The Good Life Podcast with Sean Murray

TGL005: Learning from Literature with Elizabeth Samet

Jan 27, 2020

52:57

On today's show, I talk with Elizabeth Samet, Professor of English at the United State Military Academy at West Point and author of the anthology Leadership: Essential Writings by Our Greatest Thinkers. Samet uses literature to teach cadets how to lead in the grand sense; that is, how to be thoughtful, strategic, ethical, principled and purposeful. In the show today she shares some of the stories from the anthology, each with a specific lesson on leadership and living the good life.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU'LL LEARN:

How Pericles used rhetoric to rally the people of Athens during the Peloponnesian War
How a metaphor from Moby Dick is still relevant today
Why Seneca deliberately set up his quarters above a noisy public bath
How the Roman General Fabius Maximus used strategic “delay” to win a war
How President Abraham Lincoln exercised his judgment and decision-making skills

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