Good Leaders Give This | 10 Rules For Life From The Stoics

0:00You probably heard the headlines about all the different cuts to foreign aid and food benefits. This is having a profound impact on the world's poorest people and the world's poorest communities. But, you know, just hearing about that, that's not what stoicism is about. Stoicism is, to me, what you're going to do about it. And that's where GiveWell comes in. GiveWell is trusted by tens of thousands of donors each year because they provide free and independent research that helps you understand how to have a big impact. GiveWell has spent the last 18 years researching global health and poverty alleviation, and they direct funding to the highest impact opportunities.

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3:05On Tuesdays, we take a closer look at these Stoic ideas, how we can apply them in our actual lives. Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy.

3:23Good leaders give this. Victor Krulak was an exacting Marine. He drove his troops hard. He cared about the tiniest details. He expected perfection. So you might think he would be upset or at least disappointed when a major leading a formation in front of him inadvertently knocked off his own hat, which was then trampled by every Marine who followed after him. Certainly the Major was humiliated and noticing he was missing from a party later that evening after the parade, Krulak sent one of his aides to the man's house. As Robert Coram details in his book about Krulak, the aide delivered the Major's hat with a note from the General.

4:06All it said was, Dear Major, in 1934, a young Marine second lieutenant knocked off his cover while passing in front of President Roosevelt. I don't think it seriously affected my career. Semper Fi, V-H-K. As we've said before, a stoic is very strict. They have high standards. It's part and parcel of being a leader, but they must also complement this strictness with grace and tolerance. Remember, one of Seneca's great essays is on the topic of clemency. Marcus Aurelius was famous with his ability to work with and make use of flawed people. He admonished himself in meditations to be more forgiving and to think the best of others.

4:51He also spoke glowingly of the way that Antoninus, whom he revered above all others, was so good at making people feel at ease. Very few people need you to yell at them. Your best employees, your best allies, they have high standards for themselves too. They know it when they screw up. They feel bad enough already. What they need is grace. What they need is help. What they need is a pick-me-up. Are you strong enough, strict enough with yourself to give that? This is the kind of leadership that I am trying to work on myself. It's one of the things we talk about in the Daily Stoic Leadership Challenge, which I think is one of the best things we've done.

5:30We actually got some advice from a two-star general in the Air Force. So you can listen to that as part of the challenge. One of the best interviews I think that we've done. Lots of great lessons in there. And there's a reason so many people have taken and loved the challenge. It's a six plus week course on leadership, but it's really digestible. It won't overload you and it'll give you actual tangible stuff you can use. I can't wait for you to check it out. Go to dailystoic.com slash leadership, or you can check out the leadership challenge at store.dailystoic.com and I'll link to it in today's show notes.

6:03The great General Mattis, very influenced by Stoic philosophy, says, figure out your flat ass rules and stick to them. Talking about rules for life. What do you live by? What are your standards? And really that's what Stoicism has been for thousands of years. Here are 10 of the best Stoic rules, 10 commandments, if you will, that if you follow will make you a better, wiser, healthier, and happier person.

6:31this comes to us from epictetus he says it's the chief task of life which is focus on what you control is it up to me is it not up to me if it is up to you it gets a hundred percent if it's not up to me it gets zero percent we focus on what we control because that's where our energy effort and emotions actually make a difference

6:53seek out challenges do one thing every day that scares you as the cliche goes we become better for what we struggle with, just as the way you have to lift weights to get stronger. Seek out challenges, tackle hard things, push yourself. If you wanna write a mighty book, Ralph Ellison says, choose a mighty theme. Challenge yourself, that's how you get better. Don't run away from challenges, run towards challenges.

7:18Well begun is half done, as they say. So own the morning. If you wanna have a good day, have a good morning. If you wanna have a good life, have a good day. So it all comes back to how you start the day, own the morning. There's a great passage of Marcus Aurelius where he's arguing with himself about getting up out of bed in the morning. And he says, look, were you meant to huddle under the covers and stay warm? He says, no, get to work, do what you got to do, do what you were put here on this earth to do and do it early.

7:48Seneca says we suffer more in imagination than reality. And that gives us the next law, which is don't suffer imagined troubles. rules. The stuff that you're worried about, it'll happen or it won't. Worrying doesn't affect it, right? So Seneca says don't feel more than you have to. Deal with that when it comes. For now, focus on what's in front of you. Focus on what you need to do. Don't add to your suffering by anticipating it, by suffering in advance. That's only adding cumulatively up to more suffering.

8:19Epictetus says that every situation has two handles, And that's where this rule actually adapted from Thomas Jefferson comes from. He says, always grab the smooth handle. A victim says one of the handles will hold weight, the other won't. What handle are you going to grab in this situation? The one that empowers you or disempowers you? The one that makes you angry or gives you something to focus on and change, right? So every situation has two handles. Which one are you going to grab? Grab the one that makes you better, that gives you something to do, that challenges you. Ignore the other handle.

8:53It's easy to get upset by things, which is why the Stoics say that we have the power to have no opinion. You can just think nothing about something. If you didn't know it existed, you wouldn't have an opinion. Now that you know it exists, great. But you don't have to say it's positive, it's negative. You don't have to say it's anything. It just is. Seeing things objectively, withdrawing judgments from them is really important. As Epictetus says, it's not things that upset us. It's our opinion about things. We control our opinions.

9:23Seneca's rule was put the day up for review. Ask yourself, what could I have done better? Where did I fall short? Who do I want to be? Was I being that person? So every day the law is put your day up for review, evaluate yourself, interrogate yourself. That's how you get better. The next is a question from Marcus Reelius. He says, ask yourself in every moment, is this essential? Because the truth is most of what we do, most of what we spend time on, most of the things that other people do and spend time on are not essential. And he says when you eliminate what's inessential, you get the double benefit of doing the essential things better.

10:02Do I need to do it? Yes or no. And if I do need to do it, then because it is essential, I'm going to give it everything I have.

10:11You have to find a way to love everything that happens. This is the Stoic idea of amor fati. The Stoics aren't resigned to what happens. It's more than that. They embrace it. They say, this isn't something I have to do. It's something I get to do. This isn't something that happened to me. It's something that happened for me. Mark just really says, everything you throw on top of a fire becomes fuel for the fire. That's what the idea of amor fati is. They embrace, they love everything that happens because they know they can use it and they know that it's what destiny had in mind for them.

10:42Are you meditating on your mortality? I carry a coin in my pocket that says, memento mori you could leave life right now mark's really says life is short don't waste time don't focus on things that don't matter going through our life with a clear sense of our mortality is essential my family owns a 2023 toyota forerunner and honestly it's my favorite vehicle that i've ever owned around town it's smooth and reliable but where it really shines is on our trips into the backcountry. We've taken it on backpacking adventures to Colorado and New Mexico, loaded up with gear, and never had to think twice about whether it could handle the terrain.

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