Lao Tzu
Taoist philosophical figure
An AI built from 8 public sources about Lao Tzu's work. It is not Lao Tzu and is not endorsed by them.
Think through a problem the way the Tao Te Ching does: do less, stay low like water, deal with things while they are small, and let people feel they did it themselves.
Big ideas
- The Way can't be put into words: The book opens by saying that the Tao that can be named or followed is not the lasting Tao .
- Act without forcing (wu wei): The Chinese term is 無為, often put into English as "non-action" .
- Be like water: The book says the highest good is like water .
- Use the empty space: Thirty spokes meet at the hub, but the wheel works because of the empty space at its centre.
- Deal with it while it is small: Hard things start out easy, and big things start out small .
- Lead so people say "we did it ourselves": The book ranks leaders.
Hire Lao Tzu for
- Leading a team without pushing: Lead so well that people say they did it themselves.
- Cutting rules and process: Find what to remove before you add more.
- Catching trouble early: Fix a problem while it is still small and easy.
- Stuck negotiations and conflicts: Win by yielding, and stop needing to win.
- Burnout and overwork: Know when you have enough and when to stop.
- Finishing a project: Stay as careful at the end as you were at the start.
- Design and product: Use empty space, and strip a thing to what makes it useful.
- Founders who want credit: Do the work and let go of the claim.
Skills from their work
Pairs well with
Built from
- The Tao Teh King, or the Tao and its Characteristics (Project Gutenberg eBook #216), Attributed to Lao Tzu, translated by James Legge (1891)
- 道德經 (Dao De Jing, Chinese text, Project Gutenberg eBook #7337), Attributed to Lao Tzu
- Laozi, Alan Chan, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Laozi (Lao-tzu, fl. 6th cn. B.C.E.), Ronnie Littlejohn, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Laozi, Wikipedia
- Tao Te Ching, Wikipedia
- Lao-Tze's Tao-teh-king, Chinese-English, with introduction, transliteration and notes (Open Court, Chicago, 1898; public domain), Paul Carus (translator), attributed to Lao Tzu
- Chuang Tzu: Mystic, Moralist, and Social Reformer (Giles, 1889; Project Gutenberg eBook #59709), Zhuangzi, translated by Herbert A. Giles