Welcome to Wisdom NOTES: A short transcript summary capturing three insights from conversations onĀ In Search of Wisdom. This edition comes from my interview with Donald Robertson, the author of Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius.
Stoic Wisdom for Modern Leaders (and Life)
In this episode, my guest is Donald Robertson, the author of the new graphic novel Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius. Donald is a cognitive-behavioral psychotherapist and the founder and president of the Platoās Academy Centre, a nonprofit in Athens, Greece (which youāll hear more about in the episode). He is also the author of How to Think Like a Roman Emperor and many others. Ā
In the conversation, Donald and I discuss,
Leadership lessons from Marcus Aurelius
Ancient Philosophy and Modern Leadership
The dichotomy of control (and Leadership)
Why managing anger leads to self-improvement and much more
As youāll hear in the episode, Platoās Academy Centre has an upcoming virtual event titled Ancient Philosophy for Modern Leadership on Saturday (3 Dec). Register for free at platosacademy.org.
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1. The Royal Road to Self-Improvement
Wisdom Note #1: I asked Donald to explain a comment from another podcast, where he stated, āAnger is the royal road to self-improvement.ā
Donald: That's exactly as I said. I'll tell you why. I believe that there are, broadly speaking, three categories of negative emotions we talked about in therapy, anger, fear, and sadness. Psychotherapy and consulting rooms are full; I specialized in fear or anxiety. Some people specialize in sadness or depression. People with anxiety or depression tend to be self-blaming. And they typically seek not always but generally, they're more likely to seek therapy. And usually, people have a mixture of anxious people and also have anger. Depressed people also often have quite a lot of anger, but predominantly, they're anxious or depressed; they're likely to go and seek help and feel that there's something wrong.
Angry people are very different. The anger is externalizing. Emotionally, angry people usually blame other people. So it's unusual for people who are predominantly angry to self-refer for treatment. Where we see angry people in therapy is in institutions. So in schools, kids will be referred for angry outbursts in the classroom and relationships. Also, one partner will tell or ask the other partner to go to therapy because they've got a problem with their anger and presence. Inmates are referred for anger management in the military; someone might be told that they need to go and have anger management. But angry people don't usually seek treatment themselves. It's usually at the behest of other people who are taught to seek treatment, right?
So angry people, more than depressed or anxious people, lack insight. Why enter the fact that they have a need to do psychotherapy? Now, what does that tell you? That tells you that in a modern society dominated and awash with self-help. Left to their own devices, people are more likely to go online looking for ways to deal with anxiety and depression but unlikely to seek self-help for anger. Then they usually need other people to tell them, or at least they come into therapy with depression or anxiety. And at some point, the therapist may also bring up the topic of their anger. Anger is typically ignored in modern self-help literature. [ā¦]
2. Leadership and the Dichotomy of Control
Wisdom Note #2: Most people are familiar with what is often called the dichotomy of control. Determining what is up to us and what's not up to us. But leadership is usually defined as something along the lines of influencing others. How did Marcus Aurelius focus on what was within his control and attempt to influence others?
Donald: The dichotomy of control is about realizing that we don't have complete control over external events. Despite the fact that we can obviously influence others. I mean, if anyone thinks that means that we have no influence over others, that would be crazy... But of course, the Stoics believed that we can influence external events. Here's a clue. They wrote books and gave lectures, right? So if you compare it to that, what would be the point? And Epictetus tells us this if he didn't believe that telling us about the dichotomy of control might mean that we could learn from his words and need to have some influence over it. So teachers are leaders. In a sense, it's a different type of leadership. ā¦ I think a bad leader also would be somebody who believes that he has complete control over the people that work for him or the people that serve under him. [ā¦]
3. Kindness and Compassion
Wisdom Note #3: We spoke last time on the podcast about Stoicism and compassion. And something you said is that you're surprised that so many people can read Meditations and not necessarily get how important kindness was to the Stoics. If anger is the royal road to self-improvement. How important is it to understand that kindness and compassion are the projects?
Donald: Well, first of all, I don't like the word compassion, but we're kind of stuck with it. Because, strictly speaking, the root meaning of compassion is to share a passion. Same as the word sympathy, and that very idea can irk the Stoics. Because passion really beats pathological emotion. And so there's a part I'll digress slightly here because there's a really important paradox in therapy: how do you empathize with somebody without agreeing with them?
You have a client, and therapy is like, ānobody likes me.ā Everybody hates me; I think we're gonna eat worms, kitten nursery rainbow. But that's kind of how you feel when you're the threat. Nobody likes me. Everybody hates me. And so, as a therapist, you need to empathize with clients, and they need to feel empathized with. But you don't want to agree that nobody likes them. And everybody hates them. Because probably, that's cognitive distortion. My sweeping generalization, it's mind-reading stuff, personally. We see things through very distorted lenses when we're depressed. So we want to empathize with people. But it's usually phrased in counseling to empathize without sympathizing. [ā¦]
The main theme if there were a main theme of the Meditations, I would say the main overarching themes of the Meditations are social virtue and psychotherapy of anger. That's the main thing he's interested in that book.
Thank you for listening/reading; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,
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