Ancient Wisdom

When we think of ancient stress relief, we usually picture a monk meditating on a mountaintop. But there's a more dynamic tradition hiding in plain sight: Hermeticism, the ancient Egyptian-Greek philosophical system that treated stress not as...

When faced with a difficult decision at work, we typically schedule another meeting, create a pros-and-cons spreadsheet, or anxiously scroll through advice forums at 2 AM. But across vastly different ancient cultures—from indigenous Australians to...

In 14th-century Shiraz, Hafez wasn't just writing love poetry—he was mapping out a sophisticated philosophy of human connection that makes modern networking advice look shallow by comparison. While we obsess over LinkedIn strategies and...

Before GPS and LinkedIn, there existed knowledge workers whose survival depended on reading invisible patterns and creating webs of human connection across vast distances. Polynesian navigators and Middle Eastern caravan traders mastered two...

Lucius Annaeus Seneca was imperial Rome's ultimate multitasker—advisor to emperors, wealthy businessman, celebrated playwright, and prolific philosopher. Yet in his letters to his friend Lucilius, he wrote something that should unsettle every...

In 65 CE, the Roman philosopher Seneca wrote to his friend Lucilius: "The man who has anticipated the coming of troubles takes away their power when they arrive." Seneca wasn't advocating pessimism—he was teaching a deliberate...

When Patanjali compiled the Yoga Sutras around 400 CE, he wasn't writing for people who sat in air-conditioned offices or responded to Slack messages. Yet his second sutra contains perhaps the most relevant advice for today's exhausted...

Every morning, you wake to a flood of notifications. Slack messages, email alerts, news headlines, social media updates—each one carrying not just information, but interpretation. Someone's opinion about the quarterly results. A...

Arjuna stood paralyzed on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, his bow slipping from his hands. Before him: an impossible situation. He had to fight, but fighting meant harming people he cared about. He had to act, but every action seemed wrong. Sound...

In Zen Buddhism, there's a concept called shoshin, or "beginner's mind." Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki famously wrote: "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few." For...