Episode 119: 18:53 Working Tools Series: Restraint

The real power move in life is restraint. Just because you’re provoked or have the chance to react doesn’t mean you should. Real discipline is choosing not to act on impulse.

Jackie Robinson is the ultimate example—someone who faced constant abuse but refused to retaliate, channeling that restraint into strength and purpose.

The message is simple: restraint isn’t weakness, it’s control. And in most situations, the ability to pause, absorb, and respond deliberately is what actually sets you apart.

Bro. Jackie Robinson was a member of Widow’s Son Lodge No. 1 (PHA, New York), and Bro. Branch Rickey was from Montauk Lodge No. 286 (Brooklyn). 

(Check out “Ego Is the Enemy” by Ryan Holiday)

Transcript

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people who knew Jackie Robinson as a young man probably wouldn't have predicted that they'd one day see him become the first black player in Major League baseball. Not that he wasn't talented or that the idea of eventually integrating white baseball was inconceivable. It's that he wasn't exactly known for his restraint and poise. as a teenager, Robinson ran with a small gang of friends who regularly found themselves in trouble with local police. He challenged a fellow student to a fight at a junior college picnic for using a slur. in a basketball game. He surreptitiously struck a hard fouling white opponent with the ball so forcefully that the kid bled everywhere. He was arrested more than once for arguing with and challenging police who he felt treated him unfairly. before he started at UCLA. He spent the night in jail and had a gun drawn on him by an officer for nearly fighting a white man who'd insulted his friends. and in addition to rumors of inciting protests against racism, Jackie Robinson effectively ended his career as a military officer at Camp Hood in 1944 when a bus driver attempted to force him to sit in the back. In spite of laws that forbade segregation on base buses by arguing and cursing at the driver, and then directly challenging his commanding officer. After the fraus, Jackie said in motion a series of events that led to a court martial despite being acquitted. He was discharged shortly afterward. it's not just understandable and human that he did this. It was probably the right thing to do. Why should he let anyone else treat him that way? No one should have to stand for that, except sometimes they do. Are there not goals so important that we'd put up with anything to achieve them? When Branch Ricky, the manager and owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, scouted Jackie to potentially become the first black player in baseball. He had one question. Do you have the guts? I'm looking. Ricky told him for a ball player with the guts not to fight back. In fact, in their famous meeting. Ricky Play acted the abuse that Robinson was likely to experience if he accepted Ricky's challenge, a hotel clerk refusing him a room, a rude waiter in a restaurant, an opponent shouting slurs. This Robinson assured him he was ready to handle there were plenty of players Ricky could have gone with, but he needed one who wouldn't let his ego block him from seeing the bigger picture. As he started in baseball's farm systems, then in the pros, Robinson faced more than just slights from service staff or reticent players. There was an aggressive, coordinated campaign to libel, boo provoke, freeze out, attack, maim, or even kill in his career, he was hit by more than 72 pitches nearly had his Achilles tendon taken out by players who aimed their spikes at him, and that says nothing of the calls he was cheated out of and the breaks of the game. That did not go his way yet Jackie Robinson held to his unwritten pact with Ricky never giving into explosive anger, however deserved, In fact, in nine years in the league, he never hid another player with his fist athlete. Seems spoiled and hotheaded to us today, but we have no concept of what the leagues were like then in 1956, Ted Williams, one of the most revered and respected players in the history of the game, was once caught spitting at his fans as a white player, he could not only get away with this, he later told reporters quote, I'm not a bit sorry for what I did. I was right, and I'd spit again at the same people who booed me today. Nobody's going to stop me from spitting unquote for a black player. This sort of behavior would've been not only unthinkable, but shortsighted beyond comprehension. Robinson had no such freedom. It would've ended not only his career, but set back his grand experiment for a generation Jackie's path called him to put aside both his ego and in some respect, his basic sense of fairness and rights as a human being. Early in his career, the manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, Ben Chapman, was particularly brutal in his taunting during a game. And trust me, what he said was beyond brutal. Not only did Jackie not respond despite, as he later wrote, wanting to quote, grab one of those white sobs and smash his teeth in with my despised black fist unquote. A month later, he agreed to take a friendly photo with Chapman to help save the man's job. The thought of touching, posing with such a jerk, even 60 years removed, almost turns the stomach. Robinson called it one of the most difficult things he ever did, but he was willing to, because it was part of a larger plan, he understood that certain forces were trying to bait him to ruin him. Knowing what he wanted and needed to do in baseball. It was clear what he would have to tolerate in order to do it. He shouldn't have had to, but he did. Our own path. Whatever we aspire to will in some ways be defined by the amount of nonsense we are willing to deal with. Our humiliations will pale in comparison to Robinson's. But it will still be hard. It will still be tough to keep our self-control. The fighter bass Rutten sometimes writes the letter R on both his hands before fights for the word roost, which means relax In Dutch, Getting angry, getting emotional, losing restraint is a recipe for failure in the ring. you cannot. As John Steinbeck once wrote to his editor, lose temper as a refuge from despair. your ego will do You no favors here. Whether you're struggling with a publisher, with critics, with enemies, or a capricious boss. It doesn't matter that they don't understand or that you know better. It's too early for that. It's too soon. Oh, you went to college. That doesn't mean the world is yours by right, but it was the Ivy League. Well, people are still going to treat you poorly and they will still yell at you. You have a million dollars or a wall full of awards. That doesn't mean anything in the new field you're trying to tackle. It doesn't matter how talented you are, how great your connections are, how much money you have, when you wanna do something, something big and important and meaningful, you'll be subjected to treatment ranging from indifference to outright sabotage. Count on it. In this scenario, ego is the absolute opposite of what is needed. Who can afford to be jerked around by impulses or believe that you're God's gift to humanity are too important to put up with anything you don't like. Those who have subdued their ego. Understand that it doesn't degrade you when others treat you poorly. It degrades them. up ahead. There will be slights, dismissals. One-sided compromises. You'll get yelled at. You'll have to work behind the scenes to salvage what should have been easy. All this will make you angry. This will make you wanna fight back. This will make you wanna say, I am better than this. I deserve more. of course, you'll wanna throw that in other people's faces. Worse, you'll wanna get in other people's faces. People who don't deserve the respect, recognition, or rewards they are getting. In fact, those people will often get perks instead of you. When someone doesn't reckon you with the seriousness that you'd like, the impulse is to correct them. As we all wish to say, do you know who I am? You wanna remind them of what they've forgotten. Your ego screams for you to indulge it. Instead, you must do nothing. Take it. Eat it until you're sick. Endure it quietly, brush it off and work harder. Play the game. Ignore the noise for the love of God, do not let it distract you. Restraint is a difficult skill, but a critical one You'll often be tempted. You'll probably even be overcome. No one is perfect with it, but try, we must. It is a timeless fact of life that the up and coming must endure. The abuses of the entrenched. Robinson was 28 when he started with the Dodgers, and he'd already paid plenty of dues in life as both a black man and a soldier. Still, he was forced to do it again. It's a sad fact of life that new talents are regularly missed, and even when recognized, often unappreciated. The reasons always vary, but it's part of the journey, but you're not able to change the system until after you've made it In the meantime, you'll have to find some way to make it suit your purposes, even if those purposes are just extra time to develop properly, to learn from others on their dime, to build your base and establish yourself. As Robinson succeeded after he had proved himself as the rookie of the year and as an MVP and as his spot on the Dodgers was certain, he began to more clearly assert himself and his boundaries as a player and as a man, having carved out his space, he felt that he could argue with umpires, he could throw his shoulder if he needed to make a player back off or to send a message. no matter how confident and famous Robinson became. He never spit on his fans. He never did anything that undermined his legacy. A class act from opening day until the end. Jackie Robinson was not without passion. He had a temper and frustrations like all of us do, but he learned early that the tightrope he walked would tolerate only restraint and had no forgiveness for ego. Honestly, not many paths do he.