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This is an iHeart podcast.
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Guaranteed Human support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures well.
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I want to talk to you today about profiles in greatness and I have behind me the picture of Abraham Lincoln for a reason. Lincoln represents one of the most tragic, brilliant characters of American history and what makes this story that I'm going to give you different of a thousand biographies that you've had probably read is that there's so much about Lincoln. I'll bet there's a whole bunch of interesting little trivia that you never heard. I'm going to give it to you. Beginning with the fact that you all know the historic. I don't know if you've ever read it. There's a. I remember when I was younger, my dad used to have me see this poster that was in his office about all the failures Lincoln experienced. He was, you know, defeated as postmaster, defeated for Congress, defeated for Senate, defeated second time for Senate, ran for, you know, vice president, was taken off the ticket, ran for president, elected. But it's like this whole miserable history of failure and book president. What's interesting about that is the fact that it's. Well, obviously it's true, but the fact that when he became president, the only reason he became president is because the infighting over Samuel Chase and Stewart, the New York Giants and the guys that really had profiles in the Northeast, they just eviscerated each other. They clawed each other. It was like if Elon Musk and Donald Trump really went after each other and they both took each other out and all that was left was. Was, you know, Governor Huckabee. He had been, you know, that had happened way back then. But the greatness of the Lincolns in this world, or the Huckabees for that matter, is the fact that God uses the opposition of others to take someone who was relatively unknown. Nobody knew who he was, and in the Midwest they did. But he got elected with only 40% of the country behind him. Then by the time he gets into office and by the time the New York Times. Oh, yeah, the media back then was as bad as it is today. No, I take that back. The media was bad, but they were dropping down like 20%. That means, like, 8 out of 10 people thought they had a buffoon, a country bumpkin, a dummy, a failure in the White House at the moment of the nation's greatest crises. And that's part of what makes Lincoln so brilliant. It's that in his four years in the crucible of Washington, he revealed that his life was already prepared for that moment. And this is part of what I want to communicate with you. These profiles I'm going to look at have a spiritual message that is that every one of them just didn't pop up, get lucky, or have a PR spin campaign that, you know, after their death made them look good. These folks I'm going to talk about beginning with Lincoln, they had to endure the crucible and they rose and triumphed above it. And I want to look at why that was, how that happened, who they were. And to start with, I'm going to go with a couple of quotes that I think reveal insight into the unique psychological framework of these kinds of people. Let's start with this interesting quote. He was only 22. But if you read this quote, it's going to give you insight into Lincoln at 22. Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men by rendering myself worthy of their esteem. How far I shall succeed is yet to be developed. I want to hold that thought for a second. Throughout his whole life, he will deal with depression, he'll deal with heartbreak, he'll deal with loss. He'll deal with devastating years of failure in combat trying to hold the nation together. I mean, even in his reelection, up until weeks before his second bid to be president, he thought he wasn't going to win. And he even wrote a letter. To who? Whoever was going to be in the Oval Office. So he didn't always have, you know, the cheering self esteem corner in his head, but somehow God provided him with strength. And I think we need to see the motivation that really grabbed him was being truly esteemed of my fellow men by rendering myself worthy. He wanted to challenge himself to be worthy of the task. And by the way, we, when we talk about a complex figure in history like this, I should also say that his wife, who he married, she was quite the belle of the ball. And you see her in her kind of like dowdy looking, overweight, frumpy, you know, kind of Victorian era. Big, big gowns, the pictures we have. But in her youth, she was the Southern belle. She was the flower that all the guys courted. And Stephen Douglas, even his great competitor, who he was debating and having to run against and would lose against, he was suitor for her. So Lincoln had an ambition. He had a sense that he could do things. And I think this shows you that he had a knowledge of his innate capacity and competence. Even if others didn't see it, he knew what he could do. And he would tell stories when he was younger and enthrall people with his antics. And he was a great wrestler, powerful man. One point in time they took this huge sledgehammer or this axe that was used, which would take two hands to be able to swing. And Lincoln picked It up with one arm and held it out straight. And he, in his death, at his assassination, the observation of those who had to try to tend to him on the bed that he was strewn out across, perpendicular almost, because he so tall, he was bigger than the bed. They said what struck them was, even at that age of his life, the strong strength and muscular, sinewy power of his upper body. Now, Lincoln was an interesting cat. There ain't no doubt about it. But he was motivated by this desire to be worthy of the esteem of his peers. Not to beat them, not to be the top of the pack. Though he had ambition, it was to have ambition that delivered that which, in the back of his mind, he would give him honor as he finished the race. And others would look. And that's an interesting. He did exactly that. Now, he dealt with this depression. How severe was depression? And a lot of these guys that I'm talking about in history, they dealt with serious melancholy. I personally believe that Satan knows who's being used and who God is raising up in Providence to serve him. And he unleashes hell against them. And many of them fought with the devil of depression. Lincoln said, and this is in 1841. So you got to figure this is 51, 61. This is 20 years before he's in the White House. I am not the most miserable man living. If what I felt were distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. To remain as I am is impossible. I must die or be better. I don't think any of you who have struggled with depression would question the fact that he's dealing with, like, a clinical case of depression. Right here. He's saying, man, if you distribute it to the whole world, my grief, everybody would be miserable, whereas you wouldn't run out. What's another great quote from Lincoln? And this is the genius of him. If I did not laugh, I should die. It was his habit of his life. He was a prolific reader, a profound reader, which is probably what gave him that native education, which accounts for his eloquence and his lawyer's capacity for close consecutive argument. Logic and argument both demonstrated masterfully when he was debating with Douglass. But he was once criticized for not taking seriously. Imagine this. Of all things, a guy deals with depression, what's going on with the war? Because he would find things from contemporaries who were comedic in plays, in theater, or even in Shakespeare that was funny, and he developed a great sense of humor. And he explained to someone once who thought he was being superficial, he said, look, if I didn't laugh, I'd die. And this is an interesting insight for you. When you're dealing with heaviness, put on the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. That's what the Bible says. The joy of the Lord is your strength. Do not weep. Nehemiah said, there's some kind of real powerful logic in this, that the way that you override that grim black dog of depression and heaviness is to do a shift, it's called, or a state change. A state change means you shift your attention and your energy onto something different that can override or resist that dark impulse. Because if Lincoln had given in to melancholy while he was dealing with the war and the death of his son Willie, 11 years of age, he would never have been resourceful or creative or resilient or brilliant the way he was able to keep rolling over generals until he finally found the ones who could fight.
- [12:36]
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Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures forget.
- [13:37]
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- [15:11]
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So the quote that Lincoln made at that time was, listen, I'm willing to hold McClellan's horse if he'll just give us some victories. Talk about humility. He said, man, you know, I just need this guy to fight. And so there's a kind of a Abraham Maslow, the great psychologist who developed this kind of concept of a hierarchy of needs. I'm interested in Maslow because he was one of the few psychologists, along with some others, that focused on Healthy Psychology vs Therapeutic Freudian psychology for people with mental illness or struggles. And what Maslow said was that Lincoln is the epitome of what he called self actualization, which is a person that rises above the petty vulnerabilities of the flesh in terms of their ego and that needing to be significant, to put other people down, to build themselves up, to have stuff or power or achievement and trophies in order to feel like they're better than other people, he said. Lincoln transcended that because in Maslow's hierarchy, he said Lincoln as a model of actualization. He moved past the self esteem issue that men get stuck at and women too, and he moved into something greater. He found a transcendent cause greater than himself that enabled him to subordinate his ego, his thirst for significance in order to serve a greater purpose. And you'll see that over and over again that Lincoln subordinated his depression, he subordinated his hostility, his enemies even. He made them all come under the utilization of 100% of his capacity and potential for the purpose of saving the union and stewarding what providence or God gave him as his responsibility as the president of the United States and commander in chief of the army. I mean, this is not something to just jump over. This is an insight that you need to have a cause that is greater than you so that you can subordinate you to that greater cause. John the Baptist put it this way regarding Jesus, Looking at his own imprisonment, he said, he must increase and I must decrease. That's a statement of greatness when you can say, I need to get out of the way so that you could do what you've got to do. Because I care more about us winning the race or winning the battle than I do about my position at the end of the race. That's an actualized person. I'll hold. McClellan now. How did he get there? I've been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had no place else to go. People question Lincoln's spirituality, and I guess they could because he never publicly affiliated with any particular church or religion. This was at a time of Charles Granis and Finney and the great second great awakening. We had preachers and conviction and revival. Not enough to stop the civil War, mind you, lest we think it was awakening even in America. Third great awakening is ever that that which can overpower everything. But it was enough to create a sense of moral alignment in the north, Particularly so that when slavery became crystallized as not just an issue, but the perhaps defining battle of the civil war, Lincoln was able, in the agony of having no place else to go. Certainly the press didn't encourage me. He had to read comedians who maybe even didn't like him in order to laugh. He had to stay focused on the assignment, keep his ego down, keep himself resourceful. But what he did, the pain developed a clarity in him, which is kind of peculiar. The pain can break you and make you bitter, morbid, could drive you to drink, as it did his predecessor, as it did the guy that followed him after his assassination was an alcoholic virtually. But Lincoln went to contemplation. He would talk often with a certain pastor that especially after his son Willie died at 11 years of age because of typhoid fever. Because of the putrid condition of the water in the swamp lands around Washington. We know now that stuff in the water can get you well. Poor Willie didn't have came out from Illinois all the way out to Washington and was exposed to a fever that got into him and took his life. Lincoln was beside himself. On top of the war, he has to sit by the side of the bed of his dear darling little Willie, who dies. He wept openly at his grave, visited it alone. But the pain caused him to become contemplative because he saw the nation in pain. I mean, think about this. The Civil War touched everyone's life. I think it was one out of five men had been killed or maimed in the war. That meant that every family had someone who had died or was a walking casualty of the conflict. So the nation, about 35, 40 million at that time. So 500,000 is significant, 600,000, significant number of casualties. What you have also there is the fact that the pain crystallizes thinking of scripture. And he began to read the Bible and he read the Psalms. He said they were his favorite because I think he could identify with the emotional turmoil and torment that was in David's life. But driven to my knees by the conviction that I have no place else to go. That's what happened to him. It drove him there. And of course his knowledge of the Bible was the only book he had. When they grew up in their schoolhouse, he never had a formal education. So he got acquainted with reading the Bible early on. It was shows the power of the word of God. It created within him a sense of moral clarity that even though he didn't go to church and he was kind of curious about the revivals, but he also saw the human nature involved in the revivals. And it was interesting. And I want you to know this. Before his death, his pastor and various other historians have confirmed that Lincoln said that as his relationship with God deepened in the crucible of the Civil War, he said that his wish was to. He told Mary as they were on a carriage, he said, I really want to go to the Holy Land. I really want to go to Jerusalem. When we're out of office, second term's over, let's go to Israel. He had a longing to be able to go walk in those steps that Jesus walked in to see that land. Imagine that he would have loved to have done that. He told his pastor that he would wouldn't gonna talk about it publicly, but that he planned on being baptized in the Presbyterian Church because Pastor Gillies, who had been consoling him and talking to him through his questions about eternity, about suffering, about the Bible, he began to develop a theological conviction that Christianity was indeed a valid religion, that Jesus Christ is the savior of the world and that he should make a public profession of that. He wasn't able to do that public baptism because he was assassinated just like he never was able to go to Israel. But so you have to look at him over the continuity of his life to really appreciate that. There's different pictures of him. But it explains why his comments in his inaugural address like this. The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. He saw the Civil War through the eye of a prophet in office. He said, I just believe that it might be that this terrible ordeal that we are experiencing will not end, that for every lash of a slaveholder, there'll be a slash of a sword and blood will be answered with blood. And what can we say till God satisfied that we paid the price for what we've done? The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous. You'll never see a president after Lincoln whose inaugural address is like a sermon from the pulpit regarding a national crisis and rooting it in Bible theology and Bible language. I'm telling you, it's a wild proposition regarding the issue of slavery. He began to feel more and more like that was the defining issue in his moral compass as he's going through his own crucible. If my name ever goes into history, it'll be for this act, the Emancipation Proclamation, and my whole soul is in it. Asked about why it was that he was pushing this when nobody in his cabinet, nobody else really wanted to do it, he said, look, I've made some vows to almighty God. Now think about this. I've made some vows to almighty God that if he stands by our men, I'm going to stand by this. In other words, there was a side to him, and it was a mystic side, where he believed that God heard his prayer. And Antietam was. He felt that he had to have at least one victory or a close victory or close to victory. And he got that close to victory in Antietam, which should have been a total victory, but for the incompetence and timidity of McClellan. Matter of fact, God himself gave the victory to the north, and they fumbled it. There was all of the. Robert E. Lee's disposition of all of his troops and his battle plans for Antietam were wrapped up around a cigar in a Confederate hat by an officer who carried his hat. And evidently he lost his hat in a charge. And the Union soldiers came up with the plans wrapped around the cigar, and there it was unfolded, General Lee's entire map of what he was going to do. And it wasn't utilized to advantage anyway. Lincoln felt that after the Emancipation Proclamation, that was. That was his. That was his success. But once again, I want to go back. I know it sounds like I'm jumping around, but I got to tell you, the two characteristic things that I love about Lincoln is the fact that he was able to take the pain and the pressure and the stress of his role. And through that actualization that he had that was unique to him, he stayed focused almost like with perfect equilibrium on what he needed to do next. And he never allowed his emotions to get the best of him and his joy, which was strange. The God given gift of humor was what enabled him to see human beings almost sympathetically. He saw them with an irony. He looked at them with a wisdom almost of a sage. You could see it in his worn out face in the final photograph of him. He looks like an old mystic, but walking down the I remember debating once. He had a debate with Douglas and Douglass accused him of being two faced. He said, you're a two faced hypocrite. And Lincoln's response was, if I had another face, do you think I'd be wearing this one? I mean, it's characteristic of the wit of Lincoln at all stages of his life that he could step out of the crucible and have a kind of a sense of irony in the moment. And I think that's just. It's worthy of knowing that these are the characteristics of greatness that I encourage all of you to maintain. I don't care what goes on out there. Can you maintain a sense of humor in the midst of it? Can you be forgiving to your enemies? And can you handle both the applause and the critique and stay focused on your assignment and subordinate your ego to a greater cause? That's the essence of the Lincoln lesson in leadership.
- [28:06]
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Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI, it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures I'm.
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- [29:44]
Podcast Host
Well, in our pantheon of great Americans, of course we just talked about Lincoln. I got so much more we could have talked about regarding Lincoln. But I wanted you to catch the idea that Providence serves up these leaders. You ever think about this? Your prayers may not make you a central figure in history, but when you get to the other side, you'll find out when it's all like the tapestry is turned around and you see all the weaving that went into creating that history. Your intercession, your prayers, your obedience, your humble faithfulness to do what you're called to do feeds into the process, I believe, that God serves up in our history. I can certainly see that in the United States, a Washington for what we call a crucible. That's what in Fourth Turning language is the cycle of every 80 years or so or 70 years where we hit a moment, a defining moment of national crises. And at that moment the collective temperament and morality of the people serves up in desperation a hero who kind of like gets the Hail Mary ball thrown to them and Providence puts it in their hands and they, against all the odds, have to score a touchdown. That's perhaps a mixing of metaphors here, but it's what it is. I want you to catch this that America's first Great Awakening served up with George Whitefield and Edwards and Mathis and the various others, Thomas Cotton and various other known and lesser famous circuit riders. They prepared the soil of America so that the intercession and the piety of the country was sufficiently healthy so that the prayers of the saints could produce a new nation. And Washington was the critical asset that we look at as the one who, more than anyone else, enable the United States to exist. And I went to Valley Forge Military Academy. My dad is a Military guy from the Second World War. He felt that in military education, he's a Southerner. He felt that military education is what a young man needs. Get him away from, well, my mother and girls or two things. He would say, your mother interferes with discipline. And so the Southern Virginians, which is my dad was a Virginian, they really have a belief in military as an aspiration. A place where characters formed and opportunity allows you, on your merit, to be able to rise. And I need to give you this little piece. At Valley Forge, where I was, it was freezing cold during the winter. And Washington was tested. His soldiers were tested. In fact, as much as 30 to 40% of his troops at any point were dying, not from combat, but from disease. And common among that was the various plagues that, like smallpox, that would afflict the troops in the camps. Washington could have easily been taken out. But the hand of Providence. Catch this. His brother, his older brother had contracted smallpox and so. And tuberculosis. And so it's actually his half brother, Lawrence. And so George, when he was young, accompanied his brother to take him to Barbados. Take you down to a southern Caribbean climate, someplace where you could breathe and dry out and maybe. And maybe strengthen your lungs. And while he was there in Barbados, Washington himself contracted smallpox. He got it bad, but he survives. Why is that interesting? Well, because during the Revolutionary War, when one third of his army died from smallpox, Washington was immune. He visited the troops. He visited them while they were sick. He was among them and never caught it. You know why? He got it when he was young, trying to take care of his brother. Now, the hand of Providence is interesting. In your life, you could see moments that look to you like, that's a terrible, you know. You know, turn in the road. That's a bad deck of cards. But then if you play the full deck out, you'll find out later on the benefit of what happened to you here paid off there. That's where Providence comes in. The. He also, by the way, because of that, he ordered mass inoculations for all of his troops because he believed that they needed that in order to. In order to survive. Now, he had a love that he lost. These are the interesting things you don't know about these guys. I'm trying to give you some information. You don't normally hear the love that he lost. He had a real crush on a girl he wanted to marry, and the girl really liked him. But in Virginia society, you kind of had to have a certain level of social status in order to claim the attentions of someone's daughter at their level of social status. And so Washington's best friend was a couple levels above him in prestige, aristocracy and finance and standing. And the families got together and he walked off with Washington's girl. You say, so what? You know, I'd stop and think about that. I'm talking about the things that formed him providentially into the person that they ended up being. Washington fell in love with Sally Fairfax, ended up marrying his best friend, George William Fairfax. She was elegant, witty and as I said, unattainable. But they had a great correspondence. She loved talking to him and it was kind of like a special relationship, like a soulmate. And she could tell him things that she knew he'd understand other people couldn't get. And Washington knew this was an infatuation, this was an affair in correspondence. And he cut it off. He just knew it ain't going to end well. But think about that. In a day and age where there's so many, you know, scandals all around Washington, he has this characteristic of he wants to be a gentleman and a great man, and he makes this his goal. He really aspires to this. There's this emotional restraint that would break off all correspondence. To master his emotions is an act that mirrors his political restraint and his military restraint. Over and over. He could be a severe disciplinarian, but he was also. He knew how to restrain himself from overuse of power because he had a remarkable self control. During his early life in the frontiers, he, this guy really was like a man's man out in the wilderness, hunting, living in the wild. And he worked as a surveyor in Virginia. He was trained, but he went out west and he had. And he was working basically to clear territory. And during the French and Indian War, at the Battle of Monongahela, Washington rode into heavy fire and two horses were shot out from under him and four bullets tore through his coat, yet he was untouched. And that was during the French and Indian War. So he's is working with the French, obviously, at this point. But to have horses shot up from under you and to come back and see holes through your coat gives you this sense that there's an overseeing hand of providence on your life. I think Donald Trump has that same sense. He says he does. Why he would move his head like that suddenly when a bullet is about to shatter his skull and to have it literally cut through his ear. That throb that he has, he says he comes back to him a lot. That pain, it's a reminder of how the hand of Providence Spared his life not once, but twice in the same several weeks. Washington knew he was protected. Later, an Indian chief said it seemed like the Great Spirit was watching over him. The other part of his personal history that I want to share with you is, and this is often overlooked, it's the insult to his pride. He strove to become a great man. He had a book of common manners, I think that was what it was called. But it was a book of a hundred things that he and his brother would read every night. Things that gentlemen do. You know the gentlemen, how they walk into a room, how they talk, when they show their teeth, when they don't, how they greet women. And I want you to catch this. Because as rugged as he was as a frontiersman out there in the wild, he carried himself with a stately kind of aristocratic elegance that. And I'm going to talk about the British snub in a second. I want to give you this. Washington was known as a graceful and skillful dancer. Not exactly the image you have of George Washington. Admired at balls and social gatherings. Women loved to dance with him because he was a very skillful tall, six foot two, two and a half tall, angular, muscular man and perfect posture and a great dancer. Abigail Adams remarked this, and I grabbed this quote for you. He has a dignity and ease and politeness about him that leaves nothing to be desired, meaning there's a dignity and ease about him. He learned. He forged that personality not by being in refined company, but by making himself refined. Think about that. He made it a goal. It helped them build alliances, help them embody leadership. Now, I got one minute and 23 seconds to tell you the part that I really want to stress right now. He wanted to be a British officer. Remember, these were British colonies. But during the French and Indian War, after his courageous behavior, he sought a commission in the British army. He said, listen, I've done exploits out here, and I'm experienced and I'm qualified and I've worked on myself and I could do this job. But despite his service and his near miraculous survival at Monongahela, he was repeatedly denied a royal commission. British officials viewed colonial officers as inferiors and refused to grant him equal status. Washington never forgot the insult. His journals reflect the sting. And don't you know, that was in his crawl when he dressed up in a military uniform during the first Continental Congress, when he went down there and sat among them and he basically advertised and said, I've got military experience. I'm the only guy here, actually. That's right. Now, commission and if you need a leader, I'll help. In other words, he wanted to prove to the arrogant British that rejected him that he was capable of being an officer. Well, they found out. All right, we'll be back in a moment.
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Said Washington is like a prince among generals because he took ragtag militia, volunteers, farmers, bookmakers, blacksmiths and forged them with the help of the French into a and the Germans into a Von Struben I think it was, and the Marquis de Lafayette. They helped him form that army. But discipline is the soul of an army because discipline was the soul of him. If it is better to be alone, it's better to be alone than in bad company. He wasn't the guy that actually was going out of his way to hang out with people. As a matter of fact, one of his axioms for life I have it in here somewhere. I'm afraid. I'm afraid if I bring it up. Let's see. Oh, here we go. I'm going to give it to you. Ready? I found it. Watch this one. Be courteous to all, but intimate with few. This is his philosophy. And let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth that must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity. This isn't the kind of guy you chum up to, right? And your best buds after a party. You know who was really close to him though, was Hamilton. Now Hamilton didn't come from any great aristocratic background. I think he was even from Barbados himself. But he was brilliant. He was smart. He was a good aide de camp. He was a good secretary for Washington. Washington learned to trust him. He passed the test, well tried. And he went on to being invited by Washington in to be a former, an important part of his cabinet. I'm reminded also of another situation which I don't have a quote here for, but I'll tell it to you. Washington had enemies. I think it was General Gates, if I'm mistaken. We'll edit it out. But as I recall, it was a General Gates who was really jealous of Washington's commission. And Washington wasn't faring very well. He wasn't winning battles, by the way. His great success was in surviving all the way up to that innovation in the freezing cold winter at Valley Forge on Christmas Eve under snow and ice, when he decided, let's go across the icy river and attack them at midnight. And so they succeeded in surprising the Hessians in Trenton, New Jersey. And that was the psychological turning point of the war. But man, he wasn't doing well. So there was a lot of opportunism. People writing letters to Congress saying, would you get rid of this guy? We're losing, we can't afford it. Morale's very. And Washington had to deal with this just like Lincoln had to deal with it. But Washington got one of those letters that was a backstabbing letter sent to Congress and by accident the courier delivered to Washington. Washington read the General, critiquing him, talking about him, realized it wasn't meant for him, it was meant for someone else, folded it back up and wrote a note to the General. My apologies. It appears that this letter arrived at my desk by accident. It's been open, but I'm sending it on, I'm sending it back to you. That it might go to its appropriate, you know, destination. In other words, I didn't mean to read your mail. It arrived at my desk because sometimes that happens. Providence does that, but it reveals something about him. It wasn't like he didn't tear it up and, you know, fire the guy or blast him or demote him. Something about this guy. Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair. The rest of the world is in the hands of God. The genius of Washington as a. As a leader was that he was able to handle the power that was given to him without connecting himself selfishly to the power that was given him. Similar to Lincoln in this idea of actualized self, meaning he was able to subordinate his own ego and his own needs, including his financial needs. Probably should cover that. Lincoln, Churchill, Washington. It's amazing how many of these guys suffered, in a sense, from the stress of financial pressure. It's like the devil would try to hit them at every angle, but they didn't. They never went down. He was able to deal with all the factions around him that were competing, and he stayed loyal to his mission and fair with other people. Be not hasty to believe flying reports to the disparagement of any. In other words, he hear rumors all the time. He hear talk all the time. In the tavern, he'd hear. But he learned that a lot of times it's like tattletale boasting distortion and be your own judge based on what people actually do, not what you hear. I want to talk about two moments that reveal the extraordinary character watching. Because I don't want this just to be like a little trivia session. I want you to think about this. There are two moments that I believe really reveal something about the man. And it's The Newburgh Conspiracy, 1783. The men who had fought in the war had gone four or five years without being paid. That's tough when you've given up everything you got and you're going to your wife and kids and, you know, and there's no mule because they, you know, they had to sell it or something and they were angry. They gave everything. And now the country's starting to get on, and so the soldiers. We were still a very young government at that time. There was no real sense of office. The president wasn't in position. The troops were. Washington returned. He didn't want to go rule over America. He turned his sword in. After he had won the Battle of Yorktown, he returned to go take after his estate, go back to his wife, his adopted children, because it was her children, and, you know, the management of his affairs to try to get his financial house back in order. But while he's doing that, the Military is. Is ready to revolt. They're going to use their organization, and there are thousands of them with weapons, and they're steely, ready, strong. They've been. They've been hardened by combat, and they will take over the government, basically create a military junta, a dictatorship like a South American junta. Well, Washington got informed about their gathering and their disposition because of their unpaid wages and pensions and were promised by Congress but not delivered. We've had those problems a long time. Washington called a meeting at Newburgh, New York, to address their frustrations because, frankly, they wanted him at the head of the army. You go in, you be the king, and you take over and take care of us. We're the ones that save this country anyway, you and us. While the officers were prepared to rebel against the civilian government, Washington entered at a moment when it was unannounced. And he went up and took a. And addressed them. And they were still hardened and arms folded. He knew he wasn't breaking through, and so he reached into his pocket to pull out a letter that was sent to him by one of the soldiers. He wanted to read it to them, and he looked a little bit confused because he tried to focus, and he looked up embarrassed, and he realized he can't read. He can't read in that light. So he said, excuse me. And the pride of the man. They all knew him to be a proud soldier, but he reached into his pocket and brought out his spectacles. And they never saw him in glasses like Ben Franklin spectacles. He put them on. They were made for him. And then he proceeded with all sincerity and an element of intelligent drama. He said, forgive me, gentlemen, but it appears that I've not only grown gray in your service, but now I find myself growing blind. And then he stumbled over, trying to read the letter out loud. Well, many in the room, it says, wept when they saw the proud man that they had always carried himself with such an air of invincible military dignity, suddenly looking like an old man trying to read with a light in front of them. And they saw his age, and it just broke him up. That moment broke the rebellion. Thank God the end of providence is so interesting. 1783 shocked the world by surrendering his commission. After he won back to Congress in 1797, after two terms as president, everybody held their breath because he could have gone like Roosevelt. Three terms. How about four terms? Somebody's dying and, you know, his next to kin becomes president like a. Like a royal Bourbon dynasty. King George III reportedly asked what Washington would do after the war. When told that he returned to his farming. The king said, if he does that, he's the greatest man in the world, I'll tell you that. That's what he did. He said, I'm done, guys. Second term. That's it. I did all. I gave you my last ounce of strength. I'm going home. And he did. Folks, I'm telling you, this kind of greatness is still in people and still in America. And Washington practiced that kind of. And, you know, I have a whole. A whole teaching I could do on his, you know, his show. Not yourself. Glad of the misfortune of another, even though he were your enemy. He was. I could talk about his. His faith. It was. It was a Quaker minister who ran into him at Valley Forge, a pacifist who wasn't involved with the war. But he gave Washington his lodge so that Washington could stay there with his officers. And he went out into the woods in his own land, and he noticed a horse there, and he was a little concerned if it was a British spy. And he kind of snuck up and looked, and it was Washington in the snow, on his knees, praying. Now, he never espoused to be an evangelical. We know that. But his commitment to the providence, to the idea of God, to the necessity of faith, religion was so formed on the inside of him that in his own solitude, like Lincoln, you don't see these guys doing it in public, but in private. He had a devotion and a sense of destiny and accountability and a kind of an internal compass that God put in him that I think helped to forge religious liberty as one of the values he championed for all faiths. Told the Jewish people, you guys are safe here in America. You're the seed of Abraham if you're good citizens. To the Catholics, he said, don't worry about the Protestants. They're not going to come after you. To the Protestants, he said, you're safe. He understood that America's religious freedoms were a part of what he had to establish for society to become a healthy Christian civilization. All right, that's my Washington component. I hope you've enjoyed it. We'll see you again in the next episode. 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