Living in a Stockdale Paradox

Ok, so I have a bit of a nerdy man-crush on the author of the most influential business book I’ve ever read. Jim Collins wrote “Good to Great” which was published way back in 2001. (Yes, that is almost 20 years ago and YES, you are old) . I started my first business in 2003 and latched onto this book a couple of years in. In those days, I spent hours on the road every day, driving from dealership to dealership, repairing and refinishing wheels on dealers’ used car inventories. So, the audio book was the way I rocked it. (Note: this was before you could stream ANYTHING online so I had the CD set. Flip phones couldn’t do it either. YES, you are even older than you thought!)

I built my company with many of the principles in that book at the center of my thinking and not much has changed today. That’s why when I received an audio message the other week from Jim Collins himself, I had to share it!

True to form, Jim used the opportunity to encourage and educate, reminding me of “The Stockdale Paradox.” Jim reminded me that we are living in the middle of one right now. And now, I’m going to share exactly what that means in this week's episode.

I hope you listen, learn, and lean into it with me as we are honest about the challenges of the day, but continue to KNOW that we will get through this. And when we do, we won’t trade what we’ve learned, or how we’ve grown, for ANYTHING!

Let’s keep marching…