Leadership Lessons From The Great Books

Hello. My name is Jesan Sorrells, and this is the Leadership

Lessons from the Great Books podcast, episode number 83

with our book today. The cornerstone

of modernist literature that has successfully intimidated

almost every single writer, without fail

in the 20th century since its publication. Ernest Hemingway's

take on the lost generation via a

roman a clef of the fin de sicle. I've always wanted to say that on

the podcast, makes me sound smart. The Sun

Also Rises. Now today, we've got

the Warbler classics edition. And,

And we're gonna talk about The Sun Also Rises. We're gonna talk about Ernest

Hemingway's writing and the impact of Ernest Hemingway's

writing on, Well, everything from leadership to

life with our returning guest co host today,

Libby Unger. Welcome back, Libby.

Thank you for having me. It's great to be back. Yeah. So this is going

to be Libby's, I think, what, like, 3rd episode, 4th episode?

4th episode? Yeah. 4th episode. And, this is going to be her

last episode of this season of the podcast. But don't worry, she'll

be coming back next season, and,

revisiting us for, I think, 6 or 7 big episodes.

And she will be coming in on our panel discussion as we round

the corner in our regular counting towards

episode 100. Yes, that's right. I will have done a

100 of these. Make next year sometime.

It's maybe amazing. Who does a 100 of anything these days?

Alright. And by the way, if you have systems in place.

Yeah. Well, that and, like, just ridiculous consistency.

Exactly. Yeah. You've got the repetition, the systems.

Exactly. Just like that. Which speaking of repetition and

systems, Hemingway would be proud. He was a very big fan of,

of all of those things. And so as usual, we're going to pick up

from The Sun Also Rises. We're going to start off in chapter six. And,

we're gonna pick up well, we're gonna pick up

with The sort of healthy conceit that he had when he

returned from America early in the spring was gone. Then

he had been sure of his work only with these personal

longings for adventure. Now the sureness was gone. Somehow, I

feel I have not shown Robert Cohn clearly. The reason is that

until he fell in love with Brett, I never heard him make one remark that

would in any way detach him from other people. He was so nice to watch

on the tennis court. He had a good body and he kept it in shape.

He handled his cards well at bridge, and he had a funny sort of undergraduate

quality about him. If you were in a proud nothing he said

stood out. He wore what used to be called polo shirts at school and

maybe called that still, but he was not professionally youthful.

I do not believe he thought about his clothes at all much. Externally,

he had been formed at Princeton. Internally, he'd been molded by the 2 women

who had trained him. He had a nice boyish sort of cheerfulness

that had never been trained out of him, and I probably have not brought it

out. He loved to win at tennis. He probably loved to

win as much as Lenglund, for instance. On the other hand, he was not angry

of being beaten. When he fell in love with Brett, his tennis game went all

to pieces, people beat him who had never had a chance with him. He was

very nice about it. Anyhow, we were sitting on the terrace

of the Cafe Select and Harvey Stone had just crossed the street.

Come on up to the Lilas, I said. I have a date. What time?

Frances is coming here at 7:15. Oh, there she is.

Frances Klein was coming toward us from across the street. She was a very tall

girl who walked with a great deal of movement. She waved and smiled. We watched

across the street. Hello, she said. I'm so glad you're here, Jake. I've been wanting

to talk to you. Hello, Francis, said Cohn. He smiled. Why,

hello, Robert. Are you here? She went on talking

rapidly. I've had the darndest time. This one, shaking her head at home,

didn't come home for lunch. I wasn't supposed to. Oh, I

know, but you didn't say anything about it to the cook. Then I had a

date myself and Paula wasn't at her office. I went to the Ritz and waited

for her, she never came, and, course, I didn't have enough money to lunch at

the Ritz. What did you do? Oh, went out, of

course. She spoke in a sort of imitation, joyful manner. I

always keep my No one keeps theirs nowadays. I ought to know better. How

are you Jake anyway? Fine. That was a fine girl you had

at the dance and then went off with that Brett one. Don't you like her?

Cohn asked. I think she's perfectly charming. Don't you?

Cohn said nothing. Look, Jake, I want to talk with

you. Would you come with me over to the dome? You stay here once you

row, Robert. Come on, Jake. Request the Boulevard,

Montparnasse and sat down at a table. A boy came up with the Paris

times and I bought 1 and opened it. What's the matter, Frances?

Oh, nothing, she said, except that he wants to leave me. How do you

mean? Oh, he told everyone we were going to be married and I told my

mother and everyone, and now he doesn't want to do it. What's the matter?

He's decided he hasn't lived enough. I knew it would happen when he went to

New York. She looked up very bright eyed and tried to

talk inconsequentially. I wouldn't marry him if he doesn't

want to. Of course I wouldn't. I wouldn't marry him now for anything, but

it does seem to be a little late now after we've waited 3

years and I've just gotten my divorce. I said

nothing. We were going to celebrate so, and instead, we've just had

scenes. It's so childish. We have dreadful scenes, and he cries and begs

me to be reasonable, but he says he just can't do it.

It's rotten luck. I should say it's rotten luck. I've wasted

2 years and a half on him now, and I don't know if any man

will ever want to marry me. 2 years ago, I could have married anybody I

wanted down at con. All the old ones who wanted to marry somebody she could

settle down were crazy about me. Now, I don't think I could get anybody.

Sure. You can marry anybody. No, I don't believe it. And I'm

fond of him too. And I'd like to have children. I always thought we'd have

children. She looked at me very brightly.

I never liked children much, but I don't want to think I'll never have them.

I always thought I'd have them and then like them. He's got

children. Oh, yes. He's got children, and he's got money, and he's got a rich

mother, and he's written a book, and nobody will publish my stuff. Nobody at all.

It isn't bad either, and I haven't gotten any money at all. I could have

had alimony, but I got the divorce the quickest way. She looked at

me again very brightly. It isn't right. It's My Own Fault and It's

Not TO I ought to have known better. And when I tell him, he just

cries and says he can't marry. Why can't he marry? I'd be a good wife.

I'm easy to get along with. I leave him alone. It doesn't do any good.

It's a rotten shame. Yes. It is a rotten

shame. But there's no use talking about it, is there? Come on. Let's go back

to the cafe. And, of course, there isn't anything I can do.

No. Just don't let him know I talked to you. I know what he wants.

Now for the 1st time, she dropped her bright, terrible, terribly cheerful

manner. He wants to go back to New York alone and be there when his

book comes out. So when a lot of little chickens like it,

that's what he wants. Maybe they won't like it. I don't think

he's that way. Really? You don't know him like I do, Jake. That's

what he wants to do. I know it. I know it. That's why he doesn't

wanna marry. Wants to have a big triumph this fall all by himself.

Wanna go back to the cafe? Yes. Come on.

We got it from the table. They had never brought us a drink and started

across the street towards the select, where Cohn sat smiling at us from

behind the marble topped table. Well,

what are you smiling at? Francis asked him. Feeling pretty happy?

I was smiling at you and Jake with your secrets.

Oh, what I've told Jake isn't any secret. Everybody will

know it soon enough. I only wanted to give Jake

a decent version.

Oh, the literary life of Ernest Hemingway, let's start off

with that. So we covered a movable feast in

episode number 18 with, DeRollo Nixon,

who's a big fan, by the way, of a movable because he's a big fan

of everything French and everything Parisian. Just go ask him.

By the way, side note, the 2024 Summer Olympics are happening in

Paris next year. They Will Be Very Parisian.

Everyone should look forward to that in the Western world.

Anyway, so we covered a movable feast in episode number 18, and a lot of

the material that influenced the direction of The Sun Also

Rises was located and was centered in

the observations of the relationships between people that Hemingway

recorded in A Movable Feast. The Sun Also

Rises is sort of the fictional version of A Moveable Feast. It's

it's the scaling up and the fictionalization of all of these relationships

and all of these observations that Hemingway had.

The Sun Also Rises is a story about dysfunctional people seeking

to escape themselves and being unable to do so. The

nation theater critic, Joseph Woodcrutch, way back in

the day in reviewing, the stories in Men Without

Women made a statement that while he thought it applied

to the stories in, Men Without Women, another Ernest Hemingway

collection, actually applies more closely to the characters of The Sun Also

Rises. He he said, this is Joseph Woodcrutch. He

said, that the stories in men without

women were sordid little catastrophes involving involving very

vulgar people. That's an apt description

for the dynamics and the relationships

between people in The Sun Also Rises.

And when you think about it, Hemingway could do

no worse, but nor could he probably do any better. And that's what

makes This book, one of the dynamic

books of modernist literature of the 20th century.

The Sun Also Rises was an attempt by Ernest Hemingway to do what he claimed

he was going to be doing in On Writing. His great book

about writing, where he wrote on page 28 in

that book, Write one true sentence first, then write

another one. And that's exactly

what you get in The Sun Also Rises. It's true sentence after

true sentence after true sentence. Yes, it's it's

a little bit it's a little bit dramatized, like there with

Francis and Robert Cohn and Jake, But that

doesn't mean that it's not true. It's

just dramatic.

Infinously enough, Gertrude Stein, said to Ernest

Hemingway or told him that he

was part of a lost generation. As a matter of fact, she claimed that him

and all the people who were surrounding him were all part of a lost generation.

The lost generation that she was referring to were people who had fought

in World War one, who had who had seen what the

terrible, truth of man could actually be

in the killing fields of the Psalm, the

Dardanelles, and of course,

in the Eastern theater with the decline and fall

of the Ottoman Empire. Now The Sun Also Rises sits

in the month of books that we're or sits at the end

of a month of books where we've covered, T E Lawrence's

the 7 pillars of wisdom. And Lawrence and Hemingway were

both, well, they were both they were both peers. They both

existed at the same time in the world, But they had radically

different thoughts about a post war world, and radically

different ideas about what the impact of decadence,

romance, and fundamentally leadership could be

in a post World War 1, World.

And so We're gonna talk about this today

with Libby about the challenge of saying something

original in a world that is very, very

derivative. I mean, we're in 2023 right now, and

almost everyone who's anyone who's creating anything

is in a land war right now with large language algorithms

to create something original. We've even

talked about it on some of our shorts episodes. I've ranted a little bit about

this, but we are now in a space where people are so

driven by the online behaviors they have

engaged in from shopping to commenting to, Libby and I were just

talking about this before we hit the record button, to search that

now our behaviors that we have done that have really worked for

us online are now spilling out into the real world.

And it's really interesting when you try to apply algorithmically driven behavior

that works online to dealing with other human

beings.

We're gonna talk a little bit about all of that and more, and we're

going to frame it in the light of Ernest

Hemingway's One True Sentence, today on the podcast.

So let me get out of the way for Libby

here. Now let's find out from her,

what's the impact of the writing of Ernest Hemingway and the

impact of The Sun Also Rises on you? And What do you think about

his approach or his desire to write one

true sentence? And what do we take from that in

the year of our lord 2023, almost a 100

years after the rise in

well, The Rise of the Lost Generation.

Oh my gosh. I was so excited To

actually to actually read this, and, yeah, and

discuss it with you. First of all, like Durillo, I love

all Parisians in French. And it

goes there's a it goes to something within my DNA.

You know? So I tried The Sun Also

Rises is just delicious. Like, I read it

so slowly. I wanted to read it quickly,

But I forced myself to read it slowly so that I could

just sit in the magic of the moments that he created. Like,

I could feel myself in the Parisian cafe, you know, back

in 1923. It's a yeah. The roaring

twenties. You know, indulging in a

glass of of your red wine and, you know,

smoking a cigarette and, you know, but dressing your fine

clothing and Speaking intellectually, but also

bantering playfully with others. I mean, it was just

it it's so I I was Trying to see it through the

lens of, like, the 15 or 16 year old that I was when

I first read it, And I could I can't I

have so many life experiences now that I still I layer

over it, that make it all that much more delicious.

But there was something so resonant about Hemingway

when I read him the first time that I was in love with

the with the writing And the storytelling

you, and I could I try to look at that from the

lens of a 50 plus, Yeah. Individual,

and rationalize back, you know, you know, is it his, you know,

midwestern roots? Is it that adventurous

streak that I loved so much.

You know, the playfulness, you know, somewhat seriousness,

but Lack of seriousness.

I just I I I do believe a lot of it comes from

his, Yeah. The good midwestern sensibilities. Like,

you don't feel judgment. You feel like someone just kind

of embracing your life.

So it was delicious to reread it. And then, you know,

and then going down to, like, Spain and,

in the bull fights and, you know,

thinking about it from the literary Effective, it can feel magical

from a reality perspective. You know, I've been

to, you know, some whole fights in Spain and I had to walk

Out because I was horrified at what they did to yeah. What

they did to the animals. Right?

Yeah. So it's really Interesting. I didn't wanna

leave the create how the the reality that I

created around the the fun and deity

of the Of the times in Paris and Spain.

But when I try yeah. When I fast forwarded it to the world I love

it now, I'm like, Oh, it'd be like it'd be horrendous, like, the

bullfights were horrible. No. I'm all for I'm all

for you, appreciating beef, but, you

know, you you create, you know, kill the

kill the bull, like, humanely, not like

4. But anyway, it was just it

was lovely. And thinking about

Why, you know, they were living the way that they were living. Right? It

was right after world the great war. And,

Yeah. For some of them going back, yeah, I think about

the the Robert Cohn character,

You well, after you lived it, you know, in an

adrenaline and, adrenaline

filled Rold seeing life at its,

you know, most facest and maybe also most

fullest, perspective, and then going back to a life of the

mundane, you know, like, that would be really hard to go back

to. Yes. Well, then they Well, they

don't so Robert Cohn, let's Yeah. Talk about him for just a second because we're

not gonna really talk too much about his character today. But

He is critical. His presence is critical for the forward movement of the

plot, basically, of The Sun Also Rises, the sordid

stories of very vulgar people.

I think I like the vulgarity. Right? Well well

It's vulgar in a posh way, you know? It

is. Well, when when Joseph Wood I mean, I went up when I went and

did some research around it. Yeah. And, and when I found that quote, I

also found the picture of Joseph of Joseph, Kirchner Wood or or yeah.

Joseph Kirchner Wood. Yeah. And, or Joseph Wood, correct.

Sorry. And, when I found that picture of him, He's

I mean, come on. I'm like, oh, come on. Pot and kettle, like, let's let's

all just chill out here. Let's all just chill out here for a minute. But,

So Robert Cohn is one of those characters who,

because of his Jewishness Yeah. Which which Hemingway leans

on. Okay. But that was very important back in the day,

because of his his his and and give the word that

we were just talking about before we started recording that no one uses anymore, right?

Because of his preppy approach to just like everything, right?

The the the rise and fall of Robert Cohn, even down to the boxing.

Right? Like, I'm gonna punch you in like, he's this guy, like, I'm gonna punch

you. Right? Because I gotta prove myself. He's always looking for So I was looking

for a fight, which by the way is a jujitsu guy. I was like, oh,

man. I I think I'd have accommodated him. I'd accommodated him all day.

But But that was why he was but he was likable

and friendly, but you knew that he was an intellectual,

like, He he was intellectual and superior,

you know, superior at least equal to those in the circle. He was

also a boxer, but in jujitsu, like, The whole point is you

know he's a boxer. Yeah. You're because of that, you're not gonna bat you

know, you're not gonna confront him. Right? Exactly.

Until you do confront him and then you wind up waylaid, like what happens at

the what happens at the end of book 2 at the end of there, you

talk about the Spanish the Spanish expedition. The end of their Spanish

expedition when everything starts falling apart and Colin waylays both Jake.

No no surprise here. Jake and Bill Gorton lays them both out.

And, and then you see, oh, okay. He actually is something because having, why I

had to give him something underneath. Right. And you get this sense from

reading about cones character

That Hemingway is attempting. And I loved how you brought this up. This is something

we're going to talk a lot about today. Heming is Hemingway is attempting to take

all of this decadence and put it inside of a Midwestern

box because he doesn't have another box to work with. That's the sense that I

get. Is that would you say that that's fairly accurate?

Yeah. Yes. I think there's just kind of an

objective, like, Again, there's not judgment. He is

just what he is. Right? And, like, you know, everyone every character

is just who they are and they're presented kind of,

I I it's kind of that lens that I miss seeing in modern

day. It's just like People are who they are. You don't have to

assign a good or bad Right. Or, you know,

or A label identity label to them.

You know, we that being said, you know, it is hard

reading some of the the words, Yeah. In the book,

like, you know, I I can detach from, you know, the fact that,

you know, that those were words that were commonly used at the time

And still have a visceral, yeah, reaction to re

reading some of those words because we know what sits

behind them. But back

to kind of, like, the the reason I was bringing up the cone was because,

yeah, with Frances, you know, Got

divorced, and now she wants to have this beautiful life with the man that she

was having an affair with, and she's surprised that he doesn't wanna commit,

Yeah. Or doesn't wanna go, but I look at it more psychologically

after world war one, and living having

lived like such a, I think a lot of

the PTSD that they didn't name that, but,

was from, like, how do you go back into a mundane,

Yeah. Predictable, safe world when

you've lived, like, such an

adrenal filled Yeah. World where you actually know what your

life being threatened means. Also, by going to

the Jake character, like, he can't go back as a hero.

Right? Like, so Paris, you know, Paris is financially makes

sense because it's cheaper to be a bohemian and a writer in Paris

Then New York, but you also don't have to face the reality of going

home and not being like an esteemed hero

or Well, and this is also during a time, and we forget this now

because New York City had its ascendance between World War

one and probably about the 19 sixties. And I'm not gonna

say it declined, but it it it's

not what it what it was, right, in terms of

even literary or fine well, not financial, but well, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So we moved from literary prowess to financial prowess in New York City, and

that that transition happened in the eighties and in the nineties. And now we think

of New York as a financial sector, not necessarily a literary one.

Mhmm. Paris never really relinquished

its literary, bona fides.

But Paris has now become this thing

that, for want of a better term,

seems unattainable if you're in a literary

spot here in the United States. And By the way, you talk about reading

this book at 15 or 16. I was gonna reveal this on the podcast anyway,

so I might as well reveal it early. I first ran to this book when

I was 8 years old. Like, I don't know who in my house

decided that that would be a good book for me to pick up, but, like,

I start I mean, I read it because it was easy. It was easy for

me to read through. And I didn't get all the illusions and everything, but I've

read this book at least once a year, every year between like 8 and

23. And I've got something out of it more and more and more.

I was able to mine more and more out of it. And then between, like,

23 and, like, It's been like 20 years since I picked up this book,

and then, you know, we read it again for the podcast and, for the

show. And You're right. Like, I'm in my mid

forties now, and I'm, like, I'm looking at this book and I go,

god, that's a lot of booze.

I think that's a lot of drinking to hide, a lot of dysfunction.

Or the bit there that we just read with Frances and,

with Frances and Jake. And Robert, I I I

gotta admit, when I was reading that, I was thinking, why didn't Robert

just tell her to go pound sand? Just oh, but

he did. That's what he did. But he did it in a in a

19 twenties kind of way to your point, not a 2023

kinda way, where it's a little bit of a different dynamic with what's going on

with the Gen Zers now, and and, you know, all their all their

sort of dating predilections versus what versus what was

happening then. Okay. So one one

other thought here, the richness of the book, which you Why glad you brought this

up early. The richness of the book is evident

and the things that people do, but it's got such a

simplicity and economy of language. Talk a little bit about that.

Cause that's, that's real, a really hard target to

hit. And he nail I mean, Hemingway nails the bull's eye. And I

think that's a big gigantic reason why this book is still around now and will

be probably for another 100 years. Probably because, I

was contrasting it to Russian literature. Yeah. And we, you know,

we had planned on Dostoevsky. Yeah.

But I always loved Russian literature

as well, you know, yeah, which is, you know, very

Lowery and long and, yeah,

it takes forever to, you know, to learn something or

Grab it. You know, but and

the beauty of Hemingway is he's so precise In

his language, and so the

economy of words. Mhmm. But yeah. And I was thinking of

your other Modern writers who I like who have economy of words, and it's

Patterson. Right? Like James Patterson or Nelson Fanil.

But I don't fall in love with that. Like, I'm not gonna

reread a Patterson. I might reread a Nelson DeMille, like

charm Goal and all that kind of fun stuff. But,

it's that he goes into he describes the characters

and it's In a in a way that you don't get

that other writers miss when they use the economy of

words. Like, they use the economy of words just To move the action

forward, he uses it in such a precision that you can

yeah. You know precisely where the French cafe is and you can

you know, Even though you can't smell the the

the wine on the floor and the cigarettes, You

know enough that when you walked into that cafe or restaurant,

you can smell it yourself. Mhmm. So it's just like such

a precision that even A young mind

can imagine it. It gives you a room to imagine these

things. Well I think that he

trusts us with that. Right? That's it. Yeah. He trusts

the reader to fill in

the empty arts with whatever they've got.

Yeah. And The only

genre I can think of that kinda gets closer to that

is that we haven't really revisited this genre. I mean, we read

1 author, and we probably need to revisit, but, it's magical

realism. So we read, you know, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 100 Years of

Solitude. Right? And You know,

there's a ton of books that are in that genre, but magical

realism really does sort of build not sort of, it builds worlds

and that allows you to come and gives you the freedom to come in and

inhabit those worlds, and allows the owl the

allegorical nature of those worlds to play out. Hemingway

takes one aspect of that, or maybe doesn't even take one aspect of that. I

prob I wanna I'd be hesitant to say he was the pioneer on

this. Maybe he was one of the pioneers in really taking one

aspect of that, which is that economy of language and really pushing that

to its furthest, extreme. I mean, even Toni Morrison was battling

with him when she was writing, like, even she admitted, like, Hemingway lives in her

head. Oh, that's pretty cool. Yeah. I

think, you know, I read somewhere he didn't use

adverbs or adjectives. Yeah. And yeah. And I think

it was f Scott Fitzgerald who's writing and I loved as well, but it probably

had more to do with that time that I felt so

Alive and gay, you know, gay in the the

old meaning of the word gay. You know, gay.

3. Yeah.

But, you know, I've I've

often said that we need to get adjectives out of our Our modern

language because our language has lost on meaning

with the use of of adjectives. Yep.

Yeah. There's yeah. There's no, we've lost nuance.

And he doesn't use adverbs

or Adjectives. You know, verbs are

yes. It it it's an interesting way that he

describes things through the verbs, like the powdered Leaves.

You know, the it it's just it's real it's really

interesting, That I you know, English majors could probably go

into it a bit more. I know for myself just

how

As I said earlier, it gives you permission to fill in the

blanks. But the Piece that was interesting too

is all of the streets. You know, if you've been to Paris, and

I've been over a dozen times, It's my favorite city. It's magical.

I've probably been there, like, closer to 2 dozen times.

But you didn't need to know the names of the streets to get a sense

of, you know, what he was describing, but once you've been

there, Yo. It adds another layer of,

like, richness as you're like, oh, I've been there. And maybe

it's because Paris is Timeless

because it hasn't yeah. The beautiful Arondeese Montes have not been

destroyed over centuries. You couldn't necessarily

do that With I guess you could with New York because it's a grid system

and it's been around for a 150 years, but could you do that? I know

there are very few places where you could do that. Well, and there's

also the and this is why I mentioned the Olympics. It's not a dig

at Paris, honestly. It's actually a dig at the International Olympic Committee,

is I don't think they're actually building any new buildings

for any of this. I think the only concession that the that the

French are giving to the Olympics is they're moving the end of the Tour de

France to someplace. Yeah. But if

you wanna go watch an Olympic event in Paris, guess

what? You're gonna have to show up to some rickety shack somewhere to the

they put up. Oh, they're gonna have it they're gonna have it on

the outskirts Skirts and then the curves, and it's not gonna feel anything like

Paris. Exactly. Exactly. And they're gonna be like, this is the best you're

getting. Good luck. Just gonna wander away. You're lucky this

wasn't at Marseille. Just gonna walk away. Just gonna

walk away. And that is a very French attitude

to something that will shed that that

normally, for most cities, is a huge

event that sheds a ton of international light on it, and

yet, Are you gonna tip me

or not? You know? It's interesting that you say that,

but I've been going to the French Open for over 20 years.

And I was at the French Open this last year.

And I going back to my first time in 2001, 2002,

you had to Fax in your request. Yeah.

You only got to request, like, 4 tickets and you only

knew, like, 3 months later, whether you got your

request or not and it came in this beautiful, you know, with a

beautiful gold ticket, like, yeah. Like Willy Wonka.

Exactly. You're like, oh my god.

And now, oh my god, it was so efficient,

It's like I you buy your ticket online. If

you wanna sell it, you just resell it, like, online through

the, yeah, through the, French fed

yeah. French Tennis Federation, there's no fees or

anything. You can yeah. It happens, like, within

Within 30 minutes of someone wanting to sell their ticket, it's

there for someone else to buy, you know, that

stick bought The food,

the organization, it almost felt like something that, yeah, in

Beijing and that's not meant to be a dig. It meant that

it was very organized and it was the

movements through the stadiums were Very efficient, but you

still got to enjoy, like, you know, the food and the

experience. It was very, very well run and

I always yeah. I have the American

stereotype of the French, I was like, bam, I hear you, which is to

you. Which will be with these quesorrhara. And

no. It's actually very well organized and it was a good

balance of, Capitalism

with, you know, with communism. I

didn't you know, I don't think they're communist, but Wanting to have

that experience so that there was room for everyone to

experience, but it was also very efficient from a

business perspective. That's interesting. I loved it. Yeah.

So you, you might be you're we're gonna have to get you out

of your comfort zone and you're gonna have to go to France for the French

Olympics. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll I'll

be looking for my, I'll be looking for my golden ticket, my golden

Willy Wonka ticket in the, in the email. Won't be in the mail, it'll be

in the email. You don't have to. Now you get it online, you

know, on your phone just like that.

Well, well, back to the book. We're gonna pick up in, we're gonna pick up

in chapter 8, with one of the more,

shall we say controversial characters in The Sun Also

Rises. We're gonna talk a little bit about,

a person who I probably would have palled around with. He's a little more little

more little more my speed, a fellow named Bill Gordon.

Back to The Sun Also Rises, chapter 8. I

did not see Brett again until she came back from San Sebastian.

One card came from her there. It had a picture of a concha, and it

said, darling, very quiet and healthy. Love to all the chaps,

Brett. Nor did I see Robert Cohn again.

I heard Francis had left for England, and I had a note from Cohn saying

he was going out in the country for a couple of weeks. He did not

know where, but that he wanted to hold me, to the fishing trip to Spain

we had talked about last winter. I could reach him always, he wrote

through his bankers. Brett was gone. I was not

bothered by Cohen's troubles. I rather enjoyed not having to play tennis. There was plenty

of work to do. I went off into the races, dine with friends, and in

some extra time at the office getting things ahead so I could leave it in

charge of my secretary, when Bill Gordon and I should shove off to Spain at

the end of June. Bill Gordon arrived, put up a couple of days at the

flat and went off to Vienna. He was very cheerful and said the states were

wonderful. New York was wonderful. There had been a grand theatrical season and a whole

crop of great young light heavyweights. Any one of them was

a good prospect to grow up, put on weight, and trim Dempsey.

Bill was very happy. He made a lot of money on his last book and

he was gonna make a lot more. We had a good time while he was

in Paris and then he went off to Vienna. Was coming back

in 3 weeks and we would leave for Spain to get in some fishing and

go to the fiesta at Pemblona. He wrote that Vienna was wonderful,

then a car from Budapest. Jake, Budapest is wonderful. Then I got a

wire back on Monday. Monday evening,

he turned about the flat. I heard his taxi stop and went to the window

and called to him. He waved and started up the stairs carrying his bags. I

met him on the stairs and took one of his bags. Well, I said, I

hear you had a wonderful trip. Wonderful, he said. Budapest is absolutely

wonderful. How about Vienna? Not so good, Jake. Not so good. It seemed

better than it was. How do you mean? I was getting glasses and a

siphon. Tight, Jake. That was tight. That's

strange. Better have a drink. Bill rubbed his forehead.

Remarkable thing you said. Don't know how it happened. Suddenly, it happened. Last long?

4 days, Jake. Lasted just 4 days. Where Where did you go? Don't remember. Rotes

your postcard. Remember that perfectly. Do you have anything else? Not sure.

Sure. Possible. Go on. Tell me about it. Can't remember. Tell you

anything I can remember. Go on, take that drink

and remember. Might remember a little. Remember something about a

price fight, enormously on a price fight. I had a,

Now I'm gonna pause here for a moment. We're about to go through a set

here where there's going to be an objectionable term. If you object to this term,

please Skip over this and go to the next section in the podcast.

Back to the book. Had a nigger in it. Remember the nigger perfectly.

Go on. Wonderful, nigger. Looked like tiger flowers, only 4 times as

big. All of a sudden, everybody started to throw things. Not me. Nigger just

knocked down a local boy. Nigger put up his glove. Wanted to make a speech.

Awful noble looking nigger started to make a speech, then local white boy hit

him. They knocked the white boy cold, then everybody commenced to throw

chairs. Nigger went home with us in our car, couldn't get his clothes, wore my

coat. Remember the whole thing now. Big sporting event. What

happened? Loan the nigger some clothes and went around with him to try and get

his money. Claimed to go the money on account of Rick in the Hall. Wonder

who translated. Was it me? Probably, it wasn't you. You're right. It

wasn't me. It wasn't me at all. It was another fellow. I think we called

him the local Harvard man. Remember him now, studying music. How'd you come

out? Not so good, Jake. Injustice everywhere. Promoter claimed nigger

promised to let local boys stay, claim nigger violated contract, can't knock

out Vienna Boy in Vienna. My god, mister Gordon, said nigga. I didn't

do nothing there for 40 minutes. We're trying to let him stay. That white boy

must have rushed himself swinging at me. I never did hit him.

Did you get any money? No money, Jake. All we could do is get niggas

close. Somebody took his watch too. Splendid nigga. Big mistake to have him come to

Vienna. Not so good, Jake. Not so good. What became of the

nigger? Went back to Cologne, lives there, buried, got a family, going

to write me a letter and send me the money I loaned him. Wonderful, nigga.

Hope I gave him the right address. You probably did.

Well, let's eat anyway, unless you want me to tell you some more travel stories,

said Bill. Go on. Let's eat. We went

downstairs now to the Boulevard Saint Michel in the warm June evening. Where

will we go? Wanna eat on the island? Sure.

We walked down the boulevard at the juncture of the Rue Des Ferneur Rochot,

where the boulevard is a statue of 2 men in flowing robes. I know who

they are, Bill I DeBonument, gentleman who invented pharmacy. Don't try

to fool me on Paris. We went on. Here's a taxidermist,

Bill said, wanna buy anything? Nice stuffed dog? Come on, I said,

you're pie eyed. Pretty nice stuffed dog, Bill said. Certainly

brightened up your flat. Come on. Just 1 stuffed dog. I

can't I can't take him or leave him alone. But listen, Jake, just 1 stuffed

dog. Come on. Mean everything in the world to you

after you bought it. Simple exchange of values. You give them money, they give you

a stuffed dog. We'll get you 1 on the way back. Alright. Have

it your way. Road to hell paved with unbotched stuffed dogs. Not my fault.

We went on. How did you get to feel that way about dogs all of

a sudden? Always felt that way about dogs. Always have been a great lover of

stuffed animals. We stopped and had a drink. Certainly

like to drink, Bill said. You ought to try it sometimes, Jake. You're about

144 ahead of me. Ought not to daunt you,

never be daunted, secret of my success. Never been

daunted, never been daunted in public. What were you

drinking? Stopped at the creole. George will be a couple of Jackroses.

George is a great man. Know the secret of his success? Never been

daunted. You'll be daunted after about 3 more pernades,

not in public. If I begin to feel daunted, I'll go off by myself. I'm

like a cat that way. When did you see Harvey Stone

at the Crayon? Harvey was just a little daunted, hadn't eaten for 3 days, doesn't

eat anymore, just goes off like a cat. Pretty sad. He's

alright. Splendid. Wish you wouldn't keep going off like a cat, though. Makes me

nervous. What will we do tonight? Doesn't make any

difference. Only let's not get daunted. Suppose they got any hard boiled eggs

here? If they had hard boiled eggs here, we wouldn't have to go all the

way down to the island to eat. Nick's, I said, we're gonna have a regular

meal. Just a suggestion, said Bill. Wanna start now?

Come on. We started again down the boulevard. A horse cab passed

us. Bill looked at it. See that horse cab? Gonna have that horse cab

stuffed for you for Christmas. Gonna give all my friends' stuffed animals. I'm a nature

rider. Taxi passed, someone in it, waves, and

bang for the driver to stop. The taxi backed up to the curb and it

was bred. Beautiful lady, said Bill, going to kidnap us.

Everyone needs a little Bill Gordon in their lives. Now

That entire section that I went there is a section that that

troubles literally almost everybody who reads The Sun Also Rises,

particularly in a post 19 sixties world because of the

use of the word, well, that I just read repeatedly.

It's used and by the way, the number of times that that word is used,

has been counted, and I believe it's something like 64 times or

something like that in the conversation. And

it's not used in any other place in the book with as much

regularity as is used in the way in which Bill Gordon describes

just the fight with the boxer in Vienna.

Toni Morrison and many other African American writers have

taken Ernest Hemingway to task for his use of this term and putting

this term in Bill Gorton's mouth, In The Sun Also Rises, but

I am not going to join their ranks for one reason and

one reason alone. I think if this book were a

show, it would be Seinfeld and Bill Gordon would be cast as

Kramer. Bill Gordon is the kind of guy that operates

outside the boundaries of society, just like Kramer operated

outside the boundaries of that show Seinfeld, if you remember.

And the thing about this is this,

we live in a world that's so become increasingly flattened

and conformist, the guys like Bill Gorton nor guys like

Kramer, are being well,

the edges of them, of course, are being rounded out and the spaces for

them to exist in are being rounded out. And that's really what irks us

about this language. It's language that refuses to be

rounded out. It irks us in the same way that elements

of the Bible and biblical language irk us because it

refuses to bow to the algorithm. He refuses to be rounded

out. It reminds us that there are people in the world who actually do

think and talk like this and refuse to be rounded

out. And by the way, it's not just that word.

There will be other words that will come along in the lexicon as they have

in the last 10 years that you can't say,

that probably are more accurate

and more close to the actual nature

of who human beings are if you just take them as they

are and stop trying to round them out. By the

way, Bill Gorton's also the kind of guy who, if he's your friend,

will just like Kramer did in one episode of Seinfeld show

up at your enemy's house with a sock full of pennies and hit him with

it.

You need a guy like Bill Gorton in your life.

Hemingway reflects and exposes without judgment or condemnation, the

prejudices of his era as being normal for those times.

But he does it in a satirical and almost over the top way that

horrifies us in the now with our neo puritanical

secular public moral codes, or as

I said, our vainglorious attempts to round people out We

just refuse to be rounded out and just

want to go fishing.

My question to Libby, and this, of course, gets us into a whole long

conversation, is how do you deal with a friend who's part

of your friend group and almost everybody's got a Kramer in their friend group. I

I thought of like 3 guys I know who fit into the

Bill Gorton mode, at least 3. And I don't know how

it works for women, but for dudes, every dude knows at least 1

guy who's just He's just that guy,

like, that's it. Like and if you need something done, he'll ride and die with

you. And literally, you will hand him a sock full of pennies and be like,

go fix the problem, and you'll never hear about the problem again. They'll just go

fix it, and you don't you don't need to ask any details, the problem's been

fixed, and you'll never hear any blowback. So how

do you deal with somebody,

a friend in your friend group, who's Bill Gordon, who's just

Utre, who just says the things out loud that everybody's thinking,

but no one wants to say out loud.

You effing embrace him.

Effing away. Yeah. That was part of

well, reading this, it was so refreshing. I

just The times were just refreshing and not

because of that word, right, but because we it

actually showed, like, 1, not because of that

word, and 2, I don't

I don't know that using that Were that

frequently at in 1923 was

designed to actually make people feel a certain way. It was

part of the ling the common lingo ling language.

For me, he was more like The Charlie Sheen

and Two and A Half Men. Okay. Yeah. That works too. Yeah. Oh my god.

Like and as you were describing, I'm like, This is the Charlie Sheen

who you wanna hang out with and, you know, I

loved Two and A Half Men. I watched it every yeah. I

can watch it on rewind yeah, rewind,

replay, when it was first came out. I

mean, I Literally was my stomach would hurt because we

laughing so hard at the end of every at the end of every episode.

And it's funny. I don't know that I I would laugh as

hard, you know, now rewatching some of

those episodes, but I find I don't wanna watch

the ones with Ashton Kutcher. I'm like, that's boring. I want the ones

with Charlie Sheen. But it was because he wasn't

living on the edge, you know.

He was living kind of Acceptably, but in a way that many of us

wanna live, you know, at least part time.

Yeah. And,

I find I am almost ashamed

that I don't wanna laugh anymore. Right?

Like Well well, and it is one of the ironies of our era, and I

have it in my notes. It is one of the ironies of our era that

for all of the talk about millennials and Gen Zers being revolutionary,

they're actually quite conservative. And but

it's conservative in a different kind of way. It is it is this Neo

puritanical secular public moral code. This is sort

of everywhere. And if you even step a little bit outside

of that moral code, I'm gonna talk about cancel culture. The there's a there's a

there's a, you know, there's an arc from stepping outside of the code to to

cancel culture. It it it's, it's not that far of a leap. It's not that

far of a jump, but it is there. And

because they've grown up in an environment, an online entertainment

slash culture making environment where the things move so quickly that

the public moral code shift and shift and shift and shift and shift and shift.

You're constantly dancing from foot to foot. And to be outre is to

say is to reject all of that and just be like, no, I'm not gonna

I don't care. Okay about any of that. I'm just gonna say whatever it is

I'm gonna say. And

I don't know. I think you need more of that. I think that's truly not

revolutionary, but truly reformative. That's that's it's a

reformation not a revolution. I I would agree. I,

I 1, I agree that they think that the current

generation thinks they're revolution Mary, but that's because they don't understand

history. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And

revolutionary when everyone is saying the Same effing thing is not

revolutionary. You know, that's not courageous. That's, you

know, that's tribal. Yeah.

And, you know, and reactive thinking.

Yeah. So When I think of, like, the Bill, you know,

the Bill Gorton or the, you know, the Charlie Sheen or, you know, the

Kramer, you know, Who are those in my life? Like,

I embrace them and often I feel like that person. Right?

Mhmm. You know, I often hear, oh, how you're so

refreshing. Mhmm. And I'm like, why?

And, you know, It's because so many people aren't used to

people saying what they're thinking. Mhmm. You know?

Well and and And it does but the

the other rounding out the language, we're rounding out

everything so that The average

extends the average extends to, like, 80% of

every experience in our language, in our customer experience, in,

Yeah. In the homes we buy and the, you know, the food we eat, everything

has been averaged and rounded out.

It's Boring as all hell. So I've been

thinking a lot about this, particularly in light of the podcast, in light of what

we do here. Right? And not in

terms of how do we push the envelope, that's not really

it. And not even in terms of how are we original. I don't think you

could get to be original. I think everything's a derivative of everything else. There's just

no way you can get away from that. That's what I was taught at art

school. Everybody starts by copying, You know, a great artist, and then

you may stumble into something that's original of yourself,

if you are lucky, and it takes you like 20 years to stumble into something

that's original.

Okay. But I was interviewed on another pod on another show, basically, about this

show. We were talking about it in terms of leadership. And I I mentioned there,

and as I mentioned before on this show, multiple times that I'm a partisan

for free speech, right? Free speech is

required in order to have free

no, free thought and free speech operate

together. They they they walk hand they have to walk hand in hand.

If they don't, then you do get that averaging

out all the way to the edges, right? That

conformist compliance based, to your

point, tribal and reactive behavior. Okay? And and

and and thought and approach to problem solving. By the way, that

really, that really sort of,

stops you from being innovative as well in a technological sense, in a cultural sense,

in a philosophical sense, it just it just stops. Right. You don't get new ideas

because you don't have free speech because you don't have free thought. Okay.

How then can a person,

just in their own friend group, Be Original, when there's all

this social pressure, right, to kind of, to kind of pull in

and be conformist. And, and, and, you know, I don't mind if

you're conformist with your own friend group. That's probably the people you probably should conform

with the most. But past that,

Like, really? You know, you know, challenging

your own friend group, challenging your own family hard. Don't get me wrong. Trust me,

I I know this. But it is the space where

free thought has to live. Right? Or at

least has to start living if we wanna get a

pass this whole, like, flattening of the algorithm kind of nonsense that we're

experiencing right now. So,

1, I'll start and agree with the the insight that

everything is derivative. Right? Yeah. And

the more that we see and the more that we learn, we realize

how unoriginal a lot of our thoughts are, but that's just the

human condition. Yeah. There's a difference between being

derivative and conformist. Yeah. And conformist is when kind of the

mass Is viewing a certain way

thinks a certain way, and then, there are positions that are

maybe opposite or congenital To,

like, one way of thinking, and I I think it's always important to

look at things holistically and challenge the status quo, the

status quo being Conformity.

The way that I the way that I have always looked at

this Is that you need to

find the original you. And

so You touched on that earlier.

We start out by finding out the original

you by being the original others. Mhmm. Yeah.

And testing and trying different thoughts or clothes

or work or whatever. You know, You're given some

rules of the road that we're told work,

and if you try you wear that

Literally or theoretically, and then you can

determine for yourself whether it fits you or not Based

on how you feel in your life. Like, are you

depressed or are you empowered? Are you depressed or are you happy?

Are you? I always look for the word thrive

because thriving to me is what I

opt towards and what I work Towards being.

Mhmm. You know, and thriving is,

doesn't mean you're always like, I don't look to be happy, I look to be

fulfilled. You know, am I taking on new challenges? Am I learning new

things? Am I always curious and open

to hearing alternative ways so that I Can

generate, like so I can see

what's real in a way that I can't see what's real if I'm open and

close to ideas. Yep. And so

challenging folks for me is only about coming from a place

of positive intent and not shame.

Shaming or or, judging others. And so

for me, when you're Challenging the status

quo or you're challenging a conformist. The

challenge is only around,

Questioning what you know to be true and are there

other way are there other truths that maybe you don't know?

On and 1 e yeah. And, you know, so in many

families, in dysfunctional families, you know, when you're challenged,

It's about your raw your your hearing, you're wrong,

you should be ashamed of how you're feeling, like me with the

Charlie Sheen. Yeah. I'm laughing at

the guy and having a ball. I yeah. There's a part of me that

yeah. It's society is telling me you should be ashamed of it, but he's

effing Funny. Right. So but everything is about

your intent. And for me, my intent is always about

unleashing someone's potential, Helping

someone see a path towards thriving.

And not about wanting to change them Or have

them see my way, but more about providing information

that may help them to see a potential that they never saw

before. Yeah. And that's what I

love. I had alluded to earlier when

about Hemingway is I don't feel like he's judgmental

About yeah. He kind of receives people where

they are, you know, and that's what's so

fun about him. Right? Well, and when you, when you

receive people. So I think of, I think of,

talking about receiving people as they are. I think of a character

that probably wouldn't work. You talked about Charlie Sheen on Two and

a Half Men. And again, relating this to

television, movies, Books, there's something in fiction we can draw from it that

applied real life here. Right. A character like Andy Sipowicz

as he was written on NYPD Blue played by the great Dennis Franz.

Okay? You can't get that guy on

television now. You just can't get that

guy. Hey, that guy's character, that,

actually, not even that guy, that character as it was written wouldn't make it out

of most writer's rooms, and it wouldn't even walk

in too much most writers' rooms in people's heads.

And And I'm not saying that Steven Bochco and the writers that he hired for

that show in the nineties were better.

I'm merely saying that their life experience had at least a Bill Gordon

in it. Mhmm. Where I am concerned is how many

folks' life experiences don't at least have 1 person

who's not parenting whatever the

terms of the day are. Or

or alternatively, maybe this is the minority report, were all

so wedded to, again, the algorithms of the social media

forms that that's where we're getting our stuff from the day. And

then even if we were to be the nail that sticks up that's gonna get

hammered down, We're not getting hammered down by our peers.

They don't need to. We're getting hammered down by what's in the algorithm.

That's where we're getting hammered down. And, again, that's that's that's sort of I wanna

close the loop on that thought that I started with before you spoke

there before you responded, is I'm I'm seeking to do with this podcast, something that

is something that's that's the nail that sticks up. Right? And that won't

be hammered down. And so I've begun more and more to think

that books like The Sun Also Rises or books like,

War and Peace, which we we just read the introduction to that, last

episode. And we're gonna be pursuing that book all next year because it's just

it's Tolstoy. It's a beast, kids. It's 1600

pages. You know, there's a lot

there. Or City of God by Augustine, another book that

we've been pursuing for the last couple of years, or

Dickens or Willa Cather. These are books that,

just like Dennis Franz, just like, or not Dennis Franz. Sorry. Just like Andy

Sipowicz, just like Charlie Sheen's character, just like Bill Gorton,

just like, just like Kramer on Seinfeld.

These are examples of things and

ideas and people that refuse to be hammered down. And

somebody somewhere has gotta be, gotta refuse to be hammered down.

There has to be some pushback. Right? Even if it's small, even if it's

a pinprick, there has to be some pushback in order

to, to your point, unleash other folks' potential. Someone has to

show the way. And I don't think I'm alone in

this thought. I think there's many other folks that are doing this in my space,

so I I take heart from that. But I do think it is an uphill

an uphill battle, as my father used to say both ways

to school. It is,

but If you don't

try Yeah. You know, then it is

certainly about a lost, Yeah. But if

you just, you know, continue to do what you believe is right, you

know, you may be being heard and

observed and planting Seeds that you

don't see, you know, grow or flourish

until, you know, months or years or, you know, or

decades, Decades past, but that's where we

just need to be patient and you just need to do what you know is

the right thing and to come at it from Honestly, to come

at it from a place of love and positive intent Mhmm.

Versus, you know, anger or shaming. Yeah. Because anger or shaming will

shut Folks down and they won't hear anything at all. Right.

But if you are coming from a place of positive intent and love, you actually

don't have the judgment. You're doing it for you you're doing it because you

believe it's in their best interest. That doesn't mean that you don't

know how to take care of yourself. You're not the that this is

where the Robert Cohn, like being a boxer, like,

you know, you you still know, like, just because you're kind

And loving and, you know, and thinking of others

doesn't mean you can't take care of yourself. Right? I told my I I tell

my daughters, like, you could be good, That's fine, be good,

but don't be naive, and don't be- That's right,

exactly, exactly. And don't be, don't be

defenseless, basically. Yeah. Otherwise, you'll have Harvard, and

what's happening at Harvard happened. That's called my invite.

It is indeed. Yeah. I told you it's like a bull.

It's a flag for the bull. It's a red flag.

I can't. It's okay. My eye off of it, Jake. For

those of you listening today on this episode, I am wearing a

Harvard pullover. I did not go to

Harvard. I do know many people who went to Harvard. I've known

many fine people from Harvard. To paraphrase from our

former president Donald Trump, there's many fine people there at Harvard,

and that's all I'll say about that. I'll tell you. It is it

is waving in front of Libby, like a,

A red flag for that. A red flag. A bullfighter.

Speaking of bullfighting. As a tourist, I y'all just add

another layer. That's probably yeah. Taurus with the red flag. I can't

ignore it. She can't she can't ignore it. She cannot ignore it. By the way,

one last point, and then we're gonna we're gonna go back to the book. One

last point, I found it ironic, and I thought you would Appreciate this as a

person with a background in in finance and moving money around. I did

find it interesting that Bill Gorton's creditors

always knew where he was. By the way, so did Robert Cohn's creditors,

Jake's creditors. The women couldn't find them.

The nation state couldn't find them. United States of America couldn't find Jake

Barnes anywhere in Europe when he was in Europe.

But But the bank where he owed

money, they knew where the hell he was all the time.

I found that to be ironic and

interesting. Back to the book,

back to The Sun Also Rises, we're gonna move forward

to chapter 13. We're gonna read a section here,

about talent. Particularly

Talent Inn, as Libby brought up earlier, Talent in bullfighting.

This is during their Spanish Pamplona trip.

We got into Pamplona late in the afternoon to the bus stop in front of

the Hotel Montoya. Out of the plaza, they were stringing

electric light wires to light the plaza for the Fiesta.

A few kids came up when the bus stopped, and a customs officer for the

town made all the people getting down from the bus open their bundles on the

sidewalk. We went into the hotel, out of the stairs, I met Montoya. He shook

hands with us smiling in his embarrassed way. Your friends are

here, he said. Mister Campbell? Yes. Mister Cohn and mister

Campbell and Lady Ashley. He smiled as though there were something

I would hear about. Where did they get in? Yesterday. I've

saved you the rooms you had. That's fine. Did you give mister Campbell the room

on the plaza? Yes. All the rooms we looked at. Where are our friends

now? I think they went to the pelota. And how about the bulls?

Montoya smiled. Tonight, he said. Tonight at 7 o'clock, they bring in the

Villarobos, and tomorrow come the Mjollors. Do you wanna go down?

Oh, yes. I've never seen, Desen Cajon

de Rada, And I butchered that terribly folks, sorry. But Doya

put his hand on my shoulder. I'll see you there. He smiled again.

He always smiled as though bullfighter were a very special secret

between the 2 of us. A rather shocking, but really very deep secret that

we knew about. He always smiled as though there were something lewd about the secret

to outsiders, but that it was something that we understood. It would

not do to expose it to people who would not understand Your friend,

he is an aficionado too. Montoya smiled at

Bill. Yes. He came all the way from New York to see the San Franines.

Yes, Montoya politely disbelieved, but he is not the aficionado

like you. He put his hand on my shoulder again, embarrassedly.

Yes, I said he's a real aficionado, but he's not aficionado like

you are. Officione means passion. An

aficionado is one who is passionate about the bullfights.

All the good bullfighters stayed at Montoya's hotel, that is those with

officion stayed there. The commercial bullfighter stayed once,

perhaps, and they did not come back. The good ones came each year. In

Montoya's room were their photographs. The photographs were dedicated

to Juanito Montoya or to his sister. The photographs of

the bullfighters Montoya had really believed in were framed.

Photographs of bullfighters who had been without officiante, Montoya kept in a drawer of his

desk. They often had the most flattering inscriptions, but they did not

mean anything. One day, Montoya took them all out and dropped them in a

wastebasket. He did not want them around.

We often talked about bulls and bullfighters. I had stopped at the Montoya for

several years. We never talked for very long at a time. It was simply the

pleasure of discovering what we each felt. Men would come in from distant

towns before they left Pamplona to stop and talk for a few minutes with Madoya

about bulls. These men were aficionados. Those who

were aficionados could always get rooms even when the hotel was full.

Montoya introduced me to some of them. They were always very polite at first. They

didn't abuse them very much I should be an American. Somehow it was taken for

granted that an American could not have officiant. He might simulate

it or confuse it with excitement, but he could not really have it.

When they saw that I had officiant and there was no password, no

set questions, I could bring it out, rather it was a sort of oral spiritual

examination with the questions always a little on the defensive and never apparent.

There was always the same embarrassed putting of the hand on the shoulder, alright,

buen hombre. But nearly always, there was the actual

touching. It seemed as though they wanted to touch you to make it certain.

Montoya could forgive anything of a bullfighter who had officiant.

He could forgive attacks of nerves, panic, bad

unexplainable actions, all sorts of lapses. For one who had

officion, he could forgive anything. At once, he forgave me all

my friends. Without his ever saying anything, they were

simply a little something shameful between us, like the spilling

open of the horses in bullfighting.

Short clip there, but something very important in his

description of official, his description of passion.

From bullfighting, to boxing, to writing novels,

from drinking, to romancing women, from the

aforementioned boxing, all the way even to fishing.

Hemingway wants you to understand something in The Sun Also Rises that I think a

lot of people miss. Misfocus talent

is corrupted when baser appetites assert themselves.

During their time in Spain, the characters in The Sun Also Rises,

Jake and Lady Ashley and Bill Gordon and Robert

Cohn and Mike Campbell and the whole crew, they

ended up enjoying a lot of things. They were involved in a lot of decadence,

but those things ended up destroying them.

And Hemingway in this book wrestles with writing the

truth as he sees it, but also judging it and and condemning the

results of that truth played out in the lives of the people around him.

And Hemingway only really judged them in terms of the work. And

you can see this in his relationship with F. Scott Fitzgerald. This is very

important. People don't understand this. The knock on Hemingway

is that somehow he ruined Fitzgerald. No.

Fitzgerald ruined himself, and

all Hemingway did this is not a defense of Hemingway, this is an

explanation. All Hemingway did was he held up a mirror to Fitzgerald

and said, look in the mirror, look at where the

consequences of your choices are going to take you. There's a great

essay in A Movable Feast,

where he talks about Zelda

being crazy, except he doesn't use that term, and how she's

talking to him about something and he watches her eyes change. And he

realizes that Fitzgerald isn't going to be a great writer anymore because,

to paraphrase Removable Feast, auks do not

share.

When you make a decision as an artist about who you're going to make a

life with, When you make a decision about who you're going to get into a

relationship with as one of these bullfighters, which we're gonna read in the next

section, makes a decision to get all mixed up with lady Brett

Ashley, and almost loses his stuff.

When you make a decision about that, that has consequences, and

Hemingway really believed that. Now, if we look

at Hemingway the writer and we look at Hemingway the man, he

was no moral, moral avatar

here. Let's just be frank. The man had 3,

maybe it was 4 ex wives, multiple lovers. He

was the Pablo Picasso of, of the literary world. He,

he, he made relationships and disposed of women and

children, just as quickly as he possibly could.

And yet, he did it because he wanted, just like Pablo

Picasso, to subsume everything to

the art, because the art was the thing, whether

the art is writing or painting bulls

dying at Guernica.

Talent unmoored from a moral core though, and this is my

judgment against Hemingway, wafts in the wind a little

bit. And again, you saw this with Picasso, but you also saw with Gertrude

Stein. And Hemingway was

writing his this novel, The Sun Also Rises, in the middle of

the wave that was coming through, that started in the 18 eighties in

Europe. Of the wave of the modernist nihilism.

That again, it started 50 years before with Nietzsche, and it sort of

not even really come to its apotheosis with World War one. It was just

beginning to come to its apotheosis and wouldn't really come to its

apotheosis in rants until after World War 2,

when they were utterly destroyed by nihilism taken

to its logical end.

He was writing in the middle of that dynamic, and then on the

other side of that was the dynamic of Marxism.

And I've often said it

mostly when we talk about Alexander Solzhenitsyn and the Gulag Archipelago

and other Marxist writers are Marxist dissenters, but

I don't blame anybody for believing that Marxism could work between

like 18/80 and 1950. I don't blame any of those people because

they didn't have the evidence that we have post 1950 that Marxism

clearly does not work. Not just

communism, the ideology of Marxism does not

work. It doesn't work anywhere where it's

applied, it doesn't work anywhere where it's tried, and it infects everything

like a disease. Well, people didn't know that in

1923, they didn't know that in The Sun Also Rises.

It was it seemed like a new thing, like a new experiment. And

Hemingway is writing in that

milieu as well. And he's trying to place his

talent in that spot.

Miskin folk misfocus and misconstrued

and misplaced talent can be corrupted by worldly

appetites.

Libby, this is something that leaders struggle with on the

regular, is where to place their talents and how to avoid them being

corrupted by the the Sturm und Drang, right,

of the world that they are in, the

forces battering against them. How can leaders with

talent take

action and and spot spot the corruption of their talent or

spot the things that will corrupt their talent or corrupt their focus. And then how

can they take action against those things? How do they how do they

preserve their, to use the Spanish word, their

officion, their passion. Right?

This is a a theme that I've Communicated a couple of

times through our past episodes.

But and, you know, and wanted to touch on earlier,

with, you know, around conformity or challenging conformity

is the, you know, the willingness to walk yeah, to stand alone and

to walk alone. And,

your tribal thinking, gets you

from kind of Losing sight of the

original you. Mhmm. Losing sight of your

morals and values, and choosing the

the tribe over your your morals,

your personal integrity. And you need To

be willing to walk alone,

if you're going to challenge Kind of the status

quo and or the morals behind the way things

are being being done.

So I all I believe that you always, As a

leader need to be, you know, questioning you know,

1, have a strong mission, have a strong,

set of goals and objectives, And have, you

know, a strong value statement as we mentioned

before we got on the podcast Google. Mhmm.

Don't be evil. Apparently, that's

okay now. You know, you know, But

they were clearly challenging themselves around not being evil,

you know, early on in their business. But

Having those written is different than actually having it embedded in the

culture, but as long as you have the mechanisms in

place to continue be reevaluating what you're

doing against your mission, your objectives, values,

And you

see something emerge That may

threaten kind of your competitive position in business, your

financial positioning in business.

You need like leaders need to make the tough decisions,

do not go against what you stand for or doing the right

thing In pursuit of maybe being

competitive or financial in the short you know, financially viable in

the short term. Yeah. So it is always

about being vigilant about your your mission, your goals, and

your and your values, and this is even on a personal level

2. If you don't have the mechanisms in place,

you know, to to make sure that you're continuously

reevaluating that, You can be shifting the goal

lines on a subconscious level

very easily to the point where you may have actually sacrificed

You have a bit of your integrity here and a bit of it here

to the point where when you wake up,

You've sacrificed your integrity

quite a bit. Mhmm. And some some will choose

instead of Admitting they were wrong or they went

down a wrong a wrong path because being wrong,

especially today, Can get you, like, canceled

or ostracized and and questioned.

Many, And we see this a lot nowadays, will continue to

double down even, you know, at the cost of their

soul. Yeah. Because they

are weren't willing to admit that they were wrong. Now when I talk

about mechanisms in place, you know, from a business perspective,

we have a lot of great in place. A lot of people

don't like the discipline associated with, you know,

those recurring management meetings, those recurring, like, Types of

reports, those recurring conversations,

but that discipline is actually what keeps

you on course. Right.

You know, so I'm getting specific in a business

perspective, but In a life

perspective, I also have disciplines. Yeah. I work out

every single day. Right. I yeah. And,

like, I I work out like I brush my teeth. It's not a if

I'm going to or when, I do. Yep. And that's a

moment of quiet and solitude and self reflection, you

know. Are there other moments, you know, On a regular

basis that you're constantly reevaluating.

If you're feeling sad or remorseful for For

me, it's even a moment, like, what is the you know,

what's causing that and being reflexive about it. But if, you

know, If you have something that's happening, like, maybe

you're, feeling lonely or depressed,

Yeah. Words I don't really know anymore. Mhmm.

But if you're seeing that extend behind what would be a

normal cycle, What what could be the root cause for

that? Where are you, like, self evaluating? So I said a

lot in there, but Well, you the 2 things

you said or the 1 thing you said there, and then I wanna key off

on a little bit. You know, In that passage, where he's talking about

bullfighting and being an aficionado, officio means

passion. Okay. One of the

worst pieces of advice we give college students is follow your

passion. It's one of the worst pieces of advice ever.

We don't say follow your discipline

because that's not as sexy. But

discipline plus passion gets you an outcome that's greater than

either one of them alone. Correct. It's art and

science combined. Right.

As a leader, how do you preserve your passion?

And and that's not necessarily a how do you avoid burnout question.

It's just how do you get up every day continuing to wanna

do the same thing. Or maybe it's maybe it's not even that. Maybe it's more

of, does the at a

certain point, the passion and the discipline now merge together, and now you can't tell

1 from the other. You can't tell I can't tell 1 from the other because

the the discipline is the how. Yeah. Right. And it's so

ingrained. You know, for me, It's just a way of being,

but, you know, I had to learn those practices over time and

what works and what doesn't. Yep. But the way,

you know, for me it's always about staying curious and one of the things

I fundamentally, you Yep. My 2 belief structures,

especially now, where they they're feeling

challenged quite a bit by what we're seeing is I refuse to

hate, Mhmm. And I refuse to lose my curiosity.

And, you know, curiosity is always, like,

it's at that seeking to understand, and

that to me has always been the drive. It's like, what

can I learn next? What don't I know? You know?

And for many people, like, admitting that they don't know something feels

like they aren't the expert or they're not, you know, Or they're not

valuable or or whatever. For me,

like like, that's the pursuit of mastery, and

the aficionado is the pursuit of mastery

and that, you know, curiosity and discipline.

You know, so as as Jocko would say, Like, discipline

is freedom because when it's yeah. When you've when you

have that discipline, you're, like,

It's your muscle memory. It's not work. You know, for people who don't

have discipline,

you know, I don't like, You're having to think through doing things on a repeated

basis. Oh, that sounds boring. Well,

they're constant they're using their decision.

You only have so much space for decisions in a day.

Mhmm. And your decision fatigue will be

Accelerated and elevated if you're constantly having to recreate

your foundations, for do the way that you do

things. So discipline is freedom.

Discipline is freedom. Yeah. So,

Discipline is Freedom. Yeah. It's and and and you talk about working out. I

mean, I work out 3 days a week. When I don't go workout, you know,

Well, I work on more than that. But, I mean, like, when I don't when

I go to go go to the gym and pick up heavy things and put

them down, you know, then my my day is off and then I've gotta

supplement it with something else. Right? I gotta move the boxes around.

Right? Or when

I don't establish a rhythm with my, or when I'm out of

rhythm with my prayer or reflect or reflection life, that's a discipline as well.

Then I've gotta adjust other things. And then, you know, you wind up in this

I wind up at least, and I know a lot of leaders do, wind up

it or I don't know a lot of leaders, but people Wind up in the

space of you're you're literally pouring out of 1

1 box you just filled into another box that you're trying to fill. And it's

this this catch up mode. Right? It's terrible.

And that's because you've abandoned you've abandoned discipline in in for a particular

moment. Or I even see, you know, like, I'm someone who

takes tons of notes in meetings, but I never look at at them again. For

me, this the mechanism for of writing is what

burns it in my brain. And, but

I've tried, like, am I missing something? Because A lot of people,

you know, as a leader, a lot of other leaders, they don't have, you know,

recurring management team meetings, you know, they don't have standardized

ways Of checking progress against priorities or

reprioritizing. There isn't a sense of

accountability and, you know, and, Yeah. They seem to be

knocking it out of the park from moving up the ladder perspective.

But the second that I start to do that. Yeah. I'm like, well, maybe

I test some of that and see what happens. It's chaos

and it's you know, Well, I call that kind of an

action an activity based environment. They're

not delivering squat or they're delivering

A third or a 1 20th of what you're delivering

because they have so much wasted energy On all,

you know, the b s, on the fire drills, on, you know, not

on, you know, duplication of efforts or missing opportunities

For as the rest of us who do you have some discipline in that, you're

able to produce so much more from a value

creation perspective Because you're not wasting energy

on BS, on non value add activities. Yeah.

So, that's where the discipline is freedom

perspective, but you need to create it so you're not you just

do The basics and

not, constantly recreate it. But

Yep. Yep. Yeah. Regardless, the key is

Stay curious. Refuse to lose your curiosity.

Refuse to use your curiosity about your fellow man.

Refuse to lose your curiosity about,

get new products or new ways of doing things. Refuse

to assume Negative intent.

What don't I understand about this person's experience that has them

feeling a certain way? But Alright. I know we need to

move on. Yeah. No. No. No. Back to the book. Back we're almost

yeah. We are returning the corner here. So back to the book, back to The

Sun Also Rises. We're We're gonna pick up in chapter 18 and talk

about well, talk about the different ways in which we

enter the bullring and the different talents we

find there that have officiant

and discipline. I looked through the

glasses and saw the 3 matadors. Romero was in the center, Belmont on

his left, Marcial on his right. Back of them were their

people and behind the bandit the banditrilios, back at the

passageway and in the open space of the corral, I saw the picadors. Romero

was wearing a black suit. His tricornered hat was low down over his eyes. I

could not see his face clearly under the hat, but it looked badly marked.

He was looking straight ahead. Graciel was smoking a

cigarette guardedly holding it in his hand. Belmont looked ahead, his face

wan in yellow, his lone wolf jaw out. He was looking at

nothing. Neither he nor Romero seemed to have anything in common with the others.

They were all alone. The president came in. There was hand clapping

above us in the grandstand and I handed the glasses to Brett.

There was applause. The music started. Brett looked through the glasses. Here, take them, she

said. Through the glasses, I saw Belmont speaking to Romero. Marcial

straightened up and dropped his cigarette and looking straight ahead, their heads back, their free

arms swinging, the 3 matadors walked out. And behind them

came all the procession, Opening out all striding in step, all the capes

furled, everybody with free arms swinging, and behind rode the picadors, their peaks

rising like lances. Behind all came the 2 trains of mules and the

bull riding the bullring servants. The matadors bowed holding their hats on

before the president's box and then came over to the barrera below us. Pedro

Romero took off his gold bro his heavy gold brocaded cape and handed it

over the fence with a sword handler. He said something to the sword handler.

Close below us, we saw Romero's lips were puffed. Both his eyes were discolored. His

face was discolored and swollen. The sword handler took the cape, looked up at

Brett, and came over to us and handed up the cape. Spread it out

in front of you, I said. Brett leaned forward. The cape was heavy and smoothly

stiff with gold. The sword handler looked back, shook his head, and said something. A

A man beside me leaned over toward Brett. He doesn't want you to spread it,

he said. You should fold it and keep it on your lap. Brett folded the

heavy cape. Romero did not look up at us.

He was speaking to Belmont. Belmont had set his formal cape over to some friends.

He looked across at them and smiled. His wolf smile that was only with the

mouth. Romero leaned over the Barrera and

asked for a water jug. The sword handler brought it, and Romero poured water

over the percala of his fighting cape and then stuffed the lower folds in the

sand with a slivered foot. What's that for? Brett

asked. To give it the weight in the wind. His face looks bad,

Bill said. He feels very badly, Brett said. He should be in bed.

The 1st bull was Belmont. Belmont was very good. But because he got 30,000

pesetas and people had stayed in line all night to buy tickets to see him,

The crowd demanded that he should be more than very good. Balbhat's great

attraction is working close to the bull. In bullfighting, they speak of the terrain of

the bull and the terrain of the bullfighter. As long as a bullfighter stays in

his own terrain, he is comparatively safe. Each time he enters into the terrain of

the bull, he's in great danger. Belmont, in his best days, worked always in

the train of the bull. This way, he give the sensation of coming

tragedy. People went to the Corada to see Belmont, to be given tragic

sensations and perhaps to see the death of Belmont. 15 years ago, they said if

you wanted to see Belmont, you should go quickly while he was still alive. Since

then, he has killed more than a 1000 bulls. When he retired,

the legend grew up about how his bullfighting had been, and when he came out

of retirement, the public were disappointed because no real man could work as close to

the bulls as Belmont was supposed to have done, not, of course, even

Belmont. Also, Belmont imposed conditions and assisted

his bulls should not be too large or too dangerously armed with and so the

element that was necessary to give the sensation of tragedy was not there. And the

public, who wanted 3 times as much from Belmont, who was sick with a fistula

as Belmont had ever been able to give, felt defrauded and cheated. And Belmont's

jaw came out further in contempt, and his face turned yellower, and he moved with

greater difficulty as his pain increased. And, finally, The crowd were

actively against him, and he was utterly contemptuous and indifferent.

He had meant to have a great afternoon, and instead, it was an afternoon of

sneers, shouted insults and finally, a volley of cushions and pieces of

bread and vegetables thrown down at him in the plaza where he had had

his greatest triumphs. His jaw only went further

out. Sometimes he turned to smile that tooth long jawed

lip with smile when he was called, sometimes, particularly insulting, and

always the pain that any moment produced grew stronger and stronger

until finally his yellow face was parchment color. And after a second bull was dead

and the throwing of the bread and cushions was over, after he has saluted the

president with the same wolf jawed smile and contemptuous eyes and handed his

sword over to the Barrera to be wiped and put back in his case, He

passed through into the Callejon and leaned on the Barrera below us, his head on

his arms, not seeing, not hearing anything, only going through his pain.

When he looked up, finally, he asked for a drink of water. He swallowed a

little, rinsed his mouth, spat the water, took his cape, and went back

into the ring. Because they were against

Belmont, the public were for Romero. From the moment he left the Barrera and went

toward the bull, they applauded him. Belmont watched Romero too, watched him always

without seeming to. He paid no attention to Marcial. Marcial was the sort of thing

he knew all about. He had come out of retirement to compete with Marcial, knowing

it was a competition gained in advance. He had expected to

compete with Marci Allen and the other stars of the decadence of bullfighting. And he

knew that the sincerity of his own bullfighting would be so set off by the

false aesthetics of the bullfighters of the decadent period that he would only

have to be in the ring. His return from retirement

had been spoiled by Romero. Romero did always smoothly, calmly, and

beautifully what he, Belmont, could only bring himself to do now. Sometimes

The crowd felt it. Even the people from Biarritz, even the American ambassador saw it

finally. It was a competition that Belmont would not enter because it would lead only

to a bad horn, wound, or death. Belmont was no longer well enough.

He no longer had his greatest moments in the ball ring. He was not sure

that there were any great moments. Things are not the same, and now life only

came in flashes. He had flashes of the old greatness with his bulls? But they

were not of value because he had discounted them in advance when he had picked

the bulls out for their safety, getting out of a motor and leaning on a

fence, looking at the herd on the ranch of his friend, the bull breeder.

So he had 2 small manageable bulls without much horns, and when he felt the

greatness again coming, just a little of it, through the pain that was

always with him. It had been discounted and sold in advance,

and it did not give him a good feeling. It was the

greatness, but it did not make bullfighting wonderful

to him

I love that passage. As a person who's done combat sports for

many, many years and played rugby. I

identified deeply with Belmont in that passage.

There's things they want from you, the crowd, that you never were and

never could be, and it was never really up to the crowd. This

is what Rocky taught us way back in the day and then Mike Tyson taught

it to us and continues to teach it to us even now.

There's things they want from you that you will never be able to give them

because wasn't what was on offer in the 1st

place. What was on offer was

your talent if you're a fighter or a bullfighter.

And the talent well, the talent goes as far as it

goes, and then it's done.

We see the same thing in the arts. We see the same thing in writing,

but we also see it, like I said, in sport. And,

right around the time that Ernest Hemingway was writing this book,

right about the time it was published, Eric Liddell. Some of you may

remember the movie Chariots of Fire from back in the day. Eric

Liddell refused to run the 100 meters at the

1924 Olympics, 2 years before the publication of The

Sun Also Rises, because the 100 meters

One hundred meters was run on a Sunday, and Eric Liddell was a

practicing Christian. And what that meant was that he was a Christian

all the way down to his bones.

I'm sure this dichotomy was in

Hemingway's own head, and I don't know whether Hemingway was Christian or not,

probably not, but who knows what was in the man's heart.

Right? And he had to have

seen I've seen observed this and read about it in the papers in

France and wondered,

just like you wondered when he watched The Bullfighters.

Miles Davis, by the way, much, much later in the century,

would turn his back on audiences to play his music.

There's something here, whether the performer is a

bullfighter or a jazz musician, whether the performer is Hemingway at his

typewriter, or Eric Liddell on the

Olympic course. Something here, when you're giving the crowd something they

wanted, it's from your own officiant,

But you can only give them what you have, particularly when

they want so much more.

We have a real struggle with this these days in our time because,

well, quite frankly, We all live with audiences

now in ways that Hemingway could have only imagined.

We're famous collectively, all of us to about a 100 people and

famous only means influential, but we can only give them

what they want. Actually,

No. We can't give them what they want.

And what they want is all of us. Right? They want our hearts, They want

our souls, they want our minds, and they want them all right now.

And that's not for us to give.

The excellent bullfighter, like Belmont, smiles his

wolf smile because that's a boundary, or like you don't bother

Mike Tyson on a plane after he's told you he's not gonna give you an

autograph. And then when you hassle the man, you're surprised when

he punches you. By the way, look that up, that

actually did happen to some dude.

There have to be limits and boundaries. Right? You don't owe

anybody anything. I think Frank Sinatra said this back in the day. You don't

owe the audience anything other than a good performance. That's

all you get. And then after that, we'll smile our

smiles as performers or as combat artists

or as jazz musicians, and then we all go

home because that's what you were there for. That's why Miles

Davis turned his back on the crowd. You were there for the performance.

You weren't really there for me.

As we turn the corner here on the podcast and we start to wrap

up, how can leaders I'm gonna change this

last question a little bit from what we have in our notes, Libby, as I'm

thinking about it. How can leaders

know what's the performance versus what's more to give?

Because leaders sometimes have trouble turning their back on the crowd. They sometimes

have trouble setting those boundaries. We saw something like

this in in Spears, Julius Caesar, right?

Where Julius Caesar says to Calpurnia before he goes out to

get stabbed in the Senate, always I am

Caesar. Right? Like, I'm always that guy.

So Libby, how do we how do leaders find their way

in all of this. How do they how do they

become either Belmont or or, you know, or Romero

or the kid? Right? Like, how do you

and there's so much here in that little section in The Sun Also Rises, the

dynamics between the 3 competitors, which, again, I resonated

with because I you know, the kind of life I've lived. Like, I know what

it's like to go out against a competitor in a ring or on field

who's just as good as you are and has put in just as much amount

of time as you are and as you have and and, you know, you're leaving

it all out on the field there. And it doesn't matter. I will tell you

when I played rugby games in the middle of Minnesota when it was, like, 38

degrees and I'm wearing those little shorts and that little shirt, and I'm freezing cold

for 80 minutes, I'm not looking at the crowd. I don't care

about them. I don't care that you showed up. I don't care if you clap

and I don't care if you boo. It doesn't really matter to me.

I'm dead focused on that guy over there. Or when

I go out into a ring at a jujitsu tournament or a

taekwondo tournament, all of the rest of all of that stuff,

even the voice of my coach just

just disappears. It's like it wipes out, and all I see is

that guy over there and my plan

for whatever it is I'm gonna do to him.

That's it. Until the 1st punch is round. Until the 1st punch is, and

then we're all gonna we're exactly. Then we're all gonna change it up after that.

That's right. Yeah. What what's

really, There's a cop there's 2 or 3 key

threads in this, but the first is, 1, I'd rather be

respected than liked,

And too many leaders wanna be liked,

you know, and so, they make

easy Decisions, not

hard decisions. You know, and they yeah. And there's that

phrase that, you know, easy decisions, hard life, hard decisions, easy

life. And always focus on doing the right

thing, not necessarily the popular thing. You know, and

so, Again, not not wanting to be liked,

but wanting to be respected. 2,

Regardless of whether you do the thing to be liked or respected, the crowd will

always move on. You know? Like, so

you may be the The the king of the day, but

once people have what they want, you know, they're gonna look for the next,

yeah, dopamine fill, and it won't be it won't be you.

So that likeness is ephemeral and if you're continuously

chasing it, what do you have to sacrifice

In order to, you know, be liked into perpetuity.

We have a lot of politicians that have sacrificed a lot of their

If they had morals to start with, we could you kind of question whether they

do now in the pursuit of being popular.

Yeah. So there's that theme of wanting to be respected

versus liked, making hard decisions versus easy

decisions. Tribal decisions are easy,

because, you know, you'll be accepted at you know, by going on with the tribe.

Going counter to the tribe, that's hard. That may mean that you're walking alone. It

also may mean that you're killed. But would you rather die with your

morals intact or, you know, or having sacrificed your

soul. 2nd is like there's, you know, there's t I

yeah. Teddy Roosevelt's Man in the Arena. Yeah.

Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, you know,

any we're all that's just the modern day arena

And we're all people in the crowd. The only

I only care about it when I'm the man in the rear In the

man I'm the man in the the arena or women

or person, you know, in the arena fighting the battle. You

don't know how complex you know, you don't know what's

required or how complex it is unless you're the one who's actually

taking the throws and, you know, And and the punches.

So I have the respect for the individual who's in the arena.

Yeah. Whether it's the bullfighter or,

you know, a a leader in a business who's having to make really, really tough

decisions, Yeah. Or in your personal life and family.

It's easy to judge from the outside when you don't pay any consequences

For, the recommendations and things that you're pushing

for. So when you're the man in the arena,

You take what it take you know, do what it takes to win,

but within the rules of the game. Yeah. So we had in the

arena, respect versus light. Yeah. And as we all

know, like, I'll I'll finish on this. I always had this

instinct that I wanted to be I wanted silver and not gold.

And, that's been a thread for a very, very long time,

and I never quite Fully understood it until I got

a little older, but what it was is there's so much noise around

1st place. There's always so much noise around the gold. Yes.

Silver and swimming can be a second a second slower, but no one's

paying attention to you. Like, for me, the achievement

And what I had to put myself through was the the accomplishment.

It wasn't the recognition and the noise that comes from it,

and, you know, you start to lose yourself when you start

paying attention to the noise around gold and first. Silver keeps

you focused on the achievement and achievement for achievement's sake because it

pushes you to do what you didn't know you could do.

The Minnesota Rapper atmosphere back in the day used to

say, I'm not the best, but I'm in the

top 2. Love it. I think that's a

great way to finish.

And with that, I'd like to thank Libby Younger

for coming on the podcast this year. And it's been an

immense pleasure to get to know you better, Libby. And I look forward to having

you on the podcast next season, around these great

books and these great insights.

And, I look forward to continuing to collaborate with

you, on bringing these books and these insights to

folks And, and doing something that's truly,

I think anyway, truly unique and truly interesting right

now in the podcasting landscape. So Once again

from yeah, thank you. From all of us here at

the Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast,

We're