All you need are these: certainty of judgment in the present moment; action for the common good in the present moment; and an attitude of gratitude in the present moment for anything that comes your way.
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.6
Perception, Action, Will. Those are the three overlapping but critical disciplines of Stoicism. There’s more to the philosophy certainly—and we could spend all day talking about the unique beliefs of the various Stoics: “This is what Heraclitus thought …” “Zeno is from Citium, a city in Cyprus, and he believed…” But would such facts really help you day to day? What clarity does trivia provide?
Instead, the following little reminder sums up the three most essential parts of Stoic philosophy worth carry with you every day, into every decision:
Control your perceptions.
Direct your actions properly.
Willingly accept what’s outside your control.
That’s all we need to do.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
How many have laid waste to your life when you weren’t aware of what you were losing, how much was wasted in pointless grief, foolish joy, greedy desire, and social amusements—how little of your own was left to you. You will realize you are dying before your time!
—Seneca, On The Brevity Of Life, 3.3b
One of the hardest things to do in life is to say “No.” To invitations, to requests, to obligations, to the stuff that everyone else is doing. Even harder is saying no to certain time-consuming emotions: anger, excitement, distraction, obsession, lust. None of these impulses feels like a big deal by itself, but run amok, they become a commitment like anything else.
If you’re not careful, these are precisely the impositions that will overwhelm and consume your life. Do you ever wonder how you can get some of your time back, how you can feel less busy? Start by learning the power of “No!”—as in “No, thank you,” and “No, I’m not going to get caught up in that,” and “No, I just can’t right now.” It may hurt some feelings. It may turn people off. It may take some hard work. But the more you say no to the things that don’t matter, the more you can say yes to the thing that do. This will let you live and enjoy your life—the life that you want.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
What is the fruit of these teachings? Only the most beautiful and proper harvest of the truly educated—tranquility, fearlessness, and freedom. We should not trust the masses who say only the free can be educated, but rather the lovers of wisdom who say that only the educated are free.
—Epictetus, Discourses, 2.1.21-23a
Why did you pick up this book? Why pick up any book? Not to seem smarter, not to past time on the plane, not to hear what you want to hear—there are plenty of easier choices than reading.
No, you picked up this book because you are learning how to live. Because you want to be freer, fear less, and achieve a state of peace. Education—reading and meditating on the wisdom of great minds—is not to be done for its own sake. It has a purpose.
Remember that imperative on the days you start to feel distracted, when watching television or having a snack seems like a better use of your time than reading or studying philosophy. Knowledge—self-knowledge in particular—is freedom.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
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…
—Epictetus, Discourses, 2.5.4-5
The single most important practice in Stoic philosophy is differentiating between what we can change and what we can’t. What we have influence over and what we do not. A flight is delayed because of weather—no amount of yelling at an airline representative will end a storm. No amount of wishing will make you taller or shorter or born in a different country. No matter how hard you try, you can’t make someone like you. And on top of that, time spent hurling yourself at these immovable objects is time not spent on the things we can change.
The recovery community practices something called the Serenity Prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Addicts cannot change the abuse suffered in childhood. They cannot undo the choices they have made or the hurt they have caused. But they can change the future—through the power they have in the present moment. As Epictetus said, they can control the choices they make right now.
The same is true for us today. If we can focus on making clear what parts of our day are within our control and what parts are not, we will not only be happier, we will have a distinct advantage over other people who fail to realize they are fighting an unwinnable battle.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
The executive and the knowledge worker have only one tool—information.
Information is what holds an organization together and information is what makes individual knowledge workers effective. Enterprises and individuals will have to learn what information they need and how to get it. They will have to learn how to organize information as their key resource.
In moving from data literacy to information literacy, you need to answer two principal questions: “What information does my enterprise need?” and “What information do I need?” To answer these questions you have to rethink:
What your job is, and what it should be
What your contribution is, or should be
What the fundamentals are of your organization
You will need three different types of information, each with its own concepts. The three primary types of information are: external information, internal information, and cross-organizational information. Your success and the success of your organization depend upon getting these answers right.
What is lacking to make effective what is already possible?
The characteristic of the innovator is the ability to envisage as a system what to others are unrelated, separate elements. It is the successful attempt to find and to provide the smallest missing part that will convert already existing elements. To find areas where innovation would create maximum opportunities, one asks: “What is lacking to make effective what is already possible? What one small step would transform our economic results? What small change would alter the capacity of the whole of our resources?”
To describe the need is not to satisfy it. But describing the need gives a specification for the desirable results. Whether they are likely to be obtained can be decided. Innovation is applicable to finding business potential and to making the future.
The controlling word in “family-managed business” is not “family.” It has to be “business.”
The first rule is that family members do not work in the business unless they are at least as able as any nonfamily employee, and work at least as hard. The second rule is equally simple: No matter how many family members are in the company’s management, and how effective they are, one top job is always filled by an outsider who is not a member of the family. Typically, this is either the financial executive or the head of research—the two positions in which technical qualifications are most important. Rule three is that family-managed businesses, except perhaps for the very smallest ones, increasingly need to staff key positions with nonfamily professionals. The knowledge and expertise needed, whether in manufacturing or in marketing, in finance, in research, in human resource management, have become far too great to be satisfied by any but the most competent family member.
Even the family-managed business that faithfully observes the preceding three rules tends to get into trouble—and often breaks up—over management succession. Then what the business needs and what the family wants tend to collide. There is only one solution: Entrust the succession decision to an outsider who is neither part of the family nor part of the business.
The majority of businesses everywhere are family controlled and family managed.
The majority of businesses everywhere—including the United States and all other developed countries—are family controlled and family managed. And family management is by no means confined to small and medium-sized firms—families run some of the world’s largest companies. DuPont, controlled and managed by family members for 170 years (since its founding in 1802 until professional management took over in the mid-1970s), grew into the world’s largest chemical company. And two centuries after a still obscure coin dealer began to send out his sons to establish banks in Europe’s capitals, financial firms bearing the Rothschild name and run by Rothschilds are still among the world’s premier private bankers.
Yet management books and management courses deal almost entirely with the publicly owned and professionally managed company—they rarely as much as mention the family-managed business. Of course, there is no difference whatever between professionally managed and family-managed businesses in respect to all function work: research or marketing or accounting. But with respect to management, the family business requires its own and very different rules. These rules have to be stringently observed. Otherwise, the family-managed business will not survive, let alone prosper.
