The Leadership Secrets of Marcus Aurelius

On today's episode, Ryan talks about the virtues that Marcus Aurelius brought to his position as Emperor of Rome. How did Marcus lead the Roman people through invasions and plagues, war and disaster, and still maintain his mettle? Find out on today's Daily Stoic Podcast.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something that can help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, wisdom, and temperance. And here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers. We reflect, we prepare, we think deeply about the challenging issues of our time, and we work through this philosophy in a way that's more possible here when we're not rushing to work or to get the kids to school, when we have the time to think, to go for a walk,

• 0:46Ryan Holiday?

  to sit with our journals, and to prepare for what the future will bring.

• 0:54Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. So we have this idea, right, that absolute power corrupts absolutely. And it's pretty much universally, undeniably, indisputably true. I mean, you've even probably experienced it in your own life, not just watching power sort of work at or change people in your lives, but you've probably even caught yourself doing it. I mean, when I'm writing "An Ego is the Enemy", I'm talking about how the ego is this kind of insidious voice that changes us. And so what's so fascinating to me about Marcus Aurelius is not just like,

• 1:38Ryan Holiday?

  here's a guy who had absolute power. Here's a guy who selected for absolute power at a very young age, not just like selected for bloodline reasons. He's chosen for it. Hadrian sees some potential in this boy and begins to groom him to eventually take over. And so for, for literally decades of his early life, he's the king in waiting. And that can't be good for someone. It certainly wasn't good for Nero, who had a pretty similar trajectory to Marcus Aurelius. And so how do their reigns end up being so fantastically different, right? Just on a human level? Is it just, one was just born special and

• 2:19Ryan Holiday?

  the other was born broken? I don't think that's right. I think something happened, right? And so I'm fascinated by Marcus Aurelius as a leader. The ancients were certainly fascinated by Marcus as a leader because they'd seen all the other emperors go the other direction. And, and so how did he, as Matthew Arnold said, you know, here's a guy who's given all the power and responsibility in the world, and yet, yet he proves himself worthy of it. So I think the leadership strategies of Marcus Aurelius are worth exploring, certainly worth learning about, and I would say worth emulating. And so in today's episode, I want

• 3:00Ryan Holiday?

  to look at some leadership lessons, some leadership secrets, if you will, of the great Marcus Aurelius. And I'll leave it to you to compare and contrast them to the current leaders that we see locally, nationally, internationally today. And if you can, you have any say on who those leaders are. Look, I'm not saying everyone should be Marcus Aurelius, but we can expect certain things of the people that we pay and place in power. And I think there's some lessons here for that. But, but most importantly, most directly, I think these are some lessons you can apply in your own life, and I hope you do so. He wasn't a natural born leader. He was reclusive and bookish by nature. He didn't

• 3:45Ryan Holiday?

  like telling people what to do. He had no interest in fame. He had spent his entire reign as an emperor at war without any prior military experience. Yet, as one contemporary put it, Marcus Aurelius not only possessed all the other virtues, but also was a better ruler than anyone else who had ever been emperor. Imagine he had absolute power and it not only didn't corrupt him, it made him a better person. A later historian tells us that in his own time, people referred to him as Marcus, my father, and that it was nearly impossible to find someone who didn't have some kind of display of the great leader in their home. Never was worship more legitimate, he writes.

• 4:27Ryan Holiday?

  Thanks to Marcus Aurelius, the world was governed by the best and greatest man of his age. How did this happen? What did Marcus do to become one of, if not the greatest leader in history? Well, here is how. It begins with preparation. The Emperor Hadrian never had a son, so he devised a very specific succession plan. He adopted a 51-year-old man named Antoninus Pius on the condition that he adopt Marcus Aurelius in turn. Hadrian thought this would provide for something like five years of training for Marcus. Instead, Antoninus lived and instructed Marcus Aurelius for 23 years, an incredible unprecedented apprenticeship.

• 5:10Ryan Holiday?

  And Marcus said one of the most important things he learned from Antoninus was his own advanced planning, well in advance, and his discreet attention to even minor things, his constant devotion to the empire's needs. Antoninus taught Marcus that you don't necessarily need to be the brightest, you just need experience, you just need training. You don't need everything to happen the way that you want, you just need to anticipate and prepare. And that's exactly what Marcus did. A healthy mind, he reminds himself, should be prepared for anything. We should be like a wrestler, waiting, poised, and dug in for sudden assaults. Which is why Marcus practiced that idea of premeditatio malorum, envisioning what could

• 5:54Ryan Holiday?

  go wrong and having a plan for it in advance. And then, of course, Marcus could not have been prepared without his mentor. The French philosopher and historian Ernest Renan observed what an extraordinary job Marcus's tutors and mentors did for him. By the ordinary analogies, Renan writes of the facts that so many leaders throughout history had spiraled into corruption, Marcus could have turned out to be the very worst. So how did his guardians succeed in forming such a man? The answer, Marcus had a single master whom he revered above them all, and that was Antoninus, the most beautiful model of a perfect life.

• 6:36Ryan Holiday?

  Renan writes that our potential is in proportion of our faculty for admiration, and Marcus' regard for the stepfather under whom he trained for those 23 years was boundless. He praised his mentor for his compassion and gentleness, his hard work, his persistence, his constancy to his friends, never getting fed up, never manipulating, or playing the game of imperial favorites. He had unshakable adherence to decisions once he had made them, Marcus said, listened to anyone who could contribute something worthwhile, treated people according to their merits, and had a sense of when to press and when to back off. The best way to learn is by example, and Marcus' decision to attach himself to Antoninus

• 7:19Ryan Holiday?

  and to really listen was the key to his greatness. But this yielding to experts is another key lesson. Marcus Aurelius' shrewd and careful personnel selection, as one biographer puts it, is worthy of study by any person in a position of leadership. Marcus broke the mold and filled his staff with talent, not aristocrats, or cronies, or sycophants. He searched for and brought in the best, and then he actually listened to their advice. When the Antonine Plague began, Marcus immediately hired Galen, the most famous physician and polymath of antiquity, to lead medical lectures and anatomy demonstrations. He said he wanted to elevate the intellectual tone of his court, and it was Galen whom

• 8:02Ryan Holiday?

  he empowered to lead the efforts to combat the plague, the smartest medical mind of his time. This, in particular, Marcus wrote, is what being a great leader requires, the willingness to yield the Florida experts in oratory law, psychology, whatever, and then support them energetically so that each of them could fulfill their potential.

• 8:23Ryan Holiday?

  And this idea of helping people fulfill their potential, getting the best out of them, is key. It can be hard for smart and talented people to put up with the limitations of those around them. Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan had this problem. They were so good, it was frustrating that their teammates weren't as talented or dedicated. Marcus may have struggled with this too, but he came to understand that not everyone had his gifts, and that he needed to find a way to be able to work with others. We're told by the historian Cassius Dio, "So long as a person did anything good, Marcus would praise him and use him for the service in which he excelled, but to his other conduct he paid no attention, for he declared that it was impossible to create such men as one desires to have,

• 9:05Ryan Holiday?

  and so it is fitting to employ those who are already in existence for whatever service each of them may be able to render." As leaders, we have to work with others where they are. We have to help them get the most out of themselves. But ultimately, we can't change people. We have to focus on what is in our control while they focus on what is in their control, and that is all that is possible. And this idea of owning that, of blaming yourself first, is key. The causes of things are complicated. Rarely does a project go exactly how we'd like it to go. So we point the finger at other people, at unfair conditions, at the weather, the advice we got. But actually, the causes of things are quite simple, at least according to Marcus and the Stoics, because to them, the fault is always ours.

• 9:49Ryan Holiday?

  We are the ones who chose to listen to the advice. We are the one who left the outcome up to chance, who didn't plan for the contingencies, whose expectations set us up to be disappointed. Marcus's rule was blame yourself or blame no one. And that was something else he learned from Antoninus, his willingness to take responsibility and blame. As soon as you blame other people, you have compromised your integrity, and you've handed over your power. And Marcus's greatness was that he declined to do that. But he did spend ample time reflecting. While his predecessors enjoyed a peaceful and prosperous reign for over two decades, fate, it seems, wanted something else to test Marcus. Wars, floods, famines, plagues, the loss of loved ones.

• 10:32Ryan Holiday?

  It was one obstacle after the next, and it didn't let up for 15 years. And so shortly after becoming emperor, Marcus took up a habit that he kept his entire life. He called it a soothing ointment. That's how he referred to the process of journaling. We think he liked to do it in the morning in his tent, whether it was on the front lines in Germania or the palace in Rome. Wherever he happened to be, he stole a few seconds to sit down and reflect. In his journal, we see Marcus reviewing his actions and behaviors and seeing how he can do better. We see him reminding himself over and over again that he can leave this alone, that he doesn't need to have an opinion about this, that he doesn't have to take this or that personally, that he doesn't have to say something, that he doesn't have to complain or criticize,

• 11:14Ryan Holiday?

  that he can put the blame on himself, that fame and money and power are worthless. Who knows what kind of man Marcus would have been without carving out this time for stillness and reflection? And who knows what kind of leader you will be without doing it yourself? And who knows what Marcus would have been had he not cultivated the ability to turn obstacles into fuel? Hardship is universal, but it can be perceived in many different ways. We can see something as a failure, as unfairness, as the end of a conversation, or we can train ourselves to see this as an opportunity, as grist for the mill, as a chance to learn, as a chance to practice endurance, patience, resilience, struggle. Marcus Aurelius believed in the latter approach, as he wrote,

• 11:59Ryan Holiday?

  "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. It turns obstacles into fuel. As a fire overwhelms what would have quenched a lamp, what's thrown on top of a fire is absorbed, consumed by it, and makes it burn still higher." It's not about resigning ourselves, it's about leaning in, about making something of it, about seeing the opportunity. Inside an obstacle. And of course, this takes courage, courage, temperance, justice, wisdom, each and every situation the Stoics believed called for one of these four virtues. But to the Stoics, courage was the greatest virtue, being brave enough to take a stand,

• 12:41Ryan Holiday?

  to risk one's own neck to counter adversity with wisdom and temperance and justice. Marcus stayed and braved the deadliest plague of Rome's 900-year history. He reassured the people not only by his presence, but through his actions. He was not one of those leaders that hid. He was Churchill during the Blitz, inspiring people to keep calm and carry on. And this was not some short threat. It lasted for 15 years, and he endured it without complaint. He was the perfect embodiment of what Stoicism means to us today. He didn't get rattled, he didn't panic, he kept himself strong for others, and he insisted on what was right, never what was politically expedient. He was resolute. He was courageous. And he loved

• 13:24Ryan Holiday?

  it and everyone else. Stoicism is not just about improving yourself, it's about improving the world, it's about helping and caring for others. From Sextus, one of Marcus's mentors, Marcus said he learned that a leader must be free of passion and yet full of love. On nearly every page of his journal, Marcus talks about it. You have to care about other people, you can't do this alone. You are put here to work with others. You have to look after human beings. The fruit of this life is good character and unselfish actions. Marcus would have agreed with that headline of a recent article, "I don't know how to explain to you that you should care about other people." A leader has to care about their followers, they have to care about the consequences of their actions, they have to care about making

• 14:05Ryan Holiday?

  a difference. Marcus is crystal clear, the cognitive behavioral therapist and author Donald Robertson says. He says, "The goal of Stoicism is to be full of love. How much more on the nose do you need it?" In whatever position of leadership you occupy, that's the prevailing belief of Marcus's life, that we must be strong, we must be wise, we must be eager to learn, but ultimately, we must care about other people and do what is right. Waste no more time talking about what a good man or woman is like. Marcus wrote, "Be one. There is no better expression or embodiment of Stoicism, of Marcus's reign as emperor, as his leadership style. That's what Stoicism is. Being a great

• 14:49Ryan Holiday?

  leader is about what you do. It's about the acts of wisdom, self-control, justice, and courage. It's not the act of talking about these things, or reading about them, or writing about them. Just that you do the right thing." Marcus reminds us with his actions, his words, his legacy. The rest doesn't matter. And of course, if you want to keep this journey of philosophy going, I urge you to sign up for our Daily Stoic email. Each morning, we send out one email to hundreds of thousands of people all over the world, a meditation on those Stoic virtues of courage, justice, wisdom, and self-control. It's totally free. You get it in your inbox. It gives you something to start the day with. You can sign up at dailystoic.com/email.