How Lincoln's lifelong struggle built the will to lead a nation

Executive overview

Lincoln battled crippling depression his entire life — a burden that nearly drove him to suicide twice. Rather than breaking him, that suffering forged the qualities that made him uniquely fit to lead the nation through the Civil War.

The Stoic "discipline of the will" is the third and hardest discipline: not perception or action, but the capacity to endure, contextualise, and find meaning in what cannot be overcome.

Personal suffering, fully absorbed and transcended, becomes the deepest source of leadership strength.

Lincoln's obstacles

• Lost his mother in childhood; grew up in rural poverty
• Self-educated; taught himself the law
• Lost the woman he loved as a young man
• Suffered multiple electoral defeats before reaching the presidency
• Endured bouts of severe depression — debilitating, not understood as illness at the time
• Came to believe his suffering was destined for him and prepared him for greater things

How suffering shaped his character

• His own pain drove compassion — he could not bring himself to hate as others did
• He was patient because he knew difficult things take time
• He could hold humor and deadly seriousness simultaneously
• He rose above petty conflict by seeing politics philosophically
• His words reached people's hearts because they came from his own experience of pain
• Embodied the Stoic maxim sustine et abstine — bear and forbear

The discipline of the will

• Will is the discipline of the heart and soul — distinct from perception (mind) and action (body)
• It is the one thing we control completely, always
• Fortitude and wisdom about life itself, not just specific obstacles
• Allows us to endure what cannot be overcome — and in doing so, flip the unflippable
• Harder than controlling perception; harder than persistent action
• Prepares us for an unpredictable world, protects us against it, and allows us to thrive in spite of it

What the will demands

• Accept what cannot be changed
• Manage expectations
• Persevere
• Love your fate — amor fati
• Protect your inner self; retreat into yourself
• Submit to a cause larger than yourself
• Remember your mortality
• Prepare to start the cycle again

Lincoln in practice

• Favourite saying: "This too shall pass" — applicable in any situation
• Sent a supply boat instead of reinforcements to Fort Sumter — creative within constraint
• Timed the Emancipation Proclamation after Antietam to project strength
• Was equally prepared for victory or defeat — and prepared to bear either with dignity
• Admiral David Porter: Lincoln seemed to think only that he had an unpleasant duty to perform, and set himself to perform it as smoothly as possible