Courage, Humility, and Self-Confidence

I've been slowly making my way through the book Good to Great and just finished reading the chapter on confronting the brutal facts. The last story Collins relates in the chapter is about James Stockdale. Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia that summarizes it:

In a book by James C. Collins called Good To Great, Collins relates how Stockdale described his coping strategy during his eight years 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, 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."

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

“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.”.

Now, Stockdale's story is obviously very inspirational and would clearly bring any even moderately patriotic or humble person to tears. So, quite obviously, I'm happy to reflect on that for a brief moment and I'm certainly going to add In Love and War or one of his other books to my Amazon wish list. But what I found most interesting about the story was that it was a great reminder of three values I already hold dear to myself - courage, humility, and self-confidence.

Few of us will ever confront such overwhelming and daunting situations as Stockdale in our lives (thank God for that), but we all constantly have to face our own small daily challenges. It was a timely refresher given that I'm on my third go-around for applications this year. The b-school info-sessions are motivating in their own way as several hundred people equally qualified as you show up for every event. Don't get me wrong, I love the competition. But indeed, how many times have I hoped for the "I'll be in by Christmas" result, only to be faced with rejection? Definitely good timing reading this chapter - I just have to face the brutal facts and be realistic about my chances, but always retain faith that I'll prevail in the end.

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