Leadership Lessons From The Great Books #54 – The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare w/Tom Libby

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Hello. My name is Jesan Sorrells and this is the leadership lessons

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from the Great Podcast episode number 54

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with our book today. Well, actually our play

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today, probably one of the top five most famous pieces

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of literature, english literature ever written in

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the Western world. The tragedy of

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Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, by William Shakespeare.

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This is our kickoff to a month long

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joust, or shall I say jaunt,

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through the through the realm of Shakespeare, through the world of

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Shakespeare, through the world of the writings of William

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Shakespeare. We’ll be covering Macbeth,

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or not Macbeth. I’m sorry. No, we’ll be doing Macbeth a little bit later on

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down the pike. We’ll be doing Taming of the Shrew. We’ll be doing

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Othello and we will be doing my personal favorite

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Shakespeare play, King Lear. This is actually follow

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up to Julius Caesar. So you should go back and listen

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to that episode last year if you’d like

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to hear some really trenched analysis on how Shakespeare talked about power

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and the lessons that can be learned about power from reading

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Julius Caesar, particularly the first

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couple of acts. As usual, Hamlet is built

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on a five act structure and today we

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will be focusing for the most part on

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the first couple of acts that are the set up for other things. We’ll also

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be talking about other things, other events that occur later

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on in the play. We’ll also be talking about the impact of Hamlet

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on a larger cultural stage and of course, the ways

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in which we mostly interact with Shakespeare in our time,

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which is typically not in a stage play for the vast majority of us,

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if we interact with Shakespeare at all, it is going to be through

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film. And of course, Tom is a great lover of

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film, as am I. I recently watched

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this weekend the 1996 version of

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The Tragedy of Hamlet starring Kenneth Branaw,

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which was also directed by Kenneth Branaw and he played

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the titular character, Hamlet.

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I’ll be starting today from scene two, act One.

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Enter Claudius, King of Denmark,

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gertrude, the queen counselors Polonius and

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his son Laerities Hamlet, and including

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Voltemon and Cornelius. And by the way, the version of Hamlet

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that I will be reading from the podcast we’ll be reading from a couple of

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different versions is the Puffin Books version,

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an imprint of Penguin Group published

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in, let’s see here 2011

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for the Puffin Young Readers Group. So this is

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a version of Shakespeare, a version of Hamlet that is

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really targeted towards the modern reader,

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right? But we’ll also be pulling information from

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the folger annotated version of Shakespeare,

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which for my money is great because it not only

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has all the annotation, has, many of the original terms and words

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that have been taken out of Shakespeare to make it easier to read have been

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put back in. It also has some very interesting information in it

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at the front, including a summary of Hamlet that makes

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it a lot easier to kind of get through because we’re actually able

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to understand as readers what the actual

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text is doing. And that textural introduction is

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by Barbara Mauett and Paul Worstein. I would encourage

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you to check out the Folger Shakespeare versions.

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They have The Taming of the Shrew, they have Othello, and these are

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really, really good if you need a grounding in Hamlet. And we’ll get a

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grounding today when we talk about the literary life of William Shakespeare.

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All right, back to Hamlet. Scene Two the

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castle. By the way, we’re going to read this with a flourish

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today on the podcast the

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King of Denmark. Though yet

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of Hamlet our dear brother’s death, the memory be green,

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and that it is us befitted to bear our hearts in grief

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and our whole kingdom to be contracted in one brow of woe,

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yet so far hath discretion fought with nature that we with

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wisest sorrow think on him, together with remembrance

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of ourselves. Therefore our sometime sister,

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now our queen, the imperial jointrist to this warlike

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state have we as twer with a defeated joy, with an auspicious

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and a drooping eye, with mirth in funeral and with

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dearth in marriage in equal scale, weighing delight

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and dole taken to wife.

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Nor have we herein barred your better wisdoms, which have freely

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gone with this fare along. For all, our thanks. Now follows

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that you know that young fortnbros holding a weak proposal

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of our worth or thinking by our late dear brother’s death our

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state to be in disjoint and out of frame.

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colleagued, with this dream of his advantage, he hath not

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failed to pester us with his message importing the surrender of

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those lands lost by his father with all bands of law

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to our most valiant brother.

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So much for him. Now for ourself,

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and for this time of meeting, thus much the business is we

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have here writ to Norway, uncle of young Fortnbros,

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who, impotent and bedrid, scarcely hears of his

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nephew’s purpose to suppress his further gain herein that

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the levees, the lists and full proportions are all made out of his subject.

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And we here despatch you, good Cornelius, and you,

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Voltimon, forbearers of this greeting to old Norway,

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giving to you no further personal power to business with

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the king more than the scope of these delighted articles

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allow. Farewell, and let your haste commend

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your duty, Cornelius of Voldemort.

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In that and all things, we shall show our duty. The king,

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no doubt. We doubt it nothing. Heartily farewell.

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Exit, voltamond and Cornelius.

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And now, layer TS. What’s the news with you? You told

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us of some suit. What is it? Laerties? You cannot speak of reason to

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the Dane and lose your voice. What, withoutst now beg Laurities,

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that shalt now be my offer, not thy asking. The head

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is not more native to the heart, the hand more instrumental to

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the mouth than is the throne of Denmark to thy father. What wast

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thou have lairdees lairdees, my dreadlord,

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your leave and favor to return to France, from whence,

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though willingly I came to Denmark to show my duty in your coronation.

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Yet now I must confess, that duty done, my thoughts and wishes

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bend again toward France and bow them to your gracious

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leave and pardon the king.

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Have you your father’s leave? What says Polonius?

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Polonius he hath, my lord, rung from me

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my slow leave by laborsome petition.

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And at last upon his will I sealed my hard consent.

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I do beseech you, give him leave to go.

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The King take thy fare. Hour laerties

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time be thine and thy best graces spend

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it at thy will. But now,

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my cousin Hamlet, and my son,

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by the way, hamlet then speaks aside for

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his first words in the play. In this act,

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a very famous line, a little more kin

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and less than kind,

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the events of Hamlet set the stage

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for tragedy and the events before Hamlet

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set the stage for tragedy written

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roughly 400 years ago. And if

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you go and read the Wikipedia article cobbled together from a collection

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of other stories, hamlet is the story of the Prince of Denmark.

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And Denmark sits in an interesting spot in northern

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Europe. During the early

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to the mid part of the

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17th century, when Shakespeare was writing, there were many wars

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going on. There had been the explosion of the Protestant Reformation,

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beginning with Martin Luther in the 15th

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century. And this had caused a tidal wave of problems in

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Europe, a tidal wave of people moving, a tidal wave

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of people engaged in warfare. You had the English,

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you had the Spanish, you had the French seeking to maintain dominion on

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the continent. You had minor

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entities like the Norwegians and the Danes

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seeking to fight each other and of course,

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not unique to our time, the looming

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power of Russia, and, of course, the disunited

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Germany always in the background.

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This was a time of great struggle. And Shakespeare was writing this story,

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this powerful tale of revenge with a backdrop,

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the context of this great struggle behind him.

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There are many drivers in this play, and Hamlet is one of

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the most notorious plays that Shakespeare ever wrote other than

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Macbeth. It’s his most well known. And yet

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there are things that people miss about Hamlet. We understand.

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Well, I shouldn’t say we understand. There’s an old joke that Isaac Asimov

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used to tell where a woman walked up to him and said back in the

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1960s, I don’t know what all this talk is about Hamlet.

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It’s just a bunch of quotations linked together.

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That’s how powerful this play is. That’s how deeply it has embedded

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itself in the Western consciousness. I’m going to say quotes

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today that you are going to recognize to thine own self be

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true more than kin and less than kind. I’m going

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to say other quotes and you’re going to recognize them. But they’ve

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been decontextualized from Hamlet they

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now have gone on to serve other means.

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I think Shakespeare would approve for

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leaders. There’s a lot to learn from Hamlet and just in that

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beginning set up there, how does a king conduct himself in

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the court after he has potentially usurped

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the throne and taken on the wife

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of the man he may have murdered?

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This is great power politics, kids. And great power

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politics occurs not just between great powers

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and not just between great corporations or great states,

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but it also takes place between great families and in

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great communities. Power is the one thing that

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we have not really talked about too deeply on this podcast,

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because it’s the one thing that everybody knows about but that

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no one can define. Kind of like air and

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power runs through Hamlet.

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Well, like a lightning bolt through a storm

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clouded sky. Of course,

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we have Tom Libby on today to talk about this. The last

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time he read Hamlet was when he was in high school.

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I had more hair than.

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We all had more hair than.

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And so he’s going to shake off the dust of some of that

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high school knowledge, some of that high school remembrance,

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and he’s going to talk with us about the impact of Hamlet on leaders,

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what leaders can take from this play.

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And we’re going to dip in, as I said, much of the information in Hamlet

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is front loaded here in the first three acts. Much of the

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good stuff is front loaded in the first three acts before Hamlet

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descends into frailty deception and madness.

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And we’re not going to trace all of that today because we would have a

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five hour long podcast. Instead, we’re going to just touch on the beginning

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pieces. So, Tom,

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remembering back to Hamlet in high school, right, and thinking

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about your own life and thinking

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about also the many different versions of Hamlet that there are floating around. There’s a

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lot of different things to pull from. Let’s start with something basic.

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What do you think William Shakespeare was chasing here with Hamlet?

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What did he want to tell people? Because we’ve had tragedy ever since the Greeks

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figured out that that was one of the three main types of

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stories, right? Tragedy, comedy,

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and then, of course, there’s the love story, right. There’s the

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romance, right. And by the way, Shakespeare, of course, covered all

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three of these, right? Comedy with the Taming of the Shrew.

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Sometimes they covered all three in one play.

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Exactly right. I’m trying to keep it simple for folks.

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Romance in Midsummer Night’s Dream and of course, straight tragedy

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in plays like Hamlet and Macbeth and King Lear and Othello.

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And by the way, that’s reflected in the full title of Hamlet,

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which is the tragedy of Hamlet,

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Prince of Denmark. So what do

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you think Shakespeare was trying to chase here? For those of us listening

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to the podcast today.

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I think part of it at its most fundamental core was a lesson in

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self preservation. Okay. If you think about the queen, I mean, the main

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character, obviously, Hamlet, I think he has his

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own version of self preservation when he starts talking to the ghost, his father’s

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ghost and stuff like that, and he’s going down this rabbit hole

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of what we would today consider probably mental illness. Whereas back

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in the day, I’m not 100% convinced they

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understood what mental illness even was.

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And that might have been like the idea of, oh, my God,

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maybe he really does talk to the spirits or whatever. Right.

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He’s really seeing his father’s ghost or whatnot. And today we would have been like,

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oh, let’s put him on some Jurassic banner.

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Let’s dope that kid up, because we can’t have

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him talking. Yeah, you’re right. But in the

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same sense, regardless of that, I think there are lots

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of ways that you can look at Hamlet and say when

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you are faced with some semblance of again,

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to your point, whether it’s tragedy or some sort of life altering event

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that self preservation is going to take precedence in you,

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which is where you can think of and the dynamics of power matter.

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In that case. Right. One thing I always thought

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I’ll ask you the question because I’ve never really been able to ask anybody

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00:15:24,060 –> 00:15:28,370
else this, but I always thought it was interesting that Shakespeare writing

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as an English person writing about the

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Danish throne, did they not have

246
00:15:36,512 –> 00:15:40,470
the same sequence of hierarchy meaning

247
00:15:40,550 –> 00:15:43,470
when his father died? Wouldn’t he just become king?

248
00:15:45,730 –> 00:15:48,080
I didn’t understand that part of it. But again,

249
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I was thinking about this in the sense of corporate

250
00:15:52,122 –> 00:15:56,174
structure, right. When there’s some sort of hostile takeover and you’re maintaining

251
00:15:56,222 –> 00:16:00,066
some of the higher leadership, and their version of

252
00:16:00,088 –> 00:16:04,260
self preservation comes in when some new leadership takes over with power,

253
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there’s some structured dynamics there that kind of can

254
00:16:08,184 –> 00:16:12,114
translate into the corporate world. But I never understood why an English

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00:16:12,162 –> 00:16:15,846
person was writing about the Danish throne, especially back then, where it’s not

256
00:16:15,868 –> 00:16:20,006
like they had the BBC online. They couldn’t possibly know what

257
00:16:20,028 –> 00:16:22,780
was going on that quickly. Well,

258
00:16:23,630 –> 00:16:25,958
I think there’s a couple of different things. That’s a great question. I think there’s

259
00:16:25,974 –> 00:16:29,242
a couple of different things here. So Hamlet has

260
00:16:29,296 –> 00:16:33,070
influenced other think about modern television shows.

261
00:16:33,140 –> 00:16:36,782
Okay, so Sons of Anarchy is

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00:16:36,836 –> 00:16:40,874
basically Hamlet with motorcycle gangs.

263
00:16:40,922 –> 00:16:44,690
By the way, the guy’s father dies,

264
00:16:45,110 –> 00:16:49,006
the mom who was the wife, unmarried with children. I can’t

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00:16:49,038 –> 00:16:53,118
remember her name now. Katie Segal. Thank you. Yes. Katie Segal

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00:16:53,294 –> 00:16:56,210
is running around in biker outfit.

267
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She’s got the queen role, and then you’ve got the new head of the biker

268
00:17:01,058 –> 00:17:04,786
gang, and you’ve got, you know, the kid coming along who’s whose

269
00:17:04,818 –> 00:17:08,406
father died under mysterious circumstances. That’s Hamlet. That’s the whole set up right there.

270
00:17:08,508 –> 00:17:11,670
Yeah. The show succession.

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Succession was the one that would popped into my brain about the corporate takeover.

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00:17:15,126 –> 00:17:18,506
Yeah, right. That’s just hamlet, but the father’s not dead yet.

273
00:17:18,608 –> 00:17:22,054
Right. It’s almost like the father’s already a ghost

274
00:17:22,102 –> 00:17:25,546
to them, though, if you think about it from that perspective. Yeah, I get it.

275
00:17:25,568 –> 00:17:29,358
But exactly. Now, as far as the story

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00:17:29,444 –> 00:17:33,390
of Hamlet and great power politics in Europe in the 17th century,

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the answer to your question and I think this is the genuine answer the answer

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00:17:39,032 –> 00:17:43,410
to your question is the speed of communication,

279
00:17:43,990 –> 00:17:46,978
from their perspective, was fast.

280
00:17:47,144 –> 00:17:51,126
True. So the printing press in

281
00:17:51,148 –> 00:17:54,166
the, you know, the late 15th century, the printing press, I mean,

282
00:17:54,348 –> 00:17:57,494
Gutenberg was running around disassembling that thing and putting it back

283
00:17:57,532 –> 00:18:00,662
together, trying to prevent people from copying his work between,

284
00:18:00,716 –> 00:18:03,734
like, 14 what was it? 14, roughly?

285
00:18:03,862 –> 00:18:07,178
1460, 514, 75 to the end

286
00:18:07,184 –> 00:18:11,206
of the century. Right. Martin Luther comes along at the beginning

287
00:18:11,238 –> 00:18:15,018
of the 15 hundreds, I mean, nails his 95 theses in

288
00:18:15,024 –> 00:18:18,654
1500 to the door of the Wittenberg Church. People get a hold

289
00:18:18,692 –> 00:18:22,094
of that, they use the printing press to print that out, and it spreads like

290
00:18:22,132 –> 00:18:25,854
wildfire across Europe. So I think we have to contextualize

291
00:18:25,982 –> 00:18:29,460
your question in the context of, for their time,

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00:18:29,910 –> 00:18:33,202
the printing press was the Internet. Yeah, true.

293
00:18:33,336 –> 00:18:37,240
Okay. Shakespeare would have had access to all of that information,

294
00:18:38,010 –> 00:18:41,666
plus he would have had access to all of the old Greek

295
00:18:41,698 –> 00:18:45,778
and Roman history. So sophocles aristophanes as plays

296
00:18:45,794 –> 00:18:49,366
that were being copied and recopied, or that

297
00:18:49,388 –> 00:18:53,046
had been copied and recopied, and now we’re being on the printing press and spreading

298
00:18:53,078 –> 00:18:57,210
around all over like wildfire. Right. And by the way, wildfire for them meant

299
00:18:57,550 –> 00:19:00,970
instead of getting information in a month and a half,

300
00:19:01,120 –> 00:19:04,366
you got information in a week. Yeah. Right. I know for us that

301
00:19:04,388 –> 00:19:07,200
seems like, what, a week? But, like,

302
00:19:08,690 –> 00:19:12,606
you go from a month and a half to a week. Please, we’ll take

303
00:19:12,628 –> 00:19:15,950
it. Where do I sign up? There’s no friction there. Right.

304
00:19:16,100 –> 00:19:18,130
Because you can make faster decisions.

305
00:19:19,190 –> 00:19:22,782
They would be, and I hold to this always, they would be stunned

306
00:19:22,846 –> 00:19:25,778
by the speed with which we get information. For sure. Oh, my God. They’d be

307
00:19:25,784 –> 00:19:29,398
blown away. Shakespeare couldn’t work now. He’d be on Twitter all the time, couldn’t get

308
00:19:29,404 –> 00:19:33,046
any work done. Give me

309
00:19:33,068 –> 00:19:36,326
a collection of quotes, a.

310
00:19:36,348 –> 00:19:40,866
Long string of tweets scratching

311
00:19:40,898 –> 00:19:43,820
his head, trying to figure out, how do I turn this into something?

312
00:19:45,310 –> 00:19:49,194
Is there anything here? Is this anything? So in

313
00:19:49,232 –> 00:19:53,130
answer to your question, shakespeare would have known about Danish great power politics

314
00:19:53,210 –> 00:19:55,630
from his perspective, literally, instantly.

315
00:19:56,530 –> 00:19:59,914
Now, at that time that’s the time, if I remember correctly,

316
00:19:59,962 –> 00:20:03,342
of Elizabeth I. Elizabeth I?

317
00:20:03,396 –> 00:20:07,666
Yes. Elizabeth I. So she was running around doing

318
00:20:07,768 –> 00:20:10,946
dealing with the Scots, so she was

319
00:20:10,968 –> 00:20:14,690
dealing with Scotland and William of Orange and of course,

320
00:20:14,760 –> 00:20:18,834
the perennial enemy, the French. For them, from their

321
00:20:18,872 –> 00:20:22,902
perspective in England, anything going on in Denmark was

322
00:20:22,956 –> 00:20:26,406
subordinate to anything going on with France. Sure. And so I get

323
00:20:26,428 –> 00:20:29,366
the sense and this is my best guess answer. And of course, if you have

324
00:20:29,388 –> 00:20:32,442
a better answer, you can email me on the podcast and give us a better

325
00:20:32,496 –> 00:20:35,594
answer. But my best guess sense,

326
00:20:35,632 –> 00:20:38,986
with what I know of the history there and how things click

327
00:20:39,008 –> 00:20:42,222
together with the information and other things, my best guess in answer to your question

328
00:20:42,276 –> 00:20:44,990
is he wrote it to keep himself out of trouble,

329
00:20:47,170 –> 00:20:50,766
just like most creatives do. He wrote it to keep himself out of

330
00:20:50,788 –> 00:20:54,046
trouble because if he had written about what

331
00:20:54,068 –> 00:20:57,266
was going on in the great power politics of England, that would have been too

332
00:20:57,288 –> 00:20:59,730
close to the bone. Yeah. He had been beheaded.

333
00:21:00,310 –> 00:21:03,410
Right, exactly. Forget it. Like his head be on a pike.

334
00:21:04,950 –> 00:21:07,810
You could either have your head on a stick or you can keep tweeting,

335
00:21:08,630 –> 00:21:12,006
I got you. And I think that’s, for me,

336
00:21:12,028 –> 00:21:15,398
anyway, that’s the easiest answer. Now, there may be more complicated things. If you

337
00:21:15,404 –> 00:21:18,818
go and look at the Wikipedia article on Hamlet, there’s a lot of

338
00:21:18,844 –> 00:21:22,300
good analysis there. I’ve skimmed through a little bit of that,

339
00:21:22,830 –> 00:21:26,458
and that’s probably the closest encyclopedic analysis of

340
00:21:26,544 –> 00:21:30,042
Hamlet. But I’m thinking about how creatives create

341
00:21:30,096 –> 00:21:33,146
at human nature right. And how they deal with leadership

342
00:21:33,178 –> 00:21:37,182
and power. So there’s that.

343
00:21:37,316 –> 00:21:38,720
The other thing is,

344
00:21:40,130 –> 00:21:43,274
if you’re in a great power environment,

345
00:21:43,322 –> 00:21:46,122
and this is my thought, if you’re a leader in a great power environment,

346
00:21:46,186 –> 00:21:49,346
you don’t want too many people on the edges popping off about what

347
00:21:49,368 –> 00:21:52,674
you’re doing. You want to keep as much of that information on the down low

348
00:21:52,712 –> 00:21:55,970
as possible. You want to make it look like we’re big,

349
00:21:56,040 –> 00:21:57,720
we’re strong, we’re bad,

350
00:21:59,930 –> 00:22:04,002
leave us alone. But internally,

351
00:22:04,146 –> 00:22:07,878
oh, internally, you could be a mess. Yeah, internally you

352
00:22:07,884 –> 00:22:10,198
could have some mess. And you see this in the court of the court of

353
00:22:10,204 –> 00:22:12,874
the king. This is why I start off with the king, so he ascends to

354
00:22:12,912 –> 00:22:16,726
the uncle ascends to the throne. But it’s

355
00:22:16,758 –> 00:22:20,186
already a mess. It’s a mess even before he shows up, because you’ve got the

356
00:22:20,208 –> 00:22:24,094
King of Norway, who has no control over his

357
00:22:24,132 –> 00:22:27,840
nephew, and his nephew just killed well,

358
00:22:28,450 –> 00:22:32,074
just killed the Danish

359
00:22:32,122 –> 00:22:35,378
king. Right. So you’ve got that deceit already

360
00:22:35,464 –> 00:22:39,154
starting to sort of flow through the power politics of the system.

361
00:22:39,272 –> 00:22:42,914
And then you’ve got the dynamic of Hamlet and his

362
00:22:42,952 –> 00:22:47,250
buddies horatio

363
00:22:49,190 –> 00:22:52,086
oh, gosh, the other guy’s name. I can’t remember his name right now. But you

364
00:22:52,108 –> 00:22:55,094
got him sort of bringing that dynamic along.

365
00:22:55,292 –> 00:22:58,866
And of course, Hamlet is being driven by personal revenge,

366
00:22:59,058 –> 00:23:05,534
which is a question I would want to ask you. So should

367
00:23:05,572 –> 00:23:07,950
a leader be driven by personal revenge?

368
00:23:10,050 –> 00:23:12,878
And I’m not saying is it right or wrong, I’m saying should that be a

369
00:23:12,884 –> 00:23:13,790
motivator?

370
00:23:16,310 –> 00:23:19,906
Whether it should or shouldn’t be, I’m not sure the

371
00:23:20,088 –> 00:23:26,086
real answer to that, but it

372
00:23:26,108 –> 00:23:29,586
can be. Whether it is or whether it should or shouldn’t

373
00:23:29,618 –> 00:23:33,160
be, I don’t know.

374
00:23:33,610 –> 00:23:39,866
Because sometimes if

375
00:23:39,888 –> 00:23:43,626
the revenge is against. We’ll just keep

376
00:23:43,648 –> 00:23:47,254
it in the literary sense, right? Yes. If the personal vendetta

377
00:23:47,302 –> 00:23:51,360
is against evil and the outcome ends up being good over

378
00:23:51,730 –> 00:23:55,086
triumphs over evil, then what’s so wrong with it, right?

379
00:23:55,108 –> 00:23:57,550
Like, who cares? But if it’s the vice versa,

380
00:23:59,490 –> 00:24:01,520
are we talking about Star Wars here?

381
00:24:04,230 –> 00:24:05,730
Another tragedy.

382
00:24:08,070 –> 00:24:11,698
But in seriousness. And again, I’ll try to bring it back to

383
00:24:11,784 –> 00:24:15,874
some sort of corporate environment where maybe

384
00:24:15,912 –> 00:24:19,734
you have a son or a daughter that thinks the dad should

385
00:24:19,772 –> 00:24:24,374
retire and they figure out a way that they take

386
00:24:24,412 –> 00:24:28,246
over that company. And then you have a sibling that just trying to look out

387
00:24:28,268 –> 00:24:31,878
for the dad. And they kind of have this personal vendetta against the siblings

388
00:24:31,894 –> 00:24:34,570
now because they just made dad retire.

389
00:24:35,390 –> 00:24:38,666
I don’t know. Is there justification there? I don’t know how old the guy is.

390
00:24:38,688 –> 00:24:42,174
So, I mean, maybe we should have killed him in act three

391
00:24:42,212 –> 00:24:45,358
instead of. Well, okay,

392
00:24:45,524 –> 00:24:48,702
so this gets to something else. This is another Pandora’s box,

393
00:24:48,756 –> 00:24:51,966
right? So every time we open every time you make

394
00:24:51,988 –> 00:24:54,594
one point, then we’re going to open up another we’re going to open up another

395
00:24:54,632 –> 00:24:56,370
door here. And this is the door.

396
00:24:57,750 –> 00:25:00,260
Succession is hard,

397
00:25:02,790 –> 00:25:06,340
and the thing that makes it hard is people don’t want to give up power.

398
00:25:06,710 –> 00:25:10,866
Absolutely. I think of the William

399
00:25:10,898 –> 00:25:14,470
Shatner song that he recorded on the album has been,

400
00:25:14,540 –> 00:25:17,714
by the way, one of the greatest spoken word albums in the history of spoken

401
00:25:17,762 –> 00:25:21,290
word albums. Go check it out. It’s on Amazon. Audible Music.

402
00:25:21,440 –> 00:25:25,322
You can go get it. I’m a big fan of William Shatner spoken word

403
00:25:25,376 –> 00:25:27,130
albums. Big fan,

404
00:25:29,390 –> 00:25:33,166
and I’ll leave it at that. But one of the better songs that

405
00:25:33,188 –> 00:25:36,560
he records on there is this song called You’ll Have Time,

406
00:25:37,650 –> 00:25:39,920
and one of the lines in the song is,

407
00:25:44,230 –> 00:25:45,570
you’re going to die.

408
00:25:47,350 –> 00:25:50,418
Everybody is going to die. Matter of

409
00:25:50,424 –> 00:25:53,970
fact, by the time you hear this song, I might be dead.

410
00:25:55,910 –> 00:25:59,430
Hopes Singers

411
00:26:00,170 –> 00:26:03,606
average people, or how Fight Club put

412
00:26:03,628 –> 00:26:07,560
it back in the day on a long enough timeline, everybody’s survival drops to zero.

413
00:26:09,850 –> 00:26:13,820
But people don’t think they’re going to die all the way up to the end.

414
00:26:15,630 –> 00:26:18,634
They’re going to be like, really? I got to go.

415
00:26:18,752 –> 00:26:21,846
And as a species, we’re infatuated with immortality.

416
00:26:21,958 –> 00:26:25,502
That’s why we keep coming up with vampires and all these

417
00:26:25,556 –> 00:26:28,922
whatever. We always find a way to make us live forever.

418
00:26:28,986 –> 00:26:32,506
For some reason, we’re infatuated with it. Well, or Project Calico

419
00:26:32,538 –> 00:26:36,386
over there with Google, they’re coming up doing a dealing nonsense with transhumanism and all

420
00:26:36,408 –> 00:26:39,762
that kind of stuff. They’re trying to make that thing real. Yeah,

421
00:26:39,816 –> 00:26:43,186
right. I don’t know.

422
00:26:43,368 –> 00:26:47,750
But back to your point, though, with the whole power and succession.

423
00:26:48,970 –> 00:26:53,286
I always found it fascinating that especially in

424
00:26:53,308 –> 00:26:58,582
the royalty part of it, that you quote, unquote, name a successor almost

425
00:26:58,636 –> 00:27:01,974
at birth, right? So you have this kids born, you’re like,

426
00:27:02,012 –> 00:27:05,306
oh, that’s going to be my successor. Then you have three more kids and you’re

427
00:27:05,328 –> 00:27:08,394
like, oh, God, dang it. So and so would have been a better

428
00:27:08,432 –> 00:27:11,920
leader, but I already named a successor, so I can’t do anything about it.

429
00:27:13,970 –> 00:27:17,646
That never really settled well in my brain. Well,

430
00:27:17,668 –> 00:27:19,390
that’s because fundamentally,

431
00:27:21,330 –> 00:27:25,326
as a person with an American mindset, that drives

432
00:27:25,358 –> 00:27:28,734
us crazy. But there’s another tension

433
00:27:28,782 –> 00:27:32,338
in there, right? So the tension is between

434
00:27:32,504 –> 00:27:36,066
picking someone who might or might not be qualified and you have no

435
00:27:36,088 –> 00:27:39,026
idea because they’re full of promise. Like, when you’re six, you have promise.

436
00:27:39,058 –> 00:27:42,006
That’s all you’ve got. You just got sheaths of promise ahead of you.

437
00:27:42,028 –> 00:27:46,120
Like wheat, right? Less so when you’re 35,

438
00:27:48,010 –> 00:27:50,886
you got less promise ahead of you when you’re. 35, especially if you’re 35 still

439
00:27:50,908 –> 00:27:53,660
living in your parents basement, right? Exactly.

440
00:27:54,670 –> 00:27:58,218
The decay rate starts to kick in at a certain point. It used to

441
00:27:58,224 –> 00:28:01,846
be in our culture, the decay rate kicked in right around 18. Now it kicks

442
00:28:01,878 –> 00:28:05,520
in right around 35. I mean, if you’re a 40 year old person,

443
00:28:05,890 –> 00:28:09,518
man or woman, you’re that last weirdo at the end of

444
00:28:09,524 –> 00:28:12,400
the party like that no one wants to talk to. Okay,

445
00:28:15,510 –> 00:28:19,122
that’s one tension. The other tension is on there

446
00:28:19,176 –> 00:28:24,834
is the idea that we

447
00:28:24,872 –> 00:28:28,078
want to pick the person that has the most merit and the most competency.

448
00:28:28,174 –> 00:28:31,766
I just did a shorts episode about this short, number 73.

449
00:28:31,788 –> 00:28:34,278
You can go back and listen to it, or you can go listen if you

450
00:28:34,284 –> 00:28:35,430
want, if you’re listening.

451
00:28:36,970 –> 00:28:40,874
But that idea of being competent and I’m not talking

452
00:28:40,912 –> 00:28:44,380
about merit, although we link merit and competency together,

453
00:28:44,910 –> 00:28:49,226
that idea that someone would be good at

454
00:28:49,248 –> 00:28:52,918
the basics of something which and you’re talking about royalty or being in

455
00:28:52,944 –> 00:28:55,834
a corporation, that’s the basics of management,

456
00:28:55,882 –> 00:28:59,680
that’s the basics of leadership. And that they’re somehow going to just sort of

457
00:29:00,370 –> 00:29:04,046
get this competency through. Osmosis is

458
00:29:04,068 –> 00:29:07,294
what has driven much of American business culture for the last my

459
00:29:07,332 –> 00:29:11,246
God, I mean, 120 years. Probably like Henry Ford

460
00:29:11,278 –> 00:29:14,898
thought his son was going to be perfectly competent and be a carbon copy of

461
00:29:14,904 –> 00:29:19,400
him, and his son had zero interest in being. Any of that true

462
00:29:20,090 –> 00:29:23,880
specifically to me. So I recently just had a conversation about

463
00:29:24,810 –> 00:29:28,582
this, and I don’t understand why people do this, why companies

464
00:29:28,636 –> 00:29:32,090
do this. But for me personally, like in sales, right,

465
00:29:32,240 –> 00:29:35,898
you’ll take that number one salesperson, and you’ll promote them to a

466
00:29:35,904 –> 00:29:39,526
sales manager or some sort of sales leadership role because they’re

467
00:29:39,558 –> 00:29:42,978
the best, and then they fail, and they don’t

468
00:29:43,014 –> 00:29:46,782
understand why they fail, right, because you never

469
00:29:46,836 –> 00:29:50,318
looked at the other stuff. You just look at the fact, yes, they can

470
00:29:50,324 –> 00:29:53,438
sell your product or service or whatever, and they might be the best at it,

471
00:29:53,524 –> 00:29:56,674
but can they teach other people how to do it? Are there

472
00:29:56,712 –> 00:30:00,606
other factors that you’re not looking at, like design and implementation

473
00:30:00,638 –> 00:30:04,370
of strategy? If they’re not doing that,

474
00:30:04,520 –> 00:30:08,530
what makes you think they can run a sales team oftentimes,

475
00:30:09,030 –> 00:30:12,598
again, not to talk about personal accomplishment or whatever, and I know we

476
00:30:12,604 –> 00:30:15,446
do that a little bit here, but I was a regional VP of sales for

477
00:30:15,468 –> 00:30:18,726
a company that I had something like, I think 60 or

478
00:30:18,748 –> 00:30:22,026
70 people underneath me. And they were all some management levels. And so there

479
00:30:22,048 –> 00:30:25,894
was two different management levels before they got to me. And I oftentimes

480
00:30:25,942 –> 00:30:29,802
found myself promoting the number two or number three guy

481
00:30:29,856 –> 00:30:33,054
or girl into that next manager role because,

482
00:30:33,172 –> 00:30:36,362
yes, they were able to maintain their quota, but they exhibited

483
00:30:36,426 –> 00:30:40,282
so much other traits like that were leadership

484
00:30:40,346 –> 00:30:44,014
traits and I was always questioned until a

485
00:30:44,052 –> 00:30:47,378
year after they were promoted and they’re wildly successful. And then I

486
00:30:47,384 –> 00:30:49,300
was like, oh, though you might know what you’re doing.

487
00:30:51,190 –> 00:30:54,434
Well, it’s because we don’t have a good my

488
00:30:54,472 –> 00:30:57,926
God, this is great to talk about. And then we’ll go back to

489
00:30:57,948 –> 00:31:01,398
Hamlet here in a minute. But this is a great point that I

490
00:31:01,404 –> 00:31:04,822
think bears fleshing out a little bit the

491
00:31:04,876 –> 00:31:10,418
things that no, not even that systems,

492
00:31:10,514 –> 00:31:13,830
right, demand a certain level of competency.

493
00:31:13,910 –> 00:31:17,178
So for instance, if I am building a

494
00:31:17,184 –> 00:31:20,758
bridge, I want you

495
00:31:20,784 –> 00:31:22,270
to be really good at math,

496
00:31:23,570 –> 00:31:27,246
regardless of your gender, regardless of

497
00:31:27,268 –> 00:31:30,878
your race, regardless of your socioeconomic background, regardless of

498
00:31:30,884 –> 00:31:34,514
your national origin, I don’t care who you worship, I don’t care who

499
00:31:34,552 –> 00:31:37,794
you marry and make an intimate life with. I don’t care about

500
00:31:37,912 –> 00:31:41,506
any of that. I care that

501
00:31:41,528 –> 00:31:44,130
you are good at math.

502
00:31:45,530 –> 00:31:49,190
I care that you know that two things plus

503
00:31:49,260 –> 00:31:52,646
two things equals four things all

504
00:31:52,668 –> 00:31:56,630
of the time, no matter where we are on infinitum

505
00:31:57,130 –> 00:31:58,920
mazatov into your health.

506
00:32:01,610 –> 00:32:04,794
Right? Like that’s all I care about. I don’t care about anything else.

507
00:32:04,912 –> 00:32:07,962
Right? Once we get past that,

508
00:32:08,016 –> 00:32:11,530
though, this is the problem. Once we get past

509
00:32:11,600 –> 00:32:15,846
judging being good on that, we have very little,

510
00:32:15,968 –> 00:32:19,054
very few metrics for success for all of that

511
00:32:19,092 –> 00:32:22,238
other stuff. And this is why when I

512
00:32:22,244 –> 00:32:25,700
do trainings on emotional intelligence, I spend

513
00:32:26,630 –> 00:32:30,574
two of the first 6 hours just convincing people that emotional

514
00:32:30,622 –> 00:32:33,380
intelligence actually exists. Yeah, right,

515
00:32:34,230 –> 00:32:39,206
because people are so because

516
00:32:39,228 –> 00:32:41,480
of the industrial revolution system that we built,

517
00:32:42,170 –> 00:32:44,360
even though we’re in the backwash of it,

518
00:32:45,690 –> 00:32:49,286
there’s still enough people around who remember that all you

519
00:32:49,308 –> 00:32:52,618
had to do to be competent was be good at the core things.

520
00:32:52,784 –> 00:32:56,220
And that other stuff, while nice, wasn’t interesting.

521
00:32:56,590 –> 00:33:00,506
Well, unfortunately, we’ve reached a spot where due to the successes of

522
00:33:00,528 –> 00:33:04,666
industrialization I’ve been saying this for years. The successes of industrialization we

523
00:33:04,688 –> 00:33:07,998
are now at a spot where that core thing that

524
00:33:08,004 –> 00:33:10,622
you had to be good at, that two plus two equals four, can be done

525
00:33:10,676 –> 00:33:13,598
faster or better by other people, other places, or it can be done by a

526
00:33:13,604 –> 00:33:17,454
large language model or an algorithm somewhere. Goodbye. It’s gone.

527
00:33:17,492 –> 00:33:20,946
And so the core has come out of the apple. And now

528
00:33:20,968 –> 00:33:23,138
people are looking at that, at the rest of the apple, go, and I don’t

529
00:33:23,144 –> 00:33:26,898
know what to do with this. And that’s a

530
00:33:26,904 –> 00:33:28,910
problem. And the people who know what to do with the rest of the apple,

531
00:33:28,990 –> 00:33:32,946
those people will succeed. And everybody else who’s flummoxed or befuddled

532
00:33:32,978 –> 00:33:36,694
by it, unfortunately, you’re probably going to have to get universal basic income because

533
00:33:36,732 –> 00:33:38,280
you’re not going to know what to do.

534
00:33:40,410 –> 00:33:43,450
Tragically. And by the way, there’s so many apples, by the way,

535
00:33:43,520 –> 00:33:46,986
to push the analogy just a little bit further, there’s so many apples where the

536
00:33:47,008 –> 00:33:50,150
core is just being taken out. So it’s not just building a bridge,

537
00:33:50,230 –> 00:33:54,038
right? It’s sales, it’s marketing.

538
00:33:54,134 –> 00:33:57,358
It’s the kind of stuff I do with content creation. Like, I’m seeing all the

539
00:33:57,364 –> 00:34:00,906
stuff happen with AI and content creation, AI driven podcasts,

540
00:34:00,938 –> 00:34:04,542
AI driven videos, AI this, AI driven marketing, all this stuff,

541
00:34:04,596 –> 00:34:07,780
right? And at the end of the day,

542
00:34:08,150 –> 00:34:11,666
that’s just hollowing out the core thing from marketing, or hollowing out

543
00:34:11,688 –> 00:34:14,866
the core thing from creating content, or hollowing out the core thing from creating a

544
00:34:14,888 –> 00:34:18,018
podcast. But if I could do the best thing that I could do with

545
00:34:18,024 –> 00:34:21,286
the rest of that apple, then I don’t care. Go ahead, hollow out all day.

546
00:34:21,388 –> 00:34:24,566
There’s no fear there, right? But for the people who really need that

547
00:34:24,588 –> 00:34:28,502
core to exist, like you were talking about, if they don’t meet their sales

548
00:34:28,556 –> 00:34:31,834
quota, that’s the core of the apple. And all of a sudden that goes away.

549
00:34:31,872 –> 00:34:35,946
People don’t know what to do. I agree. I agree with that for

550
00:34:35,968 –> 00:34:39,562
sure. And the person who judges that and has a good sense

551
00:34:39,616 –> 00:34:43,054
of that will succeed as a leader and

552
00:34:43,092 –> 00:34:45,710
will succeed even as an advisor to leaders,

553
00:34:46,530 –> 00:34:48,990
which Hamlet would have done well to have an advisor,

554
00:34:51,810 –> 00:34:54,994
particularly when he ran into this

555
00:34:55,032 –> 00:34:58,418
fellow. So, returning to Hamlet, speaking of

556
00:34:58,424 –> 00:35:02,354
Hamlet’s mental illness, returning to Hamlet still

557
00:35:02,392 –> 00:35:05,300
in act one, scene five,

558
00:35:06,730 –> 00:35:10,054
enter Ghost and Hamlet at

559
00:35:10,092 –> 00:35:14,114
the battlements. That’s where this conversation, this interaction

560
00:35:14,162 –> 00:35:17,714
is going to happen. Hamlet whither

561
00:35:17,762 –> 00:35:20,810
wilt thou lead me? Speak, I’ll go no further.

562
00:35:21,150 –> 00:35:24,314
Ghost mark me. Hamlet I will.

563
00:35:24,432 –> 00:35:27,834
Ghost my hours almost come when I to

564
00:35:27,872 –> 00:35:31,418
sulphurous and tormenting flames must render up myself. By the

565
00:35:31,424 –> 00:35:34,842
way, there’s a concept of heaven and hell there. Hamlet alas,

566
00:35:34,906 –> 00:35:38,142
poor ghost. Ghost pity me not,

567
00:35:38,196 –> 00:35:41,066
but lend thy serious hearing to what I shall unfold.

568
00:35:41,178 –> 00:35:45,314
Hamlet speak, I am bound to hear. Ghost so

569
00:35:45,352 –> 00:35:49,406
art thou to revenge when thou shalt hear. By the way, that’s the swearing

570
00:35:49,438 –> 00:35:52,958
that’s the binding together. People really believed

571
00:35:52,974 –> 00:35:56,722
in that stuff back in the day. Anyway, back to Hamlet.

572
00:35:56,866 –> 00:36:00,182
What? Ghost now, here we go.

573
00:36:00,316 –> 00:36:03,750
Here’s the motivating moment in the play.

574
00:36:03,900 –> 00:36:07,586
I am thy father’s spirit, doomed for a certain term

575
00:36:07,618 –> 00:36:11,226
to walk the night and for the day confined to fast and fires to

576
00:36:11,248 –> 00:36:14,870
the foul crimes done in my days of nature are burnt

577
00:36:14,950 –> 00:36:18,202
and purged away. But that I am

578
00:36:18,256 –> 00:36:22,234
forbid to tell the secrets of my prison house. I could a tale

579
00:36:22,282 –> 00:36:25,978
unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul freeze thy

580
00:36:25,994 –> 00:36:29,422
young blood make thy two eyes like stars start

581
00:36:29,476 –> 00:36:33,590
from their spheres thy knotted in combined locks apart

582
00:36:33,690 –> 00:36:37,246
and each particular hair to stand and end like quills upon

583
00:36:37,278 –> 00:36:40,446
the fearful porpentine. But this eternal

584
00:36:40,478 –> 00:36:43,502
blazen must not be to ears of flesh and blood.

585
00:36:43,646 –> 00:36:46,946
List, O, list if

586
00:36:46,968 –> 00:36:50,782
thou hast ever thy dear father love hamlet

587
00:36:50,846 –> 00:36:54,342
o God. Ghost revenge his foul and most

588
00:36:54,396 –> 00:36:58,150
unnatural murder. Hamlet murder?

589
00:36:59,290 –> 00:37:02,546
Ghost murder most foul,

590
00:37:02,738 –> 00:37:06,722
as in the best it is, but this most foul,

591
00:37:06,866 –> 00:37:10,418
strange and unnatural. Hamlet haste

592
00:37:10,434 –> 00:37:13,678
we an oath that I, with wings as swift as meditation or the

593
00:37:13,684 –> 00:37:17,422
thoughts of love may sweep to my revenge. Ghost I find

594
00:37:17,476 –> 00:37:20,890
thee apt and duller shalt thou be than the fat weed

595
00:37:20,970 –> 00:37:24,238
that roots itself in ease on Lathe wharf without

596
00:37:24,324 –> 00:37:27,726
now not stir us this. Now. Hamlet here tis

597
00:37:27,758 –> 00:37:31,442
given out that, sleeping in my orchard, a serpent stung me.

598
00:37:31,576 –> 00:37:35,054
So the whole ear of Denmark is by a forged

599
00:37:35,102 –> 00:37:39,206
process of my death rankly abused. But no,

600
00:37:39,388 –> 00:37:43,074
thou noble youth, the serpent that did sing thy father’s

601
00:37:43,122 –> 00:37:45,670
life now wears his crown.

602
00:37:46,490 –> 00:37:50,650
Hamlet o my prophetic soul. My uncle

603
00:37:51,310 –> 00:37:55,046
a ghost. A, that incestuous, that adultered beast

604
00:37:55,158 –> 00:37:58,406
with witchcraft of his wits, with traitorous gifts o wicked

605
00:37:58,438 –> 00:38:01,946
witting gifts that have the power so to seduce one to

606
00:38:01,968 –> 00:38:05,594
his shameful lust the will of my most seeming virtuous

607
00:38:05,642 –> 00:38:09,038
queen. O hamlet what a falling off was there.

608
00:38:09,124 –> 00:38:12,414
From me whose love was that of dignity that it went hand

609
00:38:12,452 –> 00:38:15,834
in hand even with the vow I made to her in marriage and to decline

610
00:38:15,882 –> 00:38:19,490
upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor to those of mine.

611
00:38:20,230 –> 00:38:23,794
But virtue, as it never will be moved through the

612
00:38:23,832 –> 00:38:27,306
ludinous court it in a shape of heaven so lust

613
00:38:27,438 –> 00:38:30,758
though to a radiant angel linked will satiate itself

614
00:38:30,924 –> 00:38:34,070
in a celestial bed and prey on garbage.

615
00:38:34,570 –> 00:38:37,942
But soft. Methinks I sent to the morning air brief let me be.

616
00:38:38,076 –> 00:38:41,366
Sleeping within my orchard my custom always of the afternoon upon

617
00:38:41,398 –> 00:38:45,782
my secure hour thy uncle stole with juice of curse at Hobana

618
00:38:45,926 –> 00:38:49,686
a vial. And in the porches of my ears did poor the leprous

619
00:38:49,718 –> 00:38:53,018
distillment whose effect holds such an enmity with blood of man

620
00:38:53,104 –> 00:38:56,906
that swift as quicksilver courses through the natural gates and alleys

621
00:38:56,938 –> 00:39:00,266
of the body and with sudden vigor doth it possessed incurred like eager

622
00:39:00,298 –> 00:39:03,630
droppings into milk and thine and wholesome blood.

623
00:39:04,470 –> 00:39:08,306
So did it mine and a most instant tetter barked about

624
00:39:08,408 –> 00:39:11,694
most lazar like with vial and loathsome crust

625
00:39:11,742 –> 00:39:15,550
all my smooth body. Thus was I, sleeping,

626
00:39:15,630 –> 00:39:19,842
by a brother’s hand of life, of crown, of queen at once despatched

627
00:39:19,986 –> 00:39:24,002
cut off even the blossoms of my sin unhousled,

628
00:39:24,066 –> 00:39:28,086
disappointed, unannounced, nor reckoning made but sent to my account with

629
00:39:28,108 –> 00:39:31,174
all my imperfections on my head. O horrible.

630
00:39:31,222 –> 00:39:34,886
O horrible. O horrible. Most horrible.

631
00:39:34,998 –> 00:39:38,074
If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not. Let not

632
00:39:38,112 –> 00:39:42,250
the royal bed of Denmark be a couch for luxury and damned incest.

633
00:39:42,670 –> 00:39:46,686
But howsomeever thou pursuest this act, taint not thy mind, or let

634
00:39:46,708 –> 00:39:50,206
thy soul contrive against thy mother ought leave her

635
00:39:50,228 –> 00:39:53,466
to heaven and to those thorns, and in her bosom

636
00:39:53,498 –> 00:39:57,114
lodge to prick and sting her. Fare thee

637
00:39:57,162 –> 00:40:00,714
well at once. The glow worm shows the maiden

638
00:40:00,762 –> 00:40:04,122
to be near and gins to pale his unaffectual

639
00:40:04,186 –> 00:40:09,800
fire. The dew do remember

640
00:40:10,570 –> 00:40:11,320
me.

641
00:40:16,270 –> 00:40:19,498
I warned you I was going to do that. I have no issue. I have

642
00:40:19,504 –> 00:40:23,690
no problem. As a matter of fact, I actually kind of like the escalation.

643
00:40:24,110 –> 00:40:27,662
I don’t know if you realize you do that, but you

644
00:40:27,716 –> 00:40:31,198
start off and then you escalate, and then you got this peak and

645
00:40:31,204 –> 00:40:34,398
valley sort of anyway. That’S how you got to read Shakespeare. That’s how you got

646
00:40:34,404 –> 00:40:36,340
to read it. That’s how you got to hear it in your head.

647
00:40:40,630 –> 00:40:44,210
This is early modern English. This is the crossover

648
00:40:45,350 –> 00:40:49,134
from English that Chaucer wrote in English

649
00:40:49,182 –> 00:40:52,318
that was closer to what we understand as English.

650
00:40:52,494 –> 00:40:56,062
And now we’re in post late modern English.

651
00:40:56,126 –> 00:40:59,706
We’re like, well, we say a lot of like and he’s all and

652
00:40:59,728 –> 00:41:02,838
she’s all and they’re all and this all yeah. So we’re

653
00:41:02,854 –> 00:41:05,386
in a totally different we’re in a totally different space. 600 years from now,

654
00:41:05,408 –> 00:41:08,138
they’ll be looking at our stuff going, what does this all mean? Yeah, what are

655
00:41:08,144 –> 00:41:10,986
they talking about? Why do they keep saying, like, what. Are they liking what?

656
00:41:11,008 –> 00:41:13,420
I like, I don’t understand what’s this like thing?

657
00:41:15,230 –> 00:41:18,480
No, but, you know, it’s interesting listening to that back,

658
00:41:19,090 –> 00:41:22,766
because I think sometimes we lose. I think

659
00:41:22,788 –> 00:41:26,046
there’s a reason that we get enthralled with movies and television and

660
00:41:26,068 –> 00:41:29,298
theater, right? Because somebody else acting it out gives you

661
00:41:29,304 –> 00:41:32,718
the ability to allow your mind to wander while they’re acting

662
00:41:32,734 –> 00:41:35,634
it out. When you are the one reading it. You can’t do that. Right?

663
00:41:35,672 –> 00:41:38,174
Right. It has to be literal,

664
00:41:38,302 –> 00:41:42,226
literary. It has to be verbatim. There’s no real creative

665
00:41:42,258 –> 00:41:46,466
thoughts to get. I was thinking about this as you were reading this, going there’s

666
00:41:46,498 –> 00:41:50,434
a couple of things. Again, if you’re looking at this from several different factors,

667
00:41:50,482 –> 00:41:55,114
right? Okay. Was he mentally ill or was

668
00:41:55,152 –> 00:41:58,554
it that he physically observed something that

669
00:41:58,592 –> 00:42:02,154
he didn’t recognize at the time, and now his brain is interpreting it for

670
00:42:02,192 –> 00:42:06,302
him? There you go. Right. So he’s not mentally ill, but something

671
00:42:06,356 –> 00:42:09,790
happened to his dad. He saw somebody carry the poison.

672
00:42:10,530 –> 00:42:14,034
He saw something that it didn’t trigger in his brain until

673
00:42:14,072 –> 00:42:17,346
he had this episode with the ghost. And the

674
00:42:17,368 –> 00:42:21,086
ghost is his internal being telling

675
00:42:21,118 –> 00:42:26,306
him he saw something that wasn’t right in the world. Right. Or maybe

676
00:42:26,328 –> 00:42:29,646
it is truly the ghost. I don’t know. I’m just saying, maybe it is truly

677
00:42:29,678 –> 00:42:32,390
the ghost, and the ghost is saying, hey, be careful, son, because you’re next.

678
00:42:32,460 –> 00:42:35,686
Like, if they’re going to kill me. You got to watch out

679
00:42:35,708 –> 00:42:39,346
for yourself. Well, and the ghost talks about damnation right. The ghost

680
00:42:39,378 –> 00:42:42,102
talks about going to hell. So that’s Christian elements,

681
00:42:42,166 –> 00:42:45,782
because Shakespeare, unlike Spencer, who wrote

682
00:42:45,846 –> 00:42:49,894
Fairy, Queen and other ones, was very much interested in reinterpreting

683
00:42:50,022 –> 00:42:53,566
the Dionosian aspects of Christianity back into the

684
00:42:53,588 –> 00:42:57,166
Apollonian aspects of literature. And there was a line about

685
00:42:57,188 –> 00:43:00,590
the queen in there, supposedly.

686
00:43:01,090 –> 00:43:04,080
I forget how he worded it, but I should have wrote it down.

687
00:43:05,830 –> 00:43:09,486
I’ll even go here. So I was thinking about because I highlighted

688
00:43:09,518 –> 00:43:13,262
a bunch of this, but he talks about the death,

689
00:43:13,326 –> 00:43:15,860
obviously the poison being poured into his ear.

690
00:43:17,030 –> 00:43:20,946
Taint not thy mind. Here it is. Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul

691
00:43:20,978 –> 00:43:23,510
contrive against thy mother ought.

692
00:43:24,330 –> 00:43:28,102
Don’t take revenge against your mother. Right. Leave her

693
00:43:28,156 –> 00:43:31,814
to heaven and to those thorns and in her bosom lodge.

694
00:43:31,862 –> 00:43:35,420
Leave her to her guilt, to prick and sting her.

695
00:43:37,790 –> 00:43:40,918
He’s basically saying she was part of it, but she didn’t

696
00:43:40,934 –> 00:43:44,174
do it. She knew about it, but she didn’t stop

697
00:43:44,212 –> 00:43:47,486
it, and she knew about like she’s okay with it to let her I’m just

698
00:43:47,508 –> 00:43:51,534
thinking, like, so or is

699
00:43:51,572 –> 00:43:54,914
he truly just mentally ill and made all this stuff up in his brain to

700
00:43:54,952 –> 00:43:58,254
justify the fact that he hates the fact that his uncle is now his dad?

701
00:43:58,382 –> 00:43:59,060
Right?

702
00:44:01,670 –> 00:44:05,186
Well, let’s be

703
00:44:05,208 –> 00:44:07,000
real. True mental illness, right?

704
00:44:08,010 –> 00:44:11,878
Creating this stuff in his own brain because he’s justifying his hatred for

705
00:44:11,884 –> 00:44:12,870
his new king.

706
00:44:15,530 –> 00:44:18,926
This is that Abalone and Christianity showing

707
00:44:18,978 –> 00:44:23,260
back up, right? Shakespeare is making a judgment here about

708
00:44:23,630 –> 00:44:28,022
killing your brother and marrying

709
00:44:28,166 –> 00:44:31,558
his wife. He uses the word incest

710
00:44:31,654 –> 00:44:35,226
here. Right? It’s incestuous, right? Right. It’s incestuous.

711
00:44:35,338 –> 00:44:38,734
And this is something that makes

712
00:44:38,772 –> 00:44:42,126
us kind of in the modern world, at least up until I would say the

713
00:44:42,148 –> 00:44:45,794
last I think it probably started 15 years

714
00:44:45,832 –> 00:44:49,780
ago, but I would say within the last five years, we’ve become a little more

715
00:44:50,630 –> 00:44:54,770
well, I won’t say we certain aspects of our culture.

716
00:44:55,190 –> 00:44:58,518
I’ll frame it that way. If you look at

717
00:44:58,604 –> 00:45:01,670
the headlines of The New York

718
00:45:01,740 –> 00:45:04,902
Post or you look at writings that are written by

719
00:45:04,956 –> 00:45:07,720
researchers that are published in The New York Times,

720
00:45:08,730 –> 00:45:12,002
you weirdly now have respectable people saying that incest

721
00:45:12,066 –> 00:45:13,340
is not a bad thing.

722
00:45:15,470 –> 00:45:18,182
And I know you’re laughing. By the way, those of you who are listening,

723
00:45:18,246 –> 00:45:21,274
not watching this on video. When you watch the video, you’ll see top crack up

724
00:45:21,312 –> 00:45:24,906
when I say this, but I’ve seen this already. I’m seeing the

725
00:45:24,928 –> 00:45:27,214
beginnings of this. I’m also seeing the beginnings of a whole bunch of other different

726
00:45:27,252 –> 00:45:30,574
things, like polyamory and polygamy starting to come back into

727
00:45:30,612 –> 00:45:34,190
the conversation, which is, well, really interesting.

728
00:45:34,340 –> 00:45:37,758
I take the position I’ll just be fully transparent on this. When you open the

729
00:45:37,764 –> 00:45:40,606
door to one thing, there is a slippery slope. That’s why it’s called a slope,

730
00:45:40,638 –> 00:45:42,340
and that’s why it’s slippery. Anyway,

731
00:45:43,590 –> 00:45:46,462
let me just chime in on this one, too, because I have a different philosophy.

732
00:45:46,526 –> 00:45:49,122
To each his own. You can do whatever you want. I just know me,

733
00:45:49,176 –> 00:45:52,198
I have a hard enough time keeping one woman happy. There’s no way I’m going

734
00:45:52,204 –> 00:45:55,622
to keep multiple happy. I wouldn’t even try even if I was interested in it.

735
00:45:55,676 –> 00:45:59,546
Why would I even attempt it? I’d have even less hair than I have

736
00:45:59,568 –> 00:46:03,260
right now. Okay,

737
00:46:04,750 –> 00:46:07,098
we’re going to put that we’re going to park that over there for just a

738
00:46:07,104 –> 00:46:10,540
minute. I just wouldn’t do it.

739
00:46:10,910 –> 00:46:14,560
Anyway, my point about incest, though, is this.

740
00:46:16,290 –> 00:46:19,962
Shakespeare had to make a point about culture

741
00:46:20,026 –> 00:46:23,178
in his time and quite frankly, among the royals,

742
00:46:23,274 –> 00:46:26,400
among the powerful. And you see this in shows like,

743
00:46:27,010 –> 00:46:30,398
I mean, most notably Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones

744
00:46:30,494 –> 00:46:33,794
as a show on HBO. The book goes even

745
00:46:33,832 –> 00:46:37,480
more detail, by the way. So if you read the book, it’s even more okay.

746
00:46:37,850 –> 00:46:40,806
It goes off a cliff even harder. Oh, I’m sure.

747
00:46:40,908 –> 00:46:45,270
So royalty, people in power have

748
00:46:45,340 –> 00:46:49,034
utilized, have leveraged incestuous relationships for

749
00:46:49,072 –> 00:46:52,250
centuries. And Shakespeare is making a value

750
00:46:52,320 –> 00:46:58,314
judgment about this. He’s saying this

751
00:46:58,352 –> 00:47:02,560
is not good. This is not going to end well.

752
00:47:02,930 –> 00:47:06,334
I mean, yeah, okay, you kill

753
00:47:06,372 –> 00:47:09,854
your brother, you marry his wife. His wife may turn

754
00:47:09,892 –> 00:47:13,374
out to be your cousin or may

755
00:47:13,412 –> 00:47:16,834
turn out to be your aunt, or may turn out to be

756
00:47:16,872 –> 00:47:20,082
your sister. And by the way,

757
00:47:20,136 –> 00:47:23,426
biologically, by the way, Americans just want to point

758
00:47:23,448 –> 00:47:26,500
this out, not immune from this.

759
00:47:27,190 –> 00:47:31,186
The Roosevelts, Eleanor and Franklin

760
00:47:31,378 –> 00:47:34,898
were, if I remember correctly. And listeners, again, this is one of those other details

761
00:47:34,914 –> 00:47:38,162
you can correct me on second or third cousins.

762
00:47:38,226 –> 00:47:42,246
I thought it was second as well. Yeah, second cousins. So Americans

763
00:47:42,278 –> 00:47:45,866
are not far away from this either. Keeping it

764
00:47:45,888 –> 00:47:49,674
in the family among powerful people is a thing.

765
00:47:49,872 –> 00:47:53,146
But this is also something, and we talked about this on the podcast, both in

766
00:47:53,168 –> 00:47:56,458
shorts episodes and when we talked about Mrs. Dalloway. So the episode on Mrs.

767
00:47:56,474 –> 00:47:59,918
Dalloway where you mentioned this, I also mentioned it a little bit in

768
00:47:59,924 –> 00:48:03,230
play it as it lays this month. That was out earlier this year.

769
00:48:03,300 –> 00:48:06,098
You may want to go back and listen to both of those episodes as I

770
00:48:06,104 –> 00:48:09,586
fleshed out this idea I’m about to drop on you now. But this is

771
00:48:09,608 –> 00:48:13,026
a luxury belief. Incest as

772
00:48:13,048 –> 00:48:16,914
a method of maintaining, quote, unquote, purity and bloodlines is

773
00:48:16,952 –> 00:48:20,274
an idea that is fine for the elites, but it doesn’t work

774
00:48:20,312 –> 00:48:21,560
for the rest of us.

775
00:48:23,610 –> 00:48:26,198
And I shouldn’t say fine for the elites because it’s not even really fine for

776
00:48:26,204 –> 00:48:29,286
them. Shakespeare would say it’s not fine for them. It’s not fine for anyone if

777
00:48:29,308 –> 00:48:32,086
we’re actually behaving like we’re supposed to be behaving.

778
00:48:32,278 –> 00:48:35,706
However, elites are often captured, and this is

779
00:48:35,728 –> 00:48:39,110
an idea from Rob Henderson, the writer and researcher, Rob Henderson,

780
00:48:39,270 –> 00:48:43,402
who has articulated it really, really well in our time. And it’s this idea that

781
00:48:43,456 –> 00:48:47,214
there are certain beliefs that elite people carry that have no consequence to

782
00:48:47,252 –> 00:48:50,606
them. So the belief that you can marry your sister and

783
00:48:50,628 –> 00:48:53,770
it doesn’t matter, everything will just keep going just fine,

784
00:48:53,940 –> 00:49:00,606
or the belief that you can flirt

785
00:49:00,638 –> 00:49:04,274
with certain ideologies and even adopt them and

786
00:49:04,312 –> 00:49:07,758
even adapt them to your life. And by the way, it doesn’t have anything

787
00:49:07,784 –> 00:49:12,054
to do with anybody else, and it’s fine. Except the problem is

788
00:49:12,252 –> 00:49:15,814
the elites that adopt those luxury ideas set the boundaries of culture for

789
00:49:15,852 –> 00:49:19,174
everybody else. They are the ones

790
00:49:19,292 –> 00:49:22,886
that, at a practical level, show us what is approved and

791
00:49:22,908 –> 00:49:26,054
what is not. And when they pull up all the boundaries,

792
00:49:26,182 –> 00:49:29,258
and when they pull up all the fence posts and set them on fire in

793
00:49:29,264 –> 00:49:32,650
the middle of the field, you got a real problem in your culture.

794
00:49:33,230 –> 00:49:36,734
And I think Shakespeare was hinting at some of that here with the ghost and

795
00:49:36,772 –> 00:49:41,070
using the voice of the ghost to make that cultural critique.

796
00:49:44,450 –> 00:49:46,000
What would he say? Now,

797
00:49:48,770 –> 00:49:52,414
when we think about the events of Hamblin, when we think about William Shakespeare

798
00:49:52,462 –> 00:49:55,794
as a writer, we have to

799
00:49:55,832 –> 00:49:59,622
sort of go into a little bit

800
00:49:59,676 –> 00:50:03,174
of how this is actually put

801
00:50:03,212 –> 00:50:07,286
together. And I want to pull some interesting pieces from

802
00:50:07,388 –> 00:50:11,634
the Folger Shakespeare Libraries edition of Shakespeare.

803
00:50:11,682 –> 00:50:15,178
Not the one we’re directly reading from, but another one that I have here available

804
00:50:15,264 –> 00:50:19,350
sitting next to me. And it’s the textual introduction by Barbara Mowat

805
00:50:19,430 –> 00:50:22,906
and Paul Worstein. And I want to point out a

806
00:50:22,928 –> 00:50:26,286
couple of things that they point out here as we talk about a little bit

807
00:50:26,308 –> 00:50:29,710
about the literary life of William Shakespeare.

808
00:50:32,050 –> 00:50:35,582
Many ordinary readers assume that there is a single text

809
00:50:35,636 –> 00:50:39,178
for the plays what Shakespeare wrote. But Shakespeare’s plays

810
00:50:39,194 –> 00:50:42,482
were not published the way modern novels or plays are published today, as a single

811
00:50:42,536 –> 00:50:45,906
authoritative text. In some cases, the plays have come down to us

812
00:50:45,928 –> 00:50:50,218
in multiple published versions presented by various quattros

813
00:50:50,414 –> 00:50:54,534
and by the great collection put together by his colleagues in 1623

814
00:50:54,652 –> 00:50:58,038
called the First Folio. There are, for example,

815
00:50:58,124 –> 00:51:01,962
three very different versions of Hamlet, which is interesting,

816
00:51:02,096 –> 00:51:05,414
two of King Lear, Henry V, Romeo and Juliet,

817
00:51:05,462 –> 00:51:09,194
and others. Editors chose which version to use as their

818
00:51:09,232 –> 00:51:12,554
base text and then amended that text with words,

819
00:51:12,672 –> 00:51:15,854
lines or speech prefixes from the other versions that,

820
00:51:15,892 –> 00:51:19,630
in their judgment, make for a better or more accurate text.

821
00:51:19,700 –> 00:51:23,674
And by the way, pause here for just a second. They were writing

822
00:51:23,722 –> 00:51:27,054
for people who would read out loud. So the

823
00:51:27,092 –> 00:51:30,286
idea of reading silently and we’ve never really sort of brought this up on this

824
00:51:30,308 –> 00:51:32,818
podcast, but this is a good time and I need to bring this up.

825
00:51:32,984 –> 00:51:36,882
The idea of reading silently and keeping the words in your head is something

826
00:51:36,936 –> 00:51:41,446
that only really occurred, or began to occur in

827
00:51:41,468 –> 00:51:44,646
the space of humanity and in human civilization in

828
00:51:44,668 –> 00:51:48,018
the late right around the late 19th century.

829
00:51:48,194 –> 00:51:52,022
For the vast majority of literate history. People would

830
00:51:52,076 –> 00:51:56,010
read out loud because there was no television, there was no radio.

831
00:51:56,910 –> 00:52:00,634
The voice was the way you read this, right. It was the way you

832
00:52:00,672 –> 00:52:04,074
experienced the text. And so Tom was

833
00:52:04,112 –> 00:52:08,046
talking about my voice going up and down and those kinds of things. Everybody did

834
00:52:08,068 –> 00:52:11,534
that. And the levels of the talent to which

835
00:52:11,572 –> 00:52:15,310
you had to be able to bring to that would either bore your audience

836
00:52:15,650 –> 00:52:19,326
sitting around a roaring fire at 07:00 at night, or it

837
00:52:19,348 –> 00:52:22,818
would entrance your audience and keep them up long after the

838
00:52:22,824 –> 00:52:26,306
embers of the fire had died down. So what you’re saying is what I used

839
00:52:26,328 –> 00:52:29,742
to do with my kids was just embedded naturally

840
00:52:29,806 –> 00:52:33,058
into me. When I used to read bedtime stories to my kids, I used to

841
00:52:33,064 –> 00:52:36,258
make up voices and characters all the time because I didn’t

842
00:52:36,274 –> 00:52:38,518
want them to get bored with me just reading the text right out of the

843
00:52:38,524 –> 00:52:41,718
book. Oh, yeah. My wife calls it a clown show. I put on a clown

844
00:52:41,734 –> 00:52:44,794
show for my kids. Oh, yeah.

845
00:52:44,832 –> 00:52:48,060
Absolutely. And this is why,

846
00:52:50,590 –> 00:52:52,774
when I read the Bible, I like the King James version of the Bible.

847
00:52:52,822 –> 00:52:56,734
I like the thieves and thou’s and the Verily’s, and I put on the oh,

848
00:52:56,772 –> 00:53:00,974
what’s his name? God from

849
00:53:01,172 –> 00:53:05,040
that movie, the black fella. You know who I’m talking about? Yeah.

850
00:53:05,570 –> 00:53:08,810
Morgan Freeman yeah. For me,

851
00:53:08,820 –> 00:53:11,826
he’s the voice of God. He played the best God ever. I don’t know.

852
00:53:11,848 –> 00:53:16,082
I don’t know anyone’s going to argue with that. Even God

853
00:53:16,136 –> 00:53:20,710
gives four stars to Morgan Freeman approach.

854
00:53:21,450 –> 00:53:24,440
That’s it. That’s it.

855
00:53:26,010 –> 00:53:28,600
But I’ll read it in the Morgan Freeman voice. Right,

856
00:53:29,290 –> 00:53:33,266
but you had to do that. You had to capture your readers.

857
00:53:33,458 –> 00:53:36,298
You had to capture your listeners attention. Right.

858
00:53:36,464 –> 00:53:39,974
And of course, the more intimate the writing, the smaller

859
00:53:40,022 –> 00:53:43,246
the voice. Right. So a Jane Austin book would be read in a different sort

860
00:53:43,268 –> 00:53:47,498
of contextual voice in a home than Shakespeare.

861
00:53:47,594 –> 00:53:51,246
Plus, people did go not

862
00:53:51,268 –> 00:53:54,990
only the middle class and the upper class, but also the lower class did

863
00:53:55,060 –> 00:53:57,780
experience Shakespeare’s plays live.

864
00:53:58,150 –> 00:54:02,194
So they had some conception coming

865
00:54:02,232 –> 00:54:05,086
down through the generations into the 17th,

866
00:54:05,118 –> 00:54:08,302
18th, and 19th century of what it should. Quote, unquote,

867
00:54:08,366 –> 00:54:11,330
sound like and not unlike today.

868
00:54:11,400 –> 00:54:15,046
Shakespeare himself had input into that. Absolutely. He would

869
00:54:15,068 –> 00:54:18,946
see his plays being performed and say, no, that needs to be in this tone

870
00:54:18,978 –> 00:54:22,198
or that needs to be in this light. You’re supposed to have a smile on

871
00:54:22,204 –> 00:54:25,766
your face when you say that. Or you know what I mean? Right. Not unlike

872
00:54:25,798 –> 00:54:29,434
the writers of today, you write

873
00:54:29,472 –> 00:54:32,890
the book or you write that. Now you’re a consultant on the film.

874
00:54:33,730 –> 00:54:37,786
It’s the same idea. That concept has not drifted.

875
00:54:37,978 –> 00:54:41,050
No, well, and it really can’t drift,

876
00:54:41,130 –> 00:54:44,720
because if it did,

877
00:54:45,410 –> 00:54:48,782
I think what you would see is

878
00:54:48,836 –> 00:54:51,906
a collapse of cognition and I’m going to use

879
00:54:51,928 –> 00:54:55,026
a big term there, but a collapse of cognition, of the

880
00:54:55,048 –> 00:54:58,306
written word itself. This is one of the things that worries me

881
00:54:58,328 –> 00:55:01,862
about, and this is one of the reasons why I do the podcast. It’s not

882
00:55:01,916 –> 00:55:04,982
just for leaders, this podcast, although it is,

883
00:55:05,116 –> 00:55:08,514
but it’s also to read a book out loud,

884
00:55:08,642 –> 00:55:12,234
right. To revisit some of that. Because your

885
00:55:12,272 –> 00:55:16,650
brain does need more than just the internalization

886
00:55:17,550 –> 00:55:21,674
of the words. Well, and I guess in what little snippet that we just

887
00:55:21,712 –> 00:55:24,886
spoke about, again, translate it back into corporate.

888
00:55:24,918 –> 00:55:28,714
Right. Being a leader, if you’re going to write a strategic

889
00:55:28,762 –> 00:55:32,826
plan, that does not mean you can drop in the lapse of your subordinates

890
00:55:32,858 –> 00:55:35,950
and walk away. You need to be able to

891
00:55:36,100 –> 00:55:39,390
drop your written word into the lapse and then

892
00:55:39,460 –> 00:55:43,314
mold it as it goes. Because you don’t want them interpreting it the wrong

893
00:55:43,352 –> 00:55:46,834
way. Exactly. You don’t want them going down the wrong path too

894
00:55:46,872 –> 00:55:50,950
far that you have to then jerk them back versus lead them back.

895
00:55:51,020 –> 00:55:54,230
Right. I guess in the same sense,

896
00:55:54,380 –> 00:55:58,546
even writing corporate documents

897
00:55:58,658 –> 00:56:01,730
in corporate doctrine, you still have to, as a leader, still have to do the

898
00:56:01,740 –> 00:56:05,754
same thing that we’re talking about these writers doing well. And you see this

899
00:56:05,792 –> 00:56:08,790
in the last few years. When Bezos was at Amazon,

900
00:56:08,950 –> 00:56:13,350
he got so frustrated with engineers

901
00:56:13,430 –> 00:56:16,942
overusing PowerPoint. PowerPoint is not a presentation tool.

902
00:56:17,076 –> 00:56:20,698
He was like, Get rid of that crab. You come in here with a pencil

903
00:56:20,874 –> 00:56:24,414
or a marker and a whiteboard and get after it. If you

904
00:56:24,452 –> 00:56:29,358
can’t explain what you’re doing in the concepts here verbally

905
00:56:29,454 –> 00:56:32,562
from the top of your head and get

906
00:56:32,616 –> 00:56:36,174
that into other people’s brains. If you need the crutch

907
00:56:36,222 –> 00:56:38,100
of PowerPoint behind you,

908
00:56:39,450 –> 00:56:43,238
you don’t know your job. To go back to

909
00:56:43,244 –> 00:56:46,550
something that we mentioned earlier, you’re not competent.

910
00:56:47,210 –> 00:56:50,406
It’s one of the core competencies, because we

911
00:56:50,428 –> 00:56:53,814
can find anybody to do the engineering thing. We can’t

912
00:56:53,862 –> 00:56:57,670
find anybody, just anybody to do the engineering

913
00:56:57,750 –> 00:57:01,418
and the presenting thing. And so I think we forget some of

914
00:57:01,424 –> 00:57:04,526
that in our time, and that’s why we do the

915
00:57:04,548 –> 00:57:06,160
podcast in the way that we do it.

916
00:57:08,450 –> 00:57:11,726
Back to the textual introduction here, there’s a couple of other points I

917
00:57:11,748 –> 00:57:15,674
want to jump off of here, other editorial

918
00:57:15,722 –> 00:57:18,766
decisions. And I want to talk a little about editorial decisions, too, because this is

919
00:57:18,788 –> 00:57:22,034
very important with Shakespeare. Other editorial decisions involve choices about

920
00:57:22,072 –> 00:57:25,986
whether an unfamiliar word could be understood in light of other writings of

921
00:57:26,008 –> 00:57:28,494
that period or whether it should be changed.

922
00:57:28,622 –> 00:57:32,034
Decisions about words that made it into Shakespeare’s text by accident

923
00:57:32,162 –> 00:57:35,538
through 400 years of printings and misprinting,

924
00:57:35,634 –> 00:57:39,250
and even decisions based on cultural preferences and taste.

925
00:57:39,410 –> 00:57:43,410
When the Moby text was created, for example, it was deemed improper and indecent

926
00:57:43,490 –> 00:57:47,046
for Miranda to chastise Taliban for having attempted

927
00:57:47,078 –> 00:57:51,260
to rape her. See the Tempest, act one, scene two.

928
00:57:51,950 –> 00:57:55,786
Abhorred slave, which any prince of goodness wilt not thou take,

929
00:57:55,888 –> 00:57:59,838
be capable of all ill. I pitied thee all. Shakespeare’s editors at

930
00:57:59,844 –> 00:58:03,022
the time. All Shakespeare editors at the time took the speech away from her,

931
00:58:03,076 –> 00:58:07,114
meaning Miranda, and gave it to her father prospero,

932
00:58:07,242 –> 00:58:10,994
because it was more decent for the father to talk about the rape than

933
00:58:11,032 –> 00:58:14,290
about Miranda to talk about her own rape. In The Tempest,

934
00:58:14,870 –> 00:58:18,334
the editors of the Moby Shakespeare produced their text long before scholars

935
00:58:18,382 –> 00:58:21,502
fully understood the proper grounds on which to make the thousands of decisions

936
00:58:21,566 –> 00:58:25,398
that Shakespeare editors face. Now, I want to pause there because they’re going

937
00:58:25,404 –> 00:58:28,134
to make a point about Othello and Henry V and Hamblin. I don’t want to

938
00:58:28,172 –> 00:58:32,154
get quite into that just yet. There’s an important idea there,

939
00:58:32,352 –> 00:58:35,994
and we don’t often talk about editorial decisions on

940
00:58:36,032 –> 00:58:38,810
this podcast in our texts,

941
00:58:39,870 –> 00:58:43,506
but tying it back into leadership, leaders make editorial decisions.

942
00:58:43,638 –> 00:58:45,680
We editorialize all the time.

943
00:58:46,610 –> 00:58:48,510
We, in our minds,

944
00:58:50,370 –> 00:58:54,062
curate and sort through and

945
00:58:54,116 –> 00:58:57,634
validate and choose what to pay attention to and what to

946
00:58:57,672 –> 00:59:01,074
reject. Like, I was recently in a well,

947
00:59:01,112 –> 00:59:04,402
not recently, I am currently in a

948
00:59:04,456 –> 00:59:08,126
negotiation, and I’ll leave it at that. I cannot go into details

949
00:59:08,158 –> 00:59:11,174
because it’s a private negotiation, so I won’t go into

950
00:59:11,212 –> 00:59:15,042
details about it. But it’s a pretty significant one involving a significant

951
00:59:15,186 –> 00:59:18,594
sum of money and ideas

952
00:59:18,642 –> 00:59:22,362
of value around the

953
00:59:22,416 –> 00:59:26,490
object being negotiated over and what the value is

954
00:59:26,560 –> 00:59:27,980
either way, right?

955
00:59:30,510 –> 00:59:33,790
In order to do that negotiation, I’m going to edit.

956
00:59:36,130 –> 00:59:39,840
And nobody thinks that that’s weird, by the way. Everybody does the same thing.

957
00:59:40,210 –> 00:59:43,262
It’s only weird when you point it out. The editing is happening.

958
00:59:43,396 –> 00:59:46,666
I’m going to curate what I’m going to bring to that negotiation

959
00:59:46,698 –> 00:59:50,322
and what I’m not. I’m going to curate for the other

960
00:59:50,376 –> 00:59:53,714
person what I’m going to allow them to put on me and

961
00:59:53,752 –> 00:59:57,454
what I’m going to imprint on them. And I am going to imprint

962
00:59:57,502 –> 01:00:01,058
on them, except the difference between them and myself

963
01:00:01,144 –> 01:00:04,358
is I’m going to be intentional about what I imprint on them. They’re going to

964
01:00:04,364 –> 01:00:08,406
be more reactive to me. And that’s sort of how this

965
01:00:08,428 –> 01:00:12,058
negotiation is going. Okay? And dealing with consequences and

966
01:00:12,224 –> 01:00:15,958
living with outcomes is another part of that curation. But that lies

967
01:00:15,974 –> 01:00:17,660
on the other side of the equal sign.

968
01:00:20,670 –> 01:00:23,020
Leaders editorialize all the time.

969
01:00:23,550 –> 01:00:26,906
Leaders curate all the time. Leaders make cultural

970
01:00:26,938 –> 01:00:29,550
and I love how the point was made here in the introduction.

971
01:00:29,970 –> 01:00:33,840
Leaders make cultural preference and taste decisions all the time.

972
01:00:35,810 –> 01:00:39,374
How can we use Hamlet as leaders to understand that

973
01:00:39,412 –> 01:00:43,074
taste decision? Because there’s multiple different versions of Hamlet running around,

974
01:00:43,112 –> 01:00:45,858
and I want to talk a little bit about the movies. Now. I watched the

975
01:00:45,864 –> 01:00:49,650
Kenneth Brando version. There’s a Mel Gibson version of Hamlet.

976
01:00:50,310 –> 01:00:53,526
There’s a version of Hamlet starring Gandalf from

977
01:00:53,548 –> 01:00:56,630
Lord of the Rings. Ian McKellen is a version of Hamlet.

978
01:00:57,130 –> 01:01:00,470
There’s a version of Hamlet that your kids have done at school.

979
01:01:00,620 –> 01:01:03,370
Maybe not the whole thing, but at least a couple of acts.

980
01:01:03,870 –> 01:01:07,786
I know that Hamlet has been inserted and we already talked

981
01:01:07,808 –> 01:01:11,066
about succession and kings and Sons of Anarchy but

982
01:01:11,088 –> 01:01:14,742
has been inserted, elements of Hamlet have been inserted into popular culture.

983
01:01:14,806 –> 01:01:18,474
And of course that ties back to the Isaac Azimov joke about strings

984
01:01:18,522 –> 01:01:22,506
of quotes being strung together because it’s so ubiquitous,

985
01:01:22,618 –> 01:01:26,346
it’s such a ubiquitous tragedy. And yet people don’t know what version of Hamlet

986
01:01:26,378 –> 01:01:29,730
they’re, they’re quoting from. When the ghost says Murder most foul.

987
01:01:31,110 –> 01:01:34,398
That was, I believe, also a title

988
01:01:34,414 –> 01:01:37,380
of an Agatha Christie story. Yes,

989
01:01:39,270 –> 01:01:42,662
this is where you get into. Shakespeare being

990
01:01:42,716 –> 01:01:45,778
almost and this is why we do it on the podcast almost at the foundational

991
01:01:45,874 –> 01:01:48,870
level next to the Bible of Western literature.

992
01:01:49,290 –> 01:01:52,140
When other texts reference your stuff,

993
01:01:53,710 –> 01:01:56,742
you’re at the bottom like you’re the lodestone,

994
01:01:56,806 –> 01:02:00,394
you’re the beginning, you’re the root. Right? And of course

995
01:02:00,432 –> 01:02:04,346
Shakespeare would probably say I rooted everything in the Bible. So the Bible lies

996
01:02:04,378 –> 01:02:08,110
at the bottom of all of it in Western literature.

997
01:02:09,890 –> 01:02:13,210
Eastern literature is not structured this way. Eastern literature is structured

998
01:02:13,290 –> 01:02:16,382
very differently. Absolutely. But Western literature

999
01:02:16,446 –> 01:02:20,594
is structured on editorializing taste preference and

1000
01:02:20,632 –> 01:02:22,980
of course, what’s at the bottom. Right.

1001
01:02:24,870 –> 01:02:28,706
What can leaders do with all this information? What’s the thing to pull from

1002
01:02:28,728 –> 01:02:32,166
this? Yeah, I gave you the hard thing. I just teed it up. I just

1003
01:02:32,188 –> 01:02:35,670
gave you the hard thing. Now all you got to do is say dang and

1004
01:02:35,740 –> 01:02:37,640
pause for pause for 10 minutes.

1005
01:02:39,690 –> 01:02:42,678
I hadn’t thought about it that way. And then that’s the other word. Instead of

1006
01:02:42,684 –> 01:02:45,786
saying dang, thought about it that way. You just pause for

1007
01:02:45,808 –> 01:02:48,890
a good 2 minutes while you collect your thoughts and say,

1008
01:02:49,040 –> 01:02:51,740
you know what? I have no idea. No idea.

1009
01:02:53,870 –> 01:02:54,810
Honestly,

1010
01:02:57,230 –> 01:03:01,454
I think part of it if

1011
01:03:01,492 –> 01:03:04,846
you yourself you are a leader, Hassan, you yourself have

1012
01:03:04,868 –> 01:03:08,514
a core principle that you that is your foundation. But that

1013
01:03:08,552 –> 01:03:12,114
does not mean that you can’t take drips and drabs and pieces and

1014
01:03:12,152 –> 01:03:15,374
parts from other people’s leadership skills and qualities

1015
01:03:15,422 –> 01:03:17,700
and learn those and use those.

1016
01:03:18,630 –> 01:03:21,986
We do it all the time. We talk about guys like Jeff

1017
01:03:22,018 –> 01:03:25,254
Bezos and Anthony Robbins and you know, like,

1018
01:03:25,292 –> 01:03:28,742
we talk about those types of leaders all the time and how we use certain

1019
01:03:28,796 –> 01:03:32,250
parts of it in certain parts of that. I’ll give you one better.

1020
01:03:32,320 –> 01:03:35,738
Again, I’ll just refer directly back to me.

1021
01:03:35,904 –> 01:03:39,274
People often ask me as a sales

1022
01:03:39,472 –> 01:03:42,794
person, as a sales consultant, do I

1023
01:03:42,832 –> 01:03:46,334
lend myself to a certain sales module or

1024
01:03:46,372 –> 01:03:50,298
discipline? Meaning do I use the Sandler sales methodology

1025
01:03:50,394 –> 01:03:54,266
or the Challenger sales methodology or spin selling?

1026
01:03:54,458 –> 01:03:58,242
And my answer is always yes and no. I use

1027
01:03:58,296 –> 01:04:01,374
all of them. Because here’s the thing. As a salesperson,

1028
01:04:01,422 –> 01:04:05,454
my responsibility is to know which one of those sales methodologies

1029
01:04:05,582 –> 01:04:09,494
my customer is going to relate to most and then adapt my

1030
01:04:09,532 –> 01:04:13,126
selling style to the customer, not the other way around. I’m not going

1031
01:04:13,148 –> 01:04:18,402
to pigeonhole a customer into forcefully

1032
01:04:18,466 –> 01:04:21,654
eating or choking down a sales methodology which.

1033
01:04:21,692 –> 01:04:25,306
By the way, there’s one in particular, I’m not going to name it because I

1034
01:04:25,328 –> 01:04:29,050
won’t discredit or hurt anybody here, but there’s one in particular

1035
01:04:29,120 –> 01:04:32,394
that if I recognize a salesperson using on me, I will shut them down

1036
01:04:32,432 –> 01:04:36,142
in a second because it annoys the piss out of me. It just annoys me

1037
01:04:36,196 –> 01:04:40,110
that salespeople use this methodology on people like me.

1038
01:04:40,180 –> 01:04:43,738
Not that they use the methodology, because methodology does work in other environments.

1039
01:04:43,834 –> 01:04:46,878
It works on other people. It will not work on me. So if you want

1040
01:04:46,884 –> 01:04:50,514
to sell me, don’t use this, right? So my

1041
01:04:50,552 –> 01:04:53,858
philosophy and training and teaching and coaching is I want you to learn all of

1042
01:04:53,864 –> 01:04:56,820
them. I want you to be and again,

1043
01:04:57,430 –> 01:05:00,254
I really need to learn this phrase better.

1044
01:05:00,312 –> 01:05:03,746
Hassan so the original version

1045
01:05:03,778 –> 01:05:07,538
of the phrase jack of all trades, right? That whole jack

1046
01:05:07,554 –> 01:05:10,646
of all trades, master of none, and all of a sudden, we have interpreted this

1047
01:05:10,668 –> 01:05:14,074
as a negative thing. And it was not a negative quote when it first came

1048
01:05:14,112 –> 01:05:17,526
out. It was something like, I won’t

1049
01:05:17,638 –> 01:05:21,686
butcher it, but go look up the quote, jack of all trades, master of none,

1050
01:05:21,718 –> 01:05:25,466
look up the original full quote. It essentially says

1051
01:05:25,568 –> 01:05:28,878
that the jack of all trades is a better trait to have because you can

1052
01:05:28,884 –> 01:05:32,238
pull from multiple sources, you can do multiple things.

1053
01:05:32,324 –> 01:05:35,646
So, yeah, I’m okay with being a jack of all trades. I’m okay with my

1054
01:05:35,668 –> 01:05:39,150
salespeople knowing and understanding all of these sales philosophies

1055
01:05:39,230 –> 01:05:42,914
and all of these sales methodologies because I want them to recognize which

1056
01:05:42,952 –> 01:05:46,450
one is going to help them through the sales process better,

1057
01:05:46,520 –> 01:05:50,098
faster, whatever, right? I guess that’s kind of

1058
01:05:50,104 –> 01:05:53,654
what you’re thinking. But from a foundational standpoint, your sales

1059
01:05:53,772 –> 01:05:57,414
have to come from one thing and one thing only. You have to be

1060
01:05:57,452 –> 01:06:00,646
in it to be helpful. You have to

1061
01:06:00,668 –> 01:06:04,234
be in it. I tell people all the time, a salesperson should never talk you

1062
01:06:04,272 –> 01:06:07,498
into anything. A salesperson should help you buy.

1063
01:06:07,664 –> 01:06:11,114
Right? There’s a big difference in that. Talking somebody into something

1064
01:06:11,152 –> 01:06:14,986
that they don’t really need or want or helping them buy something they feel is

1065
01:06:15,008 –> 01:06:17,706
going to help them improve their life, make it better, faster,

1066
01:06:17,738 –> 01:06:20,826
bigger, whatever they’re trying to accomplish.

1067
01:06:21,018 –> 01:06:24,894
You’re helping them buy something that helps them solve that problem.

1068
01:06:25,012 –> 01:06:27,860
You’re not talking somebody into buying something.

1069
01:06:28,710 –> 01:06:32,738
There’s a foundational difference there. And as

1070
01:06:32,744 –> 01:06:37,106
long as your foundation is right, then it doesn’t matter which sales methodology you use,

1071
01:06:37,208 –> 01:06:40,360
as long as your customer gets the end result, right? Well,

1072
01:06:40,970 –> 01:06:46,246
and that goes back to this idea that and

1073
01:06:46,268 –> 01:06:50,230
you do get it from Hamlet. You get it from Greek

1074
01:06:50,990 –> 01:06:54,650
literature, you get it from the Bible,

1075
01:06:54,990 –> 01:06:58,886
you get it from modern literature spreading

1076
01:06:58,918 –> 01:07:02,426
this out. You get it from interactions between people, even the

1077
01:07:02,448 –> 01:07:05,806
smallest interactions at the smallest level. Like, I was talking about

1078
01:07:05,828 –> 01:07:10,110
the negotiation I’m going through. You’re talking about sales methodologies.

1079
01:07:11,010 –> 01:07:14,640
If I’m leading other people on my team. It also applies here.

1080
01:07:16,130 –> 01:07:19,940
And it’s a point that I made in college years and years and years ago,

1081
01:07:20,710 –> 01:07:24,066
and most of my friends did not understand the point that

1082
01:07:24,088 –> 01:07:26,900
I was making. And I was a little bit older than them,

1083
01:07:27,590 –> 01:07:31,526
but as they have gotten older, they’ve understood it more. And this

1084
01:07:31,548 –> 01:07:36,674
is the point. And this is the point. You’re saying Western

1085
01:07:36,722 –> 01:07:40,562
culture in general and American

1086
01:07:40,716 –> 01:07:43,994
culture in particular are still

1087
01:07:44,032 –> 01:07:47,306
results oriented societies. At the end

1088
01:07:47,328 –> 01:07:50,780
of the day, we’re still results oriented culture. So I think of

1089
01:07:51,550 –> 01:07:54,934
I see things on Facebook all the time from people pushing me various

1090
01:07:54,982 –> 01:07:58,286
things through, like, NBA memes, right? I’m going to relate this to the

1091
01:07:58,308 –> 01:08:02,138
NBA here. And the argument about Jordan versus LeBron

1092
01:08:02,234 –> 01:08:05,742
I’m not going to wade into on this podcast. This is not a sports talk

1093
01:08:05,796 –> 01:08:08,978
podcast. But there is that argument that is going on.

1094
01:08:09,144 –> 01:08:12,242
And one of the things I saw the other day was

1095
01:08:12,296 –> 01:08:17,326
somebody who had made a post on Facebook and was randomly retconning

1096
01:08:17,518 –> 01:08:21,198
Michael Jordan’s entire career to basically say

1097
01:08:21,224 –> 01:08:23,480
that without Phil Jackson, he would have been nothing.

1098
01:08:24,810 –> 01:08:27,894
And I thought and I did. It’s like saying Tom Brady would be nothing without

1099
01:08:27,932 –> 01:08:29,640
Bill Belichick. Right.

1100
01:08:33,050 –> 01:08:36,246
But this gets to

1101
01:08:36,268 –> 01:08:40,474
the idea of results at

1102
01:08:40,512 –> 01:08:44,190
the end of it, at the end of LeBron’s career,

1103
01:08:44,770 –> 01:08:48,526
no matter how much we he may like it or not like it, he’s going

1104
01:08:48,548 –> 01:08:52,366
to have a certain result at the

1105
01:08:52,388 –> 01:08:56,180
end of Kobe’s career. He had a result

1106
01:08:57,750 –> 01:09:01,700
at the end of Michael Jordan’s career. There is a result.

1107
01:09:04,230 –> 01:09:08,210
Currently, I think Tom Brady is continuing to remain retired

1108
01:09:12,010 –> 01:09:15,638
as of the recording of this podcast. Who knows what may happen in the

1109
01:09:15,644 –> 01:09:19,382
future? But as of this recording today, he is currently

1110
01:09:19,516 –> 01:09:22,570
remaining retired with a particular result.

1111
01:09:22,720 –> 01:09:26,154
Okay? Results matter.

1112
01:09:26,272 –> 01:09:28,970
That’s all people pay for. People pay for outcomes.

1113
01:09:29,950 –> 01:09:34,426
This is really hard for people to wrap their arms around when they

1114
01:09:34,448 –> 01:09:37,326
want to use a particular methodology to do something and it doesn’t lead to an

1115
01:09:37,348 –> 01:09:40,922
outcome that they want. And then they want to blame the outcome, not the methodology.

1116
01:09:41,066 –> 01:09:44,734
Right. Or if

1117
01:09:44,772 –> 01:09:47,662
you’re losing a negotiation, like if I lose a negotiation,

1118
01:09:47,806 –> 01:09:51,346
it’s because I had a piss poor methodology and

1119
01:09:51,368 –> 01:09:54,130
I got the outcome that comes from using a piss poor methodology.

1120
01:09:57,190 –> 01:10:00,226
I don’t understand why this is well, yes, I do. I understand why this is

1121
01:10:00,248 –> 01:10:04,070
hard for people to wrap their arms around. And for leaders, it’s important

1122
01:10:04,140 –> 01:10:07,426
for leaders to recognize the difference between the doctrine,

1123
01:10:07,618 –> 01:10:11,154
the strategy, and the tactics. And I talked about this on Living in the Martial

1124
01:10:11,202 –> 01:10:14,986
Way episode that we did last year, the Great Forest, lee Morgan book

1125
01:10:15,088 –> 01:10:18,342
where he breaks down, in martial arts

1126
01:10:18,406 –> 01:10:22,374
terms, the doctrine, which is sort of his overall philosophy.

1127
01:10:22,422 –> 01:10:25,994
Or the methodology, the strategies, which is

1128
01:10:26,032 –> 01:10:29,278
what we talk about here. Sort of the mindset that you have to have in

1129
01:10:29,284 –> 01:10:32,590
order to implement that philosophy. And then, of course, the thing that everybody

1130
01:10:32,660 –> 01:10:35,934
only wants to know about, which is, why don’t anybody approach Tom with this

1131
01:10:35,972 –> 01:10:38,800
particular selling practice? Because he’ll kick you out of the room.

1132
01:10:39,110 –> 01:10:42,306
Tactics. Because they’re just using tactics. And people just

1133
01:10:42,328 –> 01:10:44,830
want to use tactics because they think that that’s a shortcut to the outcome.

1134
01:10:44,910 –> 01:10:48,574
And there are no shortcuts to outcomes.

1135
01:10:48,702 –> 01:10:49,860
Absolutely not.

1136
01:10:56,490 –> 01:10:59,290
Back to the book, back to Hamlet.

1137
01:10:59,710 –> 01:11:02,266
One other point that I want to make, and then we’re going to jump into

1138
01:11:02,368 –> 01:11:05,982
Ophelia and Polonius. I want to make a couple of points

1139
01:11:06,036 –> 01:11:09,486
there because there are females. You wouldn’t think so, but there

1140
01:11:09,508 –> 01:11:13,854
are females in Hamlet. Ophelia is

1141
01:11:13,892 –> 01:11:16,398
the secondary female character there,

1142
01:11:16,564 –> 01:11:20,074
played by Kate Winslet in the Kenneth Branna

1143
01:11:20,122 –> 01:11:23,378
film. We didn’t really touch on the films. One question about the

1144
01:11:23,384 –> 01:11:26,706
films, because you’re a film buff. Which is your favorite Hamlet version of

1145
01:11:26,728 –> 01:11:30,434
Hamlet on film, or do you have one? I don’t think

1146
01:11:30,472 –> 01:11:33,314
I really do have one, but I think if I was forced to pick one,

1147
01:11:33,352 –> 01:11:36,486
it would probably be the Anne McClellan one. Okay. All right.

1148
01:11:36,588 –> 01:11:39,590
And mostly just because out of all the people that have played him, he’s probably

1149
01:11:39,660 –> 01:11:43,138
my favorite actor of that group of people. That group of

1150
01:11:43,164 –> 01:11:46,250
people. But probably no more reason than that.

1151
01:11:46,400 –> 01:11:49,418
Well, also, I think I think, and this is

1152
01:11:49,424 –> 01:11:52,554
a point we kind of skipped over, but Hamlet in the

1153
01:11:52,592 –> 01:11:56,240
play is not

1154
01:11:57,570 –> 01:12:00,750
a 35 year old guy. Yeah, right.

1155
01:12:00,900 –> 01:12:04,414
That’s not the impression that I get even watching

1156
01:12:04,452 –> 01:12:09,618
the Kenneth Brando version. I was like, this guy’s a little old

1157
01:12:09,704 –> 01:12:13,806
to be, like, scheming about your uncle. The whole context

1158
01:12:13,838 –> 01:12:18,946
of the play is I

1159
01:12:18,968 –> 01:12:22,194
don’t know, it works really well if you’re, like, 17. Yeah,

1160
01:12:22,232 –> 01:12:25,734
I was just going to say that. It should be a teenager. Right? The whole

1161
01:12:25,772 –> 01:12:29,746
concept behind what’s going on, if it’s

1162
01:12:29,778 –> 01:12:33,334
not mental illness and it’s his subconscious trying to convince himself of

1163
01:12:33,372 –> 01:12:36,306
something, right. Works way better if he’s a late teen.

1164
01:12:36,418 –> 01:12:39,738
Late teens, maybe. Early twenty s you can push it,

1165
01:12:39,824 –> 01:12:42,906
maybe. But after 25, forget it.

1166
01:12:42,928 –> 01:12:46,700
Yeah, forget it. Get over it. The world sucks. Move along.

1167
01:12:47,310 –> 01:12:49,870
You’re lucky we didn’t ship you off to Norway.

1168
01:12:51,490 –> 01:12:55,034
Exactly. Well, and that’s the other dynamic here in Hamlet.

1169
01:12:55,082 –> 01:12:58,474
So you do get the sense that he’s writing

1170
01:12:58,522 –> 01:13:02,560
it for an actor that’s a little bit younger. And I do know

1171
01:13:03,010 –> 01:13:07,182
in Shakespeare’s plays, he did use young boys. In many of his plays,

1172
01:13:07,326 –> 01:13:10,882
young boys played the female roles. Young boys, obviously,

1173
01:13:10,936 –> 01:13:15,106
played the male roles and played the older

1174
01:13:15,138 –> 01:13:18,470
character roles as well. And by the way, this wasn’t anything

1175
01:13:18,540 –> 01:13:22,614
unusual, right? This was something that was just done.

1176
01:13:22,812 –> 01:13:26,522
Now, in our time, we object to that because we

1177
01:13:26,576 –> 01:13:29,834
associate not necessarily maybe

1178
01:13:29,872 –> 01:13:33,340
Hamlet, but some of his more, shall we say,

1179
01:13:33,950 –> 01:13:38,622
sexually daring plays like Anthony and Cleopatra is

1180
01:13:38,756 –> 01:13:42,830
written with that we just mentioned the

1181
01:13:42,900 –> 01:13:47,034
sort of the inappropriateness of the rape of Miranda

1182
01:13:47,162 –> 01:13:50,830
by Caliban the Tempest. The entire

1183
01:13:50,900 –> 01:13:54,674
plot of Taming of the Shrew was basically turned into ten Things

1184
01:13:54,712 –> 01:13:59,074
that I hate about you. And it works there once

1185
01:13:59,112 –> 01:14:03,014
you take out the objectionable elements, by the way. So our

1186
01:14:03,052 –> 01:14:07,122
modern ears, our modern Protestant

1187
01:14:07,186 –> 01:14:10,758
Puritan influenced ears, want to scrub all

1188
01:14:10,764 –> 01:14:14,086
that from Shakespeare. And yet, just like a good

1189
01:14:14,108 –> 01:14:17,926
artist, he was seeking to integrate all of that in there. Make a judgment about

1190
01:14:17,948 –> 01:14:21,386
it, just like the incest piece, and make that integration. Not just you

1191
01:14:21,408 –> 01:14:24,730
talked about him watching his own plays and making changes, not just from

1192
01:14:24,800 –> 01:14:28,250
what was on the page, but from what was practically being walked out

1193
01:14:28,320 –> 01:14:31,310
on the stage. That’s how you know he was a true artist.

1194
01:14:32,130 –> 01:14:35,502
And, oh, by the way, if you didn’t know that the movie Ten

1195
01:14:35,556 –> 01:14:40,314
Things I Hate About You was a direct interpretation

1196
01:14:40,362 –> 01:14:44,466
of the timing of the Shrew. Watch it again, because there’s some Shakespearean stuff

1197
01:14:44,488 –> 01:14:48,226
that happens in there that is blatantly obvious that they’re giving Shakespeare the credit.

1198
01:14:48,328 –> 01:14:51,700
Oh, yeah, exactly. Well,

1199
01:14:52,070 –> 01:14:55,378
we’re going to cover Taming of the Shrew on the podcast, and the person who’s

1200
01:14:55,394 –> 01:14:59,174
going to come on and talk with us, he’s a huge fan of Ten

1201
01:14:59,212 –> 01:15:02,726
Things I Hate About You. So we’re going to go deep off

1202
01:15:02,748 –> 01:15:06,214
into that last piece about

1203
01:15:06,252 –> 01:15:09,142
sort of the literary life of William Shakespeare.

1204
01:15:09,286 –> 01:15:12,090
Sort of a little part through here, just a side note to note.

1205
01:15:13,630 –> 01:15:17,238
So they talk about the Folger library editions and sort of what they’ve done differently

1206
01:15:17,254 –> 01:15:21,146
in their editorial. I’m going to skip a couple of sentences down the

1207
01:15:21,168 –> 01:15:24,570
reader of the Folger Shakespeare and go to this piece. And I quote,

1208
01:15:24,650 –> 01:15:28,266
the reader of the Folger Shakespeare knows where the text has been altered because editorial

1209
01:15:28,298 –> 01:15:31,566
interventions are signaled by square brackets, which is nice,

1210
01:15:31,748 –> 01:15:35,586
for example, from Othello, and then it’s in square brackets if she and chains of

1211
01:15:35,608 –> 01:15:38,690
magic were not bound. Half square brackets, for example,

1212
01:15:38,760 –> 01:15:42,386
from Henry V with half square brackets. Blood and

1213
01:15:42,408 –> 01:15:46,022
sword and fire to win your right. Or angle brackets, for example,

1214
01:15:46,076 –> 01:15:49,650
from Hamlet. Oh, farewell, honest angle brackets,

1215
01:15:49,730 –> 01:15:53,014
soldier. Who hath relieved you at any point in the text?

1216
01:15:53,052 –> 01:15:56,914
You could hover your cursor over a bracket for more information. Because Folger digital

1217
01:15:56,962 –> 01:15:59,494
texts and this is a point that I want to make, are edited in accord

1218
01:15:59,542 –> 01:16:03,654
with 21st century knowledge about Shakespeare’s texts. The Folger

1219
01:16:03,702 –> 01:16:07,226
here provides them to readers, scholars, teachers, actors, directors, and students free of

1220
01:16:07,248 –> 01:16:10,266
charge, confident of their quality as texts of the plays, and pleased to be able

1221
01:16:10,288 –> 01:16:13,166
to make this contribution to the study and enjoyment of Shakespeare. If you have an

1222
01:16:13,188 –> 01:16:16,430
opportunity to get the Folger text, get it, particularly the digital version,

1223
01:16:16,930 –> 01:16:20,434
there are sort of some sub things that pop up and

1224
01:16:20,472 –> 01:16:24,466
some interesting other dynamics that

1225
01:16:24,488 –> 01:16:26,660
are in that text. And I will say this,

1226
01:16:28,470 –> 01:16:32,694
obviously, the modern age that we are in does

1227
01:16:32,732 –> 01:16:35,430
have a lot of troubles and problems,

1228
01:16:35,580 –> 01:16:39,442
don’t get me wrong but we do benefit

1229
01:16:39,586 –> 01:16:43,046
from being able

1230
01:16:43,068 –> 01:16:45,980
to look back over the long course of a millennia of history.

1231
01:16:46,670 –> 01:16:50,682
Being able to pull the best parts of that forward and

1232
01:16:50,736 –> 01:16:55,722
make some scholarly editorial decisions that

1233
01:16:55,776 –> 01:16:58,522
actually benefit us and grow our knowledge.

1234
01:16:58,666 –> 01:17:02,094
And to be able to do that without an

1235
01:17:02,132 –> 01:17:05,834
ideological lens is the sign of a true scholar.

1236
01:17:05,962 –> 01:17:09,738
And so picking up the Folger Shakespeare text

1237
01:17:09,844 –> 01:17:12,882
is well worth your time. All right,

1238
01:17:12,936 –> 01:17:16,258
back to the book, back to Hamlet. Back to the play.

1239
01:17:16,424 –> 01:17:20,580
Hamlet then we go to act two, scene one.

1240
01:17:21,030 –> 01:17:25,046
So Polonius and his man Reynaldo are speaking.

1241
01:17:25,228 –> 01:17:29,350
I’m going to kind of jump cut away

1242
01:17:29,420 –> 01:17:32,966
from Polonius and Ronaldo for a moment but this does

1243
01:17:33,068 –> 01:17:37,366
set up the entering of Ophelia.

1244
01:17:37,558 –> 01:17:41,226
So let’s meet Ophelia. This is sort of the first time we

1245
01:17:41,248 –> 01:17:43,370
meet her in Hamlet.

1246
01:17:44,830 –> 01:17:48,214
Enter. Ophelia. How now? Ophelia?

1247
01:17:48,262 –> 01:17:51,534
What’s the matter? This is Polonius. Ophelia oh,

1248
01:17:51,572 –> 01:17:53,950
my lord. My lord, I have been so affrighted.

1249
01:17:54,290 –> 01:17:57,040
Polonius with what, in the name of God?

1250
01:17:57,490 –> 01:18:00,906
Ophelia my lord, as I was sewing in my closet Lord

1251
01:18:00,938 –> 01:18:04,622
Hamlet with his doublet all embraced no hat upon his head his stockings,

1252
01:18:04,686 –> 01:18:07,902
fouled, unguarded and down give to his ankles

1253
01:18:08,046 –> 01:18:11,554
pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other. And with a look

1254
01:18:11,592 –> 01:18:15,254
so piteous and purpose as if he had been loosed out of hell to speak

1255
01:18:15,292 –> 01:18:18,200
of whores, he comes before me.

1256
01:18:18,970 –> 01:18:21,880
Polonius mad for love?

1257
01:18:22,890 –> 01:18:26,214
Ophelia my lord, I do not know, but truly I do

1258
01:18:26,252 –> 01:18:29,320
fear it. Polonius what said he?

1259
01:18:29,790 –> 01:18:32,746
Ophelia he took me by the wrist and held me hard.

1260
01:18:32,848 –> 01:18:36,266
Then he goes he to the length of all his arm and with his other

1261
01:18:36,288 –> 01:18:39,834
hand thus owes brow he falls to such perusal of my face

1262
01:18:39,952 –> 01:18:42,990
as it would draw it. Long stayed he so.

1263
01:18:43,060 –> 01:18:46,798
At last, a little shaking of mine arm and thrice his head thus waving up

1264
01:18:46,804 –> 01:18:50,734
and down he raised a sigh so piteous and profound as

1265
01:18:50,772 –> 01:18:54,560
it did seem to shatter all his bulk and end his being.

1266
01:18:55,010 –> 01:18:58,258
With that done, he lets me go. And with his head

1267
01:18:58,344 –> 01:19:01,746
over his shoulder turned he seemed to find his way without his eyes

1268
01:19:01,848 –> 01:19:05,446
for out of doors he went without their helps and to

1269
01:19:05,468 –> 01:19:08,280
the last bended their light on me.

1270
01:19:09,050 –> 01:19:12,054
Polonius come, go with me.

1271
01:19:12,092 –> 01:19:15,786
I will go see the king. This is the very ecstasy of love

1272
01:19:15,888 –> 01:19:19,446
whose violent property fordues itself and leads

1273
01:19:19,558 –> 01:19:23,226
the will to desperate undertakings as oft as

1274
01:19:23,248 –> 01:19:27,450
any passions under heaven that does afflict our natures.

1275
01:19:27,790 –> 01:19:31,774
I am sorry. What, hath you given him

1276
01:19:31,892 –> 01:19:35,454
any hard words of late? Ophelia no, my good

1277
01:19:35,492 –> 01:19:39,214
lord, but as you did command I did repel his letters and

1278
01:19:39,252 –> 01:19:41,200
denied his access to me.

1279
01:19:41,810 –> 01:19:45,874
Polonius that hath made him mad. I am

1280
01:19:45,912 –> 01:19:49,778
sorry that with better heed and judgment I had not quoted him. I feared he

1281
01:19:49,784 –> 01:19:52,914
did but trifle and meant to rack thee. But be shrew my

1282
01:19:52,952 –> 01:19:56,414
jealousy. By heaven, it is proper to our age to cast beyond

1283
01:19:56,462 –> 01:19:59,974
ourselves and our opinions, as it is common for the younger sort

1284
01:20:00,092 –> 01:20:03,926
to lack discretion. Come the we to

1285
01:20:03,948 –> 01:20:07,206
the king, this must be known, which, being kept

1286
01:20:07,238 –> 01:20:11,420
close, might move more grief to hide than hate to utter love.

1287
01:20:11,790 –> 01:20:17,906
Come. Exit Polonius

1288
01:20:18,038 –> 01:20:19,230
and Ophelia.

1289
01:20:24,440 –> 01:20:27,524
It turns out from

1290
01:20:27,562 –> 01:20:31,590
that little clip a couple of things.

1291
01:20:32,040 –> 01:20:35,690
Turns out that fathers watching out for their daughters is not a new thing

1292
01:20:37,180 –> 01:20:41,288
that’s time as old as mine. It also turns out

1293
01:20:41,374 –> 01:20:45,530
that women and men,

1294
01:20:47,280 –> 01:20:50,604
being mistaken in their communication with

1295
01:20:50,642 –> 01:20:54,910
each other is also about his oldest time.

1296
01:20:55,920 –> 01:20:59,376
Hamlet comes to Ophelia having just had an interaction with

1297
01:20:59,398 –> 01:21:03,040
the ghost of his father, and he’s freaked out, he’s pale,

1298
01:21:04,020 –> 01:21:07,216
he’s shattered all the way down unfettered, as they

1299
01:21:07,238 –> 01:21:10,924
say, meaning not that his clothes are

1300
01:21:10,982 –> 01:21:14,672
undone, but meaning that his emotions are undone. He’s exposed

1301
01:21:14,736 –> 01:21:16,996
emotionally. Exposed emotionally. Correct.

1302
01:21:17,098 –> 01:21:20,372
Vulnerable. Right. Comes to his one true love,

1303
01:21:20,426 –> 01:21:23,750
Ophelia, and she misinterprets it as

1304
01:21:25,020 –> 01:21:29,160
matrimonial lust or desire

1305
01:21:29,740 –> 01:21:33,690
or love or

1306
01:21:34,380 –> 01:21:38,536
she is so disturbed by this and not knowing how to accurately interpret

1307
01:21:38,568 –> 01:21:42,072
it, she seeks out the wisdom of counsel

1308
01:21:42,136 –> 01:21:46,700
of her father. And Polonius, who is doing his own deal with Long Shanks,

1309
01:21:49,860 –> 01:21:53,632
decides he’s going to use this to get

1310
01:21:53,686 –> 01:21:56,880
something that he wants from the king,

1311
01:21:57,620 –> 01:21:59,920
the uncle of Hamlet,

1312
01:22:01,880 –> 01:22:05,364
and to continue to play power politics with the hand of his

1313
01:22:05,402 –> 01:22:06,180
daughter,

1314
01:22:08,520 –> 01:22:10,470
almost a tale as old as time.

1315
01:22:12,840 –> 01:22:16,308
What shall we do with Ophelia now? As a character,

1316
01:22:16,404 –> 01:22:20,440
she’s positioned as a foil,

1317
01:22:20,780 –> 01:22:24,650
but she’s also used as a

1318
01:22:26,620 –> 01:22:30,044
tool to move the narrative forward, right? To move

1319
01:22:30,082 –> 01:22:33,484
Polonius forward, to move Hamlet forward. She’s also used

1320
01:22:33,522 –> 01:22:36,856
in the later acts of the play to judge Hamlet. And she’s

1321
01:22:36,888 –> 01:22:40,284
abandoned, right, both by and this is a feminist

1322
01:22:40,332 –> 01:22:44,012
interpretation of Hamlet, by the way. She’s abandoned

1323
01:22:44,076 –> 01:22:48,336
by both Hamlet to madness, to chasing the

1324
01:22:48,358 –> 01:22:51,990
ghost in revenge down a path that she cannot go.

1325
01:22:52,760 –> 01:22:56,464
And she’s abandoned by the king, who Polonius has entrusted

1326
01:22:56,512 –> 01:23:00,128
her to. As the king of Denmark

1327
01:23:00,224 –> 01:23:03,864
begins to figure out that Hamlet’s up to

1328
01:23:03,902 –> 01:23:07,450
something and that he might want to watch his six.

1329
01:23:11,820 –> 01:23:15,828
There’s always B characters in an organization.

1330
01:23:15,924 –> 01:23:19,576
There’s always b players. Steve Jobs infamously said that

1331
01:23:19,598 –> 01:23:22,904
a players hire A players and B players hire B players.

1332
01:23:22,952 –> 01:23:25,736
And he didn’t go much further than that. He said the quiet part out loud

1333
01:23:25,768 –> 01:23:28,350
back in the day when you weren’t supposed to do that.

1334
01:23:29,460 –> 01:23:32,828
There’s always going to be B and C players in an organization,

1335
01:23:33,004 –> 01:23:36,524
and even among A players, there’s going to be differentiation,

1336
01:23:36,572 –> 01:23:39,856
and there’s going

1337
01:23:39,878 –> 01:23:43,408
to be tussles in hierarchy, and there’s always going to

1338
01:23:43,414 –> 01:23:46,580
be those people who are going to get stepped on because they don’t understand

1339
01:23:46,650 –> 01:23:50,470
the game. They don’t understand the hierarchy, and they don’t know what’s happening

1340
01:23:51,480 –> 01:23:54,616
either, that some. Of them allow themselves to get stepped on

1341
01:23:54,638 –> 01:23:58,436
because that’s also just part of their personality. Correct. And Ophelia

1342
01:23:58,468 –> 01:24:02,088
is one of those characters for the

1343
01:24:02,094 –> 01:24:05,864
Ophelias who are listening to the podcast, male or

1344
01:24:05,902 –> 01:24:09,676
female? I’m agnostic on gender on this. Ophelia is

1345
01:24:09,698 –> 01:24:11,230
merely a name to me.

1346
01:24:13,840 –> 01:24:16,956
What’s some good advice for them because they’re the

1347
01:24:16,978 –> 01:24:20,636
ones who get jerk back and forth. I know what I would

1348
01:24:20,658 –> 01:24:21,470
tell them.

1349
01:24:23,840 –> 01:24:26,768
I would tell them you got to get your head in the game because the

1350
01:24:26,774 –> 01:24:29,570
game is happening to you whether you want it to happen to you or not.

1351
01:24:32,020 –> 01:24:35,156
But many people struggle with hearing that message. So maybe there’s a different

1352
01:24:35,178 –> 01:24:38,644
way to deliver it or maybe that’s not the message. Well, I mean,

1353
01:24:38,682 –> 01:24:41,510
quite honestly, I have no problem with that message,

1354
01:24:42,280 –> 01:24:45,812
but the clarity of that message might be different to different

1355
01:24:45,866 –> 01:24:49,448
people, right? So for example, meaning get your head in the game because the

1356
01:24:49,454 –> 01:24:52,820
game is happening around you whether you want it to or not, does not necessarily

1357
01:24:52,900 –> 01:24:56,536
mean that you have to change who you are and change your personality. But if

1358
01:24:56,558 –> 01:24:59,616
you’re going to be again, like we just said a second ago, if you’re going

1359
01:24:59,618 –> 01:25:03,592
to be the type of person that allows that stepping,

1360
01:25:03,736 –> 01:25:07,532
then you need to know, be prepared and

1361
01:25:07,586 –> 01:25:10,972
know who you’re going to allow to step on and you who you’re not and

1362
01:25:11,026 –> 01:25:14,640
why and what the outcomes are going to be because of you being stepped on.

1363
01:25:14,710 –> 01:25:17,680
If you’re okay with the outcome, okay, I get it.

1364
01:25:17,750 –> 01:25:21,088
Everybody plays their role, everybody has their part. But if you’re going to

1365
01:25:21,094 –> 01:25:25,856
be stepped on, to just be stepped on and you have no benefit,

1366
01:25:26,048 –> 01:25:29,428
nothing gained out of that stepping, then you’re in the

1367
01:25:29,434 –> 01:25:33,204
wrong spot. You are the wrong stepping stone. You just need

1368
01:25:33,242 –> 01:25:36,564
to move the staircase so that you get some

1369
01:25:36,602 –> 01:25:39,796
sort of benefit out of people stepping on you. Again, it takes all kinds,

1370
01:25:39,828 –> 01:25:43,736
right. So I’m not suggesting if you’re the type of person that is okay with

1371
01:25:43,758 –> 01:25:47,544
people stepping on you. I get it. I’m not, but I get it.

1372
01:25:47,662 –> 01:25:51,484
I try very hard when I find those people in my

1373
01:25:51,522 –> 01:25:55,036
organizations, if I find that person and I recognize that that’s the kind of

1374
01:25:55,058 –> 01:25:58,380
person that is okay being stepped on, I want to know,

1375
01:25:58,450 –> 01:26:02,204
I go out and seek it out myself. What do you hope to gain by

1376
01:26:02,242 –> 01:26:04,976
allowing people to step on you? I don’t try to change them. I don’t try

1377
01:26:04,998 –> 01:26:08,656
to change their mentality. I don’t try to change their personality. I try to

1378
01:26:08,678 –> 01:26:12,050
change their outcome. So I try to look at it and go,

1379
01:26:12,660 –> 01:26:15,970
I understand you’re being stepped on here. Oh no, it’s okay.

1380
01:26:17,240 –> 01:26:20,100
Well, if you’re going to be stepped on, what do you gain out of this?

1381
01:26:20,170 –> 01:26:23,284
What is the benefit of this? Because there are some of those things I heard

1382
01:26:23,322 –> 01:26:27,248
a phrase when I was very young that I still believe in today, and it’s

1383
01:26:27,424 –> 01:26:30,728
be good to people on the way up because you’re going to see them on

1384
01:26:30,734 –> 01:26:34,424
the way down, right? So that same person that you stepped on to get

1385
01:26:34,462 –> 01:26:37,816
higher and higher and higher. When the time comes that you’re coming down, they may

1386
01:26:37,838 –> 01:26:40,636
be in the same spot, but now all of a sudden, you are lower than

1387
01:26:40,658 –> 01:26:43,070
them. So again,

1388
01:26:44,160 –> 01:26:47,676
there’s always something there has to be an angle, and as long as you

1389
01:26:47,698 –> 01:26:50,900
know and understand your angle, I’m okay with you being somebody who gets stepped

1390
01:26:50,920 –> 01:26:53,520
on as long as it’s not to your detriment.

1391
01:26:54,420 –> 01:26:57,712
Well, also to the people doing the stepping. Now, we see this also

1392
01:26:57,766 –> 01:27:01,330
in Hamlet, right. So Rosencrantz and Guildenstein, right.

1393
01:27:02,360 –> 01:27:05,620
Those two characters were kind of buddies of Hamlet.

1394
01:27:05,960 –> 01:27:09,190
They’re kind of his advisors, right? They are.

1395
01:27:10,280 –> 01:27:14,240
It kind of reminded me a little bit of sort of the advisors

1396
01:27:14,320 –> 01:27:18,544
of the king that came after Solomon Raboam

1397
01:27:18,672 –> 01:27:22,116
back in Kings. Right. He had advisors around him

1398
01:27:22,138 –> 01:27:24,788
who were young, and then he had the wise men. And first he asked the

1399
01:27:24,794 –> 01:27:27,756
wise man what he should do of the Kingdom of Judah, I believe it was.

1400
01:27:27,778 –> 01:27:30,648
And the wiseman gave him wise counsel. And then he went to his buddies,

1401
01:27:30,824 –> 01:27:34,408
and his buddies gave him the council of, like, 21 year olds,

1402
01:27:34,504 –> 01:27:37,436
and he took the council of the 21 year olds, and he should have taken

1403
01:27:37,458 –> 01:27:40,796
the council of the older men. Thus a

1404
01:27:40,818 –> 01:27:43,804
civil war was ignited in Israel. Right. Well,

1405
01:27:43,842 –> 01:27:47,696
Rosencrantz and Guildenstein are sort of these

1406
01:27:47,878 –> 01:27:52,064
I wouldn’t really say comedic, but they walk that line yeah,

1407
01:27:52,102 –> 01:27:55,924
they walk that line of kind of comedic, kind of your good time

1408
01:27:55,962 –> 01:27:59,508
buddies, right. The buffoons. The buffoons, right. Well,

1409
01:27:59,594 –> 01:28:02,388
they’re the people who my father would have said back in the day when I

1410
01:28:02,394 –> 01:28:05,316
was a kid, he would have asked me the question. I’m sure your father asked

1411
01:28:05,338 –> 01:28:08,424
you a variation of this question. Fathers all over ask their kids this

1412
01:28:08,462 –> 01:28:11,620
question. If all of your friends jumped off a cliff,

1413
01:28:11,780 –> 01:28:14,696
would you jump off of the cliff, too? Now,

1414
01:28:14,878 –> 01:28:19,004
the genuine answer to that, if you’re like, between ten and 17 is,

1415
01:28:19,042 –> 01:28:21,790
yes, of course I would jump yeah,

1416
01:28:22,720 –> 01:28:26,376
it seems ridiculous. If they’re jumping off the bridge,

1417
01:28:26,408 –> 01:28:28,796
there’s a reason I’m going to jump with them,

1418
01:28:28,818 –> 01:28:32,296
because either they’re jumping into water because it’s fun, they’re being chased

1419
01:28:32,328 –> 01:28:34,736
by a bear, so it’s life or death. I don’t know. There’s got to be

1420
01:28:34,758 –> 01:28:38,352
something. Anyway. Exactly. And this is a disconnect question because.

1421
01:28:38,406 –> 01:28:41,484
You’Re asking it from the perspective of. Oh, I waited, I jumped off that cliff

1422
01:28:41,532 –> 01:28:44,390
between ten and 17, and it turned out there were rocks down there.

1423
01:28:46,120 –> 01:28:49,844
But you can’t tell that to somebody who’s between ten and 17. And so

1424
01:28:50,042 –> 01:28:53,212
Hamlet’s got his buddies, he’s got Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,

1425
01:28:53,376 –> 01:28:58,356
but they’re

1426
01:28:58,388 –> 01:29:01,210
not structured as people who are getting stepped on.

1427
01:29:01,820 –> 01:29:05,924
They’re structured as buffoons. They’re structured as the clown

1428
01:29:05,972 –> 01:29:09,228
in the court. Right. And the clown in the court, and this

1429
01:29:09,234 –> 01:29:12,824
is why comedians are worth protecting. The clown

1430
01:29:12,872 –> 01:29:16,012
in the court doesn’t get stepped on. That’s not his

1431
01:29:16,066 –> 01:29:19,884
role. Or her role. The role of the Jester is

1432
01:29:19,922 –> 01:29:23,456
to point out the fact that no one has any pants on and

1433
01:29:23,478 –> 01:29:27,280
to be left alone because that’s their job.

1434
01:29:27,430 –> 01:29:31,216
Right. You also will have the gesture on

1435
01:29:31,238 –> 01:29:34,996
your team. I think a lot of modern organizations, a lot of

1436
01:29:35,018 –> 01:29:39,028
modern teams don’t know how to spot the gesture. And what worries me

1437
01:29:39,114 –> 01:29:43,030
ideologically yes. What worries me ideologically is

1438
01:29:43,880 –> 01:29:47,300
we’ve placed with certain ideological tendencies,

1439
01:29:47,380 –> 01:29:50,456
particularly in the and I’ll go ahead and say it so Tom doesn’t have to,

1440
01:29:50,478 –> 01:29:54,984
particularly in the De Ni space, we’ve taken the

1441
01:29:55,022 –> 01:29:58,248
jokesters and we’ve said, we’re going

1442
01:29:58,254 –> 01:30:01,544
to ring all the humor out. We’re just r. We’re going to ring it all

1443
01:30:01,582 –> 01:30:05,144
out, and we’re going to take that gesture.

1444
01:30:05,192 –> 01:30:07,756
We’re going to take the Rosencrantz and the Guildenstern. We’re going to take the people

1445
01:30:07,778 –> 01:30:10,108
who would have you jump off a cliff, and we’re going to be like,

1446
01:30:10,114 –> 01:30:13,520
no, we’re not jumping off a cliff. There’s no more cliff jumping going on.

1447
01:30:13,670 –> 01:30:15,840
And what’s one step further?

1448
01:30:16,260 –> 01:30:19,840
Especially again from a corporate environment? We’ve extended that

1449
01:30:19,910 –> 01:30:24,028
beyond the corporate walls. Right. So now those gestures are no longer allowed

1450
01:30:24,044 –> 01:30:28,036
to be gestures, even in a social environment, if there’s enough of

1451
01:30:28,058 –> 01:30:31,808
the corporate people present. Right. So we’re extending

1452
01:30:31,824 –> 01:30:34,960
it now. So it’s not even within the play. It’s within the plays.

1453
01:30:35,120 –> 01:30:38,548
It’s outside of the play that was. Gone into the audience. You’re going to

1454
01:30:38,554 –> 01:30:41,880
the audience. Yeah, we’re going to go in the aisles. Right.

1455
01:30:41,950 –> 01:30:45,192
And then the corporate world is the same idea. To your point, we did that,

1456
01:30:45,246 –> 01:30:48,496
but we also extended our corporate walls beyond

1457
01:30:48,548 –> 01:30:52,076
the building and put it into our personal lives,

1458
01:30:52,178 –> 01:30:55,996
which I’m not really sure how much I

1459
01:30:56,018 –> 01:30:59,276
like and don’t like. There’s parts of it that really need to

1460
01:30:59,298 –> 01:31:02,448
stop, and then there are other parts of it I get. So it’s kind of

1461
01:31:02,454 –> 01:31:05,968
weird. Well, I get in a weird space with this. Well, this is a

1462
01:31:05,974 –> 01:31:08,720
social negotiation. This is sort of what I get back to.

1463
01:31:08,790 –> 01:31:12,724
Right. So I

1464
01:31:12,762 –> 01:31:16,580
think of the line from the Devil’s Advocate, right? Are we negotiating?

1465
01:31:17,080 –> 01:31:22,020
And the answer to that question is, of course we’re negotiating. We’re always negotiating.

1466
01:31:24,200 –> 01:31:27,576
I wonder. And we

1467
01:31:27,598 –> 01:31:31,960
will never know the percentages. We will never know. So we just have to speculate.

1468
01:31:32,860 –> 01:31:37,332
What are the percentages of the Jesters? What are the percentages of the Ophelias?

1469
01:31:37,476 –> 01:31:41,080
What are the percentages of the Uncle King?

1470
01:31:41,240 –> 01:31:45,196
What are the percentages of the Hamlets? What are the percentages of

1471
01:31:45,218 –> 01:31:48,508
the queen who went along just to go along because

1472
01:31:48,594 –> 01:31:51,996
they needed survival? You’ve got those folks out there, too. Sure.

1473
01:31:52,098 –> 01:31:56,204
What are the percentages of the hangers on. What are the percentages of the Horatio

1474
01:31:56,252 –> 01:32:00,384
at the beginning who just don’t understand what’s happening and need to go report that?

1475
01:32:00,582 –> 01:32:05,644
I think of Horatio at the beginning who initially

1476
01:32:05,692 –> 01:32:08,628
saw the ghost and did not know what they were seeing, and then had to

1477
01:32:08,634 –> 01:32:10,916
go report it to hamlet, because they’re like, I don’t know what we’re doing with

1478
01:32:10,938 –> 01:32:14,790
this, right? Played infamously by

1479
01:32:15,640 –> 01:32:18,470
what’s his name from a grumpy year old man,

1480
01:32:19,500 –> 01:32:23,576
which was a total surprise in the Kenneth Branna Hamlet that

1481
01:32:23,598 –> 01:32:26,970
I just watched recently. What’s his name?

1482
01:32:27,680 –> 01:32:30,504
Jack or Jack lemon? Jack lemon?

1483
01:32:30,552 –> 01:32:34,220
Yeah. Jack Lemon played Horatio, and it was weird seeing

1484
01:32:34,370 –> 01:32:37,150
Shakespeare come out of Jack Lemon’s mouth. I was like, yeah.

1485
01:32:39,120 –> 01:32:41,628
It was a little disconcerting for me at the beginning, and then I just sort

1486
01:32:41,634 –> 01:32:43,490
of let my brain go, and I just went with it,

1487
01:32:44,900 –> 01:32:48,176
and it works. It’s fine. He does his job. He does what he’s supposed to

1488
01:32:48,198 –> 01:32:51,756
do, moves the narrative

1489
01:32:51,788 –> 01:32:55,108
along. But my point is the percentages of those people in society, then they all

1490
01:32:55,114 –> 01:32:57,620
have roles to play. Like you said, we need all kinds.

1491
01:32:58,520 –> 01:33:01,812
But where are the boundaries? Right? Where where

1492
01:33:01,866 –> 01:33:05,976
are the boundaries? Where does the social negotiation say stop,

1493
01:33:06,078 –> 01:33:09,764
right? And that is the difference between libertarianism

1494
01:33:09,812 –> 01:33:12,680
and libertine philosophies.

1495
01:33:13,100 –> 01:33:16,568
And I’m not speaking even though I want to

1496
01:33:16,574 –> 01:33:20,156
be very clear, I’m not speaking of this out of

1497
01:33:20,178 –> 01:33:23,608
my own personal personality set up, right? So I’m

1498
01:33:23,624 –> 01:33:27,324
highly conscientious. I’m kind of moderate on

1499
01:33:27,362 –> 01:33:30,808
anxiety and on neuroticism, and I’m

1500
01:33:30,824 –> 01:33:33,070
kind of moderate on openness, right?

1501
01:33:34,320 –> 01:33:37,184
But I’m high on conscientious duty, and I’m kind of a little bit lower on

1502
01:33:37,222 –> 01:33:40,768
empathy than I probably should be. I’m not speaking from that. I want

1503
01:33:40,774 –> 01:33:43,828
to be very clear. I absolutely know that the boundaries have to be pushed in

1504
01:33:43,834 –> 01:33:48,212
order to have creativity and growth and development and innovation and

1505
01:33:48,346 –> 01:33:52,116
what are the boundaries? And so my concern is that in

1506
01:33:52,138 –> 01:33:55,988
the social negotiation, we’ve sort of forgotten how to

1507
01:33:55,994 –> 01:33:59,816
ask that question about where the boundaries are. And that’s going to be different for

1508
01:33:59,838 –> 01:34:03,496
everybody based on their life experience. And I

1509
01:34:03,518 –> 01:34:07,000
don’t know how you do that dance with 330,000,000 people on a continent.

1510
01:34:08,300 –> 01:34:11,160
I don’t know how you do it, which is why the creed matters. That’s why,

1511
01:34:11,230 –> 01:34:14,096
for me, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution matter, because at the end of

1512
01:34:14,098 –> 01:34:16,284
the day, what else are you going to appeal to? Those are the things that

1513
01:34:16,322 –> 01:34:19,516
matter, right? They’ve been around 400 years longer than

1514
01:34:19,538 –> 01:34:23,516
I’ve been around. Okay, let’s just use that. But that’s

1515
01:34:23,548 –> 01:34:26,736
where I come down. I’m a partisan for that. So as many know

1516
01:34:26,758 –> 01:34:28,560
who have listened to the podcast,

1517
01:34:30,660 –> 01:34:34,630
one last question about Ophelia. Before we move into

1518
01:34:36,280 –> 01:34:39,300
act three here, I want to make a point.

1519
01:34:39,450 –> 01:34:43,156
I’m going to give Hamlet another go here, and then

1520
01:34:43,258 –> 01:34:50,952
we’re going to wrap up. We’ve been talking about him for a while as

1521
01:34:51,006 –> 01:34:54,424
the play begins to open up, right?

1522
01:34:54,622 –> 01:34:57,876
We get Hamlet and the three of the players, and I’m

1523
01:34:57,908 –> 01:35:00,644
not really clear on what the role of the players is, and maybe some folks

1524
01:35:00,692 –> 01:35:04,076
can help me out with them, can help me out with that. But as we

1525
01:35:04,098 –> 01:35:07,036
go into the third act of Hamlet, one of the. Things that we begin to

1526
01:35:07,058 –> 01:35:11,296
realize is there’s a lot of build up to what

1527
01:35:11,318 –> 01:35:15,152
he’s eventually going to do. There’s a lot of tugging him along

1528
01:35:15,206 –> 01:35:19,564
and pulling him along and sort of drawing

1529
01:35:19,612 –> 01:35:23,532
him in to a dynamic that he’s not really comfortable

1530
01:35:23,596 –> 01:35:27,456
with. You would think that a person who recognizes

1531
01:35:27,488 –> 01:35:31,124
that his father is dead and his ghost has spoken to him,

1532
01:35:31,242 –> 01:35:35,044
you would think that he’d jump right to revenge. Like, I’m going to go walk

1533
01:35:35,082 –> 01:35:38,020
into the throne room and I’m going to kill the king right away.

1534
01:35:38,090 –> 01:35:41,608
Right. And that’s not what happens. But again, it’s a slow build up. Five year

1535
01:35:41,614 –> 01:35:44,904
old would do it. Right. We keep saying this should be a 17 year old,

1536
01:35:44,942 –> 01:35:47,912
because that’s not what they would do anyway. Go ahead.

1537
01:35:48,046 –> 01:35:51,676
Right. No, that’s right. Well, if you’re going to kill the

1538
01:35:51,698 –> 01:35:55,756
king, you do it in the court in front of everybody and

1539
01:35:55,778 –> 01:35:58,936
you don’t miss. By the way, I got that bit of knowledge from The Wire.

1540
01:35:59,048 –> 01:36:02,056
Great show. If you have an opportunity to watch it. If you’re going to king

1541
01:36:02,088 –> 01:36:05,600
to kill the king, you kilo in this court and you don’t miss.

1542
01:36:05,750 –> 01:36:09,168
You make sure you don’t miss. Gangs of New York was also infamous for this.

1543
01:36:09,254 –> 01:36:12,976
Yes. And unfortunately, DiCaprio missed because Daniel De

1544
01:36:12,998 –> 01:36:16,828
Lewis, you can’t kill that guy. Ultimate villain

1545
01:36:16,844 –> 01:36:19,476
of villains, by the way, would have been a much better king. I would love

1546
01:36:19,498 –> 01:36:22,452
to see Shakespeare come out of Daniel Day Lewis’s mouth. Oh, that would be cool,

1547
01:36:22,506 –> 01:36:25,130
actually. Yeah, I agree. Oh, my gosh. Wouldn’t that be amazing?

1548
01:36:27,340 –> 01:36:29,530
A little chill right there. You’re just thinking about it,

1549
01:36:31,900 –> 01:36:35,000
and then you have some CW actor to be Hamlet,

1550
01:36:35,660 –> 01:36:38,468
and then you just got to put him in scenes with Daniel Day Lewis,

1551
01:36:38,484 –> 01:36:41,916
and Daniel Lewis just eat. He’ll just eat the scenery and the kid will

1552
01:36:41,938 –> 01:36:45,230
just be scared. And you’ll get the actual dynamic of Hamlet there.

1553
01:36:47,200 –> 01:36:48,780
The question becomes,

1554
01:36:53,460 –> 01:36:56,896
if you’re a leader and you don’t quite know where

1555
01:36:56,918 –> 01:36:59,884
the social negotiation is going or where the sale is going or what the outcome

1556
01:36:59,932 –> 01:37:04,176
is going to be, and you are wandering through

1557
01:37:04,278 –> 01:37:08,260
looking for where the build up is, how do you maintain patience?

1558
01:37:08,680 –> 01:37:12,128
This is the thing I think Shakespeare is doing with Hamlet. He’s showing

1559
01:37:12,304 –> 01:37:15,444
how the build up happens because he wants his audience to be

1560
01:37:15,562 –> 01:37:19,528
patient. He doesn’t want the payoff to come immediately. Like you

1561
01:37:19,534 –> 01:37:22,744
said, that’s something that an immature person would want, is the payoff to come

1562
01:37:22,782 –> 01:37:25,620
immediately. But a mature writer like Shakespeare knows.

1563
01:37:25,700 –> 01:37:28,590
No, the thing is in the build up,

1564
01:37:29,120 –> 01:37:31,470
how do leaders deal with the build up?

1565
01:37:32,880 –> 01:37:35,390
Well, here’s the thing.

1566
01:37:37,360 –> 01:37:41,504
This is a very loaded question, only because

1567
01:37:41,622 –> 01:37:45,410
we’ve already talked about how our society today is very

1568
01:37:45,780 –> 01:37:49,136
results driven, right? Right. We rely on

1569
01:37:49,158 –> 01:37:52,476
them, we bank on them. If it’s not for results,

1570
01:37:52,508 –> 01:37:56,390
it doesn’t happen, so to speak. Right. I don’t know how much

1571
01:37:57,000 –> 01:38:00,676
we are afforded patients never mind whether the

1572
01:38:00,698 –> 01:38:03,856
corporate wants it or not. I don’t know how much we’re afforded

1573
01:38:03,888 –> 01:38:07,816
it, in a sense. Right. So I

1574
01:38:07,838 –> 01:38:11,752
think there are other roles outside of my world that

1575
01:38:11,806 –> 01:38:14,808
deserve more patience than sales.

1576
01:38:14,894 –> 01:38:15,530
Right.

1577
01:38:19,120 –> 01:38:22,830
This, to me, I find fascinating in one sense.

1578
01:38:23,840 –> 01:38:27,256
And you talked about the dei earlier, so I’m going to make a comment

1579
01:38:27,288 –> 01:38:32,476
here where I have never in my career worried

1580
01:38:32,588 –> 01:38:35,200
about the age,

1581
01:38:35,350 –> 01:38:38,636
race, color, sex, gender.

1582
01:38:38,748 –> 01:38:42,236
None of that mattered. I looked at did you hit your quota

1583
01:38:42,268 –> 01:38:45,556
or not? Right. And if you didn’t hit your

1584
01:38:45,578 –> 01:38:49,444
quota that month, did we support you the

1585
01:38:49,482 –> 01:38:52,884
same way we would support everybody else? If that answer

1586
01:38:52,922 –> 01:38:56,840
is yes, then you’re fired. Right. I could fire somebody

1587
01:38:56,910 –> 01:39:00,024
strictly based on very calculated things.

1588
01:39:00,142 –> 01:39:04,570
It had zero to do with color,

1589
01:39:04,940 –> 01:39:07,340
race, sex, whatever.

1590
01:39:07,410 –> 01:39:10,828
Right. All those other extra things that we.

1591
01:39:10,994 –> 01:39:14,744
Now take sales out of, it secretarial

1592
01:39:14,792 –> 01:39:16,590
people, administrative people.

1593
01:39:18,320 –> 01:39:21,470
Yeah. That’s different. Right? It’s very different.

1594
01:39:21,840 –> 01:39:25,744
Where does that line draw? I’m fortunate I’ve never had to deal with that.

1595
01:39:25,942 –> 01:39:29,520
I’ve always been dealing with sales and. Marketing people, where I had clear

1596
01:39:29,590 –> 01:39:33,312
ROI, clear numbers, KPIs are very clear. It’s clear

1597
01:39:33,366 –> 01:39:36,564
you either are valuable to us or you’re not. That’s it.

1598
01:39:36,682 –> 01:39:40,420
Well, that’s where I worry, like in sales and marketing,

1599
01:39:42,200 –> 01:39:45,844
if the large language model algorithms are truly the thing

1600
01:39:45,882 –> 01:39:49,336
that we’re going to move towards, which it looks like we are. Yeah.

1601
01:39:49,518 –> 01:39:53,112
And sales will be immune to some of this, more so

1602
01:39:53,166 –> 01:39:56,516
than marketing, which is already kind of 90% down the rabbit

1603
01:39:56,548 –> 01:39:59,864
hole. Forget it. Yeah. I was even talking

1604
01:39:59,902 –> 01:40:03,068
with people, some of my internal marketing folks today in my organization, and we

1605
01:40:03,074 –> 01:40:06,780
were just like, okay, well, we’ve already got automation working on this one part,

1606
01:40:06,930 –> 01:40:09,628
so let’s just translate this over here, over to here, over to here, over to

1607
01:40:09,634 –> 01:40:13,324
here. Mainly, my ego is

1608
01:40:13,362 –> 01:40:16,188
kind of done with it now. I don’t need to be at the core of

1609
01:40:16,194 –> 01:40:17,708
it. So now that I don’t need to be at the core of it,

1610
01:40:17,714 –> 01:40:21,048
now that my ego is done, okay, let’s just go. And it’s

1611
01:40:21,064 –> 01:40:24,324
90%. I’m just go. And with that being said,

1612
01:40:24,362 –> 01:40:27,476
at the end of the day, people still buy from people on the

1613
01:40:27,498 –> 01:40:30,884
sales end. So you can automate the

1614
01:40:30,922 –> 01:40:34,356
blast of emails all day. Sure. And you

1615
01:40:34,378 –> 01:40:38,104
can automate the webinar, and you can even automate the

1616
01:40:38,142 –> 01:40:41,796
phone call, but you can’t automate the signing

1617
01:40:41,828 –> 01:40:45,272
on the dotted line. Right. So sales

1618
01:40:45,326 –> 01:40:47,130
will be immune to this for a while.

1619
01:40:48,380 –> 01:40:51,788
However, at a certain point, I would tell you, Tom, I think you’re going

1620
01:40:51,794 –> 01:40:55,468
to get caught. I think sales and marketing is going to get caught in particular

1621
01:40:55,554 –> 01:40:58,744
sales, because that’s sort of the last bastion

1622
01:40:58,792 –> 01:41:02,496
of resistance for the Jester. That’s the last bastion of

1623
01:41:02,518 –> 01:41:09,808
resistance for the

1624
01:41:09,814 –> 01:41:13,236
round peg that won’t go into the square hole. They can hide in sales

1625
01:41:13,338 –> 01:41:18,384
and totalizing

1626
01:41:18,432 –> 01:41:22,340
approaches to ideology don’t allow anything outside

1627
01:41:22,410 –> 01:41:25,908
of that, outside of that system. I already don’t

1628
01:41:25,924 –> 01:41:28,760
think we’re immune to that social pressure, though,

1629
01:41:28,830 –> 01:41:32,184
that gesture pressure. I don’t think we’re immune to that at all. I really

1630
01:41:32,222 –> 01:41:33,930
do think because, again,

1631
01:41:36,700 –> 01:41:40,812
you could be the number one salesperson in the company. If you do

1632
01:41:40,866 –> 01:41:44,012
something that is outside of that social norm far enough,

1633
01:41:44,066 –> 01:41:47,180
you’re fired anyway. That’s already done. Yeah.

1634
01:41:47,250 –> 01:41:51,596
But the social norm sort of has expand a

1635
01:41:51,618 –> 01:41:55,072
little bit more for sales. Not as much as you might think. Okay,

1636
01:41:55,126 –> 01:41:57,664
all right. Not as much as you might think. I think that,

1637
01:41:57,782 –> 01:42:01,740
again, I’m going to take my client out to dinner or I’m

1638
01:42:02,240 –> 01:42:05,740
going to take my team my team hit 120% a quarter, so I’m going to

1639
01:42:05,750 –> 01:42:09,184
take my team out for a couple of drinks. Sure. That social environment

1640
01:42:09,232 –> 01:42:12,608
still holds. If somebody says something of that, you’re getting reported

1641
01:42:12,624 –> 01:42:18,856
back to the office. There’s people in trouble now

1642
01:42:18,958 –> 01:42:22,696
where there is a little leeway to

1643
01:42:22,718 –> 01:42:26,792
your point is somebody

1644
01:42:26,846 –> 01:42:30,316
could say something we’ll use the word the term off color because people just know

1645
01:42:30,338 –> 01:42:33,980
what that means, right? Yeah. If it’s

1646
01:42:34,320 –> 01:42:36,510
the amount of off color.

1647
01:42:38,560 –> 01:42:42,364
Is a little bit broader, the shading is

1648
01:42:42,402 –> 01:42:45,568
a little bit okay. Yeah. Because you might have that number one sales rep,

1649
01:42:45,734 –> 01:42:49,376
she says something that’s a little inappropriate, you get

1650
01:42:49,398 –> 01:42:52,564
pulled aside and go, eight, calm that down a little, and they go,

1651
01:42:52,602 –> 01:42:53,510
okay, sorry,

1652
01:42:57,640 –> 01:43:00,816
you’re right to a degree of but it’s not as broad

1653
01:43:00,848 –> 01:43:04,612
as you might think. I would say in the last five years

1654
01:43:04,746 –> 01:43:08,100
it’s been tightening much, much more than

1655
01:43:08,250 –> 01:43:11,656
the 15 years before that. Wow, okay. But it really

1656
01:43:11,678 –> 01:43:14,776
is there. Right. And I’m not exclusively in sales. I mean, I know sales for

1657
01:43:14,798 –> 01:43:18,860
what I do, but I’m not exclusively in that space broadly.

1658
01:43:19,280 –> 01:43:23,244
And so I know for what I do it’s always been

1659
01:43:23,282 –> 01:43:26,556
tight. It always is because kind of the

1660
01:43:26,578 –> 01:43:30,636
nature of leadership development, that’s kind of the nature of conflict management

1661
01:43:30,668 –> 01:43:33,600
or negotiation, if you’re selling those types of products,

1662
01:43:33,750 –> 01:43:37,164
you better be buttoned down like you just better be because there’s

1663
01:43:37,212 –> 01:43:41,280
certain areas of confidentiality

1664
01:43:42,180 –> 01:43:45,324
that if you show up as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,

1665
01:43:45,372 –> 01:43:48,310
people aren’t going to trust you. He’s going to be like, yeah,

1666
01:43:49,400 –> 01:43:52,196
I don’t know if what I’m saying is going to wind up coming out your

1667
01:43:52,218 –> 01:43:55,828
mouth later on. So you got to kind of

1668
01:43:55,834 –> 01:43:59,456
move away from that. You got to be more Polonious than Rosencrantz and Guildensterne,

1669
01:43:59,488 –> 01:44:03,696
quite frankly. People don’t

1670
01:44:03,728 –> 01:44:07,116
always wrap it’s sometimes hard

1671
01:44:07,138 –> 01:44:10,316
for people to wrap their arms around that idea. But in

1672
01:44:10,338 –> 01:44:12,968
general, I would have thought that sales would have been a little bit more immune

1673
01:44:12,984 –> 01:44:15,176
to it because there’s just some of the funky things I see on the edges

1674
01:44:15,208 –> 01:44:18,604
and on the corners. But maybe you’re right. Maybe things are totalizing all the way

1675
01:44:18,642 –> 01:44:22,256
out. And my thought on

1676
01:44:22,278 –> 01:44:25,776
that is you wind up at the end with sales that is

1677
01:44:25,798 –> 01:44:27,440
denuded of personality.

1678
01:44:28,820 –> 01:44:32,370
Well, that’s a struggle I argue with.

1679
01:44:33,060 –> 01:44:36,224
You can have personality and you can tell those same jokes.

1680
01:44:36,352 –> 01:44:37,510
Clean it up.

1681
01:44:40,520 –> 01:44:42,976
I wouldn’t try to change somebody’s personality,

1682
01:44:43,088 –> 01:44:45,210
but again,

1683
01:44:49,500 –> 01:44:52,776
an off color comment. Sure. Could you make

1684
01:44:52,798 –> 01:44:55,992
it a little bit less off color? Most of them,

1685
01:44:56,046 –> 01:44:59,464
yes, most of them can be does it also go

1686
01:44:59,502 –> 01:45:03,256
with. The product you’re selling? Because this is the other dynamic. Is that the

1687
01:45:03,278 –> 01:45:06,108
core remember I was talking about the core of the apple, right? Yeah. So at

1688
01:45:06,114 –> 01:45:09,564
the core of the apple of sales is, quite frankly, no one who’s in sales

1689
01:45:09,682 –> 01:45:13,340
wants to admit this, but it’s true. It’s what you’re selling

1690
01:45:13,840 –> 01:45:16,924
just as much as how you sell it. Sure.

1691
01:45:17,122 –> 01:45:20,252
If I’m selling furniture, I’ll just use this as an example.

1692
01:45:20,306 –> 01:45:24,544
If I’m selling furniture in a sort of warehouse

1693
01:45:24,592 –> 01:45:28,132
furniture style situation, I’m getting paid

1694
01:45:28,186 –> 01:45:31,670
commission off of how many beds I move in a week.

1695
01:45:32,600 –> 01:45:36,372
I’m selling furniture. Like, there’s really no call

1696
01:45:36,426 –> 01:45:39,876
for me to be weirdo about selling furniture. There’s really

1697
01:45:39,898 –> 01:45:42,984
no call. Right. Customers going to come in, they’re already going to know what they

1698
01:45:43,022 –> 01:45:46,568
want. My job is to facilitate. I mean, I bought furniture from salespeople at one

1699
01:45:46,574 –> 01:45:49,596
of these warehouse places. Quite frankly, they didn’t sell me anything.

1700
01:45:49,778 –> 01:45:52,956
They just showed up with a bunch of paperwork. And I know their title is

1701
01:45:52,978 –> 01:45:57,628
Salesperson, but they weren’t selling me anything. Okay. Whereas that

1702
01:45:57,714 –> 01:46:01,484
process will work maybe with furniture and cars

1703
01:46:01,612 –> 01:46:06,240
and maybe potentially computer hardware.

1704
01:46:06,900 –> 01:46:11,880
But when you’re talking about things that are more ephemeral

1705
01:46:11,980 –> 01:46:15,460
right, like air ideas,

1706
01:46:16,520 –> 01:46:19,780
content, books, movies, software, in your case,

1707
01:46:19,850 –> 01:46:23,616
right. It’s a little more loosey goosey.

1708
01:46:23,648 –> 01:46:26,900
Right. Or is that, again, another space of shades?

1709
01:46:26,980 –> 01:46:30,696
Right. Maybe I’m conflating too

1710
01:46:30,718 –> 01:46:33,450
many things together, which I’ll be all admit, maybe I am.

1711
01:46:33,820 –> 01:46:36,570
It’s a bit of an oversimplification, for sure. Okay.

1712
01:46:40,320 –> 01:46:43,660
I actually think your analogy or your example of

1713
01:46:43,730 –> 01:46:47,356
the selling furniture lends to being

1714
01:46:47,538 –> 01:46:50,396
you have to be more conscious of what you say. You have to bite the

1715
01:46:50,418 –> 01:46:53,756
tongue more. Think about it. Me and my wife go

1716
01:46:53,778 –> 01:46:56,896
in and we’re going to look for a couch, and the sales guy is like,

1717
01:46:56,918 –> 01:47:00,480
that old school. Like, how could you imagine what you could do on this couch?

1718
01:47:01,700 –> 01:47:05,204
Right? Yeah. Okay. It could lead to a lot of things that you shouldn’t say.

1719
01:47:05,242 –> 01:47:09,136
Right, right. Yeah. This is true. But they don’t because they’ve

1720
01:47:09,168 –> 01:47:11,904
been trained, and they’re trained to sell the furniture,

1721
01:47:11,952 –> 01:47:15,750
whatever. Right. And in software, you don’t have those types of

1722
01:47:16,840 –> 01:47:18,390
opportunities. Right.

1723
01:47:20,460 –> 01:47:23,576
You’re usually talking. So here’s the other thing. This is really where

1724
01:47:23,598 –> 01:47:27,044
I tell people to be the most careful. It’s in the rapport

1725
01:47:27,092 –> 01:47:30,796
building part that you have to be careful not in when you’re selling the

1726
01:47:30,818 –> 01:47:34,168
product or service, when you’re selling the ones and zeros of software

1727
01:47:34,264 –> 01:47:37,912
or you’re selling the HVAC

1728
01:47:38,056 –> 01:47:42,412
job or whatever that is, it’s not about the actual sale

1729
01:47:42,476 –> 01:47:45,600
that you need to be careful about what you’re saying. It’s in the rapport building

1730
01:47:45,670 –> 01:47:49,244
phase where you’re trying to make connections

1731
01:47:49,292 –> 01:47:52,896
on an external level, or you’re trying to

1732
01:47:52,918 –> 01:47:56,516
talk about their life, their kids, their house, whatever, and you’re trying to make

1733
01:47:56,538 –> 01:47:59,428
that connection. You’re building that bond of trust with them.

1734
01:47:59,514 –> 01:48:03,124
That’s where you run the danger of saying something that is really

1735
01:48:03,162 –> 01:48:06,896
not appropriate and you’re going to go but again so here’s

1736
01:48:06,928 –> 01:48:10,116
the thing. In really good sales trainers that I have known

1737
01:48:10,148 –> 01:48:13,816
in my past, and one of the rules of thumb that

1738
01:48:13,838 –> 01:48:17,016
I use, you can build this is exactly what I was

1739
01:48:17,038 –> 01:48:21,164
talking about to you earlier. There’s no reason that you have

1740
01:48:21,202 –> 01:48:24,872
to use all of those personal things to build rapport.

1741
01:48:24,936 –> 01:48:27,768
You can build rapport on a professional basis.

1742
01:48:27,864 –> 01:48:31,536
You can use your profession to build the

1743
01:48:31,558 –> 01:48:34,290
rapport, not the personal stuff.

1744
01:48:34,980 –> 01:48:38,128
To me, if the personal stuff comes, it should come after

1745
01:48:38,214 –> 01:48:41,120
when you’re maintaining and you’re building relationship,

1746
01:48:41,270 –> 01:48:45,228
not rapport. Got it? Again. And that’s a

1747
01:48:45,254 –> 01:48:48,756
very trained thing that doesn’t come inherently. You have to

1748
01:48:48,778 –> 01:48:52,516
be taught when you’re building rapport, the rapport should be based on

1749
01:48:52,538 –> 01:48:55,876
the fundamental relationship that’s in front of you, not the relationship you want

1750
01:48:55,898 –> 01:48:59,336
to build later. Right. To keep that customer

1751
01:48:59,438 –> 01:49:02,596
coming back over and over again is when you start extending

1752
01:49:02,628 –> 01:49:06,424
it beyond those. And by the way, if you cannot read the room in

1753
01:49:06,462 –> 01:49:11,656
that scenario, you shouldn’t be in sales if

1754
01:49:11,678 –> 01:49:14,876
you’re going to color outside the lines after you get to that

1755
01:49:14,898 –> 01:49:18,252
point. Once you do get to that personal point, if you’re going to color outside

1756
01:49:18,306 –> 01:49:21,516
the lines, you better damn well know how far outside lines you can

1757
01:49:21,538 –> 01:49:24,672
go. And if you don’t, if you can’t judge that, you probably

1758
01:49:24,726 –> 01:49:26,530
shouldn’t be in sales in the first place.

1759
01:49:30,020 –> 01:49:33,164
I’m thinking of something that no, I’m thinking of a sales conversation

1760
01:49:33,212 –> 01:49:39,068
that I was recently privy to and I’ll

1761
01:49:39,084 –> 01:49:41,668
bring it up later with Tom and we’ll discuss if we could bring it up

1762
01:49:41,674 –> 01:49:45,396
on the podcast in a future episode. Because it relates exactly to

1763
01:49:45,418 –> 01:49:48,440
what Tom just said about coloring outside the lines.

1764
01:49:48,940 –> 01:49:53,064
And I think that that’s a fundamental distinction with the difference that Tom has just

1765
01:49:53,102 –> 01:49:57,000
brought up. That’s hugely important for leaders to understand because leaders are salespeople.

1766
01:49:58,460 –> 01:50:01,808
That is one of the fundamental things. Actually, it’s in my book. It’s in chapter

1767
01:50:01,844 –> 01:50:05,292
five. Leaders should study sales and marketing. You need to study

1768
01:50:05,346 –> 01:50:09,100
the techniques of sales and marketing doesn’t mean you have to be a

1769
01:50:09,170 –> 01:50:13,104
sales manager or a sales lead. It doesn’t mean you have to be

1770
01:50:13,222 –> 01:50:16,796
the CMO. It means you have to know the techniques

1771
01:50:16,828 –> 01:50:20,064
and the tactics and the skill sets and be able to

1772
01:50:20,102 –> 01:50:23,292
apply those across a wide variety

1773
01:50:23,356 –> 01:50:27,892
of people in a leadership context. Because the thing you are selling is

1774
01:50:27,946 –> 01:50:30,848
yourself and your leadership.

1775
01:50:31,024 –> 01:50:34,656
That’s fundamental to your success as a leader.

1776
01:50:34,768 –> 01:50:38,552
And you’re right building rapport, tom’s right building rapport, coloring outside

1777
01:50:38,606 –> 01:50:42,376
the lines, learning who people are you

1778
01:50:42,398 –> 01:50:46,330
can’t be an ophelia in that situation.

1779
01:50:47,100 –> 01:50:50,520
All right, back to the play. Last jog round the corner.

1780
01:50:50,680 –> 01:50:53,996
Going to let Hamlet here have the last word. He’s going to talk a little

1781
01:50:54,018 –> 01:50:57,724
bit about ophelia. This is now act three,

1782
01:50:57,762 –> 01:51:01,544
scene one. King comes in,

1783
01:51:01,682 –> 01:51:04,988
talks with king and queen come in. They talk with Rosencrantz and Gilgen,

1784
01:51:05,004 –> 01:51:08,976
Stern and Polonius. And the

1785
01:51:08,998 –> 01:51:10,960
king then sends for Hamlet.

1786
01:51:11,940 –> 01:51:12,690
And,

1787
01:51:16,600 –> 01:51:20,468
well, they kind of listen to Hamlet kind of walking up the

1788
01:51:20,554 –> 01:51:24,128
pathway, sort of thinking out loud.

1789
01:51:24,304 –> 01:51:30,004
Let’s be privy to some of Hamlet’s internal structure

1790
01:51:30,132 –> 01:51:34,250
here a little bit in act three, scene one.

1791
01:51:34,700 –> 01:51:38,616
Hamlet to be, or not to be,

1792
01:51:38,798 –> 01:51:42,316
that is the question. Whether it is nobler in

1793
01:51:42,338 –> 01:51:46,056
the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

1794
01:51:46,168 –> 01:51:49,324
or to take arms against a sea of troubles and

1795
01:51:49,362 –> 01:51:51,630
by opposing end them.

1796
01:51:52,660 –> 01:51:56,704
To die, to sleep, no more. And by sleep to say

1797
01:51:56,902 –> 01:52:00,256
we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is

1798
01:52:00,278 –> 01:52:04,320
heir to tis consummation devoutly to be wished.

1799
01:52:04,760 –> 01:52:09,232
To die, to sleep, to sleep, per chance to dream.

1800
01:52:09,296 –> 01:52:13,044
Hey, there’s the rub. For in that

1801
01:52:13,082 –> 01:52:16,804
sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled

1802
01:52:16,852 –> 01:52:20,600
off this mortal coil must give us pause.

1803
01:52:21,020 –> 01:52:24,360
There’s the respect and makes calamity of

1804
01:52:24,430 –> 01:52:27,556
so long life. For who would bear

1805
01:52:27,588 –> 01:52:31,540
the whips and scorns of time, the oppressors wrong, the proud man’s consumer,

1806
01:52:31,620 –> 01:52:35,148
the pangs of despise, the love, the laws delay, the incidents of

1807
01:52:35,154 –> 01:52:38,988
office and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes

1808
01:52:39,154 –> 01:52:42,764
when he himself might his quietest make with a bare

1809
01:52:42,812 –> 01:52:46,256
bodkin? Who would fardells bear to grunt and

1810
01:52:46,278 –> 01:52:49,792
sweat under a weary life but that the dread of something

1811
01:52:49,846 –> 01:52:53,896
after death, the undiscovered country from whose born

1812
01:52:53,948 –> 01:52:58,052
no traveler returns puzzle the will and makes us rather

1813
01:52:58,186 –> 01:53:01,936
bear those ills we have than fly

1814
01:53:01,968 –> 01:53:04,070
to others that we know not of?

1815
01:53:04,760 –> 01:53:08,148
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.

1816
01:53:08,314 –> 01:53:11,416
And thus the native hue of resolution is sickled or with

1817
01:53:11,438 –> 01:53:14,824
the pale cast of thought and enterprises of great pitch and

1818
01:53:14,862 –> 01:53:18,376
moment with this regard their currents turn awry and

1819
01:53:18,398 –> 01:53:22,036
to lose the name of action soft you now, the Pharaoh.

1820
01:53:22,068 –> 01:53:25,500
Feela, nymph, in thy orisins

1821
01:53:26,240 –> 01:53:30,540
be all my sins remembered.

1822
01:53:33,040 –> 01:53:37,330
Probably the most iconic monologue right of any

1823
01:53:37,700 –> 01:53:41,584
piece of literature. As soon as you started saying

1824
01:53:41,622 –> 01:53:44,864
it, I was like, oh, I actually remember this. We had to memorize this

1825
01:53:44,902 –> 01:53:48,276
in school. I actually remembered most of it, not all of it, but I was

1826
01:53:48,298 –> 01:53:51,456
like, wow. I didn’t realize how embedded

1827
01:53:51,488 –> 01:53:54,100
that was. It’s deep in there, Tommy.

1828
01:53:54,600 –> 01:53:58,536
It’s in the system. I thought

1829
01:53:58,558 –> 01:54:01,800
that that was a good spot to stop at.

1830
01:54:01,870 –> 01:54:05,448
Yeah, because that is the question.

1831
01:54:05,534 –> 01:54:07,050
To be or not to be.

1832
01:54:09,840 –> 01:54:13,356
Is it nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of

1833
01:54:13,378 –> 01:54:16,716
outrageous fortune? Is it nobler in the mind to

1834
01:54:16,738 –> 01:54:20,636
suffer the slings and arrows of having

1835
01:54:20,738 –> 01:54:24,636
your career or the

1836
01:54:24,658 –> 01:54:27,452
boundaries of social approbation coming in. Is that noble?

1837
01:54:27,516 –> 01:54:31,616
Yeah. I picture this in the corporate world of somebody going, should I

1838
01:54:31,638 –> 01:54:33,730
quit my job and go work for that one?

1839
01:54:34,580 –> 01:54:37,812
That’s the thing. Should I just deal with this? Am I better?

1840
01:54:37,866 –> 01:54:41,540
Am I safer? Am I more here and doing what I’m doing?

1841
01:54:41,610 –> 01:54:45,120
Or should I quit my job and. Go take that risk to sleep

1842
01:54:45,200 –> 01:54:47,060
per chance to dream?

1843
01:54:49,160 –> 01:54:52,904
I’m going to dream about what’s over there in that startup dream about,

1844
01:54:53,022 –> 01:54:56,776
like, Scrooge McDuck, like jumping into a billion dollars worth of

1845
01:54:56,798 –> 01:54:59,528
coins and swimming around if any of you watch Ducktails back in the day,

1846
01:54:59,534 –> 01:55:02,968
you know who Scrooge McDuck is and swimming around in those. And if you didn’t,

1847
01:55:02,984 –> 01:55:06,620
you should. Exactly. That’s right. It was a great series.

1848
01:55:08,000 –> 01:55:12,024
For in that sleep of death what death? Physical death, material death,

1849
01:55:12,072 –> 01:55:15,308
emotional death. For in that sleep of death,

1850
01:55:15,484 –> 01:55:19,020
professional death, professional death, what Dreams

1851
01:55:19,100 –> 01:55:22,752
May come. By the way, that’s another great title to a movie that had

1852
01:55:22,806 –> 01:55:26,384
Robin Williams and John Travolta in Back in the Day, where Robin Williams

1853
01:55:26,432 –> 01:55:29,716
dies and goes to heaven or someplace. For in that

1854
01:55:29,738 –> 01:55:33,620
sleep of death, what dreams may come. When we have shuffled off this mortal coil

1855
01:55:36,470 –> 01:55:40,358
whose mortal coil? The mortal coil of Hamlet. Mortal coil of

1856
01:55:40,364 –> 01:55:45,894
your job, the mortal coil of that room, of that

1857
01:55:45,932 –> 01:55:49,046
remote structure you might be in right now, that hybrid structure where

1858
01:55:49,068 –> 01:55:51,718
you got to go to the office a couple of days out of the week

1859
01:55:51,804 –> 01:55:54,220
and you’re not getting anything out of it. Look,

1860
01:55:58,140 –> 01:56:02,328
Johnny Paycheck, put it a little bit more simply in the 1970s,

1861
01:56:02,414 –> 01:56:05,370
take this job and shove it, because I ain’t working here no more.

1862
01:56:07,420 –> 01:56:11,124
And of course, in 2020 and I would argue

1863
01:56:11,172 –> 01:56:14,292
we’re still underneath the royal of this people are figuring

1864
01:56:14,356 –> 01:56:18,748
out that they don’t need to tolerate tolerate

1865
01:56:18,844 –> 01:56:21,276
what they don’t need to tolerate. And I think this is the other thing you’re

1866
01:56:21,308 –> 01:56:24,928
probably picking up on, Tom, in the larger cultural zeitgeist. I think a

1867
01:56:24,934 –> 01:56:26,528
lot of people are picking up on it, but they don’t know how to put

1868
01:56:26,534 –> 01:56:29,632
a thumb on it. They don’t know how to define it. It’s that sense

1869
01:56:29,686 –> 01:56:33,456
that things are in tumult, that we are like Hamlet walking

1870
01:56:33,488 –> 01:56:37,312
into a room and muttering to ourselves

1871
01:56:37,456 –> 01:56:40,820
because we don’t know which way to go. For leaders,

1872
01:56:42,520 –> 01:56:45,770
I think obviously we should read Shakespeare. Obviously, I believe that.

1873
01:56:46,620 –> 01:56:50,040
I believe that you should go back to the roots and

1874
01:56:50,190 –> 01:56:53,752
figure out what is happening there at the root. But also

1875
01:56:53,886 –> 01:56:57,150
I think you should really understand

1876
01:56:57,600 –> 01:57:01,068
the nature of all of these

1877
01:57:01,154 –> 01:57:05,196
kinds of cultural admonitions that

1878
01:57:05,218 –> 01:57:09,820
are being made in this play because they’re actually human admonitions.

1879
01:57:09,900 –> 01:57:13,584
So Hamlet performed in Beijing is the same as

1880
01:57:13,622 –> 01:57:17,244
Hamlet performed in Nigeria, which is the same as Hamlet

1881
01:57:17,292 –> 01:57:21,104
performed in Rio de Janeiro, and it’s the same as Hamlet

1882
01:57:21,152 –> 01:57:24,164
performed in Tokyo. These are human things.

1883
01:57:24,282 –> 01:57:27,764
Right? And the more closer we can get to

1884
01:57:27,802 –> 01:57:31,620
our own humanity through Shakespeare, the better it will be for leaders.

1885
01:57:33,080 –> 01:57:36,424
Tom, you got anything to say before we sign off? Any way to round this

1886
01:57:36,462 –> 01:57:39,560
off? No, I think not. Really.

1887
01:57:39,630 –> 01:57:43,336
I mean, I almost always have something to say, as you probably already know.

1888
01:57:43,518 –> 01:57:46,616
No, but I think we covered a lot coming into this.

1889
01:57:46,638 –> 01:57:49,736
I was like every other, as usual and

1890
01:57:49,758 –> 01:57:53,436
I have done, I’m like, what the hell does you know, does you know,

1891
01:57:53,458 –> 01:57:55,756
does this have to do with leadership? But we always figure out a way,

1892
01:57:55,778 –> 01:57:59,230
right? And we always figure out a way to interpret something in there. So,

1893
01:57:59,600 –> 01:58:03,452
yeah, I think it was pretty cool. I was a little impressed

1894
01:58:03,516 –> 01:58:06,848
with you on this episode there. Well, and we were

1895
01:58:06,854 –> 01:58:09,316
kind of flying blind a little bit. Just so you all know, this is a

1896
01:58:09,318 –> 01:58:12,690
little inside baseball. I didn’t write a script for this episode today,

1897
01:58:14,020 –> 01:58:16,868
so if you hated this. Episode, it was because we were just winging it.

1898
01:58:16,874 –> 01:58:19,888
We were just winging it. We winged the whole thing. It’s because we were winging

1899
01:58:19,904 –> 01:58:20,870
it. That’s right.

1900
01:58:23,020 –> 01:58:27,016
And with that, that’s it for us.

1901
01:58:27,118 –> 01:58:28,090
We’re out.

1902
01:58:32,860 –> 01:58:36,472
Listen and subscribe to the Leadership Lessons. From the Great Books Podcast on

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1910
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1918
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1920
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1921
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by Disrupting Your Boss, and subscribe to the Little Red Podcast

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I launched earlier this year with the same name as that Little Red

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Book. My most recent book is Twelve Rules

1924
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1925
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with contributions from Bradley Madigan. This is the book

1926
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1927
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Pick up a copy by heading over to twelverullsleadersbook.com.

1928
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Now that’s twelverulesleadersbook.com.

1929
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Now you pay for shipping and you’ll get a copy of my second

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book as well. Finally, you can get all these books. In paperback,

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hardcover, or as ebooks on. Amazon, Barnes and Noble,

1932
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1933
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1934
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1935
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1938
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And of course, you’re going to want to subscribe to my other podcast.

1939
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That’s right, I do do more than one. The Hayson Soreles presents

1940
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1941
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1942
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from arts all the way to analytics.

1943
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All right, that’s it for me.