11/01/22 - Shape your environment to you, wherever you are

Today's snippet comes from?The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living

Hi you,

Thanks for reading my newsletter.

Today's message is one to encourage you to spend a little more time focused on why you want things to happen and what those things are, rather than worrying about the things which could kibosh your best laid plans.

I've helped run several businesses, including a few of my own, for over 20 years now. Here's one thing I have seen happen over and over again: people at the top always have an excuse for why things don't work out. And it's always something outwith their control.

Because they're at the top, that almost never gets questioned. Having a board can help, likewise a NED or two, or a critical friend, but invariably business leaders explain away short-comings by blaming external factors first and (if the shit's really hitting the fan) internal factors second. It's always some uncontrollable factor which came along and made a mess of their perfect plan.

Here's how it works: everyone wants the business to succeed, everyone is taking a salary, everyone knows that whilst they may be doing well today, they mightn't tomorrow. So, those at the helm tend to back each other up, even when the numbers / businesses' performance doesn't merit the credit. And, that is precisely what they do. Over and over. Forgive shortcomings, placate failure and turn a blind eye to the blindingly obvious.

The number one uncontrollable today? COVID. You could excuse pretty much anything because of COVID and, of course, there are innumerable businesses which have genuinely hit the rails because of what the virus has done. However, I would suggest there are many times more businesses who have used COVID as an excuse and a distraction from the deeper failings and shortcomings in their business.

Some of the best advice I ever received was from an external advisor. We met him once a fortnight. He simply asked us if we had delivered what we said we would two weeks previous. For every lame excuse we fired back, he would call bullshit and question why we hadn't pre-empted it or adapted accordingly. If we said we didn't have enough time, he lambasted us for not properly considering how long things would take. If a client went with a competitor, then why didn't we have another waiting in the wings?

It was a remarkably simple way of demonstrating how unaccountable we had become to ourselves. Just a few meetings with this guy left a bunch of founders realising we'd been bluffing each other for months.

These stories run alongside today's snippet to an extent; control the controllables and leave the rest to fate.

If you put true focus on yourself, your business, your family, your spending.... the stuff you can control, it's remarkable how quickly the uncontrollables magically stop wreaking havoc too.

Have a great day.

Steve

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January 11th

IF YOU WANT TO BE UNSTEADY

“For if a person shifts their caution to their own reasoned choices and the acts of those choices, they will at the same time gain the will to avoid, but if they shift their caution away from their own reasoned choices to things not under their control, seeking to avoid what is controlled by others, they will then be agitated, fearful, and unstable.”—EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 2.1.12

The image of the Zen philosopher is the monk up in the green, quiet hills, or in a beautiful temple on some rocky cliff. The Stoics are the antithesis of this idea. Instead, they are the man in the marketplace, the senator in the Forum, the brave wife waiting for her soldier to return from battle, the sculptor busy in her studio.

Still, the Stoic is equally at peace. Epictetus is reminding you that serenity and stability are results of your choices and judgment, not your environment. If you seek to avoid all disruptions to tranquility—other people, external events, stress—you will never be successful. Your problems will follow you wherever you run and hide.

But if you seek to avoid the harmful and disruptive judgments that cause those problems, then you will be stable and steady wherever you happen to be.

Today's snippet came from?The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living