Ep. #158: Book Club: Alexander the Great by Philip Freeman

[00:00:00] If you want people to work hard and make sacrifices for you, then you yourself have to work at least as hard and make sacrifices that are at least as difficult and meaningful as what you’re asking of your partner. People.

This is Mike from muscle for life, and I’m often asked about books. People ask me for book recommendations on various topics. They ask me. What book I am currently reading and what books I have recently read and what my favorite books are and so forth. And as an avid reader, I am always happy to oblige and get some book recommendations in return as well.

I also just like to encourage people to read as much as possible because I think that knowledge benefits you much like compound [00:01:00] interest benefits your bank account in that the more you learn the more you know and the more you know the more you can do and the more you can do the more opportunities you have to succeed.

And on the flip side I also believe that there is little hope for people who aren’t perpetual learners. I know that might sound a little bit pessimistic or cynical to you, but let’s face it, life is overwhelmingly complex and chaotic, and if we look around, we can find plenty of evidence that it simply suffocates and devours the lazy and ignorant.

If you are a bookworm and you’re on the lookout for good reads, or if you’d like to just get into the habit of reading more, then this book club is for you. The idea is very simple. Every week, I’m going to share a book that I’ve particularly liked, and I’m gonna tell you why I liked it, and give you several of my key takeaways from it.

I’m also gonna keep these episodes short and sweet, so you can quickly decide whether or not a book is likely to be up your alley or not.[00:02:00] 

Okay. So let’s get to this week’s book, which is Alexander the great by Philip Freeman. Now, if you like to read biographies to find ideas, models, systems, habits, and so forth that extraordinary people have used to improve their lives and to achieve great things, then you definitely want to read this book because Alexander the Great wasn’t just one of the greatest military geniuses of all time.

He was also, to quote the author here, perhaps more than any other man in history, the absolute embodiment of pure human ambition with all its good and evil consequences. In short, Alexander was a man who conquered much of the ancient world simply because he could. And for that reason, and for some others, he’s one of my personal favorite characters in history.

He’s a guy who took about 50, 000 troops and went on a [00:03:00] truly epic campaign. Journey, he marched them thousands of miles to the ends of the known world, and he led them to victory in scores of sieges, battles and skirmishes, including many where he was outnumbered several times over, and he and his army ultimately toppled the Persian Empire, which was the reigning superpower of the time and created what is still one of the largest kingdoms ever.

You just can’t help but admire somebody who dared such great deeds. Now this is gonna be a little bit of a tangent, but some people are gonna be triggered, hate that word, by my horrible, violent words and whine about how Alexander was nothing but a maniacal, genocidal, mass murdering, thug litterly Hitler.

And to them, I say you’re stupid. Yes, it’s true. Alexander and his Macedonians killed a lot of innocent people, but writing him off as a [00:04:00] psychopath is just too simplistic. First and foremost, he was a man of his times, and he was no better or worse than pretty much every other general in the ancient world, including celebrated figures like Hannibal and Caesar.

He And furthermore, as Freeman explains in the end of this book, you can make a compelling argument that Alexander’s escapades actually laid the foundation of Western culture, specifically in later years, the Romans were so fascinated with Alexander’s exploits that they developed an intense interest in Hellenic philosophy and literature and disseminated it far and wide from the sands of Syria to the shores of Britain.

And then there’s the fact that the New Testament and most of the other popular early Christian literature was written in Greek, which was almost universally spoken at that time as a result of Alexander’s conquests. That fact enabled that literature, enabled [00:05:00] Christianity to go viral in a way that simply couldn’t have happened were it to have been written in Jesus native language, which was Aramaic.

It’s very possible, Freeman says, that without Alexander, Christianity would have remained a local phenomenon and we would be living in a very different world today. Anyway coming back on track here regardless of how you feel about alexander and what he did I promise that you can benefit from learning about his life And out of the several biographies that i’ve read on alexander the great And this is by far my favorite.

So I highly recommend it. Okay. To my takeaways and only have three this time because a lot of the material in the book is just more examples of what I’m going to be covering in these three takeaways. So I didn’t feel it necessary to get redundant. The first one, quote, toward the end of the march when officers and men alike had all but given up hope of escaping the desert alive.

Some scouts found a small spring with only [00:06:00] enough water to fill a single helmet. The patrol was so thankful that they had found even this, that they brought it before Alexander, who is as thirsty as anyone. As wretched as his own state was, however, he knew his men were suffering even more. Therefore, just as he had done in the desert crossing in Bactria four years earlier, Alexander refused to drink when his army could not.

He took the helmet of precious water and poured it on the ground in full view of his army. To the parched men, for their king to share in their suffering in this way, Meant more than the water soaking into the sand. They were so heartened cesarean. It was as if they had each drunk every drop that he poured on the ground.

So my note here is that Alexander proved again and again that he simply wouldn’t ask his men to do anything that he himself wouldn’t do. And he even went as far as intentionally enduring as much pain and suffering as they did, and often more. He conducted himself as a first [00:07:00] among equals in a body of free men, not as a divine Lord to be worshiped with elaborate rituals and pomp, which was very common in those times.

And especially in the Persian empire, which is the first of his major conquests. Now, these, I think are hugely important leadership lessons. I’ve actually written and spoken about these points before, but they bear repeating. Thank you for listening. If you want people to work hard and make sacrifices for you, then you yourself have to work at least as hard and make sacrifices that are at least as difficult and meaningful as what you’re asking of your people.

Just being smart or nice or charming or even successful in previous ventures or previous times isn’t enough. The bottom line is. If you want to lead people, then you really have to be someone worth [00:08:00] following. You have to objectively measure up.

Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. If you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it.

It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say, Thank you. You can find me on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at Muscle for Life, and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. Okay, take away number two. Alexander, however, did not fall into an easy sleep that night.

He knew that the Persians outnumbered him at least two to one, and that they had chosen a field of battle that played to their strengths. In a [00:09:00] broad plain, the tens of thousands of horsemen, drawn from every corner of the empire, would easily stretch beyond his front lines, and would certainly outflank him, enveloping his infantry until Every last soldier was cut down, or they could mass into an unstoppable wedge and force their way through his infantry.

He had to think of a way to break through the Persian lines with his own cavalry and attack Darius directly. If he could kill the great king or even drive him from the field, the Persian forces would collapse. But with so many heavily armored cavalrymen on the Persian lines extending beyond his own front line on both the right and the left, it seemed an impossible situation.

Then, sometime in the night, Alexander had an idea. A brilliant, daring, absurd idea. From that point on, the king slept in. When Alexander’s officers arrived at sunrise the next morning, they couldn’t believe the [00:10:00] king was still in bed. They didn’t dare wake him, so they ordered the men to all have a good breakfast.

Finally, with the sun rising in the sky above the mountains to the east, Parmenion at last entered Alexander’s tent and called him loudly two or three times before the king opened his eyes. The indignant old general asked how he could be sleeping so soundly as if he had gained a victory when the battle was still ahead.

Alexander only smiled and said, Why don’t you know we’ve already won? And my note here is that Alexander always looked at difficult and even seemingly impossible situations differently than everyone else and even his best generals. He believed that nothing was truly impossible, that there was always a way out.

Or through an onward. And that explains why he was willing to make monumental gambles again and again in his campaigns. Now, what I personally took away from this little anecdote here is just [00:11:00] how powerful that sense of forward motion is. Alexander viewed even the biggest obstacles and predicaments with a sort of contempt, as if nothing could really stop him from achieving his objectives.

There are many examples of this throughout the book, and another one that stands out is an instance where Alexander and his army were attempting to take a city whose massive walls and formidable defenses turned out to be just too great for his interests. Siege engines. What to do? What to do? Alexander noticed that the river that was flowing through the city exited the walls through a narrow channel, and he thought maybe it was large enough to squeeze through and sneak into the town.

So he checked it out, and it turns out his hunch was right. This channel had just enough space for him to shuffle through, so what he did is he arranged to lead a small group of soldiers into the channel and under the walls. [00:12:00] While his main force assaulted the front gates to distract the defenders. And then once inside Alexander and his men ambushed the guards, open the gates and took the city.

So my point here is I think that if we could learn to look at our own troubles in the same way, As alexander did then we could be far more effective in all aspects of our lives All right The third and final takeaway quote once he had regained some of his strength his officers began to chide him That his performance on the wall was a brave but foolish act for a king It was not the job of a commander They said to risk his life in such a way when there were plenty of men in the army who could do the same Alexander did not know how to tell his friends that for him such actions were an essential part of being a king.

Faced with such criticism, he walked out of his tent into the camp. A grizzled veteran from Boeotia in central Greece, who had heard about the rebukes of Alexander’s companions, approached him. [00:13:00] The man looked the king straight in the eye and said just a few words in his rural dialect. Alexander, brave deeds are what true men.

The king embraced the old soldier and considered him a friend for the rest of his life. And my note is, first, some context. This time, Alexander was attacking yet another city. And, it belonged to One of the fiercest tribes in the Punjab region of India, the Mali. Now, the Indians had already lost several battles with the Macedonians and were making their last stand in the strongest of their fortresses.

And Alexander’s soldiers were trying to find a way into the citadel, but simply couldn’t breach the walls. And so he got frustrated. He grabbed a ladder. And scaled the wall himself, followed by three of his men, and then fought his way through the defenders on top of the wall, jumped into the city and continued fighting alongside his bodyguard and attendant.

The third [00:14:00] soldier died almost immediately when he got to the top of the wall. So now it was just Alexander and two of his men. Now, meanwhile, Alexander’s army was going absolutely apeshit. They were going. Berserk frantically trying to gain entry to the stronghold before they lose their king. Then back inside Alexander’s fighting.

He gets struck by an arrow in the chest. He continues to defend himself until he just collapses from blood loss and now has just one soldier and one attendant to protect him from the rocks and arrows that were Malian soldiers. Finally, the Macedonians shouldering the gates shattered the wooden bar holding them shut and then burst through just in time to save Alexander’s life.

They brought a litter to transfer him to a nearby ship for treatment and in a final display of grit and glory, Alexander ordered a horse instead, clambered onto it, and then rode through his ranks to reassure them that he wasn’t [00:15:00] going to die. And the takeaway. That I opened this with is the final beat in this story.

Why did Alexander insist on taking such risks? Why did he insist on doing such daring things? Because that’s what true men did. Now, whether you agree with that statement or not is neither here nor there, because I think there’s a deeper significance to this story. These days, many people’s actions are mainly dictated by what they want to have, and sometimes, many times, what they want to have in that moment, the things and experiences that they think are going to make them happy or satisfied.

Now, decades of psychological research has shown that, I’ve just conclusively proven that this is a horrible plan, and it’s more or less guaranteed to backfire, but we can save that for another discussion. The same research has shown that a much better way to go about living is [00:16:00] first deciding who you are.

We want to be what fundamental and guiding principles matter most to us. And then figuring out what we need to do to embody those values and become that person. For example, in my case, my core values include achievement, commitment, consistency. Creativity, education, enthusiasm, and responsibility. And I consciously use these principles to guide me through my life.

I want to be able to confidently say that based on my actions, not my words or my intentions, but my actions, that I am the type of person that values those things. And as a result of going about life that way, while I have definitely had my share of ups and downs, I’ve also been able to keep things on a generally upward trajectory by making a lot [00:17:00] more good decisions than bad.

And I expect things to continue improving so long as I stay true to who I want to be. If I were to abandon those principles, though, and start living for the types of things that many people fantasize aboutmoney, fame, physical pleasure, and the like then I would become the type of person that I really have no respect for, which would most certainly lead to my downfall.

I keep this in mind when I’m tempted to go astray, and it has really helped me maintain a pretty even keel. Hey there, it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and don’t mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review of it on iTunes or wherever you’re listening from.

This not only convinces people that they [00:18:00] should check the show out, it also increases its search visibility. So And thus helps more people find their way to me and learn how to build their best bodies ever too. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then just subscribe to the podcast and you won’t miss out on any of the new goodies.

Lastly, if you didn’t like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at musclefullife. com and share your thoughts on how you think it could be better. I read everything myself and I’m always looking for constructive feedback. So please do reach out. Alright, that’s it. Thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon.

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