Stoicism: The Ancient Philosophy of Detachment and Discipline Making a Comeback, Summaries of Business

Download Stoicism: The Ancient Philosophy of Detachment and Discipline Making a Comeback and more Summaries Business in PDF only on Docsity!

Best-selling books. A following among some corporate heads.

An ancient philosophy is making a comeback. But why?

By Meghan Walsh

FROM A NTIQUIT Y TO A I:

A STOIC

RENAISSANCE

FA S T-T R AC K I N G H E A LT H C A R E 5 3

It was early November 2018,

and the Woolsey Fire hurtled through the Santa Monica Mountains, devour- ing hundreds of structures with stun- ning ferocity. As the fire drew closer and gusty winds changed direction unpredictably, David Heinemeier Hansson, known as DHH, imagined his Malibu Hills home going up in flames. It wasn’t a morbid hallucination. Instead, the Danish programmer turned tech darling deliberately envisioned with pixelated precision the flaky ash his home might become; he played out the years of battling insurance adjusters that would inevitably follow. Without regret or yearning, he simply said good- bye to the hazy sunsets and crystalline memories unfulfilled. Though in this instance the flames were real, it wasn’t the first time the 40-year-old cofounder of Basecamp, a project management software company, had fantasized losing that which is most precious to him. For years, Hansson has been imagining worst-case scenarios as a way to channel the anxieties that come with running a growing business. (He’s also a father, a successful race car driver, and a New York Times best-selling author.) “As I acquire things, I keep in mind these things could be temporary,”

says Hansson, who also authored the programming language Ruby on Rails, which powers web apps like Airbnb, Hulu, and Twitch. “Most businesses go out of business. When I can remove the fear that it’s all going to end, the calmer my life is.” It’s a practice ancient philosophers termed “negative visualization,” which Hansson learned after entrepreneur and author Tim Ferriss recom- mended he read A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine. Stoics also dabble in self-imposed austerity as a means of honing oneself against the hardships of life. So when Hansson finds himself impa- tient that his Uber is taking five minutes instead of the quoted two, he takes the bus. He eats cheap cheeseburgers and ventures into the cold underdressed. “This modern life that we’re living is smothering us in comforts,” he says. Sure enough, now it’s Stoicism that’s catching fire. A growing number of people, from gilded elites to everyday folk, are shed- ding the 21st-century accouterments of comfort in exchange for a Hellenistic philosophy born almost 2,300 years ago that extols the virtues of detach- ment and discipline. Stoicism is the antithesis to the overly accommodating, snowflake culture of recent generations.

A S T O I C R E N A I S S A N C E

The Problem Different guiding principles can be confusing for managers and corporate chiefs.

Why It Matters Leaders are more effective when their world is in perspective.

The Solution For some, looking centuries back can be helpful.

professor at City University of New York, who earlier this year published A Handbook for New Stoics: How to Thrive in a World Out of Your Control. “It’s explicit. You don’t have to have a background in philosophy to incorporate it into your life.”

W

ithout doubt, Stoic-esque tech- niques circulating Silicon Valley have garnered the most attention, including fasting, cold show- ers, and silent meditation retreats. For some, these practices can serve a pur- pose in building resilience; others say they can also amount to little more than virtue-signaling when Instagrammed from a multimillion- dollar Victorian. Pigliucci started his career studying how genes interact with the environment. He waltzes between the worlds of nature and nurture, which is where Stoicism has come to reside. It’s about controlling base reactions and stripping away external values that put us in conflict with ourselves and others, so that it’s possible to, as the Stoics say, “live in accordance with nature” internally, socially, and physically. To update Stoicism for a contemporary audience, Pigliucci and others simply swap its divine cosmology for evidence-based research. What Stoics call “turning the obstacle upside-down” and “the view from above” are reframing techniques, which form the foundation of cogni- tive behavioral therapy, one of the most scientifically proven and widely practiced psychotherapies. So what if I don’t make my numbers? Or if I

lose all of my wealth? As Epictetus, the freed slave and notorious Stoic, wrote, “It is not events that disturb people, it is their judgments concern- ing them.” The argument is that when we can reframe the minutiae of life in a broader context, it helps to bring into focus what matters most. When entrepreneur and venture capitalist Brad Feld, cofounder of Foundry Group, a large venture capital firm in Boulder, Colorado, began sink- ing into a deep depression, he says his life preserver came in the form of Stoicism and therapy. He later sent Holiday’s book The Daily Stoic to all the CEOs in his portfolio. “It completely changed my relationship with what is happening, what I think is happening, and what I want to happen,” Feld wrote in an email. Executive coaches have also begun incorporating Stoic frameworks into their work with clients, saying it reduces anxiety and makes for more nimble leaders. “The trouble is most people want to change it, control it, avoid it. The last thing they want to do is accept it,” says David Langiulli, who, from his base in Naples, Florida, specializes in nonprofit leadership development. “When you accept, you can take powerful action.”

N

ot surprisingly, some big names have criticized Stoicism, including Sandy Grant, a University of Cambridge philosopher. “The problem with this attitude is that it can lead us to accept things that we shouldn’t,”

she wrote in an op-ed. Others say some of the more well-to-do adherents are simply inauthentic, allowing those at the top to dismiss the impact socioeco- nomic circumstance has on well-being. It’s one thing to fast for 24 hours, but try telling someone without access to clean water, healthcare, or housing that those are just trivial externals. Still, scholars say the Stoicism renaissance is understandable if you compare modern times to when the philosophy reigned. In the centuries before the fall of the Roman Empire, there was cultural transformation and distemper that in some way resembles the current zeitgeist. There was uncer- tainty. Massive inequality. A series of ongoing and controversial wars. Flourishing religious fanaticism and anti-intellectualism. Whatever the reason, advocates say a form of Stoicism appears to be reaching the very top of corporate structures, especially as the so-called purpose movement expands. An exam- ple may be the well-publicized letter that nearly 200 CEOs signed earlier this year that redefined “the purpose of a corporation” away from just share- holder value. Instead, the leaders say companies must have higher guiding principles, such as protecting the envi- ronment and treating employees and suppliers with dignity. Or as Hansson—who in the end didn’t lose his house in the fire—puts it, “If my purpose is simply to make my business as big and profitable as pos- sible, that’s a terrible guiding principle for why I’m on earth. Stoicism helps us answer the question: Why are we here?” 1

A S T O I C R E N A I S S A N C E

Almost every week a new book

is released on the topic.

A D A Y I N T H E L I F E O F A S T O I C

Dr. Alkistis Agio, a former corporate

banker, incorporates Stoicism

into her leadership training and

authored a manual calledThe

Stoic CEO. She offers a few daily

practices Stoic followers rely on:

M O R N I N G Visualize what might go wrong—

including your own death—in the day

ahead, Agio says. Ask yourself, “Have I

closed the circle?”

D A Y Constantly identify what is

within your control and what is not. Let

go of good and bad. “ Amor fati ,” Agio

says. “Learn to love your fate.” If you find

yourself particularly attached to some

comfort, go without.

E V E N I N G Agio reviews the day using this

quote by the Stoic statesman Seneca the

Younger as a benchmark: “What evil of

yours have you cured today?” Where,

Agio asks, did you act with wisdom and

courage? What could be done better?