Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and NBA Legend Pau Gasol Talk Books, Basketball, and Stoicism
The Daily Stoic
Daily Stoic | Backyard Ventures
4.5 • 5.3K Ratings
🗓️ 2 May 2020
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In today’s episode, Ryan talks with NBA All-Star, Laker legend and humanitarian Pau Gasol. They discuss everything from Pau's reading habit to his advocacy for female coaches in basketball and more.
1:51 - Intro
6:22 - Being a big reader—and how that was encouraged by Phil Jackson
8:22 - What Pau gets out of fiction
10:32 - Phil Jackson recommendations
11:52 - Stoicism and reading
16:02 - The Meditations and marginalia
18:28 - Why do athletes always like quotes/aphorisms?
21:52 - The importance of reminders
24:42 - The importance of female coaches in basketball, and why discrimination is so harmful, and how hardship makes us stronger
37:25 - COVID-19 economic consequences: how did Pau process his experience with the Trailblazers, and how is that informing his decisions now?
Books mentioned:
- The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
- The Shadow of the Sun, by Ryszard Kapuscinski
- Corelli’s Mandolin, by Louis de Bernieres
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson
- For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway
- Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
- 2666, by Roberto Bolaño
This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is a custom formulation of 75 vitamins, minerals, and other whole-food sourced ingredients that make it easier for you to maintain nutrition in just a single scoop. It tastes great and gets you the nutrients you need, whether you're working on the go, fueling an active lifestyle, or just maintaining your good health. Visit athleticgreens.com/stoic and receive 20 free travel packs with your first purchase.
This episode is also brought to you by Shippo. Shippo is a top-to-bottom shipping solution that works great with small and large businesses. Shippo will help you get the lowest rates on postage for your customers from dozens of global carriers like UPS, USPS, FedEx, and DHL. Visit goshippo.com/stoic to get a shipping consultation and a six-month trial of Shippo’s pro plan (up to $700 value) absolutely free.
This episode is also brought to you by Go Macro. Go Macro is a family-owned maker of some of the finest protein bars around. They're vegan, non-GMO, and they come in a bunch of delicious flavors. Visit http://gomacro.com and use promo code STOIC for 30% off your order plus free shipping.
***
If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.
Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: DailyStoic.com/signup
Follow @DailyStoic:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholiday
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/
Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholiday
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoic
And follow Pau Gasol:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/paugasol
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paugasol/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paugasol/
Gasol Foundation: https://www.gasolfoundation.org/
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. |
| 0:11.7 | Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoic, something that can help you live up to those four |
| 0:22.0 | Stoic virtues of courage, justice, wisdom, and temperance. And here on the weekend we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers, we reflect, we prepare, we think deeply about the challenging issues of our time. And we work through this philosophy in a way that's more possible here when we're not rushing to worker to get the kids to school. |
| 0:51.0 | We have the time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with our journals and to prepare for what the future will bring. |
| 1:01.0 | Hello, I'm Hannah and I'm Seru tea and we are the hosts of a Redhanded, a weekly true crime podcast. Every week on Redhanded we get stuck into the most talked about cases. |
| 1:10.0 | From the Idaho student killings, the Delphi murders and our recent rundown of the Murdoch saga. |
| 1:15.0 | Last year, we also started a second weekly show, Shorthand, which is just an excuse for us to talk about anything we find interesting because it's our show and we can do what we like. |
| 1:23.0 | We've covered the death of Princess Diana, an unholy Quran written in Saddam Hussein's blood, the gruesome history of European witch hunting, and the very uncomfortable phenomenon of genetic sexual attraction. |
| 1:33.0 | Whatever the case, we want to know what pushes people to the extremes of human behaviour. |
| 1:38.0 | Like, can someone give consent to be cannibalized? What drives a child to kill? And what's the psychology of a terrorist? |
| 1:44.0 | Listen to Redhanded wherever you get your podcast, so access our bonus shorthand episodes exclusively on Amazon Music, or by subscribing to Wondry Plus in Apple Podcasts or the Wondry app. |
| 1:56.0 | Hey, I'm Cassie Depeckle, the host of Wondries against the odds. In our next season, Amelia Earhart wants to make history by flying across the Atlantic alone, but brutal weather and malfunctioning equipment could leave her lost its sea. |
| 2:10.0 | Listen to against the odds on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 2:15.0 | Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stewart Podcast. You have a pretty incredible guest this week. It's Paul Gasol, two-time NBA champion, six-time NBA All-Star NBA rookie of the year. |
| 2:32.0 | Just an incredible athlete and as it happens, also an incredible reader. I first met Paul through somewhat random circumstance. I saw that he had posted a photo of him reading ego is the enemy on Instagram and on Twitter. |
| 2:51.0 | I believe it was last year while he was recovering from an injury. He was with the bucks then, not playing, but rehabbing and using that time, you know, we talked about a lifetime dead time. He was using that time to do some reading. |
| 3:06.0 | And so we ended up connecting and then he signed with the Portland Trailblazers, whereas it happens. I had also known a few players who had read my books. And so we connected again. And I got to meet him. We had dinner in Portland when I was on Book Tour for Stillness is the key. He'd read an early copy. And so earlier this month, he and I did an Instagram live where we talked about the strategies. |
| 3:32.0 | The exercises and the value of stoicism in sort of difficult times like this one. And then afterwards I asked him if you wanted to come on the daily stoke podcast and sort of talk about some of his reading practices, some of the things that he's learned as an athlete and how they apply to both life and the pursuit of mastery and excellence. |
| 3:53.0 | One of my favorite things in the interview is we end up talking about some books that Phil Jackson recommended to him while he was on the Lakers. I thought it was fascinating that power is such a big reader of fiction. |
| 4:06.0 | Obviously the the stoics were no stranger to fiction that they love fiction. They love stories. They love poetry and literature and believe that that that often this was a way to teach sort of very real philosophical and moral lessons. |
| 4:20.0 | It was really cool to talk to Powell. I'll let the interview sort of speak to itself. And I hope you guys like these interviews that we're doing. I'm trying to, you know, get people that maybe haven't been on other podcasts or that have unique perspectives. |
| 4:33.0 | And what I'm sort of insisting they all have in common is a sort of a very real and earnest connection to stoic philosophy. I'm not saying that these people are stoic masters or stoic stages. I certainly wouldn't claim to be one myself. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Daily Stoic | Backyard Ventures, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Daily Stoic | Backyard Ventures and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

