The Hardest Part of Questioning What You Believe | Tim Miller

Ryan Holiday (0:01)

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tonal.com promo code TDS for $200 off. My guest and I today have a lot in common. Talking about Tim Miller, he's the host of Bulwark Podcast, which I'm a big fan of. We have similar stories in that we both sort of turned our backs on the life career that we had before, that we were successful in, but at some level didn't sit right with our soul. But much more interested in that sort of turn, that story. How do you decide to make a big change because of your conscience? How do you know when it is courageous and right, as opposed to self-indulgent or irrational and impulsive? I was hit very hard by his book, Why We Did It, The Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell. Then he and The Bulwark have a bunch of great sub stacks and newsletters which I subscribe to and you should too.

You know what's weird about Twitter is it's like, because I'm not on it at all.

Tim Miller (2:10)

Yeah.

Ryan Holiday (2:10)

And so they'll just tell me that this thing happened.

Yeah. It's actually an illustration of how insolent and crazy that world is. That it can happen and not do like, it doesn't bleed over to real life like at all. You're not even aware.

Tim Miller (2:26)

Yeah. I mean, do you, we've talked about this before but have you seen any dip in audience because of people mad at you over various politics?

Ryan Holiday (2:37)

I'm sure. I don't know how you would measure it exactly. I mean, I'm sure it's not good to say things that some people don't like.

Like, if it's a percentage of the population and a percentage of people don't like, I'm sure that's not great for business. The thing I always find funny is people go like, you're going to piss off half your audience. There's this weird, very American view that like, first off, everyone who consumes everything is evenly split.

Tim Miller (3:02)

Yeah, right.

Ryan Holiday (3:03)

Democrat, Republican, or Trump, no Trump. And then also that the rest of the world doesn't exist.

Tim Miller (3:08)

Right.

Ryan Holiday (3:09)

Like, because it's not 50-50 in England. Right, sure. You know, like, even if 50% of people in England were lower-case C conservative, they're not 50% Republican.

Tim Miller (3:20)

Yeah, right.

Ryan Holiday (3:21)

So there's like this weird thing where people think you're like somehow committing, like, career suicide.

Tim Miller (3:26)

I guess global stuff. I don't even think about that. Yeah.

Ryan Holiday (3:28)

Yeah. And like, I think people forget that if you don't speak up about something because you don't want to piss off a percentage of your American audience, some people will be pissed off. You'll piss off part of your international audience. It's like, like imagine if you're a Canadian and you're a fan of my stuff.

Tim Miller (3:44)

Right. And you never mentioned what's happening here.

Ryan Holiday (3:47)

Yeah. And so if you're an average Canadian and you just assume that like someone you're reading in the US is a fan of an authoritarian strongman saying he's going to turn your country into the 51st state, like that's also bad.

Tim Miller (4:03)

Right. Yeah.

Ryan Holiday (4:04)

It's not just bad for business. It's just genuinely bad. And you should say something about it.

Tim Miller (4:08)

Bad soul work.

Ryan Holiday (4:09)

Yeah. I'd be curious because you probably saw, you probably recognize some of those people that are getting angry. I have no conception of who these angry people are. Do you know what I mean? Like the sort of professional Twitter shitsters.