Tag: The Code

Posted on

Advice from General Gronski: Know Your Person Core Values

On Jocko Podcast episode 302, Gen. Gronski advises you to know your personal core values. This isn’t just having them written down – you need to be able to list them off if asked. Without knowing them, they can’t factor into your decisions. Take the time to identify them. When you go to make a decision check – does this decision align with your core values?

The same thing applies for your business’s core values: does your company view decisions through these values, making sure they are aligned? how do you check that?

This is the critical part, and cannot be emphasized enough: know your values and then use them.

Gen. Gronski also suggests that you go on to identifying behaviors that map to those values (e.g., organizational behaviors that you want your employees to adopt). This means identifying pre-scripted behaviors that are aligned with your values. Create your own situational playbook: “When X we do Y. We handle Z by C.”

References

Posted on

The Dichotomy Between Memento Mori and Future Planning

Zorba the Greek poses a key question:

Look, I was passing through a small village one day. An old fogey ninety years old was planting an almond tree. ‘Hey, grandpa,’ I say to him, ‘are you really planting an almond tree?’ And he, all bent over as he was, he turns and says to me, ‘My boy, I act as though I’m never going to die.’ I answered him in my turn, ‘I act as though I’m going to die at any moment.’ Which of the two of us was right, Boss?””

You certainly want to keep death in the forefront of your mind. You can easily forget that the future is not guaranteed. You can easily trade the present moment for an uncertain future. As Marcus Aurelius stated so succinctly:

You could be good today. But instead you choose tomorrow.

But this does not mean that you forego planning for the future entirely. You do not know when your death will come, and you may be blessed (or cursed) with a long life. It would be a mistake to ignore the future in your calculations.

This is the dichotomy between memento mori and the need to consider the future. You want to adopt a middle road, if you can find it. Plan and invest as if you’re going to live forever (plant that tree, continue to invest in learning). At the same time, keep your death firmly focused in mind. Enjoy the present – for that is all that you are ever really given.

One perspective cannot be allowed to dominate the other.

References

  • Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis
  • A Guide to the Good Life by William B. Irvine

    As Seneca notes, “If God is pleased to add another day, we should welcome it with glad hearts.”4 And after celebrating having been given another day to live, we can fill that day with appreciative living.