A Stoic Reflection for 2020 and Beyond

I’ve gotten a number of notes after my PRWeek 40 Under 40 mini-speech, which focused on Stoic learnings, asking me to share more about how I got interested in that area and how I apply it to my professional life. The principles of Stoicism are so often misunderstood that this seemed like a great push to get my thoughts down on “paper” and share them out.

At its heart, Stoicism is about the identification and attenuation of negative emotions. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not about sitting back and accepting what comes your way, nor about being emotionally absent; but rather about training for resilience and harnessing challenges for growth. Below are four ways that Stoicism has changed my personal and professional life, heavily influenced by readings of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic, and Epictetus’ Discourses and Selected Writings.

Less Certainty, More Inquiry

My initial interest in Stoicism was spurred by the mantra of one of my early mentors and one of the people I admire most in the world, Louis Burns. He was continuously echoing a saying of his father’s: “you have two ears and one mouth; use them proportionally.” Or, said slightly differently by Epictetus: “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”

As an introvert, listening already comes more naturally to me than speaking, but the key is active and participatory listening. (Side note: if you’re a fellow introvert and haven’t yet delighted in Susan Cain’s Quiet, please do so!) We’re living in a world that won’t shut up, and oftentimes it feels like the only way to contribute is to yell louder as the next person. Communicating today is all too often talking at, instead of listening to.

Stoicism embraces authentic curiosity about others – especially those who disagree – and the withholding of judgment, even (or especially) in the face of dissenting viewpoints. In today’s world of social media machinations and the fabrication of fundamentally different realities, true openness and listening are the only things that will get us through.

The Coexistence of Accountability and Understanding

Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations is hands down the most impactful piece of writing I’ve read in the past ten years, with Quiet as a close second. In it, he writes: “Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself. Remember, nothing belongs to you but your flesh and blood – and nothing else is under your control.”

There are two implications to this concept. First, a level of accountability. Epictetus asks, “How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself?” I believe we must create the absolute highest of expectations for ourselves and others. When you believe in those around you and hold them to that level, they deliver. When you trust in people, you’re rewarded with trust. When you show loyalty, you receive it back.

And yet. The world is not perfect, and people are not perfect either. Being tolerant with others isn’t about lowering your expectations; it’s about recognizing what is and isn’t under your control. Perhaps the most powerful element of Stoicism is the training of the mind not to react emotionally to things outside of your control. Says Epictetus: “The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own.”

If you feel angry or disappointed in someone, recognize that for what it is: a thought that is only harming you, and no one else. Cast it aside and move forward to things you can control. 

‘A Sphere Rejoicing in Perfect Stillness’

Many Stoic concepts intersect with principles of mindfulness and meditation, and an ability to transcend the chaos of the moment and the judgment of others. Once again in the words of Marcus Aurelius: “If you can cut yourself – your mind – free of what other people do and say, of what you’ve said or done, of the things that you’re afraid will happen… If you can cut free of the impressions that cling to the mind, free of the future and the past – can make yourself, as Empedocles says, ‘a sphere rejoicing in its perfect stillness,’ and concentrate on living what can be lived… then you can spend the time you have left in tranquility.”

This rings true in today’s fast-moving business environment, rife with new challenges in 2020. How often have you agonized nights over a manufactured client crisis, the anticipation of a dissatisfied customer, the expectancy of loss? And how often have those fears never materialized into reality – other than what they did to you?

Seneca states this simply in one of his many letters: “We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more in imagination than in reality.” So let it all drop away; it is your own construction. If and when it arrives, at that point it’s time to address it, and to view it in a very specific way. Which brings me to…

The Obstacle Is the Way

Ah! This one goes deep for me. As elucidated by Marcus Aurelius: “Our actions may be impeded by people, but there can be no impeding our intentions or our dispositions… The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”

What an incredible way to reframe every roadblock as a transformational experience for the self and the world. Later in Meditations, he writes that “just as nature takes every obstacle, every impediment, and works around it – turns it to its purposes … – so, too, a rational being can turn each setback into raw material and use it to achieve its goal.” Seneca goes further, addressing a friend that “I judge you unfortunate because you have never lived through misfortune. You have passed through life without an opponent—no one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you.”

Rather than sitting idly by, this is a call to action. Today’s challenges present incredible opportunities to build resilience and deliver change. Some of these changes may be deeply personal; others broadly societal. Perhaps Epictetus said it best: “Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it.”