- The importance of high-quality sleep is highlighted by Jeff Bezos, who ensures he gets 8 hours of sleep a night for improved mood, energy, and decision-making.
- The 8 Sleep mattress is praised by various founders, including Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, for its positive impact on sleep.
- The ability to control temperature is a standout feature of the 8 Sleep mattress, helping to improve sleep quality.
- Listeners are offered a discount on 8 Sleep mattresses through a special link.
- The Vesto platform is recommended for businesses to invest idle cash in US treasuries for a better rate of return.
- The biography "Young Titan: The Making of Winston Churchill" is discussed, emphasizing the early struggles and failures that shaped Churchill's character and ultimately led to his success as Prime Minister during World War II.

- The piece discusses the career of Winston Churchill, focusing on his relentless self-belief and perseverance.
- Churchill faced setbacks and ridicule but refused to give in to the opinions of others.
- The choices and actions we make can change the course of history.
- Churchill's life is an example of the importance of self-belief and the impact of individual actions.
- He was inspired by great figures from history and believed that great men shape history.
- Churchill's mastery of the English language and his ability to convey deep insights is highlighted.
- The piece also mentions the parallels between Churchill and Steve Jobs.
- Churchill's early adventures, including his escape from a prisoner camp, led to his fame and political success.
- The biography aims to explore the heart of Churchill's personality and his belief in the power of personality.
- The piece mentions a scene from the movie "In the Darkest Hour" where Churchill mobilizes the English language and persuades others to fight.

- The video discusses Winston Churchill's development as a powerful storyteller through practice and dedication.
- Churchill had a remarkable memory and spoke eloquently, often practicing his speeches in front of a mirror.
- He had a voracious appetite for reading and would devour whole shelves of books.
- Churchill had a romantic view of life and a passion for greatness, which set him apart from his peers.
- He formed a father-like relationship with Joseph Chamberlain, a successful entrepreneur and politician.
- Churchill's goal from a young age was to become the prime minister, and he saw everything else as a stepping stone.
- The video also explores the concept of being a "cutthroat" and how it played a role in Churchill's interactions with others.

- The piece discusses the relationship between Winston Churchill and his father, Lord Randolph Churchill.
- Winston Churchill's admiration for his father and his desire to understand his own life leads him to write a biography of his father.
- Lord Randolph Churchill was an ambitious politician but a failure as a statesman, and Winston wonders if his father's legacy is a blessing or a curse.
- The biography serves as a way for Winston to understand himself and construct a vision for his own career.
- Churchill's energy levels and ability to see things earlier than others are highlighted as successful attributes.
- Churchill's observations of the German military eight years before World War I demonstrate his foresight and warning of the threat they posed.
- Churchill's force of personality and self-belief contribute to his rapid rise in politics, but also lead to disappointment and setbacks.

- Churchill, like Steve Jobs, raised the bar and pushed the pace for those around him
- His presence changed the life of Lloyd George, his fellow politician and biographer
- Ambitious people thrive when surrounded by other ambitious people, as seen in Paul Graham's essays
- Churchill aimed to change the institution he operated in, not just for himself but for the government as well
- He valued family and love, finding a supportive spouse and becoming a father at age 34
- Churchill's aggressive nature was both loved and hated, as he offended two kings with his disdain for idleness and laziness
- He prepared for his future by engaging in intense play and campaigns on the beach
- Churchill became the civilian head of the strongest naval force in the world, the first Lord of the Admiralty
- He made significant changes to Britain's Navy, including acquiring a majority interest in an oil company and developing a 15 inch gun
- Churchill's relentless study of history allowed him to play a role in the epic story of British naval power.

- Churchill had a talent for seeing things in advance and wanted to prepare the Royal Navy for war with Germany.
- Despite opposition from the cabinet, Churchill wanted more ships and was seen as unreasonable.
- War with Germany began in 1914 and Churchill was at the center of it.
- The British leaders threw the nation into the fight halfheartedly, leading to a long and bitter slog.
- Churchill put himself in harm's way multiple times while others were complacent.
- Churchill's fall came during the Gallipoli campaign, which was a disaster and he took the blame.
- Churchill's enemies were jubilant and he was in a state of shock and depression.
- Churchill decided to start his career over at age 40 and went off to fight in World War I.
- He wrote a letter to his wife in case he died, expressing his confidence and love for her.
- The podcast recommends reading books about Churchill and offers a private AMA feed for more information.

- The speaker has a private email address that is given in the confirmation email after signing up.
- The speaker personally reads every email and does not have an assistant.
- The questions from these emails are turned into short AMA episodes for other members to learn from.
- Members can include their name and website link with their question.
- Some subscribers have gained new paying customers from their AMA questions.
- The speaker plans to make several new episodes every week.
- The speaker recommends becoming a member of Founders Podcast.

- Jeff Bezos emphasizes the importance of high-quality sleep for improved mood, energy, and decision-making.
- The 8 Sleep mattress is praised by Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg for its positive impact on sleep, particularly its temperature control feature.
- Listeners are offered a discount on 8 Sleep mattresses through a special link.
- The Vesto platform is recommended for businesses to invest idle cash in US treasuries for a better rate of return.
- The biography "Young Titan: The Making of Winston Churchill" explores Churchill's early struggles, self-belief, and the impact of individual actions.
- Churchill's mastery of language, ability to convey deep insights, and parallels with Steve Jobs are highlighted.
- Churchill's energy levels, foresight, and force of personality contribute to his rapid rise in politics but also lead to setbacks.
- The podcast offers a private AMA feed and encourages readers to become members of Founders Podcast.

What I learned from reading Young Titan: The Making of Winston Churchill by Michael Shelden.

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.

8 sleep has this thing on their website that I think is actually a really good idea.

It's just a collection of people talking about how much they love their 8 sleep.

Elon Musk is talking about the fact that he loves his 8 sleep.

These are not these people aren't getting paid to say this, right?

Mark Zuckerberg is talking about the fact that he loves his 8 sleep.

Paul Graham talked about the fact that he ordered 1.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I want to tell you about another product that several of my founder friends are also using and that is Vesto.

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.

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.

If you schedule a demo, so you go to get festo.com schedule demo.

You actually speak directly to the founder, Ben.

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.

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.

It's David Senwer in the service of founders.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I had bought the book that I'm holding my hand months before I bought the other book.

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.

There's over 1100 biographies in print in the English language on Winston Churchill, by the way.

He's 26 to 40 years old when this book ends.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Why do you have all this self-confidence?

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.

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.

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.

Therefore, your opinion about yourself is greater than all the other opinions of everybody else around you.

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.

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.

This guy was gifted at his mastery of the English language.

Another thing I pointed out last week I want to repeat today.

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.

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.

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.

And so as he's reading about these great people, he realizes, oh, they're like me too.

I wasn't expected to say this, but it's 1 of my favorite things I've ever heard.

And it's the fact that Kobe Bryant obviously idolized Michael Jordan growing up, patterned a lot of his game after him.

I read this like 600 page biography of Kobe Bryant and his high school girlfriend was like being interviewed.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

And what I found most interesting about the movie is all the pressure for the people around him in the government.

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.

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.

He's sitting in the audience with another guy.

And 1 guy turns to the other guy and goes, what the hell just happened?

Churchill mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.

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.

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.

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'd read every single book in the Detroit library.

I always tell the story because it's 1 of my favorite things ever.

He goes to the Harvard library, reads every single book on light.

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.

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.

It's almost commensurate with his passion for it.

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#320 The Making of Winston Churchill Part 2