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Isambard Kingdom Brunel

lines on the record: 20
first: 2021-08-30
most recent: 2021-08-30
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“evident to him as of yet for the present he had to accept the crumbs that were let fall by more successful engineers. And so that's the main lesson from Bruno, the fact that it's not that he's persevering and everything's fine. It's like so many people presented with what's happening in his life would just cave and give up and go home. And so he does some, though I left myself on this page. There's a bunch of smart moves by Brunell. And then I want to tell you about this quote from the founder of Atari. All right, so it says Brunel's character was that of that finely tempered, resilient quality, which flexes under misfortune, but never breaks. He could and undoubtedly did during these years of difficulty and repeated disappointments when fate seemed implacably against him plum into deaths of despondency. Of course I love one of the most, again, I hope, I really hope you bought the book and you read James Dyson.”
2021-08-30 · Founders · #201 Isambard Kingdom Brunel (James Dyson's Hero) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just goes on years and years of struggle. And again, we see the comparison. Comparison is the thief of joy. It's one of the greatest quotes I've ever come across. And he's forced to compare where he's at in life with the other engineers that are doing great things. And he's like, why am I not doing great things yet? These were discouraging times for Brunell. And so I'm going to skip over the names while Telford was lauded for his great suspension bridge, while this guy was lauded for the new London bridge. This other one starts a new railway. He's saying, what do I have to show? An uncompleted tunnel, a useless gas engine, two abortive dock schemes of little moment, and a miserable dispute over an observatory. So that's got to be extremely difficult. It's like these people are out here doing the things that I want to do. They're succeeding and I'm just running into dead end after dead end after dead end. He had, in fact, as we shall see, already laid the foundations of his first success, but this was not”
2021-08-30 · Founders · #201 Isambard Kingdom Brunel (James Dyson's Hero) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Experimenting this thing for the last six months. How is that possible? And then he says something really interesting here in his journal, a 140th of the remainder of my life. What a life the life of a dreamer I am always building castles in the air, what time I waste. So he's saying I just wasted six months on something that didn't work out. That's one fortieth of the remainder of my life. He ends up living to the age of 52. But I think that idea of looking at what the time you're spending and how much in compared to how much time you have left is a very powerful idea.”
2021-08-30 · Founders · #201 Isambard Kingdom Brunel (James Dyson's Hero) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The tunnel will never be finished now in my father's lifetime, I fear, however, never despair has always been my motto. We may succeed yet, persevere. Now back to the author. The next few years must decide whether he would become a mediocrity or the first engineer and an example for future ones. So that's the path he's going to be the best ever. I'm just going to be mediocre, right? Persevere. He threw himself into the task of establishing his reputation as an engineer with his unusual unsparing energy. But many disappointments lay in store for him before the ride of fortune suddenly turned and swept him to fame. So then this chapter goes through all the different things that he's trying that never work out. And so really the note of myself is there's going to be a lot of dead ends when you're trying something new. And so he winds up doing this experiment. Again, he doesn't really work on one thing at a time either. I mean, when he does these major projects, he will. Like once he hits on something, he will, but he has a bunch of experiments usually in the air. On and off, he'd been trying this experiment. I'm going to skip over what it is and just really give you what he took away from it. He's experiment. He's talking about, you know, I've been”
2021-08-30 · Founders · #201 Isambard Kingdom Brunel (James Dyson's Hero) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He's talking about the fact that the tono is dead, they're not going to do it right now. They don't know if they're going to do it in the future. At this point, and this is where we see that he comes up with his motto, that he uses forout his entire life. So I've seen this over and over again as I read these biographies. I think it's a really good idea to have a life motto. Let me give you some examples. Teddy Roosevelt got his life motto from his dad. Get action, which is a great way to think about how Teddy lived his life. Shackleton, Ernest Shackleton, who I told you last week is the lock screen of my phone. His motto was buy endurance, we conquer Stan Lee, the guy that invented Marvel, ever upward. And so Brunel's is going to be never despair. The tunnel will never be finished now in my father's lifetime, I fear. However, never despair has always been my motto. We may succeed yet, persevere. Remember, this is a note.”
2021-08-30 · Founders · #201 Isambard Kingdom Brunel (James Dyson's Hero) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“New London docks, and thus has established his fortune, while I have been engaged on the tunnel which failed. And so he's kind of beating himself up, but at the end he does something extremely smart. It's a gloomy perspective, and yet bad as it is, I cannot, with all my efforts, work myself up to be downhearted. And it goes back and forth. Again, it's not static. He's excited about his future plans. Then he goes back. He's like, I'm a failure. Then he goes, okay, I'm excited again. And then sometimes he finds this like weird equilibrium where he's like, okay, well, maybe I won't be good or great. I'll just be mediocre. I suppose a sort of middle path will be the most likely one. A mediocre success. An engineer sometimes employed and sometimes not.”
2021-08-30 · Founders · #201 Isambard Kingdom Brunel (James Dyson's Hero) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The name of the chapter is the years of frustration and compares his low point where he's at in his life to his friend's high point, but yet he refuses to be negative. Brunel had still found time to sit by the fireside wondering what the future held for him. And this is where we go back to his diary, his journal. What will become of me? he asks, and then his dreams begin. I will build a fleet of ships and build a new London bridge. I will build tunnels, and at last be rich and have a house built. I will be the first engineer and an example for future ones, so this is his, you know, his entire thing was I'm going to go down in history as being someone that is great. So now we see that it goes back and forth. This idea of terror, euphoria, and terror that you and I always talk about, that when you're doing something difficult building a company, whatever it is, you only have experienced two emotions, euphoria and terror. And so now he's going to talk about his friend, Palmer, has already built...”
2021-08-30 · Founders · #201 Isambard Kingdom Brunel (James Dyson's Hero) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I thought we're crushed under the great stage. I kept calling them by name to encourage them to come up through the opening where he's standing, right? While standing there, this is the crazy thing though. While standing there, the effect was grand and he italicized that. The roar of the rushing water in a confined passage, and by its velocity rushing past the opening was grand, he uses that word again, very grand. That's the third time he describes it, using the word grand. I cannot compare it to anything. The sight and the whole affair. If I had been kept under another minute, meaning if I didn't escape one minute later, I was to die.”
2021-08-30 · Founders · #201 Isambard Kingdom Brunel (James Dyson's Hero) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I never expected we should get out. So you're saying I thought I was going to die there. Eventually he jumps up to this arch so the water is beneath him like this huge rushing flow of water. And he says, I stood still there nearly for a minute. I was anxious for he's going to name two other people that he was working with. He wanted to make he wasn't worried about himself. He was worried about the fact that two of his friends might have died, who I felt too sure had never risen from the fall.”
2021-08-30 · Founders · #201 Isambard Kingdom Brunel (James Dyson's Hero) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not a language barrier here, but I had to translate a bunch of things, and then I'd had to watch a bunch of other documentaries to make sure I'm actually understanding what the authors try to tell me. But just, I shan't. I shan't forget the day. I shan't forget that day very near that day very near finished my journey. See what I mean? That's a weird way to say I almost died. When the danger is over, it is rather amusing. So he's saying it's amusing. I almost died, right? That's a very strange response. While it exists, it's a while I'm in it. I can't say the feeling was at all uncomfortable. So he's saying while it was happening, it wasn't uncomfortable. Now here's the weird thing. The contrary, in this instance, it was an excitement. So the water comes rushing through. He says, when we were obliged to run, I felt nothing in particular. I was only thinking of the best way to get out. He says, and then he down. I took it very much as a matter of course.”
2021-08-30 · Founders · #201 Isambard Kingdom Brunel (James Dyson's Hero) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know that came very, very close to dying at a young age. When he laid up, he recalled his terrifying experience in the tunnel and set it down for no one but his eye in the private journal which he always kept on her lock and key and which was not opened until after his death. This account gives us the most revealing glimpse we have of his strange nature a nature in which the sense of drama was so strong that it could become totally absorbing and exclude all sense of personal danger or fear. So if you highlights here for you from his journal, I have now been laid up quite useless for fourteen weeks. I shan't forget that day, so this is funny because the book is quite old and the way they write. It was actually extremely difficult. I almost gave up a few times and I was like, what are you going to give up in the middle for reading a biography of Brunel? Like you missed the main point, David. What's wrong with you? But there is like a...”
2021-08-30 · Founders · #201 Isambard Kingdom Brunel (James Dyson's Hero) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hardcore. That was something that drove him. This is a description of both the father and the son. The Brunels were not meant to sit down with folded hands and bewail their misfortune. And so that's their reaction to almost everything that could go wrong went wrong in this project reminded me of the takeaway from James Dyson's autobiography. Like when you get knocked down, you just say, all right then, let's give it another go. This also reminded me of the story of Thomas Eddins. And he was like 64, 67, something like that”
2021-08-30 · Founders · #201 Isambard Kingdom Brunel (James Dyson's Hero) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The act of doing the work was more educational than just sitting in a classroom. So it obviously doesn't have to be either or. I'm just bringing to your attention the fact that, hey, for a large part of human history, we put a lot more responsibility on younger people than we do now, and they succeeded and thrived at an early age. And we see that as the case with this inbard, it says, Isabard threw himself into work with all that unsparing energy which was distinguished his whole life. His working habits were insane. For as much as 36 hours at a time, he would not leave the tunnel, pausing only for a brief catnap. I got to that part. And when I read that book hard drive on young Bill Gates, this is exactly when he would work. He wouldn't really pay attention to time. He would do these sprints where he would work 30, 36 hours at a time, then crash for like 10 hours, 11 hours, get back up and do it all over again. And in that book, and a young Bill Gates repeats over and over again, his desire, he wanted to be known as...”
2021-08-30 · Founders · #201 Isambard Kingdom Brunel (James Dyson's Hero) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For him to be so self aware is really rather amazing now and looking back on it, what it's going to cause me to do some really foolish things, things hopefully he changes later in his life. The latter is so strong. So it said, let's put the word in there. My love of glory is so strong that I often do the most silly, useless things to appear to advantage before those whom I care nothing about”
2021-08-30 · Founders · #201 Isambard Kingdom Brunel (James Dyson's Hero) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Alright, so let's continue here. This is a great first sentence in this paragraph. It is not in freedom from faults, but in the ability to transcend and master them that greatness lies. The key to that mastery is self-knowledge, and in his early years young Brunel's entries in his private journal reveal his own awareness, so he's self aware, of his own weaknesses. He writes, and this is where he just knows. This is not very different than Coco Chanel's mindset. You know, the fact that I'm not here to play. I'm here to make a fortune. I'm here to be great. I'm here to be the best there ever was. He writes my self-conceit and love of glory vie with each other which part of me shall govern, which part of them shall govern me. The latter, meaning his love of glory, listen to this. He knows. He's like, I'm obsessed with going down in history, right? And it causes him this love of glory. And he's young when he's writing it.”
2021-08-30 · Founders · #201 Isambard Kingdom Brunel (James Dyson's Hero) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“this book and hopefully to you that life is an adventure and to some degree it's a waste if we just survive and not treat it as the adventure it is a great man achieves eminence by his capacity to live more fully and intensely than his fellows and in doing so his fault as well as his virtues become the more obvious so I double underlined to live more fully and intensely there's a lot of sentences and paragraphs and references in this book in the fact that Brunel treated life as a grand adventure a large part almost all of his life he treated his work as a grand adventure I think that's a fantastic idea but the second part of the sentence where it says listen if you're going to be doing this you're going to live more fully and intensely than most people you're going to you're gonna your people are going to obviously see like what you produce in the world but they're going to be aware of your faults not just your virtues but your faults are going to become obvious and so when i read that one of the”
2021-08-30 · Founders · #201 Isambard Kingdom Brunel (James Dyson's Hero) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He was acutely self conscious. Oh, I need to pause here. So, one of the benefits of reading such an old book is because this author, he wrote a bunch of biographies of other engineers, he was also a trained engineer as well. But he had access, temporary access to Brunel's own writing and his personal diary, which was under lock and key. So we actually see the difference between the strength and outward appearance that he would put up for the rest of society and other people and then his own doubts, self-doubts, which again, everybody has. You just don't see them. And so that's one of the benefits of this book. He was acutely self-conscious, and the private man was a character very different from that of the cold, proud, abundantly self-consident engineer whom he impersonated to such perfection on the public stage. And in this sentence is fantastic. It's also going to remind me of something that Jeff Bezos said I'll get there in a minute, and really a reminder that it serves a reminder to me as I'm reading.”
2021-08-30 · Founders · #201 Isambard Kingdom Brunel (James Dyson's Hero) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Throughout my story I will try to return to Brunel and to other designers and engineers to show how identifying with them and seeing parallels with every stage of my own life enabled me to see my career as a whole and to know that it all turned out the way it has. Okay, so let's go back to the biography of Brunell. The book starts out with the story, this guy named Charles McFarlane, who's traveling with Brunel, doesn't know him. They're traveling in the winter from France to England, and so they have to cross the channel on a small boat. They wind up being pulled in like this horse-drawn carriage. And I'm going to skip that entire story. I just want to pull out one sentence because I thought this was a fantastic description of Brunel's personality. Again, most of my highlights is just going to focus not on what he accomplished, but who he was as a person. And so McFarland's talking about who is this guy. And his impression of a young Brunel Brunel's in his early 20s at this point in his life, he said he was”
2021-08-30 · Founders · #201 Isambard Kingdom Brunel (James Dyson's Hero) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Funny, the author LTC wrote writing this book in the 50s and thinks the same exact way. There's a lot of paragraphs in the book where Rot's like they just don't make people like this anymore. So let's go back to this. He was fired by an inner strength and self-belief, almost impossible to imagine in his feckless age. While I could never lay claim to the genius of a man like that, I have tried to be as confident in my vision as he was, and it's the most important, I think, sentence that Dyson ever writes about Brunel. And at times in my life, when I have encountered difficulty and self-doubt, I have looked to his example to fire me on. Skipping ahead a little bit and he says, I have told myself when people try to make me modify my ideas that the great Western Railway could not have worked as anything but the vision of a single man. We're going to go into more of Brunel's obsession with having complete control over every single project. Pursued with dogged determination that was nothing less an obsession”
2021-08-30 · Founders · #201 Isambard Kingdom Brunel (James Dyson's Hero) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Although I've always admired Bruno's work, my inquiry was inspired by curiosity and not by hero worship. But the further I went, the clearer did it seem to me that large though the achievement was, the man was larger still. Brunel, in fact, was more than a great engineer. He was an artist and a visionary, a great man with a strangely magnetic personality which uniquely distinguished him even in that age of powerful individualism in which he moved. To learn something about such a man, about his private thoughts, his hopes and ambitions, and about the spirit which drove him, is to know about the sources from which the greatest of all revolutions derived its dynamic strength.”
2021-08-30 · Founders · #201 Isambard Kingdom Brunel (James Dyson's Hero) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source