The Stoic Edge for Managers - Episode 5 - The building of resilience

We discuss here one of the most endearing skills for managers in the 2020s...the skill of resilience, and its application in the business world

Thank you for listening. The Stoic Edge is available for all managers and others who feel it would be beneficial to them. Find out more about the company that produces them at www.mymanagementcoach.org

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Let me start with a question that I think every manager asks themselves at some point, usually at about 11 o'clock on a particularly brutal Wednesday. How do other people do this? You look around at certain leaders, the ones who seem to absorb pressure without cracking, who take a setback and come back stronger, who can walk into a crisis and somehow make everyone in the room feel calmer just by being there, and you wonder, what do they have that I don't? The answer, more often than not, is not talent, it is not experience, it is not even confidence, it is resilience. And the good news, the genuinely great news, is that resilience is not a personality trait you are born with or without. It is a skill. And like every skill, it can be deliberately, systematically built. The Stoics knew this 2,000 years ago. And today, we're going to look at exactly how they did it, and how you can too. The first thing the Stoics would tell you about resilience is this. It starts with where you place your attention. Marcus Aurelius wrote, You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this and you will find strength. As a manager, you are surrounded by things you can't control. Market shifts, organizational politics, other people's behavior, budget decisions made three levels above you. The stoic practice of the dichotomy of control asks you to do something deceptively simple. Draw a line down the middle of a page. On one side of the page, write everything you can influence, on the other, everything you can't. And then, ruthlessly, direct your energy only toward the first column. This is not passivity, this is precision. The manager who stops burning energy on the uncontrollable suddenly has an enormous amount of resource available for the things that actually matter. That is where resilience begins, not in doing more, but in focusing better. The second stoic practice for building resilience is one we have touched on before, but it deserves its own moment here. Premeditatio malorum, the deliberate anticipation of difficulty. Before a major project, before a difficult quarter, before a challenging conversation, the stoic manager asks, What could go wrong here? And if it does, what will I do? Seneca put it this way. Let us prepare our minds as if we had come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. This is not pessimism, this is preparation. And there is a profound difference between the two. The manager who has mentally rehearsed the difficult scenario is never ambushed by it. They walk into challenges with a quiet readiness that their team can feel, and that in itself becomes a source of collective resilience. The third practice is perhaps the most powerful and the most counterintuitive. Embrace the difficulty. Do not just tolerate it. The Stoics called this amor fati, love of fate. The idea that the obstacle in front of you is not an interruption to your growth as a manager. It is your growth. Every difficult team dynamic, every failed initiative, every moment of professional hardship, the Stoic sees all of it as the raw material of character. Epictetus said, seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish, but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life. I want you to think about a challenge you are facing right now, something in your professional world that is genuinely hard. And I want you to try just for a moment to ask not, why is this happening to me, but what is this building in me? That single shift in question changes everything. It moves you from victim to student, from reactive to intentional, from drained to directed. So, here is your practical takeaway from today. Three things. Simple, actionable, and stoic. 1. Every morning this week, spend two minutes identifying what is in your control today and what is not. Write it down if it helps. Then let the second list go. 2. Before your most challenging interaction or task this week, spend five minutes on your premeditatio. What could go wrong? What would you do? Walk in prepared. 3. Identify one current difficulty and reframe it. Ask yourself honestly, what is this making me better at? These are not grand gestures, they are small daily disciplines. But compounded over weeks and months, they build the kind of resilience that changes careers and changes lives. Because as Marcus Aurelius reminded himself, every single morning before the weight of the Empire landed on his shoulders, what stands in the way becomes the way. Your obstacles are not in the way of your leadership journey, they are the journey. See you next time.