You can watch the latest episode in my video essay series on how our world is changing right now, here.
I wrote this listening to this.
Like many of you, I am a dreamer. There are so many things in life that I want to see and do.
However, as we all know, dreams live in the mind, they live in our imaginations. The only way to go from dream to reality is with effort, energy & time, and even then a dream can still feel distant or impossible. So how do you do it?
I’ve been thinking a lot about this as I:
1) fix up an old house in the countryside &
2) work on a book.
I’ve felt for a long time that it is these larger scale projects that are the most rewarding, but it does feel sometimes like I am traversing an ocean or scaling a mountain.
There is a framework that I’ve been using recently that has been quite helpful and I’d like to share with you. It’s called Fabian Strategy. And it reflects one of the biggest differences between how I do work now and how I did it when I was 20.
If you find it useful as I do, this will help you keep the bigger picture in mind when tackling longer term endeavors.
But I can only properly explain it by first doing a little history lesson. So bear with me for a moment as we are going to travel back in time.
One of Rome’s Darkest Hours
The year is 216 BCE (2,241 years ago). This is a world without books (the technology didn’t exist yet), so there were just scrolls, and everything had to be copied by hand. Coffee would not be discovered for another thousand years (!!).
No coffee, no books… so what is happening in 216 BCE? The 2nd Punic War. Rome is getting its ass handed to it by a powerful Mediterranean city state called Carthage (part of what is now Tunisia). Carthage is led by the military genius Hannibal. Surely you’ve at least heard his name even if you don’t know what he did. He’s the guy who famously led his war elephants across the Alps to surprise-attack the Romans and it worked. I have no idea what kind of person you have to be to attempt something like that. Some people just escape comprehension.
Hannibal’s much smaller army was on an epic run of stunning victories as it invaded Roman territory and was consequently gaining new allies in the region with each passing battle. Rome feared him deeply.
It was on a sweltering early August morning that he would deliver one of Rome’s darkest days: the Battle of Cannae (which I mentioned recently). Hannibal was a master tactician, so he regularly pulled unique moves on the battlefield. When the two armies faced each other, the Carthaginian line intentionally bent backwards. Think of it kind of like a fish net, and the Roman army walked straight into Hannibal’s trap. The Carthaginians proceeded to completely surround and then massacre the helpless Romans.
To this day, this is still considered one of the worst military defeats in human history. Somewhere between 50,000-70,000 men in the Roman army died that very day. By many estimates, that is more than the total number of Americans that died during the entirety of the 8-year Vietnam War.
To put into context how catastrophic this loss was, most scholars estimate that the total Roman Republic population (including allies) was roughly ~4 to 5 million people with about 600,000 military-aged males available across the system (these are estimates of course).
To lose 50,000-70,000 soldiers – about 10% of your entire potential military population in a single place, in a single day – is insane. I cannot stress just how devastating this was. It was a demographic bomb for all of Rome that would take decades to recover from.
You simply cannot have a battle go any worse than this.
Where am I going with this? Should we be like Hannibal in our pursuit of our dreams, in the face of a mountain to climb, or a war to wage?
No.
I clearly think what Hannibal was able to achieve was incredible. But I have no useful or practical advice to provide in the way of being like him. I wouldn’t even know where to start.
Fortunately, I am not asking you to be like Hannibal. That is who I think most of us think we need to be when we do creative work. We want lightning to strike. We want to wow the world. Hannibal was exceptional and frankly I don’t think you have to be exceptional to do something with your life. Most of the time, life and creative work is a lot more boring than the fireworks we want it to be.
Fabian Strategy doesn’t come from Hannibal. It comes from a Roman. I am actually saying to be like the Romans after the Battle of Cannae, because despite the tremendous losses, despite having to face one of the greatest generals in all of human history, Rome still found a way to win the war.
How?
There is More Than One Way to Fight a War
The answer to this question is long and complicated and I’m not a scholar of Roman history. However, in very simple terms: Rome realized it was going to have to change its approach. Facing Hannibal head on just was not working. In fact, that is exactly what Hannibal wanted. No one can beat Hannibal at his own game.
Rome was reeling from its most crushing loss ever. Allies were defecting. The Senate was panicked, and many Romans wanted revenge as quickly as possible.
Enter: Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus. Fabius would soon get the nickname “Cunctator,” which means “The Delayer” in Latin. This was Rome’s answer to their existential threat.
Fabius had seen enough to know that they were going to have to do something very counter-intuitive. His approach was all about slow warfare. Rome avoided big battles with Hannibal. Instead, they cut off his supplies, harassed his forces, and slowly bled him dry over time. This gave Rome the time it needed to replenish its military. Eventually, Hannibal’s army shrank and was forced to retreat, despite never actually having been decisively beaten in Italy.
Fabius refused open battle with Hannibal. It was tempting, trust me. The Romans themselves were egging him on. In fact, they publicly mocked him for not doing it. He was called a coward. But he wouldn’t let Rome fall into another trap, wouldn’t take the bait. He wore Hannibal down and leveraged Rome’s manpower advantage: Rome could replace its armies; Hannibal couldn’t.
It was only later that the world would understand the intelligence of this approach, because it worked. And it’s fair to say his strategy saved Rome, grinding down Hannibal for years before another general (Scipio Africanus) could take over and lead Rome to victory at Zama.
Back to Creative Work:
You might have been able to get away with writing your Honors English assignments the night before in a mild (or full blown) state of panic but that ain’t gonna work for bigger projects, whether you’re scoring an album, making a documentary or writing a book. Not to mention if you want to experience the transformational effects of truly immersing yourself in the process.
The voice that’s in your head – that guy that’s whispering to you that it’s hopeless and not worth it – that’s Hannibal. To make matters worse, he’s really good at what he does. If you impatiently charge at him, he will smash you to bits. Which means you must also ignore the Romans for whom you are fighting for, that ridicule you if you don’t charge.
I have done the charging into battle and paid the price. In the past, I have flung myself into the process of writing a book, and ended up empty handed. I did not have a proper concept of the time and energy that it takes. I did not understand the value of sustainable momentum that is required in the process: showing up every single day. You’re long distance running, which means you have to adopt a pace that you can maintain. Avoid exhaustion and strain, especially in the early days. An amateur will wear that as a badge of honor but a more experienced leader knows that there is nothing romantic, productive or valuable in total exhaustion.
When I was younger, I did not realize that I was going to have to fight a war of attrition to get what I wanted. I had an abstract notion of this but I did not have the life experience to know it. I did not know that the only way I was ever going to win against Hannibal was by wearing him down. By digging deep and continually showing up until even his superior military tactics could not beat me.
The way Fabius Maximus operated would become known as Fabian strategy:
Win by not losing. Wear the enemy down. Be patient.
It takes a lot of nerve to have this level restraint, to show up but also play the long game.
It is impossible to climb the mountain in a day. Nobody sprints an ultra marathon. You adopt a comfortable pace and then you stick with it. And stick with it, and stick with it until eventually… you get there. From Latin: attritio — meaning a rubbing against, friction, or wearing down. Which comes from the verb: atterere = to rub against, to wear down. In Latin, this had a physical connotation – you grind or erode stone.
What Do You Care About?
To me this always goes back to priorities. How much do you care about what you’re doing? I want to write a book. I want to climb this mountain. I am very slow, but one step at a time, and I’ll eventually get there. Come and get me, Hannibal.
PS: If you want to learn more about the historical context of what I wrote about here, I highly recommend this podcast series on Hannibal.
PPS:
If you want updates on how the book is going, along with a bunch of other perks like a monthly live zoom hangout (haven’t done the one in July yet, so you can still make it to that!) + other benefits, consider upgrading. Your support has a direct impact on my ability to dedicate an increasing amount of time to writing which is something I love!! Thank you.
Your videos and writings feel like I'm hearing from a more clever self. I've held similar dreams, but you've figured out how to achieve them. I appreciate how you think. Your insights are deeply considered and enrich me. I'm 67 but still learning. 😃
bro wrote exactly what i needed right when i needed it