Insights
“Let’s trust only that which we can see, plainly, with our own eyes.” Seneca, On Anger
“When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes.” Erasmus
“I have no special talents, I am only passionately curious.” Albert Einstein
What I Learned This Week
Alexander the Great roamed the earth almost 1,766 years before the printing press was invented in 1440. Prior to Johannes Gutenberg inventing the movable type printing press, literature was produced through the meticulous process of hand-copying. Scribes would use materials like parchment, vellum, and papyrus. As a result books were extremely expensive and rare. Yet somehow stories and legends of men and women survive for thousands of years. What stories and legends are we “writing” today?
According to some estimates, over 2 billion books are sold each year, with the USA, UK, and China contributing to over 72% of this figure.
Lives of Great Men
Today more than ever, too many people seem lost.
Information is abundant while wisdom and knowledge seem scarce. Leadership at home or work is more than a title. It is an accumulation of actions (or inactions). We have been conditioned to listen to the loudest voice. It might even distort our view of what it means to be great.
Over decades, centuries, and more greatness leaves clues. Patterns start to emerge. In particular, you might notice that it takes a devoted and disciplined man to respond instead of react. The calmest individual in the room most likely is the most capable. It certainly was the case during the American Revolution.
250 years ago, General George Washington had enough. His battlefield leaders were lost. They needed redirecting. So on September 9, 1775, he issued a General Order.
“The Major General commanding the division of the army, posted between Prospect-hill and Cambridge river, is to be very exact in obliging the Colonels and Field Officers, to lay in the Encampments of their respective regiments; and particularly, the Colonel and Lieutenant Colonel of the 30th Regiment.”
The officers and leaders of men should live and sleep in the same conditions as the men. You lead by example. You don’t say one thing and do another. Words matter. But actions matter even more.
Longfellow memorialized this idea in his poem A Psalm of Life.
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
Reflections
What footprints are you leaving? Are they in a direction worth following?
The Real Con 135