The Two Commandments
Alt. Title: A Universal Theory on Kindness
We live in a time where it seems that kindness is in increasingly short supply. Read your local newspaper, scroll your social media platform du jour, or just sit in rush hour traffic to see what I mean. We can and must do better. I believe that kindness is limitless. There can never be enough of it: towards others, for ourselves, for opposing viewpoints, etc. I also believe that it is on us to be the bringers of kindness and not settle to merely be the recipients of it or only reciprocate it when others are kind. Why is it on us? Because kindness doesn’t happen by default. It happens by intention. Waiting for someone else to go first is exactly how we got here!
There’s another benefit to being kinder. Kinder people turn out to be better performers: they build stronger teams, make better decisions under pressure, and sustain their energy longer.
Want to be a “bringer of kindness” and perform better in the process? It’s simpler than you think. Allow me to introduce a universal theory on kindness that can be distilled into just two commandments to follow to help you bring more kindness into the world and lead a good and high performing life:
1. Thou Shalt Be Cool.
2. Thou Shalt Not Be an Asshole (“A-hole” hereafter).
I realize, my dear reader, that these two commandments might sound too simplistic to hold water as a “profound” “universal” “theory” on kindness, but bear with me. This theory does three things that make it so in my book: 1. it has historical and philosophical precedent, 2. it’s verified by modern science, and 3. it has wide applicability in daily life. Let me prove it to you below.
Let’s start with the historical and philosophical precedent, because what I find most interesting about the two commandments is that they aren’t new. Not even close. They’re ancient wisdom in disguise.
1. The Philosophical Basis for the Two Commandments
Aristotle—the philosopher who essentially wrote the book on rhetoric (and in a boss move called it Rhetoric)—wrote what might be the most elegant definition of “being cool” in Western thought. And tucked inside the same work is one of the most precise philosophical definitions of being an a-hole ever committed to papyrus.
The First Commandment: Be Cool
In Part 7 of Book II, Aristotle defines kindness with characteristic economy. To be kind, he writes, is to be helpful toward someone in need, not in return for anything, nor for the advantage of the helper, but purely for the benefit of the person being helped.
That’s “be cool,” dressed in an ancient Greek toga, and it’s a higher calling than it might first appear. Aristotle isn’t describing pleasantness or politeness. (Although being pleasant and/or polite is always a great default position.) He’s describing something more deliberate: a genuine orientation toward the wellbeing of others, with your own agenda checked at the door. He goes on to say that kindness is greatest when the person is in serious need, when the help is hard to give, and when you’re one of the only people stepping up. In other words, being cool isn’t just about being agreeable on a good day. It’s showing up when it’s inconvenient, expecting nothing in return.
He makes the same point from a different angle when he defines friendship in Part 4. A friend1, he writes, is someone who wishes you good things not for their own sake but for yours. A friend shares your pleasure in what is good and your pain in what is unpleasant. He then adds a detail I love: the things that create friendship are doing kindnesses unasked, and not proclaiming the fact when they are done. Because if you announce your kindness, you’ve revealed that you did it for yourself. Being cool, in Aristotle’s framework, doesn’t need an audience.
The Second Commandment: Don’t Be an A-hole
This is where Aristotle’s Rhetoric gets surprisingly rich (and surprisingly modern).
He spends considerable time in Part 2 anatomizing exactly what triggers anger and resentment in other people. He isn’t moralizing about it. He’s being clinical. He writes that if you want to understand human behavior, you need to understand what makes people feel slighted. And “slighting,” in Aristotle’s view, is the root cause behind almost all interpersonal damage.
He identifies three core forms of slighting. The first is contempt—treating someone as obviously unimportant. The second is spite—blocking someone’s goals not to gain anything yourself, but purely to stop them from having it. The third, and the one most relevant to our second commandment, is insolence: doing or saying things that cause shame to someone not for any practical reason, but simply for the pleasure of it. Aristotle traces insolence directly to the person thinking themselves superior to others. That is, as precise a philosophical definition of being an a-hole as you are likely to find anywhere in the ancient world.
He then gives a list of specific behaviors that reliably generate anger and resentment in others. (The list reads like it was written last Tuesday.) Laughing at people. Mocking them. Forgetting their names. Treating someone worse than you treat everyone else. Celebrating someone’s misfortunes. Being indifferent to the pain you cause. Dismissing someone in front of people whose opinion matters to them. In Aristotle’s view, all of these are forms of slighting, and slighting is what poisons relationships, erodes trust, and makes people want to work against you rather than with you.
The practical upshot is clear. Don’t slight people. Don’t treat them as unimportant. Don’t block them out of spite. Don’t humiliate them for sport. In other words: don’t be an a-hole.
What makes Rhetoric such a useful source here is that Aristotle isn’t writing moral philosophy in the abstract. He’s writing a practical guide to human interaction. He’s asking what actually moves people, what builds trust and goodwill, and what destroys it. The answer, distilled across hundreds of pages, is our two commandments. There’s a certain irony in that. A man who spent a lifetime developing one of the most sophisticated intellectual frameworks in history ended up, at the level of practical wisdom, arriving at something you could fit on a bumper sticker.
Be cool. Don’t be an a-hole. Aristotle had it right.
Twenty-four centuries later, modern science backs him up.
2. The Two Commandments According to Science
Jamil Zaki is a professor of psychology at Stanford and the director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Laboratory. His research sits at the intersection of neuroscience, psychology, and human behavior. Throughout his career, he has been making the scientific case for more empathy and kindness.
The Neuroscience of Being Cool
In his book The War for Kindness, Zaki makes an argument that should resonate with anyone who has ever wondered whether “being cool” is a liability in a competitive world. (Spoiler Alert: it’s not.) His central finding: kindness and empathy are not fixed traits you are either born with or not. They are skills, trainable and developable over time. In other words, you can get better at being cool.
The neuroscience backs this up in ways that are hard to ignore. When you perform an act of kindness, your brain’s pleasure and reward centers activate as if you were the recipient of the good deed, not just the person you helped. Researchers call this the “helper’s high.” People who practice kindness consistently also tend to carry significantly lower levels of cortisol, the stress hormone most associated with burnout, poor sleep, and diminished performance.
The ripple effect is equally worth noting. Research has shown that kindness is contagious. When someone witnesses a kind act, they are more likely to perform one themselves. One genuine moment of coolness has the potential to improve an entire room.
Workplace data is equally compelling. Research consistently shows that employees with supportive, caring managers are more engaged, more productive, and more likely to stay. While being cool is good for its own sake, being cool at work, it turns out, is good for business.
The Insidious Effects of Being an A-hole
The philosophy is straightforward. The science is compelling. The second commandment is where most of us actually struggle. Not because we intend to be unkind, but because unkindness rarely announces itself as such.
It shows up as the cutting remark you tell yourself was just honesty. The eye roll you think no one saw. The heavy sigh. The email you dashed off in frustration that you didn’t need to send. The colleague you dismissed in a meeting not because their idea was bad but because you were tired and they were an easy target. None of these feel particularly unkind in the moment. They feel like minor friction but, make no mistake: they all violate the second commandment.
The danger is that unkindness compounds. Left unchecked, the costs don’t stay with the recipient. They come back around. Zaki’s research shows that when we witness or experience unkindness, we go on to treat others more harshly ourselves. In this way, unkindness is also contagious and one bad interaction can travel through a team, a household, or group chat.
I’ve previously written about dark energy—the motivational fuel that comes from negative sources such as anger, spite, contempt, sarcasm, or frustration. While it can produce short-term results, ultimately it’s unsustainable and, as Zaki shows, it poisons the well for the people around you and, eventually, for you. This makes the second commandment not just a moral issue, but a performance one as well.
The throughline across all of this research is worth stating plainly: kinder people perform better. They build stronger teams, sustain their energy longer, and create environments where others perform better too. Kindness isn’t a detour from high performance. It turns out to be one of the most direct routes to it.
Following the two commandments in everyday life (to the surprise of no one) takes intention and practice. We turn to the application of them next.
3. The Two Commandments in Practice
In my coaching practice, I often introduce the two commandments as a way of directing our intention toward what is within our control. It’s a great exercise to develop discipline, presence, and empathy, and it requires action. It also has the bonus benefit of making you feel good while doing good. Here’s what this exercise looks like in action…at the supermarket.
I can’t speak for everyone, but most folks have gone grocery shopping and have used a shopping cart to transfer their purchases to their car. What do you do with your shopping cart when you’re done with it? Do you perch the shopping cart on some concrete island as if it were some modern art installation? Do you tuck it next to another abandoned shopping cart nearby so it has a friend? Certainly no one is judging you for being in a hurry, being tired, or otherwise. But intuitively, we know what the proper thing to do is: return the shopping cart to the cart corral. What is stopping you from doing this? (Spoiler Alert #2: it’s you.)
By focusing on living in accordance with the two commandments, you not only see what the right behavior is (being cool) but you also see the kindness that you’re doing for others (not being an a-hole). Someone is responsible for getting all the shopping carts back to the store for new customers to use. You are doing them a kindness by returning your cart to the corral. You are also sparing them the task of retrieving your Warholian shopping cart street art from wherever you abandoned it. I love this exercise because it’s an easy rep. It’s doing the right thing when no one is watching. It’s practice at being the type of person that is considerate of others. If you can consistently pass the shopping cart test (or any kindness practice that you land upon), you are definitely following the two commandments.
Shopping cart etiquette aside, the good news is that both commandments are trainable and actionable right now, with no new belief systems required. Below are a few places to start with a daily(ish) practice of applying the two commandments:
Stack low-stakes reps. Kindness, like courage, is built in small moments. Giving a genuine compliment. Remembering someone’s name. Putting your phone down when someone is talking to you. Returning the shopping cart. These aren’t grand gestures. They’re the repetitions that build the coolness muscle.
Curate your environment. Zaki makes a point worth taking seriously: when we are consistently exposed to unkindness—on television, in toxic team cultures, in social media content designed to make us outraged—we tend to carry that energy forward and treat others more harshly. Protect yourself from environments that encourage or reward being an a-hole.
Engage in Self-Reflection. At the end of the day, ask yourself: did I show up today as someone who makes the room a little better, or a little worse? Did you do a good deed today? You don’t need to be perfect. You just need to be honest. This is the practice of “looking within” that Marcus Aurelius was recommending in Meditations two thousand years ago—and that research on self-awareness consistently supports today.
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After millennia of philosophy and decades of psychology research, my theory for being a bringer of kindness turns out to be a simple one. Two commandments: Be cool and don’t be an a-hole. Aristotle knew it. Neuroscience confirms it. And the data shows that people who practice both commandments consistently don’t just live better lives. They perform better in them too.
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Three Book Recommendations:
Rhetoric, Aristotle
The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World, Jamil Zaki
How to Flourish: An Ancient Guide to Living Well, Edith Hall (A very accessible modern translation of Aristotle)
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Three “First Commandment” Recommendations:
Send Handwritten Thank You Notes (a lost art worth reviving)
Remember Birthdays (bonus points for remembering half-birthdays)
Do Good Deeds (pretty self-explanatory)
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Thank you for reading this edition of Rhetorical Exercise. I hope you found it both useful and entertaining as you strive to perform your best at the things that matter most to you.
Peace and love,
Chris
Speaking of friends, thank you to wonderful wife and my dear friends Yael Schonbrun and Mario Fraioli for kindly reading early drafts of this post.
Great stuff!!!
That was one fantastic post!