Finding Your Inner GPS -How I Found Mine The Hard Way by Alkistis Agio

Each year, the Modern Stoicism organization organizes the main Stoicon conference, and helps to promote local Stoicon-X events. Over the last several years, we have developed a tradition here at Stoicism Today of publishing as many of the talks and workshops from Stoicon and Stoicon-Xs as blog posts, in order to allow our readership who were unable to attend these conferences the benefit of those speakers’ expertise. We continue this year’s sequence of posts with one by Stoicon 2019 co-organizer Alkistis Agio, which follows below

Socrates…It seems that every story about Greek philosophy starts with him. He taught that:

No man can lead others, who cannot lead himself.

Think about it, it’s true: How can you lead others, if you can’t lead yourself ? How do you expect others to follow you if you haven’t decided where you want to go?

So where do you begin? The answer has always been one – Self-Leadership. Self-Leadership means having:

• A developed sense of who you are, where you’re going, and what you are willing to do to get there, as well as…
  
• The ability to influence yourself and others, in order to achieve your goals. 

Self-Leadership is probably the most important skill you can ever develop as a person and as a professional and it mainly involves our emotional intelligence. 

The importance of self-leadership, has been taught since the beginning of history, when the ancient Greek sages recited The Odyssey, the story of a sailor setting out on a journey. The sailor, Odysseus, yearns to reach his homeland. His goal is clear, but he has no control over the elements. The winds and the sea are not in his power. He has only his attitude and his skills with the sails, adapting them to the changing conditions, keeping his course, remaining calm when a storm hits and leading his team with virtue and ethos. This story represents the inner battle that is to be won, since the external battle is not fully in our control. 

“The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.” – Plato

In a moment, I will reveal to you the most powerful method in the world for self-leadership, based on ancient Greek philosophy. But first, I would like to share some of my journey with you. I promise, I will be mercifully brief. 

As I look back on my childhood, I can clearly see that I was introduced to Greek philosophy by my father. From a young age, instead of fairy tales like Cinderella, my father would read us bedtime stories from Aesop’s Fables, the Iliad and the Odyssey. 

Fast-forward to when I am about 22 years old. I am working at an international British bank in Athens. On the outside, I seem to ‘have it all’; an executive position with a good salary, luxury travels and friends in ‘high places’. On the inside, I feel frustrated and anxious about my career path. Why? Because I’ve chosen banking mainly to please my father, the CEO of a major bank in Greece. Whenever I express my deep interest in psychology and philosophy, he taps me on the shoulder and says, “My dear daughter it’s fine to read psychology and philosophy books but life is very harsh and you should keep your safe, practical job no matter what….”

Ignoring my inner truth, I stay on, feeling trapped like a hamster on a treadmill; I am unmotivated and it begins to show in a series of humiliating mistakes arising from my negligence. 

All these mistakes reach a climax one day; I’m called in to do an important presentation in front of the board of directors, for which I’m not prepared. My performance is so bad, I am so ashamed, that at the end of that day, I face my deepest fears and hand in my resignation.

Did things get better after that? Of course not. They got much worse. I had a dramatic argument with my father, who expressed his anger, disappointment and conviction that I was making a grave mistake in letting go of a promising career. He ousted me from his house, saying what amounted to“Tan I Epi Tas” (the ancient Spartan motto, ‘Return as a victor or upon your shield’). Looking back at that moment though, I believe that it was the best lesson my father could have taught me. He cut me loose and I had to stand on my own and look at my life in harsh, unforgiving terms. I was deeply shaken, but determined to go my own way. Without a plan, I left Greece with my meager savings and backpacked through Asia Minor and Europe.

Soon, my money ran out and I had to find work in various low-income jobs like waitressing, temping, yoga, etc. I even tried creating my own businesses, but these ventures left me in debt. I lived with constant fear & anxiety about money & my future. I had no purpose and no direction. It got so bad that finally, I couldn’t take it any more – I decided to return home, to Greece, with my head down, face my father and ask for help and forgiveness. 

Then, as I was on my way to get my return plane-ticket, I met a woman on the bus, who was working at a top leadership-training company teaching communication skills. By a freak of luck, she was leaving her position and looking for a replacement. I told her my story and she hired me on-the-spot! 

It was a breakthrough for me. I loved my job, & people told me that I was very good at it. Not only that – the founder, Dale Carnegie, was an ardent admirer of Greek philosophy. In his famous world-wide bestseller “How To Win Friends & Influence People”, he devotes a whole chapter to Socrates, openly admitting that he borrowed his ideas from the Master of Greek philosophy: 

“The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates….” – Dale Carnegie 

I had finally found my rightful place in life. A place where I could be happy & thrive. Now, why did I just share all of this story with you? Because it’s a great example of what you should never do. I was lucky. Making such dramatic changes in your life without having a clue as to where you are headed and what you want, and without any proper tools to help you along the way, is foolish, ineffective and can even be down right dangerous. It’s like getting in your car without a destination or a GPS and then just driving off… A cliff, usually. 

What if I told you though, that there is a type of GPS that can help get you to a place of thriving, happiness and freedom? A GPS inspired by the works of Socrates and Aristotle. As mentioned above, through my work in leadership training, that I was introduced to the works of the ancient Greek philosophers. 

They were eye-opening. One in particular stood out to me – Aristotle’s timeless manual on the Art of Persuasion: “The Rhetoric”. In it, Aristotle explains that there are three basic ‘traits’ an orator, a leader, anyone like you and me, must develop in order to influence and persuade others

1. Ethos, which addresses the truth, credibility and integrity of the speaker.  
2. Pathos, which addresses their emotional intelligence and use of imagination. 
3. Logos, which addresses the logic, reason and common sense of their arguments. 

Over two millennia after he wrote it, Aristotle’s system is still the cornerstone of modern leadership skills training;His system on influence, is taught in MBA programs at top universities like   Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Yale and INSEAD. It is through Aristotle that  the world’s top CEOs are initiated into the priceless ‘Art of Influence and Persuasion’.

For over twenty years now I have been teaching seminars about these principles of Aristotle to professionals all over the world, to help them to improve their influence and persuasion skills. And during these seminars, it began to dawn on me that these three great principles of Aristotle, go far beyond “How to Make Friends and Influence people…”, as Dale Carnegie would put it. 

To me, there is a deeper – more essential dimension to be discovered through these three principles; like a treasure hidden in plain sight. What’s the treasure? Ethos, Pathos, Logos can serve as a golden ‘compass’ or G.P.S. for navigating through life’s perpetual challenges with stoic calm and certainty. By applying them, we can attain Self-Leadership, and take charge of ourself and our life.

This realization of the inner GPS gave me a solid foundation on which to build my life and practice. And more importantly, this was the “Shield” that I returned home with, to my father, who I had missed so much after my ten year ‘odyssey’.

The ALKISTIS Method as explained in my book THE STOIC CEO is the first-ever method of self-leadership development that effectively integrates the modern scientific, evidence-based techniques of neuro-coaching with the ageless wisdom of ancient Greek philosophy. (Especially Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and the Stoic school.)

Applied in practice, The ALKISTIS Method® leads to calm, confident, self-leadership, for both personal happiness and professional excellence, which the ancient Greeks called “Aristeia”.

I sincerely hope that you too will be inspired to become the outstanding person you are, on your journey to your Ithaca*.  (*Island-Kingdom in Homer’s, The Odyssey)

Alkistis Agio is a speaker, author, leadership trainer and coach with over 20 years experience in working with professionals to transform fear, frustration, anger and anxiety into calm, confident self-leadership.