Books Mentioned in This Podcast
The Minimalist Mindset
Buy on AmazonWe can hear this stuff, and the people who read your books will know this is a central idea in my new book, but I don't think people are connecting that to their health and behaviors. Since I spoke to Edith Eger, and your audience probably knows who she is, a 93-year-old lady, I thought, 'Wow, this really resonates with me.'
Episode: Daily Practices For A Healthier, Happier Life | Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
This Book
Buy on AmazonI wrote a chapter in this book entitled 'Don’t Take Offense.' I explained the health outcomes and benefits related to this. People don’t realize that no event is inherently offensive; because if it were, we'd all be offended by the same comment or event.
Episode: Daily Practices For A Healthier, Happier Life | Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Testosterone
Buy on AmazonI actually had this interesting conversation with Carol Hooven, who wrote a book about testosterone. She talked about evidence around differences in crying and criticized the idea that men don't cry enough.
Sophistry and Political Philosophy
Buy on AmazonActually, I have a friend who’s going to write a book about sophistry. It’s just about someone who engages in sophistry, where they're essentially kidding you, right?
My First Book of Sign
Buy on AmazonI remember with my first book, they said the New York Times agreed to review it, but only alongside another book.
Episode: Rich Roll's Secret To Momentum
Courage
Buy on AmazonThere are things in the courage book that in retrospect I would have had in the discipline book or in the justice book or in the wisdom book.
Episode: Rich Roll's Secret To Momentum
The Death of Socrates
Buy on AmazonSo I was reading Emily Wilson's book, The Case Against Socrates, which I thought was interesting because she famously has this biography of Seneca, and they're both pretty negative.
Episode: Socrates and His Impact on Stoicism | Donald Robertson
The Trial of Socrates
Buy on AmazonIt was interesting to read a kind of Steelman case against Socrates, which is what I felt she was doing there in Stone's book, The Trial of Socrates, or something like that.
Episode: Socrates and His Impact on Stoicism | Donald Robertson
How to Build Stonehenge
Buy on AmazonThere was a great book called 'How to Build Stonehenge' that came out two years ago, which really got close to explaining it.
Episode: How Old Is Stoicism? | Dan Jones
The Year 1000
Buy on AmazonThen you'll see, there are a lot of global historians now who would say, 'Well, Valerie Hansen wrote a very popular book recently that argues, well, no, actually, a product around the time of the Vikings could theoretically travel from the Americas all the way around the entire world.'
Episode: How Old Is Stoicism? | Dan Jones
Forgive Me Not
Buy on AmazonIt's like, like that one thing I loved about your book was how you gave examples of what I would call stoic fables, like literal descriptions of what it would be good to do.
Episode: How To Teach Stoicism To Gen Z | Dr. Jennifer Baker
A New Stoicism
Buy on AmazonI mean I love Larry Becker's work and new stoicism, you know, that was new and convincing to people who never would, you know, some people just don't have a taste for ancient philosophy and that was convincing to a lot of philosophers who have never picked up something translated.
Episode: How To Teach Stoicism To Gen Z | Dr. Jennifer Baker
The Return
Buy on AmazonAnd for me, like honestly, just being in the car, yes, and I'm listening to Dana Milbank's new book about the dysfunctional 2022 class. Yes, which is just cathartic because I'm like, yeah, well, you guys enjoy that, right?
Invisible Man
Buy on AmazonHave you read Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison? It's this beautiful book about this guy coming of age as sort of a black man in America in the 50s, and he was sort of this optimistic hopeful person.
Victoria: The Queen
Buy on AmazonI loved your biography of Queen Victoria, and then I thought, because I was going to write about Queen Elizabeth in my next book, there has to be a book this good about her.
Episode: Julia Baird On Building Resilience And The Strength Of Forgiveness
Phosphorescence
Buy on AmazonI think it's unusual that someone would do a serious, big, thick biography and then transition into the books that you're doing now. Was that a deliberate choice?
Episode: Julia Baird On Building Resilience And The Strength Of Forgiveness
The Obstacle Is the Way
Buy on AmazonI've included phosphorescence in a ten-year anniversary edition of The Obstacle Is the Way, and I used one of your stories.
Episode: Julia Baird On Building Resilience And The Strength Of Forgiveness
Amazing Grace
Buy on AmazonWhen you quote 'Amazing Grace' in the book, it reads as an acknowledgment of the man who wrote that song, who was a slave trader and later became an abolitionist.
Episode: Julia Baird On Building Resilience And The Strength Of Forgiveness
Never Play It Safe
Buy on AmazonI'm telling you man, I hate to be that dude talking about his book, but there’s a whole chapter about that—it’s the constraints chapter.
Episode: The Uncomfortable Truth About Success | Chase Jarvis
The Obstacle Is the Way
Buy on AmazonI was thinking about the obstacles way in my early 20s primarily as a means to overcome professional obstacles.
Episode: Turn the Tables | Ryan Holiday Reflects on 10 Years of The Obstacle Is the Way
The Obstacle Is the Way
Buy on AmazonWhat if we started with the understanding that many people resonate deeply with this book?
Episode: Turn the Tables | Ryan Holiday Reflects on 10 Years of The Obstacle Is the Way
The Obstacle Is the Way
Buy on AmazonIf someone thinks, 'Well, I've read that book,' why would they want the 10th anniversary edition?
Episode: Turn the Tables | Ryan Holiday Reflects on 10 Years of The Obstacle Is the Way
The Obstacle Is the Way
Buy on AmazonWell, you know, I feel like I've read that book because I wrote it, and then I had this unique experience during the pandemic where I was reading some of it to my son, primarily to help him sleep.
Episode: Turn the Tables | Ryan Holiday Reflects on 10 Years of The Obstacle Is the Way
Trust Me, I'm Lying
Buy on AmazonI did this with Trust Me, I’m Lying as well, but it was like a 5-year anniversary edition because stuff in the media changes faster than this.
Episode: Turn the Tables | Ryan Holiday Reflects on 10 Years of The Obstacle Is the Way
The Obstacle Is the Way
Buy on AmazonHaving to listen to the audiobook of The Obstacle is the Way, I barely recognized my own voice; that is a surreal experience.
Episode: Turn the Tables | Ryan Holiday Reflects on 10 Years of The Obstacle Is the Way
The Obstacle Is the Way
Buy on AmazonSo when I was writing The Obstacle is the Way, it was about popularizing and making interesting something many did not think was interesting.
Episode: Turn the Tables | Ryan Holiday Reflects on 10 Years of The Obstacle Is the Way
The Obstacle Is the Way
Buy on AmazonSo sure, if The Obstacle Is the Way had failed and been this embarrassing, painful, devastating thing, then yeah, The Obstacle Is the Way would have been a chance to practice stoicism.
Episode: Turn the Tables | Ryan Holiday Reflects on 10 Years of The Obstacle Is the Way
The Obstacle Is the Way
Buy on AmazonWas there anything when you went back through The Obstacle on this past read, and you're like, 'Oh, I forgot how I did that.
Episode: Turn the Tables | Ryan Holiday Reflects on 10 Years of The Obstacle Is the Way
The Obstacle Is the Way
Buy on AmazonSo I did I think two versions of The Obstacle or two versions of Trust Me, I'm Lying; I think this is my—I’m getting this 10 years apart on The Obstacle Is the Way, and then I've obviously reread stuff that I've written even further ago than that.
Episode: Turn the Tables | Ryan Holiday Reflects on 10 Years of The Obstacle Is the Way
Stillness Is the Key
Buy on AmazonSo I have noticed like even in The Obstacle, Ego, Stillness, each one is a little bit longer than the one that came before it.
Episode: Turn the Tables | Ryan Holiday Reflects on 10 Years of The Obstacle Is the Way
Essentialism
Buy on AmazonAnd he, he sort of went out of his way to—I forget which book it was—but you did a similar thing where it was a story about you.
Episode: Turn the Tables | Ryan Holiday Reflects on 10 Years of The Obstacle Is the Way
The Correspondence of Marcus Cornelius Fronto with Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Lucius Verus, Antoninus Pius, and Various Friends
Buy on AmazonI thought I'd start in the nerdiest place possible: have you read Marcus's letters to Fronto? You know who Fronto is? The love letters?
Episode: Brigid Delaney’s Life Changing Year of Living Like a Stoic
The Daily Stoic Journal
Buy on AmazonYeah, I just have a kind of blank journal that I do, and then I did this book called 'The Daily Journal', which has a Stoic prompt every day, and I like the prompts. So I do those from time to time also. For me, it's kind of a grab bag of different things to think about, but it's usually like prepping for, 'Okay, I'm flying the next day.
Episode: Brigid Delaney’s Life Changing Year of Living Like a Stoic
Dying Every Day
Buy on AmazonI mean, there are different accounts of how culpable Seneca was. I love the James Romm book 'Dying Every Day', it's extraordinary. What I love about Seneca is his humanness; he had this ideal that he tried to reach, and the reality was working for Nero.
Episode: Brigid Delaney’s Life Changing Year of Living Like a Stoic
Moral letters to Lucilius
Buy on Amazon'Letters to Lucilius' is a good example; that's addressed to someone, but you can see him working out death and grief in that work. Same with 'On the Shortness of Life'; it's an intellectual exercise and a spiritual exercise. They didn't have a pre-fitted philosophy or theology that they could live by; they had to come up with it themselves, and you can see them doing that in the work.
Episode: Brigid Delaney’s Life Changing Year of Living Like a Stoic
On the Shortness of Life
Buy on Amazon'Letters to Lucilius' is a good example; that's addressed to someone, but you can see him working out death and grief in that work. Same with 'On the Shortness of Life'; it's an intellectual exercise and a spiritual exercise. They didn't have a pre-fitted philosophy or theology that they could live by; they had to come up with it themselves, and you can see them doing that in the work.
Episode: Brigid Delaney’s Life Changing Year of Living Like a Stoic
The Therapy of Desire
Buy on AmazonI think she's possibly Princeton or Yale, um, but she wrote a wonderful book called The Therapy of Desire, which looks, you know, there's a, a case study, a kind of fictional case study of a young woman in Stoic times who, um, is learning Stoicism. And you know there's this great, you know, um, Nussbaum is a brilliant writer, so she writes about, and a translator also, yeah, she's extraordinary, but she writes about, um, this woman want,
Episode: Brigid Delaney’s Life Changing Year of Living Like a Stoic
Wild Things
Buy on AmazonUm, one of my books, Well Mania was turned into a Netflix show. And, um, it's, it did a great first season. It did really well around the world.
Episode: Brigid Delaney’s Life Changing Year of Living Like a Stoic
We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland
Buy on AmazonYeah, so like some of that is like, it's just the enjoy—like, I just read this book I loved called—uh, that—it's just a masterpiece, which is 'Fint, No Tools, We Don't Know Ourselves.'
The Cost of These Dreams
Buy on AmazonNo, it's, um, I was thinking about this though because I was writing upstairs, uh, as I love your book, 'The Cost of These Dreams.'
The Devil In The White City
Buy on AmazonAnd he goes, so, um, the—the man and wife who—funny, crazy story—the guy who bought this house, he built this dream house with his wife, and then like a year later he gets hit by a streetcar at the World Fair in Chicago and never like dies; never lives in the house; like, like The Devil in the White City, World Fair.
Through My Eyes
Buy on AmazonAnd I think that's true for your book, and like I remember a couple years ago my mother-in-law gave—uh, gave us a kid like Ruby Bridges wrote a—a kids' book, and um she wrote on the inside about how she like, remember, she lived in Louisiana when it happened; she lived like up—she lived in Monroe, I think; anyways, she was like, 'We're the same age,' and I was like, wait, what?
The End of the Myth
Buy on AmazonAnd you know, I love that Greg Grandon book, 'The End of the Myth,' but like if there's a—you know, there's a case to be made that the land where Matt Till was killed is America was finally settled.
Traffic
Buy on AmazonDid you read the Ben Smith book?
Episode: How High Risk-Takers Are Shaping Our World | Nate Silver
The Storm Before the Storm
Buy on AmazonOne of my favorite books is called "The Storm Before the Storm," and the idea is that we just see Caesar crossing the Rubicon one day as if it just popped into his head, as if there wasn't all this history and all these other events leading up to this major event.
Episode: Francis Ford Coppola's First Podcast: How Philosophy Has Inspired His Life and Career
Burr
Buy on AmazonBy the way, have you ever read Gore Vidal's book on Aaron Burr? No, that's another great book.
Episode: Francis Ford Coppola's First Podcast: How Philosophy Has Inspired His Life and Career
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern
Buy on AmazonThere's a wonderful book that I recommend to you that you'll thank me a million times for; it's called "The Swerve." Have you ever heard of it?
Episode: Francis Ford Coppola's First Podcast: How Philosophy Has Inspired His Life and Career
Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare (Anniversary Edition)
Buy on AmazonAll right, let's talk because you mentioned Shakespeare. Greenblatt wrote this amazing book called "Will in the World" that I found incredible.
Episode: Francis Ford Coppola's First Podcast: How Philosophy Has Inspired His Life and Career
Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics
Buy on AmazonHe has a book called "Tyrant" as well, which I loved, but I was thinking there's a common theme between this movie and Apocalypse Now, as well as the theme of Shakespeare: the ability to find old stories and place them in a new context while preserving the arcs, characters, and morals.
Episode: Francis Ford Coppola's First Podcast: How Philosophy Has Inspired His Life and Career
Ideal and Actual in the Story of the Stone
Buy on AmazonFor example, one time I chose a great Chinese book called "The Story of the Stone" or "Dream of the Red Mansion" written in the 16th century. I found myself trying to change Megalopolis to be more like that, which I actually did, because that was one of the few books I ever read where the dream life of the characters was as important as their waking life.
Episode: Francis Ford Coppola's First Podcast: How Philosophy Has Inspired His Life and Career
Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship
Buy on AmazonHe wrote a book called "Wilhelm Meister" and that was him stealing from Shakespeare. That is Goethe saying, "I want to be as much like Shakespeare as I can be," while Shakespeare was stealing from Plutarch, from Montaigne, from Danish legends, and from other plays—everyone has been stealing from one another.
Episode: Francis Ford Coppola's First Podcast: How Philosophy Has Inspired His Life and Career
Papyrus
Buy on AmazonI was just reading a book called "Papyrus," which covers the history of paper and early writings. One of the things the author notes is that scrolls, because they weren't books, were stored in specific boxes that often held seven scrolls.
Episode: Francis Ford Coppola's First Podcast: How Philosophy Has Inspired His Life and Career
Shahnameh
Buy on AmazonHave you ever read that beautiful Persian book called the Shahnameh by Ferdowsi? No, that's like Gilgamesh! It's an early Persian epic, and it's great—a tale of kings!
Episode: Francis Ford Coppola's First Podcast: How Philosophy Has Inspired His Life and Career
Tender is the Night
Buy on AmazonThat it wasn't successful at first, so he and his editor straightened out something, I guess, I don't know which version I have. But I think what's unusual is that in the original 'Tender Is the Night,' there's a huge flashback in the middle of it that goes back and tells the story of Nicole and Dick Diver.
Episode: Francis Ford Coppola's First Podcast: How Philosophy Has Inspired His Life and Career
Antkind
Buy on AmazonSure, he wrote a book, a novel called 'Antkind,' a seven- or eight-hundred-page book called 'Antkind.' And that's what Google said: if you want to read something about being a... so I got it, and damned, if you know, as I said, everything I read changes my movie, but this book is changing my life because it's so, I finished it after 750 pages, and it was not unsatisfying.
Episode: Francis Ford Coppola's First Podcast: How Philosophy Has Inspired His Life and Career
De Bello Gallico Libri Vii.
Buy on AmazonWell, the schoolboys in the founding of our nation were reading Caesar and the Gallic Wars. They knew it all by heart.
Episode: Francis Ford Coppola's First Podcast: How Philosophy Has Inspired His Life and Career
De Rerum Natura
Buy on AmazonYeah, on the nature of things.
Episode: Francis Ford Coppola's First Podcast: How Philosophy Has Inspired His Life and Career
A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake
Buy on AmazonAnd maybe a period where it's an apparent disaster, but over time, you know, I once read an article that James Joyce was talking about 'Finnegans Wake.' And he said, 'I'm going to put so much interesting stuff in this that it's going to take, you know, uh, 50 years for people to figure out what's in it and it'll sell the whole time.'
Episode: Francis Ford Coppola's First Podcast: How Philosophy Has Inspired His Life and Career
The Selfish Gene
Buy on AmazonEverything about a body can be regarded as, in my terminology from 'The Selfish Gene', a survival machine.
Episode: Faith, Philosophy, and the Layers of Human Existence | Richard Dawkins
The Jungle
Buy on AmazonSo after he wrote The Jungle, he wrote this like similar book; it’s non-fiction instead of fiction, I guess, but he basically writes an expose of early 20th Century media.
Rules for Radicals
Buy on AmazonI saw you wrote a lot about um, about Alinsky and Rules for Radicals, also, which is a thing that I think about constantly; like that book is always in my head.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Stenciled Edges) (Harry Potter, Book 5)
Buy on AmazonBut at the same time I read things like I was reading Harry Potter and, you know, the Order of the Phoenix.
Episode: Amanda Knox's Shocking Journey to Stoicism After Wrongful Conviction
The Obstacle Is the Way
Buy on AmazonI said to my guy, 'Hey, why haven't I got Ryan's book? Can you look up when I ordered it, coach?','I ordered it on this day.
Episode: Coach Buzz Williams’ Playbook for Mentorship and Motivation
Kids Books
Buy on AmazonWhen I think about attention and the concept of kids' books—I often think about finding the middle.
Van Gogh
Buy on AmazonYes, in that 'Mind on Fire' book about... I think it's one of the best books I've read about Emerson too. Yes.
Episode: Patrick Dempsey's Stoic Secrets To Success (in Hollywood and Racing)
Yes to Life
Buy on AmazonViktor Frankl’s 'Man’s Search for Meaning' illustrates this beautifully, showing how he maintained joy and purpose despite facing horrific circumstances. During the pandemic, a previously lost work of his, titled 'Yes to Life,' became available and resonates even more deeply now. In this work, Frankl expresses the essence of persisting in life’s challenges despite suffering.
Immigration and the Constraints of Justice
Buy on AmazonAnd the topic of this book seems like one of the harder ones to find that overlap or... and you, the title you didn’t go with, ‘Justice is Insurmountable’.
Episode: How Ryan Holiday's New Book Completely Changed His View Of Stoicism (Ft. Billy Oppenheimer)
Discipline Is Destiny
Buy on AmazonI have a line in 'Discipline and Destiny' because I was very impressed with Queen Elizabeth II.
Episode: How Ryan Holiday's New Book Completely Changed His View Of Stoicism (Ft. Billy Oppenheimer)
The 50th Law
Buy on AmazonYeah, your life ceases to be normal, and you lose your bead on—the fact that you have to have this— Robert Greene talks about this in 'The 50th Law'—like you have to have this direct connection with the audience because that's ultimately who you're servicing.
Episode: How Ryan Holiday's New Book Completely Changed His View Of Stoicism (Ft. Billy Oppenheimer)
The Obstacle Is the Way
Buy on AmazonI mean, I have a weird relationship with my first book, which is like a version of myself that I don't see myself as anymore.
Episode: How Ryan Holiday's New Book Completely Changed His View Of Stoicism (Ft. Billy Oppenheimer)
The Next
Buy on AmazonThis is all funny because this is in the next book.
Episode: How Ryan Holiday's New Book Completely Changed His View Of Stoicism (Ft. Billy Oppenheimer)
None Shall Sleep
Buy on AmazonWell, you also have the North Star chapter in this book.
Episode: How Ryan Holiday's New Book Completely Changed His View Of Stoicism (Ft. Billy Oppenheimer)
Dying Every Day
Buy on AmazonI remember reading James Romm's Dying Every Day during the takeover and restructuring of American Apparel and going, 'Oh, this is much more familiar than it should be to me.'
Episode: How Ryan Holiday's New Book Completely Changed His View Of Stoicism (Ft. Billy Oppenheimer)
Courage Is Calling
Buy on AmazonIn the afterward of "Courage is Calling," I discuss how insidious these things are.
Episode: How Ryan Holiday's New Book Completely Changed His View Of Stoicism (Ft. Billy Oppenheimer)
Dereliction of Duty
Buy on AmazonYeah, McMaster, HR McMaster, who’s a fantastic writer, wrote a book called "Dereliction of Duty."
Episode: How Ryan Holiday's New Book Completely Changed His View Of Stoicism (Ft. Billy Oppenheimer)
The Wealth of Nations
Buy on AmazonAdam Smith, before he wrote The Wealth of Nations, he wrote this philosophy book; he was taught by a professor who was a big fan of Stoics and it’s called The Theory of Moral Sentiments.
Episode: Admiral Bill McRaven On Capturing Sadam Hussein And Honorable Leadership
The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Buy on AmazonAdam Smith, before he wrote The Wealth of Nations, he wrote this philosophy book; he was taught by a professor who was a big fan of Stoics and it’s called The Theory of Moral Sentiments.
Episode: Admiral Bill McRaven On Capturing Sadam Hussein And Honorable Leadership
Originals
Buy on AmazonThey might say you should just read The Originals or that we haven't read the originals.
The Justice of Mercy
Buy on AmazonI talked about this in the intro of the justice book that is coming out in June where, as a philosopher, you're looking at big questions like the trolley problem.
Everything Is F*cked
Buy on AmazonIt's funny because I was doing my book tour for Everything is F*cked, where I did most of this research and wrote about most of this stuff. A guy came up to me after one of the shows and asked if I had ever heard of optimistic nihilism, and I said I hadn’t.
Bury the Chains
Buy on AmazonAfter that, he wonders if he could be the person who changes this. Adam Hochschild has an amazing book on this called 'Bury the Chain.'
The Obstacle Is the Way
Buy on AmazonHe actually published the audiobook of The Obstacle Is the Way, so I've known Tim forever.
The Stoic Challenge: A Philosopher's Guide to Becoming Tougher, Calmer, and More Resilient
Buy on AmazonThe 'stronger' piece is about emotional strength, often leaning on Stoicism—especially the wonderful book, The Stoic Challenge, by William Irvine, which everyone loves.
Episode: How Stoicism Can Beat Your Social Media Addiction | Jonathan Haidt
Deep Work
Buy on AmazonWe read his book, Deep Work, in my flourishing class at NYU.
Episode: How Stoicism Can Beat Your Social Media Addiction | Jonathan Haidt
The Righteous Mind
Buy on AmazonBut what's happened is, as I say in 'The Righteous Mind', we evolved for small-scale societies that are deeply religious, that circle around sacred objects to make us stronger, especially in battles against other groups.
Episode: How Stoicism Can Beat Your Social Media Addiction | Jonathan Haidt
Mastery
Buy on AmazonI read Mastery by Robert Greene; it changed my life. And that’s why I purposely use those words of trade and mastery.
Episode: Finding Enough, Getting Sober, and Improving Your Life | Sam Parr (My First Million)
Ametora
Buy on AmazonI was so inspired that I went and bought this book called 'How Japan Saved American Fashion.' I read it, and I learned all about the culture of Japan.
Episode: Finding Enough, Getting Sober, and Improving Your Life | Sam Parr (My First Million)
Two Books Are Better Than One!
Buy on AmazonSo early in grad school, I'm at MIT. I had published these two books about how to be a good student, right? And I had a blog.
Slow Productivity
Buy on AmazonI think this book, Slow Productivity, is like the most of the books I've written where it's a question I have.
Deep Work
Buy on AmazonI want to be better at like really something I'm really working at like when I wrote Deep Work, for example, it was, yeah, I came out of this environment, the theory group at MIT, in which like focus was the number one thing.
Slow Productivity
Buy on AmazonAnd so I was like, I got to really—I really got to clean up my understanding of these intuitions and instincts I have about slowly working towards what matters because I've actually created a lot of things as I've gotten better and gotten more stature and the opportunities are everywhere. And I felt like I was in danger of impeding my own progress, so this Slow Productivity is probably the book I most had myself in mind as a reader.
Getting Things Done
Buy on AmazonYeah, you go back and read David Allen, what you get, what's his goal? Occasional moments of Zen-like peace, among the mind, like there's nothing to turn you into a processing machine and a survival process you, right?
The Four Cardinal Virtues
Buy on AmazonAnd then it's okay, we're going to do the four cardinal virtues books, we're going to, you know, really push the studio quality pod, you know, the plays. It was like you push chips in, right?
The Obstacle Is the Way
Buy on AmazonAs you’ve mentioned, obstacles away sold a great number of copies, but you received a modest advance. The publisher’s hesitance reflected the dynamic values you expressed earlier; it may not feel fair on the surface initially, but building on smaller wins has its benefits.
The Obstacle Is the Way
Buy on AmazonIn your case, truly the obstacles away sold incredibly well over time, closing the loop on the early takes of its career and growth.
The Lean Startup
Buy on AmazonAnd you can actually see this by looking at business advice literature like books like the popular books, right? So in the 80s and 90s, he was like, the big name is going to be Stephen Covey, right?
The Boy Who Would Be King
Buy on AmazonMaybe I could have been selling 'Justice' for more, but all of that was irrelevant because I was just in the middle of writing the book.
Episode: How Stoicism Changed The Way Ali Abdaal Views Productivity
Drive
Buy on AmazonThen I would read, like, I don’t know, one of your newsletter or one of your books or like 'Drive' by Dan Pink, and I'm like, oh, it's so good! This stuff is so good!
Episode: How Stoicism Changed The Way Ali Abdaal Views Productivity
Same as Ever
Buy on AmazonI use a story in 'Same as Ever' about during the Revolutionary War, during the Battle of Long Island, George Washington and his troops were cornered by the British.
Episode: Financial Expert Morgan Housel On Rethinking Happiness And Money
The Great Depression: A Diary
Buy on AmazonIt's tough; there's a great book that I love. I think it's the greatest economic book ever written. It's called 'The Great Depression: A Diary.'
Episode: Financial Expert Morgan Housel On Rethinking Happiness And Money
The Psychology of Money
Buy on AmazonYes, my- I did not want to write Psychology of Money, and I put it off for years and years and years.
Episode: Financial Expert Morgan Housel On Rethinking Happiness And Money
The Obstacle Is the Way
Buy on AmazonLike with 'The Obstacle is the Way,' when 'The Obstacle is the Way' came out, first off, it didn't hit any bestseller list the week it came out.
Episode: Financial Expert Morgan Housel On Rethinking Happiness And Money
Furious Hours
Buy on AmazonI just read this book called 'Furious Hours,' which is both a true crime account and about Harper Lee, who wrote 'To Kill a Mockingbird.'
Episode: Financial Expert Morgan Housel On Rethinking Happiness And Money
To Kill a Mockingbird
Buy on AmazonI just read this book called 'Furious Hours,' which is both a true crime account and about Harper Lee, who wrote 'To Kill a Mockingbird.'
Episode: Financial Expert Morgan Housel On Rethinking Happiness And Money
Lives of the Stoics
Buy on AmazonI did this book a few years ago called Lives of the Stoics, where instead of diving into what the stoics said, I just tried to write biographies of who they were.
Episode: Psychologist Dr. Michael Gervais On The Problem With Stoicism
The Obstacle Is the Way
Buy on AmazonOne of my favorite quotes from Marcus Aurelius, which I actually remember thinking about when 'The Obstacle is the Way' came out, is as follows: 'We love ourselves more than other people, yet we care about other people's opinions more than our own.'
Episode: World Leading Performance Psychologist Dr. Michael Gervais On The Stoic Path To Mastery
Discipline Is Destiny
Buy on AmazonYeah, I—I have a part of it in, uh, in discipline as destiny; he says for six years now I’ve been hopelessly afflicted, made worse by the senseless doctors for year two, deceived with hopes of improvement, finally compelled to face the prospect of a lasting malady whose cure will take years and perhaps be impossible.
Episode: World Leading Performance Psychologist Dr. Michael Gervais On The Stoic Path To Mastery
Off the Books
Buy on AmazonLike I would do the books; if I was the only audience, it would be very different.
Episode: World Leading Performance Psychologist Dr. Michael Gervais On The Stoic Path To Mastery
What If?
Buy on AmazonYeah, there's a whole series of books out called 'What If,' and they're fascinating; I don't know if you've ever read them.
Episode: Robert Greene And Ryan Holiday On Ego And Power: LIVE in LA
The Dialogues of Plato
Buy on AmazonBut he ends up in this, he ends up in this bookstore, and the bookseller is reading one of, uh, Plato's dialogues or, I know, I guess it would have been one of Zenon's books.
Episode: Robert Greene And Ryan Holiday On Ego And Power: LIVE in LA
The Odyssey of Homer
Buy on AmazonAnd the the timelessness of that, and so, so many parts of the Odyssey are inexplicable; you know, as he gets there—not to spoil the ending—but you know he just, there's this sort of moment at the end where he just, you know, murders with his bare hands like a hundred people and just like, 'Of course he did!'
Episode: Robert Greene And Ryan Holiday On Ego And Power: LIVE in LA
The Nineties
Buy on AmazonChuck Klosterman wrote a great book called The 90s, and he was sort of talking about how, um, you know, September 10th, there were newspapers all over the country, and they were all doing their own headlines about what's happening in that city.
Episode: Robert Greene And Ryan Holiday On Ego And Power: LIVE in LA
The First Three Minutes
Buy on AmazonAnd you know, I read a book called The First Three Minutes, which is about the first three minutes of the universe.
Episode: Robert Greene And Ryan Holiday On Ego And Power: LIVE in LA
HOW TO STOP WORRYING & START LIVING
Buy on AmazonI believe it was, but he has a lesser-known book that is still sold millions of copies called 'How to Stop Worrying and Start Living,' which includes a lot of stoic tenets.
Episode: Tim Ferriss On Solving Problems With People And Using Stoicism To Make Better Decisions
Four Thousand Weeks
Buy on AmazonBut there are a few things that I feel like I've indirectly taken from that that are very much along the lines of some of the chapters in 4,000 Weeks by Oliver Berkman, which I think is a great book.
Episode: Tim Ferriss On Solving Problems With People And Using Stoicism To Make Better Decisions
Sears Tower
Buy on AmazonIn the book 'Tower' and other resources, there's a company called 'Books by the Foot.' They cater to film studios and similar clients.
Episode: Chip Conley on Finding Contentment and The Value Of Reflection
The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life
Buy on AmazonLynn Twist, author of 'The Soul of Money,' views money as a channel for creating the world you want to see, whether that desire is selfish or altruistic.
Episode: Chip Conley on Finding Contentment and The Value Of Reflection
The Second Mountain
Buy on AmazonDavid Brooks' book, 'The Second Mountain', emphasizes that the second stage of life is rarely driven by financial motivation, focusing instead on deeper meanings and contributions.
Episode: Chip Conley on Finding Contentment and The Value Of Reflection
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt
Buy on AmazonWe did have a bunch of books about Theodore Roosevelt lying around, probably more than the ordinary family did, so I read those because I just read every book in the house when I was growing up.
Episode: Theodore Roosevelt's Great-Great Grandson Kermit Roosevelt III On The Collapse Of Honor
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
Buy on AmazonThat's the letter I was telling you about why I was so struck by it; I wrote about it in my courage book.
Episode: Theodore Roosevelt's Great-Great Grandson Kermit Roosevelt III On The Collapse Of Honor
The Myth of Judicial Activism
Buy on AmazonThere’s a book called The Myth of Judicial Activism, which is about Supreme Court decisions trying to decide whether the Supreme Court is abusing its power.
Episode: Theodore Roosevelt's Great-Great Grandson Kermit Roosevelt III On The Collapse Of Honor
Bury the Chains
Buy on AmazonAs he's riding away, Adam Hild writes about this in 'Bury the Chains', but he has this sort of Road to Damascus moment on the road.
Episode: Theodore Roosevelt's Great-Great Grandson Kermit Roosevelt III On The Collapse Of Honor
A Fool's Errand, by One of the Fools
Buy on AmazonHave you read it's a novel from around that period called The Fool's Errand?
Episode: Theodore Roosevelt's Great-Great Grandson Kermit Roosevelt III On The Collapse Of Honor
All the King's Men
Buy on AmazonOh yeah, All the King's Men.
Episode: Theodore Roosevelt's Great-Great Grandson Kermit Roosevelt III On The Collapse Of Honor
The Claim of Reason
Buy on AmazonUm, and I think actually Stanley Cavell, a Harvard philosopher, wrote something very much like that in 'The Claim of Reason', but I don't think that it went that far outside of academic circles.
Episode: Theodore Roosevelt's Great-Great Grandson Kermit Roosevelt III On The Collapse Of Honor
A Farewell to Arms
Buy on AmazonThere’s a quote from Hemingway at the end of A Farewell to Arms where he states there are people who are so strong they can’t break; eventually, the world breaks everyone, and the ones that don’t break it kills.
Episode: Zach Braff on Healing and Helping with Art and Stoicism
GOOD INSIDE
Buy on AmazonYou know, it's obviously a parenting book, but I got to say something that affected me the most in it, and my wife and I noticed that we need it perhaps more than our kids. It strikes me as a very Stoic concept.
Episode: Dr. Becky Kennedy On Stoic Parenting Advice, Emotional Regulation, And Raising Great Kids
Good Inside
Buy on AmazonIt strikes me as a reframing of how most people think about things. You say this in the book: people want their kids to be happy. Most of us want to be happy; that's what we sort of think we're aiming for.
Episode: Dr. Becky Kennedy On Stoic Parenting Advice, Emotional Regulation, And Raising Great Kids
Show Your Work!
Buy on AmazonI was saying to you in that interview that, hey Ryan, you know I've just started writing my first book, any tips? You gave some really good advice.
Episode: Ali Abdaal On Stoic Productivity Secrets And Overcoming Procrastination
The Obstacle Is the Way
Buy on AmazonWell, you asked me about self-publishing earlier; I experienced this unintentionally and intentionally when The Obstacle is the Way came out. Uh, I’d already sold the sequel and so in one respect that probably cost me a lot of money because The Obstacle is the Way did, over the next year or two, start to do really well.
Episode: Ali Abdaal On Stoic Productivity Secrets And Overcoming Procrastination
Ego Is the Enemy
Buy on AmazonSo if I’d waited, I probably could have sold what became Ego is the Enemy for a lot more money; a lot more money. But I was... But I’d actually sold like a proposal version of it while I was still figuring the book out.
Episode: Ali Abdaal On Stoic Productivity Secrets And Overcoming Procrastination
Atomic Habits
Buy on AmazonBut first off, I like James; second, I think he's a great writer, and I think Atomic Habits is actually a very good book. And third, I don't know how many I'm counting now, but whatever—there's no universe in which that book selling more or less copies affects my life in any negative or positive way.
Episode: Ali Abdaal On Stoic Productivity Secrets And Overcoming Procrastination
Designing Your Life
Buy on AmazonThe most helpful exercise I've ever found for this is something called The Odyssey Plan from the book Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and another guy who are Stanford professors. Basically, the idea is that you imagine your life three to five years in the future if you continued down your current path, and you write out what that would look like.
Episode: Ali Abdaal On Stoic Productivity Secrets And Overcoming Procrastination
The Comfort Crisis
Buy on AmazonI think you got this from The Comfort Crisis, but there was something you were telling me about lines—about the lines of walking and the lack of straight lines. Walk me through that.
Episode: Dr. Peter Attia On Stoicism, Longevity and Improving Your Quality Of Life
The Comfort Crisis
Buy on AmazonBut I do think a lot of what Michael Easter talks about in The Comfort Crisis really resonates.
Episode: Dr. Peter Attia On Stoicism, Longevity and Improving Your Quality Of Life
The War of Art
Buy on AmazonNo, it’s actually a really great illustration of what Steven Pressfield calls the resistance, right?
Episode: Dr. Peter Attia On Stoicism, Longevity and Improving Your Quality Of Life
The War of Art
Buy on AmazonPressfield has a joke in The War of Art, which I guess may not be politically correct, but he says something like it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to do his painting.
Episode: Dr. Peter Attia On Stoicism, Longevity and Improving Your Quality Of Life
The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time
Buy on AmazonWhich projects would I take off my plate? So you finally did the book. When did you sell it?
Episode: Shane Parrish (Farnam St) on Finding Clarity and Making Better Decisions
The Great Mental Models, Volume 1
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Episode: Shane Parrish (Farnam St) on Finding Clarity and Making Better Decisions
Cultish
Buy on AmazonIt's like cultish. Yes, that wonderful book by Amanda Montel.
Episode: Kate Flannery on the Rise and Fall of American Apparel
The Harder They Fall
Buy on AmazonSome people say, yeah, no, I agree. Have you read The Harder They Fall?
Episode: Kate Flannery on the Rise and Fall of American Apparel
The Great Gatsby
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Episode: Kate Flannery on the Rise and Fall of American Apparel
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
Buy on AmazonDid he ever have you watched The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz? Did you ever hear him talk about this?
Episode: Kate Flannery on the Rise and Fall of American Apparel
The Virgin Suicides
Buy on AmazonUm, it's a book; let's see, it's um, it's 'Virgin Suicides' meets you know that documentary 'Paradise Lost' about the West Memphis Three?
Episode: Kate Flannery on the Rise and Fall of American Apparel
The Obstacle Is the Way
Buy on AmazonThere's a story I tell in 'The Obstacle is the Way' about Phil Jackson.
Episode: Whitney Cummings on Stoicism, Creating Great Art, and Overcoming Addiction
The Worm at the Core
Buy on AmazonAnd I don't know if this is pertinent or not, but 'The Worm at the Core' by Ernest Becker about Terror Management Theory helped me a little bit with in this area because it's sort of about how humans—like we're—I mean, we're the only mammal, that animal, that knows it's going to die.
Episode: Whitney Cummings on Stoicism, Creating Great Art, and Overcoming Addiction
Brotherhood Of The Grape
Buy on AmazonYeah, and then the other writer that I'm slightly more fanboyish about than Didion is John Fante. I just read 'Brotherhood of the Grapes.' It's about Roseville?
Episode: Timothy Denevi on Hunter S Thompson and the Art of Journalism
Ask the Dust
Buy on AmazonNo, I'm going to read 'Ask the Dust.' I have that in the story; it's one of the great novels of all time. Uh, crazy story which we should talk about; he has a bunch, maybe '1933 was a Bad Year,' 'The Road to Los Angeles.'
Episode: Timothy Denevi on Hunter S Thompson and the Art of Journalism
1933 was a Bad Year
Buy on AmazonUh, crazy story which we should talk about; he has a bunch, maybe '1933 was a Bad Year,' 'The Road to Los Angeles.' He has a couple of books about his journey; he's seen as an LA writer, but he's from Colorado, and so it's just a weird snapshot to have the Italian-American experience from Colorado to LA, then Northern California.
Episode: Timothy Denevi on Hunter S Thompson and the Art of Journalism
The Road to Los Angeles
Buy on AmazonUh, crazy story which we should talk about; he has a bunch, maybe '1933 was a Bad Year,' 'The Road to Los Angeles.' He has a couple of books about his journey; he's seen as an LA writer, but he's from Colorado, and so it's just a weird snapshot to have the Italian-American experience from Colorado to LA, then Northern California.
Episode: Timothy Denevi on Hunter S Thompson and the Art of Journalism
Mein Kampf
Buy on AmazonAnd that same year, Stackpole, which was also more of a military publisher, they did a lot of books in military history, they published an unauthorized edition of 'Mein Kampf.' Oh wow, Hitler being...then like it'd be like if Putin had written a book and they felt like people should read it.
Episode: Timothy Denevi on Hunter S Thompson and the Art of Journalism
Ask the Dust
Buy on AmazonAnd the legend, it's true and not true; but the legend is 'Ask the Dust' sells out its first printing or is selling through its first printing in a good clip. It would have been a huge book; this distracted the publisher, sucks up its marketing budget, which they spend on legal fees, which they then lose, and 'Ask the Dust' is then forgotten until, yeah, 1970, whatever, when Charles Bukowski discovers the lone surviving copy in the Los Angeles Public Library.
Episode: Timothy Denevi on Hunter S Thompson and the Art of Journalism
Full of Life
Buy on AmazonUm, his short stories are good; um, he wrote this book—'Full of Life,' um which was his most popular book; it wasn't a popular book, but it gets turned into a big movie that basically pays for everything. He once—so basically what happens is once 'Ask the Dust' is destroyed, he is sort of heartbroken and then just becomes a well-paid but little-known screenwriter; he has a nice house in Malibu paid for by movies that were never made, and was a frustrated novelist and sort of a drunk and a tortured dude as a result of this experience.
Episode: Timothy Denevi on Hunter S Thompson and the Art of Journalism
Dreams from Bunker Hill
Buy on AmazonAnd then after—this is way nerdier than people listen to—but after, after Bukowski rediscovers 'Ask the Dust' as Fante is dying of diabetes, they’re like chopping off his limbs as blind; he dictates to his wife the sequel of 'Dreams from Bunker Hill.' How's that, 'cause that's done; it's not done writing out; he told his wife the novel while he was…
Episode: Timothy Denevi on Hunter S Thompson and the Art of Journalism
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Buy on AmazonI think about that Hunter Thompson speech all the time for people who haven’t read 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.' Maybe you've seen the movie; you think it's this book about debauchery and partying and craziness when really it's this sort of elegy and a sad meditation on the failure of all the idealism of the 60s.
Episode: Timothy Denevi on Hunter S Thompson and the Art of Journalism
The White Album
Buy on AmazonAnd I mean, it reminds me of, in kind of a tangential way, but you know the passage in Didion's The White Album where she’s with, uh, Jim Morrison? Yeah, you know, and you know how she writes about it. It’s, she goes to the recording session, they’re waiting for Jim Morrison, he shows up, he doesn’t talk to anybody, you know?
Episode: Timothy Denevi on Hunter S Thompson and the Art of Journalism
The Great Influenza
Buy on AmazonSo that’s why I loved your book; so like I have found like, okay, the best book I read during COVID was John M. Barry’s book, The Great Influenza. Oh wow, right? So you’re reading about the Spanish flu and you’re like, okay, here’s everything that’s true.
Episode: Timothy Denevi on Hunter S Thompson and the Art of Journalism
It Can't Happen Here
Buy on AmazonRight, the best way I understood Trump was Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here. And I feel like your book actually, which comes, which is basically the generation right after that book, like you’re talking about, no longer does the fascist movement look like Mussolini or Hitler. It’s figured out how to dress better; it’s figured out how to co-opt certain kinds of speech and language.
Episode: Timothy Denevi on Hunter S Thompson and the Art of Journalism
The Greek Way
Buy on AmazonThink about two years later, on the night that Martin Luther King was shot, Bobby Kennedy—who was a Philistine for most of his life—began to read the Greeks and read 'The Greek Way.' I have the book in the bookstore, by Edith what? Edith Wharton.
Episode: Timothy Denevi on Hunter S Thompson and the Art of Journalism
On Immunity
Buy on AmazonThereâs a great book, 'Immunity' by Eula Biss, and it was the first time I began to understand immunity is not about you; itâs about participation. She articulated that while she was writing it, especially during her pregnancy in the 2010s, and it was the first time I understood immunity is about how participation and how we come together to get a different outcome than we would individually.
Episode: Timothy Denevi on Hunter S Thompson and the Art of Journalism
The Wasteland
Buy on AmazonThere’s a book titled 'The Wasteland' about Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot, which came out recently, analyzing the deterioration of Ezra Pound's mind as he fell into anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Anti-Semitism may be the oldest virus; it infects different Romans and emperors at various times, different leaders at different times.
Episode: Timothy Denevi on Hunter S Thompson and the Art of Journalism
Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays
Buy on AmazonI teach 'Shooting an Elephant' today by George Orwell. I love 'Homage to Catalonia,' but there are parts of it where he talks about what it was like as a colonial administrator, knowing colonialism was wrong. It’s a lot like Thompson—he was caught up in enforcing it, and it shows how it destroys him as a way to argue against it.
Episode: Timothy Denevi on Hunter S Thompson and the Art of Journalism
Homage to Catalonia
Buy on AmazonI love 'Homage to Catalonia,' but there are parts of it where he talks about what it was like as a colonial administrator, knowing colonialism was wrong. It’s a lot like Thompson—he was caught up in enforcing it, and it shows how it destroys him as a way to argue against it. Thompson does a very good job at illustrating this.
Episode: Timothy Denevi on Hunter S Thompson and the Art of Journalism
Stories I Tell Myself
Buy on AmazonHis son wrote a great book called 'Stories I Tell Myself,' which tries to encapsulate Thompson's struggle. I attempted to conclude with Nixon leaving, but the years after were really tough because they reflect our current understanding of alcoholism, coupled with how Thompson would take Dexedrine. There was a price to be paid later, and his son writes about getting hooked on the substance.
Episode: Timothy Denevi on Hunter S Thompson and the Art of Journalism
The War of Art
Buy on AmazonBut I think that's, there's kind of a—there's um Steven Pressfield tells a version of that story also in the War of Art. He's saying that that's the resistance, right?
Episode: Morgan Wade On Discipline, Getting Sober, and Finding Balance
The Daily Dad
Buy on AmazonYes, um, yeah, when I was doing The Daily Dad, I went to my publisher with it maybe four or five years ago.
Episode: Steven Pressfield on Discovering Stoicism and Working Without Attachment
The War of Art
Buy on AmazonBecause I tend to reread The War of Art or Turning Pro or one of your books when I'm about to start a project. It's just like a nice sort of headspace to get into.
Episode: Steven Pressfield on Discovering Stoicism and Working Without Attachment
Gates of Fire
Buy on AmazonAnd then I have on my wall, I have the last page from the typewritten manuscript of Gates of Fire signed by the author. Yeah, I have a bunch of those little totems too, myself.
Episode: Steven Pressfield on Discovering Stoicism and Working Without Attachment
The Laws of Human Nature
Buy on AmazonJust as The Laws of Human Nature should not be—The Laws of Human Nature is a 600-page book about, you know, everything that makes humans both rational and irrational; that should not be a commercially viable book, you know? Especially for someone who, again, it’s not like he’s a—you know, Adrian would turn it down.
Episode: Steven Pressfield on Discovering Stoicism and Working Without Attachment
Gates of Fire
Buy on AmazonDo you think about the spectrum of people who are able to enjoy 'Gates of Fire' or 'The War of Art'? You have people who have sold hundreds of millions of records that are fans of 'The War of Art', and people who are just thinking about starting.
Episode: Steven Pressfield on Discovering Stoicism and Working Without Attachment
The War of Art
Buy on AmazonDo you think about the spectrum of people who are able to enjoy 'Gates of Fire' or 'The War of Art'? You have people who have sold hundreds of millions of records that are fans of 'The War of Art', and people who are just thinking about starting.
Episode: Steven Pressfield on Discovering Stoicism and Working Without Attachment
Gates of Fire
Buy on AmazonAround that time, I would have also read 'Gates of Fire'. I remember buying that on Amazon.
Episode: Steven Pressfield on Discovering Stoicism and Working Without Attachment
A Farewell to Arms
Buy on AmazonTake, for instance, the opening of "A Farewell to Arms" where he describes the dust on the trees that summer. It resonates throughout the story and comes back at the end; that's a poetic genius that AI simply cannot replicate.
Episode: Steven Pressfield on Discovering Stoicism and Working Without Attachment
Gates of Fire
Buy on AmazonNot whatsoever, because if you think about, like, the second book was Gates of Fire for me. And as I was writing it, I thought, who's going to possibly be interested in this?
Episode: Steven Pressfield on Discovering Stoicism and Working Without Attachment
The Right Stuff
Buy on AmazonSo yeah, have you read Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff? Yeah.
Episode: Congressman Adam Kinzinger Doing the Right Thing (Even When It Costs You)
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Buy on AmazonHave you read that Emerson biography yet? I'm like halfway through it.
Episode: Paul Kix On The Civil Rights Movement And What It Means To Be Courageous
Emerson
Buy on AmazonBut I had the experience of that and with the Emerson book, 'Mind on Fire,' that you recommended where I can only make it like three or four pages, and I have to stop.
Episode: Paul Kix On The Civil Rights Movement And What It Means To Be Courageous
Freak Kingdom
Buy on AmazonI also just read this book like, um, I read this book 'Freak Kingdom' or 'Kingdom of Freaks' that it's about by this creative writing professor, but it's about the political activism and writings of Hunter S. Thompson. Oh.
Episode: Paul Kix On The Civil Rights Movement And What It Means To Be Courageous
Reclaim Your Nest Egg
Buy on AmazonBut you had recommended that Kamen's book. Oh yeah, that's another one that writing is incredible.
Episode: Paul Kix On The Civil Rights Movement And What It Means To Be Courageous
Gone to Texas: A History of the Lone Star State
Buy on AmazonUm, yeah, he wrote this book 'Lone Star,' which is a history of Texas, which is incredible.
Episode: Paul Kix On The Civil Rights Movement And What It Means To Be Courageous
This Kind of War
Buy on AmazonAnd then he also wrote this book about the Korean War which he fought in called 'This Kind of War.' That's also incredible.
Episode: Paul Kix On The Civil Rights Movement And What It Means To Be Courageous
Empire of the Summer Moon
Buy on AmazonWell see, so his book 'Empire of the Summer Moon' was the one I was like, oh, I love this book.
Episode: Paul Kix On The Civil Rights Movement And What It Means To Be Courageous
The Immense Journey
Buy on AmazonOkay, Lauren Eiseley's 'The Immense Journey.' It's a history of nothing less than the entire Earth's evolution.
Episode: Paul Kix On The Civil Rights Movement And What It Means To Be Courageous
United States Code, 1976 Ed., Supplement 1-
Buy on AmazonSo in a lot of ways like this title itself, I wasn't writing toward this title, but when my editor was like this is a quote from the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, she's like what do you think of this as a book?
Episode: Paul Kix On The Civil Rights Movement And What It Means To Be Courageous
The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story
Buy on AmazonYeah, 'The New New Thing,' I love that book.
Episode: Paul Kix On The Civil Rights Movement And What It Means To Be Courageous
First Principles
Buy on AmazonNo, he wrote about the generals in Iraq and then wrote this great book on the founding fathers called 'First Principles', but he also wrote a history of the Civil Rights Movement from the perspective of a military historian.
Episode: Paul Kix On The Civil Rights Movement And What It Means To Be Courageous
Waging a Good War
Buy on AmazonDid you read Tom Ricks' book, 'A Good War'? Was that the one on the generals?
Episode: Paul Kix On The Civil Rights Movement And What It Means To Be Courageous
Be Useful
Buy on AmazonIn your book, you highlighted how many people enter the gym with the goal of getting in shape, but there’s often a lack of specificity around that. Still, I worked hard, and although it seems trivial now, that was my motivation, and it drove me to train every day.
Be Useful
Buy on AmazonThat’s a key reason I wrote 'Be Useful': to inspire people to pursue success and achievement without a specific blueprint.
The Obstacle Is the Way
Buy on AmazonBut like I reread the obstacles away to my son at some point during the editing; he wanted to like read something I'd written, and so I read it to him, and I was like, this is fast; like I was like this is so short and tight and fast.
Deliver Me from Nowhere
Buy on AmazonWell, that book, the book I was recommending to you, it's called Deliver Me From Nowhere, and it's about, which actually we should talk about this—so it's about the recording of the album Nebraska, which he does.
Mastery
Buy on AmazonIn Robert Greene's Mastery, he talks about like your sort of life's task: how do you find what that thing is?
Master of Change
Buy on AmazonAnd you know, what was interesting part of the research for Master of Change was just seeing throughout history how whenever there are periods of accelerated or punctuated change, there are always demagogues and grifters that just prey on people’s homeostatic mindset and natural inclination to be scared of change and to want to cling to the old stability or the stability that they have.
Episode: Brad Stulberg On Mastering Change With Science And Stoicism
Discipline Is Destiny
Buy on AmazonI mean, I just mean by even those old metrics like, okay, my last book 'Discipline Is Destiny' is the book that I have checked on the sales the least, where I actively made decisions that made hitting bestseller lists less likely.
Episode: Adrian Grenier On How Turning To Philosophy Saved His Life
The Little Prince
Buy on AmazonYeah, it's, uh, if you read 'The Little Prince,' did you hear that book when you were a kid?
Episode: Adrian Grenier On How Turning To Philosophy Saved His Life
Soul Boom
Buy on AmazonOne of the things in my book that I bring up right away is, 'Why the hell is the guy who played Dwight talking about spirituality?' That might be a little weird.
Episode: Rainn Wilson On How His Deepest Struggles Led To His Best Roles
Soul Boom
Buy on AmazonNow, it’s funny you mention this because, you know what this is like too; I did this book tour and lots of TV shows, podcasts, readings, and I'm still doing them.
Episode: Rainn Wilson On How His Deepest Struggles Led To His Best Roles
Soul Boom
Buy on AmazonI want to reach people with the ideas of this book, people who aren’t necessarily going to buy a book but are interested in spiritual tools to make themselves better and improve the world.
Episode: Rainn Wilson On How His Deepest Struggles Led To His Best Roles
Soul Boom
Buy on AmazonAlso, that’s fascinating because for me, Soul Boom was such a labor of love.
Episode: Rainn Wilson On How His Deepest Struggles Led To His Best Roles
Soul Boom
Buy on AmazonBut I really did; this was for me—if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, in case anyone ever—and that's probably like three dozen people—want to know what the guy who played Dwight thought about life, God, the soul, and meaning, it's all here in the book.
Episode: Rainn Wilson On How His Deepest Struggles Led To His Best Roles
Soul Boom
Buy on AmazonBut okay, great, let's put that aside; like I say in the book, have we jettisoned the spiritual baby with the religious bathwater?
Episode: Rainn Wilson On How His Deepest Struggles Led To His Best Roles
The Untethered Soul
Buy on AmazonYou know, as Michael Singer talks about in The Untethered Soul, you realize, 'Oh, I am not my thoughts and I'm not even my feelings,' and you have this whole— that's mind-blowing!
Episode: Rainn Wilson On How His Deepest Struggles Led To His Best Roles
Soul Boom
Buy on AmazonI want to read from the second greatest book next to the Bhagavad Gita and The Daily Stoic, 'Soul Boom.'
Episode: Rainn Wilson On How His Deepest Struggles Led To His Best Roles
The Artist's Way
Buy on AmazonAre you familiar with The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron's work? Yeah, of course!
Episode: Rainn Wilson On How His Deepest Struggles Led To His Best Roles
Meditations
Buy on AmazonYou know, there's a passage in meditations that hit me especially as a college kid; he talks about how hard it is to wake up in the morning.
Episode: Christina Pazsitzky On Studying Philosophy And The Value Of Comedy
The Daily Stoic
Buy on AmazonWhen I wrote The Daily Stoic, my editor asked me to remove cursing.
Episode: Christina Pazsitzky On Studying Philosophy And The Value Of Comedy
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
Buy on AmazonIt's called The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. Oh, Mark, he's great!
Episode: Christina Pazsitzky On Studying Philosophy And The Value Of Comedy
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Buy on AmazonWhich is, um—have you read um, 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'?
Episode: Christina Pazsitzky On Studying Philosophy And The Value Of Comedy
The Zen Art Book
Buy on AmazonI've read a couple books that, you know, like Zen books that needed to be put into audio format that hadn't been put in audio format, so I just paid to have that done; like things of that nature.
Episode: Kevin Rose On Entrepreneurship, Zen Buddhism, And Being Vulnerable
Delivering Happiness
Buy on AmazonYeah, I mean, I do applaud some of these like, you know, what I really liked is the, you know, sadly the late Tony Hsieh who ran Zappos, he really tried this holocracy approach inside of his company where it was like a level playing field for everyone like really pushing the boundaries, he had a great book called Delivering Happiness—I mean, do you remember that book?
Episode: Kevin Rose On Entrepreneurship, Zen Buddhism, And Being Vulnerable
Ego Is the Enemy
Buy on AmazonI remember, 'Ego is the Enemy' was a huge one for me, and there were a few others like the Minimalist and some others were—I got into them, and I was like, 'Okay, there's a different way to live life here.'
Episode: Kevin Rose On Entrepreneurship, Zen Buddhism, And Being Vulnerable
A Farewell to Arms
Buy on AmazonWell, there's there's a Hemingway quote that I love, I think it's in A Farewell to Arms, he says, you know, 'Life breaks everyone, but those it doesn't break, it kills.'
Episode: Kevin Rose On Entrepreneurship, Zen Buddhism, And Being Vulnerable
Animal Liberation
Buy on AmazonHe's like the inventor of effective altruism; he wrote like Animal Liberation. Now, so he's like one of the first animal rights people, and then he came up with this idea, partly based on the Stoics, which he came up with his metaphor.
Episode: Kevin Rose On Entrepreneurship, Zen Buddhism, And Being Vulnerable
The Daily Dad
Buy on AmazonThat is a powerful—I think I've read all of your books except I haven't read 'The Daily Dad' yet.
Episode: Casey Neistat On Finding Purpose and Balancing Ambition
Conspiracy
Buy on Amazon'Conspiracy' was an all-time favorite because so [__], so gossipy and page-turny and fun.
Episode: Casey Neistat On Finding Purpose and Balancing Ambition
What to Expect when You're Expecting
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Episode: Casey Neistat On Finding Purpose and Balancing Ambition
Trust Me, I'm Lying
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Episode: Garland Robinette On The Stoic Principle That Shaped His Incredible Life
Trust Me, I'm Lying
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Episode: Garland Robinette On The Stoic Principle That Shaped His Incredible Life
Painting as a Pastime
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Episode: Garland Robinette On The Stoic Principle That Shaped His Incredible Life
Lanterns On The Levee
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Episode: Garland Robinette On The Stoic Principle That Shaped His Incredible Life
Enchiridion
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The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
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The Daily Dad
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The Obstacle Is the Way
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Episode: Troy Baker On How Stoicism Helps Him Be A Better Actor And Father
Zen in the Art of Archery
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Episode: Rick Rubin on The Creative Act, Overcoming Ego, and Enjoying the Process
Zen in the Art of Archery
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Episode: Rick Rubin on The Creative Act, Overcoming Ego, and Enjoying the Process
Gates of Fire
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Episode: Rick Rubin on The Creative Act, Overcoming Ego, and Enjoying the Process
The War of Art
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Episode: Rick Rubin on The Creative Act, Overcoming Ego, and Enjoying the Process
Plutarch's Lives, Volume 2
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Episode: Rick Rubin on The Creative Act, Overcoming Ego, and Enjoying the Process
The Obstacle Is the Way
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Episode: Ryan Holiday And Guy Raz On Using Stoicism To Improve Your Life
The Obstacle Is the Way
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Episode: Ryan Holiday And Guy Raz On Using Stoicism To Improve Your Life
Stillness Is the Key
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Episode: Ryan Holiday And Guy Raz On Using Stoicism To Improve Your Life
Discipline Is Destiny
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Episode: Ryan Holiday And Guy Raz On Using Stoicism To Improve Your Life
Trust Me, I'm Lying
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Episode: Ryan Holiday And Guy Raz On Using Stoicism To Improve Your Life
The Obstacle Is the Way
Buy on AmazonI sat down to write it like 2, and it was actually really great to talk about 'The Obstacle's Way.' It was this perfect reminder of like this is why I don’t start my day at 2.
Episode: Ryan Holiday And Guy Raz On Using Stoicism To Improve Your Life
Discipline Is Destiny
Buy on AmazonThat’s why I open 'Discipline's Destiny' with the story of Lou Gehrig, who has the longest streak in the history of baseball until it’s broken by Cal Ripken.
Episode: Ryan Holiday And Guy Raz On Using Stoicism To Improve Your Life
The Laws of Human Nature
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Episode: Ryan Holiday And Guy Raz On Using Stoicism To Improve Your Life
Stillness Is the Key
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Episode: Ryan Holiday And Guy Raz On Using Stoicism To Improve Your Life
Discipline Is Destiny
Buy on AmazonAs a person who has found a lot of healing and recovery in the 12-step rooms, I was very surprised to see you write about it in both Stillness is the Key and Discipline is Destiny. So I'm curious as to how that came about or why you were inspired to do that because the only other one I found was Russell Brand's recovery book.
Episode: Ryan Holiday And Guy Raz On Using Stoicism To Improve Your Life
Trust Me, I'm Lying
Buy on AmazonI probably rewrite Trust Me, I'm Lying just because I wrote that when I was so young, and also I've seen the legacy that that book has given you some good stuff over there or maybe I wouldn't publish it at all.
Episode: Ryan Holiday And Guy Raz On Using Stoicism To Improve Your Life
Why We Sleep
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Episode: Actor Alexander Ludwig on How Stoicism Helped Him Get Sober
The Conspiracy of Catiline as Related by Sallust
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Episode: Professor Josiah Osgood on Cato, Caesar and the Battle for Rome's Legacy
The Storm Before the Storm
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Episode: Professor Josiah Osgood on Cato, Caesar and the Battle for Rome's Legacy
The Second Triumvirate
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Episode: Professor Josiah Osgood on Cato, Caesar and the Battle for Rome's Legacy
Uncommon Wrath
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Episode: Professor Josiah Osgood on Cato, Caesar and the Battle for Rome's Legacy
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
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Episode: Jack Weatherford on Genghis Khan and Learning From History
A Calendar of Wisdom
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Episode: Jack Weatherford on Genghis Khan and Learning From History
The Secret History of the Mongols
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Episode: Jack Weatherford on Genghis Khan and Learning From History
Timon of Athens
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Episode: Jack Weatherford on Genghis Khan and Learning From History
The Moral Arc
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Episode: Former Attorney General Eric Holder on the Unfinished March of Justice
The Woman's Hour
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Episode: Former Attorney General Eric Holder on the Unfinished March of Justice
The Children
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Episode: Former Attorney General Eric Holder on the Unfinished March of Justice
The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published
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Episode: Former Attorney General Eric Holder on the Unfinished March of Justice
Chosen Country
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Episode: James Pogue on Political Principles and Cultivating Virtue
The New Sultan
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Episode: James Pogue on Political Principles and Cultivating Virtue
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents
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Episode: Comedian Drew Michael on Optimization, Social Media Culture, and Empathy
Frederick
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Episode: Justin Gregg on Animal Intelligence and Human Stupidity
The Pope's Elephant
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Episode: Justin Gregg on Animal Intelligence and Human Stupidity
To Risk It All
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Chuck Klosterman IV
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Episode: Jeff Waldman on Craftsmanship, Memento Mori, and Developing Competence
The Obstacle Is the Way
Buy on AmazonThis summer is 10 years old; and actually, 'Obstacle,' came out eight years ago yesterday, which is also like insane to me when I read stuff that I wrote that long ago.
Episode: Jeff Waldman on Craftsmanship, Memento Mori, and Developing Competence
The Obstacle Is the Way
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Episode: Jeff Waldman on Craftsmanship, Memento Mori, and Developing Competence
Lincoln's Virtues
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Episode: Journalist Kati Marton on Angela Merkel’s Remarkable Stoicism
The prince
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Episode: Journalist Kati Marton on Angela Merkel’s Remarkable Stoicism
Jurassic Park
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Episode: David Gelles On Practicing Discipline And The Future Of Corporate America
The Brass Check, a Study of American Journalism
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Episode: David Gelles On Practicing Discipline And The Future Of Corporate America
How Will You Measure Your Life? (Harvard Business Review Classics)
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Episode: David Gelles On Practicing Discipline And The Future Of Corporate America
Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century
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Episode: David Gelles On Practicing Discipline And The Future Of Corporate America
The Road
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Episode: Kathryn Schulz on Gaslighting, Misinformation, and Coping with Grief
Blood Meridian
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Episode: Kathryn Schulz on Gaslighting, Misinformation, and Coping with Grief
Lost & Found
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Episode: Kathryn Schulz on Gaslighting, Misinformation, and Coping with Grief
The Nineties
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Episode: Chuck Klosterman on Writing, Being Wrong, and The Nineties
Chronicles
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Episode: Chuck Klosterman on Writing, Being Wrong, and The Nineties
But What If We're Wrong?
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Episode: Chuck Klosterman on Writing, Being Wrong, and The Nineties
The Contrarian
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Episode: Chuck Klosterman on Writing, Being Wrong, and The Nineties
![Black Boy [Seventy-fifth Anniversary Edition]](https://mentionedinpodcasts.com/media/books/1e65c866-cc77-7219-ad20-d445b52b35b3.jpg)
Black Boy [Seventy-fifth Anniversary Edition]
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Episode: Chuck Klosterman on Writing, Being Wrong, and The Nineties
Crossroads
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Episode: Chuck Klosterman on Writing, Being Wrong, and The Nineties
Animal Farm
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Episode: Chuck Klosterman on Writing, Being Wrong, and The Nineties
I Wear the Black Hat
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Episode: Chuck Klosterman on Writing, Being Wrong, and The Nineties
How Children Succeed
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Episode: Professor Jennifer Baker on Understanding Modern Stoicism
The Obstacle Is the Way
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Trust Me, I'm Lying
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The Ride of a Lifetime
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The Psychology of Money
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Trust Me, I'm Lying
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The Obstacle Is the Way
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The Obstacle Is the Way
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The Laws of Human Nature
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The Psychology of Money
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A Good American Family
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The Night of the Were-Boy
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Episode: Stacey Abrams on Leveling up and Serving the Common Good
The Everything Guide to Writing a Romance Novel
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Episode: Stacey Abrams on Leveling up and Serving the Common Good
The Obstacle Is the Way
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Episode: Steven Pressfield on Overcoming Resistance and the Value of Discipline
Gates of Fire
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Episode: Steven Pressfield on Overcoming Resistance and the Value of Discipline
Journal of a Novel
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Episode: Steven Pressfield on Overcoming Resistance and the Value of Discipline
One Line a Day
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Episode: Steven Pressfield on Overcoming Resistance and the Value of Discipline
The War of Art
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Episode: Steven Pressfield on Overcoming Resistance and the Value of Discipline
The Artist's Journey
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Episode: Steven Pressfield on Overcoming Resistance and the Value of Discipline
Gates of Fire
Buy on AmazonAs always, I love all your work—'The War of Art,' 'The Artist's Journey,' 'Gates of Fire'—I've loved all your stuff.
Episode: Steven Pressfield on Overcoming Resistance and the Value of Discipline
Aesop's Fables
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Episode: Thomas Chatterton Williams on Practical Philosophy and Embracing Contradiction
War and Peace
Buy on AmazonYou know, when you immerse yourself in War and Peace or something like that, it requires hours and hours of investment before you start to feel this world that Tolstoy conjured up around you out of sheer language.
Episode: Thomas Chatterton Williams on Practical Philosophy and Embracing Contradiction
Wuthering Heights
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Episode: Thomas Chatterton Williams on Practical Philosophy and Embracing Contradiction
The Lottery
Buy on AmazonSo, my dad, when one of the—I mean this is probably a little bit cliché or maybe obvious to some of your listeners, but when I was 15 or 16 and my best friend and I were studying all the time with my dad and we were navigating our social context and trying to figure out how to manage and maneuver around peer pressure, my dad gave us Shirley Jackson's The Lottery, this short story about this public stoning, you know that the whole town participates in.
Episode: Thomas Chatterton Williams on Practical Philosophy and Embracing Contradiction
The Lottery
Buy on AmazonSo The Lottery is something that I can still see myself sitting at the kitchen table and him handing to me on a Xerox printout to think through and underline and then talk about later when we were done.
Episode: Thomas Chatterton Williams on Practical Philosophy and Embracing Contradiction
Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed
Buy on AmazonFor my dad, like enormously impactful books for him were like Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed, which I have to admit I used to talk to him about Maimonides and stuff, but I never actually read.
Episode: Thomas Chatterton Williams on Practical Philosophy and Embracing Contradiction
The Brothers Karamazov
Buy on AmazonThen I read The Brothers Karamazov and it was just an astonishing reading experience for me, and it kind of shattered my faith.
Episode: Thomas Chatterton Williams on Practical Philosophy and Embracing Contradiction
The Brothers Karamazov
Buy on AmazonThe Brothers Karamazov was like this link to the world for me.
Episode: Thomas Chatterton Williams on Practical Philosophy and Embracing Contradiction
The Story of Philosophy
Buy on AmazonBasically, before the age of 10, the story that we’ve always understood from him was that in a neighbor's house, he came across a copy of Will Durant's The Story of Philosophy.
Episode: Thomas Chatterton Williams on Practical Philosophy and Embracing Contradiction
Between the World and Me
Buy on AmazonBut there's an astonishing kind of passage in Between the World and Me where he basically sees a kind of caricature of an upper-class or wealthy Frenchman in a beautiful car smoking a cigarette.
Episode: Thomas Chatterton Williams on Practical Philosophy and Embracing Contradiction
The Children
Buy on AmazonAnd I was reading lately, I've been reading David Halberstam's book, The Children, on the sit-in movement.
Episode: Thomas Chatterton Williams on Practical Philosophy and Embracing Contradiction
Self-Portrait in Black and White: Unlearning Race
Buy on AmazonAnd that's actually really one of the main arguments in my second book, Self-Portrait in Black and White.
Episode: Thomas Chatterton Williams on Practical Philosophy and Embracing Contradiction
Epictetus
Buy on AmazonAt the beginning of 'Meditations,' where Marcus thanks all his teachers and specifically Rusticus for lending him his copy of Epictetus from his library, you realize that 20 centuries ago, someone gave this man a book, and a light went on for him—the switch flipped, just as it did for you and for me.
Episode: Karen Duffy on Using Stoicism to Find Happiness (Even with Chronic Illness)
The Discourses of Epictetus
Buy on AmazonOr Epictetus—it feels like he’s calling you out instead of whoever it was in the lecture hall that he’s speaking to in Discourses.
Episode: Karen Duffy on Using Stoicism to Find Happiness (Even with Chronic Illness)
The Great Gatsby
Buy on AmazonYou have a letter where your son writes to you, and he mentions, 'Remember little Pammy in The Great Gatsby? Neither did her mother, Daisy Buchanan.'
Episode: Karen Duffy on Using Stoicism to Find Happiness (Even with Chronic Illness)
Conspiracy
Buy on AmazonSure, I mean, so conspiracy, I think is my best book; it's probably sold the least of all my books.
Episode: NFL Legend Tony Gonzalez on Becoming Your Best Self
Growth Hacker Marketing
Buy on AmazonConversely, I did this book Growth Hacking several years ago that my publisher suggested, and I was into it and I liked it; I'm glad I did it, but it sold like very well and was lucrative.
Episode: NFL Legend Tony Gonzalez on Becoming Your Best Self
Strength in Stillness
Buy on AmazonYes, yes; of all the books, I’ve read a majority of your books, stillness is the one that touched me the most, because I think that was part of my problem in those first two years in the league.
Episode: NFL Legend Tony Gonzalez on Becoming Your Best Self
Can't Hurt Me
Buy on AmazonWhat have been some books that hit you particularly hard? I think one of the first books that I read was "Can't Hurt Me," and so that one was super intense. Just kind of like when I was in the gym struggling, I'd remember that he would run like a hundred miles on broken feet and stuff.
Episode: CrossFit Athlete Brooke Wells on Reaching Your Potential
The Obstacle Is the Way
Buy on AmazonAnd then I read, "Your Obstacles Away." That was a really good one. Let's see, "Atomic Habits."
Episode: CrossFit Athlete Brooke Wells on Reaching Your Potential
Atomic Habits
Buy on AmazonLet's see, "Atomic Habits." I'm currently reading "The Slight Edge." I haven't heard of that.
Episode: CrossFit Athlete Brooke Wells on Reaching Your Potential
The Slight Edge
Buy on AmazonLet's see, "Atomic Habits." I'm currently reading "The Slight Edge." I haven't heard of that.
Episode: CrossFit Athlete Brooke Wells on Reaching Your Potential
Everything Happens for a Reason
Buy on AmazonHer book is titled 'Everything Happens for a Reason,' with a subtitle along the lines of 'Things You Should Never Say to Someone with Cancer.' There's no value in wasting time feeling upset—such negativity is wasted energy.
Episode: CrossFit Athlete Brooke Wells on Reaching Your Potential
The War of Art
Buy on AmazonThere's a line in one of Steven Pressfield's books that I love; have you ever read his stuff? No, I haven't, but you would love The War of Art or his novel Gates of Fire—that's amazing. In one of them, a philosopher is talking to Alexander the Great, and Alexander says, 'I have conquered the world; what have you ever done?'
Episode: CrossFit Athlete Brooke Wells on Reaching Your Potential
The War of Art
Buy on AmazonNo, I haven't, but you would love The War of Art or his novel Gates of Fire—that's amazing. In one of them, a philosopher is talking to Alexander the Great, and Alexander says, 'I have conquered the world; what have you ever done?'
Episode: CrossFit Athlete Brooke Wells on Reaching Your Potential
Gates of Fire
Buy on AmazonNo, I haven't, but you would love The War of Art or his novel Gates of Fire—that's amazing. In one of them, a philosopher is talking to Alexander the Great, and Alexander says, 'I have conquered the world; what have you ever done?'
Episode: CrossFit Athlete Brooke Wells on Reaching Your Potential
The Night of the Gun
Buy on AmazonWe have these memories of how stuff went, and then when you actually revisit them—there's a great book by David Carr called 'A Night of the Gun' or something like that.
The Way to Love
Buy on AmazonAnd then getting turned on to your books and then Robert Greene and, you know, early on like books like Anthony de Mello's 'The Way to Love', and all these different...
The Game
Buy on AmazonUm, I don't know what you know. I read 'The Game' because I was 22 and I was single, right? And reading Neil Strauss and just he's such a great writer, and that book can be slightly evil probably.
The War of Art
Buy on AmazonYeah, like I was talking to Steven Pressfield who wrote The War of Art, and he talks about, like, the muses. And I'm like, you can't possibly believe that your artistic stuff is coming from the muses.
Episode: Kate Fagan on Facing Death and Accepting Loss (Memento Mori)
What Made Maddy Run
Buy on AmazonAnd I think about that a lot, even in terms of my first book, What Made Maddie Run. Even though I think it has a long shelf life, it's not timeless.
Episode: Kate Fagan on Facing Death and Accepting Loss (Memento Mori)
The Inner Game of Tennis
Buy on AmazonHave you read The Inner Game of Tennis? No, I haven't. Okay, so one, you have to read it if you like tennis, but I believe it's Tom Brady's favorite book.
Episode: NASCAR Champion Brad Keselowski on Reaching Your Maximum Potential
Debrief to Win
Buy on Amazonwhat have been some of the books that have hit you the most? Ah, there's one I really love right now, and I don't know if you've read it; it's called Debrief to Win. No, I'm writing this down.
Episode: NASCAR Champion Brad Keselowski on Reaching Your Maximum Potential
Surviving IT: Essential Advice for Building a Happy and Healthy Technology Career
Buy on AmazonSports have been relatively late to adopt this idea; I have a chapter about load management in the book I'm working on right now.
Episode: Los Angeles Rams GM Les Snead on Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing
Lyle Family
Buy on AmazonIt’s one of the greatest nonfiction books of all time, and I had him on the podcast. Did you read his book, *The Perfect Pass*? I did not. He wrote this book that I never thought about, which explains the invention of the passing game in football.
Episode: Los Angeles Rams GM Les Snead on Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing
Grit
Buy on AmazonYou should probably read Angela Duckworth's book, *Grit*, if you're going to take on that challenge because there are going to be headwinds and hopefully just hills to climb and not mountains. That must have been part of your experience, right?
Episode: Los Angeles Rams GM Les Snead on Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing
Atlas Shrugged
Buy on AmazonSo it took me two summers to just finish this summer for the first time because I didn't read it before—Atlas Shrugged. Yeah, so I mean you're a thousand something pages into a pretty—what did you think?
Episode: Los Angeles Rams GM Les Snead on Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing
So Good They Can't Ignore You
Buy on AmazonThey are quitting to follow their passion, which is funny when you compare it to your other book because this reflects the concept in 'So Good They Can't Ignore You.'
Episode: Cal Newport on Gaining Autonomy and Effective Communication
So Good They Can't Ignore You
Buy on AmazonAs I discuss in 'So Good They Can't Ignore You,' we struggle with this.
Episode: Cal Newport on Gaining Autonomy and Effective Communication
So Good They Can't Ignore You
Buy on AmazonOne of the stories I suggested in that book, which I think is likely relevant to what many people are about to do, was about a successful ad executive who was feeling overwhelmed by work.
Episode: Cal Newport on Gaining Autonomy and Effective Communication
So Good They Can't Ignore You
Buy on AmazonThe core moral of that book is that when considering what makes a job great, you must think about it from a market economy perspective. The traits that make great work great are rare and valuable.
Episode: Cal Newport on Gaining Autonomy and Effective Communication
So Good They Can't Ignore You
Buy on AmazonI think suddenly that book is more relevant now than it has been recently because everyone is contemplating these kinds of transitions.
Episode: Cal Newport on Gaining Autonomy and Effective Communication
A World Without Email
Buy on AmazonWhen I contemplate your other book, 'A World Without Email,' I think about how I want my day to look.
Episode: Cal Newport on Gaining Autonomy and Effective Communication
Mastery
Buy on AmazonGreen talks about that in 'Mastery.'
Episode: Cal Newport on Gaining Autonomy and Effective Communication
A World Without Email
Buy on AmazonThis brings us back to one of the ideas from the book, which is to be crystal clear about what we do right.
Episode: Cal Newport on Gaining Autonomy and Effective Communication
So Good They Can't Ignore You
Buy on AmazonAnd I think that's the other hard, I call it the autonomy traps in that old 2012 book. It's the dichotomy.
Episode: Cal Newport on Gaining Autonomy and Effective Communication
The Moral Animal
Buy on AmazonA big theme of that book is that the human mind is unreliable as a guide to reality. It's as if our mind acts like a lawyer, trying to make the case for our interests.
Episode: Author Robert Wright on Buddhism vs. Stoicism and the Dangers of Social Affirmation
The Obstacle Is the Way
Buy on AmazonI think one of the benefits for me when I was thinking about writing The Obstacle Is the Way, and I've talked about this before, is that my publisher offered me half what I got for my first book for what was supposed to be my second book.
Episode: Ali Abdaal on the Keys to Productivity and Re-Defining Success
The Obstacle Is the Way
Buy on AmazonHonestly, I was thinking about that and all the stoicism-type stuff that I've been drinking the Kool-Aid off ever since I discovered The Obstacle Is the Way.
Episode: Ali Abdaal on the Keys to Productivity and Re-Defining Success
The E-Myth Revisited
Buy on AmazonI read a few business books like 'The E-Myth Revisited' which talked about the power of building a system. This isn't just me making stuff up as I go along—systems design is actually a thing.
Episode: Ali Abdaal on the Keys to Productivity and Re-Defining Success
Law of Attraction
Buy on AmazonThis exercise was in a book called 'Attraction' by someone named Dino. I realized there were a lot of things in the bottom two quadrants—things I don’t like doing but am good at.
Episode: Ali Abdaal on the Keys to Productivity and Re-Defining Success
The Productivity Game
Buy on AmazonObviously, I know about it, but I'm sure listeners would be interested in knowing what you're working on and tell us how the process has been because, to me, that's the most interesting part. Yeah. Um, so the book currently does not have a title; the working title is 'The Productivity Game,' which I'm not a huge fan of.
Episode: Ali Abdaal on the Keys to Productivity and Re-Defining Success
The Tipping Point
Buy on AmazonSo like, I think if a Malcolm Gladwell book came out today, like 'The Tipping Point' came out today, I think it would not sell five million copies because now people would want to know specifically how to create tipping points.
Episode: Ali Abdaal on the Keys to Productivity and Re-Defining Success
The Obstacle Is the Way
Buy on AmazonI was wondering, are you comfortable telling the story of how you ended up hearing about 'The Obstacle Is the Way'?
Infantry Attacks
Buy on AmazonThe Rommel papers read similarly, offering practical solutions, just like his earlier book 'Infantry Attacks.'
Deep Work
Buy on AmazonI connected with Sheikh Tanoon about Cal Newport’s book 'Deep Work,' in which he mentions having a room for deep concentration.
Dying Every Day
Buy on AmazonThere's a fascinating book called 'Dying Every Day' about Seneca and Nero's court by James Romm, who I love.
Call Sign Chaos
Buy on AmazonGeneral Mattis, who's a big fan of Stoicism, talks about this in his book Call Sign Chaos, which is very good.
Episode: Sam and Colby on Memento Mori and Finding Peace With Stoicism