Bookworm · Mike Schmitz and Cory Hixson

236: Wisdom Takes Work by Ryan Holiday

November 21, 2025·1 hr 38 min·5 clips

The person Ryan Holiday is ranting about in 'The Storm Within Us' is Elon Musk.

1. Bookworm hosts Mike and Corey discuss Ryan Holiday's Wisdom Takes Work, the fourth and final book in his Stoic Virtue series. 2. The book follows the same format as Holiday's earlier volumes: short, story-driven chapters organized into three main parts plus an afterword. 3. The episode's core question is what wisdom actually is and how someone deliberately builds it, rather than simply defining Stoicism. 4. Part one, "The Agoge" or training ground, opens with the idea that books are "conversations with the dead," and that nearly every path to wisdom runs through reading. 5. Mike and Corey both argue they cannot think of a single genuinely wise person who isn't also a serious reader. 6. They connect this back to their earlier Bookworm episode on Charlie Munger, another voracious reader Holiday's framework would recognize as wise. 7. Mike references Holiday's own analog note-card writing process, learned from his mentor Robert Greene, as evidence he would favor physical books. 8. The hosts discuss Holiday's advice to find your classroom, your teacher, and an apprenticeship, debating the value of trade-school and apprenticeship paths against traditional four-year degrees. 9. Corey, a university faculty member, argues some students clearly need traditional college while others need trades, apprenticeships, or the military instead. 10. In the "create a second brain" section, Holiday advises readers to "study all systems, but make your own one you'll actually use," which Mike connects directly to why he resists turning his Life HQ system into a rigid done-for-you product. 11. The "join a scene" chapter leads Corey to admit he envies the tight creative and business communities Holiday describes, like Benjamin Franklin's Junto club, while conceding it's usually better to join an existing scene than try to build one from scratch. 12. Part two, "The Sirens," covers wisdom's temptations: distraction, bad advisors, and refusing to think for yourself, framed as empty the cup, assemble your board of directors, and don't break your brain. 13. Corey notices Holiday's tone shift sharply in this section, moving from admiring stories to an extended, unusually pointed rant. 14. The hosts reveal that the target of that rant, in the chapter "The Storm Within Us," is Elon Musk, and both react to how blunt Holiday is willing to be. 15. They note Holiday ties the rant back to the book's themes rather than treating it as a pure tangent, and plan to revisit the fuller context in the afterword. 16. Mike connects the "watch your information diet" chapter to Holiday's own visible habits, like sharing running stats and book recommendations on social media. 17. The tone throughout is conversational and personal, with both hosts frequently applying the book's ideas directly to their own PKM work, teaching, and business projects. 18. Corey shares a personal aside about visiting a technical college with his oldest child, connecting the book's apprenticeship chapter to real school choices. 19. Listeners interested in Stoicism, personal knowledge management, or Ryan Holiday's other books would enjoy this candid, application-focused discussion. 20. Listeners expecting a neutral, apolitical read should note the hosts spend real time on Holiday's pointed criticism of Elon Musk.

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