You can gain all of the education in the world, but if you don’t become the person you need to be to achieve the greatest benefit from that education, you might as well have stayed in kindergarten. Tom Hopkins, author of “How to Master the Art of Selling”.
Brian Johnson, my mentor from Optimize.me, goes through a very good analysis below of the virtues from Socrates and then looks at the virtues through many of the great religions and philosophies (Christianity, Buddhism etc.) and in the end, he comes up with the top 4 virtues: Wisdom, Self-Mastery, Courage, Love and (added Transcendence for 5). Transcendence is about the love of others i.e. helping others. So really, you could combine the two and understand Love is really Love 0.0 (self), 1.0 (main partner), 2.0 (family and friends), and 3.0 (society or transcendence). I modified courage to Action. Why? you need courage to take Action. So courage is only one component of Action. If Self Mastery is a category and Love is a category, then Action is the other main category that encompasses courage.
And So that is how I derived my top 4 virtues i.e. I just took Brian’s work below and modified one word. LOL. Now you have to agree with the process that Brian did, and I do, if you did a similar thing for yourself. Essentially, he looked at all the work done throughout history on values/virtues (he, in turn, took his work from someone else who had done that work–and that person, in turn, took the work from Martin Seligman et al etc.) and what he found was that there were 4 to 6 top virtues when you realize that people were you using different words to describe virtually the same thing.
So my 4 top virtues as I have modified from above is Wisdom, Self Mastery (especially of your mind), Action, and Love (0.0 to 3.0). Wisdom applies to everything. Self Mastery also applies to everything (especially now as I try to get my physical health better via improvements in move, eat, sleep). When you get self-mastery, you gain control over your mind, body, emotions, and alignment of your spirit and you create your loving inner world. Action relates to obtaining achievement/money (finances and career)—i.e. the science of achievement. And then Loves relates to Relationships. So the four important virtues each relate to the Bamboo Framework of the Science of Achievement and Art of Fulfillment. (Yes, I can hear you saying that all 4 drives all components, and I guess this is true also. But stick with me for a second.)
Therefore, we also have the main virtues that drive each component of loving inner world (with your 4 core beliefs Plus the virtues of wisdom and self-mastery) and this then yields your ability to create your external world of achievements via the virtue of Action, and your external world of relationships/love (noun) via the virtue of Love (verb).
So my insight that prompted this article was to change Courage to Action and also to relate each Virtue to the components of the results you want to change. Notice that most of our objectives goals relate to these three big areas of our life i.e. the results we want. So we have the virtues that we concentrate on daily to help to achieve the results in our lives. These virtues act as a filter to our subconscious mind (via the Reticular Activation System) that tells us if we are moving forward towards what we want. However, we need to consciously tell ourselves to use these values if those are the values we want to filter with–otherwise, the subconscious will just use our old programs of what we, ourselves, or someone else might have placed there unconsciously when we were younger.
Now, it took me 55 years to learn what my mother was telling me and demonstrated with her life from day 1—to be kind to others (some of us are just too stubborn and need to learn ourselves—LOL). I think though to be fair to myself, I had to learn to be kind, compassionate and loving to myself also before I could really be loving to others more fully.
Now, why am I emphasizing virtues? Well, the Tom Hopkins quote at the start tells you all. You need to BE, before you can do. And I was still in kindergarten. Tom Hopkins in the forward to Power of Consistency by Weldon Long goes on to say, “But, to achieve real success, you need to first see yourself in your mind as a successful person. Some might call this self-esteem, or refer to it as your self-image. The point is that it’s up to you to choose the life you want to live, envision it, and then build it.”
Before 2019, I had professional knowledge about finance, etc., but not Wisdom about life and living. I had the mind to think, but no Self-mastery of my thoughts. I did not take enough Action (without having a growth mindset, grit, antifragile resilience, commitment, consistency, and confidence–all important attributes for action) and was closed-minded to feedback. I knew how to be mostly kind to others (thanks mom), but did not have self-compassion for myself. So with the top 4 virtues not at a high standard, it also makes sense that my life was not operating at the level where I am being my best self (and I was not even close). So values that comprise your character become an important component of being your best self.
Of course, Love is the greatest of all virtues, also known as the Golden Rule. John Templeton endowed the Templeton Prize in Religion, which is worth more than the Nobel Prize in terms of dollars, as one of showing that we were more alike, especially on the Golden Rule.
As Templeton explained in his book, Discovering the Laws of Life,
“Outlined in my earlier book, The Templeton Plan: 21 Steps to Personal Success and Real Happiness) are some of the laws that should prove helpful as you proceed along the road to spiritual maturity:
- TRUTHFULNESS when a lie would be so much easier;
- RELIABILITY when you could slack off;
- FAITHFULNESS during moments of doubt;
- PERSEVERANCE when you think you’re too tired to go on;
- ENTHUSIASM while encountering. roadblocks;
- ENERGY at the moment you feel burned out;
- HUMILITY while others heap praise on you;
- PLEASING others before thinking of your own pleasure;
- GIVING to others before thinking of receiving;
- LEARNING from others because you realize there’s so little you know;
- ALTRUISM even though you may sense around you an atmosphere of selfishness;
- JOY at the very moment when your prospects seem the darkest.
However, Week One in Templeton’s book is the Golden Rule. This we know in every religion around the world. It was through John Templeton (also one of the greatest investors in the world) where I first learned that virtually all religions and philosophies have some expression of the Golden Rule. I remember best the New English Bible version (because it so much easier to remember): “Treat others as you would like them to treat you.”
More Comments on Brian Johnson’s Note
Below is a note on the main virtues from Brian Johnson that I think was really explained concisely and is a great example of combining wisdom of the ages, modern science and synthesis. I have a few things left to graduate (the main one is to do an obstacle like run—LOL). However, I spent a lot of 2019 learning things like these in depth so that I could qualify as an Optimize.me Coach. I have left in Brian’s plug for the Optimize Mastery and Optimize Coach series if you are interested (let me know, I think I can get a discount for you via Referral, I think).
P.S. As you may recall, Virtues are values in action. Same thing though when people talk about virtues, ideals, and values for 80% of the conversation.
Brian Johnson Note
“Today we’re going to go back to Massimo Pigliucci’s How to Be a Stoic and chat about the four cardinal virtues of Stoicism, the six “core” virtues of modern science and the core virtues of
First: Massimo.
He tells us: “The Stoics adopted Socrates’s classification of four aspects of virtue, which they thought of as four tightly interlinked character traits: (practical) wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. Practical wisdom allows us to make decisions that improve our eudaimonia, the (ethically) good life. Courage can be physical, but more broadly refers to the moral aspect—for instance, the ability to act well under challenging circumstances… Temperance makes it possible for us to control our desires and actions so that we don’t yield to excesses. Justice, for Socrates and the Stoics, refers not to an abstract theory of how society should be run, but rather to the practice of treating other human beings with dignity and fairness.”
Note: That’s from Part II of the book: “How to Behave in the World.” The short answer on how to behave? It’s revealed in the title of the first chapter from this section: “It’s All About Character (and Virtue).”
Massimo thoughtfully walks us through the four cardinal Stoic virtues: Wisdom + Courage + Temperance + Justice.
He tells us: “The Stoics derived their understanding of virtue from Socrates, who believed that all virtues are actually different aspects of the same underlying feature: wisdom. The reason why wisdom is the ‘chief good,’ according to Socrates, is rather simple: it is the only human ability that is good under every and all circumstance.
He also connects these four cardinal virtues to the modern Positive Psychology movement which was founded on an exploration of shared virtues among all cultures—which I found particularly awesome because the next book on my stack to read is called The Power of Character Strengths and was written by two of the leading scientists behind the VIA Institute on Character.
Massimo says: “Other cultures have developed, more or less independently, their own sets of virtues as socially important character traits, each arriving at its own classification of the relations among virtues. Interestingly, though, there is much more convergence than we would expect in these days when cultural relativism is so often portrayed as the norm. A study by Katherine Dahlsgaard, Christopher Peterson, and Martin Seligman looked at how virtue is articulated in Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Judaism, Taoism, and what they call ‘Athenian philosophy’ (mostly Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle). They found a rather surprising amount of congruence among all of these religious-philosophical traditions and identified a set of six ‘core’ virtues: Courage, Justice, Humanity, Temperance, Wisdom, and Transcendence.
Four of the six are indistinguishable from the Stoic virtues. Stoics also accepted the importance of ‘humanity’ and ‘transcendence,’ although they didn’t think of these as virtues, but rather as attitudes toward others (humanity) and toward the universe at large (transcendence).”
To recap and drop it into our Optimize framework.
Our Stoics had their four cardinal virtues: Wisdom + Courage + Temperance + Justice. Modern scientists looked across a range of religious-philosophical doctrines across a range of cultures and found the same four virtues and added two: Humanity + Transcendence.
I think we can all agree that Wisdom + Courage + Temperance (or, as I prefer, Self-Mastery) are essential. Then, as we briefly discussed in our Note on Musonius Rufus, I think “Justice” is a very weak word to capture the LOVE the Stoics (and all other traditions) encouraged us to feel for their families, communities and world. So, why not just call the fourth virtue “Love”? Then we can throw the scientist’s “Justice” and “Humanity” under that umbrella.
Now we have Wisdom + Self-Mastery + Courage + Love.
To run it through our Optimize model: We start by having Wisdom. We know the game we’re playing (eudaimonia!) AND, very importantly, how to play it well (operationalize virtue!).
Then we cultivate our Self-Mastery (with an emphasis on the fundamentals so we can Optimize our Energy). Why? So we can more consistently live with both Courage (in all aspects of our lives but with an emphasis on Work) and so we can more consistently live with Love.
As we do the hard work of operationalizing virtue, we make progress in closing the gap between who we are capable of being and who we are actually being—more and more consistently living with eudaimonia and expressing the Optimus-best version of ourselves.
That leads us to Transcendence. From my vantage point, the eudaimonically-best version of ourselves naturally (almost effervescently) transcends self-interest and lives a life committed to more than just themselves.
A Greek word for that? Hērōs.
We become modern, everyday “protectors” of our families and communities and world.
We have strength for two. We give the world all we’ve got.
Today
P.S. Helping us operationalize these virtues by integrating ancient wisdom + modern science + practical tools is what our Optimize Mastery Series and Optimize Coach programs are all about. If that sounds like fun, we’d love to have you join us!
Writing Tip
A shoutout to my son Alexander. In his year-end review in his newsletter here, I read a tip that you should cut off your first sentence and last sentence of what you write. So I tried it here in this blog and I think works (I cut off the first sentence and got right into the action of the story and the last sentence in this paragraph). I also want to thank both Alex and his brother Nicholas, who both paved the way with their own blogs and newsletters and I followed suit. There are many innovations, suggestions, things they are doing, and who they are that I have adopted that have made me a better person and what I do. Thank you.
Action Items
- What are your 4 main virtues?
- How and why do you differ in the importance of your 4 main values and how do you relate them to the 3 main categories of your life: health, work, and love.