Summary: Welcome to the latest episode of the Hack The System show! You should subscribe to this show on iTunes. In case you haven't heard, the Hack The System Podcast is your access to interviews with the world's foremost experts on blogging, lifestyle design, traveling, and life/system hacking. In short--you're going to learn how to kick ass. In this episode, I feature Ryan Holiday, author of the bestselling book, Trust Me, I'm Lying, a book about how to exploit the media, and hack marketing and media. He's currently the Director of Marketing for American Apparel, a media strategist for clients like Tucker Max and Dov Charney, Ryan and I have a funny past: we went to middle school together in California. For some reason, I remember us as not-friends--enemies almost. I reconnected with Ryan after college, and found both of us followed similar paths: we both left college without completing it, and then ended up doing work in similar industries. Ryan worked for incredible authors like Robert Greene, who wrote The 48 Laws of Power and The Art of Seduction (both which had a significant impact on my life). When I began working with Tim Ferriss on The 4-Hour Chef, I found out that Tim had also hired Ryan to help on the book as well. We worked together on the project. Check out the interview: learn how to manipulate the media, and engineer ways to get your video to become viral. Watch it here: Transcript of the Podcast Episode Don't forget to subscribe to this show on iTunes. Maneesh: [00:00:00] Hey, guys. Maneesh Sethi from Hack the System. I’m here today, I’m with Ryan Holiday from Ryan Holiday.com and “Trust Me, I’m Lying: The Confessions of a Media Manipulator,” your new book. What’s up, Ryan? Ryan: [00:00:13] Thanks, man. Maneesh: [00:00:13] It’s good to see you. It’s good to see you again, yeah. It’s been a while. So Ryan and I actually … a funny story. We went to middle school together. Ryan: [00:00:19] Yeah. Maneesh: [00:00:19] I remember sitting next to you in Ms. Thatcher’s class. And then … Did we go to high school? Ryan: [00:00:23] No. I moved and then you went to Bella Vista, right? Maneesh: [00:00:27] Yeah. Ryan: [00:00:27] And I went to Grand Bay. Maneesh: [00:00:28] Got it. Yeah, I remember like seeing Ryan’s name pop up and I remember talking about how there’s very few people from our high school ever did anything interesting. Ryan: [00:00:35] I think there are very few people from our generation that are doing anything. I feel like they’re still in school or they’re living at home with their parents sort of trying to fig – like the economy and sort of the toughness of the job market so overwhelmed everyone that they’re just like still reeling from it. Maneesh: [00:00:53] It’s definitely true, and one of the biggest themes that we’ll be talking about today is about pursuing excellence or becoming … like doing something in our time [inaudible 00:01:00]. But before we get to that, introduce yourself and talk a little bit about your book. I think it’s interesting. Ryan: [00:01:06] Yeah, so in my day job I’m the director of marketing for American Apparel, the fashion retailer. Then I work with a bunch of different bestselling authors, public figures, strategists, and I advise them on Internet marketing, marketing and just sort of general all around strategy. So the book is sort of an expose of what I feel like is the dark side of that business, the forces that control what we see and hear online. The first half of the book is sort of the how-to for how to do all this stuff for people who’d want to do it. And then the second half of the book is for people who want to sort of enlarge their perspective about this. It’s sort of the consequences and the risks that playing with these dark arts entail. Maneesh: [00:01:49] Yeah. The first half … what was really interesting for me, I was like taking notes on my … how can I [inaudible 00:01:53]? Ryan: [00:01:53] Right.
