14: Stoicism, Strategy and Creativity

Ryan on. He's an author, writer, and marketer. He's the former director of marketing for American Apparel and an editor at large for The New York Observer. His latest book is The Obstacle is the Way. Thanks Ryan for being on here. It's very good to be here. Good to talk to you again. Yeah, it's really good to talk to you. And preparing for this interview, there's so many different threads, you know. I feel like we could like

chat for days, but we don't have dates. So okay, I'll try to try to focus us a little bit. Do you mind if we trace a little bit of your background because I found that particularly interesting and personal perspective. I'm really interested in people who take alternative pathways to get to greatness or get to success. So Okay, I noticed that it said on your Wikipedia page that you

dropped out of college at age nineteen. Is that correct, because now everything is, you know, necessarily correct that you read on Wikipedia. So yes, Well, so I dropped out ironically. So I left school when I was nineteen, right, is the end of the year. And then I moved in with Tucker Max. So I think you've had on the show before, right, I've been on his show. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And so he was he was someone that i'd met

in college. I'd interviewed him, and I sort of became his intern when he was first publishing his books and he had a media company at the time, and so I moved in with him. We lived in La and I I had a job at a talent management agency, like a summer job, and sort of at the end of it, they were like, what if you never went back? And so I never did. I never went back to school. And it's nineteen but I turned like twenty, like the next day. But yeah, so I dropped out of school

the end of my sophomore year. So this is really interesting because you obviously had like the seeds of or the passion for journalism, because yeah, I read somewhere that you were invited to a small private summit that doctor Drew was hosting, Right, yeah, in freshman year then, right, yeah, that would have been my freshman freshman year, very beginning of my sophomore year. I don't remember, but yeah, it was. It was basically I really liked writing, and that was

like my sort of passion. But I also saw working for this newspaper as this chance to meet people that I wouldn't be able to meet like as me, but as a journalist quote unquote, you can like interview anyone, right, So I met Tucker by interviewing him, I met doctor Drew, who ended up introducing men to stoicism, which changed my life because I because I was covering him for this newspaper.

And so it was this like little hustle I guess that I had on the side that one was my passion for writing and made me a much better writer. But it opened a bunch of doors as a student journalist that would have never been opened to me, like just as a random person or or as like a you know, a college dropout. Yeah. Absolutely, And so it's like you made this this this concerted decision at one point where you know, like I don't need this formal education to realize this vision I have in my head.

Did it sort of go that way? Like kind of so like I had like a love hate relationship with school, Like I had all these dreams for like what college was going to be, like, like it was this place where everyone loved books and I would talk to all these smart people and it would be amazing, and it was sort of like that, and then it was also

not like that. And so when this opportunity came to sort of I remember thinking when I got the job offer, because I got the job offer to stay at the management firm, and then Robert Green, who'd been another person that I met, I was looking for a recent surch assistant, and these sort of two things happened at the same time. I remember thinking, Okay, I was going to graduate early. I've got like a year year and a half left

of school. And if at the end of that time these offers were there for me, I would think that college had been a huge success and I would be very grateful for these jobs. So why would I turn my My justification was why would I turn them down? If I have them right now? Why wouldn't I jump on them, and I did. It was still a very difficult decision, a very scary one. But I felt like

I could learn more out of school than in school. Absolutely, And you must have learned quite a bit working with Tucker Max and Robert Green doing both of them have pretty good I mean, both of them have different personality. Probably out with both of them, and yeah, they have different personalities, but I admire various characteristics that both of

them have. Yeah, it was sort of this thing where I could I had instead of having like one mentor, I had like three or four, and I was able to like take the pieces, the strongest parts of each of them. And they were each sort of directing me to read things and showing me things and introducing me to things. So it was this period of probably three solid years where I was just it was like a different kind of education, but an equally rigorous one. Absolutely.

And so when did you make contact with American Apparel? So Robert Green was on the board of directors for American Apparel. So I've been working for Robert for two years or so. My thing in Hollywood was going okay, and he introduced me to Douve because he was having some sort of problem with his like internet, so his online persona was not what he needed it to be.

And I came in, we met and it's sort of another friendship, you know, came about and I ended up joining there with no real title or position or job, and then a few years later I ended up becoming the director of marketing. Wow, so so much of your marketing advice that you gave them and your was basically it seems to give some sort of intuition for a

lot of this stuff. I mean you didn't have formal training, right, Well, I didn't have formal training, but I think what I was really what I read a lot and I learned a lot. But I think what was crazy is that I would like learn something from Tucker, and then I would apply it to Robert, and then I would learn

something from Robert, and I would apply to Tucker. That I'd learn something from each of them and applied to American Apparel, and I think they both all thought that I was like just bringing this to the table myself, But it was really like if I'd only done one of them at one time, I don't think it would have been nearly as rapid of a sort of rise

through the ranks. It was these It was the convergence of very different schools of thinking and then my own sort of rigorous like learning and trial and air kind of stuff that made it possible. So I'm trying to fit you with in the positive psychology framework because are you familiar with like the character strengths. There's twenty four character strenths, no study. Yeah, So like Martin Sell and Chris Peterson set out this big project to create the

antithesis to the DSM. So instead of like, you know, what's wrong with people, let's look at the history of the last three thousand years and look at They looked at two hundred of the greatest texts from you know, ancient Greek and to the Stoicism, which we're gonna talk about later, et cetera, et cetera, and they narrowed down to six virtues and then twenty four character strengths. And I'm just in my head, I think I'll give you that.

You know what, I'll give you the test later. You can take your you can find out what your signatures. That's awesome. Yeah, and maybe I'll put on the show notes your results. Sure, your test results. But I'm just one predicting I don't want to buy me? Is this kind of bias you now now you'll buy, Yes, But I feel like love of learning is probably one of your signature strengths, is what I'm feeling, and perseverance is

definitely one of them. What do you think, Taylor? Creativity, curiosity, creativity, curiosity, curiosity, So you know, these sorts of things I predict, but you know, we'll see, we'll see. Sure. Yeah, No, it was, it was. It was a hell of an experience. I'm obviously very great full to all of them, and it was I think for me, like the big thing was

like how do I not blow this? Like That's what I was like thinking all the time, right, like because like I could see how like you know, living on Tucker Max's floor, there are certain temptations there, and like working for Robert Green, there's certain temptations. Working for an American appair, there's certain temptations to say nothing of like the stress and you know, high stakes of it, like

it could have gone the other way. I feel like I got very lucky, but it was also like, yeah, just how do I not this is all very lucky? How do I not blow it? Yeah? No, I hear you do you but you have a great sense of confidence now from many years of this kind of experience. I mean, do you still have that attitude when you

to try to not blow it? Yeah? Yeah, I mean I do think It's like I'm sort of I think the confidence maybe now comes from like feeling like I'm playing with house money, like like I'm very ahead of the game. So like in some ways that makes me both confident and all the bit conservative. Yeah. But but then and now I try very much to see, like maybe this is from the stoicism part. I try to see like where it could go wrong and what I could do to and how could how someone could mess

it up? And then I tried not to do that thing. Yeah that's great, and that actually you talk a lot about about that strategy in your new book. Before we get to your new book, your prior book on Confessions of a So in the subtitle, there's the phrase mediam manipulator. Right, Yeah, Confessions of a medium manipulator. That's what I wanted the title to be. But it's so funny because I can't actually remember it was I'm lying or was there I'm lying?

Isn't that funny, I actually remember your subtitle, but yeah, well that was my argument with the publisher that they want Well okay, so I really like your sub title, and I like the title too, but obviously it wasn't as easy for me to remember. But yeah, that's so. It's it's a really good book, and you bring a lot of your personal experiences in the industry or whatever. I don't know the word is for what you experienced, sure, the media world or the world of lots of smokes

and mirrors, right, yeah, do you So? How did you like choose the phrase media manipulator because I could have like a negative connotation to some people. Yeah. Sure. So one of the books I'd read when I was starting in an American prepare was this book called The Brass Check by Upton Sinclair. He wrote this sort of like expose in the first person of how the media system worked.

It was it was right. He wrote it right after The Jungle, and I remember reading it and thinking like, man, this is like very true to what I was experiencing at American Apparel seeing Tuckers somewhat controversial reputation, and so I wanted to write a similar book because I've been searching around for like a book that explained how the media system was working as someone who who both was a writer and someone who who'd worked with people who are in the public eye, and I didn't see one.

But I felt like when I was doing my research, I saw that, like, nobody reads books about the media that are not in the media. So if I wanted to reach a wider audience, which I did, I felt like I had to sort of go with that angle. So it was about sort of packaging when I wanted to be really like my dream was to write it at like an academic book of media criticism, but I realized that would get a very small market, and so it was like, how can I how can I position

this in such a way. And it's funny, I think when you and I first met, I was it was out of dinner with Neil Strauss, and I was asking him like a lot of these questions like whocause I know he'd gone through it with his books, because like, when you know Neil, he's like the smartest, most like literary person you would ever meet, which is not what you would expect at all, and yet he's built this massive brand that is true to him, and it's true

to parts of him, but there's also like this other side, and so that was definitely something I struggled with and thought a lot with the book. I really like that this other side, Like, let's just talk about that for a second. Yeah, I'm totally fascinated with this whole thing. So I'm fascinated with like being you're like living your authentic self, right, sure, Like, and I do think in a lot of ways. I mean, you know, is as all of us, you know, it's a journey to actually

figure out what the hell that is. So sure, I think something that's a great strength of a lot of his ratings is that he like is so honest about his journey to figure that out, you know. Sure, and you know he has a new book coming out, right, Like, yeah, so the authentic selfing but you know, part of you can live your authentic self, but also you can live your out think self and no one never know it

because you don't ever like broadcast it, right. So yeah, so it seems like there is this part that is important that you that you talk about. I don't know if it's manipulation or it's amplification. Amplification, right, but Yeah, it's it's taking these best strengths of of what you're proud of and figure out a way to actually like

make that known to lots of people. Yeah. I mean, so the book, it's like, on the one hand, I'm talking about how appalling like the way that media can be manipulated is, and at the same time, I'm saying, like, I did all this right and I and I figured it out and I benefited from it. And it's at first it was like, are these is this hypocrisy? Are these two separate parts of myself? Am I being dishonest?

And then when I started to realize, someone gave me the word and I talk about it in the intro, It's like I had two parts of myself and I believed in both of them, but they were not integrated in any way. So it's like I could like manipulate the media and show how something could work to benefit

a client that I've believed in. And then on the other hand, I felt like this was not how the media system should be and so and that it was bad generally even though I was taking advantage of it, I'd rather not be able to take advantage of it, and it not exists, So the book was like kind of an integration of those two selves. And that's what I think Neil does really well, is like his books are like a journey that he goes on that the

reader comes along with. And I hope my book kind of accomplished that, which is like, here's what I learned, here's what I realized. I'm moving on now. But this book is sort of a testament to how things were in a period in my life. Yeah, I think it does, and I think that I think it's a really good way to live your life. You know, the authentic self is not shying away from the like the perhaps darker aspects of yourself, but quite you know, embracing all the aspects.

And it's a big, big common theme in in positive psychology. Right now, I'm just looking at my bookshelf for a new books like toddcast and on embracing both the good and the bed of the self. But anyway, what's it called The Side of Your Dark Side? Oh? That's great, Yeah, it's a great it's a really great book by Tad Cast. And I'm writing Robert Robert Biswastiner, who are two leaders

in our field. Okay, yeah, great, guys, So let's talk about your new book then, Because I teach positive psychology here at Penn, and my first class I go through history, trace the history of of ideas of the good life, and we of course I cover stoicism and and your book did a great service in bringing this to a more and wider audience and making it very easily digestible and accessible. How can you? In fact, I think I'm going to have my next cohort of students listen to

your podcasts now as a homework assignment. So you guys also put that on your CV you pen, you know, but I think I will though, I think, so, can you just define stoicism then? How you see what? How do you see as the essential really getting at the core of what they were all about? Yeah, I mean it's interesting, like what the stoicism that I talked about in the book and then stoicism in general are similar,

although not totally aligned. My sort of personal definition of stoicism is we live in a world that we don't control. Stoicism is a set of exercises and philosophy, practical philosophy for how to navigate that world, right, And I like that it was it was a manual for are not just like thinkers but also doers. Right. So the most prominent stokes you have Marcus Aurelius. On the one hand. You have epictet who's the emperor of Rome. You have Epictetus,

who is a former slave. You have Seneca, who I think is a we're talking about sort of the darker and lighter sides of your nature. You have Seneca, who on the one hand is this brilliant play prayer, playwright, and philosopher, and on the other hand is the personal tutor and friend of Nero and this sort of backstabbing political conniver. So there's this like he's this disintegrated person but also integrated in his writing. And I like that Stoicism is this sort of struggle both with and against

human nature, right. And so for me, like my favorite Stoke line is the idea of like, there is no good or bad, there's only perception, right. And so to me, the way I see stoicism is a framework for managing those perceptions, for taking advantage of them, and again for making sense of the parts of life that we don't control. I don't I don't agree with all the tenants, like

I don't believe in like predetermination. I don't believe in like persecuting Christians, let's say, or any of the other stuff. But I think we I think we can take what we like from the Stoics, balance it out with other philosophers, and then most importantly, balance it out with the sort of modern you know, innovations in psychology and biology and and I think it gives us a pretty good framework for life in a sort of post religious world. It

absolutely does. I mean, I was very excited reading your book and you talk about post traumatic growth, you know, yeah, a very emerging field. When then positive psychologists, I was like, yeah, rock on, and yeah, lots of things you talk about are grounded in the latest science of resiliency and grit, you know. And Duckworth does grit literally right next door to me, really yeah, literally, like right there. That's awesome. Their whole their whole wing line for is the grit.

The grit for I'm the imagination creativity for okay, and they're the grit for so I actually, I should say, imagine corctivity and World Wellbeing Project is at the end, do you know what the World Well Being Project is doing? Down now? They actually have. They're being able to predict heart disease and how long you're going to live in

mortality based on your tweets. So really it's big data. Yeah, they're looking at like like hundreds of thousands of tweets and being able to predict at a county wide level, like like whether or not that county is has high degrees of and they're predicting it better though than like traditional markers of heart disease. Do you know? Do you know Sep Kambar he's at MIT Media Lab. He wrote that book. He did that project We Feel Fine, where

it took like huge amounts of big data. He was like one of the first people to do this, but he took huge amounts of like Google blog searches and social media searches where people would like say what they're feeling and why. Yeah, and he was like he was I remember talking to him about it, and now he was like the irony is like when you look at all these like modern sort of psychological tools that we're doing with big data, all it basically does is prove

ancient philosophy, which I thought was very cool. Like he was saying, like, like, for instance, like young people associate happiness with like accomplishment, right, like a cheat, like I feel good because I like found, you know, a new job, or I feel good because like I got a new car or something like that. And then he's like, as

you get older, increasingly you feel happiness around contentment. And he was like, you know, these are like timeless ideas that were that were just sort of like hypotheses before, or at best they were proven in like a study of seventy two male college students being forced to apply being forced to do it for psychology credit or and he's like, now finally we can see it like you know, across thirty five million tweets or something like that. I thought it was very cool, very cool, And you just

made me think of something in your book. You say that action and philosophy are not contradictions. Yeah, I mean I don't think they are. I think I think certainly academic philosophy or like what most people assume is philosophy,

seems very at odds with philosophy. But like one of the most prominent Stokes is is Cato, you know, the sort of mortal enemy of Julius Caesar, and he never wrote anything down like the Stokes talk about him constantly as if he as if he said this, you know, in a book, but really he said it in real life like stoicism or Stockdale, Like Jan Stockdale when he's parachuting into Vietnam out of his plane, he's like saying to himself, like, I'm going to be testing the ideas

of stoicism in the laboratory of human experience. Like stoicism is not like this idle sort of philosophy about how life might be. It was like tested by some of the most prominent or you know, important people in history. I think that's like totally fascinating. Yeah. So you talk about in your book about things that all great men and women of history seem to have in common? Yeahah, what what is that? I mean, I know what it is?

That one way Yeah yeah, I mean what I'm saying in the book is that everyone faces adversity, right good, and like we don't choose whether we're going to face lots of adversity or a little bit of adversity. But like I think when you look at great men and women in history, what they've done is instead of being sort of stymied by that adversity, they somehow turn it into a source of advantage, right, which is what you have to do as an entrepreneur, as a writer, as

a as a leader. You have to take you know, you have to take the things that happen to you, and you have to take advantage of them, like as Obama says, like things are teachable moments. Right. As a politician, you don't get to choose that this story breaks or that story breaks, or this world event happens, or you know, this current event occurs. What you can do is make the most of it. Right. You can decide how you're going to respond to that thing. And that's a I

think that's a very philosophical idea. On the one hand, it's it's sort of heady and intellectual to think like, oh yeah, like what happened is outside me, but what respond how I respond to within me? But it's also like a very pragmatic, realistic idea, and that that's something that I try to apply obviously in my real life. Can I get like really nerdy for a second, let's do it. Like I mean, my background, I went to

Carnegie Mellon and I was HERB. Simon's last research assistant, you know, her who Herb Simon is he No, I mean he basically was the one of the founders of artificial intelligence. He wont to noble prize and economics for satisficing you. You've heard of satisficing I think, so it's

better for us to decide what's good enough than being optimizers. Sure, so he talks about lots of his famous seminal like nineteen seventy one book was like General Problem Solving Strategies, okay, and with Alan Newall, And this book outlines various heuristics that the humans use to solve problems, but in there there is no houristic, Like I feel like we should invent a heuristic right now, like it just dawned in me, like the means and analysis is one of the most

popular heuristics that's talked about in the literature. And means EN's analysis is when you try to do whatever you can do to reduce the discrepancy between your starting state and your goal state. But there's nothing it means as analysis about the obstacle. And you know, it's almost like treated as though, like you know, everything you need to

do is to reduce the state. But if an optic comes, like there's no explanation of like what to do there really necessarily sure, like maybe I feel like there needs to be like a heuristic. Like literally the heuristic is whenever I face an obstacle, I turn it into an advantage, like like that could be that could be like a human like heuristic in the literature on heuristics. Do you know what I mean totally? I mean what the stote say is that, like everything that happens to you is

that is an opportunity to practice virtue. And like that like when I say that, like when I give talks or what I write, like I know it, like I can see people like instantly become resistant. Like the idea of like virtue as like being a modern idea is like very it's almost like repellent to people for some reason, Like it sounds very morealistic. But like what they're saying is like it's a chance to do something that you

weren't planning but is also good. Right, Like we're we're having this and like you know, maybe like my computer starts sucking, I could get angry about it, or I could say like, okay, this is a chance to like practice patience, right, or like all of a sudden, like you're like a really hostile interviewer and you're like trying to like you know, you're there like trying to like

get me right. I could get frustrated and I could shut down, or I could say like this is a chance for me to practice and get better, or like this is a chance for me to be like gracious or or or pleasant despite like a route encounter, right, Like I hope I'm not being an asshole, by the way, No, no no, not at all, not at all, but but like if you were, if you were, that's not like what the Stokes would say is like that's not only is that not in my control, it's not my problem, right,

Like I don't control people aren't going to be rude. People are gonna be assholes. Like you don't control that, and you're gonna you're gonna give yourself an aneurism if you try to like force everyone to be good all the time. Instead you should just try to be good, and you should try this. I think this is a another part of so and it's like you you try

to be an example. And of course all this is easier said than done, but I think it's like a framework that certainly there's no harm in trying to apply as often as possible. I think there's a great misconception about Stoicism that it means that you don't have emotions.

Sure you're And it's also a common misconception about mindfulness, which is I think is associated with Stoicism, and it's kind of the modern movement of detachment from your thoughts in a sense that you get perspective, right, you kind of yep down on it from like a bird's eye view and decide how you want to do it. But I don't think that Stoics would have said that passion

is not is bad? Am I? Right now? I think the Stoll it's ironic because the Stokes talk about passions like the Greek word for like like sort of emotions, right, as being not emotions, but like extreme emotions as being bad, like sort of being ruled by your passions was very important to them. Yeah. Yeah, But like passion for what you do or for good things or for purpose like

is obviously part of Stoicism. And it's proven by the fact that you know, Mark Surrealis didn't didn't he accepted being emperor, right, He wasn't actually born to be the Emperor of Rome. He was he was adopted into it. He could have rejected it at any moment, right or he could have he could have retreated from it, but he didn't. And and I think you see that in a lot of the people who adhered to Stoicism, who were also sort of accomplished people in whatever their field was.

Like you've written a lot and you and I have talked about like Victor Frankel, who's who is influenced by Stoicism and experienced it and tested it and probably the worst man made environment in history, and and and in one way it got him through what he went through, but it also was like he saw it as this like chance to to take his work to like the highest level that it could go, and like and and and and was a prodigious producer of writing and thinking

both before and after and like, I don't think you see Stoics as being these people who like remove They're not the cynics, right, who like remove themselves from the world and take vows of poverty and and and negativity. It's it's just a way to protect yourself and balance out the uncertainties of the world. I would say, yeah, I agree, And Also, you talk in your book about how it also reduced the fluctuations of emotions, so that's not this constant you know, up and down, up and down.

I mean, I think a lot of the ancient Greeks and I mean some of the greatest thinkers of all time have talked about the importance of timeless values or yeah, and I actually I really like that because you do notice that no matter what it is in the moment, when you get a greater perspective, no matter what it is, once you get greater perspective, you know that it's it's the emotion is not gonna have the same intensity. Yeah, there's this one there's this one play that is it

by Lucian or Lucius I forget. I think it's Lucian. He's talking about it's this like poem and he's getting he's getting wings, and he flies above the earth. And as he's flying above the earth, he's seeing all the things that he thought were important get smaller and smaller

and smaller. Right, So it's like first like people are getting smaller than like warring armies, Our looks start to look like ants, and like giant mountains start to look like molehills, and like as he's getting further and further away, he's seeing just like how small human existence is and how how massive the the how massive things appear small from a different perspective. And like I don't think the Stokes are saying, like, you know, these things are small

and tiny. I think what they're people forget that Stoicism is a set of exercises, right, Like Mark Serrius didn't write a book of philosophy. He wrote a series of exercises that were meant for his It used to like remind him of stuff. So like that's where I think the connection to like cognitive behavioral therapy and some of the stuff that you do comes in. It's like stoicism is just like aphorisms and reminders of how to think about things. They're not like commandments or rules. They're like

like sort of mental puzzles. And I think that's what philosophy does really well. It makes you just think about something in a different capacity. It's not like you know a religious tenant that if you violate, you our sinful

and then aren't going to hell. Like the way I think about it is like when the Stokes say something and then when the storks are saying something, they are saying it primarily as a admonishment or reminder to themselves for having recently done the opposite of that thing, rather than like preaching to you that you need to be like that. I would agree with that, and I definitely agree with that. That cool. I'm definitely gonna sign this

as a homework assignment. That right, this is good. So I noticed some I don't know if there are direct influences of Robert Green's or just happened to be similar viewpoints, but I noticed a couple of the things that are in common. Okay, so let me mention One, you're you're you discuss the importance of reality. This is something I point out to Robert when I when he was on the podcast, how I noticed He's I woudn't want to say obsessed with reality. I mean, like just like he

over in all of his books. Like if you read all of his books and you just like sit down like in three days, in like a week, and just read all his books from start to finish, you'll notice that like he used the word reality more than any

other words. Something I've noticed. I have the greatest respect for it, but I think there's a reason for that is because he obviously thinks it's very important to see things for how they are, not for our own biases and our own emotions or perspectives or background experiences or quirky experience, you know, quirk experiences. We have color work, And so I see that as as another as important in your book as well, when you talk about how

perspective is everything. So were you influenced a little bit by Robert on that totally? I mean, like Robert sort of taught me in terms of writing and thinking, Like Robert has been the primary influence in my sort of intellectual life. And it was funny. I was just going through a bunch of quotes from Robert on reality for this project I'm working now. He has this great line, He's like, you have to take you have to take to reality like a spider takes to its web, which

I think is like a really good line. And I think I think it's important for two reasons. And maybe I'm speaking for Robert a little bit, but it's one. It's that if you're not looking at things objectively, I think the human mind and our society sort of gravitates you towards certain fantasies and certain like generous accounts of

your own talents, skills and place in the world. And if you're trying to do something or build something, like you know, an architect doesn't look at a plan and then based on how they'd like grab to be or how they'd like the lot size to be, or they'd like their budget to be. It has to be base and objective fact. And of course that's not totally possible for like a human being judging you know, other human

beings and what you're doing. But like, the more you can strip out your own, i would say, unhelpful interpretations of things, the easier it is to do whatever you're trying to do. And I think the Stokes do that too, Like Marcus Reelis and Seneca and Appetitas are constantly talking about, you know, seeing what things really are. Like Mark Surrealis is like he's like, look like, you wear the purple cape, which is what the emperor wears. But it's just it's

just the case. It's the same as the regular cape. It's just dyed with shellfish blood, which is how they would get the color purple. Then he's like, it's the same cape it's just dyed a different color. And he's talking both literally and metaphorically. He's like, you're not different than anyone else, Like you're still a human being, You're still bound by Like I can only imagine, like if you're deified as a god in your own lifetime, how hard must it be to like stay connected to reality

and you see what happens to people in power. Yeah, I could tell you firsthand, you know, just hard, that is sure. Sure, I'm just messing. Yeah, No, And so I really like that emphasis. And also, you know, on social intelligence. When Robert in his new book Mastery talks about social intelligence, he kind of views it as you know, seeing within or just seeing the person for what they are. Yeah, and I think that you you have that perspective as well, kind of removing the you I think you talk about

in your book. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Yeah, I think you put it that way. I don't think I put it that way to be fair to you. To be fair to you, So, how does you talk about some great examples of of of of modern day people who have really incorporated stoicism to their life. One example, Steve Jobs. How does Steve Job

exemplify stoicism, do you think, well? So, ironically, Steve Jobs probably had no interest in stoicism and probably found himself more on this sort of Buddhist zen end of the spectrum. But what I liked, I like and dislike his idea of what critics would call his like sort of reality

distortion field. He would take like what other people said, like he has this great line where he's like, at some point you realize that all the rules in life are in the world were just like made up by people who are like no smarter than you, And like, I think what he was grasping is like so much of what people say is like possible or not possible is either based out of fear or it's based out of like sort of conservative assumptions, and Steve Jobs was

like really good at just blowing past that. I mean, part of the reason he bounced out of Apple originally was like his vision for Apple, what it became seemed like so unrealistic and everyone was so everyone was so a gassed at what he wanted things to become that they didn't bother to think about whether it actually was possible or not. And he was just very insistent on So the one hand, reality is important. On the other hand, it's not to say you have to assume other people's

pessimistic version of what reality is. If I was going to try to connect those two thoughts, well, let's bring in my favorite word, imagination. Let's let's toggle between the two reality and the importance of like both. Yeah, so can you like be discontent with the reality? And so I think one of the greatest motivators of imagination is discontent with reality. I often say it, yeah, so that at the same time you can still have a great, deep appreciation for reality, but then have a just terrific

imagination and vision of what reality could be. And that's easily reconcilable, right, Yeah, And I don't think it's just imagination. It's like one of the great sort of social and political organizers saw Alensky, who is who influenced both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. He has this famous line. He's like, if an organizer wants to do something, it's like, you have to accept the world as it is for what

it is if you want to change it. I think part of people think like their imagination is important, and it is. That's like where you want to go. But if you don't understand where things are and why they are the way that they are, you're not going to get there. Like there's plenty of there's plenty of other people who had equally crazy ideas as Steve Jobs did.

But what Steve Jobs is really good at is understanding how to get from point A to point B and pushing past the petty sort of resistance that that hell holds other people back from getting there. Right. I can't get over this juxtaposition of having this really high level, abstract, wonderful discussion with roosters in the background walking by with their own Do you see them? It's incredible. Let me see it. I have two goats and they're jumping around

in the back there too. Do you live enough farm? No, this is just my back that's my back fence. Like I have a very small backyard, but I have I have two chickens and two goats. I completely agree with what you're saying, and I think that's why I try to be as ruthless as I can in my science,

you know, and take everything else out. But then once I had the data in front of me, then I'd like to imagine what the data could look like if you did X, Y Z interventions, But that first step of ruthless science, you know, I think is important by science, you know, you would just phrase it as you know, like reality, you know. Yeah, And I think people think that being that way is somehow like it is somehow bad.

But in fact, I think if you're not realistic and you don't have a real understanding of why things are the way they are, you're doing your like dream or your imagination like a disservice. Like when I sat down to write a book about stoicism, something I was deeply passionate about, something I want people to learn about. But I also sat down and looked at all the other books that were published, and I said, Okay, why did

they fail? Like what was wrong with them? How Like I looked at William Irvine's book who he was an academic who wrote a book about Stoicism, and it's done okay, But like I was like, what's wrong with it? Why? Why is? And I figured out what I didn't like

about it. I thought about what I could contribute that was new and different, and like, it's not just about having a good idea or having something that you're passionate about I think generally passion is very Passion is much more overrated than like purpose, which I think is very important.

And I think those are two very different ideas. Someone who has purpose is going to understand and be willing to sort of in a mock yability and sense like, let the ends justify the means, right, because they know what the ends are and they know what they need to do. There, Someone who's passionate things that just like emoting or caring about or spending a lot of energy on something is a contribution, and I would say that it's really not. So I agreed. I think a lot

of it depends how you define passion. So sure, I'm am a big fan of this construct in my field called harmonious passion, where it's not about emotional valence, it's about how do you integrate an activity into the core of your identity. Okay, so I think harmonious passion is extremely important, but it's not the stereotypical type of you know, passion that you're you're referring to, And I would agree

with you. So it's so the difference between interest and harmonious passion is like an interest is, yeah, I really like basketball, but like harmonious passions. I am a basketball player, and it seems it seems like, yeah, it seems like if you integrate you know, the world into yourself and the sense that you I am a writer, you know, it actually the game changer, you know, like it actually

changes like the way that you approach the world. So sure, well I'll take it one step further, which is like I think people go like I am a writer often have trouble versus people who say, like, I have something I have to say, You've read an article about that? Actually,

did you know? It's it's like your identity. Is is it that your identity is as a basketball player, because what if that's your identity but like you're too short, or you get in a car accident your leg gets amputated, right, or is it like I deeply care about this sport or endeavor or you know, message that I have to get out and I'm going to within the confines of reality find the best means for expressing that passion and bringing it to fruition. Yeah, that's so funny. We just

have this moment. I actually shared that article you wrote on writing on Facebook. I think I like messaged you Facebook. Yeah, well it went back in time and looked at Facebook like like that article you wrote and ready here I am. But but I think that, just to push it a little bit further, I think that the aspect of harmonious passion construct I really like is that the idea there is that that the activity as well is health is in a healthy way, integrated with the rest of yourself.

So that's more of the point that I really like about it. That So it's it's like, it's that the writing activity I am a writer, is it makes me feel good about myself. It doesn't contradict you know, X, Y, and Z the other values that I have. It's part of, you know, the whole complete, integrated itself. So in that sense, you know, I like that. But no, no, that makes that makes total sense. And I've been thinking about passion a lot and I've never heard of that concept, and

now I want to look into it. That's amazing. Check it out. There's a just there's a distinction. I can somebody to send you an article. I'll put it in the show notes. Taylor does a great job of the show notes. Looking at the article post cubed like the multiple passionate paths to performance. Okay, there's the obsessively passionate path and the harmoniously passionate path. So anyway, yeah, i'd love to know. That's great. Great, So I'm want to

be very respectful of your times. Okay, for like a couple more minutes for questions, and then I want to give Taylor a chance here too. Okay, he's been dying to ask you some fun so thank you so much for this opportunity. Okay, Ran, How can you use obstacles against themselves? What does that mean? I mean, look, Martin Luther King has been on the news a lot recently, right, and and some of the passive passive resistance sort of things.

That's the example that I use in the book. It's how does someone who has no power manage to wield power or manage to wield influence or create change. This is obviously also the idea that underpins a lot of the martial arts. How do you how do you sort of use the force or size of an enemy against itself? Right? Because the idea of going head to head with things is not usually the most efficient or effective way to

do things. So like when you look at Martin Luther King, it's like, we're going to meet physical force with soul force. And he's saying that one because that's what he believes in. But on the on the other hand, like challenging physical force when you don't have physical force is not a viable option. Right. He's not a martyr. He although he ultimately sort of died as one, that's not what he

wanted to do. He wanted to create change and then experience it and benefit from it himself, like a rational human being. One. So when I talk about in the book, is is how you learn to sort of say, Okay, here's what I bring to the table, here's what I'm up against. How can I how can I make sure that I am challenging them where they're weak and where I am strong. That that's sort of the idea I looked at it. I think, militarily, this is it. It's

it's interesting, this is an idea you see militarily. You see it in the martial arts, you see it in philosophy, you see it in in uh in political movements. It's it's a fact of life because there's not any other way to do it. Yeah, I think that was very well said. So what does this what does this quote mean? Don't waste time on false constructs? I think I really, by the way, from aesthetic perspective, I love that sentence. I like it too. It was actually I'm trying to

remember where it is in the book. I think it's about the perspective. I think it's around when you talk about the importance of perspective. Yeah, well, look, it's interesting. Like the first thing we when we fail, like when something happens, right, it is an objective event, right, like you know, my house gets broken into, it's raining outside, getting a car accident, you know, my computer won't work.

These are like objective events. But what we do on top of that is then tell ourselves like what they mean or what they represent. Right, It's totally unfair. It's the end of the world. I'm too late now we tell ourselves these things. These are constructs that they're obviously adaptive constructs, but they're constructs, and you could argue that

they're making things worse. And so I try to When we're talking about reality, it's about seeing the event for what it is and what it is clearly, and not focusing so much on the interpretation that you add to it, or more importantly, the interpretation to go back to Steve jobs that other people put on things, right, just see it, Just see it for what it is to you personally in that moment, compared to what you need to do,

and let that sort of be the end of it. Yeah, that makes sen I just really like I wanted to say that sentence out at least time off all that. I really like that. It's weird. You've probably experienced this, like you write a book. Oh yeah, the book is like, you know, sixty plus thousand words. You don't remember all the sentences that are in it. And that's where you actually learn that that Emerson quote where he's like when you see your own thoughts like reflected back to you,

or you're like holy shit, like who said that? And then it's a it's pretty weird. Well, yeah, that funny moment where I said this called You're like, you're like, yeah, I really we were really well said Scott. I was like, you gotta be fair, you know that was I'm quoting you, brother. Anyway, I'm not sure I said that one. Okay, you know, maybe I'll actually well yeah, I'm not sure we're actually now either, but I'm pretty sure. Okay, so blessings and

burdens are not mutually exclusive. There's another chestnut. Yeah, I think that's the court. Would you agree that kind of gets to the core of stolicism in a way, Yeah, totally, totally. It's that within within the negativity of a given situation, there's also positive, right, the clearest being a sort of quote that underpins the book, which is that you know, everything is an opportunity to practice virtue. Everything is a chance.

So even even if something bad happens, like even if someone you know dies, is that not a chance for you to like be supportive to other people? Right? Or is that not a chance for you to be reminded of your own mortality or or you a chance to do something nice or respect Like, everything that happens, even really really bad stuff, especially really bad stuff, has has within it the chance to do something. So it's not like, oh, how do I look at the glasses being half full?

It's like, how do I how do I fill it up with like an action or a choice after the fact? Is what I would say. Stoicis amidst and that's what the obstacle is. The way ultimately means right, it's the obstacle is the way to someone. Yeah, yeah, turn things into an advantage, and it's it's not a thing to be avoided, so the thing, Yeah, right, exactly. And by the way, I think it's interesting like Mark Thwiz is saying the impediment to action dances action, that stosis, and

that's Western philosophy. And then you know the Zen saying is the obstacle is the path, and I wanted to combine the two. I really like when you see totally disparate, unconnected schools of philosophy zeroing in on this same or ideas. I think that's the sort of corroboration of some kind of real, undeniable wisdom. Awesome. I want to stop here and give a chance for my colleague or christ to ask you some questions. In a lot of ways, I may I'm going to embarrass Hi maybe a little bit heavy.

I feel like I'm looking at a younger version of you right here. He approached me a year ago and basically said, I want to learn as much from you about the field. I you know, like whatever I can do to help out. And he's he's became I let him me. I mean, I'm executive director of this podcast, and he's just done an amazing job with all the show notes and does he does he go to penn

or no? No? Wow? Nice? He literally Kate, he just I mean, you can tell your story, but you came from La just like showed up on the footstep of the Positive Psychology Center and said for free, I'm here, Like, what can I learn from you guys? And I made in my TA for my positive Psychology class the teaching

assistant for the whole place. Yeah, I appreciate that, Ryan. Yeah, I would start outright just by saying, like, you know, your your work has had a profound effect on my philosophical operating system, and it's meant a lot to me as a creative person, which is I think it's a great opportunity to have you and Scott in particular, both being psychologically interested creative types here. I figured i'd fire off a question that maybe both of you could weigh

in on bring me into this. I don't know this is gonna happen, the three way thing. So I'm a huge fan of your writing for psychology today, and it's clear you've done a lot of research in the field. I was curious if there had been any theories or studies in particular that you found very helpful to you as a creative professional. I mean, there's the post traumatic growth one which I talked about an obstacle, which I think was really interesting, and Scott and I were talking

about that one. I remember really early on I read I was reading this one about like one of the early studies about learned helplessness, and I remember I remember reading that like a certain number of the dogs just like didn't give in to learn helplessness. So it's like, even though these things might generally be true, there's also

like exceptions to the rules. I thought that was really interesting, and I thought, I remember the study I saw was like saying, like the study, I'm trying to remember it exactly, but it was like they did it in post post Soviet East Germany, and they were looking at they were like looking at how people adjusted to like the fall of communism, and like how some people like thought they were screwed, and then other people saw it as this like massive opportunity and so like I think in some

ways connects to the stoke, which is like if you can orient yourself so you see what happens to you as not being like negative, as not being universally negative, but as being sort of like temporary and alterable. This is like a This is as much a toolkit as any like actual talent or skill would be. Perhaps more so, would be better to be untalented but have a good outlook in this sense than to be like highly talented but sort of depressed and constrained by how you interpret

the world. I might be butchering the actual science here, so I apologize if so, but those are two that I remember standing out to me. That's awesome. I you know, one of my great interests in psychology is just how it can be so practical and help us live healthier, happier, and more creative lives in a lot of ways. I personally, I thought that the growth mindset research from Carol Dweck

has been really helpful as a creative person. I think it speaks to one of the main tenets of stoicism, which is just really a a cognitive reframing of a situation. You know, you have an event. Sure, maybe your most recent article didn't get you know, accepted or applauded in such a way, right, and growth mindsets for me, I kind of I used to would have been the person who, oh, no, it means I'm not talented. I was born without any sort of ability as a writer. And you know, maybe

I should stop here. But at growth mindsets, you look at this research and you see that if you can just change your perspective on the matter and see it as a learning opportunity, as a way to hone your skills, as an inevitability, and really an opportunity to grow and strengthen your creative talents and move on and find the

success that you wanted in the world. Yeah, no, I think what's interesting and maybe this like what I what I think one objection to some of the pop psychology that we see that the Stokes might have would be, yes, it's when you fail or when something bad happens, it doesn't say anything about you as a person, right, And other than that, it's that it's an opportunity to grow.

I think what I like about the Stokes and what I like about the Ancient is there's also the there's also the emphasis that like success doesn't say anything about you. Either the fact that it did get accepted does it

necessarily mean that it's good? Or the fact that you're famous or important or rich, does it mean that you're like a good person either that, like you're like Marc Sirelisi as this Sundery says, like accept it without without arrogance and let it go with without indifference or with indifference, And like, I think we can be a lot of people can practice like this the second half of that to like let bad things go with indifference. But can

you also like accept good things without arrogance? Like that's probably the more difficult part of it as well, and

it's something I certainly struggle with. And like I've always been really cognizant of having been or accomplished things like early on in my life, like that could also be a recipe for like becoming a monster basically the goats are So I've come across a lot of research recently that has emphasized the ability of meditation to enhance our creative outsight, And I was curious, are you are you big on meditation? Is that's something you do with some frequency?

For me, I've I found that like actual meditation doesn't work. But I see like exercise or like strenuous physical activity as being another way to sort of get in that like flow mindfulness state. So like I like swimming and

running those like my two big ones. I walk a lot too, but like I didn't, like, I work hard in the mornings and then I stop in the afternoon and I usually like do some sort of activity and I find that like by the time I get back, I like have breakthroughs for whatever I was struggling with like earlier in the day. That's great, I really I think that speaks to the importance of finding a ritual

that works for you as a creative person. And yeah, it's kind of funny, like Scott and I have said that, like we kind of get anxious if we sit into traditional meditation just kind of focused attention. There's different kinds of meditation coming out. Sure, I'm a big fan of active open minus, but I'm not a big fan of return of the breath. Yeah. Yeah, I did yoga once and I actually like fell asleep. You've done have you done? Like sensory deprivation tanks. I've been meaning to try that forever.

I think the research is really interesting and it sounds it sounds like you did experience. Yeah, I've done it like three or four times. It's pretty cool, Like for me, Like it was weird. It was like the first time in my life that I could ever remember like feeling and sensing like nothing, like just total nothing. Like I didn't like really have hallucinations. Like it was just like I was just sitting there like with nothing, and that was like that was a refreshing experience. Yeah, I've heard

it's kind of a nice cleanse. But it's interesting just because the studies have found that that kind of open minded meditation is the kind that helps you with creativity. Where when you go on your default mode network, when you're when you're running, when you're exercising, when you're not thinking about the problem them at hand, is when you know inspiration strikes that it's kind of the way to get at your solutions to your problems. So pay touching

to your day dream This is something I'm big on. Yeah, not like not like saying, oh no, I gotta ignore the day dreams. Got the day dreams return of the breath, you know, but actually like non judgmentally looking at those day dreams and seeing what they could add value to. Yeah, maybe it's just sort of like letting go of the need to be in control of everything as well. That's true too. Yeah, And just to raise a conversation between

you know, two smart guys stoicism and psychology. We were talking earlier about how basically modern psychology is proving timeless values in philosophies. Have you ever done research into Barbara Fredrickson's broaden and build theory? Because I see the obstacles the way this whole cognitive reframing of an event as falling right into that that research. That's an interesting literature that Yeah, what is it? I don't I don't know what it is? Do you want to explain the brother

built through? We're going to sign this to the students, So this is literally bit. It's gonna be the most instructional for my homework. It's gonna be the most instructional like podcast ever. Psychology students are cool. It's easiest for me to understand it in light of like the opposite, so to speak. So when we have negative emotions, evolutionarily, it's adaptive because it narrows the kinds of thoughts and

actions we might take. You know, you're terrified fight or flight, right, there's no time in between that, And I remember you said something about your animal brain wanting to shorten the time period between appraisal. Yeah, yeah, right, So it's adaptive. Negative emotions have a place, you know, sure when you're

dealing with that kind of thing. But if you can put more of a space between the event and the appraisal, if you can stop and take this kind of a stoic exercise of saying maybe it's not a bad thing, then it opens up your ability to think of different options, of more available space for you to act in, and you know, it helps you pivot and turn what might

be a disadvantage into an advantage. Says that positive emotions place adaptively is to you know, when you're feeling happy, you're optimistic, you're more likely to go explore or you know, read a new book or have different options come into your mind. Basically, No, that makes total sense. I would agree with that. How is it standing academically, Scott, Well, this is interesting because Frederickson also proposed this positive ratio, which has come under fire recently in a big way.

So the broad and build theory I think is sound in a lot of ways. So the specific positive eratio are what's called the critical ratio is not to be taken seriously, but the overall theory that it's important to have more positive emotions and negative emotions on average, I think is getting a lot of research support that while negative impositiotions aren't good, it is, it is, it is.

It's a balance is not necessarily the key, but to actually have like more positive negative because the positive does broaden your outlooks and options. No, and that makes total sense. Yeah, I mean, I like what you're talking about about, you know, putting the space in between your event and then your

assessment of it. Although like we also have to be realistic, right, Like I don't think the Stokes would argue, like if you fall and break your arm, you should be like, oh, it doesn't hurt right now, because like I'm gonna make good from this or whatever. It's like, you're gonna one, You're gonna have all your biological reactions and all the psychological ones that you can't you know, all the cognitive biases that you can't necessarily sort of prevent from happening.

But it's like before you make a decision or take an action. So it's like you fall, you break your arm, it hurts that part you can't change that's not in your control, but you can decide if you're now gonna feel sorry for yourself for the next you know, two months as you recover, or if you're gonna if you're gonna, you know, whine all the time, or if you're gonna not take care of yourself, or you're gonna, you know, take your mood out on like a spouse or your

family or whatever. Like I think, I think we also want to we want to distinguish between like what are the sort of immediate biological reactions we don't control and how can we focus on this sort of Okay, and this is what it means, which is definitely in our control. You asked, like two more questions. Sure, yeah, I love it. I'm sure we could ask. I'm sure you could ask.

Just let's you know, just let five minutes. Okay. I was gonna ask if you have some truly high return on investment habit or practice that you engage in that you think is especially great for your creative output. Uh, well, the two would be reading. I think is one of the most high sort of return on investment activities that there are period. And I think if you look at any real successful person, you're going to find this. Unless there was some sort of event in their child that

are upbringing that made like reading difficult. Like I mean, there's doctor Drew introduces me to stoicism at nineteen years old, and that totally changes the course of my life, not just like career wise, but it also helps me with like literally every difficult situation that I face from that point forward. And I've only been dealing with the ROI for like less than ten years, right, So, like I

think with books, you see this massive ROI. I think the same with exercise, having some sort of separate activity that you do that where it's like there's no such thing as like it's very rare that you would have a bad day exercising, right, because whether it's going to be good or not is mostly in your control outside

of injury. Right, So it's like you decide that you're going to go to the gym and do X, Y and Z, it's in your control to be able to go do X, Y and Z, and it's only a matter of commitment to that idea that would prevent you.

And so it's like for me, it's like a constant win that you're like racking up a constant piece of sort of positive momentum, and so like, I feel like I've done the intro to this book came to me while I was on a run, and so did lots of the other sentences that you were talking about here right like that That's been one of the best things I've done ever creatively. So those would be two very cool.

I really appreciate that is I think the audience will just as you know, all of us as farting to be creative types out there, it's nice to have some actual wonder jactioning real quick. You know, you must have been a really good journalist at freshman year to get invited to the summit. I mean, how did you get invited to that? Well it was it's not a great school, but there and there weren't many people in the newspaper staff. But yeah, I don't know, it randomly fell in my

lap like they were they it was. It was hilarious. Trojan Condoms had paid for doctor Drew to speak at an event that like ten college journalists were invited to, and like because it was near LA, I was like the one that kind of find it. So it's just this like crazy lucky thing that I obviously jumped on. Yeah, so Ryan probably is another book Riper. It takes time. I think it's it's just so much fun and actually

really helpful to have this tool in your toolkit. And that's it's based on an article you'd written contemptuous expressions. I think I think it'd be great if you wouldn't mind just sharing that idea with the audience, because I

think it's awesomest. Yeah, so it's it's a stoic idea as well, And you see it in a lot of the exercises where they're I almost mentioned earlier, where they're like going through and like cataloging like what things are in a very like objective session objective sense, like Marcus will say like sex is like a bit of rubbing and then like a white fluid, Like he says this in the meditations, and like obviously sex is more than that, but it's also literally all that it is, right, and

he's he's he's talking about like you know what is like a sumptuous feast? Like if you think about it in a weird, like cynical way, it's like why are there a bunch of like dead cooked animals like on your table, Like isn't this like weird and gross, and he's like thinking about he's thinking about the sort of luxury and riches that he's given as this most powerful man in the world. And you see Epictetis do it too.

He's like, you know, he's like he's talking about like what it's like to sort of envision like a famous or important person naked. Like they're just trying to get you to strip thing like Marcus has like strip things of the legend, which encrusts them. Like over over time, we've like added all this meaning wrong meaning towards material items often or certain experiences, certain like you know, bits of status. And they're they're not saying that the things

are worthless. They're just trying to counterbalance them with like an objective take, like like here's one that I came up with. I think is interesting. It's hilarious to me that like when Obama leaves office right right now, is the most powerful man in the world. He can do

whatever he wants. Essentially, when he leaves office, he's like legally and financially obligated almost to like write another crappy memoir and then travel on the obnoxious media circuit to like promote this book, right, Like all he wants to do is like go back to regular life, but instead he's gonna have to spend the next like three months of his life dealing with like editors at a publisher. He's gonna have to deal with the same crap that Scott and I have to put up with ashary less

important authors. So to me, it's just a reminder that like even a great position comes with its own still comes with, like, you know, its own reminder. I think Malcolm Gladwell was talking about once that like airport security is like the great equalizer, Like it doesn't matter who you are, you just have to go through like the TSA right, although if you fly private you really don't

as I as I've seen a few times. But like the point is it every it's about reminding yourself of like who you actually are and what the constraints of reality are and life are, and like I don't know, I don't know if the Stokes actually used the word contemptuous exercise, but to me, it's just it's like sometimes you can throw a little contempt at something to balance

out the like adulation that people are projecting onto it. Yeah, this is a really great interview Ryan and I. So far, I think this might have been one of our best. So thank you so much for your time today, and I look forward to what's your next project. I'm working on a new book now and then just I've got like I represent other authors for like marketing and public relations and stuff I'm allowed to know. Are we allowed to know what the book is about? Or would you?

I hate talking about projects that are still in the hopper, so maybe we can get you back on it. You know, yes, I would love that. Something sounds good. Thanks so much for Thank you guys for having us is really cool and tall. Email me anytime if you ever questions or whatever. You're a total sweetheart. I can't say I'm a circuit sa. I know I'm a sweetheart. He calls me a sweetheart too, like I don't know about that. But thanks for listening

to The Psychology Podcast with Doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I hope you found this episode just as performing a foker lukif I did. If you don't show me the show notes for this episode or your past episodes, if you go to the Psychology Podcast dot com s