What Alexander the Great Learned From Aristotle | Joseph Tsar

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1:00This episode is brought to you by PayPal. Holiday Rush? Skip the mall traffic and shop online with PayPal. Shop your favorite online stores like eBay, Fanatics, Walmart, Sephora, Target and TikTok shop, and choose to pay now or pay later at checkout. Plus pay in four with no interest and no late fees. Shop now with PayPal. Pay in four subject to approval. Learn more at PayPal.com slash Pay in four. PayPal Incorporated NMLS 910457. When you look back at the history of humanity, every few hundred years, perhaps even few decades, you get someone who transforms the perceptions of his or her age. Someone who endows the people of their time with new wisdom. Insight, enlightenment. Oftentimes enlightenment of the mind and many times power acquired through physical force. It's very rare to have two such people exist within the same frame.

2:02And it's even rare to have two of those people interact with each other. That's precisely the relationship of Aristotle and Alexander the Great. Aristotle has dozens and dozens of works that document and detail the wisdom that he passed on to humanity. And what Alexander the Great learned from Aristotle helped him to achieve such prowess and accomplishment in his life. I recently made a post on Twitter a few days ago, which I would recommend checking it out. If you haven't already, there are several additional bits of information that are in that tweet that will be not... will not be discussed in today's video. I'll leave it linked below. But I wanted to break down the five things that Aristotle taught young Alexander on how to speak with greatness. Aristotle, as many of you know, perhaps if you don't, this is new information.

3:04Aristotle wrote many books on how to speak eloquently, on how to speak articulately. And many of his publishing or the publishing that were written of him by his students were on rhetoric and the ability to speak with finesse. In the Greek culture, the performance arts, especially those of tragedies and myths and public performances, valued the art of the spoken word. And it truly was an art. And it was an art that was taught as such to young Alexander, who was under Aristotle's tutelage for three years. And this was one of the best at Aristotle was one of the best educators in the world. And Alexander's father, Philip, wanted to find for his son no less than the best of the best. So let's start by addressing the first lesson that Aristotle taught young Alexander.

4:06And that is that trust is achieved through vulnerability. Alexander, from a very young age, was winning battles. I believe he won his first battle when he was 16 years old. And even before that, he had an untamable ambition. And Aristotle had told young Alexander that in order to win the hearts and minds of men, men as a broad category of the humanity that he would lead, he had to quote unquote lay himself bare to earn love. Because we as humans, we trust who we believe that we understand. When we're in a position, where we feel as if we understand someone's intentions, but not just their intentions, but the way that they perceive the world. It gives us some peace of mind in satisfaction. And even beyond that, when we can relate to them on a fundamental human level

5:09and arrive at a shared understanding, an emotional shared understanding, we recognize that that person as strong and ambitious and brash and bold as they may be, still struggles with some of the same things that we do. And they are willing to be forward about those challenges. It creates a very powerful alliance between follower and leader. And you'll find that in many of Alexander's letters, he strove to be very forthcoming about his sorrow and his fears. There's a movie Alexander from 2004 that doesn't really do him justice. In fact, I find the performances leaving a lot to be desired, but even in the documents that were referenced to model Alexander's personality off based on the documents that were written by the actual Alexander, many of the same words express that level of vulnerability that Alexander did strive to communicate

6:09in his dealings with others. This was part of Greek culture at the time. In fact, in your relation to your close friends or in relation to even your enemies, you would be very forthcoming about what your fears were, but you were also very cunning and crafty about how you would present that information. It wasn't supposed to be a bait, and it wasn't you divulging the weaknesses that can be manipulated and exploited. You very tactfully mentioned that, but you also might address how you would respond to those challenges. The second part of Alexander's tutelage by Aristotle was in reading Rich Literature. For it was Aristotle who believed that Rich Literature consumed at a young age is what grounds the mind. Aristotle believed that prose and poetry help shape speech.

7:10He has a quote, the limits of language are the limits of your world. And by language, this is not necessarily the syntax of a particular tongue, English or Greek. It is the vast vocabulary that you possess, allows you to interpret and communicate the world. Are your ad campaigns lighting up the dashboard, but not the pipeline? That's bullspend, and marketers are calling it out in dashboard confessions. My boss asks for results, so I open my dashboard for the only positive sounding metric I had. Impressions. Cut the bullspend. See revenue? Not just reach. LinkedIn delivers the highest return on ad spend of major ad networks. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a $25 credit go to LinkedIn.com slash campaign turn sick edition supply. College football is back. So Hilton called to me the superstition concierge to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey?

8:12Oh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching bandwicker call at $555 and $55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for this day. This episode is brought to you by PayPal. Holiday rush? Skip the mall traffic and shop online with PayPal. Shop your favorite online stores like eBay, Fanatics, Walmart, Sephora, Target and Tiktok Shop and choose to pay now or pay later at checkout. Plus pay in four with no interest in no late fees. Shop now with PayPal. Pay in four subject to approval. Learn more at PayPal.com slash pay in four. PayPal Incorporated NMLS 910457. Emotions or desires or aspirations or fears in greater detail. That allows you to be more effective and wielding your words. And there truly is nothing more powerful and profound than someone who knows how to compose

9:15articulate, powerful, penetrating sentences. Alexander is known for giving many consider the greatest battle speech in the history of mankind. That's up for debate. But there is no doubting that he truly was a word wizard. And all of this came from the rich literature that Alexander possessed. He knew even if these Greek tragedies and myths were nothing but lore and legend, Alexander knew the state of mind that these great heroes and heroines had to be in order to vanquish the nemeses that they fought. And this connection with greater themes of glory, of bravery, of courage gave him the vocabulary that he was able to access in composing sentences that were able to bend the will of man to his. The third thing that Aristotle had taught Alexander was that humans desire to be among and elect

10:19few. Alexander often reminded his forces of their conquests abroad, their invasions, victory, and valor. They were unlike any other. He said their existence had significance to the universe, just as Alexander was told he also had significance to the universe by his teacher. Aristotle had mentioned in one of his books that he wrote on pedagogy, on the art of teaching. He talked about, I can't remember the exact way it was described, but making the student feel special. And not special in a fantastical sense as if they're separated from the sheep from the goats. And they're not supposed to be like the others in society and sort of trying to create a disparity in the touch and create a social divide. That's not the intention. It's special in the sense that, it's significant in the sense that there is a pathway for you

11:23in this world, a pathway for you that is unlike any other. And trying to mold your destiny based on the pathways of others is in a same sense, almost as if you're born in original, but you're attempting to be a duplicate. And you're pursuing a mimicry, a quotation of someone else's pathway. And Alexander, you'll notice a lot of this in not only his military speeches, but in his private addresses as well, his letters, is you'll find that he often started by prefacing the point he was trying to make with a reminder of all the victories of the unique path that he has been on with that person. In fact, even in the movie, which is using one of the letters that Alexander wrote, he steps through the journey that he has been through with his army, the territories that they have conquered, the depositories of wealth that they have amassed, reminding them of

12:26their accomplishments, reminding them that their path is unique. Their path past has been unique and their path forward will be unlike any other. And that place to this psychology that we desire to be special, we desire to feel like the way that we are living life and the way that we function and navigate in society is significant. It matters in some way that we are not the most important cog in the clock, but we are contributing to the greater good in some way. And our existence is important. And often that is derived from our relationship that we have with others. But more so as Alexander had told his forces, it was the relationship with what they were doing from the scope of the world. The fourth thing that Aristotle had taught Alexander is that words have intrinsic musicality. Let me read the tweet and then I'll break this down in further detail. Society today uses tacky monosyllabic words. Hey, man, how are you doing?

13:27Maybe too syllable, so to single word at best. Aristotle believed in composing sentences that featured rhythm and rhyme. Words have weight and he who could compose melodious speech could move mountains and men. Alexander understood this. In the works of study on Alexander, it's very clear that it wasn't just the words that he selected to compose his sentences with. He was grounded in the art of persuasion and rhetoric and the performance arts of ilocusion and the pronunciation, the enunciation that he afforded his words was something that he did not discard as important in the effectiveness of his communication. This is something that I feel is a deficit, a shortcoming in society today. Is we often speak very monotonously, very robotically. Not often at times we just haven't been exposed to what great speech is. But you realize that there is, in the same sense that you go to a symphony and the sounds

14:33that you hear are in one sense classical but almost orgasmic to the ears. You know when the right combination of chords, of harmony, of melody creates this beautiful symphony that enthralls and inspires you in a way like nothing else can. Words have that same impact and yes it's due to the combination of those words, the choice of words but also to the intonation of your voice, the cadence and the setup of the sentence that often comes to a culminating peak point of climax where everything comes together and you know it when you hear it. The final thing that Aristotle had passed on to Alexander was to create a connection to timeless ideas. Alexander when he spoke and deep in his beliefs were rooted in association to the forces of nature. He understood what glory was, what death was and the relationship of man to the universe and he often spoke using phrases such as to the ends of the earth.

15:37He tethered his objectives to significance in the universe. I'm not talking about people in relation to the universe, I'm talking about actions. And it was said that his captive enemies would want to fight for him and join his forces after hearing the magnanimity of his words because Alexander was very bold and ambitious and that is uncontested throughout history at 20 years old. He was leading army as I believe he became king at 20 years old if I'm not mistaken. But his ability to take an idea, take an ambition that he had, however large, however small and wrap that and almost sugarcoded, although I'm not comfortable with using that word, but in a sense packaging it in a way that has a relationship to the world. One man's action has a relationship to the world and convincing other people that that is the case is unbelievably effective. Hope you enjoyed this information.

16:37I found it very insightful. There's some additional information in the tweet that I'll leave linked below. If you're following me on Twitter and subscribing to this channel if you enjoyed this analysis, thanks for watching my friends. This episode is brought to you by Born in Roma fragrances by Valentino Beauty, the iconic fragrance duo. Donna Born in Roma Ode to Parfume is a feminine fragrance featuring juicy black current, central jasmine, woody cashmurren, and warm vanilla. Its masculine counterpart, Womow Born in Roma Ode to Dualet, has notes of fresh violet leaf, aromatic sage, green vetiver, spicy ginger, and mineral salt. Shop at Macy's.com Brussels clean up nicely at sweet green. Maple glazed, roasted, and edges perfectly caramelized. Sweet greens fall harvest is back on the menu, and the season's most overlooked little green vegetable is dressed to be devoured. You know what to do. Order on the Sweet Green app.

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