From the Archives — Bully for You!

A timeless entry

The Big Stick in the Caribbean Sea by William Allen Rogers, 1904 (public domain - Wikipedia)

“Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.” — Socrates

With over 600 entries in the Timeless & Timely archives, it can be overwhelming to sort through.

And for newer subscribers, it’s likely that you missed out on earlier entries that are — wait for it — timeless.

Each week, as a service for Ampersand Guild members (our paid subscriber community), I provide a previous entry.

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This week, the topic was leadership as stewardship and as a service; quite the opposite of what a bullying boss might represent.

We often think of the new diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt as pictured above — carrying a big stick.

This was his ideology, influenced by an aphorism he frequently used: “speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.”

We also associate the bully pulpit with him, often because he said “Bully!”

And somewhere along the line, these two ideas may have become conflated, as the big stick was seen as a bullying move.

In fact, Roosevelt’s “bully” was nothing of the sort.

And that’s what today’s dive into the archives is about.