Leadership Lessons From The Great Books #56 – The Tragedy of King Lear by William Shakespeare w/Libby Unger

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Hello. My name is Jesan Sorrells and this

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is the Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast,

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episode number 56 with our

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play today, the basis for multiple films

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and plays and adaptations focused on leadership,

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revenge, deception, cold-blooded murder.

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Corruption and power, including my personal favorite

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adaptation, the 1985 film Ran

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by the late, great Akira Kurosawa.

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William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy

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of King Lear. Now, today we’re

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going to be reading the Folger, Shakespeare Library edition,

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which I would encourage you to go ahead and pick up. And we are going

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to be joined today on the podcast by our returning

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guest co-host from episode number 43, where we

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broke down the reality of human leadership through the lens of

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politics and economics by reading The Road to Serfdom

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by F.A. Hayek. I would encourage you to go back and listen to that episode.

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And I’d like to welcome back to the podcast today Libby Unger.

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How are you doing? Libby I am doing terrific.

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I’m really excited for King Lear.

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Now, Shakespeare, we’ve been doing a month of Shakespeare.

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We’ve covered Hamlet, we’ve covered Taming of the Shrew,

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and now we’re getting into King Lear. Othello is upcoming,

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very excited to cover that one as well.

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Shakespeare, of course. Shakespeare’s plays,

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of course, lay at the root of all human behavior and all human understanding

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and have influenced the West, as I said on the episode where we

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discussed Hamlet, have influenced

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human nature, have influenced our western understanding,

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of human nature and quite frankly, our Western understanding of everything that comes out

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of human nature, including leadership for gosh

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the last 400 years. And so

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with that, I would like to open from

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once again the Folger Library edition of King Lear.

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We’re going to start off with act One, scene One,

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and we’re going to begin with Lear’s comments.

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As Cornwall, Albany, Gonereil,

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his daughter, Regan, his other daughter, Cordelia, his other daughter and

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some attendants enter the throne room.

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Lear attend the lords of France and Burgundy.

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Gloucester. Gloucester I shall, my lord. He exits.

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Lear meantime, we shall express our darker purpose.

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Give me that map. Here he’s handed a map. Know that

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we have divided in our three kingdoms and TISS our fast intent to shake

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all cares and business from our age conferring them on

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younger strengths while we unburdened crawl toward death.

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Our sons of Cornwall and you, our no less loving

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son of Albany we have this hour a constant will to publish

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our daughters several dowers that future strife may be prevented.

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Now the two great princes, France and Burgundy,

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great rivals in our youngest daughters love long in our court,

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have made their amorous sorjorn. And here are

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to be answered. Tell me, my daughters, since we will now divest

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us both of rule, interest of territory, cares of state,

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which of you, shall we say, doth love us most that we

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our largest bounty may extend where nature doth with merit

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challenge gonerill. Our eldest born speak first.

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Gonearill. Sir, I love you more than word can wield

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the matter dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty beyond

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what can be valued, rich or rare no less than

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life with grace, health, beauty, honor as much as a child error loved or father

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found. A love that makes breath poor and speech unable.

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Beyond all manner of so much I love you.

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Cordelia aside. What shall? Cordelia speak?

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Love and be silent.

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Lear pointing at the map of all these bounds, even from this line to

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this with shadowy forests and with champagnes

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rich with plentous rivers and wide skirted needs we

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make thee lady. To thine and Albany issue be this perpetual.

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What says our second daughter, our dearest Reagan, wife of

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Cornwall? Speak, Reagan.

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I am made of that self metal as my

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sister and prize me at her worth. In my true heart I

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find she names my very deed of love. Only she comes too short that

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I profess myself ran enemy to all other joys which

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the most precious square of sense possesses and find I

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am alone felicitate in your dear highness’s

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love. Cordelia aside, then.

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Poor Cordelia. And yet not so since, I am sure my love’s

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more ponderous than my tongue. Lear to

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thee and thine heredity ever remain this ample third of

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our fair kingdom no less in space, validity, and pleasure than

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that conferred on Gonorrhill. Now our joy, although our last

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and least to whose young love the vines of France and milk

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of Burgundy strive to be interest. What can you say to

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draw a third more opulent than your sisters?

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Speak. Cordelia nothing,

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my lord. Lear nothing?

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Cordelia nothing? Lear nothing will come of

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nothing. Speak again.

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Cordelia unhappy that I am, I cannot leave my heart into my

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mouth. I love your majesty according to my bond, no more and

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no less. Lear how, how.

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Cordelia mend your speech a little, lest you may mar

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your fortunes. Cordelia good my lord,

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you have begot me, bred me, loved me. I return those duties back

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as are right fit, obey you, love you, and most honor

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you. Why, of my sister’s husbands, if they say they love you all

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happily, when I say I shall wed that lord whose hand must take my

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plight shall carry half my love with him half my care and duty.

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Sure I shall never marry, like my sisters, to love my father all.

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Lear but goes thy heart with this?

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Cordelia my good lord? Lear so young and

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so untender? Cordelia so young, my lord,

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and true. Lear let it be so.

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Thy truth then be thy dower. For by the

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sacred radiance of the sun, the mysteries of hechatate and

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the night by all the operations of the orbs from whom we do exist

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and cease to be here I disclaim all my paternal care

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propicity and property of blood, and as a stranger

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to my heart and me hold thee from this forever. The barbarous

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scythian, or he that makes his generation messes to gorge

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his appetite shall to my bosom be as well neighbored,

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pitied and relieved as thou my sometime daughter.

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Kent. Good my liege, lee your peace. Kent, come now

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not between the dragon and his wrath. I love her most and thought

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to set my rest on her king nursery to cordelia

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hence and avoid my sight. So be my grave my

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peace here as I give her father’s heart from her.

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Call France. Who stirs, call Burgundy. An attendant exits Cornwall in

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Albany. When my two daughters dowers digest the third,

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let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her. I do invest you jointly

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with my power, preeminence and all the large effects. The troop with majesty,

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our self, by monthly course, with reservations of 100 knights,

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by you be sustained, shall our abode make with you by due turn only

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we shall retain thy name and all the addition to a king, the sway,

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revenue, execution of the rest beloved sons be yours,

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which to confirm this coronet part

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between you.

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There’s a lot there and I just sort of

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ran through folks, we’ve been doing a month of Shakespeare.

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This is how it goes. I put the Shakespeare voice on. You got to throw

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it out there a little bit. You got to do the sort of Orson Wells,

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English actor, Patrick Stewart comes to mind. You got to sort of do that kind

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of thing. You got to give it a little flourish, because Shakespeare

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cannot be read in merely a plain voice.

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But after all of the flourishes, after all the exaggeration,

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I know why teenagers struggle with

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King Lear. There’s a lot of complicated things

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going on here and quite frankly, flattery, and this

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is maybe the first thing that we get from King Lear.

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Flattery will apparently get you everywhere in business, just as

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it will in royalty.

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Leaders to get what you want, engage in flattery, right?

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Turns out the narcissism is not a modern psychological state. It’s just

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moved from being a private act tinned with shame,

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tinned with tinned with shame, to being a shameless

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public act, right? We’re not shameless in our narcissism.

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We put it out there. We want it to be publicly applauded.

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Gonerill and Reagan at least had the good grace to

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keep it private. The other thing that we get from

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that big opening act where Lear is trying to divide

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up his kingdom is this concept. And we toyed with it a

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little bit in Hamlet, and we’re going to toy with it a little bit more

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in Othello. And of course, it pops up in Julius Caesar.

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But Shakespeare was very much concerned, as should leaders,

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about this idea of beguiling or deceiving

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another person. Reagan and Gonerill

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and their husbands in particular,

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cornwall, he’s going to prove to be a problem later on

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they engage in acts of deception,

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they engage in acts of beguiling. King Lear. Now, you could

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say, of course, the King Lear deserved to be beguiled. He wasn’t

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going to listen to honest feedback from Cordelia when she said

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she had nothing for him other than her mere honor

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and her love and her truth to give him and

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beguiling a person in power to attain the power that they have. Which is what

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Gondrial and Reagan are involved in in this little clip here, right at

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the beginning, the opening of King Lear. If you do

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that, it’s a robust short term tactic, but it’s a poor

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long term strategy. Unless, of course, your fundamental

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philosophy is establishing a tyranny with you

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the top of the hierarchy. And this

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is where we open. This is where Shakespeare starts us off in

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the journey in through five acts, as usual,

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of King Lear, a man who is going to find out exactly

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what it’s like to fall off the top of a mountain.

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And how many people do you meet going all the way

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back down?

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As I said before, we have Libby Younger here, and we were talking about

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the road to Serfdom, as I mentioned previously, in episode number 43, and King

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Lear ties weirdly into the road to

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Serfdom. I think Hayek would appreciate us reading

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this because it’s not necessarily about the economics of power,

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although that does sort of come into it, particularly in this first part

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here with the division of property.

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But there’s also an element here of human nature which

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Hayek touches on extensively in Serfdom, particularly in

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his chapter about why the worst always get to the top.

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And so let’s start off with Libby here as

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we open with King Lear. I guess my

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first question is, Libby, why doesn’t anyone read Shakespeare anymore?

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I’ve been asking almost everybody that since

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we started this little trot this month on the podcast

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through the works of Shakespeare, and we’ll revisit Shakespeare again. There’s just

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too much good stuff inside of all of his work to miss.

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But why does anyone read Shakespeare anymore?

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That is a very good question. I think

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it simply comes down to the language is

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foreign.

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It really is like a foreign language that you need

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to be introduced to through guidance

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and with teachers and education.

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It’s like French. I’m not going

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to learn French on my I may, but it’d be a lot easier to

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learn French with guidance and instruction.

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The story and the lessons of King Lear have been

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modernized, so we haven’t necessarily lost the

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lessons. You spoke of ran,

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but I was thinking more even more recently of succession.

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We brought up succession. Interestingly enough, we brought up succession in our

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episode on Hamlet with Todd Libby.

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I think Hamlet skews more towards

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something like Sons of Anarchy. That’s more like Hamlet but with a biker

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gang, right? Which I also said on the podcast. But, yeah, you’re right. King lear.

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King Lear is interesting because it is succession.

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And I don’t think the father and I’ve never watched succession

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on HBO. I’ve just seen clips and I’ve seen trailers floating around. I got

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the general gist of kind of what the show is about, but it

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is this idea of building an empire and then how

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the hell do you divide it up? Because you’re not

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going to live forever, and at a certain point, you have

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to give it away, like you have to divest yourself of your property.

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And this is a real problem.

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Yeah. Well, let’s step back and more.

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You’ve got the lessons of succession is teaching the

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lessons of King Lear and the human nature.

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The builder creates a huge fief dumb.

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He wants it to continue and to thrive. And his successors

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are well positioned to do that, although they didn’t learn the

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tricks of the trade and how to build,

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and they’re overconfident in their capabilities and competencies.

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And what becomes of them? They let their greed

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start to dictate their actions,

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and ultimately they lie and cheat

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in order to retain power or to hold on to the last

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grasp of it. But you’ve got succession,

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but you’ve got Dallas and you’ve got Dynasty.

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Dallas in the 1980s. Right? Same thing. Same thing.

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Yeah. But what’s so beautiful about Shakespeare and the classics and

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what you’re trying to do through these podcasts is it

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really demonstrates that human nature is a constant.

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Right? So the same tendencies that

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the powerful have had back in the 16 hundreds

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are the same ones that we’re having in the Tooth in 2020.

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Why is it that Orwell and Anne Ran

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could so accurately predict where we would

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be landing as a society 80 to 100 years from

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when they were living? Okay, then let me ask you this follow up question,

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because this is the key crux question.

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Yeah. Okay.

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I am old enough and and you are old enough to

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remember an analog time before all this digital nonsense,

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right? We’re both in that weird sort of middle ground generation,

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right, analog than digital. And now we got to adapt, right?

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And there’s

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a fundamental hubris that’s built into digital, and we’re seeing this right now

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with large language models being called artificial intelligence.

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And the fundamental hubris is a is a lack of being.

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Not even a lack of being. It’s the desire now

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for every individual to never be forgotten. One of the things

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that I tell folks is, and I do have this written into my

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will, I want to be erased from the Internet when I’m gone.

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I want to be eliminated. I don’t want to show up in some deep fake

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video 100 years from now.

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And I think I may have said this on the podcast, but like selling Nestle,

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because Nestle’s pushed everything out to the edges and now they’ve

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got to grab regular people and I’m in the background of a crowd somewhere.

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Or because my voice is around everywhere. This is brought to you by

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any of that right? Erase me, move me from the Internet. But the fundamental

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hubris of our time is that technology has allowed us to believe

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that we are King

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Lear, right? That we’re at the top of our own little pile,

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and now we can sort of do these things. And it used to be

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when we were more tragically focused

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or maybe not tragically focused, we were more acknowledging of the tragic nature

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of humanity, that we were like, no, there has to be boundaries

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like that’s for those people over there, and we still do have a lot of

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that. But for us over here, there’s something

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different, and we can look at it. Right. Like, I think

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of this is now the second

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time these people have made it on the podcast, but okay, Harry and Megan,

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the Markle twins over there, those two people.

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And, yeah, if you all find me, you ran, come sue me.

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It’s fine, whatever. Good luck.

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But the dynamic there of,

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oh, well, that’s those people over there doing that thing, but I’m living over

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here doing this thing, has sort of become wrapped up with this narcissistic

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hubris. That’s why I opened up with narcissism, this narcissistic hubris, because of technology.

295
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Like, if I can build my own reality on Facebook, then why

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shouldn’t I be King Lear? The digital age I’ve

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shared this with a lot of folks over the years is

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that it’s distance perception from reality.

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So we have the perception that we’re more important

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than we are, either good or bad.

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There’s this perception that we’re

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bigger and more powerful than we are. And Oprah

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00:19:08,862 –> 00:19:12,334
used to talk about this, which is whenever

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you’re trying to analyze someone’s behavior, recognize that we

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00:19:16,408 –> 00:19:20,762
all just want to be seen. And the digital feat,

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00:19:20,926 –> 00:19:24,066
it used to be that we were seen in our local communities,

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right? Yeah, exactly. At grade school, in the schoolyard,

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or at church or in girl

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scouts or cub Scouts. And we got rapid feedback,

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but it was real and untinged. So it wasn’t

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00:19:40,806 –> 00:19:44,598
this narcissistic like like, that was ephemeral.

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You could feel it in your soul. You could feel it viscerally,

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and you knew the person, so you actually would have to face them day

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00:19:55,192 –> 00:19:59,374
in and day out. On the digital world, the feedback we’re getting is from anonymous

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00:19:59,422 –> 00:20:02,290
folks. And if you say something negative,

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00:20:02,870 –> 00:20:06,246
there’s no consequences for your action, because you don’t have to be with them

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00:20:06,268 –> 00:20:09,702
or be with them or interact with them

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00:20:09,756 –> 00:20:13,414
in a real human way anymore. But there’s this perception that if I

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say something true, it is.

320
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And we’re completely being divorced from reality as

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00:20:21,228 –> 00:20:24,950
it is in this digital world. The narcissism,

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00:20:25,770 –> 00:20:29,000
I think it is actually fueled economically as well.

323
00:20:29,330 –> 00:20:33,146
Yeah. You and I both touch the VC

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00:20:33,258 –> 00:20:36,942
and tech space where all these folks are

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00:20:37,076 –> 00:20:40,894
being given free money. Free money. Free money. They can blow up

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00:20:40,932 –> 00:20:44,514
their companies, and they’re given another job

327
00:20:44,712 –> 00:20:48,500
doing the same thing six months from then.

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00:20:50,230 –> 00:20:53,982
They aren’t actually having to deliver anything other than growth.

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They’re not thinking about sustainability and delivering a viable

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00:20:57,970 –> 00:21:01,560
business. It’s just, look at me, look at me. I’m raising money.

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00:21:02,730 –> 00:21:06,626
I’m building something big. But they’re not thinking about the bigger picture.

332
00:21:06,818 –> 00:21:10,362
Who am I building it for? Right? It’s more

333
00:21:10,416 –> 00:21:13,962
about, look at me, I’m important. Like Forbes 30

334
00:21:14,016 –> 00:21:16,140
under 30 throw up.

335
00:21:18,590 –> 00:21:21,180
You know, squat in your twenty S.

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00:21:22,910 –> 00:21:26,894
I talked about this on on the Shorts episode that

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00:21:26,932 –> 00:21:30,606
came out this Tuesday, right ahead of the Shorts episode, number 75.

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You go back and listen to this, but it is this idea, and it’s

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00:21:33,854 –> 00:21:38,386
also wrapped up with what you’re saying of and

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I keep going back to this over and over again because I’m working on something

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00:21:41,976 –> 00:21:45,910
here, philosophically and rhetorically out loud with folks.

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It’s this idea of the adults in the room.

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00:21:50,300 –> 00:21:53,640
So I look at lists like 30 under 30,

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00:21:54,170 –> 00:21:57,378
40 under 40, for God’s sakes. I just got an email the

345
00:21:57,404 –> 00:22:00,620
other day, could we interview you about being 50 under 50?

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And I went and I immediately

347
00:22:04,502 –> 00:22:08,234
deleted it. What are we doing? Right? So there was

348
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a dynamic in our culture, and I said this on our Shorts episode. I think

349
00:22:11,124 –> 00:22:15,134
it’s lear repeating. There was a dynamic where

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you would never trust anyone no, not never trust you would

351
00:22:19,124 –> 00:22:22,526
never give power to any right. You never trust anyone over 30. But that

352
00:22:22,548 –> 00:22:25,666
was also intention against the dynamic in

353
00:22:25,688 –> 00:22:29,506
the post World War II era of don’t you dare give anybody any

354
00:22:29,528 –> 00:22:33,298
power who’s under 40 because they can’t handle it.

355
00:22:33,464 –> 00:22:36,678
Because there was something going to get tragic right about that. And we

356
00:22:36,684 –> 00:22:39,654
see this in Reagan and gonerill in King Lear.

357
00:22:39,772 –> 00:22:43,558
Right. Yes. All the Shakespeare parts are played by young men.

358
00:22:43,644 –> 00:22:47,480
Young boys, usually 16 to 19. Yes, okay, got it.

359
00:22:47,850 –> 00:22:50,998
And yes, they would have been a 16 year old boy playing Reagan and a

360
00:22:51,004 –> 00:22:54,106
six Lear old boy playing Gonorrhill. Okay, got it. Yeah, I’m aware of all

361
00:22:54,128 –> 00:22:58,822
that in the Globe Theater and in the Elizabethan

362
00:22:58,886 –> 00:23:03,294
Theater age. Right. I’m aware of all this. My point is the

363
00:23:03,412 –> 00:23:07,774
people as characters are

364
00:23:07,812 –> 00:23:11,614
young and arrogant. They’re under 40. They’re not

365
00:23:11,652 –> 00:23:15,060
behaving with wisdom. Right? That’s the whole setup for Lear.

366
00:23:15,670 –> 00:23:18,754
It’s the whole set up for succession. It’s the

367
00:23:18,792 –> 00:23:22,466
whole set up for another show that’s very popular, which is

368
00:23:22,488 –> 00:23:26,306
shocking to me. My wife and I watched, I think, the first two

369
00:23:26,328 –> 00:23:29,582
episodes of the first season, and then my wife is like, these are bad people.

370
00:23:29,656 –> 00:23:31,606
I don’t need to have these people in my house. So we never went back

371
00:23:31,628 –> 00:23:35,250
to it again. But Yellowstone a show that has just blown

372
00:23:35,330 –> 00:23:39,226
up, but it’s basically King Lear with

373
00:23:39,248 –> 00:23:41,500
Costner at the top of the hierarchy. Right?

374
00:23:45,150 –> 00:23:49,098
There’s a couple of threads in here that I think are important, and I think

375
00:23:49,264 –> 00:23:52,726
there is always a really good tension between the young and

376
00:23:52,848 –> 00:23:56,058
the young and the old. And I think it’s

377
00:23:56,074 –> 00:23:59,786
an important tension. But this is why it’s

378
00:23:59,818 –> 00:24:05,874
so important to understand history, to understand your

379
00:24:05,912 –> 00:24:09,554
own behaviors and your own tendencies, so that you

380
00:24:09,672 –> 00:24:12,260
are able to put a check on yourself.

381
00:24:13,030 –> 00:24:16,854
One is this concept around humility 99

382
00:24:16,892 –> 00:24:20,486
billion people have walked the planet. Why do you think your name is going

383
00:24:20,508 –> 00:24:23,160
to stand out in history? Right?

384
00:24:24,090 –> 00:24:27,394
But when you’re always moving, when you’re not reflecting,

385
00:24:27,442 –> 00:24:31,194
when you’re not stepping back to assess the environment and

386
00:24:31,232 –> 00:24:34,698
to assess what’s happening in context of a greater history,

387
00:24:34,864 –> 00:24:38,826
you will have the inclination to let your ego self lead.

388
00:24:38,928 –> 00:24:41,994
And your ego self is about me, me, status,

389
00:24:42,042 –> 00:24:46,480
status, status. And there are some benefits from

390
00:24:46,930 –> 00:24:49,930
a heavy ego, from a survival perspective.

391
00:24:50,090 –> 00:24:54,590
But in the world that we live in now, it can be very self destructive

392
00:24:54,670 –> 00:24:58,258
and destructive to others. And in this digital world

393
00:24:58,344 –> 00:25:01,890
where we all get these rapid feedbacks, positive or negative,

394
00:25:02,870 –> 00:25:06,274
in the digital world, we do feel a lot more important than we

395
00:25:06,312 –> 00:25:09,926
actually are. And I had this

396
00:25:10,108 –> 00:25:13,938
there’s two things that are stand out thoughts

397
00:25:13,954 –> 00:25:17,762
that have occurred to me and been important through my evolution

398
00:25:17,826 –> 00:25:21,226
as a human. And the first is remembering a statement that

399
00:25:21,248 –> 00:25:24,826
my stepmother said to me young when I was

400
00:25:24,848 –> 00:25:27,866
young. She said, in my twenty s I thought I knew it all. In my

401
00:25:27,888 –> 00:25:31,502
thirty s I realized I didn’t, but I thought I could. And in my forty

402
00:25:31,556 –> 00:25:34,910
s and thereafter I realized that I would never know at all.

403
00:25:35,060 –> 00:25:38,942
So it’s so freeing to recognize how little you

404
00:25:38,996 –> 00:25:42,750
actually know and how much you have to discover about

405
00:25:42,820 –> 00:25:45,970
life. Now, that can be scary if you live in a fear based,

406
00:25:46,040 –> 00:25:50,514
control need environment, or it can be extremely fringe if

407
00:25:50,552 –> 00:25:53,860
you recognize that there’s only room to grow.

408
00:25:54,250 –> 00:25:57,430
The second was after my own CEO stint

409
00:25:57,850 –> 00:26:01,766
and I got caught up in even

410
00:26:01,788 –> 00:26:06,054
though I had always viewed myself as a servant lear I

411
00:26:06,092 –> 00:26:09,240
had started to move into this more narcissistic world,

412
00:26:10,650 –> 00:26:14,314
which is easy when you live in the Bay Area and everyone around you is,

413
00:26:14,352 –> 00:26:17,434
what are you doing? You’re getting funding, you’re working for VC. I’m building

414
00:26:17,472 –> 00:26:21,854
the next big company. And it can be

415
00:26:21,972 –> 00:26:25,646
overly consuming where you define yourself by

416
00:26:25,668 –> 00:26:29,600
your title and your role and not who you are.

417
00:26:31,510 –> 00:26:35,166
And when I moved

418
00:26:35,198 –> 00:26:38,900
on from that, I started asking myself,

419
00:26:39,910 –> 00:26:43,122
what is my legacy? And I’ll go back to Oprah again.

420
00:26:43,176 –> 00:26:47,086
I really miss Oprah. And she was talking about

421
00:26:47,128 –> 00:26:50,850
how Maya Angelou how she had told Maya Angelou

422
00:26:50,930 –> 00:26:54,994
that this school that she’s building in South Africa was going to be her legacy.

423
00:26:55,122 –> 00:26:58,586
And Maya said, you don’t know what your legacy will be. And I

424
00:26:58,608 –> 00:27:02,026
always thought, Oprah, your legacy is everyone who watches you.

425
00:27:02,208 –> 00:27:05,740
You taught me about Michael Singer and

426
00:27:06,190 –> 00:27:10,362
Eckert Tolley and all these other amazing things. Your destiny

427
00:27:10,506 –> 00:27:13,950
legacy are the small moments. And honestly,

428
00:27:15,250 –> 00:27:18,574
over the last five years, it is the small moments that

429
00:27:18,612 –> 00:27:22,762
make a difference. It’s the small moments that have a ripple and butterfly

430
00:27:22,826 –> 00:27:26,002
effect through life, in people’s lives. How you treat

431
00:27:26,056 –> 00:27:29,826
someone when you’re in the grocery line and they’re having a bad day

432
00:27:29,928 –> 00:27:33,474
could completely shift their day. And the knock on

433
00:27:33,512 –> 00:27:37,746
effects that they have, impact they have on others. So the humility

434
00:27:37,938 –> 00:27:41,030
isn’t actually realizing how small you are,

435
00:27:41,180 –> 00:27:44,434
but how much power you have in the small moments versus

436
00:27:44,482 –> 00:27:49,814
the big ones. And that’s a good reminder for folks

437
00:27:49,862 –> 00:27:52,170
with ambition, leaders with ambition.

438
00:27:53,390 –> 00:27:58,858
Ambition is a well,

439
00:27:59,024 –> 00:28:02,426
I’m going to paraphrase from base camp here. They’re talking about VC.

440
00:28:02,538 –> 00:28:04,270
Ambition is a hell of a drug.

441
00:28:05,810 –> 00:28:09,962
And it’s not necessarily a bad thing, but checking

442
00:28:10,106 –> 00:28:13,930
your intentions. And that’s the important thing, is your intentions.

443
00:28:14,090 –> 00:28:17,922
And this is where we always see those executives before

444
00:28:17,976 –> 00:28:21,746
they were executives. They’re like, I’m going to spend all my time

445
00:28:21,848 –> 00:28:25,042
helping develop talent and making sure everyone gets paid

446
00:28:25,096 –> 00:28:28,278
right and gets opportunities. And then once they’re in their role, they are looking up

447
00:28:28,284 –> 00:28:32,600
to the next thing and they’ve forgotten who’s behind them. So ambition about

448
00:28:32,970 –> 00:28:37,030
building big businesses. Why? Because you have a great product for your customer.

449
00:28:37,180 –> 00:28:40,774
You’re providing jobs in a great place, jobs so

450
00:28:40,812 –> 00:28:45,110
people can put food on their family’s table. It’s all about the intention

451
00:28:45,190 –> 00:28:48,106
behind the ambition. What we have today,

452
00:28:48,288 –> 00:28:51,934
and this is where the fourth Turning, I think, plays a big

453
00:28:51,972 –> 00:28:55,502
picture. What we’re seeing in King Lear,

454
00:28:55,636 –> 00:29:00,174
too, is that people

455
00:29:00,212 –> 00:29:04,066
aren’t building or creating and what

456
00:29:04,088 –> 00:29:07,522
they’re chasing becomes smaller and so they become

457
00:29:07,576 –> 00:29:11,410
more vigilant. If they’re defining themselves

458
00:29:11,480 –> 00:29:15,134
by their position and their power, then they’re going

459
00:29:15,192 –> 00:29:19,442
to start and that’s all that matters. And that’s when the tyrannical

460
00:29:19,506 –> 00:29:22,934
and authoritarian traits start to come back, come into

461
00:29:22,972 –> 00:29:25,080
play. Yeah, well, because.

462
00:29:29,230 –> 00:29:33,142
Step aside. Well, not only that, but you’re

463
00:29:33,206 –> 00:29:36,586
constantly mounting a you’re mounting a

464
00:29:36,608 –> 00:29:40,010
defilade, rear focused defense

465
00:29:40,930 –> 00:29:44,494
on an incredibly tiny slice of

466
00:29:44,612 –> 00:29:46,720
an incredibly shrinking fat head.

467
00:29:50,130 –> 00:29:54,190
And when you’re mounting that rear facing defense,

468
00:29:54,530 –> 00:29:58,234
you’re so afraid of the future that you can’t

469
00:29:58,282 –> 00:30:01,566
let go. And so now you’re trapped, right, because your

470
00:30:01,588 –> 00:30:03,760
hands are full of the thing you have now.

471
00:30:04,690 –> 00:30:07,766
And and I’m kind of a little bit in this moment now and so I’m

472
00:30:07,788 –> 00:30:10,086
kind of talking to myself a little bit. You’re kind of in a little bit

473
00:30:10,108 –> 00:30:13,286
in this moment right now with some things, but you’re so holding on so hard

474
00:30:13,308 –> 00:30:16,806
to think you’ve got now, but you have to let it go

475
00:30:16,908 –> 00:30:18,760
to grab onto something else.

476
00:30:20,810 –> 00:30:23,286
I think of Grappling. I think of Jiu. Jitsu. Right. I always going to bring

477
00:30:23,308 –> 00:30:25,786
a jujitsu at least once, a podcast, and this is going to be the moment.

478
00:30:25,968 –> 00:30:29,914
But in Jiu Jitsu, if you’re in a bad position and

479
00:30:29,952 –> 00:30:32,666
this is one of the lessons like I’ve had to learn and it’s really hard

480
00:30:32,688 –> 00:30:35,742
to learn. Like when you first start, when you’re a white belt and it

481
00:30:35,796 –> 00:30:38,800
sucks and you’re getting crushed all the time,

482
00:30:39,170 –> 00:30:41,946
you want to just hold on for your life. It’s like a roller coaster ride.

483
00:30:41,978 –> 00:30:44,686
Like, yeah, I got this one hand in here. I’m holding on. I’m never letting

484
00:30:44,718 –> 00:30:48,514
go. Right. But the reality is you have to

485
00:30:48,552 –> 00:30:51,986
let go. You have to have the bravery, the courage to let go of

486
00:30:52,008 –> 00:30:55,906
that position, to find something else because you

487
00:30:55,928 –> 00:30:59,670
only have two hands. That’s it. That’s all you got. It’s the concept of what

488
00:30:59,740 –> 00:31:03,334
you resist, persists. Correct. Right. And if you

489
00:31:03,372 –> 00:31:07,986
just step back and let go and

490
00:31:08,028 –> 00:31:11,098
have trust that the good things will follow,

491
00:31:11,184 –> 00:31:14,630
it’s amazing what will happen. It’s a scarcity mindset

492
00:31:14,710 –> 00:31:18,026
and a fixed state mindset that puts you into a

493
00:31:18,048 –> 00:31:21,260
tyrannical and authoritarian kind of world.

494
00:31:22,590 –> 00:31:26,350
And we see this with Lear in his behavior.

495
00:31:27,330 –> 00:31:31,374
Now, there’s always usually a check on that.

496
00:31:31,572 –> 00:31:35,374
And I want to talk about the blindness

497
00:31:35,422 –> 00:31:39,460
of hierarchies because when

498
00:31:39,910 –> 00:31:44,782
well, when Lear is challenged

499
00:31:44,846 –> 00:31:48,534
a little bit in his decision making,

500
00:31:48,732 –> 00:31:52,166
he doesn’t really like that. And he kind of

501
00:31:52,188 –> 00:31:57,222
sort of pulls the old

502
00:31:57,276 –> 00:32:00,666
card of the old card, but he pulls the card of, I’m in

503
00:32:00,688 –> 00:32:04,214
charge. I get to make this decision and I get to decide

504
00:32:04,262 –> 00:32:07,834
what happens with my lands and how it’s going to go.

505
00:32:08,032 –> 00:32:11,558
And there’s a check in the court

506
00:32:11,654 –> 00:32:15,406
there and that check is as it is in our

507
00:32:15,428 –> 00:32:18,954
own society and culture. And I think this was something important that Shakespeare

508
00:32:19,002 –> 00:32:22,650
picked up on the check. Was the comedian or the fool.

509
00:32:22,810 –> 00:32:26,126
Right. The fool. Right. Fool is

510
00:32:26,148 –> 00:32:29,634
critically important psychologically. Fool is also important for

511
00:32:29,672 –> 00:32:32,770
leaders. And it’s important in order

512
00:32:32,840 –> 00:32:36,658
to wake up those who are at the top of the hierarchy with

513
00:32:36,664 –> 00:32:39,942
the all seeing eye to the fact that they might not be seeing

514
00:32:39,996 –> 00:32:44,226
all the things that they think they’re seeing. And so let’s

515
00:32:44,258 –> 00:32:47,638
start with the blindness of hierarchy. Let’s go back to King Lear a

516
00:32:47,644 –> 00:32:51,340
little bit. Let’s open up with act one, scene four.

517
00:32:52,110 –> 00:32:59,082
And this is where King Lear is

518
00:32:59,136 –> 00:33:03,890
talking to the fool. And the fool is fool’s

519
00:33:03,910 –> 00:33:07,786
poking him a little bit in his court,

520
00:33:07,818 –> 00:33:10,926
which is, by the way, the fool’s job. By the way, the modern fool is

521
00:33:10,948 –> 00:33:14,766
Dave Chappelle. That’s the modern fool. Or Chris Rock.

522
00:33:14,878 –> 00:33:18,530
Right. You keep your hands off the fool. Will Smith.

523
00:33:19,030 –> 00:33:21,650
He has a right to Joe Rogan. Or Joe Rogan.

524
00:33:22,710 –> 00:33:26,282
That’s right. He has a right to be in the court.

525
00:33:26,366 –> 00:33:27,800
You need him there.

526
00:33:29,210 –> 00:33:32,886
Act one, seed four of King Lear. Enter, fool. Fool. Let me

527
00:33:32,908 –> 00:33:36,306
hire him, too. To Kent. Here’s my coxcomb. He offers Kent

528
00:33:36,338 –> 00:33:39,650
his cap. Lear cow. Now, my pretty Dave.

529
00:33:39,730 –> 00:33:43,274
How dosted thou, fool? To Kent. Sarah your

530
00:33:43,312 –> 00:33:46,410
best bet. Take my cox comb. Lear why, my boy?

531
00:33:46,560 –> 00:33:50,714
Fool? Why? For taking one’s part that’s out of favor to

532
00:33:50,752 –> 00:33:53,514
Kent. Nay, and thou canst not smile as the. Wind.

533
00:33:53,552 –> 00:33:57,166
Sits thou little to catch a cold shortly. Here. There, take my

534
00:33:57,188 –> 00:34:00,894
coxcomb. Why, this fellow has banished two sons and daughters and

535
00:34:00,932 –> 00:34:04,538
did the third. A blessing against his will. If thou follow him, thou must knees.

536
00:34:04,554 –> 00:34:08,438
Lear my coxcomb. How now, ran uncle. Would I had two coxcombs

537
00:34:08,474 –> 00:34:11,620
and two daughters. Lear why, my boy.

538
00:34:11,990 –> 00:34:15,246
Fool if I gave them all my living, I’d keep my coxcombs

539
00:34:15,278 –> 00:34:18,690
myself. There’s mine. Beg another of thy daughters.

540
00:34:19,270 –> 00:34:22,914
Lear take heed, akira the whip. Fool truce.

541
00:34:22,962 –> 00:34:26,514
A dog musta kennel. He must be whipped out when the lady brock

542
00:34:26,562 –> 00:34:30,214
may stand by the fire and stink. Lear a pestilent gall

543
00:34:30,262 –> 00:34:33,702
to me. Fool. Sarah I’ll teach thee a speech.

544
00:34:33,766 –> 00:34:37,114
Lear do, fool. Market, uncle. Have more

545
00:34:37,152 –> 00:34:40,374
than thou ShoWest speak less than thou

546
00:34:40,422 –> 00:34:43,994
knowest, lend less than thou owest ride

547
00:34:44,042 –> 00:34:47,514
more than thou goest learn more than thou

548
00:34:47,562 –> 00:34:51,082
trowst that less than thou throwst.

549
00:34:51,226 –> 00:34:55,346
Leave thy drink and thy whore and keep in a door and

550
00:34:55,368 –> 00:34:58,834
thou shalt have more than two tens to

551
00:34:58,872 –> 00:35:02,050
a score. Kent this is nothing,

552
00:35:02,120 –> 00:35:05,662
fool. Fool Vintis, like the breath of an unfettered lawyer.

553
00:35:05,726 –> 00:35:09,166
You gave me nothing for it. You make no use of nothing, uncle.

554
00:35:09,358 –> 00:35:12,866
Lear why, no, boy. Nothing can be made out of nothing. Fool to can’t

555
00:35:12,978 –> 00:35:16,502
tell him so much the rent of his land comes to, he will not believe

556
00:35:16,556 –> 00:35:17,430
a fool.

557
00:35:19,290 –> 00:35:22,966
Lear a bitter fool. Fool DOST

558
00:35:22,998 –> 00:35:25,818
thou know the difference, my boy, between a bitter fool and a sweet one?

559
00:35:25,904 –> 00:35:29,910
Lear no, lad. Teach me. Fool that lord that counsel

560
00:35:29,990 –> 00:35:33,454
thee to give away thy land complace him here by

561
00:35:33,492 –> 00:35:36,826
me. Do thou for him to stand. The sweet

562
00:35:36,858 –> 00:35:40,346
and bitter fool will presently appear. The one in motley

563
00:35:40,378 –> 00:35:43,860
here, the other found out there.

564
00:35:44,310 –> 00:35:47,742
Lear DOST thou call me a fool,

565
00:35:47,806 –> 00:35:51,646
boy? Fool all other titles thou

566
00:35:51,678 –> 00:35:55,300
hast given away that thou was born with.

567
00:35:55,830 –> 00:35:59,886
Kent this is not altogether fool, my lord. Fool no,

568
00:35:59,928 –> 00:36:03,586
faith, lords and great men will not let me. If I had a monopoly

569
00:36:03,618 –> 00:36:07,254
out there, they would have part on it, and ladies, too. They will not have

570
00:36:07,292 –> 00:36:11,126
me. They will not let me have all the fool to myself. They’ll be

571
00:36:11,148 –> 00:36:14,534
snatching. Uncle, give me an egg, and I’ll give thee two crowns.

572
00:36:14,662 –> 00:36:17,130
Lear what two crowns shall they be?

573
00:36:17,280 –> 00:36:20,486
Fool why, after I have cut the egg in the middle eat up the meat,

574
00:36:20,518 –> 00:36:23,626
the two crowns of an egg. When thou clovest thy crown in the

575
00:36:23,648 –> 00:36:27,226
middle and gaveest away both parts thou bourse thine ass on thy

576
00:36:27,258 –> 00:36:30,394
back or the dirt thou hast little wit in thy bald crown

577
00:36:30,442 –> 00:36:34,094
when thou gayest. The golden one, away. If I speak like myself in this,

578
00:36:34,132 –> 00:36:37,554
let him be whipped that first finds it. Fools hath never less

579
00:36:37,592 –> 00:36:41,426
grace in a year for wise men are grown foppish and know not how

580
00:36:41,448 –> 00:36:44,690
their wits to wear their manners are so epish.

581
00:36:45,110 –> 00:36:48,286
Lear when were you want to be full

582
00:36:48,328 –> 00:36:51,702
of sons? Sarah fool, I have used an uncle ever since

583
00:36:51,756 –> 00:36:55,106
thou mast thy daughters, thy mothers. For when thou gavest

584
00:36:55,138 –> 00:36:58,898
him the rod and puttest down thine own breeches he Sings

585
00:36:58,994 –> 00:37:02,794
then they for sudden joy did weep and I for sorrow sung that

586
00:37:02,832 –> 00:37:07,206
such a king should play Bo Peep and go the fools among rithy

587
00:37:07,238 –> 00:37:10,598
nuncle, keep a schoolmaster that could teach thy fool to lie.

588
00:37:10,694 –> 00:37:12,830
I would fain to learn to lie.

589
00:37:14,130 –> 00:37:17,146
Lear and you lie. Sarah will have you whipped.

590
00:37:17,338 –> 00:37:20,762
Fool. I marvel what king thou and thy daughters

591
00:37:20,826 –> 00:37:24,206
are. They’ll have me whipped for speaking true. They’ll have

592
00:37:24,228 –> 00:37:27,950
me whipped for lying. And sometimes I am whipped for holding peace.

593
00:37:28,110 –> 00:37:31,330
I’d rather be any kind of king other than a fool. And yet

594
00:37:31,400 –> 00:37:35,026
I would not be thee, uncle. Thou hast pard thy wit on

595
00:37:35,048 –> 00:37:37,000
both sides and left nothing in the middle.

596
00:37:38,730 –> 00:37:42,086
Here comes one of the pairings. Enter.

597
00:37:42,188 –> 00:37:45,654
Gonerill. Lear hey, now,

598
00:37:45,692 –> 00:37:49,062
my daughter, what makes that frontland on me? Thinks you are too much

599
00:37:49,116 –> 00:37:50,710
late in thy frown,

600
00:37:52,170 –> 00:37:55,466
fool. That was a pretty fellow without hast no need to care for her

601
00:37:55,488 –> 00:37:58,794
frowning. Now thou art without a figure. I am better than thou art.

602
00:37:58,832 –> 00:38:02,042
Now I am a fool. Thou art nothing to Gorill. Yes,

603
00:38:02,096 –> 00:38:05,342
for sooth I will hold my tongue. See, your face bids me,

604
00:38:05,396 –> 00:38:08,346
though you say nothing. Mum, mum. Neither keeps, nor crust,

605
00:38:08,378 –> 00:38:11,120
nor crumb, weary of all, shall want some.

606
00:38:12,130 –> 00:38:15,294
He points at lear. That’s a

607
00:38:15,332 –> 00:38:19,590
shell. Peace. God not only serves

608
00:38:19,690 –> 00:38:22,302
this you’re all licensed fool,

609
00:38:22,446 –> 00:38:26,046
but other of your insolent retinue do hourly carpet

610
00:38:26,078 –> 00:38:29,410
quarrel, breaking forth in rank and not to be endured riots.

611
00:38:29,490 –> 00:38:32,886
Sir. I had thought by making this well known unto you to have found a

612
00:38:32,908 –> 00:38:37,334
safe redress but now grow fearful by what yourself who

613
00:38:37,372 –> 00:38:40,422
late have spoken and done that you protect this course

614
00:38:40,476 –> 00:38:43,546
and put it on by. Your allowance, which if you should the fault would not

615
00:38:43,568 –> 00:38:47,642
escape censure nor the redress sleep which in the tender of a wholesome wheel might

616
00:38:47,696 –> 00:38:51,114
in their working do you that offense which else were

617
00:38:51,152 –> 00:38:55,450
shame that then necessity will call discreet proceeding.

618
00:38:55,790 –> 00:38:59,754
Fool. For you know, nuncle, the hedge sparrow feed the cuckoo

619
00:38:59,802 –> 00:39:02,446
so long that it’s had its head bit off by it.

620
00:39:02,468 –> 00:39:06,194
Young so without the candle, and we

621
00:39:06,232 –> 00:39:08,450
were left darkling.

622
00:39:11,930 –> 00:39:13,960
Now, granted, there’s a lot there.

623
00:39:15,850 –> 00:39:18,778
It took me a couple of readings of that to kind of grab what the

624
00:39:18,784 –> 00:39:22,060
fool was doing. But there’s a couple of things there.

625
00:39:23,550 –> 00:39:28,266
Well, the biggest thing, I think if

626
00:39:28,288 –> 00:39:29,580
you look at act one,

627
00:39:33,090 –> 00:39:34,400
scene four,

628
00:39:37,170 –> 00:39:41,600
the biggest thing there is this idea.

629
00:39:42,390 –> 00:39:46,162
And you get it with Lear first,

630
00:39:46,216 –> 00:39:50,530
but then with Glauster later of blindness.

631
00:39:51,590 –> 00:39:55,798
And the fool is trying to point out something because the

632
00:39:55,804 –> 00:39:59,126
fool is the one who can see, the fool is the

633
00:39:59,148 –> 00:40:03,240
one who can observe. The fool is the one who

634
00:40:04,010 –> 00:40:07,782
can well successfully

635
00:40:07,846 –> 00:40:11,980
point out when the king has no

636
00:40:12,750 –> 00:40:13,690
clothes.

637
00:40:15,790 –> 00:40:19,546
The Earl Gloucester loses his eye in act three, scene seven. You may

638
00:40:19,568 –> 00:40:21,386
want to go back and take a look at that. We’re not going to read

639
00:40:21,408 –> 00:40:25,574
the whole play today, as usual. And I always say that the Fogo Shakespeare

640
00:40:25,622 –> 00:40:29,146
Library is a great library version of Shakespeare is a great version to pick

641
00:40:29,168 –> 00:40:32,018
up. And of course, we cannot read the whole play, so we’re dipping in it

642
00:40:32,024 –> 00:40:35,554
out. We’re making our points, but go back and read it. The earl loses his

643
00:40:35,592 –> 00:40:39,138
eye in act three, scene seven, which put me in mind as I

644
00:40:39,144 –> 00:40:42,914
was reading also what the fool was talking about here

645
00:40:42,952 –> 00:40:46,934
and trying to get in Lear to open up both of his eyes.

646
00:40:47,132 –> 00:40:50,790
I was put in mind of the blind Oedipus at Colonus

647
00:40:51,130 –> 00:40:54,118
by Sophocles. And in that play,

648
00:40:54,204 –> 00:40:57,526
one of my personal favorites, part of the triumvirant of

649
00:40:57,548 –> 00:41:01,034
Sophocles plays about Oedipus, the man who killed his own

650
00:41:01,072 –> 00:41:05,126
father and, well, married his own mother and forgot

651
00:41:05,158 –> 00:41:08,214
the riddle of the Sphinx. Oedipus at Colonus,

652
00:41:08,262 –> 00:41:11,514
when he’s blind, he asks the chorus, men of Colonus,

653
00:41:11,562 –> 00:41:15,402
how was I innately evil? Or other translations,

654
00:41:15,466 –> 00:41:18,270
men of Colonus, how was I evil?

655
00:41:20,770 –> 00:41:24,306
Lear, in his interactions with the fool, actually doesn’t understand

656
00:41:24,408 –> 00:41:28,578
how he’s evil. He doesn’t understand how he’s missing it.

657
00:41:28,744 –> 00:41:32,686
He doesn’t see what the fool sees. He’s beginning

658
00:41:32,718 –> 00:41:36,018
the psychological blindness that will eventually wind up in physical

659
00:41:36,114 –> 00:41:38,920
blindness at the end of the play.

660
00:41:40,650 –> 00:41:44,214
There’s also something here about the Western eye that is

661
00:41:44,332 –> 00:41:47,606
very important for us to point out, for me to point out to you and

662
00:41:47,628 –> 00:41:51,542
for us to note as leaders. If you look through Western literature,

663
00:41:51,686 –> 00:41:55,606
the eye is dominant, particularly in Western art forms,

664
00:41:55,638 –> 00:41:59,366
almost all Western art forms going back to Egypt, but really hyper dominant

665
00:41:59,398 –> 00:42:03,518
in Western literature. So it’s not just a blind Oedipus at Colonus or

666
00:42:03,604 –> 00:42:08,010
the all seeing eye in an Egyptian hieroglyphic.

667
00:42:08,090 –> 00:42:11,242
It’s also that the top of Sauron’s tower in Lord of the Rings,

668
00:42:11,306 –> 00:42:14,526
there’s an all seeing eye. And, of course, in the myth

669
00:42:14,558 –> 00:42:18,610
of Osiris, the god is depicted as a disembodied eye.

670
00:42:18,950 –> 00:42:22,882
And, of course, the Western view of art, we always say

671
00:42:23,016 –> 00:42:26,870
that we are affixing a piece of art with our gaze.

672
00:42:28,330 –> 00:42:31,446
There’s something fundamental here in the west. It’s not in

673
00:42:31,468 –> 00:42:35,154
the east. And King Lear Shakespeare is grabbing

674
00:42:35,202 –> 00:42:38,886
onto this, right? He’s grabbing onto

675
00:42:38,918 –> 00:42:43,018
this idea that Cole calculating and

676
00:42:43,184 –> 00:42:46,682
scientific realism represented by a guy

677
00:42:46,736 –> 00:42:49,660
like Edmund, and we’ll talk a little bit about Edmund later on.

678
00:42:52,110 –> 00:42:53,740
It’s not seeing enough.

679
00:42:55,310 –> 00:43:00,362
And that Lear’s ultimate sin might

680
00:43:00,416 –> 00:43:03,714
be that he didn’t recognize that the higher up

681
00:43:03,752 –> 00:43:07,486
you go in a hierarchy, the blinder and more fragile

682
00:43:07,598 –> 00:43:08,500
you become.

683
00:43:11,710 –> 00:43:14,540
A lot of different threads and thoughts in that.

684
00:43:14,910 –> 00:43:18,346
But let me close with this. I got to

685
00:43:18,368 –> 00:43:21,466
admit, and I’m going to go on record about this, and I’ve never gone on

686
00:43:21,488 –> 00:43:24,518
record about this before on the podcast, so this will be a first. I don’t

687
00:43:24,534 –> 00:43:27,034
know why I feel compelled to go on record about this now, but I do.

688
00:43:27,072 –> 00:43:31,262
So I’m going to go with it. It I’m not gigantically

689
00:43:31,326 –> 00:43:33,140
worried about one world government.

690
00:43:35,030 –> 00:43:38,258
Don’t get me wrong. Guys like Klaus Schwab and the

691
00:43:38,264 –> 00:43:41,506
World Economic Forum the people who believe they are the masters

692
00:43:41,538 –> 00:43:46,146
of the universe, the people who are in governmental

693
00:43:46,178 –> 00:43:49,766
bureaucracies behaving with corporations in a fascistic manner all

694
00:43:49,788 –> 00:43:53,606
over the globe manipulating currencies and

695
00:43:53,788 –> 00:43:57,100
doing things in the dark that should not be spoken of in the light.

696
00:43:57,710 –> 00:44:01,466
Don’t get me wrong. Those are folks to pay attention to and

697
00:44:01,568 –> 00:44:04,938
those are things to be worried about. I’m not naive nor am I

698
00:44:04,944 –> 00:44:08,846
stupid to those dangers and they should be battled at every step of the

699
00:44:08,868 –> 00:44:12,910
way. But I don’t think

700
00:44:13,060 –> 00:44:16,814
it’s going to work because the

701
00:44:16,852 –> 00:44:21,134
eye becomes blind the higher up the tower

702
00:44:21,262 –> 00:44:24,978
it goes. How exactly

703
00:44:25,144 –> 00:44:28,820
are you going to control 9 billion people?

704
00:44:30,650 –> 00:44:33,400
Actually I have even more important question than that.

705
00:44:34,250 –> 00:44:40,134
If you can’t even control a nation state of 2 million or

706
00:44:40,172 –> 00:44:44,042
a locality of 50,000 or

707
00:44:44,096 –> 00:44:45,740
a tribe of 500,

708
00:44:47,230 –> 00:44:50,986
when you go to scale the arrogance and hubris that you will

709
00:44:51,008 –> 00:44:55,162
be able to control whether through electronic, economic or

710
00:44:55,216 –> 00:44:58,554
psychological means falls apart. This is why

711
00:44:58,592 –> 00:45:01,278
I’m not worried about one world government and don’t get me wrong I used to

712
00:45:01,284 –> 00:45:05,934
be very worried about it and now not so much because

713
00:45:05,972 –> 00:45:09,410
of the fragility of that all seeing eye.

714
00:45:13,030 –> 00:45:16,866
Anyway, leaders what

715
00:45:16,888 –> 00:45:20,818
can leaders take from this? How do leaders keep their sight Libby? How do

716
00:45:20,824 –> 00:45:25,650
they how do they maintain vision?

717
00:45:26,310 –> 00:45:29,446
And by the way, what’s the role and a sub question what’s the

718
00:45:29,468 –> 00:45:33,750
role of the fool in the court of the CEO

719
00:45:35,230 –> 00:45:39,130
these days? Particularly when we’re all doing de and I and

720
00:45:39,200 –> 00:45:40,940
trying to sanitize everything?

721
00:45:44,030 –> 00:45:47,200
Yeah, these are all really good questions.

722
00:45:49,890 –> 00:45:53,630
I’m inclined to speak to somewhat to

723
00:45:53,780 –> 00:45:59,198
what you went on record about and you

724
00:45:59,204 –> 00:46:02,386
got to know what’s out there and what’s a possibility. But I

725
00:46:02,408 –> 00:46:06,098
do have broader faith in in the people and all

726
00:46:06,184 –> 00:46:10,340
empires fall for the same reasons and it’s because

727
00:46:11,350 –> 00:46:15,234
they believe they’ve become too removed from

728
00:46:15,432 –> 00:46:19,414
the the individuals. They’ve become too removed from

729
00:46:19,612 –> 00:46:21,160
where they came from.

730
00:46:22,810 –> 00:46:28,490
I find that the CEOs who actually walk

731
00:46:28,560 –> 00:46:32,058
the halls and talk to the common man are much more

732
00:46:32,224 –> 00:46:36,078
in tune to are going to build

733
00:46:36,244 –> 00:46:40,014
better enduring companies than

734
00:46:40,052 –> 00:46:42,960
those who come in and believe they know it all.

735
00:46:43,410 –> 00:46:46,494
I have a good example of that. I won’t go into it.

736
00:46:46,532 –> 00:46:49,934
But one company the CEO shortly

737
00:46:49,982 –> 00:46:53,634
did three years after he took office he was

738
00:46:53,672 –> 00:46:57,042
kicked out due to an internal scandal and the other built

739
00:46:57,176 –> 00:47:01,990
a business that grew and grew and grew above market

740
00:47:02,060 –> 00:47:05,154
rates. So never lose

741
00:47:05,282 –> 00:47:08,614
touch with the common man and never forget where you

742
00:47:08,652 –> 00:47:13,006
came from. One of the things that I wrote down when preparing

743
00:47:13,058 –> 00:47:17,302
for this is again those executives

744
00:47:17,366 –> 00:47:20,966
who once they’re in executive positions tell you that title doesn’t

745
00:47:20,998 –> 00:47:24,874
matter. They’re never willing to give

746
00:47:24,912 –> 00:47:26,320
it up right.

747
00:47:28,210 –> 00:47:31,534
And to remember where you came from,

748
00:47:31,652 –> 00:47:34,894
to always challenge your assumptions and

749
00:47:34,932 –> 00:47:38,786
your intentions. It’s really important. What is

750
00:47:38,808 –> 00:47:42,500
my intention in making this decision and making this move?

751
00:47:44,310 –> 00:47:47,780
Am I working for me or am I working for we

752
00:47:49,510 –> 00:47:53,270
and creating that mindset around a servant leadership

753
00:47:54,650 –> 00:47:58,054
where you’re actually helping build conditions for everyone to

754
00:47:58,092 –> 00:48:01,682
thrive versus conditions for me to survive.

755
00:48:01,826 –> 00:48:06,140
Right? But all empires fall

756
00:48:07,710 –> 00:48:10,806
when you don’t have truth tellers at the table.

757
00:48:10,918 –> 00:48:14,634
The fool was the obvious one. But there is one theme that

758
00:48:14,672 –> 00:48:18,800
is really powerful, is that the good hide themselves.

759
00:48:19,730 –> 00:48:23,242
They put on disguises. Kent and Edgar

760
00:48:23,386 –> 00:48:26,974
both disguise themselves in order to try

761
00:48:27,012 –> 00:48:29,150
to save the king from himself,

762
00:48:30,290 –> 00:48:34,194
or Edgar tries to save Glauster from

763
00:48:34,232 –> 00:48:38,642
himself. Both were willing to forgive and

764
00:48:38,696 –> 00:48:42,758
move on. Edgar, his father. In his

765
00:48:42,924 –> 00:48:46,994
final moments, Edgar forgives his father for turning

766
00:48:47,042 –> 00:48:50,760
against him for a lie that he had believed was true.

767
00:48:51,450 –> 00:48:54,778
So good oys prevails even those

768
00:48:54,864 –> 00:48:57,690
who appear to have bad intentions, like Albany,

769
00:48:58,430 –> 00:49:02,950
he ultimately ends up doing the right thing. He checked himself.

770
00:49:03,110 –> 00:49:06,302
So even if you find yourself doing the wrong thing

771
00:49:06,356 –> 00:49:09,882
in a moment, be vigilant

772
00:49:09,946 –> 00:49:13,214
about doing a ruthless inventory of yourself and

773
00:49:13,252 –> 00:49:16,634
catch yourself and change. And that’s what Albany

774
00:49:16,682 –> 00:49:21,054
did well in. Edmunds, a really interesting case

775
00:49:21,092 –> 00:49:25,198
study, too, because I kind of circled

776
00:49:25,214 –> 00:49:28,386
it and I wasn’t quite sure we were going to cover it because it’s not

777
00:49:28,408 –> 00:49:31,458
covered in any of the sections that were multiply minorly touched on in any of

778
00:49:31,464 –> 00:49:35,590
the sections we’re going to read today. But Edmund is a critical character because Edmund

779
00:49:36,730 –> 00:49:41,110
pushes the narrative forward through his actions and through

780
00:49:41,260 –> 00:49:44,886
his deceit. And there’s a great line

781
00:49:45,068 –> 00:49:48,518
we’re going to cover Othello coming up here very soon on the podcast, but there’s

782
00:49:48,534 –> 00:49:51,974
a great line in Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion,

783
00:49:52,102 –> 00:49:57,034
where she says where she writes through

784
00:49:57,072 –> 00:50:00,462
one of her characters voices in that novel. People often

785
00:50:00,516 –> 00:50:03,790
ask, what makes yago evil? I don’t ask anymore.

786
00:50:04,690 –> 00:50:08,346
And that’s a really interesting that’s worthy

787
00:50:08,378 –> 00:50:11,666
of pulling apart in the context of Othello. But in

788
00:50:11,688 –> 00:50:15,266
reading King Lear, people will ask, what makes Ed medieval? And I

789
00:50:15,288 –> 00:50:18,674
don’t ask that, not after looking around in our

790
00:50:18,712 –> 00:50:23,010
time. We don’t talk about illegitimacy

791
00:50:23,170 –> 00:50:26,758
in the kinds of ways that it was framed in King Lear.

792
00:50:26,924 –> 00:50:30,422
And that would read to our modern years as just

793
00:50:30,476 –> 00:50:34,210
being ridiculous and an anachronism. Right. Who cares if he’s a

794
00:50:34,220 –> 00:50:38,122
bastard child? Who cares if he’s illegitimate? But that

795
00:50:38,176 –> 00:50:41,820
actually means something. And this is something fundamental to like,

796
00:50:42,270 –> 00:50:46,010
again, it’s something fundamental to reality, the things that we’re talking about today,

797
00:50:46,080 –> 00:50:49,070
right? Things that are fundamental to human nature.

798
00:50:49,810 –> 00:50:53,870
It’s interesting, this Sunday you talk about going to church this Sunday in my church,

799
00:50:54,370 –> 00:50:58,080
one of the pastors was talking about how we pay it.

800
00:50:58,390 –> 00:51:01,262
God pays attention if you read the Bible carefully.

801
00:51:01,406 –> 00:51:04,994
God pays attention to the

802
00:51:05,032 –> 00:51:09,214
widows and the fatherless, right? And the foreigners, the sojourners,

803
00:51:09,262 –> 00:51:12,878
right. The people that in our modern society,

804
00:51:12,974 –> 00:51:16,390
based on our smartphones and our digital access, we don’t pay attention to.

805
00:51:16,460 –> 00:51:19,526
Right. Or if we do, we try to throw money at the problem and then

806
00:51:19,548 –> 00:51:23,014
run away. Right. And he says that if

807
00:51:23,052 –> 00:51:26,358
we want to behave like Christians, basically this is his point. We need to be

808
00:51:26,364 –> 00:51:29,594
paying attention to things that God pays attention to and ignoring the things that God

809
00:51:29,632 –> 00:51:32,986
ignores. Okay. And by the way, Jesus also in the New

810
00:51:33,008 –> 00:51:36,822
Testament. Throughout the New Testament, right. Helping widows,

811
00:51:36,886 –> 00:51:40,286
helping orphans, helping the fatherless chastising the

812
00:51:40,308 –> 00:51:44,590
rich, particularly the rich young ruler. The story of the rich young ruler who

813
00:51:44,660 –> 00:51:47,866
couldn’t give away everything and follow him. Talk about the CEO

814
00:51:47,898 –> 00:51:49,620
who couldn’t give up his title. Right.

815
00:51:51,590 –> 00:51:54,882
There’s a thread through Western thought here, right.

816
00:51:55,016 –> 00:51:58,402
And it runs through Edmund as well. And it’s this

817
00:51:58,456 –> 00:52:02,066
idea that if you don’t pay attention,

818
00:52:02,178 –> 00:52:06,022
this is part of that blindness to the fatherless in

819
00:52:06,076 –> 00:52:09,734
particular, you are

820
00:52:09,772 –> 00:52:12,920
sowing the seeds of your own destruction. Yeah,

821
00:52:13,690 –> 00:52:17,578
I actually kind of see this a different way and

822
00:52:17,664 –> 00:52:21,514
can make it a modern analogy. Going back

823
00:52:21,552 –> 00:52:24,714
to what Oprah said about the fact that we all want to be seen.

824
00:52:24,912 –> 00:52:28,714
Yeah. Edmund wasn’t seen.

825
00:52:28,832 –> 00:52:32,666
Now, he wasn’t seen during that time by his father because he was illegitimate,

826
00:52:32,778 –> 00:52:36,586
but it could have been he was the youngest child, and his father just didn’t

827
00:52:36,618 –> 00:52:40,350
spend time with him either. Right. And because he wasn’t

828
00:52:40,430 –> 00:52:44,610
seen, he had two choices to make. One was

829
00:52:44,680 –> 00:52:48,498
to seek revenge on that who did not see him,

830
00:52:48,664 –> 00:52:52,420
and the other was to go and live a fruitful life

831
00:52:53,030 –> 00:52:57,062
and create opportunities for himself. The same

832
00:52:57,116 –> 00:53:00,630
is, like, gone. Auroral versus Cordelia.

833
00:53:01,290 –> 00:53:04,406
Gonerrell has a choice to either.

834
00:53:04,588 –> 00:53:07,754
She decides to act out of fear and she

835
00:53:07,792 –> 00:53:11,894
says this to her husband, is, I would rather be wrong acting

836
00:53:11,942 –> 00:53:15,260
out of fear than to be wrong acting out of trust.

837
00:53:15,890 –> 00:53:19,262
So she chose to turn against

838
00:53:19,316 –> 00:53:22,574
her father because she anticipated how he would

839
00:53:22,612 –> 00:53:26,558
behave, whereas Cordelia chose to do the right thing

840
00:53:26,724 –> 00:53:30,114
for her and lived to her true values and lived a

841
00:53:30,152 –> 00:53:34,430
good life. She wasn’t

842
00:53:34,510 –> 00:53:38,290
seen, and she chose a good path,

843
00:53:39,590 –> 00:53:42,962
and Edmund wasn’t seen, and he chose

844
00:53:43,106 –> 00:53:44,870
a vengeful path.

845
00:53:47,130 –> 00:53:50,914
Ultimately, it’s about recognizing

846
00:53:50,962 –> 00:53:54,742
human nature, and everyone has two choice points.

847
00:53:54,876 –> 00:53:58,586
You can play a victim and seek revenge, or you

848
00:53:58,608 –> 00:54:01,706
can say, I own my destiny and I’m going to create

849
00:54:01,808 –> 00:54:05,066
a life for myself. Okay. So I’m going to push back a little

850
00:54:05,088 –> 00:54:08,014
bit on that from the opposite end. A little bit. Okay.

851
00:54:08,052 –> 00:54:11,214
Yeah, great. I don’t want to be a

852
00:54:11,252 –> 00:54:15,520
sucker. Well, if I’m 20

853
00:54:16,210 –> 00:54:25,314
and I’ve grown up in this world and I

854
00:54:25,352 –> 00:54:29,266
share the same things as youth from other times, it’s not any different.

855
00:54:29,448 –> 00:54:32,680
I distrust my elders. I can fix everything.

856
00:54:33,210 –> 00:54:35,880
I can’t even make my own bed, but I can fix the world.

857
00:54:39,210 –> 00:54:42,280
I can get riled up about the injustices of the world.

858
00:54:44,170 –> 00:54:47,942
Whatever the activist du jour ideology of the moment is,

859
00:54:47,996 –> 00:54:51,386
I can go and run to that because that’s the great adventure, right?

860
00:54:51,408 –> 00:54:53,706
Because I want to have a great adventure because I’m 20. I want to have

861
00:54:53,728 –> 00:54:57,546
a great adventure. Right. Everybody at 20 wants to have a great adventure. You’re no

862
00:54:57,568 –> 00:55:00,078
different than any other 20 year old, but okay, you think you are because you

863
00:55:00,084 –> 00:55:02,766
have a mobile phone. Cool. All right. So you’re going to go off and have

864
00:55:02,788 –> 00:55:06,334
your great adventure. But in the process of having that great

865
00:55:06,372 –> 00:55:09,886
adventure, I’m also because I’ve been exposed to all of this

866
00:55:09,908 –> 00:55:13,270
stuff, I have a deep well of cynicism, a deep

867
00:55:13,290 –> 00:55:16,286
well of cynicism inside of me. And so I don’t want to be a sucker.

868
00:55:16,398 –> 00:55:19,394
So there’s this tension, right. I don’t want to be taken advantage of.

869
00:55:19,432 –> 00:55:23,560
Right. And you talked about it’s interesting. You talked about how in the past

870
00:55:24,890 –> 00:55:28,422
you got rapid, real feedback, right? Because the gaps between

871
00:55:28,476 –> 00:55:31,794
distance, perception and reality were closed, were tighter.

872
00:55:31,842 –> 00:55:35,334
Maybe now the distance between perception and reality

873
00:55:35,382 –> 00:55:38,934
is more broad. Right. And the feedback

874
00:55:38,982 –> 00:55:42,294
is not rapid, and it’s very much not bona fide,

875
00:55:42,342 –> 00:55:46,010
as they would say down here where I live, bona fide.

876
00:55:48,030 –> 00:55:51,902
It ain’t the real thing. And so now I’m operating in this well of

877
00:55:51,956 –> 00:55:55,626
just nonsense, right? And I’m 20, and fundamentally,

878
00:55:55,658 –> 00:55:58,158
at the end of the day, I want to have hope. I want to have

879
00:55:58,164 –> 00:56:00,770
a great adventure, and I don’t want to be a sucker.

880
00:56:01,990 –> 00:56:06,386
Well, so this is where not

881
00:56:06,408 –> 00:56:09,426
gone. Real, but cordelia doesn’t read well to me.

882
00:56:09,608 –> 00:56:11,858
I’m either going to be gone real or I’m going to be Edmund. I’m going

883
00:56:11,864 –> 00:56:15,254
to pick one of those two. That’s really interesting.

884
00:56:15,372 –> 00:56:17,894
I would be cordelia. Okay.

885
00:56:18,012 –> 00:56:21,366
Right. And I just know that about who I am because I have to live

886
00:56:21,388 –> 00:56:24,566
with myself. Right? Well, and that idea of living with

887
00:56:24,588 –> 00:56:28,150
yourself so you have to be willing. To walk away,

888
00:56:28,300 –> 00:56:32,362
right? Right. I wonder if it’s easier to be Cordelia when

889
00:56:32,416 –> 00:56:36,060
you’re 40 than it is to be Cordelia when you’re 20.

890
00:56:36,450 –> 00:56:37,520
I don’t know.

891
00:56:41,090 –> 00:56:45,182
I have an analogy that I use from third

892
00:56:45,236 –> 00:56:48,726
grade. I’m friends with everyone, and I belong

893
00:56:48,778 –> 00:56:52,530
to nothing. I actually really love learning

894
00:56:52,600 –> 00:56:55,698
from all types of people. I belong to all different types of group, but I

895
00:56:55,704 –> 00:56:59,220
don’t identify myself as a group. Sure.

896
00:56:59,670 –> 00:57:02,982
And one of the reasons I remember when I was in third

897
00:57:03,036 –> 00:57:06,600
grade and I was part of the cool

898
00:57:07,210 –> 00:57:10,994
club, friends with one of the Broncos

899
00:57:11,042 –> 00:57:14,506
kids, and we were really cool,

900
00:57:14,608 –> 00:57:19,146
and everyone wanted to hang out with us. And I

901
00:57:19,248 –> 00:57:22,666
bullied my best friend from two years old

902
00:57:22,848 –> 00:57:26,430
because she wasn’t cool enough. And I still feel

903
00:57:26,500 –> 00:57:30,494
that ick in my body. And I

904
00:57:30,532 –> 00:57:34,958
knew at that moment that belonging was never important

905
00:57:35,044 –> 00:57:37,760
enough to holding true to who I am.

906
00:57:42,310 –> 00:57:44,420
The ins don’t justify the means.

907
00:57:46,550 –> 00:57:50,260
And so this concept around you need to live with yourself

908
00:57:51,670 –> 00:57:55,622
is really important. It doesn’t mean that I othered the cool kids,

909
00:57:55,676 –> 00:57:59,126
I was still friends with them, but I

910
00:57:59,148 –> 00:58:03,030
would not bully, I would not subscribe to all of their behaviors.

911
00:58:03,710 –> 00:58:07,546
But you also see what you want

912
00:58:07,728 –> 00:58:11,802
to see. So if you only believe that

913
00:58:11,856 –> 00:58:16,426
there’s one path, like anger and activism,

914
00:58:16,618 –> 00:58:20,094
or there are role models everywhere that

915
00:58:20,132 –> 00:58:24,000
disprove a belief system that you have,

916
00:58:28,790 –> 00:58:31,938
it requires flexibility and a willingness to go against

917
00:58:32,024 –> 00:58:34,500
the grain and not by.

918
00:58:35,830 –> 00:58:39,438
There’s such an innate human instinct

919
00:58:39,534 –> 00:58:42,130
for us to label ourselves.

920
00:58:42,810 –> 00:58:46,214
Because if we label ourselves, we provide ourselves with

921
00:58:46,252 –> 00:58:49,510
certainty around who we are and how we should act. And then

922
00:58:49,580 –> 00:58:52,774
others are certain with how they will

923
00:58:52,812 –> 00:58:57,226
respond to us and react. And one

924
00:58:57,248 –> 00:59:00,554
of the things with age that is terrific is that you start

925
00:59:00,592 –> 00:59:05,114
to see that there is really no one path to

926
00:59:05,152 –> 00:59:08,926
happiness. And when you start trying on different hats, like one thing may fit the

927
00:59:08,948 –> 00:59:13,162
other, doesn’t king willing to flex

928
00:59:13,306 –> 00:59:17,440
and never being certain that only one path is right.

929
00:59:18,130 –> 00:59:21,242
And that’s one of the challenges that I see in youth,

930
00:59:21,386 –> 00:59:24,338
is that they need like, I need to go to this school because it’s going

931
00:59:24,344 –> 00:59:27,634
to give me the path to this. It’s going to be the path to

932
00:59:27,672 –> 00:59:31,234
happiness, or this job is going to be the path to happiness. But when

933
00:59:31,272 –> 00:59:35,206
you look at the people who have been successful, some people who

934
00:59:35,228 –> 00:59:38,694
are happy and successful did take one path, but there is

935
00:59:38,732 –> 00:59:42,310
an exception to every rule. Oh, yeah. And so being

936
00:59:42,380 –> 00:59:45,866
flexible, I always say I’m not someone who’s going to find a wall

937
00:59:45,968 –> 00:59:49,622
and stop. I’m going to find a crack,

938
00:59:49,686 –> 00:59:53,322
I’m going to find a crack, I’m going to dig under it, jump over it,

939
00:59:53,376 –> 00:59:57,214
find another way. But knowing who you are

940
00:59:57,252 –> 01:00:00,622
and what matters to you has

941
01:00:00,676 –> 01:00:04,346
got to be that inner

942
01:00:04,378 –> 01:00:05,680
pool and drive.

943
01:00:07,890 –> 01:00:11,840
And understanding tribal instincts is really

944
01:00:12,210 –> 01:00:12,960
important.

945
01:00:16,710 –> 01:00:20,354
Like the Stanford Prison Experiment. It’s really important

946
01:00:20,472 –> 01:00:24,566
to say, if I were alone and

947
01:00:24,588 –> 01:00:28,006
not seeking to belong, how would I act? And as part

948
01:00:28,028 –> 01:00:31,714
of the tribe, how am I acting? Well, and this is the challenge.

949
01:00:31,762 –> 01:00:35,774
So we read Gulag Archipelago on the podcast

950
01:00:35,842 –> 01:00:39,686
last year, and we’re going to revisit Gulag Archipelago

951
01:00:39,718 –> 01:00:43,386
not this year, but next year. We’ll revisit that because there’s some other

952
01:00:43,408 –> 01:00:47,226
things that we need to pull from that text that

953
01:00:47,248 –> 01:00:51,070
are critical for our time. We’re also going to be reading

954
01:00:51,570 –> 01:00:55,146
a couple of other heavy books this year. So we’re reading Eli Weisel’s

955
01:00:55,178 –> 01:00:58,606
Knight, and we’re also going to be reading The Power of the Powerless by

956
01:00:58,628 –> 01:01:01,874
Voklov Hovel. And again,

957
01:01:01,912 –> 01:01:06,094
there’s a thread that goes through all three of those, right? From Gulag Archipelago

958
01:01:06,142 –> 01:01:10,542
through Eli Weisel, through Voklov Hovel and even Victor Frankel

959
01:01:10,686 –> 01:01:14,486
man’s search for meaning. Right? There’s some ideas. There’s an idea that goes

960
01:01:14,508 –> 01:01:16,280
through this, and the idea is that,

961
01:01:19,850 –> 01:01:20,600
um,

962
01:01:23,770 –> 01:01:27,740
you can be the worst tyrant you could be as a tyrant to yourself.

963
01:01:28,670 –> 01:01:32,490
But you don’t know that when you’re 20, right? That’s right.

964
01:01:32,640 –> 01:01:35,420
You have no clue about that when you’re 20.

965
01:01:37,010 –> 01:01:41,262
And when you lock yourself up into

966
01:01:41,316 –> 01:01:44,202
a tyranny that is totalizing,

967
01:01:44,266 –> 01:01:46,750
thus it is a totalitarian tyranny.

968
01:01:47,250 –> 01:01:50,898
Whether that is a totalitarian tyranny pursuing a job

969
01:01:50,984 –> 01:01:55,614
or a life that you think other people will appreciate

970
01:01:55,662 –> 01:01:59,026
and will give you status, or whether it’s pursuing some form

971
01:01:59,048 –> 01:02:02,754
of activism to change society even though your

972
01:02:02,792 –> 01:02:06,126
own household might be a mess. Exactly.

973
01:02:06,248 –> 01:02:10,166
Whatever the totalizing tyrannical thing is that

974
01:02:10,188 –> 01:02:12,120
you are in the grasp of,

975
01:02:14,350 –> 01:02:17,530
you’re going to wind up metaphorically

976
01:02:18,830 –> 01:02:22,806
behind barbed wire, you’re going to wind up behind barbed

977
01:02:22,838 –> 01:02:25,420
wire, you’re going to wind up in a problem.

978
01:02:26,350 –> 01:02:29,534
And I think what

979
01:02:29,572 –> 01:02:33,402
troubles me deeply is I think leaders are missing

980
01:02:33,466 –> 01:02:36,926
and have been missing for a while, although maybe they’re starting to

981
01:02:36,948 –> 01:02:40,686
wake up. But I think leaders have been missing the opportunity to

982
01:02:40,788 –> 01:02:44,650
state this as baldly as possible at the lowest possible

983
01:02:44,740 –> 01:02:48,254
level. So I think about the kinds of people listen to our podcast

984
01:02:48,302 –> 01:02:50,226
and the kinds of people listen to our podcast tend to be, and I said

985
01:02:50,248 –> 01:02:52,974
this before when we were doing Road to serve them, they tend to be community

986
01:02:53,032 –> 01:02:56,198
leaders, right? They tend to be people who are local to the community,

987
01:02:56,364 –> 01:02:59,910
local to where I live, a little bit more national, too, a little bit

988
01:02:59,980 –> 01:03:02,840
more national focus, business,

989
01:03:03,290 –> 01:03:06,540
government, religion, those kinds of areas, right?

990
01:03:06,990 –> 01:03:10,506
People who are thinking deeply about these connections, right, in a wide variety of

991
01:03:10,528 –> 01:03:13,706
different spaces, and the greatest possible spot they

992
01:03:13,728 –> 01:03:17,214
have to influence people is directly where

993
01:03:17,252 –> 01:03:18,320
they are at.

994
01:03:23,250 –> 01:03:26,320
And yet there can be totalitarianism there.

995
01:03:26,850 –> 01:03:30,114
There can be a totalizing idea there that, by the way, they may

996
01:03:30,152 –> 01:03:33,666
think is good, but it

997
01:03:33,688 –> 01:03:37,426
can capture them and it can ideologically possess them the same way that

998
01:03:37,448 –> 01:03:39,940
Edmund was ideologically possessed. Right?

999
01:03:41,750 –> 01:03:44,850
That’s one point. Then my other thought there

1000
01:03:44,920 –> 01:03:47,654
is, and by the way, when I was a kid, I would have been more

1001
01:03:47,692 –> 01:03:51,222
like Cordelia, except, like, I probably would have would have

1002
01:03:51,276 –> 01:03:54,486
taken gone real and King out back and we were going to fix this problem

1003
01:03:54,668 –> 01:03:57,290
tomorrow. That’s how that problem is going to get fixed,

1004
01:03:58,990 –> 01:04:01,818
old fashioned, fix this problem, because I don’t want to hear the taste of my

1005
01:04:01,824 –> 01:04:05,226
name falling out your mouth, because that’s how

1006
01:04:05,248 –> 01:04:10,746
I solved problems. I was a kid and

1007
01:04:10,768 –> 01:04:14,138
I was always the person who, like, if I saw somebody being bullied,

1008
01:04:14,314 –> 01:04:17,578
I’m going to step into that situation, even if it’s not, quote,

1009
01:04:17,594 –> 01:04:21,246
unquote, my business, right. Because I can’t abide by

1010
01:04:21,268 –> 01:04:24,258
that. Even if it means, and many times it did when I was a kid,

1011
01:04:24,344 –> 01:04:28,350
even if it means me taking a beating, that’s fine, I can take a beating,

1012
01:04:28,430 –> 01:04:29,380
that’s fine.

1013
01:04:31,350 –> 01:04:35,778
But I was raised sort of with that moral assertiveness.

1014
01:04:35,874 –> 01:04:39,574
I also was born with the ability to be kind of

1015
01:04:39,612 –> 01:04:42,274
sort of a little bit, as you can tell from the podcast.

1016
01:04:42,322 –> 01:04:46,490
Disagreeable. So it’s okay, right? I’m okay with not being liked.

1017
01:04:47,310 –> 01:04:50,538
In the world that we that’s important.

1018
01:04:50,624 –> 01:04:53,702
You need to be okay not being liked.

1019
01:04:53,846 –> 01:04:57,722
Right. And in the world we live in today, that’s the other dynamic,

1020
01:04:57,786 –> 01:05:01,422
right? Where in order to

1021
01:05:01,476 –> 01:05:04,746
tell the truth the way Cordelia does to her father,

1022
01:05:04,938 –> 01:05:08,562
you have to be okay with the consequence of that.

1023
01:05:08,696 –> 01:05:12,466
Right. And I want leaders to

1024
01:05:12,488 –> 01:05:15,806
be okay with consequences, because the leaders

1025
01:05:15,838 –> 01:05:19,970
that are most okay with the consequences get to be the adults in the room.

1026
01:05:20,120 –> 01:05:23,430
And I worry we don’t have enough adults in enough rooms.

1027
01:05:24,090 –> 01:05:25,880
Agree. What’s really interesting,

1028
01:05:28,330 –> 01:05:32,406
I also believe that it’s in

1029
01:05:32,428 –> 01:05:35,798
everyone’s best interest to speak the truth. Right. And I tend

1030
01:05:35,814 –> 01:05:38,918
to use a fact based truth and not a feels based truth.

1031
01:05:39,014 –> 01:05:42,374
Yeah. And there are leaders

1032
01:05:42,502 –> 01:05:46,330
as you’re climbing the ladder, there are leaders who are going to appreciate that,

1033
01:05:46,480 –> 01:05:49,822
and therefore, you will continue to work together because

1034
01:05:49,956 –> 01:05:53,338
you’re only trying to get at the truth or the best solution.

1035
01:05:53,514 –> 01:05:57,470
And then there are going to be leaders who are threatened

1036
01:05:58,050 –> 01:06:01,802
by the truth. And your willingness,

1037
01:06:01,866 –> 01:06:05,666
like, I’m a change agent. I turn around businesses and

1038
01:06:05,688 –> 01:06:09,390
I transform them. I’m going to be telling you uncomfortable

1039
01:06:09,470 –> 01:06:14,102
truth. And if

1040
01:06:14,156 –> 01:06:17,640
your leader believes that it’s a reflection on them

1041
01:06:19,210 –> 01:06:23,090
and their self worth, then they’ll be threatened by it and you will be

1042
01:06:23,260 –> 01:06:27,846
pushed out, either implicitly

1043
01:06:27,878 –> 01:06:32,166
or explicitly. But what I love about Cordelia

1044
01:06:32,278 –> 01:06:35,854
is that she was pushed out and

1045
01:06:35,892 –> 01:06:40,174
it also revealed the

1046
01:06:40,212 –> 01:06:45,086
other truth seekers and good people for

1047
01:06:45,108 –> 01:06:48,690
the more material ones. So Burgundy showed his true

1048
01:06:48,760 –> 01:06:52,146
cards. She only got to see his

1049
01:06:52,168 –> 01:06:55,250
true cards because she was able to speak her truth.

1050
01:06:57,030 –> 01:07:00,530
And France showed his, and he loved her for her,

1051
01:07:00,680 –> 01:07:04,150
not for the material goods. So she’s going to

1052
01:07:04,300 –> 01:07:07,654
then therefore live a life more aligned with

1053
01:07:07,692 –> 01:07:11,970
her values because she’s going to attract

1054
01:07:12,130 –> 01:07:15,110
those who are like her and reveal those who aren’t.

1055
01:07:16,330 –> 01:07:19,754
Yeah. Well, this is good

1056
01:07:19,792 –> 01:07:22,234
because we’re going to turn the core. We’re going to talk a little bit about

1057
01:07:22,272 –> 01:07:25,618
Cordelia. Yeah, we’re going to talk a little about Cordelia.

1058
01:07:25,654 –> 01:07:29,600
So we’re going to read a little bit from act one, scene one,

1059
01:07:32,530 –> 01:07:37,022
right after the land gets

1060
01:07:37,076 –> 01:07:41,002
cut up like a Thanksgiving turkey

1061
01:07:41,146 –> 01:07:44,674
and all of the turkeys leave the room,

1062
01:07:44,792 –> 01:07:48,114
by the way, we didn’t want to pause for just one moment. I do

1063
01:07:48,152 –> 01:07:51,478
want to kind of circle back around and close the loop on this other idea.

1064
01:07:51,644 –> 01:07:54,806
So how

1065
01:07:54,828 –> 01:07:57,750
do we get more of the fool back into the corporate boardroom?

1066
01:07:58,490 –> 01:08:01,974
How do we get the fool into the meeting? Because we

1067
01:08:02,012 –> 01:08:05,814
need those people. And again, I do genuinely worry

1068
01:08:05,862 –> 01:08:09,930
that in our pursuit of the good of everyone feeling comfortable,

1069
01:08:10,750 –> 01:08:14,106
everyone being agreeable, perhaps maybe not

1070
01:08:14,128 –> 01:08:18,510
comfortable with disagreeable. In the pursuit of having agreeable rooms,

1071
01:08:18,850 –> 01:08:22,638
we’re not allowing the fool the space. To work.

1072
01:08:22,804 –> 01:08:26,106
And by the way, I don’t mean the fool should be offensive or the fool

1073
01:08:26,138 –> 01:08:29,758
should be clearly like, whatever, right.

1074
01:08:29,844 –> 01:08:33,620
But sometimes I don’t know.

1075
01:08:35,670 –> 01:08:39,266
You need to create the conditions. Like Ran Dalio in the way that he

1076
01:08:39,288 –> 01:08:42,806
leads his companies. You always have the

1077
01:08:42,828 –> 01:08:46,086
devil’s advocate. You always have a pro versus a

1078
01:08:46,108 –> 01:08:50,530
con debate. It has to be rewarded.

1079
01:08:50,690 –> 01:08:54,422
And people observe what rewarding

1080
01:08:54,486 –> 01:08:58,282
looks like. So you have to invite it

1081
01:08:58,336 –> 01:09:04,154
to the table and reward it. And for

1082
01:09:04,192 –> 01:09:08,000
many leaders, you may actually need to go out and build that company.

1083
01:09:09,490 –> 01:09:12,800
Because right now, what we’re seeing is

1084
01:09:13,170 –> 01:09:16,650
when everyone’s compromising, you have a rapid

1085
01:09:16,810 –> 01:09:20,606
deceleration towards mediocrity. Same story with Anne

1086
01:09:20,638 –> 01:09:24,882
Ran, right? When all you want to do is be

1087
01:09:24,936 –> 01:09:28,034
liked and have everyone agree with you,

1088
01:09:28,152 –> 01:09:32,630
society is destroyed because all of our standards erode

1089
01:09:33,210 –> 01:09:36,582
in the name of being liked and not based

1090
01:09:36,636 –> 01:09:39,826
on competence or outcome. Well, and it’s weird

1091
01:09:39,858 –> 01:09:42,926
to me how, like, you would have people who would be identified

1092
01:09:43,058 –> 01:09:46,726
in the past as iconoclasts in a wide variety

1093
01:09:46,758 –> 01:09:50,010
of different spheres, who are now part of the establishment.

1094
01:09:50,670 –> 01:09:54,362
And people who would never have been allowed into

1095
01:09:54,416 –> 01:09:56,240
the establishment, ever,

1096
01:09:57,730 –> 01:10:01,120
are seen as being the absolute,

1097
01:10:02,850 –> 01:10:07,386
just satanic living end by dominant

1098
01:10:07,418 –> 01:10:10,318
power structures. And I don’t even have to say names.

1099
01:10:10,414 –> 01:10:14,386
People could figure it out. Right. This is

1100
01:10:14,408 –> 01:10:17,700
the cultural dynamic of the west that we are in now.

1101
01:10:18,870 –> 01:10:23,330
And the challenge, of course, with that is true iconoclasts

1102
01:10:24,230 –> 01:10:27,782
who may start off at the lowest end being fools and work their way up,

1103
01:10:27,836 –> 01:10:31,318
which is, again, I mentioned Dave Chappelle. I mean, I think he started off

1104
01:10:31,404 –> 01:10:34,646
well. No, I think I know. I’ve been watching that guy’s career for

1105
01:10:34,668 –> 01:10:38,006
25 years. Like, he started off as the fool on the street

1106
01:10:38,038 –> 01:10:42,170
corner and now I would call him a genuine iconoclast.

1107
01:10:42,830 –> 01:10:46,438
It’s because he and Chris Rock don’t need to be liked.

1108
01:10:46,534 –> 01:10:50,234
Right, right, exactly right. But Chappelle

1109
01:10:50,282 –> 01:10:53,470
walked away from the foolery

1110
01:10:53,890 –> 01:10:57,086
of the corporate world because they

1111
01:10:57,108 –> 01:11:00,170
were asking him to be something other than he was. Correct.

1112
01:11:00,340 –> 01:11:04,206
That’s why he still has the fool.

1113
01:11:04,398 –> 01:11:07,902
Well, he’s got the cachet. Stern. Right. Where has Howard

1114
01:11:07,966 –> 01:11:11,746
Stern he’s now fallen in love so much with being

1115
01:11:11,848 –> 01:11:15,330
revered that he can no longer see the truth.

1116
01:11:15,410 –> 01:11:18,966
Oh, my God. Howard Stern. Yeah. I mean, he’s just a really great example.

1117
01:11:19,068 –> 01:11:22,886
No, that is a great example. Yeah. No, that’s fabulous. Well, okay.

1118
01:11:23,068 –> 01:11:26,422
Or Neil Young. Or Neil Young. Yeah, there’s another one.

1119
01:11:26,556 –> 01:11:30,198
There’s another one. When you talk about and I’m

1120
01:11:30,214 –> 01:11:33,466
fascinated by radio and guys who do interviews. Let me

1121
01:11:33,488 –> 01:11:36,174
look what I’m doing now. But, I mean, I’m fascinated by all of that.

1122
01:11:36,212 –> 01:11:40,654
And the two probably well,

1123
01:11:40,692 –> 01:11:45,098
I wonder if this is fundamental to generations, too, because the baby boomer generation

1124
01:11:45,194 –> 01:11:49,200
in general really liked beating each other

1125
01:11:50,130 –> 01:11:53,986
at the game, whatever the game happened to be. So you have Howard Stern and

1126
01:11:54,008 –> 01:11:56,926
then on the opposite side of that. You have Rush Limbaugh, and they both liked

1127
01:11:56,958 –> 01:12:00,580
beating each other, beating their heads. They did.

1128
01:12:01,590 –> 01:12:04,726
I don’t know if it’s a Japanese or Chinese proverb, but when the elephants fight,

1129
01:12:04,748 –> 01:12:08,182
the ground gets trampled. And there was a lot of that debate over

1130
01:12:08,236 –> 01:12:11,730
generation, a lot of the elephants fighting. You go a couple of generations

1131
01:12:11,810 –> 01:12:15,286
down, though, where now we’ve got this idea of agreeableness being the

1132
01:12:15,308 –> 01:12:18,639
highest virtue, and you talk about it if you framed it

1133
01:12:19,139 –> 01:12:22,966
in terms of mediocrity, that’s one one framing, and I would not disagree

1134
01:12:22,998 –> 01:12:27,678
with that framing. A larger framing may be and

1135
01:12:27,764 –> 01:12:31,210
buddies of mine have this discussion about sports,

1136
01:12:31,290 –> 01:12:34,906
right? Because the whole LeBron James versus Michael Jordan thing continues

1137
01:12:34,938 –> 01:12:38,286
to rage basketball. I am personally of

1138
01:12:38,308 –> 01:12:41,774
the belief that we will never see a Tom Brady level quarterback of the NFL

1139
01:12:41,822 –> 01:12:45,122
ever again. Like we just won’t. Because that guy was fine

1140
01:12:45,176 –> 01:12:48,834
if you didn’t like him, he just wanted to cut your throat out

1141
01:12:48,952 –> 01:12:52,226
to win. That was it. Didn’t care. Oh, you don’t like

1142
01:12:52,248 –> 01:12:54,470
me. Cool. Same thing with Michael Jordan.

1143
01:12:56,090 –> 01:12:58,774
If you could see behind my camera, I’m a Jordan guy,

1144
01:12:58,812 –> 01:13:02,310
right? He came not just to kill you, but to cut your heart out,

1145
01:13:02,380 –> 01:13:05,886
and he didn’t care if you liked him. LeBron James cares

1146
01:13:05,938 –> 01:13:09,514
very much about who likes him on Twitter, and I don’t understand

1147
01:13:09,632 –> 01:13:13,386
that. To me, that doesn’t click over. And so as we’ve gone into this

1148
01:13:13,408 –> 01:13:17,482
level of agreeableness, competitiveness ambition, these things wind

1149
01:13:17,536 –> 01:13:20,806
up conforming to these spaces.

1150
01:13:20,918 –> 01:13:24,266
And this is where then you get speaking of radio, to flip back to radio

1151
01:13:24,298 –> 01:13:27,354
for just a second, you get all the people who would not have been allowed

1152
01:13:27,402 –> 01:13:30,990
through the narrow keyhole of radio are now running podcasts

1153
01:13:32,130 –> 01:13:34,946
because Joe Rogan they weren’t going to let Joe Rogan on the radio. They never

1154
01:13:34,968 –> 01:13:39,010
let that guy radio never let that guy on. So just a minor observation there.

1155
01:13:39,080 –> 01:13:43,186
It’s all about what you’re striving for. And Michael

1156
01:13:43,218 –> 01:13:46,630
Jordan was striving for their team to be the best

1157
01:13:46,700 –> 01:13:49,894
team on the merits, right?

1158
01:13:50,012 –> 01:13:53,654
And by challenging and setting the pace and the

1159
01:13:53,692 –> 01:13:56,602
tone for his team, everyone else stepped up,

1160
01:13:56,736 –> 01:14:00,554
right? I say this a lot. I’d rather be

1161
01:14:00,592 –> 01:14:03,946
respected than liked. I don’t really care if you like me. I want you

1162
01:14:03,968 –> 01:14:07,306
to respect me. Right? And too

1163
01:14:07,328 –> 01:14:10,846
many people care about being liked. And there’s lots of fine people that I

1164
01:14:10,868 –> 01:14:14,480
like, but I don’t respect the way that they make decisions, right?

1165
01:14:15,410 –> 01:14:19,010
I don’t respect how they’re living their lives and how they treat themselves

1166
01:14:19,080 –> 01:14:22,562
and others. But there can be lots of reasons for why I like someone.

1167
01:14:22,616 –> 01:14:26,500
And respect is a very different something very different,

1168
01:14:27,190 –> 01:14:31,586
yeah. Well, respect lands

1169
01:14:31,618 –> 01:14:36,166
in that place of I

1170
01:14:36,188 –> 01:14:39,846
think we see this a little bit in King Lear, but it winds up

1171
01:14:40,028 –> 01:14:44,402
it’s that combination of merit driven by competency,

1172
01:14:44,546 –> 01:14:48,890
right? And I think we’re missing something on competency, but it’s merit.

1173
01:14:49,230 –> 01:14:52,890
We don’t measure competency anymore. We’re actually saying we don’t

1174
01:14:52,960 –> 01:14:55,882
want to measure competency because people will feel bad.

1175
01:14:56,016 –> 01:14:59,866
Well, we don’t even know how to define it, I don’t think. Exactly. Which is

1176
01:14:59,888 –> 01:15:02,814
weird to me. Like, how do you not know? Okay, you don’t know. Okay,

1177
01:15:02,852 –> 01:15:06,142
fine. But if you don’t you you can’t get to respect without

1178
01:15:06,196 –> 01:15:09,982
merit and competency and then you can’t get to merit and competency without

1179
01:15:10,036 –> 01:15:13,902
a baseline understanding of what the parameters of a goal

1180
01:15:13,966 –> 01:15:17,486
are. So we’re missing both the top of and this is a cultural

1181
01:15:17,518 –> 01:15:20,594
critique, but we’re missing the top of the hierarchy in some

1182
01:15:20,632 –> 01:15:24,478
ways, and we’re also missing the bottom of the hierarchy while the

1183
01:15:24,504 –> 01:15:27,906
middle gets hollowed out, which means, and I’ve

1184
01:15:27,938 –> 01:15:31,078
been saying this for a while now on the podcast. The west is approaching a

1185
01:15:31,084 –> 01:15:34,214
Tower of Babel or Tower of Babel moment.

1186
01:15:34,412 –> 01:15:38,150
And the tower can’t stay up.

1187
01:15:38,300 –> 01:15:42,390
Everything’s driven everything’s driven by politics and emotion,

1188
01:15:42,470 –> 01:15:45,866
which means everything is unpredictable. When you’re managed by the rule

1189
01:15:45,898 –> 01:15:49,646
of law versus the human nature, there are

1190
01:15:49,668 –> 01:15:53,402
at least guardrails that make it predictable

1191
01:15:53,466 –> 01:15:58,638
around how you win and lose. Like in business in about 2008,

1192
01:15:58,804 –> 01:16:02,030
people, they stopped doing performance reviews or goals.

1193
01:16:03,410 –> 01:16:06,446
Well, if you and now it’s

1194
01:16:06,478 –> 01:16:11,154
hard to find like, a job description that’s meaningful or understanding

1195
01:16:11,202 –> 01:16:14,838
how you measure success in a specific role. Well, what happens

1196
01:16:14,924 –> 01:16:18,662
when it isn’t clear how success is

1197
01:16:18,716 –> 01:16:22,790
defined? You become more political and cutthroat.

1198
01:16:23,450 –> 01:16:26,862
And that’s where the Tower of Babel happens, is politics

1199
01:16:26,946 –> 01:16:30,086
will always take over when you don’t have clarity of objectives,

1200
01:16:30,198 –> 01:16:34,154
when you don’t have clarity of outcomes and clarity of roles. And then, of course,

1201
01:16:34,192 –> 01:16:38,074
you get rule by the worst because you get people who are experts at politics.

1202
01:16:38,122 –> 01:16:41,520
Exactly. Everyone else drops out, moves out,

1203
01:16:41,890 –> 01:16:46,906
because does something different, which is fascinating.

1204
01:16:47,098 –> 01:16:50,500
Yeah, it’s a fascinating psychological study. There’s a little jog there.

1205
01:16:51,270 –> 01:16:55,794
I want to talk a little bit about the truth in Cordelia and

1206
01:16:55,832 –> 01:16:59,794
telling truth to power. Much is made

1207
01:16:59,832 –> 01:17:03,558
of that in our time. Back to the book, back to the

1208
01:17:03,564 –> 01:17:06,866
play, back to King Lear. The tragedy of King

1209
01:17:06,898 –> 01:17:10,418
Lear by William Shakespeare. Once again, the Folger Shakespeare

1210
01:17:10,514 –> 01:17:14,380
Library edition. I would encourage you to pick it up.

1211
01:17:18,270 –> 01:17:22,070
It’s a smooth read, regardless of how I may have mangled

1212
01:17:22,150 –> 01:17:25,482
the Old English here, but it is a smooth read

1213
01:17:25,536 –> 01:17:28,630
with clearly defined stanzas.

1214
01:17:28,790 –> 01:17:32,446
As Libby said, it’s almost like a library in

1215
01:17:32,468 –> 01:17:36,046
a book there. And I would also encourage you, by the way,

1216
01:17:36,148 –> 01:17:39,594
and this is something that’s critical, I think, for understanding Shakespeare.

1217
01:17:39,722 –> 01:17:43,266
Shakespeare has to be absorbed in a couple of different ways. And so in

1218
01:17:43,288 –> 01:17:46,514
preparation for these podcasts, just a little Inside Baseball, I not only

1219
01:17:46,552 –> 01:17:50,082
read the Shakespeare, but then I also listen

1220
01:17:50,136 –> 01:17:54,334
to it for you and perform right. And there’s many different performances of Shakespeare

1221
01:17:54,382 –> 01:17:57,686
on YouTube. You can just go find any of them. It doesn’t matter. Pick one

1222
01:17:57,788 –> 01:18:01,122
and listen to it. While you’re reading it, and it makes the thing flow,

1223
01:18:01,186 –> 01:18:04,762
makes the thing understandable. And then, at a third level,

1224
01:18:04,816 –> 01:18:08,234
I would recommend go out and find a film version that you

1225
01:18:08,272 –> 01:18:11,386
can of Shakespeare and watch that.

1226
01:18:11,568 –> 01:18:14,666
It makes it all digestible. And what

1227
01:18:14,688 –> 01:18:17,870
the heck, spend 799 on a DVD and

1228
01:18:18,020 –> 01:18:21,646
you’ll be all right. All right. So back to

1229
01:18:21,668 –> 01:18:25,194
the play, back to Act One. We’re going to go back to Scene

1230
01:18:25,242 –> 01:18:28,606
One a little bit later on, after, like I said,

1231
01:18:28,628 –> 01:18:32,082
after everything’s been sort of cut up and Cordelia is speaking

1232
01:18:32,136 –> 01:18:36,338
to King Lear. So we’re going to pick up with stanza 255.

1233
01:18:36,424 –> 01:18:40,686
255 to 260. Cordelia to lear. I yet beseech

1234
01:18:40,718 –> 01:18:44,390
your majesty if

1235
01:18:44,460 –> 01:18:47,974
for I want that glib and oily art to speak and purpose not

1236
01:18:48,092 –> 01:18:51,878
since what I well intend I’ll do it to before I speak

1237
01:18:51,964 –> 01:18:55,746
that you make known it is no vicious, blot murder or foulness,

1238
01:18:55,778 –> 01:18:59,206
no unchaste action or dishonored step that hath deprived me of your grace

1239
01:18:59,238 –> 01:19:02,426
and favor. But even for want of that for

1240
01:19:02,448 –> 01:19:05,878
which I am richer, a still soliciting eye in such a tongue

1241
01:19:05,974 –> 01:19:09,754
that I am glad I have not. Though not to have it hath

1242
01:19:09,882 –> 01:19:11,630
lost me in your liking.

1243
01:19:12,370 –> 01:19:15,822
Lear better thou hast not been born than

1244
01:19:15,876 –> 01:19:19,726
not have pleased me better. France it

1245
01:19:19,748 –> 01:19:23,506
is, but this attireness in nature would often leaves the history unspoke. What it

1246
01:19:23,528 –> 01:19:27,038
intends to do. My lord of Burgundy, what say you to the lady loves

1247
01:19:27,054 –> 01:19:30,738
not love when it is mingled with regards that stands aloof from the entire point?

1248
01:19:30,824 –> 01:19:34,450
Will you have her? She is herself a dowry.

1249
01:19:35,270 –> 01:19:38,914
Burgundy de Lear royal king, give but that portion

1250
01:19:38,962 –> 01:19:42,882
which yourself proposed, and here I take Cordelia by the hand.

1251
01:19:43,036 –> 01:19:46,218
Duchess of Burgundy. Lear nothing.

1252
01:19:46,304 –> 01:19:49,674
I have sworn I am firm. Burgundy to cordelia. I am

1253
01:19:49,712 –> 01:19:53,046
sorry. Then you have lost. You have so lost a father,

1254
01:19:53,158 –> 01:19:55,850
and you must lose a husband.

1255
01:19:56,430 –> 01:19:59,674
Cordelia. Peace be with Burgundy. Since that respect

1256
01:19:59,722 –> 01:20:02,682
and fortunes are his love, I shall not be his wife.

1257
01:20:02,826 –> 01:20:06,698
France fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being poor,

1258
01:20:06,874 –> 01:20:10,286
most choice forsaken and most love despised thee and

1259
01:20:10,308 –> 01:20:13,934
thy virtues here I seize upon. Be it lawful I take up what’s cast

1260
01:20:13,982 –> 01:20:17,474
away. Gods, gods. Tis stranger, that from their

1261
01:20:17,512 –> 01:20:21,614
colst neglect my love should kindle to inflame respect. Thy doubloless

1262
01:20:21,662 –> 01:20:25,606
daughter, king, thrown to my chance, is queen of us, of ours, of our

1263
01:20:25,708 –> 01:20:29,634
fair France. Not all the dukes of Washless,

1264
01:20:29,682 –> 01:20:32,886
Burgundy can buy this unprised precious maid of me.

1265
01:20:33,068 –> 01:20:36,486
Bid them farewell. Cordelia thou unkind, thou losest.

1266
01:20:36,518 –> 01:20:39,820
Here better where to find lear

1267
01:20:40,670 –> 01:20:44,358
thou hast her, France. Let her be thine. For we have no such daughter,

1268
01:20:44,454 –> 01:20:47,360
nor shall we ever see that face of hers again.

1269
01:20:47,890 –> 01:20:51,454
To Cordelia. Therefore be gone without our grace, our love,

1270
01:20:51,492 –> 01:20:54,430
our medicine. Come, noble Burgundy.

1271
01:20:55,170 –> 01:20:58,478
Lorish all but France. Cordelia gonrial and

1272
01:20:58,484 –> 01:21:02,446
Regan, exit. France bid farewell to your sisters.

1273
01:21:02,558 –> 01:21:06,366
Cordelia the jewels of our father with washed eyes, cordelia leaves

1274
01:21:06,398 –> 01:21:09,554
you I know what you are. And like

1275
01:21:09,592 –> 01:21:13,538
a sister, and most loathe to call your faults as they are named

1276
01:21:13,714 –> 01:21:16,070
love well, our Father,

1277
01:21:16,970 –> 01:21:20,054
to your professed bosoms I commit him,

1278
01:21:20,252 –> 01:21:23,930
but yet, alas, stood I within his grace.

1279
01:21:24,590 –> 01:21:28,794
I would prefer him to a better place. So farewell to

1280
01:21:28,832 –> 01:21:32,234
you both. Reagan prescribed not us

1281
01:21:32,272 –> 01:21:35,926
our duty gonerill, let your study be to content your lord

1282
01:21:35,958 –> 01:21:40,078
who hath received you at fortune’s alms. You have obedience scanted and

1283
01:21:40,164 –> 01:21:43,200
well or worth the want that you are wanted, that you have wanted.

1284
01:21:43,570 –> 01:21:47,146
Cordelia time shall unfold with plighted

1285
01:21:47,178 –> 01:21:50,482
cunning hides, who covers faults at last

1286
01:21:50,536 –> 01:21:54,050
with shame derides well may you prosper

1287
01:21:54,630 –> 01:21:58,222
France. Come by, Pharaoh. Cordelia france

1288
01:21:58,286 –> 01:22:05,794
and Cordelia exit that

1289
01:22:05,832 –> 01:22:09,830
little clip right there, a little piece right there of a much

1290
01:22:09,900 –> 01:22:14,690
larger dynamic that’s occurring between France,

1291
01:22:14,770 –> 01:22:18,238
Burgundy, Gonorrhea,

1292
01:22:18,274 –> 01:22:20,380
Regan, Cordelia, and King Lear.

1293
01:22:21,630 –> 01:22:25,558
It’s like watching a movie clip. And the reason why I pulled that is

1294
01:22:25,584 –> 01:22:29,066
because Cordelia, as Libby

1295
01:22:29,098 –> 01:22:33,790
has already said, cordelia committed all the way to the end on her principles.

1296
01:22:34,850 –> 01:22:36,960
See, the truth will set you free.

1297
01:22:38,450 –> 01:22:41,380
Free of influence, free of pulling the levers of power,

1298
01:22:41,990 –> 01:22:44,850
but not free of accountability for your actions.

1299
01:22:45,830 –> 01:22:48,946
There are some people in the leadership development space who would say

1300
01:22:48,968 –> 01:22:53,094
that Cordelia should not have spoken the truth. Cordelia should have shut her mouth and

1301
01:22:53,132 –> 01:22:57,074
stayed in a position of power, eaten the wrap

1302
01:22:57,122 –> 01:23:00,374
that was delivered by Gonorl and Regan, bited her

1303
01:23:00,412 –> 01:23:04,090
time, and then sprung the trap.

1304
01:23:05,150 –> 01:23:08,426
They would say that you can’t influence from the

1305
01:23:08,448 –> 01:23:12,220
outside and so you must be on the inside.

1306
01:23:13,870 –> 01:23:17,306
They would also say that Cordelia can’t tell truth

1307
01:23:17,338 –> 01:23:20,686
to power unless she’s near to

1308
01:23:20,708 –> 01:23:22,240
the source of power.

1309
01:23:24,130 –> 01:23:27,594
But Cordelia understood something that I think a lot of those folks

1310
01:23:27,642 –> 01:23:30,866
who would advocate for that position miss. And I think it

1311
01:23:30,888 –> 01:23:33,860
is something that is important in our fractured age.

1312
01:23:34,230 –> 01:23:38,226
No longer are we in an era of mass media and mass

1313
01:23:38,328 –> 01:23:42,242
audiences and mass consumers and even mass consequences.

1314
01:23:42,306 –> 01:23:46,710
We are now fully, firmly in the era of micro audiences,

1315
01:23:47,530 –> 01:23:52,098
micro consequences, and micro interactions

1316
01:23:52,274 –> 01:23:55,846
that, of course, have major implications, don’t get me

1317
01:23:55,868 –> 01:23:59,674
wrong, but they are still, at the smallest, at least

1318
01:23:59,712 –> 01:24:03,386
to this point, possible level, which is, again, one of those reasons why I’m not

1319
01:24:03,408 –> 01:24:05,500
really too worried about one world government.

1320
01:24:07,710 –> 01:24:11,482
Folks like Cordelia don’t get to just skip away into a consequenceless

1321
01:24:11,546 –> 01:24:14,766
future. Nor does she make everyone, as we

1322
01:24:14,788 –> 01:24:18,530
already mentioned, happy with her truth telling. That wasn’t her job. Her job

1323
01:24:18,600 –> 01:24:22,180
was to understand the difference between principles and position.

1324
01:24:23,830 –> 01:24:28,130
And truth tellers may lose materially, but they may win spiritually.

1325
01:24:30,550 –> 01:24:33,846
You have to be comfortable with your past. You have to be comfortable with who

1326
01:24:33,868 –> 01:24:37,126
you were and what you will become.

1327
01:24:37,228 –> 01:24:41,094
And Libby has already mentioned this as well. But sometimes the lure of

1328
01:24:41,132 –> 01:24:45,306
power and influence closes people’s mouths to saying the truth with

1329
01:24:45,328 –> 01:24:49,290
the three C’s clarity, candor, and courage.

1330
01:24:51,070 –> 01:24:54,502
I do fundamentally believe that it is those three C’s

1331
01:24:54,646 –> 01:24:58,320
that we need now more so than ever.

1332
01:24:59,410 –> 01:25:03,134
And people who are willing to accept the consequences for

1333
01:25:03,172 –> 01:25:06,686
speaking with clarity candor encourage whatever they may be. And by

1334
01:25:06,708 –> 01:25:11,010
the way, we are now in the wake

1335
01:25:11,350 –> 01:25:20,190
of the COVID-19 pandemic.

1336
01:25:21,990 –> 01:25:26,126
And clarity candor

1337
01:25:26,158 –> 01:25:31,314
and courage has

1338
01:25:31,352 –> 01:25:35,300
proven to be just as in a short supply as I always thought it was,

1339
01:25:36,710 –> 01:25:38,980
or at least I always suspected it was.

1340
01:25:40,950 –> 01:25:43,398
And so we really need to pick up this we really need to pick up

1341
01:25:43,404 –> 01:25:46,262
this lesson we really need to pick up this lesson about principle, the difference between

1342
01:25:46,316 –> 01:25:50,422
principles and positions. We nearly need to pick up this lesson from Cordelia.

1343
01:25:50,566 –> 01:25:54,006
And by the way, this is just a small sample. She consistently,

1344
01:25:54,118 –> 01:25:57,930
character wise, walks this out through King Lear all the way

1345
01:25:58,000 –> 01:26:01,546
to well, to the clearing at the end of

1346
01:26:01,568 –> 01:26:04,782
the path. As Stephen King would say, a different

1347
01:26:04,836 –> 01:26:07,566
Stephen King. Not the one you see on Twitter. A different Stephen King. The one

1348
01:26:07,588 –> 01:26:15,614
that I know, the one who wrote The Gunslinger. That guy Libby.

1349
01:26:15,662 –> 01:26:19,540
Much is made of telling truths to power. Much is made of

1350
01:26:21,510 –> 01:26:25,362
raising your fist and protesting. I’m thinking in our contemporary moment

1351
01:26:25,416 –> 01:26:29,110
right now of events going on in Tennessee, in the

1352
01:26:29,180 –> 01:26:32,486
state government in Tennessee. If you want to Google what those are,

1353
01:26:32,508 –> 01:26:36,390
you can. They will all be wrapped up by the time you hear this podcast.

1354
01:26:37,070 –> 01:26:39,980
But that is just the latest example of,

1355
01:26:41,390 –> 01:26:44,566
I don’t know, sort of the marketing of truth

1356
01:26:44,598 –> 01:26:48,666
to power versus the actual telling of truth to power with actual

1357
01:26:48,768 –> 01:26:53,470
consequences. How can leaders separate the marketing

1358
01:26:53,810 –> 01:26:55,600
from the actual thing?

1359
01:26:58,620 –> 01:27:02,136
Because the actual thing has actual consequences. Like when I talk about

1360
01:27:02,158 –> 01:27:05,576
job applications, okay, there’s a way to frame this.

1361
01:27:05,758 –> 01:27:11,016
I see a lot of job applications, a lot that say they’re

1362
01:27:11,048 –> 01:27:14,172
gobbledygook as far as what they want you to do. But at the bottom,

1363
01:27:14,226 –> 01:27:17,944
in bold print, it says, our organization has determined the COVID-19 requirements

1364
01:27:17,992 –> 01:27:20,896
must be met. So you must have a COVID-19 shop before you can show up

1365
01:27:20,918 –> 01:27:23,296
to interview for this job. And I just go,

1366
01:27:23,318 –> 01:27:26,672
nope, I’m not looking for a job right now. But like, if I were no,

1367
01:27:26,726 –> 01:27:30,928
then I’m out. There’s principles

1368
01:27:31,104 –> 01:27:34,656
and then there’s the position. Do those principles

1369
01:27:34,688 –> 01:27:37,830
have consequences? For sure.

1370
01:27:40,880 –> 01:27:45,344
And I wonder how

1371
01:27:45,382 –> 01:27:48,480
many folks understand the difference between

1372
01:27:48,550 –> 01:27:51,456
these two things. So how do we tell the truth to power? How do we

1373
01:27:51,478 –> 01:27:54,950
keep our principles as our position?

1374
01:27:56,200 –> 01:27:59,184
Or maybe we don’t. Maybe we just need to be position driven.

1375
01:27:59,232 –> 01:28:02,676
People that wave, wave around with the

1376
01:28:02,698 –> 01:28:06,164
wind. They just wave around

1377
01:28:06,202 –> 01:28:09,256
with the wind. Negotiator like, I understand the value of

1378
01:28:09,278 –> 01:28:12,936
positions. I’m not knocking positions. And at the end of the day,

1379
01:28:13,118 –> 01:28:16,292
you have to have a principle, omar from The Wire.

1380
01:28:16,356 –> 01:28:19,384
You have to have a code. Yeah,

1381
01:28:19,422 –> 01:28:23,084
I mean, if positions aren’t bound by

1382
01:28:23,282 –> 01:28:26,780
principles, you get what we have today.

1383
01:28:26,930 –> 01:28:32,624
Yeah. And it’s really interesting what you talk

1384
01:28:32,662 –> 01:28:36,384
about, what we’ve seen over the last three

1385
01:28:36,422 –> 01:28:40,400
plus years. I always

1386
01:28:40,470 –> 01:28:44,156
knew that politics was a lot of rhetoric in theater.

1387
01:28:44,268 –> 01:28:48,420
I did not realize the extent of it that was theater

1388
01:28:49,080 –> 01:28:52,452
and how much of it is meant to just

1389
01:28:52,506 –> 01:28:56,004
drive our emotions and to keep us focused on

1390
01:28:56,042 –> 01:29:00,180
what they want us to focus on while they move their agendas

1391
01:29:00,260 –> 01:29:04,200
through. It’s not

1392
01:29:04,270 –> 01:29:07,050
courage when you’re saying what everyone is saying,

1393
01:29:09,500 –> 01:29:12,948
even when you act like you’re saying it in anger and conviction,

1394
01:29:13,044 –> 01:29:16,170
all I see is someone who’s towing the party line.

1395
01:29:22,340 –> 01:29:25,916
I tend to be focused on I tend

1396
01:29:25,948 –> 01:29:28,050
to be an outcomes based individual.

1397
01:29:30,820 –> 01:29:34,348
And you

1398
01:29:34,454 –> 01:29:38,036
had identified the owls versus the hummingbirds in one of

1399
01:29:38,058 –> 01:29:41,556
our early conversations, and I

1400
01:29:41,578 –> 01:29:44,836
was definitely more of a hummingbird when I

1401
01:29:44,858 –> 01:29:47,270
was in my twenty s and thirty s.

1402
01:29:51,020 –> 01:29:55,012
Now that I have been through many cycles economic,

1403
01:29:55,076 –> 01:29:58,932
political, familial, you can see certain trends.

1404
01:29:58,996 –> 01:30:02,792
And one of those on the political side is the rhetoric

1405
01:30:02,936 –> 01:30:06,728
doesn’t ever deliver the outcomes that are promised. I don’t

1406
01:30:06,744 –> 01:30:09,996
have to look far from the streets of Ran Francisco, and the

1407
01:30:10,018 –> 01:30:14,284
homeless crisis that was the top of Newsom’s priority

1408
01:30:14,332 –> 01:30:19,040
list in 2010 has only accelerated into severity.

1409
01:30:19,380 –> 01:30:22,988
I don’t have to look farther behind the streets of San

1410
01:30:23,004 –> 01:30:27,312
Francisco where we’re basically conducting

1411
01:30:27,376 –> 01:30:30,896
assisted suicide with the drug epidemic

1412
01:30:30,928 –> 01:30:34,836
and the homeless epidemic. Those outcomes are not outcomes of

1413
01:30:34,858 –> 01:30:38,584
people who care. So after you

1414
01:30:38,622 –> 01:30:42,516
start to see cycles of false promises and false

1415
01:30:42,548 –> 01:30:45,704
prophets, you then need to start

1416
01:30:45,742 –> 01:30:49,396
to look for where the truth is and start to

1417
01:30:49,438 –> 01:30:53,470
act locally and as an individual.

1418
01:30:56,880 –> 01:31:00,844
George Carlin, who I never appreciated in the days he

1419
01:31:00,882 –> 01:31:04,096
was saying, they don’t care about you, but you

1420
01:31:04,118 –> 01:31:07,890
don’t want to get to. They being the government, they being big business.

1421
01:31:09,860 –> 01:31:12,928
That is true. At the end of the day,

1422
01:31:13,014 –> 01:31:16,724
like the power and elite is very insular and they’re really focused on

1423
01:31:16,762 –> 01:31:20,336
continuing to advance their own positions. Whether they’re aware

1424
01:31:20,368 –> 01:31:22,550
of it or not is another story.

1425
01:31:24,440 –> 01:31:28,192
But you do have the ability to act locally.

1426
01:31:28,256 –> 01:31:31,652
You do have the ability individually and in a decentralized

1427
01:31:31,716 –> 01:31:34,570
manner to live a life worth living.

1428
01:31:35,100 –> 01:31:38,824
And our role as leaders is to

1429
01:31:38,862 –> 01:31:42,356
do the right thing because it’s the right thing and just

1430
01:31:42,398 –> 01:31:45,596
put 1ft in front of another and ignore the

1431
01:31:45,618 –> 01:31:49,756
noise. Let me ask you this question, which is always

1432
01:31:49,778 –> 01:31:53,310
the pushback on this? When I say something like this, or I do a

1433
01:31:53,680 –> 01:31:57,356
short episode that basically talks about the difference between principles and positions,

1434
01:31:57,388 –> 01:31:59,776
or I write a blog post and I’ve been writing blog posts about this and

1435
01:31:59,798 –> 01:32:03,456
books about this stuff for years now, right. The pushback I

1436
01:32:03,478 –> 01:32:06,964
always get is invariably, the pushback that I get

1437
01:32:07,002 –> 01:32:10,950
is, well, it’s so hard, Hasan, to know what’s right.

1438
01:32:13,400 –> 01:32:17,316
Give me a break. Really? Oh yeah. That’s still floating

1439
01:32:17,348 –> 01:32:21,224
around out here. I have

1440
01:32:21,262 –> 01:32:24,376
the good grace not to laugh, not out

1441
01:32:24,398 –> 01:32:28,488
loud anyway. But it does make me

1442
01:32:28,574 –> 01:32:31,736
that the fact that that rolls so easily off of people’s

1443
01:32:31,768 –> 01:32:37,404
tongues and

1444
01:32:37,442 –> 01:32:38,590
the fact that.

1445
01:32:41,200 –> 01:32:43,596
They’Re mistaking positions for principles.

1446
01:32:43,708 –> 01:32:47,308
Right. And they’re

1447
01:32:47,324 –> 01:32:51,776
also mistaking principles for and

1448
01:32:51,798 –> 01:32:55,316
don’t get me wrong, they run parallel. They do run

1449
01:32:55,338 –> 01:32:59,040
on parallel tracks. In some cases, they intersect. But principles aren’t necessarily

1450
01:32:59,120 –> 01:33:02,596
morals or even ethics, though they do run

1451
01:33:02,618 –> 01:33:04,790
on parallel tracks. Okay.

1452
01:33:08,360 –> 01:33:11,384
And by the way, my response to that is always well, no,

1453
01:33:11,502 –> 01:33:15,208
I mean, when you don’t do the thing that you’re supposed to do

1454
01:33:15,374 –> 01:33:18,616
and you know you right. Well, and you knew you

1455
01:33:18,638 –> 01:33:22,044
didn’t do the thing you were supposed to do, there’s another old school

1456
01:33:22,082 –> 01:33:25,420
concept I’m going to hit you with that’s called sin.

1457
01:33:26,960 –> 01:33:29,230
And then that’s what I laugh and then I walk quick,

1458
01:33:30,000 –> 01:33:33,890
usually leaving those people kind of just flummox and just standing there looking at me.

1459
01:33:36,500 –> 01:33:39,952
I don’t think things are as complex no,

1460
01:33:40,006 –> 01:33:43,516
not things. Let me be very specific here. I do not think the decision

1461
01:33:43,548 –> 01:33:47,030
to do what is right is as complex as people make it out to be.

1462
01:33:48,360 –> 01:33:52,016
I just don’t think that it is. And maybe I haven’t

1463
01:33:52,048 –> 01:33:56,132
been in areas of enough complexity. You mentioned San Francisco and

1464
01:33:56,186 –> 01:34:00,024
the homeless. I think crisis is not

1465
01:34:00,062 –> 01:34:03,672
ran appropriate, even word to use for this. The absolute total

1466
01:34:03,726 –> 01:34:08,120
societal collapse of the Tenderloin district of San Francisco

1467
01:34:08,460 –> 01:34:11,900
is an unbelievable black eye

1468
01:34:12,400 –> 01:34:16,600
on a black eye of an indictment on California

1469
01:34:16,680 –> 01:34:20,140
in general, california in particular, and America in general.

1470
01:34:20,210 –> 01:34:22,670
Okay. In the coal mine. Oh, my God.

1471
01:34:24,000 –> 01:34:27,608
And by the way, I would not have believed it if I hadn’t gone there

1472
01:34:27,634 –> 01:34:30,832
a few lear ago with my wife and kids and seen it, like, up close.

1473
01:34:30,886 –> 01:34:34,204
I would not have believed that it was that bad and have gotten worse

1474
01:34:34,252 –> 01:34:38,516
since then. Would not have believed it. Thought it was all rhetoric and blown out

1475
01:34:38,698 –> 01:34:42,064
rhetoric. Thought it was rhetoric in theater. No, it’s not rhetoric in theater,

1476
01:34:42,112 –> 01:34:44,230
folks. It actually is that bad.

1477
01:34:50,510 –> 01:34:54,250
The unprincipled people understand that the system

1478
01:34:54,320 –> 01:34:58,006
is run by politics. That’s how Gavin Newsom gets to the top, because he’s unprincipled.

1479
01:34:58,038 –> 01:35:01,670
He understands he’s got competency in that space.

1480
01:35:01,760 –> 01:35:04,640
I’ll grant him that. Yes. Yeah.

1481
01:35:05,170 –> 01:35:09,258
And so the people who would be competent

1482
01:35:09,354 –> 01:35:13,358
at fixing the problem with principles eject out

1483
01:35:13,364 –> 01:35:17,026
of the system, and many of them, by the way, post COVID, pack up

1484
01:35:17,048 –> 01:35:21,122
their bags and go to Utah or

1485
01:35:21,176 –> 01:35:25,922
Texas or

1486
01:35:25,976 –> 01:35:29,314
Florida or Tennessee or anywhere else other

1487
01:35:29,352 –> 01:35:33,186
than where they right and what you’re left with. And we saw this most recently

1488
01:35:33,218 –> 01:35:37,046
in the most recent Chicago elections in 2023. Oh,

1489
01:35:37,068 –> 01:35:40,410
my God. Well, but who’s left to vote?

1490
01:35:41,630 –> 01:35:44,810
And so it’s going to be a self fulfilling cycle of nonsense.

1491
01:35:47,230 –> 01:35:51,194
Who’s, at a

1492
01:35:51,232 –> 01:35:56,938
certain point you’re

1493
01:35:56,954 –> 01:35:59,230
not draining a swamp anymore.

1494
01:36:02,050 –> 01:36:05,166
Okay, I’ll frame it this way. At a certain point I

1495
01:36:05,188 –> 01:36:08,114
used to live in Detroit. I lived in Detroit for a few years in my

1496
01:36:08,152 –> 01:36:10,942
early 20s, rode the bus around Detroit,

1497
01:36:11,006 –> 01:36:15,426
actually, to go to my four different jobs back in the day.

1498
01:36:15,608 –> 01:36:17,906
And on the bus in Detroit was not to the king of heart back in

1499
01:36:17,928 –> 01:36:21,794
the day and then cleaned up Detroit. I mean, Detroit’s gone through

1500
01:36:21,832 –> 01:36:24,886
some interesting things, and there’s a little bit of a renaissance going on. It has

1501
01:36:24,908 –> 01:36:28,018
been for a few years, and that’s good, by the way, for Detroit.

1502
01:36:28,194 –> 01:36:32,498
But in order for that renaissance to begin, Detroit had to and

1503
01:36:32,524 –> 01:36:35,830
there was a corrupt mayor, of course, Kwame Kilpatrick.

1504
01:36:35,990 –> 01:36:38,826
But there was a person in his administration who decided, we got to knock down

1505
01:36:38,848 –> 01:36:42,410
these buildings. We got to start somewhere.

1506
01:36:42,750 –> 01:36:46,326
We got to go after the slum lords who haven’t

1507
01:36:46,358 –> 01:36:50,046
maintained the buildings. And I’ve allowed devil’s nights and Halloween nights to just burn through

1508
01:36:50,068 –> 01:36:53,438
the city for the last 30 by that point, 30 freaking years,

1509
01:36:53,604 –> 01:36:57,314
like, we’re not going to allow this anymore. One person decided that and

1510
01:36:57,352 –> 01:37:01,038
got the ball rolling. And, yes, Kwame Kilpatrick was corrupt in the court

1511
01:37:01,134 –> 01:37:05,154
was a court of a corrupt king. The man went to jail for sending text

1512
01:37:05,192 –> 01:37:08,378
messages to his mistress. By the way, your text messages can be subpoenaed,

1513
01:37:08,414 –> 01:37:12,118
folks. Keep that in mind. They are public record.

1514
01:37:12,284 –> 01:37:16,338
My God, how did he not know this? Anyway, also for hiring

1515
01:37:16,354 –> 01:37:19,160
his relatives and doing other corrupt things. Okay, cool.

1516
01:37:19,530 –> 01:37:22,694
But that was the beginning of the renaissance

1517
01:37:22,742 –> 01:37:25,962
of Detroit, because one principled person who we don’t know the name of and probably

1518
01:37:26,016 –> 01:37:29,820
never will, was like, no, we’re done.

1519
01:37:31,230 –> 01:37:34,726
That’s the cordelia in King Lear’s

1520
01:37:34,758 –> 01:37:38,446
court. Where’s the cordelia? In San Francisco. I think a lot of people

1521
01:37:38,468 –> 01:37:41,694
are asking that. By the way, where is that person that’s inside that just says,

1522
01:37:41,732 –> 01:37:45,442
you know what? You’ve got gubernatorial hair, and you may fire

1523
01:37:45,496 –> 01:37:48,386
me tomorrow, but this has to stop.

1524
01:37:48,568 –> 01:37:52,130
Well, this is that theme that is through King Lear

1525
01:37:52,200 –> 01:37:55,502
with the good people are in disguise,

1526
01:37:55,566 –> 01:37:59,766
like Kent goes into disguise in order to help

1527
01:37:59,948 –> 01:38:03,606
King Lear protect King Lear from himself. And the same

1528
01:38:03,628 –> 01:38:06,950
is true for Edgar, who acts as poor Tom,

1529
01:38:07,100 –> 01:38:10,890
right? And the nameless servant who kills Cornwall.

1530
01:38:11,230 –> 01:38:14,838
So these stories are of the individuals

1531
01:38:14,934 –> 01:38:16,620
who do the right thing,

1532
01:38:18,190 –> 01:38:22,078
and ultimately the

1533
01:38:22,084 –> 01:38:24,480
house of cards comes falling down.

1534
01:38:25,170 –> 01:38:28,202
That is the faith that I have in humanity.

1535
01:38:28,346 –> 01:38:32,078
And when you’re talking about the one world order,

1536
01:38:32,244 –> 01:38:37,442
that’s where I also hold

1537
01:38:37,496 –> 01:38:41,278
some faith in, is the power of the individuals

1538
01:38:41,454 –> 01:38:45,554
working inside. They’re not the narcissists who need to be seen. They’re not the

1539
01:38:45,592 –> 01:38:48,910
narcissists who are doing the right thing in order to be rewarded.

1540
01:38:48,990 –> 01:38:52,278
They’re doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do.

1541
01:38:52,444 –> 01:38:55,766
One of the things that’s beautiful about where we are in the

1542
01:38:55,788 –> 01:38:59,910
digital age is that all of the playbooks

1543
01:39:00,410 –> 01:39:04,806
by all of the corporations and all the politicians were exposed

1544
01:39:04,918 –> 01:39:08,666
because of the decentralized nature of the Internet and why

1545
01:39:08,688 –> 01:39:13,066
they want to censor the Internet so much is because it

1546
01:39:13,088 –> 01:39:16,026
was hard. Like they were playing Whack a Mole with the truth.

1547
01:39:16,138 –> 01:39:18,800
Right. And,

1548
01:39:20,690 –> 01:39:24,298
yes, we eject out. But I’m a big believer

1549
01:39:24,314 –> 01:39:27,618
that it’s very hard to change a system from within. You have to change it

1550
01:39:27,624 –> 01:39:31,758
from the outside. I call it outside in transformation.

1551
01:39:31,934 –> 01:39:34,930
But you need to go out and build what good looks like,

1552
01:39:35,000 –> 01:39:39,220
and it will attract those who are like you,

1553
01:39:40,730 –> 01:39:43,782
those who will do the right thing because it’s the right thing

1554
01:39:43,916 –> 01:39:47,698
exist. They’re the exception. I wouldn’t

1555
01:39:47,714 –> 01:39:51,686
say they’re the exception. They’re just not visible because they’re not driven

1556
01:39:51,718 –> 01:39:55,766
by visibility. They’re not driven by their ego. They’re driven

1557
01:39:55,798 –> 01:39:57,660
by doing the right thing.

1558
01:40:01,310 –> 01:40:04,774
It’s kind of like how many introverts do you need to overcome

1559
01:40:04,822 –> 01:40:09,230
an extrovert? Probably 50%

1560
01:40:09,300 –> 01:40:13,070
of the world is introverts. 50% are extroverts, and you need

1561
01:40:13,220 –> 01:40:16,866
eight introverts to overcome one extrovert. It’s probably the

1562
01:40:16,888 –> 01:40:20,686
same with the ego driven versus the servant driven

1563
01:40:20,798 –> 01:40:25,614
leader. Right. And they’re there. We just need to create conditions.

1564
01:40:25,742 –> 01:40:30,242
Like, if you’ve gone to Utah or central

1565
01:40:30,306 –> 01:40:33,586
Oregon, you’re creating

1566
01:40:33,618 –> 01:40:36,934
a place outside of the Dystopia for

1567
01:40:36,972 –> 01:40:40,898
people to come to. John Gault could have done that in Atlas

1568
01:40:40,914 –> 01:40:44,826
Shrugs. Instead, he was keeping the good people from doing the good work. But you

1569
01:40:44,848 –> 01:40:48,586
could have created a place where you set the example and the

1570
01:40:48,608 –> 01:40:51,580
good came. You could say Florida is trying to do that.

1571
01:40:51,970 –> 01:40:53,200
Yeah. Well,

1572
01:40:57,650 –> 01:41:00,270
that’s one of the reasons why, like, in July,

1573
01:41:01,490 –> 01:41:05,406
we’re going to cover the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence yet again on

1574
01:41:05,428 –> 01:41:10,254
this podcast. I mean, we are going to do it again because there’s

1575
01:41:10,302 –> 01:41:14,082
no I do not

1576
01:41:14,136 –> 01:41:17,700
think it is rhetoric. It may have been

1577
01:41:19,270 –> 01:41:23,106
I think it was Ronald Reagan when Ronald Reagan said it initially.

1578
01:41:23,298 –> 01:41:26,614
And it might have been John F. Kennedy. I might be putting on Reagan just

1579
01:41:26,652 –> 01:41:30,074
for the sake of putting on Reagan, but I

1580
01:41:30,112 –> 01:41:32,060
do believe the United States,

1581
01:41:33,310 –> 01:41:37,180
for all of our flaws and black eyes and monumental problems,

1582
01:41:38,030 –> 01:41:41,686
is still the last, best hope for let’s be grandiose the last best

1583
01:41:41,728 –> 01:41:44,974
hope for humanity. Because there

1584
01:41:45,012 –> 01:41:49,118
is a system of checks and balances that

1585
01:41:49,204 –> 01:41:52,606
persists in and you mentioned the rule of law. Persists in

1586
01:41:52,628 –> 01:41:56,330
the rule of law, which is why it’s so disturbing,

1587
01:41:56,490 –> 01:41:59,634
the ideological capture of law schools. Right.

1588
01:41:59,752 –> 01:42:02,642
That’s even more disturbing to me than finance. Finance is one thing.

1589
01:42:02,696 –> 01:42:06,466
Money okay. But the law now

1590
01:42:06,488 –> 01:42:10,200
we’re getting into existential things here. Now we’re getting into

1591
01:42:11,370 –> 01:42:13,750
who gets prosecuted and who doesn’t.

1592
01:42:14,330 –> 01:42:18,038
Is there a standard for everyone regardless of

1593
01:42:18,124 –> 01:42:21,382
money or power? And by the way by the way,

1594
01:42:21,436 –> 01:42:24,474
if you want to assert that there’s never been a standard, one standard for everybody,

1595
01:42:24,512 –> 01:42:28,598
regardless of money and power, is there at least the attempt

1596
01:42:28,694 –> 01:42:32,442
to get to a standard? Because there’s not even the attempt.

1597
01:42:32,506 –> 01:42:36,478
If we are now cynically throwing the attempt out, if we’re saying the

1598
01:42:36,484 –> 01:42:40,080
attempt was never. Real. So we’re just going to jettison the whole thing.

1599
01:42:43,250 –> 01:42:46,706
What’s that? WB. Yates the

1600
01:42:46,728 –> 01:42:50,558
falcon can’t hear the falconer second coming, the blood

1601
01:42:50,574 –> 01:42:54,114
dim tide. Yeah, that’s what you’re welcoming because

1602
01:42:54,152 –> 01:42:58,306
then it’s anarchy. Then it is man every it’s it’s a hobbesian nightmare

1603
01:42:58,418 –> 01:43:02,518
that we have not even begun to understand. And so

1604
01:43:02,604 –> 01:43:05,506
the United States is worth protecting,

1605
01:43:05,698 –> 01:43:09,186
the Republic is worth defending, the Constitution is worth

1606
01:43:09,228 –> 01:43:12,700
talking about and examining and

1607
01:43:13,550 –> 01:43:16,650
knowing. And for leaders,

1608
01:43:17,470 –> 01:43:20,506
that kind of knowledge has to undergird your work.

1609
01:43:20,688 –> 01:43:25,758
The mob is never right and

1610
01:43:25,764 –> 01:43:30,014
that’s one of the foundations for the

1611
01:43:30,052 –> 01:43:34,670
US being a republic and not a true democracy.

1612
01:43:36,310 –> 01:43:39,794
Mob rules will

1613
01:43:39,832 –> 01:43:43,860
dictate what individuals do that they ordinarily wouldn’t do.

1614
01:43:45,910 –> 01:43:50,066
But a monarchy isn’t right either. I mean, then you wind up Louis

1615
01:43:50,098 –> 01:43:50,870
XV.

1616
01:43:52,970 –> 01:43:55,480
No, completely agree.

1617
01:43:59,150 –> 01:44:02,630
Total populations and groups can be virtuous,

1618
01:44:02,710 –> 01:44:06,250
but there can get to a place

1619
01:44:06,320 –> 01:44:09,834
where people stop thinking. For example, when you call

1620
01:44:09,872 –> 01:44:14,030
half of the country evil or deplorable versus

1621
01:44:15,570 –> 01:44:16,750
misguided.

1622
01:44:20,610 –> 01:44:23,966
I do believe that every individual has the propensity for good or

1623
01:44:23,988 –> 01:44:27,940
bad. Right. I believe that people

1624
01:44:28,550 –> 01:44:32,354
can change. I don’t believe that you are a fixed state

1625
01:44:32,392 –> 01:44:35,890
in your personality. And as long as you believe that,

1626
01:44:35,960 –> 01:44:40,726
and people are given the opportunity to repent and

1627
01:44:40,748 –> 01:44:43,000
to be good, like Albany was,

1628
01:44:45,770 –> 01:44:49,634
that’s the foundation, having belief in humanity, and that humans

1629
01:44:49,682 –> 01:44:53,114
can always choose to do the right thing. Even if they haven’t in the past

1630
01:44:53,232 –> 01:44:58,154
is what we can do to move forward and

1631
01:44:58,192 –> 01:45:01,562
not get into a dystopia thinking that the world

1632
01:45:01,616 –> 01:45:05,166
will end. Because here we are today. You have

1633
01:45:05,188 –> 01:45:09,518
to believe in humanity. Well, you have to have

1634
01:45:09,684 –> 01:45:12,640
I call it hard headed optimism. Yeah.

1635
01:45:13,890 –> 01:45:17,070
Pragmatic optimist. Pragmatic optimism,

1636
01:45:19,090 –> 01:45:22,306
that’s good. I’m going to borrow that. I’m a pragmatic optimist and I

1637
01:45:22,328 –> 01:45:32,870
don’t think there’s wrong with pragmatism. I think it’s

1638
01:45:34,410 –> 01:45:36,040
passion is fine,

1639
01:45:38,970 –> 01:45:42,586
but passion is like fire. It can either cook your meat or it can

1640
01:45:42,608 –> 01:45:43,820
burn your house down.

1641
01:45:45,230 –> 01:45:48,410
And passion has to be directed

1642
01:45:49,790 –> 01:45:53,654
exactly right. And you talk about

1643
01:45:53,712 –> 01:45:56,800
guardrails, we’ve talked midget guardrails a couple of times.

1644
01:45:58,930 –> 01:46:02,254
We relied for the majority of the 20th century and for a good chunk of

1645
01:46:02,292 –> 01:46:05,486
the 21st. And this is now, we’ve now started to see

1646
01:46:05,508 –> 01:46:08,738
this sort of fall apart. But we’ve relied on the people who proclaim themselves to

1647
01:46:08,744 –> 01:46:11,838
be leaders, to maintain those guardrails.

1648
01:46:12,014 –> 01:46:15,298
And when the leaders themselves are pulling up the guardrails, putting them in

1649
01:46:15,304 –> 01:46:17,766
the field and lighting them on fire, running away and telling us there were never

1650
01:46:17,788 –> 01:46:21,480
any guardrails to begin with, now we’ve got a problem.

1651
01:46:22,170 –> 01:46:25,858
And the problem is with, again, leadership,

1652
01:46:26,034 –> 01:46:29,594
which is why we’re doing what we’re. Doing here, why measurement is so

1653
01:46:29,632 –> 01:46:31,980
important and outcomes are so important,

1654
01:46:34,670 –> 01:46:38,390
equal application of the law. We can all identify

1655
01:46:38,470 –> 01:46:41,894
exceptions to where it wasn’t, where someone like a Kennedy got

1656
01:46:41,952 –> 01:46:44,400
off because of who he was.

1657
01:46:46,450 –> 01:46:49,786
And people can see that. But there’s going to be an exception

1658
01:46:49,818 –> 01:46:52,654
for every one of those rules as well.

1659
01:46:52,772 –> 01:46:56,206
But at least looking for are we trying to dial

1660
01:46:56,238 –> 01:46:58,580
it in to be as perfect as possible,

1661
01:46:59,350 –> 01:47:03,230
recognizing that there’s always king to be an error, not throwing

1662
01:47:03,390 –> 01:47:05,220
away the entire system,

1663
01:47:06,810 –> 01:47:10,214
identifying where it’s flawed and fixing it.

1664
01:47:10,332 –> 01:47:14,182
And that’s what we’ve lost is

1665
01:47:14,236 –> 01:47:18,390
nuance, which is a very common phrase, but we’ve lost nuance,

1666
01:47:19,070 –> 01:47:22,454
we’ve lost relativity, we’ve lost context.

1667
01:47:22,582 –> 01:47:26,026
And the small things now are perceived as the

1668
01:47:26,048 –> 01:47:30,438
biggest things on the planet, as problems. And so measurement

1669
01:47:30,534 –> 01:47:33,998
is so important, knowing where you’re going, how you measure success.

1670
01:47:34,084 –> 01:47:38,318
Instead, we’re getting rid of that and we’re letting emotion drive everything

1671
01:47:38,484 –> 01:47:47,106
and objectivity and reason are gone for

1672
01:47:47,128 –> 01:47:50,498
those who are currently leading the country. I’m not saying that.

1673
01:47:50,584 –> 01:47:53,060
No. Right. No.

1674
01:47:57,210 –> 01:48:01,206
I’m going to go here. Two plus two still equals four at my

1675
01:48:01,228 –> 01:48:04,498
local wastewater treatment plant. Yes. Because if it doesn’t,

1676
01:48:04,594 –> 01:48:06,200
I get poop in my water.

1677
01:48:09,310 –> 01:48:12,540
Yeah, right. Or the bridge falls down

1678
01:48:13,470 –> 01:48:15,580
or my gate doesn’t work,

1679
01:48:16,270 –> 01:48:19,498
and I don’t really care about the color of

1680
01:48:19,504 –> 01:48:22,926
the person’s skin who’s doing the two plus two equals four.

1681
01:48:23,108 –> 01:48:26,494
Not when I want the bridge the bridge to work and not

1682
01:48:26,532 –> 01:48:30,094
fall or the plane to fly or

1683
01:48:30,132 –> 01:48:33,790
to not. Have whatever in my water. Correct. Right.

1684
01:48:33,860 –> 01:48:36,260
So two plus two still equals four.

1685
01:48:37,670 –> 01:48:41,586
Merit and competencies still matter. And what

1686
01:48:41,608 –> 01:48:45,042
we measure matters as much as what is

1687
01:48:45,096 –> 01:48:48,120
being measured. Exactly.

1688
01:48:48,810 –> 01:48:52,550
And how we measure matters as much as what

1689
01:48:52,620 –> 01:48:55,926
is being measured. Let’s turn our

1690
01:48:55,948 –> 01:48:59,798
corner. We’re wrapping up here. We spend a little bit of time with Libby,

1691
01:48:59,814 –> 01:49:05,030
and I want to once again thank her for coming on the podcast. Always invigorating

1692
01:49:05,110 –> 01:49:09,114
conversation with

1693
01:49:09,312 –> 01:49:13,098
Libby unger. So let’s turn the corner a

1694
01:49:13,104 –> 01:49:16,554
little bit here. Let’s talk about the failure of the appalonian.

1695
01:49:16,602 –> 01:49:20,234
Let’s talk about the failure of the eye and then the Dionosian lurking

1696
01:49:20,282 –> 01:49:23,726
in the basement. Let’s talk a little bit about Edmund the

1697
01:49:23,748 –> 01:49:24,670
Bastard.

1698
01:49:27,410 –> 01:49:31,042
Back to the tragedy of King Lear. Act one.

1699
01:49:31,096 –> 01:49:34,514
Scene two. We’re going to do a few stanzas here and there.

1700
01:49:34,552 –> 01:49:36,638
We’re going to kind of jump around a little bit because I want to get

1701
01:49:36,664 –> 01:49:39,878
the words of Edmund out there. Want to give us a little bit

1702
01:49:39,884 –> 01:49:43,990
of a brief look at this fellow?

1703
01:49:45,290 –> 01:49:48,310
King Lear, act one, scene two. Enter.

1704
01:49:48,380 –> 01:49:51,734
Edmond the bastard. Edmund thou nature art

1705
01:49:51,772 –> 01:49:55,158
my goddess, to thy law my services are bound.

1706
01:49:55,254 –> 01:49:59,254
Wherefore should I stand in the plague of custom and permit the curiosity of nations

1707
01:49:59,302 –> 01:50:03,298
to deprive me for that I am some twelve or 14 moonshine’s

1708
01:50:03,334 –> 01:50:07,262
lag of a brother. Why Bastard? Why wherefore base

1709
01:50:07,396 –> 01:50:10,634
when my dimensions are as well compact, my mind is generous,

1710
01:50:10,682 –> 01:50:14,640
and my shape as true as honest madam’s issue?

1711
01:50:15,090 –> 01:50:18,574
Why brand they us with base with bastist bastardy

1712
01:50:18,622 –> 01:50:21,874
base, who in the lusty stealth of nature take more

1713
01:50:21,912 –> 01:50:24,862
composition and fierce quality than doth within a dull,

1714
01:50:24,926 –> 01:50:28,526
stale, tired bed go to the creating a whole tribe

1715
01:50:28,558 –> 01:50:31,560
of fops got Queen asleep and wait.

1716
01:50:32,410 –> 01:50:35,878
Well then, legitimate Edgar, I must have your land.

1717
01:50:36,044 –> 01:50:39,386
Our father’s love is to the bastard. Edmund as to

1718
01:50:39,408 –> 01:50:42,678
the legitimate fine word, legitimate. Well, my legitimate,

1719
01:50:42,774 –> 01:50:46,742
if this letter speed and my invention thrive,

1720
01:50:46,806 –> 01:50:50,646
edmund the base shall pop the legitimate. I grow, I prosper.

1721
01:50:50,758 –> 01:50:54,750
Now gods, stand up for bastards.

1722
01:50:55,570 –> 01:50:59,082
Then Gloucester comes in, speaks to Edmund.

1723
01:50:59,226 –> 01:51:02,126
He exits. End of act one,

1724
01:51:02,228 –> 01:51:06,042
scene two. Edmund. This is the excellent foppery

1725
01:51:06,106 –> 01:51:09,406
of the world. That when we are sick and fortune often the surface

1726
01:51:09,438 –> 01:51:12,798
of our own behavior, we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon

1727
01:51:12,814 –> 01:51:15,966
and the stars as if we were villains

1728
01:51:15,998 –> 01:51:19,638
on necessity fools by heavenly compulsion knaves, thieves and

1729
01:51:19,644 –> 01:51:23,858
treachers by spherical predominance druckerns, liars and adulterers

1730
01:51:23,874 –> 01:51:27,126
by enforced obedience of planetary influence and all that

1731
01:51:27,148 –> 01:51:31,782
we are evil in by a divine thrusting on an

1732
01:51:31,836 –> 01:51:35,786
admirable evasion of poor master man to lay his gauchish disposition on

1733
01:51:35,808 –> 01:51:39,494
the charge of a star. My father compounded with my mother

1734
01:51:39,542 –> 01:51:43,086
under the dragon’s tail and my nativity was under Ursa Major so that

1735
01:51:43,108 –> 01:51:46,446
it follows I am rough and lecherous I should have

1736
01:51:46,468 –> 01:51:49,594
been, that I am had the maidenliest

1737
01:51:49,642 –> 01:51:53,658
star and the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing Edgar.

1738
01:51:53,834 –> 01:51:57,314
Then enter Edgar and Pat he comes like the

1739
01:51:57,352 –> 01:52:01,266
catastrophe of the old comedy. My cue is villainous melancholy with

1740
01:52:01,288 –> 01:52:04,766
a sigh like taboo bedland. Oh, these eclipses

1741
01:52:04,798 –> 01:52:07,960
do portend these divisions FA sola me.

1742
01:52:08,810 –> 01:52:12,374
He’s going to talk with Edgar a little bit. He’s going

1743
01:52:12,412 –> 01:52:14,680
to chat him up.

1744
01:52:15,690 –> 01:52:19,834
And then we’re going to leapfrog a little bit over here to

1745
01:52:19,952 –> 01:52:23,578
act two. And we’re going

1746
01:52:23,584 –> 01:52:26,620
to go to scene three in act two.

1747
01:52:28,350 –> 01:52:32,800
And we’re going to

1748
01:52:33,890 –> 01:52:39,680
juxtapose Edmund’s complaint with

1749
01:52:40,290 –> 01:52:43,710
probably the most famous soliloquy in

1750
01:52:43,780 –> 01:52:44,820
King Lear,

1751
01:52:46,150 –> 01:52:51,300
edgar’s Song. Edgar act

1752
01:52:52,150 –> 01:52:55,970
in scene three, act Two. Edgar I heard myself

1753
01:52:56,040 –> 01:52:59,502
proclaimed and by the happy hollow of a tree escaped the hunt.

1754
01:52:59,646 –> 01:53:03,362
No port is free, no place that guard and most unusual vigilance

1755
01:53:03,426 –> 01:53:06,946
does not attend my taking. Whilst I may escape, I will preserve

1756
01:53:06,978 –> 01:53:10,918
myself and am be thought to take the bassist and most porous shape

1757
01:53:11,014 –> 01:53:14,634
that ever pernery and contempt of man brought near to

1758
01:53:14,672 –> 01:53:18,454
beast my face I’ll grime with filth blanket my loins

1759
01:53:18,502 –> 01:53:22,134
elf all my hairs and knots and with presented nakedness

1760
01:53:22,182 –> 01:53:26,078
outface the winds and persecutions of the sky. The country

1761
01:53:26,164 –> 01:53:29,694
gives me proof and precedent of bedlam beggars who with

1762
01:53:29,732 –> 01:53:32,634
roaring voices strike in their numbered and mortified arms,

1763
01:53:32,682 –> 01:53:35,870
pins, wooden pricks, nails, springs of rosemary.

1764
01:53:36,030 –> 01:53:39,198
And with this horrible object from low farms, poor pelting,

1765
01:53:39,214 –> 01:53:41,822
villagers, SHEEPCOATS and mills,

1766
01:53:41,966 –> 01:53:45,646
sometime with lunatic bands, sometime with prayers and force

1767
01:53:45,678 –> 01:53:48,758
their charity. Poor turtley. God.

1768
01:53:48,844 –> 01:53:52,680
Poor tom. That’s something yet. Edgar I

1769
01:53:53,050 –> 01:53:56,598
nothing. Am. And he goes

1770
01:53:56,684 –> 01:54:01,106
to repair himself to

1771
01:54:01,148 –> 01:54:02,890
potentially save the King.

1772
01:54:08,440 –> 01:54:13,668
Edgar and Edmund are two sides and

1773
01:54:13,754 –> 01:54:16,084
we’ve touched on it, we’ve touched on it, touched on. Now we’re going to address

1774
01:54:16,122 –> 01:54:19,530
it directly. They’re two sides of the Western idea.

1775
01:54:21,020 –> 01:54:24,600
Edmund, of course, is a bastard.

1776
01:54:25,340 –> 01:54:28,090
Back when illegitimacy actually meant something,

1777
01:54:29,580 –> 01:54:32,524
actually meant quite a lot. And I still do believe it matters quite a lot.

1778
01:54:32,562 –> 01:54:36,204
But we’ve moved it from the material level to even well, to the spiritual level,

1779
01:54:36,242 –> 01:54:39,756
even though there are material consequences for Illegitimacy that we can

1780
01:54:39,778 –> 01:54:43,456
see in any and all of our major cities. And then

1781
01:54:43,478 –> 01:54:46,636
we have Edgar. Edgar, who is willing to fall on his sword,

1782
01:54:46,748 –> 01:54:50,828
not only speak to truth, to power, but also take action in that truth

1783
01:54:51,004 –> 01:54:54,470
to engage with the

1784
01:54:56,200 –> 01:54:59,536
Dionysian forces that Edmund and even in his cold

1785
01:54:59,568 –> 01:55:03,392
rationality represents. Edmund represents

1786
01:55:03,456 –> 01:55:06,644
the rational Dionysian. He represents rational,

1787
01:55:06,692 –> 01:55:10,024
decadence. I hate you and

1788
01:55:10,062 –> 01:55:14,520
I seek revenge. There’s many characters like this in Shakespeare.

1789
01:55:15,100 –> 01:55:19,436
I would argue that Hamlet’s uncle in

1790
01:55:19,458 –> 01:55:22,904
Hamlet is this character. I would argue that Iago

1791
01:55:22,952 –> 01:55:26,968
in Othello is this character.

1792
01:55:27,144 –> 01:55:31,040
I would even argue that a couple of the characters in Taming of the Shrew

1793
01:55:32,820 –> 01:55:36,812
are these characters as well. Shakespeare plays with this psychological

1794
01:55:36,876 –> 01:55:40,396
idea in the pursuit of fiction, in the pursuit of literature. He plays

1795
01:55:40,428 –> 01:55:44,272
with this idea of the Dionysian as being rational,

1796
01:55:44,416 –> 01:55:47,876
but also being decadent, driven by these decadent emotions. We talked

1797
01:55:47,898 –> 01:55:51,780
a lot about emotion on this podcast, but driven by decadent emotions,

1798
01:55:52,200 –> 01:55:55,776
driven to pursue what is in, quote, unquote,

1799
01:55:55,808 –> 01:55:59,784
their nature. And then, by the way, in a world before, a good 300 years

1800
01:55:59,822 –> 01:56:03,988
before there was any psychological language, shakespeare understood

1801
01:56:04,164 –> 01:56:07,872
that the drivers of these psychological

1802
01:56:07,956 –> 01:56:12,088
behaviors were murky and cathonian,

1803
01:56:12,264 –> 01:56:15,836
and they lived all the way down deep in the dark heart of

1804
01:56:15,858 –> 01:56:19,704
man. Jeremiah 79. The heart is deceitful

1805
01:56:19,752 –> 01:56:25,456
above all else. Who could know it right now?

1806
01:56:25,478 –> 01:56:29,372
There’s two other folks in here. We’ve talked about Cordelia, but we haven’t

1807
01:56:29,436 –> 01:56:33,044
really addressed Reagan and Gone a real. And they

1808
01:56:33,082 –> 01:56:37,136
have female agency and something that Shakespeare

1809
01:56:37,168 –> 01:56:40,704
gets knocked very often for, how he portrays

1810
01:56:40,752 –> 01:56:44,900
his women, either as being too shrewish

1811
01:56:45,320 –> 01:56:49,104
that’s the feminist critique against Taming of the Shrew, Catherine,

1812
01:56:49,152 –> 01:56:52,388
in Taming of the Shrew. But then you also get the feminist

1813
01:56:52,404 –> 01:56:55,736
critique against Cordelia. The feminists somehow miss that

1814
01:56:55,758 –> 01:56:59,912
Reagan and Gonrial drive much of the narrative

1815
01:56:59,976 –> 01:57:03,630
of King Lear. They are women in power. They are women

1816
01:57:05,120 –> 01:57:08,860
who are, in the parlance of our time, to be believed,

1817
01:57:10,100 –> 01:57:13,090
believe all women. I’m old enough to remember when that was a thing.

1818
01:57:15,620 –> 01:57:21,526
I’m also old enough to remember when Supreme

1819
01:57:21,558 –> 01:57:24,060
Court nominees couldn’t define what a woman was.

1820
01:57:27,430 –> 01:57:29,700
Okay, all right.

1821
01:57:31,510 –> 01:57:34,580
Once again, evidence of the Dionysian, right?

1822
01:57:36,390 –> 01:57:39,522
If the Apollonian fails, this is the lesson for leaders.

1823
01:57:39,666 –> 01:57:43,794
If the eye of cold

1824
01:57:43,842 –> 01:57:47,474
rationality fails, the Dionysian always lurks

1825
01:57:47,522 –> 01:57:50,718
in the basement. There’s always cathonian,

1826
01:57:50,914 –> 01:57:54,698
Mother Nature, darker things, earthier things,

1827
01:57:54,784 –> 01:57:57,642
uglier things to fall back into. And,

1828
01:57:57,696 –> 01:58:01,098
of course, this is what we build up against,

1829
01:58:01,184 –> 01:58:05,066
right? Edmund in

1830
01:58:05,088 –> 01:58:08,954
his seemingly Apollonian nature because by his words, he rejects

1831
01:58:09,002 –> 01:58:12,298
all of that Dionysian nonsense. The stars get the heck out of town.

1832
01:58:12,314 –> 01:58:17,010
I’m not driven by the stars. I’m driven by rationality. I’m rationally pursuing revenge.

1833
01:58:18,230 –> 01:58:21,886
But he was manipulated by female nature

1834
01:58:22,078 –> 01:58:24,100
without even being aware of it.

1835
01:58:25,830 –> 01:58:29,614
Cornwall, on the other hand, we haven’t really touched on Cornwall

1836
01:58:29,662 –> 01:58:33,286
too much, but Cornwall was aware of the manipulation and he went along with it

1837
01:58:33,308 –> 01:58:36,758
anyway. He’s like, no, this works for me. I’m going to do this until the

1838
01:58:36,764 –> 01:58:39,974
rail, until the wheels fall off. And they fell off pretty

1839
01:58:40,012 –> 01:58:40,600
quickly.

1840
01:58:44,430 –> 01:58:47,770
And then Edgar Edgar’s song,

1841
01:58:48,350 –> 01:58:51,994
edgar’s Soliloquy song, such as it were, acts as

1842
01:58:52,032 –> 01:58:55,658
an anchor for the child. Roll into the dark Tower came by Robert

1843
01:58:55,674 –> 01:58:59,246
Browning, whose great first line of that poem is my

1844
01:58:59,268 –> 01:59:01,440
first thought was, he lied in every word.

1845
01:59:03,650 –> 01:59:04,880
Love that line.

1846
01:59:08,290 –> 01:59:11,806
There’s a lot between Edmund and Edgar and Reagan and

1847
01:59:11,828 –> 01:59:15,890
Gonorrhill, but again, they represent the Apollonian and the Dionysian.

1848
01:59:17,270 –> 01:59:21,102
They represent the pull of villainy.

1849
01:59:21,246 –> 01:59:24,994
And we’ve talked a lot about that on this podcast because King Lear almost engenders

1850
01:59:25,042 –> 01:59:28,134
it. But the pull of villainy, right? In a time

1851
01:59:28,172 –> 01:59:31,574
of chaos, a time of venal appetites

1852
01:59:31,622 –> 01:59:34,954
and pursuits, a time of decadence when

1853
01:59:34,992 –> 01:59:36,650
everything’s really falling apart,

1854
01:59:41,310 –> 01:59:44,506
how do we lose we’ve kind of maybe talked a little bit about this

1855
01:59:44,528 –> 01:59:47,726
already, Louie, but how can leaders address that chaos and

1856
01:59:47,748 –> 01:59:50,350
that villainy without losing their ethics?

1857
01:59:51,170 –> 01:59:53,920
Pragmatic optimism? Maybe that’s the way.

1858
01:59:54,850 –> 01:59:57,780
Or lamenting even the reality of people.

1859
01:59:59,990 –> 02:00:03,570
How do you maintain hope? How do you stay a happy warrior?

1860
02:00:05,430 –> 02:00:08,854
Yeah, I think we’ve touched a lot on

1861
02:00:08,892 –> 02:00:12,614
this. I always come to come back

1862
02:00:12,652 –> 02:00:16,694
to the concept of that we all have good and bad in

1863
02:00:16,732 –> 02:00:20,054
us, and I look for the exceptions with

1864
02:00:20,092 –> 02:00:23,834
the good and creating conditions for the good to come

1865
02:00:23,872 –> 02:00:27,100
out versus focusing on the bad.

1866
02:00:29,150 –> 02:00:33,390
This also is about I mentioned change

1867
02:00:33,460 –> 02:00:37,280
comes from outside in versus inside out.

1868
02:00:37,970 –> 02:00:40,880
And that means you need to be willing to walk away.

1869
02:00:42,690 –> 02:00:45,150
You need to be willing to walk alone.

1870
02:00:48,550 –> 02:00:51,794
And none of this is said to be easy.

1871
02:00:51,992 –> 02:00:55,394
No. Right. I’m not trying to say, oh, you just walk away in the world.

1872
02:00:55,432 –> 02:00:58,886
That creates a fine place for yourself. But you need

1873
02:00:58,908 –> 02:01:02,294
to be able to walk away to stay clear, to stay true to

1874
02:01:02,332 –> 02:01:06,130
who you are. And you will attract

1875
02:01:06,290 –> 02:01:10,238
others like you to set the stage

1876
02:01:10,434 –> 02:01:13,740
for what good looks like.

1877
02:01:16,350 –> 02:01:19,882
I like that. I wrote that down. Build what good looks like.

1878
02:01:19,936 –> 02:01:23,502
I love that. And this

1879
02:01:23,556 –> 02:01:26,640
also comes from the concept of servant leadership, too.

1880
02:01:28,290 –> 02:01:32,014
It didn’t occur to me until this year that

1881
02:01:32,052 –> 02:01:35,642
I no longer hear we I no longer hear

1882
02:01:35,716 –> 02:01:40,366
what we can do together. When talking to employees

1883
02:01:40,558 –> 02:01:45,122
about how they can contribute to a company or

1884
02:01:45,176 –> 02:01:48,438
even companies talking to employees, it’s all about, what are you going

1885
02:01:48,444 –> 02:01:52,470
to do for me? Tell me what you did. What you did, I did.

1886
02:01:52,540 –> 02:01:55,734
And nothing is

1887
02:01:55,772 –> 02:01:57,350
accomplished with an eye.

1888
02:01:58,730 –> 02:02:02,474
And the concept of servant leadership is

1889
02:02:02,672 –> 02:02:06,186
it would almost be frowned upon to talk about

1890
02:02:06,288 –> 02:02:10,838
in today’s corporate environment

1891
02:02:11,014 –> 02:02:14,654
where you’re actually serving others because by

1892
02:02:14,692 –> 02:02:18,526
nature of being a servant, you’re not in power. But I

1893
02:02:18,548 –> 02:02:22,026
look at the concept of all tides rise, a rising

1894
02:02:22,058 –> 02:02:25,822
tide raises all ships. If I’m helping you

1895
02:02:25,876 –> 02:02:29,586
to become the best version of yourself, whether you’re someone who works for

1896
02:02:29,608 –> 02:02:32,862
me, whether you’re a peer, or whether you’re a board member,

1897
02:02:32,926 –> 02:02:36,562
investor, whomever, my goal is to

1898
02:02:36,616 –> 02:02:39,270
unleash your potential.

1899
02:02:40,410 –> 02:02:43,862
And in doing so, I also unleash my own because I

1900
02:02:43,916 –> 02:02:47,286
learn, I create more opportunity for myself.

1901
02:02:47,468 –> 02:02:50,280
Yada, yada, yada. But at the end of the day,

1902
02:02:50,830 –> 02:02:54,074
where’s this concept about creating conditions for all to

1903
02:02:54,112 –> 02:02:57,514
thrive? And where is

1904
02:02:57,552 –> 02:03:00,966
the we and not the we as a tribe,

1905
02:03:01,078 –> 02:03:04,190
but we as a team, we as an organization,

1906
02:03:04,850 –> 02:03:08,046
we as ran ecosystem? How are we all working together

1907
02:03:08,148 –> 02:03:11,374
to help diverse individuals with diverse needs and

1908
02:03:11,412 –> 02:03:13,790
aspirations thrive?

1909
02:03:18,310 –> 02:03:22,258
I think we’re at the end of division. And maybe I’m only speaking

1910
02:03:22,344 –> 02:03:26,100
from my point of view here,

1911
02:03:26,790 –> 02:03:30,680
my end of the telescope from what I’m seeing in my local community.

1912
02:03:33,690 –> 02:03:37,720
But I do think that we

1913
02:03:38,490 –> 02:03:43,000
collectively have hit the end of the cycle of

1914
02:03:44,010 –> 02:03:47,882
the eye. Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s ascended so high

1915
02:03:47,936 –> 02:03:51,178
that it’s going to take the message has gone up so high, it’s going

1916
02:03:51,184 –> 02:03:54,238
to take a while for the we message to get up. It’s going to take

1917
02:03:54,244 –> 02:03:57,360
a while. There’s still a lot of nonsense it has to push through.

1918
02:03:59,490 –> 02:04:05,374
From where I’m sitting, I do think that we

1919
02:04:05,412 –> 02:04:08,898
are getting it. Not maybe the

1920
02:04:08,904 –> 02:04:12,546
people who are leading us, maybe they aren’t getting it. And by

1921
02:04:12,568 –> 02:04:16,174
the way, I mean, after a certain breakpoint and in politics,

1922
02:04:16,222 –> 02:04:19,446
I go above the state level, probably not. But from

1923
02:04:19,468 –> 02:04:23,142
the local level up. Yeah, the we is coming back for sure,

1924
02:04:23,276 –> 02:04:27,586
right? The we as a civilization,

1925
02:04:27,698 –> 02:04:31,546
right? Yeah. We as a tribe, seeing individuals for what

1926
02:04:31,568 –> 02:04:33,020
you can learn from them,

1927
02:04:34,350 –> 02:04:38,186
embracing our individual diversity and

1928
02:04:38,208 –> 02:04:41,290
true diversity, diversity of experience, diversity of thought,

1929
02:04:41,440 –> 02:04:43,340
all that kind of fun stuff.

1930
02:04:45,330 –> 02:04:49,326
But as they say, I think it’s the Chinese character for

1931
02:04:49,348 –> 02:04:51,840
chaos is also the one for opportunity.

1932
02:04:52,610 –> 02:04:56,142
And in the midst of the chaos,

1933
02:04:56,206 –> 02:04:59,726
people are looking for something that adds meaning. And they’re

1934
02:04:59,758 –> 02:05:04,130
realizing that these evacuous promises

1935
02:05:04,470 –> 02:05:08,550
and externally validating things are not

1936
02:05:08,620 –> 02:05:13,334
fulfilling. They’re looking for something that gives them an

1937
02:05:13,372 –> 02:05:17,270
enduring purpose, an enduring set of enduring

1938
02:05:17,690 –> 02:05:21,034
set of meaning. Well,

1939
02:05:21,072 –> 02:05:24,474
I think you’re seeing this culturally in the decline of the

1940
02:05:24,512 –> 02:05:25,930
superhero film.

1941
02:05:28,750 –> 02:05:32,310
So we’ve reached the end of the superhero film.

1942
02:05:32,470 –> 02:05:36,314
I can pretty definitively say that, yeah, I think that genre

1943
02:05:36,362 –> 02:05:37,310
is dead.

1944
02:05:40,050 –> 02:05:42,720
I’ll push it to 30. It had a good 30 years.

1945
02:05:43,490 –> 02:05:47,738
It warped everything because of the amount of money that Disney

1946
02:05:47,834 –> 02:05:51,146
put behind marvel films, which are really quite frankly,

1947
02:05:51,258 –> 02:05:55,102
I love how you put a rhetoric in theater. They’re rhetoric in theater

1948
02:05:55,166 –> 02:05:58,310
with spectacle on top. And they had nothing

1949
02:05:58,380 –> 02:06:01,560
to say after the spectacle. Right.

1950
02:06:03,770 –> 02:06:07,286
Remarkable silence after the spectacle. Even though there

1951
02:06:07,308 –> 02:06:10,966
are a wealth of stories to be told in the canon, trust me,

1952
02:06:10,988 –> 02:06:14,534
I know. I collected comic books for many years. There’s a wealth of stories

1953
02:06:14,582 –> 02:06:16,090
to be told in the canon,

1954
02:06:17,550 –> 02:06:20,938
but the stories don’t match the rhetoric in

1955
02:06:20,944 –> 02:06:24,574
the theater. And so if

1956
02:06:24,612 –> 02:06:29,680
what you’re selling is rhetoric in theater through

1957
02:06:30,450 –> 02:06:33,534
a heightened cultural message of,

1958
02:06:33,572 –> 02:06:37,618
I not we. I am Iron Man.

1959
02:06:37,784 –> 02:06:41,038
I am Shazam. I am Superman.

1960
02:06:41,214 –> 02:06:44,898
What’s? Batman famous. I’m a Batman guy. I’m Batman. Okay.

1961
02:06:44,984 –> 02:06:48,740
Well, yeah, okay.

1962
02:06:49,350 –> 02:06:52,190
The rhetoric and the puffery isn’t delivering.

1963
02:06:52,350 –> 02:06:55,654
Right? I think we start, you saw early on

1964
02:06:55,852 –> 02:06:59,414
with PR and corporations, and after a while, we’re like, oh,

1965
02:06:59,452 –> 02:07:03,146
they’re going to come out with a PR statement. And then it started moving to

1966
02:07:03,168 –> 02:07:07,114
the puffery and politics and the puffery. Everything was

1967
02:07:07,232 –> 02:07:11,018
puffery and statements that we are.

1968
02:07:11,104 –> 02:07:13,950
But when you looked at what was actually delivering, you’re like,

1969
02:07:14,020 –> 02:07:19,614
just hogwash. All you care about is money and power. So all

1970
02:07:19,652 –> 02:07:23,678
of the gilding is, like, starting to wash away,

1971
02:07:23,844 –> 02:07:27,730
and people are starting to look at real sources of value and truth,

1972
02:07:28,790 –> 02:07:32,862
and they’re finding it locally. But if you believe in the human condition,

1973
02:07:33,006 –> 02:07:36,590
if you study history, if you understand human nature,

1974
02:07:36,670 –> 02:07:40,206
you can have faith in the cycles

1975
02:07:40,238 –> 02:07:43,926
of time and know, hey, it may not be easy. You may be

1976
02:07:43,948 –> 02:07:47,366
the person who sacrificed on the altar, but at least you get to live with

1977
02:07:47,388 –> 02:07:50,966
yourself. I was

1978
02:07:50,988 –> 02:07:53,206
going to ask you, what can we take away from this? How can we stay

1979
02:07:53,228 –> 02:07:56,566
on the path? What can we take away from King Lear? And I think that’s

1980
02:07:56,598 –> 02:07:59,686
a good takeaway. I think that’s the takeaway.

1981
02:07:59,798 –> 02:08:03,062
And you may end up with, like, you’ve got spiritual wealth,

1982
02:08:03,126 –> 02:08:06,126
you may end up with material wealth, you may not, but at least you can

1983
02:08:06,148 –> 02:08:09,566
live with yourself. And the people who are

1984
02:08:09,588 –> 02:08:14,702
more spiritual seem to be happier after

1985
02:08:14,756 –> 02:08:17,942
the ephemeral. Well, fundamentally,

1986
02:08:18,106 –> 02:08:21,874
it’s one of those things where I think

1987
02:08:22,072 –> 02:08:25,620
well, I think yeah. I thought for many years,

1988
02:08:26,230 –> 02:08:29,090
I’m going to be dead a lot longer than I’m going to be alive.

1989
02:08:30,470 –> 02:08:33,638
So since I’m going to be dead a lot longer than I’m going to be

1990
02:08:33,644 –> 02:08:37,014
alive, I should probably be worried about that

1991
02:08:37,052 –> 02:08:39,990
king of stuff and making sure that all that’s aligned,

1992
02:08:40,650 –> 02:08:44,360
because eternity is a really long time,

1993
02:08:45,130 –> 02:08:47,240
like, really long time.

1994
02:08:48,910 –> 02:08:52,746
Even if there is no life after death. Yeah. Even if we take the

1995
02:08:52,928 –> 02:08:56,490
Pascal. Right, yeah. Pascal’s wages that are dictated

1996
02:08:56,650 –> 02:08:59,280
all make life better. Right.

1997
02:09:00,050 –> 02:09:03,486
Why do I want to take dictates and mandates from people who

1998
02:09:03,508 –> 02:09:07,970
can’t manage their own households, whose kids are striped with addiction

1999
02:09:09,190 –> 02:09:12,974
or health policy, from people who are clearly

2000
02:09:13,022 –> 02:09:15,490
anorexic or have problems with overeating?

2001
02:09:16,150 –> 02:09:19,158
Right, exactly. Yeah. Sorry.

2002
02:09:19,244 –> 02:09:19,880
No,

2003
02:09:24,330 –> 02:09:27,986
exactly. Well, and that’s where the Jordan Peterson

2004
02:09:28,018 –> 02:09:30,120
idea of make your own bed comes from.

2005
02:09:31,450 –> 02:09:35,402
And this is where I look at people who

2006
02:09:35,456 –> 02:09:38,698
are in activist positions who yell and scream a lot

2007
02:09:38,784 –> 02:09:42,330
about a lot of things. And I do. I wonder

2008
02:09:42,400 –> 02:09:45,950
as I read their tweets and their proclamations and I watch

2009
02:09:46,020 –> 02:09:48,880
their performative acts, and I wonder,

2010
02:09:50,130 –> 02:09:51,680
what is your family like?

2011
02:09:53,010 –> 02:09:55,870
And as an individual, I have compassion for them.

2012
02:09:55,940 –> 02:09:59,586
Right. I want them to be struggling. I want them to find happiness with

2013
02:09:59,608 –> 02:10:03,614
themselves. But I’m not going to take rules and orders

2014
02:10:03,662 –> 02:10:07,486
from people who don’t, as you said, right. Their own house isn’t

2015
02:10:07,518 –> 02:10:11,414
in order. Focus on

2016
02:10:11,452 –> 02:10:14,742
your side of the sidewalk, I’ll focus on mine, and we’ll be really happy.

2017
02:10:14,796 –> 02:10:17,400
And that means I keep mine clean, right?

2018
02:10:20,350 –> 02:10:23,878
Exactly. All right. Well, in turning

2019
02:10:23,894 –> 02:10:27,850
the corner on King Lear, I think we’ve determined what Libby believes

2020
02:10:28,190 –> 02:10:31,290
is the larger message for leaders for staying on the path.

2021
02:10:33,250 –> 02:10:36,922
I will say this king Lear is often framed

2022
02:10:36,986 –> 02:10:40,286
as a tragedy. Matter of

2023
02:10:40,308 –> 02:10:43,790
fact, on the back of the Dover Thrift edition,

2024
02:10:44,210 –> 02:10:47,442
it says that first performed about 16 five, king Lear

2025
02:10:47,496 –> 02:10:51,166
is one of the most relentlessly bleak of Shakespeare’s

2026
02:10:51,198 –> 02:10:54,578
tragedies, probably written between Othello and Macbeth when the

2027
02:10:54,584 –> 02:10:56,980
playwright was at the peak of his tragic power.

2028
02:10:57,590 –> 02:11:00,594
Lear’s themes of filial, ingratitude,

2029
02:11:00,722 –> 02:11:03,958
injustice, and the meaninglessness of life in a

2030
02:11:03,964 –> 02:11:07,314
seemingly indifferent universe are explored with unsurpassed

2031
02:11:07,362 –> 02:11:09,190
power and depth.

2032
02:11:11,550 –> 02:11:15,610
Yeah, okay. If you just read

2033
02:11:15,680 –> 02:11:18,714
it for what it is on the surface, absolutely.

2034
02:11:18,832 –> 02:11:22,506
It’s relentlessly nihilistic. It is lear. There is

2035
02:11:22,528 –> 02:11:26,974
an existential struggle, and the

2036
02:11:27,012 –> 02:11:30,938
universe does to Neil degrasse Tyson

2037
02:11:30,954 –> 02:11:34,206
or Richard Dawkins glee, I would imagine, reveal itself to

2038
02:11:34,228 –> 02:11:38,126
be just about as dead

2039
02:11:38,158 –> 02:11:41,506
end and meaningless as you would think if you came from that particular set

2040
02:11:41,528 –> 02:11:45,460
of ideological assumptions. And yet

2041
02:11:48,010 –> 02:11:51,350
we’re not reading things into the text that are not

2042
02:11:51,420 –> 02:11:55,586
there. There are multiple interpretations of Shakespeare’s

2043
02:11:55,618 –> 02:11:59,000
work, just as there are multiple interpretations of King Lear.

2044
02:12:00,490 –> 02:12:04,506
Just like when you watch a movie or a television show,

2045
02:12:04,528 –> 02:12:08,502
like a Succession or a Yellowstone, you have to contextualize

2046
02:12:08,646 –> 02:12:12,646
Shakespeare to your moment. And by the way, this is why Shakespeare

2047
02:12:12,678 –> 02:12:16,430
will survive both the nuclear weapons and the cockroaches,

2048
02:12:16,850 –> 02:12:21,306
if it comes to that. They’ll still be doing Shakespeare in China

2049
02:12:21,418 –> 02:12:24,622
or in India or among whoever is left,

2050
02:12:24,756 –> 02:12:27,570
because it’s human nature,

2051
02:12:28,550 –> 02:12:32,340
not English nature or

2052
02:12:33,270 –> 02:12:37,966
white European nature or patriarchal

2053
02:12:38,078 –> 02:12:41,154
nature. You could switch around all

2054
02:12:41,192 –> 02:12:44,806
of the roles in King Lear, as Akira Kurosawa did

2055
02:12:44,828 –> 02:12:48,040
in Ron, and it would still be the same,

2056
02:12:48,650 –> 02:12:52,666
because the drivers are human. Are the

2057
02:12:52,688 –> 02:12:56,026
drivers of humanity bleak? Is there injustice in

2058
02:12:56,048 –> 02:12:58,060
the world? Yes.

2059
02:12:59,470 –> 02:13:03,410
But there’s also hope. There’s also optimism.

2060
02:13:03,590 –> 02:13:07,246
There’s also building what good looks like. Use that

2061
02:13:07,268 –> 02:13:10,240
a lot from Libby today.

2062
02:13:11,170 –> 02:13:14,298
There’s understanding the difference between principles and positions, and there’s

2063
02:13:14,314 –> 02:13:17,330
not getting caught up in spectacle or rhetoric in theater.

2064
02:13:18,070 –> 02:13:22,130
There’s not getting distracted. They’re standing firm

2065
02:13:23,030 –> 02:13:26,926
in the face of chaos and villainy. And just like Cordelia

2066
02:13:26,958 –> 02:13:29,560
does and many others in King Lear,

2067
02:13:29,930 –> 02:13:33,570
including Edgar Silently,

2068
02:13:33,730 –> 02:13:37,346
nor maybe even out loud, but silently asserting

2069
02:13:37,378 –> 02:13:40,594
yourself and saying out loud just one

2070
02:13:40,652 –> 02:13:48,010
word, no leaders.

2071
02:13:48,910 –> 02:13:52,246
We have to learn the power of the no. I think that’s the biggest lesson

2072
02:13:52,278 –> 02:13:55,642
from King Lear. If there’s anything we could take from Cordelia, it’s the power

2073
02:13:55,696 –> 02:13:59,006
of the no. If there’s anything we could take from Edgar, it’s the power of

2074
02:13:59,028 –> 02:14:02,414
what you do after the no has been given. Regardless of how many

2075
02:14:02,452 –> 02:14:07,230
Edmunds or Lausers or Kent’s

2076
02:14:09,430 –> 02:14:12,500
or attendants or servants who’s surrounding you,

2077
02:14:14,390 –> 02:14:17,858
the characters really don’t matter. None of

2078
02:14:17,864 –> 02:14:21,158
them are going to help you at the end of

2079
02:14:21,164 –> 02:14:24,098
that existential struggle and the clearing at the end of that path.

2080
02:14:24,274 –> 02:14:27,590
Now, Lear got lucky. Cordelia was with him there at the end.

2081
02:14:27,740 –> 02:14:29,190
That’s luck.

2082
02:14:31,770 –> 02:14:35,126
In our modern era, Lear would probably be written and I get the

2083
02:14:35,148 –> 02:14:38,506
sense of the father in succession. And potentially, whatever they do

2084
02:14:38,528 –> 02:14:42,266
with the Kevin Costner character in Yellowstone is going to wind up alone in

2085
02:14:42,288 –> 02:14:45,534
a room by himself. And it usually is a man,

2086
02:14:45,572 –> 02:14:48,430
by the way, ladies, full of regret.

2087
02:14:51,270 –> 02:14:54,734
But it doesn’t have to be that way. We have agency,

2088
02:14:54,782 –> 02:14:59,074
we have choice. We can take

2089
02:14:59,112 –> 02:15:02,502
the lessons from King Lear. We could take the lessons from Shakespeare. We could apply

2090
02:15:02,556 –> 02:15:06,294
them to our lived lives. We could

2091
02:15:06,332 –> 02:15:09,962
build a better society and culture starting at the lower local level.

2092
02:15:10,016 –> 02:15:15,864
We could build a we together where

2093
02:15:15,902 –> 02:15:20,264
we can all see with collective eyes and

2094
02:15:20,302 –> 02:15:23,772
create a vision for the future that’s worth

2095
02:15:23,826 –> 02:15:24,700
defending.

2096
02:15:27,360 –> 02:15:30,476
I want to thank my guest, Libby Unger, for coming on the

2097
02:15:30,498 –> 02:15:34,236
podcast today. Always a great pleasure to have her. We will have

2098
02:15:34,258 –> 02:15:37,436
her on again. There’s another couple of books coming

2099
02:15:37,458 –> 02:15:39,890
up in a few months. We’re going to have her on again.

2100
02:15:40,260 –> 02:15:43,696
Libby, is there anything you would like to promote today

2101
02:15:43,718 –> 02:15:46,928
on the podcast? Anywhere where people can find you or where you want to

2102
02:15:46,934 –> 02:15:49,670
be found or do you want to be found, even?

2103
02:15:51,400 –> 02:15:54,836
No, I don’t hide. You can

2104
02:15:54,858 –> 02:15:57,968
always find me on LinkedIn, Libby Younger,

2105
02:15:58,144 –> 02:16:01,524
and ping me there or email me

2106
02:16:01,562 –> 02:16:04,564
directly at libby@luminola.com.

2107
02:16:04,602 –> 02:16:08,516
And you can add that to the show notes. But this has been

2108
02:16:08,618 –> 02:16:12,436
fabulous. Don’t lose hope. Do the

2109
02:16:12,458 –> 02:16:16,044
right thing. The only person that you need to be able to live with is

2110
02:16:16,082 –> 02:16:19,084
yourself and do the right thing,

2111
02:16:19,122 –> 02:16:22,910
because it’s the right thing to do. And with that,

2112
02:16:25,280 –> 02:16:25,850
I’m out.