Monday, June 10, 2019

The Apollo Principle



 “A big mission that unites people in purpose.

“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”
– John F. Kennedy

On May 25, 1961, in his address to Congress, President John F. Kennedy proposed the national goal of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" by the end of the 1960s. This goal was accomplished on the Apollo 11 mission, when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon on July 20, 1969, later returning back to earth.

There is a great story of the janitor mopping the floor at the Space Station being asked what his job was in the organization. His answer was: ‘I’m helping to put a man on the moon”.

This highlights the Apollo Program’s 'secret sauce' - a big mission or goal to unite people in purpose.

Big crazy goals inspire and align people in ways that small goals can’t. They attract some of the best minds and open some of the toughest doors. Inside many human beings, there is something that loves the power of a big challenge. A big challenge aligns people under a common cause like nothing else can.


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The Obstacle Is The Way




“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”-  Marcus Aurelius



In simple terms 
 as
“Failure shows us the way – by showing us what isn’t the way.”
— Ryan Holiday: Author of The Obstacle is the Way

American industrialist John D. Rockefeller was born July 8, 1839, in Richford, New York. He built his first oil refinery near Cleveland and in 1870 incorporated the Standard Oil Company. By 1882 he had a near-monopoly of the oil business in the U.S.
At 16 he took his first job as bookkeeper and aspiring investor.  He was making fifty cents a day. Less than two years later the Panic of 1857 struck. The result was a crippling national depression that lasted for several years.

Here was the greatest market depression in history and it hit Rockefeller just as he was finally getting the hang of things. It’s terrible right? Real investors who supposedly knew what they were doing lost everything.  What is he supposed to do? Rockefeller later said that he was inclined to see the opportunity in every disaster. That’s exactly what he did.

Instead of complaining about this economic upheaval or quitting like his peers, Rockefeller chose to eagerly observe the events that unfolded. He looked at the panic as an opportunity to learn, a baptism in the market. But even as a young man, Rockefeller had sangfroid: unflappable coolness under pressure. He kept his head while everyone else lost theirs. Instead of bemoaning this economic upheaval, he quietly saved his money and watched what others did wrong. He saw the weaknesses in the economy that many took for granted.

It was this intense self-discipline and objectivity that allowed Rockefeller to seize advantage from obstacle after obstacle in his life, during the Civil War, and the panics of 1873, 1907, and 1929. Within twenty years of that first crisis, Rockefeller would alone control 90 percent of the oil market. His greedy competitors had perished and his doubters had missed out.

Rockefeller passed away on May 23, 1937, in Ormond Beach, Florida. His legacy, however, lives on: Rockefeller is considered one of America's leading businessmen and is credited for helping to shape the U.S. into what it is today.

 

Source:  ”The Obstacle is the Way: The Ancient Art of Turning Adversity to Advantage by Ryan Holiday


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