Founders - #196 Winston Churchill (Leadership during WW2)

Episode Date: August 7, 2021

What I learned from reading The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson. ----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes----I  wondered how on earth anyone could have endured it: fifty-seven consecutive nights of bombing, followed by an intensifying series of nighttime raids over the next six months. In particular I thought about Winston Churchill: How did he withstand it? It is one to say "Carry on," quite another to do it.History is a lively abode, full of surprises.The only effective defense lay in offense.The king harbored a general distrust of Churchill's independence.He had lived his entire life for this moment. That it had come at such a dark time did not matter. If anything, it made his appointment all the more exquisite.At last I had the authority to give directions over the whole scene. I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial.Churchill brought a naked confidence that under his leadership Britain would win the war, even though any objective appraisal would have said he did not have a chance. Churchill knew that his challenge now was to make everyone else believe it too.He considered Churchill to be inclined toward dynamic action in every direction at once."If I had to spend my whole life with a man," she wrote, "I'd choose Chamberlain, but I think I would sooner have Mr Churchill if there was a storm and I was shipwrecked.”Churchill was flamboyant, electric, and wholly unpredictable.Churchill issued directives in brief memoranda.No detail was too small to draw his attention.Churchill was particularly insistent that ministers compose memoranda with brevity and limit their length to one page or less. "It is slothful not to compress your thoughts," he said.Anything that was not of immediate importance and a concern to him was of no value.Churchill wanted Germans to "bleed and burn."I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.In the Churchill household defeatist talk inspired only rage."It would be foolish to disguise the gravity of the hour," Churchill said. "It would be still more foolish to lose heart and courage.”Churchill said, "We shall not hesitate to take every step-even the most drastic-to call forth from our people the last ounce and inch of effort of which they are capable.”Recognizing that confidence and fearlessness were attitudes that could be adopted and taught by example, Churchill issued a directive to all ministers to put on a strong, positive front. If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground.Churchill demonstrated a striking trait: his knack for making people feel loftier, stronger, and, above all, more courageous. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves that if the British Commonwealth and Empire lasts for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.He had been fond of quoting a French maxim: "One leads by calm."“Your idle & lazy life is very offensive to me," Churchill wrote. "You appear to be leading a perfectly useless existence." So confident was Hitler that England would negotiate, he demobilized 25 percent of his army. But Churchill was not behaving like a sane man.Churchill’s message was clear. “We shall not stop fighting until freedom, for ourselves and others, is secure.”Nothing must now be said which would disturb morale or lead people to think that we should not fight it out here."It typified the uniquely unpredictable magic that was Churchill—his ability to transform the despondent misery of disaster into a grimly certain stepping stone to ultimate victory.There was still no sign that Churchill was beginning to waver.When raids occurred, he dispatched his staff to the shelter below but did not himself follow, returning instead to his desk to continue working.Churchill did many things well, but waiting was not one of them.Churchill’s resilience continued to perplex German leaders. "When will that creature Churchill finally surrender?" Brush aside despondency and alarm and push on irresistibly towards the final goal.Goebbels confessed in his diary to feeling a new respect for Churchill. "This man is a strange mixture of heroism and cunning. If he had come to power in 1933, we would not be where we are today. And I believe that he will give us a few more problems yet. He is not to be taken as lightly as we usually take him.To be stupid about one's life is a crime.She told Churchill that the best thing he had done was to give people courage. He did not agree. "I never gave them courage," he said. "I was able to focus theirs.”----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes----“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — GarethBe like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ----Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here. ----“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — GarethBe like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

I started thinking about London and the German aerial assault of 1940 and 1941, and wondered how on earth anyone could have endured it. 57 consecutive nights of bombing, followed by an intensifying series of nighttime raids over the next six months. In particular, I thought about Winston Churchill. How did he withstand it? And his family? And his friends? What was it like for him to have his

city bombed for nights on end and to know full well that these air raids, however horrific, were likely only a preamble to far worse, a German invasion from the sea and sky? I decided to find out and quickly came to realize that it is one thing to say carry on and quite another to do it. I focused on Churchill's first year as Prime Minister, May 10th, 1940 to May 10th, 1941, which coincided with the German air campaign as it evolved from sporadic, seemingly aimless raids to a full-on assault against the city of London. What follows is by no means a definitive account of Churchill's life. Other authors have achieved that end. Mine is a more intimate account that delves into how Churchill

and his circle went about surviving on a daily basis. The dark moments and the light, the romantic entanglements and debacles, the sorrows and laughter and the odd little episodes that reveal how life was really lived under Hitler's tempest of steel. This was the year in which Churchill became Churchill, the cigar-smoking bulldog we all think we know, when he made his greatest speeches and showed the world what courage and leadership look like. Although at times it may appear to be otherwise, this is a work of

non-fiction. If some of what follows challenges what you have come to believe about Churchill in this era, may I just say that history is a lively abode full of surprises. That is an excerpt from the book that I'm going to talk to you about today, the one I have in my hand and the one I'm going to try my best to convince you to buy, which is The Splendid and the Vile, a saga of Churchill, family, and defiance during the Blitz, and it was written by Eric Larson. So before I jump back into the book, let me tell you why I wanted to read a book about Churchill and how he fits into everything else that we've been reading about and studying on the podcast. If you do any kind of reading in the history of entrepreneurship and as you go through these biographies, there's just a few names that are repeated over and over again that have outlasting and outstanding influence across generations. And one of those, Napoleon is

example of that. P.T. Barnum, surprisingly, might be the person that's mentioned the most as like a shorthand for showmanship and the importance of showmanship. But I would also say Churchill. Churchill's repeated, mentioned over and over again as inspiration to a lot of people that we've read their biographies and that we've studied on the podcast. And he's kind of a shorthand on courage, leadership, grace under pressure, and just a refusal to give up. He had one singular obsession, one single goal, and that was victory. And he wouldn't let anything or anybody derail him from that goal. So the example that sticks out in my mind of about 70 episodes ago, I did a three-part series on Larry Ellison. If you haven't listened to those,

you can go back. It's founders number 125, or excuse me, 124, 126, and 127. And there's two stories about that regarding Churchill in that series that I never forgot. One of them is that Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs were best friends. And so I think it's The Billionaire and the Mechanic. I think that's founders number 126. That book starts with a walk. Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison are going for a walk, and they're having a discussion and a debate about who's the greatest, like who do they believe the greatest people in history are. They bring up Leonardo da Vinci. They bring up Gandhi. They bring up Napoleon. They bring up Churchill. But I think the most important Churchill story in those books is when Oracle is almost out of business. They're

on the precipice of going bankrupt, of the company being dissolved. And it talks about in those books is when Oracle is almost out of business. They're on the precipice of going bankrupt, of the company being dissolved. And it talks about in those books, it talks about what Larry Ellison is reading during that probably the most stressful time of his entire life. And one of the books that he was reading was a biography of on Winston Churchill. And so I want to go to the actual sources and acknowledgement section of this book all the way in the back and read two lines to you, because I think that relates to why Larry Ellison and other people have been able to draw strength from studying the life of Winston Churchill and apply it to when they're inevitably, we're all going to go through tough times, and they apply the lessons they

learned when they're going through those tough times. And so this is the author of this book saying, honestly, how did the Churchills and their inner circle cope? I owe particular thanks to my three daughters for helping me keep perspective amid the routine trials of daily life. He's talking about when he's putting together this book. And this is the most important part. And I think this is what Larry and other people relate to and why they want to study Churchill, which pale in comparison to the awful things that Churchill and his circle had to deal with every day. And I think that is just so fundamentally important. Just puts it helps you put things into perspective. Yeah, my company might not be doing well.

Maybe you're having personal problems, but it's not it's not the same as one of the most evil people in history trying to kill you every night. And yet in the face of that, you somehow find the strength to say, I'm not moving. I'm not quitting. I'm not giving up. If you're going to beat me, you're going to have to bleed for it. So I want to go to the day where Churchill is actually appointed prime minister. I want to read you two sentences before I do that to give you an idea of the personality. He is by far a one of one. I've never come across anybody that that that is like him.

First talks about the opinion of the king of England. He did not want to make him prime minister. Says the king harbored a general distrust of Churchill's independence and the king's choice. When Chamberlain Neville Chamberlain resigned, he wanted to appoint this guy named Halifax. And this is what Halifax thought of Churchill as well. Churchill was acknowledged to be a brilliant orator, albeit deemed by many to lack good judgment. Halifax himself referred to Churchill as a rogue elephant. Okay, so I want to go to the point where Churchill summoned to Buckingham Palace. This is when he's been notified officially that he's going to be prime minister. And it says he's talking to his bodyguard, this guy named Thompson.

Churchill turned to Thompson. You know, I've been to Buckingham Palace, he said. Thompson did and congratulated him, but added that he wished the appointment had come sooner and in better times because of the immensity of the task that lay ahead. And I underline that twice, the immensity of the task that lay ahead. And I underline that twice. The immensity of the task that lay ahead. Now, this is where there's going to be a lot of people in the book that think Churchill, he's very misunderstood from the outside, including his enemies. There's a lot of Nazis. They're like, what the hell is going on with this guy?

Why hasn't he given up yet? And so this idea is like you have one of the most immense tasks that has been put forth from any human that's ever existed. And you're going to be surprised by Churchill's reaction or response to being made prime minister. He was elated. So Churchill says, God alone knows how great this task is. All I hope is that it's not too late. I'm very much afraid that it is, but we can only do our best and give the rest of what we have, whatever there may be left of us. So that's another Churchillian trait. I'm going all in. There is no plan B. I will die. I will either succeed or I will die. These were sober words,

although inwardly Churchill was elated. He had lived, this is so crazy, he had lived his entire life for this moment. That had come at such a dark time did not matter. If anything, it made his appointment all the more exquisite. Late that night, Churchill lay in bed, alive with a thrilling sense of challenge and opportunity. And this is a quote from Churchill about this. But power in a national crisis, when a man believes he knows what orders should be given, is a blessing. He felt a great relief. At last, I had the authority to give directions over the whole scene. I felt as if I were walking with destiny and that my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and this trial. And that's something that you'll notice immediately when you're studying Churchill. He's

gifted, not only gifted writer, especially he's just gifted with words. His speeches make you feel like, and there's people in the book that talk about this, from people that he's working with to average citizens in England. He gets them hyped up, and he's able to transfer his belief over to them where they feel they can accomplish anything. I think it's an extremely important part of the book.

Churchill brought a naked confidence that under his leadership, Britain would win the war, even though, and this is the important part, even though any objective appraisal would have said he did not have a chance. Churchill knew that his challenge now was to make everyone else believe it too. Okay, so most of the highlights, larson eric larson did a fantastic job he's he tells the story not only do you see it from churchill's perspective but people close to him reminds me kind of how like a little bit how game of thrones is written if you've ever read any of george rr martin's books where you see a perspective of multiple events from different people and he goes back to the same people over and over again. So one of the main characters is Churchill's youngest daughter, Mary.

We see almost everybody's like taking dire writing diaries and taking notes. Churchill included his personal secretary actually publishes his his diary when he was when he was with Churchill in the 1980s. It's actually I just found the book. I'm probably going to wind up reading and doing a podcast on it. But what that does is it gives us the ability to see things from multiple angles. And you also see like the day to day occurrences, both large and small, while this this massive bombing of London and England is going on. And there's all these interesting side stories in the book. I'm going to focus most of my highlights that I'm going to talk to you about today. Just I'm trying to give you a sense of who Churchill was, his personality, how he was viewed over other people, and then how he thought about things.

So again, I'm not trying to summarize the book. You've got to read the book. It's absolutely fantastic, and I highly, highly recommend you do. But I do want to give you a sense of – because there's just a lot of what the actions that Churchill did and the way he thought about things that I think we can emulate and use in our own lives. I love this sentence. It, just a random sentence. Somebody that knew Churchill and it says, he considered Churchill to be inclined towards dynamic action in every direction at once. He was skeptical of Churchill and the wild energy he seemed to bring. I hope Winston won't lead us into anything rash. I'm just giving you all these random quotes that are spread over other pages. This one is

fantastic. And it's going to remind me of what was said about Ernest Shackleton. So I'll tell you that minute. If I had to spend my whole life with a man, she wrote, I would choose Neville Chamberlain. But I think I would sooner have Mr. Churchill if there was a storm and I was shipwrecked. And so that reminded me of one of the most famous quotes about Ernest Shackleton. Ernest Shackleton, I read that book, Endurance. He was a famous polar explorer. It's podcast number 144. If you have not listened to the podcast, I highly recommend doing that as well.

And this is another Antarctic explorer describing. So he's going to list all these people, these other famous explorers, in addition to Shackleton, and why you might want to select them given what's your current circumstances, right? Remember, this woman just said, hey, for my whole life, I'm spending with Neville Chamberlain. If there's a giant storm and I'm shipwrecked, I'm choosing Churchill. And so this explorer says, for scientific discovery, give me Scott. For speed and efficiency of travel, give me Amundin. But when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton. And so one of these side stories I was just referencing is his main strategy from the very beginning was, okay, especially after France fell, he's like,

I'm going to have to get the United States involved in this war. And he knew as his refusal to to give in to defeat and to give up he was willing to pay with his life but he knew that without help like britain can't fight again if no one else is jumping in uh and and hitler has taken care of every other country off the board like he knew it was all it was over so this is his strategy from the very beginning he's talking to his son um he's shaving because this can be important for a minute. So he says, after a few moments, Churchill made a half turn towards his son and said, I think I can see my way through. Randolph says, do you mean that we can avoid defeat or beat the bastards? At this, Churchill threw his razor into the basin and whirled his face to his son.

Of course, I mean, we can beat them, he snapped. Well, I'm all for this, his son said, but I don't see how you can do it. Churchill said, I shall drag the United States in. And so this is another description of Churchill, and the note I left myself on this page is he is main character energy. He is definitely the main character of his life, of his movie. The new prime minister, true to his reputation, was flamboyant, electric and wholly unpredictable. One of Churchill's first acts was to appoint himself minister of defense, which prompted an outgoing official to write in his diary. Heaven help us. So this idea that he's completely flamboyant, unpredictable.

I'm going to I'm not going to spend too much time. You know what? Let me read this to you because I wasn't going to put it in the podcast, but it's such a weird, I think it's a great example of his flamboyance and his eccentricity. This is later on. It takes him a few years, a year and a half, maybe almost two years to convince Roosevelt to jump in. Roosevelt's obviously helped by stupid actions from unwise now in hindsight actions from both Japan attacking Pearl Harbor and then Germany, led by Hitler the doofus, declaring war on America when he was already fighting a two-front war and losing to both England and Russia. But anyways, so at his first, during, I think it's like 1942 maybe, Roosevelt, or excuse me,

Churchill sneaks to the United States and this is his first visit to the White House. And this is, I'm just going to read it. Churchill stayed at the White House and got a close-up look at Roosevelt's own secret circle. Roosevelt, in turn, got a close look at Churchill and more of a close look that he'd wanted uh so he um churchill invites roosevelt to talk roosevelt knocks on his door and it says uh

winston churchill was stark naked a drink in one hand and a cigar in the other the president prepared to wheel himself out come on in franklin church Churchill said. We're quite alone. The president offered an odd shrug and then wheeled himself in. You see, Mr. President, Churchill said, I have nothing to hide. Churchill proceeded to sling a towel over his shoulder. That's not the area that I'd want him to cover if I was Roosevelt. And for the next hour, converse with Roosevelt while walking around the room naked, sipping his drink, and now and then refilling the president's glass. He might have been a Roman at the baths, relaxing after a successful debate in the Senate.

Okay, so that's towards the end of the book. Let's go back towards the beginning, though. And so it talks about the difference of, this sentence is going to talk about the difference of 10 Downing Street, where the prime minister resides in England, and the difference between Churchill's regime and his predecessor. And it says civil servants were actually to be seen running along the corridor. So I guess I should read my note to you first.

Speed, brevity, work on the most important things. This is a summary of really how Churchill works that I think, again, we can use these traits as well. The workload increased to unimagined levels. Churchill issued directive and commands in brief memos, which he dictated to a typist, one of whom was always on hand from the moment he awoke until he went to bed. No detail was too small to draw his attention. And another thing about he had a very bizarre schedule. He was a polyphasic sleeper so he would stay he take a nap every day but he would stay up really late he's drinking as far as i can tell almost

constantly smoking cigars almost constantly uh stays up night late uh having dinner um you know continuing working basically like a what's evangelizing and and proselytizing uh everybody like on the way he views the war what he's constantly worried about morale which is another thing he shares with shackleton and i think great leaders in general um but so he would stay really late get up early work from bed i did a podcast on aristotle and nasus i don't know the number i don't have in front of me this just popped into my mind. But this is after Churchill was prime minister, and he winds up traveling around with Aristotle Onassis on one of Aristotle's giant boats. And he kept that same routine where he'd get up maybe 6 or 7 in the morning, and he wouldn't get out of bed until 12 or noon. And he'd be working and reading.

I think at that point he was reading and writing in bed. And we're going to get into that. He just used everything as an office. He used the bathtub as an office, a train, a bed. It did not matter. But just this idea where from the time he was awake till the time he was sleeping, he was working and he would take naps to regenerize, to re-energize, rather. no detail was too small for his attention churchill was particularly insistent that men that ministers compose memos with brevity and limit their lengths to one page or less is a quote from him it is slothful not to compress your thoughts and so that's why i think you see he's a he likes aphorisms he's a sucker for aphorisms sucker

for maxims just give it to me as succinctly as possible. He'll try to, and I'll give you some examples in the book, I think, where you might write him one or two pages, and his response is two words, one word, a sentence. So he really wanted, again, there's just too much information in the world. Give me the most important bits, and let me get all my days, the way I would describe him. Anything that was, and then this is his idea of I'm going to always work on the most important thing, anything that was not of immediate importance and a concern to him was of no value. Churchill's notion of what constituted an office was expansive.

Generals, ministers, and staff members would find themselves meeting with Churchill while he was in the bathtub, one of his favorite places to work. He also liked working in bed and spent hours there each morning going through dispatches and reports. One of the things I've done two podcasts on Theodore Roosevelt. And one of the things I love is this idea that you should have a fit that you should have a model for life, whether it's your family model or personal model. Roosevelt's personal model was one that he copied motto. His personal motto, I'm not pronouncing that correctly, was one that he copied from his father. Get action. This is very similar to, I feel, how Churchill conducted his life.

So the note of myself on this page is get action. I'm here to fight and I'm here to win. One of Churchill's assistants was struck by how much the public seemed to need this new prime minister. He marveled at the enthusiastic greeting Churchill got from the men and women they passed a group of people waiting at the private entrance to number 10 downing street offered their congratulations and encouragement with cries of good luck winnie god bless you churchill was deeply moved that's another thing there's well i'm gonna run over my own point here churchill never afraid to express emotion began to weep he cares deeply about his mission, about what he's doing, about the immense responsibility that he has. He experiences all of the full scope of human emotion, including weeping and just being unbelievably grateful that people trusted him to lead them during this time. And so he talks about

that here. Poor, poor people, poor people, he said, They trust me, and I can give them nothing but disaster for quite a long time. What he wanted most to give them was action. As he made clear from the start, action in all realms, from the office to the battlefield. What he especially wanted was for Britain to take the offensive in the war, to do something, anything, to bring the war directly to hitler as churchill said on frequent occasions he wanted the nazis to bleed and burn so he's like listen we're not just going to sit here and and play defense as hitler attacks us he's like we're going on the offense this mission and other raids soon to follow were meant to signal to the british

people to hitler and especially to the United States, that Britain intended to fight. So he talks about this. He's talking about this during speech. I just want to pull out one line here that you've probably heard before. One line stood out with particular clarity. I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat. Okay, so after France falls, there's renewed talk in Britain about, hey, maybe appeasement, essentially. Let's try to make a deal with Hitler again.

And this is something that Churchill talked about. He wrote about it. He talked about it. He was not a fan of Neville Chamberlain's strategy for this. And I just want to pull out a couple sentences here. The deep current of appeasement that had persistently flowed within English society began to surface anew with fresh calls for a peace arrangement with Hitler. This is the response. In the Churchill household, such defeatist talk inspired only rage. So this is more about the way this is really how Churchill approached a lot of things. He approached it with determination,

but he would also give an accurate assessment of the current state of affairs, and then, which usually were bad, and then add optimism to that. Listen, we're going to have to give this everything that we've got. Despite the grave news, Churchill seemed unfazed. Whatever Winston's shortcomings, he seems to be the man for the occasion. His spirit is indomitable, and even if France and England should be lost, I feel he would carry on the crusade himself with a band of privateers. The speech set a pattern that he would follow throughout the war, offering a sober appraisal of facts tempered with reason for optimism. It would be foolish to disguise the gravity of the hour, he said. It would still be more foolish to lose heart and courage.

Next, he addressed his main reason for giving the speech, to warn his countrymen of what lay ahead. After this battle in France abates, its force there will come battle for our islands, for all that Britain is and all that Britain means, he said. In that supreme emergency, we shall not hesitate to take every step, even the most drastic to call forth from our people the last ounce and inch of effort of which they are capable. So he's trying to get his people to understand, hey, it's a great situation or we're going to be optimistic. We're going to do everything we can. And yet there's a lot of a lot of examples, as you could imagine, for the stress that he goes under, especially for this year, the year that Churchill became Churchill, where, you know, he might be optimistic one day and then completely depressed and terror. So in our in our circumstances, normally we say this is, you know, is it that line comes from Marc Andreessen saying that when you're doing a startup, you only ever experienced two emotions, euphoria and terror, and that a lack of sleep enhances both. And so that's that's the most succinct description of the emotional, the entrepreneurial emotional roller coaster,

right. But that emotional roller coaster occurs. And when anybody's trying to do anything that's difficult, and there's very few people that try to do something more difficult than Churchill at this point in his life. So it's not a surprise that he's he's high one day and the next day he's extremely low. The Churchill who on Sunday had struck Colville as being unfazed was here supplanted by a prime minister who seemed deeply worried about the fate of the empire, he was in charge. I have never seen Winston so depressed. Another smart thing that Churchill did during this time is he found a team that he could rely on. And this guy, the bibliography in this book is a treasure trove. Because there's been over a thousand biographies written about Churchill. And I'm obviously going to cover more in the future.

Like I'll do a proper biography so we can learn more about his early life as well. And there's just a ton of books that are interesting that are written about him. But there's also, I looked up, and the guy I'm about to tell you that Churchill got, like put him on his team, wanted to be somebody, one of his lifelong friends,

but also a very competent person. I want to read his biography. His name is Beaverbrook, Max Beaverbrook. So it says, Churchill did not and frankly could not manage the staggering pressure of directing the war by himself. He relied heavily on others, even if sometimes those others merely served as an audience of whom he could test his thoughts and plans. Beaverbrook could be counted on for candor at all times and to deliver advice without regard for politics or personal feelings. Beaverbook was gas. It's comparing Beaverbook to one of other this other guy that assists Churchill's name's Pug.

I'm going to skip that says where Pug was calming and cooling influence. Beaverbook was gasoline. He was also wildly entertaining, a trait that Churchill loved and needed. Churchill's also wildly entertaining, one of the best dinner guests you could ever have. Beaverbrook had bought the Morabond Daily Express newspaper, and over time he grew its circulation sevenfold. So he's a very successful, wealthy entrepreneur. So it grew its circulation sevenfold to 2.5 million people a day, cementing his reputation as an ingenious maverick. Beaverbrook enjoys being provocative. Complacency was as tempting a target to him as a balloon to a small boy with a pin. So he's wildly entertaining, really smart, really good at building a business. He's provocative. He doesn't like complacency.

These are all, this is now it's very obvious, like why I want to read a book about him, right? Beaver book and Churchill had been friends for decades. But this one sentence really pushed me over the edge. Churchill saw the relationship in succinct terms. Some people take drugs, he said. I take Max. Okay, so let's go to this idea that Churchill has no plan B. Churchill was convinced that one of Hitler's first goals would be to kill him, with the expectation that whatever government replaced him would be more willing to negotiate. That is actually accurate, and Hitler's on record saying that. He insisted on keeping a machine gun, having vowed on numerous occasions that if the Germans came for him,

he would take as many as possible with him to the grave. So now we get to the point in history known as Dunkirk. It's also one of my favorite movies. I just rewatched it probably a few weeks, maybe a few months ago. It's fantastic if you haven't seen it. And so, you know, this can be rather depressing. It is good that they were able to evacuate

a lot more soldiers than they thought. They thought maybe they could get out 50,000. They got out a couple hundred thousand, but they left a lot of supplies, supplies they badly needed and war equipment. So this is on Dunkirk and surrender is not an option. Throughout, however, Churchill was never flagged. Far from it. He seemed almost enthusiastic. He understood, however, that others did not share his positive outlook. And I think this next paragraph is one of his most important traits by far. Recognizing that confidence and fearlessness were attitudes that could be adopted and taught by example,

Churchill issued a directive to all ministers to put on a strong positive front, showing confidence in our ability and inflexible resolve to continue the war till we have broken the will of the enemy to bring all Europe under his domination. That's a quote from Churchill. Now, another quote here, he says, I'm convinced that every man of every man of you would rise up and tear me down from my place if I were for one moment to contemplate surrender. This is this is a fantastic quote. If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground. So if you heard somebody say something like that, I mean, it's pretty obvious what their level of dedication is right here. Here is another speech as Churchill demonstrated a striking trait, his knack for making people feel loftier, stronger, and above all, more

courageous. And we see in the speech that Churchill's fired up, wars are not won by evacuations. As he neared the conclusion of the speech, he fired his boilers. We shall go to the end, he said, in a crescendo of ferocity and confidence. We shall fight in France. We shall fight on the seas and oceans. We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be.

We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender. And this is a response from one citizen. I feel so much in the spirit of Winston's great speech that it could face a world of enemies. This is, I read this fantastic post one time. It's by Frank Slootman, I think is his name. He's taken a bunch of tech companies public, but he wrote this, he wrote this post called Amp It Up. And I just want to read, and he talks about, you know, he's essentially brought in, in some cases, he's brought in to like turn around a company or to take company has potential, but under current

leadership is not doing as much as it could do. And so this whole thing is like you got to bring more energy and intensity to what you're doing. It's very similar to what Churchill is doing here in the speech. And so I'm just going to read one paragraph from Amp It Up. And it says, this is Frank Slootman writing, bottom line, there is room up in organizations to boost performance by amping up the pace and intensity. Considerable slack naturally exists in organizations to perform at much higher levels. I would argue what Frank is saying here could also be applied to individuals. The considerable slack naturally exists in individuals to perform at much higher levels. Let me go back to this. The role of leadership is to convert that lingering potential into superlative results. The opportunity is right

under our noses, but for some reason it does not enter the consciousness. This notion is not limited to business enterprises. We see it in professional sports all the time, how teams go almost overnight from losing to winning with basically the same roster, but different leadership. Call it what you want. The X factor, whatever. It is real. Anybody can dial into this, but not many do. And then one more paragraph from this post that really, I think, describes exactly what's taking place at this point in Winston Churchill's career and life. It is not easy because you will drive people out of their comfort zones. There will be resistance. Change is hard. Some will vote with their feet. If you want to be popular as a leader, this may not be for you.

The role of the leader is to change the status quo, step up the pace, and increase the intensity. Leaders are the energy bunnies and pacemakers of the organization. Some people drain energy from organizations, not leaders. They engulf organizations with energy. And you know that that's exactly what Churchill is doing because after these speeches, people talk about, hey, I'm ready to fight an entire world full of enemies. Later in the book, I think it talks about this. This one woman says, I listen to Churchill and I'm ready to attack the biggest German I can find. OK, so again, I want to go to another speech. Really, I could do an entire podcast with just quotes from Churchill.

He was so gifted. His persuasive abilities is just the way he he just had a way with words, I guess, the way to think about it. Churchill after this is Churchill after the fall of France, but before the Battle of Britain. And so he says he made no attempt, however, to skirt the true meaning of the French collapse. The Battle of France was over, he said, adding, I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. He marched towards his climax. And I'm building up to, I think, what was probably his most famous quote he issued an appeal to the greater spirit of Britons everywhere let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves that if the British Commonwealth and Empire lasts for a thousand years men will

still say this was their finest hour arguably this was Churchill's finest hour as well. This is an example of his ruthless brevity, and he was predisposed to favor new military technology. This is the invention of the sticky bomb. And he would always try to say, hey, let's try to test it out. There's no reason to be too cautious. These weapons might actually help us win the war. There's a ton of examples of that in the book. But this is really about his ruthless brevity. The sticky bomb, as it was known, did eventually reach a point where it could be deployed in the field, despite opposition by his own war department, our war office, rather.

Churchill overrode the department's objections and gave the weapon his full support. In a June 1st, 1940 memo noteworthy for both its precision and its brevity, Churchill commanded, make one million. So let's go to June 1940. This is Joseph Goebbels. He's the head of Nazi propaganda and also a very important person in the Hitler regime. And it says, Goebbels told the group, well, this week will bring the great swing in Britain, meaning that with France fallen, the English public will now surely clamor for peace. And a quote from Goebbels told the group, well, this week will bring the great swing in Britain, meaning that with France fallen, the English public will now surely clamor for peace. And a quote from Goebbels here, he says, Churchill, of course, can't hold on, he said. A compromised government will be formed. We are very close to the end of the world.

And so there is actually the end of the war. There are countless examples in this book of the overconfidence, the gross and deadly, which turned out to be fatal, overconfidence of the Nazi regime. If you're interested in learning more about this, I've recommended this podcast multiple times. Who I feel is the best podcaster on the planet, a person that I look up to and is heavily influenced how I think about podcasting, I just learned tons from. That's Dan Carlin of Hardcore History. He has this fantastic multiple part series called The Ghost of Osfront. It's about the war between Germany and the Eastern front of the World War II

between Germany and Russia. I think where like 80 or 90% of all casualties happen. So it's by far the most important front of the war. But he also has this thing. He has another podcast feed called Hardcore History Addendum. And on that feed, the very first episode on that feed is called Imperial Germany versus Nazi Germany. He talks about, I've referenced it before on the podcast. I just went back and listened to it after I finished reading this book, just to make sure

I understood what he was talking about correctly. But this idea where, you know, people, because Hitler had such, at the very beginning, you know, such massive quick success, they think he's some kind of brilliant military strategist. And Dan Carlin, he's the kind of person like for his multiple part series takes like two years to do. He'll read like 30, 40, 50 books on the subject matter. So he has a rather informed perspective. But he says, like, listen, if you took Hitler and you said I could only staff a room with the 20 best military German military strategists from World War One, Hitler wouldn't even make it in the room. And this book really highlights some of these just and it kind of makes sense when you learn more about the Nazi regime. There were a lot of drug addicts. Herman Goring, he's also in this book a lot, the head of the German Air Force.

He was a morphine addict, extremely strange person. Hitler was on speed or meth or maybe that's the same thing. But this overconfidence combined with the rational state of mind when you're on drugs every day just led to some extremely bizarre decision makingmaking, strategic decision-making from the Nazi party. And the results of those poor decisions led to their inevitable defeat and then their deaths. Obviously Hitler killing himself, Goring killed himself. Anybody that survived wound up, you know, being either sentenced to death or sentenced to prison as a war criminal. So there was very real consequences. The reason I'm trying to tell you all this, you might already know, there's very real consequences

to undeserved overconfidence in this idea. They severely underestimated Churchill. Like, oh, okay, France fell. Okay, here comes Churchill. He's going to give up. The war is over. There's nobody says we are very close to the end of the war.

That is June 1940 when he's saying that. Something brief here for you uh maxim french maxim that churchill was fond of quoting and trying to live by one leads by calm this is a priceless thought from a drunk and dancing churchill it's 2 15 in the morning he's having a dinner and uh he just he's they're like trying to a little break i guess calm down like break the stress of the day as you could imagine and so it just he's they're like trying to a little break i guess calm down like break the stress of the day as you could imagine and so says he's like dancing and with a drink and kind of being all like light-hearted he has this sudden thought he says during one such pause churchill likened a man's life to a walk down a passage lined with closed windows. This direct quote from him. As you reach each window,

an unknown hand opens it, and the light it lets in only increases by contrast the darkness of the end of the passage. Moving on, I think when you analyze who people admire, kind of get an idea of the kind of traits they want in their own life,

there's also the reverse of that. We see, this is Churchill and his son Randolph, and we see him heavily criticizing his son. There's all kinds of interesting side stories with his son. Son is kind of an idiot, degenerate gambler. Interesting enough, the American ambassador that Roosevelt sends over once the Lend-Lease Act is signed and essentially the Americans start supplying Britain with ships and artillery and everything else. The person that was sent to Britain to coordinate all that winds up having an affair with Randolph's wife. And it sounds like Churchill knew that. And my impression was that he thought it was a good idea to keep him close. I don't know.

There's a lot of bizarre stories in the book. But I want to focus on when we see him criticizing his son Randolph, who deserves criticism for sure. We see the traits that Churchill wants to avoid himself. Your idle and lazy life is offensive to me, Churchill wrote. You appear to be leading a perfectly useless existence. So don't be idle. Churchill's honest.

Don't be idle. Don't be lazy. Don't be useless. This is more about the overconfidence of the Nazi regime. And really the problem is Hitler expected Churchill to act rationally. And when you read about Churchill and you study Churchill, there's nothing rational about his behavior. And that's what makes him such an outlier in history.

England was the last obstacle in the West, one Hitler needed to eliminate so that he could concentrate on his long dreamed of invasion of Soviet Russia and avoid a two-front war. He believed that even Churchill would have to acknowledge the folly of continuing to oppose him. The war in the West was, in Hitler's view, all but over. Britain's position is hopeless, Hitler said. The war is won by us. A reversal in the prospects of success is impossible. So confident was Hitler that England would negotiate, he demobilized 25% of his army. Fatal mistake here. But Churchill was not behaving like a sane man. Hitler sent a series of indirect peace feelers, and all were rejected or ignored.

So at this point, the RAF, Royal Air Force, is fighting over the skies of London the Luwafa I think that's how you pronounce it which is the German Air Force and Churchill again gifted with words it says Churchill found himself found it all thrilling after all what more glorious thing can a spirited young man experience than meeting an opponent at 400 miles an hour And that's what you realize about fighter pilots is that their entire life is a desire to engage in combat. I read Chuck Yeager is the guy that broke the sound barrier, the first person to ever break the sound barrier, but he was also a fighter in World War II for the Americans. That's founders number 163. And there's a quote in his autobiography um his autobiography wound up selling millions and millions of copies fantastic book but it talks about um because chuck winds up becoming ace in

a day which is you kill five enemy you should have five enemy plays in one day and they described it in his autobiography because he just he came he was like a poor kid uh growing up in west virginia and the description is just fantastic writing it says, the Germans began to come up to challenge us and ran into a goddamn West Virginia buzzsaw. And so even though at the very beginning, the RAF is having some success against, and their numbers wind up being, because they're expected to get wiped really easily.

That's the conventional wisdom, the German Air Force is just going to come over and kick our asses. RAF, again, you got anybody that's their back is against their wall, against the wall. You either succeed or die. Like that's not somebody you can underestimate. Right. So the RAF winds up having initial success against the German Air Force. And yet Hitler still believes Churchill has no chance. So this is another like warning sign. So I'm trying to pull out the positives that we can learn from Churchill in contrast with the negatives

that we want to avoid from Hitler. It's like he doesn't ever change like his opinion because think about what Charlie Munger told us where he's like avoid intense ideology it turns your brain to cabbage. That's like exactly what happened to the Nazis, right? They were just obsessed with ideology

over like intelligent strategic decisions where it's like it doesn't matter what's actually occurring on the battlefield or what's actually occurring in life. Right. It's like, no, we're we're the supreme race. We're going to win. So even when he's they're starting to initially lose against Britain, Hitler doesn't change his perspective and his thought process never changed. OK, I'm fantastic. I'm going to be a leader of the world. You have to submit. And surely you're going to give up any time, any minute, right? And so we see that here. It says the only possible result of the war, Hitler warned, was the annihilation of either Germany or Britain. Churchill may believe this will be Germany, he said, but I know it will be Britain. In this hour, I feel it to be my duty before my own conscience to appeal once more to reason and common sense

in Great Britain as much as elsewhere. I consider myself in a position. This is so insane that he's talking like this. Doofus. This guy is a doofus. I consider myself in a position to make this appeal since I am not the vanquished begging favors, but the victor speaking in the name of reason. What are you talking about? I can see no reason why this war must go on. And so we see another reply from the speech by Churchill. And again, two things I want to point out. Everyone thought Churchill had no chance. This is repeated multiple times throughout the book. And number two, his response is we're not going to quit.

We're not going to stop. The various officials present in the studio could not believe their ears. One shouted, these are Germans. Can you understand those British fools to turn down peace now? They're crazy. His message was clear. We shall not stop fighting until freedom for ourselves and others is secure. This is another quote from Churchill. He realizes that this is going to remind, let me just read it. He understands the danger. Again, we're, humans are very complex in many parts, many ways, irrational creatures.

And the fact is he understood that there's very few enemies that are more dangerous for yourself and your team and whatever you're trying to do than poor morale. Nothing must be, but nothing must now be said, which would disturb morale or lead people to think that we should not fight it out here. I'm going to again compare Churchill to Shackleton. Episode 144, I think. Shackleton was concerned of all their enemies, the cold, the ice, the sea. He feared none more than demoralization. So you got two of history's greatest leaders telling you the same

idea. They did not know each other. They were in different parts of the world, different fields, everything. And they arrived at the same conclusion. That is a giant red flashing sign for us. It's, hey, this is really important. We have to avoid demoralization. Let's go back to another mistake made by the Germans. This is a giant mistake. You want to know your weaknesses. You can't just ignore them and think they'll go away. Think about the book on Arnold, the first 30 years of Arnold Schwarzenegger I just did where he I mean, that's he talks about over and over again. Like he I just think it's such a wild thing for him to do to hire a photographer, a professional photographer to take pictures of him every month and look for weaknesses with a magnifying glass.

So you and I are not bodybuilders, but we can apply that same principle to our profession, to our work. You want to know your weaknesses, and the Nazis just ignored them. We have Goring, who's the head of their Air Force. Goring decided that they would only need four days to destroy what remained of the Royal Air Force's fighter and bomber operations. What are you talking about? Goring refused to listen to his fighter commander's protest that such claims were not realistic. In encounters with the RAF, German pilots found no hint of diminished strength or resolve. Goring's like, no, it's futile. They're going to give up.

They're going to collapse. He sends out his fighters. The fighters start fighting. He's like, no, these guys are kind of kicking our ass and they seem to be very determined, not for us to just let them take over their country. Hey, maybe we should do about this. Goring's response, I refuse to listen to this. This is so dumb and yet so easily avoidable.

And in the cases at this particular, it changes obviously, but at this particular time in the battle, the the Royal Air Force are shooting down the next three battles. They wind up shooting. It's like they have a kill death ratio. So they went up for every one plane that they lose. They wind up killing, shooting down two or three of the Germans. And in one battle, they wind up shooting down 15 to one and Goring still not like letting the realities of what's happening, like sink into and and cause him to change and update his thinking. This is very, very bizarre. Again, this guy's addicted to morphine. He's taking morphine every day. Three pages later, we see uh contrast between goring and churchill churchill has one goal survival

and victory i'm going to we are going to win and if we don't win we are going to die it's very simple goring this entire time so obviously they're they're taking over different countries they're killing all these jewish people goring was obsessed with collecting like the finest luxury and arts. So he'd have this like personal train that would go all over. And as they're raiding other countries, he would get first dibs on like if he wanted a piece of artwork or sculpture. And he'd have this, he had one of the, by the time the war ends, one of the largest

collections in the world. It says Goring himself was proving to be a problem, easily distracted. He was unable to commit to a single well-defined objective. That is deadly if you're trying to do anything that's extremely difficult. Unable to commit to a single well-defined objective. Churchill has a single well-defined objective. One he's refusing to deviate from. You are not not going to if you can't do that and the other person on the other side can you're going to lose and look at the result of going being unable to focus on his primary objective which is he's in charge of the air force the raf destroyed 78 german bombers at a cost of three of its own pilots and so eventually they get it together

they realize okay we're not doing any more daytime raids. They start only doing nighttime raids, which is actually a smart tactical decision because at this point you don't have the technology. It's very hard to find a plane unless there's tons like unless it's daytime. And so they have some anti-aircraft guns they are going to use to like limited success. And later in the war or later in the bombing this bombing this one-year period uh the raf has limited success at night but this is really when germany starts destroying large large parts of london and other cities in england as well and so churchill was realizing well this is demoralizing remember he just warned he was warning his top people we cannot let the citizenry become demoralized.

So he's like, we're going to go on the offense. And he's like, OK, even if we like we can't do anything, if we can't defend London, then let's attack Berlin. At 1220 a.m., Berliners were shocked to hear air raid sirens go off throughout the city as British bombers droned overhead. And this is why, again, the Nazis don't seem to know what the word impossible means, right? A scenario their leaders had assured them was impossible. It's not impossible. It's happening right now. Goring had assured them that it couldn't happen. He boasted that no, and this guy's such a doofus, he boasted that no enemy planes could ever break through the outer and inner rings of the Capitol's anti-aircraft defense.

But yet that's exactly what the RAF has just done. Isn't that so? Now compare the way Goring and Hitler and all these other people are talking to their population and the people they're leading compared to what Churchill does. He doesn't sugarcoat things like, yeah, this is going to be difficult. Like people, people will die if we don't stop them. They're going to take over our country. And then the Germans like, no, this is impossible. The war's already won. They can't get to Berlin. It's completely different strategies here. And then I have more highlights, but I feel like I'm repeating myself and you already get it.

So this is the last time I'll bring this up. But again, more deadly overconfidence. I'm not the last time I'll bring up deadly overconfidence, but these kind of pronouncements, they're scattered throughout the entire book. Goring told Goebbels that the war would be over in three weeks. He said that in September of 1940. So now I want to go into the heart of the book, which is what makes this so devastating, is when they figure out, okay, we're going to just attack a night. So this is when Hitler attacks London. This is a description of what that was like. The dust burst outward rapidly at first, like smoke from a cannon, then slowed and dissipated, sifting and settling, covering sidewalks, streets, windshields, and buses, phone booths, and bodies. Survivors

exiting the ruins were coated head to toe as if with gray flour. It complicated the care of wounds, one physician said. What struck one was the tremendous amount of dirt and dust her training and keeping the wounded free of infection proved useless their heads were full of grit and dust their skin was ingrained with dust and it was completely impossible to do anything much about infection at all so they over the course of this year even though they wind up surviving 50 i think the number is 58 000 citizens and soldiers were killed by the Nazis. Particularly jarring was the sight of blood against the gray background. Bombs were falling in London.

The city's anti-aircraft guns remained strangely silent, not firing until a half hour later. As night fell, RAF fighters returned to base and stayed there, made helpless by the dark. Bombs fell throughout the night. Anyone venturing outside saw the sky glowing red. German radio rejoiced. The heart of the British Empire is delivered up to the attack of the German Air Force, the announcer said. For Londoners, it was a night of first experiences and sensations.

The smell of cordite after a detonation. The sound of glass being swept into piles. This is a description by a teacher that was in her 30s who kept a diary during the war. She heard the sound of bombs falling for the first time, and it was an appalling shriek like a train whistle growing nearer and nearer, and then a sickening crash reverberating through the earth. The worst sound, she said, was the low droning noise made by the masses of the aircraft, which reminded her of a dentist's drill. Another writer present in London that night recalled the olfactory impact of an explosion,

describing it as an acute irritation of the nasal passages from the powdered rubble of dissolved homes, followed by the mean little stink of leaking gas. For many residents, the night brought another first, the sight of a corpse. When 18-year-old Len Jones ventured into the rubble behind his family's home, he spotted two heads protruding from the wreckage. I recognized one head. It was Mr. Say. When I saw the dead, I just convulsed and couldn't get my breath. I was shaking completely. Then I thought, well, I must be dead as they were, so I struck a match and then try to burn my finger. I kept doing this with a match to see if I was still alive. I could see, but I thought I cannot be alive. This is the end of the world. So the day after Churchill is going to lead from the front. He insists on seeing the damage firsthand. There's going to be other examples in

the book where they're, they're trying to, again, they know where he's at in many cases. And they're trying to bomb him and he's on the roof. And he'll continue working. He'll send all of the rest of his staff down to the bomb shelter and he'll insist on sitting at his desk and continue to work. Again, he's a 101 for sure. This is, I'm going to, I'm going to read a lot. I foresee my future, in my future, reading a lot of books about this very, very unique individual. He feared that the onlikers might resent Churchill's arrival out of indignation of the government's failure to protect the city.

So he's talking about they didn't want him to go do this because they said, OK, they might be mad because we couldn't stop this from happening. But it says that when he went out there, his citizens seemed delighted. Good old Winnie. We thought you'd come and see us. We can take it. Give it back to them. A description of this is another. A lot of this comes from diary entries. So there's another example of that describing Churchill this day.

He looked in. This is just a citizen. He looked invincible, which he is tough, bulldog piercing. Tough, yes, but at times weeping openly, overcome by the devastation and the resilience of the crowd. You see, an elderly woman called out, he really cares, he's crying. One woman shouted,

when are we going to bomb Berlin, Winnie? Churcher whirled around, whirled around, shook his fist and walking stick and snarled. You leave that to me. At this, the mood of the crowd abruptly changed. Morale rose immediately. Again, you feared demoralization. Now we're seeing the opposite is happening. These people just lost loved ones. They've lost houses. They've lost parts of their city and morale is rising. And this I double underlined. This is so important.

It typified the uniquely unpredictable magic that was Churchill, his ability to transform the despondent misery of disaster into a grimly certain stepping stone to ultimate victory. Let me read that again. His ability to transform the despondent misery of disaster into a grimly certain stepping stone to ultimate victory. That gets me fired up just reading that sentence. More quote. This is I'm now skipping ahead. More quotes from Churchill.

I some degree, I think I should just do the whole podcast with just quotes from him. This guy's amazing. As always, he preferred a mix of optimism and unglazed realism. We cannot tell, he said, when they will come. We cannot be sure that, in fact, they will try at all. But no one should blind himself to the fact that a heavy, full-scale invasion of this island is being prepared with all the usual German thoroughness and method, and that it may be launched now.

Again, compare his words to the people he's leading to the words of the Nazis and who they're supposed to be leading. They are completely ignorant amateurs compared to this guy. He warned the outcome was of far more consequence to the life and future of the world and its civilization than the brave old days of the past. He's comparing all the difficult wars

that Britain had been in before, but now saying this is the biggest challenge we've ever had. Lest his remarks send people cowering, Churchill offered grounds for hope and heroism. He called Hitler's bombing of London an attempt to try to break our famous island by a process of indiscriminate slaughter and destruction. But the attempt by this wicked man had backfired. Churchill said what he has done is to kindle a fire in British hearts here and all over the world. This new surge in morale had everything to do with his gift of understanding how simple

gestures could generate huge effects this is extremely smart move on his behalf right so this little jester gesture changes morale as well in addition to not only is he constantly out there like reviewing the damage constantly communicating but it says what had infuriated londoners was that during these raids the the night raids, the German Air Force seemed free to come and go as it wished without interference from the city's strangely quiet anti-aircraft guns. So they have these giant anti-aircraft guns stationed all over the city. They're in Hyde Park. They're downtown. They're everywhere. Gun crews were ordered to conserve ammunition and fire only when aircraft were sighted overhead. You can't really do that at night, right? And as a consequence, they did little firing at all. Now, this is the smart move by Churchill. He understands human

psychology for sure. On Churchill's orders, more guns were brought to the city and he now directed their crews to fire with abandon, despite his knowing full well that guns only rarely brought down aircraft. Why is he doing that? The impact on civic morale was striking and immediate. The guns raised a momentous sound that sent a chattering, smashing, blinding thrill through the London heart. Even if they're not as effective, you're doing something. You're not just sitting there taking it. It was a curious bit of mass psychology. The relief of hitting back. We see another response. Remember, this is happening every night they're getting pounded it's going on and on and on and we see a church another response from churchill and again he's just got away with words the german bombers uh headed back towards the channel and the french coast the battle was over the churchills climbed

up to the surface just as they all clear sounded awed by the idea of so many young pilots dashing headlong into battle churchill said aloud to himself there are times when it is equally good to live or to die that just made me a thought just popped in my mind because the difference between what hit what churchill was saying earlier is like i have a machine gun like okay you're gonna kill me. I'm taking you out with me. Right. He's not saying you're going to come kill me. I'm going to kill myself. Right. Where Hitler did. Hitler took the cowardly route out. He's like, OK, my defeat is imminent. Right. I'm going to give up. I'm going to shoot myself. I don't think Churchill would have ever done that. I'm taking a couple of you guys out with me.

My time to go. Cool. You're coming with me completely different um style of leadership and we see it in every single thing he does and again this whole this his his determination and persistence is so perplexing to the germans they're constantly asking themselves why is this guy not giving up what is happening here goring had promised hitler he would bring england to its knees in four days but even after four weeks of nightly attacks on London, there was still no sign that Churchill was beginning to waver. And there never would be a sign that he was going to waver. Joseph Goebbels grew perplexed. None of it made sense. He could not fathom why Churchill had not yet conceded defeat, given the nightly pounding of London. Reports from the German Air Force intelligence

continue to indicate that the Royal Air Force was critically wounded. That wound up being inaccurate. They're now, because Beaverbrook was put in charge, so they started losing a lot more planes than they could produce. Beaverbrook wound up increasing production of English fighter jets by like 400%, something like that. So towards the end of all this, they actually wind up being able to replace planes faster than they're losing them. So again, these reports, the Nazis are working on faulty information because they don't want accurate information, right? They want their delusions of grandeur not to be penetrated. Reports from the German Air Force Intelligence continue to indicate that the Royal Air Force was critically wounded down to its last hundred or so fighters.

False. Why was London still standing? Churchill Stone power. England showed no outward signs of distress or weakness. Far from it. And the Nazi leaders are not the only ones noticing this. It's not what I'm being told and what we're seeing is not matching up. England's resilience was having unexpected and troubling repercussions at home among the German public. With England still fighting, Germans realized that a second winter of war was inevitable.

Discontent was growing. Another way to think about that. They're being demoralized. You told us it's gonna be over in four days, a couple of weeks. The war is over. Britain's not giving up. What the hell is going on? They're still bombing Berlin. What is happening here? And then we see another example of this is why I'm reading this book. Churchill is becoming Churchill. I want to study him. I want to learn from him because I want some I want to emulate some of these traits. Could you imagine a better compliment from a competitor from your competitor or an enemy? Then what is wrong with this person? They refuse to give up.

They refuse to quit. They won't go away. With the bombing of London came increased fears for Churchill's safety, a concern that he himself appeared not to share. No raid was too fierce to stop him from climbing to the nearest roof to watch. Churchill continued to visit anti-aircraft installations even as German bombers flew overhead. When raids occurred, he dispatched his staff to the shelter below, but he himself did not follow, returning instead to his desk to continue working. Even near misses seemed not to ruffle him. John Colville recalled how one night as they were

walking, two bombs came whistling to earth nearby. Coville dove for cover. Churchill continued on, striding along the middle of the street. His chin stuck out, propelling himself rapidly with his walking stick. So moving ahead, another example of euphoria and terror. There is no, you know, I'm focusing on his positive traits, but I don't want to give you the mistaken impression that this was all easy. It was extremely, extremely difficult. There's a lot of times of deep despair and then having to work your way through it and not give up. And then in some cases, that feeling that alternating between euphoria and terror occurs in the same night. Churchill was in a dispirited mood. He and Pug sat alone, neither speaking. Churchill

looked tired and was clearly deep in thought. Everything weighed on him. U-boats were taking a staggering toll in ships and lives, and the continuing cycle of air raid warnings and bombs and the disruption they brought appeared for once to be wearing him down. It was hard for Pug to see Churchill so tired, but a positive outcome also occurred to him. Maybe at last, just this one night, Churchill would go to bed early, thereby freeing Pug to do likewise. Instead, Churchill suddenly jumped to his feet. I believe that I can do it, he said. In an instant, his tiredness seemed dispelled.

Lights came on, bells rang, secretaries were summoned. Another description of Churchill says he did many things well, but waiting was not one of them. Another description of just the devastation that he has to deal with. The Nazis went up faking a raid on London. It's actually a good move by them, like a strategic move. It's obviously terrible what they did. But the Nazis faked a raid on London, and instead they hit a town 100 miles away. And this was the result.

Wave after wave of aircraft came over. All through the night for 11 hours the bombers came and bombs fell. Now came scenes of horror. Dr. Ashworth reported seeing a dog running along a street with a child's arm in its mouth. A man named E.A. Cox saw a man's headless body beside a bomb crater. Elsewhere, an exploded landmine left behind a collection of charred torsos. Bodies arrived at a makeshift morgue at a rate of up to 60 per hour, and here morticians had to deal with a problem they had rarely if ever been compelled to confront bodies so mangled that they were

unrecognizable as bodies between 50 40 and 50 percent were classified as unidentifiable owning to mutilation another thing to learn about or from churchill i guess is just this this the the fact that you can act irrationally the fact that you can irrationally give up or refuse to give up rather and it could force your your enemy or your competitor or your opponent into making um a mistake and this is churchill's refusal to give up really forces hitler to make a fatal mistake because hitler's getting impatient and he's OK, I don't want it to forever. He even wrote this in Mein Kampf. He talks about the dangers of a two front war.

But he thought Churchill would collapse, would give up. Britain would be over. The fight with Britain would be over and then he could concentrate on the Soviet Union. Because Churchill's impeding that goal, he goes ahead with what he knows is a mistake. So it says Hitler's generals were still concerned about the dangers of a two front war, the avoidance of which had always been a bedrock principle in Hitler's strategic thinking. Now, however, he appeared to cast aside his own misgivings compared to a cross channel invasion of England. War against Russia seemed easy. What kind of drugs did you have to do?

You have to be on to believe that the kind of campaign in which his forces had thus far demonstrated great proficiency. The worst, I mean, history is full of people trying to invade Russia, especially in the winter. They call it general winter. And just the sheer size of Russia and then the cold winds up decimating armies. The fact that Hitler didn't learn from history is staggering. So it says, the worst of the fighting would be over in six weeks, Hitler predicted. Did you see that again? And he stressed that the attack of Russia must begin soon. The longer you put it off, the more time Stalin would have to bolster his forces. So that is the fatal mistake. Stalin and Russia is going to wind up accounting for 80 or 90 percent of all casualties against the German army. Let's go back to problems that Churchill has, though. He's persistent in courting FDR for American aid, right?

It's relentless but consistent pressure on him. But his problems are compounding because England's running out of money. So he's writing a letter to FDR and he says he saved the crux of the problem for last. The moment approaches when we shall no longer be able to pay cash for shipping and other supplies. He urged Roosevelt to regard this letter not as an appeal for aid, but as a statement of the minimum action necessary to achieve our common purpose. Churchill, of course, did want American aid. Masses of it. Ships, planes, bullets, machine parts, food. He simply did not want to have to pay for it and indeed was fast running out the means to do so.

If you don't already know, I did a bonus episode just search in your podcast player um on the missive feed for freedom's forge that entire book it was actually recommended by the founder of stripe patrick collison who has a really unique mind and if patrick recommends reading a book i think it's a smart idea to read a book to read the book but it's all about this this idea of churchill our american aid uh to the allies and how they were able to turn the American economy from, you know, production for consumers to military production rather rapidly. It's very fascinating. But again, Churchill needs supplies, but he's also running out of money. But he's also this is where he has the gift of words and persuasion. FDR responds, like he winds up being able to convince FDR to come to his side.

And then this is FDR's response to his own people. He has to convince Congress it's a good idea. He has to convince the American people it's a good idea. And he does so with this metaphor that I thought was interesting. Well, let me give you an illustration, FDR said. He then deployed an analogy that was distilled his idea into something both familiar and easy to grasp, something that would resonate with countless Americans. Suppose my neighbor, this is about the Lend-Lease program, right?

How do you get around the fact that you can't just give him stuff, but they don't have money to pay for it yet? So suppose my neighbor's home catches fire, and I've got a garden hose. But my heaven, he can take my garden hose and connect it up with his hydrant and I may help him put out the fire. Now, what do I do? I don't say to him before that operation, neighbor, my garden hose cost me $15. You got to pay me $15 for it. I don't want $15. I want my garden hose back after the fire is over. If it goes through the fire,

all right, intact, he gives it back to me and thanks me very much for the use of it. But suppose it gets smashed up during the fire. We don't have to have too much formality about it, but I say to him, I was glad to lend you that hose. I see I can't use it anymore. It's all smashed up. He says, all right, I will replace it. That's an analogy for the Lend-Lease Act. Note I left myself on this page. Statement from the Nazis. Give up. Statement from Churchill. No, I don't think I will. Churchill's resilience continued to perplex German leaders. When will that creature, Churchill, finally surrender? Joseph Goebbels wrote, England cannot hold out forever. He vowed that air raids would continue until England falls on her knees and begs for peace. But England seemed far from doing so. That reminded me of one of the greatest Ben Franklin

quotes I came across when I was reading all his biographies on him. He was writing to his British friend on the eve of the American Revolution. And he says, if you flatter yourself with beating us into submission, you know neither the people nor the country. And again, another gifted communicator, just like Churchill. This is the state of the war, New Year's Day, 1941. As of midnight, German raids over London alone in 1940 had killed 13,500 citizens

and caused serious injury to another 18,300. And more was yet to come, including the single worst raid of all. Just want to pull out one letter. This is from FDR's right-hand man, Hopkins, and he just spent a few weeks with getting to know Churchill and making sure

that if America gets behind him, that they can trust him. And I really feel like he distilled Churchill down to his essence. And it only took seven words, your supreme confidence and will to victory. So one of the most surprising parts of this book is how life just went on, even as they're getting bombed uh shopping parties dinners family events etc uh churchill's daughter was hours away from being bombed she's at like a costume ball and after the ball she's scheduled to go with a bunch of friends to go dancing at this nightclub called cafe de paris so it says that the group at the house hotel queen charlotte's ball continued without pause remember it's so crazy so crazy having a ball and they've been getting bombed. They've already lost almost

20,000 people. But again, that's just really surprising about the book. Mary wrote, this is Churchill's daughter, youngest daughter. It seems so easy to forget that they're in the light and warmth of music, the dark deserted streets, the barking of the guns, the hundreds of men and women ready at their post, the bombs and death and blood. Outside, the raid worsened. The night sky filled with aircraft. The bombers dropped 130,000 incendiaries and 130 tons of high explosives. That's just in one night.

14 bombs fell across Buckingham Palace. 23 bombs fell on or near the city's liverpool streets train station an unexploded bomb forced doctors at a hospital to evacuate the surgical ward another destroyed a police station this is all happening one night one bomb weighing 110 pounds fell through the roof of the rialto cinema penetrated all the way down to the basement dance floor of the Café de Paris and exploded. It was 9.50 p.m. The guy on stage, the performer on stage, his name was Snake Hips. He was the one performing when the bomb hit. Snake Hips was dead, his head severed from his body. Mary Churchill, that happened at 9 50 p.m she was scheduled to

be there a few hours later that night and this is her her surprising response even to her own she surprised her own reaction uh they try to make their way they leave the ball they try to make to the club and they realize oh my god the club was just bombed right and said and then they wind up going to another club like they didn't stop like okay that club's's bombed. We were that close to death. Let's go party. Recalling it now, Mary wrote even years later, I am a little shocked that we headed off to find somewhere else to twirl whatever was left of the night away. I got two notes a few pages later. One is Churchill is not distracted. We see another contrast between him and Goring. None of this uh the chief uh goring from his pursuit of art he oversaw delivery of a vast shipment of work seized in paris and packed onto a train that comprised 25 baggage cars that's so disgusting transporting 4 000 individual pieces

ranging from paintings to tapestries to furniture many of which were stolen from jewish homes of people that they wind up sending to concentration camps and killing. This guy's disgusting. Single biggest takeaway from Churchill, undeterred in the face of calamity. It's a note I left myself. His biggest concern for the time being was the German submarine campaign against British shipping, which he called the Battle of the Atlantic. The rate at which ships sank was two to three times faster than the rate at which Britain could build new ones. It was a dire portrait, but Churchill was undeterred.

Harriman, that's the guy that was sent over by Roosevelt to coordinate with all they needed to get supplies to Britain. Harriman was struck by his resolve to continue the war alone if need be. Single biggest takeaway, undeterred in the face of calamity and interesting enough Harriman might sound familiar to you that is the son of E.H. Harriman E.H. Harriman is this kind of like robber baron financial type I still have a book to read on him but he's appeared in some of the books like uh he did deal with deals with J.P. Morgan. He went to like a little scuffle with Theodore Roosevelt. He winds up doing business with James J. Hill.

So a lot of the people we've read biographies on. Harriman, E.H. Harriman is the dad. This is his son. His son is now inherited. E.H. Harriman's passed away at this point. His son is unbelievably wealthy and winds up reaching high levels of American government. Okay, and Harriman's also the guy

that winds up sleeping with Churchill's son's wife. There's all this whole thing going on in the book with that. More words by Churchill and the idea that desire to be unconquerable. Churchill rose and gave an impromptu speech. Many of those here today have been all night at their posts

and have been under the fire of the enemy in heavy and protracted bombardment. That you should gather in this way is a mark of fortitude, of courage, and detachment from material affairs worthy of all that we have learned to believe of ancient Rome or modern Greece. I see the damage done by the enemy attacks, but I also see side by side with the devastation and amid the ruins, quiet, confident, bright, and smiling eyes, beaming with a consciousness of being associated with a cause

far higher than any human or personal issue. I see the spirit of an unconquerable people. Another description of one night of bombing for you. I see the spirit of an unconquerable people. Another description of one night of bombing for you. They said they saw a bomb detonate the power station in the distance. The bomb ignited a large gas storage tank, which blew up in a column of fire that seemed to go up for miles. This is happening in London. Nearby detonations caused the building to shudder and sent shrapnel clattering against his windows. He climbed to his roof and there was met by the most amazing sight I've ever seen in my life. A whole section of the city north of the financial district was a solid mass of flames, flames leaping hundreds of feet in the air.

Smoke covered half the sky and was all red from the fires below. Bombs tumbled onto structures that were already on fire and raised geysers of flames. Among the people around him, he saw only interested calm, which astonished him. They acted as if the bombing was like a thunderstorm. He wrote, I had the sickening feeling that hundreds of people were being murdered in a most savage way, almost within a stone's throw from here,

and there was nothing I could do about it. I want to pull out one sentence from a speech that Churchill gave, and I think this one sentence really demonstrates for you and I what is the most important thing to Churchill. To brush aside despondency and alarm and push on irresistibly towards the final goal. So there's a prehistory that takes place before the events in this book and that's churchill's relentless criticism of not only his own government but other european governments of this idea that you can appease hitler and he says something um he distills his his thoughts into something like no matter how many times you pet a tiger he won't turn into a house cat right and

we're starting to see that even inside of the Nazi government, they realize, hey, if this guy was leading the whole time, we would have never even got to this point. So it says, Joseph Goebbels dismissed Churchill's speech in the House of Commons as being full of excuses, but no signs of weakness. England's will to resist is still intact, he wrote. Goebbels confessed to his diary, feeling a new respect for Churchill. This man is a strange mixture of heroism and cunning, he wrote. If he had come

to power in 1933, we would not be where we are today. He will give us a few more problems yet. He is not to be taken as lightly as we usually take him. And then just two quick things before I close. We're almost to the end. The book ends. Remember, the war is not over. It's just literally the first year of, I almost said Hitler, the first year of Churchill being prime minister. So first, this is great advice from Harriman to Churchill's daughter. And he says,

to be stupid about one's life is a crime. And then just a great toast that Churchill does towards the end of the book. And he says, here's to a year of toil, a year of struggle and peril, and a long step towards victory. And I'll close on this, which is a great description of the impact of Churchill's leadership. And so the first year of Churchill's leadership came to an end. Against all odds, Britain stirred firm, its citizens more emboldened than cowed. Somehow, through it all, Churchill had managed to teach them the art of being fearless. Churchill provided leadership of such outstanding quality

that people almost reveled in the dangers of the situation and gloried in standing alone. Only he had the power to make the nation believe that it could win. One citizen put it best when she wrote, Winston's speeches send all sorts of thrills racing up and down my veins, and I feel fit to tackle the largest German. Diana Cooper, wife of Information Minister Duff Cooper, told Churchill that the best thing he had done was to give people courage. He did not agree. I never gave them courage, he said. I was just able to focus theirs. And that is where I'll leave it. I highly recommend reading the book to get the full story. If you buy the book using the link that's in the show notes in your podcast player,

you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time. That is 196 books down, 1,000 to go, and I'll talk to you again soon.