Camila Cabello on How Stoics Think About Success

stoicism gives me the tools to be like well there's no use in thinking and obsessing about that because i can't control what's going to happen in the future what's giving me more and more peace and and more like authenticity when i do my work and when i write and when i do go to to work on my my craft is like that mental training hey everyone my guest today needs almost no introduction camila cabejo multi-platinum musician one of the biggest pop stars in the world billions of streams across all the streaming platforms you've heard her on the radio a million times she's great and you might not know that she is a fan of stoic philosophy i found this out when i got a message from someone on instagram they said how dare you not acknowledge what camila cabejo said about you on instagram i said what are you talking about and i looked and camilla had posted a page from the daily stoic and we ended up connecting which was so cool and and we've become i would like to say friends we shared some book recommendations uh and gone back and forth and uh i said hey do you want to do the podcast uh thinking that she probably has way way better things to do you know and i'm sure uh a million requests to be on a million platforms but she said yes which was awesome and so we had a great conversation i'm coming to you from arizona uh visiting some family unfortunately couldn't be in person uh we should thank uh sean mendes her boyfriend for doing tech support we had some tech issues but uh here's my interview and i think you will enjoy these philosophical perspectives from someone who has seen the world who is literally cinderella she's playing cinderella in the new sony pictures movie someone who's experiencing adversity and difficulty just like the rest of us what do you do when your your business is performing in front of large groups of people uh and traveling and suddenly you can't do that anymore and you might not be able to do that for six months to another year what do you do when life forces you to reconsider what you want your lifestyle to look like what you want your routines to look like what you want your focus and priorities to look like when marx really says no role is so well suited to philosophy as the one we're in right now he meant that about his life as an emperor but it also applies to being a pop star being an actress being a girl in her 20s being a guy in his 30s being a father being single being an artist being an entrepreneur being whatever you are we we can all apply philosophy in fact we should be applying this philosophy because it makes us better as the stoics say nothing prevents us from from operating always with courage justice moderation and wisdom those are the themes of my interview with camila cabejo enjoy it i'm so i'm so excited i got a i had my wife give me a haircut just for this oh you look great it's weird times i wish we could do this in person but uh of course here we are but here we are what time is it where you are uh it is nine o'clock where i am oh nice do you get up at like three o'clock in the morning we i got up at i think six a.m this morning but that's because we have kids and so we don't have any choice about when we wake up well i i kind of know what you mean more now because we just got a puppy and sean i told him i was like we have because he's like nine weeks old he has to be taken out like we have an alarm on our phone for like two a.m and then in four hours for six am and sean i was like can you just he like did all the the all the the pee and poo shifts last night but uh and and then tonight i'm gonna do all the pee and poo so i i'm one step closer to knowing what having kids are like and let me tell you can i swear on this yeah of course i respect the out of you parents because we have a puppy and shit's been it's hard not hard but like you know it's a lot of work no it is i think what's good about dogs and then what's good about kids is that it's sort of force it you can get very used to sort of getting your way and doing things only when you want to do them and then the nice thing about these sort of responsibilities is that they really don't care at all what you want what you prefer it's just sort of inarguable reality totally and you just like i have to be present it just like forces you to be present and also to like laugh and and be patient at situations like instead of being like so many times like in the past few days we're like no because he'll like you know eat another dog's food or he'll chew something up and it just like makes you really really patient plus he's cute as i know of course of course it's a golden retriever what's the name uh his name's tarzan tarzan very nice it's funny because when we first got him he was like he was so like docile and calm we're like oh we're gonna pick that one and then five days later he's just become like a tasmanian devil and shawn and i were like this dog's a genius like he just like made us believe he was this calm like docile dog and now he's like well if you think about what dogs like i we don't really realize how manipulative dogs are because dogs were wild animals and we i think for a long time people thought that we um we domesticated dogs but it's really more like dogs domesticated themselves next to us so like dogs basically are just really good at tricking humans into taking care of them which is a really incredible feat well have you ever watched the dog whisper and and read caesar milan i mean cesar milan is i feel like he's a low-key stoic like you know even if i don't know if he like if he if he says that but the way that he teaches like we've been reading uh his book uh how to raise the perfect dog that's like what shawn and isa are our reading list but a lot of what he like the way that he uh teaches like uh educating a dog like he calls it like being a pack leader and you know always kind of like he his thing is like your dog is always gonna take on your energy so if you have like frantic anxious energy like the dog will pick up on that and like always being like kind of calm and assertive so the dog like trusts you and it's like it's really really interesting because it makes you realize how much we are really like how much we truly are all animals like he you know he talks about only rewarding your dog with affection when he does something that you do like and when he when he doesn't like when they're over excited just like don't acknowledge them as opposed to like just treating them like they're like human children and constantly being like hey i don't know it's just like really interesting like the dog psychology part of it is really interesting i i did a show in new york one time like an interview and he was the guest before me and i i got to meet him for like five minutes and you can really there are these people that have like a kind of energy that you just it's like magical like it sounds made up like how could energy like be this thing that is like projected or felt and then you watch it on tv and you're like how could you just be like sort of magically calming these dogs and then you experience it and you're like oh this is a real thing and and it's it's a 100 yeah it's nuts well i do think like i mean i think the more i get older the more i'm realizing how much i mean we are all energy and so much of he talks about how you know with dogs it's like no matter how much you say no stop it's not your words they don't communicate in that human language part it's like your body language and your energy and it's like so much of that is true with humans too like no matter what someone says it's like you can really feel like we are energy like even if you're not consciously picking up on that it's like that's always what's underneath everything it's well what i like about caesar milan is this idea that you could really be a master of anything so like he's like the you know let's say the best person in the world at that weird dog energy thing and i was thinking i thought about him a couple a couple years ago when we first started sending my kid uh my son who doesn't do it anymore because the pandemic where we started sending them to daycare and like when you have a kid it's like it's difficult to put them down for a nap right they don't want a nap they run around like crazy and then it was thinking that like these two women who were running the daycare one was from cuba and and the other was from guatemala or something and you're like these two women put down 15 toddlers at the same time every day and like i can't even do one and it's totally in like because i've watched him do it it's totally an energy thing yeah 100 totally and then it makes you like when caesar talks about that like keeping a calm assertive energy for your dogs all the time or or especially when you want to discipline them it makes you practice that muscle more sure and it's like actually the more that i this is what i've been like really focusing on like especially in the past year is how to like how much who we are is just like trained behaviors and like you can you know you can train an undisciplined dog he could literally be a different dog just from how you train them and how you respond to their behaviors and it's like the same with human beings it's the same with your own brain like your own i feel like my own brain is a crazy puppy dog that i have to be no no you know but it's like really empowering i feel like that whole psychology of like how you respond to things changes the things themselves like i've become really like obsessed with uh just like that that mastery of like yourself and that mastery of your mind and and your emotions then it just like i feel like is more emphasized by by things that i like like by the caesar thing i'm like oh it's there too like how everything is what happens and then your response to it well have you noticed the last seven eight months from the pandemic have you noticed like i what i've noticed is that like as you turn down the outside world so you're not doing as much stuff you're not as busy you don't have as much going on it sort of reveals to you like like my anxiety became more apparent to me it became much more obvious that i have anxiety because yeah it wasn't drowned out in other things do you know what i mean and so i'm just curious like have you have you started to get in touch with energy in your own life i mean i was i was kind of before the the pandemic started like i i feel like my anxiety was like at an all-time high before um before kobet happened i was like and i was kind of working through it like i was like filming a movie my album had just come out i was doing promo but i was like at the same time it was just like i think that's why i really took in the last year like my own healing and meditation and like all of these and exercise and nutrition all these things super seriously because i was like i was i was doing these things i was like doing promo and filming but i was just suffering so much because of my my state of mind and i think i had i had suffered from anxiety like from years before like i think like it but it really um hit its climax because i don't think i paid enough attention to it and i was just working through it working through it working through it and i think when it when when over the last seven months that i was able to stop in the beginning it was my anxiety specifically because i had time to be aware of my thoughts and what i was thinking and my thought processes as opposed to i gotta go perform everything i'm feeling because i gotta do a good job which is kind of what i did before i was just kind of like override all of my uh you know just just my my internal struggles because i was like i gotta go on stage in 10 minutes i can't be thinking about this you know and it just really gave me time to be able to be in that uh in the in the in the self-awareness and the be in the awareness of what thoughts were causing me suffering and anxiety and and feel it and and go through it because honestly because i had the time and i hadn't really had the time to really look at what was going on inside myself for like seven years you know i i was just constantly i felt like my life was revolving around how to do a good job in my next performance how to do a good job in my next uh writing session whatever and it's like it feels like that's like the short-term solution but it's not the long-term solution because you're actually sacrificing your authenticity and like your truth to just like do a good job as opposed to like be who you are how you are well what i found too is that because you're good at what you do so in your case it's singing for me it's writing is that the writing or the work is always as difficult as it is and unpredictable as it is you have way more control over that than other things so you can kind of channel all those energy all that energy towards whatever you're supposed to be doing like putting on a show or for me it's like i know i can go sit at my computer and and stuff that's valuable will come out of it but like dealing with my feelings or dealing with you know the more complicated stuff is much less predictable and so you kind of end up sort of focusing on work at the expense of everything else totally and it's it's scary it can feel scary to be with with you with your thoughts and feelings because it is like that's also why i mean i i feel like honestly stoicism and meditation have helped me the most in the past year like both of those things like the kind of i feel like stoicism is kind of like the cognitive reframing of stuff which is so important because when i the tools that i get from meditation not even meditation really mindfulness is the awareness of what my thought processes are and i'm like no wonder i have anxiety because look how i'm thinking about this situation and then stoicism gives me the tools to be like well there's no use in thinking and obsessing about that because i can't control what's going to happen in the future i can't control you know when i the performance is tomorrow there's no amount of thinking today that's gonna if anything it's just not it's not useful you know but like i found that the most important thing and the thing that really has given me more peace most importantly because i think as i'm getting older i'm like i feel like peace is even better than like moments of joy sometimes like it's just like so much better um yeah i think that like what's giving me more and more peace and and more like authenticity when i do my work and when i when i and when i write and when i do go to to work on my my craft is like that mental training i think it's so huge and i'm like honestly pissed that i didn't get taught those tools in school because i'm like what the like i feel like i i had to search and search and search and and go through so much suffering like i don't know what's been your like experience with with anxiety but like i it was like it's it's it sucks like feeling anxious like it sucks and i feel like i was like feeling anxious more than not like eight eight months ago you know and it's like it's so inv invaluable to have tools like you know you're you're not your thoughts you're the observer of your thoughts or oh how can i reframe this situation so it doesn't you know so i i don't you know so i don't stress about it or whatever or breathing like all of these things like i feel like have are changing my experience of life and it's like that's your mind is your life do you feel like you can sort of gut gut it out like you can perform well uh anxious you know you can write anxious but then it's it's sort of realizing like oh actually when you're doing it from a place of stillness or peace or you know when you're when you're not being driven by your thoughts it's just at like a whole other level definitely i mean i think like there's been so many times where i remember like specifically a couple times which is it was last year really there was it was really a span of like seven months where i feel like i was really struggling with anxiety and like um i've talked about this openly before like i don't even i don't want to i don't want to say ocd because i don't know how much of it is i don't know i don't know how much of it i don't know personally if it helps me to just put a label on something or but anxiety and like obsessive thoughts for like six months it was just like at a peak and i had two performances that i specifically remember amas and snl and like i finished snl and my team was like my manager was like that's the best performance you've ever you've ever done because it does feel like in performance i can channel we were talking about energy it's like anxious energy or suffering or pain is a lot of energy and so it felt like i could really channel it and and almost like put all of that energy into every word or every movement and it almost like it's like when beyonce has said before nerves are actually a good thing because it's energy and it it suddenly if you were hitting a move like this that energy makes you hit it like this because there's so much kind of coming out but i do think that it's not a good trade-off because especially for example in something like writing when it is coming from a place of stillness and peace like i've seen in the past few months even like writing for my next project now it's like it's so much more authentic it's so much more truthful and i'm so much more proud of it because it's not coming from a place of that day trying to get a certain outcome or uh trying to impress the other person that's in the room or really thinking about anything in the future like what's come from me kind of training myself to be present and just be be truthful um and it coming from a place of stillness i think is so much better so much more rewarding and honestly the result of the performance it's like you actually end up your your life changes like you're like you're able to make connections with people because your mind isn't you're not being like your life isn't being drowned out by the noise of your mind like there's just it's it's it's so worth it to i feel like invest in that mental training because i think a lot of times people are like i don't know they they look at it as almost like i don't have time to do that because i have to go do my work and i have to do all of these things but it's like investing in yourself and in kind of like training your mind to work for you as opposed to it be this thing that actually stops you from from being your best self and like blocking you it's like it's so so worth it and it makes everything else better you know i know exactly what you mean it's weird to me talking to you because like i think you're the the first guest that i've had that i'm older than uh because i i'm so i'm so used to being the the young person because that's sort of like you my career started very early so every all the authors that i've known or you know managers and agents everyone's older but i remember when i was i i had this sort of epiphany when i was about your age it was realizing like okay so it's working for me like the anxiety the intensity the energy i'm getting good results out of it but it's not sustainable like i don't want to do i don't want to be in that sort of adrenalized state for the next like 30 years like that you're not going to survive that way and so it's sort of realizing like you're not having any fun doing it and if it's not coming from a place of stillness and contentment like you're going to burn out or die if you keep going this way 100 well i think what happened to me right before the pandemic was i did burn out like that's what it felt like for me like i felt burnt out i felt honestly like i was like i don't know if i want to do this anymore but it it wasn't doing this it was the way that i was doing it right you know it was like i was like i don't know if i want to do this anymore it's so much anxiety so much stress i feel unhappy i feel like my my mental health therefore my physical health is suffering like i wasn't sleeping well like all of these you know i i wasn't sleeping well i felt like my nervous system was out of whack because i i feel like it was just a habit for me to be in this kind of fight-or-flight state yeah i forgot where i was going with that um what were you just saying before that well just like how how you can sustain this because i think what's interesting is that most most singers in your position it seems like they they have a meltdown in their mid-30s right like it doesn't seem to last a hundred percent well i think that i would have i would have at some point it would have been unsustainable and i would have been like i actually have to stop i don't know when i'm gonna come back and do this but at this point my health is suffering and i and i have to stop and i was kind of forced to stop by all work by everything by everything that happened and i it was like it was really necessary time like it was necessary for me to kind of go go through really just like i wrote this article about uh like for mental health awareness month about ocd and about anxiety and it's like with anything it's like with your physical health if you break a leg like you gotta heal the leg and nobody's like judging you for it you just like take some time and you you know you get a cast and you can't walk for five days because it's you gotta recover and i think like with mental health it's like it's different it's you know nothing's gonna happen if you just do nothing but it is worth taking time to be to treat it you know even if it's like 10 minutes a day of like doing exercise or doing something that you know that is good for your mental health or you know like really there's there's so many different things but um i in the past eight months i feel like i've like literally my life has changed like i'm like so thankful for it because i i think that i would have spent a lot of years being unhappy and at the same time this weird thing of just like not like just keeping going because you think that's what you're supposed to do and yeah i'm just like i'm so thankful for this time because i i feel like i'm like more and more just the boss of my own mind and and the boss of my own life as opposed to feeling kind of like victimized by anxiety and and and and mental health struggles like i feel like that was like constantly something that i had to overcome to do things and now i kind of like did it the other way where i'm like i'm gonna get to the root of this so that i can you know so i can just like be be free of it and uh it's totally possible no i i that's something with stokes talk about which is like what good is success if the result is that you don't feel like you're in charge of your own mind or your own life like how is that success exactly and that's like not what this society we as a society are taught and actually so much of i feel like healing is being like what of this is like what i actually want and what of this is just like what everybody else is doing and i'm doing it because everybody else is doing it like that you know and stillness is the key like that really resonated with me like what's your definite and ego's enemy too when it's like all of these questions about like what is success to you like is success being famous and having these awards and i i i feel like it's especially unnecessary teaching nowadays because i have like you know my little cousin who's like eight years old and i'm like what do you want to be when you grow up and she's like i want to be tick-tock famous and i'm like it's like these values of like no what's important is you know how content you are with your life like the level of of gratitude that you experienced the most most importantly for me right now like the connections that you have with your your family and your friendships and your community and the your purpose like you're i i genuinely do feel like my purpose is in in art you know i don't think i actually even though i it's always been my passion my favorite thing to do like i feel like in the past eight months i i really was like oh no this is like what i what what i want to do you know like this is like what i feel like my my purpose is and it's like not doing it for any out any outcome of like being famous or success or what people think of you which it can subconsciously like i know i mean i can only speak for myself but like even when you don't say that to yourself like i've never been like i want to be the most famous i want to be number one i've never said that but i remember like reading ego as the enemy and being like but then at the same time i go to do a writing session and i care so much about what these people in the room think of think of me like i'm like so insecure and and afraid and like that's ego too because i'm still not doing it for the right reasons like the the right reason is to tell my truth that's it period hey everyone it's almost christmas christmas music everywhere amazon music is a great way to get that christmas music fix you can have a quiet family breakfast each morning in december listening to charlie brown's christmas my kids love christmas music they live really all sorts of music and you can play songs like santa clauses coming to town or frosty the snowman if you haven't tried amazon music before for a limited time you can get your first three months of amazon music unlimited for free that's access to more than 70 million songs on demand and ad free play the songs you want when you want for free for three months and if you just want to stream stuff for free amazon music's got you covered you got access to music but you also get access to millions of podcast episodes at no charge plus thousands of music stations and top playlists listen at home or wherever you are whether it's christmas music or or iron maiden uh remember for a limited time new subscribers get three months of amazon music unlimited for free just go to amazon.com ryan amazon.com r-y-a-n it's pretty cool landing page to get your first three months of amazon music for free it starts at 7.99 a month after that new subscribers only terms apply offer expires january 11 2021. there's a great realist quote he says um we care about other we care about ourselves more than other people he says but we care about other people's opinion more than our own right i love that quote it's it's so true like you you you pour yourself into this thing doing it the way that only you want to do it you know and then and then all of a sudden it comes out and then what you're thinking is like did other people say it's good or not and sometimes you need a project i i did a book a few years ago this book called conspiracy which i think is my best book but it sold the the least well out of all of them it didn't like fail it just it just didn't do maybe what it could have done and what was really freeing about that experience was it totally decoupled like critical success and sales for me from like what i know is good and that's like it was such a huge breakthrough it was such a huge breakthrough for me when i saw like a couple months ago i was i was like you know i read ego i read obstacles the way like i think like two years ago and i that was actually my my for my second album i read um a friend of mine gave me uh that book and so i read it and it i remember like reading it and then for the next like two months while i was reading it like my writing sessions were like amazing because everything even even my own insecurity and my own like fear i was kind of using it to fuel you know i was doing that that uh stoic teaching that i love so much the more fatty that taking everything and and even the bad stuff and loving that it happened not just accepting it but being like oh i'm gonna use this now um and that's the first time i read that book then like three two two years later um i read stillness is the key and that was actually when i was when i was that was like a year ago actually um that's when i was going through the height of my uh my mental health crisis and um that really impacted me and then during quarantine i read ego is the enemy and i started really getting into stoicism and i got like the daily stoic journal and i was reading the daily stoic videos and one video that really resonated with me was the one where you're talking about how stoics define success and and the internal scoreboard and how it's like there's success that's like okay how many views did this get how many likes did this get uh how successful is this is this song or this album gonna be and that's all the things that you can't control so if you measure success like that or how other what other people in the room think of me then you're gonna be unhappy your whole life but if you change your definition of success which i really prac i've really been practicing when i've been writing for this album if i change my definition of success to how honest was i today how vulnerable was i today how you know did i did i show up completely as myself was i kind tip to people you know was did i see people did i make this a fun experience for everybody in the room like if i just keep it in in terms of if i just focus on what i can control in this moment then at the end of every day i was like it was it was a successful day even if i did feel anxious or nervous i was like my mattress my metric of success was hey guys i feel a little nervous you know and i was truthful and therefore i met with my like standard of success and it's like that's so much more important like it's so much more important to be the person that you want to be and and lead with with that than like how other people perceive you or what people perceive you like that's like what i what i love about sourcism and like what i feel like is going to be my philosophy of life forever is like which it wasn't before like i feel like i was leading with what i was doing instead of who i was being you know it's like you know i was i just like now i'm so conscious of like me being you know brave and and courageous and kind and you know and and truthful and you know me me my character comes before any of the things that i do you know one of the reasons i think it's it's important too it's not just like decoupling success from results because like you could fail or or whatever but i remember i was watching the taylor swift documentary the netflix one a few months ago and she's talking about this moment where she wins like album of the year she's the number one album of the year all these things and she's just sort of like now what like she's unhappy because she got everything she wanted and that's a real thing too you can you can if if you have told yourself this lie that like i will be happy when i accomplish x then you get x and it's really disappointing and that's when you also kind of realize like oh you can't be doing it for these external things you have to be doing it because you love music and the byproduct is these extra things totally totally and that's like where i feel like the the meditation stuff has been really useful is that it's constantly like your brain is always telling you is always like stuck in in the past or in the future where in the future things will be better or in the past things were better or in the past things were bad and now they're still going to be bad or in the future this might happen so this that's going to be scary and now this moment is bad it's like but none of that is true and it's like you you also another stoke teaching that i love is like you you could die at any moment so it's like why would you put it off it's like also it's like the stuff that you're practicing in your mind and who you're practicing being as a person in this moment is who you're gonna be in in you know six months from now if you keep doing it the same way like you know if you are always like looking at what you don't have and what you need to be happy then that habit in your brain it's like a pattern like that's not gonna stop you know and i feel like i've like i feel like i also discovered about myself like in the past year like i don't really see myself as like i don't think i've ever been a like a negative person or a pessimistic person like i think i'm pretty optimistic i'm like pretty like bubbly and like and hopeful but i have i have recognized like within my own mind how much like which is what anxiety is it's like anticipating the future or not being present enough to see like what's going on around you and yeah just like i've been practicing that lately a lot it's just like looking around and being like oh i'm like so grateful to like have water and like be talking to one of my favorite authors and you know have a puppy like i'm so grateful for puppies that puppies exist like just like the practice of always looking around and and like training that muscle of like wonder and and gratitude it's like that i'm like just like excited for 10 years from now when hopefully that's just like a a personality trait and not something that i have to practice you know but like it does things do become like actual personality traits when you practice them just like anxiety then i was like oh i'm an anxious person but i'm not it's just that's what i've been practicing yeah yeah a friend of mine was saying something they were talking about they were like uh they're like i don't like they'd always felt that they were like scared of driving at night they didn't like driving at night and then they realized they're like oh no no my mom is scared of driving at night and i just like picked that up they're like that's not actually who i am and that they were like i can discard that and just practice a new skill where i am not scared of driving at night totally i actually have that my grandma has a fear of birds and sometimes like birds will be flapping i'll be like and i'll be like wait why am i oh it's my my grandma's fear it's it's it's weird it's just made up it's it's made up and there is also i don't know how much of this is theory and how much of it is science and i this might be i i actually want to be careful with that because i don't i'm not sure but it is like some stuff is passed down like through your through your genes and stuff i don't know if a fear of birds is but you can but what is you can reinforce it over and over again you can almost like turn on or turn off the gene based on like what you what you do um you know this is my second ever podcast really what was the first one uh my vocal my vocal teacher is starting a podcast oh that's so nice yeah and so we did like it we did a podcast about about singing sean did it too but this is my second everyone am i doing a good job you're doing great you're doing great um ego is enemy to go back to what you were saying about you know being happy for water and a dog i i think the stoics talk about like how little is actually needed to have a happy or a good life i think one of the things covett has done is sort of shrink our expectations for what we need and it it's been nice for me i'd be curious about this for you like i i found that once i i sort of started looking much more inward started looking much more around my immediate surroundings and i have a lot less interest in what other people are doing and that's contributed to my happiness in a huge way you it's hard for people to realize like i remember i had dinner with this billionaire a few years ago and he was like talking to me about the forbes list like he was talking about like the other people on the forbes list and it's like you're a billionaire and you're you're even still you're like comparing yourself to other people but that idea that comparison is the thief of joy because it makes it instead of being able to appreciate that you have a puppy you're like oh but somebody has you know a mansion and a puppy and therefore i'm deficient for not having both totally i mean that's so true and like what's sad is that's probably like that that tree it's probably a big part of why he's a billionaire because he was constantly like oh you know this person has more than me i got to work harder this way and like that's something that i feel like is always is kind of subconsciously taught to us too is that competitive thing like i know i feel like even probably more i've seen it so much in in my industry of like you know i i felt it within myself like just being like oh my god like i have so much to be grateful for like i look at where i i started i never thought i would be here the fact that i even get to do this is insane and then you go to i experienced this so much like when i would go to award shows where it's like they call they do this thing at awards shows it's great for for your ego in the good and bad way it's totally sarcastic um but they call out everybody's names and then like everybody you know the people around will clap and it's like i just like i remember going to award shows and you know they'd be like ariana grande and they'd be like come on and like they would in in my mind they would be clapping a lot less for me and i'd be like oh my god and it would just like affect you so much to the point where like you would go up to get an award and you'd you'd be like oh my god i don't i don't deserve this like i heard it in the room not as many people clapped for me and then it makes you then there's the thing that happens in your brain where you're like i gotta work harder i gotta i got i gotta work hard and it's like it's i hate that that version of myself like i don't hate i don't hate that but you know i i don't that's not a pleasant version of myself because then once i'm out of that space especially now that i have been for like a year it's like you want to be like who cares like i'm just happy to be here like i whatever you know and you want to be happy for the people that got you know the loudest cheers and the most awards like it's like it's like really enforced uh probably in all industries but i i i can speak about like the music industry like there is this sense of of competition and constantly like you know trying to be the number one and i i actually i have to say like i do feel that when i'm at award shows and if i'm on social media you know and i'm looking at what every other artist is doing like there is that part of you that'll be like i gotta work harder i gotta do more but i have always felt like this is actually my favorite chapter in probably any of the books but in stillness is the key when you talk about this metaphor for it's like if everybody on this planet plus the planet is one human body it's like there's the person that you know symbolizes the eye and the eyes got to be the best eye not the best hand just got to be the best eye and that kind of metaphor for all of our roles really i feel like stuck with me because i've always felt like maybe it's like it's not everybody's job to be number one it's just your job to be you like the world needs you to be you and it's like even that book conspiracy it's like even if it's sold less than all the other books there's a group of people that loved it and it really affected them deeply and nobody could have done that except for you and it's like i feel like that about some people that are like you know some uh you know meditation teachers or you know people you know people that maybe not a lot of people know or or uh singers or artists that not a lot of people know but for me they've affected me so deeply and it's like i i feel like i've really carried that and i'm gonna try to always carry that next time i go to one of those award shows and and just be like i can only just like be the best me and if only if five people like really resonated with what i said like that's great and maybe that person is is meant to you know it's like they're the eye and hand i just got to be the best hand but that really takes the pressure off when i go into the studio like i'm not like trying to get a number one song i'm just trying to be as true to myself as possible because that's what is gonna deeply not superficially but i think deeply affect people well look and you can that's not true i don't know no no you you gotta you're doing the song and you could die before the song comes out so you have to think about whether it was just as whether it was its own reward i think that's what i i try to think about that it's like look think about all the authors whose books came out after they died and then were a success so like they didn't get to enjoy any of that so if they didn't enjoy making it that's really really sad if they weren't proud of it when they finished that's like the saddest thing in the world and i've actually had experiences where i didn't have a great time that day in the studio and that song became successful and i ended up really disliking the song like i never liked it even if it was successful i didn't even want to perform it and like my my my team would would be mad at me and be like but yeah this has this many streams and i'd be like i don't like that i don't like it i'm not going to perform it and i didn't wow but but i've actually like you know i've i've kind of i gotta say i gotta pat myself on on on the back because i have always been really like ruthless about i don't not really like giving a about the the commercial success part like i do have like some i think subconscious fears about like if i'm writing like what people in the room think of me and if i'm writing with pharrell i'm like i really want him to think that i'm good you know i haven't i have that thing but i i definitely like the whole billboard the charts and like writing stuff for it to you know be a number one and sound like everything else on on the radio like i've i've always like really not been into that and when i don't like something like i just like i won't i won't do it because i'm just like i can't i wrote this i wrote this email for daley stoke which i'll pour it to you it was a couple years ago but it struck me once i was listening to i don't know it's like hits of the 90s on spotify or something and i'd heard of like most of the songs because that's that's sort of when i was a teenager and then then it was like then i was listening to like uh 80s and i knew a lot of the songs because uh i like sort of heavy metal and stuff and then then i went seven i was going backwards in time and it was interesting to me how quickly these were the biggest songs of that period how quickly not only like i wasn't like super familiar with them but some of them like i'd not only never heard the song before i hadn't even heard the name of the person who'd done it right and that's something the stoics talk about which is just kind of how ephemeral it all is and so if you're not enjoying it and if you're doing it because you've deluded yourself into thinking that you're going to be like famous for all time this will be this legacy that lasts forever you're really depriving yourself of the present moment which is all that you have it's so true it's so true i had a a friend um who once told me like you know we were speaking about like legacy and he was just like legacy is like for everybody else yeah like it's like no you're something it's not something that you get to enjoy and it's also like who i always remind myself this like is everybody is anybody really gonna care like in a million years like who even knows if we're gonna be here like you know who knows like who was the most you know that you know hundreds of thousands of years ago and we were just like in in tribes and there was like a famous famous singer woman around the campfire like she was the best she was the best one but i don't know her name right you know like it's uh it is like that's such a refreshing concept it really is and that's like something that ego's anime taught me too i was just like when i get so riled up about a writing session or an interview or a performance i'm truly thinking too much of myself like nobody cares that much and like the people that i that do like i i actually i just finished filming uh cinderella uh which is like my first film that i ever did and i was cinderella which is crazy incredible but talk about that i mean it was it was it was amazing but it's like it that was it it felt like a pretty high pressure thing to do is i'd never been in a film before and i was you know the lead role for my first film and that took a lot of like really i had a lot of like mental uh like tools for me to show up every day and be able to have fun and nothing and not really make that pressure the focus like i remember i actually do you know michael gervais yeah i do uh-huh okay so i i work with him really um yeah yeah yeah is that how you found out about my books no oh okay no michael's amazing yeah yeah he told me that he told me that um you guys are friends and there's been many times where we talk on the phone and i'm like i was reading ryan holiday's book and he's like ryan he's a good friend of mine and um anyway so i was uh i i've talked to michael durey a lot and um while i was doing the the filming um i would talk to him about just like the stuff that i was experiencing i'd be like hey tomorrow is a big scene um you know i'm feeling nervous whatever and um he was just like he's he's he's given me a lot of wisdom about when i do get nervous before things like writing sessions or wherever that i'm gonna be like in a vulnerable place because doing that film was like really it's really vulnerable acting is is really vulnerable because it's like you have to be so present there's no outsmarting it there's no like practicing the line before and then you like it's like all of it is really reacting to what's going on in front of you and and being present and um i had to kind of like make peace with the fact that this is for i remember i was like when i first came back from the pandemic because we shot it over two different uh periods of time um i came back and i was like i was feeling nervous when when when i saw the camera and when the camera was in front of me and he was like you're equating the the camera with with who with what and i was like people like people that are that are judging my performance and people and he's like okay how do we like turn that around um who would you want the camera to to symbolize or represent and i was like just like you know like a a young girl that's like a fan of mine and she's just like wide-eyed and she's excited and she had a bad day and she just like wants some joy she's looking for some joy when she watches this movie and we actually like named um i named the camera after like one of my one of my like closest fans her her name's julia and i just would picture her there and it's like any time i'm nervous i just picture who is this really for like it's really for my fans like it's for sure it's for um julia it's for aurora it's for steph i'm naming actually i'm naming some fans for dom shout out uh but it's like these people that you are like it's just as simple as that it's not about your legacy or being the greatest of all time or anything like that like if that happens like cool but it's it's just to make people happy it's like not really doesn't have to be more complex than that and that's like the most rewarding i feel like way of thinking about it for me it's like that's that was my my purpose in that movie it wasn't even to prove that i'm like a great actress or whatever like i i just i if i just made them smile and and made them happy like that's who it's for it's not for any kind of outcome or or reputation or praise yeah there's a bertrand wrestle quote where he's saying like the first sign of a an impending nervous collapse is the belief that your work is terribly terribly important so true and you've experienced it firsthand yeah it's because it is important to you and because it is important to your livelihood and because there is pressure you sort of internalize it all and it becomes this like massive thing and it's like it's it's really it's like you're scr in my case it's like you're writing words on the computer like this is not this is not that important a hundred percent a hundred percent and like the i feel like the idea of which i feel like extends beyond like what you do it's like i have found like especially in the last eight months like how important it is to have to feel a sense of purpose no matter what you do like it doesn't matter if you're in the arts or if you're a doctor or if you're a teacher or if you are you know it does it doesn't matter if you're an uber driver it doesn't matter like i think like having a sense of purpose makes life so much better because if you're like you know my purpose is just to make people smile today my purpose is to you know make people uh believe in the goodness of other people like i think like when you like wake up every day thinking that it's just like you don't want to waste a day because you know you have a job to do i actually read over the past eight months i don't know if you i think you have read it because you quoted a lot the gita the bhagavad gita i love i loved it it really impacted me i loved like the the way that they described when they said you have the right to work you don't have the right to the fruits of your work yeah have you read stephen pressfield at all no so you would love steven pressfield he wrote a book called the war of art which i think is like the best book about the sort of creative process ever ever written but he also he he made a novel about it called the the legend of bagger vance which is also a movie with will smith and matt damon but that is like sort of a modern it's it's the bhagavad gita but applied to a professional golfer but his stuff is amazing and i think it's like you have to have this sense of purpose and this sense of sort of it fitting in a large tradition like like so it's weird i think on the one hand you're like i'm just scribbling words down on the computer like this isn't that important but then also what you were saying where you were like you know tens of thousands of years ago there was some woman who was like singing as part of a tribe that's the other thing that where i think you get purpose is you go oh but i'm also part of this really long tradition that it's not about me but this thing is goes back eons and eons and and that that you take your identity and your purpose from being sort of like one speck on a really long line totally and i find that to be like so much more comforting than just like being on your own and then everybody else like it's so much more comforting to know and i really do believe that that's the truth that we are all one we are all up like little cells in this big body this big system that we can't even understand but it's like all of our actions and our energy and like and really and our and our energy and how we are like it it really has a ripple effect like a huge ripple effect um and yeah that's like a really comforting thing to to to think in my opinion that we are like we're not alone we're all like deeply deeply interconnected with each other and with with nature and it's like we're not ever alone because we're we're part of this huge like higher intelligence like we were that's where we we came from there's a joke that every writer wishes they were a musician and i think it's because like you get to experience that when you perform right like you get to watch 20 000 people come together as one entity that you're in charge of but you're also a part of yourself that must be very overwhelming emotionally to experience definitely i mean it's it's really it's really beautiful it's really beautiful to see people like tapped into this uh to this thing i mean that music is so incredible for that's like my favorite part of like being a human and not any other animal is like is is music um and and and delicious food uh but but uh yeah i mean it's it's amazing i'm just like remembering because i i don't i don't remember the last time i played a show like i think it must been like a year and a half ago or or something like that but uh it's really beautiful and like when you see people like sing stuff and they're like crying and they're you really see like them kind of uh experiencing like a catharsis of their own life and their own emotions and like you're doing that too but you're all kind of doing it there together like it's a really beautiful sense of of community and like where you see like how how your your story makes it makes a difference you know like sharing your your story exactly as you would share it makes a really big difference and that's what i like another thing that i feel like has been a common theme for me like it when especially when i was doing the movie like i was like i'm not trying to be like i'm not trying to be a good actress i'm not trying to do a good job i just have to be me and like and with all of my like all of my anxieties and this and that and my struggles and this like the world needs everybody to be exactly who they are and share their story exactly as they are because the more like specific you get i feel like the less people feel alone because everybody is like there's nothing new that you and i have felt that somebody else hasn't and that's like what makes you feel less alone is when people are like open to to sharing that and i yeah i do definitely feel that in in a show you know casey neistat oh my god this is so funny because sean asked me that same question two months ago because he and sean are friends because shawn is obsessed with like uh taking videos now and casey casey gave him a camera yeah so casey is amazing and i remember he did this video a couple years ago where he was showing like the different he was like different levels of art so there's like or inventions like you make something and it's great you make something that it's popular that's great you make something that's really popular it's great or whatever but he was talking about how like the ultimate form of art is to make art that helps people make more art and so he's like the iphone may be the greatest invention of all time because like think of all the things that people have done with their phones but what i think is so powerful about music is that it it it's great itself like when you listen to a great song and it you know has some amazing guitar solo in it or it's like emotionally vulnerable and it's beautiful or the singer is doing something incredible with her voice um but what i think is like do you ever think about like so you have songs that have done like a billion plays do you ever think about like what people have done with that like you know what i mean like think about the art that your art has helped people make because they were painting while one of your songs was on in the studio or you know what i mean totally totally i mean that's such a cool thing to think about like that ripple effect and like i've seen like with my own fans like you know them sending me videos of them doing covers or like them learning how to play guitar to this one song of mine a couple a couple of like my like a few a few of my fans have written poetry books because they've like gotten into into poetry like yeah it is like that that conversation that just like inspires people because art is like it's just so cool like it's just like we get to make things like it's it's so cool sorry that was this that was a cr not a not a very uh eloquent sentence no no there's sort of an myth to it right it's like you just you just well there's a long fellow poem where he talks about like sort of footprints in the sands of time that that's what art is there's a there's a latin saying i forget what it is but the but basically the saying is like life is short but art is long and that like you have the it has you can capture something in a moment when you you know like i wrote my first book when i was 25 and that book is still relevant and it's like i've moved on but that book is still there and people are still interacting with it and yeah you see what it helps people do it's just it to me that's the ultimate reward of doing the stuff um much more so than than any like sort of sales or charts it's like if your thing impacts one person you're like wow yeah and it's also like i feel like when you're really old like when you're like 90 or something you can look back on it and be like this is who i was at this point in time i can't do that now because it's too cringy but but when you're old you'd be like oh my god or you could show your your kids like your kids are going to read your books like that's so your grandkids are going to read your books like that is so cool that's really cool there's this phrase that i really love um about music um actually it's about art in general but my i have this acting coach who is this like incredible person he's he's also an author um you should read his his book he has a few but he has one called at left brain at right brain turn left or at left brain turn right okay but but anyway he has there was this phrase that he he actually just uh directed a film too and there's this line in it that's like these aren't just phrases they're human outcries oh sure and and i just like love that about that really makes me think of music because so much of the time it's like the chord progression or what you're saying like i feel like that especially when i'm like just kind of listening to to chords and just making melodies or doing ad-libs it's like it's coming from this place of no thought it's just coming up from a place of a feeling or just like full just like feeling like it's just like because i find when i'm like really in my head i can't even ad lib like i i can't because it's just is all feeling and i think for my personality type because sometimes i've i'm like i say sometimes now probably a couple years ago would have been most of the times i'm like so in my head that it's a really nice like medicine for that and it's uh yeah it's like so like it's almost like what's the word so like primal you know what i mean something no that's why that's why writers are jealous of musicians because like what you're able to do instantaneously it requires like hundreds of pages for a book to do you know but it does sit but it's different because sometimes musicians wish they could be writers because you can very like you can leave people with in in instructional wisdom like just like it is like it's it's just like this is you know you can you can touch people in a in a really really direct way like super like like life-changing way um i feel like they're they're different and then some some songs can do that but in music it's like you have to dilute it so much that it is actually more of a feeling than like than than words of wiz it's just like a uh almost like you captured a feeling in a jar and it's like that you open the jar and it's like and that's like the feeling whether it's like you know being in love or or sadness or empowerment it's almost like this jar of like emotion that's like exploding and then writing is like it's just so like it's exactly what you what you want to say you know so musicians want to be writers too shawn and i have we've been like i'm going to write a book now your expression that a song is like an emotion in a jar is very beautiful because i i was going to ask you i have this super weird habit when i write i when i listen to music it's almost always like like i might hear a song of yours and be like i like that song and then i will listen to that song on repeat for like 200 times and then i'll probably not listen to it again but so when i write it's it's almost like i have these disposable songs so like i'll pick something and then that i'm just trying like and you play it on repeat to a way where all kind of blurs together and then you almost like kind of disassociate a little bit and then that's where my writing comes from and so for me it's like like um it's always about finding that like hit like that sense of that some magical song that captures what i need and then i want to wait so then wait so you listen to a song over and over yeah and then you you kind of repeat it over and over until like and that's the emotion that you want and then that'll inspire you to write no it's like i'll hear a song and be like i like that song and then that goes and then it's like i'm i'm like like a vampire just like sucking all of that out so so while i'm writing this is why i can't ever share an office i'll have to like listen to that song on full volume you know like in every room of the space just playing over and over and over and over and over again i'm almost like a vampire i just suck it all the life out of it until until i it doesn't mean anything else to me and then i move on to the next song is that weird i think you think that it doesn't mean anything else to you but then when you listen to that song one year from now or two years from now it's going to take you back to when you're listening to it all the time because there are songs that like i mean there's songs that shawn and i would play basically the same eight songs like the first couple months that we were dating and i put those songs on now and i literally feel like i'm gonna have some kind of stroke because it just takes me back to like my heart like starts racing it's crazy it it just really takes you back to to to that time but it's because we obsessively we obsess it's working now um it's because we like obsessively played them i actually feel like i have a different relationship with music now since there's a pandemic well i feel like i used to like my sister's 13 and she listens to music all the time but like she listens to really intense songs all the time just in the background like you know we were talking and she's like has yellow by coldplay on like over and over and over that's that's just that's a good example of a song that yeah i might play like 200 times over and over right and right but but yeah as your point i do remember hearing that song when i was in 10th grade and it like now represents that to me totally and if you played it you'd probably have this whole like flashback reel but i think nowadays i can't i i it like i have realized how much music like really certain songs with words really are such a like mood dictator for me like they really trigger an emotional response so i don't just have them like i i'm not really like i don't really passively listen to to music like if i just i have music on in the background it's just like instrumental stuff or more like ambience like you know spanish guitar or something just in the background but i can't really like listen to song songs passively anymore like the other day i went to the dentist and i had to go to the dentist and it was like they had like a tv playing like hgtv and songs from like the early 2000s playing and the dentist was talking to me and i was like this is so much stimulation like i it's insane i couldn't focus on what she was saying because when a song is playing like my i'll just gravitate towards the song but it just made me think like it's just so i don't know like i i can't i i have to listen to songs when i'm like i'm gonna really like like watching a movie you know do you listen otherwise you read um i actually don't maybe i i think i would if it was i mean i could not do music songs with words while reading because that would be insane but i could probably do some like instrumental but it just like i feel like it still dictates the mood so much like it like it retains what you're reading like if you if i start to hear like some piano music and it's sad immediately i'll be i'll have like nostalgic thoughts or like a nostalgic feeling if i you know it like really colors the mood so i'm going to bring it more intentional about it now but to bring this full circle in the way that like cesar milan is like somehow on the wavelength with a dog because he spent so many countless hours doing it i got to imagine given your relationship with music and what it's meant in your life you probably feel it at a level that like a normal person can listen to music in the background but you are opera you know what i mean you that's like your super powers your ability to connect with words and and with sound that's actually true i hadn't thought about it like that but that that might be true because the other day we were like i hadn't listened to songs with words in a while and and sean put on like john mayer's like continuum and i was like he put on like dreaming with a broken heart and i was like this is crazy it's just like so i don't yeah i think you're right especially when i've kind of like just been listening to instrumental chill stuff like when i put on like a song like that it's like it's like such a stark difference between like passive instrumental music and like a breakup song you know it's like i think i could i think there's a john mayer song in each one of my books that was like a repeat song that i probably really that's so cool are you a john mayer fan i am but it's it more like in the sense that like there's a handful of songs that i really like but yeah and what's your favorite well so he has a cover of free fallen by tom petty that i think is almost as good as the original come on i think it's better than the original it's so good that like that's that i may have listened to that one during stillness it may have been it may have been you go i don't remember but i probably listened to that song like 300 times 400 times actually that was my number one most listen to song when i was like 14. it was my number one song so i listened to it 300 times too like now i i feel like i know every part of that song like if my voice could do eight instruments i could that's how many times i've listened to that song it's so good no it's it's it's incredible and but even like we were talking about like what a muse what a musician can do in just so such a short amount of time like even the opening chords in that song like in the the tom petty version you're just like that that would that's just i think there's a handful of songs that will hit me and you're just like this is what mastery feels and looks like like this is the culmination of a lifetime created these three seconds of music right well i i have a ques i'm i'm curious about because you we've been we've been talking and you're like you write every single day mm-hmm pretty much so but like let's say new book came out yesterday are you writing this morning so the day the day that still of my most recent book came out which is lives of the stoic stoics i was finishing the draft of my next book wow that's cool so this is actually something i'm jealous of with with musicians where like you can put out an album like right away lot lives was finished in january of 2020 and it just came out so it just takes so much longer most of the time i mean they can rush books out they just don't but i'm i'm usually one book ahead so i've already finished my next book it's going into editing now but like i'm i'm in a i'm in editing of the next book so how many hours a day how much time a day do you spend writing and is it every day including weekends it's almost every day it's i'll do i'll definitely write on the weekend but it's a different routine because like weekends are more for family so i might like do if like usually what will happen is like i'll be working out and i'll have some idea and that'll be like a daily stoic email or something like that but not not usually not working on a book on the weekends um but like i i try to like sit down at my desk to write usually like 8 30 or 9 and i'll be done by like 11 at the latest so it's usually like two two and a half hours and then just that cumulatively over a long period of time adds up to books that's cool i feel like i need to integrate that i feel like i need to like have a routine with with writing music as opposed to like when i want to feel inspired yeah i i think so so read this book the war of art his it's like i think it's the the best the best book about the creative process ever written but his his point is like you you have to put he's like you have to put your ass where you want your heart to be um which is an expression i love and it's like love um if you he he has this idea of the resistance basically it's like we all want to make great art all the time but then the resistance gets in the way and so if you only write when you're inspired i think you're in a you're in a tricky spot because like your mind can always come up with reasons why you're not inspired totally hundred percent no i i know i know so i i love the routine but then and then it's also i think writing books is like you have to get you probably like this where like when you're writing you're in a different head space it's like training for a fight or something you know or like training to go into space i remember i had this dream once when i was this is i forget which book it was but i had i had some like i remember i had this dream and it was like i was getting in a rocket ship and it was blasting off and when i woke up from the dream i was like oh it's time to start the book that i've been researching like it was like it's time to go and so i've i've more gotten to a place where instead of having this like start and stop where it's like i'm training and then you know then i'm taking a break i'd rather just be in in fighting at my fighting weight all the time so just never stop yeah that's so smart i love that i'm definitely integrating that that's cool well we'll uh i'll let you go because this has probably been way too much of your time but we should we should talk routine to me i think if you don't have a routine or a practice you're just getting by on like your sheer talent and uh and and like your youthful energy but when you really look it's like how is lebron james still performing at the level he's performing at it's because it's a machine and he's just riding it you know yeah wait what's that quote that's like consistency over excitement or something like that consistency over but yeah no that's it's it's yeah totally i totally agree i totally agree well this was so fun this was amazing i appreciate it so much i'm so glad we got connected and uh and yeah we'll have to stay in touch me too let's be friends let's be friends let's do it ryan you're amazing and you seriously i mean i i told you the other day my mom sean me we're your biggest fans and you've changed our lives stoics forever baby i get the email i get the journal i get the daily stoic the the daily that's part of my morning routine is reading one page a day the leather the black leather one so thank you for everything seriously you're the best that's that's amazing to hear and uh it's it i think what's what's interesting for me is yeah like i've listened to your songs a bunch of times and you're it's it's just weird to to put a face to the work well likewise because like shawn told you the other day we've we've heard your voice on the audiobook so much and now your face is moving i love it exciting all right talk soon okay talk soon ryan bye

Channel: Daily Stoic

Views: 109,690

Keywords: Stoic, Stoicism, Ryan Holiday, Ryan Holiday Stoicism, Daily Stoic, Ryan Holiday Interview, Ryan Holiday Stoic, Ryan Holiday Daily Stoic, einzelgänger, massimo pigliucci, einzelganger stoicism, Stoicism TED talk, marcus aurelius, marcus aurelius meditations, ryan holiday podcast

Id: 1jqOlJuvIdU

Length: 77min 9sec (4629 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 16 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/mountaingoat369]

Am I the only one that thinks the thumbnail for this video looks like a trashy hip hop album cover?