Look For A Teachable Moment: Lessons From Roman Emperors, Stoic Philosophers and Leaders

Associate with people who are likely to improve you. Welcome those whom you are capable of improving. The process is a mutual one. People learn as they teach

Seneca

This is the third in a series of posts that will aim to teach lessons from the Stoics that can help you be a better leader, even if that means just leading your own life. The first one outlined what and why leaders have been inspired by the Stoics and concentrating on what you can control. The second dealt with making rational decisions. This third post is about looking for those moment where we can either teach or learn a valuable lesson.

In October 2008, just before he was elected President, Barack Obama was asked by journalist Joe Klein how he had made the decision of how to react to his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, having made controversial statements about the government and terrorist attacks. The mindset demonstrated by Obama to Klein is worth considering: 

“My gut was telling me that this was a teachable moment and that if I tried to do the usual political damage control instead of talking to the American people like an adult—like they were adults and could understand the complexities of race, that I would not only be doing damage to the campaign but missing an important opportunity for leadership.”

As a result, Obama gave the “A More Perfect Union” speech, an incredible speech about race relations. A rather mundane political scandal morphed into a teachable moment.

If they’ve made a mistake correct them gently and show them where they went wrong. If you can’t do that, then the blame lies with you. Or no one

Marcus Aurelius, Meditation, Book 10

View this post on Instagram

Meditations. Book 10

A post shared by Daily Stoic (@dailystoic) on Feb 21, 2020 at 8:03am PST

Bad companies are destroyed by crisis. Good companies survive them. Great companies are improved by them.

Andy Grove, former Intel CEO

In the 1960s, an IBM executive lost $10 million on a venture. CEO Tom Watson called into his office. The man thought he was going to be fired. Watson replied, “Fired? Hell, I spent $10 million educating you. I just want to be sure you learned the right lessons.”

There are thousands of books about successful companies. Most contain stories about what they did well. Very few contains lessons that they learnt or can be learnt from their failure. A rare exception could be ‘Principles‘ by Ray Dalio, in which he outlines principles on how to be successful that he had developed while running Bridgewater Associates. After receiving a frank memo from his top lieutenants in 1993 concerning his interpersonal performance as a manager, Ray began to develop a unique company culture based on these principles and unadorned feedback.

View this post on Instagram

Recognise that mistakes are a natural part of the human evolutionary process. . Intelligent people who embrace their mistakes and weaknesses substantially out perform their peers that have the same ability but bigger ego barriers. . If you don’t mind being wrong on the way to being right you’ll learn a lot and be more effective, but if you can’t tolerate being wrong you won’t grow. You’ll make yourself and everyone around you miserable and your work environment will be marked by petty back biting and malevolent barbs instead a healthy honest search for the truth. . You have to not let your desire to be right overpower your desire for the truth. . Jeff Besos described it well when he said, “You have to have a willingness to repeatedly fail. If you don’t have a willingness to fail you are going to have to be very careful not to invent”. . Fail Well. . Everyone fails. Anyone you see succeeding is only succeeding at the things you are paying attention to. I guarantee they are also failing at lots of other things. . The people I respect most are the ones who fail well. I respect them more than those that succeed. That is because failing is a painful experience whilst succeeding is a joyous one so it requires much more character to fail, change and then succeed than to just succeed. . People who go from success to success are not pushing their limits. Of course, worse are those who fail and don’t recognise it or change. . Don’t feel bad about your mistakes or those of others. Love them. . People typically feel bad about their mistakes because they think in a short sighted way about the bad outcome and not about the lesson that can be learned, which forms an integral part of the evolutionary process. . Michael Jordan, the greatest basketballer who ever lived reveled in his mistakes. He saw them as little opportunities to improve. He understood that mistakes are little puzzles to solve. . From @raydalio’s ‘Principles’ . Follow @physiostrengthclub for further advice and inspiration . . #inspiration #motivation #fitnessmotivation #fitnessmodel #fitinspiration #motivationalquotes #qotd #love #fitspiration #greatness #fitspo #philosophy #wisdom #principles #raydalio

A post shared by Physio Strength Club (@physiostrengthclub) on Mar 1, 2020 at 10:51pm PST

Read more… Practice Radical Open Mindedness

35 Books To Build Your Character: The Definitive Reading List on Humility and Ego… Cautionary Tales

Great leaders take mundane, infuriating, complex, hard, and surprising life events and turn them into something special.
Great leaders do not forgo an opportunity for leadership, whether it is leading others or leading their own lives.
Great leaders always grow and strengthen, no matter life throws at them.

It is all part of what the great German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche would describe in his formula for human greatness as amor fati—a love of fate.

My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendacity in the face of what is necessary—but love it.

 Friedrich Nietzsche in “Why I Am So Clever” Ecce Homo, section 10

Amor Fati. It is what it says on the tin, the obstacle is the way. Whatever life throws at you, especially if it is challenging, will benefit you. You should learn to love it.

There is a lesson in every moment, either one you can teach or something to learn. Use every moment. If you are brave and strong, dare greatly, have Grit and engage these moments you will move forward as a better person.

To bear in mind constantly that all of this has happened before. And will happen again—the same plot from beginning to end, the identical staging. Produce them in your mind, as you know them from experience or from history: the court of Hadrian, of Antoninus. The courts of Philip, Alexander, Croesus. All just the same. Only the people different.

Meditations, 10.27

If you’ve seen the present then you’ve seen everything—as it’s been since the beginning, as it will be forever. The same substance, the same form. All of it

Meditations, 6.37

Everything has always been the same, and keeps recurring, and it makes no difference whether you see the same things recur in a hundred years or two hundred, or in an infinite period

Meditations, 2.14

Over and over again…the world is continually renewed

Meditations, 7.25

Enjoy!
Scott

Source: https://dailystoic.com/leadership/