Tag / history

by Nathan Coumbe

Leadership = Applied History

There’s a line on the History Major page at the US Naval Academy:

Effective leadership is applied history.

Leadership, more than anything, is decision-making—specifically decision-making that affects other people, not only you.

By studying history, you can examine the minds of other leaders and understand their actions and the resulting outcomes (good and bad).

You can learn lessons from other people’s experiences rather than from your own failures and setbacks. This will not only save you time, money, and emotional labor—in some cases, it might save lives.

As General James Mattis said:

“If you haven’t read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent, because your personal experiences alone aren’t broad enough to sustain you.”

Learn lessons from others by studying history. Don’t repeat their mistakes when you can simply read a book.

by Nathan Coumbe

Philosophy, History, and Business – You Need All Three

Why is it considered strange that my bookshelves are full of history, philosophy, and business texts? Furthermore, why is there a cultural push to make people choose between those seemingly disparate subjects?

If you want to study business, you must go all in on it. There is no room for history or philosophy. Or so the prevailing wisdom says.

But that’s ridiculous! Let’s put aside the fact that some of history’s most outstanding leaders were business people as well as great leaders, philosophers, and students of history.

You cannot be a well-rounded citizen without these three subjects combined. One helps you understand yourself and what’s right; another enables you to understand the world and why things are how they are; and the third teaches you how to serve others while making a living yourself.

When combined, all three do a bit of each and compound the effects.

We need more polymaths, Renaissance Men (and women!), and multipotentialites, not fewer. Stop stressing over “picking,” and follow your interests wherever they lead.

by Nathan Coumbe

The worst of times?

I’ve heard it thrown around quite a lot recently that it’s the worst time to be alive in America. Part of me is inclined to agree.

But is it?

You could have lived during the American Revolution, our first civil war, when neighbor fought neighbor and disease ran rampant. Or you could have been a soldier in the (real?) Civil War, dying from sepsis after having your wounded leg sawn off with no anesthesia.

You could have lived through Andrew Jackson’s era of corruption (which is eerily similar to today’s political landscape).

You could have been a black person at any point in our nation’s history: enslaved for the first half or denied dignity, humanity, and basic rights throughout much of the second.

None of that is to negate the horrors and wrongs of now. Yes, in many ways, today you do indeed have it worse now than your parents and grandparents did. 

Instead, I use them to point out that it’s always been this way. There have always been power-hungry demagogues. There have always been enablers and toadies looking to get a little for themselves.

Let that serve as a reminder to act. To stand up. To do something. To participate in the civic process rather than sit idly as a spectator. 

Be a citizen.

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by Nathan Coumbe

We don’t know if we’re living in the “before” times until after

On October 24, 2024, Isaac Saul wrote a piece in Tangle (one of the best political news outlets around) about then-candidate Donald Trump’s “enemy from within” controversy.

I wrote a short essay in response, criticizing some of Mr. Saul’s points. It’s a little dated now, but I wanted to share an edited version of my thoughts on this blog, as I thought they were well-reasoned (and my fears have not been allayed in the first three months of Mr. Trump’s second presidency).

You [Isaac Saul] wrote this: “But none of us are going to live through World War II Germany.” How do you know that? What makes you so certain?

You say that Applebaum opens herself up to criticism by claiming Trump is speaking like Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin. And you imply that criticism is warranted because Trump didn’t round up and kill millions of people or make good on many of his claims the first time around. 

But you go on to say that, “Hitler did that before [emphasis mine] rounding up and killing millions of Jews.” Doesn’t that contradict the criticism? How do you know that Trump isn’t doing this before he deports 11 million people? Before he unleashes the military on US citizens and his political enemies? 

And let us not forget that Hitler also had a failed coup (The Beer Hall Putsch) years before being elected Chancellor and declaring himself Führer. Might January 6th have been Trump’s failed Beer Hall Putsch on his way to authoritarianism?

When you live in the “before” times, it’s hard to know what the “after” times will look like. So, we naturally (or at least I think we should) take people’s dangerous language at face value. 

Perhaps Trump didn’t do it the first time around because he had so many people keeping his worst impulses in check… I doubt he’ll have reasonable people like that the second go-around. He’s sure to fill his administration with sycophants and “yes men” because they’re the only ones who want anything to do with him anymore.

I’ve heard so many times that our system of checks and balances will keep an authoritarian dictator from taking over. 

I don’t believe that, and here’s why: Ancient Rome had checks and balances in its Senate. So did the governments of 1920s Italy and 1930s Germany. And they all fell to dictators. Caesar had massive popular support, and so did Hitler. They were practically handed their dictatorships.

The Jews of Nazi Germany also believed that they weren’t going to live through (what later became) WWII Nazi Germany either. They didn’t believe Hitler would make good on his claims because of the checks and balances their democracy had in place.

I’m quoting a German Jewish newspaper from February 2, 1933 (10 years before the “Final Solution”), which was quoted on page 23 of Timothy Snyder’s book On Tyranny:

“We do not subscribe to the view that Mr. Hitler and his friends, now finally in possession of the power they have so long desired, will implement the proposals circulating in [Nazi newspapers]; they will not suddenly deprive German Jews of their constitutional rights, nor enclose them in ghettos, nor subject them to the jealous and murderous impulses of the mob. They cannot do this because a number of crucial factors hold powers in check…and they clearly do not want to go down that road. When one acts as a European power, the whole atmosphere tends towards ethical reflection upon one’s better self and away from revisiting one’s earlier oppositional posture.”

That line: “When one acts as a European power…” could easily be rewritten as, “When one acts as an American…” Is it not some sort of “American Exceptionalism” to believe that “it can’t happen here?” 

Snyder goes on to write: 

“The mistake is to assume that rulers who came to power through institutions cannot change or destroy those very institutions—even when that is exactly what they have announced that they will do.”

Thanks for reading. I don’t often cover politics on this blog, but I thought it was worth sharing a little insight into my thoughts on this topic.

As is often the case with political issues I believe to be concerning, I hope I’m wrong.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Are you an innovator… or one of the others?

Here’s one of the most enlightening things I’ve heard this week (and it’s 30+ years old).

It’s a quote by Denis Waitley from his audio program “The Psychology of Winning“:

“Victims are inactive, waiting and dreading… the survivors are reacting, and hanging in there… the dreamers are in the shower, active but nonproductive… [but] the innovators are out of the shower, dressed, ready, and proactive in the market. 

The innovator for the 21st century has the visionary’s ability to look ahead…

The philosopher’s ability to learn from history…

The inventor’s ability to employ breakthrough concepts…

And the entrepreneur’s ability to deliver those concepts profitably and effectively to the marketplace.”

Right now, if I’m honest, I’d say I’m somewhere between dreamer and innovator. What’s holding me back? My failure to take action when I think I should.

What about you? Where do you fall within these categories?

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by Nathan Coumbe

Empathic Learning

The 5th habit Dr. Covey writes about in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is all about empathic listening: “seek first to understand, then to be understood.” Empathic listening is putting aside our own narratives, judgements, assumptions, and listening from the other person’s point of reference. When we do this, we become students learning something new from another point of view.

For some reason this morning, I was thinking about my time in college studying my favorite subjects in history, subjects I had been studying since I was a small child. Sad to say, I remember listening to lectures and discussions with my professors from my own frame of reference: “I already learned all about that. Let me tell you what I already know about this subject to impress you.” 

I was the guy who would ask “deep, insightful questions,” when in reality, I was simply asking questions that showed my knowledge of the subject.

How vain, immature, and dumb I was! Had I only been listening––not from my own frame of reference, from the mindset of what I already knew––and instead adopted that wide-eyed curiosity of a child, I could have learned and retained so much more than I did. I would have been able to see the same ideas and subjects in a new light or with new perspectives. 

Instead, I listened to validate what I already thought I knew.

Empathic listening doesn’t just apply to difficult or emotional conversations with relationships in your life. It also must be employed in any learning environment to get as much out of it as possible.

by Nathan Coumbe

Creating Football Fans

There are two components to learning a subject:

  1. You must want to learn whatever the subject is.
  2. You must constantly engage with the subject until it becomes a part of you.

This is how die-hard football fans (and players) are made. We don’t give them a textbook and test them on all the information it contains – we create an environment where a person wants to learn about the sport, and then we expose them over and over again until it becomes a part of his or her identity.

How do we replicate this in a classroom? How can we create people, children and adults, obsessed with learning something other than sports?

We’ve gotten really good at creating a culture obsessed with football; we’ve done a poor job of creating a culture obsessed with history, literature, or science.

by Nathan Coumbe

School can ruin a passion

It amazes me how much I used to enjoy certain things until I went to college. School ruined a lot of it for me.

Let me explain:

I have always had a passion for music and history. I loved them both so much I couldn’t decide between the two when I went to college, so I double-majored. I did all of my research on different historical periods and figures in music.

Interestingly enough I hated every second of it.

When I graduated, I quit researching history, and I quit researching music. I think in the back of my mind, the thought was if that’s what I was gonna have to do for a living, I wanted nothing to do with it.

I graduated five years ago and have been struggling to find my fit in a career ever since. I have had a lot of time to think, and I believe I’ve figured out the problem.

I didn’t hate the work: I hated having my hands tied.

College assignments are unrealistic

“You can’t write about or research anything you want – you are required to tie it back to this particular point and make an argument about how it conforms to this idea.”

“It doesn’t matter that your subject has very little source material – you have to make it 30 pages (rather than making it as long as it needs to be and no longer).”

How many of you went into college to study something you had a deep passion for, only to come out the other end hating what you once loved?

I don’t think you suddenly realized you hated the subject: I think you hated being boxed into unrealistic parameters and expectations.

Nowadays, if you want to do research on a topic outside of school, you can, and you can make it as long or as short as it needs to be. Also, it can be about whatever you want it to be.

Do you want to turn it into a podcast instead of writing? GO FOR IT! Do you want to interview people and draw conclusions from their ideas? Do that.

As long as you aren’t making stuff up and deliberately lying to the rest of the world, you can do whatever it is you want to do in whatever subject you choose.

You don’t hate learning – you hate school

You will never have your hands tied, parameters set, or asinine expectations to meet like you had in school. You don’t hate your subject, and you don’t hate the work you thought you wanted to do. You hated being boxed in, required to do things that bored you to death or robbed you of the joy of what you once loved.

Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. If there was something you used to love doing, something about which you were insanely curious, I encourage you to pick it up again.

I don’t think you lost your love for it – I think you just got the wrong idea of what you were expected to do in the real world in your field of study.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Verify, don’t trust.

Perhaps it is because of my history education background, but I have a pet peeve about verifying information.

Human beings love stories: we have been telling stories ever since we could draw, write, or communicate with the most basic sounds. It is part of human nature. Because we like stories so much, we also love to embellish, hyperbolize, and, frankly, make stuff up.

In times of crisis, the last point is particularly common. There is a lot of misinformation out there: cures have already been created; vaccines are readily available; drinking liquid silver and bleach will keep you from catching the notorious coronavirus that causes COVID-19; mutations are occuring; martial law is being enacted.

Humans like to tell stories, and even when it is unpleasant, humans like to have their emotions stimulated. People make up stories to trigger these emotional responses. You must be aware of this.

This is not new.

For as long as we have been telling stories, writing articles, and now, using social media, people have been sensationalizing things simply to be heard. People crave attention; they desire to be heard. Some people will do anything to make that happen.

This habit of making things up, of telling half-truths, of seeking attention from the public – it isn’t new. The difference now is scale: more people than ever before, 2 billion in fact, have a voice; not all of them use that voice for good.

You must be vigilant, and check your sources. You must also resist the urge to share every single social media post you see, especially if you haven’t verified the information you are reposting. It will cause fear, panic, and anger. This situation is bad enough as it is, and people are already feeling dread.

Why make it worse?

You are lucky to live in world now where you have a voice; 100 years ago, you would not be so blessed.

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

–Uncle Ben from Spider-Man

You have a voice: please use it responsibly.

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by Nathan Coumbe

The peculiarity of curiosity

Human beings are weird…

I had a conversation yesterday with my cousin, Erin, in which we discussed curiosity and the peculiar inclinations each one of us possesses.

I believe Robert Greene needs to be quoted at length here:

“[We each have] a deep and powerful inclination toward a particular subject.

This inclination is a reflection of a person’s uniqueness…it is a scientific fact that genetically, every one of us is unique; our exact genetic makeup has never happened before and will never be repeated. This uniqueness is revealed to us through the preferences we innately feel for particular activities or subjects of study. Such inclinations can be toward music or mathematics, certain sports or games, solving puzzle-like problems, tinkering and building, or playing with words.”

– Robert Greene, Mastery

I vividly remember discovering my own inclination: I was 9 years old, in the library of my elementary school, looking for a book to read. I picked up The Journal of Scott Pendleton Collins by Walter Dean Myers and was hooked. I am not exaggerating when I say that that one (seemingly) random book changed the course of my life. I became a voracious reader, taking a deep dive down the rabbit hole of World War II history, attempting to put my hands on any and every book I could on the subject.

By the age of 10, I was reading college-level historical monographs, encouraged by both my parents and my teachers. This interest gradually spread out until I was gorging myself on stories of American history, colonial times, European battlefields, and ancient civilizations.

Why?

Why is it that reading one book propelled me into so an extensive study of a particular field? Why am I so drawn to this subject, and yet I care nothing for sciences (unless I’m looking at them from a historical perspective) or cooking or any other number of subjects? Why am I drawn to history when another person is delighted by math or chemistry? And yet another person is drawn to space, theology; to beauty and hair care; or to art and photography.

I don’t have a true answer to the question. It is simply amusing to me. We can be so alike, and yet each of us seems to have a curiosity, sometimes more than one, which separates us from every other human being that is or ever has been.

All I can think is that we have been uniquely created by God, the universe, the Higher Self, or whichever spiritual ideal in which you believe. We have each been created with a unique curiosity that, if satisfied, if given the opportunity to develop enough, will help us fulfill our purpose on Earth and make it a better place for those curious beings that come after us.

I hope that you will follow your own curiosity, wherever it leads. It is quite possibly the most necessary thing you can do with your life.