The Best Kind of Leader | Tao Te Ching Chapter 67 Explained (Part 3)

The whole world says, what you teach is great, yet unlike anything else. It is its greatness that makes it unlike anything else. Were it like everything else, it would have become trivial a long time ago. I have three treasures which I hold and keep safe. The first is compassion. The second, economy. The third, not daring to take the lead. If you're compassionate, you can be fearless. If you're not wasteful, you can be giving. If you're afraid to lead, you can attain the highest honors. Today, people renounce compassion and try to be brave. They are wasteful and extreme and try to be giving. They refuse to follow and they try to take the lead. They are certainly doomed. Compassion gives you victory in battle and strength in defense. When heaven comes to your rescue, with its compassion, it keeps you safe. This will be the third and final video I'm going to make about Chapter 67. We've used this little three-part miniseries to talk about the three treasures that Lao Tzu claimed to prize above all others. We've already talked about compassion in part one, and economy in part two, so if you haven't seen those videos, go ahead and go watch them. Today, we're going to be talking about what this translation refers to as not daring to take the lead. Basically, we're dealing with humility and restraint with regards to leadership. Lao Tzu tells us that if we can exercise our self-control and not strive for positions of power, we can quote attain the highest honors. In other words, only through not striving to put ourselves into leadership positions can we ultimately become qualified to lead. When Lao Tzu speaks about this, they aren't just empty words. Any person that could have written the Tao Te Ching probably was very capable of leading people, and likely would have done a great job. For such a person, the temptation to seek leadership would likely have been great. I mean, think about it. Lao Tzu, whoever he was, very likely looked at all the leaders around him and saw their deficiencies. Wise as he was, he must have seen flaws in their leadership, and he was probably very conscious of the fact that he could have done a much better job, and to be honest, he probably could have. It seems to me that the temptation to put oneself on a pedestal must be so much greater when one is actually qualified to stand on one. We can say that we avoid leadership positions and embrace humility, but a lot of times, for us, this is all just talk. It's easy to avoid leadership positions that we don't even qualify for, but for someone like Lao Tzu, this might have been extremely difficult. I don't know if this is a temptation for you guys, but have you ever been listening to someone talk about something you happen to be pretty well informed about, and they get all their facts wrong? Maybe this is just me, but that kind of thing drives me crazy. I have a really hard time not correcting people in these kinds of situations, especially if it's a person I feel comfortable correcting. Oftentimes, I do it automatically, even without thinking about it. But as Lao Tzu was well aware, correcting people all the time is not a sign of intelligence. If you ever hang around people who really know things, people who are true masters in their intellectual domains, you'll notice that they tend not to correct people very often. Ironically, it's the beginners that tend to do that. I remember watching an interview with Rick Rubin, which, holy cow, if you were to try to think of somebody who could be considered a master in the realm of creativity, it's pretty hard to think of somebody better than Rick Rubin. In this interview though, I noticed that the host conducting the interview was extremely long-winded with their questions. I watch other content from this individual regularly. They're a truly amazing creator and I have a high amount of respect for them, and so I don't think that this is how this person comes off normally. But for whatever reason, it seemed like in this particular interview, the time was taken up almost as much by them asking their wordy questions as it was by Rick's actual answers. I started to get annoyed with this after a while, because I really just wanted to hear what Rick had to say. I mean, that was supposed to be the whole point of the interview. But Rick was just so calm throughout this. He almost never interrupted. He didn't try to take control of a conversation. He didn't get frustrated at all. At least not that I could see. He really didn't seem to have his own agenda or plans for what he wanted to cover. He just calmly and concisely answered the interviewer's questions and allowed the conversation to go in whatever direction the other person steered it. You see this a lot with true masters. They don't try to push their skills or their mastery or their knowledge on others. Their wisdom speaks for itself. Some see it and some don't, but they don't really seem to be bothered either way. It is one of those great ironies of life that those who know the most are the least inclined to push it on others, unless they ask for it. The true master doesn't often correct. It's the novice who is the most pedantic. The person who says the most is often the person with the least value to add. The same principle of restraint applies to leadership as well. The best way to become a leader is to let it happen naturally, if it happens at all. Those who seek positions of power walk on a slippery slope. Leadership is one of those things that doesn't work out quite the same way when you actually seek it. This road often leads to hubris and disaster. I think Dumbledore really does say it best when he tells Harry Potter. It is a curious thing, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who have leadership thrust upon them and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they were it well. This attribute of restraint and humility was so important to Lao Tzu that he would rather watch other rulers make mistakes than violate this most prized possession by stepping up to correct them. Perhaps mistakes were made that could have been prevented. Perhaps harms were done that needn't have been. However, the master understands that the point of life is not to stop every bad thing from happening, nor is this even possible. The master realizes that fate is a tricky business, and we put ourselves and others in jeopardy when we try and play God. There are times to interfere and act, but we must know when these are by using our restraint and our intuition. The Tao, our ultimate example, allows quote-unquote bad things to happen all the time. But the Tao possesses ultimate perspective, and the understanding that just because we think a bad thing is bad does not mean it is necessarily so. In nature, herds of deer will die out without predators to keep their populations in check. Some trees literally cannot reproduce unless there's a forest fire. Some ultimate goods can only be brought about by temporary bads. This is not a process that can be controlled, simulated, or positively affected by the efforts of people. This is a reality that has been at play eons before humans existed, and will continue to exist forever after humans leave the picture. To think that we can improve such a cosmic interplay is the height of foolishness, and it is all too characteristic of the narcissistic short-sightedness that plagues our species. If we can have the patience and the wisdom to let events take their course, not striving to lead or to be in charge of others, we will find that our closeness with Tao puts us in a position to act, often by leading others, without our even asking for it. Thanks for watching. You can find the link for my discord in the description if you want to come join our discussions on these kinds of topics. And I will see you all tomorrow for chapter 68. Peace and blessings.