48: The Ego is the Enemy

media strategist, and entrepreneur. His books include Growth Packer Marketing, The Obstacles The Way, and Ego Is the Enemy, which is his latest book, which just came out yesterday. Thanks Ryan for chatting with me. Yeah, it's good to talk to you again. Wow. Yeah, it's always good to talk to you. Wow. Remember how we met? Yes, Oh, I was just thinking about that the other day. Yeah, you

don't know from my perspective. So we were both there to have dinner with Neil Strauss, which right, why we're both there, and you were actually you were just like so nice, like you were so like we made me feel so comfortable. I don't know if you knew that I did. I didn't even know it was you. I don't know it was right holiday, but you were like you made some joke as well. You're like, yeah, I know, man, Like I said something stupid, You're like, I know, man.

And I was like, oh, I really like this guy. And and then then it turned out like I was just like, right holiday that we had, we're having dinner together. So it was pretty cool. That was forever ago. Oh I feel like I've changed. I feel like I've cheated. Maybe that's the narrative I've created. Now not read your book, I think about everything differently, But uh, yeah, do you how do you feel like you've grown since that was three years ago? Four years ago? No, it's more than that. Yeah,

it's twenty eleven. Probably. So I'd written my book but it was still being edited. It hadn't published, so I was very much not in any way public person at that point, right, Like I'd only worked for very public people, but I was just a behind the scenes person. So I was sort of right on the cusp of, you know, releasing my first book and then sort of coming out in that sense. So I think I was much more

introverted then. I was much less confident then. In some ways life was easier then, obviously because there was less, you know, responsibilities and stuff. But I see that as sort of being right before a lot of big things happened. So I think about it very fondly. It's so funny. So that was the exact moment of my life. Was like I was working my first book, Gifted, and I was like, like, so nervous, like this first book's going

to come out? What's And I think I was a lot more quiet then, I was a lot less confident. So literally everything you just said and then it's kind of like this arc of what happens. And then I read this that you know, between this book you kind of get to a point where then and then you're in the public and you're like, oh my gosh, like

like all of a sudden, I don't know. I found myself becoming more self critical, and then through becoming more self critical and that then becoming more confident, like kind of me to fall back in order to loot into and sort of that have more stability. Is just kind of this interesting back and forth process. What's been like for you? No, I agree with that and matches with

my experience. I think you mentioned the narrative thing earlier maybe you've experienced this, But one of the weird parts is that, you know, you do these podcasts and you do radio and media and speaking events, and you end up hearing like, like what we just described was, you know, twenty eleven to twenty sixteen. That's a you know, four plus years, a lot of work, a lot of ups and downs, a lot of really good times, some terrible scary times. You know, lots of stuff is in there.

But as you do press, all of that immense amount of life, a half decade is compressed down to like two sentences, and they're all positive sentences, right, They're all about like all the great things that you've done. And so I think one of the ways, one of this one of the hard parts, or one of the things you have to remind yourself of is little moments like

what we were just talking about. So you don't you don't tell yourself you're on this like you know, rocket shift to success or that you know it was all faded. You know, you've got to enjoy and be very aware of the complexity and nuance of that time and not to sort of brush over it absolutely. And so at that point have you already worked with Tucker Max It very working I had. Yeah, So this was like my sort of coming out from a lot of those things.

But you know, and I had a bit of a story even then in the sense that is like, you know, I dropped out of college, and you know, you could tell yourself like I'm this dropout and I'm sleeping on a floor and I'm hustling and I'm going places, and that can be great, but it can also go to your head and sort of detach you from the reality of the present moment. So I have a question about these individuals that you worked with that I just mentioned, like Tucker and do they undoubtedly had at least one

point huge egos. Yes, you can't say they didn't. Like you can't. It's not like I'm like saying and I wouldn't. Yeah, It's not like I'm saying something that like I'm talking about the bad behind their backs. I might like to say, like Tucker backs had an ego is not to talk about him bad behind his back. It's so he's a self proclaimed you know, he always he was at one point, And so I wonder how much have these individuals learn and grown in their lives as well. Have you seen it?

Have you seen a growth trajectory there? Well, Tucker obviously is very different than when I met him. I mean he's he has a family, and he runs a company, and I would say there's very few people in his life that would not say that he is radically different. Dove, I'm not close with anymore. Sort of went our separate ways after American Apparel, and he's sort of doing his own thing. I think what I saw working for those egotistical people, and again, like you, I don't mean that insulting.

I saw just how what a burden it actually was. Right in some ways, it motivated them to take huge risks that paid off in big ways. But I mostly saw that ego as a negative force in their life, Like because my role was often to have to battle that ego, not for my own personal gain. I wasn't like fighting against does ego so you would promote me.

It was like I was fighting against Tucker's ego so he wouldn't do some dumb thing that would be not in his interests, or that I would be fighting his presupposition or strong opinion about a person that he never met.

That I actually thought that if he could connect with would be good for his career, right, So, as a sort of an advisor and a marketer and employee and partner in a lot of cases, I was just so exhausted with and then not just with these two people, but battling other people's egos is just so tiring because it's almost like a superhuman force. It's not rational at all, and so you have to just chip away at it just to get them to again to do something not

stupid totally. And the main point of your book is that battling your own ego is exhausting too. Yes, of course, And I think you know, it's very easy to say, oh, this person has a huge ego and it causes problems for them. I think what I spent a lot of time trying to do in the last couple of years is looking at the ways in which being around these egotistical people at such a formative time in my life, when I held them up, and it's such a place in my mind, how did how have I picked up

some of their bad habits? You know, it's like if you grew up a child of an alcoholic, you're going to pick up certain habits both you know biologically and culturally, and I certainly got some of that just being in that ego twenty four to seven. It's just what a learning experience. It's almost like, you know, you read some of those books like I hope basically Beer in Hell, and it's like textbook, textbook, like the point of your book, Like, sure, it's weird how life works out like it is. And

obviously I saw none of that at the time. Interesting did you just think it was cool? I thought it was funny, right, And that's what's so interesting. Like, for instance, I don't know a Kanye West, but I would imagine I have seen this, Like I've spoken to his people that, for instance, know Donald Trump, and their opinion of him

is radically different than my opinion as an outsider. And part of that is because it's very hard to be sort of destructive and difficult like these people are and be successful unless it's combined with an immense kind of charisma and sort of adeptness at personal relationships, and so like they experience a different Donald Trump than you and I do watching him as a raving lunatic on television, and I think with Tucker and the people that I

work for, what you're experiencing is not the obnoxious side of their ego. It's being tempered by the personal connection you have with them. So I didn't meet character the character version of them. I met a different one that makes complete sense. I can see reading your book, I can see how you're You're obviously more than to some of the parts, but I can see, like I read certain sentences, I'm like, oh, that was so Robert Greens influence.

Like every time you say that, I like literally like broke it down in my house, Like every time you say the word reality, I'm like, there's other greens of it. Yeah, sure,

every time. And then I can see I sense the stoicism influenced this great Stoics, And I can read a sentence where you know, you're like, do not be slaves your passions, Like, oh, that's just so, this is so, it's so cool, like you've had you've had these experiences and you bring you know, you are the more of some of the parts, of course, but we are all.

There's like a long chain of things that like if you were God, you could explain explain yes, you know what I mean, No, totally, I mean I love Austin Kleon's stuff where he's talking about that basically, you people like, how do I develop a style? And he's like, you basically just imitate other people's style until you put enough of your own touch on it that becomes your own style. And so I totally agree. I mean, I feel very

indebted to Robert. I feel very I love the sort of second person style that the Stokes use a lot like that they call the reader out in a in a way that doesn't feel like it's lecturing. It feels like, hey, like you and me, we both have the same problem. So I try to I try to write that way. And I think I didn't say this at the back of the book, Like I feel like, if there are any really good sentences in the book, it probably and I'm not just saying this, they probably are something I

unconsciously picked up from someone else. And actually I worry. I worry that I might have memorized some sentence from someone and and put in there. One of the things I did with the book is I hired a fact checker to go through and make sure that I didn't do that. No, that's really smart, that's where smart. So I actually there there are a lot of things you wrote in this book that are very beautifully worded. And I'm actually just going through my notes right now because

I want to read something that I did. Okay, responsibility requires or readjust and that increase clarity and purpose. First setting the top level goals and priorities of the organization and your life, then forcing observing them to produce results and only results. That was something I remember I trying to think what book I would have picked it up on.

I don't remember what book I picked it up in, but I remember seeing an American apparel because I was sort of involved in all these different facets as the

company that normally someone in my position wasn't. And what you see is that like, look if that basically, as I understand, the way that a corporate hierarchy needs to work is that the board of directors thinks the most long term, the CEO thinks the second most long term, and then down the line until you get to you know, the janitor who thinks, like, there's a spill right there, and I need to clean it up right, and so, you know, running my own company in my own life,

you realize, like, if you're not thinking long term and there's not somebody above you thinking more long term. Then you're just wighing it and you're going to get screwed, you know. And so that's sort of I was thinking about the way in which somebody has to determine what the goals or the strategy is is in your life

or you don't have one for sure. And this idea of like having a north star purpose and being consistent in your values and your actions is so important for well being, you know, like that's what creates an integrated human being and that's well And if you don't have that, how do you? Especially And I've found, you know, being somewhat fortunate that I get a lot of incoming stuff like hey do you want to do this? Like hey,

I'd like you to write that or whatever. How do you know what to say no to if you don't know what you're trying to do? And like, obviously, I think it's harder to talk about that because it feels like such a first world problem and most of the people in like the sort of self help space or the readership, they're trying to get anything going. But I

think the reality is you must get it. You must be inundated with like request like you can choose what you're going to research right or what you're going to write about. And so if you say yes to everything, then how like, how do you know what the right thing to say yes to? How do you know you know when you've made the wrong choice, Like if you don't know, you end up just sort of going wherever

the random deal flow takes you. Yeah, and you also yeah, absolutely, and you don't create the sense of a coherence or meaning totally find out why you're after what you're after. Ignore those who mess with your pace, let them come it what you have, not the other way around, because that's independence. You know, the humanistic great humanistic psychologists the fifties and sixties, Roald May you know, like these people

I'm obsessed with, like Abraham Nasa. Inward it being inwardly free is how they describe is kind of the ultimate of life, and you're kind of striking at the core of that there. Have you ever heard of the band Lucius. They're one of my favorite bands. They have this song. I forget what the song is called, but there's this line in it and she said, I think it's a girl. She says, there is no race, there's only a runner or there's only the runner, And I think you got

to think about it that way. It's like, if you think that you're in a race with all these other people, then you have to like you have to measure yourself about whether you're beating them or not, or you know, you have to keep their pace. But it's like, you don't know. I actually realized this. I was in college. I was the first thing I ever wrote is actually about this. It's on my website. I don't know when it was, but this would have been like ten years ago.

But I was running. I would run around this like sort of dirt track at my college, and I was running and then this other guy he started running, and I could tell that he was racing me, and I, you know, I'm competitive and I wanted to race against him. And then I realized, like, but I've already been running for like three miles, Like if I keep pace with this person, I don't know when he's gonna quit. I

don't know how long he's been running before. Like, so if you just randomly compete with people because they're like in the same proximity to you, that's like a recipe for totally burning yourself. Out or making a big mistake because you you're lacking all the context you need to make that decision. Absolutely, So you know when Manuel Miranda, Yes, Hamilton, and do you know that Coldes from twenty is interview in twenty twenty about like he's like, I wasn't the

smartest kid in school. I'm just like paraphrasings, but you know, I wasn't as necessarily the smartest in school. But what I did is I picked a lean that I knew I could run fast in and I just ran. You know, He's that's great. Yeah, that's a great quote, totally put in the show. So okay, So again, some of these quotes that from your book that I've highlighted or beautiful and different ways. This next one is beautiful just in terms of aesthetic appeal to the sentence ego is a

wicked sister of success. My premise is that ego manifests itself differently depending on what you do, right, like egotistic. The egotism of a loser is going to be very different than the egotism of a billionaire, right, And so I think I think one of the crazy things is that as you become successful, not only are you if you're someone who's saying that you're great all the time. But if you do something, then other people are going to be telling you that same thing. And so in

that way, success can breed egotism or reed. It can compound those illusions that you already have about yourself. That's great, Okay. Next one, a person's job is to create work, and idea is not enough. The hard thing isn't dreaming big. Imagination is essential, but if it stops with imagination, then what good was it? Yeah, and that's the next one. Our imagination, in many senses an asset. Is it weird that I'm like recolding you in front of you? It

is strength, It is dangerous when it runs wild. So our imagination in many senses an asset is dangerous when it runs wild. So you're saying imagination is still only good. So I should have a job as a scientist who studies imagination. However, you know, not coupled with reality at all, right, not not constantly being tested can problem. I think that's a huge part. But also because like you know, people

can live in this sort of fantasy world. But also if you're not picking the best of your imagination and then you know, making it real, like putting work behind it. That's the other problem. So it's like, how many people have ideas for books? Like for instance, like I think there was like half a million books published last year because of self publishing. Now is like gradically expanded it.

That's awesome, But how many millions of people had this exact thought, Oh, you know, it would be a great book idea like blank, you know, insert, But how few of those people only half a million of them actually did it? I yeah, that's a good point. I mean there is, like, you know, it's coupled with your whole idea in a chapter about talk less you know, yeah, do more? So you actually isn't that like a quote from Hamilton as well? When he's giving Hamilton advice, He's like,

I'm got me give you some advice talk less. I don't know anyway, you say be lesser, do more is a direct quote from your book. Yeah, so this is interesting. I've been trying to think understand this. So when you say be lesser, you actually do, contrasting to be or to do. My conceptulation of being is a little bit

different than what you put into the book. Are you what you describe as being, and so I don't think it's incompatible because I think like learning to be is really important in this sense to being your full self, yes, and having authenticity. So I think it's interesting that you can you tell our listeners a little bit what you mean by being and how that differs from this sort of doing. So that chapter is based on a speech that John Boyd has become famous for called it to

do or to be speech. And if you don't read the book, just google the speech because it's like amazing and it's in a bunch of articles. But he is not saying like, don't be yourself. He's saying there's a difference between sort of like and look, he was coming from a military background, particularly like the bureaucracy and the Pentagon. He's like, don't be the general who has like, you know,

three stars on their sleeve. Do the work of a general who has that right, So he's saying there's a distinction between like all the trappings of success and like the real work or influence that a successful person can have. So like what I say in the book is like there's no aircraft carrier named after John Boyd. You know, most people have no idea who he was. But he transformed the armed forces, like he shepherded the F fifteen and the F sixteen through. He was the genius behind

the Grand Strategy the First Golf War. He was a brilliant mind who influenced a lot of people directly and also sort of set up this network of proteges that had an immense amount of influence. But he wasn't concerned with like rank or kissing asses or you know, getting attention. He was just so he was focused on the doing rather than like the getting credit or getting the rewards

of doing well. I hear you. You know there's in school, a lot of kids are labeled as gifted, right, Yeah, and that's kind of like a it's a being thing, right, Like you're gifted, Like it doesn't say anything about what you've actually done in the world. And you know a lot of adults as well, it's still they grow up and it's still part of their identity. It's a strong part of their days. Yeah, basically I'm a gifted adult.

And you know, it's tricky because in life, you know, people tend to appreciate more that you actually do than you know, the sure these transitions in life. It's important, So it's really interesting. Okay, here's another quote. Ego tells us that meaning comes from activity, that being the center of attention is the only way to matter. So is this something that you discovered when you when you started learning more about what the functioning digo is that? Yeah,

can you impact it a little more? This came more from I think my own struggle in the sense that it's really hard for me to do nothing, like to just sit there and feel like good about myself. But if I'm working on something, all of that emptiness or doubt or insecurity goes away because, like especially if you're good at whatever it is that you do right. So it's like I could go to a party and it could be awkward or I could feel, you know, insecure

or whatever. But if I was at home sitting on my computer writing would be going well, right, because I'm pretty good at it. So I think there's a certain ego in sort of gravitating towards what comes naturally to you, to your strengths, and this I think work addiction is rooted in both insecurity and ego at the same time. Right, if I stopped doing I will be nothing and everyone will forget about me and I will be worthless. Right, So I'm not remembering exactly where that quote comes from.

That's I think that's what I'm referencing. Yes, and use this forgod. No, that's an excellent point. And then you say, and I think related to this, you say, ego blocks us from the beauty and history in the world. It stands in the way you know, I mean that's a direct linkage to your firebook, right, the obstacle. Yeah, the way Well, I mean if you were to go to, like, I don't know, some civil war battlefield near you, or some beautiful, you know, national park, what would you see.

You'd see a bunch of people on their cell phones, not paying attention, right, Like, we become so detached from the world around us because we're focused exclusively on you know, our work, email or you know, the bickering with someone or whatever is going on. And I think, you know, one of the ways that we sort of deny how ephemeral life is and how vulnerable we are to the world is by focusing exclusively on sort of modern shit, you know, Like we don't like to be humbled by nature,

I would say, generally, and so we avoid it. You know, you you walk through the redwood forest in you know, northern California, and you see a bunch of trees that are like five times older than you will ever be right, It sort of reminds you just how sort of inconsequential you are to all inspiring experience. No, no, no, that's exactly what I'm saying. But most people don't seek that

experience out enough. Like our modern lives are essentially a denial of that feeling, right, Like we predict the weather, you know, we live in safe housing, we can turn on the air conditioner when it gets hot, you know, like we have, through our genius as species, insulated ourselves in a lot of ways from the the nature. But the idea that the world is relatively indifferent to your existence is I think an inherently humbling idea that not

a lot of people contemplate. Glad you made that point, Ryan, there's my friend David Niden came out. I don't know if you read the paper recently he did where he had people simulate like being from space, and he also'd be called the overview effect. I love the overview effect. Yeah,

you've heard of it. So in a lot of astronauts described just and that's kind of the ultimate helpfulness, you know, yeah, more than just the trees, but actually just looking your whole planet as like a little like pin drop, you know, yeah, a little dog. And yeah, this research suggested does cause this entire shift in your whole perspective of yourself and ego. I'm just really glad that you made that point. No, I'm fascinated by the over view effect. There's two things.

One the guy who has that famous quote the astronoum forgetting his name. He just died, but he has that one where he's like, you know, you look at the world and you just want to He's like, you just want to grab the politicians by the by the collar and shake them and say like you son of a

bitch or something like that, which I love. And then there's another one where it's like some astronaut who is like alone in the space station, like he took this photo of Earth, and the writer I think observe this someone was like, what's crazy about this photo? Is literally everyone who's alive on Earth is in this photo except the guy taking it, and like so how you know, like how how humbling and crazy? That vantage point is, and then couldn't that go both ways? Just to be

cheeky for a second. I've loved that and give you a huge ego to be like, you know what, I'm the Oh, I'm special, I'm the only one in the entire plotter, Like it's not in this photo fount Like, for instance, Donald Trump was like up there, right, that's how we would take Why didn't interpret that in a different way? I think you're right, Yeah, I mean this. So the stoics about taking Plato's view all the time. And there's this famous dialogue I think it's from is

it from Lucian? But anyways, there's this famous Greek poem about a guy who gets wings and he's able to float above the earth and he sees like the Roman army fighting another army, and he says it looks like ants, and you know, all that he's able to look at the world. It's interesting, like our viewpoint, like what we

get flying in an airplane. It's interesting to think that it was only within the last one hundred years that it was even humanly possible for us to look down upon humanity and really grasp how infinitesimal we actually are. So I love that I think it's inherently ego killing to think that way. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and you know, there are a lot of

people that are like they're obsessed with living forever. Yeah, do you know what I mean, because I'm just curious if there's an individual differences, Like a lot of people aren't obsessed with living forever. Yes, And there are a few people they're like they're like, I'm the authority on the world and everything, and I think that when I'm

so optimistic that will live forever. It's like everyone So you know, you read one of those articles about like a woman who's like one hundred and eighteen years old, and you know, they're like, what's life like? You know, they're asking all these questions. She's never like there just hasn't been enough time, like you know, like she's never like I gotta live for five more years. She's they're always like super chill and they're just like, when I die,

I die. It's totally cool. There's something really comforting about that for people who you know, I mean, I have existential question that's part that's normal. You know, Yes, that's not ego necessary. I mean, that's like, you know, I what excentual crisis indicate is that you want to make sure that you have as much meaning in your life as possible. And that's kind of a signal to you

that maybe you're not maximize meaning. But it's very comforting to know for all people, you know, young people out there listening to this. You know, like if you have these kinds of fears, like chill, like when you get there, someday you won't be as obsessed with this. You know, Yeah, you live a meaningful life if you kind of live your life in a way where you you know, follow these principles that you talk about in the book, that

you have a purpose and you do it. It's comforting, you know that, Like someday when you're on that deathbed, hopefully you'll be very old. You'll actually be okay, You'll

be like, I'm cool, Yeah, is it? Daniel Gilbert who says, like one of the beauties of cognitive dissonance is that like whatever you're anxious about, if it actually happens, you won't, like your mind will find some rationalization for so like maybe maybe you actually will be feeling maybe there actually will be things to regret, but your mind won't actually let you feel the regret that you're dreading. Yeah, that's

the lyrics is called effective forecasting. Yeah, you're right. And actually Laura King has done really cool research showing that the difference between people who regret things the whole life and people who don't. They both have had the same amount of regretful experiences, but the difference is they've actually like quantify it. It's really cooled. It's sending the review

paper if you want to read it. Yeah, find that those who live at the very end of their lives, they're like, you know what, I don't have any regrets. They have done deeper work pros coggally processing and making meaning out of all the trials and tribulations and alternate identities that they didn't accomplish in a way that makes them kind of like okay with it. You know, they're like, you know what, that's cool. That had meaning. My life

had meaning because I didn't take that that right. So yeah, related that you say there was no grand narrative, you should remember you were there when it happened. I love that quote. I love that quote. Can you well impact that we were talking about this a little bit earlier, is that you know, you in retrospect, you can create

some clarity out of events. Right, It's like I did this, which led to that, which led to this, which led to that, and now I'm you know, the best in the world or whatever you know story you tell yourself, but you should remember, like you didn't feel that way at the time because it didn't really exist, right it was, And coaches talked about this like Vince Lombardi is is like, at the end of it, let's say a super Bowl winning season, all of the super Bowl didn't really exists.

Then you know, the end of the season, you can look at the fact that you won and say, like, we won for these reasons. What you never seem to do is go like, hey, remember when that ref blew that call in the third quarter? It to our benefit. We wouldn't be here if that hadn't happened. So all of this is like, you know, not our doing. And so I think it's interesting when you look at the

narratives that we have, how self serving they are. They either make us much better than we actually are, or they make us the victim in a way that we probably fully warned. That reminds me of a golf. You just triggered a golf quote in me. The great failing is to see yourself as more than you are and to value yourself at less than your true work. That's the great failing. Both both those directions. Yeah, right, and I talk about the golden mean a little bit. I

don't think that. I'm not saying that humility is the opposite of ego. I'm saying that humility is the midpoint between, say, ego and like self loathing. So I think humility is like the perfect balance, or I would say confidence and humility in some ways are synonyms. Awesome, right, I'm sending you right now a link to this whole research literature that I've been doing some research on called the Quiet Ego. Oh awesome, And it's just so much in line with

that and also related to the death thing. They found that when they instill they kind of experimentally manipulate humility, like experiment manipulate it, people fear death less. So that's actually a drift test of this idea that narcissism is associated with your fear of death. Interesting. Yeah, I'm gonna

see this right. I'm gonna send you this right now before Okay, Okay, so you talk about the difference between a live time and dead time when that's that's something that one of your mentors taught you, right, Yeah, that's from Robert Green. It was when I was thinking about leaving American Apparel. I had a better year left that I needed to sort of do, not contractually, but I just I wasn't. I only had the position for you know, a relatively short amount of time. I needed to put

more time in. And Robert was just like, look, you know, this year can be a live time for you or deadtime. What are you what are you talking about? I mean basically meant He's like, you know, you can you can get every second out of this and you can use the benefits of your position to meet people, to do research, to develop relationships, you know, to to learn and to

take things sort of slow. Or you can just sort of ride this year out and then start for you know, Like basically, he was like, you want to write a book at the you know, you want to be a writer after you leave. You can start writing the day after you leave, or you can do all the work that you need to do before that time and get

a head start. And that's what I ultimately ended up dotting doing and I think that's I credit that very much with being able to sort of get this career off the ground maybe quicker than other people might be able to good. So so his advice worked. Yeah, I know, it was great. It was great, and I try to think about it all the time. I think you don't just apply it to Hey, you know, I signed a four year contract with the Marines and I've got you know,

a year left. It's also like I'm stuck in traffic, or you know, my friend was supposed to meet me at four o'clock and they just texted me to say they're not going to be here to four forty five. What are you going to do with those forty five minutes? Are you going to play you know, angry birds on your phone? Or are you going to read a book or make a phone call or go for a walk or you know, what are you going to do? Ran?

I want to ask you a question about this because I feel like, I, you know, I'm very aware that life is short and that we want, we need to

maximize our time. But I find that I can get too obsessed with like, oh, well, I have a full day free, Well that means I can write four blog some five journal articles as opposed to actually like getting like pleasure, like you know, there are things I miss, like you know, like watching movies that are just stupid, you know, like comedies, you know they and because I think I can get too addicted to meaning, do you

know what I mean? I agree with that. The idea that you have to squeeze every productive second out of every minute, I think is you've got to understand that, you know, the body is not a even Actually no, and maybe you do see the body as a machine. Machines can overheat and break and wear down if you don't treat them well. Good. I like that resolution. That's good justification for binge watching on Netflix. Yeah, look, you got to know what's going on in the culture, man,

that's what you tell yourself. Good good, Okay, thanks for that reconciliation. Okay, So what's the difference between ambition insanity? So that's from a quote from Marcus Aurelias. He's saying ambition is tying yourself to other people, right, because like if you want to do something or be recognized that you know, you want to become a Roman position. So if you want to be console or a general or a senator. That requires other people doing what you want. Right,

someone has to grant you that position. You have to be elected. So he's saying ambition is tying yourself to something you don't control. He's saying sanity is tying it to your own actions. So like, for instance, my book is out this week. If I tie my if I tie my happiness to writing a good book that I'm proud of, to working hard on it, et cetera, that

is sanity. Tying it to whether it hits the New York Times best Seller list or sells an arbitrary number of copies is insanity because I don't control those things. So that kind of and this is will end of this note. I mean that really strikes the heart of what this book is all about. I mean, it's it's an interesting thought experiment. What happens when our ego In a way, the thought experiment is kind of like this, Like what happens if, like we die and our work

still goes on? Like what do we really care about in life? Do we care about us living forever, our ego living forever, or our work to help the world as long as possible. It's kind of an It kind of lies at the heart of a lot of what your book is about, right I think that's true, although there's a certain amount of ego in those people, and the Stokes talk about this a lot who lust for this posthumous fame, right like, oh, I need generations to hear my name forever, you know. The Stokes are like,

what do you care you're dead? You know, like, like I have that's so stoicism, like a lot of the Stoics. I have a line. I don't think it's in this book. I think it's something I'm working on now. But but it's basically it's like, you know, Alexandria is named after Alexander the Great, but he's dead, so he has no idea that it still exists, you know what I mean, Like, and so you what does matter is what he did in his own life, often, you know, terrible, awful things

that couldn't have made him feel good either. Right now, that's a really good clarification. And when you take the ego out of the equation, though, I mean, you do see and as your book shows you that you have a greater likelihood of making an impact on the world hopefully. So I want to leave on that note because I think your message gets across in really loud and clear, and I think it's a really terrific book. So thanks

Ryan for being thank you one for writing this book. Well, I'm so glad we bumped into each other at a random Mexican restaurant in Malabou five years ago. Me too. I look forward to the next podcast chat when the next book comes out. Thank you all the best, Ryan, Thanks for listening to the Psychology Podcast with Doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I hope you found this episode just as

thought for booking and interesting as I did. If you'd like to read the show notes for this episode or hear past episodes, you can visit the Psychology Podcast dot com bu