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Speaker 1

00:00

I read something Jeff Bezos said that changed my perspective on the importance of high quality sleep. He said that he makes sure he gets 8 hours of sleep a night and as a result his mood, energy, and decision-making is improved. And the point that he was making was that as a founder you get paid for making a small number of high quality decisions and you can't do that if you're sleeping terribly. The only thing that I've ever found that has actually improved my sleep has been an 8 sleep.

Speaker 1

00:25

8 sleep has this thing on their website that I think is actually a really good idea. It's just a collection. It's called the wall of love. It's just a collection of people talking about how much they love their 8 sleep.

Speaker 1

00:33

And there's a ton of founders on there. Elon Musk is talking about the fact that he loves his 8 sleep. Mark Zuck. These are not these people aren't getting paid to say this, right?

Speaker 1

00:40

Mark Zuckerberg is talking about the fact that he loves his 8 sleep. Paul Graham talked about the fact that he ordered 1. I love my 8 Sleep. I've heard from a ton of other founders that listen to this podcast that ordered 8 Sleep because of the ads on this podcast.

Speaker 1

00:54

And now, let me give you an example. My friend Rick ordered 1, and now he travels a lot for work. And You know a product is good when you miss like you notice its absence and so 8 sleep in the app. It has something where if you're not there, you don't want your 8 sleep turning on.

Speaker 1

01:07

So you have this thing called away mode. And so now when Rick is coming back, he'll send me either a screenshot or a screen recording of him turning his 8 sleep from away mode back to being home and being excited that he's going to be reunited with his mattress. That is not normal. The thing I love, this is the best feature, there's a ton of other features, the app has great features, the best thing I love is the ability to control the temperature.

Speaker 1

01:30

I keep my 8 sleep ice cold. I make sure it's cold before I get into bed. I'm telling you, this helps me sleep, go, go to sleep faster and wake up less during the night. And just like my friend, Rick, when I travel, I notice his absence.

Speaker 1

01:43

I miss it. And so the founder of 8 sleep, Matteo listens to the podcast. He's been a huge supporter, and he's giving listeners $150 off. If you wanna try your own, go to 8sleep.com forward slash founders, that is 8sleep.com forward slash founders, get $150 off, I will leave the link down below as well.

Speaker 1

02:01

I want to tell you about another product that several of my founder friends are also using and that is Vesto. You can check them out at getvesto.com. Vesto makes it easy for you to invest your business's idle cash. Vesto helps businesses of all sizes invest their cash in US treasuries.

Speaker 1

02:18

When your business owns treasuries, that cash is backed by the US government and it earns interest while it sits there. I have 1 founder friend who raised a bunch of venture capital money and so he uses Vesto as a way to extend his runway. I have another founder friend who bootstrapped his company and he uses Vesto to get a better rate of return than if that money was just sitting in his bank account. If this sounds interesting to you, highly recommend you go to Vesto, get Vesto.com, check out what they have to offer.

Speaker 1

02:45

I actually know the founder, Ben. I've spent a bunch of time with him. If you schedule a demo, so you go to get festo.com schedule demo. You actually speak directly to the founder, Ben.

Speaker 1

02:54

I think he's incredibly impressive. And I think if you speak to him, you'll be impressed too. When you talk to Ben, make sure you tell him that David from Founders sent you. And 1 more thing before we jump into this episode, I was just interviewed for the second time on Invest Like the Best.

Speaker 1

03:08

It is episode 343. I will leave a link down below, but I'm assuming that if you're listening to this, you're already following Invest Like the Best in your favorite podcast player. If not, please do so. Listen to episode 343.

Speaker 1

03:18

It's David Senwer in the service of founders. Had a lot of good feedback. People really enjoyed it. You listen to it.

Speaker 1

03:23

Tell me if you think I did a good job. I really do appreciate these opportunities to share all the crazy things that I've learned from, you know, reading 300 plus biographies and doing it in an interview style is actually really fun and special. And if you listen, I hope you learn something new. So that's Invest Like the Best, episode 343, David Senwer in service of founders.

Speaker 1

03:45

Churchill lost something in 1915 that he never regained. At 40 years old, youth begins to slip away from most people. But what Winston lost was not merely a matter of looks or energy. It was a spirit that had once seemed so vital and inexhaustible, A lively spark that had served him well from crisis to crisis.

Speaker 1

04:04

But it flickered and went out in 1915 and Churchill was never the same. He persevered in politics until his moment in the sun came 25 years later in 1940. But by that time he was a harder, much less exuberant character. He had learned the tough lessons of a long life lived at a high level, that even the best plans go awry, that even the best friends prove unreliable, and that even the best intentions may be misunderstood.

Speaker 1

04:35

It was better for the world that he had known failure and suffered moments of self-doubt. What took the place of this glamorous charm was the cumulative force of a character that had been tested and strengthened over time. These experiences had taught young Churchill invaluable lessons. Often a politician who fights on equal terms with other giants is already in his prime and will be too old to apply the lessons of his experience in a second career like that which Churchill enjoyed as Prime Minister in 1940.

Speaker 1

05:09

He brought to that position of leadership a level of skill and understanding that few politicians could rival. For 25 years after the end of his first rise to power, Churchill was frustrated to sit and watch as others reached the top while he seemed to languish in lesser positions. He was forced to learn patience and to ponder the meaning of his early experiences. Most importantly, he refused to accept that the promise of his early career was dead and gone.

Speaker 1

05:41

He continued to guard that legacy even when few believed it was worth guarding. His old enemy, Edward Carson, seemed to understand that there was something in Churchill's character that simply wouldn't allow him to give up. At a dinner not long after Winston was dismissed as the first Lord of the Admiralty, a journalist asked Carson, what is the trouble with Churchill? Carson thought for a second and shot back a perceptive reply that would have made Winston smile.

Speaker 1

06:13

Winston is a dangerous optimist. That is an excerpt from the very end of the book that I'm going to talk to you about today, which is Young Titan, the making of Winston Churchill, and it's written by Michael Sheldon. So I stumbled into a rather lucky set of circumstances last week. If you listen to last week's episode covers the first 26 years of Winston Churchill's life.

Speaker 1

06:35

I had bought the book that I'm holding my hand months before I bought the other book. I didn't even know. This book picks up exactly where last week's book ended. So this book is focused, This is a very unique biography of Winston Churchill.

Speaker 1

06:49

There's over 1100 biographies in print in the English language on Winston Churchill, by the way. But this book picks up. It covers only the year 26. He's 26 to 40 years old when this book ends.

Speaker 1

07:02

So you don't have to listen to last week's episode before you listen to this 1, but I think listening to them both will give you a better understanding because what we're trying to figure out is like, okay, everybody knows the Winston Churchill who's in his 60s, the 1 that's fighting Hitler, the 1 that inspires his entire country to fight, the 1 that refuses to give up. What this book is about is the personality and the force of will upon which his future success, it's going to come 25 years after the book ends, rests upon. So let's jump right into what this book is about. History likes winners.

Speaker 1

07:31

And the image of the older Victorious Churchill has long overshadowed the story of the eager young man who soared to prominence only to find that he had overreached and who left office with his reputation in tatters. So bookstar sees 26 years old, It's going to end when he's 40 and fired. And wait till we get there, because even his choice of what to do after he was fired and left in disgrace, and rather in shock and depressed, but really his choice of what to do next is 1 of the most admirable things about Winston, something I talked about last week, is everything that he did in his life, he did not have to do. He sought out difficulty.

Speaker 1

08:04

He sought out greatness. He really thought from the very early ages, I think I said last week he's maybe the most confident young man I've ever covered on the podcast. He believed from a very young age that he had a role to play in history. Back to the book.

Speaker 1

08:16

So he leaves the office, repetition and tatters. Yet in many ways, this is really the crux of the entire book yet in many ways this early period is the most colorful of his career and is a key to his character Churchill thought his chance for greatness on a grand scale would come early in life and for such a restless ambitious man the long wait was difficult to bear by the time he became prime minister at 65 he was more than ready for the job now. What's amazing this example in this book is even examples in the book last week he was expected by himself and the people around him to be prime minister 20, 25 years before he actually reached that goal. And yet the entire point is that he would not have been ready to take that position if he had gotten it when he wanted, if he had gotten it earlier in life.

Speaker 1

09:01

There's a lot of parallels. I think I have a lot of notes. Steve Jobs was on my mind, the wilderness period, when Steve was fired from Apple, and then when he comes back and goes on, it sets the greatest record in my argument, greatest record in entrepreneurship history. And Steve would tell you this himself, without that 13 years of struggle, he wouldn't have nearly been the leader and the entrepreneur that he was later in his career.

Speaker 1

09:21

Same exact case here for Churchill, which we'll talk to a lot about today. He had spent a lifetime preparing for his part. This sentence is 1 of the most important in the book and important understanding Churchill. The adventures and ordeals of those early years were essential to the making of the man who triumphed in the Second World War.

Speaker 1

09:38

Young Winston's career began with dreams of success that fueled a spectacular political rise but which ended in dramatic failures just like jobs creating an equally spectacular fall just like jobs at 40 he was largely written off as a man whose best days were behind him just like jobs except jobs that happened jobs when he was 30 as Churchill confessed in old age he had felt so misunderstood in those younger days that he thought that he had become in the eyes of many quote a freak always that but much hated and ruled out redeeming this is his next mission if you think about how incredible from 40 to 65 this guy persevere to this redeeming the promise of his youth became the great challenge of his later life. 1 thing that you get out of reading a bunch of biographies is you realize that people don't stumble into greatness, and it was the case for Winston Churchill as well. In a conscious and methodical way, he set out as a young man to become the hero that he believed his era demanded. He fashioned his career as a grand experiment to prove that he could work his will on his times, persevering in that approach despite repeated setbacks and often harsh ridicule of those who didn't share his high opinion of himself.

Speaker 1

10:48

The reason, if you go back and listen to last week's podcast, the reason, you can read that book, the book is excellent, but the reading of the book is gonna be very different from the podcast that you heard that I made. I wanted to focus, and I did this intentionally, on the fact of this relentless self-belief. And this is why, I think we're gonna come to this a lot today as well. This idea, my career is a grand experiment, I still have a role to play, I can contribute, I can change the world.

Speaker 1

11:13

You have to persevere. In his case, he did it for decades in the face of other people telling him, stop believing you're special Winston. Why are you talking about yourself like this? Why do you think you're destined to do great things?

Speaker 1

11:24

Why do you have all this self-confidence? Fuck these people. In this book and last book, there's a bunch of other people around Winston telling him to not be who he was. In the last book and in this book too there's a bunch of examples of people constantly trying to get Winston to not believe in himself.

Speaker 1

11:41

And every time you have Winston refusing to cooperate, refusing to be in their eyes reasonable, Why does that matter? Because it is highly likely that if he gave in to the opinions of other people about himself, Britain would be speaking German today. The choices we make and the actions we pursue make a difference. They matter and they can change the course of history.

Speaker 1

12:04

And this idea that Winston is constantly surrounded by people that don't share his high opinion of him. It's an important thing to point out and to repeat. No 1 knows you as well as you know you. Therefore, your opinion about yourself is greater than all the other opinions of everybody else around you.

Speaker 1

12:19

Winston Churchill's life is a decade after decade after decade example of that extremely important point. Many of his contemporaries accepted that history is quote the biography of great men but whether Churchill belonged among the great was always subject to hot debate it is no longer a debate. This is my favorite part of reading books about Winston Churchill and why I highly recommend you do as well. He had few doubts about his destiny however at the heart of this story is an irrepressible spirit.

Speaker 1

12:48

I believe in personality, he declared, endorsing the notion that the heroics of great leaders, not vast movements or impersonal systems, shape history. We live in an age of great events and little men, he said, and if we are not to become the slaves of our own system it will only be by the bold efforts of originality by repeated experiment and by the dispassionate consideration of the results of sustained and unflinching thought Little men let events take their course. I like things to happen and if they don't happen I like to make them happen. Churchill's words will fire you up.

Speaker 1

13:26

This guy was gifted at his mastery of the English language. You see it in his speeches. You see it in his writings. Another thing I pointed out last week I want to repeat today.

Speaker 1

13:35

So people around him, they realized that there's a great line about him. They said that his ear was sensitively attuned to the bugle note of history and the fact that he had a legendary ancestor, which I talked about last week, which is John Churchill. John Churchill, they said, you know, he was 1 of the greatest generals up there with Napoleon. Churchill writes a biography.

Speaker 1

13:51

Winston writes a biography about John Churchill, says he never fought a battle that he did not win nor presage a fortress that he did not take. And if you really sit here and think, I'm only on page 6, but already you're sitting here and you're completely enveloped in Churchill's perspective, his personality, his worldview. And what I feel like he's speaking to the reader, he's like, in every age, right? He's using the example, he knew a ton of history, we're going to talk about Napoleon, I should buy the Kindle version of this book.

Speaker 1

14:19

I bet you if you buy the Kindle version, you search Napoleon. It's in there a dozen times, maybe 10 times, over and over again. But the fact that he was, he was, since his ear was sensitively attuned to the bugle note of history, he greatly admired people that achieved great things in the past. And really what the message that he's saying to you and I is in every age there are great men.

Speaker 1

14:38

Why not us and why not now? And so as he's reading about these great people, he realizes, oh, they're like me too. I like I always talk about this example. I wasn't expected to say this, but it's 1 of my favorite things I've ever heard.

Speaker 1

14:50

And it's the fact that Kobe Bryant obviously idolized Michael Jordan growing up, patterned a lot of his game after him. We'd watch videotapes of him. I remember it was just hilarious. I read this like 600 page biography of Kobe Bryant and his high school girlfriend was like being interviewed.

Speaker 1

15:04

She's like, what's it like dating Kobe Bryant? He's like, well, our dates consist of me going over to his house and us watching videos of Michael Jordan. And so early in his career, I think maybe the first time he ever played against Michael Jordan, his teammate says, Hey, I got some advice. Whatever you do, don't look at Michael Jordan in the eye.

Speaker 1

15:19

And Kobe's like, What? Why wouldn't I do that? And what Kobe realized, he's like, Oh, my teammate realizes I'm that too. And so there's all these examples of Churchill being inspired by these great people of the past, but not in like a set, put them up on a pedestal, not an idolization kind of way.

Speaker 1

15:35

It's like, Oh, I'm that too. And so 1 of these people is Lord Byron and so it says that Churchill found encouragement for his passion and nature in the writings of the romantic poet so that's Lord Byron From early youth he was drawn to Byron as a stirring example of the man of action who is also a man of ideas. Both men, so now he's starting to compare himself to Byron, right? Both men were dazzled by the story of Napoleon's rise and fall, and both kept cherished busts of the great French leader on their desks Churchill was fascinated by Byron's poetic meditation on Napoleon's unbounded ambition.

Speaker 1

16:10

And so what I love is these people that master the English language or any language for that fact and they're able to convey a deep insight or idea in just a handful of words. And so Byron's version of describing Napoleon's ambition only took 5 words. He just he called it a fever at the core. More similarities between Byron and Churchill.

Speaker 1

16:32

Like Byron, Churchill was a chronicler of his own history in a series of books written at a rapid pace in his early twenties he created vivid descriptions of his early adventures as a soldier and war correspondent when I was 25 years old Churchill said in old age I had written as many books as Moses, something I discovered, I think I discovered it this week when I was reading this book, Churchill had written 43 books. Did you know that? That was very surprising to me. And in these books, it says he lived the adventure of a storybook character, fighting on the Indian frontier, scouting for rebels in Cuba, traveling along the Nile, and most dramatic of all, surviving capture by the Boers in South Africa.

Speaker 1

17:09

And just like he predicted early in life, his goal, I'm going to get glory at war, I'm going to use that war to get famous, I'm going to use that famous to get elected to political office. That is exactly what happens when he has that daring escape after being in the prisoner camp in South Africa. And then the news of his escape spreads all over the world. It becomes world famous and he gets swept into office.

Speaker 1

17:30

So that is the starting point of this book. Also going to talk about what happens to him over the next 14 years. This is a journey that will take him from the beginning of his 26th year to the end of his 40th year. The failure part being very important.

Speaker 1

17:42

What he learned from failure was crucial to his later success, but it was a devastating setback whose sting he would feel for years." That's the first time or maybe the second time I wrote the word Steve Jobs because there's so many times that Winston's story parallels Steve. Between his rise and fall, he built a modern navy, experimented with radical social reforms, survived various threats on his life, made powerful enemies and a few good friends, fell in love several times, became a husband and a father, annoyed and delighted 2 British monarchs, took the measure of the German military machine, risked his life in the air as a pilot in training, authorized executions of notorious murders, and faced deadly artillery barrages on the Western Front in World War 1. By the end of his first 40 years, he had a good understanding of how far his talents could take him and how far he could fall. What remained constant was his obedience to that bold early declaration, I believe in personality.

Speaker 1

18:34

Exploring the heart of that personality is the aim of this biography. So in addition to spending the last few weeks reading 2 books about Churchill, I also rewatched this movie called In the darkest hour. And there's a scene in the movie that I want to tell you about that comes at the very, very end. The movie is just about him becoming elected to prime minister when he's 65 years old.

Speaker 1

18:54

And what I found most interesting about the movie is all the pressure for the people around him in the government. We need a suit for peace for Hitler. We need a suit for peace. We need to like, let's give up, we can't fight this war, we're not going to win, let's try to bring him to the bargaining table.

Speaker 1

19:06

And the movie ends with this speech that happened in real life, where half the people are trying to convince him to give up, the other half are with him saying we should fight. He's just a masterful orator and very persuasive speaker. And so what happens is by the end of the speech, everybody's on his side. And there's 1 guy that did not want this to happen.

Speaker 1

19:26

He's sitting in the audience with another guy. And 1 guy turns to the other guy and goes, what the hell just happened? And his response is perfect. Churchill mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.

Speaker 1

19:36

Steve Jobs said, the storyteller is the most powerful person in the world. The most important point here is not that Churchill was born with this gift, is he developed it through practice. In fact, Churchill had such a good memory and spoke so eloquently that if his wife was in the next room and she was hearing him speak, she would ask. She could not tell if he was speaking or reading aloud.

Speaker 1

19:58

Even when he was speaking extemporaneously, the sentence would come out fully formed, almost as if they were written. And so that's going to be a present fact in any book that you pick up on. Churchill, he spent the days leading up to his speech, polishing his remarks and committing them to memory. He stood before a mirror, pretending he was addressing the house.

Speaker 1

20:14

This became a common method for preparation for him, to the annoyance of others nearby. All day, recalled a friend, he might be heard booming away in his bedroom, rehearsing his facts and flourishes, and the resounding knocks on the furniture. He would write out a short list of his major points and keep them handy while he spoke his greatest speeches would use common words in pleasing rhythms to cast complex ideas in memorable images from early adulthood to old age churchills I an ear were tuned to the discovery of arresting analogies something else a church of housing common read everything he read everything this is just like an early you go to Thomas Edison was like a 12 year old boy working on the rail line. He would stop over, I think in Detroit.

Speaker 1

20:58

He'd read every single book in the Detroit library. I always tell the story because it's 1 of my favorite things ever. Edwin Land gets to Harvard, right? He goes to the Harvard library, reads every single book on light.

Speaker 1

21:09

Once he finished that, he's like, oh, there's nothing else I can learn here. He drops out of Harvard, goes to New York City, then goes to New York City Public Library, reads every single book on light, then goes back to Harvard, does it again. Jeff Bezos' grandfather would talk about this. When Jeff Bezos was a kid, he'd spend his summers on his grandfather's ranch in Texas they'd go they'd bring him.

Speaker 1

21:26

Tell like the local library let him sit on the floor and he would just read every single science fiction book in the library You don't read 1 book you don't read to you read them all and you see this over and over again while other politicians were content to get their information from a scattering of newspapers. Churchill devoured whole shelves whole shelves of books. Churchill began living with books and sleeping with encyclopedias. Even from an early age, his work ethic surprised everyone around him.

Speaker 1

21:52

His power of work is prodigious. It's almost commensurate with his passion for it. The great thing about Churchill's life is so much of it's documented in writing and his speeches. Even when he was young, he'd go around, so he's in the House of Commons, and he doesn't feel like he has a peer group that is looking at life the same way in which he looks at life.

Speaker 1

22:10

And I think understanding his view of life, knowing why he believed what he believed is key to understanding his actions. And so what he's noticing is like, well, my peers don't think the way I do. His peers weren't looking to cultivate a sense of destiny. They did not share his particular passion for great men and great monuments.

Speaker 1

22:28

Churchill had a romantic view of life as a heroic endeavor full of grand sentiments. Remember, he grew up in a physical environment that celebrated greatness. Winston was in no danger of remaining quiet about his own achievements. The house could still speak volumes on his behalf as a testament to the fighting spirit and boundless ambition of his breed." talking about John Churchill again.

Speaker 1

22:49

Winston Churchill wanted to be the dominant political figure of the time. So we're going to talk more about his relationship with his father. Remember his father dies. I think Churchill's about maybe 20 years old when his father dies.

Speaker 1

23:02

His father dies relatively young. And so you'll see in the way that a young Churchill acts, like he treats older, more powerful figures as really as father figures. If you've ever read Robert Carle's books on LBJ, there's this thing that Lyndon Johnson, Lyndon did this the same thing. It's not that he didn't particularly admire his father or look up to him.

Speaker 1

23:21

And yet early in his political career, he'd meet all these really successful speakers of the house, whatever the case is. And I think they even used the designation in the book. They called him LBJ's... They called him a professional son.

Speaker 1

23:32

And in many ways, Churchill's behavior reminded me of this. The first example of this is this guy named Joseph Chamberlain. Joseph Chamberlain is going to be this very powerful self-made entrepreneur and then a very powerful political figure in Britain and Neville Chamberlain, in a twist of fate, This is Neville Chamberlain's father. Neville Chamberlain is obviously the prime minister that was basically kicked out during World War II and Churchill takes his place.

Speaker 1

23:57

But way before that happens, 30 years before that happens, Winston actually develops a relationship, friendship with Joseph Chamberlain. They wind up becoming kind of enemies. Joseph Chamberlain's older. I want to give you a little background on who he's seeking out and who he's trying to be influenced by.

Speaker 1

24:12

Joseph Chamberlain was a self-made man. He made his own fortune as an industrialist by mass producing screws so cheaply that he dominated the market. He became 1 of Birmingham's largest employers and then moved into politics and transformed the city. It was definitely a world builder kind of personality.

Speaker 1

24:29

In his city, he decides to clear out the slums. He fixes the water supply. And then he starts building all these, erecting all these civic buildings, literally changing the physical environment in which he inhabited. He gives Churchill a tour, turns to Churchill and says, the first time I came here, I came here to sell them screws.

Speaker 1

24:45

And so Churchill seeks him out, says Churchill was very friendly towards him in the same way he would treat him like a father figure and engage him in late night talks, often that would last until 2 in the morning. I had a great many more real talks with him than I ever had with my own father, Churchill said. And so in turn, Joseph treats him almost like 1 of his own sons, because at the time his 2 other sons didn't seem, they said they didn't seem headed for distinction. And even at this young age, Churchill only had 1 goal.

Speaker 1

25:10

This is going to be very similar to Lyndon Johnson again. The goal is the very top. I may start out as a congressman, right, in LBJ's case. I'll go to Congress, then I'll be a senator.

Speaker 1

25:19

But his goal from day 1 is like, I'm going to be the president. Churchill's goal from day 1 is I'm going to be the prime minister. For Churchill, there was only 1 goal in politics, the top, and everything else, no matter how pleasant, was just a stepping stone. And 1 thing that was particularly fascinating to me in this book is they talk about like now you know he's kind of a Joe is kind of like a distinguished gentleman or trying to play like the role of aristocrat but there's a line that jumps out at me and it says on occasion Churchill caught a glimpse in him of the old cutthroat That word is literally in the book, right?

Speaker 1

25:49

On occasion, Churchill caught a glimpse in him of the old cutthroat king of the screw trade. That's what people would call him. They referenced him as king of the screw trade. And doing business against him was difficult because he was a cutthroat.

Speaker 1

26:01

Why is that important? I've talked in the past about my obsession with Game of Thrones, watching the series multiple times. I just went through it, I don't know, a year ago, 6 months ago, something like that, and took notes on literally any line. I have an Apple note of Game of Thrones lines I want to remember because I think they're like Maxim's and instructed for life.

Speaker 1

26:18

A couple days ago I was just interviewed on Invest Like the Best. It's episode 343 in case you want to listen to it. But Patrick at the very end of that conversation he asked me like what is your favorite Game of Thrones line? And I realized after the fact that my favorite Game of Thrones line is those on the margin often come to control the center.

Speaker 1

26:36

But my answer on the interview was actually my favorite Game of Thrones story. Quick little story in like 3 or 4 sentences. And so it comes from this character named Bron. Bron came from absolutely nothing, born in unbelievable poverty, but he's 1 of these cutthroats and he's trying to negotiate a way to get the most valuable land or the most valuable castle in this actual, like, in this world that they're operating in.

Speaker 1

26:57

And when he states his goal that, hey, I want Highgarden, And he states it to the sons of this illustrious family called the Lannisters. 1 of them says, Highgarden will never belong to a cutthroat. That is the word that they use. Highgarden will never belong to a cutthroat.

Speaker 1

27:11

And Bronn's response is excellent. And it's a summary of what I've learned by reading hundreds of these biographies. And he says, no, who were your ancestors? The 1 who made your family rich?

Speaker 1

27:21

Fancy lads in silk? They were fucking cutthroats. That's how all the great houses started, isn't it? By a hard bastard.

Speaker 1

27:29

And the way to think about this is Joe Chamberlain was the cutthroat. He was the hard bastard. He's the 1 that built the family fortune. And with age and time, that aggressiveness may diminish, but it never disappears.

Speaker 1

27:41

And we're seeing that even when he's a much older man in his interactions with Churchill. And she says, on occasion, Churchill caught a glimpse in him of the old cutthroat and other people saw this too There is a woman who compares she meets both Joe Chamberlain and Churchill. She compares both of them on separate pages. This is excellent Let me go to what she said about Joe Chamberlain first She had looked closely into his personality and didn't like what she found.

Speaker 1

28:04

By temperament, she concluded, he's an enthusiast and a despot. Running alongside this genuine enthusiasm is a passionate desire to crush opposition to his will. A longing to feel his foot on the neck of others. Then she has dinner with Churchill.

Speaker 1

28:20

First impression she wrote of him in her diary. Restless, almost intolerably so, without capacity for sustained and unexcited labor. Egotistical, shallow-minded and reactionary, but with a certain personal magnetism. He had what the kids call Riz what you and I would call charisma superhuman levels of charisma but with a certain personal magnetism that's the word she's using great pluck and some originality not of intellect but of character.

Speaker 1

28:48

He talked exclusively about himself. He has no notion of scientific research but his pluck courage resourcefulness and great tradition may carry him far. So I go back to this idea that other people can't get you try to limit your ambition, to try to dim your light for their sake. And I'm gonna compare and contrast it to the advice that he actually gets from Joseph Chamberlain.

Speaker 1

29:08

So this guy says, when he was told 1 day that Winston was caught up in reading yet another book on Napoleon, he shook his head in disappointment and said that Winston would do better to study the drab heroes of life. Framing oneself upon Napoleon has proved a danger to many a man before him. That's just another way of saying Napoleon was special. You're not special.

Speaker 1

29:28

You're not Napoleon. What are you doing? You're wasting your time. That's not advice that other cutthroats or other people that have achieved great things or have the desire to achieve great things would give you.

Speaker 1

29:38

So this is Joseph Chamberlain. Somebody achieved great things. Counseling a younger Winston Churchill. He says, if a man is sure of himself, It only sharpens him and makes him more effective.

Speaker 1

29:49

Remember, Winston said he had more conversations with Joseph Chamberlain than he had with his own father. That leads me into his relationship with his father and the fact that he's going to write a thousand-page biography on his father. A main influence in Winston Churchill's life, just like a lot of people that you and I study, is the fact that you can always understand the son by the story of his father, that the story of the father is embedded in the son. So before we get into this, I need to put down this book and pick up Hero of the Empire from last week.

Speaker 1

30:15

There is a photo insert, and more importantly, a caption in the photo insert of that book that describes gives you an overview of the complicated father son relationship. Born into the highest ranks of British aristocracy, Churchill had an air of haughty self-confidence even at the tender age of 7. What he longed for most, however, was the love and attention of his father, his father's Lord Randolph Churchill. Lord Randolph had little time for his oldest son.

Speaker 1

30:41

1 of the greatest regrets of Churchill's life was that Randolph died an early and tragic death, depriving Winston of the chance to know his father. And so now we have Churchill in his late 20s, maybe early 30s, I'm pretty sure it's late 20s, writing this gigantic biography on his father. The biography was meant to honor Randolph's memory, but writing it was also a way for Winston to understand his own life. He had never established a close connection with Randolph, though he had yearned for 1.

Speaker 1

31:07

His father was a tragic figure, an ambitious and outspoken politician, sounds familiar, but a failure as a statesman. At 40, people would argue that Winston was just like Randolph, a failure as a statesman. Randolph was a restless man always searching for attention, but never getting enough to please him. Sounds just like his son.

Speaker 1

31:24

The proud son of a great family, but a difficult husband and father. Living in Randolph's shadow was far, for much of his life, Winston couldn't help wondering if his father's legacy was a blessing or a curse. And so the fascinating part is in this biography, he's not just trying to tell the story of his father, he's trying to tell the story of himself. The Randolph who emerges from Winston's book is a misunderstood hero who tries to inspire his party and his country to achieve great things, but who is defeated by the forces of reaction and selfish interests.

Speaker 1

31:54

Too soon his wings are clipped and he slowly falls to earth. At the time that Churchill is writing this, he has no idea that he's going to find a similar fate for himself about 10 years from now. He lives large and dies young. A thousand pages long, the biography is a towering, gleaming monument, the son gathering up the disordered pieces of his father's life to construct a romantic vision that might guide his own career.

Speaker 1

32:19

What is also fascinating about this book is the fact that because his dad, I think his dad dies when he's like 46, something like that, there's a lot of people that were friends with his dad, that worked with his dad, that were colleagues of his dad, that are still alive as Winston matures and becomes older, Winston becomes to know some of them, and they usually hold an opinion like this. Winston is astonishingly like his father and manners and ways and the whole attitude of his mind. But Mr. Churchill is superior to his father.

Speaker 1

32:46

He adds a knowledge and industry that his father did not possess. Everywhere you go, when you meet, when people meet Winston Churchill, they're shocked at his energy, his intensity, and his work ethic. What is happening there? Did Churchill know his father didn't possess these talents?

Speaker 1

33:00

Is that part of what drove him to outdo his father? You see a lot of lines like this. It was this deep well of strength that often left his contemporaries in wonder and that sent him apart from so many other sons of the aristocracy who thought it vulgar to appear too energetic. It also distinguished him from his father.

Speaker 1

33:18

Why would he want to be distinguished from his father? What killed his father? Randolph suffered for years from the debilitating effects of the syphilis that killed him. The whole experience, as Winston says in the biography, was an embarrassment.

Speaker 1

33:32

It was also heartrending to a son who wanted to idolize his father. He never forgot the morning that Lord Randolph died more than a half a century later. I'm going to interrupt this sentence. If you have kids, Do not underestimate the impact.

Speaker 1

33:47

Long after you're dead, your impact on your children lives on. Listen to this. More than a half a century later, when he was Prime Minister for the second time, he surprised his doctor by suddenly remarking, my poor, poor papa died on January 24th, 1895. It was a long time ago.

Speaker 1

34:06

The date was seared into his memory. Strangely, listen to this, strangely his own death would fall on the same day. Churchill took his last breath at the age of 90 on the morning of January 24th, 1965, the 70th anniversary of his father's death. Churchill was special and it was obvious to a lot of people around him.

Speaker 1

34:31

There's this quote that has been on my mind a lot since I read it for the first time. It's actually in the other book too, and it's in this book. And the more I think about this description, the more I like it. So he has this lifelong friendship with, actually a woman that he wanted to marry, and she turned him down.

Speaker 1

34:45

Her name is Pamela, And so they wound up becoming friends for 60 years. But she gave 1 of the best descriptions of Churchill. And the more I think about it, it's 1 of the highest compliments that you can actually give a person. If you sit here and think about what she's saying.