of our monsters and they've written great stuff, but when you read their biographies, you just sort of go, what? You know, was that worth it? You know, and it kind of it kind of taints all of the stuff that they did. It makes it much more bittersweet and not so great. How did you decide to, you know, go into the dad stuff rather than quit staying your lane as the stoic guy? I don't know if I really decided it. I mean, so riding the daily dad, I mean, the reason I decided to do the daily dad was

that riding the daily stoic made me better as a person. You can't, every single day day sit down and try to take insights from the wisest people who ever lived and to steal them down into a couple hundred words over and over and over again and not emerge. Some somewhat bonded to those ideas. Like it just gets in your bloodstream, right? That's what Stoicism is. Stoicism, what Marx-Durist is doing in his meditations was writing down things.

A lot of it comes from other Stoic texts. He's just writing it down, rephrasing it, and writing it down, and writing it down, and rephrasing it, and looking at it this way, and looking, he's having this philosophical discussion with himself, with himself. And that's how Marx-Durist becomes Marx-Durist. So the process of writing the Daily Stoke book and then writing the Daily Stoke every day now for seven years. It's almost a million words that I published for free.

To, you know, I think we've done 3000 Daily Stoke emails. It's like seven or eight books worth of content. I have benefited from that. It's built a business around it, but if I had made precisely zero dollars, that would have been the bargain of a lifetime. Right? I've gotten so much better from having done that. So I just decided that I would do the same thing about parenting. If it it helps other people great, you know, it sells books great, but the process of having to intentionally sit down and think about and then write about and then publish, you know, how I wanna think about these things has made me better.

And that's how you should think about it. I was talking to my wife last night, we were talking about this book that we were reading and you know, you get all the way to the end, you're like, oh, that was good. But actually you needed to read it over like six months, like a couple pages a day. Like I just read this great book by this parenting expert named Dr. Becky Kennedy.

And so I read it, but then because I'm going to write about it for daily debt, I went through it, page by page after, and took out all the stuff that I liked. And it was the second part was where I got stuff out of it, not the reading at once from cover to cover. And so there's something about the page of day format that's worked in daily stoke and daily dad. Like if you're trying to absorb a philosophy or a new way of thinking or transform yourself from here to there, it's not 300 pages that you read from October 1st to November 17th, that takes you a month and after it.

It's much better if you're layering it like a page a day for a year or two years or three years and you're coming back, like the process of that sort of over and over and over and over again, that's where the stuff gets absorbed. What is some of the key, I guess, from here to there, through the course of writing daily data and being apparent? What are some of the key lessons that have really separated the Ryan today from the

Ryan maybe like three years ago? I think patience, I think, if I'm thinking like the things I've struggled with most as a parent, but that have also made the most difference. Number one, like, the greatest thing you can give your kids is presence, like not gifts, but presence, like just actually being there, not doing something else. So, you know, in a digital world, that's extremely difficult to do.

So I struggled with that patience, of course, you know, it doesn't happen, it doesn't have to happen quickly, it just has to happen to take your time with it, to let them take their time, to not rush things. Every time you think you can't go on like this, that's when you get some sort of breakthrough, every time you think they're never going to figure it out, that's when they figure it out. So I think patience has been a big one. I've read a lot and thought about, like, sort of, how do you just, like, just root for this person? Like not, not, attach any conditions, not attach any judgments, not attach any expectations, but just be an unconditional supporter of them and who they are for who they are and what they are. Which I think ties into another idea I've

been thinking a lot about, which is like your job is to help your kids become that person, not to make them a person that you want them to be. So to just sort of help them become who they are, that's something I thought a lot about and worked on a lot. And then the one I've been thinking a lot about, which I heard about in Dr. Becky's book, obviously I knew about it, but I mean, since what she talks about, like don't try to be a perfect parent,

try to be a parent who's really good at repair. Like at fixing it when you mess up, fixing it when things didn't go the way that you wanted them to go, you know, reconnecting when, you know, there is conflict or when people go in separate directions, but repair. So I would say those are sort of the perennial ones that I struggle with and I'm thinking about.

That's very cool. I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this.

I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this.

I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this. I'm help the show. We appreciate it. We'll see you next episode. Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke early and ad-free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. A dream is always your heartless. Step aboard a Disney Cruise and discover where memories meet adventure, where escape meets imagination, where magic meets the sea. Disney Cruise Line

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