Because they are not sitting across the table from me every night (and because they left for college before I was done imparting my knowledge), here are the nightly bits of wisdom you received at the dinner table.

Love Dad

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Life Lesson - SP and Change

Stockdale Paradox - Life Lesson

I sent this out in January of last year but it bears repeating.  For most people, when they find themselves in tough or crappy situations they almost always know what needs to be done.  When you find yourself in this situation you have to make a difficult choice to act or to not act.  You should not confuse doing the very same thing as taking an action, nothing is further from the truth.  If you do the same thing (that is NOT working), it is inaction and you should not be surprised when your situation gets worse. 

Here is a tough truth, you will either opt to act to change your situation and attempt to manage the outcome or you will let the situation run over you and things will change as a result of that.  Another hard truth is that people who have what you want are doing things differently than you are.  And if you are pointing to the person who does not have the same challenges that you do, you are conveniently ignoring the other 95% of people who have the same set of challenges that you do.

Being tough and having courage...having grit is NOT doing the same thing the same way.  It is making hard, tough changes when they are needed.  So if you are lamenting being without something, do something tangible and different.  Here is Stockdale Paradox posting from January:

Admiral James Stockdale was the highest ranking POW in the Vietnam War, he was held for 8 years and tortured brutally over 20 times.  When he was asked which kind of prisoners perished in Vietnam, he said that is easy, it was the optimists.  These were the prisoners who said they would be out by Christmas or Thanksgiving and those days would come and go and eventually enough milestones passed that they lost that essential faith needed to survive and die.  The optimists failed to confront the the reality of their situation and when they were forced to do so it simply became too much for them.

Stockdale accepted the reality of the situation.  He knew he was in hell but rather than failing to confront the reality of the situation he accepted it.  He stepped up and did everything he could do to lift the morale and prolong the lives of fellow prisoners.  He developed communication and milestones that help them communicate and survive.    Here is 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.

Here is the take away for you.  YOU MUST COMBINE OPTIMISM (SINCERE BELIEF) WITH BRUTAL HONESTY AND A STRONG WILLINGNESS TO TAKE ACTION.

James Stockdale quote "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.”

Very important life lesson here.  Face any trial you have head on and make them defining moments in your life.  Bloody but unbowed.

Kick Ass - Love Dad

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