What All Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Stoicism
Turn Obstacles Into Fuel
Theodore Roosevelt was not only President and staunch advocate for the National Park System, but he was also an adventurer who practiced Stoicism. Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early 3rd century BC. Stoicism teaches the development of self-control and fortitude as a means of overcoming destructive emotions. It was by adopting these principles that President Roosevelt was able to explore the dangerous tributaries of the Amazon jungle in South America, which he later wrote about in The River Of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey.
According to best selling author, Ryan Holiday, President Roosevelt “ spent eight months exploring (and nearly dying in) the unknown jungles of the Amazon, and of the eight books he brought on the journey, two were Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations and Epictetus’ Enchiridion.”
One of the world’s most famous and influential books, Meditations, by the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 121–180), incorporates the Stoic principles he used to cope with his life as a soldier and ruler of an empire. In the wake of natural disasters and war, he wrote a series of private reflections, outlining a philosophy of commitment to virtue above pleasure and tranquility above happiness. Stoicism is a way of living.
Entrepreneurship is an adventure. The journey can present unpredictable obstacles. Through reading Meditations myself, I believe that entrepreneurs, akin to what President Roosevelt endured, can learn that the impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. Below are quotes from Meditations that all entrepreneurs can find motivational and useful no matter the stage of your startup:
“Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.”
“The best way of avenging yourself is not to become like the wrongdoer.”
“Revere the gods, and help men. Life is short.”
“You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
“In a little while you will have forgotten everything; in a little while everything will have forgotten you.”
“Consider yourself to be dead, and to have completed your life up to the present time; and live, according to nature, the remainder that is allowed you.”
“Our inward power, when it obeys nature, reacts to events by accommodating itself to what it faces — to what is possible. It needs no specific material. It pursues its own aims as circumstances allow; it turns obstacles into fuel. As a fire overwhelms what would have quenched a lamp. What’s thrown on top of the conflagration is absorbed, consumed by it — and makes it burn still higher.”
“Pain is neither intolerable nor everlasting.”
“Very little indeed is necessary for living a happy life.”
“For nothing should be done without purpose.”
“Receive wealth or prosperity without arrogance; and be ready to let it go.”
“In the next place remember that neither the future nor the past pains you, but only the present.”
“Loss is nothing else than change.”
“No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such.”
“Begin with yourself, and examine yourself first.”
“Strive to live what is really your life.”
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