YouSaid · the spoken record

Winston Churchill

lines on the record: 24
first: 2022-01-09
most recent: 2022-01-09
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“This is the end of Churchill's life, but not his story. He celebrated his ninetieth birthday November and died the following January. His final days were painless, without incident. His last words were I am bored with it all but then he added, looking at the faces around his bedside The journey has been enjoyable and well worth making once.”
2022-01-09 · Founders · #225 Winston Churchill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which way shall we turn to save our lives and the future of the world? It does not matter so much to old people. They're going to die soon anyway. But I find it poignant to look at youth in all its activity and most of all to watch little children playing their merry games and wonder what would lie before them if God worried of mankind. That the day may dawn when fair play, love for one's fellow men, respect for justice and freedom will enable tormented generations to march forth serene and triumphant from the hideous epoch in which we had to dwell. Meanwhile, never flinch, never wary, never despair.”
2022-01-09 · Founders · #225 Winston Churchill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Another main lesson of Churchill's life, even after the war, is that just a great quote. I think, is it Shakespeare? I can't remember. It's like, don't go gently into the dark night. Do not go gentle into the good night, I think. And so it talks about he was obsessed with having guns and even worried about getting killed later in life. And he says, I dread capture more than death capture more than death and I will go down fighting. And so when he gets kicked out of office, he's just like, oh, I'll go back to writing. The chief activity of the post-war churcho was writing. This is the main reason his wife was right to say that the 1945 defeat was a blessing in disguise. He had always believed, he said, this is such a great line. Words are the only things that last forever. Between 1941 and 1945, he had performed great deeds. Now he needed to write the words to ensure that the deeds were correctly described and so made immortal. And so this is what I referenced earlier. This is wild how much money he made off.”
2022-01-09 · Founders · #225 Winston Churchill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One of the most surprising things in the story of Churchill is the fact that the same year that the war ends, his party is voted out of office. I still don't understand this. And so it says Churchill was out, and this is what he said at the time. This is also something that gives you an idea of his wit and his personality. On the night of May 10, 1940, at the outset of the mighty battle of Britain, I acquired the chief power in the state, which henceforth I wielded an ever-growing measure for five years and three months of war, at the end of which time all our enemies having surrendered unconditionally are being about to do so, I was immediately dismissed by the British electorate from all further conduct of their affairs. His wife's comment was perhaps it's a blessing in disguise, to which Churchill replied, It appears to be very effectively disguised.”
2022-01-09 · Founders · #225 Winston Churchill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Or something he said after the war. This is right at the end of the war, but something that's really important, he cultivated powerful relationships that could help his mission. None of that being more important than the relationship he has with FDR. When FDR dies, this is what he says. No lover ever studied every whim of his mistress as I did those of President Roosevelt. And that's something he talked in the DeGaull book. It's like, you know, I wake up every day. I'm a leader of a powerful, unbroken nation. I wake up every day thinking how I can please Roosevelt. And yet you wake up every day and think, how can I prod or snap my fingers at the French and the Americans? He's like, what is wrong with you? This is the very end of the war. Churchill treated the surrender of Germany with suitable rhetoric and champagne popping. He drank a bottle of his prize 1928 vintage. He was relieved by Hitler's suicide. He had not relished the prospect, the prospective task of hanging him.”
2022-01-09 · Founders · #225 Winston Churchill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so think about this. There's another great example of Churchill that really everything in life is just a matter of perspective. And so, yeah, he's talking about, hey, I'm fighting the Germans. We have to deal with this bastard hitler. These are terrible times. But then he's just like, but we also have the opportunity to snuff out one of the most evil people in history. And so he says, do not let us speak of darker days. Let us rather speak of sterner days. These are not dark days. These are great days. Again, the whole point here is switching your perspective. The greatest days our country has ever lived. And we must all think God that we've been allowed, each of us, according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race. And so that made me think there's a great paragraph that I read a long time ago. I've read Catherine Graham's autobiography. It's called Personal History. And that's a fascinating story because Warren Buffett.”
2022-01-09 · Founders · #225 Winston Churchill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hitler had the plan for a long time. He's like, I'm going to weaken you up, soften you up by bombing the crap out of you. And then I'm going to land my troops on your shores and I'm going to take over your country just like I've taken over the rest of Europe. And Churchill's the only one standing in his way, right? This is before America has joined into the war. Once he realizes that they were that Hitler has postponed indefinitely the ground invasion of Britain Churchill goes from a defensive standpoint and he had offense during the battle Britain, don't get me wrong, but now it's going to be flat out offensive. So it says the battle Britain had, in fact, made a Nazi invasion possible. At the same time, Churchill was gearing up to begin the Battle of Germany. So it's like, no, you were attacking me. No, no, now it's my turn. And now I'm going to go default aggressive. I'm going on the attack, which was waged with growing force over the next four and a half years.”
2022-01-09 · Founders · #225 Winston Churchill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We shall not flag or fail. 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”
2022-01-09 · Founders · #225 Winston Churchill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Churchill. No, we're not giving up. And so this when he's elected prime minister at the most important point in British history, this is what he says about this. This is what he writes in his diary. I was conscious of a profound sense of relief. At last, I had 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. Ten years in the political wilderness had freed me from ordinary party antagonisms. My warnings over the past six years had been so numerous, so detailed, and were now so terribly vindicated that no one could go against me. I could not be reproached, either for making the war or with want of preparation for it. I thought I knew a good deal about it, and I was sure I would not fail.”
2022-01-09 · Founders · #225 Winston Churchill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so this is right before Chamberlain decides to resign. Churchill gives this fantastic speech. And the reason it's so important is because this, these times, these hard times is when leadership was needed most and Churchill was there. Churchill's speech was the only one made for the government which showed conviction, hope, and resolution for the future. Chamberlain decided to resign. Churchill got the job. When I was reading this whole section, made me think there's all these turning points. And obviously this turning point in the history of Britain is a lot more important. There's a lot more at stake than a turning point in a company, right? But we think about these lessons and we try to apply them to our day jobs, our professional jobs, right? And so when I'm reading this, I thought about this fantastic, I've read Phil Knight's autobiography multiple times. I'd done, I think, two podcasts on it at least. And in Shoe Dog, when the founding of Nike, right, this is the time when they become Nike. Nike was called Blue Ribbon Sports. In case you don't know the details of...”
2022-01-09 · Founders · #225 Winston Churchill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I felt a serenity of mind and was conscious of a kind of uplifted detachment from human and personal affairs. And this is what Paul Johnson says. This was remarkable considering the problems facing him. He's almost not happy. That's not the right word. But he's like, okay, I know what is at stake and I want to be the person that's in charge that is leading. I'm willing. This is what my entire life, all the events of my life have led up to this moment and now it's my time to act.”
2022-01-09 · Founders · #225 Winston Churchill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The prime minister that's going to essentially, his opinion was let's appease Hitler. Let's just give him everything he wants and then he'll leave us alone. And he's going to wind up resigning, and then Churchill takes over, and the whole appeasement policy. And so they wind up Germany, I don't have to replay World War II for you, but Germany invades Poland, France and Britain had guaranteed Poland's safety, and so they have to declare war, and now it's on. And this is where Churchill is going to become Churchill. Once war was declared, Churchill was invited to accept his old post. He's in the cabinet first. And he wrote a very, and this is really interesting, the idea that darkness became before dawn, an opportunity, that opportunity is a strange beast. It appears before a lost. This is something, or after a loss. This is something that he was preparing his entire life for. Just like de Gaulle said, he's like, there was never a doubt in my mind that I would not be the leader of France. I just didn't know. It was going to happen in ways I didn't understand. I couldn't predict. So this is what Churchill says. A very strong sense of calm came over me. After the intense passions and excitements of the last few days.”
2022-01-09 · Founders · #225 Winston Churchill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I'm fast forwarding a couple years in the story. He's on this for years talking about this. For the first time in his nearly 40 years, 40-year career, his entire political career, Churchill lost his autism completely. Now, this is a really important point. There's an old maxim that's spread throughout human history. It says it's darkest before the dawn, right? Usually the worst time that you could have is right before things turn around. I want to quote Paul Van Dorn again, a very wise 90-year-old entrepreneur who wrote this autobiography. He says, opportunity is a strange beast. It commonly appears after a loss. So he's getting depressed. He's like, I cannot, things are getting worse. And yet we're signing the Munich Agreement. We're doing all this dumb things that happened. And then it starts to shift because then people start to feel, oh my God, this Hitler guy is crazy. So it says then slowly, but with gathering speed, opinions swung against Munich, against Chamberlain, that's Neville Chamberlain.”
2022-01-09 · Founders · #225 Winston Churchill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He says, listen, the Germans and Italians have 800 bombers between them. We have 47. You don't think airfare in the next war, the next inevitable war, which again people thought wasn't ever going to happen again? That's not going to be a problem. If our enemy or a potential enemy has 800 and we have 47, his speeches were growing more passionate and telling as a danger increased and more and more influential people were saying to him in public or more likely in private that they agreed with him and that's the problem that people are so fearful of speaking out to get criticized so that they're telling him that they're telling him that they agree and they're telling him it in private. When what he needed is other people to step up with him and say, hey, this is the problem that we see. I'm not some lunatic. This is very obvious if you just sit down and think about it. Don't just copy the thoughts and ideas of the people around you where everybody says, okay, 87% of us say, no, no, no, we don't have to do this. Here's the problem. Hey, we see this crazy guy over in Germany. Is he or is he not?”
2022-01-09 · Founders · #225 Winston Churchill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Catastrophe. It's all downside and no upside. It's silliness. Don't underestimate your opponent. Never. The odds are stacked against his policy. This is what Churchill wants. He wants a strong rearmed Britain, ready and able to oppose a strong, rearmed and vengeful Germany. He did not see himself as a reactionary longing for the past that was gone, but as a prophet of a dangerous future. He said Britain would soon be fighting for his life, and he was laughed at.”
2022-01-09 · Founders · #225 Winston Churchill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Lucky to have his art. He did more paintings this decade, so he did 250 paintings in this decade out of the 500 that survived than in any other. And he was lucky above all that events suddenly gave him a clear vision of what was happening in the world, what would happen unless he prevented it by his amazing gifts and energies. The picture cleared early in 1933 when Adolf Hitler captured power in Germany and immediately set about his own plans to destroy the Treaty of Versailles and make Germany the strongest power in Europe. Churchill had read Meinkampf and believed it represented Hitler's plain intentions. So did Hitler. This is a crazy quote from Hitler. My program from the first was to abolish the Treaty of Versailles. I have written it thousands of times. No human being has ever declared or recorded what he wanted more often than me.”
2022-01-09 · Founders · #225 Winston Churchill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This period of depression being sad only lasts a little bit. He realizes he's knocked down, but he has to get up again. So it says he went back into the fray, shaken but calm, and determined to live more dangerously than ever before, and to fear even less.”
2022-01-09 · Founders · #225 Winston Churchill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so he starts writing again. He goes back on the lecture circuit about two years later. He's almost gets killed. I didn't know this, I don't think. He winds up getting hit by a car because he's in New York crossing the street and the cars come from the other direction as they do in England, right? Churchill found for a moment to have been without direction to politics, obsessed with the need to make money, so he returned to America to lecture and write. He was crossing Fifth Avenue in the dark in New York City, and he looked the wrong way, and he gets hit by a car. He was badly damaged. He was lucky to be alive. He was sent to the hospital and was spent a long time there recovering. He was very, very down. He wrote to his wife, I have now in the last two years had three very heavy blows. First, the loss of all that money in the crash, then the loss of my political position in the Conservative Party, and now this terrible physical injury. He was afraid he would never recover from these blows.”
2022-01-09 · Founders · #225 Winston Churchill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And he almost has to sell his house. He's just in a really bad spot. And then what happens is when you're in a bad spot, you're not thinking clearly. And so it says his confidence had been shaken and his bruised condition, he began to make political mistakes. And think about that. How old is he now? This would be, he's in his mid 50s. How terrifying would it be to lose everything, not only to go from in a month's time to think you've built up a small fortune, to now go in a blink of an eye, to have a negative net worth at 55 in your mid-50s? That's terrifying”
2022-01-09 · Founders · #225 Winston Churchill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He's nothing to worry about. What do we have to worry about to show that there's no need at all to consider a possible war with Japan? This is what he says. I do not believe that there is the slightest chance of it, meaning the war with Japan in our lifetimes. The Japanese are our allies. Japan is on the other end of the world. She cannot menace our vital security in any way. War with Japan is not a possibility. But this is the reason I'm bringing this to your attention because he owns it. He owns his mistake. He does not pass the buck. There's nothing worse than somebody's making excuses. When this happens, he blamed himself. They're talking about when Japan came in and took over Singapore, which was an English territory, I guess, at the time. So says when this happened, he blamed himself. He never shrank from accepting responsibility when it was just.”
2022-01-09 · Founders · #225 Winston Churchill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So there's all these transitions that happen in churches life because the party that he's part of winds up getting sweeped out of power and then he'll eventually usually has like a few year absence and who gets sweeped back in and this happens over and over again. Really the lesson here is that he's kicked back down to the ground again. We know Churchill's not staying on the ground. That's just not in his blood. So effectively this ended the coalition government. This is a government that at the time Churchill happened to be a part of. During the campaign, Churchill was in great pain and was rushed to the hospital for an emergency operation. In the twinkling of an eye, this is Churchill describing this point of his life, I found myself without an office, without a seat, without a party, and without an appendix. Churchill was once again sent to the bottom and had to face the task of warily climbing the ladder again for the third time in his life. It was not so easy now that he was nearing fifty years old.”
2022-01-09 · Founders · #225 Winston Churchill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I think this talks about what's happening in Churchill's life. He's down, defeated, but he's still defiant and says, don't turn your back on he who will not accept defeat. That is a fantastic quote. Don't turn your back on he who will not accept defeat. Now, this second idea, the fact that he was leading a group in the war, he's in the trenches, he's with them, he has to lead somebody you have to have the understanding of how they think, how they look at things. He's far removed. He's in the upper echelon of politics. And yet spending time with ordinary soldiers and officers gives him a...”
2022-01-09 · Founders · #225 Winston Churchill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So eventually he's saying, Hey, I got to get back in the fight. The war's not over. So at the end of 1915, says Churchill was determined to go back into the fray. He was given a battalion to command. So now he's going into combat. The experience restored his faith in himself and his faith in winning the war. Churchill's service in the trenches, this is really important, actually. Churchill's service in the trenches served him well in both World Wars because it enabled him to understand the view of the ordinary soldier and officer. So again, we're thinking about the lessons of Churchill in the context of business, right? Well, one, I got to get back into the fact that one of my favorite quotes from the Gaul book.”
2022-01-09 · Founders · #225 Winston Churchill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of vision. Here it was not money lost, but lives lost, and there was no doubt who was the most prominent. It was the lowest time in Churchill's life. He was dark, somber, troubled, and defiant. This is what he says. I had pretty well lost everything. He brooded in his inactivity something he had never experienced before. His wife later said I thought he would die of grief.”
2022-01-09 · Founders · #225 Winston Churchill · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source