Ryan Holiday discusses what courage actually means beyond physical bravery. He explores moral courage, the risks of speaking up, and how society reacts when you disagree. Recorded July 2022.
Bulletproof radio, a state of high performance. I want to go deeper on courage with you. There are some other words that are part of. Of the definition here or like the kind of a list of attributes. Can you describe courage and what it looks like, what it feels like, how. How you would write about it?
Well, I was trying to think, because there's two. There's typically described as being two types of courage. Physical courage and moral courage, right? One is the soldier, one is a scientist, right? One is running into a burning building. The other is putting out some transgressive piece of art or cultural commentary. But what do those things have in common? Why is, why is one also considered courage if it's not risking one? So I basically, I think it's like at the core of courage is putting your ass on the line, right? So you're either putting your money on the line or, or you're putting your life on the line, you're putting your reputation on the line, you're putting your body on the line, right? It's gotta be something, because if there's not, like, again, if there's no risk, if it's a certainty, it's not that, it's not important. We're just not talking about courage. But by definition, you have to be braving something that ordinarily people, or, you know, people in your position would not be expected to do. If I told you, hey, 100% guarantee bulletproof coffee is going to be successful. It's going to get this massive cultural adoption. You're going to. You'd be like, oh, of course I'll do it. I don't have to think twice about it. But the fact that, the fact that it was a risk that not only did you not know, but lots of people told you very confidently that it took a lot of. Yeah, you know, that's. That's where courage comes in. And then I say in the book, obviously there's a level beyond that, right? There's a difference between courageously starting a new business and courageously leaving a successful business to, I don't know, you know, be a social worker in the inner city, right? There, there's a level of heroism above courage, where you're putting your ass on the line less for your own benefit, where you're really in no position to reap the rewards of that courage. I think that's an important distinction or higher transcendent level of courage that we often sort of forget.
So there's risking your meat, your life, and then there's risking your reputation. Are kind of two different aspects of courage.
Yeah, yeah. And it's not always as simple as that, but because it could be a combination of those two things. Right. So you think about a politician today speaking up against, I don't know, this bill or that bill or this trend or that trend. They're risking being reelected or not. Right. Which is a scary thing to do.
That's why they always lie no matter what party they're in.
Right, of course. But you go back 2,000 years, the same senator in Rome is also worried about being executed by the emperor or something. Right.
So we should bring that back, shouldn't we?
Well, you know, people are mad about cancel culture and I'm like, you know, this has existed for a long time, Right. They called it exile and it's we've got a long glorious tradition of driving people away that upset us.
That we do indeed.
Sam.
