The Daily Stoic

There's a book I'll give you in there I went, have you read Jessica Lahey's 'The Gift of Failure'? I don't think so. Oh, it's incredible. It's a parody I know, it's...it's this idea of like you never want your kids to be embarrassed or fail or so you're like oh sorry I'm running across town because you forgot your lunch or like you reminded them 50 times and now you're doing their science fair project...

I love her book The Gift of Failure, How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed.

I carry The Gift of Failure in my bookstore here, The Painted Porch in Vashom, Texas because it's great.

You know, obviously the title and the concept of my book, this idea of the obstacle being the way, sort of, in a sense is saying the exact same thing that your book is saying although it yours is geared much more towards parenting than my parenting was very far from my mind when I was writing that book at 25 or 26.

But this idea of failure being a gift that there's good that can come out of mistakes, falling short, things not going the way that you would like them to go to me seems like a very stoic idea.

I liked both of his books but in his new book To Risk It All he actually profiles today's guest whose name may sound vaguely familiar.

it's a great new book by Admiral James DeVritis

it's probably a great audiobook too and I really appreciated him coming on the podcast

I loved this new book. I probably folded 40 pages. It's a short book but I got so much out of it. I can't recommend this book highly enough.

I loved our first conversation. I loved this new book.

I'm not sure if this is coming up before or after the interview but it doesn't really matter. Because we talked about in that interview was it sort of framework for responding well to the Crucible decision.

And he says that you have to prepare in advance, right? You have to train as they say in the military you don't rise to the occasion you sink to the level of your training.

He says two big things. He says one you have to know what you believe. You have to know your standards.

He talks about in his other great book which I recommend sailing through north. And he's basically saying what's true north? What do you believe? What do you hold important? What do you ascribe to, right?

Do check out to risk at all nine conflicts in the crucible of decision. It's a great new book by Admiral James DeVitis, carried at the Painted Ports. You can get it anywhere books are sold.

The truth is nothing can undo what we do out of anger. We can't take back what we said. We can't turn back the clock on the harm we've inflicted or the mistakes that we have made. This is why Seneca wrote his famous essay on anger, which we actually carry in the painted porch.

He said the only cure for anger is prevention, stopping yourself before you do the thing that you regret, before you take away something that even the most powerful person cannot replace.

there's sort of little collections of the stoics and one is called How to Keep Your Cool and the other is called how to die

This is just a collection of some of Seneca's best stuff on anger

Seneca writes a whole essay called uh on anger that I think you would really like um there's a translation uh by penguin no by Princeton University Press um that James Rom did that you can check out I think it's called How to Keep Your Cool um and it's just it's selections from that essay and some other places that Seneca talks about anger but Seneca talks about anger a lot it's he says like look even if someone murdered your father he said you should get vengeance just don't get revenge he says you should get vengeance and justice just don't do it out of anger so I this idea that the stokes are passive that are more fotsy means you just accept everything is not quite right it's that um you you accept it as sort of fuel or um an experience that has occurred in your life but if you have the opportunity to affect change or to be made better for what has happened that's where you go towards it not anger bitterness resentment frustration I mean look and you look at what's happening in the world it's very easy to get angry but I would I would argue that anger is more of the problem than the solution and so that's that's maybe where I think about it

I think Ask the Dust is maybe my second favorite novel. That's a beautiful book.

I love that movie. I love Ask the Dust.

John Fontaine, this book called Ask the Dust which is maybe the greatest novel ever written about Los Angeles.

That novel came out as published by a small publisher and then it was lost to obscurity for some while there were some strange reasons.

It was lost to obscurity because his publisher also simultaneously in 1933 and in the fourth month that publishes a English translation of mine comp. And Hitler sues them for copyright infringement and wins in US federal court and bankrupts the publisher.

Except there is one company in the Los Angeles public library and Charles Coocausky is wandering around there one day and finds it and says it's like finding gold in the city dump.

And this is the height of Coocausky's fan. He brings the book back. John Fontaine enjoys this research and in the last couple years of his life, book sales millions of copies that's made into a very mediocre movie with Colin Farrell.

John Fonte wrote this book Ask the Dust and like I discovered him much later I actually discovered him when I lived in LA because he sort of like he's considered kind of like the he and Bukowski are considered like the poet laureates of downtown Los Angeles and I lived in downtown Los Angeles and that's how I first heard about John Fonte I was walking down the street and was it fifth and fifth and all of I don't know there's an intersection in downtown LA called John Fonte Square and I you know Google did read this book became my favorite novel as I read more and more of his novels I'm reading one of them and it's set in Roseville which is also the town that I grew up in right and so that like I remember being like viscerally upset that like it's not like a lot of novelists hail from Roseville California and no point did any of my teachers did any of the local media did any did any did this ever come up in any way right and I think about what I'm lucky that I ended up growing up as someone who loved books and reading anyway but how much more might I have been sucked in to reading had I known that there was a novelist that came from where I came from and more importantly how much more empowered might I have felt as a kid from this random suburban town that I could do that thing professionally do you know what I mean

It's a beautiful book. You absolutely have to read it, one of my favorite books this year.

For every American, it's a history book you have to read. For everyone else in the world, it is a history book you have to read.

It's also in a way a fascinating true crime book. I don't want to reduce it to that. I'm not just saying it's like eat your vegetables kind of reading. It's a riveting, beautiful book.

He signed copies of The Barn while he was here. He signed The Cost of These Dreams and Papuland, two other wonderful books from him.

But yet one of the best books that I've read this year, one of the best books I've read on the South period.

I've got signed copies of The Barn and his other books, The Cost of These Dreams and Papulant at the Painted Porch.

And Wright is sort of the patron Saint Faulkner-esque Mississippi writer of our time.

Actually, lots of moments. I was talking to my producer about it. I found myself being able to read it only in few page chunks because it was so moving and sad, and also frustrating and tragic.

It's a beautiful book. You absolutely have to read it, one of my favorite books this year. You have to read The Barn, the secret history of a murder in Mississippi.

For every American, it's a history book you have to read. For everyone else in the world, it is a history book you have to read.

It's also in a way a fascinating true crime book. I don't want to reduce it to that. I'm not just saying it's like eat your vegetables kind of reading. It's a riveting, beautiful book.

He signed copies of The Barn while he was here. He signed The Cost of These Dreams and Papuland, two other wonderful books from him.

But as Wright talks about in his incredible book, The Barn, there are multiple people still alive who knew Emmett Till.

one of the best books that I've read this year, one of the best books I've read on the South period.

I've got signed copies of The Barn and his other books, The Cost of These Dreams and Papulant at the Painted Porch.

And there's a book on this, which I've been recommended many times and I haven't read, but it's called Debrief to Win.

he'd just been reading a book, which I bought I haven't read yet, called Debrief to Win.

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. Debrief to Win is a book wrote by a F-16 fighter pilot.

And what I love about studying the military is they have the ultimate consequence. Right. Sly for death. Mess up and mess up you die.

And so they've created all these different systems of, again, like Debrief to Win really documents of how do we learn from our mistakes, apply them in a format that has this very transient, right? Fighter pilots come and they go.

his first book came out Peak Performance which is a great book

And here is my interview with Brad Stolberg his new book the practice of groundedness is wonderful I also like his book Peak Performance so here's me talking with Brad

Brad is the co-author of a book we actually sell at the Painted Porch which I really like called Peak Performance.

I've read some of the novels you recommended like Hurricane and the pedantic king and I'm reading A Man in Full right now

well have you read A Man in Full by Tom Wolf

It's great book and if you haven't read thinking in bets you absolutely should and her other book How to Decide. It's also quite good recommending all of Annie's stuff if you haven't read any of it already.

I interview Annie Duke who's great book How to Decide is a part of what we teach in the process

When we had Annie Duke on the podcast recently about her book, How to Decide, she kept using the phrase getting outside, getting outside your biases, getting outside the immediacy of your problem or the situation.

Her most recent book How to Decide is another awesome one.

Her recent book, How to Decide, details how to be a more confident decision-maker.

Die With Zero showed up on my desk and it's called Die With Zero getting all you can from your money and your life by bill Perkins.

And then Rachel, who was the podcast producer for us at the time was like, I think I, I think I have a contact with bill, uh, bill Perkins is the author. I'm going to see if I can get them on.

And I put this book in my list of best books that I read in 2023.

I really liked the idea of, of thinking about how little time we have here.

He says in the book, are you optimizing just to have a large stack of money at the end? Like, what is that about?

Bill Perkins writes in his fascinating book Die Was Zero, but bear in mind he adds that I have never seen somebody's total net worth posted on their tombstone.

And do read That Was Zero. It's a great book. We had Bill on the podcast recently. I thought it was a great interview and I'll link to that in today's show notes too.

What are you trying to live a long time for? And what are you saving up all this money for? And actually, the author says this in the book. He says, if you want to have a big pile of money at the end of your life, well, I guess that's your choice. But he says, I've never seen somebody's net worth posted on their tombstone.

It'll just change how you think about things. And I think a really important thing that I took from this book is not waiting to be generous, right, to family and friends and also to the vulnerable. Like do good now when you can experience the benefits of doing that good, right?

Splendid in the Vile is about how basically the Blitz is the worst thing that ever happened but also brings out the best of people as it's happening.

This is the Eric Larson which is crazy good.

And by the way, this story comes from The Splendid and the Vile which is a great book by Eric Larson. I sell it at the paint and porch. If you haven't read it, you should definitely check it out.

I'm slowly making my way through The Splendid and the Vile yes that's great

I remember I first read The Tipping Point, that I read Blink, then Outliers, most recently his book, then David and Goliath, which is also very good.

James Frey, Million Little Pieces. I mean, he ended up being a charlatan.

I'm just trying to think of an author. What I see the book behind you? Oh, really? And it was all a shit. What if it's...I guess he said it was a biography but it was really fiction.

I never read A Million Little Pieces and I admit that's to him. And but I mean, you know, when I was going through the Gawker post mortem stuff with all the movies and the books and all those things were coming out. And that was the stuff that really, really aggravating me.

It sold 5 million copies in three months. It sold 15 around the world. And it's a book about drugs and alcohol and how I got over them.

the big controversy was I wasn't in jail for as long as I said I was cool. Some of my friends killed themselves in different ways than I wrote about them.

People read that book because I think I tapped into some deep part of our emotional selves and it moves people.

I love her book Quiet about introverts as an introvert myself

um but I think for me that Olympic moment was really really challenging but it was also an opportunity and I think writing that piece um I did for me I wrote it as a way to process that experience and to understand um what had led up to that moment and also you know you know how I could respond to it um and in some cases there isn't really some triumphant response you kind of just acknowledge process um take the learnings and move forward and that was kind of the first step for me in doing so it was you know writing about the experience sharing it and it was honestly amazing to see the response to that and I think um for me as an athlete of course I love the moments where I have this breakthrough performance and it's an inspiration and it you know shows some people that they could do something they never thought they could do or encourages them to get on the bike um and of course that's like more fun to be in that moment but in this moment I actually got um a much deeper response and a response from a lot of people who I think throughout the pandemic had been dealing with similar uh big challenges and moments of working really hard for something and maybe just not having it come through or work out um and to be honest you know even in the course of my career which is so far I would say like I've had big success in races I've lost farmer races and I won um and I think that's kind of how it goes in life a little bit is you're um trying to learn from and deal with and grow through those challenges to allow you to have your next big win um and so for me that was definitely a pivotal one of those moments and I'm still figuring out kind of the learnings towards the next big win hopefully.

you are obviously one of my favorite authors and I have come back to your books again and again throughout my racing career um and I guess to the overall stope philosophy that they impart in a very relatable way

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking was a monster bestseller; it's in its eighth year on the New York Times bestseller list.

Her viral TED Talk, "The power of introverts," has been seen like 30 million times; it's one of the most popular of all time.

And that book was super influential to me. I love it. I identify as an introvert; it answered a lot of questions for me; it explained some issues I had as a child as well. It's just one of the great sort of classic nonfiction books.

I've read it a couple times since but it's a book I read in high school and I remember taking from this the idea that the government tries to censor what people can read and it was only later in the context of the times that we live in now that I realize that's actually not what Bradbury is trying to tell us at all Bradbury was concerned about a world that was too stupid to be concerned about government censorship and he was actually most concerned about people who wanted the government to censor them because they didn't want to be offended they didn't understand what the fuss about books was all about they didn't understand why something so explosive or controversial or divisive should be allowed to exist and at 15 years old I was you know incapable of understanding what this was about and it also seemed a bit you know naive or science fiction and now we live in a world where tragically that's not the case

The finest war novel about the second world war is the catcher in the right.

The catcher in the right is not considered a war novel it absolutely is a war novel so like the voice you know it's very much known right for the voice of hold and cawfield you know everyone's a phony he's walking around some of the book he's walking around central park to kind of go he wants to go visit the ducks which is sort of. Him you know reclaiming this innocence that. You know but frankly perhaps never was but he feel very nostalgic for and so that sort of voice of hold and cawfield you know the phonyness wanting to reclaim that innocence like. It's often interpreted as being sort of the voice of a disaffected teen. I mean no like that if you know anything about JD Salander's bio like that is the voice of a disaffected veteran like JD Salander you know he landed on Omaha Beach. He fought in the hurricane forest he liberated he was one of the first Americans to call liberate doc out and was like you know if you read his bio you know deeply deeply affected by what he saw in world war two.