Transcript
Introduction
In his 90 years, Churchill spent 55 as a member of Parliament, 31 years as a minister and nearly 9 years as Prime Minister. He had been present at or fought in 15 battles, and he's been awarded 14 campaign medals. He had been a prominent figure in the first world war and a dominant one in a second. He had published nearly 10 million words, more than professional writers in their lifetime and painted over 500 canvases, more than most professional painters. He was a fellow of the World Society, a University Chancellor and won a Nobel Prize. Scores of towns made him an honorary citizen, dozens of universities awarded him honorary degrees and 13 countries gave him a medal. How many bottles of champagne he consumed is not recorded, but it may be close to 20,000. He had a large and much loved family and countless friends.
So Winston Churchill led a full life. And a few people are ever likely to equal it, its amplitude, variety and success on so many fronts, but all can learn from it, especially in 5 ways, the first lesson is, always aim high. As a child, Churchill received no positive encouragement from his father and little from his mother. He was aware of his failure at school, but he still aimed high. Conscious of his ignorance, he set himself to master English history and to familiarize himself with great chunks of literature. Once his own master, he played to win the top award in the world.
Lesson number 2 is there's no substitute for hard work. The balance he maintained between flat out work and creative and restorative leisure is worth study by anyone that's holding a top position. He never evaded hard work itself, taking important and dangerous decisions in the course of a 16-hour day. No one ever worked harder than Churchill to make himself a master orator.
He worked hard at everything to the best of his ability. He put tremendous energy into everything. Third, Churchill never allowed mistakes, disaster, accidents, illnesses, unpopularity and criticism to get him down. His powers of recuperation both in physical illness and in psychological responses to abject failure were astounding. He had courage, the most important of all virtues and its companion fortitude. These strengths are inborn but they can also be cultivated, and Churchill worked on them all of his life. In a sense, his whole career was an exercise in how courage can be displayed, reinforced, guarded and go about carefully, heightened and concentrated and then convey it to others.
Fourth, Churchill wasted an extraordinary small amount of his time in emotional energy on the meanness of life, recrimination, shifting the blames to others, malice, revenge seeking, dirty tricks, spreading rumors, harboring grudges, waging vendettas. Having fought hard, he washed his hands and went on to the next contest. It is one reason for his success. There is nothing more draining and exhausting than hatred.
And last, the absence of hatred left plenty of room for joy in Churchill's life. His face could light up in the most extraordinary attractive ways as it became suffused with pleasure at an unexpected and welcome event. Joy was a frequent visitor to Churchill's psyche, banishing boredom, despair, discomfort and pain. He liked to share his joy and give joy. He showed his people a love of jokes and was a source of them to many. No great leader was ever laughed at or with more than Churchill. He drew his strength from people and then parted it to them in full measure. Everyone can find comfort and reassurance in his life story.
That is excerpt from the epilogue of the book that I want to talk to you about today, which is Churchill by Paul Johnson. So I did -- I read The Splendid and the Vile, one of the best books I've ever read. I think it's Founders #187. After I read that book or I think on that podcast, I said that I had heard that there's over 1,000 -- I think Churchill is one of the -- maybe the person that's written that's had the most biographies written about him. I heard that there's over 1,000 that have been published. And so I got a bunch of book recommendations, biography recommendations on Winston Churchill from listeners. This is one of them.