Stoicism, along with pithy tweets from Naval Ravikant, is what Silicon Valley Bros love. All head, no heart. Easy to understand and incorporate into your life.

Make rational decisions using logic, reason and devoid of emotion.

What could possibly go wrong?

It’s given humans an excuse to forget to check into their hearts.

Yes, I know a few calibrated men out there will stop reading there and dive straight into the comments to mansplain where I have this wrong. Save your keystrokes; this article isn’t for you.

With the rise of Silicon Valley Bros, we’ve had an influx of incredible books on philosophy and how to live. Think about the great Jordan Peterson and Mark Manson, who sit alongside Tim Ferris and the aforementioned Ryan Holiday.

I have to acknowledge that these authors, philosophers, thinkers and do-ears are at the forefront of thought-leadership. They bring new ways of thinking to the world, and they reintroduce essential philosophical ideas and values to the modern human.

However, let’s point out the oblivious…

Reading these books is only going to give you how to think and how to act.

What’s missing in this equation?

The heart.

E.g. How to feel and deal with challenging emotions. Or using feelings to navigate the world in complete alignment.

I’ve been there. I was consuming the bestseller list filled with the world’s greats. The mistake I made was thinking that Stoicism was the only way when there is so much more to being human in reality.

These authors aren’t at “fault”; we humans love reading how The Greats have succeeded. It’s a dopamine hit when we identify with these authors and their subjects.

• We light up when we can be the same as them.

• We read the instruction manual-like books and replicate their steps.

• We reel off the quotes and attribute our new behaviour to “what Jordan Peterson says” about it.

But really, what we are doing is bypassing the fundamental part of being human—having an emotional and energetic experience.

These principles work primarily for men. Thinking and doing are masculine energy traits.

They are written by men, for all humans. Over so they think except that women aren’t men.

Fun fact, when my Man read “Way of the Superior Man”, he commented that in over 40 years, he had never realised that women were different to men.

Newsflash, we ARE!

It is why the Amazon bestseller list is a terrible place for women to hang out.

The books on there are written with a blindspot. Women aren’t the same as men, and thus, we have a “Silicon Valley Sister” problem.

We have women running around thinking and doing more than being. (Men have been doing the same, but this is The Museletter, ok?)

No wonder we have an epidemic of women burning out. We’ve been convinced that Stoicism and taking action is the only way to succeed. Tough women, working themselves to death and wondering why they can’t stay in balance with life.

Not only that but if you stray into the women’s section of Amazon, we’re met with Goddess Syndrome. Book after book about how meeting the Goddess in yourself and giving up your bra. Don’t get me wrong; we need those books, especially because of the rise of the feminine. But again, it’s not the whole story.

We’re reading books written (accidentally) for men, by men, promoted by men, and we think they’re getting the whole story.

We have a lopsided representation of what it is to be;

1. Human

2. A woman in the 21st century

This article isn’t a victimhood rant; this is an observation and a signpost for women out there to take caution when diving into such topics as Stoicism and the teachings of Peterson et al. being the ONLY part of being a “successful” human.

We DO need more resilience, integrity, truth, and responsibility; this is what I teach but not the only thing.

It’s why I started The Museletter, to bring all the teachings together. The Spiritual, the Stoic and the Shadow work.

Emotions are the un-sexy work we all get work on.

Even if the Amazon Bestseller list and the authors say otherwise.

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