The Stockdale Paradox and the Power of Mindset

In today's podcast, I would like to introduce you to a certain way of thinking that has been extremely helpful in overcoming very challenging situations. And it it's it's a concept called the Stockdale paradox. Jim Stockdale was a military pilot who was shot down in the Vietnam War in 1967. He was the highest ranking military official who stayed in a prison that that had the name of the Hanoi Hilton, where the North Vietnamese periodically would take him out and torture him during his 7 year stay there. And he was tortured over 20 times.

He never knew when it was going to happen, and and he was not certain whether he would ever get out. But after 7 years being in these horrendous circumstances, he was liberated and, came back to America. And he was being interviewed by the by the authors of the the the book Good to Great. Jim Collins was his name. And the question was asked to him, admiral Stockdale, how how did you make it through this this horrific experience?

And Stockdale said, I didn't allow myself to get depressed because I clung to an unwavering faith that in the end, I would prevail and that I would get out and that I would use this experience, this horrific experience, as a defining period in my life, that I would learn from it and that I would grow and I would become stronger. And then here's the interesting thing about the Stockdale paradox. The question was then asked to him, well, who who didn't make it out? What was the difference between you and those who didn't make it out? And his response was very interesting, and it take gives us a moment to pause and reflect on that.

And he and the response was, oh, that was easy. It was the optimists. The optimists? What do you mean the optimists? Yeah.

Those who thought they were gonna get out by Christmas. That's what he meant by being optimistic. They had a they had a time stamp on when they were get out of the trouble that they were in. And what would happen that the time that they expected that they were gonna get liberated came and went, and it and it didn't happen. And those guys ended up dying of a broken heart.

So their their their mind just shut down, and then their bodies quickly succumbed to the torture, the disease, and everything else they had to deal with. It's also this is a it's a it's a great story to help us understand how our mindset truly impacts how our bodies respond to things. And and at the same time, because this is this is an interesting story. Right? Because we've been taught our whole life, oh my goodness.

It's it's much better to be an optimist than a pessimist. Quit being so pessimistic. So what Stockdale the Stockdale Paradox teaches us, he was not an optimist nor was he a pessimist. He was a realist. He he says, I had to confront the brutal reality of the situation in which I found myself.

I knew where I was. I knew what I was dealing with, and I I wasn't a pessimist because I hung on to the unwavering faith that I would be liberated someday and that I would prevail. He would not allow, any of those guards or anything that was happening in the Hanoi Hilton destroy that. It it reminds me of a statement by Viktor Frankl who found himself in similar situations where he said, everything can be taken from a man but one thing, the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. Between stimulus and response, there is a space, and in that space is our power to choose our response, and in our response lies our growth and our freedom.

There's also some fantastic work done by Bruce Lipton, who wrote a book called The Biology of Belief, and he clearly taught us that cells respond to the environments. Like he says, there's a there's a quote I have written down, just like a single cell, the character of our lives is determined not by our genes, but by our responses to the environment, environmental signals that propel life. He was a cellular biologist and saw how the cell responded to the environment, determined determined everything. And that it would always try to cling towards something nutritious in a positive way and flee from from the negative type things. But, anyway, Stockdale Paradox, he was not an optimist nor a pessimist.

He was realist. Confronting, being responsible with what is in front of them right now with with a positive attitude, going forward in an overriding faith that in the end, everything would work out okay. And this there there's also a similar story in the book Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. As you recall, Viktor Frankl was, a survivor of a German concentration camp that he spent a a number of years there. I think it was 3 years.

And and and listen to a couple of things that he said. It was such a difficult situation in which they found themselves. It's hard for us to wrap around. Our heads wrap around the reality of living in such a state, but this is what he said. I became disgusted with the state of affairs which compelled me daily and hourly to think only of such trivial things.

And he was talking about, oh, what am I gonna what if I trade today for a little little piece of bread or, you know, a piece of clothing, and he was just squabbling with those he was living with in the concentration camp, and he just got disgusted with it. Now this is what he said. And compare this to what Jim Stockdale said about having unwavering faith in the future that he would prevail and get out of his circumstance. This is what Viktor Frankl said. I forced my thoughts to turn to another subject.

Suddenly, I saw myself, he pictured himself, in the future. I saw myself standing on the platform of a well lit, warm, and pleasant lecture room. In front of me sat an attentive audience, uncomfortable upholstered seats. I was giving a lecture on the psychology of the concentration camp. All that oppressed me at that moment became objective, seen and described from the remote viewpoint of science.

By this method, I succeeded somehow in rising situation, above the suffering of the moment, and I observe them as if they were already of the past. That's fascinating. Now Viktor Frankl also tells a story that that corroborates what Jim Stockdale said about about what he turned an optimist of giving a time frame that something would work out. And this is what he said. The prisoner who lost faith in the future was doomed.

I once had a dramatic demonstration of the close link between the loss of faith in the future and this dangerous giving up. And he called, this this individual f. F, my senior block warden was a fella fairly well known composer and libertist. He confided in me one day and he said, doctor, I would like to tell you something. I have had a strange dream.

A voice told me that I could wish for something, that I could only say what I wanted to know and my questions would be answered. Well, what do you think I asked? That I would like to know when the war would be over for me. You know what I mean, doctor? For me.

I wanted to know when we, our camp, would be liberated, Our sufferings come to an end. And when when did you have this dream? I asked. In February 1945, he answered. It was it it was then the beginning of March.

Well, what did what did your dream voice answer? Assertively, he whispered to me, March 30th. When f told me about his dream, he was still full of hope and convinced that the voice of his dream would be right. But as the promised day grew nearer, the war news that reached our camp made it appear very unlikely that we would be free on the promised date. On March 29th, F suddenly became ill and ran a high temperature.

On March 30th, the day his prophecy had told him that the war and his suffering would be over for him, he became delirious and lost consciousness. On March 31st, he was dead. From outward appearances, he had died of typhus. Those who know how close the connection is between the state of the mind of man, his courage, his hope, or lack of them, and the state of immunity of his body understand that the sudden loss of hope and courage can have a deadly effect. The ultimate cause of my friend's death was that the expected liberation did not come, and he was severely disappointed.

This suddenly lowered his body's resistance again against the latent typhus infection. His faith in the future and his will to live had become paralyzed, and his body fell victim to to the illness. Another thing that Viktor Frankl said, the doctor of the camp informed me that the death rate during the week after Christmas increased exponentially. People had a dream to to be home for Christmas, and when that didn't happen, many just gave up and their bodies fell victim to the to the disease. So one of the things I'd like to leave you with today is encourage you to have unwavering faith no matter what you have been through, that you will prevail in the end.

Your only task is to choose to be responsible for your own life, for your own actions, to you know, one of the things I say to many of the clients that I work with, I just say draw 2 circles. The inner circle is things that I have control over. The outer circle of things I do not have control over. Most of the suffering that I have seen in individuals' lives has to do because we're spending so much time in the outer circle. We're frustrated because their expectations aren't met by other people.

My husband isn't this way. My wife isn't this way. I'm so disappointed. I'm let down here, there, or the other. So it's just it just doesn't seem to be very useful or helpful when we let our expectations get out of control.

So then you might ask the question, well, how do we live in a world without any expectations? And that's when I say you've got to use some wisdom. Yes. We need expectations. You need dreams.

Right? It's it's something that Michelangelo said, the greater danger lies in not setting our sights too high and falling short, but in setting our sights too low and achieving our mark. So in other words, yeah, we got a dream. We've got to have hope and expectations. But with the time frames that we put on our expectations, especially when it we're dealing with character flaws and other people whom we're around.

Now I'm I'm never I'm never suggesting that someone stay in a stay in a relationship that is extremely abusive in any way, shape, or form. You you've gotta find wisdom in how you need to navigate through your life. But what I am what I am encouraging you to think about is that you have a capacity within you to control what's in your inner circle, Take responsibility for that, full responsibility for that. Do what you can and kinda have a gentle surrendering, power through surrendering, into the reality that you cannot control certain things. And you cannot control the past.

You cannot change what has transpired in your life. None of us can. But we can control what we choose to do with that right here, right now, today. And and and move forward trying to cling to or creating a faith that in the end, somehow, some way, things are going to work out, and all of the things that you truly desire, somehow, some way, someday will will come about. And in the meantime, you can you can just put one foot in front of the other.

Do the very best you can. Just go to work. And it's in work that you can lose yourself and and and just be just be confident that that you're doing something about your situation today. And in that, there can be a sense of of lightening up, a sense of peace. But don't don't expect every single problem that you're dealing with to evaporate or go away.

It just doesn't that's not life. It's not life. It's we are meant to have challenges and struggles, but they are if we if we can have the mindset that whatever we're dealing with, whatever thorn in the flesh we're dealing with, that we will not give up on confronting it, looking at it. We will not let it discourage us to the point of giving up that we will well, if we need to course correct, certainly we can course correct. But keep moving forward keep moving forward and working on the realization of your dreams and healing and getting and and feeling better and better about your life as you're taking responsibility for the things you can and not allowing the past to hold you hostage.