How Christianity and Stoicism Influence My Approach to Business
I’m not an easy person to peg. I’m too conservative for many of those into the woo-woo and too woo for some devout Christians. I don’t give advice as a coach, but as a mentor, I share personal wisdom that comes from my worldview.
In this episode, I talk about the two primary schools of thought I adhere to in life (Christianity and stoicism) and discuss how they come up in my coaching and mentoring practice.
3:34 - How Christianity and stoicism guide me
5:00 - A big tenet of stoicism and how it relates to my advice about leadership
8:03 - How being a student of stoicism helped me when I was getting dragged online
9:42 - Steps you can take when faced with a person who insults you
11:40 - One thing you can do to improve your leadership
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Transcript for How Christianity and Stoicism Influence My Approach to Business
Hey boss, I am Leslie Lyons, your embodied leadership and sales coach, and this is Pleasurable Profits. This podcast is ideal for owners and leaders of tattoo shops, permanent makeup studios, cannabis businesses, movement studios, sex toy shops, and other industries that are too often left out of the leadership conversation. If you’re looking for a woo meets strategy approach to defining your strengths and values, designing a business that supports you, and creating a soul-driven, and of course, pleasurable plan for profitability, then let’s get started.
Hey, party people. It's Leslie, your embodied sales and leadership coach. How are y'all doing? I'm doing amazing. The year is coming to an end. It's almost time for Christmas so your girl is feeling good, and I hope you are as well. Today I want to talk a little bit about something that befuddles people. Sometimes I like to tell people that I don't fit into any camp. That's what I should say. I don't fit squarely into the woo camp. I'm too conservative for many woo people.
Then on the conservative Christian side, I'm too woo for some devout Christians, and so sometimes I feel like I just don't fit in any camp when it comes to a philosophy, but I do think is helpful, especially when you're considering working with a coach or mentor, that you realize the world for you that they bring to the advice that they give you, specifically a mentor because when I'm in a coaching capacity, I'm not giving you advice, but when I'm in a mentor capacity, I am sharing my personal wisdom that I think will benefit your situation.
I think it’s very responsible of me to always lay my cards out on the table. Whether you work with me or not, I would encourage you to ask your mentor, ask your consultant what is their worldview, the advice that they're going to give you, the strategies they're going to give you, what lens are they looking at this advice through. So today this episode is all about the lenses that I wear. There are two primary schools of thought that I adhere to in my life. One is Christianity, and the other is Stoicism.
Now some people who might be listening to this might be thinking that those two are like polar opposites, have nothing to do with each other, and why would I say that I ascribe to both of these? It does bring up questions. I'm used to questions about it. Because Stoicism is all about looking inward for answers, whereas Christianity is all about looking to Jesus for answers. It can seem like it's in conflict. But hopefully, for me, I want to tell you how I use it in my life, and how it shows up in my mentoring and coaching practices.
I always tell people, Christianity, guys, is my soul. It puts my affections in the right place. It puts my hope, my eternal hope in what I believe to be the right place. My Christianity guides me spiritually. My Christianity is my eternal hope. Whereas Stoicism guides my leadership philosophies. It guides how I approach leadership and how I approach management of myself and others. For me, there are a lot of similarities in terms of truths that are in both Christianity and Stoicism. You will see a lot of the same things.
What I tell Christians when they challenge me on things like this, I always say all truth is God's truth. That means that you can find truth anywhere that you can find truth. In any school of thought, in any religion, and any spiritual practice, if it's true, I believe that I'm going to find it in the Bible, so why don't I just use the Bible for it to guide me? Because God also gives you tools, there are other things that you can use to bring information in and it would be wise for you to do so.
When I think about Stoicism as it relates to my leadership advice that I would give you, a big tenet of Stoicism is that you respond to situations, you don't react. That to me, if you've ever worked with me, if you ever talked to one of my clients who's worked with me around leadership, they're going to tell you that is the very first thing that I try to start working on them with, start to give them tools around is from you to go from a position of life is happening to me, which can be also a little bit of a victim mentality to “I can choose how I will respond. I will not be mastered by any external force that I have no control over.”
Epictetus is one of the most famous Stoics, and his works are probably the most accessible in terms of reading the Stoics. Also Ryan Holiday, I'll link to both of those two resources in the show notes in case you want to go deeper. He is someone who is keeping Stoicism alive in a very accessible manner. But one of my favorite quotes by Epictetus is when he said, “If someone in the street were entrusted with your body, you would be furious. Yet you entrust your mind to anyone around who happens to insult you, and allow it to be troubled and confused.”
Oh my gosh. This outrage culture and this Twitter thug culture, these keyboard thugs, and what people say things behind anonymous names on social media that they would never say to your face, it is dangerous for an entrepreneur to put their mind in the hands of unstable people. It is dangerous for an entrepreneur to put their mind in the hands of social media influencers. It is dangerous for you to take in all these inputs, opinions, thoughts, and philosophies of people who you know nothing about. I know people who've had their entire lives put on hold, halted, their businesses halted because of strangers on the internet. I refuse to give people that type of power when the block button is available.
Oh my gosh. Back in 2022 earlier in the year, I may have shared this, I got dragged because of a comment that I made about women investing in themselves and putting themselves last. It rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. I was getting dragged and let me tell you something. My initial response was to defend myself to be in the comments fighting with everybody until my Stoic philosophy kicked in and I said, “Are you entrusting your mind to people you don't even know when there is a block button available?” I blocked those suckers and moved on with my day.
I refused to entrust my most important asset as an entrepreneur, which is my clarity, my creativity, my ability to make decisions to people who don't have anything else better to do with their time. Being a student of Stoicism gave me the self-control and the emotional regulation to respond to things that other people have completely shut down their social media and walked away from a very viable option that you need to grow your business.
Stoicism gives me those principles and I always want my clients to be armed with that. I want you to be able to respond and not react. Can't you see how beneficial that is when you actually have control over your emotions? Another one of my favorite lines that does not come from an actual Stoic but someone who also ascribed to Stoic principles is that whenever someone insults you, whenever someone comes to you and says, “Hey, I heard such and such about you. I heard that you were a terrible person. I heard that you did blah-blah-blah,” the first thing he said to do, this person, I can't remember his name right now, it's a shame because I say it all the time, but the first thing he said is to examine that there's probably truth to the insult.
Ah, humility, humility, man, being able to step back and say, “Is there any truth to this insult, no matter how vile, no matter how mean you may think it may be, how mean-spirited you may think it may be? Is there any truth to what's being said?” That's the first step and then respond to the person bringing the criticism by saying, “If that's all you can say about me, you don't really know me. Because if you knew me, you could say much worse.”
People expect you to defend yourself. People expect for you to puff up with them. The Bible says, “A kind word turns away wrath.” Stoicism says, “You could say much worse about me.” Both of those statements are basically saying, “There could be some truth to what you're saying. At the end of the day, I ain’t perfect. At the end of the day, I'm open to being wrong.” Both of those statements are steeped in humility. I think that's one of the greatest gifts that a leader can possess is the gift of humility.
When we work together, I want you to have peace. I want you to have access to your clarity. I want you to have peace and calm and feel expansive and not worried and anxious. I've learned, and what you know deep down too, is that you can't control what happens to you. You can't control what someone's going to do. The only thing you can control is your response. For me, Christianity and Stoicism help me to temper those things. It helps me to control my responses so I'm not so reactive.
If there's one thing you want to do or can do to improve your leadership this year, whether you work with me or not, is to get you some resources that get you out of reactive-esque states. Get you some resources that allow you to stand in your power, that allow you to be grounded, content, and humble. These aren't flashy words that the internet likes to use. But I'm telling you, leaders who go the distance are filled with those things. I want you to go the distance. I want to go the distance. We're in this together.
If that sounds like something that you're interested in working on this year, hit me up, DM me, let's start a conversation. Head over to Instagram, @lesliedlyons. You know that's where you can find me. That's always the easiest way to reach me. DM me, let's start a conversation to see how I might be able to support you. Alright, my loves. Now you know my worldview. You know a little bit more about me and how I would approach our work together. I'd love to support you this year. Reach out. Until next time, grace and peace.
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