The Art of Manliness - #333： Solitude & Leadership

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast well about a year

00:00:18.760 ago i had cultural critic william derezowicz on the podcast discuss among other things a speech

00:00:23.860 he gave at west point in 2010 on the power of solitude and making better leaders it's a powerful

00:00:28.980 speech and my guest today is one of the individuals who was impacted by it so much so that he spent

00:00:33.540 seven years researching and writing a book on the intersection of solitude and leadership his name

00:00:38.340 is mike erwin and he's the co-author of the book lead yourself first inspiring leadership through

00:00:42.740 solitude today on the show mike and i discuss why solitude is more than just secluding yourself from

00:00:47.260 other people why it's so hard to come by in the information age and how leadership in our

00:00:51.520 governments and businesses have suffered because of its lack we then dig deep into specific benefits

00:00:56.080 that solitude can give leaders by looking at case studies from history mike shares how solitude

00:01:00.620 practices enabled dwight d eisenhower to make big analytical decisions like launching d-day helped

00:01:05.620 lawrence of arabia and general ulysses s grant to come up with creative war strategies allowed

00:01:10.240 abraham lincoln to keep himself emotionally stable during the civil war and gave winston churchill

00:01:14.820 martin luther king jr and pope john paul ii the moral courage to stand up for what they believed in

00:01:19.900 we end our show discussing practical ways you can inject some more solitude into your life no matter

00:01:24.720 how noisy or busy it is it's a great show gets high level but also gets brass tacks you're going

00:01:29.180 to want to take notes after the show's over check out the show notes at aom.is slash lead yourself

00:01:33.980 first mike erwin welcome to the show hey thank you so much for having me i'm really excited so you

00:01:42.520 wrote a book that i really loved lead yourself first inspiring leadership through solitude before we get

00:01:48.660 into the power of solitude and making us better leaders can you tell us a little bit about your

00:01:52.420 background sure absolutely so i've got a bit of a eclectic background in terms of you know where

00:01:58.300 i've been involved with various leadership efforts but you know i graduated from west point in the

00:02:03.020 united states military academy in 2002 so september 11th 2001 that was the start of my senior year

00:02:09.880 i ended up branching military intelligence as a result of that served 13 years on active duty and part of

00:02:16.640 that journey was i deployed to iraq once afghanistan twice in support of the first cavalry division and

00:02:23.780 third special forces group and then i was selected to go back to graduate school in route to become an

00:02:29.780 assistant professor back at west point so i studied positive psychology at the university of michigan under

00:02:35.260 one of the co-founders of the field and then i went and i taught leadership and psychology for three years

00:02:40.540 and then i wrapped up my time on active duty at special operations command down in mcdill air force base in

00:02:46.300 florida and then since then you know i've been leading this non-profit called the positivity project

00:02:50.000 and you know our mission is to empower america's youth to build strong relationships by recognizing

00:02:55.940 the good in themselves and others so basically a focus on character and how can we more effectively

00:03:01.980 as adults and especially as teachers instruct students on what character is so that they see the

00:03:08.440 good in themselves but more importantly in other people so um and i guess yeah the final thing is that

00:03:13.880 i'm the founder and serve on the board of directors for a veteran support non-profit called team red

00:03:19.460 white and blue whose mission is to enrich the lives of america's veterans by connecting them the people

00:03:24.640 in their community through physical and social activity so i got involved in various efforts at

00:03:29.900 various degrees and capacities but very driven by this notion of servant leadership and how can i as a

00:03:36.520 leader as often as possible be working to improve the lives of people around me so that's awesome what

00:03:42.580 what an impressive cv you have there and for those of you who are interested we actually interviewed

00:03:46.940 jj from team rwb about the program what they do so if you guys want to check that out check just google

00:03:53.540 art of manly's team red white and blue you'll find that podcast interview it's a really good one

00:03:58.040 and then you you co-author this book with judge raymond kethledge of the sixth circuit court of appeals as

00:04:03.880 well yeah absolutely and and a bit of just real beef brief background in that is that i was a graduate

00:04:11.080 student at michigan studying positive psychology and that's really when this whole journey began

00:04:15.400 read a powerful article that was actually a speech given at west point you know back in 2009 and it

00:04:22.000 really prompted this reflection about what an important subject it is to think about the role

00:04:27.980 of solitude and leadership and obviously the world is only noisier and more crowded than ever today than

00:04:35.280 it was back then but even back in 2010 we felt wow there's such a huge need for people and especially

00:04:42.060 leaders to spend some time engaging with this thesis and this message and you know it took quite a long

00:04:48.660 time it was a journey of perseverance to be able to produce the book a lot of reading of his history and

00:04:55.120 a lot of interviews with contemporary leaders and analysis and sort of putting it all together into a

00:05:00.960 coherent package and then also getting obviously a top-rate publisher like bloomsbury to

00:05:06.940 be interested in it and then work with us along the way to make something that was good

00:05:11.620 significantly better so really happy with how it turned out and looking forward to sharing some of

00:05:17.820 the thoughts with your community so was that west point speech given by bill derezowicz it was

00:05:23.800 yeah so it was yeah given to the plebe english class in in the fall of 2009 and you know i actually

00:05:30.320 reached out and contacted him and told him what a powerful speech it was and what a powerful article

00:05:35.100 it was and uh he was the one who who sort of encouraged you know me to hey if you want if you

00:05:40.080 want to go deeper on this you know i suggest you know you write a book on it and of course i didn't

00:05:45.100 know uh i had a general idea of what a significant undertaking it was but did not think that it would take

00:05:50.920 you know seven years from that conversation to publication but it was that was the the article

00:05:55.880 that went viral you know which still if you google solitude and leadership it's been viewed

00:05:59.980 millions of times over these past you know seven eight years since the article came out and uh it's

00:06:05.840 still i i read you know reread it once in a while because it's really inspirational yeah and for

00:06:09.740 those of you interested we actually interviewed bill a while back ago it's episode number 261 if you

00:06:14.100 want to check that out we talked a little bit about the the his speech but then we also get he wrote a

00:06:17.780 book about jane austen what you can learn from jane austen so we talked about that too all right

00:06:22.280 so let's get to uh your deep dive into solitude so the the speech that you read had a big impact on

00:06:29.440 you i'm curious were there like besides that moment were there other moments where you experienced

00:06:35.380 firsthand that solitude right well let's get to let's do this first before we we get into what's

00:06:42.580 talk about that like how do you define solitude i think when most people think what solitude is it

00:06:46.740 means you're like a monk you're by yourself you're not around anyone you seclude yourself

00:06:51.880 is that how you define solitude or is it something else yeah no and and obviously as you've read the

00:06:57.880 book i mean you know that we really define it in a very different way while you can achieve solitude

00:07:04.120 certainly on the top of mount rainier or out in the woods for days at a time on your own that's

00:07:09.500 certainly an extreme sort of a five standard deviation from the mean opportunity for solitude we really

00:07:15.680 define it as you know when the mind isolates itself from the input from other minds and and works

00:07:22.560 through a problem and works through thoughts on its own and so the case that we make is we define

00:07:27.840 solitude is that you can achieve solitude much more readily and consistently even when you're surrounded

00:07:33.040 by people in a place like say a starbucks or a coffee shop or when you're somewhere out and about you

00:07:38.480 have the capacity as long as you are isolating your mind from the thoughts and the ideas from other people

00:07:44.940 and so at the same time you can be on your own on on the top of mount rainier and if you've got

00:07:49.300 access to wi-fi and you're reading you know articles and you're reading what people are pushing out on

00:07:54.960 twitter you know we really don't define that as solitude so it's much more a subjective definition

00:08:00.480 of when the mind isolates itself from the input from from other minds and i mean i guess you kind of

00:08:06.700 answered that they're like the thing that makes solitude so hard these days is that we have so much

00:08:11.060 input coming to us through social media feeds news feeds etc absolutely and i don't think this

00:08:18.220 requires much of a case to be built you know for most of us i think we all to some extent feel the

00:08:23.640 crush of the information age and rain i often refer to it as the input age there's just all these inputs

00:08:30.780 that come in to our mind actively and passively you know whether it's we deliberately you know go listen

00:08:37.340 to a podcast or read an article or a book or you know if it's just passive and it's you're driving

00:08:43.260 down the road and you know you have the radio on or you or you see you know billboards and and all

00:08:49.200 these various inputs that sort of just filter into our brain and they influence our thought process and

00:08:55.820 they influence what we think about and essentially are we focused on these big questions especially as

00:09:01.640 leaders or are we distracted to no end from one minute thinking about you know what an advertisement

00:09:07.320 tells us about a pair of shoes and the next minute listening to you know talk hosts go back and forth about

00:09:13.240 you know the nba finals you know it's just there is just so much input in the world today that technology

00:09:19.420 and especially social media have made just so consistent in terms of the stream into our lives right yeah i think

00:09:28.860 the social media one is the most insidious because what i've noticed too is that you know social media

00:09:35.260 i think it changes the way you like people often use it like i'm just like testing ideas out there but

00:09:41.540 like you really can't test all your ideas because some people might not like that idea and they're

00:09:47.640 gonna like raise holy hell and try to get like a twitter mob after you because they don't like that idea so

00:09:52.120 you hold back so you can't experience you can't really experience or experiment with different ideas

00:09:57.560 completely absolutely and that can limit you right absolutely no i mean you just you hit on a really

00:10:03.480 important point um it i think it does limit you and when you think about you know sort of like the arc

00:10:09.420 of leadership and how uh accessible you know people and especially leaders have been throughout history

00:10:15.400 you know very often leaders were difficult you know to get a hold of they had a lot of time

00:10:20.040 not even necessarily because they made a deliberate choice but they they carved out time

00:10:24.580 you know which essentially was solitude for them to think and to refine their ideas and again just

00:10:30.680 with the over accessibility that that people have to us today whether it's you know finding us on

00:10:35.400 social media or you know reaching out via email and setting up meetings and requesting time and it's

00:10:40.820 just all those things and again there's some real benefit that comes from that but there's just this

00:10:44.720 other side that i think that we lose and we try to call attention to that in the thesis of the book

00:10:48.820 which is that there is a downside to being very accessible and to not having you know that space

00:10:55.680 and that time to really think and do that inspired and heavy lifting on your own and that's just a big

00:11:02.020 thing that we're trying to you know call attention to so besides the speech that uh the build a

00:11:07.200 reswit speech that kind of kicked this off i mean have you had any firsthand experience where you saw

00:11:12.200 the lack of solitude hinder your leadership or maybe the leadership of other people or where you saw

00:11:20.220 how solitude actually enhanced your leadership capabilities yeah absolutely so the short answer

00:11:26.460 to that question is that was really the bigger inspiration behind the book was obviously the

00:11:30.740 article was the genesis of sort of the thoughts and the conversation with ray and i but it was

00:11:36.960 ultimately seeing firsthand the power of solitude as leaders in our own lives that really is what

00:11:44.380 drove us you know to invest over six years of research and effort into producing this book you

00:11:50.400 know for me it really came down to a couple places going back to combat and downrange you know i was an

00:11:56.020 intelligence officer so i was not out there on the front lines and in all the danger that uh that the

00:12:02.240 troops that i supported were and so with that came a little bit of emotional you know sort of

00:12:06.940 guilt i think but also with that there was my job was to filter through a lot of different reports

00:12:12.840 signals intelligence human intelligence imagery sources you know what was on the open source internet

00:12:19.400 like all these inputs and you know as technology was getting better in iraq in 04 and eventually in

00:12:26.080 afghanistan in 06 07 and 09 when i was deployed there you know that did it increase the flow of information

00:12:32.780 information that i was made aware of and so i personally experienced in both theaters the real

00:12:39.300 benefit as a leader to practice solitude so in iraq you know i would walk back and forth to the

00:12:47.860 dining facility most of the time on my own even in the really hot times in the summer i found it to be

00:12:53.080 a place where i really centered myself emotionally and grounded myself but also where i was able to

00:12:57.680 filter through all the intelligence reporting that was kind of coming through the computer

00:13:02.340 and it gave me that time and even though it was really hot and not frankly not an enjoyable walk

00:13:07.580 because it was close to a mile in each direction i felt it was that restorative and that important to

00:13:12.880 me that i made that you know walk on my own and then in afghanistan you know i was the intelligence

00:13:17.760 officer in support of green berets that you know had you know basically half of the country so i was

00:13:24.400 responsible for understanding the state of the insurgency and what was going on for you know basically

00:13:29.060 seven of you know the like 16 provinces in afghanistan and once again i i found it critical

00:13:36.260 to be able to step back um and so i would typically do is towards the end of the day i would go for a

00:13:41.460 run you know uh at night you know just around our compound it was less than a half a mile around i

00:13:47.180 just i would just do laps kind of like running around a track and i found that time so beneficial to me

00:13:53.780 where i was able to make sense of and gain insights and clarity to what the insurgency was going to try

00:14:00.760 to do next because i've been spending all day long in front of a computer reading all these reports

00:14:06.020 talking to people on the phone getting various inputs from higher headquarters and just all these

00:14:11.280 inputs and it wasn't very often until i spent that time later in the evening when it was quiet and on

00:14:16.040 my own that i was able to actually connect the dots and piece everything together so from a very

00:14:20.940 personal standpoint and by the way these experiences were still very fresh and sort of raw for me

00:14:25.720 especially coming out of afghanistan you know we started writing this book less than a year you know

00:14:30.400 nine months basically after i left afghanistan so it was definitely very personal to me so uh let's dig

00:14:36.660 into some of these specific benefits of solitude and like different solitude practices but yeah like

00:14:42.220 you said you guys researched the heck out of this thing and you got a lot of great case studies from

00:14:46.720 history it's like the first benefit you guys dig into is that solitude can bring clarity and you

00:14:53.200 break that into two types of clarity there's analytical and intuitive clarity uh what's analytical

00:14:59.460 clarity yeah so this was something that honestly we did not know um prior to doing all the research and

00:15:08.340 doing our own analysis so um you know basically analytical clarity is the type of clarity that you

00:15:16.240 achieve when there is like i was facing in afghanistan an intense volume of information

00:15:23.000 and ideas that are coming your way whether it's from your staff from through you know technology email

00:15:29.620 social media reports whatever it is there's just a lot of it and you have to make sense of that to

00:15:37.300 make a decision and ultimately that unless you're willing to do the heavy lifting and and to do that

00:15:43.260 hard and uncomfortable thinking you know the kind of thinking that makes your head hurt that you're

00:15:49.180 ultimately most of the time not going to make the best decision um because you have not given weight

00:15:55.460 to all the various data and input so that is analytical clarity essentially think doing the

00:16:01.860 heavy lifting and the hard thinking the hard thing this reminded me a lot of i don't know if you're

00:16:06.040 familiar with um a book called deep work by cal newport yes absolutely incredible book yeah yeah no yeah

00:16:12.840 sort of that sort of thing where you just said that like i love how they make the case he makes is

00:16:16.000 that you know a lot of people think that the way you have to thrive and be successful in this new

00:16:20.180 you know social media world information was like you know be really adept at information and getting as

00:16:25.000 much information as possible he says no it's gonna set you apart is the people who can think long and

00:16:30.640 hard about really hard things like that that's rare absolutely and i think that what the research is

00:16:37.340 even kind of bearing that out we know that when people are distracted they're you know

00:16:41.560 five to fifteen iq part uh five to fifteen iq points less intelligent you know and then some

00:16:47.320 of the work that's been done by some folks out of stanford and other places have really referred to

00:16:51.480 this idea that when you're in this constant state of distraction right you literally don't have

00:16:56.220 the muscle that is required to do that deep work and to focus and so not only do you become

00:17:02.640 a sucker for irrelevancy but and the analogy i use when i talk about this is if you want to go out

00:17:09.760 and run a five minute mile you need to have trained and so that your legs your lungs your heart

00:17:15.100 and your mind all have the capacity to endure what you need to do to run that five minute mile and i

00:17:21.920 think it's the same thing when you talk about doing deep work and heavy hard analytical thinking

00:17:25.960 you can't just sit there and flip on a switch and say okay well i'm going to think really hard about

00:17:29.640 this right now when you haven't thought really hard about you know your leadership decisions that you

00:17:34.680 need to make in a month or two months you know it's just you're not going to go out there and run that

00:17:39.180 five minute mile and i don't think you're going to arrive at the best analytical conclusion if you

00:17:44.140 have not continued to work those connections in your brain that you require to do that heavy

00:17:49.880 analytical thinking so use um dwight eisenhower as a case study in this you know the power of solitude

00:17:56.420 with analytical thinking so what can eisenhower teach us particularly his experience with d-day

00:18:01.840 about how solitude can bring analytical clarity to us yeah absolutely i mean i think and obviously

00:18:08.160 we lead off the book kind of talking about eisenhower for lots of reasons but you know when you think

00:18:12.340 about the scope of that leadership decision that he had to make at the end of the day he had all these

00:18:16.800 admirals and generals from different countries weighing in and giving their two cents about when

00:18:22.100 they should go but when you think about all the data that they had to sift through and you know

00:18:26.180 the illumination at night the tide because the germans obviously had mined the ocean to limit or to

00:18:33.340 slow down an assault you know from you know from the uk the the wind the weather you know the 82nd

00:18:41.660 airborne and the 101st airborne divisions had to be able to jump in behind enemy lines and there had

00:18:45.820 to be a certain amount of illumination so there was so many factors that they had to take into

00:18:50.620 consideration but then in the moment that actual this the decision you know on june 4th and 5th of

00:18:55.960 do we go on june 6 1944 or not that was ultimately that decision rests on one man's shoulders his and

00:19:03.100 he talked about how all the input from all these generals and all these other people coupled with all

00:19:08.560 the other data and the information to sift through was really just overwhelming and so you know not

00:19:14.140 only did he have a practice of writing out his concerns and his ideas to get his thoughts straight

00:19:19.480 oh by the way as a very big extrovert and somebody who you know was chosen for the role as supreme

00:19:24.620 allied commander because he had the ability to build relationships and spend time with people

00:19:28.900 but then the biggest thing was as we talked about in the book is you know just before the decision had

00:19:33.460 to be made he spent about 10 minutes just sort of quietly thinking and overlooking you know the

00:19:39.480 channel and overlooking out towards the ocean and you know he really sort of pieced it all together

00:19:43.320 and that's when he turned around and said you know it's on we're going you know and so again

00:19:48.980 powerful super high stakes decision obviously and he knew that regardless of the decision he made

00:19:55.880 that a lot of men were going to die but that was just such an inspirational and powerful example of

00:20:00.400 solitude's role you know in a moment like that when you have to make that big decision yeah that

00:20:04.620 one of my most favorite favorite parts from that section was how you guys highlighted that practice

00:20:10.040 of his of his of writing himself memos he didn't no one else saw these things he just wrote them out

00:20:16.360 for himself and like he was basically yeah analyzing talking through a problem for himself so you get a

00:20:23.620 get his mind around the issue absolutely and he did this so consistently starting with as we talk a

00:20:30.780 little bit about when you know general marshall summoned him to come to the pentagon after pearl harbor

00:20:36.620 um and you know he asked him like hey hey general you know or you know at the time geez he was a

00:20:43.400 colonel yeah hey colonel like colonel eisenberg what do you think we should do and he basically said

00:20:48.840 instead of just launching into his response he said can you give me a couple hours to flesh out my

00:20:53.780 thoughts and so he once again stepped back wrote his thoughts down got very clear on his recommendations

00:21:01.300 for how he would proceed and i think that moment while we don't have direct proof of it i think it

00:21:07.160 had a huge impact on marshall's decision to promote eisenhower so quickly because again he was a lieutenant

00:21:13.420 colonel up until 1941 march of 1941 so he went from a you know a lieutenant colonel to a five-star general

00:21:19.640 in under 36 months and most of those promotions were made you know by by marshall so i think that marshall

00:21:26.480 was probably very impressed by the fact that he flew him all the way up to the pentagon and rather

00:21:32.360 than just responding he said can you give me some time to to kind of put this all out and put it on

00:21:37.060 paper and that was obviously a practice that he took forward to africa in 1942 and italy in 1943 and

00:21:43.420 then in 1944 and 45 as the supreme allied commander so when should you take an analytical approach with

00:21:50.880 your solitude is it just when there's lots of information you're trying to get your head around it and

00:21:54.740 trying to make something coherent out of it i think so i think that's the most clear time

00:21:59.520 when we benefit from solitude in terms of the analytical clarity piece i think that

00:22:05.820 no matter where you're at in the world today right there's going to be a majority of situations where

00:22:11.560 you find yourself with a lot of information um the question becomes how do you

00:22:17.240 identify those moments as a leader you know that really require because there is a cost right there's a

00:22:24.080 cost of time and energy if you do step back and say look i need a couple of hours to step back

00:22:29.120 there's a lot of information flowing into my mind right now and i need some time like you know you

00:22:34.940 are saying no to other things and so i don't think you can as a leader necessarily be in analytical

00:22:40.500 clarity through solitude mode all the time because part of leadership and we talk about this towards the

00:22:46.380 end is building relationships with people and interacting and being out there and seeing that is a part of

00:22:53.400 leadership as well so i do think you have to be clear on what situations warrant that deliberate

00:23:00.180 pause and reflection at the end of the day or sometimes in the middle of the day to really do

00:23:06.300 that heavy thinking on your own you know outside the input of other people on your staff or who work for

00:23:10.900 you so well let's take that go to the other type of clarity intuitive clarity what what's that

00:23:15.640 yeah so the other side of clarity which in many cases is the flip side of the coin is what we define as

00:23:23.040 intuition or intuitive clarity and this is in many ways this idea where there's so much information just

00:23:31.240 like when you're talking about you know analytical clarity it's the same situation there's so much

00:23:35.480 information coming in there's a lot of data there's a lot of things to consider but rather than actively

00:23:40.640 doing that hard heavy thinking and heavy lifting it's this it's the opposite you quiet your mind

00:23:49.360 down and you allow yourself essentially to listen to yourself and you listen to your you know your gut

00:23:58.300 to your instincts to your intuition call it what you will and one of the things we point out there is

00:24:04.100 that to really be able to listen to that voice of intuition you know it's a delicate voice and you need

00:24:11.000 to reduce some of the inputs and quiet the mind so that you can really be in tune you know with that

00:24:17.560 intuition and once again same thing a lot of data a lot of information it's really the process and how you

00:24:23.800 arrive at the outcome some situations they require that heavy analytical thinking to come to that decision

00:24:30.820 especially as especially as a leader whereas intuition it's more how do I quiet so much of the noise down

00:24:36.720 so that I can make the best decision that I know is the best decision not from the result of heavy lifting

00:24:41.640 thinking but from sort of tapping into that that side of my mind which has the answer if I can quiet

00:24:49.060 everything else down right and that's probably my what was going on with your runs a lot of intuition intuitive

00:24:54.300 clarity coming on like you had all the information absolutely absolutely and I think this is the case with a lot of

00:24:59.960 people you know is because as mentioned before and Ray is much more of an analytical clarity guy my

00:25:05.860 co-author as a federal judge he has to sort through tons of legal opinions and tons of data and and that

00:25:11.600 ultimately has to bring it together into his own piece into his own opinions and and those opinions lead

00:25:17.480 and shape and influence policy and influence lots of lives so you know Ray is much more I think of an

00:25:23.580 analytical clarity and I am more of an intuitive clarity where when I can step back from it and

00:25:29.720 quiet things down some of these connections start to occur and I'm like ah yes like that is the that

00:25:36.120 is what I need to do or I need to present the information to the kernel like this and so

00:25:40.580 absolutely when I'm able to do that on those runs that I have gone on for years it serves as that perfect

00:25:46.240 place to just quiet the mind and then allow those intuitive pieces of information and decisions to

00:25:52.760 surface yeah it seems like I think the research on that there's research out on this I think you

00:25:56.420 highlighted this in the book a lot of that intuitive clarity comes in moments when you're you're you're

00:26:02.500 doing something when you're not thinking about the thing you're taking part in some other activity

00:26:06.280 so running is one walking like the shower you know the ideas you get in the shower you know things

00:26:12.620 where you don't have your brain's basically kind of resting and then it's sort of working in the

00:26:16.760 background on these ideas you've been mulling over so if you want that intuitive clarity I guess the

00:26:21.140 idea is go do something where your brain just take a break yeah absolutely and people ask me

00:26:27.780 kind of those questions as well like ah well where do you find you know your time you know for that

00:26:31.880 and it's things like mowing the lawn um my big thing now is I like pulling weeds I live at a house

00:26:37.580 where there's a lot of weeds and they need to be picked a lot and I go out there and again rather

00:26:43.520 sometimes than bring my whole family out there to do it with me I just go out there on my own

00:26:47.580 and it becomes very sort of meditative in many ways where you know I emerge and I stand up with

00:26:53.900 two two new ideas or or solutions that I need to get to bring to life so absolutely it is it is very

00:27:00.780 often not just sitting there but it's often doing something that will take some of your focus off

00:27:06.060 that still allows that intuition to surface so uh the other benefit of solitude is that you guys argue

00:27:11.740 that it can increase creativity but I thought this was kind of counterintuitive because you know we

00:27:16.320 often think of creativity as you know the way you you're creative is you kind of you take these

00:27:20.940 ideas that are out there you mix them together and then you have a new idea and you come with a new

00:27:25.900 solution so it seems like secluding yourself could make you less creative because you're limiting the

00:27:32.280 input right the ideas you work with so how can solitude make you more creative so I think that for sure

00:27:39.680 what you just alluded to this idea of collaboration and the power of bringing in lots of different ideas

00:27:44.980 from different people is a part of the creative process and it is especially for a lot of leaders

00:27:50.020 where I think that we have tried to highlight and call attention to the role of creativity is that very

00:27:55.520 often to connect the dots that are out there all these different inputs and different ideas from

00:28:01.060 other people it does require that same sense of stepping back and thinking about it on your own

00:28:06.820 because there's definitely times when the group might come up with a more creative solution but what we've

00:28:12.260 seen you know thrown throughout history and when you look at inventors and you look at people who

00:28:17.300 have founded non-profits and founded organizations and companies you know very often a lot of a lot of

00:28:23.300 times it's been done like the sole idea you know the creative thought to bring forward an organization

00:28:29.440 that serves this purpose or builds this product is a solitary act it's the work of you know really one

00:28:36.320 person of course now to bring that to life that requires a whole bunch of people but when it comes down to the

00:28:42.220 creativity and thinking completely outside the box or in a new way often you know we know that group

00:28:49.240 think occurs when people are together and they often will kind of reinforce each other's ideas or

00:28:54.540 quote-unquote build off of ideas or let me piggyback on that or dovetail on this but while it might seem

00:29:00.940 counterintuitive I think there's a really strong case to be made and we try to make it through the book

00:29:05.020 and through the interviews with people and you know profiling T.E. Lawrence and some other people that

00:29:09.400 the creativity can really spawn from that solitude in those periods where because the group thinks

00:29:16.940 together and might you know do some thinking along with similar plane together that actually when one

00:29:23.180 person steps back from it all that they might emerge with a fundamentally different way of doing

00:29:28.360 something or a fundamentally new idea and I think that a lot of times especially as a leader coming up with a

00:29:34.400 creative solution to a problem the answer is not you know to bring in a whole team of consultants or

00:29:39.500 turn it over to your staff to come up with course of action development sometimes the answer is

00:29:43.740 just stepping back and thinking hard on you know on your own right right um so my favorite one of my

00:29:51.580 favorite chapters I mean everything was great but one of my most favorite ones was the um the idea of

00:29:55.700 solitude bringing us some emotional stability and I love the two case studies you had it was Lincoln and

00:30:01.460 Grant what lessons can we learn from Lincoln on the power of solitude and giving us emotional stability

00:30:08.300 yeah I mean think about the toll that the civil war was taking on his emotions I mean we can't even

00:30:14.880 fathom I think you know just how intense the daily emotions that he experienced were and certainly those

00:30:20.860 who've read about him and you know biographies and seen the movie and all that you know just just how

00:30:27.600 difficult the civil war was for him to process and you know in the particular instance when he was

00:30:31.920 really frustrated you know with General Meade and in general just with the Union Army and their

00:30:38.080 lack of aggressiveness to hopefully you know to to win the war especially after the Battle of Gettysburg

00:30:43.660 and he was at this point where he was just so emotionally distraught and you know rather and when he did in

00:30:50.820 many similar ways to Eisenhower he wrote he wrote a letter um you know to General Meade and the analogy

00:30:57.240 here I use is very often in today's world this would be like the idea of writing an email but not

00:31:01.760 hitting send he wrote this letter but rather than putting it and you know giving it to the courier and

00:31:06.360 dispatching it to the front lines he just never sent it and it gave him this capacity to reframe the

00:31:13.560 problem and reframe the challenges and you know as we talk about in that chapter is that you know

00:31:19.640 really the very next day he was just in a much better emotional state following the time when

00:31:24.260 he was able to step back and think about this on his own and write the letter and I think that most

00:31:29.020 of us can relate to this in the world today is that you know when you get that initial email or

00:31:33.140 something that's frustrating or that really bothers you and you might immediately write a response to

00:31:38.120 somebody but when you step back and you don't hit send when you come back and you look at that email

00:31:42.860 like later that night or the next day at least for me I mean I delete it 95 times out of 100

00:31:48.600 I just say there's just no need for me to say this and certainly not in this in this vehicle right

00:31:54.560 via email and so I think that there's a lot that we can take and directly apply in our own lives

00:31:59.400 especially in a world today that's so governed by our emotions and anger and rage and so you know

00:32:07.460 what he when Lincoln though it was over 150 years ago I think can teach us is the power of stepping back

00:32:13.700 from a situation when you feel your emotions are primed and your emotions are just unhealthy or

00:32:20.320 you know they're not they do not have you in the right psychological frame of mind to respond

00:32:26.560 in a way that as a leader you want to the step back because it can give you that that emotional

00:32:32.440 balance you need right yeah I think you're right the social media really feeds on our anger right

00:32:39.880 oh big time it's like I think that's what gets a lot of leaders in trouble is that they have easy

00:32:44.620 access to the stuff so once they feel anger and like anger it's like a it's really hot and it's an

00:32:49.500 it's a fast dissipating emotion right it comes on strong and heavy but then it goes away pretty fast

00:32:54.660 yes and so social media it's like okay I can do something right anger is all about making you do

00:32:59.240 something and usually end up you know sending an email or tweeting something stupid that you end up

00:33:05.000 regretting later on if you would just practice some solitude get away from that input you probably

00:33:10.580 would create less problems for yourself I love how you just described that that it's an emotion you

00:33:15.720 know anger things like that they come on hot and heavy and it's like really intense in that moment

00:33:19.340 and that's one of the things we say is like that solitude can really serve as like a powerful force to

00:33:26.140 sort of dilute that the intensity of the emotions that you feel and it's not just anger it's obviously you

00:33:32.440 know other emotions as well but anger is the one for sure that in the world today you know it reminds

00:33:37.040 me of one of those memes where it's a guy sitting at a computer and typing you know and he's talking

00:33:42.000 to his wife hang on honey I'll be to bed in a few minutes I'm busy arguing with with the stranger on

00:33:47.380 the internet you know and thinking through you know how often and obviously hopefully leaders aren't

00:33:53.600 engaged uh in debates with strangers they don't know on the internet a lot but regardless are the more we

00:34:00.500 open ourselves up to information and things going on in the world the more we open that aperture for

00:34:06.040 things that are going to frustrate us or make us angry and again there is a real time and energy cost

00:34:12.640 to our ability to think and to make good decisions when that's the case yeah I think Eisenhower did

00:34:19.720 something similar uh whenever something like he had a temper something he struggled with his entire life

00:34:24.400 but he had this practice if some someone ticked him off or there's some situation that ticked him off

00:34:29.280 he'd write it on a piece of paper and then put it at the bottom of his drawer and just like tell

00:34:33.660 himself okay I'm done with that I got that out of my system and he would move on with his day

00:34:38.660 absolutely yeah and we talk a little bit about that even in the Eisenhower chapter that's what's

00:34:44.180 one things about the book is that as you know you know there's a lot of intersections so as you think

00:34:50.340 about Grant in general Grant while he also used solitude to fortify his emotional balance you know

00:34:57.120 during and around the battle of Vicksburg he also really showed creativity as well through solitude

00:35:03.120 where his staff sort of asked him hey general what can we do to help you out here and he said just

00:35:07.740 leave me the hell alone and so really he came up with a very creative solution you know to um to how

00:35:15.140 the Union Army would eventually succeed after many failures in the battle of Vicksburg and so it was

00:35:20.940 solitude fortified his emotional balance but it also had a big impact on you know creativity where

00:35:27.040 he came up with the completely outside the box solution and so bringing it back to Eisenhower as

00:35:31.460 you said while we talked about him in analytical clarity it also played a role in emotional balance

00:35:35.540 you know to include how he dealt with general Patton um and and other people who would certainly

00:35:40.920 ruffle his feathers yeah the section on Grant about emotional stability like I've been reading more

00:35:46.360 more I feel like Grant's getting some more attention lately I think it's good because this guy was

00:35:51.240 incredible he was uh you know really like he wasn't ostentatious a lot of people whenever they met him

00:35:57.700 for the first time confused him for a regular soldier because he just wore regular soldier clothes but the

00:36:02.480 guy was stoic and I think his you highlight in the book his stoicism came from that solitude that he

00:36:09.180 practiced on a regular basis absolutely and and when you think about again the caliber of decisions that he

00:36:15.040 was making and again it's not like today where we had access to all this information I mean the

00:36:19.860 Mississippi River was so important in terms of alignment communication and you know just time

00:36:24.920 and time again the Union Army failed to be able to free that up and so again that stoicism that you

00:36:29.440 refer to you know eventually of course we all know about Grant and Sherman and how they worked together

00:36:34.120 in the March of the Sea and just eventually what you know became so important you know to ending the

00:36:39.420 Civil War it was in many ways that stoicism and that perseverance that he had and he achieved a lot

00:36:44.920 of that through the solitude um now again it's a very different era today as a general back then

00:36:49.840 versus now um but it was that that reflection often just chomping on his cigar late at night

00:36:55.100 um and thinking about well how are we going to crack this nut because what everyone has tried you know

00:37:01.560 you can't just assault Vicksburg and just push the Confederates you know off the high ground you have

00:37:05.860 to get creative and it actually reminded me of a story from my 2006 and 7 deployment to

00:37:11.920 Afghanistan where you know we there's this place outside of Kandahar City called the Rigue Desert

00:37:18.140 and the Taliban had a real strong grip on this place called Zahri Panjouwe right outside of

00:37:23.640 Kandahar City and they were prepared for anybody who would essentially try to assault and try to clear

00:37:28.940 it from north to south off of Highway 1 and so what we saw happen is uh some of our special forces

00:37:34.960 teams and their Afghan partners actually went through the Rigue Desert and took like seven days to go to the

00:37:41.020 desert moving you know like 10 12 15 kilometers a day you know vehicles constantly getting stuck

00:37:47.540 but eventually when they hit Zahri Panjouwe they arrived from the south and completely took the

00:37:52.960 Taliban by surprise um and it frankly allowed us to really kind of turn the tide you know in the

00:37:58.500 Kandahar province for that that next 12 to 18 months and it reminded me so much of the very bold and

00:38:04.060 creative decision that General Grant made about how the Union Army was gonna to you know to take that high

00:38:10.800 ground in Vicksburg which eventually played a huge role in in the successful outcome of the Civil

00:38:15.420 War yeah and I mean I also like how like you you focus on that leaders um they need to make time

00:38:21.960 for solitude so they can like have that emotional release by themselves not in front of their the

00:38:27.800 folks they're leading and like you talk about how Grant did that even though he's stoic most of the time

00:38:31.360 there was this moment where he just had to go to his tent and it sounds like he just basically

00:38:35.120 bawled his eyes out because of the situation but then he got it out of his system and the next day

00:38:39.980 he was bright and shipper and you know people were inspired by him but they didn't see that he

00:38:46.200 went out of his way to make sure that people his soldiers didn't see him in that that state

00:38:51.280 yeah yeah and that's why we call that chapter you know catharsis um funny enough my my mom you know

00:38:57.460 having read the book so I said no I just learned a new word I never knew what you know catharsis meant

00:39:01.720 you know um it's a this really powerful word and when you think about it and it does you know you know

00:39:07.300 that is you know what happened and when you think about that juxtaposed especially in the world say

00:39:13.160 we also know there's a lot of power you know Brené Brown does a lot of work around vulnerability and

00:39:17.900 how you know there are times as a leader that you really need to be vulnerable around the people that

00:39:23.140 you're leading but I think there's a really strong case for it as well that you know people need to

00:39:29.400 know that their leaders to some extent you know have got it together and not just intellectually but

00:39:35.180 emotionally especially when you're doing things that involve you know stakes that are as high as

00:39:39.820 people's lives on the line and so the idea of you know uh the general or someone just losing it in

00:39:47.000 front of the troops like especially back then I think it would have really instilled more fear in

00:39:53.060 the fact that they didn't see that and instead they saw this revived energized you know leader with

00:40:00.020 this creative solution you know emerging from the tent you know was really powerful and an example

00:40:06.240 of something I think we all can learn from that there is a time to be vulnerable and share your

00:40:10.360 insecurities as a leader but there's also times when you need to know that people are taking their

00:40:13.960 cues off of you and you need to make sure that you can you know go through that catharsis on your own

00:40:20.080 if need be so how can uh you argue also that solitude can bring us moral courage how so

00:40:25.800 so this the part that we you know we close the book and i'm sure we'll talk a little bit about

00:40:30.620 some of these stories i'd be interested to hear what ones you know resonated the most with you but

00:40:34.200 three just powerful preeminent leaders in churchill martin luther king jr and pope john paul ii

00:40:39.700 are the three historical figures and and of all of them you know we put moral courage at the end because

00:40:45.440 you know we believe that ultimately certainly while clarity and creativity and emotional balance are all

00:40:51.720 very important you know for leaders uh and and achieving that through solitude is a great vehicle

00:40:57.260 that we felt that ultimately at the end of the day you know one of the things that leaders are called to

00:41:01.660 do is often make unpopular decisions to to not conform to perhaps the smooth path that's been set

00:41:10.320 before them and ultimately you know to instill that same sense of courage in the people that follow

00:41:16.640 them and you know really what drove and first jump started this chapter was without a doubt

00:41:23.000 winston churchill and ray you know was a history major at the university of michigan he has read all

00:41:29.040 the books on churchill repeatedly and and immediately this story jumped out to him as being a really

00:41:35.040 powerful example of how churchill and his practices late at night and and how he would spend so much time

00:41:41.480 inside his own mind really fortified his moral courage not just on the parliament floor you know

00:41:46.820 in some of his riveting speeches but in his decision making process and that really jump started the

00:41:52.340 research process that allowed us to uncover the power of solitude you know for martin for king jr

00:41:58.060 and pope john paul ii as they led the civil rights movement and the resistance against communism in europe so

00:42:03.820 that ultimately was we kind of viewed this as like one of the ultimate responsibilities you know of

00:42:10.760 of leadership is to have moral courage in times when it is necessary um and really again that stemmed

00:42:18.040 from all the knowledge about churchill yeah and like you said i think as you said earlier these things

00:42:23.880 kind of interweave with each other and i think one of the reasons why solitude can bring you moral

00:42:28.680 courage is going back to that creativity aspect right you're you're stepping away from the group and the

00:42:34.440 group might be thinking this is a great idea solitude getting away from that allows you to think

00:42:40.680 no actually this is a better idea or this is a this is what we really need to do and allows you to

00:42:45.340 stand up for that when you when you need to like these three guys did absolutely and anyway when

00:42:50.680 you think about how high once again how high the stakes were and for all three of them you know it

00:42:55.500 was incredible and i think that this and this is why you know as you know from having read the book

00:42:59.720 brett but like we also interview a lot of contemporary leaders some of them you know well-known people like

00:43:05.280 general mccrystal and bernie brown and bill george but then also a lot of people that you know that

00:43:11.280 most people have never heard of and don't know because we felt it was really important to make

00:43:15.300 these messages feel accessible to people because i think a lot of people as you read a book and you

00:43:21.300 read about these incredible leaders from history that you know were huge in life that are even bigger

00:43:27.180 you know in depth that they feel perhaps like well yeah i'm just never going to have to make a

00:43:32.000 decision like on d-day or you know how do we resist communism you know um and and people are not

00:43:39.140 going to attain that level of leadership which may in fact very well be true for 99.9 percent of people

00:43:44.260 but i think it is important to know that there's a reason why we read history there's a reason why we

00:43:49.200 study it and why we think about the application of these ideas um is you know because you know these

00:43:57.580 people serve as incredible inspirational examples um you know of what was it like when the stakes

00:44:04.440 were that high with so many lives on the line or such you know you know high stake decisions needing

00:44:11.340 to be made about how do we how do we respond to the germans in 1938 um and that's where once again i

00:44:17.600 think to be able to make those decisions you have to have be able to tap into that moral courage and i just

00:44:22.860 don't think you get there as a person or as a leader by hearing a bunch of people around you

00:44:28.080 reinforce you and tell you that like yeah yeah that's what we need to do ultimately this is a

00:44:32.300 very much a conviction thing and as a leader you need to be able to establish that conviction to have

00:44:37.780 the courage you know to you know withstand being hated or withstand you know you know attempted

00:44:45.300 assassinations obviously martin king jr was assassinated you know pope john paul they tried to kill him

00:44:50.160 you know a lot of people who were at that highest level they knew that there was a lot of people out

00:44:55.040 there that hated them and yet still they had the courage to stand fast and if they could do that

00:45:00.380 when their lives were on the line and their decisions were impacting so many other people's lives

00:45:05.280 then i think we can draw some inspiration from that in our own personal lives as leaders especially

00:45:09.920 to find those moments where we can stick to you know to our guns when when we're just disliked or we get

00:45:16.100 some you know some some negative emails or some some tweets sent our way you know about you know

00:45:22.280 how we're not very polite or you know we're making you know the wrong decision so mike this is a been a

00:45:29.280 great conversation and i love the the big picture ideas you've laid out but you also highlight like

00:45:34.300 talk about like what are some brass tack things that people can do to inject some more solitude into

00:45:40.140 their life so i think yeah so i think that this is something that a lot of people are grappling with

00:45:44.440 and i actually feel the tide is turning on this i think that as i'm talking to more and more people

00:45:49.060 people are realizing wow hey this technology tsunami of the past decade where you know we went from

00:45:55.220 having flip phones to now having you know smartphones but then data was still expensive and you know all

00:46:01.280 the all the advances and how things have gotten cheaper and more effective over the past 10 years i think

00:46:06.660 it's really kind of got people to this point now where they're like holy smokes like how am i at this

00:46:10.740 point now where i can't put my phone down or where i need to constantly be plugged into social media or

00:46:17.080 to my email you know we know from some research that people most americans are literally addicted to

00:46:23.480 their email they feel like they they feel compelled to check it like you know every five minutes every

00:46:27.980 10 minutes every you know they just can't seem to get by without you know leaving their email alone in

00:46:33.440 case they might miss something so you know there is a big component of that um and the brass tax

00:46:38.900 getting back to your question i just wanted to kind of set a little bit of the context there i think

00:46:42.340 that it really starts with this ability to know in many cases that that you've got a problem you know

00:46:48.660 recognizing that you're not necessarily happy with how accessible you've made yourself maybe in some

00:46:55.600 cases you've branded yourself as the person who gets back to somebody on email within five minutes

00:47:01.020 and you just take great pride in that and you're always plugged in and therefore you respond to people

00:47:05.320 right away and and so we talk about number one you know deliberately resetting expectations with

00:47:10.920 people if you have become known as the person who again responds immediately to email or is just always

00:47:16.460 on social media or whatever if you're not happy with that you have to let people know that hey i've

00:47:22.100 done some reflection and i'm making some changes in terms of the you know the actual things you can do

00:47:26.580 though you know some of the basics are you know when you're driving somewhere sometimes not all the time but

00:47:32.400 shut your radio off right you know stop all the input when you you have the opportunity to go to

00:47:38.880 lunch sometimes go for lunch on your own leave your phone at the desk or at your office and just go out

00:47:44.820 there or leave it in your car and spend 30 or 45 minutes just thinking clear in your head you know

00:47:49.500 listening to your intuition or you know spend some time getting creative on your own coming up with

00:47:54.080 your own ideas without bouncing those ideas off other people and then it's finding those times in our

00:47:59.160 personal life whether it's picking weeds or mowing the lawn or you know walking the dog or just going

00:48:04.720 for a walk on our own or finding 10 or 15 minutes in the morning to meditate there's just so many things

00:48:10.920 that we can do and i think that at the end of the day what we can do and what needs to happen is you

00:48:15.780 just need to first recognize that you want to reintroduce this you know these ideas into your life or make

00:48:23.520 more deliberate decisions that allow you that space because the fact is we've actually because

00:48:30.100 technology and society has become more efficient than ever we actually have more capacity to practice

00:48:36.160 solitude today in some regards than in years past but many of us have sort of made the opposite decision

00:48:41.480 you know to sort of be constantly in the state of distraction and input on coming into our minds and

00:48:46.880 it really does boil down to having the discipline to say i want to make this a priority

00:48:50.220 and i'm going to find the time to do it well mike this has been a great conversation where can people

00:48:54.580 go to learn more about the book so yeah so you know the book is in lots of local bookstores and

00:48:59.300 barnes noble and it's on amazon of course and you know really we don't have like a website you know

00:49:04.300 for the book you know really it's just out there it's it's morons out there on bloomsbury's

00:49:08.460 website but it's on social media and it's on you know just the various typical outlets where people are

00:49:13.840 reviewing books and obviously on great podcasts like this i've had the honor to spend time

00:49:19.100 interview you know talking about the book with 10 or 15 you know different podcasts and sharing some

00:49:24.660 you know these thoughts and so hopefully you know people have you know listened to the conversation

00:49:29.140 today and have been inspired by some of the ideas and hopefully feel challenged and called to look

00:49:35.080 into the book and look into some of these ideas further all right mike erwin thank you so much for

00:49:38.880 your time it's been a pleasure thanks a lot i really appreciate it my guest today was mike erwin he's

00:49:42.500 the co-author of the book lead yourself first it's available on amazon.com and bookstores

00:49:46.460 everywhere also check out our show notes at aom.is slash lead yourself first where you can find links

00:49:51.120 to resources where you can delve deeper into this topic

00:49:53.220 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:50:05.880 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com if you enjoy the

00:50:09.780 show i've gotten something out of it since you've been listening to it i'd appreciate if you take one

00:50:12.780 minute to give us a review on itunes or stitcher that helps us out a lot as always thank you for

00:50:16.740 your continued support and until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

#333： Solitude & Leadership

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