Mozza (7) + Links to success stories

[Mozza]

I wouldnt be so set on timelines though except how they might help you. If youve read any of the stuff on the stockdale paradox he said that the ones who struggled most were the ones who had an end date in mind.

Woah! I never heard of the Stockdale paradox. I love it and I paste the Wikipedia extract here for everyone's benefit.

In a business book by James C. Collins called Good to Great, Collins writes about a conversation he had with Stockdale regarding his coping strategy during his period in the Vietnamese POW camp.

I never lost faith in the end of the story, 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 who didn't make it out of Vietnam, Stockdale replied:

Oh, that's easy, the optimists. Oh, 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.

Stockdale then added:

This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.

Witnessing this philosophy of duality, Collins went on to describe it as the Stockdale Paradox.

Had I known this, my nickname here would be Stockdale. To get through this, we need the faith that we will prevail no matter today's hardships. I've a game with a few close people where I take bets on how long W and OM will last (most don't give them until the summer...) but I think I'll drop it because it creates these expectations and that's not where my focus should be anyway. I'll go through this day to day, knowing that I will prevail.

Thanks jim0987! It's funny how we need to remind each other just about the same thing.

By the way, Stockdale was badass.

When told by his captors that he was to be paraded in public, Stockdale slit his scalp with a razor to purposely disfigure himself so that his captors could not use him as propaganda. When they covered his head with a hat, he beat himself with a stool until his face was swollen beyond recognition. When Stockdale was discovered with information that could implicate his friends' "black activities", he slit his wrists so they could not torture him into confession.

So what was I saying about having a bad day? Yeah, forget it. ;-)