Seeking fame and success can become an addiction that ruins what matters most. Stoic Ryan Holiday explains how to find sustainable contentment instead! What We Discuss with Ryan Holiday: The hunt for fame and success can become addictive and create an insatiable desire for more, leading people to rationalize pursuing them at the expense of family time and personal well-being. The constant pursuit of growth and comparison metrics (book sales, download numbers, rankings) often detracts from the joy of doing work you love. Many successful people rationalize sacrificing time with their children by claiming it's "for the kids," when in reality it's often driven by their own ambition, ego, or insecurity. Historical perspective shows that even the most famous or successful people eventually fade from memory, suggesting that pursuing fame or status for its own sake is ultimately hollow. You can create a more fulfilling personal and professional life by focusing on doing what you love for its own sake rather than external validation. This means setting up your work to be as independent as possible from outside institutions and metrics, allowing you to maintain creative control and do things on your own terms. This approach leads to more sustainable success and greater personal satisfaction. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1086 And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally! This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: jordanharbinger.com/deals Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course! Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom! Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What is the main theme of Ryan Holiday's philosophy?
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, for people who don't know, so this table we're sitting at was Joan Didion's table, and I have a line in the thing. She says, writing is a hostile act because you're trying to persuade someone or worse, force them to understand your thinking about something, right? And to do that, you have to comprehend first what you are thinking. Yeah.
And so there's something about just winging it that is just never going to be as... It's rude not to take the time to do it. And look, if you're disabled or dyslexic or something, totally different story. But there is something about the like, well, I'll just throw a bunch of shit at you and then you process it and then you come back to me.
Even if you are though, you could still dictate it. Unless you can't talk, right? But in which case, why are you sending me a voicemail? Yeah. or don't edit it and whatever. If there's a wrong word in there and I can read between the lines, fine. It's the mumbling and the rambling where I'm like, we're not on a phone call. This is, I can't even, I'm not even spending time with you.
Like if I'm on the phone with somebody and they're like, oh, I'm just getting in the car, man, it's so hot in Texas. I'm like, where at least we're talking. If you're just talking at me, it's the equivalent of a podcast where I'm like, hey, so what do you guys want to talk about? I don't know. Oh, well, you wrote a book, didn't you? That's cool. No, you don't handle a podcast like that.
So now I'm a victim of your four-minute podcast that could have been one sentence. That's what a voice memo is. It's unbelievable. You're in this weird place where people analyze everything you do through a lens of stoicism. And it's a little bit hard to watch sometimes. Like recently you were cleaning up like a dog carcass and garbage that had just been thrown in a row to your house.
I had to do this yesterday. You filmed because you were like, hey, I want to set an example. I assume because you're like, I want to set an example of what it means to live a good life and encourage other people to do the same. And people are like, why are you filming your virtues, bro? That's not stoic. That's not stoic, bro. What do you think is happening there?
I'm more perplexed as to how the thing keeps happening. That's probably why I recorded the video. So I'll give you an example. I drove... I was driving my son home yesterday. We live on this dirt road. All the houses are on this dirt road. And we have this shared mailbox. Oh, so the postman doesn't have to go. Yeah, because they can't drive on the road.
And so I pull up, and there's like 10 enormous black garbage bags of trash that someone had dumped since I had driven on the road this morning. And... I'm like, ah, it's disgusting. It's 100 degrees outside. And part of me is like, I should just, I didn't do this. This is a mile and a half from my house.
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Chapter 2: How does fame affect personal relationships?
Yeah, that kind of freaks me out a little bit.
Deer carcasses or whatever. It's a lot of dead dogs. And I can't figure out if it's a dog fighting ring or if it's a... Do they not know you can bury things in your own yard? Or again, you can just throw it in a dumpster somewhere, I guess.
Like the deer thing is maybe hunting, but the dead dog carcasses, if you find one, you're like, oh man, that's someone's pet. But when you find five dead dog carcasses, something's going on, man.
I have personally disposed of at least 10 dead dogs. That sounds like illegal activity. And that's the only the ones that I was like, this is fresh enough for me to do something about, not like I just had to- It's falling apart. So anyways, I'm baffled by that, but- I was filming the video because I was trying to talk about this thing, which is kind of what the new book is about.
But when I first moved there, and I think this is how I went through life, I'd be like, well, I hope someone takes care of this. Yeah, sure. You know? I just hope someone takes care of this. I would call the police and be like, hey... I remember one time I was running... Right after one of these happened. And a police car was driving down my road, which never happens. This is a private road.
And so I flagged down the officer and I go, hey, man, like, I don't know if you saw, but there's like, and he's like, it's weird, huh? You know, he's like baffled by it, too. Yeah. Not like, hey, I'm going to like take care of this for you. Right. But like, he's like, I wish they wouldn't put them in the bags because then it makes it harder for him to decompose.
He was just thinking about it like purely from a like, this is just how it goes. It would be better if it was more natural because it would go away faster. Yeah. I mean, okay. So I grew up where I lived and how I thought like, this is what government is for. This is like what the police are for or the sanitation department is for, animal control is for.
And one of the things you learn in Texas, I'm not saying it's good. I hate it about Texas. But you're just like, no, no, no, no. Nobody gives a shit. Yeah. I was like, oh, if I don't like this and I don't like it because when I have to drive by it or I have to run by it, I have to smell it. It's awful. And then also bad for the environment. I guess the dogs are fine, but the trash.
I was like, I have to take care of this. I have to pick this up and put it in my truck. I have to do it. When we think of something like that happening, we think justice is like, well, I'm going to call the police. They're going to investigate the crime. They're going to arrest the person. The person is going to be punished. And that is a version of legal justice for the situation.
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Chapter 3: What can history teach us about success and fame?
That's a little weird, you know? Yeah. Where you're like, I don't know if you need to have daughters to know that sexual assault is bad. Yeah. I got those too.
I see those people too.
But I don't know. I think mostly what parenting did was it opened me up. Like, it's very easy to be selfish and to just think about you because you've got your own pain and your own problems and your own ambitions and to just sort of be closed off.
And I think what parenting should do is, I mean, it forces you on a daily basis to spend a lot of time thinking about what these other people are thinking and what they're going through and why they're acting this way. I think one of the things that hit me earlier was like, I'd be like, why are our kids acting this way? Yeah. And my wife would be like, oh, it's because we skipped nap or whatever.
Or it's because we didn't take lunch seriously and they didn't really eat anything. And realizing, oh, there's this very specific cause and effectiveness of behavior in children, but also in people. And when you're forced to see it over and over and over again with your kids, what I tried to take from that deliberately was like, okay, everyone is acting for a reason. And I myself act for a reason.
And I always let myself off the hook for that reason, right? I didn't mean it. I'm tired. I'm overwhelmed. I'm whatever. I think it did cultivate some extra empathy in me because it forced me to, it's not that your kids are never in the wrong, but like they're kids, right? Right. And so you have to think about why they're acting this way. You can't just be like, it's because they're an asshole.
It's because they suck. It's because those people are like that, right? All the things we do to not empathize or care about other people because it would be a burden. And so kids force you to do that. And I tried very deliberately as that process happened. to take out sort of a meta lesson from it that I think made me better.
I like that. I think for me, you kind of encouraged me to think about this, I think in some ways, which is that, for example, every time you go somewhere, I know you're traveling today, so I'm going to, I'm twisting the knife, but like whenever you have to choose to go somewhere, it's like, this has to be important. Like I, Came to Austin because it's like, I'm going to be on your show.
I'm going to interview you. I want to see the bookstore. Haven't seen your wife in years or whatever it's been. And I would love to visit. And then it's like, and then I'm going to New York to do 8 billion things, not to hang out for four days and like maybe do some show. No, it's like. Back to back to back to back. It's not going to be all fun and games. It's going to be quite stressful.
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Chapter 4: How can one create a fulfilling life without external validation?
Likewise. And I think you're right. There's most of these examples I think you've given me. Gandhi was like the last kids were last in line. Yeah. Angela Merkel, her dad was, I think, a pastor or a priest.
He was like a pastor for disabled children. Right. But his own children were always kind of last in line.
Last in line. And then was it the Queen of England who like was gone for months at a time and then she sees her kids and they run up to give her a hug and she's like, no, not right now. And then she like greets some dignitary people.
Yeah, she's been gone for months. The royal yacht comes in, her kids rush up to her. And there's like a protocol with the queen is supposed to like greet, I don't know, the prime minister. There's some protocol she was supposed to observe and like your kids are not part of that protocol. And Prince Charles, like now the king of England, runs up to his mom. He's like five or six.
She says, not you, dear. I have to do this first. Right. And I think it's even like a title of one of the chapters in his memoir. So these little decisions that you make, they have this searing impact on a person. I was actually just thinking about that on the way here, like the way in which like we say our kids come first and then like, I don't know, I was on the phone yesterday.
My kids are making crazy noise, but I'm on this phone. I'm like, you shut up. Yeah. Not you, who, by the way, worked for me. put up with this background noise. Or was trying to sell me something. Yeah. Yeah. Like I was saying, like saying to my kids, these people are more important than you. Or like I was going somewhere and like, I don't like to be late, but am I rushing drop off with my kids?
Right. So this other person doesn't have to wait one minute to Obviously, it's not good to make anyone wait. We should have left a little earlier. But the point is, I'm saying, no, no, no, no. What you need is less important than this trivial inconvenience to this other person, the ease with which we do that.
I feel like it's forced me to just think about things differently and I think become more just generally empathetic. But the sad thing is, yes, most of the great men and women from history were not good parents.
Yeah, it sucks to read that stuff because you think, is this a necessary trade? It's not. I don't think it is.
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Chapter 5: What role does parenting play in shaping personal values?
You don't have anything better to do?
Yes. You could have been a better plastic surgeon in Michigan. Right. Like there's a line in writing, and I forget who said it, but something like every kid you have is a book. you won't write. And there's probably something to that. I meant negative two books. The answer to that is to shrug. Because you're not changing the world with any of this shit. It's not that important.
There's an ego in thinking like, I chose not to have kids because my work's so important. If you don't want to have kids, don't have kids. I'm not saying it's morally good or bad to do it. Just the narcissism of like, no, no, no, these are my children. It's like, all right, bro. It's cringy. Yeah, you make makeup tutorials or whatever. Right, yeah.
It's true. Look, and I'm always, if people are on the fence about not having kids, I would say don't.
I say this when people are on the fence about writing a book. Yeah, don't do it. Yeah, please don't.
Yeah, please don't for the rest of us and also for the kids. I guess the book itself doesn't have feelings, but it doesn't need to be out there. Save the trees. There are people that have work and you go, I couldn't do this if I had children, so I decided not to. And you're like, but you do a radio show. So like, I mean, it's a great show, but really like when you're gone...
maybe people replay this occasionally, but they're just going to be like old folks when they're gone. No one's going to go back a hundred years and listen to your old interviews, really. I mean, it's very unlikely.
I was interviewing some television hosts and he was like, I don't see my kids as much as I'd like, but like, I'm doing these shows for them. And I was like, that's not why you're on TV three times a day, bro. That has nothing to do with them. You're on TV three times a day because they pay you millions of dollars, one. And two, you like fucking talking. That's what your superpower is.
Don't make it about them. You got to be intellectually honest about why you're doing the thing. There's something uniquely egotistical about doing a selfish thing and then making it a statement of your selflessness and sacrifice.
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