Blow your own nose, get active in your own rescue

We cry to God Almighty, how can we escape this agony? Fool, don't you have hands? Or could it be God forgot to give you a pair? Sit and pray your nose doesn't run! Or, rather just wipe your nose and stop seeking a scapegoat.

-- Epictetus, Discourses, 2.16.13

The world is unfair. The game is rigged. So-and-so has it out for you. Maybe these theories are true, but practically speaking -- for the right here and now -- what good are they to you? That government report or that sympathetic news article isn't going to pay the bills or rehab your broken leg or find that bridge loan you need. Succumbing to self-pity and "woe is me" narrative accomplishes nothing -- nothing except sapping you of the energy and motivation you need to do something about your problem.

We have a choice: Do we focus on the ways we have been wronged, or do we use what we've been given and get to work? Will we wait for someone to save us, or will we listen to Marcus Aurelius's empowering call to "get active in your own rescue -- if you care for yourself at all -- and do it while you can." That's better than just blowing your own nose (which is a step forward in itself).

* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman   

 

My Amazon/AWS Work of Leaders Profile

The last time I had a detailed psychometric assessment done was in 2015 as I was stepping up to executive management (C-Suite) roles, the Enneagram report, seven years ago.

It's now 2022 and I'm working at Amazon Web Services in a leadership position where the focus is on scaling myself, my team and my business. As part this journey of leading to scale, I completed a new kind of psychometric based on the DiscProfile focused on the "Work of Leaders". 

This Work of Leaders psychometric is different because unlike other DiSC reports, which emphasize understanding the differences between people (like the Enneagram model), Work of Leaders focuses on understanding how your tendencies influence your effectiveness in specific leadership situations.

Here's is decent walkthrough of the assessment:

My Assessment Results

My dot style is Di

My shading style includes Pioneering, Commanding, Energizing and Affirming (which isn't characteristic of the Di style(!)\

My Reflections on my Disc Report as shared with my Manager

Control and Choice

The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own...

-- Epictetus, Discourses, 2.4.4-5

* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman  

Stick with just the facts, don't get carried away

Don't tell yourself anything more than what the initial impressions report. It's been reported to you that someone is speaking badly about you. This is the report -- the report wasn't that you've been harmed. I see that my son is sick -- but not that his life is at risk. So always stay within your first impressions, and don't add to them in your head -- this way nothing can happen to you.

-- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.49

* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman 

Start with where the world is

Do now what nature demands of you. Get right to it if that's in your power. Don't look around to see if people will know about it. Don't await the perfection of Plato's Republic, but be satisfied with even the smallest step forward and regard the outcome as a small thing.

-- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.29.(4)

As an  organizer I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be. That we accept the world as it does not in any sense weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be -- it is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be.

-- Saul Alinksy in Rules for Radicals

* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman