Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power | Book of the Week

Episode Date: January 11, 2021

“I'm a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it” - Thomas Jefferson 0:00 Introduction 1:05 The Power of the Individual 2:54 The Greats Are Human Too 4:40 Make Others Feel Valued 6:13 Progress Over Perfection 8:19 You Can't Please Everyone 10:53 Next Week's Book Read Along: Week 1: Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V9xA... Get the Book: https://amzn.to/2LcYLij Week 2 - The Ride Of A Lifetime by Robert Iger Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWa9B... Get the Book: https://amzn.to/3oSEMUr Week 3 - Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciJFw... Get the Book: https://amzn.to/2JSd7EE Week 4 - The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth by John Maxwell Watch the video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJtOa... Get the Book: https://amzn.to/2J5lcFo Week 5 - The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle Get the Book: https://amzn.to/3rwCqga Week 6 (This Week) - Thomas Jefferson, The Art of Power by John Meacham Get the Book: https://amzn.to/3rzTFNA Week 7 (Next Week) - The Success Principles by Jack Canfield Get the Book: https://amzn.to/2XvvpOV

Thomas Jefferson, the Art of Power by John Meacham. So this week, as promised, as advertised, we're going to talk about Thomas Jefferson. Not so much in the context of, like, the, you know, recapping the history of his life, but talking about the things that made him a great leader, allowed him to change the world that we can then implement into our own lives. So what made him a great leader? Because it's not what you'd think in a lot of ways. He's antithetical to a lot of leaders, to say, a Washington, or, you know, he was very unique.

What made him a great statesman? How did he disagree with his opponents, but also make them feel valued so that he could get what he wanted? What about his philosophy was different and changed the landscape in favor of individuality and freedom of expression? And he's just a very unique individual. And there's a lot here, as I'm reading, that you can take and apply to your own life. And so that's what I want to do.

I have a handful of topics that as I was reading, I kind of highlighted and was like, This will be useful. And yeah, so that said, let's just jump right into it. The first category or idea that's really prevalent throughout the whole book is education. And this was something that was near and dear to his heart from the time he was a kid to literally his last days,

reading and always educating oneself. Cicero talks about, and a lot of these guys, You know, they took all of their, you know, their influence for the United States from Cicero and Locke and Montesquieu and all these people. You know, it's the idea that human beings, not focusing necessarily on a task, but on bettering themselves holistically across the board are incredibly powerful. And that should be the focus, bettering the individual. And so he actually said, it's a pretty cool quote. he said he would take his classical training that his father arranged from him over the estate his father left him if he had to choose. Just showing you how much he emphasized and valued education.

When he was a young lawyer in Virginia, he said lawyers should spend most of their day with the law, and then after they exercise, divide the rest of the time into three pieces, history, philosophy, and poetry. So again, just an array of things that I think allowed him to not only be a good statesman, but a good philosopher. And it was the combination of those two was because he was so well-versed in what he did that made him powerful. And that's why I think, you know, these weekly videos are so cool. If anything, just a reminder to continue reading, to continue diving into things we don't know as much or make us a little uncomfortable. because, hey, you never know when it will come in handy and will diversify your life, experience, your knowledge,

and we'll be better for it. So next, let's talk about the fact that he's human. May seem silly to point that out. Of course, he was human. But how often when we're talking about, you know, celebrities, athletes, politician, whoever it is, right, people that have some level of influence, you know, we put them on these pedestals.

And it's like, it's just not the way the world works. as my grandfather would say, they put their pants on one leg at a time. They just believed in themselves and battled adversity. You know, as someone that gets crazy headaches, and I do, I get them a lot. Thomas Jefferson talked about, or it was talked about that he had headaches all the time, to the point where in the White House they were so crippling sometimes at 10 a.m. about when they'd kick in, be useless the rest of the day. So get up early and do as much as he could before 10 a.m.,

And that was something that he dealt with his whole life. And it's just like, it's not that you want those people to be dealing with things, but the reality is they're humans, so they do deal with those things. And you realize, look, you know, you can feel sorry for yourself or you can push through and you can make it happen. He dealt with a lot of tragedy in his life. It wasn't easy for him. You know, his wife died.

His children passed away. I think all of them except one in his lifetime. And he dealt with this immense sadness. There's a point where he's even suicidal. He asked what's the point of life? Again, when we dip into these things, it's human. And it's something that we can climb back out of

and a lot of people do and the greats do. And you're not alone in that experience. And just hearing that in some way is comforting. Another thing that I thought was important was that he made others feel valued. And this came across a few ways. One example is that, you know, one of these dinners he had at the White House, there was a gentleman who was at the table, and he wasn't, you know, very well known, and kind of you could tell he kind of felt left out from the conversation. And Jefferson made a point

to prop him up and, you know, say thank you and kind of over-exaggerate the value that he's providing for the country so that he would feel good and welcome. And there's a lot of correspondence, Like when he's talking to Washington or Burr, and he disagrees with them, he does it in a way that it makes them feel valuable. He emphasizes, hey, we're on the same team, but F you, we disagree, right? So he can tell people to go fly a kite, but make them feel like, hey, we're in this together. We're on the same side. We want the same thing, but no, thank you. And that is an incredibly effective way to get things done.

And I think in a lot of ways it's missing today, where division comes from right, wrong, immoral, moral. And it's like, no, we want the same thing. We want to arrive at the same destination. We just have different ideas for the best paths to get there. And that commonality, remembering that we share a specific identity and we're under the same umbrella, it really makes a big difference,

particularly when you're trying to get things done and create change. So definitely valuable there. Another idea, the power of progress. So with the political climate that really never changes, I mean, it's always two sides demonizing the other. There were a lot of times where he knew he wasn't going to get his way. But he realized that compromise or, saying yes to part of what you want is better than standing firm and getting nothing at all.

Because once you have what you want in place, you can then build on it. And I've talked about this with the problem with perfection. It's like if you wait till you have the perfect thing, you usually wait your whole life. You don't get anything done. But the second you create action, the second you bring something into existence, there's something to change. Now, the other side of that is sometimes you have to break the rules, right? You can't always ask for permission. Sometimes you have to beg for forgiveness.

And this was the example with the Louisiana purchase, where, you know, he wanted to do it the right way and have an amendment created to buy that land. There was nothing in the Constitution about that. And realized that time was of the essence and knew that Napoleon wouldn't have that offer on the table forever. You just wouldn't and knew that they had to act now. And so he took matters into his own hands. And was it completely constitutional? No. If someone else did it, would it have pissed him off?

Probably. But he did things that had to be done so that he could bring them into existence. Again, if he waited for perfect there and made sure every box was checked, transaction probably doesn't happen. So, you know, really practical. And they make that point in the book a lot. You know, he's philosophical, but he's very practical with how he gets things done. And sometimes it's just about progress, about moving the ball forward.

And the last thing I want to talk about is that he realized along the way that you can't make everyone happy. It's just impossible. You're always going to be criticized. There's a lot of talk in this book that he always struggled between, you know, not wanting to be a failure and wanting to be great, particularly when he was younger. If George Washington wanted him to be the first secretary of state, he's ambitious. He believed he can change the world.

He wanted to. At the same time, the criticism is so much that he thought, you know, maybe not. Obviously, he does ultimately and then becomes the third president of the United States. But it's something that he learned as he sort of expanded into the political world. There's a part in the book where it talks about his own party, the extremists. And when I say extremists, that just means sort of the fringes of the Democratic Republic Party, as well as the outskirts of the Federalist Party, and not even so much the outskirts, a lot of the Federalist Party, but they all hated him.

And he thought, you know, good, right? That means I'm compromising. That means him in the middle. If you have a little bit of both sides throwing things at you and pointing fingers at you, you're probably doing the right thing. It's a complex, diverse population with a lot of different beliefs and a lot of different people. And so it requires compromise. If you live and die based on what other people think, it's going to prevent you from doing the right thing.

Emotion of the crowd will prevent you from making the choice that's best for them. Sometimes you have to do things for yourself and for others that they're not going to like. I heard a metaphor once that was like, you know, people would like the doctorate. If the doctor gave out candy, then gave them a shot or perform surgery. But the people might need surgery. And so being loved, being the one that's always giving up the candy is not beneficial in a lot of ways, most of the time, right? And so same thing with everyday life.

If you're operating under the premise that you don't want to piss people off, or you don't want to be criticized, you kind of want to sneak under the radar, you can't add the value that's possible, possible because in order to do something of value, you know, by definition, you will get criticized. You will bother some people. That's just the way the world works. And so he detached from it and was able to thrive as a politician. And I think, you know, our detachment from it will only impact our lives for the best as well.

So next week we'll do the success principles by Jack Canfield. And to be honest, I don't know too much about this book. It's been sitting on the bookshelf behind me for a lot. long time and I haven't opened it yet. So what better time than now? I would love for you to read along and connect next week when I go over it. I hope you like today's episode. If there's anything that you felt was relevant that people would benefit from that I didn't talk about, throw it in the comments. And we'll convene down there and go over it. So don't be shy. Feel free to share your thoughts and ideas and looking forward to next week. All right, have a great one,

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