Most business advice sounds like it was generated by an algorithm trained on LinkedIn posts. Move fast and break things. Fail forward. Crush it. These phrases have the nutritional value of cotton candy. They dissolve the moment you try to chew on them. Meanwhile, a man who has been dead for over two thousand years […]
Aristotle for Entrepreneurs: Building a Business on Practical Wisdom Read More »
Someone tells you your work is not good enough. Your first instinct is not to consider whether they might be right. Your first instinct is to survive. Your jaw tightens. Your brain starts assembling a defense. You are no longer a rational adult weighing feedback. You are a six year old who just got told
How to Accept Criticism Like a Philosopher, Not a Child: Lessons from Marcus Aurelius Read More »
Marcus Tullius Cicero did not have a LinkedIn profile. He did not attend leadership seminars. He never posted an inspirational quote over a sunrise photo, though he certainly produced enough quotes to fill a lifetime of them. What he did have was a front row seat to the slow, spectacular collapse of the Roman Republic.
Cicero’s Guide to Surviving a Toxic Workplace (or a Dying Republic) Read More »
There is a book written 2,400 years ago that most business leaders have never read. It is not about business. It contains no frameworks, no case studies, no actionable takeaways. And yet it remains the most accurate diagnosis of why powerful organizations destroy themselves ever put to paper. The book is The History of the
Thucydides for CEOs: The High Cost of Corporate Hubris Read More »
Two thousand years before Twitter threads and TED talks, a Roman lawyer figured out something most of us still have not learned: you can win every argument and still lose everything that matters. His name was Marcus Tullius Cicero, and he was so good at persuasion that the people who killed him cut off his
Cicero’s 5 Rules for Winning an Argument Without Losing Your Soul Read More »
There is a question that political theorists have been circling for centuries, usually with great seriousness and very little resolution. Between Thucydides and Machiavelli, who actually understood power better? Both men watched civilizations make catastrophic decisions. Both wrote about it with uncomfortable clarity. But if you sit with their work long enough, a distinction emerges
Thucydides vs. Machiavelli: Who Really Understands Power Better? Read More »
You have probably been told, at some point, that you just need to “stay motivated.” Maybe a podcast host said it. Maybe a LinkedIn post with a sunrise background said it. Maybe you said it to yourself at 6 AM while staring at running shoes you had no intention of putting on. Here is the
Forget Motivation: Use Sun Tzu’s Concept of “Moral Force” Instead Read More »
There is a moment in every remote team’s life when someone types “sounds good” in Slack and absolutely nobody knows what it refers to. Three people assume it means the deadline moved. Two others think the project got approved. One person missed the message entirely because they were in a different time zone, asleep, as
Is Your Team a Mob or an Army? Sun Tzu’s Test for Remote Work Cohesion Read More »
There is a certain irony in the fact that the most quoted strategist in the history of warfare wrote a book that is, at its core, about avoiding warfare altogether. Sun Tzu’s The Art of War sits on the bookshelves of CEOs, coaches, military generals, and that one guy at every dinner party who thinks
Stop Fighting Fire with Fire: The Counterintuitive Path to Conflict Resolution Read More »
There is a particular kind of advice that sounds wise until you actually try to follow it. “Be yourself.” “Follow your passion.” “Live your best life.” These phrases decorate coffee mugs and Instagram bios, and they cost nothing to repeat. But when a Roman Stoic philosopher who survived exile, political conspiracy, and the mood swings
Why Seneca Believed “The Good Life” Is Inherently Anti-Social Read More »