Stoicism: Timeless Lessons for Modern Entrepreneurs with Ken Davenport

with Ken Davenport

Nov 22, 2024 · 00:48:07

Welcome to The Total Entrepreneur Mind, Body, Spirit, where we turn cutting-edge science into practical strategies for entrepreneurs. I'm your host, Dr. John Torrance, entrepreneur, Inc. 5000 honoree, and professor of entrepreneurial practice at Syracuse University's Whitman School of Management. Each episode, we dive into mental, physical, and spiritual health with expert guests offering actionable insights to help you thrive and perform at your highest level. Let's get started. Today's guest is Ken Davenport, who is an entrepreneur, writer, and speaker based in San Diego, California. Ken's built multiple businesses, lived in Switzerland as a kid, did his graduate work in London, spent a nomadic year in Tokyo where he learned Japanese, or at least tried to learn Japanese. And now he spends much of his free time teaching the virtues of Stoicism as an antidote to the chaos of modern life. He's currently the co-founder and CEO of Mission Edge, a social enterprise which helps build capacity among nonprofits and underserved small businesses across the US. Ken teaches the Boots to Business course for the Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University and speaks frequently on veteran transition, entrepreneurship, and leadership. Ken earned his BA and master's degree from the University of California, San Diego, and a master's in international relations from the London School of Economics. His most recent book is The Stoic Edge: How to Overcome Resistance, Build Resilience, and Live Your Best Life. Ken, thank you so much for being here. I'm really excited to talk to you. Welcome.

Thank you, John. Great to be with you, and I look forward to this conversation.

So the first thing is I'm wondering, these Stoics, right? They've been dead for a couple thousand years now, right? So What could they possibly have to offer modern entrepreneurs?

Well, it's such a good question. And I, you know, when I ran across the Stoics a few years ago, I asked the same question, but I started realizing that much of what we grapple with as leaders, as entrepreneurs, are part of what I would call the human condition, which has been going on since civilization began. You know, the whole notion of struggling with yourself, struggling with what you can and cannot control. And really understanding that how you show up every day is the biggest determinant of your success or failure. And the Stoics were essentially focused on this basic question that you cannot control what happens to you in your life, but you can control how you react to it. And in this age of social media and technological kind of overkill in terms of information, I think we're all struggling to figure out how to make sense of our lives and how to create control where we can. And the Stoics were really good at that.

Yeah. So who were the prominent Stoics or who are they? And I know they've got 4 basic principles that you've been able to distill. So talk to us about who the Stoics were and what these principles are.

Yeah. So Stoicism really kind of evolved over a 400 or 500-year period. It started in ancient Greece. 300 BC, and it was started by a gentleman named Zeno. Zeno suffered a shipwreck. He was an entrepreneur and merchant, lost all of his cargo in a shipwreck and ended up penniless on the streets of Athens and was trying to figure out kind of how to make sense of the tragedy that had befallen him. So he came up with the basic concepts of Stoicism, started sort of teaching it in Greece, and then it migrated over the years to Rome. And in ancient Rome is where I think it found a lot of its footing with Epictetus, who was one of the great Stoics, Marcus Aurelius, who a lot of people have heard of, who was Emperor of Rome, and Seneca. Those are the 3 really major Stoic philosophers that have given us a lot of the meat of what Stoicism has become today. There are many others in that sort of pantheon of Stoics, but really, you know, it gained a lot of prominence through Marcus Aurelius's book Meditations. And it was actually his private journal. I don't— he never intended it to be published.

Mm-hmm.

It survived history somehow and ended up making its way into the literature. And it's a short, you know, 200-page journal of his musings and thoughts about life and about power and about how even with all the trappings of the most powerful man in the world, he suffered from anxiety. He struggled with how to be a good leader, how to show up every day, how to get out of bed some days. So, you know, it really is a very interesting kind of practical philosophy. It's different from many of the, you know, you think of the word philosopher, ancient Greek and Roman philosophers, your eyes glass over and you start to think, oh my God, this is going to be a lot of pontificating and a lot of intellectualization. But the reality is that Stoicism is very much a practical discipline and it was really to be executed on in your life and not just talked about.

I mean, Marcus Aurelius is a great example. Like you said, he was really powerful, and yet on the inside, he was still dealing with things that everybody deals with even today, right? Especially entrepreneurs. There's these 4 Stoic virtues: wisdom, justice, temperance, and courage, which, you know, kind of encapsulates almost everything you need, right? So, can you just briefly walk us through those from a Stoic perspective?

Yeah. So, the virtues are really the cornerstone of the Stoic philosophy. And the theory is that if you act with virtue in all aspects of your life, you will have a meaningful, purposeful, and good life. And much of that does equate to how you deal with the outside world. So not only how you deal with yourself, but how that translates into your relationships with others, the community, your spouse, your friends, your family. The core virtue is wisdom. You know, philosophy translated is the love of wisdom. And wisdom is kind of an all-encompassing term, but really kind of is geared towards having you be able to understand kind of what you can and cannot control. Do you know the difference between something that you actually have agency over and something that you don't? And that will allow you to then behave in a way that is very consistent with understanding that, hey, I could put pressure on this situation. I'm probably only going to piss people off. I'm probably not going to make a difference because I really don't have any control over it. So it sort of starts with wisdom. And with wisdom, you then know what justice is. Justice is the idea of doing the right thing. And I think for a lot of entrepreneurs, you know, we often in business get to a point where we're at a fork and we can go one way or the other way. The one way might be better for you financially in the short run, but is not necessarily good for your customer or your relationships. And the other way would be doing the right thing and knowing that even if it costs you something in the short run, you're going to be able to live with yourself and build a reputation that will outlast this one deal that you're working on. And then courage. Obviously, we all need courage. Entrepreneurs certainly need courage in spades to show up every day, to put yourself on the line, to, you know, do the hard thing. And we all know that entrepreneurship is not the easy route. Certainly a lot easier to go work you know, for a company and get a guaranteed paycheck. So you need courage. And then temperance, which I think is actually a really interesting word. It's a little bit of an old-fashioned word, but it really means stillness. It really means understanding that, yes, you need to move forward, but oftentimes you need to think first before you act, think first before you speak, take a step back, take a breath, really assess whether this is a life or death situation. It probably isn't. And so if you're overreacting to it, you're probably doing more harm than good. And those 4 basic concepts really to guide your daily life is what Stoicism really is about.

Yeah, really relatable too, right? Especially the last thing you said about temperance. I mean, you know, how many times have you drafted an email that you were just ready to fire off and maybe you did and regretted it, or maybe you held onto it and were really grateful that you didn't send it, right?

Yeah, no, no, exactly. The word stoic, you know, when people hear the word stoic, they often think of unemotional and kind of hard. But, you know, stoicism is really not being unemotional. It's about managing your emotions. It's about being able to channel them effectively. So channel them toward good and away from bad. And bad is generally defined as being angry, being overly emotional, being, you know, kind of reactive in a way that takes you offline, that takes your brain into its limbic system and its fight or flight mode and you're angry, you're triggered, you're saying stuff, you're doing stuff that when you calm down, you look at them, you go, oh God, like, why did I do that? Why did I say that? Why did I send that email? And then you have a lot of regret because you've allowed your emotions to overcome your good judgment. And so that's why I think the whole stillness piece, the whole idea of being able to take a step back, take a deep breath, Gives your brain time to kind of come back online and sort of say, hmm. That's why the last time I wrote an email bomb, I didn't put the address in it. I just wrote it. And then I took a walk around the office and came back and read it again and said, nah, I can't send that. That would not be good. I deleted it, but I had to write it in order to get those emotions out. That's okay. Sending it is where you make the mistake.

Right. And I do that sometimes too, where I'll just write it just to get it out. You know, maybe it felt good at the time, but that's not the message I want to you convey. Yeah, for sure. Right.

100%. Yeah.

So it sounds like focusing on the present is a really important thing, but entrepreneurship often requires forward thinking, right? But Stoicism stresses the importance of focusing on the present. So how do you balance the need for things like, say, strategic planning and vision with staying grounded in the present?

I don't think those 2 things are contrary to each other. Fundamentally, I think, yes, Stoicism is about Living in the present, focusing on what you can control, which is right now and what you're doing today. But the Stoics also were big on anticipating what could go wrong, anticipating the future moves that you might make should things go right. So it's not a question of saying, I'm not going to think about the future. I'm not going to save for my retirement. I'm not going to do any of that because the future is uncertain and I may die tomorrow. So I should spend every last dollar Today, right? That's not really what it is. It's more saying that when you're in the present, be in the present. So do what you're doing today and be really good at it and show up and be counted and do the best job that you possibly can with the things that you can control today. But also know that you should project yourself into the future in both a negative and a positive way. So what happens if things go wrong? The Stoics have this thing called praemeditio malorum, which is basically the premeditation of evil. So we're going to think about like what could go sideways. We're going to meditate on what might happen so that it doesn't shock us when it does happen.

Right.

The same can be said for success. And so what does success look like? What do you want out of this work that you're doing? How do you know when you've achieved it so that you can appreciate it and enjoy it as opposed to saying, okay, that was great, but what's next? And so I think it's a very positive concept of kind of loving where you are, not standing still, but being really cognizant that I don't want to miss where I am for some future thing that may or may not happen.

Yeah. And it almost seems like a paradox, but not really because they've got this idea of long-term vision or memento mori, right? So Yes. Even though while you're in the present, be there, but you've also got to think ahead and have the big picture. So as an entrepreneur, we do that all the time. Like we think of the worst-case scenario because that's our risk mitigation. I mean, I remember when I started my company, I thought, okay, what's the worst thing that could happen? And it's like, well, I have to close my business, move in with my parents and get a job. And I thought, all right, that would really not be that much fun, but I could survive it. And I could move on. So just knowing that worst case scenario, not that I was trying to manifest that, but I was like, okay, if the worst happens, I'm going to be fine. Right.

That frees you a lot to release yourself from anxiety that is irrational. Right. So Seneca said, we often suffer more in imagination than we do in reality. And he also said, he who suffers before it is necessary suffers more than it is necessary.

Right.

So we do have these sort of anxieties that are not necessarily rational. And the reality is that what is the worst thing that could happen is the right question to ask yourself, right? How bad is it going to be? Am I going to end up on the street homeless and penniless? Well, then maybe that's a risk that's maybe not worth taking. You know, if the risk is, hey, I may end up back in my old bedroom for a few months and trying to save some money and kind of get myself back on my feet. Like, how bad of an outcome is that really? Entrepreneurs in particular, I think because you're so vested in the success of what you're doing, have this idea that it's all or nothing, that I've gotta be successful.

Right.

And if I fail, I'm gonna be embarrassed and I'm gonna be a failure. When in reality, there are gradations of everything in life and success that is not as big a success as you want still is a success depending on how you frame it and how you look at it. So I think a lot of it has to do with you just sort of understanding that it's not a linear path. It's an up, down, and all-around kind of path. One step forward, two steps back, two steps forward, one step back. I mean, that's just kind of the nature of it. And if you prepare yourself for that and know that it's part of the process, then it's a lot easier to take the failures that you're going to inevitably encounter.

Yeah, because they are inevitable. And I guess it's also important not to obsess on the worst-case scenario, right? You want to identify identify it, come to grips with it, be comfortable with it, but not obsess over it because, you know, like you said with those other quotes and another one that I love is when you worry, you're basically praying for something that you don't want.

Yeah.

Right? You're sending it out there and that's kind of the experience you have, right?

Yeah. I mean, definitely is a balance, right? I mean, I think that no entrepreneur would start something if they thought in the beginning that it was going to fail, right?

Right.

So like, yeah, you know, like you are optimist by nature because you want to create something that doesn't exist Now, or do something better than other people are doing it, whatever it is. And obviously that takes a tremendous amount of optimism. I think the issue around kind of anticipating failure is not so much that you're anticipating that it is going to go wrong. You're basically saying, okay, I'm planning on success. I'm hoping for success. I'm going to do everything in my power to make it successful. If it's not successful, what would plan B be? Where would I do next? How would I recover? How would I save some of my relationships with my investors or my customers if this thing actually goes sideways? And how do I sort of lift myself up from the ashes? And so I think optimism's super important, but I also think that when you realize the percentage of startups that do fail or do have to pivot dramatically in their business model because they figure out that what they started with is not working, That's pretty much universal. So if you were to start something and say, this is the only idea, this is my idea, and if it doesn't work, I'm going to quit, then you're probably going to quit because it probably is not going to work the first time or the second time. It may take 3 or 4 chances for it to really find its market.

Yeah. Or 3 or 4 iterations of the same concept, right? Exactly. Yeah. So yeah, this idea of fear of failure, Conquering self-doubt. The Stoics had a lot to offer for those, right? So can you give us a couple of tips, maybe from specific Stoics themselves, on what they might say about those?

Yeah, I mean, I think that one of the things the Stoics talk a lot about is, for lack of a better term, kind of doing the work. And so failure may have many causes, but the one thing that the Stoics were big on is making sure that it wasn't because you weren't willing to get out of bed And actually show up and commit to consistency. Marcus Aurelius talked about attacking the dawn. In other words, getting up early. There's a passage in Meditations where Marcus Aurelius is laying in bed in a cold morning under the covers and saying, I really would love to stay here under the covers. I'm nice and warm and cozy, but I'm meant to get out of bed. I'm meant to go to work. I'm meant to show up and do everything I can today. to make my leadership successful. And so he forces himself out from under the covers and gets to work. And I think a lot of the things, you know, a lot of entrepreneurs are busy and working hard, working a lot of hours, but are they necessarily working on the right things? And I think one of the other Stoic concepts is sort of the importance of eliminating the inessential. So try and focus on the things that really matter, try to prioritize what you could and should be doing today. And oftentimes, not surprisingly, it's the stuff that you don't want to do. So in other words, you know, a lot of us just gravitate towards the things that we are good at or come natural to us. And a lot of times it's the stuff that we don't want to do, which is the stuff that needs to get done. And sitting down and prioritizing and thinking about what I should do today and what I can do today and what I must do today. I think is, you know, it's an important part of this sort of entrepreneurial process. Yeah.

And it's tough today with the unlimited distractions we have, right? So just keeping focus of what's important, urgent, urgent and important instead of just the easy pleasure sensation distractions is really critical.

Yeah, it is. I mean, our brains have been hijacked by dopamine. You know, the apps that we use are designed to create a dopamine spurt in our brain that does distract us. and hijack us and can take away our time. I mean, if you think about the amount of time you can waste scrolling through Instagram, like it happened to me the other day, and half an hour went by and I was like, oh my God, what am I doing? You know, why am I—

What just happened? What could I have accomplished in those 30 minutes? Right?

Exactly.

And do you even remember anything you looked at when you were scrolling right now? No, of course not.

They were, you know, cat videos and who knows, but it was not worthwhile. It was not useful. It was a complete distraction. And I think we unfortunately, and fortunately, a lot of our work now is online. You know, obviously the internet has created a massive business opportunity, but it also puts you in the environment that is your primary distractor at the same time.

Mm-hmm.

So it's very, very hard to put those guardrails on and use the tool for good and for the purpose of your business, but also Allow yourself the opportunity to be shielded from the distractions and from the noise. And I think there's a lot of noise that entrepreneurs face with the competition and what other people are doing. You know, the importance of kind of focusing on yourself and what you're trying to accomplish is very helpful.

Yeah. It kind of speaks to this idea of resistance, right? And in your book, you discuss how entrepreneurs face resistance when launching ventures or even when Just getting out of bed on a cold day or doing the thing that, you know, needs to be done, but you don't want to do it. So how can Stoic practices help entrepreneurs overcome this inner resistance?

Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, start with small steps. The book Atomic Habits, which I reference in the book that I wrote, focuses on the importance of consistency over intensity. So in other words, we all set goals and we try to reach those goals as quickly as possible, but you burn out very quickly. And so I think the small steps piece is important. Do something every day to advance your cause. Even those days where you're in bed and don't want to get up, or, you know, you're tired or you're irritable or you've had a defeat yesterday. And so now you're rethinking your entire life and entire purpose. Get up, brush yourself off and take a step. Mark Aurelius has this quote that well-being is realized by small steps. but it is no small thing. In other words, small steps are not a small thing. Small steps are how you get moving forward. And I think, you know, the resistance, which I think is another way of sort of talking about procrastination and in any creative endeavor, and being an entrepreneur is by definition a creative endeavor, you are going to be wracked with doubt. You're going to have moments where you don't really think you know what you're doing. You don't really think you're the person who should be doing it. You don't really know where to start. The things that you're doing on a daily basis don't seem to be moving things forward, so you're getting impatient. All of those things are things that are very future-focused. So it's focused about where you're going rather than where you are. And again, the Stoics were big on, hey, the past is done, the future's unknown, but you have today. So instead of thinking about how you're not making progress towards this big goal, think about what you're doing in the moment. How you can move forward right now, how you can take the next hour and actually do a couple of things that will advance you even in small steps. And that eventually over time, you'll go a long way.

So the small steps or the small things are actually, it's big because you're doing it and you're being consistent, right? So not to confuse the magnitude of the small step you take today with the magnitude or importance of the big thing of being consistent and doing some small things every day.

Yeah. And I mean, look at any successful entrepreneur and I hear it about Mission Edge. You know, I've been at this for 12 years and people say, gosh, you've done such a good job. It happened so fast because to people it looks like, you know, it happened overnight. But what they don't see are the years and years and years of just grinding and getting up and doing one thing, you know, and doing the next thing the next day and really kind of building this infrastructure and higher end kind of platform with which now my company is sort of resting on. But it wasn't sexy in the beginning and it wasn't lucrative in the beginning. And it was a lot of just showing up every day and not really knowing whether it was going to work or not, but just trying to do something to move the ball forward on a daily basis. And eventually it looks like, you know, it's successful. And because it becomes successful just by the virtue of the fact that you have not given up.

One of the Stoics I read about, and I think you mentioned too, is Epictetus, who was born into slavery or sold into slavery. So just imagine the level of resilience you need to still maintain inner peace in that situation, right? So, you know, how can entrepreneurs build mental resilience to weather the inevitable business challenges such as failure, setbacks, and so on?

Well, I think that the Epictetus story is a great one because he was born into slavery. He lived until he was 30 as a slave. He was badly crippled by his slave master when he was a 9-year-old, walked with a limp his entire life, and really kind of turned to Stoicism as a way of protecting what he could of himself and knowing that, hey, my slave owner can take my freedom and can maim me physically, can put me to hard labor, but cannot take my mind or my spirit or my desire. And that those things are uniquely mine. They belong to me. They cannot be taken by anybody. And I think that there's a lesson there, I think, for entrepreneurs who inevitably are going to feel like there are events that are outside of their control that are going to be impacting their business, whether it's the economy, whether it's interest rates, whether it's changes in technology, whether it's shifts in the way that investors are looking at opportunities and suddenly the hot thing is no longer the hot thing. There's a lot of things that you can look at to say, Oh my God, you know, all these things are against me. But what they can't take away is your drive, is your determination, is the sense of self that you have that this is something that you really want to do and that they can't take that from you and that you will find a way to persevere. And I think at the end of the day, you know, for all of us who've been through this startup process, there are many dark days where you feel like, Man, the whole world's against me and no one gets what I'm trying to do and everyone kind of wants me to give up. I mean, I remember when I got my first company funded, I heard so many nos. Like, I heard 100 nos in a row.

Yeah.

And I had people tell me, you know, you should go do something else. Like, this is not— like, you should give up and you seem like a smart guy. There's probably other things you should be doing. You know, I was like, gosh, you know, I really believe in what I'm doing. And I'm going to find somebody who shares my belief in it. And so that's a big part of just kind of, you know, showing up and driving towards something that you feel deeply about.

You know, I always thought this quote was attributed to Nelson Mandela, but it was actually Nelson Mandela's favorite poem, Invictus, by, I think it was William Ernest Henley. And it, part of it is, I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul. Right. And it's basically the same thing. Epictetus was talking about just, you know, a couple thousand years ago.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Matter of fact, James Stockdale, who was a prisoner of war in the Hanoi Hilton during the Vietnam War, he was an avid Stoic and he actually took that Henley quote into the Hanoi Hilton with him and realized that the North Vietnamese could torture me and could put me in solitary confinement and really kind of brutalize my body, but they couldn't take my soul away and they couldn't take my ability to maintain my dignity and to understand that even though this is a hard thing, I'm going to treat it as an opportunity to learn more about myself.

Yeah.

What a unique way of looking at hardship. Like the idea that you embrace the hard part and you say, this sucks, but I think this is an opportunity to learn something about myself and to learn something about the world. And I'm actually going to move toward it and not away from it.

Yeah. So it makes me think of 2 things. One is the dichotomy of control, which we kind of talked about earlier, right? And of course, your own attitude and your own response to the external world, you, that's the one thing you control that nobody else can, right? But then it also reminds me of the obstacle being the way, right? And I know you've got a few examples of that. So can you share some of those about the obstacle being the way?

Yeah. I mean, I think that the obstacle is the way is sort of a way of saying, That the inertia that you're facing, the barrier that's in front of you, actually is the way forward. It's not around it, or it's not to reverse. It's to actually move through it because the obstacle is really telling you that there is a pot of gold on the other side of that opportunity. And so the idea is that you don't shy away from it or avoid it, but that Actually, the worthwhile thing is to move through the hard stuff and to embrace the fact that this is difficult and to know that nothing worthwhile in life comes from something being easy. You may have a win if it's easy, and you may do something and get kudos or accolades or money or whatever, but at the end of the day, that's not going to be nearly as meaningful as the thing that you actually push through because it's hard.

And there is something to, you know, being satisfied or getting a sense of satisfaction or fulfillment often comes from doing hard things, right? We can do hard things and doing those things brings us that satisfaction and fulfillment.

Marcus Aurelius's quote around that is interesting. He said, you know, the impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. So what stands in the way becomes the way because it's actually the impediment is what's going to move you forward when you're able to overcome it. Some barriers may end up being insurmountable. And part of the pivot that you do in your business is realizing that, hey, you know, I mean, I thought this was a great idea and it makes a lot of sense on paper, but the reality is the customers are telling me something different.

Right.

You're not gonna force your way through that. You're not gonna say, well, I'm gonna change the customer's minds, right? You're gonna say, okay, let me figure out, you know, what the customers really want. Let me see if I can modify what I'm doing to meet that need. And so it's not a question of always with brute force saying, I'm going to move in this direction no matter what. But what it is saying is that don't give up because there's something in your way when you know you're going down the right path.

And I think it's important for entrepreneurs to know that, you know, just because the idea that you had doesn't seem to be getting product-market fit or getting, you know, any traction with customers, Yeah. So you can't push through that and make them want something that they don't. But what you can do is pivot and iterate and say, okay, if I'm really committed to solving this problem, maybe the way I'm proposing it isn't the optimal solution. So this is giving me the opportunity to reflect and learn on what is a better solution. And then let me go back to those customers and see if they like that better. It still holds. It's just you have to think of it in a different way.

You do. And I think that Humility is a big part of success in entrepreneurship and in leadership. And I think the Stoics were big on, you know, Marcus Aurelius was the most powerful man in the world, but was, may have been the most humble man in Rome in terms of his understanding of his inability to change certain things in the world or in his life that he just didn't have control over. And so being humble and asking questions and not assuming that you're right, Are clearly very important components to finding success as an entrepreneur or as a leader. The idea that you need to ask questions, you need to be open to the answers, even if you don't like them, right? The idea that really listen to your customers, really listening to everything that's going on around you. Seneca said, you know, we have 2 ears and 1 mouth for a reason. We should listen more than we talk.

Mm-hmm.

Right? And boy, that's one something that took me a long time to kind of come to terms with because I used to fill space with words because I was uncomfortable with the silence. But it actually, in the silence is when you start to really hear what people are really thinking and feeling. And being able to take a step back and be open to that and provide space for that will give you a lot of insight that you won't have if you're just brute forcing everything and trying to push through everything that you're doing.

Yeah, that's so true. Like even in my classes that I teach, I've learned that, you know, giving a couple extra beats of quiet time after asking, are there any questions? Hanging out in silence for a minute allows students to think, okay, do I have questions? And then formulate them. Or even in a business meeting with your team, anybody have any questions or anybody have anything they want to add? Instead of like after a second saying, okay, great, see you later. Just Hang out there for a minute in the silence, and inevitably somebody comes up with something. So yeah, I think that's a really good bit of advice.

You know, I think there's a traditional view of leadership as being someone who always has the answers, and as someone who powers through and kind of commands a room and leads by being an authority. And certainly the CEO or the founder is going to have a lot of answers because they've probably been there the longest, and they probably have the most history, and they probably have seen. the most success and failure. But you hire good people to give them an opportunity to lead themselves. And being humble and being transparent and creating a culture where people can ask questions and can say, no, I don't think you're right, I think you're wrong, and here's why, is a key, I think, to finding success at any level of business.

Yeah, I've always tried to make sure that I was the least important person in my company, at least from a day-to-day operating perspective. Just, yeah, surround yourself with good people.

You know, part of the leading with virtue, you know, going back to virtue again, the idea that, you know, you are only as good as your team, right? Even if you are the leader, I think Marcus Aurelius said something like, what's bad for the hive is bad for the bees. Meaning that if the community, if your organization isn't functioning well, you know, the people aren't going to be happy and you're not going to be successful. And so, I think the notion of virtue being externalized, and I think this is an important point when you think about living and leading with virtue, with justice, temperance, wisdom, and courage, is only valuable to the extent that it is externalized to other people. I mean, you can be a virtuous person, but if you have no interactions with other people, it's great, but you're not really making the world a better place. So one of the things that's so important is that Not only do you internalize it and try to live it for yourself, but you do it in every interaction that you have with others. Right. And so a lot of that, I think, gets lost in translation as we start to allow our ego to take hold. And we've had some success. And so we think, oh, you know, I've got the answers and these investors invested because of me. And, you know, we're successful only because of me. And when you look around, you think, oh my God, you know, if these people left tomorrow, I'd probably be out of business.

Yeah, I like the quote about the bees in the hive because, you know, you can even boil it down. So externally, the bees in the hive is a good metaphor, but even internally, right? So what's good for me as a human should also be good for my business and vice versa, right? So by me taking care of my mental, physical, spiritual health will translate into better business performance.

100%.

Yeah.

And I think that as a startup and as an entrepreneur, and even now, you know, been around for 12 years, I have 100 employees, but I still feel like this organization is somewhat of a reflection of me and how I show up every day, you know? And I think as a leader, you have to realize that, you know, you're always to some degree on stage. People are always looking at you. They're thinking about what you're thinking. They're wondering how you're doing. They're wondering, you know, if you're in a bad mood, does it mean the business is in trouble? You know, those kinds of things.

Yeah. And you learn that the hard way sometimes, right? Like it took me a while to learn that my mood when I walk in the door just seeps into everything. It's really amazing. And you have to be mindful of that as the leader.

You do. It's a lot of pressure. It's part of the pressure of leadership of knowing that, hey, you could have a bad day, but you know, you don't want your staff to be demoralized because You know, you and your wife had a, had a tiff, or you and your husband, you know, had an argument last night and you woke up in a bad mood. Okay. But, you know, your employees don't care about that and your customers don't care about that. So there is a little bit of compartmentalization that I think you have to do. But again, how you show up, how you present yourself, the values that you espouse in your company, the culture that you create, those are all part of the equation of finding kind of success.

Yeah. One of the things that I hear a lot from young entrepreneurs and even have experienced myself is the idea of striking a balance between work and life, which is funny because work is just part of life. So instead of work-life balance, it's just balance in general. So how do you approach that personally?

Well, that is a great question. And I think my approach has evolved over the years. It helped a lot to find Stoicism. So I found Stoicism about 5 years ago. At a time where my business was struggling. I had a 13-year-old son, you know, in the middle of COVID You know, there was just a whole bunch of stuff going on that was creating a lot of anxiety and a lot of internal strife. And I was sort of searching for some philosophy that I could kind of organize my thoughts around. I stumbled upon Stoicism kind of quite by accident, actually. And I started really looking at, you know, what are the things that I could do to give myself some space to kind of allow my anxiety to settle and to find a way to kind of channel those energies in a more productive way. And so part of it was learning about Stoicism and starting to practice some of these concepts around journaling and around thinking through, hey, you know, what am I grateful for today? And so I started kind of a gratitude journal, which a lot of people do and a lot of people talk about, but it's hard to be— again, it's all about consistency, right? You can do it for a week. You know, you got to do it for a year really to allow it to make sense. So write one sentence every day. Like you don't have to write a novel. The other thing that was really important for me, and I think it's become more of a problem for everyone because we're so indoors now and we're so in front of a computer screen. is to get out into nature and to breathe fresh air. You'd be amazed at the ideas and the things that come to you when you're outside. Nietzsche said, only ideas had when walking have any worth. And if you get out and breathe fresh air and give yourself space and realize that, hey, the nature is amazing. There's a big wide world out there. It's not all about you.

Right.

You know, it's not like you— the world is going to go on and your problems, I think, become small when you start putting it in the context of the greater world around you. And if you don't do that, you'll never have that opportunity to kind of feel that sunrise. Like, that sunrise is magical. There's something in the world that is so beautiful. And my problems with my business this morning I don't know. You know, it's like, yeah, I'm worried about it, but it suddenly takes on a bit of a different tint because it's not the only thing that's going on in the world. So I think that's important, you know, learning to kind of detach yourself as much as you can from some of the problems so that those problems and those, that anxiety doesn't become the tail that wags the dog. And, you know, so those kinds of things have been really useful For me, Stoicism is really about the power of reason. So in other words, it's really about the idea that you have a brain and you can reason your way through problems. That means not being overly irrational or emotional about things that happen and putting yourself in a position where you think through. And one of the things the Stoics talked about was like, put your impressions to the test, right? Don't take the first impression that comes along. Say, hold on, wait a minute, what are you exactly? And so a lot of times that impression will hit you. This is a crisis. This is deadly. Like, this is going to be the end of everything. We're gonna, we're gonna go out of business tomorrow because this, you know, take a beat and think through like, okay, what is really happening here? What is really the impact of this? Let me take a step back and put this to the test. And so I think that's so important for you to be able to not be reactive to the things that make you emotional. And that's why from a leadership standpoint and from an entrepreneurial standpoint, that one thing can go a long way towards allowing you to be much more rational and reasoned in your reactions.

Yeah. So you can't be rational and reasonable if you're always in fight or flight mode, right? Everything that happens, it's going to be a hair trigger and you're going to respond. So it seems that, yeah, it's just taking some time to be in nature would be probably the simplest first step for anybody who needs to decompress a little bit or get a little creativity or just get themselves to a place where they're not in fight or flight so that way they can make more rational decisions and not go right to, okay, this is the worst thing that's ever happened and I've got to react accordingly.

Yeah. The other thing you can do, which has been well studied now, is breathwork. There's deep breathing. And if you look it up on Google or you go to Andrew Huberman's podcast, he has some episodes around what he calls the psychological sigh. So it's literally a breathing technique that calms your amygdala and allows you to kind of get yourself recentered. It takes, you know, probably 2 minutes, right? It's not a long thing, but it will kind of allow yourself To kind of de-trigger this response and kind of reset yourself into a place where you can kind of think clearly. The fight or flight thing, which is an evolutionary element that is very important for us. We tend to live in the modern time in a much more triggered environment than we used to. And it goes back to what we talked about earlier, you know, the phone, social media, this dopamine and cortisol. spikes that we go through. Like, we're constantly kind of aggravated and activated. And so it's created a lot of— you talk about the anxiety crisis, you know, the studies are clear that among teens, the anxiety crisis started in 2012 when they— with the iPhone. Like, it's pretty— the pretty clear correlation.

Yeah.

So we live in a very fight-or-flight world now, and we're triggered all the time because Everything we do is geared to making us either anxious or upset or mad, or, you know, all of the above. And so being able to detach, putting your phone away, that's the other thing that I don't do well and I'm working on is not looking at your phone first thing in the morning, giving yourself 30 minutes to do some breathing and kind of think about your day and set your intention for the day as opposed to the day setting the intention for you. And that's a very subtle distinction, but it's an important one because a lot of times you start your day by looking at texts and email and suddenly your day has been hijacked by what other people want. But, you know, and you may need to get to that anyway, but at least you can do it on your own time.

Yeah.

And I think from a mental health standpoint, it's such an important thing. And it's very hard because most people, and myself included, tend to look at your phone as soon as you get up in the morning. It's the first thing you do. And I think it's probably the It's probably the worst thing you can do because now you're in fight or flight immediately.

You haven't even completely opened your eyes and now you're in fight or flight, right?

Exactly.

Yeah.

100%. Yeah.

Yeah. Actually, I started not too long ago. I've reached for my phone, but it's only to put on a guided meditation while I'm still laying in bed. And I have to say, when I finally get out of bed, I do feel quite good. And then I'm not so worried at that point about what's on my phone or in my email where Before, I couldn't even have my coffee before I knew what was waiting for me. But now it's a very good feeling not to have to do that.

Yeah, 100%. That's a really good habit. It's a simple habit, but as most people who struggle with any kind of addiction, you know, it's a hard habit to start because the phone is an addiction. I think that 10, 15 years from now, I think we're going to look back at this time and realize that We created another mental health crisis around this technology.

For sure. I mean, I think we realized that already. We just don't know what to do about it because it's so central to a big part of our economy, to the way we work. So yeah, I think the question is how do we use it consciously for good, but try to avoid wherever we can all the negative side effects of it?

Yeah. I think if you look at your grandparents or your parents, like my parents are in their 90s now, they don't have a smartphone and they don't really even watch TV much. And I talked to my mom the other day, and boy, she was happy. And she was doing what she's doing. She's going to the temple and doing her stuff. And I mentioned the hurricane to her, this hurricane in Florida, because she used to own a place in Florida. And she's like, oh, I didn't even know there was a hurricane. I'm like, oh my God, like, you're living the dream right now.

Yeah, I mean, how liberating is that, right? Not to know. I did stop watching any network news. That's been super helpful, right? Because, you know, it's just like they're telling us what they want us to think about, what they want us to argue about. And I figured I was done with that.

Yeah, well, I think that's the healthiest thing you can do. And I actually— my parents turned off cable a year ago. And a lot of people their generation have cable news on 24/7. And they're just being bombarded with negativity and propaganda, really. I mean, it's not real. It's what they're wanting you to consume. And so I think, you know, thinking independently, giving yourself the power to trust your own thoughts and feelings and impressions and not take for face value what other people are telling you is a big part of kind of living a Stoic life.

That sounds like a good place to end. Do you have one word of wisdom or a piece of advice Regarding Stoicism that you'd like to share with young entrepreneurs?

The one quote that I've used over and over again for myself and also for my 19-year-old son is that Seneca quote I said earlier, which is, we often suffer more in imagination. And I really think that that's something that if you tattoo it on your forehead, you know, it will serve you well because everything we do now, you're bombarded with a sense of impending doom or anxiety about the weather, about climate, about the economy, about inflation, and it can really wrap you up in knots and make you suffer when you don't necessarily need to suffer. It may or may not hurt you, may or may not affect you. And so my one overarching thought would be try not to let your imagination run wild with the bad things that are going to happen.

Yeah, that is really good advice. I think that one single thing, if you could master that, probably has the best bang for the buck, right? In terms of overall state of being and anxiety. So if people want to learn more about you and what you do, where could they find you?

Yeah, well, they can find me on LinkedIn, Ken Davenport, CEO at Mission Edge. And I've got a couple of books that I've written on stoicism. One is for transitioning veterans called The Stoic Transition. And the other is called The Stoic Edge, which is a short kind of introduction to stoicism and addresses a lot of the stuff we talked about today, the resistance, imposter syndrome, anger, frustration, shame, and guilt and regret. And they're short chapters, just using Stoicism as a way to kind of think through some of these challenges that you may be having in your life. And those are both on Amazon.

Now I know The Stoic Edge is a good read. I've read it myself. So thank you so much.

Thank you.

Well, Ken, this was a great conversation. I really appreciate your time and thanks for being here.

My pleasure. Anytime, Sean.

Thank you so much for listening to the Total Entrepreneur Mind Body Spirit Podcast. If you liked what you heard or heard something interesting today, please give us a like, share a comment, or better yet, subscribe to the podcast. Thank you.