Tom Morris Joins Heroic Coach

It's interesting, Michael, that the philosophers, the wise philosophers, those whose views have endured the passage of time, have always said, you know, self cultivation, self interest and proper self love. And Pascal talked about this a lot in the 17th century. Proper self love is not at all inimical to concern with others and a concern with community. In fact, individual happiness and community flourishing actually feed each other. Aristotle said, we are social creatures, we can't really be happy as individuals unless we live amongst other happy, flourishing human beings. And so to the extent that we cultivate ourselves, we bring a greater gift to the larger whole. And to the extent that we help others, we gift ourselves with the talents and beauties and abilities they have. So the philosophers have never seen the paradox of individual and society as being contradictions, but as being dynamically interwoven in super important ways. So, yeah, the best way to look at self cultivation is that we're doing our part for the greater good. And that concern with the self is never a narrow selfishness as long as it has that openness to helping and serving others. It's a great philosophical insight.

And I love you speak about in the superheroes one about Superman and how it was by being willing to do what was best for himself as an individual that he actually became kind of this hero and served others. And I love, you know, that the two contradiction of being selfish and that and also owning his strengths and this ability to fully accept and integrate his own strengths. And that's what allowed him to kind of go, go serve others. So I'd love to hear more too about that distinction and how we can find our strength and also have the willingness to embrace them. For me, that's one of the hardest things is actually like random recognizing and owning my own strengths.

Oh yeah. There are cultures around the world still where if you try to cultivate yourself and attain your greatest excellence, other people say, no, no, no, no, no, you got to fit in, you got, you're trying to stand out from the crowd too much. But it's only when we really optimize our own excellence that we have the most to contribute to other people. And we should take this attitude of humble service along the way. In fact, it's an interesting thing about our, our strengths and our challenges. Because you mentioned Superman. Well, we have the story of Superman only because of all the challenges and difficulties and dangers he faced along, along the way. I was reading Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher the other day, his discourses, and there's this passage where he reflects on Hercules and he said, imagine Hercules, which was kind of the ancient superman. He said, imagine Hercules without the dangerous lion, without the bull he had to confront, without the, you know, and there's a list in the ancient world, the 12 labors of Hercules. And notice, we haven't been passed on. The twelve vacations of Hercules. It's the twelve labors of Hercules. These adversities and difficulties he faced. And Epictetus makes the point. Suppose he had faced none of that stuff. Suppose he had just stayed at home all the time and taking naps all day. We would never have heard of Hercules. I mean, it was only because he struggled with all these adversities that he became the great person for others. And in fact, I wrote a book a few years ago about Steve Jobs, because I had some business clients who said, you know, here's a guy who, some ways he looked like the biggest jerk in the history of the world, but he built the world's most valuable company. How does this work? You know? And so I did a really unusual book on Steve Jobs called Socrates in Silicon Valley. There are these amazing parallels between Steve Jobs and Socrates. But anyway, a friend of mine from India read my book, and he came to me and said something that I didn't even realize you could get from reading the book. That's the cool thing about the individual in society. As we interact with other people, we learn things about our own ideas that we didn't even recognize before. So this guy, Veenod Rangra, he comes to me and says, boy, I loved your book. It really showed me that Steve Jobs became so great because he picked. He chose problems that were big enough for his spirit and big enough for his talents. And I said, whoa, say some more about that, Venod. He said, steve didn't just pick small problems to solve. He picked giant problems to solve. And he was a big, spirited person. And that caused some of his problems, as well as being the source of all his great innovations. But he said, that's the lesson for life, isn't it? Pick problems that are big enough for you. Small things are important. Small things are crucial. You can't solve a big problem without small steps in the right direction. But he said, we should always be picking the right problems for us, like Superman did, like Hercules did, like, you know, Odysseus. I just read the Odyssey three times last year, and I'd read it maybe two times before. I recommend rereading great books because they're great for a reason, right? There's going to be a depth of insight there. 150 generations of human beings have gotten excited about the Iliad and the Odyssey. It's got to be a reason. It's not just, you know, difficult 10th grade teachers, right? It's like, there's got to be something there. And so I reread the Iliad a couple times. I reread the Odyssey. The Iliad, it turns out, is all about partnership. Nobody ever told me that. The Iliad is all about the power of partnership and partnership going wrong. It's when people get selfish in an antisocial way that everything falls apart. Agamemnon and Achilles. Read the Iliad. You'll be amazed at what you learn about partnership. The Odyssey, by contrast, is all about the power of purpose. Two of the most important things we could ever come up with. And in the life of Steve Jobs, both those things become extremely important. Partnership and purpose. Now think about what Epictetus said about Hercules. What if he'd had no challenges? What if you just lay around the house all day? What If Odysseus, after 10 years in the Trojan War, where he was, by the way, in the Iliad, a kind of a third rate character in that story. But what if Odysseus, think about the day he's sailing off for Ithaca, going home, and everybody's on the shore saying, bon voyage, Odysseus. Smooth sailing. Have a nice, easy, quick trip. Say hello to Penelope for me. It took him 10 years to get home. He had to go through ordeals that were unimaginable. He had to take on problems that were as big as his spirit. And that's why he became one of the great heroes in all literature, because he had a sense of purpose that made him deal with all these things. Just like Superman, just like Hercules. Are we taking on problems that are as big as our spirit, as big as our talent? Most people don't. Most people play it safe and just try to do the things that, okay, this is good. I'm not going to fail here. I won't look embarrassed here. Nobody will think the worst of me. Look, Odysseus made plenty of mistakes, right? I mean, what kind of leader is a guy who of him and all his followers, he's the only one who makes it home alive, right? Great leader Odysseus. You know, all your people die, but you're okay. So, I mean, he's not the ultimate role model for everybody. But he did endure under tremendous adversity because of his sense of purpose and his agility and his wits. But he didn't always succeed. He had a lot of failures. He was called the world's unluckiest man over and over in the Odyssey. He's called the unluckiest man alive. He's called the storm tossed man. He's called the man of many troubles. Right? And so that's what we can learn from people like the Superman of classical literature. So thanks, Michael, for asking about Superman.

Hi, it's Michael, head coach at Optymyze. And I hope that you enjoyed that wisdom from our brilliant luminary guest faculty member of Optymyze. Coach, it's time. It's time to master yourself, to serve heroically and to empower others to do the same. Our world needs virtuous, heroic leadership and you at your absolute best. Of course, helping you do that is what Optimize Coach is all about.

You.

You can find all the information and sign up to join Class 3, which starts soon at www.Optimize.me. coach, let's be the change and change the world one person at a time together, starting with you and us.