Thread by @leashless

I've been living as an enlightened man in this shithole of a world for over 20 years. In that time I've stood in the background of stories which defined your world: wars avoided, platforms created, vital living heritages kept alive. I've deeply rejected "aspirational" leadership.

The "aspirational" leadership style is people talking about how great their lives are, and how great the world is, and how great *you could be* if only you were more like them. It's gurus, it's Tony Robbins, it's Landmark Forum, it's Oprah.

It's a dirty card to play. For reasons

Consider the Instagram Influencer: "I'm so pretty and interesting that I'll always have a great life, and so will my kids." It's a display, and it's a lie: as they age, the spotlight fades for most. It's the false immortality of youth, amplified by technology.

And the others?

The Square Jawed Business Gurus - Tony Robbins, celebrity VCs, all the rest. Some sell as jocks, some sell as nerds, but they're all selling biological dominance. "I am the strongest, the most assertive, the smartest" - and you should be like me if you want success.

The big lie

The big lie is that you get ahead in this world by being more like other people. You get ahead in this world by being more like you.

Everybody who can copy Jeff Bezos is doing it already. Those niches are filled. You needed to copy him 20 years ago for that to be a strategy.

And almost nobody is broken enough to suppress their true identity as they try to imitate icons of success. Who you are will always surface. The internal conflict between the mask and the man creates paralysis.

Almost nobody can Be Somebody Else well enough to win wearing a mask

So the one message I've avoided at all costs is BE MORE LIKE ME IF YOU WANT TO GET AHEAD.

Don't be more like me. My life sucks: I've failed over and over again to get the Enormous Global Change I feel it is my job to deliver done. I've kept other people's Great Work alive mostly

But in my task, getting food, shelter, clothing put in place for 300 million climate refugees? I started in 2002, and it's been solid effort ever since, in a variety of roles from a variety of angles. Not failed, but not thriving.

All I have going for me is that I did not stop.

Now, in the Aspirational Leadership Style I'd have told you a story about rising global consciousness and connection to other people, and how you could make your life bloom, just like mine, if you would spend your time and energy helping me get the hexayurts built.

A yogi cult.

I've had the initiations. I have the guru. I have the lineages. I could stand up a yogi cult tomorrow morning. I can work that room and make you believe that I know where God lives. Because I do.

Of course, so do you: inside you. But people like tribes, and they like to be told.

And I did not stand that yogi cult up, and I did not tell you my life was great, because it is not true.

It's not true for any of the Aspirational Leadership people. They're all professional liars. And we put them for the same reasons we buy Coke and Doritos: advertising works.

Now, having said all of this, at 47 the one thing I can say is this: I know how to endure and keep pushing, and stay alive, and not bend morally enough that I couldn't stand and say "I did the best I was capable of: nothing was held back, and the hexayurt work always came first."

So that is one more thing I am willing to teach, because 20 years in, I've proven it to my own satisfaction: I can teach you how to stand in place when it looks like doing your job in the grand scheme of things will kill you.

If you aspire to that, feel free to call me.

But Aspirational Leadership is just packaging and selling biological success: "we are doing well in the great race of life."

Well, you know, great for you, but I didn't come here to raise two kids and buy a two car garage.

I got like shit to do. So, bluntly, fuck Aspirational.

There is hard shit to be done in this world, and doing it will cause you to suffer. The neglected and the poor are neglected for a reason. The poor at often kept that way by force. You better believe you will see evil, both human and systemic.

You can't do more than make a stand

And that's what I chose rather than Aspirational Leadership.

I sugar coated nothing. I just got my head down and did my damn job. It's been difficult and dangerous at times, but if there is one thing my great guru taught me, it's that doing difficult things is a necessary skill.

You can't learn it except by having it inside of you already, or watching other people do it. Maybe even from books, for some. But nothing inside you will tell you that you can work that hard and just keep going, or take the blows, and keep going.

You have to see it done to know

If there's a spiritual virtue in that, that's my virtue: Acalanatha (Immovable Lord) was the practice my guru gave me, and I've done it well enough to be content that I didn't get it wrong.

The ships of fate can change direction or run aground on my shores, but I will not move.

So a final word on Aspirational Leadership. The basic promise is "be like me and you'll have biological success" - money, great partner, kids.

For people whose life is about that it's probably not that harmful. The deep damage is to confuse it with real spirituality. Do you see?