Alex Petkas - Want To Reignite Your Inner Hero? Start Here
ManTalks Podcast
Connor Beaton
4.8 • 591 Ratings
🗓️ 25 November 2024
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Talking points: history, mythology, archetypes, culture
I’ve recently been asked to dig more into the deeper stuff, and who better to delve into the history of the ancients than Alex Petkas. We dig into how important history and story can be, how modern society has watered down the hero archetype, and who we can learn from in ancient history to re-inspire us. This is great ep to dig into if you’re searching for actual heroes, not just what you see on TV.
(00:00:00) - What was the role of the “hero” in ancient history, and is it important for a healthy society?
(00:12:40) - What happens when you kill off the hero in you, and the balanced masculinity of Odysseus
(00:22:47) - How to restore a more generative hero archetype, and how we’ve made heroes one-dimensional
(00:30:41) - What Plutarch can teach men
(00:40:59) - Ancient heroes men can learn from, or who the hell is Eumenes of Chardia?
(00:55:14) - The power of narrative
Alex Petkas is writer, entrepreneur, and founder of The Cost of Glory, a bridge for the virtues of ancient heroes and the modern world’s demands. With a PhD in Classics from Princeton University, Alex has transcended traditional academic boundaries to bring the power of ancient wisdom into contemporary leadership. Recognizing that figures like Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, and Cato were not just intellectual giants but also formidable leaders and entrepreneurs, he blends their timeless insights with modern leadership needs, offering actionable strategies that resonate with today’s leaders. Alex challenges the modern disregard for classical education, championing its vital role in moral and intellectual development. His mission is to reignite the heroic spark within men, empowering them to tackle contemporary challenges with unmatched courage and clarity.
Connect with Alex
-Website: https://www.costofglory.com/
-The Authoritative Speakers Guide: https://costofglory.kit.com/gift
-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexpetkas/
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Mentioned in this episode:
Self Worth
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | All right, Alex, welcome to the Man Talk Show. How you doing today? |
| 0:08.6 | Great. It's great to be here, Connor. |
| 0:10.3 | I've very much been looking forward to this conversation. This is like, I've had a lot of people |
| 0:14.6 | lately asking me to go more into myth, archetypes,isms, stoicism. And I've talked about, Terrence McKenna had this |
| 0:26.3 | sort of idea that what culture and society needed was what he called an ancient revival. |
| 0:33.4 | And I feel like in some ways you're really spearheading that in your own way, you know, |
| 0:38.2 | that there's sort of this revival of ancient wisdom. |
| 0:42.3 | So I'm looking forward to this conversation and digging in. |
| 0:44.5 | So with all that said, let's actually start with the role of the hero in ancient times. |
| 0:51.0 | So when you look at stoicism and the sort of like Greek era, what role did the |
| 0:57.0 | hero play? Why was he so central? And what happened to him? Yeah. Well, it's worth observing that |
| 1:05.0 | the first great work of literature, the first text written in the Western tradition is an extended meditation |
| 1:14.4 | on the hero, on Achilles, at Troy. It's Homer's Iliad. Homer's Odyssey also, in a similar vein, |
| 1:21.4 | two very different main character heroes, Achilles and Odysseus. But I have this theory that I believe is anthropology would back |
| 1:31.1 | me up. Certainly, you know, the study of oral poetry would back me up. So like, you know, |
| 1:37.0 | the West Indo-European culture has this tradition of epic oral poetry, which, you know, we can look at what the Indian Vedic poets are doing, |
| 1:47.7 | like the Bhagavad Gita, Indian heroic epic, and the Mahabharata. And we can look at Homer |
| 1:53.5 | and their related languages, actually, ancient Sanskrit and ancient Greek. And we can actually |
| 1:59.2 | posit a common ancestor. And we can actually |
| 2:02.1 | go back and look at particular phrases that occur in Indian poetry, ancient Indian poetry, |
| 2:09.6 | and ancient Greek poetry, and see, okay, there are some concepts and maybe even some, |
| 2:15.2 | like, themes that these share. Cleos a the tonne is one, eternal glory in Greek. |
... |
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