I’m speaking to a lot of business owners every day, and beyond the here and now, a lot are questioning how they feel and how they should feel.
The business owners I work with are very good at making their teams feel great - it is one of their success factors. But how should they be feeling themselves?
In Good to Great, Jim Collins discusses the Stockdale Paradox based on former POW Jim Stockdale. It provides a subtle explanation of the type of mindset to try to foster during difficult times. Some people would advise “try to stay optimistic” during difficult times. And that’s better than pessimism. Even better, Jim Stockdale and Jim Collins both advocate for facing the brutal facts we face with unwavering belief in ourselves that we are going to find a way through this… and it may even be the defining moment in our careers. See this powerful 3-minute video that explains it:
And if you’re in need of some specific insight tailored for your business, then contact me. A lot of our members are doing extremely well in this environment - so to know where the opportunities are, set up a call with me today.
Transcript:
I would like to give you a way of thinking that has been enormously helpful to me. That came from the good to great research for dealing with great difficulty. And it was what we came to call the Stockdale paradox. The Stockdale paradox was taught to us by when we were doing the good to great research or trying to make sense of the CEO's win. And in doing that, I just by chance happen to get to know Admiral Jim Stockdale who was the highest ranking military officer in the Hanoi Hilton shut down in 1967 was there until 1974 they could pull them out at any time and torture him. And they did the tortured over 20 times and I had the privilege to get to know Admiral Stockdale. And uh, we were going to the faculty club one day and I had read his book in love and war, which was written in alternating chapters by himself and his wife about their years when he was in the camp.
And I got depressed reading the book because it seems so bleak. It seems so difficult. It seemed, you know, it's like we can all endure anything if we know it's going to come to an end and we know when, but what if you don't know if it's ever going to come to an end and you certainly don't know when. So I asked Admiral Stockdale how he dealt with that and he said, you have to realize I never got depressed because I never ever wavered in my faith that not only I would get out, but I would turn being in the camp into the defining event of my life. That in retrospect I would not trade.
Later when we were up the Hill, I asked him, I said, Admiral Stockdale, who didn't make it out as strong as you. And he said, easy. It was the optimists. I said, the optimists, you sounded optimistic. He said, no, I was not optimistic. I never wavered in my faith that I would prevail in the end, but I was not optimistic. I said, what's the difference? Well, the optimists always thought we'd be out by Christmas. Of course Christmas would come and it would go, and then we going to be out by Easter and Thanksgiving, and then Christmas would come again and they died of a broken heart. And that's when Admiral Stockdale grabbed me by the shoulders and said, this is what I learned. When you're facing in, you're imprisoned by great calamity, by great difficulty, by great uncertainty. You have to, on the one hand, never confuse the need for unwavering faith that you will find a way to prevail in the end with, on the other hand, the discipline to confront the most brutal facts we actually face, and we're not getting out of here by Christmas.