I’m reading Good to Great by Jim Collins and in it, Collins recounts his talk with Admiral Jim Stockdale.
Stockdale was a prisoner of war for eight years during the Vietnam War. He was tortured more than twenty times by his captors but never doubted that he would survive and return home.
He said, “I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.”
When Collins asked Stockdale who didn’t make it out, Stockdale answered: That’s easy. The Optimists.
“They were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.”
Collins and his team called Jim Stockdale’s mindset the Stockdale Paradox: “You must retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties. AND at the same time…You must confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”
I’ve heard the story before. Brenè Brown recounts it in her work and I’ve seen the Stockdale quoted multiple times. It was worth hearing again.
You must retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties.
And at the same time … you must confront the brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
In other words, don’t delude yourself. Take your life as it is while never giving up on what you want it to be. It gives you back control of your life. It inspires action over fate.
It also brought to mind the John Lennon quote: “Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”
With Love,
Natalie