In the first of a podcast series I discuss the life of William Marshal and how great men are the product of both good fortune and competency.
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I discuss the differences between negotiations and ultimatums, how people are inclined toward one or the other, and how they impact relationships and our ability to navigate life.
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There’s no better way to tell someone didn’t learn their lesson after a conflict than when they choose to focus on the real or perceived wrongdoings of the winner rather than how they won.
Julius Caesar. Alexander the Great. Charlemagne. Martin Luther. Oliver Cromwell. George Washington. The boys at the Alamo. Abraham Lincoln. Teddy Roosevelt. Winston Churchill. Ho Chi Minh. The Taliban. Bashar al-Assad. Vladimir Putin.
Fill in whatever person or group comes to mind that has amassed a fanbase of haters who think there’s nothing to learn from these people and the only emotion to have toward them is contempt.
At a micro-level and in a more conventional context, it could be a soccer, football, or baseball team.
Or, say, a hockey team. For years the Soviets crushed everyone at the Olympics. Herb Brooks studied their strategy to figure out how to beat them, then trained his team accordingly.
That’s how you win. The Soviets were the best, and Brooks realized his boys had to be even better at the game. He didn’t just wallow in self-pity and talk forever about how they’re wicked communists.
Instead, he trained his boys so they put the best goaltender in the world on the bench.
Rocky Balboa gives a great speech to his son in the 2008 film about the difference between winners and losers.
Too often I see the losers (or their descendants) of a conflict fixate on the moral underpinnings or cause, typically by highlighting the failings and crimes of the enemy or their leader. They are blamed for every real and perceived problem going on.
They may be right or wrong, but right doesn’t make might. If it did, then how come the “bad guys” won and continue to win? Virtue matters, but it won’t win fights. Shrewdness, cunningness, brilliance, wit, pragmatism and adaptability make victory possible.
When you lose in a conflict, you don’t wallow in self-pity or focus forever on how bad the other person or group was. You figure out why they won from a practical perspective, and incorporate that into your strategy if you’re still in search of victory.
But perhaps that might require a level of self-awareness that, if it existed before, might have prevented the conflict in a lot of cases.
There’s a time to fight for something, and then there’s a time to acknowledge the painful truth; it’s mortally wounded.
Just as people can’t recognize the difference between an opening skirmish and the final assault during a conflict, they can’t tell when an organization or institution is showing signs of initial illness or a fatal condition.
Most have an “iceberg” moment. Before it hit the iceberg, the Titanic was afloat and discussions about what to do could account for the ship remaining so. But once it hit the iceberg, it was over. It was going to sink no matter what. Discussions about why, and who was to blame, was irrelevant for anyone on board. The focus was on how to get on a lifeboat or survive without one.
A lot of organizations die because the captains ignore the iceberg and only begin to talk of how to save the ship when it’s tipping downward. The smart sailor doesn’t entertain those arguments; he gets on a lifeboat and finds another ship – ideally with a captain who won’t make the same mistake.
To continue with the analogy, the first (First Class) passengers to accept the boat was sinking survived. Third Class passengers got locked below decks, sentenced to go down with a ship whose fate they had no control over.
Know when an institution has hit its iceberg.
I discuss how to respond to the national situation and why old forms of entertainment will provide us with the “great escape” we need from whatever is thrust upon us in the future.
TJ Martinell · Mountain Pass Podcast – The Great Escape Episode
I discuss the new film “The King,” how its historical inaccuracies ultimately hurt the story, how it could have been done differently, and how to make a historically inaccurate film without taking away the essence of the real history.
Tim Keefe and I continue our discussion about the Late Stage American identity and the possibility of future American identities.
Continuing our discussion of the American identity, Tim Keefe and I now discuss Ellis Island Americans from 1890-1960. This is where the “we’re a nation of immigrants” narrative originates. We also discuss how the mindset and values of this identity differs from pioneer/settler Americans from previous eras.
After a long hiatus, I chat on the latest episode of Masculine Geek about my trip to France that included Normandy just weeks before the 75th Anniversary of D-Day. Topics included history of the battle, visits to Omaha beach and other war sites.
Listen to it on YouTube here.
Check out our other episodes here.
In this limited podcast series, Tim Keefe and I examine the American identity. What is an American, and what does it mean to be American?
We begin with the Founding Americans between 1620 and 1815 when the War of 1812 ended. Who were they? What were their beliefs, convictions, traditions, customs and narrative as a people?