Are Stoics Emotionless? Erick Cloward, Author of Stoicism 101

Are Stoics really emotionless? It is the most common thing people believe about Stoicism, and it puts a lot of people off the one idea that might actually help them.

In this conversation I sit down with Erick Cloward, host of the Stoic Coffee Break podcast and author of Stoicism 101, to take the myth apart. We get into why the word "stoic" came to mean cold and shut down, and why the Stoics actually felt their emotions fully. They just learned to be masters of them rather than ruled by them.

Erick shares the example that makes it click: two people miss the same bus. One shrugs and reads a book, the other is furious. Same event, two reactions. The difference is never the event. It is the judgement you add to it. We also get into amor fati, the view from above, and what it really takes to react less and recover faster.

Try this after listening: next time you react strongly, name the event in plain terms, then name the story you added on top. The gap between them is where the work happens.

Erick's book and podcast: stoic.coffee
 Companion article: https://www.stoichandbook.co/podcast/are-stoics-emotionless/

Free 7-Day Stoic Challenge: stoicchallenge.co

The Stoic Vault: stoicvault.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:18

First of all, Eric, welcome to the Stoic Handbook Podcast. This podcast is where we explore ideas that can transform how we live, think, and thrive in today's world. And today, everyone, I'm joined by Eric Cloud, the host of Stoic Coffee Break Podcast, and the author of Stoicism 101 from Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus to the Law of Reason and Amorfati, an essential primer on Stoic Philosophy. We're going to get into that book, but I've got to say this is now probably the one Stoicism book I would recommend to anyone who's getting interested in Stoicism because the way that you've laid it out is so comprehensive. It's like a high, highly readable, user-friendly, and practical guide and resource for all things Stoicism. So I really love the book. I'm both reading it, almost finished it, and listening to the audiobook, which you narrate. So doing both. Eric has spent years diving into the timeless wisdom of Stoicism and sharing practical ways to apply it to modern life. And in this episode, we're going to explore how Stoicism can help us navigate everything from social media chaos to personal heartbreak, and even we may imagine what Mark Surelius might think of today's world. So, Eric, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Great. Thank you for having me, and thanks for the kind words about my book. I'm glad that it's sitting. That's how we planned the book. I it's funny how it came about because I had thought for years I would love to write a book on Stoic philosophy. I usually write my podcast episodes so that I can think a bit deeper when I'm working on them. And about just about a year ago, I got a message on LinkedIn from a publisher, so owned by Simon and Schuster asked me if I'd be interested in writing a book in their ser their 101 series. And I was like, sure, that'd be great. And so we worked on it. It took me about six months to write it. And yeah, so it was pretty tight timeline, but I'm glad I'm really happy with the way that it turned out.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Six months. That's not long considering how deep the book is and how you turn kind of complex history and ideas into something that's super quick to understand and easy to read. Six months, I think it's really good.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Well, thanks. Yeah. Like I said, I've been writing my podcast episodes almost from the beginning, and I've been doing that for about seven years, so I've been uh kind of have gotten used to sitting down and writing like that. But the because the timeline was so tight, I actually got better at sitting down and condensing my ideas into things really quickly. And it's that it's that whole thing of by having the tight deadline and really having to focus on things. Sometimes I would sit down and write for 10 to 12 hours in a single day. It was Yeah, it was pretty intense, mostly because I made them and they said, Oh, can we do is the are the deadlines good for you? And I said, Well, can you push it out for a month? And I said, Sure. They pushed out the final deadline by a month, but not the mid-deadline. And so I still only had I thought, okay, I have three months to write it, and then I went and checked it out, and I actually only had four weeks from the time that I started writing until the mid-deadline. So I was like, oh. So for a month I basically just sat in this dorm room that I was renting out and worked for 10, 12 hours a day, got that done. And then I set aside another six weeks to finish up the second half, give myself a break, and then I got COVID, which knocked me out for two weeks. So then I had to sit down for four weeks and just get the other ones just in good shape. And then when there was the editing process, which took a couple of months, and then yeah, it was quite a wild trip.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

I'm curious. Obviously, I create Stoicism articles and podcasts, but I've never immersed myself in the way that you have in writing Stoicism 101 for six months like that. How did your approach to Stoicism, your relationship to it, change if at all? Were there any kind of areas that deepened or surprised you as you fully immersed yourself in writing this book?

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Yeah, yeah, there were quite a few. I hadn't ever really dealt into what people kind of term as the Stoic theology. And so that was something that was a bit new for me. And what that entails is the idea of the Logos, which is to them the kind of their idea of what God is. It's a divine, powerful principle. It's the thing that runs the universe, if you will, that it's the reason why there's something rather than nothing. It's why the planets move in the orbits they do. Their way of going, these are the things that are unknown but are that we know exist, because we can see the stars, we can see the planets, we can see the sun. There's matter that's here. Why is there something that's not? And so their way of ascribing the great unknown, but to them it was a benevolent but a benevolent force, not unlike God, but not a personal God that you would you imagine sitting on a throne in the sky with a long white beard that you would talk to, but just more of a goodness, a power, like I said, almost a force within the universe. So that was one big thing that I hadn't ever really dealt into. The second big thing was its impact on Christianity. So I went through that and looking at the early Christian church and how much it borrowed from Stoicism, and a lot of the early Christian thinkers, like Tertilion and some of the others, were very much had studied Stoicism before they found Christianity and brought a lot of the Stoic ideas into it. And at one point there were these fake letters that God circulated around that were supposedly between St. Paul and Seneca. And so they Seneca is a kind of an unofficial saint, that he's one of ours, even though he was never a baptized Christian, never professed any Christianity, but that his ideas and the way that he spoke and thought, they looked upon as being almost like a kindred spirit, so that he was like an adopted saint in a way, which I found interesting. And then over the years they relate to, yeah, those letters didn't really exist. This never would have happened. And they, through archaeological evidence, found it the letters were falsified, but they were written in the style and voice of Seneca and Saint So. I thought that was an interesting thing.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

That is cool. Yeah, that is cool. Yeah, I still feel like there's a lot that I want to learn about the other branches of stoicism, like the yeah, and the logos is definitely one of them. But you the way that you structure the book, how did you c how did you decide what to include and what not to include? Because it's the table of contents I said to you when I first started reading it is so structured. How did you know what to include in that?

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Yeah, that was that actually took a little bit of time because i i it was one of the things of I want to make sure that I get all these topics in. There were some I from the first I think I did two or three passes on it, and really just wanted to make sure that I got everything in it that needed to be there. And then it w there was some of the items I felt, I was like, oh, you know what, this one is too close to this, and it really is should be merged into this topic. And you know, it's there wasn't enough differentiation between the two. Yeah. Then one thing I did notice was that when I was writing the second half, that there were some ideas that I hadn't really thought of that were inspired by some quotes that I was working on in one section. I was like, well, you know what? This one really should be in here. These other ones I don't think are nearly as strong, so let me get rid of those. Like the idea of oikiosis, which is a stoic philosophy of how you develop compassion and empathy and connection throughout your life. And the idea is that when you're firstborn, everything is about you. It's all about your survival, it's just all about you. And then it extends to your your siblings and your family, and you start to see how your needs are are aligned in many ways. And so you work start working together with your family, and then you see it with your community, and eventually then it extends out to the rest of the world. And it was it like an idea of concentric circles, that one is for you, your family, then your community, then the world. And I can't remember who the stoic was who did that. He came up with this idea and he said, Your goal in life is to shrink those circ those lines as closely as possible. And I thought that was that was a very interesting visual, and I was like, I like that. So I put Oikiosis in there, and then I had one that was about love, and I hadn't thought about stoics and love. And I was like, oh, actually that's really important. Let me throw that one in and push this other one out because they are like, you have to have 60 chapters, no more, no less. And so I was like, okay, this is what we're gonna do. And I went through and I tried to structure them in a way that you could that they built upon each other, but you didn't necessarily have to read the previous one in order for that topic to make sense. There are a few things that it helps, like if you don't understand the dichotomy of control, then a lot of things aren't gonna make sense. You know, but I did try to make it so that each chapter was self-contained, but that they were also somewhat loosely connected. So kind of like a good episode or a season of ER. You can watch an individual episode and it's good, but then if you watch the one before, it makes a little more sense because it might bring a thread through line through the season, but each individual episode can be can be read on its own and hopefully can stand on its own and still bring some enlightenment. But and then I try to structure them in a way that it made sense when grouping things together, at least in some regions that made to be next to each other.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

I love Seneca on time management early on, because it just immediately as someone who's interested in using my time well, it immediately I was reading about stoicism and history, and then it was like time management, I thought I can use this straight away, these ideas from Seneca, so I love that part of the book, the way you introduced that. There's a quite a lot of misconceptions about stoicism. I suppose the classic one is that Stoicism's this anemotional philosophy of life. What is the biggest misconception about stoicism that you think is important to put straight for someone who is maybe slightly informed? Is there something that you're like, this is really important, pay attention to this, or this is what people are telling you, it's not accurate?

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Yeah, I mean, I think there are a few things on there. And obviously the first one is the lack of emotion. And that and w talk to people like explain, well, the part of the reason why that came and why the term stoic means what it does today, small Stoicism, as we call it, is simply that the Stoics, when something was going south, there was calamity happening. The Stoics, because they had practiced that discipline, weren't reacting like everybody else. So something's happening, they aren't running around with like a chicken with their head cut off, they're taking their time and they're or at least they're controlling their reactions to things. And it's not that they don't feel those emotions, it's just they have control over their own emotions. And so over time, when something bad was happening and people were freaking out, and the stoic was nice and calm, they're just like, he must be disconnected from his emotions because everybody else is freaking out, and he's not, or she's not, so there must be something they must be disconnected because and it's that whole idea of when people have that idea that circumstances are the things that control your emotions. And I try to and as an example I give to people, I'm like, if st if circumstances controlled your emotions, if that was something that was strictly true, then two people missing the same bus should have the exact same reaction. If one of them freaks out, then the other one should be freaking out. If circumstances controlled our emotions. But two people miss the same bus, one person goes, huh? Well, I'm gonna sit down and read while I'm waiting for the next one, and is chill with his time and totally relaxed, and the other one might be freaking out and all sorts of angry about it. You know, and I use that as an example to show that it's the way that you think about your situation that causes your emotions. So I think that's one big thing. I think the next big thing is oh, I just had it and it kind of slipped on my Yeah. I think that right there is probably one of the biggest things that most people, when they ask me, it's just all about aren't they emotionless? Don't they feel anything? And it's no, they feel their emotions dramatically. They're just masters of their emotions. And they're kind of like a Zen master in some ways. You know, they feel all of the things. They just understand that it's it's kind of like the weather, you know, it's raining this morning, it's sunny this afternoon. Your emotions are the same way, and sometimes you have to sit with them, they pass by.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

Yeah, I love that example with the bus, catching missing the bus. That's that yeah, that really hits home for me. There's a La Roche-Focald quote from his Maxims that I think about a lot when it comes to Stoicism, and he writes that supreme intelligence is knowing the real value of things. And I kind of relate that back to the idea that Stoics feel emotions, but they try to feel them in proportion or accurately to what is happening, so they're not going to get super flustered by something that they deem is not worth getting fusted about.

unknown 13:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

Yeah, I like that. Yeah, I like that thought. That yeah, that you feel your emotions in proportion to the situation at hand. So yeah, I like that. And I think that's part of for me, one of the reasons why stoicism was so attractive is because I used to be angry about a lot of things and I get set off very easy about all kinds of things. And so when I started reading about stoicism and understanding that, oh, really, it's just the way that you're thinking about this, not a thing. Because I always wondered how people could be so calm in some situations where I was getting really riled up about it. I'm like, how do they do that? You know, why is and I was just of that because I'm like, here I am, so reactive, and they're so calm and cool and collected, and they know the right thing to say, they know the right thing to do. They and for me, I would be like, getting angry about this thing. And I'm like, how do they do that? And then when I started reading about stoicism, it's just like, well, it's your perspective. It's it's that story that you're telling yourself in your head that does that. Then it it still took a long time to really integrate that into me as a person and my personal thinking and stuff like that. But and people ask me that, so how do you get good at implementing these things in your life? And I kind of say, well, I kind of cheated. And they're like, Well, how do you cheat? And I said, Well, I create a podcast on this, and so I think about this almost every day and every week. So it's a constant, ongoing thing, but it's that consistency that does it. And I gave myself something where I had to be consistent about it, and so because of how I've been able to implement it, and I still struggle and I still fall short on things, and I still have to work my way through these things, but it's always a work in progress, but I'm a lot better than I used to be for sure.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Yeah, wow. Yeah, it's difficult to imagine that you would have been that reactive just from the the energy and the and the vibe. I do think that just that thought alone, that epicetus and the stoic stress, that it's not the event, but your judgment about the event. Just if you can just eve even if you don't embody it, but you just think there's something to that thought can be life-changing. Because then every time you react, maybe ten minutes later you can just go, it was probably how I was thinking about it that probably made me feel that way. And then every time you can be 1% better and feel that less intensely or recover more quickly. So yeah, I do think you know, people talk a lot about, you know, I've woken up and not sleepwalking through life anymore. I do tend to think that for me, that waking up, that being more aware is just recognizing that I am not reacting necessarily to external events at all times. It's my judgment and my opinion that is massively shaping how I'm feeling in any given moment.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

Yeah. And it allows you to, when you internalize that and you can truly see that, it allows you in the moment to not be so reactive to things. Another example of it for me was that when I was younger, because of my own insecurities, if somebody would disagree with me about something that I felt was important, oftentimes we get into I would get in very defensive about it and we get into an argument about it. And as I got further and further into stoicism, I was like, well, why is this the case? Why is this such a thing? Why do I really care that much about it? And I realized that I was just very insecure. And if they were rejecting this important idea that I was putting forward, I took it as a personal rejection of me. And so being able to look at it from a little bit more of a clinical point of view, going, oh, we just have a different opinion on something. Doesn't mean that w them disagreeing with me means that I'm wrong. It just means that they don't agree with my opinion about this thing. That's it. And so then I c it what that does in any conversation then is that it allows me to not worry about anybody else's opinion. I can just leave their opinion where it is. They can put it out there and I can examine it and go, oh, okay. That's your opinion. Now that's an opinion. That's fine. And I don't take offense at those things anymore because I recognize that it's just their opinion. And it doesn't mean anything more than that.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

100%. Yeah, I'm right there with you. I could before I could find myself getting into these kind of debates and taking things personally. And over time I find it almost charming when someone just very aggressively disagrees with me. It's oh cool, that's cool. Why? You know, I'm just I don't need it's not a personal attack, it's just like their belief, their opinion, and you can still find things that you appreciate about a person, even if they have different ideas about you. You know, there's always something that you can enjoy about someone else. So yeah. Just like to give something practical to listeners. If someone is feeling super overwhelmed and stressed, and they maybe they find this episode they're anxious, stressed, they see stoicism. This is meant to help me, I think. Is there a practice that you favor, maybe something from Stoicism 101, that can get people at least shifting some of that discomfort quickly? Is there a technique or a practice that they could look into?

SPEAKER_00 19:01

Yeah, I think there are a couple. One that I've been thinking about and trying to implement a little bit better of things. Obviously, if you're in great distress, if you're really just having a rough time with things, the view from above is always a just a very powerful one. And that's when you just zoom out and imagine you're looking down on the world from 30,000 feet. And what do you what does your problem mean at that point? If you could see your problem, if you could see your the thing that's distressing you run you know from that far above, people look like ants at that point, if you could see them, and you can't see them from 30,000 feet. But the idea is that if you were standing on a high cliff and you're looking down, you don't see the the individual problems like that. You just see people going about their day. And if you can imagine yourself in that same way, if you could look down and see from that distance, that can be incredibly helpful. Another one, surprisingly for me lately that I've really been digging into is there's always a morfati, which is to love your fate. And that's that it's just that acceptance of life as it actually is. And part of the reason why I've really been work excuse me, I've really been working on that is because when you can just stop being upset about life not meeting your expectations. And if you just learn to accept and love everything that happens to you, one, because it's gonna happen anyway. That's the funny thing, well, is people like, well, what if I don't want to accept what happens to me? Is that gonna stop it from happening to you? And they stop and go, well, well, I guess you got a point there. And I'm like, it just because you don't like something doesn't mean that it's not going to happen. So you can love it or hate it. That's always your choice. And if you choose to hate it and be angry about it and upset about it, then it's you wishing that things were different than they actually were and choosing to put yourself in a bad mood. So for example, I got ripped off when I was, I moved to Amsterdam last year and I was looking for an apartment, and I had this guy who ripped me off five, 5,500 euros. And I at first I was just more worried because he disappeared on me that maybe something had happened to him why he wasn't contacting me. And then as time went on, he wasn't responding. I f I figured it out. I was like, okay, okay, I probably got hosed on this one. And I was disappointed, I was a little bit frustrated, but I didn't get angry because there wasn't getting angry wasn't gonna change anything about the situation. And then I would be in a bad mood for several hours or days or however long it took me to get out of that mood. And so it was my choice to be in that mood or not. And in this case, I decided that I'm gonna make the choice of not being angry about this and just recognize that I can only do what I'm gonna do and just let it go. And so I went to the police, filed a report, and they said, yeah, we probably won't find him. There's thousands of these that happen every year. And then just last week I got a notice from the court system saying, hey, we caught this guy, here's the whole complaint against him. There were five other people who had also reported him. And that was kind of my thinking was that I'll be a data point in this, and if there's enough data points, then they can finally hopefully catch this guy. I w I at the time I was just like, oh, okay, stupid choice on my side, and p my friends were like, Oh, aren't you angry? And I'm like, not really. I feel disappointed, but that's about it, because I decided that it wasn't gonna be worth it for me to be angry that way. And probably the last thing, and this helps for a lot of people, is the hundred year test. It's like in a hundred years, is this gonna matter? You know? It's in a hundred years, is anybody going to even care that this happened, that you made this mistake, that you did this thing on social media? I remember one time, this was probably about 15 years ago, I got on Twitter by Weird Al Yankovic. So I he posted this video of him driving along in his car and putting up a s a little thing, an L Y on the end of a thing that said, children drive slow, or something like that. And so he put an L Y on the end of it and it said slowly. And so he goes, Come on, people, grammar. And so I thought it was a funny video. And so I reposted it and I put Grammar Nazis Unite, just joking around like that. And I misspelled grammar because I was I just wasn't paying attention. And I'd just gotten back from a 50-mile bike ride, so I was a little tired. And then he wrote back all capital letters with dashes between it, grammar spelled correctly. And it trended that night on Twitter, and I was so embarrassed, and I was just like, oh, just and I look back on that now and I just think how ridiculous it was to be so embarrassed by something online with all of these strangers that I will never meet, I will never see, they have no idea who I am. And in a hundred years, is anybody gonna care? No. So I can look back on it now and laugh, but at the time I was like, oh my gosh, I got dissed by Weird Al. This is awful. And yeah. So it's just a funny thing.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

On that topic, I think you're you're pointing to something that, yeah, at least for me, a lot of confrontation, disagreeable individuals, they don't exist so much in real life as much as they do online nowadays, especially where you create things on the internet, you're putting your thoughts and ideas out there. What is the appropriate sort of stoic, maybe the Marcus Aurelius way of dealing with trolls? Because I've been posting some videos and I've been seeing some comments and I'm just like, are you just looking to be difficult? It's interesting. What are you what's the purpose of this? What's the right stoic perspective on this stuff, in your opinion?

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Yeah, I always add it as is it worth my time and energy? And I just don't have time and energy to put into that. And so I have people occasionally who post things on my stuff and that that they're upset or they're mad about things, especially if it has anything that they consider even slightly political and disagrees with their political opinion. And I in my personal life I am very political. I I what's going on in the world, I'm very fair-minded about it, and I think that's very important for Stoics. I don't bring a lot of politics into my podcast simply because I'm trying to try to make sure that it's open to everyone and everybody, and I'm just talking about these things. That may change in the future as we see what's happening in the United States and how it's just getting I think that a lot of the things that are going on are very unethical, to put it mildly, and in some cases very immoral and obviously illegal. And so I think that there's a lot of things happening. And it's not that I don't want to speak up, it's just what I'm trying to do is influence the individual. But usually, yeah, usually it's because somebody has a particular political opinion about something or a particular person. Like I was on a discussion a while back with someone and mentioned how I thought that Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson were not doing good for young men, especially, with a lot of the ideas and the influences they had. I think Jordan Peterson started off well and had some good ideas, but I think he's fallen into some weird things, like he was talking about how basically his ideas about gender, all based being based very much on the Bible and using the Bible as first principles, which I just thought was silly personally. I think the Bible can teach some things, but you can't I don't think you can use it as because the Bible said this, we must do this. It's like, no, use the Bible as a guide of how maybe you should do things, like what Jesus said, you know, he gave you some pretty good ideas and they're pretty valuable. And I think that's why stoicism appeals to me far more than religion ever did, which that it's it's not, it doesn't prescribe what you have to do. It prescribes here are principles that you should hold in order to view the world in a more correct way so you can make better judgments. Whereas I think religions tell you these are the judgments you have to make. You have to hate these people, you have to follow these steps in order to get to God. And stoicism is we don't care, we don't have rules, we just have principles. And that for me was, I think, something that was very appealing. And it but it's harder. It's harder because you have to apply more judgment. You have to think about things more, you have to take that time to go, is this wise? Is this courageous? Is this am I practicing justice? Am I treating people fairly? What does that mean to treat people fairly? And am I being disciplined in my life? That takes time and effort, and a lot of people don't want that. They want something that just prescribes, do this, you're done.

SPEAKER_02 27:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

Yeah, 100%. And and also the way that Stoicism was formed, which you go into in Stoicism 101, was through people meeting, having dialogue, questioning and updating the different early, mid, and late Stoics. They're open about what they're changing, what they're improving. It's not like this dogmatic, this is it, and it can never be changed. And you get that from religion. So it's yeah, I'm not a fan of that. You mentioned Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson. I've recently been watching this Netflix show called Adolescence, which is an interesting show about a young male who is suspected of murdering a classmate. And without giving spoilers, it's linked to this idea of male rage, the world of incels, and I because I can't get what I want and I'm insecure and I'm this or that, I'm going to attack those that don't gratify me. And I haven't been a teenager, obviously, for many years, so I've forgotten a lot of what that felt like. But it did remind me when you are a teenager, you are figuring your place in the social hierarchy. You're often in pain, you often feel judged, you're often comparing yourself to other people. And it can be a really tough place to be, especially you're getting these new drives, attraction is coming online. I and it just got me thinking, what how could stoicism help teenagers that are feeling insecure or they're feeling this pressure of who am I, where do I stack up to other people? It just got me thinking about that. I was wondering if you have any thoughts on that.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

Yeah, good question. Sorry, I needed a cop there. Yeah, this is something that I've been it's been in the back of my mind for a while, and I've thought about doing an episode on this because I think it is incredibly important. My kids are both grown, so they're 21 and 23, so they're past a lot of that. And my son is he's a very stoic personality to begin with, so he's very thoughtful. He's just always been a deep thinker to begin with, and so when people are overreacting about things, he's very good at analyzing what they're doing and going, that's interesting. I wonder why they're acting that way. Rather than being like, oh, that guy's a total jerk and getting upset. He's always just been like one thing, he loves flowered shirts for some reason. He loves flowers. Even though he's a very he's very masculine, but he loves flowers. And so he had the this that he just loved, that had this this cool flower arrangement. It kind of looked like, I don't know if you ever listened to New Order, but I think it's Power Corruption and Lies, the the picture that's on the front of that one. But then he had some shoes that had this cool flower thing on it, and he had his own style of things, and so occasionally some somebody at school would make a comment like he was gay or something, and he'd just like, huh? Okay. And they'd be like, they'd be expecting some kind of response, and and he just would be like, that's interesting that you think that, or just kind of some some remark that was not it wasn't snider-rude, it was just more hmm interesting. And they'd be like, Well, what you gonna do about it? He's like, Well, I'm gonna go to class, talk to you later, and just walk off, and they'd be like, you know, they're trying to get a rise out of him, and he just never did. But I think that yeah, I think this is a tough one. I think that what happens is I think there's just a lot of disillusionment in the world about what is of value, what's important, what you deserve. And I remember a couple of years ago I actually did an episode was like, what do you deserve? I'm like, you deserve absolutely nothing in life. And you know, and I didn't mean it to be rude, but it was just like, you know, the fact that you have everything that you do, the fact that you are alive, the fact that you have parents, the fact that you have siblings, the fact that you have enough food to eat, you never deserve any of those things, but you get those things. And that helps you to be more appreciative of the world. But I think what happens is with young men is that they get these ideas of they're unhappy, they're insecure, and then somebody comes along and says and then reinforces those and makes it makes them feel even worse about themselves, then suddenly steps up and goes, and I have the cure. And it's not really the cure because it's it doesn't really do anything to help them. It just gives them an outlet for the anger and the rage that they feel. It doesn't actually do anything to get to the root cause of it. It's just that it gives them permission to channel it somewhere. And I think that that's really what the issue is. They don't take the time to learn how to understand their thinking, learn why they're thinking these thoughts, and to be able to have a clear emotional understanding. And I think that really falls on the parents, unfortunately, and it does fall on society, teaching that emotional intelligence of, hey, I understand you're feeling this, but what are you s what's the story you're telling yourself in your head about why this is? And Scott Galloway talks about this quite a bit. I don't know if you know who he is. He's an economics professor, I think at, I want to say Columbia, but he talks on a lot of podcasts and he's very into this idea of being the ant, not pr him personally, but just talking about these things and trying to bring them up in the open. And I really appreciate his kind of take on there. And he's just goes, yeah. He goes, dating is hard. Getting girls is hard. It's scary, it's awkward, and you're gonna make a lot of mistakes, but it's really going out and trying to make those mistakes. And I was insecure in high school, which I look back at, I didn't think I was that good looking. But when I go back and look at my pictures now of what I looked like in high school, I'm like, damn, I was a good-looking kid. What the hell? But I thought I was just this, I didn't think I was all that good looking back then. And so I was insecure. And so I didn't, I wasn't really good at getting a girlfriend, even though I I did okay. But I got out there and I tried. And I mean and I had some girls turn me down, and I had someone who said, sure, yeah, I'll go to the dance with you. That's great. And but that practice of trying and failing, I think is something that's really important. And the insul culture just they just want everything to be given to them, and that's just not how life works. And so you're gonna have to get out there, you're gonna fail, you're gonna make lots of mistakes. But through that, you're gonna learn how to be charming, you're gonna learn how to be funny, you're gonna learn how to good con have good conversations, you're gonna learn how to attract a a woman that's gonna find you attractive. And it's gonna take time. And I think that there are a lot of things to play that. I think our instant culture of I want it now, and I get it now. And I think that's why a lot of them will just resort to porn because it's easier than you get what you want. You pop on the porn channel and you have the exact woman, the exact type of sex you want to watch, and you didn't really have to work for it. But it's also never gonna be as fulfilling either.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

Yeah. Definitely. I was yesterday I was actually just talking to my partner about incel culture, and we were just saying that if one of the best ways never to meet a girl is to be into the incel culture. It's just it's like a paradox. It's like by being into that, you're making it less likely it's a strange thing. I feel like there's a big I know that stoicism attracts men and women and people of all different ages and cultures, and I've spoken to many of them. But I do think the stoicism does attract a like a certain type of young male that is interested in like being better, establishing themselves, and they get inspired by stories of Mox Aurelius and being resilient and having discipline. And I do I have seen on the internet the the question, the link between things like bad habits and stoicism. So whether that's pornography or eating junk food or whatever kind of super stimulus is pulling people astray. And there's mixed responses that I've seen when it comes to pornography is is it ethical or not? Like how should a stoic think about it? Is it causing causing you harm? To what extent is it causing you harm? There's no a clear cut like good, bad, right? It's all about what is moderation? Is it moderation? You have to kind of figure that out for yourself. Do you have any views on this type of thing in in relation to stoicism?

SPEAKER_00 35:53

Like whether it's Yeah, I w Yeah, I wouldn't say that I have any particular moral view on whether pornography is moral or not. When I Mormon, yes, it was obviously porn bad, evil, awful. But to them, anything that was sex outside of marriage was bad. And so you grow up with this very distorted view of what sex and sexuality is, which I found going into my first marriage was really challenging because she had joined the church later on, and so her view of sex and my view of sex because of all this conditioning of sex is bad. Okay, now you're married, go have sex and have kids. And it's uh you know, but there was also so much shame wrapped around it that it was really hard to disconnect from that. And so it took a long time to heal those kind of things. But yeah, I think that I think it really comes down to with any type of vice, and porn is a vice, just alcohol and weed, anything is that moderation. And it does it cause you harm? Plain and simple. If it's something that is causing you harm, then you definitely should not do it. And I'm not going to judge somebody one way or the other. That's something that they have to figure out. But if it's the thing that is precluding you from having a healthy relationship with a person of the opposite sex, or if you're a person of the same sex, but having that sexual relationship that you want with somebody, then I would say it's definitely harmful. And and you're right, what you were saying earlier is that if the worst way to attract someone is to be in the insult culture, because it's like almost in some of the boards that I've seen, when I've seen some of those things, it's almost like a race to the bottom of how awful they are. And the way that they talk about themselves is just it's they're almost demeaning to themselves and self self-degradation in such a way that it's just almost horrifying. And I'm like, this is bizarre. You know? And then it's like they feel bad, and so they beat themselves up, and then they beat themselves up in front of other people, and then they all pile on each other, and it's just like this that's one of the worst things you can do for yourself. And then it it just inflames that kind of hopelessness. And for them, they think it's funny in a way, but they also have all those insecurities. Anyway, I got a little bit off topic there, but I think that with anything, it really just comes down to is from getting what your ultimate goal is. And so one of the things that I've been working on, I'm putting a course together and I've been it's taken me a lot longer than I expected because as I've been digging into these ideas and what I want to do and what I want to teach on that, is that I think the main thing that got me into stoicism was it helped me move away from the things that I was unhappy with in my life. The anger, the frustration, the reactivity that was there. I think that's really great and that's very important. But now I want to take that and then just being moving from reactive, something happens, I feel something, I act on it, and then I get results, which is kind of how most people are. They're caught in that autopilot, that flywheel that just keeps something happens, they feel it, they react, they have the results, and then something happens, and they're just constantly stuck in that in their life to a more responsive, which is something happens, I have an impression or sensations around it, but the moment and I think that means, and then I examine my thinking around that, I examine the sensations that I have. If I feel butterflies, am I nervous or am I excited? You know? And they can they feel the same, but one is just it's just a judgment call of I have to sing in front of a hundred people. Some people, that's really exciting. Some people, that's fear-inducing. But this feeling is the same, but the emotion that comes from that, whether the joy and excitement or whether the nervous and anxiety comes from that. And so that's kind of how I see the responsive outlook, but I want to take it one step further and rather than looking at what are the things that I don't want in my life and how I prevent those, you're like, what are the things that I want to create in my life and how do I align myself that I'm naturally moving that direction? And there's this idea that I got from a book called The Path of Least Resistance, where it talks about if you are doing something with the motivation of avoiding something, you have initial pressure to move away from whatever it is that is causing your discomfort. But when that pressure decreases, then you're less likely to continue at the same intensity to move away from it because you're not in that danger. If you are running away from a horse, a wolf that was chasing you, obviously you're going to keep running away. But as soon as you get to a safe space, then you're not going to be running anymore. So you stop as soon as the danger is away or as soon as the irritation is gone, then it's harder for you to keep up doing what you're doing. But if you're focused on what it on moving towards something in a positive way, like I want to go run so that I can get over to my girlfriend's house and I get to spend time with her, then you're going to keep going until you reach your destination rather than just getting out of danger. So it's that idea of how can I create and align myself that I know exactly what I want, that clear vision, and then I start taking action, whatever that action may be, and every step and every action should be something that helps move me towards that, or at least show me something that I should not do that's that's going to keep me away from that. And so I'm trying to kind of wrapping this in with these kids is that all they see is they are unhappy and they're trying to find ways to to get away from that unhappiness, and they don't know how to do it. And so what I want to do is move them from, okay, fine, here's this unhappiness, and here's how you can deal with these external circumstances. But rather than just trying to avoid what you don't want, what is it that you do want and how can you create that kind of life that you want?

SPEAKER_01 41:36

Yeah. I love that. What you're talking about is a common issue. I've experienced it. I think a lot of us do in the world of emotional regulation, self-improvement, that kind of thing. Is that we pick up habits and practices when we're feeling bad, down. They work. Let's just say I feel really bad. I'm gonna do the view from above meditation for a month. I start feeling good. I don't need to do the view from above meditation anymore. And then I start snipping back down. Right. So it's not like preventative medicine, it's more just like a pill to try and fix the negativity. But then you just you have this yo-yo between negative and baseline as opposed to continuing to move up the map.

SPEAKER_00 42:19

Yeah. It's if you're working out in order to build muscle and to strengthen yourself and to feel better about your life in general, and your goal is this positive vision, it's much easier than if you just say, Oh, I want to work out so that I'm not fat. Because then as soon as you lose a little bit of weight, then you may not you don't have as much impetus to work out. Well, now I'm not as fat, so I don't have to work out as much. You know? And that's why diets and working out when you're trying to avoid something are harder than if you can figure out your vision of what it is that you want and move towards that and that everything aligns towards that. And so that's and that for me was something that was really enlightening in that book, and I'm trying to and I'm doing what I usually do, which is I learn an idea and I figure out how to express it in a way that is more is applicable towards to as many people as possible, and that's what I think I do reasonably well in my podcast. At least that's what I've been told. You take these concepts that I when I read them in the in in the original stuff, I don't get, and then you just go, oh, here. And you make it so much easier. So that you know, I appreciate that. And this book, The Path of Least Resistance, I think it's by Robert, does get a little technical in the way he describes things. And so after, you know, I kind of have to go, okay, wait, what is he trying to say there? Because he has this vision that's that he's all put together and it's okay, what's the essence of the thing that he's trying to say? And so I but I like that idea, and that kind of inspired me of like, how can I take these stoic ideas and use them not just to avoid what we don't want, but to move towards what it is that we truly want and creating our own lives and creating a better world that we live in. And yeah, so that's something that's been rolling about in my head for the past couple of weeks.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Yeah. Yeah, I love that. Made me think of the Stoic Sage. When I personally think of the Stoic Sage, I don't I don't get super excited about that idea because the fact that it's so lofty. I'm more interested in the kind of how do we go from minus one to zero or plus one? How do we use practices and tools in specific situations to make life less stressful and have less suffering? But the ancient Stoics did focus on the Stoic Sage. It was like uh aiming up, not just fixing problems. And I think there's something to that. You've just made me think about it, that maybe they're I'm just thinking maybe in My stoic practice, thinking more about the stoic sage and and just long-term and having that vision, like the Buddhists that would be enlightenment perhaps, or awakening or something. Even though it might be out of reach, just the pursuit of that could be a good thing to aim for.

SPEAKER_00 44:56

Yeah, and it's definitely an ideal, but I think there are concrete things that you can do, concrete kind of mileposts of things that you can at least put out there. And but yeah, it is in a way, in some ways it is a little different because he's talking about it from a creative aspect of if you're writing music, think about what it is that you want, and then try moving towards that. For example, if we're on a s if you want to write a symphony, then put that out there. Imagine what that would be like to write that symphony, then start taking those little steps that'll get you there. And becoming the kind of person you want is a little more ambiguous, so I think that can be harder, but I think you can at least get more descriptive of I want to be the type of person that if something bad is happening and people are running around freaking out, that I'm that person that is cool, calm, and collected, and rises to the occasion rather than freaks out like everybody else. And we see that in movies all the time. Some disaster strikes, and the hero who has that discipline steps up and does what needs to get done, whereas your cowards or your common people or whatever, they're the ones like, oh my God, oh my god, and they're running around and just looking out for themselves. And so it's it's about developing that strength of character and that type of virtue that you do the right thing no matter what, and that you step up in the situations where you need to lead. And that's part of the reason why one of the things I've been working on and in my career is leadership coaching, because I want people to step up and do that. And leader is challenging. So when I was a CTO, I was I had just been a senior developer, and then it was suddenly like, okay, you're now the CTO. And it was like, oh, oh crap, okay, how am I doing this? And I didn't really have the confidence to lead at that time. And I look back on it now, I'm like, man, I would be so much better now, obviously, through all this experience. But if I'd known a lot of these principles in a much more clear way and an applicable way, I think I would have been a much better leader and it actually gotten more things done. And so I want to take that a lot of these ideas from Stoicism and teach people how they apply in leadership and how you create a company culture that, you know, around virtue and around these ideas, and I think that can be incredibly powerful. So yeah, I think having a vision of who you want to be, I think is incredibly important. And I don't think that kids really have that vision. They don't have role models in the way that we have even growing up. We look up at certain people and be like, oh, I want to be like them. And now who are the role models? Well, it's all about material things. It's all about, oh, he tribes to Lamborghini, he lives in a big house, he has lots of hot women all the time. That's what I want. And yet those are all external trappings of success without actually being very happy and being fulfilled. And I think that there's a confusion of having things and happiness.

SPEAKER_01 47:53

Yes, 100%. That's a key that's a key idea, having things versus actual happiness. On the topic of books, I asked Donald Robertson, you guys did an interview together as well, which was really cool. I asked Donald Robertson, is there one book that he recommends about above all others? And I know it's a silly question because you like like most of us, probably lots of books, and it depends on the specific situation that someone is dealing with, and most of what makes a good a book good at any given moment is finding it the right time. Yeah. But if you just humor me for a second, let's just say that you were able to give like a book to universities or to schools, and it would just be part of reading. Is there a certain book other than your own, of course, that you would recommend that you think would uh do well for people and the world?

SPEAKER_00 48:46

Oh wow, that's a hard one because I just read so many different books. Trying to think what did I listen to recently on like Audible or something that Yeah, I'd have to think on that. I've been really enjoying the Socratic Handbook or the Socratic Method from Ward Farnsworth. It's very well written. I've really enjoyed that. I guess let me look on my bookshelf really quick and see if there's anything that stands out. Yeah, it's hard. I got rid of so many books when I moved here. I'm sure. And I kind of wish that I had that because there were a lot of great books and really just were very inspiring to me. And they really changed the way that I thought about things. There's one, this it sounds really funny, but it's it's meant to be for businesses, but I still think it's just a great book aside from that. And it has nothing to do with Stoicism in particular, meaning it doesn't even mention anything about stoicism. But so many of the ideas are so stoic and so brilliantly laid out, and it's meant as a leadership book, but each time I read it almost kind of I have this moment, that those enlightened moments where I'm just like, oh, that's so brilliantly said. And it's called The Fifteen Commitments of Conscious Leadership. And it's really about 15 commitments of conscious living, but it's applied to leadership. And it just Yeah, it floored me. And may not do that kind of thing, but like in the chapter where it talked about the idea of radical candor. And I was like, well, what do they mean by radical candor? Why is that different than just being honest? And they extend the idea that in your business you want to have radical candor, and it's so important because that's how you make sure that you get to the truth of everything. And it also has a number of knock-on effects. But the idea behind radical candor is that one, everything you say is true, that you tell the whole truth, meaning you open the komodo and go, okay, everything I said is true, but here's what's really going on behind the scenes as well, and that you say everything that you feel. But also it means that you are responsible for everything that you say. So when you're practicing radical candor, whether that's with your partner, whether that's with somebody that you work with, you can say what you can say what you believe to be the truth, but you have to be responsible for it. You can't just throw it out and be like, Jan's a jerk. I don't appreciate it when Jan does this, and this is how I feel about it. So you're taking responsibility for what you're saying, and that was really important. And by having radical candor in as many relationships as possible, it does a number of things. It decreases gossip at work because everybody's supposed to bring everything to the table. And so if somebody's gossiping behind the scenes, then they're not telling their truth out in front of the rest of the group. And part of the idea behind that in a leadership aspect is that you want your team to be able to communicate as openly and honestly as possible. And that does a number of things. It trusts within the team. It also brings more problems to light at a quicker and easier pace, and it creates a secure environment where people can be vulnerable and honest about things. So, like when I'm reading about this, you know, about that's how they describe radical candor, I was just like, oh wow. That is such a powerful idea for any company, but also even just any relationship. And so as I'm reading this, there's so many stoic ideas in there that I was just like, oh yeah, this is this is a fantastic book. Yeah, I think that's one I would definitely I know what my next read is. So Yeah, I'd have to look on my I'd have to look on my audible because I'd listen to a lot of books and you know but as far as nonfiction goes, as or as yeah, as far as it's called the Night Circus, which has nothing to do with stoicism, but if you just want a great a great read with incredible prose and it's all about magic and it's in a circus that obviously that comes the night. And it's just it's so vivid. Like I can deal with the way it's described, I can just see it as they're as as I'm reading it. And I usually read it about once a year because it's just one of those books that I just love.

SPEAKER_01 52:53

Aaron Ross Powell What's I'm just curious uh about your kind of reading habits, if you don't mind sharing some of this. You mentioned you audible, you physical books, you read a lot of books. What's the how do you approach reading?

SPEAKER_00 53:06

I usually if somebody recommends a book, I try to find it on this app called Libby, which is a library app in the States, because I still have a library card there. And so I'll see if I can check that out and listen to the audiobook while I'm out walking, because I live next to a park. And so I usually go walking about every single day. And if I listen to it and I like it enough, I'll I'll oftentimes buy the hard copies so I can go back, take notes, and stuff like that. And so yeah, that's just that's kind of it. But I've I've realized over the past little bit that my attention span, my ability for having a longer attention span has definitely decreased. When I was younger, I could sit down and read seven hours, and it was, you know, but then I could, you know, it wasn't like I was a lethargic kid who didn't do anything. It was just I would that I wouldn't want to do anything else. So I would just plow through a book in a weekend. And I did that like with Stephen King's The Stand and, you know, sort of Shannara, some of these great long fantasy books. But I think that social media has definitely taken a toll on us as humans and our ability to focus and concentrate. And so I'm trying to get myself back into that habit of sitting down and reading a book for longer periods of time. And you know, the way I mean, so going for a walk is helpful because, you know, it's usually at least an hour, and so it, you know, it helps me focus on that, but I'm still kind of doing two things at one time. But just sitting down and reading a book for, you know, two or three hours isn't something I've done in quite some time. And I kind of miss that.

SPEAKER_01 54:47

Yeah, I feel you on that. I'm some of my fondest memories, but I didn't realize it at the time. Looking back, it's just like that deep absorption in the book, you know, and you just got these amazing ideas. I wonder if if a span, uh that's gotta be a part of it. And also I find that when I was younger, I felt like I had all the time in the world. There's no rush to do anything, and as you get older you feel like the the stress of spending blocks of time doing something that doesn't move you forward in some way in a concrete way can be like, oh, a little bit like anxiety-inducing.

SPEAKER_00 55:25

Yeah, I was listening to a talk by Al Alan Watts a while back. And I wish I could remember what the title of it was, but he was just talking through this idea of, you know, everybody's so worried about what's the secret of life. How do you live correctly? How do you live well? And he's like, there is no secret to life. If you're living, that's it. You live, that's the secret to life. There's nothing that needs to be done, there's no problems that have to be solved, you know, beyond just getting food and having shelter. But, you know, you if if you are living, you are living right. There is no right or wrongness to it. And just it was kind of like that just acceptance of, oh, we're rushing around trying to get this done and do these things, all of this, you know, the the productivity mindset that we get stuck in, and we have to be productive. And I think I think that's kind of a been a detriment to society. I don't think we have to be so overly productive all the time. You know, the world is not going to end if you don't get that report in to your boss on that Friday, you know, and you know, if it doesn't get done this week, it can get done next week, and that's okay, and the world is no worse off for those things. I think that, and this is why I often, you know, talk about the importance of making sure you're very aware of your own expectations about things. Because oftentimes we think we're a failure at something because we didn't meet some expectations that we actually created. You know, we're the ones who are in charge, and because, you know, like, oh, I'm such a failure, it's like, why? Well, I wanted it to look like this, looks like that. Okay, well, who's the one who decided, you know, what's a success and what's a failure? Well, I guess I did. And it's you can change those expectations at any time. Oh, okay. But I think that, yeah, we have this idea that we're expected to be productive all the time. And I think that I think living life a little more slowly, I think would do us all a little a little more good. And I think that we would spend more time connecting with people and you know, but we're bombarded all the time with this is what success looks like. This is how to live this is what being a successful person is, you know, it all comes down to money, you know, it's like everybody goes, oh look, Elon Musk Musk has so much money, therefore he's a great success. But he seems like he's kind of an unhappy person, personally. You know, he doesn't You would think that the richest person in the world, you know, would be the happiest person in the world, but he doesn't seem very happy to me. And in fact, a lot of very wealthy people that I see don't seem very happy. And I'm like, wait, you've you've you've got all this money, you've got everything that you could ever want. You've got more money than you can spend in in many, many lifetimes, and yet you still don't have enough?

SPEAKER_01 58:20

Elon ask actually talks about that, I believe, in in a Joe Rogan podcast where he talks about his mind being like a storm and it being dark, and so yeah, he's not saying, I feel great, and like I've got it all figured out, and I'm just at ease and experiencing tranquility. He's like, yeah, his mind is very chaotic and yeah, so yeah, and uh the expectations point you brought up, I feel like I struggle with this a bit. One of the things I've been doing a little bit recently is at the end of the day, just making a note of the productive things I've done. Because sometimes I feel like, oh, I didn't really have the best day, and then I'm writing it down and I'm like, I spent like three hours with my son, then I went to the gym, and then I published this thing, and I'm like, I like that's like most people's like week there, you know? And it just it just reminds me that maybe I'm having way too high expectations, what is a good day or a productive day. So just getting that out there and looking at it has been useful.

SPEAKER_00 59:21

Yeah, and I don't think that and people confuse me it when I say that of like, well, are you saying I should lower my standards? And I'm like, no, keep your standards high, be your expectations low. You know, it's kind of like it's kind of like I, you know, I joke around that when I was out dating for quite a while, I haven't really been focusing on that this year since my last relationship ended. But after I got divorced and I started dating, this was almost 20 years ago now. When I would go out on a date, I finally reached that point where I'm like, I have low expectations, high standards. So when I go on my first date, it's just I want to know if I want a second date. That's it. That's all I want for my first date. And the second date, it was like, all I want to know is that if I'm interested enough to have a third date. And then once I got to the third date, then I'm like, okay, now I'm gonna start, you know, seeing where I want things to go and then making some plans. But the first date, the only expectation was do I want at the end of this date, I will know if I want a second date. That's the only thing that I expect from this. And so that way I never went in with these high hopes of what it was gonna be or not be. And it took a lot of pressure off of the whole date of having to be anything.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:31

And I think that the more that we can still keep our standards high of like, okay, you know, I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not gonna date somebody who, you know, isn't interested in anything I have to do, or thinks that philosophy is stupid, or, you know, you know, it doesn't take care of themselves, you know. It's like you you should bathe, you know, that's important to me. But my expectations of what the outcome of that date should be were just very low. And by having that, it took a lot of pressure off of anything that it was supposed to be. And that made things a lot more fun, too.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:03

So what I'm hearing, just just so I can fully understand what you mean. So your low expectations, that's your way of sort of being I'm open to whatever life brings, and I'm up for the adventure, and I'm curious, and I just the only thing I really care about is whether I want to have a second date. But my standards mean that I'm not going to like get married to just anyone who I have a date with. Like I have certain, I have boundaries, I have self-respect. I'm not gonna commit to anything. So I'm open to anything, but I'm not open to committing to everything. Something like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:43

Yeah, it's it's worrying. I think people go in with, you know, like, I mean, I'm sure that you had this when you were dating in in high school, you know, you were you got to date with the one girl that you really wanted to have the date with, and your expectations about, oh, this is gonna be so great. This evening's gonna be wonderful, and she's gonna be amazing and she's gonna love me, and you have this whole idea of what the outcome is gonna be. And then you get there and the outcome isn't nearly as exciting as what you had had predicted. But if you go in with you have no idea what the outcome is gonna be, and you'll be happy with whatever the outcome is. I mean, as long as you don't end up in jail or something like that or dead, that's, you know, though I think those are things that you try and avoid. But we focus so much on what we want an outcome to be that we try and engineer things way too much to do that. And so we don't enjoy the process of whatever it is that we're doing because we're so focused on we want this particular outcome. It's like people who go on a vacation thinking that they're gonna have my vacation has to look like picture perfect postcard rather than just, I'm just gonna go on vacation and maybe one day I'm so tired I just take an extra long nap because I don't get to do that at home. Or I'm just gonna sit on the chair and read a book for three or four hours because there's no expectations of what this needs to be. You know? And so I think it's really just about, I think it's just really focusing too much on the outcome. I think you want to know what your outcome, what you want your outcome to be, can be helpful because then it, again, it's like that compass that helps you move in the direction you want of whatever it is that you're doing. You know, having a clear vision of, like I said earlier, if you want to write a symphony, okay, know what, you know, you need to understand what a symphony is. You have to have an idea of what keys you won't want to play it. Maybe you have some, maybe you have some just initial ideas about some themes you want to play with. But if you're so focused on, you know, it needs to be this sound just like Beethoven, then you're going to miss this whole creative process. That's the fun part of actually making the symphony. And I think that in life, it's kind of that same way of like we get focused on if I don't have this thing, I'm not a success, if I don't do this, you know. Whereas if you can look at it as, you know, I'm enjoying this whole journey as I'm going along, moving towards the thing that I'm trying to create, then the whole process of the creation of your life and everything that you're doing is fun and enjoyable and delightful. And if you get to the end, then the symphony sounds way different than what you thought it was going to be. That's okay. Did you create a symphony? Yes, you did. And did you have fun creating that symphony? Yeah, I did. You know, it's kind of like when my book got done, it was like, whew, that was a lot of hard work. Is it did it turn out as good as I wanted? I still think there's some weaknesses. And there was a part of me after I was reading it, you know, especially when I was reading it for the audio book, where I was like, oh, I could have written this so much better. I could have changed this thing and that thing. But but the thing was is I enjoyed the process and I got a book done. And so, you know, do I think it's an A plus? No. Do I think it's a B plus A? Yeah. Yeah, I think it is. I th and especially because it was my first book. And so my expectations of my expectations of if it was going to be a good book or not, I really suspended them. I just knew that I was a pretty good writer, I had a pretty strong voice about what I wanted to do, I had a good team supporting me, and so I knew that all the things were in place, that this was probably gonna be at least a good book, if not a great book.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:07

Yeah. I think it's a great book. I'm gonna be recommending it. Oh, well, thank you. I want to ask you I want to ask you some like some personal some personal advice, but I think that the the the question will be universal in in its theme. So I practice Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. It's something I enjoy. I like the I find it similar to Stoicism, it's just a kind of long-term project, you know, that just sort of is endlessly fascinating and it's challenging. But then there's the realm of competition, and so you know, you enter into a competition, you sign up on the day, you're competing against someone you don't know, there's people watching, there's points, there's trophies. So even though it's this thing you do regularly with your friends, now you're doing it in a different context, but it is kind of the same thing. But nerves kick in, adrenaline kicks in, and the with me and my friends, there's often a like a big pressure that you feel, like you want to perform, you're maybe you don't take risks, the things that you do in the gym you just don't do on the competition mats. Maybe there's a fear of failure k kicking in. Uh, I would I'm just curious are there any kind of tools or strategies that you think could be helpful for someone who's entering into a competition like this? With all of these emotions and thoughts at play.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:34

Yeah, that's interesting. I understand why you would want to do that because I wrestled in high school. And so I know feeling that of using all of your power against somebody, using all of their power against you, and that just it's one of those feelings just hard to explain to people. You know, it's just like until you've done that and you understand how that feels, it's just yeah, I was obsessed with it for a while when I was in middle school and then early high school. Same with cycling for me. I also cycle a lot and I love, you know, going out for 50, 60 mile rides, and people are like, oh, are you crazy? And I'm like, oh. I can't explain to you why I love it, but I want to see where my edge is. And I really appreciate that. So in the you're talking about how you're you're afraid to try new moves, or is it just that the emotional regulation that gets in it? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think this fits in with what what I was talking about earlier, the idea of are you are you moving, is the pressure on you to not fail, or is the pressure on you you want to create this thing that is incredible? You know? So it sounds to me like there's some pressure of avoiding failure, and that's stronger than the the pull of creating an interesting success, as opposed to just, you know, well, yeah, you might have won, but did you win well? You know, how did you do the thing? And I think that's challenging. I think it some of it kind of reframing your vision on that of what it is that you, you know, what's your motivation there? What's the thing that's going to pull you towards that? If you're worried about not making a mistake, then that's what you focused on. It's kind of like so I learned how to ride a motorcycle back in the States and I had a, you know, had a big big bike that I rode, and I remember in the in the lessons, because you have to take, you know, you have to go through a whole course before they give you, you know, a license to be able to ride a motorcycle. And they tell you, when you see a pothole in the road, don't focus on it. Don't look at it. Look where you want to go. When you look where you want to go, you're that's where you're you will drive there. And so it was just like that, and they would they couldn't stress that enough. It's like when you see something in the road that you have to steer around, don't stare at it to try and avoid it. Look where you want to go. Look where your path is, and that's what you'll start to create. And that's where I think this is kind of that same idea of, you know, if you're focused on the thing you're trying to avoid, then you're going to then you're going to be focused on that thing. If you can focus on what's the thing I want to create, how do I want to do this? I think that you'll start to get some of that. Yeah. Like, yeah, like what types of moves do I want to do I want to try in this one that I haven't done before? You know, what will stretch you a little bit, but that aren't going to compromise you either. So in that book, The Path of Least Resistance, it was interesting. He talked about, actually, I get a better metaphor. Well, I'll tell you that. So he talked about how he had a teacher who, when he was learning how to play music, he went in and first week, signed him a thing, and he came back and he he didn't play it very well. And he's like, okay. And the teacher goes, Okay, on to the next one. He's like, Well, don't you want me to work on that, the one that so I can get that better at that one? It's like, no, you're working on this next one. And for the next six weeks, he did that. You know, he would come back and he wouldn't have played it very well, and then each piece was progressively harder, and he would just push him onto the next piece before he mastered the previous one. And he kept doing this and doing this and doing this. Then he got to week six, and he was just like, finally goes, Why are you making me do this? I'm not playing any of them really well. And he goes, Okay, let's go back to week one, play that piece. And he was just like, Oh, oh, this is so easy. He goes, play week two now. And he's like, Oh, this is this is really easy. Oh. And it reminds me of me when I was wrestling. So when I first wrestled, I was in the beginners group, and it was supposed to be on Wednesday nights, and I had something come up where I couldn't make it on Wednesday nights, but Thursday nights were still open, but that was the advanced kids group. And I went to the advanced kids group and my best friend Bobby was in there, so I was happy about that. And Bobby had been wrestling four years, and he was an amazing wrestler. And he kicked my ass all over the place. Like every point I could get, he would get at least four or five. Just wipe the floor with me. And after about two months, then I was able to switch back to the beginners one. And by the time I went back to the beginners one, and the kids who had started at the same time I did, who were still pretty good wrestlers, I was just wiping the floor with them because, you know, I was so used to, you know, working at this really, really hard level and trying things that, you know, just barely being able to get a point or two against Bobby was really, really challenging. But then these other kids who had been who had been at my level, I was just clear on the floor with them because I had progressed so much in those two months by really stretching myself and putting myself out there and having to just barely keep up. And that so I didn't play it safe because I couldn't. Playing it safe, you know, Bobby would Bobby would have just killed me even more. So it was like, well, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to get this move, but I'm gonna go for it. And because of that, I got better at doing that. And I failed plenty. But I was willing to challenge myself and put myself in those really hard situations with Bobby, and so I got better really, really fast. Yeah. Yeah. And it and it really did make a difference when I would go to tournaments after that. You know, kids that I had wrestled maybe first and second tournaments that we've been evenly matched after wrestling Bobby two months. I mean, it they were easy. You know, and so I ended up, you know, winning, you know, winning my whole age group all the way through. I think I lost. I lost twice to a kid named Todd Denineen. I still remember his name. And I beat him twice and he beat me twice that season. So he was the only one who who had beaten me all season long. So it was really he was really fun. But I just remember that and I keep I keep that in mind when I'm struggling with something, and sometimes I'll I'll think that I need to master something before I can move on to something harder. And it's like, no, move on to that harder thing. And then by the time I come back to this easier thing, it's like, oh, this is easy to do. You know, whether that's guitar or piano or singing, you know, trying those harder things really stretches you out of your comfort zone. And then when you go back to the things that before you you were good at but weren't great at, you're probably gonna be a lot better at them as well. So yeah, finding those more challenging opponents will definitely test you a bit more, and you'll find that you'll find the wrestling with your friends that you get into habits of how things are done. And then you wrestle somebody who's outside of it, and it's gonna throw that whole thing off for you, and you'll have to recalibrate. But that recalibration then is really good for you, and then you start learning how to recalibrate faster, and that helps you to work with opponents faster. And so rather than just learning moves, you're learning how to think differently on your feet every time you take on a new opponent. And so that practice of learning how to think differently on your feet then becomes part of your standard practice, if that makes sense. No, I appreciate you asking. I hadn't thought about anything like that for a while, but that, you know, having wrestled, I totally get that. Anyway, sorry, go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. You once you know how to work the floor, then it's I mean, because all fights go to the floor. And a good wrestler is just gonna they're just gonna know how to do that. They may not be able to punch well, but if you're if they can tie you in, you know, if you're if you're actually f punching, if they can tie you in and you can't swing your fist, there's not much you can do about it. So yeah, learning how to work the floor, yeah, I think is really, really important. Okay. Yeah. So my daily practice, first thing I do every morning is I get up and I do yoga, do 20 minutes of that. I know that's not necessarily a stoic thing, but it's that whole idea of you take care of your body and the body, you know, how your body is very important. And I found that as I'm getting older, that just getting up and just stretching everything out and getting all the cracks and kinks out makes the rest of my day so much better. So I think having and the Stoics themselves were very physical. So Christophus was a water carrier, and that's how he supported himself. So he would, you know, carry water in these buckets at night, and that was a hard job, you know, and he was incredibly well muscled because of that. Tonius Rufus was also very athletic, took care of himself. Marcus Aurelius used to wrestle when he was younger. That was something that was very important to him. Socrates himself was a decorated military hero because he was such a great fighter. And apparently could run for miles and miles and miles and just was, you know, in very good shape, even though he was a little bit heavy. So I think taking care of yourself is a really big thing. I think a lot of our I think a lot of issues that we have in our lives, uh kind of getting on this topic reminded me of this, is that we don't feel well physically, and that impacts our mood. So taking care of yourself, eating healthy, you know, watching your alcohol, watching your your if if you smoke weed, it's probably you know, dropping that a bit. You know, things like that you can do to make sure that your body feels better will help your mind feel better. Because you know when you get sick, you get grumpy because your body doesn't feel good and you're like, uh it's the same way just in regular life. The better your body feels, the more likely you are to be in a better mood. So I think that taking care of your body and stuff like that is very healthy and very helpful to your not just your physical health, but your mental health. On top of that, I usually do morning pages. So I just, you know, I get a prompt, I ask ChatGPT, give me a prompt to write today, and it gives me something, and so I write about that. And oftentimes it's just this is what I'm trying to get organized through my day so I can get a little bit more focused, because I'm not the most organized person, and I know that's that's one of my downsides of things is that, and this is where I was mentioning getting distracted so easily before, is that sometimes I'll sit down to work on something, and then it's three hours later and I haven't done a thing. And I'll be like, how did I just spend three hours, you know, I was on my phone, I was checking this, I was, you know, all these things. So trying to get more organized, so just kind of writing about what I want to do on my morning page, just writing about how I'm feeling, just kind of doing a mental check-in as far as that goes. But I do and then when I'm stressing out about things, I do practice premeditatio malorum. It was kind of ironic that back about 20 years ago after I my first divorce, I was having problems with the company I was at because they were a startup and they were bouncing paychecks, and you know, I wasn't I there was point one point where I had $17 to last me a week because they had screwed up my check again, and I was paying child support and all of this stuff, and it was just and I was really stressing out about it, and I was like, oh, what am I gonna do? And I just had this moment of panic, and I thought, okay, if everything else went bad, how would I survive in this situation? Would I be able to survive in this situation? And I kind of came up with a plan of what would happen if my company failed and I wasn't able to get a job for a few months. What would be the thing that I could do? I didn't have any family lived in town. I'm like, okay, well, I've got a gym membership that I pay $49 a year for. And it was a special deal I got from a long time. So I have somewhere to shower. Could I sleep in my car? Yeah, Portland doesn't get it gets cold, but it's it's doable. It's not like Minnesota or anything like that. So I came up with a whole plan of what I would do if I didn't have enough money. So then later on, when I found stoicism, I was like, oh, this is that same this is why that worked, is because I thought about what was the worst case that could possibly happen and how would I survive that worst case. And so I often have to do that because I do find that my mind gets a little bit overwhelmed and imagines all the worst case scenarios. And so it's like, okay, if I'm going to be imagining the game anyway, let me do this in a safe space and use it as a problem-solving technique. So pr that's a really good one for me. And definitely Memento Mori, from time to time. I just have to really be like, okay, am I doing the most important thing that I want to get done? Am I letting the people that I know and that I love, do I let them know that I love them? Am I making the connections I want to? And will this thing that I'm so stressed out about matter in a hundred years, a hundred years? And so I'll try to bring those into my journaling practice when I'm stressing out about things. But but like I said, I'm trying to reorient my life from dealing with, you know, getting away from the things I don't want to how am I creating the things that I do want? And how does how can stoicism help me do that? And that's that's my next big challenge. And what it like I said, it's occupying a lot of mental energy over the past couple of weeks. Oh. Okay. Yeah. I type it in Chat GPT just because I type a lot faster than I can write. And for me, it's oftentimes, I know they always say, well you should write it down. I'm like, well, for me, it's it's oftentimes I have ideas coming so quickly that I want to make sure that I get them out. And so I'm not so that when I do have a a thought, I'm able to flush it out quicker. And because I've been, you know, I was in tech for 25 years, so I learned how to type pretty fast. And so oftentimes I can I can just type significantly faster than I can handwrite something out. And doing so really helps me to get the ideas out of my head, especially if I'm stressing about something. Well, I found that journaling is just incredibly helpful, just doing morning pages, which is just kind of a brain dump on things, because it gets those things that are you're worrying about out of that space. So they aren't spinning around, that there's something you can look at, and oftentimes you go, oh, that's all I'm worried about? Okay, it's not that big of a deal. Yeah, I generally use it more as a personal assistance and often well, oftentimes though, to clarify ideas. I'm like, I've got this idea, and this is the vague concept. How can I how can I crystallize that and what are some points that I might be missing or that I could see on it? And so just using it as like like somebody that I could talk to about this idea. But I mean, I do I do talk about plenty of ideas. I have a business partner who lives in Southern Oregon, and we met through my podcast. So oftentimes our business meetings devolve in us talking about a philosophical concept and you know, like, and then an hour later we're like, okay, back on track. Let's let's work on the things we're gonna be working on. So but I also use it just to look up things. I use it to try and fill in to to see if I can find my blind spots sometimes. Because I'll be like, I have this idea, but I can't seem to think of anything beyond that, and because nobody's here for me to bounce this off and ask those questions of, excuse me, you know, what are some of the things that this relates to, you know, and that's you know, using kind of Socratic method, what things is this like? What things is this different from? How is this like this thing? How is it different from that thing? So it's it's really just kind of an assistant. I know a lot of people use AI to, you know, to create stuff and then put it out there, and I think that I think that's fine, but I think that in doing so you're missing the exercise of of exercising your mind. And so I think it's really important for you to puzzle through the things as much as you can yourself. But there are times when, like I said, I have an idea and I can't quite grok what it is that I'm trying to do, and so oftentimes just saying, okay, give me some more points on this thing. What am I missing? And, you know, it just they can come up with different ideas on things. So it's I think it can be a useful tool, but I don't want it to be the thing that does my thinking for me. Interesting. Yeah, interesting. Yeah, I think that because I just because I've spent so many years writing my podcast episodes, which I think at some point I may just, you know, have you know, give them to an editor and say, okay, edit these and turn them into a book and have like the stoic coffee book or something like that. But I think from just years of writing about this on a weekly and sometimes daily basis, because you know, sometimes an episode will take me years ago, it we would to do a single episode that would last 15 minutes would often entail about eight to ten hours of writing, because I really was just working through a lot of these ideas and really trying to understand them. And over time, I've gotten to that point where now I can sit down and write an episode in about an hour and a half, two hours, just because I've gotten that muscle memory of of, you know, just constantly thinking through these ideas and refining them and honing them down to those things that they're really stuck in my head at this point. And it's just kind of my natural philosophy of how I live my life. And I'm not always perfect at it, and I still struggle with plenty of things, you know. I still get anxious and I still have days when I'm depressed and don't really want to do anything. And I've had some of those over the last little bit, and it's usually just because my mind is just feeling overwhelmed with all the things I'm trying to get done and worrying about money and worrying about, you know, all the things of life, and it's just like, okay, I can't seem to get on top of this today, so I'm just gonna take a take an easy day. I'm gonna go for a walk. I'm gonna like yesterday was one of those days. For whatever reason, it just happened a tough day. And so I watched this thing called Genius, and it was all about Albert Einstein. It was on Amazon Prime, and so and it was just really interesting to me to learn more about Einstein and his whole kind of background. It's it's somewhat fictionalized, but I think it does a pretty good accurate account and it's well acted. And so it's you know, I was just like, okay, this is gonna be one of those days. It's still productive, but I need to kind of not be stuck in my head thinking about these things, but I still want to feel like I'm learning something interesting and trying to understand this. And they do a pretty good job of explaining a lot of Einstein's theories in ways that actually make sense to the layperson. So it was like, oh, oh, okay, that's what he means by that. That now that was cool. Because physics is something I find really fascinating. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And yeah. Yeah, and that's that was very much how I grew up. So my dad was very explosive like that. And it was random and it was it was kind of terrifying, and it's taken a lot of time to kind of figure those things out. So when I when I became a parent, I obviously I had a very clear idea of what I didn't want, wasn't didn't have quite the vision of what I wanted to be, and so I I think I could have been better, but I think I did well, especially compared to my dad, and especially compared to how his dad was. He was a better father than his dad was, but he still kind of sucked in a lot of ways, you know. Being beaten for being a little too loud when you come in the door, you know, when you're six years old, is probably not the not the safe doesn't create the safest environment, and so that can that can definitely leave some scars. So I wish that my dad had been able to learn something like this so that we could have grown up in a much more stable home like that. Because and but kind of the story that goes along with this was that once when my son was about 18 months old, he was being difficult about something, and I swatted him on his his butt and he had a diaper on, and my ex-wife looked at me and was like, I can't you know, like that look of like, I can't believe you just did that. Especially because she knew my background growing up in a violent home. And I was so ashamed. And I realized that, yep, that was about me, and it had nothing to do with him. He was 18 months old. He's not being obstinate to be mean, he's just being a fussy little 18-month-old kid. And that was the only time that I ever spanked any of my kids. And they turned out to be pretty good kids and pretty healthy as far as that goes. Because I recognized when when I was getting distressed in those situations, it was about me, and I had a choice in that. And this was before I found stoicism, but that was one thing where I recognized my dad didn't do this. I can at least do this. I can make sure that if something happens, that I keep my cool and I don't make it about them, and I make sure that I'm controlling my emotions, and so my kids just grew up a lot healthier and happier than I did. Yeah. Well, thanks. I unfortunately in my personal relationships, I haven't always been as good at that, and that's been one thing that I struggled with, but but and I think that's why I haven't worried about dating, is because I recognize that even with my stoic background, getting over those those triggers and retraining my mind to be more calm and relaxed in those situations is it's it's a lot of work. And, you know, I wasn't haven't always been great at that. And I think why this framework is so important is because it's at least given me insight to see why those things are there, things I can do to correct that, and a and a much clearer path forward than what I had before, which was, you know, that I'm just this is just how I am. And it was like, well, no, it's not how I am. It's how I was, and it may be how I am now, but I can be better, and now I have a path where I can actually move forward on that. So for me, stoicism has always been very hopeful. Yeah, yeah, me too. Like I love a lot of Buddhist ideas. You know, there's just there's so much, you know, there's just a lot of wisdom there and a and a lot of of understanding can be compiled and you know fit in with my whole philosophy of life. So yeah, I'm always I'm always on the lookout for things like that. And sometimes I find good ideas in the unlikeliest of places. Like I read a book a while back called How Big Things Get Done. And it's just all about project planning. But it was just like, wow, what an interesting way to look at things, you know? It's just you know, different perspective on similar problems. And having been in software, which is all about agile and you don't plan very much and you just go, go, go, go, go, and then And suddenly he was going, Well, the more you can plan, the better off you are, because you can always fix a plan much faster than you can, you know, when you're actually building the thing. And I was like, Oh, he's got a good point there. And so I think it can also be applied to in our lives. If we don't have a plan of what it is we're trying to do and we're just going on, then we have no idea what it is we're trying to create.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:05

Yeah. So are you okay for me to thanks first of all for coming back. I apologize for my computer crashing. Are you okay to wrap things up, close things out? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:15

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:15

Maybe like just however you want to do this, I'm good. So I'm I'm learning about stoicism and I'm also getting motivated to upgrade my tech setup as well. This is great. Yeah, but I mean, case in point. So yeah, to anyone listening, I apologize if the if there's any glitch or cut off. Hopefully, not too abrupt. My my computer decided it was wanted to have a nap. I've really enjoyed this conversation with you, and I still feel like there's so much more to explore. And that's fine. That's good actually. It's better to, I think, end a conversation still wanting more for maybe a round two in the future. I appreciate how vulnerable you've been, because sometimes I find when I talk to people interested in stoicism, they want to leave their personal story like out of it to talk about the like historic facts, which is great. There's a purpose for that. But I really do appreciate you opening up about your past and sharing some of the struggles that you've been through and relating them back to Stoicism. So yeah, thank you for this great conversation. And if people want to learn more about your work, your book, your podcast, where's the best place for them to find you?

SPEAKER_00 1:30:27

Best place is my website, which is pretty easy to remember. It's just stoic.coffee. I love that. That's a good one. Yeah. Yeah. No, I was really happy when I got that domain name. I originally started my podcast as Stoic Meditations, and then I saw that Massimo Puglio, the famous Stoic professor, had the same podcast name, and I was like, oh, I should change it. And then I went looking for I was trying to think of what I could do, and I was like, well, let me see what domain names are available, see if that sparks some ideas. Then I saw Stoic Doc Coffee, and I was like, that's a really good name. I really like that. So I was like, okay, but how do I tie that back in? I was like, well, they're short, so let me call it Stoic Coffee Break. Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, that works. And it's it's memorable, it's easy. Drink coffee every morning, and it's but the idea was that, like, like I said, is that I like to give I like to take these hard ideas, distill them down into something that's really meaty but very practical and understandable at the same time, rather than lots of fluff on it. And it's it's just very personal. I joke around and call the say that my podcast is my public therapy. Because really a lot of the things you hear on there are this is crap I've been dealing with and this is how I dealt with it. So if it helped me, hopefully it'll help other people. Because I'm not the only one who's gone through the same these things. We're all basically living the same problems, you know, to a certain extent. And so, you know, hopefully I've learned a little bit and I can share that wisdom with someone else.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:56

Yeah, amazing. And your book, uh Stoicism 101, which we've been talking about, uh, those are the two main places you would say that people can learn more. Like the podcast, the website, and the book. The three those three things.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:11

Yeah. I do have a community that people can join as well. I'll be I'll be launching a course fairly soon for that. And you can find all the information right on the front page of my of my website as well. So that's it's the best way. And you have to do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:23

And the community can be something people can't.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:26

I do. I'm terrible about sending out emails. I need to I did for a while. There are just so many things. I think that once I get this course done, I'll probably get into a better cadence of actually sending out emails, doing things like that. But the community right now is free. So anybody who wants to come in and join, I try to post there at least every day. And you know, usually like, here's a here's a stoic thought, what do you guys think on this? Allow people to kind of give their opinions, you know, kind of like a mini-journal thing of like giving them a prompt to talk about these ideas. Then I also do usually an AMA once a month, you know, to just get to know people in the community. And it eventually I'd like to bump that up maybe to twice a month, but we'll see. But yeah, so it's it's I also do individual coaching and I I try to stick with it doesn't have to be necessarily leadership, but kind of that's that's kind of my main focus right now. But I also do some life coaching and stuff like that. So yeah, kind of a little bit of everything. I find that I just find my mission in life that is to help people to be better and to be happier and whatever they define as better, but hopefully that stoicism gives them a framework of tools, ideas, foundational principles that they can build off of to live a better life and to be happier. I mean, for me it has definitely been the thing that is that's really helped me through all the struggles that I've had, especially in the last ten years. And, you know, the last ten years have been pretty crazy in this world.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:57

Well, I'll be joining that community. So if anyone decides to join upon listening to this, you can I'll be in there too, so I'll say hi. All right. Sounds great. Great to see you in there, John. Yeah. Well, thank you again and hope to speak to you soon. Thank you.