BetterHelp Online Therapy bought this 30-second ad to remind you, right now, wherever you are, to unclench your jaw, relax your shoulders, take a deep breath in and out.
🎙️
Published 9 days agoDuration: 0:58507 timestamps
507 timestamps
BetterHelp Online Therapy bought this 30-second ad to remind you, right now, wherever you are, to unclench your jaw, relax your shoulders, take a deep breath in and out.
Feels better, right? That's 15 seconds of self-care. Imagine what you could do with more.
Visit BetterHelp.com slash random podcast for 10% off your first month of therapy.
No pressure, just help. But for now, just relax.
To 70s-inspired looks and bright handbags, discover new arrivals from your favorite brands like Reformation, Veronica Beard, Farm Rio, Levi's, and more.
It's easy, too, with free shipping and free returns, in-store order pickup, and more.
Plus, Nordy Club members enjoy free two-day shipping on thousands of items in select areas.
Shop today in stores and at Nordstrom.com.
I'm Mike Boris, and this is Straight Talk.
So the idea of philosophy being this way of living.
This standard to aspire to.
It strikes me as really interesting and really urgent.
Ryan Holiday, welcome to Straight Talk, mate.
Take me right back to when you first started thinking about this stuff.
I was 19 or 20 years old.
If you had told me that philosophy was something that would be interesting, I would have laughed at you.
I came to understand that it wasn't this dusty, stodgy, impractical thing.
It was ordinary and extraordinary people alike working to become what they're capable of being.
Courage, self-discipline, justice, and wisdom.
Every situation in life, big and small, is this opportunity to practice those virtues.
Ryan Holiday, welcome to Straight Talk, mate.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Where are you coming to me from now?
Where are we talking from?
Right outside Austin, Texas.
Wow, that's cool.
Everybody wants to live in Texas these days.
No one wants to live in L.A. for some reason.
I don't know what's going on in New York and L.A.
I'm just emptying out into Texas.
What's the deal? Is it tax? Is it about tax? It's taxes. It's space. You know, it's a bunch
of things. Some good reasons, some not so good reasons. But I'll tell you, I'm very excited to
get to Australia this summer because most people I know that live here flee Texas during the summer.
It's so freaking hot. As in your summer? Yeah. Yeah. I'm coming. Our summer, I guess your winter,
but it's going to be, you know, last year I think we had a hundred days over a hundred
degrees Fahrenheit. So it gets pretty hot here. So when are you arriving in Australia?
And what's the deal? Middle of July. I think I'm doing it. I think I'm doing Sydney the last day
of July and Melbourne, maybe the first day of August, something like that. This will be my
first appearances there. And what are you presenting to us? Like what's your program
looking like? The thesis? Well, you know, just to really get people excited, I'm going to
do an hour plus lecture about an obscure school of ancient philosophy, you know, about as exciting
as it can get. Well, for me, that actually is exciting for me. So I quite like what we're
about to talk about. I mean, I've read the brief, but, and you know, you're only a young guy,
which is pretty amazing. It's funny, you know, many, many years ago, I used to talk about
a concept of virtues. I used to go on talking tours in Australia, talking about virtues. And
a lot of young people, the younger audiences didn't really,
know what virtues were. They don't even really understand the word. I mean, and stoicism is sort
of somewhat related to that. Maybe you just take me back a little bit and you're already young,
but take me back to the period when you first started becoming interested in concepts of
stoicism. And, but probably more importantly, from my point of view, you know, this concept
of virtues, what are virtues and, you know, where's courage versus, you know, other things,
those types of virtues. Take me right back to when you first started thinking about,
I think that's a great question. Cause I relate to that. You know, when I was 19 or 20 years old,
if you had told me that virtue was something I should care about, or if you told me philosophy
was something that would be interesting, I would have laughed at you, you know?
And so it wasn't until I read Marcus Aurelius's meditations in my college apartment that I came
to understand that philosophy wasn't this dusty, stodgy, you know, impractical thing that it was,
you know,
extraordinary and extraordinary people alike sort of working to hold themselves to higher standards
to, to become what they're capable of being. And there's a line in meditations where Marcus Aurelius
talks, he says, fight to be the person that philosophy tried to make you. And so the idea
of philosophy, not being these abstract questions, but this way of living this standard to aspire to
strikes me as really interesting and really urgent. You know, I think when people hear the
word virtue, they think, yeah, religion,
if you say the phrase, the cardinal virtues, people think of, uh, you know, uh, uh, a religious
figure, right? They think of a cardinal, but cardinal comes from the Latin cardos, which means
pivotal. So they're talking about the, the pivotal virtue. So that's the other thing. It,
it's not virtue, it's virtues. And the, the, the virtues to the ancient Stoics were, I think,
pretty straightforward and pretty timeless. They were courage,
self-discipline, justice, and wisdom. And the idea was that every situation in life,
big and small, was this opportunity to practice those virtues. So if, if we think of every
situation, instead of going through the life going, what can I do here? What should I do here?
We think, well, what opportunity do I have to practice one of these ideas or, or all four of
these ideas? What is philosophy asking of me? I think that's a much more interesting way,
to approach these, you know, admittedly very ancient ideas.
How did you get the Marcus Aurelius, um, meditations book? Cause I mean, I have,
I'm a 68 and, uh, I'm more recently bought it maybe a year ago. And that's, and I, I just look
at it every now and then, um, it sits on my bedside amongst seven or eight other books,
which I'm sort of reading different books at different times, depending on how I feel at night.
Um, and, uh, you know, so I'm sort of relatively speaking advanced relative to you when you're 19,
who, uh, who, who, um,
mentioned to you or how did you become across looking at a book like Marcus Aurelius's, um,
meditations? Cause it's sort of fairly dense for a 19 year old. That's what I think.
Yeah, I was, I was at a conference and I went up to the speaker after, and I just said, Hey,
you know, are you reading anything interesting? And then that's how I got pointed to the Stoics.
And I think what was so great about that, I didn't realize it at the time, but this
is how Stoicism has spread for 25 centuries.
That it's been this process of, Hey, I got something out of this. I think you'll get
something out of it too. And that's one of the interesting passages in Marcus Aurelius's
meditations, Marcus Aurelius being the emperor of Rome. He's thanking his, his teacher,
Rusticus for having lent him a copy of the writings of Epictetus, who was his favorite
Stoic philosopher. So if we can think of, of, you know, 25 centuries of people going,
Hey, check out this book. I think it's good. You know, that's what Stoicism,
you know, I don't think people are doing that with Heidegger or Kant or, or even Aristotle
these days, right? The idea of, of philosophy being something closer to self-help is to me
really, really interesting. And I think, you know, some people turn up their nose at that,
but I think that's wonderful. Yeah. I mean, I, a lot of people always
searching some people in their life, they're always searching. They don't really know what
they're searching for. Do you think that Marcus Aurelius is,
because given that you mentioned earlier on, it was sort of going back to 25 centuries. I mean,
we probably can go back to the original writings of Stoicism, which I'm sure go back beyond this,
but in terms of what's available to look at, you can probably go back to, you know,
Socrates and Plato and Aristotle back in the 500 BC, 600 BC. And I'm sure it goes beyond that,
but this is just what's in evidence in terms of what's written down. I'm sure there's lots of
other places. There's probably Asian cultures and Egyptian cultures would go beyond that. But
the thing that's most popular,
but it was a bit, it was a bit sort of complex. And, and, and sometimes this stuff could go on for
hundreds and hundreds of pages, especially if you go and buy some of the books, some of the
writings of these guys. The thing that Aurelius did is that he made it pretty simple in terms of
he gave it to him in bite sizes. It was sort of like a practical application of this.
They're like little tweets.
Yeah. It's perfect. There's a nilly. Yeah. Yeah. Like little tweets. Correct. It's a modern
version of tweets, an old version of what is,
modern version of tweets. So why do you think that is important to people though? Because
is it because today we don't want to sit down and read Plato and Socrates and Aristotle who go on
for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages and it gets very, very complex. Do you think today
that we do only want to digest things in bite-sized amounts? You know what? No, I think Marcus Aurelius
was doing the same thing that I'm doing that, that people have been doing for thousands of years,
which is he was,
taking ancient philosophy. And that's kind of a mind blowing thing to think about. This was
ancient philosophy to Marcus Aurelius. He's, he's writing in the second century AD and Zeno,
the founder of Stoicism was writing in the fourth century BC. Right. And so, so to him,
this was already stuff that was thousands or hundreds of years old. Socrates to him was,
was older than Shakespeare is to us. Right. And so you, you think about what he's doing is he's,
he's reading this stuff and then he's trying to, to, to digest it and make it accessible,
not to an audience per se. I think that's a little different, but to himself, he's what,
what meditations is these little bite-sized sentences that you're talking about. They're,
they're his summaries and rearticulations of the ideas and the things that he believes and
the standards he's trying to live up to. That's what he's doing. It's his,
his private riffing on these, you know, timeless ideas. And so I think it's always been tough to go
back to the original sources and get exactly what they mean. And so philosophy, just like music and
art and, uh, and, and, and all the mediums is this process of remixing and rephrasing
and re-examining. And sometimes it comes out very close to the original. And sometimes we come up
with something totally new.
It's interesting. Um, you just mentioned music, um, and music is one way of conveying stories or
important things to us. Um, and if I go back, you know, and I don't want to, and I just want to
stop, we'll stop off this. I don't want to sort of overload the whole discussion around this
particular aspect, but for me, if I go back into the stories of Homer, which predates
all of the dudes, um, Homer had this ability to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to,
to talk about the philosophical, um, things that you're talking about, like, you know, we talk about
virtues and ways of life and things that get us, get us closer to being better human beings, um,
by putting into stories like the Iliad and the Odyssey and by individuals within those stories,
let's call them the heroes and heroines, usually they were heroes, but, um, who were able to endure,
like in terms of endurance, for example, endure terrible outcomes just to get to a certain point
in their life.
And the best one is the Odyssey of Odysseus, um, trying to get home to his wife, but
how important is it to either put this stuff in by size tweet sort of versions or alternatively,
how important is it because you're a writer, how important is it to put this stuff into storylines
and, and, and add a story around it so that people can become interested because it can be a little
bit dry, you know, if you know what I mean, to some people, to you and I, we think it's great.
Well, I'm, I'm in the middle of reading the Odyssey to my, to my, uh, seven-year-old right
now. So I've been thinking a lot about this. Are you reading Robert Graves' version?
No, there's a, an American translator who's actually a biographer of one of the Stoics.
Uh, she wrote a biography of Seneca called, um, her, her name is Emily Wilson. She did a new
translation a couple of years ago and she just did the, the Iliad as well. Um, I, the Robert
Graves edition is, is quite good as, uh, Robert Graves, I think the Fagles translation of, of,
I've also read, but, um, the idea is to me, what I try to do in my writing is take the ideas
of the Stoics and then demonstrate them through story or illustrate them through story.
So I feel like the Stoics already said it as good as it can be said,
you know, they've distilled it down to its absolute essence as an idea or as a statement,
but that's not typically how humans learn things. There's a reason Jesus spoke in parables.
Abraham Lincoln, probably the great, you know, American communicator spoke in terms of stories,
right? He would, he would tell anecdotes to make his point. There's something disarming about a
story. There's something memorable about a story. There's something about the way we understand
things that I think, um, makes stories particularly powerful. And so what I try to do in my books is,
is take an idea from the Stoics, how they treated obstacles as opportunities. And then I'll write a
story about how they treated obstacles as opportunities. And then I'll write an idea
or extrapolating that out in the form of stories from men and women, past and present, you know,
great and evil people who, who, who illustrated that idea or illustrated the perils of not living
that idea. So that's, that's what I try to do in all of my books.
It's interesting. You just mentioned in power of the word parables and, you know, there's been
many great storytellers who tell the, tell the story about in parables,
parables. When I look at today's leaders and I don't want to, let's just concentrate on some,
two of your leaders in your country, one of the biggest nations of the world,
they don't seem to talk in parables. They sort of seem to me, and I don't mean to be mean,
but they sort of speak in riddles. It's actually confusing.
They make a lot of statements, but they don't, they don't, not only do they not tell a good story
about how they want things to be, but they don't tell a good story about how they want things to be.
But they tend not to tell real stories. So they'll go, I'm speaking of Susie, a single mother
of three living, you know, they make up these stories about these fake people. And, and what
the great leaders throughout history did was draw on myths or commonly known stories and use them as,
as a way of illustrating ideas or principles. So, so that, that is a problem with,
with the collapse of the teaching of the classics of the collapse of the humanities
is we, we don't, we no longer have the same myths and ideas, you know? Like the, the last sort of
thing that kind of pierced the cultural consciousness was probably like Harry Potter
or something. And you can't have the president, you know, telling a story about Harry Potter.
It just seems silly, but you need, you need a common, you know, you need a common sort of
shared consciousness of, of figures, big and small. Like that's, what's so interesting in the
founding of America, um, that all the, the American founders were steeped in these ancient
stories about the Greeks and Romans. And so they were kind of almost play acting. And so when they
would say these things that, that sort of get written down in history, people who knew their
classical history understood, you know, the, the plays they were,
they were referencing or the historical figures they were alluding to. And it sort of imbued
everything with this kind of epicness. Right. And, um, and, and we, we lack that today. And I
think that it makes it hard for us to come together when, when we don't sort of share a
culture in that way. Do you think it's that because the audience
lacks the general knowledge so much so that the person who's speaking to them, there's no point
talking to them about these epic stories, which as you said, like Abraham Lincoln,
his audience knew this history. I mean, generally speaking, they were taught this stuff at school,
I guess, or parents talked about it, you know, parents probably told stories because, you know,
we didn't have all the other distractions. Do you think therefore it's impossible for
current leaders to be able to, uh, do what say someone like Abraham Lincoln did and tell those
types of stories and therefore our current leaders are more talking about falsehoods and fakeness and
all the short-term stuff that we generally get out of social media? Is that the reason?
Yeah, I don't think it's impossible.
I don't think it's impossible. I just think it's, it's, it's much harder. Right. And so that's what,
that's what demagogues do or populists do is they, they, they, they do tell a story, which is like,
there are those people over there and those people are bad. And those people are the source of all of
the problems and evils of life. Right. And that is a very timeless story. The story of the scapegoat
is a very sort of timeless, uh, you know, universal, uh, sort of trope. And so I do think we're seeing
narrative of it, but, but I, I think it's been a while since, since any of the major nations had,
had a really great leader who could tell a story about, you know, where we're going. Um, I mean,
even, even, uh, even Trump, you know, Trump saying, make America great again. He's saying like,
make it like it used to be. He's not able to say, I, here's how I think it should be going forward.
So there, there's just something, there's something lacking about our ability to,
to sort of share ideas or, or aspirations that I do think is a problem.
Not too long ago, running a business looked a lot different, a good location and a solid
reputation were enough to keep a customer base happy. No websites, no social media,
no SEO, just old school networking and persistence, of course. But times have changed.
In today's digital world, your business needs more than just a great product. It needs visibility.
Squarespace comes in. Whether you're just getting started or expanding your brand,
it's the all-in-one platform that makes building and managing your online presence
simple. With Blueprint AI, creating a professional, customized website takes just a few clicks. Plus
powerful tools like automated client invoicing, online courses, and memberships help you generate
revenue effortlessly. So you can focus on growing your business instead of juggling logistics.
Head to squarespace.com.
Forward slash mentored for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch,
use offer code mentored, M-E-N-T-O-R-E-D to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain.
Worried about what ingredients are hiding in your groceries? Let us take the guesswork out.
We're Thrive Market, the online grocery store with the highest quality standards in the industry.
We restrict 1,000 plus ingredients. So you can trust that you'll only find the best high quality,
organic, and sustainable brands all free of the junk. With savings up to 30% off and fast carbon
neutral shipping, you get top trusted groceries at your door and you can stop worrying about what
your kids get their hands on. Start shopping at thrivemarket.com slash podcast for 30% off your
first order and a free gift. If I go back, because I'm trying to work out where you
became two things. You developed yourself into a great writer and that's a skill.
Thank you. The second thing is that what you write about,
you also had learned about, and you've already explained to me. At 19, I started with reading the
Marcus Aurelius' tweets. But how did you become a great writer? Because that's a big skill. I mean,
what is the process? If you go back to when you're 19, 20, how'd you start this process off?
What was your, and what were your influences? Well, I was, I became a writer in a very old
school. I was a writer in a very old school. I was a writer in a very old school. I was a writer
in that I was the apprentice to a great writer. So I was the research assistant for, to a writer
named Robert Green, who's one of the great nonfiction writers of the, of the 20th and 21st
centuries. And I learned the craft from him and I worked for him for many years. He showed me how
books work. He showed me how to tell stories. He showed me how to research. I learned in that way.
And I think, you know, today people think it's, you know, you throw something up online and it
either finds an audience or it doesn't. I wrote every day online for, you know, several years.
My, between my first book and hitting a best, you know, hitting the New York Times bestseller list
was a period of several years after that. It was a, it was a, an apprenticeship literally,
and then an apprenticeship figuratively in sort of doing the thing over and over and over again,
and learning not just how to do the thing better, but also how to engage and interact
with an audience. And I think that's, I think that's a, I think that's a, I think that's a
you know, comedians talk about, you just got to get up on stage a lot of times.
And that is one, one advantage that the internet, you know, offers people is that it is possible to
get a lot of reps. And I got a lot of reps in my twenties, just writing and writing and writing
and writing. And, you know, eventually that, I think that paid off.
It's pretty cool that you got to sort of deal with, you know, someone wrote a book as powerful
as a 48, 48 laws of power. Like, I mean, that's not, not necessarily saying that,
that book's exactly my piece of cake, but, but nonetheless, it's a pretty, it's a pretty big
deal. Like, and a pretty successful person. Lots of people always ask me questions about mentorship.
So maybe, you know, maybe you can tell us in a philosophical way, the philosophy, the philosophy
around seeking a mentor and how you, I don't want to use the word make use, but how you take
advantage of what the mentor has to offer. And I think that's a, I think that's a, I think that's
a, I think that's a, I think that's a, I think that's a, I think that's a, I think that's a,
what, what does it mean mentorship?
It's, it's, it's a weird thing because a mentorship is something essential. And yet
it is also something that's a little bit ineffable. I, I sometimes I'll get emails
from people and they'll say, Hey, will you be my mentor? They say, what's the, how can I find a
mentor? And that's not really how it works. You know, in the old days, yeah, you would be attached
as an apprentice to someone and there would be a contract and you, you were basically like an
indentured servant. It doesn't work that way.
anymore. You have to show potential. You have to have some momentum. And somebody who needs
someone, it's weird to say they'll find you, but that's kind of how it works. You don't go to a
bar and you just ask people, hey, will you be my girlfriend? Will you be my boyfriend? It's a
process that ensues. And part of why it ensues is that you show yourself as someone who's going
somewhere. And so my relationship with Robert Greene began because I was already working for
another author and I was working for someone else. And we were in the same proximity to each
other and he happened to need one at that time. And I got a shot. And I think that's really
important. You'll get a shot. It's just, what do you do with that shot? And I think I managed to
take good advantage of it. And then you have to understand that
the mentor is paying you with the most priceless thing there is, which is their time,
their very hard-won insights. And so you have to figure out what is it that you're trying to get
out of this thing? What is success to you? I find sometimes in young people that I've worked for,
I see something in them, but I seem to want it for them more than they want it for themselves.
And that can be, that's the death knell to a potential mentor, mentee,
relationship. How important is it, do you think, in terms of your career and perhaps more
importantly, your opportunities, like mentorship opportunities, for example, Greene, is it for you
to show value? So one thing I know in my life is that the people that I'm attracted to
is someone who's building an awareness campaign, maybe
unnaturally, not even realizing they're doing it, but that's something that's valuable to me.
And as you say, I think mentors choose the mentee as opposed to the other way around.
That's exactly right. You want to be able to do something.
Yeah, well, you're putting value out there. And obviously, someone saw the value. Did you know
you're putting value out there? Did you actually say, I'm going to put value out there, or this is
a topic I'm really, really interested in, and I'm going to become the best at it?
Yeah, you got to find something that you're good at, that maybe
other people aren't good at yet. That is a value. I'll get emails from people, and they'll say,
like, hey, I want to work for you. I'll work for free. I'll do anything. And what they don't
understand, what you're saying when you say that to a busy person is, hey, I'd like you to figure
out how you can help me, right? And I don't have time for that. But if someone emails me and says,
hey, I noticed you're doing this thing. This other person,
who's a successful writer, is doing this other thing that I think you should be doing.
And I can do that for you. Or, hey, why aren't you doing X, Y, or Z? Or have you thought about
doing X, Y, or Z? Now, me and that person might have a conversation, because I'd be like, oh,
I didn't think about that. Or, oh, sure, I'll give you a shot to do that. And so what I did
very early on, the reason I was able to work with all these different authors, is I came to
understand how internet marketing works. And I was able to work with all these different authors.
And how blogs worked at a time when this was still very, very new. And so there were so many things
that Robert could teach me. But there was one thing that I could help him with. And that's
where the exchange happened. And what was that? What was that?
I could help him with internet stuff. I was the young kid who understood how computers worked.
And some of these authors whose work I really admired didn't have time to figure all that
stuff out. And that's where the exchange happened. Yeah. So it was sort of more of
the reverse. It wasn't so much you wanted to ask him to be your mentor. It was more like he wanted
you to become his mentee, because there was something valuable in exchange for what he
needed as well. And because lots of times, I recently was talking to some real estate agents,
and they were saying to me, how do I become valuable to, how do I get more listings in
Australia? You've got to get a listing. That's how you make money as a real estate agent.
And I said, well, maybe you've got to present yourself as something valuable to these individuals,
as opposed to just another transaction.
That they're all put, you know, there's every real estate agent does, you know, what's valuable
to people in your, in your district and, and just write about it, you know, and, and publish it
somewhere, wherever it's on Instagram. I don't care where you do it, but just get to your audience
and that will select you. I mean, people get selected. I think.
That's how I, that's how I got my start as a writer before I'd published a book before I was
even writing anything publicly. I started an email list where I just recommended books that I thought
were good.
And over time I developed a small audience of people who loved books. And at some point I was
able to go, Hey, I've recommended hundreds of books to you over the last several years.
And you like some of them. Is there a chance that you might like this book that I wrote?
And that's what kicked off my career. And so I think whether it's mentorship or
building a client base or, um, you know, an audience, it's all rooted in this idea of where
are you providing value? And you start there instead of, which is, you know, it's funny. One
of that's one of the laws of the 48 laws of power. Robert Greene says, um, always appeal to self
interest, never mercy or gratitude. And so when you say, Hey, help me, I really need something
from you. That's not a compelling offer, but when you say, Hey, look what I can do,
this is valuable. That's a very, that's a much more compelling thing to say.
Are we, and I mean, no doubt you've read these, um,
the letters of Machiavelli to the Prince, which when I used to set up my business as many,
many years ago, any young guys used to come and I used to give them the book. There was a book
with all the letters, not all the letters, but some of the letters in there. And I used to talk
about, you know, I should just say, read this because we should take over other businesses.
And Machiavelli was about trying to say to the Prince, look, when you take over another territory,
this is the way you've got to be. A lot of people attribute Machiavellian principles as being quite
evil and manipulative. In actual fact, I don't find them that way. I find them quite practical.
Practical outcomes. Um, how, how does, does, how do you see Machiavellian principles, um,
sort of panning out? Let's say for, for example, for importance of a business person to have read
those principles, someone who goes and makes, buys businesses, builds employment, people,
employees, builds audiences. How important are those principles to you? Do you think they have
relevance? I mean, I think they're very principled. I think they're very principled. And I would
actually say Machiavelli was a very principled guy. I mean, this is a guy who's tortured, uh,
for, for his belief that, that, that Florence actually should be a Republic. He, he was,
he was actually anti-Prince, but he was, he was smart enough to see how a powerful Prince should
operate. Um, but I think about this a lot with my books. Look, I love ancient philosophy. I'm a nerd
for these things, but I'm also very realistic and I understand that most people are not. So I've
spent a lot of time thinking about how to build my platform. I spent a lot of time thinking about
the titles, the positioning, the pricing, the approaches of the books, because I'm doing
exactly what Machiavelli and Robert Greene talked about, which is I want to make it clear that this
book is what you need. It's not what I think you need. I want to make it clear that this is, uh,
that this is valuable to you. This does something for you as opposed to coming at it the way
unfortunately too many people do, which is they, they go,
really important and you're an idiot if you don't know about it. Right. And, and no, you have to
meet the audience where they, where they are. And the audience is busy. The audience is distracted.
The audience, uh, has preconceived notions about things and you have to find a way in. And if you
can't be strategic and, and I would say a little bit Machiavellian, you're probably not going to
make it. Would you, would you mind, um, explain to the audience, our audience, um, given what you
just said, what do you see?
The difference between someone like Machiavelli or not, neither one of us knew him, but what his
letters said to the Prince versus, for example, the style and the process of say Rasputin.
I don't know that, that, that's not my, uh, my area of expertise historically, but, uh, but I
think, you know, what's interesting about Machiavelli is that Machiavelli was trying to
look back at history and deduce some patterns, good and bad, that we can learn from.
Um, he's not saying you should do all these things, but he is saying you, you gotta be aware
of all these things. And that, and that is a thing I talk a lot about in the new book,
this idea of, of, of having some, a pragmatic streak that if you just think that because
you're right, if you just think that because your cause is just, it's going to succeed,
uh, you're going to be sorely mistaken at the same time. If your cause isn't right,
if there aren't, if there isn't something behind it,
if there isn't some real principles to it, you know, you may succeed, but I don't think it's
going to be a particularly meaningful and, and significant success. And so there is a balance
there. I think the Stoics tried to strike it well, you know, they tried to, they tried to
understand the ways of the world and try to inch it a little bit closer to where they thought it
should be. And I, I do think we need more people like that. Um, you know, just tweeting about a
problem doesn't do anything about it. If you don't have the power to bring it,
into existence. And that is a really important, you know, aspect of, of all of this.
You said something really interesting about, um, you know, how you, uh, set your title.
And in 2012, you put out the book, trust me, I love this one. I love your title. Trust me,
I'm lying. Confessions of a media manipulator. Explain what the book was about. But then, and,
and obviously it gets our attention that the headline gets the attention, but obviously the
headlines more a piss taker. It's not really what the book's about, I guess.
No, I was doing an expose of the media system, but, but what I looked at is that there were a lot
of really interesting books of media criticism, historically and contemporary, but they tended
to be read only by people in the media and therefore had almost no impact and did not sell
well. And so as I, as I thought about how I was going to position and write that book, I thought
I want to reach a bigger audience than that. And so I, I, you know, I, I decided to put some of
the ideas in the book to practice. And, you know, um, to me, if you, it's one thing to talk about
something, but you've also got to be, you've also got to have some proof that you know what you're
talking about. And, and, and that's what I was trying to do with that book.
But was it, did you learn something in particular? Because it's not really philosophical as such,
but it's, is it more like a...
Although that, that is, trust me, I'm lying is a thing we call the liar's paradox,
which is, can you trust someone who's told you they've,
they're lying? Um, so I, you know, I was supposed to be provocative. Um, but, but,
but the idea in that book was, um, look, these are the forces that are acting on the information
that you are consuming. And, and I'm not saying it should be this way. I'm saying this is the
way that it is. And I know this for a fact, because I've not only seen it, but I've done it.
And, you know, it's funny that book came out and, and, and it did do very well,
but there were a lot of people, particularly people in the media that said, you know,
that, that kind of played a game of shoot the messenger. And the result was they were slow in
making a lot of the changes that, you know, we have needed to make as a society and that we're
still dealing with the consequences of. So, you know, I have, I have a mixed, uh, you know,
feeling about that book, you know, 12 years after it came out, but, but what I, I, it did what I
wanted it to do, which was it, it made public things that I felt like were kind of open secrets
in that industry. So your new book, what's your new book called, which you're about to release.
So I've been doing this, this series on the Cardinal virtues. So I did a book on courage.
I did a book on self-discipline and this new one is about the virtue of justice. It's called
right thing right now, good values, good character, good deeds. That's a very interesting one given
the American situation politically at the moment in terms of justice. Um, can you give me a little
bit of an idea about the thesis on, in that particular book that went on justice? Well,
I agree with your sentiment about the American situation, but I, I, I very much wrote a book.
That's not about legal justice. I tried to write a book about, about the more personal form of
justice, the standards we hold ourselves to the principles we act with the Mark's really said
that basically the purpose of life was good character and acts for the common good. And to
me, that's a, that's a much more urgent definition of justice than the one we think about, which is,
you know,
what did the jury say? What did the judge say? What does the law say? It's not that these things
aren't important. Of course they are. The, the, the justice system is the cornerstone of a free
and fair society. And yet just because something is illegal or not illegal, doesn't mean it's right
or it's wrong. There there's something above and below that, the sort of standards we hold
ourselves to that I think are much more important. And I mean, I have a view that, um, the law is
just legal fiction. Um, it's, it's, you know, fictions turn,
turn into, um, legislation by parliaments, precedents, which, you know, should actually
reflect the sorts of philosophical points that you're making. So justice and legal system should
reflect, um, what your book on justice talks about. Um, but unfortunately it's forever failing
us these days. I want to go back to the first book, the book I think was on courage. Yes. Okay.
It's a very difficult concept, courage. And I remember reading,
once I think it was Aristotle said this, but courage sits somewhere between recklessness and,
uh, uh, cowardice, but not in the middle. Um, so how do we, how do we work out what
courage is particularly at a personal level? Yeah. Aristotle was, that's the famous golden
mean or the Aristotelian mean the idea that, that the virtues often sit between
two people.
And I think he's right. Look, the virtues are inseparable from each other, right? Because
courage in pursuit of, uh, in, in, in unjust goal is not courage as a virtue, right? Um,
discipline, uh, disciplined commitment to the wrong idea is also not wisdom, right? And so,
so the virtues all kind of balance each other out, but, but I agree, you know,
courage isn't just recklessly charging into battle. It's not putting, pushing all your chips
into the middle of the table on every hand. It's, it's knowing what's important. It's knowing what
the right amount is and it's knowing when you're going to put, you know, your ass on the line,
so to speak. And so, um, when, when we think about courage, it's easy to think of courage
in isolation, but of course what that courage is pursuing is where justice comes in. So it's been
an interesting series to do because it's hard to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to,
to say where one virtue begins and the other ends.
It is because, you know, some, we are younger people in particular, but continually,
continuously confronted with that person is being allocated the, the virtual, or at least being
said they're courageous. It could be an AFL, an NFL player. It could be a rugby league player.
It could be a basketball. It could be a business person, you know, and we get these iconic people
up there that we sort of, uh, in social media sort of does this.
Tries to force these young people to look to that individual as someone who represents all
forms of courage. Yeah. We don't know anything about their, their story. Um, and I, and I find
courage to be one of the most challenging things to explain to younger people. Um, and your book,
does it go through it like in a, in a, in a deep storytelling way?
It does. It does. I tried to look at examples of, of, you know, just overcoming simple fear.
I tried to look at it as,
as, you know, sort of taking severe risks in the endurance required to sustain that courage. And
then I wanted to look at that sort of true selfless courage, you know, when, when people
give everything in pursuit of an idea or a country or a cause. So yeah, I, I think courage,
it's hard, it's hard to distill courage down to a tweet. That's why I wrote a whole book about it,
right? It's, it's a tough thing to wrap your head around, but it's hard. It's also hard to find a,
uh, a country or a cause,
or a tradition that doesn't hold courage up as one of the most important of the virtues. So
I, I think courage is, is this, you know, courage is one of those things that you,
you can't give it a simple definition, but we also seem to know it when we see it.
Well, we're looking forward to seeing you in July when you come out to Australia,
Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane. Um, and I'm sure the dates will be coming up shortly and we'll
be able to put up on our website. Um, just quickly, your one hour talk, are you going to
talk about your last, the last, the latest book and the previous two books, or are you going to
just give us a...
A full rundown of the, the, you know, the four sort of categories you want to talk about?
I want to talk about, I want to talk about all the ideas in, in Stoic philosophy and,
and how we can apply them to our actual lives, which to me is what, what philosophy is all about.
Well, it's going to be awesome. And, uh, and, and I'm going to try and get to one of those
three because I'm always traveling around the joint. So I'd love to hear you and, uh, good
luck to you. And thanks very much for coming on today. It's been awesome.
Thanks so much, Mark.
You're welcome.
I appreciate it.
If you've been listening along for a while,
you'll know I'm all about staying sharp physically and mentally. As I get older,
staying on top of my game means being smarter with how I support my body and mind day in,
day out. One product I've already added to my routine from the bulk nutrients range
is their NMN Extend. It's a science-backed blend of 10 powerful ingredients, including NMN,
resveratrol, and hyaluronic acid. Now this is designed to support everything from energy and
muscle recovery to skin hydration.
Joint health and even mental clarity. And by the way, I need all those. Whether I'm powering
through a busy week or just investing in my long-term health, NMN Extend helped me stay
ready for whatever's next. And believe me, it tastes pretty good too. Head to bulknutrients.com.au
and see why NMN Extend might be the edge you've just been looking for. Not all that long ago,
money was simple. You earned it, save some, spend some, and maybe invested in a house if you were
lucky. No apps,
no online banking, no thinking beyond what was in your wallet. But times have changed.
In today's money market, growth can come in many ways. And the way we think about cash
is continuously evolving. Enter Australia's highest rated crypto exchange, SwiftX. Whether
you are just starting to explore the crypto market or are already deep in the game, SwiftX
makes it easy to acquire, sell, and trade digital assets all in one place. So if you're someone
who's thought about dipping your toes in the crypto market, you're probably thinking,
where to start? This might be for you. Visit swiftx.app forward slash markboros to check it out.
Showing 507 of 507 timestamps
Need your own podcast transcribed?
Get the same AI-powered transcription service used to create this transcript. Fast, accurate, and affordable.