Higher Performance Insights | Dead Time Walking
When James Bond Stockdale was downed over enemy territory during the Vietnam War, few could have anticipated the hardship he would endure during his eight years of captivity—or the inspiration he would become after his liberation.
An avid reader of Greek philosophy, Stockdale routinely turned to Epictetus’s writings, particularly his collection of works compiled by Arrian in The Enchiridion. [1] His reflection on those learnings would prove invaluable during his capture.
To cope with routine torture and beatings at the hands of his captors, Stockdale gained “moral leverage,” as he called it, by reminding himself of the trichotomy of control—his aims, his aversions, his judgments about what was going on.
But what’s most interesting about the Admiral isn’t his indomitable will or capacity for pain. Rather, it was his ability to harness “alive time.”
Coined by Robert Green and popularized by Ryan Holiday, dead time occurs when we are passive and waiting. By contrast, alive time—that which is within our control—happens when we’re learning and improving and growing.
Most of us likely won’t ever have to ensure veterans’ hardships like Stockdale, but we will encounter times when we feel like time is out of our hands. Waiting in line. Working a job you hate. Preparing for an exam that in no way will further your future career.
In moments like these, we can choose to feel impatient or resentful, or angry. Put another way, allow ourselves to default to dead time. Or we can choose alive time and think about a problem we’re trying to solve or a goal we’re trying to attain.
As Holiday writes in Ego is the Enemy, “Dead time is revived when we use it as an opportunity to do what we’ve long needed to do.” [2]
The question is, how long will you wait until you do what you’ve been putting off?
Footnotes
[2} Ego is the Enemy: The Right to Maser Our Greatest Opponent by Ryan Holiday
Team Discussion Question
In what ways are you collectively choosing to wait rather than act, and what's the true cost of this passive time to your organization?
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