Surviving the Hairball

The corporate world wasn't built for people who care about doing the right thing. This book was.

Two thousand years ago, a Roman slave named Epictetus wrote a field manual for surviving institutions you didn't design and can't control. His philosophy, Stoicism, has outlasted every empire, every org chart, and every corporate restructuring since.

Surviving the Hairball takes the Enchiridion, Epictetus's original handbook, and applies it passage by passage to the specific pressures of modern corporate life: the reorg that changes everything, the credit that gets stolen, the "can you just..." that destroys a month of work, the promotion that does not fix what you thought it would.

This is not a book about positive thinking. It is not a book about playing politics better. It is a field guide for the professional who has walked into a building, put on a version of themselves that was not quite right, and spent years wondering if there was a better way to survive it. There is.

Inside you'll find the Dichotomy of Control applied to reorgs, promotions, and political maneuvering; practical drills you can use immediately, including the Control Audit, the 24-Hour Rule, the Title Strip, and more; real corporate stories alongside evidence from Stockdale, Cato, Lincoln, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius; and a framework for career orbit: staying close enough to benefit from the structure, far enough away to keep your integrity.

For readers who appreciate Ryan Holiday, Gordon MacKenzie's Orbiting the Giant Hairball, and anyone who has ever searched whether corporate life is supposed to feel this way late on a weeknight. Put your oxygen mask on. This is the manual.

The manuscript is still being edited. Watch this page or connect on LinkedIn for updates on release and preorder.